Almost 37 ...

Tomorrow is my birthday.  July 1 was also Princess Diana's birthday, but, I can't leave out, it is Pamela Anderson's birthday as well.  So, as with most things, it's a mixed bag.  Anyway, I'm not too one way or the other about 37.  It used to seem really old, but now, not so much.  The only thing I really don't like about a birthday - mine or one of the kids' - is that it just seems so unfair that life just keeps moving on, inevitably, towards the end.  It really doesn't seem like 17 or 27 were very long ago, so I know that 47, 57, 67 and so on (if I'm so lucky as to live that long), will seem to have arrived in the blink of an eye.  I watch Finn try to act older than he is, and then Gus trying to be just like Finn, and I remember feeling at that age like life seemed to be taking a terribly long time to get started.  And now even seven seems like just yesterday.  I guess it's like a roller coaster chugging uphill for so long that you can't stand the anticipation another minute, and then the fun, thrilling downhill part flies by so fast you can't even think while it's happening.  The only thing you keep thinking while you're speeding around out of control and screaming your head off is that you will never, ever do this again and it was a horrible mistake to get on the roller coaster in the first place, and you get off all queasy and telling your friends how you thought you were going to die or vomit.  But then after a little while you start to think how that ride was so awesome and it makes you want to stand in line for the ride all over again.  Thus, that age-old question is finally answered by me:  life really does imitate a carnival ride, even if the prizes are a little better.

Avoiding unpacking ...

Well, we're settling in at home once again, and I am realizing how much I hate unpacking and putting things back together.  The house is a mess, I haven't made it to the grocery store yet, I have 22 messages on my home phone that I haven't had the strength to check yet, and my lovingly planted vegetable garden is a jungle of weeds.  And what am I doing about it?  Not too much.  It seems like much more fun to look at vacation pictures, catch up with friends on the phone, go to the pool and, as you can see, catch up on the blog.  I found that I really did miss blogging while I was gone.  While we were there, I kept thinking of little things I would have liked to write about, but once the moment passed, it was gone.  The computer situation at my parents' house was much better when we first arrived, as they both have new computers, but, unsurprisingly, about a week into the trip their internet stopped working completely.  I really feel that their house is a black hole where technology cannot exist, but scientists can't explain why.

Anyway, now that we're home I thought I would write about all of these interesting and funny things from the trip, but I find that when I sit down to write, there's nothing there.  Lately I feel like my whole life is so like that though, that all of these really remarkable things happen every minute of the day, but then when someone asks me what we've been up to, or what we did in Texas, I draw a blank.  My responses are so boring: not too much, it was really fun, we were really busy.  I guess it's because now we're on to the next thing, and since my mind is so full just keeping everything together from one minute to the next, I can hardly remember what I did an hour ago.

Mostly, friends keep asking my about the car trip part of our three week trip.  They're like, "I can't believe you drove so far by yourself," while thinking to themselves, "wtf?"  I know, it seems either crazy or just really cheap.  Probably both.  I will say, in my own defense, that it was oddly satisfying to be on the road for two days with nothing to do but drive.  In my regular life, I often find myself wishing that there was a way to stop time for a little while and just see everything clearly for a minute.  Just appreciate where we are and who my children have become.  And during the car ride home, in between the misery of having to take everyone into every nasty gas station bathroom and trying to think of a way to keep Ruby from soaking herself in juice (she refused to use her sippy when she saw the boys drinking from juice boxes, so she would shriek until she got one too, but then half the juice would invariably end up on her, resulting in more shrieking), I had a few little glimpses.  At one point, when Finn and Gus were playing a game they had made up with each other and Ruby was babbling at her baby doll, I realized that I was really, truly happy with my children, and, consequently, with my life.  That's so rare for me, since I'm usually annoyed with someone for making a mess or hitting someone, or exhausted with the effort of keeping them all fed, clean-ish, and well-rested that it's hard simultaneously to appreciate the big picture.  But in the car, at least for a few minutes, I was like, you know what, self?  these are great kids.  you just spent three weeks with them, and 75% of was really fun.  the boys dealt really well with being tired, moving around alot, not sleeping in their own beds, and mostly just having each other for company, and Ruby was so outgoing and funny with all of these new people that I really got a chance to see how far she's come since we brought her home.  you are incredibly lucky to have these little people in your life.

So that's it, that's probably the best moment of the trip, among many other great ones.  We had so much fun with my parents and my brother and his family - their little boy Jack is almost 3 and he is a wild, hilarious little kid.  Ruby really loves seeing him and he is so sweet with her.  She also loved meeting her new baby cousin Abby, 2 months, and was surprisingly gentle with her.  I kept expecting her to treat "baby" the same way she treats pretend "baby" - a loving hug followed by being slammed to the floor, but she seemed to apprehend the difference between living baby and plastic baby.  I also got to catch up with my oldest girlfriends and their kids in Austin for a few days, and that always makes me happy.

