Garden Feet

Last night, I gardened until post sunset. I didn’t put much effort into the flower garden before our vacation to Iowa, but now home, I went to work. At the garden store in late-July, flowers are begging to leave the shelves. Their blossoms – if any – are stretching high, competing with the others in their crazy small dirt compound.  I found chock-full pots of purple cone flowers and brown-eyed Susans. They were in the big pots. Normally I wouldn’t pay for those, but I was desperate and noticed they were so big that I could split them before I put them in the ground.

At home, Liam helped dig the holes in my ledge-filled land. This was good division work for Liam. “If I paid $9 for this big pot and split the big plant into three plants, how much did each plant cost?” I realized over the summer that the lines of multiplication and division had become blurry. Note to self: Come August, encourage more than reading books and drawing.

With my garden gloves dirty and my back aching, I shoved off for the night, looking forward to seeing my work in the clean morning light. A friend picked up the boys for an overnight and Bill was traveling, so I had the house to myself. A bath? Shall I have a quiet bath? With bubbles? With candles? And a book? And the book light that I adopted from Will? Ohhh, yes.

Then the top 98% of me looked at the bottom 2% of me and said, “No way I’m getting in the tub with those.”

“Give them a bath before you get in the tub!” Well, that’s ridiculous. You don’t wash before you have a bath! My current parenting line, “Be kind to one another” washed over the negative comment. I ignored the complaints and dropped my dirty feet into the tub, despite the protests from the upper majority.

This was one of those soaking baths. After reading for a half hour, I felt well-rinsed, perhaps even clean. I finished the last few chapters of my book, drenched my hair, and escaped from the tub. When I’m done in the tub, I’m done.

Drying my feet, I noticed dark dirt shadows on all of my toes. Well, I had two choices: scrub them tonight or buy more plants tomorrow morning.

It’s tomorrow morning and the plant store opens in 20 minutes.

 

 

Banner photo by Lukas from Pexels

Camp Mujigae: Second Year

When Will started preschool seven years ago, I struggled with learning little girls’ names in his class.  Nearly all of the girls had long hair pulled back in a pony-tail.  With hair color ranging from nearly white blonde to light brown, but still in the blonde family.  And blue eyes.  By kindergarten, I had most of them figured out, or more to the point, I knew which mom each of them belonged to. Now with the boys being older, the passing of time has helped me easily identify the girls.  With the exception of two in Liam's class: both have long, curly, blonde-ish hair and both wear glasses.

This was the second summer I took the boys to Camp Mujigae in Albany, New York.  A Korean culture camp for Korean adoptees and their families.  Last summer, one of the moms said, “Good luck finding your kids tomorrow at camp, especially from behind!”  Yes.  Last year, I called out to Liam several times one afternoon only to realize when the kid finally turned around that he wasn’t Liam.

As I looked around at the other boy campers, there was a pretty even mix between very short or rather long hair styles.  Statistically speaking, that gave me a greater chance of identifying my sons from the back.  Mine have long hair this summer.

As I met more parents, I recognized more boys.  Or at least coupled the hair styles with the parents (aka: Joe and Rita’s son has long hair.)  By the time the kids outgrow camp in ten years, I may know all the boys' names.

On the drive home, the boys had my phone and were looking at the pictures I had taken at camp.  I asked them, in a very confusing way, if it was easy for them to tell the difference between the boys they met during the last couple days.  “I don’t understand what you mean, Mom,” Will declared.

Yet, not even a minute later, he said, “Hey, why am I wearing glasses in this picture?!?!”  It was a close-up of Liam and a camp friend – with long hair – standing side-by-side.  It took Will a few seconds before he realized that the person next to Liam wasn’t him.  Will laughed.  “I thought you photo-shopped the glasses onto my face!”

Question answered.

 (Notes from last year's Camp Mujigae...)

The Beach Cottage

…taken from my hand-written journal during our electronics-free stay on Cape Cod… For a week near the beach, I want to be in a simple place.  Where sand tracked in is OK, for it doesn’t get caught in the grout of tiled kitchen floors.  Because on the kitchen floor is a sheet of vinyl, tacked down only on the doorway side that adjoins the living room.  And the living room is covered with an area rug, the color of sand.  It’s made to welcome a bit of the outdoors in.  No fuss in keeping grit from underfoot.

This place has felt the sea.  They’ve ridden tandem for many years.

At 3 a.m. the first night, I awoke cold.  I had shut the windows at 11 p.m., but the chill from the ocean air was still around us.  Coming up from the floorboards?  In through the cracks around windows and doors?

I bumbled around in the dark looking for more blankets.  In my walk end to end of this little cottage, I felt the years of ocean life rolling under my feet.  The gentle up down patter of the floor boards with an occasional fall under the vinyl in the kitchen.  And an even more noticeable rise in the bathroom.  The floors ebbed and flowed reflecting the same patterns a minute’s walk away.

