Sick and spooked

Last night Owen came down with a cold that he must have picked up somewhere along our journey. It’s the usual runny nose mixed in with regular bouts of fussiness that are so out-of-character for our little laid-back guy. In his fragile state he decided he was frightened of my sweet 90-year-old grandmother, who he hasn’t seen since Christmas. Yesterday every time he looked at GG (our nickname for great grandma) he’d pinch up his face and burst into tears. At the dinner table my mother started playing a little GG peekaboo game: When Owen started crying my mom would put a cloth napkin over GG’s face, we’d say “Where’s GG?” and the tears would instantly stop. She’d remove the napkin, reveal a sweet, smiling GG -- and there came the tears. It was just plain terrible but also terribly funny. Today fragile Owen has had a bit more sleep and is slowly warming up to GG again. He almost blew her a kiss before his nap. And then at dinnertime he started stealing glances at her and crying inconsolably again.

1,600 miles

I imagined that when I was writing today’s “we finally made it” post I would have some brutal war stories to share from our Georgia-to-Colorado road trip. But the truth is it wasn’t half bad. Granted, Rob and I spent at least half of our non-driving time squeezed in the back seat between Will and Owen so that we could keep the kids entertained or fed, but Owen never had a major meltdown (although now that we’ve arrived he’s out of sorts) and even after day three, Will agreed that road trips are fun. His enthusiasm did wane a bit though over the course of the trip. Three hours in, he announced, “I’m having a nice time.” Today, as we conquered the last two-hour jaunt from Denver to Eagle, he announced several times, “I want to STOP.” At which point, we’d find something to preoccupy him until the complaining started again.

It helped immensely that we got to enjoy two nice visits along the way – one with friends in Russellville, Arkansas, and one with my cousin and his family in Denver. In Russellville, 5-year-old Evan stepped in as our road trip guardian angel when he decided, with no prompting from his parents, to give Will his Cars coloring book as a gift. Will (who is an ardent fan of “cars with eyes”) spent hours coloring the thing over the course of the next two days. Other pastimes for Will included coloring states in on a map when we spotted license plates, playing tottering games of Chutes and Ladders that left me slightly nauseated, reading E.B. White’s Stuart Little, listening to music, singing along as Rob played a half-hour-long rendition of Old MacDonald had a farm and consuming rare treats like juice boxes, lollipops, and yes, Cheetos (which I had never before purchased for Will in his life). Owen meanwhile loved being entertained by puppets and this-little-piggy games and he enjoyed handling masking tape, board books and cell phones (and even managed to turn Rob’s phone on and call a couple folks on his contact list before we realized how proficient he was with the thing.)

The real secret though was making the decision to eat every meal on the road. I figured time spent sitting (which is how we tend to eat) should be time spent in the car. So if we stopped at McDonald’s we spent the full time on the indoor playground moving our stiff muscles and then took an ice cream or some chicken nuggets (more rare treats) for on-the-road consumption. Our backseat is still a crumb-filled disaster zone, but we made good time with that eating-on-the-move strategy and preoccupied the kids for nice little chunks of time.

Of course, we've still got the return trip looming over us, and that leg of the journey -- with nothing but a return to work and life as usual to look forward to -- sounds a bit more ominous already.

(Since, in these times of soaring gas prices, you might be wondering about the price tag for this excursion: We totaled $167.98 in gas receipts for the outgoing trip. And that doesn’t feel half bad after my conversation with a neighboring gas-pumper in the-middle-of-nowhere Missouri. He was filling up his mega-RV, with a trailer in tow, and told me he spends well over $200 per fill-up. “It’s the government,” he muttered. “I guess they’re waiting so whoever gets elected can say they brought down gas prices.” Hmmm, I thought to myself.)

And we're off...

...or at least we're nearly packed after what has felt like two full days of nonstop packing along with maintenance of the general house chaos. We've got house-sitters this time and I had dreams of vacuuming for them but they're going to have to make-do in my half-dirty home. Because it's 1 a.m. on Saturday morning and Rob and I need to get a little rest. We've got a 9-and-a-half-hour drive ahead of us tomorrow -- that's before stops (and there will be plenty of stops) as we try like heck to make it to Russellville, Arkansas, where we will stay in a room adjacent to our old friends Maureen and Durwin -- who are stuck in what they are calling "jail with continental breakfast" until they get to move into a house in their new town. We'll have a very quick visit with them and then hussel off for two more days of marathon road trip fun before landing in Colorado. Assuming all goes as planned.

It'll probably be Tuesday before I get back to a computer for an update on our nutty adventures so send us good thoughts. Lots of them. Who knows what we're getting into.

My little live-in babysitter

Yesterday after a week off from school, Will started back for his two-day-a-week summer session. And for the first time it seemed like Owen, who was a bit fussier than usual down on the floor without his playmate, really missed his big brother.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve grown more and more comfortable letting Will become Owen’s just-in-the-other-room babysitter. I work in the kitchen and listen attentively as they play together in the living room. I peek in now and then of course (especially when I hear either total silence or unusual rambunctiousness or Owen sobs). In general, though, Will is sorting out how to be a kind, tolerant and usually semi-careful big brother.

