18th Blogging Anniversary, Empty-Nesting, Deaths, and Being American during a Global Pandemic

18 years ago in a month minus one day... I posted a photo of my baby and I. 

This baby is gone off to college now, we're officially empty-nesters. 😱😮

I think I'm handling it well. In a way, it was harder when two years ago we left his older brother in college, on the very day my husband's grandmother died (of COVID, BTW, but she was 94 and declining).

(long digression below)

I wrote elsewhere that on the day she left us, her oldest grandchild, born in her own house of her firstborn daughter, left her very first great-grandchild in college.

So many kinds of grieving in one short day, with more to come -- in the funeral the next day, we were blindsided watching on Zoom when my father-in-law's ashes (he died in 2016) were placed to rest next to his mother-in-law (they were really close). When my  MIL bought the cemetery plot a couple of days before her mom's death, this had been arranged and planned, but she forgot to tell us, so when we saw it happen without any warning, it was quite devastating and my husband cried and grieved for his dad all over again. It was a painful, but meaningful closure for my MIL. In a few days my husband flew to Brazil to spend 3 weeks with his mom while he taught his online

A month later my mom's oldest brother, as old as K's grandma, died suddenly and, since my  mom was turning 80 (and my dad 83), I decided to go spend three weeks with them as well, as I continued to teach online. 

Blessings in disguise, silver linings, if you will, of the global pandemic. And I was never so thankful for my American passport as in that moment! I could board an empty plane, walk out into an empty airport in the country of my first nationality, spend three weeks with my parents, and come back home on another empty aircraft, land in empty airports, with all their stores locked up with no problem. 

The home of the free, the land of the brave. Never was that more clear to me than during the pandemic. Unlike my Canadian brother- and sister-in-law who were stuck and couldn't even see friends, I was free to go because I was an American. (and life was pretty normal here in the rural area where we live, at least in the second half of 2020. Our kids' private school and private university were also in person -- although the college experience of my older son was not being great, but I shall not blog about that).

It took a global pandemic to reconcile me to my new nationality and -- perhaps? -- identity. 

The "in-betweeness" of this blog's still valid masthead is still my life. 

(end digression, I think it wasn't too bad, was it?)

I started blogging in the days of early motherhood. I had a baby and a toddler and blogging changed my life. I met new people, I was exposed to so many new ideas, I came out of my "bubble" so to speak.

I all but abandoned it in the past 10 years, never even blogged when I perhaps most needed it (the pandemic), but maybe being an empty-nester, who goes every school year day to teach "kids that could be my own kids" (this will end in 4 years and I am TERRIFIED of that -- how will I be able to teach when all my students will be younger than my kids, and I'll keep getting older and older and them younger and younger?? 

The past 18 years were pretty incredible. I have nothing to complain about. I do have a charmed, privileged life and I am thankful for every single thing in it. Even for this abandoned blog. It was such a great and important part of the past years. Maybe I'll come back and blog more? Especially when I have a pile of grading that I'm trying to avoid! 😆

The 9/11 Babies Were the Class of 2020 - 9/11 21 years later and the pandemic

It took me 20 years to finally watch the Naudet brothers' 9/11 documentary. I saw it on YouTube.  

No wonder I didn't really know much about it when it aired on TV, CBS aired it on March 10, 2002. 

My oldest son was born on March 9, 2002.

And here, I will begin with a digression, which should be a post in and of itself, but I cannot say I'm a blogger anymore, so it will go here. I shared this thought on Facebook a few times, but writing stuff on FB is not the same as writing a blog post (and don't get me started on how frustrating the internet is nowadays with the stupid social media that is no substitute to what we had with blogging).*

Yes, The 9/11 Babies (in utero or newborns) were the Class of 2020

They experienced trauma before they were born when we were stressed out by all that was going on, and then, they had their graduation and first year of college experiences taken from them. I know because my poor son is still recovering from those traumas. Sigh... 

And all of a sudden, all that I wanted to say had kind of vanished from my head. COVID brain? :-(

As I was saying, I saw the 9/11 documentary film today. The one in which the two French-American brothers follow Engine 7/ Ladder 1/ Battalion 2 Firehouse. The one in which miraculously every single last one of the firefighters survives!!! I wanted to hear from each of them 21 years later. 

Why did it take me so long? I don't really know the answer to this question. 

I just wrote a super long comment in my friend Jamie's blog post in which I realized that maybe I could have blogged throughout the whole pandemic and tried to rebuild the fantastic community I write about the footnote below. Instead I journaled (A LOT), started reconnecting with friends over Zoom (heck, we even watched my husband's grandmother's funeral on Zoom, what a year! I also saw weddings on Facebook and Zoom) and I spent a lot of time on stupid Instagram and Facebook. Sigh... 

The Zoom meetings are still going strong over 2 years later -- it was incredible, really fantastic to connect with college friends who were like family, and seeing one another every Friday night has become a need. 

