Oh, mama.

So.... sometimes, a mama thinks to herself, you know what would be fun?

Something new would be fun.

Something a little different.

Something permanent, on her arm.
Something, possibly, like a Salvador Dali painting of Saint Lucia. Rendered in tattoo ink. Fun for the whole religion department! (Yep, that's my skeptical husband and my amused colleague, who kindly accompanied me, provided commentary, and filmed the whole thing.) (Which, might I just add? Hurt so much that most of the commentary involves comparing this experience to childbirth.)

While my parents are probably cringing and picking up the phone to call and ask me about Hepatitis B-slash-C, and bemoaning my general lack of sound judgement, I have to say, in my defense: my kids? Are pretty excited. As are my students, interestingly enough... after one of them raised his hand politely and said, "Dr. Wilder, I know this is off-topic, but what's with your arm?" and I showed them, the general consensus was that I look tough. Given that I am a mid-thirties mama with a non-threatening smile, this has to be good for me, right?

I'm currently working on a project with students involving religious expression and tattoos, and I've been thinking about this for a while. I like the saints, I'm drawn to Lucia; this particular rendering of her doesn't pull any punches. She's a martyr, which means that the traditional folk images of her, blonde and pretty with a crown of candles, serve to obscure the part where she was murdered and had her eyes put out. This image gives you a full sense of her martyrdom: the candles are represented, rather than fully drawn, and she is both present and not present.

On my arm, she is fully present. Honestly, I love how it turned out (less pink now than in the image above.) I think it's gorgeous. And it's fully hidden under short sleeves; I don't think I'll be socially unacceptable in most circles.

It's important to do something new every now and then. I think I'm good 'till mid-2010.

Pumpkins in the sun.

We're now no longer snowy, just a bit chilly. I took the kids on a bike ride yesterday morning after the usual scouting for mittens and warm pants. It was beautiful - hawks were circling, the leaves are changing, and even though it was cloudy, it was so good to be outside. Then in the afternoon we carved their pumpkins, the preparation for which has involved a lot of drawing and re-drawing the ideal jack o' lantern faces. Grace stuck with her plan, while Peter had several possible designs and then improvised a new one on the spot. I just drew a face - I think it looks a lot like last year's, although I haven't gone back to verify this. The sun came out in time for some pictures of kids and pumpkins on the porch.

Today no one wanted to go on another bike ride with me, so I had an hour outside to myself on a gorgeous, 60 degree day. Cycling is easier on my knee than running, plus it's much, much faster so I got to see a good bit of my usual trail without working very hard at all. Next weekend I'll see if I can coax Grace to ride to a nearby lake with me; if we met Mike and Peter there we could all bike around the lake a bit and then Mike and the kids could drive home.

Our other weekend fun (really) was harvesting the last of our carrots. The kids were thrilled, the adults realized that teensy carrots are what you get if you plant midway through the season, but we kept at it. They were tasty, and we left the smallest ones for the resident bunny rabbit. We finally got around to some transplanting, too - I think some of our hostas are a good 20 years old and were sorely in need of attention. We relocated some unhappy ones, divided some of the huge ones, and filled in some spaces in the bed in our front yard that were bare. I moved a hydrangia that wasn't getting as much air circulation as it needed to another part of the front yard, which is filling out nicely. I still need to find a new home for one sad peony, and in a perfect world I'd also have time to shift a bunch of purple coneflower from the shady part of the backyard to the sunny part of the front yard, but you do what you can. Next weekend we'll put in our tulip bulbs, and maybe a few other things if we're inclined. I'm excited for spring already, making mental notes about which vegetables we're going to start inside, which ones we'll just plant outside from seed, and where I'm going to put the lettuce this time (in a little bed under the stairs that's mostly sheltered from the sun.) If only each week had one more day.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep

We are not in the woods, and neither dark nor deep. But it is snowy here. We did not transplant, we did not put bulbs in, we are not quite done with fall. But winter has made its first foray into our yard, and luckily the kids rejoiced. (Peter rejoiced at 5am by waking me up and then going back to sleep with his knees poking my spine, which led to me giving up the ghost of my sleep about 5:30 and puttering around with coffee for a few hours.) I am deeply satisfied that we already bought them snow boots; any additional mittens and hats will just have to appear somehow.

I had planned to run the Chicago Marathon tomorrow. Instead I'm at home with an irritated IT band (tendon between one's knee and hip, the frequent victim of overuse injuries.) I am heartbroken, but realistic, and have scheduled the appointment with a sports injury doctor which I should have made a few months ago, in the hopes that I can heal up and start running again soon. (The primary symptom of an injured IT band is crippling knee pain about 2 miles into your run, which is as much fun as it sounds. It's even better if you're doing an out-and-back and you feel fine for, say, the first seven miles, and then suddenly you're a long way from home and unfit to do more than walk. Yes, that's the voice of experience.)

So instead we went to the talent show that's part of Midland's homecoming festivities, and it was good and our beloved babysitter was on homecoming court so we got to see her all dressed up. Today was still and yet more homecoming fun, but we're skipping the game because of a. the snow and b. a basic lack of football aptitude among 3/4 of the family. Peter was especially delighted with the chance to eat cotton candy, win prizes, eat more, win more, and see the dance team. Grace had more fun at the talent show, I think, but either way work events that are family-oriented are a nice change of pace.

Sometimes, Mama goes out of town.

Recently, I've been working on a project with some of my students. We're spending a couple of weeks reading articles and watching documentaries about tattoos, and then they're each going to conduct an interview with someone who has a tattoo with some religious or spiritual significance. Naturally, the kids have talked about this with me, and apparently have also listened intently.

Then this last weekend I was out of town for a conference, and Mike was Solo Parent. Now, Solo Parent cannot be expected to maintain the man-to-man coverage that Dual Parents have; Solo Parent does zone defense.

Sometimes, zone defense permits a certain... latitude. In this instance, the kids decided that Peter needed some tattoos. Luckily, they don't drive or have connections to good tattoo artists. Unluckily, I guess, they have markers.

These do not include the one on his butt, drawn (as were the others) by ever-helpful Big Sister. As I have told my students time and again as they contemplate their tattoo interviews: sometimes, people have images on private parts of their bodies. We do not take pictures of those.