Loving the Earth, one tooth at a time.

Turner was out of school two days in February for rodeo, which leaves only three days for spring break in April. TUSD students took off Thursday, Friday of last week and this coming Monday. I have tons of pictures, and I'll update the blog once I can get them posted. LIFE can't keep up with the blog right now, and it is such a wonderful thing!

Wednesday--School Earth Day Celebration

Turner's class and their 3rd grade reading buddies took a field trip to a local park in celebration of Earth Day. Turner's buddy is Sharmila. Watching her interact with Turner is a real treat. He sings her praises often, and she totally deserves it all. She is so patient with him and gentle in redirecting him when he gets too excited and loses control a bit (a problem common to field trips for all of the kinders). She kept a hand on his shoulder just about the entire day when they were suppose to be working together. And, she is gorgeous. Turner says she makes his stomach float about a little.

At the park, parents created four stations and the students circulated. They designed Earth Day t-shirts (Turner's says "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle"). They also created recycling badges/necklaces and planted a flower (Turner's is a marigold). The main event, though, was the tower building contest where the Kinder and 3rd grade buddy worked together to build the tallest tower of recyclable goods. There were SO many options for constructing the tower, and the students were instructed to think critically about their design. Our family sent four bags of goods we saved in ONE weekend; I was amazed by the amount of trash we keep out of the landfill by recycling. Turner's group did not win the contest, but he told me "It was a learning experience."

I agreed that learning was the only experience we needed anyway, and then I teased him and said, "We win at life every single day."

He got serious, hugged me and said, "We sure do Mom. We sure do."

All the cool kids at school have lunchables. Andy and I have battled this from the beginning. We have explained to Turner that eating what others eat doesn't make it a good choice. Turner is educated about food and the importance of different colors in your diet. He knows about Red 40. We talk about what different kinds of food do for the body, carrots for the eyes, apples for the fiber, brussel sprouts for the phtyochemicals, and things like that. Turner makes good choices, and he enjoys, as we do, the treats, like Skittles, that are chocked full of cancer-causing agents. The ingredients in lunchables reflect a hodgepodge of fourteen letter made-in-a-lab food products. It is disturbing, but we agree that one shouldn't kill him. The last field trip that I went on, Turner turned to me during lunch and said, "See Mom. He gets the pizza lunchables." So, in preparation for his Earth Day field trip, Andy and I select a pizza lunchable. The one without the fake fruit juice and the dessert. We provide our own versions: Capri Sun (which seems less fake because it doesn't lie about being a fruit juice) and caramels for dessert. At lunch, of course, Turner is disappointed that he didn't get the whole lunchable package. A little at a time, son, I tell him, and he accepts this without argument.

I ran swing detail for an hour or so. Some of the kids still have this baby way of talking. (You know all those cute mispronunciations that Turner has so few of now. Sigh.) I'm called "Turner's Mom," but they all have a different way of pronouncing it. Some leave off the apostrophe. Others say Turner's name with a really long "u." One kid called me Tía, and that made me feel important and cool. At one point, I had five kids taking up two swing sets, and I'm shuffling down and back pushing them all. At a certain point, they all started laughing and yelling, "Turner's Mom," over and over hoping that I would speed up. I was a little relieved when we had to gather the kids for a group picture.

We took about twenty pictures and I doubt any of us got a single photo with all the children looking in the same direction.

Thursday--College Day with Toothless

For about two weeks, potential UA students and their parents have been taking up all the sidewalk space and moving slowly. Since Marissa and I had to teach on Thursday, we switched off some childcare and brought both boys to explore campus. I took the first shift. We played football and danced a bit on the mall. Then we drew pictures of cheetahs and black leopards and colored in the doodle book from CiCi. Once these fun and games were over, we walked to the planetarium to explore and to climb in, what Turner calls, the "church" windows (they are stained glass and have ramps that the boys climb and pretend are dens in the African desert).

During Marissa's shift, she took Turner to get a bagel for a snack (because he doesn't like their strawberry jelly so he wouldn't eat the PB&J she packed for him). The first bite into the bagel and Turner yells out to Marissa. "My tooth! My tooth!" She said he spit his bite of bagel out and the tooth fell between the cracks of the table to the floor. For about fifteen minutes, Marissa (in her skirt and teacher clothes), Kilan, and Turner crawled around on hands and knees searching for the lost front tooth. For weeks and weeks this tooth has hung by a thread (or nerve or whatever). Andy and Turner have spent more than a few nights sprawled out on the bathroom floor "working it" in hopes that the tooth would come loose. Nope. It totally waited until Marissa was alone with the boys in the middle of campus. After much fanfare, the tooth was discovered and tucked neatly into a napkin and secured into a snadwich baggy. After all that, Turner treated Kilan to some Eeegee's, and they all walked to the turtle pond. It is amazing the resources on UA's campus. I'm consistently amazed by the exhibits, installations, artwork, and natural landscapes created to entertain those who find themselves on campus.

