Our Kind Of Town

Last week in the midst of all our college visits, we had a one day reprieve in Chicago. Scott had a business lunch, so Caleb and I had a couple of hours to spend in the city. Mid summer weather makes Chicago especially appealing... we loved the sunshine, blue sky and the stunning aqua water of Lake Michigan.
We followed our noses to Millennium Park to see the Bean and the face fountains, to listen to the symphony practicing in the band shell, and to people watch a bit. This was a place I took the kids many summer afternoons in the past, riding the train into the city from the suburbs, and I loved being there again. If you haven't been at the Bean, it's hard to describe how amazingly cool the reflections are. What's real, what is a reflection, and what's a reflection of a reflection?
Love these fountains! I remember a time we rode the train home, kids shivering in the air conditioned train cars, soaked from playing in the fountains all afternoon.

After Millennium Park, Caleb suggested we hop in a cab and head to Navy Pier, another downtown destination we have loved in the past. We rode the giant Ferris wheel there (at Caleb's request- how many more times will I get to buy him a ride ticket?? Loved it!) for an amazing view. As the wheel slowly rose above the city, I felt a little giddy with the beauty of the day, the love of Chicago, and the joy of being with my guy.
Our only sorrow last week was that Justin and Mary aren't in Chicago anymore... they made our time there in the past that much sweeter. But though it won't be the same without them, Caleb and I agreed that we are sure looking forward to living in Chi-town again someday soon.

College Visits

Left my parents' house after dinner tonight, Scott and Caleb and I. We drove across northern Ohio, passing corn fields and farm houses. I soaked in the green and gold of the fields for the first hour, loving the intense color. As the first hour turned into the second and third, my attention shifted from the fields to the broad expanse of the sky. The dome of blue above us seemed huge, and its color changed and gained intensity as the minutes and miles passed. The sunset was a show like I haven't seen in a year, and I was a captive audience as we drove into it. Scott pointed out the winking fireflies in the grass at the sides of the highway as the dusk gathered. Ahhh. So lovely.

Now we are safely tucked into the beds of a Hampton Inn, the first college on our itinerary of visits this week just ten minutes down the road. Can't wait to see where this next bend in the road leads...

The Clock is Ticking...

Caleb is in Manila this week for the varsity basketball tournament that concludes this season. Scott and I were able to join him in the fall for the final volleyball tournament in Hong Kong, but couldn't make it work to be a part of this basketball tournament. So for days now we've been texting other parents who are in Manila with the team, trying to get as much of a play-by-play report as we can. It's amounted to just a couple of texts a game, really. Not enough.

Scott, who isn't in Shanghai this week but rather on a business trip in Hong Kong, has emailed Caleb a few times as well. He forwarded one of those email exchanges to me last night with his thoughts about this week with Caleb playing b-ball in Manila, thousands of miles away from us, included. Scott said that he's seeing flashes of little league baseball and junior basketball going through his mind. Back then, we felt like there were hundreds of games ahead of Caleb, more than we could count, really. I remember those days vividly, loving watching our boy from my chair on the sidelines but sometimes feeling that we'd been to SO MANY of these very amateur sporting contests, and wasn't it time to go home?

Well, now the season is over. Caleb has one season of his high school career left to play basketball. One season. Sure, he'll probably play intramural ball in college, and maybe join a men's league's later, but it won't be with the fanfare and crowd support of high school varsity ball. As his parents, we won't likely be there watching. So now the number of games that started in the hundreds have dwindled down to one season. How many games is that? Twenty? Maybe a few more, with tournaments. But it's a finite number, one we can clearly see the end of.

There's the rub. We can see the end. Ten years ago or so when this all started, we had games and seasons stretching ahead of us, and now we don't. We have one season left with this guy.

Can someone stop the clock, please?

APAC Tournament in Hong Kong

Presenting the 2nd place winners of the Boys Varsity Volleyball Asia Pacific Activities Conference! We had a great three days in Hong Kong last weekend watching both the boys' and girls' teams playing lots of volleyball. The boys lost in the championship, which was a bummer, but were pleased to come away with 2nd place in the tournament.

I loved how the boys began each game with the starting players standing together, arms around each other, before advancing towards the net to shake hands with the opposing team.
No rest for the weary, basketball try-outs started Monday and went through Thursday. Found out this morning that Caleb made the varsity team! Next sport, here we come!

Boys Varsity Volleyball

These guys won first place in the Shanghai International School Athletic Conference tournament last weekend! Today they are heading to Hong Kong to compete in the Asia Pacific Activities Counsel tournament this weekend. Scott and I going to follow the team to HK with some of the other parents... looking forward some exciting games!

