Autumn
you always sneak up on us
With your cool, crisp morning air
And your ever darkening evenings
Your mums stand tall on the grocer’s shelves, waiting
for their new homes
Your pumpkins and gourds greet the neighbors
And your leaves, ahh, your leaves
Burst with color
and scatter like confetti all over
the yard.
Coffee, chocolate chip scone, and… sprints? Apparently that was in the cards for us today.
Maria wanted to bike to Stauf’s this morning – a welcome change from our Tim Horton’s runs. She asked if we could bike down the hill next to us and I told her that would mean she had to bike back up the hill. Surprisingly, she still wanted to do it. A very proud moment for me. And an even more incredible moment when she willed herself half way up the hill (which is steep) and then got off and walked it the rest of the way without complaining once.
We met Jon at Stauf’s and got chocolate chip scones and muffins. Mario told us how stars come from nebulous clouds – just a typical morning with our five year old son. Maria told me that she was going to be my coach and make me run on the track. So we headed to the track after breakfast and Ri timed me as I ran sprints.
“Move it lady!” she screamed at me. “Go faster!” She could definitely move straight into the army.
Mario and Jon arrived shortly after us and Mario dove right into my sprints… and push-ups. He is an animal. Maria and Jon timed us over and over.
Then Ri got into the mix and sprinted across the field to us. I am not sure what got into this girl of ours but she turned into a monster, too. She continued to sprint back and forth a few more times and then biked home. Love it!
Soon after we got home, Ri had to go to cheer leading. I was worried that she may peter out but she stayed strong belting out the cheers and kicking that leg up!
While at the game, my brother texted me about a gig he was playing at the riverfront. The kids have been wanting to see him play so I thought it would be perfect since I didn’t need to take them to a bar to see him! I told Ri to get dressed up like a rocker girl and she didn’t joke around! Blue eye shadow and all (dad was not pleased nor was I but we let it go this time!)
The kids made some quick friends with my law school friend’s kids. They all sat together waiting for Jack’s band to start. The Evan Oberla Project jammed it out.
Mario sat on the stone seat and watched the entire show getting up every once in a while to get out some dance moves and then chillin’ again in his seat. He loved it and even got a shout out from the band members who said he was by far the best dancer of the day. He was smitten!
We wrapped up the day the way I love most – with Jon’s yummy spaghetti and homemade meatballs. Heaven. Our cousin, Robert and my bro, Jack ate with us, too. What a treat, especially for M&M who idolize the both of them.
A full day for us – we will all be crawling into work and school tomorrow morning. But there is no other way to live!
I have had my fill of testosterone today.
Mario played his flag football game at 10:30 this morning. Patty and Joe came to watch the little guy and they brought mega luck with them because Mario played his best game ever. He pulled off three flags – he has never pulled off any in previous games. He was charged up pumping his fist in the air and making sure that the crowd watched him. Show off!
After football, we picked up Mario’s cousin, Giovanni, and headed to Darby Creek to take a hike. They were cracking me up the entire time. Mario wanted to take the off-road trails because “we needed to face danger.” They talked amongst themselves about finding snakes and toads. And about ten seconds later, they walked right over one. I stopped in my tracks and yelled “snake!” They ran back and another kid close by picked it up for us.
We continued along the trail and hit a most amazing clearing where the creek flowed more rapidly over giant stones and the sun filtered in to add a soft glow. The boys amazed me when they stopped in their tracks and proclaimed “take a picture – it’s beautiful!” We walked down to the edge of the creek and threw stones into the water. This led to the boys stepping on stones in the water to throw smaller stones. This led to the boys stepping into the water and getting their shoes wet. This led to taking their shoes off and wading in the water. This led to the boys falling in the water and getting their clothes wet. And this led to much laughter.
The boys played in the creek for a long time but Mario finally called it quits because he didn’t like being wet. We got home and the boys ran upstairs. I put down my stuff and went up to tell them they needed a bath but when I got up there, I found two naked boys already running around like tribal warriors. I turned on the bath water and listened to them fight dinosaurs and superheroes.
Boys.
Jon arrived on US soil this afternoon and will be waiting for me when I get home tonight. Ahhh. Feels great.
