Vegas, babies

Bless that antisocial Daddy that he is mildly allergic to professional meetings. They are everywhere and all the time and could take him away from us so much more than he is. This year he attended his first one as a professor, the annual Association of American Geographers (AAG) in Boston; he had a great time and met great people, but his favorite part was that he could take his family along. The babies had a great time, too. We decided it would be fun (and cheap) to make the AAG meeting a family tradition.

Next year it will take us to Las Vegas, and the babies are beside themselves with excitement because they get to go to The Desert. With cactuses! Also, me, I am excited. I've never been to Vegas before. I have been to its bastard stepchild Reno, where I accompanied Daddy to a different professional nerd assembly, the congress for the International Union for Quaternary Research in 2003. Daddy and I had fun gambling a grand total of about 50 bucks between us in the three days we were there, because we are the wettest of blankets when it comes to gambling. Oh, and I suppose Reno was a little important because Isaac was conceived there.

But Vegas! Naturally there is more to Vegas than cactuses, and so it is here that I solicit a little advice. There is much for me to learn, though I do have until March. The meeting is in the Riviera, on the Strip -- it would be easy for us to stay somewhere else on the Strip because everything is so close. Does anybody have any advice on where to stay in Vegas with kids? Also, tips on what to do, especially kid-friendly venues, are appreciated. We are not gamblers, but we do enjoy spectacle. And pools. And free stuff.

Drawing from experience

I knew one day Isaac would give up his glorious, 3-hour daily nap. I have prayed to numerous voodoo gods to keep this day at bay. Quickly now I am losing that battle. If our morning activities don't involve raucous physical activity, I can now be guaranteed that Isaac won't nap.

Yesterday Isaac didn't take a nap for the second day in a row. You can imagine we were bored of doing quiet things in the house; luckily I remembered that we have a baby monitor. How many billions of years has it been since we used that? So the Isaac and I climbed trees in the backyard. I actually mean that I climbed with him -- usually I am stuck on the ground as Jacob's spotter. Isaac really enjoyed having a grown-up climbing partner. I didn't understand just how much until we went inside and he drew a picture as a present for me:

The way to a Jake's heart, again

Last night we were strolling through campus when Jake spotted gumballs, of the sycamore variety, lying all over the sidewalk.

He pointed, wondering, "What's that? Those meatballs?"

Souvenirs

All hail stuff!

When Daddy goes to cool places, we are the recipients of appropriately cool trinkets. With his trip to the Cascades, he fed the boys' (especially Jacob's) latest obsession, buying two sets of mini Cars cars. He also brought a book home from Paradise Lodge on Mount Rainier:



It explains why turkey vultures poop on their legs (to stay cool), why mountain lions lick their babies butts (so they can poop), why robins carry poop in their mouths (to clean out their nest), etc etc insert various descriptions of animals puking, pooping, and peeing for important purposes. As you might imagine, it is our new favorite.

As I always do, I made Daddy promise not to bring back anything for me. He never listens. He found this cool little necklace at the newly vamped-up Seattle airport and thought I needed to have it. That husband of mine, he is always right.



Back in the day, the goodies he brought home from Finland were equally inspired. I made Daddy promise to bring me back only some crazy European candy, and he scored big time with that. We got a box of individually-wrapped chocolates, as well as two bags of gummi this, that, and the other. The gummi stuff had lots of licorice, which no one will eat but me. One bag, which we deemed "gummi trash", had a picture of a crazy-eyed mad scientist dog on the front, and contained such gummi shapes as keys, dog-headed fish, poop piles, boobs, and butts. European candy is the coolest.

He thought long and hard about the boys. Jacob got an M&M "torch", because flashlights are his thing. Isaac got an alarm clock.



Isaac's alarm clock is covered with characters from the Scandinavian cartoon Muumi, the Eastern European answer to Mickey Mouse. Dude on the second hand, he's skiing!



