Preschool poetry

A few years ago, Joe and I started to think seriously about the possibility of homeschooling Marija. I wondered how it would work since I speak to her in Latvian, but the community language is English. So I looked up bilingual homeschooling and was surprised to find very little information online. (What was out there, by the way, was and still is at multilingualliving.com, a great site for people who have multiple languages in the family.)

Marija

Now Marija is almost four, and she will be home with me for awhile yet. So I've begun teaching her reading and other things, mostly in Latvian.

And since I've had two good and interesting educational ideas that work in any language, I figured I should share them with the world. This is the first idea.

Marija's book of poems

It similar to the book of poems I made when we learned about poetry in second grade. For Marija, I will paste in a poem or a Bible verse or a simple song or hymn, then have her help me illustrate. She gets excited when I tell her it's time for another poem... she loves crafts, poems and doing things with me, and every time we put together a new page, she gets all three together.

As you can see above, I try to keep things simple, but also to have Marija help. I cut out a heart, but then she cut out a flower we glued on top, for a hymn asking Jesus to make our hearts like white blossoms. Marija helped me pick out a photo of her to illustrate another verse about giving Jesus our childhood days. The birds picture is part of an old greeting card.

The composition book, decorated and labeled "Marija's Pantiņi" (Marija's poems), was my Christmas present to her. Marija had learned a few poems to recite at Christmas, which is a Latvian tradition, and it was obvious that she enjoyed it. The poems are also a great way to expose her to high-level Latvian... though I'm fluent in Latvian, my grammar and vocabulary are pretty basic.

In the evening before bed, I read the poem once and Marija repeats it line by line. After a day or a month or somewhere in between, Marija can recite it herself.

Her are some more poems. We like using paper scraps, but sometimes Marija will draw something simple using crayons or colored pencils instead.

A poem about birds nesting in trees and by the roadside

A poem about squirrels that leap into trees and eat pine cones

By the way, this is the time of year to buy composition books. They aren't $0.49 anymore once school is underway!

Ardievu, Vecmamma

My Vecmamma died last Friday. I was by her side, singing a folk song with my sister. If we had known we would be accompanying her last breaths, maybe we would not have chosen Āvu, āvu baltas kājas. But it was a fine-enough song to sing her then, an old story of a girl dressing her feet in white and weaving herself a wreath of roses that would be taken by the wind into the sea. It is the song my mother sang to me when I was a babe and cried.

My Vecmamma had been in the hospital just over a week, asleep most of the time and unable to really talk even when she was awake. I did what I have often done in recent months, as her memory faded and conversations grew shorter. I sang the songs she knew from childhood, the words she would remember even after she said she'd forgotten. I sang the lullaby prayer I grew up singing, but the version that mentioned Jesus' blood... I had learned those words from her. I sang her favorite folk songs, the sad ones and the silly. I sang every song I thought she knew, because I had time enough to sing them again and again.

After Marija was born, the nurses eventually took her from me to weigh her, and I told Joe to follow and comfort her, and he sang her Lovesong by The Cure. By my grandmother's bed, I often wonder what songs met her as she came into this world... whether her mother and father sang her the same ones on the way in as I was singing her on the way out.

We had thought Vecmamma might recover, and she was awake and nodding her head at happy news we had been longing to share with her. But her body started to fail in the night, and by the time I was back at the hospital, her medicine was the only thing keeping her alive, and there was almost no hope of healing. The nurses stopped the medicine around lunch time, told us there was no way of knowing when the end would come but it would be a couple days at most, and I thought I would stay with her and sing when she was awake and rest as she slept. But she did not sleep that afternoon. I think, now, that her heart began to race, as the nurses said it would. But then, I was surprised to find myself with hours to fill with nothing but prayer and song. I stroked her forehead, and from the way she moved her face, I could tell she knew I was there.

I got cramped from bending over her bedside, so I lay back in a chair. I wondered if it really would be days I would fill with her. I ate snacks and longed for my sister to join me so I could leave and get some dinner. I read the newspaper a little, even though I might regret it later. I sang a little less often so I would still have voice in the night, but I was still singing. When it got dark, I turned on a few lamps.

