September 2013

Home

Well, here we are: another fall in Kansas!  It seems that normally the leaves have started dropping in bigger clumps from the trees, but with all the rain, they are still hanging on, green as they were in June.   Also, it probably has something to do with the fact we got the pool cover on, so there’s no point in them dropping en masse.  But if we hadn’t got the cover on, I’m sure I’d wake up one morning and an entire tree would be floating on the top. The hay is standing in the fields in great big round bales (the square bales are already stored in the barn loft) and the grass is turning yellow.  The tomato vines have wilted, but still have that good, DIRT smell when you run around them, trying to catch the ducklings Jim and the girls just had to have.  Again.

They started out with six chicks and four ducks.  But then they had to go back to Atwoods for starter chicken feed, and naturally came home with two more ducks and three more chicks.  The girls take their bird-care responsibilities very seriously, and after the first two days of reminding Lucy not to hold the chicks upside down, and reminding Betsy that they don’t have feathers yet, and can’t fly when she tosses them, even if they’re only a foot from the ground, the girls finally got the idea that gentler equals better.  Or anyway, it equals the same number of live chicks at the end of the day as what you started with. 

Catching him (her?)!

The chicks are mostly a straggly looking bunch, not very cute, and not terribly interested in anything except the warming lamp and the occasional unlucky grasshopper that strays into their bucket.  But the ducks are hours of entertainment for everyone.   Whenever you reach in to lift one out, they race around their bucket (Jim just stuck them in one of the great big plastic horse watering troughs) in a frantic cluster, barreling over their water feeder, peeping frantically, and splatting through the soggy wood chip bedding that stinks to high heaven.  When you feed them, they peck anxiously at their food, then tilt their heads and blink at you rapidly, clearly distrustful.  But, oh, the joy, when Jim takes them out front and turns the garden hose on them, and lets them play in the puddles that form in the rock garden.  They duck under the water and come up waggling their back sides and hopping from foot to foot, chattering and grabbing at bits of tomato vine in their reach, gobbling off the leaves, and then scolding Jim furiously when he turns the water off. 

Watering the ducklings

Trying to catch the OTHER five ducks.

HELP!

At first, I got onto the girls about washing their hands with soap every time they handled the chicks and ducks … some vague idea of preventing the transfer of poo and other germy stuff, I suppose.  But then came the day when I saw Lucy plant a big old smackeroo on her captive duckling’s head.  So when I remind them to wash up now, it’s more form than substance.  I also think twice about letting Lucy kiss me after she’s been playing with ducks.

We ended up with a bumper load of pumpkins this year. See what a little indifference and neglect does for growing gardens?  Jim and the kids hauled a bunch back up to the house and dumped about 20 medium-sized ones on the front porch.  The girls rearrange them every day, always selecting their placement based on where they can do the most damage when an adult is walking out the door and it's dark, or their arms are full of groceries, or they're being dragged by a great dane who realized just a moment ago that her bladder was about to explode.

Woody's baby

School is in full force now, and the kids are used to the routine.  The other day Lucy asked hopefully, “Mommy, can you read a book at me?”  Lucy turned three in August.  While on a walk with Aunt Amanda, during which time they noticed many lovely butterflies, Amanda asked her, “Do you want to be a butterfly?” To which Lucy matter-of-factly replied, “Nope.  I want to be a sandwich.”

Three Years Old!

Betsy started piano at the beginning of the month, and is making good progress in playing her scales and “Mary Had a Little Lamb”.  She has small hands, even for a six-year old, and releasing a key before pressing down on the next one is difficult for her, so I try to remind her to lift her fingers after pressing each key. Now she raises her entire hand to head level every time she presses a key, then brings her finger crashing down on the next key, and sometimes it’s the correct one, sometimes it’s not, but it always reminds me of Betty MacDonald’s piano teacher in Anybody Can Do Anything, the one who “lifted her hands off the keys about four feet and came down on all the wrong notes but the effect was very brrright and certainly staccato.”

As it turns out, Jack needs glasses.  Jim discovered this on a recent excursion when we told Jack and Woody to meet us at a certain store at a mall, and Jack couldn’t read the signs above the stores.  Funny thing about home schooling: you never have to sit at the back of the class, so you don’t know when you can’t see the chalkboard.  Jim’s suspicions were confirmed last week when Rooger bolted out the back door, and Jim and Jack had to go chase him down.  Jim told Jack to “go over there and get your dog” where Rooger’s black and white speckled rump could clearly be seen bounding through the freshly-mown yellowed grass … and Jack headed off in completely the wrong direction. 

