camping

Jo*el and I took the boys camping nearby this past weekend. The boys were a lot more help than in years past.



Daddy made pancakes and served as marshmallow-blower-outer.







We also visited an exhibit farm. It was very well done, with lots of very hands-on examples of sustainable agriculture. The guides were all very sweet and articulate kids. We enjoyed it SO much more than the "farm" at the MN Z*oo.


The boys were pretty interested in getting to feel what the inside of a milking machine feels like on your finger. Ol*iver later called it a "nippler" - always with the made up words, that boy.









We also got an up-close view of some swallows whose parents were NOT happy with us.



The boys also picked strawberries and peas, and saw a chicken tractor (movable chicken coop), but the hay bale was probably their favorite thing of all.





Watermelon!





Grandma and grandpa, as well as as relatives Chris and Katherine from California came up for the evening on Saturday. We had a delicious meal, and a very nice time visiting.



The boys were completely wiped out by this point, but still enjoyed the marshmallows and good company.



The next morning was Father's Day, and the boys gave daddy some cards they'd made at camp.



They've actually been kind of sick with colds, and were pretty miserable that morning. N had a fever here. It's interesting that while he usually runs to me for hugs and kisses when he has an "owie" and is more likely to miss me, he only ever lets J walk around holding him like this. N tends to get kind of overwrought and then starts acting out, but J can usually just walk around holding him and he calms down. He will not let me do that at all.



This boy, on the other hand, would sleep next to me, come to work with me, and pretty much hang out with me 24/7 if permitted. Every morning, he follows me around saying, "Mama, I don''t want you to go to work!" When I get home, he gets a huge grin and usually comes running for a cuddle.



Today was SO hot - well into the 90's and humid to boot. J got the air conditioners in, but the boys thought that a sprinkler was an even better way to cool off.

we're still here!

I know I’m behind on posting here when I start getting the “hint” here and there… I do try to come around more often than once every 6 or so weeks, so sorry about that. But at least blogs don’t care if you post an essay one day and a bunch of pictures the next, a recipe or day-in-the-life one week and a list of milestones the one after that, which is probably why this format is so suited to my style (as opposed to a neat scrapbook with the same number of entries for every few months or milestones, which has never worked for me). And as for milestones, we’ve missed a few lately. The end of school came and went. The boys had a great year at Grace, and just as at the beginning of the year, we celebrated with Grandma at the Dairy Queen.

(Jo*el isn’t thrilled about this tradition, but there are some things that we Su*ndseth women and boys just need to do on our own. I hope that when the “school boys” have cousins that are “school girls”, maybe they’ll join us too, though perhaps we’ll have to average out the actual date then.) From their school, we received a lovely booklet of photos for each boy. It was really nice to get a sneak peek of their days there. They seemed so engaged and happy, and I know they miss it now. They each made a card and gave their teacher a plant, and when she sent them a thank you note, they hung them above their beds. This week, they start a 3 week day camp at their school, each in their own group. That’s a big first for them—they’ve not been separated much at all, so 3 days a week for 4 hours at a stretch will be a huge change. They’re not at all happy about it if you ask them, but both their parents and their teacher agree that it will be good for them, and they’ll be most likely be in separate classes for school from now on as well. Their learning styles are so different, and we feel they’ll more easily make their own friends and not be so likely to be compared and to compete all the time if they’re apart for school. They're two individual boys, not just halves of a "set", and they deserve to have some of their own experiences and chances to shine in their own unique ways. And, it’s probably best to make that transition this year in their already familiar preschool than when they have kindergarten five days a week in a brand new school, which is transition enough. It’s bittersweet to watch, though. They're luck to have each other, I think.

We’ve had a strange spring, with no appreciable rain for weeks until this past weekend. It was actually the driest spring since the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s! I was SO glad for the rain yesterday, as the ground was getting downright crispy. Nonetheless, we’ve managed to enjoy some of the things the warmer weather has to offer.

