My Life – Page 5 – Her Green Life

The best birthday in the whole world

We spent a good chunk of the weekend celebrating Gabriel’s fourth birthday with family and friends. Four is indeed a fun age, as evidenced by his excitement and enthusiasm for [almost] everything.

The first present he opened was a pirate ship. This was an unplanned gift — less than two weeks before his birthday, I was searching Craigslist for a pirate costume (he specifically wants a Captain Hook costume). I didn’t find any costumes (not really the right time of year), but I did find someone selling this fabulous wooden pirate ship.

It’s in really good condition, and it was quite a steal. G is a big fan!

But he was equally elated about the little things, proclaiming, “I LOVE banana chips” as he opened this [bandana-wrapped] present.

After gifts and breakfast, Matthew and Gabriel headed out to the garden for the day, leaving me time to prepare for Sunday’s party. (I was pleasantly surprised at how easily G separated from his new gifts.)

We met up that night for dinner at Papa and Nana’s house.

We enjoyed a delicious birthday meal of spanikopita, Caprese salad, and fruit salad. Then is was time for the main event . . .

DSC02032_sm — Seeing the birthday cake for the first time

. . . a homemade (by my FIL) black forest cake!

The above picture was a little fuzzy, but I loved his pose.

Spontaneous joy at turning four! After eating his piece of cake, G declared it, “the best birthday cake I have ever had in the whole world!”

After dinner, we headed over to the fireworks show at Sublette Park. The display is usually closer to the 4th of July, but they also always choose a Saturday night, and I’m guessing they didn’t want to compete with the fireworks on the actual 4th. It worked out well for us though — fireworks on your birthday, what could be better?

Well, a lot of things, as it turned out. The above photo was taken at the very beginning. A few moments later, I looked down to see G with his hands over his eyes. He was wearing earplugs, but it was still quite loud, and we had front row seats, and I think it was just too much sensory input. (This was also WAY past his bedtime — the first time we’ve ever kept him up for something.)

I tried to help by covering his ears, but he just didn’t look like he was having a good time. I finally asked him if he wanted to stay or leave, and he said leave. We were parked a couple of blocks away (parking was a mess, and we regretted not biking, but we didn’t have time to go home for the bikes after dinner), and as I carried him to the car, he was able to look back and see some of the show. He seemed much happier in that position.

Once we were a block-and-a-half away, I paused to look back with him, and a woman sitting out on her front steps invited us to sit with her. My arms needed a break, and Gabriel was game, so we sat. She then offered Gabriel a popsicle. I temporarily shushed the “corn syrup and food dye” monologue in my head, and said yes. It was his birthday after all, and I wanted to end the note on a good night. (When people asked him on Sunday what he thought about the fireworks, he simply responded, “Good.” I think we’ll skip a few years before trying that again.)

Sunday was “friend party” day. We rented a pavilion at a local park. Gabriel and I made a piñata, and I brought musical instruments so the kids could have a parade. Otherwise, we kept things fairly simple (though I wouldn’t mind simplifying further for future years!).

My MIL made angel food cake (“the best angel food cake in the world”), which was G’s special request. After cake, came the piñata.

He did have a breakdown when it came time to let his friends have a swing at the piñata, proving that turning four is not a magic pill for such issues, but he recovered fairly quickly.

As the party ended, he declared it “the best birthday party in the whole world!”

Summer, summer, summertime — Part 1

It’s been quiet around here, but life is anything but — retreats, travel, bicycling, weddings — here’s a peek at the past 30 days.

On Friday, June 12, my mom and her friend Catherine traveled to St. Louis to join me for a mindfulness retreat. Before heading to the retreat center on Friday night, we had a fun dinner at Lulu’s Local Eatery. I had my first taste of jackfruit (just featured in Feast Mag) in Lulu’s “BBQ Jack” sandwich — sooooooo good! I’m looking forward to purchasing canned [in brine] jackfruit from one of our international grocers to I can experiment.