Yunnan Water Project

Some images from Caleb's interim trip, helping to install a water system in a remote village in the Yunnan province. Below is the room where the boys slept all week!
Village children- the students took balloons and stickers, etc to share with the kids.
Sweeping harvested and dried rice into a pile
Students helping to remove corn from the cobs
Village rooftop view

Digging the trench for water line across the road
A wedding lunch the students were included in
This is where all the cooking for the week was done... the villagers cooked all the meals for the Concordia students.


Muddy shoes from lots of digging!

Work Week

After two flights and a four hour bus ride yesterday, today Caleb and nineteen other Concordia HS students were heading into a remote village on the south western border of China and Myanmar. They will spend the next week there helping to complete the installation of a water system for the village that up until now has had no running water. Most of their time will be spent digging trenches and laying PVC pipe for the water lines to homes. The villagers, who have started this water project with the help of a charity, will be showing the students how to use the tools and directing their work, along with cooking all the meals for them. The students will also visit the local school and possibly hike to the water source.

A real cross-cultural experience. Don't think we will be hearing from Caleb this week, but I'm hoping that he's taking lots of pictures that he can share here later. :-)

Group Effort, Minus Mom

Gwen has been working on learning how to blow a bubble with gum all summer. Caleb was a most patient coach at the outset... I found it nearly impossible to explain how to do it, so I was happy to have him as her instructor. She got the basic idea a while ago, but couldn't produce much of a bubble. The last few weeks it has finally come together. I spent several frustrated minutes last week trying to snap a photo of her bubble before it popped... in the end, Madelyn got this shot on her first try. :-)

Friday Night Question

Caleb's friend called a little while ago and asked, "Do you have girls or food at your house?"

Caleb's answer was, "Yes, but I'm not telling you which one."

His friend was at our front door five minutes later.

Boys. :-)

An Incident

A guest post by Caleb

So last week I had to babysit Gwen and Madelyn, I have to do this pretty much about once every week because my parents feel its necessary to have foot massages every Sunday night, and then about once during the week. So this babysitting started off pretty much the same as any other night, I had to get the two sisters to eat. This started off well, we ate some soup with meatballs, and bread with Nutella, because that’s just how we roll. So after Madelyn ate a large piece of Nutella covered bread, she decided she didn’t like her soup, to be more precise, she decided that she didn’t like half of her soup.

So this brings us to about 3 minutes later as Seth ran out the door to go to one of his meetings for one of the trinjilion things he’s involved in. Madelyn has a bowl of soup without any meatballs because she has eaten all of them because that was the only part she liked. On the other had Gwen has eaten everything but the meatballs, because that was the only part SHE liked. So I’m still eating right, I’m enjoying my meal. I have now finished my meal, and would like to go watch “The Office” in my room, but being the redoubtable babysitter that I am, I wasn’t going to just leave these two eating (or refusing to eat) at the table. So I told them to quickly finish up so they could go play. The both bluntly refused, stating that they did not like their meals. So I, being the punctilious babysitter that I am, told them that they both had five minutes to finish their meals, or they could make their way to bed. So I got out my phone, and set the stopwatch for five minutes.

Gwen and Madelyn, not your average crass young girls, quickly realized that they both had disliked the portion of their meals that the other one had liked, and proceeded to try and quickly switch bowls and finish off their partners’ meal (Gwen eating Madelyn’s non-meatball portion, and Madelyn eating Gwen’s meatballs) So I promptly moved Gwen to the other side of the table, too far away from Madelyn to switch bowls with her. This all happened within 20 seconds or so, so they still had plenty of time to eat half a bowl of soup each. So I encouraged both girls to eat quickly so they could go play, but both girls straight up refused to eat their food, resolving that they would just take the punishment of going to bed. I saw their wit in this instantly, and stated that “going to bed” did not mean lock yourself in your room for the night and just play in there, but that you were in bed with the lights out. This was little motivation for either. After telling Gwen about four times that she liked meatballs, she tried one, and after realizing that it was actually quite good, proceeded to gobble up the remainder of what was left in the bowl. Madelyn was not so easily swayed. She sat in silence for the rest the five minutes, irrevocable in her decision to not touch her food, and take the punishment. So, at the end of the five minutes, I sent her off to bed, and cranked up some music while I did the dishes in the kitchen with Gwen tagging along behind.

While in the kitchen, Gwen, (always trying to look better to me than her older sister), announced that even if mom makes meals she doesn’t like, she eats them anyway, because she wants to get strong. I, being her athletic trainer, agreed, “I do the same thing! How do you think I got these muscles?”, to which she responded, “Yea but its not fair because you drink protein.” This statement made my night. Imagine a six year old Asian girl, drinking protein shakes to try to gain muscle… seriously imagine it. Right now. I’ll wait…. Okay good.

