When I suggested back in May that my children go into business together as banana bread vendors at Carlisle’s all-inclusive Farmers Market, I wanted to see if they could develop the cooperation skills to work together and the determination to stick with an ongoing project. I hoped the undertaking would help them to learn patience, organization and customer service skills – and as I’ve written about here and here, they’ve learned a lot from the experience after their first eight weeks at it.
Interestingly, what I didn’t give much thought to when I first made my suggestion was the fact that if successful, they’d be raking in cash in a manner previously unknown to them. And they’ve been very successful indeed. So their piggy banks have swelled astoundingly over the past two months.
In Tim’s case, it hasn’t affected his spending habits much. He’s a saver; he’s sensible; and the material items he covets tend to be relatively expensive, like X-Box games or online memberships. So he tucked away his earnings for several weeks in a row and then bought a video game he really wanted. Now he’s saving once again.
Holly, on the other hand, is like a crow. Put simply, if it glitters or sparkles, it catches her eye and she wants it. And I don’t just mean jewelry or rhinestones; I mean kitsch. She’s been spending money ever since she started earning it. As the summer progressed, she put her hard-earned cash toward everything from earrings to quiz books to refrigerator magnets to hair clips to the ever-trendy Japanese erasers. And yes, she even bought a pillow pet: a giant stuffed bumble bee that unfolds into a plush pillow.
Since I wasn’t anticipating this newfound wealth on her part, I didn’t think about how much control I should have over it. At eight years old, Holly is old enough to understand what it means to be spending her own money, and she certainly understands the work she put into earning it: she’s right there at Tim’s side every week, greasing pans and beating eggs during the baking phase, and then staffing the booth with him every Saturday morning. So for the most part I’ve taken a hands-off attitude, merely reminding her frequently during our many shopping expeditions that she should think twice about what’s really worth buying and what’s not, but then letting her make her own decisions.
Rick did intervene once in a purchase he simply considered too irresponsible to watch transpire: she wanted to buy a rubber duckie from a sidewalk vendor. “She doesn’t even take baths,” he pointed out to me after firmly steering her away. “And even if it’s her own money she’s wasting, we have to take some responsibility for the environmental side of it. We have the right to tell her she can’t buy useless plastic that will end up in a landfill.”
I agreed with him in that case, but it’s not an easy call. Even as she spent money on odds and ends all summer, she was still saving a lot of it, and eventually she shared with me her scheme: during the last week of vacation, she hoped to do a spending spree at the Build-a-Bear Workshop at the mall.
She’s been asking for weeks now, and yesterday I finally caved and took her to the mall. On the one hand, I was loathe to see her lay out cash for stuffed animals (of which she has dozens already, naturally) and stuffed-animal outfits. On the other, as I’ve been telling her all summer, it’s her money and she has to decide for herself what to do with it. At Build-a-Bear, I asked her as she selected each item – first a stuffed owl, then a pile of outfits and accessories for the owl – “Is this really something you want? Do you really think this is worth buying?”
She did. I did not. And so I struggled with the question about whether to allow it. But I reminded myself these were not impulse buys; she’s been talking about the Build-a-Bear excursion for weeks. And I do believe that mistakes in spending are low-hanging fruit as far as object lessons go: surely as soon as she wishes she had the money for something else, she’ll start thinking more seriously about whether that workout suit and matching headband for the stuffed owl were really so important, and she’ll probably think harder about a similar purchase next time.
More significantly, she didn’t spend all her money at Build-a-Bear. She spent about two-thirds of it, but made a point of keeping some for later. And that amount went right back into her piggy bank when we returned home.
At the cash register, the Build-a-Bear associate tallied up the owl’s outfits and told Holly the total. Then she gave Holly the standard spiel about how she could add an extra dollar to the total as a contribution for a particular charity the company supports.
Holly looked uncertainly at me. “You don’t have to do that,” I told her.
“I do want to give the extra dollar,” she announced firmly. “I want to help.”
That made me feel a lot better about Holly’s spending habits. Not that a dollar for charity is much compared to her overall total, but if spending is going to be a long-term habit of hers, then I can only hope the donation to charity will be as well. In the end, I was proud of that decision if not so much the Build-a-Bear trip in general. But most likely as she grows older, Holly will put less of a priority on stuffed animals and outfit changes for them.
And as that change happens, I can only hope that her priority on charity remains.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
A cow in need is a friend indeed
Staying up all night with a fussy baby is a timeless element of parenting in that nearly all parents go through it, but it’s also usually a phase of limited duration. And although a friend of mine once wrote an essay about how she misses being up at 2 AM in a rocker looking out at the moon, I didn’t believe her. It’s been over six or seven years since I was up at night with a fussy baby, and I still frequently wake in the morning grateful for an uninterrupted night of sleep.
So I wasn’t very happy to wake shortly after midnight last night to hear a bellowing cow. Steady, repeated, high-volume mooing went on for the next three hours. Occasionally there would be a break, and I’d fall asleep, and then it would inevitably start up again. MOO! … MOO! … MOO!
Even with middle-of-the-night drowsiness, it wasn’t hard for me to make an educated guess about what had happened. I can’t actually tell the half-dozen cows on our farm apart by their voices, but Gracie is the only one with a new calf and I did recognize this sound: the bellowing moo of a cow calling to her calf. So I knew that either the baby bull born last weekend was stuck somewhere and couldn’t get free, or had wandered off to someplace Gracie did not want him to be, or something worse had befallen him and he was dead or incapacitated. I certainly hoped the latter wasn’t the case – we do have a lot of coyotes around this summer, but I’ve never heard of a coyote attacking a calf – but the reality is that in the dark of night, there’s just not a lot to do about it. So Rick and I tried to sleep.