After I shoo my students out of the classroom, I took off running to the car in the garage (trying to save myself $1. And, you know what, it didn't work. Someday I'll realize that one dollar is not worth so much trouble. I mean, I easily give $5 to bums on the street, and then nearly kill myself trying to save $1 at the parking garage. Whatever. . .). My students submitted on Thursday their public arguments. Many of them did digital presentations using Prezi, YouTube, and video editing software. Others stuck with the 3rd grade mentality of science projects: glue, poster board, and some streamers. I have five of these to carry. Two of them are trifold cardboard. The other three are posters. One has baby balloons attached to it, streamers hanging off, and something made a noise (it is an argument for sex selection procedures in favor of preventing life-long illnesses). I also had my big bag with 25 writing portfolios in it and my teaching materials. I was weighed down. The car was far away. I thought, of course, No worries. I totally can make it if I run. So I ran, or tried to.

Don't forget the tons of parents touring the university and the disinterested students asking foolish questions about what kinds of food were on campus and how easy it is to get basketball tickets. In these tours, they'll tell you anything so that the university can suck parents' pocketbooks dry with tuition, fees, and the millions of dollars needed to keep kids in the appropriate ranks of other fashionistas driving Range Rovers. The sidewalks near the Physics building, empty. No one cares about the amazing work that physicists are doing on campus. So I easily galloped down the street with all this baggage, at least at first. A balloon flew off at some point. A kind-hearted Latina chased after me to give me the little mylar balloon, which I quickly threw in the garbage (seriously, how rhetorical are these baby shower decorations when your selected audience was research professionals?!). When I got to the sidewalk by the library, pretty empty. As I passed the all-night grill with greasy hamburgers and fries, the parents and prospective students form a wall. I said excuse me and tried to maneuver between them. They were all listening intently to their guide, who was explaining that the salad bar has shorter hours. I tried again, Excuse me, and one father-type said, Oh I'm sorry. Looks like you have your hands full. I smile, Yes I do. And in a hurry. He steps aside just as the mother-type turned to walk and she bumped face to face into me. I dropped the trifold cardboard and the other baby balloon dropped into the street. A car ran over it, there was a soft pop, and parents jerked their heads around as though a gun went off (it was a tiny little pop of a sound). I gathered my students' works, again, and stepped into the street trying to avoid the throng of people. A car honked loudly at me (it is at my backside and I was not paying attention). I yelled, Sorry. He honked again, as though to tell me to get out of the street (there is a line at the light, so I'm really not preventing him from doing anything except waiting in line). Yeah, I scream, you think this is easy? He honked again just to let me know who had the power in the situation, and I tried to wave at him in a smarty pants kind of way. In so doing, I dropped a poster board (it is actually three poster boards taped together to make a banner in support of teacher unions). I got myself out of the street, dragging the super long posterboard behind me. I got all the materials organized again and took off jogging to the parking garage only to arrive two minutes past the hour.

Turner and I spent the rest of our day relaxing at the house, eating snacks, and avoiding any kind of work.

Friday--Engineering Design

For his birthday, Turner received a K'Nex rollercoaster. You put the track together and then a battery-powered rollercoaster can soar up and down and go through a loopty loop. He thinks it looks like the rollercoaster we rode at Leggo Land, and I suppose it kind of does. Turner and I have worked on it a bit at a time. It has sat on the kitchen table for weeks in a state of semi-complete. On Friday, we decided it was time to complete our project. We worked on it. We had lunch. We worked on it. We constructed the bar that works as a pulley to propel the rollercoaster. We discovered we are missing one grey piece. It looks like a washer, except thicker. It is extremely important to how the coaster functions. We looked for it and looked for it. In fact, looking for things has become the new hobby in our house. Lost stuff is a symptom of a disorderly house. And we've got some serious disorder issues. Andy lost his keys (and still hasn't found those), other things on the lost list include: an envelope of money meant for San Francisco trip (update: recovered this in our wedding cookbook, a perfect hiding spot for it!), a nonfiction library book, actually several books spread among three family members, and now this grey piece. The rollercoaster sits nearly constructed on the kitchen table, and Turner and I head out for the English Graduate Union social. We skip the meeting because we're just in it for the free food.

At Auld Dubliner, Turner worked with me and others to construct an ATV out of Leggos. It is pretty swanky. We ate as many tater tots as we could, and then we headed home to read books in bed for a couple of hours. Bed jumping extravaganza got us in the mood for the night's slumber.