OK, I've lost steam. I need to go work out, something we also gained with the pandemic, starting in January 2021, we do the workouts of Caroline Girvan, an Irishwoman who is incredible. I hope she keeps on posting videos for us! At 51, lifting weights and exercising is a need, and essential to our health and well being.

In any case... I do think it was a missed opportunity, not blogging during the pandemic. OTOH... yeah... I don't know if it's still relevant. In spite of that, I'll hit publish. ;-P

* And the Millennial Influencers and YouTubers imagining that they are the first to create community online, don't they know that before they were making their videos and interacting with viewers we had blogs and actually made virtual friends online? We created many kinds of communities which were very important to us (for me it was especially interacting with other academic mothers, people who, like me, were raising babies and writing PhD dissertations). I met between 10-15 of these other bloggers in person, I am still on FB just so I can be in marginal touch with them. Sigh... What do these 30 somethings know of what we (15-20 years older) did 15 years ago online? OK, rant over.

New Year, (Temporarily) Divided Family

So much to catch up on, so little motivation to blog. Anyone still out there? (apart from Jenny in New England, hi Jenny!)

This will be a "different" Spring semester. The temporary above is not really temporary according to my husband because our oldest, who turns 18 this March -- HE WAS TWO WHEN I STARTED THIS BLOG! Has it really been 16 years? -- is going to college in August. Yeah... and I do say that completely matter-of-factly (auto-correct says it's matter-of-factually -- NO, no way!!) ;-P

The other day someone wrote a hilarious comment in one of Dooce's tweets, they said something like "I'm from the 2000s when people still blogged" or I'm " 2000s style blogs person." Me too, I had to respond, me too!

In case, temporary separations aside, the fact is that our youngest son (15.5) is in Brazil until late May, my husband is in Denmark (enjoying the second part of his sabbatical doing research abroad), while our oldest son, the cats, and I, stay home.

Yeah... I have lots more to say about all this, but it can't be now. I need to go to bed to teach tomorrow. The brutal mega-commute of 160 miles round-trip hasn't gotten any better.

It's Official (and an Independent Driver)

The two things I mentioned in the last bullet point in my last post (about 2019) already happened. Our son got his driver's license and now the boys go to school by themselves in the morning (but my husband still gets up to feed them breakfast) and, two days ago, he and his "prospective" girlfriend talked to her dad (after talking for several hours about their relationship) and made their relationship "official."

They are very young, just 17, but they are pretty mature and have been talking to each other a lot for over a year. She is 8 months older and will turn 18 in July. She is also a senior who is going to college across the country (Washington State) in the Fall, so I don't know what the future holds for them, but having cell phone and more affordable air travel makes things easier for the new generation of kids.

My boys and I flew to Seattle last week to visit their family (they lived here until last July and we've known them since 2012) and we all had a great time. Her two younger brothers are 2 months older and 15 months younger than my younger son and they played soccer together for years.We all get along well. Her mom is also an immigrant (from Bulgaria) and her dad's parents are from Puerto Rico. I like that.

OK, I have to do some work before teaching tomorrow, but I wanted to put this out there. ;-)

My CRAZY Life

Things have calmed down somewhat, but there is still plenty of CRAZY to come!!

If you're wondering about my brother-in-law, he had a successful surgery and got out of the hospital in only 5 days after the amputation. The initial recovery was excellent and he's still recovering well, but the "phantom feelings" and nerve sensations in the leg that he doesn't have are really bothering him a lot right now. If you pray, please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. Sigh... we saw him yesterday.

I will try to blog again soon, but the past few weeks were simply insane. My parents arrived on the day I taught my last classes, but they didn't come to our house. We picked them up at the airport (late at night) and drove them my aunt's house so they could help care for my disabled uncle for a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, I printed my final exams and gave them to two graduate students who administered them for me, because I had to travel to Florida for five days with my son's robotics team and their teacher. We drove in two cars, 12 hours the first day (Thursday) to St. Augustine, visited Kennedy Space Center the next day, then took it easy on Saturday. On Sunday was their competition (they finished 8/23, similar to last year in California), then we still drove 4 hours from Orlando to Savannah, GA. On Monday we drove back.

It was harder than the California trip last year because of all the driving, and also, more kids. We had 6 kids last year and were in one mini-van, this year there were 8 kids... and they kind of trashed my new (to us) mini-van. :-(

After I came back I had to go pick up the final exams and grade them, then I drove to get my parents, then helped cook lunch at the elementary school, and volunteered taking photos of an event in the evening. This Saturday were the day-long concerts for my son's high school (morning, afternoon and night!) that I didn't want my parents to miss, then yesterday we drove two hours to spend Mother's day with my mother-in-law and K's two brothers (K4 had driven down from Canada with his family to see K2 after the surgery).

