Family Portraits in New Hampshire

Here is our tribe, high in the White Mountains, in the clean air, basking in the cooler temperatures, digging the mountains, and thankful for the no-digital media time:

In these remoter parts, we clearly need to make a better effort at flagging down someone to take our family picture so that we're all in the photo! 

Close to Nature

We recently took a vacation in New Hampshire's White Mountains, where the temperature was 20 degrees cooler than the heat-dome temps of the Boston area. It was magnificent for that reason, and for other reasons too -- one being that our suburbia-raised kids got a closer look at nature. I'm not talking about lakes and woods and birdsong. 

I'm talking frights and death! 

A black bear cub, about 200 yards off the highway near Mount Washington. I spotted him from the road as we were driving along at 55 miles per hour. I'd like to think that demonstrates my keen eyesight, but then a few other cars pulled over after us. So either they just followed our lead, or those drivers were on the look-out, too, and spotted this bear. We momentarily meandered in our Blue Bomber mini-van down a dirt path leading to this clearing, in the hope of seeing the bear closer-up, but the path got too muddy and we lost sight of this bear.

Poor moose. She or he was on the opposite side of this roadway, and about 100 yards south of where the bear was. From our vantage-point, it looked like a clean kill by a vehicle. We watched a New Hampshire Fish and Wildlife ranger pull up to the carcass, examine it, fiddle in his truck for 5 minutes, drop the ramp, and haul the moose's body up onto the ramp. We also saw two hunters in a truck stop and offer to help the ranger, while we city-folk just sat in our Blue Bomber mini-van with mouths agape, our kids going wild with excitement over seeing something so big and, unfortunately, so dead. 

It was only as the Fish and Wildlife truck moved on that we got a different vantage-point of this moose, whose stomach had been gutted wide-open, presumably by the impact. Driving past the truck and the moose on the ramp, we unexpectedly caught a tremendous whiff emanating from this poor creature, enough to make our oldest kid nearly barf. 

See, you just don't get that free entertainment in the suburbs!

"Hotball"

See this? We Americans know it as a football. It's also nicknamed "the Pigskin." But to our two-and-a-half year-old Grouse, this is not a football. It is a "hotball." 

Now, you might think that in his mind, a football and a hotball are the same thing. You show him a Nerf football, and he calls it a hotball. You show him a more game-like football, and he calls it a football. 

The distinction is in part a matter of pronunciation, and in part simply a notion in his mind. In his toddler's mind, a hotball is a real. It's not a football. Now, if I could just find a real hotball, I know one little dude who would be super-excited to get one under our Christmas tree!

10 Years Ago: B&T Hit the Road West

Ten years ago this month, Becky and I took a 2+ week road trip from Boston to Utah. She was one-month pregnant with Our Dear Goose, and her first trimester was kind of miserable. We left Boston on a Thursday morning and reached the greater Cleveland area that same evening. I wish I had readily accessible photos from this trek, but I don't, so enjoy this text-heavy missive.

On Friday morning, we made it to Kirtland, Ohio, where our Mormon Church was once based for a brief period of time, part of its west-ward migration due to prejudice and persecution. One very cool attraction that we saw in Kirtland was the Kirtland Temple, which for most of its history has been operated by the Community of Christ (formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an off-shoot of the Mormon Church). The Kirtland Temple was the first Mormon temple ever built:

I remember our tour guide, a Community of Christ member who was in her early twenties, as being very kind, mellow, and not rushing us around. In contrast, we then visited our Mormon Church-owned historic sites across the street from the Kirtland Temple; these sites have a large, full-time force of missionaries on the grounds, giving tours. I remember our tour guide missionary, from our Mormon Church, in stark contrast (and not in a good way) to the Community of Christ member: Overly earnest, dramatic, breezing us from room to room and house to house. "We should be so thankful" for this and that, she kept encouraging, bordering on admonishing. "Aren't YOU SO thankful?!" I found it off-putting, insincere, and not in harmony with how I would imagine a public-facing ambassador for our church to be. 

But that's just me. 

