Cultural day - Galleries in Chelsea

1- Jim Hodges; 2- Andreas Gursky; 3- Nan Goldin; 4- Neo Rauch; 5- Uta Barth; 6- Youssef Nabil (exhibition curated by Shirin Neshat); 7-Joan Mitchell

Do you know why moms usually sound futile, uninteresting and seem to be talking only about their children? Mainly because it is extremely difficult to read anything with kids around you - at least this is true for me. However, I always try to take a glance at the headlines on the newspaper and, on my lucky days, I even get to read the editorial and one or two articles.

The headlines on the FT this morning were quite catastrophic. It really felt like it was the end of the Euro, the end of the airlines industry, the end of the banking industry - basically, the end of the World as we know it. But, like I said once to my dear mother when I stopped working in the middle of the financial crisis in 2009: "there is no crisis in baby world".

Therefore, I left the news behind me and headed to Chelsea for a great gallery tour. Very futile of my part? Maybe. Probably. Most certainly. But staying at home wouldn't solve the World's problems either. So let's enjoy life while we can!

Our tour included:

• Neo Rauch - David Swirner Gallery
• Uta Barth - Tanya Bonakdar Gallery
• Andreas Gursky - Gagosian Gallery
• Jim Hodges - Gladstone Gallery 
• Nan Goldin - Matthew Marks Gallery 
• Hiroshi Sugimoto - The Pace Gallery
• Joan Mitchell - Cheim & Read Gallery
• Shirin Neshat - Leila Heller Gallery 

There are tens of other galleries in town and you can go whenever you want. As I said in another post, galleries are for free, so take advantage on that. But, let me tell you something, it makes such a difference to go with someone that can explain to you what you are looking at, talk about that particular artist, his work and his surroundings. At least for me, today, it was essencial. I wouldn't have understood half of what I saw today if I'd had gone by myself. I think that the understanding of art in general takes time, studying, lots of readings and lots of visits to different exhibitions (especially contemporary art). But, when you don't really have time for all of this, calling a specialist might be a good idea. Besides, isn't it great to go with a group of friends with whom you can discuss what you are all experiencing?

I didn't like everything that I saw today, but I certainly appreciated everything. By that I mean that knowing what the artists intentions were or knowing about their backgrounds makes a big difference. It puts the art in a certain context and it educates your eyes and your senses so you can appreciate what you are looking at under a whole new perspective. For instance, a month ago I entered the Pace Gallery, took a look at Hiroshi Sugimoto's work and 5 minutes later I was out the door. I just didn't get it. Today, I walked in the same gallery, to see the same exhibition and I liked what I saw.

If you are interested in organizing your own tour, do not hesitate to contact our guides Gisela Gueiros (giselagueiros@gmail.com) and Ana Strumpf (anastrumpf@gmail.com). The tour was well organized, Gisela was really prepared and her presentations before entering each gallery were simple (no fancy words), short (no big lectures in front of each piece of art) but full of useful details and information. What I liked the most was how she would give us some heads-up on what we were about to see without giving too much information at the beginning so we would still have a surprise when entering the exhibits. And what a surprise it was!

Books of the week - Christmas collection

Last year I decided to start a collection of books about Christmas for the kids. I wanted to find some classic stories but also some stories that they would remember as grown-ups. There is something magical about Christmas and the Santa Claus fantasy that makes you dream and wishing to be a child again. The good thing about having children is that you're given the opportunity to become one again in certain occasions.

My husband who's much more realistic and down to earth than me, don't like this whole Santa thing. He thinks the kids should know straight forward that Santa doesn't exist and that we are the ones buying all the toys. He blames me of not letting my children grow up (not sure if this accusation if valid when your children are only 4 and 2 year-old...) and being lying to them. But, he also knows that if he doesn't play the game, he would be in big trouble. Here at home, there is really no discussion on the subject. Because there is still a child inside of me longing for Santa to exist. And this is a gift that I'm passing on to my children. The gift of dreaming and hoping that our most cherished fantasies could one day come true.

***

You've probably already heard about this story, but here's a book that will make you and your children dream (if you like the Christmas fantasy of course):

I bought the 25th Anniversary Edition that comes with an audio CD with the story narrated by Liam Neeson. The kids have been loving to have dinner while listening to the story lately.

