The end of Epic Roadtrip 2012

For some reason, these photos did not load in the correct order. So, bear with me...

 This is what we returned to. Apparently a huge storm ripped through Wheaton and shredded hundreds of trees. We lost our huge gingko tree in our backyard. It split in two and fell away from our house (whew!), crushing our fence and narrowly missing the playset. Our boys had fun climbing all over the fallen tree. 

 This is the other damage. A silver maple fell onto another part of our fence. And an ash fell as well, landing on another tree right next to our house. We were amazed that no tree actually touched our house. God's protection, without a doubt.

 OK, so Niagra Falls. This is where we went from Northampton. I hear that seeing the Falls from the Canadian side is better (or, so says my parents) but we were in Buffalo and not about to travel 1 mile more in any direction. Look at our kids. I wonder if they will ever actually look up and smile when I yell, "guys! look up and smile!!" I hope we don't go straight from distracted toddler to sullen teenager. Fingers crossed!

I love this shot of Brice. Brice is the most engaged, enthusiastic, persistent child on the planet. And i'm not exaggerating when I say this. Brice throws himself wholeheartedly into every adventure. And I love him for that. 

Here we are waiting to ride the Maid of the Mist. We never have any doubt as to what Brice thinks or feels. But Harry--when Harry is afraid of something, he gets quiet. He doesn't make a fuss or yell or scream, he just goes into himself. Here he is waiting patiently to get onto the boat, even though I know he's terrified. Poor baby.

The end of our road trip was Shipshewana IN. I LOVE this town. This is where Seth's Grandma June lived and now Uncle Joel lives in her old house. The town is heavily Amish. We even took a ride in a buggy with a former-Amish gentleman. Apparently he left before he was baptised, so he wasn't "shunned" and still works with his former church family. So interesting. I am fascinated with the Amish. 

This is Uncle Joel and sweet Ariella. She is Joel's grandaughter by way of his daughter Julie (and her husband Tom). We had a big get together one of the nights we were there. I love having this big family. My family is small, and I have only a smattering of cousins, most of whom are all older than I am and spread out around the country. Seth's family is big and warm and fun. They are somewhat spread out, but everyone keeps in touch and is somewhat close in age. 

This was such a great vacation. Seth got his fill of roadtripping and the kids were fabulous--considering. We got to see the cousins and the aunts and uncles. We saw old friends, new cities, went fishing, milked goats, walked the High Line, saw the Falls, toured Harvard, partied at the wedding, and managed to be away while the temps hit the 100s in Wheaton and our AC went down. 

Boston and Northampton

From NYC, we packed up the family truckster and headed to Boston. Seth went to school in Boston and has wanted to take me there and show me around his old stomping grounds. So, we pinned that city too when we planned the trip. And it was a short and merciful drive from NYC. At this point, the boys were overstimulated, underslept and surly. As was their mother.

All my boys in front of Kirkland House at Harvard. Don't the kids looked thrilled? This is how they looked the entire time we were in Boston. It was only the very public nature of touring that kept me from knocking their heads together and giving them each a "Free to a Good Home" sign. Geez.

In the courtyard of Kirkland House. Seth and I decided this was more of a fact-finding vacation--deciding where to go should we ever get the chance to vacation without small children hanging off our limbs and sucking all the good cheer from our bones.

This is the tower at Lowell House (supposedly). It's also possibly the tower at Quincy House. My husband is unsure now and bristling at me to look it up. I will not. This is some tower in Cambridge. So there.

This is Harry. We are waiting outside J.P. Licks for Brice & Seth to get us ice cream. We broke every parenting rule on this vacation--deny them sleep, let them OD on dvds, and give them sugar at any inappropriate time. Here we are having ice cream before we take them to a small Thai restaurant and feed them food we know they will hate. They will then whine and make a scene and we will sneer at them and start discussing boarding school options (people--we are not bad parents. Not all the time. We love our kids. Really. )

This is Seth, finally having a lobster roll in Quincy Market. The kids are next to him eating bagels. I am taking this picture while holding a glass of white wine (my lunch) in my other hand. Poor Seth loves seafood and I hate it. Really hate it. It drives him crazy. He is very inflexible about flexibility and it kills him that I don't like shrimp or lobster or anything tasting of the sea.

Harry and Brice (but mostly Brice) decorating Harry's cupcakes. Harry turned 4 while we were in Northampton with Uncle Tim, Aunt Debbie and the cousins. 

Harry got a Thomas the Train! He really really loves trains. It's so sweet. Brice doesn't really play with anything unless he's actively learning (seriously, even as a baby, he had no interest in toys and needed constant engagement from me. I'm still tired from those days). I also got Harry the coolest doodling book, hoping to awaken some artistic interest--sadly no.

