Last Thursday was Sam's re-evaluation for Early Childhood Special Education, through which he's been receiving speech and language services for his communication delay.
It went well; he's still more or less in the normal range for everything except speech, with a few small exceptions. He's solidly between the 18-24 month and 24-30 month ranges overall, with some skills falling into each range. (He is 30 months old.) So he'll continue to qualify for services until he is 3 in May, and we're already registered for the next round of free ECFE where he receives services.
In addition, he'll be evaluated in January for autism. While I don't think he lies on the severe end of the spectrum, and his emotional expression and intelligence leads me to believe it is unlikely he has Asperger's, he does have some specific behaviors and personality traits which are common to autism. Once he figures out the communication piece, I think most of these traits and behaviors will serve him well later in life--he has incredible focus and the ability to learn what he wants to learn very quickly. For example, he learned to identify all letters of the alphabet by sight, not just in order of the ABCs, though he can also recite them in order. But without communication, these things are meaningless. Without knowing more words, he won't be able to read for comprehension, even though he can physically say all of the letters and most of their sounds.
Sam was super excited to see his therapists and speech pathologist come to our house, and was super sad to see them leave. He has made a good amount of progress since we started in September, and has met most of his speech goals for the term. Overall I am very happy with his "team" and their attitudes toward both Sam and me, and we are looking forward to the next term!
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Monday, December 10, 2012
The Reason for the Season: A Rant
Preface: I don't mean to offend anyone with this post--I am merely sharing my reaction to these sorts of things when my friends share them on Facebook. If it was only one person with the passive-aggressive pseudo-Christian messages it wouldn't annoy me as much! So here goes:
Photo via Nina Lee on Facebook, shared by nearly 100,000 at the time of this writing
Santa? Not Jesus. St. Nicholas is a Christian Saint, but the gift-giving monstrosity with the flying sled is most certainly secular.
Christmas trees? Not about Jesus, pagan tradition.
Yule log? It's right in the name, pagan tradition.
Wreaths, holly, mistletoe? Also not Christian in origin.
Celebrating in the month of December? Nobody seems to know exactly when Jesus was born. Even the gospels disagree on the year, let alone the date. Most of what I've read about it argues that the shepherds would not have been tending their flocks by night, outdoors, in the dead of winter, ergo it wouldn't have taken place between November and March. However, the highly popular pagan holiday of the Winter Solstice was in place long before.
Get over it. Christmas is a highly secular cultural holiday with relatively few ties to Christianity aside from what was co-opted to attract Pagans to convert. That's it.
Now, I love Christmas. I love putting up stockings and decorating our tree. I love gift-giving. But I don't harbor any illusions that these things have anything to do with Jesus. If you're going to argue with me about the Magi, why don't we move gift-giving to Epiphany?
Wish me a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Holiday, or Season's Greeting. Better yet, wish me Peace on Earth. And I'm not going to complain if you wish me a Happy Hanukkah, a Joyous Kwanzaa, or anything else. (A Delightful Diwali? That's already passed, oops!) Although if you're not African-American and you give me Kwanzaa greetings, I might look at you funny. Just sayin'.
And I've shared this elsewhere, but it seemed apt:
Image via Exploring Our Matrix
(I also discovered that Exploring Our Matrix had indeed, two years ago, written this post for me...two days after I'd already finalized it for posting. Oh well. This lady also beat me to the punch.)
Friday, December 7, 2012
Christmas presents, part 4: Amigurumi!
While I was looking for patterns for the ornaments, I noticed lots of little stuffed toy patterns as well and decided to take the plunge and try amigurumi for the kiddos again. Several years back I made bunnies for the big girls, who were maybe 3 or 4 at the time, I think? Anyhow, they were very putzy, 8 pieces each plus the dresses, so I wasn't too excited to try again. When I was on bedrest while pregnant with Sam, I got someone to buy me yarn to make this giraffe in two versions, but I gave birth before I had time to make them for Sam and Reese.
The yarn's been in a box for a long time and is probably still there. They are 15 pieces each and a lot of sewing/assembly. Probably not going to happen before the kids outgrow them.