And then that Daddy did something so ridiculously beautiful. I always knew that this man was the one for me, but to have physical proof in my hands of how well he understands my inner jubilant nerd... oh, it sends me in raptures just to think of it. Daddy bought me a school-year planner. It is entirely in Finnish.



Can you imagine? A full year, not just to intricately organize our daily lives, but also to decipher a foreign language. Today was its first day. When I wasn't busy geeking out, I wanted to kiss that Daddy full on the mouth every time I opened it up.

Not a great way to wake up

Jacob woke up at 6:20, violating house rules that no little boys are allowed out of bed before 6:30. When he fussed at me about going back to sleep, I brought him into bed with me, where we both snoozed until an almost unheard-of 8:00.

We got up then and plodded towards the kitchen to make coffee. I peeked in Isaac's room; his bed was empty. "Isaac! Where are you?" No answer. I peeked on the couch in the living room; it was empty, too. "Jacob," I said, "go downstairs and see if Isaac is watching TV with Daddy."

"Okay, Mommy." Step, step, step, step... "Mommy! Isaac is not down hee-err! Isaac is not down hee-err!"

I came downstairs to check. Sure enough, there is Daddy, there is Jakey. No Isaac. WHERE THE HOLY HECK IS ISAAC?

We all ran upstairs, Mommy and Daddy screaming for Isaac, Jakey screaming like a murder victim. Daddy blew past us all, racing around the house and searching all possible nooks and crannies. All the doors were locked and deadbolted. Where could Isaac be?

I ran into the living room and suddenly there was Isaac, lazily reclined on the couch, craning his neck out to see what was going on. He had been behind a throw pillow, curled up just tight enough so as to not register with my pre-caffeine vision. Phew. But why, WHY, I asked, didn't he answer when we were calling for him.

"I didn't say anything because I didn't want you to find me."

Thanks, thanks for that. I didn't need as much coffee as usual to perk up this morning.

Le project du jour

Another weekend, another home improvement project here at the O'Neal estates.

Before Daddy left for the Cascades, he had great fun tearing the screened-in porch off our house. It was old and skanky, with holes in every window screen and rust on both doors. His idea is to beautify our patio with slate and a hand-carpentered pergola. It took him two half-hearted days to lay nearly all the tile.



An unforeseen benefit is how the new patio makes an excellent chalkboard.



Isaac's masterpiece -- our stick-figure family. He's putting the finishing touches on Jacob.

In search of the golden helmet

Somewhere in the last month I blinked and Jacob sprouted. Suddenly he is long enough in the leg to ride the Radio Flyer trike.



Jake's timing couldn't be better. Isaac's interest has moved away from the trike and toward his Big Wheel and (very occasionally) Big Boy Bike. Can you imagine the revolution in exercise for the big people when both little boys want to ride to the park on their respective vehicles?

Now, that will take a little bit. We are just starting, coordinating pedalling and steering. Right now it takes us about 45 minutes to make it around the block. But Jake is so motivated, and it is delicious to watch him work, to see how excited he is. As he puts it:

"I'm gonna ride my trike all the way to the park and then you'll be so proud!"

And it's only now that I start to feel janky about the wave upon wave of hand-me-downs we send his way, because he has specifically requested we get him his own helmet, in yellow (his favorite color). Will do, buddy.

More on the business of traversing breathtaking mountains

Daddy took his Cascades trip crew -- 8 students (grad, undergrad, and high school), himself, and another professor -- to some of his favorite places in the world. He has lots of fantastic pictures of these nice people hiking on or posing with Mount Rainier, Mount Baker, Mount Adams, and Mount St. Helens. Since Daddy has been to all these so many times, and because the lighting was consistently so fantastic, he went for arty new angles with some of his pictures.



This is one of his new favorites -- the caldera of Mount St. Helens in the background, with colorful new flowers growing around a tree felled by the 1980 eruption.

