Vacation: Day 1 @ 2:30pm

So yeah. We were supposed to have been on the road for hours now, but we started out fairly recently, so there you go. It’s exactly what I would have expected, including the anticipated meltdowns, shouting, throwing things and temper tantrums that ensue as we are packing up to leave. Don’t worry, though. Papa Bird is fine now and has settled back into the ride.

There is a lot of corn and fields west of our little hamlet. That’s about all to report at the moment. Penguin is staring out the window and Owl is chatting to himself.  Good times.

 

Today must be my “Pay attention to 20 year olds” day.

I commute to work on the train every morning. It’s not bad. I get a little extra time to work on personal or work projects and I can’t stand sitting in traffic.

Anyways, as I was standing in the platform this morning, a young man of about 20 years old exited his mother’s minivan and walked up the steps to the platform. He kept focused on his task, so he didn’t see that she sat there, in her car, watching him walk up the steps and take his place on the platform. I watched her, not him, and I could see her eyes following him, faint smile on her face. Instantly, I thought two things: (1) I totally understand; (2) The desire to observe your son in his daily activities never goes away.

Sitting here now on the train, I am behind three young woman of about 20 years old. I am adoring the eavesdropping in on their loud, excited conversation. I kind of love that they are sitting away under a sign that says, “SHHH! Quiet car!” and yet they are happily chirping away, oblivious to all that is around them. They are talking about the most self-concerned topics ever. Indeed, their entire worlds revolve around themselves and their place on this spinning orb. I just love it. It feels a whole world away from where I am in my life, though a mere 16 years ago, I am sure I was sitting on a similar train, saying similar things, making everything and nothing of the world around me.

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The boys and I are getting prepared for our vacation. We purchased new clothes and toys. Penguin even picked out all his outfits. He ran around the store selecting the pants and shirts that he liked. I nearly fell over when I realized that some of them were short-sleeved. And there were SHORTS in the mix. He has, might I say, very good taste.

Papa Bird cut Owl’s hair yesterday in preparation for the trip. He looks like a mental patient, so we are going to have to go very short to salvage his self-respect. We saved all the little curls and put them in a the safe next to the baggie containing Penguin’s curls from his first haircut.

 

 

Getting there.

I am almost there. Almost finished with this last round of edits. As in I have one more section and with an example in hand of how to rework it, I should be done by the end of the weekend.

Which is good, because I am also balancing a lot of projects at work right now to finish things up by the end of Thursday.

Why, you ask?

Because we are leaving for vacation on Friday.

And where are we going?

West.

We are just going to get into the car and drive west and see where the road takes us. I’ll write dispatches from the road as we see whatever it is we are going to see. We’ll have about 20 days for this adventure.

When we return, Papa Bird will be undergoing a medical procedure for his heart. Penguin will be starting preschool and soccer lessons at the park district. I’ll begin working on the inevitable edits brought forth by passing on my proposal to my full committee. Owl will be growing and cute.

Do I even have to say how much I am looking forward to 20 days with my family?

 

Kissy face.

Owl has been giving lots of kisses as of late. It’s rather cute. If you are holding him, he will wrap his arms around your neck, open his mouth and place it upon you. No puckering or smacking just yet, but the sentiment is there. If you are Penguin and prone to sitting on the floor, then Owl will come up to you, fall on you and THEN wrap his arms around your neck and give a smooch. Or 10. He seems to love to give his brother kisses.

 

Come along, Mama.

In the past week or so, Owl has discovered a new way of getting his parental minions to do his bidding. You can always see the mental wheels turning in that one and so you know that when there is silence, it is not a real silence, but evidence of a plotting mastermind at work. Papa Bird and I have something of an overactive mind and imagination and from the looks of it, the boys do as well.

Anyways, recently Owl has been taking someone by the hand to lead them to the thing that he wants and/or believes that he desperately needs in that very second, please and thank you. One could be sitting anywhere or  doing anything and then feel the slight tug of a little hand on your body. I have been standing at the sink, looking in a closet or grabbing something out of a bag and then suddenly  startled by some little fingers clasping on to some part of my arm or hand. Not that his methods are always undertaken in the spirit of a surprise. He has also barreled towards me full steam and shrieking and attempted to pull me off  the couch, the toilet, out of bed and off the chair while I am working on the computer. (To note: Owl has also reached the excited shrieking stage of his development. Or as Penguin might say, “He sure is eggskited!”)

