The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!

I just like to say the words in the title of the new PBS kids show, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!

A few of us bloggers were invited to a celebration of the series launch last night downtown at the Newseum.  I don’t attend many of these launches, premieres, and sponsored events, as I don’t talk about products on this blog.  But I *do* talk about educational experiences, and I’m becoming convinced that this show might just be one. 

I’m getting ahead of myself.

Remember The Cat in the Hat?

Of course you do!  But do you know the NEW Cat in The Hat?  The one who guides children through remarkable science adventures through the natural world in the new books in the Cat in the Hat Learning Library?  We were delighted to discover these books when my oldest was a toddler, and we fell in love.  As he grew, we added more books, and we eventually had a full shelf of these entertaining nonfiction books complementing the original Dr. Seuss books and their flights of fancy.

There’s a book about trees.  There’s one about bees.  There’s one about mammals and camels, and one about miles and miles of reptiles.  We’ve been collecting these as our science museum souveniers, actually, since we love to browse in museum gift shops but don’t want to collect little stuffed animals with t-shirts or pencils and such.  At the Baltimore Aquarium, we bought Wish for a Fish.  We found Oh Say, Can You Say, What’s the Weather Today? at the Maryland Science Center.  As we left SeaWorld after a big day with our cousins last year, we bought A Whale of a Tale.  And at Goddard Space Flight Center, we found There’s No Place Like Space (and yes, they released a second edition when Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet). 

So the books are awesome.

And now, there’s a tv show coming out that brings our beloved Dr. Seuss characters — The Cat, the Fish, Sally, and her new best friend Nick, who lives next door (and strongly resembles her brother Dick, with a darker complexion) — to life!  Yes, yes, I had reservations too, but all of that dissapated the moment the room darkened and the Cat in the Hat spoke.  And it was the Cat!  A grown-up’s voice droned about how happy they were to get Martin Short to voice the role, but all I could hear was The Cat, brought to life just like he is in the books.  The Cat, the Fish, Sally — they’re all there, and they all sound just right.

We were told three guiding principles that the team is following for this new series:  1. The animation must look exactly like the books. 2. The Cat must be a trusted guide, not just a creator of mayhem (like in the first books, as entertaining as they are!).   Interestingly, the Cat isn’t an expert in the books and series.  The Cat in the Hat is still learning — exploring along with the kids. It is an unapologetically educational show, with entertaining characters.  (Point 3. Martin Short.)  The speakers emphasized that the show is not just for science kids.  It’s for ALL kids, and the creators wanted to show regular kids getting excited about science and looking to find the answers. 

I twittered the event last night, as I believe I was the only blogger present, and it was great to receive so many responses to my livetweets, from other moms and dads who grew up with and love the Cat as well.  I think it was a risk for Random House to lisence the characters for animation, but in the end, I’m glad that they did, and that they chose PBS kids as a partner. 

I trust PBS kids.  I trust Random House.  And I trust the legacy of Dr. Seuss, managed so well for so many years by his wife Audery Geisel.  We were told last night that she holds the legacy so dear that she would not allow anyone other than PBS to create animation, and she is quoted as saying, “It pleases me to no end to see our incomparable Cat lead this new millennium of children on a rollicking field trip to learn about the vast wonders of nature. All aboard the Thinga-ma-jigger!”

All aboard the Thinga-ma-jigger indeed!

Before I end, I have to tell you a story I learned last night.  Here’s how I jotted it down, in tweets:

Before his death, Theodore Geisel wanted to use early childhood literature to turn kids on to science.  He even went to NASA to suggest a partnership to bring The Cat’s investigative skills to the world of science — and he got approval!  According to Random House Children’s Books Chip Gibson, there was actualy a plan for joint outreach, with an upcoming NASA probe to Mars to have The Cat in the Hat on the nosecone!  All was in place until … (wait for it) … Dr. Seuss lost his battle with cancer.  All the NASA workers in the project were fired.  The End.

After his death, Audrey Geisel agreed to have the characters continue in the Learning Library series, and I am so glad she did. 

I have a several copies of a new paperback book released with the tv show to giveaway today to my readers.  If you’d like a copy of the book about nocturnal animals, called I Love the Nightlife, or one of the recent hardcover books about reptiles or the weather, leave me a comment and I’ll pick a couple of you at random.  Well, not exactly at random.  If random.org picks your number and I don’t know you from previous comments or events, I’ll pick again.  Disclaimer:  Random House and PBS kids hosted my husband and me at a reception, gave us fruity drinks called Thing One and Thing Two, and sent us each home with a totebag with two new books.  Books make me happy.

This is beautiful.

Fred Scarf, you’re a good one.

What I like most about the CNN story I just linked to is that even though he lost his friend to cancer, 20-year-old Fred decided to take — and took — a positive step to make life better for someone else.  His words are beautiful and inspiring.  And listen to one of the cancer survivors he has helped, 15-year-old Samantha Ashburn: “I don’t know how long I have here. So I want to live it up….” 

It’s funny. Before I got cancer, I would have thought, “how sad.”  But now, I know exactly what she means.  It’s a simple fact of life.  There’s no time to waste — let’s get living!  I forget that sometimes, and get wallowed in the sadness and the anger (which is many times worse when I am tired or in pain, and this week has been awful in that respect).  But I don’t want to live that way.  I don’t want to be remembered that way.  I want to leave more behind than words of sadness.  And more importantly — I want to live my life differently, helping others, as opposed to bringing anybody down with sad words.  I’m not fishing for comments here.  I’m okay.  But I am determined to work through my own list today (my kids are off blueberry picking) and stop the sadness that comes with being so tired.  The fatigue is normal – they call it radiation fatigue for a reason — and I will gain more energy in the weeks and months after I finish treatment.  For now, I’ll do what I can and call it good.

