weekly recap – Page 8 – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: Prep Week

Post It Box organized and ready for rehearsal!

This week was prep week for a new show. Prep week is always a more relaxed because I can pretty much set my own hours as long as I get my work done – I’m not bound by a daily rehearsal schedule. Ironically, though, this week didn’t get a lot of my “me” tasks check off because I used a lot of my work flexibility to take care of kid stuff – there were a few school bus pick ups that I took for the Husband, an appointment for one kid, and the baby had an Open House at her daycare.

This all meant leaving the office early, but also meant I worked through lunch a lot so that I could leave early, and lunch is usually when I take my daily walk. I’m still trying to track my 1000 hours outside and this week I think I had two hours total. It’s a little ironic that when my day is dictated by the rehearsal schedule, I seem to have more time to slot in things like my daily walk and exercise. When my work life is more flexible, I feel like I have to fit in more family/ life admin stuff since that stuff is harder to fit in around my rehearsal schedule.

Some thoughts from this week:

– We had some fans installed this week – a bathroom fan (finally no steamy bathrooms post shower. Also good for the walls), a bedroom fan (just in time for 50 degree nights. hah!) and a wall fan in the kid’s room (because a ceiling fan was a bad idea given the bunk beds). One night this week, we left the kids home with my mom who is visiting and the Husband and I went to Lowe’s to look at ceiling fans at 9pm. Date night, I guess. I was a little taken aback when I walked into Lowe’s and saw:

I’m not even ready for Hallowe’en yet!

– Out of the blue an old friend/work colleague reached out to me. We had done summer stock together twenty years ago when we were both fresh out of college, and then taken a couple of those road trips one does when one finishes a gig and is twenty and unemployed and has nothing better to do than see how far you can get on a tank of gas. Our professional paths crossed fortuitously in the years that followed, but then he got a teaching job at a University and I stopped travelling as much so we fell out of each other’s orbits. Anyhow, it was lovely to talk to him and catch up and see where we’ve each landed. It’s funny, when you’re twenty and starting out in opera and have thoughts of all the big companies and big ideas you want to work for, and then what you find you wants when you’re forty is a spouse and a home and to come home and cook dinner for them.

– Speaking of which… Listening to this Squiggly Careers podcast episode about how to take control of your career.

This has somewhat been on my mind lately – there have been lots of changes at work and it’s not so much that I am questioning if I want to be where I am, but it’s more that I’m wondering if there is anything wrong with wanting to want to be where I am. That’s to say, I think personally I am in a place right now where I don’t want to travel and gig and where I want to be able to take my kids to the school bus and snuggle with the Husband on the couch at night; to do that, perhaps I am giving up some career ambitions. And I’m okay with that mostly, but when I work with people who are doing the constant gig and hustle, I do think about how different my life is from that. I am definitely a little jealous of those stage managers who get to to take a show to Europe, but those opportunities don’t happen overnight – they come out of cultivating relationships long terms, and while pre-kids – pre-marriage, really- I might have been able to invest myself in developing relationships that might grow into an international career, it’s not something I can come to as easily now. I think there is taking control from a point of making career things happen, and taking control in terms of being happy where one is. And I’m in the latter. I know there’s a world of new technologies and ideas in companies across the world, and it’s been really fascinating these past few weeks learning about how different people work. In a way, the changes at my company mean that new ideas come to me rather than than I go to them. Is it a complacent place to be? Maybe. I think that’s okay for now, though. The podcast hosts did have one self-reflective exercise in the podcast that I liked – Take five minutes and finish this sentence in as many ways as possible: “Wouldn’t my career be amazing if….” That might be a good exercise for me to ponder.

-A shout out to Kae’s post “If you See Something Say Something” on taking time to express gratitude to others. I was inspired to write to my daughter’s swim team coach from this summer. The guy was just did so much to build skills and team spirit with the swim team kids this past summer, and I had been meaning to write him since August, but never did. So prompted by Kaelyn’s post, I did. It reminds me of the unit in the Happiness Course (aka Yale’s class called The Science of Well Being) that talks about gratitude, and one of the assignments was to write a gratitude letter – something I think I can think about and execute more regularly, I think.

