Big Brutus

Sunday afternoon of our Kansas weekend was spent in the town of West Mineral, a place I can almost promise you have never been, being home to all of 185 people. 

Unless, of course, you have been to visit Big Brutus. 

Big Brutus is the (truly fantastic) name of the largest electric shovel still in existence.  It's no longer used for its original purpose, but there's a strip pit just beyond it so that when you sit in its... cabin?  Cockpit?  Whatever the name of the place where the driver sits, the strip pit is dead ahead of the windshield, so you can pretend you're about to strip mine the guts out of southeast Kansas, which is exactly what Big Brutus did in the 1960's and 70's.  After it was decommissioned it apparently just sat there, a big rusty hunk of metal in the middle of nowhere, just begging kids like my dad to come and see whether or not today was the day to contract tetanus. 

He didn't, thankfully, and by the time he and my mom took my sisters and I to visit it had been cleaned up and made relatively safe.  As a child, the only things I really remember about it was its massive size (hard to miss) and that our parents bought us slim plastic tubes filled with honey from the gift shop.  I also recall that we were allowed to climb up onto the boom, which I chose not to do because I was an intelligent child and risk-averse when it suited me to be. 

Nowadays those pesky insurance companies have stepped in and forbidden the public entrance to the boom. What's a boom on an electric shovel?  I'm still not sure- some kind of big metal thing that sticks even further up into the sky than the main part of the shovel. 

My dad, his wife, and their grandson met my sisters and their families plus my clan at Big Brutus.

It's hard to explain how big this thing really is in person, but to help you, here's a picture of it with our two boys circled in blue at its base.  It's sixteen stories high, not counting the boom.

One of my more interesting idiosyncrasies is that I frequently forget that heights are not my favorite.  Derek will suggest going ziplining in Branson and I'm all, "Great idea!"  The next thing I know we're on a platform attached to a tree way up high, strapped into a harness by some college kid who seems half-asleep and not at all concerned for my personal safety.  Thankfully I'm usually able to ignore that feeling of nausea in my belly that comes with being too far off the ground and do whatever is necessary:  step off the platform into nothing, walk out onto a rope at a ropes course, or in this case, climbing the open-air metal stairs that encircle Big Brutus and take you up, up, five stories up.  That did not save my brother-in-law Clinton from having to hear me chatter nervously behind him.  About what, I honestly don't remember, I just needed to make sounds until I was back inside the machine and couldn't see how far up we were.  

That body of water out the window up there is the strip pit, one of many that you'll find all over southeast Kansas.  My mom used to scare us with stories of machinery left in those from coal mining days, how you should never swim in them because they're so dangerous.  Also... something about the mob from Kansas City dumping bodies in them because they're a straight shot south from KC?  Sisters, is my brain making this up?

Both the boys wanted their picture in the drivers seat.  Adelaide abstained, for some reason.

That's Caedmon in the scoop and my dad kicking the tires, as it were. 


Requisite family photo in front of BB, which seems like a terrible nickname for Big Brutus, which is itself a nickname for the Bucyrus-Erie model 1850-B electric shovel- I'm just tired of typing Big Brutus.  We're missing two people in this photo, one because he sadly wasn't there and one because pictures aren't his favorite and I'd already shoved him in front of a camera many times that weekend.

My sisters and I haven't gotten a picture with our dad in quite some time, so we seized our chance in front of one of the many pieces of machinery on the grounds.  I knew what none of them were. 

And these are just two cute nieces.

And before you think this is all just some hick tourist attraction (which it totally is), NPR did a story on Big Brutus last year when it was turned into a museum and historic landmark.  When asked post-trip, Caedmon reported it as being "cool," Atticus liked skipping rocks on the water in the strip pit and spotting a turtle in the same, and Adelaide said that it was "a big metal thing that was slightly interesting, I guess."  She also liked hanging out with the babies, and crawling around inside BB.

 I guess that's one of the charms of kids; they usually get something out of your planned experiences, just never quite what you'd expected. 

The Weekend Report: Massacre Sites, 90 Years, and Trees

In the last post, I noted that sometime soon we planned on heading south for my Grandpa's big 90th birthday party.  That sometime soon was last Saturday, which I intentionally didn't mention because God only knows who's reading this and we don't want any unplanned visitors relieving us of all our belongings because I blabbed GUESS WHO'S LEAVING THEIR HOUSE UNATTENDED?

So last Saturday the kids and I drove the five hours to my grandparents' house, which felt short because our southward travels are normally seven hours, to my mom's house.  Who knew that just two fewer hours would make a drive feel so short, so manageable? 

