"Dear Children, It has long been my wish to give you a new kind of present, but I have hitherto had no luck. I thought once of an elephant, and even wrote to Jamrach about the idea -- but I gave that up. Chiswick is too crowded, and your garden is too small. But now I think I have found the very thing. A caravan. ...It should reach you this week, and can stand in the old coach-house until you are ready to set forth on the discovery of your native land..."
The note was signed from "Your friend, X."
Thus begins new adventures for the four Avory children -- Janet (age 14), Robert (13), Hester (9), and Gregory (7), accompanied by the neighbor boy, Jack, and the elderly gardener who works for their mother. They set off from their home just west of Kensington in London to explore Oxford, Shakespeare's Stratford-Upon-Avon, and venture northwest through little country lanes into places that sound right out of nursery rhymes. With their snug little wheeled house in tow, the group camps out, explores historic sites, and meets up with such interesting characters as a painter, Gypsies, a children's book author, and a real giant. They run (slightly) amok of the law, help the victims of a runaway horse disaster, find a lost baby, learn firsthand about charlatans, and more.
The Slowcoach, written in 1908 by E. V. (Edward Verrall) Lucas (1868-1938) is one of the treasures that turned up in Joan Bodger's book, How the Heather Looks: A Joyous Journey to the British Sources of Children's Books. I wish I'd come across it during my childhood. I like this book very much now but think I would have adored it back then.
When I think back on my own childhood, I know that "setting up" was half the fun of the game of make-believe. My friends and I would have endless conversations straightening out the rules of play, mapping out imaginary places, and making such important decisions as whether pinecones were apples or potatoes. (You need to know that if you're going to make a mudpie or faux soup.) The Slowcoach satisfies the reader's interest in similar details. The first part of the book peeks at how the children help hire a horse, select a watchdog, learn to cook on a camp stove, and gather provisions. Lucas gives just enough that the reader feels satisfied the journey could be real -- and gives kids a world they can play in.
As an adult reader and self-admitted history geek, I also love those details. Throughout the book I found myself getting a kick out of the customs and lifestyles of the protagonists over a century ago.
Lucas seemed quite aware that times were changing and gives his young heroes peeks into an older English way of life. Reading the book so many decades after it was written allows the reader to glimpse the layered past.
The Slowcoach is now outside copyright, so thankfully that means a few print-on-demand companies are reproducing it. I've given it several times as a gift since it is sure to be something most folks these days haven't read yet. It can be found on Amazon.
I used an online out-of-print bookseller to find a hardback edition from 1910. I love the weathered look and feel of the book. It even has that old bookshop smell that I love. Older versions often have maps and illustrations that are left out of later editions.
A few posts back, I wrote about our family reading project. (Click HERE.) What a delicious pleasure these last couple of months have been, slurping up lots of British children's books. Adventure! Mystery! New worlds!
How about spending time on the windswept moors of England's western coast? Long ago, hilly Exmoor was a royal hunting ground and even now it is home to wild ponies. It is just the place for three young siblings to have adventures and The Far-Distant Oxus, first published in 1937, is the book that can take you along for the ride. This title is the first of a four-book series that includes Escape to Persia (1938), The Oxus in Summer (1939), and Crowns (1947). (The titles reflect a nineteenth-century narrative poem entitled Sohrab and Rustum that inspires the protagonists with its tales of ancient Persian warriors.)
The book is a delightful read, but the story behind the story is also intriguing. The authors were actually teen-aged girls attending St. Mary's Convent, a boarding school in Berkshire, just west of Heathrow Airport. In the lull between world wars, Pamela Whitlock and Katharine Hull met while ducking for shelter from a rain storm. Whitlock was the older of the two at age fifteen and had been born in Malaysia. Hull came from aristocratic stock; her father was a Commander, Order of the British Empire (C.B.E.), one step down from knighthood. She was fourteen and still grieving for her mother who died the year before.
Whitlock and Hull soon discovered they shared a love of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons, the first of a series of children's books about exploring England's Lake Country by boat. (More about Ransome's books in an upcoming post!) The girls decided to write their own story inspired by Ransome. After much discussion, outlining characterizations and plot twists, the girls took turns writing and editing chapters. To keep themselves motivated, they created a deadline and swore to cut off their hair if they did not reach it. The writing got done on time, the girls kept their lovely locks, and a copy of the manuscript went to the author who inspired them. Despite the fact that the raw draft showed up unsolicited and from unknown authors, Ransome loved the story so much that he brought it to the attention of his publisher. Soon the stories were in print and even included sketches by Whitlock. The Oxus series was never as popular in the United States as it once was in England, but three quarters of a century after the first book was introduced, there is still a quiet following. Interestingly, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy once received The Far-Distant Oxus from her grandmother and later said it was her favorite childhood book.
