friday photos

Last weekend we went camping with a group of friends at Watkins Glen State Park. We had a lot of fun, and I have a LOT of photos. It's been tough narrowing down which ones to post, because the hike at Watkins Glen is a phenomenally beautiful climb up a gorge, following a series of waterfalls, along picturesque stone pathways and bridges.

Here's a look down the gorge after climbing lots and lots of steps:


James in front of one of several stone tunnels we passed through on the climb:


Look closely and you'll see a wooden railing beneath this waterfall -- the path goes behind the waterfall, but unfortunately my camera couldn't take a decent picture of people posing behind the waterfall, or of the gorge from behind the waterfall, so I had to content myself with a side view:


Here's Evan enjoying a banana chip at the top of the trail, where it blissfully levels out:



Sunlight shining into the gorge:

It was a really nice trip. The only disappointments that I can recall now are that we didn't get to explore the town as much as I would have liked, and James was frustrated that no one knew any good ghost stories to tell around the campfire. But if those were the worst parts, then that makes this a pretty good weekend away.

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does gender distibution matter?

This is something I've wanted to write about for a while, but never got around to. But this morning Greg and I were having a conversation about the sci-fi and fantasy genres, and I remarked that the lack of female characters in the genre makes it less welcoming to women. And Greg ... doesn't see that. I have a hard time articulating this sort of thing, but I'm going to give it a try.

I was telling him about James dictating a Star Wars game for himself, me, Evan, Neighbor Girl and Neighbor Girl's mother. James was Anakin Skywalker, Evan was Luke Skywalker, Neighbor Girl was Princess Leia, Neighbor Girl's mother was Padme Amidala, and I was Shmi. (Do you know who that is? Anakin's mother.) I realized as he was assigning parts that he'd gone through almost every female Star Wars character I know. (I can think of one other -- Mon Mothma -- but if you haven't spent hours reading through Star Wars books with your obsessive sons, you probably don't know who she is, because she doesn't play a very important role and is never mentioned by name as far as I know.)

I'm talking strictly movies here -- which is what the general population is familiar with -- even though I'm vaguely aware that Star Wars books and games introduce a lot of other female characters. The movies have, essentially, three important female characters (and calling Shmi important is kind of a stretch). For Neighbor Girl to play a cool Star Wars woman, she can be Leia or Padme. But my boys? They can be Luke, Anakin, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Obi Wan, Darth Vader, the Emperor, Mace Windu, Yoda, Qui-Gon Jinn, Boba Fett, Lando... and that's just off the top of my head.

The same goes for Lord of the Rings, the other big fantasy series of recent years. Obviously you can find fantasy with female lead characters if you're looking for it (Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy comes to mind) but the works in that genre -- both in movies and books -- which become popular in the larger culture, which trancsend the genre to become universally well-known, are dominated by male characters.

Greg (along with a lot of other people) doesn't think that's a big deal. He pointed out the important role Eowyn played in Lord of the Rings as an example -- but she's still a bit player who just happens to perform a crucial role. And she's one of three notable women in the entire series. And the thing that it's hard to get across to a man, who has grown up watching men dominate society, in both the real world and fiction, is that this disparity matters. The numbers matter. The stereotypes matter. The lack of representation matters. It matters to see a world not populated by people like you. If little girls can't find role models in a genre, it will not appeal to them as much as a genre that does have those role models.

I could probably go on and on about this (and I probably will return to this topic again), but luckily for you I've got other demands on my time. But I do have one item to leave you with before I wrap up this post. Actress Geena Davis has founded an organization called See Jane, which aims to promote the need for equal gender representation in kids' entertainment. You can watch Geena give a phenomenal speech here (sorry, couldn't get the embedding to work), or if you don't have 20 minutes to watch the video (though I'd really recommend that you do, if you have the time), you can read a short article at Ms. Magazine about her ogranization. Their research came up with some surprising statistics about gender distribution in kids' media, and I think you'll find, if you start keeping count, the same imbalance often holds true for adult entertainment as well (unless you're watching something specifically designated as a chick flick or something similar).

As Davis says in the Ms. article, “If your movie gets labeled a chick flick it’s the kiss of death. What if that has something to do with having seen the exact same gender disparity from minute one, from the very first cartoons and programs you see — couldn’t that possibly affect the way we grow up feeling?” I'd go a step further and say, how can it possibly not affect the way our culture views gender? How can it not affect the way little girls see themselves, or the way boys see girls, to see boys at the center of every story, and girls in the supporting roles? The message sinks in so gradually and so insidiouly that most people don't realize it, and eventually don't even think it matters that much.

