Back to School

Today was my first day back. Yesterday, I couldn't let myself contemplate the fact that it was the last of these halcyon days with the little one. But then, this morning, I was pleasantly surprised to recognize in myself a certain excitement about the start of a new school year. After having been in school as student or teacher for all these years, I think my spirit has harmonized to the rhythms of the academic calendar, particularly the fresh beginning of each fall, marked by fresh, crisp, clean books and pristine, neatly labeled binders.

Unfortunately, however, today wasn't about the courses I'm psyched to teach, or the wonderful students I can't wait to see; it was a faculty retreat which contained a diluted few drops of useful/interesting information. I could feel the excitement leaving my body. But temporarily, temporarily.

All of this made me think about how I don't want the first day of class to be all about attendance policies and grading procedures; I want it to be about the excitement that brings us to school at all. I'm relieved to find that I want to go back to school, and in the next few days, I want to think about why, and somehow incorporate that energy into the first meetings of my classes. If this job is worth being separated from my little girl (and we vote with our feet, right?), then surely I can get students to think it's worth taking the headphones off, signing out of Facebook, etc. Hmmm.

Cape May

Here are some of my favorite memories from this vacation:

What my mom says to Allison Clare: "You make Grammy laugh and laugh. You make me so happy!" My mom crept into the living room every morning like it was Christmas, eyes alight with the excitement of seeing the munchkin for the whole day.

Walking out of the house holding hands with Sam and knowing the munchkin was in good hands, my parents armed with rice cereal. Then, deciding to get lunch out on the spur of the moment and having the freedom to do so.

Listening to my mom play patty-cake with Allison Clare ("Patty-cake, patty-cake, baker's man! Bake me a cake as fast as you can! . . .") just like my grandmother did with me, and seeing the little one show her new teeth in big smiles in return.

Watching Sam and my dad work out my dad's computer questions.

UPDATE: Getting to celebrate Joan's fiftieth birthday with her in person! How serendipitous that our very good friends would happen to be vacationing in the same place at the same time, on one friend's birthday?

Putting Allison Clare's feet into the ocean for the first time. (Clearly not her favorite moment of the vacation, but one of mine.)

Seeing Gramps brighten on sight of his great-granddaughter. They were quite a pair: he needed something entertaining to watch while he relaxed in his chair, and she needed an appreciative audience for her jumping skills while she dangled in her Jumperoo. His most lucid moments this week were with her.

Morning People

For a while, it felt like we were leading a charmed life: Allison Clare slept for up to 14 1/2 hours at night. While she did wake up once or twice in the early morning, she went right back to sleep after eating and so essentially slept from about 7:00 or 7:30 p.m. until 9:00 or 9:30 a.m. Ah, it was glorious.

Unfortunately, those days appear to be over. My little early bird starts chirping at about 6:15 every morning now, and compounding matters, wants a feeding at about 3:30 a.m. I've considered working to eliminate that feeding the way we did before, but I don't think it's a good idea: she now goes to bed earlier, sometimes as early as 6:30 p.m., so she seems truly hungry by nine hours later. Also, that feeding lets me delay her first feeding of the day a little, which may mean I can feed her immediately before and after class most days, eliminating the need for bottles (more of a problem these days because I've lost the ability to pump).

All of which is to say, I now need to be asleep by the absurd hour of 9:30 p.m., if you subtract out the time for the middle-of-the-night feeding, in order to even hope to get enough sleep. The last time I regularly went to bed so early was probably elementary school--I am totally a night owl. And it's relentless--she has shown no observance of weekends, or the fact that we are ON VACATION, child! ;)

Gramps 2

Alzheimer's is brutal and frustrating, and perhaps the only way to live with it is to enjoy the amusing moments as they come. Yesterday morning, my grandfather emerged from his room to find my mother alone in the living room; I had gone to put Allison Clare down for a nap and Sam and my dad were elsewhere.

Gramps: "Where is everybody?"
Mom, breezily: "Oh, I don't know. I don't know where that baby is."
Gramps' mouth opened in an O of sudden concern: "They can't find her?"

R.I.P.

