And the Winner is...

ME!!!So I worked really hard on this pumpkin carving...mostly just to see if I could pull it off. I could point to all kinds of things that went horribly wrong, including how the whole face fell out on Sunday afternoon (bummer, I wanted to light it up again!). Plenty of things weren't quite how I'd planned, but it still turned out pretty cool.

Because one person asked and because I think it would be cool to preserve this information for posterity, I'll go into some details about this award-winning carving. I started out by choosing an online photo of "The Freak" that I thought would work for my purposes. I chose this one:I cropped it so that only Timmy's face showed and then ran it through Photoshop's "Cutout" filter that made it look something like this:I used that as my template, but it lost some detail, so I had Daddy go back and find me an appropriately sized SF logo for the cap and I added the white of his eyes, which you could see in the original photo.

I used a pin to poke the outlines into the pumpkin, through the paper. I started carving with a Dremel, with a small router bit attached. It kinda worked. At least it gave me a specific depth to carve to. After carving the brightest bits to that depth (the deepest it could go through a 1-inch+ thick rind and just scraping the skin off the things I wanted to be less thick...that taking a mere several hours...I determined that no light was going to get through that and used a plain ol' knife to cut out the thin parts entirely, then used the Dremel to drill the other parts deeper.

I cut a circle around the outside just so the cap would show up. Unfortunately, I didn't quite think that through all the way. Cutting too far was going to make the face fall out, so I only got part way and ended up with sort of a lightning bolt edge on one side. By then, the pizza had arrived for dinner, so I took a break.

I wanted to write "Beware of the Freak" around the outside, but trick-or-treaters were already starting to come to the door and I was worried that if I tried to cut too much, I'd end up breaking all the delicate stuff I'd already done. Still, I thought the "Freak" aspect was particularly apropos, considering "The Freak" is one of Tim Lincecum's nicknames and because it was Halloween. So, I settled for "Freak". And this is what I ended up with:It looks like it took a lot of work, but it hardly looks like it'd be impressive. i was pretty psyched when I first checked it out with a candle inside. Totally worth the effort!

As mentioned in the previous post, I submitted it to the San Francisco Giants pumpkin carving contest. For all I know, no one else bothered to enter. I mean, the Giants' season has been over for weeks now. I can't even tell you what I was doing poking around on their website, where I noticed the contest ad.

I enter the occasional contest here and there, but I never win. So imagine my surprise when I got this e-mail from the Giants' Marketing and Entertainment Manager:

Stacey,

Congratulations, you are the winner of our Pumpkin Carving contest! You have won a player autographed baseball. If you can please reply all to this e-mail and provide your address we can get this out to you as soon as possible.

Congratulations once again and awesome job, your “Freak” pumpkin is very impressive!

Joe

Huh. Imagine that! We'll have to see how that whole "autographed baseball" thing turns out!

Halloween - The Real Deal

After having more than a week of Halloween already, it was almost a surprise to find the main event suddenly upon us like the boogey man. I'd managed to buy a couple of creepy window hangings and Daddy and I strung some cobwebs across the front of the house. That meant yesterday was a mad rush of carving pumpkins and finishing up decorations before setting off for an evening of candy collection.Oh, and soccer, of course.

We had a lazy morning at home. Since I had some undeniably ridiculous plans for pumpkin carving, that was probably a poor plan, but I was still trying to talk Mam out of the large pumpkin she'd selected weeks earlier. She'd selected two others in the meantime and I needed a really big one for my planned carving.

I set the kids to work carving their own pumpkins. Mam had carved her little pumpkin from the farm trip a couple of days earlier, but we still had two others. While I helped them out with their pumpkins, I finally got permission to start on my own. They were long done before I'd really even started.I'd only just started cutting as Daddy starting shoveling lunch at the kids in preparation for Smunch's post-lunchtime soccer game. Not to be completely distracted by my mental illness, I left the house shortly after the rest of the family to see the soccer game. Smunch's team won, 1-0, a fairly unusual event. Just their second win of the season. Smunch was playing great by the end of the game, but it took a while for him to warm up.