When dawn broke, Rick headed out to investigate. I heard a few more bellowing moos and then silence. Wonderful sweet silence. I fell asleep at last and slept until eight.
Rick told the kids and me at breakfast that as soon as he stepped outside, Gracie stopped mooing and walked toward him. Then she started mooing again as if urging him to follow her, which he did. Gracie brought him to the gate separating the two pastures, from where Rick could see that the calf had slipped through the sheep’s gate to spend the night among the bulls.
Rick crossed into the bulls’ pasture, made his way behind the small calf, and coaxed him back through the sheep’s gate. “And then Gracie went like this: ‘Mmmm. Mmmm.’” Rick told us. Not a bellowing moo like before; a murmur of thanks.
Though he tends to be unsentimental about the animals, I could tell Rick was pleased on a number of levels. He’d solved the problem; Gracie’s appreciation was obvious and almost human; and even Gracie’s reaction when he first stepped outside was gratifying: she approached him with apparent relief, as if she knew he could help her. That kind of trust, whether it comes from friends, animals or children, is always a good feeling.
My kids sometimes tease me at how delighted I always am when anyone asks me for directions. Of course, with the advent of GPS, it happens less and less, but since we live on a main road and often walk along it, we do get a fair number of requests for navigational help. And it just feels good to set people on their way. On a different order of magnitude, at church we all sign up to deliver casseroles when someone has had surgery or has lost a family member, and this summer I was part of a large group of women who took turns sending daily greeting cards to a member of our circle who was dealing with an illness.
Helping feels good: it’s that simple. Whether we’re helping a friend, a neighbor, a stranger or a cow, it’s gratifying to meet someone else’s need. Explaining why may be complicated, but sensing the truth of it isn’t. Rick could even see it in Gracie’s big bovine eyes.
So I wasn’t very happy to wake shortly after midnight last night to hear a bellowing cow. Steady, repeated, high-volume mooing went on for the next three hours. Occasionally there would be a break, and I’d fall asleep, and then it would inevitably start up again. MOO! … MOO! … MOO!
Even with middle-of-the-night drowsiness, it wasn’t hard for me to make an educated guess about what had happened. I can’t actually tell the half-dozen cows on our farm apart by their voices, but Gracie is the only one with a new calf and I did recognize this sound: the bellowing moo of a cow calling to her calf. So I knew that either the baby bull born last weekend was stuck somewhere and couldn’t get free, or had wandered off to someplace Gracie did not want him to be, or something worse had befallen him and he was dead or incapacitated. I certainly hoped the latter wasn’t the case – we do have a lot of coyotes around this summer, but I’ve never heard of a coyote attacking a calf – but the reality is that in the dark of night, there’s just not a lot to do about it. So Rick and I tried to sleep.
When dawn broke, Rick headed out to investigate. I heard a few more bellowing moos and then silence. Wonderful sweet silence. I fell asleep at last and slept until eight.
Rick told the kids and me at breakfast that as soon as he stepped outside, Gracie stopped mooing and walked toward him. Then she started mooing again as if urging him to follow her, which he did. Gracie brought him to the gate separating the two pastures, from where Rick could see that the calf had slipped through the sheep’s gate to spend the night among the bulls.
Rick crossed into the bulls’ pasture, made his way behind the small calf, and coaxed him back through the sheep’s gate. “And then Gracie went like this: ‘Mmmm. Mmmm.’” Rick told us. Not a bellowing moo like before; a murmur of thanks.
Though he tends to be unsentimental about the animals, I could tell Rick was pleased on a number of levels. He’d solved the problem; Gracie’s appreciation was obvious and almost human; and even Gracie’s reaction when he first stepped outside was gratifying: she approached him with apparent relief, as if she knew he could help her. That kind of trust, whether it comes from friends, animals or children, is always a good feeling.
My kids sometimes tease me at how delighted I always am when anyone asks me for directions. Of course, with the advent of GPS, it happens less and less, but since we live on a main road and often walk along it, we do get a fair number of requests for navigational help. And it just feels good to set people on their way. On a different order of magnitude, at church we all sign up to deliver casseroles when someone has had surgery or has lost a family member, and this summer I was part of a large group of women who took turns sending daily greeting cards to a member of our circle who was dealing with an illness.
Helping feels good: it’s that simple. Whether we’re helping a friend, a neighbor, a stranger or a cow, it’s gratifying to meet someone else’s need. Explaining why may be complicated, but sensing the truth of it isn’t. Rick could even see it in Gracie’s big bovine eyes.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Some days are better than others (dietarily speaking)
From my stomach’s perspective, it’s like that popular children’s book about Alexander: yesterday was a terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad day.
Well, it wasn’t all bad gastronomically. But too much of it was. It just happens sometimes: I get too busy and made too many poor gustatory choices. Our housecleaner was working in the kitchen all morning (which was wonderful) so I took the kids to Bruegger’s. The egg sandwiches sounded tempting until it occurred to me that I’ve never seen a frying pan at Bruegger’s, so where exactly are they getting fried eggs from? Pre-packaged and microwaved? Instead I went with cream cheese. And a bagel. That’s not awful, but it’s not great.
