Middle school isn't so bad after all

 I was initially worried about Bruce entering middle school this year, but he is thriving. He recently had some art put on display at the Children's Museum, so we went to the opening reception to get a look at it for ourselves. His is the flamingo print.

 It was perhaps the funnest art reception ever because we got to play in all the exhibits too.

We had a blast playing there on a Friday night. Thankfully I packed this kid's pajamas; he fell asleep on the bus ride home!

Bruce joined the cross country team. I didn't want to force him into it, but was more than happy when the gym teacher encouraged him to join the team. It wasn't really legit cross country: they ran 1-1.3 miles twice a week on a small flat grassy field behind the school. They had one meet at the end of their short season where they competed against the other three middle schools in the district. Bruce's school team was the largest and they won handily. Bruce ran the just-over-a-mile race in a bit over 10 minutes and finished in the back of the pack, but was happy that he improved his time throughout the season.

While other parents chatted and walked their dogs, we were the most experienced cheer section out there for sure. We had our cowbells, drum, a sign, and lots of high-fives to give.

Fall in New England

 I have some catching up to do.... School started just after Labor Day. Bruce started middle school, Phoebe started first grade, and Oliver started preschool! They are at three different schools with three different schedules, so I spend most of my day picking up and dropping off kids. Bruce said the first week of middle school was boring ("it's all introductions.") and was happy to dig into learning the following week. He is running cross country, playing piano and drums in the jazz band, and working on activities with the Boy Scouts. 

Phoebe thoroughly enjoyed the freedom of summertime, but was happy to get back to school where she sees her friends every day. She says she isn't going to be a firefighter anymore; when you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, there is a different answer almost every day. Some of the recent responses: astronaut, scientist, veterinarian, taekwondo instructor, and preschool teacher. She is taking guitar lessons and learning to play Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off." She joined a soccer league (more on that later) and is still passionate about taekwondo. She has a double black stripe belt and is immensely proud of it. I love taekwondo too: it is the one time during the week that I see her focused and serious. It lasts 45 minutes and it is wonderful. I keep waiting for all those skills of patience and respect and whatnot to translate into other areas, but so far not so much. But those 45 minutes! Ahhhhh.

Oliver started half-day preschool! It is a city-run preschool that is free and part of the public schools, so when I enrolled him forever ago I thought we would just try it and see how it goes. It was free, so there was nothing to lose. For the two weeks, he moaned about how he didn't want to go to school while we walked there. When we arrived, he would run in and say goodbye and be just fine. After those first two weeks, he was happy about preschool all the time. He loves his teachers and talks about them constantly. It is a small class with only five kids and two teachers, so it has been a good transition for him. Now that all my kids are in school for at least part of the day, I thought I'd have so much time on my hands. But I've been running most of my mileage while they're at school rather than waking up super early (more sleep = happy mom!), I started volunteering at my neighborhood food pantry, I'm getting back into a more regular routine of writing, and I'm working on a few side projects (a blood drive next week!). Today was classic: I dropped off Oliver, walked to the food pantry and worked for a few hours, walked home and grabbed a sandwich for Oliver and a sandwich for me, ate my sandwich while walking to pick him up, pushed him in the stroller while he ate his sandwich to the pet store, picked up hermit crabs for Phoebe's birthday this weekend, and walked home. I do a lot of walking. I don't have a FitBit, but the mileage on my iPhone's health app usually logs a couple non-running miles. Today it was 4.4 miles walking, 7 miles running.

Scott has been working a lot, so when we get a free weekend we take advantage of it. One weekend we went apple picking (the photo of Oliver above) at a farm near the beach. We picked apples (and Oliver sampled most of them), got cider donuts, and went for a hayride. Then we drove down the street to Crane Beach and played in the sand. The ocean is cold, of course, but that didn't stop the kids from getting in.

They dug a million holes, buried each other in sand, built castles with moats and dams, and had a blast.

This has been our other recent weekend activity: soccer. Phoebe has been begging to join the youth soccer league and I've been resisting because I feel like we do a lot already. But she kept begging, so I caved and now our Saturday mornings are spent at soccer practice and scrimmages. Phoebe is on the red team, which she was pumped about because it's her favorite color. As it turns out, she is pretty good (I guess being aggressive is a positive thing here). At her first practice, she scored three goals. Each time she scored, she threw her hands up and screamed and did a victory dance. Her team has a tradition of having a "pig pile" at the end of practice; I believe Phoebe started this.

