Minimalist Road Trip

A few weeks into my Minimalist Conversion, I took my three kids on a month-long road trip.

I had, at this point, begun to find other Minimalist Heroes to learn from. A few of my favorites were The Minimalists, Joshua Becker, and The Practical Minimalists. I knew that, in order to change my mindset so completely, I needed to surround myself with people that had already changed theirs. I didn't know any minimalists in real life, so I started listening to a lot of podcasts. I'm not normally a podcast person, and I have since abandoned all of the podcasts that got me through this mindset-changing phase, but it was exactly what I needed at this period in my mental transition.

Joshua Fields Millburn, one half of The Minimalists, often talks about doing "experiments" along his minimalist journey. Things like living without a phone for two months, or waking up at 3:30 every day. Experiments are a great way to see what the extreme is like without having to completely commit to the extreme forever and ever. I decided that this road trip could be an excellent experiment in extreme minimalist living.

The Experiment: Live for one month with three kids and only what I can fit into a Toyota Prius.

I made a lot of lists. What do I think I will need? Okay, can I pare that down? Can I pare it down again? It's amazing how many things you can live without for a month if you really put your mind to it. It's also pretty amazing what you can fit into a Prius if you're really good at Tetris.

It wasn't just "needs," either. We wanted to enjoy this road trip. This meant that things like books and games and toys and craft supplies made it onto the packing list. The first camp we were going to was a co-op style camp, where we would each come prepared to run a certain number of activities. Which meant that I would need to bring supplies for those activities, too. I pared the "fun" stuff down to the things that I knew would pack up small and offer the most entertainment for the most people. I was deliberate about every item I chose to bring, and I packed all the "fun" stuff in the sub-trunk. It all fit.

(The supplies for these bendy dolls took up very little space. We ran out of felt for clothes after the first camp, but guess what? We were able to buy more felt at the next location.)

(When you don't bring a ton of toys with you, you find other things to play with. Like rocks!)

I gave each kid a backpack and told them that all of their personal "fun" stuff needed to fit into that backpack. My kids are big readers, so I encouraged them to download lots of books onto their Kindles for the trip. (You can say whatever you want about the feel of real paper between your fingers, but nothing beats being able to fit a whole library into the space of one paperback.)

Other than the first aid kit, we didn't pack any "just in case" items. We weren't leaving civilization completely behind us, and I knew that we would be able to go to a store if we needed something. We didn't pack any fans, and then the weather ended up being hotter than we were expecting, so we bought ourselves a box fan. We left it behind at our last destination, because we didn't need another one at home. Was that a waste of $16? No, I don't think so. When I think about all of the other "just in case" things I could also have packed to save $16, they would never have all fit into the car. Once you start down the "just in case" path, it widens very quickly. And a $16 fan was several times cheaper than the car-top carrier I would have had to purchase to fit all those extras. (Should I have analyzed the weather patterns better and KNOWN that we would need a box fan? Maybe. But I didn't. And hindsight is always 20/20.)

I packed two towels for each person. A designated indoor towel, and a designated outdoor towel. That might seem like overkill when you're packing for a minimalist road trip, but I can tell you right now that it saved me a lot of extra laundry. We went to the beach or the river every day at camp, and to the spray park almost every day at my mom's house. Having a second towel that stayed clean while the outdoor towel got dragged around in the sand and dirt meant that you could actually take a shower and have something clean to dry off with afterwards.

Each person had a clear plastic tote to pack their clothes in. These totes kept their clothes visible and organized at our destinations, while also keeping them clean and together while traveling between locations.

(Full disclosure: This photo is actually from Girl Scout camp last summer, but the bin and the packing style were basically the same for this trip.)

We only packed enough clothes for about a week. And once a week, I found somewhere to do laundry, and repacked the bins fresh with clean clothes. Fun fact: Clean, folded clothes take up less space than dirty laundry. Doing the laundry and re-packing the bins before leaving each destination saved me a lot of space.

The verdict: We loved living minimally on our road trip! Doing a week's worth of laundry every week was so much less stressful than letting it pile up. Tidying up our rooms was so much easier when we hadn't dragged tons of extra stuff along with us. And we actually kept our rooms tidy because it wasn't too hard, and we had started to really enjoy having a clean space.

(Our room at the first camp - maintainably clean!)

I started to get stressed out at the last camp, and I started to let the room go. We started getting on each other's nerves more, and the peace began to break. Then it hit me - it's because the room is messy! I took some time that afternoon tidying up while the kids were at an activity. The difference afterwards was tangible. Clean spaces breed peace.

Coming home was the hardest part. Home, where bad habits are deeply entrenched, and the mess can't be fixed in an afternoon. Home, where there are enough spare clothes than I could put off the road trip laundry for another day or two or ten. If I hadn't been convinced before, I would have been convinced then, when the weight of clutter washed back over me, and I felt like I was drowning again. It's hard to see progress when you're picking away at decades of clutter a little at a time. The road trip experiment was like a glimpse at the end of the book: Yes, it's possible. You can do this, and it's so worth it. There are a lot of chapters between here and there, but at least I know that I will like the way this book turns out.

