to Chicago

Call this a quick break in routines: I'm off to Chicago, to be with the two little girls while their parents attend something or other this evening.

So of course I'm up early. Misty morning, pretty skies, but cold! 

Our CSA farmers wrote that they are expecting frost (which would put an end to the tomato season and, too, would take out the flowers from the remaining farmers markets). We didn't quite get that low at the farmette, but we hovered nearby! 

For now, our annuals are still with us... 

... and I even caught a day lily trying hard to appear lovely and summer-like!

The phone woke Ed and so I got to have him at the kitchen table, even at this ungodly (for him) hour. 

To make his point about keeping ideas about safety in perspective, he reminded me again that the most dangerous thing we do in our days is drive cars. And so he tells me -- let's fill out our absentee ballots before you hit the road. 

You'll mail mine even if I crash, wont you?

No! we'll mail them before there's a chance of that!

We take voting integrity seriously alright! We do everything by the book,  avoiding even the appearance of impropriety! 

Ed! Sign legibly!

But I never sign anything legibly. It has to be close to my regular signature.

Okay....

I'm off.

My goal is to be in Chicago in time for lunch with my daughter. Traffic is light, the music in the car is good, I make it in time to sit down with her at noon!

And in the late afternoon, we pick up Primrose. I am, of course, a picker-upper in Madison, but this pickup is so different: Primrose is attending a big city school, close to downtown Chicago and, too, it covers all grades, so I see her coming out as high schoolers mingle at the entry way. Primrose took no time to get used to this. She doesn't give it a second's thought.

At home now. 

Parents go out, she and I do art together. And then it's time for the two of us to pick up her sister. We do a small detour to Olivia's (a neighborhood grocery store). I should remember not to take a hungry child into a grocery store. ("Can we get jelly beans? Please! I never had any! How about Pirate Booty? Please!) 

We come into Juniper's school and it is like a reunion, in that many of the teachers remember Primrose from her early years there. Juniper herself is somewhat puzzled to see me. I don't know that she has been picked up by anyone aside from her parents before. Still, she gives a tentative smile of recognition...

And is further reassured to see Primrose with me.

At home, she reminds me that things have changed since my last visit back in August. She moves around now. On her own. Oh-oh....

Primrose is super protective, positioning herself at the the stairs so that Juniper doesn't go in that direction.  Yeah, we have a roving toddler on our hands! Best to get her in her high chair. Dinner is a great distraction.

Tortellini and broccoli for the youngest among us.

Thai buns for her big sister.

And for dessert? More broccoli for Juniper, who doesn't know that this does not really qualify as dessert at anyone's dinner table.

The rest of us opt for more traditional post dinner treats.

It is abundantly clear that Juniper is now ready for bed. While I go through those routines with her, I park Primrose in front of her current favorite movie (Robin Hood). This is perhaps not a great plan for a school night, but Juniper does require some quiet one on one time. Juniper is content, Primrose is content and thus grandma is content.

I do finally get the big girl to bed and as I sit back and think about the day I have to smile: Juniper is now 4.5 and her sister, the youngest of all my grandchildren, is rapidly approaching her first birthday. Such a beautiful age for both! Sweetly loving, oblivious still to newspaper headlines, to the grumpiness of others, ready to engage, to hug, to return that smile.

With so much love...

known dangers

Things you think are dangerous oftentimes turn out to be quite tame. On the other hand, things that cause less worry may knock you down with such force you wont even know what hit you.

That's one of those thoughts I keep in my head when I know we are engaged in so called dangerous activities. Me, washing down the glass roof, Ed chopping down trees. So I am not totally concerned when he makes this deal with a guy who owns a cherry picker, aka an aerial work platform ("AWP"). This machine was broken and Ed offered to fix it for its owner in exchange for a one day's loan. We have a number of trees (a GREAT number in my opinion) that are huge and that have limbs hanging over places that would be damaged should they snap and come down. One tree of particular concern is the big willow that towers over our driveway.

Willow branches snap routinely. So far they have caused no damage, but some of them are directly over our parking space. Crash! No more snazzy Blue Moon car. 

Today, the AWP owner finally found the time to come over and set up the machine so that Ed could saw off branches from the monster tree. 

(but first, my morning farmette walk)

Because of the planned tree work, Ed is up almost as early as I am! Breakfast together.

And then he's out and the two guys (who probably have the combined age of over one and a half centuries) start the work.

And guess what! No one sawed off anyone's arm or leg and no one fell off the AWP and now we have a trimmed tree. I had suggested taking the whole top half off. Ed didn't quite go that far, but he did at least remove some of the heavier offending branches.

