Nathan was texting ("texting") with Uncle Nick and found out they were taking Ali to one of the indoor city pools, and talked his (our) way into joining them, and so suddenly in the middle of an icy cold week we got all swimmy and had a fun afternoon.
And I daresay I haven't seen a cousin so adored in... maybe ever. They see her every day. And yet.
We have had a spell of trecherous* weather that has resulted in like nine days of missed school, and they haven't officially announced how/when we will make it up, but I'm assuming we just enjoyed our "spring break" of sorts (fine by me, we have no spring break plans over actual spring break, we are taking ours later anyway to go to the beach with my dad like we do every year).
(*The NC version of trecherous = some legit snow, some legit ice, and a lot of days - A LOT of days - waiting for all the icy patches to melt on even the smallest of shady no-light back roads, so the buses can safely drive, because we ain't got no snowplows, etc etc etc.)
The first day it snowed, the kids wanted nothing to do with it. They stood inside and watched it and were glad for a day off school, but I couldn't even beg them into the yard to play. I think they were traumatized. Their last snow experience was something else. (It was a sheet of ice and no fun for playing that day anyway, not that it stopped everyone else in the county, according to my instagram feed.)
Once we had some real snow, I went out and walked around in it (enchanted like a proper southerner) and eventually the kids joined me.
Some pictures of the snow, because it's still novel enough (or so we claim? even though it has happened several years in a row now?) that it warrants photographing.
Our backyard:
Across our front yard, at the last snow which was really heavy and wet:
By the time Mark and the kids were building a snowman in the front yard, it was super warm out and Mark was in a t-shirt. Yes, it took baring the grass to get enough snow for even that tiny snowman. This is... so North Carolina:
Snow selfie:
Also, find me something more delightful than a five-year-old who is delighted by swinging in the snow. Go ahead. Find it. (It doesn't exist. This is the most delightful.)
Oh! And! I bought new snow boots back in the fall (for no good reason, they were just there at TJ Maxx and impossibly cute) and I was not ashamed about feeling glad for an excuse to wear them.
In related news, I had a whole rant ready about how annoyed I am at moms (parents) (but mostly I see moms) who complain about having their kids home for days on end. I mean, yes, I get it. We all get stir crazy. Especially when the roads really aren't safe. (I'm not taking chances with that again.) But! There are people who have to miss work when their kids miss school, and therefore miss pay when their kids miss school, and some of those are the same people who need their kids at school for free and reduced lunches, and backpack buddies for weekend groceries, and the like. Having extra mouths to feed for extra meals a day when you're suddenly with a lower paycheck? Sucks. But those are not the people who I see complaining online, it's the white rich ladies and I just want them to shut up, or do it with nuance, or something, Everyone has feelings and I get that, but. Don't be gross. Don't be a dick. That's all.
(This is the short version of my rant because it's snowing and I am still enchanted.)
(Also I've been getting to sleep later, because no school! And Ali hasn't been coming since her parents are off work. And sleeping til 8 makes me a better mom, TRUE STORY. Thanks, snow.)
So today is Presidents Day, except not really, because Nathan has school. Except not really, because I didn't make him go, because I told him it was a holiday (I thought it was! my calendar said so! my calendar doesn't lie! except this one time) and the girls are out of school, and it's supposed to snow/ice tomorrow which means we will be out of school all week anyway, and what's the point of going for just one day? There is no lasting education happening (that won't need to be repeated) in a one-day week. Anyway, I decided to let him stay home and make the most of my mistake.
And that's the story of why Presidents Day isn't Presidents Day this year. Which is... not a story.
But what we did do with our Presidents Day non-holiday is go... ice skating. I KNOW. MY KIDS. I KNOW. But we tried for a trampoline jump place and they were closed, and ice skating was next door, so we tried something new.
Well, the girls did. Nathan wanted none of it. Although he did take some pictures for us. So, thanks for that, grumpy gus?
Charlotte mostly wanted to hold my hands (ask me what makes ME unsteady on skates? a three-year old hanging on me, that's what) but Anneliese got braver and braver and was off in the middle of the rink, pushing around the stacks of buckets they had on hand for young kids. Really cute, and she was so proud. She is asking for ice skating lessons now. Cute.
