may 2016

One of the projects I got to work on in May was the New Visions/New Voices festival at the Kennedy Center. It is a week-long festival/workshop for new works for young audiences and families. I got brought on to be the ASM for the African playwrights, because my friend and colleague Maribeth was the SM and she recommended me. Because there were 2 directors for those 5 plays, the way it ended up working was that Maribeth took on one set of plays, directed by Scot Reese, and I took on the other set, directed by Yvette Hardie. It was a lot of fun, and I hope to do it again next time! I've since gotten more than one job offer from the man who runs the Theatre for Young Audiences division at the Kennedy Center, because he was impressed by my work during the festival, but sadly I haven't been able to accept any of them because I'm already busy. But it's still nice to expand my network!

Jed made a card and decorated a flower pot at preschool for Mothers' Day, though the flower in the flower pot was a little worse for the wear by the time we got it home (he insisted on putting it in a plastic grocery bag so I wouldn't see the surprise, and the pot didn't stay upright...). The pot also got knocked off the stand a couple of times, so the poor flowers didn't last long...but I loved it all anyway. Scott and Jed made me a wonderful breakfast in bed, complete with Jed running in and out of my bedroom excitedly -

• "Good morning Mama!!! Here is a surprise for you! It is a flower in a pot. And some CHOCOLATE! It looks delicious. Would you love to share it with our whole family, because you love our family? And are you ready to eat it NOW? There are 3 chocolate bars, and 3 people in our family, so each of us could have one if you want." (To Jed's credit, put in my situation that is exactly what he would do - split the treat evenly)
• "Hi Mama, here is a fork for you. You will need a fork for the special dinner we are making right now."
• "Look, just like you asked for when we asked you what you wanted for your Mothers' Day breakfast, WHIPPED CREAM! I can't open it though."
• "Hey Mama, what do you want to drink? Milk or orange juice?"
• (bringing both options to show me) "Okay, when you said 'orange juice' did you mean real orange juice made with oranges, or peach mango juice? Just checking."
• "Hi Mama. Do you like your food very much? It looks delicious. Are you doing very well?"
• "Today is a special day where YOU get to do the first half of my screen time with me because it is MOTHERS' DAY! Isn't that special?"
• "Mama, I love you."

In sacrament meeting, he got up with the other kids and sang the Mothers' Day songs louder and more enthusiastically than anyone. After our experience on Easter, where he knew all the words to the song but then absolutely panicked when it came time to get up in front of everyone and refused, I didn't know how it was going to go. But we had very recently realized the extent to which he has anxiety, and had begun working with him on it - being more understanding about what he needed, giving him tools to cope with and manage it - and had helped him prepare in a way that made it possible for him to do it. When he got up and actually sang, I was so overjoyed I thought my heart would burst.

The day after Mothers' Day, Don and Carol came out to visit us and we had a fabulous time as always! Carol and I took Jed to Watkins Regional Park, played with bubbles, and generally had a grand time. On the days that Don wasn't working, we went to the Air and Space Museum II, went to see Looking for Roberto Clemente at Imagination Stage, had Rita's ice cream, and more fun things.

We discovered a new park in May, the Martin Luther King Jr Park. Jed was so excited about it that we went back 3 times that first week!

I had started to wonder whether Jed had Celiac, or at least had a gluten sensitivity, partly due to his anxiety and partly due to his frequent complaint of stomach aches. So I spoke with his pediatrician, and took him in to get a blood test done. He was not particularly happy about it, though honestly the reaction AFTER it was over was way worse than when it was actually happening.

Toward the end of May we had a multi-stake youth dance, luau-themed. It is always a lot of work to do all the decorations, but I get help and it is rewarding at the end. A friend of mine puts together all the food and always does an amazing job.

A friend of ours who had moved up to NYC ended up needing to come back down to DC a couple times for work. So she brought her kids with her and we had them over at our house to play for a couple of days, which Jed LOVED. He hadn't interacted with them incredibly much while they lived here - they weren't in the same age group in Primary at church - but he had lots of fun while they were at our house. He was particularly interested in the 6-year-old girl, Elle. None of them wanted the fun days to end!

At the end of the preschool year, the older classes put on a play for the parents. I wasn't sure if Jed was going to participate, given what we knew about his anxiety, but we worked and prepared and he actually did it just fine! He was SO proud of himself and I was proud of him too.

