Category: Children

Mocksgiving and other pictures

It’s Christmas card time of year. I usually do ridiculously complicated Christmas cards. In recent years, my cards have involved:
1) Hand-stamped return address
2) Hand-stamped stamp in corner of envelope
3) Hand-addressed
4) Christmas card with personal note
5) Christmas letter (sometimes with personal signature)
6) Lovely family portrait picture

(I usually do about 80 of these)

There’s a chance that I might not live up to that this year. Let’s take, for example, the family portrait. It’s already pretty late to get one taken. And it requires planning. Money. And a time when we are free and no one is guaranteed to be hungry, tired, cranky, or demanding “red car! red car! red car!!!!”. Yeah. So then I wen through my 2010 pictures looking for that great picture where both my boys are looking at the camera and smiling. Now, I’ve taken a lot of pictures this year. Probably over a thousand. You’d think that there would, you know, be that picture. But you would not be the mother of a 2 and a 5 year old. There are few enough pictures where they’re both looking at the camera.

So a month ago, I decided to set this up. I found some scenic locations, and asked the boys to stand together, arms around each other, looking filial. HA!

I’m thinking this might be a good year to skip the family portrait. Still! Here are my attempts, along with Mocksgiving pictures (some great ones there!) and a bonus video of Thane at the Museum of Dinosaurs Science, talking about his favorite dinosaurs. (Tapejara, Neovenator, etc. You know. The classics.)

A morning of thanks

Thanksgiving is an interesting holiday for me. For 11 years now, I’ve done a huge “feeding lots of people turkey” holiday at Mocksgiving. The result of this is that, despite my feeding-people, epicurian bent, I’ve never hosted the Family Thanksgiving. And now, of course, my inlaws are all pretty much in Atlanta and my brother considers Thanksgiving a weekend sacred to video games…. so. I don’t cook on Thanksgiving.

We’ve done a bunch of different things over the years. Back when I was young and judgmental, my husband’s family went out to dinner in a restaurant for Thanksgiving. The year Grey was born, we went back home. The first, only time I’ve been home for Thanksgiving since I left for college at 17. A few years we’ve done nothing. But I’m surrounded by awesome people, so when folks get wind of the fact we’re doing nothing, invitations appear. Several years, I went to the family Thanksgiving of a college friend. His mom is a fantastic cook, so I was sad when he moved out to California and it seemed… weird to invite ourselves without him. Last year and this year, friends from church have invited us. They have boys similar in age to ours, and are FANTASTIC cooks.

So Thanksgiving is a mellow, happy, friendly day. The last few years I’ve started a tradition of watching the Macy’s parade with the boys. I sleep in. Drink coffee. Don’t get dressed until noon. I rest. Relax. It might actually be the most relaxing day of my entire year.

Gratitude is an important part of not losing site of what’s important to you. I don’t do as great a job of it, but I’ve tried to teach my children to give thanks. Every night, as part of their going-to-bed, we have a prayer of gratitude. Grey usually just says that he’s thankful for “Everything in the universe”, although when pushed he’ll tell you he’s thankful for screens (DS, computer & TV).

But Thane has started this tradition now too, of gratitude. His favorite books are the How Do Dinosaurs books. He demands to know the names of all the dinosaurs. And of course, with the plasticity of a youthful brain, he remembers them. One of my ambitions this week is to get video of this. But at night, his litany of gratitude goes like this, Thane is thankful for … “Mommy, Daddy, Grey, Thane, Neovenator, Pachycephalasaurus, Protoceratops, Tapejara, Neovenator, Mommy, Daddy…” He can go on. It’s awesome!

One of the things I’m grateful for this Thanksgiving morning is that I have this venue to write down memories. Sometimes I look back at what was, and I’ve written down things I otherwise wouldn’t have remembered. I wouldn’t write if I didn’t know you would read this. I know this, since I tried for years pre-blogging. So thank you for being you, and reading what I have to say.

