Visiting Ana's Grave

Last May Ezra noticed the white popsicle sticks stuck in the ground at a local high school (a tribute to Arlington Cemetery, in honor of Memorial Day) and started asked question after question about them. He had already been asking questions about Ana and Mimi and it became obvious that we needed to explain death to him. We were apprehensive about his understanding, but as with every other topic, we were just honest with him and answered his questions, letting him direct most of the conversation. In the year that has followed, he has talked about them and the more general subject of death, frequently and seems to have a

We didn't purposely avoid taking him to Ana's gravesite, but neither did we offer. He loves to hear stories about her and talks about her often. Half of the time her photo is missing from our wall because he's reached up and pulled it off so he can look at it closely. He asks Seth questions about her often and remembers every word Seth tells him. Lately he's been missing her especially, and has asked to see additional photos and hear even more stories.

On Monday night, after the last TBS baseball game, we were driving to meet up with one of Seth's workers to pay him and Ezra just asked if we could go see Ana's grave. It seemed completely random, to us, but in retrospect, he's been missing her quite a bit, as I just wrote. It was already 5ish pm, so I assumed Seth would say we'd have to go a different day, but he said ok! The gas station where we met his worker had so many California poppies, so I jumped out an picked a few handfuls as per Ezra's request (I'm still not sure if he actually knew it's a custom to leave flowers on graves or if he just wanted to take his grandma pretty flowers). We grabbed Chick-a-fila, to see what all the hype was about, and headed east.

The cemetery was completely empty the whole time we were there and we quickly found her gravesite. Ezra then spent about an hour arranging flowers (including the fake roses that were already at her grave) while Isaac alternated watching Ezra and running along the edges of the graveyard. Isaac hardly understands familial relationships, so despite the many times as Ezra has told him "Ana is Daddy's mommy" I don't think he really understands.

Ezra didn't talk very much, which is of course a rarity, and we tried to give him lots of space.

It was a really sweet evening, although it was especially hard for Seth. He misses his mom for many reasons, of course, but the thing that's probably hardest for him is that she never got to meet Ezra and Isaac. But, as Ezra often says, someday we will get to see her in heaven!

Fine Arts Night

Seth officially started as the interim drama teacher at Tacoma Baptist High School back on March 30th, but this last half of the month has been crunch time for him as his students will be performing at TBS’ Fine Arts Night, which is an open house to showcase the work that students have done in choir/band/music/art/drama class. In addition to the families of the students who have artwork displayed or are performing, they’re hoping prospective students will be coming. I don’t know how much weight it will hold in reality, but as Seth is going to be applying for one of the teaching positions that is opening up for a full time position next school year, he sees this Fine Arts Night as important to his “interview”. He probably was placing too much importance on it, but even if that’s true and his job application isn’t on the line, he knew many families would be watching his students perform and he saw their performance as a reflection on him. There have been so many minor setbacks (a scheduling conflict with a track meet, which means half of his class won’t be there, one of his actors backing out of his role last minute, miscommunication between teachers about who gets the stage when, etc,) that it has made for a pretty stressful week for him.

My mom took the day off and came over on Wednesday to watch the boys while I went to drama class with Seth. She brought a bag of “black dirt” and a bunch of vegetable starts with her and the boys had a hayday planting them in our back yard raised beds. I very much appreciated having a break from the kids, but it was also fun to see Seth teach and to see the progress that his students had made on their scenes. He asked me to come along because he was feeling like the students weren’t making progress and he felt like he needed an extra pair of eyes and ears. I was able to help some of the students with their blocking and most importantly help them understand the context of their scenes since they hadn’t had enough time to do that yet. I just love watching Seth interact with other people. He’s such a great communicator and people really respond to him, but I don’t necessarily see that very often. He’s been so stressed out about this performance, but I think I was able to help and, most of all, reassure him that the students were on track. I also realized how much I miss sitting at a desk and creating student assignments.

Thursday, my parents were building a fence and offered to watch the kids, even though I was originally planning on bringing them along to TBS with us. I went to class with Seth and then stayed and worked on tax stuff in his classroom until the performance that night. It really did go beautifully. I was so proud of Seth and of the students.

The Crucible

The Importance of Being Earnest

Macbeth

Friday Update #17 (5/1/15)

On Seth’s plate this week (besides, you know, that regular –very time consuming - job he has and this drama class he's teaching) was the big annual yard sale our church hosts every spring to support our upcoming mission trip to Sacred Road on the Yakama Indian Reservation. Seth has gone the last three years, but this year he is leading the trip. He’s had all sorts of things to do in that role (monthly meetings, coordinating with the other teams going the week we’re going, delegating responsibilities for the trip, finalizing the roster for the trip, etc.), but heading up this yard sale is one of the biggest efforts because it provides a good 50% of the needed funds. I helped with some of the coordination but needed to stay home with the boys during the sale. I think Seth was there for 3-4 hours night and 9 hours on Saturday? But they made a decent amount of money and it didn’t rain, so we were pretty grateful.