A few more pictures of fun from May! One day we went to the splash fountain at University Town Center and Jed brought his new beach ball, and another day we played on the playground at preschool and watched John and Veronica so Shari could get some work done.

april 2016

The first weekend of April is General Conference, and in between sessions we took the opportunity to go outside and run around. One of the days, we went to Univeristy Hills Duck Pond Park and walked down the trail a bit until we found a fun bridge and stream to play next to.

The other day, we went back to Adelphi Mill Park and found the same bridge that we had thrown sticks off of a couple weeks prior. We checked the stream to see if any of our sticks were still stuck, and added more to the water.

On Thursday the 14th, Jed and I had the chance to see Looking For Roberto Clemente at Imagination Stage. We liked it so much that we got tickets to go again in May when Don and Carol were in town.
We love a great piece of live theatre!

Saturday the 16th, Jed was invited to a birthday party for twin girls that we know: Madison and Kendyl. He at first insisted that he wasn't going to go, but we slowly convinced him to go ("Let's just get the a present." "Okay, how are we going to get it to them?" "We don't have to go into their house if you don't want to, let's just drop off the presents and see if anything fun is going on..."). The Hyattsville parade goes right past their house, so they always plan the girls' birthday party for the day of the parade and end the party in the front yard to watch. Jed LOVED the parade because they threw candy at us. He kept yelling, "Hey guy! Give me more candy!!!" and "Hey, do you have any candy for me???" and "Candy!!! Yay, I love this parade because I get CANDY!"

I left from the party and drove straight to my dad's farm in Virginia for my Grandpa Jack's 80th birthday party. I didn't take Scott and Jed because it was such a quick trip, but I wanted to go and be there for the family celebration. I drove back early the next morning. We went out to eat at a German restaurant, where my Grandpa Jack gave each of his sons family heirlooms as gifts (we told him that it was his birthday party, so HE should be the one to get gifts, but he basically said, "It's my birthday, and I'm 80 years old, I can do what I want."). Then we went to my  Uncle Charles' house for cake, ice cream, and presents. I got to see the progress on my dad's farmhouse, which is being expanded this year before my dad and Debbie move to live there full-time.

The following weekend, I helped my friend Melissa by watching her girls for a couple days while she went with her husband on an overnight trip. It was their last chance to enjoy some time together alone before their baby boy came along a month later. Overall the girls were great and Jed had lots of fun with them - the only real trouble came in getting them out the door in the morning for preschool! But we spent most of both afternoons at the park, to keep the kids busy and entertained. My visiting teacher Allison met us at University Duck Pond the first afternoon, and my visiting teaching companion, Sophie, came with us to Watkins Regional Park the second. The extra help was appreciated!

Some friends of ours that we had only known for a few months but grown close to were moving back to Utah at the beginning of May (we knew this from the beginning). So we made sure to hang out with them as much as we could in those final few weeks. We went with them to Buddy Attick Park at Greenbelt Lake, and played and walked and fed the geese. Jed had so much fun that afternoon that we went back that evening to have a picnic dinner with Scott.

At the end of April was Maryland Day, which I've worked for the last few years. It is a full day of hundreds of events going on all over the University of Maryland campus, free and open to the community. It is tons of fun. I worked exclusively in the Kay Theatre this time, where we had Irish step, opera, swing, madrigal singers, and hip-hop dancers. Jed came to Maryland Day with Scott, and while they spent a lot of time down near the science buildings (where they have the wind tunnel, tornado in a bottle, dry ice, robotics, and all the other cool exhibits!), they did come visit me in The Clarice (Performing Arts) for a bit. In the scene shop, they had a giant dumbbell that they had made for one of the recent shows. The kids had fun lifting it up and thinking they were SUPER strong.

Over the last few months we have spent many hours building train tracks, and some of them have been quite elaborate! When flat became old news, we started making use of megablocks to prop the tracks up for multiple levels. Jed actually did these almost entirely alone. Here are a few of the tracks we built:

march 2016

In March I teched, opened, and closed a dance thesis show at the University of Maryland. I was originally just supposed to work on one of the two projects that were performing together, but when the SM for the other piece dropped out, I took over for her. It was a crazy endeavor and one that reminded me, and my production manager, why we have 2 SMs on the thesis projects! One of the pieces used a huge bunch of red helium balloons, weighted just enough that they would float down the ground slowly. It was tricky to get it right each time (and one night we didn't have enough balloons left, which was big drama!), but the effect was beautiful. Jed and Scott came to visit me during tech that day, and Jed had lots of fun running around with the balloons on the set. He also learned how to take an entrance from a cue light, and would wait backstage with the cue light on (standby) and run onstage proudly when I flipped the light off (go). He thought this was absolutely fantastic and wanted to do it over and over and over again. He had made me a picture with a ton of Easter stickers, and I hung it in front of my station at the tech table so that everyone could enjoy it.

