As promised (by Sharayah, not me - I know better than to promise to post since I so often fail to do so), I have also made a list of 10 memories from the last 10 years. I tried to at least sort of evenly space them, and I also tried to not make them too kid-centered since it's about our anniversary and we do mostly only talk about our kids the rest of the time. So, here are 10 fun or sad things we've done.
- The time we left our chocolate strawberries behind
That was actually the second part of our food-related follies right after our wedding. We didn't really get any food at the wedding, as everything went by too quickly. The venue said that happens a lot to the bride and groom, and they packed us two to-go meals. We had a pasta buffet at the wedding, so they just asked us what kind we wanted in our boxes. At the airport we were super hungry. We pulled out the boxes... and it was just dry pasta. No sauce, no anything except dry bow tie pasta.
The second part involved the strawberries. We were going on a cruise for our honeymoon. It started the day after the wedding, so we flew to Florida after the wedding and stayed at a hotel near the ship. In our room we were pleasantly surprised with a big plate of chocolate covered strawberries and some kind of weird structure made of chocolate. It was delicious, what we ate of it. Then we put it in the fridge. And I never saw it again. We just left it there in the fridge when we left the next morning. Sometimes I still think about it. Those poor strawberries, all alone, wondering where we went. The chocolate, never achieving its chocolaty destiny (being eaten by me).
- The time our pee-filled cat carrier was stolen
There isn't much to this story. We were living in a really cheap apartment in Tulsa right after we got married. Panther had peed all over the cat carrier on some ill-fated trip, so I left it outside our apartment on the patio until I got up the mojo to clean it out. It was outside our glass window/doors, which were right next to the front door. Someone just took it one night. Well, I hope they enjoyed it.
- The time we were outbid for 4 houses
When we moved to Delaware for me to work on my PhD, we thought a lot about buying a house. The market was good for buyers (prices were still relatively low from the crash) and my income had increased to the "paltry" graduate stipend at UD from the "abysmal" graduate stipend I'd been getting at TU in Tulsa (you know, the salary that paid for the apartment where someone stole a pee-filled cat carrier). We looked at dozens of houses over a few months, learning all about what we wanted and needed in a house, what we were willing to fix ourselves, etc. We even found 2 houses we really liked and 2 that were pretty good. Over those months we made offers on those 4 houses, and we lost every time. It all worked out, since we ended up really liking the apartment that we found when we gave up on houses. We also gained a lot of house-hunting experience which helped us find the right house in Missouri.
- The time we were up all night in New York
Sharayah beat me to this one. This was our night-before-Thanksgiving adventure. We wandered the streets all night and watched the parade cold and exhausted the next morning. It was great fun. Side note: "The city that never sleeps" is a terrible nickname for New York. After about 2am, everything was deserted. We will hopefully repeat this one someday.
- The time we slept in the freezing car
When traveling before we had kids, Sharayah and I would often save money by not staying in hotels. We would just drive the whole way wherever in one shot, resting or napping when needed at rest stops. On one trip, we knew it would take more than one day, so we brought blankets and pillows and planned to sleep in the car. The back seats fold down to make a flat space that's about as wide as a twin bed, though not as long. Perfect height for Sharayah. I was a bit cramped. Still, adventure! Well, it was a lot colder than we expected. We couldn't leave the car on all night, so we just turned the heat way up until it was pretty toasty, turned off the car, and went to sleep. We woke up colder than we'd ever been. I think we were colder than in New York. We weren't sure what to do, but we eventually decided we'd turn on the car and have to periodically wake up and turn it off or on again until morning. It worked out fine, but I'll never forget waking up able to see my breath, so cold that even Sharayah thought it was cold.
- The time we became ping pong masters
While living in Delaware we had a two bedroom apartment, so until Lucas was born we just had an extra room. One Christmas we had the amazing idea to put a ping pong table on our Christmas list. I don't think we were expecting to actually get one, but my awesome parents got one for us. We set it up in the extra room, and bam! Ping pong room. It barely fit in there. I'm sure it wasn't regulation to have the walls so close. But we loved it. We played so much ping pong. We played two-handed. We played off-handed. We learned to make the ball curve. We became ping pong masters. Sharayah was much better than I was. I'm not saying it's because she's Korean, but she does have excellent hand-eye coordination.
Sadly, when we moved to Missouri, the movers horribly mangled the legs and frame of the table, so now it's just sitting in the basement, waiting until we have time to fix it and play it again. Since Lucas is almost 3 and a half years old and we haven't played since he was born, I don't think it'll be happening any time soon. Maybe when he's old enough to play.
- The time we got super sick for weeks and watched Merlin
I went to a math conference in Wyoming one summer while we lived in Delaware. We drove the whole way, about 25 hours of driving not including stops. That's a cool memory on its own. We stayed in Wyoming for two weeks and did a little adventuring there as well between my math lectures. At any rate, someone there must have been sick with a pretty nasty version of the flu. A few people did miss the last days of the conference feeling sick. Thankfully we must not have gotten it until the very end, because our symptoms didn't really start until we got home. The drive would have been a nightmare otherwise. Once home, we got hit really hard. Fever, chills, horrible congestion, etc. We just hid in the corner of the couch for two or three weeks, leaving only to crawl to the kitchen for food. I made it to the grocery store somehow and bought a bunch of TV dinners, which we never get, just so we would have something to eat. We sat for hours on the couch, miserable, watching Merlin on Netflix. I think we made it through the whole series in those few weeks while we were sick. Possibly we finished after we got better - I don't remember how long the series was. We had never seen it, and we haven't watched it since. At any rate, we ate all those TV dinners and watched that show and sat miserably on the couch until finally we were better. Oddly enough, I kind of look back on the whole thing rather fondly. It was some kind of weird bonding experience to go through it together. If we didn't have kids, a (very) small part of me would kind of like to do it again sometime.