My strategies for keeping peace between the brothers include: 1) Smothering my hover-mother instincts and trusting Will not to commit terrible crimes against Owen (the more I tell Will to be careful about something or not to do something, the more likely he is to do it) 2) Pointing out how much Owen enjoys playing with his big brother 3) Listening closely when Will wants to register an Owen complaint – as in “Mom, Owen pushed me!” and then asking Will “Well since Owen’s a baby, what do you think you should do about it?” (Usually Will doesn’t even bother answering the question; he just resumes playing with his brother.) 4) Reminding Will that Owen is learning how to do things from him, that he is his teacher, but refraining from lots of moralizing about how big brothers should behave. 5) Trying to be patient enough to let Will figure out solutions for keeping Owen happy. If I jump right in the second Owen starts crying and bark orders at Will he gets resistant. If I ask him questions and give him space to figure out how to keep Owen happy, he's more likely to come up with his own plan for better behavior. Today, for instance, he decided that it's best to run around with a sheet over your head in a different room from Owen -- after chasing the little guy around in his makeshift ghost costume prompted lots of cries of protest. Often it's five or ten minutes after an "incident" or a little power struggle before Will will be settled enough to devise one of these perfectly practical but not necessarily ingenious plans for himself. But when it comes from him, the solution's more likely to stick.

And Will seems proud of his role as big brother. Yesterday he said to me, “Mom, if Owen had another brother, he might not be nice to him. But I’m always nice to Owen.” And even if Will does slip up here and there – mostly by getting overly reckless or occasionally impulsively aggressive – he was pretty much speaking the truth.

Here's Will feeding Owen lunch today – the first time I asked him to do that job solo. It worked surprisingly well until they started sword-fighting with their spoons (which I swear was all Owen's idea).

Listen while you work

This was my mother’s day gift
– a little speaker in our kitchen that Rob connected to the computer in our adjacent office. It’s one of my favorite gifts ever. My habit of trying to squeeze in a walk to the park, dinner preparation and bedtime routines all within the few hours between Owen’s afternoon awakening and evening bedtime leaves me slaving in my wreck of a kitchen well after 8, when all the interesting NPR programming has turned to music that somehow just doesn’t inspire me when I’m in the midst of scrubbing crusty dishes.

I’m starting to realize that I’m something of an NPR news junkie. Now I play Morning Edition and All Things Considered on my computer as I perform mundane kitchen tasks, and it’s added a whole new layer of serenity to my life as a domestic laborer. Sure I’m washing dishes and floors that will only get dirty all over again in a short number of hours – but at least now I’m hearing interesting tales from around the world while I slave away.

What diversions do you enjoy when you’re stuck doing chores?

Prep-time for the road marathon

The ominous 3-day road trip to Colorado is looming (in spite of your near-consensus that this is a nutty undertaking with two young kids). And yes, Owen will still be in his backward-facing seat. Rather than let a vague feeling of dread settle into me as Saturday’s launch date approaches, I’m deciding to get proactive and super-organized about entertainment and kid logistics for this road trip.

Yesterday, when I was remembering how much I loved these classic auto bingo games (too late to order them now), I decided to search for a printable auto bingo game and found one at MomsMinivan.com. Will and I taped a couple boards to cereal-box cardboard today to give them a firm, official look, and we’re going to take washable markers and check off items as we see them in one color the first time, in a new color the next. I also printed off a U.S. map so we can color in states when we see their license plates and track our route as we go.

Of course none of these activities are going to fly with little Owen. For him, I’m gradually stowing away the things that seem to provide him with endless fascination: spools of thread, masking tape, favorite balls, nesting cups, some favorite books and some new snack food. Beyond that about the only thing in my arsenal is a slew of songs like This Little Piggy and The Itsy Bitsy Spider that I have mentally filed away.

As I was packing a couple game pieces and the spinner from Chutes and Ladders in a ziplock bag yesterday, Rob said, “Don’t you think Will is going to be fine just listening to music?”

And it occurred to me that Rob has been readying for road trip entertainment even longer than me -- but in a distinctly Rob kind of way. Long before I started making notes about hokey car game suggestions from the old mom's minivan website, Rob was ordering a traveling guitar (which Rob justified by designating it Will’s soon-to-be-guitar, for Will to play as soon as he grows into it and for Rob to strum on as we cruise down the Interstate) and a Led Zeppelin box set (along with some other I-tunes downloads) because after all, it’s important to expose the kids to “classic” music.

So now that it’s official -- we are out of our minds and this road trip is going to happen (and we’re not taking a portable DVD player) -- please send me any little strategies you’ve discovered for keeping the peace in the car.

I'll stand for that

On Friday night, for the first time Owen pulled up to standing all by himself. Look what inspired him…

yes, the beer cooler, which Will and Rob were filling in preparation for a little potluck we had for Rob’s co-workers. Now the beers and cooler are put away, and we haven’t seen Owen pull up past his knees since.