Really awesome week

I convinced Willamette to let me work as a contractor once I get to DC to finish up the fall issue of the magazine and some other projects that aren't quite done and won't be until after I leave. That's money (not a lot, but some) coming in that I didn't think we'd have for a while. YAY!

Also, some intriguing job possibilities have come my way. Looks like I'm on tap for a couple of interviews in the next few weeks.

And the law school is hosting an informal reception in my honor next Friday, my last day at work. The associate dean sent out the nicest email today. Here is what it said:

"Hi, all,

I am sad to report that Lisa Lednicer, the Director of Communication for the law school, will be leaving Willamette.  Lisa will be relocating to the East Coast.  Lisa has served as the school's Director of Communication since 2010, and, during her time here, she helped oversee a remarkable transformation of our marketing materials, most notably the Willamette Lawyer magazine which won several awards under her editorship.  We will miss Lisa, and we wish her well in her new endeavors.

Lisa's last day is next Friday, August 2nd.  We will hold an informal reception next Friday at 1:30 in the Faculty Lounge to honor Lisa's time at Willamette.  I hope you will be able to attend."

A party! For me! No one has ever done this for me when I've left a newspaper.

***

"I love you with all my heart," Rachel said the other day. "You're the deepest part of my body. You really are."

***

I took a good look at Rachel's legs tonight -- bruises and what the pediatrician called "road rash" all over them. You'd think that we (or someone) regularly beats her. Of course, it's just what comes from playing all day.

"I like getting owies!" Rachel said when I remarked on how banged-up her legs are. "It means I've had a lot of fun these last days."

I've said it a million times: she is truly ready to be a mom. NOW.

Last Shabbat on the Plaza

I've written many times about the lovely tradition of Shabbat on the Plaza, which was started a few years ago by our synagogue, Congregation Beth Israel. Six times a summer they hold services outside, with Rabbi Cahana playing guitar, his wife the cantor singing and others joining in on bass and electric piano. It sounds out there but is really very traditional, and we go every chance we get. You bring a blanket and a picnic dinner and eat/socialize afterward.

This year the synagogue is providing cookies, lemonade, water and popsicles (and fudgsicles!) for dessert. Tonight I was more organized than I've ever been; I made Rachel a jelly sandwich, grabbed a salad and gazpacho from Trader Joe's for me (as well as some leftovers from last week's barbecue at Professor Warren Binford's house in Salem) and packed things in a cooler with cold packs and stashed it in the trunk while I was at work. THEN I made it up to PDX early, picked up Rachel from preschool and we headed to synagogue. We were there right at the beginning which almost never happens, so we got to enjoy all of the service.

Rachel at one point wandered over to the dessert table and somehow persuaded Greg, the newly hired facilities manager for the synagogue, to play with her. Man, they were whooping it up -- he twirled her, let her climb on his back, hoisted her on his shoulders; they looked like they were having a blast. Poor guy had just returned from a river trip and he was exhausted, but he gamely entertained Rachel and I thanked him profusely.

After the service, a congregant walked around with a bowl of strawberries and a bowl of melted chocolate and invited folks to dip in. Rachel made a face at the combo but I LOVE chocolate dipped strawberries so I tried them. Gotta love an outdoor Shabbat service where someone passes around strawberries and chocolate, right???

Then I got into a long conversation about DC with an assistant US Attorney here, Ron Silver, who is a member of the congregation and gave a great lecture at the law school a few months back on the Dreyfus case. He loved DC, absolutely loved it, but has been in PDX for 20 years and is from the West Coast originally, so he likely won't be going back East. It's so relieving to hear that people really like DC, even if they don't end up staying. It makes me feel even better about the move.

Meanwhile Rachel snuggled up next to Bill Baer, whose wife, Sidney, is the synagogue's executive director. Bill has always taken a shine to Rachel since she was a baby and constantly refers to her as "a little sweetie." He showed her videos on his smartphone featuring his niece and grandson and Rachel leaned against him to watch. At one point he played some snatches of opera. "She's so poised!" he said to me afterward. "If you want, you can leave her behind and take my cat."

I will really miss CBI. This is the synagogue I had expected Rachel to be bat mitzvahed and confirmed in. But change is life and life is change and hopefully we will find another synagogue in the DC area that will move us as much as this one has. I truly hope so.

