Summer Fun, In Pictures

We continue with our Summer On The Lake 2010, with sidewalk chalk and pulling vegetables from the garden and dipping toes into the water, and of course a few variations....

Grandma came for the day! Best part for all: Sitting in the gazebo and listening to her story about pirates.

Fair time! Berit on a ride with Trevor that neither of them really felt was appropriate for a 4-year-old.

We honestly wait all year for the Polish Festival.

Sleeping through the fun.

Hm.

Very, very high on the ferris wheel. I was seriously losing my Mom Cool.

Biker Babies

My brother David and his girlfriend Sara spent a very, very hot but totally fun weekend with us.

The girls made a Fairy House with their Mimi and Grandpa, and when we came down to check it in the morning it was covered in... fairy dust!

Pretending to be tourists.

Regarding Marta, Who Wants To Be A Mountain Goat When She Grows Up

Oh, Marta.

It's what we've said since she was born, as parents do about their little ones. They do something spunky or naughty or silly or for the 85th time, and we heave a big sigh, letting the last of our breath form an oooohhhh...

It rolls off the tongue now, while we watch her run full-tilt down hills, when we buy another box of bandages just for her. When she eats big scoops of hot salsa or when she chooses almonds over candy. When she has a fever and a sore throat but laughs all day long. When she won't, ever-ever, sit still. When she opens her 2-year-old mouth and out comes a 10-year-old's vocabulary. When she climbs to the top of everything and we have constant jolts of adrenaline from our brains, computing her odds of falling and shifting automatically into survival mode.

Oh, Marta.

It's easy to say it with a stifled laugh or through tears of empathy. It's often mumbled in the dark, when we all should be sleeping.

Suddenly none of her size-2 clothing fits. Her legs are a little leaner and a lot longer. She and Berit can easily pass shirts and shorts, sweaters and PJs back and forth. She takes off and puts on her own clothes, and always chooses either her carousel shirt or something with an animal's face on it (shorts or skirts never match). As bold as she can find -- that's her style.

Last week she walked up to two sea captain-ish men and said, "Hi. I'm Marta. I'm two-and-a-half and I'm smart."

She wants to be potty trained but doesn't quite get it yet. We bought Pull-Ups and she insisted on the blue Diego design. She buckles the top buckle of her car seat.

She can spell MARTA, BERIT, MOM, DAD, POP and sometimes MOSEY. When Trevor walks in a room she says, "There's our handsome guy."

She cannot dance; she only wants to twirl. She will rarely sing a song loudly, but in every new place we go she asks, "Mom, is this a loud place or a quiet place?" And then tests my answer by sending a quick "AH!" up to see how it echos and what I'll do about it.

She rarely naps. She plays "I Spy" these days by being the spier instead of the finder. Her new favorite game is Candy Land.

She wants to tell you how the cow got so much mud on its bottom.

Since moving in with Trevor's parents, she's been an uncharacteristically restless sleeper. Over the weekend we went to my sister's house and took with us a friend's toddler-sized blow-up mattress. She did great with this first non-crib, and on the way home she told me, "Now I'm going to sleep in a big girl bed. Not my crib."

So last night she did, for the first time, sleep in a real twin-sized bed, in a room all by herself. She slept until 7:45 a.m., which is a full one-to-two hours longer than she's been sleeping in. She woke up, sang a little instead of whined, and just waited for me to come get her up. She was very proud of herself.

Oh, Marta. You are the baby. You rub your blankie's tag on your cheek. You still have chubby cheeks and thin, curly-on-the-bottom hair. I don't think you even have real eyebrows yet.

But somehow you've outgrown your crib, your clothes, your limits. You put your own Band-Aids on your knees; you even open them yourself. Sometimes I want to get out the front carrier and put you in it, just to hold you near me during an outing like I did when you were itty-bitty.

Oh, Marta. Don't get too big, too fast.

Family, As Of Late

Add Water

This will be the year against which we measure other years.

Yes, there is a lot of stuff going on right now. But I'm talking about sunshine, full-on summer days, no snow since February, a gorgeously green spring, long, rainy weekends, festivals and ice cream on everything and running out of our new sunscreen in the first week of July.

