"Reunited and it feels so good"

Tonight is the first Sunday night in four weeks that Y. doesn't have to drive back to San Diego for another week of training... Hooray for his training being over and for us getting through another month apart! We're thrilled (and tired). We just baked some celebratory homemade brownies from Y.'s beloved source, Cook's Illustrated - our third recipe from their pages in two days.

Our friends Dan and Rebecca came up from Los Angeles for the weekend with their 10-wk old baby, Noah - see photo. Dan and Y. surfed three times in 24 hours, which was quite a feat -- Y. is improving and beginning to catch waves. Our mutual friend Andrea, who lives in Santa Barbara, threw a birthday party last night for her husband, so we got a babysitter and headed up for a night out. All of us lived in Boston together years ago, and it was a fun and reminiscent time.

Tomorrow Y. is off and we have a blissfully free and empty day. Our street is having a neighborhood Labor Day barbecue, so we'll stop in there for a bit to say hello. And otherwise just hang out with the kids and relax. Q. has begun walk with the assistance of a push walker (which J. refers to as a lawnmower for "moving" his lawn.) She's in a spurt of changing really fast just now...

Doing dinner...

When we moved in early July and reunited as a family, my traditional mother/housewife role seemed to go at once from from 0 to 60 mph... Or at least so it feels. This is particularly true in the arena of food preparation (though other areas, like ironing and house-cleaning, aren't far behind). When Y. got the call about his new job in mid-Dec, our children were 4 and 25 months old and Y.'s standard work schedule was a 3 - 11 pm shift five nights a week. Family meals were sporadic and usually came in the form of waffle breakfasts or homemade pizza lunches that were spearheaded by Y., our family gourmand. While I can cook, I don't love to and haven't done so with much regularity in my adult life. In NH I fed myself and J. our dinners in a healthy but utilitarian fashion when Y. worked evenings -- and then left for six months.

Suddenly here I am in California, my husband works a basic 9 - 5 Monday through Friday; for the first time in eight years, he's home for dinner; and our toddler is old enough to eat real food and sit with us. All positive devevlopments. I'm the one home all day, so getting dinner organized naturally falls to me. I'm more than willing to prepare it; I just feel a bit clueless. Brainstorming new meals to cook each day; figuring out the how-to; preparing shopping lists; comparison price-shopping for ingredients... It's all new. Where the average wife/mother has been working on this slowly but surely for years, I've suddenly arrived and I'm trying catch up. I definitely have a new appreciation for the energy and management capacity that go into this part of wife/mother life. To do it well clearly requires skill.

Grocery shopping in CA can be stressful because food really is noticeably more expensive than it is back home... most items are average 25% higher than we paid at home. The kids and I hit two to three sources a week to get our groceries - a local farm stand for produce; Trader Joe's for dairy, cheese, and sundries; and Von's, the local Shaw's-type store, for everything else. [J. sits in the main basket part of the cart and Q. sits in the front, strapped in... So far it's working OK.] All-in-one, inexpensive Market Basket is looking really appealing right about now...! I'm working on developing a weeklong meal plan that I can follow to help guide my shopping and cooking, like lots of moms do. It can't be rocket science, right??

"Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy..." (J. Denver)

Y. is a proud and undying John Denver fan; he most frequently refers to him as "the late John Denver, God rest his soul." So needless to say, we have been listening to a lot of J.D. since our reunion in early July. [I can't say that the kids and I listened to him a lot while Y. was away this spring.] Y. has even trained J. on this point: if you ask "Who's the best musician in the world?" - J. will reply, "John Denver!" without missing a beat.

Sunshine on John Denver's shoulders may make him happy enough to sing about, but it hasn't been making me so jubilant this week. I developed a rash from the spray-on SPF 50 sunscreen I recently bought for the kids, and my arms and legs have been covered in itchy red bumps for four days now (nevermind that I haven't applied any since it broke out on Thursday morning.) I finally cracked yesterday and bought some Benadryl anti-itch cream, which has not provided any noticeable relief.

