Monthly Archives: August 2011

The Tree They Come Home To

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“If you are a gardener and find me,” said the little bunny, “I will be a bird and fly away from you.”

“If you become a bird and fly away from me,” said his mother, “I will be a tree that you come home to.”

From The Runaway Bunny, by Margaret Wise Brown

Wednesday
We got the good news on Wednesday afternoon. We had just returned from a Tracks reunion play date—two-thirds of the kids in June’s nursery school class attended—and the post card was in the mail. It was from Señora T, June’s kindergarten teacher, saying she was looking forward to meeting her and giving us her room number and the date of the first day of school (as if we needed reminding).

Señora T was the teacher we wanted for June, the one we thought was the best fit for her personality. We weren’t even sure if she was still teaching kindergarten in the immersion program because the program has just been cut from three classes to two in the kindergarten year and the school had been close-lipped about which of the original three teachers were remaining.

So I was happy to get the card. I read it to June, who was sitting in the sky chair on the porch, and she grinned. She especially liked the smiley face sticker affixed to the bottom.

The week before school started was an emotional one for me. Noah was at drama camp so it was just June and me. Although we’ve been in different configurations from week to week all summer, this still feels like the most normal arrangement after all these years of Beth and Noah off at work or school or camp and June and me at home. As June and I went about our routine, one moment I’d be melancholy, thinking it was our last regular Monday morning latte/vanilla milk date (until I remembered that Labor Day is coming up pretty soon and that in fact there are quite a few Monday holidays in the school year). And then I would be giddy with delight at the thought of all the time I would have (free time, time to work) very, very soon. Just last week Sara and I came to an agreement that I would be working for her for at least ten hours a week for the duration of the school year. I was eager to get started, being ready for the mental stimulation, not to mention the added family income, which will come with more regular part-time work.

Over the course of the week, June and I went on errands, waded in the creek, visited four different playgrounds and had play dates with the Ghost Crab and the Eastern Fence Lizard and met up with Tara and Lucas from 04-05-2008 (www.040508.blogspot.com).

Thursday
The play date with the Ghost Crab took place on Thursday morning mostly at the playground attached to her (the Crab’s) new elementary school. I was watching the Crab’s toddler sister as well so their mom could have a little peace and quiet with her husband and their newborn. There’s a lot of climbing equipment at this playground, a rock walls and monkey bars, and the three girls kept me busy spotting them. When it started to drizzle we moved under the one of the bigger structures and the girls pretended to be camping. There was a lot of sitting around and pretending to cook and eat wood chips, served in the girls’ shoes. Later when the rain let up, they dug paths in the wood chips all over the playground, in loops that led back to the campsite. Once the pace of their play had slowed and I no longer needed to make sure no-one was about to fall on her head, I started thinking about the fact that in just a few days the Crab would be inside the school that’s probably been just a background to her games for years and June would be at her different school. Suddenly it felt like hanging out with high school friends, just days before everyone is off to college and everything changes between you forever, though I doubt June or the Crab had any similar musings.

Later that day we met Tara, a blogging friend of mine, and her very cute nineteen-month old son. The idea had been to play in the fountain in downtown Silver Spring, but it had rained earlier in the day and the fountain was fenced off so it turned into having dinner at Noodles & Company and then going to watch the fountain (just watching was entertaining enough for a toddler. He could not stop walking around it, pointing at it and shrieking). Tara and I have been reading each other’s blogs for years, so it was fun to meet her at last and she even gave us a loaf of carrot-cranberry bread.

In between these two social gatherings we met with the educational psychologist who evaluated Noah earlier this month. The tests she had him complete were meant to measure his intelligence and his processing speed and the yawning chasm between them. She gave him a diagnosis of ADHD Not Otherwise Specified, which means he does not exactly fit into any of the recognized subcategories of ADHD, but that he has some of the symptoms and would benefit from the kind of accommodations kids with ADHD get (extra time on tests, etc.). There was nothing the least bit surprising about this. It was pretty close to what I predicted, that he either wouldn’t have it or have borderline case. Still, it might be enough to get a 504 plan for him that will help him meet his academic potential in fifth grade and into middle school. So it’s good news, mostly, but it’s never easy to have a new label put on your child. It made me feel a little heavy-hearted.

Friday
The Open Houses at the kids’ schools were on Friday, at the same time, so I took June to hers and Beth took Noah to his. As soon as we found out June had Señora T I sent out emails to the parents of her three nursery school classmates who are attending her school as well as to the mother of another boy we know who will be in kindergarten there. (Malachi is the younger brother of Maxine, who used to be one of Noah’s best buddies in kindergarten and first grade and with whom he’s still friendly). I wanted to find out who was in her class. June is closest to the White-Tailed Deer, so it was disappointing when I got the first answer from her dad, saying she was in the other class. Later I found out that the Black Bear and the Field Cricket are in the other class, too. Only Malachi is in class with June and while she has played with him on a few occasions, she doesn’t know him as well as any of the kids from her preschool. I felt sad that she was basically going to be alone on the first day, without anyone she knew well.

I know she’ll make new friends quickly, though. She makes friends at one-week camps and she made a friend as we walked to the Open House. Another kindergarten girl walking with her family came up to her as we strolled along the creekside path to her school and when the grownups consulted we found out they were in the same class. A few sentences into their acquaintance the girl had decided to invite June to her birthday party. (Whether she’s actually having a birthday soon was unclear.) June can also see her old friends at recess and given the small size of the immersion program, doubtless they will all be in each other’s classes at some point.

