Happy 4th!

Happy Independence Day! My many thanks to those 56 men that signed the Declaration of Independence. They knew what faced them if they signed, yet they signed anyway. Their bravery gave us the independence that we enjoy and sometimes take for granted. We remember them today.

This is an exciting 4th for us. My husband is home for the first time in 3 years to celebrate with us. I am planning a water balloon attack with the kids. hehehe.. Lots of good food, fun, and fireworks. It is one of our favorite days. Hopefully, the sun will peek out and shine on us.

And dear brother, if you are reading this, we wish you were here to celebrate with us. Hope all is well with you. We will miss you today.

Lake Crescent

 We stopped at La Poel on our way to the Hoh Rainforest because we are kind of spontaneous like that. We didn’t know what it was, but it was on the side of Lake Crescent. It had to be beautiful. We were not disappointed. We wound down a narrow dirt road and just picked a place to park the car. We have great intuition. It was a beautiful spot. I got out of the car and heard running water. I am going to admit something embarrassing to you all. I am a forest nerd. I don’t know. Maybe you have all figured that out by now. My nerdiness goes way back to when I was a kid. I wanted to be a forest ranger (of course, since elk make me nervous it is probably a good thing I didn’t pursue that career). Anyway, the sound of running water inside a mess of trees distracts me. I must find the source. My poor kids. It is a good thing that their father is more stable. It didn’t take long for me to find it.

Beautiful, isn’t it? It looks good enough to drink, but I wouldn’t. There is some microscopic intestinal parasite that is in the water around these mountains. Of course, later there was a couple drinking happily out of the creek. They are probably going to be fine, but still. I don’t mess around with even the probability of intestinal parasites.

The creek runs into Lake Crescent.

 
Lake Crescent is a lake carved from a glacier. It is a beautiful shade of blue and the water is clear. The lake is 600 feet deep and the water is COLD. I stuck my feet in, but not for long.

The rocks on the edge were pefect for skipping. So, lessons commenced.

I love this picture. I wish it wasn’t so dark, but I am not photo literate. I just take them and throw them up here. You get the idea. Anyway, so I hope this post inspires you to take the back roads and stop at the places that aren’t on the map.

The Hoh Rainforest

I was planning on showing you our what could possibly be our last homecoming, but we made a spur of the moment trip to the rainforest. It was so beautiful and overwhelming that I am skipping ahead. No, we didn’t have to travel to South America to visit the rainforest. We have one here in Washington. In fact, it may be the only coniferous rainforest in the world. What makes it a rainforest? Simply the rainfall totals.

Almost 12 feet of rain on average fall in the Hoh every year. Fortunately, on the day we chose to visit it was beautiful and the sun even managed to peek out.

We arrived early. Early enough that there were still only a few guests at the center. There were three trails to choose from. We choose to walk the two shorter ones and still managed to see plenty.

The floor of the forest is carpeted in moss and ferns. It was like a sea of green. I was a little nervous to be walking the trail because there were posted signs about charging elk. Apparently, several elk had been charging visitors recently. Yikes. So, my ears and eyes were on full alert.  We were about half way down the trail when we were visited by a forest rabbit. He was a cute little thing. He followed us down the trail awhile and provided the kids with lots of laughs. He wouldn’t sit still for a picture. Shy, I guess.

We passed another rainforest meadow. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement. I looked over and saw a female elk having some lunch about 100 feet from us. I peed my pants   calmly ushered my children from the area. My husband wanted a picture so he lingered. I grabbed him by the shirt convinced him it would be wise to leave the area, so we continued our hike.

Moss was everywhere; hanging on the trees and growing on the floor, and the trees were huge. Some of the trees were over 300 feet tall. I was just amazed at the girth of them.

Here I am. I am standing between two trees that have grown together. Obviously they grew together several years ago. These trees have actually grown from a nurse log. A nurse log is a fallen tree that noursishes baby organisms like seedlings. Tree seedlings grow from the top of the nurse log and the roots grow around the log attaching into the ground. It is hard to imagine these trees ever being seedlings.

This is what it looks like when the nurse log finally fully decays. The kids had fun crawling under the tree. Nothing like a tree sitting on your children to give you the goose bumps. 

