While the poor east coast of Florida is getting hammered by ill-tempered Matthew, here on the panhandle, we’re still soaking up the sun in near-perfect weather. Doesn’t seem fair, but we’ll take it, and live in denial that tomorrow is our last day of vacation.
Day two at the beach was magnificent: perfect weather, fantastic home-prepared meals, pool swimming in the morning, a bike ride with my favorite budding cyclist after lunch, a lovely late afternoon and sunset at the beach, and priceless time with family throughout. Memory-making doesn’t get much better.
Making friends, as she did everywhere she went today
Day one, family trip to the beach, in pictures:
Corin on the boogie board
Such a sweet gesture from the owner of the house we’re renting for the second year in a row
The fam
Bear with me, folks: it’s one more summer catch-up post.
You may remember that over spring break earlier this year, the kids and I made the trip to Florida to visit my dear friend Lila and her family, only to arrive just as The Plague (i.e. a nasty bout of the flu) descended on the household. This summer, Lila stopped by for several days with her kiddos for a visit that, in an obvious win, entailed no vomit. The expected chaos of five children ensued to great delight, and we finished as we do every time, wishing we lived closer to each other. I always think during these visits about what it will be like when we are old ladies, reminiscing about those crazy years when our children were young. I am lucky to have friends in my life who are part of the way-back stories and are still here to help write new ones. Thanks for the newest memories, Lila. Let’s keep them coming.
The best we could do at a group shot of kids who really wanted to be sliding down the hill
Ready, set, slide!
It took weeks, but I finally got our photos from family camp sorted and edited. I’m slowly catching up after a very busy end to our summer.
Our church conference runs a summer camp east of Nashville on Center Hill Lake. I admit to being a little skeptical about how a full week at camp was going to go. All of us sleeping in a one-room cabin? Lina navigating cafeteria meals and structured activities? The heat and bugs? Being thrown into forced socialization with people I didn’t know? It could have been a recipe for disaster.
Thank goodness, it wasn’t. All four of us had the best time. We were able to be very flexible with scheduling activities and could leave plenty of down time for relaxed swims in the lake or pool and naps for Lina. The variety of activities meant there was plenty for everyone to do. We didn’t have to worry about meals; we just showed up on time, they fed us, and the food was actually pretty decent. It was hot, but we spent most of our time in the water or in air conditioned spaces. The socialization never felt forced, and we really enjoyed the time we spent with the other families. The camp itself is well maintained and in a beautiful location. And as tired as we were after our full days, we all slept pretty well. It was a remarkably inexpensive and relaxing week’s vacation.
The camp’s chapel building
Corin was pretty stoked about getting the top bunk.
Lina never fails to make friends with the big girls.
Well, it was worth a shot…
We’ll just call this one, “Bye, Felicia.”
Corin, on the other hand, loved the horses. This was his second ride. The three of us went on a trail ride earlier in the week while a kind staffer watched the horse-resistant Lina.
Lina’s motto: Never be without a good book.
No surprise as to which activity was Corin’s favorite
The camp photographer was available for portraits. It was…problematic, as indicated by Lina’s tearful smile.
I admit, I underestimated family camp. We’ll be back!
On Monday, Lina returned to her much-loved early childhood preschool, where she attends four mornings a week. (Yes, I am four days late with this post. My poor youngest got the short shrift of a very busy week.) She was so excited about going back that she spent most of the drive singing, clapping, cheering, signing “school” and saying the names of her teacher and therapists in succession. By the end of her first day, she had learned the names of half her new classmates. She’s the old pro this year, and the staff tell me she is happy to boss everyone else around. Her speech therapist is ecstatic with the speech development she experienced over the summer. She has a new OT who I think will be wonderful, but it’s otherwise the same team as last year, and we are so excited to watch her progress unfold over the year.
From the classroom open house on Friday morning
First full day and ready to go
I am so grateful for the bond these two have developed over the summer. They sometimes drive each other crazy, as all siblings do, but they have had so much fun playing and laughing together.
We have been busy over the last few weeks trying to soak up the last bit of summer. We spent a week at family camp, enjoyed time with friends from out of town, and yesterday closed things out with a pool day and dinner out. Photos of some of those things are forthcoming, but for now, we mark Corin’s first day of the new school year. (Lina had a brief open house and will have her first day on Monday.)
Temperatures outside are still sweltering, but here in the South, we head back to school in August. The lead-up is a little bittersweet as I mark another milestone in my kids’ lives, but there really is something awesome about the first day of school. It has that shiny freshness of a new beginning, with the pent-up anticipation for all that lies ahead. My son’s nervous excitement does something to my heart as he marches off to conquer this newest world.
Happy first grade, Corin!
Corin feels it’s very important for everyone to know that the dinosaurs on his backpack glow in the dark.
Drop-off was a whole new experience compared to last year’s delayed start for kindergartners. Mostly, this year involved a lot more walking.
Straight to business, with barely time for a smile
I grew up in Florida. This means the summers of my childhood were not magical, at least not directly. They were unbearably hot and humid, and it rained a lot. We weren’t much of a beach family, which left little in the way of feasible outdoor activities. We did catch pollywogs in the standing water in our swales, and I seem to remember at least some of those successfully growing into frogs and hopping away. My brother special ordered a pollywog with translucent skin, so you could see his inner workings, but the cat ate him long before he metamorphosed.
As it turned out, Florida summers weren’t so terrible, because they allowed me to develop my first true love: reading. I remember lots of trips to the library and endless hours curled up with a book. The magic of my summers was acquired vicariously, as I devoured biographies of Sacajawea and Harriet Tubman or raced through the Little House books or Spotted Boy and the Comanches for the 50th time. My mother would beg, threaten and bribe to get me outdoors for just a few minutes of fresh air.
