A few weeks ago, I was sitting in the dining room with the girls and my mom, and Rhys burst into song.  This isn’t at all unusual, but the lyrics surprised me:  “Oh, how I love Jeeeeesus…” repeated over and over.  After establishing that it was a real song, I had to think fast about how to defuse the situation without stepping on mom’s toes (she being the source of such, um, exposures).

I’m not sure I quite got the melody (it came out a little atonal even though I followed Rhys’s lead), but we sang it over and over with revised lyrics—instead of Jesus we sang about random things we like, the majority of which happened to be in my line of sight (e.g., “Oh, how I love maaaaarshmallows…”)  It had us all laughing, even my mom.  It may have been polite laughter, but I’m tallying it in the Win column, regardless.

See, folks, it’s not just a blog name…

“Water often spells surprises
with its changing forms and sizes,
rain and snow, ponds and brooks,
water has so many looks,
sounds and moods and colors—yet
in every shape, it’s always WET!”

from Splish Splash by Joan Bransfield Graham (text) and Steve Scott (art)

This week was the start of our summer reading program, and it’s our first year participating in the national Collaborative Summer Library Program.  Since there’s a good chance libraries near you are using the same theme—Make a Splash, Read!—and since it’s now officially summer, I thought it would make a nice theme.

I love Splish Splash, because it’s great for young readers, with a healthy dosage of concrete poems.  Other picks for water-themed poetry are Splash! Poems of Our Watery World by Constance Levy, and Water Music by Jane Yolen.

Poetry Friday is here today!  Enjoy!

Low Tide (early)

• Laura from Teaching Poetry K-12 talks about the practical side of faith with Emily Dickinson’s poem #185.
• Toby from The Writer’s Armchair is in today with caterpillar poetry.
• Mary Lee from A Year of Reading is thinking about the work we do together, and about butterflies.
• Laura from Author Amok has a list-poem lesson/critical thinking for middle schoolers and up, using a found list-poem from Found Magazine and Laura Boss’ poem “At the Nuclear Rally” as models for writing.
• jama rattigan’s alphabet soup shares “The Veggie Life” by Michael Steffen.
• Amy from The Poem Farm has posted an original children’s poem about poetry.
• The Stenhouse Blog has a poem by Jack Prelutsky: “When I Am Full of Silence.”
• Diane has “Don’t Let That Horse” at Random Noodling, ekphrastic poetry at Kurious Kitty, and a quote by Thomas Macaulay at KK’s Kwotes.
• Doraine from Dori Reads posted “Noise, by Pooh” since is going to see her grandkids this weekend.
• Andy from The Write Sisters shares a powerful look at a devastated ocean.
• Ruth at There is no thing as a God-forsaken town is in with a poem called “Going Back.”
• Karen Edmisten is in with some Robert Frost and some notes about her Teacher Husband being home for the summer.
• Elaine from Wild Rose Reader has an original list poem entitled “Things to Do If You Are a Lawnmower.”
• Jeannine Atkins writes about a new book edited by Naomi Shihab Nye: Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25.
• Alison at Wistful Wanderings is in this week with a poem by Hilde Domin.
• Sherry at Semicolon has “A Red, Red Rose” by Robert Burns.

High Tide (later)

• Barbara from Words Take Flight is in with her poem, “Of Cabbagges and (K)ale.”
• Sally from PaperTigers is in with a post on a poetry book called Anything But Hank.
• Father Goose has posted a tribute to Mose T.
• Little Willow from Bildungsroman posted ’Scaped by Stephen Crane.
• Gregory K. from GottaBook is up with a re-issue of an original poem called “Hello, Summer!”
• Beth from Endless Books reflected a bit on “Rain in Summer” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
• Janet at All About the Books posted about Have You Ever Done That? written by Julie Hofstrand Larios and illustrated by Anne Hunter.
• Jone writes about memorizing “Jabberwocky” this summer at Check It Out, and she has an original cento poem for Poetry Stretch at Deo Writer.
• Linda at The Write Time is in today with an original children’s poem about a silly dinosaur.
• Julie at The Drift Record offers up “At the Zoo” by A.A. Milne in honor of her grandson’s visit.

I’ve been really busy with work…like, REALLY busy…and school doesn’t even get out until 2:30 tomorrow…  I feel like I’ve been running a perpetual race, but I think that’s because I’ve been ignoring stress, which has lead to an inability to prioritize, which has, in turn, lead to crappy time management.  I’m not sure why I’m telling you this.

I do want to show you this cool thing that I accomplished over the last several weeks.  It’s like one of those miraculous water/wine things.  See, I turned this:

into this:

I didn’t want to make too many changes at once, so save your breath about the late ’90s background graphic, okay?  My focus was on usability, anyway.  And, can I just say?  It’s no fun trying to create consistent navigation when all you’ve got is a bunch of static pages.

