For Posterity (and Rainy Days)

We've had bad luck with our kids.--they've all grown up.  
-Christopher Morley



Yesterday I woke up to a lovely poem on my nephew's 17th birthday:

This is what my nephew looks like now:

Yikes!!! I think I am getting older because I am in the same place these days.  My son is only 14, but I am feeling a similar nostalgia about him aging and going away.  I am recording this today as proof that having 4 small children actually pays off at some point.  I remember when a friend of mine had her first baby she said something like "You know before I had kids, I thought it was going to be 90% and 10% fun.  But when I actually had a baby, it turns out it was 10% work and 90% fun."  When she said that I thought she was so sweet but a little crazy.  It IS 90% work!!! 

But now, now that my youngest child is in kinder, I am getting there.  I still feel that my younger kids are high levels of work--they are always wanting things like food and help finding shoes.  But my older children, wow, what a sweet payoff.

They used to ask for stuff.  When they were this size:

But lately, when they call and ask "hey can I stay at my friend's house?"  I feel like saying "No!!! come hang out with me!!!" But I don't really have a reason to say no, so I just say "I guess.  Be home by 5:30."  

Because this is what it is like to hang out with them now:

And the feeling is bittersweet--because just as I like them more, they like other people more.  Just as I want to hang out with them and play games or watch youtube videos of stupid music videos from my childhood, they want to come home late from doing more fun things with their friends.

Soon enough, these wonderful little children will become actual adults and move out while I will be left wondering why I found cooking dinner such a chore after all.

I suppose having 4 children at least gives me a little extra time because while they are still asking for stuff and needing stuff, they are getting pretty fun too:

And even now, as I am posting this, I am worried about my kids' grades, their friendships, and developing the spirituality in my children.  But when Jenny posted her poem about her oldest child, it gave me a fleeting glance into my own future in which I am reluctant to let my kids go, I am devastated that they are leaving me and my first act as an empty nester is to show up on the doorstep of some poor child of mine and say "Hey, come home and watch this Jimmy Fallon bit with me."  

And their roommates will look them in the eye and whisper "Make sure she takes you food shopping while you are out."

SAHD

Most of you know that Steve has been home with the kids for most of our marriage--not that he hasn't had plenty to do as a full-time student which he has been for much of that time, but he has also taken on the responsibility of being the primary care giver in our home for the days I am gone or when I am home and on the phone (which seems like a large percentage of the time.) This year, he had to step it up as a full-time student dissertating while I pursued a Master's Degree and was gone even more than normal.

One might wonder what Steve does when I am out of town.  Does he cook?  Clean?  Do the dishes?  Laundry?  What kinds of activities does he do with the kids?

In a world in which we still make a big deal about men who know what to do with their kids, it can surprise people to know that I never do laundry yet it is always clean and put away and there are no piles of dirty clothes around.  The children are not starving when I come home as evidenced by their yummy chubby faces and the dishes seem to be just as clean when I am here as when I return from being gone.

As for the activities, this is where his parenting gets a little questionable.  Often when I come home from being out of town, I encounter strange new possessions that arrived in my absence.  Things like this:

I know that some of you recognize the life-sized bear from Costco.  We own one.  Actually, we own two:

My sister-in-law suggested that they look like passed out frat boys in the middle of the night (you may recall a similar post I made about it awhile back).

These bears also have a little friend that arrived later one, a little  big stuffed sheep.  I tried to take a pictures so you can get a sense of scale, but the thing is larger than a standard pillow.

These large stuffed animals are a nuisance, but never before has something shown up that has been as disruptive as these three two ratoncitos. 

They purchased three but Steve decided it was one too many and returned one without consulting the girls, it was very traumatic for poor little Gillian

In a sad turn of events, however, one of the little rats got very ill with pneumonia and a side of my beloved husband came out that reminded me of why I married him.  He put the rat cage in the bathroom and turned up the water to provide a steam room for the sick rat.  And in spite of his eternal cheapness and the lack of return on his investment ($5 dollar rat: $50 vet trip) he took the sick pet to the veterinarian to make sure that the animal was cared for properly.  In watching him make sure this little animal was going to survive, I couldn't help but forgive all of his crazy antics when I am out of town. 