We still stopped four times within that five hours, none of which I can blame on the children.  I was the one feeling simultaneously achy and jitter-buggy, needing frequent stops to stretch my restless limbs. We stopped at my favorite Iowa rest stop, which borders and provides access to a county park complete with a body of water and wooded trails, which I have run before on a solo trip south and which freaked Derek out because a single runner on isolated trails right next to a rest/truck stop is apparently not the safest idea? 

Our other superfluous stop was made because I'm a sucker for historical markers.  I've seen the sign for the Marais de Cygnes Massacre site many times before, but this time we finally got off the highway, followed the increasingly narrow and windy gravel road, and drove into what ended up being a secluded but picturesque national historic site.

The above is an interesting contraption that you wind up by following the instruction to "turn briskly for sixty seconds," which charged it, I guess; then we pressed play and listened to a dramatic reading of the newspaper article from the 1860's which detailed the events of the massacre, where pro-slavery Missourians crossed the border and shot a bunch of Kansas free-staters (this is all Civil War era, Bleeding Kansas stuff, if you're trying to figure out why on earth any of this ever would have happened).  This was looking over the ravine where the victims were forced to stand and then fell dead into.  I appreciated looking over all of the information available and walking around the area; the boys' favorite part seems to have been the wild turkey sighting.  If you push this stuff in their faces enough something is bound to rub off, right?  Maybe?  Hopefully?


We did eventually make it to our destination, where we got to see nieces and grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles and other relatives whose connection to myself I can only guess at.  And even though we forgot our customary bribes (frozen snack-size Kit Kats), we still forced all the children into group photos, which I somehow did not end up with a picture of on my phone, but I do have this nice one of my mom, her sisters, and their parents. 

I also got this rare sighting of a group of von Soostens.  

What do think a group of von Soostens would be, anyway?  A herd?  A peck?  Whatever the German word for a pack is?  Whatever, they are all now or at some point were von Soostens, and I think at this point the birthday boy was just ready for his cake.

If at all possible, I would highly recommend having a cousin with a bakery.  It makes every family gathering better.

This weekend allowed me to make a big old checkmark on my list of things to do and people to see before we move.  That made it all bittersweet, because hurray, I got to see so many people I love!  But oh, no, when will I see them again?

Loved ones like my sisters who aren't afraid to hug not-a-hugger Adelaide.  She will tolerate this kind of behavior from very few people.  Her aunts are two of them.  (No Adelaides were harmed in the making of this photo; just made to feel momentarily uncomfortable BUT NO DOUBT LOVED, DAUGHTER.)

Sunday before we left we got in plenty of tree climbing, because although she is not a people hugger, she most certainly is a tree hugger.

There most definitely is a Daughter in that Ash.  Click to embiggen and see if you can spot her.  Hint:  look for the serial killer face lurking amongst the leaves.

She also conquered the Sycamore, which was decidedly more difficult, not having a handy fork a few feet off the ground.

Yep, she's in that picture, too.  I'm also happy to report that years of calmly reciting, "You got yourself up there, you can get yourself down," often in the face of twenty feet high hysterics, has resulted in her being able to monkey herself up and down with ease.  

The boys were more excited about the afternoon's entertainment, which I'll post about tomorrow.  It was larger and a little more ostentatious than a morning of peaceful tree climbing, but also involved fewer ticks, for which I think Adelaide has an increasing sense of appreciation.

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.

News of Two Sorts

First off, I feel I should deliver an update on Daughter's performance of Lumiere, given my last post.

Sorry for scribbling out your face, girl over Adelaide's shoulder

She did so well!  She sang, she danced, she spoke in a French accent that was still understandable- a real worry of mine weeks before the performance, when I tried to gently remind her that yes, she was supposed to be French, but the audience still needed to be able to understand the words coming out of her mouth.

As for those candlesticks:  she made around 80% of them herself.  Did the hot glue drippings, the painting, glued toilet paper tubes inside so she'd have something to grip- nearly everything.  The only thing I helped with were creating the papier mache flames.  That and tailoring that blasted men's suit jacket from Goodwill.  It hung on her like a garbage bag when we first got it, and silly me thought it would be a relatively straightforward matter to extract the oversize shoulder pads, amend the lines of the opening and way it hangs, add gold filigree, and so on, and so on.  

After copious seam ripping and repeated plunges into the bowels of the jacket, however, I realized that men evidently require a lot of padding in their clothing.  Then I got mad thinking about how you would never find this in women's clothing; our fabric instead trends toward the uncomfortably sheer.

One of many fistfuls of shoulder padding

As for the musical itself, well, we listened to Adelaide wail about how poorly practices were going and about how this person kept storming off stage and how that person couldn't even be bothered to show up for the (hours long) practices- etc, etc.  Our expectations for the outcome of the show lowered accordingly each time she uttered such a critique, so said expectations were subterranean by the time we arrived at opening night.  But somehow, through seventh grade magic or possibly just lots and lots of hard work, those kids pulled it off.  It was so entertaining.  Adelaide and her friends acquitted themselves admirably, and we were so proud.

