the squibix family blog

Last week I took the boys out to Jam Time in Maynard, an indoor play space for kids one through six that features lots of great toys and climbing things. And a ball pit.

Everybody had a great time (though I was needed so little I wished I had brought a book along). The play structures were lots of fun for the bigger two—Harvey got some solid practice in on the monkey bars, Zion learned how to slide down the fire pole, and they both enjoyed the super-quick smooth wood slides. Lijah spent an hour or two playing with a fireman and some plastic horses, with a few breaks for more active pursuits. It was all wonderful but for two things: we were exposed to some strong gender-normativism from some of the other kids there, and it set me back $30.

Today it was back to free adventures. With the weather bizarrely warm—practically summery—there was no reason not to go to a real, outdoor playground, and since we also wanted to visit the Arlington library we picked Robbins Park in Arlington. Though its main attraction, the giant slides, were closed for winter, there was still plenty to do. While the school kids in their playground across the street packed what fun they could into their 15-minute recesses, we ignored the bells and whistles as we ran and climbed and swung (and had a picnic). The boys even made some friends, who in true boyish fashion started out as enemies—or attackers, at least. Not that it was so crowded we couldn't escape other people when we wanted to.

After a while it was on to the library for some quiet time, and then a toy store for some desiring time. We stopped in to see Grandma and Grandpa on the way home, a delightful end to a fine adventure (especially since they always give out snacks). All that, and we still got home mid afternoon, in time to do plenty of housework before dinner. A successful Monday all around.

Like Harvey (and unlike Zion) Lijah is very vocal when he plays. But while Harvey at that age narrated his stories, Lijah mostly sticks to dialogue. Dialogue that hews pretty close to the familiar for him.

"No no no!"

"Wait up, Cow!"

"Let go! Give it back!"

"Mamaaaaa!!"

Charming, except that sometimes—often—it's hard to tell the difference between Lijah calling "Mama" and the calf or the baby duck doing the same. The volume of his in-game cries is certainly about the same as the genuine article. Of course, I err on the side of ignoring him; and no worries if I guess wrong, because I'll hear about it soon enough!

Most people around here have been just delighted by the pleasant weather. The prevailing sentiment seems to be that it'd be fine—perfect!—if we had a snowless winter with the temperatures never dropping much below 50°F. While I did enjoy all the time we spent outside the first half of the week, I can't agree. If you ask me, winter is broken, and it's a big problem.

On one level the trouble is immediate. Lots of things in our ecosystem here depend on the temperature swings we're supposed to have over the year: bulbs, trees with dormancy periods, hibernating amphibians. Snow on the ground protects dormant plants (like my grass) and slowly replenishes ground water. And cold weather in the winter kills pathogens that could otherwise multiply and damage trees. Even when we do have cold snaps mixed in with warm temperatures it can cause trouble: enough warm days and flowering trees will start to bud. When it gets cold again the buds will die, and that means no apples in the fall.

And then there's the big picture. However we feel about our local climate personally, an ever-warmer planet is bad news for everyone in the long run. You've all heard about sea-level rises, local extinctions and crop failures caused by unusual weather patterns, and ever-stronger storms thanks to the energy all the warmth injects into the atmosphere. "Yes, but!" people tell me. "It's so nice right now!"

It may be that I'm a horrid curmudgeon (probably true). It may be that I secretly or not-so-secretly enjoy it when things are difficult (definitely true). But I would suggest that "nice" is what you make of it, and that there are many pleasant aspects of a bitter cold winter buried under feet of snow. And for people who really can't stand the cold, there are many places in the world—in the United States, even!—where really cold weather is rare or nonexistent. Massachusetts isn't supposed to be one of them, and to damn us all to climate disaster for the fleeting pleasure of a summer day in February is bad policy!

(Alright, I know what you're going to say: we don't have a direct personal input on climate change, so why not enjoy warm weather while it's here? Or more to the point, why not enjoy it without complaining up a storm like me? Because not complaining makes us not change anything. If we think that 57°F after 9:00pm on February 3rd is crazy, we might consider redoubling our own conservation efforts to do what we can to slow global warming. That, or write a whiny blog post about how everyone else is wrong. Every little bit helps!)

In Building Our House, Jonathan Bean describes, from his older sister's perspective, how his parents and their friends built a timber-frame house for themselves. The watercolor illustrations beautifully portray the passage of the seasons as the work goes slowly forward—though significantly faster in the book than in real life, as an author's note at the end explains! The narration is wonderfully matter-of-fact, just as you'd expect from a child of parents who could ever conceive of such a thing. Wiring and insulating mid-winter "while the drifts pile up"? Sure, isn't that just what you do?

