Missed Moments: Quiet Weekend

Several events happened in the past few weeks that I'd meant to blog about, but never got around to. There's no point in going back and trying to recapture everything since October 17, but I do want to mention a few of the most memorable moments.

We got home from the hospital on a Wednesday afternoon, and Keith's family visited in waves for pretty much the next week. It was nice to spend one-on-one time with each individual family, but it was also very busy. The visits ended the following Thursday, when Keith's parents left for a family wedding in New York City ... and took Eleanor with them.

When my mother-in-law first proposed taking Eleanor with them, on this 4-day trip, our first reaction was "No way!" It seemed crazy. How could she possibly survive without her mother and father for 4 days?!?

But the idea of getting a long weekend with just Keith and the baby and no distractions (Sorry Eleanor, but you are very distracting.) grew on me. Part of the sleep deprivation this time around is due to the fact that, no matter what time Declan falls asleep or how many times he wakes up, Eleanor will still be up by 7 or 7:30am. This is particularly offensive on the weekends. So we could get a long weekend of really, actually sleeping when the baby sleeps, instead of playing dress up and reading princess stories? I'M IN.

We gratefully took up Karen's kind offer, and it seemed like a wonderful idea ... until the car was loaded up on Thursday morning, Eleanor gave me a hug and kiss good-bye, and then she eagerly hopped into her carseat and was ready for the trip. Then I wanted to cry and grab her out of the car and run back inside with her. Keith held me back though, and they drove off.

Once they'd been gone for about 5 minutes, it seemed like a good idea again. The house was so quiet and peaceful. That day, we picked up the blocks and dress-up clothes and books ... and everything stayed put away. For days!

Even better, we had lots of time to watch Declan sleep, and talk about how adorably perfect his fingers and toes and nose are. We exclaimed over every facial expression he made, and picked him up immediately when he started crying--if we'd even put him down at all, which is doubtful. We got so much quality baby bonding time, which I would imagine is usually very rare for a second child.

To end this story happily ever after, the New York crew had a great time, too. Apparently Eleanor was on her best behavior for her grandparents, so they didn't get to enjoy the tantrums and meltdowns Keith and I are privy to on a regular basis. Ergo, everyone loved her and doted on her. Ergo, she also had a fabulous time and barely even missed us at all.

Yet, when she returned, I was never so happy to see her dress-up basket had exploded all over the living room floor. When I told her it was naptime and she shouted "No!" and stomped her feet and Declan started crying, I wanted to give her a big hug and a kiss. It was a wonderful weekend, but I was glad to have both my kids in the house again.

P.S. The picture is of Eleanor "dressing up" Declan while he sleeps in his carseat, by laying a dress on him and putting dress-up shoes next to his feet. It was the first time, but I'm sure it won't be the last!

Photo Challenge: Traffic

This week's Shutterboo Photo Challenge is "traffic." Last week I ruminated on whether Keith could catch the anal retentive planning bug that I have, and manage to take, edit, and post his picture over the weekend to get it out of the way.

He didn't. You'd think after we've been together for over 14 years, I would know this isn't going to happen. But I still thought maybe.

By Tuesday night, I told Keith that--if he really loved me--he would now wait to take the picture. It's supposed to be posted by Wednesday at midnight, so he should wait until about 11:50pm on Wednesday to run out and find a traffic picture and slap it on flickr site. Because, as everyone knows, putting something off is guaranteed to make the baby come. Right? RIGHT?!?

Instead, he went out Tuesday night and took some pictures, came home and edited and posted. So now he's neither ready super in advance, nor postponing for my sake. Completely foiled!



I'm currently operating under the assumption that making lots of plans and putting off tasks for a future day is the best way to make the baby decide now is a good time to be born. Inconvenience! That's the key! I've planned too well; the house is clean, the freezer is stocked, I've even blogged in advance! Clearly, I've brought this sad state of post due-date anticipation upon myself.

If you'll excuse me, I need to go and find some other urgent tasks that I can postpone until tomorrow. Maybe the stress of having them hang over my head will induce labor ....

Talk Me a Gruesome Story

Eleanor has some ... interesting ... tastes in stories. There's the Tinkerbell stories that I mentioned before. But now there's also a few "A" favorites. She likes to hear about ambulances, accidents, and allergies. I think she's going to be a doctor.

I know how the ambulance obsession started: it's because, on the drive across town, we pass a large ambulance bay? depot? whatever it is, there's always several ambulances out front. We've gotten in the habit of pointing out when it's coming up (See? We're getting closer! You don't have to whine for the entire ride, really! Focus on the cookies you'll get once we're at Grandma's.) and we count how many ambulances are parked there. Sometimes we guess before we reach it how many ambulances we think will be there, and Eleanor also likes to pay attention to how many ambulances are facing in or out.