The sunscreen issue is a new one. At home our strategy was basically to throw sun hats on the kids when outdoors and call it a day. Their faces were shaded and that sufficed. That seems inadequate here since we spend more time outside and thus are generally in eternal direct sun. One of my in-laws' first comments when they visited was how bronze we all looked - not a word one wants used to describe one's fair toddlers. (And you see attractive 30-something women here whose faces look 10 years older from weathering-- a fellow New England friend of ours calls them 'leatherbacks.' I don't aspire to be one.) While I thought a spray-on option might assauge the distasteful task of applying sunscreen to squirming, resistant children, this has clearly backfired. Though at least J. and Q. have proven immune, so far, to the spray-on rash their mom is sporting!

Birthday time!

Today our sweet little Q. is one year old. It's at once hard and easy to believe, as parenting seems to ever encompass both slow-moving and fast-moving aspects that occur simultaneously. It suffices to say that she is so deeply ingrained in our family and our psyches that we can't imagine life without her.

She has become quite a climber - more so that J. ever was - and she also absolutely loves water in a way that he never has. She's ecstatic and fearless in the bathtub, throwing her chubby little body around with abandon. She's also a real laugher and enjoys nothing more than a good giggle-fest with her brother. I wish I could say that Q's eating skills, always her biggest challenge, have improved as she's grown but alas, they have not. She puked up half her lunch just today as the taste/texture didn't quite suit her (most don't). If I let her she would take all her meals in the form of spoon-fed pureed foods like a 6-month old and be as happy as a clam.

Our neighbors Chuck and Kim and their four kids are coming over tomorrow afternoon for some pizza and cake, which will make things feel more celebratory (though of course, birthdays for one-year olds are all for family and photo-op and not at all for kids, who are clueless). We found an outdoor table and chairs on craigslist that Y., who unexpectedly got today off, is picking up even now... Which will be useful for our little party.

Reentry, continued

Reentry is a topic I've often dealt with in my consulting work for high-risk populations- reentry for prisoners coming out; reentry for juvenile delinquents returning home after boot camp experiences. The early days aren't the ones that need the most attention, since enthusiasm is high and intentions are good and front-of-mind. It's the ensuing weeks and months, when resources thin out and things get tiring and trying, that 'reentry' is most apt to go awry.

I'm living out this experience a bit myself. This month's frustrations are more frustrating than last month's because I'm just so tired of it. Shouldn't things be leveling off by now, not the other way around? Numerous areas of the house/yard need 'attention' and aggravate me when I let my guard down, and my thin budget and limited bargain-shopping capacity feel inadequate to meet the needs. Returning things that don't work is time-consuming "live" and expensive for stuff bought online; I'm growing unenthusiastic about both the customer service line at Wal-Mart and UPS guys.

The fact that Y. is away for four weeks adds to this. We both want to settle in and feel thwarted by his absence, and our various apprehensions about adjusting to life here grow in our minds as we're unable to work through them in real life. We've never been good at relationship-by-phone call, and even our in-person weekend time hasn't been the best ever - not too surprising given the circumstances.
Another 'wait on the Lord' experience, it seems, as this too shall pass. And of course, that is the big success ingredient for reentry - perseverance...

It's a hard knock life for 3-yr old boys...

We enjoyed a nice visit, both entertaining and restful, with our friends down in El Cajon, a town just northeast of San Diego. They bought and rennovated a lovely 1950's house, and their tiered backyard with views overlooking the valley was a great place to spend time, especially in the evening as we watched the moon rise over a delicious dinner. The Welds were very gracious hosts in every way.

Andy is an old friend whose family and mine have long been close and are, in many ways, two peas in the traditional New England pod. So it was fun to compare notes on CA with him and his San Diego native wife Emily, both of whom had great insights.

Equally fun was the amusement provided by their son Michael and J., who were born within weeks of each other and became fast friends. Their favorite activities was pushing brooms around the floor, pretending they were sweeping, and wearing hard hats. Here they are pictured doing both. Michael will be providing twofold 'inspiration' to J. (though of course J. doesn't yet know it) in coming weeks: he is potty trained and he sleeps in a big-boy bed. Michael's room contains both his big-boy bed and his old crib, so the boys slept together and had their first ever slumber party. They were predictably up till after 9 chattering about trucks and cars, which was sweet, but they surprised us by actually slept till nearly 7. Activities of Q. and Michael's 4-month old sister Kathryn were less noteworthy - at least this time around.

