moominmuppet

I've been introducing Kidlet to some of my favorite 80s and 90s cartoons, including Voltron (the cats, of course), Adventures of the Gummi Bears (holds up remarkably well for a show based on a candy), Animaniacs (more dated than I'd expect), Talespin (I'd forgotten how catchy the theme is!), She-Ra (ok, I totally still love it) and a few others. Most I've been able to find on Netflix streaming, in reruns, or on youtube. It's been a huge frustration to me that I couldn't find Thundercats anywhere, though! The DVDs are apparently a lousy deal (pricey and low quality), so I couldn't justify dropping cash on them when we're broke. Then I remembered that we actually get discs with our Netflix plan too (d'oh!). Disc one arrived last week. I've been having so much fun with it. Last night Kidlet and I were singing the Thundercats theme together (I'm only mildly embarrassed to admit that it still gives me actual goosebumps). His favorites are WilyKit and WilyKat (no accounting for the tastes of small children), but he was still thrilled to find my Panthro and Lion-o action figures in his toybox. I'm thrilled to see him playing with them.

Also, we built a marshmallow catapult from a kit we picked up this past summer. He's enjoying it, except that he keeps eating the marshmallows instead of firing them.

Although many things about this weekend have been awesome, being on Day 7 of the migraine really isn't. I was originally going to call in, see about going in a bit late after waiting for another dose of meds to kick in, but it's gotten bad enough I'm home for the day, hiding in a cool dark room with my laptop screen turned down. Unfortunately, quirk of my migraines is that they often get much worse if I fall asleep when they're still mid-level or higher. I wake up in blinding pain. So I'm waiting for the meds to kick in enough that I feel like I _can_ go to sleep without waking up worse. Thankfully, I've pretty much tuned my laptop and phone to adapt (the brightness widget I've installed on my phone is on my primary screen, for example). There's a reason my LJ default background is so dark, and I view all my friends' pages in my style, not in theirs. Also, handy that I can type relatively accurately without looking at the screen, and then only have to glance over to proof.

A few paste-overs from FB (still hoping in vain to manage to keep them mostly synchronized):
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Clinic Escorting Stuff:

On my way to Preterm. Looking forward to escorting today, but it's going to be four hours of walking in circles around the building in the rain and damp on four hours of sleep. Hello invitation to fibro flare. *digs out meds*

Well fuck. Glass block wall in front of the clinic has been vandalized. Looks like someone took a tire iron or some other blunt implement to it, probably a bare minimum of 20 times. This piddling shit is part of the death by a thousand papercuts that drives clinics out of business all over the country, requires diverting funds from assisting needy patients and into repair and security. Makes me livid. And yes, I'll assume 'likes' on this mean you're pissed too, not that you're a raving douchecanoe.
(Comments: if you happen to have any spare fundage you can donate at www.preterm.org; they are the best clinic I've seen in my life, and thoroughly and wholeheartedly deserve the support.)

Think I got some decent audio of what it sounds like at our clinic on a Saturday morning when a patient pulls in. If they turned out I'll post them this afternoon. I think even with my crapass phone locking up and losing several recordings I got a bit of speaking in tongues [also, on a theological level I think they haven't got a clue about what the gift of tongues was supposed to be about #grumpyministerskid].( Read more... )

I'm not entirely certain why, but youtube is currently unlocked at work. I'm luxuriating in being able to listen to the songs I'm thinking about.

Music is definitely all about emotional resonance and historical touchstones in my life. It's why going back through all these church songs is hitting me so intensely, and each reminds me in turn about another I'd forgotten...

Songs on my mind, in no particular order:

Shelter from the Storm - Bob Dylan
I'm listening to this one as I start this post. This is the version of it that I love, and that I "lost" in a way for a number of years. My long-ago ex, Mike, said it reminded him of me, and it was therefore important to me during our relationship, and too deeply painful for many years afterward. The day I discovered that I'd released those associations and could just enjoy the song again was a beautiful day in my life. I think something similar is happening to me with the religious music, which is what got me thinking about this. In some ways, I "broke up" with Christianity after a very long and intense relationship. Although I haven't doubted my decision to do so, it's not one that's free of grief and loss for me, and for a long time I think this music hit those emotions too hard for me. I'm feeling, at least at the moment, as if I can enjoy the beauty and power of the music without mourning that it no longer speaks so directly to me.

"Here I Am, Lord" (very solemn hymn) -- this is a stunningly beautiful version of this song, done by Andrew Parnell, Barry Rose & The Boys & Men of the Choir of the Cathedral & Abbey Church of St Alban. Much as "Shelter from the Storm" was "my song with Mike", this, more than anything else, was "my song with Christianity". I always had a powerful feeling of calling, and struggled with how to express that and follow through on it. Actually, I still do, it's just non-religious now. This song, the combination of the beauty of the music, the powerful nature imagery (always how I connected best with God), the lyrics from Isaiah as he struggles with his own sense of calling... It hit me hard. It's the song that moved me to tears on my own front porch this morning, and just did it again sitting here. "Lord of the Dance", as I mentioned in my previous post, reflects a great deal about how I experienced Christianity, but "Here I am" is the most deeply and personally emotional for me.

