Two of most things

Summer

Not much to add to my previous post, except to say that despite my totally unusual schedule this summer, I'm really enjoying summer so far.  I am teaching on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at Yale until 11:00, and then am taking the rest of those days to work at home.  So, because I'm not going into work at all those days, I'm getting the opportunity to pick Maisie up from school around 3:30, and then I get to be home when Ella gets off the camp bus.  Its been fun to hang out with them on late summer afternoons, as we've taken ourselves out do dinner, enjoyed (what little) warm weather we've had, and generally just gotten to hang out with each other without being rushed.  On Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays, we've been having a substitute babysitter come and pick Maisie up at noon from daycare, bring her home or to the pool, and then meet Ella off the bus.  If I completely wanted to blow off all work this summer, I would eliminate that babysitter and just work from 9:30 (when I finally get Ella on the school bus and Maisie at daycare) to 3:00 (when I need to leave work to re-pick up Maisie and meet Ella's bus.  However, I've got a couple of papers close to completion and a grant that needs to be re-written, so I do need to do some small degree of work this summer outside of class preparation.

Regardless, the girls seem to be having a good summer.  Here's them, and a neighbor, this afternoon, enjoying their 'water slide' (i.e. a garden hose attached to their playscape slide).

Happy 4th of July!

First, happy 4th of July!  We took the girls to watch their first-ever fireworks last night on the beach, and they absolutely loved it.  I am not generally a big fan of fireworks (too loud, too late, too many people), but we had a really marvelous time.  I am not wild about my neighbors shooting off incredibly loud and scary fireworks in their yard as a I write this, but I did have fun last night.

Once again, I've been thinking a lot about whether to continue the blog.  I'm having a harder time finding time to write, and I'm not even sure I've got great subject matter to write about.  The kids are doing well, Kim and I are doing well (though the house has still not sold), our jobs are going well, and generally things are great.  The blog seemed so much more relevant when the kids were really young and parenting was new and difficult.  Now, it seems like we're almost old hands at parenting, and parenting itself is much more of a joy than it is a challenge.

So, I apologize for the relative silence over the past few weeks, but the blog doesn't seem as relevant as it used to.  I'll leave you all (that is, all 16 of you), with a few updates, and then will think carefully about whether or not to continue.

• Ella is thoroughly enjoying her first summer camp experience.  A bus comes and picks her up around 8:30 every morning and drops her back off around 4:30.  While she's there, she does everything imaginable:  boating, cooking lessons, swimming twice/day, and endless sports.  She's exhausted when she comes home, and I'm delighted she gets to spend the entire day outside.
• Our wonderful nanny, Amy, is taking the month off to work at a summer camp in Massachusetts, so we're more or less without a babysitter (though I did speak with a college graduate who will work a couple days/week).  The girls miss her terribly, and in some ways I feel like we're limping through the next few weeks until Amy can come back and brighten the girls days again.
• Maisie is in a summer camp, of sorts, at her regular daycare.  None of us are completely wild about this, but its a reasonably good place and she knows everybody there, so its fine.  I'd just prefer to be at the park or the pool or somewhere outside.
• I had a very interesting conversation while I was in Chicago last weekend with somebody I greatly admire and respect.  We were comparing our daughters (hers is in high school) and I was telling her that Ella had done well enough in kindergarten, but also struggled to keep up, a bit.  She said that the best thing she could have ever done for her daughter (but didn't) was hold her back a year (so, repeat kindergarten).  One of the reasons it would have been nice to move to Amherst would have been that we would have had no choice but to have Ella repeat kindergarten because of age restrictions.  Now, if we stay, I'm wondering whether we should advance Ella to first grade or have her do kindergarten again.  I just still feel quite badly about all the pressure she felt at the end of kindergarten, and her self-consciousness about not being in the same place as the other kids.  I'm just wondering whether we can save her some years of struggle if we make this decision now?
• Work is going extremely well.  There are so many great things happening with my research that I can hardly believe it.  Way too much to go into here, but all is good.
• Kim loves Amherst, but feels badly about being gone during the week.  Damn house that's not selling.
• In the past two weeks, I've been in New York, DC, Boston, Provincetown, Long Island, and Chicago.  Next weekend we're heading to New Hampshire for Kim's triathlon, and about a month later, we're going to Montana for a family reunion.  That's a lot of travel in not much time.

