The Boxcar Children

I realized the other day that Zoë was ready for a chapter book. I've been waiting for this day with much anticipation for a long time. I can't wait to revisit all of my childhood favorites with my own children. And what better book to start with than The Boxcar Children! This was my first favorite and probably the book I remember most fondly from my youngest years.

As I've been reading it to Zoë, I've been wondering whether I loved it so much as a kid because the children's foraging, working, ordering, and nesting activities were so in line with my innate affection for those things or whether that affection developed in part because of my early exposure to this book. In any case, much of the book (if you haven't read it or if it's been a while) is simply about four orphaned children setting up home in a boxcar with things they find at a nearby dump, fashion from nature, or build/make themselves. That might sound boring, but it's actually exciting, satisfying, and wonderful all at once.

Before we started the book, I was actually pretty nervous that I would be let down, that my adult eyes would pick up on all sorts of flaws my childhood ears missed. But the further we've gotten in it, the more delighted I've become. Reading again about Benny's pink cracked cup, the "refrigerator" located behind a waterfall, and the personalities of the four children (I think my first ever literary crush was on Henry) is magical--I feel the same way I did the first time round with an added measure of delicious nostalgia. Sure, my analytic brain is finding the way gender roles and values are constructed interesting and characteristic of the time period and my parental brain is wondering about the logistics of it all, but that's not stopping my enjoyment.

I imagined reading a chapter (maybe two) before bed each night, but we ended up reading about half the book in our first sitting--well, actually during an extended post-nap cuddle in Zoë's bed. It's a testament to Warner's writing that a three-year-old could understand the book so well and be engaged in it for that long (though Zoë of course does not lack verbal skills). Two days later and we're one chapter away from done. Good thing Grandma has about a dozen more in the series!

Some other books I'm really looking forward to reading with Zoë:

• The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles--the highlight of my life was third-grade group reading time while we were on this book.
• The Indian in the Cupboard books--I can't think of another series that so captured my imagination as a kid.
• The Little House on the Prairie series--When I was young, I used to pray before my naps that Mary and Laura would somehow be at my house when I woke up.  

What chapter books do you or did you enjoy reading with your kids?

Nico's first birthday

For Nico's first birthday, we had a fall-themed party. 

There were soups (carrot and pumpkin/black bean), homemade bread, cheeses, apples, grapes, chips and homemade salsa, and . . . 

three-layer apple spice cake.

It was quite a delicious spread.

I spent too long making this banner with pictures from Nico's first year. I'm going to hang it up in his room for a while to get more use out of it.

Nico alternated between interested and shy while everyone was singing Happy Birthday to him.

He watched while I blew.

When it came time to eat his first piece of cake, we maintained the tradition of stripping him down and putting him on a plastic tablecloth to do what he would. 

He started out modestly.

And got more interested from there.

Yay! This is fun!

Then he started really smearing it everywhere.

Until he had a new buttercream hairdo.

Nico's first haircut

The first haircut for either of our children, at a Provo institution.

And it was on the house--thanks, Johnny!

Hematoma

I had been up on the ladder all summer scraping and painting the house. I was just putting the final touches on the porch, standing on an dining room chair, when I leaned over one millimeter and made the chair slip off the porch, with me on it. It happened so fast, I was kind of in shock, but I knew it was a bad fall, so I told myself, "I should scream so Josh comes over here" (he was on the other side of the house). So I did. But I guess it didn't sound real enough because he didn't think anything of it. Zoe saw the whole thing and went and got him though, and by that time I had a balloon about the size of a small orange on my arm. Josh was sure it was broken, though I was sure it wasn't because I really wasn't in very much pain. 

He wanted to go to the ER. I convinced him to go to an Urgent Care center instead, but we hadn't gone on our latest insurance and we weren't sure which centers were in-network, so we first drove to Springville, then north Orem, before ending up at the Riverwoods, where they told me I should go to the ER. Oh well.

I went to the admitting desk at the ER. The nurse glanced at me and told me to have a seat in the waiting room--that they were busy with some other people. I waited for quite a while. When he finally summoned me and started the paperwork, he saw for the first time the other side of my arm and was startled--he had thought I was coming in for a minor scrape on my elbow. Ha! Urgent care had told me I'd gotten a hematoma--a big sack of blood as a result of having broken a vein and that it would need to be drained. But after an ultrasound and a lot of sitting around in the ER, all they did was wrap an ace bandage around it and tell me to ice it. Apparently it wasn't in a spot that they could drain. It's fun though meeting your entire deductible at the end of the year. Oh well again.

I didn't get a good picture of the worst of it--the ones below are when the lump was much smaller, though the blood had spread to elsewhere in my arm, which looked gross. Today, about two months later, only the smallest slightly hard tissue remains. It's almost gone!

Hair

I decided to go a bit darker.

And I like it.

First race

For a long time I've been on off-and-on runner (jogger, really). Since having Nico, I had been doing walk-run programs sporadically. In June, when we were visiting Jon and Diana (and they were training for a marathon), I got a 10K training plan from Diana and decided to see if I could even do the first workout--a three mile run. I could, so I decided to register for my first race to give me more motivation. 