The things you learn about your kid

Today as I was racing to drop Rachel off at preschool so I could head to the house of a friend (actually, a colleague from work who is helping me create a personal web page), I stopped short when I noticed a wallboard of all things Rachel. There was a picture of her at the top and several things about her below:

Favorite thing to do is: Art
Place I want to visit: Disneyland and Disneyworld
Favorite TV show: Wreck in Ralph (huh? She never watches TV!)
Favorite food: Bread
When I grow up I want to be a: Scientist

So...we have an artistic kid who wants to be a scientist when she wants to grow up! I can't think of a better combination. The board, apparently, is one they do every month for every kid in class.

***

Speaking of science...Rachel is learning about planets at school and finished a neat mobile with the sun, the earth, and mercury on it, which she brought home the other day. Really, I'm astonished how much she's learning; I tend to assume she goes to preschool and plays all day.

***

More science: The other day, Rachel said, "You wanna know what's really small? Veins."
Me: "You know what's even smaller than veins? CAPILLARIES."
Rachel: "You know what's even smaller than capillaries? CELLS."

She won that round, hands down.

Random Rachel questioins

Tonight she peppered me with them. Probably because I was relaxed -- I treated myself to a bottle of hard cider because I sent 1/3 of the magazine over to the copy editors, and we managed to buy gifts for all of Rachel's friends' birthday parties in the next two weeks AND still eat dinner at a decent hour.

"Tell me, like, part of your childhood," she said at dinner.
"Like what?" I asked.
"Like what you did and what you had."

So I talked a bit about 6F, and Tia Daniella's stuffed animals and my Barbies, and how Daniella scared the hell out of us once when she crawled into a play oven we had and hid while we were trying to go out somewhere. We eventually found her, and Mom and Dad marveled at how she'd been able to fit into something so small.

***

"Remember the time Grandpa said he would marry a tomato?" Rachel said.
"You should remind him of that," I answered.
"I will say, 'Grandpa, you can't marry a tomato! Tomatoes are too small!'" she exclaimed.

(This stems from Dad's love affair with New Jersey tomatoes, fresh, cut up with a little salt. He once told us he wanted to marry a tomato when he grew up. See, Dad, the things we remember??)

***

We were having a discussion about a controversial rule at work, and I told Rachel that some rules -- like not putting your hand in a flame -- aren't discussable; you have to follow them to be safe. Other rules you may want to discuss with people before setting them in stone. Her interpretation:

"Do I want to make this rule, or do I want to make my cat or my baby or my kid or my teenager or my husband or my mom mad?"

***

We have a bunch of wild (I guess you'd say feral) cats that have taken up residence in our backyard. I didn't have the heart to call the Feral Cat Coalition to take them away, and they're great fun for Rachel and I to watch -- especially the baby kitties as they chase with each other and wrestle.

Tonight we got to talking about them and she decided to give them names. The mom is Clarabelle, Clara for short, the dad is Gus (my suggestion) and the two kitties are Pancake and Jellybean.

Pretty soon she'll be ready for her own pet, most likely a guinea pig.

Our new home

Drew picked up the keys and moved into our new house today. He knew just how badly I wanted to hear about it and about our neighborhood, so he ended up chatting with most of our neighbors who seem extremely friendly and were glad to meet him. (One guy who works for the NEA was very impressed that Drew works for the Pew Research Center; he's a big fan of their work).

Across the street is a little girl named Lena, who was playing in the yard with her nanny. She is about 3, and when Drew mentioned he has a little girl just a bit older, she said, "can you bring her over NOW?" He also noticed two other kids down the street who looked a little older than Rachel.

The neighborhood is full of big, old trees. Our backyard has a play structure, deck furniture (and we are so glad we didn't end up buying the deck furniture back this past winter when I thought I'd have a shot at a raise and the Pew job hadn't materialized yet), and a butterfly bush that actually attracts butterflies (as opposed to ours, which was so big and unwieldy that we finally had to bring it down). Also a tomato plant, an herb garden and some pretty flowers. It's also bigger than our backyard, although the front yard is smaller.

It will take a while to get used to everything, Drew says. The kitchen is quite a bit smaller as is the one main bathroom (there's a toilet and sink in the basement). And the room configurations are a bit different.

But there's a Great Harvest Bread and an ice cream store within walking distance.