Ant-watching

Daddy gave the boys a chance to pick something out from the garage sale across the street. Did they choose toys? Nope. Christmas ornaments, which they hung in our tree. They were very proud of their idea. "Now we can celebrate Christmas!", Ollie said.

A little breakfast in the backyard.

And dinner in the front yard...

Despite having to water an awful lot due to the drought, the garden is doing well. I added a flowerbed and tomato garden out by the alley. I'm growing lots of bee-and-butterfly-attracting beneficial plants there to help as pollinators. We have two dwarf apple trees back there as well.

Last weekend, I spent a little (not enough!) time over at Jo*el's sister Emil*ly's house because the Sund*seth women and friends were doing a quilting weekend over there. There were also 3 very cute little girls present with their mommies. Below is "Emmie", the daughter of good family friend Jess. I just wanted to eat her up.





And those nieces are pretty charming too.


Unfortunately, I came home to a very feverish boy. Before the ibuprofin:


After:



No*ah is very into any type of encyclopedia sort of book right now. This may be where he got the idea to start drawing anatomically correct people... I'm kind of hoping that phase passes before their very art-focused summer camp starts.

Thankfully, Noah perked up after a couple of days, just in time for Ollie to get sick.


The one blessing in all the staggered sickness is that we sometimes get a lot of time with the boys individually that way. In this case, N slept lots for 2 days, and then O did, so there was lots of quiet time with each boy.



No*ah is so focused on drawing that he sometimes falls asleep with the drawing or coloring book in his bed. If you go upstairs in the morning, he's usually sitting up in bed drawing or reading. He likes a good amount of alone time, that boy. He and I are an awful lot alike.



No*ah and Mabel.





We still get lots of pretty eggs, and right now we also have lots of lettuce, what's left of the spinach, herbs, kale, radishes, and collards. Peas will be next, along with the first onions and carrots, then broccoli, beans, cukes, tomatoes, cabbage, potatoes, and squash. Good thing we're one of the many Americans planning a "staycation" this year!

There have been some (very positive) changes in my job, and I have more responsibility than I did, and lots of interesting and engaging projects to work on. We're launching a philanthropic foundation within the medical center that will hopefully garner more resources to help our most vulnerable patients with crucial needs. I'm in a revenue-producing department, which should theoretically give me a bit of job security. On the other hand, the hospital itself is really hurting from statewide budget cuts that run so deep that some essential programs will have to be cut, potentially leaving some of Minnesota's poorest patients with nowhere to go if they are uninsured and need treatment for chronic conditions like diabetes, HIV, or even cancer. I was supposed to go to 3/4 time on July 1st, but that's been postponed until at least October because it's just not pallatable to increase anyone's hours after a round of layoffs. It is very sad to see the layoffs, because there's just no fat left to cut, and I am angry that this was allowed to happen.

It's going to be a hectic summer, with little time off, because if I can't get paid for the extra time, I definately can't be taking time off when the foundation launch is happening, as I'm very needed at the moment. Because I can't get away from work, we won't be going out to New York this summer, unfortunately. We do plan a couple of short camping trips, though, and some daytime adventures as well, and my mom was kind enough to agree to come here in August instead.

The boys were both supposed to go to an overnight at Grandma and Grandpa's house last night, but No*ah decided he wasn't quite ready to sleep away from home without mama and daddy.


Ollie sure was, though. He was so excited, and it was so cute to watch him excitedly go off with Grandma, trailing his little suitcase behind him.

Today at church, he told everyone all about how he got to "go in the same bath as where grandma goes in", and cuddle between his grandparents this morning, and eat lots of french toast. No*ah had a friend to play with after Ollie left yesterday evening, but when I tucked him in that night, he asked whether I was going to call Grandma and see if Ollie was OK. I told him I would, and he said, "You should tell her to make sure she gives Ollie some breakfast in the morning". I told him I thought she's have it covered. When I picked Ollie up this morning and drove the boys to church, I looked in the rear-view mirror, and the boys were grinning at each other. "I missed you a little bit, " said Ollie. "I missed you a lot", said No*ah. They held hands and giggled for a minute, and then started to try and top each others' tall tales like they always do.

