MotherPie

Baby Names: A is for Andrew & Abigail...

A is also for Anthony, Ava and Ashley according to the latest top 10 list of most popular baby names. 

The most popular names of the 1900s?  For boys, John, William and James and for girls, Mary, Helen and Margaret. 

In the 1950s? For boys, James, Michael and Robert and for girls - Mary, Linda and Patricia.

The Top names for 2005, just released this summer (based on the name database of the Social Security Administration which has tracked the top 1,000 most popular names for boys and girls since 1879 in their Popular Baby Names Registry): Boys -- Jacob, Michael, Joshua, Matthew, Ethan, Andrew, Daniel, Anthony, Christopher and Joseph.  Girls - Emily, Emma, Madison, Abigail, Olivia, Isabella, Hannah, Samantha, Ava and Ashley.

Dropping out of the top ten this year: William and Elizabeth.

James and John, Jason and Robert  were top ten boys' names in 1980. The girls' list of top ten has changed even more than the boys.  Girls' names on the top ten list in 1980 but no longer on the top ten list today: Jennifer, Amanda, Melissa, Nicole, Amy, Heather and Sarah. 

Ramble: The Joy of Wondering...

The air is crisp, vacations are ending and I'm thinking about the rush of NYC, the beginning of school schedules setting our household pace and the delicious delight of thinking, wondering, questioning...  So, a ramble on learning...

Boys learn from men, girls learn from women...An article this week about that makes absolute common sense.  There is an approach to life that creates a symbiosis, almost.  I've seen it at work in my family.  The importance of grandfathers, uncles, and father on my son.  The bonding of aunts with my daughters.  Mentors -- the same?  I wonder.

Too much pressure and work to think -- Time magazine in the September issue has an article on the Myth About Homework and studies showing that too much homework brings diminishing returns.  Creating eager minds, an attitude of challenge in thinking and questioning; stress inhibits learning, I would think.  Teaching how to think in later years and how to learn would be our challenge for our children.  We want to be lifelong learners, don't we? How do you teach the learning that happens in stillness and silence when life is always hectic and multi-tasked learning is the norm now?

Lugging all those books and backpacks??? Breaking backs for learning? Shifting from textbooks to electronic publishing will take years experts say.  I'm doing online studies towards my master's degree.  It's a whole new challenge and way to work with knowledge and learning.

A little deeper knowledge...Online reading allows incidental learning which is good (for pursuing deeper linking) and bad (for being a time-waster).  It is a way to footnote online.  The Dallas Morning News has started annotating articles in the paper newspaper.  That's new and a big shift.  These online links and annotations allow a window into the reporting and writing process.

Books lead the mind and we need them...I've just finished Tony Cohan's book, Mexican Days, and his words and writing are like eating dark chocolate.  You want each parcel of description to linger and settle and melt slowly.  His writings on Guanajuato, Mexico, were more delicious than my own experience of it at 12, 43 and 45.  Good writers take you on thinking explorations.  Another summer read was The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things by Larry Dossey, M.D.  It has made me think more out-of-the-box in being harmonious with nature and thinking inside-out and outside-in. The more you learn, the more you realize how much you don't know. The world is so mysterious and our living of it is an adventure.  Life should always be an exploration.  I want our children to learn that life is so much more than a list to tick off, a course to ace.

Learning... a lifelong adventure!  It's all tickety-boo chez nous.  Cheers!

Trend spotting: The Future is Yesterday and Newspapers.com are Agenda-Setters...

The New York Times online (example of the "newspaper" online layout in photo at left - click to enlarge) won three finalist designations and USA Today was named a finalist for four Online Journalism Awards, given by the Online News Association.

Newspaper dot.coms are leading the award finalists, according to a just-released article by the University of Southern California's Annenberg's Online Journalism Review.

Yep.  Trend spotting.  The future is yesterday.

MotherPie enjoys the cusp of the changes.  If you're interested, look at the posts in New Media.

About the Opera: Carmen in Santa Fe...

Writer's Rule #1: write about what you know.  So. I went to the opera for the first time and this art lover couldn't think of what to say.  I had to read/research about it, sleep on it and then clench and flex the fingers over the words.  It was like being served an artichoke first and then learning how to eat it properly afterwards.

