Ode to a Watering Can

This morning was a bit warm and oppressive, so after Ryan had breakfast we wandered out onto the porch for some fresh air. Ryan had a lovely time tromping over the slate tiles, feeling for the grout with his bare toes, but what truly grabbed his attention was the big empty watering can sitting next to the railing. It’s nearly as big as he is, but light enough that he was able to pick it up and sling it around with no trouble. And sling it around he did!

First off, he turned it all around to examine every side and angle. He held it by the spout and looked carefully at the side and top handles. He grabbed the side handle and examined the dust on the bottom. He transferred his grip to the top handle and re-examined the spout. He very carefully felt the little holes in the white tip and ran his fingers along the connection between the white and green plastic. He put it down and peered into its depths. He laid it on its side and rolled it back and forth.

Next came the auditory examination. Each part of the can had to be banged on and the sounds compared with the bangs on another part. He banged the flat bottom, first with one hand, then with the other, then with both. He rolled the can over and banged each side in turn, occasionally banging the bottom in between. He banged each handle and the spout, although the lack of resonance in the narrower bores was obviously a disappointment. He then banged the entire can on the slate.

The third round, of course, was taste testing. A little lick here, a little lick there, a quick suck on the white spout. (Don’t worry, gardeners, this is a strictly water watering can – no noxious chemicals or fertilizers to be concerned about.)

And then the complete examination started over again from the beginning. After hearing and tasting, naturally the looks needed to be re-studied. Once again, careful hands gripped and patted and turned while intense eyes took in every feature. The lip around the base was studied in detail, as was the nubby handle. Little fingers were poked into the hole at the top and through each handle. Little eyes peered through each handle as well, and attempted to peer into the tiny holes in the spout. A little nose was pressed against all the surfaces (and I suspect a little tongue was, as well).

He spent at least 15 minutes sitting on the porch, happily studying that watering can. And I wonder what he learned from it. Did he make the connection that the bigger canister makes louder bangs than the narrower handles and spout? Did he understand that he can’t see into the holes in the spout because they’re too little? Did he recognize that the can sits more securely on its flat base than its curved side? Did he understand that it’s easiest to hold by its handle rather than its spout? Has he begun to connect the word “green” that I repeated with the color he sees when he looks at the can? Are all these little details merely lurking at the back of his brain, ready to come back into his consciousness as he makes other discoveries and connects what he saw today with things he has yet to learn?

It’s just a watering can, and he’s just a baby, but I can see great discoveries coming out of their brief interaction!

His Volume Control Goes to 11

When Ryan discovered his own voice, I figured he would experiment with it for a while, then get bored and move on to exploring something else. After all, once he learned how to blow a raspberry whenever he wanted, he moved on to figuring out how to do something else. When he mastered the art of clicking his tongue, he did it all the time for a few days then let it go and practiced something else. But the sound of his own voice, singing, humming, or screeching, seems to have become an unending source of fascination. And in his opinion, the louder the better.

For being a small child, he packs a considerable amount of volume. And not just when he’s shrieking because he’s hurt or scared or upset; he can shriek at top volume just to listen to his own voice. He wakes up in the morning and plays in his crib quietly, then begins to hum or sing and soon the volume escalates. He’s not clambering for us to come get him, he’s just testing to see how loud he can be. He does the same thing while I’m feeding him breakfast. He’ll be happily pounding on the tray of his highchair, obediently opening his mouth for me to shovel in some more oatmeal, and gazing over my shoulder at the birds on the feeder, when suddenly an invisible hand cranks his volume control to 11.

It’s not that big of a deal when we’re at home in the middle of the day. It’s not that big of a deal if he’s in the jogging stroller with Daddy. (It is his “outside voice”, after all.) It’s even manageable when we’re in the car. (Not pleasant, but manageable.) But when we’re in public somewhere, like the grocery store, or a restaurant, or a church service, or on an airplane, it’s considerably less acceptable. The problem is that there’s no way to tell a 9-month-old to use his inside voice. Sometimes if I whisper to him he’ll imitate me and drop his volume down to something more intimate. But more often than not he’ll just stare at me for a second, then screech even more loudly.

