Tree Huggers in the Concrete Jungle

Conversation Between Brothers

2012-01-22T23:42:00.001-05:00

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

2012-01-13T01:29:00.003-05:00

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

2011-08-22T00:02:00.003-04:00

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

2011-07-23T01:07:00.004-04:00

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!

2011-07-17T21:32:00.003-04:00

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

2011-07-08T23:51:00.004-04:00

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

2011-06-28T00:16:00.001-04:00

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

2011-06-27T03:05:00.005-04:00

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!

Ft. Lauderdale in pictures

2011-06-27T02:32:00.005-04:00

Simon loved the beach!But not as much as Maya and Jonah.
This is the view of the pool from our 10th floor hotel room.This is what the hotel looked like from the inside.
Simon didn't like that he had to wait for me to go in the water--here he is wistfully watching the two heads of his siblings while he is stuck on the sand. We discovered that if we went to the beach in the evening the temperatures were just perfect. And no pesky sun to worry about.
One day we spent a long time building a huge sandcastle fortress.
Happily, we ran into my old college friend Jill and her kids, same ages as my first two.
The four big kids had a lot of fun together! We visited each others' hotel pools, spent time at the beach and one day went to the science museum together. Too bad we live on opposite coasts...
Maya snapped this of me while I was struggling to get dressed on the beach under a towel.
Happy boy--he had so much fun.
Our trip to Florida was a last minute decision. Mostly because we had just gotten back from a road trip down to Atlanta, where we had gone because I, in particular was feeling a burning desire to get out of NYC for a bit, and Brett was wanting to hike a section of the Appalachian Trail. So I talked him into starting at the beginning. We took two days to drive down and two to drive back up, and in the middle Brett hiked 70 miles. Over only THREE days. Crazy! But super fun to have a goal like that, to hike the entire 2181 miles. He's done most of the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York sections...and now most of Georgia too. While he was hiking, the kids and I went to Stone Mountain, and explored downtown Atlanta. We had only been back a couple days when Brett found out he was scheduled to dive in Ft. Lauderdale less than a week later.
So we mobilized again.
I'm so glad we went too--it was a lot of work for Brett though--he dove every day for two weeks and he's been dog tired ever since we got home. The logistics of diving for work are tremendous, and he had NY work to tend to in the evenings, so it was a hard trip for him. One of his co-workers went to the hospital with an ear infection (from diving), and they spent the last night we were there packing up the boat and gear in the pouring rain.
There are still things we haven't finished unpacking, and I must somehow manage to get the last bit of schoolwork done that we left hanging before we left. Jonah had to miss his last baseball and soccer games, Maya her last art class. But now the schedule is relatively free except for visiting friends and loosely scheduled playdates. I think it will all slowly get done.

Florida Flashback

2011-06-22T02:16:00.004-04:00

OK, so I searched through my blog archives because I was curious about our last trip to Ft. Lauderdale. I had forgotten that we spent Halloween here!
November 2007
I can't believe how much the kids have grown. Wow.
This was a huge trip down memory lane for me--first of all, that I had driven all the way here with my dog. Oh how I miss him! Then there is the fact that I was newly pregnant with Simon. The post I linked above is the last one from our Ft. Lauderdale trip, there are several, if you click on "older post" it will take you back in time. It was hurricane season last time, and the beach/waves were very different from what we are seeing this week.

Postcard from Ft. Lauderdale

2011-06-22T01:31:00.003-04:00

It's been SO long.
But I'm still here.
There are many drafts of new posts in my "Dashboard"...and somehow they never get finished.
Life is rich and good, and I only wish there was a Pause button I could push now and then to catch up with myself. Alas, there is not, and I find myself 40 years old, as of yesterday. This milestone doesn't feel all that significant, to me, despite it's reputation. Maybe it will hit me later? What feels more shocking is that we've just completed our 6th year of homeschooling, and that Simon turned 3 a few weeks ago. Or how about that we've been in New York for over 4 years? Not sure why, but those numbers seem to pack more of a wallop with regards to the passage of time.
I'm writing from the balcony of our 10th floor hotel room in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. I'm looking down on the tops of palm trees and listening to the sounds of the koi pond waterfall and late night traffic on 17th Street. The hot and humid tropical air is finally pleasant, this late, as opposed to crushing during the day unless you are submerged in the Atlantic Ocean or the pool.
We're here tagging along with Brett's work project for Port Everglades. It's a strange existence--I'd forgotten, since it's been a while. Most of his work now is for the New York Port Authority and he rarely travels. But this brings back memories of all those months we spent traveling with him when we first moved back East. It doesn't exactly feel like a vacation, since one of us is working crazy long hours. The kids and I try to take full advantage of exploring and experiencing, and we can usually have a late dinner as a family at the end of the day. We've been here before, although I can't really remember how long it was, but we keep stumbling upon things we remember from last time.
We are buying an apartment. Well, in NYC you don't say that at this stage, you say "we have an accepted offer". We know from one that fell through a few months ago that there are so many ways this can fall apart. I'll report more on that soon, when I know a bit more.
The school year is ending, and so is my 2 year term serving on our homeschooling council. I feel like I've let a lot of things slide this year--our structure and discipline has really gone downhill. Mostly due to Curious George. It's amazing what a mischievous and chatty little monkey can do to order and peacefulness. Sigh. I'm hoping now he's three that the fall might be a little different?
I think the mosquitoes have found me...I'm heading back inside.

Passwords

2011-03-27T23:44:00.003-04:00

Are we the only ones that have to have a special computer file to hold our passwords? Tonight, we finished our taxes. Yay us, and yay to the nice refund that we'll be getting. I know, we should be trying to make it so we get that money throughout the year, but we LOVE getting a refund. We can't shake the feeling that New York has some tricks up it's sleeve. You should see all the extra pages of questions that Turbo Tax has to ask us since we live in New York.
Anyways, back to passwords. So, we have a standard password. It works most of the time. Every once in a while a new website will require that the password must start with a number instead of a letter, or that the first letter be capitalized, or that it be a certain number of digits long. Worse yet, is the "Security Questions". Consider:
First job? (Brett's first job, or Kristin's first job? First real job? Babysitting?)
Oldest sibling? (Mine or his?)
Where did you got married? (Bainbridge Island? Poulsbo? Kiana Lodge?)
High School Mascot? (With school name first? Mine or his?)
What do you do about these? It isn't a problem until you are trying to log into, say a college savings account for your kids to enter onto a tax form. You need it RIGHT NOW, and the darn password doesn't seem to be working. Is it case sensitive? Sometimes the program kindly offers to email it to you...but alas, somehow old email addresses get into the picture and that doesn't always work either.
We've always kept a huge spreadsheet (Brett's specialty) that has all this information. The spreadsheet is really, really scary, and I try to avoid it at all costs. And it doesn't really help with the new Security Questions that most sites seem to prefer. A new problem, now that both my kids have email addresses and blogs is that when I go log onto mine, if I'm not careful, I find I'm already logged into one of their sites.
Aargh. If it's any consolation, I find notebook pages already with my kids' passwords on them--some games require passwords, and they have to have codes to play with a friend, plus their email accounts which are new enough that they don't always remember them. I suspect they will have way more passwords to remember in their lifetime than we ever have.
Good luck getting your taxes finished everyone, especially Monica, who never even starts hers until the week of April 15.

Tribute

2011-03-25T00:53:00.002-04:00

I'm so saddened to hear that Jean Liedloff passed away last week. I first read her book when pregnant with Maya, and I have to say, it is probably the book that changed the direction of my life more than any I've ever read. Not in an outward, obvious way, but in a secret, joy-seeking way. For years I was hooked on the The Continuum Concept list serve--I've never had a community quite like that--and it was made up of about 700 people who lived all over the world. In any case, I'm glad she was here and grateful for the contributions she made to the planet.

The Circus

2011-03-24T00:23:00.003-04:00

No, that's not the circus we went to, but the circus that is our existence. In a good way, but, well, you know. Today's inspiration to post comes from my conversation with my sister, who is getting ready to bring home 3 children that she is adopting from Ethiopia. If you haven't already, check out her blog here. Right now there are photos about her kitchen that she is remodeling, but her beautiful blog is mostly about her journey along the adoption process.
So, my sister and I have lived very different lives for the past twelve years--from my perspective, hers has seemed exciting, worldly and professional. She has lived in three different states, remodeled several homes, worked and traveled and created lovely things (she is a graphic designer). I'm not sure what my life has looked like from her view, but I must admit that sometimes I'm sure it doesn't look all that sexy.
To illustrate that point, let me go back a few years to when a college friend of mine was visiting and she noticed Jonah's duvet cover...
She: "Kristin!"
Me: "What?"
She: "Isn't that the duvet cover you used in college?"
Me: "Ummmm, yeah?"
She: (opens eyes really wide and makes a nondescript grunting sound)
Me: (fingering the huge rip and tugging on the bottom to get it to cover the comforter underneath--I had never gotten around to putting buttons on it, so it was open at the bottom)
Perhaps this doesn't mean much to you, but it was the first time I had noticed that my childrens' rooms were the only ones that weren't "decorated" specifically for them. I lived in the suburbs for most of my married life (except for the 5 months that I was traveling around the world by bicycle and didn't have an address). OK, I take that back, there was one point, when Maya was a baby that she had painted walls. They were only painted because my sister was visiting and she helped me paint them. I guess things matched, I had several friends who worked for Pottery Barn at the time and I bought a lot of cute fixtures and shelves...but that lasted only a couple of years, until we moved and nothing was ever painted or matched again.
I visited my sister when I flew with the kids to the west coast. Her house is stunning. Seriously. Really, really lovely. And now even more so with this beautiful kitchen. The room I stayed in was simple and spare, crisp white bed linens and nice fixtures, and her usual good taste. She mentioned getting new linens for the boys' beds, and that is what made me think about this whole post. I was just comparing her buying new linens to replace beautiful ones to my own (disinterest? lack of money? horrible sense of style?) procrastination of 15 years in such a matter.
Sigh.
Sometimes it feels that we live like college students. Our things have slowly been worn out by use, and our belongings now are disproportionately childrens' things. Books, art supplies, craft kits, lots and lots of games and puzzles, bean bags, little cars, dolls and sports gear. We are outnumbered by the little people, and while it is satisfying and fun, it is sometimes a circus.
Tonight I was trying to help Maya with a science project--she is researching diapers to learn about the materials that make them up, and she has to do a presentation tomorrow to her science class. She has been cutting up a pack of newborn diapers and there are piles of absorbent gel, diaper fluff and layers of fabric lying around. Simon was alternately eating sugar from a bowl on the counter and then rubbing lip balms over his cheeks and chin, and Jonah was belting out Annie songs and pretending to hit himself on the head and falling over to make Simon laugh. Periodically, I had to jump up and go get Simon's potty. We found out that the gel Maya has been wallowing in from the middle of the diapers can sometimes be toxic, so then she's jumping around waving her hands and moaning that she's going to die! Then Jonah gets his Nerf guns and starts firing darts everywhere. Meanwhile, we just discovered that our best internet article about diapers in other cultures is from a website intended for adults who have infantilism--that is--diaper fetishes! OK, excellent. Do we add that to her bibliography? Oh my, I'm so horrified.
So, when I compare this scene, including the full potty in the living room that I haven't dumped yet, to what I picture to be my sister's scene--maybe a glass of wine, some nice music and a design Chautauqua with another quiet adult to decide how the next renovation or redecorating project is going to look including beautiful magazines that don't have the pages ripped out for collages...
Maybe we are so entertaining that we don't need matching linens or style in our domicile? Hmmm, I'm thinking we aren't so much entertaining as overwhelming, but oh well, who doesn't love the circus?

Winter

2011-02-28T01:49:00.002-05:00

Simon does not like winter at all. He doesn't like the snow, he doesn't like to wear his coat. He will wear his gloves and hat once he starts to freeze his little tushie off. He says he might try ice skating once he's three. We did have a cool walk to the Harlem Meer the other day and the geese are starting to come back. They walk very carefully on the frozen ice, spreading their feet way out and sort of ice skating along the surface. This photo was taken on New Year's Eve. Yes, I realize that he has circles under his eyes, and I know he's 2, but he stayed up well past midnight. Party boy!
Here is Jonah on the chairlift. He learned to ski this season! We went up 5 times with a big group of kids to Shawnee Mt. in PA. It was great fun and might be a regular part of our winter. Jonah said he was never doing anything more than a "Green" run...but then his ski teacher took him on a "Black" run, and while he wasn't happy about that at all, it improved his skiing tremendously, and now he's comfortably doing "Blues".
Maya took to skiing too. Last time we went I didn't see her much of the day--she was with a big group of her girlfriends. The midweek days we go are pretty much empty--no lines, and it is a small mountain, so the kids can just take off on their own. I even got to ski 4 times this year.
One nice little surprise was a several day visit from my parents. We had a whirlwind few days with them that was lots of fun--they got to see some of the things the kids are up to, including attending a birthday party in a bed and breakfast in Brooklyn for one of Jonah's friends. This party was like a preview of the teenage years--they have a killer basement with a mirror ball and all sorts of instruments. Those boys were unabashedly dancing their hearts out. It was so sweet.
Their hotel was in the Financial District, a few blocks from Brett's office. We spent some time hanging out on the 30th floor in the meeting room on a weekend just enjoying the view of all the activities at the World Trade Center site. We also spent some time in the 'hood, here in our apartment, went out to eat, they saw Memphis and we went to the Brooklyn Museum. Jonah got a special math lesson (I think I remember the same one), and attempted some geocaching while Maya and my mom made a pie. We had a really nice time.

Christmas Photos

2011-01-04T23:48:00.003-05:00

The Christmas season is over...and no, we didn't send out a card this year. I can't tell you how much of a failure I feel that I can't get a Christmas card together. We had good intentions--we had a friend of Maya's take photos of us outside at Washington Square Park--right in front of the arch. They would have been great, but, well, it was about 2 degrees that night and windy, and we couldn't get a single photo that wasn't blurry. Sigh. The view above is our living room, Christmas night--the kids all got new bean bag chairs, and the table is piled high with wonderful presents from the West Coast relatives and friends. See our cute little Christmas tree in the corner, on a side table? We bought it in Harlem this year, 3 blocks from home. It was perfect and narrow, and our place has been cozy and festive.

Right before Christmas, we went to Great Wolf Lodge. It was a super trip--less than 2 hours from the city, pretty much everyone there was our demographic--families with 3 or 4 kids of wide age ranges. I love waterslides. Seriously. Our big kids are total swimmers now, so the ropes course and water basketball were big favorites, and they have a toddler area plus a not-too-hot hot tub, so it was loads of fun.
Here are all of us in front of the big fire place in the lodge. This is as close to a Christmas card you're going to get from the Spositos. Sorry about that.
See that sweater that Maya is wearing? Well it used to fit me, and then I accidentally felted it. SO bummed! But at least I still get to see it since it fits her.
Here are three happy little people--tired out from waterslides and the neverending Magic Quest that keeps them running all over the lodge with magic wands for hours.

I have more to report on too--like Jonah's birthday, which was the day after we got back from PA--10 boys in a 900 sq. ft. apartment--it was loud, chaotic and lots of fun. He thinks he has the best birthday in the whole world. Shhh, don't tell him that he might one day change his mind. Turns out only 1 friend couldn't come due to holiday plans, and 1 more had pinkeye, so didn't come at the last minute. I thought for sure that several more would be busy, but, well, seems everyone was happy to drop off their boys for a few hours while they shopped or prepared for the holidays. So now we have an 8 year old boy on our hands. He's such an energetic joy right now--fun to play games with, developing a true brotherly relationship with Simon and growing into himself, if that makes sense. He loves playing with all his new Lego and Playmobil toys, Nerf guns, remote control vehicles and Nano bugs. I'm not really having the issue that he doesn't play by himself anymore, which is a nice new development.
Christmas was mellow, low-key, I think we all had a slight virus--we stayed in for several days in a row after our very extroverted waterslide trip and birthday party. It was nice--games, toys, puzzles, movies--we watched the snow pile up outside and felt cozy and good. Friends in Brooklyn had a party a few days after Christmas and we made the journey, which included a long walk through lots of snow. The kids had a blast playing in their yard--building snow tunnels and slides and having snowball fights. A few days later we had a really nice New Year's Eve party in the W. Village with friends, and lots of good food. Simon likes champagne too, by the way, in addition to wine and beer. And he can stay up past midnight, no problem. Riding the subway home, across Times Square on New Year's Eve at 1 am is an adventure. Packed trains, it feels like the middle of the day--everyone partying and dressed up and cheering whenever the doors open to let more people on. It would have been super except for the guy sitting next to Jonah that tossed his cookies. The kids told me tonight that someone on the train took a picture of the puddle on the floor. I don't need to see the picture, because I'll have it in my head forever--I think it was the salad he must have had earlier that must have done it. Aaaaahhhhh, New Year's memories.

Dancer!

2010-12-09T23:15:00.003-05:00

I just came from watching Maya perform in The Nutcracker. It was so much fun! She auditioned this fall at the suggestion of her new ballet instructor, who thinks that every ballet student should participate in such a show. They don't cut anyone, it's just a matter of finding the right role. So Maya is an angel, which is a very small role--beginner-ish, for kids age 8-10 or so. She's been rehearsing once a week at a ballet studio that always has a lot going on--we can watch adult classes, or bigger girls en pointe--it's been a pretty fun place to hang out.
In lieu of payment for the experience, I opted to volunteer to help with costumes. I did that for a few hours on Monday night, and all of a sudden I realized what a big production this is. All fall, all I've seen are a couple kids' groups rehearsing. Well the production has an overwhelming cast, full of adult professional dancers. The costumes are beautiful, and many, and I spent most of my time ironing petticoats and chatting with the career costume people about their varied experiences, so different than my own. The costumes come out of storage the week of the performances and need a lot of work by a full time crew to get them ready for the stage.
The backstage scene, where I drop Maya off--well, it's a bustling place. So many choreographers, costume people, dancers, technical people--it's just amazing. I touch up Maya's make-up, send her off with a backpack full of things to do while she waits, hair things in case she needs a re-do, and she's a performer for the evening.
Watching the show--I was thoroughly entertained. The dancers were beautiful--it was a wonderful show. I haven't figured out a way to get photos, but we're working on it.
I'm so grateful that Maya gets this opportunity--to be inspired, to be part of something that is bigger than she is. She's starting small, but in a way that gives her the full experience of what this kind of life must be like. It's a lot of fun.
Brett gets to see tomorrow's show, which will be Maya's last. Then she's going to go on Sunday to see another cast perform, so she'll get to be an audience member too.

Holiday Sing

2010-12-08T23:52:00.004-05:00

This is a busy week around here--It's Maya's Tech Week for Nutcracker. More about that in another post. Tuesday night was their NYU Chorus Concert. It was lovely! Festive and cozy and just wonderful. We've been a part of the chorus for several years now so the kids really know that scene and are comfortable with the show. This was the first year Simon sat with us in the audience for almost the whole thing--he was really great--clapped between groups and watched and listened. Six groups perform in all, so the kids only do a few songs, but it's also really fun to see the other groups sing. That top photo is him in the subway station on the way home.
Jonah is one of the kids in the front holding up a sign for the dreidel song. We were sitting at a really bad angle (so we could make a quick exit with Simon if necessary), so we don't have any great pictures of the whole group. Or Maya, for that matter.
Here are Maya and Jonah after the show--something funky happening with the camera, but at least you see their shiny little faces.

Tummy Bugs

2010-12-04T00:46:00.003-05:00

So today I organized a field trip to the Brooklyn Museum. I had maybe 18 people coming and normally would have been the one to collect the money, meet with the docent etc. But when I woke up I couldn't shake the feeling of nausea, and I started making back up plans, like taking Ziploc bags in my pockets in case I felt sick on the subway. Isn't it funny how your mind starts to go there and you don't realize that your train of thought is seriously screwed up, but just seems normal? Or maybe that's just me. I couldn't face making breakfast or lunch, and found myself lying on the living room floor instead of getting us out the door. Brett offered to take the big kids for me--he made lunch and breakfast and took off with them.
The next 6 hours found me in bed, moaning, sleeping and not venturing too far from the bathroom. Yuck. Stomach flu. Brett ended up taking the whole day off--went out later with Simon to pick up the kids and when Simon got up from his stroller nap he started throwing up too. You guys, he is the sweetest sick person ever. We made a nest on the floor and he snuggled up staring into my eyes telling me he felt "yad" (sad). By evening time, Jonah was crying with a stomach ache, Maya was threatening to go hang out on the roof (in 30 something degree weather) just to avoid our germs, and Brett was cheerfully waiting on us, cleaning up, doing laundry and dishes, running to the store for sick food. It says a lot about his current state of work affairs that he was delighted with his "day off". Jonah finally tossed it around 9 pm. And when that kid starts, look out. He also doesn't stand still, and although we had many practice runs earlier in the day, he still does this pacing thing that could be utterly disasterous. Most of it made it into the bathroom, and the three of us are feeling better, and have been able to drink a little and I've even eaten some toast.
What struck me was what a wonderful day of family togetherness this was. That sounds deranged. But it was the first time in a long time that we've all worked together for the same thing, that we were mostly home together, taking care of each other. Although we felt crappy, there was this cohesive teamwork thing that really tied us together--you know, the same feeling when you have a bad vacation or you get lost and scared and it's raining and you surrender to the situation and just do your best, and lo and behold, you come out on the other side with stories to laugh about and a little bit of connection that you don't notice when things are easy and everyone is well.
All the same, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that M and B don't get it, and that the rest of us feel well in the morning.

