Family – Page 11 – Jocelyn Rau

August 17, 2011August 17, 2011

Our life in pics

I have been remiss in my photo posting duties lately, so I thought I’d devote an entire post to these past couple weeks pictorially. They’ve been really busy for us, so there have been a ton of pictures to go through. Enjoy!

My beautiful girl, just after her 1st birthday

She loved playing with the water table at the party

d12 — Birthday girl. Her dress had an adorable tulle overlay on the skirt part

d21 — R had to get one of the "Cheapest Beers" at the Fair

D suitcase — D helping me pack for Colorado

D&R Pack — Daddy & D ready for the Packers' preseason

D&R — One of R's bday gifts - I thought this pic was so cute of him & D napping in Canada

p.s. i finally ran again last night, the first time since last tuesday. i really need to work on getting more than 1 run in per week. but anyway, i ran 3.57 miles in 32:01, for an 8:57 pace. again, pretty much my standard. it felt awful, so i’m surprised i was able to hold my usual pace. i want to get at least 1 more 5k in before the end of summer.

August 16, 2011August 15, 2011

Children in flight

So this past weekend I shocked my sister M and her fiance C by showing up on their doorstep in Colorado. Surprise! My youngest sister A threw them a joint wedding shower on Saturday (what they call a “jack and jill party”), so I wanted to be there for the festivities. As such, I bid R and sweet baby D a fond farewell, hopped on a plane Friday night, spent a great weekend with my sisters and their significant others out west, and flew back Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately I didn’t take a camera, so I’ll have to get M to send me some of the pictures she took at the par-tay. We are a cute trio of sisters.

Anyhoo… I learned that since becoming a mom, children on planes don’t really bother me anymore. Big deal, SM, that’s boring, who cares? No, really – being confined in a flying metal pencil with children, plural, does not make me want to huff and pout and glare anymore. Because I totally used to be one of those people who saw a baby on a plane and instantly wanted to turn around and de-board. For how was I possibly going to endure an entire flight with a screaming, annoying kid? I wasn’t going to be able to sleep, or read, or anything. I was going to have to listen to the inconsolable obnoxiousness and hope I didn’t strain my eyeballs from rolling them so hard the whole time. Har.

So you can imagine my attitudinal surprise when, on my flight out Friday night, I was surrounded by 6 children in the rows immediately in front of and behind me, and I actually found them enjoyable. Gasp! I know, crazy, right? (i just realized i’m using a lot of italics in this post, but trust me, the emphasis is warranted) There was an adorable 1 year old boy right behind me who was having a great time smiling at and generally entertaining the passengers near him. I chatted with his parents a bit since that was his first flight, D’s first flight is coming up in a few weeks on the exact same route as that one on which we were flying, and this boy was behaving wonderfully. There were 2 kids directly in front of me, maybe 10 and 7, somewhere around there. Then there were 3 boys 2 rows behind me and across the aisle, ages I would guess of 5, 3, and a newborn. That whole family of 5 sat together in the 3 seats on that side, so it was a full house back there. The baby cried a couple times, no big deal. What I did find odd, though, was upon our descent into Denver, the oldest of the 3 boys started screaming wildly, “I’m falling! I’m falling!” I thought hmm, that’s a little strange, for the parents weren’t really doing a whole lot to comfort or quiet him. The middle boy even said, “Mason, it’s ok, you’re not falling.” So although I found it weird, it didn’t cause me to want to aim spit wads at the kid like it would have a year ago.

There was a girl sitting in the middle seat of the row in front of that family, who I did see turn around and give a tongue click and a side-eye at one point, but I think one of the boys was repeatedly kicking her chair. Ok, that’s a little different. And the mom did apologize, saying her husband was trying to find the boy’s pacifier to calm him down. She (the tongue-clicker) seemed fine from that point on after the apology. I still couldn’t help but think, oh honey, just you wait until you have little ones of your own. It’s soo different.

This one did make me give a mom a second look, though. On my flight home Sunday, I was seated in the midst of another family of 5. Mom and the 2 older kids, a girl maybe 12ish and a boy maybe 8ish, were seated across the aisle from me, and Dad and the youngest kid, a boy maybe 4ish, were seated center and window on my side. This was all fine, but at one point the girl dropped the portable dvd player, and the mom goes, “Oh way to go, Einstein!” Whaaat? Was that really necessary? Now if she’d said it as a big joke and they all started laughing, like that was a family catch phrase or something, that’d be one thing. But she was serious. Like ugh, why are you so stupid? The girl looked kind of degraded after the comment, and I thought man, that was a little harsh. The dvd player wasn’t broken, this was no major disaster. Did you really need to make your daughter feel like an idiot? I don’t know – I just seem to view everyday things so differently now, since I always relate them to D and how I’d feel or what I’d do if she were involved. And hopefully I wouldn’t see the need to make her feel like junk over something so trivial. Or ever.

