Field Tripping Fayetteville

Hey y'all - 

While we were in Arkansas, we tried to work in an adventure per day. You guys are good for about a 3-hour block of activity, which is convenient, because that's also how long I can disappear from work without getting caught (usually). 

For the most part, I let you guys weigh in on where we'd go, but sometimes I didn't give you a vote because I got tired of Laney always choosing the neighborhood pool (more on that tomorrow) and Hagen saying, "To da paygown (playground)!!" I can only push a 2 year-old in a swing for so many hours before my arm wants to fall off. Million dollar idea, readers: solar-powered, self-propelled baby swings. 

So, here are some of the places we went:

1) The Fayetteville Farmer's Market - Exactly like the Missoula Farmer's Market: they have live music with extra banjoes and beautiful organic produce and grizzly old dudes with petitions trying to legalize marijuana. Almost made us homesick. 

Just about everything in Arkansas is more expensive than it is in Montana, except for liquor and face painting, which are about 30% cheaper. I like to think of it as a preschool parent subsidy.

2. The Botanical Garden Of The Ozarks - Beautiful flowers, walking trails, and a butterfly habitat.

...which is all well and good, unless you're a toddler who's been told a hundred times not to touch the caterpillars that you so desperately want to touch, in which case you decide you're ready to blow this popsicle stand:

3. Gator Golf - We don't have miniature golf in Missoula, because no one wants to spend 3/4 of their year shoveling snow off of astroturf. For your first-ever golf outing, you guys did great, though I'd never seen such rampant cheating. Laney actually scored a hole in one (though technically, she tee'd off on hole #3 and the ball went into the cup of hole #4. Still counts) 

 

 

4. Wilson Park - The oldest public park in Fayetteville. We went after dinner and discovered this beautiful creek running behind and beneath the playground. Magical, really. Laney explored the whole area, until I remembered there are snakes in the south and started to get a little freaked out about it. Hagen sat on the shore and played with rocks after deciding the creek was "too sliffery."

5. University of Arkansas School of Nursing - Peg Peg showed Laney around at the nursing school, letting her sit in one of the classrooms and take a tour of the simulation labs.

Hard to say who was more creeped out by the fake plastic people with fake health issues - me or Laney. True story: When I was 8, Peg Peg and Tex took me to see the USS Alabama battleship in Mobile. That place is chock full of posed mannequins where you least expect them. I told 'em to get me the hell out of there. 29 years later, I remain staunchly anti-mannequin. At Peg Peg's school, they even have a mannequin/robot in a fake labor and delivery room that can go into active labor and give birth to a rubber baby. That, my friends, is the stuff of nightmares.

6. Sprayground, downtown Bentonville.

As a blanket policy, Hagen does not enjoy getting wet. And he doesn't generally like to run around with no shoes on, because he hates to get his feet dirty. No lie, I once saw him walk into the shelf that hangs off of our grill, bang the heck out his head, and then sit down brush the sand off the bottom of his feet. Your dad yelled, "Worry about the concussion first, buddy!"

In short: Hagen sat this one out, and we're never talking him into a beach vacation.

7. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art - Like everything else in this part of the country, Crystal Bridges is the product of Walmart money. So to enjoy it, you have to not think about how the money that built this museum was made by putting the little man out of business. Because if you don't concentrate on how each of the Walton heirs is worth 30+ billion dollars but 2/3 of their employees earned less than 25k last year, the museum and its miles of sculpture trails are fabulous! (Y'all, it's so hard to be a southern liberal sometimes.)

This outing in particular resulted in maybe my two favorite photos from the whole trip:

All this, and we're probably just a quarter of the way through recapping this trip.

Love,
Mom

Wedding Crasher

Dear Laney,

The concept of the "plus one" was very big when I lived in LA. You'd get invited to a premiere or a party or some other red carpet event, and if you were lucky, you'd get a "plus one," meaning you could bring along a guest. The hosts didn't care who - just pick somebody. Gone were the days of the traditional southern invitation that would have borne your full given name plus the name of your specific guest. I have a lot of great memories from my early 20s of being my roommate Brian's "plus one" - The premieres of a few movies, and a Warner Brothers launch party for the 1999 television season where I saw both Dolly Parton AND Dixie Carter and thought I had died and gone to heaven (because I like to imagine heaven has passed hors d'oeuvres, an open bar, and roving country icons). 

