His first season of basketball he had never attempted to dribble a ball until the first practice. From chucking the ball when his dribbling skills slowed him down to going after every rebound and passing to his teammates his growth is a testament to the patience and diligence of his coaches and his tenacity.
Our Everyday
Sharing our stories, big and small.
The most intuitive of numbers, eleven, also symbolizes disorder, extravagance and rebellion. It comes after the wholeness of ten, a decade of childhood complete, but before twelve, the beginning of angst and separation. At eleven I can still kiss you on the lips, hug you in front of your friends and be the source of your truth. You laugh at my jokes, you patiently explain video games, anime and hip hop songs and you accept my reasoning and explanations for why things have to be my way. A golden time, I realize, soon enough I will be challenged to vie for relevance and coolness.
Yesterday was President’s Day, the third day of a long weekend. Our weekend was full of basketball games, Odyssey of the Mind, a trip into DC, a family party and lots of family time in and around the house, in and out of the car. Our weekend was also full of bickering. My kids can rarely have a conversation that doesn’t include one-upping, eye-rolling, heavy sighs of annoyance and outright yelling. Each one knows more than the other and each one finds the other painful to tolerate. Of course this escalates until my blood boils over and I become the even louder hammer that squashes it. The silence lasts all of two minutes before someone starts talking again and the one-upping and eye-rolling pick right back up.
So by the end of the long weekend I was ready to rid myself of all my children. I needed silence, I needed removal.
What happened to the days when I’d have excitement to spend a day with my kids? There was no sliver of enjoyment I could point to in the past three days. Was I just dead inside? Had I outgrown my children?
At 11pm last nightPenny cried out with a fever. I gave her Motrin and she quickly went back to sleep but I knew, deep down, that this was not going to turn out well. By 11am today I learned she had the flu. I got her medicine, settled on the couch with lunch in her belly, tissues, water and T.V. remote by her side, and I sat at the dining table to do what work I could get done. I texted five different people to coordinate logistics for the evening, to ensure the boys activities wouldn’t suffer and texted another five people to alert them of Penny’s condition for support. I fed everyone dinner, did the dishes, straightened up the house (for fear that I would soon go down and wanted at least a clean house to be sick in), went through homework, washed my hands for the 50th time, asked the boys how their days were and got everyone tucked into bed.
It’s 10pm, Penny is having nightmares so I am sitting on the floor of her dark bedroom. As I look back on my day there is not a hint of annoyance. I missed a big meeting at work, I fell behind on a deliverable, I pushed other meetings aside and yet I am completely pleased with what I’ve accomplished today.
In the coming days Lucas then Oliver and then ultimately I will get sick. I will realize that having to care for my sick children is the exact kind of purpose I needed to right myself. In their sickness they have no energy to bicker over which T.V. show to watch, to complain that so-and-so is touching them. Stripped of exasperation I can see them for who they are; vulnerable children in need of compassion and the love that only I can give.
The National Portrait Gallery’s signature installation, America’s Presidents, is the only public collection to feature portraits of all of the U.S. presidents.
Tagged: art, National Portrait Gallery, Obama, photography, portrait, Presidents, Washington D.C.
Hillwood Mansion and Museum celebrates the arrival of Spring with Russian Easter traditions. Crafts, games and music provide entertainment in and around the estate which was once home to Marjorie Merriweather Post. She was a collector of art, maintaining the most comprehensive collection of Russian imperial art outside of Russia. Her mansion is equally a museum as it was her home.
We spent eight days enjoying the charm of Bar Harbor and the natural beauty of Acadia National Park. What I love most about vacations is the opportunity to experience things new and different. Seeing my children push themselves beyond what they’ve experienced and recognizing that this is something new and cool is the most rewarding. Lucas will remember putting aside his fears as he hiked up and down inclines too steep to be comfortable. Penny and Oliver will remember climbing up the most impossible dirt hills and rocky cliffs and the pride of pumping their arms into the air when they reached the top. And I will remember it all. 
The view of Bar Harbor from an observation point in Acadia National Park. This was the first time we had sight of the sand bar at low tide. Imagine our confusion when we saw people walking in the middle of the sea.
Lobstah: The way Mainahs say what most folks call lobster. Seeing as Maine has the largest lobstah industry of any state in the USA, “lobstah” is the correct pronunciation of the word. – http://www.urbandictionary.com
Acadia National Park protects the natural beauty of the highest rocky headlands along the Atlantic coastline of the United States, an abundance of habitats, high biodiversity, clean air and water, and a rich cultural heritage. Each year, more than 3.3 million people explore seven peaks above 1,000 feet, 120 miles of hiking trails, 45 miles of carriage roads, 17 stone bridges, and four lighthouses. – http://www.nps.gov
Beal’s Lobster Pier in Southwest Harbor has been a working fish and lobster pier since 1932. In 1969, after almost four decades of success as a wholesale operation, the third generation of Beals opened a Maine seafood restaurant at the end of the pier. The restaurant’s vision remains the same today as it was then–serve up the freshest seafood to customers, at the doorstep of the working waterfront. – www.bealslobster.com
“If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal- that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself… Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.”
― Henry David Thoreau
Our Everyday 