Those are the big highlights.  We're all good.

 

On to first grade, toothless one

Perhaps fittingly, Ella lost her first tooth just two days before the last day of kindergarten.  She had been feeling sad for some time now that her fellow kindergarten classmates had lost various teeth, and she had yet to lose any.  She had had a wiggly tooth for a couple weeks ago now, so this weekend when she and Maisie were at my parents' house, my mom volunteered to give it a little tug to see if it would come out.  Surprisingly, she agreed (she is quite averse to pain, or blood, or the thought of pain or blood).  My mom got her tooth out with little effort, and so Ella now has a 'tooth window' (to borrow from Charlie and Lola).

So, today was Ella's official last day of kindergarten, and I think we're both a little sad.  Its hard to believe she's already off to first grade (sad for me...she's growing up so fast!), and its sad for her to be leaving her dear teacher, Mrs. Barker.  Between that, and the rain, we're both a little blue.

On the work front, its been a busy and wonderful week, though.  I spent last week in DC interviewing patients for a research study I'm doing to look at trust and endorsement of conspiracy theories among African American men living with HIV.  I had the good fortune of being able to spend three days doing in-depth interviews with these men, and heard explicit stories about their lives that have involved armed bank robberies, gun violence, years of injection drug use and unprotected sex, and just generally the difficulty of growing up in an inner city neighborhood.  The remarkable thing is that these men are all in their 40s, 50s, and 60s now and have been living with HIV since the late 1980's.  Almost to a person, they have turned their lives around, and have (by and large) quit drinking, smoking, drugging, and sleeping around.  They all made a conscious decision to live.  I'm still replaying so much of the interviews in my head, and am looking forward to getting the interviews transcribed so I can take a closer look at what we talked about.

The really amazing and wonderful part of doing this work (among other things) is that I made the realization over the weekend that I am doing exactly what I've always wanted to be doing with my career.  I remember when I first moved to the East Coast in 1994, and I first read the book And the Bank Played On (by Randy Shilts, it chronicles the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the US).  I was so taken by this book, and though I had no firm plan about what I wanted to do with my life in terms of education or job (I was 24 and working in a biotech company at the time), I decided then and there that I wanted to spend my career somehow researching or caring for people with HIV/AIDS.  I wasn't clear about the path I'd take to get there, but I remember clearly knowing that's what I wanted to do.

So imagine my surprise when I was talking with Kim this weekend about my time in DC, and she remarked that I seemed to be doing exactly the thing I had always dreamed about doing.  She was right.  It seems like its rare when you can envision a life for yourself and then wake up one day to realize you are living the life and accomplishing the goals you had set out for yourself.  Its even more remarkable that I hatched this plan, or this dream, I guess, more than 15 years ago, and am just now seeing it come to fruition (and perhaps even more remarkable that I had forgotten I had had this dream for myself in the first place, as it seems like I've taken various detours here and there).

I've got all sorts of other things to write about, but I want to stop here and celebrate Ella's last day of kindergarten.  She's done incredibly well this year, and I'm so proud of her and the amazing child she has become.  I love her, and Maisie, more than words can possibly say.

(ok...seem to be having technical difficulty uploading Ella's picture here, but will try it again later)...

Back together again, briefly

I ran into our good friend and former daycare provider, Nancy, at the playground yesterday and she reminded me I haven't updated the blog in awhile.  Guilty as charged.  I don't have a ton of time to write this morning, as I'm leaving for a trip to DC in a few hours for a week of patient interviews for a research study I'm working on.  Its an interesting study--I'm interviewing HIV-infected veterans about their beliefs regarding patient/physician trust and endorsement of government conspiracy theories regarding HIV/AIDS.  I have 17 interviews do to over a three-day period, so I'm going to be working nearly nonstop the whole time I'm there.  But, I was funded to do this study last summer and I've just now gotten through all the IRB steps to actually do the study, so I'm looking forward to it.  The downside is that Kim and Maisie just got home from Texas Saturday night, so despite spending a really nice day together yesterday, we're all heading back to our separate three corners of the earth again (Amherst, Hamden, and DC).

