Time Flies

2009












and 2010












Does time always go this fast? Parents, please tell me it slows down a little. I can't believe it's been a whole year since that first picture was taken! It seems like just yesterday. And I know I'm going to be saying the same thing about this year's photo, all too soon.

Fall Fest

Luckily for me (and the state of the blog), Keith uploaded pictures directly from the camera onto my Netbook from this past weekend, so I actually have something to show!

We went to a local fruit farm this past weekend for their Family Fun Fest. It was awesome. There were the usual enjoyments of a Fall outing:

• gorgeous blue sky with fluffy white clouds, contrasting with brilliant red, orange, and yellow leaves
• weather cold enough for a jacket, but warm enough to be comfortable outside
• apple cider
• pumpkins.
  

Plus, they had so much more:

• Many, many slides
  
  

• A clubhouse in the woods (with additional slide off to the right)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• A corn maze
  

• A wagon ride
• Tee pees
• A sunflower field

I don't even know what else. I definitely can't describe it all. We got there and Eleanor was immediately in love. I asked her what she wanted to do first. She flapped her arms, as she tends to do when incredibly excited, and said in awe, "I don't know!!!"

It was a really good time.

Storing in the Cloud?

Right, so, my posting lately has been dismal. There's a couple reasons for this. Work (which is a different post) and our external hard drive.

A few years ago, we bought an external hard drive, which we use to store all of our pictures and music, as well as some other miscellaneous files. Okay, pretty much everything. It's hooked up to the network and we can access it from any computer, so it's very convenient.

Except, of course, when it's not. And it hasn't been for the past month. The drive has been exceedingly flaky, I can never get to any of the pictures—folders just start disappearing and reappearing. Keith has been tearing his hair out over the issue for a few days now, without a lasting solution.

It's freaking me out. At this point, I think everything is still there and we'll be able to retrieve it. But I wouldn't say I'm 100% certain. And that's every picture we've ever taken of Eleanor.

We've talked before about online storage, but have never seriously considered it, since we're always loathe to add another monthly expense into the too-tight budget. But we're starting to wonder if it's actually something we can do without.

Do any of you use online backup? How do you make sure your files and digital memories don't disappear?

Road Trip FROM Alabama

Okay, so I was very optimistic about the trip. And the trip down was good; we did enjoy the wedding and the family and showing off Eleanor. The problems came on the way back.

Where to start?

Well, did you know that Ford Escape Hybrid's apparently have an error message that says, "Pull over safely" and then shuts off power to the engine? They do! And that's exactly what happened to us just barely into Tennessee on Sunday afternoon.

The original plan had been to drive 9 hours on Sunday, staying at Keith's sister's house in Louisville Sunday night, and driving the final 6 hours back on Monday. We were going to be back in time for me to teach my evening class.

Instead, we spend Sunday night at a hotel in Tennessee. Because it was Sunday night, the car hadn't even been towed or looked at yet. By 10 o'clock Monday morning, it was clear I wouldn't be back in time for my evening class—the first time I've had to cancel a class since I started teaching.

In the end, Keith, Eleanor, and I made it home only 6 hours later than originally planned, which seems like a minor miracle to me. It involved a lot of help from my in-laws; we had actually driven separately to the Cincinnati-area from my parents, and left our car at Keith's parents' house in case of a Reds' game 4 of the play-offs. So the revised plan was: my parents rented a car and drove us 3+ hours up to Louisville, where we met Keith's parents and our brother-in-law at his house. To get there, Keith's parents had driven two cars—their own, and ours—so we could leave from there. We all ate some lunch (Thanks again, Jeremy!) and my parents quickly left to drive back down to Tennessee and see what was going on with their car.

We hung around a bit longer (but not much) and then Keith, Eleanor and I piled into our car to head up to Cleveland. At the same time, Keith's parents headed back to Northern Kentucky and Jeremy went back to work.

Fast forward a few hours and we're safely home. Our own beds! Our own bathroom! It was still very quiet, since Beckett and Gomez were staying with family, but it was good to be home.

