Hastiness

This morning in the frenzy of activity of dressing two children, making breakfast, brushing my teeth, throwing on some semi-clean clothes, finding and attaching shoes that fit, bundling up in winter coats and taking out the garbage, I believe I actually forgot to comb my hair.

I first realized my hair was possibly not combed an hour after I left my house when I sat down at the library with two children in tow and touched my head. It felt suspiciously messy. I tried thinking back to my post shower activities this morning, and could not recall actually picking up a comb and using it. In response, I tried to discreetly run my hands through my hair (thank goodness its thin, fine and there isn't much of it) before storyhour so that I didn't look more like a ragmuffin stay at home mom than usual. I'm not so sure I succeeded. One mom with perfect hair looked at me a bit strangely. I've long given up trying to look like I actually took time to get ready and go somewhere, because I don't. I do generally try to accomplish the basic regimine of personal hygene activities: brushing teeth, washing face, clean underwear, a daily shower, prior to leaving my house. Usually combing my hair is on the list.

Side Mirrors

I am renowned for hitting things with cars. Despite the fact that I managed to run into my parents' garage with their car twice in one week while I was in high school, scrape a large brick wall while in college and collide with a deer without really realizing it, I have yet to have any major accidents with my car. Or any car. Although I seem to have difficulty avoiding certain stationary objects at slow speeds, I really am an exceptionally cautious (yet admittedly bad) driver. In all of my collisions, I have been driving at speeds under 5 miles per hour, with the exception of the deer, and that animal didn't really do any damage except to tear off the side mirror on my little red car. When moving at such a slow speed a collision hardy feels like a collision. I am always surprised when there is damage . . . it just feels like a minor scrape.

My latest trial involves backing out of our garage, down the driveway (which becomes narrower in the winter because we have to shovel and pile up the snow) and onto the street. I am forever having difficulty. First of all, some blithering idiot built the garage at a slant from the driveway. You must back out of the garage, curve slightly and then travel the length of the house, all on a ridilously narrow little driveway. If I manage not to back up into the middle of house, I find myself nearly stuck in a snowbank. If I avoid the snow bank, I'm scrapping the house with the side mirror. Scrapping the house with the side mirror makes my husband sweat. He gets overly anxious. Especially when he's watching out the living room window, and there I am in the car, inches from the window, smiling a sweet smile at him while backing up. He waves frantically from the window for me to use the brakes. But I know that scraping the house with the side mirror does little damage. I've been doing it all winter, and there are no scars on the house or the side mirror, at least that I've noticed. If I do actually manage to make it past the house, I seem to have a run in with the garbage can near the street. I have knocked it over several times, initiating a splurge of trash that splays across the street. I then have to stop the car, pick up all the trash, put it back in the trash can and explain to my daughter that backing up is sometimes hard for mommies. At least this mommy. This mommy is thankful whenever it snows so that the tracks of her car curving and swerving down the driveway, sometimes into the neighbor's driveway are safely covered before anyone can ask questions.

A Repertoire Devoid of Rollercoasters

I do not think I will be riding any more roller coasters. For the rest of my life. I haven't ridden a rollercoaster for 15 years. The last time I did ride a roller coaster it was a magnificent, thrilling experience. I have been looking forward to riding another rollercoaster ever since a church youth group trip to a large amusement park at age 13. Things have not worked out, however, and I now fear I am too old. This is not to say that I am not adventuresome enough to want to ride a rollercoaster. The factor that convinced me that roller coasters are probably not going to be part of my middle aged repertoire of activities was my experience driving home from Iowa last weekend with my husband.

My husband does not deaccelerate for curves. The southern section of Wisconsin is very curvy. To complicate matters, my husband took a wrong turn, which put us on the wrong road. The wrong road was also an extra curvy road. It lasted an hour. I became car sick. Although I avoided vomiting, the beautiful scenery was lost on me. I spent that section of our journey gripping the door handle so hard my fingers were white. My face, I am sure, was an interesting collage of various shades of green. If a simple curvy road can do this to me, a girl who loved riding the biggest, scariest rides at the fair, I fear the prospect of amusement park days have vanished. (Especially since I will be older yet by the time we can afford to actually go to an amusment park). I used to relish going to the county fair and courting danger upside down, counting how many times my cousin threw up in one day (he didn't have a stable stomach to start with, and also lacked the common sense not to eat mini fried donuts and cotton candy before embarking on vigorous rides). Now, I lament, the simple ferris wheel is probably more my style. Boring.

