An Act of Joseph

Joseph is probably the cutest two year-old I've ever had (although I can't really say that definitively, as I can only vaguely remember Kathleen, Sophia, and Edwin at two years).  He talks in a high, squeaky little voice, parroting everything anyone says to him.  "Joseph," I say to him about three times a day, "are you a monkey?"

"Yes, Mommy!" he invariably replies with his cheeky smile full of teeth made crooked with constant thumb-sucking, "I monkey!!!"  The other day, he announced that he wasn't Batman, he was a Cute Boy.

 

Every time we are riding the elevator and someone joins us he'll greet them with a cheerful hello and make sure they know that he's doing well and we're riding the elevator, followed by details of where we're going - to the store or the pool or the park or the car.  With his white-blonde hair and cheerful grin, nobody can resist him.  I can hardly resist him myself.

 Which is probably a good thing because not only is he the cutest two year-old I've had, he is also by far the most destructive.  I should have been wary when the ripped up board books started littering the floor around his crib when he was about eighteen months old.  Occasionally I would throw one into his bed at nap time, hoping that it would buy me a half hour more of silence.  And it did - but at the cost of a board book each time.  These board books had made it through Joseph's three older siblings with the usual damage - corners chewed on, covers scratched - but they didn't survive Joseph.

I remember my mother-in-law recounting the two year-old days of her own troublemaker.  "It was a constant stream of messes," she remembered, shaking her head in twenty-five years of disbelief, "as soon as I would clean up one mess, I'd find the next one.  I just followed him around the house cleaning up messes all day long."  When I first heard this story, pre-children and pre-Joseph, I couldn't believe that any one child could be that bad.  And then I had Joseph.

On any given day he will find any useful vessel, fill it full of water, and then dump all of the sidewalk chalk he can find in it.  He calls this 'making lemonade.'  I have a jar of 'lemonade' on my counter right now.  This morning he decided that the cheese grater and my mixer beaters would make a perfect accompaniment to my breakfast preparations.

One morning he was out on our balcony when he started wailing.  Evidently he had decided that a pvc pipe, rope and plastic fish (from Eleanor's play gym) would make the perfect fishing kit to dangle over the edge of the seventh floor railing.  Thankfully grass grows at the bottom of that particular drop and the fish was apparently unharmed.  

One day I couldn't find my glasses and set everyone looking for them with no results.  A few days later, Sophia found them stuffed into the hole in our computer speakers.  And after shaking the speakers, we also found the golf ball Joseph had picked up in our parking lot.  It's still there.

Not only is Joseph destructive, he is acquisitive and in love with all things electronic.  My cameras have permanent two year-old fingerprint smudges on the lenses and a lot of Joseph self portraits on the memory card.  After defending my keys from him for years, I finally gave up and bought his own set of keys for him, which he keeps next to his pillow at night.  Same for the old cell phone he acquired, which thankfully can't call 911 (which he did with my phone while we were at the park last week).

He also managed to acquire an old baby monitor and likes to turn it to static as loudly as possible and pretend that he's unlocking our car.  An old USB drive from college is the 'movie maker.'  One day I found the door to my room open, Eleanor awake, and cord to the baby monitor gone.  Joseph had happily hooked it up to a duplo contraption he had made and was 'vacuuming the floor, Mommy,' quite contentedly.

Living up to his monkey name, he will climb any shelf to get to food that he wants.  One day he discovered that Brandon and I keep our secret chocolate stash in our closet, right below a stack of bins holding Eleanor's clothes.  A few days later he nonchalantly walked into my room, stole a glance at me and shut himself up in the closet.  I opened the door a minute later just in time to save most of my Lindt caramel truffles from a heathen palate.  His sisters have learned the hard way to keep their candy out of sight of their little brother who considers something open to pillaging unless expressly forbidden.

Lately Brandon and I have taken to calling unexplained, bizarre messes 'Acts of Joseph.'  "What happened here!?" Brandon will ask as he surveys a bathroom sink filled with water, a marker, washcloth, truck, toothpaste, and about thirty q-tips.  Act of Joseph.  When I find butter smeared over the side of the refrigerator with bits of paper stuck in it and a smashed M&M for color, I know that my kitchen was just visited by an Act of Joseph.  If the girls come running to me, enraged because their favorite cardboard doll house has just been ripped apart, the furniture in pieces, wall paper gone, and dolls stripped naked I have to tell them that it was an Act of Joseph and the insurance couldn't cover it.

