February Faces

Posted on February 23, 2014 by Steph

Why, what’s the matter,
That you have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?

William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

I saved a blue conversation heart from Valentine’s Day and put it on my desk, next to the erasers. It says, “Be Happy.” Some days it seems like a cheerful encouragement and I think, “Okay, I’ll try that.” Other days it, and the thick brown mug I often use that says, “Do what you like/Like what you do” just seem to be taunting me.

February is such a challenge some years. It started with strawberries, I think. On the first day of February, after a basketball game, Beth and June and I stopped at a grocery store to pick up a few things, and June was hungry so Beth got her a fruit cup consisting of blueberries and strawberries. She ate all the blueberries but didn’t want the strawberries.

I love strawberries, but real ones, not pale winter imitations of strawberries. In our area real, ripe, juicy red strawberries are available for about a month, which can start anywhere from late April to late May, depending on weather conditions. I probably hadn’t eaten one since some time last summer, but now last spring seemed like a distant memory and next spring like it might not ever come, so I ate the strawberries.

My main problem is that we have had too many snow days this winter, seven to be precise and three of them in February. They fell during a period when I was swamped with work and have caused me a lot of stress. One day—Valentine’s Day actually—when we’d had two snow days in a row and I had a noon deadline, the morning play date I’d scheduled for June fell through because the mother of the child woke up sick and I almost cried when I read her message.

In addition to the snow days and the late openings (too numerous to count), our heat has gone out three times this winter. We always got it fixed the next day but not before the temperature in the house dropped into the forties. Our oil company has not been as interested in the question of why it keeps going out as we are.

The last time it snowed (ten inches, about a week and a half ago), I hurt my back and aggravated the ongoing tendonitis I have in my right forearm shoveling snow and chipping ice off the sidewalk. Both are better now, but it has not helped me feel positive about winter.

Sometimes I do like winter, at the beginning of it usually. The cold temperatures are novel and invigorating and the snow is undeniably pretty. It’s fun getting out the flannel sheets and my sweaters and warm socks and making warm, cozy meals. Most importantly, it makes Beth happy, because winter is her season, and until we’ve had several snow days, I’m on board. Eventually, though, we get to the point where what makes her happy (a big snow) makes me unhappy, and what makes me happy (cold rain, sleet, anything that does not result in the kids staying home yet again) makes her unhappy. It’s an uncomfortable state of affairs sometimes.

I’m also sad for Noah right now, because despite a month of weekends (not to mention quite a few snow days) he spent glued to the computer working on his documentary for National History Day he didn’t make the cut to advance to the county level. He’s not very competitive and is generally very easy-going about grades and the like, but he wanted this, and although he took the bad news graciously, I still wish there was something I could do to make it better, other than offer sympathy. But sometimes that’s all there is.

So, what went right in February?

Well, we all got nice Valentines presents for each other. We bought books for the kids (one about fonts for Noah and the fourth book in the Edgar and Ellen series, Pet’s Revenge, for June). I got fancy cheese and chocolate for Beth and she bought me a Starbucks card. Beth brought home a half-dozen red roses and the kids selected chocolate truffles and chocolate-cherry bread for the whole family. And that evening we went out for heart-shaped pizza at Zpizza, which according to Noah “tastes like love.” The day that started with me nearly weeping ended sweetly.

Also, the Pandas had a few games. After the one I already blogged about, they played a double game the next weekend. They lost the game June played in 24-18, but it was an exciting game and both teams played well. The other game might have been a win or a tie. There’s no official scorekeeping and I heard conflicting reports. Either way, it was close.

The best thing about June’s game, though, from our perspective, was that for the first time ever in three seasons of playing basketball, June took a shot at the hoop. Being the shortest player on her team, she has often lacked the confidence to try to score and instead passes to other players. She often gets assists and up to now seemed content with that role, but at practice the day before something clicked and she told us she just felt like she could do it. So she took a shot and it almost went in, too. After the game, she told us that trying to make the basket was her favorite part of the game.

So it’s not that surprising that she tried again at the next Pandas’ game. More on that in a little bit…She and I have been playing Horse at our neighbor’s hoop once or twice a week ever since basketball started. I have a height advantage obviously and I’ve offered to handicap myself by shooting from further away or giving her two shots for every one of mine, but she has rejected these offers. As a result, I always win. There would be no point in letting her win. She’d know and she’d be mad. (The fact that I always win does not stop her from critiquing my form, however. It’s all wrong apparently.)

So on Thursday we were shooting baskets with a wet, dirty basketball (the street was slushy). My hands were gritty and tingling with cold; I was wishing I’d worn gloves and thinking I’d like to go home, but she kept asking for one more game. The scores were closer than usual and I realized we weren’t going home until she won. She finally did, on the fifth game. “We can go home now,” she said casually, after the winning basket. Later she mentioned to Beth that all four games she’d lost, she’d only lost by one point, but when she won, she won by two points.

At the game on Saturday, June took another shot at the basket. It wasn’t as close at last time, but they were playing on ten-foot hoops again and she was completely surrounded, so it was not an easy shot. I was proud of her just for trying.

It was an amazing game overall. It started off slow—both teams were handicapped by using the taller hoops. It was not clear to any of the parents why were we using the ten-foot hoops, as we switched gyms to get one with eight-foot hoops. Maybe it was the other coach’s preference or maybe it was because we were short a player at the beginning of the game and a full-court game made more sense than two half-court games. Anyway, at the end of the first quarter the purple team was ahead 0-2 and at halftime the score was unchanged. Then at the beginning of the third quarter the Pandas’ offense just snapped into place. They were seeing who was open and passing strategically and shooting over and over. It was a thing of beauty to watch. At first the other team seemed a bit startled and intimidated, but then they stepped up their game too. By my reckoning, the final score was 8-6, Pandas.

After the game, Beth and June and I went straight to the hardware store where we took a workshop on starting seeds. We’ve been gardening for years, mostly from seed, but we often have to start over with new seeds because they don’t germinate or the seedlings get eaten by slugs—so we thought we could use some pointers. What I took from it was that we haven’t been using a light enough grade of soil for germinating and that we might have better luck with slugs if we started seeds earlier inside, rather than waiting for warmer temperatures and starting them outside. There was an amusing moment when I asked about slugs because the earth mother-type instructor clearly did not want to give advice about how to kill living creatures. She opined that all insects have their place in the universe and then quickly mentioned beer and eggshells, both of which we already use. June wanted to know how to grow potatoes, which is a gardening goal of hers for this year. The instructor said using seed potatoes was probably the best bet. Then we all planted tomato seeds. We choose Brandywine and Marvel Stripe. We’ve grown Brandywines before (from plant starts rather than seed) but I had never heard of the other kind.

It was an unseasonably warm day. Beth and June went on to further Saturday afternoon adventures, ice skating on slushy ice at the outdoor rink in Silver Spring and playing at a muddy, slushy playground. I mostly stayed home, supervising Noah’s homework, and reading the Washington Post magazine on the porch in shirtsleeves, then going for a short walk before dinner. It’s going to get cold again later in the week, and it might snow Wednesday and again on Friday, but today we have two pots with tomato seeds in them sitting near the study window, cheering me up more effectively than that bossy candy heart.

Sometimes February faces grimace at another snowstorm or put on an intimidating game face, but others watch attentively from the sideline at scoring teammates, or bend over a small pot, full of soil and hope.

Hustle, Hustle, Hustle, Pandas!

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Steph

“People are here!” Maggie yelled to her dad, June’s basketball coach, as I entered the gym with June and Talia for Friday afternoon practice. June and I had picked up Talia in the parking lot where her mom was stranded in the car with her napping younger brother. Other than Maggie, they were the first players to arrive, but soon everyone else was there and the gym was filled with the sounds of sneakered feet and bouncing balls slapping against the wooden floor, as well as the shouts of seven- and eight-year-old girls. The Pandas were psyched.

After a month of twice-weekly practices, their third season began this weekend with a field trip to a high school girls’ basketball game and their own first game. Half the team has been together since kindergarten and most of the rest of the girls joined last year, in first grade, so the team has a nice esprit de corps. (Half of them also went to the same preschool.) They are always the Pandas, though the colors of their shirt varies by year. First they were the Purple Pandas, then the Red Pandas, and this year the Golden Pandas. (I think this last one sounds like a strip mall Chinese restaurant.)

After practicing the line dance that is supposed to help them with their pivots and other footwork, and the passing drills, and the scrimmage, Coach Mike gathered the team for a final huddle and their traditional cheer, “Hustle, hustle, hustle, Pandas!” It’s positive and to the point, like Mike himself. He’s the kind of coach who can pull this kind of thing off: once when the players were glum during a losing game in kindergarten (a year in which they lost every single game), he told them gently, “That’s not the Panda way,” and to a player they all perked up and looked heartened. He’s that good with them.

After a quick dinner of frozen pizza Noah heated up for us while we were at practice, we swung by Megan’s house and picked her up to take her to the high school game. This is an annual Panda field trip the girls love. (Last year June was sick and missed the trip, but we went with a smaller group of Pandas to a University of Maryland women’s basketball game and that made up for it.)

Mike had instructed all the girls to wear their team shirts to the game. They’d have an on court high five with the home team, the Blazers, at halftime, he said. He spotted us as we were buying tickets for the adults (kids in basketball league t-shirts got in free) and urged us to stay at least until the end of halftime. He knew we’d be taking June home early because we are strict about bedtime. I assured him we would.

