Legacy.

I asked my 16-year-old niece what time it was yesterday. (Shame on me for caring! I can’t turn it off completely!) Anyway, it took a second and she told me 4:18. I happened to see the watch as turned. I laughed out loud. My beautiful niece was wearing a binary watch. Her parents got it for her on her last birthday.

My boys had to see it. My niece taught them all how to read it. They were very excited.

How could this happen? Well, if you know my brother, you wouldn’t be surprised he’d have kids who were, how do I say, a bit geeky. In fact, if you know my hub, you wouldn’t be surprised my kids were thrilled to learn binary.

Needless to say, this goes back several generations. It’s quite the legacy.

Maine update.

Slept late.
Had coffee.
Ate breakfast.
Boys shot air rifles. Don’t worry, Mom. Isaac supervised. (note: Isaac is 11)
Isaac demonstrated what happens when you light rocket fuel.
Davis and I walked to the store.
Reed, Max and Isaac did some demolition. Not sure what was demolished. No one but me seemed concerned.
Had lunch.
Michele knitted.
I finished my book.
Betsy and Emily came home from their weekend at the lake.
All the kids currently playing Monopoly.

And now it’s 3:00.

464 miles.

Today I drove 464 miles. I drank 1 coffee, 2 Diet Pepsi’s, 1 Diet Rockstar (Have you tasted those? They taste like Sweet-tart soda. Yuck!), and 2 bottles of water. I had some Chees-Its, a Tootsie Pop, a terrible granola bar, a plum, an entire pack of gum, and some Starburst. And that doesn’t count meals.

This trip, it’s just me and the boys. I like driving. It runs in the family. The kids were totally occupied with books and gameboy and movies and music. It was like being alone. Well, they did give me about 20 minutes for a word game. As much as I enjoy the solitude, it was a little lonely. It was hard not to drift into daydreamland…which doesn’t seem like the safest place to be on our nation’s highways.

So, now we’re in a small town in Maine to visit my brother and his family. It took us way too long to get here. (We came from my sister’s house in New Jersey and that is another 175 miles from my house!) We hit horrific traffic in the New York metro area. We were actually STOPPED on the George Washington Bridge. I hate that bridge. I usually speed to get off it quicker and being stuck? That’s just unacceptable. On the bright side, Connecticut was a breeze and that’s unusual and Boston was a piece of cake. But we made a lot of stops (that’s what happens when you have 7+ drinks on a roadtrip), so any benefit from those stretches were lost.

It was getting very late. Way past the boys’ bedtimes and they were practically comatose. But as we pulled up to the house, the family was on the front porch to greet us! I couldn’t believe they were even awake! The kids perked up. And then, we went inside and the 3 new kittens (in addition to the 4 cats and the dog) pounced and jumped and begged for attention. The boys didn’t let them down.

What I love about being here is the peace. What the kids love about being here is the freedom. I can see them out the back window for miles. So they can be “unsupervised.” The library, “five and dime”, and movie theater are across the way. The kids can go themselves. It’s such a small town that everyone knows each other. So it’s really safe. I love that we can test independence in such a controlled environment.

So in the morning, my sister-in-law will make me a wicked cup of coffee. And the boys will go outside to play and run for hours. They’ll play in the creek and climb trees. They shoot the Silly String that we brought. And later, we’ll take the kids to the archery range. My nephew loves it and my guys have never tried. I’m sure it’ll be a hit. The next day? Maybe a park with a lake to swim in. Maybe bike riding. I’ll finish the book I’m reading and start another. We’ll have lemonade on the porch.

I don’t know if I can handle the stress.

Sweet pea.

I was thinking about our friend, Bob, who passed away earlier this month. Uncle Bob to our kids. I was talking to my mom, who mentioned that when I uploaded tons of photos of my kids for her recently, that one of them was a great picture of Bob holding Davis. The picture makes me smile. (If you’re reading, El, I hope it makes you smile, too. See you next week!)

Slots.

So ever the storyteller, we were out with Kristin and her hub tonight. We dragged them to a Vietnamese restaurant that we love and made them eat shrimp in the shell with heads on. But, aside from that, they liked the meal. And then, we went to a local bar to play pool. But, alas, the pool tables had a long list (which we dutifully put our names on), so we sat at the outside bar, watched the gorgeous lightning show and drank Petron and told stories.

Of course, they were interested to hear about the neighborhood. But aside from that, we talked about the new house for them. And I told them about going gambling with my dad.

About twice a year, I go to a casino on the eastern shore of Delaware with my dad. Just a couple weeks ago, I went. It’s wonderful. I love spending this time with him. He picks me up at 6:00 am. We drive 2 plus hours to this place. Then, we play the slots. This time, I won. Not a little, either. Then, we had breakfast. ON THE HOUSE. Yes, we are high rollers. Very.

Anyway, aside from winning the huge bucks, it was great spending time alone with my dad. AND I was home in time to get the kids from camp.

The boys thought it was funny that I gambled. It think it’s excellent that I get to spend time with my daddy.

Life is short. Have fun.

Looking out the window.

Meeting.