Rachel is a strict mommy

One of the games Rachel and I sometimes play is trying to discipline her stuffed animals. (Rachel is such an unusually well-behaved child, sometimes I wonder if she gets out her latent aggression/desire to be naughty by pretending her animals are). The most mischievous one is Nemo, her little stuffed lion. Somehow we've both decided that he's the one who, in the morning, pounds on Rachel's face to wake her up. Usually I'll come in and sing, "Ray....chel. Ray....chel. Ray ay ay ay ayyy....chel" while I open the curtains. Then I'll walk over to her bed, grab Nemo and have him jump on her and say "Mommymommymommymommy play with me! I want some Cheerios! And donuts! And I want to come to school with you!!!"

"NEMO," I say sternly. "Mommy still has to wake up. You need to be gentle with her."

(Rachel is smiling sleepily the whole time. Then she'll say, "and he keeps doing it and he won't stop and you need to have a talk with him.").

So he'll keep acting up, and I'll keep scolding him, and eventually he'll go into an endless timeout while Rachel eats breakfast, I put on makeup and blow-dry my hair, she washes and brushes and gets her clothes on and we head to school and work.

The other day he was acting up particularly badly, and it was absolutely hilarious to her Rachel say at the top of her little voice:

"NEMO!" That is NOT acceptable in this house!"

I nearly died laughing. I already feel sorry for her kids, and figure I'll have to be a very indulgent grandma to provide some relief from her strictness.

Rachel worries so much about Mommy....

Tonight we finished the last of Rachel's thank-you notes for her birthday gifts (10 for her little friends and 3 for family; you will be amazed at how colorful and artistic she is these days) and then I let her go bike riding to the playground. Upshot is that we didn't get home until 8:30 and we still had to eat dinner. Yes, this behavior has got to stop, especially since a) she needs to be on a firm schedule for kindergarten and b) she has lately found it difficult to sleep, so she's up and about past 10 p.m. even after I've tucked her in.

While I was rushing around getting dinner on the table and then cleaning up while she ate dessert, Rachel said: "Mommy. I don't want you doing all the work around here."

Me: "Well, I have to, sweetie, because Daddy's not here."

Rachel: "I can help!" You're not the only person in the house!"

Later as I put her to bed she ordered me to "go downstairs and do your work, and the SECOND YOU'RE FINISHED, go RIGHT TO BED."

Who's the mommy and who's the kid around here?

***

On the way to school today, Rachel said, "Do you want me to be littler?"

Me: "No, I like the age you are now. I like you at any age."

Rachel: "Will you still love me even when I'm sixty-five hundred?"

Me: "Of course! I'll always love you at any age. You're my daughter!"

Rachel (smiling): "Thanks, Mom."

That's when I really nailed it as a mommy today.

Doctor's visit

I took Rachel for her 5-year checkup today. Dr. Rappaport was delighted to see her and reported that she is right on track.

Rachel is 3 feet 7 inches tall.
She weighs 37 pounds (so, probably no booster seat in the car for a while; I believe kids have to be 40 pounds for that)
She is 25th percentile for weight; 50th percentile for height. Translation: Our girl is tall and skinny!

The observation that most warmed my heart? After putting her through a few simple tests -- hopping on one foot, pushing back against his hands -- Dr. Rappaport said, "She's very self-assured."

Yes, that's our girl!

A lovely compliment

On Monday night, Rachel played in the park across the street from the school with her friend Devin. Devin's mom Linda, an architect, was doing a presentation in DC (too little time to meet up with Drew, alas) and so Jim, Devin's father, and I supervised the girls as they were playing with Devin's Barbies.

After they dropped the Barbies and decided to play hide-and-go-seek, Jim turned to me and said, "Devin said something really nice about Rachel the other day. She said, 'Rachel is very intelligent and talented.'"

I was so overwhelmed and thanked him profusely and he added that Devin had said that Rachel, during a discussion about Barbies, said that Barbies aren't real, they aren't the real world, and she shouldn't confuse the real world with the fake world. That's something I had told Rachel when I was explaining how computers and learning games work. It was my way of telling her not to get immersed in something that wasn't real, because the real world is much more important.

Jim was impressed that Rachel had shared that concept with Devin and that Devin had repeated it, and he told Devin that was because "Rachel's parents work with her." I didn't have the heart to tell him that my parenting is really minimal right now, except that I seem to excel at the skill of being pedantic when it comes to technology.

Things my kid says

Out of the blue on Sunday night, Rachel said this:

"Girls WIN in this family, Mommy. Two girls, one boy."

When I raced to get a pen and paper to write it down, she added:

"Show that note to Daddy, Mommy, and he will be depressed."

***

I've been so busy trying to close out our life here that the house has gotten to be a mess inside and out; it really needs a good cleaning (although I exhausted myself doing the gardening in front of the house because the lawn was driving me crazy, as were all the dead roses still on their stems).