On the aspiration docket this rainy rainy weekend – We were going to go apple picking, but the weather does not look ideal for that. It’s my last two day weekend in a while, so my weekend aspirations are trying to maximize family time and also life admin items:
– skating lessons for the five year old. Swim clinic for the ten year old
– Attic clean out
-Ten year old’s Halloween costume. Manageable chunk – maybe we will design and get supplies.
– going to a play then dinner out as a family.
– Supertitle work for my next titles gig.
– Seasonal sort and cycle the kids clothes. The weather’s getting cooler so I need to make sure we are set for long sleeve shirts, sweaters, and pants.
-meal plan and grocery shop for next week.
– try to squeeze in some outdoor time between bouts of rain.
– maybe an afternoon of hanging out and watching a movie on the couch.

What We Ate:
Saturday: This was the three year old’s birthday dinner at a local Mexican restuarant.

Sunday: Kitchen sink ramen. Ramen with whatever veggies I needed to use up thrown in.

Monday: Butternut squash flatbread from Milk Street’s Tuesday Night Mediterranean. I pre-made the filling and chopped some cucumbers to eat on the side so the Husband just had to fill the tortillas and pan fry them when he got home. This was quite tasty. Vegan, with optional cheese. I did grill the leftover halloumi to go with it – I’ve never done that before, and it was quite tasty.

Tuesday: White bean and tomato stew from Bare Minimum Dinners. This meal was kind of brilliantly simple – cannellini beans, garlic, tomato paste, water, ditilani pasta. On the Husband’s suggestion I made a double batch and the ten year old took it for lunch in her thermos all week. Vegan, except some people added cheese.

Wednesday: Mushroom and Grape Tartines from Milk Street Tuesday Night Mediterranean, with a quick panzella salad on the side. I was originally going to make a greek salad, but part of the tartine recipe called for hollowing out the baguettes so I decided to make a panzella salad with the bread pulled from the baguettes. That felt like a really frugal food decision!

Thursday: My mother made chicken wings and stir fry. Thank goodness because Thursday night was pretty activity heavy.

Friday: Pizza and Movie – we watched Thirteen Lives, a movie from this year about the Thai cave rescue. Overall a really gripping movie – the story is so tense, even though I knew the outcome. I do wish the movie had devoted more time to the story of the boys in the cave and how they managed, though I imagine twelve boys surviving by meditation sessions led by their coach might not make for gripping drama the way cave diving does. I also didn’t love the kind of “white savior” aspect of a bunch of white men saving a group of Thai boys, but in truth when one looks at any kind of high risk elite activity like cave diving, then the socio-economic truths of it is that it is indeed a white man’s game. For a podcast version of the story, we really loved the first season of the podcast Against the Odds which looked at the story over six episodes. The kids were captivated by this podcast.

Bi -Weekly recap + what we ate – in rehearsal/tech/opening!

The view from my pew – the show takes place in a church.

There is a t-shirt floating around in theatre circles that says, “I can’t. I have rehearsal.”

I feel like that is where I’ve been the past two weeks.

We had three days of rehearsal in the rehearsal hall then five days onstage, three of those rehearsals with orchestra. Certainly it’s a truncated rehearsal period from what I was used to. Even still, it was nice to be back in rehearsal and getting a show up off the ground and making things happen for other people. It’s also my first time working in this venue with this group and everyone has been incredibly supportive and positive even though we are doing something fairly ambitious. I’ve been at my main stage management gig for fifteen years now (whoa! when did that happen?!?), and there is an easy familiarity with the crew that I regularly work with there – even so, I’m being reminded this past week that there are kind competent (beyond competent, really) people in many theatres all over and it’s good for me to work with and for new people. Getting to work for a stage manager that I’ve known for years certainly helps makes things easier.

