Good morning! Today we’re pulling up camp and leaving Lake Placid. It’s been mostly dark and dreary with a few brief periods of sunshine, but even with the black clouds, I have to admit that the scenery up here is rather fantastic. Yesterday we took a gondola ride to the top of Whiteface Mountain.
(Photo by Otto, king of capturing Jesus Light.) (more…)
Today marks the beginning of an auspicious event: Our first big tow. At this very moment, I am in the passenger seat of our truck, tapping away on my netbook (and its infuriatingly teeny tiny keys), while Otto steers us northward towards the kids and our first Big Camping Trip. By next week—after doing the requisite family rounds, like spending some time with Otto’s mom now that she’s post-transplant—we’ll be hanging out at Lake Placid and telling my darlings to please just stop touching each other.
I feel compelled to point out, here, that I grew up AND went to college in New York, and I’ve never been to Lake Placid. I realize how pitiful that is, yes.
I’ve never done a lot of traveling, is my point, and yet Otto is nothing if not the consummate wanderer. Because I trust him, I’ve agreed to load up this monstrosity with everything we might need (just now, after a bit of a swerve he remarked was due to a wind gust: “We’re basically towing around a garage behind us, you know”) and go wherever he takes us. Because it’s sure to be an adventure. (more…)
Last night started out sort of tragic, because we have five gazillion television channels and there were THREE different episodes of CSI on, and we had seen all three of them. That put a crimp in our plans for an evening of Terrible Television, but THANKFULLY we had a recorded episode of Ice Road Truckers. Phew!
Later, a CSI: Miami we hadn’t seen came up, and we were in the middle of watching that when, somehow, during a commercial break we found ourselves in the middle of a long discussion about infidelity.
(Should the surprising part be that I don’t find this weird or unusual at all? We have all of our best discussions while people try to sell us life insurance and “performance enhancing” pills in the background. Doesn’t everyone?)
Anyway, Otto and I are perfectly in tune on this issue, thank goodness. What we ended up wondering was how people justify their actions, as you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who’s cheated who think it’s OKAY, though there are plenty of people who cheat and somehow justify it, all the same. (more…)
The invaders on my tomatoes were so horrible, I decided to run away from home.
Actually, I’d decided to go before that particular discovery, but nonetheless, yesterday afternoon I got myself to the airport and got on a plane and crossed the country to check out the Rockies. Oh, and also to hang out with my darling Kira. And snoogle her baby. And pick up all three of her boys and tuck them into my pockets. (Note to self: Get bigger pockets.)
Shortly before I left, we received word that Otto’s mom had been taken into transplant surgery overnight; when my plane took off, she’d already gotten a new liver. When I woke up this morning, she’d gotten a new kidney, too. I can’t speak for the rest of Otto’s family, obviously, but after we almost lost her last year we doubted this day would ever come. But it has. And so far, so good.
That means that even though I woke up at 4:30 (local time) today, I’m thinking it’s a pretty fine start to the week.
School is now officially out for the summer, and something wonderful has happened.
I’m positively THRILLED.
It’s not that I didn’t like summers, before, but this is the first summer I find myself really looking forward to in, well, certainly in my tenure as a parent. I’m aware that that sounds bad, but hear me out. When the kids were little and I stayed home with them, summer was no different than the rest of the year. When the kids were a bit older but I was divorced and working, summer was rife with guilt over not being able to take time off and relax with them, and then further guilt over not being able to provide them any sort of vacation. Two years ago, summer was all about moving and getting settled (exciting, but not exactly relaxing or without its own problems), and last year summer carried with it a schedule that pretty much guaranteed zero relaxation for anyone involved.
This year is different. (more…)
As if it wasn’t wonderful enough to have Mother’s Day yesterday—complete with Otto’s ceremonial announcement that the pool was officially ready for swimming, subsequent offer of a buck fifty to any child who went off the diving board into the frigid water, Monkey’s broad grin of acceptance, wild leap into the water, and then swim/scramble to the side where his swim trunks all but fell off as he hauled himself out of the pool (and what is better than a flash of your baby’s butt while he laughs hysterically about how his suit must’ve frozen right off? NOTHING)—when I mentioned that the next day was our anniversary, Chickadee corrected me with great indignation.
“No. No it isn’t.”
Yes, I told her, our wedding anniversary. May 11th.
“No, that’s not your anniversary. That’s FAMILY DAY, because it’s the day we all became a family.” Well. Okay, then. It is indeed the day we all became a family. But I’m still going to take a minute to gush about the guy I hold responsible. (more…)
Part of the cycle I have trouble with, when I’m feeling wretched, is that it’s pretty rare for me to lose sight of the fact that I’m being ridiculous.
I mean, I feel crappy. I don’t like feeling crappy. But I have a roof over my head, a beautiful family, a pretty awesome job, and nothing of substance to complain about. The fact that I will complain, anyway, is proof of my unworthiness as a human being. Which makes me feel more wretched. Which makes me realize I’m being stupid. Which…
Well, you get the idea.
The fact that my family loves me anyway is concrete proof that grace is amazing—because Lord knows I did not earn it. I’m trying to be worthy of it, but even when I fail, well, it’s amazing. Period. (more…)
There are many ways in which Otto and I are similar, and other ways in which we are completely different. And then some ways in which we are each changing, due to the influence of the other.
Example the first: Otto used to believe a meal is not a meal unless it includes large hunks of meat or potatoes (preferably both). Thanks to living with us, he now understands that it is, in fact, possible to have a really nice meal that features other foods.
Example the second: I used to believe that the purpose of riding in a car was to GET somewhere. Thanks to Otto’s influence, I now understand that sometimes the journey itself is the goal, not just the destination. I mean, Otto still has a much higher tolerance for riding around aimlessly than I do, but I sort of get it.
Anyway, stuff like that. And then there’s the whole vacation thing. (more…)
We’re in the car taking a brief trip (right now! I love my iPhone!) and there is a tremendous WHOMP as Chickadee whacks my seat from behind.
Me: Stop kicking my seat!
Her: I’m not kicking, that was my HEAD!
Me: Stop headbutting my seat!
Her: That hurt my head WAY more than it hurt your back!
Me: My BACK!
Her: My HEAD!!
Otto: My GOD. That’s it; I am NOT driving you two to Hawaii, now. [We both stare at him.] You know, through the secret government tunnel. Nevermind.
I can hardly wait for our first big trip this summer. Obviously.
I remember being told, long ago, that you fall in love with your spouse all over again when you see him falling in love with your child. This was, of course, in reference to my first baby, and I do remember the warm-n-fuzzy feelings of watching my ex unfold as a father, even though it often feels like that happened in a galaxy far, far away, approximately thirty billion light years ago.
No one ever told me that, somehow, that experience would be magnified a thousandfold to watch my husband embrace his role as stepfather. He had no part in creating these children; they are not from or of him; he never went through the process of deciding to bring another human into this world; and if not for me, he would never have entered parenthood (and that would’ve been okay with him).
For me, there’s also the sort of double-bonus in watching my kids weave his presence into their landscape, effortlessly. (more…)
