Month: June 2011

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Family vacation #1 in the books

R said that last night as we went to bed, and he’s right. This weekend really was our first little family vacation, and it was awesome. We took tons of pictures (surprised? i didn’t think so), but I haven’t had a chance to go through them all and get any uploaded yet. I promise I will post a full photographic recap of our brewery tour weekend as soon as I do though, so you can get a little glimpse into the extracurricular activities of these Wisconsin beer lovers.

In the meantime, here’s the low down on everywhere we went. It sounds like kind of a whirlwind excursion, but we actually did everything at our own pace, with no set schedule or agenda, so it felt very leisurely and relaxed. Exactly what the doctor ordered!

Friday: After taking roughly an hour just to get out of Milwaukee County on our way out of town (mind you, it’s only a distance of about 15 miles), and being thoroughly disgusted by the traffic and highway construction in our city, we were finally moving at highway speeds on our way westward. We arrived in Mt. Horeb around 7pm, checked into our little motel, and headed to the Grumpy Troll for dinner and a sampler. And just as last year, it did not disappoint. Oh yeah – as we were unloading our stuff in our room before dinner, D took her first nose-dive, right off one of the beds onto the motel room floor. Lovely. The good thing about kids, though? They’re apparently made of rubber, so fortunately she survived unscathed. Not even a scratch, just a little shaken up. Whew. Nothing a good beer sampler won’t cure. 😉

Saturday: We took D for a couple mile walk on the Military Ridge State Trail right after breakfast, which we were able to pick up just blocks from our motel. Then we packed up, checked out, and headed over to New Glarus. For those of you who have never been to the new New Glarus brewery, GO! It is out of this world fantastic. I never visited the old brewery, but their new facility is beautiful – it’s a little over a year old now, and they have the outdoor bar set up and the inside tasting room is complete. The tour is self-guided and free, and you can buy either a 3-taste sampling or as many full pints as you’d like. We sat outside on their patio and enjoyed a couple pints while enjoying the day. D had a blast playing in the grass and entertaining everyone at the tables around us, and they also had a bags game set up that a couple people were playing. We both agreed that we could have easily spent the entire day there, lounging around and drinking down their delicious brews. However, more places awaited. We stayed at New Glarus until mid-afternoon, stopped at a super old timey awesome bar in the little downtown area called Puempel’s Olde Tavern for a drink, then headed further west to the Mississippi River and Potosi. This is another really cool place. The town itself is nothing, so if you’re not going to the brewery then I don’t think I’d recommend a stop. But the brewery has a beer museum attached, so we checked that out too. The tour is $5, which also gets you a complimentary 12 oz. pour from the bar afterward, and it was very interesting. They have a ton of old beer memorabilia housed in a couple different levels, so it made for a really neat place. The bar is a nice arched stone, open room, and they have a beer garden patio outside as well. We had samplers and ate dinner there, and their food was tasty too. After our free beers from the tour, we hit the road to our rest stop for the night, Galena, IL. It was only about half an hour south of Potosi, so we were there in no time. We did get a glimpse of the might Mississip on our way out of Potosi, for the brewery doesn’t sit right on the river. We stayed at the Irish Cottage Boutique Hotel in Galena, and it was great – cute Irish theme, nice rooms, extremely comfy bed, Irish dancers in the pub downstairs Saturday night, and a complimentary hot breakfast in the same pub Sunday morning. We were spent by bedtime that night and a little sun-kissed from the hours at New Glarus (not D though, no sun on that fair little skin please), so thankfully D decided to be nice and sleep in until 8:00 Sunday morning. Thank you sweet Jesus, our prayers have been answered by room-darkening curtains.

