When Pig Number One, Mr. Tookie McTooklton (Emmett’s spy name, for all of you out there that are not in the know), started blogging more than 12 years ago, he titled one of his first posts, “In Which Hope Comes to Town.” This post detailed Emmett’s aspirations of freedom. Freedom to be who he chooses to be. Freedom to define himself however he wants. The coincidence that our nation inaugurated its first Black president barely a month and a half after Emmett’s birth made him feel like everything was possible.

Fast forward through twelve years on the national and international stage, years that alternated between face splitting grins and sucker punches to the gut, and, well, we’ve come full circle. Despite the past 4 years, we choose to look ahead with hope. We choose to see that we are inaugurating our country’s first woman Vice President (woo-hoo!), a woman of color. We choose to focus on the positivity Biden and Harris bring to issues of race and gender equality, climate change, COVID, and social justice, to name a few. Like 12 years ago, we see January 20th, 2021 as the day in which hope comes to town.

While we waited (and wait) for hope to enter the building, we’ve been busy.

We celebrated Indigenous People’s day with food from our favorite vegan restaurant, City O City (did we mention the entire family committed to a plant-based diet just before the holiday?) and a family movie night. We celebrated Emmett’s birthday with more City O City, an amazing Golden Year Cake (Emmett turned twelve on 12/12; we Pigs refer to this as the Golden Year), and ice skating at an outdoor rink (twice!). We spent December going to Blossoms of Light at the Botanic Gardens, Zoo Lights at the Zoo, Member’s Only day at the new Space Odyssey at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and the Mexican Modernism exhibit featuring Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera at the Art Museum.

We celebrated Solstice with stargazing and setting family intentions for the upcoming year. We celebrated Mom’s birthday with a family movie (Hidden Figures) and more great food (only the bestest ramen ever). We got bikes, a sewing machine, Legos, a scooter, night vision goggles, game night games, socks, and nonprofit donations in our names for Giftavus Maximus (what we’ve renamed Christmas). We made our own candles and kombucha; we arted and danced and sang; we said goodbye to 2020 (RIP Isaac, we will never forget you) and we welcomed 2021 with a silly string war and holiday poppers.

And now, we look forward with hope to what comes next. Back to school, seeing old and new friends. New classes. A new home (with a new puppy(ies?) and new chicks). A new clinic location. The ability to take a deep breath and relax. To rest. To enjoy.

Here’s to January 20th, 2021; the day in which hope returns.

Pigs Out.

Everything is weird. Up and down and up and down. Stuff is closed and then opened and now closed again. School was remote, then in person, now it’s a hybrid–in person every-other-week, one-day-a-week. So much chaos. And although we’ve done our best to keep on keeping on, we are now collectively exhaling a long held breath. We learned about how we got here and made decisions on where we wanted to go. We made signs and we marched. We fundraised. And CO turned out. But today we finally found out that the nation turned out too. We are, to say the least, relieved. We are not alone.

This morning, when we picked a cake out at our favorite bakery, we asked to have Biden Wins! written on it. A few minutes later, the woman who carried it back out with the words stenciled in blue was crying. This was how she learned that Biden won. Our cake. She was not upset, she was relieved. And she was crying. We drove our cake home, honking in solidarity with people waiving flags on street corners and smiling with renewed optimism about what we are moving toward.

Riley turned eleven and the family celebrated, but he didn’t have a party. Due to restrictions on group events (which our family already exceeds), Riley has had individual play date parties complete with bagels and cupcakes. Even with this though, some people are declining to join, citing pre-exisiting conditions or another need to self isolate. These are also our friends who are not coming back to school at all this year. Friends that we probably won’t see for quite a long time in person.

We trick-or-treated, but not with friends this year. Emmett was a hybrid Sultan/Medusa; Asher was a Star Wars clone captain; Tessa was the headless horseman; and Riley was a soul reaper. We carved pumpkins and decorated our house, but we didn’t get to go to a Halloween party. Still, the candy haul was ginormous. We had to wait four days to sort and organize after the candy had been quarantined, but it was worth it. Between the four of us, we should have enough candy for the next 3-4 years.