So this year I am thinking of taking on small holiday themed amigurumi for Ryan, Reese, Ella, and Sam. I've got patterns for an angel, a reindeer, a gingerbread person, and a snowperson. If I get started now, and make one between each of my other projects, I should be OK. Gotta find those eyes, though! I tried to buy new ones and remembered that the last time, I had to order them online because the brick-and-mortars don't sell them anymore, at all. Just the glue-on googly eyes, and who needs those? Not this lady. I bought black round beads to use for the ornaments, but for something meant to be played with, I need something sturdier. Worst case, I will embroider them, badly.
So this year I am thinking of taking on small holiday themed amigurumi for Ryan, Reese, Ella, and Sam. I've got patterns for an angel, a reindeer, a gingerbread person, and a snowperson. If I get started now, and make one between each of my other projects, I should be OK. Gotta find those eyes, though! I tried to buy new ones and remembered that the last time, I had to order them online because the brick-and-mortars don't sell them anymore, at all. Just the glue-on googly eyes, and who needs those? Not this lady. I bought black round beads to use for the ornaments, but for something meant to be played with, I need something sturdier. Worst case, I will embroider them, badly.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Unchurched
Warning: This post may offend or upset you, if you are a Christian who attends church regularly or who thinks I should. You're welcome to stop reading here if you like, and come back tomorrow for another crafting post. Also, this post may be of little or no interest to the atheists in the crowd. OK. You've been warned.
So, as the holiday season rolls around I'm realizing that church, as in attending worship in a local building with other people, might not be for me anymore. At least not right now.
Whether it's simply my perception or the reality of the churches I've attended, they seem to have this going on. If you're not the sort inclined to follow links, here's an excerpt from the blog by Jo Hilder:
"We create this system of silence, lies and hiding whenever we promote a culture of perfection and shame. When we say the only true and authentic expression of the Christian life is a successful life, an abundant life, a life where nobody gets sick or hears voices, or dies or divorces, where nobody is anything but English-speaking, employed, middle-class and heterosexual, where nobody is addicted or abused or bitter or angry, or could possibly have ever been hurt, offended or abused by us, then we tell A Great Lie. Great Lies force people underground, into the dark, and sometimes that darkness is within ourselves. We force people to turn away from their pain and their truth, we make them split themselves in two, and sometimes into even more little pieces. And folks learn they can only ever show us one kind of face, tell us one kind of story. The perfect face. The story with the happy ending.
"But these happy, perfect stories and faces are not what Jesus came to heal.
"If people feel they cannot bring into church what Jesus came to heal them of, then what the hell are we doing, Church?
"Our churches may look great from the outside, but if they do, we have nothing to brag about. Most of our churches look great not because they’re populated with the whole, the helped and the healed, but because they’re filled with hurting and heartbroken people who have learned how to hide."
So for now I'm enjoying the writing of John Shore, Rachel Held Evans, James F. McGrath, and various others from the comfort of my own computer screen. Unfundamentalist Christians on Facebook is a major source of reading, as is Believe Out Loud. Every day, I am thinking about social justice and theological issues, which is more than I can say for all the years I attended church regularly. I enjoyed the music some of the time, sure, but the sermon, sorry, the "message" usually missed the mark, or didn't say anything at all. Most of the time, the scripture readings were not well examined with regard to their historical, etymological, or contextual meanings--they were either taken as face value "line readings" or entirely ignored. Further, I really only thought about God, Christianity, and my faith, while I was in the sanctuary. Experiencing church online instead, through reading and writing every day instead of just listening for an hour a week, has been much more fulfilling for me in recent months. Crocheting has been my time to meditate and digest what I've been reading.
And sure, I'd love to find a church home. Right now, though, I have an unenthusiastic husband and a rowdy two year old who both like to sleep in on Sundays. When we get to the point that it feels less like a chore, an obligation, a nagging "should", then we'll go. When I can say, "Sam really loves Sunday School and would be sad to miss it this week," then we'll go. We'll probably attend once on Christmas Eve, becoming the dreaded C&E (Christmas and Easter) churchgoers.
