Beach glass for breakfast and the lies we tell children

Where there are waves, seagulls and sand there is a beach. But I meet people all the time who get annoyed that I call going to the beach, "going to the beach." They protest, "you should call it going to the lake." I love how silly humans can be to get caught up in an argument like that.

Here is a photo of the beach glass I collected the other morning at the beach. I am a beach comber, a collector, a scavenger - always with my butt up in the air, digging for treasure. What is NOT photographed is the dead seagull I found that had a brick smashed over its head. Poor seagull. "Why did he die?" my friend Luka asked me? She's only 4 so I told her the seagull died because he was a Grandpa Seagull and he was old.

See you at the beach.

Save the Date: Evanston Children's Theatre presents "The Wizard of Oz" April 12-14

EVANSTON, IL - Evanston Children's Theatre will present "The Wizard of Oz" at the Levy Senior Center the weekend of April 12-14. Performers age 8 through eighth grade will share the story of little Dorothy Gale of Kansas, who dreams of what lies over the rainbow.

One day, a twister hits her farm and carries her away over the rainbow to another world. Come join Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tinman, the Cowardly Lion and Toto as they travel the universe of Dorothy’s imagination.

Performances will take place Friday, April 12 at 7:00 p.m., Saturday, April 13 at 3:00 and 7:00 p.m.; and Sunday, April 14 at 3:00 p.m.

The Levy Senior Center is located at 300 Dodge Ave., Evanston. Tickets are $6 and may be purchased by phone at 847/448-8250, in person at the Levy Center and at the door.

Evanston Summer Camp Lottery is Feb. 5 - 22

'Tis the season to sign your children up for summer camp for summer 2013 in Evanston. This year the Recreation Department of Evanston is mixing things up just to freak out all you parents who need to book your children's time for at least one week during the 9 weeks (or so) of summer.

Here's what you need to know: you must apply online for camp to be entered into a lottery. Below is a much longer explanation, but all you panicked parents, calm down, you've got until Feb. 22 to register online!

How to Enter the Summer Camp Lottery

If you do not already have an account with the Evanston Parks & Recreation online registration system, click here to sign up for an account.

Anytime between February 5 and February 22, log in to the recreation registration system.

Click the "Search" button, or the 'Browse Activities" link

Search for a camp, either by using the number from the Camp Guide, or by selecting an age and under "type", select Summer Camp Programs

When you find the camp you want, there should be a "Lottery" button next to it. This denotes programs that are eligible for lottery registration. Click the cart icon next to the lottery button to proceed.

Select the family member you want to enter in the lottery for this camp and then click "add to cart". Click "agree" to agree to the disclaimer.

Click "continue shopping" to enter for additional camps, or click "proceed to checkout" if you do not want to add additional camps.

Repeate steps 3-7 to add additional camps

To checkout, click checkout and you will recieve a confirmation .pdf. Click "submit" to have the confirmation emailed to you.

Lottery results will be e-mailed on Monday, February 25. Please check your spam folder for e-mails and add recreation@cityofevanston.org to your contact list to ensure you receive messages from Recreation in your inbox.

http://www.cityofevanston.org/parks-recreation/recreation/summer-camps/

Dispatches from the couch: The pain and pleasure of parenting

I love being a mother and parent as I am beginning to realize it's one of the few ways in life to constantly mingle intense pain and intense pleasure without getting up from the couch.

For instance just now I was sitting on the couch with my laptop open, reading the traffic stats for this blog and bemoaning the fact that in December alone more than 3,000 page views went to my post about the Downy Woodpecker that I saw out my window in November 2011. (Click here: Wildlife Sighting: Female Downy Woodpecker)

I showed my son the long list of search terms people use to find my blog; woodpecker, downy woodpecker, female woodpecker, birding, etc., and none of the search terms used had anything to do with me or Evanston - or at least the top 10 didn't.

"Isn't that pathetic?" I said to my son. "No one is searching for me or Evanston, they are only searching for woodpeckers." To this my son replied, "Mom, there are many pathetic things about your life."

This caught me by no surprise at all considering that just six months after I posted about the Downy Woodpecker I told my son about the traffic my site got for the woodpecker and he felt bad for me, saying I should be embarrassed and of course I wrote about the experience. Click here to read Humbled by a Woodpecker.

