If you set foot in Vermont these days, within 5 minutes somebody’s going to warn you about the ticks.
According to everyone — my friends and neighbors, the local papers, the town website — 2012 is going to be the Year of the Tick. Tickageddon. Tickpocalypse.
But don’t panic or anything.
Here’s the story: Deer ticks, which notoriously can carry Lyme disease, have been steadily spreading northward in recent years. These ticks used to be rare in Vermont; one of my neighbors, who grew up here 50 years ago, says she never saw a tick as a child. (This weekend, she picked three off herself after working in her yard). But now the deer tick population is exploding — and with it, the incidence of Lyme disease in Vermont. In 2000, the Vermont Department of Health recorded just 40 cases of Lyme in the state; by 2011, that number was topping 500.
There are several possible explanations for the tick-festation. It seems that a bumper crop of acorns in 2010 caused an increase in the population of white-footed mice, which carry deer ticks. But this year the acorn crop didn’t do very well, the white-footed mice population declined, and a lot of hungry ticks are looking for somebody else to munch. Another theory is that the unseasonably warm winter of 2011-12 allowed the ticks more time to breed and find hosts. OR it could be due to an increase in the deer population as a result of the reforestation of Vermont’s agricultural land.
Whatever the reason, the Big News in Vermont is that the ticks are on the march, they’re hungry, and an estimated 20% of them carry Lyme disease.
All of which has certainly gotten my husband’s attention. You don’t read much about Erick here, mostly because he’s the most normal of the five of us, which makes for less entertaining stories. BUT, when it comes to the health and safety of his family, Erick becomes what some might call…”obsessive.” (Which is probably a good way to be). So, he’s been emailing me links to informational websites and videos, we’ve stocked up on Deep Woods OFF and Skin So Soft, we’ve purchased “The #1 Tick Remover in the World,” and every single night he does a thorough tick check on each of our girls. (They’ve taken to calling it “a tickle check.”)
By the way, these ticks that we’re checking for are about the size of a sesame seed, and can latch on to any part of the body.
We felt like the clock was…ticking. We live in the woods. I do yardwork in the same area where my neighbor was jumped by three ticks. The girls are outside much of the time now that the weather is warmer. We’ve even received a late night phone call after returning from a cookout, informing us that two other attendees found ticks on themselves.
And then, just last week, we pulled our first tick of the season off of the back of Fiona’s head.
In some ways, it was a relief: we could finally lose that fearful expectation of the inevitable. It’s like in horror films, where the scare itself is less frightening than the anticipation of the scare. At least when we finally found a tick, we knew that we could spot the things. Now, we just have to watch Fiona for flu-like symptoms over the next month. In the meantime, I keep telling myself what I told our girls when I sat them down for a “tick talk:” “We shouldn’t be scared, we just have to be smart.”
It’s a rough world out there, I tell you. I mean, just last month our governor was charged by a bear. Life in these woods is teaching us that nature is beautiful, and difficult. But then, to quote my ever-vigilant husband, “Feeling safe all the time probably isn’t good for your soul.”
I have a little piece over at On The Willows today, about some of the amazing women I’ve met this year in Vermont. Click here to read it.
And yes, we do still have three daughters. I know you haven’t seen them in a while. Here’s confirmation that they still exist, as feisty as ever. Especially Georgia.
Current reality: we live at the foot of Vermont’s Green Mountains. Whenever we look out our front windows, walk out our front door, or drive home, we see the mountains.
The Green Mountains, seen from our front yard.
True confession: I’ve never been much of a mountain person.
It’s not that I actively dislike mountains, it’s just that for most of my life they haven’t been the scenery that most fills me with awe, inspiration, or deep thoughts about life. I’ve never said, “Boy, I’m feeling pretty wrung out. I think I’ll head to the mountains for some restoration!”
No, that would be the ocean for me. Maybe I’m lazy when it comes to awe, inspiration, and deep thoughts, but I’ll take the ocean every time. The ocean is powerful; it’s in constant motion, crashing onto land and grinding everything in its path to sand, just as it’s done without pause for millenia. Talk about awe: try standing on a beach watching the waves break, hearing the roar of the water, and thinking about how vast all that ocean is, and how deep! Then, for inspiration and restoration, nothing beats a walk along the beach. It’s so flat, so easily traversed, you could walk forever (as long as you don’t hit a gated condominium complex) — free foot exfoliation included. Added bonus: because of the breeze off the ocean, there are usually no bugs.
Now, let’s take the mountains. They may be strong and solid, but they just sit there and stare. They’ve sat for millenia, like sleeping bullfrogs in the sun. The Green Mountains, which have been weathered down so that their highest peak (Mt. Mansfield) is only 4,380 feet, especially look like squat, lumpy bullfrogs. Not exactly awe inspiring; the first time he saw them, Erick said, “I see the foothills, but where are the mountains?” That’s because he’s from Northern California, which does boast some pretty impressive mountains: the Sierra Nevada. But even those mountains never inspired awe in me so much as fear; they’re so harsh and steep and forbidding, all I can think about driving through the Sierras is the Donner Party and whether I’d eat somebody else for survival.
The other thing about mountains is that, to really experience them, you have to climb them, which is a lot of hard work. Not much time for reflection or inspiration when you’re huffing and puffing and trying not to roll down. All that work so you can reach the summit and look around — but I’ve never been a big fan of heights. And mountains usually host lots of bugs: ticks, mosquitoes, and any number of other annoying, buzzing, stinging insects.
To sum it up, my impression was always that you go to the ocean to feel small. How else could you feel next to that immense pounding, crashing, noisy motion? On the other hand, it always seemed to me that you go to the mountains to feel big. You climb a mountain, it doesn’t fight back or even move, but you earn a sense of victory; when you look down from the summit, you get to feel like God.
I’d generally rather feel small than big, so I’ve never been much of a mountain person.
