Summer Vacation, part 1

The kids start summer camp on Monday. Even the baby is going, three days a week, for two and a half hours. It's not a lot, and after I finish driving everyone back and forth, I'm left with less than two hours each day for myself. But it's something. A moment I can carve out for myself each week to exercise, write...aaaw, who am I kidding? I'll spend that time cleaning, doing laundry, and grocery shopping. But, that's okay. What's more important than what I do with my time, is the quiet time I have inside my head. I cherish time to think uninterrupted, or just lose myself in thought, and with three bright, and brightly verbose little ones around, there's precious little silence in my life.

I didn't mind it so much this past week, when we were all together on a family vacation. We kicked off our week driving my mother-in-law back home to Minnesota. It was a seven hour trip that lasted eight and a half, thanks to small bladders. But it was lovely and boisterous good fun. On one of our many potty breaks, we stopped in a small town that was straight out of a picture book. Even the name had a quaint ring: Delafield. Of the field of green grass and perfectly manicured gardens, and lakes, and small shops.

Upon our arrival to the twin cities, we stopped, as is our custom, at our favorite kosher restaurant in Minneapolis, Little Tel Aviv, to a genuinely warm welcome from the owner, and a delicious meal. Our bellies full, and our tushies completely squashed from close to ten hours of sitting, we went to my mother-in-laws, and collapsed with exhaustion.

The next few days were nirvana. My husband, the three kids, and I enjoyed a whirlwind of activity, occasionally with my husband's mom along for the fun. And it was great fun. Mostly I got to sit back and watch the kids play, explore, discover, and learn, in the loving and approving glow of their daddy.

On the first day, we went to ComoTown, the kiddie amusement park in St. Paul's beautiful Como park. It was not surprising to anyone that the baby fearlessly rode every ride on which she was allowed. She rode the "choo choo choo" once with mommy, and once with daddy. She rode the "horse and buggy",

the "race cars", the "jalopies", and the boats, which were all, in fact, the same exact ride, with different vehicles.

She didn't mind. She felt like such a big kid, sitting by herself, turning the wheels, and even following the important safety instructions without too much trouble.

She was happiest riding with her big brother and sister.

They had their own fun on the "big kid" rides, like the "fire brigade" where big brother fought the ferocious flames, and little sister drove the truck. It was the blissful, if somewhat deceptive, image of family harmony.

But nothing was as moving, and as special, as visiting their grandfather's (of blessed memory) most famous work of art: the sculpture of F. Scott Fitzgerald at the Rice Park in St. Paul. It was a heartening and touching opportunity to connect with the grandfather my son had only begun to know, and my girls' had not been blessed to meet. Somehow, it was more tangible, more insightful, and more stirring than a visit to gravesite could ever be.

My children seemed to implicitly understand that their grandpa's hands were directly laid on this work of art, this labor of love.

The next stop on our family vacation was another slice of their family history: their daddy's first job, at the Science Museum of Minnesota, where he spent the better part of ten years teaching innovative science programs to young kids.

The location had changed, and only a name or two were familiar to my husband, but he seemed particularly proud to show us the sights. The kids especially loved the broadcasting booth, where they got to ham it up in front of the camera, mugging, smiling, and being as silly or serious as their hearts desired.

The baby was a few years below the museum's target age, but it didn't phase her in the least. She explored exhibit after exhibit taking in the sights and sounds and feel of it all.

Together my children wandered the big, full, fascinating halls and explored lights,

and shadows,

and the great outdoors.
The next day, law school man stayed home to work, so we went with "Granma Tootin" to the Minnesota Children's Museum, which was built with our baby 'Roo in mind. She especially loved the Curious George exhibit, made for her curious eyes and curious hands. She did her best monkey impression "Ooh ooh! Aah aah!", and explored every square inch of the space, including George himself, who got special scrutiny.

Lest one worries about how the big, mature, science-oriented kids handled such a toddler-friendly environment, let me put your worries to rest. They did just fine.

Granma Tootin did, too.

After days of dragging the kids from one sight to the next, my mother-in-law treated my husband and I to a real forbidden pleasure: a date night. We ran out the door before she could change her mind, and made a beeline to Little Tel Aviv where we shared a delightful meal, eaten slowly and civilly, unlike most of our crazy, rushed meals. We enjoyed adult conversation. I don't remember a thing we spoke about, but I sense it was deep, and intellectual, and meaningful. At least it didn't have anything to do with diapers, and there were no stern admonitions or withering looks anywhere near our table. At least, not coming from me. I didn't shoosh anyone, or beg anyone to eat one more bite. In other words, it was a genuine mommy's night off.