We’ve been rock climbing, creating at our makerspace, taking drawing lessons, and spending time at the museum. Tessa’s been working hard at her Harry Potter art classes and Riley’s excelling at archery classes; Emmett performed as the Sultan in a musical Aladdin and as Doug in Descendants, and he’s taking classes to perform in the Music Man in the spring; and Asher’s been working hard at piano and playing a ton with his friend, Jack, next door. We’ve worked to retain normalcy in our routines. Still, we miss school (yes, we miss school), we miss or normal camps and lessons, and we miss not always being around each other. (We REALLY miss not always being around each other.)

Now, however, we are more optimistic about what’s coming up. We will eat our cake today and cheer. But we know that there is still work to do, and we choose to show up to do the work because this is our world. And the world is what you make it.

Hi All!

Summer has flown by! It’s been a bit s-l-o-w and lacking in camp fun, but we’ve made new friends, returned to frequenting our favorite local haunts, and celebrated a birthday, so we’re all good! Let’s recap:

The Denver Botanic Gardens: This was the first place to open back up during COVID, and we were there within 72-hours of that occurring. You’ve probably seen the pics posted of us running around a very lush garden, with koi and fantastic sculptures? That’s it. We love to go there and pretend that we are in the movie Jumanji. Sometimes, we just pretend that Mom and Dad are nefarious ne’er do wells and we have to escape and spy on them. Either way, we’re outside, so we’re good.

The Denver Zoo: This was the second place to open back up, and when we got into a virtual line to purchase tickets, we were only number 55,000 in line. Yes, the zoo is that popular. Anyway, we ended up getting tickets and were back within their first week reopened. It was great to see all of our favorite animals, but since we were there in the afternoon, we didn’t get to see the newborn cubs, the baby rhino, or the new stingray petting area. Two more times, we tried to get tickets earlier in the day so we could see these animal attractions, and twice all of the time slots were gone. It wasn’t until two weeks ago that we FINALLY got to the zoo before noon and we saw everything we wanted to see! Yay! We tried not to let the fact that it was a bajillion degrees outside get us down, but it was a close call. Two hours outside and we were exhausted and turning on each other…

The Denver Museum of Nature and Science: This just opened back up kind of recently. We’ve been twice times so far, though. First, we went to see the new exhibit Art of the Brick, which was a bunch of huge Lego sculptures. It was super cool. Asher especially loved the life sized T-Rex and the equally huge swimmer. There was a ginormous pencil there too that everyone found to be pretty amazing. When we went back, we saw an IMAX about mimics in the Amazon and a Victorian explorer whose work helped Darwin prove his theory of Evolution. Mom was a bit surprised to see us on the edge of our seats for the entire IMAX. We loved it!

Wicked Camp: Emmett was the Wizard in his Wicked theater camp! He was super upset that he wasn’t Elphaba, but he’s still pretty new to musical theater. His teacher says that he has an amazing voice, but it still needs training. Nevertheless, he’s on his way! We loved watching the filmed performance! (Due to COVID, there are no live performances, and all of the performers socially distance during the performance.) We got popcorn and put it on the big screen TV in the basement. We cheered when it was Emmett’s turn to sing. Yay, Emmett!

History Colorado Camp: This was our first full week camp that we all did together, and it was amazing. We’d never done camps at History Colorado before, but we loved their virtual field trips this past spring. Our theme was Colorado Archaeology, and we excavated, explored, and learned. We built a hide stretcher, rebuilt pots from discovered shards, and strung beads. We made new friends that we enjoyed hanging out with, and had a wonderful week.

Asher’s 7th Birthday Party: It was 20 kids outside for a Mandalorian Themed Party. We had a Mandalorian themed nature scavenger hunt, pin Baby Yoda on the Mandalorian, light saber fights, and Baby Yoda cupcakes. It was hot, with a small amount of shade on our front porch, but it was great! Asher got a new bike for his birthday, and asked his friends to donate to rhinos.org in lieu of gifts. He was so proud of himself when rhinos.org emailed him and told him how special he was to request that his friends help support the rhinos. Asher-Dasher is so fantastic.

