The Weekend Report: Massacre Sites, 90 Years, and Trees

In the last post, I noted that sometime soon we planned on heading south for my Grandpa's big 90th birthday party.  That sometime soon was last Saturday, which I intentionally didn't mention because God only knows who's reading this and we don't want any unplanned visitors relieving us of all our belongings because I blabbed GUESS WHO'S LEAVING THEIR HOUSE UNATTENDED?

So last Saturday the kids and I drove the five hours to my grandparents' house, which felt short because our southward travels are normally seven hours, to my mom's house.  Who knew that just two fewer hours would make a drive feel so short, so manageable? 

We still stopped four times within that five hours, none of which I can blame on the children.  I was the one feeling simultaneously achy and jitter-buggy, needing frequent stops to stretch my restless limbs. We stopped at my favorite Iowa rest stop, which borders and provides access to a county park complete with a body of water and wooded trails, which I have run before on a solo trip south and which freaked Derek out because a single runner on isolated trails right next to a rest/truck stop is apparently not the safest idea? 

Our other superfluous stop was made because I'm a sucker for historical markers.  I've seen the sign for the Marais de Cygnes Massacre site many times before, but this time we finally got off the highway, followed the increasingly narrow and windy gravel road, and drove into what ended up being a secluded but picturesque national historic site.

The above is an interesting contraption that you wind up by following the instruction to "turn briskly for sixty seconds," which charged it, I guess; then we pressed play and listened to a dramatic reading of the newspaper article from the 1860's which detailed the events of the massacre, where pro-slavery Missourians crossed the border and shot a bunch of Kansas free-staters (this is all Civil War era, Bleeding Kansas stuff, if you're trying to figure out why on earth any of this ever would have happened).  This was looking over the ravine where the victims were forced to stand and then fell dead into.  I appreciated looking over all of the information available and walking around the area; the boys' favorite part seems to have been the wild turkey sighting.  If you push this stuff in their faces enough something is bound to rub off, right?  Maybe?  Hopefully?


We did eventually make it to our destination, where we got to see nieces and grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles and other relatives whose connection to myself I can only guess at.  And even though we forgot our customary bribes (frozen snack-size Kit Kats), we still forced all the children into group photos, which I somehow did not end up with a picture of on my phone, but I do have this nice one of my mom, her sisters, and their parents. 

I also got this rare sighting of a group of von Soostens.  

What do think a group of von Soostens would be, anyway?  A herd?  A peck?  Whatever the German word for a pack is?  Whatever, they are all now or at some point were von Soostens, and I think at this point the birthday boy was just ready for his cake.

If at all possible, I would highly recommend having a cousin with a bakery.  It makes every family gathering better.

This weekend allowed me to make a big old checkmark on my list of things to do and people to see before we move.  That made it all bittersweet, because hurray, I got to see so many people I love!  But oh, no, when will I see them again?

Loved ones like my sisters who aren't afraid to hug not-a-hugger Adelaide.  She will tolerate this kind of behavior from very few people.  Her aunts are two of them.  (No Adelaides were harmed in the making of this photo; just made to feel momentarily uncomfortable BUT NO DOUBT LOVED, DAUGHTER.)

Sunday before we left we got in plenty of tree climbing, because although she is not a people hugger, she most certainly is a tree hugger.

There most definitely is a Daughter in that Ash.  Click to embiggen and see if you can spot her.  Hint:  look for the serial killer face lurking amongst the leaves.

She also conquered the Sycamore, which was decidedly more difficult, not having a handy fork a few feet off the ground.

Yep, she's in that picture, too.  I'm also happy to report that years of calmly reciting, "You got yourself up there, you can get yourself down," often in the face of twenty feet high hysterics, has resulted in her being able to monkey herself up and down with ease.  

The boys were more excited about the afternoon's entertainment, which I'll post about tomorrow.  It was larger and a little more ostentatious than a morning of peaceful tree climbing, but also involved fewer ticks, for which I think Adelaide has an increasing sense of appreciation.

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.

Elevation Change

Sometimes, the only thing to do after receiving a piece of sad news is to keep busy.  So you clean and clean and clean, all morning, and this is satisfying in the middle and throughout the process, and for right around ten seconds afterward you look around with some level of contentment.

