Another Denham Road Trip Adventure...

Dave and I met in Boston in 2001. Next summer, it will be a decade that we have known one another. In those 10 years, we have logged more miles on the road as a couple (I won't even attempt to add up Dave's individual miles) than anyone else I know. Two cross country moves required two cross country journeys of course. From Beantown to San Francisco via the northern tier of the U.S. Once on the left coast we traveled in our Jeep Cherokee to Lake Tahoe, Oregon, Mendocino, Sonoma, and Monterey. We then left our hearts in the City by the Bay and ventured east this time across the southern states. Once settled in our nation's capital, we took day trips to Baltimore, Virginia Beach and bi-annual trips to our favorite destination, the Outer Banks. Our lives changed with the birth of Cole and we found ourselves on our 3rd move (4th actually move since we rented first and then bought a house in DC) in 5 years, this time to the Twin Cities. Packing up Cole who was five months old, the Jeep was weighing heavy as we followed Dave and Tucker in the loaded Penske truck as we made our way to our new home with its yard, fence and suburban zip code.

Having Cole has not curbed our appetite for road trips, we realized early on that we had more control traveling in our car than flying and because we prefer to take our canine kid with us as much as possible, we continue our quest to drive here, there and everywhere.

Cole is a road tripper extraordinaire. With long drives to Pennsylvania, Montana, Kansas and our annual treks to Outer Banks, he just knows what the deal is. We stop thanks to GPS at playgrounds to let both kids stretch and play but we spend hours on end in the truck, Cole watches the big rigs go by, has his own personal movie theatre and passes the time adeptly using our Iphones (wow, the applications for kids are amazing and educational). A cooler and snack bag keeps us from having to stop too often. Just like when he was a baby, the soothing movement of the truck traveling at high speed (and Tucker snoring) makes him nod off. Sure he has his meltdowns but they truly are few and far between.

This post is being written two days after our 26 hour and 1400+ miles journey to Hatteras Island, NC. As you can see from the photo included, Cole has a smile on his face as Dave snapped this on a pitstop, what great memories we hope we are creating for him as these road trip adventures weave their way into our family fabric!

Look Mommy...

At the start of the year, I began "lunching" with Cole, just him and me every other Friday. Cole is great at restaurants as I think the fact that Dave and I have taken him out to eat quite often in his almost four years, he knows what to expect and what we expect of him when we are enjoying a meal out!

Anyway, I thought it would be a nice Mommy/Son thing to do after we run our typical Friday morning errands to lunch together. We frequent kid-friendly places of course and he 9/10 times will order Mac-N-Cheese. He is not a protein eater, never has been. Thank goodness he drinks tons of milk and eats cheese and eggs. I wonder how he has grown so tall despite continuing to eat like a bird?

So last week we hit Whole Foods and then walked (or ran since it was raining) to Noodles and Company. He likes to choose a table by the window and ask a million times when our food is going to come. So our food arrives and I stir it up and move some of his Mac-N-Cheese from the scorching bowl to his plate in an attempt to cool it off. While he waited as patiently as a 3 1/2 year old can while looking at his food, two gentleman sat down at the table next to us. They smiled and said hi, Cole got all shy and coy and turned away as usual.


After several minutes of watching the steam stream from his plate, I finally give him the go-ahead and he digs in and begins chowing, cheese dripping into his lap, on his cheek...we kept laughing because it is really hard to eat Mac-N-Cheese without making a mess.

The server delivered food to the two men who sat down besides us and Cole's eyes go big...he can barely swallow his food fast enough before he "whispers" loudly..."look, mommy, that man got mac-n-cheese like me"...I said, "he sure did"...Cole with a totally incredulous tone goes "so big people can eat mac-n-cheese too? that is soo cool" The guy eating the mac-n-cheese couldn't help but overhear him, smiled and gave Cole a wink. Cole got bashful again but beamed a big smile back!

PeeeeYewwww

Driving the 11 miles west to Cole's school we drive past some invisible wildlife crossing, well not exactly invisible since unfortunately, it is in the area of Route 394 where the speed limit goes from 55mph to 65mph. That said, sadly it is the worst place for animals to attempt to make it to the other side of the road. Gladly, Cole is typically distracted by the various construction and large Semi trucks we see and thus has yet to ask about the roadkill. However, the other morning approaching the ramp we take to exit to his school, the fresh and pungent smell of a skunk filled the car.

