Vacating the Premises '08

"Do I feel older? Absolutely. But wiser? Nah!" -- Me, on my 34th birthday

In one of the many running jokes of my life (I didn't say they were all funny), I actually started getting my blog notes together way, way back at the end of May when Jon took his two week vacation. I finished it two days after June 23. For once, we just threw everything out the window and just ran -- Jon's bank account is still crying for its mother.

Day one, dropped off boy.

On Josh's first day at Mom's (she got a few overnights in), I stopped at the neighbors to check in with Grandma and Grandpa O., as I hadn't seen them in ages. Grandpa was considering whether or not to make Josh a golf club from one of his old ones (something Harry had already done back home)...and Josh happily whacked around a tennis ball with a car sponge on a stick. I just laughed it off and suggested that no one should mention Josh and his adoration of golf to Mom, or she'd feel the need to get him a complete golf course. We laughed. Ha, ha. Sooo funny. Ahh. I arrive at Mom's and the first thing I notice is that she's had two animal swings put up on one of the trees. As I am going into the door, my mother is whipping out box number one...and yes, it is a golf set, with putting hole, with two clubs...with tee. Ha, Ha. Mere moments later, Josh was riding around on a little bike just his size, and when I checked in with them later that evening, apparently a unilateral decision had been made that Josh really, really needed a basketball hoop like the one Papa Tim and Mamo Wish had at their place. With a very straight face, and hardly a crack in my voice, I calmly applauded my mother on choosing moderation over absolute spoil-ation on his very first night there. Really people, who is supposed to be the bigger kid here? Grampa Dave and Uncle Jamie were immediately deemed "Cool Cats" and Josh followed them both with an adoration usually reserved for The Beatles or Elvis (so says my mother, who took full advantage of this fact when Josh would lean over my dad in the morning, pat his face and shake him awake and demand hot cocoa...SHE got to sleep in....). Jon and I then made a mad dash for the latest Indy. Still love Harrison Ford...generally pretty amused with the movie, but honest-to-Pete, can someone put a leash on the "Great Flannel God"?! I'm sorry but with the uber tech that is out there today (see LOTR, see HELLBOY, anything by Del Toro), OBVIOUS green screen cgi just doesn't cut it. What, they can afford poorly staged CGI, but not one lousy stinkin' animal handler for an actual monkey? C'mon, guys. It's INDY-Flipping-JONES -- a sense of adventure is supposed to be part and parcel here.

Day Two: Heidi vs. the Asian Fest, Columbus Governor Michael B. Coleman vs. Sumo Champion. One of our returning favorites is the Asian Festival at the Franklin Park Conservatory. There are many polite, happy people getting flipped randomly to mats, this year there were even bollywood dancers (that I was so excited to see...and so disappointed when I did -- not their fault, really, they were just young'ins. My current amusement is bollywood dancing...now I can't do it, but by the Power of Grayskull, when it's done right, it bollys your eyes right out of your head ), and a sweaty guy who was good at side-stepping stepped into the sacred sumo circle to try his luck against another sweaty guy who was good at dumping people onto their sides. Surprise, surprise, Mayor Coleman made a few little kitty-girl swipes (I kid you not, he even made little "rawr, rawr" noises when he swiped) at Mr. Sumo Man, and then "allowed himself" to be escorted/scared out of the ring backwards. Blah. Heidi really enjoyed it, though...it's really been quite the pleasure to intro her to some of our favorite pastimes, like the festival, and musicals and shows she wouldn't otherwise get a chance to participate in. She's been very open, and very spongy in soaking up a pronounced love of it all, and even when things aren't in tip-top shape, she comes to it all with such a willingness to try whatever happens that it's just genuine joy to be around her. She managed pretty well, though she had to have a med pack for her back pain, and we had to take a lot of breaks to make sure we didn't burn her out or hobble her up too much. We headed back and did a quick-ish stop in Half Price books -- our most favorite addiction, where we both spent waaaay too much, but in my defense, this time at least, most of the books were for Josh.