Here are a few pics from the trip.

Finn catching his first crab.  Cousin Jack is impressed with the feat.

Gus takes a break from the heat at the zoo.

Everyone loves paddle boating (at least for the first 10 minutes or so).

Dad came for a long weekend, and Ruby was so happy to see him!

A very rare, quiet moment.

back from texas in one (or five) pieces

The kids and I arrived home from Texas tonight, tired but happy to see Matt, the house & the kitties.  It was, no surprise, a long trip (almost 1200 miles).  We left Saturday morning around 10 am, drove for 10 hours, stopped for the night, slept very little due to Ruby's excitement over being in a giant bed with me and the boys for the night, and then got up and drove 9+ hours today.  I feel like a shell of a person.  Our trip tally included 4 movies watched, 10 juice boxes emptied (many onto Ruby's lap, causing her to cry and me to curse), many nasty bathrooms visited, excessive amounts of peanut M&Ms and doritos consumed by me (why do I feel that when I am on a road trip, I can just shove thousands of calories into my body and think they won't count?), 25 fights that had to be broken up with threats of throwing prized possessions out the window, 0 speeding tickets or accidents (yeah!), and countless moments of wondering if "that smell" was coming from inside or outside of the car.  Fun times.  But, actually, the whole three weeks were awesome & worth the hassle of the journey, so I would do it again in a minute (or, maybe not a minute, but probably next summer).  More on the trip after I recharge ...

We Made It!

And it really wasn't that bad.  Really.  Yes, it was two full days of driving and that was boring for everyone, but nothing dramatically bad happened.  No breakdowns, no two hour tantrums in the car, no major instances of getting lost.  Just alot of hours in the car with each other, listening to the quiet hum of the DVD player (not quiet, actually, because for some reason I have to have the radio at full volume in the front for the boys to be able to hear it in the back at all, so I can only tolerate one movie every 5 hours or so).  It was really a very long way and a very many hours - like 20.  Also, I remember that at one point in driver's ed I learned that on a long car trip, it's best to stop ever two hours or 100 miles, whichever comes first.  I will have to say that we were averaging more like 15 minutes or 15 miles, whichever comes first, during parts of our trip.  Like we would get in the car, drive a little ways and then I would realize that I had to have coffee.  So we would stop.  Then I would think that since we were stopping anyway, maybe we should hit the bathroom.  So we would all get out, cram into the handicap stall of the ladies' room, which elicted a protest from the boys each and every time, and use the bathroom one at a time while the others tried to keep Ruby from touching anything on the floor (unsuccessfully, for the most part).  All set, 20 minutes later we were back in the car.  Drive 45 minutes.  Realize that we're all hungry.  Stop to eat.  And so on and on and on until we finally arrived in Texas. 

Since we've been here, we've been swimming, hanging out with my brother and his family, eating lots and trying to keep everyone from getting sunburned.  Gus was sidelined yesterday with strepp and a lovely scarlett fever rash - thank God for the Minute Clinic, but he seems a little better today and is determined to go crabbing with us this morning.  My parents used to take me and my brother crabbing when we were little, and even though it was never my favorite pasttime, it seems to be an activity that little boys can't get enough of.  I mean, what's not to love about dangling a chicken neck off of a string while you stand in the blazing hot sun beating off flies and mosquitoes?  Ruby will not be crabbing with us today, as I don't think she's old enough yet to appreciate the thrill of the catch.  Next year for her. 

More to come ...

T Minus 2 hours!

We're about to take off for Texas, and I'm nervous - about the drive, about leaving Matt alone (I recently watched him stumble around for a few minutes in the kitchen before admitting that he has no idea how to make TEA!), and just about how the kids will do down there for so long.  Hopefully, I'll be able to keep it all in my head and write about it later - what doesn't kill me at least makes for a funny blog!  In the meantime, here is a bonus guest blog from my friend Tara, who recently took her two kids camping (not recommended by me!).  If you are thinking that camping might be fun to do this summer with your kids, read this first!!!

The Great Outdoors

I’ve never been a huge fan of camping. I lived in Denver for a while, so there was the occasional obligatory weekend camping in mountains when friends came to visit, but I much preferred staying in the cleaner and carpeted world of a condo. Camping in Texas is a whole ‘nother matter. It’s hot, there are large bugs and snakes, and then there’s the half-insect/half-bird otherwise known as a Texan mosquito. I think my fear of bugs started way back when in the 6^th grade when our class trip took us to YO Ranch. We had a long slide show in science class the week before to show us what copperhead snakes and scorpions looked like. Mrs Johns did a good job of putting the fear of God into our hearts, right Claire??

