Thomas and I are playing Peggle together.
Me: "Wow, great shot there, Mr. Thomas!"
Him: "Thanks, Mr. Two-Brains."
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Enjoying Our Stunted Agricultural Tourist Traps
Ah, the Northeast American tourist farm. If you live out this way, you know what I'm talking about: the apple orchards and the pumpkin patches where you take the kiddies every fall and pick your own produce. While you're at it, you can take haywagon and pony rides, feed plump goats, navigate through corn mazes, and buy cider donuts. We started going to these places about three years ago when our friends Sarah and Josh invited us out to their parents' place in the Poconos. We visited a little farm there mid-Oct. with its own apple and pumpkin picking, along with a children's playground, animals to be fed, and painted boards with holes in them where your child can stick their head through and you can photograph them being a cow or a tree or some such (every farm is required to have one of these). Here's a few pictures from our first farm adventure:
Thomas didn't really understand the concept then of "stick your head
through", so after numerous attempts to get him to go around to
the other side, we finally just took his picture anyway.
the other side, we finally just took his picture anyway.
Apple-picking (and eating) in the orchard
Clearly, he wants THIS pumpkin
This is also the scene of my crime. I can't really post the footage here because this was before we owned a camera that could take .mpg movies. We had a clunky old separate videocam then and, in my defense, it required a lot of attention to operate it to avoid ending up with videos that would induce motion sickness. Here's the set-up: the feeding apparatuses for the animals at this farm consisted of a small rubber conveyor belt with a plastic cup attached to them. You bought the food, natch, then placed it in the cup on the conveyor belt. A little crank at your end would "convey" the plastic cup through the fence to the goat-side where said animal would presumably gobble it up. I had been trying to get Thomas to do it from the time we arrived, but two-year-olds are famously difficult to reason with, so right before we were to leave, I decided I would try one last time and capture the magical event on camera. Nate, Sarah, and Josh had all headed to the checkout with our apples and pumpkins, so Thomas and I lingered behind, newly purchased food pellets in hand. The moment swims, hauntingly, in my mind.
The evidence of the events following is probably still sitting around in a box of old videotapes, but the footage goes a little something like this: The camera shows the conveyor belt. The camera switches to Thomas standing off to the side. My own hand appears in the scene with the food pellets, depositing them in the little cup and my voice urges Thomas to come turn the crank. Camera switches to Thomas toddling over to the conveyor belt and my hand taking his and bringing it up to the crank which I proceed to help him turn. Camera switches back to the little food cup starting on its wobbly way to the goat salivating on the other side of the fence.
The evidence of the events following is probably still sitting around in a box of old videotapes, but the footage goes a little something like this: The camera shows the conveyor belt. The camera switches to Thomas standing off to the side. My own hand appears in the scene with the food pellets, depositing them in the little cup and my voice urges Thomas to come turn the crank. Camera switches to Thomas toddling over to the conveyor belt and my hand taking his and bringing it up to the crank which I proceed to help him turn. Camera switches back to the little food cup starting on its wobbly way to the goat salivating on the other side of the fence.
And then...a little child's scream. Camera goes wild, whirling around. My voice shouts, "Ah! Oh no!" Camera tilts to the side. Everything goes black.
In my effort to capture us rustically feeding goats through some contrivance presumably created to keep the kidlets at a safe distance from gnashing goat teeth, Thomas's fingers had gotten stuck in the conveyor belt. When I turned the crank (which I wasn't watching because I trying to videotape the moving food), Thomas's fingers got turned with it, rolling on the belt around the underside of the metal wheel. He was screaming hysterically. I dropped the camera and tried to pry his fingers out which just made him scream louder. For all I knew, they were broken. Finally, in a gleaming moment of reason amid the panic, I thought to turn the crank in the opposite direction, rolling Thomas's fingers back out. Lucky for us, the rubber of the conveyor belt was relatively soft and so even as Thomas's fingers had become trapped between it and the wheel, it gave way and didn't crush them. In the end, they were okay. Still, more than a little shame-faced, I abandoned my quest to video him feeding the animals and carried him, still sniffling, over to meet up with the others. The goat never got his food.
