Rolling On The River

Hey y'all - 

Last weekend, Brian and Tyler came for their annual visit. We waited till y'all were in school, and then we went rafting without you, because we're horrible, no-good, selfish people who wanted to have an adults-only day on the river. It's hard to believe, but your parents are capable of having fun without you. When I was little and had plans to go to a slumber party, I would always ask Peg Peg what she and Tex were going to do while I was away (as I was sure they'd be mourning my absence.) She would always smile and say, "We're going to jump in the freezer and play a little Whip n' Chill." (NOTE: This is the kind of thing that gets shared when certain people call and tell me to "put something on the blog." I'll put something on the blog, all right). 

It was an absolutely gorgeous day:

We brought along a bag of wine - as one does - and had a great time floating along in the river, while your dad paddled away on his paddleboard, pretending not to know the group of yahoos following him in the inflatable raft.

I think the highlight for me was when we were approaching some white water, and your dad yelled, "Here come some rapids!" and instead of rushing to pick up a paddle, Tyler - wearing my sun hat -hurried to finish his drink. Priorities, priorities.

It was in the 70s that day and absolutely lovely out, but that doesn't mean that the water was warm. Oh, no. Granny Jack always says when I was little that I wasn't happy swimming unless I had to break ice to do it. Filled with a little courage and a little discount Pinot Grigio, I decided to jump off the raft into the river for a swim. Y'all, it was cold. Stupid cold. I remember yelling things like, "My internal organs are in shock!" and "My system is shutting down!"*

Your dad hauled my butt back in the raft.

Check back tomorrow for tales of adventure that include you. Spoiler alert: I continue to make a fool of myself in the wilderness. 

Love,

Mom

* Not really, of course, but as a former drama major, I like to make the most of my moments of crisis. 

I Am So Lame

Dear Laney,

You've been giving me this look a lot lately:

...so we're running about 9 years ahead of schedule on that.

Here's an example of a question I might ask that is so dumb it can barely be tolerated: "What song did you learn in music class today?"

Laney: Sigh.  We didn't learn a song. Eye roll. We learned how to play the lollipop drum. 

Me: What's a lollipop drum?

Readers: If you think that second question is also dumb as hell, you and Laney are on the same page.

I may or may not have told your dad that "one of these days, I'm going to snatch that young'un bald-headed."

Your school had an ice cream social yesterday afternoon. You're the blue dot in the middle of the picture, walking away from me, so you can go sit with your friends:

There was an interview with Kid Rock in Esquire a few years ago, in which he talked about taking his teenage son and his son's friend to the movies. When they got into the movie theatre, the son took his friend to sit on another row so they could pretend not to be with his dad. Kid Rock said, "What? Do you not think I'm COOL?!? You know, some people think I'm the coolest mother on the planet, so sit your butt down." I guess it's universal.

Other than that, being a kindergartener seems to really agree with you.

For the first week of school, I packed your lunch in cute little containers...an entree and two sides and a note. You thought that was cool, 'til you discovered the cafeteria served cheese pizza. Every day, I pick you up and ask about your school day, and the first thing you say is "Lunch was SO GOOD." You may or may not actually be learning anything. Then, you discovered that every day, the school also provides peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, in case you don't like the daily entree.

Laney: Mom! Mom! I had a BP&J for lunch! 

Me: A PB&J? 

Laney: Yeah! A BP&J. 

Me: I thought you hated peanut butter? 

Laney: But I love the school's peanut butter!  

Dad: What's so cool about the peanut butter sandwich at school? 

Laney: Well! It's not square. It's round. And it's white. And it's all pressed together like it's one piece. And around the edges it has a pattern that kinda looks like little triangles. And you bite into it and it has peanut butter and jelly on the inside, and... (this is where, if this conversation happened in a movie, you'd see the hands of a clock spinning around and calendar pages flying off the wall to indicate the passage of minutes, hours, days as Laney continues to talk about this dang sandwich)...it's awesome!!! 

Dad: I didn't think we were going to get 2,000 words on the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  

Me: Next, she'll be telling us how George Washington Carver's peanut research in the 1920s made her sandwich possible. 

By the end of your monologue, your dad and I had figured out that this is what you're eating for lunch:

 ...which is gross. But is also why you're excited to go to school every morning. So we've decided to shake hands with the Smuckers-stuffed devil to keep the peace.

Now sit your butt down and act like you know us. 

Love,

Mom

Oh, Right... THAT Happened

Hey y'all - 

Can't believe I haven't mentioned this yet. 

Back in July, our very, very dear friends the Crossleys came to visit. Karen and I met when we were both drama majors at UVa, and we became best friends when we were both struggling whatevers in LA. Now we have matching families - we each had a girl within a few months of each other, and then a few years later repeated the feat when we each had a boy within a few months. 

Their visit this summer was fairly epic. 

We went to Lake Como and Georgetown Lake. All the kids canoed and swam. Your dad bought a paddleboard and got really good at maneuvering it around. 

We saw a moose!

When we weren't out exploring, our backyard looked like a day care exploded. 

