a photo story

 

on the 28th of december, lulu got a hold of her mom's camera	and proceeded to take pictures of herself,

lying down,	surprised,
"sleeping",	being silly,
and her foot.	she took pictures of her sister at the computer,
doing a slinky smile,	and pretending the slinky was a lasso.
then she gave her sister the camera so she could get some mid-air shots	jumping off the couch
and the dining room table bench.	then she stopped to think for a moment;
and she said, "enough" - we will do this again tomorrow.	and the next morning, she started all over again.
this is her mom making the morning rounds at her laptop,	this is lulu waiting to get on mom's computer,
and this is her dad, pouring the coffee that starts another day at the webster house.	the end.

nutcrackers and blackberry fairies

we continued a family tradition of going to the nutcracker last night. truth be told, it's only been a tradition for two years - ever since our daughter had a part in the children's cast.

we always try to just be very matter of fact about it all, but its my blog so i can gush for a moment. this isn't your run of the mill recital sort of thing. it's the real deal; with the city ballet at the big theater downtown.

she had her opening night three weeks ago, but we went to officially see it last night. i say "officially" because i had already seen her perform twice while watching from the wings when my chaperoning duties included 'stage escort'. i mean, being hair and make up mom to a bunch of flower fairies in the dressing room was nice, but being stage escort was way cooler.

we'd listen for our cue - as soon as we heard the first russian dancer hit the stage once he landed from his leap down the flight of stairs, it was time for the flower fairies to line up and head down the hallway to wait to get onstage. as soon as those russians came bursting out the door into the hallway breathing as if they had just sprinted for a finish line; the fairies went back stage and lined up in the wings, tightly packed together, in between their own wings. a little line of fairy sardines. when the girl with the big hoop skirt and all the children that were hiding under it came off the stage, they went onstage.

it is an amazing, fascinating little world back there. and when i wasn't catching a glimpse of annabel as she flitted by my tiny line of sight in the wings, i was distractedly watching all the stretchy, twirly, jumpy warmups.

the equivalent of racers on their trainers i guess, only its way prettier with all those fancy tutus and sparkly tiaras.  actually, i suppose 'cross has its share of tutus and tiaras in some circles. just not here. yet.

it's exciting to see how it all comes together backstage, but its all business and listening and watching carefully for a cue. these little girls knew the precise moment and note at which to step out on stage, and annabel knew that the moment the woman came down from her partners' shoulders and her toes touched the stage, she was to lead everyone off.

but sitting in the audience, just listening to the orchestra, knowing what is to come, and remembering her nutcracker debut last year  - i start to get all teary before the curtain even goes up. the waltz of the flowers fairies was not until the second act, and when annabel stepped out onto the stage, my eyes welled up and it was hard to see; and henry let out a little gasp, and moments later as he watched her flit about the stage with the other fairies, he whispered "annabel is awesome'.

later, he denied it of course. and i suppose, what self respecting 12 year old wouldn't retract such a statement. i imagine there must be some sort of 12 year old boy code that he had violated. but still. his dad and i heard it. sweet little proof that despite all the torture, he really does love his little sister.

annabel was indeed awesome. equally awesome was watching lulu's face at the end of act 1 when she realized it was snowing in the audience and then seeing her light up when annabel came onstage - all the while she was clutching the little nutcracker that i had purchased for her during intermission - after she brought home a letter, a poem and a picture of the nutcracker with a speech bubble that said: i want to be lulu's. what can i say, i'm a sucker. she's been carrying the thing around all day.

and then of course, there was the post performance trip to see the tree downtown and the requisite pleading with the kids to please try to give me one good shot for a Christmas card which is too late to send now anyway - and the evening was complete.

on the drive home, we kept asking annabel if she had seen us in the audience from up on stage, cause as her dad said right after the show - he really thought she was looking right at him, he felt a connection - and she got all giggly and said she couldn't see anyone. but lulu and henry were convinced that she saw them too - they thought she was looking right at all of us.

all i know is that during the waltz of the flower fairies, she was the only one we all saw.