This has led to many discussions about what ambulances do. It also led to some concern on my mom's part, when Eleanor was in the car with her and asked for an ambulance story. This entails someone Eleanor knows getting very sick (usually a stomach ache caused by excessive consumption of cookies), calling the ambulance, hearing the siren, and the patient being safely delivered to the hospital, where they will be completely cured. I think Mom found the idea a little macabre.

The ambulance stories, however, aren't nearly as bad as the accident stories that came soon after. I can't remember as clearly where this came from .... we might have passed an accident on the highway, and I talked a bit about how cars need to stay on the road and if they go off the road or run into each other, that's an accident. Sometimes she wants to hear other accidents (people running into each other, other smaller events) but mostly she wants to hear about car accidents.

And finally, her most recent story request pertains to allergies. More medically detailed, but at least a little less gruesome than accidents or ambulances. Again, I can't remember why it started, but once she went on this allergies kick, we got out a book about allergies from the library, and she was ecstatic. She's learned about food allergies, breathing allergies, and skin allergies. She knows that her Daddy is allergic to pollen and her aunt is allergic to penicillin. When a kid in her music class turned out to have a peanut allergy, she almost hyperventilated because she was so excited.

I have no idea what her next "talk a story" request will be. Another "a" word? Another request somewhat related to the medical field? I look forward to finding out what it is ... even if I'm not quite as ecstatic as she is at the thought of talking this type of story many, many times. Talk me an easy story!

My Modern Day "Period of Confinement"

I still can't figure out if this is the correct term, but I seem to recall reading (probably in Regency romances, to be honest) about how women of high society used to have a period of confinement in their pregnancies. They would be shut up in a bedroom for weeks with no fresh air, very little light, and no men allowed.

For me, it's not quite that drastic, but it has arrived. The other week, we met Keith's parents at a state campground in the middle of Ohio, about two hours away, and spent the weekend camping. And that, my friends, was our last planned trip for the foreseeable future. We're not going to my cousin's wedding in Boston or his cousin's wedding in New York. We aren't spending a night out at a Bed and Breakfast for our anniversary, and we're not visiting his family in Kentucky. We're home, and we're staying put!

Keeping in mind that, from mid-May to mid-August, we only had one free, unplanned weekend (and that's the weekend we ended up driving to Ikea in Pittsburgh to buy Eleanor's new bedroom furniture), this is a big statement for us that the end is near. The baby's arrival is not that far off! Of course, part of the decline in activity is due to the end of the summer. Not all of our summer plans involved traveling; now that it's Fall, there's not as many local festivals, barbeques, etc. And, of course, we still have some plans for birthday parties, Keith's long runs/races, a night out for our anniversary.

So it's not like our calendar went from completely full to completely empty just because I'm 34 weeks pregnant. But to swear off all trips, that is still a big deal for us. I'm pretty excited about it. By the end of summer, I'm always tired by the constant activity. And being in the car for long stretches of time is getting harder on my very pregnant self. So I'm glad to take a break from all the going, but I'm also glad to be staying. There's so many things we'd like to do before the baby arrives. Not all of them are necessary (Does the baby really care if I clean out the filing cabinet drawers? I doubt it.), but I have this image in my mind.

I imagine a day in early October when Eleanor's at preschool. I do a little bit of cleaning around the house and then flop onto the couch and look around with satisfaction. I realize that it's all done. Done! Everything we wanted to do before the baby arrives is done. Just for one small, brief moment, everything is in its place. All is right with the world. I sit with this thought for a few minutes, savoring the sense that there's nothing else I have to do and nowhere else I have to be, and then the contractions start.

Is this going to happen? Absolutely not. My To Do Lists are many things, but reasonable is not one of them. There's no way we'll finish EVERYTHING before the baby arrives. But at least, if we're home, we can work on most of them. And we're not making more work for ourselves with packing and unpacking and laundry and all of the chores that come with travel. There's already plenty of work to be done around here ... and we won't even talk about after the confinement is over, and the baby arrives!

At the Lakehouse

This is that one magical weekend a year when I get together with around a dozen of my nearest and dearest friends from high school. We all go to a "lakehouse" (in quotes because it's bigger and nicer than our regular home) and spend two days eating, laughing, catching up, floating on the lake, and thinking about how lucky we are to have known such wonderful people since we were 16 (or, in some cases, 5) years old. Most of the spouses have been around for so many years (Keith and I started dating when we were 18, for example) and fit in so well that sometimes I almost forget they didn't actually graduate with us.

This year, I think there'll be 10 kids there: one 5-year-old, and the rest younger. The youngest just turned one a few months ago. It makes me so happy for Eleanor to grow up with my friends' friends. I hope that her friendships with them, at least some of them, turn into real, deep connections and not just a case of "I'll hang out with them while we're at the lakehouse, because I don't have a choice." So far, she loves the annual lakehouse weekend, and is eagerly anticipating this one.