New York City!

I spent the day in New York City yesterday with a 13-month-old strapped to me, a three-year-old in and out of a stroller, a big, heavy diaper bag, a camera, and a friend who was also pushing a stroller with a ten-month-old inside. New York City is awesome, and there are so many things to see, and we walked as much as we could, but sometimes, you just have to take the subway. And for every subway entrance in NYC with an elevator, there are about 20 that just have long, narrow flights of stairs.

As my friend and I were fumbling with our children and our strollers at the top of the first of these flights of stairs, a helpful man came along and offered to help. He took the bottom of Karla's stroller, and helped her carry it to the bottom of the stairs. And as he was helping Karla, a helpful woman came along and took Valerie's hand as she was about to slip on the wet stairs, and helped her to the bottom.

I thought, wow, that was neat. Two helpful people in this city that is renowned for its rude, rushed population. We thanked them profusely, and went on our way.

But then, we came to another flight of stairs at our destination. And two more helpful people jumped in, and this time one of them helped me carry my stroller with my 30+ pound kid STILL INSIDE. And it happened again, and again. At every single subway station, at least one, but usually two or three, helpful people rushed over to help us with our strollers and our children. When my coat fell off the back of my stroller, the person behind me picked it up and handed it to me as soon as I was at the landing. (And, in one particularly awkward moment, an older gentleman actually picked Valerie up and carried her to the bottom of the staircase. I was a little too stunned to say anything, and at least he was carrying her towards me, but it was still rather uncomfortable.)

On almost every subway train, somebody noticed the baby on my back and offered me their seat (which I politely declined, since it's not very easy to sit on a subway seat with a baby on your back, but I appreciated the sentiment). I thought back to the time I came to NYC when I was pregnant with Valerie, and I never had to stand on a subway once, because someone always jumped up to offer their seat to the pregnant woman. And once, when I arrived at a bathroom with a long line, the women in line unanimously bumped me to the front of the line because, "You're pregnant! You can't wait!"

I'm sure there are rude people in NYC, but there are a lot of people in NYC. As a percentage of the population, there are probably just as many rude people in your hometown.

I want to make a television commercial for New York City. It will have a hipster standing in Times Square, saying, "Yeah, we used to be rude, but then it got so mainstream." And then he'll see a lady struggling with a stroller and rush off camera to help her. Anyone have half a million dollars and a hipster they want to give me?

Thank you so much, people of New York City. We had a great time!

June Road Trip Photo Post

There is quite a blog post backlog in my brain right now, and I think it's time I started just throwing stuff up here to make room for coherent thoughts in case they ever decide to make a reappearance. Until then, photos and half-formed sentences.

Ten years ago (June 9, 2001), Jeremy and I got married. We spent the first two nights of our married life at a lovely B&B with a king-sized bed. It seemed ridiculously large.

Ten years later, we stayed at a hotel in Buffalo for my cousin's wedding. It had a king-sized bed, which now seemed to be just the right size.



Classic family picture at the wedding reception - Half of us look okay.



We had some friends watch the girls at the hotel for the second half of the wedding reception so we could go back and enjoy some kid-free time. (Which, for Mama means dancing, and for Daddy means playing with the settings on the camera. Win-win, because he got some pretty good dancing pictures.)



On Sunday, we drove Jeremy to the train station so he could go back to work on Monday, then the girls and I bounced around Western New York for a few more days.

We spent the day in Niagara Falls with my friend Sarah. Both girls fell asleep. (Valerie slept in the stroller for FOUR HOURS!)





Then we went to visit my friend Nicki, who has five sons, a farm, and a baby girl 2 days younger than Dorothy.



I let the older boys play with my camera, and they took hundreds of pictures, some of which were pretty good.





And there is so much more I would like to say, but I need to finish this quickly or it will never get done (like the other version of it that has been sitting in my drafts folder for weeks). Here's to good times with the best kind of family and friends - the kind you can go months without seeing but pick up right where you left off without missing a beat. I love you guys!

P.S. There are way more pictures than this up on Flickr. Click on the black and white farm photo to see the slideshow.

---

Hour-a-Day April: Days Twenty-Six and Twenty-Seven

Yesterday was such a long day, I really couldn't tackle a blog post at the end of it all.

It started at 5:15 am again, with a poop explosion. Fun stuff. I had someone coming over at 10 am to drop off some donor milk for me to bring (along with some of my own) up to a baby who lives about an hour away. My plan was to stick her milk in the freezer with mine, then drop it all off next Tuesday on my way to Vermont/Ottawa. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

She was coming at 10, so rather than plopping down at my computer and wishing I was asleep, I got to work cleaning up my living room and dining room. I got Dorothy back to sleep at around 7, and by 8 I was ready to vacuum. This was a dilemma, because I was afraid the vacuum would wake the girls. But, since 8 is a reasonable time to wake up, I went ahead and vacuumed. Both girls did wake up, but I still managed to finish cleaning up the living room and dining room with them underfoot. We were planning on going to a park at 11, so I was feeling pretty good to have been so productive so early in the morning.

