Big Armstrong

So Cousin's son passed his little bike on to Big earlier this summer.

It had been sitting around our back yard with flat tires for quite some time when Big showed a little interest and I took a little initiative to see whether my bike pump was shot or whether the tires were shot so we headed up to our darling little local bike shop near the park where they promptly blew up the tires.

I showed the shiny new bike to Big with the fixed tires.

Big: Am I old enough to ride that?

Me: Sure!

So he, literally, got on it and started riding.

And hasn't stopped since!

I was so unprepared for this turn of events that I didn't even have my camera. These are Day Two photos!




And at national night out, a special occasion to ride in the street!

Turning Over Stones

Warning: contemplative post ahead.

This past year I have been consciously and unconsciously turning over all of the stones in my life, checking for worms and other undergrowth, tending the fields, airing out the past, inviting the future.

At one point I even, literally, moved about 3000 pounds of rocks into my yard to serve as garden borders.

This is clearly serious.

Now, post the stone-turning phase, but still in the dusting-off stage, the anticipated future not yet here, I am contemplating the purpose of it all. All this stone-turning.

Did it make my life better, after all?

Will the loss(es) be worth the unknown gain(s)?

But there is something peaceful here in this field of overturned stones. At least I know, now, what is underneath them. I don't have to pretend that there weren't worms. I can choose to clean them off if I want, or leave them, wormy.

I am in the middle of The Power of Now at the moment.

I'm not that into self-help books, and I'm not sure this book even falls into that category, but it certainly offers some concrete suggestions for letting go of the past and future and focusing on the here and now. I've had a bit of a head-start in that category after some of the things that have happened in my life -- realizing how important NOW is, but it is always good to be reminded.

Not that two kids in the house doesn't remind you that NOW is the most important time.

He: I've got to PEE.... NOW!!

93 Percent Predictability

Some Summer Fun at Kenwood Park.



As humans, our minds prefer predictability. We're wired that way.

BioMom and I are taking a little trip for each of our upcoming birthdays. It is the first trip in many years without the kids.

Since Big could walk (at about 10 months) I haven't felt comfortable leaving him with anyone for any extended period of time.

It wasn't because he wasn't capable. He's always been capable, at least physically.

It was because he was unpredictable.

Unlike his sister, whose moods, actions, behaviors, etc. for better or for worse, can be predicted--with some accuracy, I might add--Big often does things (privately and publicly) that I could never have predicted.

There was the time last summer that drove his bike off of a four foot ledge and threw the shuffleboard puck over a second story patio onto the pooldeck at which people sat enjoying a theretofore balmy afternoon.

There was his reaction to meeting my aunt over this past Fourth-of-July.

There was the time a few weeks ago that he darted (literally) in front of a moving bus (safely, thank God) even though I was distinctly aware of the possibility that he might run at any moment.

There was the day he threw his shoe out of the window of our moving car.

And then there was today.

It was our first day attempting some casual errands, a haircut, a trip to the beach, a Chipotle lunch with Nine's pal, in our new post-diaper era. Our first time with shorts on and with a burgeoning awareness that bathrooms exist out in the world and need to be located at particular points in time and that while locating said bathroom, one must wait to relieve their bladder.

He was doing great. Bathroom at Lake Harriet Bandshell? Check. Bathroom at haircut pace? Check.

Then we were at Chipotle and I was compiling the laborious order of two picky Nine-year-olds when they came running over to me in a panic: Big had grabbed another boy's box of chocolate milk while the other kids was in the bathroom, drinking it as quickly as possible.

!!!

All-in-all though, particularly in the post-potty-training world (I can't believe I am speaking of this in past tense already!) he has become much more predictable.

I'd say we've moved from about 80 to 93 percent predictable.

So, because I trust that grandma and grandpa can handle seven percent uncertainty, we'll be heading to the Big Apple in a couple of weeks for a few days for some R&R.

Success Rate Update

For all three post-hiatus readers out there: Big's success rate over the last five days.

For No. 1: 98%

For No. 2: 0%

We are ecstatic.

Preschool here we come!

What Goes In Must Come Out

I got this message from our future preschool teacher in response to an inquiry I sent regarding the status of our son's ability to go No. 1 in a particular place: the potty.

