Die Babys

I'll certainly miss working at Sunnyside next semester. While I've never really been good at devoting five hours of a day to childcare (it's too much and not enough at the same time. I do best when I can focus my energy on one thing or several things in one day, without making any abrupt shifts. A full day or like two hours would have been better.), working with adorable children has always been great. Today I worked from 8 to 4:30 with the 4 to 5 year olds, the same age group I was with when I started last spring. I've been with slightly younger kids this past semester, and it's amazing what a difference a few years can make. I'd forgotten how articulate the 4 and 5-year-olds are, and how freaking energetic. They reminded me of the kittens, only the kittens don't shout "Come and get me, Monster!!!!!" (I earned that nickname in the context of a game of chase, I'm not some kind of tormentor.) They had so much energy, and I had a great time putting my claws up a la Lady Gaga and leering. They weren't great at tag; I was willing to throw in the towel after they made the snow home base, but they still wanted it so I still delivered. The game lasted hours. One kid, when saying goodbye at noon, actually called after me, "Goodbye, Monster!"

Because I was working all day, I was given a break of indeterminate duration during which to eat lunch. Nobody specified how much time I actually had, but I'm not much of a rebel, so I cantered to King/Scales and ate at turbo speed. The highlight of my lunch was the massive sour dill pickles that were provided with cheeseburgers. Seriously, these pickles were big enough to upstage the entree, but they were just in a bowl! Like they were something pedestrian! If my friends had been with me, I would have opened my mouth really wide with enthusiasm and pointed at the pickles, unable to articulate my excitement, but I was eating alone so I had to keep it together. I spent my lunch happily thinking of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and mulling over the many ethnic slurs I learned from said novel.

If the kids' energetic performance had in any way led me to believe that they would be exhausted after lunch and ready to nap, I was wildly mistaken. I've been spoiled by toddlers who actually sleep during naptime. These kids spent two hours whispering and reading every book on the bookshelf. What's worse, the teachers weren't even around for most of it, and at one point the other assistant left to make snack, so I had to contend with twelve raucous four-year-olds all by myself. Maybe four of them were actually asleep. They were my favorites. Quiet hours are from 1 to 3 in the afternoon, and all the kids in the place are asleep, or they should be. Since the youngest kids are literal babies, quiet is really pretty important, and I had to keep scolding these kids for talking too loudly (of course young children aren't great at modulation, so this was a common problem). The only redeeming aspect of this exasperating situation was the kids who were getting increasingly pissed off when I told them I couldn't read out loud, because it was quiet time.  It was kind of funny actually; one kid tore at his disheveled curls but couldn't say anything because, after all, I had a point. It's rare that I'm in that position (being 100% in the right and there's nothing you can do about it), and it's a testament to my pathetic position in life that I sort of relished the experience. That's right, bub. It is quiet rest time.

Little kids are super cute, and they really do say the damnedest things, but they aren't big readers. The only time I've read to one of the younger kids, it turned out to be a book called Goodbye, Papa about kids dealing with a parent's death. I was really not expecting this, so when the kid who wanted to hear the story seriously didn't get it, I was not prepared for her questions. "Where's the dad, Lily?" "Oh, um...he's not around any more. Do you need to wash your hands? Let's go do that." But slightly older kids will park you at the couch and have you read book after book, without question the best part of the gig. And the cherry on top is that Sunnyside has excellent taste in books. I've read books by William Steig (now there's a good potential HoF nominee), Frances books, Frog and Toad, and just today, Lyle, Lyle Crocodile. That finished off a good day. The kids were finally worn out and, like Jinx and 13, they cuddled up to me and handed me one book after another, until it was time for me to leave.

Hurriposting

Top 5 Recipes: A Wish List (as in, recipes I want to make):

1. Miso Soup
2. Julia Child's Soupe a l'Oignion
3. Baguette (for real this time)
4. Lemon curd. (It's just such a pleasurable experience.)
5. Any kind of gumbo so I can practice making a roux

But as for things I can't stop thinking about eating:

1. Brutti ma Buoni, these amazing Italian cookies my Aunt Grace makes whose name translates to "ugly but good." Italians, you kill it on a regular basis. 
2. Chicken with 40 cloves of garlic as described by Smitten Kitchen

I'm not even hungry, I just keep thinking about roasted chicken, garlic, and those cookies.

So. Not last post but the post before, I told you that there's a book I loved as a child but would not let my own children go near. This statement is not entirely accurate. When I was but a lass, I read these books obsessively (yeah, I know, that doesn't narrow it down. I have an obsessive personality; sue me.) but did not realize, no matter how many times my family told me, that these books were seriously creepy, to the point where I'd be uncomfortable with my child reading them. This is a universe where no one ever dies...even if they've been chopped into tiny pieces with a cleaver or eaten by a dragon. I'm talking about....

