And . . . and . . . and

A few months ago, my wonderful husband Craig started making some noise about goals. He's always been active, and we spend a lot of time doing stuff that is likely to wear out our kids, but this was different. Finally, one day, he came right out and said it: "I want to do a triathlon."

Well, okay. Sounds great. But I am the CFO of our family, so of course, my first question was, "How much is this gonna cost?"

"Oh, not much. I already have a mountain bike, so I'll just switch out the knobby tires for some skinny ones, and that should do it."

I was really supportive of this $40 investment (thank you, Craigslist).

Then he told me he needed to improve his swim time. (Since the last time he did anything in the water other than A. toss around children or B. water ski was, like, in high school, I would assert he had a bit more to do than just "improve" his time.) So we joined a local fitness center with a pool, and he started training a la Michael Phelps (minus the weed) immediately.

After that first swim, Craig came home and said, "I need some good goggles. And if I really want to be competitive, I need to get triathlon trunks so I can go from the water to the bike without having to change."

So he ordered his little triathlon suit. Turns out, the triathlon suit is not recommended for use in chlorinated water. So then he had to order a Speedo (feel free to laugh . . . I do every time it puts it on) to wear in the pool.

And then he decided his mountain bike was just not going to cut it. After a long ride one Saturday, Craig came inside and said, "My mountain bike weighs, like, 35 pounds. I could go so much faster on a road bike!"

Okay, I said. See what you can find on Craigslist.

Have you seen my husband? All 6'5" of him? Let's just say there aren't a whole lot of second-hand bikes around made for giants. He gave it his best effort, but to no avail.

So he bought a new one. We call it the White Beast. I need a step ladder to sit on it.

And then he had to have a jersey that wouldn't show his . . . crack while he was riding. And then he had to have zip ties for his running shoes to "improve transition time", plus pedals he can clip into, and the special shoes that go with them. Did I mention the speedometer for the bike, and a new helmet, and the little nasty gel things he eats while he's biking?

Finally, one night we were out to dinner with my sister, Jenny, and her husband Josh (who also competed in the triathlon with Craig). We were talking about all the gear required and suddenly, it dawned on me: I have given the mouse a cookie. As well as some milk to go with it.

When all was said and done, Craig lost 25 pounds and finished his first triathlon with a more than respectable time. He plans to do another one in the spring. And he only has to do 47 more before I'll be satisfied he's gotten his money's worth out of all of that gear.

Help Me, Karma

I went for a run on Monday morning at the park. I just discovered we have a greenway, and while I appreciate the blessing of having both a treadmill and a place to put it, I am SOOOO much happier running on the ground, counting species as I go.

So I was running along, minding my own business, plugged into Muse and Chris Isaac, thanking God for the miracle that is my husband (who used his unexpectedly long lunch break to mind our kids at the playground while I ran) when suddenly, out of nowhere, a huge hornet attached itself to my right index finger. Apparently, I distracted him from something extremely important because he stung with one end and bit with the other until I flicked him off, and then ended his short life with my brand new running shoes. It hurt. I cried out. But I kept going, because, you know, I was running! I was high on life! And I was way far away from the van, and Mason had to be picked up from preschool in a half hour!

To add insult to injury, as I danced a tarantella (hornetella?) down the trail, trying, I suppose, to shake the venom out of my finger, I realized that if I didn't find a way to empty my bladder pronto, I'd be jogging back to civilization in need of a diaper change. (Curse you, stress incontinence -- you are my least favorite side effect of childbirth ever.) So I waited until there were no other people in sight on the trail, and ducked into the cornfield where I actually considered peeing on my throbbing finger, a method that according to both Survivor and Friends (my favorite sources for first aid advice) works on a jellyfish sting. I put myself back together and finished my run, and by the time I met my family at the playground, my finger was really beginning to swell.

By the next day, I looked like I had hijacked the entire right arm of a much larger woman -- one with sausage fingers and a killer case of pitting edema. I couldn't hold a pen. I couldn't open a bottle. I couldn't take Benadryl because, well, I have four children and must remain awake and standing for most of the activities required by their care. It took a solid week for the itching and swelling to subside.

