Lessons From This School Year

As I sit at my computer to write this, there is exactly one more week of school in Addison County; when this column appears, my daughters will have been on summer vacation for approximately 15 hours. Between now and then there are picnics and potlucks and packing up. My oldest daughter’s Kindergarten will have “Move Up Day,” when she will meet her new First Grade teacher. My second daughter will participate in a preschool graduation ceremony, during which we will celebrate her ability to play, do crafts, and sit in a circle for 15 minutes. (Really, I see no need to continue her education.)

This year — our first in the Addison County public school system — has been a wonderful school year for our family. In August, we’ll send two daughters to public school, while their younger sister begins preschool; we’ve gotten our toes wet, and soon we’ll be wading in deep. So now seems like a good time to reflect on the valuable lessons our family has learned this school year.

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

The Bugs Are Back!

A little less than a month ago, in early May, it finally felt safe to declare Addison County in a state of full-blown spring. All the signs were there: we’d stopped burning wood in the stove at night, we’d cut our getting-out-the-door time in half by omitting hats and gloves and boots (and sometimes even coats!), we’d hung the hammock and put the potted plants back outside, and we’d replaced the screens on the doors and windows. Whenever we returned home from errands or school, our daughters raced from the minivan right into the yard to blow bubbles, climb rocks, chalk the walkway, ride bikes — and even, one glorious afternoon, frolic on the Slip-n-Slide.

For a full week, our family reveled in the renewal of our outdoor paradise. Then, one afternoon, I noticed that small, black things were flying around my head. As I waved them away with my hands, I saw that my daughters were also flailing their arms in front of their faces. And then, I felt that old, familiar pinch; heard that old, familiar buzzzzz — along with my daughters’ shrieks as they raced for the house.

Oh yeah, THAT.

Click here to continue reading about our springtime visitors to Vermont in my latest “Faith in Vermont” column for The Addison Indpendent.

Teaching Our Kids to Cheer

A couple of weeks ago, our phone rang right after dinner. On the other end was a voice belonging to a 7-year-old boy we know.

“I was wondering if you could come to my baseball game this Friday?” he asked.

He’d recently started practicing with our town’s Little League baseball team, the Middlebury Meteors. That Friday they’d be playing their first game, against the Cornwall Cougars.

When a 7-year-old asks you to attend his first baseball game, you go to the game.

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column for The Addison Independent.

An Ode to Bag Balm

I read somewhere that the best way to tell a person’s true age is to look at their hands. Thanks to the intersection of our vanity with innovations in technology and medicine, it’s now possible to camouflage signs of age in the body, face, hair, and teeth. But as far as I know, not much can be done about wrinkled, mottled, vein—y hands.

Hands may just be the real Picture of Dorian Grey.

According to my hands, I am roughly 102 years old. I imagine that if, somehow, Mt. Mansfield were to erupt today, and my body was preserved, Pompeii-style, in ash, the future archaeologists who unearthed me would say: “Well, according to the hands on this one, she lived a long, hard life. It also appears that, at some point, she was attacked at high speeds by a stack of crisp paper, and she defended herself using only her hands.”

Click here to continue reading my “Faith in Vermont” column for The Addison Independent, and discover my hand-care solution!

Minibury Guest Post: Meet the Parent!

Okay, more new and exciting things are happening over here! Feels like spring!

Right around the time we moved to Middlebury, a local mom named Eliza started a website/blog called Minibury. Minibury has quickly become the go-to site for local parents. It pulls together everything you need to navigate central Vermont with kids: activities, camps, announcements, parenting resources, and more.

Eliza is now on maternity leave with her third child, so I’ll be doing some guest-posting for Minibury over the next couple of months. I decided to start a mini-series called “Meet the Parent!” as a way of introducing local parents and giving them a platform to share their own experiences. (This should be a nice break for regular readers, because — for a change — you don’t have to hear about my own experiences and opinions!)

First up is one of my newest friends, Julie Barry. Meet Julie here! You’ll be glad you did.