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friday photos

So what have I been doing lately that's been keeping me away from the computer? What have I been doing that leaves me so little time and gives me so little material for blogging?

I've been in the kitchen, being little Suzie Homemaker (as my mom might say). Last weekend I went to the market with salsa on my mind. I came home with approximately 823423 pounds of tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, and red and green bell peppers.

Some of my beautiful peppers.

In the early part of the week, I hauled out my canning equipment and went crazy with salsa. I spent hours and hours chopping vegetables, and then hours and hours waiting for the water to boil in my canning pot. (This is all slightly exaggerated, but not much. It took waaaaay too long, and seeing as I always underestimate the time it will take me to do things, I was dealing with salsa for far longer than I had planned.)

But it looks so pretty, doesn't it?

Once the salsa was finished, I had produced eight pints over the course of three days, and I still had a mountain of tomatoes and peppers left over. So then I spent the next couple of days making a giant batch of spaghetti sauce, which doesn't really taste like spaghetti sauce so much as it tastes like tomato puree, which is largely what it is. How do you get spaghetti sauce to taste like spaghetti sauce?

On top of dealing with the produce, I have begun making my own bread all the time now, since my mom found me a bread machine at a rummage sale. This doesn't actually take much time or effort on my part, but still, I thought I'd mention it, because what's as great as homemade bread? Nothing, that's what.

And we are off this weekend on a camping trip with friends, so last night I stayed up late baking two and a half dozen pumpkin spice muffins, and they are delicious.

Delicious.

Now that I've (mostly) used up my produce, I'll be able to take a little break from the kitchen. I'm really looking forward to cooking over a campfire this weekend -- no chopping vegetables, no washing dishes, what a treat! Until next weekend, when I go apple picking and get to work on making gallons of applesauce. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

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two weeks

I can't believe I haven't posted in almost two weeks. Oops! Sometimes life gets in the way of this blogging stuff.

I've decided, though, that it's finally time to write about James' kindergarten experience, now that he's been a kindergartener for two weeks. Of course I have no photos, because it has just never occurred to me to bring the camera to the bus stop, so words will have to suffice.

Are any of you surprised when I say that he totally, completely loves kindergarten? We all love it. And can you guess what his favorite subject is? Keep in mind that my child is half-monkey, sees the entire world as a jungle gym, and hardly ever stops running. Now can you guess? His second favorite subject is less obvious, though not surprising (at least to me): he loves math, which ranks second to gym only because they don't officially have science in kindergarten, though math is pretty close. In third place is the library. (See? He's not 100% Greg. There's a little of me in there too.)

We found out on the first day of school that the little girl who lives two doors down from us is in his kindergarten class. Not only does she have as much energy as James, but she likes Star Wars! What more could a boy ask for? She is blonde and excitable and rambunctious and reminds me of a girl of similar description who James used to be good friends with.

He goes to school for almost three hours in the afternoon, but including the bus, he's gone for almost three and a half hours every day. I initially thought that I'd rather have him in morning kindergarten, so that I could have the mornings with Evan and the afternoons with James while Evan napped, as when he was in preschool, but the afternoon time is working out pretty nicely for me anyway. James leaves, Evan naps, and I have uninterrupted free time. It makes me giddy. I'll have to post another day about what I've been doing with that free time.

Kindergarten has a very different feel from preschool. Mostly for me, I imagine. I was so involved with James' preschool, I knew the teacher and all of the parents, I assisted there on a regular basis, I dropped him off and picked him up there and knew the daily routine and basically knew exactly what he was doing in his time away from me. He was gone, but it didn't feel like he was that far away.

And kindergarten? All of a sudden there are hours of my son's life about which I know virtually nothing. And with James, sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get the details. I've heard some songs, he's brought home a couple of worksheets, I've heard details here and there, but I still feel like I am missing out on a lot. For someone who's physically been with the kid almost 24/7 for almost 6 years, it's a weird feeling to watch him embarking on his own life, and knowing that I will never get that closeness back. He'll only grow further and further away from here on out.