The map inside the book shows the Persia-inspired names the characters give to the landscape around them...
The Far-Distant Oxus drops us into the lives and summer holiday of three children -- Bridget, Anthony, and Frances -- who attend boarding school while their parents are living in Sumatra. They soon fall into adventures and friendship with three other kids from the area. The details are fairly sketchy. We don't know what the parents are doing in Indonesia, exactly how old the kids are, or how room-and-board with a kindly old farming couple came about. But the reader doesn't care. Soon you are swept into a world of pony rides up to mountain vistas, camp-outs under the stars, and tree forts that culminates in a days-long adventure towards the sea on a homemade river raft.
Even though Oxus is old-fashioned and a bit unpolished, I wanted more as soon as I read the last page. A company called Fidra Books reprinted it just a few years ago, so paperback reprints are easy to find on the web. (See the note on Fidra at the bottom of this post.) The rest of the titles in the series are harder to get one's hands on. I checked WorldCat, "The World's Largest Library Catalog," but there weren't any copies available near me. I thankfully found an affordable copy of Escape to Persia online, yet the last two titles in the series are frustratingly past my spending limit. Although I don't think Escape to Persia is nearly as strong of a book as Oxus, I'm putting the last two titles on my wish list and have pestered Fidra about reprinting them. There are a few mysteries building in the first two books that someday I'm going to have to uncover!
Speaking of mysteries... I got curious about Whitlock and Hull, so I did a little research. The girls published the first three books in consecutive years but then didn't wrap up the series until the two were in their late twenties. What else did they do? Whitlock, born in 1921, went on to write and publish stories about horses. She also edited a Christian literature anthology for youth called The Open Book (1956?) and an anthology of poetry for children, All Day Long (1957?). Both of the books were successful judging from reprints and availability. My 1960 edition of Far-Distant Oxus has a blurb on the back fly-leaf for a novel by Whitlock called The Brockens: A Country Family "to be published next year." Alas, it seems that book never came about. Perhaps Whitlock's attentions were elsewhere by that point. In 1954, she married John Bell who eventually became a senior editor at Oxford University Press. The two had five daughters together and it seems Whitlock's publishing went quiet by the 1960s. Whitlock, however, did continue a lifelong friendship with Arthur Ransome. She and her husband served as two of Ransome's three literary executors after he died in 1967. Whitlock died in 1982 around the age of sixty while her husband lived until around age eighty-six, dying in 2008.
Hull is a bit harder to track. As far as I could tell, she didn't publish again after Crowns. She can be found in The Peerage, a genealogical survey of British royals and bluebloods. According to that source, she married a Paul Buxton in 1950, had three children, and then divorced after twenty-one years of marriage. She died in 1977 around the age of fifty-seven.
Especially with Hull, I prefer to remember the girls as I picture them after reading the note they added to the beginning of their first book:
"Katharine Hull was fourteen and Pamela Whitlock was fifteen, when the idea of The Far-Distant Oxus leapt into their minds and stayed there. They wrote rapidly and talked to each other about nothing else. Even so it was ten months before the book was finished, because they were at boarding school and could only snatch the oddest moments for their work. Above all they had to keep it a secret. They were working for an exam, and no one in the world had any suspicion of what they were doing until the book was submitted for publication."
I wrote my first novel at sixteen, but it was nothing as absorbing as The Far-Distant Oxus. (In fact, I cringe whenever I come across the sole copy in my file box and wonder if I should burn the evidence of such a wobbly first effort!) Writing it was exhilarating, yet a bit lonely. If I'd known about Hull and Whitlock back then, I would have been incredibly inspired. Thus I'm trying to pass along knowledge about this book to the young adults in my life as well as other parents.
Eli isn't old enough to appreciate the Oxus series yet. But here he is on the lap of his beloved Aunt Lydia in September. She's already inspiring him with reading adventures...
The Far-Distant Oxus (abridged version) by Katharine Hull and Pamela Whitlock (NY: Macmillan Company, 1969). Afterward by Arthur Ransome (from 1937).
How the Heather Looks: A Joyous Journey to the British Sources of Children's Books by Joan Bodger (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, Ltd., 1999.) Originally published 1959.
