That's all she wrote

Those of you disappointed with the brevity of this week's blog ought to reflect that you're lucky to get a post at all . . . within hours, the keyboard on which I'm typing this and the screen at which I'm staring will be quiescent, tightly (we hope) wrapped in boxes and ready to be loaded on to the truck tomorrow. Most of our worldly possessions (and you never realize how many you have until you have to pack them all!) are in boxes right now, awaiting removal. Most of our living room furniture is already gone, given away (we have a computer desk, chair, entertainment center and empty bookshelf, but that's it). So our house has a rather forlorn air about it. At least, it does right now, partly because Andrew's asleep (and yet another reason for posting this blog now--it's one of the few things I can do without fear of disturbing him or Dan, who was working on his dissertation until 2 a.m. this morning).

I'm sure it's been said before, but I don't like moving. Maybe it's partly an oldest child phenomenon (apparently, oldest children are more resistant to change). Right now it's mostly that I'm sick of boxes. In a couple of weeks, once the reality and finality of the move has set in, I imagine it will be because I miss Pennsylvania. But I've already said enough on that head in my last post.

Let's see. What do we have to report this week? Very little, I'm afraid. Dan spent most of the week working hard on his dissertation, coming home most nights at midnight, or later. Yesterday morning he reported that something strange had happened on his way home: a policeman had stopped someone driving a truck, and flashed his flashlight on Dan as he passed; a few hundred yards further down the street he spotted a policeman with a dog inspecting the bushes. We found out why later that morning: the front page news of the local paper announced that there had been a robbery at a pizza place just a few blocks away from us, and, as the suspect fled on foot, police had cordoned off our whole neighborhood for a search.

Andrew, surprisingly, has seemed strangely unfazed by the move, remaining his usual chipper self even as his toys have been gradually disappearing. (Of course, in the absence of toys he can always find something to get into). We're learning too that we have to be careful what we say around him, as he has a pretty retentive little memory. The other day, as we were driving down Park Avenue in State College, Dan mentioned something about the street being closed off near the stadium. Andrew immediately piped up: "Pah, pah" and wouldn't relent for a while. We finally figured out it was because he had picked up on "park," and not unnaturally assumed that was where we were going. And of course, the park is a favorite destination, not only for the playground, but because of his newest fascination in the animal kingdom: "gurl." And no, we're not talking about the female half of the species homo sapiens--we're talking here about squirrels, which run rampant in our neighborhood and are nearly as exciting to chase as bunnies, with about as much success. Last time we went to the park, Andrew spent most of the time chasing a hapless squirrel that didn't have the sense to just climb a tree, but kept scampering from tree to tree to elude the terrible toddler in its wake.



This has also been a week where most of our limited socializing was done at farewell parties: Monday night I went to a farewell party for a good friend from school and his wife--they've just taken a job at a university near Palmyra, NY (one of the first things they told me about their new area was that there was lots of Mormon historical stuff in the area, which, of course, I already sort of suspected . . .). Friday evening I went to another farewell party (you'll notice that a lot of this socializing was solo: Monday Dan offered to stay home with Andrew, although I offered to find a babysitter; Friday night Dan was still at lab and a friend from my department sat in our empty apartment while Andrew slept--and then, of course, when I got back we proceeded to talk about books and Harry Potter for another couple hours!). This time the party was for our good friends the Sturgeons and their daughter Gaby--I suppose it was also in a sense for us (we were mentioned in the invitation), but we didn't find out about it until we got the invitation, and of course, Dan couldn't go--he even, sadly, had to turn down an exclusive guy's card night at the Hanscom's, which I'm sure was a sacrifice for him. Saturday night we went to yet another party at the Hanscom's--this time we all went. It was fun to see so many of our good friends from the area, but it was also pretty challenging to keep Andrew out of trouble. Since, of course, he couldn't sit still, he went from one hazard (the stairs) to another (trying to turn off the TV) to another (attempting to grab things from the table). Finally, we resorted to our usual M.O. at the Hanscom's--we set up his pack-n-play in the "Mountain Man" room. After rocking him for nearly half an hour (and with Andrew increasingly sleepy), I made the fatal mistake of putting him awake in his crib, where he not unnaturally started to cry. In the past, he's usually cried for a little while before going to sleep. This time, however, he cried for a little while until he threw up, all over his pack-n-play (but luckily not on Celie's carpet, or they might have never let us come back!). Of course, part of this may not have been just the crying, but the two hotdogs he ate for dinner . . .


