Halloween photos, a few days late, due to the illnesses and recovery periods of all members of the family. There aren't any pictures of Evan because he was still under the weather; the closest he got to a costume was wearing his Tigger pajamas, and he did not cooperate for photos.
The delicious bloodshot-eyeball cookies we made
James, after helping scoop out pumpkin guts
James with our crazy jack o'lantern
Pirate Greg and Super James
It has been raining and/or gray outside for almost an entire week, and I'm getting tired of it. Greg is, at this moment, competing in an Adventure Race in Pennsylvania, and after coming home late tonight he'll be leaving tomorrow for Colorado, for work, for four days, so I'm single parenting for close to a week. I had my last ultimate frisbee game today, and we barely had enough players so I played almost the entire game, so I am tired, but in a good way.
So things are okay. I haven't had the blogging urge lately -- partly I'm feeling sluggish and uninspired, partly I'm feeling guilty about how often I update the blog versus how often I write personally to people. (You thought my blogging was infrequent? Try waiting for an e-mail from me: you can watch water boil, watch paint dry, and you'll still be waiting for me. Maybe I have some kind of disorder. I refuse to believe I'm just incosiderate.) I'm thinking that if, instead of writing a blog post every day, I write an e-mail, then I'll be caught up on my correspondence in a week or two. No reason I can't do both, I suppose, but I'm trying to prioritize, which has never been one of my strengths.
So, long story short: I will not be attentive to blogging this week, and possibly after that.
(But who knows? Every time I say I'll update, I don't, and when I say I won't, I do. It seems to work out that whenever I have the time, I don't have any ideas, and vice versa. Sorry to leave you hanging like that, but if you know me, that's the kind of thing I'm good at. Indecisiveness.)
James and cousin Molly among the pumpkins at a local farm
James and a pony at the same farm
At the waterfront in Salem, MA
The boys with Aunt Ren and some monsters at a street fair
Aunt Ren and her nephews outside the Rainforest CafeSo we are now officially into autumn, and if there's one thing I love about nature, it's the changes of season. I like wearing pants and sweaters after months of skirts and tank tops, I like drinking hot tea instead of iced, I like leaves changing colors, I like apple picking and Halloween and my birthday.
But what I really, really love about changing seasons? Changing foods. Summer giving way to autumn means that I can make soups and stews and casseroles, and I can cook with sweet potatoes and butternut squash. I'm digging out favorite old recipes, and experimenting with new ones. I can bake again, I can use the oven without having to evacuate everyone from the house for fear of heatstroke. We have pumpkin ice cream and apple pie ice cream in the freezer (because even when it's getting colder, it's not too cold for ice cream!). Maybe I'm a food geek, but I get so excited about cooking different things with different ingredients once the seasons change.
In bad mommy news, James is playing outside right now, alone, in the pouring rain. He's wearing rainboots and three layers and has an umbrella, and obviously is enjoying himself or he'd be back inside by now, but I still feel a little bit guilty. So I will make him a nice hot lunch when he gets back.
In employment news, we are entering the fourth month in which I've heard nothing from my employers, not even responses from the emails I've sent, yet they continue to pay me. Actually, I did hear from them -- I got an invitation to a reception for the retirement of my supervisor, and I couldnt' make it. No word on who's replacing him, or when we're actually going to do something, though.
And that's about all. Not much news for blogging, these days.
As usual, I'm a little late to the party, but we are in the middle of the American Library Association's Banned Books Week, "Celebrating the Freedom to Read". When I was a junior in high school I wrote a research paper on censorship, and even then, as a pretty conservative Christian teen, I came down strongly on the side of free speech. Even then I was appalled at some of the reasons people tried to ban books and stories. I think my favorites were the fairy tales: "Robin Hood" promoted socialism; "Jack and the Beanstalk" taught the defiance of authority (or some such nonsense). It's really interesting (and sad) to me that some ideas are so frightening and dangerous to some people that they want them to be suppressed and/or destroyed.
It's the 25th year the ALA has celebrated Banned Books Week, so in honor of their anniversary, I'll list 25 books that have I have read that have been banned, and which I whole-heartedly recommend.
1. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
2. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
3. Harry Potter (series) by JK Rowling
4. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
5. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
6. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
7. The Giver by Lois Lowry
8. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
9. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
10. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
11. The Witches by Roald Dahl
12. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
13. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
14. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
15. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
16. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
17. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
18. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
19. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
20. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
21. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
22. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
23. Cujo by Stephen King
24. Carrie by Stephen King
25. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Okay, so I can't whole-heartedly recommend the last three, but not because they're tremendously offensive and I want them banned. I don't like Stephen King books now, mostly because I'm not into that whole genre anymore, but I do consider his books an important stepping-stone in my literary development over the years. I wouldn't recommend American Psycho because it disturbed me more than anything I've ever read -- it's incredibly violent and graphic -- but that doesn't mean that no one should be allowed to read it. As far as I know, most people who read books like American Psycho do not go out and imitate the violence they've read about, but rather understand that books like those are portraits of sick, highly disturbed individuals.
I'm planning to have a pretty liberal stance on books in our home. In fact, James has already read a couple of the books on the list -- In the Night Kitchen (ooh! A little boy's naked bottom!), and James and the Giant Peach (I think this must have been banned for some language reasons, though I don't know for sure -- but I do remember a few mild curses such as "damn" and "hell"). Many of the books on that list are books that I will insist he read, some because they're wonderful, imporatant pieces of literature (To Kill a Mockingbird, The Handmaid's Tale), some because I loved them so much growing up (Julie of the Wolves, My Brother Sam is Dead, A Wrinkle in Time). I think there's very little I would discourage my children from reading, because even the worst, trashiest books I've ever read (ahem... Flowers in the Attic, anyone?) have taught me something, even if only how to distinguish good literature from bad. I've read a lot of garbage in my time, but who would I be if I'd never read RL Stine books, or Scary Stories to Read in the Dark?
So how about you? Do you have any banned books to recommend?
This week, management has been installing a new fire alarm system in our building. I appreciate that now I am less likely to die in a fire in my home, or from carbon monoxide poisoning, but let me tell you how much fun the installation process has been!
We got a note last week that the installation would begin on Tuesday, and that we had to clean out the hall closets both upstairs and downstairs, as well as clear the areas around the main floor and basement stairways. Okay, so on Sunday, we got the upstairs hall closet cleaned out (the contents are currently residing in our bedroom) and some of the basement cleared. Figured we'd do the rest on Monday.
