The Small Family   

We’re baaaaaaaack! And very, very proud of our son, who is a fantastic traveler! So many people have told us, “Oh, it’s much easier to travel when they’re infants. It’s hard when they’re toddlers.” I have no doubt these people were being honest, but Chris and I have realized that 1) their babies must’ve been less challenging than Theo was or 2) their toddlers must be more challenging than Theo is (or maybe a combination of the two). For us, it was 100 times easier to travel with Theo now that he’s a toddler. In fact, for two of the three flights, it was downright easy. And even the more challenging leg wasn’t too difficult—he was just antsy. 

Anyway, we spent weeks before the trip thinking, “Okay, the five-hour flight is going to be hell, but if we can get through that, all will be well.” And then Theo (and Chris) got sick (or allergies, in Theo’s case) right before vacation…and I shuddered to think, “Oh, poor Theo’s ears are going to hurt horribly on descent…and we have two descents on the flight out.” He was so congested that I thought the poor kid would just be miserable…he woke up with his eye swollen nearly shut and an icky, icky runny nose. But it turned out he was fine. For the flight out, we bought Theo his own seat, even though he’s technically still young enough to be considered a “lap child.” We brought his car seat on the plane, strapped it on the seat, and put him in it on takeoff. We thought that would last all of 20 minutes, but no…he sat happily in it for the entire flight, getting out only on our stopover in Denver, where we changed his diaper and outfit. We kept him busy with books and with a couple Baby Einstein DVDs (classical music and puppets and such, designed for babies), so that helped. He loves those DVDs, but we limit their use because we don’t want to fall into the trap of letting the TV babysit our son. So, he normally gets to watch half an hour a couple times a week, which he loves. But on the plane, he got to watch a total of THREE half-hour blocks, so he was delighted. He started to fuss a tiny bit on the descent into Austin, but I kept him busy with tiny bits of chocolate muffin, which he loved, so he virtually ignored the pressure in his ears. Chris has problems with his ears on descent, and he was miserable coming into Austin…but Theo didn’t seem to have much trouble at all. Whew!

Our time in Austin was great. Technically, we were an hour north of Austin, in Temple, for the first three days. Friday night we went to the rehearsal dinner/BBQ at Chris’s aunt and uncle’s house. We didn’t stay too long because Theo had had a long day and was getting tired, but it was good to get to say hi to Scott and Hannah (the groom and bride), because we didn’t get to talk to them at the wedding. We learned from our wedding that it’s impossible for the bride and groom to get to talk to all the guests, so it was nice that we were able to see them the night before for a few minutes.

Saturday we drove to Waco to see Baylor University, where Chris’s cousin, Stefanie, went to college. It was a good way to get Theo a nap, and we always like seeing various college campuses, since they’re usually quite scenic. Baylor has a lot of pretty brick buildings, so it was definitely worth the 45-minute drive…and Theo got his nap, as planned.

The wedding was Saturday night, and I’m going to let Chris blog about that…since I spent most of it out in the front yard of Hannah’s parents house and then left early. (Nighttime is iffy with Theo…he was getting hungry and tired, and he just didn’t hold out for too long at the wedding. But long enough for me to go for a bit, which was nice.)

We spent Sunday afternoon at Chris’s aunt and uncle’s house again…this time just them, Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Tom, and Aunt Betty. Theo had a great time playing in Aunt Barbara and Uncle David’s family room and petting their dog, Lily, a very sweet Labradoodle. He also got to enjoy some lasagna (with no cheese, of course…poor kid missed the best part!) courtesy of Aunt Barbara, who held him on her lap during dinner. Eating dinner with Theo can be a real adventure, but Aunt Barbara had it all under control, and it was a really nice meal with family who we don’t often get to see.

Monday morning we headed to Austin itself to spend the day and night there, since our flight to Colorado was to take off early Tuesday morning. We found a great Mexican restaurant for lunch in downtown Austin and then walked over to the Capitol building, where we sat on the grass while Theo played. Funny thing is, there was some sort of rally going on not too terribly far from where we were sitting, and at one point Theo heard the crowd clapping and started clapping himself! I had to laugh because Chris utterly disagreed with what the speaker was saying (different political views than his), so to have his son applauding for the guy was rather amusing!

We also went to the Austin Zoo, which turned out to be a small rescue zoo rather than a typical large zoo. They had a pretty good-sized petting zoo, which Theo really liked. You’ll see a couple pictures of him petting the goats. He tried to so hard to “pet gentle,” which we’ve been working on, since he tends to maul Luna in his exuberance to pet her!

Being a big fan of grocery stores, Chris was interested in seeing Whole Foods’ flagship store in downtown Austin, so we stopped there and picked up some food for dinner and took it back to the hotel. Yay for Mexican Chocolate Bread Pudding!!!

