Our First Family Vacation, part 2

NOTE: our apologies, five months have passed since we updated this blog! I’m not sure if that is bad etiquette or not, I’ll check wikipedia. In the meantime, here’s what Momster had written after our family vacation. I’ll finish it after I 30 seconds the deck.

So we finally make it up on the Snow Bunny Park. It is packed. And the park is officially closed. (Why didn’t they say so - the web site says "open on school holidays" - New Year’s is not only a School holiday, but a National holiday as well.) Since we don’t own things like sled or snow disk, and there is no inner tube to rent, we end up borrowing Rob and Molly's. Taking turns. Which worked out OK, since Brandon (4) is very cautious and doesn’t want any part of this sledding nonsense.

Momster loads Sophie up on the plastic tobaggon and heads up to the bunny hill. The child keeps sliding off the dang little tray so literaly we take 3 steps forward and 2 steps back. Only quarter of the way up the bunny hill, I’m already regretting being the first one to go up there with the hellion. Should have sent Daddy. Slip goes Sophie again so I turn around to load her up on the little plastic tray. Then Bam! Out of nowhere this evil child on bob sled made of whiffle ball material knocks me over and I land on my head. Here comes, I am in a bad bad mood. People, watch your own kid. I have my hands full with my own hellion. (That is one of my pet peeves, people who let their pushy older kids loose with no supervision in crowded places. I end up watching for mine and theirs, and I end up scolding their brats, which gets me into a foul mood.)

Our First Family Vacation, part 1

We haven’t really gone on a trip anywhere since Sophie was born (other than to see Sophie’s grand parents who live about 3 hours drive away, which we try to do every other month or so.) Since we lack in overnight baby sitting relatives near by, we decided to pack the little demon child and head to to the mountain, After all we live only an hour away from one, so we have been told.

So, we call our friends Rob and Molly with their two kids Brandon (4) and Anna (15mon) to go with us. Merry Christmas, you are invited to the "Non-weekend" with the Satans! Somehow, they seem to enjoy our company, and they don’t put up much of a fight.

Making reservations for winter resorts, however is not as easy as it seems. Every place we can think to stay is booked until mid January. If you want a weekend, wait till February. This is quite puzzling since pre-hellion, Satans always went for terrorizing tropical adventures (jumping off water falls, canoeing to the wildlife/historical sanctuary or disappearing island, swimming at the green sand beach where you have to hike for an hour and 45min to get there, then you have to walk back, or using public transportations in Mexico) vacations. Why would anyone want to spend not just a day but evening and more day in the freezing cold? Apparently, there were more masochists who would prefer freezing in the wilderness than we’d imagined, and they roll down the snowy mountainside lugging pricey equipment for fun.

We finally find a B&B that is willing to accept children and isn’t run by a crazy lonely cat lady. Indeed, this one received a "4 kisses" rating from "The Best Places to Kiss" guide book. (This is where Momster finds all her hook-ups. It is a bible one should not leave home without.) We plan to return without our hellion one of these days, but that is another story.

Skip forward to the trip. At least the day of. Packing for a winter trip is a chore. A major one. Everything you need to pack takes up the whole bag. So you end up taking all the bags you own on top of the stuff you need. Then you have to pack for the hellion, which takes up even more space, so you unpack half of your stuff to make room. Several unpackings and re-packings and packing some more in plastic bags (because you are out of normal bags) we cram everything into the official Satan-mobile, do the last sweep of the house and find our hot water heater is spewing, what a surprise, hot water all over the utility closet. It’s holiday, everything is closed. So we tun off the water, mop up the spew, bury the casualties of war (wet TP and moldy air filter anyone?) and go our merry way to our first family vacation. Thank God for cell phones and WiFi, we can summon Home Depot from wherever we are.

