It’s a new year. I love new years. I love new beginnings. I love new resolutions. Then again, I also love Lenten obligations (and saying “rabbit, rabbit, rabbit” on the mornings of the firsts of every month).
But as much as I love the idea of overhauling myself, I’m actually pretty terrible at it. Each year, I start out like a gangbuster during the first few weeks of January, exercising more and eating better and being happier and being nicer, but then by the time February rolls around, I’m back to my same old self, just facing down another birthday with a brave face and waiting for Lent to begin so I can give myself another jumpstart.
This year is going to be different. This year, I’m going to work backwards. I’m making a map of where I want to be on December 31, 2013 and I’m heading out for it, one step at a time.
Where am I going to be in 365 days?
In better shape and maybe a few pounds lighter.
Sitting on a pile of at least 40 books which I’ve read since January 1st.
With a few new road race t-shirts.
With more family photos and in more family photos.
With a de-cluttered and simplified (and possibly new) house.
With a better grasp on the Bible and my own spirituality.
Advocating for dyslexics.
Writing a lot more.
Worrying a lot less.
Practicing more self-discipline.
Hugging a 9-year old, a 5-year old and an almost 8-year old (and a 45-year old) as much as I can.
Sounds like a great destination for December 31, 2013.
Where is 2013 going to take you?
Our 2013 has already started out perfectly. It’s over 70 degrees here in Florida, we just enjoyed a terrific lunch, and we are about to head out to the beach taking our own Lazarus-Dog, Henry, with us.
You’d be lying if you didn’t admit that there’s a bit of a lull…a dip, so to speak…between the end of Christmas (or Hanukkah) and New Year’s Eve. We’ve spent well over 30 days work-work-working to celebrate-celebrate-celebrate (however you choose) and now, WHEW, it’s gone and over for another year.
And then you sit back on the sofa, knee-deep in torn paper and empty Lego boxes and strips of packing tape, waiting for the timer on the oven to go off, only to realize that if one at my [ahem] youthful age is lucky, she has maybe 40 more Christmases left.
Seeing how fast my first 40 Christmases flew right on by, this little sobering fact always knocks the wind out of me. Knowing that so many little ones who had so many Christmases ahead of them had them stolen away recently just shreds me up inside. The Big Dipper always peeks out when I’m finally sitting down in this one huge leather chair in which no one ever sits until Christmastime when we have to relocate it to make way for our tree–when it becomes Popster’s Chair. He typically sits there, sequestered in the corner in the dark and with his coat on at 6:45 a.m., watching his grandsons’ tear at their gifts with no abandon.
Inevitably, Jack gets a gift which pulls him away from all the rambunctiousness, and Popster follows, toting a new book he’s just received.
Jack and his Popster are thick as thieves: they defeated the entire game of Plants vs. Zombies–from start to finish–on Christmas Eve (see below). They’ve tackled World of Goo one summer before. But my oldest child and my dad both have a pull towards the solitary that this only child completely, utterly understands. I’ve often called it a need for “Only Child Time,” but I realize, obviously, everyone–regardless of the number of siblings, or children, or whoever elses–truly needs his or her Only Child Time. I think Christmas day is a wonderful day for some Only Child Time, to contemplate life and to be grateful. Sitting quietly in the big brown chair, surveying the mess and the happiness and the number of people I love all in one place is what Only Child Time is all about.
These are some of the most magical moments of the day, trust me.
This year’s batch of Reindeer Food, whipped up by Chef Theo, contained oatmeal, glitter and protein powder. Tucker was in charge of stirring.
Tasty.
Here’s what you need to know about Reindeer Food: if you toss it all over your driveway and it rains on Christmas Eve, it’s going to make your driveway look like it’s coated with barf. Glittery, vanilla-y barf.
The glitter attracts the reindeer. Or so I’m told.Theo engages in some intense reindeer food distribution.
Jack sang with his school at Phipps Plaza before Christmas.
Cue the jazz hands.
The entire production was adorable, and we are constantly amazed at how into theatre our quiet and typically reserved Jack is.
Here’s some more singing, this time at his school’s official Holiday program. Check out the cuteness on the front row, far right in the green tie.
Theo was not as into Jack’s program as the rest of the family and spent a majority of the nearly 2 hours there doing some variation of wallering. [Yes, I used the word “waller.” Not “wallow,” mind you. “Waller.” That’s a little South Georgia for ya.]
We’ve also been playing (and watching) a pile of basketball. Jack plays some mean defense. His hair helps him. That floppy bird’s nest is a wicked distraction.
Number 2 on the floor but number 1 in our hearts…
Santa brought us a ping-pong table! Santa suspended gravity in our basement, too–for ping pong balls at least.
We’re winding down the last few days of December at the beach and couldn’t be happier to be here. It’s the perfect place to rest and refocus while in the dip. It’s breezy and chilly here, but the boys and the dogs are on Cloud 9 and seeing them happy makes the rest of us happy.
Here’s to hoping you can use your time in the dip to fully enjoy and appreciate your gifts–all of them.