Monday morning, 8:30am: knock on the door. The work crew is here, a day early, and I'm answering the door in my pajamas with practically nothing ready for them. I need to take James to school by 9am, so I scurry to get dressed and clean out the downstairs hall closet (by throwing everything into the living room) as fast as I can so they can begin. The head of the work crew is very nice, polite, considerate, and assures me that they can make do with the messy main floor stairs, and that they'll move anything that needs moving in the basement. He also tells me that the first four hours of the day will involve lots of drilling and noisy stuff, so I decide not to be home for that.
So Evan and I drop James off at school and head to Starbucks to bide our time until the children's museum opens. We spend a mostly happy morning running around the museum, then pick James up and head home for lunch and a nap. Luckily, the weather is nice enough to eat lunch outdoors, because our dining room table and chairs have been haphazardly shoved out of the dining room and there is some light plaster dust on the table. Okay, we'll have lunch outside with the bees. We spend much of the rest of the day outdoors because there are lots of workers coming in and out of the house all day long. They leave around 4:30pm, and we are able to move things back into the downstairs closet.
This morning, they knock on the door at 8:20am and again catch me in my pajamas. Today, there is a lot of banging coming from both the basement and the attic. Again, we head out to the children's museum. Three and a half hours later we return for naptime to find that they are (finally!) almost done working in our place. I think they're finally done by now, which would be wonderful if one of the workers hadn't entered my apartment a little while ago with another notice -- this one saying that they will be testing the new fire system for the next two days. So just when I thought it was over, I learn that for two more days there will be "VERY loud" and frequent tests of the alarm system -- the notice warns that children should be kept "at a distance if possible." Great. I don't think I can take another day at the children's museum.
I have no complaints about the workers -- they've all been very nice, and I can tell from the way they interact with my kids that several of them are the fathers of small children themselves. And sure, I'm glad we have a brand-spankin'-new alarm system. But, being the homebody & hermit that I am, I'm not psyched about four consecutive days of being in my own home as little as possible.
We braved the intermittent rain today to go apple picking. The apple farm we went to must exist in some alternate plane of reality, because it was hot and sunny the entire time we were there. We came home with twenty pounds of apples, and a few cute photos:
Evan was kind of cranky the whole time, but James really enjoyed himself. And the photos demonstrate that he is clearly his father's son.
Now to figure out what we're going to do with twenty pounds of apples...
So James has just had his first full week back at nursery school -- he's going 3 mornings a week this year, which is a very nice thing for both of us. But we are having a little trouble adjusting to being back at school -- sometimes it's just so hard to be four years old.
First is a sort of anger management problem that we've been dealing with since summer. James is very sensitive and emotional, has a hard time controlling himself when he gets upset, and has taken to very deliberately hitting other children during disagreements. On Wednesday a girl stole a block from him, so he snatched it and hit her with it. Today he and another girl disagreed about the source of the bells they were hearing from outside, so he hit her. This is really frustrating, because he knows that hitting is wrong, of course, but he is making the choice to hit. I've seen him act out in the heat of anger, and these incidents are not thoughtless reflexes. So we are working hard to reinforce appropriate standards of behavior.
Today we were driving home from school and I had him tell me his side of the story and we talked about what he could have done other than hitting. Then I gave him kind of a little lecture about the hitting, about how to resolve disputes, to remember to stay calm and use words, to remember that it's okay to disagree. After I was finished talking, there was a brief silence. Then James asked, very seriously, "What happens if you flush beer down the toilet?!" So it seems we also have to focus on the listening and concentration skills.
The other issue is a little more exciting: James is involved in a love triangle. There's a new boy in class, Bernie, who James has really hit it off with. Well, on Monday, James' teacher told me that James was talking all day about marrying Caitlin, a little redheaded whirlwind of a girl. I assisted in the classroom on Wednesday and several times James put his arm around Caitlin, kissed her on the cheek, told her he loved her. (She seemed kind of indifferent to him, but whatever. I like to see him expressing positive emotions, even if they're not returned with equal enthusiasm.) He sat next to Caitlin at circle time, but it was snack time when the trouble began. Because Bernie sat next to Caitlin, leaving no room for James, who was pretty upset about being separated from the girl he loves. Everyone eventually shifted and made room for James to sit on the other side of Caitlin, but then I noticed Bernie putting his arm around her. James' best friend making the moves on his favorite girl? Tragedy!
Of course, today, I heard not a word about Bernie or Caitlin, so maybe the whole thing is over. You know how preschoolers are.
So week 1 was not ideal, but we're hoping as we settle into the routine things will just get better. We'll see.
So I was driving James to school this morning, and in front of the hospital, some guy steps off the sidewalk right in front of my car. The combination of that idiocy, plus the fact that he was carrying a bunch of anti-abortion posters, made me briefly consider not hitting the brakes, but I did have a child in the car with me and a hit-and-run would have been a little difficult to explain.
One of the signs he was carrying featured the word GENOCIDE (in huge letters just like that). That whole anti-abortion approach just makes me so angry. So minorities have a number of abortions disproportionate to their percentage of the population -- the right-wingers take this to mean that Planned Parenthood and the like are encouraging minorities to abort in some kind of genocidal eugenics attempt. Because the left has always been associated with white supremacy, right? They like to bolster that argument with selected quotes about eugenics from Margaret Sanger, even though she has been dead for forty years and therefore no longer really represents the pro-choice movement.
If you're worried about the disproportionate amount of abortions women of color are having, wouldn't it make more sense to find a constructive way to solve that problem, rather than waving your inflammatory posters outside the local hospital? Instead of fabricating a left-wing genocidal conspiracy theory, couldn't you consider other, more realistic reasons why minorities have so many abortions? It couldn't be because race and class are so intertwined, and minorities are more likely to be poor, therefore less likely to be able to care for an unplanned child, could it? It couldn't be that there's still a racial hierarchy in this country, that, though less obvious than outright slavery, still puts people of color at a disadvantage, could it?
But the people spouting the genocide argument are the same people who believe that pro-choice equals pro-abortion, who believe that Planned Parenthood is in it for the money (never mind that sliding scale business), who believe that they are more qualified to make judgments about a woman's situation and circumstances than that woman is. It's not an entirely rational wing of the anti-choice movement, so I guess it's silly of me to expect people like that to really think about the issues behind their posters.
If you've read the post below, you'll recall that yesterday did not get off to a wonderful start. I was in kind of a bad mood for most of the morning, so by the time afternoon rolled around, I decided I needed something to cheer me up -- and that something must not involve my children, the source of my (temporary) misery. So I went shopping.