I am weary of church-shopping. I am tired of researching and researching what I hope will be a great community for us, and then finding out that they have only one worship service per week at the butt-crack of dawn, which is a deal-breaker for us. I am leery of accidentally ending up in a pit of bigotry, sexism, heterosexism and self-congratulation. Yes, this happened once. They had a brochure about how "the homosexual agenda" had invaded Hawaii and how they were out to recruit your children. I feel like one more bad church experience and Dan will give up entirely, and I don't want to be a family where Mom drags the kids to church and Dad couldn't care less. (I mean absolutely no offense to anyone who was raised that way.) If and when we join a faith community, I want it to be as a family. And I know, I know, part of my responsibility as a member of The Church is to help build a community that serves the needs of everyone who wants to participate. Part of it is to just show up and let the Holy Spirit do what she needs to do. It's the showing up part that I'm struggling with.
It frustrates me that if we were Catholic we would have no problem at all finding a 5pm Saturday Evening Mass to attend, but the more theologically compatible protestant denominations rarely have anything later than 11am. That's typically the praise music service anyway, which makes my skin crawl. So, until further notice, we're at an impasse. I'm thanking God for the gift of modern communication and social networking that lets me participate in an alternative format faith community on my own terms, for the moment.
Further reading:
John Shore: "Is Church Necessary?"
Rachel Held Evans: "15 Reasons I Left Church"
"15 Reasons I Returned to The Church"
"The Mainline and Me"
A Year of Biblical Womanhood (I would love this for a Christmas gift, if anyone's still reading this far down!)
(The comments section on John's blog is an amazing community. On Rachel's blog, there are occasionally trolls in the comments. Not sure why that is.)
So, as the holiday season rolls around I'm realizing that church, as in attending worship in a local building with other people, might not be for me anymore. At least not right now.
Whether it's simply my perception or the reality of the churches I've attended, they seem to have this going on. If you're not the sort inclined to follow links, here's an excerpt from the blog by Jo Hilder:
"We create this system of silence, lies and hiding whenever we promote a culture of perfection and shame. When we say the only true and authentic expression of the Christian life is a successful life, an abundant life, a life where nobody gets sick or hears voices, or dies or divorces, where nobody is anything but English-speaking, employed, middle-class and heterosexual, where nobody is addicted or abused or bitter or angry, or could possibly have ever been hurt, offended or abused by us, then we tell A Great Lie. Great Lies force people underground, into the dark, and sometimes that darkness is within ourselves. We force people to turn away from their pain and their truth, we make them split themselves in two, and sometimes into even more little pieces. And folks learn they can only ever show us one kind of face, tell us one kind of story. The perfect face. The story with the happy ending.
"But these happy, perfect stories and faces are not what Jesus came to heal.
"If people feel they cannot bring into church what Jesus came to heal them of, then what the hell are we doing, Church?
"Our churches may look great from the outside, but if they do, we have nothing to brag about. Most of our churches look great not because they’re populated with the whole, the helped and the healed, but because they’re filled with hurting and heartbroken people who have learned how to hide."
So for now I'm enjoying the writing of John Shore, Rachel Held Evans, James F. McGrath, and various others from the comfort of my own computer screen. Unfundamentalist Christians on Facebook is a major source of reading, as is Believe Out Loud. Every day, I am thinking about social justice and theological issues, which is more than I can say for all the years I attended church regularly. I enjoyed the music some of the time, sure, but the sermon, sorry, the "message" usually missed the mark, or didn't say anything at all. Most of the time, the scripture readings were not well examined with regard to their historical, etymological, or contextual meanings--they were either taken as face value "line readings" or entirely ignored. Further, I really only thought about God, Christianity, and my faith, while I was in the sanctuary. Experiencing church online instead, through reading and writing every day instead of just listening for an hour a week, has been much more fulfilling for me in recent months. Crocheting has been my time to meditate and digest what I've been reading.
