Eight Years Old

Happy birthday, dear Joy!

We just got back yesterday afternoon from our annual Memorial Day trip "up north" to the family cabins, a trip that regularly coincides with Joy's birthday.  I've just changed the "Introducing Joy" sidebar to reflect her new age.  Eight.  Hardly seems possible -- eight years old!

We celebrated with balloons and bubbles and little cupcakes in the cabin.  We'll have further celebrations at home, and shopping for a big-girl birthday bike as soon as we get our post-holiday act together to do so.

As Memorial Day trips go, this one was relatively uneventful, especially considering our track record of muddy departures and explosive avian visitations.  (Well, JoyDad did have to do some work on breaking out a beaver dam that was flooding the road.  But we'd had warning so that was expected.)

Our party was smaller than usual, just the four of us and GrampaK.  The weather was pleasant for the end of May, mostly cool with a couple of rainy bits but at least one warm-enough-to-swim afternoon.  We did our traditional walks in the woods:

and spent a lot of time on the screen porch watching the hummingbirds come to the feeder:

(When I posted this one on Facebook, I captioned it: "Secret for a long-lived relationship -- always respect your partner's side of the hummingbird feeder.")

You can tell that your daughter is growing up when she wants to drive the boat!

Not to worry, folks, it's safely docked.

One of the basic experiences of life up at the lake is the lack of running water.  We bring drinking water along, but wash water for the dishes and floor and ourselves comes from an old-fashioned pump just a little ways away from the cabin.  This weekend I had a startling realization -- though we'd been bringing Joy up to the cabin at least once a summer for her whole life, and sometimes more often than that... we'd never taken her down that short path to "help" pump water.  It's been part of Rose's experience since not long after she could walk.  But with Joy, early on I suppose it felt like too much of a hassle, and then later we just sort of had our fixed routines and always expected to come back from the pump with a full bucket in each hand, and no hand left to hang on to Joy lest she make a dash for the lake.

This vacation I finally realized what had been happening.  And Joy and I went to have fun with the pump.

So easy, to get into these ruts and hold our kiddos back.  We've got to do better than that.

We will not have another trip to the lake without a trip to the pump for Joy -- which she enjoyed to the hilt, my sweet water-loving child.  We've got to keep examining, and listening, and doing better.

Happy birthday, my sweet eight-year-old!

Go Jump in a Lake!

I guess if one's child is going to be driven by an unspoken imperative to "Go jump in a lake!" it's good to have a beautiful lake to jump into.

The JoyFamily returned on Monday from another long-weekend jaunt to the family cabins in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I'm pleased to report that our trip home was nicely uneventful, in contrast to our Memorial Day mudbath. The vacation itself was free of marauding ruffed grouse, and nary an exploding shower pipe was to be found.

The big novelty of the trip was the company of AuntieS, who hadn't been up to the lake in 3 decades. It was such a treat to have her there, I didn't even mind "letting" her win a round of dice the last night we were there... Besides, she took pictures! (Photos below are courtesy of AuntieS).

For Joy, the top-priority draw this visit was the lake itself. We hadn't been in the cabin five minutes, just beginning to unload and unpack, when we suddenly heard the lake-side screen door slam and Joy was hurtling down the steep embankment toward the pier. How she kept on her feet the whole way down, I'll never know -- I'm not even sure how I managed to stay upright in pursuit. I caught up with her at the last second, just as she paused at the far end of the pier before launching herself into the drink.

In past years, we've been able to sit on the pier and play little games, or swing on the rickety metal swingset between the cabins, or hang out happily for hours on the screen-porch overlooking the lake. Not this time around. Some switch on Joy's mixer-board had assumed a new setting -- the "Go jump in a lake" setting. Being in sight of the lake without actually jumping in? Not to be considered.

Fortunately, the weather cooperated for lake-splashings every afternoon we were there. Summer is waning up north, but by afternoon the sun had always warmed up the air and the lake enough for a swim.

The first afternoon, we splashed both off the pier and with the rest of the family off the side of the pontoon boat.

The next day we learned to float tummy-down on a little inflatable life-ring toy.

The third day, Joy discovered the delight of driving her hands down into the muddy sand of the lakebed. That was so much fun, she was even willing to dunk her head under when we went into slightly deeper water, for the joy of that sloppy lakebed.

