Chet is 31

Today is Chet's birthday.  My eldest is 31 today! We actually are not having his party till Sunday due to various family member work schedules.  However I wanted him to have something festive for supper tonight so here he is in the picture on the left with his home made waffle sundae.  Freshly made waffle, topped with chocolate chip ice cream ,whipped cream caramel sauce (just a drizzle) and fresh blueberries.  He was thrilled and very surprised.

The picture of Chet on the right is him at a party,though which one escapes me.  I love his zany joy and exuberance. But, his autism means he gets overwhelmed with sensory easily.  I think these two pictures show that the most clearly.  His face is so relaxed in todays shot.  Lots of tension and the grimacey smile in the second one.  The shot on the left is precious to me as I can count on one hand the number of pictures I have like that .

But regardless of the pictures, my love for this guy is unchanged.  He is zany, whacky and will sometimes drive me round the bend, but that is all beside the point. He also has a true deep caring for large issues of injustice a desire to help people in the wider world and definately believes in not wasting our planets resources.  Happy Birthday Chet!

Road Trip 2018?

This summer has been filled with memory making opportunities.  We have camped multiple times with a variety of friends.  I am so lucky to have so many people I genuinely enjoy spending time with. And who apparently reciprocate this feeling.

Our most recent camping adventure also found me bringing along the little boy who used to live next door to us and who was part of our kids lives for many years.  B had never been camping and he and KC and Lissa relished the 5 days together.  We were also camping with my friends Des and Eric and their four kids.  We have camped together for about 5 years now.  While we were sitting around the campfire, they said that in 2018 they want to travel cross country and they would love our family to come along.

It was high praise--the proposed trip is a month long journey.  They said that they could not envision doing this with any other friend than our family.  (sniff)  My knee jerk reaction was "heck that is so sweet but how can  I possibly do that?"  Thankfully I stuffed that thought back in my craw and said I"d ask my wife what she thought when I got home.

Kirsty was very excited by the idea.    My next step was to find out if I can get a month off from work.  I get 5 weeks of vacation annually.  Truthfully I have never used all my vacation days. Ever.  But the type of work I do has federal deadlines and there is a policy that one is not supposed to be gone more than 2 consecutive weeks.  (OK here is where I confess I have not done THAT either!) I use about 2 1/2 to 3 weeks yearly but in dribs and drabs throughout the year.  I typically maximize my time off by planning around existing holidays when our office is closed anyway.

I told my boss about the possible adventure.  She is very supportive and has submitted my request to HR.  I have my fingers crossed for a yes.  After all it is a 2 year notice and I am willing to do anything necessary to make sure someone is fully trained in what I do for the month that I would be gone.

Meanwhile, in a spirit of optimism we adults met at Des and Eric's new RV last night.  Partly to admire their new digs. Partly to talk about where we all want to go.  Mostly to State Parks which  an annual pass will make pretty affordable. Partly to talk logistics--how many driving hours would we shoot for daily?  What type of areas do we want to stop in at night?  My family will have to rent an RV as we do not own one.  I am a tent camper and am also petrified to drive an RV.  So I will be copilot and keep the kids happy and entertained while we travel.

Des shared their list of "must sees" and we have added a few. The kids are very excited about this. It will be the trip of a lifetime for us, I am sure. Lots of planning, lots of saving, but an adventure of epic proportions!

Adoption and the Olympics

I have been watching the Olympics and enjoying all my favorite events. (which is basically anything except water polo!)  I especially adore gymnastics and have loved watching the women's team this year. They are a dominating force and the routines leave me breathless with awe.  I am also pretty excited about the racial diversity on our team.  In a sport that was pretty much dominated caucasians, we have 2 blacks and a hispanic on our winning team. There are a two caucasians but the demographic of the team is startlingly different from previous years.

However what is not different is the media frenzy surrounding Simone Biles and her adoption story.  I have watched this unfold and it is painful at so very many levels.  First off, I am feeling very very badly for Simone herself.  Her personal life is out there for public dissection in every conceiveable way.  Adoptive parents are rallying around the "we are the real parents" banner.  First mothers are rallying around the "first families are forgotten" camp.  Foster parents and foster alums are weighing in.  All come with their own stories which color their perspectives.  And all i see is a young woman whose amazing gymnastic abilities and achievements are somehow incredibly being second fiddle to her very personal adoption/family story.

I want to be very clear that I wholeheartedly respect first families.  They are my kids family.  They have become my family, because we all love the same people.  And we all want what is best for the kids and we have learned from each other and we value each other.  I personally feel the portrayal of Simone's first mother in the press is cold and painful.  No one needs the labels that this woman has endured.  And if she is as she stated, sober for many years, it's even worse.  People make mistakes, sometimes horrible ones.  If we are lucky, and have a dose of common sense, we have an opportunity to learn from those mistakes.  I feel that the media is not giving Shannon Biles that chance. And the media circus could derail any opportunity in the future for Simone and Shannon to have a relationship should they wish to develop it.