June had been debating for a few days whether to say “Hola” or “Buenas tardes” when she met Señora T, but when the moment came her shyness got the better of her and she could not speak at all. I showed her around the room. We looked at all the toys (animals, blocks, art supplies, a play kitchen and a puppet theater). She was especially interested in the big plastic animals until a bossy girl told her the giraffes were hers and June could only have elephants. June would not have taken this from any of her preschool classmates, but she mutely accepted the elephants. I gently led her away from the animals and we located her table (she’s at la mesa azul, or the blue table), her coat hook and her attendance card. Once we’d seen everything there was to see and I’d picked up a packet of information and signed a paper saying she’d be taking the bus home, we left the classroom.

There had been a sign on the door when we entered the building indicating there was a tour of the school for kindergarteners and other new students at 2:30 but no one seemed to have any idea where the tours started. Finally I was told to go to the multi-purpose room (the combination cafeteria, gymnasium and auditorium) to wait. I signed up for the PTA and we mingled. We saw the families of the White-Tailed Deer, Black Bear and Field Cricket, all of whom felt sorry that June got separated from her tribe. The Field Cricket’s mom asked if we’d try to get her switched and I said no. While I think the short-term transition would be easier for her with ready-made friends in class, in the long run, I’d rather have her with a teacher who’s a good match for her. So we waited and waited and waited and the tour never started, or we missed it somehow (if we did a lot of other people did, too). By three, June was tugging at my clothes and asking to go home. (I’d woken her from her nap to take her to the Open House and she was tired. She was also a little overwhelmed. She’d been clinging to me the whole time we were there, which is not like her at all.) So I took her to see the art room, which I thought would be of particular interest to her, and we left.

As we walked home I was struggling with the question of what to do about the Back to School party we had scheduled for the following afternoon. We’d invited the four incoming kindergarteners we knew and their families. But two families couldn’t come and Hurricane Irene was scheduled to blow through our area on that very day. By some predictions, there might be only light rain by that time of day and we did have a picnic shelter reserved. But by others, there could be driving rain and high winds. It was the last business day before the party and I had to decide whether or not to try to cancel the reservation and get a refund. I didn’t think they’d give me one, as a week’s notice is officially required. Around four, I decided to call and ask. If they said no, we’d make a decision in the morning. But much to my surprise I was transferred to the Assistant Director of the Rec Center, who authorized a full refund, given the unusual circumstances. So I broke the news to June. There would be no party until some time after school started.

From all reports, Noah’s Open House went well. The teacher, Ms.W, seemed nice. The classroom was stocked with interesting puzzles and books. A lot of his friends are in class with him. Despite this cheering account, I felt unsettled all day. The disorganization of the Open House upset me because I didn’t want June to think of school as a place where people say things will happen and then they don’t. First I didn’t know whether or not we were having a party the next day and then I didn’t know when I’d reschedule it. I didn’t even know if school was going to start on Monday. Our notoriously unreliable power company (http://www.pepco.com/home/) had been announcing people should expect “multi-day outages” before the storm even started and if that happened, the beginning of school would likely be delayed. Even though I had felt nostalgic all week for June’s and my weekdays together, I didn’t want school put off. I had told Sara I’d start work Monday. And I also didn’t want the emotional upheaval of waiting for this big change to be prolonged.

Saturday
Saturday morning after June’s play date with the Lizard, we all drove down to June’s school so we could show her where the bus will drop her off and so Noah could give her a tour of his favorite spots on the playground. He wanted to do a more thorough job but the rain was starting to come down harder and we hurried away.

Around four o’ clock on Saturday, the starting time of the cancelled party, I went out onto the porch to sit and watch the rain. It was cool and raining moderately hard and the tree branches were waving slightly in the wind, not inviting weather for a picnic, even under a shelter, but it didn’t look like a hurricane yet.

The wind and rain continued all afternoon and evening. Around nine o’clock the lights started to flicker, but the power didn’t go out until two-thirty a.m. when I woke to a loud pop. I knew from the greater darkness of the room that the streetlights were out and I got up and peeked into the kids’ room and sure enough their digital clock had gone blank. Before going back to bed, I watched the trees in the back yard and the neighbors’ yards tossing violently from the bathroom window. There was a savage beauty to it I might have appreciated more if I had not been afraid that our power would not be back for days. (When Noah was two, we lost power for four or five days after Hurricane Isabel.)

Sunday
By Sunday morning it was all but over. There were some downed branches in our yard but no damage to our property. It rained in the morning, but a regular sort of rain and the afternoon was clear and sunny. Beth did a little grocery shopping but not too much because we didn’t know when we’d have refrigeration. I cleaned and napped and played a board game with June and read. Beth suggested we go for walk around the neighborhood to see what it looked like post-hurricane. It was a good idea, but for some reason, no one took her up on it. My mood had plummeted. “The rest of my life was supposed to start tomorrow,” I told Beth.

“The rest of your life will come,” she said. “It might just be delayed a day or two.”

But it wasn’t. Beth had been checking the county’s public school system web page all day for updates but it wasn’t until 9:45 p.m., long after we’d put the kids to bed thinking they wouldn’t have school the next day that we found out both of their schools had power and would be open. And at 10:30, just after I’d fallen asleep, the fan in our room kicked into gear. The power was back. (We were very lucky to get our power back so soon. Some of our neighbors are still without power, three days after the storm.)