We found the Pandas and assorted parents and siblings and took our seats, then made a snack bar run. June studied the Starburst ingredients list to see if they were vegetarian (no dice, gelatin) and then checked out the Swedish fish (success!) while Megan got a Rice Krispie treat and a couple other things. She asked if she could come back later to get something for her little sister. She had four dollars and she wanted to spend as much of it as possible.

We were sitting right next to the pep band and I was watching them, thinking that would be the only thing that might get Noah anywhere near a high school basketball court. Then I recognized one of the drummers, a tenth-grade boy who plays in a band with June’s favorite babysitter. (We went to one of their concerts last spring at the VFW hall.)

Before the game started, Mike led the Pandas onto the court and they were introduced on the loudspeaker as “The Golden Pandas and future Blazers.” The Pandas stood next to the cheerleaders as the high school players were introduced one by one and ran through the double line of cheerleaders. That would have been enough excitement, but there would be more.

The game started and, not surprisingly, it’s much faster than elementary school basketball. We all admired how the players instinctively knew where the ball was and where to pass it and that they could get baskets from pretty far away. I know in organizing the trip, Mike wants to show the girls where they could be in seven years, at least those of them who really will be future Blazers.

The Blazers were winning 26-19 at halftime. The Pandas walked down the edge of the court, getting high fives from a line of cheerleaders and then disappeared through a door. When they returned half of them were wearing Blazers t-shirts over their Panda shirts. They were going to scrimmage! They were the halftime entertainment! Mike told them only moments before it happened and didn’t tell the parents at all.

The scrimmage lasted about five minutes and considering the baskets were two feet higher than the ones they’ve used at practice and in games, they looked pretty good. Sally, the Panda most likely to be a Blazer someday, even got a basket. Here’s about thirty seconds of it Talia’s mom shot on her phone:

For the record, those empty bleachers you can see comprise the seating area for the opposing team. The home team side was close to full.

When the girls came off the court, Megan had a split lip from falling down, and a bag of ice she’d received as first aid. She didn’t tell anyone she was hurt until the scrimmage was over and she didn’t even cry, she wanted us to know. Beth said she probably had so much adrenaline it didn’t hurt as much as it normally would. In the car the girls could talk of nothing but the game, both their own and the big girls’

“It was like we were the guests of honor,” June said.

“We were!” Megan said earnestly. Then June allowed humbly that before most of the people in the crowd got there, they hadn’t heard of the Pandas. Fortunately, that situation was now rectified.

Next we discussed the Blazers’ game and the strengths of various players. This conversation was somewhat impeded by the fact that Beth could only identify players by their jersey numbers while both girls relied more on the players’ hairstyles. I walked Megan to her door, explained to her mother how she came to be injured, and then we drove home.

The next day was the Pandas’ first game. Before the game, the Pandas bounced balls on the sidewalk outside the school and huddled and Mike asked for thoughts. It doesn’t matter who wins, someone offered. Mike said it didn’t but it did matter that they hustled and did their best. And had fun, another player suggested. Yes, have fun, too, he agreed.

If you haven’t been in an elementary school gym recently, a common configuration is two eight-foot basketball hoops along each of the long sides of a rectangular room, and a ten-foot hoop on each of the short sides. That way you can play two games simultaneously with the short hoops or one full-court game with the tall hoops. In kindergarten and first grade, they always used the short hoops and they’d been practicing on them all January, but this gym did not have enough short hoops. Someone came with a long-handled tool and tried to lower the hoops but it didn’t work, so the coaches decided that instead of splitting the teams in half and playing two games, they’d play on the full court, with the tall hoops.

The Pandas started warming up and throwing balls at the tall hoops. A lot of them were going in, and not just Sally’s. June had that serious look she gets on her face when she is determined to do something, but none of her shots went in. Overall, though, the Pandas looked good. But every now and then I glanced over at the girls in the light blue t-shirts practicing on the other side of the court, the Dolphins, and I noticed their shots were going in, too.

At first, the teams seemed pretty evenly matched. I think the score was tied, or at least close, at the end of the first quarter. But after that, the Dolphins hit their stride and they scored basket after basket after basket. Beth thought June looked tired, even though the fact that they were playing only one game meant all the players were sitting out half the time. I pointed out she’d been up an hour past her bedtime and I wondered if the whole team was tired from the previous night’s adventure. By my count, the final score was 14-2, but Beth thought the Pandas scored twice and she might have been right.

The Pandas didn’t lose heart, though, and they minded their manners. After Sally scored the first (and possibly only) basket of the game, Talia took the time to hug her, and when Lila tripped over an opposing player right before the final whistle, I saw her say, “Are you all right?” before getting back into the game.

The Pandas and Dolphins needed to clear out of the gym as soon as the game was over so the 12:00 p.m. game could start. The team huddled on the sidewalk outside the school again. Mike said there were things they needed to work on, but he found things to praise as well. Then they all put their hands on top of each other and chanted, “Hustle, hustle, hustle, Pandas!”

Back to School

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Steph

This is the first school year in a long time that neither kid is starting a new school. A year ago Noah started middle school, two years ago June was starting kindergarten, and three years ago Noah was switching from his home elementary school to a magnet gifted program. So starting second and seventh grade is almost anti-climactic, but in a good way, a settling-back-into-familiar-routines kind of way.

We got the postcard with June’s classroom assignments on the Wednesday before school started. She has Señora J in the morning and Ms. K in the afternoon. Señora J has the reputation for being a little stern, but fair and challenging. I think she and June will get along fine. I’d never heard of Ms. K. and I wasn’t sure if she was new or not. It’s a big school outside the school-within-a-school of the Spanish immersion program and I haven’t heard of all the teachers. As it turns out, she is new. This made me just slightly nervous because the year Noah had two new teachers (third grade) was his most academically unsatisfying year. And I don’t think June was sufficiently challenged last year, especially by her English teacher, though June was quite fond of her.

As for Noah, seventh grade is reported to be the most rigorous year in the Humanities magnet. They write a ten-page research paper, researched in part at a university library. It will be taxing at times, no doubt, but I’ve also heard it’s the year they really learn how to write and that kids who come out of the magnet program find themselves better prepared for advanced classes in high school than their peers. So I think it will be worth it.

All summer I had a printout of my summer work schedule taped to the wall of the study. It had the dates for each of the ten weeks of the kids’ summer break and how many hours I committed to work during each of them. I checked the weeks off one by one as they passed. For most of the summer I did this with a sense of satisfaction, as I looked forward to getting back to a more predictable routine and a quieter house. But after we returned from our West Virginia/Ohio trip and there were only two weeks left on the makeshift calendar, I started to think, “Only two more weeks?” and I resolved to do more fun things with the kids before summer break was gone.

Summer Break, Week 9

The second to last week of summer break both kids were home. They had to do summer homework (and they both all but finished it) and practice their instruments, and Noah mowed the backyard, but we also went wading in the creek, went to see a documentary about cheetahs and lions, went out to lunch and out for ice cream and frozen yogurt. I took June to a drop-in music class and to the library for Spanish circle time. June had a friend over and they organized a picnic and a tea party and played dress up while I worked.

On Friday we were planning a trip to the pool but then I found out the pool I had in mind, the only outdoor public pool in walking distance of our house, is closed on Fridays, so June and I went to the playground and she waded in the creek again and then we went to the 7-11 to get milk and we ended up with snacks as well. As I watched her ride her bike home one-handed while eating Cheetos out a bag in the basket I came to the conclusion that it really is time to take off her training wheels. When we got home, Noah had finished all the items on his to-do list so I made some iced tea and we played one board game of each kid’s choice. June chose Operation; Noah chose Quirkle. It was nice to have the time to play a long game all the way to the end and not feel rushed.

Over the weekend, I made a peach-blackberry cobbler, we went thrift store shopping for school clothes and Noah and June organized an art show. (The art was all June’s but Noah made the poster for it.) It was originally conceived as a money-making venture, but we told June she couldn’t charge money for admission or artwork. We also limited the guests to kids who live on our block, a group consisting of two families with three kids each. One family was out of town, but the other came, as did a retired colleague of Beth’s who saw the poster Beth put on Facebook. June proclaimed the show a success before it even happened, because we bought her a summery party dress for it, even though we went into the store saying words like “practical” and “school clothes.” (Things like this have a way of happening around June.) Anyway, June got to walk people through the artwork twice, get complimented on it, serve lemonade and cookies, and wear a new dress. She was satisfied, even without profits.

Summer Break, Week 10

The next week Noah had drama camp. I was glad because it forced him to complete his summer homework the week before and just have a nice relaxing final week of summer. June and I were left to our own devices. So I arranged for a couple play dates (including a double play date that started with me taking June and Megan to Spanish circle time, having a picnic lunch with them and then dropping them at Megan’s house for several hours).

After an animated discussion about the existence of fairies during her other play date–consensus: they are real–June told me last year there was a kid on the school bus who said the Tooth Fairy is just your parents. And then she looked me right in the eye and said, “Is it you?” So I had to tell her. (Actually, I made Beth do it.) It was not the answer she was expecting, and I was sorry about it because she’s only lost two teeth. But for us, when it gets to the point of direct questions, it starts to feel less like pretending and more like lying, so it was time. There were no follow up questions about Santa and the Easter Bunny. If she doesn’t ask, we won’t tell. She may be starting a new school year, but I’d like to let her enjoy as much magic and innocence as she wants for now.