I know that one day Joseph will grow out of his Acts and so I don't worry too much.  They're even kind of funny.  But it's a good thing he's so cute.

Friday Night Hijinks, part II

Last Friday night was, as usual, date night.  Brandon and I haven't had a pizza and movie stay-at-home date night since July.  We've been unusually social recently and been traveling a lot lately and so I was happy to stay home with some homemade pizza and ice-cold root beer.

Stay at home dates are sometimes successful, sometimes not so successful.  It's really pretty hard to have an undisturbed movie when there are five children in the house, four of whom sleep in the same room.  Someone is always getting out of bed and using the toilet, smacking their sibling, wanting a drink of water, beating on their sibling, flipping the lights on and off, hitting their sibling, playing with toys, punching their sibling, or wetting their bed.  The hijinks started when Kathleen was moved out of her crib over six years ago and they haven't quit yet.

There will be lulls when the youngest sibling, after having been moved up to the party room, has gotten over the elation of having other people to bother and has had enough beatings that they will stay in bed.  But that's usually right before the next one joins the party.  I'm never quite sure whether my least favorite part of the night is bedtime or dinner time.  Maybe lunch?  We're planning on splitting up the boys and girls (bedrooms willing) when we get to Dushanbe and I am foolishly hoping that this will cut down on the hijinks, but really it will probably make them worse, since there are no girls to intervene when Edwin and Joseph are really going at it.  Joseph really needs to bulk up so I can finally just let them fight it out.

Recently, when I've put the children to bed, I've started giving them a lecture about date night.  'Friday night is date night,' I patiently explain (over and over and over), 'which means that Daddy and I are having a date.  And when you interrupt us with fighting (with a hard look at Edwin) or getting out of bed (Joseph) or needing a thirtieth kiss (Sophia) you are stealing our date night.  Now Saturday night is family night.  That's when we spend time together as a family.  But not tonight.  Tonight is for Daddy and me to spend time together.  So if you steal our date night, you will not be able to participate in family night.  Got it?'  I'm never quite sure whether to end with a hard stare or a pleading look.  It's a hard audience to play.

Last Friday night was going well - leftover borsch for the children's dinner, all of the necessary pizza ingredients present, movie in hand - so I got the children in bed by seven.  Kathleen has a watch, so I instructed her to shut of the lights at eight.  And then I shut the door and walked away.

I might have giggled as I bolted for my room, shutting the door and sealing Brandon and I off in our own little studio apartment, complete with pizza in the oven and root beer in the refrigerator.  I figured that as long as I didn't hear any noise coming from the children's room, it wouldn't be happening, right?

A few hours later, full of pizza and a few IQ points less from having watched Divergent (since the book wasn't that great I knew not to expect much from the movie.  Brandon viewed it as a good opportunity for mockery, exclaiming "Mr. Pamuk!" in a high-pitched Edwardian accent every few minutes) I opened the bedroom door.  No noise.

I crept into the living room.  No lights.  I cracked open the door and listened again.  No noise.  Finally, I stuck my head, silent and invisible, into the bedroom.  Four little bodies, all sleeping.  Three tucked in neatly, Joseph sprawled over his bed in typical fashion.  I felt like a magic fairy.  I put the children their room at seven, told them to go to bed at eight, and they did it.  Amazing.  I couldn't help doing a happy dance right in the middle of all of those sleeping bodies.  The children did what I asked!  I got a whole pizza and movie with no interruptions!  It was magic.

So I went to bed.  Back in my single days I wouldn't go to bed on a Friday night before two in the morning out of principle.  These days I love going to bed early on a Friday night, seizing the opportunity to get eight or even nine hours of sleep.  Be still my beating heart.  I've grown old and boring and I tell you it's fantastic.



The next thing I knew, someone was crying outside our door.  Brandon, with the lightning-quick reflexes of a sleeping parent, vaulted out of bed to see who had been decapitated in their sleep, or fallen out the window, or been burned to death on the toilet.  He found Sophia weeping outside the door (it's always Sophia, no matter who has had the problem.  The other day Joseph had woken up at one in the morning with poop crusted to his rear and Sophia couldn't figure out how to help him out.  She asked Kathleen for help and Kathleen's response was 'leave me alone or I'll bite you.')