Luckily, he’s still curious enough that most of the time a distraction can make him forget to yell. A toy, or a bottle, or a silly face can usually help to turn the volume down a few notches. And in the worst-case scenario, muffling him with an ever-present rag will at least deaden the sound enough that it’s no longer physically painful to any close bystanders.

Jewelry is usually a good distraction.

Hugs can be a good distraction, too.

As are bottles. And sitting in Grandma's lap.

Of course, interesting things on the ceiling (like trombones, for instance) are the best distraction of all!

Boys' Night Out

This afternoon, my mom and I went to a baby shower. And when I got back home, my husband and baby were nowhere to be found. I shot off a quick text message and found out that they were visiting Ryan’s grandfather, “Pappy”. I immediately got this image in my head:

This photo was taken in the hospital just hours after Ryan was born. It’s one of my very favorites. There’s something so special about having the three generations of men together. And although I’m sure the energy level right now is considerably higher than it was the day this photo was taken (particularly for the youngest member of the trio), today’s “boys’ day out” is every bit as special as that one was.

And I’m thoroughly enjoying the resulting quiet house. I checked my e-mail without one eye on the baby monitor that sits next to my computer. I’m thinking about what I’ll make myself for dinner without having to take into account whether I’ll be saving a small explorer from shutting his fingers into the cabinets while I’m cooking. I’m planning on reading a book while I’m eating dinner and being able to pay attention to what I’m reading instead of to a curious beastie who wants to read with me (and by “read”, I mean “eat the pages of the book”). I might even make myself a cup of tea and sit out by the pool listening to the birds chirping quietly while I watch the dusk slowly fade into night. What a wonderful, peaceful, calm, self-indulgent evening!

But the best part of that evening will be when the menfolk come home and demand my attention and give me loud, wet, sloppy kisses and interrupt my peace and quiet. And I won’t mind the interruption one bit. How could anyone ever mind being interrupted by this handsome pair?

Busted by My Own Recycling Bin

I cleaned my refrigerator today. It was about time. Actually, it was slightly past time. Enough past time, in fact, that I’m being incriminated by my recycling bin. I tend to put off cleaning the fridge longer than I should all the time, so I’m kind of used to the incrimination. But I do wonder if the neighbors (or the recycling guys) look at our bin and think, “Geez lady, it’s about time!!”

I’m enough of a frugal Yankee that I hate tossing leftovers if there’s any chance at all that someone will eat them before they go bad. (Hope does spring eternal, after all.) So a bottle of iced tea or soda with two good slugs left goes in there. Half a serving of leftover chili that’s just enough to make one chili dog goes in. A few bites of really good steak that will make a nice (if small) snack finds a home there. Enough cream for a cup or two of coffee can’t be wasted. A few spoonfuls of guacamole or ranch dip or salsa that’d be nice on a fajita gets saved. And eventually I forget that they’re all there, and they go bad before I use them up. So when I clean my fridge, I end up with a recycling bin full of tea and soda bottles, empty salsa and dip jars, plastic tubs that held chili or dip or whatever. And I feel like I’m putting out a big sign that says, “Hey everyone, I finally got around to cleaning my fridge!”

But if I think about it for a little bit, it says a lot more to me than just that I finally cleaned the fridge. It reminds me of the great party we had a few weeks ago with friends we hadn’t seen in a long time. It calls to mind the fantastic meal my sweetheart made for me when I was having a rough day. It reminds me of the happy, relaxed chatter of family as we sat and snacked and laughed at Ryan’s antics. It makes me think of cups of coffee shared with a dear friend. It makes me reflect on all the lovely gatherings we’ve had all summer long, the warm evenings by the pool, the laughter by the glow of the fire pit, the old friends and new who’ve visited.

And if only they knew all that, the neighbors (and the recycling guys) wouldn’t be thinking, “Geez lady, it’s about time!!” They’d be thinking, “Wow lady, boy do you know how to live!!” Yes, I do. I really, really do.

