Buried

So I am trying to keep myself busy during this forced hiatus from work.  I have all kinds of projects that I am moving forward with.  One of which is preparing for a block-long tag sale next weekend.  This is perfect timing, because one of my other tasks is “spring” cleaning.  Even though it’s basically summer.  Anyway, I’ve been going through things.  I emptied my closet this morning.  I’ve had to face up to the fact that I am not a size 8 anymore, and I never will be again.  So I took a realistic look at my clothes, and pared them down by about half.  In the process, I rediscovered a lot of clothes that have been crammed in there for years that I couldn’t see through all the depressing things I will never fit into again.  I’m feeling pretty good about something that I was dreading, so that’s good.

When I got way back to the very back, I found an old leather chest.  It’s kind of like an ottoman that opens as a chest.  It was my Aunt Nicki’s, and used to be sitting in a corner of her garage.  It’s filled with old magazines and newspapers.  When we cleaned out her house, I decided to take it.  I didn’t really want to look through it, or use it as furniture.  I just felt like I couldn’t bear to throw it out, so I shoved it to the back of my closet, and it’s been there for about 8 years.  So I opened it today, and just took the quickest look at the things on the very top.

Opening that trunk is like opening a real live history book.  It’s opening a door to the past.  Aunt Nicki had a very strong sense of history and the past, and she was a saver.  Her house was full of mementos and antiques.  She took care of her things and expected them to last for generations.  She was in her teens when she saved these papers – I can’t imagine myself as a teenager having the forethought to understand that I was seeing and experiencing something that will one day be history, and that I should save it for my descendants to learn from and experience in a different way.  I think about her often, and will be happy to pass on this gift box to my own children, in the hopes they will one day share it with their children.

A Sanctuary

Now that I’m done with school and I’m not teaching, we suddenly have more time on the weekends to go out and do something as a family.  This is usually hiking or biking or something out of doors.  However, we’ve been looking around for new places to go – it seems like we keep going to the same few spots over and over.  So a couple weekends ago, we just did an Internet search of hiking trails near home, and we came upon a little surprise: Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary.  The irony is that this shouldn’t be a surprise – the kids go to camp there every summer, and we are actually members.  So the kids know the trails quite well, but neither Nate nor I had ever actually been there.  So we packed up some snacks and some water and headed off.

What a lovely spot!  The trails are well marked and not difficult.  The scenery is amazing.  When we were there on a Sunday morning, we only saw a few other people.  There are lots of different kinds of terrain, from swamp to riverbank to woods to forest.  The kids knew about all kinds of interesting things that we would never have noticed.  There is an area called “the maze” with trails that intersect each other and swirl around.  There is also a huge tree with hollow branches.  If you take sticks and hit the different branches, you get different tones.  I think they called it the “music tree.”

Here are some of the fantastic views:

Box turtles sunning at the pond.

This kids called this hill The Rollercoaster – I guess because it’s nice and smooth and you can tear down it at top speed.

Absolutely pristine woods, cleared of brush. Fantastically beautiful!

They also have a “fire tower” which, I have no idea why, is on two stilts, rather than four.  Think about it, you’re going to put a platform with walls and a roof high above the ground.  I know, let’s put it on two legs instead of four!  Great idea!  Seriously, why?  I have no idea.  But I gamely went up the winding staircase, felt the floor shimmy beneath me, and came right back down again.

You thought I was joking, didn’t you? Yep, those are two legs. Maybe they ran out of money and could only afford two?

Here I am beating a path down the stairs as quickly as humanly possible. Then I stood at the bottom and hyperventilated until all of my loved ones made it down.

We had a great time, and the kids were really excited to be able to be the leaders of our adventure.  Here they are:

Slow and Steady Wins the Race!

So I’m in the no-man’s land of audiology.  I have finished my externship.  I’ve got my degree.  Next step?  My state license.  Here’s the hitch.  I cannot work until I am licensed.  So, here I am at home, waiting, waiting, waiting for the wheels of the state to turn so that I can get back to work and back to my patients.  I would be a lot happier about it if the kids were out of school – then it would be a vacation.  As things stand now, it’s just an annoyance!

