Category: General News

July 25: I just love this time of year.  In the past I haven’t been as big of a fan of summer.  Fall and spring were my favorite seasons.  And maybe they still are…but right now I can think of no time I’d rather have it be than late summer.  The fireflies are lighting up our yard with their dances each night.  I made avocado ice cream last night from The Perfect Scoop.   Bryan and I took a walk with Sylvia before dinner, and we talked and pushed her in a stroller, and it was so peaceful.  I’m really enjoying this one-child vacation!
On Wednesday night, we attended our first Concert on the Square this summer.  It was a soft and mild summer evening, and the light was great so I took lots of photos.  Bryan and I have been filling our evenings recently re-watching Band of Brothers.  Last night, we watched the last three episodes.  What a great show.
Sylvia is squealing and spinning in her exersaucer.  She’s improving her sitting skills by the hour.  It’s a lot of fun to get to focus just on her for a bit here.  But I think she misses the excitement of her fabulous big brother:)
Off to Texas tomorrow morning!  Word from the grandparents is that he is having a tremendous time.  What a lucky kid:)

July 24: I got photos downloaded off my camera yesterday afternoon (post-Andrew departure), and it reminded me of all the fun things we’ve had the chance to do this last week.  I really like this staying at home gig.  It provides lots of opportunities to spend time with my kids and people I love and for us to do all sorts of fun things.  And the weather!  It’s been gorgeous!
Pictures of our galavanting adventures are in the gallery.

Last Friday, we went to the County Fair with Uncle Bubba.  I’d stayed home all day on Thursday, and it had driven me slightly mad.  I’m just not that good at being home in the house with both kids and no activities or adult interactions all day.  Nope.  So Friday afternoon, Uncle Bubba rescued me from myself by meeting us at the fair.  We walked through all the barns and saw large numbers of animals.  It was kind of amazing to see how much Andrew has grown and matured.  He was intrigued by the animals, ran up to try to pet them, and even let a woman pick him up and put him in the pen with a couple huge pigs.  Last year, he was facinated but very hesitant and the year before he was interested but rather terrified.  He’s really growing up!

On Sunday, I helped co-host a baby shower for Sarah.  Her mom and sister and neice drove up from Chicago, and we all had a really fun time.  Andrew loved eating the M&M’s.  We drew pictures on onesies and chatted away the afternoon.  Sarah’s due in late August/early Sept., and it’s a lot of fun to anticipate the arrival of the wee one.

The night before we had gone to a baby-welcoming party for another Sarah (Wyatt’s mom).  Her baby is due (via c-section) tomorrow!  She’s looking so great and strong…it’s going to be fun to see Wyatt as a big brother very soon.

Sunday evening, Andrew went to a Mallards baseball game with Bryan and my dad.  It was my dad’s birthday present to the little guy.  Andrew had an absolute blast.  He came home nearly vibrating with excitement and spilling over with tales of jumping in the big blow-up duck, playing in the sandbox, and eating popcorn, a hotdog, and potato chips.  Oh, yea, they also watched a few innings of the game:)

On Tuesday, Jessica, Eli, and Celia came over and we all enjoyed a fabulous summer day together.  While Jessica was point person of the 4 (four) kids, I headed up a craft project of dying play silks with kool-aid.  Years before having kids, I was really, really wanting to fill my life with colorful play silks.  But for $11 each, I just haven’t been able to justify it.  So I was pretty excited when I found that you can get silks for $2.50 each and dye them with a few packets of Kool-aid!  We made 16 silks.  The boys even helped with some of the stirring and dye-packet-dumping.  I now dance around the house just like these kids.

So it’s been a good week!  Happy summer!

July 21: I haven’t done an update on Tom in a while, but no news is good news.  He’s back at home recovering and doing pretty well.  Sleep does wonderful for healing.  I hope he recovers from this surgery as handily as Mom recovered from her Whipple procedure in January 2006.  They seem to be somewhat similar in terms of being major gastro-intestinal surgeries!

July 21: I can’t believe that we’ve already reached late July.  Oh, sweet summer.  Slow down, slow down!  The days fly by on fleet feet.  So far, our July has been remarkably unscheduled.  We had three weekends in a row with almost no pre-planned activities.  But now, all that changes.  Here’s a quick snapshot:

• Bryan’s mom is flying up here tomorrow and will be taking Andrew down to Texas for his first solo visit.  Bryan, Sylvia, and I are following this weekend and will be coming back up with him next week.
• Our annual weekend at Jack’s house is the first weekend in August this year.
• The second weekend in August, Sylvia and I are flying to Vermont for my friend Jennifer’s wedding. Jennifer and I went to graduate school together.  Grace and I will be meeting up there and rooming together.
• The third weekend in August I’m home and unscheduled.
• The forth weekend in August, I fly with the two kids to Washington DC to visit Grace, Tim & John; Heather, Michael, & Evelyn; and Kacy & Reuteger.  Kacy’s wedding is on August 30.  I’ll spend a week hanging out with folks in DC (my new stay-at-home role allows for such lollygagging!), and then Bryan is joining me for the wedding.  I’m really looking forward to it!

