Molly's Mantra

Back in June, when the boys went to basketball camp, I took the girls up to New York to visit Grandma in the Red House. When we arrived, my mom had a new sign by her front door and a new statue. As soon as I saw it, I thought of Molly. THAT IS MOLLY! Look at her, hands outstretched, smile on her face, ready to soak in whatever the day has to offer her. Throughout the years, I have taken thousands of pictures of my kids. I was always a big picture taker, even before the cell phone cameras. My kids know that I need to take a picture of them to document the soccer and basketball wins, the dance performances, the birthdays, the holidays, and the everyday ordinary stuff in our life as well.

So when I saw my mom's new statue, my mind went right to all the pictures I have of Molly with her arms outstretched, savoring the moments. 

New York

Harpers Ferry

Even with a broken arm!

Newport, Rhode Island

Plymouth, New Hampshire

Dollywood, Tennessee

Great Falls, VA

Smokey Mountains, Tennessee

Lake Winnipeasaukee, NH

Poconos, PA

Charleston, SC

Montauk, Long Island

New York City

Sagamore Hill, Oyster Bay Long Island

Central Park

Drayton Hall, SC

Kiawah, SC

So as you can see, her arms seem to always be outstretched. It doesn't seem to matter where we are or what we are doing, she likes to soak in an experience, take it all in, she notices the big details as well as all the little details of a day. When we went to Sagamore Hill, Teddy Roosevelt's house, she searched through the museum to find all the answers to the scavenger hunt. When we walked on the nature trail to the bay, she stopped at each tree to look at the leaves to identify them. She noticed that the north shore of Long Island is hard and rocky and that the south shore is soft and sandy. When we got to the water, she noticed the crabs and the shells and the horseshoe crabs and the birds and you could almost hear the wheels turning in her head as she thought and processed and learned and just was taking it all in.

Back in May, Molly and I went to NYC with her dance performing troupe. We saw the musical Newsies and she just fell in love with it. She has watched the Disney movie dozens of times, can sing all the songs by heart, and can recite certain parts of the movie with a thick New York accent. One of the songs is Seize the Day and that has become her mantra. This ten year old will talk about seizing the day and savoring the moment. These words are now a part of every daily vocabulary.

Last night, I was at one of Ryan's basketball games and was sitting with a group of moms. One mom that I hadn't met before was talking about a camp that her son went to last week and how wonderful it was. She said it was a bit out of his comfort zone and after the first day, he came home not wanting to go back. She said he was going, that he was with his friends, and that he had the choice to make it a good experience or sulk about it and make himself miserable. It was his choice. She said her son ended up having an amazing week. We each have a choice every. single. day. How are we going to take on the day? Are we going to seize it? Are we going to savor it? 

The thing is, I don't have Molly's SEIZE THE DAY attitude. Molly usually wakes up happy, ready to go to school or dance or Shannon's soccer game or her brothers' basketball games. Even if it is something that she particularly doesn't want to do, she makes the most of it. It seems to come naturally to her, it is who she is.

I, on the other hand, am cranky and crabby in the morning. I certainly do not wake up with a Seize the Day attitude. My worst mommy moments are probably in the morning trying to get the other non-morning people out the door and to school on time. There is no seizing the day, it's more like survive the day. 

And that's life. You just can't seize the day, every day, but for some, like Molly, that positive outlook, that seize the day, that dance even when it's raining outside attitude (One of her favorite movies is Singing in the Rain.) it comes easier to her than others. It's as if she doesn't make the choice to be happy, she just is. But I'm more like the little boy that didn't like his camp on the first day. I need to make the choice each day, it doesn't come so easily. I have to think about it and make the choice.

One day last week, we were sitting at the dinner table and the kids were discussing personalities and they were saying that Ryan is a "mini-me" of Chris, which I agree with, they do have similar personalities as well as Ryan looking like Chris when he was a kid. They also said that Molly was my mini-me, that we like the same things; school, books, museums, musicals. This may be true, we do enjoy similar things, but it is me who wants to have her attitude of arms outstretched to take on the day no matter what. She is my example.

And now, I have a reminder of that in my front garden because when I told my mom how much I loved her new statue and how it reminded me of Molly, guess what came in the mail a few days later?