Sunday: After that nice breakfast, we checked out and drove into downtown Galena for some sight-seeing and moseying. That is an awesome town. It’s very quaint and historic, and the main street downtown is beautiful. Full of shops, bars, restaurants, and an outstanding winery (in Galena, IL? who’da thunk it). And guess what else we found? Another brewery! So we spent a couple hours meandering through town, having a sampler, then doing a little wine tasting at the winery on our way out. Their wines reminded us a lot of Door Peninsula’s wines in Door County, which we love. So of course we got a couple bottles as our souvenir from Galena. Then it was off to Madison – wahoo! We headed right to the Great Dane downtown, and our friend G met up with us there. We had one of their giant 15 beer samplers, of course, and lunch, then went out to the east side to Ale Asylum. Neither of us had been there before, so we were excited to check it out. It rocks! We got one of their samplers, of course, and sat out on their patio to enjoy the gorgeous weather (finally!). I was very impressed there – their beer was excellent (i’d only had a couple of their brews before) and the place itself was really nice. So we chilled there for a few hours, bid G farewell, and started to make our way home. We’d originally planned on spending Sunday night somewhere, but decided it was unnecessary. We’d gotten all our stops in in those two days, so why not just sleep in our own beds that night and save the hotel fare? Okey dokey smokey. Just a short ways outside Madison we were in Lake Mills, and guess what’s in Lake Mills? Tyranena, duh. This was the last non-Milwaukee brewery on our list for the weekend (we decided to scratch Minhas and save it for another trip), so we popped in for a pit stop. I got a sampler since I couldn’t have one when we were there last year, and R got a couple pints. D again made friends with everyone and their dogs there, so she was in heaven. It was late evening by the time we finished up at Tyranena, and then we were homeward bound.

Monday: Yesterday was a rare vacation day at home, and it felt great. We started off with some nasty thunderstorms, so I thought it was going to be a hunker down kind of day, but the skies cleared by mid-morning and the sun came out blazing. I got the hammock out of its winter storage in the garage and spent an hour lying in that, then we walked over to Sprecher for a late afternoon tour to cap off the weekend. Nothing like a local brewery in your own backyard! It was a steamy walk, but I lathered up D with sunscreen, put her sun hat on her, and got the extended canopy on the stroller to try to give her more shade. Sprecher’s tour is fun too, if you’ve never been. It’s short, sweet, and to the point – their beer. $5 gets you a 10 minute tour (it’s not a big place), then you get 4 good-sized samples afterward. Yesterday they were in production bottling their delicious root beer, so the whole place smelled great. R grilled up some outstanding brats for dinner when we got home, and we called it a weekend. And a mighty successful one at that.

Oh, in case you’re wondering why we did all these brewery tours, R joined the WI Brewers Guild this year and got a ton of coupons for tours, pints, schwag, etc., at breweries around the state. Well, that, and we just like good beer. 🙂 And don’t worry, at no point were we too impaired for driving. That sounds kind of bad that we went and had samplers, drove to the next place with more samplers, drove to the next place with more samplers, and so on and so on around the state. But I assure you – there was plenty of time and food mixed in with every stop that no one was in danger of an incident at all. We’re not that stupid (i think).

So there you have it – the wonderful world of WI breweries. And there are so many more we want to visit! We think the next one will be a central/northern WI tour. I think we’ve found our annual spring mini-getaway theme.

 

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Brain drain

This post may seem kind of rambling, crazy, and pointless to many, but that’s just kind of how things are rolling around in my head right now. Lucky you.

Now that I’m done breastfeeding and the milk has completely dried up, my boobs are utterly and totally lifeless. And I hate it. I think back to how full and nice they were while they were producing infant life force, and it makes me sad to look at the shells that have been left behind. They were certainly nothing special to begin with (emphasis on the nothing there), but now I swear they’re even less so if that’s at all possible. And for whatever reason none of my pre-pregnancy bras fit right anymore. Maybe I’ve just forgotten how underwires feel after not wearing one through those 9+ months of nursing, but damn if they aren’t uncomfortable! I used to avoid bras without them, but now I can’t seem to find one in my drawer that I like. I’m debating going to have an actual bra fitting done, but I’m afraid the woman will just laugh in my face and say, “Hon, what are you thinking? You don’t even need a bra!” The only one I’ve ever had done was while I was pregnant, and I was actually wearing the correct size at that time. But now I’ve lost that cup size I gained and it seems like every other aspect is out of whack too. Hmm – anyone have suggestions on comfortable bras they like?

