We celebrated the baby’s birthday last week. with a chocolate cake. All three children have had chocolate cake on their first birthday – does that make it a family tradition? The cake did not go over terribly well with her. She had gotten her shots earlier in the day, and perhaps that contributed to her great fussiness. She was not having it with the cake and eventually rage smashed it, while refusing to eat any of it. Oh well. More for me.
We also went to the Supreme Court to pay our respects to Justice Ginsburg. I almost didn’t go because the whole prospect of taking the metro down and standing in a crowd seemed perhaps not prudent. But ultimately, I decided that these things could be done safely with masks and hand sanitizer, and that saying goodbye to a lady who spent her whole life championing gender equality was something that I wanted to be part of, and something that I wanted my daughters to be a part of.
Last week was also the second week of my drawing class. We talked about how in drawing you have to learn to draw what you see and not the actual object. So you draw lines and angles and not plants and flowers. Learning how to breakdown drawing into concrete steps has been really helpful; it’s shaping up to be a good brain excercise. The Husband had to go into work a couple days last week, one day being class day. I managed the lunch chaos while “attending” class, with my camera off. Being able to take a class while keeping track of my kids certainly opens up all sorts of possibilities.
The baby helping with homework.
The “This is Motherhood” moment of the week: wiping the three year old’s behind with one hand while using the other hand to keep the baby from sticking her hand in the (yet unflushed) toilet. It was kind of akin to cuing on the chorus while keeping track of the tenor.
Two things sighted on our morning walk – one made the three year old happy, one made me happy:
Diggers in action!The first peep of autumn leaves!
What We Ate:
Saturday: Chicken cooked on the griddle and salad.
Sunday: Thai Chicken Soup – From Dinner Illustrated. I added rice noodles.
Monday: Sausage, Peppers, and Onion sautee. Using up an excess of peppers.
Tuesday: Red Pepper Soup – From Dinner Illustrated. See above about excess of peppers.
Wednesday: Tortellini (w/ Red Sauce or Pesto, Diner’s choice), and Arni’s Jr. Salads. This was the baby’s birthday dinner. The Arni’s Jr. Salads are a staple of the Husband’s childhood and home state. We like to re-create them at home since we can’t get them here.
Thursday: Indian Eggplant Curry (Instant Pot), and Cumin Potatoes from Indian Instant Pot Cookbook.
Friday: Pizza and Lilo and Stitch. I had picked up Lilo and Stich four or five years ago, but we had never made it through because the eight year always got sad and scared and had us turn it off. I particularly remember her saying, “You don’t rip books!”
A year ago this week, at 6am on a Monday morning, the Husband and I walked the three blocks to the hospital and checked in to Labor and Delivery. It was my due date, and given that I had to be at work five days later, I thought it best to induce rather than wait it out. Six hours later, we had a new little one in our lives.
That little baby is now one. She has spent about half her life in quarantine, but she doesn’t know that. Her life, her world, is encompassed by all that is around her. And in that, she finds plenty to explore.
Her belly button alone is proving to be a great source of fascination to her. A few weeks ago, we were sitting on her bed, she was just in a diaper, and somehow she managed to poke herself in the belly button, her little finger tip going into the little divot. And then, kind of like sunshine, this look of awareness came over her face, and she giggled. And did it again. Since then, whenever she is hanging out without a shirt on, she will give her belly button a little poke, as if to say, “Yep, still there!”
She is a determined child, curious and up for any challenges. Her love for pulling the dirt out of the Husband’s potted plants, and for emptying all the kitchen drawers that she can reach certainly leaves a trail of debris in her wake.
She loves to be held, observing the world from up high, with this slightly judgy pucker to her lips and brow, or craning her neck to get a better view of whatever else is going on around her. Usually it is some antic that her siblings are pulling. They make her laugh, her sister and brother. Sometimes by accident, often intentionally. “Make the baby laugh” is a much enjoyed pastime around here.