Which is funny, because when I left my childhood home (in a flat, flat suburb), it was to attend college in Massachusetts’s Berkshire Mountains. A college that had as its alma mater song a little ditty called “The Mountains” (“The mountains! the mountains! we greet them with a song….”) My maternal grandmother’s favorite Psalm, read at her funeral, was Psalm 121, which begins: “I lift my eyes up to the hills — where does my help come from?” and which has been set to music as a song called “I Lift My Eyes Up To The Mountains” — a song that I’ve sung at every church I’ve attended. In New York City, we lived in a 28th floor apartment. We then moved to Berkeley, which has a landscape dominated by the Pacific Coast hill range (the “Berkeley Hills”) along its eastern border. And now we live at the foot of the Green Mountains. Rather than the ocean, it’s mountains, hills, and heights that have chased me throughout my adult life. And mostly I’ve shrugged and thought, “Meh.”
But since I’ve been staring at the mountains for almost a year now, I thought I should probably write about them. And you know, it’s pretty daunting to write anything in this age of the internet, because I could probably Google any topic and find 1,895,947 people who’ve written down my exact thoughts, only better. Clearly, I had to take a walk. So I walked around our house, and looked up at the mountains, and said, “Okay, mountains, gimme something. Anything.”
They just sat there and stared.
Our drive home, towards the Green Mountains.
It took me a minute, but then I realized that that was the answer. I saw the mountains like I’d never seen them before. These Green Mountains, they extend 280 miles through Vermont, but they’re part of the Appalachian Mountain range, which was formed about 480 million years ago. They were once among the tallest mountains in the world, until time wore them down to their current rounded form. The Green Mountains support a dense boreal forest that withstands harsh winters, which is why they can honestly be called “green” year-round. In other words, these mountains are survivors. They don’t need to show off, or move, or make noise (although I have found that on nights when the wind races down them, the roar rivals any ocean). They’re so humble, they let you climb all over them. All they need to do is sit there, and we can turn our eyes to them for help because in their massive silence they say: “Whatever it is that you’re going through, we’ve seen it. We’ve survived four hundred million years of wind, rain, snow, and sun, and we’re still here. We’re weathered, but we’re still here.”
When I saw the mountains this way, I finally felt small — small in the best, most comforting sense, like a little child who crawls into a parent’s arms and knows it’ll be okay. The ocean, I realized, is like life: it beats and batters without stopping. But the mountains, they’re US.
Although they’re obsessed with the Disney princesses, our daughters have not yet watched any Disney movies — nor will they until I’m totally convinced that their active imaginations are tough enough so that watching these movies won’t result in weeks of sleepless nights. So far, the girls have acknowledged that they’re not ready for Disney movies; they “get the shivers” just from reading the companion books. Because the Disney stories are scary. There’s the vain queen in Snow White who transforms herself into a poisoned apple-hawking crone; the vengeful fairy Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty who goes down fighting as a fire-breathing dragon; the tentacled and power grubbing Ursula who ends up impaled on a ship in The Little Mermaid; the sinister lion Scar in The Lion King who speaks with the voice of Jeremy Irons.
But in my opinion, the sickest minds at Disney were the ones that dreamed up Cinderella. Here we have a heroine who sleeps with mice. Not only that, she makes them little clothes, sings to them, and lets them help her get dressed in the morning. And we’re supposed to find this CHARMING?!?
It’s not just Disney; have you ever noticed how many children’s book protagonists are mice? There’s Stuart Little and various Beatrix Potter characters and Angelina Ballerina. Don’t even get me started on Kevin Henkes; he writes brilliantly sensitive children’s books like Sheila Rae, The Brave and Wemberly Worried and Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse, but every single one of his characters is a mouse. And then there’s If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, which I admit I did write about fondly in this blog. But let’s stand back a minute and consider what really happens if you give a mouse a cookie. He doesn’t ask for a glass of milk to go with it, that’s for sure; ooooh no, he’ll build a nest in your roof, have tons of babies, and poop all over your house.
So, I have this little problem with mice. I’ve tiptoed around it here for a while, because I’m basically a happy person, and we’re basically a happy family, and we’re basically thrilled to be living in Vermont, and I want this blog to reflect that. But I’m feeling like today is a down & dirty honest day, so I’ll just say it: hands-down, the WORST thing about our move to Vermont is that there are mice here. Lots and lots of mice.
“But Faith,” you might say, “you live in the WOODS. Surely you expected mice.” Actually, I didn’t. Up until this year I had shockingly little experience with mice. I grew up deep in suburbia, and the first time I saw an actual mouse I was about 8 years old. That experience is burned deep into my memory, and has influenced all of my subsequent dealings with mice.
I was visiting my three cousins in New Hampshire. We were riding bikes up and down their street when I looked down and saw it: a dead mouse, right there on the asphalt. Since this was the first actual mouse I’d ever seen, I mentioned it to my two older cousins. Sensing I was shaken, they decided to have a little fun with me, not knowing that it would scar me for life.
“Hey, guys, did you see that dead mouse back there?” I asked, trying to be casual.
“Yeah,” answered Michael, “I saw you run right over it.”
“WHAT?!? No I didn’t!”
“I don’t know,” teased Martha, “I saw a tire track running right down its stomach.”
When you’re 8 years old, that’s all it takes. I lay awake all night, picturing the flattened mouse with a tire track running down its stomach. By morning, I was not only terrified of mice, but I was convinced that the only thing worse than a live mouse is a DEAD mouse.
Flash forward a couple of decades: we moved into our Vermont “dream house” to find that the previous occupants, the elderly couple who built the house, either didn’t realize or didn’t care that they had a massive mouse situation. We found droppings everywhere; I spent the first couple of months here in a permanent stoop, scanning the floorboards for fresh mouse doo. Worse than that was the nightly tap dance over our heads. Our house is constructed in what’s known as “post-and-beam” style, which means that there’s lots of exposed wood. There’s also no attic over the main part of the house, so in our master bedroom we have a steeply-pitched exposed wood ceiling that is the underside of the roof. Basically, it acts like an amplifier for whatever is running around on the roof; our first night in this house, it sounded like mice the size of elephants were about to burst through the ceiling right over our heads.