To you, my love, on your birthday, thank you for all that you are to our family.

Beauty and the Teen

A friend of mine posted an article on the facebook today entitled How to Talk to Little Girls.  Certainly I concur with the author's point about the problem facing young women and an overemphasis on beauty.  It also sits well with me to encourage a young woman to develop her other talents and develop her mind.

But what bothered me a bit was to hold back enthusiasm about the adorableness of little girls because seriously, how can you not rave about someone that looks like this:

???

And when your natural instinct to express your love for how much she gives you joy to see her, witholding that enthusiasm and giving into a "don't you love to hike?  I do!" doesn't quite convey how much it pleases you to see her face.

But what struck me the most about this article is that it neglects the research that I believe to ring true--that the main influence on a young girl's body image is in fact her relationship with her mother as well as her mother's own body image.  Do these young girls seeking ways to be more beautiful have mothers who are completely satisfied with their own looks (not sure this is fair to ask, is any woman?)

I read an article years ago about the influence of a mother's body image and got some great tips:

• Praise your own body in front of your daughter by saying things like "don't I look good in this swimsuit" or "doesn't this color look pretty on mommy?"  
• Avoid saying things like "I am fat" or referring to your dieting practices. 
• Stay focused on health

I will admit that this was very difficult for me at first, not really feeling like "mommy looks pretty in a swimsuit" ever.  And, perhaps looking at this cyclically, my mother had a very tortured relationship with her own body image and constantly complained that she was overweight--at a mere 120 lbs.  I have never once in my life looked at my body with any level of satisfaction.

But wanting to try something new with my own daughters, I have worked very hard to appreciate my own looks in front of them.  I feel that this has been very successful and the level of confidence my oldest daughter has is tremendous in comparison with where I was at her age a quarter of a century ago.

This whole theory was tested last week when my 8-year old, watching me zumba to a youtube video, asked "Mommy, did you ever think that you were fat?"

YES!!! I STILL DO!!! DON'T EAT THAT DONUT OR YOU WILL BE FAT TOO!!!

But rather than shout my true feelings, I did what any good mother does: lie.

"Well, honey, I see other women, like in this video, and I know my body does not look like that.  What I try to think about is keeping my body healthy with good exercise and healthy eating so that I can feel good about myself.  So I try not to look at other women and notice what I look like in comparison with them."

She seemed pleased with my response--I had to really refrain from asking her why-- I am not sure if she was asking me because she was worried about her own body or if she was thinking that I looked kind of fat, I just didn't have the mental space to handle her answer if she said "well you are kind of bigger than those girls" when I was in the middle of sweating up a storm to lose those 7 grad school pounds.

I have come a long way, baby.

The main point I wish to make here is that refraining from telling a girl she is beautiful because you do not want to reinforce what society says only works if everyone else is fighting that battle too, specifically, her mother.   But we cannot pretend that beauty is going to be less important over time if we all just stop complimenting young women on their looks.  So I propose a compromise, next time you want to squeal in delight at the young curly-haired girl at the dinner party:

1) Stick with a focus on the talent as the primary goal of the conversation

2) Still tell her she is beautiful, for what harm does it do for her to believe it about herself?

3) Compliment yourself in the conversation so she sees role models who are confident

Imagine this modified version of the conversation:

"Look at this beautiful child!!! What are you reading beautiful child with the yummy curls?  I LOVE books too."  And when she says that she reads books all by herself?  You say "Are you kidding me?  You read a book by yourself?  Age 5?  That is completely awesome and actually pretty rare." 

And as you are telling her about the book you wrote, the success you experienced as a professional woman and your favorite color somehow comes up, why not throw in a "...which is why I wore this green dress because really, don't I look fabulous?"

I want girls to understand that their talents, intellect, and hard work are key to confidence and identity. But I also want them to feel confident enough in their looks to allow them to put their talents on the front page and hearing other women say that they are beautiful (even when we perhaps are not) seems to me to be a much better way to respond to our own instincts about complimenting a cute face while raising healthy girls.