We went home. I spent another 45 minutes working on my pumpkin, then putting Mam's ponytails in and spraying them in place for her soccer game. I'd made only a little progress before we had to leave again. Another fun game for Mam, putting her goal total for the season at 22, I think. They also won (6-2), although they don't technically keep score.

I'd planned to make soup for dinner, but we ordered pizza instead, in the interest of my completing my pumpkin before midnight. Daddy called our favorite pizza place. They said we could pick up our pizza in 2 hours. Two hours??? We opted for some Round Table instead.

And Daddy got the kids dressed. Mam still had her ponytails in, but it turned out to be a cute addition to her costume. The knocks started coming and it soon appeared that we probably hadn't bought enough candy this year. Our neighborhood was buzzing with activity. It was great, but unexpected. Still, just because our neighborhood was buzzing, didn't mean our dark, narrow cul-de-sac was all that busy. In the end, although I came home and raided some bags of candy the kids had collected at a Cub Scout event earlier in the week, I think we probably had just enough candy in the first place.

We left a bowl of candy at the door and took the kids around the neighborhood for an hour or so...until they decided their pumpkin baskets were too heavy to carry anymore.They returned home happy with their Halloween.As I put them to bed. They both told me what a great time they'd had. Worth all that harried silliness.

Smunch was the sweetest of all. "Mom," he said. "I love your pumpkin." A boy after my own heart.

[Entered in the SF Giants Pumpkin Carving Contest]

Or was I after his?

Stretching the Spooky

Have you noticed that celebrations for children seem to go on and on and on these days? Was it like that when we were kids? Don't get me wrong. It's really fun, but it also makes each event something to "get past" before anything else can happen. Know what I mean? In this instance, of course, I'm talking about Halloweeen.

Halloween in our house started a full week and a half before October 31st. One of the fabulous mommies from Mam's kindergarten class hosted a Halloween tea for all the little girls in the class. She has the perfect house for such things...huge, unmanicured yard and a rambling, non-upated house. Nothing to destroy. Absolutely perfect. And, of course, it was crazy cute.We had a fun couple of hours relaxing in the sunshine and it was a great way to kick of the excitement for Halloween.

A few days later, we made our annual trip to the pumpkin patch, to meet old friends and see everyone's costumes. And, of course, to take photos of the kids that actually include pumpkins. Sir Smunch was a wee bit baffled, apparently.Mam, on the other hand, was all about the posing with pumpkins, even though the bright sunlight wasn't exactly camera-friendly.My sister and I used to pose for these very same pictures in this very same pumpkin patch. Things were simpler then. It wasn't crowded. There was no $5 bounce house, no haunted house. No pony rides or petting zoo. No costumes either. I need to get hold of those photos, just for comparison. I suppose we still did plenty of wandering among the pumpkins, but we didn't look nearly this noble.And I don't recall the need to kick-test them, but maybe that's a boy thing. I'm quite sure there was plenty of this: And my mom probably even helped us pick that pumpkin up and purchase it...unlike me. I opted for the $3.99 pumpkins at CVS instead of paying $20 for this bad boy.

The pumpkin patch trip (followed by the annual pilgrammage to Jake's Pizza) was a whole week before the big event, giving us time to work up some eager anticipation for the Halloween parties and parades at school on Friday. As usual, I overvolunteered my time, not realizing that Smunch's Halloween party was at the very same time as the kindergarten parade and party. Fortunately, the front of his classroom is directly opposite the back door to Mam's kindergarten room and I managed to go back and forth and not miss much.

