Jason's Untimely Thoughts

JTB & AEB First Day of School

Jack and Adelaide successfully started school again yesterday.  Jack is back at CDC.  He’s in the Bear Class this year, which is where he spent the summer as well.  The other big changes for him are the fact that he’s going five days per week and that he’s now one of the oldest kids in the school.  Also that they have a male cook this year.  He has black hair.  They had hot dogs yesterday.  With ketchup.

Jack has started both days by asking if this is the day he gets to start kindergarten.  With most of his friends no longer at CDC, he’s not sure why he needs to be there either.

CDC also has a new policy of calling you every time someone gets hurt.  “Hurt” seems to include almost every normal activity for a four-year old boy.  Thankfully, they’ve modified already to allow for sending text messages or emails, so I watch for those daily.  Today’s message was “jack fell while running on the bike track.  he scraped his knee a little.  he is fine.”

Adelaide is a 1st Grader at Grant, with Mrs. Williams as her teacher.  She has several friends from kindergarten in her class, which is great of course.  With only two kindergarten classes, she also sees the remaining friends frequently.  After a day, she likes math the most.  It seems that early first grade math consists of tracing the number 2.  More advanced techniques will surely follow.  We’re also trying to pack a lunch this year, which was very strongly discouraged last year (by me).

The Grant playground has an institutionally mandated pecking order.  You have to be in 3rd Grade to go on the soccer field, kindergartners aren’t allowed past the log cabin, only the brave chase wayward four-square balls into the cemetery, etc.  So of course the minute they were allowed to play yesterday before school started, all the newly minted first graders ran immediately to the formerly forbidden climber and log cabin!  I assume they also stared menacingly at the kindergartners in the hallways, although I didn’t see that part.

Adelaide will go to Adventure Club after school on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with dance, grandmother, and sitter combining to take care of Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Jack will also probably get to leave CDC early on Thursdays, so he can participate in the Grant School playground sibling social hour after school.

In all, school is off to a smooth start.  Certainly much smoother than this time last year, for all of us.

Since 2002 or so, I’ve been emailing an expanding group before every home game with our tailgate plans for that week’s game.

Since 2004 or so, then, I occasionally go back and read them.  Normally when I’m anxious for football season to get here.  Like now, like I did today.

Some of them still make me laugh.  Maybe they will you too.  Tailgate emails.

Adelaide and Jack go to the Bootheel Youth Museum almost every visit to Malden.  It’s a quite impressive interactive museum, especially so for a town that size.

The BYM is currently using a “Pennies for Projects” campaign to raise funds.  Hoping to get to a billion pennies, which seems like a lot to me.

The kids dropped off pennies at their last visit to town.  There’s a nice little write-up and pic on the BYM website.  Allegedly newspaper coverage to come also.  Yay small town newspapers.

Adelaide and Jack Becking aren’t necessarily two individuals the average person would consider calling Bootheel Youth Museum benefactors.  You’d be surprised to learn that these two Missouri residents are not only staunch advocates of the BYM but have become fundraisers as well.  The two children, yep that’s right they’re just kids, their combined age is 10.  They have conducted a Pennies 4 Project fundraiser in their home town of Colombia, Missouri.  Adelaide, age 6, and Jack, age 4, are the grandchildren of Bill and Nancy Green and added their collection of 3,969 pennies to the Pennies 4 Projects bin.

Adelaide and Jack share their love of the museum with their friends, family, and have even told businesses about the BYM.  Nancy shared a story about how animated the kids were, when they were talking with a restaurant owner in Columbia.  The owner excused himself and came back a few minutes later with a jar full of pennies.  Adelaide and Jack aren’t the only young fundraisers the museum has had over the last few months. Malden Elementary School students have collected  3,871 pennies.  The grand total of pennies collected as of August 14, 2009, is 72,526pennies.  The BYM wants to thank all our donors and requests you keep saving and sending in your pennies as the museum hopes to collect 1 billion.”

Huh? You’re Saying.

I watch the Tour de France every year, the race amazes me.  It’s the reason we have all those high channels on our TV, which now mostly give us Disney XD and other junk.   If you’ve ever watched, you notice the randomness written on the routes in chalk or whatever each stage.

This year, Livestrong and Nike teamed up to make a “Chalkbot“.  You could tweet (use twitter) your message to them, they’d write as many as they could on the course.  Today I received the photo below of the message I’d sent them during the race.  (actually a DM on twitter pointing to a twitpic, just to add some more jargon)

The message was printed here, according to the GPS info anyway.

SEMB Still Loved message in 2009 Tour de France, by the Chalkbot

The kids are in the Bootheel this week, last time with the family down there before school starts again on August 24.

Adelaide went to Cape yesterday to spend the day/night with Eric, Chantelle, Bianca, and Solie.  Although I’m sure she saw Eric too, think girl time was the main point.