Last weekend was a three-day weekend (Columbus Day or Indigenous People's Day or whatever you want to call it) and Scott had the whole thing off, so once again we took full advantage. We drove to Maine and rented a little cottage on a lake. We kayaked, biked, and hiked in Maine and nearby New Hampshire. The photo above is Bruce biking with me on my run, which he's done a few times. He has biked 10 miles with me and been just fine; he keeps up and usually chatters the entire time, sometimes about the molecular structure of Fritos and sometimes about theoretical war between squirrels and people. He's a great running partner.

The fall foliage was out in full force in Maine.

The kids had a day off school for Yom Kippur, so we drove down to Hartford to see the new temple during its open house. The kids were wild before and after (pictured above), but by some miracle were amazingly reverent and quiet in the temple. Even Oliver held my hand and walked calmly next to me and listened to the tour guide. Afterward, I asked the kids if they felt the spirit. They said they did. I asked where they felt it the most. "The room with the big chandelier that was really quiet," said Phoebe. That would be the celestial room (photos of it and other rooms in the temple here).

And despite all the craziness afterward, here is what Phoebe wrote in water by the fountain: "I (heart) God's House."

 There was a visitor's center after the tour that had this statue of Christ in there. I told the kids to smile so I could take a picture, but they wouldn't listen (except for Bruce, of course).

 But when Oliver gave Jesus a big hug, I thought that was probably a better picture anyway.

 And then Phoebe joined in the hug. Sometimes these kids make my heart explode.

While we were gone...

Scott and I took a trip without the kids. It had been three years since the last time we did a kid-less vacation (Costa Rica, to celebrate the end of med school) and Scott wanted to do something so crazy that we absolutely could not bring kids with us. I was really nervous about leaving the kids for a week. Okay, mostly I was nervous about leaving Oliver for a week. He is a true momma's boy, has some tricky communication issues, and really likes routines and familiarity. Our original plan was to drive to Ohio and leave the kids with my parents, then fly to Utah for our crazy hiking trip. But the school-year got much longer with all the snow days, so our vacation fell on the last week of school. I know the last week of school is often useless, but we already pulled the kids out of school for a week of vacation in October and they had a lot of other things going on that week too. My awesome parents agreed to come to Boston and take care of them here. I know, I am still spoiled.

I was so nervous about leaving the kids that I wrote out six pages of notes, schedules, emergency phone numbers, etc. They said Oliver looked for me the first day we were gone (that top picture is from that grouchy first day, Father's Day), but then was fine. They even took photos to prove that he was fine. That would be him at Soccer Nights, a local week-long soccer camp.

The kids attended parties, visited splash parks, had Field Day at school, showed off their portfolios at school.

 They went to "Barn Babies" at the library - an awesome program where a truck-load of barn animals wrapped in towels and diapers come to the library for kids to pet and touch. Phoebe loves this annual event so much; one year we missed it and she didn't forgive me until we went the next year.

Bruce celebrated the end-of-the-year with his fellow Webelo Scouts. This age is just so weird. Props to the leaders that work with them.

 The last day of school finally came on June 25. Seriously almost July. Phoebe already misses her friends. We have visited her teachers twice at the school in the past week.

Phoebe the Head Hair

 Phoebe's kindergarten class has been learning about the body for the past two months or so. They talked about skin and hair, bones and blood, lungs and heart. During that month of night shifts, Scott came off a shift and went to the school to teach the class a few things before coming home and sleeping for the day. Phoebe's class presented a play about the things they learned. Each member of the class represented part of the body. Phoebe wanted to be hair. So did another boy. They bickered about it before deciding that Phoebe should be "head hair" and the other kid "body hair." You can see Mister Body Hair in the photo above wearing the costume with pipe cleaners coming out of it. Awesome. Phoebe was stoked about her role. She said something like, "Hair keeps your head warm and keeps it from getting sunburned." Well said.

 Nancy, Jared, and new baby cousin Ethan came to visit from Philly for a few days. They got to witness the excitement of the class play. We also did the typical Boston touristy stuff: lobster rolls, Freedom Trail, Mike's Pastry, and Old North Church. They also cheered me on at an indoor track meet. It was me with a few dozen college girls in the 3K, the shortest distance I've raced in who-knows-how-long. I was dead last at the first lap and 8th place by the end. I ran an unimpressive time of 11:16, but I shook some rust off and got "The Old Lady Award," as Phoebe called it (I was the only "open athlete" or non-collegiate runner in the race). I am hoping to race a 5K on the track soon.