Camping: We paddle boarded on a lake, saw a petrified forest and the Royal Gorge, and had an entire mountain valley to ourselves for two days of hiking and adventuring. Look at the pics. Each time, it was so, so good to unplug and spend time outside of the city. We are looking forward to doing it again.

Etc: Add to all of the above rock climbing at Uber Grippen, lots of playdates with friends, and exploring the neighborhood with new friends, and our summer–while not a normal Pig Summer–has still be full of excitement and exploration.

We aren’t sure what this fall will bring, but as there’s always something happening here, it’s sure to be interesting…

With love,

The Pigs

Life in the time of COVID19 has been, well, not drastically different for us pigs. Our school went on spring break and never returned. Our one-day-a-week, in-person school, we should clarify. But our school-at-home didn’t miss a beat. We’ve moved onto a less structured school day, as we’ve all summer long to get through this academic year (spoiler alert: almost all of our summer camps have been cancelled), but we keep on keeping on. How, you ask? Let us expand…

Our school workbooks aside (we still have to complete those), we have chosen a project for the summer: A Timeline. We started it in the basement at our new place (Did we mention we moved? More on that in a bit…), and we began with time periods we were interested in. Asher chose the Mesozoic Era, Emmett chose the Space Age, Riley chose Westward Expansion (he’s angling to get into the facts surrounding the Donner Party), and Tessa chose the Renaissance. We put those time periods on the time line, complete with labels and string, and now we are doing a deep dive into those periods, researching, learning more, and then adding more details to the timeline. Once we feel we’ve enough information about a particular time period, we move on. The coolest part is we built our own time machine out of cardboard boxes and blankets, and every time we do our research, we hop in the time machine first. So much spacetime to discover!

We’ve been on a bunch of virtual field trips through History Colorado (the Colorado History Museum, for those of you not in-the-know) and we’ve added those to the timeline too. The Chicano Movement (Emmett added his poster detailing who he chooses to be and what he chooses to stand for), Women’s Rights (we added a label showing that women in CO got the vote a full 27 years before the US ratified the 19th Amendment), Colorado geography (Tessa added the CO map she made)–so far, we’ve loved our Zoom field trips around the state to study our local history. We’ve also discovered some new hiking and camping ideas by participating. Perfect!

Our new house really lends itself to stay-at-home and social distancing. We moved because we decided that the house we were in wasn’t going to work for us long term. We needed a home set up for 6 people, with more separate indoor spaces (our old house had one huge room on the first floor and no basement), and a younger neighborhood population (there were no kids our age in the old neighborhood). We are happy to report we are enjoying our new basement a TON! Riley and Asher have their room downstairs and they love being separated a bit from Tessa and Emmett, who are on the second floor with Mom and Dad. Our basement also has our TV and the Lego table. Now, we get to have family movie night in the basement, like it’s a movie theater, and Lego building doesn’t end up with Lego’s taking over the entire first floor. This space also allows for everyone to play without so many fights for space. There’s a loft upstairs too, but we don’t use that too much. It’s there, though, should we choose to hang out there!

Also, there are a ton of parks and kids (so, so many kids) that even though we can’t get any closer than 6 feet, there’s still a lot of fun to be had biking, trading Pokeman cards, running through the sprinklers, playing Nerf guns, and playing dinosaur in these new outdoor spaces. It’s been a welcome change (which is good because at first we weren’t certain we’d made the right decision in moving out of our old home).

Riley dislocated his shoulder the weekend after we moved into the new house. (Of course you did, Riley.) But he was kind enough to reduce the dislocation all by himself while Mom and the ER doctor were discussing the xrays and how to go about getting the shoulder back into place. Thanks, Riley! He’s also now sporting a pair of orthotics for his flat, flat feet. The podiatrist took xrays (because Riley always needs more xrays) and said that when Riley’s feet were casted as a baby, it made him lose his arches. By wearing orthotics, he’s now attempting to rediscover those arches. The doctor is optimistic it will work. Stay tuned…

Emmett got an 80’s style Boom Box (with Bluetooth and CD capabilities), and he’s now spending a lot more time in his room listening to music and exploring Mom and Dad’s CD libraries. It’s perfect because he can listen to music without the screen of an iPod. He’s doing great with his weekly Zoom theater practice too. His Aladdin performance has been pushed back to the fall, but his singing voice is developing amazingly and we all know it’s going to be fantastic.

