Exercises in futility

Lookin' cute in his new hat and jersey! 

Dear Jesse,

It was meant to be Josiah's first fall ball scrimmage tonight. Unfortunately, the heavens opened an hour or two before; it started pouring around 4 p.m.  Getting home from F&M required wading out to the car in water coursing through the parking lot up to my ankles (my poor sandals will never recover). So instead of packing up a picnic when I got home, which had been the plan for us to bring to the ball field, the boys and I instead got excited at the prospect of curling up with a classic Disney move and pizza. 

But then — and here's the crazy thing — the scrimmage was not called off. I may or may not have snorted (and then sighed) at the email that arrived 35 minutes before we needed to be there. The coach explained that all of the coaches had "decided that this [was] a quick storm." I'm sure he didn't mean it that way, but it struck me as such a guy way to put it. Ah, good, the men decided what the weather would be. Never mind radar showing thunderstorms in every direction and each weather station calling for rain through the evening. Never mind that this now meant we had to scramble for food, get all geared up, and head off to a muddy field...for an event that surely would be called off in very short order. 

But of course being the angel of good cheer that I am, I did the whole thing. With a smile, even, I kid you not. I jollied the boys along and got us out to the (very wet) field with everything we needed. As did every other family. And to be fair, the rain did quit for a bit. But with lightening cutting the cloud dark sky, I overheard Josiah saying to a teammate during warm-ups, "This lightening is not good. We use metal bats!" 

Just as the kids were called to their dugouts to get the game underway, lightening worsened, rain recommenced, and the coaches decided this actually was not a quick storm. Go figure! Without so much as a first pitch, we all packed up and went home. 

Thank goodness I'm such a sports fanatic and have so much free time this relaxing first week of classes! Otherwise I might have been a wee bit annoyed. 

This and that

Dear Jesse,

I seem to have done a rather feeble job of keeping up the blog for you this first week. It's partly because I've been passably busy. But I've also just not felt like I have much in me to say. Don't choke on your disbelief over me being short on words!

Most importantly: the boys and I are alive and well. (You can probably interpret "well" in an expansive sort of way, but it's generally true.) I'm thankful I was able to be at the house every morning and afternoon at bus time, easing them into the first week of school.

This past week also held dental visits for both boys. As you know, they have been counting down days for this check-up, seeing how your mom had promised a cash payout for impeccable dental hygiene over the past 6 months leading to a no cavities verdict. You can see the happy result here!

William also has taken an immense amount of joy this week in filling full size balloons with water. They can hold 1 to 1.5 gallons of water so are absolute bombs. The half bath has seen its share of water clean-up operations, and I have lugged several of these babies out to the porch for his bursting pleasure. I've taken some video but have yet to get it uploaded. Maybe later this week (but don't hold your breath).

Another favored activity this week? Dismantling the couch for the purposes of Nerf warfare. Boys.

We've also done a fair bit of reading, completing our most recent chapter book together plus all of Three Cousins that Mom has written so far. And here you can see William generating his own story with Story Cubes earlier this evening. I can totally get into reading and stories! (Guns and 12-lb water balloons? More of a stretch...)

I see I wrote another blog post called "This and that" several years ago...a similarly random update with photos...  Remember those cute little boys?

Back to School + Back to East Africa

Four fingers for fourth grade, one finger for first.

Dear Jesse,

I've let the blog lapse for ages. But before you left for this current two-week trip to Burundi and Rwanda, you made a sidelong mention that if I could find a moment to put up an occasional 'blog post for Daddy,' it wouldn't be a waste of time in your book. (You were smart to keep the comment very low-key, knowing what's on my plate while you're away!) Seeing that this morning found the boys climbing on the school bus for the first time since last May, I'm here with super-quick installment #1.

Our back-to-school story started yesterday afternoon, when your mom put on a lovely back-to-school party for the boys. She'd made not one but two cakes—to fulfill two different favorite flavor requests—and bought many of their required school supplies. Even more sweetly, she gave them little gifts representing some of their summer activities and memories together, like movie theater style boxed candy and Red Sox baseball cards. I'm not sure how much the boys recognized the thoughtfulness, but I certainly was touched!

