Read Around the World: Baltimore, Maryland

This summer we’ve been reading around the world along with this blog. It’s been fun to read stories set in other cultures and learn some interesting new facts! Here were some of my favorites (in no particular order):

Throw Your Tooth on the Roof, by Selby Beeler (nonfic). What do children around the world do when they lose a tooth?

What the World Eats, by Faith D’Aluisio (nonfic). So fascinating! Photos of what various families around the world eat and how much it costs. The disparities and variety is incredible.

Biblioburro, by Jeanette Winter (nonfic). A former teacher decides to bring books to tiny, remote villages in Colombia.

Seeds of Change: Wangari’s Gift to the World, by Jen Cullerton Johnson (nonfic). Planting trees and help Kenya. The power of a single woman.

A Little Book of Sloth, by Lucy Cooke (nonfic, sort of). Holy adorableness, Batman! Learn real stuff about sloths and look at adorable pictures of sloths and pretty much fall into a sloth-cuteness coma. Seriously.

Diary of a Wombat, by Jackie French (fic). Featuring the cutest wombat sleeping poses ever.

The Seven Chinese Sisters, by Kathy Tucker (fic). Same concept as the Five Chinese Brothers, except for fewer (no) gruesome executions.

The Empty Pot, by Demi (fic). A legend about how a wise emperor chose his heir.

The Problem with Chickens, by Bruce McMillan (fic). How a small Icelandic village keeps eggs.

As part of the journey, everyone who wants to gets to add their own little “Growing Up Around the World” entry. So here’s ours!

– Tell us about your family.

There are six of us: Mom, Dad, and four kiddos ages 8 years to 3 months. We all love to read and love hanging out together.

– Tell us about where you live and how long you’ve lived there.

We live in Maryland, just about ten minutes south of Baltimore. We’ve been here six years now. Before that, we lived in Utah.

– What do you think is unique and special about living where you do?

Fireflies! We love fireflies.

Also, duckpin bowling. It’s a lot like regular bowling, with ten pins and a ball, but the ball is smaller and lighter, without finger holes. Also, you get three throws instead of two, the pins are smaller, and the pins are not reset in between throws.

– What languages are spoken there? If it’s different from English, can you help us learn a few common phrases?

Pretty much English, although our church group also has several families from the Philippines.

– What are some traditional foods there?

Hmmm . . .  people here do seem to like fried chicken a lot. We’re close enough to the South in the USA that there’s a fair amount of “Southern food,” which usually involves frying things. :)

This was the street about three days after this
year's huge snowstorm. Good for sledding.

– Tell us about the climate where you live.

Hot and humid in the summers, cold in the winters. There can be huge snowstorms occasionally, but usually it’s just small snowstorms. Last year there was one big snowstorm over a weekend that shut down all the public schools for a whole week!

– What does school look like for the majority of kids where you live?

Pretty standard American school system—school in the morning and early afternoon, lunch break, recess, all that jazz.

– What does school look like for your family?

When possible, we like to start the day (after breakfast and such) with reading aloud together. We currently have one independent reader (the 8yo), but she likes to be read to as well, for our read-aloud time. The 5yo and 2yo love to be read to endlessly, and sometimes it’s a battle between the 2yo’s picture books and everything we’re actually reading for school. We start with scriptures and maybe some scripture-related videos. Then we usually have a couple of picture books related to what we’re studying during the week—history, musicians and artists, science, etc. Then we read a couple of chapters of a longer book. This is our favorite and most organized time of the day.

The rest of the official “school” portion is a mix of doing math (hooray for Beast Academy!) and language arts for the 8yo and 5yo while appeasing the 2yo and feeding or holding the 3mo. Usually we have one day that has the big science project on it and one day that has a bigger music or art project. Also, we have two co-ops during the regular school year.

The non-school portion of the day is whatever the kids are excited about. There’s tons of pretending games (for pretty much every book the 8yo reads, they end up playing a game where they’re children of the main characters), ooooooodles of books, playing with blocks, playing in the backyard, some TV, lots of drawing, etc.

– Are there any special festivals or traditions you’d like to tell us about related to where you live?

