Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Thank you
Someone out there nominated this post for a Diarist Award in the category of Best Dramatic Entry. Now, a panel is choosing finalists, and once that is done, folks can vote on the winners.
I don't know that I'll get that far. But I much appreciate the nomination.
I'm often torn about E-Scout. I worry that it's disjointed: One post says, "My 3-year-old is so clever!" and the next, "Read about the horrors that befell me" (or that I sometimes fell right into). It's sometimes hard to reconcile the life I have now with the life I had then. But the thing is, it's not just on the blog that I have that problem. The dichotomy is part of me, so it makes sense that it's part of E-Scout, too. I'm not just a happy-go-lucky mom, even though I play that role well most days. I'm also the scared kid from 20 years ago. The wild teen. The college student trying to make her mark. The newlywed wondering if my marriage could be different than those I'd seen. The beginning professional worried that I'd be exposed for what I really was.
It's all me. And it's all here, one little piece at a time.
I don't know that I'll get that far. But I much appreciate the nomination.
I'm often torn about E-Scout. I worry that it's disjointed: One post says, "My 3-year-old is so clever!" and the next, "Read about the horrors that befell me" (or that I sometimes fell right into). It's sometimes hard to reconcile the life I have now with the life I had then. But the thing is, it's not just on the blog that I have that problem. The dichotomy is part of me, so it makes sense that it's part of E-Scout, too. I'm not just a happy-go-lucky mom, even though I play that role well most days. I'm also the scared kid from 20 years ago. The wild teen. The college student trying to make her mark. The newlywed wondering if my marriage could be different than those I'd seen. The beginning professional worried that I'd be exposed for what I really was.
It's all me. And it's all here, one little piece at a time.
Monday, July 26, 2004
California, here we come
I've been mighty distracted lately -- as you can tell from the dearth of posts -- by our upcoming vacation (48 hours from now, we'll be getting ready to walk out the door). There are lots of details to handle for a trip of this length: Getting everything wrapped up at work, making list after list --- for packing (deciding what to take for 70-degree weather instead of 90, which means making Em try on long pants she hasn't worn in months), for the housesitter, of errands to run -- spending hours reading online Disneyland guides, planning for travel contingencies, fantasizing about the beach ...
And there's been another big thing distracting me. So much, in fact, I've hated to write here about anything at all, since my mind is consumed by something I can't talk about. With any luck, it'll all shake itself out over vacation. I'll be able to spill the beans when I'm back, or if I'm patient enough with the dial-up modem, I might even blog about it from San Diego.
(For the record, I'm often annoyed by blog posts that say, "I want to tell you something ... but I can't." I've resisted doing that for a long time now. But I can hold back no more, especially since the answer should be right around the corner. Plus, I've been MIA for so long I need a reason for you to come back, right? It's a cliffhanger!)
In the meantime, though, here's what I've been too busy or otherwise occupied to write about:
Chapter books. I've finally updated the Emma's favorite list in the sidebar, and it's full of our favorite pastime. We haven't given up on picture books -- we still get 15 or so about every other week, sometimes more frequently. But we're reading one to three chapters of a book a day. It takes us a while to get through them, because we only pick them up when all three of us -- Mom, Dad and Em -- are available.
We're taking Little House on the Prairie and Indian in the Cupboard on our trip. I know Emma will love the Little House book, because she adored the first one, to my surprise. I thought she'd quickly get bored with the descriptions of the family's lifestyle, and that's really all the book is. She loved it, though, and it sparked many conversations about how lucky we are to have supermarkets and cars and electricity. I'm not sure about Indian in the Cupboard. I haven't read it in 20 years or more, and I'm a little concerned about the level of violence. Every time we read about, say, a spanking in Little House or Ramona throwing something in Beezus and Ramona, we have to stop so Emma can tell us how wrong it is. We'll see how she takes it in here. It's a book I think she'll love, but it may be too soon for it.
