Moving Right Along

Life in Virginia has fallen into a manageable rhythm.  Our mornings go quickly, our afternoons go drowsily, and our evenings are busy until that last lamp switches off by 8:30.  Lilly likes her teacher;  Annika loves her music class;  Sophia is in the right place at school.

True, I didn't say that Sophia loves it.  Her transition back to school has been the smoothest this fall, because although her school made some significant capital changes, she still returned to the same place with some of the same people.  She returned to a routine which was already familiar and her behavior has been better these past few weeks than over the summer.

Her engagement at school is another matter, though.  Our Sophia may be a bit of a trouble child.  She often chooses not to engage in classroom activities, will ignore other children when they speak to her, and holds grudges against anyone and anything.  In short, she acts at school exactly as she acts at home.

Yesterday, I demanded the time of one of her teachers.  She fit me in during the day (awfully helpful for a classroom teacher), and she talked about our Sophia for nearly an hour.  I left that office feeling two things.  First, that Sophia has some skills she really needs to learn this year, her last year in preschool.  But second, that she is absolutely in the right place.  With a 15-30 minute commute one-way to her school, I often question whether I should have changed her school once we found our housing.  But the permanence seems to have settled her, and her teachers are fantastic.  They are truly working with me as a team to bring this amazing, smart and mature little girl to true functionality within a group setting.

God is good.

Loving the Library

I've lived in America for the vast majority of my life, and so settled quite easily back into the routines and motions of life in the United States.  But small things do still catch me.  I am caught off guard by things like the high cost of buying or renting a movie; or surprised by the commercials during children's programming.  Small things make me happy, too.  I realized that I haven't had fall in years, and my kids have never celebrated Halloween in the states.  This season has been a treat.

But I've got to say that the best surprise has been the library.  We've packed away most of the kids' many books, because they're bringing home 20 new books a week from the library.  This saves us so much money!  I loved the library all summer, just because of the juvenile section - which, by the way, makes up half of our local branch library.  But then I finished the books sitting on my bedside table, and began seeking reading materials for myself.  Goodness sakes - this place is a goldmine!

I gave up libraries while in high school.  I read slowly, and didn't actually keep up with my assigned reading.  So when I checked out books from the library, I inevitably kept them longer than allowed and racked up quite a pile of fines.  So many, in fact, that they asked me not to borrow anymore books from their library.  So I didn't.

College went the same way - so much assigned reading that very few novels entered the mix.

After college, I found bookstores.  Those were fun, because they had coffee shops and stayed open late and you could spend loads of money and feel good about yourself.  Dave has said that books are his favorite decoration, and we dreamed of a house with bookshelves lining the walls.  We bought a lot of books, and that was fun.

Then we lived in China, and took whatever we could get.  I'd ask visitors to leave behind their books.  I'd trade with friends.  I'd stock up at Christmas.  I'd frequent the used book shelves at the community center.

And then we came to the states, and I found the library.  At first, it was just kinda neat.  I could grab a book for free and always have something to read.  Then I discovered the "Hold" function.  I can log onto my library's website and tell the computer what books I heard about on the radio, or had recommended to me by friends.  Magic fairies search for said book, find it, bring it to my library, and leave it neatly behind the desk with my name written on a piece of white paper.  Screw my Amazon Wish List - this is so much better!

In just under a year and a half, I will go back to stocking up and borrowing books.  Until then, I'm loving my local library.

A Cheerful Giver

Lilly has been missing some money for the last few weeks - I made change; she helped manage a lemonade stand; the tooth fairy visited twice.  In cleaning up this afternoon, I got all of her money into her piggy bank.  She noticed when she walked by.


Wow!  There's a lot of money in my piggy bank!  I'd better give some to the church next week!

What a good kid.

Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

The landlord may suck, and the rent may be far too high, but we have otherwise landed quite well.  Accepting that we do not live in our dream house, the girls and I have decided that we do live in a dream neighborhood.