From Kirtland, Becky and I drove through the rest of Ohio, waited out a tornado warning in central Indiana, drove near Notre Dame, skirted rush-hour traffic in Chicago, and ended Friday night in Rock Island, Illinois. Rock Island is one of the Quad Cities, along with Moline, Illinois; Davenport, Iowa; and Bettendorf, Iowa. I called my Dad and told him that we were staying near Rock Island, and he reminded me of the Johnny Cash song Rock Island Line.

I was hoping to time our visit to the Quad Cities with taking in a minor league baseball game in Davenport, Iowa, at this ballpark with the Centennial Bridge as a stunning backdrop:

'Twas not to be. On Saturday morning, Becky and I drove through Iowa and headed to a very small town in total "Field of Dreams" country. My childhood best friend, Gerard, now lives in that area. We got to spend a few hours with him and his wife, and wished it could have been longer. But we needed to be in Utah by Monday, so we had to press on. 

Before we left, Gerard and I talked about our childhood and his late mother. We hadn't spoken much of her in the years since she passed away in April 1989. I've faulted myself for not being more of a friend in that way, for being hesitant to ask how Gerard was coping without his mother because I didn't want to belabor his sadness. So there we were, 16 years after his mother's passing, and I told him, "Almost every time I go to my parents' house, I stop by your mom's site in the cemetery. Every time I'm home, I think of her." Gerard was silent for a moment, and then he took a breath before simply saying, "Thank you. That means a lot to me. I'm so far from her grave, it's nice to know someone visits her."

*       *       *

From Iowa, Becky and I drove to Nebraska, intent on finding her mother's childhood home in Lincoln. We found the precise neighborhood in which she had grown up, but we didn't see her exact home. I think there was some confusion over the street name or address. We saw one home that Becky was most sure could be her mother's childhood home, out of all of the homes in the area. 

We spent that night in either Grand Island or Kearney, Nebraska. It looked and felt like the exact middle of nowhere, but I was also struck by the stark beauty of the flat terrain. Growing up in the Northeast, I was so used to soaring trees and urban development encroaching on the sky, limiting the sweep of the horizon and making it appear like a lid. But out here, near the geographic center of the lower 48 states, the sky was not a lid. It towered like a dome over the landscape.  

It was on Saturday that Becky and I decided, "If we drive fast enough, we can make a family get-together on Sunday afternoon near Ogden." That goal became set in our minds. So on Sunday, we went to only 1 hour of church in Kearney, Nebraska:

Kearney, Nebraska LDS church

We skipped veering off-course to make a planned stop at Panorama Point in southwestern Nebraska, the highest point in the state, though Wikipedia notes "Despite its name and elevation, Panorama Point is not a mountain or a hill; it is merely a low rise on the High Plains." We made this trek before Wikipedia became massively popular.

We had about a 10-hour drive ahead of us as we left church in Kearney. I was sorely disappointed in Wyoming. I had this image of this state as being mountainous and full of features. Instead, for 95% of the drive-through, a flat, tree-less landscape stretched boringly before our eyes. The plus to this massive disappointment? We could drive something like 75 or 80 miles an hour!

I remember making some phone calls to our family in Utah, lying that we were still in Nebraska and wouldn't reach Utah until Monday morning. However, one family member, my sister-in-law Julie, was let in on the fact that we were nearing Evanston, in the south-western part of Wyoming, and asking for the address to the family get-together. 

I'll never forget Becky and I slowly pulling up to her brother's house, which he had recently moved into (which is why we needed to ask Julie for the address, since his relocation had been so quick). We parked in the sub-division about as far from the home as we could, then we sprinted behind cars as we neared his house, hoping no one would see us. Becky and I reached the front doorstep without being seen. We excitedly rang her brother's doorbell. Our two oldest nieces opened the front door and briefly stared at us, jaws on the floor and wide-eyed. Becky's mom heard our voices and ran to greet us, giving us the biggest hugs since our wedding day more than a year earlier. Everyone came running in to welcome us. 

It was a truly beautiful moment, made more so by pulling off our surprise appearance. 

Contentment in Our Blue Bomber

See this picture? It is a single moment of bliss in our family life. We recently took a very long drive to the White Mountains in New Hampshire, and the prospect of this excursion with 4 kids frighteningly loomed before us parents. Our most recent portable DVD system had, of course, broken. Those things have the reliable shelf-life of an umbrella or sunglasses or any other everyday item that you take for granted when using, until you suddenly really need it and it's missing or broken. 