Anyhow, the show opened last night. I think it’s a great show – the music is stunning and the cast, many from the musical theatre world, really sing their hearts out. There is a certain raw physicality that musical theatre performers have that opera singers don’t necessarily always display and I’ve had a lot of fun watching the show come together- it’s like they sing with their whole body, and they aren’t afraid of making the music sound ugly.

Some things on my mind lately:
-I’ve barely seen the kids lately – because of being at the theatre late, I tend to sleep in late, waking up just in time to pack lunches and maybe feed the little kids breakfast, though the Husband often does that. Big props to the Husband for holding down the fort and solo parenting in the evenings. Of course, it should mean that I cherish and savour the time I do have with my kids, but it’s kind of been… not relaxing. I’ve been turning over in my mind why I struggle with parenting and how I can feel more confident about how I help my kids launch into the world. I think a lot of it boils down to resetting the expectations I have and learning to see my kids as their own people. I’ve been listening to The Puberty Podcast, and this episode on helping kids thrive really helped frame some of my struggles.

– I’m giving myself gold stars for good tech week life habits. I squeezed in a run on my dinner break one day, even though it was raining. I packed lunch and dinner and lots of healthy-ish snacks. (Though I did buy a cookie the day of final dress because the work cafeteria has the best fluffiest chocolate chip cookies, as big as my face and I thought by then I deserved to indulge). I went to bed pretty much as soon as I came home.

– Having said that, I will say, I did stay up an extra half hour one night to scroll the news of the Queen’s death and all the pageantry and protocols that are involved in laying her to rest. The breadth and depth of her life amazes me. Also, on another level, I keep thinking about the amount of work and planning that must be involved in a royal funeral and a coronation and everything. And there hasn’t been a change in British monarch in seventy years so there is no one around who can say, “Well the last time, we did this, this, and this.” I’m sure all the protocol and procedures are written down somewhere, but as someone who puts on shows for a living, I bet there will be things that come up where they say, “Wait… how did they do it last time? Why didn’t they write that down?” The logistics of how to figure out what to do fascinates me as much as the actual logistics of the proceedings.

-I do not give myself a gold star on life admin during tech week, though. The life to do list is a little lengthy right now and it’s causing a little bit of stress for me. The Husband and I had lunch yesterday and I didn’t have the brain to think about the litany of house/life maintenance that we need to get done this fall.

-The kids take any opportunity when they see my phone lying around to take pictures. Some days I open up Photos to find fifty nine pictures of the baby’s foot. But sometimes, mostly orchestrated by the oldest child, something like this appears in my photo roll, and it makes me smile.

– These lines from one of the arias in my show:

When the thunder rumbles
now the age of Gold is dead.
And the dreams we’ve clung to,
dying to stay young
have left us parched and old instead.
When my courage crumbles,
When i feel confused and frail.
When my spirit falters,
on decaying alters.
And my illusions fail.

I go on right then.
I go on again.
I go on to say I will
celebrate another day.
I go on.

I’ve been so intrigued by the last five lines – is the idea that there will always be another day, and we should celebrate that day? That is to say, just having another day is cause for celebration? Or is the idea that even if today is hard and we don’t feel like celebrating, there will be days in the future where we will want to celebrate the things that we hold dear, so we should push forward? I love both sentiments.

These are the deep thoughts that I contemplate during rehearsal sometimes…

It’s a beautiful piece. You can hear this aria sung in a piano arrangement here.

Things I am grateful for:
– The stranger behind me at a stoplight who got out of his car to flag me down and tell me my gas cap had rolled off my roof five blocks back. I thought I was trying to be efficient by cleaning the garbage out of the car while I pumped gas, but it got me off my rhythm of pump gas, replace gas cap, get receipt.
-The Husband for getting the kids fed and to bed every night by himself. He even took the ten year old to basketball practice and the five year old to skating lessons, hauling all the kids around.
-The kids for (mostly) getting themselves ready in the morning, so I can sleep til 7am most mornings.
– Supportive colleagues and kind people to work with.
-The cooler weather. Fall is here in the mornings, though summer still lingers in the afternoons.
-The Husband for getting my bike tuned up. I went for a little bike ride this morning as I had neither work nor children to stop me. It was hard, but felt like a perfect fall activity.

