Wait!

 
I can explain...

(1) Devyn and Molly asked me to take them to the McMaster Museum of Art.

(2) I insisted that we go to the bookstore first (because it's a bookstore).

(3) At some point between (1) and (2), on the matter of going to the museum, I casually said , "Okay, girls. Take notes because there will be an exam at the end." What I meant was, "I hope that you will pay attention, girls."

(4) At the bookstore, they asked for notebooks and pencils; this request is common enough for us that I didn't even think twice about it.

(5) At the museum, they both started taking notes.

(6) Anyone looking at the three of us could well assume that I had dragged my girls to a museum of art, and that I was forcing them to behave as obedient, little scholars.

(7) For 6- and 10-year-old children, they truly were well behaved, engaged, and enthusiastic -- and they took notes (albeit due to the confusion created by my use of figurative language).

It was a great excursion, but we couldn't spend the whole day at the museum: Devyn wanted a snack; Molly began trying to climb on furniture. Understandably, they were ready to enjoy one of my favourite features of the McMaster campus: its vast, green spaces populated with beautiful, old trees. That's what we did. 

We had been on the campus for other reasons last month, and they both wanted to sit under trees: Devyn to read and Molly to do math. They spoke of wanting to attend McMaster University in the future. But this visit? It was noisy. They screamed, shrieked, and darted between trees; Molly repeatedly threw her small bears up into those stately trees. 

This lengthy, outdoors portion of the day ended on a wth-are-you-kidding-me kind of note when I had to search for a pair of beige, two-inch Critter bears all around the vast, green-and-treed space that was -- by the way -- dotted everywhere with beige leaves. Yes, I decided that it was time to go when Devyn took her iPod out of her purse, and I had finally found the bears in one (damn) final survey of the area -- clearly, I was losing containment.

A short while later, as we snacked in the hospital common area, they were shocked (as was I) and overjoyed when a candy-bearing employee approached to compliment them on their behaviour. She even offered them more candy after overhearing them ask me if they could eat the candy yet. She might have had some hearing loss, I reasoned, as the girls had just been arguing over some intolerable similarities recently discovered in their respective birthday parties that we are planning; anyone around would have heard.

So, see? They're still kids.

Periodically, I wince with regret at both my use of figurative language in that instance and at the thought that their literal interpretation could have induced stress (though they did undertake the activity with enthusiasm). 

I am always impressed by the power of language. I can still recall the flash of an image while reading aloud from the Merchant of Venice in grade 9, when Antonio says, "Mark you this, Bassanio": a man making a mark on a stone with another stone. I knew at the time that the character was saying something akin to "beware" or "watch out" or "heed", but the impression of the act of making a mark on something was immediate. (According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the two senses of the phrase "take note" -- as in to observe/as in to set in writing -- date to around the 12th and 14th centuries, respectively.)

In the end, Devyn and Molly -- so young -- could not have had the life experience to understand the expression. Of course, they do now.

Art...and just a little more

Molly watches one documentary at bedtime every night. (Devyn would, too, but she tires earlier and wouldn't be able to stay awake long enough.)

Last night, Molly chose art as the subject, so I searched YouTube and proudly announced that we could watch one about Bernini. I wanted to learn, too.

But some documentaries just aren't appropriate for six-year-old art enthusiasts

The period -- 17th century -- would be problematic for her, since time is a difficult thing for children, but I figured that she could well take something good from the experience.

As she lay down and settled in, I finished up some activities. The narrator waxed rhapsodic about the exquisite details of some sculptures, and the end of the evening seemed to be going smoothly. I was wrapping things up while listening along and answering questions.

-- Did they have cameras back then...Then, how do they know what Bernini looked like?

-- What if I lived in that time and didn't believe what everyone believed?

-- How did people get to faraway places?

Then, the subject of Bernini's marriage, which at first seemed benign, quickly moved the documentary in a new, darker direction. The music changed and so did Molly's questions.

-- Mum...Mummy? Why does he have a sword?

Before I knew what was happening, swords and stalking, adultery and betrayal unfolded in reenactment as the story of Bernini, his wife, and his brother culminated in violence and more tragedy. Yikes.

I couldn't move quickly enough to the TV mouse to click the pause button.

Well, in the end, she hadn't witnessed any violence, and she wasn't terribly frightened.

-- Which one got hurt: Bernini or his brother?

Her questions were a relief to me.

-- Mum? Were there cars way back then?

-- No

-- Then...Why were there roads in the documentary?

(The reenactment -- the settings, the dialogue, the acting -- probably hurt the production more than it helped the viewer.)

So, lesson learned. I will want to watch the documentaries beforehand from now on.

David, Goliath and Molly (Age 3)

Molly, this morning, announces that she wants to look at science books.  I explain that the book nearest us is about art.  It's called The Art Book and we inherited it from Uncle Walt a few weeks ago.

She flips deliberately through the pages until she lights upon Castagno's The Young David which has a picture of Goliath's head lying beneath the legs of a victorious David.

"Why is the man in the mud?"

I try a number of explanations avoiding certain words until I find one that's most comfortable to me: Goliath was a monster and David was a hero for confronting the monster.  I honestly consider giving her the details and using the conventional words to describe what happens in the story but it seems too soon, too harsh.

"Why was David a hero?"
"Why was Goliath a monster?"
"Why is he in the mud?"

Then, I manage, for the moment, to divert her to other pages but she wants to return to The Young David.  She likes Mary Cassatt's Woman Sewing in a Garden.  She loves Cezanne's La Montagne Saint Victoire Barnes and traces a mountain with her finger as she describes climbing up and then down it and I can't help but wonder if she'll love art as she grows.

I love these moments together and our mornings and Molly's learning.  She directs me and asks me and wants me to know things so that I can teach her.  I know nothing about art history or art but I learn. I learn for her.

Molly lives through pictures and I have an image of her sitting in her stroller at about 7 or 8 months and for the first time purposely turning back through pages in a book to revisit something she liked.  Here, too, she is taking in each detail with equal significance: the green hills, the brown mud, the wavy lines, the sky that could hold a rainbow like the one she saw at her grandmother's house a few weeks ago.

The sun lights up the dining room, exposing motes of dust, and warms the room. The pages are warming, too. I look up from the book for a moment.  Across the table, the keys on Devyn's laptop are hot -- she told me so earlier. Behind this, windows bear evidence of little hands. Through these, I see a dozen or more old-looking balloons on the floor of the porch, left over from Molly's birthday celebrations last week.

Everything today reminds me that Molly is growing up.  We move on to the living room.

"Here," she says, handing me a CD cover of Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet.  "Why is he lying on the stairs?"

I'm suddenly struck by how much attention she pays to her environment.  I start to consider all of the cultural information that she could gather from this living room alone and it seems a bit overwhelming . . .

"Uh, well, Romeo & Juliet is a story about two young people who wanted to be together but their parents wouldn't allow them to be together."

"Why?"

"Well, they had their own ideas about who should be together and why."  I don't know why I avoid talking about the conflict between the families.  I guess I'm caught off guard.

"They were very sad," I explain, "about not being able to be together . . ."

The World of Michelangelo . . . by Molly

"Here," she says, bringing me a book we'd just inherited on Michelangelo. "Read me the words."

"Uh," I manage, trying to figure out where and how I'd start.

I flip to an image of La Pieta. 

"Who is that woman?"

"That's the man's mother."  Carefully sidestep religion -- check!

"What's she doing?"

"She's holding her son . . . Does she look sad?"

"No."

"Does he look sad?"

"No."

"What does he look like?"

"He looks like a bunch of clay."