The Fort

Question: What do rusty, protruding nails, precipitous heights, standing water, weathered boards, polygamist land and reclaimed garbage all have in common? Answer: my children. It sounds dangerous, right? Why yes, it is dangerous. In fact, when I went out there to rescue Tizzy, at Ptolemy's insistence, (She refused to be rescued, BTW) I slipped in the fresh mud. "Don't do that, Mom, or you'll be at the BOTTOM of the gully," cautioned Tolly.

 Grown-ups have to be careful out there. It's a kid's world, which is why I hadn't been there since Ari, Freestone and some of the DeBry cousins had turned it into a veritable wonderland of repurposed garbage, courtesy of "the bottom of the gully."

 To be honest, I didn't remember about "The Fort" until I was shooing Tolly and Tizzy out the door to eat candy while I finished a violin repair.  (This, despite the glowing blue light that emanates from it at night.  Evidently, it is rigged with solar lights.)

 "We're going to eat these Mentos in The Fort!"

 "OK great, yes, do that, and then stay there! Fun!" (Door closes as I mumble, "Whatever THAT is!")

 When I went out a little while later with Ptolemy for the big rescue, I found Tizzy happily perched on a rickety sheet of plywood overhanging a steep 50-foot slide into the ravine. She was dipping shards of broken plastic in the fetid water of a bin that Ptolemy referred to as "The Beach."  And just like at the real beach, there is a comfy chair to sit in, except this one is infested with fire bugs, a feature the kids seem oblivious to.  Another hair-raising feature of The Fort is the dead tree, whose branches you can climb, almost straight out, to a crow's nest where you feel like you're in the rainforest.  It was from this outpost that I noticed the narrow 2x4 with the protruding nails, which the kids use to access the treetops.  I told Ptolemy and Tziporah the cautionary tale of the time I got a rusty nail stuck in the bottom of my foot.  When the doctor yanked it out, I told them solemnly, people could hear me screaming from the parking lot.

There was a pause, and then Tizzy squealed, "Can I do that!?"  So much for cautionary tales.  I didn't get the nail in my foot in the gully, anyway.  In all the time I spent as a kid trying to claw my way out of the steep, muddy - or snowy, or dusty - ravine, I never once got hurt.  I never had to be rescued, either.  I never even got shot at by the polygamists who own the land, and it's not because they're real nice.  The reality is, nothing we were doing was that dangerous, and the same goes for this new batch of daredevil babies.  Technically, a kid could get hurt falling over the edge of a soggy piece of leftover building material from the 1970's, but the fact is, they probably won't.  Ditto for the slide that is anchored to nothing and shoots the rider straight down the hill through dense foliage.  Big deal.  The poison ivy isn't even close to the slide.

The delicious irony is that, when Tziporah was good and ready, she came out of The Fort herself.  I don't know how, because I was in the house.  I do know that she came in and immediately and inexplicably tried to open the oven door, losing her balance and hitting her head on the floor, right there in front of me.  And this after she came away unscathed from the "dangers" of the dead-wooded, nail-studded, mud-coated, garbage-strewn, bug-infested, perilously steep gully.

Go figure.

How fortuitous that this slab of concrete was already there to serve as a foundation for The Fort!

The ladder.  It's how you get in and out.

I have to admit, Ptolemy did get an unwelcome shock when one leg went in that bucket at the bottom of the slide, and the other leg didn't.  Owie!  He was just going down there to pick me a purple flower, too.  He probably felt sorry for me because I'm a grown-up.

Oh, the Drama

Golda planned a drama camp for the two last days of the MLK weekend. She was excited. She loves to work with kids and to teach, and she loves anything to do with the stage.  She had a lot of fun activities planned for the kids, but she got sick the night before.  She just happened to be at the Rose Parade when the rest of the family had the plague, so we thought she had dodged a bullet.  Well, the bullet found her, and she fell hard.

It was just too complicated to cancel drama camp, and I hate to be a flake, so Ruby, Ari and I filled in.  the only problem was, we hadn't thought about what to do with all those kids and Golda was too out of it to impart any of her wisdom to us.  I was stressed, but we improvised.   I have to admit, I ended up having way too much fun.  20 kids sprawled all over the house being creative?  Right up my alley.  The kids broke into groups and read scripts, made scenery and "costumes" and learned about all the fun things that happen backstage during a performance.

Golda felt much better the second day, but kept her distance from the kids.  Even so, she was a big help.  At the end, the three groups performed their masterpieces, which were anything but.  It just goes to show you, the joy is in the journey, not the destination.  I just hope the kids had as much fun as I did!