Have You Seen Jesus My Lord -- another one that hits two of my big emotional hot-buttons; nature imagery and sense of community/love. It's not actually all that great musically, but the lyrics meant a great deal to me:
Refrain:
Have you seen Jesus my Lord?
He's here in plain view.
Take a look, open your eyes,
He'll show it to you.

1. Have you ever looked at the sunset
With the sky mellowing red,
And the clouds suspended like feathers
Then I say... (pause)
You've seen Jesus my Lord.

2. Have you ever stood at the ocean
with the white foam at your feet,
Felt the endless thundering motion?
Then I say...(pause)
You've seen Jesus my Lord. (refrain)

3. Have you ever looked at the cross,
with a man hanging in pain
And the look of love in his eyes?
Then I say...(pause)
You've seen Jesus my Lord. (refrain)

4. Have you ever stood in the family
With the Lord there in your midst
Seen the face of Christ on each other?
Then I say... (pause)
You've seen Jesus My Lord. (refrain)

Lord of the Dance (Christian Lyrics) -- I already talked about what this one meant to me, but this is a pretty decent version that reflects the up-tempo element and the sheer joy of it.

We are One in The Spirit (they'll know we are Christians by our love) -- Oh, so deeply conflicted on this. All about community and working together and love and not being hypocrites, but also one of the most dangerous sentiments out there, in my opinion. So much implication that people who are NOT Christian can be expected not to behave in these ways, and as an atheist I run into that crap all the damned time.

We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
And we pray that all unity may one day be restored
And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
They will know we are Christians by our love

We will work with each other, we will work side by side
We will work with each other, we will work side by side
And we'll guard each one's dignity and save each one's pride
And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
They will know we are Christians by our love
By our love, by our love
And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
They will know we are Christians by our love

We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand
We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand
And together we'll spread the news that God is in our land
And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
They will know we are Christians by our love
By our love, by our love
And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
They will know we are Christians by our love

Oh, FWIW I did follow through on my "threat" to go all spreadsheet about this. I'm currently about 60 pages through the songbook, creating a googledoc to use as a reference, with Title, Author, Page, Religious Content, To Share With Kidlet, Personal Favorite, For Personal Nostalgia Only.

Examples:
They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love, Peter Shottes, 6, strongly religious, No, Yes, Yes
Sound of Silence, Paul Simon, 4, Secular, Yes, Yes, No

Sound of Silence -- Indeed a very long-time favorite of mine. I remember learning it in 6th grade music class, and utterly falling in love with it. And it's all about the kind of messages I love in music (because I'm a damned peace love and community style hippy, oh yes I am!)

Got smacked with some ungodly fatigue the past few days, not really sure why. "Seeing double" kind of stuff, ended up being out Thursday and part of Friday, and then sleeping a good five-hour chunk in the middle of Saturday, too. It took double my usual provigil dosage just to get through a four-hour HR presentation on Friday (OK, that one's a bit open for jokes, I realize). Otherwise moderately ok; finally stabilizing on the mood front, I think. I'm having enough aches that I'm thinking about talking to my GP about switching from Mobic to a Celebrex, and the eczema on my hands is acting up pretty surprisingly strongly, but nothing else too weird. Oh, wait. Problems adjusting focus vision-wise, both up close and far away. Hoping that clears up as I adjust to the Trileptal, but I need to remember to tell them about it at my next visit. It was really obnoxious at the HR thing last Friday when I had to watch a lot of stuff on projector.

Anyway, back at work today, and getting caught up. Need to see where things are at with Kenyon stuff; I've been almost entirely out-of-touch since Tuesday.

On the positive side, life at home is really, really good. We've gotten things almost entirely rearranged to make space for Holly, Chad, and Kidlet (he's usually only here a few days every few weeks, but I want him to feel at home when he is). Grafton's going out of town for 10 days, and possibly for a 3-month contract job after that, but he's packed up his studio all ready to shift to the back house, and then the front house will be quite thoroughly kid-proofed (we're not moving the studio just for that reason; we're reclaiming the room for a bedroom for Holly, and moving the studio to a space that has a sink, but it works out well in the kidproofing arena). Liv's working through her stuff in the back house, I already rearranged the front house attic last week and have been moving extra stuff in there. Chad and Holly have both been helping out with chores and errands, which has been a great help to the household overall.

