Tag Archives: children

Why We Read The Books We Do

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f306a4206f3db95e9d87a8b4aaf37eb6[1]“Guess what I’m reading,” 12-year old Crystel says.

First, I try the vanilla genres, “Fiction, non-fiction, memoir, science fiction, fantasy?”

She shakes her head no every time.

What else is there?

“Dark Romance,” she says. Her eyes light up.

Oh, my, I think. “Books let you read anything you want,” I say, thinking of Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James and wondering what she IS reading.

I have a 1 ½ hour round trip drive to work thus my book reading has become books on tapes. Jody noticed Fifty Shades in the car. She raised her eyebrows.

“Don’t push Play when the kids are in the car,” I said.

Fifty Shades ended up too spicy. I returned the trilogy to the library. How much flavoring can one take? Jody’s happy if I hold her hand.

12-year old Antonio reads Pokémon from back cover to front. “I like reading different stories about Red the Trainer,” he said.

Recently, he’s been downloading the series onto his IPod to read.

I’ve not read a single page of Pokémon. I don’t enjoy graphic novels. It reminds me of the funnies. In my family of 14, the funnies were prime reading material on Sunday mornings. I avoided any tussling by turning my back on the colorful newspaper that would be shredded by noon.

I don’t read fantasy or science fiction either. Give me the real stuff. Memoir, non-fiction, and fiction based on truth.

One evening, Antonio held up a thick book. “Look what I’m reading,” he said.

The heftiness of the book surprised me. What could hold his interest that long?

He laughed. “It has lots of pictures in it.” He had found Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick in his school library. Not that he went to the libary on his own volition. He needed a book for reading prep.

“Ta dah!” I’m sure he exclaimed after perusing the pages.

I asked if the illustrations reminded him of his own pencil drawings. “Nope,” he said. There goes that elevated thought.

After finishing Wonderstruck he found The Invention of Hugo Cabret by the same author.

Antonio doesn’t know (or care) that the book won the 2008 Caledcott Medal, the first novel to do so.

With 284 pictures within the book’s 526 pages, the book depends as much on its pictures as it does on the words.

Selznick himself has described the book as “not exactly a novel, not quite a picture book, not really a graphic novel, or a flip book or a movie, but a combination of all these things.”

“Guess what page I’m on?” Crystel says in the car, on the couch, in her bedroom, as she makes her way through her dark romance.

“How did you find this book?” I asked her.

“When I was on Utube I clicked a thing on Ellen and Twilight.”

“I learned enough about the characters that when I went to our school library and saw the series, I picked it up. They didn’t have the first book, Twilight but they had New Moon. I read a little from the middle and there were no words that I didn’t know. And this cat is so cute. I’m reading Eclipse now.”

The four Twilight books have consecutively set records as the biggest selling novels for children.

Even so, I’m not interested in reading the series. It’s not my genre.

Is the lesson here that parents can model reading but not the genre?

I’ve Never Had Something Not Burn

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I’ve never had something not burn.

I was thinking of this when I was going through all these papers that we have collected throughout the school year that the kids have brought home from school. All year long they bring home math and spelling sheets, art drawings, more math and spelling. At the time you can’t throw anything away because it is a piece of art or they got 5 out 5 right or 8 out of 10 or maybe even 1 out of 10. Regardless, you have to keep the school papers because in the moment it is actual work to them and if you toss it in the trash you risk having your message be that their work isn’t important. Even if you place the papers carefully in the recycling bin, hiding them under the Sunday paper, you are still THROWING their hard work out.

The question is what do you keep?

I have no frame of reference. Our barn burnt down when I was in 3rd grade, our house burnt down when I was in 7th grade, and I burnt my back when I was in10th grade. You see what I mean when I say I’ve never not had something burn?

Jody has been the one that will pack decorations away after a holiday, storing them from year to year. To me, it is all temporary. It could go poof.

blog clothes 008But, I’ve gone along with Antonio and Crystel having memory boxes. We have stored away the infant clothes they were wearing when we first got them at seven and eight months old. Favorite baby clothes and shoes are also tucked away.

Sometimes it was the kids telling us that an item or piece of clothing should go in their memory box. For one, it was a way of knowing Mama Beth wouldn’t give it away.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOnce, I made the mistake of giving the neighbor girl one of Crystel’s outfits that no longer fit her. According to Crystel it was her favorite though I couldn’t recall the last time I saw the dress on her. Seeing it on some other little girl must have jarred her memory. Much like if they would find their homework papers in the recycling bin.