A Note on Fidra Books: According to their website, "Fidra Books is a small, independent publisher specialising in rescuing neglected children's books; those much-loved titles that have fallen through the net and deserve to be enjoyed again by the people who grew up with them and to find a new readership among today's children. Our books range from iconic 1960s fantasy novels to 1930s adventures, from hard-to-find 1990s boarding school stories to some of the best-loved pony books of the 1950s." I have the feeling I'll be buying a lot of Fidra titles. If you have a moment, drop them an email asking them to republish the whole Oxus series. The more they hear public opinion wanting the books, the more likely that will be.
Some avid readers stick to the bestseller lists. Others get recommendations from friends or zip online to download the latest big buzz ebook. As satisfying as that is, there are times we want more. We haunt bookstores and libraries. We drift past shelves, thumbing through a volume here and there. Its an elusive sort of hope. We're craving a once-in-a-blue-moon book. That can mean a book rare in topic or scope or quality. Sometimes it is a book that simply suits you well, reviving old interests or sending you off in a refreshing new direction. If you're quite lucky, it somehow manages to fit those all of those descriptions at once.
This is how such a book fell into my hands...
It is said that southerners have a particular attachment to place. Certainly when I moved to Northern California in 2008, I despaired that I didn't have personal connections there. Thus it was quite a pleasant discovery to connect with my cousin, Marci, who it turned out lived only twenty miles away. (My maternal grandmother was a half-sister to Marci's dad.) We enjoyed meeting soon after Eli was born, but sadly it wasn't until the spring before I left that I realized Marci is actually a kindred spirit.
Like me, Marci likes shopping in unusual places, trying new foods, and travel. And she, too, is a huge bibliophile. In fact, both of us have public library backgrounds. Every time we met up, she gifted us with stacks of gently used books. Since we moved to Georgia, more than once we've had a fresh shipment of Marci books. (Bless her, one box even included the See's Candies I can't get on the East Coast. Does it get any better than pleasure reading paired with nostalgia chocolate?!)
In my pile of Marci loot, there were familiar books such as The Harvester by Gene Stratton Porter. But there were also volumes such as William Saroyan's World War Two homefront novel The Human Comedy and Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle. I quickly realized Marci has a knack for finding older books still well worth reading.
Then in the latest box I found treasure indeed. I'd already been rereading my stash of cookbooks and the Jane Brocket books (mentioned in my post about marmalade), all based on children's literature. On my morning walks I'd begun musing that if my career could be something like a cat, one of my nine lives might be to study children's literature. Imagine my joy when I discovered in Marci's box a little green hardback with an English cottage on the cover entitled How the Heather Looks: A Joyous Journey to the British Sources of Children's Books by Joan Bodger.
Ever have one of those books that you find yourself reading slower and slower because you just don't want it to end? Bodger made her journey in 1958, sharing the experiences with her librarian/historian husband as well as their nine year-old son and two year-old daughter. At the time, many of the sites were largely unchanged and Bodger was even able to meet authors now gone, asking them some of the very questions I'd also wondered. This travelogue is richly flavored with history and literature, but also a childlike sense of wonder. Bodger wrote in such a way that I could picture the moors, the thatched cottages, and sunsets over the Lake Country. Such a treat to read!
Thankfully, once this particular book was finished, it pointed the way to more and more and more books. The small stack you see in the photo above is just a beginning. Between Bodger and Brocket, I've been making book lists, searching libraries, filling my Kindle with free out-of-copyright titles, and shopping with online out-of-print booksellers. I now have a large map of the British Isles hanging in my office and I'm poring through written histories of England. I'm starting to understand more about British history, which naturally connects to world history, but also my own genealogy.
In a nutshell, ever since I'd read my first Narnia books, I've been in love with British children's literature and How the Heather Looks was both water and sunshine to that seed. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure what all will grow from this big reading project. I'm compiling a master list of books -- both classics and forgotten treasures -- that I plan to share with Eli (as long as he is interested). Thanks to Brocket and Bodger, we're already halfway through Paddington Bear's adventures. But I want more than that.
On our London honeymoon, Brian and I decided we'd return someday. Each year on our anniversary, we read our travel diaries aloud and wax nostalgic. This year, however, we actually started a travel savings account to make that dream a reality. By the time Eli is old enough to appreciate and remember what he sees, we'll have the funds to show him some of the places where great Children's literature took place, but also a land soaked in history from the Celts to crusader's castles to Shakespeare to Churchill.
In the meantime, I'll be reading and learning so I can be a good tour guide. Part of my plans include projects to uncover more family roots, which are almost exclusively in the British Isles. I'm fascinated by how many ties there are between the American South and the British Isles both in my family tree and the history books. Most of all, I'm mulling over writing projects inspired and informed by what I'm reading.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted about dealing with clutter as we unpacked in our new, smaller house in Georgia. (Click HERE for that post.)
