School!!

Ruby won the make-up debate and looked fabulous for her first day as Queen of the School.
There's a Dopp in every grade except 5th.


I feel like I've been caged in a zoo and PETA has just unlocked the front gate and swung it wide open.  YOU ARE FREE TO GO!  My kids probably feel the same way!  They all, except Freestone, were excited about their new teachers and their new outfits and the new year.  Freestone cried, his knee hurt and he claimed he didn't ever get what he wanted and never went school shopping and had mean parents.  He limped into second grade reluctantly, but I'm sure it turned out just fine.

Yep, everything is going to be just fine!

Round One

Golda left for 8th grade with all her supplies neatly organized and hardly any trepidation.  As an eighth grader, she knows the drill.  Work, work, work and don't take a breath 'til Christmas break.  Good luck, G!  Love ya!

Mother Teresa and Robert D. Hales' Tips for a Great School Year

This is what my goal is. (click)

Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary.  
What we need is to love without getting tired.

                                                            -Mother Teresa

This is what I'm going to keep in mind with school starting tomorrow.  I wish we could have school during the day, but summer, in all its lazy glory, in the evenings.  Alas, the school year comes with an intensity that plows summer out of the way with homework and endless obligations.  I can do it, with Mother Teresa's quote at the ready for all those moments when, after numerous reading charts, homework assignments and math worksheets have been completed, I just want the little people to GO TO BED!!  That's when I'm going to remember that if I can muster a little more patience, show a little more love, all of us will be that much happier.

Good luck in 2010-2011, friends...

Business Week

Scott goes on trips, business or otherwise, so infrequently that it's a big deal, and very exciting. He spent this past week in Logan for a prosecutor CLE. The kids were sad to see him go, and waved until he was out of sight. Xanthe said, as soon as he turned the corner, "It's no fun without Daddy!" The next morning, Ari woke up and asked me, "What time is it where Daddy is?" I think they pictured him someplace a lot more exotic than a town an hour away. I was glad Scott had the chance to go and take a break from the norm, and I was also a tiny bit thrilled about having all those late nights to myself with nobody to hog the remote or the ice cream! As much as I love my alone time, I did end up spending a fair amount of time texting Scott every night. I guess you could say I missed him!



I was so tempted to send Scott these pictures of the kids and their paint rollers, to give him a hint about what we were up to while he was in his classes, but I resisted. I wanted him to be surprised when he pulled into the garage and some of the ugly drywall was painted white. I didn't have time to do the whole garage, but it looks 100% better already, especially since I KSL'd a lot of stuff. (Yes, it's a new verb.) The garage is bare!


While we were at the pool Friday, Scott arrived home and set out gifts for everybody on the mantel. Scott just might be the best gift-giver in the world, and the kids were absolutely beside themselves when they saw the ring pops, soda cans, hotel amenities and new clothes. As fun as the gifts were, the best present of all was having Daddy back. He had missed us so much, he came to the pool with us and withstood an onslaught of adoring children mauling him like he was a rock star. I'm thankful he didn't drown! At one point, he had 3 or 4 kids on his shoulders and a couple more hanging onto his chest hair to stay afloat. He might think twice about going away for so long next time. Or maybe he'll just think twice about coming home!

Pictures for Laura

Laura, I love that picture of Nana and James!  He is such a wonderful guy, and a great violinist.  You're lucky to have such a perfect kid as your first for all the others to follow.  We had so much fun seeing you today and playing fiddles.  Glad James knows what he wants when it comes to violins.  We'll have to do it again, but next time, bring more kids!  We don't get to see you often enough, so any reason is a good one!  We love you guys.  Good luck with school!

It's (Not) What Fun Is!

It's just pouring rain out there today!  Not a good day for ice cream, so Ari and Xanthe painted Christmas trees on the cones.  And it's certainly not a good day for Lagoon (especially since we didn't get passes this year), so Freestone made a model of Ruby's favorite ride, Wicked.  I guess we're staying home dreaming about summer today.  If I can't go to the pool, at least I have a giant puddle in my driveway to remind me of it.

Yin and Yang and All That Jazz

 A few days ago, I was feeling like a humanoid with a thick piece of plexiglass between me and all the summery fun going on around me.  So I wrote this little diatribe:

The mountains have been so vibrant this summer.  The crickets have been exceptionally dramatic and the sky has been an ever-changing canvas of colors.  The air has been warm and deliciously balmy against my skin.  I know this, but I can't feel it.  There is some kind of a disconnect between me and the beauty that surrounds me.  I see it, but I can't get it into my head or my lungs.  When I look west over a misty sunset layered with impossible hues, I inhale the sweet evening air, turn my face to the clear sky and...nothing.  My heart doesn't swell, and it's supposed to swell.  I am grateful for the rocky mountain view that looms as I drive around town, but I am no longer edified by it.  I can't get enough inspiration into my soul to make me feel rejuvenated.  I dive into the pool, my senses engulfed by the fresh, chlorinated water, my head tingly with the refreshing cold, and I want to feel a surge of promise and adrenaline, a joie de vivre, but my face feels just fine in its expressionless state.  And besides, smiling would be such work.  I know it's my favorite season and I know I love it, but I can't remember how I decided that.  I'm frustrated at not being able to embrace the bounty of sunny days and fresh produce and cricket-filled evenings and pool days.  I love all this stuff, I know I do.  So why don't I love all this stuff?  I need my mojo back.

