Kids grow so fast, you cannot keep up with their clothing. I seem to have piles of little outfits everywhere. Some are hand-me-downs from friends that Tillie is not yet big enough for. Some are hand-me-downs from Tillie that Django is not yet big enough for. Then there are the smaller piles of clothes that they have both grown out of and I need to get rid of. You'd think it would be an easy task, but they don't grow out of everything at once. Instead, they subtly grow out of one item, but you aren't quite sure so you put it on them and they look funny all day. I wish it were more formulaic, where I had 10 outfits that fit and that could be retired all at once and replaced by the next 10 outfits. Its not like I've even mastered sorting this out with my own clothing--winter from summer, fatter times from thinner, dressy from casual. I have more clothing than my dresser and closet can hold, but I don't wear all of it. When we lived in Dallas, I had the most glorious walk-in closet. I miss it. I'm not really a clothes horse, but I do like a good place to store the piles.
Which should Tillie take first: guitar lessons or riding lessons? Well, from the looks of it, she needs neither!
Today is the day that I get to really nerd out on movies. I just adore the Oscars. I love the challenge of trying to see all the nominated movies before the big day, I love drooling over the red carpet outfits, and I truly love bitching about the results and about how my favorite indy movie got beat by some blockbuster crap. (It is a yearly tradition since the Titanic swept in 1998.)
I managed to see 23 out of the 43 films nominated this year--not my best work, but I get a "good effort" award for having done this while maintaining a full-time job, raising a 2-year-old, and adopting a newborn. Here is my list of nominated movies that I saw and my one line review of each:
Avatar – pretty fluff
Coco Before Chanel – inspiring and chic
Coraline – spooky fun
Crazy Heart – heartbreaking with good tunes
District 9 – awesome, smart, and gross
An Education – smart coming-of-age
Fantastic Mr. Fox – cool, but also too cool
Food, Inc. – horrifying and extremely informative
Harry Potter and Some Guy – dark and dumb
The Hurt Locker – war sucks but this movie doesn’t
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnasus – dazzling weird-cool (We all miss Heath.)
In the Loop – high-larious and cussy
Julie & Julia – dummy and yummy (Streep was brilliant, though.)
The Last Station – beautiful and sad
Nine – lameness to music (Go see an actual Italian classic instead.)
The Princess and the Frog – fun but formulaic
A Serious Man – seriously interesting and gorgeously shot
Sherlock Holmes – charming adventure with sass and blasts
A Single Man – sad and pretty
Star Trek – cornball adventure with blasts only
Transformers – truly awful
Up – delightful with one truly brilliant scene
Up in the Air – engaging but over-rated
And, because you really came here to see the picture of a cute kid, here is one that Scott took of us and used an iPhone ap to cartoonify:
When I was a kid, we got to do a lot of exploring in the "wild" places in our neighborhood. Nothing fancy, these were just creek easements, runoff spillways, and semi-wooded or cleared yet undeveloped lots. None of it was truly natural, but you could still collect tadpoles, dig up worms, gather clay, build dams, and hunt for (but never actually find) native american artifacts, crack open rocks in search of geodes (again, never actually achieved), etc.
Sometimes you came across a random homeless person's camp, a stray shopping cart, or some drug paraphernalia. We didn't have cell phones or chaperons. However, I never felt that there was any danger in it. Our parents could easily drive the less than one-mile radius of area and find us if they needed to. We knew not to talk to strangers or play with dangerous trash. We knew to stay off the railroad tracks. Giving your kid this amount of freedom was okay back then--either because Austin was a smaller town or there was less hysteria about child safety in our community or perhaps there were fewer dangers known, I don't know.
Yet, I don't see myself letting Tillie and Django do this now. Is it because I live a lot closer to the highway, with its speeding cars, seedy strip clubs, and drunken panhandlers? Is it because the creek near our house is just plain disgusting compared to the one I used to explore as a child? (Then again, perhaps that one was just as gross, but my 9-year-old eyes didn't see it as such.) Or, is it because I am just a more nervous person than my parents and their friends were, whether due to our inherent natures or due to our contemporary socio-political climate?
I can't stand the idea that my kids wouldn't get that kind of self education. I either need to take a chill pill, or create some sort of safe alternative. I could rent a farm or send them off to camp in the summers. Perhaps I could sign up to be a scout leader or buy some camping equipment. Fortunately, Tillie has a while before she will grow out of our backyard. In the meantime, let me know if you want to organize some future nature walks with my kids (and yours if you got 'em).