(And by "future", I mean, approximately five weeks).

Potty training. My suggestion is maybe not something you want to try but I feel it's effective. Schedule a week when you don't have to leave the house much and just take away the diaper (he wears it at nap time and night). give him lots of liquids and let him see/feel how it goes - use a sticker or incentive chart, give him lots of strokes, etc. I'll bet you have success. We don't have a diapering license and strongly request that the kids don't come in a diaper - and especially not a pull-up. We do work with the children, take them into the bathroom a lot and give them strokes, have them watch the other children, etc. Give me some feed back on this suggestion - is he resistant to the toilet?

Now, to my so-called life.

Fantasy League Baseball with the Twins

Puns intended.

Pure Bliss

The Performance

So the other day BioMom was in a dilemma, and I'm curious as to how you parents out there in the Blogsphere would react to this situation.

A local high school has these amazing summer classes for kids. They are inexpensive three hour classes that go Monday through Thursday for grades K-8 on a variety of topics from "gooey treats" to "la crosse" to "hollywood" to "rocket making". In short, a super opportunity for kids and parents alike!

Last week, Nine was signed up for two dramaish classes, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

She was in heaven.

She and I have reached the honeymoon-is-over stage of summer where I have gotten entirely sick of picking up after her and attempting to entertain both a nine year old and a three year old, and she is tired of all of my boring adultish jokes and lame attempts at creating fun experiences:

Me: Baba's takin' us to the zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow, zoo tomorrow!

She: NOT THE ZOO AGAIN!!!!! What will we DOOOOO there?

So, off she went.

The problem with the dramaish classes, is that there is a performance at the end of the week.

I say "problem" because I'm a bad parent.

To me, the "performances" defeat the purpose: stretches of time away from each other.

And with TWO dramaish classes, that means one "performance" at 11:30 and another at 3:00.

So now, BioMom's dilemma: She had a long meeting scheduled last Thursday, to go from 2:00 p.m. indefinitely. So she decided to take the morning off to a) let me have a little free time and b) spend some quality time with the kids. Big and I had already planned on joining little nature kids club that was heading out to the Arboretum, and then make it back in time for the second of Nine's two performances.

So, BioMom had to choose: either come with us, or go to Nine's first performance.

She was torn. And, of course, Nine's "YOU NEVER COME TO ANY OF MY PERFORMANCES!!!" rant didn't help.

I didn't help either, pushing her to come with me. In my opinion, one of us getting to one of the performances was good enough.

So what's your take on attending all kids' EVERYTHING? Is it important to go to as many events, however small, as possible?

My 1950's-Era brother was in town last weekend, and he reminded me that we were lucky if our parents made it to state track, so with his opinion cataloged, I open it up to you:

What do you do?

Junipers

At Camp Du Nord, Big enjoyed his first requited friendship(s). There was a set of twin boys that enjoyed him as much as he enjoyed them.* Their parents told us that each morning they would wake up and exclaim that they wanted to see "[Big"]!

It was there that I realized how lucky we were to have only one boy at a time.

I could not imagine two of Big, joining their heads to create increasingly dangerous challenges for each other.

Those boys (who happen to live quite close to us and so, as a consequence, we are able to see in our post-Du Nord life), plus the addition of Cousin's seven year old boy in our life, has open the "world-of-boydom" to Big who had, heretofore, mainly been exposed, through his sister's friends, our mainly female-spawned neighborhood, his two mothers, and our family's two female cats, girls.

One consequence of his exposure to this new world, is that he has become incredibly silly. He uses silly words, sings silly songs, dances silly dances.

But most of all, his extreme physicality and growing sense of humor has translated into a unique facial intensity that is often hilarious, sometimes maddening, but nearly always surprising.

On one occasion, we were recently visiting my family in Omaha. At one point, I found myself chatting to my cousin and his wife, and their girl, also a three-year-old. She was lovely. Sitting near her parents, enjoying the conversation. Clean.

They asked "Where's [Big]? We'd love to see him again?"

I spent a bit of time locating him (apparently he had been exploring the greater Omaha metropolitan area by this time) and dragging him back into the fold.