Because there's no air in the house, we've been forced to embrace the water. I know that sounds ridiculous -- we are surrounded by water; people pay millions to live here for even part of the year. But when it's hot out and the air is on, it's so easy to stay inside. These days we're jumping off the dock and braving mucky beaches just to float in the lake. I'll have to write another post about how much of a lake girl I'm not, how several of my beaus in life were lake obsessed and I was the one in jeans and a sweatshirt trying not to throw up with each wave. How I never even swam in a lake, really, until I moved to Petoskey. But right now we're on our way to bed after a day spent at the dog beach, and more recently a boat ride under the pink sunset that left the entire lake as iridescent as the inside of an oyster shell. 

We sat on stools and ordered custard at our favorite local place, and when they brought it out mine was three scoops tall and covered with sprinkles. I had said, "I'll have what he ordered," pointing to Trevor, and did it ever work out for me. We talked to the owner, who we know and the girls know and they shared their days, back and forth. We tried to hula-hoop. We ordered a pizza on the way home and cruised town, looking at the houses that are newly on the market while we waited for it to be done. We stayed in our swimsuits all day.

This is the best year on my personal record, I think. My feet have never been so brown. My hair has never been so unkempt. The girls choose their shoes based on their water resistance every day. We're telling more stories and turning everyday things into fantastical adventures. 

I would like very much to travel back in time to my 9-year-old, Detroit-residing self, and show her a picture of her life in 23 years. So much water, so much sand, so much stickiness and bug spray. I don't think she would have understood it.

Regression

It's definitely true that life is slower on the lake. We putz around more and rush around less. I've slowed down my running schedule out of necessity, with sick kids and paperwork and visitors to focus on in the evenings instead of getting in shape for the half marathon. Trevor's getting home later and later at night -- when the sun goes down, he heads home.

It's odd though, even with our general slowing down, that the girls have backtracked. Marta, my champion sleeper, is needing lots of attention as she falls asleep each night. Covering, telling me "one more thing," another drink, a rock in the chair. When she wakes during the night she has a harder time going back to sleep on her own. I haven't pushed her to cry it out -- I have a hard time doing this at any point in our lives, but I feel that she's especially sensitive since moving in with Trevor's parents. She asks a couple times a day to move back to our Cedar Creek house or the Lake House. It isn't that she's not happy to be here -- she loves waking up to grandparents and a full, lively house. I think she really gets that it's not our place, and she just can't settle. She's also constantly asking me to feed her, when the moment she could feed herself at age... one? 18 months? she refused help forever. Nowadays she melts if I don't give her help, with sandwiches, bananas, full meals, even ice cream.

Berit has wanted to move back to the Cedar Creek house since we left. It's hard to move from house to house, even if the houses are great ones. She always seems to enjoy being at her grandparents' house, but she's started asking for help in the bathroom. We've always helped with the tougher stuff in there, but now she wants help with the easy stuff, too -- or just someone to chat with, or to hand her the soap when she washes her hands. I wonder if she's actually regressing in some way, just getting used to so many people being available to her, or is trying to get my attention, as I'm often chasing after Marta and someone else gets to Berit before I can.

These are all little things, I know, and I'm not worried about them. But I am looking forward to watching how the girls change again after our next move -- into their own home this time.

In Brief

It's summer, and while I could say that the slow internet at the in-laws' house is why I've not blogged, it's really just that we're having fun away from the computer. But in the interest of journaling our lives for our children, and in the interest of the printed copy of the past year's posts that I'll be working on over the next few weeks, here's a list of what's been happening with our little group of four-and-a-dog:

SUMMER
Berit's enrolled in Highland Dance and Yoga on Tuesdays, both completely wearing her out but also bringing much fun and joy. We've signed up for nature walks with the conservancy on Wednesdays and following those there are concerts in the park for kids, so we pack a lunch and the girls dance and wiggle and we all celebrate living in bright, happy Petoskey during the summer.

Berit starts violin lessons next month, for 15 minutes at a time. They're on Saturdays and while I'm really happy she wants to learn violin, I'm most excited for the enforced family time they'll bring. We only see Trevor for minutes each day lately, and on Saturdays we'll all go to town together, have a lesson and then picnic in the park. Maybe we'll check on the progress of the house, browse the shops and stop for an ice cream. In the past I'd make plans like this and they wouldn't work out for one reason or another, or only part of the time, but these plans don't worry me because it's summer and Petoskey is covered in sprinkles and fairy dust in the summer, so even if the plans aren't perfect our Saturdays will still be fabulous.