Another time I stocked a classroom store with toys, pens, and other items from their playroom. During school, a classmate said to Crystel, “Isn’t that yours?” It was a group of small colored pens. Crystel hid them behind other toys so none of her classmates would see them. When I got home, she greeted me with, “Mom, how could you? How could you? I was saving those pens for college.” I had to call the teacher and ask for them back.

Sifting through their 4th grade school work, I wondered why I didn’t remember ever bringing home this much paper from school. Then I recall the trash barrel we had on the farm. When the wastebaskets needed emptying it all went in the barrel and you burned it. Poof. I grew up in a family of 12 children. Can you imagine the load of school papers that came home? The trash barrel was always lit.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAEven though I didn’t grow up having a memory box, keepsakes, journals, etc…. I do see their value and each year I’ve journaled and kept mementos for the children. I’ve enjoyed it as much as them when we go back and look at how they have grown.

Recently, I read how a much asked for graduation present of high school and college graduates has been to receive a quilt made of t-shirts, sweatshirts, and other clothing worn by them throughout the years. I brought this idea up to Jody, Antonio, and Crystel during breakfast one morning. Looks like we already have a good start.

Looking at the blue bins, full of papers, it occurs to me that it is time to pass the baton and have them decide what is kept. I have set their bins aside for the first rainy day. I’ll stock up on glue, tape, scissors and two new notebooks.

The Importance of Friends

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Oliver and Antonio

Oliver and Antonio

Before Antonio’s soccer game, I told him that we wouldn’t be able to stay after the game. He groaned. Two days ago we stayed late giving him a chance to play with his friends on the field. They took turns shooting the soccer ball into the net with one of them guarding. I enjoyed watching his fun and he relished playing with his two friends.Every parent wants their child to have friends and I was delighted watching Antonio with his.

Today, after Antonio’s soccer game his friend Oliver asked if Antonio could stay and play. “My parents will bring him home,” he said. Antonio’s eyes shone when I said, “Yes”, and he quickly became so immersed in his soccer playing that he couldn’t hear Jody saying goodbye to him.

Nattie, Crystel, Ally

Nattie, Crystel, Ally

Antonio is interested in soccer this year because that is what his friends are doing during recess at school. I was shocked when both he and Crystel said they wanted to join the spring recreational league. For years, they had shown no interest.

His coach this year, remembered Antonio when he was four years old playing soccer at YMCA.

I sighed.

“Antonio was more interested in sitting on your lap then playing soccer,” I said to the coach.

The next time he played soccer he was six years old and he would come off the field during a play and say, “Crissy you go in for me.”

Crystel and Gabby

Crystel and Gabby

“Antonio she not only isn’t on your team,” I said. “She’s not even signed up for soccer.” Still, no one seemed to care when she bounded on the field taking his place.Children’s friendships are important to parents. Once in a while a parent will comment that they hope their children keep the same group of friends throughout all of their school years. “It’s a great group of kids,” they will say.

Jacob and Antonio

Jacob and Antonio

I must confess that I wasn’t prepared for the mother who wondered if Antonio would date her daughter-espeically since her daughter and Antonio were only in preschool. I’m sure she meant it as a compliment, but I hadn’t taken that leap in my mind yet.

Now that the kids are ten years old, I allow myself to wonder about that occasionally.

I am interested to see who they gravitate to in their friendships and in their ‘special’ relationships. They were both born in Guatemala and are being raised by two white women in an English speaking household. Are they drawn towards Hispanics or whites in their friendships? Who will they choose for a partner?

Tinsae and Antonio

Tinsae and Antonio

Both Antonio and Crystel are attending a Spanish dual language school. This helped them be comfortable around Hispanics. I used to have to remind them that they were brown and Hispanic which is why they needed to learn Spanish.

This past winter when the cold seemed like it would never end and they were whiny, I asked them if they would like to move to a warmer climate. They both immediately said, “No.” Their friendships have become that deep.

I have been happy to observe that they have friends who are of mixed races, white, Hispanic, and African American. They are friends with children from divorced families, families with only one parent, and children from families who have two parents.

In other words, they are perfectly normal.

Truth Telling

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Truth: Antonio doesn’t know that Crystel is providing rabbit ears. Truth: They love each other and are best friends.

I am adding an extra post this week and skewing a bit off the Guatemalan trail and onto the mommy track. I will be back online with another post on our Guatemala trip in a couple of weeks.

Truth Telling

I had been waiting for the right time to broach the subject with the children. I thought this was it: Sunday morning, quiet, not a lot going on yet, and we were all together. That’s another way of saying that I had them captive at the breakfast table. Antonio was reaching for more bacon, Jody was buttering her toast, and Crystel was eating her cereal.