Asher is still a building machine. He’s so creative, building Lego Mandalorian and Clone Wars spaceships and speeders. He likes building kits, but he’s just as happy coming up with his own masterpieces. He’s also made a good friend next door, Jack. Asher and Jack are two peas in a pod. They both love dinosaurs, imaginative play, bubbles, and trucks. They have the same bike helmets, the same poster up in their rooms, and the same taste in games. Yay, Asher!

Tessa has been busy lately reading, reading, and more reading. It’s a good thing that our Tooth Fairy brings books and that everyone has been losing a ton of teeth lately, because our libraries are closed because of the pandemic. Without our thoughtful tooth fairy, Tessa would be doomed to reread for the fifth and sixth time all the books in our family library…

Going forward, we’ve still got some regular summer activities planned: Camping, hiking (We’ve already done a ton, check out the pictures!), and at least one summer camp called Ancestral Skills. We’ll weave our spacetime research and time traveling into that, add in biking to the neighborhood pizza place (for take out) and ice cream shop (for eating under a shady tree), and mix in a dash of whatever comes up–and we think that this summer is going to be a good one!

Check back soon,

The Pigs

OVERHEARD

“Uh, because I’m smart.

–Riley, answering Tessa’s question, “How do you know that you won’t confuse the two sticks once you put them into your pocket?”

“But you said I had freedom. You said I had free will. You tricked me!”

–Asher, upset that he had to stop building Legos to go and get his pajamas on.

“Yeah! I’ve got a good singing voice now…”

–Emmett, responding to Mom’s remark that she overheard E’s theater teacher telling him via Zoom that he’s going to steal the show with his amazing voice.

It has been three months since we’ve posted and Stuff has happened. Great stuff (Emmett’s birthday, Christmas, New Year’s, Tessa’s birthday); good stuff (Itty Bitty getting to know our family); and stuff-stuff (strange days with COVID-19). Let’s dig in…

Christmas was great. We’re sure you’ve seen the pictures. Toys, toys, and more toys. Laser Tag, Legos (lots of Legos), books, and a mushroom growing kit. (Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like.) We spent a bunch of time together as a family, going to museums, seeing some great movies, getting hooked on a new show (The Mandelorian, Asher’s new favorite), and then we spent New Year’s Eve celebrating without parents at a Zoo overnight. Yes, yes, yes! No parents. All night long. At the Zoo. SO MUCH FUN!

*Note: We are going to gloss over the Thursday Night Massacre. One fox. Nine beheaded chickens. Bodies strewn across the chicken yard. This was a bad scene that we will never speak of again. Ever.

Then we were back to school, seeing all of our friends after a long winter break, and before we knew it, it was Tessa’s birthday. She planned the whole thing, and then nothing happened as planned. There were over 20 kids that came to celebrate Tessa. 20 makes it hard to do a sewing project. But 20 is the exact number you want to run around and create general mayhem. The party was a hit! A kitty themed cake, playing outside in gorgeous 60-degree weather, and chickens, cats, and our fantastic Isaac dog. (Riley wants to make sure that the Hammock Incidents are mentioned. There was flipping. Children were rolled. The hammock was taken down. The End.)

We are now reminded that Emmett’s Birthday Movie Night might not have been detailed in a previous blog. His was a great evening of friends, pizza, popcorn, and Anime. We watched Spirited Away and everyone who was anyone loved it. Those who did not, were not invited back. Another great party spent with friends and our family. Yay!

You might have also seen a picture of Emmett getting ready to view a performance. He, being the cultured man he is, had tickets to the Peter Pan Ballet. It was by far the most fun ballet he’s been to. There were blinking lights handed out to each ballet patron to wave when it looked like Tinkerbell might not make it. (Spoiler Alert: Tinkerbell did, in fact, make it.) Maybe it had to do with all the kids waving blinking lights repeating, “I do believe in fairies,” but, regardless, we prefer when our main characters survive, so we are on board with it.