Here is my new statue, arms outstretched, birds sitting on her arms, it makes me want to start singing Zippity Doo Dah…Mr. Bluebird's on my shoulder.

And here is Molly and Grandma, standing like statues, trying to get the birds to come to them.

And one finally came.

Books on Location

This past weekend I was up in New York with my girls. Molly and I packed a bag of books because we had a plan to visit a bunch of places that are connected to books we have read together. I posted pictures over the weekend to Instagram and Facebook and someone asked if we walk around with a library and just whip out a book and take a picture? 

Not exactly.

Books on Location all started last summer when Molly and I were reading From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. It was all Molly's idea. The story is about a sister and brother that run away and live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a few weeks. Molly wanted to go visit the museum and see the things that were mentioned in the book. I did a little research, and over the years, many people have done the same thing to the point that the museum actually made a guide of the museum for kids based off of the book. We went in September of 2013 and had a great day exploring all the things that Molly and I had read about.

Then December came, and we always go to NY for Christmas. Every year, we pick a day to go into the city, we see the tree, pick a few fun things to do, and just enjoy the day together. Molly and I happen to be reading The Cricket in Times Square and I said to her we should bring the book and take a picture with it in Times Square. 

And there you have it. It was the beginning of Books on Location. We don't pick which books we will read based off of whether we can take a picture somewhere, but we have had fun with it this past year.

After reading Escape From Mr. Lemoncelllo's Library, Molly got her own library card. 

During spring break, we drove down to Florida. We had finished reading Because of Winn-Dixie and used google map to find one somewhere in Alabama to get our picture.

In May, Molly and I were in NY because her dance troupe performed on the Intrepid for Fleet Week. We packed a couple of books to take our pictures, The Wizard of Oz in front of Wicked which we had seen a few years ago and Matilda, one of our favorite books and musicals.

But when we finished reading The Wizard of Oz, we also made a trip into DC for the day to see the ruby slippers at the Smithsonian…even though we both now know that the shoes were not ruby in the book.

Notice the shirt she is standing next to in the gift shop…and then notice the shirt she is wearing in the next picture…I'm a softy.

After we walked around the museum for about an hour, we ventured out to the mall. I knew there was a carousel there, and yes we both know that Mary Poppins takes place in London and is actually one of the places that Molly would LOVE to go visit someday, but we settled for a picture by the carousel. There is a carousel scene in a park in the book.

After the carousel ride, we walked down to the White House. Molly and I read When Audrey Met Alice. Audrey's mother is the president and she lives in the White House. She is snooping around one night and finds Alice Roosevelt's diary hidden in the floor boards in a closet. Alice is the oldest of Teddy Roosevelt's kids. The books goes back and forth between present day with Audrey to the past with Alice. Molly and I just fell in love with Alice's spirit. She really was quite the character.

Well, after reading When Audrey Met Alice, we had to make a trip to Teddy Roosevelt's house that just happens to be about half an hour away from my mom's house. This was Alice's house before her father became president. We couldn't go into the house because of renovations, but it is in such a pretty spot and we walked around the grounds, went into the museum, and then walked the nature trail to the bay. 

Then on Sunday, we went into the city. We had it all planned out and our books were in a backpack. 

First stop, the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park.

We really had the perfect day, sun was shining, it wasn't too hot or too cold, and Molly was just so excited to spend the morning in the park.

Next stop, the Hans Christian Andersen statue. Molly and I have read a few of his stories. It all started because of the movie Frozen, which is loosely, and I mean loosely, based on his story The Snow Queen. Then we read a few more of his stories and then of course I had to buy the movie, Hans Christian Andersen, with Danny Kaye. Molly has watched it a number of times.

Molly and I haven't read Nightingale's Nest yet. It's a new book and it's on our summer reading list. It is based off of Han Christian Andersen's The Nightingale.

Our last stop in Central Park was to find a place where we thought there should be a statue for James and the Giant Peach.

And as for the enormous peach stone - it was set up permanently in a place of honor in Central Park and became a famous monument. It was also a famous house. And inside the famous house there lives a famous person- 

James Henry Trotter

himself.

Every day of the week, hundreds and hundreds of children from far and near came pouring into the City to see the marvelous peach stone in the Park. 

