Maya made that for me. She said it’s called, “Rainbow with a Yellow Polka-Dot,” but I’m pretty sure its full title is “Rainbow with a Yellow Polka-Dot: A Tribute to Womanhood.” Or, because she made it specifically for me, “Rainbow with a Yellow Polka-Dot: The Healing Peace of Homebirth,” or “Rainbow with a Yellow Polka-Dot: The Yellow Light of Life.” I don’t know, I’m no art major, but it just seems like there’s more to it.

In case you didn’t know, my kids run a product review website called Kids Know Stuff. We get pitches for stuff and sometimes we say yes and sometimes we say no and sometimes we get a pitch to review food and, because I’m hungry when I read it, I agree. That’s what happened when we got the pitch for some meatballs. I didn’t realize that the  best thing about the product was that they would come packed in dry ice. It came early in the morning. Ten o’clock is early some days. It was still summer and we are homeschoolers. It was after Labor Day, but that is still technically summer. Anyway! The dry ice came and we played with it. And I took pictures:

Not good pictures, and you’ll notice that everybody is still in their pajamas, but still. Technically, Maya is wearing a real shirt, but she slept in it so it was pajamas. ANYWAY! I documented it. We talked about it. I hit them with a ruler every time they said, “Look how it’s melting!” instead of “Look how it’s sublimating!” I thought that was appropriate.

It was out of the ordinary for our homeschool and Liberty hit the nail on the head when she said, “It’s almost like we’re at Kristen’s house.”

She was so right. It’s just not like Pepper Paints over here. But, let’s get into the way-back machine for a minute so I can tell you about a time when it was like Pepper Paints around here. People who knew me in Chesaning before Lena and Liberty were 6 can vouch for me. We did art stuff. All the frickin’ time. Until Lena and Liberty developed their own interests. And even after that, I still made them take clay classes and other art classes. Until they cried and I decided to take a hard look at why I was placing value on those things instead of letting the kids do what they want and just valuing the process. It’s easy to value traditional art over digital art. It’s easy to value reading novels over reading graphic novels. It’s easy to value perfect spelling instead of bloggy brainstorming (Lena and Liberty both have blogs and I used to make them do spell check and grammar with it, but that’s what Kids Know Stuff is for now. Their own personal blogs need to be their own personal brain farts, so back OFF! Sheesh).  But that’s not cool and that’s not what we’re about. We’re about teaching kids how to learn instead of forcing what to learn on them. Kristen’s house is the same way, but her kids’ interests are different. This is art for Liberty:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4FZVaywOyc

And Lena:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxrDKbLJ59A

Maya is a bit more traditional artsy, and she gets out the scissors, paint, glue, fancy paper, stickers, and whatever else and does stuff with them. She also does this:

It’s called “Warren and Ruth.”  Warren and Ruth are Maya’s little friends.

This post is dumb. It started out being “I’m feckless because I suck at being like Kristen,” but then it turned into “I’m feckless because I used to try to force my digital kids to be more traditional,” and now it’s just “I’m feckless because this wasn’t really thought out all that well.” Sheesh.

Maybe you can do better. Be feckless (or point out the fecklessness of others) on your blog, on your Twitter, on your Facebook and leave a comment telling me where I can find your fecklessness so I can feel better about myself. You can link to me if you want to, but you don’t have to because I took my ads down and so I’m not a stat whore anymore. Good day.

]]> http://sundayswithstretchypants.com/index.php/2009/10/feckless-friday-not-pepper-paints-edition/feed/ 7 http://sundayswithstretchypants.com/index.php/2009/03/morning-darkness-hmph-and-more-disturbing-images/ http://sundayswithstretchypants.com/index.php/2009/03/morning-darkness-hmph-and-more-disturbing-images/#comments Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:12:46 +0000 Abby http://sundayswithstretchypants.com/?p=670 When it’s this dark in the morning, I can’t decide whether to spring out of bed and go on a crime spree, or just go back to sleep. One thing is for certain: I have Maya’s song in my head a lot more when I wake up to blackness. That’s probably not good. I think it’s worse at this time of year because it’s fun to see it get lighter a little bit earlier every morning and, just when it’s light at a decent enough hour, BAM! Stupid dumb ol’ spring ahead.

Anyway, here’s another installment of Disturbing Images. This time, Liberty is the artist and I think you’ll see that her art goes in a completely different direction. First, “Big Heart”:

From the artist: “I like to draw colorful hearts and I like to practice drawing my hearts.”

