It may be a bit disconcerting for some of you checking my blog to see that I still haven't posted the word-of-the-week, or anything else for that matter.
I have been sick.
And then subsequently overwhelmed. There is no one to do my job when I am out sick.
(Except my mom who brought dinner on Tuesday. Bless her.)
So, I'm coming.
I'm coming.
Slowly.
I've got a box of peaches that are on the edge of rot. They're first.
burgeon /vt./ to grow or develop quickly, flourish. to bloom or blossom. effloresce. expand. thrive. flower. snowball. sprout.
burgeon /vt./ 1. I need to get this post written, as this word's life and influence is quickly burgeoning into my current week. And may I just say that I love a word that can be defined by both a snowball and a flower. Clever word. You can feel it's anxious, growing, proud self in the first syllable.
burgeon /vt./ 2. David's love of politics has burgeoned from a sweet little crush to an all-out obsession. I have felt a bit like a "football wife" for the past, oh, ten months or so, but it has been particularly bad this last week. He has Fox News on his Blackberry 24/7 these days and he was cheering and clapping and yelling so loudly during Sarah Palin's speech this week that the kids got out of bed to see what all the excitement was about. (In his defense, she is quite fabulous.) He's even given up sleeping-in on Sunday mornings (gasp!) to watch the political shows. That election cannot come soon enough.
burgeon /vt./ 3. My sister, Rachel, and I taught another of our body image classes last week and we have another one tonight and two more scheduled in the coming weeks. I cannot explain the burgeoning popularity of the class, but we are so happy to teach it whenever we can to get the message out. Though the more we give it, the more we see what amateurs we really are. Really, you'd think our confidence would burgeon the more times we give it, but I think both of us are just more and more aware of our flaws. I told her this last week that the one really great thing about it is that we get to spend more time together. That part is admittedly delightful.
burgeon /vt./ 4. Savannah was baptized this week and Olivia was unaccountably emotional about it. As I was blow-drying Olivia's hair on Saturday afternoon the tears burgeoned to overflowing. She finally threw her arms around Savannah's neck and sobbed, "I'm just so proud of you Savannah. You make me so happy." I cannot believe my luck in catching this moment on film. Savannah's look so perfectly captures her bafflement at her sister's emotional (and decidedly lachrymose) moment.
burgeon /vt./ 5. Much to my delight, Caleb and Olivia performed a musical number at Savannah's baptism, "When I Am Baptized." Caleb played his violin and Olivia sang. I accompanied them on the piano. They did so well, despite the sheer terror (as Rachel described it) that Olivia experienced just before she opened her mouth. I love to see my children's talents burgeon and flourish. They have been asked to do the number in sacrament meeting in a few weeks. Olivia has been quite conflicted about this invitation, vacillating between burgeoning fear and happy pride.
I didn't have a picture of their musical number, but David sent me an email earlier today letting me know that I had neglected to include his favorite picture in the baptism post...I'm including it here, for him.
burgeon /vt./ 6. Olivia had her first viola lesson this week and was bursting and burgeoning with uncontainable excitement. Her teacher is a woman named Marie with a charming eastern European accent. When I picked Olivia up she said, nodding at Olivia's joy-infused face, "Oh, she's just vonderful." And so the practicing has begun in earnest, and I am aware of a burgeoning acknowledgement (again) that I should listen to my children...apparently they do know what they want.
doughtily /adv./ courageously and resolutely; steadfastly. valiantly. bravely and heroically. stoutheartedly. boldly. intrepidly. pluckily.
doughtily /adv./ 1. This week's word almost seems unlikely to live up to its definition. You don't expect a word with the beginnings of "doubt" to end up brave and bold and valiant. Against the odds, as it were. Perhaps this is why I like it. The dark horse of courageous and plucky adverbs. I spent too much of the week crying (clearly), but I am doughtily persevering and mothering and wife-ing all in the ugly face of the fallen world and the dangers it holds for me and the ones I love.
doughtily /adv./ 2. I have been touched and sobered this week by the story of Nie Nie and her Mr. Nielson and all those who are doughtily rushing to their aid. Though I do not know them personally, I have spent most of my mornings this week sobbing in the shower for the way their lives have been so changed, and praying doughtily for their care. I have observed and admired their family doughtily doing whatever needs doing, and watched the blogging world doughtily rallying to do what they can (each in their own way) to raise funds for this family. And because of their tender story, I've also vowed (again and once-and-for-all) to love the life I've been given, hold my darlings tighter and my grudges less, and to find joy in the simple yet extraordinary miracle of everyday life.
