Rosie the Cat

Rosie, circa 2004. She says, "Phoenix?
Really, guys?"

I'm surprised by how much I cry.

First, when I ran back into the house - the kids all loaded in carseats already - to get lawn chairs from the basement. I saw her from the stairs, lying there on the floor, in a position unusual for her. I cried because I wasn't expecting it, not at that moment anyway, and because I don't want to have to deal with it. And then, later, when M wrapped her in a sheet and tucked her in a box. We went to the concert anyway, Laurel crying the whole way because it took too long and she has "nothing to do" and Mark O fussing because he hates riding in the car when he can't see my face. Tears streamed down my face quietly, until I started laughing after Laurel shouted, "Oh no! We are all crying! What will we do?"

I never even wanted a cat. M convinced me, the year we got our first apartment together. She came to us through one of his work friends. She was a neurotic creature, who didn't like to live with other pets. She had trouble grooming her long hair, and a passive-aggressive way of shitting on the floor when she disapproved of something. When he brought her home, she crawled under the claw-foot tub and stayed there all day. That night, she came scratching at our bedroom door and mewed until we let her in. She curled up at the foot of our bed and slept like that for the next 8 or 9 years.

She was fairly tolerant of our cross country moves and long term house guests and roommates. Late nights and wild parties. We used to have her shaved into the "cub cut" during the summer. She would eventually be grateful to be free of her long hair in the hot weather, but on the first day, she always looked naked and self-conscious. She had an extremely sarcastic and judgmental glance. But she also rubbed up against my ankles while I did the dishes, and kept me company whenever M was away. Her purr sounded almost like a chirp when she was especially satisfied.

When we moved to our current house and had kids, she was already very gray, and not as limber. She used to leap effortlessly up to the window sills or the back of the couch. She could still manage it to the end - even this past week, I saw her get up on the dining room window sill to look at a squirrel running back and forth across our garage roof. But she looked arthritic and unbalanced doing it.

Rosie says, "What is that thing and why
 is it so loud?"

Five years ago she started having kidney problems. The vet tried to give her this fancy, scientifically-prepared food, but she would only eat dry Purina kibble. Hairball Formula. Who knows what's in that crap, but I'm surprised she survived a decade and a half on it. Anytime we would bring home another brand it would sit uneaten in her dish for days.

Since Laurel started walking, Rosie pretty much moved into the basement. She would only come up when Laurel was at daycare, or late at night. However, recently, Laurel started visiting her in the basement, gently stroking her ears and bringing her scoops of cat food. Laurel learned to mimic Rosie's purring noises, but even after they started getting along, she would tell everyone she met, "We have an old cat. She is grumpy."

I'm surprised at how universal death is, for all living creatures. The way the spirit of a person or an animal leaves the body, and how profound that feeling is when you look at the body, at what is left. She was so decidedly gone. I wonder where that energy goes - all the subtle gestures that make up one's personality.

I'm not a cat person, not even a pet person, really. But Rosie was a trusty companion for 12 years and we'll miss her a lot.

Happy Father's Day

There are a lot of dance parties when M is around. I join in, but they are definitely instigated by M, or if Laurel suggests them, he always has the perfect song to put on right away.

Me? Not so much. I join in, but they aren't my thing. I don't make them happen the way M does. When he came back from Austin last week, there was a joyous living room reunion with a lot of twirling, spinning and leaping.

One of the benefits of having two parents is that you balance each other out. You each have your "things." Laurel likes to go out for pancakes with M. He takes her to have her haircut. They listen to Wire and Patti Smith. He taught her how to knead dough. They build giant castles out of wooden blocks together.

When Mark O was a newborn, he would turn his head the second he heard M's voice. Now he loves it when M rubs his head. I look forward to seeing what special rituals they develop together.

I have this memory of walking along a creek with my dad and brother and sister. It must have been summer, because we were school-aged - Danna and I at least. My brother's hat fell into the creek and I can remember my dad chasing it as it washed downstream. It was hilarious to all of us, and he never seemed to get mad about stuff like that. We could get muddy without getting in trouble. Everything was an adventure. When I think of that scene - one tiny snapshot out of decades of memories, it kind of sums up how I think about my dad. And when I look towards the future, I can see Laurel and Mark O following M along a creek bed in exactly the same way.

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there!

Parenting Observations

I keep writing and deleting posts about working and it's driving me crazy. Situation is not resolved for me, but I'm done talking about it for now.

