outdoor adventures – Page 4

Weekly (bi-monthly?) recap: Summer so far

Well, we are coming off another long weekend and a positive COVID test for the Husband. Luckily, he isolated in the bedroom and the rest of the family managed to stay negative. I think the strategy was for the Husband to isolate in the bedroom, and for the rest of us to spend as little time at home as possible. The two older kids were in camp and pre-school, and the baby and I found lots of adventures to keep us out and about.

I have to admit, that I don’t mind solo parenting. There is something really freeing about realizing that there are no excuses for not prioritizing the well-being of the people in the family. I could let the house get messy and leave the dishes to be piled in the sink until after the kids went to bed and it was totally a fine to say time with the kids was more important that the dishes. To be sure, kids should probably trump dishes any day, but I think when I know the kids will get attention from another parent, it makes it easier to find the time to do the dishes and pick up the living room and fold the laundry. I will say, lest you think the Husband was a total invalid slug – he actually felt fine a few days after his positive test, and when the kids and I weren’t home, he would emerge to do things like go mow the lawn or pick up the mess I left in the kitchen. But even still, the house was a bit of a sty and I was soooo very tired from having to do housework after the kids went to bed. On the plus side, I finished season three of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. Or maybe that is a minus because that was the last season made and I have developed such a crush on Detective Inspector Jack Robinson and, truth be told, on Phyrne Fisher herself. That series was such a perfect slow burn romance. Okay, so another plus of solo parenting is that I get to watch whatever I want.

We did use up a lot of rapid COVID tests during the week. I remember when the county and the federal government first started handing out tests for free, we somehow ended up with ten test kits in our bathroom cabinet. “We’ll never get through this all!” I thought. Hah. Last week I actually had a slight panic that I would run out. I guess a family of five goes through test kits pretty quickly Luckily the county is still handing out test kits and the federal government has made more kits available – these latter arrived in the mail two or three days after I ordered them. Speedy!

At any rate, this fourth of July weekend has been low key. We cleaned out some of the attic, visited the Smithsonian (more on that below) and there was a birthday part and raft night at the pool, when people can bring their inflatables Then on July 4th itself, my friend Kristen came over and we went to the pool and then came home to grill (salmon, shrimp, mushrooms, sausages, corn, and an eggplant salad that I thought was really good). We capped off the evening by looking through old photo albums from college – Kristen and I had been roommates for all four years of college. The ten year old seemed to really get a kick out of this. She looked at pictures of me glowing with youth and said, “Now I understand why dad married you.” Thanks? I think?

It’s been a while since I wrote of our adventures -something about being exhausted from solo parenting and all the weighty world and national events this last half of June has made it difficult to prioritize writing. But at any rate – highlights of Summer so far:

-I did make it to a beach with the two little kids, packing a lunch and snacks and taking them to Calvert Cliffs State Park. It was an easy 1.8 mile hike from the parking lot to the beach, but that did not mean the hike was easy, just the terrain. With the two littles, it took us about 2 hours and lots of M&M breaks to go that 1.8 miles. At the end of the trail, we were rewarded with a sunny sandy shore and temperatures that made it a little too chilly to brave the waters, but perfect for soaking up sunshine, hunting for shark’s teeth and building sand castles. I was particularly excited to use the beach tent that I had bought last year, but which I had never gotten a chance to use yet. We stayed almost all day, and even though I was certain the littles would be tired after the hike back to the parking lot, they played for an hour on the recycled tire playground next to the parking lot. Which was fine by me – I lazed in a recycled tire hammock and read my book as the sun started to set.

-Riding the carousel. The ten year old’s theatre camp is in what was once an amusement park, but is now a park used for various arts and cultural programs. In fact, it’s at the park’s ballroom where the Husband and I met, one summer evening at a contradance. In the park, there is a carousel, originally installed in 1921. It’s $2 to ride and $5 for a day pass. One morning, after dropping the ten year old at camp, I bought the baby and I day passes and we spent several hours riding the carousel, taking pauses to go play at the playground next to it. I think we rode the carousel six times that morning. It was a great morning – the carousel music is courtesy of a Wurlitzer band organ, and hearing the familiar old tunes is one of my favorite parts of riding the carousel. They must have also at some point commissioned new music rolls for the band organ because one morning the band organ played such vintage hits as “The Boxer”, “One Tin Solider”, and “Love Potion No. 9.” There is something charming in hearing these modern hits coming from a band organ with it’s reedy pipes, bass drum, cymbals, and triangles. The simplicity of going around and around to the loud oom pah pahs, the velocity of the carousel creating just enough breeze to cut through the summer heat – this is summer as it is meant to be savored.

– The ten year old’s camp is also about a ten minute drive from a wonderful hike along the Potomac river. One day after camp, I took the baby. The trail winds through a nicely shaded route next to the Potomac, and at one point we came to some rocky out crops, great for a rocky scramble, which the baby is always up for. I am always amazed at her ability to climb rocks, fitting her small fingers in crevices and pulling herself up with the slightest purchase. We had a snack and enjoyed watching the river flow by. Hikes with the baby don’t always go far, but they are nonetheless full of wonder.

– Fizzy water and popsicles. At the beginning of June I took a weekend away with a good friend to Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. One of the things we discovered there was flavored balsamic vinegar used as a drink ingredient. I came home with some blackberry ginger balsamic and blood orange vanilla balsamic and the next day went to the store to stock up on fizzy water. Well after a week of that, I remembered that several years ago my brother had gifted me a SodaStream, which I had used little bit but never really got the hang of it so I put it in the attic. Inspired by my balsamic adventures, I pulled the SodaStream out of storage, bought a new Co2 cartridge, and now have fizzy water at the touch of a button. This makes me so happy. Also – summer also means popsicle season. The husband bought a new Mexican cookbook and there is a recipe in it for lime paletas. I have been making those weekly now, though sometimes I, in a fit of frugalness, throw in all the dried and sad citrus that has been languishing in the fruit bowl. So a fun realization is that the paleta base also makes a good lemonade base. And when mixed with fizzy water, makes a delightful summer drink. I feel so clever for getting two uses out of one recipe!

– Pool Time. The ten year old is on the swim team again, so we are spending a lot of time at the pool what with four practices and at least one meet a week. And then on weekends, the kids inevitably want to go to the pool. While the five year old is very cautious in the pool, the baby is fearless. She insists on wearing her brother’s swim vest rather than her more buoyant Puddle Jumper. The swim team parents have to volunteer to work the meets and I’ve been usually assigned to be a timer, which is kind of fun and exciting and my feet have been getting very wet. The ten year old and I have worked out a deal that every time she drops time without being disqualified, she gets and additional dollar for the snack bar. I’ve never really been one for bribing a kid to do well, but I do think that achievements should be celebrated.

– Anticipation. I read this article a couple weeks ago about how anticipation can help a person enjoy life more, and that having something to look forward to can boost one’s mood. The most interesting part of the article for me, though was this: “The flip side of positive anticipation,” the author writes, ” is anticipatory anxiety.” That is to say, a lot of things mix feelings of excitement and anxiety. “The key is acknowledging the happy, positive aspects of what you’re doing along with the nervous feelings,” the article goes on to say. I was thinking about this lately when the Husband and I were trying to plan some travel this summer. There is a lot of stress that goes along with planning a trip that sometimes all I can think about is, “Is it really going to be worth packing the kids in a van for a ten hour road trip?” or “Three kids + two adults + 1 tent = no sleep for anyone.” (except maybe the five year old. he sleeps like a rock.) But, I realize that if I thought about all that could be painful about a trip, I would never take the kids anywhere. So we do have some trips planned and I’m trying to persist in finding things that will be fun and interesting on this trip to get the Husband and I excited about going. I talk to people about our plans, read books, look at maps…. anything to get me to think of the trip as more than just a bundle of challenges and missteps. I’m sure there will be many of those, but surely there will also be some good moments too.

– The Smithsonian. I always feel so lucky that the Smithsonian Museums are just a 30-40 minute metro ride from home and that there are so many wonderful things to see there and it’s all free. It had been several years since I last went to the Smithsonian’s Folklife Festival – the past couple of years I’m not sure it was held due to COVID. So when I heard that this festival which celebrates cultural traditions was going to be going full swing again, I decided to take the baby and meet up with my friend Kristen to check it out. This year’s theme was the United Arab Emirates and Earth Optimism. We saw a Bedouin cooking demonstration, watched someone make fishing nets by hand, participated in an art project and relaxed on a majlis – a community sitting place, often for discussing cultural and political issues – set up in the shade of a tree. The art project was particularly interesting – the artist Azza Al Qubaisi gave each person a cross section of a palm stem to decorate, then she will take a picture and assemble them all digitally into a design. It was really neat – the baby’s effort was a little messy and chaotic, but when seen as part of a large whole, it didn’t look that bad. The artist’s goal is to collect 1000 palm sections, which I think was a pretty easy goal.

One weekend, after the Husband was done isolating, we took the metro downtown again, this time to check out an exhibit called Futures, which sought to collect artifacts that recalled how we thought of the future as well as objects that could give us a glimpse of today’s future. There were some really neat exhibits that really made me think about the idea of inclusion – a computer generated voice that was meant to be genderless, and a version of Minecraft that you could play with your eyes. And some machines that would make food production and transportation more efficient. It was all incredibly thought provoking to think about what I would want the future to look like, and what it might actually look like.

archway into Arts and Industry Building.