The only problem with Austin was Theo’s crib at the hotel. It was a port-a-crib, and it must not have been too comfortable, because he slept lousy! We had our alarm set for 4am (we had an early flight), but Theo decided that we should all get up at 2:30am…and so we did. We spent almost an hour trying to get him back to sleep, but by 3:30am, it was evident that he wasn’t going back to sleep…and we had to be up in half an hour anyway. The challenge is that in a hotel, I’m obviously not going to let him fuss a whole lot, because we had the guests on either side of our room to think about—I’m sure they didn’t pay for a hotel room just to be kept awake by a howling baby! So we pretty much had to go with the flow and let Theo stay up, as painful as it was for us. Ugh!

But the beautiful thing was that by the time our 7:10am flight took off, Theo was worn out and slept for the entire two-hour flight, waking up when the plane came to a stop at the gate in Denver. BLISS! We decided to prolong his morning napping by taking a drive down to Colorado Springs (about an hour south of Denver). There’s a neat park there called Garden of the Gods that I wanted Chris to see. My mom and I went there years ago and really thought it was beautiful, and I knew Chris would like it too. It’s really neat sandstone rock formations, and it has paved paths throughout that I knew Theo would like to crawl on. So off we went…and it was as lovely as I remembered. Theo wasn’t too pleased that I wouldn’t let him crawl in the dirt (as you’ll see in one of the pictures, where he is blocked from getting off the path by his mama’s feet!). At one point he threw himself onto the pavement kicking and screaming to demonstrate his displeasure. Ah, the joy of tantrums. When he outgrows those someday, I will not miss them! But overall, it was a nice day trip.

One of the coolest parts of that day, to me, was the “free air show” we got when leaving Colorado Springs. The Air Force Academy is in Colorado Springs, and their precision-flight team, the Thunderbirds (like the Blue Angels, only for the Air Force instead of the Navy), were practicing right over the freeway! We got a 10-minute air show of sorts—it was fantastic!

The other cool part of the day was meeting Christina, Carmen, Alexis, and Andrew for dinner. Carmen is Jeanette’s mom—most of you know Jeanette as one of my two best friends—and Christina is Jeanette’s sister. Alexis and Andrew are Christina’s two children—Alexis is 10 and Andrew is 4. Unfortunately, Christina’s husband had to work and couldn’t join us, but we had a great time visiting with Christina, Carmen, Alexis, and Andrew. Andrew and Alexis kept Theo entranced so that we were actually able to have a nice dinner and chat, despite the fact that Theo was pretty wiped out from getting up so early and thus was a little less cheery than we might have hoped. It’s kind of funny to think that I’ve known Christina since she was about 8 or 9 years old, and now I’m having dinner with her own kids, one of whom is about the age she was when I met her!

On Wednesday, we set out for a long drive. Chris and I have a goal to see all 50 states, so anytime we’re within driving distance of a “new” state, we drive there and add it to our list. (I’m up to 34 states, I think. Chris is up to 24, and Theo has already earned an impressive 8 states in his young life!) So, on Wednesday, we drove to Cheyenne, WY, for Chris to add that state. I’ve been to Wyoming a few times, and I always enjoy it. I haven’t really done much in Cheyenne, though, so that was new to me. And what a neat town it is! It’s the state capital, obviously, but it has a real small-town feel. Chris and I were surprised by how quaint and charming it is. The downtown has a lot of cute, well-kept bungalows with lots of big trees and wide lawns. We also found a great park in downtown (thanks to our GPS!) where we stopped for Theo to play and stretch his legs. He slept for the two-hour drive to Cheyenne, so he was happy to get out when we arrived. We ended up spending three hours at the park, and it was probably the highlight of our trip. There were a couple playgrounds (Theo is obsessed with slides now!), a big lake, a lot of grass and shade, and excellent proximity to a National Guard airstrip, so we got to watch big cargo planes taking off right over the park. (I realize that probably sounds unappealing to some, but I love planes, so I thought it was very cool! And Theo was intrigued by the big, loud planes.) Chris went out and got a takeout lunch, and we had a nice picnic before hitting the road to Nebraska.

None of us had been to Nebraska, so of course we had to drive over there—it was only an hour from Cheyenne. And wow…there’s a whole lotta nothin’ out in western Nebraska! We were in the state for about an hour as we drove through it from Wyoming back into Colorado, and I think we saw about four cars! Pretty, though…just lots and lots of grass and blue sky. Chris thought the scenery looked like the Windows startup screen (if you have a computer running Windows, you know what I mean), so I took a picture of said scenery and included it in this week’s album. I think he’s right—it does really resemble the startup screen!

When we finally got back into Denver after our long road trip, we went to Sixth Street downtown, which is an outdoor pedestrian mall, and found some dinner. And lo and behold, we found one of the Foods of the Gods, which I cannot find in California: frozen custard!! Normally I can only find this wonderful treat when I go visit my family in western New York, so I was ecstatic! It’s basically like a soft ice cream, but it’s made with a custard base, so it’s thicker and creamier than regular ice cream. And yes, probably more fattening…but oh so good! And I was on vacation, so I indulged and had a small sundae made with vanilla frozen custard and hot fudge with nuts. Chris got a junior scoop and had a few bites...all his dairy allergy will allow before he starts itching like mad. (Poor guy!)