Amanda has started a new job at R2 Dentistry in Wichita and on her first week, when she was in training, Jim and Woody, who were at Woody’s orthodontics appointment nearby, decided to drop in on her and say hello … wearing these Turkey Hats (that looked like fully-cooked Thanksgiving turkeys, complete with white paper-covered drumstick tips).  Then, when Amanda walked out, they ducked behind the front desk so only their hats were visible.  Poor Amanda, to have such charming relatives. 

Thinking hard

The next day, Woody and I were reading from a difficult passage in one of his books and I told him he really needed to focus and concentrate, to which he replied, “Wait, let me get my thinking hat!” and came back moments later with the Turkey Hat planted firmly on his head.  Which was fine for him, but now I couldn’t focus or concentrate for the rest of the session.  Later that day Lucy apparently urged Amanda to put the Turkey Hat on because, she told her plaintively, “It will make you happy!”

Their favorite ride - the train!

Jack gets measured by the Silver Dollar City Undertaker

We took a long weekend to visit Silver Dollar City again, this time with our former neighbors, the Ogrens.  They moved away, but we forgave them because now they live in a little farmhouse next to the Walnut River and the dads and kids go fishing whenever we visit.

The Ogren and Manry kids
 2008

2013

They say this is supposed to be a harsh winter, so Jim is spending a lot of his free time clearing out the dead Hedgerow trees along the property lines and chopping them up for firewood.  We've got maybe three ricks of wood now, but think we may need as much as eight.  Luckily, I get the easy job of driving the air conditioned tractor, complete with radio.  Lucy and I sit at the wheel with a can of soda and peanut butter crackers, and yell, "HUH? WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"  as Jim, dripping with sweat and covered with chainsaw oil and sawdust, gestures for us to drive forward, back up, lift the bucket, etc.  Yep, life is rough!

Hope you all have a beautiful October!

July and August 2013

Well, we slogged through summer!  Because of all the rain we had this summer, almost every day was spent pumping water out of the pool (so it wouldn’t run over and get behind the vinyl liner) and making friends with the two turtles and countless toads who took up residence there, probably because I couldn’t keep the green algae in the pool down to respectable levels.  We ended up having a lovely pond with a diving board feature.  Who cares if you could only see two inches below the surface?

Mmmm. Algae.  The slide is Jim's latest red-neck addition to the pool.  The neighbors were going to throw it out.  It launches the kids a good three feet.

After I admitted defeat with the pool (much to the kids’ disappointment as they would have swam in it with black algae and all sorts of brain-eating amoeba) we did the only thing a sane family would do, which is to visit central Texas in July.  There it’s not only hot, but the humidity is so high it feels like you’re drowning as soon as you step out of doors.    Jim’s sister and her family put us up (or put up with us), while we ate at Chuy’s (Tex-Mex), Mighty Fine (burgers), Rudy’s (barbecue), and Chez Myer’s – the dining room of my brother and sister-in-law, both of whom are pretty mean cooks and served up fish fry, ham melt sandwiches, and STEAKS.  Of course we did other things, like eat donuts from Round Rock Donuts.  And cookies from Central Market.  And bread from the local farmer’s market.

Woody and cousin Lydia

But the kids will most likely remember playing with their cousins, Lydia and Brody, exploring the caves outside of Austin, their first attempt at kayaking, swimming in a clean pool, and making duct tape wallets with Aunt Jen.  Actually, they watched Aunt Jen making wallets, and then they watched TV while Aunt Jen made wallets by herself.   

Brody and Jack

Bets and Jack

Watermelon!  Lucy, Betsy and Brody

Uncle Eric

It's all good!

Uncle Eric, Jim in the back, Woody

Lucy

Deep conversations

Betsy tries a hand at kayaking.  On the beach.

Yes, that's ONE donut in the box.

Jim said they were as big as toilet seats.  Hmmm.

Going to the farmer's market in Pflugerville.

Looooong day.

Once we got home I started nesting.  No, I’m not pregnant, but I’ve gotten so used to being pregnant every few years, and I felt compelled to completely move the dining room into the family room and vice versa.  My aim was to get us to eat at the dining room table where we could practice table manners and conversing instead of cramming ourselves in around the kitchen island, scarfing down food and watching Futurama.  This announcement was met with groans, in general, and I will overlook the fact that Jim’s were kind of loud for a supportive co-parent to be making.  It has had a few drawbacks: namely, now we have to look at each other.  And also we have to come up with things to say that don’t include reciting all of what the kids consider to be the funniest moments from the last episode of Futurama.  Now that we are looking at each other, I get to see that none of us chew with our mouths closed, and Lucy considers clothing optional at meal times … or always.  I’m just glad I convinced her to keep her underwear on this past summer (the sand from the sandbox chafes if you don’t wear underwear, I told her).  So while she is standing at the table, rubbing her derriere across the back spindles of the chair, at least the spindles are getting cleaned.  I should probably spray her pants with Endust, just to get some added benefit out of it.

