score!

if it weren't for julie, over at craftknife, i would have never known that our public library was selling all of their cassettes and VHS tapes from the children's department. we support this out-dated media at our house. we have three audio cassette players: one in the car, one on our main stereo, and one in cosmo's room. if we want to copy music from vinyl, which carl has a LOT of, we use cassettes. we have quite a bit of children's music on cassette, so we can play it in the car. we also have a vhs player, and have some of our most beloved movies and shows on VHS tapes.



so, i was excited, and a bit panicked when i heard about the sale, especially since it was already in progress when i saw julie's facebook notice about it. i jumped in the car and headed downtown. carl met me after he dropped cosmo off at PDO. i wanted to make sure i snagged some VHS tapes that we regularly check out for cosmo, which are not available on dvd. titles like mighty machines, and pre-school power. i also grabbed all the magic schoolbus tapes i could find. these educational gems are favorites of cosmo's, and who can resist lily tomlin as ms.frizzle! once i secured these priceless videos, i moved into the books-on-tape section, which had already been picked over by julie, and the other early birds. still though, i found some unexpected treasures.

the reason for a flower is a gorgeous book, with compelling images like these:



and goes a bit deeper than many books for young children, in explaining the ins and outs of pollination.



this one about the four seasons actually made me cry with its description of a young girl experiencing the wonderful subtleties of each seasonal shift.



cosmo's favorite is called mama don't allow. i remember reading this lively swamp tale to a two-year-old, back when i was a nanny, but hadn't seen it since. it makes great use of the audio format, since music figures strongly in the story.

like julie's kids, a big part of the appeal for cosmo is the apparatus of the tape player. he's old enough now to operate it completely on his own, and he can even follow along, and turn the pages of the book at the right time. but he also likes to just listen to the stories, while he does other things quietly in his room.



we also took home some great music (thanks to carl's sharp eye) and some longer books-on-tape that we can save for a road trip, when cosmo's a bit older. at least one of our tapes was too damaged to listen to, which was a disappointment, but considering i got out of there with a huge box of goodies for $20, i am not complaining.



now, if only we can get julie to alert us about those store-wide 50% off sales at the goodwill. BEFORE they happen.

when he jumps, he almost flies...

a snapshot from our trip to the indiana dunes national lakeshore. it's the closest thing to going to the beach for this part of the country. it is strangely similar to the gulf coast, in that the national seashore (the protected land) is bracketed by various industrial plants, so we felt right at home.

this post's title is a line from a song by local composer, malcolm dalglish. he's the same person who wrote "summer dog days."

harmonious

cosmo spontaneously grabbed the harmonica as he took to the keys today. this was my favorite of the clips i shot.

if you haven't already, you can see more videos here.