Anyone who tried to reach me this afternoon knows I was at an offsite meeting. It was about process and change and acceleration. Okay, fine! I skipped out and drove to a marina (process) and went with Andrew on Jeff’s Sea Ray. We changed into bathing suits. Had some nice snacks. Swam and swung from a rope into an inlet off the Chesapeake Bay.(Truth be told, I didn’t do it. The climb up to the swing kind of freaked me out. Andrew and Lynne did) And then we accelerated! We motored to Cantler’s and had amazing steamed crabs. All in all, a pretty great day.

So we’re sitting there, watching the fish jump, and Lynne asks me, “Why don’t you ever blog about me?” I had no good answer. But, I took it as a dare.

Now, I need to keep a keen eye out to see what she does that’s blog-worthy. Lynne, you’d better stay on your toes!

Coupons and legos.

This week, the boys have no camp. No schedule. But, as I found out over the weekend, they had plans. Oh yes. Plans to play gamecube, watch TV, play addicting games online, listen to itunes. Well, you get the picture. They were planning to plug in. Big time.

Well, I think kids need time to decompress. I don’t mind some vegetation. But all day, every day? I don’t think so. I want them to ride bikes. Play at the playground. Climb trees. Read on the hammock. So Andrew and I devised a plan. We’d make coupons for the number of hours we were willing to let them be wired this week. When the coupons are gone, they’re gone.

They were pissed. We told them the plan before bed last night. You’d have thought we told them that they had to have spinach and liver for breakfast and then clean the toilet with their toothbrushes.

But this morning, all three awoke in good cheer. They went downstairs and didn’t emerge for hours. They created an entire city in Lego.



They told me a whole story about it. They explained every room in detail.

By lunchtime, they still hadn’t thought about the TV. The day was great. They did play a little Gamecube. Reed went on iTunes looking for Johnny Cash. But after dinner, we went to Barnes & Noble to look for some books for our roadtrip to Maine.

I could say that I’m so proud that my boys are realizing that there is more to life than electronic games and airwaves. I could say that the lesson I work so hard to teach got through. And that the boys respect my wishes so much that they chose to scale back their e-fun and get back to basics.

Well, no. I really couldn’t say that. What I could say is that my kids are so freaked out that they’ll run out of e-time that they are hoarding it.

Makes a mama proud.

Swinging.

Swing
by Robert Lewis Stevenson

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside—

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

That was one of my favorite poems growing up. I read and re-read the book. Remember “In Summer” and “The Land of Counterpane” ?? I finally learned what counterpane was years later – though I understood the poem just fine.

Anyway, everywhere I go lately, I’ve been hearing about swinging. Right. The other kind. Sex is on everyone’s mind at swinging convention ran as a wire story over the weekend. Evidently, 3,000 people attended the annual Lifestyles conference at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas for a mix of seminars, socializing and sex. And the seminars and the socializing weren’t the only events in the ballrooms. (No pun intended.) What if you were there for a different conference and walked in by mistake? Might be a bit surprising, no?

Anyway, I suppose the reason this grabbed my attention is that last week, at the community pool, I was talking to a woman I know from the gym. We talked about camp and restaurants and the weather. And then she told me that her best “couple” friend mentioned to her that they swing. Wow, talk about changing the subject.

And last night, we went to a neighbor’s house for dinner. The kids were playing and we were sitting around talking and sipping a lovely Rabbit Ridge Brunello Clone Sangiovese and listening to some great music. And then. My friend said, “Did you hear about the street in our neighborhood where all the couples swing?”

Uh, no. What street would that be?

And if it doesn’t work out, do they have to move? If so, I know a nice house on a different street that will be going on the market soon.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

This morning, I woke up to this email:

I’ve gone to your blog 3 or 4 times today and all I see is the fake family. Are you planning to write today? I gotten used to hearing about your life through the internet and I miss it. Who’s going to write while you’re away?

Mom

I love that my mom reads my blog. Of course, when I skip a day or two, I feel badly. Now, I feel even worse! What a huge responsibility – my mom checked all day and I let her down. Yikes.

There are some downsides to having relatives read your blog. When I choose a racy subject or something a bit harsh, I worry that my mom will be offended. In reality, she isn’t. (Or at least that’s what she says. You know how Jewish mothers are…)

When I was a teenager, I thought my mother couldn’t understand anything I was feeling or thinking. Now that I’m older than she was when I was a teenager, it is crystal clear that I was out of touch with reality. But aren’t all teens that way? Don’t they think that adults never could have experienced or lived through what they are living through? Their experience is so unique, right? Yeah, right.

And all that makes me wonder why we don’t give the elderly more credit and respect. Haven’t we figured out that they have already learned what we’re learning now? But I digress.

My mother obviously did understand me. I just didn’t know it. As I’ve gone through the different stages in my life: college, goofing off, getting married, getting divorced, goofing off, getting married, having children, starting a business, moving halfway across the country… she has always been there. Always been a support. Always understood.

And why is that? My thesis is this — it’s partly because she loves me (best of all my siblings*) and mostly because we’re emotional clones. We’re not exactly alike…I’m more like my dad in many ways. But emotionally, we’re identical. And if you take a look at the photos above, you’ll see that isn’t the only similarity!

*Note to my siblings – if she told you she loves you best too, it was just to humor you. Sorry for the disappointment.