My Truant Pen

Warm thoughts

It’s been a brutal, brutal winter here in New England. You know it’s bad when you wake up, see it’s 18 degrees out, and think, “Hey, not too cold this morning?” It’s significant progress that the drifts along our walkway have been reduced to merely waist high. Here in Massachusetts, nearly 200 roofs have caved in, and more people than you might guess find themselves flinging pantyhose filled with snow melt onto their roofs at 11 pm at night… NOT THAT I KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THAT. (And it was the side facing away from our neighbors, so you can’t have proof!)

So I thought I’d bring you a warm thought I’ve been holding on to for half a year now.

When we were in Istanbul, we went to a 300 year old turkish bath called Cagaloglu Hamami (C is pronounced as “J” and the “G”s are more or less silent, so it was pronounced “Ja-la-lu” in case you ever go looking for it.)

Now, we were in Istanbul in August. Shockingly, it is HOT in Istanbul in August. Every day it was hovering around 100 degrees (although this wasn’t as bad as you might think, since the hill city on the water got lots of nice cool breezes off the Bosphorus straight and the Golden Horn). So already, before we went in to the shady confines of the baths, we were hot. The baths, like many in Turkey, are completely symmetrical. The men head off in one direction, the women in the other. We paid our money and split off into our different directions, scrubby mitts in hand.

I changed in a courtyard (women only) with a tall fountain in the middle and booths all around. The booths had high windows, doors with old-fashioned keys, dark stained wood, and narrow benches to place clothes on. I walked on impossible wooden shoes, wrapped only in a thin sheet, down to meet my masseuse — an inevitably soft, middle-aged woman who had just come back from a smoke break. She was wearing a black bathing suit and carrying a towel.

She brought me through a transition room to the baths themselves — ancient marble delights with silver taps constantly flowing with cool water. The entire room was made of marble. There were alcoves, a sweat-room, some partial walls for partial privacy, and a dome with pinpricks of light coming through opalescent ancient glass. It was very old luxury, not decrepit, but far from modern. In the middle was a large octagonal slab of marble — each side being just slightly shorter than a tall modern woman. I suspect they were perfectly sized for our less nourished forebears. And on each one of these sides was a woman, with her black-bathing-suited, comfortably-proportioned, middle-aged masseuse. Most of these women were in the same condition they would be for a bath or a shower at home. (What can I say, I fear the search engine traffic if I explain more clearly!)

My lady left me there, in an alcove, looking around in wonder but trying not to stare, with a silver basin in my hand and cool water running behind me. I sat until I got hot. I surreptitiously tried to figure out what to do. I poured a libation over my head. It felt marvelous, sluicing through the heat and making my towel cling cooly.

I waited a long time. I was beginning to be afraid I’d missed something in translation. I tried to slow my breathing, to just enjoy, to not be shocked that in the middle of this Islamic country I was surrounded by women completely at ease with themselves, with their bodies, with other women.

Finally, my black-bathing-suited woman returned. She lead me to my place on the marble slab, holding my hand solicitously — like I hold my sons on the slippery ice. The octagon was warm to the touch. 300 years ago, they had designed these baths to be heated by water and steam running past the marble on the other side. I could not see them, but furnaces were roaring to make this place even hotter than the 100 degree heat outside. I laid down on the warm marble, and she sluiced me again with water.

The massage was an amazing experience. It was actually a bath – as promised. There was soap. She washed my hair. She exfoliated with the scrubby mitt. One woman began singing an old Anatolian song, and the others joined in before trailing off into laughter. At the end of it, I was clean, and covered once more in the cool water before drying off and returning to the busy, narrow streets of Constantine’s city.

I think of those pinpricks of light, in the dome of the baths, now. As I trudge through the weary, narrowed world of February, I remember the surprising sensation of hot marble. I marvel that it is possible to sit, relaxed, sans garments, without fear of chill. With my vistas cut off now — by snow banks and hurry — I think of the far sights of Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, towering above the millenia-long important churning waters on the gateway between Asia and Europe, East and West. And I remember that today’s frigid contraction is not forever.