The folks on the right have a tremendous magnolia tree - not only loaded with flowers and gorgeous leaves, but also laden with strong branches and easy to climb.  The owners of the tree have no children, but welcome all of the neighborhood kids climbing and building in their tree.  Lilly has helped him with yard work, and names him as one of her friends.

The folks on the left have three kids, two of whom spend more time outside than in.  They play on pogo sticks, bikes, wagons, scooters and more, and they've done much of the construction in the magnolia tree.

Across the street is a family with two young kids and one teenagers.  We hoped that the teenager would want to mow our lawn, but we're beginning to realize that kids don't mow lawns in Arlington.  Hispanics mow lawns in Arlington.  Hispanics and Dave.  But their younger kids spend a lot of time on our side of the street, and in the tree.

The best, though, lives two doors down.  That address holds another Foreign Service Family.  Betty and Emmy just arrived from Burma, and they're new kids in their classes this year, too.  Emmy is another 1st grader, and she and Lilly quickly became fast friends.

Amazingly, each family sends their kids to a different school, which adds an interesting dynamic to the street as well.  But they all play together, and they all play outside.  Its an idyllic neighborhood, where I can send out my kids after school and expect to hear the front door slam behind their again at about dinnertime.  I believe that the next door neighbors call their kids in with a dinnerbell.

Lilly says she's the only kid in her class lucky enough to have friends living right next door, and right next door again.  Lilly has changed schools and houses at least once a year for most of her life - if anyone knows how lucky we are, its her.

Game Changer

The upshot of The Morning Race is that it keeps me awake.  Bolting about from one stop to the next, always arriving just a few minutes late, running those last few steps to lessen the impact keeps me from falling asleep on any of those long drives.  Its go! go! go! until Sophia sits in the backseat of the car telling me about her morning.  Then I should face a peaceful afternoon - pleasant conversation on the way home, simple lunch, and then a nap.

Anyone who has visited me over the last 5 years will be quite familiar with Quiet Time.  Quiet Time has taken place in our house at exactly 2:00pm for years.  The girls go to separate rooms and make no noise.  I have some peace and quiet - a chance to think, to prepare dinner, or to grab a quick nap.  An hour or two of much needed Quiet.

This habit is so engrained in me that even on vacations without my children, I still myself growing drowsy at 2:15.

Little Annika is the Game Changer.

During all of those frisky morning drives, she dozes.  When we get home, she feels perky.  She remains perky until around 3:00 - only 20 minutes before we need to leave the house again to pick up Lilly.  We're struggling through getting her enough sleep right now.  So far, we have provided her a teenager approach, which includes very short naps during the week and a nice, long nap on the weekend.  This seems rather unhealthy, so we're still tweaking it.

But the real problem is the disappearance of Quiet Time.  I haven't paid my bills in weeks!  I barely manage to clean the dishes before I need them again.  I shouldn't really be napping anymore!

I'm beginning to miss having an ayi.

Enjoying America: Visiting a Farm

We went berry picking this weekend.  After a week of torrential rain, the sky went blue and the breeze went cool and we spent an amazing morning at a local farm.  

Little Annika - only 16 months old - needed no instructions on berry picking.  We set her walking through the rows of raspberry bushes, and she headed straight toward the bright red fruit.  Picked it, ate it, and kept herself quite happy.

The girls did eventually tire of picking berries, and spent the rest of their morning running around the fields and then exploring the market at the front of the farm.  We left with our car full of tired little girls and very fresh produce, and have spent the last two days putting all of those fruits and vegetables into storage.

We saved bags of frozen green beans, ready to steam or throw into a soup.  We saved bags of frozen peaches, measured for dropping into cobblers and pies.  We saved bags of frozen raspberries, measured for making crisp.

And we are in the process of saving a big box full of canning tomatoes.  We are freezing homemade pizza sauce, homemade pasta sauce and homemade salsa.  Although with all of the good smells going in our kitchen, its tough to lock the food away so quickly!