We hope you're having a relaxing summer. Feel free to leave a comment and let me know you're reading!

inside

Just a few pictures. No*ah got into the box of photos from the bookshelf in the guest room. This is the scene we came upon when Quiet Time was over. He had some splainin' to do, but so did we. Turns out, there was life before he was born!


Every time we go to the park, No*ah gets himself spinning too fast on a tire swing or something and freaks out, and Ollie spends as much time as he can upside down. After the long winter, I'd kind of forgotten about Oli*ver's fearlessness.


There is a thin line between cuddling and wrestling in our house.


This bed, now in our guest room, belonged to Jo*el's grandmother Eloise. We're attempting to see that it survives another generation, but can make no guarantees.



No*ah clearly hasn't inherited my (Mink*ke's) marginal fine motor skills; I'm amazed at how neatly he prints.




Dancing to the Music Tog*ether CD:


Olive*r is kind of a couch lizard sometimes. He loves to cuddle on the couch under a blanket watching everyone else in the house do their thing. I join him whenever I can.

blooms, birds, and boys

We went to the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden again this past weekend for an afternoon hike. The boys had a lot of steam to run off after a morning art class, during which I had coffee with a friend. Do you know how long it's been since I could just have coffee with a friend on a Saturday morning? Heaven. The boys do love their class - they are so into drawing and painting right now, it reminds me of when they learned how to walk, and I'd go in to them at night and see their little legs still moving. They've been through a sketchbook each in a week. Now if they could stick to paper 100% of the time instead of about 95%, we'd be golden.



Being in a woodland garden is always a shock to me in April. Our gardens are still coming up and little is blooming, but this garden is full of gorgeous native blooms.





Ollie loves the "straws" - (hollow reeds). I had to remind him of the incident last year where he sucked up a mouthful of bog water through one.











The last quarter of our walk was rather brisk, as Noah confessed to having some urgent business to attend to. The boys were very excited to tell everyone (including their Sunday School teacher today) that there was room for all of us.



I may have mentioned this, but we've been really into bird watching this spring, mostly out our front window. Oli*ver especially can identify several, including their calls, which is a lot of fun. They're also studying birds and nests in school, so it's a common topic these days. In another year, we may be able to see them at the garden without scaring them away before we get to them.

dirt

Somehow, not too much time seems to go by before I'm thinking and writing about gardening much of the time again. We’ve been spending a lot of time in the garden over the last couple of weeks. It’s interesting to see how the boys have adjusted to being outside and all that comes with it. We spent very little time outside this winter, due to a combination of colds, a lot of high-pollution days, and extreme cold. Any of those 3 things mean that O*liver’s asthma will be affected, and that pretty much covered the winter. So while we are definitely an outdoorsy family, loving to garden and hike and spend hours at the park, sledding and skating have not really been our thing. Olive*r’s asthma is getting better, though. We tried (per his ped's advice) to take him down to one neb per day, and that didn't work out, but he’s done better with colds this winter. He’s running around like the energetic four-year-old he is, and we’re not hearing as much coughing (he doesn’t wheeze, but coughs with asthma). Next winter should be even better.

But because we’ve hardly been outside for months, it’s all kind of new again. In the first few muddy days that it was warm enough to go outside, the boys were really sensitive to getting dirty. “Where did my mud-and-nature-loving boys go?”, I thought, as they complained about muddy fingers and slightly wet pant cuffs. In another week or so, though, they were back to mucking in the compost, splashing in puddles at the Tamarack Bog, playing in the leaves I raked up, and ignoring their dirty knees and hands. They’ve also been watching the birds, especially the cardinal pair that has spent a lot of time in our lilac and pussywillow bushes, and watching for the bulbs we planted last fall to pop up.

