At the baseball game

Hi everyone on the internet!
We are getting ready to come west for most of the summer.  We leave in about 3 weeks, and we're feeling pretty busy around here.  Kids are finishing up their school year things--classes are ending, most with some sort of recital or class party at the end.  I'm also coming up on my renewal for my engineering license, so I've been cramming my 30 professional development hours.  Trying to do it on the cheap, and of course I waited until there was barely enough time.  Some of what I've been using is boring and dull, but I've found myself having a lot of fun with some of it.  Like trying to solve big complicated math problems on a quiz--I'm kind of a nerd that way.  :)
Brett's away this weekend, hiking an 80-mile section of the Appalachian Trail, and we have dear Portland friends visiting until Wednesday.  They just got here tonight, and we only really had the getting ready to go to bed time together so far.  But I'm already glad they are here, because it motivated us to go through shelves and piles and clean and organize a bunch of stuff.  I love it when I make time to do that.  Our place feels so much lighter and tidier.  Two of my kids have had colds this week, and I refuse to believe it's because we watched that damned Yankees game in the rain on Monday.   
It's getting pretty warm, the fountains were turned on in the park we were in on Friday--oh my, you should have seen the sheer joy on the faces of the 4 boys I had with me at the time--took me right back to when you're a kid and you have that first inkling that summer is really on it's way.  They stripped down pretty quickly (except for one who ran through completely clothed--you should have seen the wet and sandy mess he was when I handed him over to his mom), and it was a fabulous kick off to the holiday weekend.
Here are some pictures from Jonah's baseball game last week.

We love going to Jonah's baseball games this season.  First of all the games are at a lovely section of Riverside Park--we know a lot of people by now both on our team and the ones we play.  Simon has a friend there he usually plays with in the sand and rocks, and sometimes Maya has one too.  This is the first Kid-Pitch season, and it's so exciting to watch the little guys throw their own pitches.  They look so grown up!  All of Jonah's games are at 8:30 in the morning, and it has been already tank top weather that early the past few games. 
Funny thing about New York City--the more you do, the more it feels like a small town.  I love that we walk so much and run into people we know.  We've been in a groove the past few months--it feels like a great balance with activities and home time, while everyone gets to do things on their own that they love to do.  

This is how Simon counts:

One!
Two!
Three!
Four!
Five!
Six!
Several!

Conversation Between Brothers

Jonah: Simon, could you please hibernate for THREE years?
Simon: OK!
Jonah: Do you know what "hibernate" means?
Simon: No...
Jonah: It means to go to sleep and not say anything for THREE years. Do you think you could do that?
Simon: No, Jonah! I don't want to stop saying anything. I'm talking.

Playing Grown-Up for the Evening

We just went to see a show at the Allen Room tonight. Oh my was it ever amazing. Chris Thile, formerly of Nickel Creek, and his new friend Michael Daves. Check them out here. This doesn't really do justice to the fact that Thile is a virtuoso on mandolin with a voice like an angel, entirely comfortable playing classical when the mood strikes (see the Goat Rodeo Sessions with Yo-Yo Ma), but in Daves he seems to have found someone who can keep up with him energetically. As an aside, I just discovered tonight that he was homeschooled.
What a stunning place to see a performance. It was misty and moody in New York today, so it actually looked just like that picture. True, we don't go out a whole lot these days, unless there is at least one kid along, so our grown-up evenings are rare, and to be honest we aren't all that discerning. We've spent many, many years having young kids at home and having to accommodate for them in one way or another. I wouldn't have it any other way, but still, it is refreshing to remember the things you loved before they were edged off center stage by the kids you love even more.
One of the things that Brett and I have always enjoyed doing together is seeing live music. Our tastes have evolved over the years, but I can still remember seeing George Michael when I was in high school and my little heart going pitter patter over the sheer excitement of the crowd, the volume, the utter coolness of it all. Then there was The Grateful Dead in college, and the whole summer/festival camping/road trip thing. We would pinch our pennies and venture out to The Gorge whenever possible, and those are some of the funnest weekends I've ever had. When Bono was walking toward me on a catwalk in about 1993 in British Columbia I nearly peed on myself, and seeing David Crosby in a small bar in Santa Fe shortly after being married is something we still talk about. We were perhaps starry eyed over the fact that we had finally gotten married the week before and I think we actually wrote a note to David (no doubt professing his sheer awesomeness) and asked a waiter to deliver it to him personally. Next came a bluegrass phase, sort of triggered by my parents. I guess we haven't really grown out of that one, and if we were anywhere near Seattle, we'd still be regulars at Wintergrass. If you live near there and haven't gone, you should go--it is a wonderful festival. We still sometimes enter the lottery for the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, but so far we haven't been chosen. We had a brief hippie music renaissance just before leaving Portland where we somehow found it vitally important that our wee ones spend as much time as possible dancing barefoot in the dirt with hula hoops at any outdoor music event we could find within a days' drive. Maya particularly took to the little girls with names like Oceania and the craft booths (where she could be unsupervised with the glue and glitter), and Jonah, who was like a beached whale as a baby, really appreciated being precariously perched on our Mexican Blanket on a slight hill so he could actually roll himself over on occasion. You should have seen us being waved through the traffic lines at a Yonder Mountain String Band show--we thought it was our lucky day, but turns out it was just our license plate, something like YMSB 455--everyone thought we were with the band.
Since in New York, we've been to a weekend folk festival upstate that included one of my favorites, Dar Williams (who I later found out had lived in our building just before we moved into it), we've been to The Apollo Theater to see our kids' violin teacher, who won Amateur Night there last summer. We've been to Radio City Music Hall and The Beacon Theater and Madison Square Garden and free summer shows in Battery Park City and Central Park...
But tonight made me realize how much we haven't really been keeping up with the music world. We've stopped paying attention to who is collaborating with whom, and where the hot spots are. I had never even heard of this venue, but I'd see almost anything there--it wasn't very expensive, the accoustics were phenomenal and it was spacious and stunning. I bet there are loads of places like this in this over-achieving city.
Our apartment is generally bustling with kids and their friends and we opt for silence instead of background music most of the time when we're at home. I'm hereby making an exception to my No Resolutions in 2012 rule, and I'm going to say I'd like to bring music (made by grown-ups) a little closer to center stage in 2012.

