Anita MacRae Feagles and The Tooth Fairy

Anita MacRae Feagles wrote and illustrated The Tooth Fairy.  I checked out the little hard cover book from the Rockford Public Library more than any other book.  In my thirties when my first child lost her first tooth I became obsessed with finding this tiny book again and hadn't a clue who wrote or illustrated it I just remembered the fairy illustrations and how the book made me feel all happy about loosing my teeth.  I google searched through thousands of images over several weeks until I found it.

I get that little book out and read it on the very night The Tooth Fairy will visit our house, just before bed.  We'll read it tonight.  It's simple and charming and it's The Tooth Fairy I've always known my whole life.  She's a city fairy.  She has a house and a job and throws parties and I imagine she drives a little hatch back car when she's not traveling by magic.  Some of these facts weren't in the book they were just part of what I imagined in my head.


"Anita MacRae Feagles, of Vero Beach, Fla., and Fishers Island, N.Y., died on March 14 2008, with her husband, Robert Feagles, at her side.

She was born in Chicago, the only child of Cuyler and Anita MacRae. She was raised in Chappaqua, N.Y. She received a bachelor's degree from Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., where she was a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority, and an master's in education at City College of New York. She was a member of the Junior League of Mt. Kisco, N.Y.

Following her marriage to Robert Feagles, an international banker, she lived for two years in San Juan, Puerto Rico, before they returned to Chappaqua. She had four children and became a prolific writer, publishing 20 books, mostly for children. She accompanied her husband on numerous international trips, and was able to do research in Mexico, England, Spain and Iceland, which led to books set there. They lived in London for two years, and later moved to Hartford. They have also maintained a residence on Fishers Island for over 25 years.

She is survived by her husband and three children, Cuyler, of Freeport, Maine, Priscilla Hammond, of Lyme, and Patrick, of Vero Beach. Her oldest daughter, Wendy Harwood, predeceased her. She also leaves behind seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. In addition to writing, she worked as an ombudsman in the Connecticut prison system, as instructor in English at Indian River Community College, and as a Guardian Ad Litem in the Florida 19th District Court System.

Memorial contributions can be made to the Humane Society of Vero Beach, PO Box 644, Vero Beach, FL 32961 in memory of Mrs. Feagles."

the tooth fairy by Antia Feagles

Children, Musicians, Hippies, Artists & Poets at Willow Creek

I painted things when my little ones were coaxed to the creek to catch craw-daddies and get mud behind their ears.  I had the sun on the back of my neck when I stretched it looking over the rise of the little road to see the corn reaching up from the glen with golden fingers into the August sky.  I rested my paintbrush in the dirt when my son ran back to camp with a tiny dead fish in his water wrinkled fingers.  He asked me to cook it for him. When I told him it was too small to cook and made him throw it back into the creek I saw him steal a taste.  He licked it's white belly and then threw it overhand into the clear water where I'm sure it settled to the bottom and found it's way into the bellies of the craw-dads.  All the while behind me, my daughter changed from her soaking wet mud-shoes into my dry sandals and was charmed away to another campfire by intriguing musical instruments. 

On Self-Sufficiency

I asked the kids to get themselves ready to run a few errands with me today.  A mere three hours later, my eldest had taken a full shower, was coiffed and ready to go.  My youngest was also dressed and ready making sure to wear his plastic fake monster teeth, an inside out long sleeve hoodie he's outgrown with the hood up, matching blue socks under flip flops, and plaid shorts.  Great job kids, thanks for getting yourselves ready. Yes, we went into the store like this, luckily he tired of the teeth.

Sledding

We stopped thirty-eight times to get the snow out of a wrist cuff and drink hot cocoa.

We Are Not Singing This Year

Photo has nothing to do with story, I just liked it.

I always mean to make a great Christmas post but it doesn't happen.  The season is going so fast with such twists and turns that it's all I can do to keep from getting whiplash much less pausing to carefully write my thoughts on the season.  Just when the Holidays wrap up, it's my eldest's birthday which I always go to extra efforts to observe lest it be overshadowed by the above mentioned festivities.

This year we considered a sledding party until the actual snow came.  It was accompanied by negative temperatures and meaner wind-chill factors.  We opted for a good old fashioned house party.  We are in fact inviting boys to this one.  No biggie, they just happen to be friends that are also boys.  We also are not having cake... well, maybe cup cakes but they're going to be cool NOT cute. We aren't singing any happy birthday songs and mostly we'll just be hanging out and maybe playing some music.  Maybe we'll make a play list, and have some dub step, and maybe Uncle Joe will bring over his laser music light show and a black light and a disco ball, just in case anyone feels like dancing or something or whatever.

