Ah, Springtime

All my life I've preferred cool weather; there must be something in my temperament that makes it so. Therefore, the change of seasons from winter to spring, while welcome to so many others, makes me a little uneasy. At the other end of the year, when the days turn cooler, I like to bundle up in flannel and fleece, but the opposite is not so. Clothes that were so familiar when last the weather was warm enough to wear them seem a little scanty and fit a bit awkwardly, and the unaccustomed sight of my bare legs startles. Who let them out? I wonder. Summer is on her way, and what exactly is there to look forward to? Long days of eggish sun and unrelenting heat, where cool breezes are nothing more than vagabonds waiting to hop the next jet stream north leaving us to fan ourselves, sweating in our swampy southern clime.

Exercise, Discipline, Affection

It may come as no surprise that over here at Walking the Dog, we're big fans of the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan. Every segment of his show is a ballet in three acts, and most of his precepts have application beyond the troubled dogs he rehabilitates and the owners he trains. My favorite is his advice about personal energy-- he encourages a calm assertive attitude in any who hope to be the pack leader. As hesitant as I am to compare children to dogs, in my experience, this notion translates directly to the classroom where a balanced teacher creates a balanced class.

Any who are familiar with his show know that Cesar's primary mantra for producing a good dog is exercise, discipline, affection. I've found the same to be true when it comes to taming my writing skills: daily exercise strengthens fluency, words on the page provide an opportunity to apply the craft of our discipline, and the affection? Well, to paraphrase Dorothy Parker, when I'm all done for the day, I may hate writing, but I love having written.

Good for You, Richard

Disney movies have been a hot topic of conversation for us over the last couple of days. My niece is fond of Cinderella and the rest of the princesses, my nephew, on the other hand, is not a fan of any of the animated features: at four and a half, he knows enough about plot conventions to be sure something bad is going to happen, and worrying about it makes him too anxious to enjoy the movie. He's afraid to be afraid.

You have to admit he's got a point. Those old Disney movies scared the crap out of me, especially Maleficent, the witch who turns into a dragon in Sleeping Beauty and Cruella DeVille in 101 Dalmations. The relatively more recent ones have some pretty tough scenes as well, think Mufasa's death in The Lion King or Ursula's final attack in The Little Mermaid, and continuing in that tradition, the newest Disney film, The Princess and the Frog, has scary voodoo and includes the death of a lovable character.

Strong stuff for a little kid, and how cool that my nephew knows he's not ready for it.

What Man Hath Wrought

I'm not a big fan of the zoo. I know the arguments both for and against keeping animals in captivity, and I come down on the side of the individual animals who are being kept, usually to their detriment, always against their will. They just don't seem happy to me.

Even so, there is something undeniable about a child's pure delight at encountering animals at close range, which is actually the most convincing argument in favor of zoos for me. And so it is generally only in a child's company that I ever find myself at a zoo or any other captive animal exhibit. Such was the case today, when we spent the overcast afternoon at the Chattahoochee Nature Center with my two-year-old niece and my four-year-old nephew. There we we were able to see all sorts of animals, mostly in large enclosures or behind glass.

The facility itself is state of the art, as green as green can be, and it was with a clear conscience that we made our way through their exhibits, viewing possums, owls, hawks, turtles, snakes, beavers, vultures, and even bald eagles. My niece and nephew were thrilled at the "wild animals" but it wasn't long before we wondered where all these critters had come from.

Home again, I checked out their website and the detailed biographies of all the residents of the nature center. It turned out to be an ugly litany of man v. wild: cars, guns, poison, power lines, and pets-- these were the events that led up to their captivity, which was also their rescue.

My head is spinning.

What Do You Say to That?

My niece is a couple months shy of two-and-a-half, and she is working hard on those social skills. Today we were out in the front yard playing a silly game. Pretending to be squirrels, we were busy digging little holes when she interrupted our industry. "Look," she pointed, "a dog!"

"This dog's bigger than you are!" the owner told her, and it was true. Her eyes widened a bit, and she stood silently, clearly at a loss for what to say.

He was halfway down the block when it came to her. "We have acorns!" she called waving a fistful of nuts at his back.

Yes we did.

Out the Window

It's a long drive from Washington DC to Atlanta, and this time of year the trip will take you from one end of spring to the other. There's a lot to look at along the way; today my favorite was the peach orchards that we passed at sunset-- all twisted trunks and bare branches, hundreds of black stitches in the pink and orange sky.

Collateral Damage

The entire sixth grade went ice skating today. This is the fourth year in a row that we have taken this trip. Usually it's planned for the day before Winter Break, and it was this year, too, but we got snowed out. What better day to make it up than the one before Spring Break? we thought. It'll be all the fun minus the cold walk up to the rink.

We were half right. A frigid rain fell as we marched our students the three-quarter miles from school to the skating complex, but soggy though they were when we arrived, their enthusiasm was undampened. Over half of them were first time skaters, and 180 kids spent a happy two hours sliding, gliding, and inevitably colliding on the ice. Even our blind student got out there and learned some basics.

Then, for the fourth straight year, there was an injury serious enough for a student to be taken back to school. "Maybe we shouldn't do this trip anymore," I said to the other team leader.

But despite a gash on her hand that would eventually need five stitches, the student who was hurt tried to convince us to let her stay. "We still have thirty minutes of skating and lunch in the food court-- I'm fine!" she assured us, and huge tears of disappointment rolled down her cheeks as we bundled her into the car for the trip back to school.

At the end of the day, the kids had a great time, but I'm still wondering if it was worth it. All the students had turned in signed permission slips with waivers acknowledging that skating can be dangerous, but what level of risk is acceptable? Shouldn't you call it quits if you're pretty sure somebody's going to get hurt?