Halloween

2010-11-10T23:14:00.003-05:00

OK, so Halloween didn't turn out exactly as expected. Like most weekends these days, our weekend was crazy busy. I'm embarrassed to tell you what all it included, let's just say I'm counting down the days until 2 sports of Jonah's are over for the season. That will free up about 7 hours EVERY WEEKEND for one parent and one child in our family. Halloween weekend also involved THREE parties for our kids. And remember when I told you I wasn't sure what we were going to do about Art this term? Well, I figured it out. It's great and free, but it's in Brooklyn. On Saturday. In between about 4 other things. To top off all this regular jazz, I seem to have all these meetings and other things...yikes.
So trick or treating time rolled around. I had just gotten back with Maya from her ballet rehearsal. We had 1/2 hour to get ready to go out. I, in case you can't tell, was a Silly Band Collection. I know, instead I just look like an old, lame hippie that sells burritos at Shakedown Street. Hair that's been parted in the middle so long it isn't ever going to do anything else. But I had a ton of Jonah's Silly Bands safety pinned on, in my hair, up and down my arms. Jonah's costume was particularly rad--Roman Gladiator! Maya had super cute purple and black striped tights and boots that you can't see in this photo. Brett was dressed as a doctor--in hospital scrubs with white sneakers and a stethoscope. We were all set. Except for the Toddler Monster Formerly Known As Peanut (TMFKAP). He was asleep. Way too late in the day. Don't worry, he hadn't been roaming around all over the city all day. He had stayed at home with whichever parent was home at the time. But now we needed to go and he was asleep. So we woke him up. You know when you take a nap too late, and get woken up and you are beyond grumpy? His screaming, tantrum rage fit lasted for the entire 1/2 hour that we had left. So three of us sadly left without him, leaving poor Dr. Brett at home with the beast, mostly because my Silly Bands had taken longer to put on than his hospital pants, and we are nothing, us Spositos, if not fair about time management.
It was very strange to trick or treat without the 3rd kid. But looking back on it, although TMFKAP had taken to trick or treating a couple weeks ago, in the last week he had refused to wear any sort of costume, and he was really afraid of Halloween decorations. So he holed up at home, watched a movie, while Brett probably drank straight shots to tune out the ear splitting screaming (oh, that would have stopped by the time the movie started). Clever TMFKAP--he just sat there, not doing any work, not having to brave the cold winds and the loud subway, and then when the other kids came home with bags of candy, he just helped himself. Candy, and no effort!
To be honest, Halloween is the strangest time of the year here to me. It usually isn't cold yet, or at least it isn't indoors, where most of the trick or treating takes place. In fact if you ever want to be scantily clad in your costume, come here. Even if there's a chill in the air, you can guarantee you'll be sweating on the subway and in the building where you're going. We've done none of the harvest festival type things that I used to love in the NW--pumpkin patches, cider donuts, hay rides, corn mazes. OK, this year Maya and I saw a witch towing 300 lit jack-o-lanterns across the Harlem Meer at dusk. That was cool. But I miss neighborhood trick or treating and all that goes with it. Kids can trick or treat ALL DAY LONG up and down Broadway. Seriously. We tried it in the early afternoon. You go into a shop or restaurant or dry cleaner and just trick or treat. Crazy. There are so many people here who have experience in some type of performing arts, that many, many adults go to great, elaborate lengths with full face make up, wigs, etc. for their costumes. There are lots of adult parties, and it is just a completely different holiday here, one for which I don't really feel I "get" the scene. Halloween leaves me missing the NW more than any other time of the year. Especially this year, since Simon and Brett ended up stuck at home. It just felt a bit melancholy. I think that's just me though--the kids seemed to have a lot of fun. Trick or treating indoors has it's benefits--if it rains, no matter. No coats needed, no adult chaperones, really, if you choose a nice building.
Hopefully TMFKAP will participate next year too.

Ode to Book Clubs and Boys

2010-10-22T23:52:00.003-04:00

I adore book clubs. I mean, really, really LOVE book clubs. Right now in my life, book clubs take 4 forms. The first is my Portland book club of about 12 years. Solid, joyful, deep, comfortable, connecting--I still keep up with what they read, and whenever I am in town I weasel my way into one of those amazing gatherings.
The second is Maya's bookclub--for moms and girls. We are going on year 3 right now. It has evolved a bit, but is similarly wonderful. We read the same books, moms and girls, and we have a comfortable groove for discussing things.
The third is a NYC mom's book club that I started about a year ago--we meet at a restaurant for dinner or dessert. There is a large group of women invited, and it is a different crowd that shows up every week--ranging from just one other person to 5 or so. It is a refuge, a monthly break from all things children, and an opportunity to be social and explore a new hot spot.
Tonight we had our first Boys Book Club. I must admit, I had my doubts--we started at dinner time with pizzas. After polishing off two enormous pies (and then some) the boys (and a few siblings) took off in an elaborate pirate/light saber/magic wand/shrieking/Nerf gun game that made them sound like at least a dozen children. Us moms chatted about schedule/format and other issues, a bit intimidated with how to start. Enter Maya:
"Ummm, if you don't start soon, I don't see how you're going to get those boys to stop playing and start talking about books!"
Maya. Always tells it like it is.
Ahem.
We called 'those boys' into the living room--they came tumbling in, screeching to a roly poly halt on the floor around the coffee table. Their faces eager and shining and hopeful and alert. We talked about how reading books is a bit like being a detective, and we have clues to what an author is trying to tell us but we have to figure out why he bothered to tell us anything at all. We mentioned the terms plot, protagonist and the antagonist, and how one drives the action forward and one pushes it back. We talked about how we did, actually, dare to "ruin the story" after all, for those who haven't finished the book--this is showtime--the whole book is up for grabs, and how can we talk about what it means if we can't discuss the whole book? We got into a groove about volunteering a comment without monopolizing or traipsing down the road of a tangent.
The book we discussed was Crispin by Avi. Set in the time of serfdom--a dark story about loss and hopelessness that turned into survival and connection in unlikely circumstances and the overall hopefulness of the possibility of social change. There was deception and death and discretion and fighting scenes. A perfect boys' book.
I sort of ran this meeting, since I am one of the few moms in our group who has had experience with and passion for book clubs. A lot of the meeting was me trying to lead gently--drawing them out, guiding their wild stories into order and structure. Helping them to focus and follow a productive path. They were tumbling over each other with their words--excited to contribute, eager to DO something with their thoughts about the book.
And so I fell in love with them.
Not with who they are right now.
But with the men they will become.
There is something about these boys.
their wildness
their energy
their sense of justice
their strength
They are hunters and protectors and leaders.
Watching boys grow up and learning to harness their power--it reminds me of Hercules, who kept getting into trouble because his strength kept making him destroy things when he only meant to help. Or a puppy with oversize paws who clumsily knocks everything over when he is playing.
As these boys grow up--as they learn
to show restraint
to be humble instead of crowing about their victories
to have discipline
to connect to others and be a part of a team
I can see them beginning the metamorphosis from boy to man.
I can see the point--of the sports, the fighting, the social jockeying.
And I'm so grateful that I get to be a boy mom too. It is magnificent.
I know girls. I am one, and the path is familiar, comfortable, where I spend most of my time. But this other path, this boy path--it is louder and rougher and more meandering and it calls forth things from me that I don't otherwise have cause to access.
It sizzles, this boy path.
As I sat there tonight--watching those shining eyes, listening to their lisping, cautious first attempts at literary analysis--I am inspired by their very boyness. That they admire strength and leadership and doing the right thing even if it is uncomfortable or lonely or violent. Their study of characters is totally different from what the girls come up with. I was surprised to notice this right off the bat in our first meeting.

May we have many more discussions down the road--of literature's heroes and villains. May it be a place to learn about who we want to be and how we want to play our part.

I'm so grateful to all of you BOYS. Your vibrant, beautiful little selves.

On Playing Games With Simon

2010-10-14T00:43:00.002-04:00

Simon is just 2 years and 4 months.
And he's playing games with us!
I don't know what it is, but when my little peeps are big enough to play a game, it feels like such a turning point. That they understand the structure of rules, that we can interact without being a slave to Toddler La-La Land, parallel play or resorting to distraction or teaching or even just spacey co-existence. As I write this, I realize that this says more about my personality than anything else...but that sounds like a post for another day.
So Simon's game of choice is Clifford Bingo. He gets it. He always chooses a card with an "O", since that is his favorite letter. I call out the letters. We play until the entire card is full. Then he says "Bingo!" and dumps the covers back in the box and chooses a new card. I'll say "Who has a....'D'?" and he'll either say "Yeah D!" or maybe "No D" or "Mama D", and he thinks it's really funny if he said he doesn't have it and then I see that he does.
We've tried Candyland. Not quite ready yet. He plays for about seven minutes, then scatters the cards all over the place, or he turns over all the cards to look for the candy pieces.
Having more luck with the Madeleine game, which is similar to Candyland, but instead of cards we use a little bag with colored glass gemstones. They are fun to handle, and he digs that. But he cheats something fierce. If you draw a purple stone, you get to draw a card. So he says "My tuhn!" then pretends to close his eyes, but really he looks in the bag through his squint and selects a purple. Every single time. He acts surprised, as in "Oh look! Poh-pul. I daw card."
I've also tried concentration-type games. There are no synapses firing at all. He sees the cards as obstacles for his cars to run over. Ditto with Hi Ho Cherry-O.
Oh well. For now, I've got Bingo.

School Report

2010-09-29T00:53:00.003-04:00

History--Story of the World Volume I--Ancient Times
Math--Singapore 5A and 3B
Writing--Writing With Ease 3 and Writing Strands 3
Science--Biology, Anatomy and Botany--mostly experiments right now, involving things like carnations and celery. Plus Maya has a science class with 5 other girls and a tutor once a week.
Spelling--Spelling Workout F and D
Geography--The Geography Coloring Book
Handwriting--Zaner Bloser 5 and 3
Latin--Latin for Children
French--private tutor
Spanish--private tutor
Logic--Mind Benders, Red Herrings
Grammar--Voyages in English and First Language Lessons
P.E.--baseball, soccer, swimming, ballet, gymnastics
Music--NYU Chorus, Metropolitan Opera Chorus, violin lessons
Art--Not quite figured out yet

A lot of homeschoolers report on all the texts they use. I've never done it before in this forum. But as September comes to a close, I'm reflecting back on our back to school time. All things considered, we are getting a lot of work done around here. I must confess, we've barely started Latin, have no plan for Art and Writing is lagging. But despite juggling Toddler Monster, my big kids are plugging right along. We are doing History together this year, and I can't believe I ever tried to keep up with two different periods in history. That was insanity. We are on Ancient Egypt right now--I'm trying to decide whether or not to attempt a chicken mummy again? We've had one field trip so far--to the fire museum at Rockefeller Center. One more happens in a week, to the Met for Ancient Egyptian Art, which will work nicely with our current history progression. As always, our emphasis is still on group classes and playtime with friends, which we pretty much do every day. But we're still managing to stay on top of most of the academic work as well.
It's still been hot. Even when it rains. Hot rain. I'm not saying I'm eager for winter, but I can't even remember a time when the subway platforms didn't feel like 97 degrees. Even if you wear a jacket on the street, you walk down those subway stairs and it's all you can do not to tear off your pants once they start sticking to your legs with sweat.
The city is empty of kids during the day now--everyone is back in school, and us homeschoolers--we can reclaim the playgrounds and libraries. Probably the single greatest benefit to homeschooling--maybe 2 hours of class then 2 hours in the playground with a big group of kids. It is a perfect ratio for little people.
Grateful for the opportunity to homeschool my kids.

More pictures from August

2010-09-21T01:57:00.002-04:00

My dear friend Isla.
More friends--Brooke and Sarah, on our hike in the gorge.
Grandpa Stan and Cousin Faith--at Jamison Square in Portland.
Great Grandpa Ken and Great Grandma Elly out to breakfast one morning.
Getting ready for pool time with Grandpa Chuck.

August Memories

2010-09-21T01:37:00.003-04:00

My sister and my mom--So fun to hang out with both of them at once! I'm a little blurry in this one, I think one of my kids took the shot.
Simon LOVED playing mini-golf. He cheered wildly for anyone who got their ball in the hole. Note the tubes of toothpaste in his hand. Have you ever seen a cuter putter?
Jonah here with my dad--learning how to steer the boat on our way out crabbing.
Here is Simon after he enjoyed a chocolate ice cream cone.
Maya and her good friend Abbie in a tree.

Re-Entry

2010-09-10T00:21:00.002-04:00

Here we are. Back in this city. It's been beautiful this week, and we are mostly unpacked. We had a wonderful 3-week summer visit to Portland and the Washington Coast. On the return trip we had to be at the airport at the crack o' dawn on Monday morning. We ended up staying with friends until pretty late the night before, and between all the stuff I had to do to get us out the door, and the fact that all three kids woke up multiple times in the night for various reasons, I pretty much pulled an all-nighter. Sigh. So let's just say I've been a walking zombie so far this week.
We walked in the door by 6 or 7 Monday night. By 10 the next morning we had to leave for our annual Not Back To School Picnic. It's in Central Park, and includes just about everyone we know in NYC. Before it started, I had a Council Meeting at a picnic table with the other 7 members of our homeschooling council. Right from the picnic, I had to take Maya to her first Met Opera Chorus class. Talk about intense. It is at the opera house at Lincoln Center. You might have seen it if you were watching the opening of the Fall Fashion Week fashion shows that started on Tuesday--chairs were arranged around the fountain in the plaza in front of the opera house. You can see a killer photo of it here. That is the plaza we were trying to get across! It was a couple hours before the show started, but still, you can imagine the scene out there--the models already had hair and make up done, and were walking around with stylists. It was super cool. We had trouble getting in the building due to all the blockades, security for models and policemen stationed around the square. We finally made it, huffing and puffing, with 10 minutes to spare, only to find a freaking-out mom who was in a tizzy because she thought her son was too late for the class. After being reassured by the chaperone that the kids (including Maya), had plenty of time, she finally turned to me to answer my question:
Kristin: "Are the kids missing something if they aren't here early?"
She: "Well! You can't be LATE to the opera!" (this was accompanied by a toss of her hair and a nose in the air)
I made a note to self to steer clear of this diva. But turns out I should have paid more attention. Today, we had two kids who needed to be in different places at the same time. Brett had an emergency at work and was a few minutes late in meeting me to pick up Jonah. I waited in the car on the corner for him to emerge from the bowels of the subway station, in angst over whether I should drop him and Jonah off at baseball practice or drop off Maya at Chorus first. I opted for baseball, since it technically started 15 minutes before Chorus. When I dropped Maya off for her class, there were suspiciously no kids in the waiting area. I moved the car, and went back in to check to make sure she got in. Some nice women told me that someone had already come 3 times to escort the kids to class, and I finally figured out there was a phone on the wall and that I could dial the chaperone. But alas, even though she was there 10 minutes early, they said we were too late, and we just had to leave. Sigh. I guess you really can't be late to the opera. They would not allow a mere street person (me) to walk her upstairs to the practice room, and suddenly the chaperones are otherwise engaged?? We'll get there a full 1/2 hour early from now on.
This week has been a reversal of our usual family dynamics. My stable, oldest child, is suddenly overcome with emotion, drama and unwillingness to do anything. 5th grade is "too hard", she doesn't want to do any of her activities, she's tired of her brothers and is ambivalent about seeing her friends. My normally more difficult middle child is suddenly at ease, stable, helpful and happy. He actually played with his pirate ship this morning for A WHOLE HOUR. All by himself. Those of you who know him well know how exceedingly rare this is. My youngest is eating like a champ (he nursed like an infant while we were traveling), happily occupying himself for long stretches and cheerfully grateful for city living. The hives that he's had for a week or more all over his legs are pretty much gone. OK, these are self-diagnosed hives, but after much research, I'm pretty sure that is what they are. He had some enormous tantrums the last week of our trip, including one after getting off the 2nd airplane that had me calling Brett (waiting outside) to tell him it would be a while before I could physically get him out of the airport. Sigh. At least he did great on all the actual airplanes. As for the hives, they are worrisome because they are so weird--sometimes appearing and disappearing before my eyes, leaving him scratching intensely, especially at night. He had pretty much every trigger for hives there is last week (including shellfish, chocolate, stress, blah blah blah), but none of the rest of us have ever had a single hive. I bought some benadryl to have around, and the bumps he has left seem to be responding to the homeopathic remedies I just happen to have. His personality seems to be reset--he is way more flexible and easy going than he was for the last week, and he is handling our comings and goings with cheerful ease. Maybe he really did just want to go "home", like he asked every day multiple times!
Jonah's baseball practice was fabulous, and Brett is happy to be assistant coaching again. His first game is on Sunday. Maya has a trial ballet class tomorrow with a new teacher, and we've spent loads of time outside with lots of kids, enjoying beautiful fall feeling weather in the parks. Tomorrow we also have a park birthday party, and this weekend I have two lovely escapes--a monthly breakfast with some neighbor friends and I, and my NYC bookclub for dinner on Sunday.
The return to schoolwork has been a mix--Jonah is well into every subject he can possibly be doing, and Maya has tears at the mere suggestion of anything structured. Vacation suits her very well, lack of sleep, not so well. Hopefully we are nearly recovered and she will get back to her cheerful little self soon.
Photos and more stories to come soon, as I get more caught up. Thank you so much to everyone that we spent time with this summer--it was a wonderful trip and we are so grateful to have all of you in our lives, even if we do have to travel all the way across the country to see you. :)
Happy first week of school everyone!

Departure

2010-08-15T22:42:00.002-04:00

We leave tomorrow for the NW. Just the kids and I are going; this time of year is tough for Brett, who is in the middle of field work, deadlines, and crazy schedules. Interestingly, the weather here cooled off significantly today, and I understand it is supposed to be hot in Portland. We're ready...well, not quite, still have some packing to do tomorrow. But we've worked hard to get all the laundry ready, go through the paperwork and get ourselves organized. Visiting the northwest is strange for us, because it is home, in so many ways. But increasingly, home is here now, and it feels so bizarre to go back and visit.
We'll be gone for 3 weeks this visit--and while that isn't nearly as long as last summer's 7 weeks, it's a pretty long time to be away from Brett and our routine, our stuff and our new life. Still, a majority of our friends here get the hell out of the city in the summertime, so it's sort of part of this lifestyle--the dads stay here and work and drive upstate or wherever their families are when they can.
Our big kids are really excited to see relatives and friends from Oregon--they've kept up many relationships there and it is a big, juicy vacation for them. For me? Well, it reminds me that I haven't fully committed to this city. That we don't have this place that feels like a real home, that we haven't said we're going to stay--it makes me feel a bit rudder-less to go back to something so familiar without an anchor here. We keep bumping up against the same brick wall--we never actually stop looking at apartments here. They are close...but just out of reach.
*****
This sounds wistful, longing. Perhaps it is. But even so, I don't think I'd trade this for that. We've had a pretty good summer here--several trips to the beach, waterslides, upstate for a pool party, track and golf for the kids, killer watermelons, fountains, swimming, water fights, ice cream and popsicles at will.
Just yesterday, having dropped Maya at The Frick Collection, I wandered Madison Avenue--it was all mine--quiet in the morning--ice tea and a pedicure, window shopping and meandering. We sat in Central Park for an hour so the girls could play after their art class. Then we headed home for a brief rendezvous with our boys, who had played soccer in another part of the park while we were gone. Brett and I had a date in the afternoon--to the NY Historical Society's Grateful Dead exhibit--it was small, but a trip down memory lane for us, and we loved the decorated envelopes from fans who were begging for mail order tickets to a Dead Show...Afterward, we sat on a park bench and I felt the first whispers of autumn--it was warm, but there was a change--a reminder that the summer will fade, eventually, if not this week.
Today we went to a birthday party at Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. It was filled with kids and theater games, a walk across the street to the beach, where the kids swam while we watched from the sand.
That's all for tonight--just that I'm not sure whether I'm leaving to go back home tomorrow, or that I'm leaving home to go back. Regardless of which one it is, I'm already missing my sweet husband and life partner, and I'm realizing that maybe I need to think of home as less a place and more a relationship. Our family is a home, even if it is temporarily lodged in an apartment in Harlem. Even if it is spread out across the country for a few weeks.

NYCHEA Players--It's a Hard Knock Life

2010-06-29T23:35:00.001-04:00

Looks like I need to visit the middle...

2010-06-29T02:44:00.001-04:00

visited 25 states (50%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

Babies

2010-06-08T22:58:00.004-04:00

No, don't get excited. We aren't having another one. I mean the new documentary we saw last week. We've been watching this trailer for months:

Babies

Sorry, can't seem to embed it here, it has been disabled, but go watch it by following the link.
It is a beautifully filmed documentary that follows four babies, from four different countries (Namibia, Mongolia, Japan and the U.S.) through their first year.
It is funny and sweet, and although there's no narration at all, it doesn't lag, it's a lovely film.
I haven't stopped thinking about it since we saw it last week. I'm no stranger to parenting ideas that seem outlandish to most people I know...but it was refreshing and inspiring to see such a movie on the big screen. There were a few moments that made me shift uncomfortably in my seat--the contrast between the modern babies in their "Mommy and Me" classes singing "The Earth is Our Mother" while the African baby was wallowing in dirt, drinking from a stream and chewing on some bones. The connection of the urban babies to the earth is dubious at best.
Then there was the Mongolian baby, frequently tied to things with a ribbon in his family's yurt while they did the chores--the stray animals would wander in and out, and sometimes his big brother would torture him, presumably while no adults were looking. The African mother wipes her diaperless baby's bottom with her hand when he poops, then cleans up with a corn cob. The Mongolian baby's mom washes his face with breastmilk. The city babies spend time in glass elevators, sparkling high rise buildings and clean rooms full of toys. Nobody seems worried when the rural babies lick animals or wander, crawling, through a herd of cattle. The Japanese baby collapses in frustration when she can't fit her blocks on a post.
I can't help but note that the urban babies are at a serious disadvantage--not just physically--although it's true, they certainly aren't walking around balancing something on their head at the end of the first year like the African baby. The disadvantage that is most disconcerting, however, appears to be the spiritual one. The African and Asian babies are left to their own explorations, most of the time, and they seem to experience a continuous companionable solitude. The urban babies already show stress at structure and schedule and behavioral expectations that seem inappropriate to their developmental stage.
Of course there are other factors, not addressed in the film that are relevant in this discussion--like what percentage of babies exposed to unclean water or disease (from all those flies on their faces) actually don't make it to adulthood? I wonder, if you offered a western lifestyle on a silver platter to those Africans sitting in the dirt, if you'd have any takers? On the flip side, I wonder how many babies brought up the way these Africans are raised feel a happiness and contentment in life that many of us can't possibly imagine? The babies who are more hovered over and "managed" have to fight and struggle for their autonomy and for the clash between their evolved expectations of the world and the way the world actually is; is it true that despite their babyhood there is some point where their advantage in the modern world is an undeniable asset? Which babies grow up to be more kind and which ones struggle to have relationships? Is depression more common in countries who parent in a westernized way?
It's left me with a lot to think about.
I don't know the filmmakers, or if they set out to make a particular point.
In summary, it's clear that all four babies are loved and nurtured and cared about in the way that their cultural training deems best.
Perhaps, in the end, that's all that matters.