I also liked that throughout the exhibit there were quotes on the wall about how we can think about the future. My favorite:

And speaking of the unimaginable future – the best thing of all in June:

– The Husband’s positive COVID test coincided with the approval of the vaccine for kids 6 months to 5 years. The baby had been in a Pfizer trial and she had a 2 in 3 chance of getting the real vaccine, the other 1 in 3 being a placebo. The trial was to be unblinded in six months or when the vaccine was approved for her age group, whichever was sooner. Anyhow, the Monday after the vaccine was approved, I was driving the ten year old to camp, when I noticed I missed a call which turned out to be the folks from the study calling to unblind the baby. It took four days for them to call me back, and I was so impatiently on pins and needles to find out. Finally, I was running errands at Target one morning and the study folks called again. This time I was able to answer the phone, having left the ringer on since I first missed the call. Well turns out…. the baby received three doses of the vaccine, so she is now fully vaccinated! Whoo hoo! Until, that is, she needs a booster. I celebrate with a grain of sobriety, since the Husband, who is fully vaccinated managed to get COVID despite everything. But… it’s a layer of protection and I’m so glad that we are all vaccinated to some degree. I did have a feeling that she had the real vaccine because the 24 hours after the third shot, she was a tired, cranky lethargic mess and she usually is the happiest ball of energy. Interestingly, she had no side effects from the first two shots, however. The baby (okay, toddler) will go to pre-school in the fall, and I feel grateful that she will have had three doses of the vaccine. On the other hand, I’m really going to miss going on adventures with her. I’m already mourning the loss of my little buddy.

(Okay, funny toddler side note – For some reason, she thinks that every store is called Target. So whenever I mention buying something, she says, “Go buy from Target?” Even if it’s a car.)

Weekly recap + what we ate: tech and Mother’s Day

It’s half way through tech week, and it’s been a particularly hard one. The show is on the large side – there’s ninety performers onstage, a gazillion props and costumes, and, the realities of doing theatre in a world that is very much still in a pandemic, people are constantly in and out on five day isolations or ten day isolations. Precautions are being taken, but … life, you know. I’m feeling constantly like I’m playing catch up, barely getting people onstage in time with the right prop and often in the wrong costume. It will get better and we will have a great show, but everything feels hard right now. As I keep saying when things don’t go right – everyone needs rehearsal. The singers get three weeks to figure out the show and for some reason everyone expects the crew to get it right the first time. But they need a chance to figure things out too and some shows are easier to figure out than others.

It’s my first time back in this particular theatre in over two years. Strange to think about. The crew is mostly familiar, but everyone has a wary air of tiredness, caution, and welcome.

Sunday was Mother’s Day. And a day off. I think if I’d had time to think about it, what I really wanted for Mother’s Day would have been three hours alone to catch up on bills and other computer tasks. And also to deal with the growing mountain that is my “floordrobe”.

Actually it’s more like a “bench-drobe”. Coming home after midnight, when everyone is asleep means that I don’t want to turn on the lights in the bedroom for fear of waking the Husband. So I fumble around in the dark to get into my pjs, shedding that day’s clothes onto the bench at the foot of the bed, and fall into bed. Inevitably it leads to a mountain of clothes, a week’s worth in a pile on the bench , spilling on to the floor. I could pretend that when I am not working til past midnight I carefully and thoughtfully hang up my clothes, or put them in the hamper, but truth… when I’m not working til midnight the pile is still there, but usually only three days worth.

A lot gets said these days about self care, but for me I think a big part of self care is tackling the looming things so I don’t stress about them. There is a passage in the novel Fleishman is in Trouble where the newly divorced main character’s therapist tells him to buy nice curtains for his new apartment, telling him to think of it as an act of self care. And Fleishman remarks that self care isn’t spending his money on new curtains, it’s saving his money so that he can move into a less crappy apartment. I think of this a lot when the question of “self care” comes up. I find that it’s easy to find twenty minutes for yoga or a run or to sit and read a book, but it’s harder to find the energy to tackle the things that really would make life better. Like figuring out summer camp for the ten year old (still not done yet!), squaring away the bills for the rental house. Buying pants.

This last is a big one. I came out of the pandemic without black pants that fit. Which is problematic when a large chunk of my job requires me to move around in the dark wearing black clothes. The last few shows I just pulled out my old maternity pants. Which was fine because I was stage managing so I pretty much stood i once place and my headset was attached to my console. Now that I’m Assistant Stage Managing, I need pants with a firm waistband so I can clip my flashlight and headset belt pack to a belt. Yoga pants do not serve this purpose. Post pandemic stage manager woes.

Anyhow, back to Mother’s Day…despite my desire for some life admin time, it seemed to me, that shutting myself in my room and leaving the Husband on child duty after he’s been solo parenting in the evening for two weeks was not the nice thing to do, Mother’s Day or not. So I said I would be happy getting some tasty food, going on a walk, and not having to think too hard about dinner.

And we did indeed do all that. Everyone let me sleep in until almost ten and there were pancakes waiting when I woke up. Sleeping til ten sounds positively indulgent but when I figured I didn’t get home from rehearsal until 2am the night before, 2:30am- 10am is actually a regular night’s sleep.

There was a card and a gift bag waiting for me. Inside the bag were a bag of almond flour and a package of lychee gummies. My reaction was a combination of “Huh… ooookay” and “They know me so well!” And then there was this priceless card:

I had originally wanted to give the Husband the day off from kid duty, but he insisted since it was Mother’s Day, we should do some family things. So we took the five year old to Sunday language class, then with the other two kids in the car we went for fun drinks and snacks at a new-to-us Cuban place. Empanadas and plantain chips for the win!

When the five year old was done language class, we went for a walk on the trails surrounding one of the local nature centers. We wandered down by the stream and practiced skipping rocks. I managed to skip one three times! I’d never been really good at it, but the Husband gave me some tips and I think I sort of got the hang of it. Then we ordered Indian food for takeout.

After dinner the Ten year old offered to clean up so the Husband and I were going to take some time to discuss all the life things that we hadn’t had a chance to connect about since we hadn’t really hd any waking hours together. But I fell asleep on the couch and that was the end of things for me. I think it was 7:30pm. But, we did check off all the Mother’s Day wishes on my list, so I think I will call that a win.

Some things that made the week better:

A Haiku for this week:

April turns to May.
Spring teeters on summer’s brink.
Rain and sun and green.

Some time during the pandemic, our rehearsal rooms had larger windows put it, and the resulting flood of light is quite wonderful. During evening rehearsals, when we have almost ninety people in the room trying to stage a very busy village square type scene, I can look out the window and take a moment to savor the pink and orange sunset. I snapped this picture the other day of the late afternoon transforming my little corner of the rehearsal hall into some kind of of Dutch still life.

The toddler has started saying, “I love you, mom.” That makes me feel pretty good. She also, an independent soul, has developed her own “ism” where whenever she wants to do something, she says, “I want to do it by my own!”. I love it too much to try to correct her.
Also – irritating, but makes me laugh – the toddler getting ahold of my phone and filling my photo roll like this:

Scheduled a happy hour with the mom’s from my mom’s group. Something to look forward to.
Been baking some pretty good loaves of sourdough bread, using this no-knead recipe. My starter seems to have gotten back on it’s feet, after being somewhat lackluster for much of the spring. This recipe, is pretty hands off and each step fits easily into the windows of time when I’m home.
Overnight camping with some friends. The time outdoors was nice, and even though sleeping in a tent with a toddler is not restful – six o’clock in the morning she wakes me up with yelling, “It’s too bright!!” – there is something peaceful about being surrounded by dew and bird calls first thing in the morning.

Re-discovering the tv show Pushing Daisies – whimsical, romantic, funny and visually stunning, I remember watching this series about a pie maker who can wake the dead when it first came out. The Husband and I have started watching it again, fifteen years after it originally aired. We watch one episode at a time, knowing that there are only two season and wanting to prolong the delight of watching it.
Discovering another lovely tv show Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. This show out of Australia and based on a series of books is also great fun and super stylish. Some days when I work late, I tell the Husband to leave the kitchen for me to clean up. Partly I’m being nice, but also partly I want an excuse to watch an episode of this show, which I stream while I do the washing up.
Then of course, my co-workers who make me laugh even when we are literally in horse shit.

What We Ate:

Saturday: I was working, but this was the night the Husband took the kids camping with some friends. I showed up at the campground after work and had a couple sandwiches and ‘smores for dinner. I think everyone else had hot dogs and burgers.

Sunday: Leftovers.

Monday: The Husband made a tofu stir fry.

Tuesday: Not quite sure what everyone ate. It might have been Thai take-out.

Wednesday: Black Beans, made in the InstantPot before I went to work. Eaten with tortillas and pickled onions.

Thursday: Chicken tortilla soup. Also made in the InstantPot. Recipe from America’s Test Kitchen

Friday: Pizza and Hercules. I was at work.

Saturday: I think the family got take out. I ate leftovers at work.

Sunday: Mother’s Day Indian Food take out.

Weekly recap + what we ate: blossoms and blooms

Continuing to catch up on things… but here’s the latest from the last half of March – (also, the internet ether ate my original post, so I’ve had to rewrite this weeks after the fact… grrr… but yay for me for sitting down to write.)