Last night I finally cleaned the bathtub, the toilet (it was getting really moldy) and the sink. While Rachel was brushing her teeth this morning, I explained what I had done and added, "I was really tired of giving you a bath in a dirty tub. My daughter does NOT deserve to bathe in a dirty tub."

"YOU don't deserve to bathe in a dirty tub," she replied, "because you do all the work around here."

Got that right, kid.

Social whirlwind weekend!

Ah, yes, this was the weekend where it seemed I hauled Rachel from one event to another (and we're having another weekend like that coming up in two weeks; TWO birthday parties in ONE day; yes I know this is just the beginning of a long train of activities that I will be taking her to over the next 14 or so years):

On Saturday, my sweet neighbor Doug dropped by to see how the house sale went, when we were leaving, etc. Doug has been particularly kind to me during the rougher times of my life, especially after I left the Oregonian and Drew went to Columbia and I was afraid I'd have to sell the house and our lives would be ruined. He pooh-poohed that idea and said the worst that would happen is that...well, I don't remember, but the point is that he never thought we'd have to leave involuntarily. And now we're leaving voluntarily, and I'm sad because I should have invited Doug and his partner Bruce over to dinner, but I never did (although we did trade sweets and home baked quick breads back and forth).

Then I raced Rachel to swim lessons ("this is the best swim lesson I've EVER had!" she said; her teacher is great), then home to meet with a moving company to give us bids, then to the farmers market where I picked up berries for breakfast and for a tart I'm making for a potluck in Salem next Saturday hosted by Warren Binford, the professor with whom I went to Africa, and then to a birthday party of a friend of Rachel's from preschool, Sawyer, then back home to pack up her dinner for St. James's monthly Parents Night Out (and my last one, since the next won't be until late August). I walked two blocks away to Higgins, a bar where Oregonian reporters used to hang out and met with Kathleen, the first editor I ever had at the paper (and who was fired in a huge scandal that is too long to go into here). She still fondly remembers meeting Mom and Dad years ago and asked about them again on Saturday. "I LOVE your Mom and Dad," she said, which is the usual reaction of folks who meet my parents.

We had a nice talk about all sorts of things, then she drove home with me and took the bus back after she, Rachel and I all had some chocolate ice cream.

On Sunday I hosted our chavurah. It was our turn to host in July and I desperately wanted to get out of it, but I couldn't bring myself to ask someone else to host so I just told everyone to show up at Sellwood Park. I didn't even get a reservation; just plunked myself down at a table with some homemade strawberry bread. The weather was perfect and three other families showed up, so it was a nice time. The kids played together and separately (Rachel is the youngest in the chavurah) and then, a couple of hours into it, we all trooped over the pool. I had thrown Rachel's and my bathing suits in the trunk, along with towels, and so I got to watch while Rachel practiced a bit of her swimming, splashed around in the water and "sunbathed," as she called it, while I dunked myself to cool off. Over the course of two hours there, I ran into the daughter of a former editor of mine who is headed to Northwestern in the fall (Go 'Cats!) and is a lifeguard at the pool; a former colleague of mine at the Oregonian who now works for Metro, the regional government agency; and a former candidate for Oregon attorney general whose debate I live-tweeted at the law school. All were really nice conversations and made me realize how rich a life I've built here and how hard that will be to replicate in DC. Sigh.

Shabbat on the Plaza 2013

It was a bittersweet night for us, since this is the second-to-last Shabbat on the Plaza that we'll be attending before we leave. It's an outdoor service that our synagogue, Congregation Beth Israel, conducts six times every summer. You bring a picnic blanket and a picnic dinner and after the service, everyone visits with each other under the warm sun(set). We caught up with at least one synagogue member who thought we had already left, but she seemed glad to see that we were still around.

Rachel caught up with a slightly older girl, Naomi, who always looks for Rachel when she and her parents come to synagogue and refers to her as "my friend, Rachel." After being a little standoffish with each other, she and Rachel connected pretty quickly and ran off and played while I wandered around the plaza, wondering if we'll find as warm and welcoming a synagogue community in northern Virginia or DC or Maryland or wherever we find a new place. I love our chavurah and I love our rabbi. I told him tonight that it pained me greatly that he wouldn't be overseeing her bat mitzvah, and added that she would have been his best student. He nodded and said, "She'll always be my Shabbat Shalom girl!" which he has called her since she was a toddler, since she always insisted on running up to him after services and giving him a big hug.