The movements are always accompanied by a grunted “eh, eh, eh” which, if he were an older child, might translate to “Come on, come on, come on.” Or “Why are you so lazy?” if one was Papa Bird.  So the process goes something like this: tug, tug, tug, “eh, eh, eh,” tug.  Rinse and repeat with increasing insistence until your neglectful parent gets you to the place or the thing that you so desire.

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As a  slight aside, is there something about running water that is fascinating to children? At this age, Penguin could not get enough of filling up cups and bowls with running water from the sink. Owl is the same way. It really explains the water table industry, a product I would have thought totally unnecessary until I had children of my own. I am holding out hope that this infatuation will carry into adolescence so that I may demonstrate to them the awesomeness that is doing dishes!!11!1!

 

I’m back.

But you would be wise to not take this as a sign that I am done with my work. I am simply done working on the train. I still do a little work every other night, but I am cutting myself some slack on the train here. Plus, I feel tremendously guilty that so much of Owl’s early experiences are considerably less documented than Penguin’s at this age. For instance, did you know that he points to everything now, but in a very cute way. He arranges his hand like one might a childhood finger gun and then waves it menacingly in the direction of the thing he desires. Perspective is everything. Were he a grown man on the street, he’d be in jail. As it is, he is tiny and adorable and therefore so are his actions. Owl can also couple toy trains together now and creates his own little convoys that he drives down the tracks.

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This weekend, I craved the outdoors. The older I get, the less content I feel being cooped up inside. I find myself doing a bit of a reversion back to some of the simpler joys of childhood, and I am liking the change. In my late teens/early twenties, I slept all day and spent all night in various restaurants, bars, clubs and hang-out spots.  Never spent time outside, never enjoyed the sun. Once Penguin was born, I realized that would have to change, since I wanted him to take full advantage of nature. Well, urban nature. So I have become something of a broken record with my weekend refrain. “We need to get out of the house, shake out some energy and take part in an activity.” In the spring, summer and fall, I try to make those as outdoorsy as possible. On rainy days, we always have our museum backups. But I digress. My point is, I search for any and every opportunity to get the boys outside enjoying the fresh air, sunshine, mud, plants, sand and anything else that catches their fancy.

On Saturday, the boys and I participated in my employer’s service day. We worked on a community garden project, prepping the soil and getting the plots ready for planting. I didn’t know if we would be a lot of help, but I could not think of anything more fun for all of us than playing around in the dirt. Penguin has a natural inclination towards plants and gardening, so he was thoroughly enjoying himself. He was turning the soil with his trowel, picking rocks out of the ground and throwing them in a bucket and raking the earth with a small rake to aerate the soil. Owl was helping here and there. I brought his little plastic sand trowel and he sat down in the mud and poked at it here and there. He spent most of him time picking up little rocks and then throwing them back on the ground. He also rather enjoyed playing with the dandelions in the adjacent, unprepared plot. About 30 minutes into our adventure, a group of photojournalism students that had been taking pictures for an assignment came over to take pictures of the community garden. At precisely that moment, Owl decided to take a handful of rocks and throw them into the bucket and instantly 10-15 cameras were trained on Owl as he dropped the rocks into the bucket. From that point on, every move that the boys made was documented by the students.  Children make great subjects, so I can’t blame them. And Penguin and Owl can be a little hammy in front of the camera, so they were willing subjects. It was very sweet and I am going to try very hard to track down information about these students so that I may request copies of some of the pictures.

The boys stayed for the entire event. I expected that we would only be there for about an hour, tops, but I could not get them to leave for about two-and-a-half hours. It was Owl that finally became too cold and started to want to be held all the time. On that note, we packed it in and headed over to a sandwich place for some lunch. After our nap that day, we headed to a park for a last little dose of fresh air and then called it a day.