doughtily /adv./ 3. We doughtily made our way through the third week of school this week, especially courageous since the adrenalin of the new school year has worn off and the exhaustion of routine and scheduling has finally caught up with me. I went to curriculum night for the youngest three on two different nights, and took home armfuls of rules and calendars and unit plans and report card templates and expectations, and the stomach ache I haven't felt since May returned with a vengeance. When Ethan's preschool teacher told us that she was going to divide the kids into two reading groups according to the level they were at, I thought I'd had quite enough and seriously considered pulling him out in defense of his childhood.
doughtily /adv./ 4. I met my very good friend, Merri, for breakfast at the Farmhouse on Wednesday morning and enjoyed one of the best hours of my week over an omelet and orange juice. We doughtily made a secret pact that has already blessed my life (though I haven't kept it perfectly, I'll admit that straight out)...and we have plans to meet for breakfast in a month to make another one. We tried to take a self-portrait afterwards (to mark the occasion) but there was no memory card in my camera, which is too bad since we both looked darling.
doughtily /adv./ 5. I told David that if I was going to continue to doughtily mother our gorgeous children through this school year, I was going to need more alone time with him. This keeps me going better than anything else. So we met for lunch on Friday which was delightful (even though most of the conversation was political) and then we went out on a real live date on Saturday night...a stop by the Mac counter and then to a movie. David said the movie (a foreign film, French with English subtitles) had too much nudity, violence and swearing for me to be able to recommend it to anyone, but I did really love it. So don't go see it, even though it was quite fabulous.
Ethan comes home just about every day and sings a new song or rhyme he's learned. Today it was "Where is Thumbkin?", yesterday it was "Two Little Blackbirds." (Please ignore the fact that he's just hearing these nursery rhymes for the first time...I'm trying hard not to think about it.) I always join him halfway through and he always looks at me completely incredulous and says, "Do you know this song?" "Of course," I say, "Moms know everything."
And then today over our corndog lunch, Ethan and I had this conversation:
E: Mom, can my friend come over and play?
Me: Sure. Who's your friend?
E: I can't remember his name. Can you?
Me: Nope.
E: He sits at the yellow tables.
Me: I still don't know who he is. Do you know anything else about him?
E: He likes Star Wars.
Me: Oh.
E: Now do you know who it is?
Me: No.
E: (getting really excited now) Oh! And he likes me! That's all I can remember. Now do you know who it is?
Me: Um, no.
E: Mom, do you know what this means?
Me: What?
E: (whispering) You don't know everything.
And then he makes this face like he didn't want to be the one to break it to me, but there it is. And I thought, boy howdy, you're not kidding.
Pain in the neck:
Well, it seemed like quite a few people were having to scroll over to see my whole blog, so I spent another day in front of my computer cursing squarespace for messing with my life, and tried a new format. David was so personally happy about the banner change he actually called me from work (a rare occurrence under any circumstance) to express his glee. I told him I did it just to make him happy. No, not really.
Pain in my head:
I have had a standing headache for a good three or four weeks. But it has gotten ridiculous since the Olympics started. I think this means I need more sleep, but here we are at 10:55 watching men's beach volleyball, and they still have to play one more set. I think the whole country is going to be in bed by 8 on Sunday night.
Pain as a part of childhood:
Ethan had to get his five-year shots today, and was shocked and hurt that I put him through that. He ended up with seven bandaids by the time he got all five shots, his finger prick, and a TB test. Cruel and unusual by anyone's standards, and just brutal for both of us. He was heartbroken that I "would let them do that to him" (his words) and no matter how "good" it is for him, it is still hard to hold your child tight in your arms and watch the tears roll. His smile returned after we stopped at Jamba Juice on the way home. Thankfully, it was not so bad that an "orange dream machine" couldn't make everything better.
bailiwick /n./ a person's area of skill, knowledge, authority, or work; domain, sphere or territory. area of influence. turf.
bailiwick /n./ 1. My bailiwick as a mother has once again been invaded by the school, as my children went back to school this week and are now in the the classroom for 6 hours a day. I tried to have a good attitude this year, but by Friday I was worn out and wishing for our long summer days and a good game of Bohnanza.