Work sucks. There, I said it. People always ask, “How’s work going?” because they know my company has gone through round after round of layoffs the past couple years, and I have been fortunate to survive them all. Trust me, I know how fortunate I am, and I’m definitely not taking my employment for granted. And I usually answer that question, “Oh it’s fine. Work’s work,” but to be perfectly honest I get more and more restless every day. I like my job and all, but I just keep feeling useless. Like, what am I doing there that no one else can? When is the next round of firings going to come with my head on the chopping block? Fortunately I think we are past that point in the survival of our firm, but I still can’t help but wonder. There really isn’t a career path for me much past where I am now, which is actually totally fine. I’ve aimed to get where I am now my whole time in this industry so far, and I’m perfectly happy in my current role. But I always feel like one day someone is going to expect me to want more, and when they realize I’m content where I am now they won’t be able to understand that and run me over for the next hungry young guy (i say guy because this is still a fairly male-dominated industry, even though there are very many extremely talented, smart women in it. ok, hungry young guy or girl). I can’t help it, though – I get a paycheck, I have excellent benefits, I am good at what I do, I don’t need more and more responsibilities to feel validated in my career, and I enjoy the flexibility that I have now to leave work each day at a pretty reasonable hour and go home to be with my family. For that is what’s most important to me now – my family. And I just feel that so many people in my office make their life revolve around their job that I get further and further removed from that mindset every day. Maybe it’s just because things are a little slower at work right now, my mind has time to wander into this dangerous territory. I don’t know. I know I need to keep my job to help sustain the livelihood of our family, but I just really don’t want to. Isn’t that terrible? I should be considering myself lucky that I even still have a job as great as mine, and here I am complaining. I’m such a brat. (which in itself doesn’t help my feeling of uselessness either)

When are we going to have more kids? Woah, there’s one for ya. I swear every other second I start trying to figure that question out, and it’s beginning to drive me a little crazy. See, here’s the sitch – I know we want more (one, maybe two more, probably definitely no more than that), but when should we get to work on that little side project? Maybe it’s because now my body’s getting back into its groove and I know that project is possible again, or maybe it’s all the awesome babies coming into the world right now, or maybe it’s just because. Who knows. All I know is that it’s fairly constantly on my mind right now and I just don’t know the answer. And I don’t like not knowing. I originally thought it’d be great to give D a sibling about 2 years younger than her – have them pretty close together so they’d grow up close, plus if we decide to go for more after that I’d be that much younger when the time comes to work on #3. But then I started thinking wait, is that fair to D? Should we give her another year or more where it’s just her, so she can enjoy having all of our attention and love a little while longer? Would we miss out on precious moments and memories with D if we decide to go for it sooner rather than later and have to focus a chunk of ourselves on a new baby? And I have no idea how to answer that. I can see the pros and cons in both, and I feel like I’m about to tear in half when I try to come up with a solution. I teeter back and forth between leaning strongly one way, then the other, then I get all messy when I try to reconcile my feelings. Ugggghhhhh. Why is this worm eating away at my brain right now? And why won’t it tell me the answer? And when is it going to stop making me itch?

Well we’re still on our mini-vaca, so maybe some of these things are getting resolved as you read this. And maybe not. But throwing them out of my head for once helps it feel a little better, so thank you for letting me do that.

 

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Road trip!!

Yesterday after work we loaded up the car and headed west. Before you start picturing us trucking through wide open spaces and the wild wild west, let me tame those ideas of grandeur. I mean more like Mt. Horeb, WI. 🙂

R, D, and I are taking a little family vacation, a much-needed respite from the daily grind. D’s been on longer car trips than this before and did great, so hopefully this one turns out to be equally as uneventful for her. (we drove up to Minneapolis for a long weekend when she was only 6 weeks old, and she traveled splendidly)

Last May R and I did a similar Wisconsin weekend getaway to the Madison area and had a blast. So this year we decided to extend it by a day (we’re taking Monday off – 2 3-day weekends in a row, yay!!) and see a couple new places.

The over-arching theme of that trip was Wisconsin breweries, and we have a couple on the agenda again this time. Last year we visited New Glarus’s new brewery, and it was amazing! It was completed that winter before we went, so everything was brand new and shiny. We loved it so much that it made the list again for this year.

