January 7: A Lemon Cake Day

We had bought ten gallons of hydraulic fluid when we were in town on Sunday. Our friend Tyson delivered hay on Monday, and he mentioned that he had used the Tractor Supply brand hydraulic fluid on one of his large tractors, but the pump gummed up and, because the tractor had to be split apart, the repairs were something like $19,000.

Now our tractor didn't even cost that much, but since Tyson recommended a New Holland dealer that sells hydraulic fluid specifically for New Holland tractors, we figured it would be worth the 90-minute (one direction) trip. Even if the story is simply anecdotal, why take the chance?

I always feel a little bad about Isaiah's birthday. Even though it is a full two weeks after Christmas, I always feel like it sneaks up on me. And not only that but, because his birthday list is the same as his Christmas list, I don't usually even think about what to buy him until we know what he's received for Christmas, and if we happen to delay opening presents, that reduces my buying time even more.

Nevertheless, I think he had a good birthday. I made "Lykosh Chipotle," my version of the do-it-your-way burritos (brown rice, beans, corn, seasoned ground beef, with your choice of sour cream, cheese, salsa, sauteed vegetables, cilantro). He wanted lemon cake, so I made him one.

He liked our singing.

I didn't buy candles (does Whole Foods even have those?), but he laughed when we sang to a bare cake and pretended to blow them out.

And I think he was pleasantly surprised with the range of gifts he either has gotten or will get.

He had a few Adventures in Odyssey albums and a season of Mythbusters, and then we sat down with a gift card and his Christmas money and talked through what else he might like to receive. I am glad we did that, because, surprise!, his taste is not identical to mine. He is getting a time travel trilogy (back to the Three Musketeers!) by an author we enjoy, Stuart Gibbs (Gibbs wrote one of the most clever, unique chldren's books I've ever read, Belly Up); a book by one of our family's favorite authors, Andrew Clements (I have yet to read a book by Andrew Clements that I didn't enjoy, and most I absolutely love; one stunning book after another); a Rose Is Rose cartoon collection; and a ThinkFun game that I would never have picked because it didn't appeal to me. He's his own person. And we are happy to have him.

The New Year: Hopefully Not a Portent of the Year to Come

It would be an understatement to say that the year did not start well. After illness December 30 and 31, Phil was ill January 1. January 2. January 3.

By January 4 he was vertical. He went up to move hay to the cows and the hydraulics on the tractor failed. Without hydraulics, the tractor doesn't work.

Bummer.

As for me, I tried to stay emotionally sane. I homeschooled. I worked. On Saturday, Caleb and I attended my first wedding in five years. Earlier in the week I realized that, since I hadn't worn a dress or skirt probably since I moved here, my dressy shoes were chewed by mice and tossed some years back, and I hadn't missed them. Except none of my shoes were appropriate for a fancy winter wedding, or really a wedding of any degree of classiness in any season. And I had somehow lost my razor in moving toiletries and such some months ago.

Then Amazon let me down. The razor I ordered as a replacement didn't arrive. The stockings I ordered didn't arrive. The wedding gift didn't arrive! Ack!

Bless my friend who lent me shoes and who "happened" to go to a store that sells stockings. And as for wedding gifts, I think Miss Manners says that guests have a year to give gifts, so I'm not overly concerned about that.

Caleb hung in there all night until we shut the place down at 11:20pm. He was on the dance floor with me, and I had a great time. He finally fell asleep, no matter the loud music.

I think he was a little traumatized, though, in a baby sort of way. He woke up from a sound sleep three times that night, screaming. He fell back to sleep as soon as I fed him, but he's not done that before or since.

An Interlude for ... Etch-a-Sketch

Isaiah wanted an Etch-a-Sketch for Christmas. I had one as a girl. I was not a fan. Impossible to draw with. I didn't mention this, but I expected some level of disappointment when he actually attempted to use the thing.

So imagine my surprise when the first thing he did on opening the box was write his name in block letters. Amazing!

Joe had gotten a Woody doll (the Toy Story character). So Isaiah drew that next.

Then he did the less complex, but involved, square pattern.

He wrote the names of the older four brothers: Isaiah, Jadon, Abraham, Joe.

I think he had run out of space, so then he wrote Caleb's name.

Our Year Limps to a Close

When we flew home on December 28, I was feeling pretty low. The Orlando airport, predictably, was a zoo, and I felt like we barely made our flight (15 minutes at the gate before boarding feels way too close for comfort to me!). I was lying on the floor at Dulles, sick and tired, gearing up for the ride home in the 12 passenger van, when a friend from church showed up. She had had a four-hour layover, and was finally getting back to Charlottesville on our flight. The regional airplane wasn't full, so we sat together and chatted for the quick flight. Her roommates, some of our friends, showed up to pick her up, so I was greeted by two other dear ones. Welcome back, Amy!

