School's out

What does one do when the school year comes to a close?

If you're fortunate, you ship the kids to Nana's house and take a long weekend getaway.

Jason and I spent four days out of town with no kids, no schedule, and no plans.  

It was everything we thought it could be.

We spent our time sleeping in, eating out, and watching ducks.

It was so refreshing to reconnect after a tough spring.

Later that week, Jeddy's very oldest friend (since they were under two!) turned thirteen and invited us whitewater rafting to celebrate.  

He selected a trip that allowed ages ten and up, so the girls could participate.  We had them pretty convinced it would be no big deal, until it was time to gather for the pre-trip safety lecture.

The lady in charge was no-nonsense.  She was intimidating enough initially, and that was before she passed around forms for everyone to sign stating that we accept that "you can get injured; you can die."  The girls had to sign their own form, which pretty much obliterated any confidence they had.  

After that we geared up with personal flotation devices (NOT life preservers:  "These will not preserve your life; that's your job.  These will only float your person."), helmets, and oars.  We helped the kids tighten the PFD's until they were snug, and then she came around and gave each of us a mighty yank on the strap, practically knocking the wind out of us.  Apparently breathing is no part of whitewater rafting.

We piled onto an old school bus and listened to further instructions as we bounced along through the woods to the river.  She spoke loud and fast.  Here's a rundown of some of the main points:

1.  Plan A is to stay in the boat.  If you think you're going to fall over, fall into the boat.

2.  If you fall out of the boat, Step 1, as you're clunking along the rocky bottom and battered by current and waves and devoid of oxygen, is:  Relax.

3.  Step 2:  Self-rescue.  It's YOUR job to save your own life.

4.  If you're still close to the boat, grab the boat and climb back in it.

5.  If you're sort of close to the boat, someone will stick an oar in your face.  Grab it and use that to climb back in.

6.  If you're UNDER the boat, remember:  Relax.  Then the rest of us will paddle extra hard to get you out from under us until you shoot out the back.

7.  If you're far from the boat, swim very hard in whatever direction your raft leader is pointing:  toward the left, right, or middle of the river.

8.  If you can't swim to safety, Leon, our kayaker companion, will come to you.  But, drowning or not, DO NOT touch Leon's kayak until he invites you to, and even then, ONLY touch the small designated spot on his kayak ("Don't touch here, or here, or here.  You should touch here, but not here.  If you have to, you can touch here.  But don't pull here.  Got it?")  If you fail at this, he will flip you both over into the river.

9.  If all else fails, the instructor carries a long rescue rope with a heavy metal carabiner at the end of it, and she will throw it at your head.    

After this encouraging set of instructions, we arrived at the river, divided into two group for the two rafts, and prepared to launch, which involved cooperatively carrying the heavy raft down a long set of steep stairs and wading into the water.

Leon took a different tactic.

He zoomed down the stairs and smoothly into the water, where he immediately started doing tricks:  rolling over, standing the kayak on its nose, doing pushups in the water on the oar. 


He kept that up for the entire two hours we were out.


Once we entered the river, our fearless leader still had more to tell us. 


She explained the different commands she would use, which, by this point, we were prepared to obey instantly without question.  She had already made clear that "the ones who fall out are the ones who didn't paddle hard enough."  Whether that's actually true or a ruse to make us all pull our weight, I don't know, but we were beyond questioning.  When the waves get big, she said, we must paddle hard straight into them without stopping.  She taught us to stroke together forward and backward, and then made us drill how to leap on top of our partner across the boat to throw weight, in case the boat is about to flip. 


With our leader's authority and our total obedience firmly in hand, we set off into the rapids. 


The river was running eight feet above normal, which made some places more dangerous than usual (more powerful current), but some places actually less dangerous (we were far above rocks).


Out of a scale of class 1-6--class 6 being considered "unnavigable by raft"--our journey reached class "5+."  Waves were 20 feet at their highest.  Just before the roughest part, she had Ada give up her oar and hunker down at the bottom of the raft, holding on with two hands and keeping her head down.