AEB Pedi

I wrote the previous post July Sucks hurriedly and realized later that I’d been overly negative.  Perhaps naming it July Sucks wasn’t the best way to start.  I was writing mostly to write something, both for this space and the space in my head.  As I’ve said countless times, just putting the words down helps me organize my thoughts and move on.

Thinking about that post a bit more, though, plus a couple of conversations afterward leads to this one… where I flat out admit that things are going pretty well.  That’s especially true in comparison to this time a year or even 6 months ago.

For a long time (“long time” defined here as a period of between 2 hours and 10 months that seems to have lasted much longer than that) the simple acts of making sure we’d all eaten, bathed, gone to bed on time, and made it to school/work on time were enough to almost make me crazy.  Occasionally they did make me crazy.

My instinct and my need was to make as much of that a routine as possible.  Tried to provide some variety in the routine, but the routine itself was helpful to all of us, I think.  This is still true and explains why I’m willing to have a party full of people watch us freak out when we leave at 9:00, rather than continue on with them, because that’s way past bedtime for us.

That said, though, the weekday routine is really pretty old hat at this point.  There are still flare ups, melt downs, and side events, but generally we’ve got that covered.  (With great help from those that provide the variety within the routine.  This can’t be overstated.)

Not sure I’m making the point adequately, but that’s huge progress.  Even weekends, as down as I can get on those weekends without plans, we generally make it fine.  I still very much struggle personally with the days, nights, gatherings, and events that are supposed to be ‘fun’.  Mostly because they’re not all that fun for me.

I don’t mind at all answering almost any question from people I know, but dread answering questions from strangers.  I can clarify for as long as anyone cares to listen, but don’t really want to tell our story from the beginning.  The questions from people I know feel like honest conversation, which happens too infrequently due to time and circumstances.  The “dread” conversations don’t really happen that much at all, but the dread of them is still there.  Then those gatherings are still smack-me-in-the-ever-growing-forehead reminders of missing.

The day-to-day missing is easily coped with at this point (slight overstatement).  The reminders are the same, the view out the windows to the cemetery is the same, the self-pity and solitary loneliness have become habits that are handled well enough.   The gathering missing is just still too new.  The pauses in conversation where Sarah and I would seek each other out to compare notes, or trade off watching the kids, or just to make fun of whatever are what I’m unable to cope with well as of yet.  The pauses still happen, but the completion of the pauses does not.  This is still most clear, of course, when we hop in the minivan and drive off.  The passenger seat is full of junk instead of a passenger.

Everything I’ve described seems natural to me.  I don’t mean to be pretending to provide any insight, except into what I’m thinking.  I have no idea what the appropriate timeframe of any of it is, except that whatever seems right to us would have to be appropriate.  And that progress comes in lurches both forward and back.  (My 20-year high school reunion is coming up, wasn’t there someone nicknamed Lurch?)

Lurches included, progress is happening.  About this time last year I had a conversation with a friend about “getting through another hour”.  By that measure, progress is substantial.  I now tend to think more in terms of getting through this week.  At some point, maybe this time next year, we’ll simply forget to worry about getting through the week and the coping evolution will be nearer completion.

speaking of evolution, screw ku.

Not really, but it’s a weird month.  Especially odd since I’m saying it sucks, but I’ve had a few times that were a ton of fun.  My sister and her family were in from Switzerland for an extended stay — it’s always great to see them, even as brief as it was for us this time.  We see their kids in two-year intervals, so kind of growing up via time lapse.

I mixed in a trip to STL where I caught two Cardinals games with Kendel… not caught, as in I was the catcher, my rag arm doesn’t compare to Yadi’s.  But now that I think about it the seats were almost as good as his.  Had a chance to see friends from St. Louis one of those nights also, which was fun.  Plus heard about Ankiel’s naked sushi birthday party, so how can I say July sucks?

Guess, all in all, I’m not being fair to July.  Except for the absence of Mizzou sports, it doesn’t really suck more than any other month.  I’m just still wearing my denial sticker of grief pretty prominently, which is mostly what sucks.  Not willing nor ready for this to be how things are, which I’ve said often enough in this space that I’m sick of reading it.  And in still mostly selfish ways of why in the world do I have to worry about XX every day.  It’s stupid, but reality.

Jack has taken to telling me great lengthy stories about whatever happened whenever ago, commonly starting with “Remember a long long long long time ago when mommy was still died?”  It’s an awful way to start a story.  The one time I asked him if he could tell me a story about when mommy was around, he said he didn’t remember any.  Which was another awful story.

Recently, though, he told me he dreamed about mommy the previous night.  When I asked him to tell me about it, he said he didn’t remember much but did remember the dream about the spiders that were crawling all over him, complete with hand motions of spiders crawling everywhere and “swoosh swoosh swoosh” sound effects.  So, he’s successfully stopped me from asking about dreams for a while.