People often ask me, “What is it like with three kids?” And, to be honest, one year in, I don’t think it is much different than having two. Not because my kids are magically easy, by any means. Rather it is because most days I feel like I only have the bandwidth to keep track of two children at any given moment. In the early days of three, it was usually the two year old and either the baby or the eight year old, depending on who was hungry and who was asleep.
That balance has somewhat shifted these days. Usually it is the mobile, dare-devil, no sense of fear baby that requires the most attention, and either the self sufficient now three year old or the independent eight year old that float in and out of my attention span. Either way, I only have a finite number of hours in my day and three children fill the day just as full as two children. There are moments (days, weeks, months, lifetimes, I’m sure) when I feel as if no one is getting what they need, least of all the Husband or myself. But then I realize that someone will always be needing something. Need is infinite. But you know what, so is love.
Fall seemed to arrive this week. We turned the air conditioner off and opened the windows, letting a breeze blow bracingly through the house. It actually got downright chilly. I’ve put apple picking on my list of things to do in the next few weeks – I think it might make a good Wednesday afternoon activity.
Sleep was rough this week. A combination of staying up too late so I can work on projects without children underfoot, and the baby waking in the middle of the night and having to be nursed back to sleep. I’m hoping it’s molars and that she will be better at sleeping soon. Teething is such a disruptive phase, but then when one thinks about the process of teething – basically these razor sharp objects piercing your gums from the inside to the out – one thinks, how can it be otherwise.
This week, I dropped off a couple of mini fridges at a local charity. The fridges had been in the basement – our “beer fridges” – but we had replaced them with a full sized fridge last month. In these crazy COVID times I had to book a drop off appointment a month ago! I took the three year old with me to drop the fridges and run a few other errands. As we drove through down town, he exclaimed in wonder, “Look at all the places!” It was adorable and heartbreaking.
I signed up to take a drawing class through the local community college, and this week was the first class. Several times a year, the community college continuing ed catalogue lands in our mail slot, and I flip through it, thinking it might be nice to learn something new. Taking classes, particularly evening classes is not really compatible with a show schedule, so it’s always been kind of a wistful thought. This year, with encouragement from the Husband, I decided to take advantage of the convenience of classes being taught through Zoom and my unemployed status, and signed up for a class.
There were a couple of different classes I contemplated signing up for – some more practical than drawing. Appliance repair, for example. Computer programming – probably beyond me, but could provide a good career pivot if needed. I chose drawing. I had thought about taking watercolor class, but then decided I wanted to start with something fundamental.
So I ordered art supplies and pads of paper larger than any art I can conceive of, and on Wednesday afternoon, I logged into class, along with twelve other students. The class is mostly made up of retirees (including two former middle school teachers), with a couple of thirty-something computer programmers as well. There is one elderly couple taking the class together. They have not figured out how to mute, and listening to their old married couple banter was one of the most delightful parts of the first class. Being back in a formal learning environment was definitely odd. There was a certain receptiveness that my brain took on that did feel like dusting the cobwebs off something that had been tucked away for too long. We even had assigned reading and homework.
Speaking of appliance repair, the dryer at my parent’s rental house stopped working so I spent a morning waiting for the service tech. Watching him take the dryer apart, diagnose, and remedy the issue was kind of fascinating. Maybe I will take that appliance repair class after all. It would certainly pay for itself over the years.
All it took was a screw gun! I can do that!
The Husband took Wednesday afternoon off, and after my drawing class we took a trip to the Agricultural Farm Park. I had brought the kids here earlier in the summer, and it was great to see it again in a different season. The dahlia garden was still going strong, but a lot of other things were starting to be put away for the season. We saw only a handful of people there while we were there; instead of people we saw large stretches of blue skies and corn.
What we ate:
Saturday: Black bean and red pepper quesadillas. I also had some shishito peppers from our produce box that I threw on the griddle and blackened to eat alongside.
Sunday: Thai Basil Chicken Lettuce Wraps. From America’s Test Kitchen. It was a little too spicy and the kids ended up having peanut butter toast for dinner.
Monday: Stir fry – tofu, bean, eggplant, red pepper. A clean out the produce drawer meal.