On the other hand, the expected Hurricane Ian dangers came to pass as...  expected. My friends, I hope, are safe, but that's all I can say that's good about the situation in Venice, where they live.

So now to tamer topics. Mellow, gentle kind.

I pick up the girl at school and bring her to the farmette just as the AWP is being hauled away. She would sooooo love a ride up in it, but we are firm. Climb in if you want, but the machine is staying low.

Ah well, it's a beautiful autumnal day for prancing!

We do have some time at the farmhouse, but not terribly long. We have a date! My daughter suggested a late afternoon cafe pause and she and I invited Snowdrop to join us.

(for Snowdrop, to be invited into a conversation between mom and gogs? -- heaven.)

I noted yesterday how deliberate you have to be in finding good moments to talk, beyond the usual exchanges of a day's events. These times with either daughter are always special. And here's a bonus for me -- I get two days in a row of daughters: tomorrow I'm to have lunch with my Chicago girl.

How good is that...

Now if only Ian hadn't been so... predictably damaging!

With love...

captive audience

I suppose one reason I like breakfasts with Ed is that I am then his captive audience and he is mine. You'd think this is a ridiculous and inconsequential benefit, given that we are in the same space most of the day, but the fact is, he gets lost in his stuff and I in mine. At the kitchen table, however, there is no distraction.

But, these days, there is also no Ed. Once again he sleeps in.

His preoccupation with his sailing I think has kept him up later than usual. And so I let him sleep.

(Morning walk to barn)

Eventually we agree that it is a most perfect day for a brisk walk. And now, as always, we engage in a volleying for the right hour. 

Want to go now?

How about in half an hour? (I'm in the thick of some computer search or email.)

(In half an hour...) Okay, we can go!

How about after lunch?

We can go on like this all day. Sometimes we never do head out because we will have tossed the proposed walk right off the tennis court. I mean, by 1:55, I have to start setting out for Snowdrop's pickup. But today we manage to squeeze in an hour in the park, and it is lovely!

(iPhone photos look a bit iridescent in bright light!)

On the ride from Snowdrop's school to the farmhouse, I of course bug her for an account of her day. (And then text it all to my daughter once we get home). But today the report is short enough that I can switch the topic to more delicate topics. We have covered everything from hurricanes to wars, from siblings to friendships. This is the only time when I can actually get the girl to speculate about issues that are just below the surface for her. If I'm in good form, I can usually squeeze in some ideas for problem solving directions for stuff that's bothering her. 

I remember how hard it was to find this golden conversational moment with my girls when they were growing up. Eventually, I found that if they did their homework at the kitchen table while I fixed dinner, I could gently work in a good back and forth then. It felt casual and not too intrusive! And there were snacks which set a great mood for anything.

In those ancient days of raising kids in the last century, we, parents used to wonder if, given our career focus and full days, we could find "quality time" for our kids. I realize now that this was a misplaced worry. All days have pockets of opportunities for getting your kids (or your partner!) to open up in some fashion. And judging from my afternoons with Snowdrop, they dont happen when the child is home and engaged in whatever activity she likes. For me there's the car ride. For parents, it's likely the snuggle time before bedtime. But it's there. Always it is there.

Late afternoon -- I get Snowdrop ready for ballet. The routine is now simple because she takes some of the responsibility of getting herself ready for it and so I dont have to prod and push.

And we have another car ride and another opportunity to review "details of life."

(On time performance once again! Nothing like taking a photo through a one way view mirror!)

I take her home and eventually the boys return and I make my way back to the farmhouse. So nippy today! Time to make a pot of chili. We surely have farmette tomatoes in the freezer for it!

Do you see why a day can be exhausting? The challenges start with breakfast and end after dinner. 

I'll end with a note of anxious hope for my friend Diane who lives in Florida, right in the path of the hurricane. She and her husband and their friend have evacuated inland, but still, the worry about their beachfront home just south of Tampa is tremendous. My heart is with them tonight.

With so much love...

the last first

A milestone, that's for sure: today Sandpiper starts school. This makes him the last of my grandkids to enter the world of formal social and academic education. I want to emphasize "social," because at this age learning alongside others is totally important. More so, I would think than content-based learning. For the little guy, it all starts today.

The school he is attending has a minimum age of 16 months. (Sandpiper passed that marker this weekend). Sparrow started the same school when he turned 16. Snowdrop began here as well, but because her birthday falls on a January date, she could not start until she was 19 months plus a few days. Primrose and Juniper both began at 6 months and the transition for both was as smooth as ice cream pie. The Madison crew had me, and they had access to great babysitters at the UW and so they could wait until their chosen school's earliest start date.

Here's Snowdrop's first day, back in August, 2016.

She was upset because she did not want to carry the backpack. But otherwise, school for her has always been a joyous adventure.

