Joint Blog

R: Yesterday James came out of our room and was leading the way to dinner when Annika spotted him. Annika is the four year old daughter of the cello teacher--a cute little blonde thing, extremely extroverted, and completely devoted to James. <note that she pronounces his name 'Jeems.'>
"James!" she cried "James, you are here! Mommy, James is here! James, I'm going to give you a hug!"
And, of course, James ran away and tried to hide behind the door. Meanwhile her little sister Lydia, who is just a little older than Owen, was shouting Owen's name and running to give him a hug. Owen and Lydia bonked heads a few times because they couldn't quite coordinate as they tried to hug each other. But James was shrieking and trying to burrow further behind the door as Annika hugged him from behind.
After we got away down the stairs safely and the girls were loaded into their minivan, James said: "Well, you know, I guess it would be okay if we sat with our friends at dinner."
There were no parking spots at the cafeteria, and we ended up right next to the girls in the music building parking lot. Annika was crying about something that had happened in the drive over, and then James walked up to her, held out his hand, took hers, and walked her across campus to the cafeteria without saying a word.
He's making friends.

J: It's so sweet. I wasn't there. But, aww.
R: It's okay, something like this happens at most meals. Usually it ends with Annika tackling James or the four of them trying to escape down the elevator. Owen loves that thing. He's determined to press the alarm button.
J: It's only gone off twice?
R: None of our kids have set off the fire alarm yet this summer, though. Still three more days. So how would you describe Owen's eating habits at camp?
J: <laughs> Ohhh...he's beyond disgusting.
R: You know sometimes little kids make a mess of an ice cream cone all over themselves? Imagine that every night at dinner, but just as a final coat of stickiness over spit-out vegetables, marinara sauce, flattened bread, and smushed cheese.
J: We've run out of bibs. We need to do laundry just so we can have bibs.
R: You're kind of working even when you're at lunch, and you're trying to socialize, so he just gets left to his own devices for minutes at a time, and then you look over and he's standing up in his high chair and trying to jump out so he can ride the elevator, and there's a piece of pizza in his shirt.
J: We found crumbs in his pack and play this morning.
R: And I'm pretty sure he had a bath last night. How would you say we've been doing with eating healthy at camp?
J: Hmm. Overall, better than years previous.
R: Like that fried cheesecake burrito.
J: Houghton has swapped out nasty yogurt and that stuff they call fruit salad for some healthier salads that actually have a little flavor to them.
R: Like garlic.
J: I had a really good farro and sweet corn salad with my lunch today. So that helps because you don't have to eat the salad bar salad every meal. I had my first burger on a bun all summer yesterday. And it was actually pretty good, but it wasn't worth the dry mouth and sluggishness the rest of the afternoon. We've limited ourselves to ice cream at dinner, and that's worked well with the boys especially. What would you say?
R: I had some Wegmans after rehearsal in Rochester this afternoon, and it was really good to taste real food again. I think that our plan for camp has been well-conceived and well-executed, but the food tastes the same no matter what you're eating after the first day. It's either really sugary or really garlicky.
J: Or really bland.
R: I don't miss being a college student.
J: I feel like the second week has been easier to justify eating less healthy things because they're going through their weekly menu again, and you know that it's not going to be great. But...but there's a family camp here.
R: A BIG family camp.
J: ...really, really big. And when you see how they're eating and how it likely contributes to the "bigness," you reach for the vegetables.
R: Are we being mean?
J: I feel concerned.
R: In that Rachel Lynde kind of way. But seriously, these people are so huge. You can't help but notice. Because you can't walk anywhere.
J: Annika's been walking up to them and telling them that they have big booties.
R: Hopefully she hasn't taught that to James.
J: Yup. Another incentive to eat healthy is to not gas out on the frisbee field.
R; Our time there is valuable, since we have to split it between the two of us.
J: I like to think that whoever's team we end up on has a slight advantage, since they get fresh legs halfway through the game.
R: At the water break we switch out.
J: But I'm not as tall as Roy.
R: But apparently you're pretty quick. As soon as you ran on the field one of the campers yelled out "Look out, she's really fast!"
J: People think faculty are slow. Ha.
R: James and Owen aren't interested at all. They spent the entire half that I was with them begging to get into a bag of swedish fish that someone had left with the water bottles and wallets.
J: I don't blame them especially. It's really hot outside. They'd probably be happier in front of a fan. That's the only place they'd be happy, because it's also really hot inside.
R: Currently 84 degrees in our apartment at 10:17 PM.
J: Needless to say, we're in front of a fan.
R: But it's supposed to be cooler these next few days, and I'll be up in Rochester a good bit anyway, so I should be air-conditioned. For tonight, though, we're just going to look at this Lasko logo and try to stop sweating.