The first half of the year zoomed by quickly and rather uneventfully. The second half, while still fast, was filled with bits of…well…excitement, but we all weathered the events marvelously.
Tucker’s half-birthday celebration was one of our more festive days of the year. He shares his half-birthday with the real birthday of our nation: July 4th. We were at the beach, where every American should be on the 4th of July.
Cue the Sanford & Son theme right about now.
This kid knows no fear.
We morphed the Bunny-Mobile into the 4th-of-July/Half-Birthday-Mobile for the great parade. (You know you’re hearing the Sanford & Son theme in your head, now. It’s ok. We are, too.)
Riding a skim board is surprisingly difficult. Or maybe it’s just difficult for adults who are scared of how bad it hurts to fall.
Mystery animals at Baba and Popster’s. Popster thought it was a snake (his eyes are bad–ha!) and was flooding it out of his hole with water from a hose pipe. I went over to see what was going on and, after explaining that flooding a rattlesnake out of his lair might not be a good idea, we both leaned over (yes, because that was a good idea) and peered in the hole to find this nest of baby rabbits. Very wet baby rabbits. Mama rabbit came along and moved them all about twenty minutes after we took this picture. Popster claims the backyard is Bunny-Ville on any given morning. Tuck wants to catch some for pets.
We took a behind-the-scenes tour of Turner Field with several of Jack’s baseball teammates in late July.
If you need to get in touch with Rick Flare, all you need to do is visit the Braves pressbox. In case you were wondering…
The adorable one turned 4 and celebrated with a Sparklers and Sprinklers party.
Yoga is a big deal in our house lately. Nightly plank contests are a good way to wear out overly excited boys, by the way.
Tucker’s headstand, which he perfected earlier this year, now has multiple variations…
…even one on a boogie board (talk about core strength!).
We were almost late for the very first day of school because Tucker lost his first tooth–as in, LOST it. It fell out as he was walking down the hall to his room. Tuck loses teeth as passively as Jack does, apparently (and has only lost 1 to date even though there are 2 super-wigglers in his mouth right now).
Closing out the summer at the beach over Labor Day weekend. Best brothers on a perfect day.
No, not South Korea. It’s just a firework.
Sweet Jack broke his collarbone after being catapulted off his scooter in early September. Kudos to the good folks at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta for fast-tracking us through the ER and for being generous with the children’s Lortab. Jack sat outside the x-ray room in a wheelchair next to 2 other kids with visibly broken limbs, all 3 of whom were looped on narcotics. Listening to their conversations was like sitting in a bar late-night:
Jack (to the 2 boys in football uniforms next to him, both wearing green jerseys–1 saying Packers; the other Eagles): Looks like it was a bad night to be on the green team.
Football player 1 (watching a Disney movie playing in the hallway near them): I think they’re playing hockey.
Football player 2: No…that’s baseball.
Jack: No, those are birds flying around.
When we finally made it into the x-ray room, it was obvious something was amiss. Thankfully they set his collarbone while he was standing there, without any warning. Like I said, Lortab was Jack’s friend that night.
It’s no secret we love us some Halloween around here. Check out our newest decoration: a box of fingers. Um, yeah.
We hosted a fiesta for cousin Kate and her fiance’. It was a wonderful night of hanging out with my Bedingfield family.
Tucker played fall ball and was on one of the greatest teams ever…as far as names go: The Lugnuts.
Theo and I took Digger and Henry to be blessed on St. Francis’s Feast Day, which was a good thing since Henry had major oral surgery a few weeks later. Henny-bug is now in the possession of only 4 of his teeth, but he acts like a puppy again, which was a fair trade, I’d say.
Q: What do you get when you have 7 members of Section 3 gathered in a hotel conference room in Macon, Georgia?
A: A 10-year law school reunion.
Move over, Pele. Take a seat on the bench, Beckham. Here comes Theo, the Mighty T-Rex!
Tucker finally got to hold a live rabbit at the Art Barn. Love at first sight, for sure. Tuck plots where he’s going to set up his bunny traps in Baba and Popster’s backyard.
The cul-de-sac firework festivals with our neighbors have now morphed into bonfires. Right smack on the pavement. There were adults present, I assure you–and not just the one photographing the event.
Halloween, finally. Theo loved the facepaint.
Two skeletons and Harry Potter. Jack defaulted to the skeleton after his first two choices (cow-serpent and satyr…no kidding) were determined to be impossible to track down.
Collarbones heal very quickly, thank goodness. Jack made it back to finish out the last 3 games with his fall ball team, the Hooks.
That’s some fierce rope jumping right there.
In November, we learned we’ve been given the gift of dyslexia.
After years of me worrying, a few months of attentive concern from his teachers, a few weeks of tutoring with his learning specialist and a few days of testing with a psychologist, we were finally given the answer: Tucker has a magic brain. He is unbelievably math-y, creative, clever and adept at problem solving. He can think in 3-D. But letters do weird things inside his head (he told the psychologist and us that either God or ZEUS (so help me) tells him to say the wrong word after it comes into his brain). He also told the psychologist that he might be a demi-God. OK, then.