Anyway, here are some good old fashioned observations of my kids for the record.

Mark O rolls over. He can really only roll back to front, then he tries to crawl, but he can't because he's only 4 months old, so he squawks until one of us comes to the rescue and flips him back the other way. Endless hours of entertainment. Or frustration. Mostly entertainment, because Mark O has a really nice temperament.

He looks interested in food, but we tried some bananas and rice cereal and he's not so into the actual eating part as he is into snatching things off the table and chucking them on the floor. He can't really sit up yet, so it's probably a little early for the food.

He puts everything in his mouth, including his toes. He still likes to be swaddled and suck on a pacifier to go to sleep. He just had a checkup and weighed 12 pounds 9 ounces and was 24 inches long.

The thing I most enjoy about him right now is his smile.

Laurel's favorite games to play are 1. school (adults must be students, stuffed animals need not apply), 2. road trip (usually to the Smoky Mountains or Florida) and 3. get chased by other people's dads at the playground. (Sounds creepy, but it's not.) We recently connected with some other families who take their kids out after dinner, which is awesome. Laurel goes to bed when it's dark, which is getting pretty late as we approach the summer solstice. We went to Hartwood for a concert last night and it makes me really happy to see her take off running in that wide open field, blonde hair streaming behind her.

She's 32 pounds and I'm not exactly sure how tall. When I try to hold her in the rocking chair, there's long legs everywhere and she doesn't fit in my lap so well anymore.

She loves princesses and fairies, visiting the pet store to look at the animals, and cutting paper into itty bitty pieces.

The thing I most enjoy about her right now is her exploding vocabulary. I can't believe how many "big" words she uses, and what she knows about animals from watching tv and reading books. I also think it's funny how much she sounds like me sometimes. (Oh. My. Gawd.)

The Blurry Edges

It's 2am and I nurse the baby while staring at the glowing screen of my iPhone, doing research for a grant. I piece together a 15 hour work week in 15 minute chunks. It all works out, except when somebody won't go down for their regular nap, or wants to be held all night, or gets a fever.

Wednesdays, I drop Mark O off to "have lunch" with M, so I can meet with my reading buddy. He doesn't much like to read and pesters me to buy him candy from Ms. Princess, who sells it outside the cafeteria door. Is it good that I come? Will it make a difference? Push him towards success in school? Or maybe just bring a little happiness to his day? I don't know.

I pat myself on the back for making it to a last minute meeting. I park Laurel in the corner with her headphones and portable DVD player and tell them, "I have 47 minutes." Everyone laughs and coos at the baby. He comes everywhere with me, mostly asleep, but sometimes wide blue eyes open up to stare at the ceiling. I keep gummy bears in my pocket in case I need to bribe Laurel to do something quickly or quietly (she is, by nature, neither).

I do a lot of work for free. It's tedious, but crucial, to be the squeaky wheel. Phone call here, email there. Document everything. It's balance; you have to be mostly polite and friendly, with a carefully measured dose of bitchiness so they don't ignore you.

Learn to say no, and call people out on what they didn't do that they said they would. Pause 3 seconds after delivering that line, and then smile. A genuine smile, to disarm them and let them know that you aren't looking to get them in trouble. You just want a safe crosswalk for your kids. You just want to keep junkies off your porch. You are asking for something completely reasonable.

Hanging fliers and knocking on doors to rally neighbors for a zoning hearing is both altruistic and selfish....we got robbed 3 times in the first two years we lived here and it's a lot of work to keep the drug traffic to a minimum. We make a game of it, "I Spy the next phone pole..." and Laurel runs ahead, blonde ponytail swinging wildly from side to side. She greets our neighbors, hands them fliers, doesn't ask questions about the houses we skip on purpose.

Pumping in my house while the babysitter watches the kids downstairs feels weird, but helps me to separate the "work" from the "home," even as all the edges blur together.

I have this belief that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, at exactly the time I am supposed to be here. At 27 I was poised to land somewhere else with a fancier business card. I walked 2,000 miles instead. It would be nice, I sometimes think, to have been more career-minded. Maybe I'd have a better salary now, some tenure, a 401K. But these days I'm struck by how "enough" this feels. I have enough.  I am enough. This is enough.

Family Camping Review: Bald Eagle State Park

M ran in the Rothrock Challenge this weekend, so we decided to plan a little camping trip to Bald Eagle State Park, which is about 20 miles north of State College. It was really nice to be in the mountains.