Contentment quickly begins to wane, however, and you travel swiftly from, "My house is clean!" to "My house is clean and my grandma is dead."

This feeling is also short-lived, however, which is fine because you long ago decided that your mood swings are not a sin, especially when you're not forcing anyone on the swing with you.  This up-and-down is largely internal, and pretty well managed by dedicated daily exercise.  So, fine.  Back up we go, because yes, your grandma is dead, but how many people get thirty-two years with a beloved great-grandmother?  And your kids- man, how many get to know a great-great-grandparent?  This is lavish, superfluous blessing, so many decades being so loved by a woman such as Helen Stewart.

Who is now dead.  Back down we go.

But, hang on!  Grandma was 96.  Ninety-six!  She'd lived independently for all but her last few months of life, and these last few years, as her eyesight continued to deteriorate, she'd spoken of how she missed reading and sewing and the faces of her family.  She doesn't have to worry about that anymore!  We'll see her again!  Up and up and up!

But now my family is sad, and my sisters are sad, and that makes me sad.  Down.

The only thing to be done for it is to go outside, look at my flowers, pick the first of my newly-ripened Pink Lady tomatoes, make myself a thick BLT for lunch, and tell our children I love them, because if I learned anything from Grandma, it's that there is no such thing as too many times when it comes to "I love you."  If you want to be like Grandma- and in this case, you do- you won't just say it when you're leaving or hanging up the phone, but as soon as they walk in the door, in any and every lull in conversation.  And you'll say it to all the children, all the grandchildren, all the great- and great-great grandchildren, biological, adopted, married into the family, whatever, because she knew that love is no place to practice scarcity economics.

And back up again, where Grandma is.

The Good Stuff: A List

• The sign outside the Methodist church in my grandparents' town:  "Church Parking Only- All Others Will Be Baptized."

• The two fat ripe strawberries I found in my vegetable/weed garden yesterday:

I ate them both standing over the kitchen sink, strawberry juice running down my hands, the way God intended.  Absolutely delicious.  

• The new pillow Derek's mom gave me a month ago.  I'd been waking up with neck pain every morning for weeks, and although I could more or less take care of it with some yoga, I'd rather just not have any pain to begin with, because I'm needy like that.  Becky offered me the special pillow, I said "Yes, please" and tried not to get too grabby, and from the next morning on, I was hooked.  Haven't had a painful morning since.  

Profile shot of Magic the Puffy Dragon Pillow

I figured, given the shape, that I'd have to sleep on my back to get any relief, which is a problem because I am not a freak who can stay in one position all night.  Also I might snore/ breathe a little bit heavily on my back.  Quote from my friend Kim when we were teenagers, after thousands of sleepovers over the course of a decade:  "Sometimes it's so hard not to smother you in your sleep because you breathe SO LOUDLY."  

• Caedmon keeps offering me a single piece of Kix cereal, which he calls a "kick."  "Do you want two Kix, or one Kick?"  I refuse to correct him, and even went so far as to physically cover Adelaide's mouth when she tried to, because our kids say fewer and fewer of these cute little people things.

Of Gourds and Grandparents

If I wanted to recap our Kansas trip in a linear fashion or even one that made any sense at all, I'd tell you about how we spent three consecutive nights in three different houses, and I would start with the first night, then second, and so on.

Instead I want to talk about gourds.


Our final night in the state of sunflowers was spent at the home of my grandparents.  I've talked about them of the heavenly gardens in the past; this trip their flowers and all things growing were just as divine, and just as bountiful.

Grandparents' bounty now in Iowa.

Grandma once again came through in loading all the empty spaces of our car with gourds and crackers and sweet potato vine and pizza, among other equally random things.  When I went to display this bounty to Derek back in Iowa, I was quick to add, "Keep in mind that she tried to send me home with live ducklings."  Which she did.

I need to have her offer living, breathing animals every visit, now, because I think I could get away with wheel barrows full of plants and rusting metal as long as I preface it with, "Hey- I said 'No' to ALL the things with lungs."

I likewise did not come home with the preserved barn owl we found in a box in a shed while gourd-hunting.  Self control, thy name is Kristy!


