Proof to My Children

  

that we do, in fact, go on field trips.

  

And to be quite honest, you have been on some really extravagant ones . . . Montana, our friends shoeing their Clydesdales (and then logging with them), a rodeo, the Oregon Coast, Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum, the Undersea Watergardens, and the Tillamook Cheese Factory, just to name a few.

  

And even here, since we've been back in Virginia, we have field-tripped.

  

This time, it was to the Virginia Discovery Museum in Charlottesville. It was free, due to our being ASTC members, but that does not lessen the . . . lessons.

  

Remember how much fun it was to listen to Elijah of Buxton on the audiobook on the way there? (A book to which we have not yet finished listening but are thoroughly enjoying. Oh, AND, {{I whisper}} it's EDUCATIONAL!!!) And then remember how much fun it was to listen to Papa and Mama trying to find a parking space? Good times.

    

But then the good times got even better.

  

      

    

    

    

Remember how Papa laughed until he cried when he made Mama stand sideways in front of the wavy mirror? Remember how this was mean and unacceptable behavior? Remember how Mama couldn't stop laughing when she was yelling at him, and remember how mad that makes her?

  

    

     

     

             

     

    

 

    

There was so much more . . . but I was too engrossed in trying to find the queen in the beehive, watching Miriam be the newscaster on the TV show, listening to Lily play the guitar, and trying to find comfortable seating that I neglected to take pictures of all of it. But trust me, it happened. So there you have it. We field tripped. We were trippin'.

   

 

At Play on a Sunny Fall Day

    

   

     

     

With an uncle:

   

    

With Grandma:

   

    

With a cousin:

  

     

    

    

And then the sun set. We headed to the market for rhubarb jam (sans strawberry or raspberry or any other fruity companion - just the rhubarb thankyouverymuch) and unsweetened apple butter and headed home.

  

     

 

Negligence

I realize we have lived here, in Virginia, for over a month now, and I’ve said little.

 

Let me rephrase that. I realize I’ve blogged little. I’ve said plenty, mostly in the way of how annoying the insane amount of traffic here is, how annoying it is when people refuse to pick up after themselves, and how annoying it is when you can’t recruit anyone to give a decent backrub. There’s been a good deal of moaning and groaning every time I try to hoist myself off the couch or up the stairs, and yesterday’s ultrasound had the perinatologist telling me how “huge” my 29-week-old unborn twins are at 3 ½ pounds each. Humph. By my calculations, then, each placenta weighs about 40 pounds.

 

At least it feels that way. And, doggone it, looks that way.

 

So there are probably a lot of things I could post about, but I’m sticking with a story that happened soon after we arrived.

 

We were staying with my parents until the moving truck came. One day, we decided to drive out to our old house. We loved this house. We had rented it dirt-cheap, and the river ran close by and a plantation butted up against it. What it lacked in electrical fortitude (you could only plug in about 2 things at a time), it more than made up in character. Built in 1774, its wide plank pine floors, tall ceilings, hand-carved baseboards and walnut railing, deep windowsills, and large center hallways hearkened back to a different time. My husband put a month’s worth of work into it, re-plastering (that’s real horse hair in there) and painting and ripping up carpet and sanding floors. When we moved in, we had two small children and two five-month olds, and when we moved out, we had five small children and a one-month old. We loved the openness of the land around us, the huge magnolia that overshadowed the porch and was alive when George Washington was, and the fact that we knew its history.

 

But as we drove down the route near the house that day, I had a foreboding feeling. The magnolia was clearly visible, but the house? Where was the house?

   

 

    

“Did they tear the house down?” I whispered. “Ethan, this is going to be traumatic for the kids if they tore the house down.”

 

Shortly before we moved, a developer had purchased the house and the surrounding land. His intention, he announced, was to turn the land into a public park and renovate the house, turning it into a clubhouse.

 

We saw no clubhouse.

 

    

    

   

The children, all but two of them, piled out of the van. Most of them were amazingly un-traumatized, fascinated by the piles of brick and siding and the felled giant sycamore and grateful for the chance to get out and stretch.

 

     

   

    

   

 

Two of them did this:

    

 

And my oldest? Well, he is partly my boy after all. As soon as he saw the remains of the house, he started tearing up. “WHAT?” he choked out hoarsely. “They tore it down? It was the most wonderful house in the world, and they just tore it down?”