Go see the movie! Take your babies and toddlers and children--they'll love it.

Salad and Floaties

2010-05-26T22:06:00.002-04:00

I walked into the bathroom tonight to see Simon cowering in a corner of the bath and Jonah, with his clothes on, standing in it too. "What's going on?" I ask...it was a very suspicious looking scene. Jonah didn't look up--he was staring intently at the water with his hands cupped. "Simon is afraid of the things floating in the tub, and I'm trying to get them out for him." He grabbed a handful of water and threw it over the edge of the tub onto the floor. "Got one!" he said, and Simon cheered, but then quickly reverted back to his fearful face and pointed at some other tiny floating speck.
It's all because of the salad. My baby loves salad. You think this is a good thing, right? But it's just not. It never turns out that when we have salad we don't end up with greasy salad dressing on everything--our clothes, Simon's hair, the floor...Babies have really poor teeth for chewing up raw veggies competently, and Simon's passion for balsamic vinegar means that his hands get involved, in order to make sure everything is properly drenched. Half of the lettuce bites are too big, so he chews for a while then throws them onto his neighbor's plate to avoid gagging on them. The olives, of course, go on his fingers, beans have to be eating one by one, and the chicken? Why do I keep forgetting that he doesn't want the chicken? He efficiently dispatches any pieces he comes across to the floor. Then he rubs his hands all over his hair, clinching his fate of being bathed immediately after dinner.
In fact, I didn't even attempt to wipe him down first, I put him in the tub, clothes and all, to undress him right there before I ran the water. And that, I suspect, is the source of the tiny little things floating in the water. To be honest, I was struck by how sweet it was for Jonah to have taken Simon seriously and to work toward helping him with his problem. He is growing beautifully into his role as big brother, and it is a delight to see it. Never mind that it took a lot of mopping to get all the water off the floor.

Science and Grouchy People

2010-05-21T22:24:00.002-04:00

Could whoever stole Simon today please bring him back? The possessed evil baby that you left in his place really wore us all out.
The stroller broke in Brooklyn, on a bumpy sidewalk.
It was hot and sticky.
We had the most horrible array of leftovers for dinner.
Carrying a grouchy baby and a broken stroller and all the gear from the science fair was a drag.
The science fair was only so-so this year. We nearly had a family breakdown before it even started, but managed to buck up and do it anyway. It is amazing how consistent people are. We walked in the room and the ROUND tables were immediately noted by Maya, who was extremely displeased. She had imagined her experiment on RECTANGULAR tables. Or at least SQUARE tables. Her posterboard was to be displayed on the music stand that would be stationed flush with the flat edge of one of the aforementioned RECTANGULAR or SQUARE tables. It was like a flashback to when she was three and had to have the BLUE plate, or her sandwich cut into TRIANGLES. She began blinking rapidly and wouldn't make eye contact. I could have helped her, but El Diablo was whining and moaning so persistently that nobody within a 15 foot radius of us could think clearly. So I sat nursing grumpily in what became known as The Grouchy Corner, since I was later joined by 3 other moms whose kids were driving them to drinking that day. Maya was rescued by my friend Madeline, who helped fill up her bowls of water--the fact that she couldn't get any warm water out of the bathroom sink was not helping matters at all. Hard to do heat transfer experiments with only cold water.
Meanwhile, Jonah was acting totally disabled, lacking all ability to get his stuff out of bags, set up his table (Rocks!) and interact with kids coming to look at his display. His was about identifying rocks as igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic, and he had a word search, a rock quiz and a bunch of rocks to identify with some identification guides.
I don't do this very often, but I sat in the G.C. and didn't help at all. I didn't look at any other kids' exhibits, I didn't talk to my kids or bail them out when they ran out of copies or spilled water on the table or didn't know how to ask questions that the other kids asked. I tried not to care when other parents asked them things and it became clear that they didn't really have a significant depth of knowledge about their chosen topics.
Ultimately, they both declared their experiments a success, I ate most of a Toblerone bar, and the garden outside the church where we were meeting was so inviting that a group of 10 of us parents might as well have been having a private dinner party. In summary, we managed to kick out the bad feelings and have an OK day.

May

2010-05-20T23:25:00.004-04:00

I have written so many blog posts in my mind...my thoughts are on the city, on books I've been reading, on families and education and children and prejudice. There's money and history and politics. There is our housing dilemma (as in where in the heck are we going to settle?)
But the reality of it all is that my days are so deliciously full that I never seem to find time to write about it.
I don't have a solution tonight. But as I sit here with my big girl and her friend who is sleeping over, I just thought I would tell you, internet, that I'm here.
Jonah snuck off to bed, and the girls are watching Howl's Moving Castle, a beautifully illustrated Miyazaki film. I really love how Japanese films reflect the cultural acceptance of spirits and supernatural in a way that is really different from the American take on such things.
Brett has to wake up at 4:30 am to start a new field job in New Jersey. I hope we aren't keeping him awake! This sleepover snuck up on us--Lexi is leaving for the summer in a week and a half, and we'll really miss their family while they are gone.
Today was the Annie Reunion picnic on the Great Hill. We now have video of Maya's show. Let me know if you would like to see it--I am thinking of sending a copy around to friends
then maybe have you mail it along to someone else who is interested.
In other news, Maya auditioned and was accepted to be in the Metropolitan Opera Children's Choir. It looks like an amazing program (and free), and will start in the fall, with 2 times a week practices. Eventually, she will be able to audition (and get paid) to participate in any operas that use children. The audition process was very intimidating--8 kids, 7 parents in two rows, the very nice choir director at the piano, playing notes that they had to match in front of the group--then 2 notes and they had to sing the bottom one, then 3 notes and they had to match the middle one. Also they had to sing "Happy Birthday" in 3 different keys. Maya did great, and she has a lot of friends in the program, so except for the fact that I will have to clone myself to get her in one place and Jonah in another at the same time, I'm thrilled she gets to do it.

Simon started the No Phase. Whatever you ask him, he says, "No!" with feeling and enthusiasm. It would be funny if it weren't so annoying. In between, however, he is so sweet and funny, and I totally forgive him for it. Today he and his friend J.J. wandered off by himself and played in the woods together. It was really cute. Simon likes to clean things with Q-tips, vacuum, wipe off the toilet seat, make phone calls and help with the cooking. He can count to 10 and knows his colors and he likes to do "math" in the big kids' old workbooks! He also is really into shrieking and running up and down the hallway, and sometimes he writes on the walls and he still puts things in the recycle bins for no apparent reason. When we go shopping, he loads all sorts of things into the cart while I'm not looking and he insists on swiping credit cards and metro cards when we pay or pass through the turnstiles.

It is supposed to be hot tomorrow...and the kids have their science fair. A heat transfer experiment for Maya and all about rocks for Jonah.

Off to bed!

OK, sleepiness is overtaking. Off to bed. I am going to try and write more in the near future. I'm hoping for more focus and less rambling, generic updates.

Annie and Baseball Pants

2010-04-22T23:46:00.004-04:00

Here is an example of how my life is these days--I was planning to write a blog post about Maya's recent experience of being in a play. As I was writing, I started doing things that I have been meaning to do, like reading the program, particularly the bios. Six Firefox tabs and an hour later my blog post hasn't progressed much, but I know much more about the man who did the music direction for the show, and I've learned that my kids can audition for the free New York City Opera Children's Chorus if I sign them up by next week...It is my mission to discover all the free opportunities in this crazy city that might offer up some interesting diversions in the name of homeschooling...Not sure if the kids will even be interested, like I can't convince Jonah to try the American Ballet Theater's FREE program for boys. He just refuses. Way too into sporty, boy-ish things. Hmmm, I know, I just need to take him to see Billy Elliott....Will add that to mental checklist.
But I digress. What I really wanted to say is that I'm so grateful Maya had this opportunity. Among the parents in our homeschooling group, I would say the majority of them have backgrounds in something to do with theater or performing. So what that means is that instead of volunteering to do something that I would normally volunteer for, like going to Costco and buying snacks for the concession stand, there are say, former costume designers volunteering to find costumes for the orphans. Or dancers doing the choreography, or artists painting the sets. It was such an incredible experience. About the time I was walking home from the theater in the West Village at 10 pm on a Saturday night and saw my third group of men wearing feathers and shiny things, it really solidified what a singular experience it was. For me, ha! I'm just the mom that brought her to rehearsals and occasionally peeked through the doorways...but for Maya--to have this opportunity to be in a real show, that bought the rights to perform the play in its entirety and hired a musical director and live musicians...the fact that she spent so much time with about 40 other cast and crew members and got to be a part of a team of people all working together to make something spectacular...It was just a really cool thing. And those kids looked GOOD up there! It was a lot of fun.
On the subway ride home after the last performance, Maya said she didn't want it to be over...
Pictures coming soon, I'm trying to figure out who has them, since we weren't allowed during the performances.
Jonah is having a similar experience right now with baseball--luck of the draw, he ended up with a coach who was a former minor league player and is just dynamite. He is having 3 practices a week right now (most kids his age in this league have only 1), and not only does he wear really cute baseball pants, but he is having the time of his life and is learning a ton. So is Brett, who frequently leaves work early to pick up Jonah and take him to practice. Soccer is also underway, and normally Jonah is way into that but it is taking a backseat to baseball for the moment.
Now if we could just get those Annie songs out of our heads...

Double Digits

2010-03-08T23:11:00.003-05:00

Oh what a beautiful day for a birthday! Today Maya had a skating party at the rink near our apartment in Central Park. There were 12 kids who joined us on the rink. Everyone was happy to shed coats and hats and bask in the 60 degree sunshine. Here she is with her good friend also named Maya!

Simon helped to blow out the candles once we got back home--he is starting to figure out this whole birthday thing.
Jonah was a happy camper--he is great friends with a lot of Maya's girlfriends, and even though this party was all about the girls, he had fun too.
Favorite new birthday top from Grandma and Grandpa!
We bought a helium tank and blew up a bunch of balloons and got take out from one of our very favorite restaurants for lunch--the kids skated and ate and ate...Baskin Robbins screwed up our ice cream cake. They felt bad, so guess what? They gave us TWO ice cream cakes. We'll be having a lot of dessert this week. Maya couldn't decide if she wanted a pogo stick or another American Girl Doll...we ended up getting her the doll (Josefina), deciding that the longer little girls play with dolls, the better. The dolls end up being models for clothing that she likes to sew or hairstyles she likes to practice. When she opened the doll last of all her presents a little cheer went up from the group of kids--they all love dolls too, and it was so sweet. It is so fun to see the creative, girlie-but-growing-up gifts her friends chose for her. Her and Jonah practiced magic tricks all evening from the magic set that was Jonah's gift, and she took her new lap desk into bed tonight so she could work on making cards from the card kit another friend got her.
As it turned out the day was crazy busy--our new session of swimming started today and we went right from the party to swimming lessons. I saw Maya learning the kick for the Butterfly stroke for the first time, and Jonah's new class is back in view of where I sit to watch, so I'm looking forward to seeing his class again too. After swimming, we were back over to the west side for a make up ballet class for Maya. Whew! They were some tired little kiddos by the time they collapsed into bed tonight.
I can't believe it has been ten whole years since this sweet, tiny little girl joined our lives. She has turned into a funny, creative, kind, adventuresome person that is a joy to have around. I admire her emotional intelligence, her ability to create beautiful things and her self-possession. She is a peace maker. She is strong, even though she may not look it. She is a good friend--loyal, honest and generous. She was glowing today--excited for her birthday and fun with her friends.

Happy Birthday Maya!

Sledding and Skiing

2010-02-24T00:32:00.004-05:00

We found a super sledding hill in Morningside Park last week--beautiful long run surrounded by trees and kind of undiscovered--a rare thing in the city. This was from the big snow day last Tuesday, with our old neighbor Belen.
Here's Simon on the deck of the ski lodge at Belleayre. He liked watching Maya and Jonah while they were getting started on the rope tow. When they ventured up the big chairlift he took a nap in the crowded, chaotic lodge with his Papa. By the way, Belleayre isn't going to win any fantastic ski resort awards any time soon, but it was a great place to take beginners.
Jonah, with his first ever ski lift ticket on his jacket.
Maya, learning the fine art of how to carry skiis and poles while walking in ski boots.
Maya and Jonah on the chair lift. They did great! All that ice skating has helped their skiing skills, I think--by the end of the day they were cruising down the easy hills doing lots of wedge turns. They had a lot of fun. Between swimming in the hotel pool, skiing and sledding at a friend's house, they were tired little puppies. It was a nice weekend away.

Snacks and Sledding

2010-02-11T23:16:00.002-05:00

Are you all about to give up on this blog?? I don't blame you at all, not one bit. I just downloaded photos from the camera that included Halloween pictures. Ummm, not exactly on top of our game here. But all is well, for the most part. Kids have a bit of a cold, but that didn't stop us from enjoying our snow from the past couple of days...
Simon at first wasn't so sure. It is hard to enjoy winter weather if you refuse to wear your mittens and don't like being bundled up. But after several exposures, he is finally figuring out what is fun about snow.
Maya and Jonah, on the other hand, needed no warming up to it. They spent the blizzard day on and off the roof--we realize what a treat it is to have private, safe, outdoor space that nobody else uses. They made enormous snowman balls then when they realized they couldn't lift them turned them into a snow fort and built a smaller snowman. They collected bowlfuls to eat with Meyer lemons and sugar--our favorite snow treat.
Once it stopped coming down we did some sledding in Central Park.
The other thing we really enjoy is the Magic Cabin Sno-baller. It is seriously rad.

November November

2009-11-11T02:55:00.003-05:00

November already? How can this be?
So cliche, I realize, and I don't even want to go count how many blog entries (mine or others), begin with such a sentiment. But alas, this is how it feels, that time is rolling along.
+++++++++++++++++
Our fall has been nice. We were ready to be done traveling, after an amazing summer in the NW and approached our time back eagerly. I am at the end of first quarter, school-wise, as far as the Board of Education is concerned. While our homeschooling has definitely gained an element of the chaotic, now that Simon is into everything, we seem to be accomplishing most of what we hoped to. All of a sudden Maya can write--the pieces have fallen into place and her narrations and summaries are concise, relevant, and contain all the important points. Jonah's big accomplishment of the term so far is that he is actually putting his face in the water. I saw him diving for rings on Monday. Well, OK, diving is a stretch, it was more like squatting and groping wildly, but still! His hair was completely submerged. Maya's other noteworthy accomplishment is that all of a sudden her violin playing is beautiful and she plays with confidence and joy. She is nearing the end of the first Suzuki book and she seems to really enjoy it. Jonah's other big gain seems to be in art and writing--he writes lots of letters this fall, and it isn't the chore it was last year to crank out lines of writing. His fine motor skills are much steadier and more fun for him to play around with. He has a funny sense of humor too.
+++++++++++++++
Simon is a little wild thing. Busy, curious, sweet and such a mimic, he wants to do everything we do! He lies on his tummy, holding a pencil correctly and scribbling in coloring books, he begs to shower with whoever is in, fearlessly plunging his face in the bath to blow bubbles or standing under the stream. He sings the entire Twinkle Twinkle song and builds block towers to knock down. He plays with cars and dolls and puzzles and stackers. He fills our recycling with all sorts of things all the time, same with the diswasher and washing machine. He loves to point out airplanes and trains, and notices sirens. He goes on slides by himself and likes the swings and sandboxes. Now that he has discovered candy, he begs for it, pointing to where it is stored and grunting and gesturing wildly.
+++++++++++++++
We are taking more time for ourselves--we have had 2 dates this fall already, another one planned for next weekend. Happily, we have 2 new babysitters we like a lot. One of them has a grumpy old super cute pomeranian named Yogi. I started a book club for my mom friends that meets once a month and I get to go see Jude Law in Hamlet with a friend tomorrow. Brett is getting ready to hike a section of the Appalachian Trail. I am serving on the board of our homeschooling group as Secretary. I have been busy setting up field trips to the Jewish Museum, the library with the stone lions, The Guggenheim, the National Museum of the American Indian and Fraunces Tavern.
Life is full and wonderful and these kids are such a joy. I love being with them, watching them grow and learn and marveling in their sweetness. Even when they wear me out--like recently, Simon has been waking at night--ugh! Nothing a little coffee can't remedy, and I have been indulging more frequently than usual.
New York has been a joy--more comfortable and familiar--we discover new shops and restaraunts all the time and have stumbled upon filming crews for new movies multiple times. The nice weather has meant we have spent lots of time in the parks, and Brett is still biking to work almost daily. The neighborhoods I have known as separate places are starting to merge as I fill in the spaces in between.
Happy Fall to you all.

Photo Journal #9

2009-10-19T00:24:00.002-04:00

Feeding the seagulls at Ivar's on the Seattle Waterfront
(one of them bit me, by the way)

The Pike Place Market Pig

Jonah and Ben

Just back from the hike around the lake

Yummmmm...Chocolate!

Photo Journal #8

2009-10-18T23:49:00.003-04:00

Two boys in a boat

Two girls catching fish

Multnomah Falls!
(the 2nd highest year-round waterfall in the U.S.)

The whole hiking crew--600 vertical feet in 1.2 miles

6 kids on a log

Photo Journal #7

2009-10-12T23:35:00.003-04:00

The kids thought Brett's enormous backpack was hysterical, in Sunriver, Oregon

Outdoor music festival on Sauvie Island, near Portland

We even went on a hayride

Jonah thought Crater Lake was artificially colored

Crater Lake was spectacular. It's something I've always wanted to see, but we never seemed to find the time to justify the long drive. Funny that we finally went, now that we are coming all the way across the country. Our dear friends Isla and Jamie have a cabin about an hour away. It isn't a cabin at all, its a log home, cozy and huge and gorgeous. The basement is full of pinball, air hockey and darts in a hole-up-for-the-winter-and-keep-yourself-occupied-in-front-of-the-fire sort of way. I hope we go back some day and hike all over that beautiful area.

Photo Journal #6

2009-10-08T23:40:00.003-04:00

Lemonade stand with Lauren and Louis

Jamison Square with Peyton and Cooper

Camping with Grandpa Stan and Grandma Tracy

Cousins!

First ice cream cone

Photo Journal #5, or It Wasn't all Sunshine and Roses

2009-10-07T00:26:00.003-04:00

This jump was high...and took lots of courage to work up to.

Someone got stung by a bee, right under her left eye.

Sometimes road-tripping just got to be too much

and sometimes when you are little, you can't do what you want.

Photo Journal #4

2009-10-06T23:59:00.002-04:00

~Sisters~

Look Mom, No hands!

Reluctant Horseback Rider

Non-Reluctant Horseback Rider

Going for a ride on Big Mabel

Photo Journal #3

2009-10-06T02:11:00.003-04:00

Chairlift Up, Hiking Down at Schweitzer

Even the wildest Funhogs have to do laundry sometimes

Snoozing at the Sandpoint Farmer's Market

Aunt Kimberly's Garden

The Ill-fated trip to the Weatherwax

Photo Journal #2

2009-10-06T01:53:00.003-04:00

I'm not eating all those blueberries!

Maya driving the boat with Grandpa Dorsey

A nice day on the Washington Coast with Nana Linda

Beachwalk

Tides and light and fun playing with the camera

Photo Journal #1

2009-10-06T01:32:00.003-04:00

Swimming with the Gaab kids in the backyard--in between puzzles, games, flashlights, glowsticks and ghost stories.

Enjoying the high altitude sunshine at the beach of Crescent Lake with the Wilsons. Snow-capped volcanoes in the distance and pine scented air.

My beloved PDX Bookclub--minus one.

The Bernhardt's fun yard--swing, hammock, trampoline, garden--all the things you can't fit in a NYC apartment.

A beautiful day at the Oregon Coast with the Clifford-Cummings. Sandcastles, treasure hunting and that crazy foam sword game.