We had other fine moments as well: unusual success at going for walks down the woodland roads, and playing with ferns WITHOUT consuming them, and an unusually calm ride home.

Gorgeous weather aside, this was not really an ideal weekend to upset the Joy-routine with a trip to the lake. We've had fruit-basket-upset with our therapy staffing and schedule and location through the course of August, with changes still happening. Then our summer childcare arrangement came to an end mid-August, leaving us patching together the last two weeks. And then the crowning routine-buster -- the start of first grade, with shortened days both Thursday and Friday, and a new teacher and case manager.

Since I didn't get this written before Day 1 of school actually happened, I'll let you in on the first day's outcome -- Joy's two main special education assistants are with her again this year. The first day of first grade was not at all like the traumatic first day of kindergarten. Not without some stress of course, but overall a big relief to everyone involved. Onward to Day 2!

Northwoods Adventures, May 2011

Here's the long-promised roundup of our Memorial Day at the lake.

Balloons for the birthday girl:

And for her big sister:

We walked in the woods:

And blew bubbles on the pier:

And played with the bubble-swords on the screen-porch (thank you AuntLO and UncleDO for the gift of bubbly entertainment!)

And enjoyed the heck out of pine-needles (so soft! so fragrant!):

We had unusually long stretches of independent play with the ring-stacker:

And lots of people-peek play with the pompom:

And the rocking chair:

Rose learned to cast with a borrowed fishing rod:

And caught a 20-inch northern pike off the end of the pier! (Actually, Rose hooked it, JoyDad landed it, and GrampaK de-hooked and released it. Rose was not interested in even get near enough to "her" fish to be photographed with it.)

Very tame, so far. Minor adventures only. Nothing nearly so eventful as last year...

Until we set out for home.

We'd decided to try & save some time by going out the "back way," down a remote logging road that had recently been widened a little by a new logging operation. We actually drove out to town that way on Monday, so we knew the road was passable (if a little muddy & exciting to drive.) We and GrampaK were the last ones out on Tuesday -- he went one way, we went the other.

And before we'd gotten more than a couple miles out, we zigged where we shoulda zagged -- and the passenger wheels sunk deep into soft mud at the side of the road.

"Everybody out," declared JoyDad, after the first attempt at backing up went nowhere.

I swung my door open... and it barely cleared the mud.

So we all clambered out the driver's side doors, and I spent the next 10 minutes holding Joy and getting bitten by mosquitoes while JoyDad got muddier and muddier trying to dig out (without tools) or toss something under the wheels for traction (a losing battle.)

Finally we decided that someone needed to hike out. Probably about 3 hours walk to the nearest house. We only had the one cell phone (mine) and of course no reception back-of-the-beyond as we were.

So the mud-spattered JoyDad set off down the road, glancing down at my cell for "bars" about every ten steps. I piled back into the car in the mud with the girls, out of mosquito range, to settle in to try & entertain them for who-knew-how-long. With no means of outside communication whatsoever.

Rose and Joy were two different entertainment challenges. Rose was aware enough of the situation to have some imaginative worries, and kept asking when Daddy was coming back. (As if I knew. He'd set out at 8:45. In my mind, the earliest he could possibly return with help would be 11am, and that was terrrrribly optimistic. But I didn't name a time.)

We snacked. I read chapter after chapter from Little Women. Joy watched DVD -- how long would the battery last? The sun started streaming through the trees onto the car, but I didn't dare run the air for more than 5 minutes every half hour, for fear of killing the battery too...

And then, just at 11:00, a tow-truck appeared through the leaves.

I didn't remember to get out with the camera to record the sunken car, but here's how it looked just after rescue:

We had guardian angels watching over us that day. JoyDad got a shoulder-tap from the first one about 15 minutes into his hike. He was watching that phone for the non-existent "bars" when all of a sudden... it RANG! Still no bars visible, but just enough connectivity that it was able to let him know that there was a message waiting.

That message was from the angel -- because I almost NEVER use my cell unless I'm setting up a specific call. Very few people have the number, and even fewer use it unless we've set up to speak. And yet, someone from home-town had called, just about the time we were getting stuck.