My friend came with the milk at 10, and she had a lot more milk than I was picturing. There was no way on earth it was going to fit in my freezer, even if I made a giant ground beef and broccoli sundae for lunch. So I quickly amended my day's plans, grabbed a cooler from the basement, and packed up for a mini-road trip.

We went to the park, met up with some friends, had a picnic lunch, and played for 2 hours.

Then we drove an hour north, dropped off the milk, and visited a bit with the baby who gets our milk (and her family).

Then, since we were already an hour north, we drove another 40 minutes north to visit my cousin. Valerie and her second cousin Nick really hit it off, and ran off playing together the whole time so Kristin and I could chat. The afternoon quickly slipped away, so my cousin threw some extra noodles in the pot so we could stay for dinner. Then we drove home (the ridiculously long way, since I was too tired to argue with the GPS), gave Valerie a snack, and sent her to bed.

Day 26 tally: 2 hours cleaning, 7 hours spontaneous road trip (not counting the park, which was the one thing originally on today's itinerary).

And today? Today I am very grateful that i didn't take Monday off after all, because I am taking today off.

---

Nine Months Old!

Dear Valerie,

You are nine months old, now! Most moms would probably make some kind of comment at this point about "being out as long as you were in", but that wouldn't be true in your case. You were born early, so you've already been "out" three weeks longer than you were "in", and that particular milestone passed unnoticed before I thought to do the math.



Maybe it's just in contrast to last month's lousiness, but this month was really fun. You didn't hit any major, obvious milestones (like cutting new teeth or saying your first words), but you blossomed so much that it's hard to think of you as a baby anymore. You've become a little person. You don't quite say words yet, but you are very communicative. You babble conversationally, and sometimes, it really sounds like you're speaking. If the adults are having a conversation that doesn't include you, you will voice your opinion on the subject, loudly if necessary. You occasionally repeat sounds that we make, especially musical ones. Sometimes you even match our pitch. You love music. If the TV is on, you will turn and give it your full attention during (and ONLY during) the opening credits. Once the music is over, you will go back to whatever you were doing before. The best part about this is that the opening credits to The Office or Doctor Who are just as entertaining to you as the opening credits to Elmo's World, so we can escape annoying children's programming for a little longer at least.

You also love percussion, and will drum on any remotely drum-like surface that you can get your hands on. Board books are great for this. Your favorite toys are the ones with rattles inside, and you shake them with surprisingly good rhythm. This is nothing new, however; when I was pregnant with you I played the drums in church, and you used to kick me rhythmically when I was done.

Perhaps the most exciting development this month has been your capacity for independent play. Once you outgrew your swing, that was pretty much the end of me being able to put you down and keep you happy for long enough to do a load of dishes. I would try and put you down with some toys to buy a few moments to, say, run to the bathroom, but it would only last for two or three minutes at most. But this month, that all changed. You can sit on the floor surrounded by toys and keep yourself amused for a half hour or more. You actually want me to put you down sometimes.



I think your newfound contentedness on the floor has everything to do with your rapidly developing mobility. Whether it is a cause or an effect, I don't know for sure. Maybe you're more content on the floor because you can wiggle your way over to new and exciting contraband, or maybe you started wiggling your way around the room because you were spending more time on the floor, where pieces of paper and extension cords were enticing you to come and put them in your mouth. Either way, you definitely don't stay where I put you anymore. You still don't exactly crawl, but you can squirm around in circles, roll across the room, and wriggle over to whatever you are trying to reach. Usually, when you try to crawl, you just move backwards, but recently, you've actually made some forward progress, commando-style, on your belly. You haven't quite grasped the "hands and knees" thing yet, but you will push down on your toes until your bum is high in the air. It doesn't get you anywhere, but it's awfully cute.



We took you to Virginia for a wedding this month, and it really couldn't have gone better. You slept in a different bed, met lots of different people, stayed out late with mommy and daddy while they socialized, ate Ethiopian food, met a sheep, and wooed everyone with your general good-baby-ness. I was so proud of you. I know sometimes I hear other moms talk about their babies who take two naps a day and go to bed at 8:00 pm every night, and sometimes I almost wish my baby was like that. But then I think about times like our trip to Virginia, and I take back my almost-wish. I honestly can't imagine having to rush home to get you to bed on time. When you're tired, you'll just fall asleep, wherever, whenever, and you'll sleep till you're not tired anymore. So what if I can't count on that hour in the afternoon every day to do the laundry. I'm not very good at living on too tight of a schedule, anyhow; we like to fly by the seat of our pants in this family. I'm so grateful that you do, too.



I had many more things that I wanted to talk about in this letter, but I feel like this letter is already on its way to being too long. I was going to talk about all the things you do with your feet - how you rattle your plastic links with your toes, how you will use your feet to brace a book that you want to look at, and how you can even get your big toe into your mouth if the mood strikes you.