My mother and I both like to cook, and since we’re next-door neighbors we frequently share our creations. She gave me a serving of a delicious chick pea, tomato and feta salad, so I had that for lunch, and then started to feel like I was more on track from a nutritional standard. But then in the late afternoon I embarked on a long drive to my in-laws’ house – I expected it to take an hour but it took more than two because of traffic – and along the way ate a bag of caramel popcorn and a chocolate bar. That was way more sugar and stickiness than I needed in one afternoon.
And when I arrived at my in-laws’, I was already late for the dinner celebrating my father-in-law’s birthday, so of course I dug right in to my mother-in-law’s homemade macaroni and cheese. Followed, naturally, by birthday cake. And not just any birthday cake: ice cream cake, made with mint chocolate chip ice cream, crushed cookies, and fudge sauce.
Did I mention that all of this was only a couple of hours after the sticky sweetened popcorn and the chocolate bar?
Some days are like that. Other days I try to practice good nutritious locavore habits, especially on Farmers Market days when I buy piles of fresh tomatoes, basil, peppers, corn, lettuce. At times like that, it’s easy to eat right, although there are favorite foods that make me think I would need to develop a much firmer ideology if I wanted to go whole-heartedly locavore: bananas, avocados and coffee are just a few of the distantly grown crops it would be hardest for me to give up.
So yesterday might have been dismal gastronomically, but rather than dwell on it, I remind myself that today I’ll do better. I’ll start the day with an aerobic workout and a quart of water, like I always do, and I’ll pursue better eating habits than I did yesterday. While it’s not exactly like we get a completely clean slate dietarily every day – what we eat obviously accumulates in and on our bodies in various ways – it’s also true that one bad day of too much popcorn and chocolate and carbs and white flour doesn’t mean I won’t adhere to better standards the next day.
And then once I’ve convinced myself of this from a nutritional perspective, I remind myself that it’s true in other areas as well. There are days when I scold the kids too much; I remind myself I can improve the next day. There are days when I do too little work, or neglect to read anything of substance, or grow exasperated with my husband. But just as with bad eating choices, none of those mistakes is irreversible.
So I take a lesson from popcorn and chocolate: it was the wrong choice, but I’ll make better choices another day. Forgive yourself. Try again. It’s much healthier in the long run than stewing in self-recrimination. There will be caramel popcorn days and locally grown tomato days, whether the food is actual or metaphorical. Not happy with the choices you made today? Do better tomorrow. That’s a good enough approach for now.
Well, it wasn’t all bad gastronomically. But too much of it was. It just happens sometimes: I get too busy and made too many poor gustatory choices. Our housecleaner was working in the kitchen all morning (which was wonderful) so I took the kids to Bruegger’s. The egg sandwiches sounded tempting until it occurred to me that I’ve never seen a frying pan at Bruegger’s, so where exactly are they getting fried eggs from? Pre-packaged and microwaved? Instead I went with cream cheese. And a bagel. That’s not awful, but it’s not great.
My mother and I both like to cook, and since we’re next-door neighbors we frequently share our creations. She gave me a serving of a delicious chick pea, tomato and feta salad, so I had that for lunch, and then started to feel like I was more on track from a nutritional standard. But then in the late afternoon I embarked on a long drive to my in-laws’ house – I expected it to take an hour but it took more than two because of traffic – and along the way ate a bag of caramel popcorn and a chocolate bar. That was way more sugar and stickiness than I needed in one afternoon.
And when I arrived at my in-laws’, I was already late for the dinner celebrating my father-in-law’s birthday, so of course I dug right in to my mother-in-law’s homemade macaroni and cheese. Followed, naturally, by birthday cake. And not just any birthday cake: ice cream cake, made with mint chocolate chip ice cream, crushed cookies, and fudge sauce.
Did I mention that all of this was only a couple of hours after the sticky sweetened popcorn and the chocolate bar?
Some days are like that. Other days I try to practice good nutritious locavore habits, especially on Farmers Market days when I buy piles of fresh tomatoes, basil, peppers, corn, lettuce. At times like that, it’s easy to eat right, although there are favorite foods that make me think I would need to develop a much firmer ideology if I wanted to go whole-heartedly locavore: bananas, avocados and coffee are just a few of the distantly grown crops it would be hardest for me to give up.
So yesterday might have been dismal gastronomically, but rather than dwell on it, I remind myself that today I’ll do better. I’ll start the day with an aerobic workout and a quart of water, like I always do, and I’ll pursue better eating habits than I did yesterday. While it’s not exactly like we get a completely clean slate dietarily every day – what we eat obviously accumulates in and on our bodies in various ways – it’s also true that one bad day of too much popcorn and chocolate and carbs and white flour doesn’t mean I won’t adhere to better standards the next day.
And then once I’ve convinced myself of this from a nutritional perspective, I remind myself that it’s true in other areas as well. There are days when I scold the kids too much; I remind myself I can improve the next day. There are days when I do too little work, or neglect to read anything of substance, or grow exasperated with my husband. But just as with bad eating choices, none of those mistakes is irreversible.
So I take a lesson from popcorn and chocolate: it was the wrong choice, but I’ll make better choices another day. Forgive yourself. Try again. It’s much healthier in the long run than stewing in self-recrimination. There will be caramel popcorn days and locally grown tomato days, whether the food is actual or metaphorical. Not happy with the choices you made today? Do better tomorrow. That’s a good enough approach for now.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Another rainy day yesterday -- but no one except for me minded
Yes, I was exultant when the rain began falling on Sunday morning for the first time in over a month. The ground was parched, the grass had stopped growing, the cows were eating weeds of questionable origin, and I had to fill the water trough every day because the brook had run dry.