We are happy to report that our Itty Bitty is Miss Wonderful. She’s all kittened-up these days, attacking anything that moves (read: toes wiggling in the middle of the night, hair falling into your face, eyelashes blinking–anything). But she’s SO CUTE! She’s still a little purring machine, and she’s learned to hold her own with Professor Striped Pants. She’s actually a bit of a bully with Isaac, but we’re hoping that she backs off when she gets bigger. Cross your fingers. In the meantime, Isaac slowly backs out of the room when he sees her there. No harm, no foul.

Which brings us (at lightning speed) to today and strange days of COVID-19. We’re scheduled for nothing. We’ve no theater, no guitar, no school (although that coincided with Spring Break, but we’ll see if that gets extended). We’ve no where to go and not much organized play to attend to. The zoo is closed, the museum is closed, the Botanic Gardens are closed. We’re largely on our own. As for everyone else learning to do school-at-home?Well, they’ve just wandered into our ‘hood. We’re still plugging along with our curriculum, maintaining a semblance of normalcy, hoping as we always do to keep it interesting while doing the work that needs to get done.

We’ve all started playing this game outside that we call school. We based it on a set of books (We LOVE to read!): Pencil of Doom, Mascot Madness, and Treasure Fever. We take turns being the teacher while teaching art, gym, study of bananas, science, math, history, and gardening. Mom’s not 100% sure of what’s going on outside, but she’s happy we are engaged in something not screen-related and not yelling or hitting each other. Riley would like you to know that the teachers they pretend to be are called Mr. Grunt, Mrs. Rainbow, Mr. Shush, Mr. Spade, Mrs. Cross, Mr. Brain-fright, and Mrs. Robot. Good times. At least playing outside with our siblings isn’t being banned. Yet.

We send out good vibes and supportive thoughts to all who are affected by this virus. Be safe and be well. This too shall pass…

You might have noticed a new furry creature in our family pics recently. We’d like to introduce you to our new family member. Shuri, meet our Pig Friendly Community; PFC, meet Shuri. Shuri found us. As in, she came to our back door, and asked if we had an extra couch for her to crash on for awhile. We are happy to say there was ZERO hesitation. Mom screamed, “There’s a kitten in the backyard!” We swooped outside, grabbed the small, fuzzy body, and spirited her straight upstairs to Apollo’s food and water.

She was a raggedy Itty-Bitty (which is, coincidently, her spy name–Miss Itty-Bitty, just like Apollo is Professor Striped Pants), and she was mostly bones. When we put her in front of the food, she proceeded to eat and didn’t stop for more than 15 minutes. Riley tried to lure her to the water and put a drop of water on his finger and made the questionable decision to put that watery finger between the kitten and her new food. Not surprisingly, the kitten bit his finger thinking it was food. The teeny, tiny wonder, however, purred like a steam engine the ENTIRE time. She was so loud, you could hear her in the hallway.

That evening we took her to the vet. She weighed less than 1 1/2 pounds, she had an upper respiratory infection, and she had something suspicious going on with her eyes. Since she was feral, no one knew her history, we were advised to quarantine her for 10 days in case she had rabies. At this point in the vet exam, Riley blanched noticeably (see above reference to his kitten bite), and while his eyes turned watery, Mom had to assure him that the Universe would not send us a kitten with rabies.

We left the vet an hour later, laden with meds and kitten food and a kitten with a new name: Shuri. You might have noticed that Asher’s favorite movie, and Marvel character, is Black Panther. After the vet assured us that our new kitten was indeed feral and not lost, we claimed her as ours and Asher named her after T’Challa’s super smart and sassy little sister. Well done, Asher, as Shuri is now Apollo’s super smart and sassy little sister.

Fast forward two weeks. Shuri is out of quarantine (sans rabies, naturally), she’s moved into Tessa’s room (after Apollo made it clear he wasn’t interested in his little sis moving into Asher and Riley’s room–don’t ask), and she’s doing wonderfully. So, please, PFC, help us welcome Miss Itty-Bitty to the home of Four Fantastic Pigs, and stay tuned to see how the little girl does when she’s introduced to the world. (Slowly but surely.)