Anyway, this necessitated a quicker departure than we would have liked, but was probably just as well, for Dan's sake. After we got home, he helped me unload the remaining items from our attic, and then headed up to campus to work for another 5 or 6 hours on the endless process that is the dissertation . . .

And I guess this post ended up being longer than I anticipated--that's the problem when you're just naturally chatty in prose (or you're an English major, which amounts to the same thing).



By this time next week, Andrew and I will have arrived in Provo and will have moved on to Park City, UT, and Dan will be staying with Adam Dean, a kind friend of ours who graciously offered Dan a place to stay for a few weeks, as he finishes his dissertation and prepares for his defense.

Penultimate week in PA

As most of our few but faithful readers know, we're rapidly approaching our move from Pennsylvania, a move that we face with varying degrees of anticipation, sadness, dawning nostalgia, and outright denial. (Well, at least Andrew and I will be leaving the state a week from tomorrow; Dan will stick around until for his dissertation defense in August and for a few weeks after that to tie up loose ends). It's hard for me to believe we're actually leaving--sometimes graduate school feels endless, at other times it just seems so much a part of our daily rhythms that it's hard to imagine it will ever end. And now that it has (or nearly so), I'm finding it hard to believe and accept--part of me still seems to feel that all this packing I've been doing all week is merely in preparation for a long trip, something like the summer I spent in Utah last year. Part of me remains convinced that I'll be back again, and not just for short visits. (I can console myself with the fact that I have to come back at least once, for my own defense, whenever that may be). But this place--State College, Centre County--has gotten into our blood, it seems. For a long time I thought of Utah as "home," but gradually, almost imperceptibly sometimes, that feeling has been replaced (or perhaps been complemented by) a feeling of Pennsylvania as home. That's not really so surprising, when you consider how much of our shared life has happened here: we met here, got engaged, got married (well, the marriage itself was in Utah, but you know what I mean!), had a kid . . . I'll be sad to leave, even while at the same time I recognize that it's time for us to move on to real jobs, and we're looking forward to being closer to family. I suppose change is never really a simple thing, even when it's a good change.



Anyway. There's really not a lot to report for this week--I've begun packing in earnest, packing a few boxes during the day while Andrew runs around or watches his Baby Einstein videos (the only thing that will get him to sit still for more than five minutes), and then packing more at night. Dan has really been working hard on his dissertation--I don't think he was home before nine or ten any night this week: Thursday night he didn't come home until after Andrew woke up in the morning, just before 5 a.m.! (Luckily, both he and Andrew went right to sleep after that). But his marathon sessions seem to be bearing fruit--he finished his last major experiment Thursday night (thus the late return), and now he just has to finish writing.








Andrew has been getting more chatty: I picked up some animal flashcards and we've been working on animal recognition--of the 29 cards, he probably knows at least 20, even if he can only say the first syllable or so. He's also become increasingly fascinated with the local wildlife--he's taken to running off down the street any time he sees a bunny rabbit (often he spots them before we do). So far, he hasn't been able to get near one (for some reason, they always run off when he approaches), but that doesn't stop him from trying.



Late Saturday morning, we wandered down to the end of our street where one of our neighbors was holding a yard sale. I picked up some dinosaur books and some Disney movies and Andrew discovered a box containing some of the old style Fisher Price little people. The woman told me that little kids are her "favorite kind of shopper," and proceeded to give Andrew all of the little people she had. It never ceases to amaze me what kinds of things fascinate Andrew. I wouldn't have expected the Little People to hold his interest for more than the few minutes he devotes to any new thing, but on the contrary, these Little People have repeatedly held his rapt attention for a full fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. Mostly, he just likes to put them all on the table (or any other flat surface) and then rearrange them according to some obscure Andrew system. And then rearrange them again.



Saturday afternoon Dan played hooky from work for a little while, and Andrew and I walked up to campus and met him at the Creamery, where Andrew helped us make short work of our ice cream cones. There's no question that this kid likes ice cream.