I'm pleased to report that we avoided all the innumerable disasters about which we were forewarned.  No one fell out of the boat.  We didn't even have to tackle each other across the raft to stay upright.  No one had to sort out under duress which part of Leon's boat was allowable.  No one tested whether Leon was even paying attention.  No one had a rescue carabiner thrown at their head.


No one stopped paddling.


In between rapids, we enjoyed beautiful scenery and even some informative history as we glided.


We arrived drenched and exhilarated....

...with good appetites for dinner cooked over a campfire.

The rain at home has been extreme too, so Caleb and Lizzy and I checked out the flood damage at the park during one of Ada's piano lessons.

The river had been up over the field, judging from the debris along the fence

...and up over the bridge, judging from debris and damage there.

Even aquatic life was left behind on the bridge.

End of school also means end of Little League.

And end-of-year field day.

More time with cousins...

...and somebody else's thirteenth birthday!

Vive l'été.

Mission complete

"It's gone!.....It's done!"

"Yes, Mr. Frodo.  It's over now."

-Frodo and Sam, The Return of the King

School's out for summer.

The school tables are cleared off.  The kids are sleeping in.  

Only Buck is suffering the loss of his daily excursions from his cage--no more scampering around our ankles as we do school.

This is mixed news for us, as Buck suddenly achieved bunny adulthood a few months ago, abruptly announced by what the kids charmingly call "hugging" our lower legs.

Vigorous hugging.

They've been telling any stranger who'll listen that our bunny hugs our ankles because that's what bunnies do when they love each other.  

He's still cute, even if his rude behavior needs to be occasionally corrected.

Caleb lost his first tooth--as in, LOST his first tooth.  As in, he couldn't find it. 

The tooth fairy faithfully came anyway, albeit a couple days late, after Caleb got around to telling us.  I actually discovered the lost tooth myself when Caleb opened his mouth; he never said anything about it.

I've spent the last six weeks feeling increasingly like a rocket on re-entry:  barely holding it together, about to break apart.  School intensified, Little League was Little League, Lizzy's going to speech twice a week, this and that... all combined to make me think next year I might spend spring break stocking the freezer with meals for myself.

Jed appeared one morning with a big gross abscess on the end of his finger (which he held up to my face just before I was going to enjoy my breakfast), which required a trip to the doctor and twice-daily oral antibiotics for a while, which he remembered to take every time because I told him he was saving the world from superbugs by taking it faithfully.  He loudly announced his heroism at each dose.

I also signed up to bring a few people meals who were in need, due to new babies at their houses.  I always enjoy helping a friend that way, but I was convicted this time that I was managing to provide a robust meal for someone else's family and not so much my own.  Why is it that bringing someone ELSE a meal and cleaning up someone ELSE's home is so much more inspiring than one's own? 

I think it's because the other people appreciate it so much more.  I still vividly remember one friend cleaning my horrendous dining room when I had one of my newborns, and the care it communicated to me, despite the fact that it was probably just as sticky within 24 hours.  

My own family (particularly the youngest members) tends to shrug when I fix dinner, and if I start really cleaning, they ask what's going on, which just adds to my housekeeping shame.

Other people think I'm a hero when I walk in with a casserole, like Jeddy saving us all from superbugs, which feels a lot better than persevering, unseen faithfulness in the mundane.

Other mothers, in particular, appreciate a hand with cleaning.  Children, not so much.  Caleb is overly attached to a certain small pillow that I made years ago, and he drags it around everywhere.  It's besmirched and flat and has a great Frankenstein repaired rip on one side.  Ada complained to me that "Caleb's pillow is going to be the rebirth of the Black Plague."  

I guess tis the season too, but we have zillions of fruit flies (as well as regular flies).  Caleb calls them "fruit bugs."

A piteous critter bedside scene; notice the dissevered cottontail awaiting reattachment.

