juliloquy

Phrederick

We are in Maryland, intact. There is so much to write, but no time. Chaotic as expected. We think we will really like it here.

If I thought we would keep a low profile until we settled in a bit, I was mistaken. Already a friend of a neighbor has said to me: "I've seen you pushing that double stroller past my mom's house on Center Street!" In just a week's time I have the reputation of being that woman who walks everywhere with her two youngins. Oh and then there's this article about HPR from the local paper. (I connected with the journalist via Twitter when we were considering moving to Thurmont rather than Frederick. She saw potential for a fish-out-of-water story.)

Must get sleep. Wish I could keep up here and with all of you . . .

guess HPR will have to rename his blog

HPR has accepted a job here, so we will be moving to Maryland probably sometime in May. We are excited about the move, but sad to leave our Philly community. I told my boss today that May 8 will be my last day, although I want to help in the transition as much as possible and can probably devote some time to my employer after that date, too. I am about as weepy as they come, so I was a mess as I shared the news. Wish I could have kept it together a bit better. I have worked here six years with two consecutive outstanding bosses. I'm not sure what sort/level of work I will do after the move; might wait on that until the dust settles at our new place.

We have asked Shmoo what he'd think of living in a new house and he responded with an unreserved YES! He even started packing up his train set on Saturday. Yesterday as we were driving home from Quaker Meeting, we had the following conversation:

Shmoo: Are we moving now?
Me: No, not for a long time. We have to sell our house, pack up all our stuff, get a moving truck . . .
Shmoo: So, after quiet time?

I'm sure that two days after we've moved, he'll ask when we're going back to our house in Philadelphia. He will not be happy about leaving his school.

We're going to look for houses on Friday - we haven't even been to the area! (The park interviewed HPR by phone.) It turns out they are not going to pay for our move, so we have a lot of work ahead. I keep reminding myself that at least it's not moving to New Orleans with a 1-month-old Roo. That helps me keep it in perspective a bit.

Roo, of course, is oblivious to the news. She is too busy pretending to tuck in "beebee" strawberries beneath dish cloths, holding her finger to her mouth and saying "shhhhh." At age 18 months, she has become a complete mother hen.

So wish us luck in the next 6+ weeks! And visit us in Maryland! (Really.)

Our everyday, 4 days a week

Rather than do another day-in-the-life post, I thought I'd describe our usual M-Th routine. (HPR is home with the kids on Fridays, I am on Sundays, and we are all together on Saturdays, which start out with waffles, turkey bacon, and usually a trip to Clark Park.)

Various times through the night: Roo awakens and I pause to see if she settles. If she doesn't, I go in and give her a nurse. (We have had some success "sleep training" her in the past, but it has only worked until the next teething/travel/illness crops up. She also inexplicably began sleeping through the night at the end of 2008, but that didn't last. I realized in the past week that she has stopped sucking her thumb, so I suppose they're related. Shmoo started sleeping well only after he was weaned, so I expect the same with Roo. I can tolerate it for now.) Shmoo occasionally wakes with night-light or slipper issues.

5:45ish: HPR's alarm goes off and he gets up. If I stir, I pray that Roo doesn't awaken as HPR goes downstairs to start the coffee deliciousness. He eats his breakfast and geeks out on the weather, Linux, and probably other even more geeky things that I don't want to even know about.

Somewhere between 6:00 and 6:30, usually: Roo awakens. I go into her room and nurse her. When she's done, she says "'k! 'k!" which is her request to read books. I take off her diaper, sit her on the potty, and we read books. At some point, Shmoo usually wanders in, often grumpily. Sometimes Shmoo goes downstairs to get breakfast with HPR. I get Roo dressed and clean out the potty if we've had a potty success. I get clothes out for Shmoo and either try to get him dressed (if he's upstairs with us) or bring them downstairs for after-breakfast dressing.

7:00: HPR, having had breakfast and gotten the kids' packs packed, comes upstairs for his grooming ritual. The kids and I go downstairs and I am at last reunited with my true love, coffee. I help Rooie (as well as Shmoo, as needed) with breakfast. I try to pack up some leftovers for my lunch. After breakfast the kids usually play a bit in the living room. If they look like they won't injure each other too badly, I sneak upstairs to throw on some clothes and makeup and brush my hair. If the kids are in each others' faces, I'll bring Roo up with me and hope she can entertain herself without too much fuss/clinginess. 

7:30: We wrangle socks, shoes, coats, and accessories onto kids and selves. Roo usually loses her $#!+ during this time, often literally.

7:40ish: Head out the door to the trolley stop. Pray for a not-too-crowded trolley.

