A Run in with the Sidewalk

When Emry and Ethan were quite small and we just moved to this house, it was easy to keep them in the backyard. (Well, once we zip tied the latch on the gate which Ethan opened the first time he went outside!) But Ellyson…not so much. If Emry and Ethan are out with the neighbors, or riding bikes, or racing down the sidewalk with scooters, or coloring with chalk – of course she has to be in the middle of it all!

 

Thankfully we don’t live on a frightfully busy street. We also live two doors down from the speed bump so most of the vehicles come down slowly. I can keep a good watch on Emry and Ethan from the front window, listening to their “outside voices”, and stepping outside to check on them ever-so-often. On pleasant days I’ll also just take my laptop outside or do other projects on the porch. But when Ellyson goes out, I go out, too. She’s not as cautious as either of them and they don’t keep a close eye on her. But there are moments I will step inside real quick to grab a water bottle or something. And a moment is all it takes.

 

Our driveway slants down a slight hill to the street. Like her siblings before her, she enjoys sitting on the toy tractor and zooming down it. While I stand at the bottom to catch her, getting a very good shoulder and arm workout in the process. Up until now, she’s been quite good at not going down without me. She’s also been quite good when I tell her not to take the tractor to the hill. But today she out and I stepped inside to tell Ed something real quick. Then she screamed.

 

I knew immediately what had happened. Before I could get to her our neighbor was there picking her up. She had gone down the hill on the tractor with no one there to stop her. The bump at the end of the drive sent her over the front of the tractor and into the gravel on the street. Her head was bruised, her nose and face scratch up, and she was generally a mess. I took her inside, comforting her, to the bathroom to gently clean her up and keep an eye on her lest she had hit her head harder than I could see. She had no signs of a concussion, just a really good wipe out: bruised knot on the head, scratches in various places, busted lip. And very shaken.

 

To keep an eye on her, I let her curl up on our bed with her blanket, helped her eat a popsicle (which she wasn’t vastly interested in) and let her watch her favorite: Cocomelon.I confess I let her do this for probably over an hour while I did some chores nearby and tried to get her to eat something. With the busted lip, she wasn’t interested in food for a while but within an hour and a half she was more herself, ready to go do something else. Later she ate just fine and was back to normal before the day ended, albeit still looking like she got the worse of the boxing match.

 

The bruises and scratches will heal. She won’t even know they’re there. The biggest question, however, is did she learn her lesson? With Ellyson, I’m not quite sure.

A bit beat up, but still cute!

Three Years Ago

Although we miss Grandpa and Grandma (my parents) when they go away for a trip, we also love going out to their house to housesit and keep an eye on Gus, the beagle. It’s really nice being out in the country. Tons of space to roam and play, quiet and peaceful nights, larger rooms, and three whole bathrooms! It’s also really nice that when one of the kids is looking for me, they can’t always find me right away!

 

I think three years ago was the first time we spent considerable time out there, watching the house while they were in Kenya for my sister Grace’s wedding.  We had just two kids then: 4-year-old Emry and 2-year-Ethan.

Emry and Ethan on the purple hippo in one of Grandma’s flower gardens.

 

Today, of course, there are three kids: 7-year-old Emry, 5-year-old Ethan, and 2-year-old Ellyson. How time has flown!

 

Emry, Ethan and Ellyson with the purple hippo!

 

Another thing we have enjoyed doing as a family is going out for breakfast on a Saturday morning. It’s not something we do very often, maybe two or three times a year. But as I was looking for the above picture, I also found this one:

Ed, Emry and Ethan at a restaurant, 2019

 

Which is quite a change from the one I took this past week!

 

Ed, Emry, Ethan and Ellyson at a restaurant, 2022

 

The kids aren’t the only ones who have changed…

Who Wore it Best?

As is with most second-borns of the same gender, more than half of Ellyson’s clothes were once Emry’s. And thankfully Emry was born first. She is much easier on her clothes. If Ellyson had been first, not many would have survived to be passed down!

 

Ellyson is not yet of an age that she minds hand-me-downs. She’s not yet particular about what she wears, outside of “shoe-as” and “bows”. She is very picky about what pair of shoes she pulls out to wear (and she wears what takes her fancy, not what goes with her outfit). She also never fully dressed without a barrette, including at bedtime.

 

Like all my sisters and I, though, what looks great on one may not look great on another. My sisters and I are all very different in build. Many of us wear the same size, but not because we have the same waist, or hips, or leg length. It’s just what fits best but looks different on each of us. The same goes for Emry and Ellyson. They are sisters but are very different in how God has built them. So outfits that I thought looked adorable on Emry don’t suit Ellyson quite as well. In the reverse, some outfits that didn’t quite suit tiny Emry are quite “cue-et” on the slightly larger and chubbier Ellyson (as she says). 

 

When she was not yet two, Emry received a dress from her Aunt Jenny that was one of my favorites on her the summer she was two. It was pulled out for Ellyson this year. I still love the dress, but I’ll let you judge who wore it best:

 

Emry, summer 2017

 

Ellyson, this summer

The First Day of School

It seems I start school earlier every year. This year it just seemed logical to start today when the neighbor kids are back in school and so stave off the morning boredom with no one to play with! Besides, I rather like being done the first part of May. It’s nice to have pleasant weather to enjoy and no school to do.

 

Every year the load gets heavier. For them as well as for me! Third grade and first grade. As always, we’ll see how close reality reaches expectations!