In contrast, we have a 15-year high school class reunion planned for September. Most of us are planning on going, but I'm guessing the reunion experience for me will be very different from the average. Keith has not only met once or twice, but knows and is friends with, many of my high school friends. He was a groomsman in Dan's wedding, and makes running and concert plans with Jen's husband. I'm curious to see what we'll do at the reunion: Will we stake out a table and carry on where we left off at the lakehouse this weekend? Or will we ignore each other, because we're already up to speed, and seek out the people we've lost touch with?

I'd imagine it will be a bit of both. Sometimes wandering off to reconnect with old acquaintances, but always wandering back to the familiar, seeking the reassurance of people who really know me. No explanations or updates necessary. The excitement and the unknown of the 15-year class reunion in the Fall will be fun. But the lakehouse is what I consider to be the real reunion, and the one I'm looking forward to the most.

Vacation Exercise

Our plan all along for this vacation was to "do" as little as possible. Beach, pool, reading/napping at the beachhouse, repeat. This was all fine and good, except Eleanor and I both have incredibly fair skin. By the middle of the week, even with constant, if somewhat haphazard, sunscreen application, we were both getting a bit crispy. So we decided to spend a day away from the water, out of direct sun.

We went to the Currituck Beach Lighthouse, which was just a short drive from where we were staying. I think the Currituck lighthouse is one of the smaller ones in the Outer Banks, but it's still nothing to sneeze at: 214 curving metal steps, up about 150 feet.

Added to that, Eleanor wore me out before we even set foot in the lighthouse. There was a short, slow-moving line waiting for the privilege to climb all those steps. While the rest of our group waited in line, Eleanor felt the need to run. She and I ran back and forth across a grassy patch, racing from one tree back to Grandpa's legs (and one unsuspecting guy whom Eleanor mistook for Grandpa) back to another tree, back to Daddy's legs .... she couldn't get enough. Clearly, from the above picture taken before the climb, I could get enough.

Finally our group was at the front of the line. This is the point where we explained to Eleanor that Mommy can only carry one child up 200+ steps, and that was the child in my belly. Eleanor would be sticking with Daddy for this adventure.

And of course, when I'm off the hook, she doesn't even get carried! She told us that she was going to climb the steps by herself, and that's exactly what she did. Every. Single. One.

Yet, when we finally reach the top, I'm actually not a big fan of heights. The lighthouse didn't seem that intimidating from the group, but the view from the top was still dizzying to me. Especially knowing that my 2-year-old was wandering around, sticking her head between the bars. Luckily, Eleanor actually felt the same way about being up there, so she and I headed down together while Keith hung out and took some pictures.

And of course, when I was in charge of Eleanor on the way down, suddenly she was tired and wanted to be carried. I tried carrying her down one flight of the stairs, but they were an open metal staircase and between my inherent pregnant off-balance and carrying Eleanor, I was convinced I was going to trip and throw her over the railing to her death. By the bottom of one small flight, I was practically hyperventilating.

Keith came to the rescue and carried her down the rest of the stairs. Between the running and the climbing and the panicking, I think it was the most exercise I got the whole week. I enjoyed a bit of sightseeing, but I was also happy to go back to the beach/nap/pool routine, too.

Vacation Kids' Clothes

When packing for vacation, we bought several sets of matching shorts and t-shirts for Eleanor. Most of her clothes are hand-me-downs, purchased second-hand, or bought by doting grandparents. T-shirts and shorts must suffer significant wear and tear at the hands (and knees) of toddlers, because for the past two years, when I get out the latest crop of used clothing, there's a dearth of these items in the pile. Add that to the fact that most of the grandparent-given clothes are adorable dresses, and you can understand why we had almost no shorts/t-shirts on hand.

What I failed to appreciate during this shopping spree is Eleanor's total disdain for shorts. This girl adores dresses and absolutely refuses to wear shorts. I thought she might be swayed while on vacation—everyone dressed down on vacation, right?—but that was not the case. Even her bathing suit had to resemble a ballerina's tutu instead of simply a bathing suit.


Here's just a few pictures of the dresses she wore throughout the week. By the end of the week, it was very clear what her main souvenir must be: a brand new beach dress. She loves it.

Since returning from vacation, we have convinced her (with much cajoling) to wear shorts on a few occasions, when we were hiking and camping. It's the opposite of my adult life, when I need a really good reason to bother with wearing a dress.

Why does it matter to me so much that she be willing to wear shorts? I don't really know. Most of the time, I don't care. Last week she wore her entire ballet outfit (tutu, tights, and ballet slippers) to music class with my blessing. Coincidentally, that's also the outfit she wore to meet Grandma Helen and Grandpa Chuck at an Art Museum outing a few months ago. She wears her two fancy Easter dresses to go to the playground or to the store.