We are grateful to have answers and to have a plan to help Tuck. And Tucker is visibly relieved to have an answer, too. He leaves me notes like the ones below all the time. We think he’s pretty “wabrfll,” too. Having a magic brain is definitely wonderful; don’t you agree?
Tucker fears nothing; we knew that already. This is just one of the many reasons why we know he is going to be better than OK.
Three eggs; four yolks. It’s the little things in life that keep it spicy.
Jack’s new favorite place to read: nestled down in my bed.
Thanksgiving brought us a trip to Charlottesville and a serious asthma attack for Tuck.
The boys with Grandpa. This is what 3 days of being maxed out on steroids looks like on Tucker. At least he has his clothes on. 🙂
When it’s tough to blow the fluff off a dandelion, you know your asthma is back. We’ve since gotten back on top of it and have accepted that Tuck still hasn’t grown out of it.
Monticello in November.
Our boys’ motto this year:
Jingle has returned. Lord help us all…or, more accurately, Lord help us remember to move him nightly.
Yes, the tree is leaning; it’s not just your imagination.
Two more days until Christmas! Baba and Popster (and no wild bunnies, we hope) roll into town later today. The excitement level of 3 little boys, 2 dogs and 1 gerbil just keeps amping up.
We hope you are experiencing the same level of joy in your own home, too. Hold your loved ones–especially the littlest ones–close this year. We know we are.
The merriest of Christmas wishes to you and yours!
I was so surprised at how many people came up to me (or called my mother!) to ask why we didn’t send a Christmas letter this year. I had lots of reasons: the boys are bigger and the things they do aren’t as funny anymore, I had writer’s block, we were saving paper. In the end, I just ran out of time. (Read: I was lazy.)
I did take boatloads of photos this year and spent forever uploading them to Photobucket, so I felt obligated to use them in a post somehow. Thus, I present this post (brought to you in 2 parts), subtitled The Year-in-Review for Family Members and Close Friends Who are Bored Silly Right Now and Looking for a Way to Kill a Few Minutes.
Looking back on 2012, I think it’s safe to say one thing for us: it flew by. Even some of the more tedious parts of it zipped by without us even blinking twice.
Tucker played basketball for the first time and loved it…though truth be known, he was most excited about getting a medal at the end of the season.
Jack played team basketball for the first time, too. We learned that he is one scrappy, tough, fast little hoopster. It’s more about the size of the fight in the dog than the size of the dog in the fight, you know. We continue to be so proud of his “coachability”–the characteristic more than one coach has used to describe Jack.
The best home art project this year, completed by the boys with the assistance of the uber-talented, artsy Ms. Emily. Jack began taking art lessons with Ms. Emily about a month after he turned 2. We knew then that she was a gem. And her art teaching skills are impeccable, as you’ll see further down this post…
Pokemon vs. views of the ocean. Pokemon wins. Mom is sad and resolves to enforce screen time. Said enforcement rarely ever materializes. Mom is even sadder at her lack of resolve, but sometimes (like on 6 hour drives or on an airplane) rules are made to be broken. It’s a vicious cycle of electronics.
We spent President’s Weekend at Amelia with Russ’s parents. Nothing kicks the mid-winter doldrums to the side like a weekend on the coast.
Thomas and friends were our constant companions, at least through the first half of the year. Leaving Theo’s backpack full of tracks and trains somewhere was a recipe for confusion and delay.
Sweet Mama B shines through my boys in their love of Extreme Seasonal Decoration. Theo unboxed and set up Mama B’s Easter Tree all by himself. I remember this crazy thing from growing up and am so happy to have it around our house to help pump up the pre-Easter pastels. Nothing says “most important celebration of one’s faith” like a bright pink tree with tiny chicks, eggs and bunnies hanging from it.
Theo is always on the move. Always. The faster the wheels, the better.
Those red Hunter rainboots were a splurge but worth every single penny. Theo wore them daily, regardless of the weather. It’s hard to get much cuter than a 3 year old in rainboots.
First day of March. First time in 2012 that the temperature hit 70. Boys begging for the slip-n-slide already.
Back to the Bahamas for Spring Break.
Dance moves have been perfected by all the boys this year. Nightly dance parties at the Herako-Casa are a given. Some of our favorite tunes of the year (disclaimer: these are the boys’ favorite songs, not necessarily ours. The things we do for love, right?):
“Moose on the Loose” by Ozomatli
“Moves Like Jagger” by Maroon 5
“Party Rock Anthem” by LMFAO
“We are Never Getting Back Together” by Taylor Swift
“Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen
“More Moles” by Caspar Babypants
We are clearly straddling the line between true children’s music and ‘Tweener stuff (already?!?), like Justin BeaVer and Selena Gomez. Times, they are a’changing, indeed.
Springtime brings baseball. Baseball brings joy to Jack and Laura, big time. Jack caught a few flyballs at 3rd this year and showed he has catcher-blood in his veins by making several outs at the plate, even while being plowed over by boys twice his size. That’s our tough guy.
