It is summer. It has been for about a month now. Classes are over for me. My caffeine addiction is going strong. I am having an amazingly difficult time finding the motivation to work on my two in progress papers. The time and energy I should be spending on those projects, I have spent rearranging and reorganizing our apartment. I have to say, I like what we have done and am feeling a bit more settled. At least for the next 20 minutes. I also started a part-time, six week job teaching summer school at a high school in San Lorenzo. This has been gratifying and the time back in a classroom was necessary. I am also volunteering at Nia House on Friday afternoons to do some bigger tasks that 1) I can't offer to tackle during the year, and 2) everyone at NH wants completed, but has not extra capacity for. This has included finishing the chicken coop, cleaning some outdoor spaces, fixing up and organizing the toddler kitchen, and painting shelving for the reorg of the toddler "works" storage loft. It is been really fun and some easy instant gratification. Now that I am done moving stuff around at our home, I am looking forward to moving stuff around at Nia House! In summary, I have found many other jobs and tasks to accomplish instead of papers, which feels crappy. But everyone needs an 8 week meal planner with grocery lists for August and photo memory books from Shutterfly and beautiful play rooms and fancy bed canopies!
We plan to camp for the next five or six weekends in a row. A fair chunk of the re-configuring time has been spent trying to make the camping schlep simpler. We don't have one spot where everything can be stored, like in a, what are those things called? Oh yeah...a garage. For now, everything is a bit more together. Jim built a "kitchen" and I have that stocked and ready to go. We have a better plan for setting up the van for car camping with a tent. We got to spend a weekend at Tahoe and slept in a Yurt! Our friend, Nick, was able to get a first come, first serve campsite. This is impossible anyway in California if you can only get there on a Friday night, let alone a Saturday morning. We rented a kayak and Lucy hasn't stopped talking about that experience. She loves the woods. We love the woods. We need a way to get out more and I am hell bent on making that happen this summer.
Last summer we did some outdoor adventure traveling in Utah, Wyoming, and South Dakota. Utah still stands as our favorite trip. This summer, we took 17 days and went all the way back to the East Coast. I wouldn't call it a vacation, but it was a wonderful trip. Because we took so much (and money) for that trip, we are only going to travel around California this summer. Not too shabby of a second place choice. We stayed in 8 places in 17 days and drove from Virginia Beach, up the Coast, out to Vermont, and across northern NY. It was more or less the reverse trip that we did before we left for Cali and we hadn't been back east since. We remembered all the reasons we left NY and didn't have any sentimental attachment, which I always have after we move. I still love Virginia. I love the Atlantic Ocean and the grungy beach towns and cheapy breakfast joints.
Most of all, we love the people we are so far from. We didn't spend one night in a hotel on our entire trip. We were hosted with love and food and clean towels every where we went. Those who were babies when we left are now little kids and many more babies exist that were only a glimmer in their parents eye the last time we drove through. Spending our days with college friends nursing babies, building igloos in the children's section of the museums, and walking through the zoo sober is a quite a change from almost 15 years ago. Many of those friends have been my family since I walked onto Virginia Tech's campus in the fall of 2003. I have never been more grateful for the impact they have had on my life, Jim's life, and now our small human's life. Extraordinary people aren't easy to come by. This trip took a lot of planning, thinking, and most of my bandwidth in the weeks leading up to it. It was worth every second of stress and preparation to see our dear family and friends who are family.
Our kid, the kid of two people who spent their entire lives before California on the East coast, had never seen lightening bugs, had never ran from the waves in the Atlantic, had never sweated off sunblock in the humidity. When we read about a lightening bug in a book, Lucy talks about catching them with Kyle and Andria. She talks about visiting the butterfly garden with Grammy and Grampy. She thinks every large building we go into is an aquarium or a museum after visiting the aquarium with Crystal and Clay in Va Beach, the Children's Museum in Norfolk, the American Indian Museum in Washington DC, the DC Zoo, and the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester. She loved having the full attention of so many grown-ups for so many days (although the transition was rough in more than just one way). We played in the ocean, we went to so many playgrounds I couldn't being to count them up.