As in any marriage, ours functions based on a system of roles and duties. In our case, I will raise the children, cook the meals, clean the house, tend the yard, and fix leaky faucets, but I will NOT do mice. Thankfully, Erick has embraced his role as household exterminator. He began by doing what he usually does when faced with a challenge: research. This led him to what he swears are the most amazing mousetraps in history: T-rex Snap Traps. We have about 50 of these traps strategically placed around our house. Erick does both the setting and the disposing, since the only thing worse than a live mouse is a dead mouse. The first time he prepared to empty some traps, he wore: rubber gloves, a face mask, goggles, and — I’m not kidding — a hard hat. I’m not quite sure what he was expecting from the dead mice, but since I would’ve required a full hazmat suit, I really couldn’t laugh at him. (Too hard).
Between these traps and some bait stations outside our house, the mice are mostly under control. But about a month ago, I looked out our front window to see a dead mouse. A dead mouse right on our front lawn, just a couple of feet from the house. I mentioned it to Erick, but such is the life of a first-year professor that he promptly forgot all about it, and I didn’t have the heart to nag him. I decided the time had come to face my fear and take responsibility for the dead mouse myself, like a big girl.
And then it rained, and then it snowed. The mouse was covered up for a couple of days, but when the snow melted it was still there, looking a little bit squishier and worse for wear. Scooping it up with a shovel no longer seemed like a good idea. At this point, I figured it was best to take the natural route, and let the mouse become one with our lawn. Free fertilizer, so to speak.
The problem was that the mouse refused to become topsoil as quickly as I’d hoped. Whether some freeze-drying had occurred due to the snowfall, I don’t know, but every morning I’d look out the window and it was still there. I cursed the high standards of the dozens of owls that live in our yard: What’s wrong with a slightly aged mouse corpse, owls?
One thing was for sure: as the weather turned warmer and our girls started playing outside again, I didn’t want them to be scarred for life by the sight of a dead mouse, the way I had been. (Or, worse, to step on it and track dead mouse germs into our house). So, one naptime, I got the shovel, took a large scoop of mulch from our mulch pile, and, standing a mere 3 feet from that mouse, threw the mulch on top of it. For good measure, I tossed on a few dry leaves. A burial, of sorts. I felt very brave, and very innovative.
Until the other weekend, when the girls were tearing around our yard with a couple of friends. They knocked on the front door to request more snacks, and when I opened the door: THERE WAS THAT DANG MOUSE. AGAIN. Somebody must’ve kicked over my burial mound, and the scraggly mouse corpse was lying exposed in the sunlight, like my fear staring me in the face.
I did the only thing I could do, the thing I should’ve done weeks before: I called for Erick. He took a plastic bag and went outside (minus his mouse-fighting gear — so brave), and within minutes the whole ordeal was behind me.
I guess no matter how grown up you are, there will always be some things that you never grow up from.
Just as I struggled with whether to post the expected-and-cliched-yet-still-gorgeous fall foliage photos this past autumn, I had a REALLY HARD TIME deciding whether to write the inevitable post about spring in Vermont. I’m not sure why this is such a hurdle for me; it’s not like anybody who visits this site is expecting edgy, heavy-hitting reportage. But I love to write, I try to write what I hope will be new and fresh things, and it’s SO difficult to come up with anything about spring that doesn’t sound like a Hallmark card.
You know: spring at the end of a long winter, new life, rebirth, trees budding, flowers blooming, the spirit awakening. Blah blah blah.
But…
IT’S ALL TRUE! AND SPRING IS HERE! IT’S FINALLY HERE! AND IT’S WONDERFUL!!!!! YEEEE-HAAAAAW!
All done. Thank you.
So, clearly, since I’ve already typed 130 words, I’m going to go ahead and tackle spring. Because life is so much about the weather, and this blog is about life, ergo: spring.
The interesting thing I’ve noticed about spring this year is that it seems to be more sensory than meteorological. It’s surprised me just how happy we’ve ALL been to see spring come, because we never really had a winter. But even though the weather itself may not be as dramatically different as it will be in future years, you still feel the difference in all of your senses. Spring is there in the quality of the light, the smells in the air, the feeling of the earth under your feet. And for the first time — bear with me here — I really can feel the season change flowing through my veins, like my own sap is finally thawed. No kidding. I guess that’s why they call it “spring fever.”
On one of the first days that felt like Spring — an unseasonably warm Wednesday in early March — Fiona’s preschool class took a long walk across the Middlebury River and into the woods, searching for “signs of spring.” (I love that the “signs of spring” she told us about later included “maple syrup buckets.” It’s true: here in Vermont, early spring is sugaring season, and the syrup collecting buckets are latched on to maple trees everywhere). Here are a few other “signs of spring” in our Vermont life:
–We’re back at the park! Unlike in the Bay Area, where we could go to the playground year-round, in Vermont the playground is a seasonal thing. Although the best playground in town is just down the street from us, the last time we were able to go there was in October. This past month, we’ve been back! And, let me tell you, it’s GREAT to have another activity to rotate in with our tired winter options.
At the park. (Yes, someone created a little "bonfire pit" under the play structure. I want to say "Only in Vermont," but I'm not sure).
-Facial hair is disappearing! Another seasonal thing in these parts: facial hair. Aside from my husband, who is physically unable to grow a beard due to a follicular condition called, I believe, “Asian-ness,” many Vermont men sport full beards starting in November. But there must have been some sort of grooming memo sent out over the past few weeks, because all of a sudden, the beards are gone.
Some of the first "Creemees" of the season. Note that Fiona has graduated to a cone -- that's a Big Deal.
