Wake Up Call

I've been nursing a bad cough and a sinus infection for the past few weeks, so I haven't been very inspired to do anything, let alone blog. I've worked through three days of antibiotics, though, so I'm feeling the haze lift. In fact, I've got about three or four blogs brewing in my head already this morning.

So let's start with this morning. Or any given weekday morning. My alarm goes off at 6:30 a.m. I snooze it for 10 minutes, and on the second alarm, I get up and greet the cat, who is already waiting outside my door for her breakfast. We go downstairs, where the dogs start dancing around in their crate, way too excited for the hour. They head outside first, then come in to dishes full of kibble. The cat is already well into hers. After breakfast, they're routed back outside.

About 6:50, I head back upstairs to stir the little darlings. Mia first. I open her shade and try to talk her awake, but she doesn't budge until I give her a gentle shake. Then she growls and tries hard to ignore me. She's like trying to wake my sister, who could bite off your hand if you're not careful in the morning.

Over in the boys room, same routine. Shade open, morning greetings. Will sits up and smiles. "Good morning, Mommy," every day. Max dives under his covers or says things like, "Can I just skip school today?" (He's in Kindergarten, mind you. What does that mean for high school?) This morning, he tried to hide a smile while fake snoring.

I give a shout to Mia to get her moving.

Then I pick out Will's clothes because his morning goal is to get dressed in his bed before touching his feet to the floor. There was a day when choices like this would completely vex me, but I've come to realize that pre-pubescent boys do these kinds of things. They're just weird like that. (I made him gag this morning with some moldy tomatillos, and I think that was the highlight of his day so far.)

Another shout to Mia because it's highly likely she hasn't moved. Then I drag a protesting Max out of bed and help him dress, always with some random topic of conversation. Today: "July sure was a long month."

"Months are mostly all the same, Max."

"Well, July went a lot slower than September." [Just a reminder that today is October 27, so I'm not sure why July, or September....]

A final shout to Mia before the boys and I head downstairs for breakfast. She generally follows in another 5-10 minutes, unable to speak much before she eats her daily bowl of cereal.

Wondering where Tom is? He's still in bed, trying to ignore the noise. Funny how he doesn't move a muscle when my alarm goes off. Invariably, though, we hear the floors squeak upstairs long about 7:15. He ambles down and heads directly for the coffee. I've learned not to speak much to him before coffee. Mia hasn't figured that out yet, and any morning efforts directed toward Dad usually require me to put on my referee uniform. Until that coffee warms him up.

To his credit, he's always up to walk everyone out to the bus and to bring in the newspaper. I love to watch the kids walk our long driveway out to the bus. From that distance, I’m always awed that "Wow, those are my kids."

Will runs like he's in a race (which he probably is in his own head). Max often skips. Mia walks behind her brothers like she's herding sheep with a crook. Surely, she's instructing them to do something.

And the house sighs and goes quiet.

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Yard-Sale Mom

Forgive me for yet another Max post, but the kid is full of non-stop material...

This evening while Mia and Will were at piano, Max and I went to the grocery store. He talked incessantly in the car the entire way there, of course (in his "party of one" mode, as Tom says.) At the store, he sat in the bottom front of the cart, near my feet, and talked up at me.

"Max, I can't think very well when you keep talking to me so much."

"OK, mom, I just have two things for you to buy -- one good, one bad. A small bottle of apple cider just for me and some colored Hershey's Kisses."

I ignored him because I was trying to find some vanilla extract, but I did hear him say this:

"Then I'm just going to start shouting 'yard-sale mom, yard-sale mom'."

"What does that mean?"

"You know, 'free mom, free mom'."

And he didn't mean "free mom from some shackles or a prison." He meant that he was going to give me away.

"Where did you hear something like that?" I asked him.

"Nowhere."

So I'm once again bewildered by this kid's mind. I didn't buy either the cider or the Kisses, and I clearly wasn't sent home with another family. But aren't I worth more than a yard-sale deal? I guess not when I’m up against a bag of colored Hershey’s Kisses.

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From Red to Blue

The kids and I picked apples today while Tom was jetting off to the West Coast. Perfect day for it. We picked a peck of red delicious and filled a grocery bag with "drops." Farmer Adams charges only $6 for a whole bag of drops, and frankly, the apples we found on the ground were in great condition!

In this morning's Burlington Free Press, I read an article about a family that is investing in a pellet stove to save on energy costs. I'm interested in that idea. I read another story about a guy who grows his own wheat so he can mill it and bake loaves for weekly Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) bread shares. Also intriguing. (Wheat isn't easy to grow in Vermont apparently.) Then there's Chris Bohjalian's weekly column that's the highlight of the Sunday paper for me. He wrote about the change of the seasons today. Think of that -- a best-selling author writing in the Burlington paper every week!

The most interesting article, however, was the cover story: "Going from red to blue". Twenty years ago, Vermont was a red state. I knew we had plenty of old-timey Republicans in our state, but I didn't really know we were a GOP stronghold for most of the 20th century -- one of the most "reliably red states in the country." Shocking. The shift to blue started in 1962 with the election of the state's first Democrat as governor, but we didn't become true blue until 1992, Clinton's first term. Now, were solidly left.

So I'm feeling pretty proud of my new home state today. For having beautiful apples at $6 a bag. For having people who try to save on energy costs (and pollution) and who grow wheat for homemade bread. For a nationally-acclaimed author who shares his musings about nothing in our newspaper every week. And for being a state of blue -- even with a Republican governor. It's a good feeling to be happy with and proud of where you live.

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