There really should be a peach stone in Central Park. Molly and I are going to have to write a letter to someone about this.

After all our Central Park visits, we took a cab to Times Square. The book we are reading right now, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. When we were in the city a couple of weeks ago for her dance performance, we saw the Wonka section in Toys r Us and knew we would be back with the book.

Our last stop on Saturday was to see Matilda, again. A show based on a book about a girl that loves to read books. Molly knows every lyric to every song, and can sing them with the British accent. Not only is it a great show, it has a great message.

It's about when you think life's not fair, you don't have to sit around and just take it. Do something about it! You are in control of your own story, you get to decide what your story is going to be about. Isn't that great message for little girls, really for us all?

Matilda's mom

Matilda's brother

Matilda's Dad

It reminds me of this saying…

Where will our reading take us next. Well, I'm not sure. We read Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great by Judy Blume and it takes place in Tarrytown, NY, right near Sleepy Hollow. Washington Irving's house is there, author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. We read Double Fudge by Judy Blume and Fudge and his family visit the National Zoo in Washington DC.

Or this is the pond from Stuart Little. We might just have to read that before our next New York City trip.

So many books to read, so many places to visit.

Our Magical Creek

Can you hear it?

My windows are open and the birds are chirping and singing and are oh, so very busy. We back up to woods and a creek and the birds love it. Under our deck it's like a bird hotel, there are four bird nests, two look like robins nests and the other two look like dove nests. We found a cardinal nest in the bush next to the deck yesterday. A couple of hawks have built a nest high up in the trees and you can see the babies now if you look carefully through the leaves. Every once in a while you can hear their screeching calls. A couple of ducks can be heard quacking as they swim up and down the creek. The other day, Chris had closed our windows. I asked if he was cold and he said, "No, it's just that the birds are too noisy first thing in the morning."

Can you see it?

The canopy of leaves on the trees have filled-in our backyard. New growth is coming in on the bushes, the early spring blossoms have fallen and given way to new leaves while late spring blooms are just emerging. On our way to Ryan's band concert last night, lightning cracking down to earth and provided us with its own show.The light filled the sky. 

Can you feel it?

Yesterday my phone read 94º. I know some people would say that's too hot too fast, but for me, it's better than the 4º back in January. It was a long, cold, snowy, icy winter and the warmth of the sun has felt great. But there is also a feeling in the air that it is coming, it is almost here…summer. The ice cream man has been making his rounds, the boys have been playing basketball out in the cul de sac with friends, laughing and screaming and just plain having a good time. Sometimes a huge manhunt game breaks out. The kids have gotten older and they will get on their scooters and go to all three cul de sacs in our neighborhood knocking on doors to gather as many kids as they can find for the game. Their boundaries have expanded throughout the years as they have grown. Kids could be hiding anywhere and good luck trying to find yours if you need them for dinner or to get in the car for a practice. 

Last week, there was a day that my boys were in the basement playing xbox. I really don't like it, not just because my boys are stationary on the couch, but more because their biggest fights break out while they are playing. They are extremely competitive, they always have been. But as they are getting older, their bodies have gotten bigger, their voices have gotten louder, and their arguments have grown with them, over FAKE basketball games on the xbox. Arguments about cheating, and quitting, and who knows what?!? And who cares? IT'S…NOT…REAL! So during the last fight breakout, I took xbox away from them…again. I've done this before and I know it will happen again. It's hard to do in the winter months when it's freezing outside with snow and ice on the ground, they can only be outside for so long. Taking the electronics away when the weather is nice is so much easier.

For the past few days, the boys have been coming home from school and disappearing for hours. No one has been coming home screaming or fighting. They have just been outside…but not playing basketball. They return after these long disappearances filthy, dirty, covered in mud and sweat…turn on the hose and strip in the laundry room dirty…but getting along and not fighting. I finally asked them, "What are you guys doing?"

"We are down at the creek."

 Now, my kids have past many of hours down by the creek. We have pods of frog eggs and tadpoles in the playhouse in the backyard that have been collected, turtles have come up from the creek into our yard and every time one shows up they always name it Franklin. One turtle actually laid it's eggs in our yard and the kids had us build a cage over the nest to protect it from other animals. Three months later we had baby turtles. In early summer, you can walk down there in the evening with a flashlight and sit to watch the amazing light show of a million fireflies. 