The First Five Kid

When my brother was a boy, he had a very rich fantasy life. There were two tropes: Ruff Land, where Matthew Ruff lived (it mostly involved rules) and Spaceduck. Now, Grey has always reminded me a bit of my brother, but plenty of perfectly normal kids don’t build fantasy-tropes that they talk about for months.

The author illustrates his manuscript

Then I encountered The Five Kids.

The Five Kids have awesome powers. They get in fights with bad guys. They reason with bad guys and ask them to make better choices. They get to eat all the Halloween candy. They are orphans. They are brothers. They all die at the end. They keep coming back in newer and better patterns. There are ten of them. (I know! Just makes it more awesome! Apparently the first set of Five Kids were brothers and they met another set of Five Kids and made them brothers so now Five Kids includes ten kids.)

For quite a while I think the Five Kids were actually five of the kids at school — Grey was one, and Lincoln and some of the other kids. But Five Kids has merged, melded, grown, expanded. It fills the dark and bright places of my son’s imagination — his wishes and his fears. The Five Kids are there.

Knowing how transient this can be, I sat with Grey to talk about the Five Kids today. I did explain that sometimes I write stories on the computer, and people read them. He gave his permission and cooperation to share this. Here’s his first ever Five Kids story:

Five Kids and the Bad Troll
By Grey
When the First Five Kid was very young, and four years old, he had secret powers. His name was Drago. He had ice, fire, no sensitivity* and he had flames. He makes the flames by scraping his hand.

When he walked over the bridge, a big bad troll came and said, “I’m going to shoot you up!”

So he said, “I’m going to flame you with my flames! Kaching! Kaching! Kaching!”

And then the troll ran away into the water and he was free to go.

finis

After this story, I did a brief interview with the author:

Interview with Grey
Q: How did you learn about Five Kids?
A: I went to bowling/wrestling and Jock Cina said, “The Five Kids are around here. Can you cheer?” And I cheered.

Q: Which Five Kid would you most want to be?
A: First Five Kid.

Q: What are the names of the Five Kids?
1) Drago
2) Mario
3) John Michael Robert
4) John Meana (because he’s mean to bad guys)
5) Fire Flame Guy
6) Scooby Lick
7) Fire Ice Squares
8 ) Camera (he blinds his opponents with flash)
9) Light bulb (he, uh, blinds his opponents with lights)
10) John Michael Cina Underpants (he included an illustration of Mr. Underpants)

So there’s your introduction to the Five Kids. If you talk to Grey, this is probably pretty useful, as he will assume you know what he’s talking about. I can’t wait to hear what the Five Kids do next!

The priceless document
The priceless document

*Apparently this means he’s immune to other attacks. The word choice is his.

Helicopter Parenting – take 2

I’ve thought of two other things I wanted to say about helicopter parenting. This is the blogger version of thinking about a witty retort two hours after you need it — you come up with your points two hours after you’ve clicked “Publish”.

(Note: if you will be seriously distressed by hearing about bad things happening to kids, you might want to skip this post.)

So previously I discussed the role that risk analysis, concerned onlookers and the media play in the creation of parental hovering. Another element is a lack of expiration dates on recommendations. For example, we ALL know that you should NEVER leave a child in the bath tub unattended, right? There are about a gagillion places you will be told this as a parent. It’s in all the books, the pamphlets you take home, the top ten lists of things you must do as a new parent. Here’s a sample of the kind of text you’ll read several times as a new parent, “Leaving your child alone while they are in the bath, even for a minute, is just begging for an injury to happen. It is never a good idea. It never will be. If the phone rings, let it. Do not leave your child alone to answer the phone. No phone call is more important that your child’s well being. If someone knocks at the door, let him or her. Again, no visitor is more important that your child’s safety.”

This example goes on for seven more paragraphs. Another page I found includes gruesome examples. Of course, this is all true. Bath tubs are not a safe place for anyone (grownups included). A small child could have a bad outcome. This is important and true.