Now I have to gear up to go on my son's 8th grade class trip, then comes the graduation, my husband's birthday, my son's birthday, trips with my parents, etc...

Sigh... and there's more, but I'll write about that later!

P.S. Last Thursday my husband became a U.S. citizen too! I think he's happier than I am about it. He even made a speech! It was kind of cute. ;-)

Safely Back!

Both of my "babies" made it back safely!

My washer and drier were very full last night, but my heart was fuller! ;-)

P.S. the day after my oldest had left for Peru (3/16), I became a citizen of this country. Right now I don't have a post in my about that, but I feel bad holding back that information from you. Incredibly, there seems to be a "silver lining" to this, and I will blog about that soon, promise!

Childless for Four Days...

... after having an only son for a week.

In about 18 hours I won't be childless anymore and in about 20-21 hours our family will be complete again! It hasn't been bad, really. There were some moments things felt strange, but not having to worry about what to feed them and just doing our own thing, my husband and I, it was pretty ok. ;-)

The boys texted and called with regularity. The oldest was in Cusco, Peru, for a mission trip. He had bought an international data package, so he could text and call as much as he wanted or needed. One day (possibly Wednesday), there was a 40 minute phone call because he enjoys just being on the phone while he and I are doing various things, and I actually had to basically hang up because I was tired of being put on hold for a few moments at a time. This morning he woke us up at 8:40 (we had taken naps yesterday afternoon, then stayed up really late watching a movie) and we talked for over 30 minutes while he was at the airport, at times frantically searching his backpack for his allergy medication. Their flight had been delayed several hours, so he felt like calling me and just talking for a while. It was good to catch up on what he'd been up to since Thursday. Then, when they finally got to Lima and he had Wi-Fi at the hotel he called me to seemingly ask me what drink he should by at the soda machine (K and I were on our way to eat out and I had to say goodbye and hang up again because we had arrived at the restaurant). Later, he called quickly just to request that I make sure I have tons of ramen noodle so he can make it for himself as soon as he gets home! :-D From what he's been telling me, they all had a wonderful time, in spite of the horrible food and some people getting sick (possibly food poisoning) at the end of the trip (yesterday and today). I know I will have to spend hours seeing all his photos and videos!

Our youngest went to Tennessee for a robotics competition and his texts and calls were a bit more anxious (he forgot a towel, he was unhappy with the food and how different "American" food is), but he did great for most of the time. This morning he texted me after their first two competitions, then in the early afternoon he said that they hadn't done very well in their robot's run. A few hours later, though, he texted me SUPER excited saying that they were the champions! Now they are headed to Florida in early May and I will be a chaperone again, except that this time I'll have to drive all the way to Orlando and back. :-( Not as fun as flying to San Francisco and getting to visit Yosemite and do other fun things... ;-P

Today my husband decided to start the Spring cleaning. As a matter of fact, he decided he will spend more time doing projects around the house and I'm thankful about that. It is a double-edged sword, though... Sigh... I will have to endure lots and LOTS of pestering on how many shoes or scarves or winter hats I have accumulated over the years... Not very fun. I did manage to separate several of each for donation today and we have a HUGE donation pile with many of items we haven't used in years. There is a long way to go in cleaning the house and de-cluttering, but hopefully we can do a better job this year than we've done before.

OK, I will now end this scattered post to go to bed & be prepared for their arrival tomorrow.

16 Years a Mother/ Trip Update

On Friday my oldest turned 16 and I enjoyed spending about half an hour with him right next to me in our bed (with my husband putting away his clothes near us) as the time of his birth, 4:14 pm, came and went. I had the scrapbook of his birth photos in my hands and he didn't want to look at them, but I'm thankful that he was content enough to hang out with us at that special time. He even let me take photos (even though he was making a scowling face) at 4:14 and I only shared those with my parents and brother. We talked about our recent trip, since I had just picked up is dad from the airport bus (we have one now!!).

Kelvin's birthday celebration stretched for a week and a half because his birthday present was a trip to Los Angeles with my husband and I. He ADORES traveling (he is truly our son and our parents' grandson -- the oldest!) and he's just about to travel again this coming Thursday on a mission trip to Peru. This year, exceptionally, my husband's professional association conference coincided with our Spring Break, so he was planning to take me with him to LA, but then our son asked to join us.

Both boys missed 3 days of school. Friday 3/2 and Monday and Tuesday. Our youngest stayed with his cousins and my sister-in-law (my BIL was traveling) and we flew from the airport closest to their house to make it convenient to drop L off and pick him up. LA was awesome and I posted some photos to Instagram & Facebook. It rained all day Friday (our first day there), but we enjoyed our visits to the Getty Villa and the Getty Center in spite of the rain and the lack of views

(I'll try to insert a photo later)

On Friday night we headed to Banning (towards the Desert/Palm Springs) where our friends live and it was awesome to see them again! Their daughter was my student (from 2nd-4th grades, once a week English class, she doesn't even remember) and she was one of the flower girls in our wedding. They left Brazil two years after we did and since then we've seen them in 2003, 2016 and now (my husband also saw them back in 2005 when his conference was there too). We talked for hours, and visited Joshua Tree National Park on Saturday.