- The time we distractedly watched a hockey game
For my 28th birthday Sharayah bought us tickets to a Flyers game. The game was actually months later, in January, 2014. As it happens, the game fell on a weekend when we were very wondering with anxious excitement whether Sharayah was pregnant. On the way to the game, we bought a test. Then we went to the game and watched it. Distractedly. It was a lot of fun. Then we went home and passed the test. Or, Sharayah did. I didn't really have anything else to do at that point.
- The time we let Lucas ride by himself at a theme park
When Sharayah was pregnant with Finley, my parents sent us on a second babymoon to Branson. There's a lot of neat stuff there, but one thing that sticks out is our trip to Silver Dollar City. Sharayah couldn't really go on any rides, so I went on all the little kid rides (and one big kid ride that I thought was a little kid ride) with Lucas. Other than that scary (because it was too fast) ride, he had a great time. He loved the carousel, as he does everywhere, but he said his favorite ride was the little ride-around-in-slow-circles-in-a-ladybug ride. It was pretty much like all of the little kid rides, except this one didn't go up and down at all and was small enough that they let kids who were 36 inches ride alone. He had a stoic expression the whole time. For all appearances he was either bored or doing his "I'm too scared to move or show any emotions so I will just sit here" thing. However, when the ride ended he was excited and said he liked it, and at the end of the day he said it was his favorite. He still liked it the best when we went back with Finley (though he still appeared not to be into it at all).
- The time we watched White Collar again and ate way too much Red Robin
When you have a new baby, it's difficult to do a lot of really basic things like cooking or finding the energy to do something besides watch shows and fall asleep in the evenings. In Finley's first couple months, we had a lot of take-out Red Robin. For some reason, in this kind of situation (where we are too tired to cook and we actually go to a restaurant) we seem to go to the same place and get the same food over and over instead of spreading it around. Probably once a week (though those months are quite a blur, it could have been more or less) I brought home Red Robin, and after Lucas went to bed we'd sit on the couch with Finley sleeping on one of us while we ate it and rewatched White Collar (don't worry, we did manage to feed Lucas real food). We got two dinners out of each trip, since we each only at half of our meal. On other nights we'd still sit with Finley sleeping on us and watch the show. I think it was just anything to get him to sleep and give us some way to relax. We had seen the show through once before, but it really held up. As exhausted as we were, it's actually a really nice memory to think of that tiny baby (instead of the rather giant version someone has swapped him with now) quietly sleeping on my chest while we ate our strange version of comfort food and watched our silly show.
Honorable mention:
- The time we argued over whether there is such a thing as a brontosaurus
I only have one honorable mention, so I think I can still comment on it a little. This was in Tulsa, so it was in our first 2 years of marriage. It was our first argument and the only one that I still specifically remember. Basically I mentioned that scientists now thought that there wasn't any such thing as a brontosaurus, because the discoverer had made a mistake and it was actually just a brachiosaurus. Sharayah said that made no sense. Technically, at the time, I was (mostly) right: the brontosaurus was discovered 2 years after the apatosaurus (not the brachiosaurus), and scientists later decided they were the same thing. Their rules then state that only the earlier name should survive. As it happens, people don't generally care about nomenclature rules, so the name brontosaurus stuck around anyway. On the other hand, she wasn't actually disputing that scientists now said those were the same dinosaur. She was disputing that that meant there was no such thing as brontosaurus. I think her position was that both names could just mean the same dinosaur. It doesn't mean there is no brontosaurus. She convinced me of this ("won the argument") at the time. The two big surprises to me are that, first, this nomenclature debacle happened over 100 years ago, and second, in 2015 a new study decided that, actually, brontosaurus is different enough from apatosaurus to be its own species, so now Sharayah is even more right ("I never doubted it.")
So here we are, almost to 10 years later. We've had a lot of great adventures.
2.27.2018
2.18.2018
a memorable ten [the she version] part 2
Ah, part 2! I know you all have been on the edge of your seats waiting in breathless anticipation for the next five memories. In the words of Lucas, "You don't have to worry!" Here you go, six through ten!