A few weeks ago, we packed up the kids (age 10 months and 3.5) and half of our house to embark on a cabin-camping weekend to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Oh, the packing. Bottles (both baby and wine), formula, toys, linens for the cabin, every food group stuffed into a cooler, camp chairs, so much drinking water you’d think you could bathe in it, matches, the list goes on. Packing for camping is rivaled only by the resulting unpacking and washing.

I gave Gage the old don’t-touch-unknown-bugs speech, and he was off! So funny how Gage will find stuff to play with that you’d never guess. I thought he’d be in the lake the whole weekend. Even bought some silly battery-operated boats for him to enjoy--total waste of money. Turns out, the spigot by our cabin was a makeshift “carwash” and much more fun. I thought he’d want to stay out in the canoe for hours. Turns out, he wanted to stand by the loading dock and watch fishing boats being put in and taken out of the water.

Ever been camping with a crawling baby? Whew, talk about exhausting. It’s like a good boxing match. In one corner: dirt and grime; in the other corner, the Reigning Champ: the 10 month old who has it in mind to explore each last surface on earth on her hands and knees. Yes, after enough kicking and screaming, you finally put her down and let her diaper slowly fill up with various leaves, campfire debris, and sand. And there’s no way you’re taking her into a disgusting, only-would-go-in-there-with-Crocs-on, public bathhouse for a shower. I took her in once and had to sling her over my shoulder so she wouldn’t touch anything as I took care of my own business in the stall. Gross.

We learned a super-cool trick from the cabin next door for when the sun goes down. Try this! You take a flashlight, hold it between your eyes pointing forward, and all the spiders around you reflect back as little, shiny diamonds. I guess it’s their multiple, beady eyes…There are so many more spiders out there than you would ever imagine. Like I said, cool, but not really something I wanted to know right before I went to bed.

The first night went off without a hitch. Even Calla “slept like a baby,” and Gage was especially thrilled that I had ported in his Bob the Builder sheets all the way from home. The second morning, I woke up at my usual 7ish hour. I listened for stirrings…everyone was still asleep. Sweet! I’ll go back to sleep. So I roll over onto my left side and feel the sting of my life on my thigh. I reached down, brushed whatever it was off, and woke up the whole cabin. I knew just what it was: a scorpion had slithered its way into my bed! Mrs. Johns was right, “it’s like a bad bee sting, only worse.” Oh. My. God. I’m writing this 2 weeks later, and I still have a mark where it stung me. I’m fully recovered now, physically at least, but I think it’ll be at least another year before I venture out to camp with the kids again! 

School's Out for Summer!

So summer is really here.  Yesterday we picked Finn up from a half day of school, and now he's done with first grade and we're on our own.  I had meant to plan a special day to celebrate Finn being finished with school, since we did that last week when Gus finished preschool, but as it turned out, I did not.  When my brother and I were growing up, my parents would always make a big deal at the end of the school year.  We would get to pick out a fancy restaurant and we would all get dressed up and go out to celebrate.  We always chose either Benihana (hopefully everyone has been to one of these and knows the joy of having a shrimp flipped onto your plate from 10 feet away) or Vargo's, a great restaurant in Houston with peacocks and a beautiful garden to stroll around while you wait for dinner.  While we ate, my parents would exclaim over our academic successes and express pride in our general character development and just generally make a big deal out of us.  Those are such nice memories for me, and so I strive to provide similar happy memories and traditions for my own children.  So, even though I did not have anything super-special planned for yesterday, the kids and I did go out for lunch to Finn's favorite restaurant The Olive Tree, but it was a bit of a disaster because there were - surprise - no high chairs, only boosters.  This meant that Ruby was free to stand up and try to grab at anyone's food that looked good to her.  We were all racing to finish our food and get out of the joint, so it wasn't exactly a special moment.  Not too much time for reminiscing on all that Finn learned as I stuffed my sandwich into my mouth with one hand and held Ruby's legs down under the table as she screamed at me to let go so she could get Gus' spaghetti.  The only thing I was saying to the kids between bites was "hurry up and finish so we can get out of here!"