And of course, our lives were inevitably affected by the Harry Potter phenomenon. Friday night one of my friends organized a "Harry Potter" party, held just prior to her departure to the official Barnes and Noble party. Although I admit that I'm a fan of the series, I went mostly to see friends who I may not see again before we leave. Still, I couldn't quite contain the thrill that went through me when the mailman delivered our copy of Book 7 yesterday morning. However, in an act of serious self-restraint, I've resisted reading all but a few pages of the first chapter. I have to finish reading book 6 again (the one disadvantage to reading books as quickly as I usually do is that I often forget a lot of details), and besides, Dan's reading it now . . .

Till next week's fascinating installment: "That's all folks."

It's a wonderful life?

On the recommendation of Dan's parents, we've recently been watching installments of Foyle's War, a BBC series that centers around a WWW II era policeman in Britain, Detective Superintendent Foyle, who "investigates murders in wartime." In some ways, his daily job seems strangely unconnected from the war (domestic murders, thefts, etc.), but inevitably, it circles back to the war. I think what fascinates us the most is the blend of humaneness and inhumanity in the characters, the deft presentation of people in both their best and worst lights--and the entire spectrum in between. In part this comes from the fact that many of the episodes are based on real life incidents. At any rate, our life this week feels a little like this--much more mundane, of course, without the dramatic extremes. Some good, some bad, some that's neither, all blended together in our daily routines.

The week started out with some potentially harrowing moments. Sunday evening, in an attempt to air out/cool off our sweltering apartment following our Sunday dinner, I opened the door into the kitchen (usually we just open the front door to let air in). The door clearly hadn't been opened in some time: there were cobwebs strung between the door and the screen. I brushed out the cobwebs and then noticed something odd in the lower right-hand corner of the door. It took my befuddled brain a few minutes to process what I was seeing: a wasp's nest, about three inches in diameter, with wasps crawling all over it. Needless to say, I shut the door very quickly. (Luckily, the nest was on the screen door, not the door itself, so the wasps were undisturbed by the movement). The next day, I used my "triple coupon" at Giant (the local grocery store) to buy some Raid, and that night (well, actually early the next morning), Dan bravely ventured out and tackled the nest. I entertained fleeting visions of Dan breaking out into a terrible allergic reaction after being stung by dozens of angry wasps, but in the event, nothing happened. (Apparently one wasp started to come out after Dan started spraying, but it was already pretty well poisoned and didn't make it very far).

Tuesday evening continued our harrowing adventures. Dan came home from work earlier than usual to tell me that there had been a change of plans in the young men's activity: due to impending thunderstorms, they were going to help a local farmer and branch member bring in his hay and cut a load of firewood. Of course, none of this is remotely frightening (unless you're a sixteen-year-old with a deathly fear of physical labor). It was what happened later that got interesting. Dan and John Collins (who was driving that evening) took one of the Noey boys home after the activity. About five miles out from the Noey's, their car broke down. So they went to a nearby house and called the Noey's (incidentally waking up the owner of the house, who had fallen asleep in front of the TV), and then waited forty-five minutes for President Noey (the father is the first counselor in the stake presidency) to find them. Apparently President Noey didn't drive far enough in the right direction, and when he didn't see them, turned around and drove back the other direction before realizing he'd had the right idea in the first place. About this time (c. 10 p.m.), Dan called to tell me that he was still in Huntingdon, and not to wait up, as they would likely need to replace the battery. They did so, and proceeded to drive back to State College. However, since the car's problem was the alternator, not the battery, they didn't make it quite far enough. The car died near the end of our street at about 12:30 a.m. Dan and John used the Noey's cell phone (which they had borrowed) to call a local tow truck, and, despite the short distance from home, Dan stayed with John to wait for the tow truck (he figured I was asleep, and he didn't want to abandon John). Normally, this wouldn't have been a problem. I had, in fact, gone to sleep around 11, but at 12:40 the phone rang. It's never a good thing to get a phone call late at night, especially when someone you care about is still missing. The voice on the other end of the line asked, "Is this John Collins?" I had just woken up; I only had time to say, "No, this is the Eves" when the voice apologized for the wrong number. By this point, however, I was fully awake and my heart was pounding. I tried to ask, "What happened? Where's my husband?" but the man had already hung up. You have to remember that at this point I had no idea what had happened to Dan and John, I didn't know where they were, and horrific visions of accidents danced through my brain. I rationalized that, if this had been the police, they would have sounded more official and they probably wouldn't have mixed up the number (it turns out Dan and John gave the tow-driver our phone number as a contact number). I even tried to call the number back, but got an answering machine that didn't tell me anything. ("This is James, leave a message!") I didn't calm down until Dan came home about twenty minutes later. It was pretty exciting.