But back to the flight out, I was trying to take note of the parents behind me on that one, to see how they were occupying their little guy. He gave a couple little shouts and some tongue-wagging, but he was just having fun, not crying. I noticed he was playing with an assortment of toy balls in what looked like a small tennis ball tube, which is something I think D would like too. Anyone out there have any suggestions for a successful 2.5 hour flight with a 1 year old? I must admit, it’s kind of making me nervous.

August 9, 2011August 9, 2011

August is a popular month

Happy birthday, R!! This has been an amazing past year. We became parents for the first time 8 days before your last birthday, and things have only gotten better since. Watching you with D fills my heart so much it practically explodes. You are, without a doubt, the most wonderful father she could ever have gotten.

And you’ve been my best friend for a decade now. A decade? Seriously?? Wow. I am so lucky. Truly. And I can’t wait for decade upon decade upon decades more with you.

To the man who refused to listen to Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long” (one of my faves!) until he heard the line “We were smoking funny things,” I love you.

p.s. sorry to make you share your post, r, but i want to jot down my run stats from last night so i don’t forget them. i ran 3.66 miles in 32:49, for a 8:57 pace. it was the first run during which i had to stop, due to a stitch in my side that turned into a scalpel when i could neither breathe nor stretch nor massage it out. so as much as i hated to i took about a minute to try to get rid of the pain, failed to do so, then just started up again. it finally subsided after about the first mile. then at one point i thought i was going to poop my pants, but fortunately that didn’t occur. it did feel good to get the legs pumping again.

July 25, 2011July 25, 2011

Takin’ it on two wheels

This weekend was R’s annual family picnic up in the Sheboygan area, and man was it hot. It was this exact same weekend last year, and I remember that because it was the same day my mucous plug came out (oh yeah, that again) and 8 days before D was born. It was equally as hot last year, but this year’s weather was more bearable for the simple fact that I wasn’t carrying around an extra 30+ pounds and going to the bathroom every 15 minutes. This is always a fun event, because R’s family is big and they’re a blast. His mom is 1 of 9 kids (this is their side of the fam that gets together), so all of his aunts and uncles and cousins are constantly coming up with crazy stories. Plus this was D’s inaugural appearance as an outside baby, so of course she was the hit of the afternoon.

P1080312-1 — The Murray fam (some of 'em, anyway)

Yesterday was one of our few weekend days where we had absolutely nothing planned, so we took advantage of it not being quite so hot and horrible outside and loaded D up into the bike trailer for her first ride. There is an awesome path that runs from just a few blocks from our house all the way into and through downtown, so we hopped on that and cruised along. R had her hooked to his bike and I followed, and he said she looked a little apprehensive at first. But as soon as we were halfway down our block, all I heard for the next half mile was her nonstop giggles. We rode all the way down to the lakefront and to the little man-made peninsula just out from the Summerfest grounds. It was so nice down there, too. The sun had gone behind some cloud cover and there was a cooler pleasant breeze off the lake, so we stopped for a bit at the point in the park to get D out and let her look around. By the time we got home we’d been gone for 2 hours, so that was a great ride. It was still pretty nice since the searing heat hadn’t come back yet with the sun, so R and I both got runs in after the biking, too. Talk about studs! I just did my real quick route, since the last time I had to do a bike to run transition was in the last triathlon I did, 2 summers ago. I ran 1.44 miles in 11:15, for a 7:50 pace. R did a longer run, and I called him crazy.

This is the bike trailer we got, and it worked perfectly. It holds 2 kids, so when only 1 is riding in it, the straps just turn around and make a harness in the middle of the seat. D loved it, so hopefully we’ll have many more weekend rides in our future.

Then after our runs, showers, and a Goldfish snack for D, we walked up the street a few blocks to watch the last leg of the International Cycling Classic, which happened to be running right through our neighborhood. Talk about amazing! I don’t know how those guys don’t wipe out each turn, they’re going so fast. We were there for the start, which was an awesome site as the field of riders charged down the street after the race car, then separated into a group of 9 leaders followed by the rest of the field, a gap that grew from around 20 seconds to almost being lapped by the lead pack by the time we walked home. We stayed for about 30 laps, which was just over half the race. What a cool event, and how fun to be able to get to watch it just a short walk from our house. They have it every year, but this was the first time we actually went up to see what it was all about.