However, I was in charge of one of two crafts for the second graders. And all 80 second graders would be rotating through Smunch's classroom, so it wasn't a small job. The craft had to be explained three times and I'd failed to cut streamers to length, which turned out to be a fatal flaw in my plans. There were always at least two of us busily cutting streamers as fast as we could. The projects turned out cute though and the kids seemed to like them.I loved seeing all the kids' ghost wind socks together on the table. They're way cuter as a "flock" than they are flying solo. I wished I could've taken them all home myself!In mid-craft, I ran over to the kindergarten yard to watch Mam's parade. It was small and low-key, but obviously, it was important that I made it. She was already dressed when I got there. After the grand march, the kids were treated to Frankenstein hands (gloves filled with popcorn with candy corn "fingernails") and pudding with chocolate crumbs on top...in addition to cheese pizza. Spoiled any?I ended up having to drag Mam back to the second grade room, where she made her own ghost, we cleaned up and hightailed it home for lunch before going back to school to help Smunch get dressed for the whole-school parade.
The parade was fun, but very long and too hot for so many kids sitting out on the blacktop. Mam only begrudgingly participated in this second parade, even though most of her class had returned for the event. For Smunch, it was the main event. But he didn't see me in the sea of parents, so I didn't get much of a photo.His mask was always falling down, so his chin was pointing up towards the sky trying to keep it on.

After the parade, the second graders (and many younger siblings) headed to the multipurpose room for a 20-minute viewing of It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, complete with their own Frankenstein hands (their other craft from the morning) for munching.Then all the little monsters and goblins went home for the weekend, completely hopped up on sugar and excitement...thinking the next 24 hours couldn't pass fast enough.

Fall at the Farm

A while back...I can't even remember quite when. Maybe three weeks ago?...I accompanied Mam's class on a field trip to a local working farm. This was Mam's first kindergarten field trip and her first time on a school bus. For whatever reason, ancient, yellow buses are a lot more exciting than, say, the shuttle to the water park at Disney World.She was thrilled just to be boarding the bus. But it was a really fun visit to the farm too.

This particular farm is hidden away in a little valley, so despite the fact that it's not far from home, it still feels very pastoral. They have amazing docents who lead the kids in songs, let them sample produce from the beautiful, big vegetable garden...teach them about compost and take them to visit the animals.Since tasting wonderful, new, fresh foods is not Mam's forté, you won't be surprised to hear that her favorite part was visiting the animals. It's been a long time since she had such a good opportunity to get up close and personal with animals. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to watch her. I don't know any child more enthusiastic about animals than she is. To witness her interaction with a rhinoceros when she was just two and a half, was to be just about rolling on the ground with laughter. Given the opportunity, in a group visiting animals, she'll hog all the animals' attention for herself. This trip was no different.Fortunately, one of her classmates was scared to death of animals and refused to come in the pens and another was just slightly afraid, coming in the pens, but keeping her distance. That gave Mam plenty of time and space to get all the animal love she could. She listened raptly to the docent too.It's just so cute to see her so interested in something. It's sort of like taking Smunch to a baseball game. And this...this is Mam's equivalent of witnessing a home run and possibly the very closest she's gotten to a goat.At the end of the trip, each kindergartner got to take a pumpkin back to class where they weighed it and learned about concepts of less and more before taking it home.Although she was excited to go on a fun trip with Mommy and meet lots of animals. A pumpkin of her own was the icing on the cake.

Smunchism #161

Smunch: "Sometimes Mam is still pesterous to me."

Where did she go?

I'm painfully aware that I haven't written a single bloggity word in three weeks now. It's not because nothing's going on. There's always something going on around here, but it hasn't been very inspiring. It's been a lot of parenting and practicing patience, for the most part. Despite the fact that I knew it was coming, I'm struggling a little with the decline in Smunch's ability to speak. The stuttering was so mild at the beginning of the school year that it was easy to forget it was even there. Now, it takes every fiber of patience just to let him get through whatever he needs to say without finishing his sentence or pretending to listen instead of actually listening. I have to remind myself that as hard work as it is for me, there are children with much greater "issues" and their parents are working that much harder. How much I admire them. They look so patient and strong on the outside. Perhaps they're just as impatient and wimpy on the inside. It's hard to tell.

On a different note, before I went AWOL, my father-in-law generously gave me a new lens for my camera. That means I've taken some beautiful photos of late, even if they're fairly meaningless. Or brainless, as the case may be...Somewhere between the last post and this one, it magically turned into Fall.Ah, Fall. Probably one of my favorite times of year. I love how it cools off, but it's still sunny and beautiful when it's not rainy and wet, and the yard is populated by a herd (a flock, a coven??) of garden spiders hanging out in some really spectacular webs.Daddy doesn't like that last part so much.

