A little hut in the woods....

For about the past year, Theo has periodically declared that when he grows up he is going to live in a little hut in the woods. There will be no girls there. Just the dragons he trains. He has put some serious thought into how this is all going to work out. Anyway- yesterday we had the boys out to Battle Creek Park to ski. It was an absolutely gorgeous day- pretty warm, the trees decorated with frosty snow, and two lovely sets of ski tracks leading off into the woods. Eli and I set off and I immediately realized that I was dressed too warmly, so I left him on his own as I dashed back to the car to change coats. On the way I passed Jon and Theo crawling down the path at Theo's none-too-blistering pace. I told Jon that Eli was off ahead, heading out on his own and I would catch up to him. Apparently Jon decided to catch up to Eli, figuring I would come across Theo quickly because he is so not-fast. I did. He was skiing down the path, entirely alone, with a blissful smile on his face. When I caught up to him he said, "Mom, this is what it's going to be like!!! This is what it will be like when I live alone in my hut in the woods. Just me. And all the animals I've trained, of course, so I won't be alone. And I'll get them all little booties so they can run through the snowy woods with me!!" He was in heaven. I felt very un-needed, but I couldn't help gettting caught up in Theo's excitement and his love of being in the woods. I'm starting to think that he really is going to go through with this hut plan of his. Maybe much sooner than I orginally thought. The only problem I can foresee, is that he will have to learn how to pick up his skiing pace, or his hut is going to have to be real close to all the commodities he needs. The kid has a wonderful time out on his skies, and has no worries that he only goes about .5 mile per hour.

Cool Down

I'm up here typing, hoping it will help me cool down from the ferocious air hockey tournament I just participated in. Gripping on to that little puck-pusher thing can make your fingers seize right up. Yep, we got the boys a gigantic air hockey table and it has taken over our basement. To my complete surprise, I have discovered that Eli has really mastered the refined art of trash-talking. I don't know where he could have picked that up.
Overall, our compact-ed christmas was a success. I think we'll try it again next year.

Theo's love declarations

The kid declares his love for me and his dad about every 10 minutes these days. I don't know what's going on, but when I pointed out that he sure was chock full of love and declaring it often, he said, "Oh Mom, I can't help it, it just bubbles out..."
And later, "Sometimes Mom, I just love you so much my eyes get all teary." Right now as I am typing this, Theo just jumped on my lap and told me how much he loved me. Then he segued right into a description of a battle scene between enemy forces that is forever playing in his head.

Christmas on the compact

As we've been approaching Christmas, I've been a little nervous about 'keeping the compact'. We have worked hard to simplify the holiday, so we never go hog wild. But I do want that the present under the tree from us is one that has a little bit of a wow factor. I had this nagging feeling that we might have to bend the rules a bit. But then Mary Beth, the compact instigator, arranged a meeting of compactees late one evening at a local coffee shop. We swapped ideas and I left more confident that we were going to be able to pull this off. And I think we have. Of course the jury is still out, and we will find out for sure on Tuesday morning, but I'm feeling good. I did lose about one whole day of my life to craigslist, scanning the metro area listings for kid stuff. In the end, both the purchases I made were within one mile of my house and I was able to walk to make my deals. I liked that. The kids have gotten into the game and we've put together some great gifts for their cousins from local re-use gems like ArtStart and Practical Goods. I think we ended up getting all of our gifts (with one notable exception from Woodbury- which will be revealed on Tuesday) from within 2 miles of our house, and everything was from either a regular old citizen, or a locally owned store. It feels good. We just realized today that we only have four more months 'on the compact'. Over all, I think it's doing it's job. We definitely buy less in general and I haven't been to Target for 8 months, so right there it is all worthwhile.

Keeping it real

Theo was very feverish yesterday evening. When he gets ill he becomes extremely loving and I, for one, can do no wrong in his eyes. Last night I was sitting on one end of the couch and Theo was on the other murmuring, "Mom, I love you, I love you sooo much." Then he kind of squirmed around in discomfort and ended up with his nose right by my feet. He made some comment and I said, "Oh Theo, do my feet smell? Should I move them?" "No Mom, they smell like roses..." Eli happened to be walking by right then and he snidely remarked, "Oh please Theo, even if you love someone, you have to admit that their feet will smell every now and then."

Soft

No, not Lucy..... The snow! I went down to Hidden Falls to ski today. Today. December 4. That shouldn't be so surprising, but I just read somewhere that this is the earliest skiing we have had in 16 years! So as I was skiing I was trying to figure out what felt so different about it. Then it hit me, it was soft snow. I was cutting tracks through fresh virgin snow- even when I turned around to follow my tracks back to my car, they were already recovered and I had to break trail once again. Last year, one of the only skies I had was up at Telemark. The snow was so hardpacked and icy that Jackie, our Peruvian houseguest, on skies for the first time, fell and busted her tailbone. I have real serious high hopes for this winter.

The Wonder

This fall Eli has been trying to teach Theo to read. Just the other night he was using the ketchup bottle as his teaching tool. Theo seemed to be making the barest hint of progress. Eli looked over at me, sighed and said, “Oh Mom, isn’t it just a wonder how the whole world just opens up to you once you learn to read?” I agreed. Later, when they had moved out of the kitchen I took a close look at the ketchup bottle. Sadly, no secrets of the world were revealed to me. Maybe tomorrow I should try the mustard container.

Oh boy...

Mary, Theo's teacher came over laughing when I picked Theo up from school yesterday. She explained that they had been talking about royalty and she had said, 'Zachary, we could call you the King of Cardboard.' Then she mentioned that Etta could be the Queen of Art Projects. Then, from the back of the room, Theo shouted, "Well, Lucy sure is the Queen of Cuteness!"

Costa Rica

Jon and I just returned from a wonderful week in Costa Rica with Jon's brother Tim and his wife, Erin, and our pals Kerri and Jeff. We spent the first days down in the village of Dominical at a wonderful small hotel. If you are ever looking for lodging by the ocean, check out Cuna Del Angel. It was perfect. We filled our days with whale-watching, surfing, hiking, and a river rafting trip. I loved it all. Our evenings were usually spent with a cool drink on the hotel's patio, watching the sunset, and the toucans, and the sloths, and the howler monkeys. After four lovely days of lounging in the south, we drove north of San Jose to the Sarapiqui river area. We moved into our first hotel around sunset- it seemed nice enough, but very very quiet, and dark- kind of moody. In a non-romantic way. We had picked this place in part because their website boasted of a great chef who catered to vegetarians. So we eagerly sat down at an elegant table and awaited our meals. The waiter entered and grandly lay before us a large platter of....dry, toasted wonder bread? Not what was expected. In the morning we headed out to the other hotel we had considered because they advertised lots of trails through primary rain forest. All four of us (Tim and Erin flew back home after Dominical) fell in love with the forest, our guide, the hotel, and the lovely patio overlooking a rushing river. We quickly canceled our previous reservations and settled in at Selva Verde Lodge. Highly recommend it. Sadly, we only had one day to spend there. Overall, I'd go again in a second. Even though there are so many places to go in the world, I think there is still so much more to do in Costa Rica. And it's not terribly far away, it's in the same time zone, and the people are so amazingly nice. Go!
The absolute best part of our trip was, incidentally, returning home to St. Paul at midnight to find little love notes from the boys on our pillows.

'She's perfect....'

