On Running Late

I'm a hypocrite.

When it's time for me to leave for a gig, I'm always ready to walk out the door at least 15 minutes before I actually need to walk out the door, and that's including a 10 minute traffic buffer...so that I can arrive 20 minutes early. Being late is a mortal sin in the orchestra world. You can get away with a lot in the back few rows of the orchestra, but you must be on time. Everyone has a horror story about the one time they were late for a rehearsal. One friend was riding a train that broke down. Another wrote down the wrong start time and thought that the rehearsal started a half-hour later than it actually did. I was late once because I drove to the wrong rehearsal space. I've never actually known anyone who was late to a concert, but sometimes you hear the faint echo of a ghostly scream coming from the subterranean corridors below the concert hall, and I think that the wraiths of old conductors must be torturing a violist who was late for a pops concert. (Although, admittedly, it would be difficult to distinguish the sound of a violist being tormented from the sound a violist practicing.)

Otto Karl Shdenkenheim was music director from 1962-1968. Now a wandering spirit, he is best remembered for the extraordinary slumber he produced by programming every Haydn symphony during his tenure with the orchestra.

So this is why I always make sure that NO MATTER WHAT I will be on time to my rehearsals and concerts. And I'm a horrible hypocrite, because when J needs to get to a rehearsal, I show all the foresight and haste of a elderly yak. Sunday morning was just such an occasion. I'd had a concert the previous night and made a deliberate effort to procure the two grocery items I'd need for the following morning--coffee and shaving cream.

I was out of both, so between my rehearsal and show I wandered up and down Elmwood St. in Buffalo. I found shaving cream in a discount grocery store, but they didn't carry anything except plebian coffee. (I passed the plastic tubs of pre-ground Folgers and made a face for the benefit of the empty aisle that conveyed both superiority and disgust, as if even the smell of cheap coffee was turning my highly sophisticated stomach.) I did find shaving cream, and thereby gave occasion to awkwardly explain to a clerk in each of the next two stores that I visited (neither of which had coffee) that although I had just purchased my shaving cream elsewhere, I hadn't the faintest idea where my receipt was or if I'd even been offered one, but I would be leaving their store without buying anything because they didn't carry any coffee products that met my lofty standards.

And this was why I woke up at 7:30 on Sunday morning and didn't have any coffee. We agreed to stop at a Tim Horton's on the way to church (and a Wegmans on the way back, thank goodness there was still some remnant of civilization left in the world) in order to caffeinate, which J reminded me again was an expensive habit.

I limped my way downstairs to the kitchen table, and opened my Greek New Testament. The whole world seemed to be in black and white. I put my head in my hands, and started to pick up the translation I was making from St. Mark. J sat next to me and worked on her cereal, occasionally making pleasant remarks to which I grunted acknowledgement. Sometimes in movies with loud explosions (these are the types of movies which make up the majority of my high-brow fancy-coffee-drinking film diet) an explosion will occur particularly close to the main character, and the director will convey his disorientation by cutting out all sound except a high pitched ringing, and scanning the camera around unsteadily. This is what its like to be without coffee, except you also have a headache. Yes, it is actually worse than surviving a nearby explosion.

We needed to be on the road by 8:00, and J was ready to go by 7:50. I was nowhere near ready to go, and I was also profoundly unhelpful with the hardest part of going anywhere as a family--getting James ready. I didn't particularly want to go to church anyway. Her church is far away, and it is a contemporary music church. I don't hate contemporary music, but I also don't make any effort to listen to it unless there are special circumstances. It's sort of like listening to Spohr. If Spohr comes on the radio, I change to a different channel unless the performer is truly exceptional. When Spohr is on a concert program, I avoid the concert unless a close personal friend is part of the performance.

Spohr's name even sounds uninteresting. It's a cross between "boring" and "snore." Sopor is Latin for deep sleep, so it's no surprise that Spohr is soporific. If Louis Spohr were a campfire treat, he'd be a lukewarm tofu between two unsalted wafer crackers. We'd call them S'pohrs.

This guys music is Spohrrible.

So that's why we were running late on Sunday. I was uncaffeinated, unhelpful with James, and dragging my feet to go listen to Spohr with drumset.

