Crazy Mixed-Up World

Quinn is good at maps.  He gets this from his father.  He most certainly does not get this from me.  I have tried for years to learn some basic geography and I am still surprised every time I look at a map at where everything really is.

This is Quinn at 18 months old (still wearing a diaper) putting together a map puzzle of Asia by himself, happily naming each country in his baby lisp.  (The joke for a while was, "Oh, he's probably just reading it.")

I picked up the puzzle on a whim at the local natural history museum one afternoon because he seemed interested.  I didn't expect him to master it in a couple of days.

For Christmas my parents got him the Africa puzzle, which he also learned in a couple of days.

So of course we got him all the puzzles.  The only one that bored him was South America, and I think that was because in order to fit nicely on a square the puzzle has a lot more ocean than any of the other map puzzles.

In any case, Quinn loves to learn things, and he will focus intensely on something for a stretch of time, and then just let it go.  Which is what happened with the maps around age three.  He was doing the Europe puzzle at the violin store almost daily when he spent his mornings there with me while his sisters were at school and his dad was in Iraq.  Then, one day, that was enough of that.  No more maps.  He was only interested in things that were purple.  Then he was into planets.

But recently at school, where he is a K4 in a mixed age Montessori classroom, he started working with maps again.  They have sets with pieces the kids can trace to make their own maps of different areas of the world.  Quinn got inspired and made me one of the United States, one of South America, and one of Africa.
 
I don't know which I like better: The actual maps, or the smile on Quinn's face when his dad brings him by the violin store after the half-day pickup and he says he has a surprise for me in his backpack.  (Okay, the smile, but the maps are awfully cool.)

Anyway, the school maps inspired Quinn to dig the old map puzzles out of the game cabinet, and he was familiarizing himself with all the countries of the world again.  (And this time he really was reading the words on the pieces.)

Then one evening I came home from work to discover that Quinn had dumped all the map puzzles into a single heap.  The puzzles take me forever and I have to keep referring to the pictures on the boxes, so I have always been very careful to make sure we put one away before we get out another for fear of a time consuming mix up.  Seeing all the countries of the world scrambled together put me in a mild panic.                                                               

I offered to start helping Quinn sort them out, and began picking out pieces of the United States and Canada and putting them in pile.  And my poor boy started to quietly cry.  I froze.  Then I scooped him into my lap and apologized.  Just because I assume something needs fixing because it makes me uncomfortable doesn't mean that that's true for anyone else.  I had interfered in something that I shouldn't have, and since my son loves me he can't just yell, "No!" to make me stop.  I had to make myself stop.  And I left him and the mixed-up world alone.

Not that Quinn leaves me alone.  He would pick at the puzzles a little in the morning before school and again in the evenings before bed, all the while chattering away at me as I did my own projects at the dining room table or in the living room.  And after a few days he had sorted out everything.

Quinn fixed the world.

 

I don't know.  The kid is smart enough maybe by the time he's finally in full day kindergarten he'll figure out how to fix the real one.  Let's all just be glad that he uses his powers for cuteness instead of evil.

Personal Puzzle

I've written before about how Quinn loves map puzzles.  He's loved them since he was very small.

Quinn has also enjoyed making maps at school, and within hours of starting summer vacation seemed to be going through a bit of withdrawal.  He asked if he was allowed to make maps at home and I said of course.  So he got out his Asia puzzle and put India on a piece of paper and tried to figure out how he could trace it like he would the traceable wooden map parts at school without ruining the puzzle piece with a pen or pencil.  Quinn is careful with things, and couldn't figure out a way to make it work without damaging his puzzle.  He began to look dejected.

So I asked him if there was something else we could do that was different from what he did at school, some new kind of project.  He thought about it and decided what he really wanted was a map puzzle of Australia.  The map puzzles we have from GeoPuzzles include North America, South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia.  When he does them all at once he then lays them out on the floor together like one big map, and every time he points out to me that we are missing Australia and Antarctica.  He likes things to be complete, so this bothers him.

We agreed a map of Antarctica in the style of the other GeoPuzzles would be boring because the land mass would be one big piece.  (Although we can always just do that someday like a regular puzzle and cut up the continent into random shapes.)  But Australia has states (which Quinn could readily name and I could not) so it would make a good puzzle.  We set to work.