Saturday--Another Earth Day Celebration

I had a baby shower to attend at 2 pm, so Andy and Turner went downtown to the children's Earth Day celebration. The Capoeira group that Marissa and Todd are affiliated with hosted some special events. Kilan and a few of our friends' kids performed acrobatic stunts they practice each week in the kids Capoeira class. Adults worked with the little ones, Turner included, to show off some cool moves and acrobats. There were adult performers who wowed the crowd, and then the kids used recycled goods to make arts and crafts. T came home with two masks and now we have "scare" contests. It is a great stress reliever to make such mean noises while protected by a wicked looking milk jug.

When the men returned, Turner helped me work up some pizza dough for dinner. Andy and I made calzones, stuffed full of our favorite toppings, and Turner dressed his no sauce cheese pizza. We had a picnic in front of the TV. When Andy and I sat down to eat, we realized just how tired we were. Then our bellies got full. Then there was wine. Then Turner says, "Hey! What about our Easter eggs."

Oh yeah. So we went into the kitchen, pulled out tea cups, and dyed some eggs. We failed to take pictures, but we had some really creative ones with multiple layers of color.

Sunday--Our Easter in the Desert

Turner woke up to easter eggs hidden throughout the house. He spent a good deal of time locating and popping open the 22 eggs Master/Mistress Easter Bunny hid for him. He opened his Easter basket: Cheetos, Baseball Packet of Bubble Gum, a three-pack of Layers of Flavor, Peeps, Cadbury egg, a new Bionicle, and plenty of chocolate bird eggs and jolly ranchers.

Turner built his Bionicle with little to no help from Andy or I, and I am struck again by how much he knows, how independent he tries to be, and how lucky we are. At one point, I looked at facebook, checking out Easter egg hunt pictures of my friends and family. Turner leaned over my shoulder and said something like, "Wow. Look at all those kids together. That would be fun." I smiled, "Those aren't just a bunch of kids. They are all cousins. This is their family Easter event." He got quiet. I pulled him to my lap and said, "You know next year, we'll get to be with our family to celebrate Easter. All your cousins will come together and hunt eggs with you. You'll do it all day. Hide and find. We'll eat dinner together. Have dessert. It is a big celebration."

He smiled, and nestled his head on my shoulder, "That will be nice. I bet my cousins like hiding eggs too."

Andy had to work a day shift, so Turner and I walked Fourth Avenue much of the day. We ventured in and out of thrift stores, looked in the windows of stores closed for the holiday, danced a bit to the sidewalk musicians, had a long conversation about a man down on his luck (relayed below), talked briefly with the man who was down on his luck, and had a great lunch sitting in front of the fish tank giving each fish an exotic name and life story.

Just after we parked, Turner and I stepped on to the sidealk and a dark man was standing on the corner. He asked me for fifty cents and I opened up my change purse and gave him all that I had. I told him Happy Easter, and he returned this. We talked a bit about how we were away from our families on this holiday after Turner told him, "This isn't our usual Easter celebration. But we need Derby Hats."

I explained what the Derby is, and the guy laughed, "Man. Horse racing makes some huge money."

"Yeah," I said. "I think horse racing generates a lot of money in many different ways for the state."

He said, "It sure is expensive to keep a horse."

"Yeah. I bet." The guy thanked us, and we moved on in search of Derby hats. In the last store we tried, we found a perfect hat for me. HUGE and purple. I have a lot of work to do in order to prepare it for Saturday, but I can't wait to show it off. Turner, after trying on a million hats, decided, "I don't care a bit about a Derby hat. I thought it might be fun, but this is too much work. I'll just wear my regular head to Crystal and Brad's party. Okay?" Sure thing.

After lunch we headed home to pick up around the house a bit. While at lunch, we decided to have an Easter party, so Turner and I texted our friends and made the plans. At 5:30, Andy was home from work and not long after our friends--Marissa, Todd, Kilan, Erica, and Rob--came over. The adults hid 67 eggs inside and outside and, surprising to us all, the kids found every single one of them. And we had some great hiding places (an egg I hid in the living room under the lamp was the last egg found). After egg hunting, we fired up the grill and prepared eight or nine kinds of veggies including different kinds of squash, onions, two kinds of peppers, corn, and brussel sprouts. The roasted and grilled vegetables were put over this beautiful salad Marissa made with nuts and skanky cheeses; it was delicious. Andy and Rob, the only two eating meat, grilled pork chops. The boys had vegetarian corn dogs. It was a great party that came together with only three text messages. The promise and peril of digitized human interaction.