If JoyDad hadn't gotten that voice-mail alert, he'd never have known about the patch of connectivity back there in the woods. As it was, he was able to call 911 and be connected to a towing-company dispatcher and get help on the way.

And then he walked out of the connectivity and didn't hit another patch before finally intercepting the tow-truck, about two hours after his hike began.

Second angel was a mechanic in Merrill, Wisconsin, who was able to take a look at our vehicle when it started making awful noise en-route, and (instead of taking us for a huge sum of cash in our distress) assured us that we'd make it home as long as we didn't accelerate into any sharp turns.

I'll spare you the account of the rest of the trip -- it was long and warm and kinda cranky -- but we made it. And even the total expense, between the tow and the next day's necessary repairs, weren't nearly as awful as they could have been.

Wonder how next year's trip will go (she says with fear and trembling!)

Can't Drive A Sled

Wherein the women of the JoyFamily prove that not a one of us can drive a sled...



This was from our sledding trip during our lovely visit from Grandma Joy and GrandpaJ, who both sledded in a straighter line than the younger generations managed.

Three cheers for our new Flip video cam, and for JoyDad the intrepid videographer!

Peak Stim Season

Autumn has come to this part of the country, with chilly nights and turning leaves. As we planned for our annual fall getaway to close up the family cabins for the season, I watched the fall-color map on the weather.com web site. Fall-color watching is a tourism activity in and of itself, and the past two years the leaves were pretty much at "peak color" when we closed up the cabins. The fall-color forecast maps gave us reason to hope that the same might be true this year.

But as dawn broke on our drive north, it was clear that the traditional peak had come and gone. Aside from the evergreens and a few bright splashes of yellow birch leaves, everything had already fallen.

And guess what? From Joy's perspective, it was just perfect. The forest floor, and even the roads, had a thick coat of crunchy leaves to shuffle and kick.


The leaves helped distract from the stim that's been driving me & JoyDad crazy lately, which involves grabbing handfuls of dirt and trickling the soil down onto her own body or hair. With all the leaves around, she was more interested in making careful bouquets of the bright birch leaves, assembling and twirling the stems in her hand. Lovely, and much less messy.


Rose enjoyed the fallen leaves too. She and JoyDad went hiking up into the woods, to find the continental divide between the Lake Michigan & Lake Superior watersheds that runs through the family property. Rose also used red & yellow leaves to decorated the chains on the rickety old metal swingset, which was just the right height for Joy to swing all by herself this year.


Other highlights:

• Joy went swimming (Swimming! In the lake! In October!
  
  
• Rose went fishing with her uncles and learned to cast.
  
  
  
• Joy learned to drink from a soda can.
  
  
• Rose played her first game of dice with the grownups in the evening.
  
  
• Joy actually echoed the name of the lake, for the first time ever!
  
  
• We saw some ruffed grouse in the woods -- but not in the cabins.
  
  
• The weather was stunning all weekend -- shirtsleeve weather, blue skies, minimal insect issues.
  
  
• The starry skies at night went on forever.

Unfortunately, vacation is never forever. Back home we had to go, hoping the transition back to school won't be too exceedingly traumatic. At least we got to see the fall foliage in full swing on the ride back home! Tune in next spring for more exciting northwoods adventures.

Northwoods Adventure: Why We Had to Come Ashore

So -- as we left things in the previous (inadvisedly cliff-hanger-y) post, we'd been summoned back to the cabin in a voice that brooked no dispute, without knowing why. The distance would have been an easy dash on land, but not from an anchored pontoon boat with the crew bobbing about in the water! Had to get everyone back on board, haul up the anchors, get the boat restarted despite a balky battery, then ease it back into the super-shallow water next to the pier. All without unduly scaring the young'uns... Rose in particular has such an imagination.

As you can guess, the adults on the boat had no trouble imagining a couple of dire health-related scenarios too. Just in case, I volunteered to keep the girls busy at the pier and let the guys go pounding up to the cabin to see what was up.

GrampaK was on the screen porch, trying to catch his breath. From the adrenaline. According to reports, the first words out of his mouth were, "The window exploded!"


