Summer

Things have been busy lately. since last posting, we've gone camping (ugh), graduated kindergarten, started summer camps, visited Orcas with friends, finished my big annual event (San Diego this year), picked strawberries and raspberries, made jam, and attended/hosted infinity play dates. Oh, and binge watched a little So You Think You Can Dance and Orange is the New Black - both of which are having pretty annoying seasons this year IMO. Who wants to watch creepy little kids dance better than you in jazzercise outfits?? Not this person. Bring back the adult dancers please. Sheesh.

Living in Bellingham sometimes feels like adult summer camp. We walk almost everywhere, including to pretty much all play dates, dinner parties and most meals out. We have monthly cocktail parties with the neighbors where we share a sitter who watches all of the kids (typically 8-10 children under 8yrs old) and then all the adults walk to another family’s house for drinks. The sitter puts all the kids to bed and then we pick them up sleeping, carry them home and tuck them in. At the last party I had too much wine and made plans to go to Australia next year and maybe also committed to directing a 5^th grade play at Lowell while talking with the PTA president, which apparently has not been attempted for some time. So there’s that.

Edie has become an avid reader. She’s always been leaps ahead of the other kindergarteners with reading, but now she devours chapter books and is currently reading what I’m sure is a horrible book series about pirates that are also puppies. Whatever floats your boat though! Who am I to judge, I’m currently wrapping up a trilogy that is being made into a series for the SyFy network. Perhaps puppy pirates are amazing.

School has been out for 2 weeks and Edie has already completed Tennis Camp, which she loved. It was fun to have her get into something that I know zero things about; no baggage like with drama and dance classes. Jeff bought her a little racket and they practice at night (at her request) at the school black top. She still can’t ride a bike, but she’s becoming quite the little tennis pro. This week is Farm Camp in the morning and Art Camp in the afternoon with her 2 neighborhood pals. We are knee deep in carpools and have become those people that carry a bazillion extra booster seats around with them all the time, just in case.

We hosted our niece Caroline for a dinner and movie date last week, which went swimmingly until Edie was attacked by bees and stung 11 times in our front yard.  It was all very My Girl, except no one died and there was more screaming. There is apparently a nest hiding in our ivy in the front yard. It was pretty scary and I’m sure our neighbors thought she was being murdered; those screams are still a little PTSD-inducing when I remember them. Jeff was sort of a hero. He swooped her out of the ivy, got stung himself and proceeded to run with her indoors while swatting all the bees clinging to her while I grabbed Caroline to make sure she wasn’t getting attacked (or traumatized by the screaming). Ugh. It was sort of like one of those nightmares where you can’t move fast enough. It felt like it took forever to get all the bees away from her. Thankfully, she is amazing and rebounded VERY quickly. Some baking soda paste and Benadryl and she woke up the next morning totally recovered. She’s been saying, “Did you hear what happened to me?” with just the right touch of drama to everyone we see.

She has also developed a passion for her joke book for kids. So much so that it feels like one of those stories that Amy Schumer or Tina Fey’s parents would tell – about when they discovered they were going to pursue comedy. She not only devours the joke book all day long, reading line after line to me and then explaining why each one is funny - she brought it to camp to tell jokes to the teachers and kids yesterday! And then started making up HER OWN jokes. Some of which were actually kind of funny. In a super random, totally stupid way. I think there might have been one about Maniacs being yaks from Maine? I actually hate formula jokes, so it’s a bit like my own personal hell to have her sit next to me while cooking dinner for an hour straight saying over and over, “Hey Mom, here’s another one – knock, knock!”, but there’s something so aggressively nerdy and hilarious about her doing it, that I have to love it.
 A few pictures from the last month or two:

In the audience for Anything Goes at Bellingham Theatre Guild. Directed by my old high school teacher and mentor, Terri Grimes. Edie LOVED it and made me go up to the lead actress after and ask her to meet Edie. She's still reading the Playbill and listening to the sound track at home.

Picking Raspberries at Aunt Laura's house. We made jam and 3 pans of raspberry crumble bars from our score:

Post bee stings  (each bandaid covers a sting - can't see all the ones around her middle and ankles):

Caroline and Edie watching a movie before the bee sting situation:

Edie and her buddy Ever at his birthday party. He wouldn't let ANYONE sit next to him because he was saving the seat for Edie.

Our little comedienne:

My Kindy graduate and her teacher after the last day of school:

Later that night at a friend's house with my glass of wine the size of my head (it had been a loooong week for all of us):

Edie and Iona on Orcas:

Edie with her preschool BFF and sister when we visited them recently in Seattle. They took this selfie:

I'm in charge of organizing and managing the school movie nights through the PTA. This was only the second one this year, but it got scheduled for the second to last day of school. Terrible timing as things were pretty manic getting ready, but there was still great turnout for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:

With all her pals at the School Round Up, a country western party the week before the last day of school:

No pants

Just a swimsuit, furry cardi, backpack and goggles. What?