I mention this to our readers only to say that if anybody out there is looking for a plus one to an-y-thing, they should call you, because you are ready to go:

A party, a dance, a neighborhood watch meeting, a restaurant, a field trip, an open house, a school event, a baseball game... The only place you DON'T want to go is home. 

In this case, Peg Peg had been invited to the wedding of one of the women in her department, and she thought you would make an excellent date. She was right.

You two enjoyed sitting together and discussing what you liked about this particular event: You got to keep your fan! They served pancakes, ham and eggs for dinner! There was a whole cake-shaped mound of Oreos!

Things you didn't like included waiting for the bride princess to show up, and all that talk about obeying your husband.*

On this occasion, I got to come along as the plus one's plus one.

And I'm so glad I did. You were awesome, start to finish. 

Start

Finish

Love,
Mom

* I'm speaking on behalf of 20-years-from-now Laney.

Leave The Stroller, Take The Cannoli

Let's go back and discuss some of the things that have happened in the past month or so, shall we?

Hey y'all -

On the 4th of July, the three of us packed up and headed out, bound for Arkansas. Your dad was being sent by the Navy to the Rim of The Pacific exercise in Hawaii, which I had thought was a somewhat classified event, but I just found out there's a Wikipedia page for it, so never mind. Since I still had to work full-time for those weeks he was gone, I figured it would be easier if we went and stayed with Peg and Tex so I could have some help. We normally fall apart a little when your dad's out of town - we eat an abundance of macaroni and cheese and forget to go to bed - so I thought it would be good to have other grown-ups around.

Into the airport, we hauled two suitcases and two car seats and gate-checked our stroller, but still carried two backpacks' worth of snacks and diversions. Sherpas carry less equipment on an average expedition up Everest than it takes us to make it to middle America.

Our departure kept getting delayed, because the plane we were supposed to use had just hit a bird on its way into Missoula, and they had to perform what sounded like some serious crime scene clean-up.

Didn't bother you guys a bit.

Our itinerary had us landing in Denver, followed by a 90-minute layover. As we waited and waited and waited in Missoula, more and more of our layover got eaten up, until the gate agent told us she was rebooking us on a later flight that would mean we'd have a 4+ hour layover. Hanging out with two small children (who I love more than my life and would obviously throw myself in front of a bus for, if need be, but still...) for that long did NOT appeal to me. I asked the agent if there was any way we could also keep the seats on that original connecting flight, "Just in case we're able to pull some kind of Hail Mary." She agreed.

When we finally made it on, an hour and a half later then expected, the plane was relatively empty. Laney asked if she could move back and sit by herself instead of sitting next to a stranger, which the flight attendant said was fine. Notice that she did buckle up her bear, for safety.

Hagen watched most of a season of "Go, Diego, Go," and ate most of a bag of cheese popcorn and all was right with the world.

I actually read a book (a grown-up one! all by myself!) on this flight, which was a miracle in mid-air.

As our plane touched down in Denver, I looked at my watch. Our next plane was scheduled to depart in 17 minutes. I used my phone to figure out the connecting gate number and then looked anxiously out the window to see where we'd be parking. We were in the fourth row of our plane, so if we parked in the same terminal as our connecting flight, there was still hope. Probably not, but when you're looking down the barrel at entertaining two kids in a crowded airport for four hours, dreams die hard.

As luck would have it, we came to a rest just three gates away from our original connecting flight. I explained to Laney, "When this plane stops and the seat belt light goes off, I'm going to stand up and hold Hagen. I need you to wear this backpack and hold my hand and when they open the door, I need you to run with me like we're in a race. Are you ready?" She nodded. My daughter's terminal case of hate-to-lose-itis was going to pay off.

We raced off the plane as planned and up the jet bridge. There were already a few people waiting at the top for the rolling door for gate-checked items to be lifted. Laney yelled, "MOM! What about the stroller?!?" "LEAVE IT!!" I yelled. "JUST KEEP RUNNING!" We made it to our next gate, completely out of breath, and handed our tickets to the gate agent as I wheezed, "Is there still time?" And then harp music filled the air and the angels sang a beautiful chorus and she said, "Yes, you just made it." I laughed and said, "We had to abandon our stroller. I figured spending $40 for a new stroller would hurt less than hanging out in this airport with two young'uns for the rest of the afternoon." "I know that's right," she agreed.

You guys decided you would rather sit together on this flight, and it took you about a minute to settle in.  All the running and drama hadn't affected you a bit.

Just before our plane pushed back, the flight attendant leaned down and whispered to me, "The gate agent wants you to know that she found your stroller and it's on board." Hallelujah, and thank you, United.

