Day one of the annual Waldvogel Family Beach Trip. If we can avoid hurricanes, it should be a great week.
I am reading Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. Next in line, the new David Sedaris book. It is so nice that the children are finally old enough for me to be able to sit and read on the beach, even if only for a few minutes at a time!
Today was the last day of summer. Well . . . . kind of. It was the last day of the summer park program, and that feels like the end of summer. We will be on vacation at the beach for the next week, and the kids don’t go back to preschool until September 2nd, but somehow today felt like the last day.
It was bittersweet. We have had such a wonderful time at the park this summer, and it has become such a wonderful community for us. I have loved watching the children make friends and learn to play so well both with other children and on their own, each discovering the things they most love to do in the park. Lola Gray is definitely my water baby, always stripping down and heading to the fountains. Fletcher prefers swinging, or sitting at the top of the jungle gym, or drawing in the dirt with sticks.
I hate to see it end.
This afternoon we went to the Norman’s for an end of summer BBQ and pool party. Parties at the Normans are always a ball, and this one was no exception. The kids (and the adults!) had a great time playing badminton.
Lola Gray, of course, spent most of her time in the pool. It wasn’t long until she had all the kids jumping from the spa wall into the big pool. I even jumped in a few times myself! (Trying, futilely, to coax Fletcher into jumping.) Standing up there, it looks a lot higher that it does when you are in the water, and I was a little nervous! Lola Gray came up and held my hand and jumped in with me. After the first jump, when I ralized that it is a pretty scary thing to jump like that, I hugged Lola and told her how proud I was of her. She smiled and said “Thanks Mommy, I’m so proud of you too.” I could eat her up. After a few more jumps holding hands, Lola looked at me and said (I kid you not) “I think you can do it by yourself now.”
Lola Gray & Mina get ready to jump
Fletcher seems to be developing into quite the photographer! These pictures were taken on his Fisher Price digital camera, and I have not done any editing. I think the effects on some are really wonderful! Perhaps if I ever get that DSLR I have been dreaming of, I will pass my camera down to Fletcher.
Obviously, he has inherited his father’s penchant for self-portraiture!
Posted in art
I am trying to decide if we should sign Fletcher up to play soccer in the fall. It shouldn’t be this hard a decision. I’m in a funk right now, lots of other ‘issues’ eating at me. I guess since I can’t figure out those problems I am making a much bigger deal of this soccer thing than I should . . . . I know better than to ruminate. I know better. But it doesn’t stop me.
The problem, besides the fact that I was disappointed in the organization of the YMCA teams the last time we tried this, is that I don’t want to do anything right now. I want to sit and be lazy with my children. I want to draw with chalk and go to the park and eat freezer pops and take long naps together. I want summer to last forever. Thinking about soccer has brought back to me the hurry of the school year. The rush to get things done, the rush to get out the door. Feeling like we never just played at home, but were always rushing around. How some days trying to get down the street to playgroup just seemed like too much. How hard it is on those nights that Raymond doesn’t come home, trying to get the kids fed and bathed and into bed on time. Do I really want to add to that?
But I think Fletcher would enjoy it. He still talks about his t-ball team a year and a half later (I thought the t-ball experience was terrible, and felt like I spent the entire 8 weeks chasing Lola Gray off the field and Fletcher back onto it! But he seems to have enjoyed it more than I did, and I guess that is what is important.) Plus, he keeps telling me (even though I had decided NOT to sign him up for soccer this year) that his soccer team will be starting soon. He has no idea how I am struggling over this. I have no idea WHY I am struggling oer this!
Making things that much harder, the games will all be on either Tuesday or Thursday nights, which means Raymond won’t be around for any of them. It breaks my heart for him not to be there. (I’m so selfish – I’m not sure I could stand it if he were playing on a night when I was working and couldn’t be there! Raymond is much more mature about this than I. Thank goodness I have him to balance me.) I wanted to go with the soccer league that does Saturday morning games, but all of Fletcher’s friends are playing at the Y and I know he will want to be with them.