Road Trip to Alabama

This is the blog entry I wrote last week, which I never got a chance to actually post:

As you read this, we are into day 2 of our road trip to Alabama. My cousin is getting married this weekend, and we will be in attendance.

Hopefully, by the time you read this, we're back on the road for the shorter leg of this 15-hour, one-way trip. It's times like these that remind me how ridiculously large the U.S. is. We live at the very northern end of Ohio, which means we spend over 4 hours just driving through our state. Then, when we reach the northern tip of Alabama, we still have another 5 hours to go, since my aunt lives on the Gulf Coast at the very southern edge of the state.

I'm looking forward to seeing family and having a mini-vacation. I've never been to Alabama; I've never spent much time in the South at all, so that should be interesting. And, clearly, it's a less arduous journey than the one we took to Costa Rica last Fall, for Keith's cousin's wedding.

We've managed to con my parents into taking us along for the ride, which means:

• More legroom yet less gas, because my parents have a Ford Escape Hybrid
• More Eleanor entertainers! Someone else to play finger puppets with!
• More drivers! (The exclamation point is purely for Keith's sake. Since he does 99.7% of all the driving, this one doesn't really affect me as much.)
  

The plan is to drive about 9 hours on Thursday and 6 hours on Friday. Spend a whole entire day in Alabama, then drive 9 hours on Sunday and 6 hours on Monday to get back in time for me to teach my evening class Monday night. Send speedy thoughts our way!

Like a Swiss Watch

When Eleanor was just a tiny baby, I tried to imagine what her voice would sound like, once she actually started talking. Just what was going through that tiny, perfect head of hers, anyway?

She's been talking for awhile now. But as her command of the language grows, her personality is becoming more and more evident. I know it's early days, but I'm so happy to report that she loves words. She soaks them up like her once-crunchy Rice Krispies soak up milk all morning long, until she decides to eat them soggy and limp at snacktime. (I'd like to think the love of words comes from me. The soggy cereal tendencies, I have no idea.)

And, in a way that I would never expect from a 2-year-old, her understanding of the language is very precise. If I use a term for something, that IS what the something is, and cannot be changed. Once I read a book a certain way a few times, that IS the way it will be read. And she doesn't hesitate to correct me, although she's usually polite about it. A few examples:

• The other week, I was trying to offer her water in her water bottle, but for some reason the word "bottle" was escaping me. I held it up and called it her water "jug." She ran across the kitchen to me. "No, mommy! Water bottle. I'm sorry Mommy, water bottle."
  


• Last night, we read Corduroy and Ella Takes the Cake at bedtime. In Corduroy, I messed up the page where he comes upstairs and sees "rows and rows of beds." For some reason, I read it as "rows and rows of beads."
  "Beds!" she piped up as I turn the page, already forgetting what I had read.
  
  In Ella Takes the Cake, at one point Ella asks her mother a question and "'You are helping,' her mother replied."
  I read it as, "'You are helping,' her mother said."
  Even though the meaning was the same, Eleanor still corrected me. "Her mother replied!" I had to go back a page and confirm that yes, Eleanor, the word is "replied" and not "said."
  

When she was younger, if I missed a word or switched it out, I just kept going. I can't get away with that anymore. She's watching (listening to?) me like a hawk. Just because she likes soggy cereal doesn't mean she's stupid.

What I really need to do is post a video of her "reading" one of the many books that she's memorized. Unfortunately, the only good video I have of that right now is her in her underwear, swinging her legs around, and wearing her hot pink belt as a necklace. Once I get a video that's more appropriate for public viewing, I'll post it.

A feline excuse

So, it's naptime. My plan was to eat lunch, do some laundry, clean the basement (sneak in some TV watching while I do it ....), catch up on the blog, etc.

I fell apart at laundry. We've gotten into a bad habit of washing all the laundry, but never actually putting it away. It goes from the dirty hamper to the washer, dryer ... and onto the couch, and then back onto our persons. The drawers/closet are not really involved.

I have a load of laundry in now, but there were already two loads on the couch. After putting the laundry in the washer, I did get the lunch and pick up the basement a little bit. By the time I was ready to fold the existing laundry .... it was too late. Somehow, I've lost my motivation.













