The Farm Report – Page 127 – Archiving the early years

Sell crazy someplace else. We’re all stocked up here.

September 6, 2007

The kids were crazy today.

No, seriously…CRAZY. Jumping and running and hitting and shouting and screaming and pinching and poking. Hurling their bodies into the air and against random pieces of furniture or each other. All day, people. Not just a part of it. Every. Single. Minute. And that goes double for Shep, who didn’t even nap. Even Ellery was doing this crazy “Hey, let me try to push up on my knees!” business. No way, sister. Plant that butt firmly on the ground and don’t even think about that whole crawling business.

It got to the point in the afternoon where I just gave up and got out the camera and took pictures, because if I was going to be orbited by total nut-jobs, at least I could get a few photos while I slowly lost my mind.
Now what?

September 5, 2007

Today was a bit of a shock to my system.

Neko is going to preschool, and I’ve got that under control. She’s still a little clingy, but after we take off, she seems to be having a great time. Check.

So after Tom left to drop her off, I’m all like, “Um, now what?” For four years my life has been driven by Neko. And Shep has happily played along, because he’s happy to do what Neko wants to do. And Ellery just wants to be fed and held, so she’s pretty easy to please.

School runs from 9am-12pm. Just long enough to be a big chunk of time if we stay local, but not long enough to go to the big city and return in time for pick-up. We have a few things in the cue that will fill the space, but in the meantime, Shep and I need to figure out what we like to do.

And for the moment, I’m not sure either of us knows what that is.
Cricket, reprise

September 4, 2007

Shep didn’t get a chance to pose with Cricket yesterday, so Neko happily donned the costume one more time so he could get a photo op.
Labor Day

September 3, 2007

Labor day weekend was chock full of good. Good weather. Good friends. Good times. It almost felt vacation-y.

I must remember that it never hurts to pick up the phone and make a last-minute call to someone to see if they want to hook up. Odds are, they’re sitting at home figuring out what to do with their weekend, too. Some last-minute calls resulted in two good hook-ups.

In the morning, we headed for the zoo. We met Paul, Amy, and Anna who we don’t see anywhere near enough of these days. We had a great time and that Anna just keeps getting cuter and cuter. If I had remembered the camera, you all could see this for yourselves. But I didn’t, so you can’t. You’ll just have to trust me on this one.

The second half of the day, Chris, Paula, and Dan joined us for dinner. The kids were beyond excited that someone new was at our house, and I think it sent them on an adrenaline-fueled creative streak.

First, Neko and Shep disappeared into Neko’s room for far too long. It’s usually bad news when they’re gone that long. But, suddenly, they emerged and we realized they were putting on a concert. Guitars and accordions followed by a big bow. There were several encores and the crowd went wild.

Later, while we were exploring the remains of our pumpkin patch (it’s not looking good), Neko found some of those fuzzy tops of grass when it goes to seed. She plucked two of them and stuck them behind her ears, and said she was a cricket. Within minutes, this had exploded into a quest to build the ultimate “cricket” costume. (I think maybe she had a grasshopper in her head, since she wanted to be in head-to-toe green, but we ran with the cricket title.) She disappeared into the house, and reappeared with green shorts and a green shirt and a hairband to hold the grass in place. We cut out wings from green construction paper and we found a pair of my green socks, which we clipped to her shirt sleeves so we didn’t show any skin a la the Tony the Tiger incident.

She hopped around the yard for a while, and then she morphed into an amusement park character she had seen last week who stops and takes pictures with everyone. We all posed and then she waved her goodbyes, and told us all it was time for her to go home.

Chirp, chirp.

Thanks to Chris for taking photos.
Happy birthday, Ben.

September 2, 2007

Ben turns five this week and Beth and David threw a great party.

Except for that part where the kids were so fascinated by the pay phone that they managed to somehow call 911. That police officer looked pretty grumpy when he showed up. I must confess that I think Shep was somehow involved, but I don’t think he’s tall enough to reach the “1”, so he had to have an accomplice.
Saturday morning

September 1, 2007

Today we woke up with a plan. Most days we wake up with no idea what’s going to happen that day. Sometimes this works out great, but lately it’s kind of been a big disaster ending with lots of bad behavior and time outs. I think the kids are kinda wild and high-strung lately, and they need to channel their energy.

So we woke up and headed out for the Farmer’s Market. While we were there we ran into two different families we knew, which was fun for the kids and kind of a nice comfort for me. It’s little things like that that make this place start to feel like home. I have always maintained that you could live almost anywhere, but good friends and family are what make a place feel like home. We’re starting to feel that more and more, which makes me feel good about digging in our roots.

Plus, we’ve developed a relationship with the local coffee shop, and when you have a good, homey coffee shop, everything seems to feel a whole lot better.

Then we headed off to the state park for a morning hike. The kids ran and ran until Shep insisted on riding on Tom’s shoulders. Neko decared she was a Nature Expert and if we had any questions, we should direct them her way. She’d be happy to field them.