Picking up an object or a book to ask 'Why do I own this?' but also 'Do I need to keep it?' seems simple -- at first. But whenever I have a good bit of decluttering to do, I find the task cooks up a thick emotional stew of reminiscence, excited rediscovery, and mild shame.
During our unpacking and downsizing, the most difficult -- and the most rewarding -- was my home office. This is the place where I conduct business from answering emails to sending birthday cards, from planning the week's meals to preparing craft projects for my child. Thus I need office supplies, arts & craft materials, and uncluttered work space for the everyday life that happens here. Yet my office is also the place where I write.
I often find myself mentally working on writing projects while taking daily walks or pushing Eli's swing on the playground. For those ideas to become reality, though, I need quiet work time, but also tools and resources -- web access, my laptop and camera, and more than a few reference books. I need my files, which means multiple cabinets' worth of family history materials, clipped articles, and idea-triggering pictures. To top it off, there are objects as well. My latest nonfiction manuscript, for example, involves old fashioned cooking, so recipe boxes and antique biscuit cutters are now tucked into my office shelves. In other words, each writing project I take on means collecting materials and items that glitter with potential usefulness. A home office can easily become as cluttered as a magpie's nest.
As I started the culling process, handling some items brought a wave of renewed interest, a joy akin to reuniting with a long-absent friend. The problematic items, however, were the ones that once seemed important but my interest lessened over time. It was as though some books, papers, and objects had a thin but oh-so-sticky residue of nostalgia mixed with duty. I needed a spray bottle of cool, clear thinking to shine them up before I could make proper decisions about their worth. Luckily, I found a quotation that seemed to do just that...
In his book Clutter Free! Finally and Forever, household cleaning expert Don Aslett discusses "alleged or former hobby clutter" and it struck a nerve:
"Maybe just buying and owning the tools and trappings of something will do, make up for interest and application or even a talent we don't have. So we accumulate all the gear and equipment for something it would be neat to do, or nice to be thought of as doing. But we never do it, or do it for a little while and drop it. But we still have all that elaborate fishing, gardening, camping, hiking, rock climbing, or skeet shooting gear, taking up space in behalf of our 'image.' " (pg. 149. Pocatello, ID: Marsh Creek Press, 1995.)
I realized I was dealing with "alleged or former writing project clutter." The reference sources and other materials that felt emotionally sticky? It was because they weren't truly meant for me anymore. Even if they had once been compelling and actually could have been a decent writing project, I'd moved on. Other projects now needed the emotional and physical space. It made me sad -- at first. But now that there were fewer projects, my attention and work time was no longer as divided.
Suddenly full of energy, I started piling "sticky" books and objects into boxes. The more I culled, the more ruthless I became. It was no longer about just thinning enough to make do with one less set of bookshelves. Hours later, there were empty slots.
There is a particular sort of bliss that comes with clarity, even if you have to haul a carload of boxes to Goodwill to reach it. Afterwards, my office had breathing room. More about that in the next decluttering post...
I've had a few folks ask about photos from our visits to Laura Ingalls Wilder sites. Here are the links. Just click on each underlined heading below, but also scroll down for some extra photos that aren't on other blog posts.
We rode a horse-drawn wagon moving across the Ingalls homestead in De Smet, South Dakota. Eli and I both got to drive the horses! See that green patch ahead? That is a slough like Laura wrote about.
Click here to visit Pepin, Wisconsin Little House in the Big Woods
Click here to visit Walnut Grove, Minnesota On the Banks of Plum Creek (And click HERE to see another post that shows a sod shanty close up.)
Click here to visit Burr Oak, Iowa (There are no books about this location, but the Ingalls family lived here and worked in a hotel for several months.)
Click here to visit De Smet, South Dakota By the Shores of Silver Lake The Long Winter Little Town on the Prairie These Happy Golden Years The First Four Years
Click here to visit Mansfield, Missouri(This one goes all the way back to my first blog.) On the Way Home
Someday I'll visit the rest of the Laura Ingalls Wilder sites. For now, I'd like to thank my father-in-law for figuring out the logistics for this summer's visits. And I'd especially like to thank my long-suffering husband who cheerfully makes so many stops in the name of photos, blogging, and book projects.
Conestoga wagon replica in De Smet, South Dakota
Wading in Plum Creek near Walnut Grove, Minnesota
Replica cabin on former Ingalls land in Pepin, Wisconsin
View from Laura's porch at Rocky Ridge Farm near Mansfield, Missouri
Today was the third and the last of our Laura Ingalls Wilder Days -- Burr Oak, Iowa and Pepin, Wisconsin. (The latter is the setting for Little House in the Big Woods.)
