bflynn

Epochal Days

This weekend a big milestone occurred.

My sons live in a slightly hilly town with lots of things that are in biking distance. A 7 year old could get to school, to libraries, bookstores, soccer fields, swimming pools, ice rinks and playgrounds. A teenager could ride to the woods, to the T, to many parks, aikido dojos and other areas of as-yet-unknown great interest. Actually, a moderately ambitious bike rider could probably make it to an IMAX theater. When we go camping, most of the kids bring their bikes and spend their time until dark whizzing around the even, partially paved, quite safe roads of the campground. To sum up: my kids need to have bikes, and they need to know how to use them.

Now, I’d wanted to get Grey a bike last year, but my husband thought he was too young. But that argument timed out, so yesterday I walked with Grey down to the local bike store, where Grey chose the very first bike he was shown, it is a silver and green Schwinn.

Of course, Thane might actually spontaneously combust if his brother got cool new transportation and he was left behind, so I decided to do a two-fer and get him a trike. May I just say, for the record, that trikes have come a long way since my day?

The handle makes for easy cross-generational mobility

We went to a local parking lot and went around in satisfied circles. It was awesome, with the bright sunshine and biting winds.

I have a lot of memories of bicycles. Riding on the back of my parents’ bike. The trike I had when I was four in Merced. The beautiful wine-colored 10 speed Schwinn that brought me anywhere in all of Prosser. That was the best bike ever. I flew like a bird. I went everywhere, with complete liberty, on that bike. Ask me sometime about the time my sister and I got epically lost in the Tri-cities, in the wrong time on the wrong side of the river. Turns out you should NEVER trust my sister with directions. That’s a tip, folks.

As I watched my sons speed (see also: snails) around the parking lot I thought about when I STOPPED bicycling. For years I thought it was when we moved to Mineral. There was a) nowhere to go b) no sidewalks c) narrow winding roads with big log trucks. But I know that I did take the red Schwinn into town to Dick’s Store. When I really stopped was when my sister nearly killed herself on a bicycle. Wear your helmets, folks. If you admire my sister’s intellect, it is likely that such intellect was only preserved by a bike helmet that completely split in two after a high speed wreck that required extensive repair. And I don’t think the bike made it at all. When I think about it, I’m surprised I have the courage to start my sons on a two-wheeled path. But life is full of rewards, risks and odds.

And this is worth having.

Catching up from being sick

The fortnight I spent being miserably ill was no fun. No fun at all. I crawled into work. I made desultory dinners of moderate nutritional value. I went to bed at 8:30 whenever possible. I did not do the taxes. I did not do the laundry. I did not figure out our incredibly intricate summer airline needs. So now all that is waiting for me.

The laundry was getting desperate. It’s been about 31 degrees out, and my eldest son only has shorts in his drawers. This becomes even more impressive when you learn that my strategy for laundry is to ensure that everyone has enough clothes for at least three weeks. As in… if all our clothes were clean, I could not do a single load of laundry for three weeks and we would still all have appropriate clothes to wear. This requires a rather largeish upfront investment in clothes (or good sources of hand-me-downs) and significant storage space, but reflects my laundry reality.

Well. Do you know what the laundry room looks like when you do the laundry for the first time in three weeks or so?

It’s even worse than it looks. There’s a huge mound of towels and sheets that you can’t see — at LEAST three loads worth.

This is, I think, a symbol of my life. Challenging when I keep up with it, almost insurmountable when I get behind.

But hey! I’m feeling much, much oh ever so muchly much more better. You discover how rotten you felt when you suddenly feel much better. This evening, I folded the laundry piled up on the counter, sorted all the laundry and got it started. And hey, maybe by the time the weekend is over, I will have worn that laundry mountain down to small and gentle hillocks!