WORK
Small jobs for Trevor lately. No new builds in the longest time, but lots of regular work that keeps him busy and keeps me home with the girls. Fingers are crossed for a new build soon! I continue to work with Wayne County's Start Early, Finish Strong newsletter, Traverse Magazine and the occasional Country Lines article, all of which keep me writing. Also have a few projects I like to play with when I have time. In my head I'm working on two little books, one for each of the girls, that will tell the story of their births. Berit, and in copycat fashion (always) Marta, are fascinated by their birth stories. So before I get any further from those days, I'm going to write the stories in kid language, with a bit of fantasy and fun thrown in to dissuade any of those ... technical questions.

HOUSE
Ah, the house. Oh, the house. How we long for the house. The demo is complete and we now have a new walkway from the kitchen to the library. The kitchen, originally a maid's kitchen, was completely separated from the living space of the house, and had only the back stair up to the second floor, the back door to outside and the heavy, swinging door into the dining room for exits. Absolutely no way to see or even hear the kids while cooking or cleaning. So Trevor put a lovely walkway in to make another path through the house, and during the finishing phase he'll use the large space on either side to create built-in cabinetry and shelving. I can't tell you how I'm looking forward to filling those spaces with treasures! Teapots? Cookbooks? The family china that has recently been handed down? When I think about it my body actually feels full of exclamation points.

We are moving more slowly on the house than we (ahem, *we*) had anticipated. Hoping to be in by fall. PRAYING to be in by fall. In the meantime we're still living with Trevor's parents, who are continuously gracious in sharing their home with us. I know they must get frustrated -- of course, we don't do things the same way, and we are loud and constantly there, and there are all of those things that come with living together when you had been so used to living apart -- and I get frustrated, too. But every morning the girls wake up and are thrilled to go downstairs to their grandparents, who in turn make hot breakfasts and give lots of hugs and offer to take them on walks, and Trevor and I know that this is the best possible place for our family. They will always have -- if not exactly remember -- the summer they lived with Mimi and Grandpa, and I truly believe it will be special to them forever.

And by the way, every other day or so I walk into the laundry room because I haven't had time to switch my clothes from the washer to the dryer, and I'll find my laundry clean and folded. And when I can't quite get to the dishes after a meal, I'll come down later and see that they're magically washed (and not even in the dishwasher, because I never put the kids' stuff in there and my mother-in-law knows this and takes the time to hand-wash them for us). And when Trevor works late and it's time for baths, I have extra hands and I never have to ask for help. Ever.

TREVOR
Trevor loves summer more than anyone. He loves to play more than any grown-up I know. He wants to skate, to swim and bike, to hike with his kids. And yet we are blessed, blessed to have work that keeps him busy all day and all evening. He goes from one job to a meeting to a chamber event, down to the playhouse that Erwin, his dad, is building in stunning and adorable ways. Trevor is never idle. And when he has 20 minutes he spends every last one doing puzzles, dancing and reading with the girls.

LISA
I am writing. I'm adventuring. I'm playing and cleaning up. I am living on Walloon Lake with my girls for the summer, in a house filled with fun and love and music. I'm trying not to get in the way, to be a living part of a family house that I'm not really suited for. I think I'm catching on. I'm getting my braces off next month. I've signed up for a half-marathon and am running slowly but consistently, most recently doing a five-miler that turned out to actually be six, and I felt great the whole time. I'm carrying the rear portion of the dog, who threw out his back (again) and is cheerfully dragging himself around. I'm realizing that I'm still mourning the loss of both of my grandparents, who both died very recently, even though I thought I was tougher than this. I'm constantly grieving for my mother's loss of both her parents and at the same time am avoiding talking about it with her, not purposely. I'm happy and one second from tears practically all the time, because the girls are so fun, so exciting, so big and so little.