 

Close Ev'ry Door To Me

Much to Ryan’s consternation, the fact that he is both mobile and FAST means that we have to limit his freedom a lot more than we used to. To wit: closing doors. When he’s playing downstairs, I have to close the sliding glass doors because otherwise he’ll fall out of them and down the steps. I have to close the laundry room door because there are dangerous things like bug spray and tools on the lower shelves. I have to close the study door because Daddy’s office chair is an irresistible temptation whether Daddy is sitting in it or not. I have to close the bathroom door because of the siren call of the toilet (with the lid closed, it’s a great drum; open, it’s a splash pool). Upstairs, I have to close the door to whatever room he’s in because the landing is small enough that he’d be falling down the stairs headfirst before I even noticed he was headed out the door. I even closed the pocket door in the dining room so he couldn’t pull himself up on the sideboard and knock down the wineglasses.

And today, for the first time, I even added a new “door” in the form of a baby gate in the kitchen hallway. There are several problems with the gate, however. The main problem being that Ryan is not only stronger than I am, but given his short stature he can put his entire body weight behind dislodging the gate. So I can wedge the gate against the wall firmly enough that I can’t move it, but after a few determined pushes Ryan can get it to tilt enough that I have to go rescue him before he gets himself into trouble. And the other problem is that I’m not quite tall enough to step over the gate, so I need to sneak out through the pocket door in the dining room if I need to leave the room for a moment. But it’s probably a good thing it’s not any shorter, or Ryan would be able to lean over it just enough to fall on his head.

Just to add to his frustration, even above and beyond room doors, he’s banned from opening cabinet and closet doors. And there are so many fascinating things lurking behind those doors! Pots and pans that could be banged and clanged, boxes and bottles of all shapes and sizes and colors, clothes that can be tossed across the room, shoes with laces to be untied and knotted and chewed on. And all of them tantalizingly out of reach!

I can understand why most babies cry all the time. It must be immensely frustrating to be so close to exploring new things but not quite being able to get at them. To be able to peep through the baby gate at the world beyond but not be able to reach it. To see the outside world through the sliding glass doors but not be able to go and explore it. To know there are wonderful and exciting things lurking behind closed doors but not being able to see them. I’d probably cry all the time myself if I were always being frustrated that way!

Someday soon – probably too soon, in my eyes – he’ll be ready to open all those doors and explore the wide world on his own. But for now, I’ll be closing those doors.

If You Don't Like the Schedule, Wait a Minute

I think it was Mark Twain who first said about New England, “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.” I am discovering that New England weather is not the only thing about which this is true. Babies' nap schedules fall smack dab in the middle of that category.

Just when Ryan had fallen into a neat (and predictable) pattern of napping from 10am until 11:30am or noon and again from 2:30 or 3pm until 4pm, he started working his way into a one-nap-a-day schedule. His morning nap lengthened itself to two hours or more and if he managed an afternoon nap at all, it was a 45-minute or hour-long catnap around dinnertime. And once I started getting used to that schedule, he started getting all over the map in terms of morning nap length – everything from a 45-minute power nap to three hours at a stretch! Sometimes he’d be ready to go down at 9:30am, sometimes not till 1 or 2 in the afternoon. Eventually he got into a semi-predictable pattern of one nap a day from 10:30 or 11am until 1 or 2pm. When we were in Iowa last week, he didn’t want to miss anything so he got by for four days in a row with no more than a couple of 45-minute power naps a day (usually in the car). And then yesterday, he took a three-hour nap in the morning and another hour-long nap in the afternoon! But today he had a single 45-minute catnap in the car and that was it. The real miracle is that even with his wildly varying naptimes, he’s still been very consistent about bedtime and wake time.

I guess this is God’s way of keeping moms on their toes. I can’t plan on having two hours of “free” time every morning any more. I can’t even plan on having two hours of “free” time in bits and pieces throughout the day! It definitely has created a need for a bit more organization and pre-planning on my part, but also a lot of spontaneity. No more waiting till naptime for a shower, or I might not get one at all. And if he’s contented in the playpen, I have to take advantage of that time for blogging or dinner prep instead of hoping he’ll nap at a more convenient time. I need to know exactly what I need to get done without a baby underfoot each day and be able to work those activities in at a moment’s notice when he’s either napping or happily playing alone. And of course, both nap time and happy alone playtime can expire without notice, so being able to stop any activity midstream is a necessity as well.