Anyway.  That project is approaching its natural resting point for the summer.  I’ll be blogging a few times before the end of the month, but I don’t think you’ll hear from me much during the rest of the summer, neither here nor on the social networks.  I never fully recovered from the infamous April detox/retox, and that’s because I’ve been lazy about it.

Time to do the work.  And by “work,” I mean fix the problems cited in the first paragraph.

My social acceptability meter is on the fritz, so that’s about all I can say today.

While this is non-breaking news, I have to declare my excitement for two picture book sequels that will be out in September.

I’m so glad I never publicly called Ian Falconer a sell-out (though I may have said so to a patron once…) but I assumed he was done with Olivia once the TV tie-in books started rolling out.  Those books are rubbish, and don’t do the character—or the show—justice.  (It’s actually a decent show.  It’s dissimilar to the books by necessity, as Falconer’s work is not very plot-oriented, but good in its own way.)  I was prepared to cut him some slack if he started a new, completely awesome project.  Teaming up with David Sedaris, like they did in Little Lit, to create Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modern Bestiary (Oct.) is, of course, promising.  But a reprise of canonical Olivia?  Even better.

Yay!  Not only is the existence of this book exciting, but the fact that the title doesn’t make me cringe visibly is pretty cool, too.  And sooo much better than those Cat the Cat books.  (I know it’s against the law to dis Mo Willems, so lets couch this in positive terms:  the Cat the Cat books would work very well as board books.  I can’t explain it any further without breaking the aforementioned law, so I hope you catch my drift.)

Anyway…the problem becomes, how does a reasonable person manage this unholy waiting period?  September?!  Pfft.  Publishing.

Dear everyone,

1. This is going to be a list post.  Just in case you couldn’t tell.
2. Let’s start with why I went weeks without updating last month.  Well, there are a lot of reasons, but I’m going to go with the one that makes it look like I was actually being productive.
3. I started a new project!  It’s called Kids’ Music for Libraries, and despite the fact that it’s a work in progress, I sort of soft-launched it last week.  So you may as well know about it.
4. It considers itself a (potentially) professional resource, which is obviously a huge departure from what I do here.
5. That’s also why I haven’t written any reviews lately.  I’ve been sorting out what I want to post here, vs. over there, and how my tone might need to be adjusted for the new site.
6. But I decided I’m not going to change my tone much.  Honestly, I can’t.  As a friend once poignantly stated, “You write like you talk.”  Yes.  Yes I do.
7. So.
8. I went to Kindiefest last weekend!
9. It was extremely awesome, except I missed almost the entire day on Saturday.
10. Here’s why:
11. I take a couple of psych meds with short half-lives, and those meds didn’t come with me to Brooklyn.
12. Let me tell you, detoxing sucks.  It starts with insomnia, and during the day it feels like a hangover.  Eventually there are emotional outbursts and psychotic episodes.
13. On the drive home, as we were passing a rest stop, I saw a convertible with a GIANT pink stuffed monkey in the passenger seat.
14. I know that I saw it, but I’m not convinced that it was actually there.
15. Because that would be pretty damn weird if it was.
16. But I’ve never hallucinated before.  So I don’t know.
17. Regardless, I’ve retoxed, and am more or less back to normal.
18. Woo…
19. …hoo.
20. More or less.

Love,
Amy

You’ve (maybe) seen the photos; now see the video!  My brother Mark has a talent for creating videos, and for choosing just the right music (in our house, Grizzly Bear’s “Two Weeks” is known as “the Baby Ian video song”).  Enjoy!

[Watch it on YouTube]

Earlier this week, when the girls were staying with my mom, Rhys had a nightmare.  As my mom wrote in an email, “she said I told her that you got rid of her drum set and she was upset because she still is five!”  (She got an adorable little drum kit as a birthday present a little over a month ago.)

Probably as a reaction to the fact that her dream painted me as a horrible monster, I’ve been all about reinforcing her dream of being a drummer this week.  First, I happened across an orange, drum kit-covered muscle shirt in Target and bought it for her.  Then I brought home a book about the drums from the library (which is, naturally, how I try to fix every problem—with our library cards!)  Then today, for the win, she met fellow drummer Daron Henry from Recess Monkey outside the doors of Kindiefest this morning.

I feel like I’ve shown down that evil version of me from her nightmare, and we could tell that her confidence had been restored from a conversation with her this afternoon:

Rhys:  I’ve never rocked with Recess Monkey before.

Nate:  We’ve seen them before, remember…?

Rhys:  But I’ve never ROCKED with them!

(beat, as we realize she’s planning to take the stage)

Rhys:  We need to go home and get my drum set!

Me:  (misguided attempt at placation)  I don’t think it’s going to fit in the car with us…

Rhys:  No, we need to take it apart and put it in the trunk!

Why didn’t I think of that?

It was too cute.  We explained that it was too long of a drive to go back for anything at this point.  Then, to be sure, let her know that she couldn’t climb up on stage with anyone tomorrow.

We were also sure to let her know that, if she sticks with it, she’ll probably have her own band some day.