Not that that's a bad thing. It's fascinating to watch him develop into an independent person, to find out which details he's eager to tell me and which I have to pry out of him, to see him becoming more confident, more sure of himself (I hadn't thought that was possible, but apparently there was room to grow even for James). One of the best parts of parenting has been seeing the results of all my labor, and realizing that this person, this wonderful child he's become, was really worth all of the sleepless nights and endless diapers and emotional meltdowns (both his and mine).

Today, two weeks into kindergarten, he ran ahead of me to the bus, and climbed aboard without a hug, without a wave, without a backwards glance. And I smiled to see him go, because that is James: diving into everything headfirst, with confidence and excitement, and I love him for it.

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friday photos

Yes, today is James' third day of school, but me being the negligent mother that I am, I've forgotten every day this week to bring the camera to the bus stop for the mandatory first-day-of-school photo. (That's once we were assigned to a bus, which didn't happen until the first day of school was over, but that's another story.) So one of these days I will get a photo of him with his new backpack and his new bus and probably his new best friend too, but the school stories will wait until then.

Meanwhile, I'll post photos from Labor Day. We went boating with a friend of ours. All of the boys went canoeing (Greg and the friend who came with us are training for their second Adventure Race) and I went kayaking. It was beautiful, aside from the facts that the canal runs parallel to a major (noisy) highway and my total lack of upper body strength. I thought my arms were going to fall out of their sockets before the two-mile trip came to an end (two miles being approximately 1.8 miles more than I've ever kayaked before), but I'm here typing, so obviously I managed to hang onto them.

The boys were a little scared of the canoe, mostly because of the rocking, but to my mind that means we just haven't taken them boating enough. If only we didn't have to rent kayaks and canoes. Ah, well, someday...

Anyway, a couple of photos:

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relaxation

This weekend has been the first since July in which we haven't been moving or traveling, and I cannot properly describe how nice it has felt to be able to sit around the house and relax. And it has been a really good weekend. Simple, but nice.

Saturday we had a lot of errands to run -- this is the first opportunity we've had to shop for things for the new apartment. So we ran around in the most extensive and inclusive commercial district I've ever been to (seriously, name a chain store and you will find it within five miles of our now-closest mall) to purchase things like new shoes for James, coat hooks, an air filter for the car, and extra storage bins. This wouldn't have been much fun, except that we discovered a farmer's market in the mall parking lot. The promise of farm-fresh fruits and vegetables sped us through our boring errands.

There is little I like better than a farmer's market. And I haven't been to one in a while, even before we moved. We stopped going to the Public Market (the huge and wonderfully chaotic market in downtown Rochester) after returning to our car one morning, laden with produce, to find that directly across the street from where we were parked, a car had driven over the curb and somehow flipped itself over onto another parked car. Right across from where we parked. The insane traffic and crowds had always been the worst part of the Public Market experience, and this close call -- how lucky were we that this lunatic driver had veered left instead of right! -- was the last straw for us.

But now we have found a new market, one where people park in the mall parking lot, where there is plenty of space for everyone, unlike the Public Market, which has one parking space for approximately 70 cars and you frequently end up parking on a sketchy side street several blocks away. Anyway, so I went a little crazy at the market, and we ended up with tons of zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, nectarines, and eggplant. I hadn't been intending to buy eggplant, but I saw a really amusing eggplant and couldn't resist:

Worthy of Saxton Freyman (I have a Saxton Freyman calender which I adore).

Greg, of course, had to get a little more creative:

And because of farmer's market prices, I couldn't buy just one. But I did put our excess of vegetables to good use. James has been begging me to make Ratatouille ever since we saw the movie this summer, and to my surprise, he actually liked it. Evan didn't, of course, but we were expecting that.

Hmmm, I wasn't intending to write four paragraphs on produce, but I guess that tells you a little something about me and my priorities in life. I'll try to be a little more brief about the rest of the weekend. Yesterday we took a trip to Mendon Ponds, so that Greg could practice orienteering in preparation for another Adventure Race he's doing this fall. So Greg went traipsing off into the woods with some friends, while I took the boys to the nature center and on a hike that was supposed to be short, but ended up being a lot longer than planned due to the fact that I have no sense of direction. I wasn't expecting it to be much fun -- my kids on hikes are sometimes fine but often very whiny -- but we did have fun, though we were tired by the end (except for Evan, who I carried on most of the hike).

Today I think we're going to try to go canoeing. We've been fortunate that our first weekend at home in more than a month has been sunny and warm without being hot or humid. Today I will also do some baking, because my several pounds of zucchini won't eat itself.