- The time we stayed up all night in New York City
We had just moved into our Delaware apartment a couple days earlier, and we decided to go on an adventure! We packed a backpack, hopped on a bus, and took off for New York City... on the day before Thanksgiving. That's right, we were headed for the Macy's Day parade! This is truly one of my favorite adventures. What makes our adventure especially adventurous is, due to the need to keep things as inexpensive as possible, we were going to arrive in NYC the day before the parade, sightsee all the sights to see, and then just wander about all night until the parade started the next morning. Who needs a good night sleep anyway? Adrenaline will keep us awake! Or so we hoped. It was so.much.fun. And so cold. And so exhausting. And so worth it. We ooh-ed and ahh-ed at all of the decorated Christmas windows. We thoroughly wandered Central Park in both daylight and at night. We ate pizza and roasted chestnuts. We took advantage of the fancy restrooms in the multi-storied department stores. We pretended to be sheep. We got glimpses of the parade balloons being aired up. We sight-see-ed all the sights there were to see. It was a good, tiring day. We checked our watches, and it was only 9 PM. It was starting to get a wee bit chilly. By 10 PM, we started feeling that cold-seeping-into-your-bones feeling. By 11 PM, we were reconsidering our life choices and wondering how in the world we were going to make it to 9 AM. But then we stumbled upon a grand plan: Go see a movie. Two hours of sitting in a warm, dark room? Brilliant. It was November 24th, 2010, and we discovered a new movie was premiering that night. So that is how we managed to see Tangled on opening night at midnight in New York City. That movie will forever be attached to good, good memories. It was so warm. And so dark. And so sleepy. But I think we managed to stay awake for 99% of the movie. But, come 2 AM, out we were shoo-ed, back into the cold. We wandered about until 4 AM, when we decided to stake a claim to what we hoped would be our parade viewing spot. Things we did not take into consideration: 1) It is so, so, so much colder to sit in one place than to be moving and 2) You can only go so long before you need to go to the bathroom again. Hypothermia crossed Jason's mind a dozen times [it only crossed mine 3 or 4] as we were sitting there. We sat and shivered and convinced ourselves we did not need to pee and ate granola bars and cold chestnuts that I'd forgotten in my pocket and hoped, wished, pleaded for the sun to come up. Marching bands started arriving/practicing and that got our adrenaline going again. We were going to watch the Macy's Day parade live and in person and from an amazing viewpoint! It was starting to get really packed with people, shoulder to shoulder, I-can-smell-your-morning-breath packed. We knew the parade had started up, but since we had chosen a spot near the end of the parade route, it was still going to be a little while before it got to us. It was, of course, at this critical point in time when I finally couldn't put it off any longer - I had to find a bathroom. Pushing our way through the crowd to get away from the parade route was much harder than you'd expect. People did not want to move, even though it was quite clear we would be freeing up space closer to the front. We had to walk pretty far to finally find a restroom to use and ended up watching the parade from a less crowded spot [though not nearly as close to the road as our first spot had been]. By this point, fatigue was definitely setting in and I almost found myself wishing the parade would pick up the pace a bit. I believe we had a 4 PM bus ride back home and I may have slept the entire way back. It was the greatest and most exhausting of adventures.
- The time we went on a winter wonderland, tree cutting adventure
Jason has actually already written a post about this particular memory, but I couldn't leave it out of my list as it is one of my favorite days from the last ten years. It was so snowy. The roads were not great, which increased the risky adventure aspect of it. We had to keep the heater blasting in the car to keep our windshield clear of ice. The tree farm was beautifully covered in snow. It was picture perfect. And we didn't know it at the time, but we were just a mere two weeks away from Lucas entering our lives. Craziness.
- The time we slept in the trunk and nearly froze
I believe we were making the 12 hour trek from Delaware down to Tennessee to spend Christmas with my family. Being the young, cheap whippersnappers that we were, we opted [as was our custom] to not book a hotel nor start out on our trip early in the morning. Instead, we would leisurely start driving once we got packed the morning of, take breaks whenever desired, eat many a road snack, stop at a rest area when we got sleepy, and sleep in the car for a while until we wanted to drive again. Ah, pre-Lucas-and-Finley us... So young and rested and full of brilliant ideas. Well, since it was nearly Christmas, it was obviously cold out. Quite cold out that year in fact. We drove. We sang. We ate. We stretched our legs at every leg-stretching spot we could find. We ate some more. And then we got sleepy. We pulled into a rest stop and set up our bed for the night. We put our duffel bag of belongings in the front seat [oh to travel light again! no playards! no diapers! no ten changes of clothes! no bags of kid food, utensils, toys, books, and "we have to bring this to make our trip with kids easier" items!], spread out a blanket on the folded-down backseats, and got cozy with our pillows and blankets. The car was off. The winter was outside. We slept. And then, some amount of time later, I woke. The car was still off but the winter was now inside. It was so cold. There was not a speck of heat remaining in the car. I could not feel things that I knew I should be feeling. I kicked Jason awake and he started up the car. But as we sat there, waiting waiting waiting for the car to warm up again, I remember thinking there was a very serious, real possibility of frostbite and WHAT WOULD WE DO. But, here we are, five or six years later, and we both still have our ears, noses, fingers, and toes-es. So whew.
- The time Lucas tried to eat a ping pong ball
This day was a pretty awful Mom day. I'd give myself a solid D- if I'm in a good mood [read: if I have a pint of ice cream in my hands]. Lucas was a brand new 10-month-old. He was all over the place - crawling over any barriers we tried to put up, standing up against anything that would hold him, and trying to ingest all things food or otherwise. It was nearing his bedtime and he was playing on the couch next to us. All of a sudden, he just threw himself backwards, off the couch. I remember seeing it almost in slow motion. It sounds so dramatic, but it seriously felt like everything was moving so slowly, molasses-like, as we tried to keep Lucas from falling off the couch. But the molasses [or, more likely, our slow reflexes] kept us from rescuing him and off he went. He landed with a solid thud, flat on his back [better than on the top of his head/neck I guess?]. Again, time was doing its weird thing and I felt like I just stared down at his completely still body for the longest time. But then time started up again and Lucas started wailing and I kept standing there trying not to freak out and Jason leaped over and scooped him up. STOP. Halt. Wait a second. This was supposed to be about Lucas eating a ping pong ball, not some other random event, right? Well, it is, I'm getting there. Stick with me here. So, Lucas needed some snuggles and soon seemed completely normal. He recovered from the incident much, much, much more quickly than I did [I needed until the next day before I could relax and stop entertaining ideas of brain injury]. I am quite sure that the emotional effects of the couch tumble were dampening my normal level of "don't let the baby have things that can fit in his mouth" alertness, because in my foggy state of "make Lucas happy at all costs to make sure he's really, truly okay" I handed him a ping pong ball. Why was there a nearby ping pong ball to hand him in the first place? Because Lucas loved to use it in our mini foosball table, of course [it was larger/safer than the ball that was supposed to be used with the game...]. He loved, loved, loved those balls and I knew he would laugh and giggle and be ever so happy if he got to hold the ping pong ball in his hands. So, for the laughs and giggles and happys, I gave him a ping pong ball. I fully intended to be on high alert for him trying to taste it, but he didn't even give me a chance. As soon as he had that ball in his hands, he got SO excited and just popped the entire thing into his mouth. Just, in it went. And, cue freak out panic attack #2. The ball was just small enough to fit completely in his mouth and so was also scarily enough just big enough to be difficult to get out since you couldn't get your fingers inside his mouth at all to pop it out. Again, time slowed down, everything took forever, yada yada yada. As terrifying visions of incapacitated babies flooded my brain, my molasses hands finally got to his face and while one hand barely managed to jam a finger into his mouth, the other squeezed his other cheek from behind. And pop, out came the slobbery ping pong ball. Lucas was completely fine but was pretty miffed that I had taken away his special treat. Kids. Based upon this dramatic retelling alone, it is probably quite obvious why this memory makes it into my ten memories. Mom emotions really make things stick with you, for better or worse.