Rachel and Naomi played a bit in the park across the street, then we came home, read another chapter from Trumpet of the Swan (we're at the part where Louis is playing his trumpet in front of the Swan Boats) and then I put Rachel to bed. I'm going to stop writing now because my hands are killing me -- I'm seeing a doctor about that next week -- and I'm quite sleepy. Got one moving quote today; another one tomorrow morning and a third one on Monday morning before we head into preschool/work. Then Drew and I will make a decision and hire the folks and that's one less thing I'll have to worry about. I feel like I need to make a gigantic, wall-sized list of everything that needs to get done in the four(!) weeks we have left before we decamp to the East Coast. I just hope I can fit it all in without dropping out of sheer exhaustion.

Another nice thing

I learned today that the video I produced about my trip to Africa last December that featured the work of the professor with whom I traveled is being used by the U.S. State Department to recruit other scholars to the Fulbright program (the professor I was with was a Fulbright Scholar in South Africa).

That means that the video will be seen all over the U.S. and other academics will hear about the work being done at Willamette. What a way to leave a job!

Rachel is 5!

My darling, incredible, has-never-given-me-a-moment-of-trouble daughter turned 5 today (well, technically yesterday, since it is after midnight now). 5! Really!

I also gave notice at work. So now it is official: I am leaving Willamette Aug. 2nd (three years to the day that I started there) and heading to Washington, DC to join Drew, who has taken a job at the Pew Research Center as a senior writer. I was really stunned by the reaction at work: Curtis, my new boss, and Norman, the associate dean, could not have been more gracious or supportive of me leaving. They said the nicest things about my work and the void my departure will leave; Norman called me "irreplaceable." I promised to help make the transition as smooth as I possibly can, which means I'll likely be working a fair number of late nights before we head out on Aug. 9. Happy to do it, though, because I've had a great run at Willamette and I want to leave them in good shape after I've gone.

I made Rachel her favorite dinner tonight -- baked chicken and shells (my favorite birthday dinner, too), and as I was setting the table I had a flashback to my birthdays, when mom took out a lovely little carousel candle holder with four candles underneath. You lit the candles and the heat from them caused the gold horses to spin around. I wish I'd had something like that to put on our table. I also wished that I'd been far more imaginative with Rachel's birthday, like setting out all her animals on the kitchen table to wish her a "happy birthday" as she ate breakfast, or waking her up with a chocolate cupcake to eat in bed, or...something. (This morning after I woke her up singing "happy birthday," Rachel answered, yawning, "I wish I could sleep five more hours. And eat cake in bed.")

(I didn't even buy her presents from Mommy; that will have to wait until next week. But after three months of being a single mom and managing everything I've been managing, I am too zonked to be imaginative. I'm practicing Life Triage right now, folks. Just keeping straight every day what I have to get done is a challenge).

Tonight Rachel spilled some water from her cup onto the bathroom floor after brushing her teeth, and I scolded her a bit before calming down. She was solemn as she got into bed and then started whimpering a bit.

"Why are you whimpering?" I said.
"I don't like it when I do things wrong," she said. "You're perfect."
"No, I'm NOT perfect," I said.
"Yes you are," she insisted.
This went on for a while, until I crawled into bed and cuddled with her. As I was sliding in next to her, I accidentally clonked her on the eyebrow and had to apologize.
"See?" I said. "I'm NOT perfect."
"Yes you are," she said. "You're past perfect."
"Um, what does past perfect mean?" I said.
"It means you're beyond perfect," she said.
Then a discussion ensued about how nobody's perfect, perfect people are boring, anyway, and that I accidentally hit her in the eyebrow, so how can I possibly be perfect? (I spared her the liturgy of how non-perfect I've been the last three months).
"Yelling and scolding don't count. Or teasing," she insisted. "You're still perfect."
We both agreed that teasing is, indeed, OK, as long as it's not mean.

Sigh. Looks like Rachel has set some very high standards for Mommy. I hope I can meet them.

And today was going so well....

Got a nice note from my new boss about a project I've just completed at work; he liked it a lot and we're meeting tomorrow to go over a few edits, but it seems I delivered what he had expected (and beyond), and that makes my life a lot easier.

Also got some good news about our house late today.