The pros....
It was a standard PA state park campground. Clean bathrooms, including hot showers, firewood for sale in the park and a swimming beach. You aren't allowed to drink alcohol at the state parks, so even if people do indulge, they do it discretely. No loud partying types. I saw a lot of different birds.

The cons...
I could hear noise from the highway until pretty late into the evening (audible not deafening). The swimming area is in the same lake where motor boats are allowed, so the water is a bit, err, filmy. Nothing worse than swimming in the Atlantic, but no pristine mountain lake, either.

A bit about the weather...
Last weekend, it was in the 30s....this weekend it was near 90! I prefer camping in cooler weather. It just seems a lot easier to add layers to keep kids warm than to worry about sunblock and shade. However, Laurel really did like swimming at the beach and playing in the sand. The nice thing about man-made lakes in the mountains is that there are trees on the beach! Mark O and I just hung out there in the shade and he happily practiced rolling off the blanket.

On camping with kids....
It's kind of hard to make them sleep, especially in the summer when it is light so long. Mark O is still at an age where he'll conk out when he gets tired, but Laurel had a lot of trouble. If your kids will sleep in the car, try and plan some of your drives to coincide with nap time. We also need to get a bike for Laurel. All the kids ride their bikes around the campground and it's the perfect place since the traffic is slow and sparse.

I need to do some research on baby-friendly bug repellent ideas. My parents got us this awesome screened in dining canopy, but whenever we were out and about, Mark O had a lot of bugs on him. I ended up spraying his clothes with this Deet-free bug spray we have, but I wonder if I can put something directly on his skin.

The Marks.

Family Camping Review: Laurel Hill State Park

Last week I blogged that we had been waiting to go camping to keep Mark O out of the cold weather. Well, it turns out, we needn't have waited. Mark O is as hardy as the rest of us, and it was an enjoyable, if chilly, Memorial Day weekend at Laurel Hill State Park. And by chilly, I mean it was so cold we had to put Laurel in snow boots, and we burned 8 bundles of wood.

My mom and I headed out of town early so we could set up camp. We weren't sure when my dad and M would be off work and didn't want to risk getting up there too late. Setting up tents with a 4 month old and a 3 year old is not for the faint of heart, but we managed to keep them fed, warm and entertained while we did it. It was freezing cold and very windy, but sunny enough that we all ended up with rosy cheeks and noses.

The pros....
This park is an awesome place to take kids. Our site was near a bathhouse with hot showers and a faucet where you can fill up your drinking water containers. On our loop, a playground was tucked in the woods next to a shallow creek. Laurel Hill, like many DCNR parks, has a sandy beach with playground equipment on it, as well as a roped off swimming area. You can rent boats or kayaks or go fishing along the lake as well. It looked like they had done a lot of work to make it handicap accessible - a ramp goes into the swimming area, and they even had a beach wheel chair with big fat tires.

Laurel really loved going to the beaches in Florida so I was worried she wouldn't be impressed with a man-made lake and trucked-in sand. But, kind of like how kids like the box better than the toy itself, she was just as happy to build sandcastles and go wading with the minnows. Unfortunately, it was way too cold to go swimming.

The other nice thing about this park is that it has access to a lot of trails. Some of the trails are short loops (1-3 miles), while others are longer or connect into more extensive trails into the Forbes State Forest. M loves running through the woods, and was able to plot a pretty long run on the trails right from our campsite. It was nice that he didn't have to drive to a trail head.

It's also a really easy drive from Pittsburgh. Just 11 miles up route 31 from the Donegal exit, and the turns are well marked.

The cons...
They weren't diligent about enforcing quiet hours, which were supposed to start at 9pm. However, everything had quieted down by 10:30 or so and the noises were more from kids running around and playing rather than adults getting drunk.  Firewood was $5 a bundle. They have over 200 campsites, and some of the sites are not that secluded. Ours was quite muddy. My mom and dad went around and wrote down the site numbers of the best sites, so we'll know what to reserve the next time we go.

A bit about the weather....
A lot of people asked us how we did in the weather. It went down into the 30s at night, and was really windy so it felt much colder. We sleep in a 3 season backpacking tent that is not all that warm. We made a good investment for Laurel and bought her a kid-size 20 degree sleeping bag and a sleeping pad. She sleeps warm anyway and was totally fine. Mark O slept in his car seat in the tent and just wore a bunch of layers. He didn't wake up any more than he normally does and never seemed to get cold. I could have used an extra pair of socks and maybe a heavier coat. Every time I got up with one of the kids, it took me forever to warm up again in my sleeping bag.