Then we’re heading over to the far western edge of the state to visit Potosi and their brewery along the Mississippi River, then down to Galena, IL, for a night to see what that little corner of the world has to offer. After that tiny sojourn we’ll head up to one of my favorite places on Earth, Madison, and bum around it and its local breweries for a day or two before making our way back east.

Monday we’ll drive home through southern Wisconsin, possibly detouring down to Monroe to check out the Minhas brewery, but most likely at least stopping in Lake Mills to quench our thirst at Tyranena. Last year D was cooking away so I couldn’t fully partake in the tasty adult beverages, so this year I’m planning on making up for that. Work has gotten me kind of down lately, so this little break will hopefully be just what the doctor ordered!

I’m sure we’ll throw in plenty of sight-seeing along the way, too. We’re planning on talking D for a walk on the Military Ridge state trail, maybe visiting Cave of the Mounds, and basically just exploring the natural wonders our great state has to offer.

The southwestern corner of Wisconsin is beautiful, and now that the weather has finally warmed up it should make for some great scenery. There will be plenty of pictures taken along the way, so I’ll be able to give you a full report upon our return. Have a wonderful weekend!

 

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10 month stats

D turned 10 months old on Wednesday – double digit months! She seriously gets funnier and crazier each day. I have a feeling we’re going to have one precocious little girl on our hands if these past couple months are any indication.

Not a whole lot has changed since the 9 month stats and she doesn’t have another doctor’s appointment for measurements until August, but I’ll do a rundown anyway.

Tricks:

  • Her new thing in the past week or two is “crawling”. I say it in quotes because it’s still not your typical hand-knee, hand-knee crawling, but she’s at least now got the idea of getting on and staying fully on her hands and knees. Then she kind of hops/scoots herself forward. It’s hilarious. We thought her frog-legged scoot was crazy, but now the hopping forward while pulling along on her knees has taken its place. I’ll try to get a video of it to put on here so you can witness the cuteness first-hand.
  • She pulls herself up to stand on anything with ease now. When she first learned this it was more of a tentative wooahh, what is happening here? Why are my legs straight underneath me instead of in a little pile? Now she just pops right up like nobody’s business. It’s funniest when she does this while on the couch so she’s standing against the back cushion, then she’ll start falling down and rolling all over the place then standing back up to do it all again – very goofy infant acrobatics.
  • She also walks around holding onto furniture after pulling herself up quite freely now. Again, the first couple steps when she discovered this trick were pretty wobbly, like ohmygosh what are those feet things doing down there?? But now she’s all come on guys, you mean you wanted me to just stand there? Pssh, that’s baby stuff. I’m walking here!
  • Still lots of clapping and “singing”. The best is when she breaks out into a chorus of high-pitched squeals as I’m trying to change her diaper first thing in the morning. Sorry, Daddy, I know you’re sleeping but I’ve got to wake up my vocal chords too!
  • We have started hearing more new sounds fall out of her mouth lately, like she’s starting to try to put consonants together instead of the usual strings of na-na-na, da-da-da, ma-ma-ma, dis-dis, dat-dat, etc. She’ll throw some br sounds in every once in a while and kind of a ml sound. Yeah, I guess it’s a lot harder to explain in writing. I’ll try to start posting some audio clips too as she progresses.
  • Still just the 6 teeth in there so far. We think some new ones may be sprouting soon though because she’s begun drooling a lot again and she’s constantly playing with her tongue. If it’s not curled up out the side of her mouth, it’s flapping in and out in a blather-blather-blather noise. (again, a hard sound to explain in writing, but i know you know what i mean. try it – flick your tongue and and out of your mouth making noise and it sounds a lot like blather-blather)

Likes:

  • Pretty much all the same foods are still her main go-tos – Gerber baby cereal (usually either oatmeal or mixed grain), bananas, sweet potatoes, applesauce, baby yogurt, etc. We did switch her to eat solely off the daycare menu last week, so we no longer have to take food for her. That is very nice. And fortunately she gets a lot more variety there than I’ve had luck with getting her to try at home – they’ll have things like pancakes, toast, cereal, and fruit for breakfast; pastas, veggies, grilled cheese or turkey and cheese sandwiches, and fruit for lunch; goldfish crackers or Cheerios and fruit for a snack in the afternoon; and they always give her a sippy cup of water after each meal/snack. My goal is to get her eating all non-baby food at meals, but we’re not quite there yet. That’s why I keep giving her the Gerber cereal at home – I know it has good nutritional value in it and she’ll eat a lot of it to fill up. Especially when she gets picky with food, I worry that then she doesn’t eat enough.
  • She switched to all whole milk as of last week as well, and daycare provides that each day for her too. Fortunately she enjoys the whole milk as much as she did breast milk, so that transition was nothing for her. Now if I could just get her to take the vitamins she needs since there is no iron in the moo juice. I can’t really blame her though – they’re a dropper full of nasty dark yellow liquid that smells like ass, so I can only imagine how it tastes. She’s taken them a couple times, but usually she gets one taste, scrunches up her whole face like I’m trying to feed her poison, and spits out whatever has managed to make it into her mouth. Not cool since that shit stains like you wouldn’t believe.
  • Reading books (especially Karen Katz lift-the-flap ones) and playing with all of her toys. She’s not picky – she’ll play with anything and everything.
  • Playing with and rearranging all the magnets on the fridge. She also loves to look at all the pictures on there.
  • Looking at pictures of herself. I’m not kidding. This kid’s vain, too.
  • Being outside – stroller rides, playing in the grass, sitting with Daddy on the porch just watching.
  • Following you around the house and watching your every move. She gets especially mesmerized when you brush your teeth, which she likes to do with her finger toothbrush and baby toothpaste as well.
  • Pulling on your hair, smacking your cheek, or exploring your face and mouth with her free hand while you give her a bottle. If anyone else tried to smack my face or dig out my molars and tongue with their bare hands I’d be more than slightly annoyed, but those sweet sweet baby hands can roam as they please.

Dislikes:

  • In the foods category she isn’t a big fan of new textures. Pastas and pears have been ones she’s spit out on me a couple times. But she is getting better at eating meats – she likes brats. 🙂
  • Diaper and clothes changing
  • Still not liking getting strapped into the car seat, but fortunately she’s fine once in there (usually).
  • Being put to bed if she’s not fully ready. Good luck trying to get her to go to sleep if you put her in her crib too soon.

And here are some recent pictures of our growing beauty.

Just drinking some water, no big deal

 

10 months old!

 

Peekaboo, Mommy!

 

 

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One of those days

You know, the days where you feel like you just can’t win. Like whatever you do, it’s not good enough, or you can’t get it done fast enough, or it’s just not right. Yesterday turned into one of those days when I got home from work.

All I wanted to do was sit and relax in the sun for half an hour when I got home, while it was still shining on the back part of our driveway. I’m feeling seriously vitamin D deficient after this miserable “Spring”, and I was exhausted. Well I had to take D out there with me because R was working on something, so I grabbed one of her books, her water cup, and a little container full of Cheerios, and I strapped her into her stroller so she couldn’t boogie away from me. This worked well on Monday – she played in there for quite a while as we grilled and ate dinner outside – so I figured it’d be a fine alternative to hauling her playpen outside again, especially since I was only going to be out there for 30 minutes. Of course not. She played with her stuff for a minute or two, then got totally fidgety and everything started being thrown overboard. After about the fourth time of retrieving and replacing her Cheerio tub I just left it. Whatever got thrown out and onto the driveway stayed there, while she contorted her body into every angle possible trying to launch out of the straps. R came out to take out some garbage and I think could sense my growing frustration, so he took D with him when he went inside. Thank you! Too bad my quiet sun-filled glory that I so desired was short-lived, because after no more than 2 minutes I heard D start screaming. Good lord, now what? She’d apparently fallen into the side of her playpen holding her water bottle and I think scared herself more than anything, but either way my chance to relax outside was now thoroughly shot to hell. And only 20 minutes later, a good portion of which was spent picking up baby paraphernalia. Hmpf.

