The only perk is that I was forced to go to Paris to see her, which kind of shocked me, because I haven’t been in Paris (or Europe, or any other exotic place) for over 40 years.

A girl must be cognizant of fashion when living in Paris.

My friend Sally adopted Paris as a metaphor for death. It’s not that she doesn’t like Paris, she idealizes it. (She lived there a couple of years after WWII, acting as art director for the Marshall Plan). She loves to say, “I wish people would get over their fear about death. You don’t stop existing: you just go to a wonderful new place. Death is like getting a ticket to Paris!”

Fortunately I didn’t have to die. I traveled in the belly of a metal bird instead of the wings of an angel.

Once there, however, I got to hang out with a little angel. Willa.

…

BABY STEPS FOR BOTH OF US

Okay, so it’s a cliché, but I just HAD to have a photo of me, Willa, and the Eiffel Tower. This happened to be the first boat ride of Willa’s life!

A couple of years before Willa’s birth, her mother, my daughter Katie, was learning about a revolutionary and respected method of infant care called RIE (Resources for Infant Educarers), founded in the U.S. in the 1970s by a woman called Magda Gerber. Katie was supporting herself as a nanny while in grad school, working for a couple in Los Angeles who were following the precepts of RIE with their two young daughters. Everything Katie told me about her experience of learning new ways to care for these little girls was intriguing. She was learning to shift many ingrained instincts.

Once Willa was born last March, I headed to L.A. and helped care for her for nine months before they left for Paris. Katie and I would read chapters in RIE books (like Magda’s RIE Manual, or Respecting Babies by Ruth Anne Hammond). Then we would discuss what we had learned and how to handle Willa’s care. Daddy Tom also learned about these methods and incorporated them in his time with Willa. I also joined Katie in attending several RIE sessions (when Tom couldn’t make it) with Ruth Anne Hammond in Pasadena, where parents bring their infants to a kind of play group. The adults quietly observe what the babies do, speaking as little as possible and not interfering with the babies, unless somebody’s going to get hurt or is crying.

Here are just a couple of the ideas that we incorporated in everyday life with Willa.

Tip from a pro: before walking, first you must master the art of one-legged sitting.

• You don’t put the baby into a position that she can’t get into herself. That means, you don’t prop her up against a cushion, strap her in a high chair, or even place her on the floor or crib on her tummy. The baby is placed on her back and allowed to move freely, on her own. When she herself is ready to sit up, then you can hold her in an upright position (like on your hip). When she can roll over, then she can be on her tummy. Car seats are necessary, but you try to minimize the time a baby must spend in them. Same with strollers, bouncy chairs, swings. You learn that putting a baby in a stroller may provide healthy exercise for the adult, but just be clear about that — it doesn’t provide much benefit to the baby.

• You move slowly around a baby, giving her/him time to see you and track your actions. And you tell her what you are about to do, before you do it, giving her a chance to participate. Even when Willa was just a few weeks old, we would say, “I see you’re awake, Willa. May I pick you up?” You’d be surprised at how responsive a tiny baby can be. She would make small movements toward us, letting us know she understood and was agreeing. “I need to fasten this side of the diaper, Willa. Can you straighten your leg?” It didn’t take long for her to understand what we meant and often to willingly comply. Crying after her nap, when she had rolled on her tummy, Katie would say, “I’m going to pick you up, but I need you to roll over.”

Le Cordon Bleu for Willa involves water, a saucepan, and lots of stirring. (Of course you have to taste it, too; hence the wetness in the front …)

(In this circumstance, RIE suggests rolling the baby onto her back, so that she is able to see who is about to pick her up.) In a very short time, Willa had learned the rather complicated procedure of tucking one arm flat against her body, so she could roll from her tummy to her back and that way get lifted out of the crib. I remember she was just four or five months old when she was able to do this. I was dazzled. Fast forward to Paris. Now Willa is learning to walk. Nobody has been propping her onto her feet, or holding her hands to “help” her walk. She’s in no rush to walk, because she’s become an expert at crawling … We all enjoyed what we called her running crawl, her hands making a flap-flap-flap sound on the hardwood floors as she rushes from one room to another. She’s also an agile, competent climber. She can climb onto the living room couch by basically doing the splits, bringing one leg up to shoulder height, simultaneously grabbing the couch fabric, and squirming up onto the seat. On her own, without prompting, she has learned to turn onto her stomach and lower her feet to get down safely.

But while I was there, I saw her become more and more motivated to walk. At first, it is slower than crawling, but it has one great advantage: you can hold stuff in your hands. In the two weeks I was there, she went from taking just a few tentative, wobbly steps every now and then, to toddling about half the time.

Did you know that Napoleon kept a modest apartment in the Louvre? Here’s one of his rooms.