The week started off with a COVID exposure in the five year old’s classroom. Since he was fully vaccinated and didn’t have any symptoms, he was allowed to continue to go to school. He was one of only four kids in class for half the week, which actually suited him just fine. On the evening of the first day, we were doing “Rose, buds, and thorns” and when it was his turn to tell his “Rose”, he said, “My rose is that it was very quiet at school today.” Sometimes I feel like he is a very old soul who just wants to sit in his quiet corner of the world and think deep thoughts. And play with his trucks

The week was also officially peak bloom here in the DC area. It seems to come earlier and earlier every year. I think in my head peak bloom is still an April event, but … here we were in the third week of March and the trees were a riot of white and pink puffs. Everywhere I turned, I was greeted by

On my way to work:

I was at a stop light when I snapped this picture. The sky and blossoms and everything… so much spring!

On my dinner break run:

Unseen, but behind me is a traffic and construction vehicles.

I think I make it down to see the cherry blossoms every two or three years. This year, since my mother was in town, I decided to take her down. It was the last day of official peak bloom, and also the first sunny day all week, so of course the Tidal Basin was quite crowded. But we still had a lovely walk and basked in the beauty of all the cherry trees and did a lot of people watching. My sister in law told me that the Japanese have a whole slew of words for the various stages of cherry blossoms, and one of them is “hanafubuki” which translates to flower snow storm. Walking among the trees with pedals showering down on us with every strong breeze, I certainly could see what a fittingly evocative word “hanafubuki” is.

I took some quintessential DC pictures:

As well as some cute baby in blossom pictures:

Some other things this week:

I got some disappointing news this week about work and it put me in a bit of a funk. A job that I was hoping to get didn’t come through for unexplained reasons. I know that lack of job security is always going to be part of gig work, but it still shook my confidence a little. But, I guess not summer work means that I now can plan other adventures with the kids. I’m trying to look on the bright side even while being really bummed about things.

The baby got a spot in a vaccine trial for children ages 6 months to 5 years. She is doing a Pfizer trial and will get three shots, which have a two in three chance of being a real vaccine. Of course that means that she has a one in three chance of having the placebo. She took the blood draw and the first shot without any fuss or crying and she was super excited to get a sticker and a bandaid afterwards.

There is a stage manager, now no longer with us, who was known for saying “Life is short, Opera is long.” Well, the show I was working on certainly was long – 3 hours, 30 minutes from orchestra tune to the end of bows. Add to that the fact that I’m usually up on stage an hour before we start, and I’m on my feet for about 4.5 hours straight each performance. My legs were starting to feel the strain, so I asked the company if I could have an anti-fatigue mat for my console and they said yes. I don’t know why such a small thing made me so happy, but it did. I got the kind that has some lumps and bumps so I can massage the bottom of my feet when they start to feel restless, and I feel like my legs feel less tired at the end of the night now.

We went out for fancy bagels to celebrate the ten year old’s last basketball game. And since we got there at closing time, the bagel truck was handing out free donuts. Yay free donuts! I’m not sure if the donuts made up for losing the basketball game, but it was certainly a pick me up!

One day we went to the local botanical gardens. Things were still very bare and wintery, but there were some lovely things to see. Like this sculpture carved from the trunk of a tree that had to be removed. I thought this was just so cool:

There were also some flowers in the garden:

Seeing these flowers reminded me of a book I’m reading right now – Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Wall Kimmerer is a botanist and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Her book is a collection of essays about what we can learn from observing how plants exist and co-exist with other plants. There is one essay, where she writes of how when she was applying to study botany, she said she wanted to know why the goldenrod and the aster were so beautiful next to each other, only to be told by a professor that wondering about such things was “not science.” Well, it turns out that there is a reason that goldenrods and asters are so appealing together – something to do with how the human eye perceives colour. I love how Wall Kimmerer’s book urges us to pay attention to beauty and how knowing why something draws our attention doesn’t make it any less breathtaking. Whenever I see purple and yellow together, I think of this book.

While cleaning out my desk, I found this list of names. When the baby was just born, she was nameless for about a month. The Husband and I are very indecisive about picking names. Well, I went back to work soon after the baby was born, and there was one chorister in our show that would ask me at every rehearsal, “Did you pick a name yet?” and the answer was always, “No, we’re still deciding.” One day, I came to rehearsal and she handed me this list.

“I had some suggestions,” she said. I was so touched.

I actually like a lot of the names on the list and one or two would have been a strong contender. I keep this list pinned to my cubicle because it reminds me of a time when someone was super nice to me when I was in the haze of having a newborn.

What we ate:
Saturday: Ordered out Peruvian chicken. And ate outside on our back patio – a sure sign of fair weather coming. I love eating outside, especially in spring, before the mosquitoes get bad in the backyard. When we eat outside, it’s almost okay that the kids eat meanderingly – running around in the backyard and coming to the table for a bite here and there.

Sunday: Leftovers. I had a matinee performance, so didn’t get home til on the later side.

Monday: Pasta and broccoli rabe from Dinner Illustrated. Not a hit. I love bitter taste profiles, but I seem to be the only one in the family.

Tuesday: Black Pepper tofu and asparagus stir fry. This recipe was pretty aggressive with the black pepper – it calls for 1 tablespoon of black peppercorns, coarsely crushed. It might have been a little much for the kids, but the adults liked it.

Wednesday: Zucchini boats. This is a pretty easy meal – ground turkey sauteed with veggies, dump in a jar of salsa and simmer then put into hollowed out zucchini halves, sprinkle with cheese, and bake. This is a good meal for make ahead because I made the filling before I left for work, and all the husband had to do was prep the zucchini, fill the boats and bake. Apparently the kids loved this one.

Thursday: Baked gnocchi. I had never tried baking gnocchi before, but I happened to have a pack in the fridge, and I saw a recipe so I decided to give it a go. This was a great kitchen sink recipe to use up veggies from the fridge. I also had a bunch of kale so I made kale pesto to throw on it as well. Really tasty, though leftovers taste better when heated up – the gnocchi sort of loses it’s soft chew when cold.

Friday: Pizza and Peanut Butter Falcon. This 2019 movie was hilarious and heartfelt and charming. It tells the story of Zach, a man with Downs Syndrome, who runs away from his group home to try to find his hero, a retired wrestler. There is so much to love about this movie – the gritty sense of place, the really lived-in performances, the hopeful and touching friendships portrayed. But I think what is also so awesome about this movie is it’s origins. The movie is made by two first time filmmakers who work at a camp for disabled people. The lead actor in the movie Zach Gottsagen has Downs Syndrome and attended this camp. Zach had studied acting for a while, and mentioned to the filmmakers that there were never lead roles for people with Downs Syndrome. So the filmmakers decided to write a movie with Zack as the lead. What strikes me about this is that I think for all the talk about needing diversity and representation in mainstream media, underrepresented people still need those who are in the majority to recognize that their stories need to be told and can appeal to wide audiences – because the people who hold the purse strings and make decisions in Hollywood, or what not, are often not from underrepresented populations. There was a spot of controversy earlier this month with the movie Seeing Red, the new Pixar film about a Chinese Canadian teenager hitting puberty. A certain critic had called the film “limiting in scope” because he felt that setting the movie very specifically in the Asian Canadian community made it unrelatable to many people. It is certainly fine for a person to not care for a movie – but to do so based on the grounds that the movie is not set in the world you come from, with the people that you see everyday… it seems kind of … insular. Anyhow, between Peanut Butter Falcon and Seeing Red, I’ve been thinking a lot about how writing stories featuring diverse people must be supported by a willingness from those who are able bodied, white, cis-gendered, male, etc. to produce and consume these stories, to see the value in what underrepresented populations have to say.

Weekly recap + what we ate:

The week started with a holiday weekend, and I was off on Sunday, so I wanted to have some kid specific time. I took the ten year old to brunch at the place of her choosing. She had classic pancakes, eggs and bacon. I had the shrimp and grits. I’m always torn at restaurants whether to order what I know and love or what I would never make at home. I really like the breakfast scramble at this restaurant, but I also would never make shrimp and grits at home. Ordering at restaurants always fills me with indecision, and I have to remind myself that a) I can always come back and get the other thing, and b) it’s just food – whatever I order will be fine. The ten year old also had a chocolate milk shake. And I had a virgin bloody Mary – one of my favorite brunch indulgences. I have a pretty strong and immediate reaction to alcohol so I generally abstain, save for swiping a sip of The Husband’s beer once in a while, but spicy tomato juice garnished with a pickle is my catnip, so I order it without the alcohol.

In the afternoon, since the five year old didn’t have language class due to the holiday weekend, I wanted to take the kids on a hike. Only the two younger ones came, along with my mother. We went down by the C&O Canal and the weather was sunny and (relatively) warm. We didn’t actually get too far on the hike because we discovered a rocky outcropping and the kids spent an hour and a half playing among the rocks. “It’s our secret hideout!” the five year old declared, and indeed there were all these child sized crevices and ledges for them to scamper over. I was a little nervous because the rocky ledge was right over the river, but everyone was careful. While the kids played there, I saw a downy woodpecker and an eastern blue bird flitting in the trees next to our rocky hideout. Between the tap tap tap of the woodpecker and the bright blue and orange of the blue bird, I was mesmerized by these small flying animals. I’ve never been a bird watcher – indeed I only identified these two after the fact with help from my friend google – but I’ve always admired people who can identify birds and plants on sight.

