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The Sars-Covid-2 virus’s arrival in the US and the departure of Eliza’s first baby tooth were nearly simultaneous. That tooth had the right idea. We’ve been holed up here at home for about 11 days now, and we’re all fine. If I don’t post this now it might never go up, so…
With her first missing tooth
The kids and Xiomara
Xiomara and Eliza
Eliza and Bow
Bow (joined family in Dec. 2019)
Xiomara and Eliza
he made it!
Climbing at Kingsessing
in the Lea tree
Spit spit spit you are not it
Her first lost tooth (at 5yo)
Helping build the climbing wallng wall
She got tired (she’s 35 pounds!)
ready to go to the park
school in the time of plague
Roger and Eliza
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Holy Cow this post is late late late. I loaded these photos weeks ago but never got around to finishing it. I’m not going to dilly dally. I have some newer pictures to post, but I’ll deal with them separately (probably in another six weeks, at this rate.)
Our trip to Florida for Christmas didn’t kill us. We last made the drive three years ago, and it was hell. This was worlds better. The drive still wasn’t fun: on the way home I drove through heavy rain in the dark all the way from Richmond and the next day the stress kicked in and I felt like I’d been dragged around the beltway instead of having driven it. The drive was a thousand percent easier since the kids were totally into listening to audiobooks in the car. We listened to perhaps five of the Series of Unfortunate Events, and they were amazing. I laughed as much, maybe more, than the kids.
Down in Tampa we stayed in a local hotel since we were a pretty big group. It had a pool, which the kids swam in once, blissfully unaware that 60 degrees is freaking cold for a swimming pool. Florida in December is still in December. The weather was nice though; Molly and I went for a few runs with Kerry and enjoyed the sun.
Unfortunately Calvin had broken his clavicle in a bike accident a few days prior to our arrival, so he was limited and kind of bummed, but still played a great host, and the two of them put on a lovely Christmas dinner under the holiday lights out under their carport, with Calvin’s parents and a few neighbors attending.
The boys were hardcore into the Beyblading (google it) and they had countless battles, many of which ended in maddening bickering, but what’s new.
On the drive home we detoured to Myrtle Beach to visit Molly’s grandmother- we stayed for two nights at a local hotel which features a partially indoor water park and heated pools. The kids love it, and though the weather was the same as last time we visited (50 and misting) it was still nicer than Philadelphia, and nice to dig our toes in the sand. The boys in particular waded pretty far into the waves, once again oblivious to the temperature, which in this case was expletively freezing. Grammy was in good shape, and we enjoyed a few meals with her, including one at Pop’s BBQ- that place was great and I’d have loved to dig deeper into the menu. I had something called the Legend Burger, which was actually a pulled pork sandwich sitting on mac and cheese, on a kaiser roll, topped with bacon and fried onion rings. It was pretty good. If I’d eaten four of them and a large fries in 20 minutes I would’ve won $200.
That’s all I remember, and I’m sticking to it. I took a few chair pictures last week but they must still be in my camera. I’ll dig them out and post them before spring, probably. I obviously need to get my blog-groove back.
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- Criminals
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- Flambe
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- The weather desk at Kerry’s children’s museum
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- Legend Burger
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It happens every few years that my birthday falls on Thanksgiving- thus was it this year, and we all had a lovely time hosting dinner for a big crowd with our current family of 8 (we have two exchange students for another few weeks) and my extended family. We cooked quite a bit, though cheated by buying a smoked turkey, and other family members chipped in. Jeremy brought down a funny cake, shoe fly pie, and mom brought along pumpkin cookies and homemade apple sauce.
I thought I was in pretty good shape for a 45 year old, but then my wrist crapped out on me (hockey injury) and I started feeling my age. My wrist hurt when biking and running, so I’ve been a bit sloth-like (except for running around like crazy with all the rest of life.)