   

 

   

I was swallowing my own lump. I know the house was old and in sore need of lots of money and attention. But the wonderful memories it held for me! I remember wondering so many times how many generations of women had hung their clothes out on the line as I hung mine; how many generations of children joined mine in climbing the magnolia, running (and riding) down the large hallways and exploring the outlying fields for groundhogs and beehives and wildflowers for mamas; how many men had looked at this house and sighed with relief that they were HOME; how many other families had carved their names into the beech tree.

 

But Ethan is not one to let emotionality and sentimentality fester, and he quickly turned these heaps of brick and roofing into a lesson about the inevitable decay and death of all things of this world and how we are to store up treasures in heaven.

 

Benjamin was listening. He stopped mumbling about the terrible things he would do with his b.b. gun to the President (yes, of the United States) for letting this happen and starting asking questions about the Highest Authority. “I know God is good, and I’m not saying I don’t believe that, but if God is good, why does He let bad stuff like this happen?”

 

Oh, child. God IS good, and how thankful I am that He was good enough to give you the papa He gave you who can answer your questions, which go beyond your eight years, with answers that fit your eight years.

 

When we pulled away, he still looked like this:

 

   

  

but was no longer threatening national security. He was no longer angry, just sad.

 

However . . . .

That very night, Ethan’s live trap caught a raccoon in my parents’ attic. We woke Ben up to see the raccoon before Ethan hauled it the requisite 10 miles away. And you know what lies about 10 miles away from my parents’ house? The perfect raccoon house, with felled trees and crannies and holes to climb into and the river just a hop, skip, and jump away.

 

    

 (Can you see the raccoon? It's to the left of the yellow oar and down a little. Look for the striped tail.)

In the morning, we told Benjamin that our torn-down house was a house once more. He smiled, and then giggled and started listing things a raccoon would LOVE about living there.

 

And I betcha that raccoon does love it, too.

  

It better.

  

 

Signs of Maturity

Our oldest son turns eight tomorrow. My husband remembers turning the Big 8, and it was BIG for him. He felt like he really was entering a new stage of life, that this was a monumental birthday.

  

Our son feels the same.

  

His pending birthday has been making him contemplative. Yesterday's errand run was full of thoughtful questions and observations:

• "Why is it that we get that feeling that we've done something wrong when we haven't? What should we do when we get that feeling?"


• "I don't always try to be nice to people. I try to be myself, normal. But sometimes a lot of niceness comes out."


• "You know, I really feel like 8 is getting a lot older. I have a feeling I'm going to turn 8 and say to myself, 'Welcome to the world.'"

  

But the kicker was when he said, "Mom? I really DO feel like I am getting older."

  

"You do?" I asked. (I'd been thinking the same thing.)

  

"Yeah. I've got these long black hair thingys on my knees."

  

 

Bye-Bye Forever

This move was not an easy one for us.

   

There were complications on various levels, the first being the logistics of the thing. We had two vehicles plus a camper to get back to Virginia. And then there was all that STUFF. No matter how much I think we've decluttered and purged and streamlined, there is always so much JUNK coming out of the woodwork.

 

We decided to go with ABF U-pack instead of U-Haul (which we did coming to Montana). We would pack the truck, but someone ELSE would drive it. While it was a little more costly than U-Haul, I feel this was definitely one expense that was worth it. Otherwise, Ethan was going to have to drive the little van back to Virginia, fly back to Montana, and then drive a U-Haul while I drove the larger van towing the camper and the six kids.

   

Then God took care of another problem for us: a family in our church agreed to take the little van. Hurrah! Having a second vehicle was not worth the hassle and stress of having to get that van back to Virginia.

  

The next obstacle was perhaps the most visually dramatic of all: our driveway. Our driveway in Montana was steep and narrow and curvy. We tried to explain this to the driver of the ABF truck, but I guess he thought we were exaggerating.

  

We were not.

  

     

And he got stuck.

  

   

   

    

But -- oh, glory! -- he did get unstuck.

  

    

And we packed and threw away and packed and threw away and packed and threw away.