That week June and I also made chocolate-covered frozen bananas and “back to school” cupcakes, with the initials of the kids’ schools on them, went to Co-op story time, which we hadn’t done all summer, and finally made it to the pool.

On the way home from the pool I walked along the creek and June walked in it (because it would be a waste of being in her bathing suit if she didn’t, she explained). Usually we could see each other, but sometimes the undergrowth was so thick we couldn’t. Then I could hear June splashing along beside me, singing an impromptu song about walking in the creek and muttering to herself, “Mommy knows where you are.” It was just the right amount of adventure.

On Thursday, Beth and I sat in on Noah’s drum lesson. It was the last one—he only takes private lessons in the summer—and he’d asked if we wanted to watch. He’d been working on learning the drum part for “Route 66” for a couple weeks and he practiced it several times during the lesson, with the teacher offering occasional feedback, and then recording him. Usually I only hear Noah play in band concerts or practicing at home, and then I only hear his part of the music (he’s sometimes listening to the rest on headphones). So it was novel and fun to hear him playing along with a rock song, and doing quite a spirited solo at the end. The teacher said he was “hanging with it” and had “chops.”

Friday June went to work with Beth in the morning and then they both came home mid-day for the Open House at June’s school and Noah’s drama camp performance. June was so excited to meet her teachers and see her friends at the Open House she kept bouncing up and down on her toes. To our surprise, we discovered we know Ms. K, she’s the mother of one of Noah’s old classmates (and by a strange coincidence, so is Señora J, but we knew that already). Ms. K has three kids who’ve attended June’s school (one’s in high school now, one’s in Noah’s grade and the youngest is in June’s grade). This eased my mind because it meant while new to the school as a teacher, she was not really new and knowing something about the school’s culture will probably help her land on her feet.

Between the Open House and Noah’s performance we ran some errands. We dropped off Beth’s Birkenstocks and mine to be re-soled and re-corked, and went to a bookstore to buy the fall book for my book club. We’re reading Remembrance of Things Past, or the first couple volumes of it. I decided to start reading it on the first day of school. It seems like a good day to start a serious book.

At Noah’s performance, he was in two improv sketches, one in which he was called on to be the “world’s worst cobbler” and the “world’s worst doctor” (I called out “cobbler” when the audience was asked to name a profession, probably because we’d just taken our shoes for repair) and another one called “Poison Arm Samurai” in which thirty ten-to-thirteen-year-old-kids stumbled around the stage in zombie-like slow motion slaying each other by brushing their arms up against each other. It was like a very strange dance.

After the performance we let June play in the fountain, but she didn’t stay long as it was cool and drizzling. “The summer is really winding down,” Beth commented as we watched her run and splash.

What really made it feel that way for me, though, was some time the next day when I sat down at the computer to check my email and noticed the calendar on the wall. I grabbed a pencil and checked off the line that said, “August 19-23: 7.5 hours.” Then realizing there was no reason to keep it, I made a move to pull it off the wall and found myself reluctant to do so.

Then we were down to the last weekend. On Saturday, Noah went over to David’s house, and June went to Talia’s birthday pool party. Both kids got haircuts on Sunday. It was the most hair June’s ever had cut off at once, probably three or four inches. She wanted it shorter for second grade, and even though I’ve always like her hair long, I said yes, because she’s seven and I need to let her make more of her own decisions. I actually expected her to come home with shorter hair than she did. It’s a couple inches past her shoulders still.

We were planning to go out for ice cream Sunday night–it’s a last-night-of-summer-break family tradition–but June put herself to bed at five with a headache, and Noah was scrambling to print and assemble all his summer homework assignments until seven-thirty or so, so there was no leisurely family outing. But Beth and Noah did make a Baskin-Robbins run and the three of us ate it around the dining room table. (They brought home enough so June could have some later.)

This next morning Beth and Noah were out the door by 6:40 and June was ready to go by 7:35, a good forty-five minutes before she needed to. At the bus stop we greeted families we haven’t seen in a while and met the one-month old brother of a third-grader I’ve known since he and June were toddlers waiting at their older brothers’ bus stops. Last year’s fifth-graders were gone and everyone is a year older. Funny how that happens.

The kids came home with no homework in June’s case and minimal homework in Noah’s case. They shared their news at dinner. There was a glitch in Noah’s schedule and he wasn’t signed up for band. (This was resolved on the second day of school.) There are new restrictions on when middle schoolers can visit their lockers (hardly ever) and new rules about where the kids at June’s school can play during recess, and breakfast is now served in the classroom instead of in the cafeteria at her school. Otherwise, not much is different.

We ate the leftover ice cream and the kids went to bed, another school year underway.

Consider Yourself Well In

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Steph

[Not a valid template]

Consider yourself at home
Consider yourself one of the family
We’ve taken to you so strong
It’s clear we’re going to get along
Consider yourself well in
Consider yourself part of the furniture
There isn’t a lot to spare
Who cares? Whatever we’ve got we share

From “Consider Yourself” Oliver!

We’re entering the home stretch of summer break now. The resurrection lilies in the front yard are blooming and that’s my signal that the kids will be back in school in several weeks (three and a half, not that I’m counting). June’s camps were front loaded this year so all five of them—Round House Theatre camp, yoga-art camp, tinkering camp, basketball camp, and musical theater camp—are over. Noah has one week left at Round House, but for now both kids are enjoying a comparatively unstructured week before our family trip to West Virginia and Ohio to visit Beth’s mom and Cedar Point amusement park.

But I’m getting ahead of myself because I’m really here to write about last Friday, the last day of a week both kids were in camp at the same time. Noah was at the University of Maryland band camp and June was at the Takoma Park community center musical theater camp. Both camps were performance-based so we had two shows to attend at the end of the week—selected songs from Oliver! for June and a band concert for Noah. In both cases, it was really impressive to see what kids (seven-to-ten year olds in one case and ten-to-fifteen year olds in the other) can pull together in just a week.

For those of you who remember June’s love affair with Annie last summer, this is the same camp. It’s her third year attending it, and I have to say that while Oliver! did not capture her imagination as completely as Annie did, it was still about orphans in peril and as far as June is concerned you can’t go wrong with that theme.

We watched the film the weekend before but not as far in advance or as many times as Annie and June found the English accents made it hard for her to understand the lyrics so she did not know the songs as well when she arrived at camp the first day as she had with Annie. It took her longer to get into it, but eventually she was singing the songs under her breath wherever she went and informing us with great satisfaction that her character was “sassy.” (She also picked up the habit of filling a glass juice bottle with water and pretending it was gin.)

Most of the parts are boy parts and she wanted to play a girl, Nancy specifically. As Nancy’s an adult I thought the camp director, Gretchen, would want one of the older girls to play her, so I encouraged June to think about second and third choices. She tried out for Bette, her second choice, but she was cast as “Dodger Girl,” one of several parts based on the Artful Dodger. As you might guess from the name, Dodger Girl is a girl (in this production the workhouse orphans and Fagin’s tribe of street urchins are co-ed groups). As playing a girl was what June most cared about, she was happy. She also got her first pick of costumes from the thrift store selection Gretchen provided. It was a long, white Victorian looking dress with a high collar. She wore it with a brown apron and she loved it.

A few days into rehearsals Gretchen gave June a couple extra solo lines in “Consider Yourself” because she’d been projecting well. (June’s favorite line is “Consider yourself part of the furniture” because she then sits on another character.) I never got to see any of the songs in rehearsal as I did last year. Whenever I arrived for pickup they were either working on the cloth backdrop of the smoggy London skyline or they’d finished for the day.

Meanwhile, Noah was hard at work at his camp, too. In addition to preparing for the concert, he had three electives—world drumming, a music technology class, and one on movie soundtracks. He was a little disappointed in the music technology because they never got past what he already knew from his sixth grade media class and what he’s taught himself.

We car-pooled with Sasha’s family. (It was Sasha who talked Noah into attending the camp when they were in honors band together last winter.) Beth drove the boys to camp in the mornings and Sasha’s family’s au pair picked them up in the afternoons. Sasha got sick late in the week so Beth didn’t take him Thursday or Friday morning. We were sorry he was going to miss the concert.

Friday Beth had a doctor’s appointment in the morning so she took the whole day off. We had lunch at Capital City Cheesecake; we ate on the patio, enjoying the cooler, less humid weather we’ve been having. Then we drove over to the community center to see June’s performance.

The show was fun. June put her heart into it and all the kids were adorable. As the overture played, Gretchen welcomed the audience and then the kids marched in, singing “Food, Glorious Food,” each holding a spoon. In the second song, “Where is Love,” June had a duet with Oliver at the very beginning of the song, and in the scene before “Consider Yourself,” she had a couple lines of spoken dialogue as well as three solo lines in the song. Even though that was the song in which June had the most lines, her favorite song is “I’d Do Anything,” because she liked being a horse for the carriage. (There’s a break in the video here for a surprise battery change.) June also liked “Be Back Soon,” because for her the characters marching down the aisles of the theater seemed like a novel, surprising move.

Anyway, if you want to watch the video, it’s about fifteen minutes long. In it, you’ll see her licking her chin a lot. It’s a nervous habit she developed last winter and has been unable to shake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY8eRd_hbZQ

After a brief trip home, we headed to the University of Maryland. The concert space at the Clarice Smith Center was the nicest one Noah’s ever played. He’d commented earlier that he liked practicing in an auditorium with good acoustics (as opposed to the gym or the cafeteria where his school bands have usually played). The performance space was also tiered, which meant we could see the percussion section for a change, and we enjoying seeing him play cymbals, chimes, wood block, and triangle.

