Garden Grown

Just a little recap of our first summer gardening on the "wet side" of the state.  It is so, so, so, so much easier to plant the types of veggies that we actually eat when the temperatures are reasonably going to stay above freezing for the whole summer.  What a difference!

One of my co-workers has a greenhouse and she sold a ton of veggie starts to raise money for the Oregon Food Bank. We planted three types of tomatoes, plus peppers and basil. Because our house was still very much a construction zone during planting season, we stuck to containers this year.  The kids brought home pea starts that got added to the pots, but really needed more room.  Our only major setback was an experiment with organic fertilizer.  The fertilizer was fine... so wonderfully enriched with fish meal, in fact, that Hudson dug through all our pots in under 10 minutes the first time we fertilized. Lesson learned - all pots now go up on a bench or table after fertilization.  And, for just $10, Sarah supplied us with replacement starts for our lost tomatoes.

All summer, Owen would diligently tell our friends that we had three types of tomatoes: Brandywine, Cherry, and Early Girl... "but our early girls are NOT very early." After the replanting, in fact, the early girls were the LAST to actually bloom and fruit.

Scott built these awesome bench/planters to replace our collapsing (or collapsED) deck railing, so the pots got a serious upgrade and access to MUCH better sun about halfway through the summer.  Our peppers were very happy about the switch, and I ended up very happy that I hadn't yanked the "not producing" pepper plants out too early. Instead, we were pulling fresh peppers and tomatoes through October.


 

Then, another co-worker gave us a pile of strawberry plants, so the kids and I built a makeshift planter bed using the trunks of a couple cedar trees that we lost last winter.  Owen and Josh diligently went to work making stringing rainbow yarn around the bed to ward off iguanas.  You know, because "there are a lot of iguanas in Portland and iguanas LOVE strawberries." 

We were late planting the strawberries, so I wasn't expecting any berries this year. In the end, we got three berries, each the size of Josh's pinky finger... and the boys insisted in sharing each one. Very cute.

 

 

When Sarah brought us our replacement plants, she also added in a sunflower start, thinking the boys would like watching it grow.  Was she ever right!  That plant started just 4 inches tall, hardly distinguishable from the strawberry plants.  We took measurements against Owen's body - ankle... knee... waist... shoulder... and by July, it was already as tall as Owen, and I thought we should probably start taking pictures. 

July

August

September required a stool to get the full effect.  

Gardening with the boys was something that we all enjoyed and certainly an easy "passive" educational opportunity. Owen eats anything that comes out of the garden and I could probably live on tomato and basil recipes. I'm hopeful that less work on the house next spring will give us a chance to build at least one raised planter and try our hand at lettuce, squash, carrots and some fall veggies like broccoli.

Big Emotions

Sometimes the goodbye is harder the second time around.

This afternoon we got an unexpected visit with the Krause family (Bloom School owners) while they were here in PDX for a swim meet. With busy family schedules, I knew better than to tell the boys about the visit until we had the logistics confirmed, so it ended up being a post nap surprise: "Let's go see Stephanie, David, Caleb, and Elijah!"

Owen was thrilled. Just the other day he said out of the blue, "Do you know who I miss more than anyone else in Bend? Caleb."

Josh wanted to make sure the details were clear. "Stephanie?" yes. "aaand Dave?" yes. "Let's go!!"

Ironically, Josh was then particularly shy in those first moments with David, but didn't hesitate to hop up on his hip for the trip inside the pool building. Afterwards we joined the swim families for pizza dinner where Caleb and Owen played at top pace and Elijah watched out for Josh among the big kids. And then... It was time to go.

Josh dispensed multiple rounds of hugs and high fives, while Caleb and Owen sulked. It seemed pretty par for the course. Owen hates goodbyes. Thankfully, Stephanie and David have a wee bit of experience with 5 year old emotions and didn't take it personally when Owen wouldn't even make eye contact. And then, the sniffling began, followed by quivering lip, crocodile tears, shaking shoulders, and devastated wail of a very, very sad boy collapsed in my arms.

I hurt watching my son hurt. The heartaches are definitely worse than the physical bumps and bruises. Obviously some of the emotion was driven by the general excitement/exhaustion cycle of the day, but I also know that Owen does feel loss from our move and watching the Krause Family walk away reaffirmed that loss in that moment.