While there I told my grandma that I'd felt like the kids and I were this massive tidal wave of energy that had just swept across southern Kansas, leaving exhausted family members in our wake.

Grandma laughed and said, "No, no, no," but Grandpa said it was "a good invasion."

And invade we did.


Atticus invading Grandma's chair- while Grandma was still in it:

Caedmon invading the gazebo with Grandpa:

Adelaide invading the smoke tree:

See her back there?

It helped that after years of herding a multitude of children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Grandma has a black belt in redirecting excess juvenile energy, as evidenced here, where you see Atticus and Adelaide shelling peas from the garden and liking it.

I told you she's good.

I almost had to drag the three kids (okay- all four of us) away to return home to the north.  Atticus in particular was loathe to leave ("But it will be a hundred years before we get to come back!"), so I handed out promises that we'd try and return sometime in the next few months.

Fall sounds like a perfect time for a good invasion.

Par-taaaaaay

Our progeny have spent the past couple days living it up at their grandparents' house.  This means I got to run a bunch of miles, including a long run on the Heart of Iowa trail yesterday, which is pretty at any time, but yesterday they were burning the fields that snug up against the trail for about one of those miles. Thankfully the wind was blowing the smoke away from me, so I got to enjoy the merry, crackling fire and new charred earth as I ran.  

This sign is one of my favorites, as it means that, at least on the way back, I'm just under two miles from home.

Derek's in the middle of a super busy work week, including meetings in the evenings, so he hasn't really gotten quite the mini-vacation I have, but I did accompany him into work for a few hours last night and the evening before.  This prompted me to say things like, "Your job is seriously thankless sometimes," and "Ugh, you've been doing this all week?"  My words probably weren't exactly heartening, but maybe I'm a little more understanding than before.  I also managed to screw up the one job he gave me:  Placing microphones all around a table and plugging them into their corresponding pluggy-hole-things in this giant piece of expensive equipment.  After I had tangled all the cords and plugged everything into the incorrect slots, he said something along the lines of, "Why don't you go do book things?" but in a nice voice, and because we were at the library without children and he knows me.

We did manage to squeeze in one date after work Thursday night, when we went to the big newer grocery store in another even bigger nearby town, where we walked around with bug eyes at all the fanciness.  Friends, we've been Aldi shoppers for a solid decade now, so features like lights that only come in the freezers when you walk by, then flicker back off after a minute of no activity, aisle after aisle of gleaming bins of bulk candy, bulk granola, bulk coffee, etc, etc, and an in-house restaurant with real live waiters was a bit overwhelming for us.  Derek got a mixture of bulk chocolates, and I got $2-worth of bulk organic coffee.  Naturally I bypassed all the snooty, high class-sounding coffees and got Jamaican Me Crazy, which smells amazing when you stick your face right in the bag and inhale, as I have done every time I've walked past it on my kitchen counter.  Apparently "high quality Arabica beans... with a perfect blend of vanilla, caramel, and Mexican liqueur" will do that.  

I'm a little ashamed to admit I can't tell much of a different in taste from my ordinary coffee beans, although I'll be the first to tell you I have anything but a sophisticated palate.  Our house smells fantastic when I brew these puppies, though.  Not actual puppies, you understand, but the fancy beans.  Torturing metaphors:  Another hobby of mine.

And those were our two crazy kid-free days.  We're a wild couple, Derek and I.

King-Sized Luxury *UPDATED*

We got a new bed.

This may not seem particularly news-worthy, except Derek's feet fit on this new bed.  

It's really more of a "new to us" bed; Derek's parents got a fancy new bed, and offered their still-perfectly-good bed to us.  We hemmed and hawed a bit over this offer:  This old house of ours does not boast particularly large bedrooms, and while our current bed, a queen, fit just fine into our bedroom, wouldn't a king-size- what we were being offered- overwhelm the room?  Would we even be able to open the drawers to our dressers?  Neither one of us wanted to be forced to squeeze around a giant bed just to maneuver around the room.

Still.  It would be nice to have a bed that Derek could fit all his parts onto at once.  