Otherwise I do feel like this week has been work/rehearse/eat/sleep. Aside from the exhausting day mentioned in the last post, we’ve been chugging along. I didn’t do so well in my being human goals – I did go outside for a walk on my lunch/dinner break every day, and I did pack healthy snacks and meals. However, sleep wasn’t great – I stayed up too late one night filling out the passport forms for the kids and never quite got back on track. And still trying to figure out how to leave the office on time. Journaling/planning seems like only gets done twice a week and I’m afraid that I’m forgetting a lot of details in the every day to day, which then makes the week feel like even more of a blur. Next week will be tougher, I’m sure since we move onstage.

moments this week:

This reminder as I filled out the kids’ passport applications:

Good to remember that my children should be fully occupied by being children. Even as I want them to learn to do chores or behave with maturity and common sense (which, I own, I often lack myself).

This sculpture, one of several in a yard that I walked past on my daily meal break walk. (I did manage to get outside almost every day):

And on another walk – this mini camper, one of several, hanging whimsically on a tree…

Spring flowers starting to push themselves up:

Bringing in treats for my co-workers for a special day:

Taking a walk by myself one day after doing school drop off. I had left the baby at home with my mother because she (the baby) was having a difficult morning and would not motivate to get her shoes and coat on. Since alone time is so scarce for me, after I dropped the five year old at school I took a walk by myself down the nearby trail. It had rained the night before so the creek was high and loud. I stood one the banks and soaked in the noisy swirl of water rushing by and the soggy bareness of almost spring.

The school board announcing that any further snow days this year (unlikely at this point) will be distance learning days. I kind of hate the idea. Distance learning was so so so difficult for us and I think there is much joy to to be had in the unexpected nature of a snow day. The alternative would have been to extend the school year, and/or take away some already planned non-instructional days, which they actually have already done- the school year was just extended by two days. I definitely would have preferred further extension of the school year over the switch to distance learning. Oh well, there are certainly many sides to everything.

Of course the week has been terrifying and unbelievable on the world news front. One of our singers is from Moldova and he has been quite grave even as he rehearses with boundless energy and enthusiasm.

Podcast episode of note this week: This episode of On Being with Trabian Shorters. Shorters talks about the concept of asset-framing, where you look at people through the lens of their aspirations and contributions rather than through their challenges and struggles. His work is primarily focused on empowering Black communities, but I thought it’s a pretty powerful idea, and one that should be more obvious and inuitive than it is.

” It is defining people by their aspirations and contributions, before you get to their challenges. So whatever is going on in someone’s life, you don’t ignore it, but you don’t define them by the worst moment or the worst experience or the worst potential; none of that. You have to look past their faults, to see who they really are.”

“So what we want to do — yes. So what we want to do is acknowledge the true person, the true spirit living in someone — the thing that motivates them; what gets them moving. It is not that they are poor. They don’t wake up in the morning inspired by that; their spirit isn’t moved by that. Their spirit isn’t moved by being marginalized, or all that kind of thing. There is something that they aspire to have, to create, to give to someone else. And if you start your relationship with a person by acknowledging what spirit is actually living in front of you, then you’re going to have a different relationship.”

The flip side of asset-framing, what is more common, is deficit-framing where you define people through their challenges. Shorter argues that when you define people primarily as a problem to be solved, it is a lot harder to find long lasting solutions. I thought this a pretty powerful thought regarding how we think about providing resources:

If I can define them [Black people] by their worst threat, greatest inequity, whatever, then I can attract resources. Well, this culture of denigration for dollars means that, yes, you’ll attract the resources, but you do so by writing your population into the public consciousness as inferior, as ineffective, as pathological. All these things are the only ways that people know to know us, because the way that we have been taught to survive is by dramatizing our injustices, which — I think it’s important to point out, the injustices are real. So we’re not saying ignore any of them. We’re saying that is not what defines us. That’s not what defines anyone.

I was thinking this week about this idea of asset framing on a much smaller and lower stakes scale in terms of the people I encounter every day. Sometimes people get labelled as “difficult” or “unreliable” and then they get easily written off. But perhaps if I think of what these “difficult” people are actually bringing to the room or hoping to accomplish, then it helps me find the empathy to connect with them and help them over their challenges.

What We Ate:

Saturday: Family ordered Vietnamese take-out.

Sunday: Leftovers.

Monday: The Husband made caramel fish. It was really good – I had some for my after rehearsal late night snack.

Tuesday: Black-eye peas and spinach curry, made in the InstantPot before I went to work. Husband made rice when he came home. (I took more leftover caramel fish for dinner.)

Wednesday: The Husband made fish with corn and fava beans. (I took the leftover curry from Tuesday for dinner)

Thursday: Asparagus frittata made in the morning before work. Husband made salad and cut up carrots and cucumbers.

Friday: Pizza and Stinky and Dirty. I didn’t make it home for dinner, unfortunately. But I did order my favorite Tempeh Panini from a place near work for dinner. I decided to splurge on take-out after a long hard week. Plus we were out of leftovers for me to pack for dinner.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Nor yet the thing he’d planned

It’s my last week before I start work again, so I feel like the week has been a combination of trying to tie up loose ends and trying to stop and savor unfettered time. Well, somewhat fettered to the demands of a toddler.

I’m excited/ nervous to be going back to work and excited to be working on a show again. I know I worked on opera last summer, but something about going back to my home company where I’ve been for almost fifteen years feels different. It feels like things are back on track somehow. Hopefully we’ll all remember how to function.

The weather towards the end of the week was going to be rainy, so I tried to get in some good outdoor time in early in the week.

On Sunday the two little kids and I went on another of the hikes led by a naturalists at one of our Nature Centers. It was certainly cold – mid 20s. I thought that the hike would be cancelled for the cold, but when it wasn’t, I put the kids in their warm underwear and bundled them up. (Or rather, I threw their winter gear in a bag and took that too the car. This is my latest mom hack – since the kids can’t wear their puffy coat in the car anyway, I just keep coats, hats and gloves in a large bag and take that bag back and forth to the car. Seems easier to keep track of everything that way.)

We were the only family to show up for the hike. Apparently there were originally ten families signed up, but they all dropped out one by one. I was skeptical as to how long we would make it, given the cold weather, but our hike guide brought hand warmers and kept things moving and interesting and we managed to stay out for an hour and a half. We saw lots of geese and wrens and ducks, threw rocks on the frozen lakes, explored the chimney remnants from and old house, and collected pine cones and sycamore seed balls. Afterwards, the naturalist made us hot chocolate which we enjoyed in the nature center while watching the bald eagle cam live feed from Georgia.

Monday the baby and I went for a walk along the C&O Canal. The morning light over the Potomac was beautiful, and we sat on some rocks watching the ice flow down the river, the air periodically punctured by the loud cracking of ice breaking down below. There was scant snow on the ground, but there were some really beautiful ice patterns to be seen. The baby was a little grumpy at first, but then we wandered down to the banks of the river and she got to take part in one of her favorite things – throwing rocks in the river.

I also thought this was fascinating: I stumbled over what at first seemed like a thick cord of roots, but then upon closer examination saw that it was a cable, the brown rust of it melding perfectly into the dirt. I wonder what it was from!

The ten year old had Tuesday off school. I had promised that she could go skating with her friend, but when her friend couldn’t make it, we went any way. At first I was just going to watch, but the person at the skate counter told me that kids 2 and under could skate for free, so I asked the baby if she wanted to try, and she said yes. So baby’s first skate! I realize that I should have had her in a helmet and gloves… mental note for next time. I was sure she was going to hate it, but she’s already said she wants to go again.

Tuesday afternoon and evening I also had a supertitle gig for a vocal recital. On the dinner break between the rehearsal and the performance, I met up with a friend for a walk. It also was Lunar New Year, and the Kennedy Center had a beautiful light display up to celebrate. My friend and I wandered outside to see the lanterns at such a perfect moment when the sun was starting to set, making the sky all swirly pink. The contrast between Mother Nature’s and Man’s lighting display was breathtaking.

The recital itself was lovely. There was one piece in Russian, which was an interesting challenge. Thank goodness for Google. As I was preparing the supertitle slides, I saw that the second half of the recital was a new song cycle based on the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay, one of my favorite poets. The poems that the composer used were new to me, and I loved one in particular – “If Still Your Orchard Bears“. It talks about the timeless nature of regret and pain, how all people must endure it. An excerpt:

Should at that moment the full moon
Step forth upon the hill,
And memories hard to bear at noon,
By moonlight harder still,
Form in the shadow of the trees, –
Thing that you could not spare
And live or so you thought, yet these
All gone, and you still there,
A man no longer what he was
Nor yet the thing he’d planned.

I had a realization on Friday that this would be my last time on my own with a baby without childcare for a while… maybe ever? My mother comes next week to help watch her and then she might be in daycare come summer. It’s all very bittersweet, but I feel really lucky to have had this time with her. Of all the kids, I’ve spent the most time at home with this third one, thanks to the pandemic. Even though I was back at work five days after she was born, she was only six months old when the pandemic hit and we’ve been joined at the hip since, give or take seven weeks last summer and a few nights since then.

