Saturday, May 31, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
Love Over Lilacs
So it seemed odd that right after I posted Love over Bagels, I encountered a blind man in the Arnold Arboretum. We were there because all the lilacs were in bloom, and there were lots of people going from one shrub to another and sniffing them in turn. The arboretum has hundreds of varieties of lilac on one hillside, and the amount of variation in the blooms is rather astonishing.
This man was with a friend of his (or perhaps a family member) and as he sniffed each shrub he would ask his companion to describe the flower to him. I tried to imagine how his mind worked and whether with his heightened sense of smell he could actually catalog each flower separately in his mind by smell, accompanied with descriptive words. I thought about his friend and whether it pained him to not be able to accurately describe the beauty of each flower so that his friend could see it in his mind.
Here are some quick pictures of our walk.
A few lilacs:
Lee with a magnificent Stewartia:
My first look at the Dove Tree (aka The Handkerchief Tree) in bloom:
Clara, a great walker at 18 months:
This man was with a friend of his (or perhaps a family member) and as he sniffed each shrub he would ask his companion to describe the flower to him. I tried to imagine how his mind worked and whether with his heightened sense of smell he could actually catalog each flower separately in his mind by smell, accompanied with descriptive words. I thought about his friend and whether it pained him to not be able to accurately describe the beauty of each flower so that his friend could see it in his mind.
Here are some quick pictures of our walk.
A few lilacs:
Lee with a magnificent Stewartia:
My first look at the Dove Tree (aka The Handkerchief Tree) in bloom:
Clara, a great walker at 18 months:
Memorial Day Weekend
We had a fabulous weekend opening up the house at the lake. The weather was atypically warm and sunny, and everyone seemed to be in a jolly mood. The house didn't seem nearly as dirty as it usually does (or more likely my standards are getting lower each year) and so we spent just a portion of Saturday and Sunday working and the rest of the time enjoying ourselves.
Lee and Liam spent hours playing together which was nice. I think she's getting old enough to be interesting to Liam (that and the fact that he has no one his age to play with!).
Campfires have become a common occurrence on Saturday nights, complete with S'Mores. It's funny because growing up we never had campfires. Dave decided a few years ago to build a fire pit, and it has been great fun.
Another highlight was piling everyone into the boat and going over to Ragged Island, which is now owned by the Lakes Region Conservation Trust. We hiked around the island and then had a picnic lunch.
Clara couldn't stay awake. What better place to nap?
Liam was priding himself on going into the cold water and actually jumped from the boat into The Broads on the way home. Brrr.....
All in all a spectacular start to the summer.
Lee and Liam spent hours playing together which was nice. I think she's getting old enough to be interesting to Liam (that and the fact that he has no one his age to play with!).
Campfires have become a common occurrence on Saturday nights, complete with S'Mores. It's funny because growing up we never had campfires. Dave decided a few years ago to build a fire pit, and it has been great fun.
Another highlight was piling everyone into the boat and going over to Ragged Island, which is now owned by the Lakes Region Conservation Trust. We hiked around the island and then had a picnic lunch.
Clara couldn't stay awake. What better place to nap?
Liam was priding himself on going into the cold water and actually jumped from the boat into The Broads on the way home. Brrr.....
All in all a spectacular start to the summer.
Davis Farmland
It seems I've taken some time off, which is just fine considering the size of my audience. I would just hate that pressure to post every day. So, some catch-up....
A few weeks ago we went to Davis Farmland. I had heard it was wonderful and that they had all sorts of baby animals that you could touch and pet. And to be fair, they did, but the place is really more of an amusement park with a farm theme than an actual farm. I should have known from their website.
It didn't help that Lee was scared of all the animals, even the baby goats that were the size of a lapdog.
And, when we ended up at their huge playground for a while, I felt a bit of "we drove almost an hour for this?"
It was also a little sad that this was what had to happen for a family farm to make a go of it. What I actually did like was that they have rare species of farm animals from all over the world. Here are my favorites, all of them very long-haired and hippie-ish.
A few weeks ago we went to Davis Farmland. I had heard it was wonderful and that they had all sorts of baby animals that you could touch and pet. And to be fair, they did, but the place is really more of an amusement park with a farm theme than an actual farm. I should have known from their website.
It didn't help that Lee was scared of all the animals, even the baby goats that were the size of a lapdog.
And, when we ended up at their huge playground for a while, I felt a bit of "we drove almost an hour for this?"
It was also a little sad that this was what had to happen for a family farm to make a go of it. What I actually did like was that they have rare species of farm animals from all over the world. Here are my favorites, all of them very long-haired and hippie-ish.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Love over Bagels
This morning I went into Brueggers to pick up some bagels and a sandwich for an early lunch. Clara and I sat down at a table. I soon noticed that at the table across from us was a middle-aged woman and an elderly man whom I took to be her father. The man was talking extremely loudly, and the woman wasn't saying a word. As I listened to this very one-sided conversation (the man more than made up for the woman's missing volume) I soon realized that he must have gone deaf relatively late in life, because she communicated to him by writing things down in a small notebook and passing them across the table. He would then read her writing, and then speak back to her.
The conversation involved just a father asking his daughter about the little details of her life. It was nothing very fascinating, and yet I couldn't help but listen because for one, Clara is not yet a very good conversationalist, and also, it was a bit of a puzzle to figure out what the woman had communicated to him from what he said. It was also interesting how painstaking it was for them to communicate in this manner.
Something about the entire interaction brought tears to my eyes. It made me think of family and different kinds of love. It made me imagine times I will share a meal with my mother and father as they age, and also a far-off day when Clara will have lunch with me in my old age. I hope she shows me as much patience.
The conversation involved just a father asking his daughter about the little details of her life. It was nothing very fascinating, and yet I couldn't help but listen because for one, Clara is not yet a very good conversationalist, and also, it was a bit of a puzzle to figure out what the woman had communicated to him from what he said. It was also interesting how painstaking it was for them to communicate in this manner.
Something about the entire interaction brought tears to my eyes. It made me think of family and different kinds of love. It made me imagine times I will share a meal with my mother and father as they age, and also a far-off day when Clara will have lunch with me in my old age. I hope she shows me as much patience.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Tubes Update
I haven't posted anything since Clara's tubes were put in two weeks ago. I must say that we are thrilled with how she's doing. She's so much happier. She has slept through the night every single night since her surgery, she's drinking about 3-4 x the liquids she used to, she's had no fever, and she hardly fusses at all. She's happy to entertain herself, and she laughs and giggles and dances. Even the ear plugs don't seem so bad (we just have drugstore ones at the moment) - she splashes around in the bath and doesn't seem to notice them at all. All in all we wish we'd done it a few months ago. :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)