Tomorrow we leave for a 17-day great American road trip as a family. That’s right, we’re taking our 3 and 6 year olds with us in our Toyota Corolla up the East Coast from Florida to Maine and back. You’re probably thinking we may be crazy, and as I pack, clean, and do last minute preparations, I’m thinking you may be right.
Just kidding, we’ve got this.
I’m mostly sure.
Our idea for this trip was planted when we realized how many people we loved lived from the mid-Atlantic to New England and we missed them so much we knew we needed to schedule a visit. Flying four people anywhere costs a fortune, and then we’d have to rent a car anyway once we arrived. So we drive!
Each kid has a tote bag of car distractions that include a whole lot of Melissa and Doug, coloring books, games, and building toys like Legos and Tegu magnetic blocks. I also have another tote with school-type stuff for Henry – reading and math workbooks as well as books to read aloud so he can get to Home Base for Reading with the Rays (and fill my only official summer learning requirement of reading 30 minutes a day). He’s going to try to read “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” which will be incredibly challenging so wish him luck and persistence. Finally, we have iPads for each kid to watch movies and play games when the time on the road becomes too intense.
H’s Car DistractionsE’s Car Gear (don’t worry, I have more things for him for later in the trip)
The kids expectations regarding our trip are mixed at best.
Henry thinks it will take 3 hours to get there, and that time frame is entirely too long. “Why aren’t we flying?” is the main question he’s been asking. Such a privileged kid, mostly flying everywhere since he’s been alive. He’s most excited to visit Vermont, for reasons involving a horse and ice cream.
Elliot thinks we are visiting Spain and chose it as his top state on this trip because it’s like church. I wish we could drive to Spain, buddy. He has also asked when and how we are seeing Marlon Bundo while we are in DC…Tia Nesa is somehow making that difficult request happen.
I’m excited to see friends and family who we don’t get to see as often as we’d like. So is Keith. Overnight stops include:
• Walterboro, South Carolina
• Alexandria, Virginia
• Spencerport, New York
• Bristol, Vermont
• Wolfeboro, New Hampshire
• Jamestown, Rhode Island
• Rockville, Maryland
• Yemassee, South Carolina
We’ll be stopping at least every three hours so the kids can run around at parks and playgrounds along the way. Hopefully, that will break up the monotony of interstate travel and let them get their energy out. And nap. So no one goes crazy.
I don’t know about you, but it’s been just so hard to make it to playgrounds this summer with this crazy heat making it unbearable outside. But last week I got our act together and we made it to a park a little before 10am and it only felt like 87 degrees. Or something like that.
A couple weeks ago, I spied a park that had SHADE on our car tour of South Pinellas! So it was totally worth it to make the 23 minute drive into Gulfport for a mostly shaded playtime adventure at Caldwell Park (Gulfport Blvd and 64th St, Gulfport). Pulling into this small neighborhood park, Elliot exclaimed, “This is so cool!” He wasn’t wrong.
The boys loved spinning themselves silly on the multiple spinners, climbing up the fun webs (and laying in their hammocks), racing cars down the slides, and of course swinging on the swings (which were also partially in the shade – a Pinellas park miracle because there’s rarely any shade cover for the coveted swings!)
The playground abuts the busy Gulfport Boulevard, but the park is fully fenced and set back behind the trees. Kids can watch cars, but you don’t have to worry about them running out in front of them. It’s nicely mulched and well-kept with and adjacent adult fitness area so you can work out while your kids play. There’s also benches and a picnic table for you to sit back and watch your kids when they aren’t asking to be spun like maniacs. The only drawback is no bathroom facilities, so it’s not the best if you’re potty-training. Everyone agreed we had to go back this summer.
Something Henry has been saying with increasing frequency lately has started: “When I’m a grown up and I’m a daddy….” He follows that up with some adorable way he’s going to act as an adult. Tonight he declared that “When I’m a grown up and I’m a daddy I’m going to cut the grass using the stick cutter like daddy uses.” He means the weed whacker, and thought that cutting the grass with a lawnmower (like I was doing tonight) was barbaric and less efficient somehow. Adorable, right?
But the words he ALWAYS includes when making these statements nearly make my cry with happiness each time he says them, “When I’m a grown up and I’m a daddy, and I’m staying at home with the kids and my wife is a pastor….”