I can't speak for Keith, but I think I pushed for shorts so much while on vacation because I want Eleanor to be better than I am at going with the flow. I am awful at wanting/needing to stick to my original plans or else. Many of you may already have noticed this tendency. I embrace Eleanor's love of dresses, and I hope she holds onto this preference; she really does look adorable in all of them. But I also would like her to realize that shorts are not the enemy, and if her five favorite dresses are all dirty at the same time (which is more likely than someone who is not the parent of a toddler might think, due to the various viscous substances of our days such as spilled milk, pee, mud, paint, and more), I want her to be able to throw on a pair of shorts without it ruining her whole day. And then she can go back to the dresses tomorrow ... as long as doing a load of laundry was part of Mommy's plan for the day.

Vacation Destructor

We've been back from vacation for just over a week now, but I guess my brain has a hard time catching up, because I'm just now blogging about it. And somehow, that short time lag is enough for me to get very nostalgic. Wasn't it great, that time we rented a beach house in the Outer Banks with Keith's extended family?!? That was probably the best vacation we've ever had! It was all sunshine and laughter, and nothing ever went wrong! Eleanor cooperated by always eating what we served, going to the beach or pool without a fight, cheerfully napping on schedule, and she definitely did NOT puke in the car on the way home.

That's not to say the vacation was the complete opposite of perfection. It really was one of the best vacations we've had. BUT we all still had our trying moments, because this is real life, and I find it fascinating how my memory refuses to remember those parts of vacation. Even only a week in the past, the minor irritations and disagreements are like footprints in the sand, being washed away by the tide ....

So anyway, that's not even the main point of my post. Or I guess the main point could fit under the general vacation theme of: Didn't See That Coming. We took a ton of beach toys, and were very excited to build elaborate sand castles with Eleanor. I mean, I understand she's only 2.9 years old, so these weren't going to be works of art. But I thought it would be fun to spend a lot of beach time digging in the sand and using our imagination, instead of always being in the water or sleeping/reading on a beach towel and not paying much attention to the beach itself. We didn't do many beachy vacations when I was a kid, so I didn't have much of a sand castle building phase. I was looking forward to reliving the youth I didn't have.

If any of you have thoughts like these about your toddler, be forewarned: They don't care about the castles. Only about destruction. To Eleanor, the very best thing about sand castles—sand anything—was destroying it. She didn't like the big waves, and she had no interest in building the castles and decorating them with seashells. But the minute I had put together a decent group of building, BAM!, Destructor arrived. With a gleeful grin, she would push, kick, and render obsolete anything we had built.

The mother in me was very happy to see her having such a good time. But the 7-year-old child in me pouted a little bit. After the first morning, I quickly set aside any dreams of careful building and focused on quantity over quality. Then I didn't mind so much when she effectively razed the ephemeral structures mere moments after their erection. She wasn't a good builder, but was an amazingly efficient Destructor, our little cherub!

Heading Back from Vacation

Continuing on with the email theme this week, we're currently driving back 12 hours from our beach vacation. We spent last week in the Outer Banks, sharing a beach house with Keith's extended family. You can expect lots of pictures and stories next week. I've been kind of paranoid about talking about it while it's been going on, because I read somewhere that it's a bad idea to go on Facebook and say, "I'm going to be away from home for two weeks! Someone could break in and steal all my stuff and I'd have no idea!" So instead, somehow this week I've been focused on email, and I'll relive our vacation next week. In the meantime, enjoy Keith's Shutterboo Weekly Photo Challenge entry for this week's topic of "shadow." You'll notice a theme with his sister's photo:


And our sister-in-law's as well.

Speaking of email, this is the first time I've ever been so "connected" while on vacation. Usually, I'm a big fan of leaving the phone, computer, etc. at home and really getting a break from everything. This time, however, since I'm teaching an online class, that wasn't really an option. Instead, from day one, I've set up my desk away from home in this little kitchen nook and have been checking my email and keeping up with my class every day. I've gone from being anti-technology on vacation to being on the fence. I really like that I've been cleaning out my inbox and replying to messages throughout the week. This means that we won't get home at the end of a long drive, only to collapse on the couch and be confronted with an avalanche of emails&mash;ones I care about and many I don't—that I'll have to sort through. That's a nice feeling.

Add that to the fact that our beach house has a washer and dryer, and we're going to wash as many clothes as possible before the trip back so that's not a massive task when we arrive at home. I'm sure our return will be totally stress-free and the vacation will continue, right? Right?!?

After Hours

As a parent, I made a grave tactical error the other night.

Eleanor has been sleeping in the big girl bed (crib converted to toddler bed) since Christmas time. In the past few months, she's also convinced us to leave the door open at night so she can get out of bed and go to the bathroom. To be fair, overall the ratio of bathroom trips to unnecessary, putting-off-bed trips has so far been in favor of actual bathroom usage.