Kathleen had thrown up earlier and now Joseph had thrown up to and she was so so so sorry to wake us up but really she needed some help cleaning up the vomit since Joseph didn't get it all in the toilet.

We blearily stumbled into the room to see how bad the damage was.  Since the linens had just been changed that day, Joseph had managed to get borscht on all of the sheets, the blankets, both of his blankies, and for good measure, on the floor.  Kathleen, thankfully, had the presence of mind to make it to the toilet.  "It was a good thing, Mom, 'cause it was a lot of vomit."

I stumbled back into the kitchen and got drinks of water and Brandon wearily filled a bowl with hot water to start the scrubbing.  He stripped the sheets and dumped them outside the laundry closet/Eleanor's bedroom.  I started on the floor, and we thanked our lucky stars most of it was bundled up in Joseph's linen.  Brandon borrowed Eleanor's blanket for Joseph, we handed out bowls, and called it a night.

Next time, we're staying in a hotel.

Five children, and how I make it work

Sunday I was talking with another mother in the nursing lounge at church.  It's where all the cool kids hang out during church and I confess to having spent more time in there than strictly necessary when I've been having a fun time chatting.  We mothers have to get our socializing in wherever we can.

This mother and I had never met before (it was Stake Conference) so we swapped info: what ward are you from?  How many children do you have?  What ages are they?

She listed off her children's ages - three, two and a half, and the three-month old baby she was nursing.  Then I gave her the run down of my own - eight, six, four, two, and the baby (for a brief three-month period they're perfectly spaced two years apart and then it's back to eyebrow-raising territory).  "Five children!" she gasped, "How do you handle that?  I'm barely able to handle my three!!"

I always chuckle when I get that response from mothers of little children and then assure them that I would much, much rather have five children at the ages my children are than ever go back to three that are three and under.  And then they scratch their head, trying to figure out how adding two more children is supposed to make your life easier.

But the truth is that having five children has its benefits.  Some of these benefits come with any number of children - they're just a result of children getting older - but some of them really do come from having a lot of children.

When I had three little ones, I was everything to them.  Just about the only thing any of them could do alone was use the toilet - and that was just Kathleen.  I dressed everyone, put everyone's shoes one, fed everyone, cleaned up everyone's messes, changed two sets of diapers, played with everyone, sorted out all of the fights, cut everyone's fingernails and toenails (yes, that's eighty in a day when I did my own too), brushed everyone's hair, and was the center of everyone's universe (including my own).  Everything I did, I did with three adoring fans in tow.

Now not only have I trained up the majority to be mostly self-sufficient, I have actually trained some to be helpful.  It's amazing.  Every morning after breakfast, Kathleen and Sophia have the same discussion.  "No it's my turn today! You did it yesterday!!"  When they've sorted out whose turn it is, they both dash for the laundry closet Eleanor's room and try to squeeze through the doorway at the same time.  The lucky winner for the day picks up Eleanor and starts cooing, "Aren't you a beautiful baby?  Oh Eleanor!  Good morning!  Are you ready for your bottle?"

After the bottle, the loser looks on forlornly while the winner picks out Eleanor's outfit for the day before giving the baby her morning bath.  They both get to dress her while brainstorming what exciting thing they could build for Baby Eleanor Playtime that morning.  Eventually I pry her out of their clutches so that Eleanor can get some sleep and time away from her adoring fans.  If I wasn't nursing her I don't think I'd have to do a thing if I didn't want to (which of course I do, because who can resist such a cute baby?).

When we were in Baku and I was busy with a project, the girls would take the boys outside for walks and playground time.  I remember cooking dinner one day and realizing that I hadn't seen the children for at least an hour.  Joseph was keeping me company, but nobody else was crowding around to surround me in a forest of chairs as I stirred the soup.  Another center of gravity had been formed in the family and it wasn't me.

This summer we've traveled quite a bit, and the last three times we headed out of town, I printed off packing lists and handed them to the girls.  Kathleen was in charge of packing her and Joseph's clothes and Sophia helped Edwin.  At the end of an hour or two, I had a duffel full with everything the children needed.  And then they unpacked it when we got home!

It's been years since I hovered around my children at the park, keeping up the continual patter that includes frequent repetitions of 'watch out!' in all of its forms.  As soon as Joseph learned to walk he was off with his siblings, doing whatever he could to keep up with him.  Not once did he turn around and ask him to come play.  I often take my Kindle to the playground because there's nothing else for me to do.