 

 

 

persuasion

part of the writing requirements at my kids' schools include completing a writing portfolio each year. they have to write a certain number of pieces that usually consist of a personal narrative, maybe a fact based article of some sort and a persuasive letter.

one year, my son wrote a persuasive letter to his grandfather persuading him to quit smoking. it was a great letter, but perhaps it wasn't worded strongly enough. my dad still smokes.

he wrote another piece - the personal narrative piece; about the time we went away for a little vacation with friends, and after a really fun dinner, the two families went to the little playground across the street -and while we parents were swinging on the swingsset and playing on the teeter totter, the kids ran around the trails on the periphery of the playground. the blood curdling scream that came soon after was when my son tripped over a tree root and broke his arm. only we didn't know it was broken and thought he was being dramatic.  which, if you know him - is not out of the realm of possibility. but the next day when they showed us the xray, we knew it was the real deal.

that kind of adventure, where you've come to some real bodily harm and your parents don't believe you always makes for the perfect sort of personal narrative.

on a similar note, my daughter wrote her personal narrative about the time (two months ago) when she went to the doctor to have the honkin' piece of glass removed from her foot. the same piece i told her wasn't there. (i can see that you can see there is a pattern here, but this time, the er doc who lives next door also told us there was nothing in her foot).
she complained about her foot for two weeks and started to compensate for the pain by walking on the edge of her foot, which then hurt her shins. but because the er doc didn't feel anything in her foot and there were no signs of anything - i told her she was fine and she needed to just suck it up. i told her if she was going to audition for the nutcracker, she'd have to stop walking all crazy like that. she went and auditioned for the nutcracker with that piece of glass in the ball of her foot. afterwards, she got in the car and told me how much she had to be up on her tippy toes and how much it hurt. still. she got the part. but the next day, i saw the look on the doctors face when he put on those big jewelers glasses and realized there was indeed something in there, and when he went in to dig out a centimeter-big piece of glass; i felt about as big as a centimeter. still, though. makes for a good personal narrative.

i'm just glad i can provide my kids with writing material.

my youngest, claudia has not yet had an experience that warrants such a personal narrative. considering our track record, she's lucky. give it time. she did however have the perfect subject for the persuasive letter requirement. she's been saving her meager allowance money for about a year - always with an eye on a new american girl doll. thanks to the generosity of grandparents, we have more than one of these dolls - the girls love them, as do i. i think they're sweet and mostly i love that they are still loved and consistently played with after all these years. but still. i just didn't think we needed more.

claudia came home with a persuasive letter a few weeks ago. in it, she persuaded me to let her buy a doll with her own money. it was a full three pages of how she would love it and care for it and clean her room. how she would pay for it with her own money. she even put in a little infomercial-style: but wait! there's more in it for you if you just read on. she would walk on my back (which, by the way is the best massage ever) whenever i wanted.

had this been a whim, and she hadn't actually been saving for a year, and talking about a doll for months, and pouring over the catalog every month and counting how much money she had; i wouldn't have given in. but she had done all those things, and written the letter. so we called and ordered the doll. she came home from school one day to find her new doll waiting for her - she opened the package all proud and happy and proceeded to take alice on a tour of the house and introduce her to every.single.thing.

this is when the lightbulb must have lit up.

because now, as she said to her sister "persuasive letters totally work" - she comes home from school everyday with a new letter. they are long and shameless and full of "keep reading, cause there is something in here for you". today it was for a cat game to play on her nintendo ds. cause she wants a cat for a pet, but since mommy and daddy are alergec to cats, the game should suffice. last friday's letter was for some other sort of stuffed toy she saw at target. she just pulls the letters out of her folder, all dated & signed - a new one each day, persuading me to let her get this or that.

sorry babe. the jig is up. that, and you only have 13 cents left now.

mud.

today's race was the kentucky state cyclocross championships. it was held at our beloved local 'cross course; an old defunct golf course that has twice also been the site of the usgp. we pre-rode the course last night - thinking, surely it wouldn't be the exact course we ride all the time. but we were wrong. it was practically - with a few cool exceptions, the exact course we ride all the time. and for this, i loved it. and so during our pre-ride yesterday, with the late afternoon fall sun shining just so perfectly and happy, it was all swoopy and zen. there were no crazy jacked up 180's into uphills or downhills; and i had already practiced all the turns and sand pits and run ups until they were embedded in my brain. i've been practicing for the last 3 months out there. i left the course yesterday happy and confident. i thought, this could be another harbin park.

and then it rained.   
all night.
ack!