I can’t take it sometimes and give him a hug so fierce he can’t take it (he’s not my cuddly little).
My joyful and proud mama moment is twofold.
First, he sees Keith’s job as important, but not something he’s into (thank goodness; clergy positions, even when they’re in wonderful congregations, are tough). Plus, he knows that women make excellent pastors and he’s fine if his wife is one.
Moreover, he sees what I do as a stay-at-home-mom all day, every day, and wants to have that life. So often I feel like I’m doing this whole mama thing wrong, especially when I yell, feel frustrated, and am bored with playing with toys. But he overlooks that, and sees my all-encompassing love for him and his brother, and wants that for himself when he’s a daddy. I hope he feels that kind of love someday.
Northeast Park (4630 East Bay Drive, Largo, FL 33764) is a City of Largo park tucked away from the busyness of East Bay. I can imagine the playground gets more use when parents are playing basketball or roller hockey on its concrete-jungle courts (they close at 11pm), but on a weekday morning we saw no one. Pine trees provided needed shade cover for the playground equipment, which varied from the usual swings and slides.
We loved the zip line swing that is the focal point of the playground. A challenge to get up the platform because of its steepness (teamwork with Henry allowed the ramping up to happen; he did a running Superman and then leapt and grabbed onto the rail, which allowed me to haul him up the rest of the way), it was totally worth it to hear the boys’s giggles as they swung down the first big drop and were whipped around the corners. They did a great job of taking turns.
They also ascended the yellow mountain climber, which required help for Elliot and panicking by Henry that he couldn’t do it (even though he did). It was a different type of climbing because they had to move sideways without great handgrips. A small jungle gym that looked older than the other equipment was quickly climbed, then forgotten. The boys liked the merry-go-round (safer than the one at Largo Central), but didn’t ask to be lifted up for the bigger kid spinner. Elliot, of course, loved the swings, but didn’t like only having baby swings as an option. I guess the zip line swing is supposed to provide all the swinging fun needed for bigger kids. Finally, my kids tested the workout equipment made for adults, which looks like it was recently installed.
Dislikes: On our most recent visit I saw an abandoned car in the overflow parking with a lot of gear (plus a bike). I saw no one else at the park while I was there. Previously (more than 3 years ago), the trails were overgrown and littered with needles and other trash. I didn’t try to take a stroll this time around because of that. Additionally, my kids ended up getting filthy dirty from the park because there is no mulch or other ground cover. It’s pretty much pine needles over Florida black sandy soil. Dirtiness doesn’t really bother me, but it was a LOT.
Overall, I’m sure we will return this summer because that zip line swing was so unusual and fun, but I don’t think we will regularly go (unless the boys ask).
Currently, we have an embarrassment of riches checked out from the local library. I tallied them up, and we have 25 children’s books checked out! Some are graphic novels/chapter books for Henry to practice his reading aloud, but the majority are gorgeous picture books I have been hoarding (but know I’ll have to let them go eventually). Isn’t it funny how fantastic books become part of your self? I think my kids are starting to grasp that, especially when they ask for certain ones to be read over and over and over and over again. Since summer vacation is rapidly approaching (last day of school is in less than one week – EEP!), I thought I’d share current books my kids are loving, and then do periodic updates this summer.
I’d love it if you shared ones your kids can’t put down. I’m always on the hunt for beautiful, thoughtful, silly, and empowering books for my littles. I hope you enjoy our picks, in alphabetical order by author’s last name:
Rot, the Cutest in the World! by Ben Clanton
Carmela Full of Wishes by Matt de la Peña
The Library Dragon & Martina the Beautiful Cockroach, both by Carmen Agra Deedy
I have a secret.Sometimes I want to not care about things happening in our world today. It would be easier. I’d have more time for fun. I could be frivolous at will. Maybe I would live in the moment more easily than I do now. Certainly, it would be a relief to live in a bubble free from deep thoughts and anything unpleasant that didn’t directly affect me. Society’s problems would not disappear, but it wouldn’t matter because as a member of the white population in the United States I’m super privileged.
But this indifference to others is not me. I hope for a more peaceful world, and understand that I need to actively participate to create change in it. I care beyond what’s happening in my immediate world.