Day Three: By sheer luck, we discovered a very tiny, very cute, very determined Community Theater living in a small matchbox on a cobbled side street. We actually had to walk across the stage to get to the theater seats, which was a different experience...While I know acting has never been my strong point, every time I walk across a stage, it's a like a sacred experience...I feel a buzz and hum through my veins that perhaps only the truly devout in the most beautiful cathedrals in the most amazing places in the world could understand. This place was held together with shoestring and bubblegum, and to quote that awful movie, "They were all out of bubblegum." -- but I still got that buzz. We watched them perform THE REDUCED SHAKESPEARE COMPANY'S "THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE- ABRIDGED" -- essentially 37 plays in 90 odd minutes...and while we knew that the play required a kind of fast and loose feel...something that seemed somehow appropriate with this tiny troupe, there was also an under current of legitimate desperation...in that you knew that every penny scrounged together did not go to provide Egyptian cotton pillows to a dressing room for some overexposed diva, but to a viable, need-able thing -- in this instance, an air conditioner for the backstage and lobby area...oh, we were comfy, but those thesps had to run hard and fast, and they practically came out with heat stroke before they even touched the stage. Don't get me wrong. I love big theatrical productions, I love the sheer gilded ostentation of it all, but there was such a raw honesty with this little troupe that I'm seriously considering (in a year or so) getting involved with them. We shall see. I'm sure they can use another hand backstage.

Day Four: Picked up Boy

Josh wasn't home an hour before he and Harry went out to play baseball and feed the dog and ride the tractor. They were gone for hours and hours, and when they finally came back home, Josh couldn't take another step, and Harry wouldn't let go of him for another thirty minutes. You look at this picture, and tell me who missed the other more...

It was all the more touching because Harry was going back for knee surgery in a short matter of days...and their pal-ing around time was even more precious.

Day Five: Cleaned house. Yes, for one whole day, we could find our dining room table...we were amazed and awed at the size and space of our living room...and every dish was squeaky clean and put away. Hmm. Yes, well...there will be another sparkly, perfectly together house when Brigadoon shows up again. Though, I should say, Josh has become an ardent cleaner and a fine-picker-upper...you just have to bribe him with bubbles. Then, he flies around the house like Mom in her pre-reunion/Christmas cleaning frenzy...and I become convinced even further that she was hugely in on the grand conspiracy for Jon and I to join the Parenting-Hood. He loves to play the piano. He loves to garden. He loves to clean. Ri-ight. Just try and tell me she didn't trade in a few of her God-points for this one. (Jon is holding out a small, solitary hope that Josh will teach me how to be motivated to clean the house one of these days, but as I have tried to tell him many times, I have made friends with my outer dust bunnies...they're like family, now.)

Day Six: Operation Wear the Boy Down to a Nub.

It was a valiant effort. We had discovered a local playground that had a fabulous wooden castle with many, many turrets...with monkey bars and climbing chains and a xylophone...and swings...and a little creek nearby to cool off in. Josh was totally into practicing his Ninja-Warrior Josh routines. What we hadn't taken into consideration was exactly how BIG that playground was. Thankfully, we had brought our cells with us, so Jon stayed on one side and I stayed on the other, and periodically a phone would ring and the following conversation would take place: "I can't see him, repeat, I can't see him. Do you have the target?!" "Roger, roger, the eagle is on the dragon slide. Repeat, the eagle is on the dragon slide!" and we went on like this until it got too hot, and then we dashed him over to the mall to cavort in air conditioning...blessed, lovely, wonderful air conditioning. Oh yes, he slept very well that night.

Day Seven: Zoo -- We dragged Heidi along with us again. This time I took a back pack, not the stroller of doom, and my camera, and Jon brought along the camcorder. We seemed to have picked a multi-school field trip-day for our visit, and we were just certain someone would be huffing and puffing about Josh's harness-leash, but actually we got a lot of compliments and a bunch of people said that it was a great idea and they wished they had one (btw, our harness cost about four bucks and was solid nylon...if you bought the one at the zoo with the little animal "backpack", it was twenty, and made of much less sturdy material). Josh decided he would be a big boy and with very few exceptions, he really walked almost all of the zoo. Sadly, the heat and the greasy food were not a good combination. We kept him well hydrated, but no sooner had Heidi been dropped off at her car, than the poor little guy Linda-Blaire-ed all over the place. We cleaned him up as well as possible, but our faith in the Magic Wristbands was severely compromised.

