The Road Trip of Sadness!

When talking about how to get our family out to Connecticut in (eep!) 1 1/2 weeks, multiple options were discussed. We could ship the van and fly out.  We could drive the van and not fly.  We could do other things that I cannot now recall because all these conversations happened weeks ago and it's all I can do to remember what I said yesterday. 

In the end, we decided to drive the van out, all five of us, 1200 miles. 

At first we thought we'd try to drive 9 hours a day for two consecutive days because it's actually only 18 hours from here to there, not 24 or however long it was from where I lived in Kansas when I had to drive out years ago.  Benefits to this included the fact that Derek would have to take fewer days off work, we'd be able to dive into the work waiting for us at the house in CT more quickly, and, well, only two days on the road.

However, I told Derek that although I knew this was going to be a tough journey and that most if not all of it would be tinged with melancholy, I did not want this to be our family's Trail of Tears, just a van full of sadness hurtling down I-80 over two days.  I wanted to somehow redeem this journey, find a way to make positive memories over those miles. 

We decided to add a day to the trip, building in some stops and taking our daily travel time to just six hours.  We'll be passing through Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut.  Whew!  We will not be stopping in each state- sorry, New York- and the stops we do have planned depend at least a bit on nice weather. 

Here's the plan:

Day One
The closing on our house in Iowa is on Day One, hopefully first thing in the morning so we can get on the road immediately following and at a decent time.  Adelaide has requested to stop at Casey's one last time before we leave the state.  Casey's is not a hometown store or local watering hole; it's a gas station chain, which makes all of this sound way less poignant.  Casey's headquarters are a scant 15 miles down the highway, however, and their locations are so abundant around here that we have two in our town of 3,500 people.  They also make surprisingly good pizza, and we nearly always stop for road trip snacks before heading off on any journey longer than a few hours.  This trip will apparently be no different.

Our first stop beyond the boundaries of beautiful Iowa is in Illinois, at Lagomarcino's Confectionary.  We'll be eating at their old fashioned soda fountain, although how I'm supposed to choose between a malt and homemade chocolates, I don't know.  Question:  what's an egg creme and do you think I should try one of theirs? 

Night One
Stay at a hotel in Indiana.  It was vitally important to Atticus that each hotel had a pool.  It was vitally important to Derek that each hotel included breakfast.  Indiana is supposed to deliver on both.  I'm hoping it's not too much to ask to also find no bed bugs.  Strike that:  no insects of any kind, please.  I'm picky that way. 




Day Two
Our plan is to stop at Marblehead Lighthouse in Ohio, where hopefully we'll be able to frolic and scamper to our hearts' content at the state park by the lighthouse, and maybe tour the lighthouse itself.  This will be our family's first exposure to one of The Great Lakes!  At least... I think it will be?  Definitely our first time at Lake Erie, anyway. 

If it's raining Marblehead wouldn't be an ideal stop, so our backup plan is Seneca Caverns, self-described as "the caviest cave in America," which is probably what landed it on a website I love, Roadside America, which highlights the kookiest roadside attractions by state.  Derek and I toured Fantastic Caverns in Missouri in college, and I remember it as being, well, fantastic, but also pricey.  Seneca Caverns looks similarly expensive, so it's definitely our second choice, but it would allow us to stretch our legs and move our bodies around a hopefully pretty cool place (ha, "cool" because it looks neat but also because it's a constant 54 degrees in there please don't leave I can't help the way I am).




Night Two
Stay at a hotel in Pennsylvania.  Pool.  Breakfast.  No bed bugs.



Day Three
Our PA plan is to look at rocks!  This has been a hard sell to the kids as I've presented it to them in just such a fashion:  "Pennsylvania = rocks!  Yessss!"  The Frontier Rock Formations really do look beautiful, though, and since one of my personal priorities for these stops is being able to move and walk around after hours in the car, this could be a good one, but again, we need decent weather.  We do not currently have a foul weather plan for PA, and so far all the attractions I've found on Roadside America, although neat sounding ("Green Mannequin Aliens and UFO," "Skeleton of Old Coaly the Mule"), all appear to be outdoors.  So... pray for clear skies, I guess?  Also on the docket for PA:  wave to Carolyn!  Oh, wait, and I think in Illinois I wave to Ernie!



Night Three
Hotel in CT not far from our new house.  Closing is first thing the next morning, after which the moving company will hopefully be there and ready to unload all our junk/treasured possessions into the house.  Goals for the hotel are same as in previous nights/states:  pool, breakfast, no bed bugs.


What else?  We've been on enough long trips with our kids to know that something will go wrong.  Flat tires, locking my keys in the car (while in Kansas City, pregnant with Caedmon, two small children in tow- that was an interesting day), sick kids, sick adults, screaming kids, sleepy drivers, road construction, scary weather, etc, etc, etc.  Something will go wrong on this trip.  It is inevitable.  I will attempt to be like bamboo, bending but not breaking.  This is difficult when you are from Kansas where the state tree is the Cottonwood; flexibility is not one of its characteristics.

