Back-to-back adventures

High Line Park, NYC

Looking respectable, at the Met in NYC

gorgeous boy

Klondike bar

gorgeous boy, part 2

gorgeous boy, part 3

super-Agatha, to the rescue?

The beach was great-- of course! The house was right on the beach, just over the dunes, and the water was warm, calm, and shallow (although kind of muddy). It was so comfortable, with a separate bedroom for everyone and even air conditioning and a dishwasher, and so quiet, in a tiny beach community between a huge wildlife refuge and the shore, that after a week I really wasn't ready to leave. We had visits from my mom, and from our friends Meagan and Mike and family, and the house accommodated us all, with beautiful tall windows looking out on the water and sky. Usually I'm eager to get back home, but this was the rare vacation where I could have stayed longer. We had such a nice routine of swimming in the morning, then having lunch and doing activities, crafts, or reading during the heat of the day, naptime, and then a late afternoon beach time, followed by dinner and an early bed. No media, no noise. It just felt so healthy and relaxing. When we first arrived and saw the amazing view and the beautiful house, I felt such a wave of pride that we could provide this experience for our children, and for ourselves. It's not glamorous or exotic-- just an ordinary bourgeois summer vacation-- but I loved it.

While we were there we got an email from a friend who lives in New York City, asking if we wanted to come and cat-sit for them while they were away. So we returned home (in a blistering heat wave) on Saturday; I canned 23 quarts of applesauce on Monday and Tuesday, and then we went to New York on Wednesday, staying till Saturday evening. New York was wonderful, of course, but unfortunately the kids chose that prime moment to develop stomach bugs. There were some gruesome nights. Oy! But we did what we came to do: saw the McQueen show at the Met (my former student who works there whisked us in without waiting in the hours-long line); met another former student for dinner way downtown at the seaport; even went to the Cloisters Museum uptown, where we'd never been before, and the new High Line Park. All very cool, and not particularly kid-friendly, except for the park and its excellent hipster popsicle stand. We stayed at a beautiful renovated loft in the Bronx, which felt quite friendly and safe. After a couple of days, people were greeting us like regulars. Of course, we did stand out quite a bit! Not only were we unusually pale and blond, but we were going around as a family unit, tourists, where most people were commuting to work or something. So we-- and the kids especially-- got a lot of attention, all of it positive.

As I'd noticed in May at the Philadelphia Art Museum, Henry is starting to actually enjoy (or at least, not completely hate) the museum. He lit up in the antiquities section, and we specifically took him to see the mummies, tombs, and Temple of Dendur. He recognized all the sphinxes in the antiquities, and then when we were walking past an Ingres in the 19th-century wing, he shouted "Another sphinx!" And it was-- a painting this time. And at the Cloisters (all medieval art; we sold it to the children by telling them we were going to a real castle, which it is, reassembled by Rockefeller in the 1930s) he liked finding all the "hidden" elements in the tapestries. But their tummies hurt and their tempers were short, and by Saturday afternoon we were spent. It was hard, hard work being in New York with two small, cranky people.

Frankly, I've just about had it with the family fun! Bring on the school year, please! In fact, first thing Monday morning, after our return home, I took the kids out shopping for backpacks and lunchboxes. Today, we bought Henry new shoes, and his uniforms should arrive on Friday. Just two scheduled family-fun excursions remain: tomorrow, Dutch Wonderland, and Saturday, a day trip to go canoeing and to an Amish country auction with friends (downsized from a camping trip, thank goodness). Then, it'll be two weeks of morning camp for the kids and back into the office for me! (hooray!!!)

Mid-summer update

Henry and Frances at the theater!

Frances, reading to the other children

Toddler plank pose

She's even got the fashionista pout. This is Agatha wearing my new birthday necklace from my mom. "Look, Mommy, we got a present! Let's open it! We can share it..."

An update from the depths of midsummer...