The pictures below are from the trip Ella and I took to New York on Saturday.  I figured she and I could do something fun together before Kim and Maisie returned.  We spent over three hours at the American Girl Doll store, and though I was firm about her NOT needing another American Girl doll (she already has three), I did let her have the doll's hair done, buy some matching doll/girl outfits (including matching pajamas for both Ella and her doll AND Maisie and her doll).  We also managed to get a lunch reservation at the store at the last minute, so we had fun dining together.  When that shopping extravaganza was all said and done, I talked her into walking up to the Central Park zoo to see the new snow leopard exhibit (which was ok, but the new baby snow monkey was the highlight of the trip). 

Ella did great in the city, as she always does.  This is our 4th trip into the city together, and everytime we're there, I wonder why I don't take her more often.  She loves it, and so do I.  On this trip, I insisted that we walk the whole way, so we walked from Grand Central (at 43rd) all the way to the zoo, and back (stopping in between at American Girl, of course).  Though she complained of her feet hurting, she did a great job.  I think this summer it would be fun to get tickets to see a Broadway show together--maybe Mary Poppins.  I think she'd like that.

Anyway, its going to be a busy week, so I'd better get moving.  Here's some pictures of Ella from the weekend.  She certainly loves to be in New York...

Waterslide

My parents gave us an inflatable waterslide last summer.  Its funny because they really didn't take much to it last summer when we got it, but we blew it up today and they had a ball.  Its still a bit difficult for Maisie to crawl up to the top, but both she and Ella loved it, and invented all kinds of creative ways to go down the slide.

Kim and Maisie leave tomorrow on a week-long trip to see Kim's parents in Texas.  We're pretty nervous about Kim flying with Maisie, because we're certain she'll be a disaster on the plane, and our only hope is that the plane isn't diverted so they can kick Maisie off.  Maisie is not known for her ability to sit still, or to be quiet, so I'm sure Kim will be getting all kinds of glares from her fellow passengers.  It will be fun once they get there, though, as Kim's parents have never really spent any time with Maisie.  The only time Maisie was there was when she was about six months old.  Its supposed to be hot there, so I'm sure they'll spend all kinds of time at the pool and the playground.

In the meantime, I've got all kinds of fun things planned for Ella.  She only has two weeks of school left, so between Amy, Howie, and I, she's going to have a great week.  I think she gets to spend a couple of nights with Howie, get a pedicure with Amy, and I'll top it all off on Saturday with a day trip into New York City.  She felt a little sorry for herself about not getting to go to Texas, but i think we've convinced her that it will be equally fun to stay here and get some one on one time with Amy, Howie, and I, so all should be well.

Kindergarten and self esteem

Now that Ella has just a little over two weeks left of her kindergarten year, it seems like a good time for reflection.  Overall, I'm glad we got her started in kindergarten this year.  She's had a really wonderful teacher who has been patient and loving, and the larger school system has been a good one to be a part of.  I thoroughly enjoy the other parents in Ella's class, and have enjoyed hanging out with them on field trips and class parties.  I've been about as involved as I could possibly be as a parent in her class this year, and have volunteered to go on every field trip she's had this year, with the exception of one that Howie attended.  I've helped out in the class at various times, and am hosting the end-of-the-year barbecue this Saturday for all the kindergarteners in Ella's class and their parents.

And yet...

And yet, I've been doing a lot of thinking about how Ella is doing now that the year is nearly over, and I'm observing some things in her that are making me sad.  As everybody knows, public school systems feature a large amount of testing, even in kindergarten, and so she is constantly being measured and tested on her progress in reading and math.  On one hand, its amazing--Ella has gone from being able to identify 5 or 6 letters at the beginning of kindergarten to being able to do some reading.  She is also doing math, and has a very good handle on simple addition.  The volumes of material that she has learned over the past year is staggering. 