__________________

Peg Peg and Tex had bought sparklers to help celebrate the 4th, so we went out on the back porch that night and set up my tripod and had great fun doing stuff like this:

Then, Laney got hit on the top of the foot with a random spark. And then Peg Peg was moving her sparkler around in peace when Tex came up behind her with HIS sparkler and accidentally burned her on the arm.

...and so to recover, those two girls had to go inside and lie down on the couch and compare injuries and watch HGTV.

Two iPads, two flights, one Hail Mary, one rescued stroller, and two first degree burns.

And that's how we spent our 4th of July.

God bless America.

Love,
Mom

My Run- Run- Run- Run- Run- Runaway.

Hey y'all -

There's a lot of stuff from this summer that I haven't had a chance to recap yet, like our trip to Arkansas and the Crossley family coming to visit us, and Grandma Ron coming from Colorado, and this big/crazy swim party we threw for your school last weekend and blah blah blah. It's the curse of summer in Montana that, with only three or four months of good weather, you feel like you have to cram as much in as you can. Of course this year, the normal stress of summer was compounded by the story I'm about to tell you below, plus what I've started to call "this brain thing."

So here's where we are on my brain, by the way:

If nothing else, I've learned through this experience that I am surrounded by wonderful, loving people who like me even more than I thought they did. A doctor throws out a phrase like "life-threatening," and all of a sudden the people around you turn into the best versions of themselves and you realize how supported you are, and the whole thing seems a little more manageable. Thanks to Harry and Caroline Nelson for your card, and Jane Rosman for your e-mail, and Brynn and Nate for your sweet texts and of course the family members who wanted ten-minute updates, round the clock.

After a few weeks and a few more check-ups, nobody seems to know any more than they did when I was in the hospital. It was just a freak thing, it seems. A vein blew, it leaked, it caused insane pressure, there's no aneurism, it'll heal on its own like a big ol' bruise, just give it time. Because that area of my brain is still a little swollen and under pressure, I'm having some minor (mostly irritating) memory loss. I get 3/4 of the way through a sentence and have to search for the noun to complete my thought. Or I start to leave a message on someone's machine and there's a lot of dead air as I try to remember why I was calling. Like, "Hi, this is Brooke and I'm wondering..." (20 second pause) "...if you could send me those pictures we talked about." Doctors tell me this will all go away and I'll be back to "normal" within six weeks. In the meantime, my friend/boss Will is enjoying telling me I'm doing a great job "...for someone with a leaky brain."

No, there's no Human Resources department I can report him to.

___________

Moving on to other health-related issues, here's how Laney took years off my life last weekend:

Last Friday night, your dad and I were sitting on the couch watching a movie when Laney came crashing down the stairs with her rolling suitcase. She had put on a cute dress, tights, and sensible walking shoes. We noticed she was loading up her suitcase with a water bottle and some other necessities.

"Where are you going?" we asked. Laney told us she was going to Disney World to see Peg Peg. Assuming she was pretending, we went back to watching our movie. When she was all packed up, she wheeled her suitcase to the front door, opened it, and said, "I'm really leaving. I'm going out the gate and everything. But I'm going to look both ways for cars and be safe." "Okay!" we said, because we are stupid.

Maybe two minutes later, I turned to your dad and said, "I can't jump up and run like I used to, so will you go check and be sure she hasn't actually run away from home?" Your dad went out the door, and sure enough, he found you dragging your suitcase down the alley across the street. He brought you back, and we had what I thought was a memorable discussion about how you don't leave home without a grown-up. Your dad whispered to me, "I just had a nightmare flash-forward to 12 years from now, when she does the same thing, but there's a punk in a Trans Am waiting for her at the end of the driveway."

Because I'm a big fan of logic, I explained to Laney that one doesn't walk to Disney World. One needs a plane ticket. "I could fly through Denver," Laney suggested, "if someone can just tell me the number of my second plane." Still, I told her, she would need a ticket to get there. Another day. Not today. "You could save up your Granny Jack money and buy a ticket someday," I suggested. Even a four year-old knows that at a dollar a week, it's going to take a while to save your way to Florida, so Laney got on the phone and called Peg Peg. "Will you buy me a ticket to Disney World?" I heard her ask. I couldn't exactly hear my mother's response, and I don't want to throw around terms like "unbridled enthusiasm," but I got the sense that my mother was telling Laney that she'd LOVE to buy her a ticket to Orlando. Though, she later told me, she DID tell Laney that the trip wouldn't be right away because we'd need to find a time that worked for everyone.

