Colorado 2016: The Beginning

A few months back, I decided we needed to do something about the fact that my kids had never been to the mountains.  There are slightly closer places to make this happen, but we decided to drive the TWO THOUSAND miles round-trip to Estes Park. We left at 4:30 am and got to Colorado Springs about 16 hours later. Then our hotel had overbooked, as we and around a dozen other people discovered together there in the lobby of the Comfort Inn. This was a low point. The husband did some maneuvering, and he managed to get our money back, but we still had no place to sleep. We started frantically calling other hotels in Colorado Springs, but they were all full. Until finally, while we are sitting in the parking lot of this sketchy Ramada Inn (despair was setting in), this magnificent kid named Aaron at the Garden of the Gods Resort calls back to tell us he's had a last minute no-show. We drove up at around 10pm, looking like a bunch of hillbillies, then God in His mercy let us wake up and walk out onto our patio to this this incredible view of Garden of the Gods:

Within about 10 minutes we had spotted several new birds for the Life List (magpies! spotted towhees! a western scrub-jay!) plus baby bunnies were running around everywhere being extremely adorable (especially appropriate because we had listened to Watership Down in the car on the way!) Then it turned out that Aaron had also thrown in free breakfast, and I believe it was the best one I have ever eaten. It was all mighty FINE. This was the first time the kids had ever stayed in an actual hotel, and we had to adjust their expectations that it was not always going to be this glorious.

We met up with my parents (who hadn't made it quite as far the previous day) at Garden of the Gods for a leisurely hike, then got back in the car (this was difficult) to continue on to Estes Park.

Coming up: hiking! fishing! rock climbing! bird-watching! so much gear!

Summer 2016: Audio books and read alouds

We have arrived to the phase of summer in which the day starts with conversations like this:

Harper: Hudson! WHY did you take the binoculars off of my black bird?

Hudson (and me, in my head): WHAT?

Harper: My little black bird was wearing tiny binoculars and someone removed them! I already asked Helena and she said she didn't do it! WHY did YOU do it?

Hudson: (loudly. yellingly)  I DON'T know WHAT you are TALKING about. Stop ACCUSING me!

Harper: WELL! SOMEONE did it. You don't have to get so mad. (she now bursts into a little ditty they made up that goes: "Let's be happy and positive!" It is sung in a very grating tone and never ceases to make the situation much more fraught.)

Here's a list of something more pleasant to listen to:

1. The Courage of Sarah Noble by Alice Dalgliesh, read by Barbara Caruso (this one is short and made a good companion to Indian Captive, which Harper was reading for her book club)

2. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell, read by Christina Moore (this book is thematically intense and I would have had a really hard time reading it aloud without Much Weeping, but the narrator really nails the dispassionate almost stoic tone of the narrator, which somehow keeps things from getting so maudlin.)

3. Redwall, Mossflower, and Mattimeo by Brian Jacques (These audios are more like radio theatre, and the author is the narrator. He has a STRONG Liverpudlian accent, which is delightful, but takes getting used to)

I am still reading Swallows and Amazons aloud, but usually just a chapter a night. The kids like it but aren't really begging for another chapter when I am finished. Hudson and I have been taking turns reading Frightful's Journey by Jean Craighead George. I feel like the quality is not as high as the first two in the series, but it is still enjoyable. As much as I love birds, I am finding that sometimes advocates for birds (I am totally pointing at you, Audubon Society) get a little pedantic and strident with their platform. There is some stereotyping that makes me a little uneasy.

Now, I bring you a quick pictorial summary of the past few weeks. Hudson had basketball camp, got a high fever, missed two days, but made it back in fine form.

 The kids made a few short films with Harper's camera. I believe here they are reviewing scenes from a masterpiece titled "Thugs on the Street." Note Helena's thug attire/Hudson's actual church clothes.

 I had to get a new lens because my old one broke. Lots of practice shots. Helena is usually the only willing subject.

 There have been hours and hours of drawing. These are a few of Hudson's creations. The theme is decidedly WEAPONS.

 

 Their faces have not yet gotten stuck this way. Not from lack of effort though.

The young Calvinists

This morning in the car on our way to drop Hudson off for basketball camp, he said, "When I grow up, I am going to make a movie, and it is going to be rated R-33, and it is going to be called The Icy Black Hand of Death!" This aspiration, I am sure of it, has everything to do with the fact that when I found him this morning at 7 a.m., and as I have found him most mornings this summer, he was curled up on the couch, under a blanket, with Calvin and Hobbes draped across his lap:

Me: How long have you been awake?
He: Since 6:15.
Me: I am going to make you some scrambled eggs so you have extra vim and vigor for basketball camp today!
He: Also two, no THREE pieces of cinnamon raisin toast! And chocolate frosted sugar bombs!

At the pool one day last week, I was reading and watching them play. There was grabbing, hugging, histrionic wailing, and what appeared to be at least one full-immersion baptism. Harper came over to get her goggles, and I asked, casually, what they were playing exactly. "We are acting out Dramatic Scenes of Death!" she chirped. I felt a glow of pride surely analogous to what Marmie felt as she listened to the March sisters act out Pilgrim's Progress.