–Some days, we don’t wear coats! I still keep our coats piled in the back seat, because you never know when the temperature is going to suddenly drop below 50. And I’ve not yet made the drastic move of switching over our mudroom gear to spring/summer attire. Vermont spring is a season with an identity crisis — it’s kind of like the brunch of seasons, as I have to explain to the girls when they want to wear flip flops on chilly, drizzly days “because it was HOT yesterday!” BUT there have been days when the girls went outside with no coats AND bare legs!
Look Mom, no coats!
–The gulls are migrating! I’m not much of a birder, so a bird has to be pretty large and loud for me to notice their migration. I noticed the geese in the fall. Now, it’s the seagulls. I first noticed the gulls one weekend when I took a solo grocery shopping trip. I heard them before I saw them; as I stepped out of the car, I actually wondered, “WHY are my daughters running around in the parking lot?” I peered around the other cars, and that’s when I saw them: not my daughters, but an entire empty corner of the parking lot was absolutely covered in gulls. (Which tells you a lot about the general noise level in our house). Since then, I’ve seen fields full of gulls all around town. Which is odd, because Vermont is pretty far from the coast. I did a little research, and it turns out that they’re migrating through here up to their summer breeding grounds in Canada.
Once a California girl....
-Tractors and joggers have replaced snowplows on the roads! While we never saw many official snowplows in action this winter, people were still prepared with snowplows attached to the fronts of their trucks. Well, now those plows have disappeared, and I’m back to sharing the roads with farm equipment, tractors, and joggers. I still can’t quite get over living in a place where it’s not unusual to see a combine harvester driving down the street. As a suburban kid, I want to gawk and point and yell, “Look at that! An ACTUAL FARMER!” The joggers, of course, aren’t quite as novel. I think they’re mostly college students, because they tend to be young, beautiful, and jogging near the college.
Riding bikes around campus.
-Woody is being phased out! Our beloved wood stove is winding down his work for the year. Lately, we’ve only had to run Woody occasionally at night. While in some ways it’s sad to lose this warm and cozy fixture in our living room, it makes my life a lot easier to not have to stoke the fire every hour and haul in wood daily. (During my less gracious moments, I have been known to call Woody “my fourth child”).
Woody, cold and alone.
–We’re preparing for the next round of home improvements! Oh yes! We’ve come full circle through the Vermont seasons: summer, foliage season, ski season, mud season, and now back to: contractor season! Once again, we’ll be stimulating the local economy this summer with projects like painting the entire exterior of our house. We learned through experience last year that if we want these projects completed by the time ski season rolls around again, we need to get the ball rolling NOW.
Also there are buds on the trees, green shoots poking up from the ground, robins in our front yard. It’s glorious, and we’re trying to soak it all in…because any second now, the ticks and mosquitoes are going to descend.
Ilsley Library, the main library, in downtown Middlebury
I do not want to imagine what our family’s life would be like without the library. The Library. The Library is the North Star of our weekly schedule. We — the three Gong Girls and myself — go there at least once a week, as we’ve done since Fiona was less than a year old. Other activities may come and go with the seasons or stages of life, but The Library is always there.
I have my own fond childhood memories of libraries. Growing up, the library in our town ran a film for children every Saturday morning, and my father always took me to see it. My mother took me to the library weekly while I was growing up, too, and later I went there with friends to work on research projects for school. I still remember the smell of old books and paste, trying not to giggle too loudly in the stacks, and using the card catalogue to look things up. (Remember the card catalogue?? The one with the actual cards???)
In college, the library took on less cozy connotations. I spent hours there, but it was now associated with late-night studying, caffeine headaches, undergraduates holed up in carrels for days on end. Post-college life coincided with the mega-bookstore boom (Barnes & Noble and Border’s) and the advent of Amazon. It was suddenly more convenient to just buy your books. So, it wasn’t until the end of my years in New York City that I finally stepped back into the public library. The New York Public Library, at that.
It was a revelation: all these books! Every book you could possibly want, and you could take them home with you for FREE! Not just books, either, but music and movies. Why didn’t more people KNOW about this?!?
I became re-addicted to the library. And then I had kids, which sealed the deal for good.
I love taking my girls to the library for so many reasons. The Children’s Room in most libraries these days is much more fun than when I was growing up: not only books, but TOYS! Which means that the library is one of the few places where all three of my children, aged 1 through 4.5 years, are happy. The library is (usually) indoors, which means that you can go there in all weather — particularly important in Vermont. Finally, there’s the social aspect; libraries tend to have many children’s programs, which create opportunities for 1) learning and entertainment, 2) children meeting other children, and 3) parents meeting other parents.
Am I forgetting anything? OH, the BOOKS! Obviously. We love going to the library every week because we can check out books: new books, old books, a tote-bag full of books. Our girls love to read. They also have relatively short attention spans and ever-shifting tastes and interests. We have a house full of books, but I often wonder why we bother to own any; the truth is that our girls mostly read the books they check out from the library each week. These are the books they’re excited about, because these are the books they’ve chosen for right now.
There are also (ahem) the videos. We’ve decided not to own a TV, but we are not above using our laptops to watch DVDs. (Back when Fiona was born, I was so good, SO GOOD, about not letting her watch anything on a screen until she was a full 2 years old, as mandated by the American Pediatric Association. And then I was pretty good about making Campbell wait…except that by then Fiona was already watching videos and I was pregnant with Georgia and just exhausted. And Georgia, frankly, doesn’t stand a chance — she’s already sneaking peeks at her sisters’ DVDs). I don’t love the idea of my kids spacing out in front of a video, butsometimes survival trumps ideals. For me, not using the occasional DVD to buy some peaceful time (we allow four 30-minute “video tickets” per week) would be like choosing to forgo indoor plumbing because trudging to the outhouse builds character. I could stick to my principles, and brag about them to the orderlies at the asylum when they slip my meals through a slot.
So, the girls also get to check out DVDs.
(Sorry for the crummy picture -- taken with my phone camera during our first visit to Middlebury.)