On Sunday we headed back to LA and visited the Griffith Observatory and had dinner with a dear friend after checking into our fancy apartment in downtown LA. On Monday, our last day there, Kelvin and I took the metro and walked around downtown (City Hall, Disney Hall) then met up with my husband at the SkySpace which has awesome views. We ended the day seeing the sunset and meeting up with another group of friends (husband, wife, two daughters) we hadn't seen since 2015. He was my "accountability partner" when I was writing my PhD dissertation and he was finishing his thesis for his D. Min. Now he's pursuing a Ph.D. at Fuller University and we're very happy for him. While we talked, Kelvin did a time-lapse of the sunset.

The trip was intense, but the perfect blend of sight-seeing and catching up with friends and I think Kelvin liked to meet our friends. He certainly got to listen to A LOT of Portuguese which is good for him. He wishes we could go to Brazil more often, he loves going there and it's pretty much the only time he speaks Portuguese. Sigh... All day Tuesday was wasted with our trip back and it was tough on him having to wake up early again to go to school in spite of the jet lag. Now he's gotta get ready not only to travel again, but to spend a week at extremely high altitudes in Cuzco Peru. I hope he'll be ok!

Oh, yeah, to finish off the narration of the birthday. The day didn't start great because Kelvin had a nose-bleed and both boys were late for school on account of that, but I made up for the upset by taking him to get a Subway sandwich for lunch, making the traditional "vanilla ice-cream-cool whip Oreo crust" ice-cream cake. Then on Saturday he invited his two best friends and I cooked his favorite food (Brazilian-style stroganoff with veggie chicken and rice) for lunch as well as the dessert he asked me to make (a trifle dessert with cake, berries, and two kids of cream (one condensed milk based).
(maybe insert photo here)
I think it was a good birthday overall! I also posted 60+ photos of him from birth until now to Facebook and I enjoyed reading the comments!

Blogging and Motherhood - or When Heather Armstrong Made Me Cry (back in 2008)

WOW... This post took nearly TEN YEARS to see the light of day, how crazy is that?!? I thought of it in May of 2008, began to write it in February of 2009, went back to it in 2015 and will finally publish it now in 2018. I'm doing it now because Heather quoted her words to Leta on Instagram this past week when Leta turned 14 (my younger son L will also be 14 in May!).

Written on May 7, 2015: Heather Armstrong announced two weeks ago that she's "moving on" to other projects after blogging for so many years at Dooce and that prompted me to unearth this post that had been sitting in my drafts folder since February 24, 2009! Six years and two months later, the world is different and the post is probably slightly outdated, but I stand by my words and my feelings and I'm going to finally publish it.

I've wanted to write a post about this since last May [May 2008] when Dooce wrote a post that made me cry. She wrote to her daughter (Newsletter months 50 & 51), justifying the fact that she had not posted the her usual monthly newsletter in April:

But I guess there are some people who are very uncomfortable with the fact that I and many other women are writing about our children on our websites. How dare we violate your privacy like this, how dare we endanger you like this [. . .]. And I have been asked countless times if I am at all worried that you will totally resent me for the details I have shared here. Of course you will you resent me. I have no doubt that you will spend years of your life resenting me and being embarrassed that we have the same last name, despite the fact that I have and will spend years of my life writing love letters to you on the Internet. Despite the fact that I have declared to millions of people that you are the most amazing thing that has ever happened to my life.

This is part and parcel of being a parent, right?
(and she goes on to detail some of the ways in which her daughter will resent her)

Will you resent me for this website? Absolutely. And I have spent hours and days and months of my life considering this, weighing your resentment against the good that can come from being open and honest about what it's like to be your mother, the good for you, the good for me, and the good for other women who read what I write here and walk away feeling less alone.

And what she wrote next had me crying really hard when I read it:

And I have every reason to believe that one day you will look at the thousands of pages I have written about my love for you, the thousands of pages other women have written about their own children, and you're going to be so proud that we were brave enough to do this. We are an army of educated mothers who have finally stood up and said pay attention, this is important work, this is hard, frustrating work and we're not going to sit around on our hands waiting for permission to do so. We have declared that our voices matter. [emphasis mine]

And I have tears in my eyes again when I read the end of the last paragraph (I cry every time I read the lines above and the next ones):

Leta, some people will one day try to convince you that what I've done here is some sort of sickening betrayal of your childhood, and what those people fail to recognize is that I am doing the exact opposite. This is the glorification of your childhood, and even more than that this is a community of women coming together to make each other feel less alone. You are a part of this movement, you and all of the other kids whose mothers are sitting at home right now writing tirelessly about their experiences as mothers, the love and frustration and madness of it all. And I think one day you will look at all of this and pump your fist in the air.