Last night I also wanted to get a load of laundry done and D’s and my clothes packed for a mini-vacation we’re taking this weekend. After the playpen crying, though, she was all upset and cranky, so I decided it was time for some supper for her. And then, oddly enough, she was covered in food and sticky whatever leftover in her hair from daycare, so she needed a bath (no, i don’t bathe her every day. babies aren’t that dirty, but this child was pretty filthy last night). I finally got a chance to get the first load of laundry in the washer after her bath, and I could tell she was getting sleepy and ready for her bedtime bottle at that point – it was 6:45. So I heated up her milk, got situated with her in my arms on the couch, and almost instantly her eyelids became heavy as she drank down the moo juice. Just as she was about to konk out completely, R shouted out from the bathroom to get him a towel since I’d thrown the ones that were in there in the laundry. What?? You’re joking, right? Just step on the mat to dry your feet and walk out to the hall closet to get one yourself (our hall closet is approximately 4 steps from the bathroom door). And of course I didn’t want to shout that I couldn’t come running at that exact second because I didn’t want to disturb D as she was falling into slumberland. So after the third bellow from the bathroom, I tried as hard as I could not to jostle her and carried her into the hallway with her bottle to get a towel to throw into the bathroom. Failure. She was totally awake and then ready to play once she saw Daddy. Back into the living room we went.

It took 3 tries to get her to bed last night, for each time she’d doze by the end of her bottle something would grab her attention and it was playtime once more. Boo. Then when I finally did put her in her crib, she began another screaming session, which he haven’t had for months now. Why can I not please this child?? Ear infection back? Sickness of some sort (she was kind of pukey last night)? Just mad at the world (hey, i know the feeling kid)? Whatever it was it was not helping the mood of my day. Thankfully R put her to sleep that time with a little rocking, so I could switch the loads of laundry (when i was only expecting to do one in the first place) and get something to eat for myself. Just as I was finishing my sandwich and getting ready to simply sit for a few minutes, which was all I’d wanted to do since I’d gotten home, D started crying again in her crib. Silly Mommy, you don’t get any down time. So I went in there after a few minutes when it was obvious she was really awake and not just doing her little sleep cries where she puts herself back to sleep, and picked her up to rock her. Then she barfed on herself. Then she barfed on me. And it’s no longer just the little spit up of sweet-smelling breast milk, oh no. It is now curds of foul-smelling sour whole milk and whatever else she’s eaten that day. Lovely. So I had to change her onesie, and fortunately through all the screaming and crying I could tell she was still wiped out tired, so it only took a minute of rocking after that and she was zonked out for the night.

Okkkkk, now where was I with the rest of the shit I wanted to get done? Oh that’s right – NOWHERE. By then it was 9:30 and I had to start the dishwasher, get the second load of laundry out of the drier and fold everything, then go to bed. My exhaustion from earlier in the day certainly hadn’t magically worn off, and I wanted to get to bed early. Failure again. And the packing I wanted to at least start? Didn’t even get the duffel bag out of the attic. Mm-kay, fun. So my lack of progress there, coupled with the unexpected trials and tribulations of D at bedtime, more laundry than I felt like doing, and late bedtime once again made for one crabby SM.

But things always seem better in the morning, right? Wrong. D woke up crying 15 minutes before my alarm went off, and of course I was the one who got up with her. Of course. Sorry, R, that’s why I slammed the door this morning. I just wanted those 10 extra minutes of sleep by the time I actually got out of bed to go into her room. So the mood to begin today picked up right where it left off last night – shitty.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot the best part. For the first time in 19 months my body is doing that thing. That thing that women’s bodies do monthly-ish? Yeah, that thing. Oh sweet, let’s have a parade. On one hand I’m actually glad to see it again, since it means my body is getting back to normal after the whole experience of pregnancy, child birth, and breastfeeding. On the other hand it could be contributing to this funk. I’ve never been a “PMS-er”, thank god, but man if I’m not in a mood right now. And I just feel bleh – my body looks gross to me, the milk machines are done and now back to their original non-existent state, I need to do more exercise, my skin has decided to give me the gift of breakouts, and I’m still tired (crazy, i know!).

And now I get to add packing to my to-do list for tonight. Joy.

 

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It’s just a shot away

I’ve always loved this song and would kill to be able to sing like the people in this video. Enjoy the clip and be sure to read the message below it – it’s an important one. If you like it, search for “Playing for change” on YouTube; they have a ton of great ones.