The Boy has a problem. He's fascinated by Franklin Pierce and wants to read a biography about him. Unfortunately, there aren't many children's biographies of our fourteenth president -- at least not at our library.
Ok. The White House website maintains interesting short biographies of all the past Presidents. I'd start there, J. They will also have links to other sites. Either way, though, there ought to be enough information to make a reasonably decent start and may even satisfy the Boy.
Thank you, RP. I'll grab the bio from the White House site. We checked out a book that had a short biography of each president, but he was hoping for a book all about Franklin Pierce.
I live in the one-time hometown of Franklin Pierce: Concord, NH. Check out our library online, see what you can find: http://mls.onconcord.com Watch out for what happened with his 11yo son if you're avoiding JFK, MLK, etc.
They don't bother with the keyhole during baths. Usually I don't get one until after they go to sleep, but if I do indulge when they are awake, I have to leave the room unlocked because baths take longer than a trip to the bathroom. So they walk right in and start chatting.
Looking forward to some no. 1 of my own someday in the next couple years! Same for no. 5 ;) I have a hard time even picturing #2, which may have something to do with the fact that we haven't gotten any offers on our house!
1. Sinking a 30' putt for birdie.
2. Getting an unsolicited hug or pat on the belly from my daughter or son.
3. Walking on the trails with the red rock outcroppings in the Rocky Mountain foothills near my home.
4. Sipping a cup of steaming dark smokey coffee.
5. Watching geese land on a pond.
6. My wife putting her hand on my chest.
7. The dog running up and shaking his booty when I walk in the door.
8. Seeing for miles and miles with the big sky in Colorado.
9. My wife's fried chicken and lumpy mashed potatoes.
10. Hearing the wind whisper through the pine trees.
I am trying to find a recorded version of Arkansas Traveller with the lyrics. On iTunes all 15+ versions have no singing in the music sample, so I can't tell if anyone has singing at all. Does anyone know of a good version with the words out there anywhere?
Are any of the itunes version by Michelle Shocked? It looks as if she has a CD out there of old fashioned music (titled Arkansas Traveller), including this tune. I can't, however, preview any of them.
What on earth is this for? Is the Hippie German School studying American Minstral music?
No, it's not for hippie German school. We like to sing folk songs and the like with the kiddos of an evening and we have a favorite song book called Gonna Sing My Head Off!. I've always thought it would be great to gather various artists renditions of as many of the songs in the book as I can find. We owned a lot already and I've bought some more from iTunes, but there are a few elusive tunes and it's bugging me.
We have that book too! I love the songs but the music directions are like no other sheet music I've seen. Instead of pianissimo or forte, it says energetically, soothingly, spunky, cute, nimble, as if you're seasick, saucy, fearlessly. I took piano lessons a few years ago and brought in the book to learn one song and my piano teacher laughed so hard, I had to hold her on the bench.
posted by earth girl at February 27, 2006 06:58 AM
1993 Not For Kids Only (Jerry Garcia and David Grisman) has the words and music.
But you know the words are not sung.
Dieses âLiedâ ist das einzige StĂŒck in meiner Sammlung, das kein Lied im eigentlichen Sinn ist: Es ist ein Dialog - eine traditionelle alte amerikanische Komödienform - mit Musik. Die Musik ist fĂŒr verschiedene andere Liedversionen benutzt worden, alle mit unterschiedlichen Versen, aber dies ist erst im 20.-Jahrhundert entstanden.
Woher die Musik kommt oder wem sie zuzuordnen ist, kann nicht gesagt werden. Die Musik könnte folkloristischen Ursprungs sein; stilistisch ist sie vielen anonymen StĂŒcken der âSouthern mountainsâ Ă€hnlich.
In honor of Presidents' Day and yesterday being George Washington's birthday, we've had the presidential placemats out on the table.
The Boy has been commenting on presidential hairstyles, middle names and picking up other important pieces of information. He's morbidly fascinated by how many of the presidents are dead and rather sad that George Washington isn't around any more. He loves that he shares a first name with three presidents; his middle name is the first name of one president; and two presidents had his last name. Of course, he's also been known to ask if Thomas the Tank Engine was named for Thomas Jefferson or vice versa.
The presidential fact that I'm most proud of teaching him though? Just ask The Boy to find "the very foolish president" and he goes right to Jimmy Carter every time. Heh. This was made even better, when this morning, unprompted by any political commentary on the part of his parents, who actually don't tend to speak ill of either party, since we don't want any small, big mouthed, children repeating things to our Democratic friends in high places -- The Boy was studying political parties, noting the fall of Federalists and Whigs from favor and then came out with, "I'm not surprised that Jimmy Carter was a Democrat." Again, heh.
