3 Sisters 7 Days

Like most parents, I fully understand that accidents – automobile accidents, in particular – pose the greatest risk of death for children. Everyday falls are among the next four most common causes of deaths among children. Yet, many of us do little more than require helmets for sports and other activities likely to involve falling. At times, I’ve been particularly nonchalant about falls, going so far as to claim that children “bounce” until they’re, at least, three years old. And, considering I survived my own helmet-less childhood unscathed, I admit, I’ve been less insistent than I should be about my children’s wearing helmets while bicycling and riding their scooters and “wave” boards.

I’m lucky. Other than the usual scrapes and bruises, my four children have collectively suffered fractures (due to inline skating, snowboarding, and climbing) and a split chin (tri-cycling). Very lucky.

Last night, we learned that a friend’s 15-year-old son fell while riding his skateboard, suffered a concussion, and died. Although news reports note that Caleb was not wearing a helmet, it’s not clear it would have mattered.

The news made me physically ill. I leaned forward and clutched my stomach, certain that I was going to throw up. Of course, I was devastated for Caleb’s family and friends, unsure about how best to offer them comfort and support. I also found myself more generally unable to comprehend this tragedy, to find any meaning in the death of this all American boy. My own religious beliefs, shaken by my brother's death nearly three years ago, remain an unconvincing basis for believing in the existence of some Divine plan. Caleb’s parents opted to donate their son’s organs, which hardly softens the blow. As part of a plan, it reeks too much of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.

No. It was just an accident – a fall, a tumble, the kind of misstep that could happen to anyone, to anyone’s child, to my child.

That is frightening, sickening even.

For the moment, I’ve banned skateboarding – a reasonable response, until you learn that children fall and get hurt – including traumatic head injuries – more often playing basketball or soccer than they do riding a skateboard. I also hesitate because I’m not sure that the fear of losing a child is the best reason for restricting her activities. Caleb died "living life to the fullest as he always did." Isn’t that what we all want?

Perhaps the more life-affirming response to Caleb’s accident would be to encourage our children to live life fully, and as safely as possible.

Here’s the Honda Civic Hybrid we decided on. No older than 2009 to avoid the truly bazaar interior colors – like the dark blue and deep red combo my 10-year-old son, Parker, called “funky” – and tip the scales in favor of low mileage (due to the end of three-year leases). We located ONE in our county, and three others between here and Illinois. First pick: an eBay item currently located in Houston, TX.

Tax season is sobering. This year, my loving spouse and I had to face the fact that we’re spending nearly $1,000 a month on fuel for our cars – a Toyota Tundra (average 16 mpg)  and Honda Pilot (average 18 mpg), both of which are large enough to carry our family of six plus our two dogs. We typically only require that much space, and justify the fuel costs, on weekends, holidays, and vacations; hence, this month’s shopping excursion for a super fuel efficient car we can both use to offset the costs of driving our current vehicles. Even if we break even in terms of the combined cost of a car payment, insurance, and fuel costs each month, I’d rather have a third car than continue to spend as much as we are on fuel.

Considering we drive too far to take an electric car seriously, and the virtues of a natural gas-fueled car will persist only so long as there are few of them and natural gas remains far less costly than petroleum, my loving spouse and I have focused on a hybrid.

I’ve wanted a hybrid car for nearly 15 years, but like most drivers, I couldn’t quite make an economic – or environmental, considering the ecological costs associated with manufacturing and transporting hybrids – case for purchasing one. Circumstances have changed – a lot. My spouse and I currently drive more than 50,000 miles annually – easily enough miles to “pay back” the premium assessed on hybrids in less than two years. Selecting a used vehicle further reduces the pay back time, and obviates the need to consider the manufacturing and transportation costs. Like a a car’s initial depreciation (from just driving off the lot), those costs would have been paid by the original owner.

Although we haven’t ruled out the Toyota Prius entirely, it’s higher sticker price and unconventional design have pushed us toward a Honda Civic Hybrid.

Note that I love buying cars. I thoroughly enjoy the research involved, the test-driving, chatting with the sales and finance staff, etc. Over the course of just over five years, I purchased six automobiles and sold four to yield our current fleet. Effectively reducing our search to a single make and model has cut out a good deal of my fun. The effectiveness of the Internet for identifying prospective new (for us, anyway) cars has further undercut my enjoyment – if not negotiating opportunities – by privileging online communication with sales people over face-to-face interactions.