"I think it's going to be a good day." said Julie

I looked over at her, and she was neatly done up in a short black skirt, a snazzy brand new top, with cute black shoes and sunglasses atop her head.

And it was a good day.

Summer So Far

So far Summer 2013 has been about:

Cleaning
This week was all about getting control of our house again after being away at camp for two weeks. I got up at 6 AM on Monday and started in on the dishes. Five days later, we still aren't finished. (Although the pace of our efforts has diminished considerably as we've made progress against the mess.) We scoured the countertops in the kitchen, scrubbed the sticky kitchen floor until it was once again smooth and clean to bare feet, ran endless loads of laundry, rummaged through the storage boxes of the laundry room, threw away two garbage bins of junk, moved book stacks back to their rightful places, paid old bills, answered old emails, dusted, vacuumed, held James at a safe distance from the terror of the vacuum, sorted the toy box, put away outgrown clothes, gave away outdated ties, installed more baby-proofing equipment, and even scrubbed the carpets. My favorite project, however, was the total transformation of the Neon. I emptied the backseat of all the gigging debris that had accumulated over the course of the year (old choir music, bits of wire-stands, spare mutes, parking receipts). I scrubbed the passenger side carpet where a milkshake had spilled and left a sticky (and stinky) mess. I vacuumed out half a driveway of pebbles. I wiped down all the glass surfaces, scrubbed the dash, and completely reorganized the trunk. I had a brand new car at the end of the day. It was a wonderful feeling to sit inside of the Neon and think "Wow! This is what rental cars smell like!" Of course, the outside still looks terrible--the paint on the hood is peeling away in huge stripes, and it looks like the front of the car caught on fire. But still, I've been proud of my clean car, and I've really enjoyed driving back and forth to Buffalo in it.

Gigging
I've been driving back and forth to Buffalo a lot. This is a very good thing, since there was no summer work whatsoever in Rochester this year. I've played a couple of tent concerts on the harbor front, a lunchtime show at M&T plaza, an anniversary celebration for Artpark, and tonight a "Classics" concert at Kleinhans. Every summer there seems to be a piece or two that show up on every concert I play. Perhaps the music library gets to choose one number that they never have to take out of the folders? In years past it's been the Victory at Sea suite in Rochester, or the Brahms Hungarian Dance no. 5. (I take it for granted, by the way, that 1812 will be on every concert.) This year it's American Salute in Buffalo. J and James came to the lunchtime concert, and it was a lot of fun to watch him react to a real live orchestra. (He begged for a few minutes to be allowed on the timpani, then spent the rest of the concert wandering over to homeless people and trying to climb into the fountain.)

Camp
We spent two weeks in Houghton, NY at the Csehy Summer School of Music, where J taught flute. We stayed up late with lots of great musician friends, and James was fascinated by people riding bicycles. (We may need to borrow a baby seat and take him for a ride sometime soon.) I was in and out with orchestra work, but J taught some great students and had some solo playing opportunities. We juggled childcare (thank goodness the camp has someone on staff for that) and tried to stay cool in the unairconditioned dormitories. Fortunately, there was Perry's ice cream available at every meal.

Auditions
Well, one audition. For the Virginia Symphony. I drove ten hours to Virginia with all the windows rolled down, then spend two days going back and forth to a Jewish temple in Norfolk playing excerpts and waiting to hear the advancement notices. There were two spots open, and out of the three of us that made it to the very last round of playing, I was the one that didn't get a job. To be honest, it was awful. And I still feel awful about it. I played really well, and I don't think there was anything I could have done differently--in fact, I got to talk with the music director afterwards, and she assured me that there was nothing else I could have done. But it still stinks. It was my third visit to the finals in the last year, and I'm simultaneously elated with encouragement and sick with disappointment. But for now, back to the practice room.

James
James really likes to have Daddy home for the summer. We're bouncing around quite a bit outside, and he's turned a corner with his "talking" recently. I suspect that camp had quite a bit to do with this, because he was surrounded all day by conversation, and he's started to imitate it. He's now pouring forth torrents of nonsense syllables not only in response to our questions, but without any prompting as he plays, cries, takes baths, throws things, eats, and does all the things little boys do. Two days ago, we even got a real word: Basketball. Basketball might be his favorite thing right now, in addition to rocks, balls, dogs, drums, tractors, driving, sidewalk chalk, Chika-chika boom boom, conducting, and forks. I think his life was made complete the other day when we found a Youtube video of a dog shooting basketball. (With drums in the background music.)