After dinner, Matthew and Gabriel headed home, and the rest of our party journeyed to South County for the Awakening Joy retreat, a non-residential mindfulness retreat (based on the eponymous course and book) led by James Baraz.

My first weekend mindfulness retreat was non-residential, and my plan was for my next retreat to be residential, but even though it didn’t fit with my plan, the Awakening Joy retreat sounded too good to miss. Between the retreat and working my way through the book, I’m learning a lot about how we can “rewire our brains for happiness.”

Anyhow, we left the retreat center on Sunday afternoon (June 14), picked up Gabriel from the garden, and drove to Iowa. G and I spent four days with my family before flying back to St. Louis on the 18th.

I had tentative plans to pick blueberries on Friday, June 19th, but the weather had other ideas. It had already been raining in St. Louis for most of the week, and we had another inch on that Friday alone, so I delayed until Saturday, still not sure what I’d find after all the rain. On Friday night, we had an impromptu date night — Clementine’s for ice cream and then a walk in Lafayette Park, where the fireflies treated us to an unexpected show.

Despite my fears of a muddy, buggy mess, on Saturday I mostly found blueberries, glorious blueberries! There was mud on the way to the bushes, but the rows between the bushes were heavily mulched and not muddy at all. The berries were at their peak — both bigger berries and larger clusters that were ripe led to faster picking. I picked 20 quarts in three hours. (For comparison, my MIL and I picked a little later in the season last year and got about the same amount of berries with two pickers.)

On Sunday, June 21, we made a Father’s Day brunch for Matthew’s dad. That evening, Matthew and I had a bicycle date night to see fireflies in Forest Park (they were good, but not better than the unplanned viewing on Friday night).

The week of June 22 brought a meeting with someone in the dietetics program at Fontbonne University and lots of prep for our CyclingSavvy course. Friday night and Saturday (June 26 & 27) were all about CyclingSavvy. We were blessed with amazing late-June weather (no rain and warm, but not hot), and we had a great group of students complete the course.

Sunday morning we rested (by which I mean I rested some and did some cleaning and Matthew prepped and roasted a ton of veggies!) before heading to a wedding in the afternoon and evening. We left the reception just in time to get caught in a really bad storm (buckets of rain, hail, really strong winds, lightning, etc.) — fortunately, we’d taken the car instead of biking, but it was still really scary. I was glad to make it home safely (of course by then the worst of it was over).

I’ll leave things there for now — but the summer fun is not over: parades, parties, weddings, and naked bike rides are still to come!

G at Three

My days of being able to write a post titled “G at Three” are numbered! I first started drafting this post almost a year ago, with a collection of cute words and phrases from my little guy:

“I not mind about it” (wishing this attitude hung around for a little longer, though it may be making a bit of a resurgence)
“Maybe yes, maybe no”
“Mommy Teapot, wake uuuuuuupppp” (his morning greeting, which he still uses; ideally we do not hear it until after 6am!)
Bo-nanas (for “banana;” also pronouncing the name of one of his teachers as Mo-donna, instead of Madonna)

There is no doubt that Gabriel is no longer a baby, nor a toddler, but a little boy. A little boy with a mind of his own. Lately, he likes telling us all about his “plans,” and heaven help us if his plan is not actually what is going to happen!

While there were challenging moments, we made it through the “terrible two’s” without much of the terrible. The first few months of the three’s were similar, and then the bottom dropped out. My easy-going little guy turned into a completely irrational creature who would melt-down and be inconsolable over THE most ridiculous things:

I used the wrong knife to put the peanut butter in his oatmeal
I gave him a spoon when there was already a spoon on the table

I’m sure there are many other examples, but those were two that happened with some frequency.

A friend suggested Susan Stiffelman’s Parenting Without Power Struggles. It was a useful book — I took a lot from it, and will likely revisit it. One of the main themes was “coming alongside your child,” rather than fighting them, by acknowledging their emotions, and while it makes sense in theory, finding the patience to empathize with Gabriel feeling really sad that his favorite knife wasn’t clean (for the hundredth time) was challenging.