This week was also the annual Central PA Festival of the Arts ("Farts Fest," as Dan likes to call it), which routinely brings tens of thousands of people into town for a large art festival. A string of tents winds around campus and the downtown area, where people peruse expensive fine art and buy over-priced food. Nearby, in Boalsburg, a similar festival ("The People's Choice) showcases more local artists. Needless to say, Andrew and I spent a fair amount of time at both this week. Wednesday, after a brief stint at a local park for our weekly "Day in the Park," I contemplated taking Andrew downtown for "children's day." Apparently, one of the local nature conservatories was showing reptiles and birds of pray on the lawn in front of Old Main, and I thought Andrew would like to see it. However, just before we left the house, it started to rain. Luckily, I bowed to commonsense and stayed home. Within ten minutes, this was the view from our front door:



Thanks to our inefficient gutter system, we had our own private waterfall pouring down around our front porch. Andrew, at least, didn't mind the change of plans. He spent the next fifteen minutes quite happily playing on the porch, sticking his hand in the water, and pulling leaves off the bush that grows near our front door. Of course, he was completely soaked by the time he finished, but he was happy in his work.



On Thursday, I met a friend (Jill Treftz) on campus. She's going to be one of the tutors in the writing center this fall, and I had agreed to show her around. I took Andrew with me, which, not unnaturally was more a hindrance than a help. At one point, Andrew slipped out the door of the center, and by the time I got to the door to call him back, his fat little legs were streaking across the foyer and out into the lobby beyond. A student was sitting in the foyer; when I appeared, she laughed and pointed to the doorway of the foyer, saying, "he's over there." I keep forgetting how quickly he can move now!

Afterward, Jill and I wandered around some of the booths at Arts Fest, which turned out to be just as well, since that was possibly the most I saw of the downtown festival. I had planned with another friend, Stacey, to meet up at the festival later that afternoon with our respective progeny (Stacey is a year behind me in the program, and her trajectory has roughly paralleled mine: she has a five month old right now. We also share the same advisor. In fact, it's largely because of the two of us that our advisor's current research assistant has been getting teased on several fronts that, if she works for our advisor, one of the current requirements appears to be having a baby . . .). However, as with the best laid plans, this particular plan "gang agley." The agreement was that we would call each other when our babies woke up from their respective afternoon naps. Stacey called me to tell me she was heading downtown--I had to report that my child, far from sleeping, was still whining in his crib. (His prospective nap had already been interrupted twice--once with a massive dirty diaper, and again when, he became so distraught at being put back in his bed that he threw up). Andrew proceeded to whine until I finally gave up on his nap--but by this point, it was clearly not going to work to meet Stacey downtown. (Not to mention the fact that, when I asked Andrew if he wanted to go for a walk, he responded with a definite "NO.")

Outings with Stacey seem, incidentally, to be fated not to happen. We decided to try again on Friday, but once again Andrew, who is usually a fairly predictable napper, opted to skip another nap--this time his morning nap. I finally got him up and decided to go downtown anyway. I called Stacey to tell her, but by that point it wasn't really convenient for her anymore, so we went alone. We stopped to buy some PSU Creamery ice cream, and Andrew proved that he has the same refined taste-buds as his father, as he thoroughly enjoyed the bittersweet mint I ordered. He also enjoyed his first encounter with a real ice cream cone--he ate the whole thing by himself! We took a quick walk downtown (well as quick as one can go when one is stalled behind people who can't seem to walk above a crawl, but are also incapable of walking in any kind of condensed group so that others can actually pass them) before coming back for an afternoon nap, which, thankfully, Andrew took.

