ah, summer

 mr. twinkle eyes

The baseball season wound up with success. The main success in my mind is kind coaches and good spirit of the game, plenty of runs, catches, surprise double-play unassisted (!), even a rainbow. A very dear young fellow who was sometimes kicking flowers and dirt and other times making some awesome plays, best smile on the team! And my very own sweet guy was a team leader, praised by his coaches for his sportsmanship and manners.

We spent the day as a family on Mount Desert Island to celebrate 13 years of marriage. We hit all the high points (ha!): Pirate's Cove mini-golf (I got a hole-in-one!), then lunch at our favorite beach with plenty of rocks to skip and balance, then one of our favorite hikes up Parkman Mountain, catching up with friends, ice cream, dinner, and a surprise chance meeting with a dear, dear friend on the street!

 these two beauties were collected, then lovingly grudgingly tossed back 

when informed of the "remove no rocks policy" of the park

 he listens to the rocks

 kiss sandwich!!!

And now, summer vacation. I made it through my first teaching year! WooHoo! And as it turns out, I have a new adventure coming for the fall... I will be the school librarian at a school for 8th/9th graders in the same district as last year. This is thrilling on a couple of counts. 

 red leather chairs for reading: 

yes please.

First, middle school (early high school) students are my favorite age group. They are prickly and interesting and hilarious and it's sort of a precious time in their lives, one that can be awkward and awful sometimes. (And I love reading YA literature.) There is so much that is possible in middle-ish school that becomes harder with older high schoolers.

Second: ONE SCHOOL instead of five! One learning community that I can be part of on a day-to-day basis! Hoorah! This is quite exciting, to think of the possibilities for spur of the moment exchanges and developing relationships with teachers and students that I will see every day. I feel so lucky. And am devouring a lot of YA books this summer, which is awesome.

I visited a very venerable library in Boston this past weekend and I wasn't supposed to take pictures, but I took some before I knew... It was a librarian's geek-out holiday.

And finally, because we've had a lot of rain and gray already this summer, I wanted to show you something blue and summery. Rafter's delight and lots of silliness and the water was warm enough so I could even stay in and play and be part of the shenanigans. This was a rare moment of calm...

boys

These two boys, getting bigger (one of them is bigger than me!) and more independent every day. I know lots of moms who manage the great juggling act of family and kids and full-time work and I am in awe of them. I could not have been either the mom or employee that I wish to be had I gone back to work full-time, even a moment sooner than this year when my boys are 13 and 9.

Sylvan in mid-air, as per usual

I know I am lucky to have had a choice and a partner and family who were in full support of me staying at home with our boys. Lots of years of challenging financial moments, like the utter panic when a car would need an emergency $600 that we didn't really have. I also remember many hard hard days of parenting in the trenches, when I wasn't a graceful parent, or grateful for being a full-time mom.

Even though I have a full-time, outside-of-my-house job now, I'm still a full-time mom. But it's not the same kind of full-time work that it was. It's not like nursing babies and waking up all night or going to the grocery store with a baby and a 4 year-old and feeling like I was harboring two ticking time bombs liable to go off at any moment. These boys make their lunches and weed gardens and do dishes and clean bathrooms! (Not always without grumbling...)

Now it's later nights with a teenager who wants connection with us, which we are (mostly) delighted by, even maybe surprised at! (OK, when I am trying to read in bed I am not so delighted truth be told, as Jonas pointed out.) Or just being nearby to us while he finishes homework and we are doing our school work. He's still affectionate with us, even in public.

Jonas's beautiful drawings of the lungs for his recent Anatomy block

Sometimes we are crazy and silly and annoying and ridiculous. Sometimes we are in funks and irritated at things that can't change or with ourselves or each other. But I think we've got a good new thing going in this new era, and mostly it seems to work pretty well. Who knew?

Bunnies, Eggs, Children

Have you heard of Operation Bunny Drop? I hadn't. The first and second-graders at Ashwood, including Sylvan, are crafting bunnies for Japanese children through this project. There were several pairs of adult hands to go around and I was invited to take some photos.

The small hands holding needles and thread were precious. The focus and intention. The capability of these young crafters. The emerging personalities of each little rabbit. These gifts coming from one child to another.

"Children, when you are stuffing your bunnies, remember that they are not fat polar bears, just plump little bunnies."

"The stitches may not be perfect, but they were made with love."

"Can you imagine losing all of your toys?"

"I didn't even know I could sew this well!"

(Overheard.)

There were also riddles and jokes that were shared, mostly made-up. "Imagine you're in a golden room. No way out. No windows, no doors. How do you get out?....Stop imagining it!!!!"