My room with Chad and Kidlet has become the "kids' books and toys" space, and I've been sorting through everything by age range (it's taking a while; my collections of both are pretty ridiculous). And Kidlet totally dug the play mat/rug (cityscape) I found for him, so I'm psyched about that. He's getting the hang of that being "his space", and it's become a really nice retreat when folks want to watch something non-animated on the main TV, or Caleb's working from home and needs quiet. And it'll be even friendlier once we get these on the wall! I couldn't pass 'em up; octopuses AND turtles!

This was a Kidlet weekend, so we took the chance to give him a full tour of both houses, along with explanations about why he wasn't allowed in certain places ("this is someone's private space" or "this has things that aren't safe for you", basically). He's also become a championship strawberry-finder, although so far he just picks them and feeds them to whomever is about; we can't convince him to eat them himself yet. He was also really excited to pull up a big fat carrot from the front garden, although we had to explain to him why we didn't want him to pull up everything right then. *chuckle* And he's been getting really good with the critters, learning to be gentle, and learning to tell the dogs "No!" when they do something he doesn't like. We also had Holly's part-time dog Boris over this weekend, so it was a full house, and this morning he was sitting calmly on the floor in the living playing with his toys, surrounded by dogs and not the least bit bothered by it. One of the things we've been doing at the end of each weekend he's up here is talking about everything he did well that we're proud of, and it's a new tradition I'm really enjoying.

We've also come up with a bungee-based childproofing on the two gates out of the yard, which makes me happy. He isn't ever out of our sight, but I know he can work the regular gate latches, and that makes me nervous. Tight bungees up high should resolve that issue, without making things difficult for us when he isn't here. Otherwise, the triple-divided fenced yard we have is pretty ideal (the whole property is fenced, but there's also a fence between the front yard and the midyard, and one between midyard and backyard -- this has long been handy in dealing with the dogs, too).

I still need to find a better fix to the basement door, though. I realized today, when I had him close it after me so the dogs didn't follow me, that the lock for that door is on the outside -- it's a push-button handle. He was fiddling with it, and I tried to emphasize as strongly as possible that he should never, ever, ever lock that door. Poor Caleb will be a sad, sad Panda if he gets locked down there. I think I want to replace the handle altogether with a non-locking version, and then add a bolt-lock accessible from both sides, but high enough he can't reach it. That'd be much better than the current childproofing we have, which can only be easily locked from inside the basement. On the downside, it involves pulling down the door to drill the new holes. Maybe I'll just go with another door monkey instead; I'm already planning to order one for our bedroom door. I'm still replacing that lockable knob, though.

Still having a generally rough time with the med adjustments, and have been extra-exhausted and flaring the past week or so. Lots of staring blankly at things. Blarg. Not sure whether the new meds were a factor in the suck-fest that was Sunday, but I don't think so. Could've been one of the supplements, though, and I've taken everything down to bare necessities until my stomach settles back down. I was hellaciously ill all day, although Chad took really good care of me and fetched me yogurt once I could consider eating again.

The earlier part of the weekend was pretty good, though. I got Chad and Kidlet time almost all weekend, with breaks for birthday parties Kidlet needed to attend (these were excellent and much-needed napping opportunities for me). I also got to see some good friends for a few hours on Saturday while Chad and Kidlet were away, so that was nice! Saturday evening we went to Talespinner Children's Theatre to see The Tale of the Name of the Tree. Well worth seeing, runs one more week. About an hour long, lots of audience participation. Kidlet is only 3 1/2 and he had a great time, not overmuch need for 'sit still and quiet'

Saturday night I read Chad and Kidlet to sleep with the first thirty pages of Finn Family Moomintroll. That was lovely and cute. Also a nice reminder of just how much I love those books. Unfortunately, one of the med side-effects is screwy dreams, and I've been having nightmares galore. This weekend it was nightmares of aliens and unionbusting and attempted escape/evacuation at Kenyon. *shudder* I woke up at 6am Sunday with a migraine, took some meds, got horrendously sick, and was sick all day, basically. Not fun. On the positive side, Chad took really good care of me, Kidlet was patient and gentle with me, and Holly came by and kept me company later in the evening. Looks like she's going to be staying with us, at least for a while, which makes me very happy; she's awesome and we have a pretty ridiculous amount in common. I think I'm likely to spend Wednesday on some house re-arranging that's much overdue anyway. Grafton's away at the Rainbow Gathering, so the house is rather overly quiet at the moment. It's been nice to have more folks around.

Unfortunately, this is a hell-week at work; all the new physicians arrive, and no one seems to be able to find the login info they're given, ever! I've also got doctor appts on Tues and Thurs; the Thursday one is out in Independence, which is a pain to get to by bus, but Holly's generously offered to drive me. Yay! Hopefully this means I'll be able to get all my paperwork completed and filed with HR for the accomodation request, too.