Sorry about this weird photo quality. We were using the fling camera, which is not so good in the morning light of the woods.
First day

August 31, 2007

We did it. Not a tear shed between any of us.

Susie took Shep and Ellery in the morning so Tom and I could take Neko to a first-day-of-school breakfast. Then off to school. She was a little nervous and didn’t want us to leave. But then she saw her friend Gregory getting nervous, and according to Akiko, went up to him and said, “Don’t worry Gregory. Your mom is going to be fine.”

So off we went. And by the time we picked her up, she was beaming.

“Did you have a good day?”

“I had a great day!”
Catching my breath

August 30, 2007

I know my posting has been spotty this week. We’re in that weird time where we have absolutely nothing to do (in terms of kid activities) yet a million things to do (in terms of work and other stuff). So I’ve been spending my time trying to keep three kids entertained all day and then frantically running in the gaps in between.

Anyway, it’s been quite a week.

Neko starts preschool tomorrow, and I think the crazy pace has let me kind of avoid thinking about it. But now it’s here, and maybe it’s the exhaustion, but I’m starting to get a little sentimental and emotional. I know it’s silly. It’s not like she’s going to kindergarten. It’s just preschool. And she’s been to school. When she was two, she went two hours a day for two days a week. But that was different. She was barely talking then and it was all really parallel play and learning that it’s not okay to eat paint or bite your neighbor.

She’s our first, so I’ve been able to keep her sheltered. She doesn’t know what a gun is. She isn’t aware that people think boys should be one way and girls another. She’s never heard derogatory names like “stupid” or “fatso”. She’s never heard a swear word.

From the moment she was born, she’s been under my wing. I’ve been there to keep her on the straight and narrow. I watched her discover the dust that floats in the sunlight and that caterpillars tickle when they walk on your hand. I’ve kissed nearly every bump and bruise. I’ve watched her succeed and fail.

I know this year she’s going to learn really important things like how to make friends and take turns and sit still and listen and that she can’t always be first in line. But I’m still sad. I feel like when I say goodbye tomorrow, we’re turning the corner. She’s not all mine anymore. Someone else is going to watch her discover and explore, succeed and fail. And I’m only going to see less and less of her as the years pass.

I’m also nervous for Shep. He’s been tippy and emotional lately. He bursts into heaving, sobbing tears at the drop of a hat. I don’t know if he senses a change coming on, but he’s not quite himself. I know it will be good for him, too. He’ll get a chance to be “the big kid” and make his own decisions. He won’t always have to play second fiddle. But he’s going to miss Neko terribly.

And Ellery will only know life with part-time Neko. She won’t know what it’s like to have her ever-present, and that’s a strange thing for me to wrap my head around.

I know it’s sentimental and schmaltzy. I know in a week or two I’ll be dropping her off like we’ve been doing it for years. But for tonight, I’m going to allow myself to wallow a bit.
RIP, Phil & Ted

August 28, 2007

I ran over my stroller today. (It was empty…don’t worry.)

I was nursing Ellery, so I left it outside the car because it takes two hands to fold and load. I left it on the passenger side because that was the side facing the road and I was being all conscientious, see, because I wanted people entering the parking lot to know there was a stroller in a parking spot so they didn’t mow it down. I never do this. Ever. I don’t know why I did it today.

When I was done feeding her, I loaded Ellery up and totally forgot I left the stroller over there. And then I kinda went up over something, like I hit a curb, except I wasn’t parked next to the curb. And then I thought the stroller might be okay because it looked pretty good, except when I loaded it up I noticed all the wheels were sideways. But only the front wheel folds sideways, the other two are supposed to point straight up.

It scares the crap out of me that I didn’t see it, and I’m thankful it was just a stroller. With all this stuff about the blind spot behind your car I never thought about the sides. I’ve now adjusted my side mirrors so that I can practically see the pavement, and now check with sort of an obsessive tic.

I have ordered a new one. I can’t possibly imagine life without Phil & Ted. They make it possible for me to get, well, anywhere by myself. They’ve been my trusty sidekick since I wandered into multiple child territory. I feel as though I need to have a moment of silence or do some sort of salute as I walk it to the dumpster.

Phil & Ted, you have served me well.
We celebrated Bonnie’s birthday with haircuts

August 28, 2007

The last few weeks in August are deadly. Every activity goes on hiatus and all of a sudden you’re in this activity wasteland. Suddenly you’re making a whole day out of ridiculous things like a trip to the post office.

So today we went to get haircuts. Neko is a girl, so we only got her hair cut every few months. Shep is a boy, and good lord, who knew boy hair had to be cut so often? What is the deal with that? Kate Hudson must be on to something, letting her boy grow his hair down to his knees.

But Shep, I love you so much when it comes to haircuts. Neko is a nightmare, and I have to sit in the chair with her, preceeded by a lengthy coaxing/bribing/lecturing session. You just hop into the chair, look down when they say to look down, and don’t even flinch when they use the clippers. And then you happily hop down, get your lollipop, and even throw the wrapper away.

Thank you for this gift. It is priceless.