15 posts tagged “family”

Started off as a super lazy morning.  I woke up just before 8a, watched a bit of Sports Center, occassionally jumping to the Food Network on commercials.  Rae started stirring just before 9a, and that's about the time M woke up and came into our bedroom.  We vegged for another 10 minutes or so, watching the last of whatever cooking show was on Food Network, then turning to ESPN just in time for the top-10 plays of the week, and then finally got ourselves moving.  Had oatmeal and engilsh muffins and hot chocolate for breakfast.

Now, Rae and I are sipping coffee at the dinner table while Rae is going through December's Cooking Light mag and picking the handful of things we're going to bake this weekend, and making a list of stuff to get at the grocery. I've got holiday music going on accuradio and M is singing the songs and dancing around the living room. It's a good morning.

We're also planning out our xmas eve dinner, something nice just for the three of us.  While looking over possible entres Rae says, "You should bake the bread for our dinner."  So now I need to find an easy bread recipe formula and get up the nerve to make my first loaf of fresh bread.  Fun fun!

Yeah, it's been a couple weeks since I last posted.  Been one of those stretches where work is busy, and home is busy enough that I don't want to take any time to blog.  Anyhoo, just checking in with a few quick hits.

Quick Hit #1
Bought one of these from newegg.com Sunday night.  It arrived yesterday.  Played around with it a bit last night, enough to get a few podcasts loaded onto it, and listened to it on the way into work today.  Worked very slick, and it was nice to listen to on the train ride into work.  Thing is, my commute is only 12 minutes station-to-station, with a few minutes on either end walking to/from the station and waiting on the next train.  Not really long enough to get through anything in one trip (though I did get through an entire podcast of Monday's Best of Mike&Mike from ESPN) but with around a half hour each day, I should get some fun/interesting listening in as time goes on.

Quick Hit #2
Speaking of commuting on the train, yes, I'm taking the train more the past couple of months.  In response to the impending I-64 shutdown, my manager and I were charged with creating an action plan for how the County will address employee commutes and customer service impacted by the road project.  For the action plan, I proposed and implemented a subsidized Metro transit pass for County employees.  This year the County ponied up $15k and next year they've allocated $30k (in addition to the $7500 that we didn't spend this year) to allow 50-60 employees to get a transit pass for $10/month (the same amount we pay to park in our parking garage).  That has the County picking up $50/month for each employee, no small amount. 

So, I decided to turn in my parking pass and get a Metro pass and take the train in most of the time.  Like I said, it's only 12 minutes station-to-station, and it will sure beat being on the road for the next couple of years.  At my subsidized rate (or even full fare, really) it saves on gas money when gas tops $3/gallon.  And at the end of the day, it really is simply nicer to ride the train and not have to hassle with traffic, even with the 2-block walk to/from the office (yes, even on a day like today).

Quick Hit #3
Back to the digital voice recorder for a second.  While the MP3 player is a fun perk and something I will enjoy having, I really bought it with two purposes in mind.  One, to record an oral history and oral descriptions of all of the family pictures I'm scanning (mentioned briefly here) from my grandmother.  I hope to get a lot done when we visit for Xmas.  Two, I'm going to be taking a Bosnian class this spring semester.  Yes, Bosnian.  I want to do this for a couple of reasons.  One, we have a large and growing Bosnian population where I live, and I hear it spoken nearly every time I go to the grocery or anywhere shopping really. I have 2 Bosnian neighbors, and I just want to be able to connect to a growing segment of my community population. Two, professionally, the language and culture is a huge barrier to the sort of community engagement work that I do, and I want to become a resource for the County and simply be able to do my job more effectively and inclusively.  So, I plan to learn Bosnian, and no doubt having the digital recorder will be a huge help.  I haven't been in school in 10 years, haven't taken a language in 16 or 17 years.  This is going to be interesting.

That's all for now, back to work I go.  I hope things slow down just enough that I can blog with a bit more regularity, but this is the season of madness (not to mention colds and the kiddo getting pinkeye yesterday) so I'll do what I can.  Hope everyone else is surviving the hecktic times leading up to the holidays.