And then Nathan and Anneliese had been asking for Chinese food (I don't even know) and since I am the kind of lady who loves a Chinese buffet, we had planned a buffet date for the "school holiday" (remember that thing about how I didn't remember it was a holiday, so).
Y'all, they loved it. My picky eaters tried all kinds of new things, they made lists of what they loved and didn't love, they went back for seconds, we had dessert, we left full and happy and it was the most random thing but also delightful.
So we celebrated President's Day by trying ice skating for the first time, and then pigging out with picky eaters at a Chinese buffet. Anything else would have been unamerican, amiright?
Charlotte is three and a half, and I was all ready to say what she's up to these days but first - can I just say, three looks SO MUCH BETTER on her than it did on her siblings? Three was awful with Nathan, awfuler with Anneliese, and last summer when Charlotte started showing signs of the dreaded Threenager, I was both dreading it and ready for it.
Dreading because it sucks, and ready because I'm a seasoned mom now, and I know two very important things about Age Three:
1.) It is a phase. Threeness is not an indicator of future good citizenship. She is not being ruined forever by my inability to parent her well, and anyway -
2.) IT'S HER, NOT ME. Whatever three is, it's on her. And it will pass.
Aside: my dad once told me that the best parenting advice he could really give to anyone, with kids at any age, it is this: JUST WAIT. Be patient. Almost everything passes. Even if hard things drag on for very long seasons, just keep loving them, don't give up on them or yourself, just wait. I have decided that's really good advice.) (He knows what he's talking about, he had some rough teenager years (side eye: a Certain Brother Who Shall Remain Nameless).
Anyway, after the whole IT'S HER, NOT ME mantra of dealing with little Charlotte Booler, my third three-year-old, well, it turns out... she's fine. All of those months of Brace For Impact were notsomuch needed.
I mean, she has her moments. She's had a few epic tantrums, usually when someone comes or goes out of our driveway and doesn't wave to her (side-eye: Daddy at 6am on the way to work). She is sometimes shrieky, and often slower than Christmas, both of which make me batty. But! She isn't nearly as three as the others were, or maybe she just isn't there yet, or maybe I just getting better at not internalizing threeness as a parenting failure. (I'M DOING IT. I'M BREEZY.) But whatever is happening, it's easier.
So besides being sunshine with a sometimes side of storms, the most important thing about Charlotte these days is that she is talking so much better. Speech therapy is a dream. She thinks it's fun and games, it's not social-worker-stressful for me, and it's working. She rarely stutters now, unless she's really frustrated. We no longer need to rank her days on a speech scale of 1-5, and she is full of cute opinions she can actually voice, and those adorable things that all three-year-olds say in their own funny three-year-old ways:
Instead of singing her ABC's, she sings the EFG song.
PJs are pee-tays.
Nightgowns are nightdowns.
Her window: mynindow!
When she has an opinion to declare: I pronounce you... not sharing!
When she's finished something she's proud of: ta-done!
When she needs something: can you help with me?
Her blanket is and remains bank-o-link.
When you ask her a question she isn't sure of: singsong voice i-ah know...?
Her life motto with two older siblings: wait fo me!
Her life fear, being left behind: don' weeve me!
She told me recently that she saw a bear in the backyard. A bear! (There is a Bumgarner family legend about my brother seeing a bear in the hall; it was a mouse.) I have no idea what Charlotte really saw. But she told me in all earnestness that it was a bear, and answered detailed questions about it, and opted to play inside after that in case it came back, and all I could do was clap proudly and say EXCELLENT TALKING, BABY BOOLER.
Speaking of imagination, she and I told a story today, doing that thing you do with your kids where you take turns telling one part at a time, making it up as we go. And it turned out to be about a mom who can climb trees, and in the backyard she found a house of fairy ballerinas in a tiny treetop house. Their favorite food is strawberry spaghetti, and their favorite thing to do is to dance on top of the water in the pool when no one is looking.
She should write a book, is what I'm saying.
She told me last week she was "beautiful like mommy" and then my heart
burst into a million tiny hearts and flew all around in a happy cloud, forever.