Evolution in Blogging

I have had been a faithful blogger for a decade before my posts slowed to a trickle.  At first I thought it was busier, but I have realized lately that part of the reason for this slowing down is that my life has becoming increasingly more private.

Not that I have much to hide, I am still just as open in person with my friends as I have historically been on this blog, but that there is more at stake in the written world.  Here are what I believe my reasons are for less blogging:

1) Children who can now browse the internet.  As far as I can tell, they have yet to happen upon this blog, but there is always a chance that that "hilarious"  parenting fail moment I have freely blogged about in the past will show up in therapy for my children in a couple of decades.  I can't have a written record of the conversations I had with them about their coming of age including appropriate internet usage or bodily development.  just. can't.  But believe me, there is some good material floating out in the universe.

2) I have further access to secret district stuff.  Did you know that existed? Yeah, it does.  And I can't tell you about it.  I would like to, though, see this post on how much I dislike secrets.

3) I am now spending time in public schools learning things that are not particularly positive. I can't write an exposé about the inner workings of teacher and student discipline, my take on whether or not large comprehensive high schools should even work, or how I really feel about mediocrity in instruction.

4) I am on a violently emotional roller coaster with grad school in which one day I am ready to write a novella on how ridiculous grad school really is and how little the institution can teach me and the next I want to share all of my new knowledge with the world.

I imagine one day I will return to daily or weekly blogging because it has historically been so therapeutic for me, perhaps when and if we move.  Which brings me to my last point:

5) The Way Things Are (Grad School Status):  Steve is applying for jobs whilst finishing his dissertation.  We haven't heard back from most of the places where he has applied and chances are high that we will move to the middle of nowhere for a year or two before we find our final resting place.  I think we initially wanted to move for a longer period of time so the kids wouldn't have to move a bunch more, but nothing like the application process to remind you that after all that you can do, your future is not in your own hands.  Uncertainty is not fun to blog about--it comes across as anxiety or whining, neither of which have a place in my blog.  I write this to record the joy and comedy of my life, not the dark shadows in between that frankly are boring.   Whether we move to some exotic location (East or West Coast?) or some less exotic location (anywhere in between?), I suppose that my friendship quotient will return to 0 and I will have no choice to embrace my old friend the blog, who has always been a listening ear in hard and happy times.

To Spain

In 8 hours I will land in the city of Barcelona where I will be embraced by the Mediterranean.  She has called my name for years and I could not answer but today is the day my friends.  The day I will return to the land where my adult life began.

And it has been sweet my friends.  While I had a happy youth and a reasonably average level of self-loathing during adolescence, my life markedly, decidedly improved as I aged and it seems to still be in on upswing and I attribute so much of my happiness to the formative experience I had as a missionary while in Spain.

My only wish for this trip is that my family were with me to enjoy it.

So... what will I be doing?

A little bit of this:

A little bit of that:

And of course my primary responsibility:

Working with a group of nuns on Tuesday.

I would ask you to pray for me but I need you to send your luck and prayers to the following individuals who have a lot of "firsts" to go through without me around.

• Steve.  Who I love more than life and who I already miss so that he can get the routine started for back-to-school week
• Gillian.  Has her first soccer practice and game (ever!) this week.  She is also starting up the Spanish immersion this year (she had to take a hiatus because the program here doesn't start until 2nd grade)
• Casey.  Starting Junior High (gulp!) as a big 7th grader.  
• Meghan.  Potty Training.
• Bridget.  That she can adjust to going to bed before 3 am.

Hasta luego chicos!!

On Mortality

My mother-in-law was diagnosed with Endometrial Cancer last week and I am still reeling from it.

Her prognosis is good, she will be having a hysterectomy on Monday and they will determine her stage and phase of cancer. Apparently this kind of cancer has a high survival rate because you can remove the part of the body it has attacked fairly easily and comprehensively. Any prayers or good energy you can spare on her behalf would be deeply appreciated.