It is July, so we are all off from work and school and camp. The first couple of days we got our bearings, and now we are deep into the routine of playing around the house, doing workbooks, and having small outings. One good thing about having small kids is that the scale of outings that interest them is also small. Many days we just have a visit to the local natural history museum (walking distance), an ice cream cone (two places, each a block and a half away), and maybe a trip around the block to visit Gran. A big day will entail a longer walk to the library. We did take Henry to his first-ever live theater (indoor) performance, and that was super-duper. I've also promised a trip to the local theme park, Dutch Wonderland, sometime during the break. And tomorrow we leave for a week at the beach, our big adventure of the summer.

Agatha is potty training! It really demonstrates my own laziness; as soon as I took her diaper off and got out the potty and said we were going to use it today, she did. Hasn't had a single accident so far. Here she is having a potty party with her friend, Holly.

When we return from the beach, it will be time to can applesauce and then, soon, peaches and tomatoes! We'll have two days in New York City at the end of the month, one night camping (!) in Juniata County at the beginning of August, and then the slow return to routine will begin: two weeks of morning camp for the kids while Michael and I work on our syllabi and get things done in the office. Henry's first day of kindergarten at his new school is August 25. (I am beyond excited about it.) Agatha starts after Labor Day.

Meanwhile, I am relishing the slow pace and spending lots of time together. I can see how much sweeter we all are and how well we all get along when we are not rushing or pushing to get much of anything done. It will be a challenge to hold on to that when late August rolls around, but I resolve to try as much as possible.

Running around

Henry and his friend, Lia, at the Red Rose Run

Henry is that blue streak in the center; Michael is running alongside on the sidewalk

Agatha, "making soup"

On her own initiative, she went and got the soup cookbook, picked some clover from the yard, got out the pan and a spoon and "cooked" it, then served us some in a bowl.

Another Agatha initiative: this was her chosen outfit for camp last week.

We went up to the Berkshires for five days (no pictures; forgot the camera!) and then Michael went to Montreal for a conference. So there's been a lot of running around! In between, the kids are going to morning day-camp and I am trying to finish up an essay and a book review. By July 1, we'll all take a break for some unstructured time.

Agatha's imagination is flowering. Her imaginary friend, Coyote, has a response or reaction to everything lately. Henry's had a rough couple of days; I think the new school anxiety is finally hitting him. He's still attending his old school (for camp), but it is different-- a different set of teachers, kids, and activities. Yet he knows he'll be starting a new school in the fall. "I don't wanna go to camp! It's just too weird!" he wailed yesterday. He's grouchy and out of sorts. I've been working hard to use my "aikido parenting" inspired by my friend, an aikido master-- don't resist, blend; try to use your antagonist's energies to turn into a more beneficial direction. It is great advice and very effective, but sometimes I still get worn down! My antagonist uses a lot of force.

Al rescate, amigos!

Agatha's been watching a lot of "Diego" lately. I'm not too proud of it, but on the other hand the Netflix on demand is a pretty wonderful thing for helping Mommy get through the day! She gets to watch one in the morning when she wakes up, one after waking from naptime, and usually another one at some other critical moment. Her love of Diego has translated into her speaking some words in Spanish and concocting various schemes for rescuing animals in trouble. She loves to shout out, "al rescate, amigos!" and head off running. This morning she ran all way to her preschool, stopping only at the crosswalks. Seriously, that's seven-tenths of a mile! (or so says Google maps) The whole way she was talking about the roadrunners having a race and rescuing the pygmy marmoset and so on. But the cutest thing is to hear her count in Spanish, which she can do up to 10: "uno, dos, trays, kwat-roh..." It sounds like Scooby Doo speaking Spanish.

Speaking of numbers, Henry is learning multiplication! He brought home worksheets he'd filled out with the times 2s, 3s, and 4s ("Ones are just too easy, Mom.") At the Montessori school they use beads to calculate the multiplication and get a visual grasp on the concepts; the worksheets are just the traces of that process in the classroom. Pretty neat. Next year it looks like we will be transferring him to a high-powered, more traditional-format private school, about which we are both excited and anxious. I'm glad he's had four years to learn in this more hands-on and play-based Montessori way, but I think he's ready for more rigor and structure. We'll see.