He was dirty (sweat, dirt, food, and maybe even a bit of blood), reluctant, resistant, and resentful, his play disrupted by me for something he deemed unimportant: meeting family.

He pointed to their girl "What number is she?"

I interpreted: "She is three, like you!"

Him: "I'm bigger!"

My cousin's wife gave him the slightest encouragement to stand up next to their daughter, and he rushed up, chin held high and on tippy-toes to prove it.

Next was the meeting of my quite elderly aunt who was so lovely to stop and ask about Big.

She: "My husband's name is [Big]! And so was his father's!"

Big literally went, in one split second to having a nice, presentable smile on his face to the meanest, nastiest, scrunched up scowl that I could ever imagine. It was so impossibly bizarre that neither me nor my aunt knew what to do, so we just laughed and sent Mr. Hyde running.










*Until now, he has had only unrequited friendships: either he has really liked someone (like the girl down the street that tolerates him, but WAY prefers Nine, or the younger boy up the street that enjoys him, but who he regularly and loudly exclaims that he "hates" for no reason other than that he is younger and smaller.)

An Explanation for Attentive Parenting

Check out this blog column (Greg Mankiw is an economist and textbook writer--the book we are currently using) via Taggert at A Random Walk. It references a paper that attempts to explain the increase in attentiveness among parents.

The punch line?

Competition for college admissions.

Read that, instead of the old craw "this will stay on your PERMANENT record" parents are now using the verbal stick "you won't get into any decent college with THOSE [fill in the bad habit du jour] skills!"

Out of the Fog and Into the Fire

So I just finished up with a big work-push and am heartily prepared to fully enjoy the rest of the summer--at least until class prep has been put off long enough.

I hadn't done a whole lot of academic work since Big was born and decided, in one fell swoop, to make up for it by presenting three papers at a conference in the end of June.

Needless to say, it was quite an effort to prepare for the talks. But Boston was amazing, and I visited some old friends in Brooklyn.





The following is more evidence of recent summer adventures with Cousin and the family, and what will follow in blogs to come are more assertive efforts to maintain regularity.

Peppers


Seasalt


This year's paltry cherry crop

Notes from Camp Du Nord

We just got home from Camp Du Nord, a YMCA family camp.

It was amazing.





"Frogs Dig Pink"


"The Big One"


"North, Northwest"


"Into the BWCA, at least for an hour"

Here is the mission of the camp:


The mission of Camp du Nord is to strengthen families by providing opportunities for individual and family growth, supporting spiritual development and enhancing environmental awareness in a wilderness setting. Guided by this mission, our programs seek to:

• Enrich family life and inter-family relationships;

• Develop new insights and understanding between family members;

• Encourage awareness of the natural world and strengthen appreciation for wilderness;

• Encourage spiritual growth and renewal in a wilderness setting.

I don't mean to be cheesy about it, but it was all that and more. I will write more, but wanted to post some pictures.

Pre-Metamorphosis

Burnt Marshmallows and Unconditional Love

My mom died when I was nine.

That morning, when my older brother told me that she had passed, a gloomy Friday in October, remains one of the single most defining moments of my life.

All of my memories huddle around that bold line: before and after.

Cousin and I will recount doings from our childhood and know our age based on if my mom was around in our memories. As in, "how old were we when we had that sleepover on your backporch and we pulled my cat up in a bedsheet?" "Oh, we must've been eight because that was when mom and dad were on vacation and I was staying with you."

I mark time by that day.

Once eighteen, I had been living longer without her than with her.

On the 25th anniversary (again, I am always surprised at the passage of time without her), I planted a cherry tree in the front yard (see it below a little five years later--it actually produces yummy sour cherries!).



And this past year, when I turned 39, now with children of my own, ironically aged 3 and 9, I had lived (survived?) an astonishing 30 years without my mother.

Lately, in my rush toward middle age, I have been urgently, literally and metaphorically cleaning out the deadwood in my life.

We have this hedge in the backyard that you can see from space.

I mean that. I checked it out on Google Maps.

Anyway, the hedge had gone for for years without much attention. An annual trimming here or there, but no real clearing of the deadwood. No raking of the dead leaves. No opening, no renewing.