The Problem With Kids Who Read

OK, am I the only one who finds the habit of kids reading all day annoying? When we aren't out of our apartment, the kids are pretty much reading. And reading. And reading some more. They answer questions like this:
"Uh huuuuuuuuh"
They answer requests to do something like this:
"In a minute"
And they are boring and immobile and they don't want me to turn the light out at night and they carry their big books with them everywhere and they aren't really participating in...stuff. If I have any brilliant (if I do say so myself) ideas about what we should do, they have to wait until the end of a page, a chapter, a book.
Jonah is mostly reading the Warriors series. There are about 40 books in it, and he is maybe on number 15. He loves them. The books are about feral cats--they live in clans and they have all sorts of adventures and fights with rival clans.
Maya is reading Gone, The Swiss Family Robinson, and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.
Out loud at night I read to them too--just finished in the last week The Fellowship of the Ring and The Curse of the Pharaoh, and I guess we're still in the middle of The Yearling, The Bible and Caesar's Gallic War. Jonah inherited my head-hits-the-pillow-and-I'm-asleep thing, so he's been falling asleep in the middle of a chapter and we have to update him on the characters' progress the next night.
A series that he likes is like a Crack (sorry, do you capitalize drug names or is that only in German?) trail to Jonah...he can't really see anything but the trail he's following. Good in some ways, bad in others. He keeps giving updates about how many pages he has left too, so I guess it's not just Reading, but Reading AND Math to him?
They are only only copying us, I suppose--Brett is nearly done with War and Peace, and I'm in the middle of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn right now. We read a lot. We all have our own book clubs and reading is just something that is important to us all.
I suppose I'm happy that they are reading a lot, and it isn't that there are things I wish they were doing instead of reading (the dishes? playing with Simon? making lunch for me since I'm so busy...reading?), I guess it just feels like the end of an era. An era of playing and dress up for all-day-long imaginative games and making things out of the contents of the recycle bin. Sigh. If I tell them I'm sad they are getting so big they might just roll their eyes...but maybe one of them will come over and give me a hug...just as soon as they finish their chapter.

Great Grandpa Ken

Brett's grandfather passed away last week...and we've all been thinking about him a lot. He was 96 years old, and was starting to be pretty uncomfortable--everything was getting difficult for him--eating, breathing, getting around. He was a photographer, gardener, singer, swimmer (almost went to the Olympics), and a maker of tools. For much of his life he was vegetarian, and he used homeopathy and liked to look at the stars. He was active in a Theosophy group that met for years and years. There was no funeral--His family was not huge, and he's outlived most of his friends. The plan is to scatter his ashes near Cannon Beach, along the Oregon Coast.
I saw Ken on our last trip to the NW, just less than a year ago--the picture above is on that trip, as we waited for breakfast at a Portland pancake hot spot. Elly is Ken's wife of 15 or so years...and there are Maya and Jonah looking on.
We miss him!
It isn't that we talked to him a lot, and the most we saw him in recent years was once a year when we visited the NW. But Ken and Elly made a real impact on our kids--they always remembered the kids' birthdays with sweet cards, decorations, money and little treasures. Even from a distance, they have managed to stay up to date with what the kids are into and the things that are important to them. In fact, of all our relatives, one thing that stands out to me with Ken and Elly is that they have always had an ability to really see you. As in, who you are right now, what is interesting, and what is good about you, without having an agenda for you. It is as if we are unfolding into something, and they just wanted to be there to see our incredible progress in life. A nice perspective, really.
My heart goes out to Elly right now, who is probably slogging through the details...not only missing her mate but without the anchor that has secured and defined her days for a long time. She has been a brilliant partner to him--he was pretty lucky to have someone so devoted and kind as his companion. But I've noticed that these things usually aren't unreciprocated, and I think there is probably a big hole in her life now where he used to be.
Hugs to you Elly, from us all!