This week was particularly exhausting with her. I think it was partly that the weather was really rainy so we couldn’t spend as much time outside as possible, also partly that I had two days with two kids at home and I’ve forgotten how constant having more than one kid at home is. And also I’ve been trying to get some last minute things done before I start back at work, so I’ve had to split my attention more than usual.

One day, the baby kept asking to paint, so I set her up with paper and paints and a paintbrush at the kitchen table and figured I could set up my computer at the other end of the table and get the bills paid. Not so much. I think it took two hours to pay the bills; usually it takes fifteen minutes.

I was listening to this episode of Death, Sex, and Money titled “A Season to Savor” where Anna Sales talks about the importance of taking time to savor things. Savoring was one of the assignments in the “Science of Well Being” course that I took online last year, but I think I had somewhat drifted from doing it intentionally. There is a line in my habit tracker for “savoring”, but lately it’s been things I’ve remembered savoring rather than things I’ve been intentionally savoring. I think I would like to plan more intentional things to savor. But anyhow, things I have savored this week:
– The ice flowing on the Potomac River.
-Baroque music. I’ve been listening to the radio in the car lately rather than just putting on a podcast. There is something about the serendipity of radio music – being delighted and surprised by what is playing. One day this week, I got in the car and turned the key in the ignition and I was greeted by the sound of a transcription for solo piano of a Bach Partita. It made me so happy. Hearing the Bach reminded me of how, there is a member of the music staff at work who would play Bach in the mornings on the piano in the rehearsal rooms. I would come in to set up for rehearsals and there he would be playing with the grace and precision that I love about baroque music. It was always the most perfect start to my days.
– The quiet moment right after I’ve struggled to get all three kids out of the house with their stuff, put them in the car, buckled them in, and shut the door. Standing outside the car with the door closed, you can’t hear anyone cry because their sibling is kicking them or scream that they don’t have their car stuffie or whine about having to go to school. With the door closed, I can take a moment to close my eyes and take a deep breath and enjoy the silence. Then I feel ready to open the driver side door and get back into the cacophony.
-A song recital. I know it was work, but Strauss wrote some really great music.
-Working a song recital. The flow of following the music and bringing up titles at the right moment.
– The baby. In all her messy, mischievous, glory. Even though she tried to down a container of powdered sugar as if it were a tankard of beer. Definitely took some moments to savor our adventures, just the two of us. This wasn’t how I thought the first two and a half years of her life were going to go, but it’s been really great, actually.

What We Ate: Another unplanned pantry meal week, but I think we actually did pretty well.

Saturday: Pizza and Paddington 2. We had double pizza and movie night this week. We had forgotten to defrost pizza dough the Friday before so the traditional pizza/movie night was… less than satisfactory. So we had a re-do. Paddington 2 was delightful.

Sunday: Leftovers – kitchen sink fried rice.

Monday: Farmhouse Barley Soup from Vegan for Everyone from America’s Test Kitchen. Only we were out of barley so I used farro instead.

Tuesday: I was working, so I picked up a sandwich at the café next to work. The Husband made dumplings and noodles for the kids since it was Lunar New Year.

Wednesday: Vegan Gnocchi Soup. This recipe to use up a package of gnocchi that has been sitting in the fridge since the last time I made this recipe.

Thursday: Sweet Potato and Black Bean tacos from Dinner Illustrated.

Friday: Pizza and Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song.

Weekly Recap + what we ate: Realizing Challenges

My middle child turned five last weekend. What the what?!?

But… that also meant that he was eligible for his first COVID vaccine shot. Hooray! We had it done at the pediatrician’s office when he got his annual check up.

This Hamilton fan is not throwing away his shot!

He wanted a “rainbow cake”. We made him a cake from my mother in law’s recipe box and spent the week prior, sorting a Costco size tub of m&ms by colour so that we could make a rainbow on his cake. They don’t make purple m&ms which I explained to my son, and he seemed fine with it.

It’s hard to believe that this sweet, funny, thoughtful little guy is five and will be going to kindergarten this fall.

This week was another four day week for the ten year old because Monday was off. I asked her what she wanted to do and she said she wanted to go to the Rec Center and play ping pong so we did. I always get a kick out of playing ping pong at the rec center because the ten year old and I are not terribly good at it, and there are always a couple of senior citizens on the tables next to us who are really good and just killing it. While the ten year old and I are running all over the place to bat the ball, the seniors plant themselves in one place and their arms go back and forth unerringly accurate and very rarely missing a ball. There is a metronomic click to their playing that is so clean and soothing.

Mid week the temperatures were in the low 40s so I was determined to find another selfie stand and check off some more of the 1000 hours. I found the selfie stand on a hike by a pond near one of the nature centers. We took our picture then set off on one of the many surrounding trails.

The trail we took led us to a lake that was mostly frozen. The baby loved throwing sticks and rocks into the lake, though she was a little mystified as to why the rocks just bounced and didn’t go splash. The she got annoyed and tried to order me to go out on the ice and retrieve her rocks so she could try again. I refused. There was a bit of a tantrum, then I distracted her with a nice fallen tree to climb.

Towards the end of the week, we went for a walk at the Botanical Gardens. I hadn’t been there in a while, certainly not yet this winter. I feel so grateful that these gardens are here and I can see them through all seasons. I loved this sign below: “Bulbs planted/ Please stay on walk.” I’ve been reading Katherine May’s Wintering, and I’m coming to embrace the idea of things (and people) needing time to lay in wait and prepare for the next thing, undisturbed. I feel like we need signs for ourselves to tell people when they need to give us space for our bulbs to prepare for Spring.

Bizarre, though probably entirely natural thing this week: I had a moment driving home one day this week when I looked down the road and there was a patch of sky that was this dark fluid patch, swirling above the telephone lines. I was so intrigued that I drove down the road to see what it was. It was birds, hundreds and hundreds of little birds moving en masse, swooping into the air and then landing on the telephone wires. All lined up on that wire, the birds looked for all the world like a page out of some Philip Glass score – uniform stemless quarter notes. I’d never seen so many birds grouped together like that, swirling up then down, making such a chirping racket. Eventually, they seemed to collectively decide it was time to move on and the whole lot off them took off like a cloud of black dots and few down the road. Having seen Hitchcock’s The Birds, there is something terrifying to me about a large group of birds. At the same time, the part of me that finds large group choreography mesmerizing, was just awe-struck by these birds and the aerial dance they were performing.

I’ve been flirting with various “challenges” this month. The 64 Million Artists January Challenge has been fun. Though I haven’t been great about doing every day, or posting the results, I’ve bookmarked a lot of the challenges to do later when I have more time. Having a creative prompt every day was a great way to pause and think about things outside of my tunnel.

I also did a “Less Phone More Life” challenge, where for a week I was sent strategies to spend, as it says, less time on my phone. It is not lost on me that there is something ironic about a online based challenge to spend less time on your phone. In the end, I did indeed spend about 25% less time on my phone from the week before – I was at about 3.5 hrs a day on average, down from 5.75 hours a day. The two big tips that I found helpful was moving all the apps off my home screen and turning off, or rather batching, my notifications. I’ve definitely found ways to work around these phone time roadblocks, but when it’s four steps to open my text messages instead of one, I’m more conscious of what I’m doing.

Two other takeaways from my “Less Phone” challenge:
1) Even though my daily average was down 25% over the week, I didn’t feel like I spent any less time on my phone. I felt like I still used my phone a lot – I read books, had very long text conversations with my mom’s group, surfed the internet, participated in online commenting forums, researched things, payed bills, used the GPS… These things didn’t change. I think the difference, that 25% is the time that I used to spend mindlessly on the phone. those pockets of phone time that I can’t remember afterwards. Like when I just pull out the phone when I’m between tasks, or “check creep” from checking the weather. Speaking of “check creep”- since I batched my notifications, I wasn’t checking my phone every time a new message came in, and I discovered that the weather was indeed the new gateway app to mindless scrolling. I’m not sure I’m concerned about this enough to find alternative weather sources, though.
2) My other big takeaway was realizing that the way I communicated via text, I was likely creating a sense of urgency for other people to check their phones too; not only was I contributing to my own constant phone usage, but I was also part of the problem for other people . Not that I’m responsible for the behavior of others, but when I send a message via text, I think it just feels more urgent and demands a response.
Sometimes at work, this is just how we communicate because we can’t always step away to answer the phone or we’re involved in a very quiet situation and the person across the room can’t get up to ask a question. Texting among my stage management team becomes a form of dialogue. But texting doesn’t always have to have that sense of immediacy. I’m not sure what I can do to foster a more relaxed response instinct, but I realized that just responding to a notification is for me a gateway to phone use, in the same way activating a conversation creates a gateway for the message recipient. Not to foist my screen time aspirations on others, but I don’t really want to contribute to a culture where attention getting requires immediate action. So I’ve been thinking that on a large scale, phone use is not just the result of how we react to inputs; we also need to be aware of our outputs and how they might affect other people.

Another challenge I set for myself was to write one positive thing about each person in my family every day. I was realizing that some days I get mired in the things that my kids (and okay, the Husband) do that drive me nuts and want to scream, and I was forgetting to see them for the wonderful people they really are, particularly with my oldest. This column from Carolyn Hax last December hit particularly close to home – the letter writer asks for help dealing with the fact that they are finding it harder to show affection for their snarky teenager whereas their younger child is still a lot of fun. I feel this acutely some days – those days when the baby is delightful, but the ten year old is mouthy and obstinate. Okay, the baby is obstinate all the time too, but I don’t really expect her to know better so I find it less energy sapping. I’ve come to the realization that I’m a much better baby parent than big kid parent. Which is unfortunate because the big kids are the ones that are around much longer and need the most support.