There were actually three concerts in one. The kids were divided into three age groups and each group did four or five songs. Noah played in the middle group, rising seventh and eighth graders. All three groups did a phenomenal job learning their songs in just a week. Before the fifth and sixth graders started, we spotted Noah up in the balcony with the older musicians who were waiting their turn and we were surprised and pleased to see Sasha two seats to his right. (Apparently he recovered enough to attend camp for the second half of the day and to play in the concert.)

Meanwhile, we discovered we were seated next to the parents of another middle school percussionist and they were just as excited to be able to see their son as we were to see Noah. That boy was playing a marimba so long he had to dash from one end of it to the other.

June, who hasn’t been to one of Noah’s concerts since she was four (because they are usually in the evening past her bedtime), did a much better job sitting through a long concert than when she was a preschooler. She was attentive and smiled when Beth told her she was going to recognize the next song and the band started to play the theme from “Aladdin.”

The ninth and tenth graders played last and it was interesting to hear them. I already know what talented and motivated elementary school and middle school musicians can achieve, but I’ve never heard a high school band before and they did a really, really good job with very challenging pieces. It makes me look forward to attending Noah’s concerts in a few years.

Here’s Noah’s section of the concert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOHjJMrPILA

After the concert we had pizza at a hole-in-the-wall Beth and I used to frequent twenty years ago when I was getting my Ph.d at the University of Maryland. It doesn’t look any different than it did then, which was comforting. Then we went out to Rita’s for Italian ice and frozen custard, intending to use a coupon Noah got at band camp for a free kids’ Italian ice but then both kids wanted custard so we didn’t use it. We ate at an outside picnic table, enjoying the lovely weather.

The weekend was busy, especially Saturday. We were out of the house for all but an hour between 8:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. June had a tennis lesson during which something just clicked in her head and she was suddenly able to hit balls over the net. Then we went berry picking at Butler’s orchard. Between the blueberry fields, the blackberry fields, the giant slides, the lunch counter where we ate nachos, veggie chips, and grilled peaches with blackberry sauce and ice cream for lunch, the playground, the metal troughs of water fed by pumps where the kids raced rubber ducks, and the farm market where we bought cheese, produce, treats, and strawberry lemonade…we were there several hours. After a brief pit stop at home, we headed into the city to meet Beth’s visiting aunt Carole, her cousin Sean, and a couple family friends for Ethiopian. Noah, who’s eaten Ethiopian just once on his life, held forth to the group on how to eat the injera and which dishes were best as if he were an old pro.

After all that, I was happy to stay home all day Sunday. (Everyone else went out. Beth and June went grocery shopping in the morning and Noah went to Richard and David’s pool party in the afternoon.) I did some housecleaning and read to both kids so long I almost lost my voice.

This week is the first week of the summer both kids are home all day. I am calling it Camp Mommy. I was intending it be a sort of summer homework/housework/yardwork boot camp, and we have done those things, but June also had a swimming pool play date with her best friend Megan, and we went to the library and we’re also reading a lot and we made a blueberry kuchen with the berries we picked and a batch of gluten-free chocolate chip cookies for my sister, who has been feeling down since her boyfriend broke up with her a couple weeks ago. June also got to spend two mornings with her favorite babysitter so I could write two short articles on herbs.

Last night Beth was showing the kids videos of rides at Cedar Point, to get everyone in the mood for our upcoming trip. I am looking forward to it. As much as June likes to play at orphanhood, a week of family time is something to savor. And although we have a lot more to spare than the orphans in Oliver!, we all need spend time with those with whom we consider ourselves well in.

Hot Town, Summer in the Suburbs

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Steph

[Show as slideshow]

The first week back from vacation was difficult. We weren’t at the beach, for one thing, and it was very hot. The temperature never broke 100 degrees, but it was close, in the high nineties every day from Monday to Friday and stiflingly humid. The heat index hovered between 100 and 110 degrees. At night it was still hot. It was never not hot, and except for the bedrooms our house is not air-conditioned, so editing technical brochures, ferrying June around on public transportation, or cooking dinner I was often out of sorts and at times I envied Beth and the kids their air-conditioned office and camps.

But I didn’t really envy Beth. She was stressed at work– she always is just back from vacation– but with all the Senate negotiations over confirmations of Secretary of Labor and to the National Labor Relations Board, it would have been a challenging week under any circumstances.

Meanwhile, June was at basketball camp at a middle school where the air conditioning was varyingly effective. Some days I’d walk into the gym in the morning and feel a little relief from the heat, but it would only take a few minutes to realize it was still hot in there, just less hot than outside. At least they kept June’s age group inside all day except when they took them outside to run through the sprinklers. (The older kids played on the outside courts some of the time.) It was a very active camp, as you might expect. They had drills and played two full games of basketball almost every day. In the end, I think it wore her out, even though she enjoyed it most of the week. On Friday she said she felt tired and didn’t want to go to camp. I kept her home a couple hours to determine if she was sick, but when I decided she wasn’t, I took her to camp late, over her cranky protests.

Her team did very well over the course of the week. Though we left in the middle of the last game so we could get to Noah’s performance on Friday and don’t know how it ended, they were 6 and 2 before that game in the running for the championship of their four-team division, the Big East (which for the first few days of camp June thought was the Biggies—she thought this was funny because the seven-to-nine year olds were the youngest division).

Even Noah, who was at Round House Theatre Camp, which he’s attended since kindergarten and which he loves, was less satisfied with the experience than usual. He said it was fun, but he’s decided he’s just not that good at improv (this week’s theme). It makes some sense—thinking quick on his feet is not easy for him.

Beth’s and my twenty-sixth anniversary was Monday, but the timing wasn’t good for celebrating, and we’d had dinner together at the beach with Mom and Sara babysitting, and twenty-six is kind of anti-climactic anyway so we exchanged gifts at dinner, ate the cupcakes I picked up that afternoon, and left it at that.

These were the highlights of the week: the kids both started music lessons, Noah performed in an improv demonstration, and June had her second tennis lesson (her first was right before we left for the beach). We meant to have Noah take drum lessons from the teacher he’s had the past two summers but the teacher wasn’t returning my email or calling me back. This was not particularly surprising, as he was always a bit flaky, which we put up with because he had a way with Noah. Finally, I found out by contacting a music camp where the instructor used to teach that he’s left town. Needing to find someone who could give Noah lessons for the rest of the summer, I decided to try the new music school that opened up in Takoma a few months ago. And while I was at it, I signed June up for violin lessons, because she’s been wanting to do that.

Noah’s first lesson was Monday. I took him so I could meet the teacher, but I didn’t stay and I let him take the bus home himself. He self-dismissed from camp this week, too, which made my days considerably easier logistically. I was taking June to and from camp every day, and picked her up from a play date on Wednesday and took her to and from her violin lesson on Thursday. I was on at least four buses a day and one day (it was Monday before Noah was authorized to self-dismiss) I was on seven. Noah also helped me out by cooking dinner while June and I were at her violin lesson on Thursday.

The violin lesson was much anticipated. June’s allowed two activities at a time. This spring I made an exception and let her do three because the running club at her school was practically free (it cost five dollars) and only met for four weeks. But running club, art class, and gymnastics were all long over and until recently we hadn’t signed her up for any summer lessons or classes. We sometimes don’t because she has day camps half the summer, and that seems like plenty to me, but she really wanted to start violin and tennis and she can be persuasive.

I came in to observe the lesson. I won’t in the future because June says she would prefer I don’t—“It is a private lesson,” she emphasized to me. But the teacher encouraged me to come in and I was curious to see what would happen, so I did. The teacher showed her how to hold the violin and the bow, and she taught her the names of the strings. Then she had June practice playing each individual string first with the bow, and then plucking them with her fingers. Next she taught her a simple rhythm, part of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and had her play it. June seemed to like the teacher and was happy to be playing her instrument at the first lesson. (We’d told her how when Noah took Suzuki violin lessons as a preschooler he had to practice how to stand and how to hold a fake violin for three months before he was allowed to have a real one.) June’s been good about practicing and is looking forward to her second lesson next week.

Friday was Noah’s improv performance. Despite what he said, I thought he did fine. He wasn’t the best performer there but he was far from the worst. There were a number of different improv games. The one he played is called “Random Phrases.” The players are given a location and two items they need to incorporate into a skit (in this case, a big city, teeth and a lava lamp). On the floor are several folded pieces of paper. At any point in the action a character can pick up a piece of paper, read what it says and try to make the phrase make sense in context. Noah’s phrase was “my ears are full of cheese.” It was pretty entertaining. I also liked the skits that start in one film or television genre and then switch to another at a cue from a counselor. So a scene about two children losing their mother in the park can go from horror to war movie to romantic comedy to kung fu, etc. You get the idea.

After the performance we stopped at the fountain so June could play in it. Noah’s decided he’s too old for this, though in this weather I would have done it in his shoes. (I considered going in myself, even though there seems to be an unwritten rule about adults not doing this. Why do kids get all the fun?) Next we had pizza at Zpizza and ice cream at Cold Stone.

Saturday we had a very pleasant day. It was just a smidge cooler (mid-nineties) and better yet we spent the morning on a series of air-conditioned errands. Tennis was first. I missed seeing June’s first lesson because it was the morning we left for the beach and there was packing and chores to do. June missed the second lesson while we were at the beach, so this was the third one, for the group anyway. The lessons are held in a huge white tent, which contains ten tennis courts. Two had kids’ lessons in progress. Adults were playing games on the others. Most parents wait in the lobby and that’s what Beth did, but June didn’t seem to mind me and Noah coming to sit on the bench in her court and watch. Maybe that was because it wasn’t a private lesson.

