Exotic Travels

I'm going to be honest:  I will not be sorry to see the backside of June.

What's supposed to be a warm and somewhat carefree month has been cooler than usual and full of unexpected change.  No me gusta.


Still, there have been good pieces to this month.  I got to go see my sisters and their families.

I am evidently an exhausting house guest, as most of my six nieces passed out toward the end of my stay at each house.

I spent most of that visit trying to cram as many words as possible into the time with my sisters, and marveling at how each niece is so unique.  Growing up in a family as one of three girls, and seeing my mom- also one of three girls- with her sisters, you would think this wouldn't be quite so astonishing, but you would be forgetting how slow I sometimes am.  Both of sisters now have three girls of their own, and each child is so different, there is no lumping them into categories.  Their natures refuse to let this happen.

This is the one who started it all, who made me realize that being an aunt is ah-mazing, as you get to do all that playing and cuddling and marveling at their traits and personalities without having to ask yourself regular questions like, "Just how much did I screw them up today?" and "Hmmm, what are the chances they'll remember that?  Hopefully very, very small."  Instead you just get to try and smother your laughter when they're sassy or naughty, although this is especially difficult when they're being just like their mother and it's all you can do not to say, "Man, I remember that glare appearing on 5-year-old Kelli's face."  

I also swung by southeast Kansas and got to spend some time with my grandparents.  Hallelujah.

I was unable to get solitaire working again on my grandpa's iPad, marking me as a failure of a granddaughter.  Grandma saved the day by helping Grandpa figure out how to play on her iPad, but only after making him promise "not to get cranky because it's different and you have to learn something new."  Grandpa promised, possibly because he would swear anything to get his hands on the solitaire.  

Grandpa also dug up carrots and onions for me to take home.  Anytime I tried to help he waved me away, never mind that it felt shameful to watch an 88 year old work while I just stood there.

So I took a picture, because that's better.

I also spent an inordinate amount of time staining wood for a big project we've had going over the past several weeks, which deserves a post of its own.  Also needing their own posts:  the boys' soccer camp, running stuff, and a State of Our Yard Address.  Putting it here means it will happen... right?

Also, our kids are still the cutest.

Here a Niece, There a Niece

When my sister Kelli was a baby, she was seriously cute, all dark brown eyes and dimples.  Of course, I didn't really appreciate that at the time, being only three years old and pissed from the start over the fact that they didn't name her Amy like I wanted.

"Kelli and the Floating Heads" sounds like a great band name.

Thankfully she has passed that cuteness on to her sweet babies, including the newest, Kate, who makes you so happy when you hold her you feel a halo of divine light surrounding your person.

The great and terrific and wonderful part of being the aunt rather than the parent is you can swoop in, hold the baby for so long that you know she's going to give her parents fits after you leave trying to get her to sleep anywhere but on a person, then waltz off a couple days later, secure in the knowledge that you, at least, will get a good night's sleep that night.

Unless you have a kid with night terrors.  Then sleep is never guaranteed.  But at least half of that paragraph up there applies to me.  I'll take it.

I like to think it also makes those parents appreciate their little bundle, as evidenced by Aaron muttering (good-naturedly), "Oh, I finally get to hold my baby?" when you hand her over after hogging her for most of the day.

This baby is just so loved.  Her two older sisters will be playing, minding their own business, then they'll catch sight of her out of the corner of their eyes, and come over to kiss and talk to her, which is good, because there are years of screaming ahead.  I don't really ever remember lowering ourselves to the level of hair-pulling, but oh, was there screaming.

Not yet, though.

Now, don't worry, I also played Annoy the Baby at Kelli's.  I probably took a million pictures of Norah while I was there, and it took a loooong time before she was done.

This was first thing in the morning, okay?  FIRST THING.

And yet, when I said, "Norah!  Hi, Norah Mae!"  She turned and SMILED.  The girl smiled at me.

Do you know what would have happened if you had done this to me, or, God forbid, Kelli when we were kids?

Not Stephanie, though.  No, she preferred to wake up early and TAP DANCE on the kitchen floor, which was conveniently right over my slumbering teenage head, causing me to spend many an adolescent morning plotting her painful death immediately after waking.

So how could I tell when Norah was done with picture-taking?  Well, it was subtle.

"Hey, Norah, can I take a picture of your shirt to send to Kim?"   *sigh* "Okay."  

And then I left her alone for a while.

As for this girl:

As the oldest of three girls, she is a child after my own heart.  She knows what needs to be done, and specifically how to do it, and will not let things slide, not on her watch.  I am convinced she could rule her own tiny kingdom if she wanted to.