Up the Canyon

Living near the mountains is much like living near the beach: you have to make a concerted effort to enjoy it and actually schedule time so you can build memories like these:

Day of the Sardines

In Spain, Ash Wednesday is a very sad event in which the partying comes to an end and they bury the sardines.  Or something like that, to be honest I can't remember how the sardines fit in.

But I do know that it is associated with the end of a party and great weeping of the Spaniards and I know how they feel because the end of Grandpa camp is marked with great sadness for our family.  Here is a commemorative film highlighting some of the great moments:

Grandpa Camp II (III)

Sorry for my dearth of posting, I am in heaven (aside from the weather, ahem) at the lakeside North Carolina Grandpa Camp.

For those who do not recall this little gem of an experience from last year, it is a combination of working hard and playing hard, my favorite mix in life.

Working hard:  Making meals for 20 people 3 x a day:

I am actually just taking a break from my paid job, the real chef is Aunt Jenny with the fab legs.  I show up to be her sous or provide periodic dishwashing support along with a few others not pictured.

Playing hard:  Intertubing children

Working hard: Kids' nightly chores to keep those shoes in line

Playing hard:  No explanation required

Working hard:  Preparing for the annual conference day and night (no picture but you can imagine me sitting at the computer and staring really hard)

Playing hard:  Eating delicious gourmet meal after delicious gourmet meal. 


I have some other pictures but Aunt Abby so kindly posted them on the Caboodle so I was able to borrow them for this post.  Stay tuned for today's events...

Working hard:  Making Harry's Hogwart's Haystacks for a crowd

Playing hard:  Eating red velvet cake pops and a treasure hunt for Hidden Harry Handouts

Summer Encampment

Our children had the opportunity to participate in the Noorda Theatre Summer Camp again this year.  Gillian was able to do a child's version of Midsummer Night's Dream and since I wasn't here I had to take it from Steve that it was really and truly a delightful final performance.  Our daughter tapped into her creativity and danced like a fairy.

My eldest two, however, of ALL the choices, decided to pick the following:

EnACTing History - World War II
Students will enhance their acting skills, speaking abilities, and historical understanding as they enact dramatic moments that led the American people in and out of war. The course will include training in improvisational acting, persuasive speech, and historical research as students experience great events first hand in their roles as historical characters. Each week will culminate with a one-hour improvisational performance for family in friends in which a courageous group of citizens must make momentous decisions. Depending on students' persuasive abilities, the course of history may be altered! Special funding from the College of Humanities and Social Science make it possible for us to offer this course for only $75 a week.


I encouraged them to take something more like Stage Combat or Storytelling but they insisted they were interested in learning history.  Obviously they get that from their papa.

But the class instructor pulled a bait and switch and instead of doing WWII, they decided the topic would be...

The Holocaust.

They had to pick between the following roles:

• Nazi doctor
• Camp guard
• Resistance fighter
• Allied Soldier
• Jew
• Nazi Civilian

When our son came home he said "All we do is kill people."  He was pretty upset about it so *Steve's sister talked to the kids, reread the description and decided that maybe they were going to rewrite history so Steve left them in for the week, especially when it seemed like the activities they were doing in camp each day were more light-hearted.  The kids seemed to like it better after day 1.

Cut to Friday:

Note: Actors are children ages 10-14

Scene #1  

Camp Director:  Jews to the showers!!

Camp Guard (played by my son):  They don't look that dirty to me, they don't need to take a shower

Nazi doctor:  Pull the lever!!!

Camp Guard:  {lets them free}

Nazi doctor:  So you didn't pull the lever?  [chops off Camp Guard's fingers]

Scene #2

Nazi Camp Director:  I am not guilty for what I have done because the Jews are all spit.

Scene #3

Allied Soldiers:  Hi Jews, we are here to rescue you!

Jews:  Do you have any food for us, please?

Allied Soldiers:  Yes

Jews:  [Die on stage]

Isn't summer camp fun?

*For Steve's rendition see The Juvenile Instructor

Ode to the Paterfamilias.

