Solstice

Summer has finally, finally arrived to the Bigg household. It has been holding out on us for way too long. Last week, the kids and I both wrapped up school - friday we went to the beach, and in true Gray's Harbor mode, the weather was grey and 50, even though it was 80 in Olympia. Surfing was great - although several muscles are protesting their winter slumber. Saturday was the kid's first 

soccer game, which was very fun to watch, even though I have a strong aversion to any and all sporting events. Shkuri scored a goal! After the soccer game, we bought the first of Spooner Farm's Strawberries. Shkuri and Isaac went to play at a soccer friend's house and the rest of us went to Izzy and Ryan's solstice party. Today has been the best beginning summer day; after a run and a little garden work, we spent the day just hanging out. The kids and a few neighborhood friends ran around outside in their bathing suits all day long. Catherine, Jacob, Ollie, and Jackson stopped by for a short visit.  I had to spend an unholy amount of money for my summer quarter text books, but we made up for it by having (homeade) strawberry ice cream for dinner outside with friends and family. We are finishing off the day by watching Dr. Who.  Hurray for summer.

School Wrap Up

It is with great pleausre that I can announce that I did pretty well on my Pediatric Final this morning!! I had a harder time in the course than I expected and was sweating it out - but all of my late night studying paid off with an 88%. This summer I will be taking courses to prepare for clinicals in the fall - and then all I have to worry about is comprehensive exams.
The kids are also out of school this week - they have a half day tomorrow, and friday we are all going to the beach for a bit of surfing and celebration. We got Elias a kite for his birthday and it will be fun to try it out. Yesterday I met with Hamda's Kindergarten teacher to see if Hamda was ready for first grade or if she should repeat K again. Happily, she reported that even with only half a year of K and only learning English in the past nine months, Hamda is ready to go on.
Now that school is almost over, I want to spend a little time thinking about projects and things to do this summer.

ESP

Elias is taking a nap and the kids don't need to be picked up from school for a few more minutes, so I took the time to read NY Times online. I came across the Sunday magazine article on Equally Shared Parenting, and was quite suprised to see a description of what Ar and I already do neatly laid out and analyzed. It is basically parents who share the work of child raising and housekeeping together without fighting and nagging and with equality. I think it is quite a harmonious way to live. I imagine the article will result in the term being picked up in the media quite a bit, but I thought I would write about it anyway.
Ariel is a self employed painting contractor and I am an RN. I work about 24 hours a week, and he works somehere between 25-40 (depending on the season - he works a lot in the summer). I do morning routine and get the kids off to school. He does bedtime routine. I do most of the cooking and I do tend to keep track of dentist appointments, etc...but he does a good share of housework himself. In the fall, I am going to have about 9 months of clinicals for my masters and will have to start working 40 hours a week with every other friday off. When that time comes, we have already planned that we will do our house cleaning on Saturday mornings and everyone will chip in and do their share for the 3 or so hours it usually takes me now.
One thing brought up is that it is often difficult for Moms to let go of being in control of child rearing, house keeping, etc. That is a big joke for us - I grew up in a very unstructured house and don't really worry about stuff, while Ar is much more of a stickler. He is also really good at getting the kids to do their chores, homework, etc....something I am a bit lax at. It was fun to identify with the article, and I really feel like we have something pretty great worked out between us. We almost never fight about housework, child care - and I certainly don't feel like I am enslaved to my responsibilities as a Mom and household head.

New Position

I have just tacked on one more thing to my already busy schedule...I just accepted a position as a on-call Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner at the hospital were I work. I will probably take 1-2 on call shifts a week, and will only have to come in if needed, which will probably not be very often. I know it is a rather uncomfortable subject, but I am very excited and interested in the position and in forensic nursing in general. My job is to obtain evidence and advocate for any person that comes into the ER after a sexual assault. I know a few people who already do the job and they feel it is a very rewarding, and doesn't add up to much more than ten hours a week. I will be on-call only at night, so the kids shouldn't even know I am gone. I can't wait to get started with the training. When I applied, a few people asked me how I could possibly stand doing that job, but one of the things I love best about nursing is the philosophy of compassion...it is never my job to worry about fault or blame when it comes to a patient, it is my job to help them recieve the best care that they can and be treated with kindness.

This week I squeezed in some time to start a course on Modern Poetry through Yale's online courses. Unlike the MIT courses, it has audio/visual lectures. My inner nerd was soaring with happiness. I listened to the first lecture on Robert Frost. It also inspired me to write a little poetry myself (yes, I know it is bad)

The perfect ending

to a long, stressful week

Sleeping Children

Cheesecake

and a New York magazine

Ahhhhh

Chateau Envy

I had the kind of day today that left me full of the joy and excitement of the kids. I was worried it was going to be really stressful, but somehow the day cleared up and we all had time to enjoy ourselves. Ariel got rained out of work. Piano Lessons got cancelled. None of the kids had any cavities at the dentist. We got to start the day with whole wheat banana pancakes and end it with our soccer orientation meeting. I cannot tell you how happy it made me to find a local soccer club where all four of the kids can play at the same time in the same place. On our way to the orientation meeting, Isaac, Shkuri, and I had a nice little chat about the presidential election. They both decided they wanted Barack Obama to win (with no prompting from me, really!)

It is the sort of day where I start to envy Angelina Jolie. Not for Brad Pitt or the paparazzi, but the whole being able to afford a jet set life style while having a whole passle of kids. At least part of the time, I would really like to have/adopt a few more kids. (There are also days when I wonder why I have kids at all) Having a big family is awesome. Our house, however, will not fit any more humans in it. I also don't know if we could afford piano lessons and soccer for many more kids. I definitely know we couldn't afford to go on vacations to France or Vietnam or Mexico if we had any more kids - which are all things that I would like to do as a family. Mostly though, I love having a big group of kids, I just kind of wish I could do it in a ten bedroom chateau in the French Riveria.