The impetus for the trip was Kyler and Laura's wedding in Vermont, which was on an alpaca farm in the middle of no where, New England. Driving there was a pain, but the weekend was more fabulous than I every dreamed. We stayed in an Air BnB with Jim's immediate family. Lucy and I got to meet Hawk for the first time and Lucy got to re-meet and play with her young cousins. The place we stayed neighbored a small donkey farm and Lucy and the cousins were endlessly delighted by these creatures. We had been in so many cities that the fresh air was literally a breath of fresh air and the scenery couldn't be beat. In true Northeast fashion, the weather was crap, but the company was great. I got to watch Aunt Donna pour her love over Lucy. Moogie is now longer just the woman who says Lucy has to take off her pants with a fever, she is a real person. Lucy and Lilah are kindred spirits, as if they spent every weekend singing and dancing and playing together. Lucy danced until she couldn't any more then danced some more. In the morning, we showed up for brunch at the alpaca farm and she exclaimed, "where is my birthday party?" as if the wedding attendees had been an all night bender celebrated in her December birthday in June. Sophie and Iris were patient and took lots of time to be near her and dance her 'round and 'round on the dancefloor.
Lucy loves her Cali cousins nd they love her. My heart was full seeing her get to know even more special members of our family. I didn't have a safety net when I was a kid. There was no where to runaway to when I was a teenager. No cousins to blow bubbles and dance with. The family I knew was stuffy and judgmental and close in proximity by thousands of miles apart in their hearts. It has always been important to me to be the best Tia (and Gim) I can be for the Hosker girls. It is even more important to me that Lucy knows she has people. People who will love her, who she can call, who she can runaway to, spend lazy summer vacation with, and depend on if Jim and I aren't around. She has people. That's for sure. So many people. I am grateful beyond measure. It has taken me a LONG time, too long, to come around to accepting Jim's family. This is mostly due to not finding a place to accept my own family. Lucy shows me that everyone deserves love and patience. I have formulas and spreadsheets and boundaries to navigate all of this, but I am working every day on acceptance, on "peaceful and gentleness," and this trip, in mostly unexpected ways, nudged me a little closer in that direction.
Our splurge, full-blown tourist stop was Sesame Place in PA, a place I went one special time as ayoung girl. I only have learned memories of that day from pictures I have seen, and I was conflicted about taking Lucy there. She loves escalators and climbing stairs. This child does not need Disney, or Sesame Place, or anything extravagant. I am so happy we stopped, though. We all had a wonderful time at Sesame Place, until I made her go down a water slide ride with a giant, water spitting rubber duck in an uncomfortable life vest in very cold water. Every now again she reminds me not to take her on that water slide with the duck any more. It was scary and she did not like it. She just loves the characters, though. Even Big Bird, and he is one big bird! She blew so many kisses to Oscar the Grouch to cheer him up, that he finally gave her a long head pat hug to appease her. She was especially drawn to Abby Caddaby and The Count. The funniest part of the day is that she loved that with no context and kept saying, "Look at....I don't know the name! Who is that? I love him! I want to hug him!" It was mid-week and pretty empty, so we had front row seats at all the shows and she got a lot of special attention from all the characters. It was an expensive, once in a lifetime day.
In many ways, I realize as a parent I overcompensate for many of things that were hard and painful about my own childhood. I get panicked about missing out on five critical minutes that brain growth or physical development could have happened. This is fading over time and has a lot to do with educational background. Knowing that we only get one chance. There are no redos in parenting. Of course, if I don't get her puzzles at the next level of difficulty at just the right moment, she probably has equal chances of getting into college. We can make her childhood magical, though. My life as a 32 year-old parent is dramatically different that the lives my parents were experiencing at this age. I was afforded the opportunity to give my kid a different kind of life than I had and I intend to. Some things are the same. I want to teach her to sew. We cook and bake together. I make funny shaped pancakes and we read loads of books, visit the library, and fill her with love. But we can also take her to Disneyworld and Disneyland, and Sesame place, and every children's museum and aquarium we come across. Sometimes I panic and think those things won't be special treats to her because they are part of her normal life. Then I realize I want them to part of her normal life. It's half the reason we moved to the Bay Area; we want to be surrounded by the land of opportunity. Why shouldn't Lucy have it if we can give it to her? I digress...
