Our Bold Adventure Continues

Or, trying to fill time creatively while Daddy's on a business trip: (Mostly we've had fun. Been okay. Wrapped Christmas presents, seen friends, done our regular activities. But there were a few dark spots in the week. Notably, all coming in the afternoon or evening. Hm.) • Dinner at the hibachi Japanese steak house. (I thought they'd think it was cool to watch food being cooked right in front of us. All they noticed was the loud exhaust fan over their heads. They watched, but while clinging to me with their hands over their ears and saying "go home.") • Bagel for snack at 10:30 a.m. (They didn't eat much lunch and then were whiney and hungry by 4:30. I forgot they hadn't had much lunch and rebuffed their pleas for an extra snack, only fueling the deteriorating situation. Eventually I caught on and we had an early dinner, but it was rough for a while.) • Going to the new coffee shop-with-a-play-area in town after kindergarten hours: "the big kids are ...

Sometimes I spend a great deal of time thinking about a person's sense of place. I mean, some days I think about this almost constantly. It's one of those topics that seems like common sense, like the armchair sociologist in all of us should be able to construct an answer, an explanation for how it works. Maybe there's a formula... But it's not that easy when you dive in deep. I'm not just talking about me finding my place here, though the ever-present work on that front is certainly fueling these thoughts. I'm talking about outward signs of connection versus inner feelings of grounding. I'm talking about why one person feels at ease in a place while another with a similar situation feels awkward. Everyone in Boulder is from somewhere else. It's like Manhattan that way. No one is really from here, except just to prove me wrong, once in a while I meet a true native. Sometimes I'll meet a Colorado native who has been lured by Boulder's siren song,...

So I signed us up to go see a children's theater production. It seemed like a good thing to do, a fun outing on a Saturday afternoon. The girls had never seen a live play before. Aren't we always looking for things to do with them on the weekends? The show was advertised as for children ages preschool through five. Bingo. I got four tickets. Plus, it was through the twins club here -- there were 80 tickets, potentially 20 sets of twins and their families there. Perhaps, I thought, I'd meet someone with twins my girls' age. I was all proud of myself for planning such a nice event for our family. Except the show was Jack and the Beanstalk. Do you remember the story? It's scary. Really scary. I checked a book out of the library so M and O would know the story in advance. There's a giant who EATS LITTLE KIDS. He bellows Fee Fi Fo Fun and stomps around. Up until now the scariest thing my kids have been able to face is swiper from Dora, and even then they sometimes qu...

O's actual diet today: a few bites of oatmeal a slice of apple water a few pretzels two bites of mac and cheese a bite of celery a banana part of a sippy cup of milk part of a sippy cup of juice about 12 goldfish a few udon noodles chocolate milk (special treat at the restaurant) a couple bites of her portion of a shared cookie M's actual diet today: a full bowl of grits (she asked for seconds) a piece of raisin bread multiple apple slices water milk a dixie cup of pretzels a full serving of mac and cheese celery sticks a banana two sippy cups of milk banana chips dried pineapple a sippy cup of juice a bowl of udon noodles chocolate milk (special treat at the restaurant) a quarter of a large cookie Recent research suggests that picky eating is genetic , or at least mostly so. Nature, not nurture. I have here a case study that proves the point -- in fact, the researchers used twins (though not ours). We've done nothing different with our girls. We model the same to both of...

Funnydad's been away for a week, including the weekend this time. His new job requires a good bit of travel often for long stretches, so I'm trying to learn how to handle his trips gracefully rather than just, well, surviving them. Earlier in the week I had all kinds of witty thoughts about a post that would include the great things we did to make the time pass quickly. Activities, outings, projects. Days one through four weren't bad. Things started going downhill on Friday, day five, and now today, day seven, we're shot. All three of us. Forget grace, this is about endurance. In addition to the stress you might expect, the girls picked this week to DROP THEIR NAP. I'm serious. We'd been in "rest time" mode for a while where they might or might not sleep, but this week they let the pretense of rest time go and started barreling through the day. Despite all my best parenting techniques, threats, and punishments, they were bouncing around their room, moc...