The catch is that no where in all these breathless warning is there an expiration age for this advice. They talk about “your child”. Well, just how old should my kid be to be allowed privacy in the bathroom? Is Grey old enough? The biggest risk to leaving him unattended in the bathtub is much more likely the state of the bathroom floor if he’s not constantly reminded about splashing rules. Ok, so you say five is too young, perhaps. What about 7? 10? 13? 16? 19? Obviously there’s some age by which your child is old enough to be left alone in the bathroom, and you’re totally creepy for supervising. But I’m pretty sure that in all the articles on the core requirements of parenting that I’ve read, that age was never mentioned.

I can truly understand why some parents would continue doing things like supervise bath time, even when it is no longer needed or appropriate. I mean, just reading some of the warnings about bad things that have happened in baths is very convincing to me, even with this thesis as my starting point. So the risk of bad things makes you continue your constant and tiring vigilance. But it’s so hard to see the other side of that risk. I’m pretty sure that my 5 year old doesn’t feel suffocated by my supervision. He also hates to ever be in a room alone. Is that because I’ve never let him be in a room alone? Am I teaching him fear? Passiveness? Some of those traits of the helicoptered children? It’s hard to know what the most appropriate thing is to do, even in this one small example.

It would be awfully nice if some of this advice came with an end date — preferably one prior to your child getting their driver’s license.

My second thought on protecting children came in traffic the other day. Our area has significant immigration. In the town I go to church in, much of that is from Africa. There are plenty of kids born and raised on the Continent who have come here quite recently. As I sat at a light, I saw two boys, pretty clearly recent African immigrants, bicycling quickly down the road wearing no helmets. Now, as that other post shows I have very strong opinions about the importance of bike helmets. So I mentally shouted at the kids (as I so often do) to WEAR A HELMET ALREADY.

Then my sub-processor noticed that the story on NPR was about the Lord’s Resistance Army (for the strong of stomach only). I imagined being a mother who had left the Congo or Sierra Leone or the Niger Delta with my children to end up in this cold, idyllic New England Town. I imagine heaving a huge sigh of relief. They were safe. The fate that had befallen their brothers, cousins, friends and uncles would not be theirs. No land mines. No roving bands of bandits. No post-election violence. No opportunistic armies looking for pillage, violence or recruits. No snakes. No kidnappers (by comparison). No Guinea worms. Safe. If I were that mother, how worried would I be about helmets? If I were that mother, marvelling at pure, convenient, running water and comparing that to the hours I’d spent walking to and from the disease-ridden source I’d had before, would I fret about leaving my child unattended in the bath tub?

Of course those two boys I saw were more likely from a more stable country (Ghana, perhaps) from a more modern house, etc. But still. Seeing those boys from this other world I heard about on the radio here on my own New England commute reminded me of the context of my fretting.

What about you? Do you have a hard time stepping back? How do you gauge when the right time is to offer autonomy, even though risks can never be entirely mitigated? Have you ever had your worries put into perspective? How do you walk between these competing concerns of safety and independence?

Helicopter parent in training

For some reason, I’ve been thinking a lot about the messages society sends to parents about parenting over the last five years. Many times, especially on bad days, the message seems to be “UR DOIN IT RONG. ITS ALL UR FAULT.” OK, possible with better spelling, but still. This was particularly brought to mind a few days in an Annie’s Mailbox column. (What – I’ve confessed my addiction to advice columns previously!)

Dear Annie: Last weekend, I stayed at an upscale motel where they serve breakfast in the lobby. After eating, I went to the elevator, and a little boy, perhaps 6 years old, left the table where his father was eating and announced, “I’m going up to Mom.” Dad agreed, and the boy rode up to the third floor with me, chatting the whole time, before getting off on my floor and pounding on a door farther down the hall.