This morning as Theo was getting dressed for school I said, "Theo, you're looking cute today." He replied, "Mom, you know who is cute? Lucy. She's so cute I just have to tell her that everytime I see her. She's so cute. She's perfect. Sigh...And she's so soft too." Like I said earlier, we are going to be in trouble with this one. For the record, Lucy is adorable. I do not know if she is soft or not.

The Amish Envy Club

A friend of mine has come up with the best idea for a club that I've heard in a decade. I'm not much of a joiner, but I do enjoy my book club, and my husband's recently launched (ha) a model rocket club that is much more fun than it sounds. But the Amish Envy Club is tops.

Here's how it works: You gather together 3-4 families of fun people. Each family gets to utilize all club members for one day of the year. We all work on a home-improvement project for each family- plus watch the kids, and contribute to not one, but two feasts (dinner and supper). As in any good club, there are rules. The Amish hosts for the day need to have the project ready to go by 9 am- all trips to Menards completed, tools assembled, work space cleared for takeoff. Any subsequent trip to Menards will cost the host points in the 'Ammy' competition, and probably put them out of the running for the coveted year-end award. I don't know if it's true, but I hear this year's Ammy award is going to be a goat. To be passed on to next year's lucky winner...

Ammy points are awarded for anything you do during a project that will make you seem more Amish. I think we should get something for just having a son named Eli, but no dice, in this club we only go by middle names. New names are essential to any club worth its salt, really. But we plan to get ahead in the point system by introducing kid projects like carding wool, or perhaps biking to the next project with big orange triangles on our backs. The possibilities are endless.

We got the Amish club off to a start by having a potluck planning meeting. Not much planning got done, but the children got used to each other (ok, we definitely lost points by allowing our vast weapons arsenal to be opened- resulting in a few injuries of a minor sort. BUT LET IT BE NOTED THAT THE WEAPONS ARE ALL HAND-MADE WOODEN NUMBERS!!!! That should bring our point total right back to about even. Right?) and the adults had numerous laughs. At one point it got so raucous that I was forced to use my inhaler. Laughing has not caused an asthma attack since back in my camp counselor days. That's a crying shame, to be sure.

Our first project was this past Saturday. We all gathered at the Spencer’s in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood. The project was to move plumbing and begin the process of adding a basement bathroom. It involved a jack-hammer- we do go in for power tools. Predictably, the guys in the group gravitated to the basement for the first shift. Not because they thought they were better suited for the work, but because they were slyly trying to avoid the work shift when the sewer pipe was severed and noseplugs might become necessary. Nice try guys. Anyway- work got done, laughs were had, friends were made, and we ate and drank very well. Jon and I came home tired, but excited to make a plan to put 6 other adults to work for us some day soon.

I hope you all aren’t thinking that we are being disrespectful to another’s culture. Truly, everyone in the group is very thankful and appreciative of the Amish barn raising tradition. I admit that the Ammy’s might be going a bit too far, but we are doing it out of jealousy- not spite. An Amish Envy Club can not get too big for it’s britches- 8 adult workers is about as much as any project in our small, citified houses can stand. And four weekends a year is a great starting point. It took us a full month just to land on a date that would work for all four families for this first project. We have three more Saturdays to try to pin down. But if you are eager to start your own branch of an AEC, please contact me and I can send you the by-laws and other chapter start-up information!

Mr. Social

A friend who has a child in Theo's kindergarten class gave me this scoop on my son the other day: She said that her son has decided to befriend a child who is constantly getting in trouble. So one day when she was in volunteering she asked Mary, the teacher, why her son had to gravitate toward trouble, why couldn't her son become friends with Theo? Mary's response: "Oh Theo, he's way too busy with the girls." And he is. And he's loving it. We might have our hands full with this one in a few years.

Walking home from school

On Fridays, when I am cutting out early from work and rushing rushing to get home in time to pick the boys up from school, I can forget what a joy it is to walk and listen to them process their day. I never leave work early enough, and I should just pull up in front of the school, but I always drive the extra blocks in order to park the car at home and then sprint through the alley to get there on time...then we stroll home and the whole work week falls away as I listen to them chat. I can't remember exactly how this conversation went last week, but here's the gist of it:
Really, it wasn't a conversation because the only one talking was Eli.
"Well, she's finally on to someone else....In music class Gina (the teacher) has decided that Lazaro is her new project. Am I relieved. I mean, I feel bad for Lazaro. As she stands over him, getting him to try to sing over and over I want to go tell him that I know what it's like. But I don't want Gina to remember me and come back to working on me. It's weird...I feel bad for him but I am just so relieved that she's forgotten about me! I'll have to tell him not to worry, that she'll find someone else someday. I won't tell him that she worked on me for over a year..."

The Wet Shower Policy

I admit this little tale is from yesteryear, but it makes me chuckle:

In the midst of an absolutely unorganized and crazy first day of swim lessons we found out that the YMCA has a policy about ‘wet showers’. We knew there was a shower policy and we had relunctantly abided, even though it could mean that you would shower and then end up waiting for many many minutes for your lesson to start, shivering away. So we’ve learned to wait to hit the showers until the teachers are whistling the kids into the pool. Some friends, new to the ways of Midway Y swim lessons, had been foolish enough to shower right when they arrived at the Y. 1 hour later, when the older daughter’s lesson actually looked like it was going to begin, Elizabeth, the over eager ‘deck manager’, asked Andrew to have his daughter take a shower. Andrew explained that she had, but had dried in the ensuing wait. Elizabeth said, and I quote:
“Oh, but the Y has a ‘wet shower’ policy. And I know why. I asked about this and this is the reason…every time you jump into the pool, you displace some water, so if we have everyone jump in wet, then we don’t lose so much water!!!” Big smile. I think she’s kind of a ‘lifer’ at the midway. And that takes a special kind of person. Andrew took this all in stride and went off to give Jasmine her second shower. Eli looked at me with a glint in his eye, but said nothing. That night after we had read books and he was snuggling down to sleep we were sharing a little laugh over the ‘wet shower’ policy. I loved that at 7 he could see the ludicrousness of the policy that Elizabeth, at perhaps 37, was oblivious too. Really. She was. And then Eli said, “Mom, next Monday we need to bring one of those medicine dropper things.” I of course asked why… “Because I ALWAYS come home with water in my ears, right?” “Well, if we bring the dropper and fill up my ears in the bathroom BEFORE I jump in, the Y won’t lose so much water!” The dropper is packed in the swim bag, ready to go.

My middle-aged 8 year old

Today I was walking down the alley with my two boys on the way home from school. It was lightly raining and Eli was thoughtfully spinning his umbrella as we walked along. He said, "Mom, I think I'd like a cup of chamomile tea when we get home. I'd like to relax before I start my math homework." So we get home and I get out the tea. He decides that he should actually just have plain old "Lipiton" because he does need to stay alert enough to do his work. I boil some water and serve it up at the kitchen table. I then am called away by Theo to get out the legos. When I return, there's Eli, legs crossed, tea in one hand, newspaper in the other. He says, "Mom, the only section really worth reading is the Source section." What a kid.

Focusing

They took him right away. Not for long, and not far, but I was stunned, shocked, alone. It happened so fast in the end, that shift of focus from here, at my center, at me- to over there.

Everyone had been so focused on me. Jon urging me to concentrate, counting down the seconds until the next wave of pain would sear through me. The nurses, how many were there? Everything was so foggy- and not just because of the pain, but because at some point I had started draping a wet washcloth over my face and my glasses were hopelessly smeared, sweaty, useless. There was no time to wipe them, nothing to wipe them on, and I kept putting that washcloth back over my face anyway- fading the world to black as the pain swept through.