It's also soccer season, so most of each Saturday is taken up with wedging legs through shin guards and securing cleats to little feet. And cheering of course. There's always cheering. I have lots of pictures of soccer, but really? You want more soccer? I thought not. Mam is now up to 19 goals for the season, but her peers have rapidly caught onto the game and she isn't nearly the prolific scorer that she was in the first couple of games.

And it's coming up to Halloween already, which is scary in and of itself. What do you suppose this guy is going to be for Halloween?The kids have already donned their costumes at least once. Mam, this year, is a witch, while Smunch is some sort of evil knight. The package actually said "Dark Knight", but that sounded all wrong with the latest Batman.

The compost bin is looking particularly rich at this time of year and its full of all kinds of bugs. I looked in there the other day to find this flower, left over (sorta) from Daddy's party. I think maybe the decomposition process actually made it more beautiful than it was to begin with. I love what's left of the leaves, all vein-y and skeletal.After a couple of significant rain storms, I started getting a little cabin fever an actually went out letterboxing...solo...at this lovely place. It was a great day for a walk, even if I got showered on quite a bit.And I accompanied Mam on a lovely little kindergarten field trip to a local working farm. I think that's another blog post and has nothing to do with my new camera lens, which I didn't bring. I didn't even bring the big camera for that one.

For now, it's Fall at home, at school and on the soccer field. And that'll be just fine for a while...

Mamism #247 Expectations

Mam: Mamma, next time, put water in my lunchbox!

Me: What? Oh, there was no water in your lunchbox?

Mam: No. Next time put water in there.

Me: Well, Daddy packed your lunch, so you should talk to him about it.

Mam: Oh...well, he did a pretty good job.

Out of the mouths of babes

Mam had a playdate this afternoon. And, as usual, it was a delightful playdate, producing two happy little girls who didn't really want to part company...and who were now dressed in matching outfits, including matching headbands, just because our guest was wearing that stuff and Mam owned all the same things.

But one of the funnier parts of the afternoon came during lunch. Our guest had noticed that I'm easily distracted by my computer and kept reminding me of things. "Weren't you going to make us lunch?" "Weren't you going to take our picture?" Well, why, yes, I was, but I was distracted by that blinky thing over there.

"Why do you have a computer on your kitchen counter?"

"Um, well, that is kind of strange, isn't it?"

"We have an office."

"Yes, well, so do we, but it's upstairs."

And, I'm a crazy lady who likes to get her e-mail the instant it appears. Because that's oh-so-much more interesting than fixing lunch!

A Happy Birthday

With life largely revolving around school, soccer and other kid activities, it's sometimes hard to recognize any kind of milestones Daddy and I make ourselves. Then, of course, there's the fact that some milestones are better off ignored. That was Daddy's goal for his 40th birthday...pretend it never happened. As he likes to mention, however, turning 40 (or any milestone age) is better than the alternative.

In my typical fashion, I agonized over whether I should try and throw a party. See, I'm not the greatest party-thrower. I feel a strong need to have everything "just so". It's never "just so", so I get really stressed out and make other people miserable. I'm getting better though and I found that when I'm really motivated...and not out at Starbucks sipping lattes with my friends...I can get a heck of a lot done during the three hours Mam is at school on the weekdays. I chose to have most of the food catered at Whole Foods and managed to keep myself down to cakes, veggies, fruit and cheese...oh, and cheese sandwiches and those little cocktail weiners wrapped in crescent rolls for the kids.

I made Daddy's very favorite cake from a recipe I picked up from Epicurious.com last year. This Lemon Lattice White Chocolate Cake is awesome. I made three batches, with each one being good for a layer of sheet cake and one 9" round. That made for two cakes, but I figured that was O.K. Either we'd need more than just the sheet cake and we'd cut into the round one too, or I'd save it for his real birthday the next day (which happily turned out to be the case).The weather was supposed to be hot, so we had plenty of beer and soda. I picked up a couple big boxes of popsicles for the kids. It didn't turn out to be quite as horrible as advertised, so it was a lovely afternoon in the backyard...and the popsicles were entirely forgotten.That was especially important because I'd flogged Daddy and myself to make up for years of neglect out in the yard. He dug and overhauled while I planted flowers and ornamental cabbages. Many of the guests probably didn't know the difference, but the general lack of child-related garbage and plethora of living plants, with FLOWERS! was a huge improvement.