I went to the livingroom and grabbed the book, My Two Moms, by Zach Wahls.

Sitting down, I flashed the cover. The front showed a young man in a suit jacket and tie being kissed on the cheeks by two women. This book wasn’t new to them. I had been reading the library book the past two weeks and it had sat around the house in plain view. One evening Antonio asked me what it was about. “This guy has two moms just like you,” I said. “He also has a sister. I am reading what it was like for him growing up. He’s in college now.”

There were a couple of things I read that surprised me. One was disturbing. I told Jody about it while we were walking the dogs. Zach said he felt bad that sometimes he lied about his home life when he was growing up. He wasn’t always truthful in responding to other children when they asked about his father (artificial insemination) or his family. This started when he was about the same age that Antonio and Crystel are now.

I was surprised to know that Antonio and Crystel might already be getting awkward questions. And if they are like Zach Wahls, they might already be making up answers. I told Jody that I didn’t ever want our kids to feel bad about being less than truthful about their personal stories. Children have enough weight to carry on their short little shoulders. I think it’s unrealistic to expect children to say, “I don’t choose to answer that question. My story is my personal story.” Sometimes it is easier for children to lie and that is the route they go.

Certainly that was the route I took when Antonio and Crystel first came home, as infants, even though I hold honesty in high regard. I got a lot of questions while standing in checkout lines. The most frequent was, “Are they twins?” At first, I answered with the truth and nothing but the truth. “No they are six weeks apart”. The truth didn’t feel right. It was incomplete and not acknowledging their bond as brother and sister. So I added, “They have been together since they were born.” I’d look at these two infants in their stroller shake my head and wonder what they were making of my conversation. I’d chastise myself for giving too much information. Information the children didn’t even have yet. I was afraid that I had a grace period to get the answers down before the children understood what I was saying. Sometimes I would just say, “Yes, they’re twins.” Neither answer was comfortable.

Since I had trouble responding to even the most basic inquiry, I didn’t hold any illusion that Antonio and Crystel could negotiate every question that came their way as grade-schoolers. Sometimes the questions weren’t so simple. One time, while bagging our groceries, I was asked, “How much do they cost?” They were referring to the toddlers and not the milk and eggs.

On our walk I let Jody know that this was a discussion I meant to have with Antonio and Crystel. It wasn’t a complete surprise to her when I came back to the table with the book.

“I want to talk to you guys about something,” I said. “You know this book? This is about a guy just like you who had two moms. He wrote about what it was like for him growing up. He said he felt bad when sometimes he would lie about his family.”

Crystel turned away from me, waving her hands, “Why do we always have to talk about this . . . ” she started.

I stopped her, “No, this is important.” The children know how I feel about them being honest. I think she was expecting that I was going to tell her and Antonio that no matter what, I never want them to lie, even if it is uncomfortable, even if it is intrusive, even if they don’t want to answer.

“If someone ever asks you about your personal story and you don’t want to talk about it, and you lie, that’s okay. I don’t want you to ever feel bad about that. You love your moms, we love you, and that is all that counts. When it comes to your story, it is your story. Don’t ever feel bad about not being truthful. We know you love us. We love you.”

Finished, I got up and put the book back on the shelf. Sitting down, we continued on with breakfast.

Guatemala, Our Best Vacation Ever!

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Our front yard at Los Elementos Adventure Center

By Elizabeth

It’s amazing our best vacation ever would be in a third world country deemed dangerous for travel by the U.S. State Department. Even my best friend was questioning my risk assessment capability when I told him that I was going to Guatemala AND taking my partner and two nine-year-olds AND calling it a vacation. I myself found it a strange thought to be spending ten days in the same country where the Peace Corps announced that they would stop sending new volunteers due to the increasing violence in the country.

So what was I, a white woman, with her partner and two nine-year-olds doing in Guatemala? Simply, having the best vacation of our lives.

My next several posts will be about our trip. I hope to capture the feel of the Mayan culture in Guatemala. How truly immersed in our experiences we were. How full our days were. How peaceful and at ease we were and how I slept with the doors open each night without fear of intruders.

Antonio and Crystel loved the trampoline

This would be our second trip to Guatemala. Our first trip in 2010 was to see the country and Antonio and Crystel’s birth villages. Following our trip, Antonio and Crystel said they would like to meet their birth moms. That story and their recent meeting is described in my forthcoming memoir HOUSE OF FIRE: From the Ashes, A Family, a memoir of healing and redemption.

Making our acquaintance with the locals

I made our travel arrangements with one primary goal: to get as close to the Guatemalans living in villages as possible. Since Antonio and Crystel were born in Guatemala, I wanted to show them what their life might have been like if they had grown up there. Seeing it in a picture book doesn’t equate to learning to weave from a Guatemalan woman in a casa and playing soccer in the village square.

