Wacky. Weird. Wonderful.

Dear Hagen, 

Here are some things you're into these days:

1) Avoiding social gatherings of more than three people. 

Chaos is not your bag. A few weeks ago, Laney had some shrieky girlfriends over to play, so you built a wall of pillows around yourself on the couch and burrowed down with an iPad and waited for those crazy girls to go the heck home. 

We had a play date over here with some fun siblings not too long ago, and you played with the boy for about an hour and then said, "Well, this was fun. I need some alone time now." And went in your room and shut the door. It reminded me of those classic stories of Dean Martin throwing a party at his house in Beverly Hills, then calling the cops on himself to break it up so he could go to bed. 

2) Instructional videos.

Your favorite thing to watch these days is not a show, but YouTube "unboxed" videos. I didn't even know such things existed until you found them online and started watching them semi-religiously. An "unboxed" video is footage of someone - usually a toy reviewer, but sometimes another kid - opening the box of a brand new toy and talking through the pieces that come with it, how the toy works, the pros and cons, etc. Turns out you love talking specs. 

3) Finley. Still and forever.

Finley came by the other morning for the carpool to school wearing a frog towel. You looked at him for a split second and said, "I'll go get my duck towel and we can go." Because it's totally reasonable that if your friend is an aquatic creature, you are, too. 

I bought y'all matching fire rescue packs and you spent hours together, just squirting water off the porch. 

4) Avoiding physical activity. 

Your teacher Ms Correy sends me pictures of you at recess, and while everyone else is running and playing tag, you're chilling in a tunnel. 

We got you on a scooter the other day, but you said it was only fun if Dad pulled you through the neighborhood. 

You can be talked into walking through the woods if we don't call it a hike, and you get to stop every ten feet to talk about Transformers. You maintain a 0.25 mph pace. 

5) Talking. Dear God at the talking. 

This is a picture of you playing Pictionary. You and your dad were a team, and you narrated every single thing you drew as you drew it.

(P.S. Laney and I still won.)

6) A wolf-inspired system of eating.

You can go two full days without eating anything, and then devour enough food to make an NFL player blush. I used to worry about it, but then your dad explained to me that this is what wolves do...go long stretches without eating as they prowl the tundra and then, you know, bring down an elk.

Or in your case: Two full kid's meals from Outback Steakhouse and an ice cream sundae.

7) Flirting. 

I know it's a crazy thing to accuse a 4 year-old of, but holy smokes do you come alive for older women. This happened a few weeks ago:

Cracker Barrel Waitress: "Hi, I'm Betty."

Hagen: "Hi, I'm a Hagen. A Hagen Burbach. But you can call me Hagey-Bagey."

Me: "Please don't call him Hagey-Bagey."

All the women in the various service industries of Missoula want to eat you up with a spoon.

8) Outerwear

If you take a hat or rain coat to school, you want to wear it ALL DAY. And then possibly sleep in it at night. 

Ms. Correy sent me this picture of you at school earlier this week, and I love everything about it. Correy has an ancient lab named Saint who comes to school every day. Sometimes he wants to hang out on your work mat, and it doesn't bother you a bit. 

"Saint" was definitely the right name for that dog, because she also sent me this video clip of ten seconds in the life of Saint:

9) Being fiendishly clever.

Your dad and I have been in the process of converting our side utility porch into a pantry. It was finally time to get the thing painted last weekend, so I told you and Laney (and her visiting friend Amya) that you could help paint. The girls were enthusiastic for the first ten minutes, then abandoned the project for something more fun. 

I came back to the pantry after a break, and found you still in there, painting away. I asked you, "What's going on? What happened to the girls?"

"Well," you explained, "I'm painting, and they're ain'ting."

Ain'ting is my new favorite verb.

Later in the afternoon, I came back from a potty break and discovered you were gone...but so was my little tub of paint. I found you out in the yard, painting the exterior of the house that squash yellow. "I'm just so sick of this dark green," you complained. 

Man are you fun these days. 

Love,

Mom

Party Planning

Hey, y'all -

My 40th birthday is coming up at the end of the month, and my friends keep asking what I want to do. The real answer is nothing. BECAUSE WHEN YOU ARE OLD, YOU ARE TIRED ALL THE TIME. Also, I really enjoy throwing parties and I have control issues and when other people try to throw me a party, it stresses me out because they're not typically obsessed with details like I am. We all have our own particular brand of crazy, and this is mine.

I asked Hagen what I should do, but I will not be doing any of these things:

I do not like Team Umizoomi, and I do not like everyone. I do like cake, though, so he's got me there.

Last year, I threw myself maybe my favorite party of my entire lifetime here at the house.

I called it Brooke's Daytime Slumber Party, because if you asked me what my idea of heaven was, it would include sitting around in my pajama pants, eating potato chips and watching a movie that's not animated. I invited all of my mom friends who immediately understood what I was going for.  The party was 21+, no boys allowed. Pajamas encouraged.

I rented four grown-up girl movies on iTunes, and your dad moved three couches into our living room to make a screening room with blanket fort. 

I filled a huge wash tub with champagne and orange juice and other assorted goodies. 

The day before the party, I arranged for food from local restaurants to be delivered every few hours during the party and went ahead and paid and tipped so I could enjoy as much champagne as I wanted and then be pleasantly surprised when hot wings showed up at 11am, and deluxe nachos showed up at 2pm. In the meantime, I'd purchased four flavors of potato chips. 

