Monthly Archives: August 2010

Julia is Six

Posted on by

It’s a bit cliché to say that it’s hard to believe a child has reached a certain age, as though she went to bed a toddler and woke up in junior high. This isn’t really the case for us and Julia—or, perhaps, for parents in general. Sure, sometimes it seems like it was just a few months ago that we brought her home from the hospital, or just last week that she was trying to make sense of Cheerios. Some days, though, I can feel each and every one of the last 2,191 days in my muscles and bones; on days like those, it seems hard to believe that we’ve got another 4,400 or so more in front of us.

Either way, Julia has given us a truckload of memories over the last six years, and there’s no more concrete evidence of that gift than the fact that we now have more than 11,000 photos on our computer (mental note: back up computer). Admittedly, we’re a little behind in terms of actually publishing them, but here’s a step in the right direction: pictures from Julia’s blowout birthday celebration yesterday, with some bonus shots from the first day of school.

We started out with the first soccer game of the season at 9:00 in the morning. Some of us were a little groggy, but at least it prevented us from deviating too far from the weekday sleep schedule Friday night. Julia’s team won, which is hardly the point, but it was a bit of a nice change: they’ve now won more regular season games than they did all of last year.

As an added bonus, one of Julia’s oldest friends, Molly Gosling, is on her team. Julie and Molly’s mom were both in the same mothers’ group when the kids were newborns, and both girls went to Action Day up until preschool. When they were about three, Molly moved to a different school and Julia stuck with Action Day for another couple years, so they haven’t seen as much of each other lately. Thus, it’s a treat for them to get together twice a week for practice and games.

After soccer, we took the kids to Happy Hollow with some of Julia’s friends from school. I’d never been to Happy Hollow before, so it was an educational experience. It’s a combination petting zoo, playground and amusement park, and most of the activities and rides are aimed at kids under the age of 8, so it was right in our group’s wheelhouse. Julia and Joe rode a roller coaster for the first time; Julia loved it, but I was actually fairly surprised that Joe was game. He didn’t hate it, but certainly wasn’t up for a second ride. Instead, he insisted that we go on Danny the Dragon or, as he called it, the “dragon train,” which was essentially a chain of wagons pulled along a wooded path past little displays depicting scenes from children’s literature at 2 miles per hour by a golf cart disguised as a large, green dragon. It was definitely more Joe’s speed.

We took a short break when we got home from Happy Hollow—the kids were fine, but I was dead on my feet. Then, Molly, Phoebe and Zoe came over for a sleepover. We went to McDonald’s for dinner (Julia’s choice), ate some cake, and watched Enchanted. It ended up being a pretty late night, but the kids were pretty well-behaved, considering there were five of them squeezed into the bedroom. Sadly, Molly decided she wanted to go home around 11:45, so her mother came by to pick her up—luckily, they live just a few blocks away. She probably ended up sleeping better than the rest of the girls, considering they were all awake, predictably enough, by 6:30 this morning.

School, Money and Other Concerns

Posted on by

Julia spent the last couple weeks settling in at school. She’s very enthused about the idea of being a first grader, but sometimes has a little trouble with accepting the reality of what that entails. That is to say, she’s still having some of the same problems she had last year regarding focusing in class and getting her work done when she’s supposed to. She’s not having any issues with the actual difficulty of the classwork, which we’re taking as a good sign; and she loves her teacher, Mrs. Peters. Rather, at times she’s just a little unclear on her responsibilities and our expectations.

Julie and I are racking our brains trying to figure out how to motivate her without dampening her spirit and enthusiasm. She’s fundamentally a good girl (of course, what kind of parent would I be if I felt otherwise?), but we need to help her understand that people are going to judge her based on how she behaves—she’s not going to make it on charm and looks alone, real-life examples from contemporary American society notwithstanding. If nothing else, we don’t have to worry about parenting being boring.

As part of the plan to address these concerns, we’ve decided to take a big step and start giving the kids an allowance: 25¢ for each year of age, or $1.50 for Julia and $1.00 for Joe each week. The exact amount will be adjusted based on their behavior at home and at school and whether they help out with their chores around the house, which largely involve feeding Maggie and helping me pick up apples in the yard. I’m looking forward to them mowing the lawn, cleaning the gutters and bringing me drinks by this time next year.

The other big news is that Joe is all set to start Junior K for real this coming week. He’s been busing over to Amber for the last month or so, but they’ve still been doing fun summer camp activities. On Monday, he gets his first real dose of school, complete with desks, school supplies and homework. He has the same teacher Julia did for Junior K, Ms. Aamoth (though she was Ms. Powell at the time), and a bunch of his preschool friends are in his class, so it won’t be a complete change of surroundings, but it’ll be a shift nonetheless. Knowing Joe, however, he’ll probably take it with aplomb.

Vacation and Bike News

Posted on by

After a long, hectic summer, there’s nothing like a two-week family vacation to slow things down and get everyone into a relaxed frame of mind heading into the school year, right? OK, maybe not, but we tried. And we have pictures.

Things got off to a rollicking start when we found that we didn’t have any hot water in the master bathroom the morning of the trip. The hot water heater was completely kaput, and to add to the excitement, the drain in the front bathroom was sufficiently stuck that taking more than a five-minute shower would result in a flood.

Those minor difficulties overcome—or at least deferred—we started out with a week-long stop in Chicago, where we visited my parents and went to my 20-year high school reunion. In addition to the reunion proper, there were Alumni Weekend activities, complete with kids’ play area, at IMSA on Saturday. Julia and Joseph were surprisingly unimpressed with the place where Daddy spent his formative years, though Joe did get a big kick out of the fact that there was an elevator in the school building: I probably rode it more times that afternoon than I had the entire three years I attended school there. The kids also insisted on climbing on and around the various pieces of art installed on the school grounds, proving that some things transcend generations.

While we were in Elk Grove, the kids became fascinated by the bike trails in and around the forest preserve and requested that we go for a walk in the “deep, dark forest.” Mom and I obliged them, though in hindsight, it would have been a better idea to drive into the forest preserve and walk from there, rather than haul both of them to and from the house. If it weren’t for my old wagon, which we uncovered in the garage, we never would have made it.

From Chicago, we headed to Nebraska for Julie’s reunion, which was conveniently scheduled for the weekend after mine—it helped that Julie was the one doing the organizing for her class. Everyone was very excited to see Grandma Flack’s new house in Norfolk, and the kids were especially looking forward to sleeping in the basement. Joe only fell down the stairs once, so I considered that leg of the trip to be a rousing success.

I left for home the day after the reunion, while Julie and the kids stayed in Nebraska for a few additional days, which gave me a bit of time to get caught up on work and arrange for a plumber to come by and fix our bathing problems.

Other than the trip, the other big news is that Julia has finally gotten the hang of riding her bike. The weekend before we left, she was able to make it all the way around the block, stopping only once. She still needs a little help getting going from a full stop, but she’s well on her way to achieving a new level of independence and mobility. I only hope that the world is ready.