"Parents" of three

Now that I'm home for the summer I can help J watch our niece and nephew two days a week. S&K need the childcare between their work and school schedules, so we are happy to watch our bubbly three year old niece Hayden and her newborn brother Liam. J has been watching them ever since Liam was born in April, and she is understandably tired after the days where she watches all three kids. This is very good practice for when we someday have multiple children of our own.

Here's how the day went:
9:30 Hayden and Liam arrive. J makes a bottle Liam, and Hayden and James play nicely with a balloon. He is super excited to see her and expresses this by emitting loud high-pitched shrieks repeatedly. (I think that he thinks he's talking to her when he does this.) Hayden tells me several times how nicely she and James are sharing. Sometimes she is so eager to share that she rips the balloon right out of his arms, so that she can give it back to him again. Liam is fussy while the bottle is being prepared. Hayden takes off her shoes and puts on a pair of J's high heels.

9:45 J begins to make pizza dough for lunch. (N.B. Her pizza dough turns out beautifully, without any of the drama that certain other people have experienced while attempting it recently.) I hold Liam on my lap with a book, by far my most peaceful 15 minutes of the day. Liam works on his bottle contentedly. James and Hayden both insist that they be allowed to "help" Aunt Julie with the pizza. She pushes two kitchen chairs up to the counter, and they climb up to assist, mostly by asking questions about what everything is (Hayden) and stacking the spices into towers (James.) James is continuing to emit high-pitched shrieks every fifteen to thirty seconds. At one point I suggest that the pizza be topped with dirt instead of pepperoni, and Hayden is deeply upset. She tells Aunt Julie that this would be "disgusting."

10:00 The pizza dough is in the bread machine, and it's time for everyone to get dressed. I take off Hayden's high heels and put her crocs back on. I take James upstairs and put on his socks and sneakers. I close the door to my room and change into jeans and a long sleeved shirt. Hayden and James both bang on the door with Hayden insisting that they come in since I'm all "nakey." James assents by shrieking.

10:05
James has pooped his pants. J takes him upstairs to take off his shoes, pants, and diaper, put on a new one, and then put all his clothes back on. He shrieks through the process. Liam has also pooped his pants. I change his diaper downstairs, and he begins wail/shriek. We ask Hayden whether she needs to go to the bathroom before we visit the park. She is very noncommittal, so I take her upstairs to sit on the potty just to be sure. She doesn't need to go. I pull her jeans back up and we are ready to leave the house.

10:15
J carries out Liam in his carseat while I try to corral Hayden and Liam into the PT Cruiser. I load James first, who initially fusses and then gives great guffaws of laughter when he realizes Hayden will be sitting next to him in her booster eat. I strap in James, then strap in Hayden, then take the carseat from Liam and attempt to put in unsuccessfully several times before J gets it secure. James is shrieking again, and Liam is still crying. The door doesn't close on the first attempt, but it does when we reposition Liam's carseat. All three kids are in the backseat.

10:30
We listen to a CD of children singing Bible songs. Hayden provides musical criticism on several points, including "Why are there kids singing these songs?" We listen to "This Little Light of Mine" three times. We get to the park, and Hayden informs us that we are at the wrong park. Liam and James are both quiet.

10:40
We unpack the kids from the car. I carry a sleeping Liam in carseat over to the playground. Hayden walks on her own, but J has to carry a kicking and fighting James, who has seen the stream that runs through Hubbard Park and wants to get down and play in it. Hayden informs us, upon closer inspection, that we are at the right park after all. She tells me many stories about the last time she was here, with Aunt Martha.

10:45
Liam is asleep in his carseat on a park bench. Hayden and James are both in kiddie swings. Initially J is pushing Hayden while I push James, but then I push both, mostly giving underduckies.