Sabbath keeping

Quick, what are the 10 commandments?

Ok, you know “Thou shalt not steal” and “Thou shalt not kill”. Perhaps you recall “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that [is] thy neighbor’s.” — mostly because you giggled at the part about the ass. (One wonders, does this cover thy neighbor’s snow-blower?) This original top 10 list begins with the four “God” commandments: God is God, you shall worship no other gods, you shall make no idols, and you will not take the name of God in vain. There’s the proscription against adultery, and the one against bearing false testimony against your neighbor (commonly interpreted as not lying, but that’s not actually what it says). Two more left. One is “Honor thy father and thy mother”, which is either trivially easy or nigh impossible depending on thy father and thy mother.

Then there’s the middle one, “But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.”

Now, I’m an every-single-Sunday Christian. I go to church not just regularly, but downright religiously. I’m an elder (a member of the governing board of the church) — as is my husband — and attend two meetings a month to talk about the business of the church. I’ve taught Sunday School. I volunteer in the nursery. I served communion this Sunday, pretending to be one of the grownups. Surely I’m keeping the Sabbath… every single Sunday from 10 am until 1 pm, from prelude through coffee-hour-cleanup.

But sometimes I feel like the commandment I break with most wanton abandon is this rest advice. (Although with all the snow lately, it’s possible I’ve taken the Lord’s name in vain once or twice…) I mean, sure I don’t go to my job on Sunday, and I do worship God on Sunday. But not only do I not REST on Sunday, I often don’t REST at all. When I’m not laboring at work, I’m laboring at home. When I’m not laboring at home I’m (in all truth) laboring at church. And when I’m not laboring, I’m usually also not resting.

Jesus talks a good bit about the Sabbath laws. He heals a man on the Sabbath, which generates tremendous controversy about whether he is keeping the commandment. He plucks grain from a field as he passes on a Sabbath — a clear violation of the law. When he’s busted for it, he explains to the Pharisees that they have misunderstood the commandment. It wasn’t that people should stop working one day in seven because God wants them to. It was that God wants people to take a break because people NEED a break. “Jesus said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and man was not made for the Sabbath.'” (Mark 2:27)

I do a lousy job of keeping this commandment, in any interpretation of it. It can be easy to justify… if this whole “rest” thing is just for my convenience, I can tough it out. I’m doing ok. I can make it. As long as it doesn’t bother God, I’ll just keep chugging along being a good worker/mother/wife/citizen/friend/daughter/elder/cook/housekeeper/blogger.

But shockingly, God has it right. We need breaks. Can you imagine how your life would be if one day in every seven, you could lay down you weary load and simply rest, relax and enjoy yourself? Maybe catch up on sleep, read a book, play a game, veg on the couch or go on an adventure? And even better if you used common sense for it… you wouldn’t stop taking care of your kids or eating food, but you would take it easy.

I’ve been thinking about this for years. Decades, actually. Since I began to assume an adult’s schedule and actually HAD work to do, I have worked every day of the week. But I’ve been particularly thinking about it in the life of my family lately. Our weekends are just PACKED. Our Saturday ran like this, this week:

7:30 – Husband up to go to aikido dojo to set up for half-day demonstration in car dealership
8:30 – he left and I got up to be with the kids
10:00 – everyone must be dressed and in the car to go to swimming lessons
10:30 – 11:30 – swimming lessons
12 – 12:45 – feed lunch to small children
12:45 – get Grey in his gi to go to kids’ aikido, take both kids’ to car dealership to meet up with husband
2:30 – return, put kids down for naps, go grocery shopping
3:30 – make corned beef hash for Burns night
4:15 – take shower
5:00 – leave for Burns night
1:00 am – get back from Burn night

7:30 am – get up with kids
10 am – Church!

