Nope, still not posting here. Yup, still working on the hush-hush project. Give me a bit more time, and check back again for the new link!
Hiatus
I’m going to take just a wee bit of a hiatus from this blog while I work on another bloggedy-blog project. No worries, I’m feeling some reincarnation coming on… just don’t freak if there’s nothing here for a bit. I’m looking ahead to teeny upgrade and some formatting changes!
Adios, my friends, for a little while…
Snow II
Dear Snow,
Thank you. We love you! You are beautiful!
Dear Grass,
Goodbye! Good night! We’ll see you soon!
Dear North Carolina,
Ok, I admit, you don’t suck all the time. Actually you can be kind of cool. We played in t-shirts on Thursday and get to romp all day today while the town is shut down and our calendar is miraculously cleared for a day of play. I like this idea. Snow=play. Good plan. We’ll still need to talk about the summer heat though. Let’s have a meeting in May.
Love,
Charlotte
Snow?
The weather channel seems to think we have a 100% chance of snow/wintry mix in store for this evening. And 100% chance on Saturday night too. Snow, it seems, may come to North Carolina. I’m not sure if we’ll get 5-8 inches as promised, but I’m fairly certain that the town will shut down and the kids will come in half-soaked and cheeks as red as strawberries. We will make snow candy and chow on hot chocolate and see the wonder of Kal’s face (or, alternately, his screaming) as he touches snow for the first time. We may even feel the pangs of being ill-prepared for the weather since the girls are quickly growing out of their final remnants of snow gear and I am remiss to buy more for a single weekend a year. Maybe Kaylynn can fit into my stuff soon? We can hope. For now, their hope rests on the white stuff coming down and the ground getting sufficiently cold to stick there. Yesterday it was 65 and so warm that they happily played outside for hours with only short sleeves. My hope? Only that I’m able to go for my very necessary and preplanned shopping trip this morning without being mauled by crazy shoppers who are stocking their entire house for a month’s worth of scary weather. Down people! It’ll be gone by Monday.
REI
We went to REI yesterday to exchange our old accordian-fold style camping pads for the inflatable versions. I was frustrated with the old ones because they seemed to sproing everywhere in the car and they had a low R-value, which means they didn’t do much to keep the kids warm at night. I love the 100% return policy at REI! We just exchanged them and traded up for nicer pads. One of the girls will get my old one, and I got a new, very luxurious 2.5″ pad. It’s the XL version, because it’s wide enough for a Mama and her boy without being so scrunched into a sliver of a space all night, as last summer. Now all I need is a good screen tent and we’re all set for the season.
While at REI, the girls got around to asking about climbing gear. They desperately wanted to go climbing again and were even willing to pledge a year’s allowance toward the materials needed, so long as I took them climbing every week. We looked at gear, which seems extremely expensive until you remember that its purpose is to continually save your life as you climb to ridiculous heights and then fall, over and over again. In total, it was going to be about $150 for enough gear to climb and belay. Yikes! Thankfully, we had Christmas money left over from Aunt Dona. She is a climber herself, and I think she will be thrilled to hear what we did with her gift this year. Almost immediately after leaving REI, we went to Vertical Edge and spent a happy few hours climbing. Pat took pictures, so keep an eye out for them in the next few days! (EDIT: Here they are!)
Anyone want to go climbing with us? I have one kid harness and am willing to trade belay time for chasing around my little guy at the gym. 11 visit passes are $60.00 for kids (belayers get in free) or $6.50 each time. I’m sure the girls would love to go climbing with friends! Wednesday after co-op? 10am on Saturday mornings? Another time? Hmmm….
Bedtime
It’s past bedtime right now. 8:47. Kal was asleep by 8:00 and I briefly popped my head into the girls’ bedroom after putting him down. They were reading to each other, as they do every night. Kaylynn was excited to start The Boxcar Children with Lovey… and she’s still reading. I can hear her quiet murmur through the wall. I don’t have the heart to stop them when they are so peacefully laying side by side under Kaylynn’s blanket, mesmerized by the story. We’ll sleep in for a few more minutes in the morning, and I’ll start my evening activities just a bit later. Right now, book magic is creeping into their blood.