A nap is sounding really good.

Delivery

I'm expecting a student to show up on my doorstep any day now.

Ever since I've started teaching, I've become paranoid about seeing students outside of class. Not that it's such a terrible thing, but I always feel like I have to stop and think before I leave the house in my yoga pants and ratty old sweatshirt. What are the chances I'll run into a student? I wonder. I'm pretty young, for a professor, and so appearing professional and, I don't know, suitably academic? concerns me.

But even worse that the fear of running into students in public is the fact that it's very likely, at some point, one of them will deliver a pizza to my house. Last semester a student told me that he delivered pizza, and that's when it first occurred to me. Every time we ordered pizza, I cowered out of sight just in case. And now this semester, a student was wearing a pizza hat and I asked him if he worked there. He said that he is, indeed, a delivery driver for this pizza chain. And he works at my local restaurant.

I might as well just accept that it's going to happen eventually. But it's very disconcerting to imagine a student seeing my house, my unweeded garden, my living room strewn with toys. Especially if it's a night that we've resorted to ordering in pizza, that means it's even more likely that the house is a complete mess. And I'm a complete mess.

The only bright side is that, I think we can all agree, Keith needs to answer the door for the pizza deliveries from now on.

A Familiar Colleague

I've been running into my Mom a lot lately. Which is kind of weird, because she lives across town, 45 minutes away. Except it's perfectly normal, because she is now teaching English on my campus!

In June she retired after 30+ years of teaching K-8 students. She was in a pull-out program, where she would take a few kids who tested below average and give them extra tutoring. So, to recap, she's had a lot of experience with students up to age 13, in small groups—no grading or lesson plans.

She knew she wanted to do something else after retirement, but she hadn't decided what. Her Masters in Education makes her eligible to teach the developmental classes (below ENG-101), and she had expressed a potential interest in it. At some point. Maybe. Just the Reading course, ENG-096.

But then, suddenly, 3 days before the semester started a professor told the department head he wasn't coming back. There were 2 or 3 classes to fill .... I volunteered my Mom for ENG-099 (mostly writing and grammar), and here we are! I figured she'd curse me at first, and be incredibly nervous, but eventually (hopefully?) she'd be glad.

It's so fun to be colleagues with her. I love sharing lesson plans, tips and tricks, discussing what worked for me and what hasn't. Plus, she has so much more experience in education than I do; she knows about so many resources and technologies that I'd never heard of. I'm sure her students already love her, and I'm very confident that she's doing much better than she gives herself credit for.

And what's even better? My older sister (Masters in Library Science) is also going to tutor in the writing center. People have started to look at me funny, and ask just how many family members I have who are involved in education.

I think the campus is safe from a family take-over, though. I don't think my electrical engineering Dad is really looking for a side job. And my younger sister (with a Masters in Special Education) is BUSY watching Eleanor when I'm at work, so she's definitely not available for another job. I would do everything I could to stop it, because it's so wonderful to have her taking care of Eleanor!

I'm so excited for Amy to start working on campus, too. Is it silly to picture sitting with my Mom and Sister in the cafeteria, talking about writing, pedagogy, and educational theories? Just thinking about it puts a smile on my face. (Which is bad, because I AM sitting in the cafeteria as I type this, but sitting alone.)

Youtube Play

In class this week, I planned a new lesson that didn't go very well. It involved playing a few videos from the Youtube Play biennial competition for the class. I wanted them to write down some main points about the videos, and then we were going to talk about how we'd group them for division-classification essays.

Here's one of the videos I used:


And another one:


This lesson didn't go well for two reasons, the main one being that I really suck at explaining division-classification essays. Honestly, I really didn't entirely understand the concept myself, even though it's the second time I've taught it. I just kept thinking of it like comparison-contrast, and couldn't get that out of my head, even though that's not really right. I kept talking, and looking out at a sea of blank faces.

Also, the lesson failed in my first class because Youtube was soooo slow. I learned my lesson and got all of the videos up and buffering long before I needed them, so they were fully buffered come show time in my second class. That time, they seemed to enjoy the videos more and it generated more discussion about the content .... but in the end, I still don't think they understand division-classification. Because I didn't understand it.