I was going to talk about how you passed the 20 pound mark this month, and how you're still in the 95th percentile for height. I was going to talk about how much you love to feed yourself finger foods, and how you can polish off an entire avocado in one sitting. I was going to talk about how much you hate to poop in your diaper, so we bought you a potty to poop in, and you actually use it (with a little help, of course). But if I said all the things I wanted to say, you'll be ten months old before this letter is finished. So let me just say, Valerie, I love you; thanks for a really good month.

Love,
Mama

---

Seven Months Old!

Dear Valerie,

You are seven months old, now!

The seventh month of your life was very exciting and eventful and interesting and all kinds of things that I would like to do justice to with a quality monthly letter. But, if I wait any longer to write this letter, you will be eight months old, and all the new things that I meant to write about will be old news. It's amazing how quickly that happens.

We started this month with a trip to Canada. I could have sworn I wrote about our trip to Canada on my blog, but I don't see the entry there, so I guess it will get paperclipped into the middle of your birthday letter.

You had fun playing with your cousin April (and by "playing with", I mean "being crawled on top of by", but you did have fun!)



We bundled up in warm clothes and went to Winterlude (Ottawa's winter festival).



It was a fantastic trip, even if we did get caught in a nasty snowstorm on the way up and have to stay in a hotel for the night (your first hotel!). We had a nice visit with Grandma, and you got to eat your very first food. You LOVE eating real food. You have become the star attraction at every meal, as you explore new tastes and textures and maneuver things to your mouth with adorable determination.



While we were in Canada, April decided to give you something special to take home with you: her cold. You spent the next week or so completely miserable with a runny nose and a cough. I felt so bad for you. Then, one day, the cold was gone. Then, the next day (February 17, to be precise), I saw a tooth poking up through your bottom gum, on the left. Your Nana was on her way to pick up your PopPop from the airport, and I couldn't wait to show them your new tooth! I nursed you, and apparently there was magic in that milk, because when you were done nursing and I pried open your mouth to show Nana and PopPop your new tooth, there was another tooth poking up right beside it! (Pictures to come later in a "this is what baby teeth look like coming in over time" spread.)

So I guess we should thank April for the cold she gave you, because you seem to have used your body's leftover cold-fighting powers to cut your first teeth. That, or it was never a cold in the first place, it was just teething symptoms. That, or it was just a big coincidence, but how boring is that? Anyhow, long story short, you now have teeth, and I don't let you chew on my fingers anymore, because, man! It can really hurt!

You have become a very talkative baby. In addition to H's, you now say B's, P's, M's, and, most recently, L's. You're not really showing interest in baby signs at all, and I think it's because you are so focused on communicating verbally. You like to talk a lot. I have no idea where you would inherit a trait like that.



You've also become much more exploratory this month. You like to play with your toes, other people's toes, and, most often, other people's faces. You especially like grabbing my nose, trying to poke my eyes out, and holding my lips shut. Apparently, you think I talk too much. You're probably right. Your dad barely gets in a word in edgewise around here as it is, whatever is he going to do when he has both of us to compete with?



I know I have said something to this effect in almost every letter, but you sure are getting big! As of your six-month appointment, you were in the 95th percentile for height. You're too tall for almost all of your pants, but I have solved this problem by just pretending that you're wearing capris. My favorite outfit to put you in is a footed sleeper underneath a pair of overalls. Then, you look like you're wearing "real clothes" but I don't have to deal with socks that a) don't go up high enough to cover the gap under your capris, and b) fall off every 2.3 seconds. Plus, your "socks", "leggings", and "shirt" all match perfectly! That's more than I can say for what I'm wearing today.

You used to always sleep until I came home from work, but you have recently taken to waking up about an hour before I get home, so you can wait for me. When I walk in the door, you'll be sitting there on your daddy's knee, and you will turn around when I say "Hi" and flash me the biggest, brightest smile. Sometimes, you'll even say some variant of "Hi" back to me. When I come over to pick you up, you will reach out for me with your arms, and grab me around my neck, and bury your head in my shoulder. That first snuggle is the highlight of my day, and as exciting as solid food and teeth might be, that is the image I want to keep with me of your seventh month of life. Those eyes full of love, that smile full of joy, and those arms reaching up to communicate everything that you don't have the words for, yet. I love you, too, Valerie.



Love,
Mama.

Six Months Old!

Dear Valerie,

You are six months old today! (I really shouldn't start these letters like that anymore, because the honest side of me wants to explain that you actually turned six months old a week ago, but we took a trip to Canada that same day and we were too busy having fun with Grandma and everyone else to write birthday letters. Meanwhile, another part of me doesn't want to waste a whole paragraph of your special monthly letter explaining why it wasn't written EXACTLY on the fifth day of the month. Let's start this over.)

