The September Schedule

Back to school! This is Henry on his first day of first grade, and Agatha in her fairy costume for a friend's fairy-themed birthday party. 

Everything started up in September: We are more highly scheduled than ever before. Now Henry's in school 8-3 every day, and Agatha's in from 8:30-3 four days a week; Thursdays I pick her up at 11:30 am. Michael's and my teaching started up as well, of course, with its own schedule of obligations, plus Michael is now chair of the department and I'm on the tenure and promotion committee. Henry started soccer (practice Monday evenings, games Saturday afternoons). Agatha started dance class (every Tuesday at 4). Even Sunday is not immune: the new year of Sunday school has started, with its own schedule and curriculum. Because I feared the million details of chairing the department would take over our lives, Michael and I crafted a precise and elaborate schedule of how many and which hours he would work, emphasizing that the home hours were to be focused on our family. Of course we also had to schedule in exercise, because when one person is exercising the other is caring for children-- and that is no small item to fit in, since Michael is training for a half-marathon. After a couple of weeks of feeling completely stunned by the pace of things, we are now getting habituated to it and all is going well-- except the house was not getting clean, so last weekend we made a schedule for that, too.

(Sigh.)

Although this truly sounds crazy, both Michael and I feel much calmer when we have slotted in time for everything to get done. It's when you don't know how things will get done that we get really stressed. But I think our tightly scheduled lives are the main reason we are contemplating-- planning, really-- for a long, unstructured sojourn in Ireland next summer. Three or even four weeks, nothing to do but take walks and bike rides, read, visit the pubs, and stoke the peat fire. Who's in?

Four Years Old!

 This really says it all. Killer 6-year-old photo bomb. 

I especially like how I have a saintly halo.

Agatha is four today! Here she is on her birthday outing with Gran. Earlier this summer she and I went to Claire's at the mall because she wanted a new headband, and she was bowled over by the glittery, girly merchandise. She started calling it "the birthday store," because everything she wanted for her birthday was located there. So today, Gran took her shopping at Claire's and she got to pick out several exciting items: glittery stretch bracelets, princess-themed lip balms that fit into a handy metal carrying case, tiny figurines of Snow White and Prince Charming, and, the most exciting gift of all: a child-size Hello Kitty umbrella. She's wanted her own umbrella for a long time and she is absolutely thrilled with her presents. Afterward, Gran took her out to lunch and she got to blow out a candle in her ice cream.

At the "birthday store" this summer she had seen a barbie-sized doll of the movie character from "Brave," and absolutely loved it. The doll has red, curly hair and a blue dress and shoots a bow and arrow. Agatha called it "warrior barbie." Of course I got her Warrior Barbie for her birthday, along with a lot of other glittery, magical stuff like a decorated treasure box and filmy lavender fairy wings with a matching wand. We always think of Agatha as a magical wood sprite, so it seemed fitting.

Happy birthday to our joyful girl, so full of warmth and so able to take pleasure in the world. The day you were born was one of the happiest of my life.

July Update

July was a month of travels, punctuated by a big week of work. Early in the month, we spent a weekend in Berkeley Springs with our dear friends, the Howell-Brogan family, and Meagan and I celebrated our birthdays. Then the kids had a couple of weeks of summer camp. The second week was a "WoW" for Mommy: a Week of Work, the culmination of my summer of research in which I tried to bash my article into shape. I mostly succeeded, although it still isn't really finished. I hope to keep working on it after classes start and send it off by the end of the fall semester. During that week, Agatha had camp in the morning and a delightful babysitter in the afternoon, and Henry spent the week at Camp Shand. This is a wonderful YMCA-run camp out in the woods, around a lake, about 45 minutes drive from Lancaster. It is a sleep-over camp, but he participated in the day-camp this year. Each morning we dropped him off at the Y a couple of blocks from our house by 8 am, and he rode a school bus out to camp and spent the whole day swimming, playing games, doing arts and crafts and visiting the "Trading Post," then rode the bus back home where we picked him up at 5:30 pm. It made for excellent, long days in the office for Mommy, and he seemed to love it, too. Next year, maybe we'll try it for two weeks!

Then we left for 10 days of vacation. We spent the first two nights on a horse farm in Virginia. We had planned to spend a day at Colonial Williamsburg, but it was just too hot-- over 100 degrees and humid that day. And the farm with its chic little guesthouse was so comfortable. So we just stayed there, petted the horses, chased the chickens, played the guitar-- and the Wii video game-- and relaxed. Henry befriended three boys his age whose gran took him along for pizza and bowling. Then, we drove on down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for a week of vacation on the beach.