10:50
Liam is still sleeping. James and Hayden climb up the swingset to go down the slides. J rules out the "twin slides" facing south since they both have large pools of standing water from a recent rain. James goes down a tunnel slide and gets his rear end soaked anyway. He slides very slowly with a damp bottom, but still laughs uproariously and goes down several times. Hayden climbs to the top of the slide once, but is too scared to go down. James climbs over her head and goes down again. Hayden decides to go on the swings again.

10:55
James is upset that Hayden is in her swing. Hayden does not switch swings, so Aunt Julie starts a timer for Hayden's turn and then James' turn. James' interest does not last to the end of the timer, so he goes back to the slides. Liam is still sleeping.

11:00
James starts down one of the super-wet slides, and I catch him halfway down before he reaches the puddle at the bottom and pull him off. J yells something to me from across the playground. I walk a little closer to listen to what she was saying. I don't end up listening, because in my absence James begins to play in the puddle of water at the base of the slide. His frontside and his backside are now soaked. I pull him away from the puddle and attempt to splash most of it off the slide and into the dirt below. James goes to another slide with another puddle and tries to pick up an enormous bug that is flailing in the water. I take away the enormous bug, and he reaches his hands down into the mud puddle from where I drained out the first puddle. He is completely soaked and his hands are coated in dirty woodchips. Hayden is shrieking on the swings, and Liam is (to the best of our knowledge) still asleep.

11:05
I carry James (sopping wet) over to the stream that he was trying to get into earlier, hold him upside down by his feet, and instruct him to rinse off his hands in the water. He cleans his hands and thinks this is enormous fun, but then is upset when I don't let him play in the stream. I carry him (still wet) and crying back to Hayden and J. I offer to take Hayden on a walk with James, and J sits down with sleeping Liam.

11:10
We follow the stream through the park, and see a mother duck fly over our heads to her five little ducklings swimming in the cat-tails. We follow them as they swim upstream (probably trying to escape from us) and I hold Hayden in one arm and James in the other so that we can keep up. They utterly fascinated by the little ducklings. Eventually we let them swim away when we reach the empty old basketball courts. James wants to be let down to play basketball, even though I tell him that we don't have a ball with us. Hayden insists that she knows where one is secretly hidden, but I don't let her down either. Both of them cry as I carry them back to J and Liam.


11:20
Liam is awake. We take one more round on the slides (then another, then another) as we gather everything up, and then load back into the backseats of the SUV. James cries a lot as we leave--we pass the stream without playing in it again--and Hayden shows everyone how tall she is when she stands on a rock. Liam is fussy. We listen to "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" four times on the way back home. Cracking open Liam's window helps with his fusses, but Hayden insists that he doesn't like it.

11:30
We all come back inside and J shows Hayden how the bread machine turned their mixture into dough. Hayden goes upstairs and puts on another pair of J's heels, then wears them into the kitchen to model. James imitates her by putting on (without much success) a pair of my flip flops. J begins to assemble the pizza, and Hayden and James take up their positions on chairs at the counter again to help.Hayden is worried that there might be dirt on the pizza when J puts on the sauce. She also helps put pepperoni on the pizza, but is upset that she can't eat more than one before its cooked. James makes more spice towers and spills a cup of flour onto the floor.

11:45
J is looking after Liam. Hayden and James go upstairs to James' room. I knock on the door, and Hayden informs me that I'm not allowed in their house. She then tells James that his room is a mess, and they need to clean it. James laughs.

12:00
The pizza comes out of the oven, but when Hayden can't have a piece before it's cut and cooled she sasses J and ends up in time out for three minutes. She begins to cry, which makes James cry. Liam needs a bottle, and when he hears the other two crying, he begins to cry as well. I work on giving Liam bottle while J cuts up the pizza. Time out ends, and J serves pizza to Hayden and James while Liam drifts off to sleep again in my arms.

12:15
J, Hayden, James and I eat pizza around the kitchen table. Hayden is very relieved there isn't any dirt on the pizza.

...and this would probably be an excellent opportunity thank my Mother, who used to watch three three-and-under-year-olds EVERY SINGLE DAY.

The Beach

I live in Rochester, NY, and I've been to the beach twice in the past three days.

Well, it isn't really the beach. There's no white sand or ocean, and the sun doesn't blaze overhead with that baking brightness of the tropics. There are no waves or palm trees, and there isn't any boardwalk. There isn't even the smell of salt. But there is a lovely pebble and sand shore that goes up to the gray waters of Lake Ontario, and as the clouds roll on overhead you can enjoy the shrieks of little children splashing in the water.