Questions for a cloudy day

CNN ran a story about odd interview questions the other day. Back in the dark ages of blogging, when we were all on Livejournal, these sorts of questions were a staple of the daily conversation. They were called Memes, and were a cross between writing prompts and the kind of paper games preteen girls played at sleepovers back in the ’80s. But they were fun because they got a writer out of the “and today my Honey Nut Cheerios seemed extra soggy” tropes that writing about daily life leans towards and, when done properly, they encouraged the readers to post their own replies to the same questions. So when I saw a list of questions that looked interesting, that I hadn’t answered before, and (for a few) that I didn’t know how I would answer, I figured… why not! So in the spirit of 2005, feel free to repost this on your blog (comment with the link!), or to answer the questions for yourself in the comments!

• If you were a superhero, who would you be and why?
Here I am handicapped by a complete ignorance of super heroes. Also, the percentage of super heroes sharing my gender is small, and have a tendency to be used as an accent. I’m ruling out Spiderman as being too dark and depressing. That also rules out Batman. (He may be rich and powerful, but he does not have fun with it!) I checked out a list of female super heroes, and none of them really speaks to me (except maybe Elastigirl … but I don’t aspire to her life. With the exception of her super power, I more or less have it.)

So I’m going to cheat and say that I’d like to be Aang from the Last Airbender (the cartoons, not the movie). I mean, he’s practically a super hero, right? But he doesn’t let that get in the way of some good old fashioned fun!

• If every time you entered a room your theme song played, what would it be and why?
I’m going to pick the trumpet entry from Cappriccio Italien. I mean, trumpet = me. That piece was one of my first major performances. It’s dignified, exciting and unlikely to be missed.

• On a scale of 1-10, how weird are you? Why did you choose that number?

6 passing as 3. No one of my areas of interest is THAT WEIRD by itself. In fact, I can appear to be a model of propriety and dignity. But the combinations of my interests are unusual, and appearances can be deceptive. I think we all believe we’re more unusual than most people (because we know the most about our own quirks), which is why I don’t rate my weirdness higher. I understand that likely bias. Which is WEIRD. AmIright?

• What was your best MacGyver moment?

Fun fact! Practically 70% of my gaming characters end up either trying to have prophetic powers or MacGuyver skills. I don’t know why this is, but it must speak to some deep aspiration on my part to be so incredibly resourceful and well educated that I can make a battering ram out of a bicycle, some gum wrapped in tinfoil and a lighter. In truth, I’m an anti-MacGuyver. It’s not that I can’t or won’t improvise, but rather that my skills lean towards planning and preparation.

• If you saw someone steal a quarter, would you report it? If not, what dollar amount would you report?

I found this the most challenging of the questions. I’m quite sure I would not report someone stealing a quarter. But I don’t know what dollar amount would trip my alert-o-meter. I think part of it would be my lack of certainty that a theft had actually occurred. I mean, are we talking about someone taking something out of a wallet I know is not theirs? Stealing from me? Most circumstances of theft where I might be an observer would be less clear cut. I think my uncertainty about reporting has more to do with a general inability or unlikeliness to spot unethical or amoral activity. I consistently fail to notice or correctly ascribe malfeasance. If I was 100% sure that it was a theft, I would probably report it at about $5. I think.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/03/21/cb.odd.interview.questions/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Leave your answers or links in the comments!

Sick of the crud

So I am sick. With the crud. Possibly the creeping ick. Ok, ok so my doctor says it is bronchitis, sinus infection and ear infections on top of the Cold of Dread and Doom which has sapped my energy and will to live for about 10 days now. Of course, in that ten day period, things have been happening. Big things. Like, oh, Piemas. I did manage to make 5 pies for Piemas, and get everyone fed etc. But the usual joyous spirit of hospitality I like to think I bring to such events was largely missing. Instead, there were several times I snuck upstairs for catnaps.

Then I got my mother in law really sick with the same horrible, dreadful disease, right before shipping her home. We were supposed to do all kinds of things while she was here. Instead, there was a lot of going to bed at 8:30 going on in these parts. I heard from my mother, who was sick with it when she came here about a month ago. She says she’s starting to feel better. A month later. This makes me want to cry, if crying didn’t require way too much energy.

I’ve lost about four pounds since I got sick, from complete lack of appetite and energy.