Emry: Third Grade

 

Ethan: First Grade

Sisters

When I was pregnant, there was nothing Emry wanted more than a sister. The Lord heard her heart’s desire and gave her Ellyson. At five years apart, though, one does wonder how close they will be. Sometimes age 7 and age 2 are a world apart. And yet…

 

Ellyson adores Emry. As more words enter her vocabulary each week, we have learned that she likes to create nicknames. She calls my mom “Boppy” and she has started referring to Emry as “Dody”. The ironic thing about that nickname is that when Ed’s mom (whose name is Dorothy) was growing up, her sisters referred to her as “Dody”. Are family nicknames embedded in DNA?

 

Ellyson loves to do just about anything Emry does. If Emry is playing Barbies, Ellyson wants to play. If Emry is drawing, Ellyson wants to draw. If Ellyson needs help, Emry is the first to be asked. And if Ellyson isn’t ready to sleep at night, then she doesn’t let Emry go to sleep either! Thankfully, Emry is usually pretty good about letting Ellyson play sometimes and helping her out. 

 

Having a sister is a wonderful thing – most of the time!

 

Ellyson and Emry

 

Me and Katey

My Teachers: My Mom!

After a lot of ups and downs in my education through third and fourth grade: a huge move that had me changing schools in the middle of the year followed by being put into a Christian school the next year…my parents made the decision to change it up again. Why not? I couldn’t get any more confused than I already was, right? So, why not homeschool?

 

Actually, I’m pretty sure me-myself-and-I was not the center of those conversations. After all, they had five kids by then. I was ten, so I certainly didn’t know what my parents said as they made that decision. I knew enough to know they knew about homeschooling and I had heard of it, although I didn’t think I knew anyone personally who was homeschooled.  It wasn’t something a lot of people did in 1990. Those were the days when the librarians, cashiers, and random people in the same place you were on a school-day morning asked why you were not in school. And when you said, “I’m homeschooled,” you might as well have said, “I have Covid!” and then proceeded to cough on them by the way they looked at you, backed up, and thought you might be contagious. Sometimes it was almost fun.

 

To be honest, I remember having a lot of thoughts about my parents decision to homeschool. Probably because my education had been a little all over the place anyhow. And I certainly wasn’t going to miss Miss Farrington. I just remember hating have to take tests over the summer to determine which books our new curriculum would send me. I hated it even worse when I failed at grammar and had to spend the summer doing 4^thgrade grammar (again) so I could rightly have a 5^thgrade book in the fall. After all, those things are very important at that age.

 

And, so, my next teacher (and my final teacher) was my mom. I don’t know way back in 1990 if my mom thought she would be my teacher until I graduated from high school. I imagine she was just trying to get through 5^thgrade with me, 2^ndgrade with Katey, and keep three other kids under the age of 4 somehow entertained so we could actually do our schoolwork. If her days were anything like mine, there was complaining to deal with, distractions of all sorts, and lots of time wondering if we were learning a single thing. Homeschooling is not for the faint of heart. If teachers in school think their job is thankless, they should try homeschooling. I mean, at least they get an occasional apple on their desk and a paycheck.

 

When you’re homeschooled, one year is pretty much like the next. Only in our case, we had a lot of different classrooms. The first one was Katey’s bedroom, but she actually slept in my room so it was available. When we moved to Connecticut the next year, school was done at the dining room table or the table behind the couch in the living room. In Massachusetts, we had a “school room”. That house had so many little random rooms why not have one dedicated to school? Although Daniel had a desk in Dad’s office and I think Sally worked in the dining room. In Texas, it was back to the dining room. Although I would get a desk for my 18^thbirthday, so I spent the last couple of months finishing my senior year in my own room. 

 

My mom’s teaching method was consistent: here’s your assignments, come find me if you need help. I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to the fact that she was probably spending her mornings working with my younger siblings as they learned to read, figured out math, and got use to assignment sheets. For I will say my mornings of being homeschooled are not as hectic as my mornings of actually homeschooling. I could say I was a very focused student so I ignored everything around me. That would be a lie because I’m sure I had many fights with Daniel over whatever he was doing that annoyed me. At the same time, growing up that way has served me well. I continue to astound co-workers at how I can type an email and talk on the phone, or simply work in the midst of chaos. Ah, the things you learn being homeschooled you didn’t even realize!

 

Like all good homeschool moms, my mom tried to cater to our likes and dislikes. Not that we got out of a basic curriculum, but some of us went further in various directions than others. Unfortunately my former-high-school-math-teacher mom did not have one child who loved math. While she delighted in getting out her dry erase markers and scribbling math problems on the board to explain the steps of solving them, we all complained and shed tears over our algebra books. I excelled in history and grammar. High school history ended up being here’s-a-time-period-go-find-books-read-them-and-report. That was easy. Perhaps I should have hid my grammar skills, though. I was the only one who had to do the grammar book where diagramming one sentence took up a whole sheet of paper – and that was if you wrote small! My real love was writing. Mom tried to find curriculum that would improve those skills but never landed on anything really challenging. I honed my own skills by spending all afternoon scribbling. On the other hand, I hated science with a passion. I’m pretty sure mom released me from that misery after I finished 10^thgrade biology not because she thought I was sufficiently educated but because she was tired of arguing with me about it. There will come a day when I shall probably do the same.

 

In the end, I’m grateful my parents homeschooled me. Not all homeschooled kids will say that. Not all my siblings will say that. But I will. I got a good education. I grew up well rounded and am not psychologically damaged beyond repair. I have a bachelor’s degree, I’m successful in my career, and I even have enough confidence (or stubbornness) to homeschool my own kids. I will always be grateful for the sacrifices my mom made to homeschool me. And, honestly, I wonder almost every morning how she did it! And then pray that I can do it, too!