YEAH!! I said, YEAH! Amen sister!

I hope Kelvin and L can virtually join Leta one day in celebrating the fact that their mothers were proud to share their voices with the world. No matter how insignificant the audience (mine) or how huge (Heather's and several other famous mommy bloggers out there).

 ~   ~       ~  ~      ~   ~

And that's where my post written on September 2008 & February 2009 ends.

Since then, Heather went on to publish her newsletters to Leta in book form, which Leta later read. I simply loved her reaction, assuming that the letters would continue to be written. I'm sure she loved it, but of course, she couldn't react as enthusiastically as the post above foresees (a pump fist in the air would be more fitting for Marlo). (I'm too tired now to go look to for the post about Leta readint the book and link to it, maybe later).

Over my ten years blogging, in spite of my very "mommy blog" name, I have blogged way less than Heather about my sons. In fact, my 13 year old sometimes complains that I'm not blogging about him enough -- he enjoys reading my posts about him. On the other hand, his 10 year old brother does NOT want to be blogged about so I try my best not to do it (but have done it a few times this year, sometimes I just can't resist!).

I love blogging, though, and the friends I've made through blogging, that's why...  (? maybe why I still blog?)

 ~   ~       ~  ~      ~   ~

That's where I stopped back in 2015. I'm still blogging, even though most of the friends I've made through blogging have moved on and now I spend lots of time on (stupid) facebook so I can keep up with my old blogging friends. 

In any case, I am DELIGHTED that Heather is blogging again, and on Instagram & Facebook. Her voice is really important and has inspired so many of us over the years. I am glad that she has continued to blog in spite of the horrible people who have harassed her endlessly online. I hope she reads this post! (and while you're at it you can read about when my son asked whether Marlo was his cousin).

Last Day/ First Day

"Yesterday"  (meaning Tuesday, 1/16, I'm still awake, so it's still Wednesday for me) was my last day of the winter break, so I spent extra time in bed after dropping off my son at school at 8:50 am, which led to a spectacular parenting "fail."

I never thought I'd sleep until the home phone* rang at 11:55 am with my son asking me whether I was going to bring him lunch. I had not only silenced my cell phone, but also turned off vibrate when I started getting too many texts from a group of friends in the early morning, but I thought I'd wake up at 11:30... I never put the alarm (which surprised him).

My 15 year old was very understanding. He patiently listened to me getting up, heading to the kitchen and frantically telling him the options for food (frozen Indian or lasagna? No. A sandwich? "You? No!" [apparently only daddy makes good sandwiches], until I said, "Well, what about veggie dogs?"  "If you have hot dog buns, then yes, why didn't you mention that earlier?" Luckily I DID have the buns and I didn't mention that earlier because I hadn't thought of it yet, DUH! I kept asking what else he wanted and he was very nice about it, "Just put mayo on the bread, mom. How long is it going to take?" Said he with a quiet voice that implied a bit of impatience. "Ten minutes, max!" I barely had enough mayo for the three hot dogs, but I thawed some home made tomato sauce to season it (in Brazil we cook the hot dogs on a type of marinara sauce, for big parties they are actually thinly sliced, when cooking for the whole family I just slice them lengthwise so they'll go farther, but I put three whole ones for Kelv).

When I said to him what a big failure I'd been he only chuckled and thanked me for the food. I love that kid! I went back home, put a load of clothes in the wash (laundry has been pretty intense this early January -- too much stuff piled up from December and I'm not done with all the bed linens yet), then later I drove to town -- my first trip pretty much since before Christmas (I did take my son to buy a backpack the day before school, but that was it!) and I was only able to stay for an hour and a half (went to Costco & Target) because I needed to pick up the boys at 5.

I didn't work on my syllabus until late in the evening, but I wasn't worried, since I only needed to make some small changes.

The other "fail" for this first day was the snow that never came, so there was no snow day as my son so wanted and secretly me too! ;-) I had to drive on very light snow during my last 20 minutes of the drive and I thought I'd missed the bus, but I hadn't, the app was just weird.

It was a roller coaster of a day... I won't go into details, but I was upset and stressed that 16 of the 45 students I had last semester didn't register for this semester's sequel class. Then, I had an unexpected and unexpectedly good meeting with my colleague and spent hours writing some emails and trying to leave. I didn't leave until past 5 pm. I stopped at a bunch of stores along the way and only got home close to 9 pm! I still cooked some pasta for the boys and got them to go to bed because K had to stay late at the university.

Yeah... this sounds like a typical "first day" to me! Working is wholesome. Yeah... I don't know what else to say about that now. Hopefully it will get better someday... I hope it'll be a good semester. In spite of the lower number of students. I have a feeling it will be!