We've had a busy, busy summer thus far. There are pics up on Em's site of two of our recent outings. I also joined Emma's preschool for a trip to the Omniplex last week, but only got the camera out of my purse twice. I spent the entire time calling, "Emma, wait for M!" Or "M, Emma's still looking at the dinosaur" and trying to stand between the two of them so neither ran off without me.
Who's M, you ask? Well, the way Emma's preschool does field trips is this: If you, as a parent, can't go, your kid rides with another mom or dad. And then that parent is in charge of his or her kids and as many as he or she volunteers to take. I'm glad that only two car seats will fit comfortably in my car, because keeping up with my 3-year-old and a 4.5-year-old stressed me out. In fact, the entire field trip setup really bugs me. Emma's only had two this summer, and I went to one and Adam the other. But we don't know many parents yet, and it's worrying to think of Emma riding -- 30+ minutes in the case of the Omniplex -- with folks we don't know. Plus, they're in charge of your kid through the whole trip.
And the whole thing is just really disorganized. Granted, I know how to get to the Omniplex (just as Adam knew how to get to Chuck E. Cheese in June), but the school didn't provide maps. Or cell phone numbers. Or anything beyond two chocolate-covered cookies for each kid to eat in the car. (Given that's it's July, maybe chocolate coating wasn't the best snack idea.) After I'd gotten back into Norman, taken M back to the school and dropped Emma at home with Adam, my car wouldn't start. What if that had happened in Oklahoma City? I had no way to reach any of the preschool staff or M's parents. In fact, I didn't even know her last name. There's got to be a better way to do that. And either Adam or I will be sure we're available to go whenever a trip comes up.
Speaking of trips, we'll come full circle back to our vacation. Em's pumped about Disneyland. Before she was born, Adam swore we wouldn't take her until she was 6. His mom started talking about when we'd take her granddaughter-to-be nearly as soon as I was pregnant, so it was a natural reaction on his part. Plus, he says now, he just didn't know what she'd be like at 3. No, she's not likely to remember the trip, but we'll take lots of pictures and she'll have those. Plus, she really is old enough to get a lot out of it. There are only two or three rides that she's not big enough for, and assuming she likes, say, the Matterhorn after we've tried it, we're game for taking her on anything. (It may stress Grandma out, though.) The main reason we're going, though, is simple. It's free.
A friend of ours works for ESPN, part of the Disney family. He gets passes every year and shared some with us. Mighty sweet. And certainly makes the decision on whether it's worth spending the money on a trip Em won't remember.
In fact, most of the trip isn't costing us anything. We volunteered to be bumped off our flight from Phoenix to OKC on the Salt Lake City trip, so we had serious vouchers. We're using those to fly into Burbank (where Adam's mom will pick us up so we can go to Disneyland the next day) and fly home from San Diego. We're staying most of the time on Coronado Island, where we probably can't even afford a hotel room. But some friends of the family own a condo there, and we're using it for the week.
(We've been twice before, when I was newly pregnant and when Em was 16 months and loving the beach.) We'll be able to stock it with groceries and won't have to eat every meal out. Sweet. Plus, Adam's mom is driving from Phoenix, so we won't need to rent a car. We're doing a hell of a lot for very little cash.
All the more money to spend on souvenirs ...
And there's been another big thing distracting me. So much, in fact, I've hated to write here about anything at all, since my mind is consumed by something I can't talk about. With any luck, it'll all shake itself out over vacation. I'll be able to spill the beans when I'm back, or if I'm patient enough with the dial-up modem, I might even blog about it from San Diego.
(For the record, I'm often annoyed by blog posts that say, "I want to tell you something ... but I can't." I've resisted doing that for a long time now. But I can hold back no more, especially since the answer should be right around the corner. Plus, I've been MIA for so long I need a reason for you to come back, right? It's a cliffhanger!)
In the meantime, though, here's what I've been too busy or otherwise occupied to write about:
Chapter books. I've finally updated the Emma's favorite list in the sidebar, and it's full of our favorite pastime. We haven't given up on picture books -- we still get 15 or so about every other week, sometimes more frequently. But we're reading one to three chapters of a book a day. It takes us a while to get through them, because we only pick them up when all three of us -- Mom, Dad and Em -- are available.
