"There comes a point when you will exhale."

The popular idea of childbirth is that it ends with the placenta. But mothers the world over know you're in some form of labor for their entire childhoods, at least. The contractions are far more spaced out, it's true, but they are still real and very powerful. Every time your child wrestles with something hard, every time they take a risk, every time you take them to the emergency room, every time they enter a new and painful stage of growing up, POW. Contraction.

I sat poolside and had this view five days a week for three weeks. I alternated between trying to focus on my book (I got through Dracula and Silus Marner!) and fixating on what these two were doing in the pool.

 Ok, to be honest, it was mostly about what Miles was doing in the pool. Adele has always been perfectly willing to do whatever her swim teachers asked of her, and has been making steady progress for the past few years. Not so, Miles. At eight he still couldn't keep his head above water without assistance and to me, this is unacceptable. I was swimming lengths at six. I couldn't comprehend discomfort with the water. The first week played out almost exactly as last year's lessons had done, with Miles refusing to put his face in the water, refusing to jump in, panicking when he was made to float on his back, etc. The second week, he still resisted, but almost in spite of himself, he improved and even did some "bobs" and reluctantly turned belly up for his floats. This swim program is oriented around skill mastery and rising at the student's own pace through the levels, 1-10. Miles remained in level 1-2, and as all the other kids in his group were paraded over to hit the gong, announcing their graduation from one level to the next, my dejection grew.

Watching this is physically uncomfortable. I catch myself tensing for a spring every time it's his turn to jump, coiling up and releasing frustrated energy each time he refuses. I hold my breath when his face is to go into the water, I take great gulping inhales when he emerges. My body seems to long to do it for him, to make it happen, to give him the experience without him having to work for it. But this week, the third week, as my muscles returned to their frustrated mimicry, I had a breakthrough. Probably this was from reading George Eliot; if you ever sense your soul and moral character needs a workout, I recommend a George Eliot novel.

I realized I was trying to insert myself into his life, which even if it were possible would not be desirable, as we're only given ownership of one life. I realized I needed to let him have this, for better or for worse. I realized I was becoming that parent to the swim instructors. My conversations with them still fell short of what I wanted to say, which was the cry of every parent whose child is struggling: Please see my child. Please don't give up on them. I know they're difficult, I know. Please. Believe they can succeed. But there needs to be a way for our children to slowly receive ownership of themselves, which can only happen if we parents slowly untense our muscles, open our fists, breathe our own breaths, and let go.

I also realized I wasn't paying nearly enough attention to Adele, who needs recognition and support and connection even if she does find swimming easy.

One instructor named Gigi, bless her forever, offered to give Miles an extra lesson after class ended. We took her up on it, and he surprised himself by thoroughly enjoying fetching the pool toys and rising to the challenges she set him. He actually exclaimed, "Swimming is fun!" and later, "I actually liked that lesson, Mummy!" And then he said, with conviction, "I am going to ring the gong tomorrow."

And he did. I watched in disbelief as he checked his skills off the list and he and his teacher exchanged high fives. And then he had his own parade over to the gong!

And I cried, and I exhaled. I may be that mom sometimes, but he earned this himself.

Miles takes his place with the level 3-4s.

And then my gaze could shift to Adele, who has been improving steadily but still had one more skill to master before she could "gong." But watching Miles hit it and be so celebrated set something off in her and she walked in on Friday on a mission. She asked to do her routine without her floatie. They made her do it several times, gradually removing pads from her floatie until she was finally bare of it, and she swam. She put her face in the water, blew bubbles, kicked, and swam.

I was not anticipating she'd be able to get from three pads to zero in one day, but her teachers saw her determination and gave her the chance to prove herself.

You better believe we went out for ice cream today. I told them, "Put this week in your pocket to pull out later and remind yourself that you can do hard things."

I'm putting it in my pocket too, to remind me that they can do hard things. And I can watch, and let them, and exhale.

In summary, July

It seems fitting that I should finally find time to blog on this last day of July. It's Harry Potter's 37th birthday; the old man is rapidly nearing middle age!
Wait, so am I.

Well, here it is, all of July in Pueblo. Buckle up, dear reader. Be safe.

On July 7th, in the throes of Virus One, I nevertheless filled out the paperwork and wrote the check and bought the supplies and brought home this kitten. I'm just one of these people who, once committed to doing a thing, does it, even if it kills or severely weakens her. I have some growing to do in this area.

But I have no regrets. We chose the right kitten, guys. We had a talk before entering the shelter about the personality traits we wanted our kitten to have (friendliness, affectionate-ness, playfulness and courage), and this guy had them in spades.