There are so many Christmas books that sometimes it can be really hard to choose which ones we'd like to buy (I usually have to control myself not to buy all the books I like). I've ordered some new ones, but since I haven't received them yet I can't make any comments on them (I hope they'll ship them soon). In case you are interested and would like some references to start your own Christmas collection, I'm posting the new additions (beside The Polar Express and The Elf on the Shelf: a Christmas Tradition, mentioned in my previous post) to our collection. The list is short, but the idea is to add each year new books to it.

Book recommended by the same friend who recommended "The Polar Express"

Do you know Babar? Oh, this charming elephant. He deserves a post only for him (to come!). I bought the French version because I'm used to read Babar in French, but you can find it in English or many other languages as well.

***

What about you? Do you already have a collection? What other books would you recommend to us?

Let the Christmas season begin!

This year we are starting a little bit earlier than we usually do.
Today, F and I went to buy our Christmas tree. I was planning on going on a cold and snowy day like we did when he was just a baby, all bundled up in his stroller. It wasn't snowing and it wasn't even cold. But F chose a nice tree.

While I was browsing my albums, looking for another picture, I found the one below taken a year ago. The hair is shorter now, but all the rest has grown. The last signs of babyhood that could still be seen in the 3 year-old on the left, have completely vanished in the 4 year-old little boy on the right. The concentration and the excitement are still the same.

F - December 2010

F - Today

If you are planning on buying a real Christmas tree this year (here in New York), here is a link that I found today with lots of tips on where to buy, how to choose it, how to recycle it and so on.

Oh, and look who's visiting us this year:

This is our very own elf. Santa sent it to us so he could watch how we are all behaving (including me). F is completely into it. However, each time I need to remind him to be nice, he goes to the elf and says "sorry" to him, as if that would solve his problem towards Santa. He's also not supposed to touch the elf, otherwise it would lose its "magic" (it comes with a book explaining everything). But since he saw it this morning he's been thinking on how he would climb the bookcase in order to catch it. Not sure this elf thing is going to work here with us...

New York Botanical Garden - Holiday Train Show

Miniature Rockfeller Center at the New York Botanical Garden

Hello there!

After having the kids at home for five days and trying to catch the best deals on the Internet during the whole weekend, I had no time to come here. Santa has been really busy these days and happy with the sales. Now I don't want to know if the prices are going further down, because I'm not buying anything else. I'm done for this year!

We had a relaxing Thanksgiving weekend. I was thankful to have longer breakfasts with F instead of rushing him out of the door to catch his school bus. Thankful to let the kids play in their pajamas in the morning. Thankful to have my husband for longer hours at home. Thankful for the good quality time we spent the four of us together.

The weather was (and still is) unbelievably warm for this time of year, so we basically went to the park almost all the time. And on Saturday we went for a different outing. We decided to go to the New York Botanical Garden to see the Holiday Train Show. It is a miniature town formed by important landmarks and bridges of New York City (some that don't even exist anymore), made out of plant parts (bark, nuts, leaves, etc) and there are different model trains going all around them. It's incredibly well done and the kids were mesmerized by the trains. Afterwords, we went to the Children's Adventure Garden, where there is a gingerbread house and some activities for the kids. We didn't stay long, because it was already late, but apparently the kids can decorate some Holiday cookies.

If you are planning on going, try to avoid weekends. I bought our tickets online and since we had to choose a specific time to enter the Holiday Train Show, I thought it wouldn't be so crowded. I was completely wrong. We spent a good amount of time in a line (around 30 to 40 minutes), which is not easy if you have toddlers (you have to leave the strollers outside). So avoid weekends or try to go early in the day. It is very easy to arrive at the Botanical Garden by train. The trip only takes about 20 minutes from Grand Central and there is a stop right in front of the Garden. What we did was to have lunch at the train station (there are some good restaurants) and then we took the train from there. The kids loved the whole thing and thought it was a big adventure.

*** 

I'm so happy that Thanksgiving is gone. Let's move on to Christmas now!! I'm planning to do some activities with the kids and I'll probably post them here. So keep visiting me. And if you have some ideas on your own, please share them with us.

***

Here are some highlights of our weekend.



Thanksgiving weekend - bad "sharing" start

F and P "sharing" the iPad

My "weekend" started Tuesday afternoon. A few years ago I would be celebrating. Nowadays, with two young kids at home I'm cursing F's and P's schools. Did they really need to close a day before the actual Holiday? Isn't a 4-days weekend long enough?! Apparently not.

