mathmom's blog

I started blogging a few years ago when the kids were young.  I had all sorts of funny kid stories and not enough time to tell them to Michael, grandparents, anyone who might be interested.  In addition my life was filled with quiet tasks that didn't require much attention or talking, and I thought about how to tell all these stories I had no one to tell. So I wrote, first in my head and then on the blog. Then the kids started growing up.  I could tell them the stories about what Luke had done (for instance) and they would appreciate the story.  Also, they started telling me stories and I didn't have as much time to make up my own stories.  So I stopped writing, except for exceptional events. Recently I had to answer a questionnaire about Luke's early days.  I didn't remember and I certainly didn't write them down in his baby book (not that I could find the baby book) (sorry, Luke), so I went back and read my blog.  Wow!  I didn't remember hal...

We recently did a large landscaping project (as I mentioned earlier) and it is really beautiful.  However, since we did it immediately before one of the worst heat waves of the summer, all the new plants need water.  Every day. So, instead of having a yard which we spent maybe 30 minutes a week on (20 minutes mowing and 10 minutes pulling weeds) we now have a yard which we spend 30 minutes per day watering and 1.5 hours per week mowing.  It strikes me that the time commitment is similar to walking a dog or taking care of some other pet, but with less fur. To be clear, the yard when we spent 30 minutes per week on it was very unsatisfying and not enjoyable.  And the new yard offers a satisfying beauty and peace that a cat would not (and there are no vet bills).  I'm thinking that we just need to re-evaluate how much time it takes to take care of a yard that we enjoy, and spend the time accordingly so we don't spend the money later. Probably there are some l...

For the past two summers I have participated in a "String Quartet Workshop" run by my viola teacher.  I am so very glad that I have gotten to go do this! I am working with 3 other adults, I play the all important viola part.  We get the piece in June and go over it a few times together before meeting with our coach.  I bring it to my lesson because without that extra help I'd be pretty lost---the others have all been playing for years in the orchestra.  I wonder if the others feel like she spends lots of time correcting their playing, but it's because she's already told me the same thing (usually several times) in our lesson. Then we have 6 hours coaching all together.  When we work with our coach she helps us play the music, not just the notes.  For example, she told us about "Mozart quarter notes."  They're not staccato, nor legato, there is just a slight breath between the notes. She tries to help us end lightly and easily and together (althou...

The other day I was helping Luke pack for camp.  I told him to get one of the old towels from the stack in my room, and he came back with one of the towels we got from our wedding.  "No, no, I meant one of the old towels," by which I really meant one of the ones our parents had given us to cushion the furniture when we moved down here after graduating. Then it hit me: the ones from our wedding are old.  They are all over 20 years old.  My friend recommended that we save out a wedding present towel and start using it on our 10th anniversary, but even that towel has been used for about 12 years and is no different than the other towels.   I still remember who gave them to us: Aunts and Uncles, Friends of my mother and Michael's family, and so on.  At one point we bought a new set, but that was before Eleanor was born and so is older than her.  The only new-ish towels we have are the ones the kids got with their names on them. I remember being ...

A few years ago (well, maybe about 4 or 5...) when Luke was around 4 years old I read a book called " Managers of Their Homes ."  It was about being organized with homeschooling, housework and taking care of children.  The main gist of the book was that everyone had certain tasks to accomplish during the day, and in order to figure out how to fit everything in you first make lists of everyone's important tasks and then make a schedule for everyone, in half hour blocks, to fit the important tasks in.  Nice idea, I thought, but that would never work for me or for any of my kids.  Every day is always different, and the kids would surely hate being scheduled for every single half hour! Fast forward to this summer.  I really don't like making my kids do a lot over the summer (ask me how I squandered spent my summers sometime).  But I do think that kids should contribute to the running of the house, and they need to practice, and keeping up with writing over...