This was a good lesson for me that the content (which I still think was very cool!) is only secondary to my own understanding and explanation of the material.

Buried

I've clearly been MIA from the blog for the past couple weeks. I have to say, this semester has been really challenging so far. It's my first semester of teaching 3 classes and wow. Three classes means THREE TIMES the grading. Who knew?!?

The past two weekends, I've had about 60 essays to read, grade, and respond to. Along with birthday parties, family activities, etc. My life has not been balanced.

But I am speaking in the past tense, hoping that it's better now. For the rest of the semester, I think the assignments are more spread out and manageable. I hope.

So hopefully regular posting will resume soon!

The Maternal Is Political

I think I've mentioned this book to quite a few people, but I've been reading The Maternal Is Political and loving it. It's a book of essays by women such as Ann Lamott, Nancy Pelosi, Benazir Bhutto, Cindy Sheehan, and many other wonderful writers whom I hadn't heard of before, but write with great purpose and clarity.

They are expressing many of the same frustrations and surprises I've been encountering as a new mother, but much more eloquently and with greater insight than I've been able to do. I know that I get frustrated, and I know there's some deeper reason for many of my minor, daily irritations, but I have a hard time even stopping to think long enough to get to the real reason. With this book, in some sense, these writers have revealed the reasons to me.

Many of the writers also have written columns or pieces for Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined. My sister Amy told me about the site awhile ago. I thought it looked interesting, bookmarked it, and never went back. It might become one of my homepages now, though.

Enjoy!

I have to pee on potty!

The big change from my last post about potty training is that Eleanor is actually telling us she has to go, instead of us always asking the question.

As you can see, we decided to go with stickers as potty reward; I'm trying to avoid food rewards as much as possible. What cracks us up about her Potty Board is that she now has, I don't know, maybe 30 stickers on it? But never fear—there's still plenty of white space. She puts all of the stickers on top of the letters. She doesn't really like to put them on the blank whiteness in the middle. Maybe it's too pretty to cover up?!?

When we first started, I said, "We'll see how it goes. I'm not saying it has to happen, just that we're going to try and if it doesn't happen we'll stop and try again later."

Now that it's been a couple weeks, I think it's really happening except I still can't get my head around it. She's so old! Are you really telling me I don't have to change diapers anymore? Or wash and fold the cloth diapers? It's such a huge change and it's been accomplished so gradually that I just don't believe it.

Of course, there are a few caveats. She's still in a diaper at night. We don't "change" diapers in that the diaper comes off in the morning and the big girl underwear goes on, never straight from one diaper to the next. Naptime has been pretty hit and miss (we've been washing a LOT of sheets), so I'm not sure what to do about that. I like that she doesn't want to be in diapers anymore, so I'm hesitant to stuff her into one for the nap. But when she wakes up from a nap soaking wet, nobody's happy.

We did make it through our first potty-trained trip to Kentucky very well. On Keith's suggestion, we took a little potty in the back of the car which was VERY IMPORTANT. Between driving to my parents' to drop off the pets, doing some shopping, and then driving to Kentucky, she used that little potty 4 times in one day. Times where, if we hadn't been able to open the back of car and plop her on the portable potty, we would have been in deep .... trouble.

I've been so worried about potty training for so long, I don't even know what's the next Big Thing. Reading? Counting? Learning a foreign language? All without any diapers!

The Writer's Inner Voices

For my class today, we talked about "Shitty First Drafts" by Anne Lamott. The overall gist of the piece (in case the title didn't give it away) is accepting that your first draft will not be any good, and you just need to get ideas down on paper and take it from there.

To start, I had the students do some freewriting on the "inner voices" they hear when they're trying to write. Lamott describes the characteristics of her own inner voices, and talks about how detrimental they are to her, in both the writing process and in her life in general. While the students wrote quietly, I also opened up my notebook and took my own advice. This is what I came up with:

What voices do I hear when I write? I feel like I start to ponder existential questions, instead of getting to the task at hand.

