This Good Life–2010

Holiday greetings loved ones!  If you got here from From the Heart, you know that I’ve been writing an Advent blog, and over there is where the “real” writing is.  Here you will find (most of) our family’s year in pictures (and a few words). 

Gabe this summer

Gabe turned 5 this year, and now gets 5 smooches on his pillow at night instead of 4.  “Getting big” is not without some anxiety for our little guy (he’s no fool; he knows that “getting big” means having to do scary things like poop in the potty, stop using a pacifier, and get yelled at more by your mother).  But he’s flourishing, giving life his best, super-hero-est shot, and grows into more of himself everyday.

We travelled to Niagara Falls this year for Spring Break, and no one fell in, which was a small concern for me because I am terrified of heights.  It seems that for Canadians, a flimsy metal railing between you and a raging, life-threatening waterfall is no problem at all.  If we had been on the American side, we would probably have had to look at the Falls through a 10-foot wall. 

We saw a rainbow, just like in a postcard, visited a butterfly house, and tried to get Noah and Jacob to stop calling it Viagra Falls.

For a little glimpse into that trip, especially the moment that Jacob announced, outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan that he had NO SHOES with him (none on his feet and none in his suitcase), click here.

"And God put a rainbow in the clouds"

Noah “graduated” from 8th grade and would be horrified if he knew I was posting this picture of him below.  He’s a freshman in high school and is incredibly happy.  He had had enough of the rigidity of Catholic School thinking (or lack of thinking, depending on your perspective),and it had had enough of him.  It’s been amazing to see him start to enjoy aspects of school again, and to watch how he chooses to present himself to the world, now that he doesn’t have to wear a uniform or keep his shirt tucked in. 

Witnessing people who are part way along in the process of growing into who they are is a miraculous experience.  If you’d like to read more about how that transition started off (as if you have nothing better to do than spend half your day reading this letter), click here. 

Noah's graduation

Jacob’s (who now only answers to “Jake”) life seems to be mostly centered around sports–cross country, basketball and track.  He’s an amazing athlete (totally gets it from his mother), beautiful to watch, intensely focused. He spends hours in the driveway shooting hoops, and reported progressively better “PRs” during his cross-country season.  We love watching him working hard at what he loves, love watching him grow into his body and himself.

J in the driveway

Martin, Noah and Jacob travelled to Germany this summer to visit Martin’s family.  He and his father went on a cycling trip through northern Germany, and the boys got to be spoiled by their Aunt Katja and Uncle Michael.  Gabe and I stayed home and totally renovated Noah’s room to get him ready for high school.  It was like an excavation project, but came out really well.  When he got home he said, “I feel like I’m living in a magazine.”

M on his bike trip

Both of my parents retired this year, which was a huge deal.  We were all able to celebrate my mother’s retirement together, and they are now in the process of transporting themselves and their cat Bella to their “winter residence” in Florida. 

At my Mom's retirement party

We celebrated Thanksgiving with the serendipitous combination of my parents and Martin’s father Uwe, who visits us twice a year.  For the five of us, who live out here “on the prairie” as my father says, with no family around, it was sort of a mini-miracle.

Thanksgiving 2010

For me, I can only say that 2010 is a year that I will be more than happy to see the back of.  Nothing horrible to report–many good things happened, but more than enough crap things happened as well, and I am truly looking forward to the fresh start of 2011. 

Martin’s work continues to go well, as does mine, particularly my writing, and our lives are filled with blessings.  You’ll find more pictures below;  please know that we wish you all good and true things for this new year, and we appreciate each of your places in our lives.  And as Garrison Keillor says, “Thank you God, for this good life, and please forgive us if we do not love it enough.”

Warmest wishes,

Leslie, Martin, Noah, Jacob and Gabriel

Noah setting things on fire

Boys in Germany with Katja

 

Gabe & Mama painting Noah's room

The Srajek Summer Institute (Beta Version)

In the most recent issue of Good Housekeeping, there is an article called something like “Stopping the Summer Slide,” and it’s about how to deal with kids having too much time on their hands in the summertime.  The picture at the start of the article is a very cute little boy in a striped shirt and baseball cap lying in a hammock on a sunny day. 