And once I got back home, I realized I have been taking baby steps, too. Not only am I re-programming my mothering (I raised three!) and grandmothering instincts, but I am seeing that RIE concepts can be applied to adult life, too. I’ll give you an example, starting with the baby lesson.

RESPECT FOR THE BABY

Mitigating adult-driven agendas

One afternoon Katie and I went to the Rodin Museum with Willa. This wasn’t the funnest thing for Willa, but we had let her play in a nearby park before going inside. After a very quick tour of the exhibits (see “The Kiss”), we were collecting ourselves on the front steps of the museum, getting ready to go home. Well, Willa did not want to get back in the stroller. Katie tried to reason with her, but Willa was squirming to get away from the stroller and fussing. Katie really avoids forcing Willa to do something she doesn’t want to do. “I shouldn’t make her do something just because I’m bigger,” she said to me. (Macro application: World peace!) Practically speaking, with infant care, sometimes this can’t be helped — it’s nap time, or time to get in the car, but most often it’s just that the parent is impatient. In this instance, we weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere.

Katie affirmed to Willa what she thought the baby was communicating. “I see you’re frustrated. You don’t want to get in the stroller right now. You’d rather play on the steps. Well, we need to leave soon, but you can play on the steps for a little while.” The upshot was that we probably diddled about for ten minutes while Willa played on the steps. I was a little bored, tired and ready to get home, but I also loved that we hadn’t just forced Willa into the stroller, when she might have had a screaming meltdown or at the very least had her dignity violated. After this totally innocent respite — she spent the whole time climbing on two steps — she was satisfied. She happily climbed into the stroller and fell asleep as we headed home. The whole thing was beautiful! And so different from how we usually interact with our babies.

I thought Rodin’s “The Kiss” a perfect backdrop for Katie and Willa.

RESPECT FOR ADULTS

Letting go of unsolicited advice

The basis of RIE is to be aware that the baby is innately wise about her own development. She’ll do things when she’s ready to do them. The idea is to trust that each baby grows, learns and develops in just the right way.

I think we adults can benefit from these precepts in many ways, but one important one is in the convention of offering advice. Maybe people are different in your world, but in mine, the advice-giving mechanism is often spring-loaded. It explodes at the slightest touch. One person makes a mild complaint about something, or expresses a wish, and the other person belches out a suggested action. I do this myself reflexively.

For adults to understand a baby’s brain, researcher Dr. Alice Gopnik says to imagine yourself: in love; visiting Paris for the first time; after having had three lattes.

Recently I was having a conversation with a friend, who voiced a modest complaint about something. (She wishes to remain anonymous!) (And her “problem” needs to be anonymous, too!) I immediately trotted out a bit of unsolicited advice. “You should consider fluglxing!” Her expression blanked out at this, and we dropped the subject. Only later did she venture to tell me, “I didn’t feel like fluglxing. Did you think I’d never thought of fluglxing before?”

She pointed out that the subtext of offering advice is, “I’m noticing you’re not living your life exactly right,” or “I don’t really trust your judgment,” or “I’m wiser than you, and you can use my guidance.”

Upon reflection, I find I really agree with my friend. Maybe whenever we give advice, however well-meaning it is, we are being inherently disrespectful. And that realization means I want to change my own knee-jerk behavior. One way is to look at my own discomfort when I hear that someone else’s life is less than ideal. (And whose isn’t?) Instead of giving advice, I can try to soothe my own disquiet and remind myself that the other person is developing perfectly, just like a beautiful baby, in her own time and her own way. All growth has its frustrations. (In RIE you don’t rush to save the baby from her/his frustration; you facilitate them solving the problem themselves.) The next step after that, of course, is to give myself the message: I’m okay, just as I am.

Even in inclement weather, a person can manage to do a little gardening .

Two evil French toddlers, a boy and a girl, wouldn’t let Willa smash their little pile of sand (supposedly a “gateau”); they kept pushing her away, causing her to fall down. So Willa’s dad allowed her to wreak all kinds of destruction on HIS gateau.

I stitched up a quilt top for her crib and found it too big to stitch at home. I decided to learn to use a long arm machine. (I’ve never even considered doing one by hand!) This proved intoxicating, and so I began to make a series of quilts. It surprised me how quickly they could be completed. Here are a few that now reside in Willa’s new home. A style of stitching that I’ve used extensively on them was invented by Karen McTavish.

For Willa’s parents (a Kaffe Fassett pattern) —

I made this baby quilt using an old Vogue pattern from the 1970s, with my own variations —

This small one is the Ricky Timm’s “harmonic convergence” pattern —

When it got to 70 degrees below zero,  this is what happened to his face:

From the coziness of your armchair, you can read about Ben’s adventures and musings on his blog.

Avatar, the smash hit of director/writer James Cameron, would not normally have seduced me from my quiet home, but one of my offspring, a 32-year-old person I will not name, to protect him from embarrassment, urged me to go, based on the enthusiastic endorsement of one of his friends.