J's parents took us to Hamlin Beach State Park on Tuesday, and it was James' first time "swimming" at the beach. We put him in swim trunks, sandals, and a swimmy diaper, and drove a half hour north up to the lake. As soon as I took him out of the car he pointed at the water in fascination. I walked him up to the edge of the shore, stripped my sneakers off, and put a toe in. It was very cold. I set him down in the wet sand to see what he'd do. He immediately ran into the water and began laughing uproariously. Then he attempted to run further out into the lake and immediately pitched headfirst into the water.

He cried for a bit, and then the water was funny again. He spent most of Tuesdays throwing all of the rocks he could get his little hands on into the water.

My Mom and Dad used to take us up to the lake quite regularly, and their fussing about "staying safe" on the big boulders beside the water always bothered me. All five boys would hop from rock to rock, scrambling up the steep boulder sized rocks and jumping over the cracks between them. We thought we were quite the nimble boulderers, and what was all the fuss about.

As I watched my own son climb the big lakeside rocks on Tuesday, I got a taste of what my parents saw. I saw little sandal-shod feet slipping off of steep edges, and I caught him mid-fall more than once. I saw crannies with sharp edges and caves where slithery things lie hidden. I saw jumps that were too big to be attempted and slippery angles with falls into deep water. In short, I saw all the things that made scrambling on the rocks so appealing to James.

Among his other dangerous moments:
Climbing up playground equipment intended for much bigger children.
Insisting on climbing up a nine foot slide ladder by himself
Almost pitching off the top of said slide when his foot got caught on the way down
Attempting cartwheels that he saw his friend doing in the grass
Trying to "swim" on his own
Picking up rubbish from the sand

We went back again today with Pax, Kylie, and their little friend Grace. He was completely uninterested in the water, but we spent several hours sliding, swinging (especially under-duckies), and playing with the Nerf football.

And as we shared a bowl of Abbott's on the way back home, I thought: Who needs Myrtle Beach?

Questions I Was Asked Today

Q. How often do you practice with the orchestra?
A. It depends on what sort of concert we're rehearsing. For a big Philharmonics concert there are almost always 4 rehearsals. There are usually 2 rehearsals for a Pops concert, and most of the summer programs (or kids shows) are put together in just one rehearsal.

Q. Why are there holes in the valves of my trumpet?
A. Depressing a piston valve releases the flow of air into its corresponding slide, thereby lengthening the instrument and lowering it by a half-step (in the case of the second valve) a whole step (in the case of the first) or a minor third (in the case of the third valve) from the open partial that would otherwise be sounded.

Q. Did you know that I have a star on my shoe?
A. .....

Q. Have you ever seen the horn that's all curled up and they blow into it?
A. Do you mean the french horn?

Q. No, it's like in movies.
A. Maybe a shofar?

Q. Yeah, that's what it's called! But isn't it like a french horn?
A. Yes, they're shaped similarly.

Q. I think the french horn sounds kind of funny. It sounds melby.
A. That's actually a pretty good word for it.

Q. What's the shofar made from?
A. From a ram's horn originally.

Q. Really?! That's so gross.
A. Well, I think they clean it first.

Q. Isn't one kind made from a seashell or something?
A. Yes, you can make some trumpet sounds by blowing in a conch shell.

Q. Where do they come from?
A. I don't know. From the beach, I guess.

Q. So what was I supposed to practice this week?
A. The songs that I circled.

Q. Oh, okay. Here's one.
A. I see. Did you practice this one?

Q. Yes. I was supposed to practice this one.
A. The date on this assignment is 03/19/97.

Q. Oh. That's okay, I didn't practice that one anyway.
A. I was just about your age in 1997.

Q. Wow, you're old.
A. Thanks.

Q. How old is your son now?
A. He's 18 months old now.

Q. Oh. I don't get how baby's ages work. I thought he was two.
A. No, not until November.

Q. Okay. So wait, when will he turn one?
A. He's already one. He turned one at twelve months.

Q. That's confusing.
A. Hm.

Q. Is he still conducting?
A. Yup.

(shows video)

Another productive trumpet lesson...