This story demonstrates a little of the trouble of trying to live an approximation of the rustic life for a few hours on an autumn Saturday. As Daniel Gross points out in this Slate article, these farms really aren't that rustic. Like an amusement park styled up to look like the Old West, these are tourist money pits whose actual agriculture is so stunted, they would be incapable of surviving if not for their annual fall "harvests". And frankly, the set-up is a genius of American capitalism: instead of paying pickers, they actually charge people to come and pick their own. And the people do come. When we lived in Ithaca, we visited a place called Iron Kettle Farm at least four times over the fall (and no children or goats were harmed in the filming of our memorabilia). Even the name is hokily evocative: the only iron kettles at that farm were for sale in its over-priced giftshop.
Yesterday, we loaded the kids in the car (we've got two now! Yay, more fun!) and headed out to Terhune Orchards for more of the fake rustic same. At this point it's reasonable to ask why, if I'm so down on these places, do we keep going? The truth is, I'm not down on them. I love them. I think they're adorable. I happily charged into their cornmaze even though it turned out to be not so much of a maze as just some rows of corn. Sethie's stroller even got trapped as we tried to force our way down one too-narrow aisle and he yelled angrily until I could manage to finally free him. And their food was so overpriced, we forewent all but the cider donuts and opted to pick up some hotdogs on our way home and cook them on our own backyard barbeque (which, dogs and buns included, was cheaper than if we had bought just one hotdog at the farm).
Still, Thomas got to ride a pony and when I told him he looked like a right cowboy, he held up an arm and shouted "Yeehaw!" We managed to find a lovely round pumpkin that's hanging out in our kitchen now awaiting carving, and even Sethie got in on the cider donut-eating action. And not only did it get us out and about in some beautiful fall weather, it inspired us to spend a little more family time in the backyard grilling hotdogs, playing soccer, and turning our faces into the chill and sharp-scented wind heralding a not-too-far-off winter. If it sounds idyllic, romantic even, it was, for all that its rusticness is a veneer. So are carriage rides in Central Park, but snuggle under the blanket with your honey during one, and you'll feel your heart swell.
Here are some pics and videos of our family farm fun (both Iron Kettle and Terhune):
Thomas tackles the cornmaze at Iron Kettle Farm Oct. 2005
Sethie makes a friend at Terhune Orchards Oct. 2007
Thomas "milks" a "cow" at Terhune Orchards 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Thomas wants to get in some Halloween fun a little early...
Today when I was driving Thomas to preschool, we were stopped at a light across from a small Baptist church that also runs a preschool. Thomas pointed out the window at the church and said, "Mommy, I want to go to that preschool."
Me: "Why is that?"
Thomas: "Because they have a cool playground!"
I looked out the window and had to bite my lip. "Uh, Thomas, that isn't a playground. It's a cemetary."
Him: "What's a cemetary?"
Me: "Well, it's a place where people are buried after they die."
Him: "Buried? Where?"
Me: "See those large stones all over the yard? The people are buried under them."
Him: "Really? Can we dig them up?"
Me, trying to dissuade him without creeping him out: "Uh....they are buried quite deep down, about six feet. It would be really difficult to dig them up."
Him: "We could get a shovel."
Me, trying even harder now: "Well, their families paid a lot of money for them to buried there. It would be really rude to dig them up."
Him: "We could put them back when we're done. No one would know!"
At this point the light changed and I stepped on the gas. Next thing, Thomas is saying, "Is Alex going to be at preschool today?" and happily kicking his legs against the seat, having already forgotten all about his plan for exhuming corpses. Yay.
Me: "Why is that?"
Thomas: "Because they have a cool playground!"
I looked out the window and had to bite my lip. "Uh, Thomas, that isn't a playground. It's a cemetary."
Him: "What's a cemetary?"
Me: "Well, it's a place where people are buried after they die."
Him: "Buried? Where?"
Me: "See those large stones all over the yard? The people are buried under them."
Him: "Really? Can we dig them up?"
Me, trying to dissuade him without creeping him out: "Uh....they are buried quite deep down, about six feet. It would be really difficult to dig them up."
Him: "We could get a shovel."
Me, trying even harder now: "Well, their families paid a lot of money for them to buried there. It would be really rude to dig them up."
Him: "We could put them back when we're done. No one would know!"
At this point the light changed and I stepped on the gas. Next thing, Thomas is saying, "Is Alex going to be at preschool today?" and happily kicking his legs against the seat, having already forgotten all about his plan for exhuming corpses. Yay.
