Cocooned no more

Hudson turned 10 on Friday. I plan to interview him this week, which I sincerely hope will help me process that he's already been alive AN ENTIRE DECADE even though it feels like he should be approximately 7 months old. That's how old he was when I started blogging.

He had an actual party last year. I just realized I never posted a picture. He wanted to play laser tag, which he'd never done before, with a few buddies.

This year, he wanted another party. Instead, he got to get up as early as he wanted and play video games. Until it was time to leave to take Helena to ballet, and then pick Harper up at her Friday forum. If you are thinking that sounds a touch LAME, well, yes, it was a little. UNTIL Helena realized that something incredible had happened. THE POLYPHEMUS MOTH HAD FINALLY EMERGED FROM ITS COCOON!! It had been 3 months, and I almost threw them away last week, assuming they were mummified. In fact, I had put the habitat outside and forgotten about it. It happened to be a really windy, wet day, and the habitat got buffeted all over the yard before I noticed it was about to blow over the fence and went out and retrieved it. All, naturally, part of the plan for Hudson to be the only 10 year old ever to be personally celebrated, on his birthday, by a moth named after a cyclops!!

Harper and I both took lots of pictures with my real camera, then I realized my phone camera actually did a better job. His antennae are spectacular:

Then, on Saturday, Hudson showed that a new decade brings even more basketball prowess. He has lots and lots of hustle, on offense and defense.

 You are my very best son, dear one.

Let's just pick up where we left off

Last week we had a school holiday on Monday, then on Wednesday there was torrential flooding and school was delayed for two hours. Today, this little lad is home with me feeling very, very puny. It's a good thing he has a loyal dog, who is always willing to spend the day napping on the couch and/or randomly sniffing your hair:


Here are the projects Harper worked on in the fall. She molded and painted some Greek pottery:

 She also used her knitting skills to create this Cell City:

 I spent a solid week of Christmas vacation making cookies. I feel like each effort gets a little better-looking, though the process itself doesn't really get any less labor intensive.

 I left our Christmas tree up until last week. Yes, it was a real tree. Yes, it was a conflagration ready to happen. If it had been artificial, it would still be up.

The Christmas presents this year were mostly Lego. Here is Harper with her beetle bug:

 My parents were here this weekend to babysit and go to Hudson's basketball game. We watched the inauguration on Friday. The kids had never seen Mrs. Trump before and had some funny commentary. Hudson: "Wait. WHY is she so young?" Harper: "WHY would he want a wife who is that much younger than he is??" They also wondered if the Trumps have dogs. They also wanted to know exactly how much money Barron has access to. My dad pointed out the Clintons to Hudson and said, "That guy there that she's married to, he has a '65 Mustang. Or at least he used to." So, based on that, Bill Clinton was a great president, as far as Hudson is concerned. I really enjoyed watching W. wrestle with his poncho. Some things are harder than being president. And Cheney in his huge hat watching the whole thing with a smug little smile. It would have been perfection if Rumsfeld had been there to give him a hand.

Hudson's basketball team is OUTSTANDING this year. It is really fun to watch them win. I screamed myself hoarse on Saturday. Once a cheerleader, always a cheerleader, apparently. I felt a very strong urge to do a herkie at one point, but refrained. Only because I hurt my knee playing tennis with Mrs. S just after Christmas. Which also means the Couch to 5K has been totally couched.

That's enough to prime the pump anyway. Here's to fewer impediments to writing!!

The Family Shield

Back when I was single and lived in Dallas, I volunteered for an organization that provided respite care for babies who were HIV positive. My usual job was to help the paid workers by rocking and feeding babies, but one day I got there and the wonderful lady who ran the organization (whose hands were gnarled with rheumatoid arthritis, and who, I discovered later, had lost a beloved son in a diving accident when he was 16) asked me if I would mind driving one of the kids to his orthopedic appointment at the nearby children's hospital. She handed me the gigantic, heavy, specially modified car seat, and the adorable 3 year old, who had lots of other issues in addition to his HIV status, and pushed us out the door. I managed to wrestle the car seat and the child into the back of my small car. My young charge had casts on both legs and it took me a good little while to get his wiggling, rather heavy body properly clicked in. We got to the hospital, and the parking was impossible--we circled round and round a parking garage looking for an open spot. I heard him suddenly start to giggle (he wasn't verbal but he made happy sounds aplenty) really loudly and I looked in my mirror and HE WAS GONE. GONE. Well, not actually gone. The car seat had come unhooked on one side and had TOPPLED OVER. WITH HIM STILL IN IT. (yes, now that I am married to an attorney, this entire story is even more terrifying. Thank goodness for the statute of limitations.) I somehow managed to exit the parking garage, park in a handicapped space, and get things back to right. I am certain we were late to his appointment. I am also certainly glad I did not break any other of his tiny bones with my negligent car seat installation, or as I carried him and his two leg casts through the miles of labyrinthine hallways to the ortho clinic.

Anyway, I had totally forgotten about this incident, and remembered it one night last week when I had trouble sleeping. I feel like I was better at hard stuff back then.