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig

The secret nice thing about Daddy being home from his annual Cascades adventure is the memory card loaded with gorgeous pictures. Apparently the only time there was a cloud in the sky during the entire trip was for their drive back to the airport. Here he is in front of Mount Rainier.



More to come as time and energy permits. We are healthy, but the mommy, she be draggin', yo.

Swim lessons, day 3

Today's swim lessons went much better.



We had a significant advantage today in that Jacob stayed home with Daddy so I could devote my full mental energies to Isaac.

My friend Amy and I were talking recently about our respective young people (her daughter is 5) and their mutual resistance to such kidtastic things as learning to swim or learning to ride a bike. Yes, these kids are welcome to have opinions about what they do and don't do, but we parents must pull rank in things like this that really matter, things their future selves would regret not having learned to do. What Amy and I discussed was the importance of presenting a calm, unmovable attitude, along the lines of "This is what we do." No "because"s, or "if"s, "and"s, or "but"s. No bargaining. No meanness, either. Only casual matter-of-factness. For example, a conversation we had just before we left the house:

Mommy: We have to get ready for swim lessons now.
Isaac: I don't want to go to swim lessons. I don't like swim lessons.
Mommy: We have swim lessons today, so we are going.
Isaac: (sigh) Okay, mommy. I'll go.

And that was it.

What I realize whenever I have a chance to be on my own with Isaac, is that my projecting this attitude is so effective for him. It's nearly impossible for me to do, however, when I'm distracted by another munchkin who is fussy in his own right and for completely different reasons. Just before lessons started, I tried so hard to get Jacob in the mommy-and-me class that meets at the same time as Isaac's. Lordy am I glad that class was full, because now I see how important it is for me to be all Isaac's right now.

Seven years. No itching!

Yesterday Daddy called me from the mountains and beat me to the punch with his "Happy Anniversary". With all this exercise we're getting lately, I think we should shoot for 70 more.



Boy, didn't we look young. And posed. And chaste.

Baby Larry

Jacob is particularly skilled at anything that uses his hands. We call him Baby Larry, after his mechanic Dadaw who was rebuilding engines on his own in his early teens. Meemaw and Poppop bought Jake these Mega Bloks Cars when they came out for Isaac's birthday. Isaac had his eyes on bigger prizes at first, but Jake was drawn to them. After only a few minutes he could take each one apart and put them back together. Similarly, last week Meemaw taught Jake how to use the Etch-a-Sketch by telling him just once how to turn the knobs. He figured out how to make diagonal lines go where he wanted all by himself.

Lately his talent for object-manipulation has surfaced in his endless appetite for puzzles. When our neighbor brought over a gigantic pile of dinosaur puzzles her kids didn't play with any more, it was Jake who had the interest and the patience to sit down with me and put together a 100-piecer. I give him object-oriented groups of pieces at a time (e.g., "can you build this T. rex for me?"), and he can put them together with no coaching. He's made it look so cool that Isaac joins in now and has become an expert in his own right.



I love Jacob so much for this because I have a special place in my nerdy heart for puzzles. My Grandma Ross has a Christmas tradition -- for almost 20 Christmases now she gets a new puzzle and we do our best to put it together, mostly she and I and my cousin Lucy, though occasionally we get other cousins, aunts, and uncles to join in. I can't wait for this Christmas, when Jake and I can get our geek on at Grandma's house.

Swim lessons

Isaac started official swim lessons yesterday. His teachers are these two sweet girls, Miss Leah and Miss Erin. Here he is, "floating" on his back, assisted by Miss Erin:



The class is not ideal. There are 7 or 8 kids and only two teachers. Each kid is expected to sit on or dangle off the side, waiting their turn to practice skills one-at-a-time with a teacher. This happens four, maybe five times in the half-hour lesson. In the meantime, I must sit on the deck nearby to watch, in the off-chance Isaac might slip and drown because there just isn't enough professional supervision. I also must wrangle the Jake, who so far has been delightfully attentive to his coloring books and not so much to jumping in the pool. Bless that kid, seriously.