Monday
Monday morning was a bit of a rush because we hadn’t fully prepared, but we got out the door in time. June was happy and excited; Noah was sometimes gloomy about vacation ending and sometimes full of a manic good cheer. At the bus stop June balked just a little in the line. I thought for a second she was going to bolt back to us, but she boarded the bus and soon we could see her smiling through the window in the second row. And the bus drove away; my baby was flying away from me. I only cried a little.

Given the list of things I wanted to do, six hours and forty-five minutes actually seemed too short. Up to now whenever I have gotten a substantial block of time it was so rare I felt I needed to squeeze in every last thing, It was hard to comprehend I had four more days just like it left in the week. So I caught up on email, Facebook and blogs after thirty-six hours offline. I did housework (hanging up the laundry on the line instead of using the dryer as I have just resolved to do at least once a week), I had coffee by myself and ran errands and read on the porch and exercised and worked a bit, too (though I have to admit, not much).

And that afternoon, my bunny flew back to the tree. She practically leapt off the bus steps into my arms. She was full of information. She drew a picture at school. Señora T taught them their colors but she already knew most of them. She answered a question about what could be rojo (red). She was in green on the green/yellow/red behavior chart all day. (There was one boy who was in yellow twice but nobody was in red.) She saw all of her nursery school friends on the playground but she mostly played by herself. She liked the monkey bars. She ate all of her lunch. She enquired if Noah had Quiet Time when he was in kindergarten and I said no. (I was glad she brought it up because I am hoping to phase out her nap. I think it might help her sleep better at night.) Instead of napping, she watched an hour of television and then Noah came home.

He had a letter from his teacher cut into tiny puzzle pieces. He had to reassemble it and write a reply for homework. He wrote about how a teacher should teach not just information but tactics and strategies of critical thinking. Without all the shadows, capital letters and other fancy formatting it would seem like a very serious letter. And it is, but it also shows his fun side.

While Noah wrote, June was busy eating like a house on fire: crackers with cream cheese, chips and cheese, yogurt with blueberries and granola. Apparently kindergarten makes you very hungry. I served veggie burgers and fries for dinner, because June loves fries, and we went out for ice cream to celebrate a successful beginning to a new school year and whole new phase of our lives.

When we got home I rushed June through her bath and bedtime preparations because it was almost eight and she hadn’t napped. She was asleep within two minutes of lying down. I know because I was still on the bed with her. Noah finished his letter and soon he was in bed, too, complaining a bit about having to go to bed at 8:45 again.

I am looking forward to them flying off every morning so I can begin figuring out who I am aside from Mommy, but I am also glad to be the tree they come home to.

Rain or Shine

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Sunday
“I’m sorry,” Beth said. We were embracing on the screened porch of our rental house early Sunday morning. “You have no idea how much.”

She had driven us to the beach the day before and she was heading straight back home. The Verizon strike that had started a week prior and caused her to work long hours and late nights ever since meant she had to skip our vacation. YaYa had elected not to come this year and my sister cancelled when she found out right before the trip that her cat had inoperable cancer so it was just me and Mom and the kids.

Now it would be unseemly to complain too much about a week at the beach with a grandmother to help, but it was still a sharp disappointment to find out within a few days of each other and right beforehand, that neither my partner nor my sister was coming. And to make matters worse, rain was predicted all week, after a very dry summer.

But the beach is the beach, rain or shine, and I was glad to be there. The kids and I had already made the best of a week without seeing much of Beth. We’d gone for a long creek walk, been to the pool, made chocolate-marshmallow candies from a kit, hosted two play dates and been to two drum lessons. We’d make the best of this week, too.

Beth drove away at 8:45, after taking June to play on the beach for a little while Noah and I read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on the screened porch. I watched the car go with a pang and kept on reading.

Later Mom and I worked out a set of menus and a grocery list. Both kids wanted to go shopping with her so I hit the beach. It was cloudy but not uniformly so. There were thick bands of dark clouds in the West but in the East there was just about every kind of sky you could imagine: patches of blue, puffy white clouds and big rapidly moving dark gray ones, scuttling in front of the lighter ones. I thought my swim could be cut short by a thunderstorm so I got in the water right away. I swam for an hour, until my fingers were wrinkly and I was all over gooseflesh.

I got home shortly before Mom and the kids, helped unpack the groceries and made lunch. Then June and I, who had been up for an hour and a half in the middle of the night because she could not sleep in an unfamiliar place, collapsed and slept for two hours. Every now and then I half-woke to hear Noah laughing as he and Grandmom played Roundabouts, but it was a pretty solid nap.

Afterward, I was energized enough to take the kids to Funland. Noah tried some new rides this year—the Freefall (which is one of those tower-like rides with seats that just take you up and drop you) and the Paratrooper (which looks like a Ferris Wheel except it tilts in addition to spinning). June stuck to her old standbys, but insisted on going on the mini-Ferris wheel alone, not with Noah and definitely not with me. She wanted to ride the Freefall, and she is tall enough, but I wasn’t quite ready to put her on it, and I also didn’t want to take away from Noah’s pride at riding it for the first time by having his little sister do it the very same year, so I told her next year. She’s the daredevil, if you hadn’t figured it out already, and he’s the cautious one.

It had started to rain hard while we were in Funland and it didn’t look like it was going to stop any time soon so we walked home in it. Even with umbrellas and June in a rain jacket we got soaked so when we got home Mom and the kids changed into pajamas and called it a pajama party. Noah even found the song “Pajama Time” on his iPod and played it while we cooked dinner.