*yes, we still have a "home phone" line -- it's a VOIP & we pay 6 dollars a month for the line. I can no longer call 60+ countries (we paid 39 for that for years), but I'm using Google voice to call my parents. I still like to have a phone line, and for 6 a month, I don't think it's bad.

Exhilarating Day in Parenting and Teaching

Wow... what a long day it has been!

The first day your child drives you somewhere, not just through a small town, but, after successfully driving on a minor highway for a bit, takes you back home on the interstate for about 15 miles is quite exhilarating! He'd driven around quite a bit on country roads and parking lots and while other parents may not have dared to do such a thing, I'm glad I did. He did a wonderful job!

Within the first few minutes down the highway he asked me whether to set up cruise control one would just press the button and when said yes, he did, and fiddled a bit with the + and - buttons. Then I mentioned that he could step on the brakes to turn off cruise control to which he replied, "I know mom, I read the car manual!" and (I paraphrase here) "I know all the theory, now I'm getting the practice." Impossible not to ADORE this kid of mine!

And as he drove, and I used my phone and just relaxed, occasionally pointing out something he could improve on or sharing things I do or that happen when I drive, I remembered the day, many years in the past, ok, maybe only about 8 years ago, when we were talking about something Kelvin enjoyed to do and he turned to me and said "Mom, you know how I feel about machines!" That's my boy who will build computers and new "information age" paraphernalia someday. His love for machines does shine through in intense desire to drive a car.

Then, he again drove me to my husband's university where I dropped him off (dad wasn't lucky to be driven by him because out other car is a stick shift!) ;-P and drove on to U#2 where we were opening a film festival today! The first film was Brazilian and I introduced it. Many of my students came and it was a great success! Now I need to go to bed, even though I'm quite awake after drinking some guarana (very caffeinated Brazilian soda).

Oh, yeah, and before my son got his permit, he had a dentist's appointment and I was seen too, because I had a crown put in last week and it was bothering me.

(this is the most boring way ever to end a post, but here you go!)

My Youngest Son's First Trip Solo

This morning I sent off my youngest son in his first bell-choir trip. Three years ago I blogged about the first of such trips for our family and how Kelvin had such a great time. Kel was in 6th grade at the time, but L only joined the bell choir this year in 7th grade. I imagine that Kel is probably happy about this so he didn't have had to put up with his "little brother" during last year's trip. ;-)

As in most previous years there are 4 boys and 9 girls in the group and two of the boys happen to be my son's good friends (although the friendship is changing with the oldest of the two since he's going through puberty ahead of L and getting moody and cranky, which strains the relationship). I hope he'll have a good time, though I know he won't be as enthusiastic about the trip as his brother was three years ago -- they are so different from each other!

Edited to add: He just called me (9:40 pm) and all is well, but he did forget to pack pajamas! He'll be able to use a pair of comfortable shorts and a t-shirt. I told him to try to select one of the t-shirts or at least wear a new one every night (and then keep it during the day).

I miss him, of course!

P.S. this is the third Tuesday in a row I miss going to the Farmer's market because of an outside obligation (in this case, going to the airport, unfortunately Reagan, to pick up some students. I'm being paid $200 for my trouble, but it's still kind of annoying, sigh...).

Super Productive Day?

Let's see what was accomplished. Maybe a list would be best, but here is the day's chronology:

- put load of laundry to wash;
- drove hubby to work (20 minutes away, to the South);
- went to Costco and bought only what was on my list (good accomplishment!): a pineapple, cat food, and toilet paper;
- returned plastic drawers that didn't fit inside bathroom cabinets I'm trying to organize;
- purchased metal shelving that maybe will fit and cubes for cube storage shelves we already have in the living room and family room;
- went to farmer's market (I'm buying tomatoes like crazy to make sauce and freeze)

- drove back home and hung laundry, put another load to wash;
- picked up oldest child early from school and began arranging the cube storage (metal shelves didn't fit cabinets :( so I put them back in the trunk to return);
- picked up youngest son and took both boys to the dentist (20 mins. North).
- took oldest to store while youngest had teeth cleaned to buy deodorant and acne stuff;
- drove back home, first dropping oldest at school for him to work;
- stopped by the "Main street" hairdresser who was free and had time to quickly cut youngest son's hair;
- at home, hung second load of laundry (it was pretty late, after 4 pm, but the day was hot and windy, so it was ok) -- first load was completely dry;
- picked up oldest and, after a few minutes at home, drove him to another hair salon for his scheduled haircut appointment.
- picked the now dry clothes and drove with youngest son to town (20 mins. South);
- son's glasses were adjusted at the store & I bought a t-shirt and fragrance spray for oldest at popular store with teens (NEVER thought I'd give in and shop there, name begins with H); bought pretzel sticks as reward for patient kid.
- picked up  husband and drove back to the elementary school where son had forgotten homework and nice teacher met us and opened the door.
- finally back home! Only leftovers for everyone, not real dinner today.