Eleanor now has had one of her ears pierced 3 times.  But it's not what you think! I got my ears pierced at Southdale Mall when I was 12.  My grandma and mom went with me.  It was quite the occasion, a sort of coming-of-age ritual.  So when Eleanor turned 12 I offered to let her get her ears pierced too.  She declined.  It was made more complicated by the fact that Michael insisted that she get it done at the doctors office---I didn't even believe they did ear piercings, but apparently that is a service they offer. Starting this spring Eleanor decided she wanted to get her ears pierced, so we went in a few weeks ago to get them done. When we got home we noticed that the back of one of the earrings was dipping low behind her ear so it was visible in the front.  Michael said, "Call the doctor" and they told us to take it out and wait 2 weeks.  It was hard to get out! But we did, and the hole healed up nicely. Then we went in yesterday to get i...

We went to the pool yesterday and there was a younger woman with 2 kids, maybe 5 and 6 years old.  As I watched her with the kids I became convinced that she wasn't their mom. "Don't be ridiculous.  She's beautiful and younger, but not too young to be these kids' mom.  She has an accent, but many people in this neighborhood are from somewhere else.  Don't make assumptions," I told myself.  But I watched her and I was interested to know what about their behavior ticked off my "mom" radar.  I saw that when she spoke and asked the kids to do or not do something, she didn't speak with any authority---she could tell them to do something, but she had no power to make it happen.  "We're not sitting up there right now." "Don't jump in by the steps!" "If you jump on the inflatable shark it might pop, just like the last one."  In the first case the kid looked at her and thought about whether to obey and then di...

We've been having some landscaping done at our house, and we've been listening to The Two Towers.  This has made for some interesting renaming. We have some "dry riverbeds" to help with drainage. The side river is called Anduin, I think. We used to have a large non-landscaped forest area full of underbrush and small trees.  We called it the "unfinished space."  It has been cleaned up significantly and had pine straw laid on the ground, so it isn't "unfinished" anymore.  It has become Fangorn, and the dry riverbed in it is now the Entwash. We have a waterfall which is Rauros.  We have some stairs which are the Dimril Stair.  We have a new deck which is Caras Galadhon. I suppose our house is Rivendell maybe? I have to consult the location scouts for their opinions.

It's just too hard to remember the kids names.  I know we picked them out and all, but it gets to be a bit much remembering who has already done something or who needs to do something. Also, if Amanda looks like Eleanor used to look, why can't I call her Eleanor.  I'm not sure who that teenager lurking around the house is... So I have a solution.  They are no longer "Eleanor, Amanda and Luke," they are, "Tall Girl, Shorter Girl, and Boy."  If I get those confused I can always revert to, "Hey you!  Over there! No, the other one!" as I do now.

So Eleanor is now about 4 inches taller than me.  I'm not exactly sure how that happened... The other day, when I needed something off a high shelf in the kitchen, I called to her, "Eleanor, could you bring your tallness in here and help me out?" She responded, "Don't you mean, 'your Highness?'" Right.  Reason #4581 why I like hanging around with Eleanor.

My father-in-law once told me that one of the reasons he did not like working for his parents was that they never praised him.  It got me started thinking about how I would like my kids to do work for me and how I like to work.  Here are some ideas I have. You could do it faster by yourself.  This is not the point: the point is that when they are 20 and find themselves with something that needs to be done, they know how to do it or at least how to work at a task that is difficult until it's done. Work with children needs to be limited.  There is no end to work: I frequently find myself tidying up, "just one more thing," over and over and it never seems to be done.  We wash, fold and put away the clothes only to put our dirty clothes in the laundry basket as we go to bed.  This is depressing to me, but to a child who just wants to get away and have fun it is excruciating.  So it makes sense to artificially limit the work and provide an end point to w...

So we went to the zoo yesterday, but this time we went with a 14, 13, 11 and 9 year old (a friend came along).  Boy oh boy was it different from when we went with a 6, 4 and 2 year old. Everyone liked to spend time actually looking at the animals.  The parakeet auklet was swimming under the water and splashing up a storm---great!  The polar bear was pacing around---we wondered what he had been doing.  They counted the number of bird species they saw in the aviary. They watched and observed and learned things. Eleanor: "What would you call a bright orange flamingo?  A Fla-mango!" The girls all loved the cats, especially the sand cat.  They made up stories about what the cat was thinking.  It certainly was a beauty. They actually read the signs.  All by themselves.  I didn't have to read them out loud.  Fabulous! No one complained about lunch. Or about not going to the extra cost high ropes course, carousel and 4D movie.  In fac...