A great trip with Janey, but missing her brothers!

On Saturday, we headed out to upstate New York to take Freddy to college.  He is going to Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs.  I must say that overall, in terms of Janey, it was a hugely successful trip.  She is a great traveler!  We kept looking for wood to knock on over and over, as we commented on how well she was doing.  I think if we took every minute of screaming and tantruming from the whole over 2 day trip, it wouldn't add up to more than half an hour---which is incredibly good.

Of course, the trip was hard on me anyway!  I had a hard time saying goodbye to Freddy.  He's an incredible kid, and it will feel very strange not having either him or his equally incredible brother William at home.  For now, it's just the three of us---Tony, Janey and me.  But as I said to Tony at one point, I'm feeling a little more optimistic about the future after seeing how well Janey did on the road.

Janey digging in at the Chinese buffet

Part of what made it work is that we kept things very low key.  Janey loves just being in the car, driving around, and Tony and I do too.  We rented a big SUV for the trip, which we loved!  Our car is an old Saturn with almost no modern features, not even automatic windows or a consistently working car radio, but the Ford Explorer we rented had everything.  We kept joking it was like we were suddenly in the world of the future.  I especially loved the Sirius Radio.  I wanted to explore all the stations, but Janey has a routine of listening to certain music in the car, mix disks that Tony has compiled, and to keep her happy, when she asked for "Disk?  Disk, please!  Disk"  we put one of hers on.  We also didn't try to do anything touristy besides driving around and looking at things.  We didn't try eating out except for quick places like fast food or a Chinese buffet on the way home, and we didn't visit local landmarks, except by driving by them.

The fancy lobby of the hotel.  The rooms were NOT as fancy!

I was very worried about the hotel.  It's racing season in Saratoga Springs, so all the hotels there were either fully booked or exceedingly expensive, so we stayed in a neighboring town in the hotel that made my Priceline offer.  It turned out to be a very old, once grand but no longer hotel.  I read reviews of it that mentioned the thin walls and the complaints about noise, and I could picture Janey's screaming getting us kicked out.  However, even with internet that didn't work at all the first night, Janey didn't scream!  When she got a little loud, I said in an exaggerated whisper "We have to be very quiet at hotel houses.  Shhhhh!"  Janey found that hysterical and started walking around imitating me, but in a whisper, which worked well for keeping her voice down!

One of the best parts of the trip was swimming.  The hotel had a lovely pool, and we used it mid-day, and had the whole pool completely to ourselves for over an hour.  Janey loved being in the water!  We also went into the hot tub next to the pool with her for a little bit, and that was amazing.  For the 10 or so minutes we were in there, she was completely quiet and calm.  We all three just sat there, enjoying the heat.  I can't remember, ever ever ever, having a time like that with the three of us.  Tony and I kept looking at each other in wonder.

Tony waving goodbye to Janey on her first day of 5th grade

We got back Monday night, and Tuesday morning early (6:30!) Janey got on the bus for the first day of school.  Evidently, things went well.  The bus was an hour late getting home, due to first day glitches and the hot weather, but Janey took it in stride and seemed perfectly happy getting off.

So now, we start the next phase of our lives, what will probably be the phase until we are gone, the three person family.  Of course, the boys will be home for vacations and summers, and I can't wait.  But it's never going to be quite the same.  I was surprised by the depth of my emotions at having both boys gone.  I kept thinking about how it seems only a few days ago they were toddlers, and I would think "Can't they ever go a second without needing me?"  Now they are adults.  It goes far too fast.  Even with Janey, where time sometimes seems to stand still.  She is almost as tall as I am.  None of the clothes I had set aside for the first day of 5th grade fit her.  We share shoes.  She is growing up too.  The future comes rushing at us relentlessly.  Best of luck, my college junior and my college freshman and my 5th grader.  I love you three.

A Time Anomaly

Lately, Freddy has gotten very into Star Trek, and we have been watching a lot of episodes of the various shows.  That made it particularly striking when one of my favorite blogs, On the Train With Sophie, mentioned a Star Trek Voyager episode in a blog entry---an entry that made me think and think.  Read it here, if you wish!  The entry is about how in many ways, Sophie stands still in time, while her siblings seem to be in a different time flow--moving on and growing up fast.

