Dragon fly! Dragon fly!

Dragon fly! dragon fly! fly about the brook,
Sting all the bad boys who for the fish look;
But let the good boys catch all they can,
And then take them home to be fried in a pan,
With nice bread and butter they shall sup up their fish,
While all the little naughty boys shall only lick the dish.

This rhyme can be found in Rhymes Old and New collected by M.E.S. Wright, (1900).

We went to a Mexican restaurant this evening and saw an alter.

There were skulls on it made of sugar, and favorite foods and drinks of loved ones who have passed away. A woman who works there told me about some of the desserts that were on the alter. One was made of sweet potatoes and another of guava fruit…

They gave us a special hot chocolate drink and sweet tamales for dessert, specially for the holiday.

The lady who works there told us how in small towns in Mexico they decorate their houses with flowers in the doorways and petals strewn about the floor. Marigolds are particularly important. It sounds pretty.

The day is all about celebrating those loved ones who have passed on. It’s nice to have a day each year specifically for that.

Check out some other posts about the Day of the Dead…

We took a walk today in Walt Whitman’s woods in West Hills, on Long Island, east of New York City.  I highly recommend taking an autumnal hike or stroll if you can.  Then you may feel the truth in Whitman’s line, "As to me I know of nothing else but miracles". There’s much beauty out there.  Here are some photos I took in Walt’s woods, followed by his poem "Miracles", and then recordings of two people reading the poem.

Miracles
by Walt Whitman

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim-the rocks-the motion of the waves-the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

*****

MP3 of Miracles read by Jeannette Selig

MP3 of Miracles read by Mark J. Wilson

We used my husband’s iPhone to guide us on our adventure. We knew there were a couple of geocaches in a nearby park. So we headed there.

My husband had previously downloaded a geocaching app for his iPhone called Geocaching.com Intro. At the park, the app finds the closest geocache and guides you to it.

The app found a geogache for us to find. The girls took turns with the iPhone pointing the direction on a compass.

Eventually you usually go off the path. (If they were on the path, people who didn’t know about the game might take them.) Then you follow the directions until you (hopefully) find the cache. The two we found today were in small plastic tubs. You’re supposed to sign the log that you find inside the tub. There are also trinkets inside the tub. You’re supposed to leave a trinket and you can take a trinket in return. We made sure all the girls had trinkets to exchange.

It was a lot of fun!

We had tried this last weekend in a more public park and never found the geocaches. Our theory is that people who didn’t know how the game might have found the caches because it was a more public place and took them. The game seems to work better in larger parks with more vegetation.

If you have a regular GPS system you can go to geocache.com and type in the zip code for the area you are going to. Then you can find different geocaches nearby. Pick one and find hints for finding it. I think it will give you the final coordinates too. You’ll need to sign up and read all about it!

Have fun!

Mama Lisa

Here are some possible ways to help your child:

1) Eat right and exercise yourself as an example to your child (most of us could improve our habits!)
2) Have lots of fruit in your house as an alternative to junk food and limit the junk food and soda in your house. (The NY Times article points out that your child will just find the junk food elsewhere. But meanwhile, if s/he’s grazing on healthy snacks presumably your child would be less hungry for other food.)
3) Eat Family Meals together
4) Less Take-in Food
5) Have them Bring Lunch to School (cafeteria lunches leave much to be desired)
6) Find an alternate activity to snacking – like a hobby
7) Have your child help you plan the meals for the family, thus helping them learn how to think about food in a healthy way.
8) Smaller dishes lead to smaller portions. When my friend visited us from France, she was amazed by the huge sizes of our dishes here in the US. If you have smaller dishes and you fill them up, you feel like you’re eating the same amount as a larger dish filled up. Yet your portion is less.
9) Make less carbohydrates. My husband is over 6 feet tall and my 15 year old son is almost 6 feet tall. Sometimes, I find myself making larger and larger amounts of pasta or rice to keep up with them. Lately, I’ve been trying to make less pasta, so we all eat less carbs, rather than making more and having leftovers.
10) We try to take long walks at parks together as a family.
11) We’re considering getting a dog – with the understanding that our kids would have to help walk it. That would be a daily walk for all of us!

Please feel free to let us know any advice you might have, in the comments below, for helping children eat healthy food and eat healthy amounts of food, without causing eating disorders down the road.

Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, after China, India and then the US.

Here’s a photo taken by Marlina Efrida of some Indonesian kids.  What I love about this photo is that it shows how children are alike all over the world.  Our kids love to make faces and signs when they have their photos taken too!

Here’s another lovely photo from Indonesia by Marlina…

If you’d like to share any photos from your country, feel free to email me.

Many thanks to Marlina Efrida for sharing her photos and to Lin Fdln and Dedy Subandowo for telling me about Indonesian life!

Come visit the Mama Lisa’s World Indonesia pages for Indonesian kids songs.

Cheers!

Mama Lisa

I thought the use of Madison Square Garden for "O" in the NY ABC’s was a nice touch…

This shows an important point: there are so many ways to be creative in life… all it takes is an interesting idea!

Enjoy the Alphabet of New York… as a bonus you can hear my daughter sing the ABC’s when you click on the image above!

Mama Lisa

Time and tide wait for no man.

My husband and I almost learned this lesson the hard way today.  We were taking a hike on the shore of a river… on the way back we noticed the water was very obviously rising.  Good thing we decided to turn back when we had or we would have had to swim back and I wouldn’t have had these lovely shots to take home (my camera would have gotten wet!)…

Del took these photos below of scarecrows in the rice fields of Brufut, Gambia.  I thought it was interesting how they look different from those here in the US.  The scarecrows in Gambia are made out of plastic bags.

Del said, "They look really realistic from a distance."

Del wrote, "They were arranged in a group of three – for some reason I assumed that the Gambians would not use scarecrows."

Many thanks to Del for sharing these photos with us!  Be sure to visit Del’s YouTube Channel to watch her videos of Gambia featuring kids songs!

Mama Lisa

Have a Happy July Fourth!

Mama Lisa