Then a doctor swept in, someone I didn’t know, but she had gentle hands and a soothing voice and she kept me focused on the job at hand. This whole team kept touching me, consoling me, urging me forward. And then a push, a warm gushing flow, and everything moved away from me. Not right away- they put him warm and wet on my belly first. Jon ceremoniously cut the cord, and then, in a tightly choreographed move, all of the other players in the room, including the newest, moved to the left. And there I was, streaked glasses offering me a glimpse of a huddle of backs. I wanted to join in, but I was physically stuck, feet in the stirrups, and my eyes and their backs shut me out.

Of course I had him back in my arms within minutes, but that whisking movement, that flow away from me, is a what sticks with me when I think back to that birth. And now I realize that even though I was stuck in the bed, half blind and hurting, I did participate in that flowing away. It was really at that moment that my life quit being all about me. My focus also shifted in that moment. Of course it had been shifting for years, really. Naturally I had moved from focusing on my own physical needs, to nurturing my emotional needs, then to opening up to include Jon, my partner. And even over the past nine months, when I had been extra carefully monitoring ME, the focus had been becoming more and more narrow- fixated on the gigantic belly that housed our son.

And now, almost exactly eight years later, I find myself at a spot where I might be able to change my focus a bit once again. My second, and youngest, son has entered full day kindergarten. I have continued to work 3 days a week since my first son was born, but my two days home were not ‘off’ as my childless co-workers liked to assume. Those days were spent working the overtime shift on my second job- mothering. But now, every Tuesday and Thursday I walk my kids to school at 9 am and then… what? And there’s the hitch. It’s been so long since I had time of my own to fill, I’m not quite sure how to do it.

It’s not like I have been stagnant over the last eight years, spending every free moment parenting, or learning about parenting, or worrying about parenting. Beyond the 7895 fascinating things I have learned about raising my two boys, I have branched out. Sometime in the last eight years I took up triathlons. I’m not good at them, but I have learned to finish them with dignity. I think. My husband and I bought and fixed up a house. Heck, I even helped found (really, give birth to) a charter school. In that undertaking I learned things such as how to sell a product that doesn’t yet exist, how to work as part of a staff team that shares every aspect of leadership, how to convince a student that dropping out is not an option, and how to operate a freight elevator. I’m especially good at that last one. These are not minor undertakings. But they have all been things that I have fit in while someone else is taking care of my kids- and I have been fabulously aware of the time ticking until I have to get back to my first job.

That job still exists, of course. And it is as fascinating as ever. But now I have two full days where my children are engaged at school. Not being babysat by my mother, or brother, or neighbor- someone who undoubtedly has somewhere else to be, and soon. And here I am, ironically once again with foggy eyes due to recent Lasik surgery, not sure where I should go, or what I should do. I admit for the first few days, I just kind of sat here. Partly, that was dictated by the fact that I couldn’t really see while my eyes were healing, and I didn’t want to cause bodily harm to anyone by being out and about via car or bike. But I also wasn’t really sure what I wanted.

Now that my vision is coming back into focus, I can’t say that I’ve figured anything out. What am I going to do now that I have time to be me again? I don’t know, but as I sit and consider it, I remember a second feeling from that first birth, eight years ago- the sense of wonder, and excitement, for the journey ahead.

Outclassed by an 8 year old

Tonight as I was getting dinner ready I said to Eli, "It's your dad's birthday, why don't you set the table real nicely." Then I went back to cooking. Next time I looked Eli had put a tablecloth out, sprinkled the table with seashells, and had grabbed two candles off of the spiral wall hanging thing in the living room. He then proceeded to get out an assortment of bowls and plates, along with real fancy beer mugs. He asked Jon to make sure he put the food into nice serving dishes. A discerning reader will discover two things in the previous sentence: 1. Jon was helping prepare his own birthday dinner (oops) and 2. we don't usually use serving dishes but just plop the pan down on the table. I then came along and at the last minute set a plastic container of pita crisps out on the table. They were immediately returned to me with the request to put them on a serving tray. I complied. Then we ate a wonderful candlelight dinner. Partway through the meal I said, "Eli, you were right, the pitas definitely needed to be in a serving dish." He rolled his eyes and said, "Mom, anyone with ANY sense of romance would not serve something up in a plastic container!" Ok then oh mighty resource on romance.

Theo's First Day

Some things are so much easier if you are child number two. On Eli's first day of kindergarten we had to pretty much drag him out of the house. He is not given to tantrums (although there are a few epic ones in his past) - he's much more about passive resistance. On his first day at Expo he walked to the corner right across from the school. Then he sat down. Refused to budge. He didn't cry or scream- just did that jelly thing with his body so that it was impossible to pick him up. After a bit of reasoning we were able to persuade him to give it a try, and he ended up liking it ok.
Theo on the other hand. He has Eli's old teacher whom he has been in love with for 2 years. So on the first day of kindergarten Theo woke up at 7 am. He grabbed me and dragged me downstairs. He got out all the makings for his lunch and directed me through the process. Then I was rushed upstairs to help him get dressed. I am not exaggerating when I say that by 7:18 he was fed, packed, dressed, and at the front door with his backpack on. I had to break the bad news that Expo did not start for nearly two hours. His shoulders slooped a little bit, then he asked, "Are we talking about the long hours or the short hours here?" Definitely the long ones... But somehow we made it through them and off he went. He has not looked back.
(For the record- Eli only held his Gandhi-esque protest for kindergarten and first grade. This year he marched right in- but it is harder being the groundbreaker.)

My eyeballs

I've had to take a break from writing due to my recent Lasik surgery. I scratched up my glasses up at DuNord again. I thought I had learned my lesson, but I am just so anxious to see the stars from in the lake post-sauna. Of course my glasses are steamed up from putting them on while I am so darn hot, and I carefully try to wipe the lenses so I can see what the others are gasping about. It never works. And I end up needing a new lens every year after DuNord. This year, my brother Pete wondered why I didn't just get new lenses in my actual eyes through Lasik surgery. He is a believer. So are four of my other siblings and in-laws. So, before I could actually think it through, I signed up. Then this is how they get you- you can't wear contacts for the few weeks prior to the surgery. I was so dang sick of peering through my scratched up lenses that I was very determined to go through with it.
I found out that I had to get the more involved type that includes scraping off the cells from the front of your lens. OF your eyeballs. The trick to getting this surgery is Valium. They give it to you and THEN they tell you about the 'burning hair' smell you might notice. That's not hair. That's your eyeball. Even loaded up on valium I entertained thoughts of bolting when the smell hit my nostrils. But I was too jellified to act. Which was good, because there was a lazer actively engaged with the back of my eye. That smell was in my dreams for quite a while.
The 7-10 days until I could resume regular activities was misleading. I thought I'd resume with crystal clear vision, but that was not the case. I was very very foggy until today- day 21. I did resume lots of stuff, but at a risk to myself and others. Several times I drove to somewhere, only to realize that I should not drive home. Sometimes I drove anyway, other times I called for a lift. And the wind still does me in, so biking is still out. But I see it in my future.
Here are other things I long for: Cross-Country skiing without my glasses fogging up! Swimming without glasses, or without super dried up, crinkly contacts. Snuggling and reading books with my kids without my glasses poking someone. Running in the rain. And most of all, I can not wait to sauna at DuNord, then jump in the lake and see the stars. I hear that they are wonderful, but every single sauna lake jump thus far has been blind. I can't wait.
I still have some healing to do. Computer screens still do me in after just a few minutes, and I have not read a book for three weeks. That is torture for me! But I see it coming. I'm getting close.