Quick Hitters

I. Injury Woes
J hurt her foot playing Ultimate Frisbee at camp again this year, and that isn't anything out of the ordinary. This time it was her right foot, though, so that was a little unusual. Just as Frodo was never quite whole again in Middle Earth after having been pierced by an immortal blade atop Amon Sul, her left ankle will never be whole and innocent again. But, to her credit, she plays on it every year.

Out of position for end zone defense

I am not particularly tall

Star Wars shirts are cool at music camp

Take that, short kids

Both musicians miss the jump. Fittingly, in front of the library.

So this year I sprained my left ankle too. Not on purpose, of course. And technically it wasn't me who did the spraining--it was the big sweaty teenager who crashed down onto it wearing soccer cleats when we both jumped up for the Frisbee. I knew something was wrong, but played through the rest of the game anyway and then limped back to the flats and off to RPO rehearsal. The next morning it was badly swollen and red and I couldn't put any weight on it. It's mending now, but the games resume tomorrow afternoon, and I don't know if it will be all the way healed. But of course, that never stops J. (And won't stop her tomorrow either.)

The kids haven't done a great job of staying healthy either. Owen has a nasty cold, probably the result of his poor sleep habits, his insistence of touching/licking all of the buttons on the elevator, and his propensity to eat discarded food whenever he finds a piece of it on the cafeteria floor. Aside from a raspy voice and a runny nose, though, he isn't so bad.

It was James that gave us a real scare the other day. He was looking for a toy train in the garage (of course) and climbed up to look in the stroller (of course) while I was taking care of a sneezing and crying Owen indoors. He slipped off the stroller and gave himself a nasty gash on the side of the head that bled all over the place, including down the front of his face and shirt to his complete horror and shock. It couldn't be band-aided because of all of his hair, so we ended up cleaning him off the best we could and then depositing him in the kiddie pool with a cold drink to try to keep him cool and slowed-down for the afternoon.

I'm not sure we're all going to survive another week of camp.

II. George and Steven
For the first time in his life, James is voluntarily leaving George and Steven behind. J says she could tell something was different as soon as we arrived at camp. James had been talking about how excited he was for Csehy all month, and he strode about campus with an air of a veteran, someone who knew what they were doing and what their role was. He was helpful unpacking the car, he held doors, and he greeted strangers confidently. And when it was time to go to dinner, he put on his lanyard (which had his very own name on it) and walked out of our apartment. Without George and Steven.

Apparently being at camp makes him a man. He still has been sleeping with them at night, but he hasn't brought them outside the apartment once. He hasn't even talked about them outside the apartment. (Though once he did receive a "phone call" from George--holding his hand up to his ear as we walked to the car after lunch--informing him that he needed to sleep during naptime and not read books.)

I wonder if it's pressure from the other kids. There are probably a dozen or so other faculty kids between the ages of 1-6 who are riding around on scooters, begging for ice cream, and generally being interesting. There's a little girl who chats his ear off at every meal, and three brothers who constantly ram up and down the hallway with their toy trucks. Sometimes James just lies on the floor next to the door listening to them when we're in the apartment. When asked if he wants to step out the door to join them, he's declined every time so far. He's getting braver, but not quite that brave yet.