We had a great week. It was super hot the first day, but after that it was manageable. The water was warm, although Agatha was too scared of the big waves to go in the beach right by our cottage. There was a state park a mile away on the calm, sound-side of the island, so we went there most days so the kids could wade way out on the sand bar and we could catch crabs and little fishes. One day we drove all the way down to Ocracoke Island on the end, taking the ferry there and back.
It was lovely, but as usual we were all ready to come home. Now it's Monday, August 6, and the internal calendar is turning from summer and beaches and novels back toward fall and school and classes. I don't lament it; I love school and I love the "back-to-school" time for my kids. The kids have two more weeks of morning camp so Michael and I can get back into the office and finish up summer projects and begin fall ones; Henry's first day of school is August 23. Plus, there's lots of canning to do before then! Housecleaning/redecorating and canning are the afternoon projects for the next two weeks, along with some trips to the library and the pool. (Henry is reading anything and everything now; his latest obsession is the "How To Train Your Dragon" series.) And very soon my little girl will be four!

Lawbreaker

I told Henry the other day: three-year-olds are lawbreakers. He thought this was hilarious, having become quite the law-follower (and enforcer) himself. It wasn't so long ago that I despaired of his lawlessness and the way he ruthlessly tested every single rule, guideline, or suggestion. Now I realize that he was just in a more-intense phase of the standard 3-4 year old modus operandum, the same place his sister is now in.

The other day was a good example: at the end of a long day of camp and then the public library, the kids were tired, needed a break, and I wanted to start dinner. "Each of you," I proclaimed, "can choose one episode of a video to watch together." Henry immediately considered this offer and made his choice: "Pound Puppies!" he said. Agatha's response, as it is to most things these days, was: nah, I'm not doing that. "Two episodes," she countered, "no, four."

I got so used to Henry's intense resistance that I'm still surprised at how well he does in all organized settings now. Not to brag, but his teachers love him. After three years of the same two teachers at preschool, this past year it was a teacher boom: he acquired four kindergarten teachers (two homeroom, two in the partner class), specialists in Spanish, computers, art, PE, and library who all know him well, several Sunday school teachers and now three or four teachers of summer camp. His teachers love him, I think, because he is an excellent student, pays attention, never (or almost never) gets in trouble, understands and follows the rules, and is enthusiastic about everything. When a teacher (or neighbor, because he's developed independent relationships with several of them, too) approaches me and begins, "I just wanted to tell you..." I still flinch, expecting them to talk about Henry's recalcitrance. But no. My chief lawbreaker now looooves the law, although he does sometimes delight in the anarchic amorality of his crazy sister.

Italian Adventure 2012

Well, this is your tax dollars at work: I won an NEH grant and used (some) of the money to spend 12 days in Naples and Rome this month. I traveled over and back with three other women, all classicists, and one of them my good friend Alexis. We stayed together in Naples for three days each at the beginning and the end of the trip, and for the five days in the middle I met my dear old friend (and college roommate), Cynthia, in Rome.

Naples was beautiful, gritty, and full of personality. It gets a bad rap as "dirty" and dangerous, but I never felt in jeopardy. Hundreds of massive churches, many of which are not even regularly open. Just too much patrimony to manage. They are nonchalant about it.

The antiquities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, as well as the Farnese marbles, are in the archaeological museum in Naples.

That's Vesuvius and me!

We took a day trip to Paestum, a Greek city later taken over by the Romans, which still has three standing temples, very archaic in style. Beautiful and amazing. I had never seen a real Greek temple before (just the one in Nashville!)

Traveling with Cynthia was just as easy and fun as it was 23 years ago when we toured Europe together. She is so game and interested in everything, so much fun and easy to get along with. We need to start planning our next trip together! It felt like a special gift to spend this time together and revisit some of the same sights we saw together at age 19.

Dumb art history professor pose.

On my way back to Naples I stopped at Caserta, home to a massive palace and garden.

My mom helped so much with the kids, but the biggest thanks go to Michael, who spent pretty much the whole time I was gone doing things with the children and taking care of things at work and home. He took them to wade in a local stream, built bark boats, took them to a revolutionary war re-enactment (the indians did not wear any pants!), and many other treats. I came home to a spotless house and happy children, and thus did not have to shoulder guilt or make up deferred maintenance as the price for my wonderful escape. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Michael!