The first day, Isaac was great. He did everything they asked him to, except he wouldn't jump in to a teacher. There's splashing involved in that, and he has this thing about getting water in his eyes. You know, BECAUSE IT'S POISON. In the end, both teachers took some special time with him after lessons were over, and they played this game where Miss Erin dangled him out over the water and dropped him in to the waiting Miss Leah. He tolerated that.

Today, now that he knew what was going down, he made sure to be extra distracted and fussy. When water got into his eyes, which it inevitably will do BECAUSE WE ARE AT THE POOL, he screamed and cried and ran back to Jake and I to wipe off the offensive droplets with his towel. Then, when it was his turn to go out in the pool with Miss Leah, she made the fatal mistake of letting his head go under the water. From that point on, he would not go back in the pool, nor would he stop fussing or remember that he could speak English.

I later asked Miss Leah what happened. I didn't see, because I was busy worrying about my other fussy child, the one with the raging fever. She told me, when it was Isaac's turn with her, she asked him if he was ready to put his head under the water. She was doing this with everyone else. He said no, of course. She said, "Everybody says no. And then I do it anyway, and they realize it's not so bad." Of course she does, because she has about a bazillion hours of experience with preschool kids and realizes most of them would never do anything different if it weren't thrust upon them. She apologized in Isaac's case, as he sat next to me, still bawling twenty minutes after the fact. "I'll never do it again," she told us, "I promise."

Miss Leah is joining in what is becoming a city-wide struggle called "How does one motivate the Isaac?" Once we can get Isaac to participate in activities enjoyed by most any kid, he enjoys them. It's getting over that hump of convincing him that he should even leave the house that's the problem. We are learning about our person that he is not motivated by kindness, rewards, peer pressure, or even punishment. Isaac was fortunate enough to receive individual lessons earlier this summer from one of Daddy's students, also a professional swim teacher. It took this patient, wonderful guy 7 lessons to convince Isaac to even get his trunks wet in the big pool. As soon as he did, he thought it was the greatest thing ever and now enjoys practicing swimming all over the pool in his life jacket. He doesn't even give the baby pool a thought anymore, a breakthrough that is bittersweet to watch. On one hand, I'm so very proud of Isaac for how far he's come and for how much he enjoys "swimming". On the other hand, I'm ready to punch through a wall, because seriously, how can trying something new be so stinking terrible?

Also? JUST BLINK! BLINK THE WATER OUT OF YOUR EYES!

The mercifully quick virus

Isaac's stomach virus appeared to be a 36-hour thing. He came down with it Friday afternoon and woke up Sunday morning fresh-faced as a choirboy. Phew.

When Jake did his traditional scream-for-mommy bit in the wee hours of last night, I noticed he was hot to the touch. This morning, it was his turn to wake up out-of-sorts, fussing about how his tummy hurt, and running a 102-degree fever. We had these great plans today that it was going to be National Jake Day because his wishes got put on the back burner for Isaac's sick time. I was going to make him pancakes like he asked me to do two days ago... except he didn't want to eat them. I was going to give him some dedicated time in the baby pool after Isaac's swim lesson... except that his fever continued to run despite children's Tylenol (and he begged me to take him home). I was going to take him in the backyard to play in the sandbox... except that he couldn't tolerate any movement unless it was toward the couch to watch more TV.

So now, after three solid days in the past week of doing almost nothing but watch TV, we are really REALLY bored of each other. We even went for a drive tonight -- that's right, with gas at $4 a gallon and me as the world's ultimate skinflint -- just to get out of the house. We were so looking forward to seeing Daddy again tomorrow anyway, but now we actually need him here. Before we kill each other. Hopefully he will avoid the virus.

I spoke too soon

It's hot here. Super, sweltering, humid, severe-weather-advisory hot. So you can imagine my temptation this evening when the temperature dropped below 90 and both boys were begging to go to Starbucks for a cow milky. I got greedy.

