Mom and Sam are walking up to Tassajara playground when they pass a place where there used to be an apple tree. Sam: Apple tree? Mom: Oh yeah, it’s gone, honey. They cut it down. Sam: Sammy cut it. Mom: Oh you did? Sam: Yeah. Mom: What did you cut it with? Sam: A knife. Mom: A knife?! Sam: Yeah, a little knife. (Nota …

Read More

Two anecdotes about creatures popping up in the house where I do not expect them to be: I got out of bed on Saturday morning to feed Camus, only to discover that he had had several “accidents” in various places on the living room floor. I gather my cleaning supplies (would that such accidents were a rare occurrence) …

Read More

Is it ever? Lately, though, Sammy’s bedtime has been a joy because she now really reads her bedtime book to us, with just minimal help. Usually AC reads her a story or two– whatever the current Sam obsession is– and then the final book is always Mem Fox’s Time for Bed. A couple of months ago, Sam would “read” her own …

Read More

People often ask me if Sam speaks French. She does not. We’re an English-language household, with some French peppered in. I plan to formally teach Sam French when she’s a little older, but right now her main exposure is through songs and books. So she has some French in her lexicon, like “doudou” (best translation I …

Read More

(The day after we moved to CA) Today marks one year that Sam, Camus, and I have lived in California. Sammy has spent more time in California than in Pennsylvania, her birth state. It’s still dream-like. It’s still weird (we wear jackets– in August!) and it still feels like we’re visitors. But this little house by the …

Read More

A few months ago, Grand-mère gave Sam a signed copy of Pamela George’s The North Carolina Alphabet. The illustrations and letters are gorgeous, though AC and I laugh every time we read “T is for Tobacco Farm.” Why not just “Tobacco?” Apparently the book was not adopted for official use in NC state elementary schools, …

Read More

Well, it’s not really raining, much less pouring, but there is a definite sprinkle over my head in the scholarly realm. I came home from San Diego to a letter from the MLA telling me that they are going to publish an article I wrote for the new collection Approaches to Teaching Claire de Duras’s Ourika. The editors of …

Read More

I haven’t written at all on this blog about my scholarly projects. That’s because I have an academic’s habit of keeping those sorts of thing close to the vest. But as I am no longer officially affiliated with the academy, perhaps it’s time to loosen up. I’ve added a new category for my posts, called “Scholarly.” And …

Read More

Remember that? We don’t have a TV anymore, but Sammy knows what videos are, and she knows that she can see little videos on our digital camera. She does not always believe us, however, when we tell her that we are shooting still pictures and not videos. A couple of weeks ago, AC was taking still photos of Sam and she …

Read More

She likes to wear dresses now. And also boots. [{.imagelink}]2 You can see this month’s pictures here in the gallery.

Read More