On the other hand, I would not trade these chances to reconnect with our Bend people when they are in Portland. PEOPLE are the reason we were so sad to leave and PEOPLE are what keeps drawing us back.

So, I hugged my kids a little closer tonight, reassured them that it's okay to feel sad, and promised that we will have more fun afternoons with old friends before the summer is over. We'll make sure a visit to Bloom school is on top of the list our next time back in Bend.

Around Town

One thing everyone said to us before we moved was, "There is sooo much to do in Portland." Absolutely right. In some ways, the choices are daunting.  I am a self admitted "information-aholic" and I loved being able to keep track of things going on around Bend. In Portland, there's just too many things to try and track... what a problem, right?  Thankfully, before we moved, we made a list of the things we wanted to do in Portland - urban outings and everyday adventures.  Even in the midst of the wettest spring on record (awesome, awesome), we managed to cross quite a few things off our list including two visits to both the Children's Museum and Oregon Zoo, three visits to Tryon Creek State Park, and FINALLY made good on our promise to take the boys on the Aerial Tram (with a pre-visit breakfast at Pine State Biscuts - an easy new favorite.) Scott also scored a big winner and convinced me to check out a little brew house in Tigard. Max's Fanno Creek Pub turns out to have great beer, a wide fresh food selection, and two (yes TWO) areas for the kids to play. Yep, three check marks on that one, too!

My picture taking skills are seriously lacking, but I wanted to drop in a few from our spring in-ings and outings.

Josh helping Scott survey the land.

Happy Birthday to Me! Our lack of oven at the time "forced" Scott to pick up an ice cream cake.

I still have no idea how both boys ended up inside that dishwasher box, but new appliance boxes make awesome building materials.

 Yes folks, "A Fort for Everyone!... but closed at night."

 Who wants to watch TV on the couch when you have perfectly good camping chairs on hand?

First of three visits to Tryon Creek Park.

Um, yes, Josh dresses himself.  This is a sweatshirt, swim shorts, tennis shoes (with no socks), and on this particular day, the sun was finally showing up. Josh looked at all of us in our sunglasses, declared, "I need a hat!" and returned outside 3 minutes later wearing this...

Our first visit to the Children's Museum coincided with "Super Hero Day." All staff dressed in costumes, cape making workshops for kids, and other hero activities. Somehow, Star Wars characters got roped in with super heroes. Puzzling? Yes. Awesome? Absolutely. What's better than a giant Chewbacca trying to maneuver through several hundred star struck gradeschoolers and their terrified younger siblings?  Owen was in awe. Josh, not so much.

 We again braved the crowds to hit the Easter Egg hunt at the Zoo. Actually, a very well organized and crowd deterring event. They run hunts every 20 minutes all day long with the lawn roped off for all the age categories. Plus, lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

 Grandma saved us with mailed Easter baskets for the kids.

We also pulled our act together and got ourselves to a church on Easter Sunday.  I was dreading having to drag the kids through service after service trying to find a "church home." Thankfully the internet provides ample opportunity to dig through basic theology and get an idea of the life of various churches before walking in the front door.  We feel like we've found a fit on our first visit!  Thriving, growing congregation with a solid teaching team and tons of activities.  Owen loves his pre-K room and Josh is now comfortable (after 4 visits) in the 2's room.

Amid all the work on the house and trying to manage enough outings and activities to keep us all excited about Portland, it's nice to be find some rhythm to our days and weeks and church on Sunday is a critical piece of the puzzle.

Now, if only we could stop setting rain records...

A Season of Change

Understatement: We've had an eventful transition to Portland.

We knew the transition would be interesting with the work to do on the house, and I think we've been taking it all in stride, but I realized just how crazy things have been when I found myself texting Sara:

"Sorry we didn't call you back last night. The new furnace broke, Scott was puking, and the kids were asking to hug the repair man goodnight." Just another run of the mill evening in the Maxwell House!

I have been feeling overwhelmed by the thought of trying to get up to date on our recent activities, so a string of random updates will have to do.

THE HOUSE

The good news is that we have new carpet, new appliances, and fresh paint on most of our walls.  Also, next year we won't have to buy a new furnace.  Odd happenings with the house have included:

- Pondering why the prior owners stripped the house of various light fixtures, all toilet paper holders, and the oven racks (?!?!) and yet left all 12 attachments for the central vac system.