So we measured and hemmed and cocked our heads and hawed and scrunched our eyebrows together before finally making the momentous decision and telling his parents that, Yes, we will take this upgrade you are generously offering to us.  

Then we had to figure out what to do with our old bed.  

We threw around a bunch of ideas before deciding that it was time:  Adelaide would get the queen-sized bed and a room of her very own.  Caedmon would move out of his current bedroom, Adelaide would move in, and Cade and Atticus would be cell-mates.  

And so Sunday was spent moving clothes and books and toys around, not to mention de-bunking the bunk beds, as we wanted to keep Atticus on an easily accessible bed due to his night terrors, but didn't trust Caedmon to be quite so far off the ground while unconscious.  We made peace with the potential outcome of that bedroom- now the home of two young boys, and not just any boys, but brothers- being the site of such frequent and and boisterous battles that it may one day calve clean off the house and fall into the backyard.  Without the civilizing presence of their sister at night, it feels as if anything could happen in there.

"And here we have the boys' bedroom..."

All this bedroom rotation and reorganization was made possible by the fact that all three of our young'uns spent the weekend at the bed-donating grandparents.  We did other fun stuff while they were gone, of course- I went to Brass Armadillo, only to find my beloved cast iron squirrel nutcracker was gone (somewhere Derek has a video of me the first time I locked eyes with that thing- I vaguely remember subsiding into hysterics at the sight of its really rather wicked looking maw that you controlled with its big, crazy-heavy tail), Derek got to go to an indoor driving range, and we braved the gooey-eyed masses to go to actual restaurants on Valentine's Day.  The kid-free weekend just happened to coincide with the whole Valentine-thing; neither of us realized what day it was until lunch-time.

Adelaide was, of course, absolutely thrilled when they all got home Sunday afternoon; she kept saying things like, "I don't think I'll be able to stop smiling for at least eight hours," and "I have my own room!" in pure disbelief.  

The king-sized bed ended up fitting into our bedroom just fine (although up the L-shaped stairway was another matter entirely), Derek demonstrating how he could rest both his head and his feet on the mattress at the same time.  Such luxury!  I still haven't gotten used to being several inches away from the edge of the bed and still nowhere near its center.  What am I, some kind of royalty?  What's next- a solid gold Monopoly game set?  Perhaps a carbon fiber toilet seat?  I don't know how I can keep up this rich girl/you're worth it- persona when all I really want is a cast iron squirrel nutcracker.


Two days and two nights after the bedroom switch, the novelty of sharing a room with someone still hasn't worn off for Caedmon, who is very sensitive to being "left out," and was what he complained about almost every night, heartbroken, when he had his own room but could hear Atticus and Adelaide talking and playing at bedtime in their own, separate-from-Caedmon room.

As for the most exciting part- the part that is slowly, against our will, raising mine and Derek's hopes- Atticus hasn't had a night-shattering, screaming night terror since the switch.  Now, IT IS MORE THAN POSSIBLE that he's just in a waning stage; the severity of his night terrors tends to cycle.  We have wondered in the past, however, if Adelaide wasn't contributing to the problem at least in small part.  For such a daytime-nice girl she has a disturbing tendency to yell things like, "NOOOO" and "Stop it- STOP IT!" whilst asleep.  Then there was that time, last spring, when our family was in a hotel room, all the children had fallen asleep, and Adelaide whispered, "I HATE YOU" to the room at large.  It was creepy and disturbing in the extreme.  Really, with a sister that whispers such malevolent messages sleeping above you night after night, how could you not have night terrors?

Still, we're working hard not to get our hopes worked up too far; the past has taught us just to enjoy each full night's sleep as it comes, and if there are two in a row?  Now, that's luxury.




UPDATE:  Last night was bad.  Baaaad.  Looks like I can't blame Adelaide for her brother's night terrors.  Not to worry, though; I already have the next tactic we're going to try in my sights:  Weighted blankets.  I had heard of these being used as a comforting and calming device for people with autism, but that medical expert The Internet informs me they're used for those with all kinds of sensory issues.  I really don't know if Atticus has sensory issues or not, but we've tried everything else under the sun- why not a weighted blanket?  Rest assured (oh, that unintentional pun elicited a sad laugh from me), I'll be spending some time googling "weighted blanket tutorials" today.