I bought a bunch of fun lipstick and perfume samples on ebay and set up a little lighted mirror in case anybody wanted to play beauty parlor. A student at the local beauty college came by at noon and braided everyone's hair. 

I think my invitation e-mail ended with something like:

...So that's what I'm doing, whether y'all are here or not. Come for part of it. Come for all of it. Stop by for 6 minutes or 6 hours. I'll be here. In my pajamas. With award show hair. And a plate of wings. Bring your favorite pillow.

And that's exactly what happened. 

Now I've got two weeks to figure out how to usher in 40. 

Love,

Mom

Ringing Endorsement

Dear Laney,

You were your class's first Celebrity Student of the year. This is either because you're genuinely a rockstar kid, or maybe someone at the school district reads my blog. I went to the assembly this afternoon, and this is what your teacher said about you (transcribed below, because it's hard to hear in a gym) -

It's Laney

So this is Laney and she's a super 2nd grader. She follows the 4 B's*. She is probably one of the most helpful kids that I have ever met. If you ever need anything, you can always ask Laney and she'll help you out. She's very nice. She works hard. She also coincidentally wants to be a vet when she grows up. She said that she enjoys playing and she likes playing on things that spin. Her peers describe her as friendly. She has lots of friends because she's such a nice girl. 

(and then I quit recording so I could clap, 'cause I was so darn proud.)

Love,

Mom

* The "4B's" are: Be Safe, Be Respectful, Be Responsible, and Be Kind. 

Los Angeles For Grown Ups

Hey, y'all - 

Your dad and I went to LA for the weekend without you. Grandma Sue and various other Missoula friends pulled together to take care of you two so your dad and I could be gone for 72 hours. 

Your dad and I stayed with Brian and Tyler who have the most adorable, clean home because they don't allow children inside. The only thing wrong with their house and its great location was the number of solicitors they used to get knocking on the door, but Tyler has successfully put the kibosh on that through a series of increasingly pointed signs above the doorbell.

Tyler watches a lot of Game of Thrones. 

Your dad and I went to Ikea on our first morning there to buy some under-cabinet lighting for the kitchen, which I thought would be the least sexy part of our getaway, but then we bought matching Crocs flip-flops. 

On this trip, we wanted to eat all kinds of food that we can't get in Missoula. We ate crunchy french toast at Blu Jam, enjoyed sushi 'til we dropped at Katsuya, had drinks at the Abbey in West Hollywood, and went to see Dolly Parton in concert from a lovely box at the Hollywood Bowl.  We checked out the La Brea Tar Pits and the sculpture garden at LACMA, ate Thai food in Santa Monica with our friends Gordon, George, Gayle and Stacie, and then drove over to the beach in Malibu where your dad laid down on the sand and started snoring. We stopped by Karen and Stephenson's house in the Valley and jumped in their bounce house with their kids. I ate a lobster roll at a new seafood place on Santa Monica Boulevard. We met our friends Will and Lindsay at The Shack on the beach in Playa Del Rey for cheeseburgers and beer. 

We slept at least 8 hours a night.

It was the perfect grown-up weekend. 

Love,

Mom

...

So. 

I think we've told everyone about this by now, but just in case:

The Navy is sending Thor to Afghanistan for a year. 

I know - If you're just hearing about it for the first time, it takes a minute for it to sink in, because it's one of those things that seem too awful to be true. But here we are. 

We found out about it last March, and have spent most of the time between then and now pretending it wasn't true. As someone who's made a living in reality television, I kept expecting someone to show up and say "JUST KIDDING!!" while confetti rained down and America cried along at home. But now he leaves in a month, and it's definitely true. 

Side note: I don't necessarily recommend it, but it's definitely a marriage-strengthener when you find out you're going to be without your spouse for a year. All of a sudden, who does or doesn't take out the trash doesn't matter so much. 

We told the kids last month; we'd wanted to time it so they had time to adjust to the idea, but not so much time they'd over-worry.  Laney asked a lot of good questions, like "How long are we talking?"

I got out the globe, and pointed out Missoula on the right and Bagram Air Base on the left, and we all discovered they're exactly across the world from each other. In fact, if you leave Montana and hang a left to get there or hang a right, it's a 30-minute difference in travel time. Hagen asked some less practical questions about digging a hole to get there. 

We talked about how hard it will be without him, and how it's okay to be sad or angry, because *I* am, and to think it stinks, because it does. But then Grandma Sue reminded us that with the work your dad is going to be doing, he's going to keeping other moms and dads safe and help them get back to THEIR kids. So we're all trying to not be selfish and concentrate on that. It's easier some days than others. 

The Navy sent Laney a "Deployment Journal,"and we used it last night to write down some of her feelings, all of which I agree with...except "Happy," which she threw in because I told her she could pick one night a week to sleep in bed with me. 

To everyone who has expressed interest in coming to visit and help out, great. I'm sure I'll be looking for grown-ups to talk to. If you'd like to have Thor's address when I get it so you can send him some mail, let me know. 

It's going to be a tough year, but we're going to get through it. 

Thanks to you all for your wishes, prayers (Hello, Alabama and Georgia), good vibes (I see you, agnostic hippies of Montana), and general thoughtfulness. 

Love,

Brooke