However, lately the unnecessary trips have been increasing, and we've spent more times going upstairs and sternly sending her back to bed. I've spent a lot of time trying to convince her that we are really, really, really boring after she goes to bed. We don't talk about anything exciting, or watch Sesame Street, or eat ice cream and popsicles. (Those last two do happen, but don't tell her.) "Honestly," I say, "most of the time we just fall asleep on the couch. You're not missing out on anything!" Yet she remains a skeptic.

This Friday, we're leaving for a week-long beach vacation with Keith's extended family in the Outer Banks. The plan is to leave late on Friday and drive through the night. I'm confident that part 1 of the plan (leaving and driving) will happen. I'm not so confident that part 2—Eleanor sleeps most of the way—will. That's the hope, but of course we're preparing an entertainment extravaganza, should it be needed. Lots of books and toys, and particularly books with accompanying audio CDs. She's been big into those lately, which has been fantastic because I can't read in the car for more than 5 words before I get carsick. Eleanor thinks this is a lame excuse, and complains about my ineptitude quite often on any car trip longer than 15 minutes when I'm not driving. Because if I'm not driving, my job is to entertain her. And if I can't read in the car? FAIL.

So, I've also decided to take some of her favorite books and record myself reading the stories, and load the recordings onto the iPod. Brilliant! So I can "read" during the trip, while simultaneously sleeping and avoiding car sickness. A good idea, poorly executed. I decided to try this out the other night, mere minutes after I put her to bed. The inevitable result? She pitter patters to the top of the stairs, and hears me reading fairy tales out loud after she's already in bed. She always KNEW we did fun things after she was in bed, and now she had proof!

I heard Eleanor gasp from the top of the stairs, and could picture her flapping her hands (Eleanor's preferred body language for Excited!) and then she thundered down the stairs. I stopped recording long enough to get her settled on the couch next to me and tell her to be quiet and she was going right to bed after this story. To top it off, my computer froze in the middle of the recording so I lost everything I had done AND I still had to finish the story and send her back up to bed. I tried to explain that I don't really read her stories every night after she goes to bed, but there's no way that she believed me.

And then hours later, when I was absolutely certain she (and Keith) were asleep, I opened to the first page of The Cat in the Hat and whispered to myself,

"The sun did not shine.
It was too wet to play.
So we sat in the house
All that cold, cold wet day..."

The Royal Wedding

At first, I scoffed at all this hoopla over the big Royal Wedding on Friday. Seriously, what's the deal?

But in only a week, I've done a 180. I've been trying to catch the morning talk shows, which are all based in London right now, commenting on Kate's potential dresses, honeymoon plans, and possible etiquette gaffes. Today, when Eleanor was napping, I even went to Hulu to watch a Lifetime (Lifetime!) movie called Royal Wedding of a Lifetime: The Future King and Queen. I've been totally sucked up into it, and I'm looking forward to watching all of the coverage on Friday.

I think this has happened for three reasons:

1. Eleanor is big into the princess phase. I have mixed feelings about this, but at times it does bring back fond memories of when I loved to pretend to be a princess, and read fairy tales, and imagine life in a castle. (Not a real castle, of course—one with fairies and magic and all that.) Just today I told her about the royal wedding on Friday, and she said that she's very excited for them.
   
2. It reminds me of the wonderful times I've spent in the UK, both when I volunteered there and since. (Like going to Elaine's wedding in Glasgow, as pictured above. We're definitely not royalty, but it was the one chance I've had to wear a hat like that!) Even just hearing the one British newscaster this morning talking about "taking the mick" makes me smile. I miss the slang, the food, the sites, the history .... and watching the coverage gives me a taste of all that.
3. I want to root for them! Just like I was disappointed to hear that Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins split up, I want to believe that it is possible to find true love and stay faithful and in love, despite all of the distractions of fame and fortune. Maybe it seems strange that I feel badly for the rich and famous, but I do think that it would be harder to maintain a good, normal, healthy relationship. I like that Kate currently is not royalty, and that they met and started dating at Uni, just like millions of other couples. I'm a hopeless romantic at heart, and I want to believe that even royalty is looking for the same things as the average person: love, companionship, and understanding.
   

I do plan on watching as much of the festivities as I can on Friday. (Which probably won't be much, since Eleanor doesn't watch much TV and I'll be chasing after her AND enjoying a playdate at my sister's house.) I hope it's a glorious, sunny day, and they do live happily ever after!

Christmas Ornament 2002

... and back to the post I originally meant to write yesterday, if I wasn't battling the snow. This is an ornament I picked up for Keith when I was in Savannah, Georgia at a work conference in 2002. And by work conference, I mean I worked for the organization that ran the conference, there was only 3 or 4 of us full-time staff, and we worked the entire time. We never saw the outside of the hotel until long after the sun went down.

What I did see of the city, I really liked though. I loved the architecture and the parks. One night we took a ghost tour (what else do you do at night in a new city? with co-workers?) which was fun. On the last day, I had a few hours to myself to wander around, shop, and be touristy before we flew back home.

