Lemony Webbles

Go Georgia!

Georgia's privileged to live in a country based on religious freedom. Now she knows it. I told her she could get the word out that not everyone has that freedom by making a movie and putting it on YouTube. She jumped at the chance.

Lil' settlers

I thought it was news when Billy taught Georgia and Maya how to play Settlers of Catan:

But tonight he's got Georgia playing Settlers with the Cities and Knights expansion while he makes things out of Legos with Maya on the side. Go Billy. This is how we play at the Bakery, baby!

I'm so proud of Billy for finding ways to bond with the girls that he really enjoys. It makes my heart happy.

Teresa activities

We've been talkng about visiting Allerton Park for a week now and never seeming to get there when Teresa decides that today is the day and I am going to take her even if nobody else wants to go. The rest of the family are homebodies today so it's just the two of us. I feel a little nervous, never having taken just Teresa on a day trip before. Is that true? Surely we've been somewhere together. Well, if we have, I'm not remembering it right now. I'm mostly nervous because I'm not sure that the picture in her head of "Allerton" is the place we're going to end up after half an hour in the car. How she will react when she realizes this? My fears are validated when we arrive at this beautiful mansion and formal gardens surrounded by acres of wildflower-carpeted forest and she cries and cries that this is NOT Allerton. I needn't have worried too much, though. Her moderate, patient temperment prevails and she is happy after a look around and a special purchase of fruit snacks. We proceed to have a wonderful time together: hiding in the shrubbery, following the fish maze round and round, running through the daffodil garden, looking for the wildflowers we know the names of, throwing pine cones in the pond, her 'reading' the plaque to me that tells about the aquifers feeding the pond, making up stories about the bird pictures in the nature center -- in general having a great time. She falls asleep on the ride home and I think about what a big preschooler she's become. Fiercely independant, able to handle a little adventure, and ever trying to make people laugh.

Later this evening, we are on our way all together to Target to get the girls a few summer clothes and are joking about all the things we NEED from Target, like a third waffle iron and more floppy, useless tongs. Teresa pipes right up with- "We need a supper machine!" That gets a good laugh, so she tries another one: "We need a lunch dryer!" We laugh even harder so she keeps trying, with varying success, for absurdity- "We need dinner meat!" "We need cake lotion!" and on and on until we get in the store. It's a great mood to start a shopping trip in, and we get in, get done, and get out in about twenty-five minutes. Definitely a record.

close-ups

It's not really fair to talk about flowers and children and not show pictures of flowers and children, so here's what I've been drinking in...

for you

red

yellow

violet

green

pink

peach

magenta

dark checks- this is our first frittalaria. We've been intrigued with this flower for nine years because of the checkerboard pattern on the petals and have finally managed to grow one. Hooray!

first successful self-made ponytails

ready..set..

pop! plum blossoms!

post-hike nap

feelin' groovy

We took a family hike today along the Vermilion River in my continuing attempts to train life-long hiking buddies. The girls walked over a mile with only some complaining and Teresa up on Billy's shoulders part of the time. I had a bunch of campfire songs ready to sing to them when they got grouchy on the uphill parts. They weren't too into the singing but they didn't object as much as they used to, I think because they were just happy that I was in such a good mood. I was so glad to be all together among the spring wildflowers just starting to peep out that I sang Feelin' Groovy to myself and really meant it. I felt like I was enjoying myself as much as I possibly could, giddy with sunshine and new growth that seems like such a miracle after the dead-boring winter. Here's a very partial list of what was growing and alive that I know the names of: flowers- may apple, trout lily, spring beauty, cut leaf tooth wort (seriously, I'm not making that up), bluebells and violets; animals- chipmunks, geese and their goslings (so cute!), swans, spring peepers, big bluegill and lots of little minnows. I just don't want to miss anything this spring, I want to see it all happen. Tadpoles becoming frogs, plum blossoms bursting open, tiny rose leaves poking out all dark red. I want to take it all in and celebrate with this flower party that's getting started all around me.

book report of the spirit

"You see all round you proofs of the inadequacy of material things- how joy, comfort, peace and consolation are not to be found in the transitory things of the world. Is it not then foolishness to refuse to seek these treasures where they may be found? The doors of the spiritual Kingdom are open to all, and without is absolute darkness." -- Abdul-Baha

I read this quote from the Baha'i writings a few weeks ago and what it said was exactly what I needed to hear that day. So I copied it down and stuck it in my pocket and tried to think of something to connect it to so I could write about it, but I was all full of spring flowers and nothing seemed to fit.