I care so much it makes me cry tears of rage and sorrow when yet another white male perpetrates a school shooting and kids are killed in the line of fire or while protecting their classmates. The papers call the murdered ones heroes, but that’s not the right word – martyrs would be better. We don’t have to continue our complicity and keep allowing our children to be murdered in mass shootings. We can change the laws by providing better access to (and quality of) mental health care and limiting gun rights in the name of public safety. The Florida legislature’s response (besides its usual thoughts and prayers) to all this of arming teachers – it will not help. Kids deserve and need to feel safe and protected at school. If their teachers are carrying, they are inherently unsafe. Guns do not belong in classrooms with students.
Another facet of education that I wish I didn’t care about is the world of high-stakes testing. My kids aren’t old enough for the FSA, and the incredible pressure that comes along with it. I feel anxious for their future selves because I know how terrible it feels to bomb a single test that determines whether you get to move on to the next grade (or get into a top tier law school). I am a mediocre test taker when only given one shot to prove myself. I may know the material backwards and forwards, but my anxiety causes me to freeze up, misread questions, and panic. And I’m an adult. Now think about how kids feel when faced with the FSA.
We fail our students when we submit them to testing that is designed in the name of education reform but is truly created to destroy the great equalizer that is public education. Tests are rigged so a certain percentage of students fail, which allows the government to label schools as failing. Parents rightfully become upset and begin looking for a way out through vouchers and for-profit charter schools that are publicly funded with our tax dollars (siphoning off money from public school systems) but with less (or no) public oversight. I have family and friends who send their kids to these programs because they view the public schools as broken. They aren’t wrong. They want what’s best for their children. We all do. But as a collective society, if some kids are slipping through the cracks it is our duty to look out for them and lift them back up.
The current inequity in our public schools is astounding, but it can be fixed. Rozella Haydée White’s new book, Love Big: The Power or Revolutionary Relationships to Heal the World, contains a roadmap for seeking peace through moving toward justice. She “define[s] justice as equitable access to resources that provide people with the ability and agency to create a life of meaning. Working toward justice requires dismantling any system, ideology, or institution that promotes inequity….Justice becomes a reality when we recognize that we need one another. When we become justice seekers and peace bearers we recognize that our lives are inextricably linked. What one person does, thinks, or even believes affects another.”
“What if we practiced the belief that we belong to one another daily?”~Rozella Haydée White
As I read her words, it clicked that I have been actively working through this philosophy of peace and justice through my membership with FAST. Over the past two years I’ve become increasingly involved with its youth suspensions and arrests committee where we have researched and learned that if restorative justice practices (RP) are properly implemented in our schools, students and teachers succeed. Behavior issues are handled with student accountability and compassion, giving kids a toolbox to deal with the big emotions they feel on the daily. This in turn allows teachers to spend more time teaching the material and keeps kids in the classroom versus being removed, suspended, or arrested for disciplinary issues. Teacher retention rates in schools using RP methods are higher (but we still need to pay them what they are worth, an entirely different battle).
Changing the culture in public education is difficult, but I truly believe RP is the real game changer into creating an inclusive culture where all students feel heard and wanted as assets in their classrooms. Because I truly believe this transformation needs to happen, I’ve had to step out of my comfort zone and feel uncomfortable. With FAST, I flew to Louisville to learn about RP from a school district that is effectively implementing the initiative. Earlier this year, I spoke directly to school board members not only at meetings but also in front of a crowd of 2500+. This scared me because I’m uncomfortable speaking in public…not only the everyone’s eyes on me part but also my need to deliver my message perfectly using the correct words with the proper gestures and presence. I want to convince people this matters, and I know my discomfort is nothing compared to what kids face at school. So I woman up, lean in, and demand change to make the system more equitable.
I’m not an expert in any of this. I’m a parent who believes that public schools offer the best chance for all kids to become the people they are meant to be. I care, and I want others to take responsibility in creating change, too. Don’t you?
If you haven’t seen this picture circulating around the internet yet, here it is:
At first, I laughed about it, but then the more I thought about it, the more I felt it’s totally true for me. January felt like an entire YEAR rolled into a single month. What’s up with that?!?