This is the whole gang after having chinese food in Northampton. The family took us here so they could all hear Seth speak Mandarin. He happily obliged and entertained us all. 

This is Brice posing with a bear in Easthampton. I think it was like the cow thing that Chicago did years ago. Remember? 

Happy Birthday Harry! You're four!! You delight us and astound us and we can't imagine life with you!!

Epic Roadtrip 2012, Part Two

So, stop #2 is NYC. Seth's good friend has a condo in Union Square. We crashed with him for two nights. 

This is the boys on the subway. They LOVED the subway. I always wanted to raise my kids in the city, so they could ride the subway and eat street food and generally be much cooler than suburban kids. But then reality hit and I couldn't deal with all the stresses of raising two little boys in Chicago and  sending them to public schools and never having enough room for guests. Anyway, I digress. My kids loved the subway. They loved trying to stand up and hold the pole and not fall down. Sort of urban surfing, I guess. 

This is us standing in line for the Staten Island Ferry. Did you know it's free? Neither did I. But it is. I love ferries. 

The midgets hugging and spotting the Statue of Liberty.

We had lunch at A Salt & Battery. There are not enough words to express how much I love this place. The fish and chips are outstanding. They sell Shandy. The guys who work here are from working-class England (or at least sound like it; adds to the authenticity, I think). We finished things with a deep-fried Mars bar. Yeah, you heard that right. Deep-fried Mars bar.

This is a view from The High Line. It's an above ground walking park in Manhattan. A park they built on an abandoned elevated train line. It's really cool and lovely. And the views are amazing, as you can imagine. 

They had both had their fill of walking, and we had had our fill of them. So we stuffed them both into our borrowed stroller and went to Dylan's Candy Bar--the biggest candy store in the world (so says Dylan [Ralph Lauren's daughter, fyi]). This could have been a total disaster, but we managed to get in and out with a small bag of candy for each of them. And then they had their meltdown.

That night we got street food and then went out for ice cream. YYY (Seth's friend) is serious about his ice cream, so we headed over to a restaurant in Union Square and had a toasted marshmallow shake. It has, of course, a toasted marshmallow on top, but the whole shake tastes that way. It's amazing. Frankly, I was bitter about sharing it. From there we got herbal shakes from a street vendor.

By this time it was around 9pm and both boys were getting tired and grumpy. So, we went to another place!! Harry was going on and on about how all he wanted in the world was cherry gelato and he could never be truly happy if he didn't get cherry gelato (or something along those lines). So we ordered him a cherry gelato cone. But since it was fancy gelato and not the cheap ice cream we usually buy, it wasn't cherry-colored. It was white. And then Harry proceeded to lose his *%^&a* on the sidewalk in the middle of Manhattan. So while we and a million others were milling about, enjoying our evening and the food, Harry was sitting on a bench crying and yelling, "I don't want cherry ice cream!! I wanna go to bed!!!" And a nice gentleman stopped and looked at him and said, "well, this looks fun." And it was, actually, all tantrums aside.  NYC was so much fun.

Epic Roadtrip 2012, Part One

There are many things really great about being married to a lawyer. Regular vacation time is not one of them. When Seth was at the big bad law firm, we went on one vacation--one. And this is a regular complaint of mine "We never go on vacation! Why don't we ever go on vacation? The kids need vacation! Memories!!" (I know, it actually is as annoying as it sounds, too.) So, when we got the invite to cousin Heidi's wedding in June, we planned a two-week roadtrip around it, stuffed the minivan full of snacks, movies, and clothes and hit the interstate. 

 This is B&H having dinner in the hotel in Pittsburgh. If you know me reasonably well, you know I love hotels. Many people want to be rock and roll stars for the fame and the chicks. Not me. I wanted to be a rock and roll star when I heard they spend an inordinate amount of time in hotels. So one of the great things about a road trip for me is spending lots of time in hotels.

This is Harry in fleece pajamas posing unwillingly in front of a well-placed prop at a roadside farmer's market in Virginia. It was at least 100 degrees outside. Brice was in a time-out at the time.

The sign in front of our digs in Virginia. Seth's Uncle Lee lives in Nellysford, Virginia, along with Heidi and her now-husband, Randy. Uncle Lee has a mini-farm with goats and chickens and a few horses. Oh, and a pond full of hungry fish. The kids loved it and got to milk a goat, chase the chickens and catch some fish--a great experience for two spoiled suburban kids.

So, this is all three boys taking an enormous bubble bath. I might have filled the bath a little too much and just might have poured in a little too much bubbles. This would not have been an issue, had the children not found the button for the jets. Oh well. Incidentally, this is also what they were doing while Heidi was getting married. I didn't mention we missed the wedding? Oh yeah. The wedding we planned the trip around--the wedding where we were the only Diehl members represented--we missed it. Got the time wrong. Showed up for the reception. Nice.