I haven’t missed a day of work. Because work does not respect being sick. No it does not. My boss is even sicker than I am, and she’s still making it to almost all her meetings. Her boss has an infection in his knee that’s not getting better after some surgery, and neither one has slowed him down in the slightest.

At least no one else in the family is nearly as sick as I am. My husband coughed a little for a few days. The boys have seemed unaffected. I’m the only one who got flattened by it (well, my MIL looked a lot like I feel) and then of course it goes secondary. The sinus pressure is unbelievable. I finally went out and bought (gulp) a neti pot. And psuephedrine. I HATE psuephedrine. Hate it. Hate it hate it hate it. But I can’t handle this headache. It sends stabbing pains through my head every time I cough. And I cough a lot. The other day, I nearly threw up after a crazy coughing fit.

The worst part is, as I struggle to get back to at least 80%, is I can watch the work piling up. The laundry, yes. The dishes, my husband has done. The house is perhaps not immaculate. There are no leftovers in the fridge for lunches next week. And then there’s the taxes — totally my purview — due soon. I need to sign Grey up for summer camp (sounds so fun!). I need to plan our incredibly complicated 4 part trip to Washington State. I need to do the Costco shopping. I need to do the grocery shopping. There’s a bunch of spring maintenance uncovered by the melting snow that needs attention.

So I lie here on the couch, miserable, and think of all the things I ought to be doing.

In other news, I got my hair cut. It’s a nice haircut, I think, except I’m highly unskilled in hair arts and don’t know how to properly blow my hair dry so I’m having trouble making it look right. Also, I thought it was this big epic change and not that many people have noticed it. Possibly they’re distracted by my sniffling and doubling over with coughs.

This is what it looked like when I got back from the salon. I can't make it do this.

Oh, and on one of my sickest “Really shouldn’t be here” days at work when I was a little stormcloud of snot, I got a pretty big cool award as recognition of my exemplary attitude. (Really.) Which is pretty darn cool, but felt rather ironic when I was so darn grumpy.

Also, it’s spring. I meant to write big, poetic post about it, but like so many other tasks that one has gone unaddressed. But I figure you won’t discover the seasons are changing without my telling you about it (based on what I do write about), so in case you’re wondering… spring.

Yeah, I think I better go before more of my exemplary attitude comes out my nose. (HONK!)

What do you mean that haircut isn't radically different? I used _product_

In the last 48 hours

I’ve made five pies, hosted about 25 people for Piemas, gone on the first walk of the spring, had five people spend the night, and woke up in the morning to discover my entry area redone.

Exciting! It would be even more fun if I didn’t have a nasty cold. I just hope that I didn’t share it with anyone. I washed my hands a gazillion times and covered all my everythings, so here’s hoping!

Anyway, you don’t get a real blog post. Instead, you get a picture post. In this month’s thrilling installment we have:

– Awesome cardboards spaceships at the table
– Silly boys on laundry baskets
– Thane playing Angry Birds with grandma
– Grey hanging around with some rapscallion
– Jessica, also associated with said rapscallion, and the combinations reading books
– Piemas
– A family portrait (because the last picture of all four of us was taken last spring)
– Surprise!
– Playing with the light settings
– First playground of the spring

March2011

These are a few of my favorite things

This time of year is hard. Hard hard. There’s still snow on the ground. You’re a million years from any vacation, past or present. And work is hard for me right now. So instead of whiiiiiining about it all, I thought I’d list out (for you and for me) some of my favorite things.

The smell of yeast when you add it to warm sugar-water when you begin a bread recipe

The way Mt. Rainier explodes into view when you turn the corner on Mineral Road South

The happy look on Thane’s face when he snuggles into bed with Puppy

Flowering tea balls

The Good Friday service

The garden on the next street that is first out with the snow drops and the creeping phlox in spring

Reading in the bathtub

D20s

Doing even stupid chores with my husband, because we end up laughing together

The wild patches in the big cloverleaves at the insterstices of busy New England freeways, like 93 and 95 on the North side

Advice columns!