But most of all, aside from the practicalities of having five children, they've taught me how to love.  As I've had each child my capacity to love had increased.  When Kathleen was born, I looked her and saw a gaping hole of Need.  I didn't see chubby baby cheeks and tiny little fingers and a perfect rosebud mouth, I saw someone who was going to interrupt my regularly scheduled life with constant needs that only I could fill.  I was worried about getting her to sleep, I was stressed about feeding her, and I was terrified about forming bad habits.

When I look at Eleanor, I see her irresistible baby cheeks and overflow with delight when she squirms, wriggling with happiness every time she catches my eye.  When Joseph has made yet another dripping mess, I can't help but laugh at his devilish cleverness even as I'm paying for it.  I relish the time spent cuddling Edwin when he has been hurt and runs to me for comfort, fitting his soft body into the folds of mine as I rock the pain away, running my fingers through his soft blonde hair.  When Sophia steals a look at me in church, I can't frown at her inattention, I can only smile back at her, co-conspirators in crime.  And I am amazed to find, despite the sarcasm and jokes, underneath it all, I love being a mother.

I never ever thought that I would ever love it, especially with young children.  I knew it would be work and I was prepared for the work.  I knew that it would pay off in time when I was old and someone would be there to care it was my birthday.  I felt it was my duty, religiously, to have as many children as I could take care of.  But I never could never even begin to conceive of the joy that my five children bring to me every single day.  It fills my entire existence and literally changes my life every single day.  Not only do I love my children, but because of the love that has grown from them I love my friends more.  I love my family more.  I love strangers more.  I view the whole world differently because I am a mother.  I am transformed.

So when you see a mother trailing multiple children behind her, don't feel sorry for her, for the time she spends wiping noses and cleaning up messes.  Don't wonder why anyone would willingly give up their life to bring mouth after mouth after mouth into the world.  Don't think of all of the things she gives up.  Think instead of everything she has gained - many to love, many to love her back, and her whole world transformed.  I think it's a pretty good exchange.

Nine Sundays

A few days ago I scheduled our consumables pack-out.  Last week Brandon picked up all seven of our brand-new diplomatic passports, ready for new visas.  I've been comparing the two airport hotels at the Frankfurt airport (which is closer?  which has better breakfast?).  The weather has turned cooler this week, and I think that summer is really over.  All of those things combined means that it's all starting to get real.

Of course it's not so real that we have our suitcases (I don't really want to think how many that will be) lined up at the door, waiting for our big blue friend, Super Shuttle, to come and take us to (according to the children) the Happiest Place on Earth, Dulles Airport.

It's not even so real that men have shown up with their enormous tri-wall cardboard boxes to stuff in everything that has pathetically attempted to make Oakwood home, instead just cluttering up the apartment for nine months.

But, when you schedule your first event, that fig tree is starting to show its leaves and it's time to start seriously considering the end.

All summer we've played and swum and camped and blissfully pretended that life in America - where Brandon is home for dinner every night and library books are plentiful and parks are almost around every corner - would be our reality for the next forever.  But every time I walked through the woods to our own personal park as the wind brushed the trees before dipping to swirl our hair, memory whispered that I didn't belong here, I'd better hang on tightly to this perfect afternoon, because come November it would all be gone in a hazy memory of a country where rain made trees spring out of the ground and money kept them lovely.

Each time I picked up my weekly ten pounds of library books about Mary Queen of Scots and cells and astronauts and Powhatan and everything you could want all delivered to your local library my revelry in all of this knowledge free for the asking would sour with the voice in the back of my head wondering what I would do when the piles of books were suddenly gone.

I think that sometimes I will grow thin and stretched out with all of the change, worn to the point of breaking with holding on too tight to things that will all be gone - friends, houses, time, schedules, mountains, weather, pomegranates, mangoes, cucumbers, and melons.

I love this life.  I love knowing that any situation I can't stand will magically change if I just wait long enough.  I love swapping my old problems for new ones.  I love finding my way around a new country, new house, new people, new memories.  I love looking forward to something exciting to shake up the routine of normal life, give us a break from everyday.