Tuesday: Black lentil dal and Paneer Biryani (from Indian InstantPot). I’ve made paneer a couple of times, but it always had turne out crumbly. I finally bought a paneer/tofu press. It is not great for tofu pressing, but my paneer turned out great this time.
Paneer success!!!
Wednesday: Called an audible when we drove by a favorite sandwich place on the way home from the Agricultural Farm Park. Sandwiches and onion rings.
Thursday: Mushroom Leek Crostata from Dinner Illustrated. Though the Husband and 8 year old grabbed Five Guys on the way home from dance class. I have a great weakness for french fries,, and they brought me some. It wasn’t as good as when you each them fresh and salty and hot, but it was still pretty tasty.
Friday: Pizza and wings while watching Star Wars: The Last Jedi (8 year old’s turn to pick). Carrie Fisher – such an elegant lady. I think she was my favorite part of the movie.
A cycle of “when was the last time you ate/peed/had a diaper change?” and “When was the last time I ate/peed/changed a diaper?”
Is a toddling baby who makes joyful squawks, each outburst asking a question that I don’t know how to answer.
A climbing baby, persistent in her efforts to scale kitchen chairs, requiring vigilance on my part.
Distance learning and all its difficulties and distractions.
Virtual playdates. A balm, but not a solution for loneliness.
An endless to do list, yet days that seem to have no direction.
A preschooler who makes me question the accuracy of that term for a little guy who won’t forseeably be in preschool.
Wondering what the fine line is between “free play” and “neglect”.
A broken oven, necessitating baking only treats that can fit in a 9×9 pan in the toaster oven. Brownies (from Ghiradelli mix, bought in bulk from Coscto), lemon bars, granola bars. Some loafs fit too.
The perfect combination of sunshine, cool weather, and bracing breeze.
Reveling in the cooler weather and my morning cup of tea.
Having to constantly run the tea kettle because morning mayhem means the cuppa has cooled every time I get around to taking a sip.
Reaching for a pen to endorse a check and only being able to find crayons. Broken crayons at that.
Soup season. Cozy, warm, and filling. Also a good excuse to eat crusty bread.
Sewing masks for a church project.
Pumping milk. Not for the baby, who has refused a bottle since she was four months old, but rather for the milk bank to give to babies in the NICU.
Reading books beautiful, sad, fluffy, comforting, uncomfortable, uplifting.
Binge watching tv- also beautiful, sad, fluffy, comforting, uncomfortable, uplifting. This show manages to be all of those.
Wandering around to the side yard and finding a perfect rose blooming, having forgotten that we even had roses planted there.
Soft, round, cool, kissable baby cheeks.
Soft, round, cool, kissable three year old cheeks.
Soft, round, cool, almost at my eye level eight year old cheeks.
Devastating news, and needing to have room in my heart to grieve, honor, rage, and resolve.
Trying to find patience and empathy. Often failing.
Trying to banish FOMO and jealousy. Often failing.
Loving the chaos, if not the mess, of quarantining life with three small children.
We celebrated Labor Day by grilling burgers and had a long video chat with my brother’s family. They are in California and the air quality made it unwise to go outside, so we “hung out” for most of the afternoon. The kids are getting better at interactive video chatting, I think.
The rest of the week was quite rainy. One day we got five inches of rain in an afternoon, and the kids spent “recess” outside in the rain. I wish we could send some of our rain to California and Oregon.
We are into week two of distance learning. The eight year old seems to be very much into music, art, and PE. Friday, the carbon monoxide detector went off in our house, and I hustled the kids outside. This was in the middle of class, but luckily, you can get wireless signal on our back patio. Turns out it was just a battery issue with the alarm, but it wasn’t terrible to have class outside. The mosquitoes made it not a practical long term set up, but I can absolutely see us doing this again. A mom in my mom’s group gave me a tip to spray down an old shirt with repellent and just have that near by rather than spraying down the kid. That, and running a box fan seemed to minimize the mosquito bites, but they are still a lot of them. I think more than the weather, it’s the mosquitoes that keep me inside some days. I am intrigued by the idea of a bat box to help alleviate the mosquito problem in our back yard.