Camp!

Any of you who read this blog will know that camp has been a big piece of my life. My adventures at camp actually began the summer I was nine when I went to GA (Girls in Action) camp in New Hampshire. I loved it! I especially loved Miss Becky, my counselor. In all honesty, I don’t remember a lot about it. I remember I was in the “purple cabin” (each “cabin” went by a color of the rainbow that summer). I recall taking the swim class, learning silly camp songs, making a craft or two, or Ronnie Kolias falling flat on his face out of his chair because he was goofing off during evening worship. You know, all those things that make camp memorable. Perhaps most of all, though, was I wanted to be a camp counselor when I grew up.

 

I’d go back to Singing Hills camp for two more summers. I remember bits and pieces of the next two years: my counselors were not as good as Miss Becky, my sister Katey hated camp, the girl-drama in the cabin one year bordered on ridiculous, and I learned more silly songs. 

 

I never would be a counselor (I don’t think my five-day stint as co-counselor at a church youth camp in 2008 counts as I didn’t’ do much), but I would spend the summers of 2006 and 2007 as at office assistant at Camp Ridgecrest for Boys in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina. I wished that whole summer their registrar would retire so I could have her job. Alas, that didn’t happen. And it would be five more years before I would take my dream job at Camp Lebanon in Minnesota. There I would learn that fulltime camp life can be challenging…but camp is always very rewarding.

 

This year I found myself on the other side of the camp coin: a parent with a child old enough to go to camp. Way back in the spring the mom of one of Emry’s friends asked if I would send Emry to “squirt camp” with her friend at the camp our church supports about an hour from our home. I didn’t think a lot about it when I said, “Sure!” I mean, I’d spent years at camp and know a lot about it. Then when I actually signed her up, there was a slight hiccup…and I paused. What was I doing? What kind of things did this camp teach? How good were their background checks? How safe was their zipline? Yeah, I know camp. I know all kinds of things parents probably don’t want to know. And now I’m a parent…and I know. I had to discuss it all with Ed, but we signed her up. We took her this past Sunday. And I brought her home tonight. The outcome?

 

Well, for me it was very hard to have her gone for a couple of days. I missed her in our little house, and I couldn’t help worrying if she was okay. Ethan wasn’t sure what to do with himself (except complain that he wanted to go to camp, too), and Ellyson through an all-out fit once she realized Emry was not there. For her? She had a blast!!!Like Emry always is, she was very calm and objective when we picked her up and took her home. She talked about what she did, the friends she made, and how much she adored Miss Annie her counselor.  She asked several times if she could go back next year for a whole week. Then it was time to go to bed…and she couldn’t contain herself any longer. Her whole world came crashing down.

 

Granted, I knew she had to be tired. No matter how hard you try to get little girls to bed on time, it simply doesn’t happen. Especially when you have them for only two nights. Plus, camp is all about doing something constantly. So, I had one exhausted little girl on my hands. Who missed camp. Who missed Miss Annie. Who wanted to be in her cabin. Who wanted to go on the zipline again, and do crafts, and play games, and sing silly songs. I thought she would never go to sleep!

 

And so, camp once again enters my life. Emry can’t wait to go back, and Ethan wants to go, too. I can’t blame them. In some ways, I’d like to spend my summers at camp again, too. 

 

Emry and Ethan at Twin Lakes Camp!

 

Emry and her friend Autumn in front of their cabin.

My Teachers: Miss Farrington

Yes, somehow I survived my childhood. We can probably all say that to some extent. But third, fourth and fifth grade were hard. Third grade started in Tennessee and finished in New Hampshire. My parents then decided the public school system in New Hampshire wasn’t where they wanted their children educated. So, in fourth grade I got moved to Calvary Christian School. Talk about another dramatic change. I wrote in my last post about my teachers that I left third grade seriously questioning my future career choice as a teacher. By the end of fourth grade, that coffin had been nailed shut. I would not grow up to be a teacher. Not after Miss Farrington.

 

When I first met Miss Farrington I thought I was in the “good” fourth grade class of the two at Calvary Christian. Perhaps because Mrs. Perry was older and Miss Farrington seemed so young. Looking back, I don’t know that she was. Oh, she was certainly younger than Mrs. Perry who was in her 50s if not 60s. But I’m now guessing Miss Farrington had to be in her 30s. Not really young – just unmarried.

 

Now I was not of the age that I cared if my teachers were married or not. I didn’t think much about my teachers outside of the classroom. I didn’t think about their husbands or kids. Hobbies or vacations. Likes or dislikes. They were teachers – not people. They belonged in their classroom and if I happened to run into one in the grocery store it was very wrong. Looking back, though, and having been single well into my thirties…my fellow students and I probably didn’t care if anything about Miss Farrington’s marital status but I have a feeling she did. Especially as she was the only unmarried teacher in the whole elementary school. I think she felt she had something to prove. And her students got the brunt of it. 

 

Miss Farrington was about as short as Mrs. Cassidy. She was also half as wide as she was tall. She always dressed very carefully in neat tops and long skirts or jumpers with flats and far too much makeup. She was not shy about saying anything, and she handed out discipline almost too easily. I felt picked on quite often, but I’m not sure I was any more or less picked on than any of the other students. In a class of only fourteen kids, not one of us could fly under the radar. The classroom was small – barely large enough for our desks, her desk, and room for us to work at the chalkboard. In a room that congested, there was almost nothing Miss Farrington didn’t know about. Which made her omissions almost as obvious as her commissions.

