SUUSI: Beginnings.
Jul. 27th, 2009 08:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaWe spent most of last Saturday packing for SUUSI. Things got seriously derailed when I LOST MY PACKING LIST, which still hasn't resurfaced, and spent too long looking for it instead of just starting over with a new list. But eventually we got the car loaded up with stuff and kids and headed out around 8:15.
Our entertainment for the first part of the drive was driving through downtown Baltimore right past the Otakon hotel. (Alex: "When I grow up, I want to be an Otakon person.") Then we drove off into the sunset, west around DC and out I-66. The kids dropped off somewhere around Fairfax. My hope had been that they'd sleep solidly until we got to Radford, but instead they took turns waking a little and whimpering. I discovered that I can actually nurse Colin in the carseat without taking off my seatbelt, but it's not what you would call "comfortable."
By the time we hit Roanoke, just before 1am, we figured we'd gone as far as was practical. We checked into a Days Inn. Of course once the car stopped both kids woke up and cried in earnest, but they settled down quickly once we were in the motel room. In the morning we drove the rest of the way to SUUSI, arriving at 10:30. Wow is check-in simpler when you get there that early. We flew on through, paid the balance of our bill, got our pictures taken for the Mugbook, signed in with youth programming and the childcare co-op, and managed not to notice the workshop leaders' sign-in table. Oops. We unloaded the car and got our room put to rights fairly quickly, had a really bad dining hall lunch because they hadn't switched over to their SUUSI menus yet, and just hung out with the kids and our friends, being mellow. Laura, Michael's birthmother, showed up in midafternoon and Michael helped her get settled in.
This year, for the first time, Alex was really old enough to run with the pack of SUUSI kids. Any time we were in our room she wanted to go out in the hall or outside in the quad, where she'd run around and play with a big mob of other 3- to 7-year-olds. Several times, she and her friends even established "kids' tables" in the dining hall where they ate separately from us. It was really fun to see her dive into a peer group like that, with no shyness or drama.
We went to dinner with Laura (an official SUUSI meal, so the quality was 1000% improved) and then got our banner for Ingathering. Laura made herself a "First Unitarian Church of Oakland" sign on posterboard. The banner parade was organized to loop around the campus in an inefficient pattern, I guess so that there would be more of a march. It was tiring. As always, I loved the part where, after everyone was seated in the auditorium, the banner carriers paraded in accompanied by drums. I ditched Ingathering early because Alex got tired and cranky and Colin kept startling every time there was applause, so I can't really comment on the program content.
Afterward came Opening Circle. The thousand-odd SUUSIgoers formed two giant rings, facing each other. The circles were broken at one place and the inner and outer rings joined at the break, so that as we circled around we passed from the outer to the inner ring and came face-to-face with every other attendee. It was fun to see folks we hadn't seen in a year.
Then I took the kids back to the dorm for bedtime. It was late, and when we'd gotten our room together beforehand we hadn't fixed the beds. (Radford has unnaturally high beds, and I wanted my mattress on the floor so that I could co-sleep with Colin, which meant putting my bedframe on top of Michael's bedframe to get it out of the way.) I waited and waited for Michael to come back to the room. It turns out that a person who has never raised kids or had much to do with them (i.e., Laura) has very little idea of the powder-keg nature of a delayed bedtime; she had recruited Michael to do some stuff for her, and it took a long time. Fortunately, once he returned, he and the Wild Women had our beds set up properly in about ten seconds.
The best thing about parenting at SUUSI this year is that Alex never protested being put to bed. She stayed up very late looking at books most of the nights, but she didn't come out of our room and rarely called us, so I didn't mind. Michael and I just hung out on camp chairs in the hallway, drinking wine and chatting with our friends. Colin nursed like a nursing thing, got passed around for admiration, and eventually fell asleep in my lap.
All in all, the first day at SUUSI was much, much more pleasant than it usually is. I think we're going to try to drive the night before from now on.
