On Wednesdays We Talk About Sea Lions

Sometimes I wonder how often I try to fit my square or trapezoidal experiences into a round or dodecahedral construct that already exists within my mind and memory, a framework that I can understand.

For instance, the first winter we lived in Iowa I frequently heard cows lowing in the distance, particularly at night.  I subconsciously, or maybe half-consciously, looked for cattle operations when driving outside of our little town, but I only ever found a hog farm.

One night, when the cows sounded particularly frantic, I wondered aloud about this deep mystery to Derek.  He looked at me, perhaps to see if I was kidding, then informed me that those were snow mobiles we were hearing night after night, not cows.  Not cows at all.  Then he probably laughed at me, I don't really remember.  I know I laughed at myself, because that is what you do when you mistake snow mobiles for cows, although it's not surprising my brain made this mistake- my growing-up place is marked by an excess of cows and a surfeit of snow-based recreational vehicles of any kind, because there is very little annual snowfall.

I'm not sure what pre-conceived notion my mind is grasping at when I hear a local daycare through the copse of trees that separates the daycare from our school bus stop, as I have never heard with my own ears a band of sea lions on the beach, just recordings of them on documentaries and on the internet.  But the fact remains that those children sound eerily like a recording of sea lions playing on a loop.

Hmm.  Maybe it's my hearing.

Although if it's school children that look like sea lions you're looking for, I'd advise you to drive by our local middle school around lunchtime, when mass quantities of adolescents are congregated outside on a batch of concrete and grass, and there is indeed barking and slapping and awkwardness-on-land galore.  It's really a little sad to think of; at least the sea lions can slip back into the ocean to shed the awkwardness.  Those middle schoolers are just kind of stuck, weird and cringe-inducing no matter what they do.  They have to grow out of theirs one excruciating day at a time.

This kind of grace not available to those in junior high.

I'd better stop talking about middle schoolers lest I trigger my own flashbacks and induce nightmares tonight.

Joo-Lie

This summer.  I don't even know what's happened to it.  I mean, I can look back and pick out a few things here and there, mostly because I remembered to snap a few photos, but other than that?  It's just gone.  It feels like I was just meeting Adelaide as she got off the bus on her last day of second grade a week or so ago.  But no, here it's almost the end of July.  Two of our kids go to school one month from yesterday.  It's not enough time.  It's just not.

Before this post devolves into me planning how to make our home an impenetrable bubble from which our children can never escape, let's go over some high and low lights as to what we've been up to lately.

We went to go see Mike (Steve?  Bob?  Some other man name?) the Bubble Guy do a show.

Adelaide and Atticus both got called up to participate, which was fun.  I'm always pleased when any of our children (particularly Adelaide) refuse to let shyness or fear rule their experiences.  I think it was brave of them to get up in front of a big old group of people and volunteer.  

Even Derek had fun:

At one point this month I was forced to take a week off of running due to plantar fasciitis.  This made me a (fallen) angel to live with.  I've got it mostly under control now, but I've still had to decrease my weekly distance, trying not to exacerbate whatever's going on in my stupid, stupid foot.  One plus to all this was I had to go hunting for more yoga routines and found Rachel Scott, one of many yogis who has posted videos on doyogawithme.com.  I love her teaching style:  she speaks in a strong, confident voice, none of that w i i s s p p y y, breahehehethy crap so many female yogis seem to be fond of, and she's very precise about where and how you need to place each part of your body, and why.  I'm a fan.

The kids and I went to our small local zoo:

The bald eagles were my favorite; they scared Cade.

The wallabies were more or less given free reign in the Australia section.

We headed down to the creek that trickles by a block or so from our house.  

This was ostensibly to collect small rocks to do this craft, but in reality to provide the local mosquitoes with their evening meal.

Oh, and remember those baby robins living in our front yard a few weeks ago?

I checked on them one day at the beginning of the month, and they'd gotten huge!  I couldn't believe how fast they were growing.  Then the next day, when I went to check again, they were gone.  Exactly zero people were astonished by this, except for me.  I was not emotionally ready to let go of these little guys who were most likely terrified of me.  The nest has remained vacant and desolate.

I need this next month to sloooow the heck down.  I need it to crawl.  I need to not panic at the thought of having two children in school in a month.

Five Things Friday

Here's this week's five wonderful things, from me to you:

• About a year ago I came across a superb idea on Pinterest for a better way to fold t-shirts.  This sounds drab and dreary and boring, I know, but just hang on, now, because this may not transform your entire life, but it will transform a couple of your dresser drawers, which sounds trivial, but I swear to you I feel happy every time I open my t-shirt drawer.

We live in an old house that's short on storage space, most notably closets, but thankfully soon after we moved in Derek's grandpa built us a pair of built-in dressers for our bedroom.  Now I had a place for my clothes, but for some reason folding them the traditional way (why does this make me laugh?  like, "ah, yes, the folding methods of yore") created a slop pile of shirts within the drawer.  Enter this new, rolling way of folding!  (Click on the link above for specific instructions.)  It keeps wrinkles to a minimum, I can fit more clothing in each drawer, and I can see each item of clothing with no digging.  Perfect.