I was out for a run the other day, chugging up the hill, when I saw what looked like a very strange rock by the curb.  I almost jumped out of my skin when it moved!

I love how my arms look totally deformed in my shadow. I have relatively normal-sized arms. Really.

It was the biggest turtle I have ever seen (on land, anyway!  I’ve seen some ginormous sea turtles!).  This dude had crawled out of the Mill River, walked through the woods, and made it all the way across the street, only to be stymied by this curb.  He was trying so hard to scramble up!  I almost decided to help, but I was kind of scared to touch him.  He made it eventually, and kept on creeping along toward the little stream on the other side of the sidewalk.  Good luck and godspeed, my friend!

As I went back to my run (thankful I had a little break in the middle of the hill!), I thought about that turtle and his long journey, and how it was kind of like me and my journey.  I’ve made it so far – I just need to scramble over this curb to get to my stream!

Baseball!

For me, one of the hardest parts of parenting is realizing that each of my children is an entirely different person, with different desires, different needs, and even different histories.  What’s good for one is not necessarily good for another.  Never has this been so clear as with the start of baseball season this year.

It’s been very important to Nate that the kids be involved with team sports in some way.  It’s something Nate didn’t really do as a child, and he wished he had and feels it’s really important, particularly for young boys.  The only problem is that Jake is just not a team sports kind of kid.  He’s really into Kung Fu, and is really good at it.  I persuaded him to put Kung Fu on hold for a couple months and play baseball again this year.  Mistake.  He went to a few practices, and then leveled with me that while he didn’t hate baseball, he didn’t really like it, and he loves Kung Fu, and it doesn’t make any sense to do something he doesn’t really like at the expense of something he does.  I think this kid is on his way to law school.  Anyway, he had a very good point, so he’s back doing his Kung Fu.

I also persuaded Lydia to try baseball.  She wasn’t really sure, but agreed to give it a try.  And guess what?  She loves it!  Her coaches are fantastic.  There are three of them, and they run a tight ship.  The result is that they are spending very little time managing behavior (there aren’t any behavior problems that I’ve seen), and are instead working on baseball fundamentals.  She’s gone from not knowing pretty much anything about baseball (we’re not huge sports fans here, did you guess?), to getting behind grounders and under pop flies.  She can catch, she can throw, she’s getting there with her hitting.  And she has so much fun doing it.  She doesn’t seem to mind striking out, and is just out there having a good time with the guys.

And then there’s Aaron.  Aaron is a riddle wrapped in a mystery.  I haven’t quite figured that little guy out yet.  He’s so much like Lydia, but he’s also so much like Jake.  We tried T-ball last year and he absolutely refused to participate.  This year, he was a little slow to start, but as long as there is actual action, he’s doing it.  As soon as it slows down and they are waiting for the other team to get organized, or our own team to get organized, he’ll come over and want to go home.  I just walk him back over to where he’s supposed to be and as soon as things get under way he seems to be having fun.

Of course, one of the best parts of baseball nowadays is that I don’t have to chase a toddler around when I really want to be watching the game.  Aaron is now old enough to find a friend and run off to play, leaving me to blissfully sit in the sun and watch the action.  Here are me and Lydia enjoying watching Aaron’s game:

The End of an Era

The unthinkable has happened.  The journey I started about 10 years ago when I decided to go into Speech Language Pathology ended this past weekend when I was awarded my doctorate in Audiology.  It sounds strange to say it, but I’m kind of ridiculously proud of myself.  You’ll find no self-deprecation here.  I was lucky in that I really went back to school part-time for several years in order to fulfill the prerequisites for the graduate program.  By the time I got to graduate school, I wasn’t shocked by the amount of work required.  I was already familiar with the campus and the professors.  What I remember about that first day is mostly panic.  We had a meeting before our first class with all the incoming audiology students, the incoming speech students, and all the professors and staff.  We sat around a huge table, and went around and introduced ourselves.  I had just dropped three kids off at three different locations, leaving the house at 7 am to do so.  I was a wreck.  A shaking, neurotic wreck.