I hate this life.  I hate making a schedule that works perfectly, knowing in nine weeks it will be wrecked to pieces with a new job, a new country, a new life.  I hate finding things, finding people that I love and then leaving them.  I hate knowing that all things come to an end, and like a turtle I will carry my life around me on my back (perhaps with the help of a few plywood packing crates), never finding a place that is forever my own that I can paint and change fixtures and find the perfect place for every single thing that never ever has to be weighed again.  I hate loving and not wanting to love because it will all be gone, over and over and over again.

Every time my belly gets big enough to balance my pizza plate on, I start worrying.  Will I really be able to handle yet another child?  Is it better to just be eternally pregnant, never getting comfortable, always awkward and slow, weary, weary weary, or to have a newborn baby with the endless cries that nothing will make better and maddening unpredictability and even more weariness?

God knows what he is doing, however; by the end of each nine months I don't care how much that baby will cry and how many times I have to get up, I just want to get this thing out and move the heck on.

And so it will be by November.  I will have counted and recounted how many suitcases it will take (really?? ten???) and stressed about weight and worried that I didn't put enough cans of tomatoes in my consumables and stressed that Frankfurt will be too cold to tourist and said goodbye too many times and felt the walls grow closer by the day until I will be ready to shed this life like a snake grown too large for its skin.  I won't care if I never see Brandon again for dinner or our house is miserably cold or we'll never eat bacon again, just get us the heck out of here.

And then we will be gone.  And life will have moved on.  And Virginia will turn into a memory.

But for now, there is too much time yet to go.  So instead, I worry.

And Suddenly, Life Got Busy

This year  This month  Last week Sophia hasn't quite started school all of the way yet.  She's supposed to be in first grade, and first grade is when all of the real work starts - Math, History, Science, and Writing.  I was planning on starting after we came back from the beach, but then I decided to make Kathleen's baptism dress.  Then Brandon and I took a whirlwind trip to Seattle.  Then I got back to work on the baptism dress.  And then we went camping.  So last week was the first full week of school we've had in probably two months.  Maybe since Eleanor was born.  Just in case you're getting stressed about my children's academic future, don't worry - I've got it covered.  I can feel the looming fear of totally incompetent semi-adults camping at my house for decades haunting my dreams already.  Maybe if I ignore it hard enough, it will go away.

So this past week was The Week.  Sophia and I have already done some math lessons and she's been joining in on history with Kathleen (nothing like the good old beheading of Mary Queen of Scots to spark a young student's love for history!) so I've not been completely incompetent.  But I guess only accomplishing math, reading and handwriting isn't much when theoretically I'm supposed to be doing spelling, grammar, writing, and literature also in the same day.

But like I said, this past week was going to be the one where I squashed every bit of learning required in between the end of breakfast and the beginning of lunch - which meal, by the way has gotten increasingly later throughout the years.  Back a long time ago when we lived in Cairo, Kathleen and Sophia ate lunch at 11:00, I ate at 11:30, took a nap for thirty minutes, and then had several hours of alone time before the girls got up from their naps.  In Baku, after Kathleen started school lunch drifted to 11:30 for the children and noon for me.  Now that Kathleen and Sophia are both in school and Eleanor has to eat too, lunch now starts at noon (if we're lucky) and I no longer get to enjoy a peaceful lunch alone with my current favorite reading material.  Lunch is no longer a pleasure, it's a source of calories (that is interrupted every three minutes to help someone use the bathroom, clean up a mess, get more of their own food, get a swat to keep them in their chair, or get sent to the corner) that keep Eleanor from dipping below the 15th weight percentile she's currently hanging out in.

Did I mention that this past week was going to be my glorious return to awesomeness?  You know, where I would show the world that you can do it all and still get a nap?  Let me just paste in an email I sent to Brandon Friday, around lunch time.

"It started with Math.  Kathleen did  three tests (which she had forgotten to do earlier) yesterday, which I graded and she had to correct.  The scores were 70%, 60% and 50% - all because she didn’t pay attention or, in some cases, didn’t even work the problem.  Then I had to correct and watch her re-work her homework problems.  Then we had a long discussion about being thorough, paying attention, not wasting time, and not getting distracted.  In the middle I re-registered the car, which necessitated 1. trying to do it online 2. finding out that the county tax was never paid last year 3. calling the county and getting the account number 4. trying six times, unsuccessfully, to use their phone system 5. calling someone who offered no help but checked that yes, I did have the right account number 5. calling back and having it magically work (and finding out that we’ve been paying interest on the tax since JANUARY - this is because my parent’s renters never felt like forwarding the bill to us).  Then I moved on to Edwin’s reading lesson.  He did fantastically.  Then it was Sophia’s turn, which was interrupted every three minutes by 1. the boys fighting 2. Kathleen asking questions about her math homework (she wants to get them all right and a gold star) 3. me giving her a tutorial about long divison (she didn’t understand dropping the numbers down).  And I got Eleanor up, changer her diaper, and fed her.  Then we finished.  Then we ate lunch.  I tried to eat lunch and was interrupted every three minutes.  I’m now putting Joseph down to bed before going to bed myself.  Then I’ll get up and beat the children into cleaning up the apartment so it can be clean for the lady who is coming at 2:00 (hopefully she’ll be late).  