 

Miss Farrington was the teacher who when you asked, “Can I go to the bathroom?” she immediately responded, “I don’t know – can you?” I wasn’t the only one who was constantly correcting her verbs and came to hate the word may. One of the worse sins you could commit was to forget something, whether it was how to spell a word or forgetting your snow pants on a snowy day. The first because she hated imperfection. The latter because you weren’t allowed to be in outside in the snow without snow pants so you disrupted her half hour of quiet when we were all supposed to outside with another teacher on recess duty. But the very worsething a student could do was have extracurricularactivities during the school day. In fourth grade that meant music practice. Every single one of us was highly encouraged to try an instrument for band that year. At least ten out of the fourteen of us did so. And while full band practice happened during recess one day every other week, specific music practice happened just as lunch period was coming to an end and ran into reading class. I had flute practice with the other flautists every other Monday. We would all miss most of reading class, and Miss Farrington would make us stay in from recess until our reading work was complete. I’m not sure if we wanted out to recess or we wanted to get out from under her glowering brow. Whichever it was, we’d rush…we’d make mistakes…and we’d be seriously lectured in front of the rest of the class later. I suppose it should be a comfort that I wasn’t the only one who suffered through this. Any of us who played an instrument and had to be at practice were targets. It didn’t make me feel any better, though. 

 

The best of teachers encourage a love of learning in their students. Thanks to Miss Farrington, to this day I abhor penmanship. That’s not to say I don’t believe one’s writing should be neat and legible. I’ve gotten compliments that mine is, but that’s because I use to scribble stories for hours a day which eventually turned into well practiced handwriting. But I find myself not being very particular about the way my kids write their letters. Oh, I want neatness. And I should be able to read each letter. But I don’t care if they start at the top or the bottom. I’m not even particular about their letters looking exactly as they are printed in the book. In third grade, I learned cursive. In fourth grade, I learned that whichever curriculum Calvary Christian used (Bob Jones?), it dictated several cursive letters be written differently than I had learned them. I very politely approached Miss Farrington at her desk and asked if I needed to change my cursive so it was like the book or I could continue writing them as I had learned. She announced the question to the whole class and then proceeded to inform us that I had learned my letters wrongly and the way they did them was the right way. I needed to change. And I did. But after fourth grade, I never wrote those letters that way again. I still don’t.

 

But by and large the number one thing that made me decide never to be a teacher was Miss Farrington’s response to my being from the South. I was not the only little girl in her class from Tennessee. Annie, too, suffered for the sake of our heritage. First in how we say the word “aunt”. We say “ant”. Up in New England they say “auhnt”. Well, “aunt” was a spelling word in fourth grade. And when going through our words on a Monday morning, Miss Farrington had Kyle read that word. “Auhnt,” said Kyle. “Very good,” Miss Farrington nodded. “Annie, would you read that word?” “Ant,” Annie pronounced. “Yes,” Miss Farrington said. “Where Annie and Melissa are from, that is what they say. But I would not like to be called the name of an insect.” I almost cried. 

 

Even worse would come later when we studied the War of Northern Aggression in history. Of course, it was not called that in our history book. It was properly termed “Civil War” but it felt like the War of Northern Aggression. For nearly two weeks, Annie and I were mocked by several of the other kids as being “Confederates” and “losers”. In a classroom as small as hers where nothing escaped her, I know Miss Farrington knew. But she never said anything. Not a word. To me, her silence meant she agreed.

 

I was glad when fourth grade was over. And even happier when my parents told us they were going to homeschool us. I didn’t know what that meant, but I did know it meant I wouldn’t have to be in the same building as Miss Farrington. Or in a classroom with a Bruno. It sounded great to me!

 

Me at Christmas in one of my favorite sweaters with my siblings (left to right): Grace, Daniel, Sally and Katey. (And, technically, I was in 5^thgrade by this picture but I can’t find a decent picture of myself in 4^thgrade!)

My Teachers: Mrs. Cassidy

In 1987, my dad decided the Lord had called him to the foreign mission field. In a round about, he was right. The day after Christmas in 1988, we moved to New Hampshire. The foreign mission field.

 

I was very nervous about starting in at a new school in the middle of the school year. I hid that fear behind being disgruntled that my Christmas vacation got cut short. In reality, I had no idea what I was getting into. It took one day to realize I had left the wonderful place called Tennessee and landed in some place that couldn’t have possibly been on the same planet.

 

I don’t think we had reached lunch before Bruno, the class troublemaker from some good Italian New England family (whom I would later learned lived just up the street from me and had an older brother named Luigi…very goodItalian family), did something. I can’t even remember what, but what I do clearly remember is my new teacher Mrs. Cassidy (who was all of barely over five feet which made her the same height as Bruno) told him not to do it. Now where I came from, that would have been the end of that. Or the kid would have ended up in the corner. And if that didn’t work, there was always the coat room with a paddle. But not in New Hampshire. When Bruno got in her face and basically said “you’re-not-the-boss-of-me” she couldn’t put him in the corner. She most definitely couldn’t paddle him. She might have sent him to the principal’s office, but Bruno was a regular there and the principal couldn’t do much either. Basically all she could do was take him by the arm and force him back to his seat. Which was a stand off unless Bruno decided to move since he was certainly heavier than she was. I sat at my desk across the room watching this play out and wondering where on earth my parents had decided to move me.

 

Before the day was out, my next drama would be on the playground. A wonderful little girl named Summer had been putting her classwork in her cubby the same time I had and invited me to play with her during recess. I thought she was an angel from Heaven and happily agreed. Only to find myself stepping into a soap opera. Summer and I hadn’t played long before a couple of other little girls from class asked if they could speak to me: privately. They then told me what an awful person Summer was and that I shouldn’t play with her. And so it went the entire recess until I was very confused. I honestly liked Summer and thought her one of the nicest people in the class. We wouldn’t become fast friends, but I never did understand why those two other girls didn’t like her. They weren’t bullies or ever mean to me and one could be really nice when she wanted to be. Talk about third grade drama. 

