Bumblebee Sweet Potato

where Kramer & Newman got spit on by Keith Hernandez? That’s what I feel like I’m dealing with here.

So we had the meeting with Mrs. X to talk about the Bee’s spitting incident, and while I don’t think there was a second spitter, there does seem to be some discrepancy in the various accounts of the events. However, (and more importantly to me), Mrs. X this time described the spit as more of a raspberry (in keeping with the Bumblebee’s description of what happened). There’s still disagreement about how far away the parties were from each other, but I doubt we’ll ever resolve that without a grainy 8mm film of the incident surfacing.

Landisdad and I decided that the Bee had been punished enough (since we made her miss an exciting event at school the night of the incident), and that we would work with her more at home on appropriate methods of expressing anger.

And I managed to have a civil conversation with Mrs. X, where for once, she didn’t interrupt me, so that’s good. Mrs. X thanked us for coming in, and being involved parents who are working with the school.

Relief all around, I think.

So I’m briefly interrupting the spitting saga (spitting mad?) with this anecdote.

As previously reported, my kids love books. The Sweet Potato has always loved the Eric Carle books (on a side note, when can I become a children’s book author–have you read some of this stuff?), but lately, his favorite book is Caps for Sale, by Esphyr Slobodkina. For those of you not familiar with it, this is the story of a peddler who is having trouble selling his caps, and goes for a walk in the country. He falls asleep under the tree with all the caps stacked up on his head, and he wakes up to find that all but one of his caps have been stolen by monkeys.

He tries a variety of persuasion methods, including shaking his finger at them and stamping his feet, but the monkeys are unconvinced until he throws his own cap on the ground in a rage. Then, the monkeys who have been copying him all along, throw their caps onto the ground too.

We’ve been reading the SP this story every night for about a week, and doing a little demonstration during the reading. Last night, he was so excited that when I started to read it, he was waving his finger, and then stamping his feet, far in advance of those pages.

It made me so happy to see him that excited, and of course he’s just adorable, doing his little monkey dance in his crib. I just love how kids lose themselves in fiction.

“kid behavior problem”

because I can’t face the dreaded Mrs. X now.

After the Bumblebee has spit on her.

I am a bad mother. Married to a bad father.

I want to cry.

Okay, I know I’m a day behind everyone else in the blogosphere. Sue me.

I started to write a post about how I had a somewhat disappointing Mother’s Day, and then I thought, “but why do I care?” Have I been so programmed by Hallmark that I expect flowers and sweetness all day long? Isn’t enough that I got woken up by the Bee at 6:40 a.m., because she was so excited to give me my present that she couldn’t wait another minute?

And then I had this interesting conversation with her, as we were driving the Sweet Potato to daycare, and I was wearing said present, a plastic pin covered with sequins in the shape of a butterfly:

BB: “I’m glad you like my present.”

LM: “Of course I do, sweetie, I always like what you make for me.”

BB: “But I didn’t really make it. We didn’t get to take home the ones that we made-just ones that were the same shape.”

LM: “What do you mean? you mean someone else made this pin?”

BB: “Yeah, I made a butterfly, but that’s not the one that I made. Mrs. X said we just had to take the same shape, but not to worry about whether it was the one we made or not.”

LM: “Okay” (voice in my head: “you mean I’m wearing this pin for SOMEONE ELSE’S kid? I hate Mrs. X!”)

Sigh. At least I know that the present the Sweet Potato gave me was his actual handprint.

Today, our farmers’ market re-opened, and we welcome it! Our Saturday morning ritual, since we’ve lived here, is to attend the farmer’s market. This early in the spring, there are usually more flowers than fruits and vegetables, but it’s still fun, and nice to be out in the weather, communing with our neighbors. Some of the local coffee shops always set up tables, and people can laze around, drinking coffee while their kids play together.

The Bee loves the farmers’ market, not least because of the prevalence of baked goods that are sold there. And somehow, while in the winter and during the school week, we rarely let her eat sugar for breakfast, landisdad and I find it impossible to deny her the joys of a fresh, homemade cider doughnut and a cup of lemonade. The Sweet Potato loves it because there are always people walking their dogs, and he gets to point and yell, “dog! wooh, wooh!” (although he won’t say no to a doughnut, either).

Usually, there is some local band or individual singer playing under a tent. Lots of folks today were out in sweatshirts, but as the morning wore on and the sun came out, we all started stripping them off. A local real estate firm was giving out balloons to all the kids, and we soon had some tied to our wagon. We ended up buying some bread, and an organic chicken, and some handmade soap, and some leeks. We talked to a candidate who’s running for our local town council.

The farmers’ market is one of the best things about our town. I love the fact that, every week, for more than half of the year, we have a common ground to meet in with our neighbors. It makes me feel like we live in a real community–it’s like living in a European village, with a town square, where everyone comes for something, once a day.

This week is Cover the Uninsured Week. Why isn’t this Cover the Uninsured Year? or Decade? Why are we allowing this crisis to go on unresolved?

