Virginia Beach Beach and Petting Farm--Grandma, Aunt Jenny, Kate and Jon

In May, I got to meet up with Megan, Anton, Kate, Jon and Anton's sister, Jenny in Maryland.  We then drove down to Virginia Beach, VA.  Jen and I took care of the kids while Meg and Anton attended a three day seminar focused on home schooling.  It was a wonderful opportunity to get to know Jenny a little bit and to spend time with the children.  After the kids were asleep in their room, Meg and Anton took turns coming to spend time with Jenny and me in ours.  

The water was cold and harsh.  There was a stiff, cold wind, too.  Even though the photos look like a beach--compared to Florida's balmy shoreline--it was just a wide, sandy pathway with occasional, loud, cold splashes of water when we got too close to the ocean.  Kate preferred to stay as far away from the water as possible--Jon found great satisfaction in running back and forth with the waves as they washed over the sand.  I think, though, that he likes anything that moves about a lot.  

Megan had a list of things that she wanted to experience--most of them had to do with eating various kinds of frozen sweet stuff.  

One of my best memories of this trip will be of Kate.  At one of the frozen yogurt/custard places we stopped (I think it was a Sweet Frog shoppe) we got our bowls and filled them with whatever yogurt and toppings we wanted.  Anton told Kate that she had to wait until they had paid for the food before she could begin eating.  During this time, the group was also waiting for me (spending some quality time with my body in the bathroom--that was a sly reference to the fact that I often spend over an hour on the toilet--and those I am with have to wait for me).  Kate patiently sat, holding her bowl.  When everyone had finished, we got ready to go and Kate began to cry.  

She was still waiting for Anton to tell her that it was OK to eat her dessert!  All that time and she was content to put off consuming her choice of melting yogurt and toppings--

At three years of age, she has an amazingly mature sense of propriety.  She is also smart and very beautiful.

My favorite memory of Jon will be his decision to get Kate a peacock feather from the Petting Farm.  She didn't want to go with us--so she stayed with Jenny and played (and sang to herself) quietly.  The idea was for her to fall asleep and get some rest . . . didn't work.  But the day turned magic when Jon presented her with the 3 1/2 foot long plume.  

She decided that it was a magic feather and brought it with her everywhere we went from then on.  Jon was charmed by the fact that his gift was so well received.  

And so was I.

Another highlight was a Bounce House indoor play place.  It was a store that had been converted into a huge selection of bounce houses.  There was a place for the very young, the next-to-very young--all the way up to the adult.  I had a great time.  We went twice--one price got you unlimited visits for a week.  Jon laughed and jumped and ran and climbed--and had a wonderful time.  Kate played quietly in the area reserved for the very young.  She didn't like the bounce places--but did enjoy riding in the Playschool cars and waundering about the other areas where nothing moved or made noise.

Sometimes just being in a new place is excitement enough.  I hope that next time, though, Kate will decide to be brave enough to join us at the Petting Farm.  I think the llamas and the miniature goats would really enjoy being near her.

Kate takes over the blanket.

Aunt Jenny acts as consumer for Kate's home-made sand ice cream cones.

Jon gives me a real face--the next few faces were poses after
having eaten sand . . . yeah, I didn't get it either.

Jon points out the jello-mold-topped mound of sand we called our "Sand Castle." 

The ocean claims our prize.  Kate is an unwilling spectator.  She prefers the quieter,
"small ocean" kid pool at the hotel.

Kate works with the water and the tools Megan found at Ikea.

Jon squishes a ball before throwing it.

Kate from behind.

Jon asked me to take a picture of him and Megan.

Jon faces a very determined tortoise.

Jon in the laying house at the Petting Farm.

Jon didn't like being up so high at first, but by the time the ride was almost over,
he was quite comfortable.  It helped that there was a school class there on a
field trip and as they watched him ride by, they began to chant "Pony! Pony! Pony!"

Jon discovered that one of the llamas liked being fed stray bits of hay that Jon collected from off of the ground.
It was cool to watch Jon so at home around such big animals.

Just as we were getting ready to leave, one of the miniature goats gave birth to triplets.
We missed the big event--thankfully--but we got to see them here, 24 minutes old.

Nathan and Me and the New Temple

Nathan and me, posing like tourists in front of the new Florida, Fort Lauderdale Temple. The public Open House is in full swing.  I take the Friday night shift as a tour guide, sleep at a hotel nearby, and then get up early for the first Saturday shift--again, as a tour guide.  

