The Declaration of Independence Is Much Shorter Than This Post

We have returned from a trip to Virginia for Thanksgiving, and now I'm going to share all about it.  So much will be said that it's kind of like when you sit down to eat Thanksgiving dinner and there is too much food so you have to undo the button on your pants so you can have some more.

Unless you're smart and you wore elastic pants.

See if you can make sense of that analogy. 

After a typical (unfortunately) departure experience, we arrived in Richmond in one piece (or five pieces, really, but each one of us intact) and headed for Chick-Fil-A, because it had been a full 48 hours or so since I the kids had had some of my their favorite food.  We took our lunch to the park and let the kids stretch their legs a bit.  Wait.  What are they doing?  Sitting squished together looking at a tiny screen?  What is wrong with these children?  Don't they know they have hundreds of acres in which to run free?

Eventually the call of the wild got to Christian and he couldn't stand it any longer...the sticks!  There were so many!  And they must be swung!

Eliana got a ride while Mike stretched his legs.

And even Grandma got a little workout. 

We headed back to my parents' house and the kids played outside some more, raking leaves and playing in them.  When I was growing up, this was the view from my house.  There are a few homes across the street, but beyond that, woods.  It's really lovely, especially this time of year.  I don't think I ever paid attention to that when I was younger; the scenery struck me this time as particularly beautiful.

I will never understand why they want to be buried in leaves, including the face!

Moving straight from fall into the middle of winter, we went inside, got everyone cleaned up, and celebrated Christmas with my mom and dad.  They wanted to give the kids their presents in person, and we won't see them in December, so...

Now, my mom collects things, and one of her collections is snowmen.  Her snowmen have quite the personalities.  This one here?  He has a bit of an attitude when things don't go his way.

And this guy?  He enjoys a cold one every now and then.

A Dr. Pepper!  Cherry flavored, preferably.

Fast-forward to the following afternoon, when we arrived in Williamsburg.  My parents had a suite and our family had a sweet, with an adjoining hall.  Eliana thought this table just as you walked in the door would serve well for a bed.

She actually really did say,"This is a bed."  We were able to convince her to try out the beds with mattresses, which she liked much better in the end.

Monday we had a slow start.  And by "slow start" I mean we made it to Colonial Williamsburg by 5pm.  It was a lovely time to visit, the weather was nice, and the sunset beautiful, but there wasn't much going on.  And when there isn't a whole lot going on, there is all kinds of trouble to be made.  When there is trouble made, there is the pillory...

I think they are missing the point.

Speaking of a point, I bet you wish there was a point to my post.  The point is, it's long.  So, put a pillow under your bottom and keep reading.

Our biennial trip to Williamsburg is fun because of the traditions that we have.  One venture that has now been dubbed a tradition is to ride the ferry near Jamestown across the river and eat lunch with some good friends of my parents, Jack and Gloria.  They bring bread for the kids to feed to the birds that follow the ferry over.

My mom took these pictures.  I was hiding under my seat in the car. 

I don't like birds, but I love perspective.

Michaela held up bites of bread for the birds to come and take from her hands (AACK!) while Christian just threw half-pieces of bread up to the birds to catch.

On the return trip, Eliana got brave, too.

Or crazy, whichever you prefer to call it.

We had had a wacky day, and had waffled on visiting Jamestown in the late afternoon or waiting until the following morning.  We decided to go ahead and go (Jamestown, the museum, not the actual site) since we were so close.  It was fun, as always. 

Mom doesn't seem like she takes the local authorities too seriously.  I think she better shape up.

Because a lot of our outings were late in the day, my pictures aren't that great.  Boo.

We finally made it back to Colonial Williamsburg for another traditional event:  Hot Chocolate at Raleigh Tavern's Bakery.  And it was hot, indeed.

The cookies were scrumptious.

Eliana declared (words not necessary) that this was a great tradition and one that must be longstanding.

We enjoyed walking through Colonial Williamsburg a bit, and then in the afternoon (again!) we made it over to Yorktown.  Our plan was to visit Yorktown and then pick up our Thanksgiving dinner.  That's right...from the grocery store!  A pre-cooked turkey, and some stuff to go along with it.  Don't judge.  We had a pretty stress-free Thanksgiving preparation.