Lately, it seems like every time I make an effort towards better physical fitness, something goes wrong: iPod battery dead as a doornail. Baby nap over before I can even get through the first mile on the treadmill. Rain when I plan to run out doors, kids too sick for the gym when I'm ready for a class. I just can't seem to get into the groove. I'm trying, but I think the groove hates me.

I'm ready for some karma. I need a tailwind the next time I hit the trail for a race -- Saturday, maybe? How about an unexpectedly warm 8AM temperature so my fingers aren't frostbitten at the finish line? A little bit of instant gratification would go a long way towards motivating more hard work: a faster time, a pound or two lost, a second wind, an improvement . . . help me, karma.

Unless, of course, it involves hornets.

Greater Than

Last fall, our family took a little jaunt out to the coast. In my pregnant hugeness, I wasn't able to play as much as usual, but I enjoyed the opportunity to sit in the sand and watch my brood chase after the waves.

CPod's family beach condo is in a high rise right on the water. We can see the dusky blue-gray Atlantic from the balcony, and the sea-borne wind whips that unmistakable briny scent into every scrap of fabric within its purview. When we're there, my children smell hot and salty as the essence of primordial water permeates every eyelash, skin cell, toe nail, fingerprint. When you're at the beach, you become the beach -- sun-bleached, sweaty, watermellowed, gritty.

While the boys and their daddy raced the water and dug in the sand, I lounged and photographed and observed, and as I watched my little family interact with the world around us, I found myself completely transfixed by the continuous pound and recession of the waves. Hypnotized, I searched for patterns in the crush of water against sand and each time I thought I might have it figured out, my logic would fail as the wave fell inexplicably far from my prediction.

But not inexplicably.

Those tides were, are, relentless and utterly reliable. They are governed by laws of nature that stretch the limits of both our solar system and my intellect. Detailed and complicated equations, formulated and refined by generations of marvelous scientific minds, calculate with accuracy the highest and lowest possible points of a tide on a given beach, as well as the time, every 12.5 hours or so, when that low or high will occur. High tide on one coast generally means low tide on another one as the entire volume of oceanic water performs a dance of give and take, hips swaying gently from one continent to another. It all depends on the interplay of lunar and solar gravity, with a dash of terrestrial rotation. Throw in local weather and some overarching atmospheric patterns and you get an infinitely variable but still miraculously predictable life-sustaining system.

I learned a new word: syzygy. Syzygy. Syzygy (say it -- you'll like it: si-zuh-gee) occurs when the stars are all aligned: average tides happen when the sun, earth, and moon form a right angle, with our tiny planet in the corner. But when our three governing celestial bodies end up aligned, pretty maids all in a row, new moon and full, we see the highest of high tides, the lowest of low. Syzygy is that wave's moment -- the one time when it can reach a little higher, a little farther, touch a little more dry sand with its briny fingers.

Sometimes, I get there, too. Last month, I played Copland's Appalachian Spring with the symphony. The piece is lovely and impressive and a definite crowd favorite. Copland was a genius of orchestration, and his simple but powerful inclusion of the old Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts" in a piece that truly speaks the majestic language of my mountains nearly brings me to tears every time I hear it. But the true gem is in the transition to "Simple Gifts" -- a mere 8 measures of collective breathing as the entire strings section gently sighs three simple chords, first up high, then lower. I hear as much in the silence of those measures as I do in the notes, and sometimes, if all of my celestial bodies are standing where they should be, if all of my symphonic cohorts are focused, reaching, listening, we transcend, we breathe as one organism, we weep the chords through the rills and waterfalls of our beloved home and touch a little more dry sand.

I've wondered lately how many moments of syzygy I have missed because I haven't been paying attention, or I've been focused on the wrong horizon. Some of those missed opportunities won't come around again, but I'm hoping for some second chances at reaching my potential.