Becky bought a 2 DVD player system with a set of headphones for each kid. Life-saving! Our Little Grouse, obviously the squirmiest of the bunch at only two-and-a-half years old, was so incredibly content and quiet for the long haul. Goose, sitting next to him, was a great helper, loading both DVD players with new movies as interest waned on the drive. Behind them, Mouse barely uttered a word, while Moose (in my old blue Little League shirt) was also entertained for quite some time.

...That is, until he felt squeezed in the "way back" of our Blue Bomber mini-van when both of  his sisters joined him there, and then he strenuously objected to their choice of a movie. So he did what some five-year-old kids may be prone to doing: He quickly ripped his head set cord out of the DVD player. No way to fix it. That, naturally, led to a further attitude deterioration. 

Not only that, but this impulsive response resulted in him needing to watch his DVD with the sound cranked up, so whatever movie he was watching, we all heard it throughout our mini-van. So much for peace, quiet, and time for Becky to read or nap while I drove! 

There is surely a life lesson or two in this episode. But in the moment, all we could do was take a deep breath, gaze out the window, and try to block out this momentary loss of bliss, once held and then gone.

Professor Mouse

As I posted about earlier this month, Our Little Mouse and I had a daddy-daughter lunch date at my work recently. My school's campus was pretty deserted for the summer, so we toured some of the academic buildings and wandered around the beautiful grounds. At one point, I showed Mouse my favorite area on campus, and then we made our way inside one of the academic buildings, which was totally empty.

I grew up near a college campus, and my dad had many different offices located in several academic buildings on that campus. He would often take me and my younger sister Elizabeth to the campus on the weekends to give my mom a break, keep us occupied, and permit him to get more work done. I've always loved the academic environment and being on or near a college campus, so bringing my kids to my employer's setting is very cool and nostalgic for me. 

Mouse perked up when she saw this squeaky-clean chalkboard in a classroom. She was even more excited to see the blue chalk, because "I only ever see white or yellow chalk!" she told me. Mouse took her own sweet time writing out a message on the chalkboard, signing her name, and then being a good sport as I asked to take her picture. 





Mouse's message reads "A blank chalk board = nothing write on it ~ Anna."

  

Respect and Responsibility

Respect and Responsibility. That was the theme of a recent Family Home Evening, which we have each Monday night, a time to connect as a little troop. Normally, it's a fun, patience-testing exercise with a spiritual theme, a prayer, a hymn, an activity, and a treat at the end. But Becky and I felt that, as the school year was drawing to a close and a long summer loomed before us, we needed to re-emphasize two critical areas of family life:

Respect and Responsibility. Respecting your parents, your siblings, your teachers, your friends, other adults that you know (or don't know, such as the Lutheran church pastor that we all like). Respecting boundaries. Respecting your siblings' ideas and emotions. Respecting the rules of our house. Respecting Mommy for what meal she spent time planning and creating, all while ensuring that you four kids stayed on this side of the grass. Respecting the answer of "no." 

Responsibility: Each one of us has a role -- in fact, has many roles -- to play in keeping this small operating zoo of 6 people going. Are we going? Are we thriving? Probably not thriving. Many days look much more like a desperate attempt at sheer surviving and going through the motions than thriving, living in the moment with a joie de vivre. Learning to live with the routines instead of fixating on what thriving might look like, or what any form of media, social or otherwise, would have us believe it looks like.

So, we as parents outlined (and in many cases, re-emphasized) responsibilities:

Four morning chores (bathroom, brush teeth, dirty laundry in the laundry basket -- not on the floor, and I forget the fourth one). 

Four bed-time chores (bathroom, brush teeth, wash hands, get a drink of water). 

Push those blasted bar stools back against our kitchen island, instead of constantly leaving the blasted bar stools halfway across the narrow expanse of our kitchen walkway. 

Don't leave wet towels on any floor, but especially not on your carpeted bedroom floors. 

You three big kids are old enough to fetch your own plate, cup, utensils, napkins, etc. 

