Writing a book...and celebrating

Just two of our 68 horses

Twenty-five years ago this month, my husband Peter and I flew to a New York auction and bought the former Minnesota State Fair carousel. We carried a letter of credit from US Bank for more than a million dollars; it was a loan to our nonprofit organization backed by the City of St. Paul. If we hadn't pulled off that purchase (and a lot of fundraising to repay the loan), the 75-year-old carousel would have been broken up and its 68 horses sold to private collectors. Instead, our volunteers have restored the carousel and operate it for the public under the name Cafesjian's Carousel. We'll celebrate its 100th birthday in 2014.

By many measures, we should not have been able to succeed.But we did, and now, all these years later, I'm writing a book about the history of the carousel including our campaign to save it. I put off this project for years, but we want the book published before the carousel opens for its centennial season on May 1. So I won't be writing a lot of inspired blog posts in the near future, but I'm trying not to disappear entirely.

for Thanksgiving.

Making pumpkin pie...

So I'm indulging myself with one sweet grandchild story. We picked up the kids after school yesterday (Friday) and brought them to our house, where their parents would pick them up an hour or two later. Both kids do lots of real cooking, but they still enjoy their toy food and make-believe cookware. Augie had decided Wednesday that we would have a tea party Friday afternoon.

Having holiday tea...

In preparation Augie laid out a scarf and a doll blanket near the Christmas tree, and on them he placed our tiny plastic tea party settings. He hauled in the big ceramic pot that he uses as a soup kettle and tossed in toy vegetables, which "cooked" for two days. We cut a real tea cake and brought out some grapes, and we used holiday mugs for individual beverage choices. Augie was so excited to stir the soup and serve the cake and make sure everyone was having a good time.

and dancing The Nutcracker

ViMae decided that her contribution would be to act out part of The Nutcracker, using the big nutcracker from our mantle. She danced with grace and joy, and then Augie joined in as the Toy Soldier and Daddy became the Mouse King. The Toy Soldier lost his sword, "Clara" threw her shoe, and the Mouse King was vanquished. Hurrah!


I relished all of this, knowing that the light was too dim to get good action shots but that the memories will live forever in the hearts of the lucky "audience." Whatever your holiday circumstances, I hope that you will rediscover some sweet memories from the past and make a few new ones to carry you forward. 

Life lessons from the castle

Once upon a time, in a land far away, some jumbo cardboard crates were filled with appliances and sent to the United States of America, where they made their way to our house. The boxes were cut into lovely large pieces of cardboard and set aside, full of potential for any number of activities.

The princess and the knight-defender-cook (and the iPad)

At first, two slabs of cardboard were used as side-by-side play areas for building Lego sets. They kept each child's pieces separate from the other's. Equally important, they provided a neutral background where the tiny pieces won't be lost against the pattern of the living-room carpet. They worked so well that we knew they'd be around as long as there are children and new Lego sets.

Meanwhile the children propped the cardboard against furniture and crawled beneath, pretending to be muskrats hiding from predators. Their structures grew taller and became a fort. Grandpa found more slabs and it became a castle where one child is usually a fantasy princess and the other a knight fiercely protecting against armies of invaders.

Defensive weapons April 2012

The castle roof was flat at first. The knight-defender would fortify it with all kinds of improvised weapons and vehicles. These were heavy and the structure unstable, so the whole thing often crashed to the floor without warning.

New improved Cardboard Castle

Enter Velcro. Grandpa has made the castle stronger but we can still collapse it, to clean or to allow grownups to use the living room or to use the pieces flat when new Legos arrive. He also made the whole thing a little bigger and expanded the roof so it can be either flat or peaked. At the children's request, he added a row of windows (for defense, they said), a "secret" back door, inside and outside latches on the main door, and a room divider.

Some food and dishes

The children immediately filled every bit of space, hauling in pillows, blankets, chairs, and their play food and cooking implements. The castle is down right now, but when it's rebuilt the knight-defender wants to leave out the room divider so he can bring in the table that matches their chairs. That's because the knight often cooks for himself and the princess. They talk over their "meals" and their conversations are increasingly interesting.

A week ago, I crept into the living room and sat on the couch listening in. As quickly as he could invent a dish, she would toss it out the window to feed the dragons. He was beginning to get impatient with this generosity. I tuned out for a while, and then I heard this from the knight-defender-cook:

"Vi, you can't live on rainbows. That's why I'm making bread."

She is a rainbow girl, a dreamer, a child who tells you in the same breath that she knows dragons are make-believe and that yes, she wants a real one for a pet. He is a different kind of dreamer, with an imagination that expresses itself more concretely in Lego inventions and a complete menu and business plan for the smoothie shop he wants to run some day.