By the time we left, everyone was pretty cranky, so it seemed like a good idea to enforce a little rest period as a sort of restart button on the day.  While Ruby slept peacefully, I could hear the boys (via the baby monitor) wrestling and making noise in their rooms.  Ignoring them, I closed my eyes for a few minutes and fell into a delicious sleep.  A mere 10 minutes later, however, I awoke to hear Ruby crying after being woken up by the wild rumpus in the boys' room.  Rage welled up within me, however unfair, and I ran downstairs to really let everybody have it.  Extreme punishments were handed out, lectures were delivered but not heard, tears were shed, punishments were modified before being lifted altogether, and eventually everyone was happy again.  We ended up going swimming next door and then grilling salmon - another of Finn's favorites, so it was sort of a special day if you take away the middle few hours.  So, day 1 of summer down, many, many more to go!


Bonus video (now that I know how to do it!):

Don't have enough fighting in your own house?  Here is a funny video that Matt took of the boys engaged in their favorite activity - light-saber fighting.  Finn has created a new Star Wars character - "orangy torangy" and he is working on what he calls Episode 12:  The Transport is Finished.  We're not sure how much of a commercial success this will be, but he loves to try to get Gus enact battles in a specific way and then he wants us to film it.  I will almost never do this, but on the weekends Matt sometimes obliges him.  As you can see here, he does take on quite the directorial attitude, although he may also be alienating his talent.  As an older child myself, I feel his frustration over trying to get a younger sibling to do your bidding, but at the same time it makes me crazy to hear their constant arguing when Finn gets mad at Gus for doing it "wrong."  Anyway, I love that Matt captured this little moment in our lives, because it clearly illustrates so many things about us:  1) I look hideous first thing in the morning, 2) Finn is always "acting" as can be seen by his first tantrum directed at the camera, 3) Gus is usually happily doing whatever he wants to do, as seen here when he ignores Finny's direction and tries to stab him in the neck, 4) Matt is a patient parent who will get out the video camera when the kids want to do something like this, and 5) I am not patient in the same way, and often punish everyone when it seems easier than sorting out who is at fault.

(I just watched this video on the blog, and the right half of it seems to be cut off, so you miss seeing Finn's dramatic expressions as he delivers his speeches.  Trust me, you're not missing much!)

Memorial Day Dance Party!

While I slept in yesterday, Matt and the kids had a little pajama dance party.  Notice that in the video, Ruby keeps saying "Cheese!" - anytime she sees a camera or anything that looks like a camera she elbows her way into the action and says "Cheese!" It's a good thing she likes to be in front of the camera though, because with these dance moves she's destined to be a star.  The boys, on the other hand, will probably die of embarrassment about five years from now if this video ever comes to light.  At the moment, though, I think they are pretty impressed with their own bad selves!



In other news, we're less than a week away from our first summer trip. Next weekend, the boys, Ruby and myself will being a long, long car ride down to Texas. We're spending a few weeks there visiting friends and family, so I thought it would be nice to have the car. And when I planned to drive down, it was still quite a ways in the future. (Incidentally, this is how I ended up running a marathon - the registration was like six months before the actual event, so it seemed really doable from that distance. As was the case with the marathon, each day closer to departure I get more nervous, and the actual drive will probably be almost as painful as the marathon!) The boys are seasoned road-trippers, as we drive to New Hampshire at least once a year and we take other 10+ hour trips with some frequency.  They get excited to watch movies in the car (they still believe that the DVD player only works on long trips), and they will sleep here and there. Of course, there will be some bad moments, as on a trip home from New Hampshire last Thanksgiving both boys were crying their eyes out when the McDonald's we pulled into was out of "boy toys" and could only offer us Strawberry Shortcake items with our Happy Meals.  I'm embarrassed to report that we drove away from that McDonald's and proceeded to the next highway exit to find a McDonald's that would make our kids stop crying.  And then last summer, as I drove the boys home from a lake trip by myself, our air conditioning broke about an hour into the trip, forcing us to either suffer the heat inside the car or keep the windows down as we rolled down the highway at 80 miles an hour.

So those were not some of our finest moments, but all in all, they have proven to be pretty good kids to go places with.  But, of course, this will be our first such adventure with Ruby.  I have to believe that even though it will be 18 hours, it cannot be worse than the 3 hour flight I took with her to Houston several months ago.  At least there will not be that element of public condemnation involved.  Whatever struggles we have, we will have them within the close confines of the car, not to be witnessed or judged by angry co-passengers.  It's going to be just fine, maybe even fun.  I'm almost convincing myself of this as I write it!  So anyway, that's what I'm going to be getting ready for this week.  We leave on Sunday and will hopefully get there on Monday.  Either that or we'll be back home later on Sunday.  I will certainly report on the adventure once I get to Houston.  (Internet capability at their house is only recently possible because my parents finally have a computer that was assembled in the 21st century.  Up until a few months ago, I would have had to say that the guest house we stayed in while we were in Ethiopia had much better computer and internet access than my parents' house in Houston.)

Bye' for now!