Memorial Day Guarantee

When a potato chip is folded over, do you call it a Wish Chip? I bit into a Wish Chip today and I couldn't think of a thing to wish for that I didn't already have. Being at Lagoon on "Lagoon Day," known to the rest of the country as Memorial Day, makes life pretty perfect. As far as perfect goes, this Lagoon Day was maybe one of the best! The weather was perfect, the food was plentiful, the kids were happy, and everyone was there. Zeljko and Jenn and their boys even came from Pocatello. Zeljko's first experience in this country was Lagoon Day, the day after her arrived here to stay with us from war-torn Yugoslavia. Major culture shock! In the eleven intervening years, he has become family, as have Jenn and the boys.

We arrived at Lagoon this morning well before the gates opened and reluctantly exited when it closed among the last hangers-on. Grandma has been going to Lagoon on Memorial Day since she was a little girl. Golda wistfully said tonight that Lagoon Day has changed since she was little. She said it used to be three little girls, Golda, Ruby and Lexie, with their hair done cute and matching outfits. Now it's 20 cousins, fear of rides and a term paper to do when she got home. I told her to imagine what changes Grandma has seen during all the years she has been celebrating this tradition. Through childhood, her teen-age years, marriage, raising kids away from home and driving hours to get to Lagoon, bringing her grown children and their families into the fold, and riding rides with grandchildren. Lagoon Day will change for Golda as she gets older. Sometimes life will close in on you and it will be all you can do to push it away and make room for a day off at Lagoon. But you will make room, because it's a family tradition. You may be too old for matching outfits, but you'll go to Lagoon. And waiting for you when you get there will be Chocolate Chews, Frog Eye Salad, a cooler full of drinks that aren't yours, but that you can have anyway, and people who love you. That's a guarantee. Grandma and Grandpa, thank-you for a safe haven that comes with roller coasters and ice cream. We love you so much!

Memorial Day 1983

My grandpa bill died on Memorial Day in 1983.  I was twelve, and my family was spending the weekend at Sherwood Hills, near Logan, when we got the news.  I remember it being surreal, unlike anything I had experienced, as we drove home in silence.  Driving, we saw the most remarkable thing:  a car with a license plate that said "TRAJAN," my brother's name.  On a regular day, we would have been beside ourselves marveling at the coincidence, but on this day, nobody said a thing.  Grief is no fun.  It's selfish and smothering, annihilating everything that is light and good, normal and right.

I missed my grandpa so much that day!  In the car on the way home, I thought about the last time I saw him.  It was in his driveway as we were leaving for our trip.  He gave me a hug.  My dad joked with Bill that he looked too thin.  They said good-bye and we drove away from Bill, with his fluffy white hair and loving wave.  As the oldest grandchild, I was in the unique position of perhaps understanding Bill's death a little bit better than the other kids.  I remember my brother Josh and my cousin Sarah tearfully fighting about whether it was really our grandpa in the casket.  My grandmother Golda kept repeating the story of Bill's death over and over.  "He didn't wake up, and I let him sleep.  Finally I went to check on him and he was gone."  Interestingly, I was hyper-vigilant about detecting weight loss in anyone I loved for awhile after that.  I thought it might be a precursor to death.

When the funeral was over, I still missed Bill.  All the time.  That summer, Memorial Day stretched out to the last days of August.  We went to the cemetery often, dragging our feet through the wet grass, brushing bugs off the tombstone, getting Slurpees with my aunt on the way home in the sad twilight of another day without Bill.  That is the most surprising thing about death, that the sorrow isn't something that you get through.  It's something that you adopt and find a place for in your heart.  You make room for it.  It changes with time, but it is a permanent resident once it finds you. 

I will see my grandpa again.  For now, I can smile as I miss him because I knew him while he was here.  I saw him almost every day.  He loved me and always kept up on exactly what I was doing.  All my grandparents did.  His death left a vacuum, but one that I have been able to slowly replace with good memories.  My grandpa's gift to me, though I didn't know it at the time, was showing his love for and pride in his family enough times and in enough ways to last us until we meet again.  He got it right.  He got it all right.

The Graduate

When Xanthe asked me this morning if it was "school today," I said, "No, you never have preschool ever again."  She's a graduate!  Mr. and Mrs. Young's empire of 65 students put on a delightful show last night.  It was so much fun to see so many of Xanthe's friends in the group!  Xanthe prepared for it for weeks, going over various instructions like, "We're going to sing really loud," and "We know all the words."  She even mentally rehearsed eating the popsicle afterwards.  Many times, she told me, "We're going to get a popsicle and it's going to be like an Otter Pop and there will be scissors and we'll cut the top so I can eat it like this!"  Followed, of course, by a pantomime of eating a popsicle.  I'm not sure she sang particularly loudly, but she did a stellar job of eating that popsicle, just like she practiced.  For graduation, Coco and Bill gave Xanthe a doll named Mei Ling.  Mei Ling had to wait in the car during the graduation program so Xanthe would have her hands free to do the actions to the songs, but she has been everywhere else.  She is a beautiful doll, just like our little graduate.