Here’s our other tough guy, climbing the walls at our pediatrician’s office. I was climbing the walls in the other corner seeing as this visit was the 2nd time in the same day that we’d been in there.
Remember me saying Theo loved wheels? He outgrew his tricycle by late March, so I hauled up the Tiger bike (a little 15-inch hand-me-down training bike we’ve had since Jack was 3) and was going to let him have it after I reattached the training wheels. Theo wanted to give it a whirl sans training wheels, so I said, “what the heck.” He hopped on and took off peddling by himself. No wobbles, no falls. At 3 years, 7 months old.
Meanwhile, Tucker perfected his own new stunt: the headstand. Tucker spends half his time this way now.
Pensive Theo awaits a slice of pizza with “mayor-a-nayer-a”. We had a year of food drama, with 2/3 of our boys holding fast as neck-and-neck leaders of the Picky Eater Club. Theo’s favorite foods? Chocolate, rice, waffles with butter. Jack’s staples? Peanut butter & honey sandwiches and chicken.
Tucker, on the other hand, is on his way to being a culinarian. He ate asparagus, Thai food, Chinese food, Mexican food and baked potatoes this year. The child will try anything. He’s part goat, for sure, but it sure makes life in the kitchen a bit more, um, palatable.
Imagine my surprise, then, when everybody (well, almost everybody–Jack wouldn’t touch it) slurped down a pot of “Mayor-a-nayer-a soup” (pasta fagioli) that I made last week. Full of vegetables like beans, tomatoes and celery! All large and visible, not pulverized into an invisible puree of glop! I caught a glimpse of what a normal family could look like!
Dress Like Your Favorite Book Character Day at Trinity was a huge success, even if it did take me an entire package of glue gun sticks to whip up Tuck’s costume. Here we have Harry Potter and Phillip Rainsford, III (from The Candymakers).
Our favorite reads this year:
Jack’s top 5:
The Candymakers by Wendy Mass
The Gollywhopper Games by Jody Feldman
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series
Rick Riordan’s Olympians series
Tucker’s favorites:
The Brick Bible by Brendan Powell Smith (a retelling of the Old Testament, smiting and all, in Legos)
The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan
Theo’s best:
Splat the Cat books
Clifford the Big Red Dog books
Go, Dog Go! by Dr. Seuss
Laura’s favorites:
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
The Giver series by Lois Lowry (yes, one of the last folks on the planet to read these)
The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
My Year with Eleanor by Noelle Hancock
Jack discovers the wonders of baseball cards. Mom re-discovers the wonders of baseball cards. Many a spring night were spent lying in Jack’s bed, digging through the old shoebox of cards from my childhood (and my dad’s and uncles’ childhoods). Thurman Munson? Phil Niekro? Johnny Bench? Jack has a new cache of heroes now.
Our often quiet Jack has a speaking role in the 2nd grade play at Trinity. He’s a Lorax (one of several), but he said his lines clearly and loudly in front of the entire school. So proud of him. The neon orange costume, however? Ouch.
We’ve always known Tucker is pretty amazing. Here he shows the loot he won from The Claw Game at Taco-Mac–IN ONE DAY. Most folks go their entire lives without ever beating The Claw. Not Tuck. Twice in one day. That takes skills, folks. Skills and a whole lot of quarters handed over to you from your Popster.
Proof of Ms. Emily’s fantastic art teaching abilities: Jack has a watercolor chosen to be on display for the entire school year at Trinity!
Tucker’s huge heart has no boundaries. He adopted one of the hatched chicks from his kindergarten class only for us to discover after we got home that the chick had a deformed foot. Thank goodness for friends with farms; Tuck’s chick went to live with a very caring farmer who set up a special coop just for her. If you listen closely, you can probably hear Peggy clucking and chirping and screeching right now; sister had some lungs on her.
Tucker and Mom on Worldwide Hyperemesis Awareness Day. He is a tough guy, indeed, on so many levels.
Our greatest picture of 2012:
Jack turned 8 in May and celebrated with a “Paleontology in your Pajamas” party. It was just as wild as it sounds.
We spent Memorial Day at the Ford Plantation where a snafu in our hotel room led us to spend the weekend in an adorable little cottage on the grounds. The boys had just gotten wands from Ollivander’s wand shop (via Russ) and they spent the evenings walking around the front yard casting spells on one another. You can’t make this up, people.
School’s out! No more uniforms! Tucker takes it up a notch on Day 1 of summer break with the ever-classic tuxedo shirt.
Our Montessori days have come to an end. Jack and Tucker came to Theo’s year-end celebration and instantly reverted to their Montessori ways, pulling lessons off the shelf and getting down to work.
Our little entrepreneur. Tucker’s first money-making adventure of the summer: selling bird calls. Again, we can’t make this stuff up.
From bird calls to a bird’s nest: Jack’s hair still grows into an uncontrollable floppy mess in no time flat. Here his bird nest is aided by the high altitude on the top of Stone Mountain during our first family climb.