There were eight kids in the group, seven girls and one boy, aged seven to ten. They lined up and the instructor corrected the way they positioned their feet and held their racquets, for both forehand and backhand. (Later June said backhand was hardest because she missed the initial instruction for that.) Then he threw two or three tennis balls to each child and gave them pointers. Once everyone had two turns doing this, he sped things up, having the children run to where they were supposed to hit the ball and throwing it to them faster. Every now and then he’d stop to talk them through problems if they arose. Then he switched back to a slower pace and gave each child up to three tries to hit the ball. This time whenever a child hit the ball his or her turn was over.

The kids’ skill levels were all over the map. June almost always hit the balls the instructor threw but only one went over the net. This put her pretty much in the middle, as some kids sent every ball sailing over the net, and others missed almost every ball. Toward the end of the lesson, June got a bit antsy and started playing air guitar with her racquet while she was in line waiting for her turn, but overall she seemed happy and engaged throughout the lesson.

After a trip to the music store for new drumsticks and a drum key, Office Depot, and Starbucks we headed home. The kids and I watched Oliver! because that’s the musical June’s drama camp is doing next week. We went out for Mexican because I didn’t feel like cooking dinner. It was a nice way to end a hectic week.

Sunday we had some welcome rain (just some sprinkles really but anything was welcome) and Noah had a three-hour orientation for band camp at the University of Maryland. In addition to percussion, he’s taking electives in world drumming, movie soundtracks, and technology. He was pleased with his assignments, though he’d hoped to get into conducting. Next week we’ll have two performances to attend—selected scenes from Oliver! and a band concert. I’m looking forward to it. Also, it’s supposed to be cooler, in the eighties most days. I think it could be a good week.

Rock Around the Clock, Revisited

Posted on July 2, 2013 by Steph

[Show as slideshow]

Five years ago I wrote a blog post in which I related what I was doing every hour on the hour during the first day of July (“Rock Around the Clock” 7/1/08). Noah had just finished first grade and was attending day camp at his old nursery school that week. Given that June has just finished first grade and is attending day camp at the Purple School this week, I thought it might be fun to repeat the exercise, to see what’s the same and what’s changed in our lives in the past five years.

Some of what’s changed is obvious. In the past five years the country elected and re-elected America’s first African-American president, we got married, and both of our fathers died. (Today would have been my father’s seventieth birthday, so that’s on my mind more than usual.) But I’m actually most interested in the little things, rather than these political and personal milestones. How does day-to-day life feel the same and how is it different?

I was half-tempted to shift it one day forward because the first time I did this, Noah had an after-camp play date with another camper and former nursery school classmate, and today, June’s doing the same (it’s in progress as I write). But I decided I didn’t want to force the similarities; I’d just let the chips fall where they may and so I stuck to the first of July, five years later.

So, here’s how yesterday went, hour by hour.

June no longer wakes me in the middle of the night on a regular basis so when the day began at midnight and every hour from then until 6:00, we were all asleep. June did make an unauthorized entry into our room at 6:20 a.m. to report a dispute over computer access, but as I am not my very best when first woken, Beth resolved it.

7:00 a.m. Per the agreement Beth had brokered, Noah was eating breakfast and June was watching something on the computer. I was at the other computer, checking the blogs I read first thing most mornings.

8:00 a.m. I was noticing how quiet the house was now that Noah had left five minutes earlier. He’s volunteering at the Purple School this week for student service learning hours, helping Lesley organize her photo archives and she wanted him to report at 8:15, forty-five minutes before camp begins so she could get him started on the project. This leads us to one of the biggest differences between the two days. Dropping the seven year old off at camp and spending the day with the two year old is not very much like having the twelve year old leave on his own, and then dropping the seven year old off at camp and being alone for two and a half hours. Noah would be home before June, but I still had some alone time and I was pondering how to spend it. Would I work the whole time? Or go to Starbucks and read the novel I hadn’t touched since Noah got back from YaYa’s house (and I started reading a lot to him) a week earlier? Go ahead, guess. You know the answer.

9:00 a.m. June and I climbed the steps of the Purple School and left our bag of plastics in a box on the porch. It’s a tinkering camp, which means they build things, and Lesley is focusing on plastics and environmental awareness this summer. She read to them from Moby Duck on the first day and they talked about the long journey plastics make between manufacture and use, and then again after use. I said goodbye to June, waved to Noah, who was ensconced at a computer in the main classroom, chatted with a few parents I know, and returned home.

10:00 a.m. After hanging the first load of laundry of the day on the line and starting the second in the washer, I was headed out the door with my novel, Last Man in Tower and my wallet, when I decided to grab an umbrella. It was getting increasingly cloudy and I thought if I took an umbrella, it might not rain and the laundry could dry. (Oh come on, like you never engage in magical thinking.) When I opened the door, I noticed with some dismay that the sidewalk was wet. Should I take the laundry down? It was only misting and maybe the sun would come out later, I reasoned. Besides, it wasn’t like the clothes were dry and needed to be rescued from the damp. I left.

11:00 a.m. I was returning from Starbucks under a heavier rainfall than before. I decided I’d take the clothes down once June got home and put them in the dryer then. I didn’t want to squander any more work time.

12:00 p.m. I was on the porch, reading and highlighting a study about the bioavailability of curcumin. Noah had arrived home around 11:30 and was now on the phone with YaYa and her sister Jenny, discussing a personal Monopoly board he’s designing for them, based on their life experiences.

1:00 p.m. I glanced at the time, and realizing I needed to leave in fifteen minutes to get June, I went to the kitchen and ate some Indian leftovers from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival we’d attended the day before. I ate straight from the takeout container, standing at the kitchen counter to save time. Out the kitchen window I noticed the clothesline, which had been fraying for some time, had broken and half the clothes on it were now lying on the wet grass. No time to do anything about it now.

2:00 p.m. June and I had returned, she was playing on the porch, re-decorating a little house she’d built for a tiny stuffed bunny at Tink Camp last summer (or maybe it was the summer before that). I was sending Beth a message about how Noah was still talking to YaYa and Jenny about their game, now via Face Time, and what a good grandson he is. I also said he should go into business providing tech support to women over fifty because that was basically what he’d been doing all day.

3:00 p.m. June was now playing in the yard, running around and imagining something that involved a lot of urgent talking between characters. I’d just finished planting two cucumber vines in a newly dug plot—these were the last two out of seven we planted this season after many trials with slugs and a mysterious fungal disease. I was peering into the hatch of the car, looking for the new clothesline Beth had bought a few weeks ago when I first noticed the old one was fraying. I’d already taken the clothes off the line and put them in the dryer. I was intending to string up the new line, but I couldn’t find it, gave up on the project, and decided to ride the exercise bike instead. Noah’s marathon collaborative game board construction project was still underway.

4:00 p.m. June was watching Phineas and Ferb, The Movie and I was reading Rip Tide to Noah.

5:00 p.m. Noah and I had finished our book, and while he headed down to the basement to play his drums and June had moved on from Phineas and Ferb to Mulan, I went to the computer to check the library hours and bus schedules, trying to decide if a trip to the library before dinner was feasible. He wanted to go back to the Shadow Children series we’d started this spring. The library has the series but I decided it would delay dinner too much. I thought I’d ask Beth for a ride to the library if she got home early enough.

6:00 p.m. Noah was downstairs jumping on the mini-trampoline and June was back outside. I’d almost finished dinner for the adults (quinoa, snow peas, and broccoli with a peanut-coconut milk sauce) and was wondering what to give the kids for protein as they had both tasted and declined the sauce. I probably fall back on mozzarella string cheese too often when faced with this question, but that’s what I did. They both ate the quinoa and vegetables, so I’m calling it a win. I even tossed in some peas from June’s garden plot. They’re almost finished but every now and then June finds a few pods and picks them. While I was cooking, she’d handed me these three pods so reverently, I knew they needed to go into that very meal. I put the biggest, roundest two peas on her plate, on top of the rest of her dinner.

7:00 p.m. June had asked me to read to her from an abridged version of The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew around 6:45 and I’d told her I was going to clean up from dinner first, but to alert me if it was 7:00 and I wasn’t reading to her yet. She did and I left the rest of the dishes on the counter and read the last few chapters of the book to her. “That was a good book,” she declared. I’d mentioned to her previously we have the unabridged version as well, but she thought this one was “long enough.”

8:00 p.m. Because Beth didn’t get home until almost 7:30 and June goes to bed at 7:45, we couldn’t go to the library together so she’d offered to take Noah and leave me at home. I considered what to do with my unexpectedly quiet house and snuck in a little of the work I didn’t do in the morning. (When they came back they had the next three books in Noah’s series and gelato to boot.)

9:00 p.m. I was reading my original hourly blog post and planning out this one.

10:00 p.m. Beth and I were in bed, lights out, talking politics (specifically DOMA, civil rights, and reproductive rights).

11:00 p.m. Everyone was asleep.

Looking at these two timelines together I see some differences that are hardly surprising. I have more time to work than I did when I was a stay-at-home mom with a toddler. I also sleep better, and no one clings to my legs and screams when I try to cook. I don’t have to change any diapers. These are all improvements, even if I don’t get to read on my bed, while a small child sleeps in the crook of my arm any more. Instead I have older, more capable children, one of whom played independently most of the afternoon and another who was knowledgeable, co-operative, and patient enough to be a real help to three adults over the course of the day.