Thank you very much to Grandma, Aunt Nikki, Coco and Bill and Josh and Emily for coming.  I know some of you were there to see Esmae, but still!  :)  Esmae and Eli and Emi, Hazel, Landon, Nancy, Sarah and the others, you were great!  Go out there and conquer the world.  Or just kindergarten.

First Grade Firsts

We have learned a lot about Freestone this school year.  We learned that he is quietly defiant when faced with an idea he doesn't like or a task that seems too difficult.  At the beginning of the school year, he took a timed test where he had to say the sounds the letters make.  He got to the letter O and couldn't decide what sound it makes.  So he just stood there while the time ran out and failed the test.  As a result, he got placed on a kindergarten reading level and qualified for "Reading Club."  He loved it!  He loves reading in general.  His confidence, combined with my insecurity (Is my kid dumb?!?) led to Freestone reading a TON at home.  He went from Set One (which, incidentally, we had gone through at home in kindergarten) to the end of Set Six before he "retired."  That's 125 books that he brought home and read, a lot of which had 40 or 50 pages.  He went from reading 16 wpm in September to 90 wpm in April.  Wow!  Now Free is obsessed with Dav Pilkey books.  Scott brings them home from the library and Freestone devours them.  We usually put him to bed with a book at 8:00.  (The rule is that you can stay up as long as you want if you're reading in bed.)  Often, he comes wandering upstairs with a dopey look on his face at 10:30, long after we've forgotten he was reading, triumphantly holding a book.  He'll say sleepily, "I'm finished!"

Besides reading in English this year, the first graders have also learned to read in French.  I have been very impressed with the French program.  Freestone sings French songs and says things in French all the time.  He learned math in French and writes his 1's the European way.  It's so cute!  One week, his homework said, "My favorite place is France.  I like France because I am lrning French.  I am lrning French because my mom sind me up.  I'm going to France when I'm ten."

He keeps insisting that his Ten-Year-Old trip is going to be to Paris instead of San Francisco.  He's wrong, but he will persist.  Sometimes his persistence works.  Every day for two weeks, he asked me after school if I had bought "his pear tree" yet.  Finally, I did go and buy a pear tree because Freestone's disappointment was so acute every time he ran home and there was no pear tree.  I told him that the pear tree was for him, to remind him how proud Daddy and I are of him for working so hard in first grade.  He checks it every day for fruit.  Mother Nature can't be persuaded to answer to Freestone's desires as easily as his mom, so he'll probably have to wait for those pears.

In the meantime, he can work on all the new endeavors he started in first grade.  He began playing the violin in January, and is doing very well.  His teacher (me) is learning a myriad of ways to conform her teaching method to Freestone's stubborn personality.  When he feels like swinging or hitting something, he can now go outside and practice baseball instead of swinging the violin.  His team is the Rangers, and it is a blast to watch!  All the "cool" kids are on the team;  Collin, Jackson, Chase, Tanner and Henry, to name a few, so there are plenty of players to cheer for.  The first game, Free hit the ball and proceeded to run the bases, regardless of the fact that he was out.  He even lapped the boys who were on second and third base, sliding in for a homer.  After, I said, "So, Free, you hit the ball!"  He said, "I HAD to so I could run around the bases."  Duh!  Now he realizes that hitting the ball isn't a free pass for a home run.

Despite all the interesting things Free has done this year, and all the new things he has learned, if you did an x-ray of his brain, you would see World Eight of Super Mario Brothers.  He LOVES video games.  No, that's not it.  He LIVES for video games.  The kid, like all the other boys going through this stage, is amazing at figuring out video games.  Amazing!  Far from causing him to zone out in front of a screen, these games challenge him, make him think, help him bond with friends and give him an outlet for mental energy.  I am a fan as much as Free is.

And that's Freestone's world in a minute.  It's a wonderful little six-year-old planet, and I'm thrilled that it's part of our universe.

I Believe in Magic

"Mom, I want to pull out my tooth so the Easter Bunny will leave me a present under my pillow."


It's good to be five.

Ground Rules

Oops!  Ptolemy fell into a big puddle while he was gardening.  The ground was yummy!  Which reminds me, it's time to lay down some ground rules for summer.  All you kids out there, I hope you're ready for some fun!  If you're coming to my house to play, and I hope you are, let me tell you what to expect.