Here is Charlotte telling us she's three and a half.
She is eating a cupcake that we picked out at the grocery store for her. We decided if a Booler was ever made into a cartoon character, it might look something like that cupcake.
We have officially survived a sicker sick week than the horrible Sicksgiving of 2012.
First, Anneliese got pinkeye.
Two days later, Ali got the pinkeye. And a cold.
One day later, Charlotte got the cold.
Two days after that, Anneliese had a random one-time vom. We disregarded it because we are fools.
(Also because it was a horrible week for our community, burying one of our former youth choir girls, who lost her life to depression. It was tragic and gut-wrenching and we had way bigger things on our mind than assuming we had a g/i bug floating through our house on top of everything else. And yet, we did.)
That same afternoon, on top of her cold, Ali also started throwing up (she was home with her mom, because of the funeral), and the next day the voms hit Mark too, all night. I banished him to the guest house, because obviously. He slept for a whole day afterwards.
Two days after that, Charlotte got pinkeye, and a fever, and it turns out her cold had moved to an ear infection. Our first, after seven years and three kids (well, except swimmers ear).
That night, Nathan felt queasy, and by morning was throwing up. He kept at it all day, every fifteen to twenty minutes, constantly. I have never seen anyone throw up so much. It was like... fifteen hours of vomiting.
Meanwhile Ali and Charlotte still both had fevers, and Anneliese was as crabby as I have seen her in months, even though she seemed to have already made it through all the sicks.
By bedtime when Nathan's thing still hadn't run its course, he could barely stand, and couldn't pee, so we called his doctor and they sent us to the ER for fluids and zofran.
They tried the dissolvable zofran first and he promptly threw it up, everywhere. All over the triage area. It was so sad, y'all.
Eventually they got an IV in him and he got some fluids and some zofran and he slept for a spell, and dang he woke up a whole different kid.
Amusing anecdote from the hospital: when Nathan was awake and comfortable enough to talk to the doctors, one of them asked what the best book had read recently was. He told them a biography of J.K. Rowling.
"Oh, so you're a big Harry Potter fan?"
"No I have never read them, I just really like biographies."
(Picture me making the cry-laughing emoji face right here. Haaaaaa. So Nathan.)
Anyway we got home and slept hard, and the next morning, Mark woke up with pinkeye, AND THAT IS WHEN I LOST IT.
It was a very long ten days. I cried.
But! Brightsiding! In between Charlotte's ear infection appointment, and Nathan's never-ending upsturned stomach, we did have some half-birthday cake for him. Also, Charlotte never threw up. I never threw up. I never got pinkeye. I never had more than a bit of congestion. So if any of you want to know my superpower, it is apparently Immune System of Steel.
(Does not apply to mono.) (Or pleurisy.)
(Okay nvm I have odd sickies too, but NOT THIS WEEK UNIVERSE SO KISS IT.)
It's groundhog day, the snow days will never end, winter will never end, we are coming off a week when everyone is sick, so much fever and pinkeye and vomming and ear infections and and and AND.
That's a mess for another day. For today, tell me that even in my pure unfiltered* exhaustion, my new glasses are pretty.
Yes, I waited til I had a good hair day to take this pic.
My old lady eyes have new progressive lenses, and they are basically the sh!t because:
1- I can see everything now, including my phone screen! and food!
2- They are teal on the inside.
(When my eye doctor asked if I was having any trouble with my glasses, I joked and answered my only problem was that I lost them all the time. He was like... how do you lose them when they should be on your face? Do you take them off? Me: HA HA YES x1000 per day. Him: Like to eat and read and look at your phone and computer? Me: omg yes and now I feel really foolish for not realizing my perscription is indeed woefully wrong.)
Anyway, that's the story of how I can see my computer again. Maybe I shall be better at blogging catchup? One can hope.
(*I just lied straight to your face, there is an instagram filter allll up on that.)