But the delightful flip side of the schedule unpredictability is the unpredictability of Ryan discovering new “tricks”. In the past week alone he’s waved, clapped, and given a kiss all on his own. (The clapping we can get him to repeat at will, the waving is pretty hard to reproduce, and the kiss may have been either a fluke or a badly aimed nibble.) So I’m more than willing to be flexible if it means that when I go to get him from the crib after an unexpectedly short nap I might see him standing unsupported in his crib for a few seconds, or that he’ll reach out to me for a hug when I come in his room, or even that I’ll get a big laugh and some applause when he sees me.

Besides, even if his schedule is too difficult to cope with for a few days, I know all I have to do is wait a minute.

Battle Scars

God certainly knew what He was doing when He designed babies to be fast healers. Every since he was tiny, Ryan has been scratching his face or knocking his head against something or banging his wee feet into the changing table or even accidentally biting his tongue with his brand-new teeth. And now that he’s both mobile and extremely curious, there seems to be no end to the scrapes he gets himself into. Just a few days ago he managed to hurl himself off the changing table. He often tries to pull himself up on things that aren’t attached and bonks himself on the head. He trips over his own feet when half his body gets ahead of himself as he marches along. He’s launched himself off the side of the couch once or twice. He forgets that he can’t stand up for more than a second without holding onto something and careens into walls or tables. He pinches his fingers in drawers and cabinet doors. He’s come very close to falling down the steps, or through the screen door, or out the open sliders. He gets himself wedged under a table and coshes his head when he tries to get up. He stands up on his tiptoes to look over things but then loses his balance and so far has just barely missed clocking himself in the chin or the mouth. (It’s inevitable he clocks himself eventually – it’s in his genes. I have a scar under my eyebrow from walking into a table as a baby, and my mom’s dining room table has a lovely semicircular imprint of my top teeth from an ill-advised attempt I once made to peep over it.)


Some of his battle scars aren’t completely his own fault, I must admit. When we were at the airport last weekend, waiting to board our flight home, I let him crawl on the carpeted area near the gate. He would crawl a few feet away then I would “chase” him, grab him by the feet, and haul him back to me while he giggled uproariously. Unfortunately, one of those times his T-shirt rode up and I gave him a horrible rug burn right on his tummy. Luckily, even just a few days later it’s nearly healed. As is the bump on his head from the other day when we were roughhousing on the couch and he managed to overshoot my arm and went right over the end of the couch onto his head. Being somewhat neurotic, I’m probably more careful with him than some mothers might be, but he still manages to bonk himself silly every now and then. It’s just part of growing up.

But above and beyond his battle scars, I’ve been getting my share as well. My latest is a small goose egg over my left eyebrow from catching a lamp that Ryan knocked over - with my face. I continually have bruises along the sides of my legs from blocking drawers and cabinets from being opened by little hands. I’ve had a few fat lips and near-nosebleeds from an overexcited head bob. There are often a few sore spots on my scalp from strong little fingers clutching my hair. And I’m not even counting the endless sore muscles from hauling around my wiggly, 32-pound sack o’ potatoes.

But they’re battle scars that I’m proud of. I’ve earned them keeping my little monkey safe, playing with him, teaching him new things. So I don’t even mind that I don’t heal as fast as he does. I’m happy to wear my battle scars as a badge of motherhood!

...And That Stands for Pool

One of the highlights of our trip to Iowa was a visit to the town pool. Now, here in New England, when you picture a municipal pool, you probably picture a standard rectangular pool, maybe with a few floating lane dividers for lap swimmers, and possibly a diving board at one end.

The Mason City pool is NOTHING like that. It does, in fact, have a rectangular pool with lane dividers for lap swimming, but that’s pretty much where the resemblance ends.

Note cousin Brad in the corner encouraging Ryan to smile for the camera.

The other side of the lap swimming pool has a low diving board, a high diving board, and a tubular slide.

Daddy goes off the high diving board

There’s another pool next to it with two high, long, looping, partially enclosed slides.