My childhood girlfriend went with me and I was glad she was opera-savvy so we weren't like two dumb bumble bees bumping around in a jar not knowing what to notice or where to look.  She couldn't tell me, though, why the r's were so rolled.

How Blog Reading Brightened My Day...

The blogosphere is so big and bawdy and so real and so right there, right here.  I just want to share with you what I came across yesterday:

Fun entertainment...
Fabulous dance moves on treadmills by four singing guys -- This was my day's entertainment highlight.  You've got to go see these four guys and their treadmill moves. It is ultra creative and anyone who enjoys dance, or has ever choreographed, will certainly appreciate this.  Yes, you moms of the pom squad girls, this includes you.  Jennifer, blog author of Open Book, has the link to the YouTube video on her site.  You'll watch it once, maybe twice.  You'll never think about just walking on a treadmill again.  Who needs the tayvay when you have YouTube? Here's the link.

Things that are hard to talk about are now easily shared...
Nancy, a mother of two, writes about her struggle with postpartum depression.  This is one of the ways that blogs are helping other mothers realize that they aren't alone. 

Admiration for others...
A new blogger, Daisy, writes on her blog, Compost Happens, about her experience of doing back-to-school shopping for one of her sons, who has a "double whammy" - the two handicapping conditions of blindness and high-functioning autism.

Being transported to a place and reminded of the simple things of summer...
A dad, blogging on Rude Cactus, reminds us of the essence of summer -- smells of cut grass and chlorine, the arrival of the popsicle man and --with the cuteness of the collage of his cute baby girl at the pool -- strawberry popsicles.

Hearing tales told that touch our hearts...
Antique Mommy wrenchingly writes of the mean and sad side of a hard life of mothering.

Wondering if sometimes why some things aren't put out there...
The Happy Housewife had a fourth child, blogged a bit and then...nothing for nearly two months. The Happy Housewife might not be too happy right now? Roni at Time Goes By writes about blogs that suddenly end and the concern that exists in the blog network for these no-explanation halts to writing and commenting.  A post saying "taking a break" or "just tired of the blogging bit" or "mums been sick" or RIP Blogger died... anything.

Internet Blues, and Internet Love the Mommy Way...
Mom's Daily Dose gives a maternal encouragement to needy bloggin' mamas...

A reminder of the joy of growing older...
Teri, one of the authors of Purple Women & Friends, a child-free blog place, had a post on purple things which included a link to the author's site of that wonderful poem, When I am an Old Woman, I Shall Wear Purple... I've seen all those older women dressed in purple with red hats.  What a statement.

Blogs create communication spaces for dialogue between enemies...
The enmity is eased and blog friendships are being formed.  Lebanese and Israeli bloggers cross-post and comment on each others' blogs, according to an 8/28 article by Delphine Schrank in the Washington Post.  Blessed be the blogs; a tool of peace?

Visual Rhetoric Deconstructed...
Bag News Notes blog (covering Katrina photos this week) is the only media I'm paying attention to for Katrina Redux. He looks at the photo* above and questions the "portrayal of blacks as purveyors of entertainment" while whites represent the media. In another post he deconstructs the politics of post-Katrina reconstruction. 

Blogarama Drama!

*(image: Lee Celano/Reuters.  August 26, 2006.  New Orleans, Louisiana.  Via YahooNews.)

Hallelujah! A Happy Dog...

Hallie is one happy golden retriever.  She really does smile! Golden retrievers are one of the most sociable breeds of dogs (they like people more than other dogs) and unlike most dogs, they will be loyal to anyone who is nice to them.  They are so friendly they are great for family dogs but don't make the best watchdogs!

Hallie even smiles for the camera.  She does more than just wag her tail.  She is one happy dog (except in storms). Dog behaviorists can help you if your dog is not happy.

The War Road:Cluster Bombs & Landmines...

These issues are important.  Yesterday I edited a paper that my daughter had written on Landmines as part of her International Baccalaureate curriculum.  For five years she has been involved voluntarily in working to educate people about the civilian deaths and destruction caused by the use of this war munition and raising funds to help remove unexploded landmines.  She became interested in this issue following her brother's volunteer work as part of  Students Against Landmines.