Our garden was somewhat disappointing this year as the grasshoppers stripped everything bare that was edible.  So while it has rained so much that it looks like Washington in September out here, with tall, green grasses, massive tomato plants, and humongous bean and squash vines, there is nothing to be had from them.  Our blackberry bushes produced four luscious, fat blackberries that the grasshoppers somehow missed, but Betsy didn’t, and she picked them before they were ripe. 

The green, green grass of home ... in August?

This apple tree in front was stripped of its leaves. Only the apples are left.

The boys have moved on from reading every Garfield comic ever printed and are now devouring Calvin and Hobbes, which I always loved, but find somewhat altered when the comics are being read aloud by an eleven-year old boy who is following you around from room to room (or from the back seat of the car), reading through his braces (which necessitates slurping to avoid drooling), running the words hopelessly together because he’s already anticipating the punch line and laughing so hard all the while that he can’t enunciate.  But we’re all laughing by the end, anyway, even if we have no idea what Calvin and Hobbes did.

I was getting Lu ready for church the other morning, and she noticed the headband in my hair (a change from the usual ponytail). 

“Mommy,” she asked, eyes glued to the headband, “do you have a bow?” All hair accessories are "bows" here.

“Yes,” I said, surprised by her intent look. 

“Are you married?”

And then I remembered some of their Barbie dolls have wedding veils that attach to the dolls with headbands.

“Yes.”

“BETSY!” She gasped, “Mommy’s married!”

By the way, an informal study has shown that the most frequently asked question at the Manry house is “Mom?”  Jim has informed me that the next-most asked question, asked whenever I am gone, is “Where’s Mom?”

School started last week, and suddenly it’s a chore to get up at 7:30 a.m. for the kids, even though they were up and outside playing by that time all summer.  Woody is the worst and has to be dragged out with the promise of a cup of an adult hot beverage, now that he is over the Ovaltine stage.  Sometimes he can even be persuaded to take some coffee with his sugar and cream.  Both boys decided something needed to be done since getting up at the last minute wasn’t working, so yesterday they both got up early.  I came across them a half hour later.  They had made it as far as the living room, where they were sprawled out on the couch and chair, buried under blankets.  Asleep.

First day of First Grade

Once Betsy’s school is done, the girls alternately play and fight all morning.  How do other home school parents do it?  The whole keeping-everybody-happily-occupied without feeling like all the parents do is run back and forth between age groups all day at 10-minute intervals, explaining, expounding, refereeing … is this what one-room schools were like?!  

Anyway, I overheard Betsy instructing Lucy to “Count to 21, and DON’T PEEK!” Neither of which Lu is even remotely capable of, in the case of the former because she is her mother’s daughter, and the latter, because she is her father’s daughter. 

In completely unrelated news, Woody gave me his Christmas list yesterday.  

Lucy will be turning three next week.  How the years are flying.  I guess that’s it for now.  Sorry to be so late on this one.  I think I can guarantee to be the same on the next update.  You all take care!

Summertime and the Living is Easy

Why does summer have to fly?!

June started with Betsy turning 6 on June 1st.  I can never celebrate her birthday without recalling our friend and preacher saying rather mildly, "Do you know what else begins June 1st? Hurricane Season."  And then after a pause.  "Do you think the two are related?" 

Betsy had an apple pie for her birthday, with three kinds of ice cream.

I also had a birthday, and received what I (apparently) always secretly wanted: a Ridgid 18-Volt Compact Drill and Impact Driver Combo, with a bonus of a Battery-Powered Radio.  I got a lump in my throat as I opened it, similar to the one I get whenever the girls are watching me primp in front of the mirror and one of them asks tenderly, "Mommy?  Why are you so old?"

Lucy has begun assisting Betsy in collecting the eggs each day, a task which requires them to race with multiple eggs in their hands through our obstacle course, er, garage, pushing and hollering, "Me first!" as they slam the back door into the wall and plunk the eggs onto the counter.  Well, except for that day when I was straightening up their toys and came upon one of Lucy's purses which contained an oddly bulky, yet light, cargo.  Sure enough, it contained three eggs, unbroken, but who knows how long she'd been carrying them around in there?  I dropped them in a bowl of water, and they didn't float, so I assumed they were good.  At least nobody got sick from eating them ...

