A post with an international flair

Dan and I just got back from six days in Montreal, and it took me a while to realize why I don't feel all that tired after traveling. Our previous two "big" trips together (without the kids) were to Hawaii and San Francisco, both of which involved a large time-zone change and day-long (or overnight) flights. This one was in the same time zone and only a 1.5 hour flight - awesome! We actually could have driven it (9 hours), but I had a conference to attend and didn't want to use up two days of travel if I didn't have to. Also, it probably helped that we got a full night's sleep most of the nights (although we do have a contract out on a group of  bachelors from the US who managed to wake us up three separate times one night and forced us to switch rooms. Damn Americans.)

Nick met us there (he's our new travel companion - more for Dan, I suspect, than me - and from now on we'll be planning all our travels around where he can meet us, or where he is. Which might backfire when he's doing awesome doctor stuff in Africa or some such place), and he kept Dan busy exploring the city's microbreweries while I was stuck in windowless rooms learning new epidemiologic methods and getting the word out about the College of Public Health at Kent State (and trying to convince senior epidemiologists they'd love to come to work in northeast Ohio).

And we ate, and ate, and walked, and ate. At least two of the three of us had Caribbean, Ethiopian, Tibetan, Portuguese, Indian, Thai, French, and traditional Montreal (ie. poutine) food while we were there. Oh, and we got to experience at least a bit of the Montreal Jazz Festival. Which may have been the only place we didn't eat.

We made it to one of the big markets (oh, and we ate there - shock) which is similar to but smaller than Cleveland's West Side Market.

I already miss using my very limited French and being around people who  first assume I can speak it but aren't annoyed when I can't get past "bon soir". In my next life, I will be multilingual.

 After the rain stopped and we emerged from the market, Dan decided to do some climbing.

And he also found time to visit the Caribbean (but did not pack appropriately, apparently).

Now it's back to a semi-routine, weeding my garden, and preparing for the next trip in this travel-filled summer. Oh, and making life so unbearable for the kids when they don't have camp that they'll beg to be sent all summer next year! Fun times.

During summer break, they have to be forced outside

The nephews are over, after spending the night. Reece is at a science day camp, and I told the other three they had to go outside for at least an hour. There may have been kicking and screaming - I block that kind of thing out.

About 45 minutes into it, Greyson and one nephew came in and said it was raining. I replied, "Don't you want to go out and dance in the rain?", to which Greyson answered, "Heck, no". So I said, "OK, you can come in. Saved by the weather!" Nephew's response (while doing a fist-pump), "I LOVE the weather!"

They are now back on the computers, playing some game Dan approved. At least they're interacting, right? Meanwhile, I just don't have the energy to fight the whining because for some reason, I have as much work to do during my own summer break as I did when I was required to be doing work. Oh, and I may have a sinus infection thanks to missing one day of allergy medication. Maybe half-assed parenting goes right along with the summer break mentality - do the minimum necessary to function. I'm going with that. And, along this theme, I haven't taken any pictures in at least two weeks, even though (or maybe because?) we've been quite active. I'll try to do better, really. Right after my nap.

It's June!

I had this very short-lived crazy idea that I'd try to post a picture every day this summer, which quickly morphed into deciding to attempt a weekly recap every Friday-ish. It's the whole lowering my expectations process that's gotten me where I am today.

So, Dan's mom arrived last Friday, we hit the local farmer's market Saturday morning and Reece had a birthday party in the afternoon. Sunday we hosted all of Dan's relatives and a few of mine, which included a squirt gun war with the neighbor kids across the street, lots of pinochle, and more food that we all could have eaten in three days. Monday we saw the parade and tried to recuperate while not melting in the heat, Tuesday Dan's mom's friends from nursing school who live in the area came over lunch, and then she headed home Wednesday. It felt like a whirlwind visit since we were so busy. Wednesday evening, Greyson gave a 5-minute reading of some of his work from his language arts class (they called it a "coffee house"). Throughout this whole period, I "taught" an online class to undergraduates, which involved setting up the exams, grading discussions, and fielding emails. The class ends tomorrow at midnight, and I'll be glad to have my time back to myself, such as it is.

A few photos for your enjoyment:

The only reason the kids agree to accompany me to the farmer's market is so they can have a crepe or a doughnut (or both, depending on how difficult the week's been and if I have any parenting left in me at all).

Notice the bags at the ready for candy collection. We had a brief talk about the purpose of Memorial Day and the parade right before it started, but I'm not sure how much sank in once they started getting pelted with Tootsie Rolls.

I call this "life with boys". What you can't see is the huge pile of pillows and blankets at their feet on the bottom steps that serve as a barrier to their war bunker.

He just looks so old up there, and he did a great job despite being extremely nervous. I'm really glad they're making the kids do presentations early and often so they won't be petrified to do them in college like I was.

More work on the house

The latest improvement, which is moving the kitchen redo farther into the future, I might add:

We had all replaced except the 3rd floor, basement, and two in the kitchen, for a total of 16. And just in time, apparently, with the cold, wind and rain we've been having. I'm sitting on the couch in front of one of the living room windows and there is no draft on my neck!

Greyson's class had its spring band concert last week, but I didn't have a good view of him for a picture (and you can thank me now for not posting the video I took). They had improved amazingly since the fall concert, and now he wants to take tuba lessons over the summer so he can play that instrument in band in sixth grade. I'm all for it, since the school provides the instruments if you play tuba and a few others. Now if only he can remember to bring the permission slip home...

