134/365 Happy Halloween!

133/365 Party Photos

132/365 Party

Daisy turned 6 earlier this month but we decided to hold off and celebrate over Halloween weekend. So a busy weekend is now busier, but good.

Ten girls in my house. Cute but exhausting. Pictures up next.

131/365 Getting it all ready

So was it a good idea to schedule Daisy's birthday party on Halloween weekend? Not really.

Was it a good idea to leave my prescription where Billy could find it and hide it forever? Not really.

But what's done is done. Today was spent getting ready for Daisy's party and hunting down medication that I will never find.

130/365 Practice Makes Perfect

Working on it. Figuring it out as I go along.

129/365 Stormy Weather

I think we were all up at 4 in the morning. Today is sunny and beautiful, about 68 degrees, crisp blue sky. But I ran into Valerie as we were both getting home at the same time and she said what I was thinking: "I was up at 4 and just waiting for the sirens."

But no sirens, no tornado, no gathering children up in the dead of night to sit in the basement. Just lying very still in the darkness listening to the scary whoosh noise, constant, whooosh, waiting.

128/365 Ghost of Halloween Past

Halloween seems to creep towards us every year, ticking off the dates on the calendar: Maeve's birthday, my birthday, Gran's birthday, and then creeeeeeeeeeping even more slowly, until suddenly it's the night of Halloween and we're running around getting dinner done and finding the last bits of costume and Sophia changes her mind and sticks with the obscure literary character instead of the obscure anime character and seriously it's this way again and again and kids are outside waiting for us and we're rushing out the door and never get a photo.

I don't have Halloween photos from 2007 at all, and only a snapshot of Sophia in a witch costume for 2008. It's not like Christmas with all the photo opportunities. It comes and goes like a vision.

Which reminds me of Halloween 1998. We'd been here 5 months in the house and had friends over for a movie marathon--this was pre-kids, of course. They left late into the night, after 2 in the morning, long after the last scary teenagers stopped even trying to pretend to be legitimate trick or treaters. As they drove away, I stepped down onto the sidewalk and looked east up the street. Something about the way the streetlight hit the last few remaining leaves, about how the wind skittered dry bits across the sidewalk and into the street, the silence of the city so late at night, no sirens, few cars, it was one of those little thin moments that I stand there and wonder who else is standing there with me. Feet frozen to the ground, just a little lightheaded, I shivered and broke the spell. Trotted quickly up the steps back into the house and shut the door behind me.

127/365 Thunderstorm

The storm's here. We got back from our weekend in the country, I took a nap from all the dramamine (Jake was driving and it didn't go well for me), and woke up to thunder. Ah, October rainstorms. The street is shiny black, porch lights twinkle in the downpour. All the toys are packed up--Mizzou won the game on Saturday--and we await the coming of Halloween.

126/365 Judd's Response

And then the next day, the Mizzou inflated figure on Nick's lawn had some additions:Yes, that's a tu-tu and a pair of panties. I heard that Judd decided on this one.

Before we left town for the weekend, we saw Frank and Christy observing this scene, seemingly pondering their next move.

125/365 Mizzou v OU

It's a block of transplants. Some are from St. Louis, but few are from the city. Many have out-of-state roots. I'm from, most recently, Texas, as is Dawn. Dan's from somewhere in the Carolinas. Valerie's from Kansas. And so on. Judd and Nick both are from Oklahoma.

This weekend is the OU-Mizzou football game. Now, I don't care a bit, and neither does most of the block. But Frank and Christy are big Mizzou fans, for whatever reason. And so I got an email from Missy a few nights back alerting us that she was going to be decorating Nick's house that night, please don't call the cops. They'd done things like this before, usually a flag on the wrong house or a sign on the door. But this is what Judd's house looked like:I thought, wow, Christy and Frank really went all-out for this year.

And then, if you can envision it, this was in Nick and Gretchen's front yard:And the email made sense when Christy asked us to try to keep our kids from damaging their work.

Later that afternoon (all of it remained up all day), I ran into Valerie as she was coming home from school pick-up and I was about to do the same. Nick had just finished this job on Frank and Christy's house:
Valerie was a little annoyed at the signage, since Sebastian can read just fine and that's just what she needed to explain.

Fiona summed it all up thusly: That Mr. Nick is a silly, silly man.

