Thoughts on kids who grow up without permission

Several things have happened over this past week that alerted me to a "growing" trend.

First, Katie lost her a tooth. She's five, so it shouldn't have shocked me...but it did. Kylie has been our jack-o-lantern girl for so long that I didn't realize the torch had been passed to my baby girl. A second bottom tooth will be falling out within the next few days. My kids seem to be all or nothing when it comes to loosing teeth.

Second, after our children woke me up very early this morning (okay, it was 7 a.m. but dang it, I like to sleep in on Sunday) I sent them to go read books so I could sleep a little longer. When I got up, I looked in the girl's room and saw their beds were made. I could hear them downstairs, so I went down and found both girls dressed for church and they had made their own breakfast. My mouth fell open and I blinked a lot before I came to my senses and complimented them.

When did this happen??? I can feel that we are moving into a new phase as a family and before long I'm going to need to hide my car keys and mascara. My sister-in-law, Trisha, always says that when we do our job well as parents we eventually put ourselves out of business and this week I've seen that glimmer of independence in the girls. Thank heaven Nate is a little younger and a bit more dependent. I still need to be needed!

I know there is still plenty to do though, not just for Nate, but for the girls too. Here is the tricky thing Kylie did. After her sister put her tooth in a porcelain tooth-shaped container on the night stand for the Tooth Fairy to pick up, Kylie snuck her sister's tooth under her pillow...making life harder for the Tooth Fairy who couldn't say anything about it the next day. Don't worry, Katie got the dollar.

So a word of warning: keep an eye on your children, they might be up to this shenanigans too.

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love

I've been thinking about marriage for a long time, as far back as I can remember. By six years of age I had my children named. I must have been reading Ramona Quimby at the time (remember how she named her imaginary daughter after Chevrolet and thought it was the most beautiful name?) It must have been a Car & Driver era because that's how I felt about Mercedes--I couldn't imagine a better name.

In my teenage years I had ideas about the traits my husband would have: rich (yup, it's a trait), smart, a business man, handsome, a take-life-by-the-horns type or older and brooding.... I'll spare you the rest.

Then I met Seth. He was younger than me and that was a strike in my book (being a cougar in THAT sense hadn't become fashionable yet). He completely lacked in the taking-life-by-the-horns and brooding departments. He had fuzzy dice hanging from his car mirror-I kid you not. That alone almost ended it. But he was cute, smart and kind. When trouble came (as it always does) his maturity and communicativeness bested mine and not by inches, but by miles. Best of all, he treated me like a princess. And he still does.

This week I toast Seth. I love you, sweetie.

Road rage

For those of you who have been spared my ranting and raving about driving in Rhode Island--your number is up. The stories I could tell. Now, you may think perhaps I'm the problem. Consider my evidence. 1. Our car insurance tripled when we moved to this state. 2. People sent us youtube clips mocking the drivers of Little Rhodey. 3. In a national driving survey, Rhode Island drivers were found least likely to understand and implement driving laws. So there.

Yesterday was a bad day in the car for me. By time I nearly crashed into a woman that was running a red, red light (as in the two cars ahead of me had already crossed the intersection) I was crazy angry. The kind of muttering to myself that makes my kids really quiet. I could almost hear them saying to each other, "Sh, don't draw attention to yourself. She's on a rampage." It made me feel a little bad.

Fifteen minutes later and still in the car, I started giving Kylie a hard time for having no patience with her siblings and telling her how we can't control other people blah, blah blah. The epiphany came then. I had no moral high ground. Zero. Zilch. It stopped me mid sentence. I felt certain that as I learned how to model that brand of self discipline my kids would learn how to copy it.

So, I'm going to learn to count to ten and drive more cautiously. I'm going to learn to laugh so my kids can learn to laugh too.

Okay, so I stole this from someone else's blog today.

I was reading a blog that a friend of mine contributes to and they had this great quote. I think it's a message that we all need to hear again and again to remind us of the great potential we all have.

Our worst fear is not that we are inadequate; our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented,and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence authomatically liberates others.
--Nelson Mandella

The five year goal

Last fall, Seth and I enrolled Kaitlyn in a preschool on his campus. Because it is run as a co-op, we would need to volunteer 4 hours a week. Kaitlyn never got to go because we couldn't get finger printed. Apparently, there is a line as long as the state waiting to be fingerprinted and the police told Seth they couldn't possibly do it until March 31st--even though it was still October.

Fast forward to last week. The state police are lighter on their feet than the local police and the fingerprinting was done. The co-op called and left a message on our answering machine saying they had another spot open up and Nate could go as well. I listened to the message and stared at the cabinets. I would be...alone? The by-myself-and-nobody-needs-me kind? It was a bittersweet moment, and I wondered what I would do with myself.