"A Cry For Help Unless You're Busy In Which Case I'm Good"

A few months ago, Derek signed up for a work conference up in Minnesota.  Between then and last week, he would occasionally mention aloud about how it would be great if I were able to go with him, and I would agree, but we were already taking our big ten-year anniversary extravaganza trip to Charleston over the summer, so it just wasn't feasible.

Then about a week and a half ago, Derek decided that he would go ahead and ask his parents if they would maybe perhaps possibly be willing to come stay at our house for four days to watch the kids and all around hold down the fort, but hey, don't be afraid to say no, just thought I'd ask, not a big deal if you can't/don't want to/whatever.

Derek can do this because he is not afraid of asking for things.  His philosophy seems to be "you don't know if you don't ask," whereas I hate asking people for anything so much I could literally be on fire and would still shuffle timidly up to my closest friends and family to say, "Hey, I don't want to bother you, but the flesh seems to be melting off my bones, so if you were already going to get some water for yourself, maybe you could get a tiny bit for me, but I mean if you weren't then don't even worry about it, it's not that bad.  Actually, you know what, never mind, I'm completely fine!  No really, I'm good!"  My personal version of hell is asking people for references over and over for all eternity.  I feel nauseated just thinking about it.

Anyway, they said Yes!  Don't remember what I was talking about?  Neither do I!

Derek's parents, who just watched our three favorite vortices of pure energy for a week in July, said that they would absolutely come to our house and feed the children and dress the children and get them on and off the bus and help with the Kindergarten homework and quell the squabbling and go to the storytimes and do all the exhausting things so that I could go to St. Paul with Derek for four blissful days.

I wrote down a blog post everyday in my little notebook while I was there, so I have a lot to catch you all up on.  Next week:  Derek and Kristy Take St. Paul!  (Subtitle:  Derek goes to conference sessions and does legitimate work while Kristy spends half the trip hiding in their awesome hotel room just because she can.)

Those are photos of two people who simultaneously can't believe their good fortune and are trying to get a good shot of themselves and their gorgeous hotel lobby.  Hotel 340, we miss you already.

Crazy Packed Social Fun Exhausting Weekend

It's Monday, which means we survived the birthday weekend.

We are not, by any means, extravagant birthday-celebrators.  I mean, we like birthdays, we don't have any kind of moral objection to the celebration of dates of birth.  It's just that Derek is very, very practical and I am very, very prone to freaking out when forced to spend too much time around my fellow homo sapiens.  Or any time at all around large quantities of the same.

The following is why I almost didn't even answer the door for our kindly mailman this afternoon because I just could not do one more interaction with one more person:


Saturday

• Went for a ten-mile run.  Didn't die.  In fact, I believe this close to two-hour period of solitude to be the reason no one died by my hands over the weekend.

• Came home.  Derek went to gym.  Cleaned self.  Cleaned house.  Cleaned children.  Went the tiniest bit ballistic five minutes before our family left the house to begin super-social-time at the thought of prolonged period of super-social-expectations.  Derek remained calm while I was losing my mind.  This is why crazy people should always trick sane people into marrying them.  

This was me, except for the tiny part about me being one million times less likable than Chris Farley.

• Met Derek's parents, his sister, and her two girls at the birthday restaurant of Caedmon's choosing.

The above photo shows Caedmon hiding in his Grandma's lap while the restaurant staff sing "Happy Birthday" to him.  Unfortunately society frowns upon this kind of practice when you're an adult, or I can think of two very specific occasions when I, too, would have ducked under the table.  Soak it up while it's still considered cute, my son.  And lest you think we were forcing this upon him, he was okay with the whole thing until it actually started happening.  Like surprise parties and Pomeranians, the idea is much better than the reality.

• Went to church carnival.  It is possible that I whimpered when I saw the parking lot was full as we were pulling in.  

Adelaide and I both enjoy snakes, and this one was a beaut.  She had no problem petting the snake, but the thought of hugging the ISU mascot Cy was too much for her:

Caedmon hugging Cy.

Atticus hugging Cy.

Derek's dad, the ISU alumnus, going right past a hug and straight for the lap.  Caedmon could not get over the sight of his Papa sitting on someone's lap.