Other highlights of the weekend include movies (The Departed, about which I don't really understand all of hype or the Oscars, although I liked it, and Little Miss Sunshine, about which I totally understand the positive reviews -- I loved it, and I didn't think it was possible, but I love Steve Carrell more than ever), dinner out at a restaurant with friends (where Evan informed the waitress, "I'm Megatron, lady!"), Planet Earth (which we've borrowed from the library, and which has only increased my adoration of David Attenborough, whose Life series -- Life of Mammals, Life of Birds, Life in the Undergrowth, etc -- my kids and I totally love), and just having time. Free time. Sigh.

And still the bulk of this post is about produce. Oh well.

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maybe not too soon after all

There are days like yesterday, when I lament the passage of time and mourn the fact that my baby boy is heading off to kindergarten, and then there are days like today, when I try to give my children a bath and am bombarded with screaming: one shouting in his angry voice that he does not want toys in the bathtub, along with throwing said toys and hitting me because evidently the shouting is not enough to make me understand his fury at the idea that I would try to give him something to play with, while at the same time the other is howling in exaggerated pain from the merest drops of water coming in contact with the places on his elbow and knee where he fell and scraped himself yesterday.

Today is the sort of day where I find myself wishing that life had a remote control, because this morning I would have fast-forwarded to the year 2023 in the hopes that maybe by then my children would have learned to chill out once in a while. Or even if they hadn't figured it out by then, they'd both be out of the house and screaming and whining at their friends or employers or strangers on the street, just so long as it wasn't me anymore.

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too soon

Last night we went to a New Families Dinner at James' new school, and it suddenly hit me that in less than a week, my son is starting kindergarten. My first baby! I mean, look at this kid: does he look ready for kindergarten??

I'm suddenly feeling old. Last night's dinner also made me realize how different things are going to be from the school experience I knew and loved at James' liberal, progressive, one might even say "hippie" nursery school. At James' nursery school, I felt like a bit of an outsider for not using cloth diapers or nursing my kids into their preschool days. At James' elementary school, I'm pretty sure I was one of a very few parents last night who was seriously irritated that the dinner consisted of pizza, chips, and Kool-Aid, which is merely made with fruit juice and not 100% juice. The nutrition nut in me was freaking out a bit, fuming that of course there's a childhood obesity epidemic when schools are feeding kids crap like this instead of modeling healthy eating habits! ...But that's a rant for another day.

Overall, though, it was nice to get to look around the school, see James' classroom, meet his teacher (even if she as young as me and talks to her students in that special, slightly higher-pitched "kid" voice), and get a feel for the place and the people. It won't be our nursery school -- we couldn't possibly ever find another school or teacher as wonderful as what we had there -- but I think it will be okay.

And does James seem excited? Who knows? Right now he is having love affairs with Pokemon and with Star Wars Legos II, so anything else naturally pales in comparison. But his school is named after a famous astronaut, which is very cool for a kid like James who loves outer space, and he did seem to enjoy the school-wide scavenger hunt they sent us on last night to let us look around the school, so I'm optimistic. Not to mention his natural friendliness, adaptability and intelligence. I think he will be fine. It's me I'm worried about.

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maybe my kids are hermaphrodites

I found out today that there is scientific proof that women like pink and men like blue. Apparently the most obvious explanation for these preferences is evolution! Biology! And it has nothing to do whatsoever with the way people are socialized from birth. Obviously, people buy pink things for girls and blue things for boys because we understand on a genetic level that these are the correct, biologically-determined color choices. It's nonsense to believe that the cultural association of a specific color to each gender might influence the preferences of people raised in that culture. I mean, it's not like color associations have ever been different. Men hate pink, and always have.

I think it's interesting to note that girls like pink and blue, but boys only like blue. The article, however, doesn't say anything about green or orange, which are the favorite colors of the male people in my house. I guess we can say that green is closer to blue, and orange is closer to red, which is close to pink, so one of my sons may actually be a daughter, if we're using this scientifically proven, biological indicator. I'll have to check on that and get back to you.

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okay, FINE.

I had no idea there would be so much demand for pirate photos. I don't even have any very good ones -- Greg and I made pretty mediocre pirates, and we are (or at least I am) incredibly unphotogenic. But you asked for it.