- The time a random mom told me I was doing a great job
Kids. You do things that you know they will love, and they throw you for a loop by pretending you are making them walk through lava. This past Christmas, we took a trip to Branson with Jason's parents and one of our planned activities was an indoor water place. Lucas has always been one to fight the very idea of being in the water and then never want to leave once you get him in [typical kid?], so I was expecting some sort of orneriness but was hopeful that I could pull him through in time for him to have a fun time. Well, of course, this was the time that Lucas chose to be especially stubborn and no amount of coaxing, pleading, bargaining, or reasoning made any progress in getting him into his swimsuit. I finally decided to just lay down the law and told him he had to wear his swimsuit even if he just wanted to sit in a chair and not have any fun in the water. He agreed to this compromise, until we got to the bathroom to change. And then it was wild sobbing time. Sigh. By this point I had completely resigned myself to this outing being a complete flop and was only, naively, trying to work out the why to the madness. I wasn't going to force him to have the fun I knew he would have, but I did want some kind of explanation as to why he was putting up such a resistance for seemingly no reason. So there we sat/stood/crouched/kneeled/squatted in the busy restroom, swimsuit-ed peoples walking to and fro, in and out, attempting to make some kind of communication breakthrough. I would talk. He would wail. I would suggest something. He would blubber. I would ask a question. He would stutter out some incomplete thought. And since I love being the center of attention for a bunch of random people, it wasn't at all awkward and didn't make me at all self-conscious. But, slowly, eventually, we got to the point where the frustrated stomping and hair-trigger crying wound down to snuffling and occasional coherent responses. And it was around this point where two things happened, two people randomly interacted with our overly dramatic situation. First, a girl, probably aged ten or eleven, came through the door, passed us, and then walked backward to come stand in front of us. She looked at Lucas and then at me and said, "He's really cute." Blubber and boogers everywhere, his shirt half off, face streaked with tears, and a blank stare - I'm really not sure what the girl saw at this particular moment, but it amused and pleased me all the same. She gave a little wave to Lucas and skipped off. Less than a minute later, a woman came up behind us, on her way out of the bathroom, and stopped next to us. I remember feeling like she was towering over me since at that point I was crouched down with Lucas sitting on my knee. I thought perhaps she needed something behind me. But instead she simply smiled at Lucas and turned to me and said, "You're doing a great job. You are doing everything right. I have four of my own and I just wanted to tell you that you're doing great, Mom. Stick it out. It's all worth it, isn't it? They're worth it." And she left. It sounds so silly, but this random woman's words were like a balm to my soul. She didn't know me. I'll never know her name. But she was a mom who heard/saw another mom going through probably an all too familiar situation and she reached out in solidarity and said the exact words that I needed to hear at that moment. So, since I didn't get a chance to say it in that echo-y water park restroom, I will say it now: Thanks, fellow mom. You have probably completely forgotten this interaction by now, but it will stick with me for a very, very long time. Your words of encouragement in that moment were perfect. To moms! [In case you were wondering, Lucas, shortly after, did don his swimsuit and had a grand old time, as expected...]
So there you have it. The second batch of five memories from the last ten years. Is it a coincidence that these five "off the top of my head memorable" memories happened either when I was freezing cold or when a child was crying? No, no, it is not. That's how I roll. And now you know how to make memories with me in the future.
Because this post isn't nearly long enough, here are a few honorable mentions:
- The time I ate a mouthful of ant cereal
- The time we stuck it to the man and walked out on a job
- The time we road tripped 1,759 miles to Wyoming
- The time Lucas freaked out and ran away crying from a dog who 1) was friendly and 2) was ignoring him
- The time Finley pooped up to his neck, took a shower, and still managed to leak poop drips from his feet
I will now commence my nagging to get Jason working on his, undoubtedly more succinct, list of memories.