So far, with the assistance of Edmonds.com, Carmax.com, and eBay.com, I’ve identified half a dozen used Civic Hybrids within reasonable driving distance; three more are available out of state. I’ve exchanged emails with five “Internet Sales Managers,” and test driven three cars locally: a 2006 model with 96,000 miles, a 2009 model with 36,000 miles, and a brand new, top of the line model that runs, in the best of circumstances, $7,000 more than a comparable used vehicle. Of course, I want the new car with the leather upholstery, navigation system, XM radio, seat warmers, and electric everything. I know I can’t rationalize any car with nearly 100,000 miles on it – even if it has a timing chain (not belt), and “no one worries about the miles on a hybrid because they’re freeway miles…”

So we’re looking for that sweet spot in between…a hybrid that’s newer than not with very low mileage. When we find it, we’ll join the ranks of those who enjoy a fairly extensive list of benefits, such as:

1. Owning a lightweight, compact car, designed to be exceptionally fuel efficient.

2. The benefits of a gasoline engine (gas is readily available and easy to “use”) with the added assistance of an electric motor for acceleration.

3. Rechargeable battery.

4. A quiet vehicle that produces low emissions, ensures good mileage, and helps to save planet.

5. Aerodynamic architecture lessens drag; tires that are built with a unique rubber which lessens fiction.

6. High quality battery composed of nickel-metal-hydride that is designed to outlast the car.

7. A power-train equipment permits utilization of a couple of power sources and improves mileage.

8. Tax breaks as well as – possibly – local incentives.

9. Demonstrating good, planetary, citizenship.

Wish us luck!

That’s my boy. He wakes up with his hands in his mouth, ready to nurse…and I’m happy to accommodate the little guy. Between his pre-mature suck and my excruciatingly painful nipples, thanks to Reynaud's disease, I didn’t think we’d ever find our way to a satisfying and pain-free nursing relationship. Thanks to an army of “sisters,” including my own blood relations as well as friends, lactation consultants, nurses, and the many other moms who posted their tips and tricks for nursing mothers with Reynaud’s,  a heaping dose of determination, and wool breast pads, I’m happy to report that li’l Everett and I have mastered breast-feeding.

Yep. Bare-breasted and nursing.

Although I’ve watched all of my older sisters become mothers, heard their birth stories, and sat on the sidelines while they nursed, I really had no idea what I was getting into. Granted, my experience was complicated by an emergency C-section at 30 weeks; still, the isolation and  and 24/7 responsibility of reality of life as a new and nursing mom has been overwhelming – no, exhausting. It has also been an experience I wouldn’t trade for the world!

Everett just smiled at me for the first time…followed by a clear cry of hunger- He definitely has me on my toes.

“Sugar is a simple ­carbohydrate, containing carbon, hydrogen and oxygen..” begins my son’s internal assessment for his IB biology exam. I am intimately aware of this because I served as final proof reader and printer. Quentin saved his lab report in my dropbox for me to print and deliver to campus before his 12:30 PM class today, ostensibly because we were out of ink for the printer. I proofed it because I find it impossible to let the opportunity to improve the written work of those I love pass me by.

In the wake of two back-to-back printer crises during Quentin’s first year back in public school, I’d handed off responsibility for making sure there is ink in the printer in time to print assignments the night before they are due to my children. Purchasing printer ink may well be my responsibility, but I put my foot down at timing these purchases to facilitate the kids’ erratically timed assignments. Since then, Quentin has been pretty good about checking the ink supply in sufficient time to add “printer ink” to the Costco list.

So what gives this time?

Yes, Quentin knew that his lab report was due, and had weeks to complete it. On that basis, I did let him take the 10-point hit for turning it in late when it became clear that making the due date would have required another all-nighter for me (because neither of us knew exactly how to graph his data in a way that would satisfy the evaluators). It’s just that after all of his hard work – not just on the lab itself, but on mastering the data analysis, and presentation – I didn’t think it was necessary to let him fall any harder.

And so the first item on my to-do list this morning was “Costco – printer ink.”

Within an hour after successfully checking that item off my list, I’d printed Quentin’s lab report and was en route to his school for the hand-off. My self-flagellation – for assisting a son who could have had the foresight to complete his lab over break, and the good sense to remind me to get printer ink sometime prior to five hours before the report was due – aside, I can say that being “17 Again” is far less emotionally draining than it was simply being 17.

It’s been a really, really long time since I pulled an all-nighter. I routinely work into the very early morning to take advantage of the quiet and complete lack of interruptions, but not when I need to get up in the morning. Quentin’s IB extended essay – due in less than five hours – is the reason for to “night’s” exception to the rule. He thought it was due the 24th, not the 4th, and I’d long promised to serve as final editor.