The cover of Carter's new book scares me. He looks like he's about to spank somebody. I keep mentioning this because I keep seeing the book in stores (is ANYBODY buying it? or is there a great warehouse of remainders for books by him and Al Gore) and it creeps me out every single time.
It would be nice to set conditions for presidential pensions. In this particular case, the conditions I would set would be: shut UP and stand in the corner with your face to the WALL.
Hmmm. That would work for another retired president, too.
Mr. Skinny was working on a story last night about George Washington, Honest Abe, and "TR" going to the Olympics and beating the British at bobsled and speedskating. The vision of Abe Lincoln's stovepipe hat sticking out from the middle of a racing bobsled was pricelss.
Kidlets ... they can do some dumb things sometimes, then they turn around and surprise you with their smarts. I think you have to go back to Andrew Johnson to find another President as inept as Carter. They both had to "heal" a nation (Johnson post-Civil War, Carter post-Vietnam/Watergate) and the country survived in spite of them.
Things around here are slowly returning to normal. I'm home with the kids and Justin is off at work doing lawyerly stuff. No one has thrown up since Tuesday.
I'd love to say my absence for the last few days was due entirely to being consumed with home improvements and the like. We have been plugging away at restoring order to the morning room and would be done if we hadn't decided we wanted to put better casing around the doors in the room than the 1x6 pine boards that had been used in the past. But we did decide to change the casing, which meant buying new stuff and painting it. Even so we'd probably still be finished, but for two things.
First, I didn't like the plinth blocks available from the millworks company where I bought the casing and rosettes. So I ordered some online, but they won't be arriving until tomorrow.
Second, on Sunday morning I woke up feeling slightly dizzy and just not right. About halfway through breakfast, I decided to return to bed where I dozed while my husband got the kids ready for church. Immediately after they left, I had to rush to the bathroom. That and sleeping were the highlights of the rest of the day.
Yesterday, I was no longer sick, but felt extremely weak for most of the day. Justin worked from home, so that he could help out as needed with the rugrats. By evening I had perked up enough to be annoyed by all the crumbs on the floor in the kitchen, but sweeping them up wore me out. After dinner and putting the kidlets to bed, I felt well enough to finish priming the casing while Justin touched up some more spots on the walls.
That done, we went to bed and slept well until around 3 a.m. when my husband began praying to the porcelain goddess. He's sicker than I was and naturally The Middle Girl threw up in her bed last night too.
I'll be back when stomachs stop heaving or we finish the morning room.
Odear. So sorry to hear it. I can't say I'm looking forward to the years when Ngaire will be bringing home every tummy bug . . . though the Husbandlet and I have been fairly lucky at avoiding the flus that go around my high school . . .
Lenise, morning room is just a fancy name for a sitting room off the kitchen. Ours was probably intended to be the breakfast nook or dining room, but we use it as a sitting room/family room.
Our neighborhood has had a home tour for the past two years. Although we aren't running out of neat houses, we seem to running short of people that are willing to let their houses be shown on a tour. Which means some of the people who said they'd put their homes on display as a last resort will probably be appearing on this year's home tour.
Um, that would be us. Yikes. There's nothing like knowing that people might be wandering through your house expecting to see something interesting to strike fear into a homeowner's heart.
We have three children and a dog. Our house is never clean, although we're getting pretty good at tidy, and there are lots of little things we've been putting off doing that we need to crank into gear on if we're really going to be on a home tour in April. In fact, as soon as we heard we might have to show our house we started painting our morning room, which we'd put off for the last year.
Below the jump is the to do list I've made up. I have no idea if we can get it all done in the next month.
Repair/paint back side of front door (scratched by the dog) Paint morning room (mostly done except for a small spot where we had to patch some drywall)
Paint girls' room
Paint upstairs bathroom
Paint dining room and hallway
Paint back door
Replace mirror in upstairs bathroom
Fix grout in upstairs bathroom
Sand/repair/paint baseboards chewed by the dog
Shorten dining room curtains
Hang curtains on backdoor Switch light fixtures in hall and morning room
Restain front steps
Repaint the trim around porch columns
Wash siding
Hey Jordana, is this a public thing, the home tour? Ya know I live "right down the road"...how cool it would be to meet you (and see a cool old house!)
posted by Twilightmama at February 16, 2006 11:51 PM
*Sigh* Oh, to have a house people would want to visit.