Now, there’s lots in there that I have very intentionally chosen to do. Grey must learn how to swim — it is a critical life lesson. My husband benefits greatly from his time doing martial arts, both mentally and physically. Grey also needs the exercise and discipline of it. And Burns night is fun with my friends! Who wouldn’t be all on board with that? But the combination of all these good things is relentless, and still the dishes need doing and the laundry needs folding..

So I’ve been thinking about a Sabbatical Sabbath. What if, once every 7 weeks, we just opt out of all our weekend activities? No swimming lessons, no aikido, no church. What if we take the kids to the Aquarium instead? Or lounge around the house in our pajama pants past noon?

I honestly don’t know HOW to keep the Sabbath. But I’m thinking of this, as a way to claim a little rest, leisure and relaxation into busy lives.

What about you? Are the ten commandments on the list of things you try to do? Which one is hardest for you? Do you keep a sabbath, or take a break? How do you find balance?

Return on (toy) Investment

If I had to summarize my #1 function at work in my new role, it’s asking people whether the project they’re trying to do is really worth it. (Often in many different ways, and usually involving Powerpoint.) Although this can make me rather obnoxious to my colleagues (I’m sure), it’s starting to have an impact on the rest of my life. I mean, if you keep focusing on ROI day after day, you start thinking about it even after you come home.

So I’d like to talk about toy “Return on Investment”.

For my fellow parents, raise your hand if you’ve ever bought an expensive toy, absolutely convinced that it would be your child’s favorite toy EVER in the history of the universe. For example, last Christmas I bought Grey a space-explorer set that included two space monkeys. Rockets ships. SPACE MONKEYS. Obviously this would be his favorite toy ever. Heck, it’s practically MY favorite toy ever.

The one time I’ve witnessed the child playing with this toy was when I was idly setting it up and making rocket-ship/monkey sounds while I was, uh, cleaning his room. Right. That’s totally what I was doing.

If I was to create a powerpoint slide for the “Space Monkey” investment, it would look like this:

Returns
Initial opening excitement: 3 (on a scale of 1 – 10 with 10 highest)
Hours of subsequent play: .5 (not including mommy’s)

Costs
$40
1 of Christmas presents (opportunity cost)
Storage space – 1 Ikea drawer

Intangibles
But, but, but SPACE MONKEYS!!!!

Result
Not a good investment.

The problem though (actually, much like work) is that it’s hard to predict the qualifications of a good toy investment. The best toy investments will:

1) Distract them while I’m making dinner
2) Not make a mess
3) Not cause them to fight with each other
4) Be played with multiple times
5) Not take up much room
6) Not be a “screen”

I’m usually willing to compromise on at least two of those when buying toys.

But recently, I’ve hit the motherload of toy-investment-opportunities for Thane. I’ve discovered a toy that:

1) He plays with at the table
2) Isn’t messy when used properly
3) Grey isn’t interested in
4) He loves all the time
5) Is tiny
6) Is not digital

Stickers. Thane loooooooves stickers. He will spend 30 minutes moving tiny little stickers from one piece of paper to another. Stickers. Dinosaur stickers. Mickey stickers. Smiley stickers. He doesn’t care, he just wants stickers stickers stickers stickers stickers.

He stacks the stickers high on one small area of paper

Let’s look at that ROI calculation again:

Returns
Initial opening excitement: 4
Hours of subsequent play: 10 (to date)

Costs
$5 for 400
No opportunity cost
Minimal storage cost

Intangibles
Played with at worst time of day
Keeps him quiet
Does not make noise

Result
Superb. Invest all available capital.

So I totally did. By today, he’d made it through most of the backlog of stickers I had lying around in my role as R&D mommy purchaser. I bought another 50 or so (for $.99), but they only lasted through nap time. So I made a whole separate stop solely in order to lay in a huge supply of stickers. It’s totally worth it, even if the this is just a consumer fad. Stickers would be a great deal at twice the cost and half the utility.

What about your kids? Which toys generate the biggest play-dividend? Which ones were bad investments? How do you decide which toys to buy and keep?