Now, if that were my son, I would be thanking God every day that he was (a) outside, (b) wearing clean clothes, and (c) looking as though he were freshly showered.  I would not be even remotely concerned about a “summer slide” if my boys spent it lying in a hammock or jumping on a trampoline or even lying in the grass playing Brain Regan’s Sun Stare until their eyeballs burned out.  What I worry about is this:

My husband and I both work so finding things for 12 and 14-year old boys is not easy, and really demands a lot of all of us.  Kids obviously don’t automatically know how to manage time so they don’t know what to do with 3 unstructured months of it, and as parents, we do believe that they are entitled to a summer break that feels like a summer break.

But they need stuff to do. 

Last year, they broke two of the enormous, ancient Anderson windows in our house–the kind that slide open and shut and cost a gazillion dollars to replace because they don’t even make them anymore–because they “were sort of fighting” with each other, and one of them pushed the other off the top bunkbed and through the window.  This incident turned up months later in one of Jacob’s English class essays called “The Worst Day of My Life.”  (The second window was broken when one of them “sort of” gently tossed a book “in the direction of” the other one, and it took them every weekend of lawnmowing until November to pay it off).

So this summer, my husband and I are trying to handle the job of having two adolescent boys at home in a creative, family-oriented manner that will give our boys both structure and freedom, and will keep us from killing them.  We’re calling it the Srajek Summer Institute (or SSI for short.  My oldest son has nicknamed it the BSI, but he is entitled to his free-thinking, pea-brained opinion.).

Here is the PowerPoint presentation of what we’ve decided to do (you have to click on it to see the whole thing, and choose “Open” when it asks you if you want to open or save the file): The Srajek Summer Institute (or, Yes, You Too Can Have a Fabulous Summer).  We presented it to the boys in this format, together with a 6-page handout that outlined the program.  They like visuals, and I figured that if it looked like something they should take seriously, maybe they would.  We’ll see. 

Here is the program:

The purposes of the SSI are:

• To help us avoid summer boredom and getting on each others’ nerves
• To choose fun and interesting things that we each want to do and be motivated to do them
• To encourage each other to accomplish our SSI goals
• To enjoy the summer!

The SSI is a project with 3 areas: Mind, Body and Spirit.  In the SSI, we will each choose activities/goals in each of these three areas and make plans for how to do them. 

For example, a Mind project might include reading a new book series, writing something, such as a book chapter and/or letters to relatives (in English or German), going to the library, visiting places on campus, and/or learning about a topic or issue that interests you. 

In the Body area, we can have tiny goals, such as getting up by 9:00 or 10:00 each day (Noah and Jacob) and eating breakfast, etc., and bigger goals such as going swimming each day or several times per week, running a 5k, doing the Champaign Mini-Triathlon, going for a walk each day, biking, cooking, etc.      

In the Spirit area, there are many things we can choose to do.  These include anything that makes you happy, feel good about yourself and others, and connects you to the world around you.  Spirit activities can include: hanging out with friends and family on a regular basis, gardening, going to church, volunteering to help someone or some cause that interests you (we can help you find a project in Champaign Urbana if you are interested in this or you can think up one on your own), doing something extra for someone in the house, listening to music, etc.

Each person participating in the SSI will make a plan for what they would like to do in each of the three areas and share it with the rest of the family by Thursday, June 17^th.   The SSI begins on Friday, June 18^th. 

So that’s the general plan.  I’ll update you soon on what the boys (and Martin and me too) have decided to do as our goals.  For right now, let me just say that the boys have, in a totally surprising turn of events, taken up baking, and have thus far produced a two-inch high Bundt cake, Ginger Snaps, and a batch of Snickerdoodles, half burned and half delicious.

More to come!  Wish us luck!  I think we’ll all need it…

J trying to light grass on fire w/a magnifying glass

I Never Thought I Would Live to See the Day

…that my adolescent son and I would be sharing the same tube of hair gel, that my mother would be on Facebook, and that my fears about my children growing up to be social deviants might turn out to be true.  I always joke about how I’m afraid they will be 46 and living in the basement, surfacing only at night, or to collect mysterious packages from UPS.  But I never thought they would actually become total weirdos.