bailiwick /n./ 2. Our "down time" has been filled with the Olympics. Which. I. Love. I was even going to write a post last week about my not-so-secret crush on Bob Costas. (I just about died when he made his quip about the dip in the Yangtze. But I digress.) Anyway, I love the Olympics for so many reasons, but especially to see people competing and dreaming and working hard in their own particular bailiwick. I love that somebody is as passionate about badminton as somebody else is about swimming the 400 IM. I love that track cycling has its own language and equipment and technique, and so does trampolining and pole vaulting. And I also love to see all those athletes lined up on the track or in their sculls or on their bikes, all those colors and races and flags, all of them different and all of them the same. I get completely choked up.
And my kids have really caught the Olympic spirit as well...making a poster and "medals" to celebrate. I won one for making breakfast last week.
bailiwick /n./ 3. My bailiwick at church has changed in the last little bit. I was released (though my heart thought it felt a bit more like "ripped" than "released") from working with the young women in my ward and given a new assignment to teach Gospel Doctrine. I know. David is pleased as punch. My first lesson is this coming Sunday. RIM and CIM are both convinced it will be a disaster. I am inclined to agree.
bailiwick /n./ 4. With the start of school, it is also time (at least for me) to think about what activities my kids are going to be involved in this year. This becomes an overwhelming exercise in balance, as I try to balance my kids' interests, our time, the budget, the practicing commitment each activity will require, how much I really want to be in the car, and what I think each child "needs." This has only gotten harder as my kids' interests have grown and expanded. Olivia came home the other day and announced that she wants to learn to play the viola. "What about the piano?" I asked. She replied that you can't get out of class to go to orchestra with your friends if you play the piano. Oh. I keep telling David I would appreciate some input, but he clearly thinks this falls under my bailiwick. Naturally.
We have a back-to-school tradition...the Saturday after we finish (whew!) the first week of school we go out to breakfast and do a review of the week: highs and lows, what they're excited for, what they're most worried about, everyone gets a turn. It was so good to be around a table together.
There have been a few monumental "firsts" this week:
1. Ethan's first day of school ever. First time on the bus. And not a bit scared or hesitant to board and be on his way...he was the first one in line.
2. All the kids had their first day of school on Monday. I'm trying not to think about how long it will be until they are all mine again. A countdown of nearly 300 days would be completely demoralizing. I'm just taking things one day at a time.
3. Monday morning was the first day I have woken up in nearly three years and not been the Young Women's president. I was released on Sunday. Monday was also the first day since the bishop told me about the change that I didn't have a crying jag about it. On Monday I told David, "I do feel lighter. And I like it." He just grinned from ear to ear.
4. Now it's only the first week, so don't get too excited about this one, but I have made a hot breakfast for the kids three days in a row...a first for me. This is my big goal for the year. When I was pregnant with Ethan, I could hardly function at all, and so Caleb would pour cold cereal and milk for everyone. The kids got quite self-sufficient at getting their own breakfasts and somehow I've just never been good about making it since. But for the past couple of years I've really felt like I've been missing an opportunity to talk to my kids, and nurture them, and send them out the door feeling "mothered." We'll see how it goes.
5. We made it to the first chapter of 3rd Nephi in the Book of Mormon on Tuesday morning. Our summer scripture reading was nothing short of pathetic, and it feels so good to get our reading going again consistently. RIM keeps pointing out the perks of returning to "real life." After scriptures this morning she smugly whispered to CIM, "See...going back to school is a good thing."
6. Ethan came home this morning and put his hand on his heart and said the first line of the pledge of allegiance. I had to put my hand on my own heart to keep it from shattering. My life is passing like a dream.
gloaming /n./ the period between afternoon and nighttime. dusk. twilight. eve. eventide. nightfall.
gloaming /n./ 1. As I write this post, the gloaming is just beginning here in Michigan. The kids are downstairs practicing a play they are going to put on after dinner, our version of dinner theatre. We are having a big celebratory dinner tonight, steaks on the grill and decorations on the table, a sure sign that we have entered into the "gloaming" of our vacation, the final days before we head for home. David will arrive on Wednesday and then we'll head for Canada and a trip to Niagara Falls. The kids are starting to panic just slightly at the dwindling days, protesting that I said we'd be here a month. I assure them that we have been...it will be just one day over a month when we will arrive back in Arizona. The fastest month of our lives.