This morning we visited Burr Oak, Iowa where Laura and her family lived and ran the Master's Hotel in 1876. An old bank is now the visitor's center and shop...
Across the street is the hotel, available for 45-minute docent-led tours. We got to see where the Ingalls lived and worked as a family at a stage coach stop.
Then we drove northeast, heading to the place where Laura was born -- Pepin, Wisconsin. It was lovely travel getting there...
Of all the Ingalls/Wilder sites, Pepin is the one that is most beautiful in terms of locale. The huge trees and vast forests Laura wrote about in Little House in the Big Woods are long gone, yet the land is green and rolling. Downtown Pepin is definitely sleepy. There is a small museum filled mostly with mostly period antiques.
Then we drove seven miles outside of town to visit the former Ingalls land.
The cabin vanished long ago, but a reproduction built according to Laura's accounts stands on the land.
I bought Little House in the Big Woods read aloud on CD, and we've been listening to it in the car. I wasn't sure how Eli would do with such a long story, but he loves it and asks for more. We were listening to it as we pulled into Pepin. The story was fresh in my mind as I walked the land, so watching Eli play where Laura once played seemed so sweet.
The main room...
In the tiny bedroom that would have been for Ma and Pa, I loved the soft glow of the window light on the bare logs.
I moved outside to photograph details on the cabin. I loved how the builders fitted the logs together. I was trying my best to ignore a handful of unruly kids during the visit, but suddenly there was a crash above me. One of the boys broke the little cabin window I just photographed (above), sending a shower of glass down onto his sister. She wasn't hurt and the mother came running. I don't know how that little drama ended, but hopefully the mom drove the kid back into town to 'fess up and pay for the window.
I'm really glad I visited both Burr Oak and Pepin. They were worth the drive and effort, even if they didn't offer as much as DeSmet and Walnut Grove. Walking around on the Ingalls land where my favorite of the books (Big Woods) took place was magical. The small trees, the cabin being a reproduction, and kids running wild couldn't curb my imagination about what used to be there.
Unfortunately, I don't think Eli would agree with me. He didn't have nearly as much fun today; I spoke too soon in my last blog entry. As I wrote about last night, DeSmet and Walnut Grove took such pains to make their museums fun for kids. There were reproductions or spare antiques for kids to touch and play with. At Burr Oak and Pepin, almost everything had "Do Not Touch" labels on them. At age three, Eli had a hard time understanding why the things just like what he played with yesterday were off limits today. I was really proud of him, though. He behaved well anyway.
I admit it. I'm a Laura Ingalls Wilder junkie. I've read all her books including her letter and journal compilations. I have two theme cookbooks (written in her honor) plus an armful of biographies. I loved it when we visited her Mansfield, Missouri home on the way to California in 2008. My sweet husband and father-in-law arranged for me to be able to see more LIW sites on our current trip. Today? Today was as wonderful as I hoped. We visited the Little Town on the Prairie, the site of many of Laura's stories...
On the edge of the homestead site, looking up into the branches of the very same cottonwood trees Pa planted.
The homestead (as seen from a two-story wooden tower behind the visitor's center)...
Eli loved this wagon, one of the many hands-on displays. Although none of the original buildings are left, there is a visitor's center and many painstaking reproductions. There is a sign near the front encouraging kids to touch and climb and explore. Eli pumped water, put dry corn ears through a mill to remove the kernels, and did many other old-fashioned chores.
Homesteads were claimed in part by building a dwelling on the land -- either a shanty or a dugout. This is the latter. Those dark soil-and-grass walls plus dirt floor must have been depressing sometimes. We learned today that sometimes sod roofs kept dripping for days after the last rain. Yet they were tight and snug in the harsh winters, cool in the summers.
A peaceful bed in the reproduction claim shanty built as Laura described it...
There was a branch-and-straw roofed barn complete with chickens, a calf, and three sleepy kittens.
There are horse-drawn wagon tours that take visitors from one educational site to another.
Eli and I both had the chance to drive the wagon for a little while. Honestly, the experience made me misty-eyed.
We rode past the corn, wheat, and oat crops as well as past a slough like Laura often wrote about in her books. (The latter is the green strip ahead of the horses.)
Eli got to ride a pony and drive a pony cart too. He was thrilled.
Eli also got to make a corn doll and wind some rope.