Plus she's just dang cute.

Of course, now my mean, evil sisters are posting all kinds of adorable pictures of their babies smiling, which they were both so close to doing while I was there.  I would look in their infant eyes and smile and make faces and talk and I could just tell they were thinking, "Aunt Kristy, you are so hilarious and obviously also very charming and intelligent and if I could just get these zygomaticus muscles in check I'd smile to let you know how I feel!"

Niece Hoarder

I'm on High Alert:  Operation Impending Babies right now.  Every text I receive could be from one of my sisters telling me they're in labor.  As I told Kelli a few days ago, I am in a sweet, sweet spot in all this baby business, as I get all the excitement but none of the pain.  Glory hallelujah.

Yes, indeedy-do, each of my two sisters are due to have their third baby girl any time now.  You remember my sisters, right?  Kelli, the middle child, who I once convinced to play chicken on the old highway down the road from our house, where we'd run out in front of passing cars, seeing who could get closest without actually getting hit?  That sister.  (Incidentally, that is the last time I remember getting a spanking from my mother.  Sometimes, when I've been sitting for too long, I believe I can still feel the effects of that particular disciplinary action.  It turns out fear gives mothers divine strength.  Thanks a lot, neighbor who snitched on us- no, but really, thank you, you likely saved our lives.)

Or Stephanie, the youngest, who Kelli and I used to stuff in a sleeping bag and shove down the stairs?  Or shove in a laundry basket and pull around the kitchen, bouncing off the sharp cabinet corners?  Or shove in the dryer, because how else were we supposed to answer the age-old question, "Will our baby sister fit in the dryer?"

Those sisters.


I was worried they were both going to be selfish and deprive me of any more nieces, but thankfully they both managed to get knocked up a third time and now my family and I will have even more little girls to smother with our well-meaning, overly-affectionate love.  We got to see them a month ago, where we did our best to get enough niece/cousin time to last us a while.

Adelaide also made sure to demonstrate to all the little girls that you're never too big to sit in Grandma's lap.

Incidentally, our children still love to sit in our laps.  I love this, too, even if it feels like this most of the time:

Come on, nieces.  You have an aunt ready to smoosh and smooch you, plus I have it on good authority your mothers are perhaps just the teensiest bit uncomfortable right now.  I don't want to point any fingers, but some of you aren't being very careful with your pointy knees and elbows.

Like Grandmother, Like Granddaughter

Last week was a rough week for many in my hometown.  Two dearly, dearly loved people passed away, one of whom was an age (nearly my age, actually) that makes you say, "But he'd barely gotten started on the best part!" and the other was older, yes, but still far too young to say good-bye to, because as far as I'm concerned, no one should ever have to say farewell to the likes of Larry.

[Edited to add:  And now I just found out Anna Dewdney died, the author of the Llama, Llama children's books.  This must be how other people feel when their favorite movie stars overdose, except people who write and illustrate children's books die from things like brain cancer, which feels way more tragic to me.  Getting pretty sick of this whole "people dying" thing.]

One of those hometown-many is my mom.  Last week was hard, and this week will be, too, as she goes through all the rituals that accompany death, and helps those left behind, as she's close to both the grieving families.  So we're going to talk about one of the things that makes my mother happy, which could be quilting or traveling or hand-washing, but will today be her grandchildren.

I could go full-on vain and talk about how amazing the three grandchildren that just so happen to belong to Derek and I are, maybe play a little Carly Simon in the background as inspiration, but instead I simply must show you this picture my mom emailed me a while back, one of herself and her sister Kay.

The back of the photo has a note written by my grandma:  "Dresses are gold checked with organdy aprons.  Lorri [my mom] was mad because she had to wear her bonnet.  I think it's pretty but she doesn't.  Have given Kay's hair a feather cut.  Sure is easier to take care of."    

Now, let's just pass right over the fact that I now feel like a failure for never dressing Adelaide in an organdy apron when I had the chance.  I suppose I could still try, but I have a feeling it would end in a storm of tears and shredded fabric.  Let us also skip over the serious cuteness of Kay's beaming little face, framed by a new feather cut.  

Instead we're going to focus on the my mom, the one year old on the left, who is mad because she had to wear her bonnet, a revelation that I am dying over.  Dying because how many times have mothers of girls dressed them in the most darling of clothing- like bonnets- only to have them pout over it in front of the camera.  She's like a chubby Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I'm also dying because when I look at this and other old photos of my mother, I see the face of our niece, sweet Elliot Ann.