On Saturday, we finally got our car back (after 3+ weeks in the shop). On the up side, you can't tell that the car was hit at all, as they gave it a complete paint job, in addition to replacing the front side panel. On the down side, they also told us that several of the tires were considerably worn down on the interior side, and needed to replaced ASAP. Luckily, a kind friend (Wendy Girven) agreed to help me take the car to the tire shop, and pick it up again (Dan needed to be at lab). In the meantime, we went down to the Boalsburg festival and wandered around. We saw no less than six other members of the (now former) university ward, and we enjoyed some milk shakes and lemonade. Andrew, particularly, enjoyed the milkshake (now you know where his fine physique comes from--his love of old fashioned dairy products). I made the mistake of letting him hold it while he slurped some through the straw (his first time drinking out of a real straw by himself), and thereafter he thought it was his sole possession and squawked if I tried to take any of it. He also seemed to think he should drink it like his sippy cup (i.e. tilt the cup back while he drinks). While this works okay with sippy cups, it doesn't really work with milkshakes--the melting ice cream is much more likely to drip out of the cup and all down one's front.

My shopping addiction also kicked in this week; Thursday evening I went to the mall to return some shoes for Dan and to pick up Andrew's 18 month pictures from Sears--and returned with some new shoes for Andrew and an absolutely stunning skirt for me . . . And of course, the weekend brought its requisite visits to yard sales, where, among other things, we picked up the first stuffed animals that Andrew seems remotely interested in: a monkey and a puppy.



(Dan wants me to point out that Andrew no longer has "cankles"--or the rings of fat around his ankles, but I would say these are still a fine pair of round little legs).

Our final adventure of the week was this evening. We invited the Sturgeons (and Steph's mom, who was in town visiting) over for dinner. Andrew even helped me make dinner (and I'm not using the term "help" ironically). He gave me Li'l Smokies to rap up for pigs in a blanket (of course, he also tried to dip the smokies in mustard and put them in his mouth, but it was the thought that counts, right?).



Andrew and Gaby were thrilled with their reunion, and they were so funny to watch. They mock chased each other all down the hall (really this meant that one would run a few steps, the other would follow, and then they'd stop and giggle at each other). Recently, we noticed that Andrew has an alarming habit to both smack himself in the head and to butt his head against the wall (or pew, as he did in church today)--Steph informed us tonight that he apparently picked this up at her house, since he and Gaby apparently used to have head butt contests. Tonight, in an overly effusive display of affection, Andrew tried repeatedly to head butt Gaby--which didn't work so well. He has eight pounds on her, which is a considerable amount when you're talking about a 30 lb tank v. a 22 pound bit of a girl. (Here's a rather bad picture of Andrew trying to just that). Gaby thought it was funny--until Andrew threatened to knock her over too. It makes us just a little nervous about what he's going to be like in another fifteen years . . . hopefully his tactics to impress girls will improve significantly by then! (I think head-butting prospective mates probably went out with the neanderthals).

What to a pooky is the fourth of July?

How much difference a year makes--last year, as part of our July 4 celebrations, I read with my English class some excerpts from Frederick Douglass's "What to a slave is the fourth of July?" This year, far from engaging in philosophical debates about freedom, Andrew and I went shopping for some fourth of July sales at the mall (although ostensibly we were looking for shoes for Dan). I did find Andrew a very cute (if totally frivolous!) felt cowboy hat at Gymboree. Otherwise, our fourth of July this year was notable for the entire absence of fireworks (although we did hear some)--Andrew went to bed at his normal bedtime and slept through the fireworks entirely. And of course with Andrew asleep, we didn't leave the house either. In any case, it was rainy and drizzly most of the day, so I don't imagine we missed much (although don't tell that to the people who plan the big fourth fest here). Earlier in the afternoon we went to a potluck at (now former) Bishop Skinner's place. It was nice to see several friends that we don't see very often (even if we spent considerable time in the toy room with Andrew and his friend Gaby and her parents).




