Tag Carrot

Erin:  Mama, this is my dinosaur.  He is a ceratops.  He only eats pants.
Me:  He eats pants?
Erin:  No, mama.  Not pants.  PANTS.
Me:  Ahhh.  Right.
(Note - PLANTS.  She means plants.)

While talking to Grandpa the other day, Erin was telling him about how Dexter and Aunt Christy were playing Tag Carrot.  I had no idea what Tag Carrot was.  And then it hit me.  "You mean Tag, you're it?"  Yes.  Yes, that was it.  Tag Carrot.  Erin was just playing a rousing game of Tag Carrot with the dog the other day.  I think he was just as confused as I was.

Dexter read a Magic School Bus book about all the different rocks inside the earth.  And since then he's been trying to identify all the various rocks in our yard.  The white ones under the deck are limestone.  He has named a few.  Limey.  Limer.  I do believe there's one named Slater.  So I was in the candy store the other day, looking for some chocolate to send in to school for Dexter's teacher for Teacher Appreciation week.  And I found some chocolate rocks.  I bought two bags - one for her and one for us.  We had them for snack this afternoon.  They were a huge hit.  Now if only I could find chocolate rocket ships, or gummy planets.

Finally, a joke from Dexter:  Where does a sheep get his hair cut?  At the baa-baa shop!

April Showers Bring May Flowers

A few weeks ago Erin and I went to Longwood, hoping maybe some daffodils would be blooming or something.  Nope.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zero flowers.  This was the best we could find - little purple flowers in the grass.  Which was fine.   I didn't mind if Erin picked them.  And she had fun feeding the fish, so all was well.

Little tiny purple flowers

Dancing on the glass leaf, for Aunt Jeanne

Aunt Jeanne and Dex doing some leaf dancing way back in 2010

The weather has been perfectly perfect this weekend, so we went to the airport yesterday for pancake breakfast, and then today made a trip up to Longwood with the whole family to see if there would still be some tulips.  The answer was yes.  Yes, tulips.  And no, we were not even close to the only people who had the exact same idea we had.

Pretty tulips, cute kids

Perhaps even cuter kids.  If you can get them to be a little silly, they have good smiles.

Or sometimes, if you get them to be a little silly, they just have silly smiles.

Walking on the "balance beam" is a sure-fire way to keep both kids happy and get a decent picture or two.

Stopped at the tree house to hug a dragon

Dex sitting on Aunt Jeanne's tree stump.  John thought I was crazy...

And I may well be crazy.  But it is, in fact, Aunt Jeanne's tree stump.  From way back in 2006.

Erin tried out Aunt Jeanne's tree stump as well.  It all started out fine...

But it was all downhill from there.  Boom!  Tears.

Next stop?  Aunt Jeanne's lion.  No really.

Aunt Jeanne's lion, circa 2006.

Next stop was the Children's Garden, where the boys were bees.

We ran in to our friend Alex and had a lovely time getting him as wet as we possibly could.

Erin preferred being a butterfly to being a bee.

Finally, I was DELIGHTED that my favorite tulip garden was actually open.  Smaller, but open.  Last fall this whole area was closed off for the fountain renovation.  I was glad they opened up a portion of it for the tulips.

This tulip smells like strawberries

And I think this one smelled like melon

Perfect way to spend a Sunday morning, followed by lunch at Beep Beep all Done French Fries.  Dexter, it must be said, was VERY flexible in allowing Erin to choose there for lunch.  He really wanted to go to Applebees.  I think the promise of a milk shake won him over.

Swimming Through the Planets

Last time I posted we talked about sun spots and Dexter's apparent conquering of them.  Which turned out to be not entirely true.  He was no longer scared of the sun spots in the water.  But the ones on the ceiling still freaked him out.  So he was still having a tough time at swim lessons.

I saw Ms Dana last week at the gym.  Dexter's lovely, patient, kind, understanding swim teacher for over a year when he was in preschool.  I had sent her a message through a mutual friend about Dexter's sun spot success.  And she thanked me for the message when I saw her last week, and proceeded to tell me that her family thought she was nuts because she read my message in the middle of her kitchen while fixing dinner and immediately burst in to tears.  This is why I adore her.

And this is the message I sent to her today:

Ms Dana,

Know how I told you last week that Dexter was still having trouble swimming near or under the sun spots on the ceiling? Well, his therapist had the brilliant idea to name the sun spots. And since he talks about nothing but outer space these days, he decided to name the sun spots after planets. Big ones would be called Jupiter, smaller ones Mars and Mercury, etc.