But the Purple School is still a place we go to learn, play, and work, two years after our youngest child moved on to elementary school. I still read to the kids and read my own books whenever I can, and we still go to the library a lot. Lest we seem too virtuously bookish, I should add that the kids still usually watch as much media as we let them (two hours a day each at present). We still garden every summer. Beth and I still go to bed early and talk in the dark before sleeping. Much has changed, but that much is still the same, and I hope we’re still tending plants, reading books, and talking together five years from now.

Now some questions for you: How has your life changed in the past five years? How do you think it will change in the next five? What do you hope stays the same?

Arts Alive!

Posted on May 25, 2013 by Steph

[Show as slideshow]

You always know when the end of the school year is drawing close because suddenly there are all kinds of arts events on the calendar. It started with the Purple School garden and art party last weekend, which we attended though it’s been two years since we had a child in that (or any) preschool. A lot of June’s classmates have younger siblings still at the school so we knew there would be a lot of people we knew there, and delicious food, and art festooning the schoolyard fence. We were not disappointed.

We ate and socialized and exclaimed over how big everyone’s kids were getting and picked off the oak pollen that kept falling onto our hair. I actually didn’t look at much of the art, which I felt bad about later, because Lesley is a skilled art teacher and the curriculum of the school is arts-based, so the children’s work is always impressive. But there was no pressure to find my own child’s art as soon as we got there and there were so many old friends to talk to, I just didn’t get around to walking the whole perimeter of the yard. I did admire a painting by Talia’s younger brother Nate–it was swirl of red, yellow, and black paint evocatively titled “So Many Dragons”– and I went inside to see the self-portraits the 4/5s class does every year because those are always wonderful. While we were there Lesley filled out the paperwork for Noah to volunteer at the school over the summer. (He’s going to help her organize and catalog her online archives.)

Tuesday evening was the art show at June’s school. It seemed smaller than in previous years, or maybe it was the same number of pieces in fewer, bigger groupings, but I was glad the show was happening at all because last year it was canceled due to staff cuts in the art department. We found June’s painting of a monkey in the style of Henri Rosseau almost immediately and from there we took in the rest of the show at a pretty fast clip, despite the fact that her school has eight hundred students and everyone has at least one piece in the show. I did have time to admire the glazed ceramic cupcakes and castles and the layered three-dimensional paper cutouts of landscapes and seascapes. When Noah attended this elementary school he always wanted to do a thorough job appreciating every single piece at the art show, sometimes beyond the time I wanted to spend, but June was just the opposite. She led us quite briskly through the show and we were in and out of there in twenty minutes, even though we did pause to take pictures of our faces in cutouts of famous works of art. I might have encouraged June to linger more and look for her friends’ work, but there was bedtime to consider and Noah was at home alone doing homework (or perhaps not doing it), so I let her hurry us along.

Thursday was Arts Alive at Noah’s school. I didn’t quite understand the nature of the event until we got there, as it’s his first year in middle school. I was expecting a regular band/orchestra/choir concert with some art hanging in the hallways to view beforehand, but it was more considerably more extensive than that. Instead of one concert there were three with breaks in between. We only attended the band segment so we could have more time to take in everything else There was art in the halls and in the gym, but there were also videos to watch on laptops, and picture books the eighth-graders had made to read and then donate to third-graders at a nearby elementary school. There was also a museum of quite detailed model buildings from different historical periods made by seventh grade World Studies students.

We got to talk to the seventh and eighth grade Media teachers about what Humanities magnet students do in those grades. (In eighth grade they take a five-day field trip to New York City and conduct a video interview of someone of their own choosing.) Once you visited all five areas and got your program stamped at each station you could enter a raffle but we never heard them call any more numbers after we got our tickets, probably because we were in the concert from then until we left.

The concert itself was short and mostly consisted of songs the band has been playing at festivals and competitions all spring. Middle school band is a lot more involved than elementary school band and entails a lot of field trips. (Just two weeks ago they traveled to Pennsylvania where they played at a festival in the morning and went to Hershey Park in the afternoon.) At the concert, the band teacher announced that the band had taken top marks at both the county and state-level competitions they attended this spring. And then an administrator announced that the band teacher, who’s really wonderful and who had a nice rapport with Noah, will be switching schools next year. I was sad to hear that. We’ll miss her.

Anyway, the band sounded great on all their competition pieces and not bad on the medley of Beatles songs, considering they’d only been practicing it a couple weeks. As usual, we couldn’t see Noah, but there was just a moment when Beth caught a glimpse of his face and snapped a picture. (In the car on the way home I quizzed him about what instruments he’d played in each piece— bells, claves, cymbals, snare drum, and wind chimes was the answer.) I do wish I could see him at concerts. It would be so much more satisfying to know which sounds he was making at the time instead of trying to recreate the experience later.

Anyway, by eight-thirty we were leaving the school. Walking into the parking lot, we were surprised at how light it still was, even on a cloudy evening. That’s another sign that summer’s coming, as if the exuberant blossoming of art and music wasn’t enough.

Half-Time

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Steph

[Show as slideshow]

At dinner a couple weeks ago, on the last night of the second quarter, I observed that on that very day, Noah had reached the mid-point of his public education. Six and a half years down, six and half years to go. He seemed amused and pleased by this observation.

Then the other day, while I was engaged in the mundane task of sweeping the hall floor, I had a similar realization. Noah is eleven years and nine months old. In eleven years and nine months, June will be gone, two months into her first year of college. That means around a month ago we passed the midpoint of our parenting-kids-at-home years. There’s still a lot we haven’t experienced—like parenting teens, but we’ll get there soon and we’ve had our babies and toddlers and kids with us for longer already than they will be staying. This made me feel alarmed and then melancholy. How could this adventure be half over already?

But the middle is a good place to be. Both kids brought home great report cards last week. Even though he continues to have trouble remembering to turn in his homework Noah still earned all As and Bs, and June’s marks were good, too. Her report card came with a notation that she’s reading at a second grade level, which was about what I would have guessed. Both kids are happy and engaged in school and in their extracurricular activities.

June’s first basketball game was Saturday. Her coach moved the team to a different league this season, the county league instead of the town one, so they could play other all-girl teams. While spirited, full of heart and grit, and just plain adorable, the Purple Pandas finished their season 0 and 8 last winter, playing co-ed (mostly male) teams. This year they are the Red Pandas (which as Beth points out is a real animal). The season is structured differently with a month of twice-weekly practices before games start, and a short, four-game season in February.

I’d been to a few of the practices so I knew the Pandas were much improved over last year. About two thirds of the players from last year’s team are back and the new girls have integrated into the team well. Several of the Pandas played on the June’s soccer team last fall so they’ve developed a good esprit de corps. They understand how to look for passing and scoring opportunities and exploit them and they’re demonstrating better basic skills. They are no longer afraid to knock the ball away from another player and no longer shocked and hurt when an opposing player grabs it from them. A lot more of them can easily make a basket and June has even made a few, though never at a practice I attended so I have yet to see it.

Saturday morning June woke excited for the game. She went out into the driveway to practice dribbling right after breakfast. She drank a glass of water when I mentioned her coach recommended they hydrate throughout the day. After lunch we drove out to the game, which was being held in the gym of an elementary school about a half an hour away.

Spirits were high among the Pandas. They were wiggly and full of energy as they lined up to practice shooting baskets and at one point before the game started they all broke out into the Mexican Hat Dance. Maggie, the coach’s daughter and a classmate of June’s since nursery school, had brought an American Girl Doll dressed in a cheerleader’s outfit to cheer for her. (Maggie’s mom was in charge of the doll during the game.)

There were enough players on both teams to split them in half and run two games simultaneously. June’s best friend Megan, a new Panda, was in June’s game and early on, she scored the first basket. I imagine that was satisfying, especially as her out-of-town grandmother was there to watch. I won’t give a play- by-play, but overall I was impressed at how well the Pandas performed. It was the first game I ever watched in which they looked better than the other team. They passed to each other and set up shots more skillfully, and they won, or at least I think I did. By my count the score was 6-4, though another parent thought it was 6-6, and there’s no official scorekeeping so there was no way to know for sure. At the end of the game, however, Megan came off the court screaming, “We won! We won!” so I guess she agreed with my scorekeeping.

There was no uncertainty on the other side of the gym. Over there the Pandas were dominating. Almost every time I glanced at the other game Sally had the ball and I saw it sail through the net a couple times. I heard the score was 14-4 at halftime.

Immediately after the game June said it was fun and she seemed pleased to have won, but in the car on the way home, she was mulling things over and was dissatisfied with her own playing. She hadn’t touched the ball the whole game, she said. A few times a teammate tried to pass to her but she never caught the ball. Beth reminded her she’d done some good defensive work, getting in opposing players’ way and preventing them from catching the ball, and then she discussed ways a smaller player like June might use a move like a fake to get back into the action when bigger girls (which in June’s case is all of them) were in her way.

Later that afternoon, June had a play date with Malachi, a kindergarten classmate who played in the Takoma basketball league last winter. His team bested the Pandas twice last winter, once by at least twenty points, I think. This year he’s playing in a different league as well and he’d also had a game earlier in the day. When his mom dropped him off and all the adults were asking the kids if they had fun at their games, Malachi got right to the point.

“Did you win?” he said.