Then it rained for three more days, and I was still happy about it, because the drought had been such a source of worry for me over the past few weeks, and I knew it would take a few consecutive days of rain to really change the amount of groundwater and reverse the drought.
So I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty yesterday morning when I woke to still more rain and had a twinge of wishing that we could have a day without rain, just for recreational purposes. But I suppressed the thought. Still, by midmorning I felt a little like the Cat in the Hat, trying to pull fun and merriment out of thin air as the kids and I spent yet another day at home watching the rain fall.
But once I stepped back mentally to take an objective look at the scene, I realized I was reading it all wrong. Yes, I wanted to get outside with the kids; I wanted to go for a bike ride or take a walk or even just sit outdoors eating ice cream, but they were having a fine time with our rainy day program. Holly’s friend Caroline had come over to play, and the girls played Wii games for a little while and then immersed themselves – and also immersed half the kitchen – in an art project involving construction paper, glue, and colored sand. After lunch, they finished their sand paintings and I made a batch of chocolate cupcakes. The girls came up with the idea of designing “order forms” listing various options for the cupcakes that they could then check off according to their preferences: almonds, coconut, frosting, birthday candles.
And that was when I realized that to them, it wasn’t a tedious day of indoor boredom; it was a really great playdate. From this day, they would remember the sand painting, the cupcakes, the order forms; not the rain or the feeling of being cooped up indoors. When you’re eight, you live so much more in the moment, which in part means not regretting that you can’t fit in yet another late-summer bike ride but instead just having a terrific time with a friend.
Why I’m so sure of this is that I can still remember feeling that way myself, and coincidentally enough, earlier this week I received an e-mail from the mother of one of my own childhood friends with whom I’d fallen out of touch many years ago. Corresponding with my friend’s mother reminded me of what a wonderful time I used to have at their house. I remember making confections out of powdered sugar, milk and peanut butter; playing Master Mind; letting their guinea pigs toddle around on blankets on the floor. We used a tape recorder – at that time the apex of home technology -- to produce imaginary radio commercials that we found side-splitting. I remember the inexplicable bliss of a sleepover there and how remarkably happy I was just to get to be part of their household for twenty-four hours. But I doubt my friend’s mom had the same fabulous memories of those particular days or nights. She might have been preoccupied with work or health concerns, or maybe she was happy as well but for other reasons. But I don’t necessarily think she was looking at us and sensing that we were having the time of our lives.
So it was reassuring to remind myself how little the kids cared about the weather. They had fun; that’s all they were focusing on. It was a good reminder to me to forget about the sink full of dishes and the growing accumulation of clutter at the bottom of the stairs and just enjoy another rainy day. Sunshine is predicted for today; we’ll have the chance to do something else. The girls had fun playing together yesterday. Rain and all.
Then it rained for three more days, and I was still happy about it, because the drought had been such a source of worry for me over the past few weeks, and I knew it would take a few consecutive days of rain to really change the amount of groundwater and reverse the drought.
So I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty yesterday morning when I woke to still more rain and had a twinge of wishing that we could have a day without rain, just for recreational purposes. But I suppressed the thought. Still, by midmorning I felt a little like the Cat in the Hat, trying to pull fun and merriment out of thin air as the kids and I spent yet another day at home watching the rain fall.
But once I stepped back mentally to take an objective look at the scene, I realized I was reading it all wrong. Yes, I wanted to get outside with the kids; I wanted to go for a bike ride or take a walk or even just sit outdoors eating ice cream, but they were having a fine time with our rainy day program. Holly’s friend Caroline had come over to play, and the girls played Wii games for a little while and then immersed themselves – and also immersed half the kitchen – in an art project involving construction paper, glue, and colored sand. After lunch, they finished their sand paintings and I made a batch of chocolate cupcakes. The girls came up with the idea of designing “order forms” listing various options for the cupcakes that they could then check off according to their preferences: almonds, coconut, frosting, birthday candles.
And that was when I realized that to them, it wasn’t a tedious day of indoor boredom; it was a really great playdate. From this day, they would remember the sand painting, the cupcakes, the order forms; not the rain or the feeling of being cooped up indoors. When you’re eight, you live so much more in the moment, which in part means not regretting that you can’t fit in yet another late-summer bike ride but instead just having a terrific time with a friend.
Why I’m so sure of this is that I can still remember feeling that way myself, and coincidentally enough, earlier this week I received an e-mail from the mother of one of my own childhood friends with whom I’d fallen out of touch many years ago. Corresponding with my friend’s mother reminded me of what a wonderful time I used to have at their house. I remember making confections out of powdered sugar, milk and peanut butter; playing Master Mind; letting their guinea pigs toddle around on blankets on the floor. We used a tape recorder – at that time the apex of home technology -- to produce imaginary radio commercials that we found side-splitting. I remember the inexplicable bliss of a sleepover there and how remarkably happy I was just to get to be part of their household for twenty-four hours. But I doubt my friend’s mom had the same fabulous memories of those particular days or nights. She might have been preoccupied with work or health concerns, or maybe she was happy as well but for other reasons. But I don’t necessarily think she was looking at us and sensing that we were having the time of our lives.