Life Cycle

Overheard in the car on the way to camp today:

Henry: If you have water but no food, you can go like two weeks. If you have food but no water, you can only go like three days. And if you have food AND water, you can go a long, long time!
Agatha: Yeah, till the end of your life!
H: At the end of your life you'll die. Mommy and Daddy will die before us because they are older than us. And I'll die before you because I'm older than you.
A: And then I'll be lonely!
H: No, because you'll have children.
A: Yeah, I'll have children. Mommy, you'll be little again then, when I'm old, right?
H: No, she'll be dead.

Pictures

helping with the gravel/dry well project

it's noisy at the circus

dressed in red & white to match the circus (Henry's idea)

spellbound at the circus

cheesy grin

Easter 2012

off to a birthday party

Chapter Books

Last week, Henry discovered that he could read chapter books. He loves the "Magic Treehouse" series, which I've been reading to him sporadically for a year or so, and I mentioned to him that his friend Frances reads those books to herself, and maybe he'll do that soon, too. When he started to do it a few days later, I thought it was because of his competitive nature and my nudging him. But no! It was his teachers. Every day he brings a book home from his book bag at school that is filled with a constantly changing array of "just right" books. It was his astute and observant teachers who noticed he was ready to leap, and who made a ceremony of him and his reading buddy going down to the library by themselves to get a special chapter book-- Magic Treehouse, naturally-- to add to their book bags. He proudly brandished it when he got in the car after school, and then ran outside to sit on the woodpile and read as soon as we got home. At bedtime, he read, too. And the next morning, at 6 am, he ran in to our room saying, "I finished it!" He had woken up at 4:30 am to keep reading.

All the "just right" books have to be returned the next day, and he figured he'd have to read the entire book in one day, I guess! (We assured him he could just keep bringing the same book home night after night till he finished it.) Now his routine is to crawl into bed around 7:15 pm and read to himself until he turns out his light at 8 pm. At 8, we hear a little rustling around, and then peaceful silence. Reading!

West Virginia

As we often do, we went to Berkeley Springs, WVA for a long weekend over our spring break. It was unseasonably warm there, as it has been at home, too, and the kids played in an icy mountain stream next to our cabin. The little friend in the top photo came with her parents, too (we're friends from Aggie's preschool) and we made s'mores-- although it was almost too hot to be near the roaring fire!

Small student

Henry's off school today, so he came with us to ART 251: The Twentieth Century, which Michael and I team-teach. Today's topic was Surrealism. He gave each student a handout at the beginning of class, then went and sat in the front row and took out his pencil and his blue book. (He loves blue books: he can write his name on the front and make lists or stories or "how to's" inside.) Michael started off the class with a discussion of Miro, and Henry's hand shot up; he took it pretty well when Daddy didn't call on him but gave the other students a chance to participate instead. Then we played some surrealist games: exquisite corpse, frottage, and "latent news." Henry joined the exquisite corpse group writing surrealist poetry and read his aloud when it was his turn. Then I lectured on Elsa Schiaparelli. At the end of class, when I told the students I'd see them Monday, he said: "Mom, can I come Monday?!"
I wish all my students were so eager!

Sick, sick, sick... and then glee!