Now back to our story. Loud sobbing could clearly be heard from Madelyn’s bedroom. But I, being the austere babysitter that I was, ignored it, because Madelyn had made her decision, and I was not going to let her off easy. After about ten minutes, Gwen, being the loyal younger sister that she was, reported to me that Madelyn was out in the dining room on the computer. So I calmly walked out into the dining room, and reproved Madelyn for coming out of her bedroom, reminding her (still calmly) that by not finishing her dinner, that she had made the decision to go to bed for the night. This dialogue continued for a good ten minutes, Madelyn started sobbing while she was arguing, told me that she did not like me at all, and some other things which I took as drivel, and things transgressed quite quickly, until it was to the point were I was quite pissed off. I had sternly told Madelyn, “Go to your room right now” and had her response be a flat, “No”. For any of you parents out there I’m sure you know better than I how frustrating it can be to have your authority be ignored. Side note: I have been trying quite hard over the past few years not to yell at my sisters, (primarily Madelyn) while I am babysitting, because this type of situation has happened before. But anyway now that you know this, and if you have been paying attention to the last 790 words at all, you will know that I have not yelled, or even raised my voice up to this point. But at the current state, and the tension between us, I was so ready to yell at her. But, I decided to take a different route. I asked her in a semi-raised voice, (after being told that she did not have to listen to me again) “Do you want me to yell at you?!” and to my surprise, the answer was, “Yes!!!” this was not the answer I was looking for. And it surprised me so much, that I, being the equitable babysitter that I am, kept my sangfroid, and replied, “well I’m not going to” and walked back into the kitchen.

This is pretty much the end of my not very climactic story. But the night is not yet over, my mom has not returned home yet. So now your going to sit there and read what happened the rest of the night. Madelyn went back into her bedroom after a little more arguing in which I kept my aplomb, and did not raise my voice. Then after a little while ventured back out into the dining room and said that she would finish her soup. After trying to fill a sippie cup with soup and get off easy, I informed her that I had put her half empty, meatball-less bowl in the fridge, knowing that she would probably come out and eat it later on. So she warmed it back up and ate part of it, then went back into her room, called for me, asked me for some pencil lead, to which I replied, “If you finish your soup I’ll give you some”. So I went to my room, retrieved her lead, and traded it to her, for her empty bowl of soup.

I apologize for the terribly long sentences, misused punctuation, excessive use of commas,,, lack of a solid plot line, and use of big vocabulary words (which I took straight from my vocabulary book to sound more sophisticated, I’m sure it sounded bombastic to most of you).

If you like my writing, please tell my mom, and maybe I can work out a deal to get paid for a monthly blog post or something. Thanks –Caleb Liptak

Big and Little

This morning, the second day of school, Gwen requested that Caleb (not Mommy- gulp!) walk her to school. At least I got to man the camera...

Big Brothers, Little Sibs

Caleb and Gwen, Austin and Jason

Last weekend a number of the families in our church small group spent a couple of nights in a beautiful, remote area a few hours south of Shanghai called Moganshan. It is heavily wooded with bamboo, and there are also many tea fields. It was a misty, rainy weekend, but we enjoyed hiking through the hills all around us.

Caleb and his friend Austin did a bit of toting of their little sibs on our hikes, although Gwen loves to be in the lead and often ran ahead of our whole group of 20+ people, leading us all on our strenuous up-and-downhill treks. :-)

Basketball Tournament

Caleb's basketball season ended on Saturday with a final three game tournament. They lost the first game, but played just about the best basketball of their season to win the second two games, putting their team in fifth place overall.

I mentioned before that the father of one of Caleb's teammates has an amazing camera and takes exceptional sports photographs. These are a sampling of the 500 pictures he took during the three games the guys played Saturday.
I love the intensity this photo captures.

Check out this great block!

Slugs

There are five tenth grade boys hanging out with the PS3 and 2K10 (a basketball Playstation game, for the uninitiated). They have been in roughly the same position for the last five hours. Madelyn and I have taken food in to them at various points, apparently aiding their long period of relative inactivity. But they haven't been quiet. Oh no, quite the contrary. They're very much into their game, alternately shouting and jeering at one another's virtual basketball skills.

Finals ended today. Christmas vacation starts tomorrow. I guess I'll allow my son and his friends this indulgence for once.

Like Father, Like Son

Caleb noticed tonight that when he opened his laptop to do homework, he was suddenly on ESPN.com without knowing how he got there. Seems that he instinctively types that address in. It's like a reflex, no thought required.