Besides multiplication Henry is also very interested in time right now. He has a clock that speaks the current time when a button is pressed, and he has certain "favorite times" that he likes the clock to speak out to him: 7:11 is the most beloved, but also the palindromic 12:51, and the hilarious 5:55 and 4:44 and so on. He has figured out that his clock happens to be set about 3 minutes fast, so when he sees it is 7:08 in the kitchen he races upstairs to hear his clock say "seven-eleven, a.m.," which gives him great satisfaction.

bathroom spruce-up

Last week, Michael was away at Dartmouth doing work with the Maxfield Parrish archive in their library. He was actually gone for 9 full days, people! I decided to spend that week giving our tired old yellow bathroom a facelift, since we'd be out of our normal routine anyway, and I'd have to work around one fewer person. I did most of the work while the kids were at preschool in the mornings, and my mom helped out tremendously, picking them up most days and loaning me her car to go out and buy supplies. I know it doesn't look much improved in the pictures below, but you have to imagine that the walls and ceiling were peeling from old water damage, so even though it's still just white, it's much cleaner, brighter, and nicer. And above: Agatha and Henry in their double-wide "house" on the front porch. Notice the shrewd use of a structural beam above! Everyone was into home improvements last week, I guess.

BEFORE:
AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Big girl

Agatha has been sleeping in a big girl bed-- or as she likes to call it, a bed shaped like a rectangle-- for two weeks now. The transition was seamless! She slept well in it the first day, and never looked back, unlike Henry who shuttled back and forth between the crib and the bed for a month or so. She is getting more imaginative all the time, singing little made up songs and telling fantastic tall tales, many of them about how she can fly like a bird. She still loves birds of all sorts and talks about woodpeckers, crows, and cardinals frequently. We got her sheets with a birdhouse motif for her new bed. She is very attached to Mama right now, and while this is sometimes tiresome it is usually quite magical to have this small, perfect, beautiful person gazing adoringly at me and talking seriously and at great length to me about all sorts of fantastical topics.

Train trip, and the slow beginning of summer

We've had a lot of fun stuff lately-- Mother's Day, my mom's birthday, and last Wednesday we took advantage of a day off from the kids' school to take a day trip into Philadelphia on the train. We not only took Amtrak there and back, we also rode in a taxi, two city buses, and a trolley. A thrilling day of transit for the preschoolers! We went to the wonderful "Please Touch" museum (for kids), and then the Philadelphia Art Museum. I had to carry Agatha a lot, and we were all pooped by the end of the day, but it was a lot of fun. Henry was alternately stubborn and wonderful: he refused to wear the little belt on the carousel, and therefore was not able to ride it (had to sit on a bench while Agatha and Daddy rode); on the other hand, he loved the audio guide at the museum and calmly went around, locating all the codes, typing them in, and listening carefully to the information. If this keeps up, we have an excellent museum companion in our future!

Now that Commencement is over, the whole family seems to be sinking in to a torpor of rest and rebuilding. Both children had fevers and were home from school a day this week-- Agatha with an ear infection, and Henry-- who knows? He refused to take any medicine and slept off his fever overnight. I'm letting him stay home this morning mainly as a reward for his courage and fortitude, and because I understand his desire to burrow in with Mommy at home and work on his paper houses in peace and quiet. (We have a book of E-O scale historic houses that Henry loves; he cuts out the dozens of tiny pieces, folds them carefully, and then we glue them together. We are amassing quite the 19th-century village!) The rain just keeps falling, which gives us an excuse to avoid gardening and house chores (except for Michael's labors at keeping the basement dry) for another couple of days. Legos, sewing, and baking are the order of the afternoons. Soon enough it will be hot and sunny and we'll be busy fixing stuff, writing essays, taking research trips and family vacations, and bustling the children around for summer camps and various activities. For now, though, things are slow, slow, slow. Which feels good, good, good.