Category Archives: Excursions

All the Presidents’ Pictures

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“We have to leave Muffin here,” Beth told June, who had grabbed her big stuffed monkey on the way out the door. “There’s a big list of things you can’t take to the White House and stuffed animals are on it.” I wondered if this was true. I knew from our preparations that you can’t take cameras or guns or diaper bags or knives or food or machetes (some of these restrictions being more inconvenient for us that others), but it was possible Beth just wanted to travel light and not schlep one of June’s bigger stuffed animals into downtown DC with us.

June looked paralyzed. She had that look she gets when she’s wavering between crying and shrugging something off. It could go either way. I thought quickly. “Muffin can ride in the car with us to the Metro station,” I said. “But then he has to stay in the car.”

June agreed. As we all piled into the car, Noah told June the reason for all the restricted items was for security. “They think you want to put a bomb in Muffin,” he said, casually.

“But Muffin is soft!” June protested.

As we approached Noah’s bus stop, he asked if Beth had to say how many people were in our party when she made the reservations for the White House tour. Clearly he was wondering if he might be able to convince us to let him ditch school and go with us. The reason for the trip was that June had asked Beth if we could go see Barack Obama’s house. Beth had asked Noah if he wanted to go and he said he didn’t care, so she’d scheduled it for a weekday morning. Just the night before, he’d changed his mind. He wanted to go. But we told him it was too late and he had to go to school. So we said we might go back someday and tour the West Wing with him (today’s tour was the East Wing—Beth thought June would like to see the fancier rooms and that’s where they are.) Noah did say he’d be content with a trip to Disney Pixar Studios (in California!) as a consolation prize.

Yes, Beth told him, she only had three reservations. So he finally gave up and we dropped him off and his bus stop.

We drove to a parking lot near the Metro and walked from there. Before we left the lot, June settled Muffin into her car seat and called out to him breezily, “Goodbye, I’ll be back some time!”

When we passed Mayorga (http://www.mayorgacoffee.com/) she inquired if we’d be passing it again on the way home. Yes, but we’ll be in a hurry to get to school, I told her, so we could not stop. June didn’t seem too disappointed. She was just too excited to be on an outing to the White House with both mothers (and no brother). On the Metro she kneeled on the seat so she could get a better view out the window.

Once we were outside again, she skipped along the sidewalk. It was 9:05 and our tour was not until 10:00, so we hit the Starbucks at 13th and Pennsylvania to kill some time. It turns out this Starbucks, three blocks from the White House, is frequented by people in much dressier clothes than the one in the shopping center a mile or so from our house. Everyone was talking very quickly, both while ordering and later to each other, as they discussed health care reform and housing starts over their morning libations. The store itself was fancier, too, with wood paneling and little tables made of faux marble.

We had our vanilla and cinnamon lattes and ice water and lemon pound cake and pumpkin bread and around 9:35 we started walking toward the East Gate. While we were waiting for our escort, we watched the squirrels, including a white one, collecting nuts on the grounds. We went through several checkpoints where we had to show i.d..and go through a metal detector and then we were in.

“Did have any?’ June wanted to know.

“What?” I asked.

“Things we’re not supposed to have,” she said.

“No,” I said. “We’re fine.”

We had National Park Service White House brochures, but we barely consulted them as we walked through the East Wing. Here’s where the trip would have been much different and much longer if Noah had been along. He would have wanted to play tour guide, reading from the brochure and showing us all the points of interest mentioned in it.

We started on the lower level. June liked seeing an orange tree in the garden right outside the window and she was very interested in all the Presidential portraits on the walls and all the photographs of famous people visiting the White House, including a real princess (Diana) dancing with John Travolta, as Ronald Reagan watched in the background. She was surprised to learn there have been other Presidents besides Barack Obama, so I guess the trip was educational. She pointed to picture after picture and asked Beth to show her the President and say what that one’s name was. Later Beth and I discussed whether she’d noticed that all the Presidents were men and what she’d think of that. If she did, she didn’t say anything about it. I think it was a lot to take in all at once.

One of the first rooms was the White House library. I read the sign that said the President uses it for meetings and press interviews and I had a little jolt, thinking these rooms are real workspaces, not just museum displays. This was a point the guards made over and over by telling us what was done in each room. In the East Room (June’s favorite room due to the enormous crystal chandeliers), one of them mentioned that kids who had won prizes at science fairs had an exhibit of their inventions there just yesterday and the President had been there to review them. (Later in the afternoon, I turned to page A2 of the Post and there was a picture of him, doing just that.)

We moved through the colored rooms—Green Room, Blue Room, Red Room–pretty quickly. It was nice to be able to do something at June’s pace. She was interested in everything, but she didn’t want to linger. By 10:30 we were outside again and headed over to Lafayette Park to look at the ducks in the little fountain. We stopped at a street vendor and bought June an early lunch of a banana, a bag of corn chips and a bottle of water. I meant for her to eat it between the train ride to Takoma and the bus ride to her school, but she wanted to eat the chips right away so I let her start, packing everything back up when we got to the train.

We took the Metro to Takoma, waving goodbye to Beth at Judiciary Square, and went to the bus bays where June ate more chips and banana while we waited for a bus. We caught a 12 at 11:35 that took us right to her school. Beth told Lesley June might be late but we were actually early. We arrived around 11:45 and sat on the porch steps. June had just enough time to finish her lunch and to chat with the mother of the Beaver (aka Blue Oak) who was setting out the traffic cones in the parking lot. I prompted June to say where we’d been.

“The White House?” the Beaver’s mom said. “Is that like the Purple House?”

“No, it’s where Barack Obama lives,” June explained. The Beaver’s mom wanted to know what her favorite part was. I thought she’d say the chandeliers, but she said the pictures on the walls of all the Presidents. All the pictures of our current President would have been unimaginable in 1971, when I was four and a half. I wonder what undreamed of portraits will be on the walls of the White House when June’s grown.

Meet Me at The Fair

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Is there anything more timeless than a county fair? We’ve been to the Montgomery County Fair (http://www.mcagfair.com/) almost every August since Noah was fifteen months old and it’s always the same: climbing on the farm equipment (antique or modern), visiting and petting the animals (familiar and exotic), sampling the treats on the midway, and braving the rides.

The fair reminds me of county and state fairs I visited as a child and teen, but none more than the Lorain County Fair that Beth and visited in August 1987, a mere month into our relationship. I was twenty and she was almost twenty-one. I was utterly intoxicated with her and wondering in a despairing kind of way why on earth I had decided to spend the fall semester of my junior year abroad, in Córdoba, Spain. I came this close to scotching the whole trip, but I didn’t and I’m glad I didn’t because my three-and-a-half-month-stay in Spain was a good life experience. Still, it was hard to leave. And by August, Beth and I had both gotten a little melancholy. Wandering around the fair at night, with its rich smells of fried dough and its brightly colored lights and holding hands on the Ferris Wheel, we joked about running away with the fair so we’d never be separated, and we were only half joking.

But I went to Spain and I came back, and we got twenty-three years older. We picked up a house, a couple of kids and a couple of cats along the way. We still go to the fair.