As I will be leaving on Sunday for the first of two big conferences and tomorrow Steve is going to give a paper at a conference that I will attend for a few moments to hear him deliver.  We are both hoping that after hearing his paper I will say "Oh! Interesting!" rather than "What?"

Due to the busy schedule of the blessed Father's Day weekend, we decided to serve up some food this eve and celebrate tonight.  More on that in a minute.

When I was at the grocery store, I asked the girls "What kind of ice cream does daddy like?" and we stood there stumped.  Next we were in the chips aisle and we asked ourselves "What kind of chips dos daddy like?" And then I started to cry because I realized that after nearly 13 years of marriage, my husband knows every detail about me.  He knows that my favorite ice cream is something with lots of chocolate.  He knows that my favorite chips contain a hint of lime.  He probably even knows that 10/10 is it a green salsa over a red.

But him?  The only thing I know about his taste is that he likes everything we like.  He loves to make us happy.  And when he is thinking about what kind of ice cream he wants, he defaults to what will bring me the most joy: chocolate bits of something yummy.

Steve has been focused on my happiness since the day we met and he doesn't waiver, ever.  I had an opportunity to go to Spain to do some training in August (another post later) and rather than say "dude, you travel ALL the freaking time and you are gone for like two weeks already in August." He looked me in the eye and said "honey, I totally support you going to Spain, that is wonderful."

Most of all, I appreciate how much he loves the children he made me have.  I don't regret a single one and I appreciate that he takes care of them all the time so I don't remember why I didn't want to have them before they were born.


For these and a million other reasons, I am happily married to the most selfless and least materialistic person on the planet.

So since he is so easy to please, I made him what I have been wanting for dinner lately:

Aged Irish White Cheddar Cheese melted on Rosemary Olive Oil Bread. 

With some steak for good measure.

I didn't include a picture due to its grotesque nature, but I did throw in a little treat that was Steve-specific:  sauteed mushrooms. 


For dessert I stole a recipe from Paula Deen and made a summer fruit tart:

The fruit tart recipe was amazing, but I didn't have the glaze ingredients on hand, so I used instead a glaze that I modified from this site.  If you like fruit, cream cheese, and whipping cream, you would have been ecstatic to join our desserting crew tonight.


Finally, for a gift we decided to splurge and bought him a nice sports coat.  When he saw it he asked if we had taken his suit to the dry cleaners for a gift. 

So easy to please, this one.

Things I Should Remember

The last few months have been so happy for me.  I can't decide if it is because I have been exercising regularly, because we live in such a beautiful house, or if we just haven't gotten entrenched in the community enough to have responsibilities beyond our family.  Regardless of root cause, I feel like I have been so happy lately when I am at home.

I have been traveling way too much but will cut back as of June which makes me even happier.

A sampling of things I have done here and loved:

1.  Helped at a friend's wedding--I thought this basket that the brother of the bride put together was so beautiful of all the homemade breads (chocolate, garlic asiago, whole wheat, tomato basil, etc.)  Isn't that a gorgeous way to display bread?  I am going to have to remember this little catering tip for the future.

2. Inspired by my friend Tiffany's little crafty self, I called her for some ideas on making cake truffles.  Believe me, these things were tasty and just used up some leftover cake and frosting we had sitting around. These were for teacher appreciation week btw.

3.  One of my recent trips to NYC--this is the Lincoln Center and the sparkly little lights are the word "Welcome" in a million different languages.  I guess the droid camera doesn't capture that kind of light intensity, but I liked the way the picture turned out and feel like it captured how I felt when I was there.  I am going back in about a week.  

4.  Up the canyon--we had a nice little Friday night picnic up there last week and it was so enjoyable.  I definitely will be adding this to things to do around here.  Here are some shots of what we did together--I include the first one so you can see Meg is now cast-free and participating (with a limp) in more active family time.

Gillian took this and I felt like it just captured Meg's joy at the river.  She wanted to just sit at the water's edge and play the whole time.

Casey was off doing his own thing....

5.  Work meeting--our entire staff got together in Napa this week and here at the end of the table standing up is my boss.  She is lovely and tremendous and everyone I work with is incredible.  I can't say enough how much I love the job I have and the people I work with--though the travel has been really intense for everyone on our team, we still enjoyed the opportunity to hang out together during meals.