Having said that, I need to entertain my children for the next few days. Knowing that today, with almost everything closed, New York will be like a ghost city and tomorrow, with all the "Black Friday" sales going on, it could actually be dangerous to be on the streets, this is not going to be an easy task. Hopefully the sun will shine and brighten my mind to find exciting activities for them.

***

Since it was raining yesterday, we started by going to our local bookstore. We sat on the floor to read some books and P started playing with a lot of little books that had the shape of different cars and had wheels on them. He was happy and quiet, which made it very easy for me to read to F. But, suddenly, out of nowhere, this little girl arrives and starts to take P's books out of his hands (she wasn't aggressive or anything, just annoying). And the nanny, instead of taking her to play with something else (and teaching her not to bother other people), started saying to P that he had to learn how to share.

Well, you know what? I'm tired of this "sharing" thing among toddlers that is so important here in the U.S.! Why do children need to share everything? Besides, we were in a bookstore, where there were tons of other books! Why did she have to disrupt our peaceful moment? Because, of course, while she was there complaining that P wasn't sharing the books, I had to stop reading to F, as P was getting upset and started to cry.

It's not that I'm teaching my kids not to share, but I think the Americans overreact with this particular aspect and overuse the word "sharing". If we are at home, yes, the kids need to share their toys with their friends. If they are at school, they also need to share the toys or crayons with the other kids. However, if I take my kids to the park, for example, I don't understand why on earth they should be sharing their toys with other kids (they never met before) if they don't want to. I certainly don't want to "share" my cell phone when I'm at the park. And I would be really upset if I was reading a book in a bookstore and suddenly another person would take it out of my hands. So, why do we need to teach something to our kids that would obviously annoy us if we were in the same situation? 

Nonetheless, I'm like all the other mothers at the park, telling my kids to share everything. Taking toys out of their hands in the name of this glorious task of learning how to share. Even yesterday, although I was visibly annoyed by the nanny's attitude and I thought it was unfair towards P, I was telling him to share the books. Thankfully, she left after ten bad minutes.

 ***

We spent the rest of the day at home quietly. Actually, the kids stayed at home and I had the terrible idea to go grocery shopping. Here's my advice: never do that before a Holiday and, certainly, never take the subway during rush hour right before the Holiday.

I hope the rest of the weekend will be better than yesterday. I'm sorry if I'm not sounding very positive today, but I just had to get the "sharing" incident out of my system. Now I can move on. We finished the night ordering Chinese and watching "Carlos" (not very good and way too long).

I think I was just having a bad day and I had to "share" this with you :)

P not sharing anything, just thinking about his own shoes

Happy Thanksgiving!

Last days of Richard Serra at the Gagosian

Yesterday I went to the Gagosian Gallery, in Chelsea, where they are currently showing two new sculptures by Richard Serra and one of his paintings.

The sculptures, named Junction and Cycle are amazing. Richard Serra is one of my favorite living artists. I've seen a lot of his sculptures and I'm always struck by the genius of this guy. Most of the sculptures look alike and yet they feel completely different. Walking around them or "inside" them is like walking in a labyrinth. They are mysterious, peaceful, grandiose yet so simple.

Richard Serra has become more known for his huge elliptical sculptures, however, he is also a great painter. And the canvas shown in the gallery is splendid (see picture above). 

The exhibit will end next Saturday (11/26). So, if you have the opportunity, run to see it.

Books of the week - the importance of reading to children

Last Sunday, I read this article on the NY Times written by Thomas L. Friedman. He explains how we, parents, can improve our children's education, instead of leaving the whole responsibility to the teachers. And one of the main point of the discussion is the importance of reading to our children. His arguments are backed up by some very interesting statistical data that show the correlation between the involvement of parents in their children's school life (as little as asking how their day was at school or what they are learning) with their children's future success not only as students but as individuals.

I read to my children since they were babies. Mainly because I enjoy it but also because I firmly believe that reading habits have to be introduced at an early age. I've always been surrounded by books myself and I want to teach my children to look at them as a source of pleasure and not as a burden or obligation. We read every night before bedtime and to my happiness, I see them sometimes sitting in their room (even my 2 year old) "reading" by themselves.

