A visit from Grandpa, and a new question

We had a nice visit from my Dad this weekend. A trip with Mila to the Science Center, toddling on the docks of the Inner Harbor, and many book readings were among the highlights. A few pictures from the weekend are posted here.

Yesterday Mila began asking "Why?" repeatedly when I stated that a certain thing had to be done or postponed. Mila wants to feed the fish in the middle of the afternoon. Daddy says we only feed the fish twice a day. Mila asks "Why?". I say that too much food will make the fish bowl dirty. Mila asks "Why?". And so on. She has also started to use the word "because" in her own sentences when I ask her about things. It is a new world of communication, and of circular arguments. While it may mean more parenting challenges, I am happy to see these new developments. I think that Mila has been learning a lot from her friend Silas, who is a little bit older and definitely wanting to know "Why?" on a full-time basis (see the video from the National Zoo on my last post for an example).

Trip To The National Zoo

Marie had the day off on Friday, a day on which we were also babysitting Silas, so we all got to go to the National Zoo in DC. An unusually warm day, this was also the first time that I've seen the pandas outside. A great day all around. I know that Nani will especially appreciate the picture of Mila with the hippo. Look for one video at the bottom.

Mila's first gallery show

New drawings by Mila, who also helped me arrange and tape them to the wall. She is reticent to analyze her work for the camera, preferring her art to speak for itself.

Turning the page to February

This week I hope to be re-establishing some sort of routine after an unusual and stressful month. The Mobtown Modern event last Wednesday ("More Than Words") went well, although the particular piece that I was rehearsing had to be cut from the program. I had underestimated the difficulty of the music (selections from "Pierrot Lunaire" by Arnold Schoenberg), and so had several of the musicians I had hired for the ad hoc ensemble. Rather than go forward with a performance that felt shaky, we decided to postpone the work for a future event. The experience was painful, given the time put in by all, but a necessary learning experience for a few of us. The show on Wednesday went ahead without the Pierrot Redux project and turned out to be near perfect, in spite of the cancellation and horrible weather. Superb performances were given by special guests Wendy Richman, Tim Feeney, Ken Ueno, and Julieanne Klein (who stayed at our house for four nights), traveling here for the show from New York, New Jersey, and California. Despite a mixed review by the Baltimore Sun classical music critic who covers most of our events, all the performers and audience members that I talked to felt great about how it went.

The cat that I mentioned at the end of my last post, KeeKee, had to return to her previous owners yesterday. To start with, it turns out that Marie is allergic to cats. The pooping problem had also escalated in the past several days, with four incidents on our bedroom carpet. This expansion of her bathroom territory occurred after we had to move the litterbox into our room for the time while our friend Julieanne stayed with us (another, more severe cat allergy). I kept the litterbox very clean, at least whenever I was home, so I'm not sure why this occurred. Some cats are just special. Anyway, this was not a happy experience for anyone.

Mila, on the other hand, has been making huge strides in her use of the toilet. I'm really proud of her growing independence. Her vocabulary and use of sentences has also been increasing a lot this past month, as I mentioned before. The behavioral issues have not been as major this past week, and she has been apologizing occasionally after incidents do occur. I see her developing a sense of what is right and wrong, while still testing our reactions as parents. We work daily on helping Mila to understand her feelings and to be in control her actions. With the return of some normalcy to our weekly routine, I'm very aware of the need to diversify our days with a lot of different types of learning. The cold weather is a deterent to being outside, but we do have free entrance to the Science Museum during January and February with our Zoo pass. We are also taking Music Together classes, which provide a lot of songs and activities for us to practice. During down time, Mila also enjoys reading to herself almost as much as she enjoys being read to. In this we feel extremely lucky.

A few words about January

A view from our living room window...

This has been the most intense month in awhile, with deadlines on two major projects, the beginning of my second semester teaching at MICA, a succession of beloved friends and family visiting our home from afar in the past few weeks, and a family trip down to DC for Obama's inauguration. Next Wednesday is the Mobtown Modern event "More Than Words", for which I am organizing a performance of Schoenberg's "Pierrot Lunaire" in a remixed arrangement. I need to create 7 interludes of 30 seconds each-- based on samples of the instrumental parts, plus a plan for live electronic processing using the ever-handy Kaoss Pad.

Mila has brought her own brand of chaos in recent days, with some new testing behaviors that have led me to again commit myself to reading "Easy To Love, Difficult To Discipline". I need some strategies in which I can feel more confident. Some toddler behaviors that I'm currently struggling to figure out how to respond to: face-hitting/smushing/pinching/pushing, smacking the keyboard of the laptop while Daddy is at the computer, and intentional spilling at the table. These behaviors don't happen all that often, but at least once every few days. I know it has been somewhat stressful for Mila to have Mommy returning to work after a longish government holiday with guests at our place.

At the same time that these boundary-pushing tricks have been arising, Mila has been blossoming in her verbal communication skills. She has been making friends with some of our longtime friends and referring to them by name, which is really touching.

In the past few weeks we have had visits from Becka and Pete (moving from Pittsburgh to Portland, Oregon), Nani and Grandpa (my parents, who took the train from Iowa), and Paul and Garrett (visiting from Kentucky for the inauguration). Next week we will be hosting Julieanne, our singer friend from New Jersey who is singing on the Mobtown Modern concert. I hope to have new pictures and video up soon, but this may be all that I can manage in the next couple of weeks. Times are both crazy and giddy with excitement at the same time.

Mila has been saying she wants to play with Obama's kids. She got a pretty close view of Sasha passing by during the presidential motorcade procession. Our day down there was both awe-inspiring and one of the more challenging physical ordeals in recent memory. I was not impressed with the organization of the event so far as crowd management by the Capitol Police and Homeland Security was concerned, leading to some fairly dangerous situations amid mislabeled dead ends and third-rate megaphones. Anyway, that's a whole other story. I am definitely hoping for a new vision of what this country is about, and am interested to see how this new ethic of public service plays out, but my head is mostly going to be in my work on the home kitchen front first. Then I'll worry about my students, then... oh, the new cat just pooped on the carpet. Talk to you later.

Christmas in Florida

Unsilent Night 2008

It's definitely winter in Baltimore now. Mila is ready for the snow with an array of adorable hats and coats (seen in above photo wearing her Abominable Snowbaby coat and special cap from our friend Julia).

Last night was the annual holiday boombox parade, "Unsilent Night", which my friend Brian organizes here in Baltimore. It's a piece by NYC composer Phil Kline for unlimited boomboxes, with copies of 4 syncronized tracks passed out on CDs or tapes for the participants. Everyone presses play at the same time and proceeds on a planned route through the city streets. It is done in cities all over the world (not necessarily on the same night) and has been organized by my friend here in Baltimore for the past 3 years. Marie and Mila were able to do the entire route with me this year, along with our friend Ben and his son Silas. A jolly time was had by all, though Mila fell asleep before the end-- could it have been otherwise in the cozy back carry Marie has her in? About 40 people participated in the happening this year (see video below).

The route started just 3 blocks from our house, in front of Penn Station (under the infamous "man/woman" statue), proceeded south on Charles Street to the Washington Monument in Mount Vernon Square, then went back north on Charles to Penn Station, finally circling through the station and back out to the front to the statue. Not seen in this video is the moment near the end when we walked through Penn Station and an Amtrak officer stopped me (in particular) to ask what was going on. He was the same guy who I had to deal with when my sound class at MICA did a stealth sound installation at the station (involving hidden boomboxes and laptops, manipulating sounds recorded in the same space) about a month ago. I must be on a special list by now!












Check out www.unsilentbaltimore.com