We're Back

2009-10-01T00:43:00.004-04:00

This little guy is most of the reason why you haven't seen any blog entries this summer. I know, he's cute and all, but he is kind of trouble.
We spent a fabulous 9 weeks in the NW...and it was great, really a lot of fun. We moved around a lot, were able to have quality time with some of our most favorite people and family members. It was also very busy, and while I had big ambitions of blogging all summer, the reality was that we were frequently staying in places without easy internet access, not to mention the fact that there just didn't seem to be enough hours in the day. We drove all over Washington, Idaho and Oregon, and spent time hiking, boating, swimming, camping and catching up with so many people that we have missed over the past couple of years.
The kids traveled splendidly for the most part, except for a few select hours that I would purge from memory if I could, and while it was wonderful to have a car for the summer, it was just as wonderful to hand it over and get back to walking, subways and the occasional taxi. Brett was finally able to get away from work for 3 weeks in the middle of the trip and hiked a 200 mile section of the Pacific Crest Trail.
We returned to NYC and jumped right back into our fall schedule since most of it had been already underway for a week or two. Still homeschooling, the kids are doing their usual array of classes and activities--new this fall to us are swimming lessons and Coyote Tracks (based on the Children of the Earth Foundation started by Tom Brown), and so far Brett's schedule has been great--he is assistant coaching soccer and taking a 1/2 day off to do the Coyote Tracks class with the big kids. I was able to attend my book club twice in Portland, and just started one here in New York that met for the first time this week. I am so excited about it!
The actual academic portion of homeschooling is definitely more challenging with a toddler around. All of a sudden Simon wants to scribble on every piece of paper, "read" every book and nibble on erasers. He babbles while anyone is reading aloud and if you ignore him he starts throwing things at your head. We are making progress, but I'd be lying if I said there weren't moments of total chaos. But it's all good, he is a sweetie for the most part, and I am so grateful to be able to be home with the kids--their schoolwork is interesting and fun and they are thriving.
I am getting the photos off the cameras and will post belatedly about our NW adventures.

Movie Night

2009-07-15T23:14:00.002-04:00

We are nerds. But we did go and see the 6th Harry Potter movie tonight. We couldn't help it--our family has been SO into this story for years now. That the subway columns are wrapped with bigger than life replicas of the movie characters and the buses are plastered with posters only served to up the hype for us and our little people.
Simon stayed with a friend and knows nothing about our evening--that must be so strange to see the 4 other people you live with go off together to have an outing that you can't even comprehend. He was taken to the park and on a walk and seemed to have had a grand time playing with their cat.
I have to agree with the NY Times on most accounts--love, love love most of the adult actors, the film is a combo of brilliant cinematography and ho hum segments where you can feel the indecision they must have had about what to keep and what to toss. We were not bored, however with the teenage relationships--our family found that part funny and a nice contrast to the darker, bigger plot. The books are looooooong. No way to get all that in on the big screen. I think they did a great job, but it isn't my favorite movie of the series. And IMHO they really screwed up by not releasing last fall as originally planned. I can't believe we have to wait two more years for the end of the series. But OK, we'll wait, and we'll see the rest on the big screen and we're still thrilled that there is something left to wait for. In the meantime, we just might have to read the whole series again...

Perspective, Burgers Night, Africa and Dog Toenails

2009-06-28T01:14:00.005-04:00

Today we drove by our old apartment and it was green and beautiful in Central Park, and we were filled with thoughts of our furry pup. I was reminded of how some nights I put off walking him until it was so late I couldn't put it off any more. Our doorman would hear us coming and know by the combination of our toenails and rain boots whom to expect. He, regal and imposing in his uniform, protectively silhouetted in the doorway, watching for my safe return. We would chat late at night, he and I. Admiring each other--me for his fluency in so many languages, his comfort with a continent I find utterly exotic, his work ethic, his single-minded goal of being here for ten years in order to build a home in Africa for his family. I imagined the sun as it rises in his homeland, the dusty road, the marketplace and the familie ties. And he? I don't know why he admired me, or even, for sure, that he did. He thought I worked hard, carrying babies and things for the kids, and he saw my dedication to them. He liked my dog and tossed him treats caught in floppy canine lips, wrenched apart with a sucking sound just before impact.
++++++++++++++++
Tonight it was just the boys and I, all three of them, since Maya was away at a sleepover birthday party. Burger and movie night. How strange, the balance of life, how you wish for one thing, and you can't see your way out of where you are and then one day, there you are on the other side, nostalgic for what you have left behind. It was strange today to have a family composed of only boys. How different things would be without our little U.N. peacekeeping girl. She orchestrates, helps, brightens the room. She pretty much does anything that is asked, patiently, tirelessly and happily. I remember a time when she cried whenever I walked out the door and I longed to be away from the suffocating phase of a child who forever orbits around only myself. Now she is with other girls, in the Bronx watching stars from the roof and eating sweets and staying up late giggling.
It may have crossed my mind a time or two that Banchi wouldn't live forever on a night when I didn't want to go outside. His clicking toenails grated on my nerves as he surreptitiously suggested it might be time to go out. Here I am with the renewal of license from the state of NY, and for the first time I have to check the box that says I don't own him anymore. He will be officially gone and out of the record books. Wish I could hear his nails clicking once again and bury my face in his furry little head.
++++++++++++++++
Oh, to be a master of perspective. To bear work and weariness and sadness and struggle with grace, knowing that you will one day look back and see things in a different light. Jonah is learning this right now, and every day we have to talk about it in one form or another. Yesterday, we played a game from his history curriculum and it required small playing pieces. His were Cheerios. Nobody told Simon that the Cheerios weren't up for grabs, and half way through the game he ate them. Jonah ran crying to the other room, but today when we retold the story, he laughed. A deep, belly laugh. I am so proud of him for that, I'm not sure why. Maybe because it feels like a circle, to have another child doing to him what he did to Maya and I can see him coming out the other side, even though he sometimes does it kicking and screaming. He tries to carry Simon, who patiently endures being dragged with limbs hanging or belly squeezed. The expression on his face is resigned, neutral, that of kid brothers everywhere. He is little, he knows it, and the others can take him where they wish. It is usually interesting, so for now he plays along. He adores the big kids, but he wants to touch everything they are doing, and the result is almost certainly that he upsets their game, rips their picture, bends the cards, scribbles in their books. He is a handful, in every sense of the word. He is walking, two steps at a time, but he largely crawls since he is so fast. He requires so much attention--he wants to learn everything and touch it all and he is destructive and persistent. It is exhausting. I call upon the lessons of my past to see that the warm softness of a bright eyed little miracle will one day go the way of the clicking toenails, and those dimpled hands and chubby feet will have turned into competent and strong replicas of adults.
Deep sigh, and a reminder to be in this moment while it lasts.

Demand for workers

2009-06-25T00:14:00.003-04:00

Hmmm, demand for civil engineers and other niche labor doesn't seem to be falling, even in this economy. Too bad nobody is willing to pay stay at home moms.

Base Hit

2009-06-21T03:06:00.002-04:00

The Story (a year late)

2009-06-13T00:58:00.004-04:00

A year ago I tried to write Simon's birth story. I started it no less than 5 times. I have thought about it for hours and hours, and finally, I thought the one year point was the right time to get it into words on a page. Even Pam England recommends waiting a good long time before committing yourself to your birth stories. But it still eludes me, this perfect birth story. I didn't realize why until I just read this blog entry on Dooce, and now I think I know.

The story (kind of graphic, pause first and consider if you really want to know this about me, and also long, being composed of many thoughts that occurred to me over a whole year)
****************
I was four days past my due date. It was hot and I felt the need to stretch for air in the midst of that E. Coast humidity/small apartment scene; it was like being covered with a thick blanket when all you wanted was a breeze and trees rustling overhead. I picked a fight with Brett that night, mostly because my brain couldn't comprehend his massive spreadsheet, and I was frustrated and cranky. So I went to bed, maybe around ten or so. When I woke just after midnight I knew I was in labor.
It was just starting, contractions all over the place but not regular. I woke Brett up and he graciously forgave my earlier snarky self and we quickly fell into our familiar labor partnership--me telling him what I needed and him taking care of me. That was OK for a half hour or so, but things quickly spiraled into fast, hard labor. Contractions right on top of each other, didn't I just have one? Where is the break? I need to rest. I don't want another one to start.
We drew a bath and I tried to get in, but couldn't find a groove, no position would suit me and I was so uncomfortable. More than the physical pain though, was the emotional roller coaster--I can do this, right? I've done it twice before. But this is too much, too fast, there's no break. I had contraction after contraction get away from me...I was starting to lose control and not get it back in between. I would go from the bath to the toilet to standing at the sink to the bath to the toilet to standing at the sink. Seems like an awful lot of being on the toilet for this early in labor...I wanted to push, but that seemed ludicrous an hour into things. And the back of my mind is telling me that I am crazy, that I need help that this isn't going to work. But then no, this is familiar, this is all part of it, one deep breath during that contraction. But the contractions were neverending, defying concrete beginnings and endings. And then all of a sudden I feel the head come down, and it is SO right there, and it is too much pressure and I am going to crack. I told Brett I was pushing and he said I couldn't be and I said well I am, I can't hold back, I can't help it. I kept standing up at the sink, hands gripping tight to the corners, leaning over and panting while I gathered my strength for the pushes I knew were coming. And then they were there--vein bulging, gasping, desperate pushes. Grunting, panicked, but then not, powerful, like a tornado was moving through me, I couldn't have stopped it if I tried. Burning, stretching, ohmyGodIhelpmecan'tdoitmakeitstop. And then out came little Simon's head. I hear Brett say "And...there's the head", and he caught him from behind, because for the first time in my 3 births, the shoulders needed a little push and I felt like clawing out this thing that was emerging from between my legs and I just wanted it to be over. I remember the strange feeling that this thing is me and not me also, I was touching his head and it was warm, was *my* body, but I couldn't feel it because it wasn't my body too. And out he slithered, into Brett's hands.
Then I sat down on the bathroom floor and "Oh, you're a little boy", and "Hi, there you are!" we sat there, all done, and all alone and the noises of New York surrounded us with their comforting bustle. It is one of the most intimate scenes of my life.
Like women everywhere, the moment of birth is the great eraser--the struggle you have just left behind is exactly that, left behind, overshadowed by the incredible realization that there is a new person there who didn't exist a moment before. You knew it was coming, but this, this naked, squirming, luscious little body is life itself and you are holding it in your very arms. Simon was crying and blinking at the lights and we were still hot and sweaty but the air was full of accomplishment and triumph and relief. It was so sweet. I watched the umbilical cord pump it's last pumps of good stuff into him and felt it's ropey strength. I snuggled this new little person and watched him change from being an extension of me to his own self. The whole thing took one hour and 15 minutes. There was exactly one load of laundry to wash, mostly due to the fact that we had neglected to remove the bathroom rug before my water broke. I was standing naked in my bathroom with a naked baby in my arms and the cord still attached to the placenta. There was no blood, and Simon was perfect--not messy or goopey and his little head was round and his color pink. I felt fabulous...energetic...like standing...like it was earthshattering and also just part of life.
Our midwife came an hour or so later, by that point Simon and I were nestled into bed, and she helped me push out the placenta (which wasn't out yet, much like my other births), and she checked us both out and declared that all was well.
The big kids woke up and came to see him--he was, even then, a loud little thing. Then we dressed him and all of us went back to bed. The midwife, she cut a couple pieces of placenta for me to eat to help with the post-birth headache that for me always sneaks up on that yummy scene of mama-baby bonding that was going so well until the headache takes over--as the waves of hormones cascade through my veins trying to figure out what the next step is. I ate several pieces of placenta. It was, well, just like you might expect. Spongey, slippery and metallic like blood. I swallowed them with a glass of water and even now I can still conjure the feeling I had when consuming them--just that it was primal, it felt right, but it was so against my cultural inclinations I could barely do it. It did seem to help though, and I was soon sleeping next to Peanut.

****************
So that is the birth story. And yes, we wanted to be alone. We were hoping for an unassisted birth. But you should know that if anything went wrong we would have gone to the hospital. You should also know that with a labor that fast, even the most epidural-loving person would likely not have made it to the hospital at all, not a chance. You should further know that we made these decisions consciously and happily and it was a great joy to give birth this way, and we felt very strongly that this is the kind of birth we wanted. I went over it so many times in my mind before hand, that it was as if I had scripted it. If I were to have a hundred children I doubt I would feel the same things and have the same needs for any of their births, so I really can't say I would absolutely do it again--but it is likely. I loved the feeling of truly not treating my pregnancy as a medical event. I loved that it fit into our normal life without drama or fanfare or hubub. It changed the way I thought of myself. No childcare, no big plans or packing of bags, just a couple of people working hard in their bathroom late at night to make way for a baby. I felt strong and secure that everything was fine with the baby and with myself.
I would hardly recommend unassisted birth to anyone I know. Not because I think I am stronger or better than anyone, but because I think our culture has made most people afraid of birth so that unassisted birth would be more likely to fail. I think I was immune to this fear because I know that I prefer to labor alone and I feel safer laboring alone. During the birth of my first child I was so delighted to discover that contractions (in my body), felt like cramps. I had been expecting a stabbing-you-with-a-knife feeling, something new and terrible. Imagine my relief when I discovered that my body had been practicing coping with these sensations ever since I hit puberty. I also have read nearly every childbirth book out there, have taught childbirth classes and attended 5 births as a doula. I had done lots of research, we had discussed all sorts of transfer scenarios that would take us to a hospital, and Brett was incredibly supportive of my vision of this whole thing...and by Grace, that is the birth we had. Of course it doesn't always work out that way, and I know many unassisted birthers who transfer to a hospital or have very long labors, including labors that result in something wrong with the baby. Just like any birth, there is always the possibility that something is wrong with the baby, and yes, it definitely required a lot of soul searching to consider what our comfort level was on a host of scenarios.
In the end, this is what felt right--I hold Ina May Gaskin up as my hero of birthing. I believe in her statistics, I believe that there is value in being conscious during labor and birth and in listening to your heart and trusting your body's ability to bring forth life. I thank Brett for his tireless support of my vision, for knowing what to do when and for composure and compassion under pressure. I also appreciate him for actually catching Simon, as I have this nagging little doubt--if he wouldn't have been there right then would I have let him drop on the floor? I like to think not, but I don't remember any synapses in my brain firing in a direction that would have mobilized my arms into proper position. I also didn't realize until after the fact the significant amount of pressure lying on the shoulders of the Unassisted Birth Person's Partner...really all decisions at any point, all organization, mobilization, details, childcare, interpretations, payments etc. would have been on his shoulders if things had happened in almost any other way. Wow, that is a tremendous role to play in our culture. Brett was a superstar. I also owe some gratitude toward my Dad. He and I may disagree on substantial items, like politics and war and cities and money and probably many more. But there is this part of me that stands firmly facing one way while others rush in the other direction, and I don't really care what other people think or why they aren't going the same way as I. And I know that that part of me comes from my Dad, just like the part of me that secretly wants the cat to get the mouse or the baby to taste the hot sauce. I don't think my Dad will understand this in the same way I do (if only because he hasn't read Magical Child), but to me, this desire comes from being bonded to the matrix of the Earth, and wanting things to be the way they will be, without putting make up on them and calling them something that they are not. It is the way of the world, and while our Emotional Selves and our Monkey Minds get in the way all the time, there is something very satisfying about What Is. My Dad can compartmentalize like nobody else I have ever met, and while that is not always an asset, it is an incredible life skill to be able to pull out at will. I find myself spending inordinate amounts of time coaching one of my own kids on exactly that, on a daily basis. Those two pieces of me that I learned from my Dad (not caring what others think and wanting an experience to be simply what it is) are the pieces that made me want to have an Unassisted Birth, and I am so grateful that I did. In fact, one day, when I didn't think I had it in me to listen to the shocked horror on the other end of the phone to yet another person who thought I was seriously insane for even considering not having a midwife, I talked to my Dad, and he was the only voice of support and even understanding besides Brett that I had heard. It was great, and it meant a lot.
That I even hired a midwife in the first place was more about crisis management than anything else. If I had transferred to a hospital during labor and had had no prenatal care, I would have been flagged as strange or negligient and likely opened up our whole family to a child services investigation. I can't believe that is true, but in New York City, it is true. Also if I didn't have a copy of the prenatal bloodwork on file I would not have been allowed to nurse the baby once it was born. So we compromised, we found someone who would be only backup for us if we agreed to 3 prenatal appointments and the bloodwork. She was amazing and wonderful and a great addition to our lives.
Lastly, with this birth story, I must mention that my heart goes out to those of you who have lost babies or who had labor or hospital experiences that left you traumatized, in pain or having lost a part of yourself. I must borrow a line from The Business of Being Born and say that I wholeheartedly agree that "maternity care in the United States is in crisis." It really is. And while I did go through a substantially annoying "natural birth" phase in my past, I am over that now. If anyone needs to tell me how horrible I was then, please do so. It only takes one woman who wanted a natural birth, tried for a natural birth and found herself on day 4 exhausted, despairing and making other choices to realize that "natural birth" doesn't mean anything in our country. The last thing that woman needs is to feel like she failed after she suffered. If you are swept along by a raging river would anyone say it was *your* fault? Yeah, maybe you shouldn't have stood so close to the edge, but that river? It's a monster...you really had no way of knowing what you were dealing with.
So, to bring us back to the top of the circle, I must mention that I don't identify with "freebirthers" any more than I identify with a majority of homeschoolers. I didn't know how to write this where it wasn't going to be about pushing my birthing agenda. Because, you know, I don't have one. I wanted to birth this way and I did. Parts of it were hard and scary, but really, no more so than the traditional way of birth in our country, just different. Also, I don't pretend to suggest that it always works the natural way and neither was I trying to prove something. I'm not even going to give you links to unassisted birthing pages because I couldn't find a single one that felt like me. Most of them, IMHO, are terrible. Embarrassing and not advancing any cause that I find myself aligned with. I love Dooce, and I read her all the time, but when she discusses "freebirthers", for the record, I don't even feel like she is talking about me, but maybe she would disagree. I'm just someone who had their baby at home by herself, by choice. This used to be something that women did as a matter of course, and I think they were, as a whole, much better off back then (maternity care-wise).

Birthday Boy

2009-06-07T04:15:00.004-04:00

Simon turned one this weekend. To celebrate we had a perfect party at the Children's Glade, a relatively new little corner of Central Park that is still not well known, meaning we had it mostly to ourselves. The first time I walked through a year or two ago walking the dog, I was immediately enchanted. It looks like a little English glade, maybe a kind of Secret Garden. There are actually three glades, connected by trails with lush shrubbery and trees all around. It is a stone's throw away from The Great Hill, where picnickers flock by the hordes this time of year. But the foilage between us and them meant we had quiet, shade and our own lovely little clearing in the woods.
In all, we had 26 people--kids, moms and dads. We had fruit and veggies and hummus and olives and all manner of munchies, and I made my first gluten free cake, which turned out wonderfully and was rapidly devoured.
Simon stuffed himself with strawberries and grapes, popcorn and cake. He napped up until the party started and fell asleep again on the walk home, the naps making tidy little bookends on his content little party self.
We bought a bunch of big plastic balls, and ping pong balls, and they kept him pretty entertained while the big kids ran around and played all sorts of games.
We think this might have been our favorite birthday party for one of our kids in the whole history of our kids' parties...it was that nice.

And now, magically, upon turning 1, Simon has the personality of a toddler instead of a baby. He is FAST and LOUD and he knows what he wants, and it isn't always what you want him to want. His rare moments of snuggles and quiet sweetness are incredible. And in between, well, he shrieks and explores and opens and closes and pinches and breaks and complains and bends and wiggles and kicks and dumps and throws and rolls and squishes and demands and talks and imitates...He is one busy little person.

May

2009-05-17T01:48:00.003-04:00

I can't keep up. I really can't. If only I had an entire weekend in the middle of some night, so I could catch up on those things that I am feeling rather disorganized about, with no little small people to keep steering me off course. But alas, as our bodies fight off Swine Flu and Spring Fever and Seizing The Day and all other things that begin with "S" (I can't think of any more, can you?), I find that we are all needing lots of Sleep, and my middle of the night time is usually Swallowed up with Snoring instead of Staying afloat.
But here I am, yes, in the middle of the night. I fell asleep with the small fries 3 for a few hours then awoke to stoke the fire and fight off the wild animals (isn't this why all mommies wake in the night?) Alas, my faithful spouse is far away, at yet another Dead show. His 5th (would've been his 6th if not for the nasty Madison Square Garden Ticket Debacle) in only a couple weeks, he is having a flashback to college, or something. But he is so happy, and I for him, that this little festive respite of fun-ness has stumbled into his life.
The kids and I, we are squeezing the nectar out of Manhattan. Really, this place never fails to amaze and delight. We have had sunshine--enough to require hats and sunglasses and sunscreen for those mommies who are thorough and prepared (not me). Today, after getting drenched by a monsoon at Jonah's soccer game, and drying out at home for a couple hours, we finally made it to The Rings. It was incredible. There were gymnasts, and dancers, and little girls who will one day be those things too. The most impressive was apparently a PhD in Chemistry who just likes rings. All those Cirque du Soleil performers have to practice somewhere. The "circus arts" are a popular NYC pastime--and there was someone there with about 50 hoola hoops, tightropes to walk, diabolos and juggling balls. 80's music blaring from boomboxes and volleyball games going on around the edges. I felt like I was at Venice Beach or something. The kids exercised themselves silly and then we had breakfast for dinner and most of a Harry Potter movie.
I have more to catch you up on...this was just today, so fresher in my mind. Last weekend Maya, Simon and I took a bus to Baltimore to visit my sister, who was in D.C. on business from Idaho. We stayed at her mother-in-law's inn on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where she was also a guest, toward the end of her busy week. We had the sweetest little mini-visit. It was a beasty amount of travel with an almost one year old on my lap, but we had such a lovely time. The discovery of the cheap Chinese bus is a great one--the buses are cheap, frequent, comfortable and clean, and they go all up and down the East Coast. The Inn was beautiful with a kitchen as large as my entire apartment, and ducks to feed outside, sunshine, water and I even saw a little bunny when I woke up. Maya I think has a kindred spirit in my sister, as they appear to be the only two people in either of our families with a significant amount of artistic ability. Simon is a lucky little boy that he was born in the city--he does not like carseats at all, not one bit. Lucky him that he can spend most of his time not being confined to one. And lucky for the rest of his family too, since car travel involves either his fussing or someone working their tail off to keep him happy (and therefore keeping the complaining to a minimum). Note to self: This summer, when travelling around the NW for 6 weeks, ummmm, bring lots of snacks for Simon? Something to make the moaning stop.
In other news, the past three weeks has meant a barrage of theater for the kids--all of it has been great stuff, and our last shows of the year. Simon has turned out to be pretty good at sitting and watching and not being too loud. We had our doubts--that kid talks a lot and is pretty loud and insistent when he wants to be. Also on the school front, Maya has just finished Week #1 of Kristin's Homeschool Cram Session. Is it bad to teach the fine art of cramming to one so young? I put together this insane schedule to make up for all the slacking we have done all year. I know, we have to give ourselves a break, it is the first year of homeschooling with three kids, one of whom might as well be called The Destroyer, one of whom has chronic problems occupying himself for any length of time and one of whom just wants to hum tunelessly and make a model of The White House complete with interior design components out of the recycle bin. Sigh. I'd do it again though, and I probably will next year. Meaning if there is ever something cool and fun to do, I drop the academics like a hot potato and with a grand wave of my hand I explain that we'll just make it up later. Well, now is The Later.
Still, if we don't fall off the wagon, we can be pretty much where we want to be by the end of June, ready for a dog free summer of travel. Actually the kids are begging for another dog. We still miss our Banchi, and will definitely be dog free for a while, but there is a spark of a chance that he wasn't really Last Pet after all.
Very much needing to work on our piles, filing, Simon's babybook (now when did I say he first crawled again??), finding homes for all the random jazz that is still not really put in it's place, updating our address and planning our trip to the West Coast. Simon's birthday is right around the corner, and he just started standing alone--yikes! But overall, we are doing great. The boxes are all gone, every last one. The new apartment is working out well.

