Three Seasons in One Day

All dog walkers are astronomers at heart, I think—stargazers, at the very least. And, as someone who spends a fair amount of time under dark skies with a canine companion, I’m pretty well acquainted with the coming and going of the stars.

I’m happy to report that recently, as we slipped across the threshold of spring into perfect weather, the skies around here have been spectacular—clear, dark and dry, from dusk to dawn.

But about dawn: I’m no fan of Daylight Saving Time. Mother Nature grants us longer days perfectly well on her own schedule, thank you very much, and that sudden loss of an hour leaves me reeling for days. Even worse is to suddenly have to rise again each morning in the darkness that had been so reassuringly losing its grip to daylight.

So to start these days under a blanket of stars has been somewhat disorienting, especially when the constellations are as familiar as the faces of old friends. How strange to say good night as the landmarks of the winter sky—Orion, the Pleiades, Sirius—slip away to the western horizon, and to step outside into the twilight just hours later to find the stars of late summer—The Eagle, The Swan, The Lyre—already high overhead.

As I try to wrestle some larger meaning from that, all I’m left with are simple truths. The world keeps turning, and things are looking up. And that’s enough for me.

(The title “Three Seasons in One Day” is inspired by “Four Seasons in One Day,” a song by New Zealanders Neil and Tim Finn. It appears on the terrific album Woodface by Crowded House.)

A Little Bird Told Me

In Chapter 3 of The Green Hour: A Daily Dose of Nature for Happier, Healthier, Smarter Kids you’ll find an illustration of a singing sparrow. This is just one of the many splendid drawings by John Dawson that give the book so much of its visual charm.

But in the caption appearing below that illustration, it looks like we may have goofed.

Two birds of similar appearance are mentioned in the accompanying text, but the caption below the illustration should rightfully say “White-crowned Sparrow” instead of "White-throated Sparrow."

Physical resemblance notwithstanding, on this count, as stated in the text, there’s little room for error: the song of the White-throated Sparrow is as unmistakable as it appealing. To listen to its song—and to see the difference between these two similar species—check out the All About Birds guide from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology:

• White-throated Sparrow
• White-crowned Sparrow

Many thanks to Richard Schinkel of Michigan, a dedicated naturalist and educator, who wrote in with this correction!

The Green Hour Trailer

Trying to capture the essence of the movement to reconnect kids and nature—much less your book offering guidance and ideas for doing so—in a mere two minutes is no small feat.

Still, I hope this video trailer for The Green Hour: A Daily Dose of Nature for Happier, Healthier, Smarter Kids finds its way to a new audience and helps to spread the word.

 If you enjoy it, please share it with a friend or embed it in your own page!

Kids & Media: Tales From the Front Lines

I've stumbled upon a couple of interesting articles recently. Remember "Baby Einstein"—that once-ubiquitous and ostensibly beneficial series of camcorder-grade videos of toys and puppets set to Casio-tone versions of classical music pieces? Seems the founders of the franchise, which had long since been sold to the Walt Disney Company, have sought a court order for the release of records by University of Washington researchers who have linked early television viewing with attention problems and delayed language development. Those findings, the founders contend, don't jibe with other research studies.

And I suppose that may be. But while working on The Green Hour: A Daily Dose of Nature for Happier, Healthier, Smarter Kids, I found the rising wave of creditable research linking children's increased media consumption to a host of negative outcomes—attention problems and academic achievement being just two of them—to be simply overwhelming.

And the beat goes on. In fact, the Kaiser Family Foundation just last month released its new report, Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds, which updates the already astonishing figures from its original report released five years ago. Incredibly, the average young person today now spends an average of 7 1/2 hours per day with entertainment media—and, by "multitasking," fits nearly 11 hours worth of media consumption into that time.

Turning the tide won't be easy, when clever products like the Fisher-Price iXL—the so-called "iPad for the pre-school set"—bring their touch screens to a toddler near you this summer.