gloaming /n./ 2. This past week we went to a band concert one night after dinner and enjoyed the gloaming accompanied by Sousa. The kids layed in the grass even though we brought chairs and played on a nearby playground. The highlight for me was at the end, when we all stood and sang "America, the Beautiful" and the "Star Spangled Banner" just as the sun was setting and using its last rays to light up the flag.
gloaming /n./ 3. On Tuesday night we had dinner over at Gary and Sara's house. At the end of the night we had smores, melting the marshmellows over the firepit in their backyard, and sat around the fire in the gathering gloaming and talked. David was sorely missed. The kids, who were by now best-of-friends, made up a game of some kind on their hammock and were shrieking with laughter until Gary thought the neighbors might mind.
gloaming /n./ 4. We spent the end of the week in Paradise, MI, and left for the Upper Peninsula late on Thursday afternoon. As I drove up into the wilderness, the quiet gloaming was just beautiful with the sun setting after a bit of rain and a little fog. I felt completely alone on the road and it was one of those perfect, wistful moments after a fresh rain has stopped and the earth is quiet and damp. It felt like a dream and I took this picture as I drove my way to the northern end of the peninsula.
gloaming /n./ 5. I took the kids to see Tahquamenon Falls this week, and spent Friday's gloaming walking the boardwalk to the lower falls. You just cannot imagine the profusion of nature, the thunder of the water, and the thumping in my heart as I watched my children walk through the "deep woods" (as I called it) with their friends. The gloaming lasts forever in the Michigan summer and I have loved every one of them, though this one was one of my favorites.
gloaming /n./ 6. On our way home from Paradise, we stopped just outside of St. Ignace on a beach that has become one of our favorites. It was the end of the day, the end of the week, and one of the most perfect gloamings of my whole life. The kids changed into their swimsuits in the car and ran through the waves, which were rolling and high. The wind was blowing hard and they ran and jumped over the crashing waves again and again, racing the setting sun. Ethan got out after a bit and climbed on my lap wrapped in his towel, shaking with cold and nestling into me. I told myself to remember this moment forever. Ethan's wet hair, the damp towel, the copper bodies of my other three children silhouetted in the sunset, the sounds of the grass blowing behind me and the waves crashing in front of me, as my children shrieked their joy. They swam until the sun went below the horizon and we ran together for the car. The kids stripped along the side of the road and changed into their pajamas, flushed and shivery at the same time. As I turned on the heater and pulled onto the darkening highway, I was overwhelmed by the magic of my life.
My adventures as an independent woman did not end with my brief affair with Henry Ford.
Last week when I went to yoga, some of the people there were talking about a town "at the end of the road" in the Upper Peninsula called Paradise, MI. This is the actual name of the town and not just a metaphor. I told David that I wanted to take the kids up there for a few days and just breathe, play on the beach, and see the wonders of the northern half of the state. You can imagine his reaction. First just a smile. (Charily checking the water for CIM, but she has been pretty quiet this whole trip...I have been blissfully whole.) Then a careful, "Where exactly is this?" and "Are you sure?"
We left on Thursday late afternoon and headed across the Mackinac Bridge into the UP after 7. It was raining and a bit dark and I felt like the only person on the road. We stopped at a little diner in a place called Trout Lake and the kids' eyes were round and large scanning the menu of hot roast beef sandwiches and all-you-can-eat whitefish, instead of Happy Meals. From there until Paradise, I didn't see another car on the road. It was dark, with just my lone headlights shining through the spotty rain, and CIM started to whisper about just how crazy this really was. It was, in a word: remote.
I drew the red arrow so you could see how close to the border we were...up in the middle of nowhere.
But I needn't have worried. It was glorious. And beautiful. And I am completely brilliant.
The skies were clear and blue when we awoke, and we quickly dressed and headed down to the beach for playing and swimming in Lake Superior, which is the coldest and deepest of all the great lakes, but which did not bother my children at all. They swam and played and built a giant sand castle and a big "bathtub" on the beach. The back of our hotel backed up to the beach and we had the whole thing to ourselves.
My good friend, Sara, and her kids came up about lunch time and after playing with them on the beach for a couple of hours we decided to head over to Tahquemenon Falls. We managed with all our kids (her 5, including a newborn, and my 4) mostly thanks to Olivia and Savannah who tenderly and patiently helped Sara's girls with whatever they needed.