Which is my segue into Helena's latest project. In second grade at our school, the kids create a family shield to represent things about their family. I never posted Hudson's from last year, so let's do that first:



It was a handsome, heavy wooden buckler, that would actually provide some protection were he to bring it into battle. He painted some of our favorite things on the front, and was all set to present it to his class. That part did not go well. His buckler, nifty as it was, looked nothing like his classmates' shields. He decided this was somehow a bad thing, and went mute when it was his turn to talk about it. I spent several minutes at the back of the little auditorium trying to quietly convince him he really could do it. Alas, he thought otherwise. It was a hard and sad day. But never let it be said we don't learn from set-backs in this family! When the project arrived on Helena's assignment sheet in early November, I suggested a more traditional route. She enjoyed the process greatly, painted this beauty:

 and yet, AND YET, when her teacher called her name to present it, she was UNDONE. The interesting thing is that both kids have done a half dozen other presentations to their classes with no issues. I am not sure why this one is so tragic. Perhaps they are, like their mother, overly sensitive to The General Concept of Battle.

The good news is that everyone has moved on nicely, and we've had a pleasant Christmas break.

Also, I have been feeling more like writing lately, so let's hope that translates into more frequent posting here. Is there such a thing as a Proustian promise?

Random Picture Monday,Part VI: Thanksgiving

For the fourth day in a row, I have eaten dessert for breakfast. And now it is raining, so I am on the couch and not running. The antonym for Crossfit? ME. Speaking of me, I rarely talk to the dog on these days when the kids are at school, but when I do, I refer to myself as 'Mommy.' Which is ridiculous, primarily because I have realized that Sasha does not actually think she is a separate being from me. I'm not sure what goes on in her mind, but I suspect she thinks of us as 'me' and 'also me.' Or maybe it's like the Queen and we are the royal 'we.'  One of the nights she was so sick, I woke up and she had her eyes open and was watching me and breathing in a really labored way. She was probably wondering why Also Me was not dying with her, like Elliot when E.T. gets sick.

We had a nice Thanksgiving with my family. I love my mom's turkey and cornbread dressing and green bean casserole and sweet potato casserole. We brought dessert this year. Harper made an apple pie, and I made chocolate Italian cream cake. Harper tried to cut an elaborate design into the piecrust and it did not go very well. There were suggestions that we JUST THROW IT IN THE TRASH but I managed to convince her it would be just fine. It really was delicious. Especially for breakfast.



This is the kids, giddy with excitement to go over the river and through the oil refineries to Grandmother's house.


Me: Hudson, it is your turn to unload the dishwasher.
Hudson: As soon as I've finished touring on my luxury gondola!

 Mrs. Spivey's grandkids are a little older than my kids, and she always gives toys to my mom once her grandkids no longer play with them. These plastic cups are one of the favorites. HOURS of fun. We also discovered Skip Bo (which the cousins dubbed "Skip body odor!") and there were also multiple rounds of The Game of Life.

 A few months ago, my mom uncovered my childhood collection of Family Circus books in a bin in her attic. The kids can't get enough of Billy, Dolly, Jeffy, and PJ. There were actually a few of my Dad's Dennis the Menace books too, and I chuckled when I found one published in 1956, when he was a sophomore at Baylor. I guess he enjoyed a little Dennis during study breaks.

The dog got sick and very nearly DIED

I realized I have missed two Mondays in a row. I should also confess that the Couch to 5K has been more couch than 5K. Let's blame it all on Sasha. After 6 years of good health, poor girl got really and very ILL. She got a high fever, was shivering nonstop, and basically quit eating and drinking for several days. She would barely move and even stopped barking (!) which is when I knew things were grave. She wouldn't even eat a scrambled egg, which is her number one favorite food. At one point, the husband had her in a wrestling hold and I was squirting pedialyte into her mouth with a syringe. Finally, on Tuesday, I decided we had to go to the vet. I generally avoid our vet, because they lecture me about things like flu vaccines and $800 teeth cleaning, and frankly, I get enough of that from my pediatrician and dentist re: my human children. So, instead of going to the $800 teeth cleaning vet, I decided to drive a little further to a vet some friends had recommended because he is a good, old-fashioned country vet, and also cheap. His office is in a strip center, and when we drove up, the kids were cutting their eyes at me, wondering if we were going to actually go in. There was plywood covering the entire entrance, and when we got in, there was yellow caution tape everywhere, walls near collapse, and 2x4s holding up the ceiling. Oh, and a live parrot! After a few minutes, I finally asked the ladies behind the desk, "Soooo, what happened here?" and it turns out, a couple of months ago, an 83 year old lady accidentally drove her car through the front of the office! And getting it fixed hasn't really been a priority? evidently.. Anyway, the actual vet was out tending to some horses, but one of the raspy voiced techs took Sasha's temperature (104.7!) proclaimed her affliction was probably viral, and gave her a shot. She was better within hours, I got no lectures about flu vaccines OR her nasty teeth, and the whole business cost a mere $45. While I was waiting to pay, we noticed  a lady in the waiting room with a crate of 4 tiny King Charles spaniel puppies. They were adorable,  and the kids were getting many ideas about adding to our general menagerie. A lady next to her asked how much they cost. Twenty-seven fifty, she answered in a quiet voice. Harper reported she definitely has enough in her piggy bank to buy one, or even two, of those puppies. Except the lady meant TWO THOUSAND,SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS. Can you even imagine? The people who buy those dogs will gladly shell out $800 for a teeth cleaning.