Brent and Nathan went for three days last week and volunteered as ushers.  They both worked outside and came home sun burnt from 5 hours in the hot sun without shade or sunscreen.  Actually, Nate did put on sunscreen, but it probably came off during the first half hour as he got hot and sweaty.  Brent's poor face didn't have a chance . . . he is peeling and it makes me hurt to think of him shaving every morning.  

He is braver about it, though.  The second and third days both Nate and Brent used sunscreen and wore hats.  

I feel a little guilty that I get to stay in where it is cool--leading groups of people through the temple--while they took up posts outside, directing traffic and helping with handicap parking.   

Nate and me and the Fort Lauderdale Temple before the open house began.
February 2014.

I do love the temple, though.  It is an exquisite building.  You must come and see it for yourself.

Seriously.  You can stay with us and we'll drive down together.  !!!

All the News That's Fit to Print and a Gecko

                                  The gecko that lives outside Lauren and Rob's apartment.

It has been cloudy and drizzling all day.  I don’t know if it makes me sound dreary, but it has been a lovely day—cool and calm and quiet.  I stayed up too late last night and both of my knees ache today.  (Th.)  I have an appointment with my orthopaedic surgeon tomorrow morning, then Calculus I, then an hour and a half drive to the new Fort Lauderdale Temple for training as a tour guide during the temple open house—then an hour and a half drive home.  Today is peaceful preparation for that whirlwind. 

Brent had a colonoscopy this morning—all is well.  He is still dehydrated and a little woozy.  He is kind of cute this way.  We watched movies all afternoon and snacked on little stuff already in the kitchen. 

It seems odd, as I reread the last two paragraphs, that two people whose bodies are so dysfunctional can be so content, so at peace with ourselves, each other and the world.  Brent was exchanging emails with someone and they asked him why he would want to move to Chicago.  He responded that places have never been the destination for us as a family.  We go where we are needed.  A friend of mine has a husband who is going to move the family to Alaska because he was raised there—and he wants his daughter to understand what it was like for him as he grew up.  She is from Brazil—and wholly unprepared for a land where it is light half of the year, dark the other half of the year and cold all of the year long. 

There are lots of reasons why I do not envy her—but I think that this would be one of the biggest reasons. 

The rabbits are in the family room  now.  They alternate between the kitchen, the patio (only when it is brisk and dry outside—not very often—and the living room.  Their cages take up a lot of space and their propensity to shed (especially Murphy) has Brent leery of where ever I put them.  I feel bad for Murphy.  He is a lop-eared rabbit with snowshoe feet and an undercoat of fur that a polar bear would envy.  Oops (yes, that is his name) has tiny, neat ears and tiny, neat paws, and short, velvet fur.  He is eminently more suited for being a pet than Murphy—who would love to be free and have some roughish grass under his belly to help keep himself clean. 

Watching them makes me miss Peter.  A lot. 

We have a raccoon that has dug a couple of burrows outside in the fern bed, beneath a huge butterfly bush, and in a large plant bed that runs the length of the house along the East side.  It has also dug itself a shortcut underneath the fence between the West side lawn and the back yard.  Too much trouble to clamber up and over the thing, I guess. 

For a time there was a gopher tortoise that lived under the canoe that Brent keeps for his fossil hunting trips.  We took the canoe away one too many times, and he moved across the street to an empty, wooded lot.  I feel a little bit abandoned by this . . . I loved to watch him as he trundled about the lawn, eating mouthfuls of grass as he waundered. 

Back to Oops and Murphy—they are what is left of a four-some.  They bump about, doing their own thing for most of the day, sleeping in different corners.  But every once in a while, I catch them slumped over one another or face-to-face in a mutual you-wash-my-face-I’ll-wash-yours marathon.  Neither likes to be held or cuddled.  They will sit for half an hour if I sit beside their cage, reach my hand in, and rub their faces and ears.  The cats make up the difference, though.  Especially for Nathan—they sleep with him every night and spend a good chunk of the day sleeping on his bed when he’s away.  I think he likes that they prefer him and his space—even though he complains about waking up with a lump of cat holding him down.  

It is still raining quietly and steadily outside.  It is past 11p.m. and tomorrow beckons.  Tonight all is well in our home, our lives and our hearts.

Photos Before the Wedding--Libby, Brent, La, Rob, Lix and (of course) Charlie

Brent and his mom on the beach--November 2013

Brent, Meg, Libby on the beach, Juno Beach, FL

Megan Rytting, Libby Hendry, Lix Garcia

Charlie, Lauren, Rob and Lix at the Busch Wildlife Refuge

Lauren and Rob decorating for the reception.

