Awww Trouble

Descriptors

2011-12-05T22:08:00.001-05:00

(OK, so it's January, but I'm so far behind in posting, I'm writing posts and backdating them, but tonight I had to do a book club post, so stuck this in here.)

Since both Elizabeth and Andrew were small, we've looked for short simple phrases or really, one word to describe them and their personalities.

For a long time, pretty much ever since he became mobile, Rich has called Andrew indomitable. And it's true, there's not much holding this guy back. But lately, I've hit on the perfect word: relentless. This boy is relentless when he wants something, and most particularly when he wants attention, especially a response. Which has led to another descriptive phrase: aggressively conversational. Let's just say he cannot be placated with a "not right now" or a "hold on a minute" or even, distressingly, a "shh! quiet in [church/restaurant/any public place that requires quiet moments]."

For now (well other than church or other public places) it's mostly fairly charming, so we just try to give him a specific answer to whatever query and hope he gets distracted by something else. Not that he ever really does, but there's always hope.

--
In Sweetpea news, school continues to go well, and we're confident we made the right decision in having her in a second kindergarten year. She is in a bilingual immersion school, which means one full day in English followed by one full day in Spanish, and so on. For one thing, in Spanish, she is gaining confidence and even says sometimes, let's talk in Spanish. She understands nearly everything said to her in Spanish, and she can recite poems and expressions and sing songs in Spanish. She's still shy about speaking conversationally, but the teachers report her confidence is growing. And, she's quickly picking up reading in Spanish. It's nice Spanish is more phonetic than English, though some sounds (like J, which makes an h-ish sound rather than the English "juh") are harder than others.

A couple of other parents have mentioned to me they want to talk about how we decided to put her in this grade. The birthday near the cut off is so hard - we initially decided to push her ahead because she was so confident, and verbal, and seemed ready. But the child we saw at school events was quiet, reserved, and in the background, often non-participatory, whereas at home (and with neighborhood friends) she was loud, assertive, and very much in charge. Now, though, her English teacher tells us that sometimes she is non participatory, because she is more mature than many of the kids and doesn't want to do silly things. But overall, we can see she is more confident in class and we think benefits from being on the older side. But who knows. I think she would have been fine either way, and we're glad we have this opportunity to have her experience something new this year. Overall, the teachers (at this school and her previous school) report she is a happy, confident girl who is quick to make friends and easily moves amongst groups of friends.
--
I sometimes look at both E and A and wonder how their personalities will continue to develop and what kinds of kids they will be, and compare to what kind of kids both Rich and I were. Somehow I think (and I hope!) they will have an easier path than Rich and I did. Though it's not like anyone really enjoys the middle school years.

In the Myers-Briggs world, Rich is an ISTJ, and I am an ESTP, which means we have fairly similar personalities except Rich is an introvert and I am an extrovert. Though, for both the S and P I score so close to the middle it's hard to really say. And, I first took the assessment when I was a senior in college, and my extrovert score was nearly off the charts. In the (gulp) decades since, I've officially taken the assessment another 3 or 4 times and each time my extrovert score slides closer and closer to introvert. Now, I'm close to an ambivert. It's far too early to tell for E and A, of course. Rich has a more classic scientist/engineer type profile, and while I emphasize the arts at this point for E&A, I have to admit I really hope they both have a more analytic, science-minded focus.

We'll see. The fun is in the journey, right? Right? Isn't that right? Don't you think so? Are you listening? Did you hear my question? Do you think so? Whoops, sorry, channeling Andrew's relentless queries there for a sec.

Are you an introvert or extrovert? Author Susan Cain explores how introverts can be powerful in a world where being an extrovert is highly valued. Join From Left to Write on January 19 as we discuss Quiet: The Power of Introverts by Susan Cain. We'll also be chatting live with Susan Cain at 9PM Eastern on January 26. As a member of From Left to Write, I received a copy of the book. Fascinating, though I haven't finished reading yet! All opinions are my own.

Happy birthday Little Guy!

2011-11-26T22:30:00.001-05:00

Little guy was very excited his birthday was on a holiday - Thanksgiving Day. Elizabeth was jealous - why does he get to have his birthday on a holiday and I had to have my birthday on a Tuesday!

The weekend before his birthday we had a few friends over and a small celebration.

The little guy's favorite dessert is pumpkin pie, so of course we had to celebrate with his favorite.

On his actual birthday we were with Rich's side of the family.

He enjoyed being the center of attention.

And he really liked the Thomas cake!

Sometimes we get it right

2011-11-20T15:56:00.003-05:00

Ok, well, NaBloPoMo was a bust this year, and once again I have a creative excuse. Last year it was a kidney infection, the year before it was the cold that never, ever, went away over 3 months. This year it was walking pneumonia! What can I possibly come down with next year?

But, at least one thing went right this fall. I was stressing over what, if any, activity to choose for them over the winter, and finally decided to just go for gymnastics. Sure, it's a hike to get there, and a pain in the middle of a Saturday, but this is one time I can confidently say we got it right. Elizabeth LOVES it. No more soccer for her. We're going to stick with gymnastics or dance from here on out. Andrew thinks it is fun and all, but the truth is he'd really rather be playing a ball sport. But it works, and it's fun for them to be in class at the same time. So just two quick videos from the rope swing.

Trophy Day, part II

2011-11-17T22:01:00.000-05:00

Elizabeth got her soccer trophy last weekend, and when we told Andrew he was going to get a trophy, too, he was beside himself with joy and excitement. And then soccer day was cold and rainy, and it looked like the handing out of the trophies would be canceled. At the last minute, someone offered up their office, which was close to the soccer field. But it caused a huge rush to get there and many families didn't make it. I'm thankful we could - Andrew was so happy.

He took the picture of the waiting trophies.

There are a few kids who are almost as small as he is, but in this picture he is soooo much smaller than the other kids! He so loves it though. Can't wait to see Coach Pablo in the spring!

Wordless Wednesday - movie night

2011-11-16T23:56:00.002-05:00

Movie night = cuddle time

A Misked-up Stragety

2011-11-15T23:21:00.001-05:00

Rich here again. Gotta give Susan at least a couple of breaks during the hell, er, experience that is NaBloPoMo. I also like to blog about things I find funny or interesting before they slip out of my head like a random piece of spaghetti through a strainer. (Man, I *hate* it when that happens! The spaghetti, I mean.)

I asked Andrew this morning if he wanted a snack. Without delay, he said he wanted some "misk" and pointed at the part of the counter where we keep cereal, chips, snacks, and bread. I did not want to show him how flummoxed I was at the request, so I paused and said "Sorry, little guy, I didn't hear you. Can you tell me again what you want?" Without delay "Misk. Misk." With more pointing at the counter. As I frantically, yet calmly so as not to alarm the ever-observant boy, scan the counter I spot this:

"Misk" = Mix

"Oh, the mix! Good job, little guy."

Before I give him the mix, though, I decide that I need to correct this issue of pronunciation. We spend the next 2-3 minutes repeating back and forth: "Mix, little guy." "Misk" "Mix, little guy" "Misk" "Mix" "Misk" "No, little guy, mi-kuh-sss" "Mi-sss-kuh" Finally, after pronouncing every letter several times, with the emphasis on the "x," Andrew says "mi-kuh-sss." He was very proud of himself.

At dinner later that evening, we were in a restaurant with moderately loud music (great Mexican food though and a locally owned place) and I told Susan the story from this morning and said, "Andrew got it. Right little guy? Mix!" And I hear him repeat it, "Mix." "That's right little guy, mix!"

To which Susan says, "Uh, he's saying 'misk'."

I look at my boy, who is grinning with pride from ear to ear. I smile and say "Good job, little guy."

So, there is an "apple doesn't fall far from the tree" story here. In 6th grade I had a great history teacher. He really challenged me, more than many of my teachers prior to that had, and did it in a way that made you feel more mature, even adult-like. I was answering a question in class about the Germans in WWII, and I started to respond, "Their stragety was to..." Before I could get the rest of the answer out, my teach says, "What? Stragety?" And the exchange goes something like:

"Yes, their stragety was..."

"Strategy"

"Uh, yes, stragety"

"No, strategy"

"Stragety"

"Stra-te-gy"

"Stra-ge-ty?"

"Stra-TE-gy"

"Stra-te-gy?"

"Yes, strategy"

"Strategy. Uh, their stra-te-gy was..."

Now, I'm not bragging, but I was one of the top students in my elementary school class. This could have potentially been seriously damaging to me since I also had a fragile ego. But, it turned out that the other kids in the class kind of bonded with me a bit, as if to recognize that I wasn't an academic robot, that I was human and could make mistakes. And, I learned a little lesson about myself - that it's ok to make mistakes and learn from them and that my teachers are truly here to help.

Hopefully both E & A will have that realization some day. And, no Baby Bush jokes, please...

Skipper the Fast

2011-11-14T21:21:00.000-05:00

Here's a video from June of me ignoring my persistent daughter in favor of watching Skipper off leash. This little dog is fast - I took this video after she'd been running around a while, so she's actually slowed down here.

I've been doing a run/walk program with my friend Libbie in the mornings and bringing Skipper along. I have to say this morning time in the park is probably the best thing we've done for Skipper. For a while I was dragging her along and feeling like I was asking too much of her, but lately I've been letting her off leash and been amazed by her. She tracks along, running circles around us. She'll run to greet other dogs, but always comes back when called, without too much delay. I definitely do not have full control over her, which makes me nervous in a city park, but she is far better than I ever would have expected, and she obviously recognizes that she is to listen to me.

This has given her a lot of confidence. She still hides a fair bit, and is still frightened of Rich, but she'll actually come out when people are around. She's just still so skittish and nervous, but she's made amazing progress in 10 months. We seem to have turned the corner on housebreaking (I hope I haven't just jinxed it!). She's just obviously my dog, and I'm excited to work more with her.

But, like any dog, she's got her odd quirks. Her great love is socks. Socks that have been worn by me, or actually anyone. She snags them out of the dirty clothes (we have to bury them under other clothes) and hides them in her bed, and occasionally snacks on them til they are ruined.

And, the best news of all? Finally, finally, finally, we have won the battle of the fleas. Whew!

Choco-mouths

2011-11-13T22:41:00.002-05:00

I have no idea why kids get a ring of chocolate around their mouth when eating chocolate ice cream. Choco-mouth is a term of endearment in our house.

Today was a FULL day - we left the house at 8:30 this morning (thank goodness my sister is staying here this weekend and was able to help with the kids) to make it to Gaithersburg for a Girls on the Run 5K in which our niece and my brother were running, then my mom and I ventured to Toys R Us (with Andrew) while the rest of the crew went to my brother's house, then we went to the ice rink for our nephew's hockey game, then a pitstop for ice cream, then back to my brother's to watch the Raven's game, before making it home just before 7 pm. E&A were exhausted, which resulted in a rather unpleasant bathtime experience. Can't wait til Rich gets home!

trophy day

2011-11-12T22:41:00.001-05:00

Today was Elizabeth's next to last soccer game - next week is a make up from a rain date. Since today was a nice (though freezing!) day, Coach Eric decided to hand out the team trophies today.

It's a nice trophy - and I honestly think her last one from soccer. Thanks to Coach Eric and Coach Janet for putting up with a lot this year (and for being so nice to Andrew, too, hanging out there on the right).

a groupie is born

2011-11-11T23:33:00.001-05:00

Here's an old one from the summer.

Do you watch PBS kids shows? If so, you know SteveSongs. Inbetween the shows, to fill the 30 minutes, this guy named Steve, who always wears a red shirt, sings songs. They're catchy and fun. So when I saw that he was performing at Wolf Trap's Theater-in-the-woods, and there was another show - an African storyteller - before him, and the shows were two for the price of one, I decided we had to go.

It was like 1000 degrees that day, and it's a theater in the woods. We actually got there early and staked out a seat in the front row.

And when he walked out on stage, Elizabeth turned to me and said, hey, I know him from TV! And insisted I take her picture with him in the background, and then snatched the camera and took 45 other pictures of him performing.

And she kept tugging at my arm and asking how we could talk to him, and how we could meet him, and how great he was. He called a couple of kids on stage with him throughout the show, and then near the end sang a song and invited ALL the kids onto the stage. Bliss. There were so many kids I couldn't get a picture of Elizabeth up there.

And then they announced he'd be signing autographs and selling CDs and meeting fans after.

So of course we had to buy a CD.

He was really great, and said he remembered her from the audience and he saw her in the front row. He recognizes kids just freak out when they're in front of him, so he asks them to tell him a joke. (she managed to choke out the interrupting cow, which he countered with the interrupting starfish)

Both Elizabeth and Andrew loved the entire experience. But Elizabeth REALLY loved it, and turned out to develop an intense love of the song she sang on stage. The song is called Shapes, but it's the chorus that is burned into my brain: line line circle circle square square square square triangle triangle.

Elizabeth loves to listen to the CD on the CD player in the dining room. We'll listen all the way to the shapes song, then she plays the shapes song over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. Until one of us snaps and makes her move on, which usually results in an argument.

We saw the show about a week and a half before we went on vacation and rented a small (very small - like the smallest possible house ever) beach house with our long-time friends Chris and Tricia and family. So they also were subjected. I can't remember exactly what happened, but at some point late in the vacation we saw a band perform. I'm going to have to get Rich or Chris or Tricia to remind me of what exactly happened or what the band was, cause I am drawing a blank and can't even imagine when in the world we would have seen a band - Oh, got it, last day, Blueberry festival (where the blueberries are trucked in from NJ), also 1000 degrees outside and some poor Irish band (? Chincoteague is a weird place) playing under a tent, and the group of us sweating to death under a tree sucking on rapidly melting snocones. Anyway, Chris leans over and says in his deadpan dry way, huh, I wonder if they know line line circle circle. So yeah, the CD made quite an impression.

But the songs are clever, and catchy, and he is a super nice guy. As with anything with kids (or at least E and A) there's a cycle in interests and this week we've been listening to the CD a lot. A knows all the words now and sings along enthusiastically, and E's desperate love of line line circle circle has lessened to a tolerable level.

I saw he's performing at Jammin Java in February, so we might go. $15 a ticket gets steep, but it would be worth it.

And Theater-in-the-woods? We had a good time. Steve was great, and so was the storyteller. If they have the deal of two shows for the price of one (and that one is priced at $8), I'd totally go again. Though, there were some stressful things. We staked out this good seat in the front row, right? But it was 1000 degrees and so not like we had anything on us except a snack bag and my bag. Thankfully E did not have to go to the bathroom, because saving our seats would have stressed me out. As it was, A was STARVING, and they only allow you to drink water in the actual "theater" part - step onto the path leading to the theater and you can eat whatever. So I had to take A 20 feet onto the path, keep my eye on E who was tasked with saving our seats, and urge A to choke down his cheesestick as quickly as possible. Stressful. Also, let's just be honest, sitting in an amphitheater for two hours sweating is not entirely my idea of a great time. There was a lot of downtime between the shows, and they didn't start on time. But for the cost, it was great, and now we've got a little budding groupie on our hands.

not quite over Halloween

2011-11-10T21:10:00.000-05:00

Years ago, Elizabeth got a set of Charlie Brown books, covering all the famous TV holiday specials. Lately we've been reading the Halloween book, and tonight the set was scattered across her bed.

Andrew picked up the book, and flipped it over to look at the cover, and gasped.

"Look!" he said accusingly. "At Snoopy and the bird. They are dressed like witches!"

I'm not sure italics quite captures the scorn and disapproval in his voice. Maybe it's time for a little lesson on pilgrims and Thanksgiving.

KGDC

2011-11-09T22:42:00.002-05:00

My friend KG has made an appearance or two over at AwwwClutter, but I don't think I've ever written about her on AwwwTrouble.

The funny thing about me and KG is that we are both into social media, but in totally different fora - I blog and facebook, and she twitters follow her at KGDC1 and yelps and foodspots and blogs at GirlMeetsFood and I don't even know what all else. This means we miss out on too much of each other's lives (though she keeps me up to date by emailing me some of her good stuff). I half-heartedly encourage her to join facebook, knowing it would never be her thing. She is working me hard on twitter, though, and has almost got me. I just need some spare time to set it up.

In October, she and I hightailed it out of town for one of our rare all-day outlet trips. And she insisted that we eat a real lunch, at a real restaurant - and I am so glad she did.

Here's her review on Yelp of our fabulous lunch at Vintage 50. I don't know how, but I have got to get to that restaurant again. Rich would love it, and they did have an appealing kids menu. So another outlet trip must be in my near future.

And months ago she sent me a link to one of her twitter friends who also blogs (yes, another tab I have had opened within my browser for months that I can close!). Together, they came up with a Dirty Dozen Ways to Assimilate to DC. Not sure I can add anything to that list.

KG also told me that her mom is volunteering at the Botanic Gardens at Christmas, so maybe we can see a friendly face this year when we go.

I should get her to do a guest post sometime. Oh, I know exactly when. KG is a native of DC, lived here her whole life except for college at Miami. And, she has never had a soft shelled crab. Never. I am agog at this news. So I've promised her the next time my parents are in town during soft shell season, she is getting one with them. Absolutely.

What to do next?

2011-11-08T23:00:00.000-05:00

Fall semester activities are drawing to a close, and we need to plan for winter/spring. This stuff makes me crazy. They both want to do extra activities, so we have to balance the right activities among two kids, sorting out dates, figuring out what their friends are going to do, and what is affordable and reasonable from a time perspective.

Should we do gymnastics this winter? On the plus side, there are classes for E and A at the same time, and we think they'd both really enjoy it. On the other hand, the class is a drive away, in another neighborhood entirely, so none of their friends would be in class, and we probably wouldn't continue much beyond one or two classes, so is it really worth it?

We didn't do dance for E in the fall in favor of soccer, which was maybe a bit of a mistake. Can we join dance (which switched to a year-round calendar rather than semesters) in January? But if we do that, how do we fit in gymastics?

And they really do need swimming lessons - two friends of E's take swimming at a local place, but the class is Wednesday afternoons at the same time as A's soccer, which we'll definitely do in the spring again. There's an expensive swim class on Sunday afternoons we could join in the early spring with classes for both E and A at the same time, but it's pricey and do we want to drive across the city ever Sunday afternoon at 5 pm? There's a rec center swim class that's super cheap, but we've found with the rec centers you get what you pay for.

E's new school, as a start up, doesn't have a music program and she is definitely musical. At 6, should we start her on music lessons? Piano? We think so, but when will we fit that in, and what will she practice on? Can we buy a piano? Where the hell would it go? (I have A Plan, Rich is skeptical.)

