Crackerdog and flop-bott

My hairdresser's son "collects malti-poos and doesn't want to have kids", she tells me.  Scary Hair Tammi doesn't know it has been a multi-poop week in the preschool class, and I'm unsure why anyone has kids at this point.  I keep a straight face.  She is just informing me the little girl asleep in the lobby is not her grandchild.

My art students have been creating dog art since the beginning of the fall semester.  Our grand collaboration on a Go, Dog. Go! mural was the culmination timed for Thursday's Open House Night.  I encouraged students to bring photos of their dogs to create a border around the mural. We were just starting the border in this photo, but soon memorial photos started coming in faster than photos of stoic pets dressed in doll clothes and Mardi Gras beads.

When we started the mural I didn't know my dad would be trying to climb the ladder to a big dog party in his states of considerable agitation all week.    I didn't know a blogger friend would be letting go of her family pet.  Adding to the emotion, a preschooler's dog died last weekend.

I just wanted us to find good links between quality picture books, making art, and talking about art.  Interest, integration, imagination, invention... all those great i words for connecting art and stories. Now we were also processing early encounters with mortality, using art to record and commemorate.  Where did those dogs go?  Why were they going fast in those cars?  Why does P. D. Eastman's book help me in this time of stress and sadness as much as James Herriot's All Things Great and Small?

We had a lively discussion about George Rodrique's "Blue Dog" paintings in all the groups.  One of the questions is always, "How do you think Blue Dog is feeling?"  Blue Dog is often stressed but immobile, anxious and stuck.

In James Herriot's dog stories, the young vet is often torn about lecturing Mrs. Pumphrey on the hazards of overfeeding her Pekingese dog. Tricki Woo has a condition called "flop- bott", also known as impacted bowels, and experiences episodes of "crackerdog", zooming around like to a preschooler on a Coco-Puffs rush.




In the workplace stress department, we had a big flop-bott over whether to serve little paper cups of crackers and green grapes at Open House. Those dogs are not going to get cracker-grapes.

 © 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Opposite Dogs

A pretty doggone fine week in art class with some very original results.  We've been inspired by Emily Gravett's delightful book, Dogs, in which the narrator cat's favorite dog turns out to be "any dog that won't chase me."  I can relate.

I'm wondering how many weeks I can sustain the dog theme for art class with books and different art materials.  We haven't even gotten to paint yet, let alone clay, soft sculpture, or papier mache.  Can I make it last until Open House?  Halloween?  Thanksgiving?  What about creating art to send to my grandpuppy, Wiley?  Sort of a cross between Flat Stanley and mail art...Geez, it turns out there's a Flat Stanley app for iPhones.  No wonder the USPS in in trouble!

My poor volunteer parent helper is probably praying I won't keep bursting into my tone-deaf version of "How Much is That Doggie in the Window?"





Did I mention that Wiley is the cutest, smartest doggy on earth?

He will undoubtedly appreciate my students' artistic efforts and fan mail.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

O! Crap and pooper scooping! OR, Oh, crap! And pooper scooping...

My weekend has had parentheses of fecal ephiphanies, which may qualify this post as graffiti with punctuation. I offer these revelations:


--Constipated young children tend to sit on the pot rolling toilet paper mummy-style around their hand until they need it.  This can result in serious clogging, and necessitate use of a plunger (not on the child).


--Swimming in summer lakes can lead to ER visits for viral or bacterial meningitis.  I was almost as obsessed with the discovery of brain-eating amoeba in the Sixties as I was with man-eating grizzly bears:  


Naegleria fowleri infects people by entering the body through the nose. This typically occurs when people go swimming or diving in warm freshwater places, like lakes and rivers.


--It is impossible to look elegant carrying a plastic bag of dog poop, or bending over to collect same, or trying to snap a photo of an unknown condo dog-owner and make a quick get-away.


--I forgot to write the next installment of the dog art projects as promised.


--If you are going to replace your toilet, please pay Home Depot to haul the old one away when the new one is delivered.  Nobody wants to see your old potty sitting by the dumpster waiting for a nocturnal elf to cart it away.  Nobody wants to contemplate nocturnal toilet elves.  Your condo association will end up paying for removal of the potty, and that will impact your due$.  This adds new meaning to "bulk pick-up" and "impacted bowels".