I'm also bracing myself for the sadness.  We are trying to make memories on this trip, but one of those might be crying into our old-fashioned sodas in Illinois.  We may just end up infecting the eastern half of the United States with our feelings along this journey.  Sorry, U.S.A.

On a more lighthearted note, Derek is going to be vlogging throughout our trip!  He's hemmed and hawed and talked about vlogging and considered and reconsidered- after all, he knows video, he knows editing, he knows all the things and jargon that I don't even have the language for, and I like the idea of having these memories to keep in a more lasting format.  I did warn him that while I am looking forward to this trip because of the stops we have planned, I do think there will be a considerable amount of tears and crankiness due to its inherent purpose:  our exodus from our beloved Iowa.  He is aware of this.  He also said "That's what editing is for."  I'll be curious to see how he chooses to tell this story.  All of that content will be on his public YouTube channel; I'll put a link to that channel in a future post rather than buried here at the end of this one. 

Congratulations.  You made it to the end of the longest post ever.  Go have some chocolate milk to celebrate- that's my celebration drink of choice because it's delicious, and... I'm a child?   

Inspectors Inspecting, Banks Bullying

Yesterday morning, Derek accompanied the inspector on his tour of our potential house in CT.  Then he called me, said he had good news and bad news, and told me a bunch of bad stuff.

To be fair, I was at work and he was in the middle of a bunch of errands so we didn't have time for a lengthy chat.  I was still left reeling from news of a chimney that needs help and rotting cast iron pipes and live knob and tube wiring in the attic that we eventually want to reclaim and use as a third floor.  That's not to mention the carpenter ants that were thankfully remediated a year ago.

I think it's funny that in the world of pest control they use terms like "remediated" for carpenter ants and "excluded" for bats.  Even someone who loves finding the perfect word for each situation wouldn't mind more plain language here:  how about "we killed the snot out of those ants" and "the bats now know they are not welcome in this place." 

When we spoke again later in the day, Derek shared the positive parts of the inspection, because it turns out there are positive parts!  The floors are in great shape, it's a great lot, and something else good that I can't think of because I keep dwelling on all the work we might have in front of us.  

The good part about taking care of all these problems ourselves is that we'll get to live with nice, new pieces of the house as soon as we move in.  If you've ever sold a house before then you know what I'm talking about:  when you put your house on the market you're forced to finish all those little projects you've been putting off or have been allowing to hang there, unfinished and dangling in your peripheral vision.  This means you look around at all your finally-completed rooms and say, "Man, this place is nice!" and then you move.  So if we replace the five windows whose seals are broken, replace the pipes, tear out the shrubbery that's way too close to the foundation, etc, etc, then we'll get to enjoy knowing those things are new and sturdy and we're building something that will last.  

There will still be surprises, of course.  In this house it was bats, burst pipes, clogged pipes, a cranky old air conditioner, a cranky old hot water heater, downed trees, and many, many other things.  But we improved it and we made it ours, and now we get to do the same to a comparatively newer house in Connecticut.  Our Iowa house was built in 1900, while the one we're working on buying is from 1920.  I don't feel safe stating outright that we're definitely buying it, because it's currently owned by a bank because it was a flip/foreclosure.  Let me tell you:  buying a house from a bank vs human beings is very different, and by "different" I mean "completely horrible," and by "completely horrible" I mean "googles Elizabethan torture methods for the heads of impersonal national banks but deems branding and pressing too compassionate."  

So there's that.

On the Iowa house front, it's officially Sold and not just Pending.  I know this because I walked outside the other morning and the topper on the realtor's sign in front of our house had been switched from "Pending" to "Sold."  I do well with this kind of obvious messaging, and frequently ask God to make His directions as unequivocal as this one.  I mean, I don't ask for a realtor's sign staked in front of our place of residence, but I do frequently say, "Please don't be subtle about this, God; you know I don't do well with that."  He never seems to listen, though.  OR... maybe I'm the bad listener?  

Dry Needling

A friend of mine recently went through a... training, I guess?  A workshop?  A certification?  Something magical and clandestine that only physical therapists (and I think a couple chiropractors) can take part in where they lock themselves into a room and poke each other with needles until all their various aches and pains have abated and they have unlocked the secrets to a reliably good night's sleep.

That's how I imagine it went, anyway, based on the details she shared and my natural gift for confabulation. 

Anyhow, I asked this friend if she'd bring her magic needles with her when she and another friend came over last weekend.  She kindly agreed and even made us feel necessary by saying she needed plenty of dry needling practice. Then she stabbed us until we begged for mercy!