As if parents of young children don't have enough to worry about...

...expensive umbrella strollers are amputating kids' fingertips!
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml11/11222.html


And speaking of worrying about young children, yesterday was a classic in our "Life with Reece" show. I had a meeting that was going to go a little long, so I asked Greyson to pick Reece up from the bus stop. I even called my neighbor who is at the bus stop most days meeting her daughter, to let her know what the plan was, just in case.

So, I did everything a good parent should do, right? Greyson is very responsible, has gone with me a few times so the bus driver knows who he is, and it was his bus drop off for five years. What could possibly go wrong, you ask? Well, it was a perfect storm of errors.

First, there was a substitute bus driver. Then, Reece forgot to get off the bus. Greyson and my neighbor asked if Reece was on, and the driver emphatically said that he wasn't. Greyson then thought Reece still had karate after school (which WAS on Thursdays but ended last week), so he headed home while assuring my neighbor that he would call me to let me know what was going on. I got the message a few minutes later, as I was leaving my meeting 20 minutes away from home, and after talking to Greyson, I called Reece's school. They checked with his teacher to confirm he got on the bus, and then they called the bus depot (or whatever it's called), and found out he was still on the bus. I had to call Greyson back and tell him to run back to the bus stop so he would be there when the bus brought Reece back again. And then worry until I knew they were both home safely.

The thing is, I wasn't actually very concerned that it wouldn't end up just fine, only because we refer to Reece as "the cockroach" in the sense that he would be the one person to come out of a nuclear war intact. Somehow, that child will survive and probably benefit in some way. He has a lot of his father in him.

Serious progress

As of yesterday afternoon:

Happenings these days

A few, relatively minor, new things have been going on around here. First, Reece is learning how to ride a two-wheel bike. Not because he had some personal desire to do so. No, because 1) he wanted me to drop him and his bike off at Greyson's school to meet Dan and Greyson (who had biked there) and I told him only a two-wheeled bike would be fast enough, and 2) we told him he could have extra time on the computer if he learned. I'm seeing the future with him, and it's full of bribes.

Two other items of notice:

There were four originally, but two have ended up on the cement. Lessons on nature all over around here. Oh, and if you come to visit between now and June, don't come to the backdoor unless you enjoyed the movie "The Birds".

I used my birthday money to buy this. We're all already loving it - even the kids who can make hot cocoa in it. Just in time for warm weather, of course. I never said my timing was very good.

More signs of spring

Last week, (on Greyson's birthday, actually), I was one of the parent volunteers for Reece's class field trip to the Lake Metroparks Farmpark. You probably can't find a better place to see spring exploding all over than a farm, and we got a bit of everything. The kids actually had a schedule we had to keep to that involved milking a cow, grooming a horse, and clearing a garden plot. I see what they're doing out there, couching slave labor as a "learning experience"! Not only did the kids not suspect anything, they fought over who got to pull weeds. We parents all tried to figure out the trick so we could use it at home, but we concluded there must be something in the water, because it was just as cold, wet, muddy, and weedy as all our backyards are, and MUCH smellier. Really, with our wild rabbits, squirrels, a bird that built its nest in the wreath on our back door (and keeps dive-bombing Dan), and the garden plot, I could offer a similar field trip to our backyard at a bargain rate and much closer to school. Hmmm, I'm going to work on that...

Doing his part weeding. Luckily, parents weren't encouraged to participate.

He wasn't sure he wanted to do any horse grooming, but once he got in there, he was surprisingly gentle and enjoyed it.

Waiting for a turn to milk the cow, with Ella. He runs his fingers through her hair when they sit next to each other at group time, and she was very upset on the Thursday before Easter that she would miss him too much over the long weekend.

When they brought the cow onto the platform, all the women in the room who had ever nursed let out a collective "ooh" in sympathy. Experiences like this bring me closer and closer to vegan-ism.

How I spent my weekend

I heard there were a couple of minor events that occurred this past weekend, like a small wedding in England and a skirmish between US forces and some guy in Pakistan.

I, of course, had more important things to do than pay attention to such mundane news stories. I had to grab what little sun there was on Saturday and start planting the garden! With the help of the boys (at first - they quickly got distracted by pounding on rocks to see what was inside them), I purchased a variety of early season vegetables, herbs, and flowers and then put them into the very damp soil in our garden bed.

Of course, by the time I got around to taking pictures, the sun was gone. You'll just have to believe me that it was out for a while, although I'm starting to feel like I'm living in a Ray Bradbury short story. The upside? Didn't have to water that day, nor have I had to since.

Front row: Three little pea plants that started as seeds! It was a big risk, since I usually need all the help I can get to start and keep plants going.

2nd row: Garlic, chives (both Greyson's picks), dill, tarragon, basil (because, as Reece said, "we're going to grow tomatoes, and you have to have basil with them" - never mind that he hates basil), thyme 

3rd row: Spinach, kale, Brussels sprouts

4th row: Three butter lettuce plants (and two rabbits were spotted in our yard later that day - I'm not holding out hope that I'll actually get to eat any of the lettuce)

Very top of the picture: The chocolate mint plant is a perennial! Who knew?

Since you can hardly see the flowers in the planters, you'll just have to imagine how lovely they are. And they coincidentally match the fake wreath on the door. Probably because I always end up picking the same flowers in the same colors when I have a choice.

Eleven years old today

Greyson at age 2:

Age 4:

Age 6:

Age 8:

Today:

Happy birthday to our preteen, 11 year old boy!