And the next one is called “I LOVE PEOPLES” (she typed the title in all caps when she saved it, so I assumed that was part of the art):

When asked about this piece, Liberty said, “I like drawing random stuff.” I asked her if she remembered what she was doing or what was going on at the time that made her choose the title and she said, “Um, no I don’t. Nothing was going on, I just love people.” Disturbing.

She makes me wonder how twinship changes birth order expectations. She is technically the middle child and technically one of the firstborns. She’s a peacemaker, but SHE LOVES PEOPLES and never compares herself or feels angsty about her place in the family. She’s easygoing now, but that’s only after years of occupational therapy for sensory issues. She used to be different. Still lovely and precious, of course, but she used to have a really hard time with life. The business of all of those unpredictable stuffed animals and real animals out in the world, for one thing. We couldn’t take her into the toy aisle in a supermarket without her covering her ears, closing her eyes, and crying. That was because she was afraid of the motion-activated toys. Non-animatronic stuffed animals were also not to be trusted. All that fur and those expectant eyes, pleading, “Hold me! Pet me!” Creepy. Don’t even get me started about the trauma induced by a Koosh ball. A Koosh ball could send this child running like nothing else. And when, as part of her therapy, she finally deigned to be in the same room as one, she would not touch it, but she would eat it. Weird.

Maybe the OT helped her cope with life, or maybe she’s just going along to get along and she’s going to stab us all one day. Who knows? I believe her brain was hard-wired to expect pain and suffering because of her traumatic birth (premie, c-section, aspirated amniotic fluid and had to be intubated) and then having surgery to repair the esophageal atresia and tracheoesophageal fistula when she was two days old, which meant that she couldn’t be held for a couple of weeks. She was in an isolette for 2 weeks before anybody could even hold her. So fucking sad. So that put her in a constant state of fight-or-flight, which led to some interesting coping techniques, which led to our nurse practitioner saying, “She does what? WTF? Get her to an OT!” And so we did(*cough* not until she was almost 3, though, because we were the parents and the parents just see that shit and go, “Huh. That’s weird,” and then go about their business. Parents are so dumb sometimes). Anyway, now she doesn’t think the world is filled with pain and trauma around every corner and her art reflects that. The end.

Blood is dripping

Blood is dripping

Blood is dripping

The next one is called “Blood Before Halloween.”

And the last one is “The Forest of Death,” but, as Liberty points out, “It’s so pink and there isn’t really any death in it. Well, I guess that triangle’s kind of sharp.” I think she purposely made it pink to point out how our culture’s pre-defined gender roles and expectations for women can be a sort of death. *cough*

Some of them were disturbing with titles like “Blood is Dripping” and “Maya’s Forest of Death.” Some were sweet like Liberty’s “I Love Peoples” and some were just, well, different like this one by Lena. It’s called “Al Peed in Ed‘s Room” and it references the main characters from Fullmetal Alchemist.

The text: Ed (off frame): “Why is my room wet?” and Al tells us, “Don’t tell Ed I peed in his room.” My girl is classy.

The analysis indicates that the author of http://sundayswithstretchypants.com is of the type:

ESFP – The Performers

The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead – they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation – qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.

In case you’re wondering, and you don’t know me in real life, that is an actual picture of me. If you do know me in real life, it’s still an actual picture of me, it’s just the one that Bryan keeps in his head. For special occasions. And obviously, none of that analysis is true except for the part about it being hard for me to be in management positions. I’m extremely coachable, but I’m a horrible coach. Uh, so good thing I homeschool? Shit.

Anyway, here’s Kids Know Stuff:

ISFP – The Artists

The gentle and compassionate type. They are especially attuned their inner values and what other people need. They are not friends of many words and tend to take the worries of the world on their shoulders. They tend to follow the path of least resistance and have to look out not to be taken advantage of.

They often prefer working quietly, behind the scene as a part of a team. They tend to value their friends and family above what they do for a living.

No, that’s not an actual picture of any of the children. And, I think, not even a picture anybody would ever have in their heads. Of anybody. Ever. However, the analysis is definitely true. My babies are precious little sweety punkins. They’re vulnerable and quiet and they definitely wouldn’t think it was funny to burp on camera or anything like that.