Listening to Grey read aloud and then get quieter and quieter until he’s reading to himself

Text messages – they’re almost always from friends, almost always welcome and pretty much never hum drum or spam

Looking out the third floor window of my house across old New England walls, and hearing the carillon sound from Town Hall

Catching a real smile in passing from a stranger

Rachmanninoff, Gabrieli and Byrd

The way my kids walk/bounce/rejoice with every step

The smell of vanilla leaf and the tart taste of freshly picked sorrel

Friends on my doorstep

The sight of a Starbucks logo — still makes my heart leap!

Ars Magica — a game that’s been here and gone, like fairy rings, since I was pregnant with Grey

Minor music played on trumpet in a cold, dark sanctuary

The cliffs on Roundtop Mt. in the golden setting summer sun

The deep, hot, clear way jam looks when you add the pectin in

The way that the hum of the freeway in summer reminds me of the rush of glacial rivers near Mt. Rainier campgrounds

Real letters

Grey’s sincere interest in the babies in his life

Peach pie

Pretty dishes, especially when they have obscure purposes but I manage to use them correctly (looking at you, deviled egg dishes & asparagus server!)

The 5 second view of the Boston skyline you get on 128 in Burlington

The “kids say the darndest things” stage. (Thane announced the other morning that he wants to be called “Ketchup” from now on.)

Those are a small subset of my favorite things. What are your favorite things?

20/20 Vision

Before my brother went to Kindergarten, he had the standard kiddie eye test. There was no reason to be anxious about this test, since the kid could spot a McDonald’s arch from 2 miles away. We thought for a little while he might be color blind, but he eventually mastered his colors and we stopped worrying.

But that kiddie eye test revealed that my 5 year old brother was basically not seeing out of one of his eyes. He had a lazy eye – it looked as though he was focused on you, but one of his eyes was actually pointed off in left field. By five years old, his brain had learned to ignore the useless signals it was getting fed.

That kicked off a year? 18 months? Two years? Of what must have been great suffering on the part of my parents. My brother had to wear patches over his good eye for months and months — taking away a perfectly functioning organ and making him mostly blind. My mom put Garfield stickers on the adhesive patches. My brother didn’t complain. For his entire childhood, he wore glasses with varsuvial flows of dirt layered on top of them. You’ve never seen glasses as dirty as his glasses. He didn’t need glasses for his good eye — doesn’t correct his vision at all now, in fact — only for the eye that couldn’t see. And every week (or two weeks) for what seemed like forever my little baby brother had to be driven down to Yelm (a good hour plus drive) to go to vision therapy …. which in the end could not rescue much more than movement from his bad eye. I think it must have been Saturdays. My mom would take Gospel and I first to my piano lessons, where I would be awful, and then to Yelm for vision therapy that didn’t work for a tiny little kid.

Rough. Mostly on my mom.

So it’s fair to say that I’ve kept a watchful eye on my sons’ vision. Grey is the age now that Gospel was then — which is to say too late. But I’ve verified that he sees out of both eyes previously. However, given this family history I decided there was no time like the present to get his vision checked out, and after about 18 months of procrastinating I finally took him to an eye doctor. It helps that he can read and knows all his numbers and will follow instructions.

He did a fantastic job with everything but the glaucoma test (the puffs). He rattled off letters, proved he wasn’t colorblind and doesn’t seem to have an astigmatism. He didn’t bounce nearly as much as is a five year old’s right. There was a moment or two where I sat wondering what he’d look like with glasses and imagining the lifetime of future nagging that might be in front of me but… nope. Perfectly fine! Come back in another two years or so!

Phew! Now time to see if Thane’s got both eyes working!

Best. Night. Ever.

My husband is testing for his next kyu in aikido. This means that we pretty much won’t see each other again until Friday — at least not before 9ish.

I was thinking about the library this weekend, after my son’s foray into chapter books and avowed interest in obtaining the second in “The Magic Treehouse” series. The library is like 3 blocks from our house. It has a pretty good children’s section. I went quite a bit while I was on maternity leave. But then over the summer they stop their Saturday hours… meaning that it’s really hard for those of us to work to go. And my Saturdays are so crazy anyway that it’s been quite a while since we went. But…. Monday they’re open late.

