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Come Home, Dad!

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Typical weekday scene in the Uhl household, around 5:30pm.

“There’s nothing half so pleasant as coming home again.” —Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

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This entry was written by kara, posted on February 27, 2009 at 6:26 pm, filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.
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    These are photos from last Father’s Day to today, of all the times @mungk79 showed up, despite this year’s grief. He doesn’t like social media mush but let me just say he loves these kids so well, and I’m grateful. This is my dad’s garden. He grows everything from seed, often seeds he’s saved from last year’s harvest. Everything’s organic. Those weed-free rows are from tilling and hand pulling. Two years ago my father-in-law told him he had to grow Bradford watermelons. And so, my dad did. He saved the seeds from last year and those seeds are this year’s crop. Marty, who liked to say to my dad, “You don’t garden! You farm!” would have loved those watermelons. Maybe Marty’s a bird. Maybe he flies over those watermelons. Maybe he knows. (We miss him.) My dad instilled in me many things, so much of which is exemplified in his garden. The importance of daily hard work, recycling, removing the bad so the good can grow, following directions (except when you truly know better), making space for beauty (he planted rows and rows of zinnias using seeds from mom’s last-year flowers), harvesting (despite your busy calendar), preserving in Mason jars for the future, eating all the zucchini (even when tired of zucchini), giving your over abundance away (he’s donated so much to the Freestore Foodbank). As I pulled radishes with him I was thankful and grateful for it all. After discovering the joy of mud at Rossford Park, Io had his first bath. ❤️ One of Andy’s birthday gifts. @karart_01, a recent HHS grad and accomplished artist, painted Tucker for us. ❤️ And @framednky did a beautiful job framing it. (Kara is working part-time at Framed NKY now and she does all sorts of commissions!) This kid turned 40 yesterday. We sure do love him. Earlier: STOP chewing on that. Leave the cat alone. Not my computer cord. Drop it. Child: “HE’S PEEING!” (After just having been outside for 20 minutes where all he did was chase bugs and eat grass.) What are you eating? That’s not food! STOP CHASING JUPITER! Ouch, no. Down. Play with this. Or this. Or this! No, not that. Wait, stop, you’re stuck. Let me help you. Again. Drop the pen. Drop the Post-its. Just, be calm. Now: OMG you are so adorable and soft and perfect in every way and I love you. (Earlier will begin again shortly.) Jupiter is not amused by the new addition to the family. Also, we finally named the puppy! It’s Io, which is also the name of one of Jupiter’s moons. (And tomorrow you should be able to see Jupiter and several of its moons, including Io, with binoculars!) My parents’ roses are gorgeous this year! (Really should have taken a picture of the other side, too!) Ice cream with the Pirates after practice. Thanks, Uncle Skip! chomp 74 degrees at 8:07 pm. I think their skin is turning purple but they are so happy. Perhaps it’s time I took down the mistletoe. Summer work-from-home, always a tricky practice in balance. Me to them: It’s OK and good to be bored sometimes. Me to myself: They will eventually find themselves in creative, independent play. And they do. Most of the time. (It’s often messy.) Still, I could live the rest of my life without hearing “Can we get on electronics now?”. That, too, is a daily practice in balance. I guess everything is about balance, really. And it’s all tricky, with so many parents claiming their way is right. My summer wish is simply this: calmness and happy chaos weighing much more heavily than the chaos that inevitably leads to (me) yelling. No one’s perfect, I tell them. Not them and certainly not me. Sometimes the scales slip. And when they do I (often rightfully) get upset but I hope, want, to do so in a way that’s less loud and more silent breath work, for all involved, with many hands working together to pile up the other side. Lofty, I know. These two always want to spend the night at Nini and Pop Pop’s without parental supervision. Reason No. 72 why. ❤️ breeze First day/last day! James came out with a GIANT paper airplane. “I made it out of a poster hanging in the library!” (He claims he had permission.) Thursday was Sophie’s 5th grade graduation. I was fine until the slide show. (Sophie said all her friends pointed me out to her, letting her know I was crying.) Songs and pictures get me every time. I read this post tonight: Sophie’s First Day of Kindergarten. So much has changed. And not. Onward (to middle school!). http://www.pleiadesbee.com/2013/08/sophies-first-day-of-kindergarten.html (Oh! And she designed the t-shirt that her class wore Friday, the school’s last day! I thought it was super cute.)
    TAP

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