Brenda currently lives in Stoneham MA, but grew up in Mineral WA. She is surrounded by men, with two sons, one husband and two boy cats. She plays trumpet at church, cans farmshare produce and works in software.
The first official back to school photo
This time of year is commonly called “Back to School” time. Ah! How I have loved it. I have this mismash of memories: the sharp box of crayons all lined up by color, the cut brown and orange leaves hanging on the wall, the course outline printed next to the computer, the syllabus slipped into the front cover of a blank notebook, the snap of a trapper-keeper with a ream of paper and a pencil holder in front. I loved every bit of it. I loved the newness and the fresh start. I loved the office supplies. I loved school. In college, I loved all parts of it: social, cultural and academic all swirling together in one caffeinated delight.
Perhaps one of the things I miss most in my working life is the ‘back to school’ sense. My job is the same: winter and summer. It is never finished or finishable. It doesn’t change. I miss that fresh trapper, new syllabus feeling.
The older you get, the fewer firsts you have. My first day of school, ever, I do not even recall. My first kiss is a dim memory. My first job, apartment, pregnancy, home purchase and production database mistake are all in my past. Today I have another first.
Grey channels his inner Calvin while Thane squirms
Today is my first first day of school as a parent. Grey started preschool this morning. He’ll be going all day, three days a week. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays he will be a Caterpillar taking his first steps down the path of education. Who knows how far he’ll walk down that path. Will he love it? Take to it like a fish to water? Will he struggle? Will he excel in fields I never considered? He will go into that preschool classroom with a Spongebob blanket for naptime, a command of the alphabet and his own charm. He will fall deeply in love with his teacher, or not. He will make friends. He will make enemies. He will make mistakes. He will make pipe-cleaner art projects we will put proudly on the wall. He will decide he loves school. He will decide he doesn’t. He will go with the flow.
It is too much to say that this is the first step on the path to the rest of his life. He’s already trod down that path. He does know how to read – a little. He knows his alphabet. He can count to sixty before getting bored. He knows how to make friends and play tag. This is just the next step on the path to which his feet have already been set.
But still. This is our first first day of school. Grey in his classroom with his new TA, Melissa
Like every blogger in the universe, I struggle with how much I should talk about. My mom and my mother-in-law both read this blog. A future employer will very likely find it. (Hi future employer! Hire me!) Who knows – my sons may someday find themselves reading about it. (“Mooooom! How embarrassing?!” “What? Your Iron Man undies were soooo cute!”)
So it is with a certain hesitation that I tell you that I found a lump in my breast.
But wait! Before you panic, I’ll also tell you: the story is completed and it ends well.
I’d noticed the lump a few months ago, but as a nursing mom, well, Tigris and Euphrates are moving targets. They change a lot, all the time when you’re nursing. So I didn’t worry much about it. But now that I’ve dialed back and the girls seem to be returning to more normal proportions, it was time to pay attention to the lump that didn’t go away.
I’ve found lumps in my breast twice before. The first time I was maybe 23. I was newly married and so in love with my husband (still am, for the record, it’s just too late to die as newlyweds) that I was superstitiously afraid it would be poetically appropriate for one of us to die young because the universe just doesn’t like for people to be that happy. I spent a week convinced I was going to DIE of breast cancer! I went to my dr. She agreed it needed to be looked at. I went to the Breast Center at Faulkner Hospital (to which I could and did walk). They ultrasounded it. They mammogrammed it. They let me feel up a model boob. The result? Just normal but lumpy breast tissue. No problem. Let us know if it grows big or something, but it won’t because it’s just normal breast tissue.
Phew.
The second time was Grey’s first birthday. I panicked only slightly less than the first time because I had a baby! Imagine him being orphaned, never knowing how much his mother looooooves him. (Good thing I have the blog so he can now read about it in excruciating detail should I die in a tragic chopstick accident, eh?) I went to Lawrence Hospital and they ultrasounded and mammogrammed me. Shockingly, this too turned out to be lumpy breast tissue and perfectly normal.