I love his declaration, because it shows the contrast between them, and because it encapsulates one of the balances we all need to strive for. Let's do what we need to do, and let's have a few rainbows along the way.


This post is linked to the GRAND Social. Follow the link to meet more blogging grandparents.

Happy Halloween, and may the Force be with you

Grandma has been busy sewing costumes, which made their debut at the preschool party last Friday.  ViMae chose to wear her dragon costume from last year with a few new twists, and Augie decided to be a Jedi knight.

There is no longer a pattern for a Jedi robe, but I found some great tutorials online...it seems lots of people still make these for both kids and grownups. Augie knew that Jedi knights wore a hooded robe in any shade of brown, with an obi and a utility belt (for the light saber, of course). I learned that robes were not uniform, and that they were deliberately roomy in order to conceal the knight's face or belongings.

Meanwhile we "upgraded" ViMae's costume. Smaug, a character in The Hobbit, develops a gold-crusted chest from sleeping on his piles of stolen treasure. This year we added to the effect with gold-coin buttons she and I found in my 50-year-old coffee can button collection. We also added gloves on which I created bright claws. A spray of red and orange "flames" tacked to the palm of her left glove enables her to breathe fire, which she does ferociously.

Three things strike me about these costumes. One, the kids chose them for the characters they represent, from stories they've come to love. Two, their Daddy happens to love The Hobbit and Star Wars more than they know, and that will be much more important to them some day than it is now. And three, I know that they will play with these costumes well beyond Halloween. (They both wore wolf suits based on Max and Where The Wild Things Are, made by their Grandma Anita, for years until they couldn't squeeze into them any more.) I hope that some day they'll tell their kids, and later their grandkids, about Halloween back in the old days when they were young and wore costumes made by grandmothers.

It's a treat to beat your feet on the Mississippi mud...

Last Tuesday was a lovely day for an outing, and ViMae likes to collect pretty rocks, so we went to Hidden Falls Park, in the heart of St. Paul and Minneapolis, with a picnic lunch and Vi's pink plastic bucket.

We started out like this - jackets and shoes on, staying dry.

We soon switched to this, which was much more fun.

Her bucket filled, we had one exuberant child running up and down along the water's edge and laughing. There were a dozen or so other park visitors, and a few paused to watch.

The Mississippi doesn't really become muddy until somewhere downstream from Minnesota, but we don't know a song about the "sandy and rocky" Mississippi, so Peter serenaded us with the oldie he knew.  It was a glorious day.

Let's forget the rules and have some fun

When I'm playing a game, I get very competitive. Or maybe I should say achievement-oriented. My motivation is seldom to beat another player; many times there is no other player. I want to excel at the game itself--win points, advance to a higher level, set a new personal best, grab whatever rewards the game designers have built in to keep me playing.

My grandchildren are teaching me that sometimes the point of a game is just to enjoy playing. It's a simple concept that I keep having to relearn.

I noticed it the first time we played "Busytown," a board game based on Richard Scarry illustrations. The children had chosen it as a Christmas gift for Pa because we had no preschooler board games and this looked like one we all could enjoy.

The first time we played, I spent a lot of time getting them focused, explaining rules, helping them use the spinner, etc. Later I mentioned to their mom that they hadn't seemed interested in doing the "search for clues" part of the game. "Not surprising," she said cheerfully. "They can get overwhelmed. If they're not interested in something we just skip that part for a while." In other words, let them explore the game at their own pace. Keep it fun and they'll be back for more. That was good advice. An especially nice thing about this game is that all the players are a team and everybody wins together. So if one kid prefers not to look too hard for clues and another would rather not spin for regular turns, we can each contribute what we like or what we're good at and still make a game of it.

(When I was 14 or so, my sister and I had a sleepover with some family friends. Their parents played Canasta with us. When I made a mistake in melding, the dad said no, I couldn't pick my cards back up. I had to leave them on the table and other players could use them. It was a harsh lesson in "rules are rules," but probably a timely one. Augie and Vi know that rules are absolute when it comes to crossing the street, but they can wait a while to learn that about board games.)

A while back we let the kids start playing a few games on our iPads. There's a little game called Snood that involves aiming at targets that get increasingly tricky. Eventually, if you've taken too many shots without reaching your goal, all the brightly colored little faces turn to skulls. For a long time Augie thought that meant he'd won. Now they're both getting quite good at it and they've even learned to bank shots off the sides--good use of geometry, no?