Bean and his family aren't all-out back-to-the-landers: the first step they took towards developing their property was to hook up to municipal electricity, and an electric range is pictured (along with a cookstove at the center of the house). So they aren't as hard-core as some people we know. But they sure aren't taking the typical route to home-ownership!

Harvey and Zion love the book, which we got from the library, and we've already read it six or seven times. It might be worth buying, though I may prefer to save my Jonathan Bean dollar for another book of his that I learned about while searching for an image to include with this post. Called This Is My Home, This Is My School, it features the house whose construction we just lived through serving both those roles.

In the Author's Note that ends Building Our House, Bean closes:

Of course, a homestead would not be complete without a large garden, fruit trees, pets, woodland, and a stream flowing through a mysterious marshland. Add to that the wise love of two parents, the companionship of three sisters, and a practically lived faith, and it's hard for me to think of a better place to have grown up.

Sounds good to me!

What a difference from a couple days ago; even last night, as I worked in the yard to get things ready for the snow, it was warm enough that I was comfortable in my shirt sleeves. Today we were comfortable in snow suits.

It wasn't that cold, but it was snowy and wet, and the boys spent several delightful hours outside. They would have stayed longer yet, but all their friends had to go in.

The snow stopped just before sunset, and the clouds parted to let a ray of sun through to illuminate the snow-covered trees. A perfect end to a beautiful snowy day!

The picture is from Friday morning at the beginning of the storm. Thursday night it was above freezing all night, and even as the snow started it wasn't that cold out—so when Lijah expressed a desire for "ow-siye?" I thought it wouldn't hurt to humor him. Even when he declined his coat and put Zion's sneakers on his feet. Hey, I figured he'd put his nose out the door, get cold, and come right back in! Not a bit.

I like cold and snow more than most, but my enjoyment is predicated on proper attire, and following him I was cold and wet in my long-sleeve shirt—and before very long I removed his freedom of choice and hauled him back inside (for the record, he didn't protest much).

So take this as evidence of something. Maybe it's that, never mind other evidence to the contrary, being cold and wet doesn't bother our third child. Or maybe just that he's the most determined being you may ever meet.

(As a point of comparison, I repost below the photo of Harvey from a few hours later in the same day. Admittedly, it was colder then too. But still!)

I've never paid enough attention to notice if winter winds are stronger overall that what you experience other times of year, or if it's just that there's less vegetative matter to provide ground-level shelter—probably a combination. Whatever the reason, I totally noticed when the wind was against me almost the whole way home. There were moments when I felt like I could barely make any progress at all: I had to work so hard to move so slowly I was just about ready to give up and walk.

The funny thing is, it was about as windy in the morning, but of course then the wind was at my back. And that way I didn't notice it particularly; I just figured I'm a really strong cyclist so naturally things were easy and quick! I wonder how much something like that dynamic plays out other places in my life. When things are going well, it's easy to take the credit myself: I'm naturally gifted and well-prepared! If work is tougher, I may be more likely to notice the external causes for my troubles. Of course, it can go the other way too: lots of times we can fail to notice the conditions we can't control that are holding us back, instead attributing our failures to our own faults. In both ways, the stories that we tell ourselves might be totally removed from an objective consideration of the situation, a consideration that would have to show that sometimes the wind is blowing our way, and sometimes it's against us. Maybe knowing that can help us relax a bit.

And anyway, as windy as it might get here this winter I don't think it'll top what the folks in this video experienced—"Watch riders battle 100kph headwind". The only upside of that much wind—besides that it's probably kind of cool to feel your bike blowing away—is that you can't fail to notice it. Sometimes, no matter how strong or skilled you are, you just aren't going to be able to make progress. And when you're faced with that much opposition, maybe the only thing to do is laugh, turn around, and try again another day.

Yesterday wasn't that bad; I made it home, and after an hour or two I had even recovered from the effort!

I'm pretty happy with how many we grew this year. I neither weighed nor counted, but it was a fair number; we're maybe not eating one every day or even every week, but up to this point we haven't felt any lack. We certainly haven't felt the need to buy squash!

I'm thinking about it because it's almost time to start the first seeds for this year's garden. It's hard to imagine, looking out at our tundra-like yard (not much snow this year but historically cold weather for the last few days) that in a few months the squash and corn and everything else will be green and growing like crazy.