They love playing down by the creek. They get dirty and messy, but isn't that what boys should be doing? I was talking to a friend the other day that has a common area behind her house. It's an open area and her boys will play football or baseball out in the field. She said that she has had older neighbors that have complained about the boys. The boys have been yelled at for climbing the trees. While she was telling me this, I thought about how many people from the generation before me have said things about kids nowadays with all their electronics, and when they were a kid their curfew was when the street light came on, and the hours that they played outside, unscheduled, not at organized activities. But here were boys, just being kids, and getting in trouble for the stuff that this older generation all did in the good old days.

Yesterday, while I was dropping Molly off at dance, the boys came home from school. I walked into an empty house. A bag of popcorn was popped but not eaten.

Backpacks were on the ground, sneakers were kicked off, but no boys. I texted Ryan to see where he was, but then found his phone in his cubby. I then set out to find them. 

They were down by the creek. Ever since they lost xbox, they have been spending all their time down there. What were they doing? So I searched them out.

There they are. 

They were building, they were creating, they were getting along, they were working together. It was like the water in the creek possessed magical powers over my boys. They found wood that people must have discarded in the woods, 2x4's. They were building a fort. They had plans. They want to go to Home Depot to get longer nails, to maybe get a few more pieces of wood. They have plans to find flat rocks at the base of the tree because it is muddy and slippery and they thought if they build a small "patio" creekside, it would help. They built a bridge over the creek so they could cross, tied a rope around two trees to have something to hold on to so they wouldn't fall. 

Can you feel it? 

We had our last CCD class on Monday, Ryan had his last band concert last night, my kids are working through their SOL tests in school, two being taken today. Summer is coming! No schedules, no alarm clocks, no tests, no homework, just good old fashion play outside until your mom calls you home for dinner.  

I took the controllers for xbox so they couldn't play. Maybe I'll conveniently misplace them and not remember where I put them. Would that be such a bad thing? 

The Sweet Sound of Our Garage Door

Life seems to be returning to normal around here, or at least a new normal for the moment anyway. I am sitting at my desk waiting for the critter control guy to arrive today. We have squirrels trying to make a nest in our attic and birds that have successful done so. Vents have been broken, holes have been gnawed, and they are in the air ducts. Today, everything will be removed and fixed and replaced and sealed.

Shannon is finally starting to feel like herself again, she is on a new school schedule of partial homebound classes and attending classes at school. She has been working almost every minute of the day trying to get herself caught up on 5 weeks of missed school work. She has to-do lists in her room, she has to-do lists taped to a cabinet in the kitchen. She is slowly crossing things off her lists to get caught up.

We also have a new car. Last week was filled with insurance calls, doctor visits, a rental car, and car shopping. For the most part, the accident stuff is behind us.

 Timmy went to the orthopedic yesterday for his knee pain. He went down pretty hard on it last week in a basketball game. The x-rays yesterday showed he might have chipped part of the bone and that he has Osgood-Schlatter Disease, which in mom language, is not a disease but a condition that has to do with growing pains. It's all manageable. And while I was sitting in the doctors office yesterday morning waiting for Timmy to get his x-rays and then to see the doctor, I brought my magazine, Seeing the Everyday. There are no advertisements in this magazine, it is just filled with stories on trying to stay in the moment, appreciating the small stuff, being grateful for the messy bits of life as well as the good stuff. 

Yesterday I read this one story, Garage Door, and I knew EXACTLY what the author was talking about. She wrote about a childhood memory of when her father would return home each night from a long day at work. She would wait in anticipation for the sound of the garage door opening. It was this "loud and often obnoxious" sound of the garage door rising on it's mechanism that triggered "the swells of physical warmth" inside of her. 

Anyone with listening ears could hear our loud door from virtually any room in the house. Like clockwork every evening, as my mother cooked dinner, signaling Dad's imminent arrival, I listened carefully in anticipation of the appointed time, waiting for the garage door to trumpet his homecoming.