Anyhow Hax’s advises the letter writer to really look for and appreciate the person their kid is becoming. “The surly stuff isn’t everything,” she write, “There’s an interesting person developing in there. The cute-caterpillar stage was always going to be temporary. Make it your mission right now to be the person who sees the first vague outlines of the butterfly, and delights in them.”

When I read the column, I realized that I was finding it really hard to see the forest my kids were for the trees that I wanted them to be. So I took an empty notebook and decided that every day I was going to write one positive sentence about each kid. It’s been a good exercise for me, especially seeing what positive things I find tread a line between my expectations and their character. Like “Helped get her sister dressed for the day.” vs. “Said something nice to a classmate who was feeling sad.” I’m realizing I need to uncouple my ideals from who my kids are or I’ll never be able to see the latter.

What We Ate – for whatever reason I didn’t meal plan this week, so it was a lot of meals from our pantry/fridge. Which wasn’t terrible, but I find it more mentally stressful than I would like.

Saturday: Hotdogs, bagged Caesar Salad. The five year old’s birthday dinner request.

Sunday: Leftovers and birthday cake.

Monday: Pork Tostadas from Mexico: The Cookbook, that the Husband borrowed from the library. The ten year old more or less cooked dinner with much supervision.

Tuesday: Green Bean and Tofu Stir Fry.

Wednesday: Tortellini (from frozen) with red sauce. One of our standard desperation dinners.

Thursday: Cheese soufflé, roasted potatoes and Irish soda bread. We weren’t really great about meal planning this week, and I thought this wasn’t bad for a “What’s in the pantry?” meal. I originally was just going to make a frittata, but then saw a recipe for soufflé in the Moosewood cookbook and thought, “Why not?” Soufflé has a certain mystique about it for me – I always think of that scene in the movie Sabrina where Audrey Hepburn fails at making a soufflé for her French cooking class. “A woman happily in love, she burns the soufflé,” a wise fellow student says to her, “A woman unhappily in love, she forgets to turn on the oven.” At any rate – it turns out it wasn’t difficult and my soufflé rose beautifully. It’s a good way to stretch six eggs to feed eight people, but I can’t say that I liked it better than a quiche or a frittata.

Friday: Pizza and Looney Tunes, Snoopy and Hello, Jack. It was the newly five year old’s turn to pick the move.

Weekly recap + what we ate: jumping

At the beginning of the week, I got into my car, only to find that the battery had died. Apparently on Friday, upon arrival home from school, and unloading from the car, someone (ahem… a child) did not fully close their door when they got out of the car. Another someone (another child) had turned off the dome light, so I had no idea that the car sat there all weekend with a door not quite closed. And a long weekend at that. So when I got into the car on Monday to go to the movie, the car wouldn’t start.

Luckily we have a spare car – an almost 20 year old vehicle that we inherited from the Husband’s parent – so I used that car for a few days. But then on Wednesday, I take the ten year old to her morning piano lesson in the spare car. I drop her, take the other two kids with me to pick up breakfast sandwiches (our Wednesday morning bribe to get the kids in the car by 7:06am), then come back to sit in front of the piano teacher’s house while the lesson finished up. The ten year old comes out, gets into the car and then …. the car doesn’t start. Cue my huge cry of disbelieving frustration. I cannot believe I have two dead batteries in two different cars in two days. I call the Husband at work and he comes and jumps the car, takes the four year old to school so I don’t have to turn the car off again, and tells me to go on a nice long drive. I have about 45 minutes before the ten year old needs to be at school, so we take a nice long drive.

Then that evening when I get home, we jump my car and I go on another nice long drive.

So jumping…

I don’t know if it’s just been hard getting back into a routine with COVID closures and snow days and what not, but this week has felt really unmoored. I was driving down the freeway on the way to the ten year old’s school and it struck me – I feel like a frog jumping from lily pad to lily pad, with scarce time to linger and catch my breath. Every day is a mad dash from one school drop off to another to a toddler activity to home for lunch to back in the car for pick up from one school than another. But really, I just want to sit on my lily pad and watch the flies go by.

I think maybe also the weather has something to do with this sense of body constantly in motion. It’s been in the mid 20s all week, which it makes it a little too cold for me to really slow down and linger outside, even though outside is where I often get my energy. At that temperature, with no snow to play in, I’ve discovered my outdoor limit with the baby is about 45 mins. I think I clocked only 9 hours outside this week. But even still, we did go on some beautiful 45 minute walks – nice pauses between lily pad jumping.

I was on the hunt for more of the County’s Selfie Stands, so I took the baby for a walk on a trail around a lake. The county website said that there was a stand on this trail, but we didn’t find it. We did, however, see lots of geese – noisy creatures in their V formations, that swooped above our heads and then landed on the frozen lake. Turns out the selfie stand was at the end of the trail, but a fallen tree in our path had discouraged us from making it all the way there. Now that I know where it is, though, we will have to return.

I actually had two failed selfie stand excursions this week. The second one was at a park, and I’m pretty sure the stand isn’t there even though the website says there is. But we did get this cool picture of a hollow tree:

Another day, I tried to take the baby to a playground, but it was too cold for her to be interested in playing on the equipment, so we went for a walk around the park. The grounds around the park is prone to flooding, and there were some beautiful ice puddles. I found the variety of shapes and lines mesmerizing. The baby was fascinated by the effects of her stick on the ice, and the cracking sounds and patterns that she could make.

Later in the week, I did finally manage to locate a selfie stand. This one was on the site of a house and garden that I hadn’t been to before. The site was once a private residence but is now part of the County Parks system. The house and gardens sit on five acres of land in a quite wealthy residential neighborhood, and it was almost like visiting someone’s private estate gardens. Right now, everything was all bare and bramble, but there were potential flowers. I’ve made a note to come back to see how these tightly close buds will open to become magnolia and azaleas come warmer weather.

Other things of note this week:

The Husband cooked dinner all week again, and I found time to practice playing the concertina. I can now play a C major scale and a G major scale. I’m realizing that the 20 button concertina is perhaps better for playing chords and accompanying oneself while singing, rather than more melodic endeavors. So I’ve decided that before March 11th, when my rental period is up, I want to be able to sing “Dear Theodosia” from Hamilton while accompanying myself on the concertina.

Speaking of Dear Theodosia… because I’m driving the oldest kid to school these days rather than catching the 8:15a bus, we have an extra 45 minutes in the morning to chill at home. The other day after breakfast we had a bit of time and the four year old asked if we could sing Dear Theodosia, so I found some music online and we sang it together. It was such a beautiful perfect little moment in the pause before the chaos of getting out the door.

A great podcast conversation I listened to this week was this Fresh Air Interview with Kal Penn – I thought he had a lot of really beautiful things to say about being a child of Indian immigrants, and being an Indian actor in Hollywood. He had a striking anecdote about trying to convince a director that he shouldn’t play a part with an Indian accent, noting that he thought it was important the other Indian kids should get to see themselves on tv as Americans and not as caricatures. The director refused, and Penn notes: “I think it’s a bit of a misnomer that racism only comes from ignorance; it can also come from a conscious maintenance of power and a desire to keep people down.” Growing up, I always felt that being blond was the ideal because that is what you see in mainstream media, and Penn’s anecdote really hit close to home.

Conversation with the four year old:
4 year old: Can you read me Green Eggs and Ham?
Me: I don’t really like Green Eggs and Ham.
4 year old: It’s not about you liking Green Eggs and Ham.

What We Ate:

Saturday: Grilled pork tenderloin with roasted asparagus, green beans and potatoes. It was the birthday of the Husband’s father, who had passed away five years ago. On his birthday we always try to have a meal that he would have liked. There is something really fun about grilling when it is 20 degrees outside.

Sunday: Leftovers and apple pie.

Monday: Parsnip Soup.

Tuesday: I can’t remember, but it involved leeks and lemons and maybe fish? The Husband had borrowed a stack of cookbooks from the library and this recipe came from a Mediterranean cookbook.

Wednesday: Sweet and Sour Pork and Broccoli

Thursday: Broccoli Pasta Bake.

Friday: pizza and Sense and Sensibility. I saw this movie in the theatre when it came out in 1995, a year that was full of wonderful Austen adaptations, and I love it so much. I’ve watched it many times, and I partly picked the movie because we’re trying to watch movies from our own DVD collection. This time through the movie, I was stuck by how beautifully framed so many of the shots were, creating such a sense of intimacy in every scene. I had never noticed before, but the scene where Elinor tells Edward that Colonel Brandon has offered him a job is shot in almost one long take, as if the tension between the two almost lovers is too fragile to break up by switching camera angles.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Testing and ten year old

This was the week of COVID test distribution. All public school students were sent home on Monday with a rapid test kit. (Well, all schools that were still meeting in person; eleven schools in our district had transitioned to distance learning because of their COVID numbers, though I understand test kits were available for those families to pick up at the school.) Our school had a Zoom COVID test party, which I thought was a cute idea. The Principal led everyone though how to use their test kits, with a 15 minute dance party while we waited for the results. The nine year old’s test was negative. I had a feeling that it would be, but given that the four year old had no symptoms and he tested positive, I’ve given up any expectations on how COVID spreads.