Most women -- stereotypically -- get psyched about shoe shopping, or clothes shopping, or make-up or whatever. Me, I get excited by thrift stores, cooking stuff (I have a list a mile long of items I need to improve my kitchen), and food shopping (seriously, I love grocery shopping, especially when my kids are not with me), but most of all by books. And among bookstores, my favorite ever is a narrow, creaky, crowded little book-lover's paradise, crammed to the ceiling with used books, tucked away in the back of a building on a main street downtown.
Now, really, even going to a bookstore and browsing without buying is enough to lift my mood. I really didn't intend to buy anything! But I came home the happy owner of 6 gently-used books. It was so hard to choose; I could easily have bought twice as much as I did. I left behind books by Toni Morrison, Amy Tan, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, The Time-Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffeneger, Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry, books by Vonnegut and Bill Bryson.
So what did I buy? In no particular order:
A lack of disposable income causes me to be a conservative book shopper -- I tend to buy only books I've read before and loved, or I buy classics that I think I should probably have read by now, but I somehow missed in all of my high school and college English classes. So it's nice when I find used books in good condition and pay a fraction of the price I'd pay if buying them new. (In this case, $75 worth of books are mine for just $30.)
And this morning I played two ultimate frisbee games, so I'm not up for much other than sitting around and reading and relaxing tonight. Perfect. Today, I am happy.
So, Evan has decided not to sleep anymore. At night, anyway. His naps during the day are better than ever, but at night he's waking up more frequently than he's done in months. Greg and I are both getting up at least twice a night, and usually, around 5 or 6am, Evan ends up in our bed with us because we're too tired by that point to spend the time properly getting him back to sleep. But Evan doesn't sleep well in our bed either; he tosses and turns and climbs on us. The advantage is that at least we can stay horizontal; the downside is that Evan is free to leave our bed whenever he's ready to be up, which is usually in the 6:30-7am range, and he usually ends up waking James before James would normally wake up on his own.
As a result of this happening all week, I've slipped into Bad Mama mode. When Evan crawls out of bed, I don't follow. I'm so happy to have a few moments without him needing something that almost every morning this week, I've slept while my boys were up and awake. This has mostly been fine -- they get up, play together, watch some TV, and eventually wake me with calls for breakfast. But this morning, Evan, who has recently learned to climb up on the dining room chairs to reach the table, found the container of granola that I had carelessly left on the table. So of course, Evan opens the container and dumps the entire thing, on the table, the chairs, the floor, and, of course, himself. And into the butter, which I also left on the table last night. So I get up this morning, groggy, bleary-eyed, sleep-deprived after a night of frequent risings, and have to immediately clean the dining room while the kids are bleating for breakfast. Needless to say, I'm not a happy camper this morning.
So, if you've recently found yourself wanting a cute, cuddly baby, to play with, to hug and kiss, and to delight you with his ... rambunctious ... antics, drop me a note. I've got an offer for you.
I don't know why James doesn't open his eyes for photos anymore. He also does the weird huge grin you see above. Regardless of how he looks, though, he's really, really happy in this photo, because this was taken on his first day of nursery school, which was Wednesday.
This is how James pretends to be R2D2. He has expressed interest in being a robot for Halloween, so I think we're all set now.*
This is one of the crazier things I've ever seen happen in my kitchen: a fight between a spider and a half-dead bee. That's the spider on the bee's rear end (click on the photo for a bigger version), trying to spin him up and secure his meals for the next year or so. The bee was really weak, and feebly crawling around, but finally he broke free of the spider's sticky grasp and hobbled off to safety. (I think I inadvertantly assisted him by taking this photo, because I had to move a bottle of lotion to take it, and I think the web was attached to the lotion.) At that point the bee promptly fell off the windowsill into my sink full of soapy water and drowned. Poor little guy.
I feel a little embarrassed sharing the state of my kitchen like this -- it's just a few cobwebs in the corners of the window! Really! We're not that gross! -- but this was just too cool not to share. I'm disappointed that the spider didn't get him, because she was tough! And she was working really hard. But it was still cool to watch.
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*No, I'm not actually going to dress my kid up in a laundry basket and call it a Halloween costume.
Where were you when you heard the news?
I was riding the bus to work when I heard the bus driver telling another passenger that an airplane had hit one of the twin towers. I dismissed it as some kind of crazy accident, and didn't think about it much. It was unusual for a driver to have the radio on, but I didn't think much about that either. I was almost six months pregnant with an unplanned baby, trying to cope with that as well as going to school and working part-time, so if I was a little preoccupied and self-centered, I did have my reasons.
When I got to work -- I was working at the Educational Technology Center on campus that semester -- all of the TVs in the ETC and the adjoining Multimedia Center were tuned to the news. Everyone was sitting around, just watching. During my bus ride the second tower had been hit. I was restless and didn't understand the scope of things at that point; I felt like I should be working, and asked my boss what I could do, but she said no one needed to work today.
Classes were cancelled for the rest of the day, and I don't really remember what I did after I left work. At that time we were spending a lot of time at the house on Raleigh Street where some of our friends were living. I remember watching the news there; I remember they had marked September 11th on their calender as "a day that will live in infamy".
Being the simple-minded pacifist-type that I am, it took me a while to understand the enormity of the event. I mean, terrorist attacks happen all the time, all over the world; it took an attack on our own soil to make Americans sit up and take notice. Do Americans know the date of a single terrorist attack on another nation? But the date of 9/11 is known all over the world. It was our generation's Pearl Harbor. But the "enemy" this time was much more elusive.
I had an online journal then, and I remember quoting the musical Rent in one entry: "The opposite of war isn't peace; it's creation." I was scared to be having a baby at a time when our country was in such emotional chaos; when an attack on civilians made people more concerned with revenge than justice; when there was so much anger where I thought there should have been sorrow instead. Friends started emailing me jokes about "towelheads"; I felt very alone in being a proponent of peace and justice at that time.
Five years later, my world is much different than it was then. I have two beautiful boys who are the center of my world (who I'm already trying to teach the value of peace). Yet our country is still mired in a war in the middle east -- does anyone really know what it's for anymore? The government gives optimistic reports but the media, the soldiers, other nations tell things a little differently.
I'm not going to get political, because I don't have the energy. But I do wonder when and how -- sometimes if -- it will all end. I worry about what the future holds for my boys. What will the world look like when they are men? Will 9/11 still have the same importance in 20 years? Will it be an isolated event from the days before we wiped out terrorism, or will there have been other, bigger, deadlier attacks by then? I don't think about these things often. Most days I just live my life, play with my boys, and enjoy myself, because if I do give in to these wonderings, it's just too scary.