Does this mean I don't support her adoptive parents?  No, of course not.  Her grandparents stepped up and they have clearly done a great job raising an amazing young woman.  The fact that Simone calls them mom and dad bothers me not a whit.  Kids choose what they want to call the people who love them. Also most kids have a nearly desperate need to fit in. I can see these factors playing into Simone's decision to call them that.  I have kids that call their first moms Mom.  I have kids that call their first mom's Mom followed by their first name)  I have kids that call their first mom by their first name.

It has never been my decision what to call their mom. It has been theirs.  I am happy being one of the moms. I am happy being lucky enough to be the mom that gets to kiss them goodnight, hear about their day and make memories on a daily basis with them.

Let's let amazing athletic achievements be the thing we watch and talk about.  Let's let these fine young people have a personal life this isn't dissected and the source of media sound bites.

High Summer

It has been a hot summer, hotter than our area of the country has had in a number of years. And the driest summer since 2001 or something wild like that.  There are water restrictions and  even I, lover of perpetual sun, get the need for rain.

But when today dawned another hot bright sunny day, we decamped to a beach about 30 minutes from our home.  My wife was actually supposed to lead an event there for the church that she works for. No one showed, but we all had a fabulous time there.  The lake deepens very gradually and it is a quiet beach.  Even with the heat we have had it was far from crowded.  I could have stayed there all day--literally.  I think though that I am programmed this way.  When I was a child we spent almost every day at a lake beach and were there literally almost all day.  We would go after breakfast, go home for lunch and then go back in the afternoon.  If it was really super hot, we could almost always talk my mom into an evening swim as well.

My wife doesn't really love beaches though, and in particular despises sand, so I felt blessed to have the couple of hours there with her. Usually it is me there alone with the kids and while I don't mind that, it is definately special to me when she is there.

Summer is fleeing by far too quickly for me.  In a couple of weeks I will take the littles and their friend B camping for 4 days. We will be with other friends as well so it will be a passle of kids who will have a blast together.  But then, except for our church camping weekend in mid September, that will be it.  The season so eagerly awaited, so lovingly planned during cold dark winter nights, it will be over.  (cue sad music here)

I've seen a few red swamp maple leaves and while I tell myself it is water stress, it is likely that it is August.  The robins have decamped and the crickets now sing with the frenzy that I associate with late high summer nights.  They too, know time is finite for this season.

Though summer is busy, it is in many ways less structured than the rest of the year.  I have time to work out with my friends instead of having to rise early to do the train run with Rob.  Meals are relaxed.  We've had picnics and ice cream for supper nights.  Bed times are later.  Rob has had a lot of time to hang out with his friends after work, getting home after 2 on many nights.  That will sadly have to change during the school year and I expect that the realization of a 6 a.m. train has not come to the forefront of his mind yet!

So for now, I will enjoy the last vestiges of this most beautiful of seasons.   I will drink in every opportunity, admiring our gardens, parched though they may be, creating memories to warm me when the chilly winds and dark evenings come.

BLM

Last night on the internet I stumbled upon something new to me.  A live streaming of a BLM vigil in the Big City nearest to our home.  I watched for a bit to try and hear the speaker.  The sound quality was beyond bad and I could not hear almost anything she was saying. I was just about to click off in frustration when I noticed that comments also get posted in real time with the live streaming.


I watched in legit horror at the hatred that spewed from those comments, up the screen of my monitor.  Comments that the speaker had time to do this because she was on welfare. Comments that all lives matter.Derogatory comments about the charge to blacks to try to economically impact whites by going to black owned businesses. Comments that people should just do what police say and nothing will go wrong.  (news flash, you need to add if you are white to that last one folks--just ask the family of Phil Castile.) And there was more.  Much more. So much hatred I can not dignify it with reiterating it here. They flew so fast I could not even respond to a specific post, because it was gone in a flash, replaced by another equally as appalling.


How is it possible to hate so much?  How is it possible not to see people as people.   How can there be any hope for justice when so many people buy in to stereotypes and racist rhetoric.  These injustices and killings can not be stopped if whites are going to look the other way.  We have a disproportionate amount of power.  We need to, and we must, be agents for change and justice.  We need to listen to our black friends, neighbors, sisters and brothers, and support their efforts at change. Our children, our country, and our future need this.

And Again. . .

48 hours and 2 more black men murdered.  I am probably the most positive person on the planet.  "Sail your ship with positivity" has been laughingly declared by my family to be my personal motto.  But I have no positivity tonight.  I have anger. I have fear.  I have an overwhelming sense of helplessness.

The repeated unwarranted killing of people of color keeps replaying like some bizarre twisted version of that old movie Ground Hog Day.  And I don't know what to do.  I don't know what to do to keep my children safe.  I literally don't go to sleep till I know Rob is home from work.  I have turned this into my reading time and I do enjoy that. But keeping things honest?  I am worried that something would happen and i would not know till there was a knock on the door.  I don't want to miss a call, a text, a chance to try and help if the need arose.