III. Teaching Date
J and I taught a class together for the first time since Intro to Kayaking back when we worked at Kenbrook. We were tasked with minor key signatures last week, though we ended up renaming the class "Finding La." It was an oddly enjoyable experience, working with a bunch of kids who weren't our own to take the next step in the labyrinth of music theory knowledge. The kids were sharp, and even found us out when we gave them misinformation. (You need 12 spots, not 13, to make a blank circle of 5ths diagram.) Somehow I ended up being the one that played the piano for the musical examples in the first two classes, but J was back at the keyboard when we talked through all of the various key centers in Vivaldi's Gloria in the final class. We don't have to teach theory this week, and though I'll be glad for the extra hour in the evening, I might actually miss it a little.

IV. 25
Happy Birthday to my dear sister-in-law Melissa, still the newest Smith, at whose special request this blog is being written at 10:30 on a Sunday evening. I can't promise many more blogs as camp continues for the next week, but I'll do my best in August. Hope you are having a delightful birthday!

V. Watership Down
The more I read Watership Down, the more I consider it one of my favorite books. I think I would have put it on a top 20 list before this year. It may now be on the top 10. It is SUCH a good story, and I've been freshly inspired this week to find out what words like "trefoil" and "combe" mean. It turns out that the weed growing in the cracks of my driveway (which I really ought to have sealed) is called purslane. I don't know if either of the rabbits that I periodically see in my yard would enjoy it. To me they are certainly Hazel and Fiver.

VI. Five Little Boys and One Little Girl
This morning I joined Pax and Calvus in Perry with their families for the Sunday service. It was another little taste of what life must have been like for our parents--five little boys and one little girl running about. (To be honest, though, Wesley did hardly any running.) The kids did well in the service, and then once we'd taken them back over to 7 Church Street it was a matter of waiting them out as they slowly ran out of the will to stay awake. Not that they were ever all napping or all awake at the same time, of course...

VII. J's Story
I need to let J write her own story about the student that she had last week. (And this week.) Of two things, though, I am sure. To have any sort of career in music one must be able to absorb perceived failures and convert them into progress. Second, you have to be able to appreciate the good things that come to your colleagues. Without these, you'll be in a very bad way, indeed.

Charges Against Owen

On this day, July the 10th, 2016, Owen Nicholas Smith is hereby charged with the following crimes:

-Attempt to disrupt a church service by shouting and flopping about on the floor

-Attempt to disrupt a church service by climbing onstage and running about

-Attempt to disrupt a church service by taking off his shoes and throwing them behind the piano while running about onstage

-Attempt to disrupt a church service and attempt to disrupt a musical performance by deliberately trying to tip over a music stand while his father was performing special music

-Resisting adult restraint when a helpful church member removed him from the music steand area

-Attempting a to disrupt a musical performance by banging on piano keys during a hymn

-Attempted theft, the emptying out and confiscation of items from an adult wallet

-Attempted theft, absconding with an adult's watch

-Attempted theft, an iPhone

-Attempt to disrupt a church service, turning on Siri during a pastoral prayer

-Attempted theft, removing tithe envelopes from the offering plate and running off with them during the pastoral prayer

-Reckless endangerment and failure to follow posted instructions, falling off of the stage during the singing of a hymn

-Attempt to disrupt a church service, generally entering and exiting the stage during inappropriate moments

-Attempt to disrupt a church service, flopping about the floor like a fish during the children's sermon

-Attempt to disrupt a church service, slamming an open door shut during the sermon

-Attempted theft, snatching bulletins away from elderly church-goers

-Vandalization, deliberately stepping in puddles in Sunday clothes

Sentencing will be delivered after nap. Naptime may be counted as time served. 

Kinderszenen

I. Pool Time
J finally lost patience with James and indulged in the parenting philosophy that I'm always threatening when I bluster about the kids. She threw him into the pool.
She didn't really throw him in, but from his perspective it was just as bad. She forcibly removed him from the floaty device he'd been hiding in all afternoon, and held him in the pool just herself.
We were cooling off at one of her piano student's homes, a lovely little place set back almost entirely in the woods of a county park with a nice pool underneath. It had been a scorcher of a day, and Owen was hot and cranky no matter what we did with him.
James found the red "car" float immediately and set himself up in it, complained about how he was getting wet once we put him in the pool, and then watched J's five year old piano student do jumps, flips, dives, and advanced strokes from his indolence on the floaty device. He could touch in the shallow end, we kept assuring him, but he wouldn't have anything to do with it.
Finally J declared that he was getting wet above the waist whether he wanted to or not, and would I please hold Owen.
James wrapped his arms and legs around her as tight as he could, and repeatedly asked to get back into the safety of his float. After a few minutes of getting the rest of him wet, we obliged.
When we finally decided it was time to go, he announced that he'd like to try floating with a swim noodle after all.

