My Little Musician

Matt wandered around the yard with his guitar today, casting meaningful looks in my direction. He was passionate about his music. Late this afternoon, he came up and told me what he'd been working on. The name of his song? "Emily, I Don't Make Your Life Miserable; You Do." He's so clever. And thoughtful.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

When do birthdays stop being the most exciting thing on the planet? Matt, who has a birthday next month, can't wait to turn seven. He has a list of wishes three miles long, and he is sure he wants to go bowling (Bowling? Why bowling? My protests fall on deaf ears.)

I think I was still excited about my birthday in my twenties--the dark shadow of time hadn't engulfed my special day. Perhaps around thirty, I started to think birthdays weren't all they were cracked up to be. On my 29th birthday, a friend gave me a card that said something like, "say goodbye to your twenties!" She might as well have said, "Ha, ha, sucker, now you join those of us who dread our birthdays."

My mom, at 66 today, doesn't really seem too emotional about the whole thing. I guess it is what it is, right? Let's worry about the things we CAN control and celebrate the things we can't...like birthdays. So Happy Birthday, Mom! You are the best mommy in the whole wide world. I'm glad you are mine.

Summer Fun?

For about six weeks each summer, our lives are controlled by swim team. The kids practice five days each week, and when they aren't practicing, we are spending long afternoons and evenings at meets. It's fun, but exhausting. The biggest benefit, of course, is that at 6 and 9, the kids are terrific swimmers. Either of them could beat me in a 25 meter butterfly race (I look like a drowning victim when I try it), and they are catching me in the others.

While I realize that even a good swimmer can be swept away, the kids' knowing how to swim well is a great piece of mind. We spend so much time on or near the water, that I would be a nervous wreck if I thought they couldn't fend for themselves at all. Besides, when they are old like me, they will have a form of recreation that doesn't make their bodies hurt everywhere.

It's easy to tell whose kids are in their first year of swim team. These parents are green. They are the ones at meets without umbrellas, blankets, coolers. Naively, they think they can relax with a bottle of sunscreen and a can of diet soda...

Not so. Even though the coaches have strict rules about kids running around, the air takes on a certain level of hysteria. Pomeroy has 54 swim team members, around 30 of which attend any one meet. These kids range in age from 5 to 18, and they are all starving from the minute we arrive until the time we leave. The sun is either hot enough to pan-fry vegetables, or strangely absent from a hazy sky. The kids are either whining because they are hot and not allowed in the pool (NO swim team member can get wet except when he/she is competing), or freezing because they are wet on a surprisingly cool July day. Sounds fun, huh?

Add to that tears of disappointment, everyday arguments between 6-year-olds, and spilled drinks and snacks, and you have a typical day at a swim meet. Still, we come back, send our kids out to the edge of the pool, and force them to work their way down doing whatever stroke is required. Why? I guess because some day we hope they will be better people for it....better swimmers of course, but also people who understand competition, people who do their best every time they step up to the line, people who understand team work and commitment, people who understand the value of exercise. Or maybe they will be people who resent their parents for taking away their summers. Either way, we have a meet today, and we are going.

Camp Food

Someone should write a book on the relationship between food and camping. I think many families are like ours, with deep-seeded traditions linked to their camping experience. For example, I always buy Tostido's cheese dip for camping trips. It's expected. If we showed up at the camp site and my husband found out that there was no cheese dip, we might have to turn around and go home.

A long standing tradition in our family is that of pudgy pies and camping. Other people call them less-attractive names like sandwiches made with pie irons, but for us they will always be pudgy pies.


Our favorites are pizza pudgy pies. In fact, we rarely do any other style. Even the Wonder Bread tastes good when it's cooked in an iron over a camp fire. Add a little pizza sauce, cheese, pepperoni and olives, and you have a little bit of heaven at your camp site.

We also do hobo dinners, which I think encompasses any food folded up in aluminum foil and cooked over an open fire. On our last camping trip, I cooked them in the camper's oven because no one wanted to build the fire (which I realize is a sign of my generation's laziness and a "hallelujah" to my previous comments about camping today). Still, they were the best I've ever made. Hmmm. A new tradition?


Of course, like all other Americans, we toast marshmallows over an open fire. The new twist is this (and if you haven't tried it, you HAVE to, because, well, wowee): coconut-covered marshmallows. You can find them with the regular marshmallows in the baking isle. They don't puff up like regular marshmallows when you put them over the flames. Instead, they seem to carmelize on the outside, creating a crusty, coconutty shell with sugar inside. Divine.


Enough for now. I need to go eat.

The Graduate

Even though I'm a little slow on this, I thought I should share some pictures of my recent graduate. He's so cute.



It's funny to watch the moms at kindergarten graduation. Those of us who are on our first child get weepy and sentimental, while those who have done it before sit with quiet resignation. But it still hurts inside. Just not as much.



Maybe we don't cry because we have suffered through enough half days, the mid-morning panic as we rush to pick up the child we nearly forgot. My mom tells a story about my brother in kindergarten. For some reason (and I'm sure it was a good one--she had me at home to take care of after all), she forgot to pick my brother up at kindergarten. He sat on the steps and waited until the last child left, and then after the teacher abandoned him as well (can you IMAGINE that happening today?), he started to hoof it. Realizing her error, my mom found him along the road on his trek home. He was not pleased.



So, I'm offering congratulations to my little graduate. I'm not sure he understands what's really in store (except for the "three recesses" thing), but I'm confident he will be successful. Good luck, little guy.