 This is Phoebe's amazing teacher Val. She and Justin were Bruce's kindergarten teachers too, so we know them well and just love them. At the beginning of the year, I was worried that they would be expecting a Bruce Junior and would be disappointed when Phoebe was not what they expected. But they have embraced Phoebe and her antics, and have done so much in helping her mature a bit this year.

 On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Scott went hiking with a friend who is trying to hike all the 4000-foot mountains in New Hampshire. He has done 40+ of them, and Scott helped him check one more off his list: Mt. Osceola. They made it to the top, snapped a few pictures from the cloudy and snowy summit, and made it home for dinner. While he did this, the kids and I went to a community service project and made valentines for veterans. Bruce's valentines were almost all roses-are-red-violets-are-blue poems. Phoebe's said things like, "You are strong" and "I love you" scrawled in her all-caps handwriting. Oliver's were the typical toddler paint and marker mess, so I helped him make his.

School is in!

Bruce finally started school again on the day after Labor Day. He was so excited that he told me he wanted to get there two hours early to play on the playground. We managed to get there 20 minutes early after a requisite celebratory stop at Dunkin Donuts. 

Bruce was excited to see his friends again and found that his new teacher is amazing. After the dismissal bell rang on his first day of school, he opted to stay another hour to visit with his kindergarten teacher. 

Phoebe was wishing she was in school, so we are doing home preschool - just me and her (and I guess Oliver too). We are learning our letters and their sounds along with a random unit about bees. 

Oliver is 3.5 months old now and nearly 12 pounds. He qualifies for Early Intervention services because of his prematurity so we will have a case worker visiting weekly to check on him and help him "catch up" developmentally.  He really is doing great though, although I do wish I could get sleep in more than 3-hour increments. Anyway, it's a good thing he is adorable and still looks and smells like a baby. When he cries at night, I remind myself that this is way better than waking up to a cold breast pump and having him a few miles away in a hospital. Above, Oliver is pictured next to his life-size baby doll; the doll is 14 inches long, the same as him when he was born. The doll is wearing one of his preemie outfits; see how much he has grown?!

And now for something completely different.

 Last week after the marathon, Scott took Bruce and the camera and headed to Washington D.C. Thus, I did not get to download photos until today, so here is the random photo dump from the last few weeks. Above is Phoebe with her "joy school" class. Two moms and I took turns teaching these awesome kids twice a week from September through March. We started off using the values-based Joy School curriculum, but the lesson plans hadn't been updated for a few decades so we switched to another slightly more academic curriculum. In March, one kid moved and the other family decided to home-school their other children, so we had a little graduation and called it a school-year. Phoebe already misses her buddies and is going to be a bit socially deprived this summer.

 Phoebe has been asking to go to a museum for awhile, so we waited until Bruce had a day off school and then spent the entire day at the Museum of Science. We went to an IMAX film about caves and canyons, learned about hurricanes, and pushed every button and joystick we walked by.

 Scott took Phoebe on a daddy-daughter date to the Boston Ballet. They dressed up all fancy, took the train downtown to the opera house, and saw "Sleeping Beauty." Phoebe is really into ballet, ballerinas, all things colored pink, etc - so this was right up her alley. Lest you think Bruce is getting ignored, his father-son adventure was next; Scott and Bruce went to Philadelphia and Washington D.C. for five days. Scott had a few days off of work (he gets a few vacation days, but they have to be during specified dates so he had to use them or lose them), so he spoiled me and the kids as much as possible.

And finally, here is the most telling photo of Marathon Monday. This is about what we did on the sidelines, which is why I was sulky and depressed.

Bruce's Life

Bruce did a project at school where he made a timeline of his life. He included his birth and then a bunch of random events that I didn't know were so important: seeing a tiger at the zoo, going to a museum, getting his tooth kicked out by his best friend. It was interesting to see what made the cut.

Graduation: the longer version.

Graduation already seems so far away; it was more than a week ago, and so much has happened since then. We have been looking forward to graduation for so long that it needs to be documented here. I think on the sidebar, May 24 was noted as "the end of the world as we know it" for a few months (I finally took that down today). Yes, the world of student life has ended for us. We have been students for all of our married life and, while it has its advantages (tax breaks, theoretically more flexible time than the average corporate job, most holidays off, serious character building, etc.) I am happy to move on. We are ready for a new beginning.

