A Magic Boat

Here are some pictures of Malcolm making his magic boat. He loves Puff the Magic Dragon right now and wishes he could sail away and have wonderful adventures with Puff himself so we built a boat. I think that ours is at least as good as Jackie Paper's!

Malcolm's 4th Birthday part 2

Malcolm's 4th Birthday Party!

Malcolm's party was a lot of fun. We had a Chinese Lion dance, pinata, art, and a music jam session, and of course it was great fun to be with friends!

Malcolm's Christmas bike

All Malcolm wanted for Christmas was a bike, and he got it. I only wish he did not have to wait all the way until Christmas because then it was very cold for a bike ride, but he loves it. I did have feelings about the pink and purple streamers, but he likes sparkles so what can I say. Santa listens to what the children want-well mostly anyway.

Updates

Wow! I haven't blogged in months. I think that I am finally having some time to reflect on 2009, and wow what a whopper of a year. 2010 is also promising to be full of change, but I think that it is promising to be very exciting change. Malcolm will have a new sibling, and I may begin to take some graduate classes. It is all overwhelming. I have so many things to write about, but even though I am few weeks behind on this I want to make sure I get the lovely Christmas pageant pictures up then we can mover on to other things and I will try to catch up more soon. I should be sleeping, but my sleep schedule is crazy during this pregnancy so I will just roll with it.

This Little Light of Mine

Night Night Mama

We just put Malcolm to bed. There was nothing that out of the ordinary until we got to the end. He said, " I want to sleep in my bed." I said, "Ok" and prepared to crawl in his toddler bed with him to give him Mama's Milk. He said, "No, no mama's milk. I will see you in the morning mom." What happened? That was our last sacred time for mama's milk, and no cuddles? Just some stories, blankets, and a kiss goodnight? I don't know what to think of all this. It seems a lot for one night. At least I wanted my cuddles.

Malcolm the Firefighter

Grandma sent Malcolm this outlandishly big fire truck from Colorado. It was quite an adventure into the Industrial Area to get the fire truck, but I have to admit that it is pretty adorable, and it is metal and paint rather than plastic so I took these really cute photos of him.

Looking for Herons-Finally some photos

If you look really, really closely at the photo of the lake, you can faintly see one heron which was far away. Malcolm loves blue herons and for months I had planned on taking him to Smith and Bybee Lake which I read about in the Metro Parent in the Spring. I have to say that I was a little disappointed in the lake, and annoyed that in part of the lake you could hear the race track nearby, but Malcolm had a lot of fun and enjoyed the sheds for bird viewing. He liked pretending that they were houses he was living in. We did see many herons, and so it did not disappoint on that count. I think that I prefer Leach Botanical Garden though.

This Week

First, everyone should know that the camera was located, I just did not use it to take pictures this week. I mostly used my cell phone, and therefore I don't have much to post just yet. This week we had a lot of fun taking care of our friends that we nanny. It is amazing to hear all of the words and concepts and ideas that Malcolm already knows that I had no idea he knew. Tonight in the bathtub, he told me he was going to go somewhere in his private boat. I did not know that he understood that the word private can be used to show that something belongs to someone. Now that I am writing this I think that this idea must have come from the book "Where the Wild Things Are" we have been reading that a lot lately, and Max rides in a private boat just for him.

He also has been practicing breast feeding and bottle feeding dollies. We have been around a lot of babies lately, and he is really enjoying the opportunity to be nurturing. He has also been acting out books again including checking out library books like Ron in his book Ron's Big Mission.

At Nico's house Malcolm taught Nico how to have counseling sessions which he knows many people have, and what can I say his uncle is a co-counselor and his grandma is a therapist. He got his friend a chair. They both sat down in the chairs. Malcolm said in a sweet welcoming voice "Hi, how are you?" then they giggled and giggled and giggled and then he said " It was good to see you. See you next week. Bye." Then they ran around the room, and Malcolm asked his friend again "Do you want to have a session?" Then they did it all again. It was very cute. I was in the kitchen washing dishes, but periodically I would look over at them and he would say "No mama, we're not done with our session."

You know you are an Oregonian when...

Ok, first off I can not find my camera at the moment. It has been ss a week of losing things which happens when I am too stressed, and family life has been very stressful lately. I did take a very cute picture with my cell phone, but don't know how to get the pic from my phone to my computer so you all will have to wait a little bit for this photo. I usually try to be the really together mama on this blog, but this time I can't embellish it. I am a bit unorganized, but not totally. I am really get some areas of my life together.