 

To be honest, the last half of third grade is somewhat of a blur. It was a very confusing time. I didn’t live far from the school and had to walk if mom or the neighbor next door whose kids went there didn’t drive me. Our relationship with our neighbors was precarious at best and those kids were often bullies if they felt I had stepped over some invisible line. I felt the kids in my new classroom were mostly unfriendly, not realizing they were just New Englanders. I spent those five or six months being on my very best behavior because I honestly felt sorry for Mrs. Cassidy who could nothing whenever Bruno stepped out of line (which was almost daily) or Timothy, the class clown, did something stupid. I didn’t want to be trouble, too, so I mostly kept my head down, didn’t ask questions, and tried to be helpful.

 

It was very hard not to ask questions…simply because there were so many things I didn’t understand. Mrs. Cassidy was my first introduction to the foreign language called the “Bawston Drawl”. It’s a language I now speak fluently, but I didn’t then. I could not understand why she introduced me to the class as “Melissar” and continued to call me by that name for the next five months. As she wrote my name correctly on the tag on my desk, she obviously knew it did not have a “R” at the end of it. And yet she never said it without the “R”. I didn’t have the courage to correct her. I didn’t know why she would say she had an “idear” or why she said “cah” or “pahk”. We didn’t have to provide our own ruled paper as I had in the last school. She had “drawring” paper which was a weird brownish colored paper which was glossy smooth on one side and not quite so glossy on the other. It was hard to write on and even harder to erase on, but all of our work was to be done on it and I just assumed that “drawring” was an adjective like “construction” or “note”. It would be months before my dad finally asked someone in church about all the random R’s and Ah’s tossed into words. Once this man explained it, I could finally interpret Mrs. Cassidy…not that it made being called “Melissar” any easier.

 

I think I was a foreign to Mrs. Cassidy as she was to me. I remember the first time I ever approached her desk. I had finished all my homework and when I had done that back in Tennessee, I could always approach Mrs. Edwards’s desk and ask if there was anything I could do to help her. She always had little things I could do. When I asked Mrs. Cassidy the same thing, she looked surprised and speechless. I don’t think a student had ever asked her that, for most of her students didn’t finish their homework in class. I didn’t always, but when I did she started to find little things I could do. Thankfully I wasn’t there long enough to become “teacher’s pet”. I have a feeling in Mrs. Cassidy’s world, simply having a student that didn’t get in trouble was a relief. Aside from Mrs. Steely, I think she was the oldest teacher I had ever had. I would have pegged her closer to my grandparents’ age than my parents’. But I was only nine and not a good judge of an adult’s age. Still, I do remember thinking if I was her, I would quit. Before being in her class, I had wanted to be a teacher. Watching her try to teach when Bruno decided to give her a hard time…before third grade was over I was seriously re-thinking my future career choice. Mrs. Cassidy probably was too.

The Rest of the Vacation

Like so many trying to save money these days, we only took a short vacation. In an attempt to relax after Pittsburgh, we took the long way home through scenic Kentucky and found ourselves staying at a Shaker Village for a night. I can’t say it was very relaxing as I hit the bottom of my pool of resources the next morning when we were trying to load the car and broke down in tears, but so go vacations with three kids totally off their schedules. Still, it was a really nice place to stay and we got tickets to tour it the following day with our reservation which was fun.

 

My first encounter with Shakers (so called because they would “shake” in the spirit during worship) was in third grade on a field trip a few months after moving to New Hampshire. Everything in New England was still so foreign I remember thinking it was just one more really bizarre thing New England did. Like most cults in early America, this one started in England and came over to America in the 1780s. They started communities in New England before heading further west into Kentucky, Ohio and even Indiana. They believed in Christ’s eminent return and by living in communes believed they were preparing themselves for the millennial kingdom. Part of this preparation meant no marriage and no families. Men and boys lived separate from women and girls. Obviously this meant they weren’t going to grow very large and so relied on new converts to replace the ones who died. They also took in orphans and children whose families could not care for them. A self-sustaining group of people, in the 1800s they grew to memberships in the thousands. When I was in the third grade, there were still two old women Shakers living at that village. Today, though, they have all died off. A dozen of their villages are museums.

 

It was hard to explain this to the kids. I don’t think they got it at all, nor do I think they were interested. They also don’t yet relate “Shaker” to brooms, furniture, or the old song “ Tis the Gift to be Simple”. Someday they probably will and then they can say they actually stayed at a Shaker Village!

 

It was surprisingly nice. We had a two-room suite on the second floor of one of the old women’s dormitories. One room had a pair of twin beds with a bath and the other a king size bed with a bath. They were wonderfully air conditioned and quite simple with a couple of “Shaker” chairs, a desk, and a dresser. They also had pegs around every wall. Think of a chair rail on a wall only at the height of your head and with a pegs, spaced about every foot. I could hang anything! Had we stayed longer, there was also a community room with a huge fire place, nice chairs and couches, and tables for puzzles and games on the shelves in the building next door which had more rooms as did five or six other buildings on the 3,000 acres of land. If you ever need a place to stay just south of Lexington in Kentucky, you should look it up.