But, on the other hand, all of this testing and measuring is getting to her, I think.  More and more, she is telling me that she's not good enough in one way or another.  She tells me (often in tears, or nearly so) that everybody reads better than she does or that other kids get more 'good work' stickers than she does.  I realize both of these could be exaggerations, but there is definitely an element of low self esteem in her generated by all of the comparisons of her ability, even at this early age.

Perhaps the worst incident occurred the other night.  She got upset about some small thing at the end of the day, and ran up to her room sobbing and generally being hysterical.  I let her be that way for a few minutes, and then headed up to talk to her about it.  She didn't know I was upstairs, and I came upon her in her room repeating over and over again (between sobs) "I don't like myself, I don't like myself, I don't like myself".  It totally broke my heart to hear this, and made me completely sick, because there is really no good reason for a 5-year old girl not to like herself.

She and I sat and talked about it, and all kinds of stuff came out...mostly about school. Part of her issues were about not feeling smart enough (!!), but she spent a lot of time talking about how school was really no fun.  She said things that really resonated with me--there was no time for play, not enough time to draw and color and tell stories, that kids always had to stand in line and follow directions and they had to sit at their desks most of the day.  Again, one can chalk some of this up to exaggeration, but a good amount of what she's saying really makes sense.  The kid is only 5, and the things expected of kindergarteners, and the degree to which testing abilities is emphasized at age 5 (!!) is just appalling.  I hate to see her be so strung out about it all.  There will be plenty of time for that later in life.

And, I think what she's saying really resonates with me, as I'm somebody who has spent years and years in competitive academic environments, and continue to work in an incredibly competitive academic world, where you've got to watch your back at all times lest somebody take your idea or move into an area that you have staked out for yourself.  I've grown to love this environment for some sick reason, but its not for the weak of heart, and I certainly don't wish this kind of competitiveness upon my 5-year old daughter.

I've been spending a good amount of time figuring out what to do to make Ella feel better.  There is no quick solution that will make her feel better or enable her to deal with all of this better, so its more a matter of finding a long-term solution that will benefit her.  I've got several ideas, and have actually considered other school systems that are a bit gentler on kids and emphasize the 'whole child' a bit more than the public system, but the school that I'm considering for her is in Amherst, and so largely depends on whether we can still manage to sell out house and transition up there in the next few months.  We actually have a showing on Friday--our first in over eight weeks--so we're hoping something good comes out of that.

Its hard to know what to do.  Seeing her sad makes me sad, but more just makes me angry that we can't just let our kids be kids anymore without forcing them to conform to standards that are generally out of their reach.

My theory of human behavior regarding airplanes and house sales

First, today was Memorial Day, and so like in previous years, we attended the Hamden Memorial Day parade.  Its a biggish parade with bands and floats and lots of marching veterans.  And, in like every year before this one (ok, last year was actually our first year in attendance, come to think of it), I got all weepy.  I don't know what it is about parades but they always make me cry.  Or maybe its just Memorial Day parades, because the whole point of Memorial Day parades is to remember fallen soldiers and people that have served our country.  Before I worked at the VA I don't know that this would have meant much to me, but now that I spend my days surrounded by veterans, and because all of my research involves talking to veterans about their experiences, I can't help but get all choked up at parades.  And, its not just the veterans that choke me up...its the fire trucks (inexplicably), the junior/senior high marching bands (completely wacko that this makes me sad), and other random things.

The kids love the parade mostly because of all the candy throwing, but Maisie totally got into all the music and she waved at everybody.  We are also getting to know more people in town through Ella's school and other random activities, so its nice to see people we know at the parade. 

Second, I've always had this human behavior theory about sitting next to strangers on airplanes.  Generally, people don't speak to their seatmate the entire flight, whether its an hour or four hours.  But, the ice always seems to be broken when the pilot announces that the plane will be landing in 15 minutes.  Suddenly, people open up and ask where you're going and where you're from.  Its like people figure they'll never see you again.

The same thing is happening with our not-selling house.  In the past couple of weeks, all of the neighbors on our cul-de-sac (with the exception of the neighbors that hate us), have come out of the woodwork and express concern/curiousity about our plans.  I'm not meaning to suggest that people have actually come to our front door to inquire about our well-being (no), but now that we are outside more, all of them have stopped by while we're working in the yard to see what's up with us.  At some point during the conversation, they always express that it would be a shame to see us leave.  We then reassure them that we're not likely to leave (in fact, we took the house off the market today, for either a few weeks or a year or forever, who knows).