So many cute shops! Since the conference was right before Thanksgiving, everyone already had their Christmas items on display. I bought this ornament for Keith as a, "Hey! I was thinking about you! Even if I hardly ever got the chance to call you."

The whole time I was walking around, I kept thinking of how much more fun I'd be having if Keith were there, too. I did like the city, but I feel like I saw and experienced very little of it. I'm still hoping to go back there one day, with Keith, and see and do a lot more. But still take the ghost tour!

Road Trip FROM Alabama

Okay, so I was very optimistic about the trip. And the trip down was good; we did enjoy the wedding and the family and showing off Eleanor. The problems came on the way back.

Where to start?

Well, did you know that Ford Escape Hybrid's apparently have an error message that says, "Pull over safely" and then shuts off power to the engine? They do! And that's exactly what happened to us just barely into Tennessee on Sunday afternoon.

The original plan had been to drive 9 hours on Sunday, staying at Keith's sister's house in Louisville Sunday night, and driving the final 6 hours back on Monday. We were going to be back in time for me to teach my evening class.

Instead, we spend Sunday night at a hotel in Tennessee. Because it was Sunday night, the car hadn't even been towed or looked at yet. By 10 o'clock Monday morning, it was clear I wouldn't be back in time for my evening class—the first time I've had to cancel a class since I started teaching.

In the end, Keith, Eleanor, and I made it home only 6 hours later than originally planned, which seems like a minor miracle to me. It involved a lot of help from my in-laws; we had actually driven separately to the Cincinnati-area from my parents, and left our car at Keith's parents' house in case of a Reds' game 4 of the play-offs. So the revised plan was: my parents rented a car and drove us 3+ hours up to Louisville, where we met Keith's parents and our brother-in-law at his house. To get there, Keith's parents had driven two cars—their own, and ours—so we could leave from there. We all ate some lunch (Thanks again, Jeremy!) and my parents quickly left to drive back down to Tennessee and see what was going on with their car.

We hung around a bit longer (but not much) and then Keith, Eleanor and I piled into our car to head up to Cleveland. At the same time, Keith's parents headed back to Northern Kentucky and Jeremy went back to work.

Fast forward a few hours and we're safely home. Our own beds! Our own bathroom! It was still very quiet, since Beckett and Gomez were staying with family, but it was good to be home.

Road Trip to Alabama

This is the blog entry I wrote last week, which I never got a chance to actually post:

As you read this, we are into day 2 of our road trip to Alabama. My cousin is getting married this weekend, and we will be in attendance.

Hopefully, by the time you read this, we're back on the road for the shorter leg of this 15-hour, one-way trip. It's times like these that remind me how ridiculously large the U.S. is. We live at the very northern end of Ohio, which means we spend over 4 hours just driving through our state. Then, when we reach the northern tip of Alabama, we still have another 5 hours to go, since my aunt lives on the Gulf Coast at the very southern edge of the state.

I'm looking forward to seeing family and having a mini-vacation. I've never been to Alabama; I've never spent much time in the South at all, so that should be interesting. And, clearly, it's a less arduous journey than the one we took to Costa Rica last Fall, for Keith's cousin's wedding.

We've managed to con my parents into taking us along for the ride, which means:

• More legroom yet less gas, because my parents have a Ford Escape Hybrid
• More Eleanor entertainers! Someone else to play finger puppets with!
• More drivers! (The exclamation point is purely for Keith's sake. Since he does 99.7% of all the driving, this one doesn't really affect me as much.)
  

The plan is to drive about 9 hours on Thursday and 6 hours on Friday. Spend a whole entire day in Alabama, then drive 9 hours on Sunday and 6 hours on Monday to get back in time for me to teach my evening class Monday night. Send speedy thoughts our way!

Do you have to go potty?

How about now?

And now?

We started potty training Eleanor when we got back from Vermont, and these are the words constantly on our lips. Every time I hold her on my hip, I get anxious. I start to wonder, Does my hip suddenly feel very hot and wet? Is she always this warm? Or is she peeing on me RIGHT NOW?

Despite my pee paranoia, so far, so good. She has had a few accidents, but not as many as I might have expected. She's peed at home, at her grandparents, at the Natural History museum ..... Let me clarify. She's peed in the potty at all of those places and more.

This weekend will be a real test: Our first trip down to visit Keith's family since the potty training started. I don't have any idea how long this trip will take. Just how many stops will we be making for Eleanor to sit on the potty? Or will we need to be washing out the car seat as soon as we get there?

I was going to say that we've been doing this long enough, and she's been successful enough, that I'm starting to believe this may actually stick. However, I'll reserve that statement for after we get back.

Vermont, in Conclusion

My blogging about the Vermont trip would be remiss if I didn't mention a few of the very odd coincidences that happened while we were there.