Jed and I spent a pretty fun day at the zoo with a couple friends who had come to live in DC for a few months. We went through the panda house and got to see Mei Xiang (mom) and Bei Bei (baby boy) playing together. Jed and I rode the carousel together and he loved it.

In mid-March, Jed's preschool had a Fun Fair - their biggest fundraising event of the year. It is open to the community and brings in a good chunk of change. There is food for sale, games, crafts, lots of silent auction items, and several raffles. Downstairs in the hallway was an area with lots of dinosaur-themed activities. The classes had worked together to build "Boxasaurus," which was proudly displayed for everyone to see. Jed's favourite part of the fair was building with toothpicks and mini marshmallows.

Also in mid-March, Scott and Jed and I went to Imagination Stage to see a new spin on Jack and the Beanstalk. Jed always loves shows at IS. We watched a video ahead of time, that showed that the giant's head was just a puppet and an actor made it move and talk. Jed was still scared during the show - he said, "Mama, that giant is really just an actor and a puppet. But he is LOUD." The other part that made him super anxious was when everyone onstage was having an argument, so they were all yelling at each other. Overall, he enjoyed the show though!

One of my favourite things about DC is the cherry blossoms in the spring. This year we went with my friend Marianne and the babies that she nannies. Jed complained the whole way there (and even more on the way back), but he thought the blossoms were beautiful while we were there and had lots of fun running around. We went around to the Jefferson Memorial, and spent some time running around in the grass behind it. Jed found a small grove of trees that he enjoyed playing in as well. The cherry blossoms don't get any less beautiful year by year!

One random day in March, Scott decided to take a bunch of cardboard boxes that had been sitting around and put them to good use. So he built ROBOX and left him in the living room for Jed to find the next morning:

The note with Robox mentioned using his boxes to build something new, so Jed took him up on the challenge. Inspired by Boxasaurus from his preschool, Jed built something reminiscent of a stegasaurus, out of Robox's boxes. The plates made out of pipe cleaners was my idea, but the rest of it was pretty much him. He was so proud of himself:

He even made sure to include a tail with spikes, and a nest of eggs for the stegasaurus to take care of.

We enjoyed the warm days by visiting some of our favourite outdoor spots, like Watkins Regional Park, which has an amazing playground and Old Maryland Farm. There is a nature center, carousel, and miniature train too, but we usually fill the time with the playground and the animals at the farm.

Adelphi Mill, where we like to gather large sticks and throw them off the bridge. This started out as Poohsticks, where you throw sticks off of the bridge upstream and then watch on the downstream side to see which one "won." It quickly turned into a game where Jed ran off to just gather as many huge branches/logs as he could get and make a big pile, which he then threw over into the river later.

Wheaton Regional Park, which has both a carousel and a miniature train. The St. Clairs had stayed with us the night before, so they came with us, and we met Amy Ferguson there. We started off with lunch at the picnic tables, and sadly Jed fell off the bench and ended up with a big purple ear:

When he first fell, he was whining a lot and I wasn't sure why. But when I saw his ear, I suddenly understood what the fuss was about. He did recover though, and we went on both the carousel and the miniature train, which all the boys loved. Jed also worked hard on going across the rope bridge, which he was very proud of himself for!

We decorated a lot of eggs this Easter season, just because we had so much fun doing it. We tried several different methods - various types of resistance dying (crayon, rubber bands, hot glue, stickers), paint, crayons on hot eggs (so the crayon wax would melt), opalescent dye (store-bought), bleeding tissue paper, and combinations of the above! Jed's favourite thing in his Easter basket was some "premium" raspberry jam, which is now his favourite kind of jam. At church the kids were supposed to sing "Beautiful Savior" in front of the whole congregation, and while Jed had practiced and knew all the words (even to the verse the choir was singing), when the time came he froze and refused to go up there. The kids sang without him, and after they finished tears began streaming down his face while he said, "But Mama, I REALLY wanted to sing! I wanted to, I just...I just...but I wish I got to sing!" It was the saddest thing. He spent the next week singing "Beautiful Savior" over and over to himself, as if he was making up for missing his chance or proving to himself that he could do it. We spent Easter afternoon with our friends the Prues, at University Duck Pond Park. Everyone had fun walking around the pond and feeding the ducks.