124/365 Parenting Examples

I live on a block with folks who pretty much fall into the same end of the spectrum when it comes to parenting. We each have our strengths and weaknesses but we have similar expectations, techniques, rules, and so forth. I never worry about correcting a neighbor kid for hitting his sister or having my girls sent home for being brats. I know Valerie, for instance, isn't going to put up with too much bickering, and Zelda is going to push kids outside. Sure, there's a spectrum--I have reached my level of incompetence with 3 kids and can't wait until they're all old enough to reason with (meaning Billy needs to turn 5). On the other hand, I think I do a good job instilling religion and fighting for my kids at their school (it helps that religion and education are two of my strengths). Gretchen can focus like a laser on health problems and keep that focus until things are resolved, while me? Oh yeah, Daisy has eczema and I really should grease her up. Just for instance. But I never let a teacher walk over my kid or tell me bullshit. Never. And I've seen other moms kind of look defeated by teachers.

The other night I was coming in and talking with Dawn next door. It became very clear all of a sudden that Dawn and Judd can hear EVERYTHING that goes on in my house. She hears my alarm go off in the morning. She certainly can hear me yelling at Maeve to get her you know what downstairs before she's late for school. And that made me stop a second and reflect. Old habits are hard to break--last summer I parented by yelling because I didn't have the energy to use anything effective. It was exhausting. But when I get rushed or flustered I fall back into that.

And Dawn can hear every word.

Yup.

The past few mornings I've worked hard to not be that way. To have my inside voice match my "chat on the sidewalk" voice.

123/365 Rake Suspect

I got out to my car to run a quick errand and saw the kid with the rake. On a bike. Stopped at Rick's house. Got back on the bike. Passed up Henry and Len's houses. Stopped at Brenda's.

I looked over at Tim and Dan, each out with their kids over at Dan's house.

"Did the kid with the rake talk to you?" I ask.

"Yeah," Dan replies. "Asked if we needed any raking. I told him no."

I peer down at Brenda's house. He walks down her path to his bike. Heads on down the way. I get in my car and go down to the end of the street. It doesn't look suspicious.

Maybe he was just looking to rake some leaves after all.

122/365 Shooting the breeze

Sat outside with Valerie and Joy and their kids and Billy. Couldn't even tell you what we talked about. It was nice. Kids played, we watched out for crime, the mail came. Then it was time to pick up older kids and we split up. I miss afternoons like that.

121/365 Puzzling

The girl who had her purse stolen lives across the street from me in Bruce's house--she's renting until she gets her own place. I think.

The day it happened, I gave her a car with my name and number and all that.



Tuesday night I got home from dance with Fiona and noticed the dome light in her car was on. Knocked on her door.



Wednesday night I got home from church and talked to Bobbie a minute on the street about what had been going on. She walked by.



I left the same note I left for other neighbors, stuck in her mail slot in her front door: due to a recent upswing in crime, we've decided to have a block meeting....etc.

She didn't show. She didn't call.

I don't get it. If I lived alone in a strange city and had just had my purse stolen out of my hands as I got into my car to go to work, I would be taking the block captain up on her offer. I'd be at the meeting. I'd send an email. I'd make a phone call.

Hell, I'd at least say hello.

120/365 Block meeting

An officer's car was parked across the street when Zelda called to let me know folks were starting to show up. I got my clipboard with blank paper for people to sign, and headed over.

I suddenly realized, as people stood around chatting--like 30 people--that I didn't know what I was going to say, and I was kind of in charge.

But it went fine. I explained the block list; I introduced the officer. The break in on our street had been solved--Nick had identified the guys, the fingerprints matched, they confessed. Well, one confessed. The other was at large. But still. They know what's going on. But they're not responsible for it all, unfortunately (wouldn't that be lucky).

We now have a detective assigned to our neighborhood.

And yes to more patrols.

Reiterated calling the police. Don't watch and leave a nice note for folks. Call 911. Don't be scrupulous. Don't worry about it. That's their job.

I left with more work to do--new block lists to make, information to process. But I stood in my kitchen with Jake as we made pesto pasta, the back door open and Daisy playing on the swingset in the dusk, and I said, "We are so lucky to live here."

119/365 We all come together

The days after the burglary were interesting. There were several other break ins and burglaries in the neighborhood. Patrol cars cruised around more than usual.

Bruce showed up at my door with the license number and description of the car--he'd heard from the mailman, who was now carrying a camera around with him. A detective came around and took down that information and compared it to what Nick and Henry had already reported. Seemed likely. I asked the detective what I should say at an upcoming block meeting about crime. He had things to add. I felt like we were being taken seriously, when in 2006 we were not.

But other things, too. Jen and Dan, Mason and Cicely were out with their kids every afternoon. The folks on my side of the block were, too, in strong numbers. Doors were obviously open behind screen doors. We were here and we were watching.

Some kid walked up the street and started knocking here and there. People watched. Mason approached him and showed him his badge. Ran his license. Let him know he probably needed to do his business elsewhere.