Cole: "Mommy what is the smell, it is icky" (as he holds his nose)

Me: "That is a skunk" (as I see it's remains off to the side)

Cole: "Well, it needs a bath, it must be really dirty" (as he continues to crinkle up his nose at the now stronger than before odor)

Me: *Laughing* (Pondering the thought of explaining the skunk was dead and then thinking better of it since some things are better off left unsaid)

That's All Folks...

Dave has been traveling a ton for work, new clients, new business, all good for him and Colle & McVoy, not so good for me, Cole and Tucker. I think it is awesome that my talented husband is in such high demand, but I feel a bit like Cole on the days when he just wants to hide his toys and isn't in the mood to share.

But reality is what it is and thus Dave is going international this week, flying off to the far away land of Germany for a week. It is difficult enough to connect with him when he is stateside and in the throes of deals and transactions and presentations oh my, let alone in a timezone 8 hours ahead.

So he decided that it was time to learn what everyone else seems to have already mastered, SKYPE. As long as he has internet connection which he isn't 100% sure of, we will be able to "see" one another instead of just settling for hearing one another's voice.

He bought a webcam & microphone long ago, I don't remember why but it has been collecting dust in a drawer so he pulled that out and hooked it up and voila. We practiced with him upstairs on his computer and Cole and I downstairs in my office on mine. It took us a little getting used too but I think we know enough that we can muster through.

Dave came back downstairs to give me passwords and such and Cole ran upstairs as he wanted to "get on daddy's puter". We watched as he sprang into Dave's office, his face filling the screen. He likes to come in close so you get a full shot of his adorable mug. Dave spoke silly to him and got him laughing. He kept moving around (as he typically does 99% of the day) so it was like watching an action movie rather than just talking to someone. This went on for a few minutes when he suddenly blurts out "okay, show's over". Dave and I looked at one another and burst out in laughter, where did he ever hear that? He could hear us reacting and so with glee, continued to repeat this.

It obviously lost its initial performance value but nonetheless became instantly blogworthy.

I don't want a dirty banana...

Cole is a very very very selective eater. He ate many more foods as a toddler than he does as a pre-schooler. The past six months he keeps me guessing as one week he will eat corn or peas and the next week, he won't touch them. One day he will eat noodles with butter and the next he is shrieking because he doesn't want the "sauce". He will devour blueberries, apples and strawberries and then say 24 hours later "I don't like those". He won't touch chicken nuggets (or most meat proteins), has NEVER taken to yogurt and shies away from most veggies. So cooking for him is a frustrating task. I have thought about just giving him a plate a food and if he eats it, great and if he doesn't, then he will if he is hungry enough. However, he is already reed thin and wiry because of his 5am-8pm GO GO GO schedule (no more naps sadly except the occasional crash mid-afternoon on our couch) and thus I worry about his caloric intake. He does drink almost 1 1/2 gallon of milk each week, eats eggs, cheese and turkey hot dogs and lots of organic fruit. I am hopeful he will embrace a broader menu as he grows.

Anyway, this week he has been a little monkey, noshing on bananas. I peel them typically so he doesn't see them before they hit his plate. Sitting on the stool in the kitchen as I made homemade tomato sauce, he asked for a banana (his second before 8am), my hands were full of tomato seeds/skins so I told him to take one and peel it. He said "but I don't want a dirty banana". I realized he thought the few brown spots on the skin was dirt. I explained that the banana was perfectly fine, he looked at me as if I was trying to pull a fast one. So he peeled it back and voila, he smiled and said "oh, okay...yummy"

I love MY Pickle...

I still remember the evening of Cole's birth like it was yesterday...following the hoopla of having an emergency C-section after a half-day of pushing and all the commotion of the previous hours, I lay there in recovery in the middle of the night letting the reality of his arrival sink in. The nurses had left us alone, Dave had crashed out hard on the pull out chair and was breathing deeply and Cole lay in my arms sleeping off his delivery hangover. Adrenaline still coursed through my mind and body and yet I was calm, completely content with Cole's sweet smell drifting around me. I had tried my darnedest to have a productive labor but my wee one was a week beyond his due date and hence wasn't so wee plus he had decided to turn sideways in the birth canal before becoming wedged. He was battered and bruised as a result and looked as if he had decided to fight his eviction notice. As I gazed down at his sleeping form, I began talking to him, telling him all about how we had waited for this day, how I felt from day one that he was a boy and that he had such a future of adventure ahead of him. His face was all scrunched up and prune-like so typical of a newborn. To me, he looked like a pickle. That very night, his nickname was also born.

