New England Mamas

When the rain stops in for a few days

We have had a series of amazingly fun thunderstorms. Fun? Oh yes, we are big fans of the thunderstorm in my family. Especially when it's steaming hot outside and all of a sudden a front moves in, the sky starts to rumble (my son used to think it was God farting) and the lighting puts on a fabulous show. As soon as we hear the first of the thunder, we're likely to hightail it onto our front porch, which is screened in and overlooks the hill we live on right down to the street.

Across the big expanse of lawn we can see the first droplets hit the treetops, and then we count to see if we can guess exactly when the downpour will begin. Once it does, we move as close to the steps as we can, so we can stand right under the waterfall of rain from the porch roof without getting wet. The water falls in sheets there because our gutters, well they kinda suck. But that's OK because we LIKE the way the water falls.

As the rain pours down, the ground can't absorb the amount of water and puddles start to occur. First one right in front of the steps, and then as the rain continues, a river begins to take shape flowing down our driveway. We're on a big hill with a long drive that curves in the middle, and watching the river accumulate is like watching the Mississippi overflow it's banks in miniature. It's a wonderful lesson in erosion, too. The sides of the driveway start to crumble and little bits of the dirt wash away with each storm.

The lightening shows we get here are wonderful. The crack and boom of each forked bit of electricity makes the afternoon sky, all filled with gray clouds and dark ominous rain clouds light up like a county fairgrounds. When the lightening  first starts to light up the sky, we count the seconds until we hear the rumble of the thunder. This tells us how far away the storm is. As it gets closer we all get excited. The kids run from the back porch to the front porch to see which side of the house will get the first drops. Sometimes they'll stick their hands out from underneath the porch roof just to get wet.

If it's hot enough, I'll take my big golf umbrella and just walk out into the storm on our front lawn. It's a grand way to cool off if the storm is not actually overhead. I like to walk in the puddles barefoot and feel like I"ma little kid again.

The rain comes and goes all summer. Right now we've had a storm every day, and soon it will be hot and dry again. I'll miss the rain, but it will return for another viewing very soon. That's one of the great joys of living in New England.

The Webster Triathlon Course

What a week!  I realize that I'm posting this a little later today than I normally do.  It's been a crazy week starting with a triathlon I did on Sunday.  I thought I would write about it because it's the same course being used for the Danskin Women's Triathlon next month in Webster MA or so I've been told.  Definitely check it out on-line for yourself though!  It's a pretty big deal out here in New England, and I know a couple of New England Mamas who plan on being in the race.  I won't name names just in case you've changed your mind, though! 

Honestly, I had been pretty worried about this course.  I take that back.  I had been specifically worried about one part of the course:  the biking.  It seems like people who didn't even know what sports are in a triathlon knew one thing about the Webster triathlon:  the hill in the biking.  I kept hearing about the dread hill.  It sounded like cycling up this hill should be a sport of its own.  I was so nervous about this hill that my hands were shaking the night before the triathlon when I was pumping my tires and I let out all of my pride and self-confidence the air in my front tire.  There  may be some rumors that I then freaked out because I thought I had a flat.  I have no idea what that was all about, and since my husband was out of town for most of this week, he is also not in a position to confirm the rumor even if it were true.

Back to this hill, I am breaking from the pack, as it were, and writing this post to tell you not to worry about it.  Really, it was not that bad. I was picturing something like Mt. Everest so honestly I didn't even know I had gone over it.  When I looked back (figuratively) I know which hill it must have been, but at the time I didn't think it was The hill.   Good luck and have a great time.  It really is a fun course and I loved the swimming part. 

Add It Up

Hey Bostonian Mamas,

Care to add to this list on Alpha Mom?  It's titled "50 Things To Do with Kids around Boston Before They Grow Up".    It was a lot of fun to write, but I also love getting new suggestions!  Plus, you can see some cute photos of the kiddos.

This weekend, Fairly Odd Father and I have a hotel in the city for a  bow-chicka-wow-wow evening a deux.  If you'd like to add a "Few Things To Do with your Spouse in Boston Before You Turn 41", please feel free to comment here.

What's a Rolling Rally, you ask?

The rest of the country hates us when it comes to sports. I think they're jealous. Let's fact it, New England has been just a tad bit dominant in American sports recently. Heh.

I think this photo says it all.