Differences

Eli is 8 and has yet to ever care even in the least on how he physically presents himself to the world. He will wear anything I put in front of him- as long as it is comfortable. And we have yet to find a single pair of pants that will stay up on his 'hips' and not show 2 inches of his bum. But he does not care. I do- I just can not find a solution for senior no hips.
Theo- well I've always had this feeling that things would be different with him once he got tall enough to open his own drawers. Since we have placed his clothes in the top two drawers of the dresser, we are still in charge of his clothing options...but our days as Theo's style consultants are numbered. This is how I know:
Last night after the boys got out of the tub Eli decided to style Theo's hair. (Has Eli ever cared to 'style' his own hair? No.) He brushed it real nicely all kind of swept to the side- as much as Theo's short, thick hair can be swept. Then a little later the three of us piled into Theo's bed for books. After a page or two I noticed that Theo was kind of doing an extended tummy crunch and not putting his head on the pillow. I told him to relax and lay back. He protested and moved awkwardly onto one arm. Then he suddenly sat up, felt his hair, apparently decided that the whole effect had already been ruined, moaned "Darnit!" with more angst than 5 year olds should be able to muster, and then fell heavily onto his pillow.

Eli's Sardonic Worldview

The other night I was reading to the two boys before bed. It was one of the early cool and rainy nights in August after intense heat and I was cherishing actually snuggling with the boys- rather than trying to preserve my cool and my personal space like I had been doing through that heat wave. Anyway, we had a lovely read, then we were just chatting. I mentioned that the weather reminded me of October, which reminded Eli of Halloween, which got him started on talking about all of the candy that piles up over Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's day, and Easter. His actually piles up because his sweet tooth is severaly UNDERdeveloped. I never had this piling issue as a kid.
As we were all three snuggled in Theo's bed I started making up this song about candy and me and how I planned to hog it all...it went something like this (Please, no attempts to pirate this song- I am working on copywriting as we speak) "I'm going to take the candy and put it in my pocket, put it in my pocket, and NEVER share it with anyone!" Eli was silent for a second or two, then said, "Geez Mom, I think you might have just written the theme song for America."

Tick Poop Revisited

Earlier this week Theo was really suffering from growing pains. After a few days of watching him limp around, I mentioned to Jon: "Do you think it's possible that he has Lyme's Disease?" And immediately Theo piped up from the other room: "But Mom, I never saw any tick hairs or tick poops!!" For an explanation- see 'Tick Poop' below.

Circus Juventas

(photo from Circus Juventas website)

Our family just went to the annual show of Circus Juventas. It was once again completely awe-inspiring. We are so lucky that there is a big top just down the road from us! This circus is in the 'Cirque Du Soleil' style- but all the performers are under about age 21, with the vast majority in high school. Every year I am absolutely stunned at what these kids can do. They are so strong, flexible, confident, and trusting. To watch them work as a team to launch people into the air off a teeterboard, or catch each other on the swinging trapeze causes me to get goosebumps. Ok, and teary-eyed. I admit. I have to, because this year I was busted as we were exiting by Mark Fabel, who was also a little red in the eye, I must declare.

I am fully convinced that the kids who go through this are really set for life. I mean, if they can perform these amazing feats, I just know that they are ready for any challenge life throws them.
If I'm not careful here I might accidentally step on to my "Rite of Passage" soapbox. Ok, I guess I'm already on it, but I'll keep it short. It is my belief that in our ginormous American society it is absolutely impossible to 'initiate' all of our youth to adulthood in a similar type manner. So many many youth miss out on any type of rite of passage, and linger in adolescence for ages. One article I read about this put the AVERAGE end of adolescence for modern American men at FORTY-FIVE! (Does that ring true for anyone?) Anyway- many youth stumble upon their own rite of initiation into adulthood, through summer camps, volunteering, or something wonderful like Circus Juventas. Here is a perfect example of an organization that takes youth, presents them with a wonderfully talented pool of elders, gives them instructions and teaches new skills, and then challenges them in a rather extreme way. And then they hold these wonderful performances which also serve as celebrations for the youth involved.

I could go on and on, but what I really want to say is: Go see the show!! The season ends on Aug. 12 and many shows are already sold out. http://www.circusjuventas.org/

Family Camp

We recently returned from a fabulous vacation to family camp. I'm not going to mention the details because it is already NOT a well kept secret and securing a reservation is difficult. I don't want to make it any harder for us to get in because we need it! This camp has something wonderful figured out- they get families up into the woods together, they make them comfortable, but provide challenges. They take your kids away from you for two hours everyday so that you can have fun with other adults, and then they give you your kids back, tired, but excited about the new skills and games they've learned. Then in the afternoons, the camp provides you with many opportunities for fun as a family group. And you can take or leave those as you see fit. Sometimes the best family activity is to return to your homebase (which can be a tent, a 'cabin tent' or a luxury cabin) and just chill out as a family. Other days we dyed t-shirts, went sailing, or even made rockets. And through it all we laughed.

Here are some fabulous memories, in no particular order:

In a week that tended toward the "overly dramatic", here is Jeff with his version of overly dramatic marshmellow eating. Our campsites were .5 mile from the main camp base and we took a shuttle bus back and forth. The road was bumpy and our group of 17 fully enjoyed playing up the bumps. In fact, the driver got so involved in our dramatics that he began to seek out bumps and holes. Halfway through the week he blew out a tire and had to retire that bus. So when we had to ride a bus with better shocks, and the road got regraded, we had to turn our dramatics to other pursuits. Hence the marshmellow eating.

Here are 7 of the 9 kids we camped with (sorry Mira and Pete! Where were you?) The whole gang got along great, and what a bonus to the adults that Kara (in blue) really enjoyed organizing the younger crew into games and skits. When not being organized by Kara, the whole pack just flowed from one campsite to the next in different subgroups, often congretating around fire rings and entertaining themselves with the ancient rite of burning things.

This is indeed me launching myself off of a rock on Burntside Lake. It has become a tradition that during one 'age group' activity time, the adults hightail it down the channel to this rock to either jump or not jump as we so desire. In years past, I have found out that I really enjoy NOT jumping. It's exciting to stand up there and get yourself pysched up and then... not jump. But this year I was able to take the plunge. Shortly before I jumped, a new technique was unveiled. I was standing on the top, doing the psyching up bit and all of the sudden Shannon took off next to me. Only she didn't take off. She reports that she couldn't get her mind to convince her feet to leave the surface of the rock. So she did an amazing run down the (almost) vertical slope for about 15 feet, then, just 5 feet from the bottom, gravity got the best of her and she kind of flopped into the water. Everyone stood still in stunned silence until she resurfaced and gave a shy little wave. Then the laughter could not be held back. So now next year, we will come to the rock to jump, not jump, or run down. Although I don't recommend the last option.


The kid in the blue shirt on the left is Eli, taking off for the swim portion of his first triathlon! The camp does a family triathlon with a short swim, run, and canoe. He seemed to love it. Before I know it he and his dad will be out shopping for special lycra tri-suits together. Help.