Three and half years later, I still call him PICKLES...even his classmates at school have heard me use it. It comes out unconsciously most times. It is just our thing. As a toddler he used to actually eat pickles and make the laugh-out-loud pucker face but as he grew more picky with foods, he stopped eating them. So he will forever be my PICKLES and I will continue to use it here and there until one day when I say it and embarrass him. Then, I will have my moment and grieve over the loss of a once intimate communication and realize it is one of many things I will have to let go of over the course of his lifetime.

Flowers and Dumptrucks

Cole and I took a recent Monday morning and had an adventure at the University of Minnesota's Landscape Arboretum. We had not been there in probably two years and I forgot what an amazing place it is. The gardens and flowers and fountains, the stones, and sculptures and shady trees, oh my...acres and acres of lush plants and blooms! I absolutely love flowers and actually prefer seeing them in yards than in vases.

Anyway, I was oohhing and ahhhing my way down the various paths while Cole was checking out every possible water feature and finding rocks and steps to jump off of. I was attempting to snap pictures of him amongst the beautiful backdrop and doing close up shots of some of my favorites.

Cole turns to me after about an hour and poses the question "mommy, you love flowers, they make you happy?" I said, "yes buddy, mommy loves all these flowers, they make me happy just like you do!". He nods as if my confirmation of his thought was expected. He turns to me and goes "well, I love dumptrucks, they make me happy" and then proceeds to make the sounds of a dumptruck backing up (beep, beep, beep) as he backs himself up the stony walk. I just had to laugh out loud and agree!

A lesson in sunsets by Cole...

Cole has had limited experiences with sunsets. In the wintertime, it is too cold to watch the sunset plus it kind of just happens during those long frigid months, you blink and the sun is gone way before we have even sat down to eat dinner.

In the summertime, the sun sets way after his bedtime since here in Minnesota at our higher latitude, summer twilight lasts until after 10pm...so our annual September trip to the Outer Banks is really the only time he has seen the sunset. He normally is off his schedule anyway and the sun at that time of year is dropping earlier as fall approaches. So his frame of reference for watching the sun sink has really only been watching it disappear over the waters of the Pamilico Sound.

Lately, he has been a bugger about going to bed. Revved up from his day one past evening, he was still up as the sun began to descend, its light "pinking" up the billowy clouds. He kept saying how "beautiful" it was with that genuine inflection in his voice that said he really meant it.

Then out of the blue he says "the sun is going into the side of the earth". I had no initial reply as I sat there awestruck. I just looked at him as if he had just spoken Latin. I finally overcame my speechlessness with "you are right Cole, the sun comes up on one side of the earth, in the East and sets on the other side, the West". Where did you learn that? at school? His reply "No, I just know it."

Mastering the Art of Deflection

Cole is so emotionally observant it scares me. At just past three and a half, his keen ability to pick up on the slightest nuances in tone and mood in me and others is just uncanny. He truly is a sponge, both consciously and unconsciously absorbing EVERYTHING around him.

Cole has always been a sensitive soul...from his days of colic where he wanted nothing but to be sung to/held/carried to present day when he hangs his head and says "I'm sad" when I've raised my voice, which makes my heart hurt but is inevitable when parenting.

He does not like conflict with his friends (though with me he seems to invite it, LOL) and he gets upset when someone else is upset. He even lowers his voice when he hears a baby crying at the store and says with genuine concern "why is that baby crying"?)

Anyway, Cole has begun to master the art of deflection as a means to soften the situations where he knows he has gotten himself into a pickle, has received a warning and quite aware that a time out is imminent. He quickly attempts to diffuse the gathering storm by stating "wait a minute, I have a good idea!!" This is followed by one of several things in his arsenal "let's go outside", "let's have a snack" "let's go ride my bike"...or my personal favorite "let's bake cookies".

It is like he is cognizant that if he can distract me from whatever it was that had me in a tizzy, he can circumvent further discipline. Where do they learn this stuff?

Outsmarted...

Cole loves Popsicles, however my son is very picky about the kind of Popsicles he will eat. He has been known to turn down a popsicle at school, which during the summer is common for birthday days instead of cake/cupcakes; if he isn't a fan of whatever the birthday kid's mom brought he won't eat it.

Anyway, I have tried all kinds of popsicles; most are full of junk and though I have no problem with the occasional highly processed-filled one, I do try to keep his sweet treats on the natural/organic side, full of REAL fruit. He prefers these anyway it seems as it is the neon colored ones that look "fake" that he typically refuses.