Okay, so not really.  She was very precise and professional about the whole thing- she even brought her own wee sharps container- calmly talking us through every step of the process and answering my questions with the utmost patience.  While I laid on my front, peppered her with questions, and tried to take a picture without moving any of the muscles in my posterior chain- the section she was needling- I soon realized that I wasn't feeling much of anything. 

Excuse the dead fish look on my face- I really really wanted to see what she was doing back there.

As a matter of fact, the only real sensation I felt was when she needled a certain spot in my right hamstring and elicited a twitch response.  I kept asking if the needles were in, if she'd already put one in, etc.  I couldn't feel much of anything, excepting that one spot, throughout the whole thing.  Somehow this feels like it must be connected to the fact that I can only be massaged by those with impressive upper body strength; my response to the question, "How's the pressure?" is almost invariably "MOOOOOOORE!"

The freaky part to the whole "I am an unfeeling robot" revelation was when I watched Anne dry needle our other friend, Mindy.  Not only was Mindy's response different than mine- nothing crazy, she just clearly could feel bunches of needles penetrating her flesh- but I could see how long the needles were going into her calves.  They had to be at least two inches long (currently holding my index finger and thumb up to try and gauge how long those needles looked), and most of that length went into her calf muscles.  I had to ask because it seemed so implausible, but sure enough, it was those big mamas that I wasn't feeling.  Google searches asking what the opposite of a highly sensitive person might be have so far only told me that I am a pitiless turd. 

I'm not even going to pretend to be able to explain what the proposed benefits to dry needling are.  I'll just tell you what I told Anne:  my range of motion was better for around 48 hours post-needling, especially in my right hip, where I usually suffer from limited range of motion and almost daily pain. 
Example:  normally I have no problem executing this stretch on my left leg, while my right takes a few minutes to relax into place.  It's one of my very favorite hip opening-type stretches, a kind of standing pigeon for you yoga types. 

That knee is usually floating several inches above the counter, at least at first.  After the dry needling, however, it slid right down onto the counter, parallel with my foot.  Amazing.  Also I don't know what that means.  Ask a PT.  Of additional note:  this picture was taken in the back room at work.  I take regular stretch breaks, and you should, too.


It was all a welcome break from the we're-moving-life-as-we-know-it-is-over chaos. 






Gratitudinals

1.  Not having to pay to call people long-distance anymore.  Or use those ridiculous pre-pay phone cards for the same. 

2.  Roasted pine nut hummus.

3.  The fact that corsets or stays or girdles are no longer required as part of women's daily attire.

4.  Adelaide, and not just because is even now telling me to type this.  She is a marvel.

5.  My youngest sister, Stephanie, who I can always use as a sounding board to determine what the kindest course of action is.  I don't know if it's a function of being the youngest child, or an inborn trait, or what, but she reliably points me in the nicer direction.

Selling the House

It would appear I have left out some teeny, tiny details surrounding this move.  Things like why we're moving, when, etc.

So!  Once upon a time, a young lad met a young lass.  Said young lad graduated from their shared institute of higher learning (in Kansas) and found work at a magical place called ESPN (in Connecticut).  Said lass finished her education at the previously mentioned institute, married the lad, and went to join him in Connecticut.  A few years and one baby later they left Connecticut, lived in Kansas for a year (enter baby #2) then decided they wanted those brutal winters back and went to live in Iowa, where the lad grew up.  They lived in Iowa for ten years (baby #3 added somewhere in there) before the lad and ESPN decided they must be reunited, so the now-five of them will all be embarking on a grand adventure this summer.

I left a bunch of stuff out of that, including much of anything about me in that space of time, which I'm finding annoying as I read it over again, but not annoying enough to go back and change it.  Onward!

Yes, we will be venturing out to Connecticut because Derek was once again offered a job at the big ol' sports tv place, as I call it in my head.  But before we do that, we needed to sell our house.

The last time we sold property was when we previously moved from CT, in 2008, when we hired a realtor, she took a bunch of poorly lit pictures of our 600- square foot condo and got around saying the place was miniscule by using words like "cozy" and "homey" in the online description.  Still, it sold within a few weeks and the whole procedure was relatively painless.

Let me tell you, things have changed.

First, allow me to say that we like our realtor.  He has done a wonderful job, and we have felt ourselves to be in more than capable hands.  Even without being first-time home sellers, however, we've had a lot to learn.  There was an interior decorator that toured the house with Derek, the latter of whom was instructed to take copious notes.  She had instructed me via email not to pack any decorative items, but instead to set them aside for her to use at will.  When I got home from work that day I found that she had used most of the things I'd pulled out, and in ways I never would have expected, because I do not have the decorator gene.  I can give you book recommendations until you beg for mercy and claim illiteracy, but decorating?  The most help I can be is to say things like, "Um, I really like old stuff.  Especially if it's just a little bit weird."  Which is no help at all and borderline off-topic.