Back to Commencement...

Scott's parents and brother as well as my parents came to celebrate the day with us. It started early for me: I ran to Harvard Yard to scope out the scene at 5:30 a.m. I only saw a handful of people lined up, so I didn't think any drastic measures like camping out were necessary. I ran my last run with Anna, my running partner of at least a year who I've run thousands of miles with. She is spending the summer in Japan and I'm not looking forward to the silent miles for the next few months.

Scott's dad and mom and brother, my parents, Bruce and Phoebe, and Scott and I headed to Harvard Yard around 6:30. By then, the handful of people had turned into a crazy mob. The morning commencement was a ticketed event and each grad was only allowed two tickets, so Scott's mom Valerie and I attended while the rest of the party took the kids to the park and library.

Valerie and I got through the gate of Harvard Yard and found that the only available seats were in the back where we couldn't see anything. I held two seats while Valerie went in search of something better. She came back successful: she found enough space on the Widener Library stairs. They weren't seats and it wouldn't be comfortable, but at least we could see the graduates march in and see the speakers if we squinted.

The graduates marched in and every proud parent clustered into a mosh pit, elbowing for space to stand and take pictures while security officers nudged people to move on rather than stand in the walkways. Our perch on the stairs was great for people-watching. It was a racially diverse crowd, but it was overwhelmingly affluent: people wore big jewelry and fancy shoes, carried designer handbags, and flaunted perfectly coiffed hair. It reminded me of the red carpet at the Academy Awards - only everyone was packed together and the poor ladies in spiked heels were having more trouble on the soft grass of the Yard.

Valerie and I spotted Scott fairly easily when the medical school graduates marched in. There were about a dozen MD/PhD graduates with red robes and black cushy hats, and Scott is among the tallest. All the other med grads wore black robes and flat black caps. We snapped some great shots of Scott's ear as he marched by...

We sat through the speeches, the conferring of the degrees, and the music. Harvard's commencement has its own traditions: the county sheriff starts and adjourns the meeting wearing a top hat and stomping a tall cane three times (it must be the funnest thing he does all year long), one of the speeches is given entirely in Latin (with translation on the Jumbotron), and every speaker bows to the university president and board of directors before addressing the audience. I thought commencement would be pretty boring, but it was actually quite lively.

After the morning session, we met up with our party for lunch at Q'doba. We opted to skip the med school's luncheon to avoid having the kids make a scene, and showed up at the med school graduation in time to find two seats behind a camera guy's legs, and another cluster of seats near the back of the tent set up on the Harvard Medical School campus.

Once again, we split up but played musical chairs with our seats. I always sat near the front, but had several companions including my dad, Bruce, and Phoebe after she woke up from a nap. The medical school commencement was long. It had the obligatory speeches, but the longest part was the naming and hooding of every individual there. A few of the graduates had kids, and we were told the kids could walk across the stage with their parent. We weren't sure if our kids would make it since Scott was near the end; Bruce was grouchy since the iPod ran out of battery power, and Phoebe told me she needed to poop about five minutes before Scott was supposed to walk across the stage. I opted not to inform Scott of the latter detail until afterward; I suspected she was just bored and wanted an excuse to get out of there.

It could have been a complete disaster: Bruce rolling his eyes and dragging his feet, Phoebe losing her bowels on the stage. But it wasn't. Bruce was happy to be in the spotlight and even stuck out his hand for a few handshakes with important guys. Phoebe held it together and was thrilled to get a present. She and Bruce were given teddy bears with Harvard Medical School tee-shirts. Whew, we made it.

We gathered our group afterward for a few pictures, then headed to dinner at The Friendly Toast. We chatted over good food and reminisced. We finished the day with ice cream cake...

...and then packing bags. My parents came for just one day; I'm sad I didn't get to sit next to them during commencement, but I was so happy to have their support with me not only that day, but throughout the last few years (30 of them, actually). They left the next morning, as did Scott's dad and brother, who were also there for too short a time. Scott's brother needed to get home for his own high school graduation.

Scott and I left the next morning too, leaving Bruce and Phoebe for a week with Grandma Raymond. This epic adventure deserves at least a few posts, so stay tuned.