Cousin Jake makes a grand entry into the water – big loopy slides in the background

On the far side of THAT pool, there’s a play structure for smaller kids with a straight slide, floats to climb on, and adjustable squirting showerheads to run under.

Cousin David floating on a crab

Next to THAT, there’s a shallow area for tiny tots to splash in, and next to THAT there’s a jungle gym play structure for bigger kids.

Ryan and David were great pool buddies!

Two chilly, snuggly babies ready to head for home

Oh, and did I mention that it’s heated and has big, clean changing rooms with showers? And all the teenaged lifeguards were pleasant rather than surly. And the kids playing in the pool were polite to each other and played nicely, even with kids they didn’t know. And everyone threw away their own trash and didn’t use more chairs than they needed and kept an eye on each others’ kids and didn’t run on the pool deck and were just generally pleasant and charming to be around. It was like a big neighborhood block party.

It was just Terrific all around. With a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Pool!

Massachusetts Is From Mars, Iowa Is From Pluto

I thought I would be clever and give this blog entry a title parallel to my entry a couple of months ago titled, “Massachusetts Is From Mars, California Is From Venus”. But I wasn’t sure what planet would appropriately represent Iowa. I ended up going with Pluto for two reasons: 1) the Disney character Pluto is sweet and friendly and simple and endearing, just like Iowa, and 2) poor little Pluto isn’t technically considered a planet any more, so I thought that it, like Iowa, tends to be a bit underrated and neglected despite its charm.

Before I get into the meat of my story, let me provide a little backstory. This weekend was my cousin Bill’s 20th wedding anniversary, and he and his wife George celebrated with a combination family reunion/college reunion/block party in the backyard of their home in Mason City, Iowa, inviting literally hundreds of friends and family members to join in the festivities. Now, you may think that you know nothing about Mason City, but if you’ve ever seen the movie or the musical “The Music Man”, you’re more familiar with it than you think. The fictitious River City (as in, “Oh yes we got trouble, right here in River City”) is based on Mason City, which is the hometown of the composer and writer of “The Music Man”, Meredith Willson.

And in many ways, the city hasn’t changed much since Willson’s boyhood. Sure, the cars are more modern and there are some bigger buildings than there used to be, but in the most important ways, it’s still the same. The romantic footbridge still sees its share of lovers at twilight, kids still go fishing in the creek, there’s even a sign on the occasional porch that says “Piano Given”. But best of all, mothers still feed whatever children happen to be in their yard when suppertime rolls around, kids still ride their bikes to visit friends, families pick fresh tomatoes and corn and beans and squash and kohlrabi from their gardens for dinner, people still say “good morning” to strangers they see walking down the street, families walk to church together on Sundays, there are open-air band concerts throughout the summer, and it never really occurs to anybody to lock their car doors.

So unlike our visit to California a few months ago, when I felt like a fish out of water and like everyone was staring at me as if I were a zoo exhibit, being in Iowa made me feel like I’d come home to roost amidst a city full of kindred spirits. Everywhere we went we felt welcomed. The family members, who had arrived a few days before the party, joined in to help with party preparations. The church opened its kitchen and a dozen or so of us trooped in armed with boxes of cereal and pretzels and nuts to bake into gallons of party mix in the industrial-size ovens, we had plastic shopping bags full of cucumbers and rhubarb and kohlrabi ready to be cut up on giant mandolin slicers and brined into pickles or baked into bars or just chopped into unadorned, refreshing, bite-size nibbles. Neighbors dropped by to offer extra tables and chairs, or candles, or bug spray, or an extra parking space or two in a nearby driveway, or to make a quick run to the store for anything we’d forgotten. The morning of the party we set up chairs in the middle of the lawn and began shucking hundreds of ears of sweet corn, wisps of golden threads drifting lazily on the breeze along with the laughter and happy chatter of the shuckers.

