Category: Family

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Waxing nostalgic

I found this beautiful post the other day on BlogHer Moms and it almost brought me to tears. Not because I can relate to lemead’s summer camp experiences on Cape Cod, but because I, too, look back on my childhood summers with such aching fondness. The long days of play, hearing the cicadas and crickets on hot summer nights (i hate bugs, but that sound always takes me back), the hours my sisters and I would spend making up languages and forts and engaging in general make believe, the utter lack of responsibility save putting away toys at day’s end, and an overall age of blissful innocence that only children know.

My sisters and I never went to summer camp, but we did have Canada. And I wouldn’t swap those 2 for anything. When we were younger there were years when we were able to spend a good couple weeks up on the island, and it was pure heaven for us. For during those long stays we usually overlapped with my mom’s entire family, spending days and nights on end with our grandparents and all of our aunts, uncles, and cousins, some of whom we never saw except up there. We held countless diving contests off the dock, swam in and across the lake (but not through the seaweed, ew!), made treasure maps and turned the island into our own coded little world, read stacks of old comic books, set up tents and “camped” in various spots on the island, had water fights, made up songs, played endless games of cards and Scrabble and bingo, listened to old-time records every night at cocktail hour (one of my favorite traditions that still lives on), roasted bags of marshmallows and popped nightly bowls of popcorn, awoke each morning to the smell of bacon and a fire in the wood-burning stove in the kitchen, and fell asleep in the loft each night listening to the grown ups reminiscing about when they were our age and always trying to sneak peeks through the blankets over the railing hoping we wouldn’t get caught and forced back into bed. They were the best days of our lives, and the countdowns to the next summer’s trip usually began on the way home. I still get butterflies of excitement the night before each trip to Little Pine Isle.

Canada has always been a family place for us, though, unlike a summer camp full of outside friends. Not that others aren’t welcome, by any means. And some groups of family do take friends when they go, when there’s room enough without too many other family members already there at the same time. I think this is kind of what made it special for us, too. We bonded so strongly with our family when we were up there and loved spending that time with them. What could be more fun for kids than playing with their aunts and uncles who always gave in and let them get away with stuff that their parents never would? Granted, as we’ve all gotten older (and bigger) it is kind of nice when the island isn’t crammed full of people anymore, but as kids it was wonderful.

Much like lemead’s summer camp, our island is littered with these boundless memories and happy ghosts from our pasts. And now I am thrilled to be able to take D there and let her create her own lifetime of memories as well. She only has 1 cousin right now, but I know they’ll be joined by many more and will probably explore every nook and cranny and play every island game imaginable, just as we did. Now we will be the adults in the living room reminiscing each night while they try to put off sleep as long as possible up in the loft. And I hope she falls as deeply in love with the place as we have and makes boatloads of memories there with her own children and their children someday, too.

Me & my sisters in Canada ages ago
Crushing cans in Canada while rockin' a bikini. Awesome

 

p.s. totally unrelated, but i wanted to get my run stats from this week down. tuesday i ran 3.57 miles in 31:41 for a 8:51 pace, and last night i ran 2.86 miles in 24:04 for a 8:25 pace. my time from last night is only 4 seconds off my fastest time ever for that particular route, so i was pleased. both runs felt pretty awful, but i was very happy i got more than 1 in this week.

 

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Weekend reprieve

This past weekend was awesome. It was just 2 of those days where the whole time you think man, this is a really fun day. And with how busy we’ve been lately it seems like we hadn’t had our fair share of those for awhile. Well-deserved, I’d say.

My sister M and her fiance C came into town from Colorado on Thursday night for some business meetings on Friday, so they stayed at the Iron Horse Hotel that night. Oo la la. On work’s dime that’s a great choice. They stopped by my office after their Friday morning meetings to check out the place, then picked D up at daycare on their way to our house. So she got to leave school early and play with them that afternoon. We then all headed up to St. Ann’s for dinner Friday night, and it did not disappoint, as usual. It’s really called Schwarz’s Supper Club and is in teeny tiny St. Anna, WI, a little over an hour from here. Huge, delicious steaks and perfectly-made old fashioneds, all for a fraction of the cost you’ll find anywhere else. We dropped D at one of R’s brother’s house for the evening, then met friends for dinner and a couple drinks in Elkhart Lake afterwards. It was a beautiful night and a good time was had by all.

M and C spent Friday and Saturday nights at our house, and Saturday we were free all day. Wahoo! M and I went for a run mid-day (ran 3.23 miles in 30:26 for a 9:25 pace. slower than usual, but we had a huge hill in the middle and sprinted the last block), then we all headed downtown to take the Great Lakes Distillery tour that afternoon. That place is really cool. Their spirits are excellent, they have a full bar on-site, and it’s always great to see local businesses thriving with their products. I’m not a straight liquor fan by any means, but even I find theirs palatable. I also tried absynthe, and was surprised to find it not too bad. That evening there was a neighborhood party/summer concert just a few blocks from our house, so we loaded up a cooler with some beers, put it in the bottom basket of D’s stroller, and walked up there to hear some tunes. It turned out to be fantastic. There were approximately 1 million kids running and biking around, and the entire area had congregated on one of the main streets outside our little local grocery store. There was a big tent in the middle of the street where grills were set up and refreshments were being served. So we stood around for maybe 30-45 minutes, had our brews, then wheeled it back home to fire up our own grill. R cooked up the last of the Rausages as well as some brats from a fabulous meat market in Sheboygan, and we feasted. D went to bed around 8, then the 4 of us sat outside by a fire, enjoying the pleasant evening weather and some adult beverages.

Sunday M and C left shortly before 9 to catch their flight home, and then we had absolutely nothing on the agenda for the entire day. No places to go, no chores to do – something I like to call heaven. And the weather was spectacular again, which made it even better. D is officially in 1-nap-a-day territory, as it was the first weekend I couldn’t get her to take 2 naps at home. So when she went down after her lunch a little before noon, I put on my bikini and headed out to the backyard to snooze in the hammock and soak up some rays. Pure bliss, I tell you. The rest of the afternoon was spent just enjoying being home. R sat outside and caught up on some magazines, I played with D for awhile, and we got her water table back out to splash around in, too. She especially enjoyed carrying her little water toys all around the yard and driveway while we were out there. By late afternoon it was time to get her bathed and all the dirt and sunscreen washed off, then dinner for her and a little more playing before reporting for sack duty.

Summer weekends always fill up before the season even begins, so when we get ones like this to just relax and enjoy each other, they feel so wonderful. And guess what? We have another free one coming up again this weekend. Gasp! My heart might just explode with happiness.

Our group at St. Ann's
Fun with Auntie M & Unkie C
Little unstable on this hill...
Playing with Mommy
And playing with Daddy

 

 

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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
Silly girl
Watchu want?
So pretty (and yes, i do tell her that)
Mmm, spaghetti-Os
Her new favorite ball
She loved playing with the water table at the party
Rausage!
The cake I made for D
Hmm, birthday cake, you say?
Cakey little 1 year old hand
Birthday girl. Her dress had an adorable tulle overlay on the skirt part
R takes cool pictures
Daddy's little girl
Happy birthday, Daddy!
1st trip to the WI State Fair
Rooonnn Dayyyyyynnnnne
Yeah, the Axe!
Snoozing at The Micro
Hey I like this Micro place!
R had to get one of the "Cheapest Beers" at the Fair
Daddy and his silly sunflower
D helping me pack for Colorado
Daddy & D ready for the Packers' preseason
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.

 

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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.

 

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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.

 

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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.

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.

Ready to roll
In the park w/Daddy
More park, w/Mommy now

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!

 

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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.