Colonel Mustard in the billiards room with the tp tube

Language
crazy it's everywhere we expect little kids to know their way around it with no GPS no map but that only works if the grown-up driving the car says look out the window there's a white horse in the field beside the old red barn falling down and a car carrier truck going over the bridge your fork is by your napkin but the spoon is next to the knife
It cuts It's clear there's a hawk on the pole
how old are you why do you shake
right side out can you fix your sleeves I say almost as often as did you flush are you sure
inside outside beside upside down on its side
over under below above beneath atop ready to drop in time square
like a boat
a cannon
a cave trapped in
clear see-through transparent go-go dancers white crinkle patent boots Millie the Model comic books on the revolving rack in the sunny window corner of the Rexall Drug

Octagon stop on the way to rest assisted nursing
base foundation construction structure
engineered pickles milk bottle mayo lids
kids insist the catsup mustard syrup shampoo
lids are toilets those same kids never flush
put the seat up put the seat down
Scoop
tube cylinder cube sphere over here
not just put this there or point and nudge
standing up down flat
that match just the same
carry water turn it over put it under in the dark no way out
turn it around do the hokey pokey that's what it's all about
Ranch dressing behind between in front grid mesh holes right next to look through glass
at the corner in the middle at the center near the edge right by my name
together apart in your lap numbers letters
whale's tail trampoline jumping bean
please and thank you count to ten hot glue hot cool how cool now wait
together apart again repeat
tall short skinny wide tiny big small same different heavy brother
what where how rectangle triangle square o'er the rockets red glare
ring circle round flat bumpy smooth
the biggest green thing you ever did see hole in the bottom of the sea
leaning against pointing toward onward and upward
Christian soldiers scoot up closer to the table so you don't get crumbs
past present tense don't talk with your mouth
Full

Spatial vocabulary is essential, but most of the time we don't notice when we use it. Children need to hear adults using spatial terms early in their lives to gain thinking skills for future math, science, and technology work. Dr. Susan Levine and her research team at the University of Chicago videotaped caregivers interacting with children 14-46 months of age in normal activities. On average adults used 167 words related to spatial concepts during 13.5 hours of video-recording, but the range of terms used was from five to 525. Early exposure to spatial language builds a habit of observing the world increasing kids' attention to spatial relations. It builds the ability to visualize and transform a mental image of a shape, to mentally rotate shapes and build spatial analogies, to notice similarities and differences. Can you put the pretzel stick through the Cheerio?

Pruden, S. M., Levine, S. C. and Huttenlocher, J. (2011), Children’s spatial thinking: does talk about the spatial world matter?. Developmental Science, 14: 1417–1430. Research supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and an award from the National Science Foundation's Science of Learning Center program to the University of Chicago's Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center.

© 2014 Nancy L. Ruder

Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes

 

Exhibit A

Shredder bag busting and dusting the condo. These are a few of my favorite things.

Right! Just like plastic Easter grass, dry Christmas pine needles, and sequins from little girls' shoes. Impossible to ever really vacuum up no matter if I change the vacuum bag or not. I was wearing my very fuzzy I'm-home-now-and-I'm-not going-out-ever-again socks when the bag popped. The plastic and the fuzziness and the shreds were electric. Static electric! My feet looked like two porcupines roasting marshmallows.

Exhibit B

A gift that keeps on floating around the house. Three shreds under the dining chair. Five stuck to the bath mat. They keep on clinging on. Snow flakes that stay on my ... wimple?

Exhibit C

I still sing (softly to myself only), "Silver white wimples that melt into springs." Just thought the song was about nuns as a confused kid. The real lyric is about winters. I got to make a wimple once for the nurse in a production of "Romeo and Juliet".

Exhibit D

It's cold here. I shouldn't whine, but I will. Two sweaters. A shawl wrapped over my head and around my neck and shoulders, quite wimplesque. Just since I started writing this, more shreds have appeared on the carpet. Tea, a drink with Janet Bread. She yodeled up 'cause the goatherd's throat hurt. If it were strep she wouldn't get to go to the play with Grandma.

Exhibit E

Now wild geese fly with an app on their phone, forget the moon on their wings. These are a few of my favorite things.

wimple,  headdress worn by women over the head and around the neck, cheeks, and chin. From the late 12th until the beginning of the 14th century, it was worn extensively throughout medieval Europe, and it survived until recently as a head covering for women in religious orders. The wimple originally was adopted as a chin veil by Western women after the crusaders brought back from the Near East such fashions as the veil of the Muslim woman. The wimple, usually made of fine white linen or silk, framed the face and covered the neck and sometimes part of the bosom.

© 2014 Nancy L. Ruder

If you want to hang out you gotta eat kale

Last week I made a huge crockpot full of kale soup. It was sooooo good. The only thing that would have made it better would be leaving out the kale.*

I was grateful for the soup, of course. Especially grateful that I soaked the kale in a big bowl of salt water until the worms floated to the surface. Mom taught me to always soak broccoli and cauliflower in salt water to force out the worms. Effective, yes. Appetizing, no.


Finding a monarch caterpillar on milkweed is groovy. Peace, man! And milkweed doesn't have a song for ear worms. Kale, on the other hand, has J.J.'s "Cocaine", a song that won't unstick from my head even in salted water:

If you want to hang out

You gotta take her out

Cocaine.

If you want to get down

Down on the ground

Cocaine.

After the soup, there was still half a head of kale in the fridge. Dang. So I made kale pesto. Kale pesto is half-way between rabbit food pellets and silage. You blanch the kale after you get rid of the worms, then drain and squeeze the liquid out in a towel. Lemon juice, olive oil, grated parmesan, a clove or two of garlic (go with one!!), and the kale in your food processor, and voila! Warm up some bagel chips.
The leftover kale pesto is still in the fridge in the morning just waiting to go in my school lunchbox. Driving to school Renee Montagne of NPR's "Morning Edition" is interviewing Sam Dagher of the Wall Street Journal about the situation in Syria:

DAGHER: It was just horrible. I mean to see some of these people who eventually came out - women who were carried on stretchers, others who could barely walk. I mean I met a woman who was 95 and she told me that kids were picking grass in order for her to eat. And then she broke down in tears. 

Trying to eat the garlicky kale concoction on celery sticks all I could think of was the 95 year old woman eating grass. We got a new rabbit for the preschool classroom. A bunny needs to eat lots of grass. It needs to be busy and curious, and to promote calm and peace in the preschool classroom. A bunny can do that. 

Maybe we should send bunnies to Syria. If not rabbits, then humanitarian kale and crockpots.

Marcia Brown's Stone Soup with Kale

*Make very small meatballs with ground Italian sausage and brown. Drain off grease. Put in crockpot with a box of lower sodium chicken broth; a peeled and diced potato; a can of diced tomatoes seasoned with oregano; a half bag of dry white northern beans; a half head of kale washed with veins (and worms) removed, chopped; a couple carrots peeled and chopped; several stalks of celery chopped; a quart or more of water; and a parmesan cheese rind. Most 'specially, O Best Beloved, do not forget the parmesan cheese rind. Cook it on HIGH until it wakes you up in the night, then on LOW for a day or so. Stones and kale optional.

© 2014 Nancy L. Ruder