I happened upon it again today and in the intervening weeks I happened to read a book that takes this quote and makes a whole novel about it. Whole worlds, really. It's science fiction. The cover claims it to be "The classic novel of science fiction". What do you think it is? I made Billy guess. Give up? It's Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossesed (1974), and knowing almost nothing about science fiction, I can't argue whether or not it's actually 'the classic novel of science fiction', but it was pretty good. It's about an anarchist colony on a moon, orbiting around a very materialistic, capitalist (earth-like) planet and what happens when the anarchists have been around long enough that they start stiffening up with too much bureaucracy and ostracize our hero, the physicist with ideas too far out even for the anarchists. He rebels and visits the materialistic planet to be able to talk with his intellectual equals there, with much opposition from his society. When he's there, though, he's completely trapped by the power-grabbing and disgusted by the desire-based culture and can't get any work done there either. In the end... wait, I should let you read it. But here's a quote from near the end that reflects, to a small degree, the ideas in the above quote. Our hero is talking to a room full of party guests about where he comes from.

"No. It is not wonderful. It is an ugly world. Not like this one. Annares is all dusty and dry hills. All meager, all dry. And the people aren't beautiful. They have big hands and feet, like me, and the waiter there. But not big bellies. They get very dirty, and take baths together, nobody here does that. The towns are very small and dull, they are dreary. No palaces. Life is dull, and hard work. You can't always have what you want, or even what you need, because there isn't enough. You Urrasti have enough. Enough air, enough rain, grass, oceans, food, music, buildings, factories, machines, books, clothes, history. You are rich, you own. We are poor, we lack. You have, we do not have. Everything is beautiful here. Only not the faces. On Annares nothing is beautiful, nothing but the faces. The other faces, the men and women. We have nothing but that, nothing but each other. Here you see the jewels, there you see the eyes. And in the eyes you see the splendor, the splendor of the human spirit. Because our men and women are free—possessing nothing, they are free. And you, the possessors, are possessed. You are all in jail. Each alone, solitary, with a heap of what he owns. You live in prison, die in prison. It is all I can see in your eyes—the wall, the wall!"

Yeah, this guy's intense. I love how he talks about the faces and eyes of the people on his world. Pure spirit being its sole attraction. This kind of book is the reason I like sociology so much. Create a fake world any way you like so that you can see what it might be like if this or that aspect were changed from how it is in the here and now. It gives me some perpective, makes me stand back and see everything from a great distance. And I find that very refreshing because it gives me hope that my world doesn't always have to be the way it is now and look how easy it is to imagine it another way. And imagining it different is the first step to making it different. I guess it does fit in with spring flowers after all. Hope, change, the spirit growing toward the light, mm mm mm.

This little bit is going to grow up into a big, purple lilac in a few weeks.

The sun is back, and here's the welcome committee, wearing their sun colors.

last week was a full week

Last week, in pictures: Angeline and Kia get married, above, so lovingly. The wedding is Beautiful! Below, Billy has a cousin-ful birthday party, complete with birthday fruit salad and a box of painted rocks from Teresa.

Last week, not in pictures:
Maya, Teresa, and me spent the week at Nana's house while Georgia was at Nature's Clasroom and hung out with Liam and Liza (Yay!) and saw our sweet Evanston friends. We also had a great time with Layli and Lucy, helping each other with all that motherhood requires.

Georgia had a great time at Nature's Classroom, by the way. She came home triumphant, happy, and peaceful. Way to go, Montessori! I'm so relieved.