Molly and I took a 36 hour vacation up to Delaware Water Gap for a bit of a retreat. We went for a hike on the Appalachian Trail… starting at 2:45 in the afternoon, knowing the loop was over 7 miles, and unsure of the actual sunset. We did great until half-way, when it started getting dim, and our return trail got technical, dropped down into a gorge, and featured 4 creek crossings (which we had to traverse on elevated logs.) It was most definitely sketchy, we hadn’t packed flashlights, and we got back to the car an hour after dark. A few days ago I ordered a five-pack of led flashlights to keep in the car. Never again! The morning after our adventure we took another hike (only five miles) and it was nice and without incident. I took a few nice pictures but managed to re-format the memory card before I downloaded them, so…. crud.
Since then we’ve been going like crazy, and the details are pretty boring… school activities and lobbying are taking up a lot of time. Yesterday our elementary had its winter concert, which Molly organizes, and is always madness. She thought the kids would look cute wearing scarves, so we made 140 of them out of about 15 yards of red fleece. It wasn’t as hard as it sounds, but it’s another example of us bringing it on ourselves. The kids did look cute in them, though, although they found 140 different ways to wear them, incredibly.
Alright, tomorrow morning we’re driving to Florida, and this post has been in process for two weeks. I’m posting now. The next post should be action-packed, I promise you. Unless I’m too tired from the holiday travel.
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This season sure keeps us busy. Lots of birthdays and lots of holidays. Next week is the pinnacle as my birthday takes place on Thanksgiving this year! But backing it up, the kids finally got to show off Babbee’s fabulous Halloween costumes. The Charzard Pokemon is off the rack, but the vikings (from How to Train your Dragon) are the opposite- totally bespoke. The kids have been so psyched about wearing them. As you can see from the photos they’re great. The only downside is once we got down to the neighborhood Halloween “parade” and the kids realized how long they’d have to wait for each piece of candy the event quickly lost its lustre and they wanted to go home almost immediately. We saw a ton of our friends as usual, but happily abandoned the crowded route and made our way back to our house to give out candy to the hundreds of kids that come by. Our kids were excited to give out candy, as always, so we did that right up until 8pm, which seems like the unspoken end of the celebration. The kids are still working their way through their candy, even if truth be told they didn’t collect very much on their short foray.
Asher finally turned six last week… it seemed like he was six already, as he’s a slightly old soul, but we celebrated all the same, with a custom cake of his own design. It was a far departure from the cartoon characters Molly is usually asked to bake. He hauled in some Lego, Pokemon, and Beyblades (look them up) and has had a fun time with them ever since (he dispatched the Lego kits pretty quickly though, precocious weasel.
Last week at school we held the semi-annual book fair, and as usual it was a ton of work. I probably put in 20+ hours, but you get to hang out with cool people and we made quite a bit more money than last time, so that’s a win. And our kids weaseled some books out of me, so it was a win for them too.
I hear the car just pulled up- everybody was out picking up Silas from his orchestra rehearsal. He’s been hard at work at his cello, and we’re hard at work trying not to make him resent it. (update: according to him he made some “epic mistakes.”)
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- Asher original design
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- Our kids killing time at the book fair
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- Last day of 2018 Clark Park Soccer
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She’s been looking forward to her birthday for quite a while. Unfortunately when the day came she was utterly unimpressed by any of her gifts- it was funny actually, as she opened each gift, glanced at it quickly, and set it aside without a smile. She lit up slightly when she opened the earrings that Babbee gave her. The next day we realized she had a rather high fever, which we figured was responsible for her indifference. She stayed home from school for two days, but her cheery mood returned pretty quickly. She was pleased to receive a visit from her cousin Zack during her birthday weekend- Molly’s sister and family flew up because of a very special occasion- Calvin was performing as a substitute with the Philadelphia Orchestra, playing the Rite of Spring. All the adults were lucky enough to go, and we hired a babysitter to watch all the kids. The performance was great and we were very happy for the visit. Of course, Zack came down sick a day or two after their return to Florida; isn’t that the way. When Eliza went back to school we baked 48 cupcakes for her to bring along- that was a handful, and we need to do it later this week for Asher, who turns 6 this weekend.