Over the next four years, I studied, I kissed scraped knees, I took exams, I did laundry, I wrote papers, I read bedtime stories, I taught courses, I threw birthday parties, I got swine flu and then pneumonia, I potty-trained my third child.  I could go on, but I think you see what I’m going for.  I did both things.  Maybe I didn’t do either of them as well as I could have if I had not been juggling so many things, but I did them adequately enough that both things have been successful.  My career is just beginning, and I couldn’t be happier with it.  My children are blossoming into incredible little people with their own personalities and strengths.  It appears that they don’t hate me for being a working mother.  Maybe they’ll work it out in therapy later.  :-)

Here I am in the crowd at my graduation.  I think at this moment Aaron had just spotted me and I was waving madly at him:

Here we are decked out in all our finery:

It was such a thrill to see my first patient this morning.  I didn’t do anything differently (other than sign my name with an AuD!), but I felt different.  Now I just have to wait for my license to come through – I’m told it will be six to eight weeks.  I shall try to blog more.  Now that I’m not teaching anymore, I’ll hopefully have a little more spare time.  Or not, but I’ll try to blog more anyway!

Spring in My Step

Well, hello. It’s been awhile, no? I have no good explanation. I’ve been busy, and sick, and tired, and my husband is working too hard. So I’ll just leave it at that.

Why is there a spring in my step? Because it’s spring here. Already.

“Oh, you went to the bulb show!” is what you’re probably thinking.  This is the time of year for the bulb show.  But no, this is not the bulb show.  This is real life.  These are not hot-house flowers, they are the real deal.  Usually at this time of year there is still snow on the ground.  Muddy, gritty, dirty snow.  I am usually waiting impatiently for the bulb show to happen to remind me of what Spring will be like when it finally arrives.  The bulb show gives me enough of a taste of Spring to make it through the last four weeks of winter.  But not this year.  I didn’t even go to the bulb show this year.  Because this is right outside:

The forsythia is in full bloom, and the dogwoods are coming out.  I remember the year Aaron was born, it was Spring like this.  In early May.  I wonder what the next couple of months will bring?  I’m hoping it’s not a major snowstorm in April.

Post-Holiday Wrap-Up

Today marks then end of two weeks (or more!) of madness at our house.  The week before Christmas, I got sick.  Like really sick, with a fever and everything.  I even had to take a day off from work.  And then the sinus infection set in.  In the midst of all that, all the kids got colds (no fever, thank goodness).  So leading up to Christmas, we were one miserable, sick household.  We put off going to visit Santa until it was almost too late – but we made it just in time!

Santa listened to what everyone wanted for Christmas, and then we got to sit in his sleigh for a picture.

Jacob, very graciously, participated in this event, even though he’s a little bit… let’s say… old for it.  Words cannot describe how sweet it is to see him excited for his siblings and helping them celebrate Christmas.

So finally the big day arrived.  Santa was very generous this year!

We had a very pleasant Christmas morning.  It’s amazing that weeks of preparations are undone within a mere half hour.  I don’t know how it happens, but it does.  It’s over so quickly!  Jacob’s big gift was an iPod Touch (so that his mother could have her iPod back!).  Lydia got a pretty heart necklace, and Aaron’s favorite gift was a metal detector, which he promptly fired up and discovered that the heating grates are made of metal!  Go figure!  Then we had a big breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and mimosas for the grown-ups, of course.

The week between Christmas and New Year’s was a tad chaotic.  I worked for three of those days, and Aaron was sick with a stomach bug.  More illness, yay.  But he got through it without anyone else succumbing, thank the gods.  For New Year’s, we walked downtown to catch the First Night fireworks.  It was much warmer than it has been in the past, so it was quite pleasant to stand outside the college gates at the top of Main Street and watch the show.  Jake brought his camera and captured the event:

Finally, we wrapped up our holiday season with a family get-together on the first.  We got to see many people that we don’t get to see too often.  It was also special because all five of the great-grandchildren were together in one place.  We had a heck of a time getting them all into one picture, but we ended up getting a couple of good shots.

All in all it’s been an exhausting few weeks, and we’re (or at least I’m!) ready to get back to the regular routine starting tomorrow.  2012, here we come!