Speaking of artists, I know some. My friend Kristen Marra Marek has some photographs in the C-note Art Show. (There isn’t a search form on the site and there are a lot of artists, so do ctrl-f and then type her name in if you want see her stuff.) And maybe vote for her stuff because it’s good. I wouldn’t try to make you vote my way, though. No, I would never do that. I think voting should be private and not talked about at all.

*cough*

I know another awesome artist in that show, too: Sharon H. Bell. You could vote for her too if you wanted to. I know it says one vote/IP address, but sometimes that’s a lie. Sometimes it’s not, but you should try to vote twice like I did in the presidential election.

My mom didn’t usually buy Hi-C or anything fun like that when I was growing up, but when I was sick, she would buy me a giant can of my favorite peach drink. That, and a can of Planters cheese balls. Or cheese curls, depending on which texture I was after. I can still remember the smell of those cheese balls when I peeled the foil back. Yum.

I’ve been dreaming about peach Hi-C in a can, opened on 2 sides (to avoid the glugging when it’s poured) with that little thing that used to put triangular holes in the many varied tin cans that held our liquids in the 70s and 80s, and popsicles for my sore, sore throat. I called Bryan at work this morning at about 7:00 and tried to communicate to him with my nearly non-existent voice that I would need him to bring me some popsicles on his way home or else he shouldn’t bother coming home. Only I couldn’t really talk that much, so I didn’t get to threaten him and be all dramatic. So I just used my scary voice to say, “Redrum” over and over and he got the hint. Then I staggered back to bed and dreamed that he couldn’t find any popsicles anywhere because they stopped making them when they stopped making peach Hi-C. After waking up from that nightmare about 23 times, he finally came home with my precious yum yums.

So sad that I’ll be missing the Chair is Art show at Gallery 202 tonight. Bryan will be there with the girls because Liberty worked on a couple of chairs with her art class. Some of our friends also have chairs in the show. It will be fun and I hate to miss the fun. Boo.

We’re very excited around here to be having some more awesome company for the next 3 days (Mechelle, her kids, and one of my nieces–yay!) We’ll be wandering around doing the fun things that we can do in Columbus, so I won’t be around here checking my blog stats obssessively. Much. I don’t know how the 8 of you who check my blog regularly will get through the week, but I’m sure you could read a book or maybe interact with other humans to pass the time. I know those things don’t sound like viable alternatives, but I read on the internet that that’s how some people choose to spend their days. For real. Ok, bye.

To be fair, I didn’t know Oprah was going to be Queen of the Universe back when I hung up on her and I really think she should take that into consideration. It was the ’80s and I’m not even sure her ratings were better than Donahue’s at that time. She was having a show about bad neighbors and I had a really bad neighbor. When I was 8, he shot my first pet, Pooty the cat, and then pointed a gun at my mom when my parents confronted him. (No, we didn’t live in a trailer park. Why do you ask?) Anyway, this was back in the call-in days. I figured I had a story to tell, so I called and called and called. Every time somebody told their bad neighbor story, I was all, “My story is worse than that you big baby!” while I frantically dialed through my tears. I finally got through during the last commercial break. I don’t remember how the person answered the phone, but I know I said, “My neighbor is so bad, he shot my cat because she walked on his car and then when my dad and mom went over there, he pointed the gun at my mom! And we don’t even live in a trailer park!” The person on the phone said, “Ok,” and then I heard a click. I thought that meant I should hang up. I was little. They came back from commercial and I was bouncing up and down on the couch waiting for Oprah to say something like, “We just had the most precious little girl call in and tell us the worst story we’ve heard yet today. This story puts all of our panel guests’ stories to shame. Oh, the tragedy this little child has faced. I don’t know how she finds the strength to go on.” But she didn’t say anything like that. She said, “Ok, we have a caller. Go ahead, Caller. Caller? Caller, are you there? Jesus H. Christ, Caller? WTF?” And then she turned to her producer and said, “Don’t tell me that little bitch hung up on me.” At least, that’s the way I remember it. And can I tell you how a little piece of me died that day? I watched Oprah get all tense because I hung up on her. I felt an odd mix of elation and dread. I could’ve been on OPRAH! Oh no, I hung up on OPRAH! And then my parents got divorced. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

So, I want to say I’m sorry to Oprah. I also want to say I’m sorry to my homeschool mom friends. I shouldn’t have kept this part of my past from you. I don’t want you to be hurt by any more of Oprah’s cosmic retaliation powers. I mean, I’m not sorry enough that I’m going to skip the coffee shop just so you guys can have a nice walk there, but still. At least now you know the truth.