We left the homesite and headed into the nearby town of DeSmet. It was fun to look at the sleepy town now and imagine teenagers of the 1880s zipping down the streets on their sleds or trying to find their way home from school in a blizzard.
This is the railroad surveyor's house where Laura and her family lived the first winter they were in the Dakota territory.
I think Eli's favorite part of our tour was this little red wagon converted into a tiny conestoga.
Here is the school Laura and her sister, Carrie, attended in DeSmet...
We got to try twisting some hay into the sticks the Ingalls family used for heat during the Long Winter. With the train snowedbound and the town short on supplies, the family probably wouldn't have survived without them.
This is the house Pa built when he and Ma were ready to live in town for good. They were here forty years and both died here.
This is the DeSmet Cemetery. Ma and Pa, Caroline and Charles Ingalls, are buried side by side. His moment is the tall white and gray marble one.
It was a fairytale sort of day. I felt close to American history and to characters I've long loved. Even better, I got to share it with my family.
(Shhhh. We wore Eli out. He fell asleep in the back seat clutching his homemade rope and his corn cob doll.)
We'll visit more Laura Ingalls Wilder sites in the next day or two, so check the blog again soon!
California is the only home Eli has ever known and, at three and a half years old, he's reached an age where he really enjoys his friends -- he "met" many of them when he was just a few weeks old. He's also used to glorious summer weather and 1,001 interesting things places to explore from beaches to city museums to amusement parks. A small town in North Georgia is going to be a big change. We're trying to be proactive about making this a positive transition for our son. I sought out some mothers I know who have moved with preschoolers and peppered them with questions. I found some good information online. And this book has been both helpful and comforting...
Once I collected information, it was my job to sort through it and figure out what was right for our situation, our family, our child. No easy task.
The first thing I realized is that there is a fine line between giving the topic of moving adequate attention and giving it too much attention. Moving involves grief, so I tapped into my experiences losing my parents and the moves I've made in the past. I also went back to the training I received as a hospice volunteer. Grief can be overwhelming, so you have to "breathe." In other words, it helps to alternately focus on the loss and then let the loss completely go for a while. As the move approached, we gave Eli information periodically. At one point when Eli started to get upset about moving, Brian and I realized we should take a break from talking about it when he's around. I also emailed all my closest friends and asked them not to mention the move in Eli's presence unless he brought it up. After a week or so of no discussion about the move, Eli started bringing it up again but with less frustration.
We found a balance that seemed to work for letting Eli know about the move. But there were still so many details in getting a kid ready..
I've never seen it "spelled out" like this anywhere, but I've come to feel there are three parts to making this change a peaceful and productive one for Eli. The first is helping him with closure in his life here. The second is helping him understand what the transition will be like. The third is helping him see the good things about his new life in Georgia.
1. Closure -- Eli and I talked about goodbyes and how they may make a person feel. We worked on a list of people we wanted to see for goodbyes, but also places and things. It feels kinda weird to drive up to a playground, get out, and then say, "Goodbye, playground! We enjoyed you and will miss you!" but we've done it. Since I'm not working and Eli is out of school, we're probably doing more goodbyes than we would otherwise, but we're trying not to go overboard. These gestures do seem to help. Eli will talk about a person or place quite a bit but then seems cheerful and drops the topic after an official goodbye. We've also been making collages and other photo projects for dear friends as well as for neighborly people from our lives here. (Click HERE for a post about our collages.)
2. Understanding Moving -- We found a handful of picture books about moving that Eli enjoys reading. We were then able to discuss how the experience is alike/different for characters from book to book as well as how our move is alike/different. Picture books helped Eli with the transition to preschool, and I do think they have been super helpful with the move too. I surfed Amazon reviews before purchasing. I wanted books that addressed the characters' feelings but that didn't focus on fears and loneliness.
Some details about our favorite moving book follows below. The others are also good, but fairly similar. One thing I wish were different... Every single darned book shows new neighbors instantly showing up in welcome and they always bring a cake! I've tried to warn Eli that it will be hot when we get there so people won't be outside much and that we may have to take it upon ourselves to get to know our neighbors. And in all the moves I've made, nobody has ever brought over a cake, so I've stressed that to him too. (Hmmm. Three year-olds are notorious for getting stick on details. Should I buy a cake and leave it on our new doorstep for him to discover?!)
A. Big Ernie's New Home: A Story for Kids Who are Moving by Teresa Martin is our favorite. One nice detail is that the characters are moving away from San Francisco, so Eli knows first-hand some of the things Ernie will miss. Also, the characters move to another state. So many children's books are about local moves. I think the real genius of this book, however, is that Ernie is a cat! Ernie is worried and hesitant, but the little boy who owns him, Henry, is competent and helpful. Thus Eli can identify with both!