8:10ish: Transfer to blue train at 30th Street Station. If we're running late, I will continue eastbound to help with daycare drop-off. If we are on time, I part ways with the fam and catch the westbound train to 40th Street.

8:20: If we need anything for home, I stop at the Fresh Grocer or CVS on my way from the station. They are conveniently located one block from my office.

We work. HPR is on the clock from 8:45-5:15 with a half-hour lunch break, plus he has to change into an out of his uniform. I work the cushy 9-5 with an hour lunch, although I often eat it at my desk while goofing off online. I pump, usually mid- to late morning.

5:05: I leave for home, on foot. I love this part of the day, especially now that there is still a bit of daylight. Sometimes I stop at the library on the way home if I have to return anything or to get new material.

5:35: I arrive home and start dinner.

6:15, 6:30ish: HPR and the kids get home. We de-mummify them, wash hands, and sit down to eat.

7:00: Play.

7:30: If it is bath night (every other night), I head up to bathe Roo. HPR usually plays a board game with Shmoo; sometimes they watch short videos, such as a few Thomases on YouTube.

7:50: HPR and Shmoo come upstairs for Shmoo's bath. I dry off Roo and get her into her pajamas.

7:55: We sing "[Rooie/Shmooie] Goodnight" to the tune of "Goodnight Irene." First verse for the kids, second verse for the cats, and third verse for Mommy and Daddy. The fish are left out. I nurse Roo, sing "Embraceable Roo," and put her to bed.

8:15: I rejoin HPR and Shmoo at the end of his tooth brushing/pajama/feed the fish ritual. We read a chapter out of whatever book we're reading. When we finish, Shmoo pretends to fall asleep in my arms. I exclaim: "Oh, look, Daddy - he just fell asleep, right in my arms!" Shmoo continues to pretend to sleep as I tuck him in.

8:30: We sing "Embraceable Shmoo" and kiss goodnight.

8:35: HPR and I go downstairs and break out "Mommy and Daddy's Special Juice." Shmoo often comes to the edge of the upstairs safety gate to ask for one more kiss or his slippers, if we forgot to bring the latter upstairs earlier. We allow one such stall tactic.

8:40: Usually HPR spearheads the lunch-packing movement (with me as chief consultant) while I clean up the dinner mess. I will frequently get a load of laundry going.

9:10: Emails, phone calls, tidying, a shower or bath for me, other projects. Once in a great while, we'll watch a DVD, but we're usually too tired to get through a full-length feature. We've been watching the John Adams HBO series, but we don't get to more than one episode per week.

10:15: The time we should go to bed, although it's often . . .

11:15.

11:30ish: Rooie always seems to stir about 20 minutes after we've gone to bed. Repeat of the way the day began.

putting the mommy back in the blog

Hey there - what? I'm supposed to write in this thing? Oops. If I were one to make resolutions, I would say I'd write more here, but that would just be a recipe for failure. But I will do what I can. Despite the Facebook distractions, I still love this venue.

One thing I have already given up in 2009 is breast pads. Hooray! Whereas the breastfeeding experience has been excellent for both the developer and the end user, the hardware leaves much to be desired. Next to go will be the ratty old nursing bras. I plan to continue breastfeeding for a while (I want to get through cold & flu season before I'll do any intentional weaning), but because this is the last baby for us I have not wanted to invest any more money in nursing paraphernalia. The bras that work best and are most comfortable are wearing out. The nursing tanks are nice and in good shape, but they give me the undesirable unibreast look. I've actually been wearing a regular bra this week, which is great, except Rooie needed an emergency trolley nurse and it was a challenge to put myself back together at the 30th St. transfer station.

But that's enough talk about my rack, I really wanted to talk about the kids.

Rooie is now 15 months and is on the cusp of a language explosion. Her most-recognizable words are cat, fish, turtle, and star, with a Mummummum thrown in here and there. She has her own words for her brother (GER-oh), frog, tree. She has been saying "uh-oh" and her babbles seem to be taking more of a recognizable form. She pretends to count and do other things that her brother does. She even told a little joke recently. I was chatting with her as we were getting ready in the morning and asked "What should Mama wear?" and she said "diaper!" (Sounds like BAB-puu.) 

She has taken her time with walking, but is doing it with some frequency now. She still feels more secure holding a grown-up's finger, but will do the Frankenbaby walk on her own. She is still obsessed with cats and books.