He'd been sitting at the dining table with his back to the window in question, halfway across the room. All of a sudden there was a huge crash, and glass from the window came flying all over the room, some of it hitting him in the back and head. He escaped to the porch and was waiting for reinforcements to try and sort things out (and check for cuts, which fortunately were none).

Guess what they found on the kitchen floor, amidst the shards. A sizable hawk, somewhat dazed but very much alive! [Update: and here it is!]


We suspect that the hawk was stooping down on one of the birds that was nesting in the eaves of the cabin -- and that the nesting bird had a much better feel for its position relative to the cabin than that hawk did. The impact must have been full-tilt, probably deceived by the reflection of the woods in the glass.

JoyDad and Uncle Marathon tried to toss an old army-blanket onto the hawk, to wrap it up and get it out of the house without any close encounters with beak or talons. But the hawk wasn't as injured as all of that. It kept escaping as the blanket came down. Then it flew into the loft. The guys ended up chasing it all around with a broom before they finally got it out the door. Then they had to use the broom for its intended purpose. There was glass everywhere, strewn all the way across the cabin floor and furniture.

We actually only had one night with a tarp nailed over where the window should be. GrampaK and Uncle Marathon went to town the next day, and despite the holiday weekend, found someone to cut a pane of glass to the right size. They brought it back unbroken over bumpy roads, puttied it in, and with any luck, it'll last sixty years like its predecessor.

As long as the hawks steer clear.

[Great big additional update!]
Great googly moogly, y'all. It wasn't a hawk after all. It was a ruffed grouse!!

Photo from
http://www.wataxidermist.com/wa-taxidermist-GALLERY.html

Huge tip of the hat and a low bow to Kelly's bird-enthusiast son, from the comments. Now that he pointed me in the right direction, I can see it: the chicken-like beak instead of the hooked raptor-beak, and the dark band of feathers (broken in the middle) at the end of the tail.

I guess this gives us all something to grouse about?! :-)

Northwoods Adventures

As the holiday weekend approached and we watched the weather forecast for our northwoods getaway, we feared an adventure full of sweltering heat and vicious bugs. Several years ago JoyDad and Rose had suffered through such a Memorial Day sweatbox at the lake, barely able to step out of the overheated cabins without being carried off by mosquitoes and biting flies. (Other years, we've had snow at the end of May. You just never know.)

This year couldn't have been more beautiful. The sun shone hot at mid-day, but the air was dry and didn't hold the heat at night. In fact, everything was dry. The lake was low. But the drought meant that the bugs were at an all-time minimum for spring. It felt like mid-summer.

The dry roads meant we could go driving on paths that are usually too muddy or flooded -- and as we were out driving, we saw a black bear! He lumbered along ahead of us for quite a ways along the road before crashing his way into the forest. Fortunately we were several miles from the cabins at that point. Right next to the cabins all we saw were hummingbirds, eagles, woodpeckers, loons, ducks, and a little red squirrel!

Oh, and the two little crawdads I caught by hand as we cavorted in the shallows right off the pier. And the leech I brushed off my foot. Rose was wary of the muck and rocks in the lake, but Joy could have played all day. She splashed and splashed...


... and climbed the pier and jumped back in, over and over.


She also figured out how to "swim" by walking on her hands in the shallow water, pulling her body along behind.

All that exercise could work up quite a thirst. One meal Joy was sitting next to me and reached over toward my share with a big "more"! The most likely desirables were the beverages -- a tumbler of milk and a bottle of beer. I poured her a little glass of milk, but she's been on an anti-milk kick lately and pushed it away after one sip. The comment came from across the table -- "Hey, maybe she wants your beer!" And from Joy, the explosive echo: "BEE!"

One of the great pleasures of the lake vacation is the photography. Rose now uses the old digital camera we got back when she was six months old:


She's learning to identify wildflowers as well as capture them in pixels. Here's a pink ladyslipper:


And I found and photographed a nodding trillium:


Ah, but I haven't yet shared the biggest adventure of all. Splashing by the shore was fun, but the real action involved the pontoon boat (thank you Uncle Marathon, and Uncle DO who couldn't be there this time!)


Take the boat out on the lake, anchor in about 20 feet of water, tighten up the girls' life-vests, and throw 'em overboard! OK, not really. We threatened to do it to Rose, but she shrieked and insisted on climbing gently down the ladder. Joy wouldn't have minded -- any way into the water was fine. Uncle Marathon was eager to take the plunge as well...



