Today I've been thinking about small details. They are the things that are missed most when somebody passes, the things that make you laugh hardest during a stand-up comedy routine, the things that make a person most cranky, and the things that most demonstrate that somebody loves you. It's the small details that make life life.
We went to the Met tonight to see the Angel tree as a family. I have very specific guidelines for people when I tell them to go see the tree: go at night -- so that there is that special evening-at-the-museum-hush, and so there isn't light coming in from the skylights; don't just look at it and move on -- wait for the "lighting" presentation that happens on the half hour. I didn't know that while the museum stays open late on Fridays, the last lighting is at 6:30. So we missed it this year. And it was okay. The children love walking around the tree and looking at all the details -- the dogs, the water, the tiny baskets with tiny fruit, the monkey sitting on the stairs holding cymbals and being watched by a wolf-dog... The lighting is a breathtaking tah-dah-oriented spectacle, but it is the small details that make it a rich process of discovery and personal connectivity. This year The Girl pointed out the little lamb that is peeking in at the Baby Jesus and she said, "I guess he's thinking, hmmmm, I know that he's special, I wonder if I can look at him and figure out how to be special, too."
While at the Met Judd the Red Chicken requested that we briefly run through the Arms and Armor exhibits. He was so excited to show The Dad everything and tell him the details that he's been learning during our visits. This is indeed an area where we have spent a lot of time, and yet, we found out tonight that we had missed something very cool:
Yep. That's a helmet with a chicken visor. "It's like somebody said, what would [The Boy] most like and the answer was: something chicken in the Arms and Armor!"
While touring that school last week I was listening closely to the philosophies and values -- of the school and of the different teachers. One of the things that interested me was the idea of block time. They find that there can be deeper and more thorough experiences and projects if they don't expect the children to constantly be changing gears and then returning to old projects over and over. The art teacher said it most succinctly: something that takes ten hours can be exciting if it's only spread over two weeks, but can be detested if it takes six weeks because it keeps being dragged out over and over and over again. To that end they do things like concentrated art for a few weeks and then concentrated dance, as opposed to both dance and art being offered at the same time. It makes sense to me. Usually when I start a project there's a certain amount of tinkering and settling in before meaningful work starts to happen. I understand that in order to keep the attention of 30 kiddos a rapidly-moving schedule works best... But I wonder if that's most conducive to that deeper level work.
Today I printed out a couple dozen of these templates from the Design Mom blog. I told the kids that working on them could be our math for the day if they cheerfully created and answered math problems as we worked ("I have twenty wreaths and two wreaths go on each house. How many houses can be decorated?" "Five elves sleep in a house. How many elves are there if there are ten houses?"). I figured it might be an activity for an hour or two, but I told them that they could go at it as long as they wanted. They created their village for about five hours -- just with markers and some glitter glue and three cotton balls -- the art bins never came out. They had fun thinking about, discussing, and implementing their ideas for the details.
The village restaurant is a place where animals are as welcome as people.
The hotel offers parking for a fair price.
We are a family that loves glitter. We joke about getting glitter-lung. Our friend who is also glitter-addicted says that we're like so many raccoons. Since this is a Christmas village there needed to be a house devoted to glitter.
Santa's workshop has a gear on the side and a candy cane smokestack so that any pollution smells nice.
Santa has two dogs to protect him and love him (love that exclamation point!).
This village was their version of Utopia, so just as there had to be glitter, there had to be the National Park Service (with a little coyote finding refuge).
And a zoo.
A pet store...
An aquarium...
Reindeer stables (or raindeer stabble)...
An animal toy workshop...
It could not be Utopia without Yucky Old House -- which is a dilapidated apartment building on 74th that The Boy has loved for the last few years. He has dreams of buying it when he's an adult and restoring it for the three of us (his parents and sister) to live in while he lives in the backyard in a mobile home with a pet rooster. My kids aim high.
We couldn't be happy without the City Museum (complete with a tunnel, zip-line seat and slides).
Coast Guard headquarters (The Boy's office is the one (drumroll) with the chicken looking out the window).
A maritime museum is surely a staple in most Christmas villages...
The elves have a dormitory-like set-up.
Practically speaking... I guess they figured that we needed a DR for our survival... As is evidenced by the slap-dash yellow exterior... it was a last minute "oh, yeah!" addition.
The snow house is similar to the glitter house... you can't really have a solid Christmas without either one.
And you can't have a solid Christmas village without a prison... with a guard tower... we're realists around here.
In this family we know that parking isn't something to be overlooked.
I was in charge of Town Hall... the first building in the village. My architecture/design contributions ended there and I was asked to do more manual labor (cutting and applying glue-dots).
Each of these details -- and the combination of them -- tell me about the interests and values and concerns and dreams that are inside my kids. I learned about what matters most and what's currently floating on the surface, and now by documenting them I have a snapshot of who they were and how they saw life in December of 2012. Best math lesson so far. I'm grateful for this blog so I have a place to house our details.
Happy Winter Solstice. We have a lovely family friend who contributes pretty things to life, and the other day she shared a sweet poem about the solstice. Today both kids memorized it and presented it to The Dad and The Sister while we drove to the Met:
I Heard a Bird Sing
by: Oliver Herford
I heard a bird sing
In the dark December
A magical thing
And sweet to remember.
"We are nearer to Spring
Than we were in September,"
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.