And sure, I'd love to find a church home. Right now, though, I have an unenthusiastic husband and a rowdy two year old who both like to sleep in on Sundays. When we get to the point that it feels less like a chore, an obligation, a nagging "should", then we'll go. When I can say, "Sam really loves Sunday School and would be sad to miss it this week," then we'll go. We'll probably attend once on Christmas Eve, becoming the dreaded C&E (Christmas and Easter) churchgoers.
I am weary of church-shopping. I am tired of researching and researching what I hope will be a great community for us, and then finding out that they have only one worship service per week at the butt-crack of dawn, which is a deal-breaker for us. I am leery of accidentally ending up in a pit of bigotry, sexism, heterosexism and self-congratulation. Yes, this happened once. They had a brochure about how "the homosexual agenda" had invaded Hawaii and how they were out to recruit your children. I feel like one more bad church experience and Dan will give up entirely, and I don't want to be a family where Mom drags the kids to church and Dad couldn't care less. (I mean absolutely no offense to anyone who was raised that way.) If and when we join a faith community, I want it to be as a family. And I know, I know, part of my responsibility as a member of The Church is to help build a community that serves the needs of everyone who wants to participate. Part of it is to just show up and let the Holy Spirit do what she needs to do. It's the showing up part that I'm struggling with.
It frustrates me that if we were Catholic we would have no problem at all finding a 5pm Saturday Evening Mass to attend, but the more theologically compatible protestant denominations rarely have anything later than 11am. That's typically the praise music service anyway, which makes my skin crawl. So, until further notice, we're at an impasse. I'm thanking God for the gift of modern communication and social networking that lets me participate in an alternative format faith community on my own terms, for the moment.
Further reading:
John Shore: "Is Church Necessary?"
Rachel Held Evans: "15 Reasons I Left Church"
"15 Reasons I Returned to The Church"
"The Mainline and Me"
A Year of Biblical Womanhood (I would love this for a Christmas gift, if anyone's still reading this far down!)
(The comments section on John's blog is an amazing community. On Rachel's blog, there are occasionally trolls in the comments. Not sure why that is.)
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Christmas presents, part 3: Ornaments!
Ornaments and small detail work are things that I usually do right at my laptop, staring at the pattern and counting carefully, so they are in general not great projects to do with the kiddos around. I can cram them in during naps and when Dan's around, so I made use of our staycation to get a couple things made.
I already posted the first ornament that I made, the pink poinsettia. Unfortunately I put the petals on backwards so I'm just keeping that one for my family and making another the right way. I really like this post about mistakes in crafting. If I've already finished a project but I'm not happy with it, I tend to just keep it for myself or give it to someone who will love it, mistakes and all.
The second ornament I made this year was the red poinsettia. Pattern here.
Instead of making a bunch of the same ornament, this year I'm thinking I'll do a different one for each family. So I'll be making a snowman, a Christmas mouse, and possibly a Santa in addition to the flowers. Not planning to make them out of exactly the same yarns specified, since I already have a ton of acrylic yarn in all colors of the rainbow.
Here's a bit of my process with the snowman. First I stitch up all the pieces. For this pattern, there are only four--to contrast with those stupid poinsettias, which have 15 pieces each...each individual leaf, petal, and middle part was its own piece. You can see why I decided against making more of them. Here I have already stuffed the snowman's body with fiberfill.
Then I tuck in ends and do any surface embroidery. Here I also attached the pom-pom to the hat.
Then I assemble.
I should probably have just bought new plastic eyes. I had plenty at one point, but they seem to be "in a bin" and I haven't been able to locate them. This time I just made the eyes with black yarn instead. Confession: I suck at french knots. For the mouth, the pattern called for black yarn in a straight line, but on a second look at the picture, it looks like they used black thread instead to make a tiny grin. My snowman looks rather grumpy and not nearly as cute as theirs. Maybe I'll just call him Grumpy Gus and try harder with the others.
I already posted the first ornament that I made, the pink poinsettia. Unfortunately I put the petals on backwards so I'm just keeping that one for my family and making another the right way. I really like this post about mistakes in crafting. If I've already finished a project but I'm not happy with it, I tend to just keep it for myself or give it to someone who will love it, mistakes and all.