Dear Valerie,

You are six months old, now! This has been an exciting month for you, developmentally. You started sitting up pretty well on your own, in spite of what some videos might lead you to believe. (I actually have a video of you sitting up on your own for over a minute, but how boring is that to watch? Babies falling over are much funnier.) You also discovered your feet, which you play with whenever they are within your reach. Diaper changes are fun, because those bare little piggies are right there in front of you, asking to be grabbed, and you conveniently maneuver yourself into a very good bum-cleaning position as soon as you see your toes.

You're still big for your age, weighing in at 18lbs 3oz (75-90%) and measuring 27 1/4 inches (90-95%) at your six-month check-up. You seem to be right on track developmentally for most milestones, except maybe for mobility. I used to think it was because you were growing so fast that you couldn't move all that weight. But I've seen you roll halfway over, and I've seen you roll the other half of the way over, so I think you're capable of rolling over, you just don't want to. I think you're just generally pretty content with where you are, and don't see the need to go rolling around to change it. That, and I think you figured out that if you roll over, you end up facing the wrong direction, and that's counter-productive if you're trying to get a closer look at someone or something. You much prefer the more direct approach, and will lean forward until you reach what you desire, or topple over in the process.



I don't really mind if you put off rolling over for a little while longer, though. Rolling leads to crawling, and crawling leads to me having to baby-proof a home that currently has electrical cords running all the way across the living room, and fun toys like batteries scattered about on the unvacuumed carpet.

You're becoming an easier baby day by day, and I know I should cherish this brief window while you're old enough to be fun and interactive, but small enough to carry around. I took you with me to New York City for my birthday, and wore you in the wrap all day. You had so much fun looking at all the big buildings, and being told you were beautiful in at least four different languages, and staring at all the shiny Chinese New Year decorations. I loved not having to lug a stroller around all day. But most of all, I loved embarking on an adventure with you. My life, as I knew it, ended the day I had you. But life as I could never have imagined it started that day, too. I get to see the world through your eyes, now, and it's a wonderful, amazing, fun place, where ordinary things are new and exciting, and it's always a good time to burst into song. I've learned to be more patient with life, and not mind so much that I can't really keep to a schedule because there's always diapers to change and a tummy to fill, because any given moment can be worth enjoying together. Sometimes, I will admit, I get frustrated, and wish I could wake up at 8:50 and still get out the door at 9:00 like I used to be able to do, without having to worry about packing a diaper bag. But other days, like the day we spent in NYC together, I remember why Jeremy and I wanted to start a family in the first place. A life worth living is a life worth sharing, and sharing our life with you has made our life richer than ever before. Thank you.

Love,
Mama.

---

Holidays and Whatnots

Well, I disappeared from the internet for a week or so, but I'm sure you didn't notice, because I update this blog so infrequently as it is. It was nice to have a respite from my technological ball-and-chain, even if it does mean that I missed at least one Facebook birth announcement while I was gone. (Congratulations Maryalice!)

We drove to Ottawa for Christmas this year, and I can now say that driving 900 miles round trip with a four-month-old is much, much better than driving the same trip with a two-month-old. In fact, she slept a good portion of the trip, and she seems to be overcoming her fear of the dark, so we might break out the old parental "drive through the night" trick next time around and see how that goes. It was still a long trip (about 9 1/2 hours each way), but it went so much more smoothly than last time, since we are starting to figure out what works for us and what doesn't.

Every time I go to Ottawa, it feels a little less like home, and a little more like Home. It's no longer the place that I live, or the place that I recently lived. It has become The Place I Grew Up. Which is special in its own way, and I'm only a little bit sad to embrace this change. It has that aura of memories now, that aura that used to only belong to the town where my grandparents lived. The scent of occasional familiarity. I've gradually grown away from my Ottawa friends, and although it is nice to catch up when we see each other, I'm beginning to realize that the distance between us will only grow, and I should be grateful for the part they played in my life when we lived nearby, and not try to force that level of intimacy to continue. Somewhere along the line, those friendships will get redefined, and they will become that family that my parents would drop in on every other year or so when we were driving through Pennsylvania. Close, special, but not daily, friends.

It's weird to uproot yourself and plant yourself somewhere else. I had done the uprooting thing before - I've moved all over since I first left Ottawa for college in 1997. But with all of my traveling around, Ottawa was always where my roots were. Then we settled into the Philly suburbs. I joined my local church, and canceled my membership at my Ottawa church. We had a baby. And when Jeremy lost his job, there was a fleeting moment of, "Hey, we aren't tied down, we can move anywhere, we can go back to Ottawa or off to France!" But that moment passed quickly. Because we weren't here for the job. We never were. We're here because we chose to make this place our home.

So, while we were in Ottawa, I made the decision not to try to get together with friends. I didn't want to come home from my trip more tired than I had been when I left. And there are definitely some people that I am very sad that I didn't get to see, but I had a wonderful and surprisingly restful time with my family. And all the grandkids. It was lovely.

While we were in Ottawa, Valerie had her first dose of weather so cold that her nose turned red and I had to bury her deep in my coat to stay warm. She went swimming for the first time, at a salt pool, and she thoroughly enjoyed it. She sortof opened presents, and she chewed on a lot of tissue paper. She posed for a lot of pictures. It was a great trip.