What did you do in 2014 that you'd never done before? - Got mono, at the age of 33, which is unheard of. - Wrangled four kids at once, on the reg. - Read books on a kindle, on the reg. - Drove across the country for three days with my best friend, which is a thing I will recommend anyone do. - Abandoned the car in the snow and walked with three kids to safety, which is a thing I do not recommend. Did you keep last year's resolutions, and will you make more for this year? I am fairly certain I never made them last year. This year, I would like to get a real job again, I think. How did you spend New Year's Eve? I juuuust blogged about NYE so I am changing the question. I just asked Anneliese what she would ask someone about their year and she said What's your favorite thing you ate? (She would like you to know hers was "that spaghetti Daddy makes for me, and also when I had that piece of gum that one time.") I... don't know what mine is. I did have some amaaaahzing, like, close-your-eyes-and-moan-good roasted brussels sprouts with chestnuts and pork belly and apples and a mustard vinaigrette on New Year's Eve, so maybe that? (And, we're back to NYE after all. So.) What did you get really really excited about? Our cruise! After a horrible mono-sick spring, and job stresses, and a million details nailed down for childcare and such, we got a grownups-only trip to the Bahamas. Cruises are easy and cheesy and delightful, for real.
What do you wish you'd done more of in 2014? Sleeping. I remain a terrible sleeper. A sleep failure. Full stop. What do you wish you'd done less of? Losing my glasses. It made me cry more times per week than I should admit. Eeeiiii. What would you like to have in 2015 that you lacked in 2014? A sun lamp for my desk. Also, more time to sit at my desk. And blog, and read blogs, and send emails, and have general me time. It's everyone's dream right? What was great this year when you weren't expecting it? Our Great American BFF Road Trip, to move Nathan to Minnesota and say good-bye. It could have been stressy and bickery and exhausting; on some level I was ready for it to be that, yet glad to go and help anyway. But instead it was wonderful and delightful and fun and bonding. Like one of the best things we have ever done, not just this year but ever.
Who is the best new person you met? Ali! Sweet baby Ali! Of course!
What song will always remind you of 2014? Shake it Off and also Let it Go. Also, Anneliese's horribly (delightfully) misinterpreted lyrics to both of those. (Prayers gonna pray y'all.)
Where did most of your money go? Like always - mortgage, taxes, school tuition, and this year more travel than in recent years. What was the best thing you bought? A new wedding ring. Slash engagement ring. Slash anniversary band. I left mine on our cruise ship and after a small fortune in ship-to-shore calls, and a police report, a report with the cruise line, phone calls to pawn shops in Port Canaveral and Nassau, and six months of crying, it never turned up. I felt (feel) awful even thinking about it. I know it's just a Thing but it's a special thing, from a hugely special moment in my life, and no other thing will ever be that ring, that re-set stone that was my great grandmother's, bonded to that band that Mark put on my hand on our wedding day. But. I sadly took the insurance money, and Mark and I found one that he loved and I loved. It feels a bit like a solitaire and a bit like an anniversary band and it's set in rose gold, and... I do love it. After months with no ring, I am glad to have this one. Especially with the kind words and wonderful promises from Mark that came attached to it, even now, eleven years after our wedding. It is special too.
Whose behavior merited celebration? My dad, who retired from teaching this year. He has worked in the corporate world, and the military, and has been an entrepreneur with his own small business, but I think of his many careers, teaching is what he loved best. His students loved him, and he was damn good at it. We are proud of him. And! He remains a stand-up Grandpa.
(Also, Anneliese deserves celebrating. She was my answer last year too, but she is just really in a delightful stage. Five forever!) (Ages three and seven are getting the side-eye from me today.) Whose behavior appalled you? Baby Ali on dairy. My word, child. So much screaming. (Ali without dairy = best niece evaaaar. But on dairy? Appalling. I can say that now because it's over, but. Yeah. Picture my wide eyes.) Also, people who use leaf blowers, for any reason, ever. Just no.
Who did you miss? Another Nathan, so freaking much. Especially Tuesday nights.