• This post on Ann Voskamp's blog about procrastination.  Listen, I'm a seasoned procrastinator.  Why do today what you can put off 'til tomorrow, and all that.  If there's something specific I'm putting off, my house will be clean, my books get read, I'll find all manner of things to do to put that loathsome activity off for as long as humanly possible.  I have gotten loads better in recent years (growing up and maturing and all that necessary junk), but still- I'm a procrastinator at heart.  This post helped me to fold a formidable mountain of laundry and shampoo the carpets and do a couple other things I'd been meaning to do for a day or two (WEEKS, OKAY?  I'd been putting off shampooing the carpets for weeks.).  My brain has already supplied some perfectly acceptable reasons not to wash the sheets and clean out the fridge this afternoon, so it looks like I'll be re-reading this post every other day until it sticks.  Hey, change takes time, right?

• Thunderstorms.  This is one of the things I missed most while living in Connecticut, although Derek and I did share some gleeful chortling on the rare occasion a smallish clap of thunder would boom in the Connecticut skies, causing the natives to flinch while casting fearful looks toward the heavens.  Oh, New England.  We've had tons of rain over the past week (and by "tons" I obviously mean 3 and 5/8 inches), but I've decided not to complain about it, because that rain has been accompanied by thunder and a smidgen of lightning- nothing really severe, just fun.  

• This book:

The woman describes what it's like to grow up lovingly ensconced in a small midwestern town with total accuracy, and does it with such humor that I had to lay my head down on the table a few times, I was laughing so hard.  This book made a rough day better.  I loved it so much I may have to get my own copy (gasp!).

• The eggs hatched!  Last Sunday evening I went to check the robins' nest, and behold:

See it?  Sweet little Ugly there, on the left?  

Based on my highly exact method of zooming in as much as possible and stretching my arm way up to snap a picture, I think there are three hideous baby robins in there.  Perhaps four.  Their mama's gone most of the time, no doubt hunting up tasty morsels for which they'll no doubt be completely ungrateful.  I should note that even when taking photos, I try not to get too close to the nest; I don't want to scare the mother off or leave my objectionable human scent all over the place.  Babies!

Golfing Ballerinas. Or Dancing Golfers.

A while back Derek and I did a kind of date exchange.  He got to pick the activities for one date, and a couple weeks later I got to choose.

We're a pretty religious dinner-and-a-movie couple, so this kind of thing constitutes us showing our daring and adventurous side.  Although in our defense, a meal away from the kids is just about the most awesome thing ever at this point.  Neither of us has to cut up anyone's food.  We get to sit down and stay seated throughout the entire meal.  We're not constantly interrupted by arguments like "I bet I could eat that whole pan of enchiladas."  "No, you couldn't."  "Yes, I could."  "No, you couldn't."  "YES I COULD."  "WELL YOU'RE ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS WRONG."  "I DON'T EVEN CARE BECAUSE I CAN'T HEAR YOU BECAUSE I PUT REALLY REALLY FLUFFY BIRDS IN MY EARS SO THAT I NEVER HAVE TO HEAR YOU SO THERE."

Just in case you're curious, that was our lunchtime conversation today.

So, yes.  A meal that's overlaid with intelligent adult conversation and that contains drinks only spilled by me is simply delightful right now.

For our date exchange, however, we went a little outside the norm for date night (don't kid yourself, though, we still went out to eat.  You did read that paragraph up there, right?).  Derek chose golf.  Derek loves to golf, and goes either by himself or with the boys whenever he can, but the last time he and I went together was in the sweltering humidity of Florida while I was in my first nauseous trimester of pregnancy with Adelaide.  It was miserable, although I did see an alligator on the course.  At least I think it was an alligator; I can never remember what the difference is between crocs and gators.  Anyone have a useful acronym or something that would help me out?  Wait... do we even have crocs in North America, or are those just kind of an Australia-thing?  And how painfully obvious is it that the sum total of my croc-knowledge comes from the movie Crocodile Dundee?

Anyway.

Our first golf outing there in Florida was so successful we didn't repeat it for eight years.

Raise your hand if you think you know how this is going to turn out.

Well, you're wrong!  (At least, I'm guessing you're wrong.  This whole blogging thing is great for some things, but it's kind of a one-way street.  I guess you could leave a comment and let me know how you thought it was going to turn out.  Or not.)

We actually ended up having a great time.  Derek quite literally played the best round of his life, and I enjoyed myself way more than I thought would be possible- and that's paying attention to the game; I only read three pages of the book I brought!  (I should probably explain that I didn't golf, I just rode along while Derek did, although if you know me at all this little aside is completely unnecessary.)


As for my half of the exchange, I chose to go see Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty at the Des Moines Civic Center.  One of my favorite parts actually happened a few days before the performance itself; I mentioned something in passing to Derek about the date, and it turned out Derek thought Sleeping Beauty was a musical; he had no idea we were going to the ballet.  The mixture of chagrin and resignation on his face was priceless.

