President Books: An Update

The kids were home from school, and Paul was home from work. How could I have overlooked Presidents Day last week? And more to the point of this blog, how could I have failed to give an update of our quest to read a biography of every U.S. president?

More than ten years in, and Paul and I are still working on it. In January I finished "Forty Ways to Look at JFK" by Gretchen Rubin, comprised of 40 short chapters focusing on different aspects of his legacy. Paul has yet to finish it. I recommend it.

Slowly but surely we're getting there. Of course, we often talk nowadays about what makes a person presidential and the qualities a candidate needs. After all, the primary season is in full swing, and Ohio's own primary is less than a month away. By the time we get to the 45th presidential biography, I'm hoping we'll have a 46th to add to the list.

Studying Kids

Both Edith and Atticus are periodically involved in various studies at Ohio State -- usually they are regarding cognitive development and involve playing a few computer games. They get some stickers and a small Target gift card. I get what basically amounts to an hour of free babysitting while I read a book in the waiting room.

Occasionally Atticus has taken part in a longer, more in-depth study. Last week was one such. A few weeks ago we were visited by someone from Ohio State for some preliminaries, and then last Monday we visited Nationwide Children's Hospital for two hours for the bulk of the study. It, too, involved some computer games, but this time Atticus got to dress up like a robot.

Atticus is very cooperative, and I often wish I knew more about how he did or what they learned from him. The studies are quite fun -- the kids always look forward to them -- and I hope they do some good, too.

Goodbye, Grandma

My grandma, my dad’s mom, died last week. By all accounts she lived a good and active life — she just turned 90 and yet played dominoes like a champ when we visited her a few days before Christmas.

But I didn’t lose only a grandmother. She and grandpa, who died almost three years ago, were our closest neighbors growing up. I could see their house from my bedroom window, just across the field a short walk away. (In fact, we would walk across the field to visit when crops weren’t planted.) We visited at least once a week, usually to play cards. I can’t even count the number of card games they taught us, mostly brought back from their winter stays in Arizona.

We’d often take long walks along our rural road and regularly go on vacation with them. (Grandma is the one who taught me the license plate game — listing each state on a piece of paper and checking them off as we found them on the highway or in parking lots throughout vacation.) And as my sister and I grew up, we could count on Grandma knowing when we would leave and arrive back home — she had a perfect view of our driveway from the window above her kitchen sink!

I left Defiance for college more than 20 years ago, but still visited them on my visits back. I’ll always be glad that Grandma got to play dominoes with Edith at Christmastime and taught us a new dice game. I can’t hardly wait to teach both kids how to play 7-Up! My kids won’t have too many memories of my grandparents, but their legacy will continue. 

Week of Birthdays

Who knew so many kids were born in February?

Edith went to a birthday party on Saturday, couldn't go to one she was invited to on Sunday, has another this Wednesday after school and yet another this Saturday. Even Atticus went to a birthday party yesterday!

Luckily we have reached the age that nearly all of the parties they are invited to (including 100 percent of these February parties) are drop off, so a party invitation is pretty much free babysitting for us! And of course the kids have a blast eating, crafting and playing with their friends. It's a win-win.

It's little things like this that make me realize how much the kids are growing. Not to mention that I registered Atticus for kindergarten yesterday!