One one such swimming excursion, we were anchored a ways out in front of the cabin, about half-way between the pier and the eagle's nest. GrampaK had stayed behind at the cabin to take it easy. We were glad that he was in good enough health to come to the lake in the first place, but swimming wasn't part of that package. So the rest of us were out with the boat, just getting started, when suddenly GrampaK's voice came rolling out over the water, calling Uncle Marathon by name. And then these words, urgent and chilling:

Come. Home. Come home now!

And then silence.

[to be continued]

Cross Country

We're back from a full Easter long-weekend. Filled it full ourselves, by taking on a trip to my dad's place in Kansas, a 12-hour drive from here.

I'd like to say that Joy was a dream, pleasant and cooperative and at her most charming and communicative the entire time!

The truth, of course, is considerably more mixed than that.

As I look back at my past few Joy-posts, I've been doing a lot of accentuating the positive. Which is great, important, uplifting! but quite a bit less than the whole picture. Blended in with the increased vocalizations and the group hugs have been a short fuse, a renewed spate of toy-throwing and biting (self and others), a powerful unwillingness to let herself be properly cleaned during a messy diaper change.

Those unwillingnesses ramped up sharply for our Kansas trip. We thought we'd have a pleasant stop at McDonalds en route, but she threw food and refused to eat anything more than a couple of fries. We struggled with getting liquids into her the entire trip, resulting in the unfortunate digestive effects that occur when one doesn't drink just quite enough. Still haven't gotten any milk into her in the last five days. Soda and juice, can you believe. Yikes.

She flung the glasses off my face several times. I lost a handful of (increasingly gray) hair to her fist. At one point at Easter dinner she'd been happily eating a serving of jello salad with carrots, and then before we could blink, multiple fistsful of orange jello went flying all over the table. In front of ALL the relatives. Sigh.

And yet!

Her grandparents were so thoughtful and kind as we planned several days' worth of visit activities. Grandma came up with a musuem to visit, called the Museum of World Treasures, with an eclectic collection for Rose and her cousin to peruse and a big upstairs playroom with an indoor bouncy castle where Joy could jump to her heart's content! I even got to sneak out and see a couple of the exhibits... and had an Elvis Sighting! a silk scarf signed by Elvis himself. How could you top that?

Another day we went to the zoo. Joy immediately wanted to climb over a fence and play in the water with the flamingos, and couldn't get over her disappointment that it wasn't allowed... until Grandma rented a sturdy stroller that gave her a chance to be wheeled around and calm down. We had a resounding success with feeding the goats! Notice how the initial hand-over-hand support faded out to nothing:







Joy rewarded Grandma with unsolicited kisses on their front porch swing. And Grandpa made a most excellent discovery that Joy liked to play in the back seat of their parked Prius! Safe, enclosed, a fine distraction.

It had been years since we made this particular visit -- since 2006, to be exact. We packed in a lot of family into the few days, including my brother (Uncle Schnirelmann) and sister-in-law, several of my uncles and aunts and cousins, step-sister & brother-in-law and their three daughters (the youngest of whom is not much older than Rose). I felt a little bad that I didn't even try to contact any of my childhood friends, but then again, I didn't even end up getting to talk much with all the relatives.

Autism Awareness Day (April 2) came and went during our travels. I didn't have anything profound or coherent to say. But I'd like to share a set of posts from Both Hands and a Flashlight for their insights on autism awareness for different audiences:

• Be Aware -- For Families and Friends
  
• Be Aware -- For Parents
  
• Be Aware -- For Everyone

And I think that, for this post, we are about at

THE END

Snow Day

Eighteen inches of snow, ladies and gentlemen!

The schools closed down. The university closed down. State government closed down. Buses stopped running.

It's a thing of shivery beauty.

Joy approves.

She started out at the edge of the sidewalk where the snow was thin...


But soon began to blaze a wobbly trail for herself, all through the front yard.


