Hobbies as a parent

It has been an eventfully uneventful (and sickly) 2018 for us so far, with several visits to Urgent Care/E.R. (Liam got turned into a newt*, Calvin spiked a dangerously high fever, etc), as we all adjust to our first year with Calvin bringing home the pathogens from the public school germ season. There's an extra petri dish in the household too to percolate the microbes this year, too, as Genevieve adds her immune system to the mix. Recently she has decided that she has learned how to kiss, which is more of an open mouth slobber with extra saliva and boogers and light suction. It's... charming. And full of love.

It has been the sort of winter and spring where we are astonished to realize that it is nearly summer, and nearly 8 months since my last blog post, and yet we have no news to report. Liam's job continues well. My job continues well. Calvin is almost done with his first school year. Genevieve is hitting all of her milestones and continues to blow the growth charts away.

Liam and I are trying to figure out who we are as thirty-somethings. Aren't we supposed to be wearing fashionable clothing and hosting dinner parties effortlessly by now? We've so much less energy and time for hobbies, but we both refuse to be subsumed entirely by the societal expectation of disappearing into the mantles of Parenthood and instead cling stubbornly to old hobbies and interests. I've had not time for my art lately without little fingers pulling all the pieces around to stain the furnishings or tangle the expensive silk fiber, and Liam's old physical hobbies must obviously be curtailed after all of the doctor visits the last few years.
I've gotten back into reading books, by which I mean that I move a book around the house every day but if you look closely you'll observe that I never actually get a chance to read the book. I'm also actively trying to say "yes" to invitations and that's how I made two new friends in the last few months, and also how I naively ended up in a year-long commitment on the board of a local non-profit.
Liam tried several varieties of meditation/tai-chi but none of them seem to be sticking. Tabletop gaming stuck around the longest, but getting a good group to show up on the same day, or, honestly to show up at the same time twice, is a Sisyphean task.

Calvin has taken up writing letters, which mostly means me convincing him to scribble a drawing in a card and tell me a sentence or two about his day, but it was in fact his idea; he saw a packet of unicorn greeting cards in the store and asked me to buy them so he could send letters to people. His enthusiasm lasted for three letters, so now I suppose it's now MY hobby to force him to send letters. He did get a letter back from on of his June2014 peers, though, so perhaps he'll stick with it now.

Genevieve has taken up couch climbing and is trying to take up base jumping but we keep catching her before she tips over the back of the couch. Also she enjoys putting small objects into cups and boxes and then taking them back out, and pulling tissue after tissue out of the tissue boxes.

Maybe she'll sign Calvin's letters for him. "hugs and light-suction-saliva-booger-kiss, Genevieve."

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*he got better