There is one area about which Caleb cares deeply about cleanliness.  His last tee-ball game ended with a participation-award ceremony.  The coach passed out glow-in-the-dark trophies to each child.  When she handed his to Caleb, he breathlessly said, "I'm going to wash it every day!"

Girls' weekend

As I'm running about a month behind in my newspaper reading (I'm at the point where it's more accurate to call it "reading the recent history" than "reading the news"), it's appropriate now to mention a lovely trip I took five weeks ago...

wherein Ada and I traveled west, and our dear friends traveled east, and we met in the middle for a girls' weekend.

We stayed in a hotel room all together, where there was much giggling, braiding of hair, and splashing in the indoor pool. 

We went out for pizza and played near the river and poked around a quirky bookshop.

Also played in a nearby children's museum.

Notwithstanding the fact that our car was burglarized in the parking garage (!), we had a great time.

 
[Our best guess is that I didn't actually lock the car, as there was no damage to doors or windows.  My toll money was missing (around $20 in change), but more than that, the car and everything in it was torn apart and thrown around.  Every pocket, the glove compartment, Ada's bag of school work, the kids' cubbies in the back seat:  all dumped and strewn wildly about.  Even the hidden trapdoor on the floor of the van had been opened and emptied.  It was unnerving and confusing and felt very violating.  But it was also a good opportunity to clean out the car--and to rejoice that worse was not done.]

A dozen things I learned this spring

Linking up again with Emily P. Freeman for her quarterly What We Learned feature...


1.  When looking for items on the top shelf of the fridge, instead of standing on my tiptoes, it's easier to stoop and look up through the bottom of the glass.


I picked up this tip from my kids; they can spot things before I can this way.

Cute Patootie Wyatt

2.  Our swim teacher from last summer is also a counselor at a crisis pregnancy center.


And this explains her caring nature and her heart for kids and teenagers.  It warmed my heart when I found this out.

3.  Kids are supposed to be able to make the "k" sound by age four.


When I researched and discovered this, I finally realized why a few people had expressed concern about Lizzy's speech patterns.  A few months later, she's in twice-weekly speech therapy sessions at the local college and pleased that she attends university before her siblings.

4.  Caleb doesn't know the alphabet.


Another significant teacher/mom fail.  Why isn't he learning to read??  Oh... the lack of understanding letters could be a factor in that.  So, a couple months ago we scrapped the "learn to read" program and restarted with a "learn the letters" program.

Let's start at the very beginning

A very good place to start

5.  March is a good time to try out a whole bunch of new recipes.


Middle of Little League season; not so much.  End-of-school crunch?  Nope.  But March.... when all the world seems to go on its muddy way as it always has been, time without end... yes.  Good time to go crazy and try every recipe you've pinned the whole rest of the year.  And it pays lasting dividends in the form of new favorites, even through Little League busyness.

6.  It's "20,000 leagues" forward, not deep.


Also in March, I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for the first time, having assigned it to Jeddy for a book report.  I always thought that measurement referred to how deep the submarine went (I had no idea how big a league is in relation to how deep the ocean is; thank you, Wikipedia; now I know the ocean is nowhere near 20,000 leagues deep).  It actually refers to the length of the journey Aronnax travels while under the sea.


Also, giant squids figure in the story much less than I expected, considering every cover of every edition, plus the posters for all the movies feature them.

7.  Short story collections are a great way to read without getting so sucked in that I can't put it down to feed my family.


...which some members of my family think is a definite drawback to my reading hobby.  The librarian recommended Jeffrey Archer's short stories to me, and I polished off A Twist in the Tale and To Cut a Long Story Short over spring break, enjoying them very much, and no one went hungry or wore dirty underwear because of my negligence.

8.  Competitive Scrabble is a thing.


I owe this knowledge to a lovely (adult-ears-only) grammar podcast that Jeddy can't believe I like to listen to while I run.

Lexicon Valley episode #6 is all about competitive Scrabble:  the strategy, the experts, the juicy controversies.

9.  If I drink coffee I can drive in the afternoon.


This, along with #12, actually falls under the heading of Really Useful News.


