Indiana Idylls

Leo and I started reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , as Alex and I did when he was three. Tonight, Alex joined us for chapter 5, in which Dorothy and the Scarecrow meet the Tin Woodman. Scarecrow and Woodman debate whether it is more important to have a brain or a heart, and so I asked the boys what they thought. Without skipping a beat, Leo said, "A heart." I asked if he was sure, if he thought it better to have a brain for thinking or a heart for loving, and he confidently replied, "A heart for loving." When I asked Alex, he looked ponderous for a moment. Then he replied, "A heart. You might be a little bit crazy, but at least you wouldn't hurt anybody, because you'll love them." Neither one will ever make it in politics.

Tea, once hot, twice warmed, sipping intermittently nice morning with boys

Paul and Alex are at Game Day at the library. I am playing pretend with Leo. He's wearing a glove of finger puppets and I am a Playmobil horse. I was talking about the weather, and I asked Froggie and Chicken where they go when it rains. "Cincinnati." "What do you do in Cincinnati?" "There's a rope and... and robots and butterflies." "A rope? What do you do with the rope?" "You swing on a rope into the water... on a skateboard!" I think I want to go to Cincinnati when it rains, too!

This articulated something I like about planning, better than I think I've been able to. "Plan in advance. Don't expect to get up Saturday or Sunday morning with no plan and say "ok family, let's spend the day together". It's fun to look forward to the day and it's important to structure the week to get our work done (laundry, bills) and plan the activity so we can make it happen." It appeared here .

I have been cleaning out my box of college notes, and wanted to preserve the Film Lists from my various Media Study classes. Non-Fiction Film, Fall 1999 Best Boy, 1979, Ira Wohl Lumiere Brothers' First Films, Thierry Fremaux, ed Nanook of the North (restored), 1922, Robert Flaherty Trimph of the Will, 1936, Leni Riefenstahl The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, 1994, Ray Muller Olympia, 1938, Diving Sequence, Leni Riefenstahl Excerpts from early social documentaries: Drifters, 1929, John Grierson Housing Problems, 1935, Edgar Anstey & Arthur Elton The Plow that Broke the Plains, 1936, Pare Lorentz The River, 1937, Pare Lorentz Night Mail, 1936, Watt & Wright Night and Fog, 1955, Alain Resnais Salesman, 1968, Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin Don't Look Back, 1967, D.A. Pennebaker Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment, 1963, Drew Associates (Robert Drew & Richard Leacock) Blood of the Beasts, 1949, Georges Franju Titicut Folli...

Yesterday at a friend's house, Leo bumped his head and came over to inform me. "Leo bonk head." "Awww," I said, "That's no fun. Are you OK?" "Yes," and he started to walk away but soon changed his mind and returned. "Need kisses." Kisses were happily applied, and achieved their purpose. "Feel better now!" It was the first time he had requested kisses for an alleged injury, and it was pretty adorable. A similar scene played out this morning. Lucky mom!

Lego KidsFest, Cincinnati, OH, March 24, 2012 Mom: What did you do at the Lego party? Alex: Build lots of things. Mom: What kinds of places were there to build things? Alex: First, there was a big pile of bricks on the floor. There were probably 200 legos ! I built a Droid battleship. A lot of people were sitting in this giant puddle of legos. PILE, not puddle. What if it was a puddle? Who would make a Lego puddle? It would be hard to make a lego puddle. Who would have thought of that? I don't know. I built things out of only green blocks that were very thick and there was only one kind of them. There were only thick four pieces, so there were two dots on one side and four on the other. Eight dots. That was the only kind of block they had in that area. I don't remember what I made. Dad made a Lego toilet. We saw lots of Lego sculptures. There were a lot of Star Wars sculptures. They were made of all Legos and they were like two feet tall or something. Mom: Were they bigg...