C-O-D-E-R-E-D

Archive for the ‘Reference’ Category

Our friend Richard built an alpine creek bed through and around a mound of soil planted with young aspens, then sent water tumbling down the river rocks with an underground pump. The scenic area,
a mosaic of sun-dappled foliage, attracts birds and, unfortunately, also many flower-hungry deer.

Hiding from a real tornado was never fun and games; in the heartland, storm shelters are not a luxury item. Eight hundred tornadoes a year are reported in the United States, most south of Kansas in Oklahoma and Texas. Twisters cause an average of eighty deaths a year and 1,500 injuries.’ Releasing raw destructive power, the area receiving the brunt of their devastating energy is called ground zero. Here cattle and trees may be flung like matchsticks. Houses and even entire neighborhoods disappear.
When my family moved to the West Coast, another kind of shelter took the population by storm. The Cold War made Americans feel vulnerable to attack on our own soil, and the Cuban Missile Crisis fueled our national paranoia toward Communism and the threat it represented. We were told that the Soviet Union had nuclear bombs poised toward American cities. Living in a prime target city where U.S. Navy and Marine Corps were based made San Diego feel especially vulnerable. By 1961 my innocent daily walk to the elementary school became ominous. Pipes sticking out of the ground began to appear in front yards. By each a sign offered notice of a fallout shelter that would provide protection from chemicals and nuclear radiation. At school bomb drills replaced the more mundane earthquake drills. But the defense strategy was no different. We were to immediately take position under our desks—as if that would protect us from bombs or contamination. As an eleven-year-old, I discovered the world was becoming a menacing place.

Finding innovative ways to exclude the munching invaders from his landscape becomes simply another part of participating in the landscape of life.
“We are never nowhere,” explains Kevin Sharpe, a professor at Union Institute. “From our first environment in our mother’s wombs to the last breath we take, we continually interact with the world around us.” The summer I had a large strawberry patch was one of the happiest times of my life. My toddler “worked” beside me, both of us on hands and knees. I was glad when one-year-old Terza learned that those red squishy shapes tasted good. She quit picking the plants by their roots and plucking off the green fruit. I let her eat her fill until she fell asleep in the grass. Her exhausted sleeping form—back lit by the sun, which shone through a mop of curls—was an icon of that holy place and time. Within a twinkling, it seemed, she was eight and had been joined by two sisters. Still, Terza led the entrepreneurial effort to pick lemons and limes from our backyard trees and sell them on the street (“Five cents, please”), and a pitcher of homemade lemon-limeade was her idea. Little did it matter to me that the sugar and the paper cups cost far more than would be earned. The pleasure on three cherub faces was my contribution to the world that day. This was the true landscape of my life, sweeter than the scent of the roses along the neighbor’s front porch.

As the child starts to respond to adults, storybooks reading is a definite must. Homes that do not have books can have members of the familya retell stories their grandparents or parents told them, or flip through magazines or family photos with their babies.

These interactions with other family members are good, especially if there is much talking or conversations going on. Very soon, the child is able to handle things on her own like using a brush to paint or playing her own composition on the piano. Encourage all of these and allow for more opportunities to experiment or play. I have become a virtual tape recorder in telling parents that they should be very selective of the preschool or early learning experiences of their child. opportunities for play should be major factor in the selection of a school. Play allows the child to think, weigh things over, and most of all, create.

To validate his talents, the adult caregiver can ask an experience eye to preview the works of the child ( a visual artist for his painting or a concert pianist for a child’s talent would come next. Ask around. Perhaps a talented aunt or uncle would be the best mentor. Whatever it takes, the adult can take cues on recognizing a talented child by reading more about it and talking to various talented mentors about your child. You may have a talented child in your company.