 

The next morning we roamed around a bit. There are trails you can hike, a creek bed that was all dried when we were there and a pond to fish in, but we just wandered a bit. We visited one building where their gatherings took place – a huge feat of Shaker architecture at four floors and a basement they used to cook and conduct school. It was astounding. The kids found it boring so we didn’t go into any of the other many buildings. Instead we made our way over to the “farm” where the animals are kept. Ellyson could have spent all day watching the chickens and turkeys. The other two went back and forth between the fowl and the other animals like goats, llamas and sheep. There were also cows and pigs as well as two large horses they got to meet and pet. After that we had lunch and they chased ducks around the orchard. It was quite amusing to watch them “herd” those ducks who couldn’t seem to run unless it was together in a tight pack.

 

We left to head home after that, stopping in Louisville to play at a splash pad along the Ohio River before making the drive home. Truly, a longer vacation with a little time to rest would have been nice but it was good to get away for a while.

 

Emry on the big swing near the building we stayed in.

 

Ethan and Emry at the front door of the building.

 

Ethan climbing one of many trees he found on the trip. All trees are tempting, but this one especially.

 

Ellyson and Ed watching the chickens and turkeys.

Pittsburgh!

When you’re a mom, a “vacation” isn’t really a vacation…it’s just doing everything you always do somewhere else. Tack on taking our very short summer vacation to Pittsburgh…well, Pittsburgh isn’t anyone’s idea of a vacation spot. But my littlest Pittsburgh native was delighted to be “home”. Of course Ed was happy to be home. Emry always loves to travel…and Ellyson didn’t know the difference. The fact that I didn’t get screamed at as I had on our last visit…we’ll call the trip a success!

 

                                                                                        At the Point. 

(For those of you who have no idea what this is: it’s where the Monongahela River meets the Allegheny River to form the Ohio River. It’s also where Pittsburgh started as “Fort Pitt”.)

 

On top of Mt. Washington with the Pittsburgh skyline behind us.

 

Emry eating a sandwich at Ed’s favorite Pittsburgh spot: Primanti Brother’s.

 

Ed at the Strip District with Primanti’s behind him. 

(For those of you who are possibly thinking what I first thought when Ed would tell me about his days spent at the “Strip District” it is not referring to strip clubs. It was actually a strip of warehouses. When Ed would waste time down there he was usually trying to kill himself with motorcycles and fast cars. When we lived there it was falling apart. Today it’s been “revitalized” and looks quite hipster.)

Emry, Ethan and Ellyson with three of their four Camus cousins: Declan, Macey and Zoey. 

(Missing is Caley, the eldest, who was at band practice.)

 

Ed with his mom and younger brother David. 

The Last of an Era

My grandmother’s house in Lewisburg, Tennessee was situated at a kind of fork in the road. A road ran directly to the driveway which ran around the backside of the house and up the one side. At that road, you could go into the driveway or turn left or right. The road to the left ran directly along the front side of the house (the side we almost never saw) while the road to the right ran over and into another part of the neighborhood. The first two houses on the left of that road had backyards that ran into my grandmother’s backyard. In those houses lived Mrs. Little and Mrs. Cochran.  Along with my grandmother, all three were widows for as long as I knew them.

 

Mrs. Little and Mrs. Cochran had lived in those two houses forever, just as my grandmother had lived in her house forever. Of course that wasn’t true, but they had lived there for as long as I had been alive and they had been widows for as long as I had been alive. As a tiny girl, I don’t think it ever occurred to me that there had been a Mr. Cochran or a Mr. Little at some point in time. Nor that Mrs. Cochran or Mrs. Little had families outside of my own. They were just Mrs. Little and Mrs. Cochran, as much a part of my life as my own grandmother.

 

Mrs. Little and Mrs. Cochran were always at family events at the house. Sometimes they were there the whole time, sometimes they just made an appearance. Christmas, Thanksgiving, other get togethers – they brought over dishes, sat around the table, told family stories as if they had been there (because they had!), and wiled away countless hours on that side porch with the rest of us. For that matter, they were even at family events that were not at my grandmother’s house. They were just part of the family.

 

Mrs. Cochran was the first to pass away. I don’t recall when, but I do recall the loss. Wondering what visiting to Tennessee would be like without her: the woman who apologized profusely for bringing store bought ice cream to a church ice cream social because her churn wouldn’t work. That is certainly not something a proper Southern woman would ever do, but of course she was forgiven. They just don’t make ice cream churns like they use to. Visiting wasn’t the same without her. I would look over at her house and resent whoever it was that now lived there. It wasn’t right. Some things just shouldn’t change.

 

My grandmother died in October of 2016. When Ed, Emry and I drove down from Pittsburgh for her funeral, we stayed with Mrs. Little. I had been in Mrs. Little’s house before, but mostly when one visited Mrs. Little you just sat in the old chairs in the garage (where the car was never parked). It was so gracious of her to put us up in her own bedroom, brimming over with Southern hospitality as she walked about with her cane and told us stories of when she was younger. I remember thinking how difficult it must be for her having outlived both Mrs. Cochran and my grandmother, but she mourned in private as any Southern lady does. She was always cheerful and happy as she fed us breakfast or asked us about our lives in Pittsburgh. Even though I hoped we could return on a happier occasion and visit with her again, I rather knew I would probably never see Mrs. Little alive again. Not when she would turn 90 a week after we left.

 

This weekend, my mom told me Mrs. Little has been put on hospice. She had been moved to an assisted living home in recent months just for her own safety, but she’s perfectly cognizant and full of memories. So, friends would come and take her back to her home just so she could be there to visit with people, and then take her back to the assisted living. She has cancer, though, and it’s only a matter of time. 