My mother's speech about "Not now, but definitely later, after I work it out with your mom" must have sounded to Laney like that mile-a-minute voiceover at the end of every commercial for a prescription medication: "Maycausebloatinganddiarrheaandlossoflibidoandbleedingfromtheears." Because she absolutely ignored that part.

The next morning - Saturday - your dad left at 5am to go to Helena for the Reserves. At 7am, I came downstairs to find Grandma Sue in the kitchen. Laney was out playing in the yard. Sue laughed and told me that Laney had been talking her ear off about how she's going to go to Disney World and already had her bag packed. I told Sue about Laney's attempt to walk to Orlando the night before and assured her that we had given Laney a stern talk about safety and staying inside the gate.

That's when we both noticed that it had gotten awfully quiet in the backyard.

We ran around the house and yard, calling Laney's name, until Sue noticed, "Laney's suitcase is gone." I swear my heart stopped. Sue jumped in her car and drive off to search the nearby streets for our little runaway. After the longest five minutes of my life, Sue drove back to the house; I could see her shaking her head "no" through the windshield. She hadn't seen Laney.

I decided I would take one more loop around the neighborhood before I called the police, so I grabbed Hagen and threw him in the car seat in the truck. As I was walking around to the truck's driver's side, I happened to look up the road. About four blocks away, I saw a little flash of hot pink on the far sidewalk as it moved between the parked cars.

I took off running.

It took me about two blocks to remember that I had only been out of the hospital for five days and had been cautioned to not over-exert myself. I was wearing your dad's Crocs because they were the first shoes I'd found, and I was trying to keep them on my feet while trying to move fast enough that I could catch up with that little dot of pink while also praying, "Dear Jesus, please don't let my brain explode on Burton Street."

I made it to the corner where I thought I'd seen Laney and hung a left, still jogging with my toes in a curl so those stupid plastic shoes wouldn't fall off my feet. There, another block ahead, I saw Laney, standing on the sidewalk, holding her suitcase, and talking to two grandmothers who'd happened to be working in their yard.

I fell to my knees in exhaustion and relief and Laney came running over to hug me. Grandma #1 said, "She was just asking us for directions to the airport. I thought something seemed a little off about that." I would have said that's the dumbest thing I ever heard - I mean, HELL, YES something is "off" when a preschooler is wheeling her butterfly suitcase down the street asking for directions to the airport. But then Grandma #2 took the crown when she said, "We were thinking we should either call the police or put it on Craigslist or something."

I later shared an abridged version of this story on facebook, where I really enjoyed this comment from my friend James:

Sue pulled up just then, and I asked her to go rescue Hagen from the backseat of the truck, where he was still hanging out, probably wondering where everybody went.

I walked Laney home, sobbing the whole way. I can't explain how I felt, except to say that it was an overwhelming concoction of angry and relieved and sad and grateful and a teensy bit proud that I have a ballsy kid who isn't afraid to head out into the great big world by herself (and who knows that Denver is a great place to connect.) Never before had I wanted to hug and squeeze and kiss and beat the hell out of someone, all at once.

I cried, she cried, Sue cried. Laney got sent to her room and couldn't go to the fair. I talked to her about how what she did was so so so so wrong, and then Sue told her how she'd scared the bejeezus out of us, and then Peg Peg called and wanted to talk to her, though most of Peg's talk centered around logistics like, "You know when it's time to go to Disney, I'll send you a ticket first."

Remember when I used to write posts on this blog about how having a newborn was so hard?

Ha ha ha.

Love,
Mom

The Lucky Ones

Hey y'all -

So here's what happened last weekend:

Saturday morning, I got hit by a sudden headache that qualified as The Worst Pain I Have Ever Experienced. I threw up. I cried. I scared the hell out of my husband. I figured, "This must be one of those migraines I'm always hearing people complain about." I laid down on the couch with my head on a bag of frozen lima beans, with a second bag of corn on my forehead. Sufferin' succotash.*

Your dad took Laney to a swimming party, and Hagen stayed home to cheer me up. Sorta.

By noon, I could keep water down. By 5pm, I could eat, so I sent your dad to get tacos because everyone I talked to advised me to start with Saltines and nobody likes Saltines.