The ballet itself was beautiful if a little unusual.  I'd read up on Bourne a bit before we went and knew that his interpretation of this ballet was a bit gothic, but I really started to worry when we got there and the playbill described it as "a mix between Twilight and Downton Abbey."  Um, what?  It ended up being much better than that terrible description, although I definitely felt for the parents who brought their little girls all dressed up in Disney's Sleeping Beauty costumes, because with its fairy/vampire corps and unorthodox ending, this was no Disney production.

That's right, I said fairy/vampires.  I don't even really know how to describe it, but the lead vampire... fairy... guy...well, he was fantastic (let's see, it looks like his character is Count Lilac, because of course I still have the playbill), as was the young lady playing Princess Aurora, and the choreography was fresh and really lovely.  I enjoyed myself immensely, and Derek didn't fall asleep.  I'm actually not giving him enough credit:  Derek is an excellent sport about attending the ballet every so often and listens attentively as I critique all the minutiae of the production afterward.


Golf and ballet- they go together like ham and chocolate, peanut butter and pesto, Richard Simmons and Colin Powell.  (I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore.  I was trying to think of opposites and things that just don't go together, and Richard Simmons popped into my head.  I would apologize, but I'm being overcome by the urge to do Sweatin, With the Oldies.  Don't hate, that stuff is fun.)

Clearly we belong together.

Farms and Ranches, Ranches and Farms

While at my mom's house last week, we were graciously invited to a friend's ranch to pick strawberries and see the horses and get really dirty.


This was what Adelaide looked like pretty much the whole time we were there:

You should really click to embiggen, otherwise you won't get the full feel of just how happy and how hot she was.  It was around 60 degrees when we left Iowa that morning, and 98 by the time we rolled into my hometown.  Holy hotness.

At one point soon after we had arrived at the ranch, Caedmon was startled by a dog.  The doggie quickly went on his way, but Cade wouldn't let go of me.  He kept pointing and saying, "There's another doggie over there!"

Oh, my poor, sheltered city boy.  That "doggie" was a cow.  Well, a calf.  But still.

Adelaide loved the Lola the calf/dog.

The incomparable Liza let Atticus and Adelaide bottle feed sweet Lola.  She also helped all three kids on and off of tractors, drove us out to the horses, and answered what felt like millions of questions from the kiddos. 

Oh, and the strawberries.  So, so good.  They have a very large strawberry patch, and we certainly enjoyed picking and eating our way through it.

[Click to embiggen and see Atticus stuffing his face.]

A few days after that, the kids and I made the trek out to where my brother-in-law and his dad were farming.  They very kindly took time out of their busy day to take all four of us for numerous tractor rides.  We "helped" drill beans and something else that I don't remember.

Caedmon being carried out to one of the tractors by Mark, my two sisters' father-in-law.  Mark carries small children with an ease no doubt borne from having eight kids of his own.

Adelaide in the super fancy new tractor with Clinton.  She was a little upset with me when I wouldn't let her back on for a third go-round.

Atticus and I in the new tractor.  Atticus was impressed by all the buttons and pedals.  I was impressed by the whole thing.  I don't even want to know how much that thing cost.  

I just included this one because I think Atticus looks so much like photos of Derek when he was little.  I carried him for nine months and he doesn't have the good grace to look even a little bit like me.  The nerve of children.

It was all so fun.  And hot.  And fun.

Laaaassie!

I feel bad for Adelaide.

The reason I feel bad for her is because I have allergies.  And not just feel-like-you-have-a-slight-head-cold-every-once-in-awhile allergies, but Paul from the Wonder Years allergies.   Have to have inhalers strategically placed throughout your home and car and carry an Epipen in your bag kind of allergies.

Normally they don't affect our kids too much.  I try not to wander through giant fields of ragweed and avoid Red Lobster like it might kill me (because it could, ha...ha?).

In the past year or so, however, Adelaide has begun asking for a pet.  She knows I'm allergic to cats and dogs (I know, I know, it completely sucks to be my kids), and that, for now at least, those two animals are out.  So she's moved right on to smaller species, like turtles, hamsters, birds, etc.

Having grown up with pets, I am fully aware what would happen if we ever brought any of these animals home.  The first couple weeks (optimistically speaking), the kids would be all over them.  Feeding them, cleaning their cages, paying attention to them.  Slowly but surely, all responsibility would fall to me, Mom.

Right now is just not a good time for added responsibility.  Our kids are still young enough that I spend half my days up to my elbows in some kind of bodily fluid.  Or I'm putting every last kitchen utensil back in it's drawer.  Or I'm scrubbing chalk off the wall.  Or I'm trying to get lotion out of the carpet.  The last thing I need is an extra body to clean up after.

If Adelaide whined or threw a fit after we told her "No, you cannot have a fish right now", or "No, you cannot have a lizard ever," I wouldn't feel so bad.  That kind of behavior causes any and all sympathy to evaporate from my being.

Instead, a few days ago, Adelaide found a ladybug crawling up the wall of her bedroom.  She got it to crawl onto her finger, ran over and looked into my face, eyes shining, and breathlessly asked, "Mom, can I have a ladybug as a pet?  Please?"

She may as well have asked for "More gruel, please?"  That's how guilty I felt.

Maybe she could get a hamster.  I'm sure God didn't give me a deficient sense of smell for no reason.