• Am I a writer?
• Was I meant to write?
• Do I really have anything to say?
• Hasn't it all been said already, by people much more successful and eloquent than I?
  

Although I guess it really depends on what I'm writing. If I'm writing for my blog, I compose a lot of it in my head before I ever get a chance to sit down and write. So once I do sit at the computer and open up a new blog post, the thoughts flow relatively easily.

If I'm writing fiction, I think I take the SFD approach and try to be a taskmaster. Tell myself to just keep my fingers moving, keep the words filling up the blank pages.

I also spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about how I'd spend the money, if I ever became a "successful" writer. I imagine paying off all my debt, traveling, feeling justified in furnishing and decorating a really nice, welcoming office space—no expense spared.My favorite artwork, the most ergonomic Herman Miller chair, a top-of-the-line sound system. Because, after all, this is a professional space now.

But then I remember, before all that, I need to write. And rewrite. And get it published, and get people to like it and buy it. And then I get depressed and ask myself whether it's even worth starting.

Back to school

This past week was the first week of classes.

I just kept thinking about how incredibly different this Fall feels from the same time last year. I had just been hired, I had NO IDEA what I was doing teaching, grading, lesson planning. It was all a mystery to me. I didn't even know what the process was for getting copies or how to find my classes.

This semester, I felt more excitement than nerves in the days leading up to the start of the semester. I walked into class, confident in my lesson planning and in my ability to teach my students what they needed to know. Or rather, I feel confident that I will do my best, and my best may not be the best ever, but it won't be the worst, either. And whether they actually learn it? Well, that is mostly out of my hands, and I am confident that I will not lose sleep when a student insists on failing my class by lack of effort and/or participation.

Outside of class, I ran into several former students. I got hugs and big smiles and exclamations of welcome. In the classroom, I met nearly 75 new students (I'm teaching 3 sections of ENG-101), who I am slowly getting to know. Who I can tease in class, who always has an opinion, who pays attention but will never raise a hand .... hopefully some of those will have hugs and smiles for me after the semester is over.

All week, in the back of my mind, I keep thinking, "Has it really only been a year?" It feels like a lifetime ago that everything was so new and scary and daunting. When I first started, I just kept telling myself that the first semester was the worst, and it would get better. It had to.

I'm so relieved to realize it's true. It's so much better than a year ago. And I'm looking forward to what this year will bring.

Do you have to go potty?

How about now?

And now?

We started potty training Eleanor when we got back from Vermont, and these are the words constantly on our lips. Every time I hold her on my hip, I get anxious. I start to wonder, Does my hip suddenly feel very hot and wet? Is she always this warm? Or is she peeing on me RIGHT NOW?

Despite my pee paranoia, so far, so good. She has had a few accidents, but not as many as I might have expected. She's peed at home, at her grandparents, at the Natural History museum ..... Let me clarify. She's peed in the potty at all of those places and more.

This weekend will be a real test: Our first trip down to visit Keith's family since the potty training started. I don't have any idea how long this trip will take. Just how many stops will we be making for Eleanor to sit on the potty? Or will we need to be washing out the car seat as soon as we get there?

I was going to say that we've been doing this long enough, and she's been successful enough, that I'm starting to believe this may actually stick. However, I'll reserve that statement for after we get back.

Vermont, in Conclusion

My blogging about the Vermont trip would be remiss if I didn't mention a few of the very odd coincidences that happened while we were there.

First, as I mentioned, a friend of Keith's family retired last Spring and has been hiking the Appalachian trail. What I didn't mention is that he was very, very close to our location in Vermont. The Appalachian Trail is over 2,000 miles long, only 150 of which are in Vermont, and we ended up in Vermont at the same time as Jerry. How crazy is that? We almost met up for a day with his wife, Sue, who is supporting him as he nears the finish.

Unfortunately, we missed Sue. But we did get to see one of Keith's cousins from New York City. The night before we left for Vermont, Anna posted on her Facebook that she was heading to a wedding in Vermont that weekend. Keith sent her a message and called her to say that we, too, were heading to Vermont. Where might you be?