So, you know, just another exotic day in the life of a mother of five.

I’m looking forward to a movie and pizza tonight.

(just so you know, this is a rant, not a call to fix the problem.  I think that the problem started about nine years ago when we started trying to have a baby and then was subsequently compounded every two years or so afterwards.)

Love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ashley

Maybe, just maybe public school isn't such a bad idea after all?  At least my children will learn something, right?

Sophia the Baking Queen

A few months ago after endless pestering from Sophia, I finally let her make cornbread muffins.  In Baku, I occasionally let her mix together some of the ingredients (I'm not sure where that pervasively destructive idea that baking cookies together is fun came from.  I've never had anything but added aggravation when twenty-five little hands want to intrude on my well-oiled cooking machine.  Seriously.  I've spent decades working on my technique and now you want to come and 'help?'  You can help by leaving me the heck alone dumping in one thing.)

She wasn't happy about this arrangement, however, and latched on to the idea that pestering is effective (which, of course, it is) and asked me when she could help me cook.  Today?  Today?  Today?  Finally one day I sat down and wrote her out a fourteen-point child's version of the cornbread recipe I memorized years ago.  Step one: Turn on the oven to 425 degrees.  Step two: get out the four-cup glass measuring cup.

I assigned Kathleen to read the recipe to her ("Mom, it was really hard, but I did it.  I really wanted to go and read a book, but I didn't and read her the whole recipe.  Aren't you proud of me?") since she is still learning to read.  The muffins turned out a little flat - it's a definite skill to learn when that magic point between under- and over-mixing occurs - but they were quite edible.  And best of all, I didn't have to make them.

So next time she asked what she could do to help with dinner, I handed her the recipe and like magic we had hot, homemade cornbread muffins on the table that I didn't make.

A few weeks ago the girls, tired of waiting for me to do something with the black bananas that had been languishing on our kitchen counters for entirely too long, asked if they could make banana bread.  My first reaction was to refuse, thinking of the mess that would inevitably happen.  But I swallowed it in the name of letting them have a little independence and printed off a recipe.  Then I went to take a nap.

When I woke up, the house was filled with warm banana bread smell.  I wandered into the kitchen to find all three of them sitting around the table with thick (only somewhat crooked) slices in their little hands, stuffing their faces.  "It's great mom!" Kathleen announced between bites, "You should try some!"

Curious, I took a slice of my own and slathered it in the requisite tablespoon of butter that fresh banana bread deserves, and bit into it.  Sure enough it was good.  And the dishes were even (mostly) done (because every one know that the most important part of cooking is doing the dishes).

Last week Sophia did it again, without any help from Kathleen, with the same result.  And on Thursday in a stroke of genius, I bribed her into cleaning up the toy room with the promise that she could make cookies when she was done.  Eight-five percent of successful parenting is proper manipulation.

When I was a teenager, my mother would turn to me on a Sunday afternoon and ask what was for dessert.  I was always happy to make something because that meant I got to choose the dessert and lick all of the implements.  My mother was happy because she didn't have to choose a dessert and she didn't have to make it.  It was a good arrangement.  Obviously parenting has never been and will never be about getting a net benefit from your children; you sign up for it because, among a multitude of things, you are interested in advancing humanity in general.  But it is a pleasant surprise when things work out in everyone's favor - including your own.

Camping

I've never thought of myself as a camper.  Growing up, I would attend the ward campout because that's where my family was going and I didn't have a choice.  I attended girls' camp because that was what one did in the summer.  But when my father offered to take me along with him for some real, wilderness-style camping I always said no.  Who wants to hike miles with a heavy pack just so you could be even further away from flush toilets? My mother had this magnet hanging up on her refrigerator and I couldn't help but secretly agree with her.