Designing sets

Mack and Morgan were a big hit.  Everyone was in stitches when they got their charade assignments and immediately started discussing with each other what they were supposed to act out.  "I'm a frog!  I'm a frog!"

my perfect day

drop off at band practice
violin and piano lessons
French lessons and dance camp
rock Tziporah
violin shop work
help kids practice
sushi
drop off kids at orchestra camp
guitar lesson
flute lesson
pick up from orchestra camp, kids had fun
Mandarin
get in bed with a book an hour and a half before bedtime
don't even mind that kids are having a Superman marathon and still have two more movies to watch

the only thing that could have made my day better would have been two extra hours to spend at the pool.  we'll get to that tomorrow...

Saturday Art Gallery

Welcome to my Saturday art gallery. Our show today consists of works from children ages four to thirteen. Enjoy!

Henry's scary spider. I love its angry expression!  Age 6

Freestone's sketch has a lot of detail and minimalist amounts of paint.  He was very careful. Age 7.

Golda copied a book cover from The Hallo-Weiner. Cute!

A monster house with bloody fangs, ready to eat a beautiful princess by Araceli.  Scary!  Age 8

Emma's Halloween collection.  Great skeleton!  Age 8

Two Evil Villains by Ellison, the Headless Horseman and Click-Click Clash.  She sketched it first, then painted it.  Wow!  Age 9

Joshie doesn't know what this is.  He was going from the gut.  :)  Age 4

Uh-oh.  Well, THIS was bound to happen.  Oops!

That's Esmae and Xanthe by Xanthe.  Age 5

Henry's headless horseman.  Is that awesome or WHAT?

Another of Xanthe's portraits of Xanthe and Esmae.

Portrait of Xanthe by Esmae.  First she painted the face brown.  Then she looked at Xanthe and painted over it in yellow.  So funny!  Age 4

Araceli was inspired by an artist in Imperial Beach who teaches art to children every Saturday for free. His students have done artwork all over town, including the outside of Bibby's Shell Shop! Yes, that was done by kids. No wonder Araceli was so inspired. I was too! I vowed to give my kids more opportunities to express their creativity through art. That's why, when Ari informed me that she was going to invite her friends over to paint on Saturday, I was thrilled. I must say, the results were amazing. All kids are artists, and I think the kids who invaded my kitchen this morning have to be among the most creative and wonderful in the world!  I love what they can do with no grown-up interference. Aren't they inspiring with their free spirits?

Someday

Someday all my windows will be clean and see-through. If anyone leaves a fingerprint, it won't be covered in jam, and I definitely won't have to Windex spit off the doors hourly.

Someday there won't be anybody around to sneak a fistful of Shredded Wheats into the car immediately after I vacuum it. Nobody will ever get frustrated or cry or scream. I'll always listen to NPR in the car, turned down to a nice, quiet level. My sunglasses will always be right there in the holder where they belong and I'll be able to leave pens in plain sight without fear of an art attack.

Someday I won't come home to find that the kids have hauled a 500 pound box of Halloween costumes up from the basement and tried on every one of them. Someday my makeup will be used on my face instead of everyone else's and my lipstick certainly will not be used to decorate the couch or the ceiling of the car.

Someday the lawn won't be completely littered with popsicle sticks at the end of the day. I'll stop finding the freezer door wide open. My shoes will never stick to the floor and if I mop, you won't find orange puddles everywhere ten minutes later.

Someday there won't be glue stuck to the counter and we'll have a table that isn't permanently covered with paint spills. I'll have a nice tablecloth that hardly ever gets dirty. Two shelves of our pantry won't be devoted to dried-up Play-Doh, random beads and stacks of paper, each one with a single crayon mark on it.

Someday nobody will steal my camera and use it to take 48 pictures of her bun on the first day of ballet. I won't have to drive down that dang alley someday, and I'll never again have to listen in helpless pain while a little dancer sobs inconsolably all the way home because she can't see that she's beautiful.

Someday all the water I put in the tub won't end up on the floor, and nobody will overflow the bathtub and still come out of it with a dirty face. I won't carry wipes and I'll never be sticky, never have chocolate cake batter on the front of my shirt.

Someday, our silverware drawer will always be full because nobody will take all the spoons to the backyard to dig dirt for their "galaxy far far away." And the white dishtowels won't be buried under the dirt in that galaxy.

Someday nobody will need me to get them a Band-Aid or cool their fevers or hold them when they fall. If I lock the bathroom door or pick up the phone, nobody will come running. My lap won't be prime real estate, and my shoulder will be dry and drool-free.
Someday we won't have to read bedtime stories or listen to problems that have arisen during the day. We won't have to do all that tucking in and prayers and "I love you" stuff.

I'm thankful that "someday" is a long way off.