Anna was close enough that she made it work, stopping by our campsite for a few hours on Sunday afternoon. It was so fun to be sitting in the woods in Vermont, catching up on life. The last time we saw Anna, we were on a beach in Costa Rica after her brother's wedding. It makes me wonder: Where will be meet up next? (Say "London," Fate! Please?!?)

Finally, after the trip was over, I wanted to relive some of it. I went on to our library's website to reserve some Vermont-related books. In addition to a plethora of guidebooks, I saw a book called Vintage Vermont Villainies by John Stark Bellamy II. That's weird, I thought, Isn't John Stark Bellamy II a Cleveland author?

And he was! He wrote seven true-crime books about his original home, Cleveland, before moving to Vermont. Along with the change of scenery, he changed his focus and is now telling the world about true crime in his new home.

We drove 9+ hours away from home, to come across all of these connections to home. This is one of those ways in that it seems like the world is a small place, getting smaller every day. But in a good way.

Vermont in Nature

One of the biggest surprises on the trip was how much Eleanor loves being in nature. Granted, she's always loved rocks. Playing with them, eating them, sitting in them, throwing them, putting them in her purse and carrying them around ... you get the idea.

But now I'm talking about down and dirty nature. The lake was just a short walk from our campsite. The first day we were there, Keith and Eleanor walked down to the lake and saw several boys catching salamanders and putting them in a pail. (Only to release them and do it all again.) They asked Eleanor if she wanted to hold one.

She said, "Yeah!," stuck her hand in the pail, and grabbed one by the tail. Keith stood there with his mouth open as the first salamander wriggled away and she stuck her hand back in the pail. Then yesterday, she picked up a worm. A worm! With no fear.

Not squeamish, this one! Nature's slime and gore doesn't scare her. I couldn't be more proud! I hate that I, like the rest of society, fall into stereotyping. Because Eleanor likes to wear dresses, play dress-up, carry a purse, and read, I guess I assumed she'd think slimy things were icky. I'm so glad that she's proved me wrong.

I hope that she is showing us all what individuality the next generation of women will be capable of. I know many mothers who try too hard to avoid "typical" girly things like dolls and pink and frills. But I think that it also has a place in a little girl's childhood, as long as it's not foisted upon her.

Eleanor can wear her pink dresses, have a tea party .... and then run outside to play with rocks, build a fort, and catch worms. Just like she should be able to wear a dress to work, choose her folders because they're pretty .... and be an incredibly competent, successful worker and leader.

Every morning, we went to the lake so that she could sing "Good morning, salamanders!" to wake them up. And every night, at bedtime, we went back down so that she could sing them to sleep and assure them she would be back the next morning. She is such an amazing, caring, observant little person. We had a wonderful time on vacation with her, getting to know her emerging personality. It means so much to me to have the opportunity to show her new places, and to help her realize that she has something to learn and to offer, wherever we might be.

Vermont in the Mountains

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we did get out and enjoy the natural beauty of the Green Mountains. Tuesday we drove just a couple miles to hike a part of the Appalachian Trail. A longtime friend of Keith's parents is currently hiking the entire trail, and we wanted to at least see a part of it.

The part of it we saw, however, was straight up and filled with rocks large and small. We gamely climbed, carrying Eleanor, for a little while (maybe a half-hour or so?) because heading back down. I just kept picturing myself falling or losing my grip on Eleanor, and the idea was enough to make me hyperventilate.

On Wednesday, we went to another trail that Keith had found, to the top of Bald Mountain. Even though we were hiking to the top of a mountain, it was actually a much more reasonable trail than the section of the AT we'd been on the day before. I think it was about 2 or 2.5 miles, one way. The trail was relatively broad, very well-marked, and had many switchbacks so that it was never too steep.

We weren't sure if Eleanor would last to the top, but she surprised us once again with her patience and adaptability. What was key on this hike was the we brought 1) her favorite doll, Amelia, and 2) chocolate. As long as Amelia was having fun (and we assured Eleanor that she was, quite often), then Eleanor could have fun, too. And when we stopped, she immediately asked for some trail mix and picked out all of the chocolate pieces, leaving the raisins and peanuts behind. That's my girl!