O: Mama, do I have a cockatoo? Me: No, sweetie, you don't. O: Oh. (pause) O: Can I have a cockatoo when I grow up? And can we have a hanger outside for him to sit on? Me: Sure, sweetie, if you want a cockatoo when you grow up, you can have one. O (this time to M): When we grow up do you want to have a cockatoo? M: Can I have a whale? ***************************************************** As amusing as this exchange was, what I find most remarkable is that as she thought about that mysterious time when she would be "grown up" O turned to M to ask if she'd want a cockatoo as well. They've never been apart. They've always slept in the same room, eaten at the same time, played together. In their little three-year-old minds they're going to be together forever, sitting across the table from each other coloring even when they're grown up. Yet, somehow, O recognizes that M is a different person to whom she has to *ask* if M wants a cockatoo, too. It's comp...

So we forced her. (See previous post about getting O to be in the snow.) A friend (!) here in Boulder offered us her condo in Keystone and we jumped at the chance. Cute little one-bedroom where the bedroom is a loft accessed with a spiral staircase. The girls loved the spiral staircase and sleeping in their sleeping bags almost as much as we loved marveling at the unbelievable landscape. O before the whining and crying and asking to be carried started. O after the whining and crying and asking to be carried started. We rewarded them with hot cocoa when our flat 1/2 mile "hike" was done. We don't know what M is doing here, but she's having fun. Keystone is a little less than two hours from Boulder, and it's a pretty easy drive. It's essentially the first major ski place west of Denver, about a half hour east of Vail, and is just a few minutes from Copper Mountain. (Yeah, if you're not a skier, don't worry. It was all blah blah blah geography to me, t...

It's no small undertaking to get twins ready to play in the snow. And twice now we've gotten the girls all dressed to go outside only to have O announce she doesn't want to go. She's afraid of getting cold. She wants to make a snowman and Colorado's powder snow doesn't pack well. She's generally cautious about new things, and since they can't remember last year in Minnesota, this counts as new. The most heartbreaking thing in the world is to think you're going to get a few moments of peace while dad takes the kids to play outdoors only to have one freeze at the threshhold and say, "Noooooo. I want to stay insiiiiide." I guess we could have forced her, but there will be times when we have to go out and she'll have no choice, so we'll save the screaming and crying for then. M kept saying, "The snow is everywhere! The snow is everywhere!" And then she'd list the places she saw snow: "it's on their roof, it's ...

Today as you sit down to enjoy your turkey dinner, give thanks to Sarah. Sarah Josepha Hale. She's the one who is largely responsible for Thanksgiving as you know it. (I'm showing my geek side here, but Thanksgiving has a kind of interesting history, so bear with me. Or come back to the blog next week when I'll surely have more cute things to say about your favorite twins.) Like many traditions Thanksgiving has changed over time, but it began with the persistent efforts of a nineteenth-century magazine editor. Well, actually, it began as an occasional harvest festival. Long before the Mayflower set sail, harvest celebrations were commonplace, though not necessarily codified and annual, in England and among many Native American groups. In the New World during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Thanksgiving was primarily a regional New England holiday celebrating family and community; it was largely unknown in the South. I'm sure the people in Colorado at...

Maybe finding your way in a new community is like dating. It's common knowledge that when you're desperate to find that perfect someone you won't, but when you're not looking he shows up. (For instance, on the subway.) This weekend funnydad and I were minding our own business, not actively trying to recruit friendships when a neighbor knocked on our door and asked if we wanted to bike over to meet "Ralphie" the live buffalo mascot for Colorado University at Boulder. Of course we did. So we piled our kids in the chariot, he piled his kids in his chariot and off we went in a little bicycle caravan. To get there Sebastian showed us bike routes through town that we hadn't figured out on our own yet. Suddenly Boulder blossomed in my mind -- things connected, the ease of getting around on a bike became even more clear, and instead of feeling "small" as I've often characterized this place, it felt "accessable." There are places I may never...