I was trying to remember "One Tin Soldier" to sing to Kidlet last night, and that got me thinking of other peace and protest songs from that general era. This is me playing around with which of those I think are most likely to connect with kids (while also not getting them singing lyrics about sodomy and weed in school). In those cases where it's an option, I'm going with the Muppet versions. With other major songs recorded by multiple artists, I'm going with whichever version I feel like. So there. It depends a lot on what I find available on youtube. Unfortunately, I can find links but can't view vids from here. I'm hoping most of these vid links are working and reasonably close to what I think they are.

Mostly meant for Chad, but sharing it here just because.

Coven - One Tin Soldier (animated version)

Muppet Show - For What's it's Worth (Something's Happening Here)

Harry Belafonte/Muppets - Turn the World Around

Hair Soundtrack - Hair

Hair Soundtrack - I Got Life

Hair Soundtrack - What a Piece of Work is Man

Cat Stevens - If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out
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It is a GOOD day.

The first strawberries in our patch are almost ripe! We've been eating greens and asparagus from the garden for a few weeks now.

This morning we met the folks who are buying our neighbor Christina's house. We've been nervous about this; we're an odd little bunch of freaks, and we've been very grateful to have Christina and her general tolerance for all our weirdness. Worries alleviated! The couple buying the place seems very cool; they have gardening plans of their own, and chose SOL intentionally, and seem to understand the advantages and disadvantages to living here. (South of Lorain -- it's a negative local term to describe where we live in the Ohio City neighborhood, ie not in the gentrified bits) They'll likely be installing a privacy fence, since they have a very athletic dog with dog-aggression issues, but we're also making plans with them to arrange some safe socialization time where we can work on that with our dogs. Hopefully we can improve things over time like we were able to with Coco. As much as I'll miss Coco, and appreciate Christina being such a great neighbor since we moved in, these folks seem much more like "our people" and could potentially become friends on a level that didn't really develop between us and Christina (she's nice, but very reserved and pretty personally conservative). So. That. Yay!

Also in News of the Good, I got really hopeful news about a work issue I can't discuss. At the very least it means my workplace will continue to make me happy for longer (it's a bit of a reprieve on a loss I didn't want and still hope doesn't end up happening).

Tomorrow Chad and I are taking Kidlet to a Thomas the Tank Engine event. Sunday I'm scheduled for a 13 hour day, which will be some nice overtime.

Also, I've been playing with this jigsaw puzzle post for several days now. At this point I'm just going to link you to it and leave it open, although I'll continue fiddling with it.

And because it got long, a comment I made in a friend's post:
Honestly, of all the mammals smaller than cats, I like rats the best by far. They're smart, they're social, they're affectionate. I've had a number as pets over the years, including one who was so badass that she was allowed to free-range in an apartment with three cats and a dog (they were all scared of her).

Downside: They're short-lived (2-3 years). Males are STINKY. Females aren't very much, but can be prone to estrogenic tumors if they're not spayed (not something I've ever been able to afford for a pet rat). I'd recommend one female if you're going to be interacting with her very heavily, two if she'd otherwise be alone a lot. Rats are social creatures, and don't do all that well solo.

Finding and building toys and challenges for them can be a great deal of fun; I constantly found myself picking up random stuff and thinking "huh, I bet Nico'd have fun with that". There isn't that much out there that's meant for rats without special ordering; it's all either ferret or hamster supplies and a bit too big or too small, so I repurposed things however I liked.

Also, having a rat is almost as good as having a garbage disposal; they often got veggie cuttings, fruit cores (I never saw mine trying to eat the seeds, but some folks warn against apple cores for that reason), meat bones, and other random goodies and leftovers. Nico LOVED both V-8 and yogurt smoothies, too (she'd drink drops of them off my finger). It's still good to do some reading on proper nutrition for rats before getting one, but you don't have to have the kind of worries that come along even with dogs, since rats can eat basically everything we can and well beyond. Even most of the warnings I've seen about specific foods and rats are pretty hypothetical "this might be bad for them in some way" kind of warnings.

Also on the critter front, I was wondering the other day whether all tailless cats carry the manx trait, or if different strains of taillessness have appeared in the cat population over time. Wondering because we don't know how Spike came to his old owner, but when he was passed on to us he was described as bobtailed, but not as a manx. In doing some reading I came to two conclusions; there are many tailless or bobtailed cats that aren't Manxes. On the other hand Spike seems to have a number of other Manx traits, although that may just be confirmation bias on my own part (But, damn, does this look just like him!). Doesn't matter either way, but I found it interesting stuff. Here, learn:
BOBTAILED AND TAILLESS CATS

Random: I caught an episode of System Crash on Smithsonian Channel the other day. I really enjoyed it, and felt a huge sense of sympathy for the IT folks stuck in the middle of those messes. The episode I watched didn't seem overly fearmongering, but I have to say most of the text descriptions of the series sound that way. I'll have to check out some other eps and see if I continue to be pleased with it.