She also pointed out all the places we needed to de-clutter, which was helpful to me because Derek and I had already been purging and deep cleaning for a couple weeks at that point and I felt I was becoming a bit blind to what the house actually looked like.  The rest of her instructions she seemed to sum up in two words: "Think hotel," repeated many times on the tour with Derek.  My version of this order was "Make it look like no human actually lives here," which is basically the same thing, I guess, unless you're Eloise.  No laundry anywhere, no laundry baskets, no trash cans, only the two approved towels hanging in the bathroom, no shampoo, soap, or person-cleaning product of any kind in the shower, etc.

The house looked amazing after I followed her instructions to the letter, although I only finished executing her marching orders maybe four minutes before the professional photographer arrived- another new part of the process to me.  He, too, did an amazing job.  I should add that both these professionals' services were part of the realtor's commission, so we weren't paying extra for this stuff.


Next is one of the crazier parts, at least to me.  Most of the communications surrounding the showings of our house were done via app.  We downloaded the ShowingTime app, and shortly thereafter we started getting requests for showings- local realtors wanting to book times to take their clients through the house.  I had determined early on that I would say yes to any showing, orienting our family schedule around these in order to get as many potential buyers through this place as possible.  I still say this was a good strategy, but it made for a couple of hairy days.

To be more specific:  Friday I was at a library conference all day.  Because there was so much interest in our home (yay!), throughout the day we got notifications on our phones that a showing was requested for x:xx time.  We then had the option of confirming that appointment, denying it, or requesting an alternate time, all via the app.  I confirmed every one, which was hurray, exciting! while I was at the conference, but once I'd picked up four kids from school (we had a spare that day), it got a little interesting, sounding something like, "Okay, kids, we'll be at this park for an hour, then we can go home at 5:00, okay?  Oh, wait, now it's 5:30.  Hang on, there are two more- 6:30, kids, we just gotta get to 6:30 and then we can go home!"

Thankfully it was beautiful out that day, so we turned the afternoon into a tour of our local parks.  And then we did the same thing most of the day Saturday as showings kept ding-dinging my phone; those then ran right into the open house.  Again, all good things!  But I did get tired of driving by the house to see if anyone was there, then dashing in to vacuum all the floors between showings because evidently it is no longer considered rude to track mud through a stranger's house.


All of those things felt as if they had been worth it when we had multiple offers by Saturday afternoon.  Our house is pending!  Another hurdle cleared!  Hurray and huzzah!

I will confess I'm still kind of waiting for the bottom to fall out on this offer, for something to go wrong.  I don't know if this means I'm a determined pessimist, I have a stress hangover from getting the house ready to sell, or what.

A strange/fun detail about all of this:  the buyers are our neighbors.  She stopped Derek outside the day after the sign went up in our yard and told him she wanted to buy our house, that she'd loved it since they moved to the neighborhood a few years ago.  I figured this was just talk, but evidently some people actually do the things they say they're going to do.  Strangely, this gives me hope for our society.  I have a new level of self-consciousness when I'm in our front yard now, though, making sure they can see I'm plucking out every errant weed and not slacking on maintaining the house in our final weeks here.  It was also interesting to open up the back of the van and pull out all the laundry and junk I'd stashed back there because it wasn't allowed in the house for the showings and open house.  If they were watching out their windows, they could absolutely have seen just how much I had to haul out there to fool the world into thinking no one currently lives here.

  

Not the gif I was looking for, I admit, but absolutely the gif I needed.




Sunday's Gratitudinals

1. Biographies and Memoirs.  Recent favorites include Becoming by Michelle Obama (the former first lady describes politics as "nasty" at one point.  How much more relatable can you get?)  Inheritance by Dani Shapiro (la di da, I think I'll do one of those DNA tests you mail off, it will be fun!  Wait, is this right?  Is this test saying one of my beloved parents isn't biologically related to me?  And this means I'm not a full Jew when that's a huge part of my identity?  WHAT?), and of course, the current favorite the world over, Educated by Tara Westover, which absolutely lives up to the hype.

2. Bosu Balls.  Last week I was excited that our gym finally got one, and this week I'm excited because I realized I was using it upside down, so now I'm fixing that, and let me tell you, it is way easier to stand on those things right-side up.  Look, figuring out little things like which way is up is hard sometimes, okay?  And doesn't this just mean I'll be able to say I know Bosu balls backwards and forwards?

3.  Indoor plumbing.  Forever and always.

4.  Friends and needles, especially together, as it turns out.  No, I'm not a recreational drug user.  Someone remind me to post about dry needling sometime this week.

5.  Having a daughter who is borderline obsessed with the periodic table of elements.  If you have a similar loved one, this book (shown below) is a fantastic gift, and will quickly become a comfort book for them.