ADOPTION
Insert big sigh here. We are technically 10 to 12 months away from bringing home a baby. However, two children were very close to meeting our requested status (healthy babies, with exceptions for unknowns like smoking during pregnancy) and we considered adopting them. We read their full files -- something we'd never done before -- and learned things about them like what their rooms looked like, what made them happy and sad, how they were comforted and what their deliveries were like. It was terrible to say no. But we don't have a home yet. We can't yet. We can't expect our biological children and the new baby to adapt to this situation, and to that situation. It's just not right, yet.

PLAYHOUSE
The playhouse excitement continues. Erwin has spent every hour of every dry day for weeks crafting the cutest little cottage you ever did see, and we are all hoping to sell lots of tickets and really start something. We are frustrated because both times we were scheduled to show the house during kids' concerts in the park, it rained and we couldn't. So the house hasn't moved from the polebarn, and we've only sold a handful of tickets with it there. Erwin would love help from Trevor, who would love to help but is so busy with work that he is barely there, and you can imagine how this makes both guys feel. I think they had hoped to bond over this project in their father-son/buddy-buddy way. Anyway, the end result is still fantastic, and this first time out continues to be a learning experience for us all. We're hoping that the parades will really help get the buzz going. We're trying to be realistic that this year will be the one that teaches us how to make the build successful in years to come. But to be truthful, we all want so much to make an impact NOW. Slow and steady, needs to be our mantra. It's really a dream house, and a dream project. Everything about it is just plain great.

Did I leave anything out? I can't think. On to work, to the for-pay stuff, with hopefully enough time afterward to work on some fun stuff. It's summer. Everything is fun stuff.

Playhouse

Growing up, my sister and I were constantly volunteering (or being volunteered) for one charity or another. We tied bows around nut jars for cancer benefit prizes when we were very small. We passed out programs, took tickets, poured drinks and stood in booths. We babysat, delivered food and changed sheets in hospitals. There is no time in my memory when we weren't volunteering, and when my brother was born, he joined in with the rest of us.

It was important to my mom. It just now occurs to me that I've never asked her why it was important to her then, when we were little. Growing up, her family was relatively poor, but not so much that they received help from others. That wasn't it. Her father, my grandfather, sat on our board of education and actively worked in many political campaigns -- maybe that was the catalyst for her. Or my grandmother, who cooked for the priests.

Anyway, even when she was a single mother and worked two jobs, we volunteered as a family. Nine years ago, when I drove into Petoskey for the second time in my life, knowing I had a job and would be living here, I wondered where I would start my volunteer work. At the hospital, which was second nature to me? Downtown? At Crooked Tree, or the Women's Resource Center? And then work began, and I was at a desk or chasing stories or at night meetings seven days a week, and I never found my place.

Over the years Trevor and I have dabbled in organizations and have tried to do our best to support our local farmers, artists and businesses. Our girls sponsor a child in Bolivia, who they write to now and again and who we talk about and pray for. But our family has never done anything truly intense for the less fortunate in our community and in our world.

A few months ago I was sitting on the couch with my mom, talking about how I needed to do something to get started volunteering again. We don't have much treasure, and truth-be-told we don't have much time. But we are 32-year-old parents of two healthy children, and we have careers we enjoy with work to do every day. We are blessed, so incredibly blessed. But we were not working for others.

So my mom and I hatched a plan, on that couch, and today it's become reality. Doublestein Builders, Inc., my husband's business, has built a beautiful playhouse (props to Erwin, my father-in-law and recently retired partner in the business, who actually built the entire house, and to Cathy, my mother-in-law, who helped paint). The playhouse is the first in a bi-annual playhouse build, taking place each summer and fall. All year long we'll sell raffle tickets for the house, and at the end of summer and fall we'll choose a winner that we'll announce at a local celebration and on our website. The winner will take home a beautiful playhouse for their children or grandchildren, or for their local park or church, and all of the proceeds from ticket sales will go into the Doublestein Family Fund at the Petoskey-Harbor Springs Area Community Foundation. The money from this fund will be used entirely to benefit children's charities.

We're really excited about this project, and finally feel like we're giving back in a hands-on way. If you live nearby, look for us at local events all summer and fall, and in the parades. If you live far away, check our website for updates on the houses we build, and send us suggestions for styles and colors.

And of course, if you'd like to buy a ticket, we're happy to help. :)