Stuff

• My children's disobedience to Daylight Savings nearly killed me. Why didn't I unscrew the lightbulb in their bedroom and lock them inside? Maybe I should have used duck tape to strap them into bed.
• It is no longer effective to say, "Don't get out of bed until the sun is up." Naughty children. Especially that not-so-sweet Indy punk who has a way of persuading her brother how to disobey authority.
• I wish I could survive off 4 hours of sleep or less. Alas, it is not so. 

• If no miracle occurs tomorrow on election night, at least I witnessed one tonight at dinner when Finn the Finicky Food Eater declared, "Good job, Mom," after gingerly tasting a bite from his plate. One experimental spoonful turned into two, and so on...[silent fist bump from me].
• I still can't get used to Peyton Manning wearing an orange jersey. It's so wrong. Soooo wrong. And to think that I didn't care one iota about NFL football.
• I like the name Peyton. On the list.
• Boy still hasn't gotten rid of our Indianapolis Colts decal on our car window. Call it love. I've been waiting for some die-hard Patriots fan to blow up our car.
• As for blowing up cars, I recently forgot to turn my engine off when I filled my gas tank. No, we didn't blow up, but the thought crossed my mind.  

• I'm relishing rare naps with my Indy girl. Her fuzzy golden hair tickles my chin and her warm skin still smells of Heaven. She reminds me that she's no longer a baby, but it's in that moment that it feels right to be sending her off to grow up while I prepare for another baby. 
• I wish that somebody would put Halloween candy out of my reach. Sometimes having to be a responsible adult really bites.
• I am a Neti Pot convert. Overcome your stubborn fears like I did, and breathe happily. 
• I love it when Boy comes home with a paper bag from Panera: hot cheddar and broccoli soup in a sourdough bread bowl.

• Eating ice cream outside during this time of year qualifies us for some kind of prize. When it comes to ice cream, we are no wimps.
• What's better than ice cream? Homemade smoothies. And smoothie mustaches.
• We drink so much apple cider a week that we think it's starting to replace the blood in our veins. 

Which cider is better: Vermont or New Hampshire?

It all tastes the same.

For the record, local tastes best. Grocery store imported brands taste rotten.

A Haunting We Will Go...

These days, the enjoyment of blogging has slumped into a vast abyss of nothingness. I'm a moody writer/journal keeper/blogger/human being/slave driver/mother/wife. How did all the fun drain out? I rarely turn on my desktop--that has been collecting dust as of late. I slap on photo files to my external hard drive and never look at them again. I read political campaign news on the iPad until I get heartburn. I don't even read blogs as much as I used to--I'd rather watch reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond on Netflix because it takes zero mental effort and as a bonus, I burn all the calories from the 60 donuts I ate for dinner because I'm laughing out loud so freaking hard. Pure lethargic bliss. Fancy that. I don't know how or where to get a sensible mojo back. Either pregnant hormones are shutting out my happiness neurons or I need to find something else that prompts ambition in my spare time.

Eh, spare time? That's when my sacrosanct nap hour begins. I can never get enough.

Tonight, as the kids were trick-or-treating with their dad, I poked my head out of the front door window to see them galloping from house to house in our neighborhood. Man, I love watching childhood. Being in the thick of it is rough, but watching it from afar is sweeter than Halloween candy. Awww. I don't think I've seen more precious looking superheroes. Captain America and Catwoman Cat girl played their parts well--neither would dare shrug off their secret identities. It was as if their masks transformed them into the real deal. Indy insisted to be called Cat Girl at all times and wouldn't leave that rhinestone blinged-out black cat mask alone. I guess that leaves me with needing to start accumulating various dress-ups for these two.

Fortunately for us in northern New England, we escaped the wrath of Hurricane Sandy this week. The storm was howling in the grim October air, but we were safe and had power all night long. I never thought that I'd ever say this in my ENTIRE life, but I'm so glad to not be residing in New York City right now. The photos I've seen online make me depressed. We were very blessed to avoid the flooding and mess that we had over a year ago when Irene came through.

Oh, and we had a earthquake out here just last week or so. October hasn't failed in bringing scary surprises to our neck of the woods.