When Anita came, Vecmamma looked at her, but I thought it was too bad she wasn't responding as much as she had earlier in the afternoon. We showed her pictures of Marija on Anita's phone, though it was hard to tell if she liked them. Anita and I talked to the side a little while, and then Anita suggested we start to sing together.

It was almost eight thirty. Our first song was one of her favorites, about a rooster, Kur Tu teci, gailīti mans? Anita and I messed up a verse, said Vecmamma would no doubt know the right words. And as we started Āvu, Āvu, Vecmamma's breathing began to slow, then stop. I looked at her face to see if she looked distressed, and was suddenly aware of the skull beneath her fragile skin. Her body looked like a machine that was winding down... there was a pause, and then a last few breaths.

Vecmamma had lived with my family since I was a year old. When I was little, her bedroom was a fun place to hide away, a place I could eat Skittles out of her little candy dish and try to get her to rub my legs while she watched Wheel of Fortune. When I was in college, she'd invite me to lie on that big bed with her when I was tired, and I often fell asleep there on visits home. But though she always appreciated us there, it was only in the last months of her life that she protested when we said goodnight and went our own way. On nights my parents were away and I was bringing her to her bedroom, she'd ask me "Can't I sleep with you instead?"

Oh, Vecmamma. How I longed to climb into your bed with you and hold you in those last days. How aware I was of so many times I could have loved you better. Thanks to God for your 99 years, your two years knowing my daughter, for our precious hours together at the end. My prayer to be with you at the last was answered indeed.

Getting ready for Easter

Our long winter has turned into almost-summer. Now we are opening most of our windows, keeping just a few shades drawn, and living outside as we can. Marija asks to go outside all the time and often gets upset if I tell her to stay in.

But she came in to dye Easter eggs today, lured in by the other kids who came to dye with us. I enjoy teaching people how to dye the Latvian way, with onion skins, like my family always did growing up.

Here we are assembling our ingredients... we have an egg, some leaves and flowers from the yard, onion skins, and water for dipping.

We wet the leaves and flowers to help them stick to the egg. This was the only part Marija wanted to help with.

Actually, she just wanted to put one clover into the water, and then onto the egg, then back in the water, then onto the egg again...

Once she got bored of that and ran off to play with the kids, I stuck some more greens on.

The greenery leaves white spots on the egg, and the onion skins leave a brown pattern.

So we surround the eggs, then fold the cloth and wrap it all up...

The thread keeps everything together, and the initials (made with a permanent marker) let us keep track of who made which eggs.

We added leftover onion skins to a couple pots of water, heated the water to boiling and then added the eggs. After about 10 minutes, I turned the stove off and let the eggs sit in the brown water.

About 20 minutes after that, the eggs were ready. We ran them under cold water to cool them and then unwrapped...

Beautiful eggs!

The big one is a goose egg we got from a friend!

If you like videos, here is one with a little more information about the tradition.

Today was so nice, I saw neighbors doing all kinds of things outside: eating, sorting clothes, carving a deer out of wood. (Okay, Joe was the one with the deer, finishing his carving.)

But in the morning, before the kids on spring break started waking up and spilling out of their houses, it felt like Marija and I had the neighborhood all to ourselves, for playing in.

May your Easter be blessed by our loving, giving Lord of all.

Babies and flower wreaths

Happy Jāņi!

We are not jumping over any bonfires this year, nor eating Jāņi cheese, nor even singing līgo songs with Marija -- she fell asleep on time for once! (Maybe I will sing once she's in bed.)

Did you know it is difficult to get a baby to wear a flower wreath and sit still for a photo?

Latvian sighting II

It has been more than a week now, but it is so strange I wanted to mention: I ran into a Latvian right here in La Plata!

It is a long story, but I was stopping by the American Legion building in town, which is under construction. He was one of a couple construction workers who gave me a word as I went by, and his accent sounded so familiar I asked where he might be from.

"America," he said, in a very Eastern European accent. I think maybe he is tired of the question?

"Ah, because I was wondering if you might be from Eastern Europe, like my family," I said.

"Actually, I am from Latvia," he said.

"Ah, my family too! Vai runājiet Latviski?"

"Jā! Un jūs?"

So we talked in Latvian then. He is working at the site in town for now and lives in a nearby county, and his sister lives even closer. Maybe soon I will get a chance to give her that awkward call: "Hello, I hear you're Latvian! ... I'm Latvian, too!" But probably not right away, between the baby being due soon and Joe's car still not working since it broke down a few days ago.