II. Owen is Still Sick

III. Happy James
"James, can you get Owen his sippy cup?"
"James, please don't play with your dinner, just eat it."
"James, can you see why Owen's crying in the other room?"
"Yes, that's yours, but don't take it from him. Owen you need to give that back, please."
"I'll come upstairs with you as soon as I can put Owen down."

"Hey James...Owen's down to sleep. Want to pick a nice long book and go read it out on the front step with an ice cream sandwich?"
"Oh sure! Do you think we could read Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day?"
"That's a long one...do you want to read the whole thing?"
"Oh yeah, that's a great idea!"

A Good Day at 478 Harwick

Breakfast:
Egg white omelettes with sauteed crimini mushrooms, bell peppers, yellow onions, polish sausage, and cotija cheese
Fresh home-roasted yirgacheffe coffee

Lunch:
Caprese salad
Sauteed kale with turkey andouille sausage, crimini mushrooms, and avocado
Fresh blueberries and strawberries
Yirgacheffe espresso shots shaken over ice with Bailey's and cream, aka Bailey's martini.
(Behaviorally, the kids were about like they were yesterday)

Snack:
A few crumbles of high end Swiss dark chocolate left over from making Mexican chocolate sorbet for tomorrow night

Dinner:
Sweet potato noodle salad (sweet potato noodles in a chipotle citrus dressing tossed with roasted corn, pepitos, arugula, cilantro, and cotija cheese)
Southern Tier IPA (for R)
Homemade chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream

Joint Blog

R; We're writing a joint blog tonight because, well...
J: We figured it might be therapeutic.
R: The boys...the boys won the battle today. So I think to explain everything that was today, we'd have to start at last night.
J: Last night was Owen refusing to go to sleep on his own for the first time in I-can't-remember-how-long, fireworks going off around the neighborhood until about 10 PM, and the neighbor across the street blaring something that can't be classified as music from his car stereo until I asked him to stop at 9:15.
R: And last night for me was playing the annual July 3rd baseball game/fireworks/orchestra extravaganza where the whole brass section goes out to the brewery next door afterwards, and there's no escaping it, even if you carpooled. And it's kind of fun, but well, I looked at my journal from last year on the morning of July 4th, and it appears that I overdid it on the chicken wings and the beer then too.
J: Whoops.
R: So I was really careful to drink a ton of water and all night and to do everything in moderation--20 oz of a medium strength ale and four chicken wings. And I still was completely laid out until 9 am. I think I am just officially old.
J: Owen got up around 7:15, which is about right for him. And James was awake when we went to go get him as well. I knew that you had got in late, so I decided to let you sleep in. It quickly became apparent that Owen was going to have a rough morning.
R: I was mostly asleep, and that was apparent to me too.
J: He fussed over breakfast choices and activities suggested and changed his mind repeatedly about what he wanted. What I really wanted was to finish the dishes, because the night before I went to do them and found that someone had left the dishwasher 90% full and hadn't run it, so I could only put in three dishes and leave 90% of the dirty dishes on the sink.
R: I really don't know who that was, I was gone yesterday.
J: My initial attempts at trying to unload the clean dishes were met with Owen trying to reach into the dishwasher, climb into the dishwasher, or screaming "NO" at me. So after diverting him with books and toys I snuck back into the kitchen and set up the baby gate, used only in worst case scenarios to ensure that I could get some work done. He, of course, realized .3 seconds later what I had done and set himself up by the gate wailing and shouting "NO" and MAMA" most pitifully and pathetically. I continued to unload the bottom of the dishwasher waiting for his cries to subside, which they did. I picked up a bowl and turned to put it away, and caught sight of him balanced on his belly button atop the baby gate, ready to tip over.
I screamed, he tipped, and landed on his neck. Which made me scream again. Which made him scream.
Needless to say, I didn't finish unloading the dishwasher. And the baby gate has ceased to be useful.
R: Also needless to say, I realized I was going to need to get up sooner rather than later.
J: But you didn't get up for another hour! This is therapeutic...
R: Go on.
J: It should be noted that for the two hours the boys were up before Roy got up, James played beautifully by himself reading stories and talking to his stuffed animal and car friends, only fussing when Owen, who was annoying everybody, was annoying him as well. I thought a lot about waking you up, but by then it was a matter of pride. Prayed for patience for myself and everyone.
R: So, let's get to the part of the day when I got up and was helpful. And made a difference. Which started with Owen not wanting me to drink coffee or eat breakfast or read or touch him. Is this where we confess that we put on a movie by 10 am.
J: Yes. It was a holiday. It was hot. We're all in wedding recovery mode, and the Little Rascals is cute. It has a dog and a car race in it. Doesn't get any better than that for these kids.
R: And I got some church work done.
J: I got some peace and quiet done. Although I had to sit and watch the whole thing because Owen wouldn't let me leave.
R: James was still fine at that point, right?
J: Yup. He sat up when the car race started.
R: He liked the pickle song too.
J: Yeah, I like that one too.
R: So you know how when you go to the store, and you see really bratty kids out with their parents, and they're being awful, and you think to yourself 'I'm really glad our kids are so much cuter and better and kind of civilized?" Today at Wegmans, our kids were those kids. Our kids were the bottom of the food chain. They hit each other, they made loud shrieky noises, they begged for stuff.
J: Not really...James did a good job. I saw him looking at stuff that I knew he wanted to ask for and he didn't.
R: He's paying for Owen's sins in my memory. We should mention that this Wegmans trip would have been very expensive (Date Night In blogs coming soon) but we received an unnecessary but very much appreciated generous gift from the Eatons, who are hereby named the official sponsor of July Date Night In. Also, James really wants cheeseballs again, like he had at the picnic in Albion.
J: We tried to explain that that isn't food, but he didn't buy it.
R: Also, he turned his nose up at the amazing fresh gourmet mozarella cheese in the caprese salad we made tonight and is going to need to finish it tomorrow...but he wants those radioactive orange cheese balls.
J: Puffs of cheez.
R: So neither of them did well at dinner.
J: It was a beautiful dinner. It was pretty, it was fresh, it was tasty. I took pictures of it, it was so nice. They both screamed and said no, and pushed it away, and threw it on the floor, and threw it in my face. (That was Owen.) So frustrating.
R: We should put some of these pictures up. Sauteed peppers and onions and mushrooms and good sausage, and then this beautiful caprese salad, and the promise of home made ice cream for dessert, which we should talk about the making-of.
J: I'm going to say this cottage cheese is no longer good. <going through fridge>
R: They shrieked and pawed and tried to grab stuff the whole time J was making the ice cream, and then when we finally got to the "clean out the bowl part" they were like nasty little harpies, smacking each other and dripping it all over the place.
J: It was so bad.
R: And they didn't end up getting any dessert. We took back the dinner table tonight, though at great cost. Owen is now getting buckled in to his high chair. He has stood up and reached across the table so many times that he lost unbuckled privileges. And how would you describe your feelings about James?
J: ....
R: You might just be feeling sorry for him since he slipped and banged his leg up on the way in from outside and had a good cry. But how were you feeling about him at dinner time?
J: <sighs> Frustrated, that yet again he turns his nose up at healthy wholesome food that isn't too scary or crazy or foreign. He'll eat peppers any other day of the week, as long as they aren't cooked. But throw them in a skillet and all of a sudden they are abhorrent. And he asks the same questions and tries to barter the same way 20 times in 10 minutes, which is extremely frustrating, and hard to know how to balance wanting him to know that you hear him, but also not letting him control the situation with his unnecessary queries.
R: He never gives up on talking his way out of dinner.
J; And he doesn't win. Maybe you disagree, but does he ever win that?
R: Well, he protracts dinner way beyond what we'd like. And maybe knowing that he's controlling the situation by delaying it is a small win for him.A way to be in control.
J: Something to think about more, especially as Csehy is coming up. We'll need a battle plan. So, despite us being both completely exhausted by the time dinner was over we agreed that the only rational thing to do for our sanity and theirs was to go for the longest run we could stand because we knew that they would both be quiet for as long as we were out pushing the stroller. It was the last thing I wanted to do because I was tired, we'd run like 12 miles in 3 days, and I had a lot of bread for lunch, which doesn't help my legs. On a normal run we might go between 2.5 and 3 miles. Roy quickly mapped a new route that would be at least 4, and hopefully get us to bedtime.
R: I wasn't particularly feeling this run for the love of it either, but it got us to bedtime.
J: High fives all around. It was the quietest part of the day.
R: Until James fell on the way back into the house.
J: So we took them to the bath, and they giggled a lot. I asked James three times before I put him in the tub if he had to go potty, and he said no. Two minutes after he was in he had to get out all drippy and go, and couldn't understand when I warned him why the toilet seat would be slippery.
R: "This was not my plan."
J: Owen drank a lot of bath water. I gave up on that battle about six months ago.
R: But we got them in bed. And it sounds like Owen was happy to go down?
J: Yup. Well, he wanted to read all of the books, but he's very proud of his new animals noises.
R: It sounded like you had a zoo in the other room.
J: A zoo full of roosters.
R: And then we came downstairs...
J: And ate ice cream.
R: And started working on the Eaton Memorial Date Night In.
J: It wasn't a funeral, it was a wedding. And a very lovely one at that.
R: So I pickled onions, and you made tomatillo salsa and a citrus marinade for a pork shoulder.
J; Yum
R: And now it's 9:07. Want to go to bed early?
J: Shower please. And yes.