Happy Halloween.

boston lot lake--west lebanon, nh

world-famous pumpkin festival in keene, nh

Living With Trains

Clickety click! as out of town
The engine picks her way;
Where barefoot children, sunburnt brown,
In dusty alleys play.
All the summer early and late,
And in the summer drear, 
A maiden stands at the orchard gate,
And waves at the engineer.

(excerpt from "Clickety Clack," Cy Warman)

I like to see it lap the miles, 

And lick the valleys up,

And stop to feed itself at tanks;

And then, prodigious, step

Around a pile of mountains,

And supercilious, peer

In shanties by the sides of roads;

And then a quarry pare

To fit its sides, and crawl between

Complaining all the while

In horrid, hooting stanza;

Then chase itself down hill

And neigh like Boanerges;

Then, punctual as a star,

Stop--docile and omnipotent--

At its own stable door.

("The Railway Train," Emily Dickinson)

Trains are a part of our daily routine. They greet us at the same hour in the morning and they remind us when its time for story books and bed. Not a day goes by that we don't hear those whistles coming from the train tracks near our home. For these two siblings, life couldn't get better.

I'm All Grown Up

About a week ago, after I dropped my not-so-little three-year-old off to preschool, I was pondering on a flurry of thoughts as I drove through the parking lot in my car--thoughts of parental pride, excitement, and optimism of my preschooler's experience with his new routine and environment. That day, I explained to him that he would go on a field trip with his classmates.

"You're going to ride a bus today to visit the apple farm. Won't that be fun?"
"Listen to your teachers, okay? Please follow directions."
"You get to ride a school bus today...isn't that cool?"
"You're gonna love field trips, buddy."

It's hard to say which of us was more excited about the school bus because as I waited at the red light, I heard the low grumble of an engine with a half-sized yellow school bus that followed it. The bus passed me and continued its journey up the hill towards the school. My heart jumped and I immediately felt a thrill like electricity in my bones. Then, without a moment's notice, water started jerking out of my eyes. I wasn't being emotional because "my baby" was now in school and doing the stuff "big boys" do, it had more to do with the fact that I had arrived in that certain niche in adulthood.

"I am old. Like really old." I thought. An unexpected feeling, that's for sure.

I don't remember other milestones in adulthood that impressed me as much: living on my own in another state after high school graduation, leaving everything again to serve an LDS mission, getting my first job after college and becoming financially independent from my parents, getting married, having a baby--those events were expected to be life-changing. And I still felt young...young enough to continue feeling inexperienced and incapable as a growing adult. Now, I'm pushing 32 and my child has embarked in school--if you call less than 2 hours a day for three days a week "school". My world has now shifted from a controlled home environment of my constant teaching, disciplining, instruction, and love to a new environment with outsiders who are taking quantitative time to shape my child too. (That proverb of "it takes a village to raise a child" comes up to mind.) It's taking a little bit of bravery on my part to hand my most precious possession to someone else. And from what I've observed so far, I like what I've seen.

And her? Indy thinks she, too, belongs in preschool the way she sets foot into the classroom behaving like a pop star. Everyone there knows her name. From showing the teachers the hat on her head to being stubborn about heading out the door, this girl makes her presence known. School for her is right around the corner.

She's becoming an independent and vivacious toddler. I love it.

Maybe I'm oddly unemotional about my kids moving on to bigger things. I get nostalgic for their tininess like any parent, but I am more eager to push them to grow and learn about the big wide world out there. What has surprised me is this new chapter in life. The responsibility for my kids is now newly anchored with the involvement of others; our lives will be getting more complex from here on out. Parent Teacher Conferences are for those old and seasoned parents. Am I really there now? Gosh, I'm old. What next? Will I wake up to teenagers and feel really, really old? I have lines on my face and silver hairs spotting my hairline. I don't need any more reminders. I never knew that becoming aware of myself growing up could be, well, trippy.

Here's to getting old.

