Ode to Childhood

"The Barefoot Boy" by John Greenleaf Whittier. 1855.

Blessings on thee, little man,

Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!

With thy turned-up pantaloons,

And thy merry whistles tunes;

With thy red lip, redder still

Kissed by strawberries on the hill;

With the sunshine on thy face,

Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace:

From my heart I give thee joy—

I was once a barefoot boy!

O, for boyhood's painless play,

Sleep that wakes in laughing day,

Health that mocks the doctor's rules,

Knowledge never learned of schools,

O, for boyhood's time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw
Me, their master, waited for.
I was rich in flowers and trees,
Humming-birds and honey bees;
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,
Mine the walnut slopes beyond,
Mine, on bending orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides!

Cheerily, then, my little man,

Live and laugh, as boyhood can!

Though the flinty slopes be hard,

Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,

Every morn shall lead thee through

Fresh baptisms of the dew;

Every evening from thy feet

Shall the cool wind kiss the heat:

All too soon these feet must hide

In the prison cells of pride,

Lose the freedom of the sod,

Like a colt's for work be shod,

Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy,

Ere it passes, barefoot boy!

I took these pictures of Rudy's bare feet (one of my favorite parts of his cute little body!) and went searching the Internet for a poem to go with them. When I found this one, I fell in love. This poem describes my childhood perfectly! I know exactly how it feels to have to hobble over a freshly mown hay field in bare feet, and I can remember giving names to all sorts of landmarks in the woods down the road from my house, feeling as if my friends and I were the "keepers of the land". Jason and I have had to deal with all sorts of grown-up stresses lately, (mostly financial...yuck!) so I soooo identify with the author, who seems to ache for the simplicity of childhood in his life again. And yet, should I have chosen, like Peter Pan, to fly off to some fantastic land where I would never grow up, I'd have missed all the great stuff that comes with the tough. I'd have missed forging my way in the world, building my own home and family, the joy of marriage and parenthood. Nah, I think I'll pass on Neverland and stick with my current lot in life.

I feel so blessed to be given the opportunity to witness my child drinking in the joy of life each day. I hope that I will be able to provide for him what my parents gave to me: a childhood so beautiful that it can reach into the present and buoy me up when I just need a break from being grown up. Thanks Mutti and Vati!

Saying Goodbye to "The Summer of Jason"

With school starting up for Jason again tomorrow, we squeezed one last weekday family outing into what we have dubbed "The Summer of Jason". For a little over a month, Rudy and I have seen Jason every single day, and it's been rockin'! We have packed a whole lotta family fun into the last few weeks, and it will be sad to have to get used to just seeing Jason on the weekends again. (His school time schedule usually involves leaving for work at 6:30 am, going to school in between shifts, and then coming home around 11:00 pm. Repeat 5 times.)

There is a part of me that is kind of relieved to be getting back into a schedule, though, even if it is an unpleasant one. Kinda like the relief you feel when coming home from an awesome vacation. What can I say, I'm a routine kind of girl, I guess. It comes as a surprise to me to discover that I thrive on routine...I've always considered myself a bit of a free spirit. Parenthood changed more than my cup size, it seems. :)

Anyway, back to our Going-out-with-a-bang outing: a family trip to the library. Rudy and I go to the library weekly, but we hardly ever get to have Daddy along, so this was a big treat. Here's a few pictures to document our final fiesta.

I put this picture in for Jason. This is one of his favorite faces Rudy makes. Jason keeps trying to get the nickname "Bulldog" to stick to our little guy 'cause of his big, juicy cheeks. I personally prefer "Bubba" or "Bubba Gump" just 'cause its more fun to say. ;)

Rudy sitting at one of the reading tables with Daddy.

Rudy giving Daddy a tour of all the cool spots at the library. Rudy's just picked up walking (with our help). It is sooo rockin' AWESOME! I feel like we can get to know our son on a whole new level because he can finally direct us to points of interest from his point of view. I love love LOVE it! (As far as independent locomotion goes, Rudy is still content to contort is body into all sorts of awkward positions to achieve movement. He seems to think crawling is for the unimaginative or something.)

