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…Rilla is ten years old today.

The posts from the week following her birth gave me a lot of smiles. And then I just sat here quietly freaking out for a while because that was TEN YEARS AGO.

Nine years, can you believe it?

Rilla and I have been trying to work in our sketchbooks daily. I feel brave when I tackle a subject like my stapler or a piece of fruit, and then I watch her casually sit down and commence drawing something massive and complicated with utter confidence. She is dauntless. I am inspired.

…to get the latest Eric Shanower/Skottie Young Oz graphic novel for your birthday.

She’s been waiting for this one for a long time, in girl-years.

Eight. I’m not alone in feeling like this year passed in five minutes, right? This child was practically born on this blog, and I just. can’t. believe. she’s eight years old.

Read today:

The Little Fur Family (Huck’s first time)
The Secret Garden

Rilla on why she didn’t put away her playdough: “Well, I expected myself to go back and do it, but I didn’t.”

“I flipped the face,” she told me—changed its angle from the tutorial in the book, using a field guide photo to help her. I love the work she’s doing with texture and shading here, diving in and trying things out. The speckles on the breast, the little squares on the wing—I’ll have to look at the model and see where the little squares came from.

So much of my role with Rilla is staying out of her way. Giving her vast stretches of time to draw and play, giving her space to get messy in. (Actually, she’s kind of a type A artist—very precise about her materials and workspace.) And of course strewing, strewing, strewing, the good old Sandra Dodd coinage* that captures the essence of my approach to family life: leave neat stuff where the kids can find it—and be around to talk about it when they’re ready.

She spent half the evening working away at this owl. Yesterday it was a pair of goldfinches, because they’ve been delighting us at our feeders.

Here’s the book that has captured her fancy: Drawing Birds with Colored Pencils. Amazon tells me I bought it in August, 2011. It saw a brief period of use then, with Beanie I think, and has mostly lived on the field guide shelf until now. I don’t know if it was chicken or egg—whether Rilla found the book and decided to dive in, or went hunting for help because she wanted to draw birds. I’ll ask her tomorrow, if I remember. All our drawing and nature books are stashed on shelves in our dining area, right behind Beanie’s chair and directly in Rilla’s line of sight.

*Sandra’s strewing page begins with a quote, “I just strew their paths with interesting things,” captioned “long ago, AOL homeschooling boards.” I was there, reading along, nursing infant Jane, when she wrote it! And now, many strewn paths later, Jane’s preparing to head off to college. We made the first big dorm shopping expedition today. I can still see those early AOL conversations scrolling across my screen—I got my first modem and my first baby in the same month—and thinking, Ohhh, this homeschooling thing has possibilities, I’ve gotta talk to Scott. Amazing.

It seems all that wisdom is exhausting.

Companion to last month’s Galloping Horse. She’s still working hard on getting those legs just so, as you see. I’m loving this chance to watch a young artist hone her skills. She’s made big strides (so to speak) already.

I believe next up is Trotting Horse. All three are from the horse page in the Usborne Book of Drawing.

Remember yesterday when this happened?

Seven, you guys. She’s SEVEN.

Rilla discovered the search and request features at our library website. Here are the topics she looked up:

BIG BAD WOLF

X-RAY

LION

FIELD TRIP TO THE ZOO

FLEA ON MY BACK

FIFTY HUNDRED FLEAS

FIFTY HUNDRED BALLS

FIFTY HUNDRED

KIT

Books she put on hold as a result of these searches:

The Big Bad Wolf and Me by Delphine Perret

My Mom Has X-ray Vision by Angela McAllister, illustrated by Alex T. Smith

Chloe and the Lion by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Adam Rex

Stay in Line by Teddy Slater, illustrated by Gioia Fiammenghi (turned up by the zoo query)

There Was a Coyote Who Swallowed a Flea by Jennifer Ward,  illustrated by Steve Gray

(Publishers, clearly you are missing the boat in the FIFTY HUNDRED market.)

I guess this frees up Art Sardine for my new band name.

Rilla: I’ve been thinking. We should have an art club for kids who want to be artists when they grow up.

Me: I love that idea!

Rilla: I wonder what we should call it.