Yesterday, after June’s nap, we drove out to the fairground. We arrived at 3:30 and stayed almost exactly four hours, but it seemed much shorter. The kids clambered on heavy machinery. We saw horses, sheep, goats, cows, llamas, alpacas, chickens and ducklings. June got to pet rabbits and a camel. She made the camel handlers smile when she said their animals had “monster feet” and ‘It’s not every day you see a camel.” She was just repeating something I’d said, but it sounded funnier coming out of her mouth. June rode the carousel (with me standing next to her horse because she was five inches too short to ride it alone). Both kids went on the Fun Slide over and over. I think Noah went down five times, three times with June and twice alone. Apparently it was aptly named. The ticket-taker looked at her doubtfully the first time and took her out of line to measure her. It was a thirty-six inch ride and she’s thirty-seven and a half inches. Last year she was thirty-five and a half inches and thus ineligible for almost all the rides. But this year was different. She rode the slide, the worm ride, and the little pirate boats. But the strangest thing she rode was called the Hamster Dance. It consisted of huge plastic bubbles floating in a pool of water. Riders were zipped into them and then rolled around and around as their balls floated on the water. After this spectacle was completed, Beth and Noah went to ride the Ferris Wheel and I took June on some kiddie rides and we split a slice of pizza, some cheese sticks and a lemonade.

Once we were all re-united it was just starting to get dark and the lights were coming on all over the fair. June pronounced them “beautiful” and we sat on the grass to eat funnel cakes, fried dough and a caramel apple. She stared longingly at the swings spinning through the evening sky, full of big kids and grownups, their legs kicking out, their hair flying back. The fair takes me back to the past, but I think for June, at least some of the time, it takes her to the future.

Lost and Found

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I’m considering never going back to the Langley Park shopping center. We had an experience there yesterday that made June’s tantrum there last week seem like a walk in the park.

The day started off nicely enough. June and I dropped Noah off at art camp and headed for the playground. The Tracks class summer playgroup had been slow to get off the ground this year so I consulted with the mom of the Mallard Duck (aka Yellow Gingko, aka Squash Bug) and we decided to take matters into our own hands and organize the first two. I was taking the first turn.

We got to the playground at 9:35, ten minutes before our guests were scheduled to arrive. June helped me spread a tablecloth on the splintery picnic table and fill the bowls with grapes, plums, Whole-wheat Bunnies, Cheddar Bunnies and Pirate Booty. Then I pushed her on the swing until people started arriving. We got a good turnout—eight kids, almost half the class, plus assorted older and younger siblings.

As I watched the kids tearing around the playground in pairs and groups, splashing in the creek, climbing on the rocks, I marveled at how different they are than they were two years or even one year ago. They play together now–no more shy, silent stares from across the picnic table, no more companionable parallel play; they were in this together. They played zoo, they were airplanes taking off (the former Blue Dogwood’s dad catching them as they leaped from a creekside boulder). June took the Duck to the play structure she likes to pretend is an ice cream parlor and sold her ice cream. And since the Duck was there to play this game with her, I got to sit in the shade and chat with other parents, watch the former Red Maple’s little brother practice his cruising skills and admire the Duck’s six-month old brother, who is just about the smiliest baby I’ve seen since Noah was that age. We had a lovely time.

On the way home, June fell and ripped the scab off an already-injured knee. There was blood; there was screaming; and suddenly my afternoon plans involved getting more of the large size band-aids because I knew we were running low and it has been an exceptionally hard summer on the kids’ knees.

Andrea, who teaches the Bugs class and shares the Tracks class with Lesley and who also had a daughter at art camp, drove Noah home three days this week. After she brought him home with his haul of art projects, and after June had finished her nap, we all headed out to buy band-aids and enjoy our weekly pilgrimage to Starbucks.

I was trying to decide between the Expo Mart, which was more conveniently located but often erratically stocked, and the Rite Aid, which is dependable but on the other side of a six-lane thoroughfare. As we walked, I told Noah we’d try to Expo Mart first, then go to Starbucks, then Rite Aid, if need be. I though that my feeling rushed had contributed to June’s meltdown the week before so we’d left the house at three, a full hour earlier than the week before. I thought no matter what happened we’d be home by five. (Noah likes to watch The Electric Company and it’s only on once a week, Fridays at five.)

We arrived at the shopping center at 3:25, or rather June and I did. Noah had scooted so far ahead of us I had lost sight of him, but I figured he’d be there waiting for us when we got to the parking lot. But he wasn’t. Had he crossed the lot by himself and gone straight to the Expo Mart? He’s not supposed to do that, but June and I crossed the lot in search of him. He wasn’t in front of the Expo Mart. I peered in the doors. He wasn’t near the entrance. Had he forgotten about that part of the outing and gone to Starbucks? It wouldn’t be surprising. It’s where we usually go first and he often operates on autopilot so he could be there. June and I walked the length of the shopping center. I was nervous, but not in a full panic yet. I reminded myself how rare child abductions are, especially when the child in question is not part of a custody dispute. I reasoned if he’d been hit by a car in the lot, there would a noticeable crowd and an ambulance.

When we got to Starbucks I peeked in the big windows. No Noah. I decided to go back to the Expo Mart and walk all the aisles of the store. No Noah. The bathroom at Starbucks, I thought. He mentioned having to go to the bathroom on the way over. Still it wouldn’t be like him to take the initiative to get the key and let himself in. I went back to Starbucks and tried the restroom door. It was locked. The barista gestured to the key on the bar, but I shook my head and said, “Would you recognize my son if you saw him?” He looked taken aback and said yes. I thought he would. We’re regulars there. “Has he been in here in the past ten minutes?” I asked. No, he said. I hurried out without saying anything else.

Now panic was starting to get the better of me and I was crying. June was alternately wailing, “I want my brother back!” and suggesting we halt the search for a diaper change or a drink of water. I told her we needed to keep looking for Noah. I decided I’d go to the Customer Service booth at the Expo Mart and have him paged (though the store has wide aisles and was uncrowded so I was almost sure he wasn’t in there). Then I’d call 911. As we approached the grocery store for the third time, however, I had one more idea I wanted to try before getting the police involved. I crossed the parking lot and went back to the last block where I’d seen him. As we rounded the corner of the high brick wall the separates the parking lot from the sidewalk I saw his empty scooter on the grass. My heart leapt a little, but I didn’t know whether it was in terror or joy until we stepped all the way past the wall and we could see him, standing a few feet from the scooter with a man and a woman. The man was talking to 911 on his cell phone.

The woman started shaking her finger at me and yelling, “Don’t do that again!” over and over, which wasn’t exactly what I needed to hear at the time. I had too much to do to answer her, though. I had to hug Noah over and over and ask him where on earth he’d been. I had to talk to the police dispatcher on the phone and tell her that I was the boy’s mother and how he’d gotten out of my sight and to authorize the cancellation of the police call. I had to thank both the man and the woman for staying with him. He wasn’t crying when I got there, but the woman said he had been when she’d found him. Actually she kept saying that “she” had been crying. I guess it was the t-shirt with the big pink heart on it. Still it was disorienting for me in an already emotionally overloaded moment. I didn’t correct her. After a few more finger shakes, she and the man left.

So as best as we could figure, this is what happened: June and I are in the habit of crossing into the lot as soon as the wall ends, but Noah likes to ride his scooter a little further to the end of the block and he was waiting for us there. Since he was looking for us and I was looking for him, I can only conclude that a car in the lot must have been blocking our sightlines of each other. How June and I crossed the lot unobserved by him, I’m not sure.

I asked him if he’d like to go to Starbucks first so he could use the bathroom and we could all rest a little, but he wanted to stick to the original plan and go to Expo Mart for band-aids first, so we did. When we got to Starbucks, the staff and even some of the customers were all very happy to see us reunited. One of the baristas heard June asking me for water and got an ice water for her before I even ordered anything. Once we were out of the bathroom and seated with our drinks and snacks, I glanced at my watch. I couldn’t believe it was only 3:50. Given that we’d done a little shopping since finding each other, it must have only been fifteen minutes or so that we’d been separated. It felt much, much longer.

“I’m bored,” Noah said after a few minutes.

“What? Getting lost wasn’t a big enough adventure for you?” I said. He thought about it and said solemnly that it might have been the biggest adventure of his life.