Oh sad, sad woman.  What did you think would happen after hours and hours of YouTube, Runescape, SpongeBob, Wii, PSPs, DSs, GameBoys, microwaveable corn dogs, a Catholic school education, and your gene pool? 

Last week the four of us were at Wal-Mart because Gabe needed new sneakers.  On the way there, Jacob said he planned to go to Customer Service and order a “quarter pounder with cheese and a large fries.”  Then he would say, “Oh, yeah, and a Coke.”  And then when they didn’t serve him, he would say, “It’s because I’m gay, right?  You know, I would expect this from McDonalds, but not from Wal-Mart.”  

He read about this in an email called something like 25 Weird Things to Do at Wal-Mart.  Other things included gluing a quarter to the floor and watching people try to pick it up, but for that, he didn’t have a quarter, glue, or enough time.

When we walked into the store, he made a left towards Customer Service, looking completely determined.

“Where are you going?” I hissed, trying to break the magnetic pull between Gabe and the shiny, brightly colored boxes of crap at the front displays.

“To Customer Service.  I told you in the car.”  Keeps walking.

“JACOB!” 

Turns around, makes a “What!?” face.  Keeps walking.  He’s wearing his SCHOOL UNIFORM.

“Noah, go with him,” I said, my arm being yanked out of the socket by Gabe who has spotted some stuffed animals.

“What for???  I’m not watching him make a fool of himself!”

“GO WITH HIM so if they have to call security, he’s not alone!  I have my phone and I’m going over to the shoes.”

As Gabe and I searched through the kid shoes, I kept half an ear out for any announcements.  I found new Lightening McQueen sneakers and Gabe took an unexpected liking to a stuffed bunny with pink ears and a huge pink satin bow (yes, FINE, you can have it, just LET’S GO!).   When we got to the check-out, Noah and Jacob were already there, standing by the candy looking shifty.

“WHAT are you doing now?” I asked.

“Oh, so HE can get something but WE can’t???” Noah said, looking at the bunny.

“Would you like a stuffed bunny?  They’re over by the Easter items.  There might be some pink ones left.”

“Can we AT LEAST get a snack?”

“What happened at Customer Service?”

“The line was too long.”

“Right.  You wimped out.”

“THE LINE was TOO LONG.”

“Right.”

“So I stood near the entrance and yelled ‘Hakuna Matata!’ at people coming in instead.”

“Right.  Well, it’s so drafty over there, I doubt anyone even heard you.”

“Then I’ll do it again on the way out.”

And he did.  At the top of his voice.  I just kept walking.

But I’m afraid it’s just the beginning.

FREE TO A GOOD HOME: Enterprising 12-year old.  Can cook own food and repair small electronics.  Invisible Fence included.

Happy Holidays 2009

Having neither spectacular accomplishments nor grave misfortunes to report, and, to be honest, having exhausted the vein of humorous family anecdotes over the years, I will tell you instead that we are all well and fine, and hope that you are too. 

Instead of Srajek family details, which are really much the same as any other family’s day-to-day lives, I offer this story about something that happened to us this time last year, at the start of a long Midwest winter.

In our local paper there used to be a kid’s feature called “Letters to the Editor,” where school kids responded to a question from the editor, and then some responses from each school got published.  One week last December, Jacob’s answer to the question “What is the top item on your Christmas list this year?” turned up in the paper.  He wrote that since he wanted to be a carpenter when he grew up, he had “always wanted” a carpenter’s plane. 

If he didn’t get that, the number two thing on the list was “lots of nice building wood,” a response that makes him sound quainter and less electronically minded than he really is, but, well, he was probably writing what he knew had the best chance of getting published (they’re never too young to play to the crowd).

2009 Photos: People, Places & Things

L & M in Wiesbaden June 09

Jacob & Gabe in Wiesbaden June 09

Gabe and his “Whitey” who had enough of traveling…

Jacob & Gabe at Katja & Michael's in Wiesbaden June 09

L & M on our way to Mallorca June 09

A rare photo opp of Noah!

The Cutest Gabe in the World

Three boys camping in southern Illinois

Gabe and Mama Fall 09