 

 

A Good Day

I am very excited to tell you all that my hubby comes home today! He has been gone two months. For some reason, these two months have seemed much longer than two months. But, today, he comes home! It is going to be a beautiful day to stand on the pier. The sun is going to be shining, and it is going to be hot, hot, hot. I wish it wasn’t going to be quite so hot, but I am not going to complain. Or, maybe I will. Kind of depends on how long it takes to get the brow down and how long it takes them to call liberty. Time will tell. But, once I see him it will be all good; heat and all. We have things to celebrate, and hopefully, some day trips to take.  Don’t you worry, I am going to get some pictures.

 

I believe in fairies.

Kindness

Part of the suprise in my package from Duck, Duck Soup was a new book. What a treat! I love the smell of new books. I just love new books. Anyway, I have to talk about this book. It is called The Kindness of Strangers. It is a book of essays on, you guessed it, the kindness of strangers specifically while traveling. Being a Navy wife, I have done my fair share of traveling. Since I am reading and enjoying this book, I feel compelled to share my own story of the kindness of a stranger.

In 1995, my husband was transferred to Singapore. For reasons beyond my control, I was not going to be able to transfer with him. He had waited as long as he could, but he had to leave. I was still stuck in the States waiting on passports (which the lovely PSD worker managed to lose, but I didn’t know it yet) and other government nonsense. So my brand new baby and I waited here for all of our paperwork to come through. Six weeks later, I am boarding an airplane to Japan. The flight was 10 hours from Seattle to Japan. I would change planes in Japan and fly another 7 hours to Singapore. The magnitude of this flight did not hit me while I was boarding the plane. I was too busy juggling my baby and saying good-bye to my family. It was 3 hours into the flight when I realized that this was going to be one heck of a ride. I was sitting next to a man who was obviously very uncomfortable with the fact that there was a very young baby in his row. I spent a lot of time standing in the back of the plane chatting with other passengers. Going to the bathroom in a plane with a 4 month old baby was probably one of the most challenging things I had ever done to that date. The flight was uneventful. I arrived in Japan on time and managed to find my gate in Tokyo. How I did that I have no idea. I barely remember it. I was a zombie at this point and I still had another 7 hours on a plane.

I had to check in at the gate. I remember standing in line dazed and smiling while several people peeked at my baby. I didn’t know it then, but this was going to happen a lot the next 3 years. I stood there in line thinking that my arms were going to fall off. I had my carry-on, a large baby bag, a car seat, and of course, my handsome baby. Next thing I know there is a woman standing next to me and taking my things out of my hands. I look at her confused, but I don’t argue with her. We stood in line together, but we didn’t talk much. She asked me if I was visiting Singapore, but I told her that I would be living there. She smiled and told me that I was going to like it. That was about the extent of our conversation. Finally, we board the plane. She helps me settle in and  disappears to the back of the plane.

Sleep. I need sleep. That was pretty much all I was thinking about. This time I am sitting next to an older Chinese man that has made it even more obvious than my previous row mate that he is not happy to be sitting next to a baby. Well, at this point I didn’t care much what he was thinking which was out of character for me at the time. (He did end up telling me what I good baby I had at the end of the flight. Not that it matters.)  The flight attendants on this flight were very friendly. The oooh’ed and aahhh’ed over my baby. After the plane was in the air, one of attendants came to me and asked if she could hold my baby. Please. Hold him. She disappeared for a good half hour. I think my guy may have served beverages with them. I rested.  I didn’t worry about him. We were up in the air. Where were they going to go? That flight was also uneventful. We landed and immediately everyone was out of their seats grabbing for their things. I am sure you have seen it before. The crush. The pushing and shoving that comes with everyone trying to get all their things out of the overhead bins at the same time. But, there she was. The woman who had helped me earlier. How she managed to get next to my seat still makes me wonder, but I didn’t ask. She reached for my things and I handed them to her. She carried her things and my things. We walked together to customs. She was Singaporean so she made it through quickly. I had to go through immigration which took much longer, but she patiently waited for me. She took me to the baggage claim where my husband was waiting for me. She handed him my things, rubbed the top of my baby’s head and walked off before I could even get a thank you off to her. I remember kind of shouting a thank you and she waved.

I will never forget this woman. I have no idea how the trip would have turned out had she not been there. It seems so little, but she helped me so much. Just the simple act of carrying my bags has earned my unending gratitude. I still think about her when I fly.  I would come to learn that many of the Singaporean people are like she was, but she is the one that I will always remember.