There was food. There was LOTS of food and I was pleased that I'd lied to the catering guy and told him I only expected 30. I didn't love all the things I'd ordered either, but there was so much, it really didn't matter. I'd spent an entire couple of weeks worrying about plates, utensils, food, guests, balloons, cakes and I managed not to get totally stressed out. I was pretty proud of myself for that alone.

Most importantly, of course, the guest of honor seemed pleased.Good cake, good company, beer. Friends from work came, friends from high school, his dad, my parents, old family friends, most of our neighbors. What more could a dad ask for from a family-themed birthday party? Happy birthday to my awesome husband who proves that some guys really do get better and better as they age.

The neighborly thing to do...

Know that saying, "Good fences make good neighbors"? Our next door neighbors don't subscribe to that philosophy. They like ivy. As a result, there's lots and lots of ivy (containing plenty of rats' nests) and one old broken down fence between our houses. If we had a dog, it'd be in their yard all the time. It's a bone of contention, as you might imagine. We also have issues with our big old oak tree that overhangs their chimney. None of those things give me warm fuzzy feelings about our neighbors. Neither does the owl box they strapped to their chimney. If any owl decides to take up residence there, it'll be right next to our bedroom and will doubtlessly drive us insane.

Still, as a granola-y kind of girl myself, I understand a lot of our neighbor's motivations, even if they conflict with my own. And Mr. Neighbor is a nice guy who makes a point of organizing the annual block parties and getting to know all the kids. The other weekend, he came over because he wanted to show the kids what he'd found in his backyard. I think perhaps Mrs. Neighbor was not as enthralled as he knew the kids would be and he was pretty excited himself.Mam looks pretty excited, doesn't she? You can't really tell what this is until you see it close up, but this is one of the neatest insects around and I didn't even know that they lived around here.Do we have some cool neighbors, or what?

Lighting and Blue Butterflies

Well, that's quite a title there, isn't it? It's all about soccer, the Fall sport of choice in our household. Mam is playing for the first time this year since she's finally old enough to be eligible here.

Smunch, of course, is also playing soccer...for his third year in a row. Although there are two full teams of second graders from Smunch's school, he ended up on a team with just two kids from his school, neither of whom are friends, particularly. Most of the kids are from another school entirely. Fortunately, they and their parents seem to be really nice and we're having a good time. At the first practice, they were given their uniforms. I'm always excited to find out what color they are...possibly more excited than Smunch is. This year's jersey:What color is that? Seriously though, if they had to ge the weird pixelated jersey, those are a pretty cool combination of colors. And they've named themselves The Lightning (or Lightening, if you ask the coach's wife to spell it. I think that's a hair product.) Now that I look at it again, I think The Plague might've been an appropriate name.His season is well underway. The Lightning's record is 0-1-1 so far. Smunch seems happy enough with that. For my part, I can barely watch the games. They've become so competitive that I get all tense. And this year one kid is goalie in each quarter. So far, they haven't scored while Smunch has been goalie. Thank goodness...although it'll be interesting to see how he deals with that.Do you think it looks like he's singing "The Wheels on the Bus"? I do. He didn't think that was funny when I pointed it out to him, however.

And then, there are the Blue Butterflies.Do you suppose that's a team of kindergarten girls? How would you ever guess?

Mam is so ridiculously, almost embarrassingly in her element that although her team has played the same two games as Smuch's team, she has scored 11 goals. The Blue Butterflies are so far 2-0-0. Go figure. She's feisty, she knows what she's up to and she's got a big brother who's been dominating her with the soccer ball for at least two years now. Think she's proud of herself?You bet she is. And I'm sure she's just itching to get back out on the field this Saturday too.