More catch up

2009-04-28T00:56:00.003-04:00

Some random photos here since I have been so negligent in the photo department lately. A field trip to the Whitney Museum of American Art which I set up as part of our "are we leaving NYC or not" field trip spree, Maya's quilting class and their finished quilts, Simon enjoying the swings the week before he began refusing to wear anything on his head, Maya and Jonah's rock climbing class, and a chilly day only 2 weeks ago, which is pretty funny now that it has been near 90 degrees for 3 days in a row.

Pictures from Philadelphia

2009-04-28T00:31:00.002-04:00

Moving and Banchi kind of took over in importance, but in between all of this we had a really nice trip to Philadelphia earlier this month. Brett was in a 3 day bridge inspection class. Kids and I visited the Philadelphia Art Museum, the Free Library, The Liberty Bell, The Betsy Ross Museum, The Children's Museum and the Independence Hall presentation. It was chilly but sunny in the afternoons so we had some time at playgrounds too, and Simon decided he liked swings. Three days is not enough time to see the city--we never made it to the Italian neighborhoods, The Franklin Center and many other things we would have liked to see. But what a great town--I loved the historic district and the boathouse row, and many of the buildings were as grand as anything in NYC. I was suprised by this, and also by how the city felt like it had such a different personality from NY. I noticed a more academic feel and more racial tension, right off the bat. Interesting, not what I would have expected. The traffic getting through the suburbs where we were staying was horrible. Cute suburb towns, but I can't believe people do such congested commutes on a regular basis.

Naughty Baby!

2009-04-28T00:28:00.001-04:00

Kids, Kids, Kids

2009-04-21T00:06:00.003-04:00

Simon, Simon, Simon:
Why must you squeeze the entire banana, pulverize it and throw it on the floor? Why must you use every available crack and opening as a shape sorter and squish and bend things so they are forever lost within...like hiding the library cards under the rug, filling my shoes with toys and shoving food in the crack between your highchair and the table? You are so industrious when someone is taking a shower and you sprint back and forth between, oh, say, the laundry pile and the tub to try and throw whatever you can into the bathtub before someone screams for me to lock you out of the bathroom. You pull our hair, you pinch our noses, you shriek at ear-splitting decibels. Woe betide the person who lets you see their drink, their snack or their cards. You will not rest until you can taste it, eat it, bend them. Since when is a 10-month old so very coordinated? How do you come up with your focused, intense little agendas? Lucky for you that you have that soft, buttery skin, those yummy creases in your fat little thighs, that coy smile, easy laugh and playful spirit.

Jonah, Jonah, Jonah:
Why must you fill every 5 minute segment of your day with a nameable activity? What does waiting, playing on your own or slowing down feel like for you--is it really all that painful? When it's raining and the cars are honking and the street music is loud and I am lost in my own thoughts, what exactly is it that you have been saying for the past 10 minutes of nonstop talking? Doesn't it make you tired to turn everything into something that can be measured, won or lost? I know you'd like to be in charge of everything. I see your thin efforts to disguise the eye rolls as you heave a sigh and try to explain once again something that comes so easily to you--to the rest of us who haven't fully embraced your vision about The Way Things Should Be. There is much to admire in you. In the end, I'm not sure which will rise to the top of that list--your deep soul, your quick mental abilities or your desire to be helpful.

Maya, Maya, Maya:
Why can't you finish any of your little projects? I guess when you start 17 new projects a day you can't possibly finish them all. As an example of what I find lying around--a piece of paper with 9 little faces entitled "Hair Styles for African American Girls", a diorama of the front steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a painted stick with one end covered in aluminum foil, a ripped hair net knotted tightly with a rubber band, 5 ribbons with knots, 7 scraps of fabric with armholes cut into them. I know, ideas for your new little cousin's hair, fairy furniture, toys you make for Simon, vests and aprons for monkeys. Shoes you make for yourself out of my insoles and rubber bands. It makes me smile, these little signs of your creativity, and I realize that a child like myself, whose things were alphabetized and ranked by color would never have left such a trail behind her. So what can I possibly understand about what we call your ferret piles? But I love you and appreciate you more every day--you are easy and sweet and a pleasure to share time with. I realized with a pang that we are halfway through our time with you, most likely, and I cannot believe it.

So, little monkeys three. I will endure your chaos and clutter and try to refrain from running away from that monsoon of verbal tidbits raining down on me. Knowing that the daily vortex of time is nothing compared to the bigger one that swirls in denominations of years, not hours. I may blink and then it is noon, blink again and it is midnight. But I don't want to blink and then you have flown the nest...

U-Haul

2009-04-10T00:40:00.002-04:00

Peeping out from between stacks of boxes to say hi.
"Hi!"
All is well here. Just a little, well, disorganized.
We moved a week ago Monday. Turned in the UHaul by midnight and everyone slept in a bed that night. I see why most people here hire movers--it is pretty brutal to move in and out of apartment buildings. Stairs, elevator, lobby, building steps, no legal parking places, no "staging" area that isn't also supposed to be something else. For a whole day our things were strewn all over the place. The building only allows moving between 2 and 5 on weekdays since you have to prop open the elevator door in order to really pack it full. There were a few things that needed to be taken down the stairs or taken apart in order to get them outside. Everything always takes longer than you think. And here you have to put signs on things you leave in the hallways or someone will assume it is free and just walk off with it!
But all that part is behind us now, and we have the comparatively easy part of unpacking the boxes. Our week has been busy though, so we haven't exactly done more than the bare minimum yet.
The new building is really nice and clean, there is a washer and dryer in our apartment and we LOVE having two bedrooms. The storage is good, the other tenants seem nice and I have to admit the scale of a 5 apartment unit is much more my style than the large building we were in before. I miss our old doorman and some of our old neighbors, and even though the subway is close here, it isn't right outside the front door like we used to have. The only real disadvantage here is the sketchy block we have to walk between the subway and our front door. Think Wonder Fried Chicken, Liquor Store and Hair Braiding. Sigh. I guess you can't have it all.
Now, if I could just find the umbrellas, the list of people coming on my field trip to the Whitney Museum next week and the silverware, life would be good.

Goodbye Banchi

2009-03-20T00:32:00.003-04:00

The jingle of the keys no longer results in furry black ears perking up in anticipation of a walk. The toenails clicking on the hardwood floors last night were only remnants of dreams. The food and water bowls are in the dishwasher for the last time. My day, normally punctuated by the care of an additional family member is strangely, sadly...empty; the result is disorienting sadness and a surprisingly heavy heart.
I miss my dog so much, already. I miss the way he made me feel safe. I miss having to step over him (why did he always manage to lie right where I was walking next?) I miss petting his soft head and the way he looked at me. I miss his howl. I miss so much making time to get into Central Park three times a day, no matter what was going on or how busy I was. I can't believe how much more work it is to clean up under the high chair without him doing his best first.
I think the decision to have him put to sleep was the right thing to do--he was slowly suffocating. The lumps and tumors were persistent and aggressive and they were affecting his ability to walk, to breathe, to be comfortable at all. It changed in the last couple of days--instead of being just sick, he was agitated--looking at us imploringly as if to ask us to make it stop, to relieve his discomfort. He stopped eating again. This dog was stoic, so I know that he was starting to be in pain or at the very least feeling rotten sick all hours of the day and night.
I was trying to figure out how to get the rest of our family on board to say Saturday was the day--that we could walk across Central Park together and take him to the shelter--but Brett got home Wednesday and said he couldn't stand watching him try to breathe and we decided it was time. So he took him out on a beautiful sunny day that smelled like spring. He took treats and a tennis ball and a bag of food and treated him to tidbits all the way across the park. His last bites were of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Even on this last walk people stopped him to say what a beautiful dog he is...
So he called me when he was in front of the shelter, an hour and a half later--they had to take a lot of rest breaks. Are you sure?
Ummmm, no. Is anyone ever sure?
They took off his collar and dropped it on the floor, replaced it with a rope. He could barely get up after such a walk, and Brett wasn't permitted to go in with him. What does it smell like--impending death? I can't believe we do this, but it seems better than the sound of his struggling to breathe that was invading my dreams and weighing on my shoulders like a stone. This was how he came into our lives too, more than 10 years ago, from a shelter. Surrounded by concrete floors and chain link fencing and dogs full of fear. He tilted his head to the side when we talked to him like he was trying so hard to understand. His head was so soft and we thought he was beautiful and sweet.
So now?
We grieve.
We think of all we did wrong, and maybe try to steer our thoughts to what we did right, like the fun trips we had together, the walks and the time in the park. We think of all the times that having a dog brought us joy and laughter and companionship. We think of how glad we are that our kids have had a pet. We think of the lessons he taught us--some of them painful (but necessary). I wrote about him almost two years ago here. I didn't take recent photos because it made me too sad--his shape was changed, sagging and wilted, his eyes cloudy and dispirited.
So goodbye our four-legged friend. We will truly miss you. Your painful ordeal is over and there are paw prints on our hearts forever.

Green?

2009-03-12T22:53:00.002-04:00

I have this ongoing struggle to find ways to fill my continuing education requirements to keep up my engineering license. Most classes are expensive, boring (let's be honest here) and inconvenient to get to, not to mention they require finding copious amounts of childcare. So when I saw a post on our homeschool list that the Manhattan Libertarian Party was offering some free passes to a Climate Change Conference in Times Square I was SO in. It never crossed my mind that it wasn't a pro-environment conference. Since most of my engineering work involved stormwater design, anything related to climate change is relevant and actually interesting to me and even at other big engineering conferences there is generally at least something on climate change.
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My first commute to the Marriott was interesting--I found myself nervous and not sure what to expect. I was bringing a baby to a conference. Was I nuts? Simon was coming down with a cold, was fussy and clingy and I just didn't feel like I could spend that much time away from him at the moment. We missed all windows of offering bottles, just like with the other 2 kids, so I knew if I left him I would end up preoccupied the entire time.
I joined a sea of people on their way to work. Suits. Newspapers. Coffee. Walking through Times Square is a lot of energy at any point in the day or night, but being swept along with a tide of people who belong is intense. How many days do you have to do this before you stop gawking at the signs? It is like Las Vegas.
Anyways, Simon did great, but it was tiring at points to keep him occupied so that I could listen. He spent a lot of time in the back of a room playing with little collections of toys that I had packed for the day. The minute he started "talking" I would walk out the door with him, loitering and trying to listen. I had many people compliment him and me for bringing him. When hour upon hour of listening to someone's statistics became a recipe for head bobbing, countless attendees sought us out for a game of peekaboo or to tell me about their kids or grandkids at home. When Simon grew restless, we did what all attendees of big conferences do--we got our shoes shined, watched the elevators in the cathedral-like atrium (since they looked like rockets), we swiped mini jars of honey and tea for later and we nabbed the freebies from the exhibit hall (playing cards! pens! pads of paper!).
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What I didn't expect was to be so interested in the speakers. The opening talk was by the President of the Czech Republic. There were people from NASA, NOAA, countless Universities, a retired astronaut. There were meteorologists, physicists, engineers, congressmen, statisticians, mathemeticians, doctors and journalists. The overriding message was that humans are not contributing to global warming. The planet is warming, but it is because of ocean salinity, solar flares, winds, clouds, ocean currents...anything but human involvement. So these people feel that they are not respected by the "alarmists" who are tying up resources (money, time, mass hysteria that could better be spent on other things) and are working to show their research to the world. There were a lot of Al Gore, United Nations IPCC and Obama jokes. I don't know if they noticed that I wasn't laughing.
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It was an interesting exercise in mindfulness and tolerance to attend a 3 day conference in which you are the minority. At first I was won over. Their science was impressive. But then the rhetoric became tiresome and annoying and it sounded more like whining than merely trying to achieve integrity. They actually used phrases like "the enemy" (that would be anyone with a blog whose title includes the phrase "tree huggers") and the quotes and capital letters surrounding "The Liberals" might as well have been written in neon lights for all the emphasis they were allowed. I realized that out of the 4 tracks the ran for the length of the conference, one entire track was devoted to economics and politics. This was much more than neutrally reporting scientific findings--there was an active component of trying to achieve political influence.
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So I walked away from this definitely richer for the experience. I am grateful to have attended and I learned a lot. OK, maybe I think now that global warming is not really influenced by humans. I think I'm going to remove the Inconvenient Truth link from my favorite sites list. But I still think we should recycle, buy organic and try to reduce our ecological footprint. I don't see how our involvement in warming or not excuses us from these other issues. I wish everyone could put down their political agenda for long enough to listen to people who have done good research. For the record, I'm registered as an Independent, and there are issues with which I agree wholeheartedly with every party. Nobody but a Green Party candidate could reflect my issues on the environment, but I'm fiscally Conservative. Nobody but a Libertarian could possibly understand my fierce independence on issues such as homeschooling or having a baby by myself in my apartment, but my most impassioned voting issues remain those social issues that I wish weren't part of the docket but are, and for these I look to the Democrats. I know a lot more about the IPCC now than I did last week, but I still have stars in my eyes about the U.N. We are even going next week, on a field trip for a tour.
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So, climate change junkies. You had me with your science. But you sort of lost me with your plotting and scheming and your persistant putting down "the other side". I don't want us to define our sides so firmly, I have a feeling the borders are more blurry than you think.

Simon Discovers The Water Bowl

2009-03-11T23:08:00.002-04:00

Nine Years

2009-03-11T22:30:00.002-04:00

Why is there a picture of monkeys on this blog?

And a pile of sandwiches with little umbrellas?

Here's a hint...Gifts, Girls (and one boy) and Prezzies...

A new dress or two, flowers, and a birthday cake.

Maya turned 9!

She really wanted a Monkey Tea Party. These kids, they take these monkeys with them everywhere--they dress them and feed them and make them clothes from ribbons and fabric scraps. So here they are, front and center, helping to ring in the new year for this little girl who is not such a little girl anymore, but really a big girl. So we played with flowers and fabric and chocolate and whipped cream and giggled with friends and it was sweet and lovely.

Happy Birthday Maya Marie...

Looks like someone figured out how to get the lids off

2009-03-09T23:22:00.000-04:00

Furry Friend

2009-03-04T22:08:00.003-05:00

As I am writing this my dog of 10 years lies, not beside me like usual, but in the kitchen, with his nose against the cabinet. He is listless and sunken, his uneaten dinner still in the dish beside him. I finally made him an appointment at the vet today, but they can't see us until Friday morning. It is starting to feel like an eternity away from now.
At Christmas time he was unwrapping his gifts himself, he frolicked in the snow this winter and while we have noticed a tremendous slowing down over the past few months, it is nothing like the downward slide he has had beginning in January. He has had episodes of being very sick, but then he perks up for a couple of days and we decide it is nothing...he ate something bad or has a virus. But at this point I am not optimistic that it is not something terminal.
Today I took him on a longer walk than usual, with two stops (grocery store and hardware store) along the way. I took him out again before leaving at 3:30, and Brett beat us home and walked him at 7:00, not knowing he had already had a mid afternoon walk. Even though they are all short, the extra walk is too much for him...I couldn't get him out of the elevator, and Brett said he could barely get him to climb the stairs this evening. I am worried now that I won't be able to get him to the vet on Friday and it is only 3 short blocks away.
Just to be prepared, I have been reading articles written by veterinarians about euthanizing dogs and the thought that it might be anywhere in our future has me so upset. But I can't stop thinking about it and what it means to decide for another creature that it is time for it to die. I could never send him in alone, and yet the thought of watching the lights go out in his eyes is such a trip it is like it doesn't even register. I am haunted by it.
Banchi's two closest dog friends from Oregon (all the same age) were euthanized this year. He is going to be 11 in June, which isn't terribly old (77 in people years), especially when you consider that the oldest dog on record was a Blue Heeler (Banchi is half Queensland Heeler, a close relative). But that seems like a huge fluke, the dog was reportedly 29.5 years old. Other sources I found say that heelers have an average lifespan of 11 years, and Boxers (his other half) live about the same length of time.
We have watched friends pay incredible amounts of money on their pets, and do things that require so much energy--medications, mad dashes home at noon to walk the dog, skip out on vacations because the pet is too sick or high maintenance to be boarded, chemotherapy, acupuncture, surgeries...We have always vowed to never go that route. I'm not proud, but must admit that I have West Virginia-style pet care as part of my background--certain unnamed relatives have, shall we say euthanized pets without the euthanizing. While I could never go that far, I definitely am of the opinion that pets should be treated like pets and not like humans. But it is so conflicting, at this point, when I see my dog's demeanor and I can tell he doesn't really care what happens to him, I am longing for something to make him comfortable and I want desperately to do anything to bring back his spark.
All the times when he has been a frustration--when he gets into things, sheds, barks at the buzzer or is in the way--seem like such trifles when I think of how he won't be here forever. I can only think now of how when I am sick he knows and stares in my eyes as if to say he's sorry and feel better soon, or how he is so gentle with babies or how I always enjoy walking him even if I didn't think I would before going outside.
Tonight before bed Brett played guitar, like usual, and made up a Banchi Song. It was so sweet it made me cry...he remembered all sorts of things we have experienced over the past 10 years, and it made me feel very grateful for having a dog at all, and for all that entails...not always good, not always easy, but, well, rich and wonderful.
So I'm not sure what will happen on Friday. I'm going to let that unfold as it will. Maybe it is nothing and we will have our crumb chasing canine back after some simple meds in a few days.
Signing off to go snuggle on the floor with my first baby...

We landed...sort of

2009-02-26T01:17:00.002-05:00

OK, as many of you know we have spent the last months in an agonizing decision-making process. As in, what are we doing with our lives? Do we stay in New York or leave? We have spent every spare moment in searching for apartments and houses (as the case may be) in several different states. We have worn out the buttons on the "cost of living calculator" in our quest to maximize the leverage of a NY salary in a cheaper place to live. Actually, we used several cost of living calculators and averaged the results since we didn't quite trust just one.
We finally made our decision--it was to move to Boulder, CO, a place we have always wanted to live and have almost moved to before. Our inner tree huggers were stirring back to life, as our inner city slickers clung to the things about the city we were preparing to say goodbye to.
But alas, things are rarely that simple, and after a meeting with his supervisor, it became clear that Brett's company is not currently in a position to support him living away from one of their U.S. offices (even though they had offered exactly that a few months ago). In fact, many of the other options we were considering are no longer available to us either, such as living abroad in Dubai. Have you heard what is happening there? You can go to jail for breaking a lease, and many people have abandoned their belongings and cars and just fled, once it became clear that the worldwide recession resulted in massive construction projects being stopped indefinitely.
So his company generously offered that we could relocate to any of their offices--Virginia Beach, Houston, Jacksonville, Oakland and New York. After much consideration, we decided to stay here. The first three choices are locations that are uninspiring for us, and while Oakland is tempting and on the West Coast, it is another big city that is expensive and we just got to know this one. Also, much of their work is in New York for the rest of this year and any move would mean more travel for Brett and a less secure position since extra travel that other employees don't need means that he is an expensive worker for them to consider. This week they just had their first round of layoffs--after months of reporting that business was stable and they didn't think it was going to happen.
The New York market is finally really feeling it--I am seeing so many things in our price range that weren't there previously. We have been looking all over for rentals, and also looking to buy. We decided not to buy right now--it feels like things are still too unstable, and buying here means buying into maintenance fees and neighborhoods we aren't totally comfortable with and the looming economic crisis will likely exaggerate the rough neighborhoods even more.
So, we found an apartment to rent for a year while we wait and plan our next move. It is clean and nice and 2 bedrooms, 900 square feet, very close to the North end of Central Park and an express subway stop. It is a small building--like a brownstone with only 4 floors and it has a rooftop deck with a BBQ grill. There is a washer and dryer in the apartment and nice new appliances and exposed brick wall in the bedroom. The landlord is nice and flexible and proactive and there are planter boxes outside and the apartment is on the ground floor. There is a bit of sketchy 'hood around this part of town, but quite honestly, it isn't much different from where we are now, so we aren't that concerned about it. The NE corner of Central Park is one of the prettiest areas, with the Harlem Meer, playgrounds, the Lasker swimming pool/ice rink and the North Woods.
The day we found this apartment I had been in tears over what $2,000 a month gets you here. We were trying to push the envelope on saving $$ AND finding a nice place. The last one we saw that day was in a Section 8 building--meaning, it used to be The Projects and now they are converting it to nicer apartments. I feel for anyone living in such a building--while they have roomier gardens and playgrounds than most blocks of the city, the buildings are so awful and industrial and oppressive that I could barely go into it once just to say no to the apartment the broker was showing. If you have ever wanted to spend a year in NY, do it now--some neighborhoods are 30% less than their rents were last year. We weren't able to go as low as we had hoped, but we are considerably lower than we are now, and the apartment we are renting has already been lowered several hundred dollars a month.
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We gave directions to a visiting Brit on a bus the other day and she said "Those rich New Yorkers, they know the price of everything and the value of nothing!" That phrase has been repeating in my head since we have spent so much time talking about money the past couple of months. It is true that money is a huge thing to consider right now, especially with jobs less stable than ever before in our lifetime and living in a place with such a ridiculously high cost of living. But we are hoping to take a deep breath and start moving on to spending our energy on other things than obsessing about money and the price of things.
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In a flurry of trying to see all the things we haven't seen in New York yet, when we thought we were moving away, we have set up field trips to a lot of interesting places--The Federal Reserve Bank of NY (is there any gold left after all of this?), The United Nations, The Whitney Museum, The Skyscraper Museum...we have lots of theater and outings of all kinds on the schedule for the next couple of months. This week we saw two different versions of plays about Harriet Tubman--I thought it would be interesting to see how two contrasting companies told the story and it was.
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So we aren't saying goodbye to New York quite yet. Still feeling mixed feelings about the whole thing, but excited about having a new place to live. We move the end of March.