My prize

After waiting ages and ages my prize finally arrived from Melanie. You remember, the ones I won for being the 100th comment or something like that.

Oh, but I am not in the slightest bit upset for waiting ages and ages. Actually, it came on the most perfect of days when I was in desperate need of a chocolate fix. Also, there were a couple of bonus surprises. There was a bag of jelly bellies. Oh, I love jelly bellies! Apparently they were supposed to be for my kiddos because she is pretty cool and didn’t want them to feel left out. Well, what they don’t know won’t hurt them. Aren’t I just the coolest mom ever? OK. OK. I am sharing a little, but I am making them pay for them in hugs and kisses. Hey, my oldest is 13. I will take hugs and kisses in any way that I can get them. So, now they think that I am the coolest mom ever because I am sharing my candy and all they have to do is hug and kiss me. Sometimes it is just too easy.

I also would like to mention that I do not think this is mediocre chocolate. It is good chocolate. It brought my endorphins back up to stable levels. Are they endorphins? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. All I know is that I am thinking as a normal human being again and not some mom from the planet Bonkers.

In conclusion, although late (did I say that enough?) its timing was perfect. The contents were perfect and I was most delighted to find the box shoved into my mailbox. (See? I told you my endorphins were nomal again.)

 

Not much

To say that is.

I spent the weeked with my sister. Her husband agreed to keep the kids and we went to a local scrapbook store near her house and scrapbooked for 7 hours. It was wonderful! I haven’t picked up my scrapbooks in probably 2 years. I have been working on a Disney album from our trip in 2003. It was fun looking through all the pictures of my kids. My kids were so darn cute 5 years ago. Of course, they are still cute, but they have changed so much. Anyway, scrapbooking sure has changed in 2 years. The colors are more muted and the papers are fancy schmancy. I loved every minute of it. I finished 8 lay-outs in those 7 hours. I was exhausted. It amazed me how taxing that was. I have never scrapbooked inside of a store before. I highly recommend it. I bought paper and stickers as I needed them. I walked around the store with my pictures to find just the right paper. I ended up with a good size tab, but I am very happy with my pages. I hope to do that again soon. I think I have been bitten by the scrapbook bug again.

I watched Army Wives last night. That episode hit me hard. Watching Chase tell his daughter that he was going to have to miss her play brought it all home. We have had that conversation too many times to count at our house.  For the past 14 years,  I have told myself that there will be other birthdays, other dance recitals, other plays. I have told myself that our anniversary is not that big of a deal or that Mother’s Day is just a greeting card holiday anyway. It is survival mode. I really did have myself convinced too. Still do, I suppose. But not last night. Last night I was ticked off. Sure, we chose this. We made the decision to remain a Navy family together. It pays the bills, and, whether he will admit it or not, he likes his job. I am very proud of him too, but I can be angry. Just for a little while. Not at him, but at the circumstances. Would I go back and change it if I could? Hmmm..  No, I wouldn’t. Because then I would have to give back the homecomings, the awesome people that I have met, the chance to learn what part of the country I will never, ever live in again, and (as corny as it sounds) the realization that I am not that nervous, insecure person that I was 15 years ago. (Still nervous about driving in the city, but that is different, isn’t it? Sure, it is.)

Whew. So, this rambling post has taught me that I need to know what I am going to blog about before I sit down to blog. Sheesh. Did I have to go and get all reflective? I guess so. Don’t worry. I will try to avoid that in the future. 

10,000 hours

I had a piano lesson yesterday. It went fairly well. I am moving on to Bach’s Invention No. 4. I don’t think that I am going to enjoy this one as much as I enjoy No. 8. Maybe it is because I have to play it soooo slow right now? Who knows? I will keep plugging away at it.

So, I am reading the book This is your Brain on Music: The science of Human Obsession. by Daniel J. Levitin. It is an interesting book. There is a lot of technical stuff about how are brain works but it is in the context of music. I find it interesting, but I will admit that my eyes glazed over at certain parts.

In one chapter the author discusses what makes a person a musician. I really perked up at this chapter. I would love to consider myself a musician. I consider myself a plunker not a musician, but I don’t mind being a plunker. Plunking is better than nothing. So, what makes an expert musician? That was what I neeed to know. Apparently, others needed to know too because it has been studied more than once. What seems to be the theory? 10,000 hours.

Levitin writes:

The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert-in anything.