The kids and I had eventful drives both down to El Cajon on Saturday morning and back last night. About two hours into the trip down and without any warning or precursor, J. threw up all over himself. Twice. He'd eaten 2 1/2 cereal bars for breakfast and obviously they didn't sit well. We pulled over and gas-station-showered him and his carseat with wipes and changed all his clothes. Truly gross. Thankfully a one-off incident. En route home we came upon an accident and sat for an hour plus without moving more than about 5 miles, making the 3-hour trip a 5-hour one. So far LA-area traffic is proving its reputation...

What? Thunderstorms in the summer?

The strangest thing happened here yesterday afternoon. It rained. I was outside in the backyard and felt a few drops. What on earth could that be? I thought. Surely not RAIN? Though I had observed it was growing eerily humid in the afternoon and noted that it could almost feel like a New England August day... Just a few plunky drops though, that I would have missed it I hadn't happened to be out.

Then at 2 AM I was awakened by the loudest and most intense thunderstorm I can ever remember hearing. It went on for perhaps an hour, and the power went out briefly. This type of weather is so highly unusual that one of the women in my mom's group actually started an online discussion about it and posted photos (e.g., this one. I certainly was not sitting next to my window snapping shots at that hour.). She and several other moms had sat with their children watching it endlessly in the middle of the night... Borderline institutional behavior to the thinking of a New England, thunderstorms-are-run-of-the-mill occasions mother like me.

This normal sunny Ventura morning you'd never guess we had a huge storm last night, except that large brown snails could be found on our driveway, to the delight of J. and Q... Though the one that Q. got her hands on did not last for long, poor thing. This was while we drawing sidewalk chalk on the driveway - Q. eating the chalk, and J. scribbling back and forth one single vertical line with the yellow, saying the picture was of himself, Q., mommy, daddy, and Angus. Amusing.

Tomorrow morning we are off bright and early to visit our long-time friends the Welds at their house north of San Diego - Y., who's been down there all week, will meet us there. First road trip on the west coast...!

Conclusion to the church hunt

After trying out four churches, we finally decided on Ventura Missionary Church. No church is perfect, of course, but we do like it and feel comfortable there, and it seems the best fit of those we tried. An added bonus is that our fireman neighbors - Chuck, Kim, and family - go there too.

On Sunday the sermon topic was "blessed are the persecuted" as they're doing a series on the Beatitudes, and they did an interview with the church's very bright and articulate missions pastor. The guy was a cop for 22 years with expertise in hostage negotiation, and since the 1980's he has headed up the world's only consulting and assistance ministry to missionaries in high-security or abduction situations. We found his commentary fascinating and compelling, especially Y, as we'd never really contemplated the security aspects of the missionary movement. 120 missionaries taken hostage in the past 20 years, and half of these murdered. Info here. Y introduced himself when the service ended, so who knows, maybe this is something we'll learn more about. It all served to make us feel that we were in the right place.

Y left on Sunday night to head back to San Diego again for the week. As his parents had left by shuttle on Saturday morning, the kids and I are home alone. The past two days have been surprisingly refreshing and quieting. It feels like the dust has settled, and we now have our bearings.

Playground pair

Settling in

It's amazing the difference that curtains can make... and this coming from a not-especially-domestic girl who can't sew. But thank God for my mother-in-law, who spent perhaps 8 or 10 hours over the past two weeks on curtain-sewing projects, blessing three rooms in our house with her gifts. The fact that she actually said, while sitting on the floor cutting fabric before hemming, "I'd forgotten how much I like sewing" is about the only reason I'm not wracked with guilt at how much time and labor she put into it all.

Anyway, our rooms are curtained and I am thrilled. Our bedroom in particular, pictured here, looks 100% better than previously. A house painted entirely white can look very sterile, and somehow this seemed especially true in our room, where the whole back wall is a 12-foot window. And added bonus: I now no longer have to wear my Jet Blue eye mask from 5:30 - 7 AM to continue sleeping.