- The time we stayed up all night in New York City
We had just moved into our Delaware apartment a couple days earlier, and we decided to go on an adventure! We packed a backpack, hopped on a bus, and took off for New York City... on the day before Thanksgiving. That's right, we were headed for the Macy's Day parade! This is truly one of my favorite adventures. What makes our adventure especially adventurous is, due to the need to keep things as inexpensive as possible, we were going to arrive in NYC the day before the parade, sightsee all the sights to see, and then just wander about all night until the parade started the next morning. Who needs a good night sleep anyway? Adrenaline will keep us awake! Or so we hoped. It was so.much.fun. And so cold. And so exhausting. And so worth it. We ooh-ed and ahh-ed at all of the decorated Christmas windows. We thoroughly wandered Central Park in both daylight and at night. We ate pizza and roasted chestnuts. We took advantage of the fancy restrooms in the multi-storied department stores. We pretended to be sheep. We got glimpses of the parade balloons being aired up. We sight-see-ed all the sights there were to see. It was a good, tiring day. We checked our watches, and it was only 9 PM. It was starting to get a wee bit chilly. By 10 PM, we started feeling that cold-seeping-into-your-bones feeling. By 11 PM, we were reconsidering our life choices and wondering how in the world we were going to make it to 9 AM. But then we stumbled upon a grand plan: Go see a movie. Two hours of sitting in a warm, dark room? Brilliant. It was November 24th, 2010, and we discovered a new movie was premiering that night. So that is how we managed to see Tangled on opening night at midnight in New York City. That movie will forever be attached to good, good memories. It was so warm. And so dark. And so sleepy. But I think we managed to stay awake for 99% of the movie. But, come 2 AM, out we were shoo-ed, back into the cold. We wandered about until 4 AM, when we decided to stake a claim to what we hoped would be our parade viewing spot. Things we did not take into consideration: 1) It is so, so, so much colder to sit in one place than to be moving and 2) You can only go so long before you need to go to the bathroom again. Hypothermia crossed Jason's mind a dozen times [it only crossed mine 3 or 4] as we were sitting there. We sat and shivered and convinced ourselves we did not need to pee and ate granola bars and cold chestnuts that I'd forgotten in my pocket and hoped, wished, pleaded for the sun to come up. Marching bands started arriving/practicing and that got our adrenaline going again. We were going to watch the Macy's Day parade live and in person and from an amazing viewpoint! It was starting to get really packed with people, shoulder to shoulder, I-can-smell-your-morning-breath packed. We knew the parade had started up, but since we had chosen a spot near the end of the parade route, it was still going to be a little while before it got to us. It was, of course, at this critical point in time when I finally couldn't put it off any longer - I had to find a bathroom. Pushing our way through the crowd to get away from the parade route was much harder than you'd expect. People did not want to move, even though it was quite clear we would be freeing up space closer to the front. We had to walk pretty far to finally find a restroom to use and ended up watching the parade from a less crowded spot [though not nearly as close to the road as our first spot had been]. By this point, fatigue was definitely setting in and I almost found myself wishing the parade would pick up the pace a bit. I believe we had a 4 PM bus ride back home and I may have slept the entire way back. It was the greatest and most exhausting of adventures.
- The time we went on a winter wonderland, tree cutting adventure
Jason has actually already written a post about this particular memory, but I couldn't leave it out of my list as it is one of my favorite days from the last ten years. It was so snowy. The roads were not great, which increased the risky adventure aspect of it. We had to keep the heater blasting in the car to keep our windshield clear of ice. The tree farm was beautifully covered in snow. It was picture perfect. And we didn't know it at the time, but we were just a mere two weeks away from Lucas entering our lives. Craziness.
- The time we slept in the trunk and nearly froze
I believe we were making the 12 hour trek from Delaware down to Tennessee to spend Christmas with my family. Being the young, cheap whippersnappers that we were, we opted [as was our custom] to not book a hotel nor start out on our trip early in the morning. Instead, we would leisurely start driving once we got packed the morning of, take breaks whenever desired, eat many a road snack, stop at a rest area when we got sleepy, and sleep in the car for a while until we wanted to drive again. Ah, pre-Lucas-and-Finley us... So young and rested and full of brilliant ideas. Well, since it was nearly Christmas, it was obviously cold out. Quite cold out that year in fact. We drove. We sang. We ate. We stretched our legs at every leg-stretching spot we could find. We ate some more. And then we got sleepy. We pulled into a rest stop and set up our bed for the night. We put our duffel bag of belongings in the front seat [oh to travel light again! no playards! no diapers! no ten changes of clothes! no bags of kid food, utensils, toys, books, and "we have to bring this to make our trip with kids easier" items!], spread out a blanket on the folded-down backseats, and got cozy with our pillows and blankets. The car was off. The winter was outside. We slept. And then, some amount of time later, I woke. The car was still off but the winter was now inside. It was so cold. There was not a speck of heat remaining in the car. I could not feel things that I knew I should be feeling. I kicked Jason awake and he started up the car. But as we sat there, waiting waiting waiting for the car to warm up again, I remember thinking there was a very serious, real possibility of frostbite and WHAT WOULD WE DO. But, here we are, five or six years later, and we both still have our ears, noses, fingers, and toes-es. So whew.