I am here to tell you that a roll of scotch tape is all you need on an airplane if you're traveling alone with preschool-age twins. That and a portable DVD player. Since, as we all know, the airplane has rules, the DVD player can't come out until the fasten seat belt sign goes off. And three-year-olds will show unprecedented attention spans while watching for it to chime off. (They'll also ask if we're in the air yet while people are still boarding and announce they have to go to the bathroom during landing.) Until the magic of the DVD player can offer some distraction, there's the tape. It's sticky, it's tricky, it makes a mess, and most of the time they're not allowed to touch the stuff. So I give each girl her very own roll when we board and it keeps them occupied for the whole flight. They put it on the window, they put it on the seat. They try to cut off "little" pieces, and then stretch it the length of their arms. We play a game with it:...

This week has been all about sickness. Dodging it, dealing with it, ignoring it. It began with O. They're in preschool, this is fall, sickness is to be expected. Though snuffly, O was fine. I'm the kind of person who just keeps going, so I expect that of my kids (with a few extra cuddles, hot cocoa, and longer naps). We all just keep going these days. I've read articles about how people don't call in sick anymore, the culture of the American workplace is such that we expect people to be having chemotherapy if they call in sick. It even has a name, "presenteeism," as in the opposite of "absenteeism." There's a backlash, even, people who advocate -- gasp -- staying home when you're sick. At any rate, especially with two, I tend to rely on our friend children's tylenol and push through a cold. But then, of course, funnydad and M got sick, too. I guess I had a low-grade version of late last weekend, but I dodged the bullet. We had visiting gr...

I am happy to report that there is a decided absence of Halloween decorations in Boulder. Not a single illuminated, generator-pumped pumpkin in sight. No Halloween flags or banners. Only one yard I know of is covered in fake spider webs, and it's not that bad. I haven't seen any Halloween sweaters, either. (Maybe they don't know about Christmas sweaters here. One can only hope.) O is very excited about her bunny costume. For the past couple weeks whenever she couldn't find me, I'd hear her say, "maybe mommy's making my bunny costume. I'll go check." Once when I said it was time for me to make dinner she added, hopefully, "and my bunny costume"? M thinks her elephant costume is fun and all, but she's a little less anticipatory about the whole thing. My mistake is that O's costume is a WHITE bunny. Bunnies in real life come in all kinds of colors, I couldn't have selected black, brown, or even spotted? No, I went with the stereo...

We've been here long enough that I don't really get lost anymore. The house is unpacked (though not organized. Don't look in our linen closet). We have a regular grocery store, a regular hardware store, an established rhythm to our week. Though I still feel new, the exciting part, the beginning, is over. And loneliness is creeping in. Building new friendships is the hardest part of moving. I'm keeping in touch with people from our old life (lives) best I can given diverging circumstances, and there are specific people whose absence I feel acutely. That's the thing: I miss specific people, but I also miss just having friends. Heck, I miss having acquaintances. Our neighbors seem nice, and there is even a three-year-old girl two houses away. The people at Quaker Meeting are nice, too. My friend from college who lives here is quite welcoming, but she's busy with her own life and children. I haven't found a play group, or a book group, or a mom's outlet that...

This weekend funnydad said, "It's like we live in a postcard." He's right. The mountains are omnipresent, and they never cease to be beautiful. I can be grumpy, turn west, and that vista just takes my breath away -- cheers me up, if only for a minute. When, on occasion, fog obscures the mountains the whole town feels flat, both figuratively and literally. Things are out of sorts until the sun burns off the fog and gives us back our mountains. In New York fog would sometimes cover the top of the Empire State Building, and when that happened it would be fun, an anomoly, a "hey look" catch-it-before-it's-gone kind of sight. Weird, but if you weren't within sight of the Empire State Building you might miss it. Here, when the mountains are missing there's no escaping it. I feel ungrounded. Boulder's specialness is gone. May as well be in a small town anywhere. Makes me realize how tied to the mountains this community, its identity, and my understa...