It will not be the nadir of your existence if you miss 25 seconds of Horse Land, Harry Potter, Barbie, Dino Trux, or any other silly show when we ask any of you to kindly get us a new diaper and/or wipes for your little brother.

Weeks later, we still have lows but we also have had highs. Yesterday while I was at work, Becky put our three oldest kids to work: washing floors, washing mirrors, cleaning the toilet, vacuuming. Our kids put signs up all over our downstairs, notifying everyone to "keep out," "cleaning crew," and "Do Not Enter!"

Like so many things in a family's life, it's a work in progress. 

Becky's Shopping Phobia

My wife is a fearless person about many things in life. Things I wouldn't even seriously consider doing (like bungee-jumping; eating a certain domesticated animal -- hey, it was on her mission in the Philippines, where Western/American eating standards aren't the same), she has done. But one thing does strike fear in her heart:

Shopping with all four of our kids!    

Despite this persistent, strong phobia, the above offers evidence to contradict her fear. Now granted, I was not there when she trudged all 4 of our little rug-rats lovelies through a supermarket. I can't directly relate to how this entire shopping trip went. 

I've taken all 4 of our kids shopping a handful of times over the last two years, and the sole reason why it hasn't been such a fear- inducing experience for me is because I blatantly gave in to each kid's whimsy for a toy or a candy bar. Voila, shopping trip went better! 

Becky doesn't budge on kids' indulgences the way I do. Our kids know that with Mom, they are going to have an infinitely tougher case to make in order to get a small toy or piece of candy when they're shopping with Mommy. That definitely makes it harder for our kids, but also harder for Becky, who likely has to listen to their demands and whines, and listen to those longer, because her parental back-bone is much stronger than mine. So, kudos to my girl!

And kudos to our kids, who as shown above actually lifted a hand of help in picking out ears of corn. I hope this shopping experience made my wife a little less afraid of repeating this excursion in the future.  

Mouse and a Statue

My iPhone photo of Our Little Mouse with this impressive statue, titled Ines, doesn't do the real scene justice. The statue is part of a public art display at Harvard Business School, and Mouse and I toured my campus on a recent daddy-daughter lunch outing. When I first saw this statue, a few weeks before my lunch with Mouse, I snapped a photo of it, texted it to Becky, and said, "We've all got to come see this!" 

I also was struck by the impression that Ines's profile looked an awful lot like my daughter's. We have a black-and-white silhouette of Mouse from either pre-school or Kindergarten, and when I saw Ines's profile, that silhouette immediately came to my mind. I need to find that silhouette at home and add it to this post. 

This statue, by the artist Jaume Plensa, is awesome. It soars over a beautiful stretch of campus and, as a press release noted, Ines's "portrait, in the artist's words, is 'all at once specific, anonymous, universal, and tranquil.' Shown with her eyes closed in a state of meditation or dreaming, her serene expression inspires contemplation. Like a hologram, the sculpture changes and shifts perspectives when viewed from different angles."

Below is much higher-quality photo of Ines:

Steve the Hamster

At the end of June, a family from our church headed off on a trip to Europe, and they asked us if we'd like to watch their hamster, Steve, while they were away. Our kids were overjoyed at this idea. We brought him home on a very warm Sunday afternoon and quickly went over the rules for his care. We also tried to emphasize that a hamster is nocturnal. 

Well, that last fact went in one ear and out the other: Steve spent much of his first afternoon with us wide-awake, passed from one set of hands to another, gently placed on our backyard lawn to scamper, and then brought indoors "so he can get used to our house," one of our kids helpfully suggested.

Steve was a celebrity in our home. That afternoon, our girls begged us to map out chores, with corresponding monetary rewards, that they could do for the next few months so that they could buy some more hamsters.    

One month in, Steve and our kids have adjusted to each other. I'd say that within one or two days, our kids basically forgot about Steve during the day. He was sleeping, they were busy, and the novelty wore off, which is terrific for Steve's sleeping pattern. Becky has mentioned, though, that our kids do bring him out to show off to friends when they come over, so they are still interested in and entertained by Steve.

To their credit, our three oldest kids have really helped out with cleaning Steve's cage, re- stocking his food, and filling his water. Steve hasn't escaped, he hasn't shivered with fright since that Sunday in June, and he's created some fun memories for our family this summer. 