I beginning to think that the pro-abortion side isn't worried so much about a woman's lack of privacy before having kids. Instead, they realize that if a woman has the little rugrats, all her privacy will be forever taken away from her.
For many years now, I've had few opportunities to go to the bathroom and actually close the door. When I close the door, I usually hear banging and they start wanting descriptive details of what I'm doing in there.
We've now hit a new low. I had just closed the door and lowered myself onto the toilet when I heard a small voice.
I gave up a long time ago. I just leave the door open.
My 2 year old likes to "help" me. She gives encouragement and flushes the toilet when I am done.
And don't you love it when you have to take the little ones into the bathroom stall with you when you use a public bathroom? Then they start asking embarrassing questions (which everyone else in the bathroom can hear), like..."Mommy, are you pooping?" or "Mommy, why do you have glowing guitars on your panties?" and so on...Ugh.
posted by Twilightmama at February 15, 2006 07:50 AM
Do they at least cheer for you? I get: "YAY, Pappa! Nice pee!".
Omy, my husband had been preparing me for this sort of thing for years. (Not the keyhole thing, but, um . . . anyways.) Imagine my surprise as an only child when my new husband first came bursting into the bathroom for a chat just as I had settled down. Now that we have a baby, it's a common thing for me to use the bathroom and shower with two sets of eyes trained on me.
Seriously. I almost never go to the bathroom completely alone; at work, we have stalls, but that's not quite the same thing.
Last fall we got an Audobon calendar from our insurance agent. It wasn't quite what I wanted to hang on the wall (what with the insurance advertisement at the bottom of each page), but the pictures were pretty, so we stuck in the art cupboard with all the papers and detritus. Yesterday The Boy pulled out the calendar and excitedly announced that he'd found the calendar we should use next year.
I attempted to explain that a 2006 calendar wouldn't really work next year, and although I don't think he ever really believed me, he lay down on the floor to study the pictures and all the holidays on the calendar.
He was a bit disturbed to discover that April Fool's Day was not listed as an official holiday, but was glad to know it fell on the same date every year. I was able to raise his estimation of my intelligence by successfully predicting the days that Easter, Thanksgiving and Election Day fell on. He was also impressed that I knew the Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve were on the same day of the week. Sometimes The Boy seems teenager-like in his ability to think his parents no nothing, so it is pleasant to be able to wow him with some basic trivia.
Then he exclaimed, "Vegetarian's Day!?! I didn't know they had a holiday for vegetarians!" I glanced over his shoulder. "Veteran's Day, Son. Not Vegetarian's Day."
We asked Jordan what she wants to be when she grows up and she said "an animal doctor"
My son said "oh a Vegetarian?" in his attempt to make her an easy joke.
She said "NO, duh, that is a person who likes vegetables"
You know, it seems to me that the Boy's malapropism is one that would never have occurred 10 - 20 years ago. Interesting to think that some social changes can be tracked by malaprop.
I'm going to see Iolanthe with a college friend who lives in town. She was one of my bridesmaids and every now and then invites me out for an evening of cul-chuh.
That, Madame, is cruel & unusual punishment. The Pinafore we saw this year was average, and we'd really liked to have seen Iolanthe instead. Mrs. in particular loves the Patter song from this one.
Gilbert and Sullivan shows rock! Have you seen _Lyle, the Kindly Viking_? That's as close as we've come in a while. I wonder if we could get some via Netflix...
We have too many frozen berries in the freezer, a bunch left from when we picked about 19 bajillion gallons last summer at my grandfather-in-law's house and some store-bought ones as well. This morning seemed like a good day to make smoothies. I had yogurt. I had berries. Mmmm...smoothies.
Everything was going perfectly well until I decided to throw in a few more strawberries. I have a very strong Waring blender, but a berry decided to gum things up. I turned off the motor, stuck an extra long chopstick down and started poking around to loosen things up. It got to blending again, but was still not chopping the berries as much as I wanted them to be chopped -- despite having plenty of liquid.
I took off the top and was stirring the surface with the chopstick. The kids were talking, the Toddler was demanding more cheerios, Justin was telling me something interesting. Absentmindedly I stuck the chopstick down just a bit further. Kablooie!
Purple (blackberry and strawberry) smoothie all over me, the counter, the floor, the shelves. It's a good thing we have 10 foot ceilings of it would have been up there too.
So just a reminder folks. Don't stick things in the blender when the motor is running and blend with the lid on.
I haven't played along at home on the Thursday Three in a while, but for once I actually have a bit of time.