- The HVAC tech inspecting our heat pump system only to proclaim, "I figured out your problem. You have a heat pump thermostat, but you don't have a heat pump." An hour later he also notified me our 25 year old furnace was cracked and had to be shut down.

- Realizing that most of our walls were a near match to the "color" of primer.  Not anymore!

- Wondering why people so opposed to color in 90% of the house would paint the TV room two shades of bright pink/orange to match navy/turquoise window coverings.

- Spending our first month without use of the oven or microwave.  Certainly a first world problem, but it really stymied me when we couldn't even take n' bake pizza.

- Marveling at the loveliness of hexagon shaped sinks.

- Having an extra fridge rotating around various rooms of our house. Our garage fridge from Bend was a lifesaver our first month here before we got our appliances. It was slated to slide perfectly into a space in the garage. A space that quickly got consumed by the new, wider, furnace. Plan B?

While it sounds like a never ending project, which will be true for a while, we are loving other aspects of the house - the giant playroom, the big backyard, good storage spaces, and a layout that seems to be fitting nicely with our daily rhythm.  In the end, those are the things that matter. Paint and ugly fixtures can all be changed over time.

THE WEATHER

We were lucky enough to move to Portland just in time to experience the wettest March on record.  As a stormwater engineer, this is wonderful for my career, but pretty brutal on our high dessert psyche.  We spent a good deal of time marveling at the lake that consumed much of our backyard for our first weeks in the house. Thankfully these few dry days have helped us avoid being a headline: "Drainage Engineer Buys Flooding House." We did lose two cedar trees in a late march snow and I've worn my raincoat more in the last month than I did in the last 5 years, but six years in the high desert didn't completely override our Seattle webbed feet.  

Our kids are another story.  Owen hates his raincoat, refuses to wear rain boots, and is really frustrated that he can't spend his days outside.  We keep telling him spring and summer are coming, but I knew we were going a little stir crazy when we got a brief hour of midday sun and my kids whipped out the deck chairs, stripped down, and played in the SNOW STILL MELTING ON OUR DECK.

THE TRANSITION

Needless to say, we have resorted to some unusual tactics to manage the behavior challenges that come with this time of transition and limited opportunities for outside/big muscle play.  After several weeks of what felt like an endless battle trying to keep Owen in line, avoid scenes from WWF/Fight Club, and dealing with meltdowns right and left, we sat down one morning and wrote down some basic "Behavior Rules."  I decided to just pick a few behaviors to focus on, and believe me, for several days, it felt like every other sentence out of my mouth was, "remember our behavior rules."

Owen's list: Give People Space, Use Polite Words, Stay at the Table While Eating, Listen to Mom and Dad, Happy Attitude!

Josh's list: Use your Words, Say Please and Thank You, Listen to Mom and Dad, Stay in your Seat When Eating, Hapy Attitude!

Mom's list - yes, I needed one too: No Yelling, Say Please and Thank You, Do What is On the List, Happy Attitude!

Notice how I sneak in  a rule for me that really focuses on getting the kids in line?  "Do what is on the list" refers to sticking to my to do list or the daily plan, which the kids and I talk about every morning.  By having that be one of my rules, it seems to have helped to combat the constant protests whining I was encountering whenever we needed to run an errand or tackle a project around the house.  

Actually, those lists went up about a month ago, and I'm happy to report that they didn't make the transition to the new fridge when it was installed. Seems like things are looking up!

OTHER NEWS

I'm also pleased to report that the speech progress that Josh was making before we moved seems to have continued through the transition. In fact, they hired a new teacher for their daycare a few weeks ago, and the FIRST comment she made to me when I picked up the kids on her first day was, "Man, that Josh, he certainly has a lot to say, doesn't he?"  Not bad for a kid who was barely saying single words 6 months ago!

Funniest quote of the day from Owen: "A manatee? I know about manatees. They turn into mermaids." ??what??  "Yes, see their life cycle goes from baby manatee to adult manatee to mermaid!  Or merman... or mer-girl... or mer-boy." 

In Transition

Last Monday, the kids and I, along with my most amazing Mother-in-law, loaded into the car, dropped the dog at the kennel, and drove to Portland. Our plan? Temporarily join Scott at the guest house he has been staying at until we could move into our new house over the weekend. It wasn't ideal - the house is located convenient to Scott's work, which means an hour of driving each way to get the kids to daycare and then me to work. But, it was only for 4 days and the kids would be in school for three of them, so we could just plan quick dinners, knowing they would be eating most meals at school. We were even able to leave most of the toys and entertainment behind, knowing that it would come in the moving truck on Saturday. We took a deep breath and sputtered into our first week in Portland.