Something similar happened with Angry Birds. Both kids quickly learned to maneuver the virtual slingshot to vary the angle of attack--geometry and strategy in action. And both learned the special powers of the different birds that volunteer as slingshot fodder. Touch one while it's in flight and it speeds up, touch another and it splits into three identical birds. Two birds explode on contact with their targets, but to ViMae's delight you can blow them up with a touch of your finger. I used to say, "But you didn't knock anything down." Finally I've learned to laugh and enjoy her way of having fun.

It occurs to me that this lesson might have come in handy while I was working. Loosen the rules and make new discoveries. Find a way to get the job done but still enjoy the process. Construct projects in such a way that the whole team wins through cooperation. With any luck, Augie and Vi can use these ideas in their own lifetimes, and well before they become grandparents!  

Meet Smaug the Dragon...and Bob the Builder

If you're a fan of The Hobbit, you know that Smaug is a dragon who spends a lot of time lying atop his enormous pile of stolen gold, until his chest is almost entirely encrusted with gold.

ViMae's Daddy has passed along his love of this story, and she decided to be Smaug for Halloween. "Maybe a nice Smaug," she says. Still, she wants to breathe fire and scare other children.

We started with a red hoodie and pants, and I built the whole costume on the hoodie.I posted some sneak peeks here.

She was very specific: There had to be gold, jewels, and long, "mean" wings. I bought stick-on jewels at the fabric shop and she applied them.

I glued some pointy wings to the sleeves of the hoodie and drew on them with a gold pen. (ViMae was planning to fly from door to door trick-or-treating; Pa and I were careful to tell her these wings are just pretend.)

She loves that the tail swings when she walks, and in this photo she is admiring the shadow of her spikes, wings, and claws. Pink claws.

Augie decided to be Bob the Builder. Not surprising for a kid who owns a full-size tool box, hammer, screwdriver, and metal measuring tape, and who spends lots of play time constructing roads, houses, zoos, castles, etc.

Peter and I scouted up the necessary garb including "work boots," and Peter fashioned a tool belt using his own father's WW II ammo belt.

Augie brought goggles and some toy tools. The minute he put on the goggles, he was the proudest builder in the universe. He kept them on for hours.

Our trial outing was to the library for story hour Thursday. We knew from last year that lots of children would be wearing costumes. (Pa was the only grownup wearing one: his red sweater and Santa hat.)

Friday evening, the kids and their mom and dad went to a preschool party. These two photos are from Mommy's blog: she reports that ViMae did a lot of fire-breathing, and Augie stayed in character all evening. No surprises there!

A comment on another blog said the real test of success for a costume is how the child feels wearing it.By that standard, these outfits seem to be a real success, and it's the most fun I've ever had celebrating Halloween.

Grandma's been busy...

...and here's a sneak peek at the project that has consumed my time and creative energy for the past couple of weeks.

We took the project out for a test run yesterday, but it's making its real debut as I write this. I'll post pictures of the completed creation in a couple of days. Can you guess what it is?

Meanwhile, I'll just say that between this and the World Series, Grandma's been putting in some late nights!

The most clever birthday gift ever

One night last week as his family drove home from the baseball game, Augie announced that during the game he had thought of a great birthday gift for Pa. (His parents had been working on the idea of getting something the birthday person would like, not something you would like.)

"We should give him his own copy of Pretend Soup (a children's cookbook) and all the ingredients to make Number Salad." Augie has his own copy but had never made this recipe. He was sure Pa would enjoy it.

His parents and sister agreed that was a wonderful idea. (Mom and Dad also marveled that he'd kept this exciting secret to himself while we were all together at the game.)

He proudly presented the gift on Sunday, and on Tuesday Augie and Vi made two batches of Number Salad for lunch at our house, sharing with Pa, me, and their mom (Dad was working).

The recipe begins with one handful of coconut and two tablespoons of orange juice concentrate. "Handful" is a subjective term; Augie pulled out at least 1/3 cup while Vi daintily withdrew about a tablespoonful. The beautiful thing: It doesn't matter!

Then you cut, count, and drop in 3 orange sections, 4 apple slices, 5 cubes of cheese, 6 banana slices, 7 pieces of melon, and 8 grapes. (Having put in the specified number of pieces, or any number you like, you can eat the excess.)

As you stir ("9 times"), the coconut and orange juice concentrate form a dressing - a pretty clever idea if you like coconut (we liked it more than the kids did).

The kids dished up Number Salad for lunch. Two batches was more than enough (we were still full from breakfast) so Pa and I had the rest with dinner.

We have many other wonderful recipes to try, as we continue to enjoy Pa's birthday gift. Timing is perfect; Peter had just mentioned that he wanted to involve the kids more in meal preparation this year.