On the way home, I kept him on a much shorter leash than usual. I told him it was temporary, but I was still too shaken up to let him get very far ahead of me. The thing is, it wasn’t really an accident that I let him go so far. Beth and I both think that a lot of kids today aren’t given the freedom they need to develop into competent, independent adults. At Noah’s age, I had the run of my whole small town, including permission to cross the busy street where we lived. It’s hard letting go, though, and we still haven’t let him do things a few of his peers already do (walk to a friend’s house alone, fly as an unaccompanied minor). Some of it has to do with his absent-mindedness. I find it hard to imagine him remembering where he’s going or what he’s supposed to be doing in the world on his own. He does go for short scooter rides away from the house and we are thinking of having him walk home from the bus stop this fall. (The bus from his new school will leave him at his old school, about a twenty-minute walk from our house.)

Later we talked the whole incident over with Beth. We talked about communicating clearly about where we expect to meet each other whenever we separate. She praised him for staying put and letting me find him. I suggested if he ever needs to ask someone for help, a mom or dad with kids is usually a good bet. And Beth and I talked about me trying to get in the habit of carrying the cell phone I own and rarely use.

This morning we went to the Lotus and Asian Culture festival at Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens (http://www.nps.gov/keaq/index.htm). Somehow, in our nineteen years in the Washington, D.C. metro area, we’ve never been there, though of course we’d heard of it. As you might expect from the fact that the lotus festival was going on, the lotuses are in bloom now, and the water lilies and the water hyacinth. And now I can tell these plants apart. We walked on earthen paths through the ponds and on a boardwalk and on a forest trail along the marsh. We touched cattails and saw tadpoles in the water and orioles winging through the air. We heard Buddhist monks chanting and watched women dance in kimonos with scarves and fans. June danced along with them, waving her own imaginary scarf. Of course, it was not a completely serene experience, since we did bring the children along, but it was a fun morning in a truly lovely place.

While we were walking along the boardwalk trail, Noah started to complain of ankle pain. He often has pain in his legs, most often his knees, at night, which we assume are growing pains but this sudden pain in the daytime was new. After a while, we left him to rest on a bench while we did a quick loop off the main trail before heading back to the car.

“I am letting him of out of my sight,” I told Beth as we walked away from him.

“Good for you,” she said.

When we came back, he was there, just where I left him.

The Streets of Baltimore

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Well my heart was filled with laughter
When I saw those city lights
She said the prettiest place on earth
Was Baltimore at night

From “The Streets of Baltimore” by Tompall Glaser and Harlan Howard
http://www.lyricstime.com/gram-parsons-streets-of-baltimore-lyrics.html

I had to hold on tight to June’s hand in the parking garage and Beth had to call to Noah to stop and look for passing cars before crossing over to the elevators. We were on our way to visit the Port Discovery Children’s Museum in Baltimore (http://www.portdiscovery.org/#home) and they were both giddy with excitement. Noah’s been asking to go to a museum for a long time and when he got a free child’s admission by submitting a code from Tropicana orange juice lids online, we decided instead of going to the Smithsonian as we usually do, we’d venture out to Baltimore.

We’ve been to Port Discovery only once before and that was the day Beth adopted June. The court proceedings were in Baltimore and afterwards we went to the museum and after that we went to the Inner Harbor and celebrated June’s three-month birthday and her adoption with cake. I couldn’t help thinking about that day as we walked through the doors of the museum and later as we passed the infants and toddlers room where June and I had spent most of that museum visit, nursing and playing on the floor mats and watching the giant tubes filled with moving bubbles while Beth took Noah through the exhibits. It was a joyous day.

We might be on the brink of another legal milestone for our family and then again we might not. On Wednesday gay marriage became legal in the District of Columbia. Shortly before this, the Attorney General of Maryland Doug Gansler issued an opinion that Maryland could honor gay marriages performed in other states and then Governor Martin O’Malley signaled his agreement with the opinion. So theoretically, we could hop on a Metro train, get married in the city and have it recognized at home. But of course, gay marriage is never that simple. A member of the state legislature has threatened to have Gansler impeached and the issue will surely end up either in the legislature, in the courts or both. It could be a while before it’s settled and Beth and I have decided we don’t want to do it unless it’s going to stick. We’ve already had a commitment ceremony in front of our friends and family. What we want now is legal recognition and we don’t want to confuse the kids by getting married over and over as the legal sand shifts underneath us. When we do it, we want it to be for good. I keep telling myself it might not happen and if it does, it could be a long time from now and then I go around the house singing, “We’re going to the chapel and we’re gonna get married.”

The museum was fun. We split up because Noah was interested in the exhibits for older kids, such as the Egyptian exhibit and Miss Perception’s Mystery House where you get to solve mysteries. June played with pretend food in the farmer’s market, dressed up in a knight’s tunic (which she said was a princess dress), played an African drum, made her own monster out of cloth pieces that attached to each other with Velcro and played in the Curious George exhibit. She was almost as happy to see the statue of George as if the monkey had been there himself. When we had to leave, she insisted on hugging him and kissing him on the lips. The only exhibit that both kids could enjoy was the three-story metal and rope climbing structure and even then, he went in the big kids’ entrance that allows you to go all the way up and she went in the little kids’ entrance that doesn’t.

When the museum closed at five, we walked to Little Italy for dinner. Noah was crying most of the way because he had not finished the second mystery they started. He claimed there wasn’t time. Beth said he quit because he was too scared to climb through a dark drainpipe to retrieve a clue. June skipped along the sidewalk and offered occasional report: “He’s stopped crying. Now he’s whining.” I lifted her up so she could see a canal as we crossed over it and she spotted a tower in the distance. “A castle,” she exclaimed.

Noah had calmed down by the time we entered the restaurant and he loved the poster in the foyer with illustrations of dozens of kinds of pasta so much he went back to look at it after we were seated. Beth said it was the kind of Italian restaurant they have in Wheeling where they serve you soft white bread and salads made with iceberg lettuce. I knew what she meant. It was like an Italian restaurant in South Philadelphia. Sometimes that’s exactly what you want.

Beth had eggplant parmesan, I had gnocchi, June had rigatoni with tomato sauce and Noah had spaghetti with a butter sauce. He didn’t care for the sauce, but he was happy enough with bread and butter and the side order of broccoli the kids were splitting and every one else dug into their entrees. “Always trust a fat waiter,” the waiter said when Beth and I took his advice and got the chocolate mousse cake for dessert. Our trust was not misplaced.

When we left the restaurant at 6:15, it was still light. I was surprised. It always creeps up on me when the days start to get longer. Since it’s part of our family code not to visit Baltimore without stopping at Vaccaro’s (http://www.vaccarospastry.com/), we ducked into the bakery for Italian cookies and cannoli to take home. We emerged at 6:25 and it was noticeably darker. We live right on the border of D.C. and I’m often in the city, but rarely after dark, and to be walking through a different city in the dark blue twilight felt like an adventure. June must have felt the same way because she looked up at me and said, “I love this night.”

And walking through the streets of Baltimore, thinking of the day almost four years ago when June became Beth’s and Beth became June’s in the eyes of the law, and thinking of the day when Beth and I can say the same, I loved it, too.

Smashing Pumpkins

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“It’s pouring rain,” Beth announced as she opened the front door at 3:20 this afternoon. We were herding the kids out to the car so we could drive out to Potomac Vegetable Farm (http://www.potomacvegetablefarms.com/) for our Halloween pumpkins.