On camping with kids....
Bring a big bin of toys and books. Laurel sometimes likes to sit in the tent and read books or play dolls. Bring lots of changes of clothes because if your kid is anything like ours they will fall in creeks, slip in mud, or accidentally pee on their pants when they are squatting in the bushes. Our tent is small, so we don't keep much in there, but I did learn to keep a diaper and wipes and extra pajamas for both kids so we didn't have to search for that stuff in the middle of the night. Even in the summer, you might want to pack hats, mittens and a coat for your kids, depending on their tolerance for chilly weather.

It was nice to be with my parents this weekend and have extra sets of hands. We'll see how we do on our next trip, which will be just the four of us.

Hot Here. And other updates.

I have two freshly bathed, but already kind of sweaty kids. It's hard to coax them into bed tonight. As the sun sets, we can hear the kids next door splashing in their pool and the birds quieting down in the trees in the neighbors yard. Our house stays pretty cool if you keep the windows on the sunny side closed, so in the morning I open up everything on the street side, and then close them as the sun inches its way over the house. But still, it's hot and I haven't pulled the window AC units up from the basement yet. May seems to early to turn them on anyway.

Mark O will be 4 months old tomorrow. He rolls over from back to front and then inches around on his belly. He doesn't have very good control of his body yet, so sometimes he gets tangled up in the blanket he's laying on. He likes to suck on his hands and to pop a pacifier in and out of his mouth. He's nursing a lot this last week or so, maybe because it's hot now, or maybe a growth spurt. He has settled into a routine of 3 naps a day, with a bedtime around 7pm. He wakes up once or twice at night to nurse. He's really a pretty chill baby, unless I ignore his cues to put him to sleep. When he was a newborn, he would just conk out wherever he was, but now he likes to be put down in a quiet place. If I don't get him there when he's ready, he bugs out a little bit. He also hates riding in the car, which does not bode well for our many camping trips planned for the summer.

Laurel is 3 and a half. I just gave her a new chore of setting the table for dinner. She loves My Little Ponies, camping, road trips and ice cream. She's very vain about her hair, which I have to admit, is pretty gorgeous. She's amazingly insightful, and is asking us really tough questions now. (What is death? When will my nipples go away?) We are trying to find the balance between giving her accurate information and giving her age appropriate information. We have a set of rules for the house. She totally calls us out when we break rules, which is sort of annoying, but also kind of cool to have a kid who will really hold you accountable. She cries about everything, which we tend to ignore, unless she wants to talk about it. She's getting better about bedtime. She still ends up in our room almost every night, but has been better about staying in her bed in the evening. 

He fears her enthusiasm, I think.

 

Camping Season!

Got kids? Bring lots of snacks. Lots.

We've been holding off a bit on account of the cold weather and not wanting to give little Mark O any hypothermia. Last year Laurel was 2 1/2 when we braved sub 30 temperatures to sleep outside. It was fun, but it was a little bit of work to keep her properly clothed, dry and fed.

Although we may do a few little backpacking trips on the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail, we are pretty much resigned to car camping these days. Not that there's anything wrong with car camping, it's just that we're used to getting by with what fits in our backpacks. Now there's all these kids, and all the crap we drag around with them. Last fall, while eating dinner under rainy skies at a state park in Florida, we realized that we might want to outfit ourselves a little better. My awesome parents bought us a dining canopy, and I'm working on organizing our camp kitchen.

The key to successful camping this summer will be to have everything packed up so that we can grab it and go for our weekend trips. (Have you ever tried getting ready for a trip while nursing a baby and entertaining a preschooler? Not enough hands.)

When I was a kid, my dad built a chux box, kind of like this. However, we drive a Honda Fit. The hatch is full even when I just go out for the day with the kids. With two car seats, there's no possibility of folding down the seats anymore. We're going to need to do an ultra light version of car camping, I think. When we backpack, we take a couple of sporks, a quart pot, and a stove made out of a beer can. For car camping, we like to carry a bit more - stove, frying pan, utensils, mugs, stuff to make coffee. On our last road trip, I put everything in a big plastic bin, but it soon became incredibly disorganized (especially since we were constantly throwing it all back in there when it started raining, which in Florida was every 12 minutes or so). I like the Grub Hub and this REI Pack-n-Prep, but I need to take some measurements to see what we have space for.