There was only one near tragedy when Olivia lost one of her flip flops over the side of the barrier at the Upper Falls. I helped Caleb under the guard rail, he retrieved the lost slipper, and I helped him back up before the park rangers caught us flagrantly breaking state law.
We finally fed the kids lunch and dinner at 5:30, and then went down to see the lower falls, which were just beautiful. The walk out to see them was just stunning with trees of every variety: birch, hemlock, maple, cedar, banyan, aspen, and I hundred more I couldn't remember from my botany days at the Y. We were going to take a couple of row boats out to an island between the falls, but the place where you rent them was just closing. That could have been quite an adventure with the two of us managing a couple of boats and 9 kids. Perhaps it was a tender mercy that we arrived too late to "merrily" row our boats to the other shore. Our husbands are nothing but grateful about the timing.
And as if all this wasn't enough, the next day was even more spectacular (day 51 of our summer). We drove up to Whitefish Point and saw the lighthouse, the Great Lake Shipwreck Museum, and a movie about the Edmund Fitzgerald which sunk just off the coast.
We got lunch and spent the rest of the day out on the beach at Whitefish Point, the kids flying kites, gathering rocks, walking the beach, playing in the sand. We headed for home about 6, but got sidetracked when we reached St. Ignace and decided to go play in Lake Michigan at one of our favorite beaches not far from there before heading home.
I wrote David an email afterwards and told him, if he were with me, I would lay in bed and whisper to him about my day, my perfect and beautiful day, my little-bit-of-heaven day. It was just that. Day 51 was, indeed, a very good day.
David went home to work this week and a bit of next, and the kids and I stayed here in Michigan without him. At this point in our vacation last year we all drove back home and then I spent the next week or so wondering why. David needs to be at the hospital, but I can do my job just about anywhere, and so this year we decided to delay our return to the belly of hell and stay in the shade of the sugar maples for a couple more weeks. (Thank you, sweetheart.)
Early Monday morning, we drove David down to the airport in Detroit and then spent the day nearby at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. You just can't visit either without coming away completely awed by the impact Henry Ford had on this country, and the whole world for that matter. You gotta love a man with vision.
Did you know that this year is the 100th anniversary of the Model T? Neither did I. We rode in a Model T to tour around Greenfield Village and at the end of the tour our driver suggested that we sing "Happy Birthday" to the Model T. I enthusiastically joined in belting out birthday wishes, only to realize that my kids were not joining in and were staring at me like I'd lost my mind. I nudged them a bit and they half-heartedly joined me for the last line, but were so mortified they could not meet my eyes.
In Greenfield Village we got to see Edison's Menlo Park research park, the Wright Brothers' bicycle shop and house, Robert Frost's home, George Washington Carver's home, cottages from England that Ford had disassembled brick by brick and then reassembled here.
Caleb was all smiles in Edison's lab...
And I couldn't resist having Caleb snap this one of me in front of the printing office.
From there we went on to the Henry Ford Museum, which has so many pieces of American life and history, it is an absolute treasure. Some of our highlights included George Washington's camp bed, the chair Lincoln sat in at Ford's theatre the night he was shot,
a huge train called the "Allegheny" which was just ginormous in every way,
the Montgomery, Alabama city bus that Rosa Parks sat on (the girls got to sit in her very seat),
the Dymaxion house-of-the-future (Caleb's personal favorite) and a thousand other things...
We had a great day together and the kids were asleep before I pulled out of the parking lot after the museum closed. I drove home in the rain in one of Henry Ford's legacies and was so proud of myself for being such an "independent woman." I took my kids on an adventure in a big city I'd never been in and got them back home again. Not too shabby.
(David got me a Garmin so that he wouldn't worry too much as I navigated my way around Michigan. It was very useful, but there were a few tense moments for Caleb when I would miss a turn and it would say: Turn left. Turn left. Turn left now. Make a U-turn as soon as possible. Recalculating. Make a U-turn as soon as possible. Turn left now. Recalculating.)
Anyway, this whole adventure reminded me of a vintage advertisement we had seen earlier in the day:
The text reads: "The Ford car, with its uniformly dependable service, its comfort and convenience, gives a key to the wide and healthful out-of-doors. It enables the owner--her family and friends--to have all the benefits of fresh air and change of scene, without..."
Amen, Mr. Ford.