So it was reassuring to remind myself how little the kids cared about the weather. They had fun; that’s all they were focusing on. It was a good reminder to me to forget about the sink full of dishes and the growing accumulation of clutter at the bottom of the stairs and just enjoy another rainy day. Sunshine is predicted for today; we’ll have the chance to do something else. The girls had fun playing together yesterday. Rain and all.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Energized by a good long run
One thing I love about running is how the longer a route I run on any given day, the more energized I feel afterwards. This is not my experience with biking, though I imagine it is indeed the case for more experienced or simply more skilled bicyclists than I am. When I bike more than ten miles or so, all I feel when it’s over is relieved to get off the bike and in no rush to climb back on. After a good run, on the other hand, what I most feel like doing is taking a long walk.
Occasionally, I do have the chance for a walk after a run. One day last winter, as I was returning from my run, I passed my mother just heading out for a walk. I’d covered enough mileage, so I stopped running and turned around to walk with her for twenty minutes or so. When she and I were approaching my house on the return, I spotted my son Tim heading out for his run, so I turned around again and jogged his daily mile with him. By the time that workout was done, I was okay about stopping. But for the most part, it almost always feels good to extend the workout.
Not long ago, Tim asked me what the hardest workout I ever did was. I told him about a memorable day when we were in rural Wyoming for a family wedding. I ran five miles alongside a quiet highway. The run itself was notable because the landscape was so vast that this was the only running route I’ve ever tackled on which I could see a tree as I started running that I estimated was about two and a half miles away, and sure enough, twenty-five minutes later, I reached that same tree and turned around.
It was a long run in the hot sun, and I would have been happy to relax when that one was over, but when I arrived back at the motel where almost all of the wedding guests were staying, I found that a contingency was just heading out for a hike in a nearby wilderness area. I could have used a rest, but I didn’t want to miss out on the hike, so I grabbed a sweatshirt and jumped into the car for the short drive to the trailhead. The hike itself wasn’t so hard – the trail ran alongside a creek and involved very little climb – but I did it with an 11-month-old Tim strapped to my back in a backpack. And not only that but halfway through the two-hour hike he fell asleep leaning straight back, making him seem twice as heavy as when he was sitting upright.
It was a memorable hike both for the scenery and for the physical duress. Oh, and also because Tim was wearing tiny canvas Red Sox logo sneakers and one of them fell off his little foot somewhere on that trail in Wyoming, a fact I didn’t notice until we arrived back at the car. I like to think that somewhere in the foothills of Sunlight Basin, a grizzly cub is playing with a size 12-month Red Sox sneaker.
Most of the time, though, I can’t follow a run with a hike or even a walk; I have to get on to the next activity: deskwork or errands or cooking. But that’s okay; it’s enough just to have that feeling, that wonderful post-run sense of “I could walk for miles now.” It makes me feel light and agile even though I am neither. It’s why I like running so much.
Last Saturday, I ran on the Minuteman Bikeway. When my five miles were over, I had that feeling again, that I could turn around and do the same thing at a walking pace. But I needed to go grocery shopping, so instead, I drank some water and climbed into the car. Next to me, a group of bicyclists was just finishing up their workout. They probably felt just as good as I did, but what I noticed instead was all the lifting and maneuvering they were doing to load their bikes onto racks. Running feels simple to me: low-maintenance, light, easy. No heavy lifting when it’s over. No lifting at all when it’s over. Just me, done with my workout and more energized than when I began.
Occasionally, I do have the chance for a walk after a run. One day last winter, as I was returning from my run, I passed my mother just heading out for a walk. I’d covered enough mileage, so I stopped running and turned around to walk with her for twenty minutes or so. When she and I were approaching my house on the return, I spotted my son Tim heading out for his run, so I turned around again and jogged his daily mile with him. By the time that workout was done, I was okay about stopping. But for the most part, it almost always feels good to extend the workout.
Not long ago, Tim asked me what the hardest workout I ever did was. I told him about a memorable day when we were in rural Wyoming for a family wedding. I ran five miles alongside a quiet highway. The run itself was notable because the landscape was so vast that this was the only running route I’ve ever tackled on which I could see a tree as I started running that I estimated was about two and a half miles away, and sure enough, twenty-five minutes later, I reached that same tree and turned around.
It was a long run in the hot sun, and I would have been happy to relax when that one was over, but when I arrived back at the motel where almost all of the wedding guests were staying, I found that a contingency was just heading out for a hike in a nearby wilderness area. I could have used a rest, but I didn’t want to miss out on the hike, so I grabbed a sweatshirt and jumped into the car for the short drive to the trailhead. The hike itself wasn’t so hard – the trail ran alongside a creek and involved very little climb – but I did it with an 11-month-old Tim strapped to my back in a backpack. And not only that but halfway through the two-hour hike he fell asleep leaning straight back, making him seem twice as heavy as when he was sitting upright.
It was a memorable hike both for the scenery and for the physical duress. Oh, and also because Tim was wearing tiny canvas Red Sox logo sneakers and one of them fell off his little foot somewhere on that trail in Wyoming, a fact I didn’t notice until we arrived back at the car. I like to think that somewhere in the foothills of Sunlight Basin, a grizzly cub is playing with a size 12-month Red Sox sneaker.
Most of the time, though, I can’t follow a run with a hike or even a walk; I have to get on to the next activity: deskwork or errands or cooking. But that’s okay; it’s enough just to have that feeling, that wonderful post-run sense of “I could walk for miles now.” It makes me feel light and agile even though I am neither. It’s why I like running so much.