Our entertainment for the first part of the drive was driving through downtown Baltimore right past the Otakon hotel. (Alex: "When I grow up, I want to be an Otakon person.") Then we drove off into the sunset, west around DC and out I-66. The kids dropped off somewhere around Fairfax. My hope had been that they'd sleep solidly until we got to Radford, but instead they took turns waking a little and whimpering. I discovered that I can actually nurse Colin in the carseat without taking off my seatbelt, but it's not what you would call "comfortable."
By the time we hit Roanoke, just before 1am, we figured we'd gone as far as was practical. We checked into a Days Inn. Of course once the car stopped both kids woke up and cried in earnest, but they settled down quickly once we were in the motel room. In the morning we drove the rest of the way to SUUSI, arriving at 10:30. Wow is check-in simpler when you get there that early. We flew on through, paid the balance of our bill, got our pictures taken for the Mugbook, signed in with youth programming and the childcare co-op, and managed not to notice the workshop leaders' sign-in table. Oops. We unloaded the car and got our room put to rights fairly quickly, had a really bad dining hall lunch because they hadn't switched over to their SUUSI menus yet, and just hung out with the kids and our friends, being mellow. Laura, Michael's birthmother, showed up in midafternoon and Michael helped her get settled in.
This year, for the first time, Alex was really old enough to run with the pack of SUUSI kids. Any time we were in our room she wanted to go out in the hall or outside in the quad, where she'd run around and play with a big mob of other 3- to 7-year-olds. Several times, she and her friends even established "kids' tables" in the dining hall where they ate separately from us. It was really fun to see her dive into a peer group like that, with no shyness or drama.
We went to dinner with Laura (an official SUUSI meal, so the quality was 1000% improved) and then got our banner for Ingathering. Laura made herself a "First Unitarian Church of Oakland" sign on posterboard. The banner parade was organized to loop around the campus in an inefficient pattern, I guess so that there would be more of a march. It was tiring. As always, I loved the part where, after everyone was seated in the auditorium, the banner carriers paraded in accompanied by drums. I ditched Ingathering early because Alex got tired and cranky and Colin kept startling every time there was applause, so I can't really comment on the program content.
Afterward came Opening Circle. The thousand-odd SUUSIgoers formed two giant rings, facing each other. The circles were broken at one place and the inner and outer rings joined at the break, so that as we circled around we passed from the outer to the inner ring and came face-to-face with every other attendee. It was fun to see folks we hadn't seen in a year.
Then I took the kids back to the dorm for bedtime. It was late, and when we'd gotten our room together beforehand we hadn't fixed the beds. (Radford has unnaturally high beds, and I wanted my mattress on the floor so that I could co-sleep with Colin, which meant putting my bedframe on top of Michael's bedframe to get it out of the way.) I waited and waited for Michael to come back to the room. It turns out that a person who has never raised kids or had much to do with them (i.e., Laura) has very little idea of the powder-keg nature of a delayed bedtime; she had recruited Michael to do some stuff for her, and it took a long time. Fortunately, once he returned, he and the Wild Women had our beds set up properly in about ten seconds.
The best thing about parenting at SUUSI this year is that Alex never protested being put to bed. She stayed up very late looking at books most of the nights, but she didn't come out of our room and rarely called us, so I didn't mind. Michael and I just hung out on camp chairs in the hallway, drinking wine and chatting with our friends. Colin nursed like a nursing thing, got passed around for admiration, and eventually fell asleep in my lap.
All in all, the first day at SUUSI was much, much more pleasant than it usually is. I think we're going to try to drive the night before from now on.
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Date: 2009-07-28 01:01 am (UTC)Isn't it amazing to watch our children function so beautifully out in the world?
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Date: 2009-08-02 07:44 pm (UTC)It's a question about a news story about medical ethics. (OK, actually, it's mostly an appalled rant with a "what do YOU think -- this is something you know way more about than me, so I am I right or what?!?!?" stuck in at the end.)