“You’re kidding,” I said. Heavy rain had been predicted for the whole day, but so far we’d had only overcast skies and a little drizzle. June’s soccer practice went on as scheduled, a bit of good luck since it had been rained out last weekend. She even scored two goals when the kids went up against the adults, three on one. After soccer, Beth took Noah to his swim lesson and then they went shopping for Halloween costume materials. (He’s going to be a pirate ship. A direct quote: “Most people who wanted a pirate-themed costume would be a pirate, but I am going to be a pirate ship.”) Our day seemed to be humming along. I had been careful not to mention anything about going to the pumpkin patch to June in case rain developed, but with Beth and Noah on their way home at 2:45 and no rain falling, I told June we were going to a farm to pick pumpkins and she could not have been more delighted. She danced around the house crying, “”We’re going to a pumpkin farm! To get pumpkins!”

Beth and I stood at the open door, looking at the rain pelting down on the lawn and quickly conferred. It was hard to know what the weather would be like forty miles away and we had a very excited little girl on our hands. We decided to brave it. If worst came to worst, we could dash out of the car, grab four pumpkins, pose the kids in the hatch of the car for our annual picture and consider the outing finished. In years to come we’d look at the pictures and laugh, remembering the year we went to get pumpkins in a downpour.

But by the time we pulled into the parking lot, the rain had let up. There was just a light drizzle. At first Noah carried Beth’s umbrella while he inspected the pumpkins but soon decided it was too much trouble and abandoned it. I put June’s rain jacket on, but didn’t bother to zip it.

Noah and June had very different impressions of the field with its rows of pumpkins piled up on pallets before them. Noah was puzzled. Didn’t it used to be bigger? We had to skip our farm trip last year because we were all laid low by a nasty stomach bug so he hadn’t seen it in two years. It looked smaller to his eight-year-old eyes than to his six-year-old eyes, apparently.

June didn’t remember ever having come before so it was all new to her. “We’re here! We’re at the pumpkin farm! Look at all the pumpkins!” she cried.

The kids ran around between the rows of pumpkins, peeking out at each other from behind the piles. June clambered over a row, sending pumpkins rolling onto the grass. I reconstructed the pile and checked the errant pumpkins for damage. One stem had snapped off but that was it. No more climbing on pumpkins, I said. She pouted a little but got over it quickly. June and Beth and I made our selections and carried them to the red wagon. It took Noah longer to find the perfect pumpkin, but eventually we had what we came for and we headed over to the farm stand to buy a baking pumpkin for soup, and sweet potatoes and green beans and green tomatoes to fry and apples and cider pressed that very day. June was enchanted with the decorative gourds so I let her select one and then Noah had to have one, too. Noah pulled the wagon around the stand and Beth had to keep a close eye on him so he didn’t crash it into the bins of vegetables, or obstruct foot traffic or go too close to the cars in the parking lot. “Pumpkin delivery! Pumpkin delivery!” he called out as he pulled the wagon back to the car. It was raining harder now. But our mission was complete.

We stopped on the way home for dinner at the Vegetable Garden (http://www.thevegetablegarden.com/). We got honey-fried black mushrooms, spring rolls, noodles with vegetables, veggie tempura and eggplant hot pot. It was delicious. Noah ate and ate and ate but June wasn’t too hungry and she soon grew restless. She was climbing all over the booth, trying to scale the back of it and then she was crawling under the table, wanting to play hide and seek. The waiters kept trying to take our food away before we’d finished eating. I wondered they were hurrying us out because of June’s shenanigans, but Beth thought they just wanted to clear our table before the dinner rush. Finally, I took her for a walk outside under the awning of the shopping center while Noah finished up.

As we pulled out of the parking lot onto Rockville Pike, Noah started yelling. The hatch was open! One of the pumpkins had fallen onto the busy thoroughfare! I didn’t see it, but Beth and Noah did. He said it looked like a basketball was bouncing next to the car. Beth pulled onto a side street and parked. I got out of the car and went in search of the pumpkin. It was a longer walk than I thought it would be, but finally I saw it. It had rolled into the relative safety of a bus lane and appeared to be intact. I picked it up and found a small hole with two cracks radiating from it near the bottom. I could see seeds and smell the clean scent of fresh pumpkin through the hole.

I brought the pumpkin back to the car to much rejoicing. “At least we have a head start on carving the eyes now” Noah said. (He thought the hole was higher up.) The boy is a born optimist. I felt very lucky just then, for a minimally damaged pumpkin, an outing saved more than once from the brink of disaster by my intrepid partner, enthusiastic daughter and irrepressible son.

Five Summer Days and Four Summer Nights

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Tuesday evening after the kids were asleep, Beth and I lay in bed discussing her upcoming business trip to Pittsburgh. I told her I had more trepidation about it than usual, mostly because our summer schedule is so chaotic already. Some weeks Noah is at camp, others he isn’t and each camp is located somewhere different and has different drop off and pickup times. I try to keep June busy because it’s better for both of us to get out of the house but we have no regular scheduled events, other than Circle Time at the library on Tuesday mornings. On the occasional Wednesday she attends a drop-in music class, but not very often because it only meets in the morning three times this summer and afternoons don’t work for us because of Noah’s camp pickups. Most Friday mornings, but not all, she has Leaves playgroup, which meets at a different playground every week. Sometimes we go to story hours at a local children’s boutique (http://shop.thepajamasquid.com/) or the Co-op and she has play dates every now and then but not as many as I’d like because it can be hard to co-ordinate around everyone’s vacations. The point is that I am a creature of habit and easily discombobulated by this rotating schedule so the idea of parenting without backup for five summer days and four summer nights was a little overwhelming.

Here’s what happened in a nutshell: I dropped Noah off and picked him up on time more often than not. Pickups were more difficult because I needed to wake June from her nap to go get him so I tended to wait until the last possible minute and the bus we needed to catch when we left that late was not all that reliable. So I was five minutes late one day and ten minutes late another day, but that was the worst of it. I also managed to send Noah’s lunch with him every day, though one day I had my key in the front door before I realized that not only was it not in his backpack, it wasn’t even packed yet. On Friday he brought home his final projects from robot camp, a sound-activated walking robot he built from a kit and hand-decorated t-shirt that is meant to make him look like a robot when he wears it. This was the last day of his last camp. Third grade is only two weeks away. Where did the summer go?

June had a play date with the Dragonfly and attended her playgroup and made a birthday card for the Squash Bug, whose party is this afternoon. I folded a watercolor she’d painted in half and she dictated the following message for me to write in it: “Dear Squash Bug, I hope Squash Bug gets all her presents. Love, June.” She and I danced in the kitchen to some energetic fiddle music on A Prairie Home Companion. She wet five pairs of training pants in one afternoon after gorging on watermelon at playgroup that morning. I had to put her back into diapers until I got a chance to do laundry. She also got her first bee sting when we wandered into a swarm of angry bees on an evening walk Wednesday. They were swarming around a fire hydrant of all things. We all got stung, but, being three and never having experienced a bee sting before, June took it worst. The bright side is we now know she’s not allergic. Just after I finished applying ice and baking soda paste to Noah’s chest and my arm–June refused all suggested treatments–we were all locked into the back of the house when a doorknob fell out on the other side of the door. Noah was completely panicked, even though I kept telling him we’d find a way out. It was worse than the bee sting. Finally I sent him out his bedroom window to re-enter the house and free us.

Later Noah tripped on a ball in the yard and skinned his elbow and he tried to teach June to play hopscotch without much success. He finished book 7 in the Series of Unfortunate Events—The Vile Village—and started book 8—The Hostile Hospital. He told a lot of jokes— here’s my favorite: What’s faster hot or cold? Hot. You can never catch a hot. The kids argued with each other incessantly, taking occasional breaks to argue with me. Noah pushed my buttons over and over. June gave him a big hug after he had a timeout. All four of us splashed in the creek and toasted marshmallows on the stovetop to make s’mores. We ate kid-pleasing dinners every night—macaroni and cheese, fried tofu, frozen pizza and veggie chicken noodle soup, though they did have to eat their vegetables and drink their milk as well. And every night before bedtime, we talked to Beth on the phone, short, chaotic conversations with everyone trying to talk at once.