I put this picture in to celebrate Jason's hot climber's hands. Call me weird, but there's something cool about being married to a man with perpetual blisters (note the tape on his finger). Maybe it's a "working the land" kind of thing, a sign of a hard worker, a man not afraid to sweat out a living. Jason's blisters come from climbing, but I guess my 'hot hands' radar is undiscriminating. :)

If we all celebrated our little accomplishments like small children do, we'd be a world full of much happier people. Rudy has just succeeded in pulling himself up all by himself, and he is letting the entire library know he is fully stoked about it. He's got this self satisfied shriek of joy I wish I could bottle up and sell. It's one of the happiest sounds I've ever heard.

Rudy was kind enough to personally invite me to join him in his celebrations, with a glowing glance that says to me, "Did you see that?!" Raising Rudy is the best way I can imagine to be spending my time right now. (Especially since he has finally decided to abandon the No-naps and wake-up-every-hour-of-the-night routine he picked up during our Summer of Jason. No routine really messes with little kids' heads, huh? I learned that one the hard way!)

Victory is sweet...or something

I couldn't help but post these pictures of Rudy with a sprig of basil. He was really into it as I was trying to prepare dinner, so I decided to just let him have at it, since he's successfully ingested grass, and basil is kinda like grass...right? I think Rudy thought he was really getting away with something enormous since I usually pry his clenched gums apart to retrieve the grass he is constantly trying to eat. Obviously, basil is not his kind of taste, but he just kept going at it anyway to savor his victory, I guess. It was hilarious!

Jason's 26!!

Well, technically, he's been 26 for 3 weeks already, but our celebrations have kinda been spread out because Jake was busy getting married and we were all busy watching him get married right around Jason's birthday. Mutti always does theme dinners for the birthday dinners. Maybe its her way of continuing her awesome theme birthday parties from our young childhood. Anyway, its a lot of fun and a cool way to highlight something special about the person or the year they have just successfully navigated. For Jason, we did a rock climbing theme because he has recently picked up the sport again after a "Holy-Moly-I'm-a-new-dad!" sabbatical. His favorite kind of climbing is bouldering (where you don't use a harness but also don't go more than 18 or 20 feet off the ground--it's mostly technical, problem-solving kind of stuff--the stuff that Jason thrives on. :) ) Anyway, that should explain the reason there's a big rock (or, shall we say, boulder?) on the table. You can't see very well in the picture, but there are little guys climbing on it. Cool, eh?
The pie in the pictures is pretty much Jason's favorite dessert in existence. His "Turkish Delight", if you will. Anyway, over the four birthdays Jason has celebrated with our family, one crazy circumstance or another has prevented us from being able to have the ultimate birthday dessert on his birthday dinner. Thus, the look of great satisfaction on Jason's face as this Moby Dick of a dessert is finally before him. (By the way, in case you ever want to butter Jason up...the pie is found at Village Inn and called Carmel Pecan Silk Supreme) ;)

Fish Lake

Rudy sitting in a rugged chair at the Lodge.

Rudy's mosquito costume.

Becoming one with Fish Lake.

Ella, me, Rudy, Jason, Mike, Aubrey(on Mike's back) and Bailey at the beaver dam. (Ask Jason for all his dam jokes. ugh. :) )

In front of the cabin with our niece, Ella.

Jason's family has this great tradition that's been around since his mom was a kid (with a few gaps in between). Each year, the family packs up and spends a weekend at Fish Lake, this beautiful, ice cold lake somewhere close to Scipio, UT, I think. (Jason always drives, I just enjoy the ride...or try to...sometimes I can be a bit of a wimp about car trips. I bet I'll always be the first in our family to ask, "Are we there yet?". But I digress...) Anyway, it's great because Mom and Dad pretty much worry about everything and we just show up. They rent this big rustic cabin just across from the lake and Mom packs in enough food to feed an army for a week, and we mostly just sit back and enjoy each other. It's beautiful. The boys get up at the crack of dawn to get out on the lake and catch fish for dinner that night. (Mom's always got a plan B dinner, just in case the fish are smarter than the fishermen that day.) I went out with them the first couple summers after Jason and I were married, but last year I was pregnant and mornings were not my specialty, and this year...well, let me tell you about this year.

I'd been looking SOOO forward to going to Fish Lake this year. I was stoked about showing Rudy the coolness of it all. I was excited to introduce a new tradition to this age old tradition...the first Annual Fish Lake Talent Show, and I was just plain excited to be out where the air is filled with a clear, clean pine scent even when you haven't just mopped the kitchen floor. :) So when my throat was sore at the beginning of the week, I rushed to the Dr. for a cure. "It's just a cold, he said, you should be feeling better in 4 or 5 days." I was feeling much better by Thursday as we packed our stuff into the car and loaded our rat up with extra food and water for the weekend. And then Rudy sneezed and grinned up at me with boogie river flowing from his nose to his lips. Eew. Probably nothing, I told myself, as I threw the humidifier into the pile of "to be packed" items, just in case.