Soccer season continues unabated, though it’s been rained out once or twice. The kids are having a lot of fun but boy does it take it out of us. We’re busy shuttling kids around from 9-1:30 every Saturday morning. They are adorable out there though.
Just yesterday we arrived back from an incredibly short weekend visiting my cousin Alison and her family at their Garrett County Maryland family home. It was her great-grandparents, and has been passed on down since then. It drizzled all weekend, and gusted, and we mostly stayed inside, except for a quick outing up to Deep Creek Lake and a few trips out to the barn, which the kids found endlessly fascinating with its lofts and ancient farm implements. We fished in the pond for about 15 minutes, but shockingly didn’t catch anything. We had only a hotdog for bait, so that may have played a role.
Somehow I haven’t managed to capture the kids in their chair for a few weeks. It wouldn’t surprise me to see they’ve grown noticeably in the past month. Asher seems to be outgrowing all his pants, and I buy new shoes for Silas on a bi-weekly basis. His feet are going to be as big as Molly’s in a year or two.
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- Peoplehood parade on our block!
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- Summer’s well over
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September went by with a flash, and every Sunday morning I thought, I’m going to blog today. WordPress failed on my image uploads and then I gave up for a week. Then Youtube wouldn’t process my Eliza video, and I gave up for another week. But here I am, and I’m gonna post this sucker. One evening we were invited to dinner to a Brazilian steakhouse by Anoud and her father, who was about to fly back home to Saudi Arabia. We hired one of Molly’s students as a babysitter and had a rare evening out with adults- it was a very nice time, and we all succeeded in not eating a ridiculous amount of meat. We actually had adult conversations, which prevents one from stuffing their face relentlessly. Soccer season has started up, as you can see from the pictures. We have a ridiculous Saturday morning schedule with each kid playing in a different time slot, so that we’re tied up from 9-1:30. It leaves everybody worn out, but they’re having fun and improving. Keeping track of Eliza while the boys are playing is the biggest challenge. We see two thirds of our West Philly friends during soccer- it’s slightly funny.
We also had a week full of drama, when the school district leveling decisions came out and our school was set to lose a teacher position and a half, plus assistants, so we launched a big petition and flurry of appeals as high up the district and government as we could manage- We kept our teachers, so I think it was effective, but it took a lot of energy and had only minimal effect on the wider district policy. That’s the next job, reforming the leveling system before next contract so kids and teachers don’t get so jerked around every fall. It’s veiled as a funding issue, but it’s more about equity and bad management. I’ll leave it there and not go wonky. Anyway the struggle is real.
This week is full again, with meetings at school, at the district, Molly teaching two classes, and her getting to work on a new class she’ll be co-teaching in the spring about art and activism in Philadelphia. Congratulations to her, it’s going to be super interesting, but it’s also madness 🙂
I’ve got a to-do list gnawing at the back of my mind, chewing toward the front, so I need to get on that. Our alley needs to be cleared, a bunch of junk taken to the dump, a toilet to install, the list goes on.
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Eliza headed off to her first day of full-time pre-k this week. We, of course, accompanied her. She rode her bike, with all her brothers in tow, and while it was not fast, nobody was technically late for school. We dropped her off, she smiled, said bye, and that was it. No tears of sadness or joy were shed on either side, and that’s just fine. Asher crashed his bike once or twice, but didn’t cry, and he only crashed because he was teaching himself to ride one-handed. The heat continued this week, and the boys had half-days Tuesday and Wednesday both. So I still haven’t experienced the full week of all my kids being in school. This week the boys have off for Rosh Hashannah, so I’ll be home with them tomorrow.