So does that mean she'll be doing religion school, plus dance, plus swimming, plus piano? That is too much. Maybe we skip dance, but add piano? Hold on piano til next fall, when she's 7, and add dance back in?

And what about t-ball? Realistically, t-ball will only happen if Rich and I decide to coach. E is only kinda into t-ball, but A could play next year. Should we be a part of building a team now so that A can play next year?

A right now is easy - he'll keep his music class, and start up spring soccer, and we'll squeeze in swim lessons at some point. But it's clear that A's skill set is firmly in the sports section. If this continues, we're looking at years of soccer and t-ball and any other sport we can squeeze in, while meanwhile he also is interested in music, too. In addition to the three years separating the two, which puts them in very different age categories for most activities, right now it also looks like they're going to want to do entirely different activities.

Bottom line, this is the stuff that makes my head ache.

Fall walks

2011-11-07T21:58:00.001-05:00

One of our friends, and Elizabeth's soccer coach, recently celebrated a birthday and his twin 6 year old sons wouldn't let it pass without a party. So we all gathered in the park and went on a fall walk.

Elizabeth started the afternoon less than thrilled.

But things picked up once the walk began.

And bugs were spotted.

And weird growths on trees were found.

And walking sticks (and hitting sticks) were discovered.

The road is closed to cars on weekends, so it wasn't quite a walk IN the woods, but it was a safe and easy walk for kids.

Not to mention beautiful.

last bit of halloween cuteness

2011-11-06T22:02:00.000-05:00

Can't resist getting one last post out of Halloween. E and A during trick or treating at the office.

Halloween

2011-11-05T23:07:00.000-04:00

Unlike last year, we had a fairly tame Halloween. I don't know whether to feel relieved or rejected, but in retrospect it was nice not to be so booked up.

So just a few images. Rich's (and now my) office does a trick or treat for kids, so that kicked off our festivities. E and A really look forward to this, as there's a lot of attention focused on them and some high quality candy. We go them dressed in Rich's office and he let E draw on a corner of his whiteboard. (it says I had a gift, plus she labeled herself "me").

The company has three buildings and we're based in the hinterlands. I got a little work in while RIch took them to the main building, where there was a DJ and more games.

E wearing Daddy's infamous horns he bought many years ago at some festival.

I thought hse was just going to want to be a princess again, but in the month before Halloween she expressed some different ideas. I popped in the thrift store by my house in mid-September and scored this mermaid outfit as well as Andrew's horse costume. You've got to buy Halloween stuff early to get the best costumes. While last year her dress reminded me of a wedding dress, with the fluffing and the arranging, this year we moved into the evening gown portion. There were times when I actually felt this outfit might be a little too slinky.

And the gang - E and A with their neighborhood friends. Pink princesses dad was telling me about how she insisted on makeup, as did E. We agreed that there was an age when makeup on little girls was not a good idea, but at 6 it was still cute.

And by the end of the evening, the old Elvis mask made an appearance.

What Happens at Home on Mom's Night Out

2011-11-04T23:52:00.001-04:00

Rich here. Been a while. Anyone missed me? :D

Ever wonder what happens on Mom's Night Out? Everyone probably gets the scoop from their spouses when they get home. Or not, depending on whether the Dad's want to actually reveal that they fed the kids too much sugar and sent them to bed an hour later than they are supposed to. That is not what happened here, but in the NaBloPoMo spirit, I thought I would make a contribution that is timely.

6:45 PM I walk A home from picking up dinner (Chinese from around the corner). I mention that Mommy is going out tonight. A's response: "Awww. I'm going to miss her." I say he should tell that to Mommy before she leaves.

7:15 PM Mommy leaves. Kids have eaten really well and behaved so they get dessert. E gets her two pieces of Halloween candy out of her pumpkin before I can even say that is what she should do. A mysteriously selects a cheese & crackers snack - the ones with the little red plastic stick. Odd boy.

7:40 PM Kids have built a fort in the living room out of pillows while I cleaned up after dinner. I used to love doing that as a kid with my brother & sister. They make ghost sounds with E saying "Go Back!!!!" Which is imprinted on a fake rock that we have as a decoration, so can only assume she read it. I take a picture and go upstairs to get pajamas since I am treating them to a movie in the living room.

7:42 PM I'm downstairs. E says "Andrew is poopy! Ewww it's stinky!" A is wearing underpants. I am thrilled. Consider texting Susan to share in my plight but I'm a grown man and can handle without disturbing her evening.

7:45 PM A repeatedly stating "It's easy peasy" referring to how easy it will be to clean up. I am not as optimistic. Biggie wiggie messy wessy.

8:00 PM A gets cleaned up and bathed and insists that he still has to poop. Sit him on toilet on kids seat. E decides she needs to read him some stories to help him focus, but, after about 10 mins, to no avail. At some point during the bath, A states "I went to the Tenleytown library today." "You did?" I ask quizzically. "Yes, on the bus." "Oh. With [babysitter's name]?" "Yes" "And her friend?" "Yes" "And [A's little friend that lives up that way]?" "No." "Oh, with whom?" "With [another friend's name that I do not know]" "Oh. Ok. Was it fun?" "Yes". I decide that I need better knowledge regarding these children with whom my son is fraternizing.

8:10 PM We're settled in the living room. Popcorn is popped and movie is on. For next 1 hr 10 mins, we blissfully watch "The Aristocats." Cute movie. A methodically shoving popcorn into his mouth. Both E and A doing a good job of sharing. I ask E if our cat, Harrison, can do any of the tricks the cats can do in the movie. "Daddy, it's only pretend!"

9:20 PM 20 mins later than bedtime, but did not want Poop-gate to affect the movie-watching time. I walk A into the kitchen to get drink of water (salty popcorn). He sees a shadow on our floor in the shape of something odd. He exclaims, "What the *heck* is that?!" Nice to know my son listens to me.

9:30 PM Teeth brushed. E exclaiming she's not tired. Typical night for her. A comments that he is a sleepy boy and is ready for bed, which he goes into happily. E draws a picture involving several coffee mugs. I know not why and did not want to discuss. She states that she wants our dog, Skipper to sleep with her. This is usually a bad idea. Dog not quite housetrained and has a few "favorite spots" on E's floor.

10:00 PM I relent on dog issue and take dog out for very brief walk in front of house. Dog does her thing and I give her to E. E puts her in bed with her and falls asleep within 10 mins.

10:15 PM Both kids asleep. I do load of laundry (poop clothes!), pour myself a beer (New Belgium Trippel - yum!) and watch a little ESPN Friday Night Football. Ahhhh.

10:45 PM Susan comes home with a lovely gift of butter chicken which I taste and I give her the rundown you have just read.

That's it! Uneventful in the grand scheme of things. But never a dull moment.

- Rich

What is the name of his horse, take 2

2011-11-03T19:19:00.000-04:00

Take 2 - second try with the video. Can you see it? And decipher what he is saying?

I actually spent a few minutes at work looking at the wikipedia page on Backyardigan episodes. What did we do before wikipedia? Anyway, they've variously called horses Old Paint, and there was an episode with a horse called Toronado, but it seems to be a dead end.

What is the name of his horse?

2011-11-02T23:09:00.004-04:00

For once, I actually captured something timely on video, and ~~Blogger is semi-cooperating and letting me post it.~~ Blogger hates me and my videos. It took a LONG time to upload this stupid 37 second video to blogger, and then for some reason it showed up twice. And I watched both versions, and decided not to delete one or the other to max my chances, and yet today, it's gone. AUGH. I can see them in the editing view, so I have NO idea of why this isn't working, but will try agin tonight. Dammit. It is cute.

I have no idea why his horse is named Randin Road. Radin Road. Something road (the troad in this video has never been heard before, I think he was kidding with me.). Initially, this summer, for a brief period all horses were named this, but he's settled on this horse with this name. I kinda feel like he might have picked it up from The Backyardigans, and feel like I need to watch all the horse episodes to figure it out, and while I love me some Backyardigans, I've not mustered the energy, and that might be a wild goose chase anyway. Any other guesses out there?

another November

2011-11-01T22:22:00.000-04:00

Well, another November brings another NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month. 30 days, 30 posts. At least that's the goal. Like 2009, I start NaBloPoMo with a nasty cough. Fingers crossed that unlike 2009, this is just a passing cough and won't last all month long. I'll start strong tomorrow with the Halloween recaps, and I have some good videos if BLogger will cooperate, and there's always catching up from the summer, and this year my blogging friends have devised some helpful prompts, and I've also missed the last two books from the book club. So no shortage of posting intentions. But tonight, the Nyquil is about to kick in, and I'm double dosing with Delsym, and triple dosing with hot water, lemon and honey, so hoping to start fresh tomorrow morning. Happy NaBloPoMo reading!

Andrew-isms

2011-10-24T15:46:00.000-04:00

On your Mart!
Et Set!
GO!

--

Rock-a-my-baby
on the tree top....

--

meeny meeny meeny moe
catch a pie-a atta go

I pick - YOU!

--

Lightning The Queen

(we saw Cars and Cars2 this summer, but sadly, this one has just changed to the correct Lightning McQueen)

--

And, finally, why are all horses (that is his horses: stuffed animals, or pretend horses) named Radin Road? Or is it Randin Row? Rowdin Row? Rambling Road?

We've been through every possible interpretation of what he says with him, but he just gets frustrated and repeats RADIN ROE! Or whatever it is he says. Must get this one recorded before it too is gone.....

Now We Are Six

2011-09-26T23:03:00.000-04:00

When I was One,
I had just begun.

When I was Two,
I was nearly new.

When I was Three
I was hardly me.

When I was Four,
I was not much more.

When I was Five,
I was just alive.

But now I am Six,
I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

- A.A. Milne

Happy 6th birthday to our determined, feisty, clever, funny, beautiful, stubborn, confident, opinionated, lovely best girl.

Six is great. And we can't wait for Seven, and Eight, and Nine, and Ten........

guilty pleasure - old movies

2011-09-26T22:49:00.001-04:00

One of my quirks is that I like to have some sort of noise on around me - a radio, the TV, something. I'm a person who walks into a room and immediately turns on the TV, whether I actually want to watch something or not. It's a bad habit, one I try to moderate, especially now with kids. Before we got satellite TV I could listen, as background, to the weather channel for hours (before satellite because the satellite doesn't pick up the local weather on the 8s, which is really annoying). Before Headline News changed I could listen to that 30 minutes cycle over and over. In the car I often veg out to WTOP, though not NPR (surprisingly as a member of the liberal (pseudo-)intellectual environmentalist elite NPR really kind of annoys me). It's really just the background noise that I like, and I strongly prefer it be live rather than a DVD or a music CD or an Ipod. Even now, at work with my yawning, snorting, chewing office mate I listen to a live radio stream rather than my large Itunes collection.

One of the things I most like is TCM - Turner Classic Movies. My love of old movies comes from my mom. I so remember the first time I saw Gaslight, an Ingrid Berman classic, with her. She always has loved sharing old movies with me (my brother was never much interested in old black and whites). Back in the day when Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz were once a year specials on broadcast TV they were must watch nights in our house. And I distinctly recall watching, as a family, The Sting, and how my parents watched my brother and me, not the movie, as the ending was revealed - and how open-mouthed with surprise both Michael and I were.

Elizabeth has discovered me a couple of times this summer - after she's come in from a playdate or when I'm cooking dinner - with an old movie on from TCM, and it's tickled me to no end to watch her get engrossed in some light, frothy 50s or 60s movie, often a musical. She likes Judy Garland and has seen parts of an Elvis movie or two (or three or four) and a couple of other summer time beach blanket fare. Generally color movies, generally musicals, and she's been captivated. I think they make her feel grown up to watch, and like my mom before me I get a kick out of her enjoying something that I really enjoy.

TCM in the summer time (in August?) does a special they call something like the summer of stars or a month of stars - in a 24 hour period, showing 12+ classic movies featuring a particular actor. When I think of it (which is not often), I'll check it out and see who is featured and if there are any movies I want to catch, or any that might be suitable for Elizabeth to watch part. When Elizabeth Taylor died, I had to check out TCM because I knew they had to do a movie marathon, and I've not seen as many of her movies as I'd like (Suddenly, Last Summer -? Go watch that movie Right NOW - one of the best movie entrances of all time, by one of my favs, Katharine Hepburn). Of course there was no time to watch, and no space on our DVR, but I did manage to catch part of Cleopatra, which I'd never seen before.

Holy smokes! Is that movie crazy! I actually only saw the Queen's entrance into Rome, but it was so over the top I had to record just that bit and show it to Rich and Elizabeth (and Andrew, who didn't care). Definitely one to put on my must watch list - a couple of years in the future.

All I can say is, I cannot wait for Elizabeth to be old enough to watch My Fair Lady together!

In Cleopatra: A Life, Stacy Schiff digs into the history books to share with us who the true Cleopatra was. As a member of From Left to Write book club, I received a copy of this book for review. You can read other members posts inspired by Cleopatra: A Life on book club day, September 27th at From Left to Write. Given the past couple of weeks, I sadly have not even cracked the spine of the book, but I am soooo looking forward to it (I haven't even touched on my Egyptology fascination thanks to Elizabeth Peters). So this is not quite the post I wanted to write, but sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do, right?

hell week

2011-09-26T14:45:00.001-04:00

I"ve long had last week circled in my calendar. Hell week. Every fall activity beginning, plus a birthday and a handful of other activities means we're all exhausted today. But it was fun.

So here's our fall schedule, along with the extras from last week:

Monday- Elizabeth soccer practice
Tuesday - School Of Religion for Elizabeth, and the first week was a family mass followed by potluck. But not potluck dinner. As exhausting as that would have been, at least we'd have gotten fed. No, it was potluck snacks at 5 pm. This week it's the opening ceremony for SOR. For the love of god (literally), can we just get this thing going?
Wednesday - morning, Andrew's music class, afternoon, Andrew's soccer class

Then, last week Thursday was parent association meeting in the morning at Elizabeth's school, and of course Elizabeth's birthday (post to come!). Friday was the co-op sale that my friend TSM runs (post to come on AwwwClutter!). Saturday is usually Elizabeth's soccer game, but it was mercifully cancelled because of wet fields, so we had more time to prep for our supposedly easy neighborhood happy hour / birthday party. Saturday night Elizabeth hosted her first ever sleepover, as a special birthday treat, with a her friend who lives down the street. The girls stayed up til midnight and woke up at 7 am.

Sunday the neighborhood was shut down because of the Latino festival that takes place one block from our house, and brings something insane like 30,000 people to our little neighborhood, shutting down all streets around us.

Oh, and let's not forget another parent snagged Rich one morning at school and asked if we could bring snacks for the week, then sent us a page-long rules of snacks (no artificial colors! no Nuts! no dairy!) that sent us off to two different stores and boiling 24 eggs and lugging three giant bags of snacks into school last week.

And then let's talk about our plague. Of fleas. Which meant a previously unscheduled, 2-hour, expensive trip to the vet during the week, and a full day Sunday of flea control measures. Frontline, you ineffectual crap product, I hate you and your expensive price tag with a passion! There was simply no time to go 100% on flea control before Sunday - when Rich did 7 loads of laundry (none of them clothes!) and bathed both pets and I read up on fleas and combed both pets and swept and swept and swept. The only good news is we have a new product for Skipper and an entirely different new product for Harrison so maybe, just maybe, after an entire summer of battling fleas (I cannot believe I am admitting our flea problem, but let me just make it clear we have been AGGRESSIVELY battling fleas since mid-July, and none of measures worked because our main line of defense - Frontline - only managed to DO NOTHING, but we have been combing and bathing and washing and flea bombing and doing everything we are supposed to do to no avail) maybe we will finally turn the corner and gain mastery over them. Or, it will finally get cold and no longer so humid and the cycle will end for the year. One or the other.

So that's why we all struggled out of bed this morning bleary-eyed. To start it all over again this week with the soccer and the religion and the soccer and so on. But we made it through, a more regular schedule starts this week, and the humidity is finally scheduled to break, so maybe fall has really begun now.

If it's fall it must be soccer

2011-09-19T16:33:00.000-04:00

Elizabeth started taking a soccer clinic when she was 4. It met once a week, and basically it was just a series of fun drills. This year, now that she’s going to be 6, she’s ready for soccer league. Soccer leagues apparently have their own little code language and traveling teams and blah blah blah that I am only just beginning to be frightened of learning. But whatever, bottom line she’s on a team coached by a friend of ours, they practice at the park right by our house, and it’s all friendly and low key, oh, except that we are scheduled to the max every.single.Saturday.morning.through.November. Yeah, that little thing of adjusting your whole life around your kid’s activities. Welcome to the next 16 years of our lives.

Which reminds me, one of my child-free friends asked me a question about some activity one evening and I replied, can’t, school night. Which caused her to bust a gut laughing and she said, oh, I haven’t thought of schools nights in years. Yeah. Haha. Me either.

Anyway, now we’re on an actual team, with uniforms, and cleats, and shin guards, and games. Wow. They don’t keep score, there’s no out of bounds, and they play 4x4, with no goalie.

Here’s the team.

And here’s the first game, with Daddy/Andrew cheering from the sidelines. The first 5 minutes of the game were definitely a highlight – it was a whirling dervish of kids and the ball, utter chaos at a fast pace until they burnt the excess energy and settled in to a level of moderate chaos.

Elizabeth had a nice dribbling run at one point, but overall was not a fan of games. “But there’s only 1 ball! And we all have to chase it!” That, plus a mid September cold spell which made the tip of her nose numb left her not loving soccer, though she is a huge fan of the cleats. But, she still likes soccer, and is looking forward to practice tonight.

And then there’s Andrew. Poor little guy has ben carted along to Elizabeth’s activities since he was a newborn, and has in general been a trooper, though a fairly disappointed trooper when forced to remain on the sidelines. Even though the clinic starts at age 3, I knew I had to get him into it this fall. Because, as we all know, Andrew is a ball guy. Anything and everything to do with sports thrills him to no end. He wants to play.

Once Elizabeth started school and her activities kicked in, he’s been asking every day when his soccer class and music class starts. Not yet, little guy, but soon – next week, we’d reply, leaving him a little bit crushed. So I woke him up in the morning by whispering, guess what today is? Soccer day! Which caused him to leap up. He desperately wanted to wear his soccer outfit all day, but the shirt is white, and his nanny told him he needed to wear another shirt and change into his soccer shirt before practice. This did not go over well, and he sulked for a bit.

Rich and I both took off work for his first soccer practice, and as I drove he and Elizabeth to practice, he made up a song about how excited he was to be going to soccer. At the field, the other kids milled around their parents, but Andrew was ready and kicked the ball back and forth to me to warm up. And once it started? Well, he paid rapt attention to Coach Pablo.