Thomasisms from Dad
Thomas is becoming increasingly aware of gender differences, both actual and perceived. He is also starting to have fun with wordplay, something Mara and I quite enjoy.
At the diner, munching on a cheese toasty:
"Hey Daddy?"
"Yes Thomas?"
"Boys don't like girled cheese sandwiches."
At the diner, munching on a cheese toasty:
"Hey Daddy?"
"Yes Thomas?"
"Boys don't like girled cheese sandwiches."
Monday, October 15, 2007
Freeing Pink
My friend Grumpator had this link on her blog to an article about reclaiming the color pink for women (and women gamers in particular). Now if you spend a lot of time in children's clothing departments, like me, you wouldn't think pink had gone out of style in any way. In fact, head to the barely-adolescent Claire's store like I did this last week with my nieces and you would think middle school girls might as well be spray-painted from head to toe in pink--it would certainly be cheaper than plunking down cash for thousands of cheerily pink accessories a girl can deck herself out in these days.
But other than identifying semi-gender-neutral-looking babies as XX and as a way for newly pubescent females to advertise their sex to oppositely-pigmented males, pink really does have a bad reputation. It's the brand of girlishness, the mark of blank-eyed giggling, the hue of "math is hard", the stamp of non-threatening femininity. You can see why feminists would snarl at the color: it's an expression of everything they have been fighting to overcome. Pink says, "I am a girl and all the insipidness that that implies."
The article's author tells the story of how she came by her first Gameboy Advance (a handheld gaming device): a boy returned it to the store because it had a pink cover. In fact, he didn't even return it in order to get a new one: at the time GBA's were so popular there were no other ones in stock. The boy was willing to give up his chance at what was then a real advance in personal gaming just because the cover color was, frankly, too girly.
The author's--and just about any woman's--natural reaction is defensive indignation. Isn't this proof that no matter how far women come in this world, we will never overcome this idea of "girl = weak"? A pink-covered GBA plays the same games as a black-covered one. The only reason a boy might give up his chance to own something like that must be a perpetual, deeply-rooted, cultural misogyny.
Well, yes and no. The truth is that, for years, the feminist movement, however flawed, has been breaking down gender barriers--for women. Not for men. The reason: being the "fairer" sex, the "weaker" sex, meant acquiring masculine traits--clothing, careers--as a step up in the world, a move toward equality from the standpoint of an underclass. That means traditional femininity still reeks of that underclass and the cultural landscape that holds it that way is far more ruthless with men who are willing to cross those barriers than women. Dress your girl like a boy and she's an adorable "tomboy". Dress your boy like a girl and he's an embarrassing "fruit".
Truth is, I can only feel sympathy for the boy giving up an awesome new gaming device because likely his only other option would have been to walk into open degradation by anyone who saw him using it. And that's males and females, women and men, girls and boys. Because equality still means masculinity and when we as women aspire to it, we acknowledge that we want to leave femininity behind, as a lesser, a garishly pink reminder of weakness and frailty. No wonder that for all the inroads we've made in a man's world, men are still standing far outside the door to ours.
The song "When I Was a Boy" by Dar Williams starts out as her lament about moving from a free and boyish childhood, where she could climb trees and scratch her knees, into an overly feminized adulthood where she's offered skimpy clothes to wear and has to have a man walk her home to keep her safe. The turning point in the song is where she admits as much to a man, saying, "I have lost and you have won." Instead of ending there, the man gets a chance to also lament the small expressions of femininity that he has been forced to leave behind in order to be considered manly now:
Oh no no, can't you see
When I was a girl
My mom and I, we always talked
And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked
I could always cry
Now even when I'm alone, I seldom do
And I have lost some kindness
But I was a girl too
And you were just like me
And I was just like you
I'm not advocating a gender-neutral world, which doesn't seem possible or even desirable. Our current sexual dichotomy is part of what makes life so very interesting and exciting. But I do think that the human race would be better off if ideas traditionally thought of as feminine--nurturing, kindness, compassion, gentleness, sensitivity, emotion--were as accessible to men as wearing pants is to us. And maybe femininity wouldn't be seen as weakness; something for women to flee and men to avoid any appearance of. This is not an exclusively male bias. Note that the author titled her post as "reclaiming pink". Clearly she once shunned pink for the very reason the GBA-returning boy had, something she was angry at him for. And how often have we said, "It would be nice to have a sensitive man", then watched a man cry and secretly thought, Oh, grow a pair.
