Mona the Golden Pheasant

Another costume entirely of Mona's creation: the Golden Pheasant.

Mona's only limitation to her costume making (besides adequate space to store things and an infinite budget) is time. She tends to bite off more than she can chew when it comes to certain deadlines, where she has elaborate plans and then hits a wall where she has to make fast compromises.

This year, Milwaukee trick-or-treat was on the evening of the 26th, and Mona worked on her outfit right up until the 5:00 start time. She really only had the head, wings, and tail done, and I ended up safety-pinning swaths of fabric around her body to fill it out, but I still think it's amazing. The head took weeks. The wings even longer.

The head started out as a base of old sheet fabric, tin foil, and duct tape, and then she overlaid it with lots of little pieces cut out of fleece. I didn't follow everything she was doing for the wings, all I know was that some of the support structures in it didn't like the rain.

And boy did it rain on trick-or-treat this year. Hands down this was the most miserable Halloween night ever for us--all rain and wind and cold, and it kept getting worse as the evening wore on. My kids bagged it after only about twenty minutes, and we never even moved over to the violin store side of town where the street behind us goes all out and is usually a good time. We had leftover candy! We never have leftover candy. Only about 200 kids came to the house, which is less than half of what we usually get.

I don't even have my usually pictures of my kids all posing in their costumes together this year. The closest I have are these shots under umbrellas.

So, trick-or-treat was a bit of a bust, but the costumes were still fun. Next year trick-or-treat should actually be on Halloween (what a concept), and maybe some of this year's outfits will roll over to then since they didn't get much use this time around. (Except for Aden's octopus. Anyone can wear it, and Aden likes to lounge about in it.)

Anyway, go Mona! I'm so proud of her for being willing to tackle hard projects. I think her golden pheasant is great. (And I'm glad I didn't have to make it.)

Mona the Jackal

Mona does her own costumes.  She has for the past few years starting with her head for her tapejara, then she did most of her griffin, then the scorpion was all her, as was last year's ostrich.  This year she decided she wanted to be a jackal, and I got to help with bits of tailoring, but it's fair to say this outfit is again all Mona.

The head in particular is genius.  She started that months in advance, and the jaw somehow hooks onto her jaw so the mouth opens and closes with her own.  The dark spaces that accent her glass eyes (that she also made herself) are actually a mesh that she can see out of.  She used the same mesh at the back of the mouth so she can breathe easily.

Orientation

My two high schoolers go back to school tomorrow.  My oldest will be a Junior.  My middle child will be starting ninth grade.  My youngest will be in sixth grade but he doesn't go back until after Labor Day.  This year they will all be going to different schools, two of them on buses, one walking, all leaving the house at different times.  We've bought supplies, cleaned out backpacks, and made sure everyone has a key to the house.  I've set my alarm for the first time in months.  I'm not sure what more there is to do but I don't feel like we're really prepared for this shift into a new more intense schedule.

The biggest change will be for my middle child venturing into a new school where she doesn't know anyone.  Mona had her two days of freshman orientation last week.  She will be in the class of 2022.

From my perspective this feels strange for a few reasons, including the fact that I remember when the idea of the "Year 2000" seemed very far away.  All the futuristic stuff when I was a kid was set somewhere after 2000.  And now I have children who will be graduating two decades or more into that spacey sounding millennium.  (Still no flying cars, though, or even real hover-boards.)

Also, high schoolers seemed very grown-up to me when I was a child, and now of course they seem outrageously young.  Even though I didn't feel like an adult at 14 I remember that knowledge of it being the oldest I'd ever been and it seemed like a lot.  In many ways I wanted to be autonomous, but it was scary to start really thinking ahead about a future away from my parents and how hopelessly unprepared I was for it.  I see my daughters struggling with those ideas now.  I'm struggling with it from the other side, thinking ahead to letting them go.

For orientation I walked my daughter to her new school both days, which is about ten minutes from our house and at the other end of our neighborhood park.  It's the school my grandpa attended back during the Depression.  It's a school that has a troubled reputation but is in transition.  It was my daughter's first choice, even though she had lots of possibilities available to her around the city.  I'm proud of her for wanting to go to our neighborhood school even though she doesn't know anyone there.