The picture is a little fuzzy because I zoomed in on Ellie's face- the one on my mom's lap, there- so you could get the full effect.  The resemblance is even more striking in person, when you watch Elliot as she goes about her business, her tall, strong build just like my mom's, who infamously stomped the floor out of the playpen my grandmother cruelly placed her in to get something done or maybe catch her breath fifty-something years ago.  It would seem that toddler Lorri had trouble understanding why she was in prison when her two older sisters were not.  Her solution?  Break it to pieces, of course.  

I put that scowling picture up there to mark the resemblance to mom, but I don't want you to think that's all she does, so here are other, smiley-er pictures of her.

Look at how happy she is.  Elliot, I mean.  And yes, my sister Steph is pregnant again, with girl #3, as is my other sister, Kelli. There's a special place in my heart for three-girl families, and now both my sisters will have an estrogen trio!

And now, because I am one of three girls and know better than to go on and on about one of them while leaving the others out, here are some pics of my mom's other granddaughters, our other nieces.

Kelli's family, minus Kelli.  Hang on, let me see if I can find a picture of her.

Well, that's Kelli, all right- around 25 years ago.  Here you see she and I dressing a baby Stephanie for the day.  Notice Steph is not crying, or reacting much at all.  She was used to such loving abuse.  I thought it so charming that my parents were thoughtful enough to get me a living, breathing doll when I was 8 1/2.  This model had overactive tear ducts as an infant, so I got to wipe her eyelids with a warm, wet washcloth until they were once again able to open many mornings because they were sealed shut from so much gunk.  Take that, Baby Alive!  

And, of course, we mustn't forget Vada, Elliot's big sister:

That's her at my grandma and grandpa's house over the weekend, following the Adelaide up a tree.  We were down south celebrating Grandma's 80th birthday.  I now can't wait to become an octogenarian, as when I said, "Grandma, you don't have to do that," she informed me, "I'll do what I want!  You get to do that when you're 80!"  

Only 47 years until that magical day.

A List

• Have you guys seen this video?

Our kids are obsessed with this, and no wonder:  Michael Bublé (Caedmon's personal favorite), Idina Menzel (I can count on one hand the number of times our children have seen the movie Frozen, and yet they somehow know every word of the song Let It Go as performed by Menzel), and the whole video is lip-synced by kids?  With the added bonus of mildly altered lyrics to make Baby, It's Cold Outside 95% less Sexual Predator Anthem-ish?  I say YES.

• On our recent trip south, I forgot our camera.  I suppose it's better to forget the camera than all your kids' pajamas (been there) or shoes for your preschooler (done that) or shampoo (almost every time), but it sure felt like a tragedy.  And I'm not even a particularly talented photographer.  I just like to take too many photos of my nieces; is that so wrong?  

Thankfully, my mom graciously allowed us to use her camera and her phone to take photos while we were there.  And by "us," I mostly mean Atticus.  I think he snapped around 3/4 of the pictures during our time there, so most of them are blurry, and many feature his fingers in the corner, but it's interesting to see things from his perspective.

• I finally found a way to make Derek like homemade chicken noodle soup:  Add heavy cream and plenty of garlic.  This recipe for Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup was a winner with our family, which feels like a bit of a miracle; everyone but me in this house seems to be innately suspicious of soup, which makes no sense as we live in the kind of climate for which soup was surely created.

Things I Don't Understand

• Why Litographs doesn't have a poster for To Kill a Mockingbird.  I know exactly where I'd put it:  right *there,* on the blank stretch of wall I'm looking at.  You're just going to have to trust me on this one, that non-existent poster would look perfect on this wall you can't see.  I keep trying to talk myself out of buying the prints for Leaves of Grass or Walden or Wuthering Heights, because I want to hold out for my very, very favorite.  How am I supposed to resist having the entire text of a book printed on a beautiful graphic that could hang on our wall, though?  How?

• The incredible, inspiring, humbling attitude of the woman writing this post on cancer and bravery and Jesus.  I have an injured ankle that may or may not take me out of a race, not my life, and I'm not so much, "I'm praying I would meet bald again and forever with joy.  I'm praying I would not stop looking for grace.  I'm praying I live well and with kindness when it's painful," as "WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE?"  Honestly, you're all lucky I've more or less shackled myself to this house.  My head is currently an insufferable place to reside, and it's starting to leak into my voice and even this post.  Looks like I need to read that post again and quit feeling sorry for myself, for the love.

