Beachcombing

Hollywood Beach

Port Angeles, Sunday

Wide-Eyed Wanderer

Little River Trail

Olympic Peninsula, Sunday

Pause to Wonder

"I'm digging to China."

-Imogen

Tuna Pot

Imogen:
"When a man's an empty kettle
He should be on his mettle
And yet I'm 'tuna pot'" [torn apart]

From "If I Only Had a Heart," sung by Jack Haley. The Wizard of Oz.

Photo: oz.wikia.com

Breastmilk is my Superpower

Imogen was talking about superheroes in the car this morning.

Me: Are you a superhero?

Imogen: No.

Me: Am I a superhero?

Imogen: You're a superhero nursing one.

Sea Change

This Evening

Port Angeles Boat Haven

The Coming of Spring

Watercolor by Imogen

Meet Alicia

Imogen has an imaginary friend. Her name is Alicia and her experiences are mostly parallel with Imogen's. She came into our lives about six months ago. Immy says Alicia is her sister, but she has different parents and a lot of siblings (usually six or 10). Sometimes Alicia is six years old and sometimes she's 16. Occasionally, she's "grown up," but Immy's a little confused about how old that is. She insists Alicia is not imaginary or invisible, but we don't have to set a place for her at the table either. Earlier this week, Imogen told me that Alicia lost a tooth and the tooth fairy took it and left her a Barack Obama coin in its place.

The Wikipedia article on imaginary friends says they often act as a guardian or protector. I listen to what Imogen says about Alicia for insight into her emotional world.

It's a Pattern

This morning Imogen's "Teacher Ginny" told me that some of Immy's clothes patterns remind her of Kaffe Fassett's environments.

Photo: Art for Housewives

She Stands Up

"She stands up for her rights."
-"Teacher Susan" on Imogen

Women's Life

Gloria Steinem:

"I look 20 years forward and think I probably won't be here and I find that shocking. I am trying my best...to use my time better. Because, the truth is, I think I am immortal and thinking you are immortal causes you to plan poorly."

At nearly 76, the long-time New York City resident looks youthful and says she is "just as energetic" as she has always been in her travels advocating for women and other causes. -Reuters

(The best quote in the article: "If men got rewarded for the amount of nudity and sexuality that women do, men would be nude and sexual too, trust me.")

Thought for Food

"We need you not just to tweak around the edges, but to entirely rethink the products that you're offering, the information that you provide about these products and how you market those products to our children.

We can build shiny new supermarkets on every block, but we need those supermarkets to actually provide healthy options at prices people can afford. And we can insist that our schools serve better food, but we need to actually produce that food. And we can give parents all the information in the world, but they still won't have time to untangle labels filled with 10-syllable words or do long division with these portion sizes. And that's really where you come in.

This isn't about finding creative ways to market products as healthy. As you know, it's about producing products that actually are healthy -- products that can help shape the health habits of an entire generation.

If there is anyone here who can sell food to our kids, it's you. You know what gets their attention. You know what makes that lasting impression. You know what gets them to drive their parents crazy in the grocery store. And I'm here today to ask you to use that knowledge and that power to our kids' advantage."

-Michelle Obama, speaking to the Grocery Manufacturers Association on Tuesday (The Washington Post)

Pretty Cool

"We both have dresses on today. I feel pretty in my dress. Do you feel pretty in your dress?"

-Me to Immy

"I feel pretty in my whole body."

-Immy

The Abundance We've Created

"Okay, let's not be so scared of the abundance we've created."

-Kelly Cutrone

You Put a Spell on Me

Building Blocks

"My hands are tools, right?" -Imogen

What I Want For Her

“Everything I do, I do for Ava. I want Ava to have the best life I can give her. I want my daughter’s thoughts to be her thoughts. I want her feelings to be her feelings. I want Ava to be creative and I want her to trust and listen to herself. That means I want my daughter to be autonomous. I want her to be the empowered young woman. That’s what I want for her.”

-Kelly Cutrone

Photo: Fashionologie.com

Landscapes of a Western Mind

Crescent Bay, Strait of Juan de Fuca

 

Near to the Edge

Hollywood Beach, Port Angeles

Ballet of the Sidewalks

Downtown Port Angeles

Mo'Natural

"What would happen to actresses in a world where they had more natural figures and didn't shave their legs?"

-Academy Awards Press Reporter to Mo'Nique

"They would win Oscars."
-Academy Award Winner Mo'Nique

Photo: Los Angeles Times

Jump on Board

Add your voice to the Ferry Riders' Opinion Group.

Photo: Washington State Transportation Commission

Family Fun Night

Thursday, Immy's School

Nurse Immy

Sunday

Playing Outside

Saturday, Port Angeles

Love, Peace and Breastfeeding

"The rise of breastfeeding in countries at war has contributed to a marked decline in infant mortality during armed conflict, a recent report says.

Children younger than 5 are twice as likely to die in war than adults, mostly from disease, the 'The Shrinking Costs of War' indicates. The report, released mid-January by Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, also says infants up to 6 months old who are exclusively breastfed are seven times less likely to die from diarrhea and five times less likely from pneumonia than infants not breastfed."