By February, I'll be officially ready for a couple chocolate hearts chased with a green beer.

childhood idols

Gilligan was a pot head
Vinnie Barbarino is in a cult
Mork committed suicide
Fat Albert is a rapist
The ghost of Jack Tripper is all I have left

In which I also narrate something boring and mundane

My kids are addicted to watching other people narrate playing video games on You Tube.  My ten year old's aspirations aren't pop-singer or movie-starlet but to become a You Tube Vlogger.  My four year old opened his hand knitted Stampy Cat hat Christmas morning and exclaimed "I'm going to wear this ALL DAY!" While I get wearing a hat you love all day the watching of these shows... I just don't get.  I don't watch videos of people narrating drinking beer and playing cards. Though now that I type it I do realize there is a whole series of poker shows with announcers and card by card commentary and a whole industry of sports shows where nonstop barking about the exact actions you are seeing on the screen with your own eyes, is the preferred.  Why don't they just play the game? Why listen to people blab on about their virtual adventures? Why fill the house with an odd niche of voices having one sided conversations with themselves about mining and building and skins and esoteric nerd references that only I am old enough to get?

Two Birds with Gum-ball Machine Ring

Much like how sugar just seems to accumulate in our house from various well meaning bank-tellers and check-out-clerks we also have a good amount of small toys that just appear.  They come from prizes won at school, pridefully cherished right up until the moment my child gets off the afternoon bus and walks in the house at which time I find the "prize" next to the crumpled worn socks of the day in the front hallway.  They are hastily grabbed in a hard fought scrum of children scrambling for the innards of a pinata at a party. They are begged from the edges of parade floats and given after finishing one's nuggets and fries.  They spontaneously appear in the bottom of my purse and in the floor boards of my car, in the pockets of the children and underneath the couch; these hot wheels and whistles, tiny bottles of bubbles, Frisbees with insurance agents phone numbers on them, squirt guns, packs of just three crayons, maze books, necklaces, temporary tattoos, gum-ball machine rings, rubber lizards, inspirational wrist bands, plastic frogs, tops, fuzzy moustaches and various plastic eggs that crack open to reveal something gooey, sticky and guaranteed to dry into a giant crust of gross on your mother's carpet.

As I find these items I've been throwing them all in one place, along with the missing dice, legos, meeple, marbles and playing cards that will only be important when they are missed.  They go into one giant bowl in my dining room.  Twice this year it's overflowed and I dumped it into a grocery bag with the intention of handing it back to a teacher to give out as prizes again and then having it instead collect dust in the hall closet.  Upon walking past the overflowing bowl again today I realized the most incredible solution!  Halloween. If you get to my house to trick or treat this year, you could get a candy or you could get a little balsa wood plane, or Alvin the Chipmunk on a skateboard. I hope you don't get the goo filled egg.

Morning Alarm

This morning I woke up to PEEP....PEEP..... PEEP! I think the smoke alarm battery is going dead. And I get out of bed slightly and hear it coming from the left of the bed... there's no smoke alarm there, so I sit up wide awake thinking the neighbor's house alarm is going off. I go to the window and tilt my ear and look around furiously, then I hear it coming from the other window... it's really loud now PEEP....PEEP..... PEEP! Standing at the other window it sounds like maybe it could be driving around the neighborhood. I wonder if a small bulldozer is backing up somewhere... I can't really tell where it's coming from... I sit down on the bed and wonder if I should investigate further.  My young child rolls over, it is then I realize... it's his nose whistling while he sleeps.

Pencil Bag to Wallet Bracelet Hack

1 Pencil Bag 

1 Piece of Velcro

1 Needle and thread to sew Velcro on. 

= 1 Zipping, bracelet that holds chapstick and money and locker key.  

The Sugars

One of the things I'm trying to do lately is give up some of the sugar in our lives.  Or at the very least be aware of when we are using it.  Like buying cereal with no sugar but then spooning some right onto it.  It seems less processed and less sneaky.  I've been reading labels like mad at the store and sugar or some other form of it

(corn syrup, 
beat sugar, 
agave nectar, 
barley malt, 
brown rice syrup, 
cane juice, 
caramel, 
corn sweetener, 
crystalline fructose, 
dextran, 
diastatic malt powder, 
ethyl moltol, 
fructose, 
glucose, 
high fructose corn syrup, 
maltodextrin, 
maltose, 
muscovado, 
raspadura, 
rice bran syrup, 
sorghum, 
sucrose, 
glucomalt...)

is in EVERYTHING.  So I'm just shopping for things with one or two ingredients.  Not including bread and a few treat type things for the kids.  It's hard.  The kids aren't happy.  But they aren't going to starve.  There is plenty of food in there, just not what they want.  It's been a crabby week and the Nutella is gone already. Hopefully in a few more weeks, we'll all feel better.