These are grown men, with well-developed life skills, and I thought I could trust their judgment. But to be on the safe side, I double-checked the decision by perusing the Movie Review Query Engine website, glancing down a long list of mostly favorable critics’ ratings, with raves from viewers. And I looked over the New York Times review. It appeared that the movie was an extravagant technological feat with a philosophical heart — a spiritual message for Earthlings.

The trip to planet (or rather moon) Pandora required a trip to the mall, a less-than-heart-nourishing venue, followed by an hour wait in a line, surrounded by adolescents with cell phones. This could have been preview enough for me, if I had been alert. But I persevered.

Before the film began, a mother with two toddlers took seats behind us, and the baby — about 18 months — started to scream. This was even before the first blast from Surround Sound. My heart broke for these little ones, but then brightened when Mom gathered up the children and left. They should be in bed, not a dark, noisy movie theater. But they all soon returned, laden with popcorn, snacks and soft drinks, and the movie began.

I would grudgingly admit that the 3-D effects were amazing, but their novelty was dismantled by ear-splitting, throbbing noise and savage violence for the next two-and-a-half hours. For much of the movie, I covered my ears, sometimes also closing my eyes. I kept hoping for a more interesting plot, with a little bit of character development. Several times when the sound momentarily abated, the little three-year-old behind us piped up, “Mommy, what happened?” The tragedy of the children behind us was that, after the movie, they had to go home with a mother who was numb to their needs.

The movie glorifies a tall, blue-skinned humanoid race of Na’vi, who have a belief that all things are one and who commune with nature. But this foundation concept isn’t developed and isn’t believable: the aboriginals live crowded into an immense tree, like a gargantuan condo, while their countryside is overrun with flying, running, thundering, teeth-baring predators.

The movie’s main complication is that Earth industrialists/military/scientists are prepared to kill the Na’vi and ravage their lands in order to exploit their deposits of a mineral called Unobtainium. (I like this name!)

But the resolution is the same old formula that our terrestrial governments have favored for centuries — that violence and exploitation are to be met with ever-greater violence and exploitation.

I stumbled out of the theater feeling shell-shocked, and even my son said the film was “over the top.” My husband’s PTSD was triggered, and we both vowed to never enter a movie theater again.

What MIGHT have been entertaining, intriguing, uplifting?

Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if the Na’vi, who are so attuned to divine sources, puzzled out a peaceful, yet creative, even mind-blowing or paradigm-shifting way to dissuade the Earth colonialists? A solution that didn’t involve war?

I think THAT would make a good story.

How do they do it, the people who make this toothpaste? If you google the question you will find self-proclaimed experts who explain how the colors are packed in little separate vessels along the sides, or else there’s a special doohickey in the nozzle. But these internet sources — who can believe them? I found a web address on my tube of toothpaste, and I emailed Customer Service and asked the question. The VERY disappointing, inadequate answer flew quickly back to me, carried along the etheric electrons of my computer: It’s the very special, scientific way we pack the toothpaste into the tube.

So when my 6-year-old grandson came over, we cut open a more-or-less empty tube, and FOUND…

Nothing. It was empty, apart from a few smears of purplish slime. No special pouches or anything. Well, the whole thing was a big letdown, I can tell you, and I still don’t understand it.

Along those lines, of general consumer ennui in relation to generally acceptable products, I remember smelling a man’s deodorant, when I was in my 20s (from the product, not the armpit!), which had an unforgettable scent. It reminded me of a watery brown suntan lotion my mother used to rub on my little arms when I was about four years old. This seems poignant to me now, since my mother died over 30 years ago. Anyway, at the time (she was still living), I wrote a letter to Mennen and asked about the fragrance. In due time I received a polite letter (this would have been about 1967, long before such missives were called “snail mail”) informing me that the scent was called “lavender fougere.”

Something about the fragrance evoked for me a sunny beach, and a happy, young family. Perhaps I could still find the actual suntan lotion?

Unfortunately, Mennen had no idea about the product I referred to and a little peevishly denied ever manufacturing a watery brown lotion. The only way I could get that fragrance, I deduced, was to start using that man’s deodorant. Despite the exotic overtones of this conclusion, I felt let down and unsatisfied. (I’ve forgotten the man and only remember the great smell of his deodorant.)

Which brings me to the emotional rollercoaster of today. Naturally, I just googled lavender fougere and found a site that will sell me one milliliter of the fragrance in a tiny glass vial for only $3. I was tempted. Then I saw the shipping charge would be $5.95, so I thought, no, I’ll skip it. Nine bucks for a memory? I already have the memory, and it’s free. I’m always spending bits of money like that, and then, in the end, I have to refinance my house. Anyway, I never actually wear any perfume-y eaux, which seem superfluous after the scented soap and shampoo, mousse and hairspray that are absolute essentials of my toilette.