Annie, this child could have been abducted at any time. The elevator was at the intersection of two hallways and was 10 feet from a stairwell. Anyone could have gotten on that elevator or been in the hallway when he got off. I was tempted to say something to the parents, but figured I would be told to mind my own business. Please remind parents that the world is not child friendly and safe, and even the most responsible “big boy” or girl could disappear in a matter of seconds. — Concerned in Texas

Dear Texas: We appreciate the heads up. Most children are safer than we fear, but still, parents need to be cautious and alert. A motel is filled with strangers, and there are hallways, doorways and empty rooms where kids can be lost — or taken. It is foolish to allow young children to run around unseen and unsupervised in such places, not only because the child can lose his way, but because it presents an opportunity for those with malicious intent. Next time, speak up. Even if the parents tell you to MYOB, they might be more circumspect in the future.

I read this and heaved a big sigh. This could totally be me with Grey. I would do this (let him tackle a task he was capable of), and I would feel anxious about it. And I would have thought of it before a stranger came up to me and told me that I was endangering my child and that he could be snatched away by bad guys at any moment. (For the record, strangers concerned about the appropriateness of your parenting are about a gazillion times more common than strangers interesting in kidnapping your child for nefarious purposes.)

I think a lot about risk analysis, and about what’s likely to happen, what is unlikely but dire, and what is unlikely and undire and try to act appropriately. Yes, a child in a hotel could be abducted (risk: 1 in 347,000, most of which are by people the child knows. The odds of being kidnapped and killed by a stranger are 1 in 1.5 million). The hotel could also be blown up by terrorists (1 in 88,000). It could explode due to a gas pipeline rupture. It could be hit by a meteor ( 1 in 500,000 over the next century). My child could be exposed to measles from an unvaccinated patron. The hotel could have trace levels of radon that might lead to cancer years later. It could be serving salmonella eggs in the continental breakfast. The biggest actual risk my child faces, however, is when I strap him into his carseat to leave the hotel (1 in 23,000 for a child). I do try to be careful: my children are ALWAYS buckled in in the car, they will ALWAYS wear helmets when appropriate, I actively supervise them… but I still want to teach them to be independent people who are capable of doing things without me.

Which brings us to the second way we parents are all doing it wrong. In addition to being negligent people who allow our 6 years olds to go to their hotel rooms without us, we are also helicopter parents who are ridiculously over-involved and have wrapped our children in bubble wrap, denying them any opportunity to develop grit, fortitude or independent opinions.

So to sum up, parents should exercise CONSTANT VIGILANCE while creating independent children who try and fail, and learn the appropriate lessons from this.

Do you see any problem here, or contradiction? Yeah, me too. I do know which side of this divide I come down on. I believe in my children’s capacity. I work hard to provide them with early and non-permanently-damaging opportunities to discover cause and effect, and consequences. I let them jump when they might break their leg if they’re not careful. I let them out of my sight when it seems appropriate. I’ve tried to give them the skills to mitigate this. Grey knows his full name, his address and my cell phone number. I’ve taught him how to call people on the phone, and when to dial 911. I’ve taught him what to do in case of a house fire ( 1 in 1,116 lifetime). I’m not careless.

I’m just trying to raise children who can thrive without me, so I don’t have to negotiate their benefits package for their first professional jobs when they’re 23.

Livin’ ain’t easy

Two or three times a year, I get stuck in a funk. It’s usually around March. (Heck, it usually IS all of March.) September isn’t my standard time for murky thoughts — I like it too much. But I’m in a sort of gap at work (our new organizational structure gets announced Friday — my projects are going without much intervention, it makes no sense for me to ask my old boss for work and my new boss is too busy to delegate until I actually report to them). I hate being bored at work. Hate it. I complain about it when I’m working hard and barely have time to check my email, never mind craft long-winded blog posts on long-winded books. But I actually greatly prefer that to “looking busy”. I hate looking busy. I like BEING busy, as long as I get to go home at the end of the day.