So, we went to Yorktown Victory Center and meandered down a walkway which led to a museum with many artifacts (some original and some replications), pictures, and descriptions.  There was a gallery of sculptures with stories laid out below, and voice recordings telling the stories of the people who were represented.  While all of these were amazing, the one that was so heartbreaking for me was the story of John Chilton, surely the same story that many, many men had to tell from this time, who died while fighting and did not return home to his children.  His signature was shown, from one of his letters...

"I am your affectionate Papa  John Chilton"  It brought tears to my eyes...our kids call Mike "Papa" sometimes.  What a time to live through, whether man, woman, or child.

After we walked through the museum (and we weren't able to see everything, because of time...there was so much!) we went outside to visit the encampment.  Six soldiers would have shared one tent, of the small side-by-side tents there in the middle (and the bugs that lived there, too).

This gentleman told us about muskets, but I missed the end because Eliana knew it was going to be loud, and wanted to go away.

Now, here is a scene I could (sort of) relate to...I love this part:  "WITH SOAP"

Does that ever make me feel grateful for my machines!

We visited the medical tent, and this lovely lady explained the different procedures that were practiced, from removing bullets to pulling rotten teeth.  All without proper sanitation or pain relief.  Biting on a stick can only bring so much relief.  (I think of my toe!  Augh!)

Christian tried a coat on for size...he has some room to grow.

On our way out we ran into some miscreants.

That Insubordinate Guy...he looks like he's very sorry for his wrongdoings, now, doesn't he?  The other two?  Thoroughly enjoying their punishment.  And likely their crimes, too.

Thanksgiving Day brought a lot of food to our table, and then into our bellies.  My brother also came to town for the afternoon.  And I would like to know, why is the question ever raised,"Where do they get this from?" regarding my children and their behavior in front of a camera?

I believe the proof is in the pudding.

I just thought I'd end with something as strange as that which began this post.

Stay tuned for another post on what might have been the most amazing thing that happened during our entire stay!

The Long and Short of It

Even when Michaela was little she had long, beautiful, blonde hair.  I didn't take her to get a haircut until she was three years old.  I didn't want to even then, but it was starting to look a bit straggly in the back, and I hoped that the hairstylist that I took her to would merely trim off the ends, while managing to keep the general shape of her hair.  It had been growing out since she was born (duh) and it had some lovely natural layers.  The front was shorter than the back in a way that I often wanted my own hair to do!  It was so pretty.

When we got home from her first haircut I noticed that the back had a crooked curve to it.  It seemed longer on one side than the other...and rather than leaving well enough alone I took a pair of very sharp hairtrimming scissors and made an effort to even out the back of her hair.  I set the scissors down on a table that was in her room.  It was a small dining table that we had replaced with a larger dining table a few years before.  Now we used this smaller table as a desk.  (Mike used it, that is.  I didn't study at all at this point.  I was doing well just to get my teeth brushed each day and make sure the kids ate a vegetable with at least one meal and played outside some.)  I tucked her in bed, read, and turned out the light.

I suppose I got Christian to sleep, cleaned up in the kitchen, and maybe started a load of laundry.  Those were the normal things I did each evening.  A while later I went to check on her; as I entered her room I noticed she had her arm wrapped around something, much like some children hold a stuffed animal as they go to sleep.  When I stood next to the bed I could see that it was a red plastic drinking cup.  Odd.  Where did she get this cup?  I leaned in and gently took the cup from in front of her.  I saw that something was in it.

Oh!  The scissors that I had left on the table, along with a small ball, were in there!  My heart sank...I quickly turned on the lamp next to her bed and saw that the ball was made up of lovely blonde strands of hair.  I looked at her very carefully and saw that she had managed to cut her hair 1) without cutting her ears off or slicing her forehead, and 2) without changing the way it looked all that much.  I was very upset, but also a little impressed that she cut her hair at an angle at such a young age!  (I tried doing that in college and never got it right.)  In the light I could see small golden flecks all over her pillow and on the bed near the pillow.  I woke her up and told her never, never, never to cut her own hair again. 

I felt terrible for leaving the scissors there in the first place...what on earth possessed me to do that?  At that point it hadn't occured to me that she would take them up, in the dark!, and cut her own hair.  First-time-mom alert!  I put the scissors away properly, and had the "never cut your own hair" conversation with her several (hundred) times after that.  I was sure she got the message, after such consistent (obnoxious) repetition. 