Me, having a Jane Andrews moment: Um, the Art Club?

(Somewhere, Anne Shirley shakes her head in disgust.)

Rilla: No…I know! How about the Art Bassoon?

Me: *blinks*

Rilla: What is a bassoon, anyway?

 Me: It’s a musical instrument—here, I’ll show you. *reaches for Google*

Google, beaming: You’re going to love this.

YouTube, modestly: This old thing? Why it’s just a little something I threw together.

We watch in delight as a bassoon quartet plays a Super Mario Galaxy medley. Rilla’s excitement cannot be described. She marvels over the size of the bassoons, their rollicking sound as they play the familiar melodies.

Rilla: Bassoons are awesome.

A pause.

Rilla: But on second thought, I don’t think Art Bassoon is the right name for our club.

She thinks.

Rilla: I’ve got it! Art Sardine.

Forest Has a Song by Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, illustrated by Robbin Gourley.

Dear Amy,

My name is Rilla. I am 6. Mommy read Forest Has a Song to me. I think that It Is really pretty poetry and i also think that deer are pretty too. I really love nature. And deer are one of my favorite animals and it said a lot about deer. In the picture of the fiddlehead ferns, I really like the pattern of the colors. And the fossil looks so realistic. When I grow up i want to be an illustrator like Robbin Gourley. And also, i love the Spider poem and the Dusk poem. I love the never-tangling dangling spinner part. And I love baby animals. They’re so cute and fluffy when they’re birds at least.

One of my favorites is “Farewell.” How it says “I am Forest.”

Love,
Rilla

(Doggone spellcheck. She made me correct all her invented spellings—the red dots under her words tipped her off. Then again, “rhille priddy powatre” might have been hard for you to parse. Also, of course, recognizing that a word just looks wrong is a big step toward learning to spell.)

As for the book, I wholeheartedly agree with Rilla’s review. What a gorgeous, gorgeous volume. The poems sometimes wistful, sometimes whimsical, always lyrical. Beautiful for reading aloud, full of delicious internal rhyme and alliteration. And infectious: I predict a lot of original nature poetry in our future. This collection begs you to take a fresh look at the world around you and see the magic of the curled fern frond, the mushroom spore. Of course I’ve been a fan of Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s work for years.

I can’t imagine a more perfect pairing for Amy’s poems than Robbin Gourley’s art. Lush watercolors, rich and soft. I kept coming across pages I’d like prints of. Actually, this is exactly the kind of book where you want a second copy for cutting up and framing. (If you can bear to. I always think I’d like to do that, but the one time I actually bought a spare copy for this purpose—Miss Rumphius—I couldn’t, in the end, bring myself to dismantle it.)

Beanie’s favorite poem was “Forest News”—

I stop to read
the Forest News
in mud or fallen snow.
Articles are printed
by critters on the go…

—which she loved for its intriguing animal-tracks descriptions, its sense of fun, and its kinship with her favorite Robert Frost poem, “A Patch of Old Snow.” (“It is speckled with grime as if / Small print overspread it, / The news of a day I’ve forgotten — / If I ever read it,” writes Frost, perusing a somewhat more somber edition of the woodsy chronicle.)

Wonderboy’s favorite was the puffball poem, and he later wrote (in his customary stream-of-consciousness style) this string of impressions the book made on him: “dead branch  warning and woodpecker too  dusk  burrow in a burrow chickadee sit on my hand  and come fly here”…

Truly beautiful work, Amy and Robbin.

Rilla made a book of drawings this morning, several pages stapled together. “Chibi and Non-Chibi Drawings,” she wrote on the front, explaining that the chibi ones were traced from her favorite drawing book, and the non-chibi ones, like the little fellow above, were not traced, “just drawn regular.”

The little ruffly breast-feathers just melt me.

Crackers.
Sliced ham.
Kitchen scissors.

The End.

“Mommy, listen: ‘Always drink plenty of water and eat healthy meals.’” (Points to illustration.) “It’s BLOOD. Isn’t that funny??” (Uproarious laughter.)

Well played, Anne Marie Pace and LeUyen Pham.

Deciding what to draw.

She went with the bat. As usual!

***

Also: yesterday’s Thicklebit.