Every question that was asked Andrew raised his hand and/or shouted out the answer (except the first question was, who went to school today and he looked around as every other kid raised their hand, poor little guy). Every time they moved around or changed activities, Andrew moved his way around the pack of kids to position himself right next to Coach Pablo. He gamely attempted every activity, though he was one of the smallest in the class. The only time he age really showed was when the coach would “trick” them (asking them to run to the blue spot, when they were already on the blue spot, for example). He’d take off along with a handful of other kids, and have to be called back. He was just so eager to DO, and that’s just clearly a development thing, a lack of true comprehension skills at age 2.75. It is always hard to remember he’s not even 3 yet. There is not much holding this guy back.

And how did Elizabeth enjoy being carted along to Andrew’s activity? Well, two of her friends and soccer teammates have a younger sister in Andrew’s class, so the three of them amused themselves by ripping a dead branch out of a tree and marching it around. You know, safe self-directed activities like that!

Semi-Wordless Wednesday: Dress Up

2011-09-14T11:43:00.000-04:00

Some days it's princess dress up day

And other days it's deep sea explorer. Hence the flashlight (it's dark down there), arm floaties, and helmet.

My son is a marketing genius

2011-09-13T11:42:00.000-04:00

Telling an old story here, but I've got a lot of old ground to cover, so, remember when we (Elizabeth, Andrew and I) went camping with my parents in their RV? We had a lot of fun, and Andrew coined a new term that lives on in the family.

I brought a long a bunch of stuff they like, including some food and drinks. One morning, I started to get Andrew some orange juice. Now, since he was quite small he's never really liked cow's milk, strongly preferring OJ in the morning, so (pediatrician-approved) we buy the calcium-fortified OJ and don't worry about milk (too much). And as you all know, I come from a long line of bargain shoppers, though I do have quality standards. Bottom line, I buy whatever name brand OJ is on sale, and don't pay much attention to it.

And so I pulled out the OJ I brought along:

Which resulted in screeches from Andrew. No, I don't want that juice, I want straw juice!

Hmm. Straw juice. What the heck? So, like any mommy, I tried to find out what was making my 2.5 year old screech. What do you mean straw juice? What is straw juice?

Which just made him screech louder.

So, in the midst of the screeching, I started wondering, maybe he had seen me pack the cooler. I had put in two small, frozen juice boxes, and those juice boxes were tucked away into the RV's freezer. Maybe he wanted a juice box? But it was breakfast time and I was not going to give him a frozen juice box, because a) it was frozen and b) we don't drink juice boxes at breakfast. But, the juice boxes were in the freezer, and he wasn't around when I packed and unpacked the cooler, so why does he want a juice box? And why is he calling a juice box straw juice, though they do all come with those little plastic straws that peel off and get lost everyplace and...well, let's jut say the screeching continued as I pondered all this.

So, I tried reasoning with the 2.5 year old toddler. Andrew. We don't have straw juice. We have orange juice. Let me pour you your orange juice and let's all just calm down.

I'm sure you can imagine how well that worked. And remember there are 5 people in a 30 foot RV while a 2.5 year old is screeching about straw juice.

Exasperated, I flung open the RV's fridge door and said, Andrew. Look. There is no straw juice!

Whereupon he launched himself across the RV and with a shout of glee, grabbed:

Oh. Tropicana. With the logo of an orange with a straw. Straw juice. OK, gotcha.

And since that time, we only buy straw juice.

Which would be the end of the story, but I needed a pic of Tropicana, and a little googling led me to discover that my 2.5 year old has more marketing sense than the execs who run the Pepsi-Cola Corporation. You see, in 2008, Tropicana (a subsidiary of Pepsi) went through an entire re-branding effort, which resulted in complete redesign, at what must have been enormous cost, of their entire product line. Straw in orange out, bland expanse of orange juice in wine goblet in. The redesign was such a failure and resulted in so many complaints, that in 2009, they went back to the tried and true.

Orange in straw. Straw juice. So simple even a 2.5 year old understands the power of a brand. Stick with what works.

New School!

2011-08-24T16:53:00.001-04:00

First off, a given: I can't find the camera cord. Go figure. We had two, doubling my chances of knowing where it was, but then the dog chewed one, so now I have to remember what safe place I used to stash our remaining cord. So, pics later.

We switched schools for Elizabeth this year, into a Spanish immersion bilingual program. The school is new, and is in a one year temp space, so there have been lots of worries about it.

To give her a lot of time to get accustomed to the idea, we started talking way back in the winter about how she'd go to a new school this year, and she was quite eager to make a change. Until suddenly, in the middle of summer, she realized it meant she would not go back to her old school, and she decided she would NOT go to a new school this year. End of discussion. She was adamant. No, I am not going to a new school. I will not do it.

So we've been talking to her a lot about it, and encouraging her and just generally being supportive, and she finally admitted she was scared about the Spanish part. I'll admit that Rich and I are not fully committed to bilingual education. We have worries. First, while I took two years in high school and 1 in college, I have very limited spanish, and Rich has none. So not sure how much we can help her, particularly if we stick with this into older grades. Second, while research says kids do well in the long run, it can be tough in the immediate term and short term. In the near term, kids struggle in the first few months - and maybe all year - to grasp the other language. It's a big change. Second, if they're struggling with the other language, how much content are they learning, especially if they are only learning content in their english classes. While most studies show that years out kids do well academically, the first few years they may be behind other kids. So, risky. But, as we've long said, Elizabeth has a real skill as a mimic, and has always been advanced verbally. So we've decided the risk is worth it, at least for one year to try out and see.

Anyway, the school did a great job in prepping parents and kids, and had numerous playdates and info sessions where kids could meet teachers. The K teachers - both spanish and english - seem fabulous. I had finally gotten Elizabeth to agree that she would attend the new school, but only the english parts (this kid is a good negotiator, I'll give her that).

The way they do immersion is that there are two K classes. Each day, one is in english all day, and the other in spanish. And then they alternate days. This is another potential downside - hard to build momentum in any one area, and while the kids themselves can bond as a group, they have two groups of teachers to bond with (ugh, and now to I have to buy two sets of teacher and aide gifts at the holiday and end of school year??). It's not a close one on one with one teacher type of model. Also, the spanish teachers (who are fully bilingual) are ONLY speaking to the kids in spanish. In fact, they are telling the kids the teachers can not speak english, though they understand english. As a parent, if you don't speak spanish, and you have a question for the teacher, you can grab a translator, or you can make an appointment outside of the presence of children to discuss it. And then, the Friday before school starts, they sent out class assignments. And guess what? Elizabeth was assigned to spanish first day. Yikes. I told her as matter-of-factly as I could, without fake-y enthusiasm that I knew she'd see right through. As expected, she flat out rejected it. Nope. Not going. So we just let it drop, as it's hard to negotiate with a flat out rejection.

So, first day of school and we're all up and out by 8 am, and after a fairly lax summer it wasn't easy. But we made it. Made the drive to school, and she was actually cautiously excited. We walked into the spanish classroom, and the teacher immediately warmly greeted her by name and said some welcoming words in spanish. The one thing I will totally give these teachers is that they are AMAZING at speaking a foreign language and using body, face and inflection to completely convey meaning. She asked (in spanish) Elizabeth to hang up her backpack, and put the requested school supplies in an specific area. The room was crowded, so Rich was close by and he was confused about what to do, and Elizabeth told him what to do.

Other kids in her class were coloring, so she immediately joined in and seemed engaged. So we took advantage and all hugged and kissed her goodbye, and walked out. As we left the building, Andrew suddenly said, I want my sister. Sweet boy. I think this may be hardest on him.

I worked from home so I could do pick up, and when I walked into the classroom at the end of the day she was completely engaged in animated conversation with a boy in her class, and the teacher had to go to her and point out I was there. She told me she had an awesome day, that the teachers understood her when she spoke to them (obviously a worry we hadn't considered she would have), and even better, the work was 'easy' and that the teacher held up her work for the class first to show what a great job she had done. Bottom line, she was really, really happy.

Later that night, just as she was going to bed, as I was tucking her in and turning out lights, she told me she was just a little shy about speaking spanish and might just wait to do that. But then she said, 'no me gusto' which means I don't like. I could not figure out why she was saying that, but she clearly had picked up on it. Then she started saying made up words (she told me they were fake words) in a spanish accent and moving her hands in a descriptive way (fairly obviously mimicking the teachers). So somehow, I think this is going to work out.

Easy living, part 2

2011-08-16T15:38:00.000-04:00

This morning I posted the list of what we did this summer, but if I had written that list in advance, what else would I have included?

Have dinner parties and see more old friends more regularly. Epic fail. Didn’t have anyone over for dinner once. (We did host a super fun surprise b-day party for a friend, but her husband organized the whole thing.) Never even made my favorite summer recipe, grilled marinated shrimp. Heck, when it comes to cooking, we haven’t even made pesto! But there’s still time for pesto. And since every fall weekend is going to be taken up with some sort of class or sporting event for Elizabeth, we should be around to invite people over.
Camped more than once. Also a fail. We did the one trip, and it was so hot and buggy, and we’ve been so busy otherwise, we haven’t been inspired or found the time since. Although I am a coastal plains kind of gal, I suggested to Rich we try camping in the cool mountains. Maybe another year. We might be able to get some mountain time in the fall with a football game or two or three in Charlottesville, and while that’s great, but it’s not the same as escaping from the heat and humidity and heading to cooler weather in the summer. Actually maybe next year we will combine seeing old friends with camping in the mountains and maybe travel to WVA and see some old FSU friends? Perhaps an FSU friend reunion should be on the list for next year.
I’d have put see 3-4 Nats games on the list. We managed one, and there’s still a chance to sneak in another, probably, but that’s likely it. Last year we managed to make a few of the 4 pm games, but this year the Nats had no games starting at 4 – the 1 pm starts interfered with Andrew’s nap, and the 7 pm starts are rough on the bedtime schedule. Not family friendly Nats, not at all. Fingers crossed for half dozen scheduled 4pm games next year.
We mooched off a few friends’ pools, and hit up one of the DC public pools, but I definitely wish we had gone more.
I still want us to check out National Harbor. Although sited at the conflux of two rivers, DC does a terrible job of taking advantage of river views. We did one of the little Potomac cruises, but I’ve still got National Harbor on the list.
Garden. Another epic fail. Luckily Rich’s sister gave us some small basil plants that are flourishing, and most of our perennials are doing ok, but there are too many weeds and not enough flowers. We’re a little unkempt. I’ve twice seen one hummingbird on our honeysuckle, but I’ve also fallen down on the bird feeding. Oh well, there’s always next season, as I say every year. Turns out gardening is something I really, really value in concept but absolutely despise in execution.
Picnic. Another epic fail. Not once. I envisioned us packing up a picnic and heading to the zoo or rock creek with bikes and scooters and spending a fun evening outdoors. Nope. No concerts in the park, no outdoor movies, no let’s just have a picnic ourselves. This is tied into gardening – maybe some summer we’ll upgrade our backyard patio and actually enjoy nights out there.
Plan my high school reunion. As my friend Doug said last time I saw him, when we were elected class officers 26 years ago no one told us it was a life term. But in reality I’ve just fluttered around the past few reunions so it is time for me to do the heavy lifting. Current plan: Thanksgiving weekend.
Blog post our adventures in a timely manner. Ha. Hahaha. What is worse that epic fail?

So, a lot we didn’t do. But I have no idea when we would have fit any of it in! How was your summer? Did you do everything on your list? What’s on your fall list?

And the living's been easy

2011-08-16T10:09:00.002-04:00

Wow, so how is it possible that summer is over? OK, well, back in my day, school did not start back up until the day after Labor Day, but today, in DC, school starts two weeks before Labor Day. Two weeks. Cutting summer from a brief 10 weeks to an impossibly brief 8 weeks. Hate.

Anyway, my friend Therese often does a list of things she wants to do during a season, and I was determined that I would do the same. I suppose we were so busy experiencing summer, we never got to plan summer. So instead, and since I haven’t documented any of it, let’s just see what we have done. And just for fun, and to make sure I get it all in, let’s start as far back as Spring break:

We went to Florida for Spring Break! And my dad turned 70.
Elizabeth’s school had their annual Mother’s Day program
Elizabeth’s dance class had their semester ending recital
We celebrated the anniversary of moving in our house
Elizabeth’s school celebrated May Day
We finished up tball season
We went camping with my brother and family
Elizabeth’s school had their end of school year concert
My parents came to town
We kept our tradition and spent Father’s Day playing mini golf and eating at the golf course
Elizabeth learned to ride a bike
When my parents left, Elizabeth, Andrew, and I went with them and camped in the RV for 4 days, and Rich joined us the last night
With my parents, Elizabeth, Andrew and I toured St Michael’s, a place on the Eastern Shore I’d never been before
We spent the last day of that mini-break in Ocean City
Our street celebrated our first ever block party
We spent a long weekend with Rich’s parents, celebrated Rich’s brother’s birthday, and rode a real train
We spent 4^th of July with our friends Frank and Rebecca, whose house provides the best ever viewing location for fireworks
Elizabeth spent 4 days with her grandparents
Elizabeth Andrew and I went to a kids concert at Wolf Trap
We spent a week with our friends Tricia and Chris and their kids at a beach rental in Chincoteague, and we hung out with Ryan and PJ and kids a lot
My sister visited, and we spent one afternoon at my brother’s neighborhood pool, and went to a Nats game
We went to Ryan’s parent’s 50^th wedding anniversary party and spent time with other Pocomoke friends Doug and Lisa
We went peach picking
We checked out our local public pool with neighbor friends
We spent the day at the water park in Chesapeake Beach, thanks to a half price entry from Certifikid.
We took a short boat ride on the Potomac and then ate along the water
We got rained out of Bill and Ellen’s neighborhood pool, and had a fun dinner with them

The end of this week we’re off to Ocean City again and then….school starts. Bam. Summer over. The next weekend we have friends in town, and then Labor Day weekend, which is filling up fast, and then double Bam, into an already overscheduled fall.

But that’s not a bad list, huh? The thing is nearly every bullet should be a blog post – I started at Spring Break to remind me of all the posts to be done! Maybe, just maybe, I can finish out August with a flurry?

It’s been a good summer – we’ve done a lot. Sorting through, we’ve seen family, seen some old friends, kept up some traditions, and tried a few new places. That’s not a bad mix.

But what if I had done a list at the beginning of the summer? How would this match up? Stay tuned for part 2!

You can't fool him!

2011-08-10T15:49:00.000-04:00

Last night, I scrambled for dinner, and to round things out, decided to include a special item - olive spread on crackers. I was smart, and divided the spread into two containers, and grabbed a couple of spreaders for each to use.

Andrew was fascinated by the utensil: What IS this? he kept asking, until he grasped I was saying "a spreader" and he could say it himself. All good.

Until he realized that in my haste, I had grabbed a spreader that had footballs on one end and given the football spreader to Elizabeth! The horror! What was I thinking?! Well, I was thinking where the hell is the other plain spreader, and why is it taking so long to get the spreaders and so I just grabbed what was on top. Of course, once Andrew saw the football spreader, he wanted it, but that just made Elizabeth clutch it ever tighter. There was a brief argument, but it actually passed fairly easily and I thought I had dodged a bullet.

Until I heard Andrew, who has learned faaaarr too much from his big sister, mutter quietly with a tinge of despair, "I hate this spreader."

Trying to be clever and distracting and taking a page from Rich, I picked up the now-hated spreader and said in a high pitched voice, "oh Andrew, why do you hate me? I am a good spreader!"

But he wasn't having any of it - Andrew looked at the spreader suspiciously and rejected it by stating, "it doesn't have a face."

In the end, though, perhaps it was mission accomplished as I burst out laughing at his logic that since the spreader didn't have a face it couldn't talk, and then Elizabeth also laughed, and finally Andrew laughed too, so that crisis, at least, averted.

schools and stuff

2011-08-10T15:33:00.000-04:00

I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about schools. A LOT. An excessive, perhaps obsessive amount of time. The good news is we’ve decided on a school for Elizabeth next year – she’ll be attending a charter school that does Spanish immersion, and she’ll be in kindergarten. We think that the immersion portion of the school will be challenging enough that repeating K will not be a detriment to her, and re-setting her grade is something that, for a lot of reasons, we think is the right decision for her.

It’s really made us think about our own school experiences. That, combined with the recent bi-annual visit from the G-clan, along with Facebook and the whole host of school friends that have been rediscovered, plus my 25th reunion this year, makes me appreciate my friends that I have known since kindergarten and even before. The worry that kept me awake more than one night this spring/summer: by living in this city, and switching schools as is typically done here, am I robbing Elizabeth of the ability to have close lifelong friends? I know we’re not, really, but when you compare the stability of life in Pocomoke (which I pretty much hated growing up) with the transience of modern life in a highly transient city – well, everything looks dramatic at 3 am, doesn’t it?

Who will her – and his - friends be? Our neighborhood friends? From School of Religion? From my moms group (right sidebar)? From sports or other activities? All of the above? What will be our touchstone, the thing that really grounds us – and more importantly them – in the world?

There’s a lot of power in raising kids – choices we make now affect them far into the future. That’s an awesome responsibility on so many levels, with so much on the line. How do we decide which sports to sign them up for now – do we do dance or gymnastics? Can we buy a piano (and where will we put it?) to start piano lessons? Is E ready to move from soccer clinic to soccer league (which means practice during the week and a game on the weekend)? We did tball in the spring and there’s a fall league – do we want to do fall league tball or shouldn’t we do soccer? (why aren’t sports seasonal any longer, a trend that is making me crazy?) Right now Andrew mostly tags along on Elizabeth’s activities – once he’s doing his own thing, too, how will we divide and conquer various events, meets, games, activities?

And that’s just the next few years. We’ve made this decision to try bilingual education – what course does that potentially set us on? Will it spark interests in language, or different cultures? Or perhaps it will ultimately be a big turnoff? Will we stick with this school? What about middle school, high school? What about, gulp, college?

And you know what? One of the big reasons we decided on the redo of the K year? Because the thought of sending her off to college at 17 was simply too much to contemplate!

What crazy, irrational parenting questions keep you up at night?

