Summer

I'm keeping with my seasonal posts...We are in the first week at school after a terrific summer. It's tough to give up on summer - just like I hate giving up on beautiful summer nights - but I'm hoping it will be good to get back into a routine. We spent time in Santa Barbara and the kids loved visiting their favorite spots from last year and discovering new treasures, like the Moxi science museum and participating in the children's fiesta parade. They loved going to their favorite camp (Arts at Laguna) and trying new camps like sailing. And they especially loved seeing some favorite people - namely Eloise and Olivia. Eloise is 3 and couldn't be more adorable. Olivia is a Laguna camp CIT and I think it's safe to say that Charlie has a major crush on her.  We were so happy to see she was back as a CIT this summer. We got her to show up for his birthday picnic at the Mission and Charlie was over the moon. He usually complains about his birthday, but declared it was a highlight of the whole summer.
Sofia survived zoo camp with some tears, but way less drama than last year. She tested a new camp at Laguna (which she called Granola camp because 'Laguna' couldn't stick in her memory) which she liked as well. After camp we would often head to the beach. We also got a tour of the zoo from Sofia, hiked around the botanic gardens, picniced at Alice Keck Park park, skateboarded, spent hours at the farmers' markets, ate our way through the town and enjoyed the fiesta festivities. Upon Charlie's request we had our first and last day breakfast at Sambos. I always loved fiesta but even more now with kids. The dancing, the dresses and the EGGS! The parade was super fun for kids to do though we were probably the least exciting entry....ahead of us and behind us were huge floats with cute kids doing choreographed routines. I had stocked up with a few supplies at the dollar store and the kids loved handing out treats (rings and bouncy balls) and shooting off confetti guns.

In Pine Orchard the kids spent hours in the water our front using the paddle boards to chase eachother. Because they were wearing life jackets they had more freedom to paddle down the shore or out deeper. It seems like it must have been so liberating to them - or maybe it was just liberating to me. We held a party in Franny's honor and the kids made a new friend a few houses down. It is tough to beat enjoying a sunset on the porch.

And here we are back to start school. 4th grade, 2nd grade and Pre-K 4. We love Brent Elementary and sad to think this may be our last year with all 3 kids at our neighborhood school. 

In honor of Franny, we put together a mini back-to-school olympics with ribbons and all. super fun.

A Brother, A Mom and A Grandmother

With all the routine of daily schedules I often don't lift my head enough to see the multi-generational spectrum in which we walk. Today is Mother's Day and it coincides with my brother Charlie's birthday and the passing of my grandmother, Franny. Three generations to celebrate the life of, to marvel at the continuity of life and to grieve for the company that will no longer be with us. The impression that my grandmother left on all of us cuts deep - not only for her epic determination, her mental fortitude, her community engagement, her art collection, her support for 62 years of students passing through her class, her ability to lasso an extended family of 30+ for holidays and trips and her Christmas card that went to her 1,500 closest friends, but also for all the experiences she helped enable through her grandmother 'scholarships.' 

A portrait in paint:

A portrait of a young Franny

And a portrait in video

Catching-Up

Let's play catch-up....We had a super fun time in San Francisco over Thanksgiving. Thanks to technology the cross-country trips are getting easier - the kids each had some sort of device: iphone, ipad, tablet or computer. I usually feel slightly badly about shoving screens in their face and then I remember how it would be otherwise and I move on:). Once in SF we enjoyed wonderful crisp weather, beautiful hikes, a tourist outing to Alcatraz and visits with old friends. The kids adore tia Veronika, Brian and abuela so much and I'm old news so I enjoyed having all my limbs to myself.
In the three years I lived in SF I never went to Alcatraz so it was fun to finally go. Luckily we caught a beautiful day so the view of the city was amazing and the ferry across the bay couldn't have been nicer. Even with all the little legs in our party, we managed some fun hikes through Muir woods and despite Vero being 8+ months pregnant she led us on a 4+ mile hike up the hills in Marin.
The way back from SF was luckily uneventful but very long for me. We got up at 4am to make a 6am flight and once home, I unpacked and repacked and headed back to the airport to go to Atlanta and once there I had to stay up to talk to a colleague. It was a 20 hour day. I'm way to old for those.

Christmas was also fun, but -like a birth-plan - didn't go according to plan. I had hoped to do all these christmas-y things in DC, but that didn't really happen. The boys did see a play of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas and Charlie's chorus had a christmas performance, but we missed the national christmas tree, zoo-lights and the nutcracker and no one wanted to join me at for a christmas eve mass. Seth's kids got sick so missed Christmas morning, but made it for Christmas dinner. Nevertheless it was nice to be all together for Christmas dinner and very thankful for our collective health. 