There’s no time to waste — let’s get living!

Cancer makes me angry

Three years ago today, I heard words no 34 year old mom of two should ever have to hear:  you have cancer.

I stared in disbelief, reeling, rejecting the diagnosis even as I heard the words echo in the little room.  Cancer is for older people, like my mother-in-law, still reeling from a cancer diagnosis herself just a week earlier.  in fact, my husband had just returned from helping her through her own biopsy and lumpectomy, halfway across the country.  He held my hand, strong and confident, but I could feel his heart sink next to mine.

The kids — our kids — home with Grammy — what would happen to their childhood?  Would they be sentenced to a babyhood indoors with a sick mama?  Worse — would they grow up without their mama?

So much went through my head in that first moment.  So much worry.  So much fear.  So much … shock.  I had only gone to my ob/gyn in the first place because my baby was still refusing to nurse on the right side.  We had been to his pediatrician time after time, to the lactation consultant weekly, but still, no dice.  My five-month-old baby steadfastly refused to nurse on the right breast.

It turns out that a newborn rejecting one breast is a sign.  It’s called Goldschmidt’s sign.  Here are some other signs that something may be wrong with a breast, and that you should get them checked “to rule out cancer.”

12 signs of breast cancer

I’m now in treatment for a second stage III cancer, or a metastasis of the original inflammatory breast cancer.  It doesn’t matter which one, really, both are hard enough.  The cancer sapped my body of energy over the months it lived in my body, growing and spreading to thirteen lymph nodes under my left armpit.  We had it cut out right away and started radiation.  Treatment is working, but it’s not a cure.  Even the chemotherapy that I start again next month is not a cure.

We need a cure.  Cancer sucks.  We know that.  You know that.  But it still makes me angry, as I sit here in my living room watching my children play, helpless to join them on the floor with their matchbox cars or play catch with them in the yard.  I want my future back.  And it makes me angry.

If cancer makes you angry too, there are things you can do to fight back.  You can raise awareness, by posting a link to reminder for your readers to “check themselves” on your blog today.  You can find out more about research studies that are happening online or in your area, and you can join the Love/Avon Army of Women.  You can take action by joining the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network and making phone calls to your congressional representatives when a cancer issue comes up for a vote.  You can take action on this, in your community and in your world.

We need to.  We need to FIGHT this beast called cancer, before twenty more moms are diagnosed and their lives changed forever.  This isn’t an easy battle, but it’s one I fight every day.

Susan Niebur is an astrophysicist, a mom, and a cancer survivor, blogging her story every day at Toddler Planet and Mothers With Cancer.  This post originally appeared at Mamapedia on 6/24/10; if you haven’t read it there, go check out the comments.  You’ll be amazed.

Museum Mornings: Meadowside Nature Center

This morning we went out with The Moms from our little group. Five of us and our kids met at Meadowside Nature Center for our weekly museum outing, and we had a blast. The kids owned that place, making themselves comfortable in the pioneer home, cuddling up with the quilts, crawling through the kid-sized cave, and paddling along in the hollowed-out canoe, just like the Native Americans used to do. We played in the front room there for nearly two hours, quietly but creatively, and with the spirit of adventure.

I didn’t have to run after them once. This was a very kid-friendly outing, with just the right tools for the kids to use to create house scenes, adventure scenes, pioneer scenes, explore the “wilderness” indoors, and to do it all without a speck of adult intervention. (Minus the one time we had to rescue the pioneer buckets and such from the wilderness cave. I still don’t see the problem, but we do aim to be good neighbors.) The Moms got to sit and talk while the preschoolers played and the two-year-olds explored closer to us. It’s an incredible time for us now — the kids are independent and secure enough to explore nearby, while the moms finally get to sit and share more than a sentence at a time! We even got to hang with friend UrbanMama today — a playdate long in the making!

My mom and dad met us there. I’ve been excited about this trip ever since I talked to them last night and we arranged it (aren’t they wonderful!). It’s so wonderful to see them, even for short periods, and it was special to me that they were willing to meet my friends and see the boys in their native habitat, as it were. After a quick lunch at one of the boys’ favorite places, we were back home for an afternoon of … napping, apparently, as I slept all afternoon for the third fourth fifth day in a row. Sigh. I thought I could make it today, but it was not to be. I was so embarrassed when I woke up at a quarter til five!

But the good thing about family is that they love you anyway. At least, I hope they do!

…

Radiation Status: Day 26 of 35. My oncologist has stopped my treatment due to severe burns and blistering under my armpit. I’m also under orders to not cover the area, which means sleeveless or cut-away shirts for the next week or two. She is allowing treatment to continue on my mastectomy scar only, a different treatment, using electrons at a significantly higher energy (a more intense treatment than what I described recently). So I’ll get more burned, but over a smaller area. I’m still using the biafine cream three times a day, plus a special healing ointment (like neosporin, but gentler) for the blisters and open wounds in my armpit. It stings, like any burn would, but isn’t at all unmanageable.  My radiation techs (Kim, Kerri, Janice, and Pam) say my skin elsewhere is holding up really, really well.  I’m glad.

This morning my  post at Mamapedia goes live; I’m talking over there about how cancer makes me angry. If you’re a regular reader here, you’ve heard the story before. But maybe talking about it over there will reach one mom who has never heard of inflammatory breast cancer, or inspire one more mom to fight.