Unlike our museum trip, me carrying Eleanor the entire time was NOT an option. Keith and I took turns on the way up (although he carried her more than I did), and she did do some hiking and jumping off big rocks.

I was so shocked when the deciduous trees gave way to evergreens, and then the evergreens thinned out and we found ourselves at the top. I didn't think we would ever make it all the way!

There was white sand on the trail at the top; I assumed that this was placed there to maintain the trail, since there were few trees and enough sunlight to be worried about weeds covering over the trail. No matter how it got there, it was Eleanor's favorite part of the mountain top. I'm not sure if she ever even looked up, she was so focused on playing with the sand and throwing rocks.

The only nap she got that day was on the way down the mountain. I carried her for a short while as we started back down, but then handed her off to Keith and she fell asleep. In the picture above, she's passed out on his shoulder, and she remained that way until almost the bottom of the mountain.

I did think, on the way down, that she had the right idea. She stayed awake for the exciting hike up, but then got to miss out on the anticlimactic hike back down, past everything she'd already seen.

On the other hand, hiking down the mountain was one of my most peaceful times on the whole trip. Now that Eleanor's talking, she doesn't stop talking much. Or telling me to talk and entertain her. So I did enjoy the absence of conversation as we hiked down, hearing instead the crunch of our shoes on dried leaves, bird song, and the rustle of the wind in the trees.

Vermont in the Rain

Our Vermont trip was fabulous. It was 9-10 hours in the car, one way (including gas and food stops), and Eleanor was amazingly patient. We had a few testy moments in the car, like when she kept putting her foot on my drinking straw. So I moved my drink out of the holder to get it out of her way ... and then Keith accidentally knocked it over with his elbow.

But only a few bad moments in 20+ hours in the car is not bad at all, I think.

We got to the state park where we were staying late Saturday afternoon. We stretched our legs and set up camp. We had brought some hot dogs to cook over the fire that night, figuring we'd do a bigger shopping trip once we'd been in town a day or so. Pretty much we just settled in and soaked in our reality: We were on vacation in Vermont!

I was very proud of myself: I brought nothing "useful," other than a baby blanket I'm knitting. I brought no work-related materials, no computer!, no cards I've been meaning to write, no books I should read. Just fun books, a puzzle book, and a word game.

Sunday was another laidback day. We went to the Bennington REVOLUTIONARY WAR Memorial (speaking of which, I had incorrectly put "Civil War" in my earlier entry, which makes no sense. Either you were kind enough not to call me out on it, or as inattentive to detail as I am;) Sunday evening, it started raining about 7 o'clock and didn't really stop. So we were stuck in the tent with Eleanor, which meant we ALL went to sleep about 8 o'clock. I woke up many times throughout the night, and every time it was still raining.

The rain continued on into Monday. We put off any plans for hiking, canoeing, etc., and instead went to visit the Park McCullough House (Victorian mansion) in Bennington. It was a perfect rainy day activity, and another first for Eleanor. We've taken her to museums in Cleveland, but we've never taken her on a museum tour, where there's a group of people trying to listen intently to a guide.

Again, she surprised me with how well she behaved. Did I get to listen to every word that was said? No, of course not! Eleanor and I spent a lot of time on the fringes of the group, whispering about something in a nearby room, so as to keep her entertained and relatively quiet. I caught snippets of the tour guide, but at least I did get to see everything and read a few informative placards along the way. Keith offered to take her for a bit, but Eleanor was not okay with that plan, so she and I stuck together.

And I was much more relaxed about it than I would be back home. Because it was vacation! We got lost on the way there, trying to see a few covered bridges on the drive. But it was okay, because we're just on vacation!

I do love vacation. By mid-afternoon Monday, the clouds were clearing away and we were looking forward to more outdoor activities. However, the firewood was soaking wet. Both Keith and I tried to get the fire going and it would not happen. So we ended up at a pizza parlor for dinner. We went back to the campsite, and went to bed pretty soon after. There's not much point in staying up when there's not a fire to enjoy.

But that was okay, because we were still on vacation!