Maybe it's age. Maybe childbirth induces some kind of weird chemical that degrades your capacity for extraneous movment. Maybe I'm just getting old. I always wondered why my dad, a big, strong and brave guy got sick on the simple Octopus ride.

Most Fun Occupation Ever

This morning I began teaching free preschool music and movement classes in my basement. It is my favorite thing to do ever. Before moving to Wisconsin, I taught several sections of Kindermusik, but I have never enjoyed the business side of that venture. I didn't like finding people who wanted to come to class, and I hated charging them money, even though I only charged the mandatory supply fees from the Kindermusik corporation. When we moved to Wisconsin, I had to wait to begin teaching because first of all I was pregnant, and second of all we had to redo part of our basement so I would have a place to teach. Now the basement is finished. I am no longer pregnant, so a few weeks ago I began contemplating preschool music. My daughter loves going. I love teaching it. I didn't want to deal with charging money, so I decided to write my own curriculum and offer free classes for 8-10 kids. Viola!!!! I had 8 students willing to come for free in no time flat.

The theme of my first curriculum, which lasts 10 weeks, is Whimsical Adventures, where we explore fairy tales and nursery rhymes musically. We play instruments, sing, dance, learn a few ASL signs, and encounter about the importance of reading and writing when we draw lists and maps and plans in Nursery Rhyme and Fairy Tale Land.

This morning at 10:00 a.m. my little troop of preschoolers arrived, and we met in my basement, where we zoomed in fast cars, airplanes, buses, and trains to nursery rhyme land. We visited Mary Mary Quite Contrary's garden where we planted flowers, pretended to be bugs and rodents crawling around on the ground and flying the sky. We learned spider songs and rhymes, and danced a spider dance. We made mouse sounds on a drum as we sang Hickory Dickory Dock, played rhythm sticks, and had a tea party with Polly as we circled around her and her teapot with our parachute. I rolled around, jumped and danced so much I nearly got overheated. I can't wait for the next couple of weeks when we visit Jack and Jill, fly like bumblebees, create our own giants, build our own castles out of blocks, learn about glissandos and bass clarinets, and visit princesses, frogs, and runaway gingerbread cookies.

I love preschooler's exuberance with music, their curiosity and their WONDERFUL imaginations. Pretending is such a lost art form for adults.

Expressions by Sarah: Monster Trauma

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Originally uploaded by super rachel zana.

Expressions by Sarah: Sheer Boredom

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Originally uploaded by super rachel zana.

Expressions by Sarah: Gleeful Attention

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Originally uploaded by super rachel zana.

Expressions by Sarah: Sweet Smile

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Originally uploaded by super rachel zana.

Us

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Originally uploaded by super rachel zana.

It is quite rare that I would actually post a picture of myself, but this afternoon I took this picture of Sarah and I using my tripod and remote shutter control, and I really liked it. Her hair is so crazy sometimes! It scupts itself all day long into various formations of frizz. There are no two strands the same length I am certain. She is slow to get her hair and slow to grow her hair . . . it has never been cut, not even one strand. I have two tactics of dealing with her hair right now when we go into public. One is to wind a small rubber band twenty times around a little wisp of hair in the back to make a ponytail. The other is to mist water all over her head and scrunch up her hair with my fingers. Somtimes it dries kind of curly, which is much more asethic than frizz.

Expressions by Noah: Crying

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Originally uploaded by super rachel zana.

Expressions by Noah: Amost Crying

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Originally uploaded by super rachel zana.

Expressions by Noah: Serious

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Originally uploaded by super rachel zana.

Expressions by Noah: Almost Smiling

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Originally uploaded by super rachel zana.

Bad Reputation

Spinach has a bad reputation. It might be from old Popeye cartons. I have recently discovered this leafy vegetable. Where has it been hiding? I really love it! I much prefer it to lettuce. For the past three weeks I have eaten at least one large spinach salad with mozarella cheese daily. My husband likes it too. Even Sarah eats it! We don't even need dressing. It is delicious raw. I must admit that on one earlier occasion I tried cooked spinach. It was hidden in a lasagna-type dish with white sauce. I nearly gagged. Cooked spinach has the most repulsive slimy texture. I vowed to never eat the vegetable again. Now I feel sorry that more people do not respect the amazing qualities of raw spinach. They, like myself, I am sure, have simply never been exposed to a good spinach and mozarella cheese salad.