And I’m sure you all heard about Amy Winehouse’s passing on Saturday. I can’t say it’s totally surprising, but a tragic loss of life nonetheless. And I did love “Rehab”. She joins the infamous 27 Club – Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain… R always said he was convinced he was going to die at 27, too. Sorry babe, I love you, but you’re not exactly the second coming of Mr. Mojo Risin. Sure glad you made it to this side of that fateful age, though.

p.s. One week from today I’ll have a 1 year old daughter. Wow!

July 14, 2011February 6, 2012

The fairer sex?

All right, let me preface this post by saying that I love my husband beyond words. Really, I do. He is an absolute gem of a man, my best friend, and the most amazing father I could ever have dreamed of for our children. But I’ll be goddamned if he doesn’t turn into a total wiener when he gets sick.

Yesterday morning he said he didn’t feel too hot when we were getting ready to leave for work, so he took some ibuprofen. By mid-morning he was feeling much better, and we both thought maybe it was just a crappy morning. You know, those first-week-back-after-vaca blues and all.

Then all of a sudden he sent me an IM around lunch time saying he was going home. Eek! That was a quick turnaround for the worse. Achy, chills, just all around blech. Plus he had to bike home feeling like that. Total yuck; at least it was a nice day.

By the time I got home his fever had spiked to 104.5, which I learned by reading his Facebook status while running errands after work. When I saw that I was like oh great, I really don’t want to walk into a hotbed of sickness tonight, but I can’t exactly drive around forever with D. She needs supper.

When we got home I was trying to keep D out of the living room, where he had sweated all over the futon and not opened any windows to let the much cooler and fresher outside air in. Gross.

As I was toting her around the back part of the house I heard what I thought might have been R saying something. I wasn’t sure though, it was such a faint sound.

So we continued waving at ourselves in the bathroom mirror, when I heard it again. Yep, that’s definitely R saying something, but what?

I walked back out toward the living room to try to decipher his distress signal, when again, and slightly louder, I heard a croaking, “waaater“. Wtf? Did I miss the part of the afternoon where he dragged his near lifeless body through the Sahara Desert?

I’m not kidding – this was the most pitiful croak of a word I’ve ever heard. (and yes, i know i used “croak” twice in that description, but that’s literally what it was) In all the times R has been sick, he’s never gotten to the point where he’s had to just kind of open his mouth and let words crawl out.

So I was a little taken aback. “Did he just hoarsely whisper an order at me?” I wondered. Weird, but ok, he must be in pain, so I’ll refresh his water with new ice cubes and all. Wasn’t that nice of me?

When I took his water cup out and set it on the coffee table I asked if he wanted to move into the bedroom so D and I didn’t disturb him. I’ll do whatever I can for him when he’s ill, but trying to corral an 11 month old in 1 room for an entire evening is a near impossible feat that I’m not willing to attempt.

“In a bit,” he sputtered. All righty then, into the kitchen we went to try to pass the time until he moved and to get D some dinner.

Pretty soon he stumbled into the bedroom, where I heard him collapse onto the bed. Seriously, collapsed. I peeked in to make sure he was ok because it was such an odd sound, and sure enough, he was splayed out face down on the bed like he barely made it there.

This was getting weirder by the second. I know he had a high fever and all, but was something eating away at his motor skills too?

A few minutes passed, and much to my surprise he came back out, went into D’s bedroom to get his sweatpants (all his clothes are in there), and I thought he looked a little better. Good.

Nope, just kidding. After about 30 seconds of walking around he moaned, “red shirt”. Ok really, are you joking me now? What’s with the cryptic 2 word phrases?

Fortunately I knew what red shirt he was talking about because it had been in the living room when I got home. Otherwise I would’ve spent an hour trying to find the exact right red shirt in the sea of Badger gear he owns.

So I got him the red shirt and continued feeding D. A few more minutes went by and he was back up again, bumbling around. I have no idea what he needed that time, but when he headed back to the bedroom he barked, “food, vitamins”.

What??

Now seriously, you’re sick, you’re not dying. (p.s. i was very glad he woke up this morning because if i’d had all these thoughts last night and then he really did die, i would have felt incredibly awful) At this point I was still bewildered by and starting to take offense at the 1-word commands.

And these were commands, mind you, not even requests. I wouldn’t even have cared if he hadn’t said please, but was it really that taxing to add just a couple more words to make the complete sentence, “Could you get me some food?”