So, who camps with little kids? What are your must-haves for camping trips? Do you have any awesome camp meal ideas? What are your favorite campgrounds? What do you do with them when it rains?

Diving In To Motherhood

I read this essay and thought about how I sometimes feel reluctant to fully embrace this motherhood thing, because it's temporary gig. They are going to grow up and leave, right? And even though that's 20 years from now, there's still an end in sight. I don't want my mothering days to come to an end and have nothing left of myself.

I worry that I will lose myself in it, because raising young children is an all-encompassing task. Twenty-four hour on call duty. Relentless and repetitive in the nursing and rocking and wiping up after so many messes. Most of what I do in a day is quickly undone, and it's easy to leave very little time to think of anything else.

For me to be happy with this, the way it is now, I have to dive in. I have to let myself be changed by this circumstance, by these babies, by this work. Yes, it's temporary, but it's a long temporary.

Megabus (with kids): A Review

Megabus even has plugs
for your dvd player!

Every time I told someone I planned to travel from Pittsburgh to Washington DC on the Megabus with my two small children, their eyes widened a bit and they said something like, "you're crazy."

For the first hour of the trip, I felt confident that I would be loudly signing the praises of Megabus and was even mentally planning future trips. New York! Philadelphia! Toledo! I imagined trekking all over the country in a bohemian dress, with happy, well-behaved children in my arms, seeing the sights, while someone else drives.

It was very easy to find the stop and board the bus. We left Pittsburgh on time. I only paid eleven dollars for 3 one way tickets from Pittsburgh to Washington DC, hands down the cheapest way to travel that route. Amtrak was about $140 for a similar trip. The bus wasn't that crowded and the driver was helpful in loading my bag underneath the bus.

As we rolled down the highway towards Morgantown, I even fell asleep. Daytime naps for the win! Laurel was happily watching Finding Nemo on her portable DVD player and Mark O was conked out in my lap. When I woke up, we were going very slowly up a steep two lane road. It seemed odd that the route would take us on such a small road, but I didn't think too much of it, until a good 45 minutes went by and I pulled out my phone to see where we were on the map. This is when I discovered that we were circling Morgantown. Other people must have realized what was going on because soon another passenger began giving directions to the driver. We got to WVU about an hour late and found 50 or so people huddled and shivering in the rain. They are probably writing very bad reviews of Megabus right now.

How Mark O feels about
the Megabus trip.

We were soon cruising down the interstate again. It was about this time that Laurel slammed her dvd player shut and announced that she was tired of watching tv.

"Oh," I thought, "This could be a problem."

I only had one coloring book and three kids' magazines. I was really counting on her watching movies most of the way. Instead, she took great delight in going up and down the extremely steep stairs and visiting the bathroom many times. (You never know when a three year old is bluffing about needing to use the potty.) And how fun that was, with Mark O attached to my front in a carrier.

Eventually, she tired of the stairs, settled back in for Charlotte's Web, and was pretty good for the rest of the trip. I would have considered the bus trip a total success if it had lasted the 6 hours it was scheduled for. As it was, it took 7 1/2 hours, and Mark O was not loving the last 2 hours or so. Sorry, other Megabus passengers. Babies cry. Also, there was no space to change a diaper. (We did get one stop at a Pilot gas station that had a changing table.)

So, here's a few things I learned about traveling by bus.

1. Ditch the car seats. Unless you need them at the other end, the bus isn't really equipped to buckle them in correctly, and there's barely enough room on the seat. They recommend it, but don't require it.
2. Most of the Megabus seats are regular old small bus seats. There's no overhead storage bins on the second floor, so your bags have to sit under your feet. It definitely pays to get there early and get one of the seats that have a table.
3. The Megabus drivers get lost. A lot. I heard similar stories from several other people. You'll probably get where you are going, just not when they said you would. Bring your GPS because they might ask for directions.
4. The advertised Wifi is spotty. Nobody on my bus could get it to work.
5. Book early. That's when it's cheap. I felt like I got my money's worth for 11 bucks, but I'm not sure I would have felt the same way had I paid $50.
6. It was really awesome to be able to nap and look out the window (when my kids weren't freaking out).
7. People who have control issues would not do well with long distance bus travel. You really have to be able to roll with the punches. And pushing your kids beyond their comfort zones builds character, right?