So you can understand that I wasn’t ready to get all that worked up about what felt to me very much like lumpy breast tissue. But, as it remained through weaning etc., I decided that even though I was pretty darn sure that this one is just like the others, and even though due to changes in our health insurance, this time I’d likely have to pay for a good portion of that testing myself, it would really suck to self-diagnose as lumpy breast tissue and be wrong.
So I went to my midwife. And I went to get ultrasounded. I provided them entertainment by being a nursing mom (still at night) which totally messes up mammograms, so they didn’t even bother. The diagnosis? Well, as the charming, Russian-accented radiologist said, “Your breasts are lumpy-bumpy-happy.”
I do very much think about how this kind of health care plays into the larger debate. On one hand, all three of these lumps were significant enough that my primary care physician could feel them and not be certain that they were normal. (Of course, how much malpractice plays into that, I can’t say.) For two of the three, even after an ultrasound they wanted the second look with the mammogram. (Fun!) But none of these are dangerous, precancerous, anything. I would be perfectly 100% healthy if I’d never seen a doctor for any of them. What is the responsible healthcare decision to make? Should I keep going in every 3 years when I get a new lump? Is the best systemic financial decision for me to get some training in the difference in feel and morphology between my normal lumps and cancerous lumps? Is it best for my family and the system if I go in every single time to get them checked out, even though past history indicates my boobs are lumpy? How much does that cost? How much would it cost if one of them was a problem and I missed the chance to catch it early? What about studies that show (ok, that I think I read like 5 years ago) lumpy boobs are more likely to eventually get cancer? What is the rational treatment for the ongoing care of my lumpy ladies?
I don’t know the answers to these questions. The part that dismays me is that I’m not sure anyone does. My healthcare providers default to doing all the tests because THEY have no motivation to do otherwise. I follow their recommendations because I can, because I’m not a trained medical professional, and because the cost of being wrong is so high. But I’d love better training instead to know what cancer looks like and how it acts, so I can spot the difference. Or a statistical study saying that 90% of lumps aren’t cancerous and you should only go in with these criteria. Or even a study that says the most efficient outcome is to get every lump checked, every time.
I hope you will forgive me if I fail to include a picture with this post. My future employer and sons are reading.
The summer we lived in Bonner’s Ferry, I was five, or maybe six. I remember that summer fondly — the first of the golden buzzing summers in the Northwest. I remember one of my favorite things to play: Brownstone. I would walk out of the house – on the side with the big tall trees toward town, not towards the deep forests – holding a full cup of water and a spoon. Then I would creep under the porch. There was dappled light down there; more than enough to see by, but not enough to nourish plants. It was just plain dirt. Not dirt with construction waste mixed in, or dirt with old roots, or rocky dirt. Just, well, dirt.
And with the consummate care of an artist, I would spend hours under there transforming that dirt into mud. There’s a particular delightful state of mud when it’s nearly solid, but the surface gleams with smooth moisture. I can see it a lifetime later in my mind’s eye. My goal was to create patties of this delightful stuff. I named myself a brownsmith. A blacksmith works with iron, but a brownsmith’s stuff is mud.
From the eyes of a parent, I have to suspect that what this looked like was an hour of silence followed by the need for a bath. Funnily enough, I don’t remember the baths at all. Just the way the mud looked.
Yesterday I had a reprieve from my usual schedule. A friend was coming, and she was bringing dinner. So instead of tying my children to my apron strings as I cooked a proper meal for them, we all sat in the front yard together. Thane sampled the tasty bubble rods. I drew an outline of Grey on the sidewalk and added antennae and a spaceship, having way more fun with it than he did. But finally he noticed the flowerbeds. I had mulched them, but they need loving care again. Apparently you have to deal with your lawn more than once or twice a summer — who knew? Anyway, he asked if he could dig in them. My first reaction was: no! You’ll mess up the flower beds.
Then I thought, “Am I the sort of mother who won’t let my son play in the dirt?” and I said yes.