Our friends are waiting at the Golden Arches by our house. Logical place with kids in the tow, un-glamorously dressed (in things that are thin enough to wear under the ski gear but you don’t have the puffy stuff on yet). On the way there, (that’s few hundred yards out the door) we realize we never finished our "last sweep" courtesy of the water heater leak and forgot things like Sophie’s snow bunny suit. So we go to meet our friends anyway, order and wolf down McBreakfasts, send Daddy to finish "the last sweep" while the rest of us take turns visiting McBathrooms and watch the kids run around in the play place hoping that they will sleep in the car.

Daddy returns and finally we are on the way. We burned through all the slop time we accounted for and are right on schedule. Not bad for losing a water heater. Who said it only takes an hour to get to the mountain?

Poop-casso

Mommy went to the chiropractor, leaving Daddy alone to look after the Demon Child. No problem, Daddy thought, I’ll just put her down and maybe go up a few levels in World of Warcraft.

She went down peacefully enough. She didn’t even need a bottle. Very cuddly in her blanket, on top of the old comforter she uses to snuggle in, with some stuffed animals to keep her company. Ah, peace!

Twenty minuter later, I hear a cry. Then a shriek. Then a continuing series of shrieks. I should probably have panicked, but I get this a lot and it’s usually a false alarm. But not this time. As I opened the door, I was hit full force by the stench of baby-shit gone bad! Poor Sophie had para-trooped out of her crib, which is fairly high up, and was sitting on the floor, covered in crap. It was in her hair, on her arms and legs, on her hands, and she was quickly spreading the brown love around the room.

I saw her diaper had been thrown off, presumably just in time for the big event. It was completely clean. The bed itself was NASTY. Poop smeared everywhere. We got one of those cute white cribs with little nibs up and down the bars. Those little crevices had tons of funky stuff in there. And lo and behold, the biggest chip in the dookie cookie had been thrown between the crib and the wall, and lay “nestled” between the crib, the carpet, and the baseboard.

I had about 45 minutes of solo cleaning until Mommy got home. She found the whole situation hysterical at first, but it was probably another hour before life was back to normal. Sophie played in her pack-n-play the whole time, and avoided further smelly surprises.

Halloween

Let's face it, the Sophster was “supa-cute” this year. Don’t you agree? Check out that costume! Mommy picked it, and while Daddy was rolling his eyes at the mall, mommy’s fashion judgement ruled the day. We got non-stop comments about how cute she was during the trick-or-treat downtown, as well as door to door later. I’m sure I’m being totally unbiased on this, and I highly doubt any other kids on the planet were praised for cuteness.

That settled, I need to point out that the photo session that this photo came from prompted a new lens purchase! Our front deck runs the width of the townhouse, and isn’t very deep at all. It’s like an outdoor hallway. So as the crazed flower run to and fro, my 50mm f/1.4 struggled mightily to keep her in focus. While it takes absolutely unbelievable images, I constantly wish I could “step back” and get a wider view. To this end, the new walk-around lens is a Canon 17-85 IS. I’m getting it tomorrow. Will let you know what I find!

Hellion's Diary 10-21-07

I love swimming. I always want to go swimming. But my parents haven't taken me to the pool since September despite my daily request. Today like any other day, I asked Mommy to take me swimming, but she said it was time for lunch and gave me a bowl of chicken soup instead. Naturally, I pretended to eat it for a while and poured it out on the tray of my high chair and dove in. Boo-yah! I'm swimming!! For some reason, this did not make my mommy very happy... she says she needs to find me a day care.

So far she's only found one, and it's called Daddy day care, and I like it. I get all the books I can reach out of the bookshelves while daddy plays on the computer. When Daddy gets tired of me asking for my turn by saying "I wanna puush (the buttons on the keyboard)!" and stealing his mouse (meow, I win!) we eat cookies and chocolate for a while, then go outside to the park, both of us in T-shirts and no jacket, even when it's raining or getting dark. This is quite fun as I get to wear at least one article of clothing backwards, or inside out, while socks are mismatching and shoes on wrong foot. After playing a little bit we get thirsty and hungry but Daddy sees no use for the sippy cup and a tub of snack Mommy keeps in the stroller for us. So we take a long walk to McDonald's, eat "bu-gers", drink diet coke, then split the biggest tub of German chocolate ice cream at Coldstone Creamery. I wouldn't mind going to the day care every day. Who wouldn't?