How to Practice and Make Dinner

It all started with the drumset.

We've known for awhile that James enjoys banging on drumsets, but we found out this last week that the drumset has become a point of obsession. J and I played a recital at my school last week, and James threw the worst tantrum of his little life when he was plucked away from the drumset in the sanctuary afterwards. He kicked and flailed and shrieked as we carried him outside, twisting violently and trying to climb down. He's done this sort of thing before when something really upsets him, but we could both tell that this fit was unusual.

"James, that's enough!" said J, setting him down on the pavement.

This is when he'd usually calm down and start to forget about whatever it was that was upsetting him, maybe even coming over for a contrite snuggle. But this time he kept flailing on the pavement, and even tried to make his way back into the school when another adult came out through the big glass doors. He HAD to get back to that drumset. It took him nearly 20 minutes to calm down.

Yesterday, we visited Pax and Kylie for a bonfire, and James found the drumset in their basement. He had the same ecstatic smile the entire time he was beating the dusty old floor tom, and pitched a fit nearly as bad as "the Lima incident" when we took him up to put him in his pack and play for bed. Fortunately the dark room and the presence of Steven Bear sedated him relatively quickly, but there was no doubt that the drumset was the cause of the fit again.

I had two things to do this afternoon
1) Practice for at least an hour
2) Make dinner

J was gone at church for the evening, and I knew that it wouldn't be easy to get these two things done. James knew it was glorious outside, and he was begging to go out within 15 minutes of consciousness in the morning. (We did go outside in the morning, and had a blast playing the back yard...but no practicing was logged.)

I had an idea. About a month ago we'd finally retrieved (after six years of marriage) some old boxes that we'd thrown in a friends attic when we were first married. I remembered seeing an old set of drumsticks and a practice pad from J's percussion methods class. When James got up from his nap, I gave him a bottle, then took him into the laundry room to dig for the sticks. I found them right away, and set him up out in the kitchen. He couldn't have been more pleased. He beat away on the practice pad vigorously, and I set up to practice trumpet. Unlike the cacophony he can raise on a drumset (it's the cymbals that make it unbearable, really) a practice pad merely makes dull "thwump" sounds, and for 20 glorious minutes all was well as James and I both practiced our instruments.

At 4:30, it was time to make the pizza dough. I knew that tonight was a pizza night, and J had left a recipe for easy pizza dough that I could make in the bread machine. There would be no kneading, no dirty dishes, and no complications. All I had to do was follow the recipe and I'd have a fluffy golden crust that she'd made several times already to the approval of all parties. I pulled out the recipe card. One and a quarter cups of water. I measured the water out from the tap, and poured it in. Check. 2 tablespoons of yeast. I pulled the bag of yeast out of the freezer, dug the tablespoon out of the silverware drawer, and dumped in two scoops.

It looked like an awful lot of yeast. I looked at the card again, and noticed that it read "2 t yeast" but 1 1/2 T sugar. Oh, bother. I probably should have taken this as an omen and resigned myself to ordering a pizza, but I decided to try again. I washed out the bread machine bucket, and then started again, this time making sure that I apportioned the ingredients exactly as they were written.

Once I had everything ready I latched the bucket in place, turned the machine to setting 6, and pressed the start button. It gave a loud whir and then began to knead the dough. James, who is terrified of the noises that the bread machine makes, ran into the other room. After a few minutes his face peeked around the doorpost, and I asked him if he wanted to look at the bread machine. He gave a shy nod, and I picked him up. We opened up the top, looked in, and he surveyed the mass of wet dough.

"It looks good, James. We'll keep on checking on it though." We did have one previous failure with this recipe, when the bread machine failed to mix all of the flour into the dough, leaving dry flour all over the side of the pan. I resolved to check every 10 minutes or so and make sure it was mixing properly.

James was very helpful in all of this, and we both went back to practicing. We would check every few minutes, and he even asked to taste the dough that was on the spoon. I obliged (there was no egg in the recipe) and he nodded in approval. I asked if he wanted supper, and he nodded again. His supper was a disaster.

