The Commandments of Relocating Oneself Across Campus

As part of our back to school routine, I discovered that Stephanie LOVES my office.  Mostly, I think, because I keep yogurt in the fridge at all times, and she is given unlimited access to tape and permission to attach as many periodic tables to my walls, windows, desk, and file cabinet as she would like.  I get extra time to work, she has fun, it's a win-win.  The walk to my office from daycare is the real adventure.  It takes me nine minutes at a leisurely pace alone door to door.  The return trip with Stephanie takes 20 minutes.  How does one more than double the walk time?  If you have to ask yourself that, you haven't recently walked anywhere with a toddler so allow me to fill you in.  First and foremost, items from nature shall be collected, even at the peril of collecting in the middle of the road.  Rocks, acorns, pine cones and leaves are the most coveted, and they shall be collected in triplicate ("One for Mommy, one for Daddy and one for Stephie").  We shall stop a minimum of five times to exchange items, as turns shall be taken as to the person that is permitted to carry the stuffed animal, the blanket and the artwork from school.  In the event that any litterbugs have preceded us, do not worry, as all trash shall be removed from the path and placed in the proper receptacle.  And then, of course, the series of benches outside of my building shall be used as a series of balance beams.  And finally we arrive at my building.  Before we can actually go into my office, we shall cross Turtle River (if you are unfamiliar with Turtle River, may I recommend you check out the Dora the Explorer book series from your local library?).  Turtle River is the long bench in front of my office.  One shall sit on the bench, put on a life jacket, remove shoes (as shoes are apparently not required in a boat), and scoot the length of the bench until reaching my office (at the very end of the very long bench... excuse me, I mean Turtle River).  And, finally, arrival in my office.  At which point, the potty is required, which involves re-locking the office and heading down the hallway (fortunately, at least, in the opposite direction of Turtle River).  Once we are back to my office, however, she will make herself useful by removing my trash and recycling from my office and placing them into the proper bins in the hall way, wipe down my desk with a wet cloth, and then get to work eating all of my yogurt and taping up periodic tables.  In the mean time, I get to grade and email and clear my desk for the day, and she is happy to run to the printer for me in the event that I print something.  Win-win office time, with the adventure to get there to boot.      

Dad of the year?

When Kevin and I have our less fine parenting moments, we like to joke that we are looking forward to our nominations for parents/dad/mom of the year award.  Most of those moments are not actually poor parenting, but circumstances that may be perceived by others as poor parenting.  Like chasing a crying toddler down Ohio Street whom also happened to be naked.  The circumstances that led up to that particular instant weren't all that terrible (we had gone to the pool, parked a few blocks away in the shade and were changing her out of her swimsuit when she got upset and took off down the sidewalk), but regardless of how we got there, surely those passing by probably weren't admiring our parenting skills.  Which brings us to Kevin's dad of the year nomination on Saturday.  I had to go in on Saturday for a lab this weekend, so Kevin had Stephanie to himself all day.  He had planned a fun and active day for them, complete with a hike in the woods and a trip to the pool.  She was to be in the carrier for the duration of the hike, so Kevin didn't argue with her on her clothing choice- a [dirty] Jayhawks onesie- size 12 months- you can imagine the wedgie-tastic fit on that one. She also was not wearing shoes, as she was not walking, and when you carry her on your back, it is easier to not have to keep track of shoes.  Just that morning, she had scraped her hand on the sidewalk and, as a person upset at the sight of wounds, she wanted to cover it up.  It really wasn't in a band-aid-able spot, so she elected to wear a mitten on one hand, as to not have to see the offensive cut.  And off they went on their hike.  The day had gotten quite warm, and Kevin hiked around the woods with over 30 pounds on his back.  Sometime later, he emerges, drenched in sweat, and what luck! Stephanie spots the playground.  "I go on slide", she informs him.  He tried to dissuade her, but to no avail.  So, sweaty Kevin and partially dressed Stephanie in no shoes and one mitten joined a well dressed family at the slides.  I like to think that any family witnessing our parent of the year moments laugh as they remember their own, and even if they don't, it really doesn't matter, but I for one got a great laugh when I read the saga by email while I was stuck at work all day.