Fast forward a few years.  Michaela is almost ten years old now.  She got bangs cut the summer before last, and loved them, but then (OF COURSE) wanted to grow them out.  (Okay, I admit, it was probably mostly my fault, since I never got them trimmed for her...they were annoying, in her eyes, and she just wanted to let them grow out again.)  So, a year and a half later her bangs were down to her chin, but not quite long enough to stay put behind her ears or in a ponytail.  Did I mention ANNOYING?  I took her to a haircutter and tried to have her hair blended a bit, so that her bangs weren't so very separate from the rest of her LONG LONG hair.  I understood her frustration...her bangs just ended, in a choppy kind of way, and then the rest of her hair hung down about eight inches. 

One day Mike (or was it Christian?  I don't remember.) said to me something like,"And did you know that Michaela cut her bangs?"  I was shocked!  After our many conversations!  She looked at me with guilty eyes and hung her shoulders forward and slumphed out of the room.  I didn't say anything since I could see that she felt bad about it already.

Then, a couple of night later, I was tucking her in and noticed some little golden flecks on her bed.  I also spotted, with a quick glance, a pair of kid scissors on her bedside table.  Just like Sherlock Holmes might have done, I asked,"Did you cut your hair again?"  She looked very disgruntled...I'm not sure if it was because she was remorseful for doing something that she was absolutely not supposed to do (twice!) or because she got caught.  I knew that since she was taking matters into her own hands that it was pretty serious, and I needed to take charge of this willy-nilly haircutting.  I sat down next to her and we had another conversation. I told her that if she kept cutting her bangs they would definitely not grow out.  I gave her a couple of options:  let her bangs grow as they were now, and it would be irritating, but eventually they would get longer; or cut her hair so that it was all one length and then let it grow back out all together.  Also, if it were long enough she could donate it.

She thought about it for around two seconds and said,"I want to cut my hair short!"  This surprised me since previously when I brought up the subject of even trimming two inches off of her hair she threw her hands up over her head protectively and cried out,"Never!  You will not cut my hair at all, not any, no haircuts!"  Or something like that.

I called my haircutter (hairstylist, whatever) and made an appointment, which I mentioned the other day had to get rescheduled.  Yesterday was the day of the new appointment.  As she sat down in the chair I told her she could change her mind, but she remained firm in her resolve to shorten her golden locks.

She also said she wanted bangs.

For a second I thought she was trying to make my head explode, since the whole point of getting the short cut was to even it out so that her bangs could grow as part of her normal hair.  But in fact, she was serious.  We talked about it and decided to take one step at a time.  Considering bangs was tough for me.  I want to balance the whole "being comfortable in your own skin" thing with "accepting wise advice from your mama" thing.

Heather (the stylist) started conservatively.  The length of hair that was getting cut was not long enough to donate.  If we had done this at the end of summer (before I trimmed Michaela's hair myself) it would have been.  Oh, well. 

Heather did exactly what we asked her to do...

She finished the haircut and it looked great...so very cute.  Honestly, Michaela looked a lot like Kitt Kittredge (the American Girl).  And then she looked at me and, with pleading eyes, said,"Please, please, can I have bangs, please, please, please?"  I went around and around in my head, and both Heather and I told her that she was going to be right back in the same place again.  She told us that she wanted to keep the bangs and that she would like a change.  Could she please, please, please, please get bangs? 

Well.  I really felt stuck as a mom.  It seems so silly because it's just hair.  But, at the same time, hair can be such a huge deal!  In the end I gave her a go-ahead; I had been telling her that I wanted her to voice her opinion, and that it was her hair and I wanted her to get the haircut she really wanted.

She was happy. 

It's hard to let go.  But I didn't cry, so I thought that was pretty good. 

Back on the Scooter Again

Christian had karate this afternoon.

Mike took Michaela on an errand.

Eliana and I looked at one another and said,"What shall we do?!"  She wanted to clean the house from top to bottom, but I said,"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!" 

She said,"Who is Jack?"

Actually, she said,"Can we go for a walk?  Can I ride my scooter?"

Who is this kid that I'm having conversations with?  Wasn't she just latched onto me yesterday, and wasn't I just changing her poopy diapers?  All right, so things haven't changed in every way (the latch looks a little different, yet she is often regarded as a permanent attachment to my hip) (and she does pee on the potty!) but still...she's like a teenager sometimes, only very short.

We went out to the garage and got her gear, and then headed around to the sidewalk. 

Can I tell you how spectacular I thought it was when I realized that she was pink-purple-pink-purple-pink from her helmet to her scooter? 