I firmly believe that as a person ages, his or her true character becomes even more evident. My maternal grandmother, who passed away three years ago last Saturday, was beloved to everyone who ever met her. As she got older, she grew more and more slender, her delicate bones becoming more prominent as her very flesh seemed to pass from solid to spirit. This sweet sublimation seemed to reflect a metaphysical process as well, for the essential frame of generosity and quiet faithfulness in her character also emerged ever more clearly.

I often wish that she could have lived to have seen Allison Clare, but then I wonder if perhaps they knew each other before Allison Clare was born. I imagine them sitting on a park bench together, holding hands, while my grandmother looks lovingly down at her and tells her, "When you go down there, be a good little girl and obey your mommy" because that's exactly the sort of thing she would have said. Be good, obey, wait, hope, trust, pray; this too shall pass.

We miss her all the time but look eagerly to the day when we will see her again.

Gramps

My grandfather, who is living temporarily with my parents, has also joined us on the family vacation. He has always been eminently cheerful; when meeting someone new, he would always grin broadly, extend a firm handshake, and introduce himself as "Chub." His childhood nickname, Chubby, has stuck with him even in old age. Though it's less and less accurate, it's a whimsical tribute to his younger self.

Gramps is in good physical health, but Alzheimer's has ravaged his vocabulary. Still, he manages to communicate, sometimes through resourceful substitutions. For example, this morning, the word "old" escaped him. Hence:

Gramps, thoughtfully: You know, me, I'm getting really . . . long.
Me: Yeah?
Gramps: Do you know how long I am?
My mom: 88?
Gramps: Yeah! [Reflects some more and comes to a satisfying conclusion, shaking his head with the pleasure of it.] You know, I'm really something!
Me: Are you?
Gramps: Do people live to be 100?
Me: A few people do, sometimes.
Gramps: Me, I think I'm going to make that.

Bag o'Tricks

My last post notwithstanding, I am solely responsible for two carefully assembled bags that must always be accessible: my Bag of Entertainments and my Snack Bag. In our drive thus far (5 hours), I have consumed:

• Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father (skimmed in preparation for a composition class in which I’m teaching it alongside John McCain’s Faith of My Fathers)
• Chicken sandwich from home
• ½ pt. blueberries
• Part of large bag of bing cherries
• ¼ canister of Pringles
• 1/2 slice of leftover birthday cake
• venti decaf nonfat raspberry mocha

It is a longstanding family tradition to have chicken sandwiches on the way to vacation. My mom used to cook a chicken and pack delicious sandwiches, lightly salted, with fresh Italian bread, crisp lettuce, and a touch of mayonnaise. We would eat them at scenically placed picnic tables along our route to Vermont, and then take a short walk where my parents would urge my sister and me to “get [our] stink blown off,” which I now understand to mean “run around and tire yourselves out” for the rest of the drive up to the cabin my parents rented.

As I think about it, several of our vacation traditions revolved around food, unsurprisingly. In particular, in our vacation grocery shopping trip, I got to pick out any cereal I wanted, no matter how sugary. I still remember standing in the cereal aisle, boggled by my sudden liberation into the world of choices beyond our usual Cheerios and Rice Krispies.

Our one non-food-related tradition was ABBA driving music, but sad to say, there’s none on Sam’s iPod . . . yet.

Vacation

We are headed to Cape May, where my parents have generously offered to host us in the house they've rented, a clever (if transparent) ploy to lure their grandchild's keepers to New Jersey. As I was stumbling around the house, rather groggy due to my baby's recent decision that 5:00 a.m. is our new daily happy hour--free drinks on the house! live entertainment!--Sam innocently asked me to help him remember to mail out our bill payments in the morning before we head out of town.

In my blindingly exhausted state, I felt this request was simply too much to ask, particularly as I have assumed the role of valet for the munchkin and have been laundering and assembling her belongings all night for the 8 day trip. I explained that I simply could not be responsible for one more thing, and Sam quickly said to forget about it, it wasn't important, he could do it himself. But with a quizzical expression, he wondered what I meant about packing all of her stuff: "It's just her clothes and diapers, right?"

Yes. Of course, the simple category of "clothes and diapers" means: onesies, long and short-sleeved t-shirts, long pants, pjs, going-out outfits including a couple of dresses her grandparents gave her, jacket, socks and shoes, bibs, sunhat, beach cover, disposable diapers for travel, and swim diapers.

