Life and Times of the Walkers: August 2009

The past two weeks were pretty busy for us, with Claire starting school and me getting ready for classes to begin. It has been a serious adjustment for us with Claire. She has to get up at around 6:15 to catch the bus at 7:10, and while she has no trouble getting up, Rachel wakes up with her which means she needs more sleep later. But since she is no longer in the crib, her normal naps are not as long, so we are trying to go back to two short naps for her which isn't always possible. And then the day ends pretty quickly after dinner in order to get the girls in bed by 8:00. But the good thing is that we actually have time after they go to bed to do other things or go to bed ourselves. (I have time to collapse.) (Rachel with her "book reading" is sometimes awake until 10:30 or 11and doesn't have enough room in her full size bed for all her books and herself.)

Claire loves to ride the bus, and we are proud to say that we are trendsetters, as Claire riding the bus has encouraged other kids in our neighborhood to ride as well. Katey, across the street, rides to and from every day with Claire and her friend McKenna rides the bus home. We are doing our part to reduce unnecessary driving to school. Almost everyone we have spoken to around here can't believe we put Claire on the bus, but we feel that with a line of cars that waits 30 minutes to drop off or pick up each day, the bus is the most responsible thing we can do. Besides, it comes right to our front door and it's so easy. (Paul thinks it is responsible. I think it helps my sanity and everyone elses by not having to rush to wait in a long line of cars 2 times per day. I think it is ridiculous. Everyone around here has horror stories about riding the bus, but I did it all through elementary and junior high and not only survived, but didn't have anything really bad happen. So as long as things are going smoothly, we are going to continue.)

Claire is also doing well with school lunch, and we let her eat breakfast there one day last week when they had french toast sticks. They offer chocolate milk every day, so we are trying to get her to choose regular milk most of the time, but that is a tough battle. According to what she tells us, she is eating pretty well. (She has made a responsible decision to drink chocolate milk only on Fridays. And she seems to be surviving the day with what she is eating. She hasn't discovered the "snacks" you can buy separately. Hopefully she won't figure that one out for a long time)

On Sunday the 16th, I went to dinner with our Freshman Reading Experience author, a guy named Ned Vizzini. I am on the committee that chooses the books for that program, and work closely with the director of the program because the book is used in composition classes. The committee had dinner with him on campus, and it was nice to talk to him. I then ate breakfast with him on Monday along with several composition instructors, and then I led a group of new freshmen in a discussion of that book later in the morning. All the freshmen are supposed to read the book over the summer and many of them did. The book, It's Kind of a Funny Story, is about a teenager who is under a lot of academic pressure, gets depressed, and nearly commits suicide and goes to a psychiatric ward of a hospital for a week. The students have enjoyed it so far. (Boy, it sure does sound like an enjoyable book doesn't it. Actually, the MSU women's book club read the book also and it was pretty good. It's not quite as depressing as Paul makes it sound here. I just wish I could go to the lectures these authors give on campus, but they always seem to be on Monday when I am at work.)

Vizzini spoke to all the new freshmen later on Monday, and he did a good job. Our babysitters started the semester that day, coming in the morning so I could go to breakfast and stuff, and then I came home in the middle of the day and then went back in the late afternoon when the other babysitter came -- Lauren and Lauren again. They were excited to see the girls, although it is different for them without Claire there.

The week before I did a lot of preparation work for my classes, along with finishing up summer projects, and also led an orientation meeting on Friday for all the composition instructors. I coordinated the creation of a custom-student guide textbook for our program, and we barely got copies in time for the orientation, and that was not without some drama. There were delays in the printing, and then as they were sending them out someone found a small smudge on four of the pages so they reprinted them and sent new ones. The bookstore was a little annoyed because they like to pre-pack freshmen books and couldn't put that one in, but it all worked out in the end.

Classes began on Wednesday, and on that day as well as the two previous days I am a popular guy in my office as many, many students visit me to try to get into full composition classes. We have a new registration system that makes things easier for me, in that I have no control over it like I used to -- I used to be able to sign students into any composition class. Now I can only suggest to an instructor that they add a student, but I haven't done that much because most of the students can wait to take the courses next semester. But I still had a lot of visitors, and a few tough situations. But my first class went well. I am teaching two classes, one composition class and an online technical writing class. I am working with another composition teacher and a psychology professor in a collaborative project, where we combine our courses through an online wiki. The psychology course is the psychology of consumer behavior, and we have been working together on the composition courses with the theme of sustainability and consumer behavior. We have done a lot of prep work and it should be a fun semester. The composition class is a 4-day-a-week class, M-Th, which is a change, but because of it everyone who teaches it teaches one class fewer than they normally would, so that is nice to have extra prep time or research time.

I was busy all day Thursday and Friday, and then on Saturday I ran a 5K run early in the morning and took 2nd in my age group and 13th overall, and had a good time with several friends who ran as well. Then I helped a lady in our ward get mulch by driving her van and trailer out to the nursery and then backed the trailer into her driveway. She didn't want to pull the trailer or back it in and her husband is away for a few months working. So I did that and finished just in time for her as well as J.J. to go to a baby shower. (It was so fun to go to a baby shower that I didn't have to do anything for except go and enjoy. It seems that being RS president here also means you are in charge of most of the baby and bridal showers here which has seemed like quit a few lately.) I stayed home with Rachel and Maggie, and then when J.J. and Claire returned, we drove north to Amish country, where we had gone two years ago and wanted to go back. We drove for about 90 minutes, then went on some back roads, through the creek that we were too "chicken" to go through last time and were mocked by Amish kids then. But the water was lower this time and it was no problem to drive through. (I had to hold my breath though) We bought some bread and jam at an Amish farm, and then we drove up to the Ohio River and crossed a free ferry to a little place called Cave-in-Rock, and visited the cave that is said to have hidden bandits for centuries. It was kind of fun, and the day's weather couldn't be beat -- it cooled down to around 70 degrees, which was great. We ate dinner at the state park's restaurant there and then caught the ferry back across the river -- the ferry was quite cool and they were pretty fast at loading and unloading -- and then drove home, stopping only for ice cream on the way.

We took a Saturday afternoon to drive up to Amish country and enjoy the area and then drove north to the Ohio River to take a ferry across the river and to a place called Cave-in-Rock. It's a pretty cool place. (You can check it out at www.dnr.state.il.us/LANDS/LANDMGT/Parks/R5/CAVEROCK.HTM). It is a cave in the rocks along the river that has been used as a tavern, a hideout for pirates, murderers, robbers and now a state park.

We found a park to let the girls play for awhile.

It's always fun to have green grassy open areas to just run!

And run Rachel does!

We took a ferry across the river. It doesn't take long, so we didn't get out of the car, but the girls did get to get out of their car seats - what more could you ask for? I always get a little nervous riding ferries with a bunch of cars piled on them - who knows what could happen?