Up and Down and Down Some More and Then Up Again

If you're wondering what preparing to move a family of five 1200 miles away is like, here's the best gif I can find to approximate that feeling:

And the soundtrack is something like, "YaaaaAAAAaaaay!" immediately followed by "NoOoOoOoo!"

Repeat ad infinitum.

"Ad infinitum" is the problem with this whole process, really, at least at this point.  We're past the initial excitement, and the weeping while you break the news to your local loved ones (well, mostly), and the brainstorming about what the future could look like.  We're solidly in the middle, where for every one task you complete, eight more pop up in its place.  

For instance:  Be sure to get everyone to all the various doctors before you go.  Congratulations, you got all your people to the doctor/dentist/eye doc- more or less.  Oh, but wait, now you need to cancel any appointments more than two months in the future.  Make sure you sign any release forms because someday very soon you really will live in CT and some future doctor will need access to your records. What about insurance?  What about when you're trying to clean the inner glass on the oven door because oh yeah you're also getting your house ready to sell and you insist on taking the oven door off yourself because hello you watched, like, two YouTube videos on this and are therefore an expert, but then the door made a scary sound amongst your fiddling so now you need Husband to come help, and he obliges but then the door makes the scary sound again but this time the sound is accompanied by lots of blood everywhere and now it's time to hustle the family out to the car to take Derek to Urgent Care because that door dang near near sliced his right thumb off.  And now you get to add changing the dressing on his thumb daily, plus multiple daily doses of antibiotic, plus finding a doc in CT to take those stitches out in ten days.  

You know- like that.

What I'm saying is, it's stressful.  It's insanely stressful.  And so I've found myself to be just the teeniest bit cranky and out of sorts lately, and feel like it's even infecting the tone of these posts.  So while I've told myself that I want to post close to daily throughout this process so that someday I have something to look back on- half of my memories of our kids' young childhood is thanks to this blog- I don't want it to be a daily whine-fest.  To help battle that back, my thought is to finish each post with a list of five things I'm thankful for on that day.  I'm hoping this will change my mindset, but also reserve the right to abandon the idea pretty much whenever I want, because changing my mind at will is one of the things I exercise with wild abandon in my life.  

Today's Gratitudinals  (Is that a word?  Probably not.  Does it matter?  Definitely not.)

1.  My vacuum.  It's a Shark that we bought maybe a year ago, and we have become extremely well acquainted whilst getting this house ready to sell/ cleaning up after all the nasty people that live here.  I include myself in that round-up.

Picture less hula-ing, heels, and happiness and you'll get the idea.  But also more vacuum attachments!

2.  The Notes and Reminder apps on my phone.  I swear I would remember nothing and everything would be late without those.  

Shopping lists, book recommendations, things I want to remember to tell Derek or do that evening, e v e r y t h i n g.

3.  This book, which I swear isn't just good because it's somewhat pertinent to our family's current situation:

Yes, it's YA, and yes, it's a graphic novel, but that just means you're not going to spend the next six weeks trying to slog through it like this month's Classics Book Club you're already regretting joining.  It's funny, and insightful, and thoughtful.  

4.  Cadbury mini eggs.  Not the cream eggs, mind you, which are positively revolting, but these small, delectable candies filled with Cadbury chocolate that is somehow superior to other, sad, American-born chocolate.  And okay, I know that Cadbury chocolate is made in Hershey, PA, but it's still so much better.  My taste buds neither care nor know why.

5.  The precious minutes it took to write this post.

Three Reasons... (with gifs!)

... to be happy in September, one of my historically least happy months.  If you don't feel like being happy, though, that's okay too.  Go back to your Fiona Apple album and don't mind me.

• First,  a quick and slightly bossy reminder to you to read The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making because reading a book with beautiful prose and a protagonist named September can help make things better. Or at least appear to be better. Appearances are all that matter, anyway, right?  I'm pretty sure Chomsky said that.  Or Nietzsche, who has a fun name to say but does not appear to have been a fun guy, like, at all.

• This is a book that exists in this world:

This book is so charming, and deals with difficult subject matter with such humor, and I just love it so much.  This is Honeyman's first book, and she has such a deft hand I want to take her, chain her to a word processor, and force her to write a book a year for the next forever, because that's how I express affection.

This is not too much to ask.

• The elastic waist trend is back in women's wear.  I haven't been this comfortable in years!  What a time to be alive!  

Three Things, with Gifs

• It's mid-January, so I finally feel safe in saying congratulations, friends:  we have survived another season of unnecessary apostrophes!  We can at last turn our gazes to the contents of our mailboxes without fear.  I love Christmas cards and newsletters so much, so I've more or less made peace with the trauma I'm dealt each holiday season as my eyes are repeatedly assaulted with good-intentioned missives from "The Smith's" or "The Jones'."  (IT PAINED ME SO MUCH TO TYPE THAT LAST PHRASE.)  Now we're back to the standard fare of bills, ads, and scams every day!  ...yay? 

