We are home again.
It’s nice to be home, of course, and to try to reestablish a normal routine, but there are always things I miss from Grannyland. Not just the free and amazing childcare, you cynics, you. I miss hearing whatever piece of random silliness my mom says. I miss watching my dad scowl at plants that are not thriving, and set forth with fertilizer and a look of grim determination. Plants are afraid not to thrive in my Dad’s yard. I also miss the breathtaking view:
That’s what you see when you are eating breakfast or sitting on the porch at Granny’s house. Pretty, no? The pond has been stocked with fish, has resident evil tempered snapping turtles, gets visited regularly by water fowl, and the cattails just out of frame on the left are thickly colonized by redwing blackbirds. It has even hosted a 24 hour layover for a family of river otters, which have been reintroduced into several Kentucky waterways and have done well enough that some are seeking out new places to live. Off frame to the right is a cluster of hummingbird feeders that have as many as a dozen ruby-throated hummingbirds at a time sipping sugar water and fighting over the right to sip said sugar water. They should have named those things buzzbirds, by the way. They are fearless and sound exactly like huge wasps buzzing by your head. Also, when they fight, they make a *pop* as they hit one another that is so loud you seriously wonder how they survived. No wonder the Aztec god of war was represented by a hummingbird!
However, it’s good to be back in my own space.
YMCA summer camp for the girls starts on Monday. Lilo will be in theater camp for the first two weeks, and is losing her mind with excitement. Stitch will be in regular camp, but considering this includes games, sports, crafts, and swimming, she is also losing her mind with excitement. I’m not looking forward to waking up early all summer, but it’s not like the baby is going to let me “sleep in”, now is it? At least this way the girls won’t be running in and out all day, plaintively moaning they are “so bored”. Seriously, it takes Lilo fifteen minutes to hit ennui. After a day of summer camp, however, they are more than happy to play quietly, eat well at supper, and go to sleep the minute their heads hit the pillow. Camp is worth every penny, in my estimation.
My “real life” academic writing is also going well. The Goddess of Editors is slaughtering my metaphors in ritualistic sacrifice, but since my metaphors often make sense only to me, their beating adverbs must be ripped out of their clauses and held aloft to appease the similes of the heavens. Although the massacre of my adjectives is making my book stronger, better, faster … burying the bodies in the text is taking up time. This means I will remain a mere lurker upon blogs that were once graced by my rouge comment blurbs. I haven’t stopped reading, tho! Do not feel abandoned by the Fokker!
I’ll continue to post here. Can’t guarantee it’ll be worth reading, but I will post. If nothing else, it may be a written record of a woman going slowly around the twist after too much time stalking elusive synonyms.
wibble
Hummingbirds are fearless. I’ve watched them get pissed at birds sitting in ‘their’ tree and body slam them off the branches. Amazes the hell out of me.
As for bored kids, I know someone who got tired of hearing it and fixed up a ‘job jar’. Everytime one of the kids complained they had nothing to do, they had to go pull a piece of paper with a chore to do on it. These were things over and above their everyday chores. Like cleaning out under the bathroom sink. They quit complaining real fast.
OMG. You have just saved me. THANK YOU!
My daughter on the other hand will curse you will all her 11 year old Scorpio might.
LOL! You’re welcome. I’m a Taurus, let her do her worst!
In class I repeat my colleague’s astute observation (also works with parents), that truly intelligent children are never bored. They are curious and imaginative and find something–a book, a picture to draw, a puzzle to solve–to amuse themselves.