Yup, I was at the Celtics rally this morning. This makes my 3rd rally since 2004. It's too cold out for the Patriots. And I'm not really a football fan. I love my Boston Red Sox with all my heart, but I'm a pretty happy Celtics fan these days. It's been 22 years since the Celts last won the finals, and it's been a tough time to be a fan of the NBA in general. All those thugs, all that bad press. And Kobe. Ugh. So not a star.

However, if you think I'm going to miss a rally on such a gorgeous day, you just don't know me very well. I live for the rally. I love to scream as loud as I can and cheer on my teams. I love to see the players up close and personal.

In Boston we know how to do a rally right. We line up the duck boats and load them with players, their family and friends, and we intersperse confetti machines.

We pack the streets 30 to 50 people deep, all wearing the green.

We set off the confetti as the duckboats roll through.

Music is blasting,

People are hanging out their office windows.

The players are having the time of their lives.

They're smoking cigars in honor of Red Auerbach.

And holding up the MVP trophy.

The fans are going nuts!

Kevin Garnett is wearing 10 carats of diamonds in those ears. They're HUGE.

Doc Rivers looks so psyched

Paul Pierce is having a really good day.

Ray Allen looking good despite his baby son's recent juvenile diabetes diagnosis.

House and son.

Yeah, we know how to celebrate in this city. And evidentially, we know how to know how to play sports.

Now it's time to turn back to baseball. Go Red Sox!

Biking Up a Wall

For a while now I've been hearing how scary the bike course is for the triathlon I'm doing on Sunday.  For all you New Englanders, this is the Webster course aka the course used for the Danskin women's triathlon in MA.   I have to admit, I've been getting a little nervous about it. In spinning, the instructor had us similate this course since she's done it herself quite a few times. I wasn't thrilled about it by any means, but then again it did seem doable. However, in spinning class, each person sets the resistance of their own bike (there are no numbers are anything to mark how much you have added) and I worried that perhaps the "hill" that I created by tightening the resistance was more of a bump.

Because time has been flying faster than I can pedal, I just haven't had time to go practice this course. After yet another conversation about the hill with another veteran of the course, I came to one conclusion: it must be like riding a bike up a wall. I needed to go see the course for myself. As I told my husband, I wasn't worried about getting hurt; I was worried about hurting my pride when I fell off my back at .1 mile an hour because of the steepness of the hill and my clipless pedals.

This evening all both boys, my husband and I piled into the car and went to look at the course. So it's not as bad as a wall, but it definitely is steep. Plus it's on a busy road. I've been told it will be like the other triathlon and they will have the police there to manage traffic. The only thing scarier to me than stopping is going downhill on a busy road with a traffic light.

Will it ever be over?

Unlike most of the rest of the country, my kids are still in school. I know... it seems to last forever and yet it's never long enough! We've got one more week before they're out for the summer.

I'm of mixed emotions. I have to admit, I love tossing the alarm clock and knowing that I won't have to see 6:30 am again until September.  Sleep is very important to teenagers and for a couple of months they'll get enough to keep them on a fairly even keel. I hope.

I also love having them around much of the time. Despite what you might have heard, I like my kids and I enjoy their personalities and their wit. Most of the time. I like doing things together with them, I like when their friends come over and I can eavesdrop on conversations and find out what the heck is going on in their lives. I like when they come up with bizarre ways to entertain themselves.

However, they eat like starving grizzly bears, they are the messiest human beings on earth, and they tend to argue. A lot. It's never nice and peaceful for very long around here. My son tends to entertain his friends here more than he ever goes anywhere else. There will be 2 or 3 day marathons of video games, shouting, eating the shelves bare, and taking over my house. I think it's better that they are here than if they were unsupervised someplace else. But OMG, the noise, the mess!

My daughter leaves school and the second she is off the property, every single thing she has learned all year empties out of her head. I've never seen anything like it. It's as if she does this brain dump in the parking lot. As summer progresses she gets dumber and dumber. By the end of summer I'm ready to scream in frustration. I must say "THINK" about 3 million times a day. She totally loses the ability to think, read, or write come summer.

Summer is also the time when I become a professional chauffer for my kids. "Mom, take me here." "Mom, I need it NOW". This will be the last summer, because they'll finally turn 16 at the end of August and then the fun really begins.

Driving lessons.

Oh lord, kill me  now.

So maybe I shouldn't be so anxious for school to be over after all. I can't even imagine what kind of hell it will be once they learn to drive.

The Kingdom of Frogs.