What about you? Thoughts. reflections, experiences? Where were you five years ago today?
Earlier this week, we went to the zoo in Syracuse, where my boys got some close-up views of some big cats:
The lion reminded me of something I overheard a woman saying at the Rochester zoo once; she was telling her friend that they must drug the animals, because they just lay around, they never do anything. That made me laugh at the time -- was she really expecting the Arctic wolves to entertain her on a 90-degree day in July? -- but with the lion at the Syracuse zoo, I wasn't so sure. She looked practically comatose, and despite James and other kids cavorting in front of her, I'm not sure I even saw her blink. But then, maybe she's just so used to kids cavorting in front of her window that it's just not all that interesting anymore. The other two lions in the enclosure were a bit more animated, however, with the male attempting to mate and the female crankily rebuffing him.
In other news, I got my first-ever door-to-door Jehovah's Witnesses today! This time, unlike with the Mormons who came to my door a few years ago, I did not allow them to enter my house or hypnotize me with their unblinking eyes. To their credit, these women were much more subtle -- and much less creepy -- than the Mormons; they never actually said they were Jehovah's Witnesses, and they didn't try to convert me. They were passing out literature -- interestingly, one of the women said they were mostly looking for Chinese-speaking residents to talk to -- but she gave me their booklets: one about evolution vs creation, and one about whether religion is good or bad. (Can you guess the conclusions of each of those topics?)
I perused the material, not because I was terribly interested in either one, but mostly because I don't know much about Jehovah's Witnesses. We have a few relatives who are Jehovah's Witnesses, and I have a friend who was raised as one but doesn't practice now, but I wouldn't have guessed that any of them were particularly religious had no one told me; they're not a very preachy bunch. Anyway, the only thing I was really surprised at was how many times the pamphlets made clear that Jehovah's Witnesses are not Fundamentalists ("We believe in the Bible! This is what the Bible really says!"). They also make sure to distance themselves from creationsists, because of the political implications of the term, though stating that "evolutionary theory and the teachings of Christ are incompatible" does, in fact, make them creationists. Other than these things, though, it was all pretty much as I expected.
So that's all the Friday fun around here. Busy weekend ahead, so you may not hear from me for a couple of days. Happy weekend, everyone.
Most of the trail looked like this
But there were several swampy areas
Greg likes to climb
We saw lots of pretty flowers -- no idea what they are
The boys by a peaceful pond
I'll be out of town for a couple of day. Blogging should resume by Wednesday or so.
Kim wrote a post recently called "Explaining the Unexplainable" -- about trying to explain to children things such as the purpose of fighter jets or the concept of war. We had a similar experience yesterday.
Greg, flipping through magazine: Wow, it's already been five years since 9/11?
Me: Yep, it happened just before James was born and he's almost five.
James, upon hearing his name come up: What happened just before I was born?
Me and Greg: .....
We kind of brushed it off, because how can you explain that airplanes were flown into buildings without explaining the terrorism that motivated it? And how can you explain the fact that some people will indiscriminately kill others, strangers, for the sake of some cause or ideology? I don't know how to do it; yet someday I know that I will have to do it, and that I will do it (though probably very clumsily).
This is some of the scarier stuff of parenting -- shattering your child's illusions of the world as a wonderful place, and helping them to understand the darker sides of humanity. When it comes to the big talks of parenthood, when faced with describing terrorism and hatred and religious fanaticism and the violence that comes with them, I find myself almost looking forward to having the birds and the bees talk instead.
Those of you who know me know that I like chocolate. Just a little bit. So imagine my delight coming across this book in the library today: Chocolate Obsession. It was the title that drew me in, but then I saw the author's name, and I nearly swooned. You may or may not be familiar with Michael Recchiuti, but he is the creator of Recchiuti chocolates. Admittedly, I have never actually eaten any of his chocolates, because as much as I love chocolate, I'm not interested in being bankrupted by it. But I have spent a considerable amount of time drooling over the Recchiuti website, because damn. Those are the prettiest, most exotic-sounding chocolates I've ever seen.
But now! There is a book! And I can (theoretically) make my own Recchiuti chocolates! I have a feeling that my kitchen is woefully understocked for chocolate-making, and that even making Recchiuti chocolates wouldn't fit my budget, but nonetheless, the possibility now exists. I hardly ever set concrete goals for myself, because I am a lazy, unmotivated person, but I vow here and now that I will someday attempt to make Recchiuti chocolates.
Incidentally, in case you've been agonizing over what to get me for my birthday -- only 79 days away, after all -- you've now got an idea. The book or the chocolates; I'm not picky.
Well, even when all the travelling is over, things still don't slow down. After returning last week from Washington, we made a short trip out to my mom's last weekend to spend some time with her and go to the State Fair together. It was a nice weekend, if a bit rushed -- we went hiking on Moss Island*, where we managed, somehow, to not get poison ivy despite traipsing through a patch of it; the fair, of course was lots of fun: rides, farm animals, and greasy and/or sugary food. What could be better?
We've been home for several days in a row, but my preschooler is once again in high demand for playdates, so we've had lots of kid time. We also had the first parent meeting of the year for James' nursery school (though school doesn't start for another couple of weeks yet). Greg has been coming home for dinner and then going back in to work after the kids go to bed, so I haven't gotten to see much of him lately -- luckily I got my fill in Washington. And now that the fall semester is close to starting, I suspect I'll have some things to do for my community assistant position pretty soon. I feel like I should already be doing something, but I haven't heard from my employers in over a month, and haven't seen them since the orientation in June. I'm not complaining about getting paid for doing nothing, but I do feel a bit guilty about it.
This weekend we're going to a friend's for a Labor Day barbecque, at her parents' house on Canandaigua Lake. If the weather is nice, we're also going to try to do a little hiking. We have a book on local hikes, and we haven't done a single one -- kids are a little restrictive when it comes to good hiking -- but after the successful hikes we took them on on our vacation, we're ready to tackle the Finger Lakes.
In other news, my good friend Melissa is now blogging -- she is a wildly intelligent and wonderful woman, so check her out.
I'll close with a photo of my poor, accident-prone toddler. Today he was trying to climb on a tricycle that's a little too big for him; he tipped the trike over and landed pretty spectacularly on his face. The picture doesn't do it justice, but that is a big bruise on his forehead, and his nose is cut in several places. Poor baby.