B. The Berenstain Bears' Moving Day by Stan and Jan Berenstain
C. We're Moving by Heather Maisner
D. Moving House by Anne Civardi
E. The Night Before Summer Vacation by Natasha Wing. We are vacationing while heading to our new home, so this book is helpful about the chaos and excitement of getting ready for a road trip. (Several sources have pointed out that extended vacationing on the trip between homes can help ease the transition for kids, especially young ones where it sort of serves to "erase the memory banks" of former routines.)
3. Picturing a New Life -- We always told Eli that California was temporary and would move home to Georgia. When we visited Georgia, we talked about moving there someday. The problem is that it has been a year and a half since his last visit -- almost half his lifetime ago! Thus we've been looking at photo albums and video clips of his Georgia family as well as his visits there. I've been online, looking up YouTube videos and pictures so Eli can see some of the neat things about our new town and state. We also ordered some picture books about Georgia. Most state-related books are for older kids, but the Good Night Our World series is for preschoolers. The books visit important landmarks, historical spots, and cultural details page by page. Now Eli knows about ZooAtlanta, Stone Mountain, peach orchards, and other aspects of our new lives.
Family is the main reason we're moving back to Georgia, even though it means leaving behind some dear California family in the process. (Brian's brother and his family live about an hour south of our California home.) Eli will have uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents living close by once we get settled. I also have longtime friends (and their parents) who live in the area and are eager to embrace Eli. The hard part, though, is that there aren't any kids in the family Eli's age. Thus I put the word out at Eli's new preschool, a local mothers' group, and Facebook that I was looking for penpals for Eli.
Through the kindness of one of my former high school teachers, we found Wyatt and Kody. Eli falls between the brothers age-wise and they live just a few minutes from the house we are renting. Their mother, Kristine, has done a wonderful job helping her boys send Eli cards decorated with handprints, stickers, and kiddo scribbles. She sent two batches of photos of the boys too, which we posted in our house at Eli's eye-level. Eli talks about Wyatt and Kody often, and can't wait to go play in their backyard wading pool (seen in the photos). He loves picking out postcards and photos to send in return. We'll be sending the boys postcards from our homeward travels too.
We've never met Kristine yet her efforts have truly helped Eli make a more positive transition to Georgia. That puts an even more positive spin on this move for Brian and me too. We feel so grateful.
I'm thankful to see that the steps we've taken to make this move easier for Eli seem to be working. After a bit of bumpiness a few months ago, he is now excited about the move. We list a few daily blessings every night as part of our bedtime routine and Eli often says he is thankful for Georgia, Wyatt, and Kody. In these final days in California, he is cheerful and happy all day even with all the moving chaos.
BUT...
This post wouldn't be truthful and complete if I didn't write about our nights. They have become exhausting and chaotic. A few weeks ago Eli started crying out after bedtime. For most of Eli's life, we've been able to kiss him goodnight and won't hear a peep from him for eleven hours. Earlier this month, his cryouts escalated to him getting up many times, finally coming to sleep in our bed in the middle of the night. He's so tired by this point and so emotional, that just being firm isn't the cure. Now we are at the point where he won't sleep unless we are with him. Even as a baby, Eli didn't like to sleep in our bed, so this is quite new for all of us. We're all sleeping poorly. It also makes it difficult for Brian and I to have relaxing, rejuvenating down time in the evening.
If anybody has ideas, we're all ears! We've tried adjusting bedtimes and naptimes. We've tried getting extra exercise and fresh air during the day. Eli eats healthy and sugary treats are few. The hours leading to bedtime are almost always peaceful and Eli's bedtime routine includes a massage, calm books, lullabies, and lots of affection. We're at a loss for what else to try.
As much as we'd like to completely solve Eli's nighttime problems right now, from the reasearch I've done, I know that this is normal and will pass. It seems like sleep disruption and potty training regression are the two "norms" for preschoolers who move. At least we only have one of the two (so far)! So we'll keep adjusting until we find a livable solution, but we've got to be realistic. We know Eli simply needs to show his feelings and work through the transition. We're pouring on the love and affection (even if quite often we're gritting our teeth too).
Many thanks to many of you for information and support!