The County also started handing out test kits at Public Libraries. I love that the public libraries are seen as the right hub for the distribution to happen. The first two days, I drove by a couple libraries and the lines were quite long, so I didn’t stop. In fact, on Tuesday they ran out of tests before the end of the distribution window. Wednesday, I got there half an hour after the window opened and managed to get several kits because they gave two to each resident, including children. The line was quite long when I arrived, but it moved quickly and we were in and out in about ten minutes. I’ve been hearing stories about how there are people selling on Craigslist these COVID test kits that city/county governments are distribution for free … which I find really angering.

In other COVID news, on Tuesday evening, we were told that the the four year old’s class would be closed because of an exposure in his classroom. The school was initially somewhat vague about re-opening plans because while the state has approved a five day quarantine and negative test for kids to return to class after an exposure, our County still mandates a 10 day quarantine period. So I girded my loins for another ten days at home with the four year old. But then, the next evening, the school and wrote, saying since the four year old had had COVID within the past ninety days (seventeen days, to be exact) he was allowed to return to the classroom. Hooray! I had already made plans with him for Thursday, so he went back on Friday, one of two kids in class. I asked him how it was being in such a small class, and he said he liked it. Though he added, “But sometimes my head said to me, ‘What is going on?'”

I hear you, little guy. Some days it feels like such a mental and emotional roller coaster having to navigate COVID.

In happier side, my oldest turned ten last week. Wow. I look at her and wonder how we got here so soon and how she got to be so tall and have so many opinions. A decade seems to me to be a long time … surely it hasn’t been a decade since she was born? And then other days, I think, if she’s been around so long, why haven’t I figured this whole parenting thing out yet? Isn’t ten years enough time to figure things out? But I have to admit that my kid still confounds me every single day, and every single day I’m convinced that I’m bungling things.

Anyhow, at her request, we had an ice cream cake and Chipotle and probably a little too much screentime. The day after her birthday was a half day of school, so the Husband took a half day off and we took her skating. Or rather the ten year old and four year old and I went skating and the Husband watched the baby and cheered us on. It was the four year old’s first time skating and I thought he did okay! And he got lots of help from his sister. He was also super excited by the Zamboni as it is featured in the book that we got him for Christmas, “Unconventional Vehicles“.

After the four year old got tired of skating, the ten year old and I skated together for the rest of our time, gliding lazily around the rink, trying to avoid the groups of teenagers and middle schoolers. Originally this was supposed to be a mommy daughter date, and she was disappointed that her little brother had to tag along because of his school closure, so I’m glad we got a good half hour on the ice just the two of us.

Some kid adventures this week:

Both the baby and the four year old began the winter sessions of swim lessons this week. Winter swim lessons are certainly harder to navigate than summer swim lessons. In the summer, you can put them in their swim suits before you leave the house and they can ride home slightly wet, sitting on a towel. But in the winter, there’s all those layer of clothes and the dressing and undressing and undressing and dressing. But the kids have fun and I do want them to learn to swim sooner rather than later. Though to be honest, I feel like they’re going to need more than once a week lessons to truly learn. I think the ten year old really learned to swim independently the summer she had daily swim lessons for two weeks.

A new to us park: It was quite cold (for us) this week. No snow, but temperatures in the low 30s to mid 20s. I only made it outside for 13 hours this week (17 hours a week is the average to get to 1000 hours for the year. But I figure things will even out in the summer…) Still, I was determined to explore a little bit outside, so Monday day after school drop off, I took the baby to an “adventure playground” that was a little bit of a drive from home, but not too far from the ten year old’s school. I think the only thing truly “adventure” about this playground was the climbing wall, but there was a castle and a pirate ship which were perfect for imaginative adventures. And lots of slides and swings and pretend cars.

Game nights: On nights when we manage to clean up dinner by 7:15p or so, we’ve taken to playing games as a family. For Christmas we added Sleeping Queens, King of Tokyo and Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza to our game cupboard. Even the four year old can play these games, which is great because for a while I felt bad that he was left out of game night. We help him strategize sometimes, and I’ve loved seeing how he’s coming to understand how each game is played. It’s been really fun, and we laugh a lot. Yes, sometimes there is pouting and tantrums when someone doesn’t win, but we’re working on those life lessons, I hope.

What We Ate: The Husband decided that he wanted to cook dinner this week, which was kind of great. It made me realize that a) I do like cooking and have been somewhat a control freak about it, and b) cooking takes up a lot of time, and I have so much more free time in the evenings when I don’t have to cook! The kid’s Swedish Climbing Wall has been great during this pre-dinner time – I can sit in the room while they climb it, but I only have to interact minimally so I can read or do some work while they play.

Saturday: Hmmm… can’t remember.

Sunday: The Husband made some kind of stir fry.

Monday: Spicy tofu tacos and Napa Cabbage Slaw. This was really tasty – one of those meals where you realize that it’s the sauce that’s important, not what you put it on.

Tuesday: Chipotle, as requested by the ten year old for her birthday.

Wednesday: Dumplings and french fries, take out. Not the healthiest, but it was supposed to be a post-skating snack and then we realized afterwards that we were too full to eat a proper dinner. There was definitely a lot of birthday slacking going on this week.

Thursday: Chicken Broccoli Stir Fry with Rice.

Friday: Pizza – the Husband even put anchovies on mine! And we watched Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I feel like I spent the whole movie staring at Keanu Reeves with a little bit of wonder at how different he is in this movie from really anything else he’s done.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Snow! finally!

Snow and clouds and blue sky in between.

We finally had snow! After the mildest of winters, snow arrived. Enough snow and ice that the first two days back from winter break were declared snow days by the school district. The third day was a delayed opening, and it ended up being quite a mess; so many school bus drivers were out due to COVID that ninety bus routes were cancelled that day. Given that COVID numbers were going up, we decided that just to be cautious I would drive the nine year old to and from school instead of having her take the bus. I’m not sure if it really is going to make a difference, but isn’t this whole pandemic layer after layer of risk mitigation and risk assessment? So we figured if the bus was a layer of COVID risk, we could remove that since I could drive her. Hopefully by the time I go back to work in February, the COVID numbers will have gone down.

I’ve been reading Katherine May’s Wintering, and she has a passage about snow days that I love:
“I love the inconvenience [of snow] the same way that I sneakingly love a bad cold: the irresistible disruption to mundane life, forcing you to stop for a while and step outside your normal habits.”

In a way, the snow day seemed like merely an extension of our COVID isolation period – a time outside of the everyday rush and bustle where we were forced to just be in the place we were. The Husband went to work – since his test was negative and he was vaxed and boosted and had no symptoms, he was allowed back to work after five days – leaving me home with all three kids. We couldn’t venture very far afield, and instead found our lives wrapped in a cozy cocoon of winter weather. Even our planned grocery delivery had been cancelled. So we ate down the pantry and the freezer, and the shin deep snow in the backyard was our playground.

Bundling the kids is always a process. It takes me about fifteen to twenty minutes to get the four year old and the baby fully into their snow gear and out the door. (The nine year old gets herself dressed, save for me zipping her up since we have these gloves with extended cuffs that have to be put on before the coat.) Mittens, snow suits, hats, scarves, wool socks, boots, Aquaphor to protect their cheeks … it’s a lot. But at least I know they are warm enough to they will stay out there for a good long while. I do need to put a calendar reminder for next fall to review the snow gear since I think the two older kids will need new snow pants next year, and definitely boots. Luckily there will be hand me downs for the baby.

The second snow day, the nine year old wanted to take a walk down to the trail to see what the snow looked like there. Everything was blanketed white and shimmery ice. The kids played a little too close for my comfort at the edge of the creek, my warning that wet feet would be cold feet going unheeded. It was a beautiful walk, though. The trail was quite empty and the stillness made our crunching footsteps seem louder than normal. I love the squeaky brittle sound of walking in snow.

There was a nice lazy rhythm to these snow days… up and outside by 9:30a. Play in the snow until lunchtime. Then lunch with hot chocolate – I had bought a large pack of hot cocoa bombs from Costco before Christmas. I don’t think I ever got the milk hot enough to melt the chocolate shell and release the hot cocoa mix in a swirling explosion like on the YouTube videos. The bombs kind of just floated in milk and then slowly disintegrated to reveal cocoa powder and marshmallows. Oh well, nothing is ever like on YouTube.

Then indolent afternoons of screentime (nine year old), books (four year old) and naps (baby) while I tried to pick up the kitchen. I was once again reminded how much living happens when people are home all day. The clean up felt constant. It was definitely an unrelenting couple of days.

Wednesday, I took the four year old and the baby sledding while the nine year old was in school. (The current guidelines allow her back in school if she is vaccinated and without symptoms, so I guess she didn’t really have to quarantine.) I love sledding even though we don’t own a sled. I had, in fact, put a calendar reminder for myself to buy a sled last fall. But fall came with it’s sixty degree weather and the need for a sled didn’t seem imminent. Never mind that the point of writing myself a calendar reminder was so that I didn’t wait until the need was indeed imminent. I felt a little sad earlier in the week as I watched other kids whizz down hills in their sleds, and kicked myself for not having bought a sled. Then I went looking around the house for other things to use. I ended up grabbing a cardboard box (what else?) that I wrapped in a garbage bag, and the cement mixing tray that we had been using as a water table. This latter worked surprisingly well, though the cardboard and garbage bag did manage to get the baby down the hill, even if not as slickly. It was really adorable because the four year old insisted on keeping one hand on his sister’s “sled” as they went down the hill in tandem. Once in a while they fell over, going heels over head, but they got up and did it again, pushing and pulling their make-shift sled up the hill.