Adelaide is going to have her ears pierced soon, I think.  Plus a girl trip to STL for some shopping coming up.  Her hip, arm, hand, and sass were all shaking last night while telling a story.  She’s clearly six-and-a-half going on 17.

August approaches soon and brings in a bunch of friends for their 20th high school reunion.  I’m looking forward to seeing them and their children very much.

In football news…. PLEASE HURRY UP FOOTBALL SEASON!!!!  The Tigers are picked as low as 5th in the North by some publications, which I think is awesome.  In fact, I know a good place to have those predictions blown up very large for prominent placement in lockers, weight rooms, etc.  Naturally, I’m more optimistic.  Not saying 14-0 optimistic, but 12-2 seems approachable to me.  That’s right.

on a side note, screw ku.

My work email account has been down for the last 24+ hours.  It’s back now.

However, if you sent me anything there since about 11:00 am yesterday morning, I didn’t get it.  And it doesn’t seem likely that I’m going to.

One of the sites I’ve used (and that Mpix.com partners with) for Sarah’s photos just rolled out a new feature… testing here.

Mizzou Photos

Best of 2007 MU Football pictures

A year ago today we were in New Orleans, preparing for they days ahead.  Surgery was June 26, so we would have been doing MRIs and whatnot today.  It’s impossible to summarize the past year in any way that’s concise, witty, or insightful.   All I can say is the dramatic understatement that things were substantially better before, but have continued to improve since.  I guess it’s progress that I’m mostly not even all that angry about it anymore.

The entire situation would be a wreck without the wonderful assistance of our next door neighbors, all of them.  The addition of Megan to the mix has also saved me.  Public thanks to all of them, to the grandparents and aunts and uncles, and to the parents of Adelaide’s friends who have been so helpful this year.  Seriously, I’m not sure I could have made it this far without the help.

Work is going fine (the recession is over, spread the word).  Home life is steady, if not superior.  Adelaide made it through kindergarten with flying colors and with some new great friends.  Grant School is simply wonderful — the faculty, staff, students, and parents.  It is unquestionable that adding Stella and Anna to Adelaide’s circle (and the additional support of their families) helped her tremendously.  Long term that will be at least three good friends that will be visitable by bike ride.

Jack looks and acts about a year older than he is, mostly because that’s who he hangs around with at pre-school.  He’s there again this summer for 2 days/week, then will be there full-time in the fall, although he will be in a different class for the first time (he’ll be a Bear, not a Star, which seems appropriate).

Both kids are swimmers now, although JT is still limited to the shallow portion.  His swim routine is mostly grab pool toy, throw pool toy, swim to bottom to retrieve pool toy, repeat.  Adelaide had her hair re-pinked (thanks Tia), but combination of chlorine and sunshine de-pinked in less than a week.

Personally, I’m making progress.  For example, I can go out for a night of fun with friends without spending the next day/week feeling nothing but guilty.  Maybe by this time next year I’ll also be able to do that without spending the next day hungover too.   It’s still jacked up and I definitely have moments of massive frustration, but I’m either better able to cope, better able to recover, or better able to avoid.  I’m still not able to have many real conversations with many people, but generally that’s due to lack of time and opportunity.  Someone told me that I wouldn’t likely feel normal for at least a year.  They definitely got the “at least” part right… no idea when it will happen, or perhaps when I’ll come to the realization that the way I feel now is the new normal.

Every day in our house is a race to bedtime.  I don’t believe that’s substantially different than any other house with working parents and young children, but I sure didn’t notice it as much a year ago.  All of us being tired leads to all of us being grouchy which means we’re all better off if the kids go to bed.  A difference is probably my then continued avoidance of bedtime.  The quiet is nice.  The chance to finish whatever is nice.  But mostly the idea of going to the bedroom before being way past ready to go to sleep is still extremely unappealing.

I also have random fantasies about simply escaping.  There was a reason Tom Hanks’ character was Sleepless in Seattle, not Sleepless in Wherever they’d lived originally.  A different location with a new start can certainly seem appealing.  As can weekends spent elsewhere.  On that topic, our recent trip to Colorado was good for all involved.  Thanks again to Chris and all for the work and excellent results there.

Back to one year ago, July 7 will always be a memorable day, but it is not an anniversary in our house (I came to this realization after the Colorado trip).  I’ve long planned to give some money in Sarah’s name to a few charities, so July 7 will be a good time to complete that goal (another step toward recession being over, spread the word).  Otherwise, there will be no ceremony or special remembrances for us.  We continue to miss and talk about Sarah every day.  We will continue to miss her, to love her, and to talk about her, while hopefully continuing to make small steps of progress going forward from here too.

Thanks to all of you for the continued love and support along the way.  Go hug your friends and family.  and on a side note, screw ku.