The End of a Good Summer

This first week of school is the hottest of all the summer.  We were waiting for this week so that we could go swimming up at the springs.  It was one of the last few things to cross off the list of 50 things to do this summer. So, no swimming in the icy blue water of Pearl Lake and for the 3rd straight year we were not able to hear any live yodeling.  Apparently it's just harder than you think to find a good yodeler in the summer.  We also did not roller skate outside due to the rampant growing of children's feet around here and we also never made it to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison.  Not too shabby for finishing a list.  Some of the highlights of what we DID do:

#25 Pee in the ocean. (Not pictured)

#8 Eat Something New

 


#5 Use the wagon #12 See a parade #6 Get up early



#17 Family painting

  

There were regular things like find a penny and roll down a hill, and there were regular things that will stick out to me forever now.  I put walk the dog on the list.  We hadn't been doing this very often any more because our dog was very old, 119 to be exact. She didn't really feel like walking much any more, she mostly just slept.  I had to lay her to rest over the weekend.  I'm glad we spent time with her. I'm glad she was on the list. There are so many things to say about a beloved dog of 17 years, but I'm not together really enough to say them yet.

This is Wednesday and Ella and Jack in the backyard.



It was a good summer.

Red's Little Black Heart

Temporary Public Art outside of Bennie's Cleaners in Rockford, IL.  This is part of Rockford's ART ATTACK series going on all summer.  This is one of three I've done down-town. The unofficial title is "Red's Little Black Heart", it's acrylic paint on glass.  

Orange Juice

A Boy and His Pool Noodle Snake

Jack loves to watch Sanjay and Craig with his green pool noodle wrapped around his middle. That is all.

Oh Lolli, Lolli, Lolli...

These pictures were all taken yesterday at various places in my house.  Here's the thing; I have never bought a lolli-pop.  But apparently the whole world thinks my kids should have one.  The doctors office, bank tellers, the grocery check out ladies and every valentine.  The kids give a polite thanks and then hoard them, probably in the same place they keep their marbles, markers without lids and endless supply of stinky socks rolled into a ball.

I've pulled them out of car seats, off the carpet out of hair and even off the top of the toilet tank.  I'm not even sure Jack knows there is a center in a tootsie roll pop.  He just gets some taste and says "nope" laying it down wherever.  Ella thinks all lollis have a chewy center of; candy, gum or just plain paper stick.  Later I find a soggy half spit ball - half lolli stick, while reaching into a pants pocket or leisurely sliding my hand under a couch pillow.

I can't stop them.  The nice folks who give them out always ask.  But that's the thing... they always ask in front of the kids.  "Can they have a CANDY?" and then I sense a tremor of excitement emanating from the adorable cherubs who's very flappy eye-lashes enticed sugar from the finger tips of a stranger.   And that's the point of no return already.  Unless they've been terrible, it's impossible to say no without being the meanest Mom in the history of ever.

I realize what a stupid first world problem it is to be all winey about free candy.  How affluent does a society have to be, before they give what was once only available to royalty, away to every human that walks by? And how much more affluent does a society have to be before mothers start complaining about it? Cripes.

Pencil

I found this in Ella's pocket.  

Machinery

Depress this button and observe the delicate steel arm swing up with an immediate satisfying click.  Now the paper is changed forever. Steady snapping from brain to page.  Look child, this is how a machine works. Before vacuum tubes and silicone circuits and plasma screens and 3-D printers this is how pulleys and levers changed the world.

I'm glad you said you liked the font.

Rainy Autumn Wednesday in the Midwest

We are in the house playing with rediscovered toys and books, realizing how funny we can be contorting our faces into monstrous imaginings after shouting "Hey! Watch this!"  We eat toast and milk and oranges.  We wish for snow.  We chase the dog around in the big circle of open space on the first floor and squeal at the clickitty clickitty noise her nails make on the wood, through the kitchen, the dinning room, the living room, the entryway, the hallway and back again to the kitchen, times ten. We stare closely at a house spider before giving her a one way ride in a drinking glass out the backdoor.  We fold some laundry and watch an episode of cartoons.  We make animal noises and talk about all the colors in the rainbow.  We count each other's toes.  We watch out the window for the school bus to go by heralding the arrival of another playmate.

July 4th 2013

I said to Jack "You gotta wave your arms and yell "Right HERE!"" and he did.  He waved his arms and yelled "I RIGHT HERE!" and they threw candy and he picked it up and said "I did it!" followed by a happy candy dance.

Then we saw Grandpa ride by on his motorcycle. 

And we picked cherries in Grandpa's back yard.

Later, I went to the butcher shop where I ran into the mayor and saw these two stray dogs hanging out waiting for people to drop a package of fine meat on the ground.

A very nice young lady grabbed them and called the dog catchers and then I wondered if I was stuck in a Tom & Jerry cartoon.  Maybe I am the lady who's feet are featured in all the episodes... Nope, can't be, I still have a splint on my leg.

Later tonight, we'll go downtown and sit on a blanket and watch fireworks. Ella will soak it all in, Jack will cover his ears and hide his face in my lap.  I'm sorta glad that explosions scare him.  He's too much of a daredevil to love fireworks without giving me a heart attack.