After dinner it had cleared and the kids wanted to go to Candy Kitchen so I took them to the boardwalk in their pajamas (Noah pulled on a pair of shorts over his pajama bottoms). Before we were halfway there it started to rain again but the sun was still shining so we saw possibly the most amazing rainbow I have ever seen. It was huge, 180 degrees, right over the ocean. Everyone was taking pictures and I tried to take one with my phone but I couldn’t get the whole thing in the frame. Beth called while we were looking at it. It was hard to talk much because of the noise of the rain and the crowds, but she sounded sad.

We got fudge and a wide variety of gummy products (worms, frogs and teeth). On the way home it started to rain harder and we got soaked again. June needed a second pair of pajamas. We played Hex and checkers until bedtime and our first full day at the beach was over.

Monday
I’d wondered if my long nap would keep me up but I went right to sleep Sunday night and slept eight and a half hours, waking before June who slept until 7:25. The kids were sleeping upstairs in the attic bedroom and I was in a downstairs bedroom and I slept magnificently. The room was dark and quiet. I was not able to hear all their little sleep movements as I do when they are just next door to me at home. The kids and I played a hand of Go Fish after breakfast and were on the beach by 9:10.

We proceeded to spend the longest chunk of time I think I’ve ever had on the beach with both kids—over three hours. I was the one who had to make them come home for lunch. They were in the water before I could even get sun block on them and I had to call them back to the towel. They jumped in the waves, made dribble castles and regular castles and dug a very deep moat around one of them. We watched a large pod of dolphins (the first of many we’d see that week). Noah buried his legs in the sand down to the knees and seemed to enjoy sitting and watching the ocean thus weighted down. June played in the water until she was shivering and her lips were blue. And even then she resisted coming up onto the sand for warming-up breaks. I snuck in a five-minute swim while they were building things in the sand, but I came out in a hurry when I saw them approach the water. The waves were better than the day before so I was sorry not to have a real swim, but it was a fun morning nonetheless. I think I could have even read or written a little if I had brought a book or writing supplies because they played independently for long stretches of time. It’s been a long time—a decade—since I’ve been able to read on the beach without getting someone to watch the kids. It was tantalizing to think it might be almost within my grasp again.

That afternoon, post-nap (June’s—I read to Noah while she slept as I did most days that week) we returned to Funland. Noah got bored quickly because his new favorite rides are not under the roof and kept getting shut down by the intermittent rain. He did get to ride the Freefall once more but he got drenched because it started to rain during the ride. June wanted to ride the helicopters, which are also outside and she waited in the line twice, only to have them shut down when she would have been in the next group. So we mostly stuck to the kiddie rides under the pavilion. Once again, we walked home in the rain and the kids ate dinner in their pajamas. We considered going to the boardwalk that evening but we decided to stay inside and dry. We talked to Beth on the phone, Noah played games on his iPod and read a 39 Clues book (http://www.the39clues.com/). Meanwhile June showed off her new mouse skills for Mom, playing phonics games on the Between the Lions web site. June went to bed at 8:45 and Noah at 9:15, but they were up talking until 9:45.

Tuesday
June slept in until 6:55 and when she woke me I saw my first glimpses of sun since we’d arrived. After two consecutive nights’ good sleep I was ambitious enough to make veggie bacon, eggs, toast and cantaloupe for my breakfast and June’s (Noah opted for cereal).

After the breakfast dishes were done and I’d started a load of laundry, I took the kids for a scooter ride on the boardwalk. Scooters are permitted on the boardwalk before 10 a.m. in the summer, or so I thought. Once we were on the boardwalk, I noticed the sign that said bikes are permitted before 10 a.m. but scooters are prohibited from May 15 to September 15. Why the distinction, I have no idea, but we turned off the boardwalk at Rehoboth Avenue (not before passing a police officer, but she didn’t seem to care about our lawless ways). We fortified ourselves with raspberry latte, chocolate milk, juice and a bagel with cream cheese (for June who was already in need of a second breakfast) before returning home via a non-boardwalk route, as much as that pained me.

At home June wanted to stay behind and act out medical dramas with Grandmom while Noah and I went to the beach. On the way I told him, “I’m glad you decided to come.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I always enjoy your company,’ I said.

“You do?”

“I do.”

“I thought so,” he said cheerfully.

We waded into the water together but the waves were breaking too close to shore so it was too rough at the depth where he’d normally play, plus the water was full of swirling sand and tiny pebbles so that the waves were really kind of unpleasant. I tried to coax him deeper into the water where the waves would be gentler and less gritty, but he wouldn’t come. So he went back to the shore to pile wet sand on his legs again while I swam. The waves were unsatisfying, so I floated on my back, feeling the coolness of the water around me and the warmth of the sun on my face. With my ears underwater the shouts of nearby swimmers were softer and the soothing sounds of the waves were more audible.

After fifteen minutes or so, I joined Noah on the sand and helped him bury the parts of his legs he couldn’t reach. Every so often the water rushed over him and washed away our work. Rebuilding it was a pleasant, mindless sort of task. A few times I asked him if he was comfortable—did he have too much sand in his suit, was the sand too heavy on his legs where it had eroded away under his calf and left it unsupported? He answered he was fine. We did this until it was time for lunch.