I need to remember to blog these as separate events rather than try to squeeze it in one post, but that is how I have felt anyway.

Maybe next week.

Why Spring Break is Super Lame

You know, I used to love Spring Break.  In my former life when I went to college and was in a sorority and drank a lot of alcohol.  I think I must have lived in the 1950s.

In this reincarnation, however, I have apparently moved down a caste.  I have descended to the lowly life of a normal human being who does not understand the impulse to give kids a break midway through the year.

You might be thinking to yourself, but you were a TEACHER. Yes.  Yes I was.  And do you know what I did over spring break?  Grade papers and develop curriculum.  What part of that sounds like a break?

In honor of this pointless, pagan ritual, I am posting a top ten:

Top Ten Quotes Exemplifying Why I Loathe Spring Break

1.  "But, why do we have to go to bed at all if we don't have to get up and go to school?"

2.  "Why do we have to do TWO chores" (this would have pulled at my heart strings as I hate chores myself, but honestly, they didn't even do one so no sympathy after all)

3.  "OWWWW!!!! STOP HITTING ME!!!!"

4.  "Can we watch another movie (after going to the theater)?"

5.  "I am bored."

6.  "But I finished my book!  How can I read any more?"

7.  "OWWWW!! CASEY!!!"

8.  "Can I eat some more of your really awesome special food that you buy for yourself and I normally don't have access to because I am at school?"

9.  "So they canceled all church activities because of Spring Break."

10.  "Can we go somewhere?"

Maybe next year I will take the week off and take my kids to Mexico so they can say things like "Estoy aburrido" and "no me toques, Casey!"

The Happenings

I haven't much to say--I am leaving for NYC this afternoon and it will be my third week in a row gone.  I have to say that I have never felt so at loose ends before.

I love my new place, but I feel like I can't enjoy many of the amenities because I keep leaving.  I also had a very depressing moment in Indiana last week when my bff of all time texted me that she was in Utah for her kids' spring break and I was nowhere to be found.  It was tragic and I cried in my hotel room.  Sadness for me.  I guess that means I need to make a trip to Colorado soon.

Steve and I haven't sat down together to do much of anything because of the maximum three-day stretches we have been together for the last 7 weeks. 

Meghan's broken leg makes everything hard.  I was taking her to the pool during swimming lessons that the older girls had, but those days are over.  She can't move herself, but she can demand, loudly, that she be moved, or that other people provide toys for her.  Thank goodness for older siblings who have stepped up to the plate nicely.  They seem less impatient than I.

I owe a huge thanks to my friend Chellese for getting me started on an exercise routine.  We started getting together twice a week to exercise and she introduced me to Tracy Anderson.  I couldn't link you to anything else because she is always wearing a bikini in her pics, but her mat workout video is amazing and you can see with her Japanese "pretty women" clip that what she does is really different.  I feel like my upper body strength is increasing, evidenced by the fact that I won the Fleming Family Olympics, a new game we started this weekend.  More on that in a minute.  I have taken to doing strength training 3-4 days a week and though I am not getting svelte, I feel a definitely increase in my overall health, and my back no longer hurts when I travel.  Highly recommend Tracy if you don't mind a bit of pop culture and constant reference to how she can make you tiny (not like I am opposed to that goal, but I don't like my daughters hearing that, wish she said "... so that your heart with operate at optimum efficiency and you will feel good inside" but perhaps that motivation is less than the desire to be thin.  Oh, evil society pressures.


Fleming Family Olympics--so on Saturday when the kids were fighting and bored (ahem, Conference on Saturdays, tough) I decided we should do an impromptu competition.  Here is how it works:

--Each person in the family picks a particular competition. 
--You get 30 minutes to "prepare" (so I could clean up the house)
--Bring your stopwatch and your measuring tape so you can assess winners in those categories, along with a pencil and piece of paper to keep track
--Go!!