In college I went camping a few times and enjoyed myself reasonably, but not enough to invest in any serious gear - you know, like a sleeping bag (I'm not sure whose sleeping bags I borrowed those few times).  The last time I went was right before Brandon and I got married, over nine years ago.

Recently, however, I've decided that camping could actually be a fun thing, at least in concept.  The children are finally old enough that some of them would enjoy it and there are enough of the enjoyers that the non-enjoyers are in the minority and so can be safely ignored.  Those who enjoy camping are also capable of hiking (although some of them go hiking under duress), which is the natural companion to camping.  I'm not pregnant.  I don't have a newborn baby.  We are currently in a country where camping is easy (read:bathrooms) and we're going to a country where isn't much else to do with five children but camp.  Large numbers of children are best dealt with in surroundings that allow them to act like they want to anyway and so my childcare efforts are minimized.  Five-star luxury resorts sound like a great idea without children.

So this weekend we conducted our first trial run in the Shenandoah National Forest.  My cousin and his wife and a friend with her two girls consented to come join the circus with us.  Just in case things started going south, we would have witnesses to keep us from throttling an exasperating child.

But before we could head out into the great untamed wild, we had to buy supplies.  My parents had given Brandon and I some unused sleeping bags several years ago, but they had been lost or given away between Utah and Cairo and Baku and we had nothing.  We didn't even have flashlights - at least ones that were in the US.  So I hauled Brandon over to the computer the preceding Saturday night and we spent an unreasonably large amount of money on gear so that we drive over two hours to go and sleep outside.  He reported that the UPS man delivering our packages was not very happy about delivering so many incredibly large boxes (four).  Good thing we don't have to tip the drivers.

We got started a little later than I had hoped (who doesn't when they're going anywhere with five children?), but were pulling away from FSI with Brandon on board by 1:45.  We had an uneventful drive with a few stops and pulled in by 4:45 with plenty of time to unpack the car, pitch the tent, and start our fire (with nothing but a lighter and some paper.  Next time we're bringing something less... boy scouts) before everyone else showed up.

When I planned out our trip I remembered lessons learned from hiking in Baku and attempted to keep everything as simple as possible (with seven people, that can only get so simple).  For food I had one rule: it had to be cooked on a stick.  I wasn't going camping so I could wash dishes half the night, and I had no concern at all for nutrition.  If the children didn't get full on hot dogs, they were welcome to top off with as many s'mores as they liked.

So after lots of hot dogs (and vegetables and watermelon brought by a much more nutrition-conscious member of our party) and s'mores everyone was happily bundled off to bed at an hour late enough to ensure that everyone fell asleep within five minutes of being put into their brand-new all matching green sleeping bags.  Then the adults enjoyed a beautiful three-quarters moonlit after party with even more s'mores.  

Breakfast the next morning was more stick-cooking (sausages and biscuits - originally cooked on sticks until someone more clever than me brought out the tin foil) with a token nutritional supplement of orange juice and bananas.  

After packing up the camp (it's amazing how long that takes when you have twelve people) we went for a child-and-pregnant-woman appropriate hike.

We stopped by a waterfall for lunch and let everyone enjoy their favorite pastime, rock throwing.  

The hike was just long enough - one and half miles round trip - that everyone got good and tired out for the two-hour ride home.

As we drove home, enjoying the gorgeous scenery along Skyline Drive and beautiful silence of five sleeping children, Brandon and I reviewed the trip.  I think we have been worn down by so many small people to take care of, because we both decided that the entire trip had been a stunning success.  Of course there were things to improve on, but we all had a wonderful time.  Our friends were so much fun to have along, the weather was pleasant, the s'mores were delicious, and even sleeping was comfortable.  We're already making plans for the next trip.

Three Family Events for the Price of One

Last Saturday was Kathleen's baptism.  She turned eight several weeks ago, but between a visit from a college friend and a wedding in Seattle, Saturday was the first free day to baptize her.  This worked out perfectly, however, because my Aunt Kathleen, who Kathleen is named after, also had a birthday on Saturday.  And since Eleanor still hadn't been blessed (mostly laziness), we decided to throw in one more thing to draw the crowds.  I'm very blessed to have family in town who came for the event.  I always love any and every opportunity to get together with family while we can.  