Oookkk. I gave D a few more pieces of hot dog to settle her squeals, since I could hear R moan louder with each one (yeah, try keeping an infant quiet when she’s hungry and not getting something to shove in her mouth fast enough and has no idea the meaning of the word “shh” nor any comprehension of what it means to be sick), then went in to ask him what he wanted.

Because I don’t know about you, but when I’m sick usually only 1 or 2 things even sound edible, so I certainly didn’t want to run the risk of bringing him the wrong thing. Lord knows what would have been barked at me then.

“I don’t know, just get something,” was his reply. Wow, this was turning into a really fun game.

So I made him a ham and cheese sandwich with a little mustard. I thought that sounded acceptible? And I put a multi-vitamin and a vitamin C tablet on his nightstand when I set the sandwich plate on the floor. Oh, and I made sure to close the bedroom door on my way out since one of the earlier orders was “dooooor“.

All this time I couldn’t help but thinking, “Are you seriously acting this wimpy because of a fever?” I’m sorry, I know how miserable he felt and how god-awful I feel when I’m sick like that (nothing is worse than the summertime flu), but come on. You have the flu. You haven’t lost a limb or just had a major surgery that rendered you bed-ridden.

Was there really a need to bark at me like that? Because in so doing you kind of erased my feelings of sympathy and replaced them with annoyance. And I know that is terrible – he was counting on me to help him and try to make things better, and I was doing what I could, but geez. This is the man who can do anything, literally, and he was acting like he had one foot in the grave.

Plus, he could take the time to update his Facebook status to let the world know how he was doing, yet he couldn’t even answer his wife when she asked him that question out of honest concern when she got home? Hmpf.

Fortunately his fever was down to 100 this morning, but he was still in no shape to go to work. And at least he was starting to form sentences again – my instructions were “Call the doctor. See if I can get an appointment today or tomorrow. Leave a message. My phone.” Yep, got it.

So hopefully I can get him in today and get rid of whatever this monster is that has taken over my beautiful husband and reduced him to a whining, incoherent, rude invalid. (his doctor’s office is only 2 blocks from our house, so he should be able to hobble over there ok) Anyone else’s husband or male partner take on this kind of sissy alter ego when he’s sick, or is it just mine?

I just hope it really is the flu and not some horrible brain-eating, incurable virus, because then I’ll really feel like a bitch. And raising D alone just wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.

July 13, 2011July 12, 2011

Canada recap (lots of pics!)

So like I said, our Canadian vacation last week was awesome. The car ride there was 12 hours exactly with stops, which was better than I expected. I had been thinking it was normally a 12 hour drive, when in actuality it’s more like a 10-11 hour drive when it was just me and R. The weather was gorgeous all week; a few showers and clouds here and there, but on the whole it was beautiful. We overlapped for a day with my grandparents, an aunt and uncle, and another uncle and his wife (all on my mom’s side), and we overlapped for 4 days with my mom and stepdad. Everyone LOVED spending time with D, and she had equally as much fun playing with and charming everybody. I must admit, however, that once my mom was gone and it was just me, R, D, and my sister M, it was much less relaxing of a vaca than it used to be, except when she was napping and I could lie out on the dock in the sun and read my book (or nap myself). It was still a wonderful time, though, and I can’t wait to watch her grow there throughout the years and fall as much in love with the place as my sisters and I have.

I think the only downside to the trip was the ride home – it was so long, 15 hours total. We got stuck on the bridge coming back across the border in Sault Ste. Marie for over an hour, then had between a 1-1.5 hour stop at 8:00pm for dinner in Sheboygan Falls. D did great, though, and it was fun showing M R’s stomping grounds. Needless to say we were all exhausted by the time we finally rolled into our driveway at 10:30 that night, but the vacation overall was well worth it.

Here are some pictures from the trip. I tried to make them small since there are so many, so just click on any for a larger version. Why do the good times always have to go so quickly?

ca1 — D turned 11 months the day we left

ca5 — My g'parents wearing the bride and groom hats we gave M at her surprise bridal shower

ca7 — M was faking enthusiasm with this get-up

ca15 — Outside Jake's - our fave restaurant

ca16 — We got D a little tent bed for the trip, complete w/its own air mattress

June 10, 2011

FF

My head is clear from the brain drain. Ahh… Well mostly, anyway. I talked to both R and my boss about the various things that have been making me nuts, and I feel a lot better. I know you’re all very relieved to hear that.

TGIF! For the FF this week I have the long-awaited pictures from our brewery tour getaway this past weekend. There are a bunch of shots here, but it’s only a fraction of the entire album. If you’d like to see the whole thing just leave me a comment and I’ll send you the link.