I needed to have written emails to students and done other kinds of work, but I guess that in the parenting and house fronts the day was productive! I'll try to add some photos. :)

Double Single Parenting & so much other stuff...

There's a lot on my plate right now. I was supposed to be preparing for classes, having a lighter week with the boys in school and me and my husband doing projects in the house to get us prepared for the school year ahead.

But since our vacation was interrupted followed by the unfortunate and completely unexpected death of my father-in-law things got hectic. I had to pack and travel by myself with the boys (I'm a pro, but I was a pile of nerves). Then we had a relatively quiet week with K3 and his family and K's mom here, sleeping in Kelvin's new bedroom while he slept on the floor (same arrangement in Michigan, incidentally, after we got there). Hopefully being close to her first grandson gave her some comfort.

Our husbands and their mom traveled to Brazil on Monday and these have been tiresome days of "double single parenting" for my sister-in-law and I.

Being by myself on the first week of school -- two different schools now! -- totally sucks! I'm exhausted from waking up earlier than I like (before 7) and doing two drop offs, one before 7:30 am, the other between 8 and 8:15. And then there are the lunches I have to plan... oh, and breakfast, I'm TERRIBLE at breakfast (except for smoothies) and K always feeds the boys in the morning.

Good thing there's the Olympics for us all to watch, but my boys need to be put to bed earlier than they'd like because of school. Thankfully my nephew that is the same age as my youngest son is always nice to his dear cousin and goes to bed at the same time with him (my nephews are sharing a room with my younger son).

On Tuesday was my youngest son's first day of school, a half day, so afterwards I granted his wish and took him and his cousins to a trampoline park an hour away. On the way back SIL commented that she couldn't handle three loud boys in the car. Sigh...Yesterday the cousins joined my son at his school's pool party, but today we had to take the two boys to town because we needed to go shopping.

I haven't been talking enough to my husband, so I'm cranky. I hate missing stuff and I'll miss everything this weekend. Father-in-law's brother and two sisters and their families are coming for the memorial service. I imagine it will be heartbreaking, but I won't be there. I know he's not my dad, but I still wish I could be there. If only to hug my own brokenhearted parents (they lived two blocks away from each other) and my husband.

Some of these feelings are selfish, but this is "blogging as therapy," so I want to share them. I can't wait for my husband to return on Monday! Too bad I have meetings at work for most of the afternoon. I may skip some of them to get home earlier. We'll see.

Thanks for listening!

And just like that... He grew up!

I want to write more, lots and lots, in fact, about this, such a momentous occasion in my firstborn's life, but here is a quick note not to let these milestones pass without record.

Last Wednesday we went to our son's high school (it's a boarding school in which he will be a "village kid") and submitted his work permit. On Thursday he began work -- in his favorite place, the IT department! I couldn't believe how fast it all went. One day a child, the next technically an adult.

And today was his first day of school as a high-schooler. My baby sure grew up! I'm very proud of him and how much he is maturing and developing every day, but I do feel wistful at times. Transitions like these have surprising effects in one's life. I need to get used to them because milestones will start to pile-up, 8th grade graduation last May was just the beginning!

My "Baby" is Back Home & My Parents Arrived Safely in the U.S.

On Sunday night, my 14 year-old son returned from a six-day trip to Florida with his school's bell choir. We all missed him so much! (especially mama here, sigh...) He's a joy to be around and I'm thrilled that he's back, ready to experience his last month of Elementary school. His 8th grade graduation is precisely a month from today. I am so proud of the young man he is becoming, so responsible, so poised, so intelligent and determined. When they get their yearbooks I'll share here what I wrote to him there. It was hard to write only 150 words.

This morning my parents arrived safely in the U.S., flying into NY and then taking a connecting flight into D.C. I'm sad that they won't arrive at our house until next week because they will be helping my aunt with my uncle Oseas, my dad's younger brother. He was left permanently disabled by the removal of a benign brain tumor back in 2009 and needs around-the-clock care. My aunt is taking this opportunity of my parents coming to take a break for a week traveling with her sister.

It feels very strange to have them in the country and not to have even talked to them yet. My mom thinks it's unnecessary for me to go see them now, especially because we're horribly busy with the last week of our semester. I wanted to go see them on Saturday, but we have an event with our church, so maybe we'll go Saturday afternoon. Sigh...

I can't believe the semester is almost over!

Last and First

Today was definitely the last time I purchased something for my 13 year old at Crazy 8. :-(  Their largest size is 14 and he'll soon outgrow that. Hard to believe because C8 clothes were always WAY too big for my boys and they always wore one or two sizes below their actual age. Not anymore for Kelvin!