We may be heading to Ann Arbor for a visit in September too, so that’s our late summer travel excitement.  It all should be a lot of fun:)

July 18: Aren’t they both adorable?  Here are pictures of Andrew at Sylvia at a bit over five months.

July 17: Some people like to be prepared in case there is a natural disaster.  I like to be prepared for any kind of emergency baking situations.  My kitchen is stocked with almond paste, sweetened condensed milk, tapioca, many kinds of flour, dutch process coca, etc.  One never knows when a baking need will arise and one will need to whip out a dessert at a moment’s notice.  No running to the store for me!  When we moved from our house in Ann Arbor, I had about eight packages of butter in the fridge.  Running out of baking staples is, I believe, a subconscious fear of mine.
But today that preparedness paid off.  I strapped Sylvia to me in her ergo carrier, chopped up chocolate, and quickly made The Smitten Kitchen’s Chocolate Sorbet.  It’s currently cooling in the fridge.  Mmmm.  I love chocolate.  And ice cream.

July 16: It’s hot today.  Nearly 90 degrees.  I currently have the ice cream maker cranking away on a new batch of cake batter ice cream.  Yum.  I have some iced coffee concentrate brewing on the counter.  I am considering starting a batch of some amazing-looking chocolate sorbet that I saw today.
“How is this possible?” you may wonder, when I have two small, quite needy children right here.  The secret:

Andrew is napping.  It hasn’t happened in weeks.  But here he is, napping for over an hour.  And Sylvia isn’t napping, but she’s content.  And pretty hot.  And she DID NOT want me to read books to her.  And she DOES NOT want to lie down in her crib.  But she is pretty happy sitting in her seat next to me as I cook (and now as I post), so that’s a nice thing.

We spent the morning at Jessica’s house.  They are moving in a mere two weeks (just a mile or two from us), and so I went over with the idea of helping her pack or helping watch her kids while she packed.  Silly notions:)  She did get a closet and dresser packed, but four kids is a lot of kids.  And we left the house looking like it was pummeled by a fierce storm.  Oh well!  We all had fun.

Photos may be forthcoming. (11:45pm update:  Here they are!)

July 14: The other day, Andrew was curled up in my lap with his arms intertwined amongst mine. I was looking down at our hands and surprised myself by thinking for a moment that his hand was mine. Then I chucked (because really, his fingers are a lot smaller than mine), but it made me think.

When Andrew was little, my mom told me that when she was a new mom, one of the things she had to work at the most was understanding that she and her baby were independent people. She said that she always felt like she and her children were one, and that the whole of raising her kids was a constant peeling apart of our united selves.

So from the time they were born, and perhaps for the rest of our lives, Andrew and Sylvia will be learning to be their own, independent persons and Bryan and I will be learning how much to protect and how much to trust, how much to nurture and how much to encourage fledging.

Sylvie is still so new.

The other day, I left her with my brothers while I went to see Tom in the hospital. When I returned, Sylvie was so very, very sad. She saw me, and I could see relief in her tear-filled eyes. When I held her, she gently stroked my lips with her finger tips…reassuring herself that I was there.

To me, it seemed like our separation wasn’t so much about missing me as about feeling perhaps adrift without my presence. It made me think, “I don’t think she knows that we are two different people!” Having access to her mama is one of the constants in her world, and the few times that I’ve left her, I think she’s more upset by the gap I leave than anything.

So that’s some musings for the morning. Andrew’s been very patient and waited to swing on his swing until I finished. So now, I’m off!

July 12: Sylvia and I went to the hospital to visit Tom today. He was moved from the ICU to a normal hospital room, and he seemed to be doing really well. He’d taken a couple walks and he had a very steady stream of visitors. I was impressed at how strongly he could hold and move Sylvie. She was quite interested in grabbing at his tubes!
Tom’s voice is still pretty soft, so it’s a little hard to hear him in the video. A transcription of the video clip is below.

Tom: This is my friend Sylvia. And I’m doing very well. I love Sylvia and she loves me, right! That’s probably why I’m doing so well.
Ed: cough cough (in the background)
Tom: Oi oi oi oi oi. OK, now watch as Sylvia bites my finger off.
Ed: cough cough
Althea: Open up, honey! Tom’s looking good.

July 11: I am so happy staying at home with the kids!  Especially when I spend the day at the beach with my buddies!  I hope to make this a regular event:)  Pictures from our hours on the beach (much of which Andrew spent climbing trees!) are in the gallery.