The From Left to Write Book Club consists of over 100 bloggers who read books and then write posts inspired by the book (not a review of the book). This month's post was partially inspired by In Stitches, by Anthony Youn. I type 'partially inspired' only because I thought a lot about writing a particular story about my own high school experience and something my foreign exchange sister once said to me about cliques, but despite several hours of typing and retyping, I couldn't get it to work out right, so I stuck with my typical kid connection. Maybe I'll save that story for another time. But this was a funny, engaging read that I happened to read right after Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and I was struck by similarities between the books (though Youn is Korean), and some of my own upbringing (soon after the Tiger Mother controversy erupted, I was talking to my mom and asked her why she never told me we were Chinese?). As a book club member, I was given a free copy of the book, which I would love to pass along as a good read to anyone who wants it.

putting my intention out there

2011-07-28T15:40:00.001-04:00

Ack! Earlier this week I checked on the ye good ole blog just to see how many posts I had done in July, since I am making such an effort to post and document more and- what the heck? None? Zero? The entire month of July nearly gone and no posts? This summer is flying by, far too quickly.

And now I have so much still to cover, from the end of the school/spring activities to the end of our vacation! School ended June 20th, and stars again a mere 9 weeks later on Aug 22, and it's already the end of July, 5 weeks down so we only have 4 weeks left! And, in my major news, I start a new, part-time job next week, so I have this sad feeling summer is over already. I've been meaning forever to do a 'what do we want to do with our summer post,' a la Our Madill-Lowe, but the summer has just been speeding along.

As many of us do, I remember the summer of my childhood as stretching endlessly, with periods of boredom along with longer periods of just playing, without many cares, punctuated by 1-2 weeks of vacation and some fun day trips thrown in to change things up. And I think, so far, that's what Elizabeth and Andrew have experienced, this summer. Which isn't bad, all in all. But we have to squeeze out what's left of summer and really make sure we haven't missed any of it.

Posts on vacation to come soon, but now, for the record, I've got to state my intention for the world, so that I can make it come true. After last week's unstructured, small-town vacation, what I want - what I intend to make happen - is to be able to spend a month on the Shore, kids, cat, and dog, for many summers of Elizabeth and Andrew's childhood. Or at least a couple of summers. We'll spend some time at the beach, and hit a pool when we can, and do story time at the library, and shop at the small markets, and eat local, fresh produce, and ride bikes, and hike in the marsh, and get too many bug bites, and do a little fishin' and crabbin' and clammin', and spend some time being bored and driving each other crazy, and a lot of time out exploring the world. Maybe I'd work some, and maybe Rich would have to commute back and forth a bit and perhaps spend long weekends, but in today's wireless world, we can make this happen. Not next year, or likely the year after, but this is an achievable goal. And right now, on my list of Dreams I Can Definitely Make Happen (as opposed to general dreams I'd like to happen, like winning the lottery, or moving for a year or two to a foreign country, or even the semi-possible biggie of actually buying a second home), it's the top one.

Cause this? Visiting a sandbar in the middle of Assateague Bay? Is how I want to remember summers. Yes, those small figures are us, taken with our co-vacationer Tricia's iphone. Can't wait to get cds from both Ryan and Tricia to share more pics of our awesome vacation!

The From Left to Write Book Club consists of over 100 bloggers who read books and then write posts inspired by the book (not a review of the book). This month's post was partially inspired by The Costume Trunk by Bob Fuller. I type 'partially inspired' only because it's been so long since I've written a post and I while I started writing thinking I was going to write something else, somehow my fingers made this post about my dream (instead of the princess story I was trying to wrestle to fit into this post). And I think the author might just encourage mommys and daddys to use their imaginations and have dreams, too. In any case, Elizabeth and Andrew enjoyed coming home from vacation and finding this book waiting for them, but we have not had enough time with it to do more than read it twice. They both like it. As a book club member, I was given a free copy of the book.

What's your dream? Will you share an intention with me?

4!

2011-06-29T17:06:00.001-04:00

So, guess how many days it takes to learn to ride a big kid bike? Well, if you've first gotten really good on your pedal-less bike, it's 4 days! I am insanely proud of Elizabeth, and well, inordinately pleased with myself.

What's a pedaless bike, you ask? Exactly as it sounds, it's a small two wheeled bicycle that doesn't have pedals (and often the steering is a little restricted so it doesn't go all over the place). The child pedals, Flintstone style, with its feet and learns the key to bicycling: balance on wheels. I learned about these bikes in 2007, and did a ton of research. They gained popularity in Europe (in countries with high bicycling rates) and proponents claimed they gave kids a fast track on learning to ride a bicycle - after learning balance, the child can graduate to a two wheeled bike without having any training wheels. The thing is, since they were fairly new to the US, and came from European countries, they were also incredibly expensive. I was intrigued, but not going to pay $400 for something that may be a little gimmicky. But I kept looking, and amazingly Target came out with a pedaless wooden bike for $50, which I picked up at the end of summer for $40! We gave it to Elizabeth for her second birthday.

But, she was far too small for it, so it didn't really see any action for actually a couple of years. I've been going through photos and only found a few from April 2009.

It's too bad we don't have more photos or videos, because she was a whiz on that bike, though it did tend to wear out the toes of her shoes as you have to drag your feet to slow down. And of the 30+ kids roughly her age who live on our block, 4 more pedaless bikes showed up, though we still got a few funny looks every once in a while. (and, I have to admit, last year I had to have both tires replaced on the bike, and instead of getting an estimate, I just had them do it - to the tune of $40/tire! So the bike has not quite been the absolute bargain, but still a pretty good bargain).

Anyway, at the end of last year we realized she'd need a new bike this year, but we've been dragging our feet, unsure what to get, and not wanting to spend much money. Elizabeth's school had a graduation/promotion for her class (another post to come!), and when my parents were here they suggested we hit the thrift store, so at the very last minute, three days before the end of school, it occurred to me that I should see if I could snag a bike for a present. And sure enough, there were two possibilities which I debated, but ended up going with the more solid, heavy choice - mostly because I noticed it had a sticker from the high end bike shop in town. And when I got home, a google search showed me I had paid $20 for a $180-when-new bike. Yes!

Anyway, the night before the end of school, Rich suddenly said, oh shoot, I didn't go out and get training wheels. I looked at him and said no training wheels! We did the pedaless bike! We're not going to training wheels. He was skeptical, but since we didn't have any other option decided to see what happened.

The gift was a big success!

My blog posts are too long. I got caught up in looking for old pics of the trusty pedaless bike. But anyway, here's the progression:

Day 1: bike riding with adult running along behind holding bike upright. Exhausting for adult. Rich was impressed with her tenacity, and after a few passes I said, heck, 15 minutes and she'll be done. Rich was skeptical, thought it would be several more hours. Fell once. Practice time: <30 minutes
Day 2: 100% confidence in stopping on her own. Needed help starting, but able to pedal down sidewalk with no support once underway. Beginning frustration that help was needed to start. Practice time: again ~30 minutes Mommy: patting myself on the back and acting extremely smug.

Day 3: Insistent on learning how to start all by herself. Managed 2 out of about 8 tries. Totally frustrated to the point of tears, though really excited at the riding part. Mommy: big mistake in saying, listen, maybe you need a break, it's ok if you don't learn to do this today. Elizabeth: Insistence on perseverance, until it was nearly dark outside. Practice time: about 30-45 minutes
Day 4: Success within 5 minutes. Grasped concept of using knee to push pedal to correct position, push with one foot and hop with other until underway. Mommy: insufferable with smugness over ease in which she learned to ride, thanks to pedaless bike.

Then we went camping for two days and didn't bring the bike out. But we did at the next campground, where the road by the camping spots was paved in a loop. I first told her she had to ride back and forth within sight, but after watching her twice, I said heck, go for the loop. And so on Day 5 of learning, she learned how to ride while standing up on the pedals!

But besides the absolute pride I feel for how she persevered and insisted on pushing herself to learn a physical task, know what the second best part was? When my mom admitted she thought the pedaless bike had been a bit silly but she was wrong! Yes. Now that's satisfaction.

Last weekend our street had a block party which included a parade, and our little bike rider had a great time.

And the pedaless bike has passed to Andrew, who is completely and utterly excited. And one inch too short! Let's hope for a little bit of growth this summer so he can ride along, too.

I was 6 or maybe even 7 before I learned to ride, of course older than I should have been, but too timid and uncoordinated to learn earlier. I over relied on my training wheels, but once I learned I've loved bike riding - there's something very free about it. How old were you? How did you learn? Seen any pedaless bikes around, or are they a big city fad?

haircuts!

2011-06-28T20:35:00.000-04:00

Observant readers may have noticed a change in Elizabeth and Andrew in the last post. That's right, on June 10th, they had their second haircuts ever! Well, their official second - you may remember that Elizabeth cropped Andrew's bangs almost to his scalp last summer, precipitating the first official haircuts. Andrew's hair had gotten ridiculously long, and he was occasionally mistaken for a girl.

Rich and Gee (our babysitter) were petrified I would get it cut too short, and the hairdresser showed me several pictures of close cropped boy styles, with the back totally layered. I had her do a looser cut, leaving the back longer.

Elizabeth first had her long, mid-back length, curly hair washed.

And I first had her cut it below shoulder length, but Elizabeth really, really wanted it shorter. She has two friends with shoulder length pageboys and bangs, and really wanted her hair to look like theirs. We decided to take another inch off, and gently taper some of the front. But the front of her hair is too curly for bangs.

She LOVED it. I thought the blowdry took out the curl, but I've been surprised that most of her curl is really gone. When not blown dry, the front is a bit wavy and the back will still do a nice flip.

We left a fair amount of hair on the floor.

Our two cuties! The salon gives out little toys after cuts, and they both chose whistles.

Unexpected

2011-06-27T22:47:00.003-04:00

Well, so much for my grand plans for Re-o-ju-blo-po-mo. So much for good intentions, right? Well, my excuse is my parents came into town on their annual summer mystery tour in their RV, and then decided to extend their stay, and then one night I said, hey, I've got nothing going on and Elizabeth just finished school, so even though Rich has to work, why don't we come along with you all next week?

And so we did. My parents have a 32 foot Winnebago, and it has two slideouts, so in some ways it's pretty spacious, but in most other ways it's pretty small. Packing for trips has gotten easier now that they're older - I packed one bag for me, one for them, a miscellaneous bag of toys and shoes and diapers and wipes and any extra stuff, my computer bag (but no wifi anyplace we went), a cooler, a "dry goods" bag (snacks, sippy cups, dog food, etc), Elizabeth's new bike (post to come), Andrew's scooter, and two kid helmets. All in all not bad, though it still took several hours. Luckily the RV is fully outfitted so there was no need to pack towels or sheets.

And, did I mention I decided to bring Skipper? Skipper actually loved it - I was able to walk her a bit off leash and she just loves to run around.

So, 3 extra people, 1 extra dog - it was a little cramped. Storing our stuff out of the way, and keeping it minimally organized, was a challenge.

The RV has a bedroom in the back, with its own TV, so my parents could escape there in the evenings and leave me to deal with the two maniacs. There is a couch that converts to a queen size bed in the front, so the three of us slept there (and when the couch opens up, there is open space underneath, so Skipper felt right at home!). Something happens at 9 pm on camping trips - they just get totally wired and go crazy. Facebook friends know we went tent camping over Memorial Day weekend (post to come) and let's just say sleeping is a huge issue. Stern Words were spoken every night (usually to no avail, until my father exited the bedroom and laid down The Law).

Despite the challenges, I do enjoy going on camping trips with them. Living in the city, I think it's important to get them out in nature as much as possible, and a few days on the Eastern Shore did not disappoint. And the beauty of the RV is that we can spend time in nature and then hustle into air conditioning when we need a break! Elizabeth loves exploring outside, and shocked me the first day by picking up the biggest, ugliest black beetle I've ever seen. She was fascinated.

And at our second campground, she was excited to find a box turtle walking in the woods!

Of course we had to bring him home to examine him in more detail, but we quickly let him go, which Elizabeth later sobbed was "the hardest decision ever."

And in great news, Rich was able to compress his work schedule and come meet us for the final night. That meant we had to fold down the dining room table and make that into a bed, too, and Rich got to speak the Stern Words that evening. Whatever he said, it (finally) worked.

The From Left to Write Book Club consists of over 100 bloggers who read books and then write posts inspired by the book (not a review of the book). This month's post was partially inspired by The Unexpected Circumnavigation. As a member of the book club, I was given a free copy of the book, which was essentially a travelogue/diary compilation of blog posts, minimally edited, from a trip across the Pacific Ocean in a 43-foot power boat.

I tend to like books about grand adventures. The best book about someone taking on a trip for which they were not entirely prepared has to be Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. The scene near the beginning when his (totally unprepared, overweight, and out of shape) hiking companion throws half his gear off an overlook because he is too overloaded still makes me giggle.

A couple of years ago I picked up a book called Queen of the Road: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 miles, 200 shoes, 2 cats, 1 poodle, a Husband and a Bus with a Will of Its Own by Doreen Orion. I'll admit that the 200 shoes caught my eye, but it's far more than that - a story of a (slightly unprepared) couple touring around the US in an RV. The author also kept a blog of the trip, for friends back home, but then turned that blog into a book by weaving together the stories into a coherent whole, including natural history, local history, and indepth characterizations of the people they met and the places they visited. I passed that book to my mom just after their Western US RV trip, and I've had another friend take a similar trip - it seems like everyone in an RV visits the same places and does the same thing when traveling in the West.

And finally, I have to recommend Vincent Bugliosi's And the Sea Will Tell - yes, the crime author/lawyer who prosecuted the Manson murders and wrote Helter Skelter. I don't usually read true crime, but this book truly captured the remoteness of the Pacific and how things can go terribly, horribly wrong. But more importantly, Bugliosi does a great job of "showing, not telling." It's not a cut and dried recitation of facts that he tells you, he shows you what life was like on a small boat, in an isolated paradise, and why that paradise might not be all that it seemed. Bugliosi wouldn't ever write something like there were sharks in the lagoon. He did the work to figure out what kinds of sharks, and what size they were, and whether they were dangerous to humans (most sharks are not).

edited to add - whoops, I totally forgot Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm. Yes, it's a thrilling (and of course ultimately tragic) read of big storms and big seas, but one scene I've always remembered is the men stocking up on provisions before the big trip. Junger totally captured the joy of living as they whiz through the grocery store, throwing everything and anything into their carts, then peeling off bills from a fat roll to pay. And, of course, he captures the feel of loneliness and isolation at sea and masterfully shows the men's stories.

There are plenty of grand adventure tales out there - hope to read a few more before summer is over. What's your favorite grand adventure story?

the temper

2011-06-11T14:20:00.001-04:00

There's one aspect of Andrew's personality that isn't quite so charming: this boy has a temper. Unlike Elizabeth, he has been known to throw a tantrum a two. I wonder sometimes if it's because unlike Elizabeth, he has a older sibling who attempts to control him? Whatever it is, it can be fierce. He throws things and has been known to hit. But also, the storm usually passes fairly quickly.

About two months ago, something happened at the end of dinner that set him off - we can't remember what it was, but he was mad. For dessert we doled out 10 M&Ms to each child. In his anger, though, when I put down his M&Ms, he angrily swept them off the table onto the floor. 'Oh no', I said, 'that's too bad, no M&Ms for Andrew. I will pick them up and put them at Daddy's chair and Daddy will get M&Ms.' This, of course, only set him off further and his furious cries continued.

Until suddenly they stopped, mid-cry. Andrew turned to us with a big smile on his face and said, 'I done crying now. Can I have my M&M's?'

And yes, he got them. Call us suckers - but how can you turn this down?

The little guy

2011-06-09T15:10:00.000-04:00

I read through some of the archives this morning and can't believe how spotty this record is. It's not NaBloPoMo, but I have a little pledge for my own Rest-of-June-Blo-Po-Mo. We have too much cuteness not to share!

Last summer I wrote Andrew was just on the edge of language explosion, but then I never got around to describing it. He's amazing - Elizabeth was and is a very verbal child, but I can't tell you how people gush about Andrew. He may be more talkative than she ever was. At 2.5, you can have clear conversations with him. He's the most verbal boy on our street. We saw a child-free friend last weekend we hadn't seen for awhile and after their conversation she turned to us and asked the usual question - how old is he? Is it typical for 2.5 year old boys to talk this much?

Last summer, he started counting. It started on pool trips. He would walk to the edge of the pool, shout TWOOOOOOO and then jump in. Whether or not anyone was there to catch him. We kinda sorta use the 1-2-3 discipline method, which means you count to 3 and if child is not complying by 3, there are consequences. However, both Rich and I are too loathe to impose said consequences, so we tend to drag out the twoooooooo. And Andrew picked up on it perfectly. And he's not looked back since - he can count to 12 now without any problems (5 was a little left out for a while), and keeps trying to push it further.

I always get freaked out at the pediatrician when the nurses ask all these development questions at the beginning. I think I take them too literally and get all worked out about being precise with my answer. Last November, at the 2 year mark, the question that through me was does he know his colors? My reply, is he supposed to know his colors? I had no idea - it wasn't something we were working on. The answer was he knew no colors, so we started working on that. For a while, he would just simply guess green for any color. And if we said no, he'd guess blue. Then, lellow? But by the spring he was getting it right more often than not, and now he's pretty good, except last week we noticed he clearly had trouble with red/green. We'll see where that goes.

And he loves to pretend to be his trucks or animals or whatever toy. He grabs two similar toys, holds onto one, hands you the other and says, you be dis vun, I be dat vun. He's losing the dis and dat for a more clearer this and that, and vun is slowly becoming one, but I loved the way he said it. Initially, he didn't know what to do after you'd agreed to be dis vun, so the two toys would just look at each other and say hi repeatedly, but now he constructs adventures and expects you to follow along in character.

And he does not like it when you do things for him. "I fought I was goin' to do dat,' he'll say accusingly. So you have to back off and let him do it.

The video above is from May - Elizabeth's school does a mother's day program that he and I attended. There was a delay in staring it (*eyeroll*) and so to occupy him, I suggested he run around. He LLOOOOVVVES this video and we watch it all that time. Andrew running? Let's see Andrew running!

Last weekend, Rich attempted to put him down for a nap, only to hear, today is not nap day!

But my all time favorite started about a month ago. When we put him in his crib at night and he lays down and is ready to sleep (as opposed to when he stays standing and insists on one more book or playing dis vun dat vun) he lays down and snuggles in and then says, when the sun comes up, I will wake up.

And we say, ok, little guy, that sounds like a good plan.

Happy World Ocean Day

2011-06-08T11:45:00.000-04:00

When I was in grad school (the source of my Seminole love), my group was pretty tightly knit and pretty much exclusively just us oceanography students. That's not surprising - grad school is all encompassing under any circumstances, but particularly so in science, with experiments and field work and lots of time in the lab and lots and lots of work at all hours. We worked hard, and well, we played hard too. In short, we pretty much traveled as a loose, semi fluid pack of broke grad students, spending all our time together. And despite our obvious differences, our work meant we were more alike than different.