Grouse and Water = No Love Lost

Our Little Grouse is two-and-a-half years old, and he has been welcomed this milestone by reveling in his terrible two's. He went from love-sick for me back in the winter and early spring, to now being loud, incredibly whiny, demanding, and quick to shriek his displeasure when he doesn't get what he wants, when. 

Case in point: We recently took our boys out in our canoe for an afternoon on the river. Grouse despised this excursion. He was completely safe, in a life jacket, with both of his parents in the canoe with him. And yet he cried and screamed bloody murder. He gripped my legs and wouldn't let go, which made it difficult for me to paddle at the back of the canoe for much of the time, since his clutch was so strong that I couldn't easily adjust where I was sitting. 

For over an hour, Grouse was apoplectic. And kudos to me, because Becky said I handled his poor behavior extremely well. I patiently tried to distract him by pointing out all of the wildlife we could see from our canoe: ducks, Canadian geese, a blue heron, other birds (but, unfortunately, no bald eagle, even though we were canoeing near an area where bald eagles have been spotted).

Still, he is one very cute canoer! Becky snapped these photos of the Grouse after the canoe trip, when he was in a much better mood. 

Starkiller Base

My 5-year-old son, Our Mighty Moose, is a rabid Star Wars fan. It is one of the best things that he and I bond over. And in a brief effort to maintain some balanced perspective on this blog, I feel like confiding: Moose and I don't have the rosiest, always-sunny relationship. He can be persistent in what he wants and doesn't want, and often his persistence is directed at me. Likewise, I meet his persistence with my impatience. It can be a fizzy atmosphere. 

And yet, he is my little buddy, as he reminds me at bedtime. Here he is, wearing my alma mater t-shirt (UMass-Amherst). Lately, Moose has been in a bit of a phase of wearing my clothes to bed, such as my running shorts, my now-too-big swimming trunks, and my t-shirts. Such gestures indicate to me that the fizzy-ness is temporary; the bond of father and son is deeper. That gives me hope. That makes me want to be better for him.

One activity we've bonded over this summer is his Starkiller Base. That's the name of the planet-sized, Death Star-like WMD in The Force Awakens, a small, independent movie that probably got blocked from your multiplex in all of the hubbub of the commercial, re-boot, sequel-crazed Christmas movie season. I think the only place you can see even a good-enough digital version of this tiny-marketed, low-budgeted, ho-hum space opera is on public-access TV, airing around 4 in the morning. 

Moose built his own Starkiller Base out of Dots, those sugary-nasty gumdrops, and enough toothpicks that likely had been culled from a now-clear-cut 1,000-acre nature preserve. The Dots-to-toothpicks ratio was something off the charts, like 1:593. 

It was nearly the first thing he did each morning for a few days, and he returned to his set each evening before, during, and after dinner, too -- mostly, he was fine-tuning his planetary weapon, tinkering here and there, since a lack of resources severely constrained Moose's efforts to expand his Starkiller Base.  

And, in a tender moment, Moose and his parents bonded one morning, just the three of us, when he came downstairs determined to tinker with his project. Becky sheepishly looked at me and mouthed, "I threw it away." I tried to distract Moose by looking with him in other rooms while Becky tried to fish it out of the garbage and re-assemble its many loose or un-connected Dots. But Moose heard the rustle from the kitchen. He was so sad.

Normally, when Moose gets sad, he quickly goes from sadness to annoyance and anger. We have some work to do to more properly channel his emotional responses. But this morning, there was only sadness. Genuine, hurt tears. A broken-heart sob into Mommy's shoulder. Muffled questions through non-stifled crying. I felt badly for him. I really felt my heart go out to my oldest son as I watched him react with such tender sadness. 

We quickly started on a new Starkiller Base, not as a parental over-reaction to try to appease his sadness. We explained that his old base's dots were too sticky in this hot weather, and that the toothpicks were falling off. We'd have to keep building new bases and discarding old ones as humidity takes its toll. This naturally means more bases, more Dots and toothpicks, and more bonding. 