Two weeks ago, Daddy and I started running together. He's a good running buddy -- he's determined, he has stamina, and he has these mutant calf muscles that are fun to look at in his jogging shorts. And he pushes the stroller, bless him. At first Daddy brought up running together because he was motivated to get in shape for his hiking trip to the Cascades. Now that we are doing it regularly, we see it firstly as a great way to look hotter for Daddy's 20th high school reunion in August, and secondly to be in the best shape ever for our round-number birthdays coming up next year.

Initially I worried that piling the fellers in the hand-me-down dual jogging stroller for that long would annoy them, but it's actually a lot of fun. The trail we run winds by three parks we are known to frequent, making water breaks a breeze and guaranteeing some exercise for everybody. I took the boys out for a run by myself post-dinner on Thursday and, after I put in my 2.5 miles (half walking, let's be honest), we ended up staying at the park closest to our house until it was almost dark.

I've been trying to get in some kind of running or long-distance walking most days while Daddy is gone so I can keep up. Tonight, with Isaac feeling perkier and his temperature and pukiness having apparently left the building, I was stoked to throw them in the stroller and run/walk to Starbucks. Everything seemed totally awesome until we got there. Isaac immediately complained about the air conditioning once we were inside -- you know, something I'm sure every other human on the planet would look forward to on a 90-degree day. "It's too cold," he said, and I once again noticed the bags under his eyes. We kept our visit short.

At home, I let them watch a short movie before bed. Isaac lay nearly facedown the whole time, watching, but tired out of his mind. He actually begged me to read stories and put him to bed, which I did, but not before I found out he was sporting a nasty 102-degree fever.

So! No church for us tomorrow, and he'll probably also miss his first official swimming lesson on Monday. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we won't be spending that time at the pediatrician's instead.

24 little hours

Daddy called yesterday. He was at his favorite pit-stop in Randle, Washington, where there is single strip mall in the middle of nowhere, anchored by a mom-and-pop dry goods store that I remember from its vast selection of trucker caps. Randle is the last place anyone's cell phone works outside of Mount Adams. Daddy told me I wouldn't hear from him again in the next 48 hours as he plunges his crew into the beautiful anti-civilization of Gifford-Pinchot National Forest for a trek on his favorite mountain. He took this loving portrait of it at daybreak last year while everyone else was still snoring in their sleeping bags.



Since we've heard from Daddy, Isaac came down with the his first-ever case of the stomach flu. After refusing to eat dinner last night, I really knew something was wrong when he asked me to put clothes on him, that he was cold. This is my human furnace child, who is uncomfortably hot in anything but his underpants. He quickly sprouted a 100-degree fever and some crazy bags under his eyes. He threw up for the first time around 8:00. After I put him and baby brother to bed, he threw up twice more. After the last time, at 3:30 this morning, I sat up with him in the kitchen so he could pretend to eat crackers because he was "starving".

He woke up this morning with the same fever and no appetite. Eventually we had to go to the grocery store to get him some sick supplies (Powerade, Saltines). Though he wore jogpants in the 90-degree weather and insisted on riding in the cart the whole time, when we came home he was back to the old Isaac. Perhaps grocery-shopping on an empty stomach helped bring his appetite back, and he ate an enormous starchy, brothy, even raspberry-y lunch. After nap now he still seems perky and not freezing cold, so here's hoping it was just a 24-hour bug.

It's weird, thinking that Daddy may have missed an entire illness between calls. I used to get so ticked at Daddy and his not calling when out in the field. And then one day I woke up from my middle-school-drama stupor and remembered how -- difficult to wrap the brain around, such a city girl am I -- there really aren't cell phone towers in the middle of nowhere. I mean, can you imagine your family being 2000+ miles away and not being able to know anything about what's going on with them at any given moment? It must be hard for him, the poor schmuck out there in the crisp, clean mountain air. He's going to be pretty upset when he hears about our pukey adventures tomorrow. It'll be nice when the boys are old enough that we can all join him for his summerly mountain jaunt.