I don't read as much as I used to and certainly not as much as I should. However, I always carry a book with me. When I really like one, I usually can't stop reading it. But when I'm about to reach the end, I always feel very sad, because it means I'll have to say goodbye to the people (the characters) that had become my companions even for a short period of time. I can even find myself, days later, still thinking about them and even missing them. Weird, I know. But I love when this happens. The last book that really moved me this way was Never Let me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro.

I'm very possessive with my books. I don't really like to borrow them and certainly not giving them away. Once I've read them , they are part of me. I like to see them in my bookshelf, even if the edition is not the best, because they always bring back some memories. They not only carry their story inside, but they also carry a moment of my life. A trip, a bad day, a success... Books can make you dream, reflect, feel sad, happy, angry. They affect you one way or another. You can love a book or hate it, but the minute you've decided to read it, you'll never feel indifferent about it. I've already read books in which I hated the main character, others that bored me to death, others that made me travel to distant lands or times. I still remember the excitment when I read "The Three Musketeers", by Alexandre Dumas, when I was young. This is what I want to pass on to my children.

I'm not a big fan of the e-readers. I don't own one right now, but I know that I'm running against the flow. I'm not against technology, I just want to resist to this specific one as long as I can. There is something about holding a book that you can't feel when holding your e-reader. Books are not all the same. Some are thicker, some are big, some are small, some have big characters, the texture of the pages may feel different, etc. They smell different too (I love to smell new books) and their are designed in different ways. All this is lost when you read an electronic version. Your e-reader is always the same. Suddenly the books all look the same. Of course, the content is more important than the cover and it is well known that you shouldn't be influenced by the cover of a book. But for me this is just impossible. I like pretty things and I like nice designs in everything. One thing comes with the other.

This is even more true when referring to children's book.

I was once taught that when reading to very yound kids, you don't need to stick on the wording or the order of the story. Talk about the pictures, ask them questions, make them guess what the story is about. In other words, keep them interested on the book by making them participate in the reading and helping them free their imagination.

***

 Here's a book that is kind of related to the subject: 

 Here's the version for the little ones:

 And this is the book that P. just chose to read before his naptime. It's hilarious.

Tough day = inspiration for a new logo

Now that my two little monsters, hum, angels are sleeping, I can finally relax. With no company, since my husband is in for a long night of work at the office, I'm here just strolling around the internet.

Look at this fantastic idea for a date. Oh, how I'd like to know how to cook like her, take nice pictures like her and have a husband that would come home early for a date.

In the meantime, since I can't have any of those. I've decided to draft a new logo for my blog.

What do you think?



Logo option #1

Logo option #2

I know they look very amateurishly, but this is what this blog is all about. Still, I accept suggestions and I can keep sketching more strollers if you don't like either.
Please, please, tell me!!


Cooking with children - Pizza

Here's another fun idea if your kids like to help you out in the kitchen. Yesterday, we decided to bake some home-made pizza. And this is how we did it.

Servings: 1 or 2 16" pizza (depending on how thin you like your pizza)
Ingredients:

To activate the yeast you will need:

• 1 small bag of active yeast
• 1 tbsp of warm water
• 1 tsp of sugar

For the dough:

• 1 cup of warm water
• 1 tsp of salt
• 3 cups of flour (you may need some more, depending on how sticky is your dough)

Preparation:

First, you will need to activate your yeast. In a cup or small bowl, mix together the yeast, the sugar and the water. You should obtain a smooth kind of cream. Let it rest until it doubles in size (around 20 minutes).

Then, in a large bowl mix together the warm water, the yeast, and start adding the flour. At this stage, I prefer using a spoon, because the mixture is extremely sticky. However, when the flour starts to blend with the water and starts to have a better consistency, I like to hand kneed it. If after you've added the 3 cups of flour your dough is still sticky, add some more until you obtain an easily maniable dough.

Let it rest in a bowl covered with plastic wrap for at least 4 hours, at room temperature. In our case, we prepared the dough in the morning to have it ready for dinner.




 

When you are ready to eat your pizza, preheat your oven at around 500F (or at the maximum temperature your oven can handle). Dust your working area with flour and with a roll open your dough (you can also put some more flour over the dough, to make your work a little bit easier). Sometimes I make a regular round pie and sometimes I like to make a rectangular one (Napolitan style). Yesterday, the kids made round ones.