I read this and I knew exactly what she was talking about even though I did not have this childhood memory. I grew up on Long Island. The houses in my neighborhood were old and most of them were small, with detached garages in the backyard. If they were attached to the house, I didn't know any neighbors that actually used it for their car. I even had a few neighbors that finished their garages and made them into family rooms. When I was really young, my father had a second job. My brother and I were usually fed and in bed before he came home. No, I do not share this childhood memory, this is my life right now! 

I have often thought of the sound of our own garage door while standing at the kitchen counter preparing dinner for my family. Chris will sometimes call in the late afternoon to find out what is on the schedule, who has what activity and if I need him to go pick someone up on his way home. He will let me know if he has something going on at work and what his estimated time of arrival home. Family dinner has always been a priority for me, but with our crazy schedule of activities, it getting harder and harder. When the kids were younger, their activities were usually right after school. We would be done by six or seven o'clock and then we would have dinner. Now, we have activities anywhere from 4:00 to 10:00 at night. Trying to carve out that niche of time for us to all come together is not easy.

But on those days that we can all eat together, when I am standing at the kitchen counter preparing our meal, putting dinner in the oven, trying to time everything just right, making sure everything is ready at the same time, I cook our meal in anticipation of the sound of the garage door opening. The signal that Dad is home.

A few weeks ago when Shannon was really sick with mono and wasn't eating at the table with us, I think it was Molly that said, "It just feels different when there is one family member missing, it doesn't matter which one, but things are just different." I completely agree with her, but Chris is the glitter of the family. Even if he has had a hard day at work, it is very rare for him to bring that hard day home with him. We sit at the table and tell stories and talk about our day. There is always great anticipation for him to come home. Sometimes he doesn't quite make it in time for dinner and we have to start without him because someone has a practice or game to go to afterwards. There are times we are sitting at the table eating dinner and we hear the rumble of the garage door opening and the kids yell "HIDE!" They disperse in different directions and wait for Chris to walk in the door and jump out to either scare or surprise him. They started doing this when they were little and they still do it today...my not so little kids…and Chris plays along.

The sound of the garage door opening used to just signal Chris' arrival home, but now that the kids are older, they know the code to open the garage door. In the afternoon, I will be in the house busy folding laundry, cleaning the kitchen or sitting at my desk and I will hear the door start rolling upward and know that the boys are home from school. In the evening, I wait to hear it's sound if one of the kids is at an activity and someone else is carpooling. I hear the garage door moving on its track and I know that they have arrived home safely. 

Yesterday, Chris was in Boston for the day. His flight home was delayed because of the rain so he didn't get home until after 11:00. But it is not just me and the kids that anticipate the sound of the garage door. It is our pups as well. They have their own schedule. They get up every morning and go out, they let you know when it's dinner time, they know they get a bone in the evening…and they know Chris is suppose to come home every night as well. If Chris is on travel, those pups sit at the laundry room door waiting for his arrival and if he is late, they think every little sound, every little bump, every car in the cul de sac is Chris. Last night, I picked up Ryan from basketball at 9:30. The garage door opened and the pups were barking thinking we were Chris. Ryan and I walked in and they were still looking to see if Chris was going to walk through the door after us. They know that someone is missing.

It's funny that I read this magazine story this week because this week I've been thinking about the sound of the garage door a lot. Last weekend, Chris and Ryan got in a car accident and even though they are both completely fine and all is good, the sound of our garage door opening has been a bit sweeter each evening when Chris comes home, that loud, rumbly, rolling, mechanical sound is the signal that he is home and he is safe. The accident was bad enough to shake us all up a bit, a reality check that we don't know what each day may bring us, but not bad enough that anyone was really hurt. A blessing!

For many years the garage door opening has been the signal for just Dad's arrival home. But now it also signals me that kids have arrived home from school and sports and activities as they get dropped off from carpools. And soon, one by one, it will signal that they have arrived home safely from driving themselves, a stage of parenthood I'm not ready for!

Some afternoons, it's hard to keep track of where everyone is, and who's coming and who's going, but for now, there is a little bit more fanfare, a little bit more spirit, a little bit more gratefulness when one of my loved ones comes through the door…that rolling rumble of the garage door, well, it just brings a smile to my face. I know that they are home safe.

We decorated the garage door back in December for Chris' birthday.