Follow ups

Well, my fellow New Englanders, I did my best. I figured writing about the impending snow storm would make it, in the spirit of New England storms, become a non-event. Last night, as the hour for its arrival passed with a few errant snowflakes, I hoped.

It was not to be. Now, I try really hard not to complain about snow in New England in winter. (Or 100 degrees with 90% humidity in summer.) At least, no more than the standard complaints. But really. This is unacceptable. My husband I each put over two hours in shovelling our driveway out again. We had to carry snow across the street from the first shovelsful. It would’ve been a significant snowfall if it was the first of the year — maybe a little over a foot. But coming on top of existing berms, it was brutal. And you know, I consider that in the modern life, there are very tasks jobs where my gender matters. Hardly any really. But when the snow piles are 5 feet high, it turns out upper body strength is at a premium. I simply could not get the snow high enough for most of the locations, so I had to walk a long, long way carrying heavy snow to clear it.

I did, however, sneak in 5 minutes of pictures to show just how bad it was today. I was hoping to get all artistic and try out camera settings etc, but there was just Too. Much. Snow. As it was, I made it to work at the crack of 11 this morning. The only saving grace was that everyone else has to deal with the same snow.

Also, Grey has been successfully signed up for Kindergarten. It was rather anticlimactic. The woman at the front desk seemed very surprised that I’d actually read the web site, filled out the appropriate paperwork and had the needed documents already copied. Hopefully she favorably remembers me forever from now. Or at least for the, er, 7 years she and I will be BFFs.

(Takes a look at her camera memory card.) Hey, there are some other arty pictures here too, with me trying to figure out my camera. Fun! (OK, I admit it. I’m not feeling too hot. I have the uneasy sense that this blog post doesn’t have any coherence. That’s a classic combination for a picture post!)

Date night, our style. — Date night. I won this round on behalf of the Allies.

Axes vs Allies — This is the capability that made me really want a new camera. You can't do this with a point-and-shoot. At least not mine.

We played a game called Arimaa. My husband won. Then spent a week reading up on strategy. — We played a game called Arimaa. My husband won. Then he spent a week reading up on strategy.

They spent hours with this "house" they built

It's so hard to take pictures of lots of snow.

Snow shoveling is a neighborhood activity. We were all out today, and the kids played while we shoveled.

Where we do put the snow. Those are stairs, if you can't tell.

Here are all the pictures

Milestones

There are moments when, all of a sudden, your place in life lurches forward.

Tonight, for the first time, Thane used the toilet for the purpose it was intended. Twice. Let the record show that he is 2 1/4, and bribed with lollipops. (Actually, I made it a joint endeavor and bribed both him AND Grey so that I wouldn’t deal with melty Grey when Thane got a treat and he didn’t, and so that Grey would have a motivation to help potty train his brother.)

My sweet Thane boy seems so far from a baby, sometimes.

And then, tomorrow morning? I’m going to go to South School and sign my eldest up for Kindergarten in the fall. Which, I must admit. It seems well PAST time for him to be in Kindergarten. But still! School!

As ye shovel, so shall ye reap

You might have heard that it’s been a wee bit cool in New England this year so far.

Sometimes I’m a little slow to get going in the mornings. This morning I noticed that the “Min” 24 hour temperature was higher than the current, and the “Max” 24 hour temperature was lower. Huh? That’s totally backwards? Then I noticed the little “minus” sign.

Brutal man, brutal.

It’s almost enough to make you look forward to the next twice-a-week snow storm we have scheduled. At least when it’s snowing, it’s rarely below 20 degrees. Which… the difference between -1 and 20 degree is the same as the difference between, say, 50 degrees and 70. So 25 sounds pretty decent on a negative morning. There’s just one problem

GOOD GRIEF we have a lot of snow. And in our old New England neighborhood there is NO WHERE to put it. The last snow storm I was reduced to moving shovels-ful across the street, or walking half a mile with a loaded shovel to a narrow strip of of cleared space to dump it into my back yard. (OK ok… maybe only a quarter mile but after your first bajillion trips it gets tiring.) All the places we normally shovel our snow to are piled not only above my head, but above my flagging arm strength. I have become fearful of the avalanche danger inherent in walking out my front door.

