Tradition

It's become a tradition and almost a quest at times to get this picture in front of this sign at Deal's Orchard.  Now that we live 400 miles away, it requires some advance planning.  Last year I thought I had missed it but ended up finding out the orchard sells Christmas trees and we were able to ask the kind family who owns the farm to take the "How Tall This Fall" sign out of storage when we rolled in over Thanksgiving weekend.  This year, we showed up on a Sunday in mid-August and they were not open, but one of the owner's sons was gracious enough to get the sign out of storage and let us snap a picture anyway.  We started in 2010.  Need to make it at least to 2020.  The quest continues...

A Dog Called Buddy

Here he is, all 102.5 pounds of him.  The puppy who we were told would weigh 60 pounds is much more than that.  He is huge, probably too big in retrospect for a family who lives in a house on a city lot where the size of the lot is measured in feet rather than acres.  And if his size is big, his energy is twice his size.  The guy is in motion all of the time and wants to play at every opportunity; 6am, 10pm and everything in between.  I don't think I realized how little I play in my life until we got a dog.  He brings me things--socks, stuffed animals purloined from Julia's room where she hoards stuffed animals, and wants me to hold one end while his teeth are clamped to the other end and he shakes his head like mad, trying to pry it loose in an animal game version of tug-of-war.  When he does this, he eyes get wild, truly mad, and I sense that he cannot stop himself even if he wanted to, which he does not.  Ten minutes later, he is a gentle giant as the kids lay on top of him on the floor.

We thought we would get a rescue dog from the pound until we realized how hard it is to get a rescue puppy from the pound.  Chicago is fortunate to have a good shelter system, and puppies are extremely hard to come by.  We tried to get nine different puppies from the shelter.  There is a rule that you have to meet the puppy before you adopt and the shelter will not let you meet the puppy until the entire family is there.  Six times we went but were too late to get the particular puppy by the time we had rounded everyone up from work and school and driven down to the shelter.  The seventh time they let us meet the puppy, Miranda, but would not let us take her home because she was brought to the shelter with a fractured skull and the shelter thought she should go to home without children to heal. The eighth time, the puppy, who was advertised as a lab mix, was clearly a six month old pit bull.  I know many people who swear pit bulls are great family dogs, but I was not going to take that chance.  I no longer remember exactly what happened with shelter puppy nine that prevented us from adopting it, but by this point, the kids were frazzled and frustrated at the meeting of many puppies and the lack of one coming home with us.  We called a breeder and found a litter of puppies ready to go home in two weeks.  The puppies all had been named after singers, and our guy was given the name Buddy Holly.  The kids wanted to change his name at first and suggested Pikachu or Charzard, two Pokemon names, but those don't exactly roll off your tongue when you are calling a dog.  Buddy stuck, and it suits him.  For the most part.

She Still Believes

Every family goes through that loss of the belief in magic in their kids at some point.  My oldest, Mr. Logical, has not believed in Santa since another kid gave him the skinny on the playground in third grade.  Once the idea was planted, he said something to the effect of "well, that totally makes sense, because there are hundreds of millions of kids in the world and how would one person make it to all of their houses in one night?!" For him, the magic evaporated instantly in the face of logic.  My middle, Mr. Sentimental, immediately heard the skinny from Mr. Logical but denies it, loudly and repeatedly.  "AJ, IT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE THAT SANTA IS NOT REAL.  THEN WHO IS READING THOSE LETTERS THAT WE MAILED AT THE POST OFFICE?!?"  My youngest is a believer in all things magical, from unicorns to mermaids to the jolly old elf in a red suit.  Which is why I took just her to see Santa this year so that no big brothers would break out into an argument about whether sleighs can fly and how 300 million presents fit into one sack.  We listened to Christmas music the whole way there and back, and she talked about how much she hoped Santa would bring her the Lego set with the dolphins.  I know she is growing up and that it will come soon, but first I want to enjoy this year and this moment.    

Max

We are getting ready to welcome this guy, Max, to our crazy zoo.  Back before we got one puppy, we were trying to figure out what kind of dog to get.  Joe wanted a big dog.  Julia wanted a little dog.  We naively thought they would be like cats and want company.  So we got a big dog and a little dog, or more accurately, two puppies, one of whom will grow into a big dog and one of whom is supposed to be 20 pounds or less.  Only after picking up our first puppy and working with his trainer did I learn that it is apparently a colossally bad idea to get two puppies at once.  Oops.  Because I had already made a non-refundable deposit on this guy.  And even more compellingly, Julia picked him out herself and is already deeply in love with the idea of him. But Max is so adorable and looks like he will be nothing but rainbows and butterflies, right? Here's hoping.