Also of note:  my sister Kelli and her family braved predictions of a winter storm, car problems, and the reality of sticking three tiny children in a car for hours and hours to make the drive up and surprise Adelaide that weekend.  I got almost no pictures while they were here, possibly because I'm a terrible sister/aunt, but mostly because I was trying to soak up every second of their presence. 

That is our giant daughter carrying all the toys Kate felt she needed from the second floor down to the first while also making sure she made it safely downstairs.  Please also see that the shirt Kate is wearing is one that Adelaide wore when she was that little.  Which was forever ago, but simultaneously three seconds ago.

Just two other details pertinent to the story of that weekend:  

One: people approached me after both performances multiple times to tell me that they didn't at first believe that Adelaide was a girl.  She was so convincing as a boy, they claimed, from the sound of her voice as she sang to her mannerisms as Lumiere!  My response to this the first couple times was to laugh, but after that I wasn't sure what the appropriate response was.  "No, please, you're too kind"?  "I bet you get that all the time, too"?  

Two:  Adelaide's dear friends got friendship necklaces, which they presented to her that weekend.  They look like matching puzzle pieces that, when fitted together, read "Always together, never apart, maybe in distance, but never in heart."  (Commas added by yours truly because why on earth wouldn't I?)  The girls gave her this because she's been struggling with the fact that our family is moving.

To Connecticut.

More on this tomorrow.

Not-So-Cultured

"Hey- just what have you been doing that makes you too busy to blog?"

Oh, you know, same old, same old.  Giving our nine-year-old Pop Rocks candy for the first time and watching him freak out.  Then laughing hysterically rather than comfort him.  

We're also finishing up our spring break, which we celebrated by discovering that the auger won't turn on our snow thrower, making the ten inches of unexpected snow we received early this morning somewhat problematic. Thankfully, there are five of us capable of scooping and shoveling, and a very nice neighbor with a fully-functioning thrower who descended upon us in our hour of need. Never fear, mint chocolate chunk cookies have been baked as payment.

Pretty.  Also wet and heavy, as temperatures were right around freezing.  But pretty.

When we weren't at the library this week, I was trying to expose our children to a little culture via the sculpture park in Des Moines.  They ignored the artwork and repeatedly rolled down the embankment.  It would seem that we just can't help but raise savages. 

Then we went home and they did science experiments, so I guess we're doing something right, however accidental.

I enjoyed the sculpture park, anyway, and will now regale you with tiny tales of my most and least favorite sculptures:  my least was the one of the naked woman, not because there was anything wrong with it, but more because our boys kept veering close to it, giggling madly while Adelaide harrumphed in eleven-year-old girl superiority.  My favorite was this one:

It reminded me of the book The Invisible Man, which in turn gave me the heebee-jeebees because man, what a weird book.

Atticus's favorite was the newest sculpture of a polka-dotted squash, which I found to be both whimsical and depressing, as we are at that time of year when I start to believe I will never see anything growing and alive outside again.  In short, I am a delight to be around.  As usual.

Big Fat Update- Kind of- and a Winter Hike

Well!  Long time, no blog!  It's hard to force myself to spend any extra time on the laptop when I'm now working on it for hours a week at one of my new(ish) jobs.  I hesitate to even mention it, because the company I work for is super weird about confidentiality and constantly reminding its employees that THIS IS PRIVATE INFORMATION and TELL NO ONE and IF YOU TALK WE WILL COME FOR YOU IN THE NIGHT. 

I'm kidding, of course, about at least 40% of the previous sentence.  Good luck figuring out which part. 

And no, I'm not in an abusive professional relationship, and no, I was not recruited by the CIA.  Just typing that last phrase made it hard to type this one, because I'm giggling somewhat madly at the idea of working for anything like the CIA, what with my utter lack of a poker face, ability to get lost in a cardboard box, and penchant for giggling madly. 

Really, though, I've found a meme that describes at least one aspect of this work rather well.  Thanks, memes.

Still, I'm not ready to finally put this blog out of its misery and kill it off, so I'm declaring (yet again, somewhat wearily) that I will be attempting to post with some degree of consistency!  Just like I did in ye olden days when our chillins were little and nap time equaled blog time!


Um, let's see.  It's cold here.  Yay, Iowa.  Derek and I have agreed to jack our house's temperature all the way up to 70 degrees to combat this forecast:

I don't think I'm really allowed to complain about today's temp, as the high is supposed to be above zero, but tomorrow and Monday, look out:  I will say what I want.  You get to do that when the temperature isn't supposed to be above zero for days.  It's in the Iowan handbook.  I have no idea what's in the Minnesotan handbook for negative temp days.  "Congratulations, it's Tuesday, now get back to work"?