Rachel and I went grocery shopping tonight; I was wearing my Michigan t-shirt and got into a nice conversation with a guy who called out, "Go Wolverines!" and we chatted about how great Ann Arbor is, what a great experience I'd had there (I believe he said he had two kids who did medical programs at UMich), etc. It was so hot out tonight that I didn't feel much like cooking, so I bought myself a pound of raw shrimp from Fred Meyer, plunked down some cocktail sauce and ate about half a pound while Rachel finished up some lemon chicken I'd made two weeks ago. I impulsively bought corn at Fred Meyer and it was fantastic, so sweet we could have eaten it for dessert. All it needed was a little salt; no butter.

And then the itching started. First on my palms, and then it spread to my neck, and my back, and my stomach and cheeks and arms and lady parts. And that's how I ended up grabbing Rachel at 9:45 and racing all over Portland to try to find Benadryl anti-itch cream because I'd suffered an allergic reaction to the shrimp, which makes no sense to me because I had sushi a week or so ago and I had been fine.

Anyway, we finally found the cream at Walgreen's. Rachel was terribly worried the whole time and insisted on rubbing cream on my back. She voluntarily swept up the crumbs she'd left from dinner and has been an absolute gem about doing all her chores even though she has a cool LeapPad (hand-held computer device) that she loves and could probably spend all day with, but she just plays on it AFTER she has gotten done what I expect her to do. Oh, and on the way home from Walgreen's she fretted that she had somehow been rude to me tonight and I had to reassure her that everything was FINE, and that Mommy's allergic reaction would straighten itself out soon enough as soon as I could rub the cream all over my body. Which I have, but it's still itching and torturing me and all I want to do is take an entire bottle of Benadryl to make it all go away (did I mention the disgusting-looking hives on my chest and shoulders?). But if you use the cream, you can't take the pills for some reason that the bottle never explains.

 So. Looks like I'm in for a wretched night, and I have a big day at work tomorrow. Sigh.

***

Just as the allergic reaction started really taking hold, Rachel crawled into my lap after dinner, totally unexpectedly, and put her arms around me.

"Mommy?" she said. "If I didn't have you, there'd be no Mommy better."

I could only gasp, thank her and hug her close.

Why Rachel and Mommy eat dinner and go to bed so late

1. Because Mommy's new boss has decreed that no one, under any circumstances, is allowed to work from home, so I have a 2 1/2 hour commute home every night and sometimes I don't make it to preschool until after 6.

2. Because Mommy needed to get a pedicure today because all she has to wear during the summer, shoe-wise, are sandals. And so Mommy needs regular pedicures to cover up her yucky toenails. Mommy would have gotten a pedicure on Sunday, but she was so eager for Rachel to experience Mt. St. Helens (who knows how soon we'll be back there?) that she figured she'd take care of her feet tonight. She couldn't do it during the day because she goes swimming during the day to relieve her stress and her new boss probably wouldn't appreciate her disappearing for two hours.

3. Because after the pedicure, Mommy went to the mall to figure out why the stupid phone she bought less than a month ago had a dead microphone, and the Verizon folks couldn't help her much except to arrange for a new phone to be mailed to her, which would be fine except that she has a VERY IMPORTANT PHONE CALL she needs to handle on Wednesday and really can't wait for Verizon to, you know, build a phone that actually WORKS for more than four weeks. Mommy is also very tired of spending most of her weekday nights at the computer store or the phone store and is considering whether to communicate by carrier pigeon and Western Union because this is no way to live.

4. Because the two hot dog places at the food court decided to shut down their hot dog service at 8:30, and there was nothing Rachel wanted to eat at 8:45, so Mommy apologized yet again for being a bad Mommy and they went home, ate dinner and Rachel didn't get to bed until 10:50 p.m. And she didn't even blink when Mommy told her that she wouldn't be able to buy Rachel's birthday presents until this weekend, and then Rachel answered, "Mommy. It's OK if you don't give me my presents until next year," and then Mommy started crying, and then Rachel said, "Don't cry, Mommy, if you cry then I'll start crying," and then Mommy wiped away her tears and then agreed to read Trumpet of the Swan. And tomorrow morning Mommy will have to wake Rachel up at 7 a.m. so she can get into work at a (somewhat) decent hour so her boss won't be tapping his foot and waiting for her to show up at 8 a.m. Which in any case is impossible because preschool doesn't open early enough for Mommy to drive an hour to work to be there at 8.

And that, folks, is a summary of my life these days.