It was a lovely sunny day to test out his new friendly sun spots this afternoon. And after some initial trepidation - HE DID IT! He totally swam under Neptune. He absolutely swam through Mars. And Miss Clara still had to go up the stairs with him to the top of the slide, because that's getting pretty close to planet Neptune up there, but she walked up with him and he slid down and he did AWESOME. Such a better experience for him! He was tremendously proud.

We saw Ali after his lesson and told her about his awesome swimming, and how we were going to get dressed and go to Dairy Queen for ice cream. Because swimming under a planet DEFINITELY deserves an ice cream cone!

Loved seeing you last week! Thank you for caring so much about my quirky little guy.

Alissa

I don't really know what word is bigger than monumental. Whatever it is, that's what kind of afternoon we had. I took a video of Dexter swimming in the deep end during his swim lesson (something not previously attempted because of sun spots). And when Dex got back to the shallow end and looked over to me I gave him two thumbs up and cheered for him. And then I turned around and cried. It was that kind of day.

Behold, Dexter swimming through the planets:

Click here for video

Monumental

It was a monumental day in the Norman household today.  Big.  Big big.  HUGE.

And it didn't even happen at home.  It happened at the pool.  I suggested swimming at the Y this morning as a fun activity for day off from school number 3,275.  Not even a snow day today.  Teacher in-service day.  But after a snow day Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday...  we needed to get out and do something.  So I suggested swimming.  Erin was enthusiastic.  Dexter said sure, and then looked outside.  At the bright sunny sky.  Not a cloud in sight.  I could see the flicker of doubt.  "I'll just swim on the side where Erin swims.  Away from the sun spots.", he said.

And so we went.  And after an hour or so of playing in the shallow end, and bravely checking out the condition of the slide and deciding that the sun spot on the other end of the pool was not going to keep him from sliding (this in and of itself was a big big deal and has never happened before), Dex was still not any closer to going in the deep end with the sun spot.  So I looked over at the sun spot and dared him.  "I bet you can't swim to that sun spot over there," I said.

Damned if it didn't work.  He swam over that direction.  Hesitated, and looked back at me.  "I can swim over there if you come with me," he said.  OK.  Deal.  C'mon, Erin.  We're swimming to a sun spot.

He swam to it.  He swam through it.  He stayed next to it, put his head under the water and looked at it through his goggles.  He got out of the pooled and JUMPED IN to it.  And he told me several times during the day "I am not afraid of sun spots any more, Mama."

Thank the lord, big guy, because the time changes on Sunday and you know what's going to be in the pool during your swim lesson?  Lots and lots of sun spots.  Which you have confidently assured me will no longer be an issue.

It's been two years with this sun spot thing.  For an entire year, bless her heart, his amazing preschool swim instructor would look out her window on Dexter's lesson day just hoping it would be cloudy.  His teacher this session was his teacher in the fall, as well.  She remembered his fear, but couldn't do anything about it on Monday as Dexter is now in a class that swims in a lap lane.  So she can't move the whole class to a sun spot-free section of the pool, like she did in the fall.  She was lovely and accommodating at his lesson on Monday.  But if Dexter remembers that he's not afraid any more, it's going to make lessons so much easier.

As a special reward, Dexter got a new rocket ship lamp for his room today.  He's very excited about it.  I meant to take a picture of it, but then I had to get Erin out of the shower and watch her pet Buddy and hope she didn't pee on the floor because she was just wearing a bathrobe and not a diaper.

Speaking of Erin...  she didn't do anything monumental today.  Sun spots are no biggie to her.  So she happily jumped in the sun spot, and swam through the sun spot, and also jumped in to the pool about 792 other times.   But she WAS very excited that I pulled a Thomas the Train tee shirt out of the basement for her today after nap time.  She's been wanting me to find it for her for about a week now, ever since she saw some other kid wearing a Thomas shirt.  So here's the picture I have from today.  Erin, wearing a Thomas shirt over her black long-sleeve shirt.  With her pink striped leggings.  And her "It never got brushed after swimming" hair.  It's quite a look.

PS - I DO have pictures and a video of Dexter from yesterday, playing in eight inches of snow.  Here's the link to the video.  Here's the link to the pictures.

Sweet Briar

What do you do when a college you know and love so well decides it isn't financially feasible for them to remain open any more?  When they say they're closing shop, effective the end of this semester?

Well, you maybe just sit and cry for a while.  Because it's like losing a friend.  A friend you haven't seen in a while, granted, but who you still think of often.  A friend who makes you smile, and think about all the things you did together.  The growing up you did together.  The sadness you felt when you parted ways.  And the delight every time you meet again.

I think anyone who had even a casual relationship with Sweet Briar probably feels a little bit the same way.  It's an easy place to fall in love with.  3,000 acres of beauty in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains.  Lovely buildings.  Amazing horse pastures.  Hiking and riding trails through the woods.