Ok, back to being an Oregonian... You know you are an Oregonian when you want to make playdough with your son, and realize you are out of food coloring so you go to the park to pick Oregon grapes to dye your playdough. It was great. Huge mounds of beautiful purple dough. Luscious dough, wonderfully enough all the kids in the neighborhood want some. Even some of the kids that I pegged in earlier post as more hardened inner-city kids can't resist homemade projects, a little bit of attention, and Malcolm's smile. We tripled the recipe so we could give some to friends. Maybe next time we will multiple by six andalso take some to the Spanish Speaking kids up the street who we have been wanting to play with. Anyone know Spanish for Playdough?

Malcolm's Train Rides Part 4

MAlcolm's Train Rides Part 3

Malcolm's Train Ride Part 2

Malcolm's Summer Time Train Rides PT 1

Here are videos of him riding in the dome car through the Royal Gorge with Grandma and his cousins Matthew and Makaela. We also went on the train to the top of Pikes Peak where we had fresh donuts that reminded me of the mandazi we had in Kenya and hot chocolate. Life was good. Now we are all trying to get back to life in Portland, and Grandma is staying with us which is great. I am really missing Victor though and thinking a lot about the Family Reunion.

Malcolm in Chicago

The windy city












Riding Thomas at Navy Pier
















Playing in the water at Crown Fountain in Millennium Park





















Reading in the Chicago Public Library
















Taking the El

Malcolm and the Girl Across the Street

Malcolm loves S, the girl across the street. He loves her soo much that he even made up an imaginary friend just like her, except the imaginary friend is always home and he is allowed to walk over to his house by himself in that world. I think that it is very cute. I hope that they are able to stay friends for a while because he is already missing Sequoia.

Surviving the Great Recession

I have not had much time to blog lately, and honestly I have gotten a little distracted by the discovery of Facebook although I have not had much to say on there lately either.

I often read these beautiful blogs written by mamas who make all sorts of wonderful creations while caring for families of two or three kids and a more elaborate garden etc, and everything seems so blissful. Then I wonder, are they for real?

Ok, I adore my son and really do love my hubby, but it seems that it is taking all of me to just figure out how to survive in this economy and taking on all the side gigs here and there to stay afloat in this economy. Although the big news is that I am going back to school. I know that this will be hard on Malcolm when the time comes, but in the end I think that it will help us with our goal to be able to live in another country for a few years. We are very established in Portland, we have so much community here which is really hard to leave, but also every day that goes by and I realize that if something does not change I may have to send my son to public school and I explore these options I grow more panicked. I do not see a way to survive economically and homeschool my child, but what is going to happen to my beautiful little Black boy?

I know it is 2009, a Black man is president, but I have seen the deadness and despair in the eyes of many of the neighborhood children. I am haunted by my public school education in which I learned very well that anyone who looked at all like me and tried to make a difference was shot, and I learned that there is only one model of learning and if did not fall into you must be stupid.

I worry about him entering Kindergarten too late and being turned off early because he can not explore and be challenged, but not passing the test to enter into school early because while he can tell you about several models of trains and can not count in five languages he is not counting high enough in English or has not delved deeply enough in the areas they test and is not tested on the areas he has explored. Do they test on how many kinds of birds commonly found in the Pacific Northwest you can name? Do they test Kindergarteners for how much they know about the life cycle of a chicken, frog, or human child? How about how many countries and states you locate on the world map? How many dinosaurs you can name? How many songs you can sing, or rhythms you can play on the drums or guitars? How about how well you can dig with a garden hoe, plant beans, water your own garden or follow the growth of fruit? These are all things that Malcolm is intimately familiar as well as various models of trains, how to swing on a rope, build with blocks, make art and all the other things that a pre-schooler should know. He also knows that S is for Sequoia, Sela, and snake, and M is for Malcolm, Mama, and Maya and several other letters and associated words. He does not make the September cut-off though so what do I do if our little community school collapses and I can not find a new places that understands and yet have to work to survive and then find an elementary school, because I think that he will need to complete at least one year of school in this country before we can leave. Anyone have suggestions? Here are some pictures of him that one of the teachers at Mountain Valley took. He is wearing his Barack Obama "Yes, we did!" shirt.

Adorable Beach Pictures

It has finally started to get hot in Portland, and since things have been so hectic lately, I am trying to embrace every opportunity to get Malcolm and I to beautiful settings. We both love blue herons and ended up at the beach in their pursuit. This time though, we just got to commune with the seagulls. That's ok, I am coming to appreciate seagulls out here. Some of these pictures are a little blurry because of the blowing sand. It was pretty windy on the beach last Wednesday.