Our Bold Adventure Continues

The Big Horn Basin lies in north central Wyoming, a northwest to southeast oval tipping its hat into southern Montana. It’s a moonscape. Funky-looking, desolate, stunning. Hot and dry in summer, bitter in winter. It’s isolated and easy to get lost in. It is distinctive enough to be readily visible on satellite images from space. The badlands of the Big Horn Basin. Some geologists write it Bighorn Basin, but our client prefers the three-word version, so that's how I write it. A few towns ring its circumference. You've probably heard of Cody, Wyoming, a tourist magnet just an hour from Yellowstone. It's the Basin's biggest town with 9,000 souls. The populations of other towns around its perimeter hover between hundreds and low thousands. Not much goes on in the heart of the Big Horn Basin, at least not now. But at different times in the earth’s history this area was immersed in tropical flora, an inland sea, and a lush forest. The earth is approximately 4.6 bi...

No matter how well you plan, it's not possible to get five people into a car at the appointed time on departure day. The speed with which a minivan with a roof carrier can go up a mountain pass and the speed with which it can go down the other side average about 50 m.p.h. O on day 2, after doing some kind of coloring project in her seat: Does anyone have a stapler? A roof box can open while going around a corner down a hill, spilling much of its contents, if you have not properly closed it. Colorado is a big state. There are a lot of hot springs in Colorado. There are also a lot of mountains. Funnydad could spend all day wandering in sand dunes. Dude likes moonscapes. O on day 3, frustrated, Does anyone have a stapler NOW? Four-year olds are not terrified by 32-foot ladders and small tunnels on cliff dwellings. They are, however, worried that the man with the hat [park ranger] will talk too long. The most exciting thing about breakfast at the hotel for the girls and funnydad (!) wa...

The girls love to spell things these days. They're on the cusp of reading -- they can read short words and special books made for very, very early readers ("Mat sat. Sam sat. Mat sat on Sam." That kind of thing.) They like to read the newspaper with us pointing out every "the," "and," "in," and other words they see that they know. This is all age-appropriate. I know kids their age who are more advanced, and kids older than them who aren't quite here yet. I feel strongly that this kind of interest in words should be organic, borne from their interest, not in a parental desire to have early readers. Sometimes they ask us how to spell words as they write them out. Usually this involves silly, four-year-old sentences to caption a drawing. For instance, "This is a baby fairy and she likes her pet dolphin." It also involves a lot of mermaids and ladybugs. But, last weekend the girls decided they wanted to label things in our house. I...

Verbatim, as made up by M during a recent hike. (We're not sure what "including" means here, but this is the way she said it.) 1) Be careful, including. 2) Don't fall down the mountain. 3) This rule tells the other rules what to do: Be careful, including, and don't fall down the mountain or you could die.* 4) Be kind to animals you meet on the mountain. 5) Trees give us oxygen, thank you. * the origin of this rule may lie in that at school they are learning that silent letters tell other letters to say their names. As in, the silent "e" in home tells the "o" to say its name.

Our girls were born on THE cut-off day for kindergarten in Boulder. They will either be the oldest or the youngest in their class – anyone born a day later in 2004 will have to wait another year to begin kindergarten. At first, back when they were small lumps crawling around our apartment, I advocated waiting. People said it was better. People said they knew kids who grew up timid as the youngest in their class and kids who grew up strong as the eldest. “If you want leaders hold them back. If you want followers put them in early.” My mother-in-law teaches seventh grade and said she can tell who is older and younger in her class without looking at her pupil’s birthdates. It matters, and we wanted our kids to be their best, so we’d wait. Funnydad agreed. I was so sure that’s what we’d do. Now I put that decision in the same category as when, as a childless woman in my 20s, I saw preschoolers in mis-matched clothes and swore my children would not look like that. You just don’t know how y...

Another post about being insanely busy. Feel free to skip, since you’ve heard it before. I swear I don’t like living this way, despite the fact that I can’t seem to change. (This is another post of 50-word-or-fewer paragraphs. Seems appropriate for the subject matter. Plus, you all seemed to enjoy it last time.) When I was younger, before kids, being busy meant that maybe I skipped going to the gym. Or I worked late instead of meeting a friend for dinner. Now, it’s an entirely different game. Been spinning in circles trying to stay balanced. During a recent trip to Virginia my sister-in-law, a mom whom I respect greatly, talked about the ways she works to build “margin” into her and her family’s schedule. That’s the word for what I’m missing: margin. Every minute is accounted for, busy, and if it’s not, there’s something slipping. I forget forms for school, I handwash undies the night before lest I go commando to work because I haven’t done laundry. People actually call to ask if I’m s...

• Half a plot is less than half the work of a full plot • The second year really IS easier • Four-year-olds are better at playing by themselves while you garden than three-year-olds • There is no good way to work compost in around a drip irrigation system • It's not worth the fight against bugs to get beans to grow here • Everyone who has rhubarb has too much of it, so don't plant any yourself • Weeds are intimidating, even five months after I last fought the good fight against them Did anyone notice that after a rousing start to last year's gardening season there were NO posts about my community garden plot? This was not coincidence. This was me sparing you from my sinking depression over how Not Fun my Gardening Burden became. Turns out that 528 square feet of weed-infested garden with poor soil in an arid climate is too much to take on while working half time and raising three-year old twins. Weeds in my community garden plot last year. There were several problems, and ...