Day 11: Magic with Vegetables

Day 11 of "30 Days of Farm Kid Stories"

A disappearing act in our home broadcasts every evening at about 5:30 (or whenever supper is ready.) 

Getting G to eat his vegetables takes magic.  I blame this on the discovery of Skittles.

I prepare food with hidden vegetables:  sweet red peppers diced in meatloaf, spinach thrown in scrambled eggs.   The real magic act occurs when we eat vegetables straight from our plates. 

“See this green bean, G?” I ask in my best Houdini voice while holding the green bean in two fingers.  “It’s a real green bean, and I’m gonna make it disappear.”

And Voila, I throw the green bean in my mouth and say “Mmmmm.”  G copies me and gobbles down a green bean.   (This is the magic part.)

Our farm story today involves vegetables and some equally sneaky hares.  Tops & Bottoms, by Janet Stevens, is a story best read literally from top to bottom (instead of from side to side).    

The author’s characters wear notable clothing. A bee scarf wraps around big Bear’s neck.  A bright blue carrot adorned hat sits on Miss Hare’s head.  Mr. Hare sports a white, collared carrot shirt. 

Clearly the characters wear what they crave.

 If readers could join the story, G would step into the pages in macaroni and cheese PJ’s and ranch dressing glasses. Momma in coffee bean blue jeans and chocolate sweater.  Daddy in a Krispy Kreme jacket.

Ok, back to the veggies.

The landowning farmer Bear in this book is sleepy (perhaps lazy.)  He snoozes awkwardly on a front-porch chair while the hare family works on his fields.

Agreements on crop sharing involve bear getting the top part of a plant and the hares getting the bottom, and vice versa.   Of course the hares know which location on the plants to ask for: bottom parts of the carrot crop, of course.

With delicious, detailed beet, radish and celery illustrations..  I reinforce how “yummy” these vegetables taste while reading to G.   Sneaky of momma?   Perhaps.  

G’s favorite vegetable this summer was corn on the cob.  What’s your favorite?

Lauren


My Library List:

Preview Day: 30 Days of Farm Kid Stories
Day 1: One Moment
Day 2:  Perfect Pizza
Day 3:  Our Heartland
Day 4: Pasta Fistful
Day 5: One Fast Grower
Day 6: Farmer Seuss
Day 7: Just One Cookie?
Day 8:  Frowns Turn into Smiles
Day 9:  BOO-HA
Day 10: Big Red Barn

Our blogging host Holly Spangler writes  “30 Days on a Prairie Farm” this month on her blog: My Generation.  

It’s a group party, of sorts!  Please join fellow bloggers as they tell their agricultural stories:

Beyer Beware: 30 Days, 30 Things You Never Knew About Food
Black Ink: Beef’s a Trip – 30 Days from Gate to Plate
Confessions of a Farm Wife: Life on Our Farm
Go Beyond the Barn: 30 Days of Farm Life Blessings
Kelly McCormick Photography: 30 Days of Thankfulness
Le Jardin da ma Vie: 30 Reasons Why I Love Being a Farmer’s Wife
Pinke Post: 30 Days of North Dakota November
Rural Route 2: 30 Days of the Not-So-Glamorous Life of This Farm Wife
 

a big TWO years old

Dump Everything.  My little G turns a big TWO years old later this month.   I scurry this week to celebrate (in construction-style) and remember this time in our lives. 

G words that make us smile:

• Bombine.  Broken.    (Grandpa fixes a combine in the driveway)
• Tank you  (Thank you)
• Pweas  (Please)
• Awww Choo (pretending to sneeze)
• Trackter    (Tractor)
• Babhoe  (Backhoe)
• Wagon
• HOT Fwwwww Fwwww
• BOOM  (thunder)
• Un….Tree (One Two Three)
• All gone
• Ryan (G’s buddy at our sitters)
• MilllllK
• Baaaa Bye Momma

G likes to help. He mimics me, a lot.  Saturday mornings find us cleaning.  I run the vacuum and G pushes a dry mop around the house.  He thinks this is fun, bless his heart.   One dust rag for momma; one dust rag for G.

Do we clean the house twice as fast?   Ahh.. no.  But if I catch G pushing his small table and chairs across the house and pretend mopping where it once stood…  I chuckle.

 

G makes us do that a lot.  Smile.  Laugh.  Dad asks me the other day, “Why are you throwing G’s sippy cups in the trashcan?” and I say: “I’m not doing that… Hmmmm.”  We both look at G. 

I stamp the missing coffee carafe lid mystery… SOLVED.  I give up hunting, and call Cuisinart customer service the next day. Sifting through things thrown away becomes a new habit. 