This is what learning looked like this week. Mosquito repellent soaked t-shirt on her lap, and box fan going to keep the bugs away.
We’ve signed the 8 year old up for dance and basketball classes. Being home by herself has hit her harder than I had thought, so I took a look and decided that there were a few activities that I felt okay with enrolling her in.
On that note, I’ve been sewing masks so that she has enough for her activities. I’ve been trying out a couple different patterns to see which ones fit best.
This week I finished repairing and re-installing the screens for the sunroom of my parents’ house as they have renters coming in soon. Replacing screens is one of those things I would have never thought to do myself, but the Husband looked it up on YouTube and said to me, “You could totally do this!” And it did turn out to be pretty easy. Basically the screen is held in to the window frame by a piece of rubber tubing (called spline) wedged into a groove. So all one does is remove the spline and pull the old screen out, then lay down new screen and use a special tool to put new spline in. Definitely worth doing myself.
In and around these activities, I’ve been doing some art with the three year old, taking walks when we can. The baby hasn’t been sleeping super well lately. A couple nights she was attached to me pretty much all night. Maybe it’s molars?
Some delightful food things:
There is a great garden haul of basil (see above). I blitzed up a heap of pesto – made with sunflower seeds since we don’t have pine nuts. Also some of the basil is going into America Test Kitchen’s Thai Chicken Basil this week.
My pandemic snack addiction is Welch’s fruit snacks. Each pack is a unknown combination of flavors and the anticipation of ripping open a pack to see what it contains is one of the small joys in my life. Then the careful contemplation of what order to eat them in – I like to eat from least favorite to most favorite – raspberry, strawberry, orange, peach, grape. Then there is a calculus I do in my head if there are more grape then orange or peach, maybe I will eat the grape until the numbers even out first…. It is a process. This week, I got a perfect pack:
The perfect handful of gummies!!!!
Random picture of the kids’ lunch one day. So I’ll remember what they ate. The 8 year old made her own sandwich, while the 3 year old and the baby got mostly snack food and leftovers. The cucumbers are cream cheese with furikake, a Japanese rice seasoning which the 3 year old loves – I do too. I like the nori, sesame, bonito combinations the best.
Lunch!
What We Ate:
Saturday: Steak Salad – Husband cooked and this was tasty.
Sunday: BBQ Bean Tacos with Pineapple Salsa. Made some coleslaw on the side (Cabbage, lime juice, a touch of mayo). Coleslaw seems to be the unexpected hit of the summer.
Wednesday: Pasta with Zucchini, Tomatos and Broccoli. Basically an eat down the veggie drawer meal.
Thursday: Sausage Kale Soup. This was Irish Dance night for the eight year old, so I needed something I could make ahead of time.
Friday: Pizza and Movie. It was the three year old’s turn to pick. He chose Fireman Sam and then Nature Movies. It was a little stomach turning to watch animals being eaten alive onscreen while having dinner, but I guess we remind ourselves that it’s how life works.
I actually got a fair amount of reading done the month. A lot of the books that came off my holds list had long wait lists; there was an urgency to finish them since it would be a while until I would be able to borrow them again.
After the Wedding by Courtney Milan – 6h 24m. Milan is one of my favorite authors, and she happens to write historical romance novels. I love that her books are smart, funny, and detailed and that her characters are complex and diverse. This one was intriguing to me in that it featured a hero whose father is a Black abolitionist, though I’m not sure how realistic the hero’s experience in Victorian England was. The fact that he was Black seemed to be important and trivial at the same time. Milan’s plots have never been her strong suit, but her novels are more about characters than plot.
The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead – 7h 43m. This was a dense, complex novel about elevator inspectors, specifically the first female Black elevator inspector in an unnamed metropolitan city. There is some brilliantly allegorical writing here.