We called him Tiger to differentiate him from the other candidates, and he was the friendliest and most affectionate little feline in the room. Add to that that he was already neutered and ready to go and we had a winner. He came home with us the day before Miles' birthday. We named him Boo Diddley, for another of the villains in the Super Mario Brothers games.

So far Boo is a perfect little diplomat between the warring factions in our house (Grendel vs. Everyone Else). We adore him.

 On July 8th, we celebrated Miles' birthday at City Park. We got one (count 'em ONE; the curse of the summer birthday!) party guest, but we had fun.

The birthday party in the next shelter invited us to their magic show!

And we took full advantage of the rides, which STAYED open despite a threatening forecast. 

Miles is the owner of a couple of new Wii games, a new doll, a new book about space, and several new shirts with space scenes on them. It was a success, as far as he was concerned! And he *just* finished his thank-you notes.

I have had several on-boarding type events for my new job and feel really anxious to get planning! I did get into my new  classroom once when it had just been cleaned....

And I plan to go again tomorrow. We've cleaned out our garage and I found the box I was looking for: all my teaching stuff from 2009! There will be posters, everyone.

 That's my room, that second one from the left. Right by the entrance of the building, and with a lovely view of the mountains. Plenty of natural light, unlike my last office.

I can't wait. I think this job is going to be such a good fit for our family.


Last week I joined the local teacher's union! This is kind of a symbol, for me, of the whole public school teacher identity that I wanted. There's just something about the group/community endeavor of public schools and teacher's unions that inspires me.

We took two weekends this month to take some local hikes. It seems regrettable that in the six years we lived in Virginia, we did almost no travel within the state. Never saw the coast, never went to Richmond, barely scratched the surface of the parks. We plan to see as much of this area as we have time and resources to see. We have a pretty firm conviction that Colorado will not be our final settling place.

So we took a trip to the Mountain Park Environmental Center in Beulah, only about 45 minutes southwest of Pueblo.

There was significantly more climbing than we thought! This is really part of the trail.

It was rough on Koopa, but he managed it and we cheered for him.

I love me a blooming prickly pair.

The top of the trail afforded some gorgeous views.

Meanwhile, most days I am working around the house and taking the kids to their swim lessons, which are every day for three weeks. It's been... a bit of an ordeal. Miles is 8 and still can't/won't swim, after his fourth consecutive year of lessons. He just takes a really long time to work up the guts for a new skill, and cannot handle any kind of pressure. He resists direct orders and refuses to do each scary new thing with a tenacity that confounds and frustrates his instructors. Given that most swim instructors are teenagers, he doesn't tend to make much progress. However, this year he has gone from being unwilling to put his head underwater to doing several "bobs" in a row, jumping in from the side, and puppy paddling halfway across the pool!

It's frustrating because he will probably close this week, the final week, without having completed the necessary skills for "leveling up." He'd have to do 10 bobs in a row, belly float for 5 seconds and back float for 10. He really needs three more weeks of lessons, but we just cannot. Summer is basically over, at least in terms of our schedule, and that June paycheck is all I'm getting till September 30, and yeah... we just can't. I'm emotionally drained. Cross your fingers for me that he gets a swimming miracle and gets to hit the level-up gong this week after all?

Only a week after I recovered from Virus One I was down again with Virus Two. That one was a bugger. I ended up scaring myself into going to urgent care when I tried to get out of bed one morning and nearly went unconscious. Apparently, the fever and dehydration combined with my natural low blood pressure to give me some vasovagal syncopy. Anyway, I did recover but I don't recommend catching that one. Thankfully, only Adele and I did.

The dog and cat continue to bond. Koopa doesn't quite know how to play with a kitten, but he tries, and Boo puts up with it admirably.

Last weekend, having thoroughly recovered from Virus Two, I was ready for some more hiking! This time we hiked the newly dog-accessible trails at Cheyenne Mountain Park.

No climbing this time; they don't let dogs on the mountain due to concerns that it will disrupt the wildlife. But we still enjoyed some pretty views and fresh air.

And, just before leaving, we caught sight of a community of wild prairie dogs! For real; no zoo in sight! We pulled over to watch a while.

Can you make him out?

The bulk of summer, for us, is passed; next weekend we start back-to-school shopping! I'm anxiously awaiting information about the kids' teachers and open-house night at the school. But I'm grateful to have this blog, because it forces me to look back at where I've been, and stop leaning forward into where I'm going. I have to turn back, and this corrective makes me straighten up, so to speak, and recognize the present. In three weeks, school begins. But tonight, I walk Koopa, and eat dinner, and read The Return of the King and Wonder Woman comics to my kids, and watch Netflix with Jon. Today is a good place to be.