January was rough with waiting for my melanoma to be removed. It’s hard waiting for treatment for weeks after a cancer diagnosis knowing there’s nothing I could be doing to stop its growth. Except for surgery. Thank goodness only surgery was required to treat it, because stopping all normal activities for two weeks was definitely difficult.
Not being able to pick up and hold my 2 and a half year old, who is a supremely cuddly little, was torture for both of us. He quickly figured out I couldn’t keep up with him so he threw down some of his most epic flops and temper tantrums to date. The worst occurred at the library where he sprinted away while I was checking out books, climbed the stairs and almost made it inside an elevator to head downstairs that way. That kid is FAST! And I can usually hang but not this January.
I also couldn’t work out beyond walking at a leisurely pace. If you know me, you know that drove me bonkers! I’m at the gym 5-6 days a week normally taking various classes for my mental health. It helps decrease my anxiety and is my time to not focus on anything else in my life but myself (and mostly my breathing, because dang I take some challenging classes!) And walking at a 20-minute mike pace could not compete.
But January is over and done with, thank God!
My surgery went better than I imagined (because of course my brain occasionally went to worst possible scenario of extreme pain, permanent disfigurement, and/or death). Although exhaustion took over post-surgery thanks to the anesthesia, I never really had pain. My scar looks great so far, especially because it’s only been 3 weeks. My melanoma genetic testing came back in the lowest possible category, and my two basal cells have been removed.
I’m cancer-free! We’re settling back into our regular routines. February is looking lovely with Bad Kid Christmas only 2 weeks away!! And I’m working on my five-year plan, trying to figure out my place in this world. Everything’s coming up Sunshine, and I’m ready for it!
If you’ve been friends with me for a good length of time, you probably know of my love of Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery. I discovered her series when I was in elementary school, and subsequently found the gorgeous Canadian miniseries of the same name at our local Albertson’s where VHS rentals were 99 cents on Wednesdays. I spent good portions of my childhood renting and rewatching the movie (and its sequel) until I knew it by heart. I desperately wanted to be Anne, and create adventures with my own bosom friends. And I did.
I also went through a period of time when I didn’t feel like anyone I met was a kindred spirit; I had friendships, but no shared connection of acceptance of self. Maybe because I didn’t know who I was becoming. Maybe because girls are jerks to each other when they want to be thought of as cool. Maybe because my best friend had moved away. I don’t know.
Today, I have a couple handfuls of friends who are my people, my kindred spirits. You know, the people who rejoice in your joys and cry with you in your sorrows. Friends who fly down to spend the weekend with you before surgery so you will be distracted from obsessively thinking about it and friends who use their day off to help with your kids when you can’t easily handle your normal routine. Friends who offer and bring meals. Friends who give epic hugs. Friends who call to catch up because they can’t be here in person (although I wish they could) and I sometimes don’t pick up the phone because I hate it but I listen to their voicemail over and over and feel loved. I feel so very loved.
It’s just as Anne taught me – kindred spirits exist in droves; even when we are far apart, we are still together, and that hasn’t changed and won’t change over time.
“Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.”
“True friends are always together in spirit.”
“Kindred spirits alone do not change with the changing years.”
Then there’s whole other group of awesome people who have been impactful in supporting me, and I’m affectionately referring to them as people who give a shit. Please don’t be offended by my cursing or by not including you in my kindred spirit category, but I’m so thankful for you, too. You all unexpectedly showed up and have kept showing up and checking in with me.
On social media we seem further apart yet more aware of the inner workings of each other’s lives. We tend not to have conversations in person because texting or messaging is so easily available, or we just read up on someone’s life via their Facebook page and count that as checking in. That’s not what you all have done.
You are sending prayers, good vibes, positive thoughts – whatever faith you practice or don’t practice doesn’t matter – your affirmations and solidarity lift me up.
Some of you are cancer survivors, and I had no idea. Thank you for telling me about you. Your shared stories fill me with hope that the cancer will stay gone now that it has been removed.
What I’m trying to say is thank you family, friends, and everyone who has shown up. I’m feeling much better and more at peace with the whole thing (despite being swollen, tired, and in some pain), and that’s because of you. Thank you.