I often thought, and sometimes said, “That isn’t even a thing. Who cares what knife I used for the peanut butter? You cannot be upset about that because it isn’t even a thing. Be thankful that you have peanut butter!”

The good news is that, after several trying months (Tyrannical Threes?) things do seem to be getting better in the ridiculous breakdown department. And, looking back, even at its worst, these were only moments within days that were mostly good.

In the last few months, we’ve moved into the “why” stage. For some reason, I was thinking that happened earlier, and we just got lucky and missed it, but no. Sometimes it is fun explaining, but it can get old quickly. This too shall pass!

Other highlights of three:

G loved his Montessori preschool (and who wouldn’t, with Grandma as a teacher?)
He continued to received speech therapy, and make good progress
He loves his “green bike” (the Burley Piccolo tag-a-long), and we’re going for longer rides
He does not like riding Lightning (his two-wheeled bike with training wheels), much to my dismay and frustration
He’s continued to be quite the little foodie, and he’s a pretty good kitchen helper
When he’s in the mood, he’s also a good helper at the garden
He tells these amazing stories, often centered on his toy cats (Mama Emily, Little Emily, Meow, Watermelon, Flower Hiding, and Knocking Crane (a stuffed tiger cub, who is the latest addition to the crew))
He’s also very into art projects and loves making things for people
He loves books, but is not reading yet (I know it’s technically early, but I have friends whose kids were reading by four, and while I enjoy reading to/with him, I’m looking forward to this sometimes being an independent activity).
He also likes dressing up; favorites include his tiger and Peter Pan costumes, and, most recently, “Super Cape,” a made-up costume using a beautiful scarf made by Matthew’s great aunt

Gabriel loves parties and celebrations, and I’m looking forward to celebrating with him on the upcoming fourth anniversary of his birth and to seeing what this next year will bring!

What color is my parachute???

As I mentioned in my PA school post, I spent some time with a career coach, as well as Richard Bolles’ What Color is Your Parachute? this spring.

I looked into paid career coaching services, but a friend recommended checking out what was available to university alumni at no charge. I settled on that route as a first try — the only thing I had to lose was a bit of time.

The first meeting with the career counselor was rather free-form, bringing her up to speed with my career path to date: training, responsibilities, work settings, likes and dislikes, etc.

Before our second meeting, I completed the Strong Interest Inventory and shared the results of a previous Myers-Briggs test, and we discussed the results in our second meeting.

My Myers-Briggs type: ISFJ. I am VERY strong for I (introvert vs. extrovert) and J (judging vs. perceiving), somewhat strong for S (sensing vs. intuition), and moderate for F (feeling vs. thinking). These results are from several years ago, but your Myers-Briggs type tends to hold fairly steady.

New to me was the Strong Interest Inventory®, which has six “themes.” The Strong Inventory defines themes as “broad interest patterns that can be used to describe your work personality.” Your interests can change over time, so results here could vary between time points (in contrast to the Myers-Briggs).

My three highest “themes”: Investigative (moderately high), Realistic (moderate), Conventional (moderate). Artistic and Social were also moderate, just a bit lower than the others. “Enterprising” was my one “low” theme (so opening my own business would likely not be a good choice unless I had a business partner who ranked high for this).

Interestingly, I had a lot of “moderate” on the Strong Interest Inventory, and very little that was truly “strong.” I’m not quite sure what to make of that . . . .

The program then uses your highest two or three interests to suggest occupations that are traditionally high in those interest areas.

My Top 10 “Strong” Occupations:

Health Information Specialist
Computer and IS Manager
Dietician
Production Worker
Dentist
Pharmacist*
Respiratory Therapist
EMT
Vocational Agriculture Teacher
Farmer/Rancher

So, there’s a clear bent toward something health and/or medical (1, 3, and 5-8) with some other random things thrown in there (vocational ag teacher???).