 

I don’t know who lives in Mrs. Cochran’s house now. Someone bought, fixed up and flipped my grandmother’s home. Now the same fate likely awaits Mrs. Little’s house. One day I will take my kids to Lewisburg. One day I will show them the places I loved as a kid, the places my mom and dad loved growing up, the places that are a part of me…and so a part of them. But when I take them to see their great-grandmother’s house and tell them about her, and Mrs. Cochran, and Mrs. Little, I will cry...as I am crying now. An era has ended. A part of my life has come to a close. And all that’s left is the memories I can share with them.

My Teachers: Mrs. Edwards

This past week at work I needed to charter a bus for a tour some of our employees are conducting through a town outside of Pittsburgh for a comp plan they are working on. This led to a whole discussion on what to properly call different size buses…which then led to an exchange of our memories of riding school buses. By far, one of my more memorable daily school bus rides was the first half of third grade in Lewisburg, Tennessee. The previous year, the new elementary school had been built on the other side and up the hill from the back field of our house. It would have been a very easy walk up the mown trail to school each day, but I was honestly too scared to do it. And since the bus would pick me up, drive the quarter mile around the corner, and drop me off…well, who needed to walk? But as I was the last one to get picked up, but the first to be dropped off, my selection of seats was limited. So I would squeeze into the one free: right next to two middle school best friends. They reminded me of the villains in 101 Dalmatians: one was short and stout and the other tall and skinny. Both gave me the evil eye the whole two minutes I squeezed beside them. Talk about a miserable start to your day!

 

But third grade itself wasn’t bad, although it would be my first run in with bullies: namely a 4^thgrader who thought I was fun to pick on the few times I would run into her. I could say she was racist, but it’s not politically correct to say racism goes both ways. And I can’t say she hated me because I was white…it was probably more likely because I would cower. I don’t know why, except she was bigger and I have a mortal fear of being noticed. So, to be singled out even to be scoffed at…well, I wasn’t a fan. I just wanted to be left alone! Thankfully our run-ins can be counted on one hand. And while it left it’s mark on my memory, I certainly never valued myself through her eyes. For school, as a whole, was a good experience.

 

Again, Mrs. Edwards had gone to school with my parents or something. She certainly knew who I was, who my parents were, and who my grandmother was. Even more disconcerting, so did the new principal of the school. At that time, it never occurred to me that the principal of Marshall County had also known exactly who I was. Probably because she never singled me out, but I clearly remember this principal singling me out when he happened to be in the hall the same time as our class. It was nothing new to be “Mrs. Ogilvie’s granddaughter”, but it was new that the principal brought that to the attention of everyone within hearing range. So much for being unnoticed!

 

Third grade was a novelty and I’m not sure if that was because of Mrs. Edwards or because it was a new school and we were now “older”. We had lockers in our classrooms instead of a cloakroom. They were half lockers and I worried my entire four months there how I was to get my new winter coat to fit in it. I was very proud of that pink store-bought coat with a teal scarf, but it went down to my knees and I was convinced it would not fit in my locker. Since it was Tennessee, though, and we moved just after Christmas it never got cold enough to test my theory. 

 

We also didn’t have a bathroom in the classroom. They were down the hall. I had another fear I’d get in trouble for taking too long in the bathroom. Other kids did. Of course, they were goofing off while I was going as fast as I could lest I get scolded! We didn’t have as many fun school supplies, we switched classes twice (well, I only switched for reading and just across the hall as Mrs. Edwards was my math teacher as well as “homeroom” teacher). Another fear: getting lost going to my other class. Like you can get lost when you never even left the third-grade hallway! 

 

Mrs. Edwards also had higher expectations of homework, turning things in on time, and doing our work neatly. I don’t know if this was just her teaching style or the marker set for third grade. I just remember I would use most of my spare time in class getting ahead on my homework. For I had yet another fear of not turning it in on time and getting my name put on the board. I remember a couple of my friends thinking I was crazy to be doing my math homework instead of some fun art project. “Missa, you can do it at home!” I remember Katie Lovett telling me. Instead, I did it in school and would finish everything so early Mrs. Edwards would set me to grading things or helping her with a bulletin board. I think some kids took that as favoritism. It was probably more keeping me busy, and I liked doing those kinds of things so it drove me even more to finish my homework in school. 

 

Looking back, with all my fears I should have probably had therapy in third grade! At the same time, starting my third grade year in a new school with lots of new experiences prepared me for the school I would attend when we moved from Tennessee to New Hampshire the day after Christmas. While there was a lot of new experiences, I had the same old friends and familiar out of school activities. After Christmas break, all that would change!

 

Me in 3^rdgrade: classic 80’s side ponytail and baggy sweater with weird geometric shapes in wild colors!

Dear Ellyson,

 

Today you are two years old. I have survived to see this day: although much more exhausted than I thought possible!

 

For you are the one that keeps me on my toes! You are constantly going, constantly into something, constantly challenging me in a way neither Emry or Ethan ever did. I know some of it is you see your older siblings doing something so you think, “Well, I can do that, too,” even if you are half their size. In some ways that can be good: I’m a strong supporter of being independent. In other ways, it’s just one more thing for me to keep an eye on!

 

You are also a walking disaster area. On any given day, I can wander through our house and see trails of this toy, that toy, or whatever you managed to get a hold of spread across several rooms. Nothing is off limits as far as you’re concerned. If you can reach it, it’s fair game. I dream of the day when I will have a house where I can put things out of your reach…and then remember by the time that day is likely to come you won’t be getting into those things anymore! Sigh.