Our New Year's Eve was low-key and restful, too. We had a few friends over, played some games, talked a lot, and Valerie decided to surprise us all by sleeping through the entire party, on her own, in her crib, so that we could be adults for an evening. It was a nice treat. When she woke up, I turned to Jeremy and said, "I can't believe she's been asleep SINCE LAST YEAR!" It's my little New Year's tradition. Other people make resolutions, I allow myself the luxury of making that one, dumb joke five times. Tradition is fun.

My family has a tradition of posing the kids, wearing their Santa hats, in a little row, in order of age. Each year, we could look at last year's picture, and see how much we'd grown. When we got older, my mom kept this up, even though we stopped growing and our hats stopped fitting. Then we started getting married, and I made everyone and their spouses new hats, and the line got a lot longer. Then we started making babies. And this year's line got too long for the living room, and we moved it to the stairs.



Wow, I have a lot more to say than I thought I did when I sat down to write this. I was going to say something short and sweet like, "We're back from Canada, go see our pictures on Flickr." But, then again, I haven't posted SINCE LAST YEAR, so maybe I'm just making up for lost time. (That was number four - I'm saving number five for work tomorrow.)

---

Road Trip: the Miniseries (5,6,7)

The network has unceremoniously dropped the miniseries currently in progress, and will be playing all of the remaining episodes back-to-back during the night of the basketball finals. They figure no one was watching anyhow, so no one will miss it.

Episode Five:

Sunday night, we had our big, family Thanksgiving dinner. I can't remember exactly how we managed it, but we somehow actually played the game of Settlers we had set up the night before, and finished it in time to set the table for dinner. Unfortunately, we did not finish in time for me to make my salt-free white sauce for the green bean casserole, so we ended up just having plain green beans with dinner. Which was just as well, because we had picked up fresh green beans the day before at the farmer's market, and they were delicious without being smothered in sauce. Dinner was incredible, although my mother dubbed it "simple" because of the lack of green bean casserole, even though it had all of the other beloved Thanksgiving fixings. (And yes, for all my American friends, we eat pretty much all of the same things you do at a Canadian Thanksgiving, we just do it six weeks sooner without any pilgrims.) I have a photograph of the set table after Benjie opened the can of cranberry sauce and left it in the can-shape on the serving dish, but before Alana was a party-pooper and sliced it up. Unfortunately, that photo is still on my laptop, which theoretically still works, but has no screen to confirm that fact to me.

So, we woke up on Monday morning, and decided not to go home just yet. I wanted to go shopping at Bulk Barn, my favorite store in the world, of which there is no equal where I live in the United States. And I had a gift card to Value Village, but neither store was open on Monday, because it was a holiday. So we decided that we would leave on Tuesday after I made those two, quick, shopping trips. I was glad we ended up staying, though, because it gave Valerie some quality one-on-one Grandma time.



We said goodbye to Alana and Eric and Nick on Monday, then spent the rest of the day recovering a bit. It was nice.

Episode Six:

Tuesday morning, I went shopping. I have been a thrift store shopper for most of my life, and I have mastered the art of finding things on a rack that will fit my size and style. Then I got pregnant, and I grew a belly, but I still did pretty well at finding things that I liked, and fit, at thrift stores. Then I had a baby, and my weight returned mostly to normal, and my belly returned mostly to normal, but other, um, bits of me did not return to normal. And I can't seem to find things that fit me at thrift stores anymore. I tried on 30 or 40 shirts that morning, and anything that looked like it might fit me was either too tight in the chest, too short to cover my belly, or baggy and hideous all over. I had been hoping to find five t-shirts, but I only managed to find one. I finally gave up and headed over to the long-sleeved shirts, where I had a little more luck, but I really prefer short-sleeved shirts, and left more than a little disappointed. I have a large collection of clothing, an eclectic mish-mash obtained over the years through a shopping theory that basically consists of, "Hey, this fits me and is unique/fun/silly/nice, I should get it," and then never getting rid of anything. And now, I am slowly realizing that 90% of that stuff will probably never fit me again. But I'm not quite ready to purge my wardrobe just yet. I'm in clothing limbo.

I had better luck at Bulk Barn, because other than still not liking coffee, my tastes in munchies have not changed. I bought all of my favorite snacks, and a whole bunch of spices that I was running low on. (Seriously, if you can ever find a bulk store to buy spices, it's the best. I can refill my jar of bay leaves about 5 times over for 19 cents.) But my lengthy shopping trip, and our continued putting off of packing, and one last stop to say goodbye to Benjie and Trish and April, and we weren't on the road until dinnertime. Which, for those of you keeping score, is awfully late to start an eight hour trip.

