Dear Elise and Alex, and all your Dads and Moms,
I hope that you have a happy trip to the beach. I am looking forward to making sand castles and playing in a kiddie pool and playing out on the beach and finding seashells too.
Love,
Cora
Cora packed her suitcase for the beach this morning. She obviously doesn't take after her daddy, who packed the night before for a four month trip in college. Cora's packing almost a month in advance. She's ready to go!
Summer vacation is intense. All of our routines have suddenly been released from their moorings with Cora out of school. Now she is here, all the time, every minute of every day, ready to do something or be engaged or have some attention or get some attention away from Oliver.......anything except rest or take a break or (gasp) take a nap once in a while, even when she's exhausted and there are bags under her eyes.
Oliver, meanwhile, has taken to yelling in the car, for long stretches, in a monotone. It sounds like he's saying "WaaaaaaaaaaaooooooooooooooW!" over and over. It seems he is finally fed up with the Little House on the Prairie books that we've been listening to in the car. We're on book six, and Oliver must be irritated by the narrator's voice. When we put in the disc and the book starts, he cranks up a loud "WaaaaaaaaaaOoooooooooooW!" and continues, over and over, in a monotone, until we stop the book. Resourceful kid.
We hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. We didn't do anything fancy; just stuck around here and sweated in the heat. It was close to ninety degrees all weekend and we were inspired to create our own pool out of a large bucket. As you will see in the video, there's just enough room for two and not much room for swimmming. But it was a hit with the kids and kept them occupied for several hours.
Kate got local news coverage in the paper and on television. Here's a link to the newspaper article.
About four nights ago Oliver didn't sleep so well. He was cutting a front bottom tooth, so we figured it was bothering him. The next night he slept even worse, waking up every two hours or so, obviously agitated. The next morning Kate felt around in his mouth and discovered about four teeth coming in at once. Premolars are pushing through on top to help with all his chewing.
Some doctors say that teething pain is mostly a myth and that it doesn't bother kids at night. They are obviously childless doctors. Teeth are like the proverbial watched pot that never boils--their progress is agonizingly slow, especially when your sleep depends on them. We're hanging in there but looking forward to more than two hours' sleep at a time.
Cora is down to one and a half more days of school before summer vacation. She is very excited. We just can't believe it's summer vacation already.
So yes, the mountain air was chilly. And sweet and clear and moist. Wonderful to breathe. G'ma Carol snatched Oliver up and Cora started playing with Mary Grace. We stayed until dark and Cora played tag and hide and seek with flashlights in the dark. I reunited with some dear friends. None of us could sleep that night--we were too keyed up. Cora was awake until 11:30, much to our dismay.
After Friday's rain, Saturday morning came with a clear blue sky and a light breeze. Perfect weather. It reminded me of my second season at Omega when a group of Peruvian shamans came for their first workshop in the United States. The day before they arrived, a huge storm hit the campus. It raged into the night and we all had to sleep in one of the meeting halls for safety. Some large trees fell in the wind and it felt like we were in a hurricane or a tornado. The next morning, the sky was brilliant and the campus felt like it had been scrubbed clean by the storm. Then the shamans arrived. It's impossible to say for sure, but it felt like a supernatural storm, and these were supernatural voyagers. Perhaps they wanted to clear the energy before their arrival. It certainly felt that way. And perhaps someone was smiling on Anne and Nathan too, clearing the space for their ceremony.
Due to the epic nature of any road trip with children, this post will be written in several installments. Pictures will be coming soon. We neglected to take any of our own because we were having too much fun.
Rain greeted us Friday morning as we packed the car for the trip to Asheville. It intensified as the day progressed, buffeting the car on the highway and limiting visibility to ten feet at times. Tractor trailers in front of us kicked up plumes of spray that swallowed our car in a misty fog. Not a good omen for an outdoor wedding weekend.
The rain followed us sporadically all the way there. Whenever Cora needed to pee the rain would miraculously stop. Once we got back on the highway again the deluge resumed. This happened probably three times, and Cora found it quite amusing.
After almost seven hours in the car we pulled into Deerfields with the rain still coming down. But there is something so peaceful about the North Carolina mountains that rain seems more of an embellishment than a nuisance. As we left the paved road for the single lane dirt road into Deerfields I felt like I was in familiar territory. The little road led up to a lake flanked by two log cabins and ringed on one side with a white gravel drive. We unpacked the kids and joined the fray of wedding preparations. The rain continued to fall and water poured in rivulets from the unguttered cabin porch roof. The mountain air was chilly.
Today Oliver and I (Kate) took a trip to Stride Rite to get him some new sandals for summer. On our last trip there, we bought him his first pair of shoes, insanely overpriced (I mean, these things cost more than MY shoes, for pete's sake!) but assured to aid him in his newest hobby, walking. The saleslady measured his feet on that first trip, and proclaimed him to be a size 5XW (the XW standing for extra wide). Well, his extra wide feet have worn those sneaks down, and now that summer is here, his piggies need to breathe a bit. So today, on our return trip, he again stepped on that cold metal scale I remember so well from my trips to the shoe store as a kid. Now he's a 5 and a half 2W, which, the saleslady interpreted, is one size WIDER than the XW! So his feet are only getting WIDER! I must admit, their resemblance to fat, juicy sausages is quite remarkable. Then she said to me, "They usually outgrow this (the wide-footedness) by the time they're 3 or 4. And if not, then you're really screwed." How reassuring. I assume she means we will be forced to continue to pay through the nose for these "special" shoes until he slims down. Don't worry, though -- we won't be putting him on a diet anytime soon. His fat feet are worth the extra expense....
Happy May 1st to everyone. This marks Cora's last month of school and her last year at Abintra Montessori School. She has been there full time since she was two years old. It's hard to believe she is fast approaching five already. She practically spilled her cereal at breakfast when we told her she will be five in two months.
We went to a spaghetti dinner/fundraiser at the school we hope Cora will attend next year. It is a public school near us that uses an approach called Paideia. Kate has visited several times and I had my first experience there at the spaghetti dinner. The school reminds us both of our own elementary schools, back in those golden years, oh so long ago. The teachers are enthusiastic and all the parents rave about the school. Cora is 8th on the waitlist now and it looks likely that she will get in before the school year starts.
A friend of mine posted this clip on her website. A local anchorman at a news station is doing an animal segment when a lizard decides to jump him. His reaction is priceless. Best viewed with the volume up and friends to share the laughter with.
The parade that Kate is helping organize is picking up steam. See the webpage here. Kate's organizing partner is Ms. Booty Homemaker. Stay tuned...
On another note, Sarah got some good press in a Nashville weekly--a review of her new EP and plug for this weekend's show. Go girl!