Is this helpful?

• We've reached the time of year of Late Starts.  Schools around here will do just about anything to keep from outright canceling (and the parents are guh-RATEFUL) because we don't want to send our kids to school through July.  Enter:  the two-hour delay!  -30 degree wind chill?  Two hour delay!  Slick roads?  Two hour delay!  Blowing snow causing low visibility?  Two hour delay!  We have one today, which is why I am writing this rather than packing endless lunches for our kids (someone remind me to write a post regarding how much I loathe packing school lunches).  I'm not really sure why there is a two hour delay on this particular day; we had a full day last Friday and I'm pretty sure the temp was almost exactly the same as it is this morning- like, to the degree.  Expected temperature of -4 at 8 a.m.?  Check.  Wind chill of -22?  Check.  Lightly snowing?  Check.  This also means I have to sign off social media for extended periods of time as I get unreasonably bitter toward people who live in warmer climates but still complain about the cold.  "Brrr! It's thirty degrees out today!  I searched everywhere and finally found my gloves lololol.  #cold #winter #socold."   Me:  

• A while back I went on a field trip with Caedmon's class to the Science Center of Des Moines.  I'm pretty sure that, in addition to keeping all the children in your group alive, chaperones are supposed to help keep the kids engaged and point out interesting things they might learn.  I would have done that (the latter, I mean, not the former; all my kids made it back alive, thank you very much), but I got distracted by how much these conceptions of dinosaurs on display there

resemble these.

And does that mean this

was actually this?

Something to ponder.

Good, Bad, Good

Things have been good and then they have been bad and then good again.  So... normal life.


Good

We recently headed south for a quick Kansas fix.  Whilst there, we held babies.

We played with the other nieces, too, but they don't hold still long enough for me to take a picture, so here's more baby-holding.

Bad

Monday morning I woke up at 5:30.  It was one of those sleepy, coming-slowly-to-consciousness "Wait, what time is it?" before jolting upright and realizing you didn't hear your alarm or never set it or something, the result being you overslept by nearly an hour and left your friend standing alone in the dark at 5 a.m.  I felt terrible.  She insisted that it was fine, she needed a day off anyway, blah blah blah, lies lies lies to make me feel better.

It was too late to run, so I decided I'd go ahead and get a little work done before rousing the rest of the family.  I went downstairs to make my coffee.  Coffee maker goes on strike, won't dispense a single solitary drop of caffeine-nectar-goodness, and how do I keep breaking coffee makers?  I do not have fancy tastes, or the need of special gadgets or anything.  I use regular-people drip coffee makers (Dear internet people who spend a curious amount of time each day preparing a liquid that ends up tasting about the same as the stuff truckers buy at gas stations:  get a hobby.  Perhaps a high-maintenance tiny dog?), and regular-people coffee (cheapo coffee beans from Aldi that I do, admittedly, grind myself because cockroaches are gross), so why does my coffee maker keep breaking?

Anyway, after learning that I would not be getting any coffee, successfully suppressing the urge to rend my clothing and tearfully ask the universe why bad things happen to good people, I decided that I would move on, and get to working.  I booted up the computer, and there was no internet.  No internet means no work.  So at 5:50 a.m. I gave up on Monday.





Good

Our children are finally old enough that playing games with them doesn't make me want to die (I'm looking at you, Hi-Ho! Cherry-O and your ilk).  We love Qwirkle,

and Quiddler with the older two,

and Atticus will play chess with tiny Darth Vader when Derek isn't home, because Atticus and Derek love chess but I do not, because it is boring.

Bad

Yesterday afternoon Caedmon began screaming and running around even more than usual.  Bees again.  Atticus had those two bee stings last month, Caedmon got two yesterday, and Adelaide claims to have seen a line of bees going in and out of a hole in the ground.  Do bees nest in the ground?  I thought they built their hives up in, um, you know, places that are not holes in the ground.

It turns out neither of our boys are allergic to bees, so today Caedmon is just sporting an extra welt on his forearm and one ear is about 20% larger and weirder looking than the other, but who cares because ears are super weird-looking anyway.  I know this because I spent a solid ten minutes staring at one yesterday, trying to scrape a bee's stinger out of one of those folds of cartilage that make up the outer ear.  The pinna?  See above gif yet again.






Good

Atticus likes to pedal this knife-sharpening contraption that my grandparents have at their house.  You push one of the pedals- the other being currently non-functional- and the stone spins.  Atticus pushes one of the pedals, and Grandpa inevitably whips out a pocket knife to sharpen, and tells us about pedaling the tool as a boy, then as he got older using it to sharpen mower blades, and boy, wasn't that a pain!

They Survived

The children all survived their first wee of school, plus the resulting aftermath of their first week of school.  Post-school interactions these first few days require constant refereeing, and when you think you're done- say, when all your angels are tucked into bed- you'll be drawn back upstairs because one has offended the other by... I don't know, being alive within ten feet of the other?