- The time Lucas tried to eat a ping pong ball
This day was a pretty awful Mom day. I'd give myself a solid D- if I'm in a good mood [read: if I have a pint of ice cream in my hands]. Lucas was a brand new 10-month-old. He was all over the place - crawling over any barriers we tried to put up, standing up against anything that would hold him, and trying to ingest all things food or otherwise. It was nearing his bedtime and he was playing on the couch next to us. All of a sudden, he just threw himself backwards, off the couch. I remember seeing it almost in slow motion. It sounds so dramatic, but it seriously felt like everything was moving so slowly, molasses-like, as we tried to keep Lucas from falling off the couch. But the molasses [or, more likely, our slow reflexes] kept us from rescuing him and off he went. He landed with a solid thud, flat on his back [better than on the top of his head/neck I guess?]. Again, time was doing its weird thing and I felt like I just stared down at his completely still body for the longest time. But then time started up again and Lucas started wailing and I kept standing there trying not to freak out and Jason leaped over and scooped him up. STOP. Halt. Wait a second. This was supposed to be about Lucas eating a ping pong ball, not some other random event, right? Well, it is, I'm getting there. Stick with me here. So, Lucas needed some snuggles and soon seemed completely normal. He recovered from the incident much, much, much more quickly than I did [I needed until the next day before I could relax and stop entertaining ideas of brain injury]. I am quite sure that the emotional effects of the couch tumble were dampening my normal level of "don't let the baby have things that can fit in his mouth" alertness, because in my foggy state of "make Lucas happy at all costs to make sure he's really, truly okay" I handed him a ping pong ball. Why was there a nearby ping pong ball to hand him in the first place? Because Lucas loved to use it in our mini foosball table, of course [it was larger/safer than the ball that was supposed to be used with the game...]. He loved, loved, loved those balls and I knew he would laugh and giggle and be ever so happy if he got to hold the ping pong ball in his hands. So, for the laughs and giggles and happys, I gave him a ping pong ball. I fully intended to be on high alert for him trying to taste it, but he didn't even give me a chance. As soon as he had that ball in his hands, he got SO excited and just popped the entire thing into his mouth. Just, in it went. And, cue freak out panic attack #2. The ball was just small enough to fit completely in his mouth and so was also scarily enough just big enough to be difficult to get out since you couldn't get your fingers inside his mouth at all to pop it out. Again, time slowed down, everything took forever, yada yada yada. As terrifying visions of incapacitated babies flooded my brain, my molasses hands finally got to his face and while one hand barely managed to jam a finger into his mouth, the other squeezed his other cheek from behind. And pop, out came the slobbery ping pong ball. Lucas was completely fine but was pretty miffed that I had taken away his special treat. Kids. Based upon this dramatic retelling alone, it is probably quite obvious why this memory makes it into my ten memories. Mom emotions really make things stick with you, for better or worse.
- The time a random mom told me I was doing a great job
Kids. You do things that you know they will love, and they throw you for a loop by pretending you are making them walk through lava. This past Christmas, we took a trip to Branson with Jason's parents and one of our planned activities was an indoor water place. Lucas has always been one to fight the very idea of being in the water and then never want to leave once you get him in [typical kid?], so I was expecting some sort of orneriness but was hopeful that I could pull him through in time for him to have a fun time. Well, of course, this was the time that Lucas chose to be especially stubborn and no amount of coaxing, pleading, bargaining, or reasoning made any progress in getting him into his swimsuit. I finally decided to just lay down the law and told him he had to wear his swimsuit even if he just wanted to sit in a chair and not have any fun in the water. He agreed to this compromise, until we got to the bathroom to change. And then it was wild sobbing time. Sigh. By this point I had completely resigned myself to this outing being a complete flop and was only, naively, trying to work out the why to the madness. I wasn't going to force him to have the fun I knew he would have, but I did want some kind of explanation as to why he was putting up such a resistance for seemingly no reason. So there we sat/stood/crouched/kneeled/squatted in the busy restroom, swimsuit-ed peoples walking to and fro, in and out, attempting to make some kind of communication breakthrough. I would talk. He would wail. I would suggest something. He would blubber. I would ask a question. He would stutter out some incomplete thought. And since I love being the center of attention for a bunch of random people, it wasn't at all awkward and didn't make me at all self-conscious. But, slowly, eventually, we got to the point where the frustrated stomping and hair-trigger crying wound down to snuffling and occasional coherent responses. And it was around this point where two things happened, two people randomly interacted with our overly dramatic situation. First, a girl, probably aged ten or eleven, came through the door, passed us, and then walked backward to come stand in front of us. She looked at Lucas and then at me and said, "He's really cute." Blubber and boogers everywhere, his shirt half off, face streaked with tears, and a blank stare - I'm really not sure what the girl saw at this particular moment, but it amused and pleased me all the same. She gave a little wave to Lucas and skipped off. Less than a minute later, a woman came up behind us, on her way out of the bathroom, and stopped next to us. I remember feeling like she was towering over me since at that point I was crouched down with Lucas sitting on my knee. I thought perhaps she needed something behind me. But instead she simply smiled at Lucas and turned to me and said, "You're doing a great job. You are doing everything right. I have four of my own and I just wanted to tell you that you're doing great, Mom. Stick it out. It's all worth it, isn't it? They're worth it." And she left. It sounds so silly, but this random woman's words were like a balm to my soul. She didn't know me. I'll never know her name. But she was a mom who heard/saw another mom going through probably an all too familiar situation and she reached out in solidarity and said the exact words that I needed to hear at that moment. So, since I didn't get a chance to say it in that echo-y water park restroom, I will say it now: Thanks, fellow mom. You have probably completely forgotten this interaction by now, but it will stick with me for a very, very long time. Your words of encouragement in that moment were perfect. To moms! [In case you were wondering, Lucas, shortly after, did don his swimsuit and had a grand old time, as expected...]
So there you have it. The second batch of five memories from the last ten years. Is it a coincidence that these five "off the top of my head memorable" memories happened either when I was freezing cold or when a child was crying? No, no, it is not. That's how I roll. And now you know how to make memories with me in the future.
Because this post isn't nearly long enough, here are a few honorable mentions:
- The time I ate a mouthful of ant cereal
- The time we stuck it to the man and walked out on a job
- The time we road tripped 1,759 miles to Wyoming
- The time Lucas freaked out and ran away crying from a dog who 1) was friendly and 2) was ignoring him
- The time Finley pooped up to his neck, took a shower, and still managed to leak poop drips from his feet
I will now commence my nagging to get Jason working on his, undoubtedly more succinct, list of memories.
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| Forever memory #1 |
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| Forever memory #2 |
2.01.2018
a memorable ten [the she version] part 1
We have succeeded in getting Finley solidly through his newborn and infant days and well into his plain ol' baby days [though, seriously, not for long what with him shoveling sweet potato and not face-planting anymore and already working on pulling himself to standing], so we are going to make an effort to be more blog-y. And by we, I mean I am going to make an effort and push/drag/shove Jason along as well.