In between all this, I did a couple loads of laundry, did dishes –usually a whole day’s worth all at once, vacuumed, swept the porch, watered and weeded the garden, wrote a short article on the nutritional value of squash, rewrote said article and finally got caught up on the newsletters I clip for Sara – I didn’t work on the project while we were in West Virginia so I was pretty behind.

I think I did okay.

Saturday was the nicest day, despite the fact that June woke for the day at 5:35. This might have been because we didn’t have to be anywhere at any specific time so even though we were out the door for a two-hour walk by 9:00 the morning did not have the frantic tumult of the two previous mornings. I snuggled with June in bed and read to her until 6:50, then we got up and I put oatmeal, veggie sausage links and cantaloupe on the table instead of the cold cereal we eat most weekdays. I read the paper for a while the kids played and then we got dressed and left. The official purpose of the walk was to go to the post office and mail a package of hand-me-down Babybug magazines (http://www.cricketmag.com/ProductDetail.asp?pid=10) for my cousin’s baby, who just turned one, but it was a long, meandering sort of outing. I wanted to stop at Starbucks—sleep deprivation makes me crave coffee even though I usually drink it decaf– and we also swung by the 7-Eleven to buy chocolate bars for that evening’s s’mores.

On the way home June said she didn’t want to go home, she wanted to go somewhere else but she didn’t have any specific suggestions. We were near a path I thought lead to a playground, so we wandered down it. It actually went to a section of Long Branch creek we don’t often visit. The water was shallow but not stagnant, just perfect for wading and throwing rocks. Noah stood under a bridge and pretended to be the troll from The Three Billy Goats Gruff. We found a really cool spider’s web. The sun filtered through the leaves above, bringing out the highlights in Noah’s golden brown curls. A leaf fell into his hair and it reminded me of a garland. Playing in the sun-dappled water, he looked like a young faun. That was the very best moment, a beautiful summery moment I will cherish from this week long after I forget the stress and exhaustion and arguments and why I even sent him to that timeout.

The Free and the Brave

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On Saturday our nation celebrated two hundred and thirty three years of independence. I think for parents of small children, independence is always on the horizon. We marvel as our babies take their first steps or step off to kindergarten, but we are always focused on what comes next and the freedom we will receive when the child sleeps through the night or weans or potty trains or spends a few hours a week away from home. Independence for them means freedom for us, however bittersweet some of the milestones may be.

Beth had the day before the Fourth of July off work because it was a federal holiday. Noah had drama camp and if we could have found a sitter for June we might have had the rare freedom of a few hours alone together. Alas, it was not to be. Still, when Beth took Noah to camp, she offered to take June along and then they went to the playground so I had a nice block of time to myself. Not as exciting as a date, but pleasant nonetheless. After puttering around the house a bit and doing some work for Sara, I settled in under the silver maple in the back yard with a book (the collection of haunted house stories I received for my birthday back in May). I finished a story I’d started approximately two weeks before and read another in its entirety. It felt luxurious to finish a short story the same day I started it.

That afternoon we all went to pick Noah up at camp. It was the last day of the one-week session so there was a performance for parents, which consisted of skits of fables. Noah was in “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” He was a sheep. I was amused to find I could actually pick his “baaing” out from the general din. As we left, we ran into some counselors from previous years, who are now working with the ten-to-thirteen-year old group. They greeted Noah with enthusiasm and asked when he’d be in their group, which actually puts on real plays. Two years, we said. Noah’s been going to drama camp since he was just short of six (he started in the spring break camp). It’s hard to imagine him in the middle of the three age groups. June will be five and old enough for drama camp herself that year! I imagined both of them in camp at the same time. The mind boggles.

After camp was over and before our pizza dinner, we went over to the fountain. The fountain, a circular mosaic with jets of different heights (low at the edges, high in the middle) is a popular gathering place in downtown Silver Spring. In the summer, there are almost always some kids splashing around in it. On a hot day or on weekends, it can get quite crowded. Noah will dash into the fountain with abandon, though he avoids the biggest jets. June has been hesitant about even getting close enough to get wet this year. She was actually more daring last year. I think she might be old enough to process potential threats in more detail now, so while she’s still a daredevil on the swings, for instance, she finds herself scared of things that she used to enjoy, as my stepfather found out recently when he hung her upside down. We’d been at the fountain on Wednesday morning with a friend from music class and his mom and younger brother. June had gone in enough to get her bottom damp. I wondered how she’d be this afternoon. At first, she said she didn’t want to go in, but then she ventured closer. She stuck to the perimeter of the fountain, taking her foot in and out of the water, and experimenting with blocking the flow of water by stepping down on it. Every now and then it shot up, soaking her, but she kept going back, taking her own exploratory steps toward independence.

As the kids played in the fountain, Beth showed me printouts of cars. Our fifteen-year old car was starting to show its age after 126,000 miles. There have been a series of problems, but the latest, multiple oil leaks, would have cost $2,000 to fix, so we were in the market for a new (to us) car. Beth wondered out loud if the car we buy now would be the last practical family car before the Mustang convertible she imagines herself driving once the kids are grown. Probably not, she mused, as we are buying used and ten years is the best we can expect. The second to last, maybe, she said. I said she could have the Mustang if we could move to the beach. She said she’d drive it around Rehoboth and hot women would flock to her. But she’d turn them away, I said. Of course, she added. Sometimes fantasy is its own kind of freedom.

The next day was the Fourth. We marched in Takoma Park’s parade, with the contingent from June’s nursery school. Last year Noah and the Bumblebee’s older sister held up the banner for the whole parade route, but this year he opted to ride his scooter instead. At home, just before we left, we deliberated—stroller for June or tricycle? The stroller would be faster and easiser to control, but she loves her trike and it lets her do at least some of the work of propelling herself (there’s a stick in the back a parent can push). We decided to ask her. “My bike!” she exclaimed, and so it was. When we got to the staging area where kids and parents were decorating their wheels with crepe paper and balloons, we saw that the Ant has the exact pink, purple and yellow trike June has. We got it at an independent toy store in downtown Takoma (http://www.takoma.com/archives/copy/2006/08/guiltFreeTP.html); I wondered if they did, too. I wrapped red, white and blue paper around the trike’s long handle and tied on a red balloon and a blue one, each sprinkled with white stars. And even though it did not match the color scheme, I also put on two pink ones, because June asked me to. As we worked and waited to get started, we chatted with other parents and said hi to the Squash Bug, resplendent in her pink nursery school t-shirt.

Finally it was time to go. As we marched, the Butterfly ran ahead of the banner and dropped behind, fluttering about like a real butterfly. For a while, he defected to daycare just behind us—they had a bubble machine. It was a long route, but June pedaled most of the way. Several families with kids who had been in Noah’s nursery school class, plus other friends, yelled to us from the sidewalk and waved as we marched through the streets of Takoma.

After we passed the judging stand and the parade was over, we stopped at an ice cream truck and indulged. (In our family Easter and Christmas are the two days of the year you can have candy in the morning and the Fourth of July is the one day you can have ice cream before lunch.) On the way home, we let Noah scoot ahead of us, as long as he stopped and waited for us at intersections. This is our normal rule, but because of the crowds, it meant often we could not see him. It was unnerving, but we have been trying to give him a longer leash recently. He goes on scooter rides by himself up and down our block and we have left him home alone for short periods of time (sometimes over a half hour).