What was your favorite show? I finally got on board and watched both seasons of Orange is the New Black this year. Also, Mark and I loved Parenthood and watched it religiously until the end (*moment of silence for perfect Braverman series finale*). But besides that and The Mindy Project, I... don't watch very much tv anymore? I still love tv, in theory, I just, I think I like the quiet more. (Mark watches all kinds of things, increasingly with headphones plugged into the roku remote, because see again: quiet.) What was your favorite book? I apparently only gave 5-star ratings to six books last year. Of those, I think my favorites were The One & Only Ivan (read that one with your kids! it's a good first chapter book!) and The Fault in Our Stars, because I am very mainstream and predictable, and also it was really dang good. What was your favorite new movie? Frozen. (It wasn't new in 2014 but we didn't see it til the new year so it was new to us. And yes I unabashedly love it.)
How old were you on your birthday, and what did you do? I was (am) 34, I went for a really fun and delicious Asian seafood dinner with Mark in Chapel Hill, and we shopped for that new wedding band. It was a lovely wonderful night after a hard season of heavy feelings, and I felt really special and close to him. It was a good birthday.
What was your biggest achievement in 2014? Being the best moving boss ever? (WHAT. I WAS.) Also successfully turning Anneliese into Rainbow Brite, twenty years late. Your biggest failure? I majorly let down the kids last summer, and myself, and our dreams for the school break. I just had no bandwidth for the fun bucket list items we had planned. I was sad as it happened, sad when it was over, and still sad now. This year will be better. Anneliese is starting kindergarten and I will start back to work at some point, and this summer is a summer for us. I feel fired-up protective of having some family fun. Also, that snow adventure thing. We should probably put that in the Fail for The Ages column too. What countries/states did you visit? The Bahamas, on our cruise. (Also Georgia and Florida, driving to the port.) Also we went to Virginia/Maryland/DC with the kids in October, and I hit several new-to-me states on our great American road trip: Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota (and West Virginia, Ohio and Illinois which were not new). How would you describe your personal fashion concept this year? Have you showered today? Good for you! Yes! And learned how to make my hair wavy! (It was apparently already wavy, I just didn't know.) Does that count as a fashion concept? If so, I could undo that strikethrough.
What dates from 2013 will remain etched in your memory? - February 12, the snow adventure. - March 7, when Mark accepted his new job. - March 13, when Ali was born. - April 6, when we sang a beautiful Bach cantata that we worked super hard on, and then Charlotte fell down the stairs and I had to take her to get her face stitched up (when I was horribly fever sick with mono, and Mark was on the last shift of his old job, and Another Nathan was at an interview for a new job himself, and whoa that evening was a perfect storm, a microcosm of all of the angst of that season, April 6 you can GDIAF, except for the Bach thing). - April 28, when our cruise departed. - July 27, Another Nathan's last Sunday at our church. - August 4, the date of my one-way plane ticket back to Raleigh after a horribly sad goodbye.
What kept you sane? Hmmm... iMessage? I don't know. Am I sane? I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer this question. What valuable lesson did you learn this year? And I am definitely not qualified to answer this one. I don't think I have have any good takeaways. Last year was mostly (not all! but a fair amount) sucky for me. Spring and summer were a haze of sickness and angst and newborn crying and a long goodbye. Fall was colored by a rough marriage season, and struggling to communicate with Charlotte and her sudden stuttering. There were so many hard things, and so many of them were things that I couldn't heal or fix, exactly, besides just riding them out. Maybe if I learned a lesson, it's that *feeling better isn't linear, and sometimes you just have to let hard things be hard, until they pass. Which they usually do. And then it can be okay again. Anyway. Onward and upward! Etc etc. *Thanks Sarah. #kissyface
Nathan is seven and a half. SEVEN AND A HALF. (I keep waiting for the age that won't give me all-caps wide eyes, but we haven't hit it yet.)
My sister pointed out this week that being seven and a half means he's halfway to driver's ed. (I told her to shut her damn* mouth, because obviously.) (*I used a different word.) (Not a better one.) (Not the one you're thinking though.) (I digress.) (Parentheses!)
Anyway, he is growing up and I'm trying not to do any mom math in my head or I will realize it's all going to fast, and I will panic. So instead I will just think about the here and now. So, some things about Now:
Nathan is growing, yet ever-smaller for his age, still wearing mostly size 6 clothes (the same as Anneliese!) but he is suddenly eating everything in sight, and asking for more, and he ordered a Korean steak taco at the smoothie place the other day, and I don't even know who he is anymore, is what I'm saying.