Lake Atitilan is famous for its natural beauty and the colorful Mayan villages near it. Santa Cruz la Laguna is a traditional Mayan village located on the steep mountainside of the lake. The village can only accessed by boat or footpath. A single winding road connects the dock to the village. A common gathering place in the village is the sports court, used for basketball and soccer by the children of the village.

This location was the perfect destination for our family because Santa Cruz la Laguna also has two nonprofits, Amigos de Santa Cruz and Mayan Medical Aid that focus on the local indigenous people. Santa Cruz ranks at the bottom in terms of literacy rate: 73.4% of the population is currently illiterate. One of the missions of Amigos de Santa Cruz is to help improve the lives of the people through support for education.  Amigos officially opened a trade school in 2010. The school features a computer lab, craftsman workshop, and culinary area. Santa Cruz also ranks # 1 in infant and maternal mortality. Until the intervention of Mayan Medical Aid, health services, were practically non-existent.

A new friend

Lee Beal, a U.S. citizen living in Santa Cruz, serves on the board of directors of Amigos de Santa Cruz and is also involved with Mayan Medical Aid. I contacted him via email to inform him of my interest in visiting the projects.

Kayak Guatemala  and Lake Atitilan Travel Guide showcases the many varied tours that Lee Beal provides. Hmmm, I thought, horseback riding, cliff jumping, ziplining — exactly what our family needs after meeting the birthmoms. Time for celebrating, letting go and having fun! What most piqued my interest is that his services are advertised as being family-friendly and safe for women travelers.

We came to stay at Lee Beal’s Los Elementos Adventure Center, because by the time we were leaving the States, I was totally confused about where we were staying and what hotel was the best for my family. Lee mentioned that they had a guest suite available that was connected to their private home. When he added that it also came with a kitchen, Jody and I were sold. We don’t classify Antonio as a picky eater– we only cook what he eats. And that means familiar foods that don’t touch each other. Packed inside our suitcase was dry elbow macaroni and wide egg noodles. Staples for unknown times.

Los Elementos Adventure Center became our home for the next five nights and six days.

Another friend and fresh eggs every morning

Lee’s personal touch was transmitted in his emails and became cemented when he said that he would meet us at the supermarket once we got to Panachel, help us grocery shop, bank, and then board the launch for his home.

The first thing the kids ran to after getting off the boat was the trampoline in the garden. All of their excess energy flipped and flung away. They only stopped to pet the chickens that ran loose and make their acquaintance with the three dogs. Soon after they were holding the dogs on their laps.

View from the village

After meeting Elaine and informing her that having a massage from Los Elementos Day Spa was on our itinerary we started our hike to the village square. Antonio lagged behind grumbling. It was too hot. The hill was too steep. The top too far away.Once at the square, he sullenly sat by himself and wouldn’t join us in watching the children playing soccer.

But the next day all that would begin to change.

In large part, this was due to Lee Beal using English-speaking Guatemalan guides, who not only guided us throughout our stay, but who also related to our nine-year-olds on a very personal level.

Samuel, a 21-year-old indigenous local guide kayaked with us on Lake Atitilan and rode a horse on San Pedro La Laguna. We looked to him for advice during our lunch, when we bartered with a Guatemalan woman from San Antonio la Laguna who was selling her weavings. Encouraged by Samuel, we ate Guatemalan foods and drinks that we would never have dared without his assurances that they were safe for a gringos’ intestinal tract.

Alex, also a local guide from a nearby village, hiked with us to waterfalls, played soccer with Antonio in the village square with the local children, assisted with weaving, and swam with us at El Jaibolito.

Staying with the Beal’s was Zach, an adopted 14-year-old Guatemalan who is also from the United States and interning with Los Elementos as a guide. He was Antonio and Crystel’s constant companion. It was Zach who first jumped off the cliff followed by Antonio and Crystel. It was Zach who first put on his zipline hardware at Atitilan Nature Reserve to zing through the trees.

As the children’s mother, I could see that it made a difference to Antonio and Crystel that Samuel, Alex, and Zach were Guatemalan. They weren’t Hispanic. They weren’t Latin American. They weren’t from a different country. They were Guatemalan. Antonio and Crystel are Guatemalan. Their brown arms are the same skin tone. Their hair has the same coarseness. Their faces have the same Mayan features.

Through our Guatemalan guides, the village came to us and Antonio and Crystel began to gain a sense of who they are.

Next post: hiking, nonprofits, weaving.