Also, I am apparently an old dog in the new tricks department. Months since I moved from QWERTY keyboard on my phone to one with touchscreen. I still hate touchscreen typing, still can't type anywhere near the speed and accuracy I could with my old keyboard. Blarg. At a regular desktop keyboard I'm close to 100 wpm, and I'd guess I was thumb-typing on the qwerty blackberry at about 20-30 wpm, so I have no patience at all with being this slow on the device I use most often. I think I'm too tactilely oriented; even setting the phone to vibe on keystrokes only improved things minimally. I want my keys back. That and the loss of my camera flash have been the biggest irritants with moving from my old Blackberry Curve to my current Optimus V. I normally wait 'til my devices are totally dead, obsolete, and hosed before considering replacement, but I'm really thinking about upgrading to an Optimus Slider sometime soon. It's got touchscreen (which I love for everything _but_ typing), a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and from something I found when I dug around for a while, it does apparently have an LED flash. And it has twice the internal memory of my current phone, which is another constant irritation (not everything can be moved to the SD card, so I tend to run out of space on the internal memory and have to remove apps on a semi-regular basis). Now I'm just trying to figure out if I want to learn how to root the new phone as soon as I get it; I considered doing it with my current phone in order to free up space by deleting bloatware, but by then I'd already installed and customized a bunch of stuff and didn't want the hassle.

Not sure when I'll be back to linketies or keeping up with folks reliably on either LJ or FB. Still putting all my energy into work and kidlet projects.

If you're looking for the kids book reviews, there are about 20 down below my random updatey sort of stuff.

Quick health update, mostly for my own reference: still running a bit hypomanic, a very obsessive/twitchy/focused sort of hypomania, not a social one (I tend to think of them as introvert manias and extravert manias, but as far as I know that's wildly unclinical). Aiming it at thrift stores and work projects, where it's unlikely to cause major damage. Feeling some of the results of that physically, and am a bit achier than I have been since the med switch, but not horribly so, and still so much more functional than before. Also, using the provigil during the day seems to be helping some at normalizing my sleep schedule, although it's still plenty wacky. I don't seem to be having as much trouble with insomnia as I often do in this phase, though, so that's good (it tends to trigger fibro flares). And I'm hoping some of the achiness is just the result of reconditioning myself to being a more active human being, now that I have the energy to do so more often.

Yesterday was pretty thoroughly awesome, though. First time in a while Chad and I have had an entire day just to spend together, so we slept late and got diner breakfast from across the street. After a lot of puttering around at home we went to Unique Thrift, where I raided the kids' book section mercilessly, getting a shopping cart full of books for just about $25. Then we headed to Tower City to see Cabin in the Woods, but before that we stopped back at the dollar store there. I'd stopped in on Friday because I'd decided my feet were cold and I wanted a pair of socks on my way to work. I ended up sucked into the kids' area for so long I almost missed my train. Dragged two giant bags in to work with me that day. Coloring books, math books, some DVDs, a couple of Zoobooks Zootles series for younger kids, about a dozen other books, a pile of 12-100 piece puzzles, some craft supplies... I also decided I wanted to pull together a bag of stuff to entertain kids who get stuck waiting down in the Preterm lobby on Saturdays. I called and checked in with the folks there Friday and they were good with the idea, so I'd had the Dollar store on my Saturday "to do" list because of that.

So, we stopped back in, especially to pick up more of the Zootles series. This time, three giant bags (one was glass jars for the herbs we grow in the garden, though). I picked up the rest of the Zootles books that they had for Kidlet, and extras to send to Preterm, and some crayons, more coloring books, and more puzzles. Oh, and I found glitter-infused construction paper I think Kidlet will dig!

Luckily it wasn't too crowded in the theatre, since our bags took up the next three seats beyond us. I really enjoyed Cabin in the Woods, although I actually have to give Tucker and Dale vs Evil higher marks overall. But as a Joss Whedon fan and a fan of shlocky horror and commentary thereon, I really dug it, and am looking forward to watching it again to catch more details.

When we got home Caleb and I made a quick grocery run, and Chad made steaks and salad for dinner. Mmmmm-tasty! Chad and I hadn't seen X-Men First Class yet, so we watched that while I sorted kid stuff into "For Preterm" "To go home with Chad for Kidlet" and "For Kidlet Here" sections. Between what I brought home and what I already had in boxes of my old toys I made up a pretty excellent bag for Preterm, a craft box for Kidlet to have here, a toy box to have here, and a puzzles and games box to have here. I'm working on clearing more bookshelf space here, because even with sending most of it back to his Dad's, the collection is expanding quickly (especially with books that are a bit old for him yet, or that are part of my larger fairy and folk tales collection). Also, since both Kidlet and I have LibraryThing accounts, I have to read each book, decide whose collection it's going in, and enter it into the right catalog. Exactly the kind of thing I love doing when I'm running a bit manic and my obsessive tendencies come to the fore! So I worked on that during X-Men, and then again this morning. I sent Chad home with the first 20 or so books, a few puzzles, and a neat architectural stamp set (I seem to have two for some reason). I'm still working my way through the rest of the new books, but several are especially nifty and worth mentioning, so here are the reviews so far:

( about 20 kids book reviews back here )

Much life goodness and some medical frustration this weekend. I've really been struggling with the fatigue side of things recently, even with the other major improvements. So I've been very psyched about getting started back on the Provigil. Chad and I ran by the pharmacy so I could pick that up, but they didn't have the generic in stock, and the difference in price (with insurance) was $224 vs $50. So I still don't have that quite yet. Unfortunately, that resulted in bailing on the party Saturday night all-together, then having exhausted and slightly manic insomnia all night Saturday ('til 9am) and then having to call off Sunday. Blarg. Back today though, and feeling a good bit better.

Kidlet weekend this time 'round was the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. They have a Mythic Creatures exhibit going on until July 1st, and we thought it'd coincide well with his current dragon obsession. We also discovered that the Natural History Museum has an outdoor wildlife exhibit that I never knew about; the door is off the main dinosaur hall, and when surrounded by giant bones it's rather easy to look past the mid-size sign pointing out the back door. The otters were the biggest hit, especially since they attracted all the other small children, and Kidlet is a friendly sort. He spent quite a while chasing back and forth with the kids of a four-child family as they tried to get the best otter view at the underwater window and the fence alternately. He and Chad also spent about an hour exploring the rest of the museum while I got immersed in the museum bookstore. Kidlet got a copy of The Egg, about a boy who hatches and raises a dragon. It's cute (more for the illustrations than the plot), and Kidlet loved it; insisted I read it to him three times in a row after dinner. I also got him a kaleidoscope, some rubber bugs, and two little rubber dragons, and picked myself up some books to read and evaluate as well (have reviews coming on those; several excellent ones!). We also listened to some more of the Kids Audible books in the car; I wasn't sure at first that he was paying much attention to them, but then he started chattering about princesses when a princess was mentioned, so apparently he was. We listened to The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Tales, and to A Matter-of-Fact Fairy Tale, iirc. I've also just started into Merlin and the Dragons. It's written by Jane Yolen and narrated by Kevin Kline, so I have high expectations. I'm enjoying it so far, but I'm only a chapter or so in, so can't really say much (except that I love listening to Kevin Kline as much as ever).

Other than the museum, we spent a while hanging out at the house; all three of us were totally wiped out by the time we got back from two or three hours of museum-wandering. I'd picked up construction paper, crayons, window markers, and sidewalk chalk while I was at Target on my abortive med run, so I brought out the sidewalk chalk. It was definitely a hit, and we spent a while out back drawing on our walkways. I'm looking forward to playing with the window markers next time he visits; one of the two packs I picked up is "crystal effects", and we have several windows that I'd like to make a bit more opaque anyway. I think it'll be a fun Household-and-Kidlet sort of project.

The books I picked up to evaluate/review:
The Egg -- As mentioned above, this is the one I picked out as "definitely for Kidlet today" (several of the others will likely head his direction after I've read them or he's aged a bit more, depending). I'm a sucker for engaging illustrations, and this is lovely in that regard; I didn't find the story entirely up to them, but it didn't seem to bother Kidlet in the least, so I'll accept his kidly expertise on that one. FYI, no particular diversity in this one, George and his dragon are the only real characters, and we only see one girl once when he's teaching the dragon to "distress damsels". Also, it appears there are at least two sequels, for those interested. I won't be running out to buy them, but I might pick them up at some point after a flip-through.

Stories of Dragons (Stories for Young Children) by Gillian Doherty -- I'm about two stories from the end of this collection. There are twelve stories in the collection from a good mix of cultural sources. There are a few strong female characters in a couple of the stories, but that's definitely not the collection's strength. Its strength is that it's a beautiful book, colorful and highly illustrated, without being a picture book. The stories are good to read to younger children, and there's plenty to look at while one does, so it strikes me as a good transition to more textual fare.

Berry Finder: A Guide to Native Plants with Fleshy Fruits by Dorcas S. Miller -- Because field guides are nifty and I'm always especially curious about berried plants, since they're easy to notice on a casual stroll.

Audiobook: A Matter-of-Fact Fairy Tale -- I'd already reviewed Stinky Cheese Man the other day, but I don't think I did this one yet. The entire text is free online, since it's old enough to be out of copyright. It's by A.A. Milne, the author of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories. I found it amusing, but not indispensable; it's no great shakes genderwise, and I (being the softy that I am) don't really dig on the giant actually dying of laughter when he did seem a mostly decent sort, all 'round. On the other hand, I think it was worth the whole $1.36 I paid for it for the '10 mile trip, 7-league boots, isosceles triangle' joke.