Here are Eli and Theo in little kayaks. Throughout the week we spend so much time on and in the water that they become confident little waterbugs. It is wonderful to watch them try new things.
And finally, here are some shots of the lovely friendships that the boys strengthened over the course of the week. This is Eli and Sawyer on a rope swing. Below is the pirate crew- Mira, Theo, and Haakon. If you want to read more about this wonderful camp- go to my friend Amy's blog at http://www.neskemoenadventures.blogspot.com/!

Quick Compact Update

In the 10 weeks since we have started living on 'the compact' we have experienced a high occurance of breakdowns in the household items department. Our dishwasher quit- then magically started again, but its days are surely numbered; our one light in the living room only works if you jiggle it in a certain way, then it only works for about 37 seconds; and only 3/5 of the dining room blinds still work... For now we are holding our breath about the dishwasher, only occupying the living room during daylight hours, and evacuating the dining room for shadier dinners on the back porch. Oh, and we have taped some dish towels to the blind-free windows. Classy. But these items will have to be dealt with soon. I don't think the resale market for any of these things is extremely high, but we are keeping our eyes open. If anyone has any leads- send them our way! And here's to hoping the tempermental, touchy toilet holds out until the end of the year. The thought of a used toilet is troubling to me.

Welcome Max!

I saw my new nephew again last night. He's 6 weeks old but I haven't been able to write one word about him. I was nervous I was going to jinx something. But there's nothing left to jinx! He's in- he is now part of the Sage Clan, the new adorable son of my brother and his partner.
Pete and Jay were chosen to parent Max by the birth parents back when she was 4 months pregnant. Right away the relationship between the four adults seemed strong and respectful. They talked weekly by telephone- exchanging history and thoughts about the future. The birth mom even sent an ultrasound picture with a word bubble above Max’s image that said, “Hi Dads!”. None of them had ever walked down this road of adoption before, but all four proceeded with dignity and strength, building a trusting relationship in the last months of the birth mom’s pregnancy.
As the due date approached, my whole family’s nerves tightened. There were so many ‘What if’s?’ floating unspoken behind every conversation. And then he was born, and we were all thrilled- but the questions and doubts lingered. Pete and Jay were honored to be invited to the hospital and held Max within hours of the birth- but the 48 hour wait for them to leave the hospital was agonizing for me- just the aunt. The grandma (my mom) had to break into an old supply of valium to make it through. I don’t know how the two anxious dads survived.
After they returned to Minneapolis with him, the whole adoption process had actually only just begun. The birth mom had to come down to the Cities to sign the papers, and then she had 10 more days to change her mind. But now all of that has come and gone and Max is in! Pete and Jay have reported that they haven’t had much time to take a deep breath of relief- parenting a six week old is so trying and stressful. But now their worries are only about how much he’s eating, how to get more sleep, how to protect him from the sticky, dirty fingers of curious cousins…and those are manageable.
Witnessing this process has made me so astonished and amazed at the gift the birth mom and dad were able to give to my brother and Jay. They have wanted to become parents for so long, and at times it looked hopeless. The gift of this baby is unbelievably selfless and noble.
Welcome Max. You’re deeply loved.

The Superior Shore

On the fourth of July we packed most of our belongings into our car and took off for the North Shore. We were just heading out for a long weekend of camping and I was already fully exhausted. Over the previous weekend I had co-directed the 2nd annual Croixathlon- a triathlon fundraiser for YMCA Camp St. Croix. It was a thrilling success with 240 people participating and an end result of $15,ooo for Camp. But I don't sleep well in the days coming up to the event because I am petrified that someone will drown on the swim or crash on the bike. I'm happy to report that no one died, but it takes it out of me nonetheless. So anyway, here we were, 4 days later, headed out on a 'vacation' with me already stressed and weary.
But the North Shore worked its magic on me once again. The trip was full of highlights, including:

• Brilliant fireworks over the lake out of the teeny town of Tofte. I was mentally preparing to be disappointed and declared every blast as the 'grand finale'. I'm happy to report that there were approximately 39 finales.



• Fabulous swims in the cool Temperence River (as compared to the frigid lake).
  


• Hours of watching our kids play freely and happily in the woods and fields with their friends Siena and Paloma.
  


• Showing Jackie, our Peruvian houseguest, many of the wonderful waterfalls that the North Shore has to offer.
  

Going to Fort William outside of Thunder Bay, Cananda, and watching Siena realize that this is where her future lies- she is thrilled to imagine a 'job' of dressing up in frontier clothes and giving people tours, sharing loads of historical information.

• Cooking over the fire with the kids as active members of the food producition process.


• And yes, even sleeping crammed into our tent with my lovely family. I will note that this part was much more enjoyable this trip than in the past now that I have my fantastic queenly thermarest that is 1009 times better than the old backpacking thinsy crappy one I've used since my younger, more adventurous years. Jon still uses one of those. Sucks to be him.
  

We arrived back in the cities at 9pm to a humid, swampy house, with a car load of dirty, damp camping equipment and two filthy kids. There were far too few usable hours until I had to be at work in the morning and once again I felt physically exhausted. But then I realized that there was a difference. I was indeed tired of body, but my soul felt rested.

Tick Poop

Earlier this week a friend accused me of having the Blue Cross/Blue Shield nurse line on speed dial. For the record, I do NOT. But I have used it a lot this year. And I think the record will show that I have been justified. In the last 11 months I have: Spent six weeks agonizing through hives that struck each night around 6pm and itched away until noon the next day...then started again at 6...Developed a sudden deathly allergy to ibuprofen after 37 years of a lovely relationship with the drug- this new allergy apparently was the cause behind my random eye/lip swellings that culminated with the closing of my windpipe and a trip to the ER...Had a melon sized cyst show up in my abdomen, which was treated (in a way you probably would rather not hear about) and appeared to disappear, only to return 3 months later closer to the size of a basketball...Got that surgically removed...and...Suffered through a three month bout with impetigo... SO. I might have dialed up the old nurse line once or twice, I admit it.

But my call last week has caused me to have to sever my relationship with this service. Here's why: About two weeks ago I noticed a weird bite on my leg. It looked like a spider bite of some sort, but was eerily similar to a bite I had about five years ago that gradually morphed into a 'bullseye' that indicatied lyme's disease. So I kept my eye on this one. And sure enough, right after my doctor's office closed for the week I took a look and there was the bullseye. Now, I live in urban St. Paul, but we are surrounded by deer tick country and lyme's disease is something to look out for and to act on immediately. The bullseye rash shows up in about 80% of the cases, usually a couple days to a couple weeks after the tick bite. If this is caught early, it just gets you a 10 day course of antibiotics, but if you miss the early signs, the disease can be totally debilitating. A quick google search of lyme's brought up an article about one guy who was using lyme's disease as part of his MURDER DEFENSE. You don't want to mess with this. So, when I noticed that the bite had turned into the telltale bullesye I got out my health insurance card and called the nurse line. I told the nurse who answered that I had a weird bite, it looked like the well known (at least in these parts) lyme's bullseye and I had for her one question: Seeing as it was Saturday morning, was it best for me to go to urgent care and get on antibiotics immediately, or could I wait until my doctor's office was open again on Monday? Of course she went right into to her list of questions that her computer program prompted her to ask me once I said I had a bite. I patiently answered no to most of them, and then I asked, "Are you familiar with deer ticks and lyme's disease?" She assured me that she was. I reiterated that I thought that this is what it was. She then asked, and I quote directly: "Did you see the tick?"
"No- but I didn't last time either."
"Well, you always have to remove the tick- they don't fall off."
"I don't think that's true...."
"Well if you didn't see the tick, then you have to find some evidence of the tick..." (Please recall that the rash can show up 2-3 weeks after the bite and that these ticks are the size of poppy seeds!) "Like, can you see any tick hairs or tick poop?"
It is here that I must admit that when she asked this, before the ludicrousness of this question hit me, I did indeed lean down and look real close...trying to discern if there was by any chance..."No...I can't...thanks for your help..."
And that was the end of my relationship with the nurseline. Really. Tick poop? From an animal the size of a popply seed? After two weeks have passed? I do shower every now and then.

