Vote? Check

I voted today, but I can't say I'm happy about it. It's not the actual voting process that makes me so unhappy (in our small town life there is no waiting and the volunteers are exceedingly friendly) nor is this a commentary on the options available (that would be a totally different and probably much longer post). No, what's making me incredibly unhappy this election season is my phone, and to a lesser extent my front door, and even at times my email. Over the past week we have received anywhere from five to eight political phone calls per day, and in the three weeks leading up to that point we were receiving at least four per day. I could swear that's more phone calls than we generally receive over an entire year. And as if the constant interruptions weren't enough more often than not I'd find myself answering the phone, hands dirty with dinner or wet from laundry, only to be greeted by a robocaller. I can't give a robocaller a piece of my mind (or I guess I can, and in fact did, but it really isn't all that fulfilling).

I joined a do not call list for a reason, and though I realize that these people must be exempt from those parameters, I am livid. Irate. And then I thought it was all over—I'd voted, right? No, they came to the door at five and called three more times between then and the closing of the polls at eight. Now, thankfully, the polls are closed and my phone is quiet. Until it rang at 8:30 and it was CDC taking a poll on the flu vaccine. At least I was nice to that guy.

Calvin went with me to vote today, and we talked about the process throughout. I even held him up so that he could watch me "color in the circles" for "the people I liked" (which, when put that way, makes it sound like a high school prom court vote). When we got home he wrote the above entry in his journal about the experience. Obviously I helped him with spelling, but the sentence structure is completely his own composition, and I'm not sorry he left out the part about coloring in circles.

To Calvin, who is four years old today

Four years old. I asked you this morning what is different now that you are four, or what can you do now that you are four that you couldn't when you were only three? "Well, I can play the piano" you answered, and then you proceeded alternately to ponder and to list all the new things about your life; you can reach the bathroom sinks and the washer with the short stool, you can write you're name and Gram's name, you can feed the pets without any help, you sleep in bed with no guard rail, and now your car seat is facing forward in the car. This was your short summary of the past year of your life—your sum of your own accomplishments—but the conversation itself was the measuring stick I really wanted. A year ago you were already an articulate and ready speaker, and the year of development has only strengthened that trait in you so that our conversation this morning was a real treat, as are our conversations most any time.

It was especially interesting to me the items with which you chose to mark your progress—the things that allow you more personal freedom, and the things that feel like real grown-up accomplishments to you, but none of the more general milestones, like running longer distances (almost a mile!), being able to kick and throw balls well, or finally being able to climb the bars at the park on your own. I figure that some of your filtering was temporal; it's not likely you remember that it was a month after you turned three when you (of your own choice and volition) swore off wearing diapers, but since we only just turned your car seat around last week it's that which stands out vividly in your mind. And perhaps you don't remember that you once drew and painted only in scribbles and blobs, and then one day last December I found real faces with stick bodies,which you promptly identified as ("of course") garbage men, hiding in one of your pictures. I'm absolutely certain that it seems to you as though you've always sung on key, though it was just over the past year that you have developed the ability so that others agree with you much of the time. Maybe most notably this is the year you started to learn to read, though I don’t think you see that as a milestone reached yet. First you recognized the letters, then you could write your own name, and shortly after you declared that it was time learn to read, so you did. You started with short phonics books of few words, but it is clear that you are on the verge of a major breakthrough.

These are some of the things with which I choose to mark your year of growth and maturing, but none of them is so precious to me as your new forms of communicating love; It is only in the past year that you have begun to say "I love you" or to throw your arms around one of us or kiss us with your own spontaneity true feeling. Nor are any of your milestones as rewarding to us as parents as your ever burgeoning interest in exploring and discovering both the physical and the metaphysical world. It was two years ago that "why?" first entered your vocabulary in a rather demanding way, and you have exercised that question with increasing insistence ever since. In response to your questioning attitude we have tried to expand your horizons and the world you have to explore; we have added books to your collection, allowed some very limited computer or TV time (you love building train tracks on the computer or watching the Plant Earth documentary on TV), taken you to new places (this week we embark on your first memorable cross country visit) and offered new entertainments, and expanded our own theories of the proper amount of information to include in any answer we give you.