Today is the shortest day of the year and the longest night. So I thought it would be fitting to write a blog post that is all over the place and full of my rambling feelings. Because nothing says Merry Christmas like being in an emotionally precarious state when you have to keep it together so your family can have the best Christmas ever! Isn’t that how parents feel about Christmas every year? Matt Damon and the cast of SNL seem to agree.
Something I didn’t include in our Christmas cards this year even though it’s pretty significant change to our lives is that just after Thanksgiving I found out I have melanoma. Merry Christmas! I have cancer! It puts a damper on people’s holiday cheer so I left it out. Even though I can’t stop thinking about it.
I have cancer.
Skin cancer. And I’m only 36.
I’m angry. And terrified. And upset. I’m short with my kids who don’t know what’s going on with me. I cry at nothing. And then pretend I’m fine.
I’m fine.
I’m fine.
I’m fine.
Maybe if I say it enough times I’ll trick myself into actually being okay. Sometimes I actually feel mostly fine. And I’m not even faking.
Just kidding. I’m not fucking okay. Thanks for asking.
I’ve continued my normal routines like a boss. I’ve gone though various events and fun times this holiday season, and had fun. Really. I promise I did. I can compartmentalize and ignore the voice in my head shouting “I HAVE CANCER” without ruining everyone’s party. I’m fine. I’m drained. I feel loved.
I feel so very loved. Really, I have the best family and friends. I could go into their amazingness in excruciating detail, but it would get embarrassing…that’s how awesome my people are. I’m keeping their love and support to myself because I need it all. Sorry not sorry.
Meeting with the plastic surgeon definitely helped me feel more at ease with the situation. My melanoma was caught early and should be easily removed. It is on my hairline so it’s in the best possible spot for removal with minimal scarring. It will be like a mini-face lift on one side.
I feel extremely fortunate that my cancer can be cut out and that its removal should be the end of the cancer in my body. I won’t have to have chemo or radiation or anything like that. But part of me is terrified it will return. Because I’m more likely to have another one now that I’ve had one already.
I’m especially scared because my FIL has been dealing with melanoma for 9 years now. I’ve seen him cut up again and again, watched him deal with experimental therapies that harmed his body as much as they helped, and observed him not being himself as he received treatments.
January 10th I say peace out to my melanoma. I hope and pray it’s for good. Although if for some reason it’s not, I’m going to fight. Besides, if the Notorious RBG can come out swinging against Round 3 of cancer, I can certainly do likewise (although I can only hope to match her intense exercise regimen).
I feel like I’m being told that women don’t matter. We can be believable in our statements but at the end of the day men can set that belief aside and totally disregard fact in order to protect and honor themselves.
Our bodies must be regulated.
By men.
Men’s bodies are not similarly regulated and in fact are enhanced by performance equipping drugs.
Our pain is not believed. Our statements are not trusted. If a man causes a woman pain and suffering the burden is placed on her to deal with it. The man often has no repercussions.
Judge Kavanaugh’s job interview for the Supreme Court should be terminated and his nomination rescinded. There are plenty of other jurists out there who don’t have these types of allegations against them. Pick any of them. I’d prefer a female Justice, but at the very least I want a truth-teller.
This election season, I just want to watch the whole thing burn.
But I can’t.
Because part of me still hopes for a better United States. Especially because of my two young sons. I want them to be kind and know limitations when someone says stop or no. But they’re figuring it out at an early age, so I’m hopeful.
White men, you better have outstanding credentials when running for elected office because I’m just not sure I can vote for you. I’m ready for women to run the world, for our ideas and policies to create change. We can do it. I’m voting for you. I’m ready for people of color, people who are LGBTQI+, refugees, and all people who feel like second-class citizens in this great nation to rise up and be honored. I support you and your ability to lead when hope seems dark. I’m rooting for and voting for you.
I’ve read through the Beatitudes several times today looking for clarity. I’ll continue meditating and working through them many more times in search of some kind of answer. I don’t know why I feel like an answer exists, and it can be found in part by reading Matthew 5, but I feel an urge to keep searching. I feel the need to be blessed and at peace. I’m seeking…
Rot, the Cutest in the World! by Ben Clanton
Carmela Full of Wishes by Matt de la Peña
The Library Dragon & Martina the Beautiful Cockroach, both by Carmen Agra Deedy
Drawn Together by Minh Lê