Lighlty grease a baking sheet with olive oil and bake your pie for about 15 minutes. For the small ones that we baked yesterday, we only left them for 10 minutes in the oven. I like to put some tomato sauce before baking the pizza.
 
Once the crust looks golden and crispy, you can take the pizza out of the oven. At this point, I usually put some more tomato sauce, cheese and any other topping I'd like (pepperoni, olives, mushrooms, etc). I place the pizza for another 2 to 5 minutes in the oven, until the cheese is completely melted and it's ready!

Highlights from the weekend - Boys will be boys...

... but when do they learn to be boys?

Today I took F. to the movies to see "Puss in boots". Like all children's movies lately, this one is extremely well designed (I'm always amazed by the quality of the pictures and all the details the creators are able to include in the images), witty and way to complicated for children. F left the theatre asking me a lot of questions (of course he didn't get half of the story) but he liked it anyway and he enjoys a lot going to the cinema.

Part of the reason why F. was a little bit lost, is because the story has nothing to do with the real french fairy tale "The booted cat" and it ends up mixing other fairy tales - in the same line as "Shrek". However, the movie is full of action and there are some fun parts, so as I've said before F. was happy with it.

I'm not going to talk about the whole movie here, but at some point, the cat explains why he doesn't like Humpty Dumpty anymore and he tells a sad story about their broken friendship. I glanced at F. and saw he was upset and thought I saw a tear. So I asked him if he was fine and wanted me to comfort him. To which he replied, drying up his eyes, "I'm fine, mom, I'm not crying". He was lying to me. I was shocked. This is a 4 year-old we are talking about. This is my little baby we are talking about, the one that was born just an hour ago. Who taught him to be so tough? Is it just something boys carry inside themselves? Something that tells them that they can't be emotional?

I was so happy when I could finally sit him on my lap and hold him very tight so he wouldn't be afraid of the giant goose that appeared at the end. Mothers of older children, how do you manage to watch your kids growing? It is just so hard for me...

***

Our weekend was very good and here are some highlights.

Bright sunny Saturday morning

The cooks getting ready

Preparing some pizza (tomorrow's post)

 Enjoy your week!

Happy Friday

After a very wet week, the sun has finally appeared to brightened our lives. It was cold though, very cold. I went for a stroll all by myself and I found a very much changed park. There are many more naked trees and the fallen leaves have formed a yellow and brownish carpet on the ground.

Mixed feelings. Loveliness. Sadness. Winter will be here any moment now.

Any plans for the weekend?
F has a playdate tomorrow afternoon and Sunday we are planning on going to the movies to finally see "Puss in Boots" (F has been asking for some time now to see it). Nothing very different on our side. What about you?

Cheers!

Puppet show - free your kids imagination

My kids not only love going to see puppet shows, but they also like performing at home. We bought a little puppet theatre and we have a basket full of different puppets and stuffed animals. You won't believe how entertaining this can be and where you little one's imagination can take you, or even your imagination. Give it a try. This is guaranteed quality time for the whole family.

And, what does the duck say? "Laaadies aaannnd geeentlemen, take a sit and let the shoooow begiiinnn!"

Children's artwork - where to put it?

I've been talking a lot about Art lately. I can't help it, is one of my favorite subjects. I'm not an artist and I don't have any artistic talent, but I just like it.

As soon as my little ones were big enough to put their fingers in the paint I started buying all kind of art supplies for them. The problem is that my little Picassos are very productive, the "artworks" started piling up pretty soon. And I either don't have the courage to do a proper clean-up or if I decide to do one, then I can be sure that F will suddenly inquire about a specific drawing (read here: a single blue line on a purple paper). And watch out if we don't find it!

At some point, when I couldn't stand seeing all these loose papers dispersed around the house anymore, I decided to buy some boxes to organize the drawings. This has worked out well, but sometimes they like so much their pictures (or mommy thinks they are true masterpieces), they want to see them hanging on a wall (and daddy doesn't think they are really worth hanging in the living room). So here's the solution I found. We've installed a wire in our hallway (see pictures below), that came with two nice little planes to secure it on both ends, where we can hang some of the paintings or drawings. The good thing is that whenever we are tired of one of them or we need some space to put a new one, we can easily change them.