The only consolation is this: we were sufficiently New Englanders to prepare for it.

See, the first few years I lived here I figured if I didn’t shovel, well, big deal. It would just melt tomorrow or the day after anyway. This is true, by the way, for the West Coast. Even at my homestead’s 2000 feet of elevation, it was a rare snowfall that lingered in shade for more than a week. So back in the old days (pre-kid) we might get 6 inches of snow in late December and I’d do a partial job, or I’d ignore it, or plan on “doing it later”. I can hear my fellow New Englanders chortling in Shadenfruede at the inevitable outcome of that decision. I mean, maybe… MAYBE there will be a warm snap in December that will, like grace, wipe away your snow-sin. But the more LIKELY outcome is that those slushy footprints of snow will become as hard and calcified as dinosaur footprints. The partial pathway where you dragged one shovel’s length of clarity will be the only path you can possibly walk for the next 3 months. As you hit berms of unhandled snow for the next several infinities of winter, you will curse your previous profligacy.

After a few winters, you get the idea. You tackle December and January snows as though any flake on the ground after 24 hours will be a permanent addition to your home — a lasting testament to your good character and ability to exit the house.

This year, however, Christmas threw us a curveball. As we luxuriated in the 5 star accommodations that my mother-in-law provides, a good 18 inches of snow was falling, untended, on our driveway. A late December snow. Untackled. My kind neighbors dug out our walk. (Quoth one, “Wow, you really don’t have anywhere to put the snow, do you?”) The driveway, however, was the kind of Arctic wasteland that might cause sled-teams to despair. And two weeks ago the forecast was for a snowpocalypse (rightly, as it turned out).

So we set about to right our wrongs. We went to Rounds Hardware, bought 50 pounds of rock-salt, another shovel and an industrial-strength ice-breaker. My husband and I spent an entire Saturday naptime chipping away at softened snow and walking it three miles out to the back yard to dump it. By the time our kids woke up, our driveway was bare and dry. And then we got two feet of snow. We were, my friends, justified by our work.

I think of that, as I equip my children with long poles and whistles on their way out the front door. We may be suffering, but at least it wasn’t for our stupidity. And even if we get the horrifying predictions of a foot or two of snow, at least there’s a clear path to the glacier in the back yard.
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In an ironic twist of fate, I was called upon to temporarily abandon my blogging (which, seriously, if this blog gets any more abandoned it may start crying itself to sleep at nights) in order to fix a frozen water pipe. Apparently -2 degree weather can freeze pipes inside your heated home! Fun fact!

All I have to say is: hair dryers. Your best friend for insulation AND plumbing work!

At least little boys like playing in snow

Thane just likes to eat snow, and tries to make a late breakfast of the snow he gets on his shoes in the morning

Lucky Charms, mmmm yummy!

So here I was saying that I had written through my blog backup. How wrong can one girl get? I’d totally forgotten a critically important piece of content I was going to share? How could I?

One of the very best parts of this Christmas Past was the Camp Gramp theme song. This story starts back in June, when my church held a fund-raising auction. I scored some excellent packages — baskets, goodies, a photography session and… a custom song written by our pastor. After mulling for a month or two, I asked him to put together a Camp Gramp Theme song. For several weeks I sent him information on Camp Gramp, with periodic inquiries returned.

Camp Gramp, for the uninitiated, is an annual adventure. Since Grey was about 2, Camp Gramp has been a time when my parents take all of their grandchildren for a week of revelry, junk food, adventures and fun — while the parents of said grandchildren abscond to go do fun grownup things that are not kid-friendly. My parents do not plan on doing ANYTHING during that week but pay attention to their grandkids. We middle generation abscond. (Last year we went to Istanbul! The year before it was backpacking.) And the kids get each other’s company and have a ball. It’s an excellent establishment – long may it continue!