No, no. What I am saying is I think we are expecting a growth spurt any minute now, and maybe he won't be the smallest in his class forever. (Or maybe he will. He is also one of the very youngest. Mark was also the youngest and the smallest, so... it could happen.)
He is very into planes and ships and designing and building lego vehicles of any kind - flying and sailing and driving alike. He will read fiction with some coaxing, but mostly he reads biography after biography, even of people he has never heard of. (What?) He watches video footage about aviation and what causes plane crashes, and seems undisturbed, yet won't watch the Little Mermaid because Ursula terrifies him (see also: the first five minutes of Tangled).
He loves whales and space and geography - asking questions about countries and languages and poring over the giant world map on his ceiling (yes really) and the world atlas book my dad gave him for Christmas. (If you know my dad, that's the least shocking sentence in the history of ever.)
He and Anneliese remain best buddies, and he is jealous for her attention when she and Charlotte are feeling particularly chummy on a given day. He does his running club at school on Friday mornings, and is fast, but besides that he isn't super into sports. He sings in children's choir at church (a solid fifth-ish below everyone else, not that it matters) and still plays his cello, better and better all the time. He is a baby hoarder, squirreling away bits of paper, and pieces of toys and random... stuff that he thinks he might want to build something with.
(The other day he told me he was bored -- well, he started to, and then I reminded him if he says he is bored I will find some extra chores for him to do -- and so he went in the recycling bin and got this starbucks cup and built... a boat? I think? THIS IS SO NATHAN, Y'ALL.)
He is a kid who wavers between extreme chattiness, and not knowing how to say what he wants to say. He writes and draws a lot.
Here is some information about the Queen Mary 2. (Why, what does your seven-year-old obsess over?) You can choose whether you like or don't like the information. Complete with a hand-drawn thumbs-up, because he is a Child Of The Era. (I always circle "like." Duh.)
His obsession with this ship oddly makes me miss my Grandpa Schnack. They would have had so much fun being boring together. Truly. Grandpa would have delighted in him.
Here is a Japanese battleship, complete with WWII-era Japanese naval flag (?) (we are fully living in the age of when our kid knows more than we do about the stuff he's interested in).
And yes that's me on top, sitting on a lounge chair, reading a book. I mean... at least I get to go to war? (What does this say about what he thinks of me?)
He is known to bring random notes downstairs to us, that sometimes do or don't make any sense.
He also has an old phone of Mark's, which he can use when he asks permission. He has had a gmail account for several years, and he uses the chat app to "text" people which is usually pretty cute.
Well, usually pretty cute. Not always.
And sometimes just super exciting, as Mark is learning.
And sometimes really legitimately adorable.
And yes, like every other kid his age, he is into Minecraft (thanks Uncle John) (no really, it's fine -- cute, even) and he not only plays the game, but watches other people playing the game on YouTube. AND watches all manner of toy review and project/craft videos, and then got the harebrained idea that he should... do one himself?
So many questions. Is where/how to get that template not an important part of the instructions? Why not color the eyes before folding it? And WHY SO MUCH TAPE FOR THE LOVE. (He could use some time-lapse here also.)
(Please know, he is so proud of this. Really super duper pleased.)
(This all happened with Mark's help one night while I was at choir. I came home and it tickled me so much I cried.)
My child! Who spent years staring at adults, mute, when they asked him something. Who even now hates when people watch him or call attention to him or even laugh at his jokes... wants his own YouTube channel? Talks to the camera as if it's the most normal serious thing in the world? I don't even know, y'all.
Growing up. It's weird.
Happy half birthday, you quirky bright sweet wonderful child.
1.) Remember that doll we got Charlotte for Christmas, which she named Claire (her middle name) (so cute) (swoon etc)? Well, this is the part where I confess that the best part of having this doll around is that sometimes Charlotte needs help putting its PJs on and then I get to have to do it. You know. For Charlotte. *ahem*
(Hi I'm 34 and I still secretly like playing with dolls and I'm not even that sorry.)
2.) Mark and I got each other new back doors for Christmas, and no that's not a euphemism, they are actual back doors. (When you're a Bumgarner and you tell your family this is what you got for Christmas, it is a joke that never ends.) Anyway. They are installed now. And wonderful.