Just Mercy by Brian Stevenson (audiobook narrated by Stevenson) – Stevenson leads the Equal Justice Initiative, which seeks to challenge inequities in the criminal justice system. A lot of his work deals with death row inmates, and people who are in prison for life – which, he phrases not as, “sentenced to life in jail”, but rather as “sentenced to die in prison.” This book is about the work he does to fight for prisoner’s rights and freedoms. His sense of compassion and ability to be clear eyed and empathetic at the same time is inspiring. Stevenson makes both gutwrenching and logical arguments for reform to the criminal justice system. He says at one point, “It is easier to be white and guilty than Black and innocent.” Another striking comment he made is how he calls anti-death penalty activists “abolitionists”. That really led me to realize that like 19th century abolitionists, these activists are looking to abolish something unfair and cruel. Years ago I read Sister Helen Prejean’s memoir Dead Man Walking, and I thought Just Mercy was similar in the way it balanced the demographic facts of death row inmates with their personal story.
Normal People by Sally Rooney – 4h 25m. A novel that follows two people from high school through graduation from college, charting the ebb and flow of their complicated relationship. Sometimes at night, after I put the three year old to bed, I lie next to him and read to myself until he falls asleep. Often he asks me to read my book aloud to him. This was one of those books. Not entirely appropriate in terms of language or situation. Oops. All in all, I was pretty lukewarm about this book. Maybe the angst of entering into one’s early twenties isn’t my favorite topic anymore. While I have great empathy for anyone going through that youthful turmoil, I’ve been there and don’t wish to return.
No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Hurt Us by Rachel Louise Snyder – 10h 26m. This was a really eye-opening book about domestic violence. Snyder looks at the issue from the viewpoint of victims, abusers, and institutions, combining research with profiles of real people. She gives a really compelling and sobering account of the reality of domestic violence and the obstacles to ending it. She really highlights how the shame, secrecy, and fear of violent relationships makes it difficult to prevent. In her view, domestic violence is a process; there are clear steps and indicators and progressions to how it plays out, often tragic ones. She advocates for implementing systems where these indicators are recognized and addressed, where women are empowered, where men are taught to resist sexist and violent cultural narratives, and where the resources of a community can work together. It was interesting to read this alongside Just Mercy – both books talk about how we as a society need to pay more attention to preventing crimes rather than reacting to tragedies.
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng – 6 h 24 m. Engrossing. This book was about the trainwreck of a family imploding, and I couldn’t put it down. Spoiler alert: I understand the Hulu adaptation starts with a mystery. The book gives away the answer to the mystery in the first chapter. (Sorry, Husband!)
On Turpentine Lane by Elinor Lipman (audiobook narrated by Mia Barron) – Breezy, funny, and light. The main character works for a private school, buys a house and life unfolds as a mysterious photo album is found in the attic. It’s a novel about sweet cute people with their sweet cute problems. Everyone is good and the dangers we face in our lives are our own inhibitions.
Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversation by Mira Jacob – 2h 35m. Graphic novel written by an Indian American author detailing conversations that she has with her mixed race son at a time when being not white can be complicated and difficult. Jacob explores questions of what it means to be a “good” minority, and how that can’t protect you when someone gets into office that preaches a rhetoric harmful to people who look like you. Her son was born when Obama was elected the first time, and of that she writes, “… and suddenly there was a new place for you in the world.” I hope I can have such honest conversations with my children as they grow.
Dear Girls by Ali Wong – 4h 54m. Funny, raw, open, and a little graphic, in this book, Wong writes a series of letters to her daughters. She muses on being the daughter of immigrants, a comedian, a woman and a mother. So much of what Wong writes in this book really resonated with me. My favorite line: “Asian women live forever, and having kids is like a 401(k) for companionship.”
One week of distance learning in the books! I have to say, it wasn’t as difficult as I had feared. This fall is has had a much more structured and supported learning environment than what everyone (students, parents, teachers, administrators) were thrown into last spring. I felt last spring that there was a lot of independent learning expected from the students. Our school district still has implemented a very long day of distance learning (9am – 3:15pm), but the day is built so that the kids are usually never on Zoom for more than an hour at a time. The one exception is when morning meeting runs into math period – so a 1h 20 m session. But it’s the first period of the day, so not horrible. There is an hour and a half for lunch and two 10-15 minute breaks – one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It seems to be much closer to what I had when I was growing up, where there was lots of outdoor play time.