Well, it was not nothing. It was my cold, reincarnated. Only this time it was angry and out for revenge. Poor little guy. Poor me. Poor Daddy. Poor rest of the family that had to listen to Rudy wake up screaming every 45 minutes all night long. Jason actually peeled himself out of bed and went fishing, on my urging. Rudy and I stayed home and tried to forget that we didn't sleep the night before. One nice thing about the situation is that I had tons of sympathetic adults surrounding me who volunteered for such chores as sucking snot out of a beet red screaming child. Side note about the nose sucking ordeal. Rudy is way into cars and trucks right now. His whole world stops when one goes by. If he ever gets this into girls...I guess he'll just be a normal teenage guy. (Hopefully he's a teenager before that happens!) Anyway, his Aunt Katie was going at it with the boogie sucker on the front porch of the cabin and Rudy was screaming in protest. And then a truck drove by. He stopped his screaming and squirming and watched, captivated, as the truck passed. And then he picked his protest up as though there had been no interruption. As distressing as it was to watch my little man screaming, it was also hilarious to see this little scenario play out each time a car or truck passed, which was relatively often, since we were so close to the marina.

By Saturday, the cold had got its seething tentacles around me and Rudy, and by Sunday all three of us, (Jason, Rudy and Me) were victims. I don't think anyone else in the family caught the cold. Or maybe they did and just didn't want to make us feel bad about sharing the misery. We usually go to Church in the almost 100 year old lodge at Fish Lake to top off our trip before we all drive home. Our family just packed up and left. It was nice to be home. Rudy was more willing to nap in his own room and bed, and things just seemed better once we were in the comfort of our own little home.

In spite of that nasty mean spirited cold, we managed to have a good time and even still enjoyed performing in the talent show. I sang a little song about mosquitoes while Jason and Rudy buzzed around the room in mosquito costumes I made for them the week before. I could even still taste Mom's great cooking! I must say, though, I hope never to experience another Fish Lake trip quite like this one. ;)

Milestone Number Two

Rudy is hitting milestones left and right, I guess. This morning, he greeted me with something brand new... a solid number two nugget instead of his usual peanut buttery smear. I actually considered taking a picture and then realized what I was thinking of taking a picture of. I think Rudy will thank me for not posting pictures of his 'business' to the Internet. I guess when you're a parent of small children, the term "gross" just doesn't seem to apply to as many things as it did before. Apologies to anyone who is wrinkling their nose that I'm even discussing poop at all. It's just too cool to have my little boy making big boy poos not to document it!

One little monkey, jumping on the bed...

Well, Rudy and I have reached a milestone in our lives: Rudy's first big bump. It's a toss up as to who shed the most tears. I knew the day would come when he'd have an owie that would linger a bit longer than a couple kisses and one round of The Itsy Bitsy Spider, but I still wasn't prepared for it. Not when it was my fault! I had Rudy on the bed (I KNOW babies are safest on the floor, etc., etc., but we were just playing as I was getting ready for a run...) I stepped away for a moment to grab my socks and discovered that Rudy is officially capable of transporting himself through time and space in a blink of an eye. Now you see him, (THUD) now you don't. Yikes! Miracle of miracles, he only grazed the open drawer in his path from bed to floor, and no serious injury resulted. I grabbed my screaming child and examined him as best I could through my hazy eyes. I called my mom for reassurance that everything would be okay, which she eventually got around to giving me, after reciting all the signs and symptoms he may show in the next little while to indicate that something deadly serious had happened. (She's a NICU nurse, can you blame her?) Anyway, within a 1/2 hour things were back to normal in our splendiferous life, though I nixed the run and opted for a quiet stroll around the neighborhood to soothe my frazzled nerves. Looking back on the event with a bit more serene mindset, I realized that Rudy clutched the prize he'd sacrificed his body for through the whole ordeal--a sparkly red pen---as if to show me, "Look! At least I got what I was going for!" He's a determined little soul. I can't wait to meet the teenage Rudy...or maybe I can. :)

Jason came home after all the tears were dry and only Rudy's manly bump remained. He says Rudy's going to be a great receiver someday, since he's willing to sacrifice his body to avoid a fumble.