My housemate Heidi was better at branching out and having outside friends, and so every once in a while we'd hang out with some rugby players. (Heidi is still with Clarence, a rugby player whom she met near the end of their time at FSU.) And actually one of the physical oceanographers was a rugby player, too, so there were some connections. Anyway, however it happened, here was a connection to people who were a little different in their work and ambition than us - the thing that held them together was rugby, but they did all sorts of other things in their real life. The thing that held us together was oceanography, and that was pretty much all we did.

At this point in my life, I'd spent two summers and one winter as a park ranger at Assateaugue Island National Seashore, (the best job I've ever had), another summer as a naturalist at Pocomoke River State Park, two other summers on a conservation crew working on the Pocomoke River, I was diving weekly in the Gulf of Mexico for our research, spending weekends diving in the clear freshwater springs that dot Florida, spending time at the Marine Lab, teaching kids on the weekend about the natural history of the Florida coast - in sum, doing things I loved that were also fun. I'd be on one deep sea research cruise, and had missed diving to the bottom of the ocean in Alvin by a coin flip for the last spot on the last dive.

And I've never forgotten a conversation held at a bar with some random rugby player one night. He was going to law school, and was asking us about our research and our work and what we did. He told me that his goal was to make a lot of money, which was why he was in law school. And he'd work hard at law, and make that money, and on his vacations, 4 weeks a year, he'd go diving and swimming and camping and visit and stay in fabulous places. And I remember just being incredulous. I'd never actually met anyone who professional goal was to make money in order to fund the things he loved doing. Everyone I knew at that point did the things they loved doing on a daily basis. And sure, we'd never make a lot of money, but who needs a lot of money when you get to spend every single day doing what you loved? It was a totally different perspective - one I've since come to learn is, let's be real, the prevalent one in the US. Work is the thing you do to make money. I'd always thought of work as your vocation - the thing you love to do more than any other thing and so while the reward may or may not be monetary, the true rewards come from doing what you were meant to do.

And, well, since that time I went on two more deep sea cruises, and did get to visit the bottom of the ocean in Alvin, and realized research wasn't the path for me, but that the intersection of science/policy/education was and did lots of interesting work in interesting places. And then along came Elizabeth. And when I was pregnant with Elizabeth, I worked two port calls for the scientific research vessel my company managed and I stood on the deck of the ship and felt a powerful tug to sign up for a two month long research cruise, but also knew that was never, ever going to happen. And then there was Andrew, and I've managed to patch together work in science and policy and education, until lately I've not been been able to. And now I'm looking at jobs that are just that - jobs. To earn money. To be able to do the things that really matter to me. But those things now are t-ball and field trips and music class and story time.

It makes me sad, to be perfectly honest, to realize I can't make it work. I look at lists of "good mom jobs" and think why didn't I become an accountant? And then I think of free-falling in Alvin with the siphonphores twinkling in the dark of the deep ocean and know I wouldn't trade any of that away. I just can't, for a variety of reasons, make it work right now, but now isn't forever.

Happy World Ocean Day.

presence

2011-06-07T14:17:00.000-04:00

When we first lost Aggie, I was stunned mostly by how empty the house felt. There was a presence missing, and the house was quiet. Too quiet. And so Skipper came to live here in January, a little over 4 months ago.

Rich calls Skipper the Bizarro Aggie. (for those not well versed in Seinfeld minutia, here's the wikipedia, though it doesn't focus on the hilarious Bizarro world interactions as much as the man hands and Kramer's job!). Skipper is completely opposite Aggie in every way. Aggie was 100% personality, coming directly at you, forcing you to deal with her. Skipper would prefer very much to just be left alone, thank you very much.

Quite honestly, Skipper appears devoid of any personality whatsoever, though that's not fair to her. There are flashes of personality, but they are fleeting and quickly subdued.

Here's Skipper's schedule: Wake up when we do. Get hauled out from under the bed, then picked up and taken downstairs when leash is put on. Go for walk and hopefully take care of business. Come inside, have leash hooked on a chair to keep her in one place, then have wet food set in front of her which she quickly eats as long as no one is watching. Be unhooked from leash, make a mad dash for under the couch. Wait til Rich and Elizabeth leave for school, then dash past Gee and Andrew and follow Susan upstairs. Dash under bed. Stay there. At 5:30, get hauled out from under bed, leash hooked on, carried downstairs for afternoon walk, where hopefully business is taken care of. Come inside, leash unhooked, and depending on mood dash under couch or dash upstairs and go under bed. If stayed downstairs, wait until kid's bathtime and follow Susan upstairs, and dash under bed. Get hauled out from under bed around 10 and carried downstairs for evening walk with Rich. Come inside, have leash removed, and dash upstairs to under bed. When it is completely quiet and dark, creep out from under bed and crunch dog food and lap up water. Hide under bed til morning. Repeat.

To be honest, a terrarium with a couple of snails may have more personality.

As Rich says, to counter my argument that at least she's an easy dog: I'd like to know I even have a dog in the house!

I vacillate between two strategies. Either we leave her alone completely to come out of her shell on her own, or we haul her out from under the bed and force her to interact. If I had errands to run in the car on cool days I've taken her along. We sometimes make her sit with us downstairs. Harrison is jealous when we do this.

She was great in Florida. OK, well, sure, she spent her usual 22 hours of the day under the bed, but I was able to walk her off leash every day and she loved it. So when we got back, I took E and A and Skipper to Rock Creek and we hit a short trail.

She is a cute dag (Rich: cute is not enough!).

And to be fair, she has some sort of intestinal issue that we cannot seem to fully resolve, and it clearly impacts her. We deal with one thing and she's great, and then another thing pops up. Perhaps she has IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), brought about by stress/nervousness. She'll likely be at the vet again this week. And she does sometimes break out a little bit - three out of the past four days she's come out from under the bed in the morning and followed me downstairs, without the hauling and carrying. There is a playful, sweet pup in there, we just hope, with a little attention, patience, and more time we can bring it out.

The From Left to Write Book Club consists of over 100 bloggers who read books and then write posts inspired by the book (not a review of the book). This month's post was inspired by The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, by Elisabeth Tova Bailey. As a member of the book club, I was given a free copy of the book. This isn't remotely the post I wanted to write about this lovely, spare, lyrical, poetic book. I don't actually read all that much natural history, even though I tend to love what I read (because of a lethal combination of "I give at the office" mixed with jealousy and bitterness that I don't write like this). This is among the best natural history I've ever read. I love, love love Victorian naturalists, but even more than their writing I love when someone else culls through their prose and pulls out the best bits. And what I truly loved about the book is that it sits in many categories - I loved the natural history, but the woman who brought this book to the book club did so because of the long-term debilitating illness that is the other portion of the book. This book came along at precisely the right and absolutely the wrong time in my professional life, as I face the reality of leaving behind the world of science and nature, even as tenuous as my connection had been the past few years. I have a few posts in my head to write about that, so we shall see if they ever make it into pixels.

another strike

2011-05-20T10:35:00.000-04:00

Remember oh, when was it, over a year ago when I wrote about the offing of Mr M in the bedroom by the hero Harrison? Well, the mystery continues. Though this time, the victim was Ms Sparrow in the kitchen. So perhaps our dear Harrison was more of a villain than hero this time around. Let's call him our anti-hero. You can't help but root for him though his heroic qualities are, shall we say, lacking.

No photos in order not to offend any delicate sensibilities.

Early in the afternoon yesterday I was working in the attic and heard Harrison meowing meowing meowing downstairs. Quite loudly. I decided to ignore him.

Later, rushing around to get together all the t-ball equipment to drop off at practice, while simultaneously gathering all the ballet accoutrements together because we were due at dress rehearsal at the same time as practice, I passed by our anti-hero who was lounging in the middle of the kitchen (underfoot at precisely the wrong time is one of his specialities). When suddenly, in my frenzy, what was beside Harrison clicked into my consciousness - a dear sweet Ms Sparrow casually discarded. Yikes!

I called Gee into the kitchen so we could compare notes. Andrew was napping, so Gee had been doing other things in the house. She told me she had heard Harrison, and had passed by the kitchen and noticed the throw rug was all tangled, and she thought he had been mock fighting with it and so straightened it out.

Here's the thing - neither of us has any recollection of Harrison having escaped the house and ventured outside during the day. Our anti-hero has been on a tear lately, sneaking outside with his battle cry of "you shall not contain me!" despite our best efforts to continue his captivity in lockdown. We're actually attempting to reach a civil compromise by extending his range onto our back patio, but his escape routes know no end. He was out quite a bit the day before, so had poor Ms S been trapped in our house for a day?

We'll never know.

T-ball and choices

2011-05-09T23:18:00.002-04:00

As most of you know via my facebook posts, I've volunteered to be an assistant coach of Elizabeth's t-ball team. This is very amusing to everyone that knows me - I'm not exactly athletic. And I spent three awful years in middle school bumbling my way through pony-tail league slow pitch softball, coached by my mom.

I've spent most of my life thinking that my mom really wanted to coach, and so that's why I was forced to play, despite my complete lack of skill of any sort. But after coaching a few practices, I really rethought that whole history. Did my mom really want to coach, or was it just something that needed a volunteer with some level of interest? The community needed coaches and you step up when and where you can, knowing it's good for your child and the community.

I like baseball. I do think it's good for Elizabeth. And in this case, I think it's good for me, too. Even if it may kill me. In practices, we do a variety of drills, just trying to get the kids to acquire basic skills. There's a lot of the coach (me) rolling grounders or throwing balls to kids, who then throw the ball back to the coach. Our kids are not very skilled, and there are a lot of errant balls. Last week, a kid made a bad throw back to me, and I chased after the ball, thrusting out my foot to stop it, and instead mistakenly stepping onto the ball while running. My ankle rolled, and I tumbled to the ground on my side. I've got floppy ankles, and about once a year roll one or the other of them, resulting in a minor sprain. One of these days I'm really going to do a number on one of them, but my floppy ankles just flop back into place, so it's always just a slight sprain that's stiff a couple of days. Anyway, I rolled from my side onto my back, and stared up at the sky, (inwardly) cursing my clumsiness and wondering exactly how badly I had sprained my ankle, cause it hurt like hell. Elizabeth came over and knelt down and patted my head, concerned I was hurt. But another boy from my group also wandered over and stared down at me, before observing: "you sure do have a lot of silver in your hair." Thanks kid. So I got up and hobbled around some and went back to rolling grounders.

The next day, I was reading the list of benefits that Rich's company offers. I've been interviewing for a job there, and it's been getting more real (although after ten months of job hunting, I can't tell you how many "sure things" have evaporated for increasingly ridiculous reasons). Suddenly, I read a shocking benefit, and immediately ran to find Rich.

M: "You have a community service benefit! Your company will pay you for 40 hours of community service!"
R: "Uh, well, yeah......."
M: "YOU could be getting PAID to COACH TBALL!"
R: "uh, well, yeah, I guess......."
M: "YOU COULD BE GETTING PAID TO COACH TBALL!!!!!!!"
R:
M: "I SPRAINED MY ANKLE AND WAS INSULTED BY A 5 YEAR OLD AND YOU COULD BE COACHING TBALL AND GETTING PAID FOR COMMUNITY SERVICE!!!!!!"
R: "I'm very busy.........."

The thing I've since realized is that I actually kinda like coaching t-ball. It's fun. The kids are learning and having fun. Elizabeth is gaining confidence. And I'm getting exercise and sun and having fun, too. And Andrew is waiting in the wings, ready to play.

And now I'm going to contort this post to make it fit into the book club. That's sort of the thing right there, isn't it? I'm struggling to find work that provides good work/life balance, so that I can coach t-ball and (someday) be a girl scout leader and volunteer at school and go on field trips and just be there. There are companies that offer family-friendly, community-oriented benefits. There are companies that - on paper - offer part-time options. But finding and then getting those benefits is not exactly easy. Until employees - specifically, hard-driving, high-achieving, full-time employees in the companies - start pushing to take advantage of those opportunities, they are just words on piece of paper. The more people who overall take advantage of family-friendly policies, demonstrating success while keeping a reasonable work/life balance, the better it will be for everyone.

The From Left to Write Book Club consists of over 100 bloggers who read books and then write posts inspired by the book (not a review of the book). This month's post was (well, partially) inspired by Good Enough is the New Perfect, by Becky Beaupre Gillespie and Hollee Schwartz Temple. As a member of the book club, I was given a free copy of the book. I've only just started it, but already know I'm a "good enough" person, without a doubt. This post is pretty disjointed and doesn't hang together well, but I'm two months behind in posts and quite honestly, it just has to be good enough!

Saudade

2011-03-07T14:22:00.008-05:00

A couple of years ago I ran across a term that was new to me - a Portuguese word saudade. It's one of those "impossible to translate" words that doesn't have a clear or easy definition in English. It's close to nostalgia or melancholy, both of which have Portuguese equivalents, but there's another aspect to it that makes it uniquely Portuguese (though a few other languages have similar expressions). Of the many attempts at definitions on the wikipedia page, the one I like best is "a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist." Emphasis added - it's that last bit that I like best - the feeling of longing for something that no longer exists and yet could not exist, or maybe never really existed.

I've felt saudade several times over the past couple of years - most often in the summers on family vacations that bring up old memories and old echoes of family history. I feel it when I think of my tenuous connection to my Portuguese heritage, and how ever more fragile it is for my children. And I feel it when I think of the loosening connections to the eastern shore, and my mother's family and my old friends.

A couple of weeks ago for some reason I was thinking of how much we document of our modern lives. The blogs, the videos, the 10,000 photos on my computer. But the past is all just memories. If I close my eyes, I can remember the cadence of both my paternal grandparents' accented English. I have a vague feeling that I remember a little of my maternal grandmother's, but almost no memory of what my maternal grandfather sounded like - it's moved just beyond my memory. I do still hear the voice of my mother's sister in my head. Oh, honey, is what I always remember her saying.

A few years ago my parents sent me a self published memoir/recipe book written by a woman who knew my paternal, Portuguese grandparents when they lived in Brunswick, Georgia. My grandfather, who immigrated by himself at age 16 to this country, was a pillar of the Portuguese community there. He welcomed new immigrants, help run the social structure of the community, and it was he who raised the money and traveled to Portugal to bring back the statue of Our Lady of Fatima which is still used for the Blessing of the Fleet on Mother's Day.

My grandfather is the man on the far left in the front. We went to the Blessing of the Fleet once, when I was 10 or 11 and my grandparents were still alive and I don't actually remember much. It was hot. There was a lot of Portuguese spoken, which my brother, mother and I did not understand. It was just a little boring for me and my brother. My grandparents, who followed the shrimp and left Brunswick for Key West in the 1950s, were very proud to be there, and very popular among their old friends.

I believe there is a small plaque in the church that talks about how Our Lady was brought to the US. I believe it may mention my grandfather, but I'm not sure. I think maybe someday I'd like to at least stop by on some family trip, with Elizabeth and Andrew in tow. They will be bored. I will sit in the cool, dark church and light a candle for Our Lady and feel just a little saudade.

The From Left to Write Book Club consists of over 100 bloggers who read books and then write posts inspired by the book (not a review of the book). This month's post was inspired by Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English, by Natasha Solomons, a lovely book that was entirely about saudade. As a member of the book club, I was given a free copy of the book, and, because I quickly and eagerly accept free items and was one of the first 20 bloggers to sign up for the book, also a package of Walkers Shortbread. Thank you, publishers. I usually pass along these books to someone else, but I think I'd like to hold onto this one for a little bit. You can borrow it. Or visit your local library or Amazon or better yet a small, quaint local bookshop in the countryside and you won't be disappointed.

Tell me, when do you feel saudade?

Boo-boos and writing

2011-03-04T10:42:00.003-05:00

I was going to write today about Andrew's rough week - the falls (seems like every day), the scrapes (last weekend), the fat lip (Wednesday), but then Elizabeth's writing last night captured my attention, too. So first Andrew - this has been a rough week for the little guy. Last Saturday, somehow he tried climbing the wall in our backyard and slipped and scraped up all the knuckles on his left hand, and so he's been sporting impressive scabs. Maybe because of the scabs, he's been pretty focused on his hand as his boo-boo, so even though he's fallen and gotten subsequent extremely minor injuries, if you ask him about his boo-boo he holds out his hand. I kiss it every time he holds it out and one day he asked, Do you love my boo-boo?

The other notable injury occurred when he tripped over the rug in the kitchen and smacked down on his face, giving him a fat upper lip and a crack in his lower lip. Neither seem to bother him at all. He's fallen out of the stroller more times this week than we can count (since he insists on climbing in and out himself), and once fell climbing off a chair, smacking his head on the floor.

I of course scoop him up and he cries hard while I feel around for any injuries. But, tough boy that he is, I'll say, ok, let's calm down - tell mommy what hurts? And he'll calm down and most of the time say, scary! and just need a little comfort from the scary part of the fall. We've learned you have to be precise with your wording - if you try to ask where he fell or what he fell on (trying to figure out what part of him hurts) he just looks at you and says, the floor! (Duh, mommy!) But nothing phases him for too long, and after a quick cuddle he's always right back where he left off.

--
Last night at dinner Elizabeth had a pad of paper and a pen. One of the issues with her writing struggles has always been that her imagination works much faster than her writing skills could possibly approach. So sometimes, she narrates a story and chicken scratches on the paper while she speeds along in her own world. We were a little alarmed at the start of this story:
Yep, bad boys. Ut oh! But then she started in on the story part, and there is no way I could ever even capture the complexity of her stories, but apparently the boys were henpecked but the farmer was really worried about the foxes but the chickens took care of it and then the bad boys were henpecked some more. That's the vastly abridged version. Or something like it.

Writing

2011-03-03T10:23:00.003-05:00

Elizabeth has struggled on and off in school this year, as she makes the transition to reading and writing. It was rough going in the beginning, but we decided for better or worse, to just power through. And now she loves writing and learning to read and wants to write all the time. She writes lists, she captions photos, she narrates stories, she labels - it's all come together. Well, sort of. There's a long way to go yet.

This is my favorite picture ever I think. It just cracks me up - the detail is great. Can you read it? Translation provided below.

Tell me what
you did on your
snow day?
I had hot
(trailing down the right side) chocolate inside.
And the picture shows her two friends playing outside while she is sitting inside drinking hot chocolate. I don't know what the two friends are doing.

Wordless Wednesday - more sleep

2011-03-02T15:43:00.002-05:00

(so we left our camera at Rich's parent house and I hadn't uploaded pictures for months, so jsut going through shots that are on my camera - this is the drawer of her nightstand, she must have been rummaging before falling asleep.)