What we ate – I did manage to prep dinner for most of the first week of rehearsal, even though I was working and didn’t make it home in time to eat with everyone. Most nights I had leftovers from the previous evening for dinner myself. The second week of rehearsal, the Husband planned and cooked dinner all on his own. I might have pressed tofu one night, but he handled everything else. I have no idea what they ate, so only the menu from the first week below.

Saturday: Pizza and Movie Night. We watched Secondhand Lions, a movie from 2003 that was really charming and delightful. The film, about a boy who is left with his eccentric uncles (played by Robert Duvall and Michael Caine) was the embodiment of “family movie”… I think the word “wholesome” feels out of style right now, but that would describe this movie. I don’t think they make family films like this these days; everything is superheroes and explosions.

Sunday: This was the day we went to the Renaissance Festival. We got home around 7pm so all I could muster was snack dinner, which the kids actually loved and have asked if we can do it again. I just assembled a bunch of stuff, made sure I had all the food groups, tossed it on a plate and put it in front of the kids.

Monday: Labor Day – It was proposed that we ought to grill. So, I decided to grill some meatballs from the Milk Street Tuesday Night Mediterranean. The recipe called for broiled, but I thought they worked well on the grill. I guess grilling a meatball is not much different form grilling a burger – ground meat on fire. Also grilled eggplant and Zucchini

Tuesday: This favorite vegan Gnocchi soup – at the request of the five year old. I made most of it ahead of time, so that all the Husband had to do when he came home was to bring the pot to a boil and add the kale and gnocchi. Apparently the baby even ate the kale bits. Surprising because she is in a “I don’t like vegetables” phase. (Which isn’t entirely true, but veggies are pretty hit or miss with her).

Wednesday: The Husband made stir-fry and rice.

Thursday: Instant Pot pinto beans, made before I went to work. Eaten with corn tortillas and a simple cabbage slaw.

The picture and directions I sent to the Husband for Thursday night’s dinner.

Friday: The Husband took to the kids to the golf course for the outdoor concert, and they ate sandwiches.

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: Spring Break

My brother’s family was in town the last week of March for their Spring break. It had been almost two and a half years since we saw them in person- last time they were here, the baby was eight weeks old. Of course there have been many video calls since them, but seeing them in person was pretty great.

I feel so lucky that we live somewhere where there is a wealth of things to see and do, and most of it is free. One thing my brother and sister-in-law really wanted to see was the new Yayoi Kasuma exhibit at the Hirshhorn, the contemporary and modern art museum on the Mall. I had missed the last Kasuma exhibit when it was here, so I was eager to go this time, even though it meant lining up at 9:00am for tickets on a Sunday. Fortunately, my brother and his In-laws went down on the early side to get in line and my sister-in-law, my mom, and I followed with the kids at a more reasonable hour.

I will admit the only work of Kasuma I had been familiar with were pictures of her pumpkins. The current exhibit featured two of her Infinity Mirror Rooms, but first up was a pumpkin:

I was unprepared for how the pumpkin took up so much space and how looming it would feel in its dotted room. I also love how the precision of the dots contrast with the more organic curves of the pumpkin.

The Infinity Mirror Rooms were another kind of overwhelming and immersive experience. These are rooms where the walls are made of mirrors so they seem to extend without limits. There was a time limit on how long each museum patron could be in the room – 30 seconds for the first room and 60 for the second. I think there is something ironically claustrophobic about being in a room that seems to stretch for infinity. The first room featured all these stuffed protuberances that came out of the ground like a field of polka dotted cacti. It was kind of whimsical and fun.