Anyway, that’s the only external factor to my funkosity. (Well, that and the small hurts of life that young boys accumulate. Thane currently has a heck of a shiner, and Grey has a minor issue that I’m not going into on the internet.) Life as a young parent is hard. I’m sure it’s always been hard. Every time I go to complain, I read the Economist about childhood malnutrition rates, or catch the news about the violence happening 10 miles south of here, or read Herodotus with all the uncertainty and violence they experienced. I’m never unaware of how extremely and supremely lucky I am — joyfully married, two fantastic and healthy kids, two great jobs, a house with minute but existing positive equity that we really like, great neighbors, and excellent church that isn’t doing the horrible political blowups you sometimes witness, good health. Really. I know I have it all. (And I’ve read enough medieval literature to know that when you’re at the top of the Wheel of Fate, there’s only one direction to go. Fortunately, I’m not King yet.) But it’s still hard sometimes. (And yes, mom, I am getting exercise. I ran two miles yesterday and worked out on Monday too. So I’m bummed AND sore.)

A similar parent on my blog roll was writing this week about the tradeoffs of being a working parent, and it’s true. There’s a constant negotiation. There’s a constant option to feel like you are shortchanging someone. Most of the time I keep my balance, like a woodsman balancing on a log in the water, constantly running to stand still. Every once in a while I miss my footing, fall in, and have to climb back out again. I say this as a statement of fact. Not as a plea for help, or an excuse. That’s just where I am and what it feels like. I don’t know yet if it gets easier when you (they) get older. I’ve heard it doesn’t — that you trade food-throwing and tantrums for soccer practice and tantrums. I prefer not accept the conventional wisdom on older children. My husband and I were both pretty good teens (I’d say very good but there were about 6 months of my youth that were a touch rocky). Why should we necessarily assume our kids will be tougher than we were? Both our sets of parents either have amnesia, or seemed to rather enjoy being our parents. We can hope the same will be true for us.

Anyway, to sum up, I’m blue. I anticipate ceasing being blue next week, when I will resume being busy.

To get you out of the depressive slump I’ve just put you in, I offer Camp Gramp portraits! The pictures this year were done by the talented Coelynn McIninch. I’d like to commend her work and professionalism. She did a great job with the kids (no easy task) including the two big kids who are really hard to get to sit down for pictures (yes, I am speaking of my parents). If you’re in Massachusetts, I’d wholeheartedly recommend her for your portrait/wedding/baby needs!

Some days are just like that

Today was not the day you look back on with fond remembrance. No. No it wasn’t.

Today actually started yesterday, when I was sick. I’m never sick. I am terrible at being sick. I have no sick skills. If you got grades for ability to be sick well, I’d get a D+. Maybe. I never believe I’m sick. I refuse to acknowledge I’m sick. When forced to confront the fact I’m, you know, sick, I then proceed to try to do things I shouldn’t do and apologize profusely about inconveniencing absolutely everyone and feel guilty when I end up watching Deadliest Catch on DVR instead of being Mrs. Productivepants. But yesterday, I had to admit I was too sick. My sentences weren’t sticking together. The verbs sort of drifted right while the nouns drifted left and the thesis statement sat down on the floor and wouldn’t move. I got sent home by my boss.

Well, it was obvious to me that if I was too sick to string together coherent sentences (and you don’t want to KNOW how long I started at my screen thinking “Maybe I should compose a blog post since I’m too sick to move” and couldn’t figure out how to make an entire sentence do my bidding.), I was probably not going to be sufficiently recovered to go into the office today. Plus I had no meetings. So I stayed home, drank tea, read YA novels and took care of myself.

HA! That’s what a smart person who is sick would do. *I* took a car in to the dealership and then worked from home, quite productively.