In both instances when my son reminded me how much more interesting Downy Woodpeckers were than anything I could possibly write about my "pathetic" life and "Evanston", I felt intense pangs of pain followed by pleasure. The pain centered on the truth he so quickly spoke to me without any editing to make feel better and the pleasure that followed had everything to do with the fact that I was so proud of him for being so critical so fast. What a jerk! I loved it! He's so young and has so much time to sharpen his mean-girls skills. Is it bad I want my son to grow up to me a mean girl? That's for another blog post!

I should probably care what my son thinks of me, but if I did he would have crushed me by his third year. And seeing as I don't care what the general public thinks of me, I'm certainly not going to let some kid hold court over my emotions or ego.

Thank you for letting me share this and yes, I am well aware that the only traffic I will get on this post is users looking for information on Downy Woodpeckers, but it's okay, I don't care what those users think! [Update the morning after: I do care what every user who comes to this blog thinks and that was snarky to say that I don't but I was just trying to keep the theme of the piece going.]

Thank you for reading my blog www.EvanstonNewbie.blogspot.com, a blog devoted to covering my family's move from El Paso, TX, to Evanston, IL, in 2011. We arrived in June 2011 and several people have pointed out that I am no longer a "newbie" and should start some other blog. But I disagree and want to keep the "newbie" status for a while longer, maybe five years and for several reasons. #1 - there are tons of Evanston families who have lived here for generations since the town incorporated in the late 1800s, so in comparison to them, I am very much a "newbie". #2 - I firmly believe this blog is a good branding tool for Evanston and it's the least I can do to thank our new town for being so AWESOME! If you have any questions or need to get in touch with my about this blog, Evanston, or anything else you can email me at thelisadshow@gmail.com. Thank you for reading and have an awesome 2013.

Mom, this doesn’t feel like home.

After a three week vacation in Northern California staying with their grandparents, aunt, uncles and cousins, my boys return home today. This is the second summer in a row where “coming home” means coming to Evanston and not El Paso. Despite the year living here, I worry it still won’t feel like home because as the title of this blog notes, my boys frequently tell me “Mom, this doesn’t feel like home”.

Although I totally believe there is merit in NOT listening to MOST things children say, I find it hard to ignore them when they tell me that their new home doesn’t feel like "home". They can’t really back it up and give concrete reasons, both of them just say “I don’t know, but it doesn’t feel like home.”

I hear myself responding “well boys, home isn’t always a physical location. It can be a feeling or a smell or temperature. Don’t worry about recreating what you used to have in El Paso but instead working on creating what you want in Evanston.” This normally just gets me blank stares.

For parents who move children numerous times because of career demands how do they recreate new homes? It takes so long to make good friends; there must be a speedier way to create belonging. I really haven’t done the research on creating a new home and a sense of belonging because I wanted our experience to be organic. Other than talking in a friendly tone to every human I’ve come across in our new town over the last year, I’ve let my children pick their friends and how they make them. I’ve let them pick the park where they want to hang and their favorite restaurant. More than anything, I’ve just given them a love for walking and that’s how they’ve discovered their new city. I think they’ve done a great job creating their new home/life all on their own but…

Will they come home today and say, “This doesn’t feel like home?” I hope the banners and the fresh flowers and the bag of Chicago style popcorn and the cake (see above) make them feel like they’re home. I’ll let you know what happens.

Humbled by a Woodpecker

Last night walking home from the beach with my older son Miles, we saw a male Downy woodpecker eating ants off the bark of a tree. With his red hat of feathers, he jackhammered his head into the bark; too busy eating to fly away as we gawked at him from inches away.

I was so excited and in a hushed hurried tone told Miles, “Oh I wish I had my camera! Last time I shot a picture of a female, she doesn’t have the read feathers on her head. And I posted it on my blog and you wouldn’t believe this, but more people have read that post that anything else! It’s amazing the traffic that a little post on a woodpecker gets!”

Miles looked at me in utter disgust and said “Mom, that’s awful. People don’t even come to your blog to read about you? They care more about a dumb woodpecker? That’s weak.”

I was about to challenge his scathing judgment on my reader’s lack of interest in me but I let it be.

Parents have to pick their battles with their children (and all children for that matter) very wisely.

And part of me thought, “Go right ahead, child. Believe that people think a woodpecker is more interesting than your mother.”

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Photo credit: Ohionature.com

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Thank you for reading my blog "Evanston Newbie", a project that I am using to tell stories about my new life in Evanston. You can also find my stories on Cowbird.com/LisaDegliantoni.