Name that Baby Flashback

2011-02-25T12:29:00.002-05:00

It wasn't until a few months after I took the picture of Andrew that I realized we had similar poses in the same outfit, and now of course it's taken me over a year to get it posted! Let's see, Elizabeth was about 18.5 months old in her picture, and Andrew was 14 months old for his. I know it's pretty obvious, but I'm surprised by how much they look alike, and also by how much older Andrew looks than Elizabeth, when she was quite older. The lack of hair really persisted for a while.

What is it with kids and the fridge?

Wordless Wednesday - riding in the car

2011-02-23T16:09:00.000-05:00

The First ER Visit or, Perfection is overrated

2011-02-22T13:07:00.003-05:00

There was a point on Sunday when I thought, I have to write a blog post, because we are really having a pretty perfect day. But when the day ends at the ER, well, it's clear you shouldn't count any proverbial good days until all eyes are firmly shut in blissful slumber, now should you?

So, let's recap the good parts - brunch at Louisiana Kitchen with our now West Coast friend, Murph. Delish, as always, even though small children don't eat brunch. They eat breakfast, then they eat lunch, so why are we expecting them to sit quietly and eat again at the weird hour of 11 am? Elizabeth ate nothing but colored, whereas Andrew just attempted to reasonably quietly wreak havoc. Then we went home and attempted to put Andrew down for a nap. Which he refused. In no uncertain terms.

Hmm, you must be thinking, this doesn't exactly sound like a great day. But then we went to DAR Constitution Hall, for the US Air Force Band's free concert series, with special guests from So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With the Stars. Awesome! But also kinda weird - nothing like seeing a woman in full dress blues belting out Katy Perry's Firework and Miley Cyrus's Party in the USA, followed by another woman knock Lionel Ritchie's All Night Long, followed by another guy in dress blues belt the hell out of a number of songs. And then the band took backstage and the dancers performed - Benjie, Sabra, and someone else from SYTYCD were great. E&A were spellbound. But then A's mesmerized look faded into a thousand-mile stare before he nodded into a nap (with pounding pop/rock music and a couple of thousand cheering fans as his white noise background, apparently). It was a lot of fun. (We went last year when the featured guest was Melinda Doolittle, a past American Idol contestant. In two weeks, there's another concert featuring country/rock group Lonestar, which we will skip.) But really, a holdiay weekend, a fun concert, all for free? It doesn't get much better.

To cap off the night we walked to dinner in the neighborhood with friends. After dinner, just as it was beginning to spit rain/sleet, we let the 5 kids play around the planting beds outside the restaurant, running around and around on the ledge. And just as we turned to leave, 4 of the kids came running back to us, but Elizabeth popped up from the other side with a loud cry and blood running down her face. Rich ran and grabbed her, the other mom and I grabbed for the baby wipes, and the other dad corralled the 4 kids. I wiped off most of the blood and we saw the gash on her forehead. Other mom immediately said, you need to go to the hospital, that's too deep, and probably needs stitches. So we made a plan, after we scouted the area and decided (the giant blood drops were a clue) Elizabeth had hit her head on one of the small uplights focused on the trees - raised, rounded lights, with curved edges but not sharp edges. Other family went home and looked up the hours of the local emergent care center. Rich put E in A's stroller and set off at a high speed for home and the car to take E, and I trailed after with a slower, now-walking A. By the time I got home, other family let me know the center was closed, so Rich would have to go to a hospital, so I called and let him know, then tried to focus on getting Andrew in bed. He was a little befuddled: where dit-da [sister]? Where Daddy? But he cooperated nicely and then I just had to wait.

Two hours later, E came bursting home. Turns out the ER was "awesome" but a little boring. When they walked in they were processed in right away and the triage nurse said, good thing you came in, that's going to need some attention. After processing and triage, they had to wait about an hour in the back before being seen. The cleaning of the wound was the only stressful part, and the doctor decided it was small enough it could be closed with glue, no stitches needed, though there will probably be a scar. Elizabeth was particularly impressed with the stacks of "folded napkins" (gauze bandages) and liked having one taped to her head.

Yesterday, we took off the gauze. Of course the tape was stuck to a little bit of hair, and of course the gauze was stuck in the dermabond. I was able to get the tape unstuck, but Elizabeth was squirming too much for me to get at the gauze. She told us she wanted to look at it and walked by herself into the hall to stand at the mirror, and came back a minute later and told us she pulled the gauze off herself. That's my girl.
It's less than an inch long, really. The glue didn't really close it up, so I think there will be a scar, but in a few days, when the glue rubs off, we'll start applying Vitamin E oil.

For our first ER experience, it wasn't all that bad. I can hope it's our last ER experience, I don't know if we'll be that lucky!

Flashback Thursday

2011-02-17T11:12:00.006-05:00

I looked in the drawer of our coffee table last night (usually a big mistake - I try never to look in there as it's crammed with STUFF) and found a small stack of pictures we had printed out on plain paper, I think to make a collage for a school project on family. It's so easy to forget how small they were, or how curly E's hair was, or how chubby A was, and I'm thankful for the blog to remember small moments and stories, since I'm not one to do an elaborate baby book or scrap book. I love that digital cameras have made it easy to capture moments, but the flip side is those pictures never make it off the computer into any concrete form. The picture of E sleeping yesterday? Those are small little photo albums scattered around her, pink and labeled 0-3, 3-6, 6-9, and 9-12, are to capture the best pics from the first year of life. And they are blank. Empty. Not a picture in them. Hmm, perhaps this is a post more worthy of AwwwClutter, but seeing this picture made me feel a little nostalgic, which helped me fit into the theme of this month's book club book. It might be time to figure out the best (cheapest and best quality) way to print out some photos and load up some photo books (um, since there are over 10,000 pictures on my computer!). AND, I have got to call the picture studio since we haven't had Andrew's two year pictures taken yet.

The From Left to Write Book Club consists of over 100 bloggers who read books and then write posts inspired by the book (not a review of the book). This month's post was inspired by Exploiting my Baby, by Teresa Strasser. I'm still struggling with writing a post "inspired" by the book, so I'll say this was loosely inspired, and I enjoyed the book. If I was pregnant, I'd have enjoyed it more, but with two small children, I really, really liked the later chapters of the birth and first month after. As a member of the book club, I was given a free copy of the book, which I will be passing along to someone else (want it? just ask).

Wordless Wednesday - sleeping babes

2011-02-16T14:03:00.000-05:00

catching up - the botanical gardens in December

2011-02-15T11:10:00.003-05:00

I have a lot of photos on my computer that haven't made it on the blog, so here's a catch up from December - every year the Botanical Gardens decorates in a grand fashion for the holidays, and even better, dedicates an entire room to trains. We always try to go right around Christmas, which is when the entire rest of the city tries to go, too. But it's still a fun outing. I love the Gardens - and in my humble opinion, they are missing out on a gold mine. It is a peaceful, lovely place, but it's sort of isolated, which makes it is a destination spot, not exactly a stop in on your way to someplace else spot. If they put in a cafe - holy smokes, what a money maker. Especially if it had wifi. What a great spot to go hang out it would be, like the Sculpture Garden or the courtyard of the American Art Museum. But just my opinion.

Anyway, even though it was a few days before Christmas, I was still harboring the delusion that we might actually send holiday cards this year. Hence the posing. But somehow they both look a little unbalanced, no? Andrew still does his weird head tilt cheese pose, and Elizabeth was in a manic mood. That's right, I'm blaming my inability to send holiday cards on my kid's refusal to look cute!

The Newest Addition

2011-01-27T14:46:00.005-05:00

Since losing Aggie last year to cancer, Elizabeth has been asking when we'd get a new dog. My standard answer was "someday." At the end of the summer, Elizabeth looked at me one day and said, "Mommy, you said we'd get a dog someday and It. Is. Some. Day!" So, I started looking around. Acquiring a dog - by adoption anyway - is different in the internet age than it was in the past. Before, you'd visit the shelter and a dog would catch your eye and that would be it. Or you'd pass by an adoption event at the store or community event, or maybe if you were particular about the kind of dog you wanted you'd visit a couple of shelters or talk to the volunteers and have someone on the lookout for the type of dog you'd like. There was a bit of serendipity involved. The internet makes a lot of life easier, but overall, I have to say it removes a lot of chances for serendipity.

So here's how you adopt a dog today - you look online. There are numerous rescue groups who remove dogs from shelters and place them in foster homes, so you look up dogs by characteristics and then send an e-mail inquiring about a particular dog, and often agree to adopt the dog before ever meeting it. It's weird, but I suppose more dogs are adopted this way.

I started looking online and found a couple of things right away. Aggie was a westie mix, and we liked her size and most of her personality. There are westie rescue groups, but, here's the kicker, they won't adopt to families with small children, or families with cats. Hmmm. Apparently, most westies are surrended to shelters because of poor child/pet interactions - westies are known nippers. And, since they were bred to attack and kill small animals, cats can turn into prey. Perhaps this might have dissuaded us, but Aggie was so good with kids, and we're good pet owners in terms of teaching children and pets to get along. Kids have to learn to deal with the pets. And as far as the cat interaction, at 15 pounds and a bruising personality, let's just say we weren't worried about Harrison.

But this meant a westie would be hard to find. So I started looking at other possibilities, showing Rich cute pictures of needy dogs or just talking through other possibilities. Everything I suggested was met with a no. A beagle? Too barky/too much howling. A sheltie? Too shy/too much energy/too much hair. A collie? Too much hair/too big. It had to be a small dog (less than 30 pounds), not require a large yard, and fit into our lifestyle. A pug? Too ugly. Boston terrier? No. A corgi? How could I desecrate Aggie's memory by getting a dog breed that Aggie despised? Etc. It became clear a Westie was the only answer.

I saw a few dogs that might fit the bill, and contacted a couple of rescue organizations. But each time the dog was already pending adoption. It became clear that we needed to be pre-approved to adopt before we could really start seriously looking. So, I filled out the paperwork and started the process. Meantime, I also set up a search on petfinder.com - looking for a Westie. I checked my search nearly every day, but without much luck, while being interviewed by a rescue group on our philosophy of dog behavior modification, opening our home for a home inspection, and providing info on our vet, on the life history of our pets, and every other thing you could imagine and a few you might not. Finally, we were pre-approved, and introduced to a pet matchmaker who would be on the look out for a dog that met our qualifications.

Two weeks ago, I refreshed my petfinder search and scanned the familar list of Westies, and then noticed two new ones, available in rural Virigina, south of Charlottesville. I quickly sent an e-mail asking about availability, and got a fast response. We set up a phone call for the next day, where I learned about this woman, Susie, who set up her own rescue organization and worked within her community rescuing poodles and Westies. She told me two other people had e-mailed first, but we sounded the best. I told her we were pre-approved by another agency and offered to send all the info, but she said after doing this for so long she went with her gut and we were the ones for this particular dog.

Over time, Susie has developed a relationship with a backyard breeder who at one time was a fairly decent guy. But he was older, and his wife had died a few years ago, and his property, and his ability to care for the dogs, had declined rapidly. Over the years Susie has been able to rescue many dogs from this man. He keeps them all in his backyard with little to no human interaction and lately, no real care. The little dog we were interested in was 9 months old, had never seen a vet or had any vet care, and was kept in a pen with her sister, who had just given birth to a litter of pups. The breeder/puppy mill owner had called Susie and said his daughters were getting on him about the number of dogs he had and so he was going to let her pick up the two girls. Susie rushed right out and grabbed the dogs and took them home for their first baths and care they had ever received. Susie reported the little dog was blossoming, was very gentle, and would be a perfect pet for us. She had rescued a brother pup from the man and that dog was doing very well. Overall, the dogs from this man - and this litter - had sweet dispositions and had proven to be fine with kids and pets. She was confident this was a good match. And so, without any rigamarole, we had a pending adoption.

We didn't want to get our hopes up too much, as it didn't entirely seem real (especially given the hoops other rescues made us go through). We had to wait a week for the dog to be neutered and get basic vet care. Meanwhile we started slowly talking about it with E&A, mostly focused on what we should call a new dog. We had a short list, but decided we liked Skipper, named after the lead penguin on The Penguins of Madagascar. If nothing else, it would always remind us of this time in our lives, and since Westies are generally such spunky dogs, it would be a good name.

Saturday I got up early and made the drive, leaving Rich to deal with the kids. Initially we were all going to go, but decided it made no sense - a three hour drive each way, in the bitter cold, and we'd only pick up the dog and then be right back on the road? Not worth it. So I took the Mini, and made great time. I decided to stop in Charlotteville for a break, since I was running early, and got out to stretch my legs. Got back in the car, and - nothing. Car would not start. We've had problems with this car and the battery, and while we love the Mini, the particular design quirks of the car make jumping it a nightmare. So I called AAA. An hour later, I was back on the road, but knowing I wouldn't risk turning the car off again until I was safely home! The pick up went fine, the dog was super cute, and Susie was great. So I turned around and made the trek back.

Skipper has now been with us 5 days. And she's still freaked out and scared to death, though we can see her calming down. Elizabeth has been great with her, very patient and loving. Andrew keeps calling her Aggie (he was 13 months old when Aggie died!). Right now, she's hiding under the couch as I sit and type. I pulled out an old training technique and now carry a bag of chopped hotdogs in my pocket, which makes me infinitely less frightening. But she still won't voluntarily come to any of us, nor will she use stairs. Our strategy right now is just to let her calm down and become comfortable with us. Sometimes doing nothing is the hardest thing. And housebreaking? Yeah, that's not happening. She is too freaked out that we have to catch her, put on the scary leash, take her outside, and put her down in the freezing cold. So far, we have a perfect record - take her out, stand around while she shivers for 10-15 minutes, bring her in, and have her go on the floor within a minute of being inside. Perhaps we have to lower our expectations in this area until she's decided we're not that scary. The good news is she has extreme bladder control!

And Harrison? Well, he's been much better than expected. He expressed his displeasure the first night by vomiting 7 times, but that stopped. He's swiped at Skipper twice, but it's not been too serious, more his way of telling the dog to back off. I've never typed the story of how Harrison terrorized Aggie the very first day we brought Harrison home, but let's just say we were a little worried for Skipper's life, but that worry was for naught. Skipper is actually pretty interested in Harrison, so maybe they might become friends. Stranger things have happened. Although the last thing we need is for Skipper to learn the ropes from Harrison!

So, wow, I've typed a novella. Here are the pictures from the first day. More pics to come, and I'm sure many more stories in the future. For now, we're looking for doggy playdates and just trying to take each day as it comes!

Stubborn and independent? I'll take it

2011-01-20T15:12:00.004-05:00

My mom group of friends (see most of sidebar at right) is currently discussing what to do with stubborn or spirited children. Most of them are talking about their second children, who are all mostly three, and let's face it, three is the tough age.

But Andrew is just 2, and still, despite his fierce budding temper, is mostly sweet most of the time. Elizabeth is also mostly sweet, most of the time. But she is is also very stubborn, and very independent. She knows what she wants and she works hard to get what she wants. And if she doesn't want it? Well, she will work very, very hard at NOT working hard.

This sometimes is stressing. Just this weekend, I was moaning to a friend how frustrating it is to get out of the house. If it were up to Elizabeth and Andrew, they would stay in their pajamas all day and we would never leave the house. Except, that also makes them stir-crazy and once we are out doing something they thoroughly enjoy it. But the struggle to get them dressed in the morning and out of the house usually involves some variation of the "put your coat on right now" "if you don't get dressed we don't go do [fun thing]" "why can't you all cooperate" line of parental nudging. In order to get out of the house on an average weekend day (or even during the week), Rich and I must fully dress Elizabeth. She appears to be incapable, at age 5, of getting dressed herself. This stresses us out. Other 5 year olds appear to have mastered the skill of getting dressed. And, for Pete's sake, when she wants to, she can concoct an outlandish outfit and put it on herself in less than 2 minutes.

Anyway, the very night I had complained that my child appeared not to be able to dress herself, we put her to bed wearing her Snoopy pajamas. When I went to check on her at my bedtime, she was wearing a completely different set of pajamas. I just sighed and tucked her in. The next morning, I saw that the other pair of pajamas seemed to be wet, so I asked if she had an accident in her bed (because I had tried to tell her to use the bathroom before bedtime, but she stubbornly refused!). No, no accident in the bed, she replied, I had an accident in the bathroom. Oh, you didn't make it in time? No, she replied, so I changed my pajamas and cleaned the floor up. Oh, hon, you can always call mommy and daddy to come help you if you need help at night, I told her. Well, she said, I didn't need help.

Which sort of illustrates something another friend of mine told me. We want compliant, dutiful children who listen to us and do what they're told. But later in life, the skills we want our children to have are exactly the ones we moan about now. We want them to be self confident, independent, determined teenagers and young adults. It just so happens that the skills we want them to have when they're older make these young years tough.

And that reminds me of a quote from Laura Thatcher Ulrich: "well-behaved women seldom make history."

Elizabeth may be very stubborn and very independent. But we wouldn't have it any other way.

The From Left to Write Book Club is consists of over 100 bloggers who read books and then write posts inspired by the book (not a review of the book). This month's post was inspired by Young Mandela, by David James Smith. As a member of the book club, I was given a free copy of the book, which I will be passing along to someone else (want it? just ask).

grand girl

2011-01-05T12:50:00.004-05:00

Elizabeth loves, loves, loves staying in a hotel, even if it's a cheap $30/night motel in rural south Carolina on our trip home from Florida. She thinks it's the fanciest thing ever and so spends a fair amount of time prancing about. So Monday night, even though she normally hates having her hair brushed, when getting ready for bed she carefully ran her brush through the front part of her hair before positioning her headband just so.

I stroked her hair and started to say how nice it was she used the brush a bit, when she pulled back and said, rather grandly, "do not touch the royal hair of........um, me."

When I later repeated the story to Rich (funny how he missed it in a small hotel room, but he was helping Andrew brush his teeth) she corrected me, "no, I said the royal hair of the princess!"

Indeed! Christmas may have been a bit too much of a princess explosion in these parts.

more to do

2011-01-04T22:39:00.004-05:00

So, big news, I joined a book club, after reading some great posts by my friend Elaine. I was in a book club for 10 years, from 1995 to just after the birth of Elizabeth, when the BBC (bogus-boozin'-breakup book club) finally gave up its last gasp. We read some great stuff, a few not so great stuff, and everything in between. I've missed it, in no small part because it marked the exodus of my friends from DC - once people start to move on, it's hard to hold a club together, not to mention those that shifted jobs or priorities or friendships and so moved on earlier. The thing I liked best about being in a book club was that it turned an intrinsically introvert activity into an extrovert activity, which suited me perfectly.