So, with that in mind, we are going to attempt a few Ten themed blogs, in honor of the upcoming "We Still Haven't Used the Marjoram in our Spice Rack Wedding Gift and It Is Apparently Almost Ten Years Old Now" celebration. We plan to do a few lists of Tens, from each of our perspectives, and that will get us all nicely settled into blogging by the time May arrives. There you go, Jason, now you are committed. The world knows.
Summary of goals:
1) Blog more.
2) Look up recipes that include marjoram.
Side quest: Google "Is marjoram still good after ten years?"
Today's post is Ten Memories. These are not your normal "Oh, we graduated! Oh, we had a kid! Oh, we bought a house!" memories. [At least mine aren't. You'll have to wait and see if Jason's are. OH THE SUSPENSE.] They are just random memories that pop into my head when I ask myself, "Hm, what stories have happened to us these past ten years?"
I, of course, began this post with every intention to keep these ten random memories brief and to the point. But lo and behold, they exploded into a mess of verbiage that has necessitated this post be split into two parts. This should really come as a surprise to no one [least of all me]. Anyway, if you wish to only know the highlights, read the bold-ed titles and move on with your evening. If you delve into the particulars, you might need a snack to munch on. I suggest popcorn lightly seasoned with nutritional yeast.
With all that said, here we go: "Ten Not Particularly Monumental But Still Worth Mentioning Memories. Parts 1-5."
- The time we almost got something for free in Jamaica
Our honeymoon consisted of two back-to-back cruises that made up 14 days of awesomeness. One of our stops was in Jamaica. Our waterfall-climbing excursion there was probably my favorite excursion the entire trip. I had worn my standard flip-flop footware, but when we got to the waterfall we found out that this was deemed unsafe. So I climbed the waterfall barefoot! It's a life highlight for sure. Anyway. On the way back to the ship, everyone has to go through the little market-like area where things of all sorts are being peddled to tourists. It was a different market atmosphere than we were used to, a lot more in your face and pressing, and we were just trying to quickly hurry back to the ship. [We also had forgotten to bring any money with us, so we had even less incentive to leisurely stroll.] We were stopped by a man selling wooden animal sculptures. They were lovely. They were something I might consider picking up as a souvenir, if I had money on me. But I did not, so we tried to politely turn down his sales pitch and move on. But then he said that we could have this one giraffe sculpture for free! Cue hesitant excitement! We were skeptical, but we accepted the sculpture that he thrust into our hands. However, once we thanked him for this "free gift," he told us we now had to buy the matching giraffe since it was a pair. We told him we had no money on us. He said to borrow it from someone. We told him we didn't know anyone. He said to go back to the ship and get our money. We said we didn't think there'd really be time for that. He then snatched away the "free" giraffe and sent us on our way. So we left Jamaica with fond memories of their waterfall but not so fond memories of their salesmanship. And no giraffe. C'est la vie.
- The time we felt rich and hungry and walked to Wal-Mart at 11 PM
The title says it all really. We were still living in Tulsa in Building 8017 Apartment E at the Lakes, located right behind the classy Tulsa Wal-Mart. It was late at night. We felt flush with cash from Jason's grad school pay and so we decided to splurge on a pre-bed snack. We bundled into our classic "oversized hoodie and jeans" college attire and walked to Wal-Mart. I remember feeling such a sense of adventure and freedom and excitement on that walk. [Don't mock - it was Tulsa and I was sheltered.] There was definitely some hopping and skipping and quite a bit of giddy laughter. We strolled the aisles and decided to go big - we bought not one, but TWO, boxes of cereal. We normally did not eat cereal in our 500 SF apartment. That was living in the lap of luxury. Our mornings were filled with toast or oatmeal packets. But here we were, almost midnight, dashing up 81st towards our apartment with a shopping bag filled with crunchy goodness. It was a glorious time. We ate two bowls each that night. TWO.
- The time Panther pooped in my lap
I do not like to dwell on this memory, but some say it's cathartic to write out a traumatizing experience. I need to find my healing, so write I shall. The car was packed. We were headed out of town. I do not know our destination. It was probably some big life moment, but the only thing I can remember is this gross memory. We were driving through Jenks. Panther was stressing and yowling and letting off that awful fear/urine smell. I think we thought he might be less stressed if I was holding him and he could see out of the windows? So we let him stand in my lap and he seemed to be a little better, standing up against the door to look outside. He was shedding hairs everywhere because he was freaked out. He smelled terrible. His nose was probably leaking [this is not so much a remembered detail as an assumed side note]. And then, he just pooped. Right in my lap. I will spare you the details of the proffered gift, but the specifics make this event go from horrific to "Cat, I'm not sure I can ever love you the same." It was not your normal cat deposit. Let's leave it at that. Luckily we were not yet on the highway and were able to stop in a parking lot of a grocery store and have Jason run in and get some napkins. This was definitely a turning point in my relationship with Panther. May he forever frolic in the catnip forests of heaven.