and a really muddy course was one thing i had never practiced. and unfortunately, as much as i try to convince myself otherwise, mud does not equal happy and zen. so the race starts on a big wide open expanse of grass and goes into one of those turns i have embedded in my brain. and as i head into the turn and see the cluster of girls on the muddy downhill turn in front of me, some on their bikes & some off, or trying to stay on - i look ahead to see one friend hop off her bike, shoulder it and run. and i think this looks like a splendid idea. so i do it too. and on other spots, where i see people dab their foot to get around a muddy turn. i think this too, looks like a splendid idea. so i do it too. and make it around the turn. these moments, while fleeting - feel good and sorta smart.

there were, however, plenty of places i did not quite make it through. i got tangled up in the course tape more than once. and i bit it in the sandtrap more than once. i did a cool back wheel skid out thing and saved it (by continuing to pedal through it - imagine that); which felt momentarily awesome. until i had to go down the scary muddy hill onto pavement where i bit it again.

for the most part, i felt good and strong the whole time but was a bundle of frustration and nerves and tried to get over my stifling and irrational muddy fears and maneuver my way through the course. and once again, stoopidly, i wrote the race off - thinking i was not cut out for cross and i didn't like the mud. usually, my husband is on the sidelines cheering for me and can see when my head is in a bad self-defeating place. he usually knows exactly what to yell to get me out of it. or, i'll have teammates on the sidelines yelling for the love of god woman pedal your bike! it's like that perfect slap in the face snap out of it sort of thing that i sometimes need. but the men were racing at the same time i was and all i got from my husband (on his way to third place i might add!) was a "hey baby" as we did the run up together. which i have to say, was sorta fun.

 

i really, really wanted to quit. but i didn't quit. i just kept going. cause there were other people out there cheering. keeping me going. and taking cool pictures.

and then, thankfully. it was over.

 

and then i rode over to my husband and then, in front of friends, and their small children - who came out into the cold and wet and mud bearing homemade banana chocolate chip muffins, i do believe a few expletives came flying out about how much i hated the course and how badly i wanted to quit. very bad form indeed. next time, i'll keep my mouth shut and leave my rant here so people have a choice of whether or not they want to 'hear' it.

but as soon as i was dressed and warm, and had coaxed my girls out of the warm and toasty airstream to go watch another race, and my husband gave me a big proud hug over the fact that i did that muddy, hard race; i was in love with cyclocross again. as always - when its' over.

i'll also digress here for a moment to also explain that our entire team is rolling in brand-spanking new kits. everything about the kit is new - the colors, the sponsors - everything. and there was a whole slew of us racing. it was so fun to see the sea of blue riders all over the course. the blue and orange makes it easy to see everyone when spectating and makes it easy to determine who you should pull over to the side a bit for to let lapping teammates in the men's race pass you. there was definitely a fun buzz of excitement over rolling out the new kits at this race.

 

as muddy and as difficult as the course was, and as much as i hated it and wanted to quit; i didn't - and so for that i am very happy. i think back on the insanity of it all and cannot actually believe i took part in the madness and raced that muddy race. and now that its' over, i'm pleased as punch that i stuck with it, and am trying to forget the david millar type moment of a post race rant and can only hope those that were around me can do the same.

so then, race and rant over - i either cheered racers on or hung out with teammates by the airstream and insisted that they work harder to kill the keg of hell for certain that we have been taking everywhere in a weird, have-keg-will-travel way; and i make another pot of coffee on the airstream and set out the banana chocolate chip muffins and straighten things up a bit and realize that maybe i should feed the kids lunch. so, as we head to the car to go get some happy meals - a teammate points to me and says they want me on the podium.

and i look behind me, because surely - he's not pointing at me. they cannot need me for the podium. and i point to myself and say me? they want me?

yes. you. go.

so, as i head to the podium, i try to think of what on earth they need me for. do they need help passing out medals to the cool girls? do they need me to bring them coffee? is someone contesting last place?

and i get to the podium and see the first, second and third place masters' girls with their snazzy medals and i think well. this is a joke. i am not needed here. and race promoter guy sees me and says, good, you're here.

and i say, why? he says cause its the kentucky state championships. and i am a kentucky resident. but i still don't get it. he says you won something. and i say me? what did i win? he gives me a bronze medal and tells me to get up on the podium.

well, look at me. on the podium. apparently, the fact that i was the third kentucky resident to finish my race today qualifies me for the podium. sweet. i'll take it. my first actual bike podium ever.

so i got on the podium and raised my hand with the first place girl (second place girl was absent) and it felt fairly snazzy and fun. and i forgot about how i hate the mud and how i wanted to sell my bike on ebay during that second lap. i forgot about how i might not be cut out for this on that third lap and i resolved to get on a mountain bike like everyone says i need to do to get more comfortable with the handling stuff.