Looking at this serene child enjoying her lunch while gazing upon the butterfly garden, you’d hardly believe she’s the same creature who made herself a hunting license last night—that is, a license for hunting her baby brother.

“BE VAR VAR QIYT IM HONTEN [HUCK].”

At the bottom, next to her signature, a blank marked “GOV” (for governor?), which she very nearly got her Daddy to sign. Fortunately, he read the block print. And saw the Nerf gun behind her back, and the bloodlust in her eye.

Last night I rashly agreed to help Rilla cut out some paper “decorations” for a Brambly Hedge scene she wants to create. In my head, decorations meant some flowers, maybe a ladybug or two? That is, things within my extremely limited skill set.

My daughter’s vision is somewhat bolder. Here’s the list she presented me with:

1. Berries

2. Hawks and eagles.

3. Butterflies.

4. Flowers. (I wasn’t totally delusional, at least.)

5. Bees and (to spell it like she pronounced it) wasp-es.

I’m hoping she’ll agree to do the heavy lifting—the drawing—if I promise to wield the scissors.

***

p.s. New Thicklebit today! And I don’t think I linked to last Thursday’s, either.

I send too much to Facebook these days. I don’t even like Facebook, these days: not in the era of Timeline and “frictionless sharing” (and especially not after reading this sobering article on the history and future of the internet). And yet I go on sharing and sharing there.

Here are some of the things I’ve shared via social media recently. (I do most of my FB posting on my author page now—a switch I made because I don’t like the visual layout of Timeline. Right after I made the switch, Facebook announced they’re rolling out Timeline to fan pages at the end of the month. Ah well.)

First, some news that made my heart skip a beat, really: Five hundred new fairytales discovered in Germany.

A whole new world of magic animals, brave young princes and evil witches has come to light with the discovery of 500 new fairytales, which were locked away in an archive in Regensburg, Germany for over 150 years. The tales are part of a collection of myths, legends and fairytales, gathered by the local historian Franz Xaver von Schönwerth (1810–1886) in the Bavarian region of Oberpfalz at about the same time as the Grimm brothers were collecting the fairytales that have since charmed adults and children around the world.

You can read one of the tales (in English) here: The Turnip Princess. (The very name gave me goosebumps. And the tale: quirky, intense, full of the familiar and yet quite fresh. “The nail burnt up like fire.” There’s an image for you.)

And this, from Sarah, who shares my wild joy over the new tales: “Do you want to know my philosophy and overriding practice of education? Tell them stories. Get them to tell you stories back.” Yes. YES, that’s it exactly. Really, that is at the heart of everything we’re doing here. Today it was stories about dandelions. We went for a walk and came home with a handful (we nearly always do) in every stage of being. Yellow sun, folded green house, white starry globe. Each wisp another story.

I always find something to love and something to learn at Tanita Davis’s blog, and this post is a case in point: Potpourri.

One of the nicest things about Scott’s return to the freelance life (over a year ago now, wow!) is that he’s beginning, occasionally, to blog again, so I get stories like this one capturing moments I wouldn’t have otherwise known. Love.

This post by Quinn Cummings: it’s incredible the way she can make even her sobering reminde

The big day isn’t until April, but I was presented with her itinerary this afternoon.

1. Take a long bath.

2. Go to a store and look at beautiful clothes.

3. Play school with Rose.

4. Tea party. [This means drink tiny cups of milk-and-sugar, then lick the tiny sugar bowl.]

5. Go outside to sketch some plants with Mommy. [Melt.]

6.Go on a nature walk which is also an adventure walk. [Any walk with you is an adventure, my dear.]

7. Maybe the walk should actually be a run.

8. The cake will be the cake that Beanie had.

9. With all the little colors in it. ["Funfetti?" "YES." (Twirls around.) "Funfetti."]

I kind of love that except for the cake and the window shopping, this could describe pretty much any given day around here.

We’re in the backyard cleaning up the patio flowerbed. This has inspired a game of Pixie Hollow fairies, and I’m informed that I am Rosy, a “garden talent” fairy, and Rilla is my helper, Posy. (She has a deceptively cherubic baby-brother fairy named Cozy, who seems to have a rock-throwing talent.)