2016 is going to be our best gardening year yet! On that note, I'd better think about where we're going to store the squashes this year; Leah wasn't too happy with the box in the upstairs hallway this winter...

In response, or just through sympathetic resonance, all the boys in the house came down with colds. Lijah is worst hit being smallest, which means Leah is really worst hit: when he can't sleep due to a stuffy nose and croup-y cough, she's the one that suffers. Zion looks the worst, with red irritated skin under his nose and one eye and all round his mouth.

Today, though, just as the weather turned dramatically warmer—a 60° swing in under 48 hours—the big boys and I are clearly on the road to recovery. If he can manage a little sleep Lijah is sure to follow, and we'll all be ready to enjoy whatever this crazy winter throws at us next!

Other times, we just have to do our best. The boys have managed three major sledding days in the last two weeks of this crazy winter: one on the fabulous hills by Taya's house.

Another with my parents at the hill of my youth.

And one more with me this Monday, before the temperature shot up 60°F (ok, only 35° from when we were actually outside sledding, but still) and the snow disappeared in short order.

The other disappointing thing about sledding pictures is how they never manage to show the slope of the hill properly. That last one is pretty steep.

Just a few short years ago a bad day of sledding had me promising never to take the boys out again until Zion was seven. Obviously that was an idle threat, but it was also a misguided one, because they're now champions on the slopes (having the right gear helps.. thanks grandmas!). Even Lijah enjoys his few trips down the hill, and is happy to hang out with the big boys as long as they're having fun. Even when he gets sleepy... if you look carefully at the photo of Harvey up above you'll see the little one in the background about to tip over. Here's a close-up:

He was pretty much asleep with his eyes open at that point; when sat down with him and put him on my lap he cuddled right up and went to sleep. Then I put him in the car seat and enjoyed another 45 minutes of sledding with the big boys. We need to get it while we can!

Plus I made potatoes and scrambled eggs and peanut noodles. And spaghetti with sauce from a jar. And a salad. That feels like enough for one day.

And even with all that, we'll start tomorrow with a clean kitchen!

After a brief stop at the auto-parts store (trying to get the van ready to be inspected next month) we ended up by the old reservoir, where we dropped the bikes and took to the woods.

It was great to be hiking again. And naturally, every hike needs a snack break! I'm working on distributing responsibility, so Harvey got to pack the snacks. That meant store-bought chewy granola bars for everyone! (plus a muffin for himself).

Just as the water is a big draw in warmer weather, the ice was today. Given the insane warmth over the weekend I was surprised to see it looking pretty solid—and of course we had to try walking on it.

As much as we enjoy snow, it's absence meant we could roam wherever we wanted, including up some startlingly steep slopes.

That one was steep enough that sliding down in on the leaves made a satisfactory sledding replacement!

After that I was ready to head home for lunch—I didn't get a muffin!—but the big boys wouldn't leave until they at least tried to cross the ice on the lower pond to the pump house, or whatever it is. Ice that was somewhat softer than on the reservoir proper—but don't worry, Harvey had a plan: send Zion first. They were very proud when they made it, and of course Lijah insisted on joining them. Then we went home. By that point we were all ready for a rest.

Of course, Zion was just pretending to be sleeping. But he was ready to sit on the couch and listen to three stories before lunch and another four afterwards. Spring is tiring!

(That was at a five-year-old birthday party, where to my knowledge no one questioned his choice of outfit.)

He's pretty cute all the time, and the costume increases the effect—especially the tail. The tail is my favorite.

Sadly, at some point yesterday the monkey suit had to go through the wash (due to ice cream) and though it's clean now he hasn't asked to put it back on. Even though we may have suggested it. So the monkey days may be over—though we'll always have the memories, and lots of pictures.

What will the next Lijah fad be?

To bring my bad decision into even starker focus, a friend who I had invited to join us texted me back that they were spending the morning at Drumlin Farm. Drumlin Farm, where we once again are members and so could visit for no additional cost. But since we hadn't been members for so long I forgot about it—and plus, I thought it was going to rain. I should have paid more attention to the forecast.

On the other had, rather than running around like maniacs all three boys spent much of the time holed up in separate corners of the space with different toys, so it may well be that they needed some quiet time, and a farm visit would have been a disaster. And Harvey mastered descending the firepole and put in some good work on the monkey bars (he can almost get to the second bar). And I got to observe the other families that thought it would be a good idea to go to and indoor play space on a sunny, 55°F late-February day.

This particular venue is designed for kids under six, so we've only got another three and a half months to enjoy it all together. We have one more free entry on our pre-paid card; we're saving it for a real rainy day.