The week without him provided much laughter, a bit of stress, some crying, and a boatload of hugs and kisses. The run-down:
1.Wii tournaments with the neighbor kids who have gotten comfortable enough with us that they just walk through the door and yell “hi, anyone home?”
2. Mario made a new buddy – Quinn, one of the neighbor kids. Quinn has a head of strawberry curls and reminds me of Huck Finn. Mario stopped him on his bike Monday night to ask him to play at our house. Quinn said he wanted to ride his bike. Mario threw down his football and stomped up the yard to me to announce his displeasure. “He doesn’t want to play! I don’t like him!” After explaining why he may want to take a breath and re-think his proclamation against Quinn, he gently approached Quinn again and asked if he could come over after he rode his bike. Quinn agreed and they’ve been playing Wii ever since!
3. Maria strengthened her friendship with Sophie, the 3rd grade neighbor kid. I like Sophie because she never wants to play barbies and she loves being outdoors.
4. Mario got his first flag football picture taken on Tuesday night. What chaos! Forty 5 and 6 year olds running frantically around the park, tackling and wrestling each other. Mario may be tiny but he is mighty. He warmed my heart the way he wrapped his arms around his team members when the group picture was taken (you could barely see him in the middle – his little pea-head only popping out!).
5. We took two morning walks in the stroller and witnessed an extravagant sunrise one morning. We turned the corner onto First Avenue and BOOM, the oranges and peaches and reds hit us. No talking, no movement (except for my feet pressing the pavement). Just admiration of nature’s canvas.
6. Mario and I devoured two long john donuts for breakfast (each!).
7. Maria got to stroll Mario to school for the first time ever and she was charged! Mario usually flips out whenever Maria takes the reins but he was either too tired or in a magnanimous mood on Wednesday morning. Maria kept looking up at me in sheer delight. When Ri walked into school, Mario looked back at me with a sullen face and said “I wish Ri could stroller me all the way to my school.”
8. We met Grandma and Grandpa Ionno at Polaris Mall to deliver a Mario package to them. Mario ran to grandma as soon as he caught his eyes on her. He said “Gracias Amigo” to her to show her the extent of Spanish words he knows. When grandma replied “do you know any more Spanish words” he looked at her in deep thought and finally said “come on amigo!”
9. Ri and I had a girls night on Thursday and strollered to Orange Leaf at 8:30 pm when it was pitch black outside. We worked on Maria’s blog on the way – she wrote about horse back riding and how you have to concentrate when you ride. My darlin’ horse lover.
10. And now we end the week with Maria having her buddy over for a play date. Two feisty gals to contend with all night but I hope the park and bike riding will wear ’em out!
In honor of the voting season, the kids decided to replicate the O-H-I-O theme for Ohio State with a V-O-T-E theme for the elections in November. Mario conditioned being the letter “T” on a promise to get him on tv. Gotta love that kid – he wants star power badly! Meanwhile, Maria formed an “O” and shouted “”O” is in “vote” and in “Obama””!
I came inside to wait for Mario to get changed and got a tweet about Sarah Silverman’s voter fraud video. I laughed so hard that Mario ran over and hugged me because he thought I was crying.
Mario must have heard the last part of Silverman’s video about giving guns to kids because when we went to the car to go get gas he grabbed his gun from the back seat. He shouted “hey mom” to me. “Get a picture of me for that girl, mom!”
Oh, he’s trying anything to be a star! Who knows, he may be joking around with Ms. Silverman one day….
I planned a trip to Cincinnati with the kids for the entire weekend because Jon was heading to England Saturday morning. However, his trip got delayed so he informed me he’d be home all weekend. Lucky dog, I thought. But he really wanted me and the kids to stick around so I compromised and took the kids to Cincy after Mario’s game on Saturday and decided we’d come back Saturday night.
Mario is doing better and better with football. I think the key is to have Jon present; he likes impressing his dad and routinely looks over to Jon after a play and gives a “thumbs up” to him. He’s been running after the other players more and even dodged another player while running with the ball for his team. I must agree with one parent who mentioned to me “he will be really good next year with this practice.”