UPDATE: We had a wonderful almost-month-long trip across country and Eli settled well into his new life in Georgia. We finally discovered that during the transition period (about two weeks before the move, the road trip, and about six weeks after), it was just better for the whole family to let Eli sleep in our bed. To preserve our sanity, Brian and I took turns sleeping in the guest room while the othe parent slept in the big bed with Eli. Our blow-up bed rail placed between Eli and parent wasn't popular with Little Guy, yet it helped the parent sleeping with him get good sleep without lots of accidental kicking. After we had been in Georgia close to two months, we transitioned Eli back into staying in his own bed all night. We did this by talking to him about it about a week in advance, letting him know the change would be coming. It went surprisingly well. Now Eli only sleeps in our bed if he's had a bad dream. He goes to bed easily and happily stays in his own bed all night. The one difference between here and California, though, is that Eli's room is right off our den and yet he still will not fall asleep if the door is closed. Thus we have to use a sound machine in his room and dim the lights in the den during evening hours. But that's certainly workable.
Years ago while rummaging in a used book store, I found a book of nature photographs accompanied by John Muir quotations. It seemed just the thing for a good friend who was going through a rough time, so I bought it as a gift -- but found myself reading it cover to cover before passing it along. Muir has been one of my heroes ever since.
John Muir (1838-1914) was a naturalist and writer, but also an activist who helped save many of America's wildest, most beautiful spots including Yosemite and Sequoia national parks. He earned the nickname "Father of the National Parks." He helped found the Sierra Club. And when he found out that some of the nation's petrified forests were being ground up to make sandpaper, he galvanized the movement that resulted in the American Antiquities Act. This act now protects battlefields, burial grounds, historical ruins, archaeological finds, and the like. But Muir was first and foremost a nature lover who lived fully through his appreciation of the world around him. Recently I read The Wild Muir: Twenty-Two of John Muir's Greatest Adventures (selected by Lee Stetson). Whether riding out a fierce storm high up in the boughs of a Douglas fir, facing a bear, riding an avalanche, or just taking a walk (from Indiana to Florida!), Muir was wide awake to life and made the world a better place.
Although quite the wanderer, Muir eventually married and helped raise two daughters on a huge fruit orchard in Martinez, California. (The flexible, understanding love between he and his wife, Louisa Strentzel Muir, is an amazing story all in itself.) Now a National Historic Site, the home and remaining grounds are open to the public.
Eli was a little afraid of the steep stairs from the attic to the belfry, but when the park ranger said he could ring the big bell to his heart's content, he determinedly faced the climb. (I was a very proud mama! In the picture below, doesn't he look like an explorer braving the unknowns?)
As a writer, I love seeing where other people write. My own writing room is definitely a haven full of my favorite things, so it was a treat to peek into the spot where Muir wrote so many of his pieces.
Development is creeping up on the Muir house, yet some of the orchards and garden spaces are still there.
The John Muir home is lovely and peaceful. I loved walking in Muir's footsteps and sharing the adventure with my son.
When I arrived in California, I was eight months married and four months pregnant. What was new and foreign then is now familiar and comforting. Turning homeward is a very welcome thought, yet at the same time there is so much about my life here that I love. This morning I remembered a poem...
A Journey
When he got up that morning everything was different: He enjoyed the bright spring day But he did not realize it exactly, he just enjoyed it.
And walking down the street to the railroad station Past magnolia trees with dying flowers like old socks It was a long time since he had breathed so simply.
Tears filled his eyes and it felt good But he held them back Because men didn't walk around crying in that town.
Waiting on the platform at the station The fear came over him of something terrible about to happen: The train was late and he recited the alphabet to keep hold.
And in its time it came screeching in And as it went on making its usual stops, People coming and going, telephone poles passing,
He hid his head behind a newspaper No longer able to hold back the sobs, and willed his eyes To follow the rational weavings of the seat fabric.
He didn't do anything violent as he had imagined. He cried for a long time, but when he finally quieted down A place in him that had been closed like a fist was open,
And at the end of the ride he stood up and got off that train: And through the streets and in all the places he lived in later on He walked, himself at last, a man among men, With such radiance that everyone looked up and wondered.
--"A Journey" by Edward Field (b. 1924) Reprinted in A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry edited by Czeslaw Milosz (NY: Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 1996.) pp. 98-99.
Transition is rarely easy no matter how good it is for us or how much we welcome it.
(Note on the Photo: I took this during a community photography class. I was standing on Treasure Island across from San Francisco, looking out towards the Golden Gate. The evening light as a storm approached was stunning!)
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My primary camera is a Canon EOS Digital Rebel T5 with a Sigma DC 18-200mm lens (1:3.5-6.3) or Canon EFS 18-55mm lens. On occasion I also use my iPhone 6. For crisper images (when I'm not in a hurry to grab the shot), I use a Dolica Proline B100 tripod. I often tweak my images using Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.
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