Here I am, writing yet again in a distracted funk, while the Impling pretends to float and fly and kick in the waters of imagination as a floppy purple frog named Alice.

Or, it might just be a real frog. The first frog.

Today, we went to Griggs Park.

And there, in the spring smelling air, surrounded by stray sand from the box, and toddler gymnasiums, the Impling had an experience.

"I want to go to Griggs park and catch my own frogs...with this dish!" she declares now, holding up her black cauldron (initially purchased for use as a Halloween candy repository) but now premoted to "Frog catcher". Appropriate, don't you think?

Yes, we are writing this together.

So there we were, eating, (and not eating) our lunch on a wooden bench beneath the pine cone shedding trees, when a boy approaches.

He is a little older than the Impling, but not by much. He has a broad wonderful grin, a wonderful laugh, and a cookie bin. A Trader Joe's cookie bin. Without the cookies, but with something infinateley better inside.

Two, hoppy, green and brown spotted...

"what were they?" the Impling looks up at me with sparkling eyes:

"FROGS!!!" she cries. Now melancholy is in her face.

"I miss the frogs. I want to see the frogs. Froooggggssss!"

Yes. Two frogs.

"I want to catch one of my own!" says the Impling as she looks over my arms and fingers as they type type type away, and then I get a kiss and a huge grin.

Have I mentioned I LOVE hanging out with my Impling. I can even write with her.

"I can even frog." adds the Impling.

Anyhow. There were frogs. In the cookie bin. And the Impling thought this was the BEST THING EVER.

Time stopped. The Impling and the boy looked at the frogs, watched them climb, and jump and crawl and try to get away. The boy lifted one little frog, gently gently, and placed it into the Impling's open hand.

"How did it feel, Impling?"

"It felt good. Impling hugged the frog!" The Impling blows out her cheeks like little vocal sacs and places her palms over them.

"Frog" she says. "I want to go to Griggs Park and find frogs! FROOOGS!" she declares.

"Let's wrap this up" says the Impling.

I have only one thing to add. Language. Overrated. The little boy and the Impling said not one word to one another. They shared, they watched ,they laughed and played. But even if they had wanted to communicate in something other than the innately wonderful language they already had, it would have been impossible.

Because the boy spoke only Russian.

The Impling, her own version of the English language.

And yet, they are friends.

Smile from the Impling.

"I want. To. Wrap that up."

"I want to hug."

"I want to see the Frogs."

Lets talk about gardening, shall we?

There are few people hardier than the New England gardener. Whether you grow vegetables, perennials, or just a few annuals, gardening here in the 6 New England states can be tantamount to an exercise in frustration.

We have poor soil. Ahem. Actually the soil is really rich and dark. Unfortunately, it's not overly abundant. What we do have in abundance are rocks. We're very lucky to have plenty of rocks. Granite, after all, is a New England resource.

We have cold weather. Most people want to get the garden in May 1st. In reality, most people can't get the entire garden in until June 1st. It rains a lot in May, and it seems that it rains on weekends  when we have more time to garden than any other days of the week.

We have really  hot weather in June. New England isn't known for it's gorgeous spring. Mostly because we really don't have spring. We have mud season. It goes from freezing cold to rainy and cold to hella hot. So gardening means working very early in the morning or in the late afternoon. The two times I have the least amount of energy possible.

We have a ridiculously short growing season. In North Carolina you can put in a bunch of tomatoes in February and watch them keep producing until December. That's a lot of tomatoes. But here in New England, that's just a pipe dream. We plant in June, in August we get tomatoes, by October the plants have been killed by frost. It's quite the ego bust to think you're going to get enough tomatoes to make pots of sauce. We all need greenhouses!

But even with the weather, the short growing season, and the crappy soil New Englanders take to gardening like a moth to a flame. I've been gardening for years, and the only place I've ever been successful is in New England. I don't know how to garden in clay soil or where it's hot for 8 months out of the year. I'm not used to the bugs that the midwest offers. Or the snakes in Florida.

I grow what is called a salad garden, consisting of lettuce, tomatoes, cukes, zucchini, yellow peppers, and a lot of herbs. I love fresh herbs and believe that herbs make a huge amount of difference in my cooking.

I also put pots of petunias and zinneas and other annuals around the patio. But my greatest love is my perennial garden. Every year I am suckered in to buying even more perennials. It's not that I don't have the room, because everyone should be as lucky as I am for large plots of sunny land. I could put in an acre of perennials if I wanted to. It's that perennials are expensive and you get no return for your investment other than flowers and beauty. I know that these are important, and nothing pleases me more than when the garden is in bloom, but it's hard to justify paying a lot of money for a flowering shrub when you could be spending that money on vegetable plants.