My mom came over, randomly, after garage saling and finished planting the starts she'd brought over the day before. And then Emily pulled up too! We rarely get visitors and to have two people stop by in one day was especially unusual. It was nice to have the diversion because I'd been feeling a bit discontent, staying home while Seth was off "gallivanting" at the church garage sale.

Sunday night church hosted a documentary film regarding public school education in the US and though Seth and I weren't planning on going, my mom insisted we go and that she be allowed to watch the boys.  We weren't really thinking through our babysitting needs the rest of the week or we wouldn't have "used up" some babysitting on the film. We pretended it was a date and had a good conversation about education, so it wasn't really waste, but later on in the week when we were so overwhelmed it was hard not to begrudge that time.

Monday morning I babysat for my friend so she could go to one of her prenatal appointments without her four year old, then taught some lessons. The boys and I played at the park by Seth's school for a while too.

This week I had a lot of lessons. Well, my usual amount, but a bit more spread out, so it ended up taking up a lot more time than it does most weeks. Until we find the time to decide what to do about the van (necessary repairs? Sell it and buy a new vehicle?) we’re sharing the car, so we’ve had to be a bit creative about our schedules. It’s actually worked out really really well, considering the timing. And we’ve actually seen each other this week, because we’ve been driving each other places. That sounds a bit Pollyanna (ridiculously optimistic) but it’s been really nice. If we had our own vehicles this week we probably wouldn’t have really seen each other. And Seth definitely wouldn’t have seen the boys. So this way we’ve been able to chat and Seth has told the boys lots of Superhero stories.

On Tuesday, in addition to teaching, I also had to make several trips to chauffeur Seth or things he needed around, because we're sharing one car and because the baseball bus left without him and because he'd left his keys at home and because he needed me to take one of his workers to a moving job. I drove at least 100 miles and did lots of backtracking and double crossing.

Seth has been substitute teaching a bit, before his drama class, but this week it actually worked out well for him to have so much time sitting at his computer. He likes getting the hours, since he's already at the school for seventh period, but it's been disappointing that he really doesn't get to do much teaching. It's really more babysitting than anything else. Perhaps once the teachers get to know him better and know what he is capable of he will get to do more than administer worksheets?

Our last day of BSF was this week, sadly. (Well, for this year, that is; it will start up again in the middle of September.) It is such a wonderful fit for all three of us and we will miss it greatly this summer.

I was surprised and so pleased when Seth offered to take the boys out on a Daddy date Thursday morning. I desperately needed the time alone to finish sending in some information about the ERC team to Sacred Road and to finish our quarterly taxes. There's nothing like having three big "projects" due on the same day. They went to IHOP and, it was reported, that they had a great time. Ezra came home saying he'd had the "best pancakes of his life" and Isaac kept talking about "bueberry 'rup" (blueberry syrup).

As I mentioned last week, Seth's drama students had their Fine Art Night performance this week. They performed selections from Shakespeare's Macbeth, Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and Miller's The Crucible, and did a wonderful job.

We got to relax all day Friday, which was lovely. Well, the boys didn't really relax, but what's new? Isaac even lugged his trike up onto the couch in order to stand on it in my sight.

Friday Update #16 (4/24/15)

There are some months that we just can’t ever catch our breaths, and April has been one of those months. Nothing particularly dreadful has happened, it’s just been busy busy busy. The Fine Arts Night preparations are consuming.

The weekend was mostly spent at home I let Ezra use a real knife to help me cut up rhubarb and he was so very careful and so very proud.

He also found bluebells and picked them for me.

When we were at my parents, Ezra disappeared to listen to more Hobbit stories from Uncle David. He's getting really excited about the story.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I had a lot of lessons. Well, my usual amount, but a bit more spread out, so it ended up taking up a lot more time than it does most weeks. Until we find the time to decide what to do about the van (necessary repairs? Sell it and buy a new vehicle?) we’re sharing the car, so we’ve had to be a bit creative about our schedules. It’s actually worked out really really well, considering how busy this last half of the month is. And we’ve actually seen each other this week, because we’ve been driving each other places. That sounds a bit Pollyanna (ridiculously optimistic) but it’s been really nice. If we had our own vehicles this week we probably wouldn’t have really seen each other. And Seth definitely wouldn’t have seen the boys. So this way we’ve been able to chat and Seth has told the boys lots of Superhero stories.

Isaac bumped his head this week and asked for an ice pack. He didn't hold the ice pack on his head in the correct location, nor would he let me, but it was still cute.

