Tue 22 Jul 2008
Home from Milwaukee
Posted by Liza under Personal, The Real Live Boy, The Rest of the Fam, Knocked Up Again
Noah and I had a wonderful trip to Milwaukee. He really connected with Grandma and Grandpa, and enjoyed meeting the myriad of extended family cousins and family friends near his age.
Highlights:
- Day One: Noah “gardening” with Grandma and transforming himself into a mud Golem. Hopefully Grandma will email pictures next week.
- Patrick’s Birthday: It was great to see so many of my “longest knowing” friends for such a happy occasion.
- The Wedding: Sure, Noah only made it through maybe half the service, but everyone looked lovely. Plus, how can you not love the whole notion of a cousin marrying someone whose last name is already a family name? (But is no relation — as the Father of the Bride observed, “This isn’t Arkansas!”)
- The Wedding Reception: Best. Chocolate. Chip. Cookies. Ever.
- Brunch: With dear family friends and no toddler. And delicious banana blueberry pancakes.
- Toddler Playmates: Noah had a great time and did a really good job sharing with Caleb and Sam. Except for one regrettable incident in which Noah snagged an orange toy shovel and fled the scene at top speed, much to Caleb’s severe displeasure. Comically, we’re still not sure what Noah thought of his first experience with identical twins — after they left, he complained about “that guy” reading his dinosaur book.
- Getting Spoiled: Grandma had a cereal treat waiting in the car, an adorable soft triceratops waiting at home, and was persuaded to add 3 small “monster” cars, and a bag of plastic dinosaurs to the toy collection over the weekend.
- Getting Surprised: This is where I expose what a mean Mommy I am. On 2 occasions over the weekend, Noah scared the crap out of himself and I count one of those times as the funniest moment of the entire trip.
- The second scary surprise was the night Noah experimented with the ceiling fan control. It’s on one of those gradual switches, so if you push it up a little bit, the fan goes on slowly. If you push it up all the way, it sounds like a helicopter is landing. Guess what Noah tried — after locking himself in the room, of course! And then he screamed hysterically until a minute or two after I popped the lock and turned it off.
- The absolute funniest moment of the trip was on the first night. The guest room Noah stayed in had a stereo in it. A stereo filled with enticing knobs and buttons. All of a sudden, the house filled with classical music, playing at volume 11.
At first, we thought it was part of the soundtrack of the indie movie Grandpa was watching. But then the screams didn’t make sense. When we opened the door, it was so loud that I had to yell “just unplug it!” at full volume to Grandma, while peeling a completely undone toddler off of my head.
At least Noah didn’t figure out how to lock the door from the inside until the next day.
This wasn’t a highlight, so it doesn’t get to be on the bulleted list, but Esmerelda Freugenspeigel is definitely growing. I am officially ginormous, it has become hard to move quickly or bend over, and I have had hella round ligament pain the last few days. Mostly over the left hip, where we think she’s throwing punches.
Incidentally, we’re about 99% sure we’re going to go ahead with the scheduled c/s as planned, Tuesday 9/2. The financial incentive of two extra weeks of short term disability insurance is all the more important now.
July 23rd, 2008 at 3:01 am
Holy cats - was that the 4-0 for Patrick?
Sounds like so much fun. We had a great time visiting grandpa in northern Wisconsin but were in Milwaukee just one afternoon on the way so didn’t get to see anyone.
I hope after that Noah can still watch Warner Bros. without post-traumatic stress at “Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit, kill the waaaabit!”
Please tell me you have insurance coverage at least through end of pregnancy. What happens with well-baby care? Does your work plan continue for some months or do you have to go COBRA or on your own? (Repeating: Who the heck lays off a pregnant woman???)
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:50 am
Carrie, indeed it was the big 4-0. And as if to prove that we are indeed getting old, he injured his foot and was hobbling on a cane.
On the subject of rabbits, Grandma has started channeling her mother-in-law, my Oma. As soon as one of the fuzzy brown creatures is spotted in the garden, Grandma races outside to chase it away. I suspect Noah, like all of the cousins in my generation, will quickly learn to watch bunnies surreptitiously at Grandma’s house. As for narrated classical music, only time will tell.
Insurance coverage will not change at all through September, and the company will pay me a lump sum equal to its share of the cost for 4 months as part of the severance package. I then have the option of COBRA.
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Pics of Noah-does-mud, in addition to Noah-does-sprinkler, and some of our trip to the zoo in Atlanta, will be on their way on Tues. Give the King of the Universe my love,
Grandma
July 24th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Caleb and Sam send thanks for a fun playdate and for Noah’s willingness to share some of his toys all the time, most of his toys most of the time, and all of his toys some of the time. We’re pretty certain that Caleb will grow up to shovel, shovel real well.
We’d love to see pictures, as we’re currently operating with a hopefully-misplaced-and-not-gone-forever camera. (The salesman had talked us into the plan where a damaged camera is replaced for free, but apparantly “lost” does not qualify as “damaged.”)
(And a small correction: they boys are fraternal twins, not identical — more a biological distinction than cosmetic…)
July 24th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Wow! I’m stunned that those two boys are not identical twins — I know you guys can visually distinguish between them with ease, but to my unpracticed eye, hot damn do they look alike.