Family pictures

So true that a picture is worth a thousand words.

These Moments

So true that a picture is worth a thousand words. If these pictures could talk, among the first things they would say is that when I scheduled these pictures back in March and was so thrilled to get on this photographer's schedule, I should have wondered why she had an opening still on Friday evening, August 25 when everything else for the year was booked up.  I was thinking of pictures in Chicago in the summer with the beach and the city in the background.  I was thinking of how beautiful Chicago is that time of year.  I was thinking of how lucky I was to get that open slot.  I was not thinking about how that would be the Friday after the first full week of school.  When the kids are totally shot from the stress of the first week of the school year with new teachers, new classmates, new routines.  Rookie mistake on my part, all the more frustrating because this was my sixth year of having kids in school.  Next year, the Friday after the week of school will be marked off in red pen, as in do-not-plan-anything-for-this-night-under-any-circumstances.

The kids totally and completely were not having it during this photo session.  I apologized profusely to the photographer, who was so gracious about their refusals to smile or even look at the camera.  She was incredibly kind and sent me a sneak preview a few days later.  I replied to tell her how grateful I was for her kind reaction to our less than polite response to her attempts to photograph us and she told me that she sends sneak peeks so that the parents can see something good came out of all the crazy of a photo shoot session.  Good move on her part.

Now, if a picture can tell a thousand words about the people in these photos, it would talk about how AJ has found a new confidence in his first few weeks of fifth grade.  He had a group of friends who he likes, he has a great teacher this year and he loves to play any kind of sport at recess, after school and whenever he has a free minute in between.  He reads like I remember reading when I was a kid, always carrying a book around with him and reading in bed at night when he is supposed to be sleeping.  In the last six months, he has learned to be better about letting the little things go that annoy him but don't really matter so much.  These things consumed him when he was younger, and this is a beautiful relief in seeing him mature in this way.  He is curious and loves to talk about the world.

The pictures would also tell how David has one of the kindest, sweetest hearts of any kid I know.  He is always in tune with the emotions of anyone in the room and seeks to be the soother, the peacemaker, the keeper of confidences.  He has mischievous blue eyes and loves to joke.  He wants to be just like his big brother and to earn his brother's respect.  He loves to tease his little sister and explain to her exactly how his life is harder than hers now that he is in third grade and has "way, waaay more homework than you will in first grade, Julia."  He is passionate about life and full of intensity, which is one of his strengths.  It can also be a challenge as he learns to let things go on the playground, with friends and in sports.

And my not-so-little Julia.  The pictures would tell how she loves to sing, to dance, to twirl and to be the center of everyone's attention. How she is vibrating with excitement about the upcoming arrival of our new puppy, who she is sure will be her living stuffed animal, her co-conspirator in imaginary play and her new best friend.  They will show that outgoing youngest child who can make friends anywhere we go, whether it is at the park, at the beach, at school.  And the pictures will show how attached she is to her momma.

Most of all, the pictures will capture how we are together.  The volume is always on loud, and there are usually three people talking at once.  There is teasing and annoying and hurt feelings, and then they all come back together and we get something that captures those quiet moments when everyone is in harmony and all is right with the world.  Those are the moments that I choose to remember. 

 

Make New Friends, But Keep the Old

AJ started out August going to his first sleep away camp with Aaron, his best friend from Iowa.   The two of them just clicked and they loved doing everything and nothing together, from playing video games to riding bikes, throwing the football around or catching Pokemon.  It was awesome for them to have the chance to spend a week together again.

One of the hardest parts about moving was seeing the kids go through leaving their great friends from Iowa.  Being so young, they haven't lived long enough to know that it is possible to make new friendships and good friendships in your new place.  I remember moving enough at ten to know that it certainly feels like you will never again have such good friends as you had at your old place. 

After a rough adjustment last spring, it looks like AJ has turned the corner and made a good group of friends.  There is nothing I want more for my kids here in Chicago than to make friends they can count on who push them to be their best and who they feel totally comfortable around.  Having parents who I feel comfortable with and like hanging around with is the icing on the cake.  This looks like a great group of boys. 

Here's to a fun fifth grade year.