New Museum - Carsten Höller - New experience

New Museum - picture of the façade (from the museum's website)

Today I went with a friend to see a totally different kind of exhibition at the New Museum. It had been a while since I wanted to visit this museum, mainly because of its architecture. The building was completed in 2007 and designed by Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, who won the Pritzker Price in 2010 (this is the equivalent to a Nobel price for Architecture).

The museum is the only one in Manhattan specialized exclusively in contemporary art. By looking at the picture above, you may see that the architecture of the building is quite simple and looks like piled up boxes. Inside is no different. The rooms are white, windowless and spacious. And the museum doesn't have a permanent collection. All these features makes it very attractive for contemporary exhibitions that usually require more space. And this is exactly the case for the one they are currently showing, Carsten Höller: Experience.

The description of the exhibition in the museum's website will explain much better than I will what it's all about. But, basically, the artist wants the public to interact with his art by "experiencing" time and space. So he plays with the viewers senses throughout the whole exhibition. The main works exposed included a carousel, a "Giant Psycho Tank", a fake corridor that would make you dizzy when the walls moved and a huge slide going down from the 4th floor to the 2nd floor. There are also some strange goggles that have mirrors inside, so they make you see everything upside down.

Here's my point of view. The carousel is the opposite of a traditional carousel. It's all white, there is no music and it turns at a very tedious pace - thus quite boring. The tank is a huge white box where you can go inside and float in saline water - I didn't try it so I can't comment on that. But the idea would be that after going there you would feel very relaxed and weightless. We asked a girl that had just been inside and she didn't look very convinced about those sensations. The goggles are interesting, but just for 5 minutes. Finally, the slide is fantastic. It goes very fast and it makes some unexpected turns at some point. Really really fun. It is worth going just for the slide. 

I was telling my friend while we were at the museum that sometimes I have some difficulty to understand contemporary art. I know that artists use Art as a way to express themselves, their feelings, their views on a certain matter or to make us feel something new, look into an object through a different point of view, make us aware of a dysfunction in our modern societies and so on. But I have to confess that I don't always get the artists' messages and I usually feel that their work is a little bit pointless (I'm referring here to current artists).

However, I still want to learn about contemporary art. So here's something that I've been willing to do for some time and I hope I'll start to do soon: visit art galleries that are specialized on the subject, but with someone that understands it and explains it to me. As I said in a previous post, we need to educate our eyes so they can become more sensible and appreciate new forms of Art and sometimes it takes some time and studying. So maybe this is what I've been missing.


The slide between the 4th and 3rd floor with someone inside

Me using the Upside Down Goggles

Playdates - improvise a picnic

Yesterday we hosted another fun playdate. This time it was for P, so a different age range than what we are usually use to (we do more playdates with F's friends). So there were 3 very excited 2 year-old boys plus my always hyperactive F. I had prepare a nice snack for the kids (and the moms of course) and my friends also brought a lot of delicious treats to eat. However, I had completely forgotten that when they are so young they just want to play and they need full supervision all the time. You see, when the kids reach F's age, they also need attention, but you don't necessarily need to be with them all the time. So, you can actually enjoy a nice cup of coffee while the kids are playing around.

So here's a tip that worked really good yesterday. When you have delicious cookies (especially if they come from Levain's bakery, they are amazing) waiting for you on the table, but you can't get to them, bring the food to you. We improvised a great picnic in the kids bedroom. We brought juices, cake, fruit and the famous cookies. The kids loved it and we (the moms) could sweetened our very active tongues. Too bad I have no pictures...

The only picture I remembered to take was when almost all the kids (there's one more cautious missing there) decided to enter into P's crib. Boy, it was a fun afternoon. They all went to bed exhausted and happy.

Books of the week - "This is" series

I was a little bit reluctant about starting a blog. I didn't really know what to talk about, I didn't want to expose my life to strangers, I didn't know if I would have the time and willingness to write frequently and so on. Nonetheless, I decided to give it a try; mainly because I thought that it could bring me some kind of satisfaction. Well, so far, it has been an extremely pleasant activity. I enjoy writing, taking pictures, visiting new places and sharing all this here.

Once I've decided to start something, I always try to give my best at it and with this blog it hasn't been different (unfortunately the result is not always at the same level as the effort to accomplish the goal). Therefore, so far, while preparing my posts, I usually need to do some research. Some posts require more than others but almost all of them have had some background work.