Not finding any blankets inside, I went barefoot through dewy grass out to the van for extra covers.  My first step outside smelled like a walk into a bag of fresh clams.  The cool air was bursting with ocean.  I grabbed two fleece blankets from the van and tucked them over the boys.  I put a sweatshirt on and went back to bed.

By 10 a.m. the next day, the smell had changed to ripe old clams baking in the sun, brought on by warming dampness.

Poking around that morning, I discovered when the bedroom door is open…

...the closet door is shut.

Giddy delight.

(More from the same beach... Shell Seeking.)

Mercury-Redstone

This is how play dates can take form in the Malcolm house: Eavesdropping on Will's phone conversation was the first I knew about Sunday's plans. “Yeah, sure we can pick you up in an hour. We can take you home too. I’m launching around 11:30. Oh, and I’ll have a couple other friends coming over to watch too.”

This was a rocket scientist taking the bull by the horns. Picture NASA announcing a test launch and welcoming visitors. Then sending a limo to pick them up.

And on this particular Sunday morning, I loved it. All was good.

I, the Limo Driver & Lunch Chef, was ready.

Bill, the Co-Launcher, was also ready.

Liam, the Crowd Manager & Entertainer, was smiling and ready.

Will, Mercury-Redstone Designer & Co-Launcher, was more than ready.

Now, post-launch, I reflect on lessons learned, as any scientist or scientist’s mother would.

To brush up on history… Mercury-Redstone got its start as a kind of ballistic missile and was redesigned to point toward space. And to carry a chimpanzee/human pod on top of it. Chimpanzee Ham flew on Mercury-Redstone 2 prior to Alan Shepard flying on Mercury-Redstone 3. On May 5, 1961, Shepard was the first American to take a short 15-minute space flight.

Here’s Will’s version of the Mercury-Redstone on display in the Space Studio (aka: in the storage room on my freezer.)

Never tell a boy that painted toilet paper tubes can’t fly.

New to this model was the engine housing. Co-designed by Will and his dad.

And another view.  If you look closely at these two photos, you may recognize the housing as a recycled Keurig K-Cup.

Never tell a grown man that K-Cups can’t fly.

Trajectory.  A great mathematic phenomena.  The guys worked hard to get the rocket as straight as possible, 90 degrees relative to the bumpy ground.  A slight deviation off 90 degrees on the ground grows exponentially as the rocket soars.

These rocket scientists reminded me of pro-golfers and their contortions on the green as they look for the best path to tap the ball into the hole.

Trajectory. Fin structure. Engine position. Aero-dynamic construction. Ignition. All variables in how the pencil flies once the engines are fired. Whoa! (No picture here: I decided to watch this one live, rather than through a camera lens.) This rocket left a jet stream behind it as it soared straight up. Then straight west. Before it landed.

Rescue and recovery was a success!  (Because the building was short, scale-able, and relatively flat.)

Simple Summer Vacation

We caught a short, early summer vacation last week. All I wanted was simple quiet for a few days. I found an original "Cape Cod beach cottage" in South Yarmouth. The little cottage hadn't been touched structurally since it had been built in the 40's or 50's. The black vinyl "46" on the door frame was anchored above a painted-over "9." While the other cottages had been built around, up, or over, ours sat a bit curmudgeonly on a corner lot. To all that fluff around it: Bah humbug. It was still "9."

The charmed simple pine wood walls were dotted with original windows. Each had a one pull/push peg hold-and-lock system. Up for a breeze & down for warmth. The old painted wood floors, area rugs, and vinyl rang out, "I'm OK with sand."

Weeks before the trip, I made a decision: This was going to be an electronics-free trip. I confided in Bill. "Good luck with that." (He wasn't coming down until the last half of the week.) I shared the plan with Will a few days before. After a couple moments to process: "OK. I can do that." I told Liam an hour before we left... "What?!?!"

I packed the van to the gills with building blocks, craft supplies, swords and shields, and books. Drawing paper, beach gear, puzzles, and books. A magic kit, coolers of food, pantry goods, and books. Toilet paper, soap, clothes, and books.

I didn't pack computers or iPods. I didn't turn on the GPS as we left our house. The boys had maps of the Cape and written directions. Once in South Yarmouth, their voices navigated me to the cottage.

That evening, we each carved out a niche, and we read. The calm. The next morning, more of the same. Why did it feel so relaxing?

Mid-week, I figured it out. Leaving electronics at home meant there was an omission of relentless, needling questions: "When can I get on?" "It's 8 a.m., can I play now?" "How long can I play?" "Why won't you let me play more?" "Can I play in the morning and then again in the afternoon?"

This electronics-driven sub-language wasn't spoken for a week. That quiet lull was bliss.

(More about this place: The Beach Cottage.)