Mom called last night after dinner.  Great Uncle Charles died yesterday at 3am.  I'm pretty sure anyone who wanted to managed to get to see him before he died, so that's a good thing.  He'll be missed.  Xmas at grandma's this year won't be quite the same.

The trip was a good one.  Mom and I left a bit later than we wanted on Friday, but made good time with little traffic on I-70.  Swung by Oklahoma Joe's BBQ to grab dinner to take to my grandparents' place, and rolled in just under 5 hours (and had dinner ready!).  Not bad, not bad at all.

My uncle Charlie was there already, he flew in on Thursday.  All of us visited throughout the night, and it was a good little visit.  Saturday at 1p was our time to go see Great Uncle Charles.  It was ... what I expected I guess?  I suppose I didn't really know what to expect.  He was tired a lot, and his energy ebbed and flowed.  When he was awake, Mom and Charlie talked with him and he was happy they were there.  The two times I went in to see him was always at a point he was getting tired, so I just stayed in his room for a bit, watched him, and thought a few words that he have a peaceful end.  Mom tried to get him to realize I was there, but he was tired and groggy and I just told her it was fine, not to bother him, that it was enough that I was there.

Outside of seeing him, I had a nice visit with Great Aunt Margaret Ann.  She's trying so hard to accept this, to let him go.  She said so to me at one point when it was just she and I in the living room.  She said he needs to know that she'll be at peace when he goes, that he's at peace with it but will only truly be at peace when she's let go as well.  But it's hard.  Obviously, it's so hard. And she's trying, praying a lot, and spending time with him though it's hard on her.  And having the family around helps, and she's so great full that so many family were coming to visit.  She said it means a lot to her, and means so much to Uncle Charles.  I'm glad it helps, I'm glad they appreciate it.  I don't know what to think really, how it feels to have so many people coming to be with you because you're going to die.  But they appreciate it, they need it and want it and I'm happy I was there.

I also got to spend time with Lisa, a second cousin (I think) whom I last saw probably 20 years ago.  We talked about the genealogy she's done of the Basgall side of the family, my Uncle Charles and Grandma's side of the family.  She's traced it back to the 1760s, and I can't wait to see it.  She has a large printout of it, but even plotted out on a large sheet, it was still near impossible to read without a magnifying glass.  She's going to send me the file and I'm going to try and find a way to logically break it up and plot out so it's readable.  She's also going to send me pictures she's scanned and took over the years (she's visited western Kansas a couple of times to visit old cemeteries and talk with distant family members and purchase some old parish records).  I told her I was going to scan grandma's pictures, and would share them with her, and we're going to work to put a book or family history together (beyond the family tree).  I plan to do some research on oral/family history questions and record my grandparents over Xmas.

Saturday night several family members converged on Grandma's place and we ate and visited for several hours.  It was nice to catch up with my aunts and uncles, and visit with a second cousin I'd never met and play with his kids (I was missing my kiddo something fierce that night, it'd been a long day).

Sunday was out to breakfast with the grandparents and aunts and uncles again, then we hit the road.  It was a nice and easy, albeit windy drive home. 

And just like that it's back to the grind, and the weekend is a memory.  I need to do more thinking about it, I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about my visit with Great Uncle Charles, especially when I realize that it is likely the last time I'll ever see him.  That makes me sad, and I'm trying to grasp the impermanence of life, but it's hard.  This is the first family member I really remember dying.  I know it was wonderful seeing all of the family, and that put something of a happy spin on the weekend, but when I really think about it, my brief moments with Great Uncle Charles really stick in my mind.  *sigh*

This came in today's Daily Dharma.  Rae and I try to make family meal time just that, about family and food, about sharing events of the day, relaxing in each other's presence.  We don't always succeed, but we try.  Sometimes we get rushed, get in a hurry to start the rest of the evening routine or check e-mail or something.  Sometimes M isn't in the mood.  But sometimes, often, we manage to all sit together and enjoy dinner and talk... or just eat in silence.   I think I'll try to be a bit more mindful this week of enjoying and sharing the cookie of my childhood at dinner.  We'll see how it goes.