The activities we prepared:
--Bridget:  take a random object from around the house and decorate it with paper and tape.  The most creative wins (she judged and therefore could not compete in this one).  I of course won because I know how to do something in 6 minutes.  I took the Eiffel Tower and added a bunch of monkeys that I cut out from paper.  Creative, no?

--Casey:  5 trivia questions.  I lost this one because I couldn't remember how many DS games he had or the name of the book he was reading.  Bridget won this one.

--Gillian:  List as many words that rhyme with ees as possible.  Meaning, how many words can you create that end in ees.  There was some fighting as we defined rhyming but in the end, I would have won anyway, not really fair competing with kids, but I will take the wins wherever I can.

--Mama:  Try to build the tallest tower from blocks.  I wish I would have set the timer for this one because Bridget actually made the fastest, tallest building.  When her building fell, Casey scooped up her blocks and then spent about 20 more minutes building a really stable foundation.  He pointed out that I never said they couldn't use the extra blocks from others and there was no time limit. 

We had a great time while Steve was at Priesthood meeting--then on Sunday after Conference, same thing, bored, fighting, etc. so we decided to do round two.  This time Steve was involved so we ended up doing some more physical feats--chicken fighting within the taped area on the carpet, wheelbarrow race, and a series of competitions involving the exercise ball.

Everyone went to bed happy, energized, and when we finally did our family prayer and scripture study at the end, there was NO fighting.  It was magical. I did lie about winning though, Steve actually beat my on Sunday due to the exercise ball competitions--I don't have the upper body strength to pull off the stuff that he did.  I beat my kids though, and that is all that counts.

I am off to NYC this pm of course, my last travel for TWO WHOLE WEEKS, hopefully I will capture some more colorful images of the culture. 

The Joads, three generations later

I went to the "Brothers and Sisters" party on Saturday up in the CV (Central Valley) and it was indescribably fun. My aunt calls the party the Brothers and Sisters because it is her siblings and their kids that come to the thing.  Other than the two that died (including Hippie Artist of course.)

I come from some seriously sturdy stock.  By sturdy, I mean hard workers.  Here is a picture of most of the family (excluding the recently out of the woodwork aunt, the two deceased, and the current family hermit):

See a sample of a couple of cousins below.  I heart them.  First cousins, though I am 10 years older than the oldest, I really enjoy hanging out with them.

The kid on the right is an architect in SF.  He is actually getting all SFd out by losing some weight and wearing expensive shades.  And the black clothing of course.  He and I had a conversation about how we have never had a job where our hands got really dirty.  Yet my uncles have all lived long and hard laboring lives.  To them, 12 hours in a hot moving truck, with hot asphalt, or digging ditches for 8 hours in the sun is just a day's work.

My generation is soft.  What would we do if someone threw us into a truck and said "hey go work in the hot Central Valley sun for 8 hours" ?

We would all melt away.

While we were chatting about this hard-working paradigm of our elders, lounging in chairs and listening to stories of my uncle's prison record, where were my aunts?  In the kitchen cleaning up.  And by the time I offered up any help, the work was complete.

Our idea of a hard day's work is sitting in a chair and talking on the phone for 12 hours.  We might have a headache when finished, but we bear no calluses and have exerted no muscles.

And I wonder if my aunts and uncles and second cousins think of us as lazy.

Or maybe my generation IS the American Dream. My grandparents migrated across the country during the dustbowl farming along the way so that their children could own homes and their grandchildren could rub elbows with the middle class, maybe even BE middle class.

So while I commiserate with cousin Jay about figuring out how to work the Droid, and wonder with cousin Bernice about the political direction the country is taking, we have fulfilled the vision of what it means to be an American.

And may we endeavor to have even lazier children.

Grandpa Camp Video

North Carolina Life of Leisure

I had a REAL vacation day yesterday for the first time in what feels like the history of my life.  Sure, I have gone to Disneyland with my kids and loved it, I have gone on trips away from my kids for work, and I have gone shopping for groceries alone, but this was a genuine vacation day.  I think I responded to a grand total of two emails and other than taking a few pictures, my phone just lay limp and useless most of the day while I enjoyed my children.

So what did I do with said day?