1. In your own hometown, what is the best public building?
Of course this depends upon what I want to choose as my hometown. The city in which my parents still live, or the city in which I live now. First, my childhood hometown. My two favorite buildings: The Courthouse and the old high school (now an elementary school).
2. Again, thinking of where you live, what is the worst public building?
There are, of course, many worsts in both my old and new hometowns. I think the new high school building where my parents live, ranks right up there. As does the junior high.
Here in Nashville, there are many awful buildings downtown. Most of which I can't find pictures, but the Estes Kefauver Federal Building rivals any East German architechture for pure ugliness and Andrew Jackson Building is hideous too. I'm also not crazy about either the Country Music Hall of Fame or the GEC.
3. And finally, either in your own hometown or just in general, what do you consider the best modern public building? (For the sake of argument, letâs let âmodernâ mean anything done since 1962, and not necessarily tied to the Modern style. Purely arbitrary, I know.)
Hands down, bar none, I love Nashville's Main Library. They did a beautiful job down to the smallest details making it an absolutely fabulous public building. Inside and out, it looks like it has always been there and always should be.
Nice library! And I have to tell you, if you're naming a building after Estes Kefauver, you're really asking for troble when it comes to attractiveness.
posted by Terry Oglesby at February 9, 2006 09:44 AM
A 'coon skin cap could have only added to its looks.
HI Jordana, first time on your site via Merchantships. We travel to Nashville yearly. Now I am an architecture lover, and your 'best' picks certainly qualify, but I love love love the Country Music Hall of Fame, esp the interior falling creek. Anyway, to each his own : ) nice blog
Ooooh, I love 24! Hubs, a buddy of ours, and I watch it faithfully every week (of course, you can't miss an episode with this show or you're really lost!)
Another Thing They Don't Teach You in Parenting 101
Popsicles. Always have popsicles in the house. Besides being useful for rehydrating children who have been up all night puking their guts out, they work much better than an ice pack on a child's split lip. With a toddler in the house, we have lots of tripping and biting of lips.
Today it was The Middle Girl. She was running laps around the dining room table. My brain kept telling me to make her stop, since unlike our kitchen, there isn't a lot of space in the dining room. My brain didn't yell loudly enough. Bonk. Right into the buffet at full speed.
Popsicles. After cleaning off the blood with a damp cloth, I gave her a popsicle and immediately the suffering one was feeling 90% better. Her sister was screaming to have one too, of course, but I have to keep the supply for the next inevitable accident or stomach bug.
You have my sympathy. I discovered Nate was a climber the day he climbed to the top of the staircase and then did an excellent impressionation of Rocky with his arms raised high. Nearly gave me a heart attack. I told my mother in law and she casually mentioned that Larry was a climber too, once while moving she found him on top of the fridge.
Oh, while I'm thinking about it, once a nephew (who still lives!) was found doing his Rocky impersonation atop a computer monitor. This dates him some, because flat screens were still prohibitively expensive for people with kids.
I feel your pain (but not in a Clintonesque way). The Lad's getting close to that stage. At almost exactly 1 year, he's scooting around the house (remember the scene in Alien where the alien gets into the duct system of the ship? Yeah, that fast), and he already has an affinity for reaching UP. I'm scared for what it's going to be like once he can stand.
Wow, baby's growing up! Makes you all proud and terrified at the same time!
I remember when I was pregnant with my youngest, we lived in a townhome. My middle child was about 14 months old and upstairs with her daddy, who was at the computer in the office. I needed to go downstairs to vacuum and I told hubs to "keep an eye on her because she's starting to climb!" We had a big trunk blocking the top of the stairs (yeah, I know, we had not yet installed a baby gate at the top...idiots we were). No sooner had I gotten downstairs and turned on the vacuum did I hear a heavy "thump, thump, thump, thump" coming down the stairs. It was our baby. She had climbed over the trunk and tried to come down the steps. The only thing that kept her from hitting the hard floor at the bottom of the steps was the baby gate (funny, we did have a baby gate at the bottom to keep her from going UP!). She landed right on top of the gate, her butt and legs dangling on one side, the rest of her body on the other - SCARY!
I'm so glad we don't have steps anymore. Hubs broke his ankle on those same stairs!
At Hippie German School, the kids have to make the valentines they give out. No pieces of pre-printed paper with Spiderman or Hello Kitty allowed. No candy either.
Last Friday The Boy and I got busy working on his valentines. We got out a heart shaped stencil, traced the hearts on sheets of card stock and then he started drawing a picture in each heart for each child. Not something specifically for any one person, but a different picture in each.