So, now I've joined a virtual book club. Which kind of takes away from the extrovert (ie, boozin') part of the club fun. But, leaves a stack of books on my nightstand to get through.

I remember once years - a decade! - ago being at a work function and paging through the latest book, trying to finish. And the hard charging head of the PR firm with whom we worked just shaking her head and saying, 'I'd never join a book club, everyone I know in one is constantly complaining about finding time to read and the pressure to finish.' And that's where I find myself tonight - didn't finish tonight's book, but getting the post up just barely in time, with another book due next week and a third the week after. I've got some reading to do, along with a million other things, of course. But taking some time out to just enjoy reading is something I don't mind putting on my to-do list.

The From Left to Write Book Club is consists of over 100 bloggers who read books and then write posts inspired by the book (not a review of the book, which is weird, but ok whatever, I'm trying to figure it out). This month's post was inspired by Take the Cake, by M.F. Chapman. As a member of the book club, I was given a free copy of the book, which I will be passing along to someone else (want it? just ask).

picky picky

2010-12-21T21:40:00.002-05:00

Often on weekdays we make a quick scrambled egg for the kids, topped with cheese. Elizabeth often views the scrambled egg as a delivery vehicle for melted cheese, but she also mostly likes eggs, too, though she vastly prefers the scrambled eggs made by our babysitter to those made my me or Daddy.

On weekends, we have more elaborate breakfasts, and sometimes we have scrambled eggs with ham, onions, other vegetables, plus cheese.

So on Saturday, Elizabeth requested eggs for breakfast, but quickly added some instructions:

"But don't put any food in the eggs, Daddy!"

Count by 5s!

2010-12-16T14:01:00.004-05:00

There's lots of singing in school, and this is a favorite song. You might have to turn volume way way up as the iphone doesn't do sound well. Ignore the stage mother prompts in the background. Who was that?

She freaking loves that head thing I got her for her birthday, but in her mind, it is equal to her other headbands, meaning she thinks she can wear it to school while daddy and I disagree. So it's an after school option. And the sunglasses? Well, she is a star.

I could do an entire post on what she's doing when she falls asleep. I cannot resist pulling out my iphone and snapping pictures. Maybe next week I'll put them all together in one post, but this is her later that night.

stories

2010-12-13T10:44:00.000-05:00

Like all families, my family has its share of stories that are told and retold, passed down for years. My favorite ones, of course, involve me.

So, 40 years ago, on December 12, 1970, my grandmother, my aunt, my mother and I were Christmas shopping in Salisbury. As I discuss endlessly, I am from Pocomoke, and you really need to get out of Pocomoke if you want to buy a variety of items. There's a walmart now, but people still head to the mall in Salisbury when they need to go shopping.

After a full day of shopping, my mother, who was 9 months pregnant, turned to my aunt and said, I think you should drop mother and me off at the hospital and take Susan home, please. Because I've been in labor all day and it's probably time I check in.

My aunt, who was childless at the time, was reportedly furious with my mom for shopping all day while in labor, but my mom was by all accounts fine and the plan went off. My dad was working in Australia at the time, and my mom and I were living with my grandparents, so my grandmother stayed with my mom and my aunt drove me back to Pocomoke.

I was 2 years and 4 months old. On the drive home, my aunt reportedly asked me if I wanted my mom to bring home a brother or sister from the hospital.

And my reply, repeated often to great laughter, was: "Well, what I really want is a kitten!"

And instead of a kitten, my brother Michael was born on December 13. So happy 40th birthday to my brother.

But back to the story. Here's the thing. I am in daily contact with a pretty chatty little guy who is 2 years and 1 month old. And it wasn't that long ago that I spent a lot of time with a highly verbal girl when she was 2.33 years old. It's not, exactly, that I doubt my aunt's veracity. Kids do say the darnedest things, and non sequitors are fairly routine. But, let's just say that I've wondered about this story for the past few years. Sadly, the other participants, besides my mom who was fairly occupied at the time, are no longer here to confirm details.

I like precision. Did my aunt ask, do you want a brother or sister? And I replied, no, a kitten? Or did she say something more vague, like what do you want your mother to bring home? And then I more logically replied a kitten? It's just that when you examine this story more closely, more details are required.

The truly happy ending part of the story is that my mother came home from the hospital with my brother, and then my father came home from Australia, and then we moved into the cutest little pink house (I was in heaven living in a pink house!) on Holiday Drive, and THEN we got a kitten. A very cute female Siamese kitten who was named Scooby Doo. And here again, I'm going to call foul. Because, the story has been that my brother and I named the kitten after our favorite show and of course my parents didn't plan to name our cat after the popular cartoon dog but we insisted. But look! I was just over 2.5 at the time, and my brother was a newborn!

Recently, we've started watching old Scooby Doo cartoons, which are shown on the Cartoon Network. Andrew calls it Dooby-doo, and he and Elizabeth loooove the show, even if (or maybe because) it's just ever so slightly scary and the dog talks.

So I've got all these threads here and no plan to tie them all together. I suppose the moral of the story is 40 year old family stories should be repeated, often, at the family table, preferably with aunts and uncles and cousins and generations gathered, rather than examined in detail in writing.

And second, happy 40th birthday Michael!

(And yes, there was another 40th birthday recently in the family, and there are some pictures that were planned to be added to the blog, but blah blah blah kidney infection camera cord....and we'll either get to it or not!).

Ele-fun

2010-12-06T17:33:00.003-05:00

I need to get the camera cable and upload photos, so a video from my iphone for now.

Perhaps I need to add this game to the Little Guy's Christmas list!

Smart

2010-12-01T21:54:00.003-05:00

Well, that whole NaBloPoMo thing was a total bust, huh? I just never was able to get back into the swing of posting once I felt better. But I did keep up with reading my blogroll, and it is fun to catch up with bloggers on a more regular basis. So with any luck and perseverance (something that is not my strong suit), I'll be a more frequent poster in December, and my blog readers will be so happy to have some content I'll get a ton of comments, right? I am going to backdate posts on Awwwclutter as I still am sorting through my shoes and did manage to wear (and buy!) shoes, so much to write there.

So I'll leave you with a little story I was planning to post right before I got sick.

Elizabeth had a soccer class Wednesdays at 5pm during September and October. Two rain dates meant two makeup days after Daylight Savings Time ended, which meant they played in the dark - literally in the dark - for the two makeups. The night before the first makeup, I thought I had a learning moment when we could discuss the change in seasons, length of daylight, and daylight savings time. Elizabeth, of course, had another idea.

Me: So, have you noticed this week it's getting dark earlier? Tomorrow you will have soccer practice after school and it will be dark for practice!
E: Yes, why is it so much darker?
M (gathering thoughts, realizing am unprepared and can't decide if I want to tackle change of season, the earth's rotation and tilt, or daylight savings, or exactly where to start): Well.....you see....
E (excitedly): I know! God is SMART.
M: um, yes, yes God is smart.
E: He controls all the holidays. So, he says to........um (thinking)....Mrs God, do you want it to be cold for the holiday? And then he does it. And that's how they do it. God and Mrs God are very smart.
M (realizing I have been beat): yes, yes they are.

Radio silence

2010-11-16T14:19:00.002-05:00

I know it's NaBloPoMo and all, and it's officially been a, well, a while since the last post. I have my excuses, and it's a pretty good one. A kidney infection will sap any NaBloPoMo inspiration right out of you, I tell you. I'm on the mend, finally, though, so things are going to pick back up. I have posts from last week, but I can't decide if I'm going to try to backfill or just pick up from here forward. I think I'll backfill over at AwwwClutter. So stay tuned, we'll be back on the air with our regularly scheduled programming.....tomorrow.

(and, now, officially, my second NaBloMo post about posting. Pathetic.)

The $10K cat

2010-11-06T23:10:00.000-04:00

So, I was talking about Harrison, our cat, with one of my friends and I think shocked her by referring to him as our $10K rescue cat. That is a freaking large amount of money to spend on a cat, but yet, over ten years, that's my estimate of what he's cost us. I said that to Rich once and he scoffed there was no way, but once we totaled it up....well, maybe we haven't hit $10K, but we're closing in on it.

Harrison was adopted from the Siamese Cat Rescue Center. My beloved cat Andre died in December 2000, so once we moved into this house in 2001 it was time. He came to us at a year old, a little beat up from a rough life on the streets. In fact, one of his rear legs had been broken somehow, and obviously not set as he still walks with a bit of limp, though once he really settled in it became barely noticeable. One of his ears is a bit ragged, so he definitely got into it a time or two during his time in the wild.

In 2004, when my family as visiting for my sister's college graduation, Harrison developed a urinary blockage, something that is not unusual in male cats. There was a stay in the animal hospital, surgery, and follow up care, including a special diet ($$) to reduce the chance of recurrence. Harrison specializes in crises during busy times. I'm not going to get these dates right because it was all too crazy, but in the weeks after Elizabeth was born, he developed what we could only call severe lethargy, so another emergency room visit determined he had developed some sort of heart problem. We were supposed to take him to a cardiologist, but couldn't ever get there in those first few weeks and by the time we had the time, he seemed to have recovered from whatever it was (we did take him for followups at the regular vet), though he does have a heart mumur.

And I can't remember when this happened, or what event he disrupted, but the biggest ticket item was the intestinal blockage, which resulted in another long hospital stay, surgery, and extended follow up care. Oh, and a DIFFERENT special diet. Nothing has been related to anything else, it's just been a series of unrelated, unlucky events. And, each thing has been something that was easily, if expensively, fixable.

Harrison and Aggie had a complicated relationship - well, not that complicated if you simply consider that Harrison moved in and on day 1 decided it was his mission in life to terrorize our dog. But I think he had a certain fondness for Aggie. So with Aggie gone, Harrison has been lonely, and more importantly, bored. He's been an exclusive indoor cat since he came to live with us, but this summer, at the height of his boredom, I started allowing him to go outside in our fenced back area. He quickly discovered how to escape, though he mostly spent time sunning himself in our yard. I'd let him out for an hour or so in the afternoons. Given our financial investment in this cat, I should have put a stop to it, but he was so happy just hanging around outside (and that's all he mostly did) I let it continue, even when I knew he was in standoffs with a stray in the alley. It wasn't every day, and never for long, but still, he shouldn't have been going out unsupervised. It didn't help that he's learned how to open our back screen door. If it's not latched properly, he can push it open, but even when it is latched, somehow he works at the door until he jiggles it enough the latch slips.

So, two weeks ago - Harrison worked on the door while we were eating dinner and made it out. A huge no no, but he was gone before we could grab him. We expected him to just come back fairly quickly, as usual, but at 11 Rich was outside calling and calling for him. Finally, at 11:30, just as we were going to bed, I looked out the back door and there he was. But, when he came in, he was dripping blood from a wound on his neck - he had gotten into it with something. So, we got him cleaned up and put antiseptic on all his wounds. He slept most of the next day - after all he had just gotten beat up - but seemed to recover. He's been on lockdown since.

Friday night, we noticed a tuft of fur coming off his head, and realized he had a scratch there we hadn't treated, but the tuft of hair coming off generally means the scab is healing so I didn't think too much of it. Then, Saturday morning, he started cleaning, cleaning, cleaning his head. Which, again, I did'nt think too much of, until we took a good look at it and realized he had a giant oozing wound on the top of his head.

Great. Rich's parents were on their way down to celebrate Rich's 40th b-day, and the cat had a giant absess on his head. So, loaded him in the carrier and made my way to the vet for a couple of hours in the waiting room.

$225 later, it was cleaned out, he had a half-shaved head, and we had antibiotics. We'll just add it to the total. He was not happy about the vet, but they managed to clean him up even with the deep belly yowling that was going on. And now we have ten days of pills to get through.

Oh, and I'm forgetting to write about his hernia. When he had the intestinal blockage, at the follow up visit the vet who did the surgery (not at our usual vet) said, oh, I think I sewed all his fat into one area, he's got a little fat pouch. We thought that was odd, but everything seemed to heal ok, except for this bulge in his belly. It was another vet at our usual practice who said, um, he has a hernia. So I had to epxlain that to this vet, who really strongly suggested we spend another couple of grand to get that hernia fixed. Another $2-3K. For a hernia operation. Well, if we haven't hit $10K yet, we certainly will before too long.

Moral of the story - pet insurance for our next pet

Ball guy

2010-11-05T12:39:00.000-04:00

One thing I hear from parents of older children is how you become an expert in a topic you never thought might be of interest to you. Parents of girls, for example, might get to know all the intimate details of every Disney princess tale, or the intricacies of the relationships between My Little Ponies, or not to be too horribly gender stereotyping, breeds of horses or I don't know, whatever interests them at the time.

Most mothers I know don't tend to complain about the typical "girl interests" possibly because they were once girls themselves. But I've heard more than one mother grimace when describing how she knows the name and function of every sort of motorized construction vehicle that exists, or arcane trivia about steam engine trains, or the entire taxonomic branch of every dinosaur species known to man. I cannot believe how much this post is embracing every gender stereotype. But the thing is, your kids are their own people no matter how you raise them. When Andrew was quite small, I looked for (because I thought it was interesting) any possible gender differences and noticed no obvious ones. No reaching for toys of one sort over the other, no preferences for dinosaurs over baby dolls.

And then he turned one. And it quickly became apparent what kind of boy we have, and it's very different that Elizabeth. Andrew is a ball guy. And they all pretty much interest him: football, soccer, baseball, basketball. Thus far, with the passing of each season, he's happily transitioned to the next sport and been just as interested. Rich and I are pleased. We can handle this interest while enjoying it ourselves. Whew.

Now, Elizabeth likes football, too, don't get me wrong. But she does not insist on carrying a ball with her at all times. Nor practicing pitching, catching, throwing, or kicking any of the various shaped sports balls that litter our house. Andrew really likes two things right now - kicking the football, and playing 'tackle.' Given the ongoing discussion of increasing violence in football, kicking is about the only position he'd ever be allowed to play, if this interest of his continues, and he's got a decent leg on him already, and loves both kicking it and being the holder.

The thing is, we don't have a no-throwing-the-ball in the house policy. Until recently, it's not like he could do much damage. But he acquired a real pro baseball this summer, and he's got some strength. And some of those footballs could do some damage, too, particularly to our thinly-paned original glass, historic windows, or yikes, our big screen TV, or our original built-in leaded glass-fronted cabinets. But, it is fun to play in the house, so we'll have to think through some house rules.

Hallo-week

2010-11-04T22:20:00.004-04:00

Four days, seven events. I think we're just now recovering. So let's see, I covered event 1, the school parade. Then there was trick or treating at Daddy's office. Then another party at a friends. Saturday we had a birthday party in the morning. Andrew woke up a little warm and grouchy, but seemed fine at the party. When we got home and I lifted him out of his carseat, I could feel the heat radiating from his body. A fever of 101, so he and I took a pass on event #5, a Halloween party at my brothers.
That's all we need to say about that. Andrew and Daddy took a break from #6, a princess birthday party. Somehow I neglected to take a picture of the adult princess, who seemed to be wearing my circa 1986 prom dress.
And that brings us to Halloween itself. Elizabeth loved trick or treating with her 3 best friends in the neighborhood. It was barely possible for Rich to keep up with her. Andrew was feeling better, but mostly wanted to stick close to home. He LOVED handing out candy to trick or treaters, which surprised me. I wish I had gotten a picture of him doling out the candy with a "here ya go" to each bag.
Seven events in four days was really too much. We had fun, but by the end we were all feeling pretty frayed around the edges.
Thankfully my friend Amy came over and helped us man the fort. Our street is insane on Halloween - I bought close to $40 worth of candy, and for once we didn't run out too early. Our last piece was handed out just after 8:30. The first bag had 83 pieces, the second bag 65, the third bag was cheaper laffy taffy and other smaller candies and while there was no label it had well over 120 pieces, bag four had another 65 pieces, and by bag five I had no idea, plus I had sorted the daddy's office candy and put stuff we don't like in the hand out bin. The past two years we've basically employed a neighborhood redistribution system - sending Elizabeth out to collect more so we could hand out more. This year Elizabeth was too savvy for that, though I was able to srot through it quickly and redistribute some undersirable candy (who hands kids chocolate santas? well, I guess we did), and we still ended up with a pretty healthy supply for the next few months.

Til next year!

a preview

2010-11-03T22:32:00.004-04:00

Still haven't taken pics off our camera, so just a preview of Halloween from my iphone. This was costume #1 for event #1. The younger grades suggested kids should dress as storybook characters and write a book report (yes, write a book report) from their character's story. So her planned Sleeping Beauty costume became Little Red Riding Hood, as we've never read the sleeping beauty story (and struck out at the library). But that's ok. She had 6 more events and I believe 2 additional costume changes to come.

And a photo sent by one of RIch's co-workers. Costume #2 from event #2 - Cinderella at Daddy's office trick or treating event. Andrew, as Elmo, had a pretty good time, though Rich reports Andrew would wander into offices and say, "I want candy." He's not subtle. And yet he's pretty darn cute, so this strategy worked well for him. The football helmet in his left hand is not an official part of his costume - Rich has a UVA helmet displayed in his office, and his office mate retaliated with a syracuse helmet. Andrew insisted on carrying it around the entire time.

They scored so much candy at daddy's office that I was able to sort through it and place any undersirable candies in our giveaway pile for the hundreds of kids we had for Halloween itself.

still puzzled about this one

2010-11-02T22:48:00.002-04:00

The weekend before last, Elizabeth and I were out and Rich put Andrew down for his nap. Andrew was having none of it though, and played and sang and talked in his crib. After about 45 minutes, he started calling Daddy daddy daddy. So Rich went in, only to find Andrew holding his diaper in his hand, with his pants pulled down to his ankles.

OK, so pants down, but still fully on both legs. Diaper off - but one side of the diaper was connected. It must have re-connected after he pulled it off, right? It's just not physically possible to take off a diaper with your pants still on without unhooking both sides, right?

Mercifully, the diaper was merely wet. And also mercifully, there have been no further repeats of any Harry Houdini-like moves. Fingers and toes crossed this was a one time occurrence.

(found the camera cord, but it's too late to upload a billion pictures and write the halloween post. That's tomorrow's goal!).

NaBloPoMo 2010

2010-11-01T23:12:00.002-04:00

It's that time of year again. National Blog Posting Month. Once again, my friends and I have decided to accept the challenge and post (at least) once per day for the entire month of November. I chuckled when I read my friend Elaine's post this morning, when she said she was gonig for the low hanging fruit by posting bout Halloween.

Well, I never managed to find the camera cord today (not that I looked all that hard), so I'm gonig for even lower-hanging fruit - a post about how I'm going to be posting.