I know… I’ll make a major mess

Daddy got home from work today around 7 and the terrorizer ran to the stairs to greet him. "Hello Daddy!" she said in a sing-song voice. What a wonderful thing to hear after a long day at work. In a more cheerful mood, I came up the stairs to give her a hug. No dice. Squirm city. Instead, she ran over to her toy shelf, and with both hands, proceeded to dump as much of it as possible onto the floor in minimum time.

Meanwhile, Momster reclined on the couch, reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7)." She's a big Harry Potter fan, but stubborn as she is, she's insisting on reading the books out of order. She read the sixth book, then the fifth, then the fourth, and now is working on the last one. A friend who follows Harry Potter with religious zeal was *scandalized* to hear of this, but Momma would brook no dissent. Anyway, when Momma gets into a reading mood, she becomes oblivious to trivialities like screaming kids. Thus, Daddy was on deck for entertainment this evening.

How to entertain a hyper-active toddler? Especially if I'm hungry and in the mood for a samurai movie? Hey, I've got an idea…

Sophie made it about an hour into "Seven Samurai" before showing signs of sleepiness. Of course, she hardly hung on the plot twists. Mostly she kept lunging for Daddy's drink, Daddy's remote, Daddy's food, and Daddy's coaster. I fed her when I could by making ninja-like food jabs when I could get her to stay in one place for a second. I'm sure I'm supposed to put her in her high chair in the kitchen and feed her. But I'm trying to keep it trailer. And listening to her cry in frustration at not being able to chew and run at the same time is no fun.

At last, the time came to put her to bed. Lately we've been having a really easy time of it. I use props, which again is a big no-no in the books. But with the difficulties we've had getting this kid to sleep properly, I'll use whatever helps. Maybe I can wean her of them later. The ritual is as follows: change into jammies, start the iPod playing some sleepy music, start the humidifier, turn on the kaleidoscopic light, cut the room lights, sit in the nursing chair, give her the bottle, put her on my shoulder afterward with one of Mommy's shirts, wait a minute, and put her down.

I love putting Sophie to bed. Tonight she put her arms around my neck as I waited for her to fall asleep. It totally makes up for the stress!

Wasabi no ko?

Hello, thanks for reading (probably backwards). If you’ve made it to this second sentence you're probably a really good reader who wonders, why did you name your blog "Wasabi no ko?", translated as "Wasabi kid"?

Well, a child does factor into it! I have a now 17-month-old daughter. We’ll call her Sophie. That happens to be her real name, but that’s what we’ll call her anyway. She was born May 12th, 2006, and is the most adorable little imp that you can imagine. So adorable, in fact, that her mother and I still have not given her to gypsies or put her in a little reed basket, floating down the creek.

Like many parents we eagerly anticipated Sophie's first steps, first words, first BM not made of tar. And as proud as we were of her achievements, a feeling of dread would soon follow. Sophie’s mom (the Momster) and I quickly learned that each time she leveled up (ding!) in the game of life, her powers grew. Her capacity for destructive, mischievous, giggling evil expanded! Take, for example, her first steps, which came to her relatively late in comparison to the children we know - at 14 months. At first tentative, she quickly progressed to self-propelled book-flinging, invoice-tearing, TV power-cycling fury.

Unlike her locomotion, her verbal skills have come early. At 17 months she has a vocabulary of hundreds of words, and has for the last 3 months. She is beginning to combine words, although the pesky grammatical glue appears to elude her. She very faithfully reproduces the glue Daddy uses, though, especially when he stubs his toe or forgets to remove her finger from a drawer before closing it. Let’s just say that the F-bomb is in her linguistic arsenal, ready for deployment for maximum parental collateral embarrassment.

So, she’s feisty, she’s spicy, and everything else was taken.  It’s fate!