Oy, we've been sick. Here's the organ recital:
It's been about two weeks all told, with all four of us visiting the doctor at one time or another and at least two mis-diagnoses. First Agatha had a bad cold. Then after five days, she developed fever and some diarrhea. I assumed it must be an ear infection or other secondary infection after the cold; the doc said her chest and ears were clear but thought it must be a sinus infection, and the diarrhea was simply due to the runny nose. So she started on amoxicillin. The next day, I started feeling bad, developing fever and body aches. Since I didn't have a cold but had had a freak allergy attack the day before, I wondered if I might have a sinus infection, too. After dragging at work for a morning, going home feverish in the afternoon and suffering terrible chills that night, the next day I went to doctor, who swabbed me for strep throat. Which, it turns out, I had! At least, I had the bacteria. I had no sore throat or sinus infection, just the upset tummy and fever and chills. But the doc surmised that what was making both me and Agatha sick. Michael had also started feeling poorly, so we thought maybe he'd be coming down with it next. Indeed, over the next day, his fever started, and he started on amoxicillin too. Meanwhile, none of us seemed to be really improving. In fact, the antibiotics were just making the diarrhea worse. Henry came home from school feeling poorly and I rushed him to the doctor, having been just waiting for his turn to develop strep. But he didn't have it, and the doc thought he just had a cold and sent us home.
After another day or so, Michael was still feeling horrible and we were beginning to suspect that something else was going on. He went back to the doctor who now decided we had a bacterial infection from raw milk. She gave Michael and stool sample kit and a second, more powerful antibiotic. He brought that home we sat and looked at it, and looked at each other. That didn't make sense, either; what we had was clearly contagious, not conveyed by contaminated food, since we were developing it in sequence. And it wasn't responding to antibiotics, which meant it was probably a virus. In fact, we decided it was probably the gastric virus that's been going around all our schools lately, and that we had just been fooled by its emergence after a cold (Agatha) and by the presence of strep (me) and by absence of vomiting in all of us. We all got off the antibiotics, canceled out of all our activities and obligations for two days, tried to keep to our beds as much as possible, and ate nothing but BRATY foods (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast, yogurt). It was slow progress, but every day we felt a little better. By now, about three weeks after it all started, we're all pretty much back to normal. Henry's the toughest of all of us: though he had it too, he never developed a fever or missed school or even complained much.
What a joy to feel healthy and energetic again! And what an intense relief to see the kids back to their normal, healthy, non-whiny, happy selves, too. Yesterday Henry had a big day: Michael picked him up from school early so that he could attend the printmaking demonstration that Michael and an artist colleague were doing with Michael's students. Henry's been getting really interested in printmaking and has carved his own wood block recently. Michael said he loved it and had to be restrained from being a know-it-all in front of the college students. Then the two of them went to a bowling birthday party. Meanwhile, Agatha and I had a girls' night at home: we ate toast with Nutella and (for the first time) watched a regular TV show together on the sofa-- an episode of "Glee." It's hard to put into words the joy of having such a daughter. She is my sweetest, dearest, most delightful companion.

Church

My new year's resolution this year, 2012-- the year of the dragon!--is to work on my spiritual growth, and to that end we have been attending church since Sunday, January 1st. I announced this to Michael on December 31st, and somewhat to my surprise he was eager and interested to join in this with me. So Michael and the kids have been coming too. We're attending the Unitarian Universalist church, which is the obvious immediate choice for so many reasons-- being the most liberal and accepting of denominations, it is accommodating of a person with so many doubts; some of our friends already attend there, so it seems comfortable; it has a beautiful building; and it is little more than a stone's throw from our house.

I have to credit yoga with opening me up to spiritual experience. The quieting of the mind that happens after vigorous physical activity has been a revelation. My natural inclination to be critical and analytical and intellectual has been honed by years of training, and turning the volume down on that part of my mind has helped me open up to other modes of perceiving the world, to be more peaceful and connected to others. The presentness of yoga has also been a gift: the idea that the past self is truly gone, and there is only the now. Thinking about this deeply can be transformative. Whatever I would like to be, think, do-- do it now. So I am.

I have also come to see the wisdom of the old saying about consistency being the hobgoblin of little minds. That I don't believe everything is no reason to believe nothing. That I see flaws is no reason to avoid it altogether. Walk the path, learn, and see where it takes you-- that's what I'm trying to do.

Besides wanting to become a better person and to grow, I also want to serve, to help the community more, and the church provides a structure for doing that. One realization of the last year has been the extent of our privilege, especially now that we are sending Henry to an elite (for Lancaster, at least) private school. It's taken me a while to adjust to the idea that we and our children are not really "average" anymore; we're well and truly the insiders, the ones with all the opportunities. If we are going to have all these privileges, we have to take more seriously our responsibility to give back.

It's a cliche to begin attending church only once you have children, and I partly resisted going because of this. But remembering the idea of presentness helps extraneous concerns like this melt away. And I do want Henry and Agatha to have a framework for thinking about the big questions of life. Even more of a stumbling block was the fact that my favorite yoga class occurs on Sunday mornings! So I have to miss it to go to church. Bummer. I'm trying to make it up at another point during the week.

So far, so good. Agatha goes to the nursery, which is a well-equipped preschool room where she can play and dress up and eat applesauce. Henry has gotten up his courage to join Sunday school-- or Faith Development Classes, as they're called there-- the past two weeks, and likes the crafts and songs. Actually, Henry took to the whole thing immediately, like a duck to water. Our first morning, he was first in line to place his stone in the dish of sand to mark a joy or sorrow. He sings heartily along with all the hymns, and wonders when it will be his turn to light the chalice. The boy loves ritual! Michael and I both love sitting in that beautiful space, hearing wise words, and singing in community. I know there's been some drama and conflict in the church, though I don't know the specifics, and I don't really care to know right now. It might not be the right place for us forever, but right now it is a new source of peace and contentment in our lives.