The road home

We lingered in St. Louis for a day to spend time with our good friends, the McCrory-Hatchers. It's a joy to me that we maintain our friendship, despite the years and the miles. It's been nine years since Jon and I met Melissa, and then her husband, Josh, when we were all working in Annapolis. And despite their move to Memphis and now to St. Louis, and our move to Blacksburg and now to Pueblo, we continue to email, text, and visit, because some friends are meant to stay with you. We got to see their new St. Louis home, and see how their children have grown. They took us to one of their favorite new St. Louis places: Grant's Farm, just down the street from their house. It's a peculiar mix of park, zoo, and beer garden that exists on Ulysses S. Grant's former farm. Fun for all ages!

We saw an animal show and pet goats and rode the carousel and drank beer outside while strolling among Zoo animals. I want to go back. 

You can feed goats with baby bottles!

There is a shortage of pictures of this visit. I resolve to do better next time. 

Melissa was so kind as to make this one happen for us. We have very few whole-family pictures.

I just had to include this selfie Adele took when I was upstairs.  She's not supposed to play with my phone without permission. I can't stay mad though.

On the way back to Colorado, we took Koopa to a dog park in Kansas City. 

Loved this statue of Lewis & Clark & Sacajewea. 

And then we were back, at the Colorado state line. The landscape changed rapidly into the dry scrubby stuff I remembered, and the skies seem to grow. 

I love how much of the country you can see. These rainstorms were miles away.
 

Much sooner than we expected we were pulling into the driveway of our own house, returning home to it from out of town for the first time. This garden was little seedlings when we left, and there was only a little grass in the yard. But Jon's automatic watering regimen has had great effect!

We returned just in time for our neighborhood's traditionally raucous (and dangerous) celebration of the 4th of July. Once again, all we felt like doing was going up the hill to watch from a safe distance. 

It was a gorgeous view, despite the total inability of my iphone6s to capture it.

 

A friend hailed us on the way home and before I knew what was happening my kids had sparklers and snappers and whatever other pyrotechnics. It was a new experience for them! Miles has come a long way from his terror of 2 years ago. 
It's odd to come home to this place, but it is home right now. These different homes seem to mark different color-coded eras of our family's life in my mind. Annapolis was blue, Blacksburg was green, Pueblo is orange. And orange is warm and cheerful, and so are we right now. 

Baltimore, and transit

Guys, I'm just sucking at blogging this month. It's just my new reality, I'm afraid, in my post-CPrint-Captioning life. I'm gonna try to get caught up before the month is out, but if I get one more virus I can't make guarantees. A lot is conspiring against me. I know I don't have hoards of readers waiting with bated breath for a post out of me, but it's valuable to me to have reflected on our time and our memories.

Before we left Baltimore, I wanted to take advantage of being in an East Coast City one more time and visit an art museum. Because the art museum in Denver might be beautiful but it is rather limited in the amount of old, European art in its collection, and I am just uncool enough to prefer old, European art. So we hit up the Walters Art Museum, which I thoroughly recommend. It's even a wonderful museum for children, as there is a whole basement level devoted to children's activities and play.

I just needed to be in this kind of gorgeous environment, as it's hard to find buildings like this in Pueblo.

I have a lot of affection for St. Joseph; I loved this sculpture. He looks tired.

Loads of fascinating Madonnas and Childs.

I love how noblewomen were painted in the 18th Century. She looks intelligent.

This room was amazing! It was a whole exhibit on the history of writing, manuscripts, illuminations and the technology that made it possible. I love this sort of thing. I intended to start my sixth grade class with a discussion about why humans write, so this was very helpful.

Fabulous map with a historical timeline on the subject of writing.

We ended our visit with play! It's a rare art museum that's so child-friendly, in my opinion.

Everyone go visit the Walters!

We shoved off the next day and headed West.

Ohio. The corn was noticeably higher.

The trips out and back were really mercifully uneventful. It was at times tedious and uncomfortable, but really it went better than any cross-country trip with two kids and a dog had any right to go. Even with our stricture against eating in the car, even with our inability to either bring a dog into a fast-food restaurant or leave him in the car, even with a still potty-training child, we really had a very smooth trip. And it didn't seem long at all before we were arriving in St. Louis, just hours before our dear friends.

I'll save the last phase of the trip for the next entry. I'm committed to finishing July before July actually ends, though.