Letter #5

October 2022

Notes from Me

A Short Poem About Housekeeping 

Dispiriting, 

This daily debris 

That accumulates 

Ad infinitum. 

+Reading: I finished Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for Children last week. Reading this essay collection felt like rubbing elbows with colleagues and I loved it. It inspired me to keep up the work/joy of reading with the children in my life. 

With the Boys

+Reading: A Big Mooncake for Little Star by Grace Lin. A favorite right now. This picture book is a modern fable of sorts, depicting the cycles of the moon through a story about a girl and her mother who bake together. It also has stunning illustrations. 

+Listening: to this Jazz Groove Lounge song when we sit down to do school work at the table in the mornings.  

In the Kitchen

+Pumpkin Muffins. There’s more to Autumn than pumpkin spice, but if you’re going to lean into pumpkin, this is one good way to do it. I follow this Smitten Kitchen Pumpkin Bread recipe and it yields 18 muffins / 1 loaf. 

Small Joy 

Hearing my children regale and amuse each other. They have their own long conversations and inside jokes of which I have no part. They run up to me breathless, tripping over each other’s giggles trying to explain something to me (then dash away mid-explanation). File this under more unexpected delights of parenting.

Until next month,

-Susie

P.S. Made me smile: Humpty Dumpty had a great Fall. 

*pictured at the top: a page from a picture book called Chirri and Chirra by Kaya Doi, translated by Yuki Kaneko. It is quirky and charming and the first in a series of several stories.