After lunch we read Harry Potter on the porch while June napped and we watched as for the second day in a row Mom set out for the beach around three, only to come right back because it had started to rain. When June woke, we returned to Funland for the third time in three days, where we met up with the Ground Beetle and her family (which we’d planned—I knew they were staying in nearby Lewes) and with the Field Mouse and his family (which was a happy accident). The Beetle and the Mouse have younger brothers so at one point there were five Purple School students or alumni riding in a row on the motorcycles. June and the Beetle were so happy to see each other they did not stop talking the entire time they were together. When they rode the carousel, they named their horses. The Beetle presented June with a small seashell with June’s name written on it in marker. The Beetle has been moving steadily up the wait list for the Spanish immersion program at June’s elementary school. Her parents are hoping she will get in sometime this school year. We do, too.

Noah had originally decided against another trip to Funland but he changed his mind so Mom brought him. He was rewarded with clear skies and working rides. He rode the Freefall twice and the Paratroopers once.

After Funland we went out to dinner. We intended to go out for Mexican but there was a 35-45 minute wait so we went looking for other options and ended up at a café where we ate crepes (me and Noah), grilled cheese (June) and fajitas (Mom). I tried to call the Mexican place to cancel our table, but the #7 on my phone was malfunctioning and there was a 7 in the number so I couldn’t call. We had some downtime waiting for our food so we called Beth. Noah had the brilliant idea of having her call the restaurant to cancel our seating. Dinner was followed by frozen custard for the womenfolk and a chocolate-dipped frozen banana for Noah. We at them on the beach while admiring the sunset. June and I waded too deep into the water (at her continual urging to go “a little deeper”). On the way home, June, in a sleeveless dress, sopping wet to the waist and having just eaten a frozen custard, was freezing. (It had been not just rainy but cool all week.) We hurried the kids home and off to bed and our beach week was half over.

Wednesday
Wednesday was another sunny morning and I had good news in my email. Beth, who had been planning to drive out on Friday evening, now thought she might be able to come Thursday night instead. This was exciting news.

Mom took the kids to Jungle Jim’s water park (http://www.funatjunglejims.com/) and I had a few hours of long-awaited alone time. Thanks, Mom! I puttered around the house a bit, finishing the breakfast dishes and then set off on some errands. We needed sun block and while I was along a commercial stretch I ended buying a caramel latte and a secret stash of chocolate crabs for myself and a t-shirt for June. I was drawn to it right away when I saw it in the store window. It’s pink with a skull-and-crossbones wearing a heart-shaped eye patch and a bow on top of the skull. It says “Pirate Girl.”

Next it was time for the beach. I decided to stay near the food establishments on the boardwalk so I could have lunch. It was more crowded than our regular stretch of beach, but I found a place for my towel. I swam and read a few chapters of the Agatha Christie novel I started at Chadd’s Ford (and hadn’t picked up since then). I watched dolphins and swam again. Around 12:45, I went up to the boardwalk and stood in an extremely slow-moving line for fried clams for ten minutes before giving up and getting fries elsewhere. Then I headed back to the house, where Mom and the kids had just returned. Mom said the kids liked the river ride best and did it six or seven times. June went with Mom first and then alone. This was not exactly on purpose as they got separated. June found this a very satisfactory outcome, but Mom was more than a little scared by the experience.

June’s nap started later than usual so I had to wake her around 3:40. Mom was at the beach for the first time and we were supposed to meet her there but neither of the kids felt like going so I decided to get a jump on dinner. I made a pasta sauce from fresh tomatoes, garlic, Portobello mushrooms, basil (from our garden), and black olives. Then I told June she had to go to the beach (we left Noah to practice his drums and read) and we left.

Once we were there, June made a beeline for the water and was soon jumping up and down in the water yelling, “I love the beach! I love the beach!” After fifteen minutes the lifeguard blew the five o’ clock whistle, meaning everyone had to get out of the water while they go off duty. On our way out of the water, June and I spied an enormous sand sculpture of a lobster we’d somehow missed on our way into the water. She went right to work building her own miniature replica while I went back into the water. The waves were not big (there were no big waves all week, alas) but they were rolling in a pleasant rhythm out beyond the breakers so I stayed there. As I bobbed in the water, I could see Mom in her chair and June huddled over her sand creation and the big lobster and a big sand castle that ascended in a spiral pattern and the iconic orange Dolles sign far down the boardwalk. I had to wrench myself away to go home for dinner.

I wanted to finish dinner in time for another boardwalk jaunt because Noah had decided early in the week that this was the year he was going to try to Haunted Mansion and we hadn’t yet been to Funland in the evening when it’s open. As it happened, we didn’t get there until 7:15, which was later than I’d hoped (though we had a nice walk, seeing both a rabbit and more dolphins). By 7:20 I’d purchased tickets and Noah and I were in line. My original plan was to take a test ride by myself because Noah had a really bad experience in a haunted house when he was seven (see my 11/05/08 post) but when I saw the line, I knew we’d have to take the plunge together. Based on the ages of the kids in line (many younger than Noah and a few not much older than June) I thought it would be fine. And it was. Noah was keyed up throughout the entire forty-minute wait, but in a happy way. He kept noting our progress through the line and pointing our details on the exterior (a vulture I’d missed, a severed arm over the sign that says to keep your arms in the car) and when were seated, he said, “We’re really going in the Haunted Mansion!”

It was quite tame. There were a great many skeletons popping out at you—the one that came out of the picture frame actually startled me—Frankenstein’s monster, and some big spiders, but no gore. I kept my hand resting lightly on his thigh, but he never took it. Afterward he said it was “nice,” which I thought was a funny description of a haunted house, but it was nice, scary enough to make him feel brave, but not traumatized, which is after all what we want from scary things.

We tried to call Beth from the boardwalk so he could tell her all about it but now my phone was inserting random 7s into any number I tried to dial, so I had to write her an email about it when we got home.

