Whistling for Ian

I was reading by the time I was four years old. I remember the exact moment. I was sitting in the back of our maroon, Dodge dart, little legs sticking to the black pleather in the hot Kentucky sun. I looked at the road signs. Suddenly, the shapes morphed into something I understood. I began to read everything my eyes could see. I consumed everything written, hiding my new secret and enjoying my miracle for awhile.

I knew even then, how important a miracle reading and learning were. I began to play 'teacher' to my little brother. He liked it better then being my living baby doll (at some point the photos will surface of my sweetie sibling looking lovely in a pink nightgown). Eventually his teacher sent a note home asking my mom for me to stop teaching him how to read, as I was doing it wrong.

I learned how to do it 'write' and became an English teacher. I recently found pictures of my students and lived again the life of 'Mama Ro', the crazy, involved teacher who adopted as much as she instructed.

As my own son is now in his first year of school, this miracle of reading and learning has taken on a new meaning. It has also taken on a new weightiness and pressure.


My son doesn't know all his letters. He can only write his name with regular clarity. He struggled so much with a reading assessment that no assessing could be done. It is impossible to know whether he can or can't learn to read and write. He is already a child on the edge of being left behind.

However, he has a young, energetic teacher with the patience of Job. He attends a school where the classes are small enough and teachers are committed enough that he will get individualized literacy support. He has parents who will do anything to see him succeed and hold his hand if he doesn't.

My first reaction, as with most things, was to attack it with every resource we have. I am in the process of setting up an incentive/learning center and bought some letter puzzles, magnets and fun games. I am ready baby.


My mother/sister/friend and home schooling goddess, Beth, sent home with Ian a magical book.

She also gave me a long list of ideas around the book. She gently, and in her usual grace filled way, reminded me of the miracle of reading and learning. Tonight the miracle began to come true.

I wish I could blog that he magically could remember his sight words, or that he recognized more letters. He didn't. He will. Just not tonight.

He was swinging his legs in his feetie jammies, noshing on a blueberry muffin top. Recovering from a chest cold, I was glad to see him eat and drink. We reviewed sight words. He knew 3 of the 9. It was time to read.

I read with no agenda other than to enjoy the story of this wonderful little boy and his dog. I put in every bit of expression and mother goofiness I could muster. I read for no other reason than to share this moment with my son.

Peter is trying to learn how to whistle for his wiener dog Willie. He tries and tries and tries again. Finally, he tries one last time and is able to whistle! At the high point, I whistled in jubilation along with Peter and my darling son. In the story, Willie the Wiener comes running to Peter. In our kitchen, Frankie the Wonder-Wiener-Dog, came running too! We laughed so hard I thought my baby would fall out of his chair. Frank just snuffled under Ian's chair looking for a muffin crumb.

"Read it again! That was g-weat!" (Rrrr's are a challenge.) So I did, reminded once again what miracles are reading and my little whistling sweetie.

Green Light

It's official. I am, as some not so nice conservative commentators would say, a Greenie Weanie.

I was in the grocery store, for a few of those blessedly unencumbered moments a mother enjoys. I was looking for dixie cups for my son to rinse out the 'tooth-taste' after brushing. I could only find the plastic version. I put the package back as I knew it would take a bazillion years for the cup to fully not be impacting the earth.

Please understand one thing. I think humans were created to care for, steward and use all the earth has to offer. This includes meat. I love a good steak as much as the next gal. This includes drilling wherever we damn well please to get the oil we are sitting on-instead of paying countries that harbor and train terrorists. In essence we are paying people to plot to kill us and end our way of life because we can't dig in our own backyards. It's much like sitting on the lid of a water well and burning to death because we don't want to take the lid off because, well, it might hurt something. Sorry, political tangent. Short of everyone riding bikes and learning to rollerblade, things ain't realistically gonna change in the near (or far) future. And if any fellow Greenies tell me I should trade in my SUV for a smaller, hybrid, they can come and tote my family (and the ten tons o' gear) around for a week and then get back to me.

All that political tirade aside, I do believe in our responsibility to steward the earth as we have been given it. If we can do something cleaner, cheaper and better, we should. It's why I am so excited to be working for an environmental solutions company (http://www.missioncriticalsolutions.com/). They manufacture electric vehicles fast enough to be used by law enforcement. These aren't those little scooters that only go above 5 mph when going downhill. These are real cars, with real power.

I am excited to work for a pharmacy services company that installed geothermal heat without help from the government. They did it because it made business sense. It cut their heating/fueling costs dramatically. It was expensive and risky. It was a brilliant move.

I have the luxury of thinking sustainable and environmentally friendly because I am not fighting each day to simply make it through the day. It is through the business lens I look into the Green Movement. If we can do things in a way that uses less energy, creates less waste and is healthier for us I say, "Hooray!".

As the mother of a five year old, I am often privileged to tote him to the drive in for a kid friendly movie. Mostly, I try to read a book and not fall out the back of the truck. Sometimes my husband and I cuddle and sip our favorite beer, drifting off for a quick nap while our little is enthralled with the latest kid-merchandising opportunity. However, for the Pixar movie WALL-E, I couldn't look away.

It was a morality tale for grown ups. It posited that we could consume ourselves out of our very humanity. Can we? Probably not. However, it does ask the simple question of, "How much is too much?" Who gets to determine that shifts with every administration and political action committee. Some think we should return to the days of walking, living in caves and not shaving. Others buy their way out with manufactured morality by purchasing "carbon" credits from some underdeveloped hell hole which would use the same petroleum based vehicle if they weren't so busy killing each other.

I just say I can do a little. I did my part today. I put back the plastic sippy cups.

What will you do?