This morning, while working on math (math! I shake my fists at you!) with Judd the Red Chicken, I looked over at my daughter, draped across the couch, closed book (Misty of Chincoteague) clasped to her chest, and staring off into space.
(Tomorrow our 1st-quarter reports are due into the Office of Home Schooling. How? The sharp realization of how finite time is has been piercing me. I feel like we are running out of time to do everything awesome, and running out of time to make sure they've mastered what they need to.)
I opened my mouth to ask her why, if she had finished the book, she wasn't either doing a book report, or finding a different book... and then I closed my mouth. The sweet little smile she had on her face checked me just in time.
"Are you daydreaming about having a horse?" I asked, inspired.
Her eyes dreamily shifted and made contact with mine and she smiled wider and nodded.
It's for that that people home school.
This afternoon I was also inspired that we should walk across the park to the Met.
Before The Dad and I had children (so I guess he was The Husband), we were visiting NYC and passed the Alice statue by the Conservatory Water and saw kids climbing and crawling all over it. We felt that New York City kids were surely some of the luckiest kids in the world. That moment has become a part of our family lore, and the kids know that no matter how much they've been hustled because we're in a hurry, and no matter how hot or cold it is, if they ask to climb it we almost always give in. Today was no different. Today we just called it gym class.
Here are some of the things we talked about at the Met:
1. Bashford Dean was awesome. We loved his bookplate (above) and plan on designing our own for an art project. The Latin means: "To know the cause of things." Which he clearly embraced. To simultaneously work for the Natural History Museum and the Met... to be a stellar zoologist, while also building the arms and armor department? I bet he was enthralling to chat with. I asked the kids what their two top subjects would be. The Girl: Art and Animals. The Boy: Chickenology, The Cops/The Fuzz, History (we are still working on math -- i.e. 2 does not equal 3).
2. The gift of the educators, security guards, and volunteers that work there. We asked one volunteer if he had any tidbits for us and he smiled and led us over to the armor made for a five-year old (the great-grandson of Louis the XIV). Perhaps we've noticed it before, but if so, it didn't make an impression on us. Today while the elderly gentleman with his pants pulled up to his nipples pointed out the tiny lions and castles that bedazzled the armor I thought: now we will always remember it. He also showed us a gun that had little squirrels (the shooter pushed on their tails to cock it). Later as we wandered Judd the Red Chicken made a sharp turn and went behind a wall to show The Sister a tiny area where some animal mummies are. He knew their secret whereabouts because of a security guard a long time ago who took the time to point them out to us.
3. Because of a Colbert clip that they saw a while back (Stephen Colbert asks the curator that came on his show a) if he could lick the paintings and b) if the fob on Washington's trousers are his testicles), the kids have been wanting to see Washington Crossing the Delaware. We have forgotten the last couple of times, but today took a ride in the great glass elevator to the very cool second floor of the American Wing and saw the painting. Yes, when we got home we had to watch the Colbert clip. Say what you will about his appropriateness/inappropriateness, I'm pretty sure they will remember that the painting was done by a German-American painter 75 years after the event (50 years after Washington had died), and that that crossing happened on Christmas.
4. In the gallery just outside the Washington Crossing... there is a painting that has this guy. I snapped a picture of it for The Girl, because while she doesn't love going to the Met like the rest of us, she is a good sport and likes to play a game of trying to find all the cool animals lurking in the museum. Today when we walked through the Medieval section I told her that when she was really little that was her favorite section because she loved all the "babies" (as in: the Christ child). She looked at me like I was nuts. Obviously, likenesses of animals have trumped statues of the Madonna and the Son of God.
5. For the sake of being consistent, and creating more of that family lore, I always mention my disapproval of the remodeling of the courtyard in the American Wing (the day I finally saw it after it had been closed for eons I was so flabbergasted I vented my opinion to approximately half a dozen security guards). In my opinion, they took away a bulk of the charm. That having been said, it is still the Met, so still pretty perfect. We still always talk about where we would stay and what we would do if we were Jamie and Claudia Kincaid (From the Mixed-up Files of Ms. Basil E. Frankweiler -- a favorite kid book).
6. Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. That's a little chant that British schoolchildren learn. So I taught it to mine. This was King Henry XIII's armor. Today I told the kids that he was really upset when one of his wives showed up and was not the great beauty he was told to expect.
"The thing is," I said all scandalous-like, "He was hideous himself!"
"Yeah, well, his tush would have been popping out of the back here," said The Girl from behind the case.
7. We always have to check on the flowers in the main entrance hall. I love them. The kids are sweet and always get especially excited if there are hydrangeas (my favorite). A lady left an endowment to ensure that there would always be the enormous fresh flower arrangements there in the Met. Some might feel like there are more noble causes for which to create endowments. I have mixed-up feelings (if not files). We talked about how much money is tied up in those flowers because it's the interest of a large sum that is used. I could argue that the flowers inspire... but how many school children that truly need to be inspired are coming to the Met? Field trips have become a joke because of cost and scheduling of buses (it's usually just a lot of rushing about). The flowers are no more or less superfluous than the rest of the art; they are doing the job they are supposed to do, but being stationary objects can only inspire if people/children come to them.
I'm glad that we went.
We walked home through the park at that magic time when all the lights pop on. In the almost-darkness the man that creates the enormous bubbles continued doing so... with no crowds and hardly any light he continued creating the wobbling orbs that shimmered and floated phantom-like under the lamppost glow.