We said farewell to one of Jack’s best friends, Arin, who moved to Iowa over the summer. We were all so sad to see such a wonderful family move so far away. We’ve kept in touch, though, most notably on the phone–a truly hilarious series of half-hour discussions of what’s going on in math class and what the new games to play on the playground are.
Tucker still sleepwalks.
Theo loves spaghetti, but realizes that spaghetti from La Tavola is even better than Mom’s spaghetti.
2012 was the year of fireworks, thanks to our favorite neighbor, Mr. Brian. Move over, Smokey Bear.
Our newest family member: Digger. After a 3-hour period of intense observation of all rodents at PetsMart, a wise employee finally came over to inform us that this little guy was the non-biter. Ten minutes later, he was ours. He has lived up to his name–both as a non-biter and as a Digger. We had no idea a little critter like this gerbil could be such a joy.
Tucker’s 2nd money-making project of the summer? Selling Gerbil Art. He had no takers, though we have no idea how anyone could turn down this little guy…
Tropical storm Beryl did a number on Amelia Island. After being cooped up for a few days, we finally could get back out on the beach–with the monster-sized (for the Atlantic) waves.
Buckley-Dog still loves the beach.
And with that, we’ve floated halfway through the year…
We broke with tradition this year and did not get our tree at a fancy [read: quaint, yet overpriced] tree farm. Instead, we headed to the lovely Home Depot where we were able to land a ginormous, beautiful tree for way less than half of what we’d paid last year. Winning.
We wove our way through the sawdusty smelling store and debated adding animated flamingoes, an Elmo, and a tree-circling train to our stash of Christmas decor.
We passed on the flamingo (its laser-thin neck was just begging for a short life span) and the Elmo (Theo is way past Elmo but not way past being mocked by his big brothers for once loving Elmo–he’ll likely never hit that milestone). The train, of course, called out to several of the males in my family. Ergo, when the rubber hit the road, we didn’t actually save that money by getting the cheaper tree because Theo was able to convince Russ that we really, weally needed this train.
December is supposed to be cold, but in Atlanta, that assumption is always hit or miss. This weekend was a big, fat miss. We scrounged around for our Christmas tree under a giant orange tent in 70 degree weather, sweating and gruffing about how hot it was, but we still had a great time.
There wasn’t any hot chocolate or folks dressed up like elves, but there still was room for silliness.
And there weren’t any snippy volunteers around to fuss at us.
We had to employ a neighbor’s assistance to haul the tree in, and the second it was upright and unwrapped, Tucker and Theo started throwing ornaments at it.
Those of you who put up trees in your house know that this is not the order in which it goes. There are about 100 steps you have to take before you can hang the first ornament, all of which prove immensely tedious for a 6 and a 4 year old.
Lights. Always the man’s job, right?
Rescuing ornaments mid-throw, keeping children out of the box marked fragile and plucking boys down off a ladder all require patience and assistance. Hence, our other decorating companion:
How about that awesome ornament, too? It’s front and center on our tree; trust us.
And that train? My stars, Theo was as happy as a clam.
Jack was pretty pumped about it, too, based on his camped out location under the tree where the train kept derailing.
Our halls typically take a few days to deck; this year was no exception. Here, Tuck places the star atop the tree the night after we put it up.
Sibling rivalry is running deep at our house; Theo pitched a fit to put on the star, too–but even with the ladder and his dad’s assistance, he’s too tiny. Luckily, this photo sufficed.
an exuberant Tucker after a solid 36 hours of decorating
Finally, our neon green skull from Halloween just serves as a warm-up for our neighbors. The photo below shows just 2 of the 3 fine, fine pieces of yard art the Herako-griswolds have staked in their front yard this month.
Humor us, people. You gotta live a little, especially when you have little kids.
And despite it being one of our most favorite times of the year AND despite the fact that the boys had some of their most favorite pals from school join them for trick-or-treating, we still were rather sloppy on the photo ops. Pretty sad, I say.
The one still shot we have of our big skeleton, little skeleton, and Harry Potter.…and now they’re movin’loving the little skeleton’s pose here…Our Harry Potter had misplaced his wand and glasses by 6 p.m. on Oct. 31.The baby skeleton was more interested in his face paint than anything else……that spiders-on-the-house trend this year? A) user-creepy, and B) user-hard to do…
And with that, we return you to your regular Autumn photos.
The boys unearthed a jumprope in the garage and have attempted to master it. They are boys, you know, not girls. Jumping rope is challenging.
the serious, pre-jump face. Don’t worry; he’s got this.Way too much effort involved here, no? Since this night, the jump rope has been relegated to many tasks (stuffed animal-dangler, brother-lariat, bicycle tether), none of which involves primarily jumping.
For those of you who are concerned, Digger the Gerbil is still thriving:
And lastly, a concession on my part. Our boys have never, ever slept in our bed (ok, maybe Theo did when he was a tiny infant and nursing and wide awake at 4 a.m., but exhaustion is debilitating, people…).
Jack’s new thing–a habit I willingly admit I embraced this summer at the beach–is to read in bed with me when Russ is out of town. Quite often, I’ll have to go re-tuck in another child or let a dog in (or out) and when I come back to my bed, this is what I find:
Like I can kick him out.