Time flies. So fast. So much stuff happening. All the time. Argh! Pushing forward, trying to keep up with the blogging. Feels like moving through pudding…

We’ve moved through the wonderful world of Halloween, with a trip to the pumpkin patch and Glow at the Gardens (the Denver Botanic Gardens), the Bigfoot Festival at the Zoo and a friend’s house to trick-or-treat. Asher was Black Panther, Tessa was Captain Marvel, Riley was a Spartan Warrior, and Emmett was Peter Pan (naturally). Mom and Dad were going to be Medusa and a satyr, respectively, but it was so, so cold outside and the night did not lend itself to grecian style dress. It did, however, lend itself to furry goat legs. So Dad was a satyr and Mom was, well, Mom.

Just before Halloween, Riley turned 10. Yes, 10. He’s so old, as he likes to tell us often, that he’s almost a teen ager. He had a birthday party at Boondocks where he and his friends played laser tag, bowled, and played in the arcade. The day was a hit.

Before that we had more of the greatness that is our lives: some camping, art and theater classes, guitar and uke lessons, swimming and jiujiusu. We’ve had a ton of snow already this year and there’s been lots of snow castle and snowman building and snowball throwing. Things have been good. We are enjoying the little stuff. It’s good to enjoy the little stuff.

Sorry for the truncated update. Read the post about our new fur baby. Keep checking back, we’ll post more soon.

Pigs Out

Some things Overheard Recently:

“Let’s put a pin in this.”

–Asher, in response to Emmett talking about all of the things he is going to be able to do when he is a teenager, in a little more than two years.

“Or, who they choose to be.”

–Tessa, adding to a discussion about how it’s important we embrace everyone for who they are, no matter their gender, their color, or who they choose to love

It’s already school time again! Wow! The summer just flew by. Flew. Like with real wings. Nevertheless, we’ve got great things to report: We LOVE our classes at Denver Options. We are taking everything from Writing and Graphic Novels to Quilting to PE to Geography. So fantastic. Plus, we get to see our school friends again and hang out with them. We’ve even made some new friends, since each year there are new faces in our crowd. Asher’s First Grade class is mostly returning friends from last year, but the class is small and his best friend is there, so it’s perfect. Overall, returning to school’s been Two Thumbs Up!

In addition to our Denver Options classes, Tessa started a weekly drawing class where she’s learning a ton (she’s already started to use shading in her own drawings) and Emmett is taking a weekly musical theater class that culminates in a performance of Aladdin, the Musical. He can be heard regularly practicing singing songs at home, most recently ‘You Ain’t Never had a Friend Like Me.’ Yay, Emmett! We can’t wait to see you perform!

When Tessa and Emmett are in class, Riley, Asher and Mom head to the Botanic Gardens and explore. The first time there, Asher pretended he was Smolder Bravestone from Jumanji, tromping through the jungle and fighting bad guys. So cute! After that, we spent more time in both the Children’s garden and in the far back of the York Street gardens, by the Cheeseman Gate. All the flowers are blooming so spectacularly and the weather’s not too hot. It’s gorgeous!

We’ve also hit up Wings Over the Rockies and the Museum of Nature and Science recently, for Apollo-palloza. We loved seeing everything space as well as seeing how hard everyone worked to put a person on the moon. It made us think that it is okay to fail because sometimes out of failure comes real, lasting success. On top of that, we’ve been to the Children’s Museum, where we did the new ropes course; we checked out the sculptures at the Chatfield Botanic Gardens; and we even did a tour of a local handmade candy factory. Check out all the pics Mom’s posted.

Jammed in between all of those museum trips and school, we went camping again. This time we went to an old mining town down South, St. Elmo, and we saw that there are still people who live in those buildings. It was both creepy and interesting. Plus, the hotel has an entire colony of chipmunks populating its front step! It rained off and on that entire camping trip, but when the stars did finally come out, they were so bright and clear, and there were so many of them that Riley called them a blanket covering the night sky.

Finally, we’ve been steadily moving through the Avengers cannon, culminating with Endgame just this past weekend. (There were mixed reviews for the penultimate Avengers movie in this crowd, mostly because we Pigs prefer to see our heroes all surviving the war.) But overall, we love family movie nights, and we love seeing our favorite heroes triumphing over evil. We love dancing to the fantastic Marvel music while the end credits roll, too. We’ve loved these movies so much, most of us are planning on being one Avenger or another for Halloween. (Tessa called dibs on Captain Marvel, which was a close thing since both she and Emmett got the Captain Marvel pajamas.)

