Langer Loksh

It's Official: I Have Too Many Hobbies

Also, volunteer commitments. (The winning boardwalk T-shirt slogan: Get on Board! Not my idea, but I love it.)

The blog is suffering. Right now I am just about to practice guitar but the computer was looking at me with its big sad webcam eye so I'll just jot a few things down.

Today we went to the Bolton Fair, in the rain. Had to be done. You see, we have the poster from the Bolton Fair from 2002, when Summer was born, and 2005, when Charlie was born, and we had three frames made because Mr. Kickers is coming, and we needed the 2008 poster. Which features bunnies, I might add. Fabulous. Also, posters aside, we never miss the Bolton Fair. So the kids rode the caterpillar coaster and the crazy bus and the carousel in the rain, and we ate fried dough (which Summer calls "French dough"), and got muddy up to our knees. Charlie wears his rain boots year round no matter what the weather, and after watching him march around in 85 degree heat this summer in his rubber fireman boots, it was rather frustrating that we could not find said boots today and instead he was knee-deep in mud in his much-too-expensive Stride-Rite sneakers. What can you do.

We bought a necklace for Summer and a wooden fire truck for Charlie and a wooden elephant on wheels for Mr. Kickers.

We marveled over the fabulous prize-winning chickens, particularly the very fancy looking bantam breeds. However, the blue-ribbon buff cochins have nothing on our Bob and Dandy, and we are considering entering next year.

I did not take photos. Just imagine mud. All over our  pants. People wearing flip-flops looked like those mud people at Woodstock.

Now back to the guitar, and after that, Summer and I are going to bake a pie. Wait, we'd better do the pie first, and I'll practice while the pie is in the oven. (Time management was never my strong suit.)

As for yesterday, I spent a lot of time putting Charlie's fall clothes in his drawers. We receive hand-me-downs from Jeff's old girlfriend Kathy, and I have to say, her son Ryan? LOTS of pants. Kid owned like, 38 pairs of pants in size 3. Bizah. (Linear story-telling was never my strong suit.)

The Bug and the Eggs

I've tried to teach Summer that, in the immortal words of Mary Chapin Carpenter, "Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug." Today Summer was the bug.

She got a token prize (a yo-yo) for participating in her school's summer reading program. Then her name was drawn at random from all participants and she won a stuffed monkey with a five dollar gift card to the toy store. Then she bought her hot dog lunch in the cafeteria and because her tray had a sticker on it, she won an ice cream. Does it get any better than this?

After school, Summer scampered to the coop to collect eggs. There were seven. Seeing as Summer now favors jeans over Little House apron dresses, she had nowhere to put the eggs but her pockets. You can imagine how well this went.

Splat.

Here are the six that survived. I've been meaning to post a pic of our eggs because they're so purty. Especially the tiny cream colored one, courtesy of our Rosie. (The greenish ones are from Annie and Uncle Bryan, the smaller brown one is from Angel and the two larger brown ones are from Bob and Dandy. Priscilla, Peach, Polka Dot, Mayflower, Crystal, Jim Burt, and LT are still too young to lay.)

Canoedling

Our canoe floated away in a storm a couple of weeks ago. It is an Old Town Katahdin that we bought from Mr. and Mrs. Seller. I mentioned it to my next-door neighbor Anne. Anne said that Belle, the next-door neighbor on the other side, had seen our canoe swamped halfway around the lake. So I called Belle, and she said some guy named Joe pulled it up and bailed it out and left it on his shore so we could come get it.

Tonight Bob came to help Jeff. The two of them got in Anne's blue canoe and paddled all the way down to this guy Joe's camp and then Bob got in our green canoe and they paddled solo home. Now I think I'm going to churn out a couple loaves of banana bread for Bob and Joe. And maybe even Belle, because without her, we'd never figure out where the canoe went. On second thought, those Halloween Oreos they have in the store now are even tastier than banana bread (thanks Meredith, I'm now addicted).

A Milestone for Mr. Kickers

Somehow, I counted wrong. The doctor tells me I will be 28 weeks pregnant tomorrow. This is huge. The baby can breathe air. "Doctors who are pregnant want to make it to 28 weeks," the doctor said. "Babies born in a hospital at 28 weeks do great." Not that we want the baby to come out tomorrow! But I think I can stop worrying about him coming out so early that he won't be able to breathe or see.