Meeting Your Meat

*A cuteness bonanza. (Photo by Fiona Gong)*

Last month, we loaded our four daughters into the minivan on a Sunday afternoon and drove to Duclos & Thompson Farm in Weybridge to see the new lambs and piglets.

This was our first time at the Duclos & Thompson open barn, an event that for many local families is an annual sign of spring — much like the appearance of sap buckets on the maple trees, or red-breasted robins, or removing your snow tires. Like those other rites of spring, it’s quite possible that the new lambs and piglets will arrive when there’s still snow on the ground; that March weekend, there was a mountain of snow next to the Duclos & Thompson barn that served as a secondary diversion for all the children present.

The primary attraction, of course, was inside the barn: lambs! Two floors worth of black and white lambs sleeping, eating, frolicking, and climbing atop the bigger sheep. So many lambs, plus a little pile of piglets nursing on their mama. It was a cuteness bonanza.

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column for The Addison Independent.

Use Side Entrance

In two weeks, my parents will move to Vermont from the town in Northern Virginia where I grew up, their home for 37 years.

More on that later; for today all you need to know is their new front door in Vermont needs work. Everyone – the real estate agent, the sellers, the contractors they consulted – agreed that the door should be repainted or replaced, and that the doorstep needs to be repaired.

My parents told me about the front door as they were listing all of the work to be done on their new Vermont house, which isn’t really “new” at all; it’s a 1928 beauty that requires the kind of upkeep you’d expect of an 86-year-0ld house. But when they mentioned the front door, I said, “Don’t worry too much about that; nobody’s going to be coming through your front door, anyway.”

Click here to find out why in my latest “Faith in Vermont” column for The Addison Independent.

Local Politics: House of…Cushions?

*“How do you feel about year-round school?”*

My husband and I have been enjoying “House of Cards,” the Netflix political drama starring Kevin Spacey as Frank Underwood, the ruthless, manipulative House Majority Whip turned Vice President, and Robin Wright as his equally manipulative wife, Claire. According to this series, there are no redeeming characters inside the Beltway. Washington politics is a series of dirty backroom dealings in which everyone uses everyone else; even people who appear sympathetic are just playing nice to get their own way.

With my political education up-to-date by way of television, I felt totally prepared for last week’s Town Meeting Day.

Click here to continue reading about local Vermont politics, as seen through the lens of “House of Cards,” in my latest “Faith in Vermont” column for The Addison Independent.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

The other day, I took my four-year-old daughter on a long-overdue “Mommy Date” to spend her birthday money at Ben Franklin. (Long-overdue because her birthday was in July, which is what happens when you’re the second child of four). After our shopping trip, we stopped by Otter Creek Bakery for cookies. As I stood at the counter to order, my daughter sat at a table playing happily with the unicorn figurine she’d just bought.

“Mommy,” she called to me across the VERY crowded bakery, “guess what? This unicorn’s a girl!”

“Really? That’s great!” I answered vaguely. The two older ladies at the next table beamed over at her.

“YES!” she yelled back, “I could tell because she doesn’t have a [insert term for male anatomy here]!”

The entire bakery went silent. Then the guffaws started and I thought – not for the first time – That’s it; now we have to move.

Continue reading in this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Scenes From A Snow Day

It’s snowing again as I write this, which means it’s now been snowing for over 24 hours. I’m not sure of the total accumulation from this Valentine’s Day storm; looks like there’s over a foot on the picnic table, and that’s on top of several inches that we already had on the ground.

I love the snow. Our first two winters in Vermont were uncharacteristically mild. This has been a more “typical” winter (if there is such a thing), and I’ll take it. In my opinion, cold is much more tolerable if there’s snow to play in. Plus, it’s so beautiful. Whenever it starts snowing, I’m like a kid again — looking out the window, hoping for maximum accumulation, rooting for a snow day.

Except that lately I don’t root for snow days.

Today is a snow day.

It’s a snow day, and it’s Valentine’s Day, and it’s Friday, and next week is Winter Break. Which makes this the first of ten straight days of having all my kids at home.