This past week I started putting my goals into motion. I filled out my application for RIC (where Seth teaches) to get a BA in English. I've started writing more and felt happier for it. I applied for a job with the Census Bureau so I can attend the BYU writer's conference again and start planning my trip to England to see the sites I've written about.

That said, my goal is to be a published author within the next five years. Remember, you heard it here first.

The Dixons take Manhattan

Seth & I will be celebrating our 10th anniversary on Tuesday and, to celebrate, we decided to take the family to New York City. In the past, we've been lucky enough to make the trip alone (thanks Mom), but we decided it would be fun to try making the trip as a family. A small miracle occured along the way-we didn't have to stop at any bathrooms. That's progress, people.

Here's Katie-cakes on the subway. She kind of reminds me of Randy in a Christmas Story-she can't really put her arms all the way down.

Nate could put his arms down, he just didn't want to. Here we are catching a train down to Battery Park to take the ferry out to Staten Island. The kids love ferry rides (it was the only thing they talked about after we visited Boston) and I wanted them to see the Statue of Liberty.

I hate to say it, but my kids are wimps. Kylie walked from the subway station to the ferry, only to collapse in the elevator. She wasn't alone; Kaitlyn collapsed as well, but not as photogenically. Maybe it was the 10 pounds of winter wear I had them dressed in.

Our gift from our French friends.

Does this island look like it belongs somewhere remote and peaceful? This island is just off Staten Island, but it seems so out of place. On every side you find all of the industrial trappings associated with a busy harbor with this little gem in the middle of it all.

Our little geographer in the making. He loves maps, just like his dad.

A serendipitous moment: the unexpected tree at the Stock Exchange. We ended up liking this one more than the Rockefeller Tree.

Just another day on the subway. Kylie's got her careworn New Yorker face on.

Free hugs, get 'em while they're hot.

"All aboard to Santa Land!" The kids loved our conductor and this place, the decorating is so extensive they leave it up year round. I also loved it because the line moved rather quickly for the biggest department store in New York City on the last Saturday morning before Christmas.

Decisions, decisions...

The man himself. This is the first year that my kids didn't treat Santa like he had an extra eye or a communicable disease.

Like I said, the Wall Street tree was better and less crowded.

One of the things I love about Kylie is her ability to surprise me. When I asked what she would like to see in New York City, she replied, "Balto." I thought she'd give me a generic answer, but instead she taught me something. Me, "What??" So she (a second grader) explained to me (age unknown) about the dog that saved the town of Nome, Alaska.

The kids came to life in Central Park. All of the whining ended, no one needed to be carried and it started to snow. Although they enjoyed the things we took them to, in the end they just like climbing big rocks and running around best. I guess Olmsted knew best.

"The enjoyment of scenery employs the mind without fatigue and yet exercises it; tranquilizes it and yet enlivens it; and thus, through the influence of the mind over the body gives the effect of refreshing rest and reinvigoration to the whole system." --- Frederick Law Olmsted
Central Park's designer

Live Free or Die-NH

Two weeks ago, we took an extended weekend visit to New Hampshire to stay with my aunt and uncle. Live free or die is on their license plates and tells you something of the people who live there. We had our first outdoorsy adventures in a long time. Generally, our time outdoors is going to the playground or, more recently, the beach. Our first full day in NH we climbed Mt. Piper and picked a gallon of blueberries.

The kids got tired, but mostly they walked. Round-trip this was a two mile excursion uphill-yes, both ways:)
My aunt Janet made us a blueberry pie and then sent us home with the rest of the blueberries. Yummy.
Our second day we spent canoeing and swimming on Lake Squam. If you've seen "On Golden Pond" with Katherine Hepburn and Henry Fonda, this is the lake. It's gorgeous. Notice how you don't see any cottages? They are required to leave the trees along the shoreline and build behind them, pure genius.

Nate became a blueberry connoisseur. We picnicked on a huge rock and, while wading around, Nate found blueberry bushes and helped himself.

Fun swimming with Daddy.

Seven or seventeen?
Okay, this lake is full of huge boulders. They freak me out. Even though we were in a canoe-thus only two inches down in the water-I could imagine us tipping or getting a hole in the canoe. No wonder they chose that particular problem in the movie.

My Uncle Gary hoping to see some wildlife. Overly hopeful with my loud children in his canoe.

Loons. They had a baby with them but I couldn't get him in the photo. They have the most beautiful call.

On our final day of the visit we went to the Squam Lake Science Center where my aunt works. It's very child-friendly and has a lot of animals native to the area. I like this photo of the kids.

Let's go Cougars...let's go! I mean, We Are...Penn State! I have conflicting loyalties.

The girls in a faux bear cave. They loved this.
Nate and my aunt studying what a bear eats.

We walked through a marsh area on our way to the exit and I saw this Monarch. We had a great visit that Nate can't stop talking about.