Tricycle's Daily Dharma: October 15, 2007

Mindful Eating
When I was four years old, my mother used to bring me a cookie every time she came home from the market. I always went to the front yard and took my time eating it, sometimes half an hour or forty-five minutes for one cookie. I would take a small bite and look up at the sky. Then I would touch the dog with my feet and take another small bite. I just enjoyed being there, with the sky, the earth, the bamboo thickets, the cat, the dog, the flowers. I was able to do that because I did not have much to worry about. I did not think of the future, I did not regret the past. I was entirely in the present moment, with my cookie, the dog, the bamboo thickets, the cat, and everything. It is possible to eat our meals as slowly and joyfully as I ate the cookie of my childhood. Maybe you have the impression that you have lost the cookie of your childhood, but I am sure it is still there, somewhere in your heart. Everything is still there, and if you really want it, you can find it. Eating mindfully is a most important practice of meditation. - Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

Last night I uploaded a ton of pics to my flickr account.  My in-laws (Rae's folks and her brother) both created accounts so they can see the family pictures, so I e-mailed them to let them know they were online.  This morning my mother-in-law logs on to see the pics and in so doing looks at ALL the pictures I have up, including all the ones related to the WE.  About those she says:

Mother-in-law says:  It worked!! Cool..........I stopped to make a cup of tea & finished watching 102 photos!! Wow!!! I don't think we have met: Kjarr, Fred & Cthulhu?????

Now, Kjarr, Fred and Cthulhu are Friends of the WE.  Kjarr is the Viking Pirate that Nattie and A gave me at the Ohio Meat.  Cthulhu is a plushie that GMZoe gave M when she was born (it was an early WE tradition).  Fred is a Limertilly that is treking around the world visiting the WEfolk.  Fred came for a visit for a time and that's when the following were taken.

So, we've got a Viking Pirate, a Limtertilly (I'm not sure I even know the origin of the Limertilly), and a plushie of an Elder God (given to her granddaughter from a virtual stranger).  How does one explain this to his mother-in-law without making her wonder who exactly her daughter married (though to be fair, we've been married for 10 years, together for 16, so I suppose deep down she already knows).  I figure straigh ahead is always the best policy on these sorts of things (they can't think I'm really any weirder):

JP says:  Kjarr was a gift from one of my World's End friends

JP says:  Fred is a little guy from the WE that travels around the world and I had him for a time, I think he's in Austria now [actually, I've since remembered he's in Israel]

JP says:  Cthulhu is the patron god of the WE, and way back in the day we had a Moderator of the message board that would give a stuffed Cthulhu to all the new Board Babies (there were two or three a few years back)

So yeah, there ya go.  A conversation I just had with my mother-in-law on IM.  Does this happen to anyone else, or just me?

We're members of the Magic House Children's Museum, a great place for young kids to explore, learn and have fun.  We've been there more than a half-dozen times in the past year, and M really enjoys it.  It's been fun to see her evolution in a place she considers one of her hang-outs.  Early on she was all about the flowing water exhibit and playing with the dry sand.  Later it was all about climbing the stairs and sliding down the big, cushy green slide (over and over ...).  Last time we were there to play, she was mostly interested in climbing up the spiral staircase, shopping in the grocery store and fishing in the "catch and release" stream (with magnetic fish).  M really enjoys herself and it's a great way to give her a change of pace and burn off some energy, especially if the weather's bad.

Rae signed her up for one of the series of toddler education programs they have there - The Toddler Science.  One Wednesday a month (for the school year) she goes and participates in a fun, 45-minute program with various activities designed around a particular theme.  A handful of kids (something less than 10, I suppose) are there with a "special adult" (parent, grandparent, nanny, whatever), and after a brief introduction by a room facilitator, the kids are free to engage in whatever activity they want to do.  They activities are basic, and multi-sensory, and there's a little learning going on and a lot of fun.