--The typical American eats twelve grams of fiber per day.  The RDA is twenty-five grams of fiber.  This is why "Americans can't poop," as I learned at a recent child care workshop presented by nutritionist Coco Frey.


--crap 

"defecate" 1846 (v.), 1898 (n.), from one of a cluster of words generally applied to things cast off or discarded (e.g. "weeds growing among corn" (early 15c.), "residue from renderings" (late 15c.), underworld slang for "money" (18c.), and in Shropshire, "dregs of beer or ale"), all probably from M.E. crappe "grain that was trodden underfoot in a barn, chaff" (mid-15c.), from M.Fr. crape"siftings," from O.Fr. crappe, from M.L. crappa, crapinum "chaff." Sense of "rubbish, nonsense" also first recorded 1898. Despite folk etymology insistence, not from Thomas Crapper (1837-1910) who was, however, a busy plumber and may have had some minor role in the development of modern toilets. The name Crapper is a northern form of Cropper (attested from 1221), an occupational surname, obviously, but the exact reference is unclear.

 --Thomas Crapper was born a couple decades before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Although he provided royal plumbing solutions, he was never knighted.



--Our Wednesday art projects were not stellar, but the students love David Shannon's book, Good Boy, Fergus!  I read it practicing to meet my new grandpuppy.*

--My students also adore the poems and illustrations in Good Dog:

In this heart-stealing picture book, fine artist Robert Rahway Zakanitch gives us 16 masterful, soulful, impossibly expressive portraits of dogs, and Maya Gottfried wonderfully captures their voices and inner personalities in 16 enchanting poems. It₂s a doggie delight! These dogs beg to be patted, tickled, scratched, and ruffled. Which one will be your best friend?

--This is another delightful rhyming book that didn't suggest a workable art project.  My youngest students like to hear it after nap time.

* Not yet carrying around a tiny photo album of precious above average grandpuppy photos, but it's getting close. Maybe close enough to carry the darn plastic collection bag on walkies... 


(Used with permission of grandpuppy's parents.)




© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Good dog!

Making art and sharing books.  I remember now what I like about teaching.  Choosing a theme and exploring it with the kids through many different mediums is fun and stretching.

At the Parent Meeting one new mom asked me about art class.  Her daughter told her we made a dog out of a potato.  And, yes, we did.  We make lots of things out of potatoes, hot dogs, and chicken nuggets.  Drawing a baked potato seems much less threatening to kids than drawing an oval.  Nuggets are easier than circles, and hot dogs are so useful.

This week we managed to talk about stove safety, the importance of breakfast, and whether dogs can really wiggle on the moon.  We got a few wiggles out, too, reading Doreen Cronin's book, Wiggle.  This book is excellent for those of us who drag our saggy carcasses to the coffee maker every morning.




Do you wiggle in the morning?  Do you wiggle out of bed?
If you wiggle with your breakfast, it might wind up on your head.

This boy is eight or nine, and put an apron on the dog.  That's quite the gourmet stovetop with all those burners.

 A four year-old girl's pancake landed on the dog's head.  

This new student, a six year-old boy, seems to cook with a welding mask and tennis racket.








More good dog books and art in the next few weeks.  Now for more coffee.





© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Celery Sing-Along

I'm rediscovering the deliciousness of creamy peanut butter this summer. Last week the preschoolers dipped apple slices in peanut butter. Today they made good old "ants on a log"; celery filled with peanut butter and decorated with raisins. While I was assisting in the construction of these gourmet delicacies I kept trying to remember the bump on a log song. It was difficult to concentrate when the lovely peanut butter smell kept enfolding me. Up from the deep, mucky recesses of my brain I finally got an image of the Magic Drawing Board on the 1950s Captain Kangaroo show. The lyrics percolated up like slow bubbles in a peanut butter geyser:



There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea
Traditional

There's a hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a hole, there's a hole
There's a hole in the bottom of the sea.

There's a log in the hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a log in the hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a log, there's a log
There's a log in the hole in the bottom of the sea.

There's a branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a branch, there's a branch
There's a branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea.

There's a bump on the branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a bump on the branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a bump, there's a bump
There's a bump on the branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea.

There's a frog on the bump on the branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a frog on the bump on the branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a frog, there's a frog
There's a frog on the bump on the branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea.