As for this morning, all went smoothly. You know that William has been storming big time about the thought of going back to school, and although I've been pulling out every subtle skill and trick I know to get him ready, I was braced for a rough morning. But both boys did a great job getting ready and even posed for obligatory first day photos before heading a few doors down to the bus stop. How is it possible that we have a fourth grader and a first grader??

Just for reference and for a walk down memory lane:

First day 2015: Hélène had just arrived hours before!

First day 2014: In France!

First day 2013: apparently I never posted anything that day...

First day 2012: I see Josiah wore the same shirt for his first day of K that William wore today. :)

Back to Copenhagen

Living room view for the next three weeks.

We hugged Hélène goodbye on Saturday—don't worry, she's well loved by Jesse's folks in our absence!—and are back in Copenhagen for a repeat performance of the class I taught here in 2014. Despite a lengthy blog hiatus, I'd promised several family members that I'd check in here from time to time. So...here's installment #1!

We flew out of Newark for the benefit of an inexpensive direct flight. Goodness, it's nice not to have layovers, and the overnight flight was blissfully uneventful. Scandinavian Airlines treats kids so well. The biggest challenge was keeping earbuds in William's ears so he could watch inflight movies!

A repurposed eye mask from my backpack worked as a headband to hold the earbuds in place...

We landed early Sunday morning, very weary, and made our way to the airbnb apartment we're renting in Frederiksberg. It's going to be a great fit for us...not as gorgeous and pristine as the place we lucked out to stay at last time, but definitely nice, in a good location, and with a tiny bit more space. The space piece is key since we're delighted to have our niece Bryn with us on the trip! She'll be helping with the boys several hours each day.

After getting settled and taking a nap, we headed out to get some groceries and then do a little exploring. First up was a typical Copenhagen neighborhood playground.

Let's call this photo Bryn and the Giant. It ought to be the title of a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale!

Immediate reminders that we're not in the US: Those climbing and walking beams
are 8-ft high in the middle. Risky play! It's one of the topics we read about and
compare in class (child development in cultural context)...

We made our way to the beautiful Assistens Cemetery, which is barely a 10-minute walk from the apartment. At over 60 acres, it's as much a park as it is an historic cemetery, so we took our cue from the many Copenhageners picnicking, playing, and lounging among the trees, clearings, and grave sites (!) to play a little ball. The air was redolent with gorgeous, enormous lilacs and the weather was top notch—a perfect welcome to the city!

We stopped by Hans Christian Andersen's resting place. Apparently it's William's
resting place too? Obviously little gets kids excited like saying "let's take a photo in
front of this monument."

In the evening, Jesse, Josiah, and Bryn did a little more exploring. I stayed back to make dinner and hang with William, a.k.a. Mr. Homebody, and also grabbed the camera a couple of times to document pretty vantage points of the apartment with my favorite grumpy 6-year-old!  :)  

It's going to be a good three weeks! 

Hooray for a perfect snowstorm!

Winter storm Jonas couldn't have been more perfectly timed for our area! We had days and days of lead-time, so there was no excuse for being low on food or missing a shovel. Snow began falling late evening on Friday, once school and work were well over. The storm raged and snow fell all day Saturday, but not so dreadfully that power was lost or trees came down. And Sunday dawned in brilliant glory, giving everyone a full and warmish day to dig, clear, dig, clear, and dig, clear some more. The shoveling was mighty hard work on Saturday and Sunday, don't get me wrong, and I know we were fortunate not to have any need to leave the house for the weekend—but if a snowstorm was going to hit, this was about as perfect as one could ask for.

You can get a sense for the depth with this picture of the driveway on Sunday morning. Jesse had finally busted a path through the icy, dense, snowplow mountain at the foot of the drive. We had around 28 inches of snow on the level and of course anywhere from 3 to 6 feet in the drifts and piles.

