My Plate Runneth Over

Hey y'all - 

The other day, I mentioned on facebook some new project I'd signed myself up for, and dear friend Clay Mercer e-mailed me and wrote something along the lines of, "Damn, woman - when your plate is full, you just go and get a bigger plate." It's true. My plate has become more of a serving platter. The kind a turkey'll fit on. 

So here's what's been going on in our house in October:

1) Grandma Sue has been in Sweden for the past two months. The sweet little family she works for moved to Sweden and invited Sue to come along and help the kids transition to their new home (and their new country), so she's been hanging out in Scandinavia, checking out the Ikea buffet and rocking out to some ABBA (probably). 

2) We attended Missoula's "Pray For Snow" party. Yes, southern relatives: this is really a thing.

There are lots of things I'd like to spend my time praying for in lieu of snow (world peace, the possibility of sleeping past 6am, no snow), but this party had a beer truck next to a bounce house, so we couldn't say no.

After the party, we walked down the block to the outdoor supply store. This is the look of two dudes walking into a gear store that's having a sale:

3). A friend invited me to participate in a black and white photography challenge, and I had a great time shooting some cool black and white photos, including a self-portrait.

4) Speaking of pictures, I don't know what it is about October (Christmas card season is approaching, maybe?) but I had lots of friends coming out of the woodwork wanting pictures done. I don't charge my friends, because I find that when money is going to change hands, people start having all kinds of unreasonable expectations, like that their pictures are going to be in focus. I don't need that kind of pressure. Besides, I really enjoy when they give me something fun or bizarre in return. So far this month, I've been paid for pictures with a massage, a set of plastic wine glasses, some free babysitting, and some homemade mayonnaise.

5) Speaking of mayonnaise - I'm just a segue machine, aren't I? - I did the Whole30 Challenge in October. It's 30 days of no sugar, no dairy, no gluten, and no legumes. Homemade mayonnaise is allowed, hence the gift. I lost some weight; I gained a lot of energy; I did not kill my husband. Obviously, I can't sustain that kind of eating forever, but it really opened my eyes to how much sugar is in everything we eat. In case you're wondering, your dad did not even pretend to participate. 

6) Laney is still obsessed with the trampoline.

7) Laney wanted to go to the Corn Maze, and wanted to ride the bus to make it a real adventure. So we went to the bus stop in our neighborhood at 9am, and waited for the bus that would take us to the transfer center downtown so we could ride a second bus way out to the Corn Maze. 

We made it downtown, and checked the schedule for the second bus, which is when we discovered that the second bus only comes once a day - at 3pm. So we walked all the way back home and started over. I think one of the reasons my marriage is going so well is because your dad and I make an effort not to assign blame. If he does something stupid, I try not to mention it, because rest assured I will do something even stupider two days later, and I will appreciate it when HE doesn't make a big deal out of it. This one was my fault. 

The walk home was even fun, except we had to tell Laney to quit pushing the street crossing buttons with her noggin. 

We finally made it to the maze, which started out super fun...

...but quickly turned nightmarish when we realized we really were lost in three acres of overgrown corn and stacks of hay bales and running teenagers, pursued by another mom with her huge stroller.

 

Laney had a sheet of clues that were supposed to help us navigate our way through the maze. She was super psyched out this, because she's been watching a lot of "Scooby Doo" lately, and she's all about solving mysteries. The clues were mostly worthless.

What DID help was when your brilliant dad noticed that the "right" path was usually a little narrower than the dead-end paths, since the maze-makers probably made the right path first and then filled in around it. He's not just pretty, folks.

8) We went for a hike on the hills above Missoula. Not much to report here, other than Hagen wants to do all his own hiking, even though it looks more like he's hurling himself down the mountain and it totally freaks me out. Ella the dog is in way better health and spirits, in case you needed an update on that. 

9) Hagen remains a great sport.

 

He's speaking in crazy-cute sentences these days, like "I put all de socks in da ditty cose basket." Yes, he put ALL the socks in the house in one dirty clothes basket. I got to wash two loads of nothing but socks. Fun, fun. 

10) Kindergarten rocks. Laney loves it. The recess, the cafeteria lunches, the coloring. Today, I went with her class on a field trip to the fire station. 

Laney is incredibly independent these days - she comes down the stairs dressed for school, and reminds us which day is PE and which day is music and when she needs to return her library book. I drop her off in the mornings and watch her walk away to join her class and I am shocked every morning by how grown up she's become in such a short period of time. 

Laney's teacher is possibly the sweetest woman ever to walk the earth, with the patience of a saint. She speaks in nothing but soothing tones when I would have long ago resorted to cussing and screaming and drinking under my desk. 

 She thought I was kidding.

11) Your dad and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. Well, "celebrated" is a strong word. "Acknowledged" might be more appropriate. Right after we got married, we used money we'd been given to buy insulation for our house. I spent what would have been my honeymoon in a crawlspace under the house, lying on my back and stapling that awful rolled fluffy fiberglass stuff. I figured it was something you do when you're young and in love, even if it felt like something you do when you get convicted of a crime in Russia.

Six years pass, and your dad starts a new project in our new garage. He asks me on the morning of our anniversary, "Do you want to help me with the insulation?" It took me half a second to answer "Hell, no." Later that day, he came home from the grocery store with this card:

I just now noticed it's actually a birthday card, not an anniversary card. In any case, the magic is not dead, people.

So...all that, plus wrapping up the Nat Geo show and designing a website or two or three and pitching an ad campaign to a national gym franchise, even though I know nothing about advertising and work in my pajamas more often than not.

And that's October on my plate.

Love,
Mom

Mars. Venus. Siblings.

Hey y'all - 

At least once a day, I am taken aback by how different you are. 