We've had lots of school activities and projects. Hudson studied and did a presentation on Nikola Tesla. He was confident and magnificent. He was a little grumpy, when his classmate Mara, who was Thomas Edison, claimed Edison was granted over 2,000 patents, while Tesla only had around 300. Comparison is the thief of joy, Nikola. You have a cool car company named after you.


Helena was Wendy for the Peter Pan book party, which went off fairly smoothly, in spite of the fact that I have very poor managerial skills, and also my headdress craft was way too complicated to do in a dark gym with only Christmas lights to see by. Something funny I want to remember: there is a very sweet mom in Helena's grade who thinks my name is Paige. And she is a name caller. So she always greets me with a cheery,"Hi PAIGE!" and then uses it over and over in our conversations. I haven't corrected her because I actually always liked the name Paige, and kind of wished my parents had chosen it instead of Patti (it was their second choice), and also, it has been so long now, I know she would be really embarrassed if I corrected her. She has 5 children under the age of 7, and I think the fact that she is even close is impressive.

 On this same day, Harper had a big science project due, and I've realized I took no pictures of it. I will remedy that before next week, barring any canine illness.

One last thing. I got to hold dear baby Ephraim for a nice long while today, and also delight in the company of his dear mom, who, it is possible, I never would have met but for blogging. So, one of the many things to be thankful for this week. Blessings all mine and ten thousand beside!

Random Picture Monday, Part V: It's November!

When I printed out our lesson plans yesterday I realized we were starting week 12 of school. That is one third of the school year already gone. Well. That is startling.

The wooden blocks got hauled downstairs this week. Castles aplenty, castles galore.

The chrysalids seem to be in soul sleep. I thought I read they would immerge in 8-12 days. It's been longer than that. Perhaps they recognize their captivity and are refusing to play along.

We had Hudson's last soccer game on Saturday. It ended in a 1-1 tie. The actual most exciting part of the day happened when we drove up and witnessed a thief breaking into our friends' car. So, naturally, the husband took off in hot pursuit. In the minivan. Sadly, the criminal was not apprehended, largely because I insisted he let us out of the van before he careened off. With the sliding door wide open. He is a Crusader for Justice, I am an Impediment to Justice.

 Harper got some oil paints and spent a couple of hours out on the patio Saturday painting this sunset. I feel like Bob Ross would be proud of her efforts.

 I just found these pictures from 2, maybe 3 years ago. We had this frog in our backyard, and every morning, Helena would go out and play with it until it finally disappeared, probably to a yard less inhabited by children who wanted to hug him and squeeze him and call him George. Both Hudson and Helena are still wearing these pjs, and they are now at least 4 sizes too small. If we ever have to leave our house in a hurry in the middle of the night, I might be a little embarrassed for us.

Random Picture "Monday" part IV

Posting twice last week threw me off my routine. I think a list might be in order:

1. Hudson scored a goal at his soccer game last week!!! It was only the third goal the team has scored the entire season, which makes it even more spectacular. As seems to be the case with young kids and organized sports, just as they are figuring the whole business out, the season is over. Because we just can't get enough, we are moving on to basketball next. Yesterday, he went out and shot baskets in the
rain. He looks gigantic in these pictures.






2. My kids went trick-or-treating for the first time, with our dear friends. They found it all Most Wonderful, and have spent hours discussing their candy, sorting their candy, asking questions about their candy..."What is in 3 Muskateers? What is NOUGAT? What's in Baby Ruth? What are Reese's Pieces? Kit Kats? Gobstoppers? Can I have a piece of my candy? Can I have a piece of my candy NOW? How about NOW?"

 3. I am reading a new biography of Theodore Roosevelt that focuses on his contributions  to natural history. It's so interesting that ornithologists and naturalists used to kill so many birds and animals so they could study them, and then teach others about them. I happened to be flipping through my old college anthology of American literature yesterday, and read a short story titled "A White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett, who lived at the same time as Roosevelt (and her first name was actually Theodora!)  It's about a little girl who encounters a young ornithologist in the woods, and even though he offers friendship and much-needed money, she decides not to reveal the location of a white heron he seeks for his studies:"...she remembers how the white heron came flying through the golden air and how they watched the sea and the morning together, and Sylvia cannot speak; she cannot tell the heron's secret and give its life away."

4. That will have to be all. I need to go find some chalk board duct tape (what??) and feathers for the craft I signed up to contribute for Helena's upcoming book party. I actually think this particular craft is going to fall under the heading of Cultural Appropriation. I will just blame J.M. Barrie.