The cars are the second reason today was a crappy day. Just before we left to go camping, Brunhilde, a fine 2002 Saturn SL1 with automatic shifting and power locks and windows, baybee starting doing something veeeery funky with this clunk every time it shifted. We took it to Midas. They identified $500 of codes that needed to be fixed. We heaved deep sighs, thanked heavens for emergency funds, and coughed up our credit card number. When we returned from the camping trip and picked her up, my husband noticed that the problem was in no way resolved. He politely mentioned this to the folks at Midas. Who, apparently, hadn’t actually DRIVEN it. So he made an appointment to bring it in this morning. He had to walk back from the dealership to our house — about two miles — in the rain.

Meanwhile, while in the second car, our 2007 Toyota Matrix named Hrothgar (or Hrothcar if I’m feeling coy), about a year and a half ago my husband got in a fender bender. This fender bender, well, bent the fender. Or the side piece of plastic that goes under the doors and prevents, um, bad stuff from, um, doing things. I don’t know what it does, but he knocked it loose. We never fixed it because, eh. My pride is not much wrapped up in my cars. On our way back from camping, in a flash of brilliance, I decided to bring the boys through a car wash. They love car washes! This one was nice and powerful… and dislodged the fender thingy almost completely so that it dragged along the ground.

On the plus side: we had duct tape in the car because we were ready for camping. On the minus side: even I have too much car pride to willingly drive a vehicle held together by duct tape.

So, unbeknownst to my husband, *I* made a car appointment to get it super glued back on or something this morning, at the EXACT time his appointment was for at the dealership, 5 miles away.

Midas took another look at Brunhilde, said, “It’s the transmission. We can’t help you. But thanks for that $500!” The Toyota dealership said, “We don’t have the parts to fix this today, but we noticed your serpentine belt is all worn out. The part will cost $500 once we order it, and the belt is $200.”

So… we’re up to $1200, and we still haven’t fixed the transmission on Brunhilde.

But still! I was cheerful! I made dinner! I sashayed a little as I peeled eggplant! My husband took the kids to the park to play after school!

He came home a few minutes before I expected him to, though. Not much of a surprise. And Thane was crying. I’d be lying if I said that was highly unusual. But when my husband came through the door, ashen-faced, he said, “Thane’s been hurt.”

Thane’s right arm lay flaccid at his side. Touching it provoked screams. You could distract him for a minute or two, but the minute it shifted at all there were more screams. We gave him Tylenol, snuggles and an ice pack. He wept bitterly and made no move to extricate himself. I called in my trump card. You see, my neighbors are nurses — one of them is an ER nurse. It looked bad to me, but I’m a programmer. What do I know? My husband called my neighbor. I carried a wailing Thane over. She gently touched his hand. Screams. She tried to move his arm. Bitter tears. “You have to take him to the ER.” It was obvious to both of us that this child had broken his arm, or wrist, or maybe clavicle.

I packed snacks (ah! The joy of being an experienced mom!), left a dinner it had taken me 90 minutes to prepare on the stove for my husband and son, and strapped my wailing child into the car for a trip to the emergency room.

He stopped crying on the way there, and recovered enough to identify the color of cars we passed. Ah, Tylenol! But still, very injured child.

When we got out, I noticed he had Puppy clutched in the broken arm. Hmmmmm.

As we went through the vitals check, he pointed to trucks in the book with the “broken” arm. Hmm hmmm…..

As I held him to give the nice lady my name, rank, insurance number and free access to my checking account, he pushed me away. Hard. With both hands. Hmmmmmmmmmm hmmmmm hmmmmmmmm.

I sat down with him. I gently palpated his finger. His hand. His wrist. His arm. His elbow. His upper arm. His shoulder. I moved his arm up and down. Nada. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I went up and apologized to the nice woman who had taken my information, and took my perfectly find child home.

On the one hand, I’m really glad he’s perfectly fine (and I really hope that Tylenol isn’t actually good enough to block the pain of a broken arm). On the other hand… seriously. I feel like a complete idiot. And I really try very hard to respect that professionals who I know in friendly contexts are my FRIENDS and not my personal physicians or something. And I made 90 minutes making that moussaka and it was cold when I got back and it wasn’t even goooooood. WAH!