• Attended an Iowa State volleyball game.

After lunch out and two hours at the carnival, the birthday boy was plum tuckered.  He still naps every afternoon, so it was less than astonishing when he slept through most of the volleyball game.

Four years old is still young enough to sleep on my lap.  Phew.

Others in our party were more enthusiastic.

Then we all parted ways, our fivesome returning home to more or less collapse.  

Sunday

That's right.  It's not over.

I managed to keep it together most of this day, in no small part because I've been reading the parenting book Fit to Burst, where the author says things like, "You don't get to lose it because you're the adult.  Now act like it," except more lovingly.  I would, however, like to posit that because the author has six young children she is more than likely completely loony tunes, so why I'm following her advice is beyond me.  Except that it has been helpful.  I'm really liking the book, Adelaide loves it and is almost done.  Because of course she is.

• Church.  There were a million people there.  Or close to that.  Yet I still didn't lose it.  Someone get me a medal.  And a package of Oreos.  STAT.

• Small, tasteful family celebration on Caedmon's actual fourth birthday.

Come into my loving arms, cake.  

Derek nonchalantly placed Caedmon's birthday gift next to his own plate to see if Caedmon would notice.  Batman was on the box.  Caedmon noticed.

A glow-in-the-dark Batman watch- just the thing for our budding superhero.  We bought it months ago, and Derek really was supremely sneaky about purchasing it as we were all together at the store, but Cade is frighteningly observant and never forgets anything, which spells trouble for me as a mother.  Derek commented in half-exasperation that our youngest should be a detective when Caedmon was like, "Oh, yeah, the Batman watch you got me a long time ago and I've known about this whole time."  Coupled with his extreme interest in bad guys and jails, I think he could go far in this field.  I doubt most police forces would let him wear a cape, though.  Bummer.

• Honored my mental promise with myself and registered for the Des Moines half marathon.  I'm proud to say I did not vomit immediately after clicking "Confirm," but it was dicey there for a few minutes.  Stretching myself is a good, positive thing.  Right, friends?  Right?

• Derek's parents came over and watched the kiddos so that we could attend a church thing.  Well, so that I could attend; Derek was going to be there no matter what, bossing people around.  To be fair, he does this in such a way that they believe they enjoy it and like it when he's the one doing the bossing.  It's like his magic power or something.

Finally we came home and thanked his parents profusely again for doing almost all of the above plus driving an hour each way twice in one weekend.  Then we collapsed.  Again.

"Mom?" "What?" "Mom?" "What?" "Mom?" "WHAT?"

We were all gone for the past week, Derek and I to South Carolina and the kids to their grandparents' house.  I have lots and lots of stories and photos to share, several days' worth, unless I get tired of talking about it and abruptly stop posting.  Actually, that sounds more like me, so just in case, I have to tell you this:  I had Nutella-flavored gelato in Charleston.  I am a changed woman.  Swoon.

Rather than starting at the beginning, I'll begin at the end and tell you what it's been like since we got back.  No, it hasn't been the re-entry hell that so often accompanies a return to home and routine, but it has given me fresh ears to hear the incessant, I'm talking NON-STOP questions our children ask.  One day, while we were away, Derek and I called his parents to talk to the children.  The first thing his mom said to me was, "How many times a day do you say, 'What?'?"

It's true.  Our three children could teach graduate level courses on interrogation (verbal interrogation; the state of Iowa frowns on juvenile waterboarding), and sadly, I have only myself to blame.  When Adelaide was little and I was still a naive, fresh-faced mother I decided I would encourage inquisitiveness, and answer every question I could to the absolute best of my ability.  Then we had Atticus and I was still adorably quixotic and encouraged still more questions- "How else will they learn?" I chirped.

Two years later we had Caedmon, I arrived at my current state of chronic befuddlement, and the questions kept coming, times a million, because answering a child's question is like blowing on a seeding dandelion- a hundred more are spawned from a single breath.  I am eager and enthusiastic for right about one hour every morning, then I become like that horse I rode at 4-H camp: old and sway-backed, sleep-walking my way through the trail, relentlessly chased by my children's need to know how absolutely everything ever created works and why.