We were all full from ice cream when we got home and tired, too, so we skipped lunch and June and I went to our bedroom for a nap while Beth and Noah went to get his hair cut and pick up a few groceries for our Fourth of July picnic dinner of veggie hot dogs, baked beans, corn on the cob, green bean and potato salad and watermelon. They were longer in getting home than I thought they would be, but when they arrived Noah ran inside, yelling that they’d bought a car. It’s a 2005 red Ford Focus with a roof rack. It looks like a mix of every other car Beth has ever driven during our relationship, all of which have been blue or red Ford or Subaru station wagons. This car is number four, so I guess the Mustang will be number six.

Today was the last day of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival (http://www.festival.si.edu/) and we hadn’t been yet so we decided to go, even though it made for a busy weekend. Sasha called Noah this morning and asked for an afternoon play date. We wouldn’t be home, so we invited him to come along with us. Once June had napped, we all got in the new car and drove into the city. (Normally we’d take the Metro, but it’s been very slow due to the ongoing investigation of the tragic accident last month.)

All I wanted from this experience, I told Beth, was to listen to some pretty music, eat some interesting food, and take our annual picture of me and the kids by the Washington Monument. Every year the festival features three cultures. We entered the mall at Wales and I was immediately drawn to tent where a trio of Welsh musicians was playing. Noah and Sasha wanted to explore, however, so Beth went with them and June and I stayed at the tent, listening to a love song, a sea chanty, a song about a miner’s strike and some instrumental pieces. June was engaged for about fifteen minutes, and then she decided climbing up and down the bleachers was more fun than listening to music. Our section was not crowded, so I let her go. “Look how high I am!” she called to me from the top bleacher.

When Beth and the boys came back, we snapped the picture and sought food. It turns out the last forty-five minutes of the festival on its closing day is not the best time to try new cuisines. Almost everything was sold out. Beth got a small plate of Welsh cheeses and I got some fried plantains at the Central American food tent, but we were actually forced to go to the permanent food pavilion to get a hot dog and potato chips for Sasha and fries, cookies and ice cream for everyone else. It was not our most nutritionally sound dinner ever.

On the way back to the car, Beth, Noah and Sasha ducked into the Marketplace tent. They were the very last people allowed in. June and I straggled a few steps behind and were cut off by the guard after they entered the tent. A little while later, Noah came out with a cd of corridos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrido) and Sasha had an African shaker made from a gourd. We drove home, tired out from a weekend of celebrating. We were celebrating America’s birthday of course, but also June’s bravery in the fountain and Noah’s independence as he gracefully scooted through crowds and away from us, and all the small displays of gradually increasing independence we and our fellow parents see every day while we are raising children. Now it was time for the free and the brave to go home and go to bed.

A Is For Alphabet

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On Wednesday morning I was toweling June off after a bath and she noticed my shirt in the bathroom mirror. “You have letters on your shirt,” she observed.

The shirt said, “Feel the Power: VOTE.” I got it back in the early 90s when I worked for Project Vote (http://projectvote.org/?gclid=COWA_PW90JkCFR4hnAodPEgwvQ). “VOTE” is the largest word on it.

“Do you see a V?” I asked June. She pointed to the V. “How about an E?” She pointed to the E. We went through all the letters in “VOTE” and she got them all right. In the past several weeks June has become intensely interested in letters. She doesn’t know all of them yet (maybe 75%), but she’s learning more all the time and she can recognize her own name. She is always asking us what letters begin various words and what sounds they make. The wooden alphabet puzzle she inherited from Noah has become a favorite toy. She’s taking the first wobbly steps of literacy and it’s exciting to watch.

So I read a lot of alphabet books to her these days. Luckily we have quite a few, though ABC: A Family Alphabet Book (http://www.proudparenting.com/node/309) is a favorite. Reading these books over and over (and reaching the twenty-six month anniversary of this blog) has inspired me to make an alphabet of our lives over the past twenty-six months. Most of the pictures have appeared in the blog already, but a few are new. A lot has changed since I started writing here, both for our family and for our country. June has turned one, two and three. She’s learned to walk and talk and started school. Noah has turned six and seven and he seems bound and determined to turn eight next month, despite my protests that he can’t possibly be that old. He overcame a difficult kindergarten year, learned to read and stopped believing in Santa Claus. He’s now thriving in second grade. Since I started writing a woman came tantalizingly close to winning the Democratic nomination for President and an African-American won the Presidency (and the world economy imploded, but let’s not dwell on that).

Here are some snapshots of our lives during these times:

A is for Alphabet

Here’s June playing with her alphabet puzzle on Saturday morning.

B is for Baby

She and I were at a coffee house and she was cruising around and around a low table, eating bits of Fig Newton I handed her every time she passed by. She paused every now and then to remove the sugar packets from their container and scatter them across the table and floor and then she replaced them. As she reached the corner of the table closest to me, she let go and stood, swiveled on her feet to face me and smiled, as if she was going to do something dramatic. I waited, holding my breath, thinking this was the moment. Then she chickened out, dropped to her knees and crawled to me. I don’t know when she will walk any more than when Noah will start having an easier time in school. It could be months from now or right around the corner. (April 25, 2007).

June took her first steps about a week later. Noah’s school troubles cleared up when he started first grade with more sympathetic teachers.

C is for Cherry Blossoms

We went to see the cherry blossoms on Friday and it was…challenging. June had been very cranky for almost a week. She’d been sick the weekend before and at first we thought that was the reason but by Friday she’d been better for several days so I’m not sure what was up with her. Anyway, she wailed in the car, she whimpered in the stroller and when she was walking she kept tugging on my arm, wanting me to go in another direction. At one point she darted under a chain and headed straight for the Tidal Basin before Beth dashed off to capture her. Anyway, the blossoms were gorgeous and afterwards we went out for really excellent pizza in the city that made me wish we still lived there. June threw fits in the restaurant, too.

D is for Duck

Once we were back on land, the guide let Noah pass out the souvenir quackers (duck-bill shaped noisemakers) and instructed everyone to quack “Happy Birthday” to him. It wasn’t quite recognizable as “Happy Birthday” but it was impressively noisy. (May 4, 2008)


E is for Election

The transition from Obama-land to McCain-land was not subtle. Either that or I missed it while I dozed briefly as June napped in her car seat and Noah watched downloaded episodes of his favorite shows on Beth’s phone. Before I closed my eyes there were Obama-Biden signs everywhere. When I opened them it was nothing but McCain-Palin as far as the eye could see, including those annoying ones that say “Country First.”

When I commented on the shift, Noah looked out the window long enough to spot one. “That’s the first McCain sign I’ve seen in my whole life,” he noted.(November 5, 2008)

F is for Friends

Jim is one of a handful of people in my life who bridge past and present. We lived down the hall from each other our first year of college and we were roommates the next year. We were living in a student-run co-operative dorm where co-ed rooms were possible with a little administrative subterfuge. The summer after sophomore year, when I fell in love with Beth, Jim and I were living together again and he was the one who urged me to kiss her while I was agonizing over the decision. Even if we had no more history than that together, I’d be forever in his debt. (February 26, 2009)

G is for Gabriel

Gabriel is usually known as the Caterpillar on this blog. He’s a sweet, affectionate, well-loved boy, who will be three in July. His moms are hoping to adopt a younger sibling for him. They are looking for an African-American or biracial baby. Here is their webiste: www.emmyandbethadopt.com. Please visit if you think you can help.

H is for Hug

As we were getting ready to leave the house to go vote later that morning, I found Noah and June in a spontaneous embrace. “Hug!” June announced.

“Take a picture, Mommy!” Noah suggested.