Most of the week was pretty unspectacular, with only a few brief interludes to mark the difference. For example, one of Andrew's new hobbies includes pushing buttons (elevator buttons, wheelchair access buttons on public buildings, you name it). Unfortunately, this also extends to the nice little button that allows us to lock doors in our apartment. Earlier this week, Andrew managed to lock himself in our bedroom. He thought it was pretty funny (I could hear him giggling on the other side of the door), until he realized (probably from the panic in my voice) that I couldn't get the door open. I tried sticking a bobby pin in the door, and a wire hanger. Of course, not having the least clue what I was doing, neither worked. By this point, Andrew was crying in earnest (and I was about ready to join him), so I called Dan and explained (probably somewhat hysterically) what was going on. He, very practically, asked: "Have you tried tried throwing your weight against the door?" Luckily, the door frames in this apartment are not terribly sturdy, and the wood seems to warp a little in the humidity, so this worked. Andrew was pathetically glad to see me.



Friday morning, I went yard-saling (as usual!) and ran into my garage sale buddy Stephanie at the first yard sale I went to--she had been fending off prospective buyers from a nice two-seated wagon that she intended to buy for me because I had mentioned that I wanted one. Since I wasn't sure how we would move it to Utah, she very generously offered some space in their moving van (they're moving to Salt Lake City the same weekend we're packing up for Provo). I also managed to find some princess dresses that I think my niece Julia (who just celebrated her third birthday) might enjoy (some irony here, since Julia, like nearly every other three-year-old I've met, loves princess stuff). Saturday, Stephanie and I (well, mostly Steph) offered our garage-saling expertise to a couple of women from our old ward, one of whom is expecting and one of whom has a seven-month-old. The four of us piled into our car and had fun driving around State College looking for bargains. Well, they had fun during the driving part--mostly they mocked my driving and, especially after Stephanie told them that I was good at navigating and I promptly drove to the wrong neighborhood, mocking my navigating skills. (It's a good thing I have a long history of experience with affectionate mockery! At least, I think it's affectionate . . . )

Saturday night was also significant, as we were able to get rid of some more big pieces of furniture--after Steph's yard sale last weekend, she was contacted by a friend of a family who had lost a lot of furniture in an arson fire last fall, and who were finally moving into a larger apartment (apparently their insurance was slow in paying them back, so they were still lacking a lot of furniture items). Anyway, she told them that we were looking to get rid of a hide-a-bed couch, so we gave them the couch, Andrew's dresser (which we got free in the first place), and some of the excess clothes that I bought for Andrew (mostly at yard sales) in size 2 and 3T (since this family also had a little boy, and I had gone a little overboard with the yard sales--what little boy needs three winter coats? Andrew certainly doesn't, and this other little boy might be able to use one). It was nice to be able to get rid of stuff--and also know that we were benefiting someone at the same time!



The rest of our weekly highlights mostly involve Andrew, who, as usual, is both adorable and aggravating by turns. We finally figured out how to keep him from waking up at the crack of dawn (5:00 a.m. or thereabouts) by moving his bedtime back half an hour (we'd tried that before and it didn't work, but apparently he's finally old enough that he doesn't need to sleep quite as long). It's amazing how appealing 6 a.m. looks when the alternative is 5! (At least, to someone like me who used to think anything before 7 was early).

I gave Andrew a popsicle for the first time this week, with mixed results. It's a good thing he was in his high chair with a bib on, because he never really grasped the concept of what the stick was for, and I eventually had to feed the popsicle to him with a spoon.

Dan is also becoming more and more concerned about his son's manhood, since Andrew has recently taken to adorning himself with as many bead necklaces as his little neck can hold, and wearing his mother's headbands. Both habits I can trace to his friend Gaby--for the last several weeks, every time I went to pick Andrew up, he would be wearing several of Gaby's necklaces. He seemed to enjoy them so much, that I picked up some red fourth-of-July beads at Target earlier this week, and he wore them so much that the red color started wearing off on his shirt. Saturday morning, we found a woman at a yard sale who was giving away free mardi-gras beads, so I picked up a few more, thinking Andrew might like a little variety. What I didn't anticipate was that Andrew's concept of variety meant wearing all of the beads (all ten strands) at the same time! He's actually pretty funny about it, because he will very methodically put all of the necklaces on, and nothing can distract him from his task once he has started.








And last, but not least, we've been working with Andrew on animal recognition and animal sounds, some of which we've captured on video. We're particularly amused by Andrew's imitation of his mom meowing--we don't know quite what it sounds like, but we doubt that any cat ever sounded like this (unless it was in severe pain!).