In addition to meeting with the career counselor, I also worked through some of the exercises in the Parachute book, which led to the creation of the petals for my flower (I’m still unclear on how, exactly, a parachute is involved; maybe it was used in place of the flower in a previous edition of the book?). Anyhow . . .

**If you have any ideas that pop into your head when looking at my flower, as far as career options that I may not have considered, please feel free to share!**

So. I guess I’m at the “What Now?” point. I’ve done all of the paper and pencil stuff, all of the research that can be done from the comfort of my own home — time to get up and out and talk to and shadow some people — but who?

I think my ideal occupation would be a health/wellness coach located IN a physician’s office/medical practice. Someone to whom physicians refer patients. Unfortunately, there is really no set-up for this in our current medical/health insurance model. A dietician in a medical practice is probably the closest I could come in our current system.

Dietetics IS a strong contender. To become a registered dietician (RD), I’d have to complete some additional nutrition/dietetics coursework as well as a year long dietetic internship (I explored this route when I started grad school 10 years ago, and I think it would be around 10 classes; I already have all of the science prereqs, as well as enough nutrition coursework to qualify for many “nutritionist” positions).

I’m also wondering if I should look at epidemiology. It would use a lot of my existing public health training and knowledge, and I could probably take a few more classes and try to find an entry-level job.

In looking at the “top ten” list from the Strong Inventory, the other thing that might be worth exploring is respiratory therapy. It’s not something I’ve ever considered, and my gut reaction is that it’s not quite what I want, but I also only have a vague idea of what would be involved.

So that’s that. I’ve done a decent bit of work, but there’s still more to do before investing time and money in a specific path.

*My mom always said she thought pharmacy would be a cool career; she’s probably saying, “I told you so,” right now — mother knows best???

On beach time

We spent last week in Destin, Florida. I intended to post here while we were gone, but it just didn’t happen. I’m almost caught up on laundry for the trip, so here’s a recap before it’s totally irrelevant (and before I forget everything!).

A bit of background — my MIL has a timeshare at a beachfront resort in Destin, FL. Her unit is a studio, and, while I’d made the trip with Matthew and his mom a time or two before G was born, three adults and a baby/toddler crammed into one small studio was not my idea of fun (also, I’m not really a beach person). For the past two years, I sat out this trip and enjoyed some much-needed solo time. However, after two years of seeing pictures of G enjoying the beach, I gave in to Matthew’s urging and joined them this year (to preserve everyone’s sanity, we rented a second studio unit).

Prior to the trip, I did find myself wishing that I’d gone last year instead, when G was a bit more easy-going, but that’s hindsight for ya! I was also a bit worried about making the trip at all, given G’s ongoing cough, but by our departure day, things seemed headed in the right direction, if not completely resolved.

Day 1 (Friday, May 22)
We drove from St. Louis to Atlanta, GA — not the most direct route to Destin, but my MIL wanted to take G to the Georgia Aquarium to see the whale sharks. We got on the road about an hour later than planned because someone couldn’t drag himself away from the garden. This put us on target to hit Nashville around 4pm, which I hoped was early enough to beat rush hour traffic. Of course, it was not. We lost a lot of time in Nashville and didn’t arrive in Atlanta until 10pm (though that was losing an hour to the time change, so not crazy late for Central time).

While we missed Sprawl-lanta’s infamous rush hour, traffic heading into downtown on Friday night was still pretty crazy. At one point, I noticed an interstate message board warning that there had been over 400 deaths on Georgia roads in the first five months of 2015. I’m not sure how that compares to other states, but it seemed quite high to me, and also rather understandable given the driving displayed by other motorists. (I saw in the paper the next morning that it was the weekend of the Indy 500 — seemed like some of our fellow motorists forgot they were not on a racetrack.)