Resonance

 Photo credit: My Mama (no really, my mom took this)

It's springtime! Cue the happy band. Having recently (re)read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (highly recommended), I'm in a gardening kind of mood. Our lovely lawn has been taken over by dandelions, and my unpruned hydrangea bush is headed for another year without blooms, but that's okay because the soil I'm digging up is destined to grow delicious, kitcheny things.

We built some raised beds to house a vegetable garden this year. CPod and the boys played with power tools while I mixed batches of peat moss and compost. As I dragged the rake through the soil, over and over, I kicked off my flip-flops and felt the good, clean squish of damp dirt between my toes. My muscles strained, my breath came faster, and I caught myself smiling.

Enjoying the moment? Happy to be productive? Excited at the prospect of home-grown tomatoes, squash, beans, zucchini, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, basil, parsley? Definitely. All of the above. But more.

I had a flash of clarity, working there in that garden -- a fleeting glimpse of eternity as I felt a brief but poignant kinship with generations of women in my family who had done exactly what I was doing in that very moment. My muscles remembered, suddenly, what they had been designed to do. In that instant, I understood that it's not just my character that has been shaped by the men and women who came before me. The very molecules of my body are a reflection of who we have all been, collectively, over the years.

My mom likes to say she has always been a square peg in a round hole. And when she and my dad had children, they raised a bunch of square pegs. Try rhombus pegs. Or stars. Any polygon, really, as long as it's incongruent with Normal. But a few times in my life, I have found places, done things, met people who made me feel like my peg was just the shape that was missing: On stage, enthralled, drinking up my first full symphony orchestra experience. In front of a class, teaching -- any subject. With certain dear friends through the years. Meeting my husband. Holding my babies for the very first time. When the words are flowing, and I recognize myself in what I've written. In the wonderful church that I have embraced (and been embraced by) my whole life, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In Blogland, with all of you square pegs out there. Wandering around the medieval streets of a small European town. Exploring places, any place, indoors, outside, wilderness, city, museums, mountains. Always, with my family full of multifaceted pegs. And now, working in the dirt. (I should have seen it coming.)

I'm going to call it resonance -- a soul-deep recognition of something you were born to do. Tell me, dear readers -- what were you born to do?

Some fireworks a day late . . .

How was your holiday weekend?

Mine was great. I'm serious.

My entire family went camping. And by entire family, I mean all of the people I lived with growing up and all of our respective spouses and children. 21 people in all.

Wanna know how crazy it was? 11 of those people are 8 or younger. Baby brother has no children yet, but the shakedown works like this (my kids in purple; MommyJ's kids in green; Jared & Mel's kids in blue): 8, 6, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 2, 2, 2, 4 months. All boys except for little Lucy. Oh, the energy!

We ate. We swam. We reveled in the cool weather -- no warmer than 80 degrees. Heaven. We watched fireworks. We laughed. We ate some more. We slept on the ground. Well, I slept on the ground. My parents slept on a double-stacked air mattress. Their tent looked like an actual bedroom, complete with handmade quilts and throw pillows.

And now we're home. And clean. The campsite had flush toilets, but no showers, so for two days, no one bathed. I smelled like a Mexican restaurant dumpster. When I finally showered this afternoon, as I bent over to scrub the "dirty burt", as my mom calls it, from under my toenails, my already washed hair swung into my face and it still smelled like campfire smoke.

My kids are all sleeping. Which means it's time for me to turn in, too. Yes, I know it's only 9:15. I promise to be a real person, with some real posts about some interesting things I've been thinking about lately, very soon.

Love you all!

Make Way for Duckies

Last night, I came home from symphony rehearsal to find my dear husband doing dishes. I helped him straighten up the kitchen, and then he said he had TiVoed something just for me.

"It's the cutest thing you will ever see. It will make you cry!" he said.

We went to the living room, and watched a little segment from the 7PM broadcast of ABCNews. About ducklings. I did cry. It was adorable.

And I can't embed it. But here's the link:

Spokane Duckling Parade

Enjoy, and thank my sweet husband.