During the last game, after she'd scored 4 or 5 goals, her daddy dutifully directed her not to score anymore and to pass the ball to teammates instead. She said "O.K." and ran back out there. The result was hysterical. Her MO was almost unchanged except that when she got to the goal, she stood there and looked around, with no one to pass to. The first time, she tried to pass, but her teammates missed it. After that, she just stood there, inches from the goal, not sure what to do. She scored two or three more times while trying her very best not to. It was painfully funny. Because there's just no stopping this girl. Really.

Summer's Last Gasp

It's been weeks since I've posted and summer was officially over two days ago. The blog posts are piling up in my head, but that's not a very reliable place to keep them, especially these days.

It was another summer with a bountiful harvest, especially of tomatoes. Early in the season, I lamented that they looked like they had blossom end rot. Some of them did, but even those were salvageable.I love to take pictures of my vegetables just because it somehow makes life seem so colorful and serene...even when it's kind of bland and decidedly not serene at all.

To finish up our summer, we headed out to the ballpark one more time on Labor Day. We got to see the Giants' new pitcher, Brad Penny. We got to see him pretty up close and personal, actually since our seats were about 20 rows up from the bullpen.He's one intimidating-looking dude. The kids came prepared. Although Mam refused to wear her new Giants hat, both of them had insisted on painting their own signs for the event. Not necessarily pretty, but they did the job and how could they be that unattractive with such ethusiastic fans under them?It was a good game. I hadn't wanted to bring Mam because she was predictably pretty annoying. But she was pretty cute for an hour or so. By the end, she only wanted to go home. And home was brought to us by this guy, the Giants' closer, Brian Wilson.We're not always so generous in our praise of Mr. Wilson in our household, but he did a fine job on Labor Day and made the whole trip worthwhile. Thanks, Brian!

I would have loved to take Smunch to see the Giants play the Cubs (one of his other favorite teams) this weekend, but with so many other potential activities and invites, it just wasn't in the cards for us. Maybe next year...

Just Short of a Miracle

It's Saturday. School has been in session for 2-1/2 weeks now and things are humming along. I even got some contract work. And the Giants are still in the running to make the playoffs this year. That means we're all happy, even if the first colds of the season have already started.

So, today, we went out to breakfast, stopped by the pottery painting store to add Mam's artwork to a platter for her teacher (Yes, already. Her teacher decided to get married in September and then take two weeks off for a honeymoon. Whatever.), then headed home where Smunch patiently bided his time until the Giants' 1:05pm start time for today.

Wait, actually it wasn't so patient because I decided to use that time to teach Smunch how to tie shoes. And we practiced and practiced and practiced. Naturally, the pesky younger sister had to butt in and learn too. And naturally, she was a quicker study than he was. And that was awfully annoying. I succeeded to some degree, but more practicing and coaching is clearly in order.

As soon as Smunch could show me that he could tie a shoe by himself, I let him turn on the game. The TV, as usual, was tuned to PBS. And that's when something miraculous happened. Smunch was distracted from changing the channel by a Nova show about black holes. Not only was he distracted, but he watched an entire 45 minutes of the show. Now, admittedly, it was a pretty darned interesting Nova episode. But there was BASEBALL. He missed a whole 45 minutes of his favorite team playing to learn about physics and space! Oh. My. Gosh.

Fortunately, he's still completely jazzed to go to the game we've got tickets for on Monday...to the point where he says, "I just can't wait 'til Monday" several times a day. But there was a light in that tunnel today, a chink in the baseball armor. He really is interested in other things too. Yay.

The Giant's win today was also just short of a miracle. Gack. They don't do anything the easy way.

Another Year, Another Kindergartner

Scrolling back through the posts I've written this summer, it's painfully obvious just how busy we were. I try not to write much when there's nothing much going on, but that was rarely the case. This is perhaps the first year both kids will really remember the summer...based on how old they are. I hope they remember it fondly and not as a mishmash of dizzying, but fun experiences.

School started so early this year. It wasn't even late August yet. But then, something had to curb my need for overscheduling, I guess. And I was so excited to see Mam off to kindergarten, with the expectations that she'd be very, very happy there and I'd be happy to have the kids in the same place.