At the end of the day, I’m left wondering if perhaps I have a bit too much time on my hands.

Ben showed up this summer and built something far beyond the garden “shed” we had envisioned. We’re calling it the “winter temple.” Here are some pics of it, plus a few of Ben helping nephew Cadan put together a wooden airplane.

To see more of Ben’s creations, visit his website or read his blog about building the shed (Oct 14, 2009).

I had great success this week, as I was suppressing a desire to cry and scream simultaneously (I was alone at the time), by opening Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth” and reading at a random spot. It provided the perfect aid: notice the breath, how it moves in and out, how there is a natural pause when the lungs are empty. Then notice all the feelings in the body, and try to detect the liveliness that is the nonphysical foundation underlying the body.

Instantly I was relieved of the psychological pain. I found peace and went about my day if not outright happily and least with pleasure and serenity. The clouds of conflict dissipated quickly, as they always do anyway.

I know Marshall Rosenberg has great success even when combatants are in a high state of emotion, but for me it’s best to allow the emotion to run its course, and then later to listen/speak compassionately. Tolle’s equation of the pain body with both the ego and thoughts is, for me, a crucial key to psychological freedom.

After picking him up from Kindergarten, we went to his house and settled into the usual tug-of-war joint activities. He wanted to play with action figures, of which he has many, including Batman, Superman, a couple of scuba/soldier guys in camo with swim fins, a frog-like humanoid, a pirate, and several unnamable mechanical creatures. I suggested they have a birthday party and dance together. He liked this, as long as the dances involved two figures smacking each other and flying through the air. At his urging, I spent maybe 10 minutes searching high and low for Spiderman, who simply could not be found. The party had to go on without him.

Finally, I told him it was my turn to sit quietly with my puzzles, a magazine of “logic” games that I find relaxing. Cadan noticed my cup of tea and asked if he could have some. He explained that he is allowed to drink English Breakfast tea, which has some caffeine, the substance that I just objected to him imbibing, and this convinced me that a quarter cup of Earl Gray might be an allowable treat for him. Cadan, after all, has a grandfather who is a bona fide Englishman, and therefore, it must be acceptable to carry on the tradition.

After the tea, Cadan asked me where the saltshaker was. He explained that he had a sore in his mouth, and that his other grandma had advised him to rinse his mouth every day with saltwater. So while he was busy with this, I went into the living room and sat down again. After hearing him clattering about and spitting (in the sink, presumably), I heard him say, “This tastes kinda like crap.”

“What did you say?” I asked.

His voice came from the kitchen. “It tastes like crap.”

I’m sure my tone got serious. I said, “Cadan, that’s a coarse word.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not a very nice word,” I explained.

“Then why do people say it?”

“Well, I guess some grownups think it’s funny, but it’s a coarse word.”

“It’s NOT funny, and you are WRONG as well,” he said to me. (Those were his exact words. I wrote them down on page 10 of my PennyPress special edition.) The interchange with Cadan had reached a crescendo, and I let it slide into silence. Enough said, I thought. But he was obviously still mulling it over. He came into the living room and said, “I still think it tastes like crab.”

“Oh!” I said. “Crab.”

“Yeah, you know, in the ocean.” He paused a moment. “Did you think I said crap?”

“Yes.”

He’s learning to spell. “Crab,” he said. “It ends with a D.”

Our front yard became a maze of white tunnels, creating the problem of where to place shovelfuls of new snow, which had to be carried some distance from the walkways and driveway. It took two people to back into the street — one to drive and one to stand outside the car, peering over the berms and directing traffic.

Overwhelmed by these tasks, my husband, Larry, decided to purchase a very expensive, industrial-strength snow blower. (Its pamphlet insists that we call it a “snow thrower.”) A generous friend with a truck drove us to Idaho, where we picked it up. Naturally, it hasn’t snowed again since we squeezed the gigantic orange contraption into our one-car garage, but by god, we’re ready for next winter.

Another milestone this season was that Larry and I completed a months-long reporting package detailing the ongoing saga of public corruption and compromised media in our town, Spokane. This story, which can be seen at Girl From Hot Springs.com and Camas Magazine.com, changed from a tale of greed and financial fraud to one of life and death. This six-minute video offers highlights.

On a happier note, I was tickled last Saturday, Valentine’s Day, to welcome in a new era of world peace and harmony. According to my New Agey friends who follow such things, at dawn on February 14 the moon was in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligned with Mars. So now, as all of us who were listening to music in 1967 know so well, “Peace will guide the planets, and love will steer the stars.”

I’m wondering how this might affect our city’s secretive government. On a more personal note, though, in an area where I have a little more control: if the Age of Aquarius, which means “water-bearer,” brings more snowfall, I’m all set.