But it was probably the kids who had the best time of all. Not only was there a huge yard to run and play in, there was a tree swing tied to a branch higher than the house. If you could sweet-talk one of the adults into giving you a big enough push, you would not only sail slowly and elegantly through the air, you would go crashing back into the bushes behind the swing on the backswing. And when it wasn’t your turn on the swing, there were crawdads in the creek just waiting to be caught in a leaky paper cup, or bats and fireflies to be chased at dusk, or a train set to be assembled and driven, or chalk for drawing on the driveway, or soap bubbles to be blown and chased, or aunts and uncles and cousins to roughhouse with. During the party, there was even a wonderful band and a square dance caller to dance to! Admittedly, at a certain point in time Uncle Brad's iPad was an attraction none of the kids could resist, but on the whole no-one was wishing they were inside playing video games or surfing the internet or watching TV. There wasn’t even an iPod in sight. It was just a couple of days of unplugged, unrushed, unplanned, unscheduled, good old-fashioned fun.

And of course, the crowning glory is that it’s peaceful enough for a nap, anytime, anywhere, even when the 3:04’s comin’ through.

What Are You FEEDING Him?

Ever since Ryan was about 4 months old, every time someone asks how old he is, as soon as I answer, the next question is nearly always, “What are you FEEDING him??” And my answer is generally, “Anything he wants!”

He is a good-sized kid, and he has an appetite to match. When he was first born, he had some difficulties with eating for a week or two, but ever since then he’s been making up for lost time. When he was strictly on formula and breast milk, he’d easily knock back 10 ounces or more in a single sitting. Now that he’s eating baby food, he’ll go through two 4-ounce packs of fruit and veggies three times a day with snacks and formula in between. He loves everything from bread to watermelon to Cheerios to sweet potatoes to oatmeal. The only things we’ve found so far that he doesn’t like are chicken and turkey!

Now that he’s mobile and on the go every waking hour, he’s started to gain weight a bit more slowly. But he certainly hasn’t slowed his food intake one bit! His menu for an average day is something like this:
Breakfast: 6 oz. banana puree, 3 oz. rice cereal, bit of toast, few chunks of watermelon
Morning snack: 10 oz. bottle, handful of Cheerios
Lunch: 4 oz. sweet potatoes, 4 oz. green beans, 2 oz. oatmeal
Afternoon snack: 10 oz. bottle, few chunks of watermelon, handful of rice puffs
Dinner: 4 oz. mixed vegetables, 4 oz. carrots, small piece of bread, 2-4 oz. apple-berry puree
Bedtime: 10 oz. bottle

For most moms with a 9-month old who weighs 18 or 20 pounds, that amount of food in one day is inconceivable. For most moms with a 2- or 3-year old, it sounds about right. And why shouldn’t Ryan eat like a 2- or 3-year old? He weighs the same as most 2- or 3-year olds! And he works out all day long, pulling himself up on the furniture, marching around the house, crawling around at top speeds, trying to open drawers and closets and doors. Pound for pound, he probably burns off as much energy as a personal trainer working an 8-hour shift.

And every day we try to find a new and different food to try: melon, berries, granola, apples, peas, and every kind of bread. Sometimes it’s baby food from a spoon, sometimes it’s table food in his mesh bag feeder, sometimes it’s grownup food cut into little bits so he can grab it with his own fingers. He’s sampled toast, pasta, cantaloupe, cheese, and yogurt. He’ll happily gnaw on a lemon wedge for several minutes. He’ll carefully examine a piece of cracker for a few moments before giving it a cautious taste, licking the salt off the edges and eventually putting it in his mouth. (Of course, he does the same thing with rocks, attempting to lick off the dirt and get the rock in his mouth before someone stops him, but we discourage that as much as possible.) He’ll drink a bit of diluted apple, orange, or cranberry juice from his own sippy cup, or have a little slug of juice or water from Mummy or Daddy’s cup. He’s even happy to slurp icewater from a spoon.

Having been an EXTREMELY picky eater myself as a child, I am delighted at his willingness to explore the wonderful world of food. I look forward to introducing him to slightly exotic foods like mushrooms and sushi and cheesecake when he’s older. I imagine teaching him to cook for himself, first simple things like scrambled eggs and grilled cheese, then working our way up to meatloaf and chicken casserole, and eventually maybe even something as fancy as beef wellington or stuffed acorn squash. But whatever his future in terms of food, I just hope he continues to explore and enjoy. And as long as I can, and as long as it’s healthy, I have every intention of continuing to feed him anything he wants!

