“college cheese” – Katherine
Has she been hearing too much about colleges and not enough about cottages? That’s a shame.
* * *
“instruction workers” and “instruction paper” – Nathaniel
Sometimes, as he catches himself, we get “instructionconstruction workers.” I’m no help, since I just giggle at hearing my four-year-old talk like an administrator.
Erin
Although you might think it, given that she’s the daughter of two bookworms, Katherine does not have to love to read. I can insist that she learn to do it well, but I know we can’t pick our children’s loves. It does thrill me to see her so engrossed in a passion of her own finding (“Just three more pages!” when I called her for breakfast), and I know from experience how rewarding this particular love can be. Last month I brought home all of the young-adult fiction I own, from the Narnia books to E. B. White. Katherine immediately latched on to the Little House on the Prairie books for our read-aloud time and by the time Nathaniel joined us we were in the middle of the third one, Farmer Boy.
Erin
Sydney is currently in Amsterdam, and in a few days he’ll head to Boulder, CO, for a month-long seminar. That leaves me in our house with the kids, cats, garden, and a flexible summer schedule. Although I have some demanding research deadlines looming over me, the kids will only be in childcare for a few hours each weekday, so I’ll have the mornings and many weekends and odd days with them at home when I won’t be able to tackle work projects.
In some ways, this is great: I have time in which to play, cook, buy groceries, clean, read to the kids, give Katherine piano lessons, etc. But as Sydney knows, if I’m not kept running absolutely full-out with work and home care, I’ll invent some new project. I only have two modes: overbooked and looking for trouble. It’s rained every day we’ve been home this week, meaning I can’t exhaust myself mowing, so I returned to my goal of painting the bathroom this summer. It’s kind of yellow and most bits of trim are battered, so anything I can do should be an improvement, right?
But I’m very good at demolition, and not so good at construction. I am an obsessive weeder outside, but Sydney is the cultivator. As I washed the bathroom trim in preparation for new white paint, I realized that the grout was dirty. So I wanted to dig that out. Both the grout and the trim, though, will need redoing when we eventually replace the worn linoleum, so maybe I should just rip that out, too, while I’m at it. I peeked under a curling edge and saw hard floor underneath, so how bad could it be?
. . .
Only the thought of having to answer Sydney’s question, “Where did you find money for new tile?” kept me from ripping out the baseboards, flooring, and grout today, since I knew I’d have a month in which to figure out a way to fix it before he got home. And, hey, we do have another bathroom, if this ends up taking forever. But I’m still just learning how to paint, never having done even that before. It may take me a long time to patch up all the errors I’ll make in rehanging towel bars. And the floor project would spill over into late nights, making me tired and unfocused, which means I might miss some important professional deadlines. So, Sydney, the ugly flooring is safe for now (ugh, can I just paint it? or get a big rug?), and I’m dutifully painting the trim that I so nearly pried up with any tool that was handy.
This is why Sydney is nervous: I have almost no practical skills, but an itch for demolition that he’s not here to rein in. Still, I’ve been home for three days and I’ve successfully fought it off once!
Erin
We are currently in Arkansas at a Birdsong family reunion. All except two members of my extended family have made it; we’re not terribly numerous, but we’re a clan of strong personalities, and this is the first time we’ve all been together in many years. This morning Sydney survived a round of all-adults-in golf (he’s never touched a club) and probably played much better than I did. I’m glad that he’s had almost a decade of life with me to get used to Birdsong ways, since I’m sure it was good training for this crowd. Katherine and Nathaniel are still struggling to catch up on sleep after all of the traveling, but they’ve really enjoyed playing with the numerous cousins who happen to be 6 and 4, too, and discovering the fun to be had in a kiddie pool.
Erin
Although a week of rainstorms has kept Sydney out of the garden for much of this past week, we’re starting to see the fruits of his April and May efforts. And, given that we live in a small town, everyone else seems to have noticed, too; two colleagues cornered me at a garage sale recently to ask about the new plants they’ve seen in our front yard, and I laughed and said, “Talk to my husband! I have no idea what they are!”
Erin
Earlier this week Sydney and I took Katherine to Cincinnati first for lunch (at Elephant Walk, an Indian and Ethiopian restaurant, where we tried almost everything they had) and then to the zoo.
Given the time of year, there were a number of new arrivals at the zoo. Katherine really enjoyed all of the new lion cubs and a baby gorilla that got a lot of attention:
It has been very, very quiet in our house. Katherine not only doesn’t miss her brother yet, but she often declines our offers to come outside with us (we’re deep in garden and yard improvement) so that she can keep playing her own games. Today I heard her cry (apparently the cat leaped just when she reached up, and she ended up with a nasty scratch), and it startled me; it’s the first time I’ve heard her make a loud sound all week, whereas most of the time with the kids we hear sounds of distress with great regularity throughout the day.
In Iowa, meanwhile, Nathaniel has been enjoying things that go vrrroooom (I wonder if he’ll still be impressed by our reel mower when he gets back?) and time at the local playgrounds. After visits to my former elementary school and city park last year with the kids, I have to say, I think kid play areas have come a long way in the past twenty years!
Erin
Between conferences, we stayed in the same cabin where we’d honeymooned ten years ago. Several things about our previous stay had stuck with us, shaping what we’d wanted in our new shared home and family: natural beauty (the cabin is on top of a mountain, and there is perfect silence around), lots of natural light, simplicity, and a window seat. We’re still working on that last one, but I made good use of the window seat during our trip this time around. We spent our time hiking, eating, and reading/writing (Sydney had a conference paper to finish up, and I needed to finish up some things from Boston). It was lovely!
After our cabin stop, we headed on to Ithaca (which we also did ten years ago, when we started graduate school after our honeymoon), where I met up with a number of friends and got in some much-needed library time while Sydney attended a medieval philosophy conference. We were very glad to be back in the town we first called home as a couple, and to see so many friends.
Now we’re back at home. My parents just left this morning, with Nathaniel in tow, for their home in Iowa. We’ll reconnect with them (and reclaim Nathaniel) at a Birdsong gathering at the end of June, but for now each house will have only one child in it. We’re hoping that both kids will enjoy having some time to stake out their own interests and get one-on-one child with the family adults. I’ll help Katherine continue making progress on reading, introduce her to piano, and stretch her legs with some hikes that would leave Nathaniel clamoring for a piggy-back ride. Currently, she’s tackling a series of jigsaw puzzles alongside her father–not something that’s easy to do with Nathaniel around!
Erin
Alan Schmierer