Once we got beyond the coal threat drama, Shmoo at 4.25 was completely agog about the magic of Christmas. The coal substory was introduced by his daycare teachers. It was kind of funny at first - one told the kids she had Santa's number on her cell phone and another talked about Santa watching the kids through a kind of snow globe (I even had a weak moment where I was trying to discipline Shmoo in public, and then he tried to hit me. Before I could bite my tongue I said "I hope Santa didn't see that." yech) - but Shmoo takes these things very seriously. And the prospect of Santa bringing coal didn't scare him straight, it made his behavior worse - he was constantly testing everything. It was getting pretty bad, until HPR had the brilliant idea of finding a story about Santa that made no mention of coal (this one, by Frank Baum). We read it out loud to Shmoo. At first he didn't believe that his teachers could be wrong, but he mulled it over a bit and in the following days his behavior improved tremendously. Well played, HPR!

Shmooie's class has been doing some fun alphabet work. They have a song for every letter; we love to hear his renditions. He remembers the lyrics well. My favorite, set to the tune of "Itsy Bitsy Spider" is

Edith the Elephant is extremely wise
She wakes up every morning, just to exercise
She eats a lot of eggs and enormous heaps of hay
And when she goes outside, she has energy to play

We have been reading some classics with Shmoo at bedtime. We started with Charlotte's Web and went on to the "Little House" books. We just finished Farmer Boy and have started On the Banks of Plum Creek.Tonight, when I told him that he and I had been to Plum Creek when he was a baby, he asked "were Laura and Mary really alive?"

Well, I need to wrap this up and get to bed, but I have to mention in passing that over the holidays, the kids infected lots of HPR's extended family members, including HPR himself but oddly not me, with whatever virus Joni brought home from daycare, and I cut my hand open in a Lego emancipation accident. (Photos on flickr!)

shameless romance

Eight years plus one day ago, HPCPC* and I started smooching in my silly apartment in Pazardjik. One of the ways the apartment was silly was that it had a kitchen bed. I guess it made sense since the apartment was just a living/bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen. So if you were swooning from cooking or romance, you could just lie down for a spell.

But I digress. And will again. As I walked home from work this past Wednesday, Josh Rouse's Sweetie came on my iPod. The words and the mood of the song are so evocative of that time in our lives. I don't know a better way to embed it, so here is a YouTube version. You can also play it on Josh Rouse's Myspace page (currently #5 in his playlist).

We'll sleep on rooftops
We'll ride on bicycles
Maybe we'll get married
Don't you want to sweetie?

*Handsome Peace Corps Poster Child, remember?

Happy Handsome Ponytail Birthday

I wrote this post two years ago. Just before I was going to publish it, I showed it to HPR in case he had reservations. He did. So let's see if he still has them. Read now before this entry disappears!

Thirty-two things about Handsome Ponytail ranger . . . for his 32nd birthday!

idea from Missuz J

1. As a child, he had an imaginary friend named Chickencow.
2. It was neither a chicken nor a cow, but rather a disembodied shark fin.
3. It was not a solitary imaginary friend, but rather an entire family.
4. Plus “Farmer” Chickencow.
5. Farmer Chickencow could be rather threatening, such as when he swelled to human size during a disagreement.
6. One day, the whole Chickencow family (plus Farmer) packed up in a car and drove away.
7. He likes people.
8. He likes to talk.
9. He writes well (poems, essays, emails . . .).
10. He cooks creatively.
11. He plays piano, French horn, Appalachian dulcimer, Bulgarian bagpipe, and probably any other instrument he can get his hands on.
12. His jokes are just as bad as mine.
13. He is sensitive. This can be good and bad.
14. He gives things great thought and consideration.
15. It takes him 20 minutes to butter a slice of toast.
16. When I point this out, he makes a very cute sheepish face.
17. When I asked him whether he thinks sheep look sheepish, he gives the correct answer (that is, an answer that agrees with what I think): no.
18. He can absorb foreign languages like a sponge (if sponges could absorb languages) but he’s humble about it.
19. He chooses to pay extra for products of quality that are produced ethically.
20. He is a man of principle. For example, he is curious about who reads his website, but he decided not to put a sitemeter on it because he feels that’s an invasion of privacy. (So surf on over and greet him!)
21. He thinks he can bend time: He is ever-optimistic about how long it takes to do a project, drive somewhere, and so on. I think having da Shmoo has shifted his outlook to be a bit more realistic, however.
22. He’s not afraid to admit that spider webs wig him out. Not spiders necessarily, but the material their webs are made of. It is probably a good thing that we’re not in the silkworm industry.
23. He’s an unabashed Canadaphile.
24. In fact, he’s an unabashed everything-phile. My friend A. described it as his “gift of enthusiasm.”
25. If you ask him something like “What are your favorite physics equations?” or “Who are your favorite Constitution signers?” he will come up with an answer. And not just a BS answer, either.
26. He drinks his bourbon neat.
27. His main reason for wanting to live in PA after Peace Corps was to be near his teenaged sisters, to be involved in their lives.
28. His ranger career really suits him; he dreams of the future parks he could work in. (See gift for enthusiasm, above.)
29. He makes the best pancakes.
30. He excels at "russ-hussing" with da Shmoo. (rough-housing) [and now with Roo, too]
31. He is a fun, invested, and creative parent.
32. He is a fun, invested, and creative partner.
    