 

Finally Fall

Fall, at last, it's you and me.
I should compose a sonnet about you every year...but I'll have to freshen up on my Shakespeare first.
Because of you, my color of choice year-round is orange. Ooh, and citrus orange season is around the corner. Drool.
I still wish I could celebrate my birthday during leaf changing splendor.
I adore you more than those brown paper packages tied up with string.
I need you like apples + cinnamon need a buttery flaky pie crust.
I relish your mornings filled with chilled crisp air that pinken my nose, your afternoons that warm my face while my neck cozies into a soft scarf, and your evenings filled with haunting quiet stillness.
You're all I yearn for during the winter, spring, and summer.
You're the most wonderful time of the year--shouldn't there be a song for that?

Fall, I love you. Let me count the ways...

the notches/kancamagus highway/white mountain state park white mountains, nh

woodstock bridge, vt

watching apple ice cream being made at billings farm, woodstock, vt.

misty morning on the connecticut, dartmouth rowing, nh/vt border

norwich, vt

Fall is no doubt the best season of the year in New England. My home hosted two sets of visitors last month...I'm hoping to entice more. Let me know, and I'll book you on my wide-open calendar.

Fall, please stay a little while. Christmas can wait.

Adios to Summer

Summers ago as a child--long before summer became tainted with high school boys and jeep rides--I remember spending the dog days in Utah's dry heat at my community swimming pool. My skin would brown like toast, my stellar underwater handstands (hands up, stands up) would outlast my friends, and I'd snack on a bagel cream cheese shmear from the concession stand and frozen grapes brought from home. Me and my wet friends would dry off in the breeze and hot sun, sitting in the back of my dad's pickup as he drove us all home. By the end of the summer, my swimming suit was saturated with a permanent stench of chlorine no matter how many times it ran through my mother's washing machine cycle.

Thirty years from now, my kids won't be talking about their cherished memories of the Summer 2012. They're too young to remember much of the life they will have spent here in our little mint green home. As their mother, summoning up those memories for them will be my responsibility. Photographs must do their job to help me tell their stories:

I will tell them of walks to the duck pond up the street, a sack of dried white sandwich bread in hand, to not only feed a family of ducks, but the catfish and turtles as well.

I'll describe our backyard--a critter wonderland--and explain how we'd catch and release the frogs jumping in our lawn and when we kept long green caterpillars hostage in mason jars with punctured lids.

I'll think of all the rows of blueberry bushes growing on the wayside of the Connecticut River; filling our pail and filling their tummies during an impromptu game of hide-and-go-seek.

I tell them of all the summer festivals and local events that we were able to attend--while their admission was still free: Quechee Balloon Festival, Norwich Fair, WRJ Glory Days Festival, Lebanon Coop Dairy Days, and the local farmers' market.

Did I miss anything? Probably. We tried to make Saturdays more enjoyable than a day of mowing the lawn and scouring the house clean.

And we can't forget our outing to our local theme park that tries very hard to be Disney: Story Land. Deep-friend Oreos and riding the train was enough to make all of our eyes pop out.

I'll pull out the bright orange Home Depot apron and say, "Hey, can you believe that this used to fit around your waist?" and explain how hard they worked on once-a-month building projects.

I will tell them of weekly visits to the library story hour. I'll tell them of their fondness for Mrs. Frappier at the "Reading Room" and how she'd always have clever crafts to tie in with the story she read aloud.

What fun we had meeting up with friends at the park, swimming at the pond or at the dam, canoeing on the Connecticut, feeding fish at the hatchery, petting farm animals, riding bikes in our driveway, counting down the days to reunite with family they barely got to see.

Our summer was not too full, not too boring...it was just right.

My heart might be getting sick typing out all these memories. Nostalgia for childhood always gets my nose hurting. I don't like wanting the feeling to chase after the past, yet those dimpled faces, chubby cheeks, sticky hands, girly squeals, and evenly spaced out teeth that appear as miniature chicklets encourage me that they will stay just a wee longer. As long they run downstairs to the master bedroom to climb into bed for early morning cuddles, they're still little ones to me. They won't remember how small they used to be, but I will. Oh, yes I will. I will cling to it like any parent would. In another thirty years, it will seem like another lifetime.

I'll try not to start thinking about that. Enough nostalgia for one day.