Pretend Soup, by the way, is by Mollie Katzen, author of Moosewood Cookbook, and Ann Henderson, a preschool teacher. All recipes are kid-tested. Grownups do the difficult steps; kids use table knives for any cutting they do. They participate in lots of cooking at home, and they are very proud of their efforts. I wish I'd had that opportunity as a kid, but more than that, I love that they do.

What Easter bonnet will you be wearing?

The kids are on a spring break trip to see their Montana grandparents and, as Augie says, "become a dental floss tycoon." At least I hope he says it; we thought it might amuse Grandpa Terry and Grandma Anita.

Meanwhile Pa is missing his grandbabies, so I thought I'd post a couple of photos I took when we were playing with the dressup clothes a day or two before they left.

But do they wear pantyhose?

Things I learned this week:

(1) Apparently if you're a three-year-old boy (a state that can last much longer than a single year, I'm told) the word "pantyhose" is hysterically funny. It sets off paroxysms of laughter (you remember that word from a vocab list, right?). And about the time you are all done laughing, if Grandma says it again, you'll laugh again. And again.

(2) It's easy to tell boys from girls. Woodpeckers, both male and female, have been visiting our bird feeders. The bird book explained that males have red spots on the backs of their heads, and females don't. Meanwhile, Mommy and Daddy have talked with Augie and Vi about male and female body parts; they know that boys have penises and girls have vaginas. Today at Wild Rumpus Daycare we had this conversation:

Pa: Is Augie a boy?

Augie: Yes.

Pa: Who else is a boy?

Augie: My friend Dad, and Pa.

Pa: Is ViMae a boy?

Augie (laughing): No, she's a girl.

Pa: Are Mommy and Grandma boys?

Augie (laughing again): No, they're girls.

Pa: How can you tell?

Augie: Because they don't have red spots on the back of their heads.

Will the real Matt Nokes please stand up?

It's all about kids today; grownup stuff returns later in the week. Sometimes at Wild Rumpus Daycare for Grandkids, we find ourselves remarking on (or marveling at) new things that the kids seem to be doing. Some show new skills or levels of thinking; some are just funny or heart-warming.

Vi has a new obsession: Matt Nokes. The real Matt is a former major-league player we got to know when he joined the St. Paul Saints. When he came back into the league as a manager and coach for a few seasons, he'd always visit with us. We mentioned to Augie that Matt was both a catcher and a pilot--two of Augie's favorite things. (Matt once made an emergency landing on a California freeway.)

When the Duplo airplane came with a pilot that wore a cap, he became "Matt Nokes." Vi fell in love. She runs into our house singing out, "Matt Nokes, where are you?" She hugs him, pretends to change his diapers several times a day, and drops him into the pack-and-play for her naptime. Now her mom reports with considerable amusement that Matt Nokes resides at their house, too, where he is a little Fisher-Price girl in a yellow dress and a lei.

Augie and Vi are making up their own songs, or at least their own lyrics. Vi's: A B C E D F G H I J K Matt Nokes Matt Nokes Matt Nokes Matt Nokes! Augie and Pa will take just about any song and start singing a new story, trading off to add ideas. And on Thursday, a neew variation. Augie came in all primed: "Grandma, here's how Mali would sing Happy Birthday: 'Meow meow meow meow moew meow....'" When he finished, Peter picked up the idea, "A dog would sing 'Woof woof woof woof woof woof....'" With that, we were off. We did oinks and baahs and clucks and quacks and moos and roars and growls. Vi began singing "Neigh neigh neigh neigh neigh neigh" and I came up with "Chickadee dee dee dee." It was uproarious fun, verse after verse of animal Happy B'day (along with banana muffins that Augie and his mom had just made that morning because they are Grandma's favorite).

The kids' attention spans have really expanded as they play with the Duplos we got for Augie's birthday couple of weeks ago. The bus, train, and airplane sets invite them to make up scenarios, and we use the big sets of plain blocks to build garages, airport towers, city buildings, and sometimes just the tallest stack of blocks they can manage. Their manual dexterity seems to improve a little every day.

On Friday we went to story hour at Barnes & Noble. The place was packed--32 kids and their grownup companions--but Augie and Vi very independently found spots at opposite ends of the little benches and sat through about 20 minutes of storytelling before coming back to sit by us. Augie was content to continue listening, while Vi pulled a book off the shelf and thrust it at Pa: "Read it." She's very direct.