Often Eliana is quite a poser for me...she likes to see the picture that I take, after all.  Today?  She was silly.  I would say,"Where is Eliana?"  She would say,"I'm right here!" and point to the holes in her helmet that were pulled down covering her eyes.  Clever, really.

This is the smile I wanted to capture, minus the blurry, eh?

But this happened...

and then this followed...

and apparently this could not be avoided...

with a grand finale of...

Trees!  Trees are still!  Trees do not smile or cover their faces or turn their backs! 

And yet, I think I would rather have the wiggly girl in my photo anytime.

Blur and all.

I Have Never Faced So Much Opposition to a Post

So, yesterday I started a post in which I was lamenting all of the things that had gone wrong, from the middle of the night all the way into the afternoon.  It was actually the first time in a long time that I was writing fairly freely, and using some humor to offset the effects of our day.  I clicked the "save" button and a new screen popped up, which read,"We're sorry, but we are unable to process your request at this time."

Well, of course.  And it's really too bad, because that might have been the best written, well thought out, chock-full of great humor post that I have composed.

And as a side note, do I think I'm British?  I keep writing humore.  Actually that's more like latin, isn't it?  I suppose "humour" would be more British.  What does that have to do with anything?  Nothing.  That's right.  Just useless information for you to have rolling around in your head.

Back to yesterday's post...I wish I could replicate what I had written, but things don't work like that, do they?  Unless you have a photographic memory.  Which I don't.  Instead I'll try to recap, using similarly wonderful writing and humor.

Around 4pm I just wanted to burst into tears.  There wasn't a particular reason, but there were many reasons at the same time.  It just would have made me feel better.  I didn't cry, but instead I sat down at the table and started writing, which did help me feel a bit more cheerful.  Shortly after that moment where I wanted to cry a river, things had gotten quiet and everyone was doing something that made them happy:  Eliana was playing with play-dough, Christian was at karate, and Michaela was talking with her cousin on the phone.  For the first time that day things didn't feel totally out of control.

The reality is that nothing was ever really out of control, but when you're a control freak, with OCD, a germaphobe, and a crazy person in general, it doesn't take much to make you feel like things have reached the "Houston, we have a problem" level.  Let me break down the day's troubles...

-because Eliana went to sleep at 6:30pm, she woke up at 1:30am, and she was hungry.  This is what happens when you skip dinner in order to catch a few zzzz's.  She ate a cheesestick (in record time) and then she was pretty awake, as you can imagine. 

-Mike had some things to take care of before his trip to Princeton (to defend his dissertation).  I was in charge of waking him up.  Do you know what it's like to wake up a rock?  That's frozen in ice?  It's hard.  That's what it is like to try to wake up Mike...he's what you might call a hard sleeper. 

-Some guys were coming at 8:30am in order to replace our furnace.  I didn't know if what they were going to carry out and in was going to be large, so I needed to make a path from the front door to the dungeon basement in order for them to be able to do what they needed to do.  I worked on this project from the time I got the last kid settled in bed (9:30 or so?) until 1:30 in the morning.  I think it was actually 1:24 when I sat down to look at the computer for a few minutes before heading to bed.  Oh, I was also waiting for the laundry to be done so I could switch it for the last time that evening.

-Our entryway, dining room, and kitchen were a bit of a mess. 

-Michaela was supposed to have a hair appointment at 9am.  She had been anticipating this for several days and was very excited about it.

-I needed to pack Mike's clothes for his trip.  Sure, he could have done it himself, but the truth is I'm better at it.  I can pack his dress clothes in a way that keeps them from getting all wrinkled.  He can cut the grass, I will pack the bags. 

-Christian needed a pumpkin carved for Dad's Night (Thursday).  Mike got me up to draw the design on the pumpkin, and then he carved it and carried it over for Christian.  He also got a chance to see the Dad's Night things that were hanging on the wall and in the classroom, since he was going to be out of town that evening.

-Mike needed to figure out how to get to the airport.

Now.  All of that took place before 8:30am.  Since Eliana had not gone to sleep until after 3am, and three minutes later Mike woke me up to draw on a pumpkin, I was a little tired. But, let's continue...

-After the men arrived to take care of the furnace, I left with Michaela for her appointment (Eliana came along, too).  I called to say I was running late, and she said we should reschedule since by the time I got there it would be time for her next appointment.  So, I did reschedule, and then turned around and headed back home. 