Kingpin and Mohawks

2009-02-17T23:14:00.003-05:00

There is something decidedly Bill Murray about Simon's expressions. Not sure what it is, but I can't get the image of Bill Murray's comb-over from the movie Kingpin out of my head sometimes when Simon makes certain faces. It is so not flattering to say that, and he is a very cute baby. It's just that he is a cute baby in a Bill Murray sort of way. His eyebrows are very expressive and his hair is thin and starting to tuft over the ears. He has taken his first baby crawl steps--he doesn't get far by crawling, in fact he usually goes backwards, but he can get around pretty well by scooting, turning, lurching and reaching. His precise pincher grip usually gets him whatever he sets his mind to, and like Jonah, he is a big baby--95th percentile for height and about 80th percentile for weight. If you leave a room with him that he wasn't done with, he cries. Like the laundry room. He could stare for hours at the spinning machines. He also is not crazy for diapers--lately when I lay him down he cries and kicks so hard you would think I was hurting him. He still thinks his siblings are funny. He has warmed up more to Maya and grown suspicious of Jonah. Maybe due to the one-sided light saber fights and being knocked down one too many times? He also likes eating, especially really messy, squishy things. You should see what he can do to say one cookie. It is like he emulsifies it and uses it to fingerpaint the table. He loves grapes and cherry tomatoes, but mostly he likes fresh ones. Once he has bitten into it and squeezed all the juice out he loses interest. He feeds the dog with enthusiasm.
As for the other two--they are going through funny stages. Maya, normally the most agreeable, easygoing and pleasant to be around is sort of in a Question Authority phase. She has too many of her own ideas to jump at one of mine with obedience, especially when my ideas include things like brushing teeth, cleaning up or doing schoolwork. Jonah, if given a list or explicit instructions acts like a desperate-to-please servant. He actually says things like "Is there anything ELSE I can do to be helpful?" The two of them are pretty hot and cold on each other--some days they can play together for hours, and others they are bickering from the moment they wake up. Yeah, I've read Siblings Without Rivalry, and it is helpful. I think it all stems from Maya's desire for solitude, and time for her projects, while Jonah wants constant playmates for running around and raucous playtime. Hopefully when we land in a bigger place them having more space will help matters.
Speaking of bigger places, well, we aren't all that closer to making a decision. We keep making a decision then we get totally de-railed and and we are starting over again. Can't even talk about it right now except to say that my eyes are going blurry from looking at apartment ads, and the neural pathways that point toward the decision making process are worn out from overuse.
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New York is inching toward spring. We had a glorious day last week where we took off our coats in Central Park after a field trip and soaked up the rays on our faces...the birds were out, the snow was melted and it was wonderful. I haven't been wearing a hat the past few days, but it is still pretty chilly. But you can feel that winter is losing it's grip...
It is Fashion Week. Today we walked by the big tents at Bryant Park on our way to the library. Crowds of photographers were swarming around the doors, and we would have waited a bit to see if anything interesting happened, but I was about to pee my pants, so we moved on. There were foxy models with mohawks of all shapes and colors doing a promotion for Diesel Jeans--someone traced their shadows onto the sidewalk and they looked like cartoon characters. It would have been right up your alley, m.b.

Those Skyscrapers Make Serious Wind Tunnels for the Winter Winds

2009-02-07T01:21:00.004-05:00

Hi.
Not really writing much these days.
Tired, and losing the battle with cockroaches, winter germs, apartment hunting in Manhattan and the dust from the building remodel in the hallways.
After Brett painstakingly wrote down all the "scary" parts of Star Wars III so we could fast forward them, Jonah and I watched it together tonight while Brett and Maya were out. I'm depressed about how Annikan switched over to the dark side. It reminds me a little of Wicked, and the theme of "what is evil, anyways?"...kind of a fine line sometimes. The Star Wars political situation reminds me sometimes of our own, and how we all draw these lines in the sand to define ourselves by, but really they don't mean anything. It was confusing, even to the people fighting, and at many points everyone loses sight of what they are fighting for. The truth is most people want to do good, they just define "good" differently.
Anyways, not making sense, really, just trying to give voice to the general melancholy in the air.
We went to Battery Park City today--in the endless search for a place to live our newest thinking is the way south end of the island. Brett could walk to work. Parks, water views, more space. Rents are dropping weekly in New York. We know two homeschool dad friends who have lost their jobs. We know a long time NYC family putting their beautiful apartment up for sale next week--they were planning on retiring there, but they are afraid they can't pay their bills since their costs are so high and commision business sales are down due to the general economy (she is an art dealer, he a financial planner). Another friend is moving since she says with young kids she doesn't take advantage of Manhattan, so why pay all that rent? Everyone, it seems is either on the move or hunkering down to wait it out.
We get all excited about potential investments, then it is tempered by more experienced Manhattanites--"You're excited about a Harlem brownstone that is marked down from a million dollars to 500k? I remember when they were selling them for $1 to anyone willing to live in such drug infested, crime ridden blocks."
Oh. Yeah, that.
And in New York City taxes are based on how many times a building has sold. So, like a Harlem brownstone we are considering to split with another family? Taxes are $4,000 a year. OK, fine, seems OK, that is how much they were in Wilsonville. Go south by 50 blocks to the Upper West Side? Taxes are more along the lines of $300,000 a year. WTF? Who can afford that for their taxes on the same size building? Similarly, a 2 bedroom apartment we looked at to buy in Inwood for $415k (down from $465k a few months ago), the building fees are $700 a month. And that is a selling point--cheaper than most! We have many friends paying triple this amount, just in building fees per month.
New York takes a little longer to feel the pain. But when the Wall Street bonuses go away, and the budgets are cut, the service industries feel it, and well, everyone feels it. There are $1,000 a month reductions in rents in places. Particularly in the financial district and popular banker enclaves like the East Village. It is so strange, I don't know what it is going to feel like. But taking that much off a starting rent off $5,000 still makes it out of grasp...so nothing is jumping out at us yet. Those big tall buildings may advertise as "luxury", but without high ceilings they feel like little caves. Expensive caves, but with the same cheap apartment feeling that is just opressive. Definitely we prefer pre-war buildings with good bones, but many don't have laundry or elevators, total showstoppers for us, with kids...and a lot of the "gut renovations" advertised look like, well, lipstick on a pig.
The commute for Brett from Battery Park City would be interesting--through the World Financial Center building and along the pedestrian bridge--filled with tourists looking at the World Trade Center Site, along the massive construction site and swept along by crowds of Wall Street professionals. The ones that still have jobs. The path for us to get to the nearest subway would be along the same route. It might be OK in the summer, but today in below freezing with wind, dragging two sick kids it was significantly less than fun. Especially when we walked around the wrong side of the World Trade Center and were turned back by a guard who said that route was closed because of the construction, then the sick, coughing kid had a cold-induced coughing fit that nearly resulted in throwing up and the baby's diaper leaked, rendering me urine soaked. Sigh. Not one of our better days.
One of the apartments we looked at had a reduced rent--$2700 down from $2900. The person moving out is paying the difference in rent for the remainder of the year lease period. The management office offers NO possible way to get out of a lease--if you leave early you owe the entire amount of rent not paid yet unless you find someone else to take the apartment to write a new 1 year lease. Is this even legal? Oh, of course, it's New York, the rules are different here.
+++++++++++++++
On the lighter side, Maya and Jonah are now taking a new rock climbing class and French class--Jonah wants to learn "every language there is" and Maya has been wanting to do climbing classes for years, we just hadn't gotten to it yet. Apparently Jerry Seinfeld's kid had a birthday party at the same gym.
We just finished the 2nd school quarter of the year and homeschooling is going smashingly well. Brett spent most of January in Virginia Beach but is home now for several weeks working on the report phase for this project. He is happy to be finishing that job--it hasn't been his favorite! The days are feeling longer, we have the promise of weather in the 50's this weekend, and despite the dismal apartment hunt we are more settled in our community here than ever--with an upcoming wine tasting party and birthday parties and more things to do in a day than we could possibly consider. We have a cool new Pediatrician (an old, smart guy with physics degrees from Cal-Tech and M.I.T. before med school!) and an intriguing new N.D. who claims he can fix Jonah's chemical sensitivities with his magic potions..will believe that when I see it, but I am hopeful!
Oh, by the way, my phone is missing so I had the service temporarily turned off until I manage to make contact with Tyrone, the elusive House Manager of the theater where I lost it. Don't worry, I haven't joined the Witness Relocation Program.

Can We?

2009-01-20T03:28:00.003-05:00

The buzz is that New York City is a trifle jealous of Washington D.C...

I don't remember ever noticing an inauguration before, let alone being invited to attend an "inauguration party". New Yorkers love Obama and are really taking this inauguration thing seriously. I know people pulling their kids out of school for the day to watch, there are Obama art exhibits at museums, there are already picture books in the library about him and you can even go to Lincoln Center and watch it on the big screen for free. The kids' last ice skating class tomorrow is right before the festivities begin and over half of the 14 people in the class will be absent since they are either in Washington or glued to their T.V. sets.

It is pretty historic, and exciting, and obviously this feeling of lightness and optimism is not just me but is shared by many right now. It has been a long time since I haven't had the urge to pretend to be Canadian rather than admit affiliation with our leadership. It feels good to say I am excited about what is to come, and as always, in NYC, being part of the tide of so many other like minded people means synergy and electricity in the air.

Light Sabers and Dog Turds

2009-01-19T00:41:00.004-05:00

Jonah and I were outside having a light saber fight this morning in the snow. Light, fluffy, wonderful snow that instantly buries the dog turds as they are deposited by my faithful pup...I am grateful for the dog turds because they are a tremendous improvement over the diarrhea all over the rugs that was happening a couple days ago. Banchi must have snatched a rotten morsel of food or stumbled into some rat poison or something--he spent two days staring at the wall and not leaving the kitchen. He wouldn't go more than a few paces from the building to do his thing and even let loose in the basement in front of our building superintendent once, much to my horror. We had just had a talk about putting animals to sleep (not at all related to Banchi) and Jonah said: "I don't think you would even need to give him a shot--" It was really funny because it was so true--there was one point where he got up for a drink of water and I wouldn't have been surprised, watching him sway back and forth, if he just keeled over and that was it. But this is Banchi we are talking about and I can't say I even got all that alarmed. He does this about once a year. You'd think he'd learn, that maybe eating things you don't recognize is a bad idea?
But I digress. What I really was going to talk about was having a light saber fight in front of a street full of traffic stopped at a traffic light. It is fun to add in lots of extra moves, like as if you are ducking or doing flips in between your strikes. I wonder what I would think if I was sitting on a bus and saw people light saber fighting in the snow. Jonah *adores* light saber fighting. He likes to pretend that you cut off his hand so he has to switch hands or that you cut off his leg and he has to hop around on the other. He laughs with joy each time the light sabers make contact and if you spin or jump down a couple stairs his eyebrows raise in excitement and his cheeks flush.
Privacy in NY--it is different. You do things in front of lots and lots of other people that you wouldn't ordinarily do, but it becomes so normal that you stop noticing it and that is probably why I recall my whole life seeing photos of people doing ordinary things on the streets of New York that seem so much like things you wouldn't do on the street. I remember waking up in Calcutta and walking out on the streets in the morning, surprised by how chilly it was and in the last remnants of the morning mist there were frail old men crouched in filthy folds of fabric on the curb. Their knees almost to their faces in what can only be described as the Indian Crouch-- I have never seen other peoples assume this position so easily, they were lined up waiting for a shave. A shave! On the curb. Some guy with an old fashioned shaving blade was crouched in front of them diligently slathering on the foamy white cream and shaving these old men in turn.
I haven't resorted to shaving on the street, but I can see the path from here to there.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
January is not going to go down as my favorite month this year. Brett has been away for nearly 3 weeks, and sometimes I just repeat Pam England's phrase "Do nothing extra" as I slog through the day. It wasn't just the dog who was sick--Simon has had double ear infections. He has been fussy and crying and his sparkle was all but gone. He is better now, and we managed to kick it without antibiotics, despite dire warnings from my pediatrician who I am most definitely going to need to break up with stat. I totally make her twitchy and she makes me lose confidence in myself. Simon, always a great sleeper, has been totally unable to stay asleep without me holding him at an angle. That is why you have gotten no posts for a while. When I finally stumble out of bed at odd hours to finish the dishes and check email and brush my teeth there are few coherent thoughts holding themselves together long enough to do something about.
I had finally taken Simon to the Dr. because I was worried about his cough. Since my other two had never had ear infections, I never even considered his ears, and I feel like a very nonintuitive mom for not noticing that he had obvious symptoms (in retrospect)...but now I know, and all I can say is yay to garlic/mullein ear drops. He holds stone still now when I put them in, and smiles, I can tell they offer great relief.
Now that he is feeling better he is, ummm, well, into everything. He isn't crawling yet, but can turn himself around and he must be related to Elasta-Girl because if you turn your back things fly off of shelves that he can't possibly reach with normal baby-length arms.
The other thing about January is how c.o.l.d. it has been. The buildings channel the wind and the wind chill, it takes your breath away. Sure, there is sledding and snowball fights and ice skating and snow slushes...but those are all perfectly enjoyable at 32 degrees, and less so at 9 degrees.
Whenever possible we have been hibernating on days that we don't have other things planned. Baking, school projects, games and reading have filled our days. It is nice, and I am so glad to be with the kids--there are all sorts of reminders of how very big they are getting and how fleeting this time is.
Despite the fact that as I reflect back over a new month in a new year and that it has felt like a lot of work, there is Joy here. I feel it bubble up inside me as I kick the snow on the sidewalks, I laugh with friends, I snuggle with kids and delight in Latin and History, read good books and appreciate my hubby (albeit via the phone). Even though there is an economic crisis and wars and really hard things in the world, not to mention cockroaches in my kitchen, I feel a lightness of optimism and bright eyed curiosity about what comes next. After all, the inauguration is in 2 days and sometimes even plane crashes result in heroes and rescues.

Simon Kicking

2009-01-06T01:52:00.003-05:00

Simon is our kickiest baby yet. His legs don't really ever stop moving.
Also, notice the squealing. He is a very LOUD baby. If everyone is running around, hyper, laughing, he gets so excited and loud and yells and laughs hysterically...I fear for a year from now.

December In Review

2009-01-06T01:42:00.003-05:00

Maya's last ballet class of fall term--they had a small performance of The Nutcracker (petite suite)--just the parents watching in their regular studio, but it was so sweet, and I couldn't help reflecting on how much she has learned and how graceful these girls are.
Here is the Chorus Concert--one of our favorite activities here. It is on the campus of NYU, taught by professors of music and graduate students. I guess as a community outreach? It is a wonderful program with sophisticated music and a nice concert at the end of the term with all the other university choirs performing as well.
Brothers.
New short haircut.
Simon's first snow.

Kids opening Christmas prezzies without us

2009-01-06T00:48:00.003-05:00

Just now organizing pretty much all the photos we took in December. Found this gem--the kids were all up at 6 am on Christmas. They took this video before we were even awake. How did I not notice that they took Simon out to show him all the presents?? I wonder how much paper he ate before Brett and I roused ourselves and joined in the fun?

2009

2009-01-02T22:19:00.002-05:00

My kids follow a Classical approach to school...one of the pillars is writing narrations. So, say we read a chapter in history, after doing whatever projects we want on the topic the kids make a "narration page" to write or draw in their own words what they remember about that chapter. Recently Maya had The Renaissance as her topic and there was so much there she couldn't figure out what to write. So instead of writing sentences, she just wrote words...in different colors and different fonts, all over the page. The page was filled with things like printing press, Da Vinci, Latin, art, science...And I think she will look back on that page and remember a whole lot about the Renaissance, even without complete sentences.

Well, here we are, on the other side of the holidays. Like so many other things I have been meaning to do, I have meant to write, but I just haven't. Since I can't quite get it together, my summary of the holidays will be like the Renaissance narration page...

ice skating
snow
ribbons
presents
tea
cold
pajamas
photographs
long lost friends visiting
lights
festive
abundance
cookies
decorating
tree
joy
sledding
snowballs
mellow
cozy
sweet
Carmine's

It has been a lovely and wonderful holiday season. Happy New Year!

Dear Jonah who is now SIX,

2008-12-22T23:21:00.005-05:00

Here is the group that surprised you at your birthday party--there were 19 of us all together, everyone was hiding in a corner of the movie theater, and we saw The Tale of Desperaux. Then we went to pizza after at a great new restaurant a block away. It was such a fun birthday! Here is you, right after we sprung the surprise:

You might just be the biggest six year old that ever lived. You don't mind discussing it, and hopefully we didn't give you a complex when you were a baby and mouths dropped open at the sight of the fat folds hanging *forward* over your knees. What's cool is that the rest of you is catching up--you are pretty comfortable in your body these days. You are tall and slim and handsome.

Sometimes I think back to my Flexed Arm Hang Champion Days--There I would be, my chin over a bar, elbows bent, arms trembling. Hanging for minutes and minutes. Other 6th graders would come to stare, sure I was strong and amazing. The chubby kids dropped like flies after a few seconds. I really didn't have any strength worth noting, it was just that I had a lot less weight to hold up. But you--those monkey bars and climbing ropes have been pretty challenging for a big guy. Which is maybe why you choose instead to do things like throw yourself in the snow and yell "Kung Fu ME!" You have the confidence of the big kid--nobody is going to pick on you, even if you can't do the flexed arm hang or balance a bicycle. You are a total pacifist, but already it has come up that your small friends feel safer in your shadow, not worrying about some bully kid because you could plow them over effortlessly, if you were so inclined. It is funny to have that kid in our family of otherwise skinny little timid-like people. You are hardy and warm and substantial to snuggle with on a cold night. You are sporty with a quick and competitive mind. You are playful and energetic.
We have had words this week, you and I, about Snow Etiquette.
Throwing snow down your sister's coat--not OK.
Kicking a rock hard lump of ice into someone's 2 pound dog--not OK.
Throwing snowballs at buses--ummm, OK as long as you are with our Dad friend who grew up in Queens and knows the cops and knows when to stop.
Kicking snowballs into our lobby--mildly OK (as long as you remove them before they melt). Throwing huge chunks of snow at building walls--OK.
Stomping, rolling, flailing and sliding in snow--OK.
Smashing lumps of snow down subway grates--OK.
Sorry I flew off the handle when you threw a snowball in Simon's face. He didn't even mind, as per your usual relationship with him. But, if you must know, I was tired and cold and didn't want to wait for you and your snow playing stall tactics. I wanted to get home and eat dinner. And to be honest, I can't believe your aim. It is annoying that you hit everything you are trying for, especially when it is one or the other of your siblings who don't love the cold the way you do. And if you yell "Chicken!" to Maya one more time just because she doesn't want to race you or wrestle with you right then, I am going to lose it--that isn't even the right context for "Chicken", but I suppose you will learn that soon enough.
Speaking of learning--you just finished reading your first Magic Treehouse chapter book to yourself. Then a couple days later you read two in one day. In fact, I haven't heard your usual chorus of "I'm bored, there's nothing to do!" since you learned to read chapter books.
You are like a working dog--it is bad to let you get bored, you need a job to do. The past two years keeping you plied with things to do has been wearying, but not doing it took even more effort. Turning six means you can start to come up with your own occupations.
When we toasted you in the kitchen tonight, your last night of being 5, we all said something we appreciated about you. You said you are really glad you can read now.
Turning into a big kid felt like it was a long time coming for you--you were always content to be dependent, and thus far have been in no hurry to grow up. That made you a very happy, easygoing baby and a bit of a challenging toddler. But all of a sudden you have catapulted forward--you seem well beyond your years. Not just your ability in school, which by the way, if we were still in Oregon would be Kindergarten this year. That would be a laughable situation, by any definition. Socially, you are a pretty fun kid to hang out with. The volatility of your 4th and 5th years is gone--you are playful, helpful and enthusiastic. You have a big appetite--for food, for physical play and for time with friends. Also for books, puzzles, movies and games. You are a worthy opponent for any adult in most board and card games and you are a lot of fun to play against. I love that I can tackle you for a snuggle or a wrestle almost any time and you will laugh. I love that when there is work to be done you jump up eagerly to help and work industriously and enthusiastically. When you grow up you either want to be a movie maker or a doorman (because you love movies and you love to help people).
So when I think back to that chilly December night 6 years ago, as I felt you getting ready to be born, I never knew what a Carpe Diem kind of guy you would turn out to be. Yes, I have scary visions of you with a beer (0r 12) at a fraternity party, at the bottom of a football pigpile or gambling all night in Las Vegas with a fake I.D...
But those are all in the future, and here you are, with your rosy cheeks and your sillyness and your earnest questions, right here, right now.
Happy Birthday Jonah!
Love,
Mama

Coziness and Growing

2008-12-19T01:11:00.004-05:00

Sitting here in a quiet apartment, warm and glowing with lights from the Christmas tree. Waiting for the 6 inches of snow we might get tomorrow and basking in the delight that is the pre-Christmas hubub.
Today was the last Spanish and ballet classes of the term, which means a one or two week break from all scheduled activities. Very much looking forward to that.
As it turned out we got several inches of snow today. Central Park was beautiful, with snow piled on every branch. The kids loved throwing snowballs and catching flakes in their mouths.
Christmas time in New York...it is about as festive as it gets. Especially with the snow. There are so many things to do, and we aren't even doing them, opting instead to cozy up inside with our fat Christmas tree and the excessive amount of heat that apartment buildings seem to put forth. We made gingerbread houses, there are presents hidden in every spare corner of space we possess and the kids are doing 2 Advent calendars. I love knowing that outside are the hordes of shoppers and tourists and lines and herds filling up 5th Avenue.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Someone is slipping my kids growing pills while they sleep--I can't believe how big they all seem. I always think of Maya as tiny...then today she bonked her head on the wall and was crying, and kind of jokingly I picked her up and bounced with her on our Yoga ball and I was shocked at how substantial she felt--so big and heavy and sure. Her legs practically folded over themselves they were so long. It was strange--I guess I don't snuggle her much anymore and I was shocked at her heft (for lack of a better word).
And Jonah--he recently was given size 10 jeans and wore them for the first time--I thought they would be enormous, but, well, they looked just right (as opposed to the highwaters he has been wearing). With his new haircut and shirt he was positively handsome and sweet with his two front teeth missing and his rosy, mischievous cheeks.
Today on the subway we found ourselves on a packed car with a gang of obnoxious teenagers shouting profanities to each other over the heads of the kids. I felt like someone was staring at me and looked down, sure enough, there was Simon. His eyes locked on mine, willing me to gaze back. His face broke out in a wide smile when I looked at him, his toothless gums sweet and bare. He kicked his legs with delight and was completely oblivious to the sea of thugs filling the car around us and he just looked at me with adoration. His babyhood is going by so fast, I want to slow down the clock--have those teeth stay buried and the crawling wait, just a little, so I can bask in his babyness a while longer.

