Maria, Maria

Maria from Sesame Street is retiring.

I feel very old.

While we were driving to school yesterday, NPR was interviewing Maria, er, Sonia Manzano, about her autobiography and her retirement.  I was sniffling. My younger two kids were trying to place her.

Sesame Street cast, circa 1970s. Courtesy Wikimedia.

That may sum up Sesame Workshop's problem in a nutshell there. My children watched on-demand; Sesame Street was appointment PBS TV for me.

One thing Manzano said in her interview struck a chord with me.

There was a moment when Stevie Wonder came on to Sesame Street and he did "Very Superstitious." ... The whole studio rocked out and it was great because, white people, black people, young people, old people — everybody was on the same page for that two minutes that he sang and that really stands out. ...

It was a moment of clarity, I think that you know, we started this show, we thought we were going to end racism, we were going to close the education gap. ... We had big dreams! And moments like Stevie being on the show gave us a glimpse of the way things could be.

To the Sesame Workshop crew: Mission Accomplished.

You gave a white girl from rural Missouri who was immersed in German Catholic culture a view into another world. A world with more races and colors and complications than I could imagine. You opened up my mind to more than the ABCs and the power of animation to teach math.

You opened my mind (at age 4) to a world beyond my own. You showed me who else was out there. What potential might exist beyond my rural county. You prepared me for the world that I would inhabit, first in college, then in my years beyond. I was better able to cope with my future surroundings in New York, in Iowa, in Chicago, back in Missouri and in Texas, all because of you.

Job well done.

Foodie Mom

This means that while on one side of the kitchen, you are making this: 

On the other side of the kitchen, you are using this:

That, my friends, is one reason I need a bigger kitchen.

My warped kids

We just went from this:

To this:

God bless Netflix and my strange children.

The Five-minute Fix

Quick:  How many little, annoying things around your house could be fixed in five minutes?

Life intrudes. It piles up. The disaster of piles of stuff abounds.

Sadly, this is so true around here, I would like to cry.
Creators Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott have nailed it. 

In our house, too many to count. I have piles of toys that should be packed away. They are already sorted. Ready for storage (if we had decent storage).

Dishes that are in the drying rack that could be put away.

Ditto for the clean load of laundry in the dryer.

So often, I look at the piles of stuff to do and I can't bear it. I rant, I shout. I force the kids to do something.

Five minutes. Like three rounds of commercials. How hard can it be?

This weekend, I decided I was tackling the five-minute jobs. Oscillating fan that rattled and just needed to be tightened = fixed. Toilets beyond gross = clean. Dishes and laundry = dealt with.

I'm fixing the broken strap on my sundress next. Five-minute repair job, soon to be done.

This is going to become a regular weekend thing. I'm bringing the kids in next . . . two songs, upstairs, we clean up. If anything, at least when Grandma and Grandpa arrive, hopefully it won't be a disaster up there.

Premise of Perfection

Our oldest is much older than her younger siblings. For as long as they can remember, she's been the grown-up one. The perfect one. The one who does no wrong. She's put on some pedestal by them.

Tonight, my husband told the younger two the story of Uh-You.

For those who do not recall, C1 had speech issues as a child.

(Still does. Three years of speech therapy. Sigh. Try and get her to say synonym sometime. It is hilarious, trust me.)

When she was 3, my loving spouse was trying to teach her how to say the 23rd letter of the alphabet, which she insisted was pronounced "uh-you."

Scene: Casa Matthews, 1999, West Des Moines, IA. Kitchen.

Spouse: Double.

C1: Double.


Spouse: Double.

C1: Double.


Spouse: Double.

C1: Double.


Spouse: U

C1: U


Spouse: U

C1: U



Spouse: Double-U.

C1, serious look on face, very sincerely: Uh-you.

This story cracked the younger two up.

It is funny. Truly. Even C1 sees the humor in it. But it also proved to them that at least once in their lives, C1 was fallible. She wasn't always perfect. She wasn't always the best. And for today, for C3, she needed that most of all.

It is fascinating

to watch your child re-read one of your favorite books.