First, as I mentioned, a friend of Keith's family retired last Spring and has been hiking the Appalachian trail. What I didn't mention is that he was very, very close to our location in Vermont. The Appalachian Trail is over 2,000 miles long, only 150 of which are in Vermont, and we ended up in Vermont at the same time as Jerry. How crazy is that? We almost met up for a day with his wife, Sue, who is supporting him as he nears the finish.

Unfortunately, we missed Sue. But we did get to see one of Keith's cousins from New York City. The night before we left for Vermont, Anna posted on her Facebook that she was heading to a wedding in Vermont that weekend. Keith sent her a message and called her to say that we, too, were heading to Vermont. Where might you be?

Anna was close enough that she made it work, stopping by our campsite for a few hours on Sunday afternoon. It was so fun to be sitting in the woods in Vermont, catching up on life. The last time we saw Anna, we were on a beach in Costa Rica after her brother's wedding. It makes me wonder: Where will be meet up next? (Say "London," Fate! Please?!?)

Finally, after the trip was over, I wanted to relive some of it. I went on to our library's website to reserve some Vermont-related books. In addition to a plethora of guidebooks, I saw a book called Vintage Vermont Villainies by John Stark Bellamy II. That's weird, I thought, Isn't John Stark Bellamy II a Cleveland author?

And he was! He wrote seven true-crime books about his original home, Cleveland, before moving to Vermont. Along with the change of scenery, he changed his focus and is now telling the world about true crime in his new home.

We drove 9+ hours away from home, to come across all of these connections to home. This is one of those ways in that it seems like the world is a small place, getting smaller every day. But in a good way.

Vermont in the Rain

Our Vermont trip was fabulous. It was 9-10 hours in the car, one way (including gas and food stops), and Eleanor was amazingly patient. We had a few testy moments in the car, like when she kept putting her foot on my drinking straw. So I moved my drink out of the holder to get it out of her way ... and then Keith accidentally knocked it over with his elbow.

But only a few bad moments in 20+ hours in the car is not bad at all, I think.

We got to the state park where we were staying late Saturday afternoon. We stretched our legs and set up camp. We had brought some hot dogs to cook over the fire that night, figuring we'd do a bigger shopping trip once we'd been in town a day or so. Pretty much we just settled in and soaked in our reality: We were on vacation in Vermont!

I was very proud of myself: I brought nothing "useful," other than a baby blanket I'm knitting. I brought no work-related materials, no computer!, no cards I've been meaning to write, no books I should read. Just fun books, a puzzle book, and a word game.

Sunday was another laidback day. We went to the Bennington REVOLUTIONARY WAR Memorial (speaking of which, I had incorrectly put "Civil War" in my earlier entry, which makes no sense. Either you were kind enough not to call me out on it, or as inattentive to detail as I am;) Sunday evening, it started raining about 7 o'clock and didn't really stop. So we were stuck in the tent with Eleanor, which meant we ALL went to sleep about 8 o'clock. I woke up many times throughout the night, and every time it was still raining.

The rain continued on into Monday. We put off any plans for hiking, canoeing, etc., and instead went to visit the Park McCullough House (Victorian mansion) in Bennington. It was a perfect rainy day activity, and another first for Eleanor. We've taken her to museums in Cleveland, but we've never taken her on a museum tour, where there's a group of people trying to listen intently to a guide.

Again, she surprised me with how well she behaved. Did I get to listen to every word that was said? No, of course not! Eleanor and I spent a lot of time on the fringes of the group, whispering about something in a nearby room, so as to keep her entertained and relatively quiet. I caught snippets of the tour guide, but at least I did get to see everything and read a few informative placards along the way. Keith offered to take her for a bit, but Eleanor was not okay with that plan, so she and I stuck together.

And I was much more relaxed about it than I would be back home. Because it was vacation! We got lost on the way there, trying to see a few covered bridges on the drive. But it was okay, because we're just on vacation!

I do love vacation. By mid-afternoon Monday, the clouds were clearing away and we were looking forward to more outdoor activities. However, the firewood was soaking wet. Both Keith and I tried to get the fire going and it would not happen. So we ended up at a pizza parlor for dinner. We went back to the campsite, and went to bed pretty soon after. There's not much point in staying up when there's not a fire to enjoy.

But that was okay, because we were still on vacation!

Summer Reading: David Sedaris

I'm also currently reading When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris.

I'm not normally the type of person to read 12 books at once. But Sedaris is an easy writer to pick up and put down. If I have a lot of time and energy, I'll read the Shakespeare book. If I only have a few minutes and want a quick break, I'll read Sedaris.

That sounds like I'm putting him down (literally and figuratively!), but I'm not! I mean, maybe I am literally from time to time, but not figuratively. He's a wonderfully funny writer and I really enjoy his work.

Whenever I read Sedaris, I'm reminded of when we moved from Dayton to Cincinnati. When we lived in Dayton, we always had to go out of town for concerts, etc., because bands would choose either Dayton or Cincinnati ... and that pretty much meant they chose Cincinnati.