Middlebury has two libraries: there’s the Ilsley Library in town, and the Sarah Partridge Library in East Middlebury. The Ilsley is the main library. The entire lower level is dedicated to children and young adults: there’s a train table, a puppet theater, a craft table, a fish tank, and an old-fashioned claw-foot bathtub filled with stuffed animals. Sarah and Kathryn are the children’s librarians, and they do an amazing job putting together programs for almost every day of the week. There are two story times per week, a music hour, and a rotating selection of special events. Last summer we lived at this library because, in addition to story time, there was a weekly performance for children and an “Itsy-Bitsy Yoga” class for children and parents.
The Sarah Partridge Library is closer to us, but we don’t go there as often because it’s only open three half-days a week. Nonetheless, it’s the girls’ favorite. It was recently adopted as a second branch of the Ilsley Public Library, but it’s served East Middlebury as a library and community house since 1924. It has three small rooms: a community room, a children’s book room, and an adult book room. The book selection is much smaller than over at the Ilsley, but there are even more toys and stuffed animals packed into the children’s room, and usually our girls are the only children there, so they have the run of the place. Mona Rogers is the librarian at Sarah Partridge, but it’s more accurate to say that Mrs. Rogers IS the Sarah Partridge Library. I start sounding like Eloise whenever I talk about her: “Oooooooh, I just LOVE Mrs. Rogers!” Fiona’s preschool walks over to Mrs. Rogers’s weekly story time at the library, and Fiona adores her. Most Thursdays, Mrs. Rogers also brings along her Bassett Hound, Harry, who sits next to her desk.
Sarah Partridge Library, in East Middlebury.
We went to the library every week back in Berkeley, too. Berkeley has a much larger library system — 5 branches throughout the city — so there are always story times and special activities for children. Apart from size and number of programs, the main difference I notice between the Berkeley and Middlebury public libraries is that the Berkeley libraries all have self-check-out computers. The Middlebury libraries do not, but then again, we usually don’t even need our library card to check out here. Often, before I reach her desk, Mrs. Rogers has already pulled up our account on her computer. Life in a small town.
Fiona and her newly-acquired library card.
This will never be a political blog, but regardless of your politics (and, as I’ve spent my entire adult life in New York City, Berkeley, and Vermont, you might be tempted to draw some speedy conclusions about mine), there is much to be distressed about in our country these days. Whenever I start feeling depressed about where things are heading, though, I think of this: wherever you go in the United States, there are public libraries. As long as a country has public libraries, I’m pretty sure that there’s still hope for it.
This message, although cute, has always confused me. Now, bear in mind that I moved here from Berkeley, California — I KNOW WEIRD. When I think about Vermont, “weird” is not the first description that comes to mind. Vermont is pretty much like you’d imagine: red barns, green mountains, lots of good dairy products and maple syrup, plenty of outdoor romping year-round. Bucolic? Sure. A slow pace of life? Definitely. Like living in a Norman Rockwell painting? Often. Weird?!? Gosh, I dunno.
That is, I didn’t know, until we left Vermont.
Erick had a week off from his teaching duties for Spring Break, so we decided to take a 2-day family vacation. This trip was significant because 1) it was the first vacation we’d taken with three children (moving cross-country does NOT count as a vacation), and 2) with the exception of a 24-hour jaunt that Erick and I took to Montreal for our anniversary in July, it was the first time the girls and I had left Vermont since arriving here 10 months ago.
Hitting the road.
Our destination was the Six Flags Great Escape Lodge and Indoor Waterpark in Queensbury, NY. This is a massive hotel complex near Lake George that is focused on whipping your children into a state of chlorinated hysteria. Attached to the hotel is a 38,000 square foot indoor water park, featuring water slides, a “river” you can float along in inner tubes, and a kiddie pool with fountains and swings. The scene is Dante-esque: hundreds of people in bathing suits, parents clutching enormous drinks, overstimulated children, noise, humidity, tepid chemical-smelling water. As Erick pointed out, “it’s kind of like Las Vegas for kids” — the water park even has that sense of casino timelessness: artificial light and NO clocks anywhere.
It is the sort of place that seems like a GREAT idea by about mid-March, with four months of housebound winter behind you.
Campbell meets the bear in the hotel lobby.A ride in the luggage cart.The Gong Girls make themselves at home in our hotel room. (Note that Fiona thought to pack her dress-up clothes).The luxurious sleep sofa.
And really, it was a great idea. The kids had fun, family memories were made, and everyone was successfully exhausted after two days of “vacation.”
Fiona discovers a new talent.How Campbell fell asleep after a day at the water park.
My point here is not to comment on our vacation; my point is that the moment we left Vermont, we could tell.
This was surprising, because we were traveling a mere two hours from our house, to a region of New York State famed for its rustic scenery: the Adirondack Mountains, Lake George, log cabins. And the scenery as we crossed over the New York border was lovely, really no different from the rolling Vermont farmland we’d just left behind. But then we noticed the increased amount of trash along the highway. Not that Vermont highways are trash-free, but until we drove to New York I hadn’t realized how little trash there is blowing along Vermont roads.
The next thing we noticed were the billboards. I’ve lived here less than a year, but I realized that during that time I’d seen no billboards in Vermont. I’m not talking about signs next to the road — we have those — I’m talking HUGE advertising billboards. This got me wondering about Vermont’s zoning ordinances, so when we returned home, I looked it up. Turns out that, yes, Vermont is one of four states (the others being Maine, Alaska, and Hawaii) to have banned billboards entirely. Vermont’s law was the first to be passed, in 1968.
As we drove further west into New York, the landscape became more and more developed. Suddenly we were in the land of strip malls, big box stores, multiplexes, putt-putt golf, roadside hotel chains, and Drive-Thru Starbucks.
It was shocking.
But when in Rome, right? We ate at Panera Bread and Johnny Rockets, we stocked up on diapers and trash bags at Target. These were the types of things I was sure I’d miss when we left California. Instead, we felt like we needed some fresh-veggie transfusions after two days of chain-restaurant food. And Target? As soon as I walked in, grabbed an enormous cart, and inhaled that familiar powdered-butter-popcorn smell, I felt a sense of panic. There was so much to buy! I should’ve made a list! SURELY I needed ALL of these things!