The news about Israel's use of US-made cluster bombs in Lebanon (violating an agreement that they not be used in civilian aras) is just one more incident in a continuum of the historical use of this type of warfare dating back to Julius Casear in 52 BC.   Cluster munitions drop a bomb which spreads smaller bomblets over a wide geographical area.  Usually 10% remain unexploded and threaten civilians.  Those used in Lebanon, because of their age, have an unexploded rate of about 40%.  The unexploded bomblets are causing injuries and deaths to innocent victims, such as children, who pick them up out of curiosity.

Her paper covered the history of landmines and she wrote about the first documented use of them in war.  When the Romans, under Caear, fought the Gauls under Vercingetorix in 52 BC, Caesar used three types of anti-personnel landmines (goads, lilies and caltrops), reducing the Romans' need to fight and providing a new defense mechanism. Two of the sources she used in researching were: The Devil's Garden: A History of Landmines and The History of Landmines.  My daughter can quote the statistic on how many innocent victims, many of them children, are injured when the fighting is over.  I think she said that every seven seconds someone is injured or killed by landmines.  She wonders, "if Casaer hadn't set the precendent, would we have this problem today?"

Human Rights Watch has information on cluster bombs and landmines.  There are organizations that provide information and work to remove them, such as The International Campaign to Ban Landmines.  There are 84 countries plus 8 areas not identified as independent states that have landmines or unexploded ordinance.  The U.S. is one of the countries that manufactures and uses landmines.  William Arkin looks at the issues involved in the use of cluster bombs.

I try to raise my children to make their community a better place and to make a difference.  I'm proud of my daughter's work on this issue that injures, maims and kills innocent victims. 
 

Trademark Lifestyles: Mother's Pound Cake...

Are you famous for an edible delight? My mother is famous for her Bundt Pound Cakes.  It is one of her trademarks, baked in the legendary bundt pan, right.  She makes them regularly, slices them and puts wax paper between slices and freezes them in or just freezes the cake whole.  One of my childhood memories is standing beside her, helping her mix the batter and licking the bowl afterwards.

It is a signature of her hospitality and a symbol of how she cares for her friends in life, death and trauma.  It is also a mother-t0-daughter tradition passed down through generations.  Pound cakes are believed to be the first cakes ever made.  The original  historical recipe?  A pound of everything - hence Pound Cake.

When anybody dies, she is quickly there...with a Pound Cake. When anybody stops over unexpectedly, there is a slice of Pound Cake.  When she came to see me this summer, she put a whole  bag of cake slices on ice and drove them here and plopped them right into my freezer.

So, becoming nostaligic, I dug out my mother's famous Bundt cake recipe to share it after realizing the importance of this cake to my childhood and her lifestyle as well as finding out about the American story behind the pan she always used.

Mothers Need Tea Time...

There isn't anything better than sitting down for a cuppa tea.

The polyphenal antioxidants are good for your heart and an article this week in the BBC says tea is even better for you than water.  Green tea has been shown to reduce coronary heart disease.

We don't need to bring back the girdle, or revive the corset  (being revived?) or anything so. drastic.  We just need to get together more often over a cup of tea.

It's a Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Idea.

Just a nice respite from the dreariness, a nice lump of sugar and friendship and chatting.  Mary Poppins might tell you it is just the thing mums need to make the day go dow-wown ever so sweetly. (Mary Poppins opens on Broadway October 14).

Social time, hot or cold...

Big Kid Nursery Rhymes...

HEY DIDDLE, DIDDLE the cat took a piddle,
All over the bedside clock.
The little dog laughed to see such fun.
Then died of electric shock.

GEORGIE PORGY Pudding and Pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry.
And when the boys came out to play,
He kissed them too 'cause he was gay.

There was a little girl who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good, she was very, very good. 
But when she was bad........
She got a fur coat, jewels, a waterfront condo, and a sports car.

Well, some things aren't for little kids, so, since I've been thinking about nursery rhymes and changing traditions, I came across these from the blogger Radio Randy (he has more)...

Playing with the language is a very literate thing to do...