An Impartial Observer

Early this morning, we had a house appraisal as part of refinancing our house. As the appraiser checked out the various rooms, I wondered what my home looked like from his point of view, as an “impartial observer”. When he looked at our living room, with its grand piano and fireplace, he wasn’t picturing the dozens of romantic serenades and dinners we’ve had in that room. When he walked through the front hall, no doubt he noticed the oddly-patterned cracks in the tile, but he couldn’t have imagined the tale of the suicidal chandelier. Looking in the master bedroom, he might have admired the lovely rich carpet and painted walls, but he couldn’t hear the laughter of the newlyweds who took on the adventure of redecorating together. He peeked into the nursery, but couldn’t have known of the late night feedings, the endless hours of rocking a cranky baby to sleep, or the nightly ritual of parents gazing fondly at a sleeping child before going to bed themselves. Standing beside the pool, he couldn’t have imagined the laughter of party-goers, the quiet music of a moonlit dinner for two, or the happy squeals of a baby discovering water for the first time.

Our house is lovely and welcoming and well-appointed, there’s no doubt about that. But there’s so much more to it, so much more that makes it a home instead of just a house. The memories that have been made there are so much more important than the furnishings or the number of bathrooms or the floor plan. A kitchen is just a place to prepare food – but my kitchen is where Ryan tasted “real” food for the first time. A dining room is an elegant place for entertaining – but my dining room is where I first hosted a party for Herb’s family and my own. A living room is a comfortable spot to sit and read – but my living room is where Herb first serenaded me with “The Moonlight Sonata”. My home is special because of what’s happened there, not just because of what it looks like.

So no matter what dollar value the appraiser puts on the house, my home is priceless. Because it's my home.

I Love a Parade

I love parades. I always have. From the screaming fire engines to the bands of every kind to the kids marching in scout uniforms or gymnastics leotards or dance school tutus or hockey pads to the antique cars to the vendors hawking cheap toys that break on the way home. I love the “anti-parade” of people on bikes, parents pushing strollers, and kids on roller skates, skateboards and scooters going the wrong way up the street before the parade starts. I love the smell of cotton candy and cap guns and silly string. I love the little ones in strollers and backpacks and wagons, all wide-eyed with anticipation. I love the packs of tweens and teens hanging out without their parents, trying to look cool. I love the older couples holding hands and carrying their folding chairs. I love the excited dogs sitting on laps or carrying their toys or pulling at their leashes. I love it all!

And I’m very happy to see that Ryan got the “parade gene”. Yesterday after church we went to the closing parade of Yankee Homecoming week in Newburyport. Ryan was napping in the car on the way up, and was barely awake as we packed him into the stroller and walked the few blocks from the car to the parade route. Herb hung back, trying to avoid the ear-splitting screams of the fire engines, but Ryan and I plowed ahead, Ryan starting to wake up but completely unbothered by the noise. He watched curiously as the red lights flashed on the shiny engines and ladders. He gazed intently at the antique cars with their loud “aah-OOO-gah!!” horns. He studied the brightly-colored balloons and horns and toys on all the vendors’ carts. But what really drew his attention was the bands. Or more specifically, the DRUMS. It was all we could do to stop him from marching right out and joining the band!

I particularly love the Yankee Homecoming parade because of the variety of bands. There is always at least one Scottish bagpipe band and one Irish one, a middle school marching band and a local town marching band, a jazz/blues band riding on a float, a couple of African/Caribbean groups, several fife and drum corps, and various other musical ensembles. And every one that passed by had Ryan enthralled by their drummers. The Scottish pipe bands had drummers who twirled their drumsticks, the African band had drummers who danced while they played, and the drum corps had young kids playing drums. Each group had its own special attraction in the percussion section.

He happily bounced in my arms in tune to the music, or marched in place as each group passed, or even sang along every now and then. But his eyes hardly left the musicians. He’d never seen – or heard – anything like it!

Watching his enjoyment of the scene made it even more fun for me, if that’s even possible. What could be a better way to spend a lovely summer afternoon than being with your two favorite guys, watching a parade and watching your guys watch a parade? I can’t imagine anything better. Because after all, I DO love a parade!