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*Moss Island is a really cool place in Little Falls, NY, for which I can find very little online information, and no good pictures. It's an island with the Mohawk River on one side, and the Barge Canal on the other, accessible by a lock on the canal. It's geologically fascinating, with all kinds of unique rock formations, and it's popular for rock climbing despite being so small. Of course, I forgot to bring my camera.
Good news: our memory card has been found!
Bad news: it is still in Washington.
Good news: it is being sent to us!
Bad news: I am too impatient.
We do have a second memory card, with much smaller storage capacity, from which I eagerly downloaded photos last night, only to find that the card contains only 11 photos, none of which are of people, and most of which are blurry photos of salmon at the fish ladder we visited. But I will share a couple of interesting photos:
This is a crazy tree that we saw on our Sol Duc hike. We have no idea what that lump on the tree is, but it is clearly part of the tree, and extends in a full circle around the tree. Tree tumor? Who knows? I suppose if I weren't so lazy I could Google it and find out for sure, but alas. The laziness.
This is a wall covered in chewed gum, in Post Alley in Seattle (which is a cool but fairly creepy little alleyway). The photo can't really convey the true scale of the gum wall; it was rather amazing, which is why we took a picture. Also, beyond the plain gum, there were some more creative displays, such as the next photo:
Awww. I [heart] NY, written in gum on a wall. How could I not take a photo of that?!
Happy weekend, everyone!
Clearly, I lied about updating from the west coast. Who has time for blogging when you're on vacation? We're still getting settled here at home, so I still don't have a whole lot of time for blogging, but I thought I'd let my loyal readers know that I am still alive. And I'll give you a brief summary of the trip. And I wish I had some photos to post, but it appears that we've lost our memory card, so you'll have to make do with my descriptions and some internet photos.
Our kids were phenomenal on all of the flights, thank goodness. We got to see lots of Greg's family -- his sister came for a surprise visit; his 7-year-old cousin visited for a week to attend the horse camp Greg's mother was running; we were able to visit a few times with Greg's aunts; and we spent some time at his grandparents' house. We got to see Dawn and meet her boyfriend Derek; we got to see some of Greg's friends and have a kid-free couple of days in Seattle all at once.
Lots of outdoorsy goodness: we hiked at Hurricane Ridge, Sol Duc Falls, the Spruce Railroad Trail*, and I think there was one more hike I can't recall right now. We went to Salt Creek to look at tidepools, we went swimming at Lake Crescent, we picked millions of wild blackberries, and we went to the Clallam County Fair where we fed our boys nutritious foods like cotton candy and elephant ears.
Other fun included James' and Evan's numerous dance parties, Mentos-and-soda volcanoes, a little horseback riding for James, games of Settlers (and Seafarers) of Catan, Burnout Revenge (Evan is already becoming a video game addict), a viewing of Munich (which wasn't really "fun", but instead sobering, depressing, and disturbing, in an interesting way), and a visit to Herkimer Coffee.
All in all there was a lot of much-appreciated relaxation, and our boys got the chance to be just a little spoiled by Greg's family. I really wish we had photos -- I'm going to be annoyed if it turns out that our memory card really has disappeared for good. But anyway, we did have a lot of fun, though it's nice to be home again, too.
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*See the cliff on the right of the photo? Greg jumped off of it (only at a point highter than the picture shows) because the pool at the bottom ("the Devil's Punchbowl") is very very deep. It's safe, but it is a bit harrowing to watch your boyfriend jump off a cliff. Also, there is a very dark, cold, scary old railroad tunnel along this trail. Greg and his friends have even been known to go through it, but just standing at the mouth of the tunnel gave me the heebie-jeebies. Alas, I cannot find a picture online, but trust me. Creepy.
Tomorrow by this time we will be en route to the west coast, where almost two and a half weeks of fun and freedom await us. In addition to seeing Greg's family, I'm looking forward to more pleasant temperatures, beaches, mountains, horses, people to help us with kid care, time to read and perhaps even play the piano, a visit with Dawn, and hopefully getting to spend some quality kid-free time with my boyfriend. I'm not really looking forward to the many hours of airplane travel ahead of us, espcially considering that Evan's molars are presently coming in, but I think we will have enough books, food, and toys to survive.
I'm sure I'll be updating the blog from Washington; I'm less certain that I'll be able to post photos, but Greg's younger brother is a computer whiz, so we should be able to figure something out. I'll probably be even more sporadic than usual, though.
Until next time, whenever that may be!
I've been comparing our weather with the weather in the Pacific Northwest, to where we'll be travelling at the end of the week for a much-anticipated vacation, and though they're apparently having a warmer summer than usual, I don't see anything above 81 degrees for their forecast this week. Hooray! Our weather here won't be too much warmer in degrees, but the crazy humidity makes me want to melt. Hey, Mother Nature? 75% humidity, without precipitation, is not cool.
In other news, even though I feel it's too hot to blog, it's apparently not too hot for frisbee, so I'm going to spend the rest of my energy this afternoon psyching myself up to run around and sweat buckets at my game tonight. To entertain yourselves while I'm not posting anything for a while, you can check out our July photos to get your fill of adorable kid pics.
I was confused when I heard Superman mooing this morning. "Who are you, Supercow?" I asked. But once James explained it to me, it made perfect sense for Superman to be mooing: if you misremember his name -- Kal-El -- and believe that his real name is "El Cow", then of course Superman can moo.
Via Feministe, I came across this article about readers' reactions to the image of a breastfeeding infant on the cover of a parenting magazine. The ironic headline? "Why Women Don't Nurse Longer." Well, perhaps the common perceptions of a nursing breast being gross, inappropriate, or sexual -- all adjectives used by readers complaining to the magazine -- have a little something to do with it.
Okay, before I attack this article, let me start by saying that I am about as pro-breastfeeding as you can get. I think that many women make stupid excuses for not breastfeeding, because in a lot of ways it's easier not to; I think that despite our government's stated support of breastfeeding, it does very little in the way of actually supporting it by making it easier for women to breastfeed for the recommended amount of time; I think workplaces need to be restructured -- in many ways actually, but for the purposes of this discussion, to guarantee women maternity leave for those crucial early months when breastfeeding is established, and to allow women to continue to pump breastmilk in privacy and comfort once they return to work; I think our hyper-sexualized culture gives the sexual function of breasts far too much attention, when it is the far more important nutritional function of breasts that should be emphasized, if we are serious about being a nation committed to family values.