Climbing
I organized a trip for the Girl Scouts to go rock climbing at a local rock gym. All levels were invited and K through 7th attended – a total of 39 girls with 8 adult belayers. Prior to going, I had a few girls come to me privately to express their worries, and one was really on the fence at climbing at all. I heard a few other quiet grumbles from parents about why we were spending troop funds on this activity. And now we know why.
Girls of all ages and physical abilities had fun. Even the most timid Brownies gave it a try and all of them did enough to complete their patch. I know for certain that one girl only tried it so she could earn the patch. No matter their reasons though, they all left the walls with grins on their faces. They were proud of their daring and happy to have tried something new. My girls are begging to go back tomorrow! It was an amazing afternoon, a day where I got a little visual payback for all of my volunteer hours. This is why we do Scouting. When you stuff your face with Thin Mints next month, know that your purchase goes toward continuing the adventure. The girls are planning a weekend campout with a low ropes course and huge tree climbing with belayers! (Also a major service project.)
One year
Kal is one year old! Amazing. It seemed like the blink of an eye, and here he is, already eating and walking and saying his first words.
I had planned to finish up his birthday gift this evening – a hand-sewn creation – and write his birthday letter, and fill in his baby book, and email my friend Rachel since she was an intimate part of his entry into the world. I had planned to post birthday pictures of Kal demolishing his first cupcake. None of that is happening.
Instead, I’m rocking my boy as he coughs and wheezes and generally feels miserable. He’s got a bad cold and only Mama’s arms will do. Last night he got up about every 45 minutes with a pathetic “Mamama” cry and then nodded vigorously. He says yes and no in this fashion, but a YES in the middle of the night means only one thing: nurse me! He’s barely eating, so I oblige. There’s a bit of peace. He sleeps. He’s content despite the illness. In the end that’s better than the sewing or the writing. I love you, Kal! Happy birthday.
Birthday Boy
Kal had a wonderful birthday party yesterday afternoon. Friends began arriving in the afternoon and stayed to chat or play until after he was in bed. The girls were so tired out from six hours of straight play time (in the snow! having a show! eating cupcakes! throwing snowflakes!) that they mutely sat on the couch and read books until I dragged them off to bed.
Grandma, Meggie and I made a cupcake caterpillar with homemade frosting and batter. Martha Stewart helped just a little, but that woman obviously has a maid – otherwise would you use three bowls, two pans and two mixers just to make a batch of frosting? It was delectable though.
Kal loved the cupcake, of course. He ate the icing and some of the cake before having more fun smooshing and throwing the rest. He helped open his gifts and then actually played with them, which was cool. It was a lovely time with friends and family. I’m so glad we did this.
Happy Birthday, Sweet Boyo!
Two quotations
I recently read two bits on education that resonated with me.
From Barry Lopez in his essay “Children in the Woods,” he writes, “The quickest door in the woods for a child is the one that leads to the smallest room, by knowing the name each thing is called. The door that leads to the cathedral is marked by a hesitancy to speak at all, rather to encourage by example a sharpness of the senses. If one speaks it should only be to say, how wonderfully this all fits together, to indicate what a long, fierce peace can derive from this knowledge.”
From I Am A Pencil by Sam Swope, which is a book about writing with children, I gathered these two gems. “A teacher can only show his passion, not give it” and regarding being a peaceful, quiet presence “I didn’t have it in me, and you have to be the teacher you are, not the one you’d like to be.” This was reassuring to me because many of my mentors are very quiet, peaceful teachers. I doubt anyone has ever described me as quiet! Ann (the preschool teacher from Antioch) is like a zen master with the kids, while I just grinned uselessly at them and certainly talked too much. Still, she was able to respect my style. Now I just have to learn to embrace it myself. I am always at my best when I stay true to who I am. Then it is effortless.