For the record, I waited until Monday, went in to the doctor, got the confirmation that it was a lyme's rash, and started my 10 days of antibiotics. The wait until Monday did cause me to suffer through a wicked 48 hour headache that was like nothing I have ever experienced before. I mentioned it to my aunt who had lyme's a while back, and she knew the headache, called it 'electrical', and I agree. But that was it. After about 2 days on the pills I felt great.
Tick poop. Really.

The Bridge

Earlier today I was sitting out on our back porch playing the card game "Garbage" (which is more fun than the title might imply) with my two sons- it was about 85 degrees, and the humidity was absolutely stunning. But the porch was ok, because a breeze kept the sweat drying at a nice pace. We had spent the day lolling around the house, the kids playing with the legos, then reading, then playing with legos, while I got us packed up for our impending camping trip to the North Shore. Anyway, while we were playing Garbage, something about shuffling those limp cards, making them rifle through the 'bridge' as best I could given the sogginess factor, triggered a sudden flashback to summer days of my youth.
Back when I was in elementary school we were kept fairly busy in the summer months with daycamp and softball leagues (I was on the first all-girls team our town had ever organized- go Title 9!) and other activities, but we had a heck of a lot of time to fill ourselves. And fill it we did with super brain-enriching activities- like collecting cans from area garbage bins to bring in for a refund, or to save for a brother's beer can collection, or going door-to-door to ask people for their 'jokers' from decks of cards to add to our card collections. And learning how to do 'the bridge' while shuffling a deck of cards. I distinctly remember sitting in Carol Zimmer's dark living room, fans pushing the wet air around, hair sticking to my neck, as I struggled to learn the bridge. I'm talking about that fancy shuffling maneuver when you arch the two sides and they all surprisingly and satisifactorily slide back into one deck. I know that in one sitting I tried it enough times to make my hands ache. And by the end of the afternoon I had it at a rudimentary level. But many following summer afternoons were spent perfecting it. Now, at 38, I'm pretty damn good.
But anyway, sitting there thinking about those lazy afternoons at the Zimmer's house, I cast an eye over my sons' summer schedules. I purposely tried to lay off signing up for too much this summer, but somehow our calendar has filled up. But I am going to stop right now. No more activities! The remaining free days of summer we are going to take as they come. I am going to relax and let the day happen. I think many kids in this generation need a lot of practice in how to fill 'spare time'. My boys delight in going from legos, to their bikes, back to legos, over to do some drawing, and then back to legos...but most often they hardly make it into the second lego session before I am shepherding them out the door to some activity. Who knows, if I really do successfully step off the activity superhighway, maybe my boys will master the bridge. It could happen.

He Rides!

In the past week, Eli, now nearly 8, learned to ride a bike. Personally, I can't believe it. Either can he. Tonight we were laying on the bed together, chatting after a long, wonderful summer Sunday. He said, "Boy, Mom, I am so relieved, I was beginning to think I was going to be an adult and not know how to ride a bike!" I chuckled and admitted that the same thought might have fluttered through my brain. Then he added, "And yesterday, when I could ride, but I couldn't get started without help, I was thinking to myself...boy, I will know how to bike as an adult, but I will have to go knock on my neighbor's door and ask them to come out and help me get started! I sure am glad that I got that figured out too." So now I keep getting this image of my wonderful adult son deciding he wants to bike off to the grocery store, but he has to go get the neighbor to help him get started down the alley, and then get the guy who carries the groceries out to get him going back home. I shared this vision with Eli and we had a hearty chuckle. I love dearly that he is so willing to laugh at himself. He is truly a gem.

Banana Moon

Right before going to bed last night I noticed a beautiful banana moon hanging outside my bedroom window. I thought of my grandfather. Last October he passed away after a long and wonderful life. Here is an essay I wrote for his funeral:

I’ve always loved a banana moon. Not only because it is a gorgeous sight on a dark night, but because that thin slice ties me to my grandfather. I don’t know all of the details of the original story of me, my grandpa, and the banana moon, because I was very young, and very feverish. But I do know that for the last thirty years, every time I happen to glance up and see it, my thoughts go first to my grandfather. And I’ve known that wherever he is, if he sees it, he’s been thinking of me.

I’ve been told that when I was four years old I developed a sudden high fever while at a mother/daughter function of some sort. The fever got so high that I had a seizure, so my mom quickly rushed me over to her sister Judy’s house where I was given an ice bath and my fever went down a bit. But I was still quite listless and unwell. It was the general consensus that my mother should not drive home with me alone in the back seat, so my grandfather volunteered to sit with me. At this point I was completely out of it, and there was a good deal of anxiety about how this was all going to end. But on the drive home, I stirred, glanced out the car window, mustered enough strength to say, “Look Grandpa, a banana moon,” then slipped back into unconsciousness. This was enough to convince my grandfather that I was going to be alright. When I recovered, he told me the tale of my midnight sighting of the moon. I’m sure I would have forgotten the story if he hadn’t continued to call me over the years whenever he happened to spot a banana moon.

The calls diminished in frequency as we both got older, but I know that on my half, the thoughts did not. I simply can not see a banana moon and not see my grandfather as well. And I know that the same was true for him, because the calls did continue to come, although sporadically. And those calls seemed to come when I was yearning for some kind of check in, some assurance that whatever I was doing was going to come out alright.

Once I left home for college, he moved to Florida full time, and I felt that universal feeling of spreading my wings and heading out beyond my family. I was a fairly confident kid, but grandpa’s occasional calls to my dorm room reminded me that we still shared the same moon, and that my grandpa was out there rooting for me, and that was a great comfort. When I went overseas to serve in the Peace Corps I was living without a phone and out of regular contact with everyone back home, but he got word to me anyway. He went through the trouble to reach the Peace Corps office and left a cryptic message. It just said, “Grettie, there was a banana moon hanging over the Gulf of Mexico last night, how did it look over the Caribbean?” The woman who took the message was baffled, but it sure made sense to me.

About two years ago, as I was working my way through the first years of starting my own family, I really used that connection to the moon and my grandfather. My youngest son Theo developed a very high fever late one night. I remember holding his hot little body in my arms and thinking, this is not going to end well. He started into a seizure and I got a little panicky. My husband quickly called 911 and almost before the seizure ended there was a medical team at our door. They checked Theo’s vitals and gave me assurances that he was going to be ok. Looking at his pale, limp, body, I doubted them. They said they needed to take him to the ER so I went with him in the ambulance. No, I did not catch a glimpse of a lovely banana moon out the window of the ambulance, I think it was raining. But I did think of it. And I did think of my grandpa going through this very thing with me, and I was comforted, and I did start to believe that it was all going to come out alright. And it did.