He doesn’t snore (or wiggle).
Neither does Dog.
So now, Jack, son of an English major, pushes the envelope and asks to read in my bed most nights. It’s hard to say no. Last night, he and Dog listened to Mama B’s Nat King Cole cd as they plowed through more of the 5th book in the Percy Jackson series.
I mean, really. Could an English major’s heart soar higher?
Neither Russ nor I know squat-diddly about soccer, and it shows. Jack and Tucker both played on a 4-year old team, and it was a frustrating experience on multiple levels. You have to realize the 4-year olds are much more excited by an airplane flying overhead or a patch of clover that needs to be picked than playing a game, and you head to the field expecting that. And you won’t be disappointed because the 4-year olds are too busy enjoying the world to notice the ball go rolling by, and when you don’t know a single thing about soccer, you don’t feel obligated to try to refocus the kids or find a teachable moment. If you’re not an uber-competitive maniac who has played team sports since she was 5, then it’s all good.
Otherwise, there’s going to be a lot of palm slapping of the forehead accompanied by deep sighing as you try to come to grips with the fact that your son just stopped running for no reason or scored a goal for the wrong team or is lying down on the field so he can watch the ants better.
Amazingly, this near universal lack of focus as a 4-year old on a sports team has skipped Theo.
Dude can play some soccer.
He’s on the T-Rex, possibly the funniest name for a team since the Lugnuts (Tucker’s current baseball team). Theo’s best pal is also a member of the mighty T-Rex (T-Rexes?). Life is good as a T-Rex.
The warm-up should be filmed and placed on Youtube, and you should bookmark it for those days when you need a good laugh.
T-Rex warm ups include a round of 10 jumping jacks and–I kid you not–practicing falling on the ground without crying. The coach is brilliant.
Theo and Hayes and the rest of the team demonstrate the many stages of the jumping jack.It’s hard to beat sprinting 4-year olds for cuteness…they’re a lot like puppies.Action shot! (OK, it was actually just during warm-ups.)
Proof that Theo has an inkling of what to do. This kind of aggressiveness has never been displayed by a Herakovich (at least from the 5 of us) on a soccer field before. I can guarantee you that. Though he be but little, he is fierce. 🙂
Water break at half-time. You can really work up a sweat running in a pack like that.
Theo gets some tips from his best pal’s big brother, whom he adores.
We were so close to not jumping back on the crazy train that is 4-year old soccer, but man, are we glad we did. Theo has been waiting his whole life to get off the sidelines and onto the field. He couldn’t be prouder, and we couldn’t be prouder of him.
In Atlanta, October Mondays generally mean one thing: the children are going to be randomly out of school at least once or twice, so you better pick your poison for those days ahead of time.
Thank goodness, we have sharp, organized pals who roped us in to what turned out to be a wonderful day with Farmer Sue at her Art Barn.
We packed up something close to a picnic lunch and headed off to Canton to meet Farmer Sue and her furry and feathery flock of fun.
We pulled in to Farmer Sue’s to find this old truck sitting in the yard. My Popster would have been amazed. It reminded me of the old beaten-up blue truck he used to drive me to school in when I was little. Good times.
Tuck found it fascinating, also.
Things got even better once we made it inside the farm gates.
“I was not in that movie Shrek, but I could’ve been. I’m that funny. And that loud.”
There was lots feeding and brushing and grooming of various beasts and they all–children and creatures alike–enjoyed every minute of it.
Remember Tucker’s fabulous collection of stuffed rabbits?
just a select few of his rabbits make the place of honor on his bed, you know…
Then you’ll understand that Tucker, our Bunny Lover, was absolutely in Heaven during this picture…
Jack gives his best rapper/thug glare below.
After a hayride (during which I sneezed and rubbed my eyes the majority of the time), we went into Farmer Sue’s actual barn for some art time. She taught our group how to easily draw a chicken and a pig, and the little artists went at it.
Some little artists followed directions better than others; one child (seen below, ahem) received one-on-one art attention after pitching a fit because his pig’s feet didn’t look right.
With a little food in his belly, Jack is back to smiling. Either it was the food or the fact that Farmer Sue was taking the kids on another hay ride, this time without any other grown-ups.
After our farm visit, we shot up the road about a mile to a pumpkin patch, and my sons proceeded to rearrange all of the pumpkins in the entire barn. Give them a wagon and a room full of pumpkins and they can spend hours rolling them around from one side to the other. It’s unbelievable how much they enjoy doing this. I might need to plant a pumpkin patch just to provide them with some entertainment (and exercise) next fall.
Proof I was actually there…
These two are looking like twins lately…
Back home to the middle of October. Our yard has been amply spookified and 2/3 of the Halloween costumes have been ordered. Jack is our hold-out this year; thus far, he’s claimed he wants to be two creatures I cannot find: a cow-serpent (huh?) and a satyr. I have Percy Jackson (well, actually Rick Riordan and his marvelous Olympians series) to thank for this. We are still trying to figure out what Jack is actually going to be. Ever since he was a 2-year old determined to dress up as a snowman, he has not disappointed in his costume choices.