15 Years Ago

Fifteen years ago this month, I began living in greater Boston, renting a garden apartment in Arlington with my high school and college friend Liam. We had been roommates at UMass- Amherst as well for two years. After college, I had returned to my parents' hometown and lived with them for almost two years while I began taking master's degree courses at Harvard Extension School and temping at Harvard, which ultimately led to me getting a full-time job there in the fall of 2000. 

From September 2000 until June 2001, I commuted almost two hours each way to Boston, and then two hours back home. By Thursday evening each week, the commute had wiped me out; by Friday evening, I was pretty much figuratively dead to the world, not that I had much of a social life at the time! So when Liam moved out of western Massachusetts to Boston, and said he wanted to get an apartment, I jumped at the chance to join him, rejoicing in the much shorter commute and the prospect of being on my own. Move-out day from my parents' house was in late June 2001, and my dad helped me move in.

This was a huge step moment for me. I was really excited for this next chapter of life to begin! 

Sometime early in this month of July 2001, another though unrelated chapter began for me. On its 15th anniversary, I am reminded of the value of friendship, even though I've lost touch with this particular friend in the last few years. This anniversary reminds me of the risk and reward that can come with being vulnerable with another person, even for something that feels personally earth-shattering, something that had transpired fully five years before.  

Here I was, 26 years old and probably thinking I had a lot of things figured out in my life, only to discover that some self-assumptions were not entirely legit. That there was more to me than I admitted, or had allowed others to see. 

Let's get beyond this, I thought. Being a truer me started this month with this friend, whose support at an anxious, exciting time of self-discovery meant a great deal, and it still does. It slowly, over time, gave me the courage to be truer to myself and with others. And it all started in July 2001. 

The Goose Goes MIA for a Bit in a Canoe

We had a great 4th of July this year. It's not my most-favorite holiday, but it's up there, and our kids are slowly warming to fireworks (yes, pun intended!). Friends of our family invited us and other families in our congregation to their beautiful home for the afternoon. Their house overlooks a river, and they have an archery area, canoes, and other fun stuff for kids and adults.


Late in the afternoon, kids got the canoes out and headed for the murky river. Goose waited her turn, hitting the archery course, throwing old wood on a fire, and hanging out with some friends. Finally, these girls' turn came, and they were eager to get in the canoe and set out on their adventure. 

Little did they know, but it would turn into a long trip that didn't take them very far! Due to this summer's lack of rainfall, the river was very shallow, and mud caked just under the surface in many places. This obviously made canoeing extremely difficult. But these girls soldiered on, undeterred by the molasses-like quality of the water. 

I think Goose and her friends were gone for almost an hour. Due to the heavy amount of tree coverage, we lost sight of them for a long stretch of time, even though they were only about 500 yards from shoreline. However, we could certainly hear them out of eyesight, as they tried to turn their canoe around in this swamp! Aside from getting in the waist-high water and wadding out to the canoe, there was no way for us adults to help the canoe-goers navigate a way back to shore -- no other canoes, oars, or life jackets. 

Finally, these girls maneuvered their canoe to a stretch of the river where the water was high enough, and they slowly came back to the rickety wooden launch site. It is a beautiful setting and I'm sure it's even more awesome when the water is higher. And it's great to see your own kid work hard to meet a challenge. Goose had a very tiring but great time, bonding with two girls who are a little older than her. And she definitely slept well that night, after we watched our town's fireworks!

Up a Tree

On a recent Saturday morning, we accomplished something that felt remarkable for our tribe. It can be difficult, to the point of throwing our hands in the air, to get this small operating zoo of 6 people out of the house and moving. But get out we did: We went on a family bike ride, not nearly long enough for my liking, but a success nonetheless. 

The ride prematurely ended when our kids spotted one of their favorite playgrounds. I am often puzzled as to why our kids like this particular playground. It is very small, with few play structures, and really the only thing all of our kids can go on at the same time is a tiny jungle-gym. There is a huge playground, right along a river, with plenty of shade, plus a sand pile and a baseball diamond and tons of play structures, about a quarter-mile from this small playground. Maybe it is familiarity that leads our kids to this one over bigger and better ones?

And maybe it's because this one has climb-able trees?! No sooner had Becky started biking back home with Our Little Grouse did our three big kids decided that climbing a tree looked quite appealing. I was hesitant only because, How would I possibly catch more than one kid if they started falling from the tree? 