Thursday
Thursday morning I took the kids for a walk on the boardwalk and down Rehoboth Avenue to get Noah his annual t-shirt from the T-shirt Factory. I knew it would take him a long time to select a shirt and a design to have applied to it, given the sheer number of choices, so to keep June occupied (and because we’d left her backpack full of toys at home) I let her pick one toy. I thought she’d go for the set of four plastic mermaids with different colored hair (pink, purple, red and blue) and a tiny brush and comb, but she picked a fuchsia and white striped stuffed rodent of an undetermined species. (June thought it was a squirrel.) She named it Fruity. Finally Noah selected a design of two bare footprints and the words, “Rehoboth Beach, Delaware” and had them applied to a white t-shirt. We celebrated a successful shopping trip with a café con leche, two chocolate milks, a muffin and a bagel at Café a GoGo, where the coffee is heavenly but where I normally won’t even take the kids because we have gotten too many dark looks from the stern Mexican owner when they’ve been too boisterous. But they had been well behaved all week so I chanced it. They sat down immediately, gave me their orders and wouldn’t even come to the counter to look at the pastries because they were a bit intimidated by previous experience.

We went home, got changed and headed to the beach. After playing in the water, we built a pool for June that filled with water whenever a big wave rolled up on the shore. I decorated the back wall with dribble castles. It was quite an elaborate production.

After nap and Harry Potter, I made a tostada filling out of zucchini, yellow squash and tomatoes for dinner and we all joined Mom at the beach. It was the first time all four of us had been down there at the same time. The kids and I played in the water until June decided she wanted to look for crabs, shells and pebbles with Grandmom. They found no crabs and not a whole lot of shells but a lot of pretty pebbles, which June collected in a pail to decorate her sandbox at home. Noah was befriended by a younger boy who attached himself to him. I couldn’t tell if Noah wanted the attention or not. He seemed a bit puzzled as to why the boy was talking to him at first but then he relaxed and they played in the waves together. With both kids occupied I was free to take a brief swim. Coming out of the water, I noticed another sand sculpture, this one a swordfish.

We went home, had dinner and then went out for ice cream. On the way we stopped at a shop on the boardwalk that sold the same mermaid set June saw in the t-shirt shop. She’d had buyers’ remorse about the stuffed animal because she “really, really” wanted the mermaids now. I suggested she use her own money. June’s been getting an allowance since she turned five in March but she had yet to spend any of it. I don’t think she realized she could. And I still don’t think she gets it because even after I purchased the mermaids, saying she could pay me back at home, she kept asking why I got them when I said she could only have one toy.

On the way home we walked on the beach. We admired elaborate sand castles and the kids jumped into a big pit someone had dug and climbed on the lifeguards’ chair. Noah leapt off it and after some consideration, June did too. It was a big jump for her and she was pleased with herself.

We got home to an email from Beth saying she was on her way, so I stayed up late (for me), talking to Mom and waiting for Beth. She arrived just before eleven and we had a lot of catching up to do so we’d only just fallen asleep around midnight when there was a thump from the other side of the big attic bedroom. We thought it was June because she’d been sleeping horizontally across the bed with her legs hanging over the side, but it was Noah. I found him sitting on the floor, so disoriented he didn’t know what to do so I helped him back into bed. In the morning he had no memory of this.

Friday
At one a.m. I gave up trying to sleep in the upstairs double bed with Beth (we’re used to sleeping in a queen) and went downstairs to my bedroom. I heard movement upstairs at 6:30 and by 7:00, the kids were piled in bed with Beth and I was sitting on the edge of the bed as Beth combed mermaid hair and we planned out our last full day at the beach. She’d work in the morning, and in the afternoon, we’d make a final trip to Funland (where the kids would use up the last of the 88 tickets we bought over the course of the week and Noah would ride the Freefall with Beth watching) and we’d have pizza at Grotto’s. Beth couldn’t stop smiling at us. It was good to have her back. She’s the one that I want with me, rain or shine.

Over the Hump

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“We’re over the hump,” I announced to Beth on Thursday morning as she arranged eggs and a slice of cheese on a tortilla for her breakfast. By that I meant we were more than halfway through the dreaded three-week camp desert.

This week did not get off to an auspicious start. On Monday it was already clear it was a no-sticker day by 1:20. Noah had kicked June in the bathroom around 7 a.m. because she wouldn’t get out of his way. On the way home from his educational testing that morning, they squished up against each other on the bench at the bus stop, each trying to get the coveted section in the middle, and then they bickered over who would pull the cord for our stop. These were minor flashpoints I was willing to overlook until we got home and June was trying to do a handstand on the couch and Noah was trying to eat a cereal bar on the same couch and it ended with him screaming at her and her crying.

I needed a break from them both so I napped during June’s Quiet Time (although she did not—she has almost completely stopped napping just this past week). That meant she was at large while I was trying to read Harry Potter to Noah and she made as much of a nuisance of herself as possible, squeezing in between us, climbing on us, etc.

By three o’clock, we were all pretty out of sorts with each other and the kids had no particular incentive to get along, having lost their afternoon sticker decisively during the couch incident. But, believe it or not I salvaged the day, through sheer determination, bubbles and a well-timed picnic.