It's become clear that some focus needs to go next into the backyard since, though it's small, it could become much more comfortable and usable for us... which would make us feel more at home at home, so to speak. Y. especially is at rather a loss since, at the farm, he would just head off with J. to do any number of (for him) fun projects like feed the cows, collect eggs, mend a fence. Now the only outdoor activities offered are blowing bubbles - our kids' seemingly endless favorite pasttime, throwing a ball, or our personal favorite: picking up Angus' poop with a plastic bag. [Suburbanites that we've become... depressing to have sunken to this after his toileting freedom, running loose on a 20-acre farm.] We're in the market for a small children's playset and some outdoor furniture...

For me, the 'settling in' effort has been greatly helped by welcomed R &R that my in-laws' visit has provided, which has allowed atypical extravagances: running every other day, a morning girls' outing to get coffee and pedicures with my neighbor Kim, and a lovely massage today which Y surprised me with as a gift. They have been wonderful.

Tourist time in southern Cali

It's been a full few days here in sunny California with the in-laws. With Y. out of town, our little troupe of two seniors, two toddlers (well, Q. isn't quite there yet but almost), and myself having been loading into the van and hitting the sites. On Monday we went to the historic Buenaventura Mission, the founding site of Ventura, built in 1782. The Franciscan monk who founded it was a Spaniard named Junipero Serra, who is known to posteriority as the "Apostle of California" (or so says the plaque under his statue). The beautiful old church is still in use today, the small gardens are lovely, and the tiny museum seemed interesting but of course, with said toddlers in tow, we spent approximately 90 seconds therein. There's also a giant wooden cross nearby, directly up a very steep hill from the mission - I christened the low gears on the van climbing up to it- which overlooks all of Ventura and is very scenic indeed. This is the site where Junipero et al actually first established themselves.

Yesterday we headed up the coast to Santa Barbara to introduce Nona and Grandpa to the zoo. As it was J's second time, he was rather more directive, shall we say, than in his previous visit... wanting to see the elephants when we were at the monkeys, the giraffes when we were at the elephants, and so on. A glimpse into our future, I'm guessing. We had a nice time, though, and saw the two lions - apparently named Chadwick and Gingerbread - closer up than I've ever seen lions before.

We rounded out the evening by hitting a famous California landmark, the esteemed "In N Out Burger." It's been in business since 1948 - truly an original 'fast food' restaurant - and they have changed basically nothing on the menu, and little in the ambience, since then. They serve JUST burgers, fries, and drinks (hard to believe in comparison to the arrayed menus of McDonald's, Burger King, etc) and they actually make all their food fresh right there... nothing frozen or pre-made. I'd been once before in 1997 when on a legendary cross-country road trip with my dear friend Lora, but my appreciation for fresh foods has increased considerably since then. The food was delicious - we all enjoyed it. Nona even bought a T-shirt!

Fun facts from California...

Today is our one-month anniversary here in the Golden State.
Now that we've acclimated somewhat, and in the absence of any breaking news on this end, I thought it might be fun to throw out a few items we've noted...

--There are barely any drive-throughs compared to New England. No drive-through Starbucks (or Dunkin' Donuts since of course, sniff sniff, those are entirely absent here), no drive-through pharmacies, no drive-through teller banking. Bummer for those of us with two kids in carseats in the back seat...

--You can catch a movie here for $3/show. And this in the most expensive state in the union! Y. and I were shocked and delighted when we stumbled on the cheap theatre last night and caught "The Happening." (No one said the movies they play there are current. And the film is certainly nothing to write home about, FYI.)

--Newly purchased vehicles have no licence plates on them. The registration is taped to the inside of the windshield, so cops and others can see that the car is registered. We've now had our van for more than three weeks, and the plates still haven't arrived in the mail. And every time we see our plate-less vehicle, we still think it looks weird and marvel that they let us drive it that way on the roads!

Y. leaves tomorrow for his four week stint in San Diego. We are enjoying this weekend with our kids and his parents before he goes, heading up to Ojai for a poke-around this afternoon in the mountains. His employer is switching pay systems to an evidently poorly-designed alternate to the GS system, one of the few of their type electing to do so, and there is general concern and unrest among the ranks about this...