Despicable Drosophila, and Other Tales Of Spring

I stayed up too late last night. You see, I was waging an epic battle against an enemy both foul and insidious, that wins its wars by sheer number, fortified by an incredibly prolific reproductive ability: Drosophila melanogaster, the common fruit fly.

Ah, yes, spring time is here, and with it, the influx of fresh produce to my kitchen. We've been feasting on local asparagus from the farm down the road for weeks now, and finally, their strawberries have come in. They grow an old heirloom variety, and they are divine: succulent, sweet, beautifully red and delicious.


We're lucky here -- we have lots of local farmers who grow all kinds of wonderful things. Next will be peaches and cherries, and eventually, cucumbers, green beans, squash & zucchini, corn and okra, eggplant, peppers of many varieties, cantaloupes, watermelons, the long awaited tomatoes, and then apples and large squashes. And I can find local sources for all of these, plus all the milk, cheese and cream you can stand, eggs and poultry, beef and pork. But with the fresh produce, comes the fruit flies. Every year, I pick up where I left off as I fight a losing battle against little bugs a mere fraction of my size, as I slowly slide further down the slippery slope to insanity.

Last night, CPod, wonder-husband that he is, had set out the last of our Christmas-morning pain au chocolat from Williams Sonoma to rise so we could have a yummy breakfast today. (They come frozen, unrisen, unbaked. Just set out overnight, brush with an egg wash, bake, and voila! Paris, straight from your oven!) I went into the kitchen for my nightly cocktail of milk, prenatal vitamins and Zyrtec. I stopped by the stove to admire the croissants . . . and there were fruit flies on them."Oh, no you didn't!" I thought to myself. "Not my precious chocolate croissants!" I quickly covered the delectable delicacies with a dish towel and proceeded with the art of death.

I stood in the kitchen swatting, smacking, and muttering things to myself like, "You are MINE!" and "Gotcha!" As the fruit fly fatalities reached epic numbers, I left my kitchen counter littered with their bodies, hoping their compatriots might enter my kitchen, see the corpses of their fallen comrades, and smell death, vacating the place post haste. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the darkened kitchen window -- and it was scary: crazed look in my eyes, pants unbuttoned and falling down because, let's face it, I just can't wear regular clothes anymore, waving my arms around like a mad woman. If I'd been out on a street somewhere, I think they might have carted me away to the asylum.

I finally went to bed after I'd counted a full 30 seconds without seeing another fly. And even then, I was haunted by the possibility that the one I didn't get would assuredly be the one about to lay 400 eggs on some unassuming piece of fruit in my kitchen. 400 eggs which will, undoubtedly, in 12-15 hours, hatch in my kitchen and then, after another 4 days, grow into another battalion ready to assault my fruit, my sensibilities, and my sanity in one fell swoop. It almost makes me look forward to winter's frozen wasteland, with no real fruit that doesn't taste like cardboard . . . almost.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I have a love/hate relationship with spring time. I love the transitional parts of the year: the parts that aren't all the way hot or cold quite yet, but help bring about the changes to get us there. As you can see, I love the bounty of the harvest, but I hate the fruit flies. The same goes for the outdoors. I love the flowers, the green, the growing things that surround us in this lovely world, but I hate the mosquitoes. I hate the flies. I'm okay with butterflies, and other pollinators. And I recognize that they all have a place in the natural order of things. Except for mosquitoes. I firmly believe they are a blight and a pestilence on this world and they will not exist in the hereafter.

I spent yesterday digging around in the dirt, filling my small pots and hanging baskets with lovely, fragrant, twining, blossoming things. For me, there is nothing more satisfying than having a hand in fostering growth, be it in your children, those under your stewardship at church, the plants in your garden, or even yourself.While I was digging, I found these four-leaf clovers:


Twenty of them! And I wasn't even looking -- I have just always found them, wherever I happen to be standing. I found 6 more, but I felt guilty, so I didn't pick them. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's a minor genetic mutation, and if I pick them all now, how will the gene get passed on, so I can find some more later?