Wedding Reactions

James:
I must do a good job at the wedding because I am the flower boy (Mommy and Daddy keep on telling me that means ring bearer) and if I do a good job going down the aisle then I will get ice cream and I will pick chocolate. I did a good job at the rehearsal last night, and now I only need to go down the aisle one more time and I will get ice cream and the aisle isn't too long, it's just a little bit long. And when I go down the aisle with Abby I will carry George in his suit, even though George just likes to wear his red shirt. And I am dressed up fancy too and I am glad that I get to wear socks and don't have to wear sandals, because sometimes Mommy makes me wear sandals when I go to church, and I like socks the best. And Mommy and Daddy keep on tucking my shirt in and they didn't like it when I got a grass stain on my pants even though it was an accident that I dived into the grass in my dress clothes.
Now it is time for the reception party at the barn and OH BOY there are goats and slides and tires and a bounce pillow and lots of food, but I don't want to sit inside and eat food, I want to go out and play on all this fun stuff, and Mommy and Daddy keep on taking turns being out here with me but they must be all confused because it looks like they are excited to go inside and be with all of the people instead of playing on the playground! I hope that none of these goats eat George. Now I have found croquet and I will learn the rules so that I can play it, and I have decided that Owen is too little to play. Now it is time for cake and I will eat CHOCOLATE cake because chocolate is my favorite.

Owen:
Church! Aunt Martha! Nama! Papa! Uncles and Aunts and Cousins!
I wonder if there will be dogs?
Everyone is fancy. I am fancy too. Where is James? Mommy is at the piano, because that is what church means. Daddy is wearing a suit, so will he drive away for a concert? I will sit on him and try to take his pens.
Now I will climb this pew. I am a good climber.
This lady looks like Nama, but it isn't Nama. I will take her bracelets off. I wonder how they would feel in my mouth.
These people say they are taking my picture, but they aren't using their phones! I don't think the black boxes with lights will work.
Now there are goats. I will make goat sounds and be a goat too.
Now there is caramel popcorn. I will eat this whole cup. I need another cup. I will eat this new cup. Now I need another cup. I will eat this new cup. Now I need another cup. I will eat this new cup, but I dropped it all over the ground. I will eat all the popcorn off the ground. Now I need another cup. I will eat all of this cup.
Now we are playing on the playground. I cannot climb where James is going, so I will shout at him as loud as I can.
I wonder if there are any dogs here?
Now someone gave me cake. I'd better put all of it in my mouth at once.
I don't want to go to bed, I'm not sleepy!
........