Most mornings the girls and I go out while it's still cool to weed in the garden.  By that I mean I pull out weeds and sometimes legitimate plants,  and Betsy stands one foot away and showers me with her latest "stories" involving orphans, widows, and umbrella birds (she saw one on a pack of Go-Fish Animals of the World playing cards).  One morning she talked for 45 minutes without stopping.  Lucy, meanwhile, proceeded to strip down to her underwear and stand patiently next to Betsy, or else chased after the chickens, trying to force feed them bugs she caught in the garden.  They wisely refused. When I announced it was time to go in for Lucy's nap, Betsy broke off from her latest story, sighed heavily and said, "FINALLY!  I can get some peace and quiet!"

While this is going on, Jack and Woody are finishing up short school indoors.  I recently had to get onto Woody for asking for help on his math problems before he even attempted to get the answer, so his diplomatic approach to a multiple-choice question was this: "Mom?  Can you help me with this math problem?  It's pretty easy, but there's a lot of good answers."

We took a break to go to Wyoming last week, and stayed in a cabin at Half Moon Lake Resort in Wyoming, which boasted hiking trails, boat docks and a fully-stocked fishing pond.  They also, Jim observed after a few fishing trips, stocked their own mosquitoes.  Luckily, they preferred Jim and Jack's blood to Woody's and mine, so at least the two of us didn't suffer much.

Half Moon Lake

Oh.  And the resort was in "high country" which is code for "bears".  So Jim spent much of his time looking over his shoulder when he was outdoors, and locking cabin windows when he was indoors.  Fortunately, we didn't see any bears, even though we drove through the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone with our eyes peeled.

Chipping away at rock and looking for fossils in Kemmerer, Wyoming.

I got one!

Lucy "helps" Jim

We hiked a couple of times with the kids and on both occasions Lucy insisted on carrying her Dumbo stuffed animal, which meant Jim ended up carrying it, along with her, and Betsy when Betsy got tired.  He also got to carry Woody's sweatshirt and sweatpants, which Woody stripped off 5 minutes into the hike, bottles of water, a bottle of mosquito repellant, and some juicy, heavy oranges, which nobody ate while on the hike.

Is that a bear I hear?!

Touching the Grand Tetons

Every time he saw bark peeling off, Jim told the boys it was "bear sign".

Hiking is FUN for dad!

Break time

I'd like to apologize to all the hikers we encountered that day in the Tetons, the ones who anticipated communing with nature in a peaceful environment.  You see, we had Woody with us.  Which is kind of like hiking with Daffy Duck: you know, when Daffy bounces head over heels down the hill hooting and hollering, "Woo!  Woo-hoo!  Woo-hoo!"  That's Woody on a hiking trail.  On the brighter side, we probably saved countless hikers from bear encounters.

I think Woody may have learned his hiking technique from Jim (running away in the far distance).

We finally saw a moose in someone's back yard when we were playing in Pinedale's public kiddie park.  Naturally, Jim took this as his cue to creep stealthily up behind it with the camera, and the children crept up behind him (not so stealthily), and I hissed ineffectually at all of them from a safe distance, "You have flip flops on!  You can't run in those!"

At Yellowstone, Jim and Lucy were the only ones to witness the miracle of Old Faithful since the rest of us were in the gift shop, picking out pocket knives, plastic binoculars, stuffed animals and tee shirts, but Jim did offer to buy the kids geyser-flavored soft serve as a consolation prize.

Not Geyser-flavored after all.

Hurry up and take it before the mosquitoes come back!

There's only so much outdoorsiness we can handle, though, so Jim wisely chose to stay in a cabin close to the town of Pinedale, which has its own fitness/aquatic center where the kids could swim in the safety of chlorinated water, and scale a rock climbing wall while tied to someone other than me.

Notice Betsy's creative approach of not using her own legs, and probably hands, to haul herself up the wall.

Slam Dunking with Lucy

And then there was the last day where we woke the kids up at 4:30 a.m. for the 15-hour drive back, which prompted me to inform Jim that sometimes I fantasize about a vacation when I'm not strapped in a car within five feet of all our children, their video games, the latest "Winnie the Pooh" movie playing, and they're not all saying, "Hey, Mom, can you get me ... (insert any random request here)" at 20-second intervals.

But in all, it was a good June.  Hope you all are having a great 4th of July.  Try not to blow too much up!