Wednesday afternoons are designated “independent study.” I’d love to spend a few hours either going on an outing or tackling something the eight year old is independently interested in learning.
I do feel like in person learning is probably more effective for the 8 year old, but at least I am able to be home and support her. I know that this is a luxury that not all families have, so I’m trying to see this as a side benefit of this period of unemployment. All in all, however, the week of schooling went quite smoothly. There were a couple of incidents of accidentally logging out of the Zoom waiting room before class, but hopefully we are turning it into a learning experience on how to tell time.
(Speaking of which – are kids still expected to be able to read analog clocks and watches? I feel like all the clocks on our walls are analog, so this is indeed a good thing to teach the kids. Also is a good lesson in how to count by fives.)
This week was a bit of disaster for the younger two kids’ routines because I was trying to make sure the eight year old got where she needed to be virtually. School started right around the baby’s nap time, making a bit of a mess out of that. I’ve never been one of those people who are slaves to a baby’s nap times, but I do think the day goes more smoothly when the baby has regular naps. I’m hopeful, that having the eight year old on a schedule will be helpful in giving the rest of us a rhythm to the day eventually, though. I can try to fit naps, nursing sessions, and structured activity time for the baby and the three year old around the eight year old’s class, and we can all have recess together. New school year, new patterns for everyone, I guess. It is an ever evolving thing.
Other highlights this week: The baby has figured out how to drink from a straw. At least she figured out how to suck the water up. She still is working on swallowing the water that she fills her mouth with. Half the time she sucks up a great big mouthful and then lets it just dribble out the sides of her mouth.
She has also figured out how to climb up on low chairs. She’ll climb up on them and stand, holding on to the chair back as if at a lectern, her face glowing with pride and accomplishment. It is cute but so scary.
Racing in the rain.
We didn’t get out for as many long walks as we used to, but on Thursday there was a giant downpour and both kids took great laughing delight in running in the rain. It’s funny how these kids don’t like to bathe, but love running outside as the heavens open and unleash sheets and sheets of water.
Two food highlights this week:
Basil from our garden!
The Husband brought home a watermelon from the grocery store. I love watermelon but it does take a while to finish. Now that we have a new full size fridge in the basement, there is not as much urgency to eat it all in one day, which is nice. I’ve been enjoying watermelon, feta salad – something my friend Lizzie introduced me to. Watermelon, feta, a sprinkle of basil. That’s it, simple and tasty.
Leftover rice and salmon, with avocado, umboshi paste and cucumber.
Also – for lunch I’ve been making sushi rolls with leftovers. It’s not true sushi rice, so things fall apart a little bit, but it’s still a tasty way to eat things up. A couple years ago, I picked up a packet of umeboshi puree from a fancy grocery store just outside of Philadelphia. It’s one of my favorite ingredients in sushi; there used to be a Japanese restaurant that had a Ume Shiso roll – just ume paste, and a shiso leaf wrapped in rice. It was the most delicate, delicious thing you ever tasted. I don’t actually know of too many other ways to eat umeboshi puree, so it’s been sitting in our fridge for a while. Surprisingly, though, it is still good, and really made these rolls special.
This Week’s Menu:
Saturday: We had Indian take out from the local Indian restaurant.
Sunday: Lasagna. This was the lasagna the 8 year and I were supposed to make last week, but had to postpone. It was her idea and she helped me make the sauce, mix the ricotta and layer the lasagna.
Lasagna night!
Monday: Pork and Green Bean Stir Fry. From Dinner Illustrated.
Tuesday: Cauliflower Tacos with Mango Cabbage Slaw. From Dinner Illustrated.
Wednesday: Green Curry with tofu and veggies. I used this new curry paste from HMart and it was definitely spicier than the Thai Kitchen brand that I usually get.