This whole thing puzzles me.  For all practical purposes, folks really haven't talked to us much the nearly two years we've been here (except for the awful neighbors).  The un-awful neighbors are friendly enough by waving when they drive by, but other than that, there's been no real interaction.  So, do people really mean it when they say they'd be sad to see us leave, or is it just a nice thing to say when you're discussing the possibility of somebody moving?  I really don't know the answer, but I have found the whole thing fascinating, and it reminds me of the last fifteen minutes of an airplane ride.

Gardening

As always, I've gotten wrapped up doing all kinds of things other than updating the blog (with the exception of pictures), so I'll try to take some time now to catch folks up on where we are.

1.  Garden, Part I:  A couple of months ago (March, I think) I took Ella to the garden store and we bought some seeds to grow lettuce and herbs.  We sort of paid attention to the growing seeds and sort of didn't, but eventually Kim got frustrated that we didn't pay more attention and put the tray with fledging plants out on the deck (in early April, I think).  Surprisingly, the plants seemed to do extremely well outside, and eventually I realized they were actually going to survive and I transfered them to pots on our back porch.  Well, I'm happy to say that I now have more lettuce (about 5 different varieties) than I know what to do with.  Its just fabulous--I have salads nearly every night and I'm just ridiculously proud of myself that I did all of this in pots.

2.  Garden, Part II:  We planted strawberries in the main garden about a month ago, and they are doing pretty well (not great, as some little creature seems to be taking big bites out of them).  I finally got out there today to begin planting the rest of the vegetables.  I went down to the local garden store and got a great lesson on how to deal with weeds (put down this black fabric-like stuff on top of the dirt, which kills the weeds).  I bought about half my plants today, including tomatoes, cucumbers, cantaloupe, and zucchini.  Ella is a tremendous help in the garden, and was so helpful putting down the fabric, digging the holes, and putting in the plants.  This whole garden thing was her idea last year, and we had a great first year of a garden last year, and learned a lot of lessons in terms of things we should do differently this year.  We got rained out before we could plant all the plants, but I expect we'll be able to get the rest of the plants in tomorrow.

3.  House I:  This might be the most interesting thing.  We've had absolutely no luck selling it.  In fact, when people came to our open houses, they would all remark what a beautiful place it was and how ridiculously cheap it was (not music to our ears).  But, nobody could buy it because they had houses to sell themselves or couldn't get credit.  I got frustrated and so we decided to take it off the market (partially because I think we had it on the market for too little money).  I'm not sure how long we'll leave it off for...maybe a few weeks or maybe for a year.

4.  House II:  The great thing about not selling our house is that we can tackle some of the outdoors things in our yard that we've wanted to do.  We're starting by tearing down the back deck (that used to connect to the pool), and adding onto our deck just outside our house and eventually...putting in a hot tub.  We had some guys over to our house the other morning to talk about costs for all this, but I think its something we can swing with some of the consulting work I'm doing.

5.  Other Stuff:  (randomly)....

a.  Went to our good friends' Brian and Sarah's wedding last night in Brooklyn and had a wonderful time (picture of us below from last night).
b.  The girls are really great.  Ella has made a huge amount of progress in school this year, and is now reading well-enough (not perfect, but really huge progress since the beginning of kindergarten when she didn't even know all of her letters).  I think her biggest problem is that she has a tendency to be quite self conscious about her academic abilities, so she doesn't like to do stuff if she doesn't think she can do it perfectly.
c.  Maisie is insane.
d.  Work is great.  There's not enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do, but its all really good.

ok...that's enough of an update for us now.  I'll keep adding more pictures as I get them.

Two peas in a pod

Our amazing nanny and Maisie, sporting roughly the same hair-do...

Happy Birthday, Kim!

I won't say how many birthdays she's had, but it was fun to have her home tonight to celebrate.  Delicious cupcakes, thanks to Amy and the girls!