The fact that it was the first day of August caused me to reflect on all the fun things I’d resolved to do with the kids at the beginning of the summer and how time really is running out. They’ll be back at school in just over three weeks. One of my resolutions was to bring out never-used or long-neglected toys. So I found the Extreme Bubble Kit Noah got for his ninth birthday. It’s a loop of rope attached to two sticks you dip in a bucket of bubble solution. It makes enormous bubbles. Noah loved it but he hadn’t played with it in over a year. I thought it might be a little tricky for June (she couldn’t do it last year) but she mastered it right away, actually before I could finish my explanation about how it might take her a while to get the hang of it. The kids made bubbles for over an hour and even managed to negotiate several changes in the pattern of turn taking on their own.

When it was time for dinner, I suggested a porch picnic. Earlier Noah had claimed it was Picnic Day and wanted a picnic. (Some Internet research confirmed this was true, in Australia, but whatever.) I was willing to go along, but dark clouds were gathering and thunder was rumbling, so I thought the porch would be safer, and quite pleasant if we got a good summer thunderstorm going.

There was trouble on the Metro and Beth didn’t get home until after 7:30, but the kids and I picnicked on the porch in the absence of rain, which seemed like it might not fall after all. Noah chalked the sidewalk with a Picnic day message, printed a sign with a checkerboard pattern and the words “Happy Picnic Day!” and June made flowers out of crepe paper and taped them to the walls of the house on either side of the front door in preparation. These kids don’t do things halfway, I tell you.

I had to put June to bed before Beth got home, but we left everything laid out on the porch for her and Noah and I kept her company while she ate, and the long-awaited rain fell. It was a short, gentle rain, rather than the soaking I’d hoped for, but it was nice in its own way.

Tuesday my strategy was play dates. The Toad came to play with June in the morning and the Eastern Fence Lizard came this afternoon and Noah had twin friends over at the same time, which means that afternoon there were five kids here, aged four to ten, four out of five boys. Some moments were as noisy as you might expect, but others were quite serene. At one point all five kids were on the living room floor, the three big ones playing Sleeping Queens while the two little ones, having abandoned the train tracks they were building, ate buttered whole-wheat tortillas and watched the card game.

It didn’t work perfectly. In the morning I had to remind Junes several times that the Toad was here to play with her, not to watch her argue with Noah over turns with the Extreme Bubbles wand. The Toad made a few bubbles but seemed more interested in pretending to be unicorns in peril with June. (You have no idea what dangerous lives unicorns lead: They have broken legs, wolves are approaching, “mad agents” are on the loose—you get the idea.) By the end of the afternoon play date with the Lizard, June, still not used to skipping her nap, was exhausted and ready for her guest to go about twenty minutes before it was time for him to leave. She asked if she could go to bed. I suggested reading a book to both of them instead and we settled in with Harold and the Purple Crayon.

The week went on. The kids’ behavior improved, maybe because we were busy. Wednesday, June and I attended one of Becky’s drop-in music classes and Noah had a drum lesson. On Thursday I took June to the library in the morning for Spanish Circle Time and the kids had pediatrician appointments in the afternoon.

Seeing that August page on the calendar also made me a little less laid back about how Noah spends his time. I switched over from occasionally suggesting he work on his summer math packet to requiring him to do a page a day before he can have any television or computer time. Thursday I actually made him a to-do list, something I haven’t done since the end of the school year. It consisted of exercise (a scooter ride), a page of math, a half hour of reading (his reading log is filling up more slowly than I thought it would), and practicing his drums (he didn’t practice at all between his last two lessons). Given the fact that we were out of the house from noon until four for the doctor’s appointment, the list was ambitious. By 6:15, when I called him to set the table and he hadn’t finished practicing his drums, he was upset and claimed there was too much to do and he’d never finish and he’d never have any media time again. But by seven, he’d finished eating dinner, helped me tidy the living room and he was watching Pink Panther cartoons on his iPod. By bedtime, he’d reached level 75 of Bloons Tower Defense IV, a balloon-popping game that he recently bought with birthday money and loves.

Friday he finished up his testing. June napped for the first time in a week so we had an extra-long Harry Potter reading (an hour and forty minutes) and then he practiced his drums. I agreed to let him skip his math since he’d been doing math at the testing and when Beth got home we went out for pizza and the good behavior ice cream. (After missing the first three, the kids got seven stickers in a row.)

It was a long week (I kept thinking it had to be a different, later, day than it was), but not a bad one, and I am doing some math in my own head: 7 days until the beach, 23 until school.

Two Weekends

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I had a long week and Beth did, too. She had to work late on Thursday night and will be working this weekend, too. It seems like a good time to reflect on the past two weekends. They were very different from each other but each charming in its own way.

Two weekends ago, Beth and I dropped the kids off at my mother and stepfather’s house, had pizza with them, and then and headed for a hotel in nearby Chester County. The original plan was for Mom and Jim to take the kids to Sesame Place on Saturday but that weekend was during the heat wave so after Mom and I conferred, she decided to take them to the Please Touch Museum (http://www.pleasetouchmuseum.org/) instead.

Beth and I went out for ice cream at Friendly’s on our way to the hotel Friday night in order to establish a festive mood. Saturday we spent the morning at the Brandywine River Museum (http://www.brandywinemuseum.org/), a museum mostly dedicated the works of N.C., Andrew and Jamie Wyeth. I’ve been to this museum several times, mostly as a kid, but I’d never done the tour of N.C. Wyeth’s house and studio before (http://www.brandywinemuseum.org/ncstudio.html) probably because until 1994 there were Wyeths still living in the house, so that was fun. I especially liked seeing the studio. It’s a beautiful space with huge windows, a mural up on the wall and props all around. When you’re in there it feels as if N.C. has just stepped out, even though he died in 1945.