We decided to meet Sunday evening in the Paxtons' backyard. Felt like old times.

118/365 Crime Doesn't Come From Nowhere

(Copied from South City Musings):

Musing aloud, the police captain wondered why this was happening here. I mentioned that word had been getting around that a certain apartment building a few blocks east was becoming a trouble spot. He then got this look on his face and said, "yeah, I keep getting these messages about it, but when my officers drive by, nothing's going on."

Seriously? Because every time I drive by, it's sketchy-city. Stoop sitters, people looking shiftily at cars going by, people walking up, people walking away, and so forth. And this is without doing any surveillance (which you might note on my blogger profile, is one of my interests). I can tell that building is bad news.

"He got to the end of the street and turned north on Grand?" the captain asks Nick again, who confirms it. "That's interesting." Then he says it's odd that he did that instead of going back to the territory he's familiar with (if he's from that problem property). I point out to him the HUGELY OBVIOUS FACT that all you can do is turn north on Grand at the end of our block due to a median, and while wrong way drivers happen, driving into traffic on a busy road like that isn't likely to happen regardless of the situation. He backpedals and then glances around our block.

"You don't even have any African-Americans living on your block," he points out, which I'm not sure how he could possibly determine since the whole block wasn't represented at this meeting of 4 neighbors and a satellite TV guy. But I agree that there aren't many, and then Nick points out that the Vince actually is probably biracial. I hadn't met him at that point. So then the captain focuses on that.

"Well, maybe they knew him. Maybe they'd been to his house, maybe to a party?"

We couldn't believe our ears. Seriously? Is this one of those "all black people know each other?" kind of bullshit? Are you really floating this as a theory?

Nick tells them, again, that Vince JUST MOVED IN, and that he's a doctor at a local hospital and he's from the west coast and it seems highly unlikely--nay, impossible--that he knew these hooligans in their muffler-less temporary-licensed probably-stolen car.

"Crime doesn't come from nowhere," the captain drones on. HELLO, we told you where we thought it was coming from. WHY ARE WE DOING YOUR JOB?

117/365 Crime

I got home yesterday to find Nick and Henry standing in the front yard of a new neighbor's house. Nick had his phone in his hand. They looked tense. It was about 10:30 in the morning and I'm asking them what happened before I even step a foot on the ground out of the car.

"Break in," Nick starts. And I see the house behind him with the door flung wide. There's a flat screen TV on the grass. And Nick explains what happened.

He looked out from his office at home and saw this guy knocking on the door of the house--Vince's house--and it didn't look good. So Nick got in his car and drove around to the alley behind Vince's, didn't see anything, and went back home. Looked back out and there was the car again. So Nick stepped outside and headed over. Out came the guys, one holding the TV, headed for the car.

"You know Vince?" Nick yelled at them. They freaked, but kept coming at him with the TV. "Put the fucking TV down!" and the guy does, getting past Nick and speeding away in the car.

Nick called the police at 10:24. Just before I got home.

The police didn't get there until 10:50. The captain showed up the same time as the uniformed officer. I hear through the grapevine that this was "handled" later. My question, was the captain "handled" for the things he said to us once he got there?

116/365 Possum

Also from 2007. Possum attempting to navigate the mysterious vegetable garden cage. If only he had thumbs--wait, he does! If only he understood bolt locks.

115/365 Jake's Accident 2007

In the park. On my bike. No helmet (he maintains it would have been worse with a helmet but that's a debate no one can win). Speed bump. Splat.

114/365 She hasn't changed a bit

113/365 Fiona and Daisy Fall 2006

112/365 More Autumn Days

111/365 A series of photos

It's going to be a week's worth of photos here to catch up to the present day because it's been way too busy between the Sycamores to keep things updated but I need to--but first, some scenes from Fall on our block.
Fiona and Iris play on a sycamore stump, 2005

110/365 Working Moms

I'm still stay-at-home 100% of the time. I don't work outside the home for pay. I do volunteer at school and church and scouting and all that hoo-ha but during the day, I do make an effort to be here, at least 3 or 4 days a week. Billy takes better naps if we're home, for instance, and not in the car. The house is cleaner, too. I will eventually go back to work, probably when Billy's in the 4-year preschool or maybe kindergarten. What I will do is still up in the air.

Pretty much everybody else is gone. Not true completely--Zelda and Cicely are teachers, so they are home all summer, and Zelda only teaches three days a week. Nick works from home and Gretchen has odd hours. Jen and Dan also work from home. Tara works three or four days a week. Valerie hasn't gone back to work yet, but will in the new year. Joy works from home, too, but she actually lives up on the next block. I don't see her van, we don't run across each other getting the mail.