Yesterday, inspired by the digging, I thought it would be fun to go to some sand dunes. Penguin was thrilled by the suggestion, so we gathered together all our sand toys and placed them in the car. I made us a picnic lunch and we headed off. Now, you are thinking to yourself: “But it’s late April. And you live in the Midwest. It’s not, you know, warm.” And you are correct in your thoughts. And, not only was it not warm, it was fantastically, impressively windy. Knock you off your feet windy. We started out by the lake, which was instantly recognized as an error because we could not open our eyes for fear of 2,625 sand particles mercilessly scratching our corneas. The wind was literally whipping the sand into our eyeballs and we were blinded. The boys stared at me in disbelief and I cannot blame them. At 32 and 35 years their senior respectively, I should have predicted that fierce wind and sand equals eye pain, but it didn’t register until we were all feeling the effects of sand in eye. I gathered the troops in the stoller and set back up the beach ramps to a quieter patch of sand. The nice thing about dunes is that you can find places in which the dunes are high enough to block the winds coming in off the lake. We found such a patch of calm over by the picnic area. We tucked into our food and, after a brief rest, pulled all of the sand toys out of the stroller basket and settled in for a good play. Yes, it was still chilly. Both boys had to wear coats and their noses were running a bit, but it was beautifully sunny. Yes, it was still windy, but it was very manageable and not getting sand into our eyes and mouths. In spite of these conditions, I can’t think of a time recently when I heard the boys giggling cavorting about as much as they did yesterday. It was just a thoroughly delightful time. We had a huge patch of sand to ourselves, as well as a massive sand hill that was perfect for climbing and then gently rolling/sliding down. The boys could scream, shout, laugh, run and throw themselves to the ground and no one was admonishing them to keep their voices lower or to watch out of they would get hurt. They were like little spirits freed and for a long while there, I lost myself in the enjoyment of it all. I lost track of time, of the stress of schooling and work and our cramped little apartment, and became one with the experience. It was glorious.

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I used to read Outside Magazine for the writing. The writers are surprisingly good and the stories generally captivating. I never quite got their passion for the outdoors, though. I could appreciate it, but it never quite hit home for me. I think it did as a child and then I lost what bit of that I had for a while. This weekend, though, I felt it all come back, surging powerfully as though a wave of water over a wall. It wasn’t there and then, suddenly and without warning, it was.

I think this needs to be part of my new reality – this outdoors life – but I am not sure how. I am not sure what that even means. All I know is that I really found myself on a little impromptu jaunt to a sandy dune on a cold, April afternoon. Further, I like what I found.

 

The finish line is in sight.

Well, this finish line. There are three more ahead of me in the completion of this PhD. But this one is a biggie. This is the one in which I turn over all my draft revisions to my chair. If he likes what he sees, on it goes to my full committee for comments and feedback. Finish Line 1.

Finish Line 2: Dissertation proposal hearing with the full committee.

Finish Line 3: Analyze data and complete the Results and Conclusion sections.

Finish Line 4: Defend my dissertation.

Because my advisor is very good and very detailed, this current portion of the work is proving to be the most challenging. While I would never suggest that it will be all downhill from here, I do think things will get easier once I hit the proposal hearing phase.

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I cannot really emphasize the mental fatigue I have been feeling as of late. I am a student, I work full-time and I am also a mother. Each role requires a different approach and each has different measurable outcomes. A good day at work is different from a good day at home and a good day as a PhD student. If I falter in one of the areas, it is very, very hard work to prevent the irritation/frustration/disappointment/anger to trickle into the other areas. I try to compartmentalize my life, with varying degrees of success on a given day. The result is a brain mush that makes it challenging to proceed in anything other than survival mode. This is not to say that I am not enjoying my life or the simple pleasures contained therein. My husband and children can still make me smile every day. I’ve not stopped laughing or seeking out opportunities to have fun. But it’s a muted enjoyment, tempered by the constant, nagging thought in the back of my brain that says, “Shouldn’t you be doing xyz?” If I am at work and there is down time, I silently chastise myself for not summarizing a journal article for my dissertation proposal. Same with my time in the evening at home after the boys go to bed. If I am throwing myself into my studies at night, I snarl as I think to myself, “I just want to be cuddling up next to Papa Bird on the couch and fall asleep watching a show with him as I attempt to muster up the concentration to listen to his explanation of a fascinating news piece he has read that day.”

It’s time limited. Not the balance of work and family, which is my normal. But the balance of work, family AND studies – that is time limited. There were moments when I wanted to walk away.  Was composing the “I quit” email in my head. I have a tenacity that can be confusing to those around me. I can arbitrarily quit some things with nary a thought and glance backwards. And then other things I cling to stubbornly because failure is just not an option. I have to find a way to keep on keepin’ on because walking away is more painful a notion than the  pain I endure when doing that thing. I suppose it is the labors of love that I refuse to give up on. My husband and my marriage. My children and my work in raising them. And now, my dissertation.

I’ll be back to regular posting soon. In the interim, I’ve chosen to just enjoy the time with my children rather than document the enjoyment. With a to-do list a mile long, it’s the little things that matter.