The girls in a Target shopping cart.Fiona at Johnny Rockets.Campbell tries her first Margarita (don't worry, it was virgin), declares "I like it!"
As we pulled out of the shopping mall parking lot with our meager Target plunder in the trunk, it hit me: Vermont is weird! Because, as far as I can tell, these concrete temples of consumerism, this multiplex-entertainment-land, ARE WHAT IS NORMAL IN THIS COUNTRY. It’s where we used to live, it’s exactly what my hometown and my husband’s hometown now look like. In fact, we could have been just about anywhere in the United States at that very moment. There was nothing weird about it, just normal people doing their normal shopping, eating their normal food, having their normal fun.
What’s weird is that somehow Vermont seems to have kept most of these “normal” things out. Because, you see, Vermont doesn’t have a single Target. Or an Ikea. There are 3 Wal-Marts, one Costco, and four Starbucks in the entire state of Vermont, and to get to any of those I’d need to drive at least one hour. Our movie theater in town has two screens; to get to any other movie theater, I’d also have to drive at least one hour. What we saw at the southern end of beautiful Lake George was a summer vacation honky-tonk paradise, including a tiki hotel, a wax museum, and more putt-putt courses than I’ve ever seen in one place. Vermont has lakes, too, but I’ve never seen anything remotely approaching this kind of commercial development along them; usually the most you get is a deli and a bait store.
Which got me wondering some more about Vermont’s zoning laws. How have they kept so much of this commercial development out of the state? Did Vermont enact some sort of “anti-tacky” legislation?
As it happens, in 2006 the Vermont Senate passed Senate Bill 175, which requires any proposed retail store over 75,000 square feet (about half the size of a typical big box store) t0 pay for an economic and community impact analysis. I’m guessing that’s a lot for large corporations to stomach, especially when they’ll have to get it by a local group of Vermonters.
I’m hoping that this doesn’t come across as judgmental and self-righteous. If I were truly righteous, I wouldn’t ever shop at Target, or order things from Amazon, or (sometimes) crave Chipotle burritos and Starbucks lattes. I’m just saying that the difference between Vermont and what I would classify as a pretty normal, mid-sized American town was dramatic.
A cynical explanation might be: Vermont’s economy depends on tourism, so Vermonters have an economic incentive to keep things charming and pristine, the way tourists expect Vermont to look. Big box stores are about economics, too, and I was willing to be forgiving; surely these stores are great job-creators for a region of New York that is booming over the summer but depressed the rest of the year, right? So I looked it up. Unemployment in Glens Falls, NY (where most of these malls were located) was 9.5 for January 2012; statewide unemployment was 8.3. During the same period, Vermont’s unemployment was 5.0.
Huh. So I don’t know. I’m not an economist, but I do live with one and I hear from him that these things are complicated.
I do know that I was SO HAPPY to get home to Vermont; this was the trip that really made Vermont feel like home to me. On the way home, we stopped by the New England Maple Museum in Pittsford, VT. We were the only people there. We took a self-guided tour that probably hasn’t been updated in 25 years, watched a slide show (just like the ones you used to watch in elementary school) on how maple syrup is made, and sampled some maple-y goodies. The girls had just as much fun as they did swimming in a chlorinated pool under fluorescent lights.
The dairy farmer mannequin that greets you at the New England Maple Museum.Sampling a maple cookie.Happy Vermonters.
That’s pretty weird, right? Vermont is weird. I think I may have to pick up one of those t-shirts.
Fiona's impression of "panic" -- with a mouthful of chocolate doughnut.
Hello, my name is Faith, and I’m a perfectionist.
Actually, I’m a recovering perfectionist. I expect to be in recovery for the rest of my life.
This is not intended as a cute, “Boo hoo, I’m soooo perfect!” quasi-lament. On the contrary, I consider perfectionism to be equally as addictive as controlled substances, and potentially as damaging.
It sounds so positive, so socially acceptable: PERFECTIONISM. Like you’re packaging an admirable quality as an -ism so that it doesn’t come across as bragging. Saying “I’m such a perfectionist” is in the same league as, “Gosh, I wish I could put on weight!” or “Really, celebrity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
But don’t be fooled: if you truly desire perfection, you have put yourself in an untenable position. NOTHING in life is perfect — or if it is, it doesn’t stay that way for long. So, by proclaiming yourself a perfectionist, you are placing yourself in opposition to the universe. And if that isn’t a recipe for bitterness, disappointment, and strained relationships, I don’t know what is.
Just as there are a variety of substances available for addiction, there are a variety of outlets for perfectionism. You may be a perfectionist when it comes to your work, your food and coffee (that was a big one when we lived in the Bay Area), your appearance. I am a (recovering) social perfectionist, which means that I care too much about what other people think of me in social situations. I believe this is the perfectionism equivalent of crack cocaine: you can’t win.
One thing that my perfectionism sometimes leads me into is a little game I call “Script the Social Interaction.” In this game, before I head into a social situation, I script it out in my head beforehand. I think about how I want to come across, and I plan what I’ll say to the various people who will be there. Then, during the social interaction, I will actually give myself direction (“Nod less, smile more. NO, don’t talk about your kids!”). And of course, afterwards the critics weigh in (“Idiot! NEVER ask an economist about their research!!”). It’s like having the entire motion picture industry inside my head: crowded and exhausting.
(And please tell me that some of you do this, too. Even if you’re telling me very slowly and hoping that I don’t notice you dialing 911 behind your back).
ANYWAY, my point is that sometimes I do this, but I’m trying to stop as part of my perfectionism recovery. Because if you can’t be real and open with people, it’s impossible to have genuine relationships. If I’m only concerned with maintaining a perfect front during social interactions, what’s the fun in being my friend? I’ll bring nothing interesting to the relationship, and will only make you feel bad that you’re not as perfect as I appear to be. If, on the other hand, I’m able to relax and be myself and share imperfections like (theoretically): “Sometimes I yell at my kids and feel like a horrible mom,” or “Sometimes when my husband is talking about his day, I’m really wondering whether he’ll make us popcorn after dinner,” — well, you still may not want to be my friend, but at least you won’t feel inadequate by comparison.