Then he wanted to use some bricks to plant brick seeds that would grow into brick plants. And I thought, “What a mess this will make!?” and then I wondered. Am I the sort of mother who won’t let my son play with blocks in the dirt? So I said yes.
For 20 minutes my son happily built a brick hovel and piled intermixed dirt and mulch on top, while Thane sampled the fine vintage of grass clippings on the lawn. I played Bingo with him for the 30000th time. The sun shone dappled through the trees, and I remembered the dim recesses of Brownsmith.
Maybe tonight I’ll give Grey a spoon and a cup of water, too.
Let’s see here. I’ve done the milestone “see how big they’re getting now!” post. I’ve done the “here’s what I’ve done with the house” lately post. I’ve done a Domestic Diva post. I haven’t had any adventures in the last two weeks, unless you consider getting lost in Boston adventurous. That means I’m due for a “Deep Thoughts” post. (Sorry to pull back the curtain.)
Just one problem.
Right. No deep thoughts.
I’ve been contemplating this issue all day, trying on topics to see which ones would work. I’ve listening to Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga lately on audiobook and just came to the stunning revelation that Sergyar was named for Prince Serg. But aside from a psuedo-English-major essay on how Miles Vorkosigan is a namer as defined in Madeleine L’Engle’s books, I don’t think I have a lot to contribute on the topic.
I have been programming in a new language at work, but I’m still at the confused stage, so I don’t think I have anything valuable to add. Plus, a readership nourished on cute kid stories probably doesn’t want to hear my rant about WHY we can’t just have one standard universal data typing scheme so I don’t have to remember if it’s a float or number or numeric or if it’s a varchar or char or character or string or text.
I have played several new board games lately. I enjoyed Pillars of the Earth even though I lost badly. I think Roll Through the Ages is one of the best-designed two-player games I’ve played possibly ever and am sad that my six consecutive victories makes it unlikely I’ll be able to con my husband into it again soon. I liked St. Petersburg, but need to play it again to completely master the intricacies.
I just discovered to my shock and dismay that the Red Sox traded Justin Masterson while I was on Mt. Rainier and unable to use my psychic powers to protect him.
Let’s not even get in to politics, eh?
So here you have it. I have managed to write a 350 word post about how I have nothing to write about. I’ll attempt to salvage my bloggy-honor by promising that next week will be a meaningful post. And maybe I’ll do something interesting in the next 24 hours that I can tell you about tomorrow.
Part of my wild weekend of hedonism and home makeovers was a BBQ in Watertown with some friends. The place was (quite literally) crawling with babies. Happily, it was a great spot for it. I plopped down on a lovely quilt with my son, snagged some delicious food and settled in to felicity.
Grey – the oldest child present – had a great time bouncing between groups. He’s getting to a point where we can take a step back in supervision. He usually makes pretty good decisions, doesn’t run off (although every once in a while he hides — happily I can almost always find him by following the giggling) and does a good job of following rules. This earns you a longer leash.
Thane, of course, still needs to be kept very close. As I mentioned, Thane has been increasingly interested in standing and walking. With a friend and my mother-in-law, we attempted to talk him into taking a few steps between waiting arms. He tried a number of amusing not-walking things. (Aside: what trust a child has to lean all the way back into your waiting hands. If had let him fall, it would’ve hurt. He did not think that I might let him fall.)
Thane loves loves loves clapping. BINGO is his favorite song. (He’ll clap along.) After he NEARLY took a step, I clapped in delight for him. Eager to get more clapping, he took two steps to me and was duly rewarded! Yay! 10 months old. His first, halting, head-long steps came just as he turned 10 months. More will follow, quickly.
It’s also been amazing to watch him start to talk. He likes to play with hands. So he has this trick he does where he’ll turn his wrist in a wave and say “buh-bye”. Of course, grownups can’t resist waving back. And then he can grab your hand and play with it. I think he may also say “ball”, “da da”, “hi” and (I swear) “Gwey”. He parroted a phrase I said this morning in the car. (It was like “I think so”. And he made similar sounds in the same cadence.)