Day Eight: Recovery. We had to raincheck a playdate with Heidi H. and Anna, because we weren't certain if Josh was going to be in good enough shape for another day in the heat.

Day Nine: A two hour train ride and a pilgrimage to the Burrito Buggy in Athens. More heat, more greasy food (mea culpa)...more reenactments of the Exorcist. It is official, Josh is going to need little crumbs of Dramamine before any long road trip from now on. The good news is that he didn't get sick until after the train ride, on the way home, and, and I found a stash of Souix City Sarsaparilla that is one of my personal favorite addictions...and Jon got one of his favorite addictions in the form of a sweet handful of burrito-y goodness.

Day 10:

Josh is back at Moms...this time for a two day stint in Bible School, where the theme was POWER LAB...he's been trying earnestly to explain to me about the "Power in the Mud and the Eyes" for the last few weeks now. According to Mom, there was a song about Power in the Blood...and they were told the story of the blind man who got to see again after Jesus mixed his blood with a bit of earth and put it on his eyes -- so I guess that makes sense. Josh also keeps exclaiming "More Power, More Power" all of the time, which also seems to be a bit of a carry over. Josh has also picked up Jamie's "That'd be AWSOME!!!!" or "AW-SOME!!!" statements, and if he is allowed to have hot cocoa or play basketball or whatever, the exact intonation of my little brother comes chirping out of my son's mouth... Scary. Really scary.

I would love to tell you what we did the rest of the vacation, but really, it got kind of blurry after a point. We ran around, we ate out, we flopped around at home...but I know it felt really busy, and it felt really fun. Jon, for once, was not obsessing about what work was piling up on his desk when he wasn't there to beat a path through it (a constant issue in all of our other prior vacations -- he'd get depressed halfway though, and wouldn't be able to shake himself out of it), and was truly just happy to come along for the ride. He may have needed several recoup days from his vacation, but he was so much more fun this time around...even when we got a call confirming what we had more or less suspected -- that Jon was going to be training a bunch of incoming SRs for the next four or five months, he just took it in stride and didn't let it mess with his head. I still reserved the right to laugh at him for being pegged for the training detail, but I only laughed at him in a truly supportive fashion, I assure you, and I didn't laugh because I didn't think he couldn't pull it off. I just equate it as an offshoot of the Parenting-Hood thingy.

We are now trying to move on to the next official stage in the Parenting-Hood thingy...the joys of potty training. Josh loves his Josh-potty...He loves to jump off of it. He loves to put his feet in it (for better or worse right now, at least his feet have been the only things actually in it as yet), he has even tried to wear it as a hat (Pot Couture?). I am of the opinion that potty training is another one of God's little jokes. Just when you think you can start to handle the drama of parenthood, you're well into your second year, and you almost think it's all old-hat by now, there comes the joy of potty training....I'll let you know how that, er, goes...but I can truly say, I am not looking forward to this part of the Implosive Parenting Course. I'm not worried that he's still in a diaper (though some of the Greats and Grands have been less than amused by this -- Helen was getting him training pants at 12 months, for crying out loud!!)...we didn't want to push him and he needed to hit certain milestones before we tried it ....I am worried that he only has one size left in the diapers, and I'd really like to get him set before he grows out of those. I won't do it, but I find myself mildly amused by the father on one of the websites who decided to just tarp his living room into oblivion and turn his son loose. It's wrong, I'll grant you, but just the idea of the look on some of the faces of those I know...well, it keeps me chuckling quite a bit, and as you know, I am ALL about the cheap thrills.

* * * * *

Josh helped me pick out Jon's Father's Day card, and I knew we had hit on the right one when Josh wouldn't let go of it. It has now become one of Josh's most favorite items...and every time you open it, and those sweet base notes start echoing through the air, Josh sings right along in his little boy voice, off-key but earnest as all get out...

"I won't cry...I won't cry...No, I won't be afraid...Just as long as you stand, stand by me."

-- As for the not crying...well, let's just see how this next experiment in parenting goes...