Then, a few weeks before Christmas, he said he was ready. After church, we all snuck away from coffee hour and he played it for us. It was AWESOME!!!!! It captured the spirit and flavor of Camp Gramp.

I can just imagine me, being somewhere totally different! And the kids, bleary-eyed and not my responsibility, being woken up by these dulcet strains for another day of fun and happiness together. I imagine them reminiscing about how awesome that was years from now, when they’re ancient and my age.

I’m not going to type out the words to the song here (some things you don’t want to have SEO’d) but for all you big Camp Gramp fans out there, here is the Official Camp Gramp Theme song!

Camp Gramp Theme Song

Posting Fail

So I’m sitting here, watching football, and pondering what to say. Usually, I have more things to say than time in which to say them. I hoard up topics, sit on them for a while like a mother hen on her eggs, and then finally release them into the world. I’m sure you can tell by the extreme beauty, precision, thoughtfulness and articulate expression of all my posts. Or not. Anyway, I have one or two in the ruminating state, but they’re not quite ready. (Ok ok… one is on Herodotus, where I’m working to hard reading, so my post has to be REALLY GOOD and insightful. The other one is on the boys’ haircuts this weekend, but I have no pictures, and it’s totally not fair to say that the boys got haircuts and you don’t have pictures.)

So… lessee….

I unpacked the four large boxes of loot that my mother-in-law sent. She got me 9 skirts, all of which are fantastic. Today I wore a green and coral silk skirt with a leaf-green sweater and a coral necklace. It was a great outfit. Except I forgot how silk deals with static. And I didn’t take a picture. (Daughter-in-law fail!) Also, it’s supposed to be 12 degrees tomorrow and a blizzard Wednesday, so I suspect my next two days’ wardrobe does not involve skirts.

Grey got invited for a playdate. Looking at the note saying one of his classmates had been begging to have him over, I thought how lucky he and we are. He’s navigating the social waters of preschool with more ability that I managed with college. I worry about him being a bully, not the bullied. (He’ll be the oldest in his class. He’s tall and strong and handsome. Not that he seems to have an inclination to bully.) And then there’s the flip side… exactly when is a good time for a playdate? Theres like 4 pm on Sundays. That’s it. Everything else is booked.

I had bronchitis. Did I mention? I still have a cough but the painful breathing and feeling-like-death have subsided.

I did “Upper Body Blast” with Cassandra at the gym today. I may not be able to move my arms tomorrow. I have lousy balance and core strength, but my wind is ok and my arms are pretty darn strong.

The Patriots are better, but the Seahawks have been more fun to watch.

Thane has started playing make-believe with his beloved Puppy and Grover. The other night he wept bitter, bitter tears because I would not permit him to feed Puppy (who is, by the way, a bunny rabbit) applesauce. He’s also super two, testing to find out what the boundaries are. What I mean and don’t mean. “Stop hitting Thane!” “I yike to hit! Hit hit hit!” I find it much easier to deal with this second time around, because it’s so clear to me what he’s doing and what it means and that it is his stage in development, not his personality.

I’m on another video project at work. Who knew that this would end up in my job description? This is the fun stuff though. I don’t mind.

OK. That’s it. I’m tapped out. Hopefully we’ll have a blizzardpocalypse on Wednesday and they’ll close work and I’ll get to play with my camera! Yeah!

Kindergarten Registration

Today I am filling out forms for Grey’s Kindergarten registration in the fall. I’m pretty sure what I’m supposed to be feeling is How fast the time flies! It seems like he was a baby just yesterday! It can’t possibly already be time for my preshus snowflake to go to school, can it? What I really feel like is You have got to be kidding me. Kid was more than ready THIS fall. It seems like he’s been a big, grownup-person forever… you sure he was actually a baby? Really? Huh, go figure. In point of fact, Grey is five and has been for several months now. He missed the cutoff by four weeks this year.