This year, I find myself inside the hedge. Tugging out the dead, opening up space for new growth. Bagging lots of leaves.

We had about 10 bags of lawn waste the other day about which neighbors commented relentlessly.

At a little BBQ, I began burning some of this wood. The pieces are awkward, bent and ill-fitting in the little firepit, so I have to be on constant vigilance, hand on hose, for stray fires in the surrounding area.

We had s'mores at the end of the night, for Big, his first. He loved the combination of fire, hot marshmallows, melted chocolate and graham crackers.

As I toasted his, I remembered my mom fawning over the most charred ones, gobbling up all of my mistakes as though I had produced a Renoir or a short story by Tillie Olsen for her to savor.

Then it dawned on me: she couldn't have loved my charred marshmallows. . . At least not at the Taylorist, scientific management rate at which I produced them.

She just loved me and eating those blackened marshmallows was just one of the many gifts she gave me during our short time together.

So here is a toast to all those mothers out there who are eating burnt marshmallows, or chewing ABC gum, or enjoying open-mouthed-snotty kisses (BioMom got one of those this morning!) or faking surprise at breakfast-in-bed, or sacrificing their alone time, or putting off their careers to spend time with their kids when they are young, or pining for dandelion bouquets and all of the other small and large sacrifices that translate into small and large gifts that may not go appreciated until they grow up and stop to recognize what had been given.

My Woman

Sorry for the lack of posts. I've been suffering from some sort of midlife trauma that has taken me off course. Cousin is here now though and life seems to be moving back to some sort of normal, whatever that is.

Yesterday Nine, Big and I wandered over to our local coffee shop for French Sodas (them raspberry and cherry and me cherry/lime) when Big noticed a dalmation and his pal with their human owners a couple of tables down.

Big: Are those guys yours?

The stranger: Yeah. Is that woman yours? (pointing at me)

Big: Yeah. That's my woman!

I was surprised. He often identifies me as a boy. . .

Pulling Her Leg: My Response

Easter Morning, April 2009
Dear [Nine]:

Thank you very much for your letter, dated April 10, 2009. I do often receive letters such as your own, so please forgive me if I provide my pat answers to your questions. There are, as you can imagine, many many children with questions such as your own.

Your first question is apparently, of high concern among children, particularly children from Western countries like the United States of America. I am curious about this. Are you, somehow, insecure about whether or not you have behaved naughtily throughout the past year? Do you fear that you, somehow, deserve rocks in your Easter Basket?

I, in fact, do not deliver rocks to naughty children. Even us bunnies realize that all children are both naughty and nice to varying degrees at different times. Furthermore, such behavior is often precipitated by choices made by the parents. Did you ever, as an example, read the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Do you remember the character Veruca Salt? Veruca, the only daughter of the wealthy Henry and Angina Salt, regularly exerts petulant behavior in order to get what she desires. When Veruca demands that she must have a Golden Ticket, her father buys numerous cases of Wonka Bars, and orders his factory workers to put aside their regular duties of peanut-shelling and unwrap the bars. The process lasts three days, all of which Veruca spends complaining that she doesn't have her ticket. When the ticket is finally found, Veruca is "all smiles again." Her father later confesses to Wonka that he knows his daughter is "a bit of a frump." So you can see, even spoiled little boys and girls deserve a chocolate on Easter.

You can decipher for yourself if I find you and your brother to be naughty or nice.

Do bunnies like carrots? Indeed, we do enjoy carrots. The story of Peter Rabbit and his trials and tribulations with Farmer McGregor were all true. We risk life and limb to acquire the tasty delicacies of fresh fruits and vegetables from people’s gardens. If only we were served or had the means to pay for such vegetables at the upscale groceries that cater to humans like yourself. Alas.

Why do humans dye eggs? Why is Easter in spring? Did Jesus die and rise again? Why are you the symbol of Easter? Did they have the seasons back then? I put all of these questions together because they are inextricably linked.

The Easter Bunny as a symbol has its origins in Alsace Germany where it was first mentioned in German writings as early as the 1600s. Why rabbits though? Well, rabbits are symbols of fertility (ask your parents what that means) from a long long time ago. Since birds lay eggs and rabbits give birth to a large number of babies at one time in the early spring, these (both eggs and bunnies) became symbols of the rising fertility of the earth at the Vernal Equinox (this just means the beginning of spring). So you can see, your questions are perfectly related as Easter, bunnies, eggs, renewal and the changing of the seasons are all intertwined.