We went to lots of local parks, and the sprayground.

And those things are all well and good, but I'm sure that when we look back on this vacation five or ten years from now, we won't remember any of that. Instead, this is the reason this vacation will live in infamy:

Grandma Sue offered to watch all four kids while the grown-ups enjoyed a nice dinner out on the town. When we got home from dinner, Sue met us on the front porch. She wanted to prepare us for what was inside. Seems that while Sue was putting the two boys to bed downstairs, the girls went upstairs to play dress-up like they done a hundred times before. Noticing that things had gotten quiet up there, Sue went up to Laney's room to investigate, and discovered that the girls had each cut their own hair. 

Laney had cut herself a little fringe bang, which was bad, but not Earth-shattering in its awfulness. Samantha, on the other hand, had cut off 80-90% of her hair. I cannot overstate how dramatic a haircut Samantha had given herself. I will always be proud of Karen for not sobbing when she saw it, and I'm not going to test her emotional reserves here by posting a picture of the back of Sam's head post-haircut. Too soon. 

For days, I was scooping up little mounds of blonde hair from unexpected places. (I threw a credit card next to this mound for a size reference).

Both girls had to have emergency fix-up haircuts.

And here's the thing: they both came out looking even cuter than they had before. They went from this:

 

To this:

Fortunately, Samantha falls into the 5% of the female population that can really pull off a pixie cut. 

Everyone stayed remarkably calm and Karen and I remain friends. 

I'll let you know when this becomes a fond memory or at least a charming anecdote. 'Til then, keep your hands off my scissors. 

Love,

Mom

Wrapping Up Summer

Hey y'all - 

Here's a few things that have happened over the past week:

1) Laney's transition from preschooler to kindergartener has been remarkably smooth. She gets to ride her scooter to school every day, which she's pretty psyched about. Her old school served an all-organic, mostly-local menu of things like lentil-feta wraps or eggplant curry. Her new school serves chicken fingers and hot dogs, so she's pretty stoked about that, too. 

In the afternoons after school, she's drawing pictures of herself with her new friends (always holding hands in matching purple dresses and tiaras) so all seems to be well there.

I know her helmet isn't adjusted correctly in that top photo, leaving her forehead exposed. I also know that risk-averse Laney somehow manages to scooter slower than she walks, riding the brake the whole time. It's all I can do most mornings to refrain from shoving her down the sidewalk. At this point, the helmet is more of a symbolic gesture. 

2) I went to Las Vegas last weekend for work - I do a bunch of freelance production work for World Gym. I enjoy going to their events, and it does wonders for my self-esteem to always be the shortest, palest, roundest person in the room. 

On my layover in Salt Lake City, I had a glass of malbec at the airport wine bar, and thought how helpful it would have been if the guys I had dated back in my 20s had all come with a similar information matrix. How fabulous it would have been to know in an instant whether my date was bright or brooding, fruity or complex. 

I stayed at the Mandalay Bay, and this was the view from my room. There is no one in any of the pools because I took this photo at 6am, and Vegas doesn't wake up 'til noon. It was also already 99 degrees outside. 

The night after the convention, I thought I would take a walk on the Strip, just to say I did, but the second I stepped out of the hotel, that wall of heat hit me in the face, and I turned right around and came back inside. The lobby was full of model-types, wearing not so much dresses as strategically-placed Ace bandages. Realizing that I'm 37 and don't enjoy gambling, I went back up to my room and watched "Mad Men' on Netflix. If anyone ever builds a resort for middle-aged moms where the bar is rocking and rolling at 8am, you get to wear your pajama pants anywhere you want, and quiet hours are enforced starting at 9pm, give me a call. 

3) Dad and Laney are continuing their aviation studies. They went in the backyard together the other day and hung one of Hagen's toy planes from a zip line and then made this landing strip so they could talk about angles of approach and practice making a perfect landing. My desk is at the top of the stairs, and sometimes this is the kind of stuff I see when I look down:

4) We went to Germanfest in downtown Missoula yesterday, and Hagen did what he can always be counted to do at any party or festival:

To the list of things he's slept through, we can now add a live oom-pah band (your dad calls this "oompah loompah," but he is wrong.) Laney had bavarian pretzels and bratwurst and made a craft at the kids' table.

There was an alphorn player who rocked out on "Carol's Song." I know it was called "Carol's Song" because I'm a huge fan of alphorn music and I own that album on vinyl. Just kidding. I know it was called "Carol's Song" because that dude in the lederhosen and big felt hat said, "The next song is called 'Carol's Song,' because it was written by Carol. Take it away, Carol!"

...Reminded me of when I was little and would stage my own variety show in the living room: "Welcome to the Brooke Lee Show! Starring Brooke Lee! With your host: Brooke Lee!"

While Hagen continued to nap, Laney and I walked down to the river to check out the kayakers. 

5) And later that afternoon, there was just enough time before dinner to go to a river spot closer to our house, play in the mud, and throw some rocks. 

And since it's supposed to get down in the 30s later this week, I'm going to say that's a wrap on summer.

Play us offstage, Carol.

Love,
Mom