G fell asleep in the car, but woke when we exited the interstate in downtown Atlanta. He was disoriented and crying, as well as coughing a lot (to the point I thought he might vomit as we were trying to unload and figure out parking at the hotel) — so, basically a hot mess. We managed to get him settled in the room, before turning in ourselves.

Day 2
Even with the time change, we woke bright and early on the day of our aquarium visit. In my head, the aquarium was going to be similar to a zoo: outside displays, lots of ground to cover, and sunny and hot, but with fish instead of animals. Maybe I was thinking about Sea World?

Anyway, in reality, the Georgia Aquarium is a large indoor structure (could have left the sunscreen in the car), and we easily saw most of it in under two hours (we skipped the dolphin show because G didn’t feel like waiting in line). The whale sharks were pretty cool, as were the large sting rays that shared that tank.

The aquarium has a new beluga whale calf, but they’re giving mama and baby some bonding time (maternity leave?), so the tank was completely curtained off. Totally understandable, though I was a bit bummed to miss the chance to see baby beluga (when I started singing the Raffi song at the aquarium, I swear that G gave me a “Mom, please, you’re embarrassing me” look).

We also overlooked/missed a hands-on kids area that would have been nice for G. All-in-all, it was a nice visit, but at almost $40 per person, not something I’d repeat anytime soon.

We grabbed lunch on the way out of Atlanta and made tracks for Destin, though not nearly fast enough for G. When we were about two hours away from our destination, he announced, “I had planned to be at the beach right now. When are we going to be there?” It was a long two hours.

Days 3-8
Beach time! We had pretty great weather overall. Temps never climbed higher than 85°F — with cloud cover and beach breezes, that was pretty ideal for my vampire ways.

The water temperature was nice. We had red flag days all week — great for body boarding in the waves, not so great for little ones playing in the ocean (also not so great for my beloved prescription sunglasses, which are somewhere in Gulf of Mexico right now). Unlike previous years, G stuck to the sand and the swimming pool, where he pretended he was a mermaid. (“Merman, Pop! Merman.” Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

I got in on some of the body boarding action, though with my sun-dodging ways, not to nearly the same extent as Matthew. (Unfortunately, he has a large number of itchy welts — we suspect an allergic reaction to either a specific jellyfish or seaweed. For whatever reason, I escaped this affliction.)

G’s favorite indoor activity was rolling around on the floor (ick!) saying, “I’m a kitten. I’m sick, and I need a paramedic.” At which point any adults present were expected to grab some medical tools (i.e., co-opted cooking ware) and help the kitten. More fun the first time than the fiftieth . . . .

The units have full(ish) kitchens, and we mostly ate in — I’m working on a vacation food post for later this week. Also, G’s cough completely resolved while we were gone!

Day 9
On Saturday, we all piled back into my MIL’s Camry for the long drive home. It’s worth noting here that the only way that three adults, one child, and gear for a week at the beach fit comfortably in a Camry was with the addition of a roof-top bag, which, childhood memories notwithstanding, worked great!

We left Destin at 7:30am on Saturday. Less than three hours into our 13 hour (plus stops) drive, G announced that he was ready to get out of the car. His statement did not bode well for the rest of the day, but things actually went rather well. G eventually took a nap, which gave all of us a nice break, and then fell asleep for the final two hours.

Matthew’s mom dropped us off at home just before 10:30pm that night, and once in his own bed, my sweet sleepy boy curled up and went right back to sleep while we finished unloading the car.

I spent Sunday morning in a complete daze. It felt like I had jet lag, despite the lack of a jet, or even changing time zones. My back was also none too happy about all of that car time!

All in all, it was a nice vacation. Having my MIL with us meant that Matthew and I got some breaks. I don’t think I’ll join them every year, but it was nice to experience with G (though I wish we’d been able to get him into the ocean a bit more).

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*My mom always said she thought pharmacy would be a cool career; she’s probably saying, “I told you so,” right now — mother knows best???

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