Thursday, was the first day that both kids were back for a full school day. I took the baby to Seneca Creek State Park in hopes of having a little hike, but she just wanted to play on the playground. I did manage to convince her to walk down to the edge of the lake and we threw branches in the water, a favorite pastime. It was definitely cold – probably mid 30s – but there is something I really love about cold weather and bare trees and the quiet of winter.

Friday we had more snow, and another snow day with classes cancelled. I took the kids sledding again. This time, I also brought along a baby bath tub since the cardboard and garbage bag from last time had disintegrated. The baby bathtub didn’t work great, which was just as well since the baby wanted to go to the playground instead. So, after telling the nine year old to keep an eye on her brother, I took the baby to the playground. She wanted to swing, though before I knew it, she had fallen asleep in the swing!

We ended up meeting up with some friends at the hill, which always make things more fun for the nine year old. And then at one point, I looked up and a snowball fight had broken out among all the neighborhood kids who were at the hill, complete with sled barricades. Of course my first instinct was to tell the nine year old that she shouldn’t be throwing snowballs at other kids, but I bit my tongue and let the classic kids rumble play out.

So in the final tally, the first week back at school was actually one short day and one full day. The four year old was technically released from isolating on Thursday, so he had one day of school before the snow day since the day care follows the public school closures.

On the one hand, three snow days in one week is a lot, but on the other hand, I was kind of glad that I had a bit of relief from the anxiety of sending my kids back to the COVID germ pool that is school.

Fun food discovery:
I’ve started making a Dutch Baby for breakfast on those days when the kids want pancakes but I have no patience for all the assembling and mixing and making. The Dutch baby batter comes together quickly in the blender and then cooks up super fast, all in one skillet. Bring the skillet to the table and everyone have at it. So much quicker than pancakes.

What We Ate:

Monday: Green bean and tofu stir fry.

Tuesday: Black Bean tacos. Basically a can of black beans, warmed up with half cup salsa. Eaten on tortillas.

Wednesday: Lentil Quinoa bowls with Roasted Broccoli.

Thursday: Cod cakes (from Dinner Illustrated) with roast asparagus and potatoes.

Friday: pizza (the husband made) and The Muppet Movie. It was the baby’s turn to choose so we each picked a movie from our DVD collection, lined them up in a row and let her pick one. I have to admit, while I find The Muppet Movie hilarious, I have yet to stay awake for the whole thing. Funny story – the Husband used to watch this movie with the nine year old, and everytime the movie got to that bit in the middle where the projector “broke”, he would turn it off and say, “Oh no! I guess that’s the end of the movie.” It took her a while to figure out that there was a whole other rest of the movie that she hadn’t seen yet.

Weekly recap + what we ate: the last week of the year!

The day after Christmas we went for COVID tests, back to back appointments, with the Husband and the four year old going in first while I waited outside with the COVID positive baby and then me taking the nine year old in when they came out.

The people at the testing center looked exhausted.

“Has it been busy?” I asked, somewhat inanely making conversation with the lady who swabbed our noses.

“Oh yes.”

“Worse than Thanksgiving?”

“Much much worse.”

I remembered to thank her profusely for doing her job. How stressful it must be. Even though a lot of healthy people come to the testing center to get requisite tests for travel and family gatherings, I’m sure there are a good number that actually will test positive.

It was our first trip out of the house in three days, and once we were in the car speeding home, the temptation was great to just keep driving and not go home – that little intoxicating taste of freedom. But, being responsible people, we took ourselves home and continued to quarantine.

The husband, the nine year old and I came back with negative tests rather quickly. The four year old’s test took the full 72 hours and was… positive. wump wump. But in the end, it was kind of a moot point because his daycare center ended up closing for the week anyway due to a COVID related staffing shortage. I feel like so many people I know – people who are super careful and vaccinated and boostered – were testing positive. It has been kind of brutal.

We spent the week rediscovering the joys of our backyard. I googled “classic outdoor games” and came across SPUD, which I had never played as a child, but which the kids loved. The two little kids also discovered the joy of throwing a ball at a pyramid of tin cans and yogurt containers. And of course there were cardboard creations and improvised obstacle courses.

And indoors there was this classic – the set from the Husband’s childhood, with missing pieces supplemented via eBay:

Speaking of childhood nostalgia – we watched 9-Bit Christmas and it was delightful. Full of the hallmarks of a childhood in the late 80s, and the story was kind of great too. It supposed to be a knock off of A Christmas Story, but it’s gentler and more forgiving… perhaps a sign of the times? Anyway, will definitely put that into the Christmas movie rotation.

For New Years Day, I wanted noodles, but we didn’t have the right kind of noodles at home. This is probably laughable, since I have a bin in the cupboard with at least four different kinds of noodles from Asia. Noodles are definitely my favorite food. I love how versatile yet specific they are.

So I decided to try my hand at making udon noodles from scratch. I’ve come to realize that the combination of flour + water + salt is the basis of so many different dishes – noodles, dumpling wrappers, scallion pancakes… All the recipes for Udon noodles that I read called for kneading the dough with your feet. So I mixed up the dough and got the kids involved in the stomping and the rolling. I did have to improvise a bit since we were out off all purpose flour. I don’t know how that happened – probably isolating hot on the heels of bake-heavy holiday season. But I did have whole wheat flour and sprouted flour (a random Hungry Harvest purchase). I also had bread flour, but I didn’t remember until too late, and in retrospect that might have been the best option.

The results were tasty. Granted, toss anything in scallion ginger sauce and it will be tasty, but the noodles tasted simple and doughy. The chew was not as bouncy as ideal, but I think that might have been because of the flour. I’m on the fence as to whether to try again, but it’s good to have demystified the idea of making my own noodles.

We also put together the Swedish climbing wall that we had bought for the kids for Christmas. I thought it was going to be a huge challenge, but it was surprisingly easy and the kids love it. A good indoor energy burner, for sure. And I may once in a while be found hanging from it too…

Throw back food stuffs:
When I was little, growing up in a tiny Canadian town, much of the Taiwanese food that my parents loved wasn’t available in stores. They made their own dumplings. They even made their own tofu – a multi-day process that started with soaking soy beans and involved a rustic metal machine that made grinding noises in our basement, and square molds that sat overnight in our sink. Of course these days, we buy dumplings and tofu at the store. One other thing I remember my mother making were shrimp chips – they came out of this box as hard round translucent discs which my mother fried in oil until they were puffy and pink and crunchy. You popped the fried chip in your mouth and the chip would bite at your tongue before dissolving in a crunch of salty shrimpy goodness. These days you can readily buy ready-made shrimp chips in the snack aisle at the Asian market. Even the local Giant has them in the ethnic food section, though those ones are skinny and shaped almost like French fries.
The other day, I was at HMart looking for fun food stocking stuffers, and I came across a box of uncooked shrimp chips and I had to buy them for my own stocking. Last week, I gave them a go. I don’t love frying things; I find it messy and I never know what to do with the oil afterwards. So I thought I would see if I could fry the shrimp chips using the airfryer function of our new toaster oven. They do lack the umami of being fried in oil, but the crunch shrimp-y goodness is still there. And the novelty and nostalgia.

Other cozy things this week:
In Summer of 2019, pregnant with our third baby, I decided I wanted to learn how to knit. I had learned once, but then found crochet to be easier and more forgiving so knitting fell by the wayside. Both older kids had handmade blankets made for them when they were born, and I wanted to make one for the baby that was coming. So I dug out a book, looked at some online tutorials, and cast on my first row. It was a pretty simple project – knit stich back and forth til the creation felt long enough. I don’t know if it was time or skill or what not, but the whole thing turned out to be pretty slow going. But finally, the week before Christmas, I finished it and was able to wrap it and put it under the tree for the baby to open come Christmas day. She calls it her “Bankie” and I love seeing her cuddled under it. It certainly has flaws, and the colours don’t quite go together, but I think it will still keep her warm and loved.

What we ate:

Sunday: Cauliflower Curry Soup from ATK’s Vegan for Everyone.

Monday: Sweet Potato and Carrot Eggah and Roasted Potatoes. We don’t eat a lot of potates, but a bunch came in our Hungry Harvest box, so I had some to use up. I cooked the for “0” mins in the InstantPot and then tossed them in olive oil and salt and roasted at 400 until the outsides got golden and crispy. They were really good and I’m now looking forward to more potatoes in our box.

Tuesday: Chili. Every year at some point over the holidays the Husband makes chili. He always makes it the night before so it has time to sit and meld. I love eating my chili with pickled jalapenos, onions and sour cream. The Husband likes his with Fritos. So do the kids. I love how chili is meal where everyone wins.

Wednesday: Banh mi bowls. Made with tofu ground beef rather than pork. And eaten with noodles.

Thursday: BBQ Pinto Bean Tacos with mango salsa.

Friday: Pizza (home made pan pizza) and Empire Strikes Back.

Saturday: Dumpling and homemade udon noodles in scallion ginger sauce with stir fried napa cabbage and mushrooms.