Getting some fresh air, sunshine, and grass beneath your feet? Well, kids... I'm sure there's an app for that.

Happiness is a Warm Puppy

I've fallen a bit behind lately; it's been more than three weeks since my last post here.

Not coincidentally, it's also been just over three weeks since we brought home Charlie, the little ball of energy and fur who's been filling our days with the highs and lows of puppihood.

This past weekend brought more snow—a surprise in that the inch or so in the forecast ended up as nearly five inches of light, fluffy powder. Here's Charlie, now eleven weeks old, exploring his first snowfall:

And here's a look at Charlie and The Bean, getting ready to romp in the snow together:

And, ever resourceful, Thoreau came up with a good use for the cardbox box in which Charlie's crate was packaged—a surprisingly efficient homemade sled. (That's my boy!)

Winter Wonderland

Talk about impeccable timing.  Winter break for Thoreau and The Bean began with the end of the school day on Friday, December 18th.  And, just a few hours later, the first of the snowflakes began to fall.  And fall.  

By the time we turned in for the night, our neighborhood was already feathered in white.  By the time we woke up Saturday morning, it was an alien world cloaked in at least a foot of snow.  And at the time this photo of our backyard and patio was taken, there were several more inches yet to fall.  Our best guess at the final total was somewhere around 16 inches—maybe more.

Three-quarters of the way through the snowfallIt was almost too much of a good thing.  The Bean, confronted with snowdrifts nearly up to her waist, could barely navigate the stuff—but was having the time of her life, nonetheless.  

Shoveling the driveway took place in several passes over two days, but once I'd created a large enough pile, Thoreau had fun tunneling through it, as you can see here:

When we arrived in southeastern Maine for the week between Christmas and the New Year, it was strange to find it green, having grown accustomed to the white blanket of snow back home.  But on New Year's Eve, it did snow—giving us a postcard-perfect glimpse of Green Acre as we left Maine and headed to Pennsylvania to ring in the New Year with my mother, brother and sister-in-law. 

And while it was only a couple of inches, fresh snow greeted us there, too.  On New Year's Day, The Bean set to work on the red-nosed reindeer, seen here:

Meanwhile, Thoreau and Gabby were hard at work building a snow fort from giant snowballs—and demonstrating just why kids sleep so well after a day spent playing in the snow:

The snow was all but gone when we finally returned home, but Thoreau discovered a bit of it preserved in this unique find—a "snow fossil" etched into the underside of his sled:

Update on Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 9:39PM by Todd Christopher

Of course, this winter wonderland was surpassed by the even bigger snow that fell in early February 2010, somewhere between 30 and 36 inches when all was said and done!

Compare:

December 2009: 16" or so

February 2010: almost 3 feet!

Growing Up Global

Last summer, during a wonderful week spent at Green Acre in Eliot, Maine, I reviewed and edited the complete manuscript for The Green Hour: A Daily Dose of Nature for Happier, Healthier, Smarter Kids.  And, as luck would have it, I wasn't the only writer there.

Homa Sabet Tavengar, author of Growing Up Global: Raising Children to Be At Home in the World, had just received finished copies of her new book and I had the privelege of previewing it a few weeks before its official release date.  

I also can't recommend it highly enough to any parent hoping to raise children who truly respect and appreciate the beautiful patchwork quilt of cultures and traditions that blanket our ever-smaller world.

As the new year—that time of resolutions and new beginnings—approaches, consider adding this title to your wish list... as a gift for your entire family.

On Amazon: Growing Up Global: Raising Children to Be At Home in the World

Out with the Screen, In with the Green

For many children, the prospect of connecting with nature requires them first to disconnect from the media that presently fill so much of their days.  (Recent figures from the Kaiser Family Foundation place the average use of electronic and screen media by American youngsters at more than 6 hour per day.)

For those parents and caregivers who'd like to see more kids trade screen time for green time, here's an encouraging figure from yesterday's New York Times.  According to the research group NPD, the sales of video game equipment and software in the United States fell 7.6% in November, a performance below the expectations of some analysts.