The second room featured polka dot lanterns aglow in a dark mirrored room. This room reminded me a little of being out on Hallowe’en, and how disembodied one can feel in the dark, even when surrounded by lighted objects. (I’m sure there’s some kind of metaphor for life in that somewhere…)

After we went through the Kasuma exhibit, we also went to see the Laurie Anderson exhibit. The exhibit was a fascinating blend of sound, film, and visual images. There was one piece that featured projections of people sharpening knives, the sound almost symphonic. There was also several rooms with words and pithy thoughts scrawled, graffiti like, all over the walls and floors. Here were a few of my favorites:

I find the Hirshhorn rather overwhelming to visit, to be honest. In think contemporary art requires a lot of mental bandwidth from me, and a lot of it, while interesting, demands attention unrelentingly. At the Hirshhorn, a lot of the exhibits often have audio as well visual components and sometimes I don’t feel like I have room to process everything. And a lot of the time, I had to admit that I just don’t “get” what I’m seeing, even though I read the little placard next to the work. Sometimes I feel like I’m either overthinking contemporary art, or under thinking it. And honestly sometimes it just makes me giggle. I’m glad I live near and can visit in short bursts and take things in one exhibit at a time.

At the time of my brother’s visit, most of the museums were still open on reduced hours, so we spent one day walking around and visiting monuments since we couldn’t go to any museums. We saw the MLK memorial and the FDR memorial, those being two of the closest to the cherry blossom in the tidal basin. Of course it wasn’t officially peak bloom anymore, but there was still lots of blossoms to be seen. And lots of petals to rain down on our heads like snow.

Among all that, I had one last supertitle gig for this season, and perhaps my favorite of all the vocal recitals I worked this year. The pianist for the recital was also a composer and the second half of the program was entirely songs cycles that he had written. He introduced each song set and there was something wonderfully personal about a hearing a composer talk about the backstory of their own work.

Another fascinating thing that happened that week – I took my mom to the Mall to find an outfit for a meeting she had coming up. As we were walking to Macy’s, we saw a good wandering around the parking lot.

“Strange!” I thought. But I’d seen a lot of geese flying overhead recently so I didn’t really think much of it, though I have to admit that seeing a goose wandering in the Macy’s parking lot has a certain charm, so long as one stays out of the goose’s way. Then, as I was walking up to the door, I saw:

Why yes, that is a goose and two eggs in the planter in front of Macy’s. In my head I have a story (much like when my middle child was born) of a goose couple starting to fly off on a journey when suddenly the mama goose says, “We need to pull over now! The eggs are coming!” And she lays two eggs in the middle of a parking lot. (I, fortunately did make it to the hospital with my middle child…). Anyway, given that there were clearly two geese guarding the precious eggs, we figured it was better if we just went our merry way into Macy’s and let the geese have some family privacy. Or as much as one can have in the middle of a parking lot.

What we ate: we actually ate out more than usual because cooking dinner for twelve people seemed overwhelming.

Saturday: take out thai, picked up on our way home from the airport.

Sunday: We had dinner at a new to us restaurant with lots of outdoor seating and firepits. Though the evening was on the chilly side, the restaurant staff brought us blankets and lots of extra firewood for the firepit. Of course half our blankets were immediately commandeered by the kids to build blanket forts…. The food was pretty good and they had these fun smores kits for dessert. The fun thing about their s’mores is that in addition to the typical Hersheys chocolates they also had York Peppermint Patties and thin Reese Peanut Butter Cups. Such a brilliant idea!

Monday: ordered Vietnamese food. We needed something quick because we were having family photos taken.

Tuesday: Terriyaki Tofu and grilled Korean Beef and grilled veggies. With rice and seaweed salad on the side.

Wednesday: I had to work so I got a take out grain bowl from Beefsteak.

Thursday: Japanese take out.

Friday: Pizza and movie night at our Tennessee AirBnB (more on that next post…). Pizza Hut, which was better than I had remembered, though they were out of mushrooms, which I have never encountered before.

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: 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: forest meanders

Tuesday the nine year old got her second COVID vaccine shot. Apparently a lot of her classmates got to stay home after their shots, but I figured since she didn’t have any side effects the first time, she could go to school. Because I had to drop her at school anyway, I decided to check out Blockhouse Point trail, which was in that part of the county. The Best Hikes for Kids book mentioned that it was a moderate hike with a great view of the Potomac. Figuring that the 2 mile hike might be a good way to spend the morning, the toddler and I went to check it out.