I worry that my kids, despite my oft repeated dictates of what to do if an officer stops, will push the envelope.  They are good kids. But they are kids.  At Rob's age, despite all my comments to the contrary, he is sure he is immortal.  I was his age.  I was once immortal too.  But I am white.  And while I have faced discrimination in regards to my gender or sexual identity, I have not been targeted the way people of color are.  I don't have to worry about DWB.

In a rather shocking wake up call I recently watched a video to share to my son's wall on how to make it home alive if a POC is pulled over by the police.  One of the tips?  Keep your license and registration on the dash or the visor or the cup holder.  Reaching for a wallet can be interpreted as reaching for a weapon.  In my white privilege world,I can keep those two items where ever I choose as long as I can reach them from the drivers seat of my vehicle.  My questions to police officers when I am pulled over are answered with courtesy as long as I ask with courtesy.  (disclaimer:  I received my first moving violation in 25 years because I got wildly confused at a round about over Memorial Day weekend.)  I honestly had to ask the officer what I did wrong as I knew speed was not a factor.

Will the video save his life?  I have no idea.  All I can do is try and that feels so much like tilting at windmills these days.


I am frightened by the fact that I can't come up with an action plan.   This is so systemic and so big, I can't figure out what to do to help change to come about. I am not a stick my head in the sand kind of gal.  But Facebook meme's are woefully inadequate.  Roll calls of the killed scroll through my feeds. I worry that someday one of my kids, or one of my extended family will be on the internet with a "Say their name, don't forget" tag.    But the pictures, the stories, most woefully the same,  somehow this is not scrolling through the minds and hearts of people who do have the power.

I was brought up to respect officers of the law.  And I know many officers in the city I live and work in.  I like them. I respect them.  But I look at them and wonder what they will see if my son walking home from work at midnight.  I am tired of dash cams going silent, body cams mysteriously loosening and not filming.  I am tired of  reading the dirt that gets thrown into the fray after every shooting.  Rap sheets from years past, as if prior mistakes justify death today.

I actually don't even know how to finish this post, that's how saddened and fearful my spirit is at this moment.

Long Weekend in Review

My cup overflows with happiness.  This was a GLORIOUS long weekend for us. It started with being able to leave work 2 hours early on Friday.  Typically when we get "early release" something happens and I can't leave.  By some weird miracle, this time, I was out the door at 2:05!  This gave me time to chat with my wife before she left for work.  Time together for us is treasured.  We work opposite hours from each other a lot of the time.  In large part, this serves our family well as one of us is always around to meet the needs of our brood.  But it also means carving out relationship time has to be thoughtful and to some extent, truly planned.  Those 2 magic hours when I was home early were a rare and unplanned bonus to us.  After she left for work, I was able to do a few errands that typically happen on Saturday.

Saturday morning we shopped for our BBQ 2 buggies worth of shopping. We also got the decorations for the canopies.  I am truly incapable of gathering people together without doing some kind of decorating.  I love to do it. It is welcoming. It is something the kids like to help with.  And I usually use supplies purchased at the dollar store.  So it is inexpensive and I don't feel compelled to make things I need to try and store and re-use.

At about 10 we left to head out to the western part of our state. The trip, which should have taken a bit over 2 hours took us over 3.  Holiday traffic and a large accident slowed us greatly.  Luckily we had sort of planned for that possibility and the extension of the trip did not make us late to our venue.  We headed to Jacobs Pillow to see a dance presentation.  We saw Che Malombo, an Argentine dance troupe.  The performace was amazing and we all loved it. Best of all, my wife was unexpectedly able to join us. She had not thought this would be the case and at the 11th hour I scrambled to get her a ticket to the nearly sold out show.  She could not sit with us--we had seats right near the front in the center.  But we were able to share the experience.  The kids adored the performance, especially my dance guy, KC.  Watching an all male dance company was very empowering to him. As you might imagine, guys are the minority in most local dance schools.  Our school has more than most, but the guys are still vastly outnumbered.

Sunday we spent getting ready for todays BBQ.  I had a flag cake to make and a "mexican pasta salad"  Both recipes were from The Pioneer Woman  Both were amazing and enjoyed by all.  We had a ton of food.  BBQ chicken, veggie burgers, hot dogs, potato salad,green salad, chips and dip, fresh strawberries for shortcake, the aforementioned cake and delicious thumb print cookies made by my friend Laura.  We had about 15 people all told and it always amazes me how people can gather from different walks of life and just enjoy each other and have fun.  If it can happen in my back yard, can't it happen elsewhere too?  If we bring our laughter and our recipes instead of our preconceptions, the world would be a happier, gentler place.

We had about 5 or 6 kids here and they all played together and had a blast.  One of them successfully negotiated themselves an invite to come camping with me when I take the kids in August for our next to the last campout.  I am fine with that, and his mom is as well.  One more kid is not ever an issue for me.

Now I am trying to prepare myself for "re entry"  The regular  world will come knocking on my door at 5:20 tomorrow morning.