But I'm never going to stop buying and growing perennials because I'm an addict. I admit it. My name is Margalit and I'm a perennial addict. There! I've admitted it.

Now it's your turn. What does your garden grow?

My Ultimate: About a Girl

("My Ultimate" will run most Tuesdays (0k, it is almost Wednesday) and will feature any topic that hops into my head.  The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the other New England Mamas. . . although they should).

Every time we go, we talk about a little girl who died.

"How old was she, Mommy?"

"Why did she die?"

"What was her name?"

"Was this all hers?"

I tell them what I can: 

She was 9. 

She had a lot of things go wrong with her body, but, in many ways, she lived a life a lot like your own. 

Her name was Julia. 

She used to visit this park with her parents.  After she died, they wanted to do something to celebrate her life that other children could enjoy too.

It is such a sad story.

And yet, Julia's Garden, found in WWI Memorial Park in North Attleboro, Massachusetts is anything but sad as the sound of children laughing and shrieking fills the air. 

It is a place that has parents gazing around in awe at the artistic benches, life-size unicorn (well,  what I imagine 'life-size' would be), and the hundreds of flowering bushes.

It has us choking back tears as we read about the little girl for whom this garden is named. 

But, it is also a place where kids excitedly climb a rope ladder to slide down the longest slide I've ever seen.

Where they get squirted in the face with water.

Where they can run up a wooded hill and find a large playground with more slides, swings, cars and picnic tables.

It is a place any child would love.  And, while I am glad I am able to make such happy memories with my children there, I will always think of that little girl.   May she be able to see all that she has left behind.

Sightseeing in New England

With gas prices at these astronomical and unbelievable levels, it seems like folks are planning to stay closer to home for vacation this summer. Here are some of my favorite places to go with kids in New England. Most are within an hour of Boston, but the farthest are no more than three hours away and near great long weekend destinations for the family. Most of these attractions are seasonal.

Boston-area: The New England Aquarium, the USS Constitution and the boat cruise from the Aquarium dock to the Constitution. We go to the Aquarium fairly often but last summer Douglas and I did the boat cruise as well.

We had a great time and wrapped up our day  with an early dinner at Legal Seafoods, where Doug has his first lobster of his very own. A few years ago, we did a boat cruise in the harbor to view the USS Constitution turnaround, but they are not doing the full turnaround cruise this year. More pictures on Flickr.

Portsmouth, NH: Historical village Strawbery Banke offers a similar experience to other historical recreations like Sturbridge Village and Williamsburg, but with the added bonus of the ocean within spitting distance and the beaches of Rye NH within a few minutes drive. While in Portsmouth, don't miss the USS Albacore submarine.

Woodstock, VT: We have a second home in Barnard, VT, a small town just outside of Woodstock. This is a great area for kids. Mount Tom is a great place to hike, and not far from town, you have Silver Lake State Park for swimming. Quechee Gorge, often called the Grand Canyon of the East is about 30 minutes away on Route 4 East, and in the other direction, about 45 minutes from Woodstock, you'll find the Alpine Slide at Pico Mountain.

Mount Tom is part of Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Park, which also includes the Rockefeller Mansion. The mansion is well worth the tour, and you should check if there are any special tours available on the park website.  I do recommend the tour for older kids, not toddlers. It is guided by a Ranger and is just a bit long for short attention spans.

Our favorite places are Billings Farm and VINS (Vermont Institute of Natural Science.) We are members of both, and go at least once or twice per month during the summer. Doug is also enrolled in day camp at VINS for three weeks this August.

Billings Farm is a working farm, and has special activities pretty much every weekend --crafts, ice cream making, hay rides etc -- so it works as a repeat, familiar destination.

The public displays at VINS focus on raptors and their rehabilitation. There are two live shows daily in season as well as nature trails and exhibits featuring rehabilitated raptors who were so severely injured or compromised that they cannot be released into the wild.

Here are some of our latest pictures from Billings Farm, from Memorial Day Weekend.

You'll have a great time if you go to any of these places with your kids.

Tags: New England Aquarium, USS Constitution, Strawbery Banke, USS Albacore, Silver Lake, Quechee Gorge, Billings Farm, VINS