When she had thoroughly explored the front yard, she headed around the corner:


After visiting our neighbor-granny at her kitchen door, Joy trailed along our backyard fence (look at that heavy-work!):



Finding that she couldn't get into our backyard because the fence was snowed shut, Joy plowed through neighbor-granny's backyard to her deck. Finding the deck-steps to be a solid hill of snow, Joy attempted one step... and then turned to me and ASKED FOR HELP!! (OK, so she used the "more" sign. It was still a huge, novel help request!)

So I boosted her up the steps, we went out the driveway and down the street...

and continued onward in our winter wonderland.



P.S. Rose is out sledding right now at a neighbor's. We'd left Joy at home to take an early-afternoon rest... but the neighbor's son was asking to play with her after his nap! So we'll be back out into the snow soon.

Pot of Gold

We returned yesterday from our traditional bit of October insanity -- a three-day weekend getaway to the northwoods of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, where JoyDad's family has a couple of rustic cabins on a little lake in the back of the beyond. The October trip lets us help take care of closing down the property for the winter, taking the boat and pier out, this time with both JoyDad's brothers and father.

It's about seven hours in the car each way, this three-day weekend of ours, for the privilege of enjoying woodstove heating, cold water from a pump, cold outhouse. Plus this year, we'd been watching the forecast with dismay, as the Weather Channel hour-by-hour showed a greater than forty percent chance of rain for every hour of the dang weekend! I had visions of being cooped up in the cold cabins the entire time with the rain pouring down, trying to entertain two damp-bored-miserable kids.

Shouldn't have worried. Without rain, you don't get this:


And in fact, the rain was on and off, more off than on really. We got to go out in the boat, and Rose & I managed a (success-free) fishing run with the uncles. And while we were out fishing, one of the eagles that nests in the tree on the left of the above photo sailed about overhead, bringing branches to shore up the nest for the winter!

I went for a fine walk in the woods with Rose, and we took another one as a family, without even getting Joy too muddy! Her favorite stim for the weekend was long-stemmed grasses, so she did a lot of dropping to the ground in order to pick the next one. Joy also managed to escape her father's clutches and go walking into the lake at one point, while her sister was playing on the pier.

Lake-walk and all, Joy was a happy camper pretty much the whole time. I think she was relieved at the break from the incessant therapy that she gets subjected to at home. We did a lot of playing on the screen porch during the drippy-er bits of the weekend, and she let me take a whole sequence of photos where she looked right at me and did this:


And this:


I blew bubbles upon bubbles for Joy to pursue and pop, there on the screen porch. Rose got into the action too:


The two sisters enjoyed one another a lot this weekend:


So now it's back to reality, back to a whole lotta laundry, back to the therapy schedule and work and studies (which I ignored totally while up at the lake).

What a priceless getaway, though. Once again. Rain, rainbow, and all.

Boiled Frog

I said two posts ago that I'd elaborate on the concept of how it's been a challenge to jump back in to life at home, after last weekend's delightful getaway.

There's a widely-repeated anecdote out there that goes something like this:

Did you know that if you toss a frog into boiling water, it will jump out immediately? But the frog starts out in cool water and you heat the water gradually, it won't notice the temperature change and will eventually boil to death.

Yeah.

So perhaps life at home, where more and more spinning plates have gradually been added to the Amazing JoyParents Show, is rather like heating the water slowly.

Us boiled frogs, we got to experience life in the cooler water for a while, at my college reunion, away from our usual state of high-alert and high-responsibilities.

Then we had to jump back into the boiling water.

Dang, but that's some hot/intense stuff we live in around here.

I don't know what, if anything, we can really change. And it wouldn't take much to turn the heat up even further (seizures would do it. Or someone else needing surgery. Or another sudden regression/slamming of a bunch of switches.)

Sigh.

Boiled frog-legs, anyone?

==========

P.S. According to Snopes.com, the frog boil anecdote is false. Heh. Too bad, it was such a slick analogy!

Of Yawns and Smiles

I did a lot of yawning over our getaway weekend.

Lots of smiling, too!

Goodness knows, there was nothing boring about my first weekend getaway with JoyDad since the kids were born. (Yes, that would be seven years, for those keeping score.)

Even the drive to my college reunion was lovely, with a big long chunk of roadway between wooded bluffs on one side and the Mississippi River on the other. And time alone to talk with my sweetie! Luxury! And then a whirlwind of activity, catching up with friends and roommates of 20 years gone by, attending lectures and receptions, dining, running...