There was no hope for making the 9am service the next day. With as much sickness as we'd had, we just laid low. Caleb was extremely needy, and I think I nursed ten or twelve hours that Sunday. I'm sure he wasn't eating, but he just needed to be sure of me.

That was fine. I read the shockingly good Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson. It was a balm to my soul, and I can hardly imagine a more restful day, to read and feed my baby and let my other boys (Phil included) enjoy themselves with a full day of Duck Dynasty. So we were all happy!

Monday Phil woke up with "the plague." And that is really all I have to say for him for the week. It wasn't until Saturday that he was ambulatory. Vomiting, fever, cough, exhaustion. He was in bad shape.

Caleb and I had a good time with long-time friends to welcome the New Year. Phil was sick in bed.

Our return was somewhat traumatic for me. A few of the exterior walls on the new building do not have insulation, which means that we have some condensation on them. I pulled out a wicker basket of blocks and found that the blocks and wicker were covered with mildew.

Actually, all seven of the wicker baskets were covered with mildew.

I moved them to the barn, to deal with at a later date. No need to keep mildewy things inside. Gross!

The next day, I glanced at the pictures leaning against the wall. One seemed a bit more wavy than I remembered.

When I pulled them off the wall, the tops of the frame backs felt saturated. Thankfully (truly thankfully), none of the art was harmed at all, but a few frames I think I'll have to replace. That is much easier than a pencil drawing of a son ... those I consider priceless.

A section of our floor bowed while we were away, too. Presumably, the bamboo floors did not have quite enough flex room at the edges, and so is bowed in a spot. Randomly, it's between two doorways.

It felt like a limp to the close of the year. A limp slows one down. It's annoying or maybe painful at every step. But it's not a death. And so closed the year. Painful, frustrating. And yet ... only so far, and no further. The frame is harmed, but the art is not. Part of the floor is bowed, but not destroyed (at least, not yet).

Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and A Few Days More

After another leisurely morning on the beach and hanging out, the family headed out to see a lighthouse.

It was closing early for Christmas, so we had a half hour. My long-suffering brother ran up the lighthouse stairs while my sister and I watched the children, and then he tag-teamed us so we could go.

It was only the equivalent of 14 flights of stairs, but, whew, I am glad I don't live in a 14-story walkup! It is a family joke that wherever we go, we have to climb something, and we have climbed towers and lighthouses and enjoyed the view and the good natured groans.

Almost directly across the road was an Alligator Farm. Their claim to fame was that they had all 23 varieties of crocodilians in their park, one of the few places around the world to have that. It was quite well done, with carvings and, say, a crocodile mummy mounted near the Nile Crocodile. And, yes, there are markably different snouts and sizes between the different types. The largest in the park made me gasp out loud. Because of its size, it was disturbing.

Isaiah, keeping with his interest in animals, petted the alligator. I did too: a leathery skin.

That was my favorite day of sight-seeing. Two very nice parks, and a quick pace. Isaiah had thrown up on Monday night, but I dragged him along, and he trooped all over, even to the top of the lighthouse. By dinner on Tuesday, Abraham wasn't feeling so good.

Phil had gone to midnight Mass at the oldest parish on the continent. He came in very late, and sometime after that, Abraham found his way to our bed, too. Because of the arrangement of beds, we already had both Caleb and Joe in bed with us, so to add Abraham definitely made us feel like the rhyme, "There were five in the bed and the little one said, 'I'm crowded. Roll over.' And they all rolled over and one fell out." Phil didn't quite fall out, but he didn't have many inches of room in that King sized bed.

My Mom had come prepared with little stocking stuffers for us all. It was fun to actually put the oranges, chocolate bars, and little gifts in our socks, and then line them all up on the bench.

Christmas morning, the boys were looking better. A few of us walked to the pier maybe a half mile away, open for free for the day. I loved the pier, out over the waves. It was overcast, with the light rays poking through. Birds, spray, grey and blue.

When we got back, the rest of the midnight Mass-ers were up, and so we started opening presents.

In my family, we start with the youngest and work our way to the oldest, opening one at a time. With 17 in Florida, it took about five hours (though we ate lunch in there, too).

I love that time: seeing what we thought to get for each other, what we asked for. I like that I might open a present only every half hour: it allows a little space for that new item to sink into my life a bit. Isaiah was happy for a different reason: he opened a book early on that he had been eagerly awaiting, and he read, with almost no distractions, for the rest of the present-opening.