My allergies were really bothering me Wednesday, but I muddled through lessons. I hadn’t thought to take my allergy medicine because I usually don’t, but my body really didn’t take well to whatever plant started blooming. When I got home and looked up the pollen index it was a “very high alert”. Thursday, however, I couldn’t even get off the couch! My sinuses were so congested and my eyes so irritated that I would have been miserable enough, but I also had one of the most relentless headaches I’ve ever had. Thankfully we didn’t have anything scheduled that day (except for trying to make a dent in the laundry and dishes that had accumulated through the first part of the week – ha!) and the boys were so very sensitive and thoughtful. They watched a lot of TV and played Duplos and did puzzles and PlayDoh and were especially kind to each other. Ezra even got snacks and juice for them! When Seth got home at like 9pm, he had to do quite a lot of cleaning to just even pick up all of used tissues and wrapped up dirty diapers piled up next to me on the couch. And then he put Isaac to sleep and took Ezra to the grocery store (because I also hadn’t had time to go shopping all week). If that weren’t enough, they came home with food for me and a dozen roses! Ezra said that the roses were “the best headache medicine” and apparently convinced Seth of their necessity. He is so thoughtful and particularly protective of me. It was a very sweet ending to an otherwise hard day.

Once it started raining Thursday evening my allergies drastically cleared up, so today I was finally able to get up and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned! It felt amazing to be up and about, but even more amazing to get so much cleaning done after a full week of total neglect.

This coming week doesn’t look much easier, but after Thursday we’re all going to take a big sigh of relief and then take a day off and do nothing. And then, the week after that Ezra turns FOUR YEARS OLD!!

Friday Update #15 (4/17/15) **needs link update

This really won't be an exciting post, haha, as we spent the week in California and I wrote about our trip here: <link>.

Friday Update #14 (4/10/15)

Isaac received a Batman and Joker Duplo set for his birthday, which he plays with all the time. But his brother also found the figures this week and decided to make sure the Joker couldn't make any mischief.

We had a pretty low key Easter Sunday. The boys wore their new matching shirts, but I hardly got any good photos. Hannah captured this shot, however:

Dad and I spent a lot of money and went to opening day at Safeco Field. We had great seats and watched a great game.

And this amazing moment happened this week:

I love, love, love watching the boys interact with Seth. It's the sweetest thing to me.

We're actually already in California, but I'm going to just wait til we get home and write up a big recap instead of splitting it into these weekly update posts.

Friday Update #13 (4/3/15)

I'm not sure how it started, but the boys are obsessed with Seth throwing them up in the air. Outside, especially, because then he throws them higher. "Daddy, frow me in da air! 'Eeese? Outdide!" is a request Seth hears a good 5-10 times a day. It used to scare me a bit, but they really are hardly out of his hands for more than 2-3 seconds and he hasn't ever come close to dropping them.

Saturdays are often the longest day of the week, I suppose because they are Seth's longest day of work and because we usually don't have any activities planned. I try to take the boys somewhere, but sometimes I chicken out for fear "everywhere" will be too crowded. This week, however, I braved the (theoretical) crowds and took the boys to one of our favorite parks.

My parents were doing yard work, so they called and invited us over. The boys looovvveee gardening with Grandma. I don't think they're actually helpful, but she is very kind to let them "help". 

If I spread a blanket out on the floor, excitement spikes. A picnic! So we had a little picnic of waffles and blueberries before church:

We headed to my parents' after church for a meal with all of my siblings. We used to try to get together every Sunday, but it just doesn't work that way any more, as everyone has jobs and various obligations. So these days we're lucky to make it happen once a month or so.

Ezra has been talking about finding Seth a Hulk t-shirt (to go along with his Superman t-shirts and Isaac's Batman t-shirts) for Father's Day, since Seth told them that The Hulk was his favorite Superhero (something that wasn't a lie, but wasn't exactly true either... neither of us had ever considered who our favorite Superhero was before!). So when we were at Walmart this week and we saw a Hulk shirt for $8 (instead of $26 on Amazon as I'd seen), it wasn't too difficult for the boys to convince me to buy it. The plan was to wait until Father's Day, though, to give it to Seth. I hid it away when we got home, hoping the boys would forget about it. But no: every day we talked about it and the anticipation of giving it to Seth proved to be too much, so we told him it was a present for being such a good Daddy. Ezra immediately requested that he put it on and that he lift some heavy things and smash them, since that's what The Hulk does.

This was Seth's first week of teaching drama class at TBS. It definitely breaks up his day and sometimes will make it hard to do moving jobs, but we're excited that he gets this opportunity.

On Wednesdays I teach piano lessons at my parents' house, to three sisters who attend the elementary school across the street. I used to teach two kids who go to our church, Drew and Darya, when they attended the same school, but this week they got to come over and play anyway.

We all headed over to the school, after lessons, to play on the playground for a while too:

We didn't plan to let Isaac's hair grow out, but we're having a difficult time making plans to cut it. Look at these curls!

Ezra really, really wants to climb trees. I don't think he's quite ready yet, but we also don't see very many good climbing trees. There is this little fruit tree on our property, though, and Ezra convinced me to help him climb it.

On a whim this week I found some old Sword of Judgement videos on YouTube and introduced the boys to a different image of their Uncle than they usually get to see. They loved it!

Once a month, usually on the last Friday of the month,we plan a game night for our church youth group. We had other plans last Friday, though, so March's game night was held this week. We have a potluck meal (this time personal pizzas) and spend a bit of time in prayer, but primarily just spend time together, playing games. I don't always get to go, but this time I got a babysitter and tagged along with Seth.