I put together absent husband, late library night and new reader, and came up with awesome.

On the way to the library, I kept giving my son clues about where we were going. “Do the have pizza there?” “Is it really really far away?” “What about sandwiches?” He guessed it as we turned left instead of right. Then we all three tromped up the front ramp. I kept slipping up and saying he was going for Magic Schoolbus books when any idiot knows he was going for Magic Trreehouse. Duh, mom. Then as we went in, HE said “Magic Schoolbus”. I busted him on it, and he burst out laughing, “Now you have me doing it too!”

I left Grey in front of the early readers while Thane and I went to the picture book room. Thane announced his intention, shocking as it was, to get books about Dinosaurs. Aren’t you surprised? I grabbed random dinosaury books from the shelves, creating a stack of paleontological masterpieces. When I found Grey, he had the next two Magic TREEHOUSE books and the next Stinky the Shrinking Kid book. (Which really IS too advanced for him, but he likes to read the comic parts.) We checked out.

What I hope will become a familiar image

“Mom, I have a GREAT idea. Let’s order PIZZA and have chocolate milk and turn on ROCK STAR music and read our books!”

That, child is a fantastic idea.

So we did. Ok, ok…. most people don’t consider Das Rheingold Rock Star music but they are WRONG. And we ate pizza and mozzarella sticks and I read Thane every single one of his books twice and Grey flipped from one book to another, not sure which he wanted to read first! (How well I remember that conundrum of my childhood! Which library book to read first! The entire cargo space of the minivan used to be completely filled up with books…)

Awesome.

The awesome night in action

More pictures, including my mom’s visit

Twenty bookes, clad in black or red

It’s been a while since I last gave you an update about what my boys were doing. Now that they’re both out of the “monthly” mode (and heck, my BLOG is practically at a monthly update level. I can’t tell you how much I miss writing more frequently!) it’s more challenging to highlight their growth.

With Grey, the big news is how big and capable he’s getting. I suppose there are a thousand steps on the road towards self-sufficiency, but each one is thrilling to a parent. For example, Grey has successfully:
– Gotten out bowls for he and his brother
– Gotten out cereal
– Poured the cereal in the bowls (without spilling)
– Gotten the milk out of the fridge
– Poured the milk on the cereal (without spilling)
– Gotten out spoons
– Brought spoons and cereal bowls over to the living room where the boys break their fast
If I could teach him to put the milk BACK, and combined with his terrifyingly acute control of the television apparatus, I might finally be able to sleep in on Saturday mornings!

The greatest new development for Grey, though, is around books. He had a great day today. He graduated levels in swimming class, ably making his way around the pool with limited bouyantical aid. He tested for his next belt in aikido, competently demonstrating Kata-tori Kokyu-nage, among other techniques. So I decided, while obtaining the requisite present for a birthday party tomorrow, I’d get him a new book. I hesitated, among the scant options in Target. The picture books all seemed a little simple. He’s been doing a great job reading lately. So instead, I picked up a simple chapter book The Magic Treehouse: Dinosaurs Before Dark. As we headed to the airport to drop grandma off (Bye grandma!), Grey set aside his DS in order to read.

An hour ago, sitting at my feet as I blogged, he finished the book, face flush with enjoyment and pride. He had read the last several chapters to himself, only the pace of page-turning a clue that every single word was getting its due. He really read it. Himself. It was his first full chapter book. I have a sneaking hunch that it will not be his last. (Possibly because he went to his room, pulled out about three other books, and read his favorite parts of them.)

A real reader! I have a real reader! We can read together! YAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!!

I fondly remember when my brother (who, by the way, will be graduating from Princeton Seminary this spring. If anyone’s looking for a nice Presbyterian Minister, let me know) began to read. I remember the conversation we older ones had, jealously laying out the wonderful books he would be able to read for the first time.

Grey, reading a Scooby Doo coloring book. It’s Dr. Jekyl, by the way!