Dear New York #2

2008-12-11T03:18:00.003-05:00

From the Archives...I wrote this months and months ago, and for some reason never printed it. Since posting photos seems too involved right now for my tired self, this will be tonight's contribution to internet meanderings...

Dear New York,
It has been a while since I have written especially to you. But here I am again, feeling overwhelmed and bowled over by your energy...to get things sorted out it must go down in print. You are no longer so new that I am distracted by navigating a course through your corridors, yet you aren't quite old hat either. I can still be delighted and surprised by fresh views you offer, as if from around a corner. I haven't made up my mind yet, but I am slowly being won over , even as I surrender things I thought I could cling to forever as part of who I am. I realize these things are slippery and not of substance. I sit here with a baby tumbling inside of me...your baby...and I think of the relationship I have with you. You are glossy and professional. You are marketed and managed. And you are also old and poor and dirty and home to the bottom of the barrel. Nevermind that you may have created this floor, along with the ceiling.
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door..."
This is the placard on the gate. I believe that you mean it, you really do. It is just that the poor need a master, and the master is Money and his queen, Freedom. Oh how you torture me with these extremes. And yet, that was always there, from the beginning. I just was able to compartmentalize better surrounded by the same color, the same class, the assumptions about who I was and what I stood for. With you, you make me choose. And that is something I am loathe to do...because then I might get it wrong. If there is no choosing, there is no wrong. If the choosing is a default based on someone else's belief system, it isn't really choosing.

Sometimes a song strikes a mood better than words without tune can. For this night, Building A Mystery (by Sarah Mclachlan) gets it nearly perfect. The mood is best conveyed with the volume up high, standing in front of the speakers (which I do to this song at least once every couple months--I know, guilty, pop music pleasure). At the risk of appearing cheesy and sentimental (flashback to the mid-80's and spending hours figuring out the lyrics to songs), here are the words:

"You come out at night
that's when the energy comes
and the dark side's light
and the vampires roam
you strut your rasta wear
and your suicide poem
and a cross from a faith
that died before Jesus came
you're building a mystery

You live in a church
where you sleep with voodoo dolls
and you won't give up the search
for the ghosts in the halls
you wear sandals in the snow
and a smile that won't wash away
can you look out the window
without your shadow getting in the way
you're so beautiful
with an edge and a charm
but so careful
when I'm in your arms

You woke up screaming aloud
a prayer from your secret god
you feed off our fears
and hold back your tears oh

Give us a tantrum
and a know it all grin
just when we need one
when the evening's thin

Oh you're a beautiful
a beautiful f**ed up man
you're setting up your
razor wire shrine"

(And for some great commentary on the lyrics:
check out this link.)

If you want to see Sarah singing it:
video

So New York, I do think you are a beautiful effed up man. I love you, I hate you, I can't believe I am lucky enough to get you. I'm glad I am able to see that you are beautiful and you are effed up too. As long as I can hold both in my hand I can't lose myself in the ocean of you. I think you make me a better person--before you I got stuck in idealism and I didn't have room for both of your faces. I am forced now to be more assertive. I don't know if we will always be together or not. But whatever happens I hope that I can come back and go out to coffee with you and I won't be afraid to look you in the eyes and really see your face. Well, maybe I can do that. Or maybe I'll have to look away until my heart stops fluttering. You know you have that effect on me and you love that kind of power. No matter...just hold my hand...deep breath and I'll try again.

Did the Egyptians have some that didn't work out?

2008-12-07T02:45:00.005-05:00

Earlier this week I started making a chicken mummy. And it wasn't my first! I made one a few years ago when Maya was learning about the Ancient Egyptians (pictured above). Now it is Jonah's turn. I thought I knew what I was doing, but something went dreadfully wrong this time around. I think I really needed to change out the salt on Day 1 or Day 2, but I hadn't read the directions carefully, and well, didn't get to it until Day 4 or so. By then, my mummy was a swollen, stinky, bulbous mess. It woke Brett up in the middle of the night. It made me almost throw up, just thinking about it. It made my dog stand and stare at the top of the refrigerator, wagging his tail for hours. He has been perky all week, sometimes sticking his nose up in the air and getting all shivery with excitement, sure that the eye- watering smells were destined for him. Jonah covered his nose whenever he walked into the kitchen. And Maya muttered nasty things under her breath.
I finally admitted defeat when I realized that I could smell it as soon as I got out of the elevator. If you poked a certain section through the ziploc it looked as though the pressure of putrefying flesh was about to explode. Everywhere I went in the apartment I could be sure to catch wafts of necrotic flesh smell. It was really bad. At the begging of my family members, I finally carried it to the basement garbage cans.
And I wonder, did the Egyptians ever forget to work on their mummies? Did they get busy and preoccupied and then realize, "Oh Shit, we let that guy ROT!" I guess we will never know, because if that ever did happen to them, the evidence is long gone. Those poor souls just decayed like pretty much every other human body that ever lived (aside from the relatively few throughout history who have been cremated or otherwise preserved). To their credit, mummies were generally made by priests, accompanied by much ceremony. I am sure they were more mindful of the bodies of their Pharaohs than I am with my cheap chicken whose circumstances of death I can only speculate at.
Anyways, in an effort to rid our domicile of THAT SMELL, we burned a huge quantity of sage. So now it smells vaguely of pot smoke on top of a rotten chicken. It is really great in here right now. You should come for a visit.

Splash

2008-11-30T00:08:00.006-05:00

Just arrived back into the city from here. And yes, the view pretty much really did look like that.
Turned out to be a great time to go--we would have had to gag ourselves with pitchforks if we had turned up in the summer time, when the area is overrun with tourists. As things were, the town of Niagara Falls was uncrowded, and the hotels were slashing prices to lure cheapies like us to come visit.
The drive was 7 1/2 hours each way--we split it up by staying a night in either direction near the half way point. The big kids are pretty great in the car these days, but Simon was not the easy-as-pie traveler he was a few months ago. Maybe it is because he has officially outgrown his bucket seat (but we crammed him in it anyhow), or that he is too alert to be facing backwards. He spent much of the time doing stomach crunches trying to sit more upright, or craning his head around to see someone in the front seats or out the windows. We ended up having me ride next to him for much of the drive to keep him from moaning.
It was a nice trip--fun to get away and see more of upstate NY. We drove through Syracuse and Buffalo and parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It snowed on us a little, we got to swim and sit in a hot tub, we toured the falls, rode the skywheel, saw the IMAX and puttered around town.
Pictures soon. Haven't unpacked and have no idea where the camera is.

Frozen Puddles and Minor Gods

2008-11-22T00:20:00.005-05:00

It just turned *cold* here this week--last weekend you could still see people eating outside at sidewalk cafes; now the air is frosty, the puddles are frozen and the crisp leaves are the only thing separating us from the mean and harsh New York winter.
Time is zipping by--our first quarter of the school year has passed, and with it our first quarterly reports. I am so happy with the progress the big kids made this term--even with a baby to juggle we have been getting much accomplished. I thought I would dread having to file quarterly reports, but it turns out it is an excellent way to check in during the year and to stay organized. The kids have had a lot of classes as well, which has been busy but nice. The last soccer games of the season are tomorrow. They have had three weeks of ice skating lessons, and those have been excellent--both kids are finally able to actually skate. I am getting to be a bit smarter about this homeschooling gig--like, it is all about the drop off classes with a conveniently located cafe on the corner for Simon and I to hang out in. The kids can be outside learning about bugs and red tailed hawks in Inwood Park and I can be inside, watching them through the steam of my cuppa with Simon on my lap trying to read a book on the table over his babbling.
Speaking of Simon, he isn't going to be sitting on my lap for long. He is fully sitting on his own, and he has an amazing ability to grab everything within a 3-foot radius of his body. He is a happy, shrieking, slobbering bundle of chaos. He has been dabbling with food (banana and avocado mostly, but also tastes of oatmeal, rice cereal and slices of pear or apple or dragonfruit). He likes his Jump Up, which works really well in the door to our bedroom. He loves watching Jonah and I play games involving small chokable pieces, like Mancala or Backgammon. Actually, come to think of it he loves watching Jonah do anything. He thinks Jonah is like a Minor God. I have no idea why, but Jonah can do all manner of annoying, loud, uncomfortable things, and Simon just looks at him with stars in his eyes, cracking up. Maya wants to mother him--in a way that is, well, not really all that motherly. Like she has dropped him on his head twice. Not bad drops--she caught him at the last minute sort of, but drops, nonetheless. She wants to snuggle him and carry him in a cradle hold and make little nests filled with blankets and pillows. Simon finds this much more offensive than say Jonah yanking him up by his wrists or squeezing him around his middle to hang on. So I don't know if Simon just prefers being poked and squished and startled to nearly dropped on his head, but if Maya is carrying him around his eyes seek mine out and he gives me this desperate look that begs "Please, save me from this Faux Mother. Her intentions are good, but I don't quite get what I am supposed to be doing in this claustrophobic nest of fluff--she isn't nearly as exciting as that hyper oaf that thinks it's funny to drop toys on my face while saying 'catch'".

Family Lines and Fat Rolls

2008-11-02T02:00:00.004-05:00

I don't want to forget this time--the velvety softness of Simon's fat little legs or the fake cough he does to get our attention. The way Jonah gives goosebump inducing "arm rubs"--such a gentle contrast to his clumsy, loud boyness. Or the way Maya makes quotations in the air with her fingers or mimics my facial expressions and sighs of exasperation.
Already I have watched these little people transform before my eyes--I can't believe that it has been nearly 5 months since Simon blinked up at me for the first time, 3 1/2 years since Maya learned to ride a bike and nearly 5 years since Jonah made his first babysign ("more") with those perfectly dimpled fingers.
They are so big, and so little too...I can't believe how much they have learned, and how much more lies before them. And then there is the passing of time, with milestones they will remember, things that we take pictures of for their books, like how this weekend was full of holidays--Friday was a whirlwind--a Halloween party at Spanish class, home for two hours then ballet class (in costumes), trick or treating in the building followed by going to West 69th Street. Halloween is a funny holiday--one of my favorites, even though we don't really do the candy thing--Jonah can't (or won't) eat most of it so I generally "buy" his candy from him--then Brett and I nibble on the good stuff for months. Despite this, he *loves* trick or treating. This was our first year doing it in New York. The weather was fabulous (low 60's), the block party was hopping in that way New York has where it feels like this is the only thing to do that there is. So fun to stroll up and down the street as a family just taking in the festivities. Almost all the restaurants and shops participate in trick or treating--so you can just go up and down Broadway and trick or treat. It is a real kick. And the subways are full of people in costumes that make you laugh out loud. Like the woman who was a nun with big fake bare breasts hanging out. Or that guy in a tiny leather miniskirt and fishnet stockings and no shirt. Everyone hanging out on the stoops drinking wine and handing out candy. Sometimes you laugh at a costume and have to hide it when you realize it isn't a costume. Others are so decked out they look more like an actor in a Broadway show. The costumes for the kids weren't as big of a deal as in the past--in fact Maya was a ballet dancer for half the day then switched to a Harry Potter character for the final leg of trick or treating. Jonah is just not a dress up kind of guy. He was barely Harry Potter--refused to wear the glasses, didn't give a hoot about the authenticity of his outfit, but cared more about wearing shorts and sandals under his robe. It was more about being out there, contributing to the melange.
We were home by 9:30 and all of us crashed.
This morning Jonah had soccer then we got ready for our Day of the Dead party--it might be a new tradition for us. Once I won my battle with the frosting (food coloring all over my fingers, frosting like concrete covering just about every surface of the kitchen), and our guests actually arrived, it was very fun. We had made the skulls earlier in the week (20 of them) and everyone decorated with frosting and shiny paper. They turned out really cool. The day was beautiful so we spent the last 2 hours of the party outside at the rocks. I think this might be the oldest holiday in the world--3,000 years old. The spirit of it is really great--honoring your relatives that have died, making the fact of death a little more accessible and less intimidating. Celebrating life, really, and remembering those who came before you. It was lovely, and we were grateful for the company of our friends.
It makes me wonder what my kids will remember about this weekend when they are grown. Will they realize what a delight they are to us and know how we see the passage of time in their fat rolls and gestures? Strange to think that someday someone might remember them as Grandma or Grandpa so and so...those crazy old geezers who told tall tales or their childhood in New York City...

Soccer Maya

2008-10-29T02:38:00.003-04:00

Her team is the Jailbreakers. The big pink jersey is because it was her turn to play goalie.
Nice girls...
A brand new artificial turf field that just opened a week ago...
and a sweet little purple and black Sporty Spice.

Soccer Jonah

2008-10-28T23:34:00.003-04:00

Jonah's team is called the Werewolves. There are 8 boys on his team and two volunteer dads for coaches. His soccer uniform is his Halloween costume too. (How economical! I wonder how he got that idea. Disclosure: I don't sew)
He has been having so much fun--I am thrilled with this soccer league. It was even worth spending an entire weekend hanging out in the basement and handing out boxes of uniforms to all 36 teams in his age group. But really it is all about the uniform and throwing them right in there for 3 on 3 games. They do have short practices first--but only about 1/2 hour or so then the game starts. The only part I don't like is peeling off those sweaty shinguards afterward. Last week I caught him dancing on the field--such was his delight at being part of the game. So far the weather has been nice every time. They play over by the Hudson River in Riverside park, which is a long skinny park full of cyclists and kids and dogs and trees. We also find splitting up the kids on the weekends and one of us going with each of them is a great thing...

Fashion statement

2008-10-24T00:28:00.003-04:00

We have an ongoing family debate about Babylegs. The debate is whether or not the convenience and flexibility outweigh the Flashdance-era look.
Are they for girl babies only? Simon doesn't think so. His legs are constantly in motion and he doesn't like to be bothered with, well, clothes.

These photos were taken last weekend in Central Park where we were enjoying watching the rowboats in the pond near 79th Street. Maya went on a carriage ride with friends for someone's birthday and Jonah, Simon and I tagged along for pizza.

What he wears is becoming less of an issue since we are all starting to bundle up for any excursions outside. It just turned cold this week! Still beautiful and clear, but chilly wind and getting close to freezing at nighttime.

Not much else to report at the moment--just busy with school and classes and all the usual. Brett is in Virginia Beach for the third week in a row. He comes back on the weekends so far, but might have to stay for longer stretches soon. The kids and I manage OK while he is gone, but I'm not going to win any housekeeping awards, and Brett generally has to spend a little time rescuing me from the pile of paperwork I tend to be drowning in by the week's end. The kids miss him a lot and Brett particularly misses Simon, who seems to change so much in just a few days. When Brett calls us Simon will "talk" to him on the phone--it is pretty cute.

See...We aren't alone

2008-10-13T00:30:00.000-04:00

Tight Quarters

My 3rd Biggest Mess

2008-10-09T00:14:00.002-04:00

The first one was when I one time bought a gallon jug of apple cider and put it in the back of my Subaru Outback and then took a corner too fast. I heard it roll across the back as if it was in slow motion before it smashed against the far wall and, well, lets just say that car still smelled faintly of apple cider a couple years later when we sold it.
The 2nd biggest mess was when I dropped a glass bottle (Costco sized!) of olive oil and my kitchen floor was covered with oil covered shards of glass.
Brett might argue that the time I spilled the 200 ounce cup of cherry lime all over him in a burger joint is number three. But he was really the only one affected by that one, so I am going to say tonight's spill was worse.
Are you ready?
For a good time, you might want to try and replicate this one at home.
I'll give you a hint, my hands are wrinkled and raw from cleaning, and my fingertips are purple.
OK, here goes.
Somehow an entire pitcher of grape juice spilled in the fridge. Complete. Purple. Disaster. There are still drips coming from the gasket surrounding the door. I hope the people below us don't have drips soaking through the floor. I soaked up a lot of pooled juice, but a whole pitcher's worth is a lot.
On the bright side, I had been meaning to clean the fridge for a while now. It would have been more fun if it hadn't been under duress, but, well, it is mostly done.
The story is even better--I was nursing Simon in the other room when I found out about it, so I let it sit for a while before I even touched it. Then when I was in the first round of cleaning Simon woke up and promptly pooped all over my jeans--totally leaking diaper. Always fun to have a blowout when you are already surrounded by a mess of enormous proportions.

Toot Duster

2008-10-05T23:00:00.002-04:00

Jonah: "What's that fing that the police use when they want to figure out who did the bad fing?"
Kristin: "Ummmmm...." (Mind blank, thinking fast, no idea what he is talking about)
Jonah: (Touches a puzzle ball he is holding all over with the pads of his fingers) "You know, you just told me about it, when people touch fings and they take off the prints or somefing?"
Kristin: (Light going off) "Oh, you mean dusting for fingerprints?"
Jonah: "Yeah! Well, I just figured out if you smell a bad smell and you want to know who did it you can just smell their chair when they stand up! You can figure out who did the Toot!"

Education: It's all about creatively tying what they know to new situations.

The Sinking Pumpkin

2008-10-02T22:13:00.002-04:00

Once I had a neighbor who was a single mom. She had two kids. Both her kids have a rare and very serious metabolic disorder that required unbelievable amounts of time in the kitchen preparing food for them. This neighbor also had an ex-husband who should have been kept away by a restraining order...maybe he was eventually.
I very much enjoyed this neighbor. She was comfortable to spend time with, generous and funny, and an easy person to talk to. She had given up money and prestige and a very good zip code to be more in the lives of her young kids.
One Halloween there was a pumpkin on her porch. As is the case in the NW, once Halloween is over and it starts to rain more frequently, the pumpkins on the porches start to mold and rot. Her pumpkin began to sink into the patio. It started out friendly-looking, but soon it's twisted face was distorted and spooky. She said many times that she needed to throw it away, but I saw how she walked back and forth from the car in the driveway--never was there a time when her arms weren't loaded with a toddler or groceries or someone's school backpack. So the pumpkin kept leaning and disappearing into it's chin (if pumpkins had chins). The mold started growing out through the eyes and the gaps between the teeth and it started to look like less of a job for two empty arms and more of a job for a shovel and a trash bag.
I never made a note of when the pumpkin finally disappeared, leaving behind a stained splotch on the concrete. But it was well into another holiday season.
For some reason I think of that pumpkin often. It is like an emblem of motherhood. Something you walk by every day that needs to be done, but you can't get to it. There just isn't that free two minutes that couldn't be more wisely spent on something else. The pumpkin is not critical path. You start to despise the pumpkin--there for all the world to see that you don't have your act together enough to throw something in the garbage. You know in your heart that the rotting pumpkin is of no consequence, but it bugs you anyways. You don't identify with people who don't throw away their rotten pumpkins. Then again, you do, and that is so strange. You used to be the person who would put out their clothes the night before and spend a free hour organizing the closet (sometimes by color, sometimes by size, sometimes by style).
But now, your body shelters other little people--it is their safe space, the place where they are validated and nurtured and it is from here that they are launched forth into the world. You would let all the pumpkins rot if it meant that your little people were thriving. Thrive they do, even if it is amongst the dog hair on the carpet that should have been vacuumed yesterday and the piles of dishes that weren't exactly finished before bedtime. The unfinished projects for yourself that are compartmentalized behind closed doors until further notice.
Wherever you are now, long lost neighbor...I wish you well. Order, peace and thriving kids--and the occasional glass of wine and time to yourself.