february 2016

In early February we planned a playdate with a family that was in the ward for just a few months doing an internship. Megan was in DC from January to May with her husband, their 2-year-old daughter, and two of Megan's teenage sisters, who had come along for the experience. The playdate ended up being the same day as playgroup, which was at the Natural History Museum, so we combined the two and met the girls on the metro to travel down together. On Tuesdays the butterfly pavilion is free, so after watching a tarantula feeding and holding a grasshopper, we went in to look at the butterflies.

Jed loves to come to work with me and help, and he particularly loves wearing the headsets. This particular project was the Choreographers' Showcase, and I needed to start setting up a little before Scott got home from work, so Jed came with me to help. I feel very blessed to work in a place where I feel comfortable doing that, and as long as I'm still able to get the work done that I need to, my production managers are okay with it too.

We were lucky enough to have Don and Carol come to visit in the middle of February, which is always a treat for all of us. We did lots of fun things with them, including eating at Jed's favourite restaurant (Silver Diner), our favourite restaurant (Chevy's) and going to the zoo.

While Don and Carol were here, I had an all-day gig at the Kennedy Center, the second Mason Bates concert. He's the new composer-in-residence at the Kennedy Center, and is all about taking classical music and doing new things with it so the audience is engaged in a more comprehensive way. His first concert was "progressive" in the sense that the audience moved (progressed) through different rooms to experience different decades of ambient music, with a heavy dose of projections and mood lighting. This project took place in a traditional theatre with a thrust stage.

At the end of February Scott, Jed, and I took a Saturday (right before I went into insane tech week) and spent some time together at the Air & Space II Museum - it is a Smithsonian, but out near Dulles airport instead of downtown. There isn't enough space in the downtown museum for all of the planes and shuttles that they own, so this extension center is kind of an overflow area. They also have the Discovery Shuttle, which is simply too big to be housed in the building downtown. There is a lot of neat stuff at that one, and we tend to go there more than the original. Jed's favourite part is the plane that the kids can actually get in and pretend to fly, of course!

Jed discovered Super Mario Bros at a friend's house, and immediately became enamored with it. This fascination soon turned into an obsession, and he now plays it every single day. The structure of his day revolves around being able to play half of his screen time in the morning with me, and half of it in the evening when Scott gets home from work. He can earn extra levels by using the potty, and loses playing time if he's particularly uncooperative. It is his motivation to get his morning routine done and literally the first thing he wants to do when Scott gets home from work. At first he was really terrible, and too scared to do anything but be in a bubble the whole time - but slowly he became comfortable playing and is now quite good. It has been a good tool for him to work on his anxiety with - he is no longer terrified of the bad guys and is able to face them confidently. He still often loses his special abilities and/or dies, and while he used to totally freak out when those things happened, he now takes it in stride (usually). It has been good for him in multiple ways!

birthday storm

The weather people predicted a major snowstorm near the end of January, and Snowzilla didn't disappoint. We had nearly 3 feet of snow over the weekend and spent some quality family time both inside and outside. Federal offices closed at noon on Friday to allow everyone to get home before the storm really hit, and while Scott drove home Jed and I hunkered down and baked some sweet potato muffins. Jed took a pitcher outside to measure the snowfall, but it wasn't long before the pitcher was completely buried. We dug it out a couple days later.

On Saturday the snow fell steadily all day, and nobody lasted very long outside. It was pretty gross out there. Scott and Jed did try, though, and I opted to watch from the warmth of our apartment. Jed insisted on bringing his umbrella outside, which I'm sure did keep him a little warmer as it kept the snow from falling on him...but my suggestion to wear a snowsuit, a hat, a coat, and gloves fell by the wayside and Jed froze after just a few minutes. 4-year-olds aren't known for their great rationality. 

With the desire to be outside now solidly checked, we mostly stayed inside and played, and put together Jed's new loft bed that had arrived in the mail on Friday (perfect timing!). It wasn't supposed to arrive until the beginning of the following week, but I wonder if they made an extra effort to deliver what they could early before the storm hit. Jed helped assemble the bed, of course. Scott had to complete the last 30 minutes of work by himself, because I got too frustrated and needed to cool down - so Jed and I played Super Mario Bros. until Scott was finished.