Now, the following Monday... Well, I'm still sitting in the same guest house prepping for our second week of crazy living. Our plan has not turned out how we expected, but we're doing just fine and looking forward to getting settled THIS week. Yes, we can survive with a lot less stuff (though more than 4 pair of underwear would sure be nice!). Yes, our kids are doing great in a house not set up for kids. Yes, we have had some great luck to make this work another week... but honestly, I really want my own stuff in my own house. We're ready to get settled and start finding our groove.

This weekend (which for me is Fri-Mon), was an adventure. Remember, it's Portland in Winter and we have no toys or art supplies... We went to IKEA, Home Depot, and Sears trying to decide on new appliances. Josh only wanted to ride the escalators and disassemble display vacuums. Owen can spot a TV by feel from across the store. I imagine we are going to have quite a few date nights at home improvement stores, so we can actually both look at the same item at the same time.

The kids and I have had a "dry run" at exploring a new town. We've been to parks, the library, and several different grocery stores, though we will have to explore all over again when we get settled across town. I actually got teary at story time on Friday. I'm looking at all these kids with moms or nannies and missing my friends (of course), but it felt so pointless to even be there since I'm not likely to cross paths with that set of potential friends again. On the other hand, it gives me courage to strike up conversation with whoever us sitting next to me when we get to story time in OUR neighborhood.

Thank goodness i ranomly tossed a dozen kids books in my car for the drive. Glad to have more options than "If you give a pig a pancake" for day 8 of this adventure. Also, the library let us get a card without proof of address, so we are rolling in the books! The weather cooperated today and we enjoined 90 minutes at a playground. Downside, Owen decided he needed the bathroom (after me asking repeatedly at the grocery store right before). Park bathrooms are closed for winter, so I let him poop in a pile of leaves. Can't be worse then a dog owner, right? Also witnessed an awesome group of kids and teachers from a nearby preschool. Again confirming that there are lots of great preschools in Portland... Across town from where I need them.

 Today we tried to combine exploration and a healthy snack and set out for a juice bar I found online. I repeatedly ignored my GPS and (duh) found myself in a mess of one way streets and bike routes. Quick detour to a frozen yogurt place i can see in the rear view mirror. I insist the kids top their yogurt with fruit, which they do without objection. And then josh eats around every single raspberry to successfully eat only chocolate for snack. Parenting fail. Followed buy dinner fail because he's too full and amped up on sugar to sit and eat more than a handful of cheese.

Staying at "Jane's House" has been eye opening for both Scott and I. Jane has Scott exploring the benefits of a plant-based, whole foods diet. He's trying to eat as vegan as possible... At least during the day, 'cause our kids need the animal fats for developing brains. I'm attempting to be vegetarian for Lent (just because 40 days seems like a good amount of time to test)... But i'm also taking full advantage of the "feast day" on sundays. Bacon anyone?

Jane's house is newly renovated and fully Ikea. I'm enjoying all her touches and finding that my design preference is much more modern than I thought. Great for inspiration as we move into the new house.

We are finding creative ways to burn energy and give the kids a chance to use those big muscles. They have had a week of new school, new house, shifting sleeping arrangement, new rules, etc. add to that our constant requests to slow down, use a quiet voice, stop jumping, no running, etc (all in an attempt to respect the other folks at Jane's who did not sign up for "family" housing!) it's a wonder they aren't totally losing it. Today, we hopped like frogs (or lunatics to all the people watching) all the way down the street to our car, played line tag in front of the frozen yogurt place, and tried running backwards and in circles through a parking lot. Maybe I'm the one that's losing it!

Our top highlight from this week in transition was driving home from dinner last night. The kids were yelling randomly in the back seat, which normally drives us crazy, but this time Scott decided to join them. The four of us had a "who's the loudest?" yelling contest all the way back to Jane's. The kids needed the freedom to be LOUD after a week of restraint, and Scott and I discovered a fantastic way to release some stress. Yell louder!!!

Hopefully this time next week, I'll be posting from our house, but if you see a Honda pilot drive by with four people screaming at the top of their lungs... Just send chocolate.