After the game, we headed down south with our popcorn, cheese pretzels, and powerades. Oh, and with National Geographic’s Wild Kratts show. Mario has been waiting patiently for it to arrive from another library and it was worth the wait. It had the Alaskan bears that Mario asked about every time a new show came on tv. Very cool.
Our trip to Cincy was like most other day trips down there. My mom and her husband describe it as a tornado coming through the house. Pretty accurate. My Aunt Julie, who lives across the driveway in the condo complex would likely describe it the same. The kids jump out of the cars, surprise mom and Rod, play with Lou and run over to Julie’s to say hi to her and Gracie and Liz and Maggie. It’s a cousin-fest! We break out the chips and candies and play with toys and make lots of noise. We tickle Gracie and pounce on Liz and Mag and act crazy. After that gets old, we head outside and show off our bike riding and toss the bouncey ball. Within a few minutes, we are ready for the park. Gracie gets in the stroller, Maria and Mario get on their bikes and we head north to the park where cousin Laura meets up with us. She swings Maria and Grace while I play with Mario and mom walks Lou. The kids put on a show for us that I want to kick myself for not recording. Of course, Maria emcees it and Mario and Grace do funny dances and songs.
After the play, we moved onto the main playground where Maria decided to take an eight foot fall off the slide. I knew she was hurt when I picked her up and she cried incessantly. She brushes off most falls but this one hurt. We carried her to the “ambulance” (Laura’s car) and transported her back to my mom’s. The only thing that would help calm Ri’s pain was Larosa’s spaghetti and meatballs so we ordered from there. I devoured a veggie pizza, and the kids ate garlic bread, pizza and spaghetti. We had worked up an appetite.
After Larosa’s, we hit the outdoors again for some cheer leading lessons from Ri who may be the world’s strictest coach ever. She showed me a cheer and then I tried it. She looked at me with sheer disgust. “Oh, Mary, that was not good….” So much for a gentle touch! Meanwhile, Mario and Laura threw the ball up on the carport roof and watched it bounce down. Mario thought it was the coolest activity ever but he could not get it up to the roof like Laura. It would bounce under the carport and over the small fence behind the cars and we’d spend ten minutes looking for it acting like it was lost treasure when we found it! Mario finally bounced it up to the roof and his smile was as wide as it was long when he turned to me. “I did it,Mom!”
Laura took off for Oktoberfest and we headed inside for baths. The water looked like the Olentangy when the bath ended. The kids both wore goggles and laid parallel to one another to see who could hold their breath the longest. What a sight to behold. Two white round butts in the air attached to two tanned still bodies trying to beat each other in under water breath holding. Mom and I stood over them in awe and joy. They’d come a long way since the nights of bottles and binkies and crying at 2 am.
We ended the night with ice cream and the Dog Whisperer. Maria sat mesmerized by the show while Mario concentrated on making letters with marbles. We looked down and he had spelled “Rex.” He is a Ben Ten fanatic.
We dragged ourselves out to the car, got situated with a movie, and started our journey back home to Jon.
The tornado struck Cincy again but the destruction was well worth it, as always.
I spent this morning talking to Maria and Mario about the project that we are going to work on with homeless families at the Y two weeks from now. Maria asked if we could take some stuffed animals to the kids so they could hold them when they felt scared. Mario handed me a transformer and told me he wants to give it to one of the kids.
They give me hope in humanity and our future!
But the Onion brings me back to reality with this article. Thank god for its humor to get me through Friday and to the weekend!
Our Bobcat
heading off to school
But not before she
belted out a cheer
“Come on everybody
You gotta rock with the blues
And roll with the whites!”
Who would have thought?
Me with a cheerleader
daughter.
But she’s taught me not
to judge.
She is one heck of a
party animal and
enjoys a good time.
She cheers to:
Excite people,
Foster camaraderie,
Root for her team,
Talk to her friends,
And maybe eat a hot dog or two
at half-time….
The bike trail led us to our rocky alcove along the Scioto River where we have planted ourselves on Sunday mornings for years. It provides a refuge from the traffic and the noise and the bustling of people grabbing coffees, grocery shopping or heading to church.