Signed Contract!

I guess we are buying an apartment!

I think I'll let myself start getting excited now.

There is still a ways to go--financing is difficult at the moment--not just for us personally, but the lender has to sign off on the building. Which would probably be easier if the deli on the corner (the only retail tenant) were not shut down for selling illegal cigarettes. Ugh. It has been closed for 2 days--and talk on the street is that they were selling cigarettes with lower taxes than what is allowed in NYC. Like Philadelphia cigarettes or something? What's so funny is that literally was the TALK ON THE STREET. I think they owe a fine of $5,000, and they won't be allowed to reopen until they pay it. What struck me was the attitude of the people on the street, who feel like the NYPD is entirely unfair to enforce a rule such as this, and that it would be excessively inconvenient for people who live here to have to walk to another corner to buy their drinks, chips, sandwiches, and, well, cigarettes. In a moment of gracious magnanimity they also mentioned that it is unfair to close down someone's business when it affects their income...

So, if all goes well, we close in the middle of September, and have what looks at this point to be the easiest move of our lives--carry things literally across the street and up one floor.

Summer Slowdown

It's WAY too hot and humid here in the summer. Seriously. It makes everyone grumpy and sticky and lethargic. Our apartment is under-air conditioned--mostly because of the way the windows and the beds are configured. Nobody sleeps with even a sheet on for almost three months in our house. The sound of air conditioners by the end of the evening makes me agitated, but it is, of course, preferable to the feeling of thighs stuck together with sweat.
And can we just talk about the subway platforms? It is unbelievable. You think it's hot above ground? Just walk down those steps...A sauna has got nothing on a NYC subway platform in July. You hope your train is air conditioned, and most are, but every once in a while? The air conditioning is not working, and however hot you felt before stepping into the car? Well, too bad you didn't stay there because now it's worse. Now there are a whole bunch of human bodies a couple inches from your own. The other day I got on a subway car and this guy yells out: "Togetherness!" It was pretty funny...
The other problem with the heat/humidity is that it takes away all my enthusiasm for using anything heat producing, like the stove, or dryer. I totally don't feel like cooking.
Portland, Oregon? Your HIGH temperature is our LOW a couple of days this coming week. Just think about that for a minute. When you hit 73 degrees in the middle of the day and you can take off your jacket for a few minutes? That is as cold as it gets in the middle of the night sometimes around here. It isn't pretty.
We've had a very mellow week. I've taken the kids out to go rollerblading a couple of times. They are getting OK stable. But the sweating and the lethargy? It almost makes me just want to go see a matinee movie in an over air conditioned theater every day of the summer and call it good in terms of summer enrichment opportunities. Honestly, the way our family looks at it, summer is a time to catch up financially from all the over spending we do on the kids during the school year. We've been very much enjoying having big stretches of time with nothing planned. The kids are reading like crazy, we're doing some art projects and finishing some things up from the school year.
We're also hoping that we are buying an apartment across the street. We meet Monday to sign the contract. But I'm nervous--it is being shown again this Sunday to someone looking at it for the third time. If they make an all cash offer or offer much more than what we have negotiated, I think we've lost it. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

B-52's

Forgot to tell you that we got to meet the B-52's, Maya and I. Our friend Sterling Campbell is their drummer and he invited a bunch of friends to come to the sound check for their NYC show last month. It was super cool. We got to watch them setting up, they played several sounds and chatted with us. Simon was there too, he fell asleep in his stroller and we shoved wax earplugs in his ears because it was very loud. This is from later that night at the real show.