Since living in Tennessee, or, more specifically, since having kids in Tennessee, I’ve discovered a whole new magic in summer. Today was chock full of it. We didn’t do anything spectacular. It was a very humble Sunday, complete with cleaning the dog’s ears and plumbing projects, but somehow, the magic showed up.
On a very prosaic run to the hardware store, Jon picked up an inexpensive water slide with a splash pool for the kids. It’s the perfect activity for our hilly backyard, and it resulted in hours of sliding, squealing and splashing. As evening came on, we ate chips and homemade guacamole and veggie dogs on the deck and finished with an apple pie I made this afternoon. The kids begged for one more go in the pool, which was now rather chilly, which led to the suggestion of a bonfire. The day ended way past a certain six-year-old’s bedtime, with mason jars and fireflies. He fell asleep watching for his trophies to flash a silent lullaby.
Perhaps the simple happiness of this day was magnified by two different reminders – a local family’s loss this past week and today’s tragic national headlines – of the infinite value of now. I was given today, with my husband and my kids, the sun and green grass, water from a garden hose, an apple pie and fireflies. I know how wealthy that makes me.
Last Saturday, Jon and I had one of the nicest date nights in recent memory. (Admittedly, it has less competition than we might wish.)
Jon was connected a while back with a local artist who needed technology expertise to help with lighting for one of his pieces. Jon spent quite a bit of time planning, helping to install and then programming a series of LEDs. The piece is called Analog Trail. I think it’s fantastic, and I want to give a shoutout to Phil Foster, who does remarkable work.
Last Saturday night, the piece debuted at the 3 x 3 Art Show. Three galleries in Leiper’s Fork, a little historic village just south of here, opened their doors to the public to feature works by local artists. We admired Analog Trail on the wall and enjoyed the other works with a lot of people who were undoubtedly more familiar with the local art scene than we were. We sat outside in the slightly-crisp air under strings of white lights and a full moon and listened to live music. We wandered out behind the art galleries to watch fireflies flashing their secret messages across the fields. It was one of those perfectly lovely evenings you wish didn’t have to end.
The photo doesn’t do the piece justice, and it can’t show the twinkling stars, randomized lightning, flashing phone screen, and flickering campfire.
Buckle up, dear readers. We’re going to talk about gender. Wait, don’t close the browser window yet! Hang with me, and I think we can get through this without losing our minds.
I had a conversation yesterday with a friend whose little girl is a bit of a tomboy. She has more than once expressed a wish to be a boy, which in some families might induce panic and in others send a parent out to buy a new wardrobe. My friend is a wise and experienced mother, however, and has calmly given her daughter room to explore the things she enjoys, free of any gender-related pressure. You don’t have to like frills, she assures her daughter.
Our society has made a mess of gender. Some strange collusion of marketing, parenting and sex and gender politics has narrowed the gender world for our children to what can only be described as a pigeonhole. In that context, significant numbers of boys and girls inevitably are going to be left wondering where they fit in. All it takes is a trip down a few toy aisles to see what I mean. What message is a little girl getting if she really wants the latest monster trucks or construction toys? How long does it take for a boy to understand he’s not supposed to like dolls or sometimes putting on the princess dress? My son’s favorite colors have changed every few weeks for years, but at four, he came home from preschool with the understanding that pink was a girl color. I assured him that he can like any color he wants, but imagine how those messages accumulate from the time our kids are too young to know what it means.
Please don’t misunderstand: I am not trying to explain gender dysphoria, transgenderism, sexual identity or any related complexities. I am not even remotely qualified to address those issues with any authority. What I can address is the world in which I am raising my children, and the issues I face as a parent. This includes pervasive societal pressure to accept a ridiculously narrow definition of gender and worry or label if our kids stray outside those boundaries.
People, can’t we all agree to ditch these artificial definitions? Some girls love frills and pink and naturally gravitate to dolls and dress-up and tea parties. There is nothing wrong with that. But let’s not discourage them from also loving cars and trucks, dirt, sports or roughhousing, or make those who do feel as if they don’t belong. Some boys naturally thrive on wildly physical shenanigans, loud and aggressive games and the world of bash-’em-up Matchbox cars and superhero escapades. But what of the ones who love putting on mom’s high heels, enjoy a good tea party, tenderly rock babies and stuffed animals to sleep or pretend to whip up a good omelette? Are they any less boys? There is an endless combination of all these things and many more, so beautifully varied and individual, a kaleidoscope of personality and experience in every child. Yes, there are basic differences between the genders, and I don’t mean to imply otherwise. However, we live in a time of false dichotomy, where everything is arranged in opposition to something else. Life doesn’t often work that way. Kids naturally try things on, testing what fits, imitating the many adults in their lives. The best way to make an issue where there isn’t one is to overreact to that natural process and impose our own fears or assumptions on children who are – and should be – endlessly testing and becoming.
Earlier this week, my son wore a pair of princess dress-up heels and superhero underwear in an imaginary game I did not attempt to understand. He likes pretty things and has a baby doll he occasionally plays with. He wishes to have his nails painted when I paint mine. He sometimes plays family with his friends on the playground, and other times he plays soccer. He spends hours with his cars, planes and trains in games that regularly turn raucous, and his imaginary worlds often involve good guys and bad guys and what he gleefully labels “violence.” Lina has a dollhouse and lots of babies she adores, but she also loves block towers and the occasional toy car demolition derby. She is often rambunctious in her play. She likes books about farm equipment and trucks that get stuck. These are their idiosyncrasies, the wild cocktails that comprise my children. The world has plenty to say about expectations and normalcy (whatever that is). But for now, I still have some ability to hold those messages at bay and let my children discover for themselves what brings them joy and who God designed them to be.
A Dash of the Unexpected 