In other Latvian news, my favorite band, Iļģi, finally has its own Youtube channel! With music I haven't heard before, ooh! I hope they add more, because Youtube is still low on great Latvian music. (There is more music on their Myspace page.)

Back in time

This week I discovered Viena Diena, the online home of a project in which hundreds of photographers took pictures of one day in Latvia. Actually, they took pictures of two days -- August 31, 1987 and the anniversary 20 years later.

The pictures taken not even 22 years ago seem like a different world. I mean, I was alive then, playing with my My Little Ponies on my parents' carpet, but these are pictures of some other place, where men still drive homemade tractors and women share with their horses. Real horses. Or maybe moose.

So many of the pictures are great, but those that struck me most are here, here, here, here and here. And why are these mothers wearing masks?

Pirmais sniegs! (A.K.A. SNOOOOOW!)

Joe was so stressed by the drive in the snow yesterday, he missed the turn to drop me off at home. So I had an extra-long walk near the center of town just as it was turning extra-beautiful, and I went back for pictures while doing errands later on.

Alas, this former train station has become a museum.

Can you see the seagulls on the roof? 

While schools to the north were cancelled, ours stayed open because the weather report didn't call for much here in Charles County. The flakes started coming down quick just as school buses and commuters hit the road, and though a bunch of kids had exciting mornings when their buses crashed, no one was hurt in those accidents.

The snow seems to bring out the good in the neighborhood. I saw kids and not-kids having a snowball fight, and then a huge bunch of guys playing football. One of them lobbed a snowball at me, but it just missed.

Here are some more pictures.

The other side of the old train station. 

The only train that comes by is the coal train going to Joe's plant.

No train this Tuesday, though.

Hip, hip, hooray!

Happy 90th, Latvia!

End of autumn

I drove to my parent's home in Cloverly today, where I spent a long time with my grandmother. I did get to play the kokle, and she sang along to the folksongs in her high grandmother voice, as she does. "Kur tu teci, kur tu teci gailītis mans?"

I'm getting to know the road there and back pretty well. Over the last weeks, it's been nice to see the trees rusting over, but now the leaves are mostly brown and starting to fall. It only seems appropriate, then, that the fog came on them today. They were mysterious all over again.

Inspired

My copy of The Hidden Art of Homemaking was a wedding present from my beautiful friend Rose.

In the note accompanying the book, she urged us to at least “nibble” on the chapter about food, and as soon as the book came in the mail I did. I read it again to Joe that evening, sharing the author’s thoughts on what a lovingly prepared meal can do to bring together a family, to cheer a roommate, to move the world of a stranger. Joe asked if my specially arranged vegetables that evening were inspired by the book, and the answer was yes. Tsk, it’s so hard to keep any secrets now!

I had stopped halfway through the chapter on flower arranging, an art close to my heart, so I finished reading it today. Then I fixed dinner and flipped to the chapter on music, which starts like this:

"You are not a great musician, but you do play an instrument - or you did. It is dusty at present, because you could not go to a Conservatoire, you could not continue lessons, you have not found an organized group oto play with, you are busy as a businessman, a gardener, a lawyer, a teacher, a housewife or a graduate student. All the music you make is in your daydreams..."

Ohhhh! I put the book down and went running through the house to find my kokle. When I found it, I played three songs I knew and one I didn’t.

Kokle

The kokle is what Joe heard as he came in the door today.

(I am not very good at the kokle, but it is the kind of instrument that sounds beautiful anyway.)

Latvian sighting

I spent miles driving behind a little green car with an LV bumper sticker. The driver even had little pastalas (the leather shoes ancient Latvians wore) hanging from her rearview mirror. Ah! I am hungry for Latvians, but she was talking on intently on her cell phone, so I did not try to get her attention before she turned west at one of the stoplights in Waldorf. Alas.

Morning mist

Fog came down while we were in Mass, so the drive back to town was misty white with the shadows of horses running along the road.

Migla, migla, liela rasa,

Man pazuda kumeliņš. 

Nu, Dieviņi, tavā vaļā, 

Nu, tavāi rociņā...

(I hope those familiar with the song will forgive me for rearranging the words.)