And you know what’s really helping me get over this perfectionism? KIDS.
One of the greatest things about children is that they force you to be real. I can script out social interactions all I want, but it’s hard to maintain a slick front when a little person is pulling at my sleeve yelling, “Mommy, I need to pee! RIGHT NOW!”
I’ve found that the power of kids to cut through my social perfectionism is exponentially stronger in a small town. Since we moved to Vermont, we see the same people EVERYWHERE we go: the park, the library, the playgroup, the pizza place. So when Campbell pitches a massive tantrum at the library (not that this happened just last week or anything), we likely know every single witness. Not only that, but we’ll see them all again the next day, and the day after that, until forever. The lovely thing about this is that when this tantrum happened (okay, it was last week), I had several moms offering to help push our stroller out. The drawback is that I worry that I’ll always be known around here as “That poor gal from California who’s in over her head with those three crazy kids!”
A perfect example of this happened last summer at the A & W. This is a classic drive-in restaurant with simple, greasy food. It’s only open during the warm weather months. (The A & W is Campbell’s favorite place; she calls it “The ABC,” and all summer long, whenever we’d drive past it, she’d scream: “Look! The ABC!!”) You can either eat right in your car, or at picnic tables in a large grassy field next to the parking lot. The Gong Girls prefer the picnic tables, because there’s a big bucket of plastic outdoor toys (balls, bats, frisbees, etc) nearby. The Gong adults prefer the picnic tables, too, because WHY would we be having 3 kids eat in our car if we could have them running around in a grassy field instead?!?
One evening in late summer, we met the girls’ friend Ruth and her parents for dinner there. It was a magical summer night: golden sunset, pleasant adult conversation, the girls running through the grass pretending they were being chased by aliens. It was when all three girls were happily dancing on top of an unused picnic table that we heard it: “Mommy, Mommy, I’m POOPING!” Turns out Fiona had been having so much fun that she’d neglected to tell us she had to use the bathroom. So there she was: holding up her dress, laying one right on top of the picnic table in full view of Rte. 7 and the other A & W diners. (This was one of those moments when my entire parenting life flashed before my eyes. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be horrified, so I sort of did both).
This being a small town, the A & W diners were: us, Ruth’s parents, and another family that we know from church. So the good news was that everybody there knew us…aaaand the bad news was that everybody there knew us.
So, if you’re ever in Middlebury and you’re not sure where to find us, just ask anybody for “That mom whose kid pooped on top of the picnic table at the A & W” and they’ll point you the right way.
And yes, we will be telling this story at Fiona’s wedding.
So, the very next time you happen to be Just sitting there quietly watching TV, And you see some nice lady who smiles As she scours or scrubs or rubs or washes or wipes or mops or dusts or cleans, Remember, nobody smiles doing housework but those ladies you see on TV. Your mommy hates housework, Your daddy hates housework, I hate housework too. And when you grow up, so will you. Because even if the soap or cleanser or cleaner or powder or paste or wax or bleach That you use is the very best one, Housework is just no fun.
-Lyrics to “Housework” by Marlo Thomas, from “Free to Be You and Me”
People often say to me: “Faith, your house is so clean and tidy. How DO you do it?”
HA HA! No, not really. In fact, nobody has ever said anything remotely like that to me. (The closest I’ve ever come to this kind of praise was a friend who complimented me on having it “all zipped up,” but I assume she was talking about my pants).
I’ve never been a huge fan of housework. This probably springs from growing up in the cleanest house ever. You may think that your moms kept their houses clean, you many even think that YOU grew up in the cleanest house ever, and that’s very sweet…but you’re wrong. Of course, the natural outcome of growing up in the cleanest house ever was that I vowed never to spend as much time cleaning as my mom. And the PROBLEM with this is that I have high standards of cleanliness — I can see the mess, it bothers me — but I don’t want to be the one dealing with the mess. It gets ugly, I tell you: it’s like Fight Club up there in my brain, with Tyler Durden played by my cleanliness standards.
My war with myself over housework had the potential to become a huge problem when we moved to Vermont. Back in Berkeley, our family rented a 900-square-foot, 2-bedroom, 1-bath bungalow; upon moving to Vermont, we tripled our living space. I’m still embarrassed about this, because I’ve never considered myself a Big House Person. Big houses tend to get filled up with more stuff (I fear accumulating too much stuff), and they tend to require more time spent cleaning (enough said). But we chose the house we are in because: (1) we had 3 days with a month-old baby to find a place, and this was the obvious best choice, (2) we are now a family of 5 and also want space to host people (especially grandparents), (3) we moved to Vermont, where real estate is waaaaay cheaper than anywhere else we’ve lived. So, here we are, and I have to say: the housework hasn’t been so bad.
How have I managed the increased housework load? Well, I had this little revelation shortly after we moved here: Did you know that big tasks become more manageable if you break them into smaller pieces? (That’s how it is with my revelations: takes me a decade to achieve an “Aha!” moment, to which everyone else says, “Duh!”). For instance, it doesn’t take long to clean one bathroom (at least not the way Iclean a bathroom). We have 2.5 bathrooms, so I clean one a day on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And so on with the other chores. (This all, of course, until I can get the girls to take over for me — and trust me, that’s already beginning). Eat your heart out, Good Housekeeping!
Aside from basic housework, however, we have another issue: creeping kids’ stuff. Back when we had only one child, I was determined that kids’ toys, books, and other kid-related paraphernalia would not take over our house. When I was growing up (in the cleanest house ever) there were certain rooms that were set aside for adults, like the Living Room and the Dining Room. It seemed right and proper that adults — who, after all, OWN THE HOUSE — should have spaces where they can walk freely, unafraid of stepping on Legos or tripping over Exersaucers. We handled the problem of kids’ stuff in our Berkeley bungalow by stacking everything in a towering pile in one corner of the living room.