Let's not reclaim pink. Let's free it.
But other than identifying semi-gender-neutral-looking babies as XX and as a way for newly pubescent females to advertise their sex to oppositely-pigmented males, pink really does have a bad reputation. It's the brand of girlishness, the mark of blank-eyed giggling, the hue of "math is hard", the stamp of non-threatening femininity. You can see why feminists would snarl at the color: it's an expression of everything they have been fighting to overcome. Pink says, "I am a girl and all the insipidness that that implies."
The article's author tells the story of how she came by her first Gameboy Advance (a handheld gaming device): a boy returned it to the store because it had a pink cover. In fact, he didn't even return it in order to get a new one: at the time GBA's were so popular there were no other ones in stock. The boy was willing to give up his chance at what was then a real advance in personal gaming just because the cover color was, frankly, too girly.
The author's--and just about any woman's--natural reaction is defensive indignation. Isn't this proof that no matter how far women come in this world, we will never overcome this idea of "girl = weak"? A pink-covered GBA plays the same games as a black-covered one. The only reason a boy might give up his chance to own something like that must be a perpetual, deeply-rooted, cultural misogyny.
Well, yes and no. The truth is that, for years, the feminist movement, however flawed, has been breaking down gender barriers--for women. Not for men. The reason: being the "fairer" sex, the "weaker" sex, meant acquiring masculine traits--clothing, careers--as a step up in the world, a move toward equality from the standpoint of an underclass. That means traditional femininity still reeks of that underclass and the cultural landscape that holds it that way is far more ruthless with men who are willing to cross those barriers than women. Dress your girl like a boy and she's an adorable "tomboy". Dress your boy like a girl and he's an embarrassing "fruit".
Truth is, I can only feel sympathy for the boy giving up an awesome new gaming device because likely his only other option would have been to walk into open degradation by anyone who saw him using it. And that's males and females, women and men, girls and boys. Because equality still means masculinity and when we as women aspire to it, we acknowledge that we want to leave femininity behind, as a lesser, a garishly pink reminder of weakness and frailty. No wonder that for all the inroads we've made in a man's world, men are still standing far outside the door to ours.
The song "When I Was a Boy" by Dar Williams starts out as her lament about moving from a free and boyish childhood, where she could climb trees and scratch her knees, into an overly feminized adulthood where she's offered skimpy clothes to wear and has to have a man walk her home to keep her safe. The turning point in the song is where she admits as much to a man, saying, "I have lost and you have won." Instead of ending there, the man gets a chance to also lament the small expressions of femininity that he has been forced to leave behind in order to be considered manly now:
Oh no no, can't you see
When I was a girl
My mom and I, we always talked
And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked
I could always cry
Now even when I'm alone, I seldom do
And I have lost some kindness
But I was a girl too
And you were just like me
And I was just like you
I'm not advocating a gender-neutral world, which doesn't seem possible or even desirable. Our current sexual dichotomy is part of what makes life so very interesting and exciting. But I do think that the human race would be better off if ideas traditionally thought of as feminine--nurturing, kindness, compassion, gentleness, sensitivity, emotion--were as accessible to men as wearing pants is to us. And maybe femininity wouldn't be seen as weakness; something for women to flee and men to avoid any appearance of. This is not an exclusively male bias. Note that the author titled her post as "reclaiming pink". Clearly she once shunned pink for the very reason the GBA-returning boy had, something she was angry at him for. And how often have we said, "It would be nice to have a sensitive man", then watched a man cry and secretly thought, Oh, grow a pair.
Let's not reclaim pink. Let's free it.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
One Year Later...
When I was kid, I found it very difficult to fathom that time would always keep going forward. I couldn't get my head around the idea that I wouldn't just stop aging at some point--say my mid-twenties perhaps--and be able hang on around there for an indefinite period. Seriously.