Also, there's this test called fetal fibronectin. They swab your lady parts and then they can tell if you are likely to go into labor in the next two weeks. If the test showed me to be at risk, I would go to the hospital for steroid shots to help Mr. Kickers's lungs mature faster.

Doc said it was probably overkill, but she wants me to be as relaxed as possible, and given Charlie's early arrival, it's not like I'm making shit up. "Anyone who experienced what you did would feel the same way," she said compassionately. So we're doing the test every two weeks, and so far, we're good.

After my glucose test I got a call from a nurse. "Nothing serious," she said, "You're anemic." Shocking. So shocking that I actually have a stockpile of iron pills already. "Then just start taking them," she said with a laugh.

It is very, very hard for me to talk about all of this. The idea that the pregnancy and resulting little dude will be just fine is like, way too good to allow myself to believe. And I know that SO many people have been through SO much worse. Still, though, hard for me. So anyway thanks for reading.

Oh--daily does of cute: this morning just as I was telling Charlie I hadn't felt the baby (whom he calls Rocky) move in a little while, Rocky threw a right hook and I moaned. "Mom," Charlie said, full of concern, "You have heartburn?"

Soon-To-Be Dead Pets and Wild Animals

So Needle died, of course. Today Jeff rescued a baby turtle from his job site and brought it home for Summer, who named it Rainbow. Let's all wish Rainbow a nice long life, alrighty?

Meanwhile, Summer and Charlie and I spent some time this afternoon trying to rescue a baby squirrel being hunted by a red-tailed hawk. In Somerville, of all places. Charlie had his first dentist appointment (see below--he did pretty well) and then Jeff had an appointment and while we waited for Jeff we first tried to go to the library roof at Tufts, but when we got there it was all blocked off because they're turning it in to some sort of fancy plaza with art. (Leave it to Tufts. Honestly. Next there will be a cappuccino bar there with "I'm Different, You're Different, We're All OK" playing in a perpetual loop on a flatscreen TV obscuring the Boston skyline. It will be the Florence and Sherman Hipplebottom Library Roof.) So instead we hung out in Powderhouse Park where there is lots of broken glass for the children to frolic in.

Summer spotted the hawk, and then I spotted the cute baby squirrel. We put the baby squirrel in cardboard box I had in my car and tried to run him somewhere far from the hawk, but the baby squirrel kept jumping out of the box and anyway the hawk just followed us from tree to tree. In the end we left, with Summer wishing aloud that the baby squirrel would get away and the hawk, who we do not want to go hungry, found something else for dinner.

Big Blue's Owners Cave

They've dropped their price and listed with an actual broker.

I know, I know, I'm supposed to be off those emails.

Woodstock Weekend

This weekend Charlie hiked Baldy under his own steam for the first time, a feat his sister accomplished at the age of two. (Last year he rode in the Ergo and whined a lot.) Sister then went on to climb Speckled with Jeff and cousin Adam and Adam's girlfriend Laura. I played the fetus card and sat on my bum in the cabin with my feet up, but according all reports, Summer focused with laserlike intensity on getting Jeff to agree to let her climb Speckled. As in, "This snack will taste great--ON TOP OF SPECKLED."

Once she descended, red-faced and muddy, she happily listened to cousin Julia read chapter books. Then Summer, Charlie, and Nosara, under the capable direction of Laura, made blueberry crisp with the blueberries they'd picked.

(Their tongues are green because of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle frosted cookies that Julia brought them.)

Sunday was a washout but we went to Maine Mineral Adventures anyway, because we couldn't physically drive by without stopping. It was like the Volvo went all Christine on us.

Oh also at midnight on Friday night on our way up, we once again nearly hit a super enormous moose, this one a bull with a huge full rack. I made Jeff turn the car around so we could watch him amble across a field in the headlights.

But mostly, like I said, I sat around on my keister.

Tomorrow I get to drink that foul soda for the gestational diabetes test. Mmmm.

I Said a Boom Chicka EPA Energy Star Award for Small Businesses!

My old summer camp has just become the very first camp to win the EPA's Energy Star Award. I am tickled green.

Your Daily Dose of Cute

Sippy Cup Half Full

Today at swim lessons an otherwise lovely mom of two little boys informed me that she lost a baby at eight months along. WHY WOULD YOU TELL THIS TO A PREGNANT LADY?!? Not good for my personal challenge of staying positive. So I will share with you my small gesture of hope: I bought a bottle of Dreft today.