It can be rough, is what I am saying.

Our church's youth group kicked off the evening of the first day of school, too, proving it is not run by parents.  Parent-run organizations don't begin until the second or third week of school; this one is run by young adults.  The flip side of that coin is that those leaders have all the energy needed to herd a group of middle schoolers through an hour and a half of Bible learnin' fun, and the adolescents adore them.  So we'll take it, even if Adelaide did stagger into the house at 8:30 that night and ask if every day of middle school was going to be this exhausting.

What I imagine middle school ministry is like.  And thanks, giphy, for never letting me down.

It's not all bad that summer break is over, though.  I can finally weed through all the photos on my phone, which include ones of random kids holding circuit boards and bird houses, taken at the library so parents can see what their kids are doing at our programs.  I can also try to figure out why I took certain pictures of our own kids and what on earth we were doing.  A disturbing percentage of them relate to animal death.  Not that our kids are torturing puppies or anything; they just seem to believe that any dead animal they find deserves a proper burial.  This includes bird eggs they find on the ground that fail to ever hatch under their poor if good-intentioned tender loving care.  

A bird egg grave marker.  These things are stinkers to mow around.

I can also delete all those hair-cutting photos.  Adelaide spent a few weeks over the summer begging me to chop more of her hair off than I felt comfortable doing, but she eventually wore me down.  I did first extract two promises, namely that after I had done so she was 1) not allowed to be upset with me, and 2) was not allowed to cry.  She refused to promise to withhold her tears, but I said I'd do it anyway.  Then, just as I was about to start snip-snip-snipping away, she informs me that she also wants bangs.  I mean, bangs!  What could go wrong?  

*Let's all take a moment to appreciate that this gif both conveys "Yikes," AND is from the Great British Baking Show.*

Anyway, it all somehow ended up fine.  Adelaide was pleased with her hair, and I was so relieved that I didn't let my fine hand tremors and lack of overall hair cutting-related knowledge totally botch our daughter's appearance before her first day of middle school.  (Yeah, this could have gone really wrong.)

On to the second week of school.  We are optimistic but tired. 

Crislers v. Bees

Bees.  I am so sick of talking about bees.  Now, I am normally a lover of bees, planting bee-attracting flowers in our beds, trying to increase the number of native plants we have, etc, but last week one of our children came into the house screaming.  Not my-sibling-has-pissed-me-off screaming, but rather I-am-dying-mother-come-tend-to-me-now screaming.  It took a couple minutes, but I got this kid calm enough to explain to me that they had been stung by a bee on the leg.  Sure enough, the affected area began to redden and swell, but said kid was down to sitting on the floor, snuffling and moaning, when suddenly they began to twitch.  Once, twice, then jumping up, saying, "There's... there's something in my pants!  There's- THERE'S A BEE IN MY PANTS!"  

Commence more screaming.

I yanked their pants and underwear down, and sure enough, there was a bee in their underwear, and a second, fresh sting on their backside.  

Long story short, this child stood in the middle of the kitchen for another five minutes screaming and crying and refusing to pull their pants up for fear of another stealthy insect hiding in their clothing, waiting to attack their precious bits and pieces.  This meant the other two kept trying to walk into the room, then making a sharp U-turn saying, "Oooookay," because although we're a relatively close little family unit, we're not "hang out half-naked while trembling and panic-breathing" close.  

Aaaaaanyhoo, after that intense little episode, we've been talking a lot about bees.  See, I thought I was being a good parent by showing this kid the tiny corkscrew-shaped stinger still attached to the (dead) bee, but apparently this only served to further traumatize the kid.  

Note to self:  Do not view My Girl during family movie night any time soon.

The other thing I'm sick of discussing is bees, again, of the spelling variety.  Adelaide once again participated in the Iowa State Fair spelling bee, but this time she got 11th place, an abysmal showing, to borrow her words.  Was she the 11th-best speller there?  No.  She was easily one of the top few spellers, but she was not one of the most focused this year, and you need both excellent spelling ability and intense focus to do well in a spelling bee.  She got out on a word she knew perfectly well, rushing the end and missing a letter.  Devastation ensued.  She is eligible to compete one more year; we'll see what she decides.  Congratulations must be showered upon both Derek and I for not saying some hearty I TOLD YOU SOs, as she performed in the bee the way she practiced, and we more or less saw this coming.  May I just say that this whole part of parenting, the part where you want to guide your children, yet also let them make their own mistakes, even when you see disappointment on the horizon as a result- that part?  It sucks.  I so badly wanted to nag Daughter throughout the summer to better prepare for this event, but did not.  And I still don't regret it.  Mostly.

