More Tim

If I had to characterize Tim's attitude to life lately, it's lay low and get by. Today I looked over to see him slumped in his chair, lips roughly on the level with his plate, gently easing the rice over the ridge of the plate and straight into his mouth.

"Tim!" I said. "Sit up and eat with manners."

Since I'd noticed him already, he decided to take the opportunity to ask for more chicken (as Tim lovers know, he's fully capable of eating a whole one by himself). I said, "If you can eat the rest of your rice with perfect manners, you can have another piece of chicken."

Man! The kid is capable! After taking a few elegant bites, he said, "Mom, this is a lot of work."

Apparently he's decided that about prayers, too, because in the last few weeks he's pared down his prayer to a skimpy three thoughts, not one of which uses more than four words to express. Then he repeats. One night before nighttime prayers, I said, "Tim, I'd like you to really think about who you're talking to."

"No, Mom," he immediately replied, "I don't want to. That would make me feel very tiny."

I found a great blog (thanks to some friends) about the fate of kids in the paranoid old US of A. It couldn't express my thoughts more perfectly if I'd done all the research and writing myself. So if you're bugged by the fate of the modern day child who exists almost totally in an adult-mediated world, if you've ever wondered why we think it's safe to give a kid who has never walked across town the keys to the car at age 16, if you've ever sat through a discussion of the dangers of child rapists and kidnappers and wondered to yourself, How common is this stuff? How scared do I REALLY have to be?, head on over to free range kids. Be sure to check out the links farther down on the RH side for some thoughtful statistics.

Had a glorious ski day--last of the season and we had to use our free passes, so we skipped the WASL--on Friday, and I made a GREAT discovery! You don't have to ski to enjoy the trip. I didn't want to ski because a) I had no free pass, b) I had no equipment, and c) I'm a pleasant, slightly deconditioned woman in my forties who can clearly picture starting a response to inevitable questions like this: "Well, it was the last day of the season, and I hadn't skied much..."

So I spent the day on the slopes in my running shoes. It was GREAT!! And news for all you skiers: it's not really two miles from the lodge to the car, the stairs are incredibly shallow, and the bathroom is actually quite conveniently located. I spent part of the morning working in the lodge with two other pleasant, slightly deconditioned women in their forties and part of the morning being driven crazy by a bored Nigel. Then I got smart and put him in ski lessons. Jarad the ski instructor (with a snowboard coat but he skis, Mom) is now Nigel's best friend and Nige loves the "hand lift," where we spent the rest of the day with me lounging in a plastic chair waving to him as he endlessly rode up, skied down, rode up, skied down. Perfect day.

Tim Thought

"Mom, we love each other, and that will never change, even when we [i.e., you right now] are mad. The love is bigger than the madness, it's just covered in it."

Get Reader

Today's post is just a little quickie for those of you who have yet to discover Google Reader. This is especially you, Nigel. If you will take ten to fifteen minutes right now and head over to Google Reader, you can sign up for a service that will save you quite a bit of blog checking time. If you already have a blogger or gmail account, you don't even have to set up a new profile. Just log into your gmail account, click on "Reader" in the top LH corner. No gmail? Just google "google reader" and you'll go straight to the start page. You may already have a google account even if you don't think you do--google owns blogger so your ID and password for blogger also work for google. Dispense with the "tour"--it's so simple you don't need a tour. Click on "get started adding subscriptions." My favorite way to add is to navigate to a blog just like usual and just click on the orange square at the RH end of the URL address window. That takes you to a little routine that will let you add that blog to google reader. It takes a minute to add all the blogs you regularly check, but once you have, you just get all new blog posts like email--title and a little synopsis. You can either read the text right there or navigate over to get the full experience including comments. I'm sure there are other (better!) ways to set this up, but this was my way and WHAT A DIFFERENCE IT MAKES!!! I caught Colin's stealth post the day it went up and was surprised by Tamsin's out of the blue post right immediately (instead of 7 months later...) If you're a blog fan like me, you should try it!