I picked both of these up for Kidlet's Exploring Kit as he gets a bit older; I was looking for a basic guide that wouldn't require buying each animal and plant family separately:
Peterson First Guide to Urban Wildlife by Sarah B. Landry -- I really like this one; it seems like a good basic guide for anyone who lives in a city or spends time in them. It starts at Viruses and Bacteria, and moves through all the kingdoms, including a brief mention at the end of some of the most common plant species in urban areas.
Peterson First Guide to Forests by John C. Kricher -- This seemed like a good companion, since it focuses more on plant life, and identifying different types of environments. It also seems like a good way to emphasize a shifting focus from individual species to entire ecosystems.

DNA is Here to Stay (Cells and Things) by Fran Balkwill -- The first book I grabbed when I walked into the museum bookstore. It's colorful, it's funny, it's got good character diversity, and it's accurate. It covers the chromosomes, the double helix, base pairs, unzipping and copying, ribosomes, transcription, and what proteins do. Frankly, I know plenty of adults who'd find it a good refresher. I'm really pleased with it, although I'm also curious to see the "competition" off-handedly mentioned in one of the reviews on Amazon. I haven't figured out yet which those are, but I did find two other interesting looking books while I was searching:
Instructions for Me
Much more than a simple listing of facts about DNA, this informative book combines playful rhymes, high-quality illustrations, and a humorous story with relatable, well-developed characters to guide children through a personal discovery of DNA and provide them with a motivation and process for scientific reasoning and questioning. Two young children search everywhere for the instructions used for making them—in the chest under the bed and a dark forest nook, on a mountain ledge high overhead and a shelf holding books—only to be led to the unbelievable discovery that the instructions are right there inside them in a jillion places all at once. Written to be accessible to young children, this book details key information on where DNA is housed and how it is used in our daily functions, all while laying a foundation for scientific inquiry and pursuit. -- From Amazon.

Gregor Mendel: The Friar Who Grew Peas
The only picture book available about the father of genetics and his pea plants!
How do mothers and fathers—whether they are apple trees, sheep, or humans—pass down traits to their children? This question fascinated Gregor Mendel throughout his life. Regarded as the world’s first geneticist, Mendel overcame poverty and obscurity to discover one of the fundamental aspects of genetic science: animals, plants, and people all inherit and pass down traits through the same process, following the same rules.
Living the slow-paced, contemplative life of a friar, Gregor Mendel was able to conceive and put into practice his great experiment: growing multiple generations of peas. From observing yellow peas, green peas, smooth peas, and wrinkled peas, Mendel crafted his theory of heredity—years before scientists had any notion of genes.
Children will be inspired by Gregor’s neverending search for knowledge, and his famous experiments are easy to understand as an introduction to genetics. -- from Amazon.

Frogs & Toads (2009) (Kikkerdril) -- This was the movie we watched last week that I wanted to review in more detail.
Six year old Max has an important mission: find some frogspawn for his older brother. Together with his neighbour girlfriend Jesse he makes an adventurous and touching journey along fields, farms, animals and a forest which eventually leads to his grandma's home. There he's welcomed by his grandma, her pancakes and the desired frogspawn . On his overwhelming journey through nature he's accompanied by cheerful childrens songs. -- The Amazon description.
My notes: the songs are cute, but don't translate to English all that well (the original is Dutch). Or maybe the dubbing actors just can't sing. Not a major flaw, honestly. They're still fun, especially the Animal Imitation song. I mostly love this movie for its gentleness and exploratory tone. I totally adore the grandmother, who does animal rehab (we get some cute close-ups) and encourages appreciation of frogs and other critters. She's also all kinds of chill about her grandson flouring her entire kitchen when he helps her with the pancakes. Slightly oddly she's also the source of several moments of fart-related humor *shrug*. The friendship between Max and Jesse is fun to see develop, and it's inclusive on a number of levels, including gender and race. I especially love the moment when Jesse says something about girls being beautiful and Max responds that "Boys are beautiful too". And I love that both of them are shown at various points peeing outdoors like it's no big thing (rare to see in regards to girls). Overall, the entire adventure is an adorably childs-eye view of logic and consequences, and all the interactions feel remarkably natural and real. Oh, and the end credits are cute too.

It's Not the Stork!: A Book About Girls, Boys, Babies, Bodies, Families and Friends by Robie H. Harris -- Meant for ages 4-up, this is approximately 99% AWESOME. Full review will be separate, since I think it'll get long. Once I've finished the review it's going home with Chad so he can talk it over with Kidlet's Mom and decide how they feel about adding it to his library.