Here's Sparrow's first day in 2019.

Yeah, that academic year that morphed into 2020. Pandemic 2020. He never could finish the year and though his relationship to school has been good, it certainly has had hiccups along the way.

Now comes Sandpiper. He's had full time babysitters at home and because I could not possibly give as much time to his care as the parents need, they have relied on the sitters coming to the house and thus he has never been dropped off anywhere alone. 

Today, his first day away from home was.... rough. Still, I have no doubt that within a few days, he'll charge in at full speed. This guy does not hold back!

(older brother, who is much calmer, watches...)

It's wonderful to learn from my kids new tricks and techniques, new ideas and strategies on child development. The world of kid rearing doesn't stand still. I get to sit back and take in this brave new world of family life. Parents all engaged in all aspects of it. Not easy, but so preferable to what we had before. 

Breakfast. Very late.

And a look at the beautiful asters that are now dominant in the fields. Planting them is always a chore. They grow tall, they often tumble, and they don't really begin to bloom until right about now, so for the entire summer, they look... undistinguished. But you sure do love them in October when they burst into a million purple miniature daisy faces!

In the afternoon, I pick up the oldest of the school kids and bring her to the farmette.

It's a cool day, but a nice one to be prancing around a bit. So we prance around before hunger brings her inside.

(she almost always takes the time for a tree climb...)

And at the end of the day, we gather at that school -- once Snowdrop's but now that of her brothers. Everyone is extremely excited to hear about the little guy's first day (it had its good moments!). 

I leave the girl with them all and head home. I think about how in our cultures, school is so monumentally important. We take it for granted -- the privilege of sending kids to these places where there is warmth and and friendship and learning. 

Except that I really don't. For all that these schools (teachers, staff, counselors) do, I am deeply grateful.

Lucky kids. Lucky parents. Happy grandma.

future travel

I just finished a novel in which the protagonist is on vacation with his girlfriend and neither he nor she are enjoying the leisurely pace, nor the absence of work, yet they promised each other that they would not slink into any work projects. They would force themselves to relax. Our protagonist hates doing nothing and sure enough, eventually, without sharing anything with his girlfriend, he gets involved with a serious work task. On the sly. Or at least without admitting as much to his GF. In the meantime, she does the exact same thing. And so rather than relaxing on the beach, they both lose themselves to their beloved work, though they avoid admitting this, slipping stealthily into their domains without so much as a whisper about what is really taking place. 

I thought of that just now as Ed and I spend the midday completely absorbed in our very separate projects, not really talking about them, but losing ourselves into that which excites us, only it excites us separately. He doesn't like my project, I don't especially like his. Mine is travel, his is sailing. He is consumed by it right now and I have to admit, I'm pretty consumed by mine as well.

What we share is the comfortable knowledge that we are so not on the same platform, yet we enjoy a real intimacy, being different, but very close to each other. Weird how it all works out so well in the end!

One other notable difference is that Ed is solidly in his weird sleep cycle right now. At least weird in my book. He sleeps so late that I have given up eating breakfast with him. Sure, he tells me to wake him. But my gentle noise making downstairs (eg running the vacuum today) gets me nowhere, so I conclude he must really need the sleep. Likely he stayed up till past 4 last night looking at sailing charts. So, I eat my meal and then eventually he eats his, sort of together, but not in the way we are used to. Old dogs must indeed learn new tricks to survive in peace!

Outside? Well, a bit warmer, but still not tempting. My energies are a little lower than usual and I resist going for a longer hike. I almost think that my feeding of the animals should be enough for one day...

(just about every bloom you see in this photo is from annuals that have overgrown the tubs: in the Fall, they are truly our best flowering friends!)

... but Ed correctly reminds me that we have been rather physically lazy lately and that can't be good. We walk in the park. Briefly.

(We love to ride the motorcycle on the return very slowly; cars pass us, we toddle along, admiring all that is around us...)

In the evening the young family comes for dinner. This routine -- of Sunday dinners at the farmhouse -- has been disrupted a lot in the past weeks, but today it fits well enough into everyone's schedule and so we eat and it is lovely, because being with them is always lovely.

(someone got a hair cut!)

(big sister did not: big sister wants to grow her hair out, super long!)

(but little brother gut a trim! first one! in preparation for a big day tomorrow!)

(dinner; Ed's out hustling cheepers into the coop...)

And in the later evening? Well, I'm sure eventually Ed will lose himself in his project. I'm done for now. I get to put my feet up and relax! Like the protagonist in the book, I have completed and finessed my idea. Now I'll let Ed work on his. On the side. Until he has his own details worked out and is ready to rejoin me in our evening routines.

With love...