Over the past year you have pushed us to expand our own horizons and constantly reassess our previously immoveable views on parenting. Your exploration has not been limited to the outside world, but also includes your own position in our family and your role there; you have never been prone to tantrums or to physical outbursts, but over the past year you have evolved an ability to push limits, question actions, and force us to take new, clearer stands. I have come to expect no less from you than a discussion, albeit not always a calm one, about not new requests, but old requisites. We do our utmost best to always give you a choice by which you can create your own outcome, but you have already begun to see through this and to actually question the validity of the options ("I don't want to do either of those, I want to..."). Your opinions are often clear, though, as is your ability to decide for yourself, if not always what is best then instead what is most desirable, and that is a sign to me of your growing individuality, another sign we take as a reward.

Our life with you continues to be a joy. We have grown comfortable, if not always at ease, with our roles as parents and with the dynamics of our immediate community—our family—and plan to keep it at this size. We greet each new year with eager anticipation and only brief nostalgic looks at the past. The whole world opens before you, and us, with years of learning, traveling, exploring, developing, experimenting. We look forward to it all, and we love you.

Sunbathing in February

The sun was shining. The sun was shining! What a glorious day. On our way home from the library the thermometer in the car was reading 35 degrees and the sun was warm so instead of shutting the garage door and running for the shelter of the house when we got home we donned sun glasses and pulled out some of outdoor toys for a while. And as I sat there on the cold driveway, the chill from the cement seeping into my three decades old bones, I started to think about those 35 degrees. In November, when the winter is first descending upon us, 35 degrees is awfully chilly—it's when we first break out the winter coats and dig deep in the closet for that other mitten we're sure was there last year—but in February, after three long months of blustery days and usually absent sun, 35 degrees is a heat wave, and has us breaking out the summer toys and sitting outside to play, only to find that, 35 degrees is still actually chilly.

Moose

This is our Moose. As an eight pound dachshund he weighs about 1/100th of the animal that most normal human beings are referring to when they use his name. He turned ten years old on my birthday this year and he's blind. Not "blind as a bat" blind, since bats can actually see, albeit poorly, but more like "blind as Helen Keller" blind. He has not always been blind but lost his sight rather suddenly last August due to bad genetics, and it has fallen to us to make his life as manageable as possible, mainly by keeping things in their place. This is a daily battle with a busy child in the house, but I think Moose has gotten used to the fact that the play room, at least, is never the same place, morning, noon, or night. Although he'd have an easier time of it if he was more than an inch or two of the ground—as it is he trips over the slightest things, including a flat piece of the favored, and often in use, train track—I think he's used to it by now. The rest of the house we try to keep to a relatively unaltered map, including the front step and garden. One thing we can't help, though, is weather.

Who put that snowbank in my way?

Time warp

I lost a week. A whole week! Not in the real world, of course, but my usual blog writing time is either after Calvin is in bed at night (when, for the past week, we've been working until the wee hours on a project for work) or when he is in bed during the afternoon for naptime. Well, guess what? That few hours reprieve in the middle of the day is no more. Though he is actually still happy to oblige with a nice two to three hour nap every afternoon if I send him up to take one, the extra afternoon sleep was making bedtime into a battle, and even after he was in bed, at around 9pm, he wouldn't fall asleep until almost 11pm, and would spend the time between yelling for this or for that, or singing (albeit happily) at the top of his lungs. Sans nap, he is now in bed ten minutes before 8pm, and is asleep before the hour hits. Amazing! And quiet. And since he's not unhappy during the day without the nap, and is very willing to spend an hour or more of "quiet" time alone in his room anyway, this is the route we've decided to take, not to mention that it is easier to organize a day without having a chunk of time during which I am chained to the house to tiptoe around a sleeping child after hanging a do-not-disturb sign on our usually friendly front door. It is a new-found freedom.

But I did lose a whole week last week, and rather than try to go back and pick it up, I'm just going to start fresh from right here, now that I have my new daily structure re-worked out. I'll be back with pictures later, and crafts, meal plans, recipes, etc. I can see already that my hour of "quiet time" this afternoon will be busy.