Atticus provided some fun during the ill-fated bee (this ill-fated bee, I mean, not the previous one); sitting still and not talking is tough for our most social child, but he found a way:  he was sitting clear to the side of the stadium-type seating, and his perch overlooked the table where the contestants who had just been eliminated got to choose a free book as a consolation prize.  Atticus rarely wastes an opportunity to interact with other people, so he designated himself the official Book Table Greeter and whispered things down to them like, "What book are you choosing?" and "You're choosing that book?" and "Don't forget your book!"  He's the kid who actually enjoys those paralyzing moments in church when the pastor announces that he hates all introverts and instructs us to say hello to those around us.  Adelaide greets one person (the minimum we have cruelly inflicted upon her), Atticus shakes all the hands and announces to everyone around that his name is Atticus, and Caedmon is the third child and there is only one of me so I'm not exactly sure what he does.  I think he says hello to the overtly friendly people near him.  Sorry, Caedmon.  Maybe Dad has been paying attention.

Bees:  2,    Crislers:  0.

(Or is it Bees:  3, since our kid was stung twice?  Whatever, the point is WE LOST.)

On the eighth day He created Soccer Camp. And it was good.

If we were to sign Adelaide up for soccer camp, the results would be marked and severe.  We can barely get her out into the backyard for a family game of fútbol without groaning and tears and the ever-present question, "Why?"  (Or, more accurately, "WHHHHHYYYYYY?") The answer to this being a sensible, "You have been reading for nearly four hours.  That is why you have a headache, and don't feel well, and are, ahem, the tiniest bit cranky.  Come outside, breathe the air, and interact with the human race for thirty measly minutes."  So soccer camp would no doubt be seen as akin to trying to kill her clean off.

Our boys are a different story.

When the opportunity arose for them to attend a camp staffed by British college students studying to be soccer coaches (because evidently that is a thing you can major in outside of the United States where we more or less collectively suck at soccer, at least on a world stage), both jumped at it.

I didn't really know what to expect.  I had a couple friends whose children had participated in this camp in the past and had nothing but praise for the organization, but the coaches change every year and, to my mind at least, you'd have no way of knowing whether or not you're going to get stuck with a real stinker of a coach for five straight days, two hours each morning.

Thankfully, no stinkers made their way to Iowa last week.  All the hallelujahs.

Please click to embiggen and see Caedmon (third from the right) joyfully bellowing, "LET'S MAKE IT HAPPEN," their mantra for the week.

The boys were pleased, I was pleased, Adelaide was... maybe not pleased, but certainly helpful, as she escorted the boys between the library and the camp most of the week.  Most tellingly, Derek was pleased, and as a former soccer phenom, he is by far the most difficult to please of us all.  He said their skills and drills were good, the scrimmaging was good, the [insert words he could have made up for all I know] was good.  Good!

I got to attend their final day of camp, and was so impressed with our boys.  I mean, I'm impressed anytime they don't cringe away from a ball flying toward them, or scream unnecessarily when a ball flies toward them, or watch a ball as it pointlessly rolls past them- all things I have been known to do in middle school P.E., in high school P.E., and last night in our backyard.  I am nothing if not consistent.

And they looked so happy to be out there.  The befuddlement was thick in the air around Daughter and me.

I mean, look- here Caedmon finally managed to get it the ball past the goalie, Coach Mark.  He is thrilled.

That's not to say that never had a similar expression on my face before.  Holler "CHEESECAKE!" and watch me fly.

Atticus, too.

Happy to be playing soccer, I mean.  Not the cheesecake thing.

Honestly, it was downright bewildering.

The boys also learned some unexpected things, like what the coaches referred to as "party tricks,"

and that they speak English in England.  (Atticus to me:  "Mom, if Coach Isaac is from England, how can he speak English?"  Oh, sweet boy child.  How terribly and adorably American of you.)  

Every once in a while, though, I'd see a little of myself in the boys.

That extension!  That pointed back toe!  Why isn't this boy in ballet? 

If that gif shows anything, though, it's that there seems to be plenty of drama on the soccer field, or football... pitch?  Field?  Stage?  Anyway, who needs Giselle when you have this

and this

and of course this?

Although I see that last one and think, "Poor guy!  He just found out his childhood best friend finally lost his battle with cancer."  Because all this emotion can't be for a game, right?  (Raise your hand if you're wondering how thirteen years of marriage to Derek the Rabid Minnesota Vikings Fan has taught me nothing.)

 One moment while I pull myself out of the whirling vortex of gifs I just allowed myself to be sucked into.

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Okay.  I'm back. 

So:  Soccer camp was good, nay, fantastic, our boys learned a lot about soccer and where our language comes from, and I thanked the good Lord above that in this case, Derek's genes prevailed. 

All the hallelujahs.

Big, juicy, soccer-y thanks to Derek's parents for gifting the entrance fee to the camp as our boys' birthday presents.  It was obviously a success!