It's pretty hard to upset Hagen; according to him, nothing is worth getting worked up about. His soundtrack would be that Bob Marley song that tells us "Every little thing's gonna be all right." Here's something no one is ever going to need to say to Hagen: "Just be cool, man!" Trust me - he's already there. And great news for us: he's perfectly happy doing whatever his sister wants to do. 

We've been working on potty training.  I told Hagen he could have a Fudgesicle if he'd go in the potty. He didn't care. Fudgesicle, no Fudgesicle, whatever. Then, I got smart, and told Laney that SHE could have a Fudgesicle if Hagen went in the potty. So she's got him on some kind of training regimen that I don't really understand - I honestly don't know if she's in there giving him pep talks or threatening him with minor violence if he doesn't go. I just know we're going through Fudgesicles like crazy. Yay, outsourcing!

Yesterday, I was upstairs at my desk when I heard you two in the kitchen getting apples out of the fruit bowl. And then I overheard this conversation, which I swear to all that is good and right in the world I am not making up:

Laney: Hagen! Why don't we make up stories about where our apples came from? I'll go first! "It was a dark and stormy night..." (After that ridiculous intro, there was a five-minute monologue about the provenance of her apple. I do not remember all of the details, but there was a dragon. At one point, her apple had been trapped underground, and she tried to free it with a drill, but that didn't work, even when she "used extra screws." Blah blah blah...) ...and that's how I got my apple! Okay, your turn Hagen, to make up a story!

Hagen: (chewing) Jus' wanna eat dis apple. De end.

Brevity is the soul of snack time. 

Love,

Mom

Brian. Tyler. Hiawatha.

Hey y'all - 

Right. Where was I?

Ah, yes: Brian and Tyler's visit.

You spent a lot of time playing together in the backyard, throwing leaves at each other, which seemed to be a crazy amount of fun.

At the beginning of this year, I had to go on a work trip to Vermont. Laney, feeding on my maternal guilt, thought it would be a great time to hit me up for a trampoline. As if Vermont is where one goes to purchase such things. I told her she was crazy, and we should just concentrate on missing each other and how we can't wait to see each other, whether or not Mom comes home with an enormous piece of gymnastics equipment. 

A week or so after I wrote that blog post, a big ol' cardboard box showed up on our doorstep. It weighed a ton and had no note attached. We opened it up to discover a trampoline. First, we blamed the grandparents. Only later did Brian and Tyler confess they were the ones who'd ordered it. Brian said, "I know it's like saying 'Here's 8 feet of dead grass and a broken leg, but enjoy!'" This is the kind of nonsense that can happen when two mischievous people have disposable income, a love of champagne and access to Amazon.com.

The second day of their visit, we headed over to the Idaho/Montana border to bike the Hiawatha Trail. The Hiawatha is part of the Rails to Trails system, which has converted old railroad tracks into biking trails. The Hiawatha Trail is 15 miles of downhill that goes through old railroad tunnels, over trestle bridges and through some of the most beautiful country you're liable to see anywhere. To hear your grandfather Philip tell it, it's 15 miles uphill through snow and you have to battle a moose with your bare hands if you want to make it out alive. This is why the editor of Outside magazine is not a southerner. We can't be trusted. 

It was a beautiful day on the trail:

Laney insisted on bringing along her Dora bike - the one with the training wheels - to ride a portion of the trail all by herself. Y'all, I cannot tell you what slow going that was. All of the adults were riding their bikes in a little "S" formation to keep from falling off.

The tunnels on the trail are no joke. One of them is a mile long and completely dark, so everyone has to wear a headlamp and have a flashlight attached to their bike.

One cannot help but make "Light at the end of the tunnel" jokes. 

As I was coming out of one of the tunnels, I thought, "I bet we could use this tunnel to take some funny silhouette pictures," and I was right:

So here's the thing with me and biking: I'm not very good at it. I mean, I'm capable, but it's not my strong suit. Usually what happens is I see some kind of obstacle in the road - and it could be a 2-inch tall rock - and I fixate on it. "That rock could be the death of me," I think. And I stare at the rock as it comes closer, and I think about how much it would stink if I hit the rock and fell off my bike. And the next thing you know, my butt is on the ground and I'm looking up at the clouds with torn pants and a bloody knee and man-oh-man, I hate that &@%#*# rock. Basically, I'm using "The Secret," that stupid "visualize your future" crap, but to make all my visualized injuries come true. So yeah, I fell. 

Every once in a while, though, I'm able to kid myself that I'm an outdoorsy, adventurous kind of gal. This usually doesn't end well. I remember once when I lived in LA, my friend Karen and I hiked all the way up the steepest trail at Runyon Canyon, scrambling in the sagebrush, grabbing hold of various cacti, etc. We arrived at the top completely exhausted and laid down next to the trail, panting for air. But we had done it! No one was more rugged than us! ...And then the actor Scott Bakula jogged past us, trailed by his son's Cub Scout troop. If I remember correctly, Karen and I went and had a beer to celebrate how rugged we are not. Same thing happened on the Hiawatha. I had recovered from my tumble and was thinking I was the coolest thing around - no one can bike better / faster / cooler than me... And then I was passed by an entire extended family of Hutterite women who were doing the trail better / faster / cooler than me in ankle-length dresses. 

They are also probably not scared of chickens like I am, so they win. 

Hagen also sustained a minor injury on this trip. Turns out there's a little hole in the side of his bike trailer, and he stuck his arm through it, to feel the wheel. He got a big-time abrasion on the back of his wrist, and cried about it for a minute, until Laney said, "I'll cuddle you up, Hagen." And they rode the rest of the way down the mountain, snuggled in the bike trailer.

He recovered shortly thereafter.

Thanks, Brian and Tyler, for another exciting stay here at Camp Burbach. 

Love,

Mom