Where has my baby gone? Who left this big boy in his place? This walking, talking, thinking, laughing human being with teeth? Amazing. The walker shortly after his first steps
I would like to submit Exhibit A for evidence that I do not learn from experience.
This week, we painted our bedroom purple. It had been extremely dull before. Imagine a white carpet (plush), white cheap panelling, white curtains and a white drop ceiling. Strew liberally with excess papers, clothes that didn’t quite make it into the dirty clothes, bedside reading and shoes, and you have a pretty good view of our bedroom. I paint this word picture because what I do NOT have is a single solitary PICTURE of our bedroom. Not from the home inspection, not in the move-in pics, not in the two years we’ve since spent in the house. Brilliant. The very best I can do for you is this picture of a recliner I’m trying to offload: Note beige and off-white color theme
Bo-ring!
Having painted the boys’ rooms fantastic colors (green for Grey and blue for Thane) the utter blah-ness of the color scheme became even more noticeable. And my mother-in-law kept asking what project we wanted her to do when she came up.
I vaccilated between the lilac color I actually wanted and the sea-green in our attic which is rather more grownup than the lilac color I actually wanted. I kept hearing in my head the commentary of the guys on “Sell Your House!” on HGTV wondering for a national audience just WHAT these people were thinking?!?! Then I realized: screw them! I’ll paint it a boring color if I ever want to sell the house!
A very short time later, the walls became a spectacularly warm and joyful color of purple, thanks to the hard work of my mother-in-law.
But wait! There’s more!
Our house was built in about 1900 — an era when women actually sewed clothes and 6 or 7 outfits was a plentiful wardrobe. (Well, or so I imagine.) For that era, the closets aren’t that bad. This means that they are tiny and few, but do exist. My clothing collection is, er, perhaps larger than necessary for strict modesty even granting our lax frequency in doing laundry. (Ok, ok, it’s outrageously large. But, er, so it is.) This has lead to me putting my hanging clothes in Thane’s room and the upstairs room. And this, in turn, has lead to me wearing many of my fun clothes less often because I forget they exist. Also, it’s cold on winter mornings. I’d had a plan for quite a while, but building on the energy of my MIL we took a trip to IKEA. And lo. We returned with a wall worth of wardrobes.
A shockingly short time later they were assembled. And then they were populated with appropriate clothings.
There are finishing touches left. We plan on putting curtains over the wardrobes (doors were expensive and we couldn’t get the ones we wanted in the size we wanted — I think curtains will be fun. And if they’re not, we can always go back for the doors.) We need to, you know, clean up the room.
But voila! Much more storage and much less boring! The architect of the change Grey helps out
At some point the rate of change slows and you go from weekly updates to monthly to quarterly to, eventually, annually. We are still firmly in the “monthly changes” zone with Thane.
My last monthly update with Thane, I believe I confidently promised he’d be walking by the time I went to update once again. I was wrong. Thane isn’t walking yet. This might be because he’s so darn busy growing up in other ways. It’s harder this time, though, because the changes are extremely clear and important, but hard to write about. So I’ll start with the easy ones.
Food: We’ve mostly weaned. We haven’t entirely weaned. At night, before I go to bed, I take a 99% asleep baby out of his crib and kiss his curly head and nurse him – every night wondering if I’ll do it again tomorrow night. I am not sure if he gets a lot of milk that way, although I hear swallowing. I do know it’s desperately sweet to hold him in the dark quiet before bed and it appears to be working. So we’ll be keeping up this night nursing until we don’t. Other than that, Thane is quite an eater. He loves loves loves dairy. His two favorite foods in the world are whole yogurt mixed with fruit (usually applesauce) and chunks of cheese. He also adores beans – kidney beans, black beans, etc. He does a great job of feeding himself carb-type foods: small bagels to gnaw on, pieces of bread or crusts of pizza (he likes pizza), graham crackers, Cheerios, etc. He’s less enthused about carbs that are fed to him, like oatmeal or baby cereal. After a torrid love affair with blueberries, he now disdains them like a snooty suitor who found a richer wife, but will still eat other fruits such as strawberries, peaches, bits of apple, etc. He really likes yellow squash and zucchini, which is good because so does Farmer Dave. It’s hard to tell when Thane is hungry, because even when he’s OMGSTARVING he’ll vehemently refuse a food which isn’t the food he desires. You have to try a few kinds of food before concluding he’s not hungry. I’ve learned this one the hard way. Thane’s an adventurous eater and will try some of pretty much anything – including raw lemon. (Mean ol’ daddy….) In fact, there’s many a dinner when Thane has eaten more of the main meal than Mr. Grey.