So come the school year, things get quiet around here. Len, of course, is retired and around most of the time. But he doesn't bring toddlers out to play. Judd and Dawn, with Jay being so close in age to Leo, aren't home during the day. It's quiet.

Billy takes a nap in the middle of the day and I have time to myself. I no longer sit on the stoop and waste time--I get things done. I'm becoming more of a working mom all the time. And since Billy is probably our youngest, I know this is a time that's passing quickly and will soon be gone for good. But it will be replaced by different good things.

109/365 Outside

After a brief cold snap, it was in the mid-70s today and beautiful. I got home from the CSA and had Jake bring Billy out--Fiona and Daisy were already playing on the street. Kids running up and down, toddlers on the hill in front of Zelda and Travis' house.

"Haven't seen much of you lately," Zelda remarks. It's true and there's no good reason.

Joy and I talk about birthdays; I listen to Zelda and Tim talk about fly fishing. Kids run. Jake and Mason talk about something--Mason never talks loudly and I can't catch it.

Nikki shows up with Joe-Joe and his electric car ride on toy thing. This is hit: Ricky, Lark, Mia, Mae, Billy, and then even Fiona and Bree try it out (although those last two don't make it for long with parent eyes watching).

I go in to get the bean soup on the table and maybe a quick salad. Kids and parents start heading in and when I call out to Jake and the kids to come in for dinner, Travis and Judd are the only two left out there. Judd doesn't want us to take the girls in--they're entertaining for little Jay.

Sometimes I miss the Zelda-Bridgett-Gretchen-Tara with Joy and Valerie on the side afternoons. The older girls don't need watching so much anymore, though, and so these folks are replaced by people I know just fine and yet don't have all those layers of mundane conversation built up over the years with. But I have little kids, too, and the more Venn Diagrams one can find oneself in, the better off one's life is.

108/365 Haunted House

"My dad's going to make a haunted house this year for Halloween and he needs all the dads on the block to help and be ghouls and stuff," Eliza announces at dinner the night we had her over.

"Eliza wants to do a haunted house this year," Nick, her dad, tells me at the birthday party. "I told her that's great, but she has to clean the basement and recruit, you know, dads from the neighborhood if she wants to have people be ghouls."

I shake my head, smiling. "That's not the way I heard it."

107/365 Happy Birthday Bonnie Dee

Yesterday was the party. Quite a to-do in the park, magician and everything. I was just going to drop kids off and head home, but Gretchen and Tara and Valerie were there and I realized I hadn't really seen much of anybody lately. So I stayed and had a nice time.

Jake, as always, asked me about conversation. Anything interesting?

I shook my head. No. Just more layers built up of everyday stuff.

Although there was one thing. Gretchen her husband Nick, and I stood over on one side in the sun, trying in vain to stay warm. We were watching the magician get started and Gretchen broke the silence: "I would hate for that to be my job."

I agreed, "I would probably drink a lot."

Then I imagined going to bars and introducing myself and what I did for a living. I'd be drinking alone.

But he seemed to handle it pretty well. It takes all kinds.

106/365 Fire

105/365 Spend the Night

Eliza is over.

It's near midnight as I write this. She and Fiona have snuck up to bed, leaving Daisy in the living room asleep. I'm debating what to do about it. Carry her up, have her fight me all the way up the steps in a half-asleep stupor, and take her all the way to the 3rd floor to bed? Leave her in the living room and risk a freak out at 3 in the morning? After I write this, I'll decide.

We had chicken marsala for dinner--the first time in at least 5 years. That's a sin. We lit a fire in the little fire pit thingy in the backyard, toasted marshmallows.

Using flashlights as spotlights, the three of them put on a circus "show" for me and Jake. Mostly hanging upside down from the swingset.

And then Jake and I sat and stared at the fire and listened to this:

"I want to play like I'm 7 years old and you two are my big sisters."

"I want to play that our parents are dead and I'm raising both of you and I'm 13."

"I want to play that we live in the country and each of us has skills. I want to be able to cook and garden."

"I will take care of fires and babysit and I will still be 13 years old."

"I'm going to be 7--Fiona, how old are you?"

"I'll be 10."

"Ok, and I'm going to be good at, what should I be good at?"

Eventually, I got tired of the negotiation. It was time to get warm and let them settle on something.

104/365 Look Ma.

Billy has put all his energy into gross and fine motor skills. No verbal work at all: he says about 5 words. But he can run, jump, throw, climb, hold a pencil like a first grader, put coins in the parking meter, scary scary.

Here, he's learned to climb up. It took a few days to learn to climb down.