It was hard to leave her there both mornings.  It reminded me too much of her first day of kindergarten.  Which is funny, because I don't really remember the first days for my other children.  I have pictures of Aden with her earnest smile and bejeweled purse posing outside of Head Start downtown when she was three, but I can't remember much about the actual drop off.  She loved school, but she usually cried when I left.  Did she cry that first day, though?  I don't remember.  I don't think so.  And Quinn's first day?  I'm pretty sure I cried.  But did he look back at me when it was time for me to go?  Or did he wander off into all those Montessori materials and not bat an eye that I was leaving?  I don't know anymore.

Mona I remember, though.  Everything has always been more extreme with Mona.  She always climbed the highest, swam the farthest, and continues to surprise us at every turn.  Guiding her has always been my truest test as a parent and not one I often feel I'm passing.

On her first day of kindergarten she clung to me and cried in a way that I didn't feel I could leave her.  I ended up sitting with her on the floor outside of her cheerful looking classroom unsure of what to do.  Her teacher (to whom I am forever grateful for being on Mona's side so fiercely in her first years of school) came to us in the hall and said the perfect thing: 

She started by saying that whatever I wanted to do she would support because I knew my child best.  But that in her experience at that moment Mona was in charge and didn't really want to be.  She was sure Mona would be fine after I left.  And of course she was. 

That doesn't change how painful it was to walk away.  Leaving your child with other people to a world you are not directly a part of is wrenching.  I knew Mona needed to form her own relationships with friends and teachers and that's how it's supposed to be, but it's scary.  It felt the same all over again leaving her at the high school, although this time all the tears were mine on the walk home.  I just want it all to go well, but I can't control that.  I want my baby to be okay.

The orientation turned out to be a bit overwhelming and didn't go as well as my daughter hoped, but she admitted it had nothing to do with the school or the people there.  She said everyone was nice.  There are amazing opportunities in this high school, such as a mural club and a classroom where they put together an entire race car every year and culinary classes...  She's looking forward to French class and a course in computer applications in art which she will rock.  All of that is harder to face until you have friends, though.  She was acutely aware of that the first day, which was lonely.  The second day a couple of kids found ways to introduce themselves and now she feels better.

She's created a beautiful dragon costume out of a hoodie that she plans to wear on her first day.  That should send a clear message about who she is and what she's about, and with luck attract people to her side who can appreciate her.  I hope it's a good year.  For all of us.

Mona the Ostrich

Mona is amazing.  And she makes amazing costumes.

I have really enjoyed making costumes for Mona, but a few years ago she decided to have a hand in her costume creation and did the head to her tapajera outfit without my help.  Then the following year she did most of her griffin outfit herself.  Last year she didn't need me at all and did her scorpion costume completely on her own.  (She still wears it and was a hit at Bug Day at the nature center recently.)

This year she outdid herself with an ostrich costume.

She was so excited about her ideas for it that it's already finished well in advance of Halloween.  It was fascinating to watch her work out how it would all go together.

Mona the Scorpion!

 
Mona is amazing.  She made her costume almost completely unassisted this year.  She did all the sewing on the machine including the zipper.  She watched me do parts of Quinn's costume (since there were useful similarities) and then copied what I did where it worked, and came up with her own ideas where it didn't.  The only thing I helped with was occasionally unjamming the sewing machine when it acted up, and I hand stitched on all the extra legs for her torso while she was at school to save her a little time.

Honestly, she did a much better job of creating a scorpion costume than I would have.  Her attention to detail is impressive, and she did many things in a way I wouldn't have tried that worked beautifully.

Mini Costume Box

The gift I was most excited to give this year was to Mona.  It's a box of little figures made from the scraps of her old Halloween costumes.

It wasn't exactly a surprise since I did the same for Aden when she turned 12, but Mona was delighted by her box.  Aden's box still makes her weepy.  Mona is not as sentimental, but always appreciative, so it was a different sort of reaction this time around.  It was still worth the effort to hand stitch all those little costume figures, and I like the idea of my kids having mini versions of their Halloween costume memories to hold onto (rather than feel they must forever keep the actual costumes).

Turtle Cake!

I only really had one evening to plan and create Mona's surprise cake, so I settled on a turtle because turtles are cute, Mona loves them, and turtles are sort of flat and round like a cake already anyway.  Turtle cake!

Mona's only request was that it be chocolate.  Easy enough.  Ian was kind enough to bake me a couple of round chocolate layers while I was at work so they'd be cool enough to assemble when I got home.  I built myself a turtle shape, put on a crumb coat, and let it all sit in the freezer while I mixed up a batch of fondant.