On the other hand, today was my very first shoe purchase in adult sizes for him! It's hars to find size 7, but Target helped us out! And it was on clearance too! I know he'll outgrow this pair in no time -- he's been through 3 shoe sizes this year already, sigh... But I'm happy he's growing! 

This summer he passed me in height and is now about half an inch taller than mama. He's so proud of himself! :-) I am too!

Blurry Back to School

The past eight years are a blur...

I can hardly believe I have an 8th grader and a 6th grader. I'm certainly not celebrating it. They do grow too fast. 

To my husband's chagrin (poor man, he knows I have too much to do and he tries to help keep me on track), I stayed at the school a full 2 hours after dropping off the boys. Talking to people. Because that's who I am. And because it's the first day of my elsdest's last year at this lovely elementary school. (And I'm going back to drop off their lunch and then drive them to the town pool -- a first day of school tradition).

My favorite moment of the morning, was when three high school freshman, former classmates of my son when he was in 7th and them in 8th last year (plus 3-4 & 5/6), walked into the school. One of them paused to look at his graduating class photo on the wall and that just warmed my heart and broke it a little -- grieving in advance for my son next year. I'm getting ready to cry BUCKETS on 8th grade graduation. Sigh...

Ok, now I have to finish cooking/preparing their lunch!

P.S. they were very mad at me for wanting to take photos. :-(

Last Days of School Are Sad! :-(

As my sons get older and closer to important milestones in life I get more & more emotional about them. I was thinking today, as I walked into my sons' school, that I will get to relive twice all the rites of passage in life that I went through myself (and then, if I am blessed with grandchildren and a long life -- I'll live through many more with the grandkids, WOW!). And I don't know if I like that prospect. I wasn't really thinking of those things when I had children. Sigh... It's interesting to discover new things about mothering/ parenting once in a while, though!

Last night was 8th grade graduation and my 7th grader actually walked down the aisle during the ceremony (the tradition in our school is that pairs of 7th graders stand in line as their classmates walk in, one by one) and I was teary-eyed several times during reading of the profiles of the 18 graduating students. I am very apprehensive about next year, I don't want to cry from beginning to end! It's hard, though! My parents will be here as will probably my in-laws. Kelvin is the oldest grandchild on both sides of the family, so it will be the first graduation for all of us.

Today I missed the photo slide show that the 7-8th grade teacher always prepares for the whole school and I felt sad about it. The last day of school is the day I bring cake to celebrate my youngest son's birthday, since it's the last day I can do it before the date (May 30th). In the first three years I baked cupcakes, but in the last two our new tradition has become homemade vanilla-Oreo ice-cream cake! (the Oreos are crushed in the blender, the ice-cream is mixed with Cool-Whip). I'm becoming "famous" in the elementary school because of this cake, kids and adults alike love it. I bring it to school so the kids can eat it before school is out (12:15 on the last day), after singing Happy Birthday to my son.

This was done and it went on smoothly, but then I felt sad that it was all over. Particularly as I went over to Kelvin's class and saw the eighth graders (not high-schoolers) there for the last time! :-( Next year it will be my son and I will probably be sadder, but at the same time excited for what is coming. If all goes well, next year will be the beginning of a 12 year streak of graduations for our sons. One every two years: 8th grade, high school, college. I know it will go by just too fast, so I want to savor every event, even if it feels sad. (wow, that was a lot of "eves"! and "Vs")

This year seems to have gone fast, but it was also kind of stressful, so it's a good thing it's over. I have mixed feelings about it all, though, because I have a hard time keeping my sons going at home. I know that if left to their own devices all they will do will be to spend all day playing on their ipad or computers (Minecraft) or, maybe their WiiU, and that's not good. Summers aren't my favorite time of the year -- unless we're traveling, which, we obviously will.

Have a great summer, everyone!

"If you're going to San Francisco..."

No, I didn't tell him to wear flowers in his hair. I suppose it wouldn't look good on a 13 year old boy!

My son is flying right now to San Francisco with seven other classmates, a teacher and a mom. They will be competing on a national robotics conference (for our denominational schools) next Sunday and the teacher is taking them early to tour the area.

It will be Kelvin's second time on the West Coast, but he was only 15 months when we went to LA for a few days back in 2003.

I will miss him, but my exercises in "letting go" have served me well -- I want him to go and have fun and to know I'm here for him when he comes back! And I know he's going to call me, he already did once this morning, when they landed in Charlotte, NC for their connecting flight.

Yesterday, one of the moms posted on facebook that her heart was aching and that she wished her daughter to stay here and I was so relieved that I don't feel that way at all! YAY!

Have a grand time, Kelv!! Like your dad said last night (they had a super-early flight, so they went to spend the night close to the airport), maybe you'll return someday to work on one of the tech giants!

P.S. we'll have to take him to tour those when we finally get to go there ourselves! (I know that the Apple-fanatic boy and now android enthusiast will want to see those companies)