After an all-too-brief night's sleep last night, punctuated by puppy barks and baby cries, I woke up at 5:00, and...surprise!  My mojo was back!  Really, just like that.  I swear, it's been missing for most of the summer.   Now I'm thanking my lucky stars that I feel energized, right in time to start school with a vengeance.  My happiness was further inflated by a dozen doughnuts, courtesy of Jennie, who must have known that my mental tires have all been flat!  Thank you!  I took advantage of having all my energy back (maybe it was the sugar high?  I TRIED to share the doughnuts, I really did...)  by doing a zen project:  One hundred beautiful Ghirardelli chocolates wrapped in music and tied with ribbon.  Something about the music manuscript made me happy all day.  I think ripping up viola music was therapeutic.  Anyway, the chocolates turned out cute for the wedding shower of a talented pianist and good neighborhood friend. 

I wish I knew the recipe for feeling good all the time, but I think you have to learn to take the bad with the good.  Now, let the good times roll...

I Need Ideas!

Since Star refused to take a bath, Freestone used the suds himself.  Our entire front yard is extremely clean.  And soapy.

Meanwhile, I have a request.  I have been called as a Beehive advisor, which I'm really excited about!  As gung-ho as I am, however, I'm also pretty lazy.  So my plan is to beg, threaten and cajole all of my blogland friends to comment and give me all of your best ideas for Young Women activities.  (Laurel, I have already stolen some of yours, but keep 'em coming!)  Then, I'll just plug all of your ideas into the YW calendar.  See how easy that was?  OK, go.  Give me all of your ideas.  The Young Women will thank you later!!

Fashionist-o

It's official.  Back-to-school shopping is done, and everybody from Preston to Golda is outfitted and excited for the first day of school and beyond.  I am grateful to report that I had nothing to do with it.  It's all down to Scott, and with supplementary shopping trips, lunches out and wardrobe additions from Coco, who makes sure everyone feels prepared and fashionable.  One of her specialties is shoes, which are expensive, and that helps so much.  Thanks, Coco, for all the spoiling!

I know it's not fair that a girl like me landed a guy like Scott.  There are so many women out there who would kill to have a husband who loves shopping, and I never take advantage of it.  I don't deserve this fashionist-o!  But I do really, really appreciate him when school shopping comes around.  He has been setting aside funds and having the kids make lists of what they have and what they need.  He has been scouting for coupons and sales and planning and organizing all summer.  As of late, there have been several-to-many days out on the town, beginning with an excited kid or two jumping in the Caddy, list in hand.  After numerous shopping stops and a lunch or dinner at a fun place, Scott returns home exhausted, trailing a beaming Sherpa of a child, hauling in acquisitions to display on the couch.  My only job is to get home from the pool in time to see the fashion show.

One more week of the strange confluence of heaven and hell that is summer break, and then we're Back to School.  It's bittersweet, but one thing I know is that everyone will look great.  Thanks, Scott.

Monopoly

I used to play Monopoly all the time with my cousins, back before TiVo was invented.  I hated it.  I never made the right choices, never accrued tons of hotels and never won.  I don't know why I didn't get it.  I understand the premise:  buy, buy, buy.  Somehow, I always ended up as the proud owner of Mediterranean Avenue while my cousin Jon had skyscrapers on Park Place and Boardwalk.  I remember the feelings of frustration at the game as everyone's acquisitions mounted, but I spent time in jail.  I knew I should have done things differently, but I didn't know how.

Strangely enough, those Monopoly feelings surfaced in relationship to parenting today.  My thoughts mirrored the ones I felt on hot summer afternoons at age ten after too many hours of board games.  I wasted my time, I hate this game, I did it all wrong and I wish I could have done better.  I could have done better!  Except I never do.  In Monopoly, I never got it.  Now my kids are halfway grown up and I'm spinning my wheels, never getting better at the parenting thing.  I should have invested more time or figured out how to be a great mom before it got away from me.  Is it too late?  Could I still choose one of those Chance cards and be granted a second shot at it?  I would show more love, have more patience, feed them better food, do their hair with ribbons and straight parts more often, teach them to love reading like I do.  You know...be a safe haven as a mom, a person who shelters them from the storms and is always there to give them a cookie and a hug.  I'm afraid I'm more apt to give them a glass of water and a dismissal.  As Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis said, "If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much."

Monopoly doesn't matter.  I never have to be a winner at that.  But this matters, and I want to call do-overs.  I want to have hotels on Park Place and Boardwalk.