Around 10pm, my head still hurt so your dad and I discussed whether or not I should go to the hospital. Your dad's argument that a 14-hour headache isn't normal and "Grandma Sue won't mind coming over to sleep on the couch while we run to the ER" prevailed. (My counter-argument was something like an eye roll followed by a shrug and a "But it's so faaaaarr...") But I started thinking about that actress Natasha Richardson who said she felt fine after falling down skiing and then keeled over dead hours later. So we go.

SATURDAY

10:15p, I walk into the ER and describe my headache, figuring I'll be laughed out of the hospital. Instead, the nurse takes my vitals and calls for the doc. Next door, I hear a supremely large, loud, drunk dude emptying the contents of his stomach. I think, "Thank God I'm not THAT guy."

The more I talk to the doc, the more concerned he becomes, and at 11:30p, I have a CT scan.



SUNDAY

12:15a, I find out the scan reveals blood on my brain. I'm bleeding from somewhere inside my head, but they don't know where. Could be an aneurism. Could be dangerous. Could be "life-threatening." Depending on the results of the angiogram they're sending me off to, they might have to do a craniotomy. I start crying. I try not to think about you kids, because every time I do, I become hysterical.

I remember the drunk guy from earlier who was trying to win the Olympic gold medal in Puking, and now wish I could trade places with that guy.

2:00am. Angiogram. Totally unpleasant. If you ever get a chance, pass.

4:00am. They still don't know where the bleeding is coming from, and I'm admitted to the Neuro ward. I send your dad home so he can be there for you guys when you wake up and make you breakfast and explain that mom doesn't feel good.

1:00pm. My new neurologist comes by in a Hawaiian shirt and says that they don't see an aneurism on the scan, but there's no way of knowing without doing another scan. Since you have to wait 24 hours between scans, I'll be spending the night in the hospital.

2:00pm - A few friends come to visit. One brings me lottery tickets, because I'm obviously on a lucky streak.

I can just about see our house from my hospital room window. My headache has mostly subsided. But since no one wants me dropping dead on Spruce Street, I'm stuck here in the hospital where I am largely ignored by the nurses because I'm the only person on the floor who knows what year it is. Also, I am unique on the floor because I can walk on my own. This seems to come as a continual surprise to the staff; every time the nurses see me, it's like we're at a faith healing tent revival and Benny Hinn has just helped me to hop up out of my wheelchair on live television.

4:00pm -You guys come to visit. I don't want you to be scared about your mom being stuck in this room with this IV lead in her arm, so I make chicken puppets out of rubber gloves and then Laney and I pretend to be chicken supermodels.

I give Laney a handful of dollars and quarters and tell her we can ride the elevator and buy something from every vending machine we see. This combines all of Laney's favorite activities: exploring, shopping, elevators and snacks. Her day is made. Hagen spots a sculpture of the Virgin Mary with a snake between her feet (it's a Catholic hospital) and yells, "'Look, Mom! Is da Snake Princess!" My apologies to all our Catholic relatives; we'll try to do better with our iconography.

View from my hospital room.

6:00pm - You guys leave, and I'm alone in my little beige room. For YEARS now, whenever your dad would ask me what I wanted for a gift-giving occasion - particularly Mother's Day - I would say, "I just want to be left alone for 24 hours in a dark air-conditioned room where I can watch as much TV as I want in complete silence." It occurs to me now that I shoulda been more specific.

MONDAY

4:00am - A nurse shows up to take my blood pressure.

5:00am - A tech shows up to take my blood.

7:00am - I have another CT / Angiogram. I'm still not a fan of this procedure. "We're going to pump a bunch of dye into your veins and it's going to hurt like hell and you're going to experience an extreme burning sensation but whatever you do, DON'T MOVE OR WE'LL HAVE TO START OVER." I feel like I am in a bad reality show challenge, but with, you know, actual stakes.

9:00am - Neurologist visits. And here's the thing: they still don't know what happened, but they're fairly sure there's no aneurism. They think I had a weak vein and it gave out and bled and now it's going to clot and heal on its own. Not a great place to be, but probably a best-case scenario if you're going to be bleeding inside your head. I don't have to have surgery. I can go home.
_____

So obviously I'm happy and feel fortunate and blessed and am so so glad to be back home with you guys.

My boss asked me how I felt, and I replied, "I feel like anyone would who'd probably just spent thousands of dollars to find out they're going to be okay: A mix of relieved and overwhelmed and grateful with just a dash of 'I could've stayed at the Four Seasons in Bali for that kind of money.'"

But mostly I feel lucky.

Stay tuned for lottery ticket results.

Love,
Mom

* If you get this joke, it's probably the reason we're friends.