Our first full day in the new house was focused on our movers. They unloaded our 13 crates of stuff and hauled away a moldy piano left by the previous owner. Our spacious, spartan new home has become a cardboard labyrinth. It’s a bit overwhelming.
In the midst of the moving chaos, I found many moments of joy today playing with Piper and the kids in the back yard.
As posted previously, we received the keys and moved into the new house this morning. In short order, Sarah headed up north for her new job. She’ll be back on Friday, returning with Griffin. Until then, Oliver, Maggie, Piper, and I will hold down the fort.
Despite the many tasks we needed to tackle today, we had a lot of fun in the new place. My favorite part was throwing the ball with Piper in the back yard. She loved that she could sprint!
Maggie and Oliver, I suspect, had their best time when our friends came over and they played some epic games of hide-and-seek.
A few more first day pics below.
We’re all a bit ragged, but thrilled to be in the new house. Now we begin the epic task of unpacking, and, more importantly, finding all the things we need in the interim.
Oliver showed me some scratches on his leg. I responded, logically, with, “Were you bitten by a basilisk?”
Oliver responds, “No! They’re not real.”
“Oh, how do you know?”
Oliver rolls his eyes and says, “Daddy, I know a LOT about the world.”
Oliver, how’d you make Maggie so mad?
No! Maggie made me mad! … then I made her mad.
Life was a whirlwind in April with spring break, the long-awaited start of in-person school for Griffin and Maggie, three birthdays (plus Piper’s), a cabin visit, and much that I’m forgetting. Lacking the time to write everything up in detail, here’s a selection of photos to remind us of these many events.
Bonus! Two videos.
In the late 1970s and early ’80s, maps for Dungeons and Dragons adventures were often printed in blue ink, ostensibly to prevent easy photocopying. (Photocopier technology has evolved since then.) A cartographer that I follow on social media, Tim Hartin, sometimes produces “old school blue” maps, hearkening back to the early days of the hobby.
I follow a thread where Tim posts a free map every week. It’s called Turgenev’s Friday Freebie Maps. I’ve been following it for years, enjoying his retro map style. (Tim Hartin, incidentally, is a big name in the industry, often producing maps for D&D adventures, such as CandleKeep Mysteries, published this past March.) A few months ago, Oliver saw me looking at one of these maps on my phone. He asked me about it, so I started explaining the symbols and whatnot. We got in the habit of looking at one or more of these maps every night as part of our bedtime ritual. We would read a book and then look at a map together. Oliver became very good at reading the maps, pointing out secret rooms, traps, statues, and even the occasional sarcophagus or other exotic, multisyllabic feature.
I recently saw that Tim posted a map that he was also offering as a print on mugs, t-shirts, and the like. I thought it was fun, so I bought a version printed on a tote bag. (We can’t have too many totes in this house.) Here’s the original post:
After receiving the bag, Oliver was astounded that one of the maps from my phone had appeared on something in real life. Maggie, nearby, didn’t immediately understand how to read the map, so Oliver excitedly sat down on the kitchen floor and gave her a lesson on old-school D&D cartographic symbols. I snapped a photo and posted it back on Tim’s thread. Here’s the shot:
Tim then sent me a direct message telling me that the post made his day and asking if he could produce a custom map as a “thank you” to Oliver. Um… Yes, of course! I mentioned that Oliver especially loved secret rooms. A few hours later, I received this fantastic map, replete with numerous secret chambers (the “S” symbols are secret doors):
This brought a lot of joy to our family, and I know that Tim Hartin was also warmed by the experience. The internet, for all its ills, is definitely capable of adding some light to our lives.
Oliver continues to love his time at Dodge. The weather has been variable over the past month, with both snow and mud. The pictures below are a small sample of Oliver’s many adventures.
As mentioned in prior posts, Oliver was in preschool this year for a few months at the beginning of the year. Now he is back at an outdoor preschool for three mornings a week.
Griffin and Maggie, however, have been in full distance-learning since last March. They’re used to it now, but it has been a major blow. A normal day in their Montessori school would involve 6-7 hours of constant interaction. Working with classmates, moving around the classroom, attending mini-lessons from the teacher, playing at recess, lunch, the school bus, etc.
Now they’ve got Zoom meetings, independent work, and an occasional minecraft game with their friends. I’m not knocking the school; they’re doing a great job. But the social gulf between this year and last is enormous.
It is with joy, therefore, that we dove into a program at their school where individual classes come to campus once-a-week for a few hours of all-outdoor social time. Maggie had her first day yesterday and Griffin went in this morning. (We only have a picture of Griffin at this point.) Hopefully this is the first step on the long road to normalcy.