 

You have a quirky personality. I guess we all do. But I love to see you line things up or stack your blocks very neatly. You like to put things like that in order. However, if I ask you to clean up the Monopoly pieces you just scattered all over Ethan’s room, you huff, shake your head, mumble something, and try to walk away. I don’t get how someone who likes to line up rocks by the creek hates to clean up a mess! 

 

Your favorite toys are your baby dolls. You have your own…and you have the one you more-or-less stole from Emry. You like to cuddle them, coo over them and take care of them. You also like to “cook” and be housewife-ly with the few play kitchen stuff we have. Your maternal, like small animals (especially “lattles” as you call cats for some unknown reason), and if someone gets hurt, you are there to give them a hug.

 

You have your own vocabulary. Mostly, “Where it go?” and then a very enthusiastic, “There it is!” Also a very firm, “Yes!” or a shake of the head for “no”. (As I recently told someone, there is no maybe in your world.) And when you can’t find the right words, you certainly have the right fluctuation of tone as you ramble off meaningless words. Sometimes that’s an attempt to count your fingers. Most often it’s wagging your finger and yelling at Ethan because he’s arguing with Emry. You are always very quick to defend what you perceive as injustice.

 

You also love music and watching Cocomelonon my phone. Maybe it’s not the wisest of parenting choices to allow you to watch this whenever I really need you out from under my feet, but often the songs remind me of my own grandmother singling them. And you have learned a lot from them. I love watching you do the motions of The Wheels on the Bus, or Make a Funny Face,or blowing down the house with the Big Bad Wolf.

 

Of course you are very different from your brother and sister before you, especially your sister. You’re affectionate, you’re not afraid to show exactly what you’re feeling, and you simply are who you are. Some of this, sadly, you will grow out of. However, I think you will always be more that way than I am. And I’m glad. For as tired as I am by the end of a day with you, you are exactly what God created you to be. And I hope you always know that.

 

Love, Mama

The Zoo!

Aside from the small community zoo in town (which is really nice), it’s been a while since we’ve been to the zoo. Like, four years. So long that it dawned on me recently when we were talking about giraffes that Ethan had been so little he couldn’t remember ever seeing a giraffe. Which meant we were log overdue for a trip to the zoo.

 

My mom must have been reading my mind for it wasn’t long after that she texted that she and dad had bought a “Grandparent Membership” for the Indianapolis Zoo for the year.  So, this past weekend off we went!

 

You would have thought we were going to California just to go to the zoo all the sighs from Emry about how long it took to get there. We rarely go very far from home, so long car trips are a huge adjustment. Even hour long car trips. I think they found it well worth it, though. For we darted from animal to animal, pausing at the shark and manta ray tank in order to pet them. Then circling around to more animals, pausing again briefly to feed the giraffes. Then off again, this time with a pause for lunch and a fruitless search on the how to get into the butterfly house. (It was closed for expansion we learned when asked, much to Emry’s disappointment.) So, it was back to the sharks and manatees…where we left Ethan, Benito and my parents for the next hour as the boys darted all around that tank trying to touch the animals as often as possible. Ed, the girls and I went off to explore a few animals we hadn’t seen and discovered the dolphins where we sat for quite some time watching them swim around us. 

 

After that, we all met up and headed home, the three in the back playing they were various animals almost all the way home!

Benito and Ellyson looking for the elephant.

 

Ellyson and Ed.

 

Benito, Emry and Ethan…and Ellyson in the back doing her own thing – as usual!

My Teachers: Mrs. Finley

Second grade is the one year I don’t remember quite as clearly as my other years in school. Perhaps because, by then, I was on my third year at Marshall County Elementary so the novelty had certainly worn off. Because that school district split elementary between two schools (Kindergarten through 2^ndat Marshall County and 3^rdthrough 5^thnow at the new West Hills up behind our house), 2^ndgrade was considered “upper classman”. Aka: we were the oldest kids at the school. That, of course, meant we were also the coolest and best. 

 

My second grade teacher was Mrs. Finley. She was a family friend, although I don’t know how. I just know my parents knew her, my grandmother knew her, and even decades later when my grandmother died and she dropped a pie by the house she told my mom to tell me “hi”. She didn’t mind that my sister Katey (age 5 but not yet in Kindergarten) joined me in class if my mom was volunteering at the school. And I remember Katey and I helping her clean the classroom at the end of the year and then going to Horton Park for a picnic and swimming afterwards. Not something we did with any of our other teachers no matter how well they knew my family.

 

I will say Mrs. Finley was very different from Mrs. Steely. That isn’t to say she didn’t keep her students in order just as Mrs. Steely did, but she had a different way of doing it. She didn’t seem as strict, but I can remember her using the paddle at least once on the same boy who had required it of Mrs. Steely several times. She just had a easier-to-approach personality.

 

I do not recall anything I particularly learned in second grade that I have taken with me my whole life. Thinking back, the one thing I remember clearly is learning about the weather and clouds. In the days before the internet and smart phones, we did what people had done for centuries: opened the outside door in our classroom and looked up at the sky. One of us got to do this every day for our chart while we were learning about the weather and clouds, proudly reporting what just about everyone in the classroom could see out the window. After that, we did it one day every other week or so. Probably just often enough that we all got a turn to be the class “weatherman”. As fun as that was, I’m pretty sure not one of us grew up to become a meteorologist.

 

The only other thing I remember markedly clearly about second grade is accidentally popping open a small bag of Doritos in one of the aisles, the wrong end popping open and my chips scattering far and wide all over the classroom which meant every eyeball there was on me. I was so mortified I will not pop open a bag of anything to this day. In fact, I won’t let my kids do it either. I don’t want the same thing to happen to them…apparently, it could potentially scar them for life.

 

Me: second grade. I loved this dress!