The second ornament I made this year was the red poinsettia. Pattern here.
Instead of making a bunch of the same ornament, this year I'm thinking I'll do a different one for each family. So I'll be making a snowman, a Christmas mouse, and possibly a Santa in addition to the flowers. Not planning to make them out of exactly the same yarns specified, since I already have a ton of acrylic yarn in all colors of the rainbow.
Here's a bit of my process with the snowman. First I stitch up all the pieces. For this pattern, there are only four--to contrast with those stupid poinsettias, which have 15 pieces each...each individual leaf, petal, and middle part was its own piece. You can see why I decided against making more of them. Here I have already stuffed the snowman's body with fiberfill.
Then I tuck in ends and do any surface embroidery. Here I also attached the pom-pom to the hat.
Then I assemble.
I should probably have just bought new plastic eyes. I had plenty at one point, but they seem to be "in a bin" and I haven't been able to locate them. This time I just made the eyes with black yarn instead. Confession: I suck at french knots. For the mouth, the pattern called for black yarn in a straight line, but on a second look at the picture, it looks like they used black thread instead to make a tiny grin. My snowman looks rather grumpy and not nearly as cute as theirs. Maybe I'll just call him Grumpy Gus and try harder with the others.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Staycation
So, as of last Wednesday night we were all sick, but Dan didn't have to work until Tuesday, and I didn't have Maggie again until Monday. So what did we get up to?
Thursday we slept late, meaning Sam let me sleep until after 9, I wrote a couple blog posts, and drank coffee until Dan woke up at noon. Originally we were supposed to go to ECFE as a family, go to the eye doctor to get me some new glasses and a checkup, and then hit the road. Since we were sick I called to let them know we wouldn't be at school and it turned out that the eye doctor took our vision insurance, but not our health insurance so we couldn't get the exams paid for, so I cancelled that, too. I had lost my voice so I had Dan research it and call around to see if we could get an appointment for Thursday afternoon or Friday. Most of the rest of the day was spent vegging out, and working on this lovely chenille afghan I made just for us:
Friday was filled with errands. Dan got me an eye appointment at Sam's Club, so I did that, but while they accepted the health insurance, they did not accept the vision insurance so I couldn't order glasses. So we decided to go have lunch and pick up Dan's sunglasses at Target, and order me glasses there as well. By the time we were done at Target, Sam had literally fallen asleep in his seat in the cart, so we went home, thinking he would nap. Nope! But I did. Dan let me take a 4 hour nap while he watched Sam. It was glorious. Sam never did take a real nap, but he did go to sleep at a reasonable hour (for him, which means 10:30.) We still felt pretty crummy, but made a resolution to do something fun on Saturday.
Saturday. Hahaha. Something fun. If you call forcing a small strong willed child to have his hair cut against his wishes, then I guess we had fun. It was seriously traumatizing. And it even looks like crap. What do other moms with sensory kids do about haircuts? We had originally planned to go shopping afterward, but instead went straight home and gave him a bath, put him in pajamas (at 5 pm) and let him nap.
Before the haircut we were able to have a little snack at Applebees since there was an hour wait at Kids' Hair. So that was slightly fun. Dan had vetoed the zoo since he was still not feeling well and didn't want to do a ton of walking early in the day. I managed to get in a trip to the grocery store and fabric store and get a small craft project completed, so the day wasn't a total waste. And Sam is no longer shaggy. So there's that.
Sunday we needed to go pick up our share of the half cow my parents bought. I realized there was no time left to do anything fun if I wanted to get the Christmas decorating done. Decisions, decisions. I put a pork loin roast in the crock pot before I left to pick up the meat. 1/16 of a cow is still a good amount of meat, in case anyone was curious. This year is the first year we participated in buying meat "on the hoof" with my parents and uncle & aunt. My parents bought two pigs and half a cow to split among eight families. Uncle Merle knows a guy. My parents are the street-level dealers. ;) Actually they divide the meat as fairly as possible and we all pay the same amount, so it's more of an informal co-op than anything else. Merle knows the farmers, so my parents directly pay both the farmer and butcher, not some nameless corporation, and then we split the cost (plus gas) equally. It's as close to eating local as we can do at the moment. My freezer is FULL.