Our hiking backpack had been in the trunk of my car, and good thing too. When I had parked at the trailhead, I looked in the backseat to see that the baby was asleep. She got quite cranky when I tried to get her to walk, so I put her in the hiking pack, and set off down the trail. I hadn’t used the hiking pack in a while because usually it doesn’t seem worth it for less than a mile and a half, but I’m glad I put her in it this time – the terrain was a little rough and she definitely didn’t want to walk. The trail was a lovely woodsy path that ran alongside a horse farm. We watched some large horses grazing, then continued onward.

By the time I got to the first Potomac overlook, the baby was asleep. Figuring this was a good place for a break, I took the backpack off, sat down on some rocks, had a snack and decided to spend some time reading. The view of the Potomac was beautiful and on the tow path below was mostly empty, maybe a jogger or two passing seen passing by. The weather had warmed up, or maybe I was heated from the hike? (It was really quite remarkable how warm it was because that morning there had even been a sprinkle of snow.) I passed an hour like this, reading in the sunshine. Though I felt slightly guilty for taking such an indolent morning, I couldn’t find it in me to waste the weather, the sunshine, or the baby’s nap by heading back to the car so soon.

After the baby woke up, We had a snack and I managed to get her to hike the rest of the trail loop with me, about a mile and a half. There was one point where I could have taken the fork back to the car or continue the loop. The loop was longer, but I figured that I didn’t know when I would come back to this hike, so I may as well finish the loop with its spur to a second Potomac overlook. The second overlook had a selfie stand, a project of the county parks which I found really helpful and kind of charming. There are sixteen selfie stands throughout the county, and I think I might make it a project of mine to visit all of them. I love a good project to get me to explore different parks.

Thank you selfie stand! I very rarely have pictures with the kids, and this made it easy.

After the second Potomac overlook, we continued on our way, meandering at a toddler’s pace back to the car. We saw mountain laurel and chestnut oaks, examine moss and mushrooms, crunched through leaves and balanced on logs and hopped over a stream. There were a couple of points when I thought the baby would refuse to walk, but a few well timed snack bribes and we actually made it back to the car. When I looked at my watch, it was almost three o’clock! Our intended two hour hike, had turned into a five hour forest wander. It was certainly one of those days where I felt like the real luxury in my life right now is the luxury of time. But even then, I feel this panic about not squandering it.

On Thursday we took a seasonal adventure and went to visit the Seton Shrine for their Candlelight Tour of Christmas Past. The Seton Shrine is a basilica and historic site dedicated to Mother Seton, the first American born saint. They have a program where a tour guide leads a tour of one of the historic buildings then historical interpreters re-enact life at the girls’ school in the 1800s. There were demonstrations of dancing, domestic crafts, and a lesson in French. It was a quiet and lovely evening, though, being over an hour away, it was perhaps a bit of an ambitious outing for a school night.

candlelit campus and a dance demonstration.

Friday the baby and I went on another forest wander with some friends from he mom’s group. One of the local nature centers has trails. The trail we picked indicated that it was a mile loop, but it was certainly longer than that as we ended up on the trail for almost two hours. Even going at a toddler’s pace, I feel like a mile should not take that long! But we had snack and the kids walked on logs and had a good time and for the most part walked. We even saw a buck! He was sitting so quietly in the leaves that we didn’t notice him as we paused to eat our snack. Breathlessly we watched, certain that he would bolt, but he just watched us as we watched him. After we finished our snack, we continued on our path and looked up to see him gather himself up and slowly walk off in the opposite direction. I know deer are plentiful (almost too plentiful) and considered a nuisance in this area, but there is still something magical about seeing them.

One evening this week was the nine year old’s piano recital. Her first in person recital since the very first recital she played in two years ago. That 2019 recital seemed so long ago. I had missed it because the four year old was sick that day. Well… I missed this recital too. A mix up about bringing cookies to the recital reception had me going to two grocery stores (one which didn’t have a bakery department), and then to Trader Joe’s. I hadn’t been to Trader Joe’s since before the pandemic and I’d forgotten what wonderful things they had. Anyhow, I got to the recital just as the nine year old finished playing. I guess even though she was half way down on the program, kids at this age play very short pieces. Well, there is always this spring.