Last Saturday, I ran on the Minuteman Bikeway. When my five miles were over, I had that feeling again, that I could turn around and do the same thing at a walking pace. But I needed to go grocery shopping, so instead, I drank some water and climbed into the car. Next to me, a group of bicyclists was just finishing up their workout. They probably felt just as good as I did, but what I noticed instead was all the lifting and maneuvering they were doing to load their bikes onto racks. Running feels simple to me: low-maintenance, light, easy. No heavy lifting when it’s over. No lifting at all when it’s over. Just me, done with my workout and more energized than when I began.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
The two-week back-to-school countdown begins
Very gradually, we’re beginning the ramp-up to the start of the school year. I figure two weeks is a good amount of time for this. It feels early enough not to be rushed, but late enough not to be shortchanging ourselves of any of the summer. It’s certainly earlier than I’ve ever started before, but after five years on a public school schedule, I’ve learned that getting everyone back into the school year routine takes more planning than I previously imagined.
On Monday morning, I took Holly for a haircut. Tim resisted; he’ll have to go later this week or maybe next. He definitely needs to go before school starts two weeks from today, but he’s still so thoroughly entrenched in summer vacation mode that he just can’t bear to think about formalities like haircuts right now. So I gave him a pass. That’s an easy one, and there’s still plenty of time for it.
Having eased ourselves in with a couple of baby steps, on Monday afternoon we summoned our courage and attacked one of the toughest back-to-school challenges: school-supply shopping. As always, after 45 minutes I was cursing the school for sending home this list of ridiculously arcane items. How is it possible that a child apparently cannot pass third grade unless she has three 0.77-ounce glue sticks (goes on purple, dries invisible!) and yet Staples carries only 0.57-ounce glue sticks? How is it that the supply list from the school clearly states that sixth graders must have white plastic three-pronged folders and yet Staples carries every color in the spectrum except, that’s right, white? Is there any way whoever makes up these lists could actually be required to walk the aisles of an office supply store and prove that these items exist before listing them? (This is one of these days I sincerely hope my children’s teachers are not reading my blog. I love my children’s teachers and I know they take these lists seriously. I also know they are parents themselves and have to deal with similar aggravations from their own children’s schools. I’m just cross because ninety minutes of my life was spent today in a state of frustration at Staples.)
It’s a relief to be done with the school-supply shopping, but there are still enough back-to-school preparatory tasks to last us for the next two weeks. One of the biggest is getting the kids used to waking up early again. I’m determined to start waking them earlier by ten-minute increments throughout this week until I’ve backed them up a full hour, to a time approaching their school-day morning wakeup call. The same goes for me, too, of course. As diligent as I’ve been this summer about avoiding the temptation to sleep in, I need to get up 45 minutes earlier on school days than I have been recently.
Tim still has some pages in his math packet to do; he’s promised to spend at least three mornings this week on it. Holly needs to update her summer reading list. They both need to draw up a list of brown-bag lunch menu ideas they promise they’ll eat and not complain about.
But for me, the challenge is more mental than practical. I feel like it will take me far more than two weeks to feel ready to see a new school year begin. It’s not that summer has been so wonderful – some parts of it have; others were more mixed – but just that I don’t feel ready to summon the energy and initiative that the school year seems to require of me. I’m not ready to start running into everyone I know at end-of-the-day plaza pickup. I’m not ready to send out the room parent communications. I’m behind in organizing the publicity arm of the Sixth Grade Spaghetti Supper, and I’m barely ready to start putting together a plan for the October Walk-to-School Day event I’m heading up.
Even in a small town, summer gives me the chance to hide. So many people leave town, and without our regular school- and church-related events (being Unitarians in a small congregation, we’re church-free all of July and August), there are fewer opportunities to run in to those who stay. I love being part of a tight-knit community, but somehow it’s useful to have a couple of months of invisibility as well. I’m not sure I’m ready to launch into social mode quite yet.
Well, I still have two weeks. And I’m going to need it, even if the kids don’t. I feel like I need an Advent calendar, like the ones the kids have in the weeks before Christmas. Each day I could open a tiny paper door and see a different image: the haircut, the school supplies, the school snack choices, the Back-to-School Night reminder. For now, the temptation is to put off thinking about it, to focus on two more weeks of summer fun instead. But the start of school looms, and I know I need to be ready. So I’ll stop cowering behind my beach towel and get out there, new shoes polished and pencil case in hand. Wish me luck.
On Monday morning, I took Holly for a haircut. Tim resisted; he’ll have to go later this week or maybe next. He definitely needs to go before school starts two weeks from today, but he’s still so thoroughly entrenched in summer vacation mode that he just can’t bear to think about formalities like haircuts right now. So I gave him a pass. That’s an easy one, and there’s still plenty of time for it.
Having eased ourselves in with a couple of baby steps, on Monday afternoon we summoned our courage and attacked one of the toughest back-to-school challenges: school-supply shopping. As always, after 45 minutes I was cursing the school for sending home this list of ridiculously arcane items. How is it possible that a child apparently cannot pass third grade unless she has three 0.77-ounce glue sticks (goes on purple, dries invisible!) and yet Staples carries only 0.57-ounce glue sticks? How is it that the supply list from the school clearly states that sixth graders must have white plastic three-pronged folders and yet Staples carries every color in the spectrum except, that’s right, white? Is there any way whoever makes up these lists could actually be required to walk the aisles of an office supply store and prove that these items exist before listing them? (This is one of these days I sincerely hope my children’s teachers are not reading my blog. I love my children’s teachers and I know they take these lists seriously. I also know they are parents themselves and have to deal with similar aggravations from their own children’s schools. I’m just cross because ninety minutes of my life was spent today in a state of frustration at Staples.)