Talent notwithstanding, before any gardening can be done it is imperative (so I’m told) that I assume the correct accent for Rosy. “Sort of like Paula Deen,” Rose (not Rosy) coaches me. “Say darlin‘ a lot.”

All right, I can do that. Rose runs off to suck lemons with Beanie and Wonderboy on the sunny side-yard wall, leaving “Posy” and me to cut back the parsley and uproot tiny shoots of clover from the flowerbed. Posy is very nearly as sparkly as a real fairy, so delighted is she to have me all to herself, in the sun, with flowers, for a little while—young master Cozy having been hauled away for a nap by his father, whose talent is toddler-wrangling.

It was every bit as delightful as it sounds—despite the itchysneezy misery I’m grappling with this allergy season (I know, it sounds crazy to call February allergy season, but southern California is a crazy, crazy place). For some inexplicable reason, Claritin (and Zyrtec and Sudafed and everything else I’ve tried) make me unbearably drowsy. This is a new thing, just this year. The whole point of Claritin is it’s supposed to NOT make you drowsy, but it totally knocks me out. I mean, it might as well be Benadryl. So anyway, I’m muddling through without allergy meds and it’s made yard work a bit of a challenge this year. But, you know, burning eyes are a small price to pay for sunshine and flowers in the dead of winter. I only mention it because of the sneezing. Tending the posies with Posy, I got very sneezy and asked her to run into the house for a tissue for me.

While she was gone I sneezed four more times in rapid succession. Things were getting a little desperate when, thank goodness, Posy reappeared.

And handed me a single square of toilet paper.

“That’s a fairy tissue,” she said.

(Tune the tune, of course, of “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly.”)

All I want is a cinnamon bear
From that package right over there
With mommy for a chair
Oh isn’t it just loverly

All the red bears that I can eat
A little bit spicy, a little bit sweet
I like to start with the feet
Oh isn’t it just loverly

Oh so loverly eatin’ absobloominlutely all
I have a giant appetite, even though I am very small

Cinnamon bears clutched in both my fists
Cinnamon mouth with a cinnamon kiss
And mommy’s singing about this!
Oh isn’t
This
Just loverly.

All my best Rilla material—the stories and quotes I want to save forever—winds up on Twitter and Facebook these days. (That’s the fastest way to jot something down.) But just in case Twitter goes kaboom someday, I think I’ll start a Rilla-page here for easy future memory-laning. Like most three-year-olds, she is one funny little monkey.

***

Rilla, drinking water from a mug, asks if we can pretend it’s coffee. Me: “Sure! How is your coffee, ma’am?” Rilla: “I don’t like coffee.”

***

Rilla: “Mommy, can we have a babysitter named Daphne?”

***

Rilla chirps, bouncing: “Mommy! I’m going to free mini-Hawk Girl from the dungeon!”

Rose explains: “She means buy it on Amazon.”

***

Rilla deposits terrifyingly lifelike snake on my feet, announces: “It won’t eat me. ” Pries open rubber jaws, peers inside. “See? It won’t.”

***

Rilla names letters on cereal box: “L-I-F-E.”

Scott: “What’s that spell?”

Rilla: “Butterfly!”

***

Rilla’s question of the day: “Which people bounce?”
***

July 22nd. She just came in carrying a small wicker picnic basket. Knelt, opened basket, carefully spread napkin on floor, took out A BOWL OF CEREAL.

***

July 17th. “Mom, what’s your favorite color? Choose red.”

***

July 13th. Rilla has spent the past 20 sitting in an armchair licking a little piece of Japanese candy with all the intensity her 3yo self can muster.

***

Spent the last two hours wearing a necklace on my head as crown because I am (so Rilla declares) Mommy Princess. Forgot about it until I leaned over the dishwasher and it fell in.

***

July 9th. Rilla found reading big fat YA novel. “This is my faborite book.” 3 minutes later, book is cast aside in disgust. “I don’t like it. It has WORDS.”

***

July 8th. Overheard—

14yo: “Do you need help pouring the milk?”

3yo: “Nope.”

14yo: “Are you sure?”

3yo: “I don’t want to be sure.”

***

(a work in progress)