Your favorite twins celebrated their third birthday on Sunday. We made a big deal of the big day, and the first thing O said when she woke up that morning was, "are we three yet?" Then, when asked what she wanted for breakfast, M said, "cake." Grandma and Grandpa Murphy were in Boulder for the occassion and we all treked a few miles up north for a day at a kids' farm. The Sunflower Farm in Longmont was a delight -- a rope bridge and tree house, goats and chicken to feed (with gallons of hand sanitizer for when they were done), a baby miniature horse just four days old (and its mommy), old tractors to climb on, tire swings to ride, hay bales to climb on, a hay maze to play in, ride-on toys to ride on, a play house with pretend kitchen toys for making pretend birthday cake, a sand pit to get messy in, a fire pit and marshmallows to roast, and (the highlight) ponies to ride! I'm trying something new here, uploading video. If it works, it'll be a wonderful w...

Funnydad and I have been married seven years today. And, I counted. Since we started living together we've lived in seven places. (More if you count my apartment in grad school when we had a commuter marriage.) One a year, essentially. No wonder I'm anxious to put down roots. We've been in our new Boulder house for two nights now, and it feels very comfortable. It's a good layout, easy to live in, easy to live in with kids. The girls like it. There are, as expected, idiosyncrasies. The kitchen doesn't have as much storage space as we'd like. The box spring for the guest bed couldn't fit down the stairs to the guest room. The girls' room is quite warm for this time of year. Our bedroom door sticks and is loud to open. But there are unexpected cool things as well. Turns out I love our freezer-on-the-bottom fridge. Our dishwasher is super silent. Who knew two sinks in the master bath would be so wonderful? Our garden is beautiful, really lovely. Having a mu...

"I'd rather be upside down in my kayak than sitting upright at my desk" "Frodo failed. Bush got the ring" "Republicans for Voldemort" "My karma ran over your dogma" and, though it was a sign in a coffee shop (not a bumper sticker) "unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy" -- that one had me laughing for ten minutes.

We go exploring a lot. On weekdays we sometimes try a new playground, stay close to home. But on weekends we try something bigger, like yesterday's hike through El Dorado Canyon just south of Boulder. El Dorado Canyon is the site of the first settlers in the area, a history explained on a battered wooden sign and park brochures, and a history completely overlooked by visitors who are almost exclusively there for one reason: rock climbing. Our hike was an on-foot affair, but it involved a lot of climbing on rocks, which the girls adore. Seriously, we chose a trail with a split personality. Half crushed rock suitable for wheelchairs, and half directly uphill on a "path" of large rocks with hardly any dirt between them. The girls were great, using their hands to climb and holding our hands when we insisted (grandparents: do not fear, your grandchildren are safe). We saw a small chipmunk and the funnybunnies spent the rest of the day calling themselves baby chipmunks and maki...

I was talking to a friend on the phone today when I interrupted the conversation to say to my daughter, "Look, a baby horse and a mommy horse." The friend on the phone said, "Where are you? at the zoo, or are you watching TV?" I laughed and said, "I'm driving and we're two blocks from our apartment." She laughed back and replied, "I really don't get where you're living now." This is the west. I drive past horses, cows and sheep between this suburb and Boulder every day. There are mountains in sight pretty much every moment, and it never seems to rain. The clouds are out of control beautiful -- you can totally see what Albert Beirstadt saw in the landscape. No one wears cowboy hats or boots (perhaps that's for people further out) but this is the west, replete with mommy horses and their babies. Mommy cows, too. I'll try to post some pictures soon to explain what 1000 words can't. (Our camera has been on the fritz.)