It has long been settled science that I am absolutely useless as a driving partner after lunch.  I can take the 3am shift, the 6am shift, the 10pm shift; but don't put me behind the wheel at 2pm unless you want to meet the guard rail.  Or, as inevitably happens, I pull over after thirty minutes, gasping and apologizing and rubbing my eyes.  2:00 pm is my weakness, rivaled only by the somnolent effect of being in a moving car.  Asking me to drive a car at 2pm is hopeless.


But!  When we took our trip to Washington, D.C., perhaps due to the heightened sense of being solely responsible for four children on an absurdly optimistic enterprise, I had the bright idea to get in the car that afternoon with a mug of coffee.


Being also absurdly sensitive to caffeine, I planned to only drink half a cup, but I guess I got carried away.  I might have had three quarters.


And I cruised into the city twitching and wiiiide awake.


On a more recent afternoon trip, I thought (foolishly) I could function like a normal person and drive a car after lunch.  Predictably, it became painful to keep my eyes open and remain in my own lane.  I found a rest stop vending machine that dispensed low-quality coffee, drank a small cup down, and--presto!--problem solved.


Maybe functioning like a normal person requires drinking coffee like a normal person.  Hmm....

From aforementioned "learn the letters" program.  "L" is for "llama with glued-on fur."

10.  Barry Manilow wrote the State Farm jingle.  


"How to Do Everything" is another podcast I'm fond of, and as it's pretty family-friendly, the older kids have gotten into it too.  I'm indebted to How to Do Everything for #10 and #11 on this list.


Also, I was thrilled to hear an interview with Barry Manilow.  I think I'm mostly thrilled that anyone else besides me knows who he is.

11.  Penguins have really long legs.


Who knew?


The lady interviewed for "How to Do Everything: Chips, Penguins, and Spy Planes" explains that penguins actually have long legs, but their belly skin covers so much of their legs that they have to walk like a woman wearing a long, tight skirt.


I know the feeling.  At least they're not also wearing platform heels.

12.  Dried beans are really easy to fix in the crockpot.  


Useful discovery number two this season.  Dried beans don't have to be intimidating, or complicated.  Put some on the bottom of the crockpot, fill the crockpot with well-salted water, turn it on low after dinner, and you'll have beans for lunch the next day.  Or start the process after breakfast and cook it on high until dinner.  As long as there's lots of water, crockpots and beans are pretty forgiving.

What did you discover this spring?



*The Sound of Music, "Do-Re-Mi"

The end draws near

Me:  "If I labored for twelve hours to give birth to you, you can do ten minutes of Latin."

Jeddy:  "I don't know.  Have you ever done Latin?"

My helpful diagram for Jeddy simplifying the relationships in Pride and Prejudice, rendered somewhat less perspicuous by Caleb's additions.

We're staggering toward the finish line of the school year, lurching and stumbling.  A few subjects are entirely done; others are plaguing our souls.

We face each school morning with varying degrees of courage.  Sometimes we quail, as I do before one of those yucky millipedes with millions of legs that run really fast across the bathroom when you turn on the light and splatter into numerous twitching pieces when you whack them with a flyswatter.  

*shuddershuddershudder*

Elizabeth, on the other hand, reacts to such diplopodous horrors somewhat differently.  

Recently she noticed a millipede scurrying across the kitchen floor where we were standing.  Before I had time to exclaim, she had reached down and plucked it up by its antenna between her thumb and finger.  She held it aloft and gazed at it while it writhed its many-legged body.  "Look," she said.  "I'm picking it up by its whiskers!"

Jeddy is done with most of his seventh grade work.  He spent this school day mowing the lawn and playing with Legos.  

Also, his voice changed.  Suddenly. 

I didn't notice it until I was half dressed one early morning and heard talking downstairs and thought, "Oh no, who's here?  There's a man in the house!" 

Seven more school days.  I think I can, I think I can, I think I can....

Wordless Wednesday