I am late--last week was Rob and Lauren's one month anniversary.  I have been lazy about writing what's going on with the family.  Meg's children are growing so quickly--and Lauren's life has been turned around after meeting Rob at a Young Single Adults dance.  She is married now and the wife of a wonderful man.

She was talking on the phone yesterday and she said "This is Lauren Garcia."  It wasn't until then that I realized she was really and truly married.  I still think of her as Hendry--but then I have written Anton Hendry (instead of Rytting) on a letter I sent.  There are some things that will never change within my mind:  everyone will be a Hendry and a Wagstaff--no matter their given last names.

I even think of Lix, Rob's sister, as a Hendry.

Grandma Time With a Splash of a Cold

Megan's signature self portrait. 

Last week I was with my daughter and her family in Maryland.  One of the charms of her home is its proximity to extensive wooded areas and a small lake with wide paths around its shores.  I think that she and her husband decided to buy the home because of the natural areas--one path leading right past her tiny back yard--rather than because of the home itself.  

Lakeside view.  Greenbelt, MD.

Meg is a firm believer in "outside time."  When her two children are cranky or out-of-sorts, she does not park them in front of a movie--like 99% of the mothers I know--she packs them a snack and they go for a long walk.  

 

Megan Christina Rytting.

Her 4-year-old Jon has a Nature Box where he can keep anything that he finds outdoors.  During the walks we took, Jon would pick up cool looking rocks or leaves and tell us about them.  Then, in a tone that indicated he had deliberated carefully, he would announce that he was NOT taking the item home to put in his Nature Box.  

Megan would then respond "That's OK!  It's OK to pick up something and look at it and then put it back."  

Kate, two and a half years old, teething and with a cold.

During most of these walks, Kate was sick with a bad cough, runny nose and congestion--on top of having her last two molars coming in.  When she could breathe and wasn't coughing, she would chew on her fingers (sometimes gagging herself and then throwing up).  So Orajel was added to the routine and that, along with a little frozen hand chewy, made life a little more bearable.

On the first morning I was there, we went shopping.  Jon and Kate got to pick out a toy (Jon's was a monster truck and Kate's was a trio of small Hello Kittys, just the right size to fit into her hand.)  When Jon was not looking, I picked up a box that contained 5 small monster trucks.  He did see it after we had checked out--and even carried it home, worrying aloud the entire time who would get to have those trucks and if they belonged to everyone and when would we open them?

Jon with his new monster truck, Monster Mutt.

For Jon, coming surprises cause an internal agony, rather than a happy anticipation engendered in most of us.  Uncertainty in any form is  horrible--he is only content when he knows where everything is, knows who is going to be around him, and knows what is coming next.  

My own son Nathan shares that same characteristic.  For years the most important issue of the day was "What are we having for dinner tonight?"

My original reason for starting this essay was to explain where I got flowers for a Botany class I'm taking on line.  I found myself in Maryland during October--with no flowers at all around Megan's home.  

BUT!  Outside a restaurant we went to on my second night there, the grounds people had planted hedgerows of small, fragrant rose bushes.  I helped myself to a few of them--reassuring Meg that I didn't need to ask the restaurant for permission since they would have no idea who actually planted them.  The corporate owner's hired grounds keepers would have planted them, . . . and I rationalized that we were contributing to the financial coffers of the corporation by spending money for 4 at one of their renters . . . it would most probably not cause major problems for whoever was in charge if I snapped four of the tiny roses off of one bush.

I know, I know . . . if everyone took 4 roses, pretty soon there would be no roses at all . . . 

One of those philosophic issues that keeps me from picking flowers in national and state parks or from picking up a pebble of petrified wood from the ground when we were at the a petrified tree site near Florissant, Colorado.  It would also keep me from taking anything (but photographs) from a place like Stonehenge.

Anyway . . .

I had five wonderful days and now I have been home three days and am laying about in a gray fuzz because I have caught whatever flu or cold that Meg and her children had when I was there.

Thank goodness I am not teething, too.

Dinner Cooking

I haven't done any cooking in . . . well . . . I really can't remember when.  While we were at the store tonight, I was suddenly seized by the urge to beat Nathan to the weekly question "What's for dinner tomorrow?"

So . . . lasagna is cooking.

Tomorrow I am also planning to wear two of Megan's creations to Church.  They were attached to her Christmas present for her dad a few years ago.  Amazing children I have that spend such time and effort on a mere name tag.  