A few weeks ago I was out on a retreat with students from my school. It was freezing cold for September and we were huddled around a campfire. As I looked through the tree branches I spotted a gorgeous sliver of a banana moon hanging over the St. Croix River. I thought of my grandfather down in Florida, and I shared our story with my students. I should have gone up the path back to the cabin, to my cell phone, and called him. I didn’t. But I did send him my love over the skies. Now, this morning, I received word that he has died. Although he was 91 and it was his desire to go quietly before life got too painful and difficult, it is hard to let him go. But I take some solace from the thought that every month that moon will cycle around, and I will have him in my heart again. And it will all end well.

I want to describe for you the picture I get in my mind everytime I see that banana moon: It's of Grandpa Bill (who self-imposed the nickname 'Wild Bill' on himself) sitting on his patio in Naples, Florida. He's wearing a pink polo shirt and some snazzy pants that feature yellow and lime green stripes. In his right hand he's gently swirling the ice in his glass of scotch. His left hand is in the peanut dish, squirrling out a few nuts. He's looking into the middle distance with a twinkle in his eye. He says, "Grettie, did I ever tell you about the time Bud and I...."

The Compact

Earlier this spring, some friends convinced us to join them on a year-long project to live by the 'San Francisco Compact'. This title refers to a movement started in the Bay Area of California by a group of people who were looking for a way to tread more lightly on the planet. What they did, and what we have done, is to pledge to not buy anything new for a year- except food, health and safety items, and underwear. We can buy anything else our hearts desire, as long as it is second-hand.
When I first heard of this project, I thought that there was no way I wanted to be a part of that. I figured that Jon and I were already very low on the conspicuous consumption continuum and that it wouldn't make a big difference in our spending/buying habits anyway, but would be a headache to be in 'compliance'. But then I ran some errands with my youngest son and while we walked through the aisles of the hardware store I was bombarded with his pleading for this item and that item. He didn't even care what it was, he just WANTED. And this is a kid who has been exposed to less than 10 hours of commercial tv/radio in his five years of life. But apparently he's bought in to the American consumer idealogy that prevails in this culture.
And so we joined up. We decided that we would make a small list of 'other things' that would be ok to buy new, but when we sat down to make up this list, the only thing we could think to put on it was running shoes. We told the kids that they could decide if they wanted to follow the compact with their allowance, or if they wanted to make some new purchases. When Eli found out that he would realize 52x his allowance at the end of the year he enthusiastically jumped in-certainly with visions of what this motherload of cash would be able to purchase next spring. Theo, whose first allowance was handed to him one week into the compact, was more eager to spend. When he got his first allowance he said, "Mom, let's go buy something, let's buy..." and then he looked at me, and I saw him remembering the compact and he finished with "...some food!" So apparently the compact is not going to quell his desire to spend, but it may redirect it.
As for me, I have loved the first 1.5 months. I don't think I have ever done much frivolous shopping, but I do remember some lovely trips to REI with no specific goal in mind. And there are several catalogs that came to my house that I would page through and covet. Really covet. I would go to the websites then and browse and check out the sales. Maybe once or twice a year, I would actually place an order. So actual money spent was fairly low, but time spent was not something I am proud of. Now, the catalogs come and I just toss them into the recyling bag without a glance. And I love it.
We have 10.5 months to go, and who knows what will happen. And there is the incident of the hummingbird feeder that I am not quite ready to fess up to yet. But I do see a change in our habits, our thinking, already. And that is true for the boys too. We're just hardly in stores anymore. And if we are, and Theo starts to beg, I say, "Remember that we're not buying anything..." and he moves on.
I never imagined that living by 'the compact' would actually provide me with a greater sense of freedom. My first reaction was that I would constantly be checking some onerous set of rules and I would feel very restricted, frustrated, and ultimately judged for 'breaking' the compact. That has not happened in the least. Instead I have felt our whole family kind of let out a big sigh, and step back, in fact, step off of the never ending treadmill of consuming that we so unwittingly were running on.
Let it be known that when my older brother found out that we were going to give this a try, he dialed up our mother and asked, "What in the hell is wrong with Gret and Jon now?" She, suspiciously, did not report to me what her answer was.

Nightmares

Eli is on the home stretch to his 8th birthday. And he can tip the scales at 50 pounds if he has his pockets full of treasures, and a full meal in his belly. He is not large. Tall, but very thin. It's not that he doesn't eat. I think that he often outeats me if the meal consists of noodles or pancakes. Anyway- this morning he came crawling into my bed at 6:30am. He was shaking and teary. In a very quiet, shaky voice he said, "Mom, I just had the WORST nightmare." Oh great, I thought, the decision to let him watch the first Harry Potter movie was going to come back to haunt me in the form of sharing my bed with Eli for nights to come as he worked through his fears of Voldemort. Then, "sniff Dad was down in the basement making origami butterflies..." Where was this going? There was a basement involved, so that's scary, but his dad was down there...making butterflies...
"So I went down and helped him...shudder, sniff... and when I came back up, I had MISSED BREAKFAST!!" At that point he broke down into very sleepy shuddering and sniffling and eventually dozed back off. I lay next to him, looking at his face, still tense even in sleep. Eventually he slept more peacefully.

Where have all the diving boards gone?

I spent the summers of my childhood on, in, or under water. My mom believed firmly in getting us out of the house when the weather was good. Sometimes she did this by simply ushering us out the sliding glass door to our back yard and locking it behind us. She would stay inside, ironing our t-shirts and sheets. But most often, she would load us into the back of the old Ford Falcon station wagon and head to her parents’ back yard. They had a pool.

There was a tradition in my mother’s family to throw the grandchildren into the pool at an early age. We were taught a few rudimentary strokes, and then, when a child was judged ready, my grandma would ceremoniously place a bundt cake at the deep end of the pool. The chosen grandchild would push off from the shallow end and pull for that cake. I earned my bundt cake the summer I was four. My brother Pete, only two, claimed his own a week or two later.

Before we even earned our cake, my mom and her sister would get us kids up on the diving board. There is one home movie of me toddling precariously to the end and then gleefully jumping into my mother’s waiting arms. I couldn’t have been much over one.
I’m sure my mom logged hundreds of hours treading water as she waited to catch us. As the summers passed, we got more confident, and my mom was able to just watch from the side. All of us cousins devised very unique ways to launch ourselves into the water. I can still remember the sting of my belly flopping stage as I was moving into diving. We would go off in twos and threes and fours. We always came up laughing. To this day, standing on the end of a diving board brings me great joy.

Only now it’s not so easy. We don’t know anyone with a private pool who still has a diving board. I hear that insurance worries have caused most homeowners to remove them. Last summer my son Eli was gearing up to take the plunge. He couldn’t do it over the winter even though we swam on a weekly basis. All of the indoor pools at the YMCA have lost their boards. So we journeyed up to the Y near where I grew up. It has an Olympic sized outdoor pool. I have fond memories of the high dive and all the crazy tricks we pulled off of that one. When we got out of the car I noticed that the high dive was gone. I didn’t ask anyone, but I’m willing to bet it had to do with risk management. There were still two springboards in action, so my son and I hurried over. He’d never gone off of one before, so I was prepared to get into the water and tread, offering him encouragement and a helping hand once he jumped in. But we met the sign declaring the DIVING BOARD RULES on our way. No waiting in the pool. No wearing goggles or a mask. No wearing a life jacket. Only one person on the board at a time. And all potential jumpees must first flag down a lifeguard and pass a swimming and water treading test. I read these rules to Eli and watched his confidence flag. He could have done it. He has the skills. But he kind of wanted me in the water. He kind of wanted to wear his goggles. When I got to the bottom of the list, I asked him if we should go find a life guard. “No mom, it all sounds too complicated.” I agreed.