The aforementioned path was important so that Jim and Tillie could make it up the street and into the house for a big Sunday morning brunch. With a travel ban in Lancaster, there was no church, so we got together and feasted on yeasty waffles, fresh fruit, bacon, eggs, and a few gallons of hot tea!  :)

In the afternoon there was plenty of snow play. After lots of sledding and general horsing around, the boys convinced Jesse (who'd been shoveling and snow-blowing nonstop) to help them make a spiderweb of tunnels in the 5-6 foot mountain of snow that had become our front yard. Can you spy Jesse's feet in the photo below? What a dad!  :)

Kings of the mountain!

Here the boys are posing by some of the tunnels later in the day (after snow play was over, hence the lack of snow pants, before they headed up the street to watch the Patriots at Mama Cas and Pop Pop's).

Clearly we've enjoyed the snow and the storm! Now let's just hope no one goes and spoils the joy by canceling school in the morning, right?  :)

Friends

I felt exhausted last Friday morning. The week had seemed excruciatingly long (Jesse had been away and became quite ill while he was gone to boot; it was the first week of classes for the spring term, always a mad scramble no matter how one tries to prepare; several deadlines hit all at once; and one of the boys—bet you can't guess who!—gave me a run for my parenting money all week long).

Getting out the door felt impossibly hard that morning. Given my druthers, I may not have left my bedroom. But how thankful I am that we were committed to hitting the road: What a joy it was to spend a rejuvenating, funny, happy, warm weekend a few hours south of here with the Millers! We laughed a ton, played hard, ate amazing food, had good conversations, and basically had a perfect friends weekend (the work I dragged along notwithstanding, seeing as I didn't officially have the days off like Jesse and the kids). 

Saturday was warm (50s) and beautiful. There was pretty much nonstop basketball and football among the boys (yes, big and little boys alike). You need to view the picture below with the soundtrack, "Eli, I'm open!" chirping out of 3-year-old Marcus' mouth on never-ending repeat. (Replace "Eli" with whomever had the ball throughout the game.)   :)

It was SUCH a treat to have Steve Del visiting too—all the way from sunny California!!! We celebrated his birthday Saturday night even though it was a week or so early.  

(ignore the weird candle camera reflection business on Steve's forehead) 

In addition to outdoor sports, games (board and other) were played all weekend too. Zach taught Josiah this football game...

The animal stacking one was played many a time...

We all enjoyed various board games anytime a few people were available... 

Naturally there was the watching of professional games 

(appropriately attired in front of the television)...

And...speaking of games...I'm beyond thankful that no one thought to take a picture of me on any of the occasions when the kids got me to play Twister!

Also not pictured were the many times we played "three on a couch," where the goal was to get either three of the five little boys OR all three girls (me, Marcia, Hélène) OR all three big boys (Jesse, Steve, Steve) onto the couch at once. If your team won, a pig pile was obligatory. Naturally. It was hilarious.

Sunday's weather couldn't have been more different than Saturday's. Snow! The kids were crazy excited and played for hours. Snow football, fort building, snowmen, the usual.

Speaking of the usual, this is, um, not the usual. I'm one lucky lady, eh?  :)

Boys' team huddling during football...

William having a small meltdown on the field...sigh...

Hélène for the adults' team...

Adults' team huddle...

Marcus, one cool cat!

Big brother Zach...

 Action shot!

Some post-football snowman building...

These three have been friends for 20 years now (the Steves longer than that; Jesse was a latecomer). 

Thank you for a wonderful weekend, Steve and Marcia!

A short post for Daddy

We're so thankful that this current trip is just a few days long, Jesse! While you've been gone, we have...

1) ...worked on the super fun colorable Paris tablecloth that Hélène's parents sent to the boys for Christmas.

2) ...made, umm, celebratory objects (not sure what to call these creations!) with which to fête your parents upon their return from two weeks away. Your mom and dad rolled into town last evening and joined us for dinner; William greeted them with a feather blowing thing and Josiah with a homemade catapult. 

3) ...played in a half inch of SNOW! The boys were beside themselves with joy tonight when they saw that a bit of snow had fallen while they had been playing in the basement. Despite the hour, I let them play out in it before getting ready for bed. They made snow angels, pulled the sled, and did some shoveling (of questionable value, although I was hopeful). Seeing as we didn't have any snow last year in France, it's been nearly 2 years since their last snow-play. 

And now we just look forward to your return. Safe travels!