We followed up the tranquil meal with a sunset walk around Lake Calhoun, and two other lakes that were, unbeknown to us, attached to Lake Calhoun. We walked and walked and walked for miles. After an hour and a half, we began to panic about ever finding our way back again. Our legs were starting to ache, our feet were giving out, but thanks to my husband's ability to maintain more than one thought in his head at one time, we made it back to the car in time to speed off to the movie theatre to catch a flick.

We would have kept the evening going, celebrating the San Antonio Spurs' fourth championship title for a start, but we had reached our limit. I felt like an old fogey, but I had to get some sleep. We got home and found everyone snoozing away. Granma survived the ordeal with the help of a co-babysitter, and by allowing the kids to watch the game. I felt a brief twinge of guilt, but I'm sure she didn't mind having the kids to herself for that night.

The week ended much too quickly, but on a high note: a visit from the kids' uncle, aunt, and baby cousin. My husband's younger brother came up with his wife and new baby to spend some time with us. My kids were so happy to have their uncle and aunt around.

The baby was especially thrilled. She got to be the big cousin, for once. It was bittersweet for us. For one thing, it went by way too fast. Minnesota isn't so far away, but it's a hard trip to make with a full household in tow. But this was as much a goodbye as a hello. My brother-in-law and his family were days away from a big move themselves, to New York, where he and his wife would be doing their medical fellowships for the next two or three years.

New York is a wee bit longer a drive.

I've really grown to appreciate those rare occasions when we're all together. One of the hardest things about moving across country to Chicago has been being so far away from family.

The kids love their family dearly, and it shows. The words, "this is your cousin", removes all traces of distance, shyness, and awkwardness immediately. We'll miss seeing this sweet, big-eyed beauty grow up. But those magic words, "this is your cousin" will always close that gap.

Our all-too-brief trip ended with lots of hugs and kisses. We loaded the van and headed out on our next adventure.

To be continued...

The World's a Stage

I'm staking out my own corner of time and space in front of the computer for the first time in over a week. The school year has ended and I find myself at the mercy of my three children, entertaining them, disciplining them, feeding them, and mostly, cleaning up after them. My husband, also finished with school, has been around the apartment a lot more. This has its ups and downs. It's great to have him around to talk to, as well as share the burdens of taking care of the kids, cooking and cleaning. But I don't enjoy sharing the computer so much. I've been chomping at the bit watching him pouring into his research with a single-minded focus, while I itch to blog. There is so much going on in our lives, the creative dam is about to burst. More importantly, I fear the vibrant details will be lost in my muddled memory.

One vibrant memory that won't fade for a long time is my daughter's first ballet recital.

My sweet little diva had been working so hard, all year long, for this moment of glory. Every day when we came home from her nursery school, she would climb up the toy chest to reach the CD player. She knew exactly which buttons to press to start her recital music. She'd press play, and wait, her arms akimbo, back straight, for the opening strands of Volare. Then she'd skip into her position and start her plies, tondues, and chasses in the middle of her living room. She finished her ballet dance and lifted her leg up like a stork waiting to start her "shovel steps" for Little Star. I was always so impressed at her dedication and hard work.

And it paid off!

The dress rehearsal was Thursday night. I had volunteered to be the "class mom". That meant I stayed back stage dressing the girls in their costumes, refreshing their makeup, watching them like a hawk, and making sure they got on stage at the right time. It was such a pleasure leading my little green tutued ducklings behind me like a mama duck. One little duckie was missing from her class, but my little duckling stood proudly in the front of the group and did her dance steps with great confidence. I stood in the wings, doing the dance alongside them, in case someone got lost. I'm sure I looked like a crazy stage mom, but the little red head seemed to appreciate the small, if awkwardly delivered, reminders.

Miss Katie, the beautiful, willowy ballet teacher, came up to me after their practice and whispered to me, "If the other girl doesn't show up for the performance, please try to explain to your daughter that she should shift over to the middle like the point of the triangle." We looked over and watched in amazement, as my five year old got the message and budged over two steps, right between the other two. "A natural performer!" Observed her teacher, mildly impressed.

She thinks our girl's a genius! I bragged to my husband that night.

That Sunday was the big day, and of course, we were over scheduled and overwhelmed. My son had a piano lesson in the morning. His first recital was a mere week away. I had to be at the theatre a couple of hours early to help with the set up. So I ran my son to his lesson, ran back, bathed my daughter and packed up her costume and make-up, and carefully moussed, gelled, and blow-dried her Dorothy Hamill 'do into two little pigtails.

Law School Dad had his hands full. He dropped me off at the theatre, dropped our son off at his little league game, drove back to the theatre and dropped the ballerina back stage, and went to find his seat with the baby.