Because we knew this cold front was on its way, I took the kids on a forced march through the snowy forest preserve yesterday, although I charmingly called it a "Winter Scavenger Hunt" because they tend to balk at anything that calls to mind gulag-like conditions.  Maybe all three of them were Russians in their former lives?  Never mind that I don't believe in reincarnation.

Wow, ANYWAY. 

Seen above is the list of things we were going to be hunting for on our hike, a thumb belonging to Caedmon, and a face belonging to Atticus.  Pop quiz:  Which of our children is still young enough to be fooled by exercise disguised as fun?

Really, though, what is it about children and their inability to stay off the ground?  Even now, at any given public space that we enter, I'll turn around and at least one of them is rolling around on the ground.  I don't know what this is about.  They like getting the crap from other people's shoes in their hair?  Children have a better barometer for what's better for their bodies than adults?  I mean, who can tell?

Oh, look, they're on the ground again.  Imagine that.

Lest you think our hike was all fun and games and our lives are snow-winter-perfection, may I submit this photo for your consideration:

He had just learned we not even halfway through our hike.  That is not a happy face.

Not to worry, though, he got back on the ground- well, onto a log over a frozen creek bed- and everything was better.

We made it back to our vehicle, I mused aloud that we could make another loop through the preserve, as we'd only been out for around an hour, and Atticus climbed a tree in protest, saying we could go but he'd stay and take a nap in a tree.  We've read The Little Match Girl four times in the past month, so he knew how this would end.

In the end we did not go 'round again as I decided we had properly celebrated temperatures in the teens, so we went home, the kids got hot cocoa, and I got to be the adult and stay outside for another hour shoveling and waiting for the plow to charge by- for our more southerly friends, the snow plow drives by so fast it throws all kinds of snow from the street up onto the sidewalk that you have to shovel that mess, too, so you're not really done until it's gone by.  It did not complete our street until after I had come inside and hung up all my wet snow gear.  Naturally.

Fatigued Soccer

Somehow Atticus sprinted and dribbled and kicked his way through nearly one entire soccer season with his mother taking nary a picture, despite him both loving the game and being really quite good at it.

Finally, though, I managed to get my act together.

As ever, click to embiggen.

It was a good game, and according to Derek he played well.  (I always think he plays well, even when he has apparently done something less than great.  This is because I am still baffled that any child of mine could have so much as a modicum of athletic talent.  This boy has dodged all the genetic bullets my DNA could throw at him, which let me assure you, are legion.)

He, like, runs toward the ball, over and over, and chases after it for close to one hour straight.  This is amazing.  Let's also take a moment to appreciate the kid above on the right who may be having some kind of existential crisis.  "But why do we chase the ball?"  I feel you, buddy.

As well as he played though, and as happy as I was to have finally remembered the camera, it was kind of a tough game to watch.  Atticus is normally more or less tireless during these games of his, but on this Saturday, he was sluggish and slow compared to his normal self.  He would kick the ball, or pass it, or whatever, but then instead of sprinting after it as usual he'd just stand there, or walk.  I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him until Derek said, "Well, he didn't get any sleep last night, remember?"

Oh.  Right.  Night terrors.

We've experienced the effects of our son's night terrors for years now, but it was still pretty upsetting for me to see it so clearly, how exhaustion was keeping him from doing his best.  I realize it's just a kids' soccer game, with minimal repercussions, but watching all those other kids bounce around out there, it was evident how different Atticus's reality is from theirs.  And that sucks.

How to tell if Atticus had a rough night:  look for the bags under his eyes (illustrated above) and the thousand-yard stare.  Same goes for his parents, with the addition of slow download speeds for his mom.  Please allow an extra ten seconds' worth of blank staring when asking her a question. 

The day after this game, though, I was talking to another parent about her little girl, who has Type I diabetes, and who has had to re-orient her family's life around this diagnosis.  It was a good reminder that all families have invisible struggles, from night terrors to diabetes to children who give their mothers that birthed them a hard time about listening to Christmas music in October.  THERE IS NEVER A BAD TIME TO LISTEN TO CELTIC CHRISTMAS, OKAY, UNGRATEFUL PROGENY?

Know who he reminds me of, though, in this red jersey of his?

Especially when he's looking all tall and stuff?

His dad.

He's the tall one in the middle there.  Comparing the two, I'd say the genes are strong in this one.

Maybe Yoda had night terrors, too.

Soccer season is now over, which Atticus is already grieving.  I'm excited about the time this frees up, but am wise enough not to say so.  It's already given us extra orchard time!