On Friday I volunteered at the wholesale produce warehouse with Philabundance, who works to end food insecurity in the Delaware valley. I went and did my shopping at the warehouse beforehand, then stuck around to help them sort out four pallets of peaches, two pallets of eggplants, two of broccoli, and two of poblano peppers, separating the good from the rotten and loading the good stuff on a truck to Philabundance’s warehouse, from where it gets distributed to food pantries all over the place. I enjoyed it- we saved a few thousand pounds of stuff from being trashed for sure. I also got some free marginal produce out of it, which was bittersweet, since I had already purchased six cases of food beforehand.
Today in a burst of optimism I decided to finally re-seat the toilet in our second floor bathroom. When you give a mouse a muffin. I ended up having to mix some mortar, do some priming, cleaning some copper pipes to re-paint them. The toilet is laying on its side in the bathroom still, as I ruminate on whether to upgrade it to a twentieth century toilet. The household has been put on-notice that we’re a two toilet househole for at least a few days. First world problems.
And today the heat wave finally broke, thank goodness. It’s been raining since yesterday, but this morning it was down in the mid fifties and I had to dig around in my dresser to find a hoodie for breakfast. This is the life.
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The blog still lives- that is…
I fell off the blog wagon, and it’s probably going to happen again. As you can see from the pictures there has been a lot going down. Nothing dramatic, but just constant. Our Chinese students Rachael and Yvonne went back home, and about an hour later we welcomed a new student from Kazakhstan, who is delightful and we’re very glad to have her. We had a celebration or two for Silas’s 9th birthday, a week or two late, but all the same Molly made some Pokemon cupcakes and we had a bunch of Silas’s friends over. Grandpa John even made a quick trip to congratulate Silas, even though he was under the weather and fresh off a plane from China. We organized a Kindergarten play-date for students who are entering Kindergarten with Asher. Asher has since started Kindergarten and everything there is honky dory (except they keep shortening the school days because it’s so dang hot.) We visited a hipster bowling alley up in Northern Liberties along with the residential program that Molly leads at Penn. Taking kids bowling is always stressful (second only to taking kids archery shooting.) But it went well, nobody broke any body parts, and we got to play a fun game of table-hockey, which was a pleasant blast from the past.  We saw The Wiz live at Malcolm X Park, and made one last end of summer trip to the zoo. The baby giraffe is adorable, I highly recommend you check it out. Summer camps wrapped up (now I’m going out of order but oh well…) the boys finishing their UCAL art camp and Eliza graduating from her little four-day Movement and Spanish camp (I know that sounds incongruous but it was neat.) We reconnected with my sister and brother’s families up at my parents- caught a few fish and wore the kids out. My brother and his family came down to Philly for a margarita-fajita themed sleep-over, which was totally unnecessary seeing they don’t live that far away, but it allowed us to catch up late into the early morning like we couldn’t do any other way. After a block party afternoon that gets us up to date, more or less. Eliza starts pre-school tomorrow, which might blow my mind. I’m going to feel really weird in about twelve hours. I hope it’s good-weird. Last week a heat-wave crushed us with mid-90’s temps and the district closed schools early both Wednesday and Thursday, and Friday had already been scheduled as a half day. So last week was hard… the kids came home all jacked up having missed recess and there wasn’t any adequate outlet at home. This week another heatwave is settling over us and rumors are rife that schools might close early again. Pray for me. That is all.
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- What’s so funny?
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- Happy 9th, Silas (late)
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- Perfect chaos
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- Going for big bubbles
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- Cards with Rachael and Yvonne
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- Hipster flashback
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- NoLibs is ridiculous
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- Gymnastics graduation
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- The Lea Tree
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- Yikes
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- E and Me
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- Dejection at the Reptile House
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- final art camp performance
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- at Malcom X- The Wiz
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- Mimi and Pop’s redwood
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- the path being widened
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- first day of school 4 and K 2018
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- You can read the sign
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- Mary the Guinea Pig
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- Ew
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- Uncle Jerm the Barbarian
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- Block Party Bouncy House
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Dangerous Kitchen Dangerous Kids 