Meanwhile, I was busy primping and dressing the little girls, and keeping them busy while the other classes performed.

It was time for the girls' ballet performance. I escorted them backstage and jogged to the other side of the stage to wait for them. I cringed as the stage manager placed them on the stage. The girls, expecting to skip into position, were lost and confused when the music started. They were clumped together and completely out of sorts. My daughter knew enough to try to pick up the dance in the middle, but it was hopeless. The train wreck only got worse, when the girls and I realized that the music playing on stage was different than the music to which they had rehearsed in class. The girls, ready to walk on their tiptoes to the front of the stage and conclude the dance, were cut short by the early fading music. My daughter simply bowed and skipped off the stage. I shuffled them off the stage showering the little girls with compliments. They were blissfully clueless.

Several dances later, my little girls were called back onto the stage for their tap dance routine. This time, the teacher caught me before the performance and told me to help them get into their position. I dutifully pranced onto the stage in the cover of darkness, and lined them up into two lines. My daughter stood, chin up in front, her leg bent in anticipation for the opening strands of the music. Once again, she performed confidently and fearlessly, while I flailed about in the wings, clumsily approximating her dance for the benefit of the little lost red head.

This time they all skipped off contentedly, with Momma duck wagging and waddling behind.

After a disorganized finale, I whisked my girls back into the dressing room, and dressed them back in their street clothes, gathered up their costumes, shoes, and makeup, and escorted them all to the eager arms of their beaming parents. And in my daughter's case, beaming baby sister.

My daughter spent a lot of time on the stage this past week. On the following Thursday, she had her end of school performance/Nursery School graduation.

The kids lined up and walked into their seats and proceeded to sing their way through the school year, starting with Rosh Hashana, and ending with Shavuot. I gawked in amazement that they had learned more than a dozen songs for us to enjoy, in addition to their lines.

After a jaw dropping performance, they received their nursery school diplomas and went off to the reception, where we admired her school work, and said goodbye to her teachers and dear friends.

It was particularly nice watching my husband interacting with the other dads. It's a rare occasion when he is able to chat with other men his age. Especially other men with children. He no longer looked like the wise old man of his law school class.

As much time as my daughter spent on stage, I spent working behind the scenes. In addition to being backstage at the ballet recital, I volunteered at my son's school to help with field day, shuttling third graders around from activity to activity for two and a half hours. The last day of school was early dismissal. I asked my friends to send their kids home on the bus with my son. All five of them shuffled in hungry and hyper. I fed them mac and cheese, caramel corn, grapes, and cupcakes. They played and drifted in and out of the living room where Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was glowing from the desktop DVD player. We were together again celebrating my son's completion of book 2. It was a tremendous accomplishment for a second grade boy.

My friends showed up a few hours later to retrieve their kids. I pushed cupcakes on them to avoid the temptation myself. I was still on the infernal diet, and after two weeks, had only lost two pounds. I was discouraged, but determined.

The crowds cleared, and I relaxed for a moment. Only one more event to get through: My son's piano recital. My son started his lessons in January, and proved to be a hard-working, dedicated student. We were all excited to see him shine, but none as much as my mother-in-law who was flying in for the big event. He had a big day: a piano lesson in the morning, a baseball game in the early afternoon, and the recital that night. We had his suit dry-cleaned and his shirt ready to go. Granma was here and ready for the big show.

Sunday morning, I awoke early to get everything ready. "Mom!" I heard from my son's room. "I just threw up." This did not surprise me. My son was starting to show signs of nervousness. I suspected, and knew the moment I saw the foamy white saliva bubbled on the rug, he was faking. I cleaned it up and sent him back to bed to rest. An hour later, I heard him moaning again. "Mom, I have diarrhea now." And he did. For the next few hours, it continued. My husband called his teacher to cancel the lesson.

"Hopefully, he'll be ready for the recital." My husband told the disappointed teacher.

An hour later he emailed the baseball coach to let him know my son would be missing the game. We gave him medicine, fed him nibbles of dry toast and sips of ginger ale, and prayed and waited, but he was not looking any better and he wasn't eating. The teacher called a few times.

"We don't know." Was all we could say, unhelpfully.

Finally we gave up. He was not up to going to the recital, either as a participant or as an observer. He adamantly refused.

I wondered to myself if he had willed himself to be sick out of sheer nervousness.

"Don't make a big deal of it." Advised my wise Mother-in-law. "Don't make him feel bad. He'll grow out of it." I suppressed my disappointment and sadness.

The next day, he was just fine.

It's time to stake out a corner of summer for ourselves. Tomorrow we're driving my Mother-in-law back to Minnesota and stealing a week of rest and restoration for ourselves and our kids, before the summer whirlwind whips up.