After the kids' swimming lessons Saturday, we all met up at the indoor playground. Augie ran for a bit, and then sat quietly between his mom and me. "Mom and Grandma," he said solemnly, "I am very sorry to leave you sitting when Daddy and I came from swimming lessons and you and Pa and Vi were waiting for us here." What? He carefully repeated it. Apparently he'd gotten sidetracked on the long walk through the halls and his Daddy pointed out that they were meeting us. Nothing dramatic. But Augie processed it and made a point of apologizing. It really makes us wonder what else he thinks about in the long moments when he goes quiet and chews on his lip. Sometimes when he does it, Pa says, "Look, Augie's being introspective." Sometimes he just stays deep in thought. Other times he gives a little grin, as if to say, "Old people are so cute, I have to humor them."

And because I don't have pix of the stuff I wrote about, I'm including these of the fleece blankets and pillowcases I made for naptime--teddy bears for her and baseballs for him, with a plain color for the blanket back and pillow edge. They seem to be a hit.

Happy birthday, Augie

Dear Augie,
You are three years old today. You're an awesome boy--smart, clever, funny, strong, loving, honest, curious. You love baseball, music, books, carousels, muffins, Berenstain Bears, "vehicles" (you don't just play with cars, planes, and trains), building words with rubber letters, and so much more. You have a huge heart, a quick mind, a strong will, and enough charm to get you out of all kinds of situations. I don't know whether I'll read this to you today or just let you read it for yourself in a year or so. I love you sooooooo much. So do your mom and dad and sister, all your grandparents, and your aunts and uncles and cousins. And you love them back. Happy birthday, very special boy!

Grandchildren say the darndest things

I love (most of the time) the way kids pick up what they hear. Some weeks ago, Augie greeted his grandpa with, "So, how was your shopping?" He got himself in some trouble last week and stalled for time with, "Grandma and Pa, I have something to tell you." Oh, we said, what's that? A moment of thought, and then: "So, how is your day?"

Recently, he cracked up his mom at bedtime with, "Please don't leave, I'm begging you!" (Turns out that in "Do the Alphabet," Baby Bear says "I'm begging you" to Big Bird.)

This morning, Augie was making his way through our living room, which was so thick with toys that even he had to watch where he was going. "I'm losing my mind," I heard him say. No idea why.

Meanwhile, Vi is stepping up conversationally, too. Some of her meaning is obvious. "More oatmeal." "Yo-yo Ma" or "Ernie and Bert" (video choices). "Mali (our cat), where are you?"

Some requires translation. "Too" means "I want what Augie's having." "All done" used to mean "I'm finished eating" but now means, "You are done (sitting in that chair, or playing the drums, for example) and now it's my turn." This is gradually being replaced with "Vi turn," and, when she's had enough, "Augie turn."

One of my favorites is when she says something you don't quite understand. "Upsht baby pa gamma carry-you." So you try to clarify: You want to go upstairs? "Okay!" Now, you may have intended not to go upstairs, but she seems to think you invited her, so of course you go. She hands you the baby doll and says, "Up-hts mbld carry-you," and again you aren't sure so you ask: You want me to carry you? And she says, "Okay!" as if you just made the greatest suggestion.

It's exactly what Augie used to do, when his diction was still a little indistinct, and it still cracks me up every time.

Now, he knows words like "umbilicus," "nocturnal," and "Matt Nokes is a catcher who flies his own airplane."

BTW, in the photo above, Augie had just stacked all the tuna cans on top of the cat food cans on top of the counter. He likes it when the stack totals 20, but the cat insists on being fed, so it's often less. Augie seems to be adjusting to this situation.

A noisy Christmas!

Christmas Day was wonderful....Peter and I spending a quiet morning, then him cooking and us getting ready for the kids, who arrived mid-afternoon....

There were lots of wonderful presents, but the ones I photographed with the new video camera were...DRUMS. We have new bongo drums for Vi and a new tomtom for Augie...which just happens to fit onto "Pa's" sparkly red drum kit. They've been drumming on everything in the house (okay, no glass or pottery or people) for a long time now, so the noise is nothing new. And they both love drumming.



Addendum: Yes, they both spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in their jammies. Augie occasionally insists on this. With all the excitement involved in the Big Holidays, I think it's great that they can feel comfortable this way!

Christmas eve

Grandma got a new video camera for Christmas, and she opened it early to use it for the holiday. The viewfinder flips forward so the kids can see themselves...a great feature since they love to watch themselves! Christmas Eve was a very casual get-together with the kids. Our plans to order Chinese food fell through (the restaurant was closed) so Abby made some wonderful chicken dumpling soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. We were so much luckier than all the folks who couldn't be with family because of the snow!

Still working on video from Christmas Day...more complicated than I expected!