Having said that, today, I discovered a new feature about this blog that got me even more motivated to continue. I can actually learn from it. When I discovered this I was thrilled. I always thought that blogs were a one-way communication tool that we could use to share something (an idea, an experience, a book, a restaurant, etc) with people that we may or may not know. But I never thought I would learn anything new from my own blog.

The subject of this post today is about the series of books "This is (and here usually comes the name of a city or region)", written by Miroslav Sasek. As the title points out, the books are about important cities/regions around the world. I love these books, because even if they are somewhat outdated (they were all written between 1959 and 1974), they still describe very well, with humor and beautiful illustrations the characteristics of all the places that are part of the collection.

The first book of the series I bought, when F was still a baby, was the one about New York. Then I decided to collect all of them. And the way I do it is that whenever we visit one of the places with the kids, I buy the book. Preferably before going, so that we can prepare for the trip and take it with us.

And this is what I learned today: while searching for some covers to illustrate this post, I discovered that there are almost 20 books in this series. I already have 3 and I always thought that there were around 5 or 6 or maybe 10 at most. Okay, you may think, this is not necessarily an extremely relevant information or you probably were already aware of it and you are thinking right now that I'm a complete ignorant. Nonetheless it's new information for me and I wouldn't have known it unless I would have checked Mr. Sasek's website (that I googled and found out, because I had no idea that there was actually a website about him) to write this post. Which brings me to the beginning of this post when I stated that I could learn new things through my blog.

The other important information that I became aware of today is that I need to travel a lot with my children in order to complete our collection. Not a bad problem to have, right?

Weekend highlights

Lollipop lollipop
Oh lolli lolli lolli
Lollipop lollipop.....

You probably all know the tune. This is also the opening and closing song for the Lolli-pops concerts, where we went on Sunday. It is a very engaging show in which they make the audience participate through songs, rhythms and questions, so the kids won't get bored. The one that we attended was about the orchestra. In a very simple way, they presented the different families of instruments that exist in an orchestra and explained how they all work together to create music. They performed from well known children rhymes to Mozart and finished up with a Can-Can dance. I personally think it's a fun way to introduce classical music to children. Who organizes this is The Little Orchestra Society and it has two series of concerts for children: the Lolli-Pops Concerts that are recommended for 3 to 5 year old and the Happy Concerts for Young People that are more appropriate for 6 to 12 year old. I may be new to it, but this not-for-profit organization has been around for 64 years and the Lolli-Pops Concerts have just celebrated their 25th anniversary. The season usually goes from October to April with a series of 5 concerts for the younger and 3 concerts for the Happy Concerts.

For my Brazilian readers, in São Paulo, there's a similar program for children that is absolutely fantastic (imperdível) - TUCCA - Aprendiz de Maestro. These are also educational concerts for children (and grown-ups). The concerts are presented in the beautiful Sala São Paulo (São Paulo's concert hall - see picture below) and they are really well organized and performed. The season usually starts in February and finishes in December, with a series of 10 concerts. We started going with F when he was only 2 and P went for the first time when he was around 6 months. Both my sons used to love these concerts and stayed (almost) quiet for the whole 45 minutes. However, the good thing about this kind of concerts is that since the audience is composed mostly of young children, it is not a problem if your child talks to you to ask you a question or at some points even starts crying (as a courtesy to the other spectators you just go out quietly for some minutes until he/she calms down). In addition, all the money collected from the tickets and products sold (DVDs, CDs, etc) goes to this non-for-profit organization TUCCA which takes care of children with cancer. This was by far one of our favorite activities to do with kids in São Paulo - we actually liked it so much that we tried not to miss any of the concerts, which sometimes meant having to change our plans for the weekend. Give it a try, I'm sure you won't regret it.

Sala São Paulo

 
On another note, on Saturday, as I mentioned in my previous post, F ran the Ronald McDonald Kids Charity Fun Run. It was a lot of fun and since I'm a very proud mom I couldn't not mention this here (I'm going to lower my voice now): F arrived 2nd of his group. But... Shhhh! This was a politically correct race, so there were actually no winners or losers, they all got the same blue ribbon at the end. But, like I said, I'm a very proud mom!

Oh, and have I mentioned how gorgeous the park looks these days? I couldn't help myself and I had to take tens of new pictures...

Have a happy week!