C1 has delved into Farhenheit 451 for pre-AP 10th grade English. She lost my copy (grrr) while on vacation at Camp Grandma -- I know it will turn up, but still -- so I bought her a copy tonight.

She's been completely sucked in by the story.

I love this because

1) This is one of my favorite books. I read it on my own in the summer between 7th and 8th grades.

2) C1 is not a reader. She is not a fan of books like this. So when I do get her to read one, I feel vindicated as a parent. She loved George Orwell's 1984. I felt a victory when she admitted she liked that book. She references Napoleon and Snowball to this day. I have an awesome kid, and because of her C2 wants to read it, but I've told him to wait a bit.

Speaking of C2, he's my reader. He is my Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Harry Potter kid. We have had to hold him back on HP, because C2 has a seriously overactive imagination. He isn't capable of reading past 4. Not yet. I enjoy sleeping at night and SPOILER WARNING . . . . Cedric's dying gives me nightmares to the point that I won't watch the movie. C2 isn't there yet. He'll be up all night if we let him watch it.

C3 is a tougher nut to crack.

Of all our kids, she has taken the longest to learn how to read. She seems to want to deny her smarts, which we have tried to push against, but not to the point that she fights back.

We have, through Mrs. B, her awesome, amazing kindergarten teacher, to read the Bob books. If you have a starting reader who isn't a self-starter, these are AWESOME. She's gained confidence. As she gains confidence, I see her gaining interest in reading. I suspect we'll be trying to hold her back soon. She's not up to Harry Potter, but maybe Ramona and the Little House books.

After all, I have yet to win anyone over on those yet. :-)

I have to admit, though, it is awesome to see the books that you love gain new life through your children. It really is like the Fireman in Farenheit 451: Books live through people. You can burn the pages, but you can't contain the ideas within. Ever.

It is so hot . . .

How hot is it?

So hot that it is like an oven when I walk to my car. South Texas has not had rain in months, and it is desert dry here.

Our trees are dying. I try to water them every other day by hand, but it isn't enough. We are on strict water restrictions, so we are limited in when we can water.

It is time for Camp Grandma again. We just chatted with the kids on Skype, and they were thrilled that it was raining outside. In St. Louis. Sigh.

I would just love for a hurricane about now.

Train wreck

Ever have one of those days where everything piles up, from meetings to appointments to projects to kid pick ups to fundraisers?

Then one little thing comes in and blindsides you?

Then everything leaves the rails in a cataclysmic disaster that could best be illustrated by one of those multi-car train pile ups.

Like this:



Yeah, this has been one of those days.

Me v. MommyMe

It was the episode of "Parenthood" last week that really hit me. The mom was trying to explain something to the teen daughter, trying to prove that her voice had value. The teen was, of course, blowing her off.

It took the dad taking the teen daughter to the park her mom helped create during her years on city staff to prove that mom not only had worth, mom did some pretty cool things pre-kids.

That's me. That's every one of my friends.

It's like we live two lives, constantly in tension. There's the Us-Who-Do-Career-Things. We do damn cool work. I've put together textbooks, edited and written stuff that city planning students are apparently forced to read as coursework. I've edited websites and alumni magazines.

Heck, I just presented at a major conference last week as an expert in a session. Scary, I know. But true.

My kids are oblivious. They only know me as Mom, washer of clothes, finder of stuff, cooker of food.

I have tried to show my eldest that I do cool things. Meh. She won't even read my books.

It isn't just Mommies who get this treatment, apparently. My husband presented at a different session. We were gone four days. We came back, the kids shrugged, and when we mentioned at dinner how our presentations went, the eldest looked at us funny and said, "You presented?"

Perhaps that is how it should be.

I never knew, until he was too old to care, that my crotchety grandfather was apparently well-known enough to win multiple awards for corn production, that he was one of the men on the board of our church who rebuilt the structure from scratch (although I do wish now he'd stuck to his opinion that they needed 12 more pews in back and put the choir in a true loft), who fought the county commission and had them construct a real bridge, rather than an old-fashioned ford crossing, over the creek near our family's farm.

But it sure would be nice for the younger generation to see that we have more than one facet of our identity, kwim?