I'd never made a puzzle from scratch before, but it didn't look hard, so I thought I'd share what we did here in case anyone else wants ideas for making a personalized puzzle for their kid.  (Maybe with pictures of family pets or favorite toys.  Lots of possibilities!)

We started by finding a piece of cardboard (taken from the back of a big pad of drawing paper) about the thickness of our existing puzzles.  Since Quinn wanted the new puzzle to match the others I let him use a ruler and a pencil to mark off how big he wanted the finished puzzle to be.

(Lots of photos in this post, so maybe it's best to add a jump here....)

Report Cards

My kids got their report cards last week.  They all seem to be doing fine.

Although, honestly, Montessori report cards are a little odd.  There are lists of skills broken down by category, and for each item Aden and Mona receive an X, a / , or a - .  At first glance it always takes me a minute to figure out what is going on.  An X is good on this scale.  Aden had lots of Xs, and some of her /s from last semester had gone up to Xs.  Same for Mona.  There is also a list of behaviors that get graded with a U, an S, or an R (for Usually, Sometimes, and Rarely).  They each had a U for most everything, and a few places had upgraded from an S.  I seem to recall Mona getting a bunch of Ps at some point and I still don't remember what those were, or if I was supposed to be Pleased or Perturbed by them.  Anyway, both girls had nice comments from their teachers saying they are working hard and getting along well, so that's great.

K5 is graded differently, so Quinn's report card took me longer to figure out than his sisters'.  One page of it had a long list of categorized skills, but he was graded on a scale that went from 1 to 3, 1 being good, 3 meaning needs work.  The second page was general areas like Reading and Math and they were scored from 1 to 4, but this time 1 was minimal and 4 was advanced.  So on one page you want to see 1s, and on the other page you don't.  I have no idea why they don't use the same system for the kindergarten students as they do for the older kids.

In any case, Quinn's report card had a few things on it that took us slightly by surprise.  But his classroom has had a lot of upheaval because his teacher moved away at the winter break and other than saying a brief 'hello' at the pickup we have not really met his new one.  She seems very nice and Quinn likes her, but I don't know if she graded his report card or if his previous teacher did.  Regardless, it had things on it we didn't get.

Latin Review

Come June, Quinn and I will have been taking Latin for one year.  It's one hour a week after school up at the university, with usually one week off a month for a scheduling conflict.  The teacher is wonderful, and Quinn and I meet him in a study room at the library.

Quinn by our parking meter

It's fun having that bit of time with just Quinn.  We have a routine that involves laughing over whether the parking meter will give us a receipt or not (it rarely does, so Quinn collects the ones we do get), pretending to trip over a mysterious bit of useless curb on the way to the library, and critiquing the selections in the vending machine if we have to wait for our lesson.  (Observation about candy choices:  Most of them are variations anymore.  There are usually a couple of kinds of Starburst, a few different M&Ms, consistently three types of Skittles, a variety of Cheetos, several shapes of pretzels...  The Snickers even come in different versions now.  The only unique selections seem to be the Reese's Cups and the odd Take 5 or Zero bar.  You're welcome.)

Quinn on the tiny curb

We also got a good laugh one day out of a whole bunch of caution signs in the entryway which looked like they presented more of a hazard than they were attempting to prevent.  Quinn and I find amusement everywhere, so even without the actual Latin lessons we enjoy our weekly outing.

I hadn't planned on taking Latin myself, and it's humbling to watch Quinn do so much better with it than I do.  I can't tell if it's because I'm just old, or if he's that much smarter than I am.  (Probably both.)  Regardless, Latin has turned out to be really enjoyable.

How Have You Lived Without Crayon Pockets? (Babble)

My kids are always doing projects.  It’s in their genes.  Ask me how many different things I’m working on at any given time and the list includes any number of writing projects, a violin I’m (supposed to be) building, a coat rack that will be really cool someday, and dozens of crafty ideas just waiting for their turn.  Ian has been consolidating our online computer equipment in ways that are way over my head, but he’s always got some project going on too.  The kids are no different.

Most of Mona’s projects involve what she refers to as her “paper creations.”  These are some really out of date examples from back when she was six of the kinds of things she makes, a couple of which I rescued from the trash because I love them even when Mona thinks they are not good enough:

She’s not content with things being flat, so she always makes folds to pop things up a bit, and often wraps tape around wads of paper or tissue to make them three dimensional.  (I love the beak on that bird!)  Back in the Fall she wished she had a toy kangaroo, so she used scraps of Halloween costume material and masking tape and whipped one up in about an hour.