-I called Mike to tell him I was home and he said,"You can take me to the airport!"  This was a good thing, of course; we didn't have to pay for a cab or something.  I finished getting his clothes ready, and he came home and packed his books.  He needed to print out a copy of his paper to take with him on the plane, to go over, and stuff.  The printer got through about 170 pages and then the toner ran out. 

-Mike tried to check his flight's gate (at DFW you have to know ahead of time because one airline might have flights out of several different terminals), but our mouse wouldn't work.  The batteries died (it's wireless) (hence, the batteries...duh).

-We really needed to go...his departure time was quickly getting closer.

-There were three men going in and out of both the basement and the house.  Wearing their shoes.  Their outside/basement cockroach poop/muddy shoes.  This alone was enough to undo me for the day.  Two of them were careful to wipe their shoes on the towel I set out for just that.  One of them was kind of a space cadet about it. 

-While trying to help Mike figure out which gate we needed to go to while driving there, using his Blackberry, I did things like type in "gnats" instead of "gmail".  Why do Smartphones make me feel so stupid?

-When I returned home I got to work reserving a car for Mike once he landed.  This is a strange thing for me to have to do.  Packing the suitcase...I am excellent at.  Taking care of renting a car?  Not so much my area of expertise.  I will almost always do something wrong.  My first three attempts were unsuccessful.  For example, as I tried to find out where to rent a car through Budget at the Newark airport I, first, used the wrong letters for the airport code.  That was easy enough to rectify.  (What a word.)  Then, the website told me that the area I entered didn't exist.  Finally, I was informed that the closest rental car place was 37 miles away (that's a best guess...at this point I don't remember details).  On my very last try I managed to procure a vehicle for my husband at the proper location, on airport property.  I saw the confirmation page and was greatly relieved and went to check our email for the confirmation email they send, as well as inform Mike that he was good to go. 

-There was no email. 

-There was no email.

-There was still no email.

-I called the customer service line and, shockingly enough, was able to confirm that the reservation went through, and was valid.  I got the number and passed it along to Mike.  I got the size wrong-economy instead of standard.  That was not ideal, but it couldn't have been as bad as when we thought we were getting something along the lines of a Jeep Cherokee, and ended up with something like a Subaru Outback-for five people plus our luggage for a ski trip and a pack and play and a stroller.  The five of us getting in that car was like me getting in my favorite jeans from two years ago.  Except we actually made it in and got the doors shut.  So, not like me and my jeans at all.

-That bit about the jeans deserves its own "-", even though it technically doesn't have anything to do with the things that went wrong yesterday.  But, it is something that is very wrong every day, so why not?

-Eliana made it to school and Michaela and I hung around; we both were on the computer for a while (in true overcompensating fashion, I let her play a computer game because I knew she was upset about her haircut).  Later in the afternoon, after she burst into tears because I wouldn't call her aunt to see if she could talk with her cousin (Michaela wants me to call each day and I feel like a giant swarm of gnats) (see, sometimes I mean to type "gnats"), it suddenly dawned on me that she was not just sad about the haircut, but also because her dad had left.  Points for being tuned in to my child!  Minus points for being seven hours late!

-Last but not least, my blog ate my brilliant, witty, and yet poignant post as a dramatic finale near the end of my day.

What happened next was pretty much a normal evening, plus the Dad's Night experience.  Which, me playing the role of "Dad" isn't normal at all, so, scratch that.  We all headed over to the school so that I could take pictures and see all of the things that the kids have been working on for the last couple of weeks for this evening that honors the dads. 

They plan a night full of Texan fun, and our evening included things like putting our fingerprints on horsey coloring pages and eating chili and guessing which silhouette was Christian's.  Also, I had to guess which essay was his; they each wrote about their dads.  I was pretty sure his was the one about the dad who was finishing his dissertation on John Calvin.

Speaking of dissertations on John Calvin...Mike had to leave town in order to defend said dissertation.  He called this afternoon to say that his oral exam had gone fine.  In other words,

HE IS DONE!

And on that happy note, I think so is this post.

Michaela Hearts Orange

We were excited to find that this week's challenge at I Heart Faces is "Orange".  Orange is Michaela's favorite color...she has orange skirts, shirts, flip-flops, and even glasses. 

After much deliberation, we concluded that a basketball shot was the way to go. 

There were many pictures to choose from, but we thought this one was a good choice for I Heart Faces.  We love orange around here, especially my sunny girl.  Go see the other lovely takes on orange...pumpkins, leaves, knit hats, and more!