Saturday, June 25, 2016

Sasha woke me up at 3a.m. because she got bitten by an army of fire ants a couple of days ago and she is miserable and scratching/licking incessantly, which is a disgustingly noisy endeavor. I don't think I ever really went back to sleep. Around 8:30 we left to have breakfast at Einstein Bros. Bagels, then went to REI to get some "necessary supplies" for our upcoming vacation to Colorado (!) When we got back home, Harper reminded me that I had told  her yesterday that she could look through cookbooks and make something for dinner. While she perused a vegetarian cookbook, I took a little rest, and read the Wall Street Journal (Brexit! I had no clue). Hudson played with Legos, and I think Helena was watching cooking and/or primitive survival shows with the Daddy. Harper chose a spinach tart, so I took the girls to the grocery store to get a few ingredients (we just went to the grocery store yesterday, but did not get ingredients for spinach tarts. Sigh.) The boys played with walkie talkies while she baked the tart mostly by herself. It actually turned out well! After we ate, we decided to go to the pool for a couple of hours before bed. I read a book (The Awakening of Miss Prim--LIKE!) while they swam. We stayed until the pool closed at 8, and walked home. The swallows were diving and swooping everywhere, and we saw a white ibis flying over. I helped Helena wash her hair. (She would prefer to never wash her hair). Harper decided to get out her camera, set up the tripod, and film a short movie. There were costumes. I believe Ernie was involved. I folded some clothes, then realized it was almost 9 (the husband is already asleep), so we cuddled up on the couch, read about Isaac and Rebekah (The Child's Story Bible), then a few pages of Swallows and Amazons (Captain John Visits Captain Flint). Everyone was pretty floppy at this point, so I carried each of them to bed, from oldest to youngest. As I was carrying her (and groaning a little) Harper asked, "I wonder how much longer you will be able to carry me?" and instead of falling into a weeping heap, I decided to blog instead. To remember this good day with my dearest ones.

A time to dance

Helena took ballet lessons this year. The recital was a production of "Snow White" and her class played the part of Flowers in the Garden. They really were lovely. I volunteered to be backstage, so I got to watch her dance from the wings. She noted just after they exited that they had been working on the dance for many hours over many months, yet had only spent three minutes on stage.  I feel like there is a Life Metaphor in there somewhere?

What we are reading: Elliot's Extraordinary Cookbook

One of my summer goals was to let the kids have some freedom in the kitchen. We found the book Elliot's Extraordinary Cookbook (written by Christina Bjork and Lena Anderson, who also wrote Linnea in Monet's Garden) and I told Harper she could choose a recipe and make it entirely by herself. I actually went in another room to avoid the temptation to help and advise. (Cooking with children is a sure way to provoke my Inner Control Freak). She did great! I did come in right at the end when I realized she had put the baking sheet on the lowest rack in the oven. My Inner Control Freak draws the line at the acrid smell of burned-to-a-crisp whole-wheat braid. This book is really, utterly charming. For each recipe, there is a narrative that manages to incorporate both instructions and interesting facts about the ingredients. Highly recommend!

[That jam jar holding open the book in the second picture? The red goo inside is fake blood that Harper concocted to use on April Fool's Day. She was so disappointed I did not let her bring it to school. Sadly, Elliot's Extraordinary Cookbook does NOT include a recipe for fake blood.]

Harper is ELEVEN.

On May 25 ELEVEN years ago, I was five days overdue with my first baby. I had just finished up a year of teaching at M.D. Anderson, where I taught students with cancer who were hospitalized for an extended time. The husband had just finished his finals for his first year of law school. In a week, we would celebrate our first wedding anniversary. We had known each other for only eighteen months. We were excited about life in general, and especially about the one we were about to welcome. I wondered if labor would ever start. Then it did. I really don't remember much. I know that it doesn't feel like it is even possible that ELEVEN YEARS have passed. And yet, here we are. She is such an interesting, quirky, amazing, little human, and I get to be her mother. Tuesday night when I went to tuck her in, she had just put down her book (The Incredible Invention of Hugo Cabret) and was arranging every stuffed animal she owns on her bed. She carefully tucked her baby bald eagle into his little sleeping bag with all of HIS stuffed animals, and told me she would wake me and the Daddy up promptly at seven so she could open her gifts. She had written out a VERY specific list around three months ago. She got a James Avery birthstone ring (grandparents P), a Kindle cover (grandmother M), diving flippers and new goggles (Helena), a perplexus ball (Hudson), an arrangement of fresh flowers (Hudson and Helena), some Haribo gummies (Hudson and Helena), and a light up jellyfish lamp, some magnetic goo, and an egg splat ball from us.



That picture with the stuffed pumpkin on her head? Yes, she still sleeps with her beloved dough-gi-die. She actually managed to wrestle it on the other day (it is a size 2T) but sadly, I didn't get a picture.