- The time we found a Yeti
Staying on the cat theme, we now come to Yeti. We stumbled upon her outside the back entrance to the basement of the GC. She was huddled in a patch of grass, a wee kitty all weak and shivery and matted with fleas and grime. We took her to an emergency vet [it was late at night] who suggested we keep her comfortable overnight and take her to someone in the morning. We named her Yeti, for she was the tiniest abominable snowkitty you ever did see. She slept in our bathtub that night to keep her separated from Panther. We tore an old towel into tiny cat-sized blankets and tried to make her as comfortable as possible. Jason took her to Banfield the next morning. We were ever so hopeful that they could revive our little Yeti. They kept her all day. Finally, at the end of business hours, they called us and told us we could come pick her up. They said she was flea infested and dehydrated but that we could take her home. So we picked up our new little kitty and a $350 bill and came home. Yeti passed away overnight. I was a mess - a terribly sad, not just a little bit angry mess. To this day, I still feel twinges of the anger at Petsmart. They had to have known she wasn't going to make it, but by saying she was good to go, they guaranteed themselves money. Bah. ANYWAY, to make a sad story slightly less sad, Yeti was the inspiration for us adopting Puma two weeks later. And despite his occasional annoyances, he has been a pretty good fur friend. Finley is all about him. :D
- The time I made a noodle soup so spicy we thought we might die. But we ate it anyway.
I love a good noodle soup. Noodles, vegetables, and broth? Add in some bread on the side? Delicious. However, as everyone knows, I cannot for the life of me follow a recipe. You'd think it would be easy. I can read. I can measure. I can understand directions. But there is some weird thing inside of my brain that absolutely rebels at doing what a recipe very clearly states. I usually start off pretty well, getting to about the second or third ingredient without straying. But then I casually tweak the amount of the fourth ingredient. And then I omit the fifth ingredient. And by the time I'm supposed to be tossing in the sixth and seventh ingredients, I've already tossed the entire idea of a recipe. So, I've kinda given up on recipe cooking. Looking up a plethora of recipes to get an idea of what's supposed to be included in a meal and then throwing together something that slightly resembles it seems to be my
style of cooking, and my family has come to accept this as tastiness [there may be some form of mealtime Stockholm syndrome going on, I'm not sure...]. So, THE noodle soup. It was a pretty basic noodle soup, but I decided I wanted to spice it up a tad. I had a bottle of cayenne pepper on hand so I casually dumped some in. Initial taste tests did not give the kick I was hoping for, so I may have
added a few more enthusiastic shakings. I then let the soup continue to do its simmering thing. When we eagerly dove into our bowls of noodle soup later that evening, we were met with a pretty intense surprise. The cayenne by this point had been fully incorporated in every part of the soup. It was SO.HOT. We pride ourselves on loving spicy food, however, so eat it we did. And then we congratulated ourselves on the beastliness of our taste buds and put away the leftovers in the
fridge. At this point in my culinary career, I was unaware that the flavor of a meal intensifies once it's allowed to really sit in its juices for a long while. And intensify it did. We had three quarts of leftover noodle soup. And each time we ate it, it was even hotter than before. We nearly gave up. It was borderline inedible. But we broke out our stash of hardtack [another story for another day], dunked those bread rocks in the lava soup, and ate every last bit of it. Our dinners took longer to eat as we had to take many breaks between bites, but we did it. And Jason even had the audacity/kind-husband-iness to say that he still enjoyed it. True love, right there.
So there you have it. The first five memories from the last ten years. You can clearly see that we live an adventurous life! The next five will come... sometime between feeding Finley peas and finding Lucas's cup.
So, with that in mind, we are going to attempt a few Ten themed blogs, in honor of the upcoming "We Still Haven't Used the Marjoram in our Spice Rack Wedding Gift and It Is Apparently Almost Ten Years Old Now" celebration. We plan to do a few lists of Tens, from each of our perspectives, and that will get us all nicely settled into blogging by the time May arrives. There you go, Jason, now you are committed. The world knows.
Summary of goals:
1) Blog more.
2) Look up recipes that include marjoram.
Side quest: Google "Is marjoram still good after ten years?"
Today's post is Ten Memories. These are not your normal "Oh, we graduated! Oh, we had a kid! Oh, we bought a house!" memories. [At least mine aren't. You'll have to wait and see if Jason's are. OH THE SUSPENSE.] They are just random memories that pop into my head when I ask myself, "Hm, what stories have happened to us these past ten years?"
I, of course, began this post with every intention to keep these ten random memories brief and to the point. But lo and behold, they exploded into a mess of verbiage that has necessitated this post be split into two parts. This should really come as a surprise to no one [least of all me]. Anyway, if you wish to only know the highlights, read the bold-ed titles and move on with your evening. If you delve into the particulars, you might need a snack to munch on. I suggest popcorn lightly seasoned with nutritional yeast.
With all that said, here we go: "Ten Not Particularly Monumental But Still Worth Mentioning Memories. Parts 1-5."
- The time we almost got something for free in Jamaica
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| Waterfallin'. Such kids. |
- The time we felt rich and hungry and walked to Wal-Mart at 11 PM
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| I'm pretty sure this is what we wore from 2005-2010 |
- The time Panther pooped in my lap
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| Ah, good old Drippy Drawers |
- The time we found a Yeti
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| Fluffball Yeti |
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| Mini Pumarooski |
- The time I made a noodle soup so spicy we thought we might die. But we ate it anyway.
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| Our first homemade pizza! |
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| Our Random Fruit Pie! |
added a few more enthusiastic shakings. I then let the soup continue to do its simmering thing. When we eagerly dove into our bowls of noodle soup later that evening, we were met with a pretty intense surprise. The cayenne by this point had been fully incorporated in every part of the soup. It was SO.HOT. We pride ourselves on loving spicy food, however, so eat it we did. And then we congratulated ourselves on the beastliness of our taste buds and put away the leftovers in the
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| Homemade bread bowls and potato soup! |
So there you have it. The first five memories from the last ten years. You can clearly see that we live an adventurous life! The next five will come... sometime between feeding Finley peas and finding Lucas's cup.
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