Not boring. And not over-doing it -- we had to take things a little bit easy, since there was only so much that JoyDad's rapidly-healing foot could take. So no late-night dancing or bonfire or concerts. But lots of yawning.

I think it may have been an accumulation of tired, catching up with me just a little bit. Though nobody seems to have the full answer to the functionality of a yawn, one theory is that it's an attempt to acquire an extra burst of oxygen. I needed to breathe deeply!

And then there was the smiling. How I could I help that, with as much time as I got to spend with JoyDad, and with my roommates (one in particular)? Lots of smiles passed around at the reception at the library too, where I worked as a student and where I now have colleagues with whom I occasionally cross paths at conferences.

I was surely breathing deeply and I think I was smiling as I crossed the finish line of the 5K that was an early Saturday morning feature of the reunion. I came in dead last of the 27 runners who started at the whistle together. Apparently only the hard-core runners come out to run in the bright sunlight at 7:30 on a warm reunion morning! I ran within seconds of my top pace, though, quite a triumph since I haven't been training specifically too well lately. And the rest of the pack hung around to cheer for the stragglers, so as I crossed the finish line alone, I had a whole cheering section to myself! Thoroughly smile-worthy!

And then there was the PowerPoint presentation by an alum from the class of '84, a fellow who'd been something of a wild-child during his years on campus but eventually gave up his drum set and took off for Thailand to become a Buddhist monk. He now leads a monastery in New Zealand. He simply radiated peace, groundedness, and gentle good humor. With an incredibly high-wattage smile.

So many reasons for good cheer this weekend, uninterrupted by the need for child-centered vigilance!

Then after we got home on Sunday I dragged the family off to church in the evening because the guest pastor was someone that I knew from way back when. May as well keep the reunioning going on, right?

One of the points he shared during the sermon was a recommendation, something that his wife taught him and practices faithfully herself.

When you get up and get yourself ready for the day, smile at yourself in the mirror. You are part of the work God is doing in the world. Smile at yourself. Acknowledge it.

I'm going to try to remember. The regular ruteen is back at full-blast, after the capable and much-appreciated interlude of the grandparental help last weekend. It's not easy to jump back in... more about that in the next post...

Meanwhile, the yawns are still pretty frequent, though the context is different. Will work on the smiling, too.

Twenty Years

In just a couple of days, JoyDad and I are off on what I think will be our first kid-free weekend getaway since Joy's birth.

We're going to my twenty-year college reunion! After JoyDad's surgery follow-up appointment yesterday, he was cleared to lose the crutches and the wrap and dressing. So he is once again free to shower (whew!) and to wear street shoes and to walk around as much as is comfortable.

GrandpaJ and GrandmaJoy, courageous souls that they are, will be staying for a long weekend, hanging out with Rose and Joy and supervising the various Joy-therapies that will happen during that time.

While it can be fun to occasionally revisit old stomping-grounds and old memories, the big draw of a reunion is the people. I'm looking forward to catching up with two of my former roommates!

So I got a pre-reunion e-mail a couple of days ago, a light-hearted survey of reunion attendees. The last question was the most interesting one, and went something like this:

How different is your life than you'd have imagined it when you were at [college-name]? (Give your answer in degrees; zero is just as you'd expected, 180 might be "planned to be a high-powered investment banker, ended up a rural pastor")

I'm quoting it badly, but that was the sense of it.

Now, one of my least-favorite interview questions is the one that asks you to talk about where you'd like your career to be in five years or ten or whatever. I've never really liked to think or even dream that far ahead.

However, I think that if you'd pressured me to talk about 20-years-down-the-line back in 1989, a lot of what I might have said... has come to pass.

The librarian thing wasn't hard to predict. I was working in the library on campus, and the one career-matching test thing I did at the campus career center had librarianship pop right to the top. Though I might have envisioned a more ambitious career than what I've had so far.

Settling in the Midwest? Uh-huh. Right where I feel at home!

I kind of figured on meeting an awesome guy and getting married someday, though answering a singles ad and winding up with a guitar-slinging tax economist from the big city wasn't exactly how I'd have pictured it...