Yesterday was another planting day – we have peas, spinach, garlic, and onions in the ground, and yesterday we added lettuce seeds. After having run around with their trucks and playing “sea boat” on the hideous plastic structure that will likely be with us for another season, they became interested in what I was doing. N*oah asked to help prep the bed, and carefully broke up the soil with a hand rake. It took him a long time while I sifted compost 20 feet away, and he carefully broke up section by section, his brow furrowed in concentration. I filled the wheelbarrow with compost—oh, do I have a ton of gorgeous compost this year!—and the boys took turns throwing it into the bed by hand.

That was a mad giggle fest, and about 80% of the compost landed where it was supposed to. Then the boys took turns raking it in and smoothing the soil. I helped No*ah make furrows with a stick, and he and O*liver took turns taking tiny lettuce seeds from my hands and dropping them in the furrows where I’d point. Mid-way through planting seeds, N*oah looked at the seed in his hand, and then looked at me with genuine shock. “Mama!”, he said. “This tiny seed is gonna be a whole lettuce plant!” I told him that I think about how amazing that is every time I plant, and that it never ceases to feel like a surprise when the seeds turn into seedlings, and the seedlings turn into plants, and the plants feed us. He was grinning from ear to ear and doing that little puppy-like wiggle I love. Then Oliv*er happily watered everything while No*ah got the chickens back in the coop with a little tossed corn. We were all in a great mood for the rest of the evening, and they were very proud of their helping. And, wow – they took longer than I would have, but they did some real work, work that’s hard on my back. I got to sit and lean against the coop with some seeds in my hand.

Gardening with kids isn’t always like that, of course. I’ve learned that most of all, they need to be able to come to me. They don’t respond nearly as well when I have a fixed agenda of what we’ll be doing—that “project” mindset is much more effective for adults than young children—and sometimes they do their own thing entirely, or interfere, or even act up. Sometimes I’m just not quite patient enough to let them have enough control to really have fun and feel included. But I would gladly deal with several such afternoons for just one like yesterday’s, and that magic does happen regularly. We enjoy our time together, the boys learn a lot, and most kids eat better when they help to grow what they eat. I hope it continues to be interesting and fun for them, but I’m not going to spend a lot of energy on that-– I’m just going to make it available to them on a regular basis, and hope for the best. They’re also finally old enough where I can say, “I’ve got to get some compost on those garden beds. We’re going to go outside and play after your snack.” They can understand that I have something I've actually got to get accomplished whether or not they choose to be involved. I can even get out there ahead of them and give them some extra time to get their rain boots on. And then what kid doesn’t like playing with a hose, or a wheelbarrow, or foraging for peas, or throwing a little dirt?

Part of what I love so much about gardening is the constant reminder that I can do my best, nurture the soil, allow proper access to light and air, arrange things in a wise partnership of plants, encourage the good bugs to discourage the bad, but ultimately, the control isn’t mine, but God’s. God is the designer, the bringer of sun, and wind, and rain, warm air and cold. God is the reason I’m even here, digging under the spring sun and believing that the plants will come up and the flowers will bloom. I am a worrier, and a bit of a control freak and it’s easy for me to act as if I am the sole actor in my life. These days, everything feels out of control as people both far and near to me suffer due to the state of our economy. Like a lot of people, I crave control and certainty in these times. But, ultimately, I don’t control anything entirely, including the final outcome of my best efforts, hard as that can be to accept. And sometimes our failures—and our collective hard times— lead to unexpected blessings, and the opportunity to grow and learn and we (or who and what we love) are eventually better off for them. That is as true for parenting and life in general as is it for gardening, and I cannot think of a more peaceful and satisfying way than growing something green and nourishing to be continually reminded of that. God, my boys, and I make good gardeners together, our hands in the dirt touching God’s hand in creation and knowing we are as blessed as anyone can be, right here and right now.