• The Krebs Cycle.  I missed it when it was introduced in high school science, somehow didn't study for it for the test, and therefore got all its related questions wrong, which still rankles.  When they brought it up in whatever college course that was, some horrible and particularly pigheaded part of my brain decided that we just weren't ever going to learn this.  Even now, I could google it, but the Krebs Cycle has become this ridiculous thing that I'm aware I should know about but have actively decided to eschew.  Please don't ask me to make any sense of this, because there is none to be made.  

• Why this face has to live so far from mine:

Not to mention this one:

Vada the Boss

And this one:

Happy Elliot

And that one on the left.

Charlotte and Adelaide

On the other hand, the one on the right is mine, all mine.  I'll take that any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

The Terrific Two's

On the drive back up from Kansas, Derek noted how each trip south gets easier for us; we no longer have to pack mass amounts of diapers and wipes or the Pack 'n' Play or baby food or various other baby-related paraphernalia, and the children are aces at distracting themselves for 14 hours in the van, in part thanks to around 8 hours of that time being spent watching movies (ach, I cringed just writing that), but also because they've had plenty of practice distracting themselves after countless circuits on that stretch of highway.

Both my sisters are right in the middle of that phase, and let me just say that is so much easier to be the one that holds the baby and reads books to the two-year-old and then says, "Okay, great, see you in the morning!" than it is to be the parent that changes the diapers and nurses the baby and tries to keep their fussy child quiet in the middle of the night when sharing a house bursting with family.  I mean, I loved visiting family when our kids were teeny, but it was so incredibly stressful, after returning home from each and every trip I would vow never to leave my house again.  Then a few months would go by and I'd miss my loved ones and magically only remember the sweet, fuzzy memories from the most recent long-distance excursion, and off we'd go again.

So while my sisters are probably still working on filling in their sleep deficit and just getting back into the swing of blessed, blessed routine, I'm up north happily trilling, "When can we do it all again?!"  Because while two-year-olds get a bad rap, they are so much fun when you're not the one having to be the mean mommy.





This girl.  Oh, Vada.  I have a feeling your parents are going to say that a lot in the years to come.  Half the reason I check Facebook regularly is to see the photos Steph posts of Vada:  Vada got into Mommy's new lipstick.  Vada got into the giant tub of margarine.  Vada is curious and she's a climber, a dangerous combination for her mom and dad, hilarious for the rest of us.

Oh, Vada.

She's also, like, pathologically friendly, and I mean that in the absolute best way possible.  If you need a hug, Vada is your girl, and she won't just do a cursory little side-hug; she will plaster her roly little body to yours and rest her sweet head on your shoulder.  She also won't say no to a little back rub while she's there.  She only has to catch the most fleeting of glimpses of a camera and she's smiling and saying, "Cheeeese!"


And then there's Charlotte.  Just that sentence makes me laugh, because I have a feeling people used to say that about her mom when we were kids:  "And then there's Kelli."  Kelli once received a report card from school when she was in younger elementary school, and in the comments section the teacher noted, "Kelli is a unique child," which is teacher-speak for, "Dude, your kid's kinda weird."  Charlotte is evidently intent on following in her mother's footsteps, which delights me to no end.  Derek got a big kick out of calling out to Char as she'd walk by him, "Hey, Charlotte!"  "Want to come sit with me, Charlotte?"  "Charlotte?  Can you give your Uncle Derek a hug?" which would cause Char to give the kind of suspicious, unsure look usually reserved for oily men in white-paneled vans, which in turn led to endless laughter for all observing.  Charlotte's affection is to be earned, but I will say it gives you a ridiculous sense of pride when she graces you with a smile or actual physical contact.  She had a bit of an anxious night the first night we were there, and so her parents went out and got her an action figure of the Hulk, because they'd forgotten hers at home, which was rather foolish on their part as she loves the Hulk and believes that he protects her, because of course she does.

The Hulk can now add "Comforter to little girls" to his resume.

Adelaide managed to ingratiate herself to both Charlotte and Vada by playing countless games of Ring Around the Rosy.

You should really click to embiggen this one and see the look of pure Ring Around The Rosy-induced joy on Char's face.

Ring Around the Rosy and the Hulk:  The Keys to Charlotte's Heart.  (That sounds like the title to a really bad book.)


Of course, I know I'll blink and those two-year-old's will be teenagers and the babies won't let me hold them and snuffle at their delicious necks anymore.  There's mutterings in the ranks about turning the niece-faucet off, but I'm not worried.  I'm confident my sisters wouldn't do that to me.  Because, you know, it's all about me.

Surely they wouldn't deprive us of more of this.  Elliot's face.  My goodness.

Or this.

Seven grandkids in eight years.  Oy.