Thursday: The Husband made dinner. Breakfast sandwiches with bacon.
Friday: Pizza and Bend it Like Beckham. The eight year old has been listening to the Aru Shah series and it put me in the mood for this movie, though I hadn’t seen it in a while. It mostly holds up in its story of being stuck between two cultures, as a child and as a parent. The soccer bits and the wedding scene are pretty fun too. (“That’s not football!” the kids said.) I’d forgotten how cringe-y the romantic subplots were, though. I think there are a lot of romance storylines that are not aging well in the wake of the MeToo movement. The realization that power imbalances are not really healthy foundations for romantic relationships certainly has me seeing these plotlines with a new awareness. I don’t think those kind of relationships are necessarily something that is impossible to have now, I just think it needs to be navigated in a more conscious way.
On the radio the other day, there was a discussion about recycling, and they said that cardboard recycling has gone up during COVID. We are no stranger to this phenomenon, having more than done our part to contribute to Jeff Bezos’ wealth. The real cardboard goldmine, however, came courtesy of the new fridge we bought for the basement.
“Make sure to tell them to leave the box!” I said to the Husband when he told me that the fridge was being delivered.
The day the fridge arrived, as the delivery people were trying to figure out how to take the door off the fridge, I waved them down, pointing at the box. “Can you please leave it?” They delivery guy looked at me and laughed.
“Yeah, sure,” he said, and dragged it to the far end of the driveway.
Immediately the kids were entranced and set up shop inside, among the Styrofoam and packing materials. It made a shady little hideout from the 90 degree weather.
“We can’t just leave it here,” I said. “Let’s have a plan.”
The next day, I was playing in the backyard with the two younger kids when I heard scraping and thumping and heaving. I looked around the house, and saw the eight year old trying to heave this box, this very big, refrigerator box, over the front gate and into the back yard.
I wasn’t quite sure what the plan was. Just that it was a big box. When I was little, I read a book called Christina Katerina and the Box by Patricia Lee Gauch. It tells the story of a little girl’s endless adventure with a large cardboard box. Ever after, I saw cardboard boxes as full of infinite possibilities and mutations, and even now I have a hard time throwing large boxes out. “It is going to be something!” I tell myself. After all, the cardboard box was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2005.
The eight year old decided that the refrigerator box was going to be a clubhouse/ lemonade stand. We painted it with some leftover paint from painting her bedroom (turquoise) and the dining room (yellow). Holes were cut to be the service window. The kids moved in and started to play in it, running in and out, serving lemonade, using other boxes to be a pretend counter.
Painting the lemonade stand.
Then rain was forecast and the box was brought inside, much to the Husband’s chagrin. I mean the thing is huge. We folded it up and tucked it in the play room, and the eight year old continued to plot and design. Eventually she fashioned a drink dispenser out of a smaller box and some paper and we slotted it into the side of the larger box.
Inside of a lemonade stand. Yes, our living room is impossible to navigate these days.
The cardboard creative bug was unleashed.
A few weeks later, I saw this DIY large object permanence box on a Montessori website, and decided to make one for the baby. Mine is not as neat and tidy as the one featured, but still, the baby has really gotten into dropping a ball into the hole and looking for it at the bottom where it comes out. She has actually now moved on to dropping cars in the hole and watching them come shooting out the doors. The three year old, too, has really gotten into this.
Put the car in the hole…… and it comes out the bottom!
“More! More! Cardboard creations!” a Gollum-like voice inside me insisted.
Which brings me to yet another stage management skill that has been languishing during COVID: making rehearsal props out of tape and cardboard.
I remember during my first stage management internship at a regional theatre – a production of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians – the props mistress was so excited to have found a set of ten carved Indians on eBay. She was rhapsodic about the ease with which she was able to find these things, and now we just had to wait for them to be shipped to us from across the country. The idea that she could find such a specific prop without having to visit fifteen antique stores or hand make it herself was intoxicating.