Spring time gives us the outdoors back as an extension of our home. Our kids play in the yard as though it were the living room, with mud. Spring brings us wonderful miracles, like the pair of little sparrows who decided to build their nest in the basket of fake hydrangeas that hangs on my front door:

As of this morning, there are two little mouths to feed, and three eggs shaking and shimmying their way around the nest, about to take their turn to crack into this world.

And these beautiful blooms:

(These lovelies are all in my mama's fabulously unruly yard. And photo credit goes to her!)

Herein lies the problem: beautiful flowers, yes. But these little flowers are reproductive beings who are so overcome by the displays of the others around them that they cannot contain themselves and cast their sexy dust to be blown about by the wind to God-knows where. And I am allergic to all of it. That's right, people. I just can't keep the flower sex out of my eyes.

I spend the months of April and May in a constant state of foggy, itchy, post-nasal drippiness. I know it's all miraculous, and beautiful, and wonderful, I just can't see it clearly through the scratchy eyes and snot-covered haze of an over-active immune system.

I live for rainstorms, that rinse the pollen from every surface and cleanse the air of irritants. I love the smell of ozone right before a big gullywasher, and I love the dirt-y, loamy fertile scent of a freshly washed earth. I love the sound of the neighbors playing baseball in their yard, and of my boys racing down the driveway on their trikes. I love the late disappearance of daylight and the sound of the crickets and cicadas singing their love songs in the darkness.

I love to send my brood out into the warm and balmy wilderness, like I did last weekend, and I love to hasten their return home. I love the irresponsibility of relaxed schedules and I love the smell of smoke and sticky marshmallows that cling to every exposed surface after a campfire family night. I love putting little tired boys to bed after a day of full-throttle play and contraband fireworks at the lake. This sensory feast will last into the summer, but springtime is what makes it all possible.

(My adorable boys, crammed into the back of Daddy's Jeep, on the way to the Father-Son Campout on Mother's Day weekend.
One of the only reasons I might have a little part of me hoping this next baby is a boy.)

The highs definitely outweigh the lows on the InkMom scale of love. CPod says that little nest on our front door just seems lucky, as though even the birds know our house is a happy place to have a family. And with all those four-leaf clovers, how could this spring be anything but a lucky one? If only I could get rid of those blasted fruit flies.

P.S. I'm entering this post in the Scribbit Write-Away writing contest for May . . . the topic is Spring. I get a kick out of her blog, and she has a new contest every month.Wish me luck!

The Daffodil Path

When I was born, my parents brought me home to a big, old farmhouse surrounded by a forest of huge oak trees. There was a meadow a short distance from the house that, in the spring, became a carpeted path of yellow blooms -- daffodils, the vestige of generations past, who had done what they could to beautify their little corner of the world.

Another piece of history, and I'll try not to lose you here: daffodils, the most common name for any and all varietals of the Narcissus family, are not native, in any form, to North America. Varieties still grow wild in the Ukraine, and in Wales; they have always been common in East Asia; and the ones most familiar to us are native to Spain and Portugal. The Dutch began cultivating the bulbs they gathered in their travels all over the world, and daffodils were among the first.

Last month, we took a little weekend trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee with some friends of ours. We had a great time with all of our little children (all total, 5 of them, under 6 years old) doing touristy things, swimming in the indoor pool, and playing together. But for me, the highlight of the trip was our foray into the wilderness. The weather was dreary, so our wanderings only went so far as the paved roads would take us, but in the Smokies, you don't have to go far to feel really remote.

I noticed, even out in the woods, there are daffodils all over the place. But they're not native. So I looked a little closer, and if I was lucky, I would spy the crumbled remains of a centuries-old homestead. The people were long gone, the house had fallen down, and even the old stone chimney had tumbled to the ground, but the daffodils remained. Because that's the other thing about daffodils. They will outlast us.


When I was studying European history in preparation for my first "grand tour" of Europe, I found myself feeling envious of all those old places: palaces and cathedrals, monasteries and libraries, towns, even roads, that were older than anything we would ever find in our young nation.

Was I ever wrong. What about places like these? I would say they're even older than the Magna Carta, the paper it was written on, and the building good old King John's uppity barons were in when they proposed it.