My two oldest daughters recently went to see the new animated Disney film, Frozen. This was a BIG DEAL because it was the first movie they’d ever seen in a theater. (Our town’s little movie theater has only two screens, so there aren’t a lot of kid-friendly choices). They loved everything about the movie and the experience.

I mention this because today — this snow day — I feel like my life has become the Frozen movie. There’s the seemingly endless snow; this time of year, it’s easy to imagine eternal winter. There’s my oldest daughter, who’s been vamping around singing the movie’s Big Hit, “Let It Go” all morning long. (Note to self: Apologize to my family, who endured me belting out “Memory” from Cats for an entire year all those decades ago. There’s nothing worse than a six-year-old attempting a power ballad). Also: there’s the fighting sisters. Throw in a couple of trolls, and that’s basically the movie.

Then again, maybe I’m the troll.

I’ve said this before, but I can’t relate when I see other parents post on Facebook that they’re thrilled when there’s a snow day because they get to spend all that extra time snuggling with their kids and playing in the snow and baking and crafting. I think those are lovely sentiments, and I know that some parents genuinely feel that way. But I don’t, and I feel badly that I don’t.

After I got the snow day call from the school district, I posted a slightly snarky comment on Facebook about how the kids would be in school until July if these snow days kept up. Some people interpreted that to mean that I considered it a bad thing that school would run into July, as in: “Don’t steal my precious summer vacation time with the kids!” On the contrary, making up snow days on the other end is the payoff, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll take all the school I can get!

I love being a parent (most of the time). And I LOVE my children. Honestly? I just don’t love them all together, all day long. It’s challenging to be an introvert with four children. I’m aware that we “chose” to have four kids, and thus are responsible for spending time with them. Perhaps someday I’ll genuinely look forward to snow days and weekends and summer and school holidays; maybe when the kids get older and aren’t constantly underfoot, or can put on their own snow boots.

Here are some scenes from our snow day:

-One daughter had a tantrum at breakfast because the blueberry pancakes her father had made didn’t include chocolate chips.

-One daughter proclaimed it “The worst Valentine’s Day ever!” and pouted for an hour because I didn’t praise her quick teeth-brushing.

-Erick left for work. (The college didn’t have a snow day; the students — i.e. tuition-payers — can all walk to class). He had to dig his car out at the bottom of our driveway, but he made it.

-Once we got those fires under control, we resumed our regular routine, in which I fielded nonstop, rotating requests from all four daughters (non-verbal, in Abigail’s case).

-I tried, unsuccessfully, to interest the girls in Valentine’s Day crafts.

-Mid-morning, I attempted a baking project, like a good mother: The three oldest girls helped me make pink buttercream frosting to decorate our Valentine’s Day cupcakes. This entailed ten minutes of heart-stopping chaos: each girl demanding a turn with the hand mixer, confectioner’s sugar spilled on the floor and me, Georgia eating frosting by the spoonful, and sprinkles everywhere. (Did I mention I was holding a baby the entire time?) They loved it; I needed a nap.

-Naptime! I put all three big girls on the floor of their room in their sleeping bags, and allowed them to watch the entire DVD of The Lorax.

During my 86 minutes of naptime quiet, I sat at my computer and was reminded that my Valentine’s Day blog post had just published. I was reminded that, in this blog post, I wrote that love usually means doing things that you don’t want to do; dying to yourself on behalf of the ones you love. I realized that this snow day had asked for that kind of love from me, and I’d been pretty trollish about it.

Easy to write, hard to do.

After naptime, a friend and mother of two who lives down the street invited all of us — the four girls and me — to go sledding on their hill. So we all bundled up and went out to play in fluffy snow that came up to my knees. And then, this friend invited us all into her house for hot chocolate. Six children and two parents; can you even imagine what her mudroom looked like after we’d all disrobed and tromped through it??? THAT is love. And on this day, when I’d been so grumpy with my own love, it was also grace.