   

And we said our goodbyes. This was hard for everyone. It was hard saying goodbye to the neighbor dogs, who would routinely come visiting around suppertime. It was hard saying goodbye to the neighbor children, whose builder father and interior decorator mother (with a British accent, even!) had built the coolest house ever and did awesome things like painting faces and playing guitar.

   

And it was hard saying goodbye to the church group. Benjamin (7) especially struggled. He tends to take after his mother when it comes to saying goodbye, and he tried really hard to hold back his emotions. When he said goodbye to Claire, his 12-year old friend from church, he mustered a quick, painful, "Bye-bye forever!" and hastily thrust a 10-dollar bill into her hand.

  

And if you can't feel the strength of those emotions - a 7-yr. old giving a $10 bill! - be assured that that pretty much ranks a 10 on the emotive scale.

  

(some of the children with Claire)

   

 (the children with our nature-loving logging friends)

  

Saying goodbye to our logger family was no picnic, either. The children (and we!) were mesmerized by Haley's impressive butterfly collection. Jeff (the father) identified a skull Ben found on their property as a red fox skull (Ben kept a tooth). And no one wanted to leave Brenda (the mother), whom everyone thinks is the PERFECT surrogate mother (even more perfect than their real mother - imagine that!).

  

**sigh** These things were hard. They are still hard. But as I tried to tell Benjamin, ten months ago we did not think we would be back in Virginia with Virginia friends - and here we are. Who knows where we will end up, and where they will end up, and whether we will be brought back together before ... "forever"?

  

We may not meet in this building:

  

   

or in this state (although we'd all love that!):

  

   

But we WILL meet again.

   

Where We Were Today

   

Because really, how can you be 30 miles away and NOT stop to see it?

   

We did debate going, wondering if it would be worth it for the youngers. But everyone was excited by the Faces in the Rocks ("Isn't that one guy on the dollar bill?") and the gift shop. Abraham (4) surprised both Ethan and me when he spotted the faces from the van, said, "I gotta find that book!" and then whipped out a tourist brochure from last night's hotel. He quickly turned to a picture of Mount Rushmore in an ad and said, "I knew I saw that before!"

  

Then back into the van. We made the necessary Wall Drug stop (what's not to love about South Dakota?) and then drove drove drove. Tonight we are packed into a Days Inn room (6 kids, 2 cats, and a dog and if you open your eyes any wider your eyeballs just might fall out, Miss Desk Clerk Nazi), still in South Dakota but closer to Iowa than we were this morning.

  

AND we passed into Central Time Zone. I say we made progress!

  

    

But of course!

We had a beautiful autumn. That whole week was just gorgeous. And then the snow starting falling (which, I guess, is what falls when you don't have any deciduous leaves to fall), and even that was beautiful. It was the kind of snow I LOVE - it's surreal while it descends, looks gorgeous on the trees and lawn, and politely declines to overstay its welcome on the road.

  

Until today. The day we picked to rent a U-Haul trailer and pack it with all of the large items we are not taking with us but donating to the thrift store (the player piano ::sniff, sniff::, the loveseat, the recliner, a large chair, several desks, several microwave carts, and a myriad of cumbersome items I am forgetting). The day we got the U-Haul trailer here just fine, and then spent the next 2 hours man-handling it (Ethan at the tongue, me at the wheel chocks) around our dangerous, steep, slippery driveway. The day I prayed fervently that I would not be made a widow. The day we checked the weather a little too late only to realize there is no thaw scheduled for the weekend, tonight's temperature will be 8°, tomorrow's high is 29° (warmer than today's 22°), and more snow is coming.

     

    

   

It's very reminiscent of another day - the day we moved in. Granted, the weather is downright tropical compared to that -35° day when I wondered if frozen nose hairs thawed or just broke off, but the general feeling of frustration and prayer for another night where my bed is shared is the same.

   

We (and this is a very unbalanced "we," I readily admit) did finally finagle the trailer into a spot from which we can easily drive it out, but this means that the walk to the trailer is longer, down a number of steps, and more treacherous.

      

But it does make for a nice ride.

   

       

 Just be ready to slam on the brakes!

  

    

That's how we do it in Montana, baby.

    

If you're in the mood for winter, I have a suggestion: forego the hot chocolate and marshmallows. Just snuggle up with a U-Haul reservation, pull all your large furniture to the front door, and make sure you have your traction boots ready.