We're taking Little House on the Prairie and Indian in the Cupboard on our trip. I know Emma will love the Little House book, because she adored the first one, to my surprise. I thought she'd quickly get bored with the descriptions of the family's lifestyle, and that's really all the book is. She loved it, though, and it sparked many conversations about how lucky we are to have supermarkets and cars and electricity. I'm not sure about Indian in the Cupboard. I haven't read it in 20 years or more, and I'm a little concerned about the level of violence. Every time we read about, say, a spanking in Little House or Ramona throwing something in Beezus and Ramona, we have to stop so Emma can tell us how wrong it is. We'll see how she takes it in here. It's a book I think she'll love, but it may be too soon for it.
We've had a busy, busy summer thus far. There are pics up on Em's site of two of our recent outings. I also joined Emma's preschool for a trip to the Omniplex last week, but only got the camera out of my purse twice. I spent the entire time calling, "Emma, wait for M!" Or "M, Emma's still looking at the dinosaur" and trying to stand between the two of them so neither ran off without me.
Who's M, you ask? Well, the way Emma's preschool does field trips is this: If you, as a parent, can't go, your kid rides with another mom or dad. And then that parent is in charge of his or her kids and as many as he or she volunteers to take. I'm glad that only two car seats will fit comfortably in my car, because keeping up with my 3-year-old and a 4.5-year-old stressed me out. In fact, the entire field trip setup really bugs me. Emma's only had two this summer, and I went to one and Adam the other. But we don't know many parents yet, and it's worrying to think of Emma riding -- 30+ minutes in the case of the Omniplex -- with folks we don't know. Plus, they're in charge of your kid through the whole trip.
And the whole thing is just really disorganized. Granted, I know how to get to the Omniplex (just as Adam knew how to get to Chuck E. Cheese in June), but the school didn't provide maps. Or cell phone numbers. Or anything beyond two chocolate-covered cookies for each kid to eat in the car. (Given that's it's July, maybe chocolate coating wasn't the best snack idea.) After I'd gotten back into Norman, taken M back to the school and dropped Emma at home with Adam, my car wouldn't start. What if that had happened in Oklahoma City? I had no way to reach any of the preschool staff or M's parents. In fact, I didn't even know her last name. There's got to be a better way to do that. And either Adam or I will be sure we're available to go whenever a trip comes up.
Speaking of trips, we'll come full circle back to our vacation. Em's pumped about Disneyland. Before she was born, Adam swore we wouldn't take her until she was 6. His mom started talking about when we'd take her granddaughter-to-be nearly as soon as I was pregnant, so it was a natural reaction on his part. Plus, he says now, he just didn't know what she'd be like at 3. No, she's not likely to remember the trip, but we'll take lots of pictures and she'll have those. Plus, she really is old enough to get a lot out of it. There are only two or three rides that she's not big enough for, and assuming she likes, say, the Matterhorn after we've tried it, we're game for taking her on anything. (It may stress Grandma out, though.) The main reason we're going, though, is simple. It's free.
A friend of ours works for ESPN, part of the Disney family. He gets passes every year and shared some with us. Mighty sweet. And certainly makes the decision on whether it's worth spending the money on a trip Em won't remember.
In fact, most of the trip isn't costing us anything. We volunteered to be bumped off our flight from Phoenix to OKC on the Salt Lake City trip, so we had serious vouchers. We're using those to fly into Burbank (where Adam's mom will pick us up so we can go to Disneyland the next day) and fly home from San Diego. We're staying most of the time on Coronado Island, where we probably can't even afford a hotel room. But some friends of the family own a condo there, and we're using it for the week.
(We've been twice before, when I was newly pregnant and when Em was 16 months and loving the beach.) We'll be able to stock it with groceries and won't have to eat every meal out. Sweet. Plus, Adam's mom is driving from Phoenix, so we won't need to rent a car. We're doing a hell of a lot for very little cash.
All the more money to spend on souvenirs ...