But apparently, people are only interested in promoting family values when it doesn't conflict with their personal comfort level. Quotes from the article:
With all the weddings I've gone to this summer, I've noticed something interesting. Even the most independent, liberal women I know change their last names when I get married. I know it's a long-standing tradition, but it makes me wonder how often anyone thinks about why women change their names, or if they do so because that's just the way it's done.
I find it interesting, too, that the only women I can think of who have not changed their last names after marriage are members of my family: my sister, my cousin, my aunt. (Am I missing anyone?) If I ever marry, I won't change my name. I've had my name for almost 25 years; having an unusual last name is something of a defining characteristic when you're growing up, and so I have some attachment to it. But beyond that, in recent years I've started considering the patriarchal origins of name-changing, and I'm uncomfortable with following a tradition that has its roots in what was essentially property ownership. The male is the default; children are named with their fathers' names to assert his paternity, and women are renamed with their husbands' names to signify the transfer of property from father to husband.
I know this is not the typical mindset nowadays; most married couples don't believe that one of them owns the other. Most people don't worry about the symbolic implications of name-changing. But I think it's useful to examine where our traditions come from and why we continue to follow them.
When I had James, we gave him Greg's last name because we planned on getting married at some point, and I thought I'd change my name at that point so that we'd all have the same last name as a family. But now that I"ve changed my mind about name-changing, and possibly marriage at all, I regret just a little bit not giving my boys my last name even as a middle name. Greg and I have talked about changing all of our last names to be the same, but my last name is too long for hyphenation, and our last names don't merge well into a new name. Maybe if we ever think of something appropriate for our family, we'll change our names, but until then we're going to live with different last names. This actually has never been an issue -- it's more of a problem for people that we're not married at all -- so it doesn't bother me much to keep it this way, though I do like the idea of identifying our family with a common last name.
But I feel that I'm something of an oddity for thinking so deeply about it. Most women change their names without stressing over it. Has the naming tradition evolved over the years along with the purpose of marriage and the roles of the spouses? Or is our culture holding on to a remnant of a more oppressive time simply because there's been no reason to change? I'm interested to hear others' thoughts on this; particularly if this is something you find worthy of consideration; if you think I'm making too much out of it; if you've had similar thoughts; if you think the typical woman considers this issue. Thoughts?
**Edit: I should clarify (because I wrote this really hastily earlier) that just because I find the origins of the name-changing tradition distasteful doesn't mean that I'm criticizing anyone who does choose to change her name. I realize that many people probably don't find the origins relevant today, and that people have their own reasons for changing their names. I think people should do whatever they want to do -- but I like to ask why we do what we do, as individuals, as human beings, as a society.
I haven't had much time for blogging because I'm trying deperately to read as much as I can of Collapse for my book club meeting next week. It's a really interesting book, if a bit dry and slow at parts. I'm not hoping to finish it before the meeting -- I'm only about 150 pages into a book of 500+ pages -- but I'd like to make it maybe halfway through so I have something to add to the discussion.
But I did take a break from reading this weekend to go on my first-ever wine tour! It was a friend's birthday, so her boyfriend arranged for a van to drive a large group of us down to Seneca Lake to tour some of the many, many wineries there. I've never been much of a wine drinker, but I'm determined to make myself like it at least a little, partly because of the health benefits of red wine, and partly because wine carries a certain sophistication that beer and other alcohols do not, and I've spent far too long being completely, utterly clueless about wine. So I went with an open mind and tried lots of different kinds of wine. And now I have a little bit better of an idea what I like and what I don't.
We visited six or seven wineries. My favorites -- where I had what I thought were the best wines -- were Torrey Ridge and Red Newt Cellars, though at Wagner Vineyards I had one of the best ice cream cones I've ever tasted: amaretto cream sherry swirled with chocolate. Yum. At Torry Ridge I bought the one and only bottle of wine I purchased that day -- Summer Delight, a sweet, scrumptious wine that is described as tasting just like strawberry rhubarb pie. It is indeed strawberrilicious.
An all day wine tour was, I think, a bit long for my taste, but I'm glad I got to go and experience some of what the Finger Lakes are famous for, and expand my own tastes at the same time. The Finger Lakes area is such a beautiful setting for sampling wines on a perfect summer day. So even though I'm now behind in my reading, it was very much worth it.
James, ready to swim
James swimming
(the beach wouldn't allow his bubble, so we borrowed a lifejacket)
Evan, splashing at the edge of the lake
James, after swimming
Evan in the bath after a long day at the beachWe had a nice welcome home last night -- we came in to find that there had been some plumbing or pipe problems, or something, in the basement while we were away, and lots of water leakage ensued. So after putting the kids to bed, Greg and I spent almost three hours carting everything out of the basement, except for the couch, the washer and the dryer. We brought things outside to dry, found temporary storage for things that miraculously managed not to get wet, and removed three of our four area rugs, which were totally soaked and stained with moldy-smelling water.
Today we will be cleaning the basement from top to bottom -- mopping, scrubbing, drying, vacuuming. Then we need to return everything to its original place in the basement, after washing lots of things, particularly toys, that sat around in the nasty water. We have a ton of laundry to do -- all of the laundry that was already waiting to be washed in the basement, plus things that were stored and got soaked. We will need to go shopping, to invest in lots of plastic storage containers and shelving. Let me tell you, relying on cardboard boxes for storing toys and clothes is a baaaaad idea.
So much work to do... and we have to find out whether management will compensate us for anything that was ruined, since the issue was their fault. But I'm not holding my breath. And here I had all of these adorable photos from the weekend to post, but that will have to wait until all of this stupid annoying garbage is taken care of.
Brave Sir James
Sherlock James searching for clues
James the frightening dragon
James playing a giant electronic harp
Evan on a giant chessboardSpeaking of Evan, we are having issues lately. Who knew a thirteen-month-old had so much potential to drive his parents crazy? We're getting a lot of temper tantrums lately; now that he knows how to say "no", he uses it -- or should I say, screams it -- at almost every opportunity. Also, he has apparently decided to go on the Atkins diet without consulting us, because he has mostly stopped eating carbs. He'd be quite happy on a diet of meat and fruit, with some peas (far and away his favorite vegetable) thrown in. The only carbs he eats willingly are croutons and potatoes, sometimes a bagel. Oh, the kid would probably live on potatoes if I let him, but that's not exactly practical. So we are struggling a bit.