Fun things this week:

People are starting to put their Christmas decorations up. I was walking a friend’s dog, and saw this in their neighborhood. It certainly checks a lot of boxes. The baby really liked this one – it feature two of her favorite things: “Bacca!” which is short for Chewbacca, which is what she calls anything Star Wars related. And “Soopy!”

-At the four year old’s school they have a “question of the day” and I love reading all the answers the kids have. Michael’s answer below struck me as hilarious in its unintentional surrealism:

What We Ate:

Saturday: Chinese takeout with friends.

Sunday: Turkey pot pie made from leftover turkey. I use this one hour vegan pot pie recipe, adapting it however I need.

Monday: Cauliflower Salad from America’s Test Kitchen Vegan for everyone.

Tuesday: Sweet potato and poblano tacos from Dinner Illustrated

Wednesday: Turkey soup made with Thanksgiving carcass.

Thursday: Take out from Dumpling House after our trip to the Seton Shrine.

Friday: Quesadillas and leftover soup before piano recital.

Weekly Recap+ what we ate: Miles to go before I sleep

Through a coincidence of scheduling, this week I had signed up each of the three kids for hiking programs with the county parks department. The weather was up and down all week – mostly down – so I was a little nervous they might be miserable. But I bundled the kids up and each excursion was quite fun. In terms of bundling, this year, I bought the older kids HeatTech underlayers from Uniqlo to layer under their clothes and they seem to be really happy wearing them. The baby has wool underwear hand me downs from the older kids. I also bought them all SmartWool socks when they were on sale last month. I’m hoping that between the underlayers and the winter coats, hats, gloves, and scarves, we will be well equipped for outdoor winter excursions.

The weekly forecast – quite a range of temps.

First up was the baby (okay, toddler) and a ramble through the woods. It was chilly, but we had fun. We looked under logs and found snails and beetles, and crunched through the fallen leaves, and enjoyed the fall colour and bare trees, and sat and had a snack on a pile of logs. The naturalist also pointed out ar eally cool tree that had really been two trees growing together, but one of the trees had fallen away, leaving some above ground roots like a scraggly wizard’s beard. I was utterly fascinated by the tangle of tentacles.

Discoveries in the woods.

At the end of the week was the nine year old’s turn. I had signed us up for a Full Moon Hike at one of our Nature Centers. The hike started at 7pm and actually wasn’t as cold as I had feared. Or maybe I was just overly bundled. The naturalist who led the hike was really enthusiastic and pointed out all sorts of ways for us to “observe” things on a hike using our sense of hearing. I was really surprised how bright the moon was – the only time we used flashlights was when the naturalist was doing a show and tell of some animal furs that she had brought along to illustrated the kinds of animals lived in the area.

The four year old’s chance came over the weekend, with a hike that the nature center called “Wild Child Hike”. The naturalist took the kids off the trail to find fallen trees and logs and rocks to climb and jump over and balance on. Some of the fallen trees feel in such a way that one end was wedged on other trees, creating tree trunk ramps that rose quite high off the ground. The four year old also spent much time just poking at termite soften stumps with a stick.

I was struck by how kids are happy to repeat actions without purpose or end point. The baby was at a toddler play group recently and there was a ball ramp toy that she played with endlessly, dropping ball after ball down the ramp and watching balls fall from one track to the other. Similarly with the four year old and his fierce stick poking and poking and slashing at rotten tree stumps. In Kieran Setiya’s Midlife he talks of telic and atelic activities – the former are things that you with with and end point in mind and the latter are activities without end points. He points to being able to engage in atelic activities as one of the keys to satisfaction in life. It occurred to me that this idea is one of those things that children have figured out, but which they lose the sense of as they grow up. Or perhaps they are taught that only telic activities have value. I feel like one of the luxuries of unemployment is being able to reconnect with the atelic activities in my life. It seems horribly self indulgent. But perhaps that’s the problem?