For the record, Quentin’s essay details the environmental impacts of rock climbing and mountaineering, the nature of policies and regulations designed to reduce these impacts, and uses his political economic analysis to explain why the costs associated with climbing Mt. Everest run as high as $25K for the permit alone. This apparently outrageous cost is sufficient to dissuade all but the very committed and/or crazy to pursue the summit, and covers some major portion of the actual expenses involved in managing Everest and keeping it clean.

I spent much of this final day of Winter break climbing at Frustration Creek with a friend, Natalie, as well as our teenage children and one of her former students. Of course, it was fantastic. What could possibly be wrong with being 100 feet from the canyon floor on a balmy day with clear skies? Nothing but the nagging sense that Natalie and I belong to an astonishingly small group of women climbers over 40.

The situation is so dire that Ann S. ended her online search for a climbing partner by concluding that either all of the other “40ish women climbers” must be too busy climbing to respond to her query, or the idea of 40-year-old women climbing is simply beyond belief.

Hardly.

It didn’t take long to persuade Natalie that if we can’t find other women rock climbers experienced enough to have taught their own tween children to climb, perhaps we could make them. There is virtually nothing in cyberspace directed at identifying and instructing women in their 40s. I can’t think of a better motivation for creating a series of gender-and-age-specific climbing videos. Can you?

Olivia on Whammy, 10b at the Riverside Rock Quarry

It’s said that rock  climbing is “problem solving in the vertical world.” Here Olivia solves a 10b on the Yosemite Decimal Rating System (YDRS), which would “grade” a vertical climb with good holds as 5.5. Clearly ignoring observed beta, or information that includes details about hand and foot holds, Olivia climbs what the rest of us used for hand  holds (identified by chalk marks in the photo).

It’s not, literally, our hearts we give away with Christmas – just a lot of love and well wishes in the form of a holiday greeting card. Of course, we send cards to members of our immediate family and close friends;  still, there’s a good deal of truth to my loving spouse’s observation that our annual holiday card is “the only regular contact we have” with some loved ones in our extended circle of family, friends, and significant acquaintances.

Despite the importance of this seasonal custom, I’m afraid that we are, again, way behind schedule. I just took the practically requisite Christmas  picture last night, and ordered our cards earlier this morning! I expect we’ll see many of the usual recipients of our cards before they’ll reach them by mail – sometime next week, under the best of circumstances (i.e., the cards are ready for pick-up in 24 hours and we manage to address them and drop them at the post office by Christmas Eve). Consequently, we’ll be hand-delivering some cards…

The upside of this situation is that we can save considerably on postage. Our current Christmas card list approaches 200, so we’re not talking pennies. Ironically, the custom of sending Christmas cards originated in 1843 when a British civil servant, Sir Henry Cole, initiated the design of the first cards in the interest of inducing English commoners to take advantage of the “penny post.” Postage in the U.K. is currently 46p; it’s .44 in the United States.

We could save even more – up to nearly $100, including overseas postage – by adopting the evolving practice of sending electronic Christmas cards. That way, we could also save on paper, both in terms of the cost of printed cards and the generation of holiday waste. And we’d save a lot of time; no matter how much time you spend selecting or creating a Christmas card, it takes much longer to address and mail them. Moreover, we could demonstrate our whole scale transition to the use of social media for even the most ingrained holiday traditions. But...

1. Would anyone actually read a digital Christmas newsletter? We never adopted the annual newsletter tradition, but I have enough trouble motivating friends and family to read even the most tantalizing posts on this blog to suspect many of them would glance at the Christmas photo and, at best, skim any associated newsletter. In contrast, actual photo cards are often displayed on bulletin boards and refrigerators year-round. In addition, mostly live conversations over the years provide evidence to support my sense that tangible newsletters are read a little more thoroughly than even the best-written digital newsletter would be.

2. Besides, it’s easy: Shutterfly, Snapfish, Coscto, and Ritz Camera – just to name a few – allow you to create Christmas cards online for a reasonable price. I should have this year’s card in-hand less than 24 hours after I snapped the kids’ picture yesterday.

4. And it motivates you to keep your address book up to date: With the help of Google, Facebook, and university-based search engines, our Christmas list has grown more because we’ve found long-lost friends than because we’ve made new ones!

5. Plus, you can help friends and family to decorate: This year, we’ve peppered a mirror with holiday cards and Christmas photos (only because we located the card wreath my sister made us much too far into the season).

6. What about all those in your circle who aren’t tech savvy?: Yes, even though you may have multiple email accounts and monitor Facebook and Twitter, there are still plenty of people – even some you know! – who haven’t developed online personas, and who are likely to appreciate a card mailed the old-fashioned way.

And so, yes, this Christmas, we will again be mailing out cards. Better late than never, right?