We tried to find lots of other things to keep us occupied while we were cooped up inside with the grey and snowy skies outside, but we were all feeling the cabin fever pretty badly. We decided to make adjustments for Sunday to boost morale!

A variety of inside activities

On Sunday we woke up to sunny skies and 3 feet of fresh snow - we could tell from the beginning it was going to be a better day than Saturday. We made a list of lots of options and displayed them on a board. As we did each of the activities, we moved that post-it over to the "done" side of the board to see our progress. Jed was in love.

We did things inside, but made sure to spend plenty of time outside as well, with lots of snowman-building and snow-shoveling. Jed had a great time helping everyone he could find shovel snow away from their cars. He of course wanted to come inside and drink hot chocolate when we were done, though I'll be honest - I was sweating like crazy after shoveling all the snow! My back wasn't feeling too great either. It made me wonder what kind of increase in business chiropractors see after a major snowstorm. 

Monday was Jed's birthday, and we had planned to go pick one out a fish with him that day. We'd been prepping him for about a week, talking about what we need to do to prepare our house for another pet, what steps we need to take to set up the aquarium, what the fish needs, what we will have to do to take care of it once we get it from the store, etc. He was BEYOND excited and remembered everything we had been reading about what betta fish need. It was been really fun to see him be a part of the process, and he seemed much more invested in the fish than he might have been if we just said, "Hey, here's a tank! Do you want a fish for it? Let's run to the store and buy you one right now!" Impulse buying isn't usually a great idea, especially when it comes to pets. 

Because of the storm, Scott had a couple days off of work. Sadly, he didn't get them for free, as the federal government expects employees to telework on snow days - or use annual leave. Scott wasn't set up for teleworking at that point, so he had no choice but to use leave hours. So we made the best of them! Jed was thrilled that Scott was home to celebrate with us all day on Monday. He had been telling me for a couple weeks that Scott was going to be home for his birthday, because it was "a special day, like a holiday." Luckily for him his prediction came true!

The first thing we did was make pancakes for breakfast, and the second was call the pet store to see if they were open or not. They were, so we drove to the store to get Jed's new fish - which he named Siamese Fighting Fish ("because that's what he is"). After getting the fish situated in his new home, we went to Silver Diner - Jed's favourite restaurant - for lunch. He was in heaven.

His first birthday celebration was super fun, but Jed was lucky enough to have two of them. He and his best friend, Eve, had planned a combined birthday party that weekend and invited a few friends. After much discussion, they finally landed on the idea of having a "royal" party. Katie Curtis (Eve's mom) and I collected giant cardboard boxes and over the course of several days, built a kid-life-sized castle in her living room. 

The day before the party, Jed and Eve exchanged their birthday presents for each other. These kids are so cute! Eve gave Jed some rescue trucks, and Jed found a few DigiPenguins for Eve that sing individually, or as a choir if you put them together.

The kids had a great time at the party, and were SO excited to be together. Katie had the kids decorate their own (giant) "tea cups" with Sharpies and then we baked them in the oven at a low temperature. I made each kid at least one sword, and made a couple shields that everyone had to share (they took much longer to make than the swords!). They were a huge hit, especially with the castle to play in!

Finally it was time for cake and ice cream. Jed had requested a sandcastle cake - which at first I thought would be easier than making a cake look like a real castle, but it turns out that combining frosting and animal cracker crumbs and making it NOT look like a lumpy, crumbly mess was more difficult than I anticipated. But after much trial and tribulation, I ended up with something that wasn't terrible. The kids helped me add all the gummy bears, as "guards" for the castle. But since we used toothpicks to stick them on, their impaled little bodies seemed more like warnings to invaders...But whatever they were, the kids had a blast decorating and the cake tasted delicious.

We wanted to do a pinata but didn't think that having a bunch of kids inside swinging a stick or bat around wildly (and blindly) sounded like a good idea. So I found an idea for a ribbon pinata online and made one of those instead - it even worked with our castle theme! I took an old oatmeal container and cut turrets into it for the shape. Then I made a little trap door, lots of slits for ribbons, and stuck the ribbons through each one - except for one ribbon, which was attached to the trap door. The kids took turns pulling a ribbon until somebody found the one that released the loot!

All in all, it was a pretty fun day. I can't believe my little boy is 4 already!