You know that old saying, “March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb”…? Well, this year, for us, March came in like a lion and out like a lion. There was no lamb, no soft-edges, no cushiony buffer; March was a jam-packed, high-intensity, chock-full month of madness! So much good stuff, hard stuff, mediocre stuff, all crammed into such a little month. And as in so many of my catch-all, catch-up blog posts, I’m going to just put the hard (and bad) stuff — and even the mediocre (and mundane) stuff — purposefully on the margins, to hone in on the good stuff that was packed into our lioness (and lion-esque) month of March.
We went on a big trip to Anguilla with MorMor & MorFar, Stina, Mark, Sadie, and Lukasz. I’ll eventually post about that (huge amazing special) trip another time. That’s when my blog silence began (side note: thanks to ALL who have reached out to me worried about why I’ve been MIA on the blog for so long). There is a lot to say about that trip. But, for now, I’ll just say that the travel for that trip was unbelievably rough and rocky — a great time in Anguilla was book-ended by horrendous travel problems on both sides. But can I just say?… our bambinos would easily win the prize for Best Travelers Ever. Not even one complaint, fuss, or even “when will we get there?” from any of the three of them!
Meera jumps, into the hotel pool, EB Hotel Miami , 2pm (we got stuck in Miami on the way there, for 24 hours) ~
Owen & Kyle, in the Charlotte airport, 5am (we got stuck in Charlotte overnight on the way home, and got only 4 hours of sleep that night) ~
The bambinos at the Marigot market in St. Maarten, after ferry from Anguilla to St. Maarten, before we found out about yet another flight delay (which caused us to miss yet another flight connection). Blah, blah, blah… I refuse to complain; we had a GREAT trip! ~
And yeah, like I said, the in-between of those travel nightmares was a travel fantasy; beautiful Anguilla ~
So, March. Turns out March Madness gets started early these days — our 9-year-old basketball superstars had an undefeated season, becoming the top-ranked 9-year-old team in the league, pushing them into the division tournament season. It was so exciting for all involved (confession: I lost my voice cheering at the final game). They lost by 2 points, in overtime, during a championship nail-biter-of-a-game. It was an exciting conclusion to a very exciting basketball season for the J-Ms!
Ironically enough, as we were pulling out of the gym parking lot from that final basketball game (literally), we got a phone call from the baseball coach notifying us of their first Little League practice of the season. Out with the old, and in with the new; new season, new sport. And suddenly, basketball is ancient history and it is all baseball all the time. What a difference a year makes!— our little sluggers are now a little bit bigger sluggers. They are so fun to watch!
And with baseball season comes green-smoothie season! Our current favorite smoothie = pineapple, mango, spinach, kale, chard, coconut water. I have these boys convinced that their baseball hitting power is the direct result of the power smoothies their mother makes for them daily. They slurp it right down, and think nothing of the greenness (which just cracks me up! they don’t even know that lots of people would think it odd to see two 9-year-old boys drinking green smoothies! trust me: what they don’t know won’t hurt them! lol!). Here they are, doing homework and slurping the green goodness before baseball practice ~
As for Meera… March was a month of reading blast-off for our girl. Something came together for her, and she’s sounding it all out and really blooming as an emergent reader ~
And of course, she paints/draws/colors every single day. Sometimes in the early morning, with her Papi, while the rest of us are still sleeping ~
But the big news for our girl is that with March came the start of violin lessons! For a long time Meera has been wanting to learn to play the violin, and for a long time we had been on a waiting list for lessons with this young female violin teacher named Grace, who has a fabulous reputation. Now Grace is Meera Grace’s violin teacher! ~
I had a trip to Chicago to attend
Maggie’s dissertation defense. I was the outside reader on her dissertation (Emory Phd Sociology), but more importantly: she and Eric are very special VIPs for me (
for backstory: click). I love these two (here we are the night before the diss defense) ~
That trip to Chicago gave me the splendid pleasure of a night alone in a hotel room. There is not much that re-charges me more than that. That is one of the strange ironies of working mother work trips: while they are one of the things more challenging for the working mother, they are, at the same time, one of the hidden benefits of being a working mother. I have a little ritual for myself of ordering room-service tea-service upon check-in and indulging in a hot cup of tea with milk and honey in a room full of peace and quiet all to myself ~
As for Braydon, this is what he thought of March (too much, too fast, too packed, too lion-ish) ~
Dash. He’s our saving grace (cute, fluffy, and unconditionally loving no matter how much madness is packed into one month), and he is BFFs with Meera Grace ~
March also included a week of spring break from school for the bambinos. While a week off from school is great, it is also complicated for a dual-career family. Luckily for us, we have about 1,000 incredibly awesome babysitters at our fingertips, chomping at the bit to show our kids a good time (major fringe benefit of living on campus!). For their spring break week I lined up a different babysitter for each day, and another one for Friday night (Braydon and I needed to attend an event). As March ended, and the mounds of snow and ice melted, and we got outside more and more (us and the students we live with), the area outside our building’s front door came to have that familiar non-winter-look of bikes and sidewalk chalk ~
After such a gruesome winter, we are so ready for spring! ~
And we are so grateful that spring is here (note: photo below is totally unedited — yes, we have green grass starting to sprout! and we could not be happier about that!) ~
So glad to see you are back~ missed your blog while you were gone, but knew you were having some wonderful family time with Mor Mor & Mor Far and family.
Happy spring.
xo
Welcome back!! Missed you and your family. Happy Spring!
Love the catch up post!!!
So glad you guys are back, and Anguilla! We’ve now been twice since your original blog post, so love that place, (thanks for the tip!) looking forward to reading about your trip
Glad you guys are back, I was concerned that you had not blogged in a while! I like the blog entry about the green smoothies; it is great you are getting then started early on some healthy eating habits. Love my green drinks, though much more simplistic; spinach and orange or apple juice!
Welcome back! Wow very busy March for you all!! Read this a while ago but didn’t have a chance to comment. Sounds like a lot of fun, albeit exhausting too! I enjoyed reading this update and seeing the photos, thanks for sharing. Wow as always Kyle and Owen’s sheer talent and enthusiasm for all types of sports is so wonderful to hear about! Also wonderful to hear about Meera’s creativity and good luck to her for her violin lessons!! So wonderful it must have been to see your former student and VIP shine…and to have that alone special tea ritual time!
– Kate