Author: Doris

Ruby’s breathing is more labored these days. She’s 12.5 years old now – and I’ve known her pretty much since she was born in the back of a Volvo in Austin, TX. She can’t walk as far or as fast as she used to, so I try and pay extra special attention to her. I bring her to barbeques with small children knowing that she’ll get to eat a hamburger or two fallen from people’s plates. I try to take her into the woods behind the house so she can swim in the creek for a few minutes. Today I watched her swimming and I remember those first summers in Austin where she would take a running jump off of a rock cliff and create an enormous splash into the deep water below. Today, she swam happily, but struggled to get out of the water with her fur weighed down with all that extra water in her fur. She came home and fell into a contented nap. Sweet girl. So lucky that we have each other…

Edda’s having a good summer. The first session of camp went well – she has a great 1-on-1 (who(m?) she has twice bitten (yipes! I warned her)) and they seem to make a great pair. She hasn’t fallen into funk or anything – oftentimes she seems very, very happy. But she also seems a little restless and bored. It’s no secret that Edda watches a lot of TV, but now, even when the TV is on, she will walk around the house looking for you. Maybe asking to try a little of whatever you are making for a snack, or maybe just to lean up against you for a little hug. Sometimes she seems happy with a snack, sometimes she just seems to be saying “I’m bored!!” She seems happiest watching TV while sitting on the toilet. Sometimes I’ll leave her on the toilet for 30 minutes listening to her laugh her head off and then at minute 28, I’ll hear the soft tinkle of peeing. I’m not sure she needed the 28 minutes of prep time on the toilet. I have no idea what’s going on. Today we decided to alleviate some of our own boredom by going to the farmer’s market.

This is a photo of the house on Wed morning. Early.

Vince is home from his week in the woods. Lots of dirty, wet clothes to wash. I missed him terribly. He’s still very quiet because he’s exhausted, so it’s not like having the “regular” Vince back yet. Jeremy is sick today. He had what Edda had earlier this week when camp called us to pick her up when she was not feeling well. I’m loving this long quiet weekend! We are just relaxing around each other, doing piddly little projects as we see fit.

And the video fun keeps going. A few days ago (maybe more than a week, now really), we went on a date where we found some Hungarian dancing going on. We joined in for a little bit and I really had a lot of fun. I do really enjoy folk dancing, I would love to do it all the time! They had built a gazebo on the National Mall with a raised wooden floor perfect for stomping. It doesn’t look like much here, but it was a total workout. This is apparently why I run a lot, so I don’t get winded doing Hungarian folk dances.

Edda having fun and working hard with Deb, her (and our) beloved OT.

I feel like I’m just catching up with the end of the school year even though summer is already 2 weeks over 🙂 Here’s Vince singing at an end of the year concert at school.

I am taking advantage of the relaxing days of this holiday – my final in microbiology was yesterday which I crammed for on Tuesday night and Wed morning. And now I’m done, done, done! I haven’t really had time to goof around for the last five weeks because of the demands of school, my job, the end of the school year and Jeremy traveling, so even though I had to work today and will have to work tomorrow, I’m so happy that things are quieter here.

Eliana (our au pair from 3 or 4 year ago) came to visit and stayed at the house for a week or so. It’s so nice to hear from these young women and to hear their stories about how they are growing up and figuring out how to become adults.

 

Vince is off to Boy Scout camp.  He is such a big kid now.  He picked out his own sunglasses at Target.  I think that maybe it ruins the whole “rugged, outdoorsman” image? 

Ruby had a play date today.  She stopped and smelled the drainpipe.

I’m happy and exhausted, I can’t wait for my microbiology class to be over simply because it’s taking up so much of my time and energy.   But I’m also having a lot of fun doing it.  Here’s a sample of my oral flora growing in a test tube, the yellower it is, the more bacteria in your mouth:

Last summer I completely booked (some may say overbooked) Vince’s summer – every week, there was camp or a trip or something or other and by the end of August, he was so unhappy that he never got a chance to hang out with his pals. So this summer, he’s only really booked the month of July and there is a lot of down time and family activities in June and August. Last night he took advantage of his week of total unstructured time and went over to a pal’s house for a sleepover, I think they must have gone to bed at 3 am because they didn’t get up until 11 am. I came home from class at 3:30 just in time to watch them make hash browns by smashing tater tots in a waffle iron. I think they learned how to do that on youtube. Sigh. I need my own summer break!!