Rae took her to the first few classes last autumn, but I got to take her to today's.  Today's theme was all about winter.  The activities included:

• A laundry basket full of mittens and gloves, that the kids were to find the matching pairs.
• A picture book about how some animals hibernate in the winter, along with a wooden display that had various stuffed animals hibernating, and a large box in which the kids could pretend to hibernate.
• A large block of ice in a tupperware, with a smaller container full of blue watercolor and large droppers, which the kids were to use to suck up the water and squirt it over the block of ice.  It was very cool how it soaked into the block and trickled down the sides.
• A basket full of different sized styrofoam balls (snowballs) that the kids were to sort into other baskets by size.
• A large container full of shaving cream (snow) with icecubes that the kids could touch, grab, squish between their fingers.
• A craft station where the kids could make and decorate their own snowflakes.

M had a blast with all of the activities.  She started with sorting the snowballs, which was interesting to watch her do.  She realized right away that the big ones were big and belonged together, but the medium and small were more similar and posed a challenge initially.  She was trying to do it visually, holding one and looking at the baskets to make the match.  After a few failed attempts, I suggested she pick up the snowball she was trying to match and compare them side by side.  Once she did that, holding them right out in front of her, she could see the differences and sorted them lickity split.  Once she "knew the trick" she was done with that game and it was off to the block of ice.

The ice block was fun.  After having me fill her dropper up for her a few times, she was filling it up herself and squirting it all over the block of ice (which was "very cooooold, papa").  She tried to dig a little hole in the top and fill it with blue water, but the ice was still pretty frozen.  After a few attempts at filling the dropper as full as she could get it, she was on to the next thing.

We made a few snowflakes.  They had different sizes, but she only wanted the little ones.  She smeared blue gluestick all over them and put on foil paper, construction paper and shiny dots of various blues.  She saw one mom using a pair of scissors and wanted "to practice my cutting" so I helped her start a construction paper snowflake.  (I think the mom was shocked that I let her use the scissors, even though they were safety scissors.) 

Next up was the container of snow.  She stuck her hand in (after pushing up her own sleeves) and felt around, finding as many icecubes as she could.  After a moment, I stuck my hand in to squish it between my fingers, and to moosh it around hers.  Side note, they do this sort of play with the shaving cream with the sensory table at her school.  There they are encouraged to clap their hands and "make it snow".  Fast forward back to today, M was looking at me with a questioning glance, though not really saying anything, and I could tell she was thinking about something, wanting to do something more than just feel around and collect icecubes.  So I turned my hand over and told her to put a big glop of snow in my hand and clap on my hand - POOF!!! - instant snow.  She got a huge hoot out of this, and kept putting more in my hand and POOF!!! shaving cream snow all over the place.  I realized that all of the other kids who had been at this station had been content just feeling around, and I wondered what the instructor was thinking, but she never said anything and M and I kept right on making it snow.  After a few short moments of this, we went to the sink and got cleaned up then went back to the station and cleaned up our mess.  M was very helful and I think even understood that we had been doing something special, and that we needed to clean up after our fun.

After that it was over to the hibernation exhibit to play with the stuffed animals and crawl inside the box.  At first she wasn't interested in climbing in there with other kids in it.  Once all the kids were gone, she decided it was okay, and climbed in and monopolized all the teddybears that were in there.  When one girl wanted in, it took a little coaxing on my part, but M eventually gave her one of the bears and made room for her to come in.  After that, she was fine crawling in and out with other kids in there with her.  Ahh kids.

The last thing we did was play with the mittens and hats and scarves.  She was quite the little fashion diva, even striking her "sassy pose" for some of the moms.  We collected our snowflakes and grabbed our coats, then sat out in the hall to have a snack (apples and graham crackers).  She had a real blast today, and I had a lot of fun too.  She was soooo excited to be taking papa to the Magic House, she was telling everyone in her class about it all morning before I picked her up.  When she got back to school, I got a few smooches and I was off to work with the image of a smiling and very happy little girl on my mind.  I'm glad Rae was busy today.  I have a feeling that the next classes will be a rock-paper-scissors contest (best 2 out of 3) to see who gets to take her.

