September Summary

Why the long hiatus? Well, I guess it's like so many things: the longer you get out of the habit the harder it is to start again. Also, when we returned from vacation I got this incredible surge of energy to work on house projects and I've been extremely busy with that. And I guess I was having a little bit of that feeling I used to have about taking pictures while traveling. I didn't like that I was spending time looking through a camera and worrying about taking pictures instead of actually experiencing (of course, now I look back on all the traveling I did where I have not a single picture and could kick myself). But there have certainly been moments where I was writing about experiences with the girls instead of spending time with them.

But then I got the urge, so I'll just jump on in and write one of my "just get it down on paper" bullet lists to recap September:

- after our week at the lake, we went down to Orleans and stayed in Cindy's house from Tuesday through Saturday. The weather was cold the first few days, wonderful the second few, and pouring rain the last. But we had a fabulous time which included outings to Skaket Beach, the Wellfleet Audubon Sanctuary, and Moby Dick's for fried food. A great vacation, and I think Bridges really relaxed after having two weeks off in a row.



- The Sunday afterward, I helped organize a potluck dinner at the church for families from Pilgrim Nursery School. It was a huge success with almost 100 people there (inc. kids), and it went really well.

- I have decided not to return to the Newton Symphony and am instead singing in the Lexington Pops and the choir at church. It is fun!!!

- We went to Children's Hospital for our yearly urology visit. Lee just had an u/s on her solitary kidney and has been completely cleared for the future. Clara had the urodynamics test done (it was awful) and while her reflux has improved, the urologist would like to keep her on antibiotics until she is potty trained. An long and incredibly exhausting day, especially for Clara.

- Bridges and I went to see the Lexington Symphony perform Mozart's Requiem and just loved it. They also performed Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. Beautiful.

- I started physical therapy for the sciatica that started bothering me during the summer. I stopped going to Bikram yoga after six years. By the end of September I was much improved.

- Bridges has started training in earnest for his back-country telemark trip in January.

- I started taking the girls swimming at the Y again, and they're both doing great. Lee is pretty much independent now, and will swim a pool length, jump off the edge by herself, swim on her back, and sink down by letting out her air. Someone asked me if I taught the girls myself, and when I said that yes, she said "I can tell, because they enjoy swimming so much." Actually I should clarify, because when I said yes I just meant that they didn't take swimming lessons. But really I haven't taught Lee at all - she has completely taught herself.

- My dad had a knee replacement, and I took the girls to the hospital a few times to visit.

- The girls spent a weekend with Bridges' parents while we did a ton of things around the house. We were amazingly productive. One of the things we did was paint the kitchen, and it looks fantastic.

- I took the girls to the MFA. Lee just loves that museum, and will go to her favorite painting (Watson and the Shark by Copley) and gaze at it for minutes.

- We went to Loon for Bridges' mom's 65th birthday. The colors were beautiful, and we built a fairy house, complete with a lake, boat house, dock, and boat.


- We went to Drumlin Farm with other parents from school on Rosh Hashanah. A huge hit with Clara, who is really into animals at the moment.

Good Night, Sweet Pea

I was wondering the other day what you could tell about a person by examining the phrase they say the most frequently. I'm sure that during my professional days, this phrase would have been something as uninteresting as "Hello, this is Ruth" as I answered the phone, or embarrassingly enough, perhaps "a tall, decaf, nonfat latte, please." High on my mom's list at one time was, I'm sure, "don't let the cat out." I wish I could say that currently, "I love you" is at the top of the list, but it's probably something more mundane like "good morning, sweet pea" (or realistically "good night, sweet pea," since good night can be said more than once a day depending on how bedtime goes). I'll take it, though.