Luckily Montessori school caters to kids’ interests, so Mona has managed to tailor most of her lessons around her paper creations.  She makes models of particular animals and then writes a report and builds a display and gets to do presentations for her class.  To date she’s done presentations about blue jays, lemurs, flashlight fish, and the current one is about water walking lizards.  Anyway, Mona always has a project or two or ten going.

Quinn, by comparison, is more into writing.  He spends long stretches at a white board we have propped up in front of the fireplace working on his cursive.  He also likes to cut out pieces of paper to color, either making valentines or money or rainbows or small invitations.  I once printed him out a bunch of cursive practice pages I found online and it kept him absorbed at the violin store for a whole afternoon.

He’s also still actively lining things up in rows and putting things in things.  So Quinn is always busy.

Aden’s projects tend to be more tied to some kind of display or performance.  When she was about five she once made a whole natural history museum in the living room with legos.  Last summer she enlisted a friend to help her make the family room into a zoo, complete with maps and tickets.  She likes to put on plays and magic shows–anything that requires rehearsals and costumes and props makes her happy, especially if she is in charge.  I’m constantly coming across odd scenes like this:

I think it was a restaurant game of some sort, and the bicycle basket is a cornucopia, and the flowers are a nice touch, but I don’t know why Quinn is in his kangaroo costume or why Mona is peeking out in a unicorn suit.  The table cloth?  That’s the sheet off Aden’s bed.  We have many discussions about not using non-toys in games, but it never registers.

The latest big Aden production was back in Michigan when we all visited for the gallery closing party.  She invented the “Pipe Band Girls” and kept her sister and cousin in the basement for hours of rehearsal and ticket making.  The show was actually really good, despite the fact that both Mona and Ellora suffered stage fright and wouldn’t do their solos, but Aden soldiered on and reveled in the applause at the end.  Here’s Quinn being enlisted as the ticket taker (tickets were a penny apiece), and Ellora, Mona and Aden playing an assortment of bottles tuned with different amounts of water and other objects found in my parents’ basement that sounded good when you hit them with sticks:

So have you been sufficiently distracted by this tangent or are you still wondering what crayon pockets are?  Well, I’m almost there, I promise.

Recently Quinn went on a drawing binge that included “hanging things up.”  The dining room is getting filled with Quinn art, which mostly consists of rainbows and the alphabet in lower case cursive over and over.

Mona was also busy cranking out drawings the same day that Quinn was “hanging things up” and decided that a giant tub of crayons was not convenient enough.  Why have your creativity delayed by walking to the craft shelf to get the crayons?  It was pure hell, apparently, because Mona began installing “crayon pockets” in every room.

See?  There are now crayons in the kitchen (which is a few steps from the craft supply area where we keep the tub of crayons), crayons in the dining room (about four steps from the kitchen) and–inexplicably–in the craft supply area right next to the tub of crayons.

But what do I know?  Apparently not much about the necessity of crayons at your fingertips at any given moment.  Of course, they have neglected to keep the crayon pockets stocked with crayons, and now they are just sad looking little paper cocoons taped to my walls.  Which I’m hoping by the time you read this I will have managed to take down and clean up in order to make way for the next important project.  (Please let it not involve glitter….)

Dubuque

Due to a weird transition happening in our public school system's scheduling, my two oldest kids went back to class in the middle of August, but my youngest doesn't start until after Labor Day this year.  He got an extra three weeks of summer vacation, but while everyone else was in a different routine.  It's been odd.

I asked him if there was anything he would like to do during this last little bit of time he had free while his sisters were away all day, and he decided he wanted to go to Iowa.  He has a passion for geography as well as a desire to check things off lists, and Iowa is the only state that borders Wisconsin that he'd never been to.  We took to Google Maps and determined the closest destination from our house would be Dubuque.

I picked a day that was likely to be slow enough at work that I wouldn't be needed so that Ian could take the store, and after the girls were off to school, Quinn and I hit the road.  It's only about two and a half hours to the Iowa border, so not a big deal in our book.  We fussed with the GPS and found a restaurant to aim for, and enjoyed an easy drive where we left the rain on our side of the state and enjoyed clear skies over the Mississippi.

2024 Round Up

The last few months have been a lot. A LOT. That's probably true for most of us. And I have many things I want to write about, but I have a need to quickly document some events that finished out 2024 before I forget them all. Join me on this belated end of year round up!