While I think it’s great the the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is devoting substantial resources to exposing the problem of the uninsured, the real problem is with us for the other 51 weeks out of the year. I also worry that institutionalizing this as a one-week event is subjecting the uninsured to the kind of flavor-of-the-week status. I’m disturbed that RWJ isn’t proposing a solution–just a dialogue. Well, we can talk about it some more, but it’s sort of like rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic–the ship is still sinking.

The reality in America is that every day, more and more folks lose health care. Every day, more and more hospitals and health clinics and doctors’ offices have to make the choice to treat patients whose care they may never be reimbursed for. Every day, employers have to struggle with the idea that next month, they may not be able to pay health premiums for their employees. And that’s bad for all of us, the uninsured AND the insured.

It’s clear to me that we need a systemic fix to this problem. It’s equally clear that we need to stop tying health care to work. We should be able to figure out a way to give everyone health care, regardless of whether they are working or not. If we did that, we’d make life easier for moms who want to stay home with their kids. We’d make it easier for small business owners, who want to provide health care for their employees, but are being squeezed out of the market. We’d make it easier for the poor, who wouldn’t have to worry that going to the ER for a kid’s broken leg is going to make them even poorer. We’d make it easier for health care institutions, who wouldn’t worry that they won’t be able to pay their own employees’ health care costs, because they have so many charity care patients.

We need a system like Medicare for everyone. A government-run system that will ensure that everyone in the country has access to at least basic health care–not just for kids and the elderly, but for healthy, working adults.

We need some other things, too. We need the major health care institutions–hospitals, drug companies, physician networks, whatever–to change their attitudes about pricing and profits.

But most of all, we need to say, as individuals and as a group, it’s good for me (or us) when other people have health care. It’s good for me, because I know the kids in my kid’s class are vaccinated. It’s good for me, because I know the person who sold me my coffee this morning doesn’t have TB. It’s good for me, because I know that my brother, who’s working a minimum wage job, can have health care without his employer going broke. Even if I have health care now, it’s good for me if the system changes.

My favorite camera store has closed, and I’m mourning it today. It was the kind of place that was totally unique, and I’m really sad to find out that they’ve gone out of business.

About six years ago, I inherited a Nikon F3 from landisdad’s grandfather. I had always been interested in photography, but had never had the cash to get a really good camera. I had (and still have) a point and shoot Pentax, but the F3 was a real windfall for me. There’s nothing auto about it. In order to shoot well, I had to learn how to focus, read up on filmspeed, and understand something about shutter speed. It’s a great camera, but a total bear–the thing must weigh three pounds. Once, when I had it hung around my neck, I leaned down to give the Bee a kiss, and whacked her in the head with it, and was wracked with guilt for the next three days, as it gave her a huge bump.

It’s the kind of camera that, if I’m shooting a rally or march, older newspaper photographers will come up to compliment me on it. It’s sort of like being in a little club–the club of the serious amateur photographer.

I don’t have a flash for it, so I can really only use it during the day, but it’s been the camera with which I have taken some of my favorite photos of my kids. Landisdad’s grandfather was a pretty serious photographer, and it came with both fisheye and telephoto lenses, so it’s really useful in crowd photography. I usually just shoot black and white film with it, although I’ve taken some amazing color pictures too.

About four years ago, I started taking all my film to a camera store that was around the corner from where I worked at the time. It was a wonderful place, staffed by people who really knew something about taking pictures. It was not terribly far away from two different art schools, and there were always student photographers in there, both in front of and behind the counter. Once, when I had to take the F3 in to get repaired, the guy who fixed it for me offered to let me name my price for it.

But I never felt like it was the kind of snooty place that only catered to professionals or serious students of photography. They liked amateurs like me. And it was also the kind of store where the same woman was always behind the counter, knew my name, and threw an extra can of film in my bag once a year or so, just because I was a good customer. They never mentioned it when I made grievous photography errors, probably because they all knew that the way you learn to do something complicated, like take really great photos, is to make a lot of mistakes.

I’ve changed jobs three times since I first started going there, but it was always the place I trusted to do my good developing, even when I stopped working in the city, and started having to drive nine miles just to get there. I got to the point where I was only bringing in film if I had to be in the city for some other reason. And I was ready to drop some off last week. But it was closed.

I knew that the push of digital would be hard on places like this. I knew that the fact that the neighborhood is getting gentrified would make it harder to pay the rent. But I didn’t think it would happen so soon. I was just there last month, and there were no signs that they were failing. For god’s sakes, there’s a RitzCamera on the next block that seems to be thriving!

It saddens me, because I know that the presence of Ritz helped to shut them down. I like my digital camera, because it makes it so much easier to send pictures of the kids to my mom. But I’ve never felt the urge to make an 8×10 out of a picture that I took with that camera. I’ve never just sat and looked at the velvety texture of the Bumblebee’s face in one of those shots, the way that I have looked at her face in some of my black and white work.