Fabulous camping trip, Part 2

So, Rachel and I ended up at the top of Mt. St. Helens after all. Never say the federal government can't do anything right; the movie about the day the mountain blew (May 18, 1980), was short but quite moving; Rachel's jaw dropped through the first part of it, she was mesmerized. We walked outside for the park ranger's talk, and Rachel amused herself by standing on her tippy-toes to look through the standing binoculars at the mountain and the surrounding scenery. At the end of the lecture she insisted on walking to the top of the short walking path for a better view.

She was carrying a book I had bought her at the gift shop about weather, and I had asked her to carry a water bottle I'd filled up near the exhibit hall. I offered several times to carry the book and she absolutely refused. The final time she said, "Sometimes I just am stubborn," and that made me laugh so hard that I let her carry both to the top of the path.

We got home quite late, around 6ish, and I had hoped to dash in for a quick pedicure and manicure to face the big week ahead. The pedicure place was closed, so I drove us both home, unloaded the coolers and all the other stuff we'd packed, dashed out for a quick dinner at a local burger place, then drove back home, gave Rachel a good bath (we were both stinky after four days in the forest without showering), put her to bed, cleaned up the coolers, unpacked MY stuff, put all of Rachel's laundry in the washing machine and collapsed into bed at 12:15 a.m. Stayed up to read a great story about a Washington DC political aide that I just couldn't put down.

"Sometimes I just am stubborn." Yeah, kid, you are, in a good way. Me, not so much.

Fabulous camping trip, Part 1

Wow, did Rachel and I have a great time camping! Thank you a thousand times to PopPop, Amanda and Jenn for urging us to come join them in a yurt at Seaquest State Park. It's a trip Rachel and I will remember for a long, long time.

Rachel and I arrived quite late on the 4th; I had to take care of a lot of trip preparations beforehand -- and we had a great dinner of sauteed zucchini (Amanda); grilled chicken coated with mustard and herbs (me); and whoopie pies (Jenn). Whoopie pies! Oh, whoopie pies! We were all lucky campers.

The next day we took a hike around Mt. St. Helens hoping to get to the top. Richard, Amanda and Jenn went on ahead while Rachel and tried to valiantly keep up, slipping on the scree and falling every few feet or so. To her credit she absolutely refused to turn back because she knew everyone wanted to continue on. "Press bravely on!" she cried at one point, and I was so, so proud of her. "Do you want to turn back?" I kept asking, and she kept sniffling and saying no, and finally she just outright started crying and said, yes, she wanted to turn back. Poor thing! I kept telling her how brave she was and proud I was of her, and when we staggered back to our car at around 5:30 I was surprised to see Jenn's car next to ours. Turns out they had, in fact, seen us at the point we'd turned back, and they later said it was good that we had because they didn't make to to the top, either. So we all had double bratwursts and corn that night, and I told Rachel she could have a s'more AND a whoopie pie. Which she did.

The next day, Saturday, we all took it a little easier; stayed in camp until early afternoon then took a relaxing, level hike around nearby Silver Lake. Rachel loved looking into the water and at the lily pads, and she insisted on taking photos with my smartphone. We got back in time for her to play on the play structure at the campground, and I cracked open the book "Washington," about George, and when I looked up Rachel was SUPERVISING A GROUP OF 5 YEAR OLD BOYS in activities. She took a big stick and banged it against the metal play structure, like a gong, then would issue orders for them to run to the end of the nearby field, climb on some part of the structure, race back, etc. One of the moms who was watching this bemusedly said Rachel was being quite encouraging to the other kids saying, "great job!" and other positive reinforcement type things -- until a bigger girl took over the game and started anointing winners and losers, and Rachel came to me, pouting, saying she wasn't being fair. Of course, within 15 minutes she and the girl were spinning each other around on one of the play structure's spinning circles, so...her pique was short-lived.

More about today's trip to St. Helens tomorrow....

Camping!

The blog will be taking a break for the next couple of days because Rachel and I are going CAMPING at SeaQuest State Park near Mt. St. Helens with PopPop and Aunties Amanda and Jenn. Yay!! Oh, how Rachel and I need the break...

Just as I left work today, Dena, the administrative assistant in the Dean's Suite, said, "Where's Drew in all of this?" because I had described our camping trip without mentioning him.

"Um, he's away," I said. Then I mentioned brightly that we'd still get to see my father in law and sisters in law, just so Dena doesn't think something is seriously wrong in my life. Sigh.

***

Rachel scared me tonight when she said quite insistently that she doesn't want to eat animals anymore, especially chicken. (Apparently Danielle, the preschool teacher who I thought was OK but then turned out to be anti-fluoride and now evidently a militant vegetarian, told the kids that she didn't believe in killing animals). Rachel and I had quite a detailed conversation about that, when I challenged her and she kept coming back at me with new arguments, like the fact that people don't each each other, so we shouldn't eat animals, etc.