To say it succinctly: I’m ready. He’s ready. Let’s do this Kindergarten thing.

Since Grey will be attending public schools, I figured that Kindergarten would be my payola — the moment where huge chunks of change returned to my budget. Currently, child care is a bigger cost for us than our mortgage. And we live within 10 miles of Boston in a 4 bedroom house. This is to say… it is a not inconsiderable expense. So Kindergarten will be huge savings, right? Right?

It turns out that while there is free part day Kindergarten, ALL DAY Kindergarten costs money. $3500 to be exact. Ok, so that’s really not bad. It’s like 3 months of preschool. BUT, we’ll have to have after-school care. That (including transportation) is $500 a month. Oh, and remember school vacations? Those end up costing $56/day. So do snow days. So…. yeah. Not really saving anything there. First grade. First grade will be the payola…

Returning to the pastel nostalgia of Kindergarten! School! My child’s entree into education! I’m pretty excited. I think Grey is superbly prepared for it. The sitting still problem will be his biggest challenge of Kindergarten, as it is for so many energetic young children. I’m slightly concerned that his reading ability will pose some challenges for his classroom, but I figure we all have to worry about something, and that’s a good something. I will NOT accept from him complaints about being bored. In that case, the thing he’ll need to learn from his classroom is how to deal with boredom in a productive way. That’s a super-useful life skill that will come in handy in adulthood.

I had meant this to be a chance to talk about Grey, and how much fun he is. Because he’s super duper awesome. It was really fantastic to get to spend lots of time with him at Christmas. He’s got an active imagination and a wide repertoire of blowing-up noises. He can be tenderly solicitous (he likes to make little Lego “babies” which he says are “so cute!”). He can also be very rough and tumble. Over Christmas, he spent considerable time with his 8 year old cousin, and barring a few hungry/tired related meltdowns, he did an excellent job of keeping up with his cousin.

If you ask Grey what his favorite things are, he will tell you “Screens”. And he’s probably right. Although we attempt to limit screen time, Grey loves cartoons and tv, his DS (he only gets to play in the car/on airplanes/when we really need him to), Wii, the iPad, the computer and all manner of screens. At Christmas, I confess, there was significant brain-rottage.

It’s hard to capture the unfolding complexity of your child. He is striving desperately to tell funny jokes, poring over joke-books to try to figure it out. He is surprisingly patient and sweet to his younger brother… most of the time. They created this new game he calls “Ready Freddy” which involves hiding, having your brother find you, then screaming and running away to do it again. He likes to read, but usually only when there’s no more alluring option. He loves Legos and Bakugan and Pokemon cards. He could care less about cars and isn’t wildly interested in art or drawing, although he really likes mazes. He insists on having music playing at night while he goes to sleep. He sleeps with all his stuffed animals piled on his bed and makes special accommodations for Tigry and Puppy. He can play Blokus with actual strategy.

I find myself having more and more things I WANT to do with Grey. I want to play games with him. I want to take him to see the movies. I want to take him shopping with me. (He begged to go grocery shopping with me this last week and did a phenomenal job!) I want to read him books. I want to teach him how to ride a bike.

It’s much harder with younger children. I sometimes look at Mr. Two Year Old and think… “What do I DO with you?” But I can play with Grey in a way that’s fun for me, too.

He’s a fun kid. I’m glad he’s mine.

Also, I want Santa-riding-rocketship pajamas!

OK, I should probably disclaim that I have bronchitis and am hopped up on 300% more drugs than usual… usually I just abuse caffeine. So in case this doesn’t actually have any narrative structure (I, um, have my doubts) here are some bonus pictures to make you forget!

Beautiful blue eyes. He's probably asking if he can have more candy/screens/presents.

I took a gazillion shots of this scene and they were all lousy.

He rearranged the icons on Grandma's iTouch and she almost didn't forgive him!