He's getting more particular about what he eats, and how he eats. Tonight, he only wanted to eat the cookies that Great-Grandma Davis had brought up from Pennsylvania earlier that day. I told him he'd have to eat the rice and beans that Mom had left for him first, and he absolutely refused. We went through ten minutes of my trying to force a spoon (then airplane, then missile, then outright bribe) into his mouth before he finally accepted some grapes. After the grapes were consumed I put some green beans on his tray, and he promptly threw them on the floor. (I found one in the bell of my C trumpet.)

I decided we'd had enough dinner at that point, so I wiped off his face and took him out of the high chair. As soon as I'd put him down I remembered--J told me to give him an avocado.

"James, do you want some avocado?"

He gave an enthusiastic nod "yes" and some goofy giggles, and I went to cut one up. When I turned around, he had climbed into the adult chair next to the table. When I picked him up to put him in his booster seat, he began to shriek. I set him back down in the big chair and looked at him wearily.

"James, will you eat this avocado if you can sit in a big person chair?"

Another happy nod. He wants to do "big kid" things now, including eating with his own spoon and fork. This makes a mess of everything, but we're trying to let him do it whenever we can. I let him sit in the big chair, and gave him avocado. He gobbled it up, begged unsuccessfully for a cookie, and then just as I was wiping him off, the bread machine timer sounded.

"Okay James, time to make a pizza!"

I set him down on the kitchen floor, walked over to the machine, and looked in.

It was a disaster.

My dough was a soupy mess, and there was no way it was going to form into a pizza crust. Again, I probably should have just ordered a pizza right there. But I didn't. I thought to myself: "I can salvage this--it just needs to be thicker! If I knead in enough flour, it will thicken up." I grabbed a fistful of flour, spread it on the counter, and then started to pull the soupy dough out on top of it. I realized as soon as I touched it that I should have taken my wedding ring off. I was immediately a sticky mess, and I was probably going to need more flour than the initial fistful.

I heard a crash behind me, and turned around to see that James was knocking over a stack of expensive Oxford texts in Greek, including my very expensive Vulgate Bible. I rushed over, both hands completely covered in sticky dough, and used my elbows to push the books away from him towards the center of the table. Running back to the kitchen counter, I somehow managed to get the the top off of the flour canister by picking it up with my elbows, and I reached my doughy hands in for more.

There were loud shrieks behind me. I turned around, and James was stuck attempting to get down from the chair. He was half hanging off of it, and clearly about to fall. I ran back to the table, leaving a cloud of flour in my way, and sat down in the chair opposite him, then lifted up my feet (my hands were a complete disaster now) and pincered his midsection between my ankles, leaning back to guide him down to the floor. He laughed uproariously at this, and I noticed that I'd spilled flour all over the Vulgate Bible as I hurried back to the kitchen counter.


I used the top of my hand to pull the cooking spray down from the kitchen cabinet, and resigned myself to getting the cap dirty in order to spray the pizza pan. (I got the pizza pan entirely by pulling the stove drawer open with my feet)

As I was putting the doughy mess onto the pizza pan I heard the distinct sound of a brass-nickel alloy falling onto the floor, and whirled around to see that James was pulling my trumpet apart and dropping the pieces on the floor. I'd heard him drop the third valve slide, and I was again pulling the trumpet away from him with my knees. I sat down again with the trumpet between my knees, slid it down to my feet, and somehow (really, this must have looked very impressive) with my doughy hands held safely away maneuvered it onto the table and out of James' reach with my ankle and toes.

As I walked back to the kitchen counter, I beheld the final state of the dough. It had firmed up a little bit, but it was full of uneven wet patches, badly stretched, and it barely covered up half the pizza pan. My shoulders drooped as I looked at it, and then I felt a tug at my shorts. James was standing next to me, and pointing at my fingers, which were still plastered in the dough. I held out my hand, and he licked my the dough off my middle finger. Looking up, he smiled.

"Is that good?" I asked

He nodded, and I offered him my thumb. He promptly bit it as hard as he could.


I attempted to salvage the dough by turning it into a calzone, although I completely forgot to put cheese on it until I was already in the process of putting it in the oven door, and once the cheese was on I just barely caught myself from baking it with a metal knife left on the pan accidentally. I also forgot to set the timer until it had already been in the oven for five minutes, and as I began to pile the dirty dishes in the sink, I looked back at my darling son.