Thursday we set off on another road trip, which didn’t go quite so well. We went to Estes Park, which is right at the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s a cute little tourist town in a beautiful setting, and the only bummer part was that it rained, so after attempting to picnic in the rain, we just gave up and sought refuge in a Starbucks where Theo could crawl around for a bit. We hit Boulder on our way back because I thought Chris would enjoy the downtown pedestrian mall. It has lots of trees and benches and funky little shops and restaurants. And he did enjoy it (as did I), but again, it rained on our parade. So the day wasn’t a loss by any means, but it would’ve been much nicer if the weather had cooperated.

For our last real vacation meal, we decided to return to the scene of the crime: the frozen custard establishment! It’s a chain, so we went to another location, which was every bit as tasty but easier to get to than the downtown one. Mmmmmm!! Afterward, because Theo had been cooped up in the car much of the day thanks to the rain, we took him to a big mall in Denver that Christina had told us had a good play area for kids. And indeed it was good—Theo very much enjoyed climbing in a giant bowl of shredded wheat and sliding down a slide of bacon, as well as romping on a huge waffle. (As you can guess, it was a food-themed play area. All these things were big, soft play-area “equipment” for kids to climb on.)

Friday morning we arrived home after a slightly more stressful (but still not too bad) flight, and we’re now pondering whether a fall vacation is in the budget, since this vacation was such a success. Theo was in a fantastic mood for probably 90% of the time (which is a heck of a lot better than we get at home!), and Chris and I just really, really enjoyed having the time to spend as a family without the pressures of work and such. We really think Theo gets bored at home in the house, because whenever he is in a crabby mood, if we take him out, his mood improves exponentially. And on vacation, we find that as long as he is fed and clean, he is generally a very happy, easygoing little boy. So much to see, so much to do! It seems the boy has inherited his parents’ love of travel, which delights us!

The bummer of this weekend has been the news that Fleetwood Mac has decided to completely cancel their Sacramento show. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, Chris and I had tickets to attend their concert on his birthday, and we were so excited! Chris loves Fleetwood Mac (well, he did before this weekend—now he’s furious at them), so that was the ultimate birthday present for him. And then, hours before the show, we got word that it was being postponed due to illness, but would be rescheduled at a later date. Not so: We found out on Friday that Fleetwood just decided to cancel altogether. WAH! At least we get the majority of the cost of the tickets refunded, so Chris can decide what he’d like for his birthday instead. Or we can use the money to make another car payment. J

We didn’t really want our vacation to end, so Saturday morning we decided to do something fun and go out to the Doggie Dash in Land Park. It’s basically an SPCA fundraiser, but it’s huge—they have all kinds of demonstrations and such. The highlight, to me, is the pug races! This is the fourth year they’ve had them, but the first year we were able to go. Alas, we didn’t bring Luna (decided we’d scope it out so we would know whether to bring her next year), but Theo, Chris, and I enjoyed seeing all the dogs and watching the pug races, which are hilarious. Utter chaos when you release a bunch of pugs and try to get them to run to a certain place. One pug was way ahead of the pack and then ran to the wrong owner—it was hilarious! And other pug decided he wanted to keep racing, so his owner was chasing him around after the heat had ended...and there’s no catching a determined pug when he’s running! Next year, we’ll definitely take Luna.

In developmental news, Theo is doing a couple fun new things. First of all, he’s a signing machine. At the Doggie Dash, I started working on the “more” sign with him, because he had a sip of our raspberry smoothie and wanted more. And I’ll be darned if that boy didn’t get the “more” sign on about the second try...and then he kept signing for more, more, more smoothie!

Second, as I mentioned, he is a sliding fiend. The slide is his new favorite thing, and he quickly figured out how to climb stairs up to a slide, then turn himself around at the top so he can slide down on his belly, feet first. He thinks that’s the most fun ever!

And third, he’s still in the midst of this verbal explosion. It’s hard to make out some of what he says, but it’s very clear that he’s trying to talk. We’re almost sure he says “Did it” or “I did it!” fairly often. He also sometimes says “Want dat!” (Want that). “Luna” is coming up frequently in conversation, even when she isn’t in the room. “Bop” seems to be “bottle” (and he signs for milk), and “ball” comes out fairly clearly now and then. He also consistently signs “all done” now, which is great—he’s very clear about when he has had enough to eat.

Aunt Barbara had an interesting observation. We’ve sort of wondered why he has been so slow to walk. He took his first steps just a week after his first birthday, but that was almost two months ago, and he hasn’t shown much interest in walking since. Some days he’ll toddle around a bit, but for the most part he crawls. Aunt Barbara commented that some children will focus more on talking than on physical development, and she thinks Theo is doing that. She says he makes a lot of different consonant sounds, which suggests to her that he’s trying very hard to talk...and thus perhaps ignoring walking. We had never thought about that, but it sounds like a very logical explanation to us, since Theo certainly is talking a ton these days. And given that Aunt Barbara has been a kindergarten teacher for many years, we figure she’s got a pretty good insight into kids’ minds. J