And then there are the "newer" places you can find here in the mountains:





Thankfully, a few homesteads like this one have been preserved. But when you walk through, you can feel the pioneer spirit of the people that built it all. You can see the marks in the hand-hewn logs and feel the fatigue of spent muscles as each was carefully shaped to form the ever-important shelters for people and livestock. You can hear the rushing water in the background, hike to the cornfields, follow the low walls of moss-covered river-rock used to mark property boundaries, smell the sweetness of the pure mountain air, and understand why they arrived at this place, and then decided to stay.

I've been thinking a lot lately about my legacy. Even if it's just daffodils, I hope I leave something behind that brings a little joy, a little hope, a little brightness to someone's life. It's a question, I think, we all need to ask ourselves. What will you leave behind?

You're So Vain . . . and other tales of the highlands

This past weekend, my sister and I and our spouses took a long-anticipated, greatly-appreciated, totally relaxing backpacking trip to the top of Mt. LeConte in the Smokies. Relaxing, you say? Hiking in the rain and cold, round-trip 13.3 miles, up steep inclines and across scary-because-there's-nothing-underneath-you cliff faces was absolutely, completely and totally rejuvenating on so many levels -- yes, relaxing. Because, see, at the top of Mt. LeConte are a lodge, some cabins, and even a few flush toilets (wo-hoo!) -- yes, primitive, without electricity and somewhat Little-House-on-the-Prairie-ish, but they cook delicious meals for you and they keep you warm, and there is no noise -- no exaggeration here -- at all. It's like the mountain just absorbs any noise the other guests make and you are insulated from the world (no airplanes, cars or trucks, televisions or radios, no phones, unless you are as tall as my husband and you align yourself like an antennae while standing in the one spot on the mountain that gets any signal). God bless our family -- Mom kept MommyJ's kids, and our little brother and his new wife kept my little ones. (The news is good -- Gramma doesn't want to have anymore children, which is good because, well, she's 56; and The Newlyweds still want to have children even after spending two days with mine!) A good time was had by all.

MommyJ and I are the vain ones. Both of us got up early Friday morning and fixed both hair and makeup before we began our trek up the mountain. Josh totally made fun of MommyJ for "smelling too good" and making an effort to be attractive on the mountain. Who you trying to impress, right? I mean, this is the man who didn't even bring a clean pair of socks with him. Strangely enough CPod refrained from haranguing me. If you know him, you know this is odd. No comment on my perfectly coiffed curls? No poking fun at me as I applied makeup in the car, driving in darkness through the curvy roads of the Smokies? Nay, not even a look askance, nary a word was spoken. I am convinced it's because he's seen how ugly I looked in the pictures taken when we were at Mt. LeConte earlier this summer, and if he is to be allowed to post them on his Facebook page, I have to look good (my requirement, not his), and until he changes his password, I will keep removing photos! I think maybe I'll let him use this one:

We hoped for some great views of fall colors, but with our rainy weather and serious fog, it just was not to be. Instead we ended up with fantastic sunset and sunrise, and some pretty cool shots of people next to Nothing. (You'll see what I mean.) All in all, a great trip -- and we plan to repeat it ever year that we possibly can, and when our kids are big enough that we trust them to not fall off a cliff, we'll bring them with us.

Side note: many of you who have known me for a very long time (cousins, college roommates, high school friends, and such) may notice my wild woman curly hair. I know, you're thinking, "Her hair isn't curly! She must have a perm." I assure, I don't. MommyJ will vouch for me -- she is insanely jealous of the curls and would be the first one to give me up if they weren't natural!

And now for the slide show . . . and a brief explanation for each image.

See, I told you . . . totally Little House. I mean, when you check in, they give you a key to the flush toilets (they have latrines for the non-paying riff-raff who just do a day hike or stay in the AT shelter up above the lodge) and a pail with directions to the hot water tap!

Me and MommyJ in front of our totally awesome sunset . . . the lodge was completely socked in by the clouds, so the hike to Cliff Tops was a bit of a gamble, but we were rewarded for our efforts.