My youngest son has been no slouch in the “fun” department either. He loves books deeply. Unlike his brother, he’s willing to sometimes be in a different room than we’re in. I’ve seen him spend a good 45 minutes alone in his room, going through all his books. (Which usually leads to a several inch deep carpet of books in his room… the prices you pay!) Thane’s absolute favorite books in the entire world are the “How Do Dinosaurs…” series. This particularly excellent set of books doesn’t have generic, badly researched dinosaurs like so many of kiddo dino books do. Nor does it happily stop with the oligarchy of Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stegosaurus, Brontosaurus like the rest of them do. No, there’s some new ones in these books…. Comsognathus, Pachycephalusaurus, Tapejara. And Thane, although not yet potty trained, has complete mastery over this entire pantheon.

I think he likes to categorize things — to know the names and be able to identify things. Or maybe he just likes dinosaurs. He has finally mastered his letters and numbers. But I’ll be honest: I think he got the dinosaurs first.

As he plops his bottom down onto my lap, beloved “How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You” in hand for the 9,234th time (demanding I identify each and every dinosaur on each and every page before reading the text – as if he doesn’t know), I admit that I’m caught between the desire for him to be an early reader too… and the desire to have many long year before me of “Mom, can you read this?”

Thane, reviewing his dinosaurs. Dilphosaurus, Protoceratops, Carnosaurus, Dilophosaurus, Velociraptor, Apatosaurus….

A full set of pictures

America, Libya, War War War

Like people around the world, I’ve watched the unfolding events in the Middle East with an uncomfortable combination of pride, hope, fear and confusion. None of us know if we’re watching the American Revolution, the French Revolution or the Cuban Revolution sweep across the historic sands. Those involved don’t know. They stand up to announce that they are unsatisfied with what they have, and that change must happen. Change will happen. We hope and pray that it is a change that leads to freedom, liberty, stability, education and joy for the people involved.

Now as the eyes turn to Libya, I keep finding myself brought back to my first or second grade year. I remember much more of the playground at the school that year than I do of the classes. There were huge concrete pipes and tractor tires set into the ground. There was a large grassy fenced in field. Jump rope was popular, and with it the jump rope songs that mysteriously pass down from generation to generation of braided-haired girls.

Sometime, I think in early spring or late winter, the rumor began on the playground that we were going to go to war with Libya. The dark, uniformed figure Gaddafi was set as the villain in the playground make-believes. The boys became bombers – arms spread wide circling around the uneven soil. Their well-rehearsed rat-a-tat-tat resounded across the monkeybars.

We girls, with the rhythms of the jump ropes, became the propaganda machine. I still remember (I wonder if I am the only one to remember) the modified chants we came up with. The first was simple: “America, Libya, War War War”. It was almost gleeful — egging on our government and soldiers to glory. The second was rather more creative, and alarming from the point of view of a peace-loving mother (as I now am).

(To the tune of “Say say oh playmate”)

Say say oh soldier,
Come out and fight with me.
And take my cannons three,
Climb up my poison tree!
Slide down my razor
Into my dungeon door
And we’ll be jolly enemies
Forever more more more.

Who wrote this? Was it me? One of the bigger kids? Was it an incredibly local phenomenon, or was this song spread through the network of cousins and old friends across four-square and hopscotch groups? I was like six or seven (which might help explain the scansion on the second to last rhyme). Why were we jumping to self-made battlecries? I find it even more perplexing now, with the help of Wikipedia. This must have been 1984 or 1985 — I was in a different school by 1986. Export controls seem insufficient reason even for fertile childish minds to leap ahead to war and enmity.

Decades have passed since then. I have gone from a child to a mother of a child about the same age. We’ve gone to war several times since then, but never with Libya. Still, that old colonel stands, unpromoted to the last, and declares that he will die a martyr rather than relinquish the smallest part of his power, while a wave of freedom-fighting rebels gathers to crash against the walls of Tripoli — there to be spent, to triumph, or to begin the long siege. None of us know where it will end.

Will my son remember? Will the name Gaddafi mean “the enemy” to him as well? Has that moment already happened, but with the Taliban, or Saddam? Do they sing war-songs in their private play in his school?