Tot Lot

Tomorrow is Isaac's last day of preschooler day camp. For two weeks now, he has spent each weekday morning running, climbing, playing games, reading stories, singing songs, and making crafts with about a dozen other kids his age and three counselors. He seems to have enjoyed himself quite a bit. At first he was a little fussy when I would drop him off, but no more. He especially enjoyed the novelty of having Meemaw take him to camp. He introduced her to his teachers straightaway: "Guys, this is my Meemaw. She's from Indianapolis."

My favorite part is that he has learned all kinds of cool games that are not quite as fun to play unless you have a great many friends involved, like Red Light, Green Light, Ghost in the Graveyard, and Duck Duck Goose. He has also strayed away from our beloved Backyardigans song catalog to learn some great preschool standbys that I had forgotten about, like "B-I-N-G-O" and "The Green Grass Grew All Around". When he comes home singing a new song, we download it from iTunes so Mommy and Jake can commit it to memory, too.

I was worried that Isaac's fun might be tempered by the fact that he didn't really know anyone at first in his Tot Lot session. We forgot how small our town really feels. In Isaac's Tot Lot there are two kids from playgroup, as well as a very nice girl who is the daughter of the freelance writer that interviewed me long ago for a newspaper article about mommy-blogging. Next year, Tot Lot will seem much more familiar, as Isaac and Jacob will be the right ages to go together.

Poopy irony

The Jake has been wearing big-boy underpants -- all day, everyday -- for about a week now. Rarely does he have a pee accident. If he has to go, he'll even trudge into the bathroom by himself and do his business. His brother didn't accomplish that feat until he was 4 years old.

(Well, I say "his brother", but really I mean it took that long for his mother didn't figure out that little boys can and probably should do their bathroom duties without a mommy helicopter. The Isaac, he was my test run. I know better now.)

Pooping for Jake has been another story entirely. He has been interested in peeing on the pot for a couple of months, but never, never pooping. At first, he was so excited about wearing underpants, but so unexcited about pooping in them or the potty, that he simply wouldn't poop at all. For that delightful, screaming spectacle, we went to the pediatrician and then to KMart for stool softener.

Now some grossness barrier has been breached for him, such that he'll poop, but not pee, right in his underpants. He'll tell me when it comes out, and doesn't appear to like it, but the potty alternative somehow seems much worse. Everywhere we go, I must take a grocery bag, ziplocs, and at least one full change of clothes for Jacob, just in case. I thank Gott im Himmel for my big mommy purse.

Yesterday, when he started making other signs that the poop was threatening to emerge, I put him on the potty. He fussed at me, but I encouraged him to do like brother does. I had him push his feet on my hands for leverage to give him something to focus on. And lo and behold, a turd dropped in the pot. Everyone screamed and did a happy dance.

This happened twice more yesterday, including once when he was comfortably bedded down for nap and called me in. "I have to poop, Mommy," he said. I took him to the potty and he promptly did so before promptly returning to bed.

Meemaw insisted we celebrate last night with dinner at Bob Evans and then a trip to a nearby store for some new big-boy underpants. He wanted new Cars ones, just like Isaac has. And while Meemaw took them to the register to pay, I took him to the bathroom, only to find that he had pooped his pants. So, while yesterday was certainly a poopy milestone, perhaps we still have a little ways to go.

MSTC 3000

Two weeks ago, Isaac took part in a day camp for preschoolers called Magical Storybook Theater Camp. You might guess from its name a bit of what went on there. Each day the kids, led by their Ms. Rachael, read a different fairy tale. They made a fairy-tale-appropriate craft. Then they acted out the fairy tale, using their crafts as props. After some practice, Ms. Rachael video-taped them. The last 10 minutes of each class was set aside so parents could watch the video. Two of those days I remembered to bring my camera.