I feel the need to explain that in my attempt for authenticity, my hair looked like that on purpose. I figured that with all the humidity on the open sea, and lack of conditioner or anti-frizz hair products, a pirate lass would have pretty unkempt hair. Don't ask me to explain Greg, though:



And as long as I'm posting photos, I've got some from the weekend as well. We spent the weekend at a cabin in the Adirondacks with friends, and did a little dressing up there too.

Exhibit A: Heidi and friends from high school went a little crazy with a box of hats found in a closet:

Exhibit B: Greg, who forgot to bring warm clothes even though we were camping, had to rummage through the closets as well, and made do with the warmest items he found. He made quite the fashion statement:

More impressive than either of us, though, was Cooper, the chihuahua who had more clothes for the weekend than I did. Here are a couple of my favorites:

And finally, a normal photo of Greg and me (before Andrea dropped her lunch in Greg's lap) in front of Snowbird Lake, where we spent time swimming and boating and generally relaxing, when we weren't experimenting with fashion:

Oh, how I wish every weekend could involve dressing up ridiculously with old friends in beautiful remote locations, but unfortunately, we must return to real life eventually.

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weekend wrap-up

If I was expecting our weekend away from the kids to be restful, I must have forgotten what it's like to spend time with our friends. We spent the weekend in Alexandria Bay for a wedding, and coincidentally, it was Pirate Days in Alex Bay as well. So in addition to seeing friends we haven't seen in 4 or 5 years, celebrating the marriage of two people we love, lake and river swimming, soaking in the hot tub, crazy dancing, eating tons of delicious food, and stargazing (and spotting a few meteors) at a giant bonfire, we also had the opportunity to dress up as pirates for a night out on the town. That includes the bride and groom. There was much merriment and revelry, and perhaps a little mischief and mayhem. Unfortunately the photos of me as a pirate wench are not terribly flattering, so they will not be making an appearance on the blog.

We had a ton of fun, but I got even less sleep than I normally do and that's really saying something. At least I got to sleep through the night, though -- no midnight crying, bedwetting, falling out of bed, or little bodies crawling into our bed. I can't wait until the day when those things are not regular features of my life. Even with the lack of sleep, it was one of the better weekends I've had in a long time.

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obviously he wasn't writing for parents of kids like evan

Despite the whole moving business, I have, of course, managed to get in some quality reading. How else would I maintain my sanity without reading about people whose lives are worse than mine?

Seeing as I'm apparently one of the few Americans who never had to read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World in high school, I decided it was finally time to read it myself. I enjoyed it, mostly. But I have a feeling I didn't take away the exact message Huxley intended to send.

If you haven't read the book, allow me to fill you in: it takes place in a futuristic society where humans are bred and brainwashed to fulfill a particular role in society. Everything is strictly managed by the state and people are stripped of any decision-making or free thought or individuality, yet brainwashed to believe they couldn't be happier. I get the point of the book: freedom and democracy and truth are better than all-powerful government control of mindless, soulless, emotionless, brainwashed drones. Right.

But I couldn't help thinking, as I read, that some features of this society were pretty attractive when you have a child in the terrible twos. All children are raised in state-operated conditioning centers? All children are trained to be docile and submissive? In fact, parents don't exist at all? Also, free drugs whose effect simulates a long vacation from the real world?

Of course, if I didn't have the children, I wouldn't need the drugs. But this whole no-parenting idea is something I spent some serious daydreaming time on. I'm pretty sure that wasn't what I was supposed to get from the novel, but hey, parenting really changes your perception sometimes.

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we survived.

Well, we did it. We successfully moved. It wasn't even as bad as I expected. My mom, sister and brother-in-law were all here to help, and despite scheduling problems with the dunces at U-Haul, we managed it in an afternoon and treated ourselves to a Dinosaur BBQ feast for dinner.

That was Saturday: moving. Sunday was mostly spent in cleaning the old apartment. Monday morning Greg promptly left for a conference in California, for the entire week, so I've been in charge of the unpacking along with two monstrous children, one of whom is, as we expected, not coping terribly well with the move. (One guess who that is.) How much unpacking do you suppose I've done?

James has been great with the whole process, of course, and Evan has been work. Of course. I've heard about monsters in the bedroom at night. We've battled over the new booster seat. He ate 321534 popsicles at my frisbee game last night because that was the only way to keep him from screaming and running across the field to me. I earned the sympathy of the cable guy, who heard Evan screaming and throwing tantrums about nothing for approximately 80% of the 2 hours he was here installing our internet and phone.