Anyway you cut it, we are doing great. Riley’s back to doing everything–even live JiuJitsu, Asher’s becoming a reading whiz, Emmett’s doing what he’s always been destined to do–perform in musical theater, and Tessa’s digging into her artwork. Yay, Pigs!

Check back next month when we regale you with tales of Riley’s Birthday, all of the fall festivals we go to, and Halloween!

Pigs Out.

Just a quick note to relate some good things that have happened to our crew lately. First, Emmett took a Peter Pan theater camp and he was cast as the lead! Aside from a short Roald Dahl theater camp where he played Willy Wonka in a 15 minute production, this was his first real acting experience, and it was a big one. The production was about an hour long, and Emmett had a TON of lines. Emmett rose fantastically to the challenge. He memorized his lines without much help from Mom or Dad, he learned his marks, and he performed amazingly. We were all so proud of him, and he was proud of himself! Yay, Emmett!

That same weekend, Asher has his sixth birthday party. Asher’s six! Can you believe it? It seems like just last week that Mom and Dad brought Asher home from the Kansas City NICU, a teeny tiny 4 1/2 pounds. He was like a perfect little doll. Well, he’s still perfect, but now he’s BIG. And he’s six! At his party, he had an Avengers cake, and ran around with his friends playing with Legos and dressing up. He got some amazing presents from his friends and from Mom and Dad too! More Legos, Spiderman Walkie-Talkies, and cool building kits. It was great! Yay, Asher!

A few weeks after that, Riley got his casts off! At first, he was scared. It felt so different to be without the extra support of the casts that Riley didn’t want to use his hands or wrists at all. The doctor gave Riley some wrist braces and advised he wear them regularly for two weeks and taper down after that. But a day or two later, Riley was already feeling more back-to-normal, taking the braces off when he was reading and sleeping and doing quiet things. He still can’t do everything (he has to wait another 5 weeks until he can weight bear or do live JiuJistu), but he’s doing wonderfully and moving on. Yay, Riley!

Tessa has nothing specific to report, but she has been working really hard on her drawing. She takes graphic novels she likes and copies the drawings in the books, and we are searching for a good drawing class to start this fall. Mom and Dad think that it’s great that she’s taken it upon herself to work hard and practice her drawing. We’re sure there’ll be great drawings that we’ll post pictures of very, very soon. Yay, Tessa!

Great Job, Pigs! Yay, Pigs!

Mid-Morning on July 4th Riley reached up to grab the hot handle of a jungle gym zip line and he jumped. He expected to slide along a roughly seven foot expanse and, when the line came to an end, drop lightly to the wood chips below, flushed with excitement and ready for another go. Instead, about a foot into his ride, his sunscreened hands began to slip. And then they slipped some more. But he was already moving and moving at a speed too fast to control. When his hands slid free from the handles, he fell. Face first. Into the wood chips.

“Mom!” Emmett ran. “Mom! Dad! Riley fell! He fell and I think he broke his wrist!”

Mom and Dad were about twenty feet away from Riley watching Nugget (aka Asher) making some pretend lemonade at the sand table. It was customary for them to hang with the Little Man while the rest of us ran freely at the park. Why, after all, would they have to watch us older kids so closely? We were ten, nine, and eight. No need for eagle eyes on this bunch anymore. Turns out, maybe they were wrong.

Dad got up first and started to walk over to the area of the park that Emmett had just come from.

“Is that Riley screaming?” Mom asked.

They looked at each other for the briefest moment, and then they both ran.

They came upon Riley, face already streaked with tears, sprawled out in the wood chips underneath a tall, but not too-tall, jungle gym. Dad arrived first. As soon as Mom, who was only five or six steps behind him stepped off the paved path, she saw Dad mouth, “It’s broken.” Mom looked down and knew why he was so certain. Riley’s right forearm, once straight as an arrow, now bulged outward as if his bone had been replaced by rubber and someone had given it a good yank.