Ri and Mario transcended down the rocky bank towards the river staying alert for unique rocks. Mario threw a hefty stone in the water and watched the splash. He continued to find rocks progressively bigger in size to see how much bigger his splash would be. Maria hunted for rocks for us to take home for our garden.
I had considered trying out a new church today. I hunted for a few on the internet last night while the kids slept. I struggle with the feeling that we should have a gathering place on Sunday mornings where we worship beside others and sing songs and reflect. Jon and I have not put our energies in our local church for numerous reasons; the number one reason for me being that I feel like it’s hypocritical. I believe in women leaders, gay rights, womens’ choice and the church, at least at the highest ranks, does not. The non-denominational churches I found last night seemed promising but I still feel hesitant. And as I stood on the bank of the Scioto watching M&M, I couldn’t help but notice how joyful and soulful and grounded I felt being outside amongst the trees and water and birds.
When we walked together along the path and paused to watch a brown and yellow-spotted butterfly flutter around a bunch of flowers, I was grateful for the quiet moment with my munchos.
We came upon a part of the trail that had a clearing leading down to a wide patch of lily pads. When we passed the last large oak and the sky opened up, we saw all of the lilies spread along the river. A couple of ducks swam through them. The kids stared at the scene and Mario tried out his duck calling sounds (hilarious). Maria tried clapping to a beat to help Mario but still no ducks came our way.
On our way back to our stroller, Maria spotted a buckeye on the ground. Then another. We were under a buckeye tree. Mario found a nut eventually and took much pride in splitting it in two. The buckeyes inside were so shiny. I hit a branch with a throng of nuts and it was like gold dropped from the heavens. The kids scurried around grabbing the nuts and piling them up. The nuts brought great joy especially when Mario packed them in his sweater pockets and acted like a pregnant woman.
We laughed hysterically all the way back to the stroller as Mario kept “having babies” on the way back when the nuts fell out of his pockets. We dropped the nuts off at the stroller and headed down to throw more rocks in the river before riding home. Maria chimed “you need to take our river picture, mom!” We have a tradition of getting pictures at the river with each season. Fall is not technically here but it felt like it this morning at 50 degrees.
We left the river two hours after arriving – a tad longer than we would have been at a church – and felt all the more rejuvenated and full of spirit as we eased into a Sunday afternoon.
I keep thinking back to this week to figure out what I did to deserve the hell I am in this afternoon.
Two full hours at Chuck E. Cheese. With what seems like multiplying kids. And even more multiplying screaming, irritated adults. And they advertise this place as fun?! I guess it is to the kids who they advertise to but they really need a warning to parents that you need to take a relaxant before stepping foot inside or you may think about walking right out to the interstate.
My only memory of Chuck E. Cheese was as a seventh grader in Pleasant Ridge. We had a Chuck E. Cheese down the street and it hosted “Tween” night on Friday nights. My girlfriends and I would put on our sweet jeans with safety pins up the side hems (to make them tight) and our fancy shirts and head out to dance to the pop music blaring from the mices’ mouths. Creepy? Sure. But we knew nothing better.
Now I only know Chuck E. Cheese as an over-the-top, loud, raucous, mind-numbing, dizzying land where even some adults floor me with their intensity for playing more, More, MORE!
Maria is loving just being with her girlfriends. She has a group of gals she loves to play with at school and they are all here today to celebrate a birthday. They are playing Guitar Hero and random sweet, calm games (bowling and froggy jump).
Mario, on the other hand, is utterly overloaded. Too many games and videos, and stuff. He doesn’t know which way to go next. He loves the shooting games, especially zombie ones (he must know they are coming soon!). He adores skee ball just like I did as a kid. And he has taken to a pirate game. What am I saying? He’d pretty much play anything here and like it. And he is of course all into getting the most tickets.
After I settled into the noise and chaos and had a couple of slices of pizza, I found myself getting a tad more tolerant of it all. I put myself into the kids’ shoes and imagined the wonder and excitement they would obviously feel walking into this place. It’s like Vegas for kids. But the tolerance quickly faded after a 200 pound kid crushed into me as he chased after his friend to beat him to a video game.
Which way to the interstate?!
"MOM!" 