We stopped for dinner just over the border, at a diner chosen in part because I have stopped there in the past and know it's good, and in part because of its proximity to the town where two of our college friends, Ben and Michelle, had recently moved. After ordering, I called 411 and managed to get a phone number for them. Michelle was ecstatic to hear from us. She said that she'd be right over and would let Ben know to meet us there when he was done work. We had a really nice visit over dinner, and sat talking afterward for far longer than we should have. Ben mentioned that their guest room was still full of boxes from moving, but that we were more than welcome to stay with them if we wanted to. We were relieved to not have to finish the trip at that late hour, and happy to be able to spend some more time visiting with friends that we had not seen in far too long.

Episode Seven:

After a leisurely morning, we hit the road again, and the trip home went significantly better than the trip up. I stopped trying to use bottles while we were on the road, and stopping to nurse her when she needed it made for a much less stressful trip home. Lesson learned. (Although we have since switched bottles to Dr. Brown's, which she seems to take a whole lot better than the Medela ones we had been using, so I might try again on another trip in the future.)

So, we were home again on Wednesday evening, just in time for our Wednesday night game night. We had a nice relaxing evening with friends, although we found that we were a little too tired to actually play in the end. It was a nice way to round out a nice almost-week-long trip, and it was really nice to come home to a mostly clean house. (I love when I clean up before leaving, it's such a nice treat when I get home, and I've forgotten by then how frazzled and stressed I was trying to get it all done.)

The end.

---

Road Trip: the Miniseries (4)

Episode Four:

At the rate I'm going, it will be American Thanksgiving before I manage to finish posting about Canadian Thanksgiving. And in the meantime, we've done other stuff, too, so Thursday night through Sunday will be presented as a montage. Imagine appropriate music.

Thursday night, surreal. Very odd being a mommy in a house where I was a baby. Didn't sleep much.
Friday morning, family love.

Walk to the park wearing the baby. Alana climbed on the kiddie climbing wall. Someone else took pictures.
Visit with Jenn and Rob and Dom, who was still in the womb when I last saw him, and Andrew, who was born a week before Valerie but is gestationally a month older and it shows.

Awesome time catching up with old friends. Yummy homemade macaroni and cheese.
I think we did something Friday night. Lack of sleep catching up, so it's a blur.
Saturday, more fun with family and friends. Katie, Mike and Isla came over. Katie should be having her baby any day now.

We watched UHF. We set up Settlers, but didn't play. Alana and I made pies.
Sunday morning, church. April was dedicated.

We took a billion family pictures.




To be continued...

---

Road Trip: the Miniseries (3)

Episode Three:

I had wanted to leave my house on Thursday at noon, but it took me a lot longer to get ready than I had anticipated. I've never traveled with a baby before, and man, do you ever need a lot of stuff to travel with a baby! We eventually got on the road at 3:00 p.m., which was actually the estimated departure time I had given to my mom, so, in a way, we actually left on time. (Although my cover will be blown as soon as my mom reads this post. Darn.)

Before this weekend, the longest trip Valerie had ever taken in the car was 45 minutes. And she was pretty good for about the first 45 minutes of this trip. Unfortunately, my mom's house is an eight-hour drive. First, she got hungry. I was completely prepared for this eventuality, having packed some pumped milk, my pump, extra bottles, and an AC adapter so that I could pump in the car. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack "not being stuck in the car seat." Valerie is normally pretty good about taking a bottle, but we just couldn't seem to get the angle right in her car seat, which led to much mess and frustration. Which led to crying. Which led to her overheating, because she was so worked up. That was the worst. When she was completely miserable, but I could do nothing to help cool her down, because I couldn't take her out of the sweaty, plastic car seat. Whenever we would finally stop, I would take her out, her back soaked with sweat, and comfort her as she tried to comprehend why it took so long for me to tend to her needs. Then I would put fresh, dry cloth diapers behind her back and we would be okay for a few minutes as we started back on the road.

By 9:00 p.m., we had only made it halfway to Ottawa. When the sun set, overheating became less of an issue, but it was replaced with fear of the dark. Remember how I made myself a mental note to bring a battery-powered light with me on this trip? Well, I didn't. My mom called my cell phone about this time, and I told her I was sure it was going to be 2 or 3 a.m. by the time we got there. I wasn't feeling optimistic.

Fortunately, Jeremy had brought a little LED book light with him, which I clipped to the baby-view mirror. Then Valerie fell asleep. Worn out, no doubt, from all the crying she had done in the past six hours. And she stayed asleep until we arrived in Ottawa at 12:20 a.m., having stopped only briefly for gas and pee breaks. I was so relieved, I almost thought we might be able to make the return trip.

To be continued...

---

Road Trip: the Miniseries (2)

Episode Two:

Two weeks ago today, Jeremy lost his job. I've been hesitating to write about this, because he's a much less public person than I am, but I can't really tell my own story without including at least some bits of his story as well. Besides, when I get to the part of the road trip story where we keep adding another day onto the end of the trip, someone was bound to wonder why we had the freedom to do that.