First, do not count on eye contact, or other acknowledgment that you are here, from me.  My sole job is to provide a venue for fun, and occasional snacks.  If you have a story to tell, tell it to someone under four feet tall.  I will be busy doing my "homework."  It may look like I'm reading a novel, and it may look like I have peanut M&M's hidden under my picnic blanket.  I'm not and I don't.

You can paint, make paste, do Play-Doh, or use grocery items for science experiments, as long as you can stick with it long enough to justify the mess.  Like three hours.

If your mom asks you why you played outside the whole time, the correct answer is, "Because nature is full of wonders."  Not:  "Because Ari's mom locked us out."

If we're at the park and I say, "Get in the car," GET in the car.  I will leave you.  (You might want to bring a 72-hour kit, just in case.)

Snacks are generally limited to carrots, peanut butter sandwiches, questionable grapes and water from the hose.  If there is anything yummy to eat, you won't be able to find it.  I'll tell you a secret, though.  If you're nice (and I'm out of caffeine) I might take you to get ice cream or a Slurpee!

Lastly, if you go home looking like Ptolemy after a day of gardening, my job is done.  Now all we have to do is convince your mom that you are soaking wet and covered in dirt because you had fun, not due to negligence.  That's our story.  And hopefully, a true story.

Four Years!

Xanthe's very first friend, Libby Mei, came to visit and get a new violin. Libby Mei was Xanthe's room mate for a year. They knew each other before we knew them!

Coco and Xanthe talking about Xanthe's Family Day and looking at the scrapbook.


You would think that Xanthe's Gotcha Day, or Family Day, as it's now called, would be a date emblazoned on my heart, but I can't remember what it is!  It was either May 22 or May 23, 2006, that we caught our first glimpse of our daughter.  Our group of eight couples traveled on a bus from our hotel to the Changsha city offices.  We got off the bus and took an elevator upstairs.  We had heard stories of parents who had to wait hours for their babies to arrive, so it was a shocking surprise, like being hit with a bucket of ice cold water, when we saw our babies all lined up, sitting on their nannies' laps.  There was a collective gasp from all of us who spotted the group of babies.  I knew right away which one of the eight identically dressed babies was Xanthe, but I didn't want to think about that, for fear I was wrong.  We were ushered into a room separate from the baby group, where one baby at a time was brought in.  It's all so hazy, the details.  I think Xanthe was first.  Her nanny wasn't there, so she was handed to us by the orphanage director.  He called her You-You, her nickname.  She was very quiet, staring at us and grabbing Scott's glasses.  Later, her expression was extremely worried, and she kept grabbing her ear, but at first, she was just in shock. The poor little thing must have been so traumatized.  Scott and I, we were in heaven!

It has been four years since then, and I could write for hours about the intense joys and challenges of adoption and Xanthe in particular.  She is one tenacious, willful, intense, demanding and spicy little thing.  One of my friends who has a Chinese daughter Xanthe's age said, "I just wish sometimes that they could be a little bit...less of a presence!"  Exactly!!  If Xanthe is in the car, it is a constant barrage of instructions from her about how loud or soft she wants the music or how much she wants the window rolled down or up or how hungry or thirsty she is, depending on what fast food signs she sees out the window.  If a song ends on the CD, she launches a tantrum that lasts until the next song starts.  This child does not rest.  At home, the less attention she gets, the more obnoxious she is.  That means nobody's practicing goes uninterrupted and no task is completed without having to cater to Xanthe right in the middle of it.  Punishment makes her very clever about coming up with new ways to be loud and disruptive, so I have to choose very wisely whether I want someone sitting on the naughty step moaning and kicking the wall or whether I want to hurry and fix Xanthe another bowl of cereal, even though I'm doing something else.

And then there's the night time, which has gotten a LOT better since Xanthe was a baby.  Now, she only wakes me up once.  Last night it was because her leg was itchy.  Where she gets the fortitude to drag herself out of bed in the middle of the night, every night, to report to me about an itchy leg or crooked covers or missing toy, I don't know.  But she is very diligent about it.  And very diligent about being the first one up in the morning, tapping me on the forehead and announcing which two kids of cereal she wants, and in what bowl.

That first day we met Xanthe, she was perfectly quiet.  We thought we had the best baby in the world.  We were wrong.  Oh boy, were we wrong.  Yes, we did get the absolute spiciest and most stubborn baby in China, but she is also perfect.  She, with all her opinions and instructions, belongs right here in our family. Without her, there would be a huge, gaping black hole of emptiness.  And quiet.  :)  Seriously, I can't imagine "us" without Xanthe.  So glad we have you, little You-you!