"We can't eat animals!" she explained. "We're not showing them respect!"
"Of course we are," I protested.
"They don't WANT to be eaten," she insisted. "Even though baked chicken and shells is my favorite, I don't like killing animals. You know, they have chldren. They can't take care of themselves. The mommy has to teach them how to swim!"

If anyone wants to step in here and offer me some good responses to the 4 1/2 year old legal counsel in my house, I'd welcome it. I finally told her that if we eliminate animals, that means no more steaks, sausages and salami. AND she'd have to eat more vegetables. She claimed she would really eat more greens, but when I stared her down she gave up and said resignedly, "OK, Mommy, you win."

***

"Mommy, why were you crying at the end of "Charlotte's Web?" Rachel asked at dinner.
"It was a very sad story," I replied.
"But Mommy, spiders die every day!" Rachel replied. "It's not her fault for dying!"

***

"Always remember this, Mommy. I'm still learning this," Rachel said. "You can't judge a book by its cover!"

***

"Mommy, would you marry Daddy if he were really really handsome but he was allergic to chocolate?"
"Of course I would!" I replied.
"You'd marry him?" she asked. "Even if you couldn't bake chocolate chip cake?"

Well, kid, now that I think about it....

Rachel teaches Mommy a thing or two

I had today all planned -- the heat is beastly, I was dying to get out of the city (Tia Daniella can relate, I'm sure) and I was all set to take Rachel to the beach as soon as we finished up at 10 a.m. brunch with my friend Kim, with whom I covered Portland Public Schools back when we were both at the Oregonian (she is now an organizer/policy person for Stand For Children, the kids' education group founded by Jonah Wright Edelman, the son of Marian Wright Edelman. Jonah's wife is a Willamette Law grad. And, yes, Oregon is very small).

Anyway, Rachel took her 5,423 Barbies to brunch. (No, really, it was only five. The five she brought into my bed this morning because she insisted we all had to cuddle together). She spent a remarkable amount of time keeping busy with them while Kim and I talked. Between bites of chocolate chip pancakes Rachel made her Barbies ice skate and, um, watch one of their own die. In a play. It's amazing how much Kim and I were able to catch up. Too bad we didn't plot a novel or outline a screenplay, we could have gotten so much work accomplished!

So afterward I was so excited about taking Rachel to the beach, which is usually cold and rainy but today was mid-70s and sunny. And then she stopped me cold: "Mommy, I don't want to go to the beach. I want to go to Laurelhurst Park." Which actually made my life a lot easier because the Oregon coast is a two-hour drive and we would have gotten there at 2 at the earliest and probably wouldn't have gotten back until 10 or so. But I persisted anyway; it's not often we get to go and it's so scenic, and I was anxious to get out of Portland, and playing in a park was not my idea of how to spend a hot day in the upper 80s. "I get sand in my shoes and the water is too cold," Rachel persisted, and so I acquiesed...and we spent the afternoon at Laurelhurst Park. I got to read most of the NY Times and even took a nap while Rachel played on the play structure. Toward the end of the afternoon as the sun kept chasing us when we moved into the shade, I insisted we eat an early dinner at the food carts and then go to Grant Park's outdoor pool and swim.

Unfortunately the pool closes at 6 p.m. on Sundays but, inexplicably, is open until 9 during the week. AND the ice cream machine was broken. (This is what living in a low-tax state gets you). No other pools were open, and I finally told Rachel we would do whatever SHE wanted to do. Which ended up being the Jamison Square fountain in the middle of the Pearl District (so much for leaving the city, eh?) and Cool Moon ice cream afterward (chocolate sorbet for both of us, most of which ended up all over Rachel).

But the water in the fountain was so nice and refreshing, and Rachel had a blast getting herself all wet and pouring a bucket of it all over the head of a little girl she made friends with, and the chocolate sorbet was fabulous, and we both were in a terrific mood when we got home. I read half a chapter of Trumpet of the Swan, tossed Rachel into the bath and put her to bed.

So, it wasn't the perfect beach day I envisioned but Rachel looked so happy in the fountain that I couldn't have any regrets. Maybe I should stop worrying about giving her the absolute ultimate Oregon experience and just let her do what makes her happy. (As long as it's not video games or TV on a beautiful sunny day, OK Dad?)