Origamiland

We took a break from the unpacking this week to visit the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem (thanks, public library, for your free museum pass program!).

I've heard much good press about the PEM but hadn't yet made it there. Sam was a little reluctant (car repugnant as he is) but once he heard they were featuring an exhibit on origami he was on board.

If you're in the Boston area, be sure to check it out. Besides amazing paper-folding creations (see pictures below), they also have hands-on origami projects that were pleasers. (Looking for a fun activity? The website has some great origami lessons to try at home.) These were so cool (and, yes, completely out of folded paper!):

Play that funky music, white boy

S has been aching for a mix cd of his own. I guess he's watched his two sisters with their iTunes/pods, heard the music seeping (or booming) from their rooms. Finally, he decided it was his turn. Enough Carrie Underwood (M) and Shania Twain (L)--he was ready to follow his own musical hankerings. I finally got some more blank cds this week and today he presented me with the list of songs he wants. Here's what my 8-year-old has chosen, all on his own:
-Upside Down (Jack Johnson)
-Bad Day (Daniel Powter)
-Axel F (Crazy Frog)
-You're Beautiful (James Blunt)
-The Sun (They Might Be Giants)
-Particle Man (They Might Be Giants)
-Photograph (Nickelback)
-Play That Funky Music White Boy (Wild Cherry)
-I'm a Believer (Smashmouth)
-How to Save a Life (The Fray)
-What a Wonderful World (Louis Armstrong)
-Wanted Dead or Alive (Daughtry)
-I'm Going Home (Daughtry)
-If I had a Million Dollars (Barenaked Ladies)
-It's Not Over (Daughtry)

Except for Wild Cherry and Daniel Powter, he even knew the artists and their spellings. I love these little windows into his world.

I realized today that it's been several months since S has deigned to hold my hand in public. He used to voluntarily hold my hand, even on the way to school, just reach out nonchalantly and link himself to me for the walk home. Sometimes there would even be a skiphop as he trotted along next to me, matching his boy-sized strides to my mom-sized ones.

I wish I would have known the moment of the last one. I would have savored it more, looked down on the sun shining on that cute swirl of hair at the crown of his head, maybe squeezed his hand to punctuate that last hand-to-hand that would launch him into middle childhood. But then I would have cried and nobody wants that.

"...the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three on them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4, and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in a hurry to get on to the next things: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less" (Anna Quindlen).

So savor, sieze the day.

S came home from school yesterday and the first thing he said was "I brought home a recipe for you!" Now it's not everyday that my third grader contributes culinary suggestions--especially not from school--so I was very interested what recipe he would produce. Chicken in a basket (the mysterious entry on this week's school lunch menu)? Tater Tots? Overcooked green beans? Nope. Brownies. This was the recipe:

That's right: "Delcious Brownies Ghirardelli Chocolate Triple Chocolate Brownies." So apparently (and I'm just imagining here) someone in his class brought brownies and S, who won't ask anyone at school where the lost and found is so he can find his missing winter coat, thought "I've got to get me some of that." So he asked "what kind of yummy brownie is that and can I teach my mom how to make them?" and then he took the box (how else would he get "Ghirardelli" right?) and painstakingly wrote out the "recipe" in his best cursive (serious business deserves serious penmanship). Then he folded the paper four times, put it in his front jeans pocket and carried it with him all day. I picture him patting it every once in a while, just to make sure the precious document was still in tact. All so I could make him some chocolate goodness. That's my boy.