The Chipmunk Tightrope

A few days ago, Eli was paging through a new nature book Theo got for his birthday. This book has general information about a variety of animals and insects you might find in a backyard or nearby woods. It also includes a few projects. Eli became enamored of the 'chipmunk tightrope'. It just so happens that a chipmunk has a hole right outside our back door. So today we strung a rope across the back yard at about my hip height. Then we dangled peanuts in the shell from strings that hang down about 5 inches. In theory, this is supposed to entice the curious chipmunk out across the tightrope and we can watch him try to get at the nuts. Once we constructed it, we hunkered down in the porch and watched. And watched. Our chipmunk is either on vacation or afraid of heights. So far this little rodent has not been enticed. But I have to admit, it was a very enjoyable piece of parenting. What I love the most is their confidence that the chipmunk will show, will take the bait, and what's more, we will be there to witness it. And then, they will train it to do other tricks. Watching them with their bright eyes and easy smiles, I believe. The boys are in bed, but I'm off to check the tightrope.

Sweet Poems

Today my first grader recited this poem at his classroom Poetry Reading:
Bubble, a beautiful
Sphere of soap
Floating higher and higher
Then it snaps
Glistens
And disappears

I loved it. Even got a little teary-eyed. Not to be outdone, his soon to be kindergartner brother composed this on the way home, as we walked through the rain:
A shimmering tear from the sky-
Hits the ground, and it disappears.

I wanted to scoop the boys up and tuck them into my heart to keep them just like this forever.

And that one is up...

Yesterday's high winds and heat made me hope for one of those crackling summer storms- even though it is only early May. I love it when the weather gets a little wild. But I don't love it when that wildness knocks down old old trees. About 3 years ago I was driving with two year old Theo in the back seat through a neighborhood nearby just after one of those storms. We came to a block that was littered with downed trees and branches. It hurt my heart. I must have gasped and said, "Oh Theo, look at all of these trees that were blown down." There was silence for a while, and I imagined that he was sharing my grief- which was quite real and present for me. And then his little voice popped up, "But look Mom, that one is up, and that one is up....that one is up, and that one....and that one is up..." He literally kept up this chorus for 5 full minutes. By the end of his recitation I had begun to be convinced that the toppling of those few trees, in that one section of town, shouldn't get me so down. I also realized that given his perspective from his car seat, he probably couldn't even see the downed trees! But now that he is 5 and his head pops up above the window he keeps the same attitude. He is a wonderful partner to go through this life with!

One more shell story (kind of)

Back when Eli was five he was given the mightily responsible task of caring for the neighbor's hermit crabs while they were on vacation. I was filled with dread because when I was about five we sent our fish off to a sitter and they came back dead. Floating. I figured that it must be harder to kill a hermit crab, and if we did, it might go unnoticed for a while anyway and we could escape the blame. So they came over. And the two boys spent really quite a bit of time staring into the cage and watching them do just about nothing. Every now and then a crab would flash a bit of leg, then close back up into it's shell.

By dinnertime, it looked like the honeymoon was over. Hermit crabs are not exciting pets. The boys seemed to have completely forgotten our houseguests- which was fine, it's not like they are demanding pets either. But several hours later, when I thought the boys were in the tub, I met two naked dripping boys tiptoeing down the stairs. I asked where they were going, and Eli said, "We are off to observe the nocturnal habits of the hermit crabs!" Great, but why naked?

The Shell

A few months back I was driving with Theo down to the Science Museum. We were on our way to the Collector's Corner. This is a fabulous little spot in the museum where kids can bring in any kind of natural artifact that they find. The more they tell the attendent about the item, the more points they score. They can use those points to trade for different items in the collections. We often go in with some mangy old bone found out in the woods and come home with a polished agate or shell. I love this place! So we're driving down there and Theo has in his hands a shell that his Uncle Tim had given him. He is sitting alone in the back seat with the shell up to his ear and he says, “The shell just whispered to me the story of the last days of its life”. I said something like, "Oh, it’s telling you the story of its life?" And he says, “Oh mom, it would take many of your lifetimes for it to tell you the story of its whole life!” He also told me that he could smell the sand, and that he was listening to the shell’s story with his “eyes that are for listening to sounds” which are his ears…. It was all quite lovely. He then quietly retold this story to the Collector's Corner attendant. I think she teared up, and then awarded him thousands and thousands of points.

A Really Good Idea

Last Saturday we held our youngest son's 5th birthday party. He had a few friends over and everything went well until Theo was about to take a bite of cake and suddenly grabbed his side and began moaning. I immediatly went for a bucket, because that's what I do around stomach pain. I'm actually quite neurotic about this. But this didn't appear to be a classic case of the stomach flu. Theo was quickly incapacitated by intense abdominal cramping. By the time his friends were being picked up by (worried) parents, Theo was glassy-eyed and moaning on the couch.
Within an hour he was begging us to do something, anything to stop the pain. We called the doctor and she told us that you don't want to mess with an appendix issue, so it was best to head to the ER and get it checked out.
We did. He was admitted and x-rayed, which revealed that he was chock full of feces. I mean it looked like it was up to his neck. Throughout this whole process the only sound Theo made were small moans, and for the x-ray we practically had to use a car-jack to wratchit him out of the fetal position.
He was eventually administered an enema and we were told to encourage him to hold it as long as he could. I asked if we were talking minutes, hours, what? The nurse smiled and said, "You'll know." We did. After about 41 seconds Theo told us that he needed to go. Luckily there was a bathroom attached to the room we were in and we tossed him onto the pot in the nick of time. Just as the rear end let loose, so did a torrent of thoughts, desires, questions, and comments come out of his mouth. He could not stop talking. Jon said, "Sheesh, I didn't think these enemas were supposed to work on both ends!" We were both just thrilled to see him acting more like himself. When the doctor poked her head into our room and asked how things were going, Theo piped up from in the bathroom, "This was a REALLY good idea!" We all agreed.

Working the late shift at the SageMart

Back when Jon and I first got married and combined our names to become the Sage-Martinson family, we didn't really know what we were doing. We knew others had hyphenated before us, but no one told us about the tedious, mind-numbing delays this little symbol would cause us. We didn't realize that most government agency computers were not up to speed and ready for the hyphen. We didn't know that before long we'd be using our long, tedious name in various formats for the 1, 372 usernames that come with being a citizen of this electronic age. For our first email address we tried to shorten it down and lose the hyphen. We became: sagemart@something.com. A friend emailed us and said, "Everytime I send a message to your address I think that a 'SageMart' sure sounded like a place you should be able to buy wisdom." The tone of this message made me think that this particular friend had never encountered any type of enlightenment in a reply from our particular SageMart. Frankly, I doubt many ever have, or ever will, but her comment did conjure up an image of an old run down market at the edge of the (virtual) town, where, if you waited in line long enough, a little nugget of wisdom might come your way. It changed my attitude about our name. And ever since I've been hopefully waiting for wisdom to fill the shelves here at the SageMart, so we can really get down to the business of growing ever more wise and sage-like. So far the stock has been perenially low, and I always feel like I'm working the late shift, with nary a customer in sight. I thought that perhaps after we increased the world-wide population of Sage-Martinsons by 100% by having two boys, I had an ensured customer base. But more often than not, they are the clerks, and my husband and I are at the late-night drive-up window receiving a small package of wisdom from the mouths of our boys.