Pathetic, isn't it? (I can't even be bothered today o put up the badge or links!). It'll get better. Tomorrow. Promise.

Harvest Day Parade

2010-10-28T15:30:00.001-04:00

Some days I stress out about our school choice decisions. And some days I stress out about how hard it can be to get things done and work to improve a school.

And some days, I am so happy and proud to be a part of it.

Wordless Wednesday - little football fan

2010-10-27T21:12:00.002-04:00

newest mimic

2010-10-20T11:29:00.005-04:00

I've been giving Andrew short shrift lately, but we'll make that up soon. For now, I'm just wondering if we have a new mimic in the house.

Andrew has been following Elizabeth's path in music, with the exception of not getting quite a much kid's music and getting far more exposure to popular music at an earlier age. He happily sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and the ABC song. He loves Music Together and requests/demands we play the CD or sing the songs. I'll often hear him singing to himself songs from Music Together, and he loves dancing. He might even have more moves than Elizabeth.

We keep one Sesame Street CD in the car, and he often demands Elmo. Sometimes when Daddy gets a little tired of the kid music and changes from CD to radio, hoping no one will notice, we'll hear a little voice pipe up from the back, "Hey! Elmo!" which is the cue to change it right back, thank you very much. (Elmo only sings one or two songs on the whole CD, and we rarely watch Sesame Street, but that Elmo has a magnetic appeal - his presence on diapers probably has something to do with the indoctrination since birth).

So last night, Eizabeth, Andrew and I were eating dinner, when he suddenly yelled, completely out of the blue, "COLD AS ICE!" Dumbfounded, I just looked at him, then hesitantly sang, you're as cold as ice, you're willing to sacrifice our love? Which caused Elizabeth to say, hey, cold as ice/sacrifice: that rhymes!

Rich was out to dinner with friends, so I texted him and asked if he'd been listening to Foreigner lately, but he was as puzzled as me. I doubt Gee is that into Foreigner, so it's a mystery. We weren't actually eating anything cold, nor was there any ice on the table. Who knows?

But I thumbed through my iphone and not surprisingly I have it on there, so we cranked up the music and boogied our way through clean up and had a dance party before the bath. Which is not a bad way to end the day.

You know how some poeple don't like musicals because they think it's silly that people randomly burst into song and dance? Yeah, that's kind of my ideal life.

And the dancing queen herself - ugh, I should use this picture on AwwwClutter to demonstrate how awful our hallway is right now!

Musicology

2010-10-12T09:26:00.004-04:00

I've been planning since this blog began of doing a post on Elizabeth's and her music - from the time (at 6 months old) we drove 2 hours singing The Wheels on the Bus over and over and over again to keep her from crying, to the endless loop of Old McDonald (~12 months), to Music Together (1-3 years old), Sesame Street CDs (2-3), our salvation of discovering how kid friendly the Beatles are (2.5+), to her love of Michael Jackson (3.5-now), our girl has got it going on when it comes to music.

She's always been a highly verbal kid, and has picked up (from Daddy) an ability to mimic. So, it was a given that she'd pick up song lyrics. We listen to music a lot, either on the radio, our ipods/CDs, or satellite TV. And we don't really censor our music much. She's not listening to heavy metal (from Rich) or too-explicit lyrics, but she is exposed to everything. And we are mostly ok about that. It's very cute to have the radio on in the car and hear her singing along. One of her first favorite songs was The Plain White Ts 1,2,3,4: There's only 1 thing 2 say those 3 words 4 you, I love you! She also loves The Black Eyed Peas, and it is a little disquieting to hear her singing My Humps (my humps, my humps, my lovely lady lumps), but it is a catchy song. I chose to believe The Black Eyed Peas are fairly intelligent people and have a healthy sense of humor about themselves and most of it is toungue in cheek, but maybe I am just deluding myself. She - and her friends - love all the Peas catchy songs. She loves Pink (Get This Party Started). It's also kind of surprising to realize how kid-friendly Culture Club's music is. When I was a young teenager, Boy George was shocking and the potential ruin of society. Now, he's kind of quaint and the music is charming.

Of course we worry now at pop cutlure, how over-sexualized it is, how nothing is innocent, how much raunch there is in every day life. But still, a broad exposure to a variety of music works for us.

Rich has been a wee bit disturbed by Katy Perry and her California Girls, a song Elizabeth adores. Daisy Dukes, bikinis on top. I asked her what Daisy Dukes were and she said, don't be silly mommy, daisies are flowers.

Luckily, her tastes are still fairly wide, and she still loves listening to Sesame Street CDs and Backyardigans and Music Together, and it's really just the music - she's not exposed to any of the videos, or Disney tween shows and has no idea who Miley Cyrus or Hannah Montana is, and we'll keep it that way. But she does love some Miley songs, and heck, so do I - they're catchy and singable and have a good beat.

Which brings us to yesterday and grocery shopping. HT has small little kiddie carts for kids to push which have, until recently, been the bane of our existence. She'd always want to push them and have products on her cart but halfway through the store she'd get bored. Or, she'd ram my ankles with the fricking cart, causing crippling pain. But she's now old enough to really handle the cart herself, and she enjoyed trailing along with me, putting the interesting purchases (cookies, fruit) in her cart.

We rounded a corner and crossed in front of a 20 something woman shopping with her boyfriend, who saw Elizabeth pushing her cart and smiled at how charming she looked and exchanged a glance with her boyfriend. But then, my proud mommy moment instantly shifted. HT was playing Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus over the speakers, and the young woman's indulgent smile turned into a look of alarm as she heard my sweet girl singing at the top of her lungs (with accompanying gyrations):

I put my hands up
they're playing my song,
butterflies fly away
nodding my head like yeah,
moving my hips like yeah!

Wordless Wednesday - bedtime

2010-10-06T15:03:00.004-04:00

I can never quite manage Wordless Wednesday properly as I think everything needs a caption. I could do a whole series of pics on what we find when we go in at our bedtime for the final check on Elizabeth. That's a marker (!) in the left hand (she's a lefty) and there's a small notebook still clutched in her right.

No like

2010-10-04T22:02:00.002-04:00

It's happened. We've made the leap from generally correct spoken English to picking up habits of speech. And it just happened this week.

Here for example, is what happened to Elizabeth at school today, verbatim: "well, I was like doing an art project and bent down when my paper like fell on the ground and when I stood back up I like banged my head on the desk."

AAAAUUUUGGGHHHH. Seriously, I did not think this started at this age! But Rich and I both say it (though generally not 3 times in one sentence), and, like, you know, it's not the worst bad speech mannerism she could pick up, you know?

We'll keep our eyes and ears on this.

Meanwhile, said sentence explains why she came home with a "head injury report" from school today, but all appears fine. School seems to be going well these days - I think we did just have a hurdle to overcome, and now things have settled down. Fingers crossed it like stays like ok.

Pocomoke Middle School

2010-09-29T17:27:00.004-04:00

I spend a lot of time thinking about education and education reform and have been semi-following the Today Show's Education Nation feature. But totally missed today, when my middle school was featured! Yay Pocomoke!

Totally recognize the classrooms, gym, cafeteria, library. The principal is new to me, and since she hired 82% of the teachers there, I only recognized one who was my home ec teacher back in the 80s. This was a good school, and the high school was a great school when I was there, despite all the challenges.

And yet, on the same day this incredibly positive story appeared on the today show, two of my cousins have facebook statuses that talk about a stabbing in the fields behind the middle school (can't find any online links). It seems like, as always, there is the good and the bad.

Here's the current online stabbing story.

supersize

2010-09-22T21:21:00.003-04:00

Just 11 months ago, many of my bloggy friends and I were complaining about the supersizing of Halloween - so many opportunities to wear costumes and get candy. I'm too tired to find the links. Because tonight, we're finally through almost all of the birthday.

Party at a park for ~50 people Sunday
29 cupcakes for school today
dinner for extended family tonight

A very happy 5 year old

And a very tired mommy and daddy

Whew.

Happy birthday Sweetpea. Hard to believe it has been 5 years. The days are long, but the years are short.

school daze

2010-09-20T23:17:00.001-04:00

When I was in third grade, I had Mrs. Talbot for reading (and spelling, but that is a different long, long story). We had individual work books we all had to proceed through. I think you'd work on your workbook, then once finished have Mrs Talbot look it over and then hand you the next one. That you had to work through. By yourself. Ad Naseum.

I trudged my way through the workbooks, but I really disliked them. There were 25 in the whole series. My friend Amy L was, I think, the first to finish all of them. And a bunch of other kids finished theirs, too. I was still trudging along at around book 20 or 21.

And then one day Mrs Talbot came over to me, took me by the hand, and said, "here, dear, come over to the reading group." "But what about my workbook," I asked. "Just leave it, dear."

And over on the other side of the room, the kids who had finished all 25 of the boring tedious workbooks were reading. Real, actual stories. And discussing them! Out loud! With each other! And then reading another, real story! It was interesting! And fun! And I did not give those hated workbooks a second thought. Except I think Amy L raised the point I hadn't finished all my work, but Mrs. Talbot quickly shushed her (which cheesed her off, but nyah nyah nyah).

In third grade, I didn't really think about who were smart kids and who weren't quite as smart. But by 4th grade, it was apparent I was one of the best of the best readers in the grade, a title I never relinquished from that day forward.

I type this story for a couple of reasons. First, I never learned what the schwa is. That was covered in book 23 or 24, and I just never got that lesson. Still have no real idea, but I seem to have survived my academic career without that crucial piece of knowledge so that's ok.

But most importantly, THANK YOU Mrs Talbot, for recognizing I was dying a little death with each page of the workbook and I was just ready to read. I did not need to be doing endless workbooks, I needed to be reading. And discussing. And learning.

But, at the same time, that third grade me? Is so me. Give me a tedious task to do and I will procrastinate and procrastinate. I am not one to grit my teeth and get through tedious tasks. (Amy L just whipped through those workbooks without a care.) I am one, over and over again, who is still waiting for Mrs Talbot to recognize my innate talent and rescue me from tedium. (and, often enough, I did get rescued from tedium.)

So, sometimes I wonder. Should Mrs. Talbot have had me work through the rest of the workbooks? Would that have been a good lesson for me to learn? Should she have worked through them with me, to get me over the hurdle of tedium? How did she know? How did she know to move me into the top reading group? And, scariest thought of all, what if she hadn't known? What if I trudged along through those damn workbooks, dreading doing them, slacking off and doodling or daydreaming or reading my own things under the desk? Would someone else another year have asked, why isn't this girl is reading group 1?

Elizabeth is having a tough time in K. And we're all struggling. The teacher wants her to write. At home, with us, she writes all the time, letters that she says spells out words that we can't quite make out. But at school when it's time for writer's workshop, the tears flow. In the mornings, getting ready for school she whimpers she can't write sentence [sic] and why does she have to go to school. The teacher doesn't want the kids to draw pictures of hearts and flowers - she wants them to draw real things, things from their lives, and then label the pictures with arrows and sight words, like "me."

I don't want her, in K, to sit at her desk and clutch her fat pencil and copy sentences off the front board. I want her to love learning, and reading, and trying new things. She comes home excited about "tally marks" or questions marks or the plot of the chapter story they read every day. She sits at her little table and happily draws picture after picture, with arrows and letters surrounding the people and objects. At home, she eagerly and quickly completes the homework - a worksheet about a specific letter, tracing then writing Rs or Ms or Ss or Ts, or a worksheet counting and coloring objects, or a worksheet asking her to circle things that begin with the letter T. She is eager to learn, and she is learning. But if you ask her about class, her eyes fill with tears and she says she can't write.

Is the teacher - who says many of the kids will be writing sentences by October - pushing too hard? The teacher says Elizabeth is clearly smart, and is right on the cusp, and one day she will get it and it will flow. But, now, the teacher will ask her to write something specfic in class and Elizabeth loses it. She needs help, she can't do it, she doesn't understand. The teacher says to her to just try. To try and maybe fail and try again and she will eventually get it. And Elizabeth says no. She raises her hand, and goes to the bathroom (in the class) and sits against the wall for the entire writing period (30 minutes).

Elizabeth is bright. And in a lot of ways, I don't care if she's writing words in K. I know it will come. I don't think she needs to be pushed past her uncomfortableness. Or, does she? Is this just a hurdle that will be quickly overcome, and we'll never look back? Or is this setting up a struggle that will last throughout her school years? If she doesn't pick up writing now, in K, will she be behind and in third grade working on the workbooks (that I really hope they don't use anymore) while other kids are reading stories? The standards of learning for K doesn't say ANYTHING about reading or writing. K students should recognize most letters. Period. So why this push to write? Why not take it slower, especially in the first six weeks of school? But then again, the teacher reports there are kids in the class who are ready and eager for more challenging work. So she pushes everyone. Don't we want Elizabeth to be in that top group?

Why is this so hard? How do you know if it's just a mental block that once broken, will be quickly forgotten? How do you know when a kid needs a push to fly, versus a little extra time to be comfortable? Do we just wait it out, since her behavior and demeanor at home is still positive?

We've had one meeting with the teacher, and I've talked off line to the principal, who has told me one on one that she's working with the teacher to set her expectations in line with the reality of K students. And we'll meet one on one with the teacher again, we hope next week. Stay tuned......

Starting school

2010-09-08T09:33:00.002-04:00

Last two weeks of August and thoughts turn to....vacation? End of summer blowout? No, not us - we head off to school, two weeks before Labor Day. And yet school doesn't end for the year until mid June, so not sure what an early starts gets us, except for a long Christmas break and at least one day off per month. So, hi ho, hi ho, it was off to kindergarten.

Our school didn't tell us classroom assignments until we were actually in the school. The absolute sweetest thing of the entire day was seeing E's teacher from last year, with her entire class from last year clustered around her. Before school started, I tried to prepare E for what a new school year meant - a new classroom and a new teacher. Unfortunately, that made the week or so before school started worrisome for her, as she fretted over and over how she wanted to go back to school but didn't want a new teacher. Last year's teacher, Ms D, later told me that kids this age have trouble understanding the transition. That may be, I replied, but she was the only teacher I saw who had her entire former class clutched onto her that first morning. Despite our worries last year, clearly something good was happening in that class.

So we're now two weeks into the new school year, and the transition has been hard for E. Last year she went off without a look back, and loved nearly every second of it. We don't know entirely what it is, and we're trying to stay on top of things, but she regularly says she hates school and it's too hard. Her teacher says it's developmentally fairly typical for K students to get worked up about their "work." If they can't do something perfectly, they get frustrated very easily and want to quit. I had noticed this on our vacation, when playing skeeball. Andrew just loved rolling the balls around, and I thought Elizabeth would just enjoy flinging the balls, too, but if she didn't score points she would scowl and say she was no good at it and she didn't want to play anymore. At school, Elizabeth has been having trouble in the "writing center." I was worried perhaps the school was pushing her in ways that weren't appropriate, so asked what writing center meant - there are number of "centers" in the class, and they divide into small groups to be in each center. At Writing Center, they are given paper and crayons and asked to draw a picture and write whatever they want - a letter, scribbles, or whole words for those kids who are already writing. Elizabeth does this all the time at home, entirely on her own without any prompting from us. But when asked to do it at school, she's just losing it. Apparently there is a little boy in her clas who can write sentences, and this seems to have freaked her out that she also needs to write a sentence. But, yesterday she came home with a note that said she had a great time at writing center, and when I read it outloud she beamed with pride and couldn't wait to show Daddy when he came home, so maybe we're over that hurdle.

More worriesome for us has been the times she's said, I am bad at math, I hate math. This is not something an engineer and a science major want to hear from their daughter. And furthermore, it's not like they even have "math" in kindergarten! There is no math. No one says the word math. Clearly she is repeating something she thinks she should say, and as a firm believer in - nay, proponent of - gender equality in the sciences, I've got my eyes on this area. Our district uses EveryDay Math for their curriculum, and I've been reading the pros and cons. Essentially, the rub on it is the fundamentals get short shrift, because there is not much focus on drilling or the basics in favor of familiarity with numeracy. So there are lots of recomendations to supplement at home.

Stay tuned as we continue to epxlore life in a title I, inner city, rebuilding, non-adequate-yearly-progress-making school in our era of (badly needed but poorly understood and executed) school reform in the No Child Left Behind overly tested modern system. yee ha.

The haircuts!

2010-08-31T12:59:00.005-04:00

And now what you've all been waiting for - the haircuts! Well, Andrew spent a few days with the odd sort of pageboy look before we made it to the salon. The hairdresser wanted to do Elizabeth first, thinking she would set a good example for the younger one. But no, Elizabeth was too nervous, and Andrew was eager to hop into the chair and watch an Elmo DVD.
He was perfect - never flinched or reacted at all.

Nothing seemed to phase him.
And there was a cool book about firetrucks.
And after, doing his patented pose. He liked our fussing over him and telling him he was handsome. Let the record reflect, though - it's Daddy who thinks we went too short.
Elizabeth, on the other hand, was nervous about the whole thing. She clutched Rich's arm during the hairwash.
And she was really not eager to climb into the chair.
But she settled down, thanks to a Dora DVD.
Combed out when wet, her hair reached nearly to her waist. We had it cut to just below her shoulders. I was nervous going that short, worried it would curl up too much and be frizzy, but the cut really took out a lot of the wild curls.
It's a good length on her, though I think I'd like it to be a little longer. And of course Daddy wants it to be waist-length, still.
The hairdresser offered to french braid it, which I can't do and Elizabeth loves, so we took her up on it. So it's hard to see the finished result, but she was very happy.
Andrew was a little perturbed that there was so much hair on the floor.
And one picture from our vacation the week after the cut, that shows her with her hair down. It's got a fair amount of wave, especially in the front, but stays reasonably controlled. And Andrew is now a big boy. Everyone who sees him - in the neighborhood, at school, other friends - all comment on the change. But, if you ask Andrew who cut his hair, he scowls and says, dit da!

beach!

2010-08-30T16:26:00.002-04:00

Wow, am so far behind in posting! Blame it on the elusive camera cord, which keeps disappearing! So before we get to some of the recent stuff (first day of school, the haircuts!), a little catching up.

First weekend in August (right after the Elizabeth teeth incident, but before the Elizabeth cuts Andrew's hair incident), we went to Chincoteague for a much needed break. They loved it!

And lucky us, it was the last weekend of the carnival.
When Elizabeth was Andrew's age, she HATED sand. Basically, visiting the beach was an exercise in torture. She's over that now, and Andrew? Well, he's pretty much a fan, too.
We spent an hour or so at the playground, and despite having fallen and banged up her teeth just the day before, there was no slowing down for Elizabeth.
Bottom line: a great trip!