Last night I tossed and turned for hours because I was preoccupied.  This morning, in between the many times I pressed the snooze button, I slid right back into the same ruminations.

I’ve been worrying about kindergarten.

Perhaps that doesn’t deserve a “duhn-duhn-duhnnnn.”  Or even an “oooooh…”  But it’s all I’ve been thinking about for days.

Rhys’s preschool is the best, and we’d keep her there for kindergarten if money were no object.  But, of course, money is an object.  Ever since my student loans kicked into repayment, most months end with a fair amount of figurative nail-biting.

Last month, Nate and I made the heart-wrenching decision to have the girls stay with my parents during the week this summer, and having them come home for the weekends.  (Heart-wrenching for us; the girls and the grandparents are thrilled.)  But our empty-nest weekdays are going to leave us with an extra $200 a week. ^[1]  The plan was to pay down the debt from the months that ended in the red, and build up some savings to prevent that from happening in the year ahead.

But I kept thinking about it. $200 a week is a hell of a lot of money, at least for us.  And we could keep that money if Rhys went to public school this year.  Here’s the thing:  We live in a great neighborhood with a great school, but they only offer half-day kindergarten.  And you don’t even get to choose morning or afternoon.  It’s a working parent’s nightmare.

Fortunately, my mother is willing and able to watch Rhys for a few hours a day.  Our desire for financial stability has won.  Pride?  Swallowed.  Plus, Rhys is excited to be going where the big kids go.

Even though the decision has been made, I’m still a bit preoccupied.  I thought filling out all the vairous forms, and gathering the all the various documents we need to prove our residency, would settle my mind.  Not yet.  Maybe making a new budget will help.  But, anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to lately.  Worrying.

It’s gotta end sometime, hopefully soon.  We’ll see.

^[1] Sending them both full-time for the summer would be considerably more, but that’s the figure we’re paying during the school year.

In a lot of ways, I still identify as Catholic.  I wouldn’t say it’s ingrained, but it was a large part of how I was raised.  I never had a falling out with the Church, and when talking about it, I still use the world “we.”  Let’s leave it at that for now.

For us, Easter is the most sacred of holy days.  Because of that, I thought (and still do) that an egg-bearing anthropomorphic rabbit seems to make a mockery of a holiday that deserves its sanctity.  (By contrast, I’ve always thought of Christmas as an anything-goes birthday bash.)  I wasn’t so offended by the Easter Bunny that I wouldn’t take his candy, though.  No kid is that principled.

Now that our little family has abandoned religion, we’ve had to figure out how to celebrate Easter.  Or not.  Easter without religion seems meaningless.  I’m not into the “celebration of spring,” either.  This isn’t the vernal equinox.

For now, I’ve found that egg hunts are a satisfactory celebration.  We went to the annual egg hunt in Stark Park on Saturday, and then later I found myself at the store buying eggs and candy so we could repeat the process at home Sunday morning.  Was it a clever ploy to give them something to do as Nate and I slept in?  Partly.  But searching for things—candy-filled things, no less—is pretty fun.

When I was buying the supplies, I was asked an oddly direct question by the checkout clerk:  “Do you like Easter?”  Oh, not really, I said as I fumbled with the debit machine.  “Yeah, you didn’t seem like you do.”  I am an outwardly pessimistic shopper, apparently.  Or maybe he noticed my dazed look as I was trying to figure out which items were least overpriced. ^[1]  I told him about my two kids, and how it sort of obligated me to participate in the holiday.

The unforeseen honesty of the exchange had two results.  One was that I engaged in uncharacteristic eye contact (for me) when I thanked him, and he told me to have a nice day like he really meant it.  The other was that I realized how much I really, really, really don’t like Easter.  That, more than its religious nature, is why I struggle with how to celebrate the holiday.

Historically, my favorite religious holiday was Holy Thursday.  A few weeks ago I stumbled across a stored painting of the last supper that my mother had bought for me in 1995.  (Not a replication of Leonardo’s [above], but the location & posture of disciples are parallel.)  I pulled it out early last week and displayed it without explanation.  I was somewhat unsure of my reasons, or at least unable to verbalize them.

It deserves to be said that Nate asked me, at the end of the week, whether I brought it out as an April fool’s joke.  Ha.  That sounds like me, but no.

When Thursday rolled around, I decided that we should have a big family dinner.  Then it occurred to me that I was really tired, so we went out to eat.  Before we left the house, I tried to nutshell the last supper for the girls.  There are a number of ways to spin it, but I was going for a “live every day like it’s your last” sentiment.  I don’t think I was particularly successful, since they don’t really understand the context.  Maybe next year.

I made certain to have red wine and bread with dinner that night.  Blasphemous, maybe, but close enough.

Top image credit:  “All of Your Eggs in One Basket” by Flickr user Zach Minster, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 license.

^[1]  CVS, some unit prices in your candy aisle would be great.  kthxbye.