 

In “You’ve got to be kidding me news”….

I have caught round 47 of the cold virus strain going around since November of last year. All I want to do is sleep. Penguin also seems afflicted, as does Papa Bird. Owl had a horrible runny nose the past two weeks and a cough and he is seemingly on the mend, but watch us reinfect him with the cold virus, too. Good times!

In other awesome news, Nana purchased a bath item for Penguin that resulted in NO TEARS during the hairwashing phase of the bath. Even more remarkable, he requested another bath today, citing his absolute love of the newfangled contraption that keeps water from his eyes. He wants all of us to get one now.

 

A musical interlude.

I am taking a slight break from searching for just the right article on stigma and mental health service use to bring you this musical interlude.

Penguin’s favorite band is Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. He will unfailingly request that we play this CD any time we are in the car. Currently, his favorite song is “Favorite Song,” so named because I once said that it was probably my favorite song on the record. However, it has now become his favorite song. If you are looking at the liner notes (and I am totally dating myself here because in the digital age, does anyone even know what a liner note is?) then you will be shocked to find that there is no song labeled Favorite Song. However, if you were to look for, say, “Om Nashi Me,” you’d be good to go.

This is the song for those not in the know:

The story I really want to share, though, is the cuteness that ensues once this song plays in the car. For a few months now, when this song comes on, Penguin starts humming away loudly, following along with the tune. He does this every time, without fail, and he doesn’t really want you to talk to him when his song is on because he wants to hum along. It’s kinda sweet. A few days ago, as I was driving in the car, I noticed that Owl was making sounds during the song, too. I thought it was just toddler verbal ramblings at first. However, over the past few days, I’ve come to realize that these particular sounds are made only in the presence of this song playing on the radio. They stop when the song is no longer on, and actually don’t commence unless the song is playing. This leads me to deduce that Owl, too, is singing along to Favorite Song.

It’s really beyond adorable, the both of them back there singing away. I will try to record a sound file on my phone and then upload it here if I can.

 

I am still on internet break, but a few quickie Easter updates.

We had a lovely Easter. Penguin was so excited about Easter yesterday that he woke me up in the morning, thumping me on the back and legs to get me out of bed. Owl was not sure what all the hubbub was about, but when Penguin gets excited, Owl gets excited, too. I take it that he sees that as a sign that good things are afoot. Papa Bird and I hid the eggs and Easter baskets and toys around their Grandma’s yard. Then both of the boys searched for eggs and their goodies. Both also ingested entirely too much sugar, but I can think of no other day in which that is the goal, so we went at it with gusto.They love spending time with their uncles, too, so the day was a success on multiple fronts.

There were two separate moments yesterday that were so heartachingly adorable that I must mention them here. One: Penguin was running to play hide and seek. He told me to cover my eyes and count to ten, but I could hear him giggling the whole time he was darting off to seek cover. When I went to search for him (barely hidden behind a bush in his super stealthy spot) I could hear him talking quietly to himself. He was talking, but it was clearly in a hushed tone. Two: The was a brief period of time in which Owl was alone on the back deck by himself as I ran in to get something for him. As I turned around to go back. I stopped by the glass door and just watched him. It was like my legs were frozen in place. The sun was catching the golden strands in his hair and the wind was making him laugh. He was sitting at the little picnic table, examining a toy egg in his hands, turning it this way and that way.

My God, I love them so very, very much.

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Penguin has been getting so articulate as of late. He is able to express more complex ideas and he’s also taking the initiative in starting a conversation by asking a question or engaging the other person. He also likes to tell stories now. It all feels so “kidlike,” and I daresay he reminds me more of a child now than a little boy.

Owl has been trying very hard to learn and repeat words. this morning, I was sitting on the couch when Owl got it in his head that he wanted something. He grabbed my hand and made to pull me up from the couch. I got up and followed him into the kitchen, wherein he attempted to open the refrigerator door. I opened it for him and he started tapping on the yogurt box. I said, “OH, you want some yogurt?” and he started shaking his head up and down in a “yes,” and then said “gogur.” Pretty sure that was him trying to say yogurt. I can see him thinking through the words now and trying out the sounds and inflections. I suspect, come summer, we are going to have a little language explosion and he’s really going to be using words that are important to him.

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And that’s it for this quickie update. I am so close to finishing my proposal edits that I want to get back to that. I’ll start using my laptop for blog updates starting again next week.