Moose was the bravest, getting this expedition going first and then reaching for higher-up branches and venturing farther from the trunk. Goose was a late comer to the climbing escapade, and she was toeing the line in terms of how high or far up I was letting our kids go. Mouse was more timid, but once she was up in the tree, she did well and felt most comfortable finding a sturdy limb to sit on and people-watch. 

For having few options of things to do once they were in the tree, our kids managed to create magic. Leave it to kids' imaginations! I thought they'd quickly grow bored. But the tree turned into a ship, then a castle, then a spaceship. They were looking for treasure, then looking for bad guys. Minutes in the tree turned to almost an hour, as I stood on the ground underneath them and snapped photos. 

Treetop time ended with a figurative lunch bell sounding (and maybe with me promising an afternoon show). But I have a feeling we will be back to this simple playground and its inviting trees.  

My Old Little League Shirt

It's been a very long time since I last saw this blue Little League t-shirt, let alone since I last was able to fit into it! Recently, Moose and his little brother slept over at my parents' house, and when our boys returned to our home, Moose brought this souvenir of my childhood back with him. 

I think this was my 1982, 1983, or 1984 Little League t-shirt. Like other Little League teams, ours was sponsored by a local business; in our case, that sponsor was the now defunct "At Your Service" car mechanic/gas station. 

I was really happy to see this shirt again, but more so to see Moose be excited about a part of my past. He was very excited to put this shirt on before he arrived at our home, so he'd be wearing it as he walked in our door and I'd see it right away. He wanted to know my answers to many of his questions related to this shirt:

"Did you get to choose the number?" I can't remember.

"Did you wash the shirt?" No, Nana did.

"Did all the teams wear blue?" Nope. Different colors for different teams.

"Did someone have number 100?" Again, no...probably no higher than 30. 

"Why?" Because in baseball, there are less than 100 players on a team, so the numbers don't need to go all the way to 100. In Little League, a team has maybe 12 players. 

"Is 18 more than 12?" Yes it is.

"So your team had 18 players?" Well, no...I'm confused. I don't remember. 

At this point, I thought that Moose would make a serious/not-serious line of inquiry like "Did a baseball hit your head, so now you can't remember?" but he didn't. He wanted to know which positions I played, which ones I liked most, do I still have my catcher's mitt, did anyone run the bases the wrong way, did it rain when we had a game, and a ton of other fun questions that had me making up answers trying to remember. 

Moose will be in Little League soon, probably next spring. I can't wait.  

The Mouse at HBS!

Today, while her big sister was at my parents' house and her brother was at his summer camp, Mommy dropped Our Little Mouse off at my office at Harvard Business School. We had our first Daddy-Daughter lunch date at my work, and it was a lot of fun! The plan came together rather spontaneously the night before. 

I love spending time with Mouse, and I always feel like we never get enough one-on-one time. There are a few art installations around the beautiful HBS campus, and Mouse was particularly interested in this one: two arrows, one yellow and pointing down; one blue and pointing up. It was a beautiful day outside, although a little hot, but we beat the heat just fine and had a great 90-minute lunch together. 

My favorite comment from our lunch? "I have never seen so many adults but no kids in one place before!" Huh! I've never thought about that before, but this comment helped me see, for even just a few seconds, the world through my child's eyes. 

May this be just the first of our Daddy-Daughter Lunch Dates at my office. In writing that, I know this will be tricky, because I try to take time off from work whenever our kids have school vacation. But maybe we could make this a pattern when our kids have an early-release day from school? 

In any event, any time I get with Mouse is special, usually very quiet, wacky, and so fun. I love this little girl!    

2 Numbers on the 4th

169.5

and

5.25

On July 4th, I took advantage of America's holiday and the beautiful weather to reach two important numeric milestones in my long quest for better health and wellness. First, as I stepped on our scale that morning, the numbers flashing back at me were 169.5. I had officially, after three years of fits-and-starts and stresses and demands on my time, broke the 170-pound barrier! I was elated.

Then, I set out on my longest run since June 2013. I just kept running, at a slower pace than when I run my 5K's, and kept assessing how my body was feeling as I ran. My knees are the first to start barking at me, then my right calf. Both knees and the calf were a little sore, but I kept going, through woods and along a river, until I could feel my body saying, "no more today." I had run over 5.25 miles that morning. It was the most I have run in one jog since, again, June 2013. 