hey, i went to NIST the other day. ever heard of it? national institute for standards and technology. it's where the atomic clock is based. and it's here in boulder. (as is NOAA - national something of atmospheric research.) anyway, someone who works with me has a husband who's a scientist there. took us on a tour just for fun. pretty cool, the shit they're doing. didn't even understand most of it, even after he explained, but still cool. all these lasers and optics and measurement shit. stuff that hasn't been done before. (working on a new way of measuring laser light that might in the end be the new system for measuring time, replace the atomic clock). one machine - a scanner they were trying to develop that detects weapons made of ceramic, undetectable by conventional metal detectors, for use in airports, etc - was essentially a big camera that looked like a hub cab. that hub cap camera spun around on wheels. i noticed the wheels were "Rol...

I'm sitting here in an almost empty house watching movers load our possessions onto the biggest moving truck you've ever seen. Eighteen wheels aren't good enough for this truck. No, it needs 22. Our stuff takes up a sliver of the truck, but still it's taking an age to load. The movers are being careful, and I don't think they're wasting time. But I'm a little bored, can't leave the house, and am out of productive things to do. So you win -- I'm passing time by putting a few photos on the blog. I'll put up photos of the new house when I have some, which should be soon. Until then, enjoy these of your favorite twins. Juniper and the girls in front of Boulder's signature mountain range, the Flatirons. Note the scrubby vegetation. These are not Vermont's mountains -- we're on the high plains. M examines cupcakes at a good-bye party for us at our playgroup in Minneapolis. O loves the merry-go-round. This one is in Delaware, but we hope to ...

I was looking forward to a lull. Moving is a lot of stress, and we made this one happen pretty fast. I figured, just get out of Minnesota and I could catch my breath, begin learning about Boulder, find the grocery store, investigate preschools. No lull for the lucky. We sold our house in three days for full asking price and found a lovely place in a great area of Boulder just as fast. The whole series of deals went down while Juniper and the bunnies were on the east coast at the annual Murphy Beach Vacation and funnydad was throwing himself into his new job back in Boulder. It made for a busy vacation and a lot of phone calls as everything was finalized, but suddenly it’s done. Or almost done. (Find some wood to knock on, please.) We'll own the new place beginning September 11th. It is in a great neighborhood, a block away from the best public elementary school in Boulder. It's within walking distance of a little marketplace with a Wild Oats, a couple of restaurants, a couple o...

We took our funnybunnies a short ride up the mountains yesterday to "hop on rocks." They loved it, though at every hop we worried they'd slip and break an ankle or arm or worse. Of course they didn't. The view, just minutes from our house, is stunning. As we live here longer I'm sure we'll learn the names of each mountain and to tell them apart, but for now the big picture is a enough. Don't need the details yet, can't focus on them anyway at this point. Look one side off the mountain and see Boulder, flatness, and eventually (if the curve of the earth weren't in the way), Kansas. Look off the other side and see mountains, mountains, and more mountains. Nestled in there somewhere are ski resorts like Vail, Aspen and Telluride. Countless other places less famous but equally worth the trip. It's hard to imagine people walking over this endless pile of hills during our country's westward migration because the terrain is steep and rough and, we...

So here I am on an airplane moving to Boulder. Could have been a smoother transition, but I’m here. (It’s a long story.) Already people look different. Fit. Tan. They carry books about hiking and have carabineers on their backpacks. It’s hard to say good-bye to Minneapolis. In two years I’ve met neighbors, friends and fellow mothers who have become very important to me, and to my children. I found a job I adore and I built a garden that made me proud. We had neighbors who gathered many evenings in our front yard to hang out, have a beer and watch our kids ride trikes up and down the sidewalk. I’m not saying I can’t recreate these things in Boulder, in fact I’m sure I will, but it’s terribly sad to leave and say good-bye to what I knew there and what could have been there if I’d given it more chance to grow. I could have been happy in Minneapolis. The summers were way too short, but the winters were manageable. And the parks, lakes, and trails made a pretty nice environment. It was a go...