There probably are, but we haven’t done them yet. One great thing about this area, though, is lots of historical stuff. For example, Fort McHenry, which inspired the writing of our national anthem, is here. Baltimore is also home to Edgar Allen Poe!

Chasing the last fireflies of the year.

– If you ever had to move away from where you live, what do you think you’d miss most?

FIREFLIES! I cannot say enough good things about fireflies.

– Do you have a favorite book that takes place in your region/country?

Not so far. We’ll have to try to find one! Although the Mercy Watson books by Kate DiCamillo, set just generally in the South, are some favorites—they’re about a pig who loves toast “with a great deal of butter on it.”

That one time I gave blood

So, every once in a while, I tell someone this story about how I donated blood and the lady was maybe concerned she'd hit an artery because it flowed so fast (apparently there's a minimum flow rate, and if it's faster than that, they have to be careful and make sure everything's okay--I was barely slower than that). However, everything seemed fine, so she gave me what I assumed were the usual discharge instructions and I went home. And I followed them. And I ended up with this super awesome bruising that extended from halfway up my upper arm down to my wrist. I had extremely limited movement for a couple of weeks from all the bruising. It was really all very funny.

And I think that probably the people listening to my story think I'm exaggerating. Because that's pretty crazy, right?

Well, recently I rediscovered the picture we took. I think this may have been after the bruising started going back down. See?

Enjoy.

A Tribute to Pie

When I was a kid, we moved around a lot. Always in the same general area, but always far enough away that I ended up at four or five different elementary schools. That made it virtually impossible to really stay friends with anyone for very long.

Enter my big brother.

Makani (hereafter known as Pie, for reasons that take too long to explain) was an excellent friend, with the bonus that I could always take with me when we moved. He’s almost four years older than me, and you’d think that would be too great a gulf for children our age, especially since we are the opposite sex. But it somehow wasn’t.

Pie was the best kind of brother and friend. He occasionally let me play when he and his friends were doing D&D, but even when I wasn’t invited, he was still kind when I intruded. When it was just us, he would pretend to be a monster (level 1–10, depending on the challenge I wanted) and chase me around the house until I defeated him. Another time he set up a silly restaurant for me and my friends, menu and all. The grated cheese with cinnamon and sugar on top was the best. Yum.

I remember as we walked to school together one year, I would called him shrimp (he was on the short end), and he would pretend to hide from the cars we passed, afraid that they would want to eat him.

As we grew older, he was my idol. He competed in MathCounts, and I followed in his footsteps (I loved math on my own, but I know his example contributed to it). I knew that he was in debate in high school, so I wanted to debate too. It’s funny—because of a mix up, he had a trophy for Lincoln-Douglas debate, even though he actually did policy. But my brain latched onto L-D, so that’s what I did, thinking I was following in his footsteps. I just wanted to be like him.

Me, the hubby, and the handsome brothers
(Pie is next to me on my left, your right)

We’re both adults now (obv), and we’re both terrible at keeping in touch. But that doesn’t particularly matter, because I always know he loves me and wants the best for me and believes in me. He is a man who helped form my view of what a good man is. Because of him (and my dad and a few others, of course), I grew up without that stifling feeling that some women have of needing to pretend to be dumb so that boys will accept you. He never expected me to be anything other than smart, funny, kind. The men in my life were never intimidated by my success as I was growing up—they expected and supported it.

He was one of my first writing fans, but he manages to not make me feel guilty when he asks how the writing is going (since it usually isn’t). He’ll buy copies of my books (probably more than he needs) if I’m ever published. He and his wife did more for my wedding reception than I probably know—but I do know that they bought a great deal of the food and helped a lot with preparations, without making me feel like a burden. He has always been willing to help me in whatever I need.

I got to see him recently, on a trip out to Utah, and it was lovely. We hadn’t seen each other in over two years. We talked and talked and talked while our kids played and generally entertained themselves. It was happy but also sad. I miss the get-togethers we used to have until everyone started moving and going their separate ways.

Last week, Pie turned one year older, and probably a year wiser too. I’m grateful to have him in my life. In an art class I took in high school, we had an assignment that required we each bring a photograph to work from. I chose one of Makani, maybe five or six years old, standing in our front yard in a Superman costume. That’s who he was through all my childhood: my hero.

Happy birthday, Pie!