I found a race with a great cause and a personal connection. It was called Racing the Cane and benefits kids in the Dominican Republic (where I lived for a short time) who work in the sugar cane fields. The proceeds go toward their educations, but you can also donate running shoes to go to the kids and they use them to run in their own race a few months later. A cool idea!

I did an eight-week training program that ended the day of the race. I use the Nike+ system, but I didn't calibrate it until the second-to-last week, when I realized I had been under-training a bit the whole time. Oh well. Kristin registered for the race with me, and the evening before we drove the course together. I was so glad we did because it turned out there was a huge long hill toward the end of it, and it was good to be able to pace myself for that (I hadn't been training on hills at all). 

The main racing tip I'd read and heard from people was to avoid starting out too fast, so I really worked on holding myself back for the first couple of miles. I felt like I had so much energy because I'd been tapering that last week, but I held myself to a 10/10:30 mile at the beginning. Around mile 3, I started to pick up the pace. That was the most enjoyable part of my run. There was a long slight decline, I felt great, and I was passing a bunch of people who it seemed had started off too fast. 

I had two goals--to run the whole time and to come in under an hour. The hill around mile 4 or 5 definitely made the first one difficult, but I managed to run up the whole hill (slowly). I was pretty wasted at the top though. But I was also motivated to keep my pace up enough to make running up the hill worth it. The last mile or so was pretty brutal though. I remember thinking at one point "Why am I doing this?" But when I got to the final stretch, I got one more burst of energy and the finishing lap around the track was fun because my family was all there, cheering me on. And I ended up coming in at 55:48.2, a 9-minute/mile pace, and 5th in my age group, so I made my second goal too!

This is a great race and a fun tradition. They had yummy Magleby's breakfast and massages afterwards as well. I'm planning on doing it every year!

I sped up to pass one lady at the very end. Okay, I'm a little competitive.

Seconds away from the finish line!

Kristin giving five to Zoe right before the finish line.

Happy to be done!

There was a 1K kids race that Zoë really wanted to be in, so we signed her up at the last minute. She lost no time in stretching with the other kids.

They ended up deciding to have three-year-olds run around just half of the track. Here they are at the starting line. They all started at different times and some, including Zoë, kept running straight for a while instead of making the turn. It was pretty funny.

She had a BLAST and won first place for the girls (out of a total of 2 :) ).

She let Nico wear her medal.

Then she got her face painted like a fast cheetah and ran some more "races."

And did lots of roaring.

What a cutie.

Happy 11/11/11!

Though today was a pretty average day (went to work, took the kids to the library, etc.), Josh and I did celebrate this once-in-a-millennium day by going out to dinner--Bombay House, of course--and talking about our kids, our work, our plans, our dreams, and why Bombay House is the best Indian restaurant in the world. And then we made wishes at 11:11. And now I need to go to bed because I'm running a 5K first thing in the morning for families in Belize. Good night!

Dress

How to instantly transport Zoë to heaven?

Find my wedding dress at Grandma's house.

My guys

I'm a lucky girl.

Thirty

You hear a lot of people say that they are really a kid at heart. I've always been kind of the opposite--always a bit of an adult, even at a very young age. I'm sure it has a lot to do with being the oldest and a lot to due with my lifelong interest in the world of ideas, books, and adult topics generally. 

When I was five or six, I used to sit quietly behind the couch during my mom's bookgroups and listen in to the conversation. I started working a part-time job at age 14 and have been employed continually since then. I was eager to leave high school behind for college and then college for grad school. I married at 21 and didn't ever feel too young to do that, nor did having children make me feel old--at least not any older than I wanted to be. 

However, I have to say that thirty kind of threw me. I was a little surprised, especially since I'm married to someone who has been in his thirties three years now. I thought I was used to the idea. It turns out I wasn't--quite. I think that I've always been so excited for the next stage of life, whatever that is, but now I'm content. Happily married, mother to two darling children, working in a career I love, with my own little house to do with as I please, and a world to travel every few years, I'm good. No changes needed! 

But  in the last couple months, thirty has grown on me. I know that it isn't very old in the grand scheme of things, but I also feel like I'm at a new vantage point--one that allows me to look back and remember being a youth and what it feels like to be focused on the establishment of so much (family, career, etc.) while also affording me with a view of how much to life there is beyond the big changes I experienced in my 20s. And I look forward to the nuance, the richness in relationships, the questions, challenges, and perspectives that await me in this decade (and hopefully in several to come after that).

As for the day itself, it was lovely! Josh treated me to a dinner at Sundance with close friends and family. 

Dancing

There isn't much that Zoë looks forward to as much as her weekly dance class with Miss Amber. It's full of movement, imagination, stories, and friends. 

We attended the studio's production of Peter and the Wolf last night, which featured the older girls, and it was a total delight. Incredible costumes, choreography, and personality. Miss Amber is amazing (and just down the street!).