Ugh. I’m thinking too much about this.
I guess I’m about to become a soccer Mom.
It was much cooler today, a little drizzyly and overcast. Perfect park weather. After lunch, Lola Gray played in the fountains while Fletcher joined his friends on the playground.
Fletcher brought with him a notebook and pen, and he and Polly wrote a story called The Fox and the Spagehetti Fletcher drew the pictures and Polly wrote the words. Unfortunately, Lola Gray got her hands on the book and pulled out most of the pages they had been working on!
One of Fletcher’s favorite things to do at the park is curl up inside the tunnel. Sometimes he sits there alone for a really long time. Today Lola followed him in, so he took off and left her to drop mulch through the tunnel’s holes.
Posted in play
Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.
— Heraclitus
Posted in transitions
We have been watching a lot of the Beijing olympics over the past 2 days. Fletcher has been surprisingly in to it – particularly the beach volleyball and archery. Oh, and weight lifting. I’m not so keen on that one.
Tonight we let the children stay up a little later than usual so they could watch a few minutes of the women’s gymnastics team competition. I though Lola Gray would enjoy that. However, before the gymnastics they showed women’s synchronized diving. Lola Gray was in heaven. She watched in absolute awe – stillness and silence we almost NEVER see from her – and then she jumped up and said “I can do that!” and climbed up on the coffee table to show us how she could dive! We are going to have to watch out for this girl! We promised to take her to the pool tomorrow so she can practice diving as long as she promises not to go head first off the furniture!
Posted in thoughts
I was going to title this post Never Hang Wallpaper With Your Husband – something I attempted last night. And while it is going to look great when it is done, let’s just say it was a little harder than we anticipated. But then I guess most things are a little harder than anticipated, aren’t they? Somehow we always think things are going to get easier, that we can plan and control and MAKE things easier. And it works every now and then. But not often. There are a lot of things that we just can’t control. A lot of things never get easier. I know this with my logical brain, but my heart fights it. My challenge is to just accept the things I can not change. Wow. I guess those AA people are on to something.
I can not change other people. They are who they are and they are how they are, and no matter how I try to adjust situations around them, the end result will always be the same.
I can not change the way others perceive me. What I see as being assertive, someone else will see as taking more than my fair share. What I see as trying to contribute and give back, others will see as trying to take over.
Perhaps parents always see us as children.
Perhaps we never stop looking to our parents for approval.
Sometimes it feels like I can’t win for losing.
But I have won. I am so lucky. The trick is remembering it.
I am lucky to be sitting at the kitchen table right now with the most precious children in the world. Lola Gray is cutting construction paper to make robots. Fletcher is coloring badges. They are making a huge mess in the kitchen, as has become our daily custom. I love the mess.
I am lucky to be able to spend the summer being lazy with my husband and my children. It is in those lazy moments, the unstructured time, that we really get to know each other. And ourselves. There is no one in the world I would rather spend time with. There is nothing I need beyond them. Unconditional love seems like such an elusive thing sometimes, such a hard thing to earn. But looking at these 3 people I know that it exists. I love them with every ounce of my being. Nothing could change that.
The world moves so fast. I just want to be here NOW.
Things are far from perfect. Our roof won’t stop leaking. We have no money. Less than no money. And it is stressful. But we have so much to be happy about. Raymond says it isn’t luck. He doesn’t believe in luck. But I feel lucky. And believing it makes it so.
Posted in thoughts
The photographs are up! Click here or go to http://www.mandycarroll.com and click on the ‘proofing’ tab at the bottom of the page. Our password is waldvogel2008.
The photo gallery will be up until 10pm on Monday, August 18th.
There are so many good ones, I’ll never be able to afford to buy them all!!
Posted in family
Discover the wonder of nature the UNSETTLEMENT project Playborhood