And now for something completely different. Yesterday I came across this article about one of the coolest archaeological finds I've ever read about: Fanged kangaroos? Tree-climbing crocodiles? Marsupial lions? A "demon duck of doom"?! I always knew Australia was cool, but this goes beyond my wildest imaginings, vaulting Austrlia from cool to totally bad-ass and amazing.
To steal an idea from Kim, tonight I'm presenting you with dinner and a movie -- or, more precisely, a recipe (which is not really dinner) and a recommendation (which is not very current), though that doesn't have the same ring to it.
We went to a salsa party for dinner tonight -- everyone brought a bowl of homemade salsa and a bag of tortilla chips to share. It actually turned out to be a contest as well, and mine didn't win, but I still thought it was pretty tasty. I kind of improvised, since I didn't decide until almost the last minute that we'd go, and I didn't have exactly the right ingredients for any recipe I could find, but it turned out nicely. Also, it's simple, quick, healthy, and yummy. What more do you need?
I had an interesting anonymous comment on my gender-bending post that I thought I'd address in an entirely new post. Anonymous says:
Not many women would be attracted to a man who wears "dingdongs" in his ponytail on tht top of his head, while wearing red nail polish on his fingers...and toes that are sticking out from under his skirt.
Your post regarding your son may be proof to what many say that being gay is not a choice. It is thought that people are gay at birth, no choice. Reading your post, I have to wonder if it will be his, or yours.
I have wondered about whether my sons are/will be gay or straight -- not because my older son wants a skirt or because my younger son likes baby dolls, but out of a curiosity about their futures in general. "Will my son be gay?" ranks right up there in my mind with "Will my son play the piano?" Even if it is a choice, then it's his life and his choice to make. I don't consider homosexuality any less valid than heterosexuality, so I don't care whether he ends up loving men, women, both or neither. Whatever my adult son chooses to do with other consenting adults is really none of my business.
Also, on the matter of choice, the latest research leans against it:
"Birth order may steer some men toward homosexuality in a process that perhaps begins before birth. A new study finds that homosexuality grows more likely with the greater number of biological older brothers—those sharing both father and mother—that a male has. [...] It's possible that succeeding pregnancies with male fetuses trigger a maternal immune response. A mother's immune system may treat male fetuses as foreign bodies, attacking them with antibodies that alter sex-related brain development"
So with James being the oldest son, it's less likely that he's gay, but not impossible. If it's true that something in a pregnant mother causes a son to be born gay, then my work is done. It's decided. But regardless of the causes of homosexuality, regardless of my son's behavior, he is four years old. At four years old he is not homosexual, he is not heterosexual, he is not bisexual, because he is not sexual at all. He is a child. Anonymous seems to be more interested in my son's sexuality than his happiness, while I am far more concerned with his happiness than with what his sexual orientation may turn out to be and how that happens.
Dear Mother Nature,
Enough with the rain already! Four hours might have been tolerable. Eight hours is moving into ridiculous territory. But twelve hours and counting? It's insane. Did we do something here in western NY to offend you, to make you want to punish us so badly with never-ending rain?
Ordinarily, a little rain wouldn't bother me, but here's the thing: the gutters are leaking over my back garden, and this is causing the well around my basement window to fill at an alarming rate, and once the water level hits the vent at the top of the window, it starts leaking into the basement. And so I am forced to venture out into the rain at regular intervals to stand in the increasingly mucky and flooded garden with a bucket, to bail out the well and prevent basement leakage.
What's the best part? The frogs! The idiotic, moronic frogs (or toads; I don't know the difference) who stumble into the window wells and are trapped in the rising water. So far I've saved two live frogs and fished out one dead frog. There's another who dives under the water every time I get near with the bucket, so I'm assuming I'll be removing his dead little body before long too.
So, thanks, Mother Nature, for giving me the honorable opportunity to rescue frogs -- I'm sure I"m a hero to them by now -- but it's really quite unnecessary to go on any longer. You've made your point.
Love, Heidi
James, describing the taste of his jelly beans, announces flavors such as (in order of increasing weirdness) cherry, meat, grass, a heart, a hippoptamus, and November. When asked how he knew what a hippopotamus tastes like, James informed me that he and Greg have been fishing for hippopotamuses. I wasn't aware they'd been to Africa.
On Saturday, we went berry picking at Brown's Berry Patch, which, in addition to pick-your-own berries, has a playground, some farm animals, and a store with delicious, delicious ice cream. Some photos:
Evan snacking in the strawberry fields
James climbing at the playground
Evan is in love with animals of all kinds
Who needs dinner when you've got toes?Some other notes from the weekend:
And that's the weekend update.
This week I read two novels, which is something I haven't done in a long time. First, I hardly have time to read that much anymore, though summer is nice, because sometimes all you can do in the too-hot heat is lie around and read for a while. Second, I've been reading so much non-fiction lately that I haven't really been interested in fiction for a long time. So taking the time to dive into a couple of novels was really nice.
I read Song of Solomon first; I haven't read much of Toni Morrison's work, but what I've read, I've really enjoyed. Her prose, her language, is beautifully written, and the story was moving. The second book was White Oleander, by Janet Fitch; also a moving book, in a different way.
What I didn't realize before choosing these books was how similar they'd be. They're very different, in writing style, in setting, in plot, in characterization. But the central theme to both novels is of a character figuring out who to be beneath the shadow of his or her family and past. That both main characters were children strongly affected by their parents gave me cause for reflection as well.
I'm not very good at briefly re-capping plotlines, so I'll just say that if you like well-written, compelling novels with interesting characters and moving plots, and if you don't mind a little (or a lot of) sadness along the way, check out these books. Also, interestingly enough, both books have been chosen for Oprah's Book Club, so if that sort of thing matters to you, well, there you go. That's not why I chose them, but to me it's a good sign anyway. I won't read a book simply because Oprah said so, but I've found that the books she chooses are typically very, very good; wonderful, even.
Also, on the kid front, James has been obsessed with Dr. Seuss's The Lorax lately. I've read it to him several times over the last few days (every time we finish it, he immediately asks me to read it again) and he loves it so much he's even attempted to read it himself, which, for a book of its size (72 pages, according to Amazon), and his reading level and attention span, is pretty impressive. It's a nice little environmental tale, with all the charm of any Dr. Seuss. I remember loving it as a kid, too, so it's no surprise to me that James loves it so much.
Any books to recommend, for adults or kids?* We read just about anything around here.
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*I love asking questions on my blog, because no one ever answers them. Don't worry, I like talking to myself. Don't think that just because you're reading this, that I'm talking to you.