They clean up well, no?

Harry waits to make his move on the dance floor.

The wedding was outside on Heidi and Randy's farm. Martha Stewart could not have outdone her. It was gorgeous, with their horses in the background and a stream nearby where the kids could throw rocks in the river. 

Part Two is up next: from Virginia to NYC, then Boston. 

We made it...or, We are in the process of making it

Brice had his tonsils and adenoids out this morning. He was so excited. I really had him pumped up about it. He woke up and said, "this is the best day of my life!" (see? intense, emotional). The nurses were super sweet to him and gave him a teddy bear and a doodle pro, which he happily accepted. He was sitting up in his bed, wearing the surgical shower cap, hands to the sky yelling "abracadabra!!" when the automatic doors opened up to take him into the surgical unit.

Fast Forward 45 minutes to the recovery room. He was screaming and sobbing in bed, barely coherent as the effects of the anesthesia wore off. I hugged him and held him and he ate popsicles while the nurse continued pushing pain meds through his IV. By the time we left, he was okay. I thought maybe we'd be that lucky case where the pain isn't too bad and the kid bounces back quickly (right, Ellen??).

It seems that will not be us. He went into hysterics when I told him he had to take some medicine. He managed to get the antibiotics down, and even the Tylenol with codeine. However, when we went to pick up Harry, things quickly went downhill. We had to pull over on the side of the road while Brice threw up and SCREAMED, his feet wet with puke, mixed with dirt (I took him barefoot, thinking he wouldn't have to get out of the car). A cop stopped to help us. Thankfully, it appeared he had a weak stomach. He gave us some napkins (clearly leftovers from a lunch run) and some wet wipes and just stood by us and waited till we were back in the car to take off. Which was a good thing, since Harry was bouncing around in the backseat with no carseat or booster (Seth forgot to leave it with Ellen, woops).

The night was no better. Worse, actually. Nobody really slept for more than a few hours. Harry, who loves nothing more than eating and sleeping, even woke up at 4:30am. Today has been slightly better. We figured out ways to give him medicine that doesn't require big gulps. Now he's sleeping. Thank you, Jesus.

So sue me...

Is it so wrong i'm giddy with excitement about Brice's upcoming surgery? Like SO EXCITED. On Wednesday morning he is having his tonsils and adenoids removed to relieve him of sleep apnea. For years, YEARS, Seth and I have been trying to work with Brice. Help him manage his moods, express his feeling, deal with his anger, learn self-control. He's been an extraordinarily difficult child. Lovely in so very many ways. Brilliant. Intense. Emotional. But always so very very tired.

We've read every single parenting book out there (I might exaggerate a teensy bit). I'm afraid to show you our bookshelves--your spirited child, your defiant child, your strong-willed child, your explosive child. These books are dog-eared, highlighted, underlined. We've gone to counseling. I've gone to counseling. I have prayed and prayed and prayed. And talked and talked and talked. And googled and googled, etc. Then, as a last ditch effort (if you read my blog, which you obviously do), we took him to an ENT which led to a sleep study, which is why we find ourselves 36 hours aways from the surgery that will allow to him to sleep. Really sleep. Like, all night--with no waking. Deep REM sleep. Maybe he'll hit 9 hours or 11. Heck, 12!!!

We are hopeful that this will help Brice better cope with life. Who can deal with the difficulties of daily life on so little sleep? Not me, at least not on a regular basis. Certainly no 5 year old. I am looking forward to those ever-present dark circles under his eyes disappearing for good--to seeing him rested and refreshed and able to deal with, and actually enjoy, his life.

Fingers crossed that life is about to get very sweet for a very sweet little boy.

Where we've been...

This is what Harry and I do in the afternoon--snuggle into my unmade bed, watch a little Thomas the Train and finish off my cold coffee, always on the bedside table.

 This is Brice the day after his sleep study. He fell asleep in the van on the way home from school at 4pm, moved to my bed at 5pm, his bed at 7pm, and slept until 6am. I guess he was tired.

Brice is having a time-out in the hallway. Scully watches from nearby.

Brice is studying spiders in preschool. He is describing to me how he wants me to draw the spider on his hand. He is also obsessed with Spiderman. A serendipitous intersection, for sure.

Sweet Harry and I chatting at the table. He often requests a kiss. How can I say no??

 When Harry senses he is in trouble (he isn't in this shot) he tells me i'm beautiful. How do little boys learn these mad skills? 

 Happy Birthday to Seth. 37 on Valentine's Day. 

Happy Valentine's Day, Harry!!

 We had Brice's 5th birthday party at the Children's Museum. All the kids wore red, in honor of Spiderman. 

Happy Birthday Brice!! How can you already be 5? How is it you're only 5?? It feels like you've been with us forever--we are so very blessed!

Make a wish, little man. The future is yours...