Plus: wipes, sling, bottles with nipples of the appropriate flow for her age, pacifier for when she's with her grandparents, her favorite pink puppy, pump and accoutrements, rice cereal, rubber baby spoon, infant Tylenol and Orajel because she's teething, infant sunscreen, sunhat, burp cloths, blankets and linens, baby monitor, and baby seat. (And of course, her bassinet, Jumperoo, and stroller, which Sam had already loaded into the truck.)

And our snacks and beach towels, and my clothes/shoes/accessories/toiletries. And work stuff, laptop, and magazines/books.

I need a vacation just to recover from packing.

News Briefs and More

Yesterday morning, Allison Clare was gnawing on my hand--as usual--and I felt something distinctly unusual . . . her first tooth! Goodbye, gummy grins. You were the best.

Someone I only met once (and under less-than-ideal social circumstances) has just asked me to be her Facebook friend. Thus far my Facebook friends are all people that I actually know and/or like. Does ignoring her request make me a Facebook snob? I don't know, but she does have over 500 other Facebook friends, so I don't think she'll be lonely while I figure it out.

Sam's birthday was on Monday, and I had thought of writing out some of the reasons why I love him, or detailing the ways he's made the past 21 months the most joyous of my life. But I settled for making his favorite meatloaf, baking a Greek lemon cake, and getting a babysitter and tickets to The Dark Knight. Which was not at all romantic, but still fun.

Yes, I said, "favorite meatloaf." Telling, no?

Is It Just Me?

Technology Is Ruining My Life

Well, not really. But I do feel I'm being robbed of certain joys by the sinister combination of the ease of Google search and my own morbid curiosity about the nutritional information of foods I enjoy. I've just had my suspicions confirmed that cola consumption is linked to osteoporosis, and my feeble hopes dashed in the part that says this holds even when one drinks plenty of milk. And to Sam's dismay, I searched for nutritional information on his favorite restaurant earlier this week, and made some shocking discoveries.

Malted chocolate milkshake: 1000 calories, 30 g. fat.
Burger with fries: 1200 calories, 66 g. fat.
Crispy chicken salad with fries: 1700 calories, 104 g. fat.

Cracker Barrel doesn't even publish their nutritional information. They just flatly refuse, so you know it can't be good.

Travel Memories

This summer, we had an easy time deciding to stay home for most of the summer to catch up on backlogged schoolwork and house projects, including Sam's massive re-landscaping of my old house and the new one. He and a student filled two 15-yard dumpsters with tree clippings, shrubs removed, and assorted detritus from the previous owners of both houses. With all that accomplished, we're glad to have been here all summer.

Still, now that we're so ensconced in home, we're all the more glad to had the opportunity to travel so adventurously last summer. Even though it's been a year and is not exactly news, I thought I might indulge myself in a little photo-reminiscence.

We were gone for about 8 weeks, arriving in Shannon, Ireland, and passing through Dublin, London, Paris, Provence, Nice, the Cinque Terre, Florence, Rome, Brindisi, Korinth, Athens, Naufplio, Bari, Naples, Sorrento, Milan, and then Paris, London, Dublin, and Shannon again (we had originally intended to see some different cities on the return trip, but we changed plans in order to get back to the U.S. because we had by then discovered a little stowaway).

I decided not to take pictures systematically on the trip because we were going to see so much, and so many sights that have been recorded by much better photographers whose work is readily available. So my pictures are mostly just of assorted views that caught my eye as pretty--picturesque, even--or representative in some way.

We traveled through Provence hosted by some gracious, generous friends, who took us to see the ruins of a Roman settlement. (I have learned that when traveling with an archaeologist, one spends lots of time looking at things that are no longer there. ) There was (extant!) a really pretty old church:

I love the narrow, old streets of Europe. This photo is also from Provence:

Lemon trees alongside the apartment building where we stayed in Riomaggiore, one of the Cinque Terre towns:

The stone staircase leading to our apartment, which appeared to be carved into the hillside:
The view from our window:

Rome, the walk through the Vatican Museum to the Sistine Chapel:
Olive trees in Naufplio, my favorite city in Greece:
Fort in Naufplio, built by the Venetians:Naufplio streets:
This picture was taken on one of our last nights in Korinth. It was the night we discovered that I was pregnant. See that sun? It's setting on our freedom (heh-heh). ;)