In many ways, Janey stands still in time too.  I thought of that this morning.  We can never count on a full night's sleep, and are happy when we get it.  She wakes up wet, and needs a change.  She runs around the house as if she is excited she can finally run.  She comes to us and asks, in a phrase that could easily be that of a two year old "Strawberry milk?"  We tell her "I love you!" and she echoes it back "I love you!" and we are thrilled.  Nothing she does would be unusual in a toddler.  Only her 9 year old body shows that she is no longer two.

We think in this society in terms of progress, moving forward, striving always for the next level.  At school, success is measured in progress, in a line moving up a graph.  When we talk about our kids to others, it's almost always progress we discuss---they are walking!  They started kindergarten!  They are in high school!  They have gotten into college!  It's how we see a life going---it's how we feel we are on the right track.  So how do we deal with a child that doesn't progress in the typical way?

Of course, as I wrote in my last entry, there is progress with Janey.  But in a way, it's lateral progress.  She is refining being at the stage she is in.  She is coming to feel at ease with the level she is at.  And if we let ourselves change our thinking, what is wrong with that?  What is wrong with being developmentally a toddler, and getting better and better and better at it?  She knows how to be at the stage she's in.  She knows how to delight us, as toddlers do, with her sweet talk.  She knows what videos she likes, what textures feel good to touch, what foods she likes and what she doesn't.  She knows what books she likes having read to her.  She knows how to ask us for the basics in her life.

What if we put aside our traditional views of time and development?  What if we accepted that Janey might not move forward?  Please note I am NOT saying that I am going to do this.  I am just entertaining the thought.  In reality, I am still in our current time flow.  I want Janey to progress, because, quite frankly, time also is moving along for Tony and me.  We are getting older.  We will some day come to an elderly stage, and some day, we will be gone.  That is why, I think at heart, parents want their children to progress.  We want to know that when we are no longer around to care for them, they will be able to care for themselves.  Beyond that, I know Janey would be happier in a lot of ways if she was able to progress.  I think she'd love to be able to read.  I think she'd enjoy being able to have a real conversation.  I think she would relish the ability to do more for herself.  But what if we accepted that none of that might happen?  What if we concentrated on enhancing the stage she is in right now?  What if Janey is in a time anomaly?  It happens in the Star Trek world all the time.  They run up against all kinds of time oddities.  I am not literally saying I think that is the case here, but like Star Trek showed us a optimistic view of the future, maybe we can learn from it to accept that time isn't the same for all of us.

Sandy and Janey

Sandy didn't hit us that hard here in Boston, although school was closed yesterday and it was certainly windy---probably the strongest wind I've ever personally felt, so I never want to feel hurricane force wind.  It didn't cause much physical damage, but Janey was not happy.

I've figured out a while ago that although Janey could never express it, she has a pretty strong sense of time.  Afterschool lasts until 5:30, but I pick her up at 5.  She doesn't mind if it gets stretched to 5:05, but if traffic is bad and I am any later than that, I am almost always greeted by her crying, and someone telling me it just started a few minutes before.  She knows when I should be there.  I wonder if she hears a nearby church bell that rings at 5, or if she's figured out the clocks, or if she just someone knows the time, as some people do.  She also has a very hard time with long weekend.  She knows the weekend should be two days.  The Mondays of long weekends are almost always teary days for her.  She can't explain it---she doesn't say "I should be in school" but she knows.

I am trying to be better about explaining things to Janey that I would think are beyond her understanding, just because we really don't know what she understands or not.  I didn't yesterday, in the excited confusion of a hurricane.  Janey was getting more and more upset.  She hadn't slept well, probably due to the wind, and she was at loose ends.  I finally did what I should have front the start, and said "we had no school today because of the hurricane. Do you hear all the wind making noise?  It's a storm, and it makes us have to stay home from school"  She didn't answer or look like she was listening, of course, but she seemed more settled after that.

Today school is back in session, which was a questionable decision.  Freddy had trouble getting a train to school, as they were running so late, and my niece who teaches reported her room was flooded.  But I'm still glad there's school (although no work for Tony, which does make you wonder how concerned about children the powers that be really are).  I don't think Janey would do well at all with another day off.  So much in the world is beyond her understanding that I think she clings to patterns she has figured out, and when they are upset, she is upset.