So bring on Thursday, because Wednesday was not my favorite.

Addendum:
Except while I went downstairs to fold laundry. I was watching baseball, and Grey requested to accompany me. Then he asked me how to fold clothes. Then he folded ALL his clothes the way I showed him (mostly) and many of his daddy’s. He says he wants to help me fold laundry EVERY time. And then he put his clothes away.

Knock me over with a feather.

Istanbul & Camp Gramp: Day 2

August 2 —

A gathering room in the harem
A gathering room in the harem

This morning was a tough start. Jet lag persists. But we roused ourselves and headed out to Topkepi Palace, ostensibly before the worst of the tourists hit. After a snag involving insufficient lira and government buildings that don’t take credit cards or dollars, we got in. We saw the harem first. It was lovely, with amazing detail work. There are, however, only so many Iznik tiles you can admire before they blur together. Then, by luck, we caught an open air concert of the military band. It was quite wonderful, although their trumpet section wasn’t up to my standards. After that the circumstances went downhill.
Historical Turkish Band
Historical Turkish Band

The place was packed with tourists of all stripes. The wait for the treasury was abominable, and the humidity was high. There were some neat things to be seen, but the heat, crowd, lines and lacking interpretations made it difficult for even the most intrepid museum-goers to flourish. We fled for lunch and a siesta.

After lunch we pursued a tip on where we might find a nice, handmade, leather purse…. Not a brand name or knockoff. We were unsuccessful in that quest, but met a nice salesman who admitted that he wasn’t really interested In selling us a purse, and didn’t have any relatives in the bazaar, but wished us luck. We walked home past the Golden Horn, the rail station that was the end of the Orient Express, and an expanse of the Bosporous. We sat in fading golden sun, our backs to ancient walls inscribed with Greek, watching crazy old men swim, fathers fishing with their sons, and mammoth ships negotiating turbulent waters.

My favorite spot on the Bosphorous
My favorite spot on the Bosphorous

A fine dinner, and then dessert on a rooftop restaurant, with a view of night lit Hagia Sophia on one side and the roiling waters of the
Bosporous on the other. My husband and I kept arguing about who had the better view.

Tomorrow is the Blue Mosque… We hope to catch that before the cruise ships overwhelm it. Then the Grand Bazaar in out ongoing purse quest, followed by a landmark cup of coffee in the Spice Bazaar.

Hagia Sophia on a sultry Istanbul night
Hagia Sophia on a sultry Istanbul night

At least that’s the plan!

We miss our boys. There are lots of kids here, so we are always reminded. Give them big hugs and kisses for us.

Brenda

Meanwhile, back in the States…
After spending the day looking at all the women in 1830 had to do, I guess shouldn’t complain. We went to Sturbridge Village. Minor complications, but for the most part, it was great fun. The Shirts (tie-dyed) were a hit! People knew we were together, anyway. We rode in the horse drawn carriage and took a ride on the boat. We saw the blacksmith. Pizza may not be 1830, but it was good. Dad got to see the sawmill working — something I saw last time. The children made candle holders. A good time was had by all.

I will try to get a picture of the crew at Sturbridge Village in tie dye off to you shortly. Dad’s is especially colorful!

Gramama and Papapa
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sounds like you are having a great time. So are we.

Sturbridge Village is really awesome. We can go again in the next 10 days free and I am thinking about it. Without Thane, it would be different. Of course, without children at all would be really interesting, but I don’t think we will manage that.

I have never seen a child that liked a bath better than Thane. My goodness. Better get tickets for the 2030 Olympics. I think he will be a swimmer.

The boys are fine. They are tired tonight, but they are both off to bed. Thane is asleep. Grey will be soon. We read lots of books tonight — it was great fun.

How do we get pictures on this computer? (Editor’s note with foreshadowing: I wish I’d managed to send her this information!!!)

Gramama