People next to Nothing. This is why Mom can't ever do this hike. She might be hyperventilating right now just looking at the vast expanse of space beyond the edge of the rocks.

Sunrise wasn't bad, either. The best part about it? It didn't happen until 7:45AM, which is just perfect when you took a loooooong nap the day before, and then stayed up until the unbelievable hour of 10PM playing Yahtzee and Trivial Pursuit by lamplight the night before.

On the way home, we started out above the clouds, then hiked through them, and then finally emerged from the mists and finished below the clouds. We also sort of hiked through the seasons -- we had snow flurries on top of the mountain (high of 48, low of 28 when we were there), beautiful fall leaves through the mid-elevations, and a lot of green at the trailhead. Beautiful! We saw at least 4 distinctly different ecosystems, varying by elevation, proximity to water, and exposure. Just amazing. Now you go do it!

For more images of this trip, and a different perspective, visit MommyJ's blog. Or don't. I may have bored you to death!

A Day at the Beach

We had such a good time at the beach this past weekend that I have to do a photo essay to illustrate. So, here goes.

The weather wasn't great, but at least rain clouds make for interesting shots. G-Dog spent a lot of time trying to throw everything back in the water. You can't see it in this picture, but he's actually holding a shovel and trying to dig up sand to toss back to old Poseidon.


I found a rock that looks like a grand piano, keys and all. G-Dog was not allowed to throw that one back into the deep! (I am absolutely alarmed at how many lines I have across my hand. What am I, like 140?)

Lil' Maa-Maa sucks his thumb. This is him showing me why he couldn't do it.

A rare moment of trilateral cooperation.


ConMan and G-Dog played in the surf with their cousin, K, the last day we were there. They held hands with her to keep her from running back before the water got to them. Eventually, she got into it, too.


Lil' Maa-Maa tried to bury his daddy in the sand. At least we know if all else fails, he has a future as a gravedigger.

There's Something Magical About Boys and Water

We're here at the beach, and if I'm being honest, I was a little worried about this trip. My boys are, shall we say, energetic, and I just wasn't sure if, A. we would be able to handle them in the face of such adventurous temptation, or B. they would find the adventures all that tempting. Turns out, I had nothing to worry about on either account.

Every moment we are here feels like a perfectly scripted and staged Hallmark movie, except the people are real and actually related to each other, and the events depicted totally resemble real life on purpose. Scene 1, the boys chase the surf and collapse into a laughing heap in the sand, hair windblown and cheeks flushed with the excitement of new experience. Camera pans out for a wide angle shot of whitecaps and orangey-purple sunset, scans over to proud papa standing with hands on hips, abject devotion as plain to see in his face, even in his stance, as the gulls soaring on updrafts overhead. Scene 2, daddy and boys work together to build a sand castle from a bucket that closely resembles a giant chess piece. They count to three together, upend the bucket to reveal their perfect fortress, cheer for the sheer joy of creation, then demolish it because only then can they go through the whole process again. Scene 3, little boy fights back at encroaching tide by throwing sand into the surf and yelling, "You can't get me, ocean!" as if he could, in all the blustery confidence of 3 1/2 years old, stop the constant rush in and suck back of the ever-powerful, all-consuming ocean.

Oh, how I relate to that little one. I think he knows he can't keep it at bay -- that he cannot turn the tide with his tiny handfuls of sand. He can see neither the beginning of the shoreline nor the end of the water, but still he must try to make progress against the relentless pound of sea against sand. He can see the pulverized shells that have been cast up from the depths, can see what such power can do to things that seem so hard, so indestructible . . . and still, he must try. Because, really, what are we, if we don't keep trying? If we just let the sea roll over us and drag us under without putting up a fight, kicking and screaming against the undertow? He gets this, I think -- on some deep, genetically-programmed level, he strives to make his voice heard above the roar of the surf, above the whip of the wind that would steal his words before he even says them. I hope he never stops. God help any of us when we decide to stop trying.