The same week Jeremy lost his job, Valerie had her two-month check-up with the pediatrician. Except when we got to the doctor's office, we found out that Valerie didn't have health insurance, because her paperwork hadn't been submitted to the insurance company in time. After a long afternoon on the phone with my insurance company (who can't add Valerie unless they add me, and can't add me unless I lose my insurance coverage somewhere else) and Jeremy's insurance company (who can't cancel our coverage unless we get coverage somewhere else), I ultimately submitted an appeal with Jeremy's benefits administration to appeal the denial of coverage. (I just found out this morning that our appeal was allowed, so, yay!)

Anyhow, it's been a rough couple of weeks, and we're still not sure what's in store for us. I'm trying to keep my spirits up, and we put worrying mostly on hold for the weekend so we could enjoy time with my family in Canada.

To be continued...

---

Road Trip: the Miniseries (1)

Episode One:

I have a lot to say right now, so I've decided to break up what is inevitably going to be a very long post into smaller chapters. I'll try not to go on too many tangents.

Whenever I see the word "miniseries" written out, I read it wrong in my head, like it's all one word and the only stressed syllable is the "ni". (Just kidding about that no tangents thing, by the way.)

I'm going back and forth between starting this post out with some precious Valerie milestones or with why the Wakeman household had a lousy week last week (as mentioned in my last post). Aw, who am I kidding, cute baby always wins.

First of all, she has been growing like a weed. I switched to cloth diapers about three weeks ago, and at that time, she was only just growing out of her newborn clothes. Cloth diapers do add a bit of bulk, so some of the 0-3 onesies were not big enough around the bum, but the other 0-3 stuff seemed to fit fine. For about a week. As of this weekend, Valerie's legs are too long for almost all of her 0-3 sleepers, which were each worn a grand total of 0-3 times. Time to dig into the "too big for her" box again (which will soon be smaller than the "too small for her" box).

She is also becoming more playful. She has started noticing things like her mobile, and even laughs on occasion. The funny face game has expanded a bit. For a while, she had been sticking her tongue back out at me when I stuck my tongue out at her. But recently, I noticed that she was smiling and cooing back at me, instead. I wondered why she wasn't sticking her tongue out anymore until I realized that I make an "mmmm" noise when I stick my tongue out at her, and she was making the noise back at me, instead!

Oh, and while she is not yet "sleeping through the night", she is spending longer and longer stretches of nighttime asleep, and she will occasionally go right back to sleep after eating only once. Many mornings, I actually wake up having had a relatively normal amount of sleep. Hooray!

To be continued...

---

Catching Up

So, I've been trying and trying to properly update this blog, but it seems like all of the times I am not extremely busy, I am extremely busy sleeping to catch up. I tried to blog about my vacation, wrote about 10 pages, and then realized that I was still only on day two. At that rate, I will be blogging about Auggie's birth sometime in 2014. So, here is the whirlwind tour of all the things I've been wanting to blog about in the past month, interspersed with some photos.

Rachel and I drove to Western Massachusetts for Jiffy Con. We played games.



We met awesome people, some of whom were awesome enough to pose all on one side of a table when I complained about the difficulties of photographing groups at round tables.



We did not play nutball. I did not take photos of nutball.

I finally managed to take some good pictures of Rachel.



We stayed at Joshua's house.



Then we drove to Vermont to visit my sister for a couple of days. We relaxed and played with my nephew and marinated meat for the camping trip. I didn't take very many pictures in Vermont, but I did get a few of Nick in the tub.



Then we drove to Crawford Notch, NH, for the annual YARR camping trip. There were about 15 of us this year, including one child and two pregnant ladies. It will be interesting to see how the dynamic changes in future years as our families blossom. Jeremy joined us at the campsite, which was nice, because I hadn't seen him in almost a week.

We camped. We hiked. (Hiking photo taken by Allison.)



We swam in the river.



We sat on logs and exposed our pasty-white June flesh to the sun.



It rained a lot. I didn't take any pictures of the rain. But our massive tarp set up helped keep the cooking area dry.



We spent a lot of our time just sitting around the fire pit - talking, eating, destroying confidential documents, and waiting for the dishwater to boil.



We played a lot of games. We took some touristy pictures of "the Notch".



We climbed on a slippery waterfall. Dan fell and got a concussion. Phil ripped his leg open on a guard rail running to the rescue and had to get ten stitches. (Everyone is okay, now.)



Sara found some luna moths while taking down the screen tent.



When I got home, everything I had brought with me was wet and dirty from all the rain. I did a lot of laundry, took a lot of naps, and went back to work. I didn't take any pictures of these things. Fast forward through about two weeks of post-vacation recovery, including my car having to go to the shop twice. (Poor Bitsy now has no AC, just in time for the hottest part of the summer.) Then my sister came to visit, and fun things started happening again. Like a trip to the Aquarium.



My church and my mother-in-law threw an amazing baby shower for me. My nephew took his very first steps in my living room, and rode on his very first carousel (not in my living room). We celebrated Nick's first birthday with yummy Korean food and gelato for dessert. And I have no pictures of any of these things for some sad reason, but they were memorable nonetheless. And that brings us to today, which is finally routine enough for me to spend it cropping pictures and uploading them to my blog. Hopefully, it won't be another whole month before I post again!

---