Centrality of Christian faith in my life, being actively involved with church... check.

Two kids? Yep. I was one of two, and it seemed like a good number.

But the biggest surprise, the most startling unexpected life-changing challenge and blessing? My delightful daughter Joy. Someone I never could have predicted. It's hard to put a number on the degree-of-difference she has brought to our lives. In some ways, it's just another flavor of parenting. In another way, it changes so very much.

One very specific thing that it's changed for this weekend is that we're not really able to bring the girls along to reunion. I'm sure Rose would love the kids-camp daycare setup, but it's simply not set up to work for someone like Joy. On the other hand, if we took the kids along, it wouldn't be a getaway! And I expect that both they and the grandparents will enjoy the weekend immensely.

I don't think I'll attend the session at reunion that involves discussing the next twenty years. That's too far ahead to think right now. Besides, I never did like that interview question.

-----

P.S. If you'd told me in 1989 that I'd be running a 5K race at my 20th reunion, I might have laughed at you!

Random Tuesday Thoughts

JoyDad takes the wheel for a spin through a special Memorial Day Weekend edition of Random Tuesday Thoughts...

• We are blessed that Joy is a good traveler. I know some kids on the spectrum take exception to having their routines mangled by vacations and such, but Joy just seems to take it as it comes. She doesn't seem to mind the long car rides, strange places and stranger people (but hey, they are the only family I have...)


• A favorite activity for Joy this weekend was bubbles. Joy even tried popping them with her nose, which was too cute for words. And it is great to see her able to track individual bubbles with her eyes, and have repeated success in popping the bubble she is following.


• Another favorite activity for Joy was getting any available adult (and sometimes Rose) to help her to jump. And there were seven adults for her to choose from, so the opportunities were plentiful... She doesn't have a word for "jump," but she lets you know in no uncertain terms by coming up in front of you and grabbing both of your hands. She makes wonderful eye contact as she sails through the air, with a great big grin and squeals of delight.


• When she wasn't chasing bubbles or requesting the jump game, Joy also liked to play what we call the clap game. She'll put her hands on yours and make them clap. She does that a time or two, and then makes them miss with the other person saying a great, big "UH OH!"


• Rose loves going to the cabin. She didn't seemed fazed by the bugs, and spent a lot of time outside on the past-its-prime swingset and down by the pier. She is looking forward to telling her friends about it at school tomorrow. We printed out some pictures of key events (the restaurant meal in town the morning we arrived, the bald eagles nesting in a tree, the ride on her uncles' boat).



• The fish weren't biting but the bugs were. We took to describing the swarms of bugs as "biblical" in their epicness. And they must not have gotten the memo about how deet was supposed to repel them.


• Changing a tire on a large vehicle on soft sand is sub-optimal. The jack doesn't do a good job of staying put. But if you are going to drop said large vehicle onto its brake rotor, soft sand does less damage than pavement would. Don't ask us how we know...


• Have you ever tried changing a tire with about a gajillion gnats trying to suck every last drop of fluid from your body? Or chopping up a tree that has fallen on your garage while choking on a lungful of gnats? Let me tell you, you haven't lived until you've tried that. Bet you're jealous.


• Now that I think about it, I'd take using the outhouse when it's 20 below zero over the gnats any day, thankyouverymuch. Oh yes, I have used the outhouse at the cabin in the middle of the winter, with the outside temperature hovering around 20 below. Good times....


• Even with the bugs and lack of indoor plumbing, I'd still rather be there than here.


• JoyMama even managed to squeeze in a run on Sunday. She was smart and went early in the morning while there was still frost keeping the gnats at bay. Uncle Marathon and UncleDO wimped out. Although Uncle Marathon does get props for going swimming in the very cold lake.


• Hot and cold running water are not essential for humans to live. And it's nice to be reminded of what a luxury they are (especially the hot running water) by going without for a few days. I have partaken of the soap and hot running water since our return to civilization, so y'all can take the clothespins off your noses.


• Our cabin and lake in da U.P. are about the only things that have remained constant in my life. The lake still looks the same as it did when I was a wee lad, the cabin looks and smells just like it did way back then. I'm glad that JoyMama and the girls like to go up there, it holds a lot of memories for me, and hopefully there's a lot more left to be made...