There was a wild two year-old rolling a hula hoop around and spinning himself into circles. Did it distract from the sewing? Not too much.

And of course there was Easter and a party with friends, with lots of activity on the driveway for our pavement-deprived children: scootering, pedaling, ball games, chickens wandering about, kids and grown-ups, and once a small fairy girl sitting in the midst of all the chaos using chalk to create a mandala. You know. Just because.

~favorite photo of the day~

Lots of little girls in Easter finery to be seen.

And a really thorough exploration of a flower, by a one year-old, until the stage of complete disintegration.

~favorite photo of the day~

An amazing face painter was on hand who patiently transformed many young faces. Sylvan is ready for the Lion King. Oh darn, he was actually a tiger.

Next up: baseball season...

~snaps of summer~

The summer is already in full swing around here. We have finished up the school year with many festive celebrations for the special family members I have; it already feels like a million years ago now that it all ended in such a blur of social activity! Though I like being social, and I like my librarian work, which is all about being with people, I am inwardly a hermit (a vacation at home, alone, is my kind of good time). I need time at home, alone or with my family, to fill myself back up.
But I am married to someone who is the opposite. I'll say something like: Hey, let's have a couple people over for dinner! (And I'm thinking, wow, look how good I'm being, actually suggesting a social activity!) And before I know it, we are hosting an intimate bonfire for 20.It's fine that we're different in this way. I probably encourage him to be more stay-at-home and I know he pushes me to embrace the joys of big parties. It's the big things that really matter that we are in absolute agreement about.

So you've been seeing some pictures here of Sylvan's last baseball game of 2010. We had some special friends join us for the game, including two of his classmates who were SO proud and excited for Sylvan's successes! And also in attendance was this person, above, getting a closer view of the game and a taste of the metal chainlink, one of our most favorite babies.

Atalanta Joy @ five days

Can you believe those cheeks?

And speaking of babies! Only hours after the ballgame, and with much hard work on the part of her Mama, this new sweetness was born! And lucky me, I got to be there for her birth: at home in the water tub. Her siblings and dad were in attendance, with two midwives and another friend, and I had been asked to take pictures of the birth. This was much harder than I thought it would be! It went against every instinct I had, which was to keep things nice and dark for this brand-new person and her family. Every time I took a photo I winced, even with the low-light flash setting. I was so relieved, when I brought over the CD of pictures, that the mama had *no idea* that I had been taking so many and she was glad to have them! Whew.

Atalanta's proud big sister who has been waiting to dress this new baby for a very long time. Nine months and then some.

Assorted delicious.

the photo I would have taken, this one by my dear husband:

chubby baby hand

holds umbrella in the rain

chilly May day in Maine

Happy Mother's Day to you. I got just what I asked for: a sleep-in morning and nice breakfast (scrambled eggs, danishes, coffee) and a big day of housecleaning. Because in May, when we are so busy having festivals and baseball and parties and birthdays and someone is trying also to finish her semester, the housecleaning falls by the wayside.

Sylvan is trying out the position of catcher!

Random things sit in random places. Multiple loads of laundry in need of folding are the norm and occupy a large portion of the floorspace in my bedroom (like the photo from last post).

men who knit!

I married one.

Today we asserted order into our house of entropy.

typical May day celebration in Maine:

dismal 47 degrees

And then as I was cleaning the bathroom, on a whim, I decided to paint.

local Maine ingredients augment these fine chocolates

from Black Dinah's Farm Market Collection

You haven't ever ever seen our bathroom, blogfriends, because it is awful. It is small with weird striped wallpaper, not vintage, just cheap. Also, there was this terrible brown-beige trim around the window, edging the doors, etc. (WHO uses brown to prime?!) Plus, the wall behind the toilet was not wallpapered (OK, fine, it was ugly) and was just plain white sheetrock. And out of all of the rooms in our house, it is the one that has not been touched since our first summer here, almost eight years ago, when we made shelves in it. (There was a linen closet, strangely, with no interior shelves. It made us wonder about the former residents.)

mother's day gifts:

alphabet wine (totally librarian, right?)

PG Tips (without it, I am nothing)

So I painted. We had white paint---imagine!---that I used to prime the wall behind the toilet and the trim around the window. It looks clean! Neat! White! And I figured that getting a small start on this project would then inspire more work when I am officially done with school for the summer. I just did it and it felt SO. GOOD.

There was also some mowing and bike-riding today. Sylvan, recovering from a touch of fever-y virus, bundled himself up quite well on this breezy, chilly spring day: here he is, wearing two adult-sized down vests over his sweatshirt, down earflap hat, with ear-protection muffs.

The apple trees are in bloom, which I love. Not so many blossoms this year and perhaps this means we should have pruned better.