TLE

Stephanie recently had a TLE (Traumatic Llama Experience).  Only it wasn't a llama, it was a camel.  Actually, it was just a guy dressed as a cartoon camel, but it was a traumatic experience.  We went up to Michigan to visit Kevin's brother and his family last week, and Dave got everyone tickets to a minor league baseball game.  At the game, we saw a llama (okay, camel) wearing a baseball jersey for the home team interacting with the crowd (interestingly, I should note that the local team's mascot is Lou E Loon, a bird, so the whole camel connection to the team is really unclear to me).  Kevin and I were pretty excited to run into a llama (still had not noticed that his jersey read "camel" at this point), and Kevin enthusiastically rushed Stephanie over to say hello.  She was sitting (in a prime position to be targeted by a llama, as it turns out) on Kevin's shoulders.  Kevin approaches llama from behind.  Llama turns and spies Stephanie.  Enthusiastic to meet his fans, llama makes a play grab at Stephanie.  Stephanie's sense of self-preservation kicks in, and she screams and slings herself back as hard as she can (and I still consider it a miracle that Kevin kept a grip on her- he told me later that she squirms so much that he always has a tight grip on her, but who knew he needed it in the event of an unlikely pack animal attack).  It was quite a panicked few minutes for her, and she was fairly traumatized but recovered once we got to the on-site playground.  She had a terrific time at the playground there, watched a little of the game, enjoyed a hot dog and then more playground.  Back at home, we told Stephanie that we would take her to another ball game, but we would make sure there weren't any llamas.  She must have mulled it over all night, because the first words out of her mouth the next morning were "I go to 'nother baseball game, n-yum.  Not any llamas there scare me."  She then launched into rainman mode, repeating it over and over again, even talking about it again the following morning.  She must be dreaming each night of a llama-free baseball experience.  As an additional note, we had a great time in Michigan.  It was about a 13.5 hour trip each way, but we timed it out so that we left as Stephanie was needing a nap, and drove into the wee hours so she also fell asleep for the night in the car.  It helped reduce her length of time awake in the car and wasn't terribly hard on us.  It was really fun to see Dave and Katie and "Baby Alaina".  Alaina is just over one now, so she was really funny and interactive.  She liked to follow Stephanie around, and we got to imagine what nice play mates they will be in another year or two.  Dave and Katie, were, as always, super hosts with great food and fun plans.  Stephanie has always taken to Uncle Dave really well, and this trip was no exception, and I'm pretty sure she doesn't even associate him with the TLE, and I don't think that it would matter if she did.  

Sure, it was raining, but I did insist on posing with the cheese.

Dug this one out from the 2008 archives...

Stephanie and Alaina on an in-house wagon ride.

Fuzzles enjoyed the playground at the ballgame as well.

Umpire must have made a bad call...

Nurse, we need cheese, STAT

When injured, most of Stephanie's responses are very toddler typical.  Look of surprise.  Look to Mom to see if she is okay (who is no doubt grimacing because that really looked like it would hurt).  Realization that it does indeed hurt.  Face wrinkle, burst into sobby scream, run for Mom.  And here's where it takes a unique Stephanie turn.  When she starts to pull it together, she will inevitably gulp out, "I... want.... cheese..."  One to three slices of nearly any variety is the typical dosage, and it normally kicks in right away. Now, the question is, would our HSA cover it if I got a prescription and can anyone recommend a doctor that will prescribe cheese PRN?