Also, something else we watched this weekend, although not specifically kid-oriented:
There are now a lot of TED talks on Netflix streaming, and Grafton and I caught this one this weekend (it's in the Sex and Love collection). There are a few minor points toward the end where I disagreed with her, iirc, but overall I was pretty well impressed with this, and her ability to explain intersexuality coherently and clearly.
Alice Dreger: Is anatomy destiny?
Alice Dreger works with people at the edge of anatomy, such as conjoined twins and intersexed people. In her observation, it's often a fuzzy line between male and female, among other anatomical distinctions. Which brings up a huge question: Why do we let our anatomy determine our fate?

So Saturday ended up being lower-energy than we'd expected, but that was fine. We always assume plans are meant to be broken, especially when they revolve around a three-year-old's mood. We didn't make it to the Botanical Gardens, but we did get to Macs Backs and Big Fun. Kidlet went home with new bath toys and a whole box of used kids books! Really, Macs Backs ate most of our time, and that was because I got totally sucked into the used kids books section, plopped myself on the floor, and sorted through all of them. I believe the final count was 31 that went home with Kidlet (if it was generally in his age range looked decent and didn't piss me off I usually nabbed it), and 9 for me. His ranged from early counting and math books to classic children's stories to nifty "slightly damaged" pop-up books. I didn't catalog the books that went with him, but I did add my nine to my LibraryThing, so here are some quick notes:

Last Alchemist by Colin Thompson -- Totally bought it for the illustrations. They're amazing!

The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen -- 1985 edition with illustrations by Richard Hess. It was the illustrations that caught my eye; I certainly have other copies of the story.

How a House Happens by Jan Adkins -- I've been saying for years that we need to start educating kids about this sort of stuff from an earlier age! I'd love to see a book like this, in print and updated. Also, if you have any pointers toward kids books with similar themes (especially focusing on the trades as they relates to our day-to-day lives) I'd appreciate them.

Mad Professor: Concoct Extremely Weird Science Projects by Mark Frauenfelder -- My weakness for kids' science experiment books. I flipped through it and it looked good, so it's mine now!

The People Could Fly: American Black Folk Tales by Virginia Hamilton -- I've found this listed all over the place on recommendation lists. I was thrilled to find a copy for $5!

Monster Tales of Native Americans by Ian Thorne -- I have no idea yet whether this'll be an awesome little find or just full of old offensive crap. It seemed worth exploring, though.

Just For Fun: A Collection of Humorous Stories by Ann Durell -- Good collection of authors, looks like a decent read to have around. I particularly haven't read anything by Lloyd Alexander except the Prydain Chronicles, so that caught my eye.

Wu-lung & I-lung by M. LaVora Perry -- $2 for a folk tale I've never read? Sold!

Stinky Smelly Hold-Your-Nose Science by Kristine Petterson -- I believe this book was part of a kit, but the kit isn't necessary to do the experiments listed, from what I could see. Looks like fun!

OK, that's it for the print books. I also picked up a bunch of new stuff at Audible, since they gave me a ten dollar credit for some random reason, and I had a few credits built up anyway:

Have listened to:
Strega Nona by Tomie DePaulo --
The Tomten by Astrid Lindgren
East of the Sun, West of the Moon
All three of these are pictures books, and I think Strega Nona and The Tomten both suffered from the lack of accompanying illustrations. East of the Sun and West of the Moon is one of my favorite fairy tales. This was an acceptable version of it, but I would've liked to see the illustrations, and I found the music in this particular piece to be a bit overwhelming/frustrating. In all three cases, I think they'd be fine accompaniment to the actual books, but aren't remarkably strong on their own.

Have at least begun listening:
Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales -- The big winner so far. So much love! The introduction by Bishop Tutu is lovely, the initial musical piece is wonderful, and the readers, so far, have been fantastic. I'd listen to Alan Rickman read me the phone book, and he does a wonderful job with the first folktale. Kidlet seemed to really enjoy it too (we were listening in the car on the way to University Circle).
The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scieszka -- I only heard a few minutes of this so far, but it had us giggling. That's a good sign.

Haven't even begun to listen:
Five Children and It by E. Nesbit
Opening Up by Tristan Taormino
The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame
A Matter-of-Fact Fairy Tale by A.A. Milne
Merlin and the Dragons by Jane Yolen
Children of Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgren
The Griffon and the Minor Canon by Frank Stockton

(I should remember to do some reviews of the older stuff on my Audible account one of these days, too)

Incidentally, a lot of the short children's books are quite cheap on Audible. Unfortunately, no illustrations, but they do seem like they would be a good pairing with the actual book, for those who are interested in that combo (maybe for use on car trips and such).

Most of our day together was free-form play and a couple of movies; we watched Frogs and Toads together, and The Flight of Dragons. This time I made some notes about Frogs and Toads, and I'll be posting a full review soon. Now, it's time to go!