Mona the Griffin

Mona's costume this year was an interesting challenge in a couple of ways.  She wanted to be a griffin, and she wanted to make as much of it as possible by herself.

The first step was to make sure we were on the same page, since we were talking about an imaginary animal and I needed to get a sense of what she had in mind.  I asked Mona to draw me a griffin, and she quickly sketched out this:

Makes that iguana costume look easy, doesn't it?

Book of Mormon

We went to see The Book of Mormon here in Milwaukee this weekend!  The original plan (when we bought the tickets half a year ago) was to go with my brother and his wife, but that was before their baby made different plans for them.  So we decided to take our daughters instead.

Bug Cake

Mona has successfully turned 11.  To celebrate we created a Bug Cake.

For her party this year Mona asked her friends to bring cereal to donate to the food pantry instead of presents, which was an idea introduced to us recently by a friend and my kids were excited by it.  Mona also wanted to do something for her party that was new to her, so we ended up at a place with Laser Tag and Go Kart Racing, and that seems to have been a hit.  The other big hit was her bug cake.  When she requested a bug for a cake design she told me I could choose the bug, but nothing dainty looking like a butterfly.

Mona as a Tapejara

No, I didn't know what that was either.  Definitely one of the most interesting parts of having kids is learning about things you wouldn't have been introduced to otherwise.

A tapejara is a specific kind of flying dinosaur.  Mona was clear she didn't want to be any pterosaur, she wanted to be a tapejara.  And she wanted to help!

I was apprehensive about working with Mona on her costume, not because she's not perfectly capable of making something on her own, but because we don't always communicate on an artistic level very well.  She has her own ideas, and I have mine, and sometimes they mesh, and sometimes they don't.  I'm happy to report it all went well and Mona is very happy with her costume!

I started with the basic jumpsuit where I traced around Mona on the fabric.  The biggest challenge to my sewing costumes (aside from finding the time) is probably the dog.  Chipper wants to lie on all the fabric all the time, and he doesn't like when I use the sewing machine.  While I sew he begs to sit in my lap, trembling pathetically until I give in and then can't do anything.

Swim Team

Swimming is one of those basic skills I feel all of my kids should have a handle on before they grow up and leave my care.  We've done basic group lessons at the Y sporadically over the years, and my kids are comfortable in the water, but this last summer I decided I wanted them to have training in more specific strokes rather than just let them keep paddling around however.  We ended up enrolling them in private lessons, and that worked out really well.

The Y was nice about letting us sign up for the regular blocks of time and then splitting that time up amongst our various kids.  They each got at least two private lessons, and they advanced much more quickly than they would have in another group class.

The teacher was particularly impressed with Mona's abilities, and told me that she expected by the last lesson Mona would be ready for the Swim Team if she wanted to join.  The Swim Team met at the same time in the evenings as our private lessons so we could see it in action in the next couple of lanes.  All the kids were about Mona's age, happily doing laps and being coached by some young, energetic Y people.  It looked fun, so I introduced the idea to Mona and let her think about it.  She can be shy, so I knew it would need time to sink in before she'd consider giving it a go.

Funeral for a Fish

Mona's pet fish, Rainbow, died this week.

The fish was not looking good for a while, and there were many tears in anticipation of his death.  Mona had a lot of time to contemplate life without her beloved fish.  Now that the worst has happened she seems to be doing okay.

Mona and Rainbow, 2011

Mona got her fish for her 8th birthday.  She has been an excellent fish owner.  We never had to remind her to feed Rainbow and she was good about cleaning out his bowl.  She made him a stocking that she hung up by the fireplace every Christmas.  (He usually got a small bottle of water.)




Mona put his bowl on her favorite plate.  She always provided colorful items nearby so Rainbow would have pretty things to look at.

That's My Girl!

My Mona.  In some respects she's my easiest child, but in many she's the most complicated of my three children.  She's gone from being a bold and fearless toddler and preschooler to a more self-conscious and emotional grade-schooler.  She's creative and funny, sometimes reclusive but other times eager to join in as long as a group makes her feel safe.  She can work on projects silently for hours, but she can also be loud.  She's shy and silly and sweet.