Bunnies, then were symbols of spring when the celebrations were very different sorts of celebrations than they are now with, as you said, a link to the death and rise of Jesus. The celebration of spring was and still is, for some, what is known as a Pagan holiday – that is one without explicit religious connotations. People around the world, for all times have created celebrations around the changing of the seasons. In the fall, people celebrated the harvest and the beginning of winter, with days getting shorter and the cold weather and lack of abundant food. As spring comes, people celebrate rejuvenation, and life, and abundance. The ancient Saxons celebrated the return of spring with an uproarious festival commemorating their goddess of offspring and of springtime, Eostre.

So, now, on to eggs. Eggs, too, are a celebration of fertility that is quite separate from the life and death of Jesus. The precise origin of the ancient custom of coloring eggs is not known. Many eastern Christians to this day typically dye their Easter eggs red, the color of blood, in recognition of the renewal of life in springtime. Some also used the color green, in honor of the new foliage emerging after the long dead time of winter.

As for your question about Jesus. I cannot, unfortunately, answer this for you as it is a personal question of your faith and beliefs.

As for my life before obtaining this post as the Official Easter Bunny. I was born of meager means in the southern tip of Albania in a small town outside of Saranda near the Greek island of Corfu on the Ionian Sea, in the late Twentieth Century. I studied hard at school and was quite diligent in my duties at home in my community. I never expected to be assigned to this post as an adult, but am very grateful for the opportunity. It is an arduous task with long hours, particularly in the months of February, March and April, but, certainly, when I receive letters such as yours, the rewards are immeasurable. I will pass on this post in two years time and go back to my life with my family (I have approximately 1,326 children of varying ages).

Good luck young [Nine],

E. B.

Who is Pulling Whose Leg Now?

We are not parents who never lie to their kids.

Particularly in the realm of the holiday fantasies.

So Nine is now, clearly at a precipice. Not exactly sure what to do with her questioning and her hopes for all things Easter Bunny, Santa, Tooth-Fairy and the like.

Today she has left said Bunny a note, with the hopes of some clarification. The note reads as follows (I have not altered anything in any way to protect the innocent or her spelling concerns):

Saturday April 10, 2009
Dear Mr. Easter Bunny,
I have a couple of questions for you. Do you bring rocks to the naughty children? If so would you bring them to us? I hope not! Do bunnys really like carrots? Or is it just a symbol? Why do we dye eggs? Why is easter in spring? Did Jesus die and rise again in spring? Did they have the seasons back then? Why are you the symbol of easter? What was your life like before you were the "Easter Bunny"?

Love,
[Nine].

At this point, I feel somewhat compelled, in my response, to forge ahead with thoughts of our future relationship. The one that I intend to enjoy with her when she is, say, 16 or 17 when all veils are lifted and we can laugh a bit about life together over, say a cup of coffee, or later at age 25 over a gin and tonic. I feel a sort of pressure to make a humorous lasting impression, not unlike the feeling of the first day of a semester when one hopes to be compelling, challenging, interesting AND someone the students would like to befriend at some point after their grades had been long turned in.

I am reminded of one This American Life story in which a young woman recalls her long-held belief that their neighbor was the tooth fairy. (If you're interested, it is a fantastic episode. Check it out here: Kid Logic.

All this is to say that we are going to great lengths to respond, write, legitimize and, ultimately, print in some exacting way, a letter from said Bunny.

Potential

Followup to the Blockbuster Incident

So yesterday I was interested in getting the new movie Bolt for the kids, and, to be honest myself, and was preparing to head back to the local movie peddler early enough to actually get a copy of the popular movie before the weekend started.

Big was actually paying attention to me when I gave him the "Dora Map" overview of the things I had hoped we would accomplish yesterday, and absorbed the full meaning of going to the movie store.

His response? In a sadistic tone, with slim, slanty eyes he said:

I'm gonna get some candy at the movie store.

What am I in for with this one?