Having sons has taught me a lot about other people's ideas of gender roles and expectations. That we are raising James without strict gender roles seems to be confusing for a lot of people, and I think it's interesting to look at the reactions various people have to the appearance James chooses.
Any of you who've been reading this blog for a while are familiar with James' ponytail, which he wears pretty rarely now. Adults tend to think his ponytail is funny, but they usually take it in stride. Kids, though, particularly little girls, get a good chuckle over James' ponytail, telling him he looks like a girl. Kids have already internalized, before school age, that ponytail=girl. Even James thinks that's the norm, despite his own ponytails, and despite the fact that we know a few males with longer-than-average hair.
We had another gender incident recently, though, in which I found people's reactions quite curious. After seeing that I'd painted my toenails for one of the weddings we attended, James asked if I would paint his nails -- fingers and toes (and while he was at it, why not try on my heels, too? -- though that was not in public). So I painted his nails, and wondered what kind of reactions he would get. And to my surprise, kids, particularly little girls, don't seem to mind. In fact, several little girls have remarked that they, too, had painted nails, and compared their own to James', sort of bonding over it. Yet some adults we knew were confused. He had his nails painted for one of the weddings we went to last month, and several of our friends wanted to know why. Apparently "he wanted them painted" had not occurred to them. To some of them it was weird, I guess, that a little boy should want that at all.
So it's interesting to me that one stereotypically female trait -- a ponytail -- prompts teasing from his peers but little reaction from adults, while another stereotypically female trait -- nail-painting -- is accepted by his peers but questioned by adults. So far it's still clear to everyone that he's a boy (well, he was mistaken for a girl once while he was wearing a barrette my mom gave him to keep his hair out of his eyes, but otherwise it's clear). In behavior he's very much a typical boy -- running, shouting, climbing, sticks, stones, dirt -- but he's doing these things with painted nails and a ponytail.
One day, earlier this summer, James came home and told me that he didn't like rainbows anymore -- they're for girls. And butterflies are for girls too. "Pretty things are for girls." It kind of broke my heart a little bit. And I know that he doesn't truly believe that -- his rejection of rainbows and butterflies lasted all of ten minutes or so -- but to know that he already understands the cultural message that pretty things are for girls does make me sad, and a little angry. I mean, there's nothing inherently female about liking butterflies; it's totally arbitrary. That my son should, even for a minute, feel that he needs to deny an appreciation for pretty things in order to avoid an association with "girl things" makes me mad. That anything should be denied to my son, or discouraged, because of some arbitrary female classification, is ridiculous. I want my sons to have every opportunity, every experience they desire, and to let social pressures and standards limit their experience is, to me, unacceptable.
So my son likes to chase butterflies. He has a construction-paper rainbow hanging in his bedroom window. He wears a ponytail sometimes (though he's considering cutting his hair -- he's interested in a mohawk) and he likes to have his nails painted. Lately he's been asking me for a skirt. (At first he was confused about what a skirt was -- he made a remark that skirts don't have sleeves, to which I replied, "Well, no they don't.. do you actually know what a skirt is?" He didn't, yet once I explained and showed him some, he is still asking for one.) And I may actually get him a skirt. I'm learning to worry less about what other people will think of him, and to be more concerned with allowing James to make his own choices, to feel confident about himself, and to stand up for himself. I used to deny him things (the sparkly pink Dora the Explorer sandals he wanted a couple of years ago come to mind) to try and protect him from what I anticipated other people's reactions would be. Now I'm starting to think that it's more important to teach him to deal with other people's reactions for himself, to talk about the cultural standards that provoke those reactions and why we don't believe in the same standards.
Who made the rule that only girls can wear skirts, anyway? Ridiculous.
Just because I like poetry, and because it's July, I'm posting a Sylvia Plath poem that I particularly like:
Poppies in July
Little poppies, little hell flames,
Do you do no harm?
You flicker. I cannot touch you.
I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns
And it exhausts me to watch you
Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth.
A mouth just bloodied.
Little bloody skirts!
There are fumes I cannot touch.
Where are your opiates, your nauseous capsules?
If I could bleed, or sleep! -
If my mouth could marry a hurt like that!
Or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule,
Dulling and stilling.
But colorless. Colorless.
Last night we took a walk along the canal, picking the first of the ripening blackberries that grow wild along the banks. James and Greg fished (James caught the only fish of the evening) and Evan and I watched ducks.
I love summer nights more than the days. I like the summer days, too -- there's a sense of freedom to summer that doesn't really exist in any other season. Today is a perfect summer day: sunny, warm, a light breeze, low humidity. The possibilities are endless on a day like today. But most days, the oppressive heat and humidity leaves me longing for relief, for the sun to set and the heat to subside. The days are hot, humid, busy. But the nights are cool and peaceful and still. We grill dinner and eat outside as the sun is setting. The picnic table is covered with foods like watermelon, potato salad, hot dogs, strawberries, green iced tea, summer beers. We eat popsicles. We watch the fireflies take over the back field after darkness sets in -- we see as many fireflies as we do stars. We fall asleep to the humming of the window fans as the cool night air drifts in.
What do you love about summer?
Again, I've been too busy for blogging. Busy having fun, that is. Pouring rain all yesterday morning made us worry we wouldn't be able to do anything fun, but it eased up and dried out and we did have a nice holiday.
Here's the big news: James caught his first fish! He and Greg both caught a few, apparently (Evan and I stayed home for napping purposes), but they were too small to keep. The other major event of the day was a small barbecque we had -- we had just a few friends over, but lots and lots of food. I tried making homemade ice cream sandwiches, which were not half bad. And of course, there were fireworks. We watch the fireworks from a hill in a park overlooking the city, where we have a nice view of the city fireworks, as well as a couple of displays further north, without the noise and crowds that come with being closer to the fireworks. Both kids were up until close to eleven last night -- neither would sleep before the fireworks -- so we're having kind of a low-key day today.
Since this was the first 4th of July where James was old enough to understand some of the history behind the holiday, I had a lot of fun recalling stories and facts about the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence and so on. I did have some help from a cute book we found at the library: John, Paul, George and Ben, which talks about several of the founding fathers (Hancock, Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, as well as Paul Revere, who is not a founding father, but an interesting historical figure). The book has a nice mix of history and silliness, and James was pretty interested in hearing about the war. Sadly, my knowledge of the Revolutionary War (or any war, for that matter) is not very extensive, but I think he does have a good idea now of the basic idea of the thing.
I hope all of the Americans reading had a nice holiday as well (and for the couple of non-American readers here, well, I hope you had a nice Tuesday).