“Yeah,” June said. And then they picked up a rubber ball and started bouncing it back and forth to each other in the living room. Later I heard them swapping basketball tips.

Tuesday there was another big event, Noah’s Honors Band concert. We had a hard time deciding whether to let him join this band because he’s often overwhelmed with homework and his practice for regular band. Plus, the weekday evening practices at a school a half hour away seemed as if they could be difficult logistically. But Noah wanted to do it and it only lasted six weeks, so we said yes. As we expected, Tuesdays were completely impossible. I think the only time Noah didn’t go to bed well after his bedtime with uncompleted homework was on a day there was practice, but no school. Nonetheless, he seemed to enjoy it and there was the bonus of time spent carpooling with Sasha, so it was worth it.

The boys needed to be at the concert forty-five minutes early so Sasha’s mom took them and then we swung by his house and got his dad so only one of four adults had to wait that long. In the car, Sasha’s dad said Sasha was worried they weren’t ready. Noah had expressed similar sentiments after the second to last practice. They only had five practices, spread out over one month, unlike regular band, which meets three times a week after school for months before there’s a concert. If things were a little rough around the edges, it would be no wonder.

We arrived while the orchestra was on stage rehearsing. I scanned it for kids I knew and I saw a girl who attended the Purple School in Noah’s class playing first cello, and a girl from his second elementary school playing violin. I recognized her because she has the quirk of always wears something with a zebra pattern. It was a hair band that day. When you count Sasha, who attended Noah’s first elementary school and plays clarinet and a girl from his middle school on saxophone that’s someone from every school he’s ever attended, and there were probably more I couldn’t see.

The director of instrumental music for the county gave some opening remarks in which we were urged to lobby for more music staffing in the elementary schools and soon the orchestra was playing. Up to last night I’d never heard an all-string version of “We Will Rock You,” but now I have. I am not a musician and possibly not the best judge, but in my experience of elementary and middle school concerts, I notice differences in skill levels most in the strings sections and I have to say, the orchestra sounded good.

The band was great, too. I caught my best glimpse of Noah as they filed onto the stage. Percussion is always in the back so I often can’t see Noah at all during his concerts. This time toward the end, I realized if I craned my neck a certain way and peered underneath a music stand two flutists were sharing I could see his hair, his forehead and his drumsticks in motion. So that was kind of gratifying, but I did miss seeing him in action for most of the concert. He was playing a lot of different instruments—cowbell, spoons, sticks, suspended cymbals, triangle, wind chimes, and xylophone. It would have been nice to know what sounds he was making at any given time. (I even had him tell me ahead of time what he was doing in each song and then promptly forgot.). But that complaint aside, it was a really impressive concert. The kids worked hard and it showed.

Percussionists are always the last to leave the building after a concert because they have a lot of work carrying all the drums and other instruments off the stage and into the band room. While we waited, we chatted with Sasha and his parents about band camp at the University of Maryland. Sasha went last year, loved it and is planning to go again.

In the car on the way home Noah said the concert was fun, but he was glad Honors Band was over. I will be happy to have more manageable Tuesday evenings (and for him not to be staying up late trying to finish his late assignments the rest of the week as he did tonight), but I’m also happy he did it. I love to watch my kids play, whether it’s basketball, drums or anything else they try. I’m grateful to have another eleven and half years at the sidelines and in the audience.

The Twenty-Degree Picnic

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Steph

[Show as slideshow]

Cold is relative. I know this because for two years right after I graduated from college, Beth and I lived in Iowa City—we were attending grad school at the University of Iowa. We’d spent the past four (or in Beth’s case five) winters in northeastern Ohio, so we were halfway acclimatized when we got there, but winters in Iowa can get very, very cold. And the temperatures fluctuate wildly, dropping from forty above to forty below and back again sometimes in the space of a couple days.

One winter day after it had been below zero for a long stretch of time and was starting to warm up a bit, I was spending the day doing research in a library where no food was allowed. I’d packed a lunch, but I wasn’t sure where to eat it, as it would have been a longer walk to the student union than I cared to make. I wanted to eat as quickly as possible and get back to work, so I decided it wasn’t too cold to eat outside, on the banks of the Iowa River. There was snow on the ground, so I removed my coat and spread it out like a blanket for my picnic. It was twenty degrees outside that day. It only struck me later how strange that behavior might seem to someone to whom twenty degrees seemed very cold.

I am that person now. We’ve lived in the Washington metropolitan area for almost twenty-two years now. We don’t routinely add “above” or “below” to temperatures in the winter any more. It’s always above here. And weather like we’ve been having the past few days with highs below freezing, some days in the twenties, and lows in the teens is noteworthy. It looks as if we’ll have five or six days in a row with high temperatures below freezing, which is good news because it should mean fewer slugs in the garden this spring.

The cold snap started Tuesday, the last day of a four-day weekend for the kids. They had Monday off for Martin Luther King Day and Tuesday was a grading day for teachers, because the second quarter just ended. Beth had MLK Day off, but she was back to work, or rather off to New York on a one-day business trip.

I thought if we stayed cooped up in the house all day the kids might just kill each other, so the invitation for June to play at Megan’s house in the morning was welcome indeed. While she was gone I read three chapters of The Subtle Knife to Noah and he started practicing percussion.

On June’s return, I left Noah with a to-do list of homework and chores and I whisked her off to the library. She was put out. She wanted to watch My Little Pony on Netflix—this is her new obsession. If she has media time left on any given day she’s uninterested in any activity that does not involve watching brightly colored and emotionally overwrought ponies solve their relationship dramas. She was even less enthusiastic when she learned I wanted to walk home from the library (I agreed to take the bus there). The temperature was probably in the low twenties, but it was sunny, and I wanted some fresh air, and to experience the weather, rather than hide from it all day. I put on a heavy sweater, leggings under my corduroys and two pairs of socks. I dug out June’s mittens and snow pants and she said, “Snow pants? Really? It’s not snowing.” I told her they were for warmth.

The bus came more or less on time so we weren’t waiting long at the stop. Once we were inside the library, June, who at home said she didn’t want any books, changed her mind and went to browse in the children’s room while I photocopied the last three poems in the poetry collection Noah’s been reading to us at bedtime so I could return the book. While I picked a new poetry book (a Walt Whitman collection for kids) and found a bilingual storybook for June, she found a couple easy readers for herself. Then it was back out into the cold. I enjoyed the walk, which was just long enough to be invigorating. June was less enthusiastic, but she knew better than to complain too much. Walking in all weather is just part of having a mother who doesn’t drive, and who frequently declines to take the bus when her children think that’s clearly the only sensible thing to do.

Noah had a bit of outside time while we were gone too because one of the items on his list was to cut down some weed trees in the back yard that were growing in the path on the way to the compost pile. “But it’s cold out,” he’d protested. I know he likes this particular chore, though, so I wasn’t surprised when he agreed to do it when offered the choice of indoor cleaning instead. He put his snow pants and coat on right over his pajamas so when we got back he was back inside, doing homework in his pjs, much as we’d left him.

I made hot chocolate for June and myself to warm up from our walk, and then a batch of peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies because it seemed like a cozy cold weather thing to do. When Beth got home from New York around 7:30, she seemed happy to have them waiting for her.

The next day the kids went back to school. It was sixteen degrees when June and I went out to the bus stop. When we got there she sat down on the pavement to read one of her new library books and then almost immediately stood back up. She wasn’t wearing her snow pants because I didn’t want to risk her leaving them at school so her legs were clad only in a pair of cotton leggings.

Shortly after June got on the bus, I walked to Starbucks, where I enjoyed a green tea latte and read a chapter of the Dorothy Sayers mystery I got for Christmas. I noticed patches of ice here and there on the streets and parking lots. We’ve had such a mild winter this was an unaccustomed sight.

Back at home, I worked until 3:35, a little longer than usual because June had after-school karate. As I walked along the wooded path to pick her up, I noticed the creek was partially frozen, rimmed with ice at the edges, and covered with the thinnest skin of ice all the way across in places. The temperature hadn’t been above the mid-twenties for two days. I wondered what it would take to freeze the little creek solid. Iowa weather, probably. I scanned the banks for crocuses because they grow in profusion near the creek, but I didn’t see any yet.

And why would I even look for crocuses in January? Because it’s been so warm, bulb flowers are emerging from the ground earlier than usual. I’ve seen crocuses in bloom on the college campus near our house and Sasha’s mom recently mentioned her neighbor’s snowdrops are blooming. In our own yard, forty-some daffodils have poked through the soil. It started two weeks ago and I keep willing them to stop, not to get any taller, not to open, partly because I fear the blooms wouldn’t survive a cold snap like this one, and partly because it’s hard to take pleasure in the heralds of spring when winter’s only a month old.

Anyway, I mentioned seeing crocuses to June a couple days ago and she said at once that when they bloom down by the creek she wants to have a picnic down there like we did last year one day on our way home from after-school yoga. I promised her we would.

Megan’s in karate with June, so Kerry was there to pick her up, and she offered us a ride home. I hesitated just a moment before saying yes because I do enjoy the walk through the woods with June, but even though I had her snow pants and mittens in my bag, I decided I’d had enough of the cold for now, and I think June had too. Her chin was red and raw with the rash she gets in the cold and which she makes worse by continually licking it.