I took great pride in having read all fourteen in the series, plus Sea Fairies and The Life and Times of Santa Claus to boot. I didn't have any classmates who had read that many....or any of them, actually. My parents had read them all....I think, at some point, but years and years ago, so I couldn't talk to anybody about these crazy-ass books that I loved so much. 

I'm conflicted about the Oz books because I was not in a great emotional place when I became obsessed with them. When I was nine, I didn't have any friends and my teacher was the first adult I had ever met who did not like me. Do you remember meeting your first adult who didn't like you, or at least didn't like you as much as you were used to being liked? I was used to people loving me, or at least putting up with my weirdness, but Mrs. Lonergan (name burned into my brain via shame and humiliation) did not tolerate a child as silly as I was, and I did not know how to respond to this treatment. So for a full year, I retreated into books (and as I later realized, dance), because I literally did not have anywhere else to go. I was in an emotional state where I didn't see how messed up the Oz books were. I just saw that they were pretty and shiny and the mean guys were punished. 

Apart from the super-creepy "you never die, no matter how hard you try or how much you're suffering" thing that Baum states at least once in every book, the world is pretty awesome! There's a village made of people who are puzzles, there are miniature pigs who do tricks, everyone's pretty much nice all the time, and there's basically no poverty. My favorite of the series has always been The Road to Oz, because it has the most interesting and unusual characters. For example: 

Johnny Doo it, capable of solving any problem ever.

The Shaggy Man, who's basically a hobo, only he possesses the Love Magnet, so everyone loves him and does whatever he wants. He's friends with Johnny Doo it for this reason. He's just irresistible. 

And of course, Polychrome, daughter of the rainbow, who eats things like dew-drops and mist-cakes and whines a lot. But she's hot, so she can get away with it. 

It's a magical world....but still super weird. What do you think? Are the Oz books too creepy to let your kids read? I doubt I could handle reading them to my children. 

That charming ingenious pig

Last night, I went to a class screening of Bamboozled that was so upsetting I actually felt sick to my stomach. Without hyperbole, that movie was the most upsetting thing I have ever seen in my life. So when I left to catch the bus back home (why yes, this was a night screening at Hampshire), I felt the need to hear a loved one's voice. I called Emily, which was nice. I really enjoy talking to my family, for several reasons. Firstly, they are my family and I love them and like to know what's happening in their lives. Secondly, we all have very similar senses of humor, so they actually get my jokes. What a welcome change. Thirdly, we tend to share very definitive opinions on controversial topics. Whenever I learn that a friend has a very strong opinion on, say......homeopathy, I usually just change the subject, because homeopathy makes me very irritated and the fact that there are people who think it really works is so exasperating that I'm prone to violent outbursts of the kind that end friendships. So when I call my sisters and the talk turns to brownies, homeschooling, or manners, I don't have to censor myself and can freely say that people who frost brownies deserve to be shot. It's very soothing.

But one of the best things about talking to my family is talking to them about books, especially children's books. Obviously, my immediate family all read the same books when we were growing up; my parents gave us their favorites and they naturally read what we read throughout our childhoods. From age seven or eight till far older than strictly appropriate, my favorite books were the Freddy the Pig books by Walter R. Brooks.

Freddy is a talking pig who lives on a farm in Central New York. He writes poetry, is a detective, plays football, and writes a newspaper....among other things. Freddy does all kinds of wonderful and interesting things, and just because the books are about talking animals (all the other animals in the area can talk, not just the ones on that farm and not just Freddy), does not make them cutesy. Freddy gets involved with starting a republic on the farm, for one, and there's a book about him handling a dictator rat, although that's one I've never read. Some of the books were better than others, but even the worst was pretty good. They also taught me a lot of interesting things, such as what a mustache cup is, a lot of interesting proverbs, and words like "peculiar" and "sophisticated" and "phaeton."

The Freddy books were remarkable in that the supporting cast was every bit as delightful as the main character. Some favorites include: Jinx the black cat who yowled outside people houses in the middle of the night to collect scrap metal for the war effort; Mrs. Wiggins the cow who, while not very intelligent, is full of common sense; Mr. Boomshmidt the circus owner who has animals putting up tents, taking tickets, and a lion for a yes-man. I love them all.

The Freddy books are absolutely books I will read my future kids. Coming up soon: the series of children books that I adored but will not let my kids touch with a ten-foot pole.