For all that he's the ladies' man and perfectly happy making sweet little hearts with pink flowers, hearts and rainbows for the girls, he was most excited about the valentines he planned to draw for the boys in his class -- until I told him he couldn't do any heads on pikes, skeletons or explosions. We compromised and the boys will be getting valentines with things like dragons, Vikings, pirate ships, knights, and I think a haunted tree or two. His uncle will be getting the valentine with a row of heads on pikes.
Note to self: Must stop reading to The Boy about Cromwell.
Does he plan on making a special valentine's card for Miss "Thang", the one who makes him fall off the bench? I'm guessing the teachers probably just have them bring in two piles, cards for boys and for girls. It's just as well, as that would defuse any "mean" cards that some kids would target for those they don't like.
He's not supposed to make a special card for any body, but it wouldn't surprise me if one of the ones he wrote "I love you." on winds up in a certain cute little girl's envelope.
Not that one, Blair. One of the uncles on the other side and The Boy have a very special relationship. They like to draw cartoons of themselves flushing the other down the toilet and things of that ilk. One of the heads might easily wind up getting labelled with the uncle's name before it gets sent, knowing how these things go.
Well, should he ever draw a picture of the other uncle with their head on a post, I might be interested in purchasing it. Joke, sort of, we are friends after all.
Lovely, though that uncle, the one with the flushing toilet pictures, sounds like a fabulous uncle!
For some light reading, may I suggest this for the boy? I couldn't, unfortunately, find any more gruesome description of the Martyrdom, but I thought he might appreciate what explanation there is. His beheading card might actually be more in keeping with the patron saint of the day.
And here I thought my own (significant) weight problems were due to my inappropriate eating patterns and food choices. So nice to know that there is yet one more thing in the world I can add to my growing List of Things That Make Me a Victim (tm).
All the while they are cutting $$$ for Phys Ed programs, allowing junk food commercials at an amazing rate on "children's networks",
allowing sodas and junk food in schools...
Gee, you think kids are getting more overweight each year?
I am so thankful that my kids choose outdoor play and sports first over video games!
My son is going to kill me some day for the things that follow, but so be it.
The Boy has always had an eye for a pretty lass. When he was two and three he would find the prettiest woman at a party and attach himself to her. His four year old infatuation for one of the doctors at our pediatrician's office is still spoken of by the office staff. Last year in preschool he fell in love with a Kindergartener and told me once that she "made his heart sing."
It came as no real surprise that this year he would again find a cute girl in his class to be his girlfriend. "She's the prettiest girl in Kindergarten, Mom." He adores her and sleeps with the toy stuffed snake she gave him every night.
Another thing one should know about The Boy is that he is a bit of a klutz. He will be sitting on a chair at dinner time and suddenly have fallen, for no obvious reason, on the floor. Yesterday, I was talking to one of his teachers who said he managed to fall off his bench during snack time in a similar fashion. While lying prone on the floor, he gazed up at his love and told her, "You get prettier and prettier every day. You're the only girl who has ever made me fall off my bench because I love you."
And he wonders why he always gets time outs for flirting.
That last remark sounds like something Alfalfa(Our Gang/Little Rascals) would have said. If I ever fall out of a chair or bench and Lady Spud is nearby, I'll try to remember to use that line.
I have coordination-challenged son, too. He's now 19 and seems to have become modestly more graceful since he's grown into his size 15 shoes. But a few years back (as he was walking past the counter between the kitchen and living room) he somehow hooked the heal of his shoe under a barstool and caused it to topple. To all appearances (since he hadn't actually banged into anything) the stool had seemingly just rolled over as he strode past it.
My oldest son (from his vantage in the living room) looked over and declared in his best Darth Vader voice: "The Force is strong with this one."
Jordana, I am chuckling right now and so in awe of your little 'Ladies Man'. Obviously you must be a great Mom. He has learned so well the lessons of love and affection and demonstration of that love as well. I fear somewhat for an unexpected heartbreak in the future but I have to say, between the lines of your post, I get the feeling he has all the confidence he will ever need to just move on.
I've heard of parents using clean diapers to pad dishes when they pack up for a move. It makes a certain amount of sense, because the parents know they'll use the diapers eventually and therefore aren't wasting a bunch of paper towels or whatnot. And since they did the packing it doesn't seem gross.
However, when I opened a box of bowls I bought on eBay (my children have a bad habit of smashing my Desert Rose dishes) and they were wrapped in adult diapers (yes, clean ones) I was a bit grossed out. I tried not to be, but still -- yuck.
Jordana Adams, Chief Pontificator