…with a corncob pipe (and a dinosaur sidekick)
Less than 2 weeks left!
Thanks, Farmer Sue, for a terrific time at your Art Barn!
This past weekend, Russ and I hosted an engagement party for my dear cousin Kate who is tying the knot in January.
Most of you know I am an only child. My dad’s second brother’s child also, like me, is a girl without siblings. Kate came along and for awhile had no siblings either, but then gained the coolest thing ever in her younger brother Walter.
My girl cousins mean the world to me. We have helped each other through break-ups, moves, new jobs, bad hangovers…you name it. They are my sisters, since I don’t really have sisters. They rock.
We used to sit around the children’s table at Thanksgiving at Mama B’s and admire how much fun the grown-ups seemed to be having. My dad and his three brothers have myriad family jokes that come out for no reason at all. [If you have any type of bread-product on your plate, it’s going to get poked. Consider yourself warned. There’s also a mad joke about “Wringle Bells” (which other folks might call Hershey Kisses). Trust me: if you could be adopted by this family, you would want to. We. Are. Funny.]
So I have 3 boys and Leigh Ann has a son and a daughter; those are the sub-cousins so far, and we are hellbent that these people are going to be tight. And while there wasn’t much interaction going on Saturday night between the pack of boys and 3 month old Chloe, I don’t think we are going to have to worry about them understanding this side of the family.
Let us at that Pinata! We want candy! (Clockwise from far left: Ty, Jack, Theo, Tucker)
This quartet ran the party, in a good way. They helped with food and drink, they performed interpretive dances on the back deck to some ‘Tween songs, and they busted the stew out of the pinata. Then they gathered their loot and retreated to my bedroom to watch Happy Feet 2, all piled up together on a pallet of pillows to rival none other.
all completely being gentlemen as they massacred our red dinosaur friend…
Obviously, because we had the pinata, the party was a Fiesta themed one. We knew it was going to be a great night when my dad got into the spirit before the first guest even showed up…
Then the guests did start showing up, and they were all wonderful. Friends with whom my cousin had gone to high school, aunts, uncles and brand new babies, and even Digger the Gerbil (yes, he made a cameo appearance, as all companion-rodents should)…
At one point, I looked over to the sofa and saw my dad with 2 of his 3 brothers sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on our couch, watching a football game. And all 3 of them were laughing. Hard.
just missing Uncle David (in London)…L-R: Hibby, Bill & Sidney
It was the first time these 3 had all been together since Mama B’s funeral. It was a morale booster. It gave me a glimpse of what I hope my 3 sons will be like in 40 years: best friends, able to laugh, able to have fun, able to pick right up where they’d left off, able to live in the moment.
The whole house was warm and fuzzy and happy. So I took Kate and her brother Walter outside…to the tree fort.
My boys’ tree fort has long been a place of solace for me; that’s no surprise. The thing is cooler than cool. I admit it: when I was growing up, I dreamed about a multi-leveled fort with a slide and swings on which you could swing with more than one person without living in fear of you both flipping the entire rusty contraption over.
It is the best place on the planet for a glass of wine, star watching, family observing, deep conversation. Kate, Walter and I sat on top of the rope bridge while my dad and his brother told us all the ways they had taken care of us and how they would always protect us and watch out for us even if we didn’t realize it. It was the inverse of a lecture; we were up high on a ledge; they were down low, looking up at us, lukewarm Budweisers in their hands. At 41, I knew–as I’ve always known–that my Popster has my back and always will.
Transitions are scary things. Getting married, having a baby, growing older…it’s all scares the bejesus out of me. I try my best to stay grounded…which is a joke because I know full well I’m merely tethered to sanity most days by tenuous strands of “ok, I got this” and “I can figure this out” and “if it’s not a cold, it must be strep” and every other tangible excuse I can hook a finger into.
Where do you stand in your life? Are you a wife? A mom? A daughter? A volunteer? Yourself? All five? How on earth do you juggle all that? How do you delegate that? What falls to the wayside? What needs to be given a hug and revived? What needs to have some much needed, solidly focused time and attention given to it?
I knew the part that had been missing lately. Only children typically do.
An only child gets married and becomes a wife. Yes, you are a daughter, but being a wife is your main role now. Then a baby comes along and you’re a mom in addition to a wife. Oh, and you’re still a daughter, too.
But there are times when an only child needs her parents and her parents alone. And no one else. No one else gets the chicken jokes and the Heath bar jokes and the blown-up blender jokes. No one else remembers the last out at the state championship or the carsickness on the way to see a new baby cousin or the importance of Mattel baseball games. No one else knows pop-tarts, blue cheese, Dairy Queen and Combos could bring a speed-eating fool to his knees, or that, even if you are sitting on a beach in the Bahamas, there are only so many times you can hear “Yellow Bird” on repeat before you start dive-bombing the swim-up bar. There are only 2 folks who really saw what it was like to go through a miserable break-up, and those 2 folks sacrificed a rainy January weekend–wherein I celebrated my mother’s wrong birthday (sweet thing was turning 50, not 51…ouch)–to help me get resettled in a house filled with nothing except the incorrect number of birthday candles and way too much Grant Lee Buffalo. [Without a doubt, that was the most pitiful pity-party, but my mom and dad were right there with me, making me laugh through it.]