A day to myself

Today should be written down on the calendar. For reasons obscure to me, today is a holiday in my company. Not in my husband’s not-for-profit company that takes Columbus Day off, or my son’s preschool. No, just for me.

It’s like one of those daydreams you have, “What would you do if you suddenly had $100,000?”… the object of my fantasies has become reality. Better yet, it comes at a point where I’ve caught up on sleep, have no laundry to do, the dishes are done, the house is clean, the pictures are uploaded, the church web site is up to date and I’ve gotten clean through my backlog of blogging ideas. Bliss!

Although I’m at the snot-phase of a cold, I’m actually feeling quite energetic. So I did get up with my husband (instead of moaning inarticulately and covering my head with pillows which is my standard method of pleading with my husband to please let me sleep in just this ONCE! — I do this at least once a week.). I hied my sons to school. Thane looked trepidatous to return, but Grey was delighted. As I left he was busily comparing t-shirts with Nicholas. (Nicholas had gotten a Mario shirt, for the record.)

8:15. I was home and awake. So… I broke my fast, made a pot of coffee, made the bed (I NEVER make the bed, ever), checked my email upstairs, called two financial planners to talk about financial planning (I’m hitting the point where I need help, I think) and my OB to schedule my annual. Then, I tackled the attic.

Ah, the attic, repository of all that is not needed! As part of my energetic New Year’s burst (it’s astonishing how much energy I have when I don’t have to work!), I went through all the boys’ toys (with at least Grey’s help) and we set aside the ones that aren’t played with, or have been outgrown or broken. I called Salvation Army to schedule a pickup, so now its open season on “things I really don’t need”. And the attic figures prominently in that role. But there is a catch.

Bats. You remember when I said that “I know there is a population of bats in our area”. Confession time: the real reason I know is because they live in my attic! Such a welter of conflicting impulses there. The homeowner is all “BATS OUT! NOW! NO BATS!” while the environmentalist argues, “But their habitat loss is sooo bad you wouldn’t kick them out would you?” and the mother argues with herself “I don’t want those rabies and histoplasmosis vectors in the same building as my children, but I won’t kick them out until after hibernation and baby season is over because that’s just mean.” The mom voice is winning here. I set up a bat house to give them a place to go, and I MEANT to evict them (gently!) in the fall… but I got busy. Plus, all the bat eviction places I googled looked… histrionic. “Bats, the great bug scourge of the skies!” (Extra credit for getting the reference.)

So, I cleaned up all bat-related evidence, fixed the temperamental light fixture, plugged a few more holes (not so it would prevent them from getting outside, but prevent them from getting further inside) vacuumed and rearranged the attic. That’s as good as it gets until fall! I worked up a sweat going from attic to first floor and back again, moving the outgrown baby things to the porch!

Then I showered. Don’t worry, I had a mask on for that work.

A “what I did next” list is probably boring (well, if it’s not already too late for that!), but let’s just say my errands involved EIGHT different stores in three different zip codes. Then I came home and started a batch of bread.

Because I am a domestic goddess.

I’ve noticed a trend on Facebook and Twitter so far that points to 2011 getting off to a rocky start for many of my acquaintance. Although I have a small and unrepresentative sample so far, let me just be a voice of dissent to that trend. I’m totally digging 2011 to date!

It’s also interesting to see how much I like myself when I’m not incredibly tired and busy. It took me 10 days to get to this point (with significant help from my MIL who was primary child-carer, cook, maid & chauffeur for 9 days!) but this sense of energy and enthusiasm is very pleasant. I’d like to have it more often. I don’t know how to do that.

PS – SCORE! One of my 8 errands was to our local used bookstore, The Book Oasis to drop off and acquire new books. I brought the list of books we’d be reading for the humanities book club I belong to, and having struck out, I gave them the list and asked them to keep an eye out for the titles. I just got an email from the proprietress who did research on the best version of Thucydides and is working to get it for me. WIN! Now to make it through Herodotus. Not light reading. Even with all the leisure time (see above) I only made it through to Book 4 this Christmas!