October

2008-10-01T23:52:00.003-04:00

We spent the day dissecting owl pellets. Since you probably don't have one handy, you can try dissecting a virtual pellet here. Don't worry, they were sterilized, and from a mail order catalog, so the fact that my kids were pawing through piles of regurgitated owl food shouldn't make you feel too queasy. It was interesting. The Urban Park Rangers were releasing a rescued Kestral into the park and somehow our ragamuffin group of homeschoolers got roped in to being their photo op...We had a class on raptors, complete with a hike through The North Woods to find the owl pellets. They even fed us lunch for waiting so long, since the important guys in suits were late. There were TV and newspaper cameras there, I will be sure and let you know if we show up in the paper or something.

Last weekend, we discovered this incredible yumminess. I hope you have one in your city soon, it is the best, especially with rice balls and fruit in it.

Not much else to report. The kids are doing great. School is going well, we are mostly keeping up with the schedule. Brett is going back to Virginia Beach on Sunday for a few weeks. Hopefully he will be able to come back most weekends. Simon is growing and starting to really be able to grab things. He also is laughing more and pulling hair.

The leaves are turning and it is cooler--perfect actually, since I continually run *way* too hot in NY. Happy October to you!

Brettus is my homeboy

2008-09-23T23:04:00.002-04:00

Maya sometimes shows this uncharacteristic independent, self confident streak. Like when she leaves messages on the chalkboard to Brett like the title of this blog entry. Or like tonight when she assured me she wanted to go to the bathroom by herself in the restaurant and she knew just where it was. After a few minutes Brett got up to check. He came back with her, to report that the bathroom was down a flight of stairs, around a corner, in a basement past two separate doors to the outside. Open doors, with the New York crazies rushing by on a busy sidewalk. As in it was really far away and not something we should let her do on her own yet. I knew that, really I did. I was just testing him.

Similarly, soccer this week was surprising--I had to juggle both kids games at the same time on different fields (about 2 blocks apart). The surprising thing was when I arrived back at Maya's game and started chatting with the parents I was standing next to. They asked who my daughter was and I pointed her out.
"She's really good!", they said.
Oh, they must be confused about which one I meant.
"There...number 3."
"Right--we've been watching her--she's real scrappy and has been aggressive and doing a great job."
I tried not to let my mouth hang open, I don't want to appear unsupportive.
But I have to say, Maya:
a)Doesn't care who wins, in any game
b)Doesn't have the faintest idea of how to actually play soccer
c)Could never, by any stretch of the word be described as "aggressive"
d)Has never, to my knowledge, actually kicked a soccer ball before the season started

I closed my mouth and watched the game. She actually looked like she knew what she was doing. She kicked the ball several times and high fived teammates who made goals. It was so strange--as in, who took my daughter, who I fully expected to be the one doing everyone's ponytails on the sidelines, and replaced her with the lanky confidence I saw before me. She was actually running around, getting sweaty and kicking the ball in the right direction. I guess it just goes to show that sometimes you just have to try new things. Who knew?

Maybe it is that as a parent you keep certain images of your kid like a permanent marker in your mind. Like my reflex picture of Maya is of a particular little girl who starts flipping like a fish tail if you serve her lunch on the wrong color of plate. Terrified of the falling ice in "Winged Migration". Doesn't even say anything if a kid takes a toy away from her.

I think it's high time I updated my image.

Hat Day

2008-09-19T00:29:00.003-04:00

It is starting to get a little chilly here when the wind blows...Fall is in the air. Consequently, Simon had to wear a hat today. He is really cute in a hat. We had to have a little photo session before bed to prove it.
He stares at the camera, so it's hard to get a picture of him smiling.
This little guy gets lots of kisses and hugs...
He has been talking and laughing and squealing. Did we say cute?

Solo

2008-09-14T23:13:00.003-04:00

I am writing from the living room...there are three kids asleep in the bedroom and a dog sprawled out at my feet. And a husband across the country. Brett just left today for a dive trip in L.A. He doesn't even have a return airline ticket, since he isn't sure when the project will be finished. This is the first time he has been away from us since Simon arrived on the scene.

After a 24 stomach flu (Jonah and I), we had the first meeting of chorus, Maya's ballet class, a new semi-private Spanish class and a weekend of soccer games. The weather has been mostly hot still, but it looks like it will drop by more than 10 degrees tomorrow. I will be glad for that, holding a sweaty little baby in the heat is not something I relish.

Simon is turning into a funny, squealing, slobbery bundle of yumminess. His eyes sparkle, he laughs and smiles all the time and he is easy as pie (as long as he is with me). He sleeps well at night, he nurses like a champ, he poops prolifically, and as long as we are out and about he loves sleeping in the sling all day. He doesn't like loud, sudden noises, being separated from me for more than a few minutes, or being put down for naps during the day when we are home. Jonah is famous for his loud, sudden noises, and Maya likes "babysitting" Simon on her own (in another room from me), so we have minor sibling issues, but for the most part, Simon adores the big kids and forgives them their transgressions.

We shall see how the kids and I do on our own--Brett had been coming home fairly early and taking them to the park in the evenings. I have given myself permission to get a lot of takeout for dinner.

Green-eyed Monster

2008-09-04T22:47:00.005-04:00

In a string of emails related to up and coming classes for our kids I keep coming across signature lines of other parents that include things like "Vice President, ___ Magazine". And it's a magazine you've heard of, absolutely. Sometimes I google these people, and they have pretty interesting lives. Have you ever googled people you know? It is amazing what there is a record of out there.
I think the problem is that if I had a signature line it would be something like:

Kristin Sposito
(I've worn the same skirt for 3 days)

or maybe

Kristin Sposito
(It is 11:30pm and I have on a headlamp because if I want to read before bed I can't turn on the light since I share the room with 4 other people)

or even:

Kristin Sposito
(I bought my first item from an infommercial this summer. Shampoo. And my hair doesn't really look any better. It does feel better though, doesn't that count for something?)

Just not very impressive signature lines, when it comes right down to it. I think I am honing in on what I feel most envious of, which is a huge thing. It isn't money. It isn't any material possession, unless you count that I am becoming increasingly jealous of people who live in a place where there is a separate room for the adults and the children. And people that have a nice, soft couch in their living room (as opposed to a wooden church pew). I don't particularly want to be famous--it looks pretty high maintenance, and I wouldn't probably be able to get away with wearing the same skirt for 3 days. My experience with the paparazzi this summer left me very glad for my relative anonymity. I'm not really jealous of people who travel, it feels like we are doing plenty of that these days. I don't feel like I don't have enough time with my kids--my cup is definitely full in that department. I could use more time with Brett, but we manage flirty phone calls around the edges, and we know we're in this for the long haul, so the fact that the kids trump our quality time for a few years doesn't bother us all that much.

What I am truly jealous of, and this comes up a lot in New York, is people who have careers that I think I would enjoy. You are hearing this from someone who has always had trouble choosing, mostly because choosing one thing means *not* choosing something else. And the *not* has always been hard for me. The good part is that the range of things that I find myself wishing I could do is getting much narrower. In fact, it usually has something to do with writing, publishing or editing. And sometimes it has to do with Masters degrees from Columbia University. Maybe academia in general.

Anyways, it is hard to be a mom today--most of us are highly educated and driven. The glass ceiling is cracking, and if we wanted to we could be the movers and the shakers. But then there is that pesky little problem of our biology. That if we were ruling the world we would shed a tear or two about the kids we weren't with. So we stay with the kids. We hover and micromanage and sort of try to perfect this motherhood gig. We read the books and have the theories and we take all that energy that would have gotten us promoted and respected, and we channel it to our poor little offspring, who would much rather be squirting whipped cream from a can into their open mouths or making toilet jokes than being the recipients of our overprogramming.

It will be interesting to see how the kids turn out from all these over-zealous moms. But it will also be interesting to see how the moms turn out after putting a career on hold to be with their kids. Will they go back to school and try something new? Will they jump right back in to where they left the work force? Or will they realize that raising kids was actually a great gig and they can coast on their husband's retirement with the full satisfaction that they just did one half of the Family's work and they don't have anything left to prove?

However that comes to pass, I like that I am figuring out what makes me feel passionate, what kind of "work" I would do on my own in my free time, without pay. That I love words and how they can paint a feeling, tell a story or evoke a mood. Describing something to someone else who wasn't there to see it first hand or drawing connections between things known and unknown and portraying it artfully, choosing an identity and reinforcing an image with carefully selected topics...I don't know what it is about that, but I love it. And I admit, I am totally jealous of anyone that gets paid for this kind of work.
Envy can be helpful--it can show you where you wish you could go and point a direction in which to apply your efforts.

It will be interesting to meet these other soccer moms--it isn't a homeschooling league, so I'm sure that most families in the group will include two working adults. It's for families living on the Upper West Side, so I can be pretty sure that there will be an assortment of high profile careers represented. I'll try to come up with a signature line that won't make them feel like the neighborhood is going downhill. As in, it won't include references to laundry, headlamps or infomercials. And just maybe we will discover that at the end of the day it doesn't really matter about careers and paychecks and ambition-we'll just be two moms on the sidelines with kids the same age. Then again, maybe they have an opening for a travel writer who has never actually written and doesn't mind not being able to change clothes for days on end...You never know.

First Day of School

2008-09-03T01:17:00.003-04:00

Actually today was our second day back at it--we did some schoolwork on Monday too--mostly because I have been so anxious to see how it was going to work with two kids. The big hit so far is Latin, surprisingly. Maya keeps asking to do more, and calling her brothers Simonus and Jonus. I'm not jinxing myself by assuming that this eager, willing-to-work mindset is going to stick with us for the whole quarter, but I'll take it for now. Jonah seems to have matured a lot since the last time we were trying to crank on schoolwork--he is able to sit and do something for a short period of time without being an exasperating attention-whore (that was always Maya's cue to do some drifting, creative-ish project that had nothing to do with school). Since Jonah is in 1st grade now, he is adding a few subjects--not just math, reading, science and handwriting, but also grammar, spelling and history. Maya is adding Latin and a formal writing program. Of course both kids also are theoretically doing Spanish and Art, but, well, those are the ones that we tend to not get to.
Which is why Maya started a new Art class today--I am so excited about it--several of her friends are in it, and it looks to be just great.
Today we made a trip to the Department of Education to pick up Metrocards--some hardworking homeschool mom lobbied hard to get these a few years ago for homeschoolers, and I am so grateful for it. Free Metrocards that work during school hours...and I am especially appreciative since I now have two kids tall enough to pay for subway and bus rides.
In the next couple of weeks all the other school-related activities start--Central Park zoo classes, NYU Children's Chorus, soccer teams, Urban Park Ranger classes, violin, poetry writing and book club for Maya and a reading group for Jonah. Also the usual field trips and excursions to theater and NY sites...It looks like a lot of fun, and we feel so lucky to be able to homeschool here in this amazing place.

Back Home

2008-08-29T01:40:00.003-04:00

Wednesday morning we picked up our rental car, packed it jam full with luggage, kids, dogs and the last of our Virginia Beach fast food, and hit the road. We had an uneventful drive to Baltimore, crashed in a hotel that had the most hideous decorating scheme I have ever seen, then woke up this morning and drove the rest of the way to New York.
It was our most graceful entrance to the city yet. We arrived in the late afternoon. The traffic was moderate, the weather beautiful, and we were all pretty happy to be home. We had even stopped complaining about the tolls or even about how ugly New Jersey is the closer you get to New York. It is also the first time I didn't have that open-jaw feeling when my first view of the NYC skyline comes into view--it just felt familiar. We didn't even use directions to get here, which is a huge change from our first trip, with Brett white-knuckling the steering wheel and me compulsively reviewing what seemed like a 30-step process over and over just to navigate the plethora of highway names, exits and turns. When people started cutting and honking and a taxi driver and motorcyclist nearly came to blows we barely even noticed, we were too busy squeezing out the guy behind us and cutting someone off ourselves.
While we still had the car I went to the grocery store and spent over $300 there restocking our empty kitchen. Then Brett took the car to La Guardia and here we are.
He goes to work tomorrow while the kids and I try to unpack some of the tremendous piles surrounding us. Then we have a 3-day weekend to make the transition back to our normal life.
The car we drove was a huge Dodge Caravan. We had to remove the middle seat to fit in the dog crate (since we now have 3 kids, we couldn't do the more logical removal of the rear seat unless we strapped one kid to the roof). The kids were crammed in the back with luggage piled under their feet, and they were so far away that we couldn't really talk to them--nobody could hear anyone else between the back and front, so eventually we gave up and they were in their little world and we were in ours. Kind of nice, actually, as if we had one of those magic walls, like in limos. We have learned some things over the past 2 years of this kind of travel--we used more large duffel bags and less random floppy things. The effect of this was marked when our belongings were all spread out between the sidewalk, the lobby and our apartment on the trek inside. Way less embarrassing than having overflowing bags of junk spread out for all to see. Also, arriving by a decent hour made the whole grocery shopping/returning the car thing much less painful. Same with taking a taxi home from the airport instead of the torturous bus/subway combo.
Simon is in his element here. He was loving the overstimulating environment that is New York from the first moment we stepped out of that car door. Looking everywhere with bright, alert eyes, then falling into a sound sleep in the sling while we brought everything up. I think he is just a New York kind of guy. And we just got his birth certificate in our pile of mail to prove it.
My cold, by the way, is much better. Nobody else seems to have gotten it, and I am over the worst...
Our whole family was pleasantly surprised by how homey and comfortable our apartment feels--makes us realize how cheap and yucky the Virginia Beach place really was. It was just cheap construction. Not saying this place is deluxe or anything, but you walk in and the hardwoods and the bones of the building, it just feels so much more substantial and less drab. We are happy to be here, all of us, even the dog, who has been so sound asleep that he didn't even notice I was all ready to go for a walk until I had to yell to wake him up. That never happens. Usually he has it figured out before I even get my shoes on.
Autumn is the best time here--it is beautiful weather, the tourists are not out en force, it is leafy by the park and has that wonderful feeling of back to school anticipation in the air. We aren't even really feeling sad about the Key West trip--as it turned out that whole concept was tossed since the dive school is only offered there once a year and 3 weeks is too long for most of the divers to take away from other work. They will consider other options that are shorter in duration and offered more times a year, but nothing is in the works yet.
Our summer away was great--Maya became a swimmer this summer, and Jonah grew up in so many ways. Simon got over his colic and has become less of a newborn and more of a baby. It seems really important to get out of the city every once in a while and see another side of life--having a car, letting the kids run free outside without having to be so supervised all the time, experiencing life in another part of the country. I am glad that Brett wasn't away from us--it would have been a lot of long days and tiring nights without us being together as we were growing used to being a family of five. I feel recharged, energized to be here and be part of this monstrous urban area. I appreciate the recycling, the walking, the interesting things to do. I did not appreciate the rat I saw on my walk tonight, sigh, but I guess it just goes to show that no place is perfect.
Virginia Beach--We found some lovely things to do, and the pool couldn't have been better for the kids. However, it is one of the least environmentally friendly places I have ever been, the boardwalk area feels trashy and brazenly touristy after too much exposure, and the beach was devoid of shells and scenic beauty. We never found anyone in Virginia Beach that we felt like we connected with or shared many beliefs or interests with. The military-ness of the town was overwhelming and permeated everything constantly. Three televisions in one apartment is too much for The Spositos. We are grateful for whole experience though. It has been a pretty nice summer.

Saying Good-Bye

2008-08-29T01:25:00.004-04:00

It is so hard to leave friends...Especially those you aren't able to see all that much. Abbie and Maya have an easy, comfortable relationship and share interests in many of the same things. I have never heard them have even the tiniest of arguments in the whole time they have known each other, and they are able to jump right back in where they left off, even though the spaces between their visits have been long, particularly from an 8 year old's perspective. They do arts and craft type things together as easily as they swim and run and play actively, and they can spend hours with dolls and making clothes and props for their toys. Jonah and Ben had more of a relationship this time--last time Jonah was so young, he really was only interested in The Wiggles and fruit leather, and didn't really get the whole friend thing. I have high hopes that these two will also be close, as they explore their shared interests in games (like Poker), sports, and little action figure guys.
We are so grateful for our generous and adventurous homeschooling friends for making such a long trek to see us. It is wonderful to see familiar faces while we are living so far from our roots.
It was a bummer that I wasn't feeling so hot for their whole visit here--Bonnie and I usually spend inordinate amounts of time discussing homeschooling curricula and classes and schedules for our kids. This time that was minimized since I didn't have a whole lot of voice. No matter, we had a perfect day at the beach, a great time at Williamsburg and several lovely meals together with our whole families, something we never seemed to manage to do even when we were living in the same zip code.
Overall, a great visit, and a fitting end to our summer activities.

Williamsburg with friends

2008-08-29T01:07:00.003-04:00

Sunday we went to Williamsburg for our 3rd visit of the summer. We started out by seeing several of the re-enactments we had missed before--that was interesting, and both Brett and I felt like we learned a lot (and remembered very little of the details of early American History from our own schooling). The kids rented costumes for the day--dresses for the girls and shirts knapsacks and wooden guns for the boys. They were so excited to be dressed up!
Several of the things the kids most wanted to do happened to be closed this time around, so I'm glad we got to see most of the re-enactments. They did the tomahawk and grenade throwing again, and we found another great little old time sandwich shop for lunch.
Here are Bonnie and I...You can't tell because of my 70's sunglasses (which I scrounged up from some old box when my regular ones got broken), but this is moments before I announced to the group that I was too sick to stick out the rest of the day. I had been coming down with something for the two previous days of their visit--sore throat, losing my voice, etc. After trekking around in the heat at Williamsburg all day I just started to crash. Thank goodness Brett was there this time with us and was carrying Simon most of the day...I don't know what I would have done if I had him to carry and my bag.
Jonah decided to come home with Brett, Simon and I, and we left Maya with Bonnie and Dave. They ended up staying several more hours and having a great time. As for us--by the time I got home and got into bed I had a fever of 103, a horrible cough, a splitting headache. Brett stuffed me full of liquids and played games with Jonah while Simon and I slept. I still have it 4 days later, but have been getting better every day since.

Abbie and Ben!

2008-08-29T00:54:00.004-04:00

We were so excited for our good friends Bonnie and Dave and their kids Abbie and Ben to come see us...They arrived on a Friday and although it has been a year and a half since they had seen each other, it was like it had never happened. That first day they went right to the pool at our apartment complex then out to dinner for sushi. Saturday was our big beach day. Their family was staying at one of the big hotels right on the boardwalk, so we met them right outside on the sand. As you can see, the beach was crowded that day, and the red "danger" flags were flying because the rip tides were so strong and the waves were big. But the kids had a blast--they played on boogie boards, built sandcastles and walls to protect our gear from the incoming tide, jumped the waves and had a great time. Then we played mini-golf and had dinner on the boardwalk at a great Mexican place. It was a perfect day at the beach. Simon was asleep or content all day, the kids got along famously and Brett got to bodysurf.

The Paparazzi

2008-08-26T23:32:00.003-04:00

There are six other kids in our immediate vicinity. Three boys are right across the hall from us until noon each day while their Grandma babysits. They are 7, 5 and 3. Cute, tow-heads, sun-kissed chubby limbs, sparkling eyes. All boy. Then upstairs there are three more. An 8 year old boy, 6 year old girl and 4 year old boy. All six of these kids treat us like we are famous. To the point of it being completely ridiculous. They beg to come inside. They love our dog. They love our apartment. They love our pool toys. They love our games and puzzles and art supplies. They love Maya and Jonah. They make us things, give us toys, offer to share anything they have. When they hear us leaving to go somewhere they come flying outside to find out where we're going and if they can come too. To be fair, M & J love them too, and have had many hours of lovely summer free play with all of them--several times I bought packs of glowsticks at the craft store and the kids played outside in the dark until they were sweaty and tired and covered with mosquito bites. Three of the kids were our regular pool friends, and they would swim together almost every other day.
Sometimes, though, it is annoying to have kids flocking around you asking you questions:
"Where are you going?"
"Can I come?"
"Where is your dog?"
"Let's play at your house!"
"I'll go get my bike and come with you."
"Oh, good, I love going to Target, I'll come too."
"Can I have a sleepover at your house?"
"Will you babysit me when my mom goes to work?"
"Can I hold the baby?"
"Can I walk your dog?"
"Can I come into your apartment?"
And eventually, they stopped asking and just started coming in the door without knocking or asking. I had several wrestling matches with the oldest boy at the door. A couple times, we snuck out the patio door when we went on a walk, just out of sheer non-desire to answer that many questions and fight our way through the crowd loitering on our front doormat. And I'm sorry, but 3 kids is plenty to have with me when I walk to Target. I can't imagine many things less fun than taking someone else's kids with me too. Picture me, like a little Pied Piper of Children--carrying one, and a flock of others surrounding me--fingering the action figures and asking for junk food. Ditto with walking my dog through the apartment complex. I guess it was good assertiveness training for me, to be able to say "No" firmly and clearly, lest anyone run to ask their parent if they could come with me before I had time to clarify that I wasn't offering free summer field trips.
The kids made me sad too--obviously there wasn't a lot of enriching material spread around their apartments. They watched copious amounts of T.V. and were subjected to a dazzling array of punishments for being "naughty" at home--including wall sits, having their toys thrown away, not being allowed to have snacks when they were hungry, having to sit and watch the other kids in the pool because they were not allowed to swim that day, being spanked with "Mr. Happy Butt" (whatever that was)...Broke my heart really...They were all good kids. And sometimes I felt guilty for being quick to say no about taking them along with us, or having them all over in our apartment.
Many times they would knock at the door and ask my kids to play and I would ask them if they wanted to play. If they were involved in something, Maya and Jonah would always say "No thanks, maybe later." And this answer was a source of the utmost mystery to the kids, none of whom would ever be involved in something in their own place engaging enough to turn down a playdate with someone else.
The assertiveness training went for all of us, not just me--Maya discovered that one of the boys wouldn't stop doing annoying things when asked nicely, as is her usual style. Several times I overheard her raising her voice and yelling at him--"Knock it off, Josh!", and I had to smile...I asked her about it once and she just shrugged and said "He won't stop if you ask nice, you have to yell." Hmmm, just might come in handy some day.