He continues on to talk about Mozart. I found it interesting that he makes a good case for Mozart reaching the 10,000 hour mark at a fairly young age. But, 10,000 hours? That is a lot of practice. I decided to do a little math because I want to be a world class expert. Well, not really. I just want to play nice. But, let’s pretend I want to be a world-class expert, and let’s assume that all of my practice up until now does not count. Now, I am able to consistently get about 10 hours of practice in a week. Some weeks are more, some are less. I am just going to average for the sake of easy math.

At 10 hours a week, it would take 1000 weeks or approximately 19 years 4 months to reach my goal. At that date I will be 55 years old. Hmmm..And that is only if I play 10 hours a week. Every week. I would think that I would need lessons too. Just practicing Bach’s invention No. 8 for 20 years isn’t going to make me an expert, but I bet that song would sound fantastic. Even if I were to include the hours I practiced since I learned to play, I think it would be very difficult to reach 10,000 quality hours.

Truthfully, I have simplified the chapter for the sake of easy blogging. If the subject interests you, I suggest you read the book. It is pretty interesting. Just think, Melanie, if you study Latin for 10,000 hours you could be a (cue heavenly choir) a world-class Latin expert. Maybe if you practice going to the post office for 10,000 hours, you could be an expert at that too. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist. LOL) For all of us, the possiblities are endless! I guess that old saying “practice makes perfect” wasn’t too far off after all.

Therapy

Warning: This post is going to have some whining, general irritation, and self-pity. I don’t mind if you choose not to read past this sentence. I am going to write anyway as therapy for me.

Most of you know Freckle Face’s story. There is a short recap here. Yesterday, he had a physical therapy appointment. He has been going less and less as he has improved. I will admit that he has been wearing his orthotics less because 1) they are a pain in the katookis to put on and I really want to swear when I do it and 2) they are getting too small and leave marks on his feet which is not good. In my defense, I was under the impression that we were improving and that he was not going to have to wear the orthotics on a continued basis. This was the impression I was under as his appointments for therapy were getting farther apart, even to the point of going in only once a month.

Yesterday changed all that. I am not sure who or what I am more irritated with; me for non-compliance, the physical therapist for leading me to believe that we were on the road to freedom, or things beyond my control such as nerves and tendons. (For the record, I do like the physical therapist a lot. I would never switch. I feel that we are very lucky that he takes Tricare.)  So, we went in yesterday for a routine appointment. The physical therapist wasn’t there, but his assistant was. She is great, too. She hasn’t seen Freckle Face in a long time. After some work with him, she says to me, “He is really tight. Tighter than the last time that I saw him.” Crap.  The physical therapist came in half way and worked with my guy. Yes, he is tight. According to the PT there are two reasons. 1. Non-compliance. (Yeah, that is me. He is nice, though, he doesn’t lecture. I feel bad enough as it is. He deosn’t need to.) and 2. A growth spurt.

I knew that a growth spurt was going to be our biggest enemy. But see, here is the problem I have. If Freckles’ issues are not neurological, then why is he getting tighter again? He shouldn’t get tighter. I was told two years ago by the physiatrist, that if this was not neurological we would do all this nonsense and in two years we would be on our merry way. Well, it has been two years, two rounds of botox, casting, and now, we are moving into our 3rd set of orthotics.  He shouldn’t be going backwards.

Ugh. I don’t know what to believe anymore. Really, in the grand scheme of things this is so minor. I mean, he walks on his toes. He can get his feet down now even though he has to compensate by turning out. We have come a long way. And shoot, he is a normal boy. I really have nothing to complain about. I guess I am just tired of being told different things all the time. He has Cerebal Palsy. No, he doesn’t. He is walking great. No, he needs new orthotics. People ask me about him and what the plan is for him.  I honestly don’t know, and we all know how much I love the unknown. I am this close (picture my thumb and pointer finger 1 cm away from each other) to going above all their heads and taking him to an orthopedic surgeon. That would fix it all!  Nah, I can’t do that until the people with all the letters after their names make up their minds. There is a reason, but I won’t bore you with the medical nonsense.

Ok, I feel better. My guy is such a trooper. He just takes it all in stride. He loves going to therapy, so I am glad that isn’t an issue. He wears his orthotics without much complaint. It is all good. It really is a blessing that we don’t have to move. We can continue with those who know him and all that. I really have very little to complain about. So, that is that. Time to get my act together. No more whining.