A Sweet Visit from a Snow Bunny

My brother David and my niece Ember came out to visit Ed and me for the weekend and we had a great time!

I accompanied David from the Bay Area to Denver to try to make the trip a little easier, as it was Ember's first flight. Since she's not two yet, she qualifies as a lap baby and so we didn't need an extra seat for her. I did quite a bit of research and polled friends with kids for tips so that we'd be prepared, even though the flight is a short one, just under two hours. Things got off to a dicey start because our flight was delayed, but David and I took turns running around the terminal with Ember, who had a great time. She was particularly fond of the moving sidewalk, and we did lots of laps on that. Passers-by made lots of comments about how cute she was in her cowboy boots.

On board the plane, Ember received a certificate, signed by the pilot, to commemorate her first flight. We fed her a steady stream of snacks as the plane took off to keep her ears popping. It was dark and we'd opted to take the middle and aisle seats, but Ember still pointed out the window as we took off; I guess she saw the lights falling away below us anyway. Her eyes got big as we rose into the air and she beamed. Between snacks, magazines, and a few minutes spent playing with iPhone apps, she was pretty content the whole flight, to everyone's relief. She eventually fell asleep. I offered to take her because David had gone to work really early that morning and was exhausted, but she did not want to be handed over, and I was rather glad when we discovered how much she had drooled on his shirt... In Denver, she perked back up and we let her out of the stroller at baggage claim to run around while we waited for the car seat.

The original plan had been to drive up to Rocky Moutain National Park on Saturday so Ember could play in snow for the first time, but that turned out not to be necessary because the snow came to us. It had started to snow by the time we landed and it did not stop until after I dropped David and Ember off at the Denver airport on Sunday. We had a few inches on the ground on Saturday morning, and after breakfast we bundled Ember up and went onto the porch.

 Ember is a big fan of stairs, and after walking around in the snow on the deck for a while she went up and down a few times, then settled into walking around the yard.

David wasn't quick enough; she was ready to go!

She seemed to really like the snow, though was a bit disconcerted when it stuck to her mitten and flapped her hand around trying to get it off. Then she took off down the street and David and I followed her for a lap around our neighborhood.

Again, the grown-ups are far too slow.

She particularly enjoyed stomping in puddles in her new boots. 

This was accompanied by a "rawr" sound.

We even explored the nearby community garden. As the wind picked up and the flakes got larger, however, it was clear that things were not as much fun as they had been. Ember is a good-natured baby and so did not cry, but she got a bit clingy and we hurried to get her inside, take off her wet mittens, and warm her up. (I was chilly myself after about half an hour outside and was ready for a reprieve, too.)

At North Boulder Community Garden

We were excited to take Ember sledding on Sunday and were pleased to find extra mittens and snow pants at Target, marked down for the end of the season, no less. We also bought a sled. After dinner downtown and an impromptu table-side dance party, we hit the hay, excited about the next day. Ember had a great time running around the house in her snow pants. Alas, she found sledding to be less enjoyable. We found the perfect hill in a park next to a shopping center but failed, run after run, to coax a smile out of her. David hypothesized that her feet may have been cold in her uninsulated galoshes, and it turned out that she needed to be changed, too. Or perhaps a few inches of snow had been fun but nine inches was too much. Whatever the reason, sledding was a bust, though the hot chocolate we bought her afterward was a huge hit.

After a hot bath for the baby, I helped David pack up and drove the two of them to the airport. He said the flight back wasn't as good as the flight out but that it still went well. I was sorry to see them leave and will miss seeing Ember toddling around the house. I'm already looking forward to having them back when the weather is a bit warmer so they can see more of Boulder.

This just in: New photographic evidence suggests that Ember enjoyed sledding more than she let on. See Exhibits A and B, below, where it if one looks very closely it may be concluded that the stern mug she showed as at the bottom of the hill was not a reflection of her enjoyment of sledding. Perhaps it was just retaliation for making her get up early?

Hester and the Bully

This morning, Hester got into a bit of a scuffle. She's going to be fine, ultimately, but she's a little worse for wear.