I went for the camera, thinking it likely June would have wriggled out of his arms before I got back. But when I returned, they were still at it.(February 14, 2008)

I is for Ice Cream

It wasn’t a perfect day, but fairy tales aren’t perfect either. They just have happy endings. Here’s ours: And then the queen and the prince and the princess had ice cream. The End. (July 18, 2008)

 

J is for Jump

At 5:30, I could hear Noah singing out in the yard as I poured orange jack-o-lantern lollipops into a bowl….I brought the bowl outside and set it down on the round table on the porch. Noah and June were playing in a pile of leaves under the dogwood while Beth watched. (October 31, 2007)

 

K is for King

This was the first headshot of Noah that appeared on the blog. It was taken in December 2006 at the Children’s Museum in Wheeling, West Virginia.

L is for Liberty

We caught the last ferry of the day, the 3:40, and sat on the top level, for the view and so I wouldn’t get seasick. After a scenic (and very windy) ride we arrived at the statue. She’s impressively large in person and really quite beautiful. We admired her and walked around the island. We paid a quarter for Noah to look through the telescope at the harbor, and then we got back in line for the 4:45 ferry. On the way back we opted for the heated lower level. We shared a warm soft pretzel, and Noah got a pair of Statue of Liberty sunglasses, much coveted by a little boy sitting near us. (December 27. 2007)

M is for Moms

Clearly he was paying attention at Kids’ Camp because he knew exactly what to put on such a sign. He instructed me to write, “I Heart My Moms!” and to fill in the heart with rainbow stripes. As a finishing touch, he decided the point of the exclamation point should be heart-shaped. (June 9, 2007)

N is for Nest
It turns out four adults to two children is about the right ratio for me to spend an almost perfect day at the beach. Noah and I arrived around nine, and had built just enough sand castles and played just long enough in the water to be looking at each other and wondering “what next?” when my mom arrived and he had a fresh playmate. He found a hole someone else had dug and spent a lot of time jumping into it. Later it was a nest and Mom was a bird laying eggs they made out of balls of wet sand. (August 25, 2007)

O is for Ocean

He’d been quite taken with the idea that he was “the only one in the whole world” who knew both my “versary” gift to her and hers to me. He kept the secrets faithfully, only letting slip that he thought Beth’s gift to me was better. “But they’re both good,” he added diplomatically. This piqued my curiosity since Beth had hinted she would make up for her absence on the actual day of our anniversary through the gift. Inside a store bought card with a picture of a falling star on it was a card she and Noah made on the computer. It had a photo of the house where I lived during the summer of 1987 on the front and the Rehoboth boardwalk on the inside. “We’re leaving Friday afternoon for Rehoboth Beach,” it said. (July 22, 2007)

P is for Princess
June wore a dress with a black velvet top and a puffy, gold satin skirt that a friend of Ya Ya’s bought for her. Ya Ya said she looked just like a doll. Beth’s brother Johnny and I both said, independently of each other, that she looked like the Infanta Margarita in this painting (http://www.artchive.com/meninas.htm). In either case, doll or princess, it was a new look for her. (November 23, 2007)

Q is for Queer

We went to our favorite Mexican restaurant that night to celebrate twenty years with spinach enchiladas and virgin mango daiquiris. (July 22, 2007)

R is for Redhead
The snow was dry and powdery, useless for snowballs or snowmen, and just barely serviceable for sledding. He went down the hill a few more times, then bored of it. We took turns dragging June around the yard. She was tranquil, but not as enamored with it as the last time. (February 7, 2007)

This is from my very first blog entry. June’s hair turned blonde the following summer.

S is for Santa

Noah seemed happy and satisfied with his visit to Santa. But as soon as we left the little house, he asked if it was possible that the person he’d seen was just someone in costume pretending to be Santa. We allowed that this might be the case. Beth pointed out that Santa couldn’t be everywhere at once so maybe he needed some helpers to visit with children and find out what they wanted. Probably, they would send an email to Santa with the requests. “But he just asked my name. Why didn’t he ask my address?” Noah was suddenly alarmed at the possibility that his information would be incompletely conveyed to Santa. (December 10, 2007)

T is for Train
Just around the time I reached the tricky part of the operation, spooning the batter onto the griddle and making sure none of the pancakes burned while I was distracted by something else, they both wanted my attention at once.

Noah had tired of his magazine and said, “What should I do?”

June wanted to know if I could “play train tracks?”

“Maybe Noah can play train tracks with you,” I suggested. I only gave this idea about a 25% chance of succeeding, but you have to try. Much to my surprise, Noah took June’s hand and they walked into the living room. He repaired a track I had built earlier in the day and they took turns running the trains over it, looking startlingly like two full-fledged kids playing together.(March 23, 2008)

U is for Underpants

This was the headshot of Noah when he was in first grade. If you remember the photo and thought he was wearing a bandana on his head, those are underpants. Beth took it on their mother-son camping trip in September 2007.

V is for Valentine
Noah dug around in his bag and pulled out a card. “Here,” he said, handing me the funniest valentine I’ve ever received. There’s a snowman lying on its side on the front with the words “Love you to death!” written in crayon. Inside it says, “OOPS! I guess I loved you to much!” Like mother, like son is all I have to say about that. Also this– it was the perfect Friday the 13th valentine. (February 13, 2009)

W is for Wizard

The last day of spirit week was “Put on Your Thinking Cap” day so after some careful consideration, he put on his wizard hat. (March 9, 2007)

X is for Xylophone

You were expecting something else? I took this picture on Thursday.

Y is for Yard

After Noah ate breakfast, brushed his teeth and got dressed, it was time to bounce. Along with the hopping ball, we bought Noah his own personal bouncy castle for vestibular stimulation, deep pressure on his joints, oh, and fun, too. He loves it. We’ll see if it helps organize and focus him the way the occupational therapist says it will, but in the meantime he’s using it several times a day. When possible, we try for a bouncing session before Beth takes him to camp. (July 10, 2007)

Z is for Zeitgeist

Next we moved inside to carve our jack o’ lanterns, or in Beth’s and my case, our Barack o’ lanterns (http://yeswecarve.com). (October 26, 2008)

I can’t claim this blog consistently captures the national zeitgeist, but if you have or once had elementary-school or preschool-age kids, or if you live in Takoma Park or its environs, or if you’re gay, lesbian or bisexual, I hope you sometimes find a little of yourself reflected in it. Thanks for reading.

Yes We Can

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Guest Blog by Beth

The tickets! I was going through my mental Inauguration Day checklist as Noah and I were waiting for the bus. Noah and I had gotten out of the door by 7, a good start. But I’d left the tickets inside. I made a quick dash into the house to retrieve them. Almost leaving the tickets behind actually came as a relief to me. I have a superstitious belief that if you’re leaving on a journey and have nearly forgotten something major but remember in the nick of time it means you haven’t forgotten anything else.

After a short wait, we caught our bus to the Metro. Takoma Station was busy, but not over-crowded. As we waited on the platform, three trains came and went, all too packed to board. The next train seemed like it might have room for two more to squeeze in, so squeeze we did. The car was filled with teenagers from Arizona, in town with their history teacher for the big event. The whole car was filled with excitement and energy. As we lurched our way down the tracks, one of the passengers who had been on his way to work decided to call in sick so that he could participate in the festivities. The history teacher from Arizona took charge, explaining the situation and asking all of us to be silent while he made his call. Miraculously, everyone did quiet down, then erupted in whoops and cheers after he finished.

We got off the train a stop earlier than planned, at Union Station, because Noah was starting to get antsy from being squeezed in so tight. As we left the station we found several streets blocked off for vendors selling anything and everything, all adorned with the name or face of the new President. I promised Noah we’d return later so that he could shop, and hurried him along. It was about 8 by this time, we were still making good progress, but I didn’t know what lay ahead.