There is no longer an inches-wide gap of daylight and cold air coming through, and we no longer have to keep them locked just to keep them closed, and it's possible to enter and exit without rattling that whole side of the house. It's a huge win, is what I'm saying.
3.) We have been taking lots of walks on the greenway since it has been nice out, and Anneliese and Charlotte have new toys they want to ride a lot. They ride and chatter, and I listen to podcasts and holler occasionally so they don't get out of my sight, and it is very pleasant.
Living somewhere where you can take easy sunshine walks outside in January: RECOMMEND.
4.) Our church hosted an exhibit of some large prints from the St. John's Bible, which is a really gorgeous fascinating project -- an illuminated bible with gold-gilded illustrations and amazing calligraphy that took many years and a small forture and the queen's own calligrapher to make. The art is incredible. I volunteered to be a docent of sorts, and did some trainings with people, and some reading and guided meditations from it, and the whole event was very cool and lovely.
Next time I'm in Minnesota I'm driving up to St. John's Abbey and laying eyes on the real thing. Every time I look at these illuminations, I see something new. Really really fascinating to me. If you have access to a library that has these, even if you're not a Bible-y person, GO CHECK THEM OUT. They are amazing.
5.) Speaking of books and libraries, I think I have a new favorite book. That is... not a thing I say lightly. I think I have named two? maybe? three? two? books, ever, as my favorite. And this one is just astounding.
It's a beautiful story of an abandoned girl with a mess of a childhood, and what she is like as she enters adulthood and marriage and motherhood. It's about loss and hope and being known, and it is lovely and raw and oh, this book is just so beautiful.(It's the third in a trilogy; I liked but didn't love the others, but this one can stand alone as its own story.)
6.) Another Nathan came through town! ...Exactly five days after we said by to him in Minnesota after the New Year. Ha. Timing.
Anyway he was just here for a minute, passing through our town/airport on his way to an event at another of his former churches, but it was long enough to open Christmas presents with the kids and have a pre-birthday beer with Mark and me, and run some errands and pick out new glasses and have a coffee date. And now we have said bye to him for real, for many more months, which would be sad except that the saturation over the last month has been too great to be sad.
7.) I spent the night in a hotel room, alone, for no good reason, other than alone time is a precious ever-fleeting commodity for me, and we always joke that I should do it, and so I finally did. And it was glorious.
I took a winter walk to a dinner place, and I had a long fancy shower with fancy hair potions, I read for hours and hours, both books and some internetting, I drank wine and slept in a giant bed and did not set an alarm, and I went for a fancy coffee with a fancy view the next morning. I didn't worry about what time anything needed to happen, or what order I wanted to do things. It was freeing and fantastic. Some People were worried I would be bored or lonely or sad, but nope, it was uncomplicatedly fantastic. Intentionally indulgent and relaxing, and with the kind support and blessing, encouragement even, of my wonderful Marky who is legitimately glad for me to do something for myself, which totally makes me feel loved. Night in a hotel alone: ALSO RECOMMEND. (Next time I shall also book a spa treatment.)
Nathan's school orchestra holiday concert got delayed in December, for reasons I can't remember now (and probably didn't care much about even then), so it waited until January. I mean, who doesn't want to hear beginning string students play Jingle Bells, in any season? (I'm not being sarcastic. It was and is delightful.)
Rosining your bow is very serious business.
I won't post a million videos; I'm not That Mom (yes I am). But here are the two he was most excited about and wants me to post. (Pay attention, grandparents. There will be a quiz.) (Nathan is on the end, in the second row back of cellos.)
Ode to Joy, which he told us at least a thousand times is a very important piece of classical music:
(Click here to watch the embedded video above on YouTube.) And then Frère Jaques, which he wants me to tell you is a Big Deal because they are not all playing in unison but different instruments have different parts and that is very important! (Zomg adorable.)
(Click here to watch the embedded video above on YouTube.)
What does it say about me that I have become a person who LEGITIMATELY ENJOYS listening to this? Only a mom, right? (But... not because I'm his mom! At least, I don't think so? I really like it! I do!)
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