Let's begin with fact that I made a goal this fall that every time I went into our (annoyingly cluttered) garage I had to remove something from it, or at least investigate one of the many mysteries that have accumulated there. I have given away ice fishing poles, consolidated camping supplies, recycled boxes, and uncovered things like this that I have no explanation for:

The garage is looking better, and my goal for it in the spring is to find a way to hang/display our various kites on the walls so they aren't in a jumble and they can be decorative when they are not being used.

Inktober this year was not possible. I really love how in the past few years Quinn and I would meet at the dining room table most evenings and work on the day's prompt. But Quinn is in her senior year with too much to do, and I spent what felt like every waking moment in my shop on a deadline. I decided at the end of the month to do all the prompts in one drawing since many of them seemed to work together anyway.

Quinn turned 18 this year. All my children are technically adults now. It's weird. Whatever ideas I had for their childhoods, the time limit is up. I hope I did okay as their mom for that phase of their lives. I hope I do okay as the mom of adults.

When I asked Quinn when she turned 17 if there was anything she hadn't done yet as a "child," the only things she could think of were getting Mold-A-Ramas from the Oklahoma City Zoo, and going to Taco Bell. I figure the Mold-A-Rama quest extends beyond childhood anyway, and I'm chalking up the lack of Taco Bell as a parenting win. But just to round out the list, we went to Taco Bell on the night before her 18th birthday (she said it tasted like school food), and in the morning before I left town for a convention, I made her a crepe cake for breakfast with cream cheese frosting between the layers and chocolate ganache on top. I usually make my kids crepes in the shape of the their birthday numbers for breakfast, and a cake in the evening, so this seemed a good way to cross the two ideas.

I have nothing to report about Halloween this year. Sad. I may have to start dressing up the dog or becoming one of those people who does fancy house decorations.

There was the election. 

Really neighbors?

I spent the first week after it trying to order my mind by taking cubes out of the mosaic display and solving them. It was a good way to kind of feel like I was doing something that was sort of nothing when I didn't want to do anything. Eventually my mom and Mona and I put up a new design.

 

 

Both Ian and the dog help when I'm down. Domino's so sweet and in the moment. She's funny to have at work when she's not barking at passing dogs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quinn and I stumbled upon an image of me walking Domino near the store on Google Maps!

I finally put a decorative thing at the end of our banister. The space looks wired for a light, but not in a way we've every figured out how to use, so I finally just found something I could switch on at the base, and is merely a shiny ball when it's off. I like it. Not an important house project, but one I'm glad I finally did.

 

November was a whirlwind of luthier adventures. I had been working on two violins and a viola with the intention of putting the viola in the Violin Society of America (VSA) competition. That instrument was a commission, and I asked the player if it was okay to enter it, with the understanding that that would mean making decisions dictated by a particular timeline. He encouraged me to go for it, but the homestretch was exhausting. Mostly because getting oil varnish done in time was cutting it close. 

The first of those instruments to get finished was the Guarneri model violin. I am very pleased with how it came out and it is happily being played by its new owner. I only use my personal bridge stamp on instruments I've made, and I enjoyed getting to use it again.

Varnish in evening light

On top of already feeling rushed with the viola, about a week before the convention I accidentally set the it down on a polishing rag while I was working on the pegs, and the alcohol in it dissolved through a section of varnish on the back. I spent about a day and a half indulging in the fantasy that I could simply retouch it, but finally admitted the right thing to do was strip the back and do it again. What a nail-biter. But the finished color I think is beautiful, and I got useful feedback from the judges, and the player is happy, so it's all fine.

Nooooooo!

Having to strip the whole back was painful, but necessary.

Finding morning light on the porch

Michelic viola!

 

 

All labels and stamps must be covered for the competition

 

On the competition table

Competition stuff is always odd to explain to people. They always ask how I did, and short of an award (which at this level is not really a possibility yet) I don't know what to say. I go to learn things. Some of it is very useful, and some of it is too subjective. A lot of the things that appeal to me aren't often things judges like. The best way I can describe it is like the Westminster Dog Show. The judges there aren't that interested in if you have a really nice dog, they want the dog to fit a set of standards.