Name Guilt

You know the fun of bringing home a pet and naming it?  Sometimes it's easy.  When I was 16ish, I told Mom that whenever we got another pet, I was going to name it Gizmo- fish, cat, dog, I didn't care.  Shortly after this declaration, we got to the river house, and there was a little orange cat in the yard.  It was clearly our Gizmo, who went on to live a long and happy life on the farm.  The name worked for her, and I never questioned it.  Years later, I brought Boston home.  I had him for several days before I could come up with a name.  I tried Lazlo, a la Real Genius, but it just didn't stick.  Finally, I came up with Boston because he was black and white and so annoyingly dog-like.  A few months later after I started dating Kevin, Kevin said that he thought Boston's real name was Pork Chop, which did seem right, but the name ship had sailed.  All of this to say that I think we really missed the boat on naming our most recent pet, Fatty.  Fatty was a small caterpillar that Kevin found in the garden for Stephanie.  She helped him capture Fatty and put him in a jar with fennel.  They covered the top of the jar with a very porous fabric, and periodically freshened his food.  I named him Fatty right away because he was, as promised in that wonderful book, a very hungry caterpillar.  Within a handful of days, he turned into a chrysalis, which, as far as I can tell, is a fancy man word for cocoon that is harder to spell and harder to pronounce correctly, thus making it the preferred term.  The name Fatty was still working for me, though.  Well, this morning, Kevin called upstairs that Fatty was a butterfly.  He rushed the jar upstairs to us, and we told Stephanie that we were going to set him free.  She thought to go out onto the deck of our bedroom and not back downstairs, which was really funny to me, because I forget that deck exists, and she came up with the idea just seconds ahead of Kevin.  At first, Fatty the butterfly (and this is where I am having a hard time with the name Fatty) looked a little deflated and unsure about flying, and we were afraid he/she wasn't going to make it  Stephanie was nonplussed, she merely said "I get new Fatty".  Fortunately, with a little rest, Fatty took off flying just wonderfully.  I hope Fatty has a good life, and maybe doesn't hate us for such an inappropriate moniker.

The first day with Fatty

A few days later, really living up to his/her name

The chrysalis is attached to the fabric on top

Fatty, the beautiful butterfly

Not looking so lively here, but was fine several minutes later

The (every other year) Yearly Meal

There are lots of things to love about Alaina, but I think the part where I can always tell her what I am thinking and the part where I can always expect the same might be my favorite.  My last few trips home, I have spent a lot of time in the car and visiting people.  I love to see the people, and I don't really mind the car, but in the end, it doesn't feel much like a break.  So this trip, I decided that if someone wanted to see me and Stephanie, they were going to have to come to us.  And that is what I told Alaina, because I can just tell her that.  She went for a run and came up with an excellent plan that involved her coming to me, which I felt a little bad about, but she said that she wanted to (the favorite part: She said she wanted to = I knew she did want to = guilt absolved).  Anyway, in what is becoming a bit of a tradition, we hit up a German restaurant (which are oddly hard to come by) for a good meal and beer with Stephanie in tow.  Stephanie did not have much of the meal (and obviously no beer, at least not that I noticed), but she mostly sat in her seat and mostly didn't disturb any other patron's meals.  Photo-bug Alaina made sure we captured the memory, just like we did 2 years ago in North Carolina.  Not a lot has changed since then.  Stephanie is a bigger and harder to take out to eat, and I apparently order larger beers now (which may or may not be connected to the part where Stephanie is harder to take out :)), but German food is still fried and covered in gravy, Alaina is still great company and we, apparently, still favor the same hair styles...

Family Camp

Stephanie has two camping books that she loves, and she pretends to camp at school, so Kevin picked this weekend for the first ever family camping trip.  I really enjoy camping, Kevin LOVES camping, so he went all in for this adventure.  He found a park on the lake that offered a hike-in trail with primitive camping sites.  Stephanie is a great walker, and it was a 4.8 mile loop, so we figured that if walking went quickly, we would do the whole loop, and if it didn't, we would hike in and then hike out.  The trails were quite manageable for Stephanie, but there was some hand holding to get over rocks and roots, and in the end, we walked in about 1 mile.

Yes, Kevin DID hike her bee pillow in, and OF COURSE Santa came!

At that point, we found an awesome spot to camp.  It was a little sooner than we planned on stopping, but we went for the super cool site.

In the end, it wasn't a bad idea to stop because Stephanie did not go to sleep very early (the tent was way cool and Mom and Dad in there too was just too exciting to get settled), so she was pretty tired in the morning and only walked about two-thirds of the distance out, choosing to take the Mom transport system the remaining length.  At the camp that night, she was really excited about roasting marshmallows, which she waved near the fire for a whole 6 seconds, took a bite, spit it out and declared "too soft".  But the chocolate and graham crackers were a hit, as was the hot dog dinner.

We all had a nice time.  Since she was tired this morning, I could not get a good sense of whether or not she would want to do it again soon, but I'll ask her sometime next week, and I'm sure by then we will be able to judge her true feeling on camping.  Either way, we are up for more camping and hope she enjoys it as much as we do!

And herein was the sleeping problem-  this is how she looked heading in for bedtime!

But no worse for the wear in the morning... Other than not wanting to walk a full mile back to the car.  Who can blame her?