wordless wednesday

Go Pack, Go!

jack is the son of a Green Bay Packers fan, who is the son of a Green Bay Packers fan. he came by his enthusiasm for last night's Super Bowl quite honestly!!

ain't no mountain high enough

on saturday, jack and i climbed a mountain.

we were in atlanta on a sunny saturday. Stone Mountain beckoned, it's one mile(ish) "hike" to the top of the monadnock was brimming with families and scouts and "breast friends for life" teams. i love october.



the morning was cool enough for sweatshirts and we were full of enthusiasm. we could see our destination. folks young and old were already making their way across the pocked granite surface. we climbed and talked. and visited with a friend i hadn't seen in 26 years. we ate cereal bars and looked at trees covered with gum (yuck!) we sat in a shaded pavilion and watched a man stroll by, strumming his guitar.

and then, a mere 50 yards from the summit, we broke through the tree line. we turned around and took in the sites of Atlanta. we caught our breath. i pointed to the places where i had lived. and then i noticed: jack was done.

we were no longer on our destination UP. he was ready to go DOWN, and not even sure he could make it. something about the unfettered 360 views of Atlanta, the 1,600+ feet between us and sea level, the feeling of smallness. it proved to much for my little mountain climber.



we took one last look toward the summit. i summoned a few pep talks. but it was clear we were meant to go back down. step by "treacherous" step. incantations of "you can do it, jack" (all uttered by jack.) hand over hand, inch by inch. down we went.



and then, once more to the perceived safety below the treeline. surer footsteps and boundless enthusiasm. hand holding and laughing and patience. our feet never reached the top, but our hearts were in the clouds.

tales of a fourth grade EVERYTHING!!

we are back to school. this little man, my constant companion this summer (innkeeper in the making!) hurried off to a new school year with more confidence than i ever remember having at that age. i absolutely love the ohmygoshyouaretakingANOTHERpicture expression on his face!

i remember feeling pretty old when i was in the fourth grade. i can't imagine he is that age. i also remember that my fourth grade teacher was an unmarried 300-year-old woman who wore polyester pansuits and disliked my "bubbly" cursive handwriting. so, there you go.

Happy School Year, everyone!

whirlwind of good, part 2

(june 9, 2010)

jack's godfather is my best friend from college. chris lives in Maryland, which unfortunately makes it hard to get together. in fact, the last time he was able to get down to see us, jack was still young enough to appreciate a gift of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle underpants. (i should mention the underpants came with an action figure. as i recall, he appreciated the action figure a bit more than the underpants.)

last month, Chris had a quick trip that brought him to Raleigh, about 2 1/2 hours away from Southport. there is a long stretch of highway 40 that runs from Wilmington (just north of here) through Raleigh. along that strip of highway lies the Mad Boar restaurant. i end up eating at this restaurant more than i care to admit (mostly because a lot of Rotary District functions happen here.) it's a run of the mill sort of eating joint, with a bizarre mixture of Old English and Irish artifacts, smack dab in the middle of tobacco country, USA. on this night,it ended up being the perfect place to meet up with an old friend.


(chris and i, circa 1990)


(chris and i, 2010)


(chris and jack, who has now been dubbed "Elwood" by his godfather)

it was a Wednesday night. school was still in session. i was exhausted. we wouldn't have a lot of time to spend together. there were so many reasons to back out. but jack and i braved an hour long, white-knuckled drive through torrential downpours for a two hour dinner with one of my dearest friends in the world.

i can't think of a better way to spend Wednesday night.

nine is fine!!

 

a subtle shift

there are four daughters in my family. it was a little bit like growing up in "Fiddler on the Roof." minus one daughter. and a dairyman father. and a matchmaker. and religious persecution. dad was the local Scoutmaster - tuesday nights were his "break" from the heady estrogen stew that was invariably brewing at home.

in my generation of cousins, the girls ruled as well. out of sixteen cousins, three are boys (and i'm not suggesting AT ALL that they drooled.) but we girls definitely had the monopoly at family gatherings.

my sisters and i are all married now (many of my cousins as well), and raising families of our own. four daughters meant four husbands, which immeditaely leveled out the playing field. then, the arrival of jack opened the doors for a new generation of boys. jack, along with cousins max and felix and nephew-due-in-january have all of a sudden turned the tables in one generation. where the men in the family used to retreat into small tightly-knit packs of wild-eyed brethren resisting the urge to run, they now have found reassurance in their numbers.

grampie, jack, matty, brother-in-law mark

jack takes his responsibilities as oldest male of his generation verrrry seriously. after all, it is he who will introduce his cousins to legions of action figures. he is the one who carries a dog-eared copy of "The Dangerous Book for Boys." his will be the Cub Scout uniform that becomes the hand-me-down.

so far, he is an exemplary leader-of-the-pack. he tries new foods, he hugs his grandparents, he negotiates squabbles between his younger cousins. he can speak at-length about The Clone Wars and Transformers, and is moving easily up through his Cub Scout ranks.

now, if i could just get him to clean the bathroom...

no, he does not twitter

the modern day playdate?
speaker phone? check.
laptop? check.
parents lurking around taking obnoxious photos? check.




(thank goodness there was a pal on the other end, and not a girl... i don't think i'm ready for that!)

wordless wednesday - the "gloom" is lifted edition

thank you, lindsay!! (your sweet email made my day!)

edited to add: no, i am NOT crazy. i realize i posted these photos yesterday. complete with the blue foggy gloom that was hovering over our house in the morning. lindsay made my day with a quick, unexpected edit so that i would have more cheerful photos of the first day of third grade.

edited (again) to add: i ALSO realize i have now undone the whole point of "wordless wednesday."

edited (you can't stop me) to add: third grade rocks!

third grade.

there was a fog over southport this morning, and it sure made these photos look a bit more gloomy than we felt on this, the first day of third grade.

last night was filled with the excitement of a Christmas Eve. he could only sit still for 1/2 of The Butter Battle Book and 1/2 of one chapter of The Sorcerer's Stone (my son, who is living so easily between being a little boy and a big kid these days.)

jack says, "i've *always* wanted to be in the third grade!"

and here you are.