But don't underestimate the allure of electronic gaming media; even as the industry slumps, those November sales totaled some $2.7 billion.

For more, check out New York Times: U.S. Video Game Sales Down in November

First Snow

Sitting at the gate this morning, waiting for a flight from Nashville to DC, I had no idea I'd be spending the afternoon playing in the season's first snow with Thoreau and The Bean.  But a quick check on my iPhone revealed a forecast of 4 inches of snow back home—and the real-time weather cam showed trees, streets and rooftops already being dusted with snow.  All of which heightened my anticipation of this first, and unexpected, snow of the season.

The DC region seems to perpetually hover near the rain/snow line, often producing soft, wet snowfalls.  And today, we had at least 5 inches of the well-packing stuff, a fairly prodigious output for this part of the mid-Atlantic—especially while we're still in the tail end of autumn.

Even before I joined them, Thoreau and The Bean were turning our front yard into a wintry statuary, including an IKEA-esque snow chair and a collection of "Snowhenge" monuments.  But the real fun began when we set out to build a tower of rounded blocks which, halfway through construction, changed course and became an igloo of sorts. 

Shortly before dark, we finished our work—giving Thoreau and The Bean just enough time to cozy up in it, and giving Bliss just enough light to snap this photo of them warming up inside:

 The Bean and Thoreau enjoy the result of an afternoon's work

Sunny Day, Sweeping the Clouds Away

"Sesame Street," that now venerable institution of public television programming, turned 40 today—a milestone many of us observed with our first Google session of the day.Sesame Workshop ®, Sesame Street ® & associated characters, trademarks & design elements are owned & licensed by Sesame Workshop. © Sesame Workshop. All Rights Reserved.

And, for as much as I enjoyed it myself as a child, it's hard for me to think of "Sesame Street" now without recalling Neil Postman's criticism of the program in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death.  (Incidentally, if I had to list what I thought were the 3 most important books of the last 25 years, this title would be one of them.)

He writes:

We now know that "Sesame Street" encourages children to love school only if school is like "Sesame Street." Which is to say, we now know that "Sesame Street" undermines what the traditional idea of schooling represents. Whereas a classroom is a place of social interaction, the space in front of a television set is a private preserve. Whereas in a classroom, one may ask a teacher questions, one can ask nothing of a television screen...

And this:

As a television show, and a good one, "Sesame Street" does not encourage children to love school or anything about school. It encourages them to love television.

And now, a word from our sponsors.

This post has been brought to you by the number 3. 

On Amazon: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Just Wait 'Til Next Year

Baseball fans—and I count myself among them—recognize an alternate sequence of seasons: Spring Training, Glorious Summer, Fall Classic.  And now, with the World Series drawing to a close, begins the next one: Long Cold Winter.

But baseball, like any good belief system, has its foundation in hope and renewal.  As sure as winter gives way to spring, discontentment dissolves in the rebirth of optimism. Just wait 'til next year...

In the meantime, the best way to look forward can be to look back.  If you haven't yet read it—or read it lately—treat yourself to John Updike's classic essay about Ted Williams' final at-bat: "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu"

Woolly Bully

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.  A woolly bear, in this case.

Earlier today, The Bean came across a lively little woolly bear caterpillar, no doubt preparing itself for the colder weather ahead.  And, as our family's official Giver of Names, she dubbed her newfound friend "Fuzzy," which is as good a name for these bristly little fellows as any.

A common sight in the fall, chestnut and black-banded woolly bears are among those caterpillars that are much better known than their adult forms—they are the larvae of the relatively nondescript Isabella tiger moth.

But they are, of course, even more famous for their prognostication.  According to legend, the length of the woolly bear's middle, chestnut-colored band predicts the severity of the upcoming winter.  The shorter the band, the longer and colder the winter ahead.

It's been a pleasant and relatively mild fall in the mid-Atlantic, so far.  Could that generous band of reddish-brown mean more of the same for the winter ahead?