Day 1: The Three Little Pigs



Day 2: The Elves and the Shoemaker



Neither I nor my camera went Day 3 because Daddy was in charge of both boys all morning long. Day 4 they performed "Caps for Sale", and naturally the one day Isaac got the lead role was the day I forgot to empty out my camera beforehand.

To say that our resident Future Thespian enjoyed it is the understatement of the year. Instead of the fussing and frantic mommy's-leg grabbing of preschool yesteryear, every day he was all "Bye, Mom! See you later!" at the drop off. There will be a future for our Isaac in the theater, I know. Especially because Ms. Rachael is doing more preschool theater classes in the fall.

The lure of chin-dribblers

I got an email from our favorite orchard last week to let me know that their first major crop of peaches was in the store, that they were guaranteed "chin dribblers", and that with this coupon, Claire "Miser" O'Neal, you get 15% off. I mentioned this to Meemaw, whom I know to be a sucker for sloppy peaches, and her wallet just fell open, bless her and her concern for our proper intake of fiber and vitamin A.

Today we went. The orchard, it's new and improved. Now with more dump trucks!



Since we were last there, about 8 or 9 months ago, they have replaced some of the besplintered wooden play structures on the grounds with brand-new, treated ones. Like this train, a replica of the old one. Except with a bell for budding conductors to fight over.



A brand-new addition is a wooden school bus, made to carry several passengers through obligatory verses of "Wheels on the Bus."



Another spectacular new attraction is a gigantic play castle, with generous porch-style swings on both sides for the old people...



...and twin static-generating, twist-nasty slides for the budding coaster enthusiast.



It's good that we took in all that fresh air and exercise, that we might maximize our appetite for supremely ripe peaches. Dinner tonight was peaches, and little else. We all needed baths afterwards.

Meemaw lends a helping wrangle

Today our Daddy left us for his true love, the Pacific Northwest. He will be gone for a spell to lead his second annual whirlwind hiking tour of the Cascades for UD students. Perhaps it should be better known as the Taste of Roughin' It for the Beergut Set (subtitled Kiss Your Quads Goodbye). I'm sure Daddy Mountain Goat will return to us sunburned or windburned, a little skinnier, a little more whiny about weather that does not include glacial breezes, and with many admirers of his mutant calf muscles.

In her infinite mercy, our beloved Meemaw took some time off of her brand-new swanky job to vacation in Dela-nowhere with her daughter and fussy grandboys.



We took her to the Philadelphia Zoo on Saturday to bring her a little closer to the wild, such that she might think more kindly of my household in comparison.

Excuses

I haven't felt much like blogging lately. It shows a bit. Since Daddy came home from Helsinki, I've realized that I need to make a conscious effort to step away from the computer. I feel so much more refreshed and happy when I spend more free time with all three of my boys.

This week I broached the topic of quitting my blog with Daddy. Why, I said, do I need to feel so guilty about keeping up my blog? For what? Surely the world would not stop turning if I wasn't keeping an updated record of every sneeze and swearword that graced the lips of my beautiful babies. Surely the bazillions of pictures I have of both kids can suffice as a record of Jakey's formative years. Do those pictures really need captions?

Daddy told me a was both quitter and a loser, that keeping up with the blog was not about that at all. It was about the beauty of the internet, that all of our family lives far away and delights in following the goings-on of my three intrepid explorers. It's so my 75-year-old grandma nearly 1000 miles away can get on her computer once in a while and feel like she is not so far away from her great-grandboys. She emails me all the time and tells me that my blog is "such a joy".

So basically I am a ginormous donkey turd, with my thoughts of taking my blog away from my wonderful grandma. Obviously my guilt is not because this blog is something I dislike, but because I am completely ungifted when it comes to finding balance in life. That's something that I'll probably have to work on for many, many years to come. In the meantime, perhaps my grandma -- and the story of the Jake -- shouldn't suffer from it. So here I blog again.