Full Article

-Seattle Midwifery School, "From Women's eNews: Breastfeeding During War Helps Lower Infant Mortality." Midwifery & Doula News, February 2010.

Earliest Exposures

The Washington Toxics Coalition is highlighting the story of Molly Gray, a Seattle mother who took part in WTC's recent study on toxic chemicals in pregnant mothers. Shocked at her results despite avoiding chemicals, Molly testified today before a US Senate committee.

"Molly was one of nine pregnant women tested for toxic chemicals as part of a Washington Toxics Coalition study called Earliest Exposures. Molly found out that while she was pregnant she had the highest levels of mercury of anyone in the study and had higher then the national average for a number of others.

Molly describes the experience of finding out her body was contaminated with toxic chemicals:

'I will admit - I assumed I would test chemical-free. After all, for the last five years I had done everything I could to reduce my exposure to toxic chemicals. I ate organic food, chose low-mercury seafood and used personal care products without phthalates and fragrances. Despite my efforts, my results were higher than the national average...As clean as I tried to be, it was not enough to protect my baby boy.'"

Photo + Info: Washington Toxics Coalition

The Only Amazing Thing

Rufus Wainwright:

"One time I was hanging out with Leonard Cohen and his daughter," he says. "She was talking about this child she had known as a baby who she hadn't seen for a few years and how he was now grown up, and she said to her dad: 'You know, it's pretty amazing watching how the baby became a person.' Leonard looked at her and replied very drily, as only he could: 'You know, it's pretty much the only amazing thing there is.'"

Tim Adams, "Rufus Wainwright: 'I was looking right into her face when my mother died.'" The Observer, February 21, 2010.

The Emotionally Intelligent Family

Dr. John Gottman:

“Before I became a father, I had spent nearly twenty years working in the field of developmental psychology, studying the emotional lives of children. But it was not until our child arrived in 1990 that I began to truly understand the realities of the parent-child relationship.” Intense love. Frustration. Joy. Disappointment. Vulnerability.

“Surprisingly,” Dr. Gottman explains, “much of today’s popular advice to parents ignores emotion. Instead it relies on child-rearing theories that address children’s misbehavior, but disregards the feelings that underlie that misbehavior. The ultimate goal of raising children should not be simply to have an obedient and compliant child. Most parents hope for much more for their children. They want their children to be moral and responsible people who contribute to society, who have the strength to make their own choices in life, who enjoy accomplishments of their own talents, who enjoy life and the pleasures it can offer, who have good relationships with friends and successful marriages, and who themselves become good parents.

“In my research I discovered that love by itself wasn’t enough. We found that concerned, warm, and involved parents often had attitudes toward their emotions and their children’s emotions that got in the way of talking to their children when the child was sad or afraid or angry. The secret to being an emotionally intelligent parent lay in how parents interacted with their children when emotions ran hot.” –adapted from pp. 15-16, Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child by John Gottman with Joan DeClaire.

Dr. Gottman’s research has also shown that an important element to successful parenting was based on how parents interacted with each other when emotions ran hot. Dr. Gottman and other researchers have observed that children benefit the most when parents have a strong relationship. “It isn’t so much about staying married for the sake of the kids. Couples need to stay happily married, if they can, in order to help their children. In families where the parents aren’t living with each other or are not going to stay married, the parents can best help their children by minimizing their children’s exposure to destructive conflict. High levels of parental conflict create emotional distress on the children and decrease effective parenting skills.

http://www.gottman.com/parenting/

Heavenly Creatures

"I'm babysitting her for God until she can take care of herself."

-Kelly Cutrone of People's Revolution on mothering Ava, 7

Trailblazing

"Mud up!"

-Imogen

Bubbling

You Get There

"It's not a long way to everywhere, right?
You just take a shortcut and then you get there."
-Imogen

Parent Line

For people on the Olympic Peninsula or Kitsap Peninsula in need of child care, Parent Line is an excellent resource. They have a database to match families with caregivers based on care needed, schedule and location(s). I called Parent Line in Port Angeles ((360)452-5437), talked with a very nice person, and within minutes was e-mailed a list of 17 caregivers.

One Wish

"Happy Little Things"

-A wish from Immy to Grammy

Straitforward

Valley Creek Estuary
Port Angeles Waterfront

In the 50s

Natural State

Olympic National Park Headquarters Visitor's Center,

Peabody Creek Trail
Port Angeles

Timber Town

"Port Angeles," a wooden-block diorama by Imogen

Humans: The Cooking Apes

Richard Wrangham was on KUOW's Speakers' Forum this week, talking about--yes, us--"the cooking apes." I think the most provocative point he makes is that men historically have had more opportunities in life than women because of freedom from daily chores like cooking.

When I turned the radio on and caught this talk, I had just gotten up from squatting on the floor with Imogen, over a board that we were breaking nuts open on with a kitchen mallet. I had even mentioned to Immy that I felt like a monkey and then I pretended I was one. Weird.

Photo: PictureHistory.com