Until we moved! Then, within the next month or so, we had to drive up to Dayton TWICE to see a show. First was a reading by David Sedaris and then it was a concert, but I can't remember who ..... anyway.

Dayton, David Sedaris? Really?!? And there was this very annoying person sitting behind us who wanted to prove that he GOT Sedaris like no one else did. So he'd try to always start laughing a little ahead of the curve, and laugh louder and longer.

I think Sedaris could write an excellent, scathing essay on this type of person. Or perhaps I should, and send it to him?

Vermont!

We're leaving tomorrow morning for a 5-day camping trip in Vermont! We haven't ever gone on vacation as just our small family: me, Keith and Eleanor. But now we're rectifying that! The summer classes are over, Fall semester doesn't start for a few more weeks, and we're hitting the road!

Keith and I spent our childhoods going on family camping vacations, and we're really looking forward to doing the same with Eleanor. We'll be staying at a state park, tucked into the middle of a national park, so there will be plenty of woods, fresh air, campfires, and beautiful starry nights.

My family was also big on visiting historic sites by day, sitting around the campfire at night. We will be honoring that tradition as well, with a Civil War battlefield nearby, as well as a preserved Victorian mansion and more.

Keith's family favors 10-mile hikes, but that might have to wait until Eleanor's a bit older.

I'm looking forward to telling you all about it when we get back!

Image Credit: Wikipedia

All Joy and No Fun

"All Joy and No Fun" is the title of a recent article on New York magazine's website, which is subtitled, "Why Parents Hate Parenting."

I really enjoyed the article. It put into words a vague feeling that I've been having lately about parenting—about life in general, in a lot of ways.

When I was living in England, it was a really tough transition from being at my safe, familiar college campus surrounded by friends, or at home with my family. The first two months, in particular, were absolutely miserable. I and the other American volunteer with me at our placement were so unhappy; the place we were volunteering was not being run well, so no matter how hard we tried, we would never make any headway. Added to that, our 3rd housemate was a passive-aggressive psycho. It was not a good place.

BUT, we talked to the program director and told her either we needed to be placed somewhere else, or we would quit the program. That's when I got sent to Liverpool, and my friend got sent to Glasgow. (The crazy roommate quit the program.) And when I got to Liverpool, it was immediately apparent that this was a much better situation. I was working in a school that was well-run. My position and duties were very clear. And my new housemates all got along, which is essential when you have one budget for food and household expenses.

And yet, I was still missing home like crazy. Even though I wasn't totally miserable anymore, I still found myself counting off the days until I could see a familiar face. This was supposed to be an amazing, life-changing experience, and all I could think about was how much I wanted to be back home. I'd picture myself at my parents' house, lying on the couch and reading a book on a warm summer afternoon. It seemed like heaven. My new, exciting reality had nothing on the comforts of home.

And yet, at the same time, I knew that I was emotionally sabotaging myself. I could clearly see, from the beginning, how it was all going to play out. For the first few months, I was going to be incredibly homesick and completely focused on what I was missing. Then I would start getting to know people better, settle into a routine; slowly all the routine tasks of life would start actually feeling more routine, and less daunting. I would start thinking that maybe this wasn't such a terrible idea after all. I would realize that I was thinking about home less, and enjoying my days more.

Once there was only a short time left in my stay, I would really start to appreciate it. When I had only a few weeks left at the school, or one last volunteer retreat .... that's when I would become really sad about how quickly the year had passed. And I would regret all the time at the beginning that I wasted, pining for home instead of fully engaging in this unique opportunity.

I knew this, from the beginning. And it did all come to pass. But I couldn't rush things along. I couldn't get myself out of my homesickness funk any earlier. It drove me crazy that I was making myself miserable, but it couldn't be stopped.

And that's what (FINALLY) brings me back around to my thoughts on parenting, and this article. I've been thinking a lot about how much I'm going to miss Eleanor's toddler days. I'll look back at these pictures, and wonder how she was ever that small. What did she do? What did she say? How did it feel when she snuggled into my arms? Instead of being part of the fabric of my daily life, these things will be a distant memory.

Knowing this, knowing how toddlerhood is so fleeting, I feel like I should be able to use that knowledge to stop myself from getting frustrated all the time. Constantly wanting more time to myself: to read, or to finish that one last task, or just to sit. Every day I tell myself to be more patient. To appreciate just being with her, at this incredibly special time in her life. To focus on forging our bond, and helping her learn about her world. To be in the moment and see it as a gift.

And yet .... I can't do it. I spend the majority of my time yearning for more time, for autonomy and freedom and EASY. Just to not have to be thinking and doing all day long.

Do I accept this as inevitable? Spend my time now saying, "Hold on! Just let me finish this first and I'll be right there!," knowing full well that in 5 years, or 10 years, or 30 years, I will be regretting all of these precious, fleeting moments slip right past me.

Is there another way to do it, and not lose your mind?