Deep sea diving and other harrowing stories

Unlike the usual mundane narrative of our lives, this week's mostly bland narrative is punctuated by a few epic episodes. So, rather than inflict upon our few faithful readers long, meandering musings akin to last week's blog, this week we thought we'd just settle for the highlights.

The first major highlight refers to the title of this week's blog. This week's day in the park was at a nearby state park, at an area known as "Whipple Dam." As the name implies, this is a reservoir, with a nice sandy beach and shallow sections roped off for wading and swimming. This particular morning was muggy and hot, with temperatures in the low nineties. Needless to say, our group was not the only mothers and children group with the same idea. In retrospect, I'm not sure this was the smartest outing I've ever been on. It's not that I wasn't prepared--I had food, sunscreen, plenty of water, towels, a dry change of clothes for Andrew and me . . . I just hadn't quite thought through Andrew's probably reaction to so much water. Naturally, it took him all of ten minutes to figure out that he didn't have to stay in the shallow end, but that it was much more fun to keep wading out toward deeper waters. And naturally, given his developing balance and zero ability to swim, he face planted a couple of times in the water. (Well, more like half a dozen times). Every time, my heart nearly stopped until I could scoop him up and he would start coughing and sputtering. (My friend Stephanie later referred to his exploits as "deep sea diving"). Putting a life-preserver on him didn't seem to help noticeably--he still waded out until he slipped or the water got so deep that the life preserver picked him up (either planting him face down or flat on his back). The life-preserver actually seemed to make him even more fool-hardy: he really liked it when I would pick him up a little and he could float and swing his legs around. He seemed to think he could do this independent of my aid, which meant he kept trying to pick up *both* his feet at the same time, with predictable results. And then, if I could manage to get him to shallow water or back on land (either by persuasion or outright force), it was all I could do to keep him from heading straight back to deeper waters. Ah, the perils of parenthood! I'm sure there's some kind of deep meaningful understanding I could take away from this incident, but I'll leave it at that.





Another notable highlight (well, so really only one of our highlights was harrowing, but the title sounds better this way) of the week was our (by our, we mean, of course, "me") discovery that getting rid of stuff can be *almost* as therapeutic as getting new stuff. In an appropriate inversion of our usual yard sale addiction, Stephanie Sturgeon (and I, but it was mostly her brainchild) planned a yard sale of our own. Steph invited several other families from the ward to join her, so we were able to advertise a 10-family moving sale. Sorting through and labeling stuff occupied me (and to some extent Dan) most evenings of the latter part of the week. Saturday was the big sale. We must have had close to a hundred people show up at the yard sale before the morning was done--people started coming well before our 8 am start time, when we were still frantically trying to get stuff out and set it up, and for the first half hour there was a fairly steady line 4-5 people deep. I can't remember the last time I went to a yard sale that was quite that busy--I guess you could say our sale was a hit. It's certainly true that many of the families are moving this summer and so were getting rid of stuff at a pretty cheap rate. Although I can't say I had too many expectations for the sale (I've been to--or rather, driven by--too many yard sales where most of the stuff goes unpurchased), but any expectations I might have had were far exceeded by the reality. Of the two carloads of stuff we took to Steph's house, we returned with perhaps half a trunk full--one box of which was promptly disposed of at the AAUW booksale drop-off. We'd be happy with that simply because it meant we'd gotten rid of a lot of stuff. But we also apparently made nearly $200! And we weren't the only ones at the sale to make big money. (Dan reminds me not to mention how much we paid for most of these items originally--so I guess the idea of *profit* is fairly questionable). At any rate, I had fun. (Dan watched Andrew for the first two hours or so of the sale, while things were hectic, then I took Andrew back with me). And it is a nice feeling to have lightened our load at least somewhat. As long as I don't go to too many more yard sales before moving . . .

In the same purging spirit, we advertised some of our furniture items to members of the ward and to my grad student organization, and by so doing were able to get rid of our rocker-glider, our bureau (nice, but old and very heavy), and (if the proposed recipient comes to pick it up as scheduled) our overstuffed chair. Another woman from the ward is planning to take yet another of our chairs when she moves, and Stephanie is getting our table, chairs, and baker's rack. It's nice to be able to divest ourselves of so much stuff--it will certainly simplify moving!




(Andrew, modeling one of the shirts Dan got rid of after cleaning out our bureau).