I couldn’t believe the crowds of people on the streets near my office – streets that are usually nearly empty. The crowds began to thicken as we headed toward the 3rd Street tunnel. Normally a high-speed funnel for crazed commuters headed toward I-295/I-395, the tunnel had been closed for the day to provide a route for pedestrians to travel from one side of the mall to the other. It was fun to take over this space usually reserved for cars. We emerged on the other side, and crowded onto 3rd St., SW. Time check: 9:20. Not bad. I could see the gate for Silver Ticket holders about a block away. Surely we’d be through security and onto the mall in an hour or so.

I broke out the hand and toe warmers I had purchased the day before and stuffed them into Noah’s crocs and his gloves. We continued to shuffle slowly forward. Occasionally we’d come to a halt as officers stopped us to clear Independence Avenue for official vehicles. By 10:00 we had made it across Independence. Then…nothing. The crowd just stopped. After about 15 minutes rumors made it to us that people without tickets had “broken through” and taken over the Silver area. But there was no-one official around to confirm this. Some turned to leave, planning to make their way further West to at least have a chance to get into a non-ticketed area of the Mall.

Noah began to complain. He was cold. I was cold. Both of us we getting buffeted by the confused crowd, some still trying to push forward, some trying to leave, some joining hands and slicing horizontally through the throng. I was starting to doubt the wisdom of even attempting this. Maybe we should have stayed home to watch on TV with Steph and June. Thank goodness June wasn’t here – she would have been crushed! Why weren’t there any police around with bullhorns to explain what was going on and what to expect? Time was ticking away. The sea of people was gradually inching toward the mall, filling in the spaces of those who had left. I could glimpse the Capitol thorough the trees.

Suddenly, at 11:20, the crowd rushed forward. (For a view of the crowd just before the breakthrough, see http://specials.washingtonpost.com/inauguration/satellite/.) I could see the nearly empty security gates. Noah and I dashed for a line and after a few short minutes were were there. On the Mall. Our view of the jumbotron was somewhat obscured by the trees and the sound wasn’t the best, but we could see the Capitol in the distance and feel the energy of the crowd.

Noah had forgotten about being cold and tired of being pushed around. He danced. He cheered when the crowed cheered for Carter and Clinton. He chanted Obama’s name. He looked at me when the crowd began to boo Bush. I shook my head no. It just didn’t seem right to boo. Partly it didn’t seem in the spirit of the day. But it also seemed to reduce Bush to a comic-book villain, divorced from the reality of what his decisions have meant for millions of people across the globe. The program began. Some in the crowd around us waved rainbow flags as Rick Warren spoke. We cheered for Aretha and her fabulous hat and for Joe Biden after he took his oath.

Then it was time. I hadn’t been able hold Noah up so he could get a better view for the whole thing; he weighs nearly 60 pounds now. But, as tears ran down my face, I lifted him up to see Barack Obama take the oath of office and become the 44th President of the United States

Want to feel like you were there? Check out this awesome Gigapan photo: http://gigapan.org/viewGigapanFullscreen.php?auth=033ef14483ee899496648c2b4b06233c . The resolution is so amazing that you can zoom in to see Yo-Yo Ma using his iPhone.

Blueberries for June

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“One day, Little Sal went with her mother to Blueberry Hill to pick blueberries,” I read.

“Little Sal brought along her small tin pail and her mother brought her large tin pail to put berries in. ‘We will take our berries home and can them’ said her mother. ‘Then we will have food for the winter.’

“Little Sal picked three berries and dropped them in her little tin pail…kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk!

“She picked three more berries and ate them. Then she picked more berries and dropped one in the pail—kuplunk! And the rest she ate. Then Little Sal ate all four blueberries out of her pail.”*

June was snuggled up against me, half asleep. I’d awoken her a little early from her afternoon nap so we could make our yearly berrying trip to Butler’s Orchard (http://www.butlersorchard.com/). She wanted to go back to sleep and I was trying to get her interested in staying awake by reading to her. After I finished the book, I asked her. “Would you like to pick blueberries like Sal? There wouldn’t be any bears,” I hastened to add. “Just berries.” June was still too tired to answer, but she smiled around her pacifier. “Let’s check your diaper and put your overalls back on,” I said. “Then we’ll go.”

Beth showed June the berry pail she’d fashioned for her, a plastic pudding tub nestled in a purple Easter basket. Now June was wide awake and she ran all around the house carrying the basket. “It’s my own,” she declared.

The orchard was closing at five and it’s a forty-five minute drive so we’d hoped to leave by three at the latest, but it was closer to three-thirty by the time we’d left the house, filled the car up with gas and gotten underway. We’d invited a high school friend of Beth’s who now lives in the D.C. area and her three-year-old son to join us but they’d been unable to come. I was a little disappointed about that and also a bit concerned about the predicted thunderstorms. There were some dark clouds on the horizon but it didn’t look too threatening. It was a little cooler than it’s been for a while as well, which was nice since we were intending to spend an hour or so walking around in the sun.

During the drive Beth and Noah told a story-game involving a group of butterflies on a quest to liberate another group of butterflies from a museum. June made occasional (and random) contributions. I think in several months she might be able to participate in story-game in a meaningful way. And maybe soon after she and Noah could play without adult involvement. Dare we hope?

When we turned off onto the gravel road that runs through some woods toward the farm, Noah wanted to pretend we were explorers in a forest. He confided to Beth that driving on a road with no houses or people in sight was “a little scary.” No country boy, he, I reflected. Soon the woods cleared out and we were driving through cornfields lined with black-eyed Susans and Queen Anne’s lace.

The shuttle wagons that run you out to the fields on busy days were not operating so we drove straight out to the blueberry fields. It’s the tail end of blueberry season and we had to really search the bushes for the powder-blue berries. They were smaller than usual, too, so our pails filled slowly. Or maybe that was because June kept running down the rows and I need to run after her. She only got out of my sight once, but once was enough for me. I was more concerned about berry-pickers’ cars and farm workers’ tractors than bears. When she was with me, she was tossing green berries in my pail or digging around in it for ripe berries to eat. Occasionally she would stop to wipe her berry-stained hands on my white t-shirt and khaki pants.

I could have taken my cue from Little Sal’s mother and said, “Now, June, you run along and pick your own berries. Mother wants to take her berries home and can them for next winter,” except I didn’t really want her to run along (tractors remember?) and I don’t call myself Mother and the berries weren’t destined for canning, but for my Sunday morning oatmeal, homemade blueberry ice cream and blueberry kuchen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuchen). Besides, she was enjoying herself. There was space to run around, and things to put into other things, which is one of her favorite occupations. I trusted we’d get enough. Some years we’ve come home with eight or ten pounds of berries and not known what to do with all of them. We skipped our berrying trip last year so this was the first time she’d been since she was four months old. I had to spend that entire outing walking up and down the rows of bushes, carrying June in the front pack. If I tried to stop long enough to pick a handful of berries, she’d start to wail. This was a lot more fun. Noah was really focused on picking berries this year for the first time, too. He knelt down on the ground and found the ones Beth couldn’t see. She told him he had an “eagle eye.”

Around 4:45 we decided to make a quick trip over to the blackberry fields before getting the berries weighed and doing at little shopping at the market. The blackberries were plentiful and large and close together. In less than ten minutes, we picked a little over three pounds. Thirty-five minutes in the blueberry field had only netted us just under a pound and quarter of fruit. We stocked up on produce and farm market treats (kettle corn, an apple brown betty, bread and butter pickles, etc.) and checked out. It poured rain for several minutes while we were in the market. I only noticed since I went outside to use the restroom. Beth, Noah and June missed the squall entirely.

As we drove away, Noah read the sign that said, “Have a Berry Nice Day” and laughed. I have to say, that even with absent guests and light berry pails, it really was a berry nice afternoon.

From Blueberries For Sal, by Robert McCloskey, 1948.