Tonight I was really proud of her.  We went to St Ben's to do our monthly volunteering there, and she seemed much more at home.  She was nervous the first time, handing out forks and spoons to people in the food line and not making eye contact.  The next couple of times she handed out fruit or desserts and was better about engaging everyone.  She even brought a stuffed animal to give away to a child in the line.

This time she was comfortable enough that I didn't even have to be in her line of sight.  She and Quinn handed out desserts together and I was able to go into the back room and help wash dishes.  (Someone back there joked that I must have drawn the short straw, but the truth is I like the harder work.  I like feeling as if I'm getting something done.)

When it was time for us to go eat, an old man came up to Mona at our table and used a line on her that was intended to be charming, but was in reality a little awkward.  He said, "I bet I know your name!"  Mona smiled politely and looked interested, and then he said, "It's Cutie, right?  Because you're a cutie?"

What would you do with that?  I may have laughed a little and then turned away.  As a self-conscious ten year old I didn't know how Mona would respond.

But you know what she did?  She said, "Actually, my name is Mona.  But thank you for the compliment."  And she went back to her meal.

I was really impressed.  That was a dignified response that left the man happy, too. 

Also impressive:  Mona's recent model of the Wright Brothers' plane that she made for the upcoming Science Fair at school.  (Which relates to nothing else in this post I guess, except that I want to show it off because I think it's so freaking cool.  Now that Mona has permission to use the hot glue gun on her own the sky is no longer the limit.)

Love that Mona.

Mona-Rama

My Mona is ten!  How can my baby girl be ten?  

Since Thanksgiving fell so late this year, Mona had the chance to have extended family at her birthday party.  I told her we could arrange a friend party if she wanted it, but she liked Quinn's birthday adventure in Chicago and wanted something similar.  We declared it an extended Mona birthday weekend, and spent a day with visiting relatives at the Field Museum, and on their last morning in town we threw a breakfast party with crepes and a chocolate fountain before everyone headed for home.  We spent the rest of that day exploring the Museum of Science and Industry and had a blast.

For Mona's actual birthday this week she took cupcakes to school, got to pick where we went to dinner (who knew she liked Culver's that much?) and I baked her a cake.  I love having the chance to bake interesting cakes for my kids.  Mona didn't decide until the day before her birthday what she wanted this year, though.  She wanted a cake in the shape of a Mold-A-Rama from our collection and thankfully she chose probably the easiest one to turn into a cake: the Space Shuttle figure from the Museum of Science and Industry.

Mold-A-Ramas at the Museum of Science and Industry

As part of an extended birthday celebration for Mona over Thanksgiving weekend we took a couple of trips down to Chicago.  The first was with relatives to the Field Museum, and the second was after the guests left and just our little family went to the Museum of Science and Industry.  That was where we sought out the last set of Mold-A-Rama machines we know of in Chicago.  Mona declared it the best birthday destination ever.

The Museum of Science and Industry is a spectacular place.  It was all decked out for Christmas with sparkling trees and lights everywhere, so it was particularly festive.  There was so much to touch and marvel at, and now that we know we can get in free with our reciprocal membership to our own science museum we will go back!  (Although, to get into the submarine or the mine exhibit we'll have to buy tickets next time.)

Plasma balls, baby chicks hatching, an enormous train set, and a little kids' area called The Idea Factory with water guns and plastic balls that none of my children felt too old for.  I even got some Christmas shopping done in the gift shop, so life was good all around.

The Work of Art

The amount of work that goes into creating good art is undervalued.  I think the overall problem is the artistic process is misunderstood.  We talk about "talent" and having "a gift" as if people in creative fields just come by what they do magically.

Talent is a starting point, not an end in itself.  The gift is an opportunity, not a finished product.  Even if you start at a more advanced place than others, that simply raises the bar for what you can or should do.

My parents are artists.  They ran a gallery for 40 years.  They often apologized to us when we were growing up that they should have realized you have to be rich first and then open a gallery, and that it doesn't work the other way around.  We never lacked for anything, so whatever depths their financial struggles sunk to we remained largely unaware of them.  We admired them for doing what they found interesting, even though it was often hard, and we learned many valuable things.

We saw, up close, the time and effort and thought that goes into creating art.  There are many drawings abandoned along the way before one finds its way to completion.  There is the challenge of having to work when time allows rather than when inspiration hits.  Most people when they create art do it alone.  You can't usually get help with it and still claim it to be yours.  There is trial and error and frustration, but eventually beauty.  When a piece of art (or music, or writing) is just right it's as if it was always meant to be.  After untold hours of preparation and toil the result can look effortless.

