Halloween

The kids are out trick or treating as I type. We've had a great few days of celebration.

We've been to a Halloween party for the mother/daughter group where we bobbed for apples, made lanterns and carved pumpkins. We've also been to the Halloween wonder walk at Lorna's school where the kids "trick or treat" from different magical realms and receive crystals, and honey stix, and other benign treats before popcorn and cider by the bonfire.

Today we wore costumes to Lorna's annual physical, then visited Daddy for lunch and oohs and aaahs at the office. Next we went to Lorna's Halloween parade and now there are out doing the rounds. I remember last year how easily this cultural phenomenon was for Lucy to learn and appreciate!

FYI - Lorna is a red fox!, Lucy a ladybug and Kai a fireman.

Lorna's Seventh Birthday

How did that happen? It is hard to believe that Lorna, my baby, is now seven.

Standing by the wall growth chart, I realize that she grew 5 inches this year! She is now 49.5 inches tall and has gained over 10 pounds. She has changed into a big/little girl. Her appetite is also a total change from a year ago - she eats about as much as I do.

To celebrate, her class had a party on her actual birthday. Will and I came to talk about her birth and baby years to the class, then everyone sang happy birthday. There was a scavenger hunt for a present from her teacher and then we all ate some cupcakes that I brought. (Welcome to Waldorf in Boulder - low sugar, no frosting, and no nuts or possible contamination with nuts.)

That night she wanted just our family to have dinner at home. Her preferred meal was mac n' cheese, carrots and cake pops for dessert. Then we opened all the friends and family presents and quickly had to go to sleep.

On Saturday the 22nd, we have just seven friends over for her party. First we went to paint your own pottery, then back to our house to roast marshmallows, eat s'mores, eat popcorn and drink cider, trampoline and to top it off all the girls made this huge obstacle course in our basement. Tons of fun!

OT

Lucy started Occupational Therapy (OT) for sensory integration in August. Sensory Integration is a new and ever-growing developmental issue for kids. Like autism, no one knows for sure what is causing the rise, but health insurance covers it all. It seems that is the litmus test that it has entered the mainstream. Lucy is suspected to have these issues not because of neurological malfunctioning, but from sensory deprivation as a child. Perhaps without deep holding as a child and free reign to crawl and explore, she couldn’t move through the developmental milestones children do who are not institutionalized.

This whole field of is fascinating to me. New research comes out monthly that affects the way therapists are working with kids. Some things that Lucy did that caused us to take her in for testing were a constant need to bang, touching just about everything and general lack of impulse control.

To sum up – Lucy seeks sensory input like banging because she didn’t get deep touch as a baby and probably spent a lot of time alone in a bassinet and then crib. Deep touch like holding and swaddling develops a human’s proprioception and frontal lobe. The way a 3 and 4 year old can develop this sense is by banging things – their fork on the table, the stroller into the wall, the vase onto the floor. Once that sense gets developed then the frontal lobe’s job of impulse control can take over.

Most of Lucy’s challenging behavior is her way of backfilling the holes in her development. She is being her own therapist. But I am adding lots of appropriate and helpful input as well. We see her therapist once a week. I also do a skin-brushing three times per day and some exercises once per day to help with some reflexes that were never outgrown.

We are already seeing improvement and she likes the “therapy” – she tells me that it feels good. We call her therapist “the silly doctor who doesn’t give shots.”

Gone solar

This past June, we got our solar system up and running! I love getting monthly checks from the power company. Watching the counter clicking higher and higher has been such fun! We also watch each kilowatt of power used – each drop now means so much more.

I was amazed how many governmental – both federal and local – incentives there are. We will have a 30% federal tax credit and Xcel has to pay us to our system! There were also enough financing options to make solar accessible to all.

For all the downsides of technology, there are also these shining examples!

Baby Gray

My step-brother, Davenport, and his lovely wife, Renee welcomed their first child Grayson West on August 20. I have been in need of smelling that newborn’s head. There’s just something about newborns, the smell of their heads and their squishiness that makes it all right. Not that having babies is everyone’s destiny, but for those who want them, I feel such overwhelming happiness for them.

Lorna and I flew out to see them the weekend of October 15 and when I first saw that baby and their joy, it was hard to hold back the tears. He is such a good baby and they are such amazing parents. Happy happy joy joy.

I so wanted to come and be a help - did some shopping and cooking - but quickly realized that the nursing mom is really the only one who can take care. How quickly we moms fall out of practice of the newborn stage. Those blurry days when there are just 6 actions required but they are done 16 times per day. My own memories are of happy disorientation, when my world went from traveling the world to obsessing over this one being’s sleeping and eating. … and then trying to eat and sleep myself. The maximum zoom out to the maximum zoom in.

Alone time with Lorna is always such a treat. We snuggled together and made up stories. I spoiled her a lot and, as she is just learning her letters, got to practice sounding out words. She loves to travel and have adventures – we did go to the ocean in Jupiter with Davenport to put our toes in the Atlantic and build a sand castle. She is getting so grown up and just loved seeing the new baby and spending time with silly Davenport and lovely Renee.

I can’t believe that I didn’t get any pictures! Thought about it as we were just about back on the highway.

Paul's visit

Paul’s visit

Paul Eshoo and I grew up in the same town but got to know one another through our mutual friends, the Lech’s. Paul had just graduated from Berkeley when I had returned from Peace Corps. I think I persuaded him to try it as well. He was a PCV in Nepal soon after. After his return we got in touch again and I persuaded him to lead a trip with Dragons (my ex-employer) to Nepal and then introduced him to Steven Schipani who had been trying to get me to work on a UNESCO project in northern Laos. Paul has been in Laos for 11 years! His most recent job was protecting the last tiger breeding ground in Indochina.

Just last week he came, as he said it, to get his next set of instructions. It was great to see him, hear of his time and of mutual friends in still in Thailand and Laos. I hope we were a compassionate landing place for someone still coming through culture shock. I do believe that being surrounded by three young kids and the necessary accouterments was another form of culture shock. He literally jumped right in to play with them on the trampoline, stayed with a sleeping Lucy while I had to take Kai to the ER for his croup, and braved the Boulder Farmer’s market.

Reminiscing with Paul was a reminder of a very conscious decision made in my life. I could so easily have stayed in Asia. Farangs (foreigners) who speak Thai are a rare commodity and I had two dream job opportunities that I turned away from. I love Thailand and Thai culture, but knew that I would always be the foreigner if I stayed. When traveling I loved to see the various ways that people live, loved to see families and children. So I came home, tried to keep the lessons of Asia with me, and to set down roots. And here I am with three kids, wonderful husband and friends, two dogs, a mini van and a garden full of food! Watch out Paul.

Paul left our house en route to Mesa Verde and the Grand Canyon on his way back to San Francisco. Can't wait to see what happens.