Before the big Wednesday first day of school, Mam had a lemonade social at the kindergarten where she got together with her future classmates and got to meet her new teacher. After all that posing at Disney World, Mam was happy as a clam to pose with her latest princess. Looks familiar, doesn't it?This one, she gets to keep visiting for the rest of the year. And she'll only have to compete for attention with 19 other kids rather than a whole theme park full.

The teachers took all the kids in the classroom to read a story and left the parents out on the playground. Since we were a couple of minutes late, Mam wasn't sure what to make of that, but I got away with escorting her halfway into the classroom...just enough that she could see that she knew other kids in there...and then quickly making my way back out.

Tuesday, I took the kids to my hairdresser for haircuts. Smunch's hair had been cropped so short during the summer, that I just had her tidy it up so it would grow out nicely. Mam, on the other hand, said emphatically that she wanted her hair cropped up to HERE! (with her hand up above her ear). I refused, but she had it cut as short as I was willing to go. I really prefer the long hair, but not the long hair-combing battles, so she gets her way.

Wednesday finally came and I had the kids dressed 'just so' and ready for their first day. Cute clothes, new backpacks, new lunch bags, combed hair, brushed teeth. Mam was excited. Smunch seemed happy, but very slightly apprehensive.The whole family took the short walk to the kindergarten yard, where Mam immediately ran off to play with her friends, including her Sarah who is in her class for the first time this year. After a few minutes, the bell rang and Mam flew past me, "Bye, Mommy!" she waved as she joined the line.So very, very different from her brother. She trotted happily off into the classroom with barely a glance behind her.

We wandered over to the "big kid playground" where Smunch quickly found his line and stood in it, still looking slightly anxious.But it all went away when he met his nice, new teacher. She's quite fabulous, I hear. My interactions with her to date would certainly suggest that's true. Very, very nice with a great reputation.I'm happy about his teacher and about the kids (and parents!) in his class. It's shaping up to be a really good year and in the end, he seemed happy to be off to second grade.Second grade. That used to sound so very old!

And I went off to the Welcome Back Coffee to overvolunteer myself for yet another year. I avoided becoming anyone's room mom, but signed up to help the room mom in both classrooms. I'll be in Mam's room weekly to help out and may be taking both classes to the library from time to time. I'm looking forward to it.

What I didn't realize is that while everything is new and different for the kids, it's really kind of new and different for me too. The volunteering hasn't really kicked into gear yet, so I'm feeling a little adrift in a big sea of parents and kids. All the same friends are still there, but we're all doing different things with different routines than we had last year. I'm hoping that as soon as things firm up a little and I'm getting into the classroom again, I'll feel like I've got a "place" there. Until then, at least my blog is up to date.

It's now Monday and the fourth day of school for both kids. To my great relief, they seem to be getting happier and happier with school. They're both happy to go and happy to stay. I don't know how it could be going better. This is the first year it's actually been easy!

Lazy Days at the Lake

Well, it's nice to think it could have been lazy days at the lake, but with three kids under the age of 8, lazy is hard to come by.

I had promised myself that I wouldn't try to leave town more than twice this summer. In fact, I even combined our camping trip with our San Diego trip for that express purpose. In the end, of course, it served more to leave time to schedule something else entirely.

After the nostalgia I experienced during our winter trip to Lake Tahoe, I felt the urge to see if I could get my family together for an even more nostalgic summer trip. After all, we didn't spend a lot of time there in the winter when I was a kid. And look, it worked! We even had a big family breakfast at the Old Post Office Cafe.Of course, this added trip was largely squished in there right before the start of school. Aunt Karen and SPENCER! were visiting and my parents joined us too. It took a little doing to find a cabin that we could rent for just three nights, would fit all of us (sort of), had wireless internet (for Daddy) and took dogs (for my parents, who ultimately decided to leave the dog at home.) But I found this little place, in just the neighborhood we were hoping for.It's in the same neighborhood we used to stay in. If you rent the right cabin, you get access to the neighborhood pool and the private pier. This cabin had it all. Turns out it also had a broken internet connection and at least one resident mouse, but I digress.