He was trying to drink my valve oil.

Groceries

I'm soaked.

But I have an umbrella now. You see, I just got back from the grocery store. I have to go alone, in the middle of the workday, because it's getting too hard to take James by myself, and J won't have any chance to go today. She's watching Hayden and Liam today all day, then teaching pretty much straight through from 4-8:30. It's her busy day. It's her VERY busy day.

But I don't have a lot going on, because all the kids are gone from school, although I still have to be here. Ostensibly I'm here to correct finals and clean my room. I don't have any final exams to correct, so that leaves the cleaning, which is going slowly. So far I've unearthed most of my desk. I found six old tupperware containers, none of which I want to smell the inside of. I've also thrown away an entire wastebasket worth of old copies of music, and found about 25 lesson books that probably should have been home with students.

Mostly I've been practicing and catching up on reading. So when J told me that we needed some things from the grocery store, I told her I'd take my lunch break to run out and get what we needed.

"A lot of it will need to be refrigerated...do you have room for that?"

I do have room to refrigerate our cold items. Among the luxuries in my room are a Keurig coffeemaker (thanks, Pax), a hot pot (thanks, Calvus) and a mini-fridge. If I didn't have a mini-fridge three feet from my desk, I'd have to go down to the teacher's lounge to retrieve my food. I find my co-workers pleasant and engaging on a one-to-one basis, but when they sit together they tend to talk about menopause and dieting. So I'm thankful for the mini-fridge.

I went outside to my car, and the rain was coming down in sheets. I love rainy weather--especially the sound of a good heavy rain on the roof--but this sort of day is no fun to be driving around in. Once I got to the store, I parked far away. I would have parked closer and tried to stay dry, but I have to park remotely whenever I can. If I go anywhere with J, it's a point of honor to her to park as closely as possible. She'll insist that I pass by open parking spots that involve a moderate walk in order to risk multiple circles for a closer spot. Once we get parked, she'll be disappointed if we pass by an open spot that's closer to the store, and she'll often remind me that my choice in parking location is the distance of some Olympic events when we return to the car from the store. Needless to say, I park in comfortable isolation whenever I go to the store alone. But on days like today, I do get quite wet.

I don't have an umbrella, because my old one broke. It lasted almost a year, but it was manufactured in some place that wasn't Rochester, where "weather" is something that happens maybe two or three times a year. A few months ago I was walking downtown with it, and the wind completely ripped the plastic off the metal brackets. It went straight into the trash can after that.

Anyhow, I got a cart, and started going through the grocery aisle. Here's what I got and why:

12 Grain Bread-Mostly to be used for PB&Js
Yotoddler Yogurt-I was supposed to get two different varieties, but they only had strawberry/banana. I don't know if James will mind this or not, because I did manage to find cups with all different pictures on the front. (Each yogurt container has a picture of a mother and a baby, or just a baby, or two babies. All the babies are smiling and clean, and none of them has ever spit out a mouthful of yogurt down the front of its shirt.)
Bananas-Two bunches of bananas, many of which will go into smoothies, but most of which will be cut up into quarter sized pieces and slimed into James' hair
Avocado-I only bought three, because they pretty expensive today. Once James sees them, they will be all he wants to eat until they are gone. If you offer him anything else, he will shake his head no, point at the avocado, and rub his chest (please) until you give up trying to open his mouth up for banana.
Hummus and Salsa-This is a new favorite food, but it isn't the tidiest dish to serve or to clean up afterwards. James will eat it all day, but it gets everywhere.
Cheddar Cheese-To be cut into slices and put on his tray. He eats about every third piece, and then throws the rest on his floor. His arm is getting stronger...I regularly discover cubes under the refrigerator now
Sour Cream-The only item on the grocery list that isn't for the bear.

All this food is working, though. He's definitely getting bigger.

I also picked up a bicycle pump (to inflate the sad-looking tires on his jogging stroller), ant traps (for the kitchen counter), and a birthday present for J. What did I get her, you ask? I can't say, because she's a known reader of this blog. But I can say that I think she'll like it even more than a third-row parking spot.

And I bought an umbrella...because it was a long walk back to the car.