I got home around 2; early enough that we still could have gone somewhere if the boys had been in the mood. They weren't. I worked on a few holiday projects and cleaned up the living room. I haven't made a decision about how and where to put up the tree this year, but it's not looking like there will be much decorating here after all. Later on, I picked up the last of the yarn I needed to buy for afghans, since Michael's was having a sale and a coupon special from 4pm-9pm only. I also shopped for a Christmas outfit or sweater for myself and an outfit for Sam at Kohl's and came home empty-handed. Worst case, we'll wear things we already own.
Monday morning bright and early Maggie arrived. We'd gotten on a stay-up-late and sleep in schedule, and going back to my normal routine kind of sucked. Well, except that she was sleepy when she arrived, promptly fell asleep in the rocker, and slept in the crib until after 10 when I woke her. The rest of the morning was pretty lazy/routine. Maggie ate, I drank coffee, Sam ate, I changed several diapers, etc. etc. Dan had to do a little work from home on his laptop in the basement. We'd planned to maybe do a little mall walking and present shopping in the afternoon, but Maggie fell asleep at an inopportune time so we decided to just stay home. Dan decided to go car shopping while it was daylight, he had the day off, and the weather wasn't bad.
We'd been looking for a minivan off and on for a couple months, and he finally found one that was (knock on wood) perfect. He stopped home after Maggie left to pick Sam and me up to give it another test drive and make the decision together. We both agreed so we bought it! I can be a real soccer mom now. Woo-hoo. It has fancy automatic doors, heated seats, and a built in DVD player. I am super excited for the next adventure we go on, and if we go on a real family vacation, I can sit in the back and watch movies with Sam.
So that's what we did. Nothing too fun, but we did get new glasses ordered, Sam's hair dealt with, bought a new vehicle, and I got a bunch of crafting done. Not too shabby for a 4 or 5 day weekend when everyone was sick. (By the way, Sam and I are feeling much better, but Dan's head is still stuffy. I'll send him to the doctor if it continues much longer.)
Thursday we slept late, meaning Sam let me sleep until after 9, I wrote a couple blog posts, and drank coffee until Dan woke up at noon. Originally we were supposed to go to ECFE as a family, go to the eye doctor to get me some new glasses and a checkup, and then hit the road. Since we were sick I called to let them know we wouldn't be at school and it turned out that the eye doctor took our vision insurance, but not our health insurance so we couldn't get the exams paid for, so I cancelled that, too. I had lost my voice so I had Dan research it and call around to see if we could get an appointment for Thursday afternoon or Friday. Most of the rest of the day was spent vegging out, and working on this lovely chenille afghan I made just for us:
Friday was filled with errands. Dan got me an eye appointment at Sam's Club, so I did that, but while they accepted the health insurance, they did not accept the vision insurance so I couldn't order glasses. So we decided to go have lunch and pick up Dan's sunglasses at Target, and order me glasses there as well. By the time we were done at Target, Sam had literally fallen asleep in his seat in the cart, so we went home, thinking he would nap. Nope! But I did. Dan let me take a 4 hour nap while he watched Sam. It was glorious. Sam never did take a real nap, but he did go to sleep at a reasonable hour (for him, which means 10:30.) We still felt pretty crummy, but made a resolution to do something fun on Saturday.
Saturday. Hahaha. Something fun. If you call forcing a small strong willed child to have his hair cut against his wishes, then I guess we had fun. It was seriously traumatizing. And it even looks like crap. What do other moms with sensory kids do about haircuts? We had originally planned to go shopping afterward, but instead went straight home and gave him a bath, put him in pajamas (at 5 pm) and let him nap.
Before the haircut we were able to have a little snack at Applebees since there was an hour wait at Kids' Hair. So that was slightly fun. Dan had vetoed the zoo since he was still not feeling well and didn't want to do a ton of walking early in the day. I managed to get in a trip to the grocery store and fabric store and get a small craft project completed, so the day wasn't a total waste. And Sam is no longer shaggy. So there's that.