Unfortunately to too many without direct experience in creative fields, they believe it really is.

I've been watching my daughter, Mona, this week with great interest.  Mona is many things, and one of those things happens to be an artist.  All of my kids have a decent degree of talent when it comes to art.  Mona is the one at this time willing to struggle for it.

Paper turtle Mona made at six

She has been building "creations" now for years and they are ever evolving and improving.  She's gone from simple paper cutouts to hand colored tape to duct tape and recently to using wire as a foundation so that she can expand the limits of what her creations can be.  They are detailed and thoughtful.  There are many prototypes and pieces abandoned and begun again until they are right.

At seven she was coloring tape and giving things more structure

Then she discovered duct tape and combined it with paper.

And things began to appear like the Cup O' Snakes.  (Because why not?)

And sometimes she still goes back to paper.

Her latest school project is a presentation on bats that she's doing with a friend.  In class the two of them work on research and writing.  At home, Mona has been working on models.  She's been working hard.

Echo Chamber

Many kids like reruns.  My Mona, in particular, likes reruns.  If something amuses her she wants to relive it right away.  For as long as she's been able to repeat sounds, we have been listening to instant replays of the funniest lines and sound effects of every cartoon or show or movie as part of our viewing experience.  We try to get her to tone that down when we watch things with "outsiders," but in our house we just accept it.

Quinn also likes to repeat the things he finds funny.  But most of what he finds funny is Mona.  So we have an echo effect going on.

In the car with the kids if I make a funny comment, I know the next thing will be Mona repeating what I said, followed by Quinn repeating what Mona said.  (And they both repeat such things in a way that I can hear them smiling as they do it.)  It's one of those quirky family things that is just part of our particular routine.

We Just Washed It!

Friday was already complicated before the car accident.

I had to get up early to drive Ian to his Army bus for a weekend at Ft McCoy, then come home to feed the kids and walk the dog.  Mona was still feeling light-headed from being sick so I told her she could stay home one more day (but no screens, just books).

I got in a little exercise, cleaned up the kitchen, checked email, then asked Mona if she'd like to go with me to the car wash.  I had told all the kids we would take the small car through the car wash after school and the library and before I had to go teach, but the minivan was still pretty filthy inside and out after all our summer travels, and Mona was looking more like herself, so I thought that might be a fun thing to do.

We drove to the car wash, got all the garbage and treasures (some indistinguishable from one another without Mona's keen eye) out of the minivan, paid a dollar to vacuum it out for five minutes, then did the four dollar wash which Mona found thrilling from the inside of the car.  The interior sides of the windows were still pretty bad, though, so when we got home we parked next to the house and went at them with spray cleaner.  We stepped back when we were done and were pleased with our work.  That was one clean minivan.

I told Mona to go ahead and start washing the insides of the windows of the small car while I put the minivan away.  I pulled ahead a few feet and started to turn the car around in the intersection so I could put it in the garage when BAM.

Wedding Fun

Barrett and Dosha

Well, I've let almost two weeks get away from me without writing about my brother's wedding, so I'd better record something now or I will forget more of it than I care to.

My brother, Barrett, is amazing.  He's an entomologist who teaches at the University of Wisconsin LaCrosse.  He does scientific illustration and sleep research on bees, and is an all around brilliant, compassionate, and funny guy.  I'm constantly floored by his knowledge and talent, and his enthusiasm for life and learning is inspiring.  I adore Barrett and I'm honored to be able to say I'm his sister.

My new sister-in-law, Dosha, is gentle, kind, and creative.  When she heard the news a few years back that Ian was being deployed to Iraq again, her first response was that she would find a week or two to come out to Milwaukee and help me.  And she did.  Living through a deployment with small children teaches you quickly who really means it when they say they are there for you, and it's not always the people you expect.  Those ten days where Dosha stayed with us and made it possible for me to breathe easier for a little while will always mean the world to me.  I love her.

The two of them make a lovely couple.  It's the kind of pairing that seems so natural that it's hard to imagine them not together.  Barrett's energy and extroversion is nicely balanced with Dosha's calm and patient amusement.  Just knowing they have each other makes me happy and feel better about the world.

So, of course, they had a lovely wedding.  It was unique and moving and fun, just like their relationship.