Wednesday night it snowed, just a half inch, but that was enough for our school district to call for a two-hour delay today. I didn’t really mind. Noah had been up past his bedtime two nights in a row because of Honors Band practice and homework and I thought it would do him good to sleep. He was up by 6:50 (an hour later than usual) and didn’t need to leave the house until 8:35 but it took him that long to eat breakfast, get dressed, and pack his backpack so he didn’t have any time to play in the snow, or even to help me shovel for more than a few minutes.

June surprised me by saying she didn’t want to go outside. I reminded her a few times that this could be the only snow we got this year (unlikely but statistically possible—we’ve had a few completely snowless winters in our time here). Finally she relented and we got her into snow pants and boots and mittens and a coat.

Once we were outside she was enchanted by the snow. In just under an hour she sledded many times down the little hill in our back yard (in various positions—sitting up, lying down on her stomach and on her back), made a snowman (or rather a decorated snow pile, as the snow was too dry to form balls), made a snow angel, and took a walk with me down to the creek. It was more frozen than the day before, partly snow-covered ice, and partly snow-covered rocks with water flowing around them. June and I stood on a bridge than spans the creek and she knocked snow off the railing into the water. On the way home we walked by her favorite picnic spot, where we will go some time in the next few weeks and have our little feast at the wooden table surrounded by thousands of wild purple crocuses. I’m just hoping it’s not another twenty-degree picnic.

Purple Comets and Orange Crush

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Steph

[Show as slideshow]

First Gymnastics Class:

This is how June’s weekends will go this fall: Friday afternoon soccer practice, Saturday morning gymnastics, Sunday afternoon soccer game. This selection of extracurricular activities surprised us a little, because she was doing so well in Kung Fu we thought she’d want to continue with that, but she does like to try new things and we’d suggested gymnastics to her in the past more than once. She has the body for it, small, strong and flexible.

So two Saturdays ago Beth and June and I found ourselves entering the Silver Stars gym in Silver Spring. Beth has been there a few times before because it’s a popular birthday party venue. In fact, June attended her nursery school friend Talia’s gymnastics birthday party there only last month. Talia broke her wrist at this party, which you might think would dissuade June from the sport, but apparently not.

I’ve never set foot in the place, however, and it wasn’t what I expected. First off, it looks like you’re entering a retail space when you enter, because you are. There are all manner of toys and dolls and art supplies and stuffed animals for sale, almost none of them gymnastics-related. (We did peruse the rack of leotards because I’m thinking of getting June a long-sleeved one so she can slip on leggings and be dressed for errands or the ride home once the weather gets cooler.) June has her eye on one of those little stuffed animals kids clip to their backpack straps. It’s a purple monkey. Beth snapped a picture of it because whenever June wants something Beth adds it to the photographic Christmas list she keeps on her phone.

Someone at the door asked June her name and age and found her color-coded nametag on a clipboard. The five and six-year-olds in the 9:10 a.m. class are the Purple Comets. Once we got past the store, we found ourselves in a waiting area for parents. There are benches and cubbies for shoes and big windows that look into the cavernous gym itself. The waiting area was packed with parents, some watching through the windows, others immersed in their laptops or phones. There were several classes with overlapping times using the gym at once. A toddler class seemed to be dismissing from a separate, smaller classroom as we arrived and in the main gym there were some preschoolers and an all-boys class and a group a little older than June’s.

The Purple Comets warmed up by running in a circle and then they were divided into smaller groups of about six girls each to visit the different stations. Between parents crowded at the windows and other groups of gymnasts in my sight lines, I often could not locate June. Once while I was just staring into space, I happened to see her fly into my line of vision and land on the floor. I craned my neck to see what equipment she’d been using and it was a balance beam. She got into line to have another turn and I got off the bench so I could see better. She walked a low beam just a few inches off the floor and then a regular-height one several times, pointing her toes carefully with each step.

We also watched her bounce in a straight line across a surface we couldn’t see. (It was on a slightly lower level than the floor directly in front of us. I’m guessing it was trampoline-like because she was going very high into the air.) Then she swung her body on the uneven bars, with help from the teacher, practiced backwards somersaults on ramp-like mat, again with the teacher guiding her movements, and she tried to do cartwheels on a mat with helpful handprints on it. One of the last stations her group visited was a zip line. Beth speculated it was for upper body strength and confidence moving through the air. Whenever June’s group walked by the window, she smiled at us. While she waited in line for her turn on equipment she hopped with excitement.

When the class was over and she came through the doors into the waiting area she said, “That was the funnest sport I’ve ever done!” (And for those of you keeping track at home the list includes: soccer, t-ball, ballet, yoga, basketball and Kung Fu.) When I asked which station she liked best she said she didn’t know because “they were all fun!” I’d say she’s found her sport, but with June you never know.

I was surprised, for instance, when she told me she wanted to play soccer again this year. She seemed to enjoy it last fall but she was quite firm about not playing in the spring. She was done with soccer, she insisted. Beth thinks the existence of all-girl teams starting at the first-grade level might have swayed her.

First Soccer Practice:

The first practice was the following Friday, at 5:15. The girls are going to be practicing by moonlight by the end of the season, but for now it’s still light in the late afternoon. It was a perfect mid-September afternoon, warm and sunny with cirrus clouds scattered across a blue sky. Out of her nine teammates, June already knew three. Her BFF Megan is on team, as is Sally from preschool and basketball, and Eliza, another basketball teammate and fellow Annie actress. Beth said later she thinks that over the years we will just keep encountering the same girls and their parents over and over through June’s activities.

What with all the mom-talk, I sometimes forgot to watch what was happening on the field, but it seemed fairly standard. They warmed up by running around in a circle; they spent a lot of time kicking the balls to each other; they played a game in which the coaches pretended to be mosquitoes bent on stinging the players (if a soccer ball hit them they were neutralized). Finally the team was split in two and they had a scrimmage. Beth called and ordered pizza from the sidelines and we picked it up on the way home. Somehow this struck me as a quintessentially middle-class suburban thing to do, as if we were characters in a pizza chain television commercial or something.

Anyway, June seemed to enjoy herself and to be happy to see friends. At dinner she declared the completely average dipping sauce for the mozzarella sticks “incredibly delicious.” I think she’d worked up an appetite on the field because she ate as much as I did at dinner. She went to bed a little early and fell right asleep.

First Soccer Game:

One of the things I liked about watching kindergarten soccer last year was that they played actual games, unlike preschool soccer, which is all practice. And unlike t-ball, the games were fast moving and exciting. I had expected just to attend just the first and last games and let Beth take her to the rest but I ended up at almost every game last fall, even in November when it was cold and dark by the end of her late afternoon games. This year I’m planning to be at most or all of her games, though I will probably leave the practices to Beth, when she can leave work early.

About a week before soccer started, June told me she would like to “crush” another team. “Not like basketball,” she added, referring to the Purple Pandas’ 0 and 8 record. She reminisced about crushing teams in soccer. In fact, her team had a losing season but they did win a few games. “You won some and you lost some,” I said, happening to remember they won their first game. I wondered if they’d win their first one this year.

Beth and Noah were out of town on their annual late summer/early fall camping trip on game day so June and I got a ride to the game with her friend Megan and Megan’s mom Kerry. In the parking lot we saw Anna (formerly known as the Gray Squirrel) and her mom and brother. Anna’s playing on the red team. We wondered if June’s team would play Anna’s but they were playing the teal team. Clara from June’s kindergarten class and basketball was on that team. We really do know a lot of first-grade girls.

Once we got to the field, the moms set up our chairs at the sidelines. It was cloudy and cooler than Friday but still pleasant. The team huddled and I thought I heard a few suggestions for the team name, Orange Tigers among them, being discussed. Apparently they discussed it last week, too. Megan wants the team to be called the Orange Blossoms. Kerry said she told her it should be the Orange Crush and she didn’t get the joke. “You probably don’t let her drink soda,” I guessed, and Kerry nodded. The question was never settled, June told me later. Maybe it never will be.

The orange team and the teal team were each divided in half and sent to different fields to play separate games. Sally’s mom Kristen, Kerry and I all hauled our chairs to the other field. Even in this very first game I could see a small but noticeable improvement in the players’ skill level compared to kindergarten league games. Of course it’s likely some of them played last spring, when June didn’t.

We only got to see half of June’s teammates play and they will be split up differently every week, but from what I saw the team has some promise. Sally’s an excellent offensive player. She scored two goals, plus one more that didn’t count because she shot from inside the circle. (They are introducing more rules this year.) June had a few decent runs down the field with the ball, and although there are no official goalies at this level of play, Megan appointed herself goalie and stayed there the whole game. Almost at once I could see why–she’s good at it. Most of the play occurred in front of the orange team’s goal but Megan kept stopping ball after ball. The final score was 2-0.

“They are crushing,” Kerry commented at one point. So until they agree on a name, I will call them the Orange Crush.

There was an ice cream truck parked at the edge of the field and when the game was over Kerry treated both girls. We walked to the parking lot with Clara, who was cheerful and said it didn’t matter who won as long as you have fun and try your best. June was polite enough to pretend to agree.

“And did you have fun?” I asked Clara. She beamed and said she did.

So soccer season is off to a good start. Meanwhile, June asked recently when tennis season is, because she’d like to learn how to play.

All For The Love Of You

A Chronicle of Suburban Lesbian Family Life

Category Archives: Extracurricular Activities

February Faces

Hustle, Hustle, Hustle, Pandas!

Back to School

Consider Yourself Well In

Hot Town, Summer in the Suburbs

Rock Around the Clock, Revisited

Arts Alive!

Half-Time

The Twenty-Degree Picnic

Purple Comets and Orange Crush