On Saturday we took off for a family hike near Danville. It was coooold to start, but turned out to be a delightful hike in gorgeous woods, leaves crunching under feet, clear signs for paths, some uphill and downhill to keep things interesting, and lots of enthusiasm from the kids. I was delighted to have to carry nothing other than the trail map. Three miles later, we piled into the car, thrilled to have made such a great new discovery.
Map in hand, they are plotting their escape . . .
Erin
I was reading an article about childhood development, and it was capped with an image of marshmallows, a reference to the famous marshmallow experiment that tested kids’ ability to forgo short-term gratification (a marshmallow) for a bigger long-term reward (two marshmallows instead of one). Kids’ ability to hold out for the big prize has been tied to all sorts of long-term successes, and as a big-time sweets lover who yet prizes self-control, I’ve always found the test interesting.
Unfortunately, signs aren’t promising. The moment I pulled up the article on my computer, I heard Katherine exclaim, “Marshmallows!” Soon she and Nathaniel were over at my side, clamouring for marshmallows. So I closed the computer, and they’re currently spending five minutes in two different rooms, with squares of baking chocolate (hey, we don’t keep marshmallows, since I’d eat them all, and they were excited about the chocolate) at their side. I know this is very unscientific, and neither kid is as young as the ones in the original experiment, but I figure that it might be a good way to start a conversation with them. If nothing else, they’ll probably learn not to jump around Mommy when they see something interesting on her laptop. We’ll see what happens.
Erin
Although a recent dry spell has turned much of Kentucky brown, we are still enjoying benefits from the garden. What with garden, kids, and students, I think our days consist largely of “growing stuff.” The kids’ recent eating frenzy has paid off in longer legs and feet; Nathaniel is now only half a size behind Katherine in shoes. And though cucumbers and tomatoes are well behind us, squash and peppers are still going strong, as are Sydney’s flowering vines.
Erin
K: “The most important thing is to love God and to love others.”
N bursts in excitedly: “And to eat!”
Thank you, Nathaniel, for adding to the Commandments . . .
Erin
I honestly hardly know the boy in the picture, and this was only two months ago. When I pick Nathaniel up now, his feet dangle down near my knees and his arms almost fully reach around me. There is something magical about the way kids grow in the summer!
Three generations of my family, as Katherine stands in front of her great-grandmother and her grandfather.
Wow! Sydney and Erin together! Neither of them is behind the camera! Remarkable, and unlikely to be repeated for a long time.
Do you think Katherine enjoyed having built-in playmates at this event?
Erin
We’re all settling into a bit of a routine. Both kids seem tuckered out from school, so we’re still adjusting bedtimes so that they don’t squabble their way through the evenings. But Katherine very happily hops on the bus each morning and I get a lot of “School’s good” comments from her. She’s so breezy about all of these new things that it’s almost enough to make me wish for the many extra layers of communication from kindergarten. But then I think about how nice it is not to have to interpret reams of policies and papers to help guide her through the maze of formal education for the first time . . . and I’m grateful for where we are.
It’s been interesting starting classes here at Asbury, too. Sydney and I share an office, and today I got an email from a student who was writing, she thought, to him to take his class. We also have several students in common, and I can only imagine how funny it seems to our students to have a different Dr. Penner at a different hour of the day. There’s extra confusion this first week, as students make class and major decisions before the semester locks in, but it’s also easier in that they’re more awake than they’re likely to be again this semester. And they’re not yet groaning under the workload.
Nathaniel is bopping along as usual, still at his day care each morning, but with Sydney or me in the afternoon. I think he likes having as many caretakers as possible. Such a sociable little guy.
Erin
Sydney got back last week and since then it’s been a flurry of meetings, orientation exercises, and both old and new students popping up all over. We start classes on Monday. The kids, though, started this week, with Nathaniel scootering to day care on Monday and Katherine starting first grade today.
Nathaniel was excited to join me in my school’s cafeteria for lunch this afternoon, where all of the incoming freshmen and their families were nervously lunching and saying goodbye. He ate his way through three plates of salad and wild rice and banana and in the end I finally gave up and gave him a small plate of dessert just to signal that this is the end. For dinner I gave them watermelon, veggie omelets (three and four eggs apiece), souped-up hashbrowns (fun to make!), a bit of hummus and veggies, and an apple. Then I just said that I was out of food, so the kitchen was closed. Both kids have been eating like maniacs in the past week, so it does feel like procuring and cleaning up is almost more than Sydney and I can manage. We’d better see some inches in the kids’ legs or torsos after this feeding frenzy, or I’m going to stop taking my children on long scooter rides for exercise!
Katherine had a great experience in first grade with her new teacher and a few familiar classmates. She was not at all anxious about going, when she got home she matter-of-factly reported all of the papers I needed to look at or sign, and she immediately started preparing her things and clean clothes so that she is ready to go back tomorrow. She apparently didn’t even worry when the bus failed to stop at our house on the way home (I had to call them to get them to come back). I suspect she hardly noticed, since she was sharing her seat with a friend from class.
Erin
We will pick Sydney up in Cincinnati tomorrow, after the kids and I check out a kids’ museum and, I’m sure, encounter other adventures. Katherine, with newly cut hair and a new gap-toothed smile, helped me make scones for the trip.
Erin
Last year, if I had taken the kids on an outing without snacks, shortly before lunch, the back seat of our car would have been a war zone. Today, though, after stopping at the library, when both kids were getting antsy, the restlessness in the car stopped with these words from Katherine: “Nathaniel, do you want me to read your new book to you while Mommy drives?” And all the way home I got to hear the sound of my daughter reading to her brother, and his happy interjections. Utter delight for all.
Erin
Alan Schmierer