The patience and wonder we had with the way the internet made propping a show much easier has worn off a little these days. Now we take it for granted sometimes that things can be clicked upon and delivered the next day. Like on those days when a director demands that the prop he added five seconds ago should have been in rehearsal yesterday.
So what is a props ASM to do when the need is immediate and the Props Master needs at least a couple hours to produce something? Well, if it isn’t readily at hand, you decide that, yes, the performers need something to put in their hands. Right. This. Minute. No, they can’t mime it. So, okay. What are we going to give them? (At one theatre I worked at, the Prop Crew had a tongue-in-cheek rehearsal prop request form. One of the questions on the form was, “Please explain why a piece of 2×4 labelled with gaff tape will not suffice in rehearsal.”)
So you root around, take stock of what there is, scavenge a little, do some magic with scissors, some origami with unpliable objects and then wrap it all in yards of tape to keep it all together.
I have crafted many a rehearsal prop in my time. Janky rehearsal prop construction out of minimal materials is definitely a job skill. You have analyze how the “improptu” is needed to function in rehearsal. Does it need to work or move in a certain way? Is it something that has to be thrown? Sat upon? Exchanged between singers? Does it need to just be the right size and shape to fit in someone’s hand?
Next, you have to balance aesthetics with the function. So you don’t want it to look so ugly that it is distracting in rehearsal, but you also don’t want it to look so good that it becomes the real prop. This is where wrapping the creation in black gaff tape is helpful.
Then you look at what is available and get to work.
Things that are helpful to have for optimal rehearsal prop creation:
Tape
Dowels
Handkerchiefs, or fabric
String or Rope
Paper
Cardstock
Wire
Scissors, or Box Cutters
Tape. Gaff Tape, Spike Tape, Clear Tape. A wide variety of tape.
With those things, I figure you can make just about any rehearsal prop you need. I mean maybe not things that are bigger than a house cat, but really most things. It won’t necessarily be pretty, but it will get you through til the real thing comes. Or until the director decides that was a bad idea after all and cut the thing.
“Improptus” I or my colleagues have constucted: jewelery, cigarettes, cigars, globes, reticules, pocket watches, wands, butterfly nets, miniatures in frames, large pictures in frames, brushes, hand mirrors… the list goes on.
So back to COVID present times and the carboard box city growing in our house – or as my husband calls it, “The Warehouse”. I asked the three year old what he wanted. And he said he wanted a UPS truck.
My friend Kristen had recently gifted us a large box. Originally I had promised this box to my husband to use as cover in the garden later this year, but I figured that there would be no shortage of cardboard in our house, and that a UPS truck was a worthy project for such a large box. So I wrestled the box inside the house and started cutting a front window.
“It needs to have a sliding door,” the three year old said.
This is when I have to start breaking things down in my head. What exactly are the essential elements of a sliding door? Well, a door. And a track. And a handle.
A door is easy – a large rectangle. I cut out a window on that as well.
And a handle is easy to fashion out of a strip of cardboard, though it does take a lot of tape to get it to stick.
Which leaves a track. And I think what is a basic track? Well it’s a groove, I guess. So I cut two long pieces of cardboard to run the back length of the box, bent them to form a place for the door to ride, and taped those to the box. I slid the door in and voila!
I drew a UPS symbol on the box… amazing how much authenticity a logo can give a confection of cardboard and tape.
Ready to make deliveries!
Next, turning out attention to the inside – some knobs and a steering wheel, all made to turn on cylinders made of more cardboard.
“And it needs buttons,” he said.
Well, that was beyond me. But not beyond that other Stage Management magic weapon…. the Sharpie.
All the bells and whistles.
He is delighted with it. He sits in it and drives, “pushes” the buttons, turns the knobs. He fills it with more, yes, cardboard boxes, and delivers his packages around the house. I almost need to find him brown pants and a brown polo shirt.
I’m not sure how long these cardboard creations will last. But, as with improptus, longevity isn’t the point. Even though these things aren’t the real thing, they serve their purpose. There is joy and satisfaction in their creation and there is joy and satisfaction in seeing them put to use. They are perfect for the now. They don’t have to be perfect for the forever.