And then after you cry a bit, you ask "why" and do your research all around the FaceBook, and commiserate with fellow Sweet Briar friends, and actually it maybe works out ok in the short term because you suddenly have a deadline to go to Virginia for one last visit to your old friend Sweet Briar.  And while you're down there you may as well drive another 2 hours to visit your other favorite place on earth and dear friend, Virginia Tech.

A well-meaning group of ladies, some of whom I knew and taught when I was there, have headed up a "Save Sweet Briar" group, trying to fight to save their friend.  The needs to save the college are many - they really need lots of money, and they really really need lots more enrollment.  And who, really, is super excited about an all-female liberal arts college in the middle of nowhere?  Not very many people, apparently.

The fun part that has come out of the sadness is that so many of these ladies are also posting photos from their times at Sweet Briar.  It has made me happy to reminisce with them.  Please allow me to do a bit of the same:

The view from out my front door (like, LITERALLY, out my front door) was second to none.  It made it easier to get up and work my butt off every morning.

My little tiny house was little and tiny, but it was home.  It had four bedrooms and two bathrooms, and I used, usually, exactly half the house.  Partway through my tenure the house was fitted with a second mini-kitchen, allowing two girls to stay at the house with me over break but still have their own space.  I don't know what makes a girl want to stay at the barn for spring break instead of going to Florida, but I always appreciated when they did.  I was shocked and horrified when I took my Frazier to Sweet Briar for a summer clinic in 2008 or so, and saw that a tree had fallen on my little house and torn it right in two.  My poor little house.

I loved it when people came to visit.  Suarezes visited a few times on their RV travels.  They would park their RV right in the driveway, plug in, and have a free camping site under the trees.  The tractor probably woke them up at 5AM, same as it woke me up.  You got used to it after a while.  It was an easy place to come to if you were going to Tech for a football game.  An easy two hour drive over the mountains to see my Hokie friends for a weekend.  An easy place for Hokie friends to stop and drop off dogs on their way to Richmond, so the dogs could play in the country and jump out of my fence and chase deer for a weekend.  A fine place for my cousin to stay for a couple days while his car got repaired in Lexington, just over the mountain.  He still has fond memories of the two days he spent tromping around the woods and the fields, and the vast vast quantity of deer he saw grazing in the Hunter Trial field.  It was in the middle of nowhere, and yet still in the middle of everything.  So long as you didn't mind driving a couple hours.

It was a lovely place to work.  And sometimes a lonely place to work.  I worked long and hard hours.  I got up in the middle of the night to load a horse on to a van or welcome horses to the barn.  I was on call many weekends.  I was at the barn long in to the night with the slowest farrier known to man, who became a dear friend because we spent so much time together, every Tuesday and Friday.  It was not necessarily a sustainable place to work - I could not have done it with a husband, and certainly not with kids.  But for a single girl who doesn't mind hard work, it was a good job.  I remember the horses more than the students.  Some students names I can place.  But the horses stick with me for longer.  The kids were just "Mitch's mom" or "Al's mom" or "Artie's mom".  And that was ok.  Because to them, I was mostly "CoCo's mom".  Oh, that CoCo.  Sweet Briar is heaven for a dog, and she loved it there.  She came everywhere with me.  She stayed outside the outdoor ring while I rode.  She paced up and down the side of the indoor while I rode, because she couldn't see me.  She came on trail rides with me, til I took her out on one really long one.  After that she got smart and waited in the driveway of the barn.  She slept on a shelf in my office.  She stayed outside the stall while I was checking horses.  The kids adored her.  I was, to them, definitely only "CoCo's mom".

When it came time to get married, there was only one place that I considered.  Sweet Briar.  I planned a wedding from four hours away.  And it was everything I hoped it would be.  The weather held for long enough for us to get married outside.  The location was amazing.  The dogwoods were in bloom.  The iris bloomed just that week, just for me I think.  My Sweet Briar friends helped with rehearsal dinner and dog sitting and maybe, just maybe, some iris stealing from the President's front yard, for some of my flower arrangements.  Our wedding cake from the "Praise the Lord" bakery was the best cake I have ever had, anywhere.  The event staff at the Inn were lovely, and still many of my friends say what a lovely day it was, and how much fun they had, and how they really appreciated being able to walk to their hotel room from the reception.

I don't know yet what is to become of the college.  Of the 3,000 acres, and the buildings, and the barn, and the riding arenas, and all the horses.  I know the college is working hard to help students transfer, and that should be their first priority.  But my heart goes out to my friends who still work at the Riding Center.  What will they do?  Where will they go?  Where will they find a place to call home that is as special?

One of lots of articles about Sweet Briar's closing