And by the way, if you're not yet getting emailed when people comment on your blog, log on to settings and set that up. These two changes have drastically reduced the time I spend checking blogs (mine and everyone else's).

The Chain

My friend Teri hosted Alison, me, and eleven hungry, dirty, exhausted, exhilarated kids at her beach cabin last week. Before you can drive back in to park, you have to unlock and lower a chain. Teri says you leave life there when you come in and pick it up on the way back out. Except that I'm having trouble getting it all packed back on. I can't remember how it fit before.

Tim said his top five of the cabin were: 1) The cousins (including Sophie), 2) reading, 3) the clams galore beach, 4) the food, and 5) the independence. I loved waking up every morning in that big communal room and hearing the relaxed breathing of so many people I love. I liked going down before everyone else was awake and stretching in the cool Northwest sunshine. I loved the beach walks, and watching kids playing for hours and hours in the driftwood and sand, and piles of rubber boots, and sitting on the Adirondack chairs on the last night watching reflections on the Sound and pretending it was summer in April.

The weather was glorious, glorious! As were the bald eagles, seals, Orcas, porpoises and even a grey whale. It was a beautiful week. Thank you Teri, Alison, and all you grimy kids.

We took the train from Everett to Seattle to get Alison and the kids to their plane. I loved it, as always. I'm a train person. I'm not sure ALISON loved it, but she was incredible. After she left with the kids for the airport (did you make it, Alison?), Tim and I did "Tim's Seattle"--we met Mr. Dewey live and in person on the spiral at the Rem Koolhaas library , ate fabulous delicacies at Belle Epicurean in the basement of the Fairmont Olympic (you eat there, dream about it for a year, eat there again...), and trekked down to Elliott Bay Books to buy something to read on the train home. It was the most gorgeous day of the year, absolutely heavenly. We saw Ranier and Baker and sunlight on the Sound. I could have upgraded to a sleeper and kept going to Chicago!

Well, now I've crossed the chain. I'm picking it all up and piling it back on again. But I find that although the week was full of kids to care for and food to cook, it was a vacation, a real one. I'm lucky on both sides of that chain. It's a nice life. I'll take it.

Shorts

At Alex's Sasquatch/Young Readers Book competition this week, the moderator read this competition rule: "I will read all questions twice. I will not repeat the question." Tim burst out laughing. It took me some time to understand what made him laugh. If there is some career involving immediate recognition of absurdities, he's going to make a lot of money.

Our Emmett Mumford Cousins (EMC) are here. This involves teasing and huge quantities of cheddar cheese, among other things. We had meatloaf sundaes for dinner, and for the first time someone--Harrison!--out-ate Tim.

Well, this isn't like the week when Nigel's bath water somehow drained directly into the downstairs toilet and huge bubbles bloomed up from the toilet seat. I have time to blog...and of course, no worthy material.

I'm thinking that I should tell you that my darling angel of a fourteen year old bomb maker got the most HIDEOUS progress report this week--a report so BAD that his teacher was REQUIRED to CALL ME ! We were both so embarrassed and surprised. We just traded awkward Zach compliments while struggling to find the words to discuss an F in Orchestra. This would be for a kid who practices every day AND comes to "Fiddle Club" at 7:30 am once a week. What are you going to say? He's the only Bass in Orchestra. Everybody KNOWS he's got the part down. And that earns an F? Yet I don't want to be the parent whining about the grade. Clearly this is Zach's problem. He has to turn in the practice sheets. He ACTUALLY PRACTICES!! And he doesn't turn in the sheets. But an F? Showing up every day with the part learned, attending all concerts dressed in a white shirt and tie, coming in an hour early once a week, being (as I discovered this week) the ONLY KID IN THE EIGHTH GRADE WHO STILL LIKES ORCHESTRA--this is FAILURE?!?!? COME ON!! Oops. Slipped over into the whiny Mom for a second.

That's all. Maybe something interesting will happen this week?