Speaking of the internet and phone, for all the work that guy did over the span of two hours, I've had issues with both services. Also, our new basement smells gross. That's not really related to anything I was saying, but I thought I'd throw it out there anyway as long as I'm complaining.

Anyway, to look on the bright side, Greg and I are going to a wedding with many of our college friends (and without the kids) this weekend, so there's that to save me from the endless unpacking and baby-minding.

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we are moving in three days

If you were to take a guess, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being as ready as it's possible to be, and one being entirely unprepared, how would you guess I'm feeling now that the move is three days away?

Hint: The answer falls somewhere in between two and four.

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friday photos

After several nights of staying up way too late, I have finished reading Harry Potter, all seven books in a row, from beginning to end. Lots of crying, of course, but overall very satisfying. Now that that's over, I can return to the real world and start blogging again.

Last Friday, before I got into full-swing Potter-mania, I met up with my friend Jessica and her family in Ithaca for the day. James got to play all day with his old friend K (Jessica's 7-yea-old daughter) and we all got to do some sight-seeing and relaxing. We had a lot of fun. It was so good to see you, Jessica!

We went to Taughannock Falls to hike and play:


One of few recent photos of myself that I've liked -- it helps that the world's cutest toddler is perched on my shoulders, of course:

Jessica's family, my boys and me at the falls:


And Evan, who won't actually get into a pool, but feels that he needs goggles to look into the water from a distance:

And now that Harry is through, I have to get serious about packing, so I'm not sure how soon or often I'll be back to the blog in the next couple of weeks.

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i have not been posting lately because

We have found an apartment (another townhouse, actually, almost identical to the place we're in now, except that the new place has a DISHWASHER!) and we are moving over the first weekend in August. So I'm beginning to pack, pack, pack, putting away all of the things we can live without for two more weeks. It's strange: the walls are nearly bare now, and surfaces cleared of decoration. Yet the rest of the house is messier than ever, and that's saying something.

The other major thing that will keep me from posting for the next week or so is the upcoming release of the last Harry Potter book. Yup, Harry Potter. We are, like all good fans, having our copy delivered on Saturday, and I will read it as soon as I finish re-reading the first six books in preparation. I should probably go see the new movie, too, if I really want to call myself a fan.

So there it is: moving, and Harry Potter, two things important enough to keep me away from the computer for the near future.

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i can't believe i forgot to mention this

In all of the 4th of July fun and post-holiday travel, I totally forgot to report back on a matter of utmost importance: James' tooth!

That's right, my darling first-born has lost his first tooth. Did you remember he had a loose tooth? It only took like a month to fall out so I wouldn't be surprised if you'd forgotten. I forgot about it sometimes during that month.

But last Tuesday, as he was eating goldfish, out it came. And I did promise you gaping-tooth-hole photos, didn't I? Well, I won't disappoint you:

We're not doing the tooth fairy -- no, James is keeping his little lost tooth in his mini treasure chest.

And already, the tooth next to it is loose. I'll let you know in a month or so how that turns out.

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another way in which he takes after his father

Those of you who know James know that he is a mini-Greg. I'm pretty sure the only things he inherited from me are a love of reading, excessive sweating while sleeping, and a propensity for whining and melodrama. So it really shouldn't surprise me, at this point, when another Greg-like quality emerges. But it's still a little disappointing sometimes.

James has finally, within the last year or two, started liking adult music. We've played him bands like Weezer, Franz Ferdinand, Flogging Molly, They Might Be Giants, the Pet Shop Boys, and the Beatles, all of which he's liked. So on Saturday, as we're driving from my mom's to meet Greg and some friends at the lake, I decided to put on a mixed tape that my sister made for me, oh, about 10 years ago. I couldn't really remember what was on it, but I remembered that I used to like it pretty well.

One thing you should know about me is that I don't claim to have good taste in music. I know what is good, and I like to listen to good music, but I also listen to a lot of crappy music. I know that it's terrible, horrible music, but I like it. Terrible music is often the best stuff to sing along to.

So the first song to come on when I put on the mystery tape was a John Denver song! I was psyched; I started singing along. "Country roooooaaaads, take me hooooome..."

"Mom," James whined, "I don't like this song."

"It'll be over soon," I replied, and went back to my singing.

James continued to whine for the duration of the song. Okay, so he's not a John Denver fan. I can't fault him for that.