Sunday we needed to go pick up our share of the half cow my parents bought. I realized there was no time left to do anything fun if I wanted to get the Christmas decorating done. Decisions, decisions. I put a pork loin roast in the crock pot before I left to pick up the meat. 1/16 of a cow is still a good amount of meat, in case anyone was curious. This year is the first year we participated in buying meat "on the hoof" with my parents and uncle & aunt. My parents bought two pigs and half a cow to split among eight families. Uncle Merle knows a guy. My parents are the street-level dealers. ;) Actually they divide the meat as fairly as possible and we all pay the same amount, so it's more of an informal co-op than anything else. Merle knows the farmers, so my parents directly pay both the farmer and butcher, not some nameless corporation, and then we split the cost (plus gas) equally. It's as close to eating local as we can do at the moment. My freezer is FULL.
I got home around 2; early enough that we still could have gone somewhere if the boys had been in the mood. They weren't. I worked on a few holiday projects and cleaned up the living room. I haven't made a decision about how and where to put up the tree this year, but it's not looking like there will be much decorating here after all. Later on, I picked up the last of the yarn I needed to buy for afghans, since Michael's was having a sale and a coupon special from 4pm-9pm only. I also shopped for a Christmas outfit or sweater for myself and an outfit for Sam at Kohl's and came home empty-handed. Worst case, we'll wear things we already own.
Monday morning bright and early Maggie arrived. We'd gotten on a stay-up-late and sleep in schedule, and going back to my normal routine kind of sucked. Well, except that she was sleepy when she arrived, promptly fell asleep in the rocker, and slept in the crib until after 10 when I woke her. The rest of the morning was pretty lazy/routine. Maggie ate, I drank coffee, Sam ate, I changed several diapers, etc. etc. Dan had to do a little work from home on his laptop in the basement. We'd planned to maybe do a little mall walking and present shopping in the afternoon, but Maggie fell asleep at an inopportune time so we decided to just stay home. Dan decided to go car shopping while it was daylight, he had the day off, and the weather wasn't bad.
We'd been looking for a minivan off and on for a couple months, and he finally found one that was (knock on wood) perfect. He stopped home after Maggie left to pick Sam and me up to give it another test drive and make the decision together. We both agreed so we bought it! I can be a real soccer mom now. Woo-hoo. It has fancy automatic doors, heated seats, and a built in DVD player. I am super excited for the next adventure we go on, and if we go on a real family vacation, I can sit in the back and watch movies with Sam.
So that's what we did. Nothing too fun, but we did get new glasses ordered, Sam's hair dealt with, bought a new vehicle, and I got a bunch of crafting done. Not too shabby for a 4 or 5 day weekend when everyone was sick. (By the way, Sam and I are feeling much better, but Dan's head is still stuffy. I'll send him to the doctor if it continues much longer.)
Monday, December 3, 2012
Unvacation
This post was supposed to be a wrap-up of a trip Dan, Sam and I were taking to Duluth to play in an indoor waterpark and look at Christmas lights. We hadn't taken any vacations in years, if you don't count the obligatory go-visit-elderly-relatives-so-they-can-see-Sam trips, which I don't. Dan and I have left town and stayed in hotel rooms exactly two times since our honeymoon, and we've been married for 6 1/2 years. I'm 99% certain that we've never left the state of Minnesota together, ever.
I used to love travel. In high school, I visited Europe with my foreign language class. I visited New Orleans with a church youth group, and Orlando and New Orleans a second time with the high school band. As an adult, I drove to Las Vegas to help my brother move there for school, and flew there the following Christmas with my parents. As a child, my parents took us on many family vacations, and while I hated the long car rides, it was a good experience for me to see a place that wasn't familiar.
Dan, on the other hand, hated travel when I met him, and he's still not much of a fan. Any time he slept away from home as a kid, it was because something bad had happened (their house burned down) or something bad was happening (they were visiting relatives who were unkind, to put it very mildly.) When he has time off work, he would like nothing better than to just stay home and relax.