Teeth: This week has heralded the appearance of two new teeth, poking not-quite-evenly from the top gum line. One is right before eruption, one is right past. Chomp! Imagine what he’ll be able to eat with double his current number of teeth!
Movement: Here we start getting into the ambiguous and hard to describe. The idea of walking just completely turned on for Thane last week, as he and I walked out of White Lake in the intermittent summer sun. Since then, he’s been very, very interested in standing and much more stable. He’s cruising from surface to surface instead of crawling between them. He stands by himself. He can almost stand up by himself, without holding on to anything. It’s amazing how many steps there are between crawling and truly walking, and how each small improvement looks so large and yet isn’t actually all the way to walking yet.
And now for the hard ones. Let’s see.
Thane loves loves loves books. He’ll sit for more books than I have patience for. The other day when he was sick, I read him 8 consecutive books. He turned the pages correctly, at the correct time. The last book we read was a book of opposites. On the last page it says “Hello. Goodbye!” When I read “Goodbye!” he waved to the book. (I, of course, melted into a puddle of goo.) He’ll be quiet for a book when he’s really fussy, even when he’s fussy with good reason. He steals his brother’s books out of the toy bin in the back seat. He looks at them intently and with great patience.
Thane’s at the throwing stage. There’s this fantastic stage of childhood when kids throw everything, including things they want. Dinner in the high chair? Toss. A bowl within reach? Down it goes. Toys in the car? How far can I throw them? And then the kids get very upset because they don’t have any fooooooood and there are no tooooys for them to play with. WAAAAAH! This is how you learn cause and effect. It’s also incredibly annoying.
Grey and Thane are having a great time being brothers – most of the time. It’s actually going way better than I expected. Although Grey can get a bit snippy when Thane wants to play with his toys or when Thane is whining in the car (see also: throwing all your toys out of the carseat), most of the time it’s easier having the two of them. Grey hates being alone, for example. But with Thane counts as not-alone. They’ll play together in a room with Thane providing the part of observer. (Which parent hasn’t gotten tired of the “Mom! Mom! Look at this!”?) Yesterday in the car driving home was a delightful example. Grey was putting a book on his head and having it fall off. Thane thought this was quite possibly the funniest thing EVER. For 10 minutes all I heard was Grey hamming it up with the book and Thane laughing as though his sides were about to split — this great laugh halfway between baby and person. It was awesome.
Thane is also beginning to show appropriate (if sometimes frustrating) personality. If you take a toy away from him, he will weep. Bitter, bitter tears. Sadly, he considers my coffee a desirable toy. If you take my coffee away from me, I weep bitter, bitter tears. This is something of an impasse. Most of the time, though, he bounces right back from disappointment. He generally has a sunny and joyful nature.
There are the beginnings of language with Thane. He says “da da” in a convincing way. I swear that I heard him say “Gwey” — I have witnesses. He doesn’t usually say “ma ma” unless I prompt him to. He certainly knows his own name, but that will be a tough one to pronounce. Grey still calls him “Dane”. He clearly understands plenty of words (see also: waving “bye bye” to a book)
Thane hates hats and bibs with a blinding passion. He sucks his thumb when he’s upset and sleeps with his butt in the air. He loves playing with spoons. He waves his arms when he’s excited. He has the sweetest curls.