There's a tail on the frog on the bump on the branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a tail on the frog on the bump on the branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a tail, there's a tail
There's a tail on the frog on the bump on the branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea.

There's a speck on the tail on the frog on the bump on the branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a speck on the tail on the frog on the bump on the branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a speck, there's a speck
There's a speck on the tail on the frog on the bump on the branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea.

There's a fleck on the speck on the tail on the frog on the bump on the branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a fleck on the speck on the tail on the frog on the bump on the branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea
There's a fleck, there's a fleck
There's a fleck on the speck on the tail on the frog on the bump on the branch on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea.

It's good to have that settled!

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find my Bela Fleck cd now! Plus, I have an urge to wade in the mud-bottom of Willow Creek in Pierce, Nebraska as it was in the late Sixties. O my frogs, polliwogs and squishy, slurpy, muddy toes all cool and refreshed!



A peanut sat on a railroad track,
His heart was all a-flutter,
Round the bend came Number Ten.
Toot! Toot! Peanut butter! SQUISH!

..........................

Oh, I went down South
For to see my Sal
Sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
My Sal, she is
A spunky gal
Sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
Fare thee well, Fare thee well,
Fare thee well my fairy fay
For I'm going to Lou'siana
For to see my Susyanna
Sing Polly wolly doodle all the day

Oh, a grasshopper sittin'
On a railroad track
Sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
A-pickin' his teeth
With a carpet tack
Sing Polly wolly doodle all the day
Fare thee well,Fare thee well,
Fare thee well my fairy fay
For I'm going to Lou'siana
For to see my Susyanna
Sing Polly wolly doodle all the day



My grocery store hasn't begun restocking Peter Pan peanut butter after the salmonella problem of last winter. I guess I'll have to choose Skippy or Jif. [And if I ever happen to become a hardcore traditional condo owner, I will name my dachsunds Skippy, Jif, and Peter Pan. ] So maybe next time I'll visualize that celery as fleas on a dachsund!
© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Paint Chip Off the Old Block

I love to play with paint color chips. Still. Yeh, I know, I'm nearly fifty. I still pick them up and stuff them in my purse at the paint department of Home Depot or Elliott's Hardware. I hope no one will ask me what I'm planning to paint, how many gallons I'll need, or whether I want flat or semi-gloss latex. It's hard to explain that I just want to spread the samples out on a table and rearrange them in different designs.

A friend at the ballet last night asked me what else fun and exciting I had planned for the weekend. "I'm not the parent-on-duty this weekend, for a change," I said. "I can stay wrapped in blankets and read, or write. I can fool around with my Photoshop program. I can eat burritos for breakfast if I choose. I can smell freshly ironed clothes while I watch the Bogart movie my son gave me for Christmas. I can play with colors, textures, and lines." I don't know if she understood that I considered these options fun and exciting. Play and contentment are sometimes about being instead of doing. Sometimes in the game of Life we recharge with champagne bubbles and fireworks, and other times with purring cats and simmering soups.


I'm especially fond of the paint chip books with perforated pages. The pages are dry to the touch, and the chalky scent catches at the back of my throat. Fold on the perforations, and carefully tear the little rectangles into Candy Land sidewalks, carnival tickets, Chance, Community Chest, and Monopoly play money. Lie on your stomach on the rug in the living room on a rainy day, arranging a color mosaic, and listening to "April in Paris". Plan gardens of colors separated by gray flagstones that need no trowel. Quilts that need no sewing. Be still and dream.

We had lots of color samples for paints and tiles growing up. I always considered them treasures and BIG perks of my dad's job as a structural engineer in an architectural firm. Kids felt sorry for me because I didn't have a Chatty Cathy. I felt sorry for them because they didn't have tile samples.

My students of all ages have been playing with circles inside squares this week to create magic maps based on board games. The inspiration comes from two books I love to read aloud to kids (even twenty times in one week), Circle Dogs, by Kevin Henkes, and You Are Here, by Nina Crews.


So many wonderful winter hours spent with board games at the family dining table--checkers, chess, dominoes, Chutes & Ladders, Candy Land, Monopoly, Memory, Chinese checkers, pop-a-matic Trouble, and my mom's beloved Scrabble. Visualize tic-tac-toe and Twister, too.

You sank my battleship!