The next song to come on was one I really love to sing along to, so I turned it up a little. I mean, who doesn't love Air Supply? "Makin' looo-oooove outta nothing a-at all -- Makin' love! Outta nothing at all! Makin' love!"

Well, you would have thought I'd invented some kind of new, particularly evil torture method and inflicted it on my son. James started crying: "Turn it off, Mom! Turn it off!" He covered his ears with his hands, and tried to curl into a fetal position, as much as the seat belt would allow, anyway. For the whole duration of the song (which, being the sadistic parent I am, did not turn off), James continued whining, crying, pleading, begging me to TURN IT OFF I HATE THIS SONG.

I just sat there thinking, Your father would be so proud of you.

When we got to the lake and I told Greg the story, he nearly wept with pride. Well, no, but he laughed, a lot, and said, "Yeah, James! Good boy!"

It is becoming more and more clear as the years go by that these boys will always join forces to outvote me. Ah, well, Evan's still young; maybe he'll be interested in Air Supply. But, knowing him, I'm not holding my breath.

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friday tuesday photos

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog-reading to bring you a special Tuesday photo post! Photos are on Tuesday this week because 1) I missed Friday photos last week and 2) I'll probably miss them again this week since I'll be out of town.

I managed to cross two more items off my 101 Things list (I still haven't decided on the last two things, by the way, but thank you all for your suggestions): 1) I hand-picked strawberries, made them into jam, and canned a dozen jars of jam, and it's the most delicious jam I've ever tasted, and no, I'm not biased at all. Yes, I am aware that you can buy jam in the store, and yes, I'm aware of what century we're in. I think we all know by now that if a complete stranger were to judge me based solely on my hobbies, they would conclude that I'm at least 70 years old. I know. But making jam is fun! And really, really delicious.

Anyway, moving on. The second item I crossed off my list this weekend was a visit to Chimney Bluffs State Park, and that, my friends, is what you will now see photos of.

The park is named for the crazy bluffs overlooking the lake:

There is a lovely beach hike below the bluffs, where Evan happily threw rocks into the water:

And where James happily posed for photos:

And where James also spent a lot of time climbing on things:

It was a really pretty hike, and a really beautiful day:


I'll be heading over to central NY to visit with my mom and sister and niece for a few days. Not that I ever blog that regularly, but don't expect anything for a while.

Oh! And while I'm on the subject of photos -- Yahoo is shutting down their photo site, so I've transfered all of my photos to Google. I've even uploaded recent photos (there are actually some that don't make it onto the blog) so check it out.

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an Evan update

I've finally figured out the cause of Evan's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality: he's a Gemini! It's so clear now.

"Gemini...is dual-natured, elusive, complex and contradictory. On the one hand it produces the virtue of versatility, and on the other the vices of two-facedness and flightiness. ... they demand attention, admiration, and the spending on them of time, energy and money, throwing tantrums if they don't get what they want... they take danger no more seriously than anything else."

It's so Evan! Okay, so I don't really believe in astrology, and there are plenty of things in that description that I didn't quote that don't describe Evan. But I can't help thinking it would be nice to have a solid explanation for his personality, because otherwise the only thing I can come up with is that he's a nutcase. Or a toddler. Hard to tell at this point.

This is the kid who snuggled in bed with me all morning and then, minutes later, screamed at me for talking to him. This is the kid who, when asked to stop hitting or kicking or biting his brother, will look at you with the saddest expression ever and say in a tiny, pathetic voice, "But I want to hit/kick/bite James," as if I'm doing Evan the greatest injustice in the world by asking him to refrain from inflicting harm on others. This is the kid who cowered in my arms when faced with the sprinkler yesterday, and then inexplicably tried to leap out of my arms to charge the sprinkler, all fear suddenly erased.

We have managed to cut down on some of the tantrums, but he still has a strong will and a fiery spirit that I think are never going to disappear. I just hope that in time we'll learn to channel his passions into constructive expressions instead of the destructive ones he's exploring now.

In other news, he's got a gigantic bruise next to his right eye where he fell and hit something -- nobody knows what, because no one saw him hurt himself. Over the last several days it's gone from shades of gray to purple, blue, green, and now a sickly yellow. This is why I included the part about not taking danger seriously in the quote above -- I imagine he probably dove head-first into something, or lost his balance trying to climb something dangerous. He has no concept of safety or self-control, and is constantly giving me reminders to never, ever leave him unsupervised, even for a minute.

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