It’s a relief to be done with the school-supply shopping, but there are still enough back-to-school preparatory tasks to last us for the next two weeks. One of the biggest is getting the kids used to waking up early again. I’m determined to start waking them earlier by ten-minute increments throughout this week until I’ve backed them up a full hour, to a time approaching their school-day morning wakeup call. The same goes for me, too, of course. As diligent as I’ve been this summer about avoiding the temptation to sleep in, I need to get up 45 minutes earlier on school days than I have been recently.
Tim still has some pages in his math packet to do; he’s promised to spend at least three mornings this week on it. Holly needs to update her summer reading list. They both need to draw up a list of brown-bag lunch menu ideas they promise they’ll eat and not complain about.
But for me, the challenge is more mental than practical. I feel like it will take me far more than two weeks to feel ready to see a new school year begin. It’s not that summer has been so wonderful – some parts of it have; others were more mixed – but just that I don’t feel ready to summon the energy and initiative that the school year seems to require of me. I’m not ready to start running into everyone I know at end-of-the-day plaza pickup. I’m not ready to send out the room parent communications. I’m behind in organizing the publicity arm of the Sixth Grade Spaghetti Supper, and I’m barely ready to start putting together a plan for the October Walk-to-School Day event I’m heading up.
Even in a small town, summer gives me the chance to hide. So many people leave town, and without our regular school- and church-related events (being Unitarians in a small congregation, we’re church-free all of July and August), there are fewer opportunities to run in to those who stay. I love being part of a tight-knit community, but somehow it’s useful to have a couple of months of invisibility as well. I’m not sure I’m ready to launch into social mode quite yet.
Well, I still have two weeks. And I’m going to need it, even if the kids don’t. I feel like I need an Advent calendar, like the ones the kids have in the weeks before Christmas. Each day I could open a tiny paper door and see a different image: the haircut, the school supplies, the school snack choices, the Back-to-School Night reminder. For now, the temptation is to put off thinking about it, to focus on two more weeks of summer fun instead. But the start of school looms, and I know I need to be ready. So I’ll stop cowering behind my beach towel and get out there, new shoes polished and pencil case in hand. Wish me luck.
Monday, August 23, 2010
A healthy calf and a job to do
Gracie is not our favorite cow on my parents’ farm. She is more stand-offish than the other animals and can occasionally be a little bit ornery, whereas all the others tend to be gentle and sweet. Still, she’s been part of the herd for several years now, and her personality has grown on us. Like the high-maintenance friend you know you’ll stay loyal to despite the challenges of getting along with her, we wouldn’t want all the cows to be like her, but to some extent we enjoy her distinguishing irascibility.
Gracie happens to have another distinction: she’s the only cow who has had difficulty calving. Her first calf drowned in the brook shortly after birth, though we don’t know the circumstances. And Gracie’s second calf was even more problematic; it was the first time in twenty years of my parents’ cattle operation that we’ve had to provide hands-on help with a delivery. Essentially, my husband Rick ended up performing high-powered midwife duties that time, and without going into too much graphic detail, suffice to say that he was the one to do it because he has the strongest biceps among those of us living on the farm.
So Gracie has been unlucky twice, and yet as my father – chief farmer here – pointed out, she was unlucky in two entirely different ways, so when calving season loomed this summer, he assured us there was no reason to think she’d have trouble a third time. Circumstances beyond anyone’s control made it impossible for Dad to be here as her due date approached, though, so with Rick, Mom and me left holding the proverbial bag, we couldn’t help worrying.
And yet luck was on our side – and hers – this time. Midmorning on Saturday I was on the phone with my mother (they live next door, but she and I still spend plenty of time on the phone) and realized that I could barely hear Mom’s voice because of the clamor of mooing – more like bellowing – from the barnyard. So after I hung up, Rick and I put on our boots and headed out to investigate. The cows have many acres among which to roam, but following the sound of the bellowing brought us straight to Gracie, who was standing behind the barn with a small, damp, rumpled brown calf at her feet.
A little poking around assured us it was a perfect delivery. Gracie looked strong and well; the calf rose quickly to stand, which often doesn’t happen until quite a bit more time has gone by, and he started rooting at his mother’s udder. Rick toweled off the calf and treated the umbilical cord with iodine; my mother and I fetched Gracie a bale of hay (the cows graze at this time of year, but we decided to make things easy for her in those first few postpartum hours) and took some photos.
As with human babies, there’s never any promise that a newborn calf is going to thrive. But there’s not much we can do to improve their odds once they’ve arrived; if the mother cow gets through the birth successfully, we’ve done just about all we can. So we felt relieved and triumphant, but one concern remained; Gracie hadn’t yet delivered the placenta, which would need to be buried. Moreover, both Rick and my mother needed to go out for several hours, so that issue was left in my dubiously capable hands.
In my hands figuratively and literally, as it turned out. Rick suggested before he left that I head back out to the barnyard in another hour to check on the situation. My mother’s advice was to bring a trash bag. So I ate lunch (yes, really), read the paper, and then somewhat warily found gloves, a shovel and a trash bag and headed back out to the barnyard.