My state lost its senator this morning. You might have heard. I believe there were a few glancing mentions in a news organization or two.
I live in Massachusetts. I have lived in Massachusetts for 9 years now. But I’ll likely never be a Massachussan. I speak with an indistinguishable accent. (My husband and I were raised 12,000 miles or so apart. We have the same generic American accent.) I drink Starbucks, not Dunkin’ Donuts. Growing up, I thought the mob was about as real a threat as Bigfoot and the Windigo. I arrived when the Big Dig was a fait accomplis. I never expected to live here so long. I vote regularly in both local and state elections, but I feel a bit like an outsider looking in. I must’ve voted for Ted Kennedy, but I don’t remember doing so. To me, he was a politician with a national profile who had a bunch of good ideas and plenty of prior personal issues. The name Kennedy is no magic to me.
Some of the politicians in our commonwealth seem to be more like me, or at least less like the old-New England types. For example, our governor Deval Patrick has no accent and has lived in places outside “the hub”. I’m quite fond of my current state representative Jason Lewis, who is local enough to have spent five minutes selling his candidacy to me 1 on 1 and seems (in the local parlance) wicked smaht. I can connect with the Harvard/BU/Tufts folk who, like me, came to New England for college and stayed for the jobs.
But there’s the other Massachusetts – the thick accent, old boy, Irish-Catholic Massachusetts. For example, I can’t for the life of me figure out why Boston accepts a mayor who can barely string together a coherent sentence. Mayor Menino is an excellent example of this kind of New England politician. His power base is built on unions and knowing everyone, as far as I can tell. And for all this stumps me, it appears to be a very strong power base (although thank heavens he has real challengers this year – more power to them).
A friend of mine told a story about running for city council many years ago in Boston. Some of the “good ol’ boys” took her aside told her to be a good girl and not upset the boat. They told her that she had no chance and mentioned that friends of theirs ran the polling stations. Were there actually polling irregularities? Who knows. But the “interlopers not welcome” ethos behind her story rang very true. There seem to be areas of politics that are reserved for the third generation and connected.
Now, I am no better than a casual observer of local politics. It’s entirely possible that my perceptions are out of date and untrue. But I find myself wondering which side of this divide our new senator will come from. I worry that the choice of who we’ll get to vote for will be made in a smoky room filled with men from large families. I worry that the Democratic candidate offered to us will be the one whose “turn” it is. A special election does not have a primary. There is very, very, very little chance that Massachusetts will send a Republican to DC instead of that critical 60th Democrat.
I wish that Teddy Kennedy, who had plenty of time to think about his last days, had resigned in such a way that we could have found his successor in a more orderly fashion. I am glad that he didn’t name an heir, but I’m concerned that the decision will not be one that I, or ten-year outsiders like me, will have much to say in.
Edward Kennedy was the last scion of a great family. But in America, power is not intended to be inherited, father to son, or brother to brother. I hope that the Senator who next represents our Commonwealth will be a person of great intelligence, persuasion and integrity, and will somehow manage to represent ALL the Commonwealth. And I hope they will have earned the post on their own merits.
This year I think I’ve figured out why summers seem half as short as any other season. The simple fact is: they are shorter.
Consider. Summer officially starts June 20th or thereabouts. June 20th is reasonable for summer starting. By the end of June, we’re pretty reliably above freezing and most of the snow has melted. Then you have July, which is really summer. (Except this year, when it was May Take II.) For me, the first week of August we have our big vacation of the year where I go home and hike Mt. Rainier and relax while my kids are entertained by my parents. I come back August 10thish a bit more tan and a bit more relaxed. But as soon as the tires of my Jetblue redeye touch down at Logan, I’m into planning for fall.
It’s not summer that’s weird. It’s fall that’s weird. No other season requires so much advance planning. I don’t plan for summer. I don’t plan for spring. I plan for Christmas, but not for winter. But well in advance of the calendar start of fall (September 20th or thereabouts), I’m planning.
Part of this is due to my own unique circumstances. Let’s look at my autumnal schedule, shall we?