Virginia Beach Aquarium with Crystal and Clay: Virginia Beach, VA
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Strong Museum of Play: Rochester, NY
Lucy spent the most time of anywhere we visited in the "house" section |
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| First lightening bug catch with Kyle: Norfolk, VA |
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| Norfolk Children's Museum with Kyle and Andria: Norfolk, VA |
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| Norfolk Children's Museum with Kyle and Andria: Norfolk, VA |
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| Mer, Ben, and Adam's House: Washington, DC |
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| National Museum of the American Indian with Mer and Adam: Washington, DC |
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| National Museum of the American Indian with Mer and Adam: Washington, DC |
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| Bear Mountain State Park with Ruthie: Cornwall, NY |
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| Strong Museum of Play, Wegman's Store, Rochester |
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| Carousel: Strong Museum of Play, Rochester |
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| Construction Site: Strong Museum of Play, Rochester |
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| Strong Museum of Play Butterfly Garden, Rochester |
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| Smithsonian Zoo with Dan Noonan |
Recently, Jim convinced me to turn Lucy's seat carseat around to face forward. She rode this way throughout our trip and it actually made riding in the car with her pretty nice. On one of our longer stretches of 2.5 hours, we all chatted for almost 2 hours. No snacks, no screens, no music, just talking. We spent a lot of time looking for excavators and lifters and school buses and drump trucks :-). This has led to a new fascination with construction vehicles and a entirely new set of vocabulary. This was a delightful surprise. She has been a real pill about riding in the car since we left the hospital when she was born. She has always had little tolerance for everything about it. "Drive at nap time or nighttime" everyone tells us. Then the screaming is louder and she doesn't get the sleep she needs. "Sit with her!" they all say. You can't believe the extravagant measures we go to to make car rides more sane. It doesn't stop us from going any more, but it did when she was a baby. Now that we can talk together, hand her things to manage on her own, listen to books from Audible, and have family sing along, things are much more pleasant. I imagine doing this trip a year ago would have been much less enjoyable. There were absolutely no car melt downs on this trip. Daniel Tiger, lollipops, and gummies certainly helped ;-).
All things considered, and ignoring the worst melt down she has literally EVER had on the plane on the way home, not accounting for the jet lag and the bumpy transition back to normal life with school and jobs and stuff, we had a great trip. It was not a vacation, but it was a success. Lucy now has working memories of all the people we show her pictures of, tell her about, and miss so much. Hopefully everyone will come to visit us at some point in the next two years.
It is summer. It has been for about a month now. Classes are over for me. My caffeine addiction is going strong. I am having an amazingly difficult time finding the motivation to work on my two in progress papers. The time and energy I should be spending on those projects, I have spent rearranging and reorganizing our apartment. I have to say, I like what we have done and am feeling a bit more settled. At least for the next 20 minutes. I also started a part-time, six week job teaching summer school at a high school in San Lorenzo. This has been gratifying and the time back in a classroom was necessary. I am also volunteering at Nia House on Friday afternoons to do some bigger tasks that 1) I can't offer to tackle during the year, and 2) everyone at NH wants completed, but has not extra capacity for. This has included finishing the chicken coop, cleaning some outdoor spaces, fixing up and organizing the toddler kitchen, and painting shelving for the reorg of the toddler "works" storage loft. It is been really fun and some easy instant gratification. Now that I am done moving stuff around at our home, I am looking forward to moving stuff around at Nia House! In summary, I have found many other jobs and tasks to accomplish instead of papers, which feels crappy. But everyone needs an 8 week meal planner with grocery lists for August and photo memory books from Shutterfly and beautiful play rooms and fancy bed canopies!
We plan to camp for the next five or six weekends in a row. A fair chunk of the re-configuring time has been spent trying to make the camping schlep simpler. We don't have one spot where everything can be stored, like in a, what are those things called? Oh yeah...a garage. For now, everything is a bit more together. Jim built a "kitchen" and I have that stocked and ready to go. We have a better plan for setting up the van for car camping with a tent. We got to spend a weekend at Tahoe and slept in a Yurt! Our friend, Nick, was able to get a first come, first serve campsite. This is impossible anyway in California if you can only get there on a Friday night, let alone a Saturday morning. We rented a kayak and Lucy hasn't stopped talking about that experience. She loves the woods. We love the woods. We need a way to get out more and I am hell bent on making that happen this summer.
Last summer we did some outdoor adventure traveling in Utah, Wyoming, and South Dakota. Utah still stands as our favorite trip. This summer, we took 17 days and went all the way back to the East Coast. I wouldn't call it a vacation, but it was a wonderful trip. Because we took so much (and money) for that trip, we are only going to travel around California this summer. Not too shabby of a second place choice. We stayed in 8 places in 17 days and drove from Virginia Beach, up the Coast, out to Vermont, and across northern NY. It was more or less the reverse trip that we did before we left for Cali and we hadn't been back east since. We remembered all the reasons we left NY and didn't have any sentimental attachment, which I always have after we move. I still love Virginia. I love the Atlantic Ocean and the grungy beach towns and cheapy breakfast joints.