By this point, others began to gather around Riley too. Given the odd angle of Riley’s wrist, as well as the swelling starting to show in the still seemingly straight one, Mom, her Wilderness First Responder training kicking in, started searching the wood chips for a solid piece of wood for a splint. Meanwhile, Dad was attempting to use his phone for the same purpose. Later Mom and Dad would find out that the neighborhood professionals were out in force at the park that holiday and the individuals offering up their help were trauma surgeons and pediatricians. This was a good thing, as Dad’s phone was too small to brace Riley’s wrist effectively and the only piece of wood Mom could find was the size of a well-worn pencil. The trauma surgeon offered up her collapsible umbrella, which worked much better than anything Mom and Dad brought to the table.

While Dad continued to work with the medical professionals, Mom corralled Nugget and Emmett and headed back to the car, where Tessa was engrossed in her third reading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Immediately, as Mom maneuvered into the parking place closest to the scene of the accident, talk turned to Tessa’s clavicle break almost exactly a year earlier.

“Oh, no,” Tessa said. “Mom do you think Riley will have to miss Zoo Camp next week?”

“I don’t know Tessa, I’m hoping it’s just dislocated.”

“Both wrists?” Tessa asked.

Mom nodded.

“If they’re not though, and if they are both broken, I will skip Zombie camp at the end of the month. I don’t want Riley to be upset that I’m doing it without him.”

Zombie Camp had been highly anticipated for months. Shooting arrows, building shelters, learning how to fend off Zombies in the almost guaranteed forthcoming Zombie Apocalypse. Riley had talked of no other Summer Camps. All Spring, he had only imagined how amazing Zombie Camp would be.

“That’s nice of you, Tessa,” Mom said.

“Well, I did miss YMCA camp last year and even though it was Riley that pushed me off the the Pirate Blaster and broke my clavicle, I still want to be nice to him if he has to skip Zombie Camp.” Then she paused reconsidering. “But maybe–“

Mom cut her off. “Hold that thought, Tessa. Let’s just get Riley to the hospital and see what’s up. Okay?”

Tessa nodded.

That’s when Dad and Riley crested the hill, Riley clutching both wrists to his chest and Dad clutching Riley. Five long minutes later, Tessa now in the way way back–Riley and Nugget’s domain–and Riley belted into Tessa’s seat, everyone tried to remain calm for the ride to the hospital.

Ah, Children’s Hospital of Denver. We know you so well. You were amazing when Tessa fell (read: was pushed) from high heights and broke her clavicle. You were great with Nugget when he ran head on into that wall, not even bothering to look up when the corner tore open his temple and blood streamed onto the still stained floor. Now that we were rushing Riley to Children’s, who was crying a low throaty cry that reminded Mom of his infant days, only Emmett would be unfamiliar with the Children’s ER, an absence felt keenly by the Big Man who wanted to know what it was like to get all the attention that accompanied such a sudden injury.

We will spare you the fight that broke out in the car at that moment: Emmett declaring how unfair it was that he’d never been to the ER, Tessa hotly retorting that no one likes breaking bones, and Asher wailing that he felt bad for Riley who was still sobbing in pain. We won’t detail the division of Pigs that occurred after Mom dropped Dad and Riley at the ER and drove Emmett to our favorite neighbor’s house to calm down. We will just fast forward eight hours later to Riley being released from the hospital wearing an I Was Sedated! sticker on his dirt smeared t-shirt sporting one bright blue and one bright green cast (yes, both wrists were broken).

We skipped fireworks that night. (No, no, really it was okay. We lit them the next night and watched all the colors of the rainbow whirring around the cul-de-sac while cheering, “Happy Fifth of July!”) When he got home and Riley, who was unable to do anything on his own for a few days, was eased down on the couch, Mom helped him eat his favorite pizza. (Later, Riley told Mom that the worst part of the entire experience was when she made helicopter noises when feeding him.) But the good news, what we’re sure you were super concerned about, is that Riley still gets to do Zombie Camp. He got the full go-ahead from the orthopedic surgeon who gave him a check up about a week after the Fall. Which means now, just like with Tessa’s clavicle break, Riley’s injury has already become the stuff of legend. And he hasn’t even gotten his casts off yet. (Just don’t say anything to Emmett about it.)