Noodle and the Goose Again

Wil & Ben

Then there was the day when both girls set off to school in costume.

Goose's class had been reading Charlotte's Web and learning about farm animals. They concluded by dressing up as a character from the book or a random farm animal.

I give you Wilbur, Some Pig.

Astute readers will recognize the nose as a reprise of the "Third Little Pig" costume from last year's Book Week in Indo.  Ears and tail did not make the trip home with us and had to be reconstructed.

Noodle had been working at a report on Ben Franklin with the culmination a "Wax Museum" wherein she was to dress like the old guy and give a three minute speech about his life and accomplishments.

She was resplendent.

And probably a bit more dignified than the man himself.

Her speech went quite well, though she confessed to having wobbly knees and a flock of butterflies in her tummy. Public speaking is a new thing for our Noodle.

In our quest for the perfect Ben Franklin report and costume we hit both the public library and the old Colonial section of our city. I always forget how much I love the restored 18th century buildings and the folks wandering about in mob caps and tri-corn hats and how I used to dream of having a job at Colonial Williamsburg doing crafty things like shearing sheep and spinning wool. I was so pleased to see Noodle (and Goose to a lesser extent, she was mostly focused on finding the bakery) catch the scent of history - specifically American history and get excited about it. True, we've been to many and sundry historical places - thousand year old temples and The Forbidden City e.g., - and my Chiquitas will do well in World History.  But there is just something about them learning the story of the country we adopted them into. Good non-patriotic Mennonite that I am withstanding, I had moments of verklemptness when we read the Preamble to the Constitution together (children of the 70's, can you sing it along with me??). We read it, and the Declaration of Independence critically, of course. All men are created equal, to secure domestic tranquillity, what's up with that? And I'm very happy that their school teaches American history critically - history is told by the victors, what happened to the Native peoples? , what's up with that?  But geez. That rhetoric of freedom, equality and happiness is good stuff.  If only we could live up to it all.

If only.

(I hasten to add, to strengthen my Menno cred, that neither of my children recites the Pledge of Alliegence at school and Goose reportedly informed her friend that she does not do so "Because it is about guns and war and killing people, and we dont' do that".  Ha.

The States

Earlier this Fall, Noodle completely bombed an "Identify the States" quiz at school. Looking at a map of the US, the girl recognized 3 states - North Carolina, Florida and Texas, which I'm guessing she knew from the Spongebob episode where Sandy the Squirrel is missing Texas.

After being an indignant parent - "Unfair!! If they asked about THE WORLD she could place any country. Or a map of Southeast Asia! How many American fifth graders could get all those countries correct???? Or properly place and name the provinces of China????" - I realized we might have some remedial work to do here.

My immediate thought was The Game of the States which I recall playing as a child with my brother and my Mom. Yeah, it is available again - riding on the apparent wave of reissuing all the "old" games for nostalgic parents/grandparents to buy for their wee ones who would just really rather have a DS. But imagine my surge of happiness when I dug up our very original (one might even say vintage if one were selling it on EBay) game from my childhood (I'm guessing we got it for Christmas sometime in the late 60's or early 70's).

I hauled that thing home and we've been playing every other evening or so (interspersing it with CLUE). The girls like the buying and selling - sell your furs in Maine for $400, buy them back in Nevada for $300 - ah sweet Capitalism. Plus, they seem to be learning what State is where, and importantly as we ponder doing family vacations here, how one gets from here to there, where ever there may be.

My girls may have a chance at being "Ameri-kan" after all.

So.

So.

I'm finding it a danged odd thing to be so inept at living well and easily in a place and a space I inhabited 40 some years of life, before dis-inhabiting it for only 4. Only 4 years away. It doesn't seem to justify how puzzling things are here. Puzzling. Yes, puzzling. 

The first little while - we've been home now for just shy of 2 months!- it was okay. Surprisingly okay. Those first weeks were packed with family and with stuff. Boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff. We were awash in stuff. First stuff from my Mama's house in Ohio - sorting out her life and dismantling her home. Then our stuff from storage. Mountains and mountains of our stuff from storage. "Is this ours?"  "Do you remember this"  we'd ask each other as thing after thing after thing after thing emerged from boxes. Truly, who was the person who once owned 15 long sleeve t-shirts and thought it a wise thing to pack away *that* many books? Who could have possibly possessed all these possessions? 

Now we're somewhat settled in our house, things have found their way to closets, shelves or the charity of our choice. We've tamed the jungle in our front yard, gotten the children properly enrolled in school, started dental reparation work on the girls teeth, spent hours at the Public Library and the neighborhood park, acquired a cat (kitten, Zora Cat) and Pak T (which is Baba's new name) found a job. He started working last Monday and the girls head off to school this Wednesday. 

And then I begin my sojourn as one of the masses of the unemployed a work and write at home Mom and house repair woman/lost soul. 

I'm a little bit daunted. This is new for me, not having a job where people call me Dr. and take notes when I speak. Isn't there something I should be doing right now? A syllabus to prepare? Some lectures to draft (actually the answer to that one is yes, as I'm to do some speaking on behalf of MCC, the NGO with which we were in Indonesia, this fall). I'm a little. bit. daunted. 

And a bit culture shocked as well, I think. Fitting back in poorly, though I've stopped speaking Bahasa Indonesian in public places where my slow to get the picture brain seems to think people don't speak English. I've been spinning my wheels on so many things, having to make so many decisions - where to hang what picture, what phone service to get, how many clothes do my kids need for school (no uniforms? eeek), what to make for dinner every damned evening, how to negotiate the thick soup of a rapidly changed and changing culture and society. The last time I lived in the US W was the President and pretty much every phone on the street was as dumb as I feel much of the time. It is so confusing and everything costs so so so so very much. The possibilities seem endless - the average grocery run for example - and I'm overwhelmed. 

I felt this way in Indonesia too - confused, overwhelmed, dumb and lost. But there it made sense because I was "other", I didn't fit because I didn't. Here, I should. But here there is much that I don't want to fit, much that I want not to get swept away by. So much. Just so very much. 

Just the other day I found myself saying, "I don't want my children to grow up in this culture" and I have not one idea what that means. At least not yet.  Oh y'all, ya wanted me to return to blogging, so this is what it is. At least for now. One ferhoodled of mind woman. 

I promise pretty pictures in the next post!