G shows interest in gardening.  Small yellow hoe in hand, he helps me attack and pull weeds.. and also the flowers.  “No G, don’t pull THAT one.”  I quickly replant the white Iris and give the soil a good pat. 

 

G laughs  when:

• Dad challenges him to a staring contest
• I step, push and bounce on a shovel to dig a hole in the garden
• We eat corn on the cob and make funny faces
• Dad tunes into the opera radio channel, and we lip-synch 
• We wear colanders at hats

In the past year G learned to walk, run, jump and dance. 

G’s favorite activities:

• Climbing the gravel pile
• Riding in the tractor
• Mopping with a broom  (all the time)
• Drawing with chalk
• Building Legos
• Feeding cattle

Exciting new things G does:

• Follows two part directions (as in:  G go get the truck toy and bring to this room)
• Eats with a spoon and fork (mashed potatoes brings out the default finger pick up)
• Gives his opinion (snack time,  book selection)

Speaking of books, I’ll tell you a secret.  I ordered three for G’s upcoming birthday:

Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce.  Based on Academy Award-winning animated short film, this book was released recently in June 2012.  A terrible wind blows away Mr. Morris Lessmore’s personal library, and he find meaning in caring for the books.  I haven’t read any of these books, but I think this will be my favorite because it’s filled with literary and film references (and I think the front cover rocks)

 

Leonardo, the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems.   I immediately love the oversized, old-fashioned lettering on this book’s cover. Leonardo is a terrible monster who is not that good at being terrible. He’s not big, doesn’t have hundreds of teeth, and isn’t even weird.  He decides to find the most scaredy-cat kid and “scare the tuna salad out of him”. 

The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog another one by Mo Willems. When Pigeon finds a delicious hot dog, he can hardly wait to shove the entire thing in his beak.  But, then he sees a hungry duckling who wants a bite. Who will be the more clever bird?  The reviews of this book sold me.  It’s a favorite by many who commented.

I plan to pick my favorite book out of the three and write a special letter for G in the front cover.  I can’t wait for these reads to arrive. I can’t wait for his birthday.

 

I especially look forward to reading these books to my TWO year old.  What books are you reading?

Lauren

Hopping Through the Pages

We read backwards.  We skip from Page 1 to Page 14, back to 3.  Upside down.  In the bathtub.  Sometimes the book becomes a monster and “chomps”.  With a quick close of the cover, the book puffs air in faces.  (Guaranteed giggle-maker)    

My favorite is snuggling together on the brown, leather couch arms encircling my little boy.

Daddy goes on sidebars when he reads to G.  Maybe the first page truly comes from the book in hand, and then they take off on some story tangent from outer space. 

Books are fun. 

Do pages get ripped and chewed?  --Oh yes.   Some of our beloved books look like half-eaten BLT’s.  I swear Sandra Boynton board books construct their pages with bacon-flavored goodness.

We keep most G books at eye level on the big book shelf.  We slip the “special” keep-me-nice books, up real high.  We don’t read every night, but often G grabs a book, walks over, and hands it to me as if to say “Hey, read this one to me.  I’ll take off and play across the room, but I’m still listening momma.”

Author Jill Stamm in her book Bright from the Start says, “The sheer amount of words spoken to a child from birth to three has a direct impact on later testable IQ.” 

Stamm goes on to write: “ Just as with being talked to, being read to helps “tune” individual bundles of neurons in a critical part of the growing brain, which will make your child better able to learn to speak and one day read himself.”  

Basically this book says read, and read often.  Easy enough.

Children's literacy advocate, Jen Robinson, posts a Ten Tips for Growing Bookworms on her blog.  I really like her #10.

I remember the first time I saw my little guy reach for a book.  Pick it up. Open. 

“BA BA… BA BA BA”, his sweet 6-month-old mouth yelps.  Just like momma reads out loud. This is the moment I knew all my early reading times, where G blank stared at me (Momma, why are you reading those funny words to me?) were totally worth it. 

Weeks later:   In Babies R Us, Grandma carting G through the baby-gate aisle, G excitedly points at the large Australian shepherd displayed on the packaging.  His first communication of knowing what a dog is. With help from many renditions of Doggies by Boynton, we know a doggie barks.  We know 10 different ways a doggie barks.  And at the end of the book, we know what all those doggies are barking at…. a cat!  (Sorry, plot spoiler)

Tonight after bath time, I might just grab one of those delicious Boynton books.. maybe Moo Baa La La La.  Those three pigs make this grown-up smile.

What books are you reading tonight in your home?

Lauren