I remember another high school boy who's mind operated in a similar fashion. No, there wasn't a website to access then, but the sports section of the Cleveland Plain Dealer was read on the school bus every morning without fail.

Haircut Result

This is Caleb's before haircut profile, taken last night. The funny thing is that he had actually gotten a haircut on Sunday, so this isn't long hair. It's the shorter version of the way he's worn his hair for the past few years, though. A couple of years ago he had his hair about this length and longer, but with no layers... ended up with a less neat look. I liked his hair like this picutre. No complaints from me. That's why it was so funny to hear his pronouncement last night about being "sick of this stupid long hair"! I think his issue was not really with the overall length, but with a few side pieces that wanted to curl or bend in a funny way that he couldn't seem to tame.

Here are the after shots. It's definitely not a buzz, but for once in the past several years, his whole ear is visible. :-) It's funny, I think he looks older with the haircut, but I also felt like I could better see the little boy he used to be with his hair like this.
He really wasn't wanting to pose for pictures last night as he was busy with last minute packing for his interim trip. His group of about twenty students and two teachers left this morning at 7 a.m. for a week in Guizhou province (southwest China, south of Sichuan). He is on a week-long adventure trip that will include kayaking and hiking, with some overnight camping. I understand that Guizhou is a mountainous province where largely minority Chinese people (not Han Chinese, which is what over 90% of the Chinese people are) live. I'm excited about what he will see and experience!

Great haircut, man!

I Can't Believe My Ears

My oldest son just said, "I'm sick of this stupid long hair."

What?? What did you say? Are you the kid who for the last handful of years has resisted haircuts until your mop was well past the point of being shaggy?

He has gone to the barber shop. He is there now. Mind you, he just got a trim the day before yesterday, so this is really something. He has spoken of getting a buzz. I will be shocked if that's what he comes home with.

I will give a full report, with photos, later on tonight.

When There Was One

Out of the archives... actually, out of the frame on my dresser. I love this photo of Caleb and I; it's a good one to have around as a reminder of simpler days! It was taken in the front yard of my parents' old house, the house I grew up in, in May of 1995, when Caleb was nine months old and I was 26. Long ago! My grandma, who is two months away from her 101st birthday, took this photo. She was faithfully labeled all her photos, and on the back of this one, in her distinctive handwriting, it says the place and date it was taken along with this description, "This one is a winner! Lynne and Caleb playing on the lawn at Bob and Nancy's".

Thanks, Grandma.

Late Night Fun

Caleb has just showed me a video he and his friend Ben made last night, I think after the rest of the house was sleeping. Along with a couple of laughing fifteen year old boys with a camera, it involved a pyramid of paper cups filled with water, stacked on the bathroom counter. There were a couple of air soft (plastic pellet) guns. How many holes can we shoot into the cups? Can I drain the water out of my stack of cups before you drain yours? How fast can we destroy the cups in the pyramid by shooting holes in them and have water spurt out all over the bathroom?

At the end, after a number of attempts that just dented it, they shot a hole into a aerosol can of Axe body spray. If you have spent any time near a teenage boy in the last year, you know what Axe smells like. Apparently Axe was wafting all over... Scott warned me this morning to stay away from the boys' bathroom.

Caleb declared last night's activities to have been a lot more fun than watching a movie. Is there more of this in our future?

I may stay out of that bathroom permanently.

He's Still At It

I've loved watching Caleb play in the creek since he was about four years old. He was quick with a net then, and persistent too, trying again and again and again to catch crayfish and little minnows. Seth would follow him, usually carrying a bucket for Caleb to transfer his finds into.

Over the July 4th weekend we spent a long afternoon at a park near where we used to live when the kids were little. It has a nice wide, shallow creek that Caleb and Seth loved to hunt for critters in when they were little guys. When we first arrived there last weekend, Caleb played it cool, sitting with the adults while the younger kids went into the creek. But soon after I mentioned that there were shorts in the car he could change into from his jeans, he made his way down to the creek and the next thing I knew he had procured a net from someone and was hard at the business of catching things in the water.
Gwen and Caden followed Caleb through the creek, marveling at his finds and carefully keeping them for him in an empty juicebox with the top torn off.

In the fall of 2007 I wrote a blog post about Caleb catching little sand crabs on the beach, and how seeing him revel in this activity as a teenager gave me a glimpse of the little boy that still lives inside him. I felt that same way last weekend... he still has some little boy urge to capture a living thing out of the water. He loved it as a preschooler, and he loves it still.

I hope someday I will have the privilege of seeing him take his own hopeful little boy down to the water with a net.