Cole also still eats like a bird and isn't a big fan of proteins. So I recently bought yogurt fruit popsicles in hopes of wooing him and getting more than just carbs into his system. He will eat ice cream/frozen yogurt but he flatly took one look at the popsicle which was roughly similar in color and shape to his favorite ones and threw me a look as if to say "what are you kidding, I know what you are up to...not a chance"! I attempted to coerce him a bit more and he retorted with "mommy, we have my favorite popsicles, we just got them yesterday, remember, did you forget?"

The Blue Sky Stayed Up

I almost can't keep up with documenting all the cute, quirky, witty and poetic things that pass Cole's lips lately. I should carry a pad of sticky notes with me because things I think I will remember when he blurts them out in the car, at the playground or while running errands seem to disappear into the abyss that is my mind these days. Then I sit down to blog, journal or just jot a note (to remind myself of what I wanted to be reminded about) and I have to will my synapses to fire and spit back the memory that was only hour's old but is foggy already. Sheesh, I used to be as sharp as a tack...

Anyway, with long summer days upon us, there is light in the sky at 5am and light in the sky almost past 10pm. I love having days that seem to actually LAST instead of the cold dark winter days that seemed rushed and over way before my list of To-Do's is done. Cole still wakes in the morning on a farmer's schedule, up around dawn, ready to "let's go downstairs" and with fewer and fewer naps and more and more activity, he is exhausted and in bed way before the sun sinks into the horizon.

One morning a few weeks ago, Cole climbed into our bed at the 5am hour. He loves to look out of our skylights watching for clouds, airplanes, birds...as I began to shake the sleep from my eyes, I gazed at him gazing at the blue sky above. He turns to me, smiles and says "mommy, the blue sky stayed up". At first, my groggy self didn't understand and it must have showed on my face so he clarified for me "the blue sky didn't go night night, it stayed up". He had gone to bed the night before with us looking out his window at a helicopter that was flying over the house and he commented that the sky was really really blue. He obviously fell asleep with that thought and woke up to the same really really blue sky and pieced his thought together thinking that the sky never went to bed.

I love that I get to often see life through his eyes, it is wonderful, honest and real and makes the everyday things like a really really blue sky all the more special.

The "Sass" Factor...

Maybe it is the heat (and humidity) or maybe it is because it rained 22 out of the past 28 days but boy has Cole turned up his "sass" factor. I have been shocked at his outright brazen attitude as of late. Where has my sweet little boy gone a hiding?

The sheer amount of timeouts has grown exponentially over the past month. Did turning three and half flip some sassy switch? His preferred method for showing displeasure used to be a pouty lip, the question "why" or some tears. Recently, his retorts have taken a much bolder approach and as such his expressive use of backtalk is landing him on our "naughty step".

He has taken us both by surprise with not only his choice of words but the way in which he delivers his message. His smart-alecky tone has taken quite a turn and though I have been so dutifully careful as a parent to limit my moments of sarcasm/anger, it is obvious that Cole is mimicking my behavior in part as how else would he have learned to become so flippant. *sigh*

In SuperTarget the other day, I had asked him NOT to repeatedly open the freezer doors, NOT to knock on the bottles of spaghetti sauce as we walked down that aisle, NOT to pull the bananas apart...it was becoming the grocery trip where I just wanted to leave the cart and walk out. He sensed my growing frustration and finally backed off, tossing me a cheeky smile as if to say "okay, I'll behave for now....". I had breathed a sigh of relief and trudged on. We got in line for check-out and he kept pulling the cart out into the area beyond the registers as I attempted to load the bags and pay. I had already warned him that a timeout was imminent. Once again, he pulled the cart away and flashed me an impish grin. I roughly pulled the cart back and said "okay, I see you chose a timeout".. He decided to test me in front of the cashier and the growing line of people behind me. I swear with a rather amused expression he goes "No, mommy, we are at the store, you can't do that here". Oh really? Well, let's just say that the wall between the water fountains and the eye clinic was where he stood for the better part of four minutes with tears cascading down his face. I felt the heat in my own face as complete strangers made their unnecessary judgments but I knew it was what had to be been done.

Cole is definitely aware that he is on a slippery slope so I have been consistent with my discipline to this unwanted attitude. Hopefully it is just a phase of him experimenting with his growing independence. I don't mind him having an opinion but he will most certainly be learning to leave the sass at the door.