So, for instance, the judges didn't like this dark streak where the maple on my viola sucked in a lot of color. One referred to it as "burned." Some of that has to do with the fact that I had to strip the back and go faster to color than I would have normally. But honestly, that streak is one of my favorite parts of that back. I like it.

 

The convention overall was one of the best ever. I love getting to meet so many people in my field in person that I already feel I know. I love getting to room with my friend Robyn at these events. I love learning things, and laughing at luthier jokes, and generally feeling like I'm with my people. 

There were some great lectures and demonstrations.

 

There was trivia night, good stuff in the vendor room, and a tin-can-violin making competition which included googly eyes and a lunch box.

 

A highlight was playing on instruments in the New Instrument Exhibit as an orchestra. I got to sit with my friend Marilyn, Darol Anger was in the violin section and treated us to some amazing improv

Emanuel Hill, our fine conductor!

We were early. The full viola section was mighty!

There was even a red carpet glam night for the awards ceremony, and Robyn looked even fancier than usual.

Although, speaking of looking good, Robyn and I were both amused by the fact that in our bathroom there were two mirrors, and in one we always looked nice, and then if you turned and looked in the other one it was.... not good. It was disconcerting! Because I would get ready to go, feel confident looking in the mirror above the sink, and then have to not glance to my left because then I felt frumpy and bad. This was my view in the good mirror. (Not showing you the bad because the internet is forever.)

The convention was in Indianapolis this year, which is where one of my childhood friends lives who I haven't seen in way too long. I missed the whole first day of lectures because hanging out with Jennifer was more important. She's still the best, and even provided me with lip balm when I needed it most.

The week following the convention was Thanksgiving! We had a full house this year with all our kids home, my mom, and my brother Barrett and his family. It was wonderful. We wound up with many many many pies, cheese appetizers that looked like pie, and the orange jello was weirdly in between. Not goo, but only short lived as a shape.

cheddar, crackers, cream cheese.... cute!

Aden, to my great delight, managed to repair our broken pachinko machine that weekend. We even replaced the battery in the back so it lights up when you hit the jackpot.

Mona's bird visited for the day. I miss that loud silly bird.

Barrett signed copies of his book with beautiful drawings for different family members.

He also brought me a mysterious book he found in Germany full of music I can't decipher. If anyone understands these clefs let me know!

Aden also became very good with plants over the summer, and took some time to tend all kind of things in pots over Thanksgiving break. My mom is an accomplished gardener, so it's interesting to see that skip me and land on Aden.

I played some fun concerts at the end of 2024. Playing with Festival City Symphony is always nice, but the most unusual venue was with Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra at our Waukesha concert, because we played on a stage set up for a performance of the musical Legally Blonde later that night. Unusually pink for a holiday concert!

 

 

Mona continues to make adorable things for her Etsy shop:

We managed to go through not one, but two cookie presses this year, and finally bought a third one that we're hoping will last through this year into next. We have so many little cookie press discs at this point I decided to get a little tree to hang all the spares on.

The kids this year mostly got cards from us that reminded them that we provide College! Housing! Healthcare! Hugs! Domino got a replacement purple monkey for the ravaged original purple monkey that came home with her from the shelter. She likes them both equally,

Old monkey

New monkey

On Christmas Day we drove to Detroit where my mom had an incredible dinner waiting for us. It was a chicken curry with a ton of different little condiments like plum chutney and avocado and bacon and nuts, etc. Each bite could be delicious in a different way. I can't imagine anyone ate better at Christmas than we did. I once asked my dad what his favorite food was, and he said, "Whatever your mother is making tonight." That's a good answer.

My mom also helped us make a zuccotto, which was a dessert recipe we pulled out of a Martha Stewart magazine more than a dozen years ago and never got up the nerve to try. We made it a whole day's project, with sponge cake pressed into a bowl and filled with whipped cream berries and a crushed Heath bar and the whole dome is covered with chocolate and there is a vanilla cream sauce on the side. That was really fun, and I actually think if I do it again I can do it much better. Maybe for my birthday.

New Year's was quiet enough that I don't remember what we did. Although I saw a video of a place not far from here that does an annual cheese drop at 10pm on New Year's Eve (why not midnight?) and I've decided next year we're doing that.

And I will leave you with this conundrum of signage that was recently added to my short commute.

This seems like a good metaphor for life right now, where we are supposed to somehow stop and never stop, step back but be involved, be appreciative and outraged and the same time, and somehow persist when so much feels hopeless. Welcome to 2025.