Full disclosure

Scene: Return flight back to NYC from Ft. Lauderdale.
We packed in a rush because we had decided to squeeze in a trip to the beach, and a quick swim in the pool. We took the hotel bus to the airport. It had started to rain, but only after we were under airport roofs. Our flight was delayed due to weather. No problem--we hadn't really eaten lunch, so we scarfed some huge hamburgers and fries at our gate. The flight was very full, and running late so they started asking for volunteers to check their bags (for free), and I decided to check all our main bags--they were all carry-on size, but it made it much easier for us to get in and out of the plane since Simon can't totally manage his by himself.
We finally get onto the plane, full and happy, and the kids discover that yet again everyone has personal video monitors and a nice selection of free movies. (Simon-Cars, Jonah-Meet the Robinsons, Maya-The Tooth Fairy, Kristin-The Bourne Identity). Life was good. Until Simon gave me The Look.
This child of mine doesn't like to poop. Here is a conversation he had with his pediatrician 6 months ago:
Simon: I no go poop ever!
Dr.: If you don't go poop, you will die. Everyone poops.
Simon: I no care. I no go poop!
The Dr. then proceeded to give me (instead of the prescription laxative I was asking for, a copy of the book Your Difficult Child)
Sigh.
It is a long story, with lots of stomach churning details. We've been down this road before, with child #1, and I thought I had things figured out, but alas, Simon's ability to withhold is pretty impressive. He's been using the toilet for about 6 months now, but we are limping along with the poop thing. It has been better lately, but it is definitely an issue.
But as soon as the plane took off, it became clear that he had to go. I quickly counted back and realized that it had been a couple of days since he'd gone #2. Remembering the success of the last one, I felt optimistic--I had caught him about to crouch in a corner and whisked him onto a toilet where I was rewarded with the biggest, longest poop that has ever come out of the body of a 3-year old. Here's what he does though. When he needs to go, he holds it with all his might. In general, the feeling of needing to go comes in waves--he can hold it several times, but when it's been a couple of days...well, there starts to be a lot of pressure backing up that bad boy, and eventually he just can't keep it all in.
So this is the situation I found myself in as our airplane took to the air. I took this child to the airplane bathroom at least 5 times during the flight. I squeezed both of us into the tiny cubicle. I took off his shorts, his underwear, his shoes and socks so he could straddle the toilet seat in typical toddler fashion. He would sit there for 27 seconds and say "I no need to go. I just peetending." I would bend over, my behind bumping into the pocket door, and painstakingly re-dress him, hoping there was enough fresh air in this enclosed space to keep me from passing out from the stifling closeness. Luckily we were in the aisle seats and only a few rows from the bathroom. I resented having to pause my movie, but truth be told, I had never counted on being able to watch a whole movie myself on a flight with a 3 year old, so it wasn't bothering me so much. Then I hear:
"Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to begin our descent into the New York area..."
I told Simon he couldn't go to the bathroom again until we got to the airport.
"Oh tay Mama. I watch my booty" (Booty=movie).
And then. He dumped an enormous load in his pants. Right as we started to head down, our tray tables in the upright position. We couldn't get out of our seats. So he had to sit in it for about 20 painful minutes. As soon as the plane reached the gate, I hauled him into the now very familiar room. I stood him on the closed toilet and started to excavate.
You guys, there has never been a poop like this one. Not since the day I was about the same age and pooped my pants in church while singing "Father Abraham". I was marching at the time, and standing up, but when I sat down? Well, it went all the way down my tights and all the way up my back, and when I got home from church my mom hosed me down in the driveway.
I wished, so badly, that I had a hose and a driveway. Preferably a hose with really cold water so I could feel some sort of vindictive payback toward the one who caused me such a nasty chore. But no, I had a tiny airplane bathroom with a sink that trickled and some paper towels. It was disgusting. The water turned off mid-process, since the plane had landed. Excellent! When I peeked out to ask for a BIGGER GARBAGE BAG, I saw that the entire plane was empty except for my other two children. I had to throw away underwear and shorts, and I couldn't entirely remove poop caked on Simon's legs, all the way down to his ankles.
But OK, that enormous pile of refuse? Behind us! Simon was feeling like a million bucks and he was all cheerful and chatty "I sorry I go poop in my pants Mama!"
We head to an airport bathroom where I can wash my hands several times with hot water and soap...and I discover that my monthly visitor has announced itself to...everyone. I'm wearing light colored khaki pants. No sweatshirt to tie around my waist. My clothes are at the baggage claim. This has never happened to me, not once in all my years of being female. Deep breath. Well, at this point, nothing to do but march off and deal with it.
On the people mover Simon says: "Mama, something red on your pants." I ignore him, but Jonah, thinking I didn't hear him or understand him is trying to be helpful and so he translates.
Can I tell you how much I really don't want to hear this information or want to talk to my children at this point?
I hide in the corner while we wait for about a week for the baggage claim to start showing signs of containing actual baggage. My kids are distracted by looking for our suitcases, leaving me time to feel sorry for myself and my lot in life to have to spend so much time dealing with such issues. Baggage arrives, I grab clean clothes and go change in yet another bathroom...
We grab a taxi back to the city and our driver tries to convert me to Islam. I didn't have the heart to tell him he was talking to somebody so unclean, on so many different levels that he shouldn't even bother...He gives me a book to take home so I can think about it.
Simon has a bath at 11 pm. He screams because he "no want to take bath". But I finally get his legs to a point where he is permitted to touch his sheets with them.
And we all collapse into sleep. Happy to be home. Where there are clean clothes and roomy bathrooms and...LAUNDRY!