When I brought up the possibility of sewing Kathleen's dress, Brandon offered strong advice against it, citing the beach trip, friend visit, and wedding in the preceding three weeks as a good reason not to do it (and he was right).  I ignored him and did it anyway, finishing it several days before the baptism thanks to his good-natured and patient assumption of my household duties for several days in a row.  I think that I don't deserve him.

So now I've made the girls' blessing dress and the baptism dress.  I informed them that if they would like me to make their wedding dresses, they'd have to be willing to all wear the same dress.  We're going to have to see about that one.

The whole program was beautiful, with wonderful talks and prayers and piano playing from the same kind relatives who came out for the event.  As I watched Brandon lead Kathleen down into the font I was hit with the realization that I now have a daughter old enough to make a covenant with God all on her own.  I've noted the passing years (four more to go until babysitting age!) but their compounded meaning didn't strike me until I watched the ordinance performed by my husband for our daughter.  This is the first in a line of many things that will help me to realize my advancing years and the wonderful blessing of having such special children.  

Kathleen was excited for weeks and weeks and could hardly sleep the night before.  When we came into the children's room Saturday morning she greeted us with a huge grin.  "Today's the day I'm getting baptized!!!" she announced to the entire building.  She is a blessing to our family, adding her sunshine whenever the rest of us are grey.  

After the closing prayer was said, Edwin hopped up and announced, "Let's get out of here.  It's time for cupcakes!"  So we all headed over to a local park and had cupcakes after singing "Happy Birthday" to Aunt Kathleen.  It was the perfect end to a wonderful day.

And Then There Was Sailing

Little brothers do funny things.  They are small and annoying and drive you crazy and exist mostly to create lego constructions that they then destroy in fantastically loud ways, seemingly forever.  Then one day after you've grown up and become oh so Adult, you wake up and discover that your little brothers that were always noisy afterthoughts to a pleasant family have grown up to be pretty fun to be with.  And maybe, even perhaps, cool.  And then they move across the country.

My brother Sam has always loved sailing.  We lived a mile or two from a neighborhood lake that offered sailing classes on those little fiberglass Sunfishes with the bright sails that were made to be photographed for computer wallpaper.  One Christmas, or birthday, or straight-A semester Sam asked for sailing lessons.  I was wrapped up in my own teenaged world and just figured it was another strange phase my ten year-old brother was going through, like the time my brother Mike wore his neon-colored frog shorts and shirt and hat for a week straight.

One day he talked me out of my self-centered sixteen year-old life and into venturing further out to a county park, Crabtree Lake, that rented larger Sunfishes.  I had a car and he didn't, so we made a day of it.  We sailed around the lake for hours, getting soaked and talking more than we probably had ever in our whole life living together in the same house.  I don't think I had ever spent a day with just him before that afternoon and I don't believe I ever did again.

After Sam graduated from college, he moved out to Seattle and started working for Boeing.  Being single and frugal and old enough to prize solitude, he started looking into buying a boat.  It's funny because we all own cars, and boats of the size and age he was looking for cost as much as a Civic, but buying a boat seems like something so much more momentous.  He was able to find what he was looking for (evidently the boat market in Seattle is amazingly tight) and now owns his very own boat.

We had already built a day into our plans to visit Sam, but when I found out that he had bought his boat, I was even more excited to go and spend the day with him.  Because who doesn't like Seattle on the water?  And boats are cool.

Eleanor's view for most of the day

The day, of course, was wonderful.  We had a beautiful sail (although Sam claimed that it was sweltering.  I think he's been in the Pacific Northwest too long), bookended by a delicious brunch and tasty dinner.  Eleanor behaved herself and I confess that I didn't miss the other children at all (hopefully they will read this when they are much older and can forgive me my callousness).  

I was very sad to say goodbye to my little brother until next summer.  I think one of the great injustices of life is that when you're finally old enough and sensible enough to really, really love spending time with your siblings, you live much too far away from each other.  I always swore that I'd never want to live near family (we never did growing up and it worked just fine thank you very much), but I've definitely changed my tune.  The longer I spend in the Foreign Service, the harder it is to be so very far from family.  We all get together for our annual beach trip which is pretty much the highlight of my children's year, but I miss the more ordinary times when I can just hang out with my siblings individually.  I have a lot of time to make up for, after all.  Maybe we can work something out later, but for now I'll just have one day in Seattle to put up on the shelf with the one on Crabtree Lake.  Hopefully they won't stay the only ones.