Things

We recently wrapped up Spring Break here in Bellingham. We had a low key staycation, spending 2 nights on Orcas, started swim lessons, finished Harry Potter book 1, hosted/attended some epic 5-hour play dates with other working parents who also stayed in town, and tooled around Whatcom and Skagit Counties.

above: Edie and I on a nature walk at the Padilla Bay nature preserve

above: Me reading on the deck at orcas. in April!

above: Edie mid-air while helping clean up debris from the winter storms on orcas

Other happenings:
Edie performed in her first play - Willie Wonka (loosely interpreted for a group of 23 five and six year olds).

Edie got to go to the Tulip Fields in Skagit with her friend Julia's family:

Edie and I have mostly been buying time and counting days until April 28th when we fly to LA for a long weekend at Disneyland. Jeff is mostly working and humoring us with some mild excitement about this trip. Edie is just now tall enough to go on any of the rides so we are excited to take her on Matterhorn, Indiana Jones, and she says she REALLY wants to do Splash Mountain. That kid loves roller coasters so I guess she just might love it. One of my top 5 happiest moments parenting was going on Big Thunder with her last year. She screamed and giggled hysterically the entire ride. Katherine was sitting in front of us and took this picture. I think it was a full 5 minutes after getting off the ride before we all three could stop giggling.

Mother daughter pedicures are scheduled for tomorrow, toes must be on point for California! I'm also VERY pleased to announce that Edie is FINALLY happy to put her face in the water during swimming lessons. Hopefully her enthusiasm sticks around so we can have fun in the hotel pool too. She's finally figured out how cool it can be to have goggles on and see under water. She's not swimming yet, but I'm SO happy that the dramatics about getting water in her face can hopefully, finally come to a close. 

                                        

Of Late

Hi there. Remember those days when I used to lovingly maintain this blog? It's a little hazy for me too, but it was only about a year ago. I feel bad, because I really liked having a written record of our lives. But things these days feel busy and full and uploading photos feels like it takes up valuable time.

I really couldn't have predicted how busy our lives would feel after starting Elementary School. An older mother once told me that the older they get, the MORE your children need you and I thought, "Pshhh! How can someone possibly need me more than my 1 year old needs me?" But now I know exactly what she meant.  It's not harder (in many ways it's easier) but it IS more complicated and varied. Thankfully, all of this is made possible when you have a child old enough to predictably sleep all night. I may not be following Edie around, making sure she doesn't stick her finger in a light socket, pull the cat's tail, or put something that shouldn't be in her mouth, in her mouth. But in the place of that constant physical vigilance comes swimming lessons, emotional needs, reading and math practice, class volunteer opportunities, remembering to pack her library books on library day, helping her learn her lines for drama class, near constant playdate and birthday party invitations (and then shopping for birthday gifts, and hosting reciprocal play dates), and not to mention making sure you sign up for the best summer camps before they fill up and all her friends are at camp together without her. And those are just the things I'm managing TODAY people.

Thankfully, my work schedule is not as manic panic as it was this time last year, so this all feels manageable, sometimes even fun to strike the right balance. And 6 is hilarious. I am not one of those parents that long for the baby days. 6 is pretty charming - except for the times she decides she's NOT sweet, then she is decidedly rotten. But mostly, she's sweet.

We spent the weekend at Mount Baker in a big VRBO house with college friends and their kids. Edie was the oldest and all the little kids followed her around like the pied piper and she did GREAT. She read them stories and made up games and taught them all how to play kitties (UGH - but sweet in principle).

Edie loves school. She's reading at the top of her class, well above many of the first graders and I meet periodically now with her teacher to get extra assignments to keep her busy and challenged. I have moments where I worry that we should have sent her last year, but then I can't second guess things too long because starting school in Bellingham has been a great gift to us all and we weren't ready to move before this year. She has friends in every grade and my little mini-me-social-butterfly takes forever to say goodbye to all her friends every day. Here she is roller skating with her favorite third graders and neighbors, Eva and Elsa (twins):

 And at the optional Science Fair presenting her research project on Lemurs and Meerkats:

She loves her older second cousins at school and they have her back all the day long. A blurry picture after movie night with cousin Sam (5th grade), holding his crested gecko Phil:

I've signed her up for swimming lessons starting in April in the hopes that she will one day put her face under water.

I just finished organizing the first Lowell Movie Night which was super cute:

And I'm currently coordinating the install of the new school garden next week with my two co-chairs, one of whom is named Rainbow, because duh, we live in Bellingham. We are gathering parent volunteers, collecting enough cardboard to abate 1,000 square feet of grass, and crafting a giant giving tree to solicit donations for garden tools for the kids. I've thrown myself into PTA projects to meet new people and feel connected to the school and it's working.

Some of our closest friends just bought a house in Bellingham and are moving back this summer. While having their house inspection, Reid and Sam came over. Here they are being cute and leafing through the illustrated Harry Potter we are currently reading as a family:

Things are good in Bellingham. It's still weird to be here, but part of the weirdness is how easy the transition has been. The restaurant scene is definitely lacking here, but on the bright side - we are taking an Indian cooking class tonight at Ciao Thyme - taught by the chef from Vij's in Vancouver. Cheers to mid-week date nights and butter chicken!