    adding two more since he's now 34
33. He keeps his head in an emergency.
34. He proudly donned his birthday present this morning: A t-shirt emblazoned with "West Philly" on the front and  "Baltimore 34" on the back (for Baltimore Ave and 34, our trolley route).
    
    ETA: Wow, there's even a Wikipedia entry for the 34 Trolley.

gusti gori

I nearly shared a message at Quaker Meeting this past Sunday. It didn't make the cut because I wasn't convinced it was divinely inspired. Also, I wasn't sure whether I should say "ass" (the best translation) at Meeting or go with a more benign term. A blog seems to be the perfect medium for messages that don't quite make the cut on Sunday. And saying the word "ass." So here it is:

HPR told me a joke in Bulgarian. It's a play on words, so I'll have to do some explaining. First, the joke.

Novelist Ivan Vasov and painter Nenko Balkanski are hiking. They reach a scenic spot with views of mountains, forests, and a lake. Vasov looks around, inhales deeply, and says "Gusti gori, Balkanski!" Immediately Balkanski jumps in the lake.

Here's the explanation. Whereas Vasov said "A tangle of woods, the mountains!" the same words, spoken, can mean "Your ass is on fire, Balkanski!"

It's a silly joke, but as I thought about it, it occurred to me that it's a nice yin and yang for environmental activism, and beyond that, how we might conduct our everyday lives. Appreciate your surroundings and get your butt in gear - take action. Action without focus can be futile busywork, and appreciation of beauty without action gets nothing done.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The week in pictures

How HPR spent last week:

With Dr. Loki, Attending Puddin'. Here's another angle:

Then, thanks to penicillin (All hail ye penicillin; O Bread Mold, I sing of Thee!) he rallied by the weekend and, among other things put up the sidecar crib. For Stella.

IM IN UR KO-SLEEPR . . .

Stella had the co-sleeper to herself for most of the week, but last night Loki joined her. (Apologies to HPR for the flash photography at 4 a.m.)

WE CAN HAS OFFSPRNGS BRETH?

Now just to figure out where to put the baby.

That's why his name is Chris-to-fur

I knew I would forget one until after I hit "post." Here's a bonus Shmooieism.

Shmoo, feeling neighborly, welcomed himself onto the stoop of Clay, one of our neighbors who has dreadlocks and rarely wears a shirt. He sat down right beside Clay, sized him up (especially the forearms), and said "my daddy has fur."

The Big Complicated

I mentioned Handsome Ponytail Ranger's phone interview in my "day in the life" post. He was offered the job! In New Orleans!  As you can imagine, Monday and Tuesday were pretty intense for us as we tried to decide whether and how we might do it.

My parents, as always, were so awesome. My mom's response to the job offer was "I knew it! Chris is so qualified for that position!!"

My dad wrote an email that was really touching (and perhaps the only time New Orleans will ever be compared to Western North Dakota):

The timing is certainly not great and living in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina poses some serious things to think about. However, I had much the same reaction when I was assigned to Western North Dakota and look at how that turned out - thirty good years.

This is a decision that the two of you have to weigh very carefully. I have been praying each day that Chris will be offered a good opportunity. Now you have to decide if this is that opportunity. Also, I pray every day that your pregnancy will go well, that Polly will arrive safe and healthy, and that mother, daughter, husband, and son will be together in a circle of love.

See? Awesome. We decided Monday that we would go for it—that it would be hard but we would make it work. Then In a surprise turn of events, HPR called me Tuesday morning with the news that he had declined the position.

Of course I'm relieved that we don't have to pack and put our house on the market, find an apartment in NOLA, load up 2 kids and 2 cats (and the fish? what would we do with the fish?) in our Saturn, and drive 20 hours south when I'm 1 month post-partum. The beignets and bourbon will have to wait. I love the life we've carved out for ourselves in Philly. But I also hope for a great opportunity in HPR's career in the near future.

HPR tells about it here.