The inexorable march of time has befuddled me again. Exactly one year ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with a splitting headache. I was thirty-two weeks pregnant and had been sick for all but maybe two months of that. The morning of 10/2/06, a Monday, I told Nate I wasn't feeling well and he spontaneously offered to stay home from work with me, which is a testament to how terrible I must have looked because Nate is not a spontaneous "take-off work" kinda guy. I spent most of the day in bed feeling ill, but nothing specific, just a general malaise. That night before going to sleep, I sat on the bed and put my head against Nate who was standing in front of me. I said to him, "Ever have a feeling that something is wrong, but you just can't articulate what it is?"
Around 1 am, I woke up with the migraine. I've been a migraine sufferer all my life, but this was unlike any headache I had ever had. I woke Nate and he called my doctor who told us to come to the hospital.
Well, most people who might be reading this know the story by now: the headache was an indication of a huge spike in my blood pressure and a symptom that I had developed full-blown pre-eclampsia. Unable to get my symptoms under control, they induced me the next morning and little Sethie was born about two months before his time.
I think, though, that he and I both knew that time would come for him early that year. He had developed enough to breathe room air, and only spent about two weeks in the NICU, barely a week more than I spent in the hospital. He has grown so briskly in this last year that looking at him now, it's hard to believe he was ever so small.
Once again, I just can't get my head around the fact that some day he's going to be a grown man--he acted like a newborn for so long that I half-expected him to stay that way indefinitely, my infant Peter Pan. I still don't get time. Its endless forward push seems as alien now as it did when I was little.
And speaking of little...Happy First Birthday my little Sethie, who fills my heart with joy, who blesses me every day with his sweet temperament, his contentedness in my arms, and the ruthless way he tears into whatever food he can manage to get his hands on. That's my boy.
The inexorable march of time has befuddled me again. Exactly one year ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with a splitting headache. I was thirty-two weeks pregnant and had been sick for all but maybe two months of that. The morning of 10/2/06, a Monday, I told Nate I wasn't feeling well and he spontaneously offered to stay home from work with me, which is a testament to how terrible I must have looked because Nate is not a spontaneous "take-off work" kinda guy. I spent most of the day in bed feeling ill, but nothing specific, just a general malaise. That night before going to sleep, I sat on the bed and put my head against Nate who was standing in front of me. I said to him, "Ever have a feeling that something is wrong, but you just can't articulate what it is?"
Around 1 am, I woke up with the migraine. I've been a migraine sufferer all my life, but this was unlike any headache I had ever had. I woke Nate and he called my doctor who told us to come to the hospital.
Well, most people who might be reading this know the story by now: the headache was an indication of a huge spike in my blood pressure and a symptom that I had developed full-blown pre-eclampsia. Unable to get my symptoms under control, they induced me the next morning and little Sethie was born about two months before his time.
I think, though, that he and I both knew that time would come for him early that year. He had developed enough to breathe room air, and only spent about two weeks in the NICU, barely a week more than I spent in the hospital. He has grown so briskly in this last year that looking at him now, it's hard to believe he was ever so small.
Once again, I just can't get my head around the fact that some day he's going to be a grown man--he acted like a newborn for so long that I half-expected him to stay that way indefinitely, my infant Peter Pan. I still don't get time. Its endless forward push seems as alien now as it did when I was little.
And speaking of little...Happy First Birthday my little Sethie, who fills my heart with joy, who blesses me every day with his sweet temperament, his contentedness in my arms, and the ruthless way he tears into whatever food he can manage to get his hands on. That's my boy.
Monday, October 01, 2007
My wife is the best birthday present I could ask for
Hello my friends and family:
Thanks for the many birthday wishes - I will be returning phone calls over the next few days on my way home from work/school. Please forgive the late responses - wife and the boys kept me busy busy.
In addition to the beautiful poem in the below post, Mara gave me an excellent birthday celebration. Saturday was full of adventures and delicious food (including a penuche cake), topped off by a walk on the beach. As we sat together watching the blood-red harvest moon rise over the ocean, I was reminded once again of just how lucky I am.
Best to all,
Nate
Thanks for the many birthday wishes - I will be returning phone calls over the next few days on my way home from work/school. Please forgive the late responses - wife and the boys kept me busy busy.
In addition to the beautiful poem in the below post, Mara gave me an excellent birthday celebration. Saturday was full of adventures and delicious food (including a penuche cake), topped off by a walk on the beach. As we sat together watching the blood-red harvest moon rise over the ocean, I was reminded once again of just how lucky I am.
Best to all,
Nate
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)