• A 4th of July Praid.  Wait, we left Utah, sorry, parade.  It was really not much fun of a parade for adults, very hot, lots of political campaigning, and no horses.  BUT, the kids absolutely loved it because unlike the west coast, throwing out hard pieces of HFCS is very much alive and kicking out here so it was like a constant outpouring of sugared children's pleasure, over, and over, and over again.  Fortunately some people are very smart and brought a bag for all our kids to collect in a socialist approach so instead of eating candy, the kids were madly hunting it to put in the bag.  Amazingly, no one has even asked about that candy so it served the wonderful purpose of hours of entertainment.  One firetruck even threw out some gourmet otter pop types (mango, papaya, etc.) followed by another who handed out ice cold water.
• Spent about 3 hours at the swimming pool down at the clubhouse.  It is so close to this magical house that we were able to take the golf cart and another truckload of kids (in the truckbed no less!) all in swimsuits and towels.  We had so many kids with us that everyone else in attendance almost immediately left so it was like a private pool party.
• Kayak on the lake
• Bonfire complete with s'mores
• Watch the first half of a Marx Brothers Classic (fell asleep partway into it)
• Played pool and was soundly beat by three children under the age of 13

Add to this spending time with lots of really great kids and their wonderful parents and you have one of the best days of my vacationing life.

For the upcoming days in which I am working and not vacationing, it still beats my normal day-to-day because of the following factors:

• Handcrafted mattresses.  I might have blogged about this before but it is noteworthy that the mattresses here were built locally and they are absolutely divine.  It is like sleeping on a cloud.
• Homemade rolls and bread everyday (there is not a purchased bread package in sight!)
• Kids galore (the count right now is only 7 but yesterday and Friday on we are at 12)
• The sunlight coming up in the morning filling this very windowed house with light 
• Greenery as far as the eye can see disrupted only by the view of the lake.
• Distraction from the Great Erb Migration of 2010
• Gigantic house with lots and lots of space to be comfy, read a book, play with endless toys, get lost in the lego room, go down the indoor house slide (freshly waxed with Turtle Wax!) and recline in the automated theater chairs (I know there was a lot there but I posted about it a while back so this is just a refresher
• The feeling of being with family, having my own set of parents that love me and my kids as their own, and knowing that I am welcome here as one of the kids--I have been abundantly blessed to have a second family whose only distinguishing factor reminds me that they are not my own is a much better set of genetics in the area of Body Mass Index and looks.  Too bad that part couldn't be nurture too so I could be as beautiful as those Craig girls.

A pic of the house (in another season so missing the greenery, more pics to come):

Here is a pic of past shenanigans by the chillins around these parts and the view of the backyard:

As a side note, I highly recommend North Carolina.

Happy Mother's Day

Today was a wonderful Mother's Day for me--I finally learned the secret to enjoying this day: remembering its purpose is for each individual to celebrate mothers in their own way.  That little shift in my mindset made all the difference for me today.

So I must do a post on someone who deserves to be celebrated today: Auntie Lissa.

Melissa watched my little Meg for me from sunup to sundown including some evening hours.  She played with her in the pool, the hotel room, shopping areas, and all around Napa so I could work without disruption.  She came for the week at great personal opportunity cost and was amazing.  Meg already has a bigger vocabulary because Melissa is always so interactive and attentive. 

We did get to stay in the beautiful Napa Valley Embassy Suites which I always forget is so nice until I stay there again:

I know it isn't quite like the River Terrace Inn for location, but it was near the outlets, which led to other benefits to me...

It was wonderful to go shopping with Melissa who even played the role of personal shopper by putting a beautiful coat on hold for me at BR which I ended up buying...

And to go to dinner, even if it was for a few split seconds only while Meg was restless at the table at our favorite place, which incidentally still is not serving that fabulous farro salad we had so many years ago:

 

Lastly, just hanging out and watching the Biggest Loser results, or talking feels like it is never enough.

So since she is always gifted with children and treats my own children with such love and attention, I would like to spend my Mother's Day wishes on her today.


Happy Mother's Day Liss!