We were reunited with our darling children Saturday morning.  By Saturday evening, I was spent.  I had answered more questions than Google.  I readied the little'uns for bed, jammies, teeth-brushing, the works.  I read them a bible story, one about Jesus healing a blind man.  I attempted to frame intelligent answers to thoughtful questions:  "What's a Pharisee?"  "Where's Judea?"  "Can blind people open their eyes?"  "So even Jesus's spit was holy?  What about his snot?  Could his snot heal the owie on my knee?"  "Was Jesus's human body divine, too?  Or was it God dwelling in it that made it holy?"

And so it was that I found myself saying "NO MORE JESUS QUESTIONS," and not feeling even a tiny bit guilty about it, because I have since found that saying, "I don't know- you should ask God when you get to heaven," defers a full quarter of their questions.  I do feel a tiny bit guilty about that, because they have a lot of questions saved up already.  God's not going to know what hit him when these children of ours show up.  He'll have to create a new heavenly department, headed up by an angel incapable of developing headaches.

Freedom and Stuff

July 3rd I put on my dusty Creative Mom hat and had our kids do a fun Independence Day-themed craft that ended up looking like we trailed random bits of glue and salt all over black construction paper then sprayed it with blood.  This was all true except for the blood- that was just food coloring.  The sad part was when Atticus asked what the heck they were supposed to look like and I told him, "Fireworks, of course!" his response was "What are 'fireworks'?"

The problem with fireworks is that they're usually set off when it's dark which has a disturbing tendency to come about late at night.  I have this thing about our kids sleeping at night, so... it's true.  Two of our three children had never seen fireworks.  I'm not sorry.  (A friend of mine unabashedly dislikes fireworks.  "It's like watching money explode in the air!"  This is hilarious to me.)

This year, however, despite the fact that Derek had to work, I decided to brave the throngs of patriotic people (another reason not to attend fireworks displays- no offense, my fellow Americans), solely because Derek's parents offered to come help wrangle the children.  So off we went to Reiman Gardens to listen to a local municipal band and look at flowers and harass Derek while he tried to work.  And watch fireworks.

They say grandchildren keep you young (although I have a sneaking suspicion "they" are people without grandchildren), probably through activities like this one:

Take this little child-flippy-thing times fifty and you have a substantial percentage of Derek's dad's evening.

As our children see any grandparent trying to rest on the ground as an open invitation for super-fun-human-trampoline-time, Dennis soon suggested we tour the gardens.  

Why, yes, this is a statue of a rabbit in a giant garden, but I can't decide whether I should be crying "WHYYYYY?" to the heavens when seeing this or laughing because he looks like Psycho-Not-To-Be-Trusted Rabbit, which, in my possibly unbalanced opinion, is how all gardeners should view rabbits.  

Gnomes are, of course, another popular garden feature:

Friends, meet Elwood, the World's Largest Concrete Gnome.  Elwood was nice and everything, but he's no Viktor. 

He meant nothing to us, Viktor.  Nothing.

And what did we find in the children's area?

A whole string of Tardis's!  (What's the consensus on the plural for "Tardis"?  Tardis's?  Tardii?)  I'm not real sure what Doctor Who has to do with flowers, but when something this awesome happens, I'm not inclined to question it much.

Weeping Angels plus Children's Area equals... Fun?  Education?  Nightmares?

Never mind that, children- look at this Sonic Screwdriver Windchime!

You know, for being at a public garden and, you know, loving flowers the way I do, I took very few photos of flowers while we were there.  And by "very few" I mean ZERO, because I'm a failure.  

I did photograph some Wild Caedmon while I was there, though, so it wasn't a total loss.  Is it just me, or does Cade look more like a forty-year-old man here than a three-year-old boy?

We also made sure to pester Derek a bit before the fireworks started:

Believe me, we are terrific pester-ers.

We finished the evening by introducing our children to the wonder of a fireworks show.  They liked it.  A bit.

I've spent the past four days recovering from all this frivolity, and reckon I'll be ready to do it all again in right about one year, which is an 95% attitude improvement from how I felt while waiting 45 minutes to get out of the blasted parking lot because no one was there to direct traffic.  

Merry America, friends!