 

 

the fact that i got the bronze medal mostly for just showing up today and being the third masters' woman from kentucky to finish is not lost on me. but i got on the podium and it was fun & i'll totally take the tiny victories where i can get 'em. even if it was really a victory of residency.

 

i may have had a bit of a love hate thing with my first season of cyclocross, but finishing my first cross season on the podium was fun and sorta makes up for a whole bunch.

 

and makes me think i'll do it all again next year. only better. and not just cause i live here.

 

 

 

photos by marcia seiler & tom moran.

full circle

when my sister and i were little, we went to a lot of parties. in our feetie pajamas. the shindigs were usually at my grandparents house, or at their best friends' house - a quintessential big victorian home with a wrap around porch at the base of a ski mountain that was once an inn and had a number on every door and a tiny sink in each room. my grandparents house also had a back staircase that served as the perfect spot to sit and just listen to the party after we had been sent to bed. we were a festive irish catholic family. i think irish catholic says it all. i had grandparents and parents and aunts and uncles and they had cousins and friends that were practically family and everyone liked to party. often. i have a lot of really great ridiculously happy childhood memories and a lot of them involve parties. impromptu ones after a day on the slopes and bigger, more official ones during holidays with big christmas trees and twinkly lights.

after spending the night dancing with the grownups, or being dazzled by uncle bill's magic tricks and his ability to find a quarter in my ear; and sneaking sips of whatever libations were in the glasses i was instructed to clear from the room - i could sit on the stairs for hours. to this day, i cannot hear frank sinatra singing 'fly me to the moon' or willie nelson singing 'georgia on my mind' without thinking about those nights. my grandparents singing and dancing, the sounds of laughter, dancing, ice clinking in glasses of scotch and the smell of a wood fire burning, twinkly christmas lights.

my sister and i were always on coat duty. i loved burying my face in the occasional fur coat and trying to keep track of who's coat belonged to whom. i loved being a tiny little fly on the wall of all the festivities around me. my sister and i were the only children and could be shameless centers of attention when we wanted to put on a show or completely invisible when we wanted to sneak some archway cookies from the kitchen.

i turned forty this week and we had a big party.

my kids were on coat duty, but my youngest was the only one who took this job seriously. my other two children holed up in the basement with mr. bean. after the movie, my middle child - the responsible one - marched herself up to her room and went to bed at 10 pm. and i think at one point my 12 year old emerged from the basment with nerf gun in hand and after talking with a few grownups, parked himself in front of the computer.

but lulu had other plans in mind. early in the evening, lulu was sitting on the stairs after having taken a bunch of coats up to plop on her brothers' bed and she was writing. very tongue-sticking-out intently. she documented the evening as follows:

Dear notebook,
My mom is haveing a big party. and I am stuck in the, well ... my mom and dad's room with the dog. so yeah. at the party whenever i hear people come in I run out of the room and rush downstairs and ask them "May I take your coat please" it is a realy easy job but right now I am brethless. My poor dog is sad she can't get out my parents wont let her out! Poor Mabel she's whineing! I wish I could let her out but she'll eat all the cake. And then there is a million pepole here I don't want her scare [frighten] them.

i loved that she planted herself on the stairs and documented things. there were other things documented: guests in attendance, and if she forgot their names, she would just indicate who's mom or dad it was. she also jotted down a list of "things for a party" which included cups, napkinz, cake, cupcake and a whineing dog. i loved seeing her sit on the pile of coats while she tried to find bessie's coat and she wasn't sure where fin's mom's coat was. i'm not sure how many cupcakes or cookies she snuck and i don't care. i love that she held center stage in the living room and danced. granted, she was wired to the hilt and i wonder if she snuck any bourbon slushies on trips through the kitchen; but she had a plan and was on a mission - one i didn't realize until midnight when i watched as she looked at the clock and saw that it said midnight - she proclaimed "yes! i did it!" and hours after her older sister and brother had gone up to bed, she herself headed up to bed. mission accomplished. night documented. a successful night of coat-taking, writing, tending to a whineing dog, and some questionable shake-your-money-maker sort of moves for a seven year old.

bourbon slushies and a keg of hell for certain replaced clinking ice in scotch glasses. there was still a little bit of frank sinatra crooning 'fly me to the moon'. there were twinkly lights and a wood burning fire outside, and a little girl dancing and then sitting, watching, writing from the stairs.