I get to be the "Santa Claus," ensuring that each person gets a present when it's time. With Caleb connected, I didn't stand up much this time.

It was Caleb's first Christmas.

He didn't even attempt to open his presents.

Joe got a Richard Scarry book. Phil was more excited than Joe—it was a book he had owned as a child, and has missed occasionally.

Almost as soon as presents were over, my sister-in-law came down with "the plague" as we called it, and, sick and exhausted, she took few photos during the second half of our trip. Below is one of my favorite photos from the trip.

The day after Christmas we all just laid low. I was feeling a bit under the weather. Caleb was more fussy than usual. By Friday, I was still out of it, and Joe wanted nothing but to sleep. So while most of the family went to the most famous St. Augustine landmark, the Castillo, I slept all afternoon with Joe and Caleb.

The three of us did make it there on Saturday, a quick 20 minute trek shortly before we went to the airport and returned home.

December 23: St. Augustine

After a relaxing morning on the beach (or not, in my case), we headed in to St. Augustine proper for the afternoon. Flagler College, with Tiffany windows and elaborate carvings, was beautiful, even just in the foyer. (With seven small children, we opted not to wait 20 minutes for the tour on the hour. Everything that day felt rushed: what can we see before the children completely poop out?!) But in the foyer, we admired the mosaic floor.

And the children admired the gorgeous rotunda roof.

(Charlottesville has its own Rotunda, designed by Thomas Jefferson, on the UVA campus. As a salute to that famous structure, the UVA regional airport has a little rotunda, too. Joe said, "This roof is like the one at the airport!" And it's true, at least in shape, if not general magnificence.)

Isaiah, true to form, found a gecko and managed to get it on to his arm. More power to him.

After a stop at a museum with reputedly the oldest rug in the world (an ancient Egyptian cat rug, I think made of cat hair!), and an eclectic collection that we zipped through, we enjoyed cookies for a snack.

We opted not to go in to the glass museum, though that foyer was elaborate and lovely—a good option, I would guess, for those without so many children.

Then we walked up St. George Street, which reminded me of several other walking malls I've been on, except perhaps a bit seedier (how does one avoid panhandlers in Florida's mild climate?). We did stop at the Oldest Wooden Schoolhouse.

That was interesting, to see the pounded shell floor and the wooden pegs. Made of rot-resistant cedar, that building has stood for ... a long time.

My biggest frustration with St. Augustine was that I never felt like I had a handle on what exactly happened there in history. I wanted a sense of First Peoples, then Spanish colonials, then something else, all attached to rough dates. But instead I have snippets of history, apropos of nothing.

Perhaps it is a city that needed to be savored, not hurried through with more than a dozen other people, always knowing that fatigue, hunger, and general boredom would hit someone sooner rather than later. Snippets of pleasure, wrapped in a robe of fatigue and frustration, that's what I remember most.

(Again thank you to my sister-in-law for the lovely photos.)

December 22: Early Settlers

Most of the family went to a living history museum in St. Augustine, the first European settlement on the continent.

I came away with a renewed sense of just how easy my life is, by comparison. The earliest settlers would have had to produce everything from scratch. They made their own concrete, by taking shells and pounding them down to powder. Imagine the effort: locate the shells (perhaps eat the sea life inside), then pound with a stick for hours. And we thought it was challenging to make a concrete foundation using powdered concrete in a bag that simply required mixing. Drilling holes with a wooden dowel and some string. Aah! The tediousness!

Also, how lovely to live in a time and place where it is possible to simply purchase what is needed. It may be stressful, at times, to want to buy more than there is money for, but since nails are for sale, and clothes are for sale, and food is for sale, all of those do not have to be created out of the rough materials in the location. How much more challenging these last few years would have been if we had had to whittle wooden nails and tan deer skins (assuming we could shoot the deer first). Or go to gather foods, every day for every meal.

I'll take my freezer, even if a freezer sometimes fails, thank you.

After that small dose of 500 year back reality, the family enjoyed an afternoon on the beach.

I am not really a beach person (the sun assaults my skin; the sand assaults my skin; the wind and the salt water assaults my skin), but this was a pleasant few hours. Caleb slept through it, but we laughed and laughed at the boys.

Abraham, especially, was enthusiastic. He pretended to be a pirate, finding treasure, and he brought shell after shell up, laughing a theatrical "evil" laugh.

Joe played happily.

The sand was not good for superb sand castles, but all sand is good for digging.

The older boys flew kites.

Incredibly, Isaiah once let his go, but ran down the almost deserted beach and managed to catch it!

(Thank you to my sister-in-law for all these lovely photos!)