Well, M sure threw a wrinkle into our evening plans when she hopped off her chair from the dinner table and announced "I want my big girl bed tonight!".

Oooooookay.

This isn't completely out of the blue, as we've been talking about this for the past few weeks (ever since she got to sleep on the floor on her "fun bed" at Great Grandma's at Xmas and Grandma's over New Years).  We've been talking to her about getting a new bed and rearranging her room, in anticipation of it happening soon, and gearing her up for the change.  When we first started talking about it it, her response was "for my birthday" (in April).  Then just this Friday we found out she's moving up to one of the preschool rooms in a few weeks, and so all weekend whenever she talked about it it was "when I go to preschool".  Then, out of the blue this evening, "I want my big girl bed tonight."

So, we spent all evening taking down her crib, swiffering her floor, rearranging her room, and putting up her new big girl bed.  She was really excited to see it happening and to be a part of the process.  She "helped" me disassemble her crib, "carry" her mattresses upstairs, and "help" me put her bed frame together.  While she took a bath I got her side rail thingy put together, and she "helped" us put the sheets on.  We let her do the obligatory bouncing *grin* and then she and I read books while Chloe curled up on the end of her bed.  After 3 potty calls (2 of which were procrastinating) and 3 "one more kisses", I think she's finally asleep in her new bed.

This is a big deal, and while we've been talking about this for a while, I don't think Rae or I was exactly ready for this quite so fast or in the manner it happened.  It was like pulling off a sticky bandaid - just do it quick before you have a chance to think about what you're doing and *poof* it's over before you know it.  I think we're both still in shock.

Her room looks great.  We weren't entirely sure if the new bed and all her furniture was going to fit like we wanted it to (it's a tiny room), but it really does work great and look great.  Tomorrow I have the day off, and I'll be putting together a cubbie/shelf thing and then her new big girl room will be complete.  I can't hardly believe it.

I'm home today.  M's got a pretty nasty cold, she's been coughing, sneezing and sniffling since dinner last night.  Night time was atrocious, as she was coughing constantly, and no one got any sleep.  She had a serious coughing fit around 2a, and from then to 4:30 I sat with her in her chair so she'd be upright and help the drainage.  It did the trick for a while, as she stopped coughing and we both managed to fall asleep.  Around 4:30 though she started getting fidgety and tossing and turning in my arms, so I put her back in her bed and hoped for the best.  She managed to fall asleep again without much coughing and slept for another 3 hours.

I was supposed to have a dentist appointment this morning, postponed 3 times already from the original date in October.  Rae called them around 6:30 (she was up getting ready for work, she knew I'd stay home with her) to cancel and let me sleep until 8.  Called the office at 8:30 to tell them I wasn't coming in.  Been hanging out downstairs in the family room and the playroom since breakfast.

I'm dog tired, but fortunately M hasn't been that active either, so we've both been taking it easy.  She's having a snack of Goldfish and raisins right now, and we're getting ready to go back downstairs.  I think I'm going to make pizza rolls for our lunch today, and make homemade chicken noodle soup for dinner tonight.  Might also cook some chicken breasts for tomorrow's dinner, we'll see how that goes.

This morning, M and I are in the kitchen, she's feeding Miles while I gather things up to get ready to leave.

Me: *grabs wallet and work ID, and cell phone*
M: Uh oh, Mommy forgot her phone!
Me: No, silly, this is my phone (seeing only one, and Rae was already gone for a meeting)
M: No, silly Papa, that's Mommy's phone.
Me: Okay, kiddo, whatever you say *puts phone in pocket*

Later, after dropping M off at school, I grab the phone to call Rae to remind her of something ... It was Rae's phone. We have identical phones. Yeah. My kid spooks me when she does stuff like that, and it's not all that uncommon.