We arrived just before dinnertime on Thursday, so we had that evening and two full days to spend by the lake, Karen and I trying to relive our childhood, the kids excited by all the possibilities for getting in trouble and my parents just trying to put up with it all. I think Daddy found it relaxing.After a relatively long walk to breakfast on Friday morning, we lazed around the cabin for a little while, then made ourselves a picnic lunch to take to Sugar Pine Point State Park. It was a lovely spot with a historic mansion, a pier, beaches, forest and picnic areas. We never quite made it on the hike we'd intended to take since the rocky beach took up an awful lot of time, but everyone had fun and it was a lovely day. The kids got pretty wet trying to keep their balance while wading in the slippery rocks. We managed to take a short hike out to the "lighthouse", which turned out to be more of a "light beacon" than a lighthouse. I should have taken a picture, just so you could appreciate how unimpressive it was! Still, there were some beautiful views of the lake along the way.The kids and grandpa all jumped in the hot tub out on the deck when we got back to the cabin. All in all, the hot tub was probably one of the most recommendable parts about the cabin, which had sleeping space for 10 people, but not nearly enough living space. And Aunt Karen should probably be recommended for sainthood for being willing to sleep in the loft with the three kids.

On Saturday, we tried to fit in everything we hadn't managed to do on Friday. That meant that, after a brief, but exciting, bear sighting in the street, we had a quick breakfast and zoomed out to the pier to teach the kids how to catch crayfish. Another beautiful day, but it was breezy and kind of cold. Even though we had no intention of going in the water, we wore our swim suits because our next planned stop was a beach north of there.The kids were thrilled by the idea they could catch crayfish just by lowering bacon on a string into the water. They spent a lot of time doing that, with Cassie probably being the most enthralled, as our resident animal lover.The three kids caught 25 crayfish in all. Not a bad catch for a first time. Not being big fans of steamed crayfish, we threw them all back at the end. But before that, see this?This is my family (including me) fishing off the pier. See anything wrong with this? Well, no, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with this. Now, a friend of mine recently wrote a blog post espousing the lameness of swim lessons. I was inclined to agree. It seems like neither of my kids have made much progress. But this little incident changed my mind.

You'll notice that everyone's leaning over the side. It's not because anyone's down there. No one is. We're all just scouring the bottom, looking for crayfish. But if you lean too far over, it turns out you fall off. And the water's cold. One particular Smunch discovered that for himself...falling from that height where we're standing, right into the water. And he could swim well enough to get to a pillar and hold on until Daddy jumped in and got him. I, being ever so concerned and helpful, just yelled "Don't forget to get his shoes!" (His Crocs were floating away). According to Daddy, that suggestion was met with "I don't care about my shoes. I care about my life!"

Smunch was rather proud of himself for getting to go swimming in the lake, but said he wouldn't be getting in again at the beach. You can see how well that worked out.We actually missed the beach we'd intended to stop at and ended up at a beach we'd wanted to go to but had decided it was too far away. Oh well. It was lovely and sandy. And how often do you find yourself sitting on a sandy beach with forest and a giant granite mountain behind you?It turned out to be pretty hot sitting on the beach, but too cold for many of us in the water. Daddy went for a little swim, but I wasn't so tempted. The kids waded and dug in the sand. We had a picnic and headed back. We went to the community pool...which was also cold...and got the kids ice cream, while they shivered. Getting ice cream at the snack bar was another childhood favorite of mine and Aunt Karen's. I doubt we were ever quite so cold while we ate it though. All the more reason to jump in the hot tub when we got back!

And that was it. The trip was short and sweet. It was really much too short. It would have been great to have a whole week up there to unwind and let the kids run around the cabin while we all drank margaritas on the deck. Instead, we battled traffic to get back on Sunday...the Sunday before the Wednesday when school started. Aunt Karen and SPENCER! stayed until Tuesday...and then it was another bittersweet goodbye. Good thing we'll be seeing them again at Thanksgiving!