Something I Googled this week: “How to remove a doorknob with no screws”.

The baby has now figured out how to lock doors. Quite intentionally. This is a problem. She locked the door to the kids’ room this week. Twice. The second time, the nine year old managed to pop the lock with a butter knife. And that’s when we realized that it wasn’t a fluke and the baby was doing it on purpose. So we decided that the door knob had to come off. Only there were no visible screw by which to unscrew the door knob and remove it. Thank goodness for YouTube videos. It’s been a little strange to not have a doorknob. We will eventually replace it, but our house has these vintage (or retro, your pick) brass knobs with that irreplaceable patina of age and life, so, like many things with us, it might be a while before we figure out what we want to do.

Growing things:

I snapped a picture of this tree in the front yard of our first house. We are lucky enough that after we moved to our current house, we were able to rent out this house. Our first little house holds a lot of memories – we moved in right before we got married, had our rehearsal dinner there, brought two of our kids home from the hospital to this little yellow house… The Husband and I sometimes think we will move back there after the kids are grown and we need less space. This pear tree had been about half the size when we first moved in eleven years ago. It was a little sapling, almost haphazardly placed in the front yard. The Husband and I used to joke that the previous owners put it there to cover up a dead body, its presence was a little random bit of landscaping. Every spring the tree would explode with white blossoms and I would insist on taking pictures in front of it. We moved out of that house three years ago. This week when I was over doing some maintenance, I was struck by that feeling you get when you don’t see someone for a long time, and suddenly you see them and realize that they’ve been growing and flourishing while you weren’t there.

Growing siblings:

Usually the Husband picks up the kids after school, but I did the pick up run one day and decided to walk. It’s getting darker now – technically sundown comes just as the bus pulls up around 4:50pm. Even though the walk home is pretty short – less than half a mile – some days the walk is like herding cats. There is usually one kid who doesn’t want to walk, one kid who wants to explore every leaf and stick and one kid who is charging ahead. The other day, I was not in the mood for the walk to take 20 minutes, so I told the nine year old and the baby to hold hands. The nine year old, nose buried in her book, managed to hold her sister’s hand all the way home. I don’t know if it was the reading while walking, or the firm grasp on her sister’s hand, or the gorgeous winter sunset, but something about the whole scene made me want to burst with joy.

Speaking of heart bursting:

One morning, in the mad dash to get out the door and to school, I forgot something inside the house. I can’t remember what now. But I ran inside to grab it off the dining room table. And I looked up and something about the way the early winter sunlight streamed low and intense through the curtain just made me stop breathless. The room was bathed in this beautiful orange light, as if the curtain weren’t just cloth and thread, but the stained glass of a cathedral. And it didn’t matter, the half eaten cereal bowls and banana peels left on the table from breakfast, or the mismatched chairs, or the mess of papers… for that one moment, the dining room was the most perfect place in the world, and even though we were late and the morning was chaotic, I felt frozen, and I almost wept at the beauty of it.

Not the moment, but the same scene captured later in the day.

What We Ate:

Saturday: oooh can’t remember. It might have been leftovers.

Sunday: Leftovers. Grilled cheese Sandwiches for the kids.

Monday: Black bean soup and quesadillas.

Tuesday: Pearl Meatballs (pork meatballs covered with sticky rice), sauteed bok choy, and Breakfast at Shuko’s noodles (from Meera Sodha’s East). These noodes were pure saucy tasty comfort for me – udon noodles mixed with raw eggs and soy sauce. Sounds odd, but raw eggs and soy sauce is one of my favorite dipping sauces for hot pot, so it was actually a very nostalgic combination for me. Hot pot places don’t let you do the raw egg/soy sauce combo these days because of concerns of food safety, I guess.

Wednesday: Lentil Salad from America’s Test Kitchen’s Vegan for Everyone.

Thursday: The Husband cooked – breakfast sandwiches.

Friday: Bah Minh sandwiches take out. No movie tonight because of Full Moon Hike.