Still on the to do list - make the bushel of apples into applesauce, and make the fresh cream into vanilla ice cream.  We already made the peach ice-cream.  Fresh cream and fresh peaches - amazing!  We already did the math - we've more than gotten our money's worth out of our trip (especially appreciated during these tight budget days).  And it'll all taste so good!  We're sold on the local farm, and plan to become seasonal visitors.

Enjoying America: Labor Day

It was a week ago now, but we did enjoy a typical American Labor Day.  Everyone in the family slept late.  We had friends over to BBQ for lunch.  We attended another BBQ for dinner.  And then we nervously went to bed for the first day of school.

At the beginning of the day on Labor Day, Lilly asked me why we don't usually celebrate Labor Day.  At first, I interpreted the question incorrectly.  I began thinking about celebrations, and how two barbeques didn't seem to constitute much of one.  I began to compare to fireworks and gifts and decorations and such.

And then I realized the simple root of her question.


Lilly, we have never celebrated Labor Day before because it is not a holiday in China.  As far as my girls can remember, this was their first Labor Day.  And yes, it was very happy.

Deluge

Rather impressively, those natural disasters just keep coming.  We had the earthquake, the hurricane, and the camping disaster about two weeks ago.  This week, we have experienced a deluge of rain, and another deluge of ants.  I like rain, but I must say that neither has been particularly pleasant.

The rain began on Labor Day afternoon.  Actually, I must give Mother Nature some credit for being polite.  She did allow us most of our Labor Day weekend - we ate outside for nearly every meal, and the Monday night was the only one where we got wet.  And now this Friday afternoon, the sun has begun to shine in time for the weekend.

So, the rain began on Monday afternoon, and did not quit until sometime after lunch today.  No joke - it did not quit at all.  Sometimes it would rain less and sometimes it would rain more, but it did not ever stop raining this entire week.  We live on top of a hill, and so we have seen no flooding, but our front yard is a spongy mess and plenty of places in the area have.  Rivers have crested and overflowed their banks all around us.  So many roads became impassable that many area schools were canceled for the day.

The rain makes the house a bit smelly.  It makes my hair a bit crazy.  And it really makes me wish for a garage - I've gotten soaked plenty of times, trying to carry a baby and a bag of groceries from the car to the front door.

But the ants are what really drive me crazy.  They seem to have begun around the same time, and brought progressively more friends each day.  The first few days, I killed all of them that I saw, laid chili sauce at their front door, and saw no more for the rest of the day.  Today I woke up to a flood of them. 

These pictures show steady streams of ants, but they fail to convey the itchy feeling that comes from finding them everywhere - crawling out of the stove burners, showing up on the side of your drinking glass, walking over the baby's plate, climbing up my leg.  Ick!  I've invested in some ant hotels, but these ants don't seem interested.  They've taken over the kitchen and laid siege on the dining room.  We've retreated to the family room, and the coming sunshine may allow us to lay claim to the back deck for our meals.  Hopefully, the ant hotels will prove to be the final weapon - and we can return as weary refugees to our ant-ridden kitchen.

The Race

I hate to admit it, but I was looking forward to school starting this year.  I was looking forward to joining a routine again, and having some time to myself.  How quickly I forget what the school year actually looks like.  This morning, we began the race which will continue until next June.

Lilly and Sophia both start school at 9:00am.  Their schools are 20 minutes apart.

Sophia finishes school at noon.

Within this small window, I try to fit in an hour and a half at the gym and an errand of some sort.  This morning, the errand was running home to take a quick shower.

Annika fell asleep on the way home from school - a good 15 minute nap.  She's supposed to take a 2 hour nap in the afternoon, which I've only just put her down for now - at 2:45.  But I need to get her up again by 3:15 so that we can walk over to Lilly's school for afternoon pick-up.  And today, that walk will be in the rain.

I'm not particularly downtrodden about the day - the girls seem happy enough, so I'm happy enough.  Well, poor Annika is not very happy, stuck up in her crib even though she's not tired.  But I am becoming fully aware that this school year will bring me little, if any, time to myself.