I did convince him that we needed to get out of town for a few days for our honeymoon. We drove up to Duluth and stopped for lunch, then headed further north to Grand Marais, which was lovely the second to last weekend in May. It was about a week before Memorial Day, so it wasn't crowded, and we got a free upgrade to our hotel room. We meandered around town, checking out little shops and eating in small independently owned restaurants. One day we visited Gooseberry Falls, which was surprisingly really fun--did you know Dan likes hiking in the woods? Neither did I. Lesson learned: Dan hates the idea at first, but once he's there, he usually has a good time.
Some time later, a friend got married up north, so we drove up and stayed overnight in a hotel. It was more driving on two-lane roads than Dan would have liked, and I don't really count it as a vacation. Then a few years back we visited some friends who had moved to Waseca. We got a hotel room, since they had cats and I am highly allergic. We took one day just to ourselves and visited New Ulm, which was fun if low-key.
And that's it. I don't think we've ever done anything more than that. The last time we took Sam to visit Grandma Loretta, we took our time getting there and back, stopping about every hour or so, and he did much better with the car trip than most of the other times we've taken him long distances. So I was really optimistic about Duluth, Edgewater, and Bentleyville. Unfortunately we've all come down with a nasty cold, and I had an ear infection, so we had to cancel. At least we were able to cancel in time not to be charged for it. We plan to reschedule, but part of the appeal was that Dan and I both had Thursday and Friday off, so we could go Thursday and Friday night, leave Saturday, and be home in time to decompress and get ready for our week. Who knows when I'll be able to get another Friday off?
Next post: What we did instead! Expect lots of kleenex, amoxicillin, and nasal decongestant. Yeah, we know how to party. :(
I used to love travel. In high school, I visited Europe with my foreign language class. I visited New Orleans with a church youth group, and Orlando and New Orleans a second time with the high school band. As an adult, I drove to Las Vegas to help my brother move there for school, and flew there the following Christmas with my parents. As a child, my parents took us on many family vacations, and while I hated the long car rides, it was a good experience for me to see a place that wasn't familiar.
Dan, on the other hand, hated travel when I met him, and he's still not much of a fan. Any time he slept away from home as a kid, it was because something bad had happened (their house burned down) or something bad was happening (they were visiting relatives who were unkind, to put it very mildly.) When he has time off work, he would like nothing better than to just stay home and relax.
I did convince him that we needed to get out of town for a few days for our honeymoon. We drove up to Duluth and stopped for lunch, then headed further north to Grand Marais, which was lovely the second to last weekend in May. It was about a week before Memorial Day, so it wasn't crowded, and we got a free upgrade to our hotel room. We meandered around town, checking out little shops and eating in small independently owned restaurants. One day we visited Gooseberry Falls, which was surprisingly really fun--did you know Dan likes hiking in the woods? Neither did I. Lesson learned: Dan hates the idea at first, but once he's there, he usually has a good time.
Some time later, a friend got married up north, so we drove up and stayed overnight in a hotel. It was more driving on two-lane roads than Dan would have liked, and I don't really count it as a vacation. Then a few years back we visited some friends who had moved to Waseca. We got a hotel room, since they had cats and I am highly allergic. We took one day just to ourselves and visited New Ulm, which was fun if low-key.
And that's it. I don't think we've ever done anything more than that. The last time we took Sam to visit Grandma Loretta, we took our time getting there and back, stopping about every hour or so, and he did much better with the car trip than most of the other times we've taken him long distances. So I was really optimistic about Duluth, Edgewater, and Bentleyville. Unfortunately we've all come down with a nasty cold, and I had an ear infection, so we had to cancel. At least we were able to cancel in time not to be charged for it. We plan to reschedule, but part of the appeal was that Dan and I both had Thursday and Friday off, so we could go Thursday and Friday night, leave Saturday, and be home in time to decompress and get ready for our week. Who knows when I'll be able to get another Friday off?
Next post: What we did instead! Expect lots of kleenex, amoxicillin, and nasal decongestant. Yeah, we know how to party. :(
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