In the museum I was particularly charmed by “In a Dream I Meet General Washington” (http://brandywine.doetech.net/Detlobjps.cfm?ParentListID=81915&ObjectID=1409117&rec_num=5#42) in the N.C. Wyeth collection. Click on the thumbnail. It will enlarge. I also liked “Evening at Kuerners” in the Andrew Wyeth Gallery (http://www.swoyersart.com/andrew_wyeth/kuerners.htm). It was nice to stroll through a museum at my own pace, having time to look at the art and actually read the captions as well.

For lunch we headed to Kennet Square, mushroom capital of the world. We decided we’d have mushrooms at every lunch and dinner during our stay. We began fulfilling this pledge by ordering friend mushrooms and a Portobello salad, along with a Brie, pecan and blueberry plate. We browsed in a few shops, spending the most time in a used bookstore. I emerged with a book of Chester County ghost stories, for Noah (but I read it before I gave it to him) and a trio of Agatha Christie novels. After visiting an ice cream parlor, we headed back to the hotel, where we read without interruption for the rest of the afternoon. Before the weekend was out I had finished the ghost story book and started on one of the mysteries I was meaning to save for the beach. (Just for context, I should mention that I just last week finished a short story collection I started in May. It was a long one, but still, the point is I don’t get to read much in the summer.)

We dined at the Kennett Square Inn, a nineteenth-century inn that’s allegedly haunted (http://www.kennettinn.com/). I read about it in the book, but the ghost was also mentioned on the back of the menu. We didn’t see her (she’s a Colonial-era girl), but we did hear fellow diners wondering if they’d see her. Even without supernatural enhancement, we enjoyed our meal. (I had mushroom ravioli and crème brulee.)

The countryside around Chadd’s Ford is pretty (there’s a reason those Wyeths settled here) and there were a number of parks and gardens nearby but the heat was still withering, so we spent Sunday morning reading, first in the room, then at a Starbucks (the local coffeehouse I wanted to try was closed Sundays) and then we had an early lunch (mushroom quiche for me) and headed back to Mom’s to pick up the kids. June showed us the German porcelain doll Mom bought her on her recent trip to Europe. Noah looked up some German names for her online and June named her Ursula. Ursula has zipped right past Ella and Violet and is now June’s favorite doll.

We had a brief visit with my friend Pam before driving home. Pam and I went to high school together and now she lives in England and teaches at the University of Sussex. During the past year she has been living with her husband and two kids in her childhood home, and trying to sell it, as her parents have moved. We caught them a week before they were going to fly back to the U.K. We ate leftovers from the goodbye party they’d hosted the day before, chatted and watched the kids play in the sprinkler. And then we drove home.

The following weekend we set aside both afternoons to take each of the kids to a movie alone. On Saturday, Noah went over to Sasha’s while we took June to see Winnie the Pooh. She loved it. She loved going to the movies with both moms and no brother. “It’s my special day,” she kept announcing. And she loved being in a big theater with her own bag of popcorn (she ate the whole thing!) and she loved the film itself. She kept talking excitedly about what was going on and laughing at the jokes. Her favorite part was when Pooh’s stuffing was coming out, she said later. A week later she seems to remember the plot pretty well. Today she drew a series of pictures of Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Kanga, Roo and the Backson in various scenes from the movie and taped them together into a book.

It’s so hard to find an innocent kids’ movie that’s not too scary or full of snarky jokes these days that I really appreciated it. And I think a lot of parents did, too. Beth said it’s doing very well at the box office. Among my own circle of friends, the Mallard Duck’s mom recently wrote a blog post about seeing Winnie the Pooh with her daughter that’s worth reading. She captured exactly what I felt about it (http://mimi37.blogspot.com/). Also, I realize this is a bit meta, because she links to me in this post, but bear with me and read it.

Sunday, we left June with a sitter and went to see Time Bandits at AFI (http://www.afi.com/) with Noah. Noah didn’t exclaim about it being his special day, but still it was nice to have the chance to focus on him without the competing chatter of his little sister. I saw Time Bandits thirty years ago when it came out in theaters at least twice. I remembered loving it but not a lot of detail about the plot. I was just a little nervous about it for Noah because of the fuzziness of my memory and because I was fourteen, and not ten, when I saw it. It was rated PG, but it was made in the days before PG-13, when that rating covered a wider range of material.

As it turned out, it was just at his level in terms of action. The violence was comparable to the Chronicles of Narnia films we’ve watched at home and I think the very mild sexual innuendo probably went over his head. He loved most of the humor. I think he missed a few jokes, but the line “So that’s what an invisible barrier looks like,” made him guffaw and he also liked the part where Evil blows up a one of his minions for asking an impertinent question and then concedes, “Good question,” and goes on to answer it. I don’t think Noah’s ready for Monty Python yet ( it’s both racier and gorier) but it made me look forward to when he is.

As different as the weekends were, I think what I liked about them was the same thing. We were split up in unusual combinations. Beth and I don’t make enough time for dates and alone time, or rather, we resolve to and then we do and I really enjoy it and then we slip out of the habit. That’s the pattern, so a weekend alone was a nice luxury. Thanks, Mom and Jim! We also don’t have a lot of two-parent-one-child time with either of the kids and I think that’s important, too. As easy as it is to get bogged down in the hassles of day to day life, every so often I find myself thinking of the light coming through N.C. Wyeth’s studio windows and I know Winnie the Pooh’s adventure with the Backson is still reverberating in June’s imagination. I think these two weekends did us all good.