Mission accomplished on Gracie’s part, I discovered. The placenta was out, all right. I wasn’t absolutely certain I’d recognize it. I’d never dealt with this part of calving before. Moreover, I’d never set eyes on a placenta of any kind – including those of my two children. I have friends who do the whole tree-planting thing, but in my case, my interest in what had come out during childbirth began and ended with my actual children; I was content to hold and touch them, without feeling any need to interface with the by-products. But when I went out to the pasture, there was Gracie, there was the new calf, there were a couple of the other cows playing doting auntie, and there was…well, the placenta, obviously. I identified it by process of elimination, no pun intended.
It was too heavy for the shovel, but using the trash bag, I was able to wrap it up and cart it off to an appropriate disposal site, and my work was done. This particular aspect of farming wasn’t on my so-called bucket list, but seeing Gracie have a successful delivery was something I’d hoped for throughout the past several weeks. Back at the house, I washed my hands as visions of cigars and champagne corks danced in my head, though with the summer-long drought we’ve been experiencing, cigars would have been the last thing anyone would want near the barn.
The next day, it started to rain. We named the new bull Rain, in gratitude for the drought-ending precipitation and his healthy arrival. I’ll never forget my first placenta disposal experience. It was a good week for me not to have scrimped and bought generic trash bags. If the Hefty Cinch-Sak manufacturers want a testimonial, I’d be more than happy to provide one. They’ll have to synthesize an illustration themselves, though; I left the camera in the kitchen. The picture in my mind’s eye is more than enough for me.
Gracie happens to have another distinction: she’s the only cow who has had difficulty calving. Her first calf drowned in the brook shortly after birth, though we don’t know the circumstances. And Gracie’s second calf was even more problematic; it was the first time in twenty years of my parents’ cattle operation that we’ve had to provide hands-on help with a delivery. Essentially, my husband Rick ended up performing high-powered midwife duties that time, and without going into too much graphic detail, suffice to say that he was the one to do it because he has the strongest biceps among those of us living on the farm.
So Gracie has been unlucky twice, and yet as my father – chief farmer here – pointed out, she was unlucky in two entirely different ways, so when calving season loomed this summer, he assured us there was no reason to think she’d have trouble a third time. Circumstances beyond anyone’s control made it impossible for Dad to be here as her due date approached, though, so with Rick, Mom and me left holding the proverbial bag, we couldn’t help worrying.
And yet luck was on our side – and hers – this time. Midmorning on Saturday I was on the phone with my mother (they live next door, but she and I still spend plenty of time on the phone) and realized that I could barely hear Mom’s voice because of the clamor of mooing – more like bellowing – from the barnyard. So after I hung up, Rick and I put on our boots and headed out to investigate. The cows have many acres among which to roam, but following the sound of the bellowing brought us straight to Gracie, who was standing behind the barn with a small, damp, rumpled brown calf at her feet.
A little poking around assured us it was a perfect delivery. Gracie looked strong and well; the calf rose quickly to stand, which often doesn’t happen until quite a bit more time has gone by, and he started rooting at his mother’s udder. Rick toweled off the calf and treated the umbilical cord with iodine; my mother and I fetched Gracie a bale of hay (the cows graze at this time of year, but we decided to make things easy for her in those first few postpartum hours) and took some photos.
As with human babies, there’s never any promise that a newborn calf is going to thrive. But there’s not much we can do to improve their odds once they’ve arrived; if the mother cow gets through the birth successfully, we’ve done just about all we can. So we felt relieved and triumphant, but one concern remained; Gracie hadn’t yet delivered the placenta, which would need to be buried. Moreover, both Rick and my mother needed to go out for several hours, so that issue was left in my dubiously capable hands.
In my hands figuratively and literally, as it turned out. Rick suggested before he left that I head back out to the barnyard in another hour to check on the situation. My mother’s advice was to bring a trash bag. So I ate lunch (yes, really), read the paper, and then somewhat warily found gloves, a shovel and a trash bag and headed back out to the barnyard.
Mission accomplished on Gracie’s part, I discovered. The placenta was out, all right. I wasn’t absolutely certain I’d recognize it. I’d never dealt with this part of calving before. Moreover, I’d never set eyes on a placenta of any kind – including those of my two children. I have friends who do the whole tree-planting thing, but in my case, my interest in what had come out during childbirth began and ended with my actual children; I was content to hold and touch them, without feeling any need to interface with the by-products. But when I went out to the pasture, there was Gracie, there was the new calf, there were a couple of the other cows playing doting auntie, and there was…well, the placenta, obviously. I identified it by process of elimination, no pun intended.
It was too heavy for the shovel, but using the trash bag, I was able to wrap it up and cart it off to an appropriate disposal site, and my work was done. This particular aspect of farming wasn’t on my so-called bucket list, but seeing Gracie have a successful delivery was something I’d hoped for throughout the past several weeks. Back at the house, I washed my hands as visions of cigars and champagne corks danced in my head, though with the summer-long drought we’ve been experiencing, cigars would have been the last thing anyone would want near the barn.
The next day, it started to rain. We named the new bull Rain, in gratitude for the drought-ending precipitation and his healthy arrival. I’ll never forget my first placenta disposal experience. It was a good week for me not to have scrimped and bought generic trash bags. If the Hefty Cinch-Sak manufacturers want a testimonial, I’d be more than happy to provide one. They’ll have to synthesize an illustration themselves, though; I left the camera in the kitchen. The picture in my mind’s eye is more than enough for me.
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