But that pile grew and grew, and we kept having more kids. Then the older kids needed new toys, because an Exersaucer isn’t much fun when you’re 3, but the new baby still needed the old toys, so we couldn’t get rid of them. The kids’ stuff took over our house like kudzu.
Moving to a bigger house should have solved the problem of creeping kids’ stuff. But it didn’t.
Here was the plan: in our new house, we have a room we call the Rec Room. It’s a funny room built over the garage, up a small flight of stairs from the Mud Room. As such, it’s separated from the rest of the house in a way that makes it unusable for much, but PERFECT as a dumping ground for kids’ toys. The idea was that all of the girls’ toys would live in the Rec Room, keeping the rest of the house clutter-free.
It hasn’t worked. Oh, the girls were initially excited about having a toy room, but they quickly saw through the plan. The first problem is that the Rec Room is far away from wherever I tend to be. Of course, this is precisely the point, but it turns out that our girls prefer to play directly underfoot so that I’m immediately at hand to help them change clothes 53 times, mediate disputes every 3 minutes, and wrestle Barbies into complicated outfits.
Then winter came, and the problem became one of climate. Our Rec Room is so cut off from the main house that it has its own heating zone. It’s also cut off by a door that we close in the winter to keep cold air from the garage/mud room from entering the main house — which means that the heat from our wood stove doesn’t reach the Rec Room. In other words: the Rec Room is completely impractical to heat, so during the winter it’s freezing. Unless I go up there an hour in advance of any playtime to crank up the heat, the girls have to wear full winter gear just to play with their toys.
Result? Our sun room, which I’d envisioned as a space for quiet reading and art projects, now looks like this:
And our living room, which I’d imagined would remain a completely “adults only” zone, looks like this:
The girls and I tidy it up, but the creeping kids’ stuff inevitably re-explodes. So I’ve decided to relax. I’m not going to waste too much time or energy fighting it. These kids outnumber us now; it’s natural that their stuff is taking over our house. Instead, I’ve decided to file this situation under the “I have three young children” excuse.
This is another nifty revelation of mine: if you have three young children (say, between the ages of 1 and 4), most people tend to cut you a lot of slack. My theory is that they’re just so relieved that you’re not lying on the floor sobbing with exhaustion and desperation, that people are willing to excuse all manner of bizarre behavior from mothers of young children. Behavior that in any other situation would earn me a label as a substandard person suddenly becomes perfectly acceptable, even understandable. Twenty minutes late? “I have three young children.” Wearing sweats for the fourth day in a row? “I have three young children.” Chugging a third cup of coffee and wolfing down old birthday cake for lunch? (That’s just a theoretical situation, mind you). You guessed it. Certainly Playmobile figures strewn across the carpet, applesauce on the walls, and marker on the couch fall into this category as well.
Obviously there will come a time when the girls will be older and more mature, and the “I have three young children” excuse will no longer work for me. At this point, I will have to begin behaving like an upright citizen with a tidy house. OR, it’s just struck me that there may be another solution:
Keep having more children, for as long as possible!
That’s clearly the answer! I can get away with a messy house for years! What a revelation!
I can’t wait to tell Erick when he gets home from work.
This one might be mostly for the grandparents, but it feels like it’s been a while since I posted fun pictures of the girls doing what they do. My recent conversion to the art of doing nothing, combined with illness and winter, has led to all sorts of fun.
Indoor Fun:
Baby in a box!Fiona modeling her marshmallow necklace.Turning the storage closet into a little house.Painting!
And Outdoor Fun:
Sitting on the sled in the driveway.Sledding DOWN the driveway.Hanging out in Campbell's Cave in our backyard.Georgia getting a lift in our yard.Fiona atop her "Ice Castle" in our backyard.Another view of the "Ice Castle." We have awesome rocks in our yard!
And then, this past week, the FUN highlight was Georgia’s First Birthday!
We tend to downplay first birthdays in our house, because, really, the kid doesn’t remember and there are OH! so many birthdays coming along. But Georgia’s birthday was particularly fun because she had two big sisters to plan it.
As these things go, it’s unclear whether Fiona and Campbell were really planning Georgia’s birthday for HER or for THEMSELVES (Fiona: “I think Georgia would LOVE this princess book!”, Campbell: “Georgia really needs a toy car!”), but they decided that the festivities should have a cat theme, and helped me shop for the appropriate paper goods.
The day started with presents. Georgia had some lovely gifts from her family. The “big ticket” item that we gave her was a toy kitchen; we’ve noticed that all of our girls can play for hours with their friends’ toy kitchens. The one we ultimately got is a gently used wooden kitchen, which we found at a great store in Ferrisburg called ReRun Fun.
Georgia enjoying her "new" toy kitchen.Fiona and Campbell "help" Georgia open her presents. (This is kind of how it goes when you're turning 1).
Because she’s a third child, Georgia spent the rest of her birthday being shuttled around to her sisters’ events, like storytime at the library and swim lessons at the college pool. But back at home for dinner, it was CAKE TIME. The cake was a homemade deal: strawberry cake with chocolate chips and chocolate frosting (as per her sisters’ instructions). She seemed to enjoy the cake concept, especially her first taste of chocolate.
Georgia approves of her cake.Georgia, post cake, approves even more.
The final event was planned by Fiona, who thinks that no party is complete without a game of “pin the something on something.” (We’ve done “pin the seeds on the watermelon,” “pin the crown on the princess,” “pin the petals on the flower,” “pin the bone on the dog,” “pin the feather on Pocahontas” — you get the idea). For Georgia’s birthday, it was “pin the tail on the cat.” No surprise: Fiona won.
All partied out, we carried Georgia off to bed. It was a swell party to mark the end of her first year.
The Pickle Patch 