As I've reached these numbers, a selfish part of me isn't satisfied. I want to be in better shape. I want to run. I want to run more frequently, and for longer stretches of time. There is almost nothing better for me to counter the stresses and demands of life than running. 

It has been a mental and emotional struggle that I've fought with myself over these last six months. Never enough time. Not enough weight coming off. Not coming off fast enough. Am I focusing too much of a variety of exercises? Should I just run more and skip the weights? But Becky likes my arms. I like my biceps. 

This struggle has prevented me from enjoying my progress and from recognizing the blessings I've been given: I have a body that works. I have found time, I have made time, in my schedule to work out. I have a very supportive wife, who re-arranges her work-outs and sleeping-in-in-the-mornings or doing-the-kids-alone-at-dinner so I can work out. 

Despite the health setbacks that derailed my last concentrated focus on exercise, as well as the length of time I've been kind of sedentary, my body has responded very well to my varied work-outs. That is what I need to focus on. That attitude is going to get me to my ideal weight and to a place where I manage to effectively integrate exercise into my life, no matter what else may be going on. 

Summertime:

it's about tooling around town in your toddler car seat, wearing your sister's pink glasses

upside-down!

Summertime can also be about trying to keep said child from falling asleep late in the afternoon, so as not to ruin his bedtime routine. 

Summertime can also be about making sure that said child's sippy-cup lid is secured tightly, so that milk doesn't spill out and go bad in the said summertime. 

The Photo of Our Summer

Sure, we still have a month-and-a-half of our summer. But I think this photo above will be the photo of our summer this year. Here is Mister Grouse scaling a fence to catch a better glimpse of his daddy and his big brother Moose in a canoe on the river. You can barely see us just a tad to the left-of-center in this picture. 

It was the Friday afternoon before July 4th, and at 2pm (while I was working from home), we got the all-clear to log off for the weekend. Within 25 minutes, my boys, Becky, and I were in a canoe. It was heavenly.  

Becky must have helped Grouse up to his perch. I can't imagine Grouse had the strength and coordination to do this himself.

Do your best, summer! But I don't think any one picture will compare to this one. 

A Night Without Our Boys

Hellooo beautiful! This is my rockin' wife, hanging on to the last days and weeks and months of her thirties. She is the best thing in my world. She doesn't get the attention that she deserves on this blog. Then again, Iam skeptical of bloggers, Instagram'ers, and Facebook 'ers who pepper their updates with over-the-top praise for their significant others. [You're trying too hard. We all see that]. No, I try to focus my attention and compliments and support on my wife in-person, where my words and feelings and actions resonate much more, and where it's just for her ears and eyes.   

But still...she is pretty unbelievable and awesome!

Another thing that is awesome: An afternoon, evening, and much of the next day with just our daughters! My parents kindly took our boys (ages 5 and 2.5) for a sleep-over recently. The dynamic in our home changed so much, both in volume and in excitement and in the sheer number of people hanging around our abode. 

We loved it. We missed our boys, but we loved it. 

I came home from work early on a Friday afternoon, and the four of us went on a nice, long bike ride to a nearby Subway joint for dinner. It was a picture-perfect night for being outdoors. Our girls don't whine (anymore). They don't bicker (much). They are fully capable of answering to their hunger, their nature calls, their thirst, their need to get dressed. This 24-hour span was a sublime reminder of their capabilities, which we often overlook because we're still in the diapers, "get me this, get me that," wiping noses, getting dressed, helping in to car seats, hands-on work with our sons. 

It's all fine, even when it is taxing. And it won't last forever. But still, having a small stretch of time when we could be more engaged with our kids, instead of just tending to their many needs, was refreshing. 

We had such a fun night and a slow, leisurely next morning. Nothing terribly exciting to blog about. Instead, to quote my mother-in-law, "We didn't do anything, except all of the important things." We read books. We cooked. We had fun. We went at a slower, calmer, more enjoyable pace. 

We have to do this again this summer! It was a highlight of our year so far. And welcoming our boys back home was very sweet, too.