*September 23rd – my birthday (generally ignored)
*October 6th – Grey’s birthday (big deal)
October 12th – my FIL’s birthday (we miss you Mike)
October 16th – my sister’s birthday (I sometimes scrape up a card)
*October 21st – my husband’s birthday (err… I usually buy something for him off his Amazon wishlist)
*October 28th – Thane’s birthday (what am I going to do for his first?)
October 29th – my niece’s birthday (make with the loot already!)
*November 14th (this year) – Mocksgiving (huge big hosting deal that requires lots of forethought)
Items with an asterisk require me to do party planning if a party is going to happen (which is a longer and longer shot with the grownup birthdays).
Add to that the typical things that need doing in fall — a new wardrobe for the kids, a new Saturday activity for Grey (we’ve settled on aikido), starting preschool, prepping the house for winter (cleaning gutters, furnace maintenance, mulching, etc.), Halloween, Thanksgiving and all that.
Finally, toss in a good measure of church starting back up. Now church doesn’t close down, but we have a more moderate schedule over the summer. Our committees meet less often. We don’t have quite as many events. There’s no Sunday School (we do have a kids’ event). There’s less extra work. But there’s a lot to be done for fall: the Fall lunch, the pumpkin party, lining up teachers to teach, ordering curriculum, the Sunday School launch party… all sorts of seasonal things. (Many of which I should probably start thinking about since the loss of a member has made us very shorthanded for some.)
Well, of course I had better start planning for fall by the middle of August! But what this means is that the amount of time I’m in summer and thinking of summer is about 6 weeks — from the end of June to the middle of August. Although there’s another 6 weeks of summer left on the calendar, my mind is already engaged with the fun season of autumn and has left summer behind.
Hmmm… I’m not actually sure I’m glad I wrote out all the things I need to do in Fall. Because right after I get those done we’re in Christmas. Ah well. As one of my professors used to always say (which, to be fair, drove me absolutely bonkers in college), “Life is rich and full.”
We went camping again this weekend — the last of our planned three day weekends in New Hampshire. It just so happened that this long-planned weekend coincided with Hurricane Bill. It was rather, uh, wet. And damp. And muddy. Happily, our tent has the floor plan of the Taj Mahal (although it did seem to shrink as the weekend went on), my husband is a tarp-affixing, rope-tying ninja, and we contrived to have fun despite the thunder and lightening.
Some friends were camping at the same time and they brought us fresh-baked cookies. Such things had not been dreampt of in my philosophy before.
Other notes on camping:
We played “Roll Through the Ages” again which is a great two player game. Sadly, it was likely the last time I’ll get to play it since it was roughly my 6th consecutive win and I won by a huge margin. This doesn’t bode well for talking my husband into it again.
We managed to sneak some lake time in between thunderstorms. On the plus side, nearly no time was wasted applying sunscreen!
Thane developed amazingly during the weekend. When we returned, Unka Matt got a quizzical look on his face and asked, “Has he grown up since Thursday?”. Yes, Unka Matt, he had.
That last one probably deserves more than a bullet point. The last day, after we’d broken camp and gotten everything in the car, we went for a final swim in some of the best weather we’d had to date. As we reluctantly pulled ourselves out of the warm waters, I held Thane’s arms to have him walk out – on a whim. It was too deep to let him crawl, so I kept him on his feet. And we walked. And during that walk, something turned on for him – the realization that there was this new tranportation method available to him and that this was something he could do. He desires it. Thane has not yet taken his first unsupported steps, but he has stood for significant periods of time. He’s cruising. He’s on the verge. It was astonishing to see that moment of transition between a crawler and one who aspires to walk.
Unlike previous camping trips, I didn’t take any pictures this time. I’m not sure why not – I just didn’t. The only pictures taken were on our way home, at the Miss Wakefield Diner. As I took this picture, my loving husband said, “This is why I wanted to be a father. I remember now.” The weird thing is he seemed to like it
My Truant Pen 