Generally I disapprove of 2017 so far, but hopefully that just means it'll only get better. We walked around Inauguration morning and ran into fellow glum faces on the Hill and then walked down to the mall to survey the crowds. Despite alternative facts it was not nearly as crowded as inaugurations past, but it was still crowded. The Women's March offered a temporary reprieve from the sadness, but the malicious and frenzied actions of the new administration make me so sad for the country. Perhaps the silver lining will be a re-invigorated civil society and a new crop of potential politicians. I know a few people who either announced they are running or are pondering the idea. that's cool.

I usually get depressed in February but today it is 60 degrees so it's hard not to feel hopeful. Sofia is actually now great 90% of the time. Her persistent personality shows up at just the wrong times but it's such an improvement that I can hardly complain. And to be fair she is probably more self-sufficient than the boys - she picks out her school clothes the night before, gets herself dressed in the morning and is usually the first by the door ready to go. Of course that has a lot to do with wanting a gummy vitamin as she walks out the door, but if I can leverage the persistent personality to achieve some semblance of peace in the morning then I'm happy to give her sugar (and then hand her off to her teacher to deal with the repercussions:)).

Fall...

Getting 3/4 of the yoga mom clan back together. wow! that's a lot of kids!

I'm not sure if Sofia is smoothing out or if I simply lost in the face of her iron personality. Or it may be a bit of both. I'd been frustrated that even though we should be moving out of survival phase now that the kids are in 3+ years old, Sofia takes up so much physical and emotional space that I don't have a free breath to do much else. She wakes up in the night demanding I come sleep next to her, wakes early and immediately starts with screaming demands for oatmeal, kicking me  if I don't move fast enough for her and won't go to sleep at night unless someone rubbed her back. The other kids have been held hostage to her behavior. I tried to put boundaries around her behavior but those been unsuccessful. I tried shutting her in her room but she just took any hard object she could find and banged it against the door so hard that the object broke and/or the door got severely dented. In hopes of keeping the door alive I gave up on that. I used a child proof door knob but clearly those aren't Sofia-proof. She dismantled that in under 10 seconds. Any rule or limit I put on things - like trying to read only 4 books before bed and not 10 so that I could also do bedtime with Diego/Charlie was met with fierce rebuke and temper-tantrums. They temper-tantrums certainly don't instill much good will or desire to read that extra books so she and I both ended up mad.

I think school is working - she uses her words more than her fists now and I've basically let go of forcing my boundaries on her. Instead I try to be  proactive in engaging her in any decision - which is tiring - and then guiding or redirect her when she starts spiraling downwards - which is even more tiring. I think, I hope, I really, really hope that she's becoming happier. I went to the doctor to talk about it and she suggested starting with alone time with Sofia during which time Sofia can be the total boss and get lots of positive reinforcement. I've been trying that and generally spending time dedicated just to her. The other weekend we spent 6 hours at the art museum together. She was so engaged and sweet until her brothers showed up 5 hours into it and the last hour went downhill.

 

As part of giving up my rules on Sofia, I gave up putting her to bed before I do any bedtime stuff with the boys. I've been feeling guilty about not working with Diego on his reading so now we practice words before Sofia goes to sleep. I'm so worried about his reading and how annoyed he gets by practicing, but the teacher seems to think he is fine. She says that his comprehension is so much higher than his reading level that he feels bored and frustrated by the books in his level. Probably true given the books my mom is reading with him and I hope that means that once he does get better at reading he will really love it. 

Charlie seems pretty good overall - he is generally really nice, has great friends, does well in school, well at soccer/baseball, well in music (joined a chorus and playing piano) and likes his new chess class. Of course I need to worry about him too so my worry is that all the well-roundedness means I don't see the depth of curiosity that I see in Diego. Diego wants to bring every artifact my mom shows him to his science teacher. He loves science and can build an intricate world - both with building materials and in his own mind. 

I guess there is always something to worry about. First it's nursing or fevers and then hitting milestones and then finding good child care and then and then and then....And this doesn't even touch on the worry I have about the current political state of affairs. On election day I dragged them to vote despite the complaints of Carlos and then burst into tears when Charlie submitted my ballot. What an amazing time in history I thought that the first presidents my kids will know are the first african-american president and the first female president. And now I've been mourning for over a week and wondering what the impact will be on the community here and across the country.

Sofia as Darth Vader, Diego the Ninja and Charlie the Vampire (again)