In Santo Domingo, I had a girlfriend who spent hours and hours on the package for any present she wanted to give.  For my birthday, she gave me a very nice pen suspended inside a glass soda bottle--which was wrapped from top to bottom in very thin cotton yarn--about the size of embroidery floss.  I kept the bottle for years. Of course I lost the pen within a few weeks.  

I usually don't do well with details. Major things like bleeding knees, burnt hamburgers, crying babies, rotting fruit in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator--I get these things and take care of them.  But the little things--like a hurt look when I've said something thoughtless—-birthday cards, Father’s Day cards, Thank you cards (all occasions that deserve recognition); I buy them, often even address and write in them, then forget to send them.  I miss the non-emergency, quiet signals that I should see and take care of.

There is actually a pile of Father’s Day cards that I bought for this year:  for my husband, my father, Brent’s father, the father of my grandchildren—cards for the kids to sign and send. 

I here honour and give thanks for those around me who do pay attention to the details.

And wear one of these symbols to Church today.

And try to become better at this by cooking dinner for the first time in a long time.

People, People, People: Eyes, Eyes, Eyes

This morning I am all alone in a house that has become accustomed to many people and lots of different schedules.  At the back of my head is the nagging tick that I have forgotten an appointment . . . or need to make an appointment.  I had my eyes lasered almost 10 years ago--after almost four decades of astigmatism and extreme short sightedness, I was able to see everything clearly.  My lifetime of hating the glasses whose hinges caught my hair and pulled it out; whose bridges slid down my teenager-oily nose; whose lenses needed constant, careful cleaning--REJOICE!--was over.

I didn't let the warning that at some point in the future I would need glasses again penetrate my accessible memory.  I think I do that with a lot of information.

Now, at 54, by the end of a day spent working on math, computer, reading--even watching TV--I cannot see anything clearly.  I go to bed with a fuzzy headache--that is gone the next morning--but that I know will be back soon.

If I could just spend the day outside:  weeding, planting, fussing over new seedlings, scolding the cats for eating my new seedlings, and standing by the pool, dripping, after becoming over-heated and flinging myself into the water to cool off . . . the fuzzy headaches wouldn't bother me.

Nathan saved his money and, when he was 21, got his vision laser corrected.  I talked to the doctor who took care of him--could he re-correct my vision?  Without even a careful look at my eyes, he answered that, no--he could not.

Megan and Lauren as pre-schoolers

Megan has never wanted to have her eyes changed in any way.  She is an artist and sees the world--its colours, shapes, perspectives--in a way that she can express with her hands.  After her first semester of college (Columbus College of Art and Design), she talked in a new, foreign language.  There was not just "colour."  There was hue, form, value, degree.  Her world had changed as she had learned a new vocabulary with which she could discuss it.  I tried my best to keep up--but I was not driven to master this new way of perceiving the visual impulses transmitted to my brain.  I have fallen far behind.

One thing puzzles me about Meg--she has a new home now with huge, high walls--and four years of fabulous creating, rendering, printing, painting--stacked in her closets.  Yet, her walls remain barren.  When I have my way, the walls of our home are covered--from side to side and top to bottom--with the artwork of Brent, Meg, Lauren, family and friends.  A few pieces are historical--the top panel off a seat cushion that my mom's mom made each of her daughters work on.  There is a plate from the mixed up set of odds and ends that my father's mom gave to my parents when they were first married:  the Correll of the 1950s.  One is an immense, framed oil colour that my mother's aunt (I think?) painted of the park by her apartment.

In our family room, I placed photographs of our family, Brent and me, solidly, with nary an inch between any of their frames.  My history and the recent history of each of my children--a constant reminder that I had accomplished something good in raising children who had become capable adults with talents and interests and lives of their own.  I loved this room's full walls.  Brent felt cramped by the clutter surrounding him.  After clearing everything off, filling the holes and painting over the evidence of my desecration of the space he preferred--he has declared that nothing will be hung on the walls until we get together and "decide what we want to hang up."

It took me a week and a half to get him to put up a clock.

Back to eyes--Lauren would have hers lasered in a moment.  Her contacts (the softest and newest available) give her problems.  At one point, I threatened that if I had to hear her complain about how her eyes hurt, then the contacts would go back to the doctor and I would only pay for glasses.  I think that they do still bother her--but she keeps it to herself.  I think that she keeps many other things to herself--that I wish she would feel free to speak about.  Old habits . . .

 The eyes of the future:  Kate (above) 
                              and Jon (below)