News in six bites.

Clearly, Zig's room needs to be vacuumed! Car photo by Ziggy!

1. Ziggy says great stuff every single day. He makes me laugh out loud, and wonder over how he can be so deep and sensitive. We have played with his "Jesus Activity" today, as we do many days. Do you know that means his nativity Playmobil set? (Thanks to my mystery friend for this much beloved gift this past Christmas season!)

2. An example of the kind of thing he says is like this little gem today, almost as a throw-away,"Mama, this cashew looks like three things: a rainbow, a crescent moon, and.... well, it looks like TWO things."

3. I've been asked to be on a panel at the Americana Music Association conference this fall. The panel is on children's music in the Americana stable. We'll see how the timing and all lines up for that.

4. The Mister and I both have our writings from the now defunct (on paper) magazine No Depression up online in their archives section. You can find us by searching for our names (alphabetized for some unknown reason by first name). Here is our co-authored hot chicken piece, in the event you haven't seen it or want to revisit.

5. Over my relatively short career as a mother, I've been a stay-at-home, a work-at-home, and a work-away-from-home mama. For the last year, save for bits and bobs, since my position at Mothers Acting Up phased out, I've been out of work. As I mentioned in a very general way in another post, that ends this week with my acceptance of the position of director / coordinator for the Nashville Peace & Justice Center. It's half-time. Makes good use of my skill set, and should be a challenge as well. I am excited. At the moment, I'm working on the childcare piece for Ziggy. He is very enthused about the prospect of "going to school." Of course, I'm very very late to the game this year, as the full season (Fall through Spring) of playschool / preschool, etc. begins next month and the best places are filled and / or are very pricey. I'm looking at options for 2-4 days for the boy to go to a part day program (something like 9-2:30) and am not interested in straight up daycare. I feel certain that a good option will out itself and 'til then, I'm on it.

6. Also, I'm lining up the "extracurricular" schedule for my kid who wants to do EVERYTHING.... Pre-planning allows me to budget time, money and other resources to his pursuits (as well as those of the adults in our home!), which look to be soccer, then karate, then basketball. And maybe dancing somewhere in there, too. He wants it all, and I'm trying to meet his hunger for experience and socializing with the mama-wisdom of unstructured play, basic down-time, and lots of room for flexibility. This is needed, I find, particularly on a day when my child is still napping at 5 in the evening after a very low key day. The current growth spurt has necessitated extra rest and extra good food!