I was at an intersection, waiting to make a right turn against a red light when it happened. I started to pull out, then decided that the oncoming car was a little closer than I'd thought and so stopped to let it go by. There was a sudden jolt from behind accompanied by a crunch, and I looked into my rearview mirror to see a hulking SUV directly behind me.


The car that hit me was a Toyota 4 Runner driven by a woman who seemed nice but rather irritated. We both called our insurance companies and hers sent a policeman to write up an accident report. They also advised her to move into a nearby parking lot, which we did. While waiting for the cop to arrive, I inspected both my car and the other woman's. It appeared that hers had only a bent license plate frame. Poor Hester hadn't been so lucky. She's quite dirty, so it took a while for me to spot all the damage, but the more I looked the more I saw. Most of her injuries are limited to her bumper, though there is a small dent on the door of her hatchback, too.

The dust actually helps to show the points of impact. Along the top of the bumper you can see a crack running parallel to my license plate (though it's not a great picture).

The policeman finally arrived, took down all of our information, and made sure we'd been wearing our seatbelts, corrective lenses, etc. I spent large parts of that morning and that afternoon on the phone with both the other woman's insurance company and mine, the body shop both companies recommended, and Hertz and Enterprise. The other driver is at fault so all of this will be fixed at no cost to me, but the only appointments I could get for the estimate and then the work are pretty far down the road. Oh well. At least poor Hester is drive-able.


This was my first accident, and I found the experience unexpectedly unsettling. Even though it was clear from the moment of impact that the damage was very minor, it was still about ten minutes before I stopped feeling somewhat shaky. Even though I was not the one that caused the accident, I am driving extra carefully now, looking in all directions multiple times before making any sort of move. The woman at the body shop told me to do something nice for that night, which seemed like very sound advice. I settled on a glass or three of wine and a few episodes of The Wire. And a few chocolate peanut butter cups.

Back to School

I don't know how I ever had time for a full-time job; I have been keeping myself so busy these days that even my part-time job at the scholarship office (20 hours a week) seems to take up too much time. I've been running a lot, doing more yoga, and being pretty social, but one of the best things I'm doing is volunteering with a small group of boys at a local school.

The school is a tiny private school in South Boulder that serves students with dyslexia and other learning disabilities. When I first heard about it, I went immediately to the Employment page on their website only to learn that they didn't have any staff openings. But I was intrigued and so emailed my resume to the principal, Kathy, with an offer to volunteer. She invited me to come meet her and see the school, then to come back again to observe a class and sit in on a staff meeting. I really like the school and its staff, and Kathy and I seem to speak the same language. Well as things went, I didn't hear from her for at least six weeks. Then, out of the blue, I got an email saying that if I was still interested in volunteering they had something I could do.

We came to an arrangement in which I go in twice a week for a little under an hour to work with three middle school boys. Each of them is really behind in reading but for different reasons, making it tough to remediate them together. They spend that period with Jill, the program director, doing intensive reading work and I pull each one out for 15 minutes of even more intensive, one-on-one practice. It doesn't sound like much, but paired with all the other interventions these boys get, I think it's helpful to them. It also frees Jill from having to attempt to work with three kids simultaneously on totally different things.

I like the boys a lot. They're each kind of a disaster, but what middle school boy isn't? One of them has what we would have called "weak mental work stamina" at the Yellin Center, meaning he gets worn out pretty easily. His teachers suspect that he's somewhere on the spectrum. I'm not sure that I agree, but there's definitely something unusual going on with him. He has very limited endurance for work, making it tough to teach him. The second boy is petrified of making mistakes and so prefers to make it appear that he's not trying very hard (or not to try at all). He loves riddles and has heard just about every one I try to tell him. The third boy is very motivated but has pretty severe dyslexia. He's a classic case, and of the three I feel he's the one I'm best equipped to work with. There's very little emotional baggage in the way; his problems are solid reading ones.

It's been really great to work with kids again! I look forward to visiting this school each Tuesday and Thursday, and Jill and Kathy seem very grateful. And if there is an opening in fall, which Kathy says she thinks there will be, I have high hopes that I'll get to do more than just drop in to the school a few mornings a week.