The impetus for the trip was Kyler and Laura's wedding in Vermont, which was on an alpaca farm in the middle of no where, New England. Driving there was a pain, but the weekend was more fabulous than I every dreamed. We stayed in an Air BnB with Jim's immediate family. Lucy and I got to meet Hawk for the first time and Lucy got to re-meet and play with her young cousins. The place we stayed neighbored a small donkey farm and Lucy and the cousins were endlessly delighted by these creatures. We had been in so many cities that the fresh air was literally a breath of fresh air and the scenery couldn't be beat. In true Northeast fashion, the weather was crap, but the company was great. I got to watch Aunt Donna pour her love over Lucy. Moogie is now longer just the woman who says Lucy has to take off her pants with a fever, she is a real person. Lucy and Lilah are kindred spirits, as if they spent every weekend singing and dancing and playing together. Lucy danced until she couldn't any more then danced some more. In the morning, we showed up for brunch at the alpaca farm and she exclaimed, "where is my birthday party?" as if the wedding attendees had been an all night bender celebrated in her December birthday in June. Sophie and Iris were patient and took lots of time to be near her and dance her 'round and 'round on the dancefloor.
Lucy loves her Cali cousins nd they love her. My heart was full seeing her get to know even more special members of our family. I didn't have a safety net when I was a kid. There was no where to runaway to when I was a teenager. No cousins to blow bubbles and dance with. The family I knew was stuffy and judgmental and close in proximity by thousands of miles apart in their hearts. It has always been important to me to be the best Tia (and Gim) I can be for the Hosker girls. It is even more important to me that Lucy knows she has people. People who will love her, who she can call, who she can runaway to, spend lazy summer vacation with, and depend on if Jim and I aren't around. She has people. That's for sure. So many people. I am grateful beyond measure. It has taken me a LONG time, too long, to come around to accepting Jim's family. This is mostly due to not finding a place to accept my own family. Lucy shows me that everyone deserves love and patience. I have formulas and spreadsheets and boundaries to navigate all of this, but I am working every day on acceptance, on "peaceful and gentleness," and this trip, in mostly unexpected ways, nudged me a little closer in that direction.
Our splurge, full-blown tourist stop was Sesame Place in PA, a place I went one special time as ayoung girl. I only have learned memories of that day from pictures I have seen, and I was conflicted about taking Lucy there. She loves escalators and climbing stairs. This child does not need Disney, or Sesame Place, or anything extravagant. I am so happy we stopped, though. We all had a wonderful time at Sesame Place, until I made her go down a water slide ride with a giant, water spitting rubber duck in an uncomfortable life vest in very cold water. Every now again she reminds me not to take her on that water slide with the duck any more. It was scary and she did not like it. She just loves the characters, though. Even Big Bird, and he is one big bird! She blew so many kisses to Oscar the Grouch to cheer him up, that he finally gave her a long head pat hug to appease her. She was especially drawn to Abby Caddaby and The Count. The funniest part of the day is that she loved that with no context and kept saying, "Look at....I don't know the name! Who is that? I love him! I want to hug him!" It was mid-week and pretty empty, so we had front row seats at all the shows and she got a lot of special attention from all the characters. It was an expensive, once in a lifetime day.
In many ways, I realize as a parent I overcompensate for many of things that were hard and painful about my own childhood. I get panicked about missing out on five critical minutes that brain growth or physical development could have happened. This is fading over time and has a lot to do with educational background. Knowing that we only get one chance. There are no redos in parenting. Of course, if I don't get her puzzles at the next level of difficulty at just the right moment, she probably has equal chances of getting into college. We can make her childhood magical, though. My life as a 32 year-old parent is dramatically different that the lives my parents were experiencing at this age. I was afforded the opportunity to give my kid a different kind of life than I had and I intend to. Some things are the same. I want to teach her to sew. We cook and bake together. I make funny shaped pancakes and we read loads of books, visit the library, and fill her with love. But we can also take her to Disneyworld and Disneyland, and Sesame place, and every children's museum and aquarium we come across. Sometimes I panic and think those things won't be special treats to her because they are part of her normal life. Then I realize I want them to part of her normal life. It's half the reason we moved to the Bay Area; we want to be surrounded by the land of opportunity. Why shouldn't Lucy have it if we can give it to her? I digress...
All things considered, and ignoring the worst melt down she has literally EVER had on the plane on the way home, not accounting for the jet lag and the bumpy transition back to normal life with school and jobs and stuff, we had a great trip. It was not a vacation, but it was a success. Lucy now has working memories of all the people we show her pictures of, tell her about, and miss so much. Hopefully everyone will come to visit us at some point in the next two years.
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