All those thoughts are so Bedingfield, so Us, so My Mom and Dad that by the end of the night, I was so happy to spend 3 more hours around these 2 best friends, the people who brought me into this world, the people who chose to have me. Just as I savor the moments of still reading to Jack or still cradling Tuck’s head on my arm or still being nestled in like a cloud around Theo as they each breath those deep, husky breaths that let you know they are sound asleep, I realized that this moment was the same for my parents. It had been at least a decade since we’d had true Us time. And it had been probably 38 years or so since I was a little girl, curled up in their arms. Their only child, who was once scared of the dark, was now again among the 4 arms of those who could most protect her because they are the ones who most understood her–and vice-versa.
It was a perfect moment. It was an evening of unspoken love.
But why is that? Why don’t we want to tell people about how we love them? Or why we love them? Or the easy-out “I love you because…”?
Our days are ticking by. We will not get to live today again. We need to find ways to show love, to show fondness, to show appreciation for someone…anyone…and then do it. Too often we are all too stingy with compassion.
My crew is a family full of love, and we wallow in it:
with sweet Tucker about 4 hours before the Rotovirus struck, sending us to the hospital. Tucker was 12 months old and this was his 1st visit to the beloved train museum.yes, Tuck’s chewing on a stick…
We love to have fun. We love to include family in the fun. We love being a family.
Mother’s Day, 2007
It’s never, ever bad to show your love for one another. Never.
Jack kisses his somewhat unwilling younger brother…July, 2007Hib kisses his somewhat unwilling younger brother…September, 2012
Tuck going in for a covert snuggle…August 2011
I find there are some days where happiness doesn’t end. This weekend was a never-ending-happiness sandwich, 72 hours of wonderfulness.
So go love on everyone. That’s right: everyone. Do something good. Make someone smile. Live your life vibrantly and live your life well. You only get one chance.
Jack and me squashing Mama B at Jack’s baby shower; April, 2004.
You know, you probably jinx yourself when you write something along the lines of “life couldn’t possibly get any better than this.” (Not that I’m supremely superstitious or anything. I’d consider myself merely somewhat superstitious.)
Poor Jack broke his collarbone. He has been way more daredevil-ish lately, flying down the hill of our cul-de-sac on his scooter, zooming onto our driveway and then jumping off, letting the poor scooter clatter off to the side. For our typically very cautious son, this new endeavor was extremely out of character. He spent one Friday night doing this over and over, going faster and faster, until I finally had to tell him to stop because I was about to have a nervous breakdown.
Seems that’s what’s actually called “Mother’s Intuition”.
A few days later he came into the house screaming. We did the once-over and didn’t see any blood or missing teeth (a huge, huge fear of mine). We did, however, see his left arm hanging down a few inches lower than the right, and once we had his shirt off, we could see the big divot in his collarbone. Eww.
So off to Childrens’ Heathcare we went. CHOA is amazing. They fast-tracked us and within an hour, we had a picture showing us this:
Within 2 hours, we were back at home. Diagnosis? Broken collarbone, 6-8 weeks in a sling with another 4-6 weeks recovery after that.
Fall baseball season? Gone.
Riding a bike or scooter? Gone, until Halloween or later.
Tying shoes? Impossible.
Sitting up in bed by oneself? We’re getting there.
…that would be Tucker in the middle, not just a random set of arms
The neighbors came over the next day and decided to sign Jack’s “cast”. Since you can’t actually put a cast on a broken collarbone, poor Jack has this vulnerable looking get-up of a sling and an Ace bandage that holds his arm against his chest and prevents movement (in theory, at least). He came in and asked me if the neighbors could decorate his arm, after the fact. This was the first time I’d seen him do anything close to smile in over 24 hours.
Of course, school pictures were taken the very next day.
Tucker and Theo have been terrific at staying calm around Jack–at least for the first week. And all 3 boys have really gotten good at cooperation. Tucker has to help Jack unbuckle his seatbelt in the car, for instance. And, of course, all the really good iPad games need at least 2 good hands.
Jack is on the mend. He is one tough cookie. We are grateful for the wonderful folks at CHOA.
Completely gratuitous video: we recently swapped out our pathetic, lousy, worthless phones for new ones that hopefully will hold a charge longer than 4 minutes. We’ve been putting off this switch for at least a year now, mostly because we didn’t want to lose our old answering machine message.
Here’s Jack, at about 18 months old (no lie), on our old machine (before unplugging the old dinosaur of an answering machine, I played the message 3 times while recording it with my iPhone to make sure we’d have it forever. Told you I was sentimental.):
And finally, it’s almost the middle of September! Almost time to start dragging out the gruesome! Here’s Theo’s addition to our Halloween decor, picked out yesterday afternoon while we killed an hour between carpools:
J, T, and Theo B. 