Travel Log #1 Planes, Trains...und Autos

Right before we left for our "big trip," someone said to me, "You'll have so much fun. And even when you're not having fun, those crazy moments will make good stories and memories later on." I laughed because I knew she was right, and I knew we'd have a lot of those kind of memories by the time the trip was done. If the first two days are any indication, this trip will be jam-packed with such colorful stories.

I should back up and explain that we are usually the dream of traveling to Europe kind of people, but we never thought it would happen anytime soon. When Robbie's work told him a couple of weeks ago that they would fly him to Amsterdam to work for a week, and it would fall just before Miren's 2nd birthday (i.e. the date when we'd have to start buying a plane ticket for her too), we decided it was now...or 18 years from now.

It just so happened our dear friends, who recently moved back to Germany, were getting married at the end of December, and we have many friends in Sweden we've been dying to see, so we figured "Traveling with three small children in Europe is hard work? Pffft, let's just make a whole month of it."

Christmas morning - note sleeping head in the corner.

So back to the story. We ended up finding cheap tickets out on Christmas day, so we added to the chaos of trying to work and prepare for Christmas by squeezing in packing and booking hotels. By the time everything was ready for the trip and for Santa Claus, Robbie and I were running on an average of three hours of sleep a night for about a week. Robbie ended up sleeping through the kids opening presents (his comatose figure in the background of all our Christmas photos will be one of those aforementioned funny memories) and Miren didn't even want to open presents because she tried to stay up all night with us cleaning and packing.

Rough night.

Our brilliant plan with the airplane ride was that we would eat dinner, let the kids watch a movie, and then they would drift off to sleep for 5 or 6 hours since it was a red eye flight. We would arrive in Frankfurt, Germany at 8amlocal time and just force ourselves to stay awake until nap time in order to adjust to the new time zone. Well, the kids decided to ignore the plan completely. They stayed awake for all but the last hour of the flight, then had to be dragged bleary-eyed through the airport to the train station.

Ready for take off.

Miren takes notes on the emergency plan.

Frankfurt train station.

I have to say that as the world's greatest overpacker, I was pretty darn proud of myself for fitting a month's worth of stuff for 5 people into a medium-sized suitcase, a backpacking backpack, a diaper bag, and a small duffel full of shoes. Still, hauling all that - plus three children - through an airport, up and down about 40 elevators, on and off a train, and then walking several blocks to the hotel was enough to wear us all out. So brilliant plan be damned, we collapsed onto the beds at the hotel and proceeded to sleep for several hours.

Around midnight German time, we found ourselves awake again and ready to eat and play. Except that we could do neither. We ate leftover cold pizza and dried cereal, then decided we should walk around town in the dark and hope we weren't mugged. This may sound like bad parenting, but when you face the prospect of being trapped with rambunctious kids in a hotel room for 7 hours - after already being trapped in an airplane with them for 8 hours - desperation overcomes sanity.

We packed the kids into their snowsuits and were walking out the door when we heard a terrible sound....rain. It began to pour rain and since Rick Steves told us to buy umbrellas in Europe rather than waste suitcase space on them (damn you Rick Steves), we were once again trapped. Robbie made a desperate trip to a convenience store and found giant jugs of juice that smelled like gas and cigarettes with every sip, and we settled into a long night of watching German soap operas and yelling at the kids to stop jumping up and down. I really, really hope no one was below us.

Finally, at 6am, we decided it was a decent hour for taking showers and getting ready for breakfast. As soon as the breakfast buffet opened in the hotel lobby at 7am, we descended in all our noisy, ravenous glory.

Sunrise from our hotel.

After eating, we decided to let the kids get their energy out and see a little bit of Frankfurt by taking a walk. It was unseasonably warm outside, so we left our coats behind and walked down to the river. It was a beautiful walk and I was starting to think we finally had this travel thing conquered...which of course is an invitation for disaster. Halfway through the walk, the wind started blowing and the temperature dropped dramatically. The kids went from bouncing along happily, to shivering and whining. People walked by bundled up in their thick coats and shot us glances that said very clearly, "Bad parents."

We snapped a few pics at the river, then rushed back to the warmth of the hotel. By the time we got there, it was time to pack up and walk back to the train station for our trip to see friends in Dresden. Our plan to arrive in Dresden refreshed and adjusted to the time change had backfired horribly. On the walk to the train station, it became painfully obvious that the kids now thought it was time for bed despite the fact that it was only 11am. Our schedule was so screwed up by now, we weren't on Michigan OR German time. 

I will stop at this point since our trip to Dresden deserves a post of its own, and since there was no sense of one day versus another at this point anyway. I'll end with a picture of our short stint in Frankfurt. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that in traveling, as in life, it's not about how much fun you have. It's about taking pictures so that you remember it as fun later on.

                                                                   Auf Wiedersehen!

Happy Holidays!

Here is our electronic Christmas card for all our loved ones:

And stay tuned for updates as we travel through Europe for the next month! I promise (for real this time) to post *mostly* daily accounts and pics. If I don't, I won't remember any of this trip after all those plane and train rides with three small children.

Love and peace in the New Year!

Summer Graces

First of all, thank you all so much for the incredibly kind and warm response to my last post.

Second, sorry for reacting to your generosity by going silent for several weeks.

But now where were we?

Ah, right. Summer.

So every summer since the kids were born has gone pretty much the same way. I start it out filled with energy and armed with a long list of all the educational and enriching activities I’m going to do with them. By mid-summer I find myself repeating phrases like “Wow, the summer is really flying by!” and promising myself that I will do those educational activities any day now. By the end of summer, that ambitious list has been completely abandoned and my catch phrases have just given way to long strings of expletives.

Somehow the void of time that was school is instantly filled by some sort of “busyness” the way that wet sand rushes in to erase a footprint on a beach. I can’t quite wrap my head around how our schedules are going to readjust to accommodate school resuming soon, but I know it has something to do with a constantly dirty house and a lot less sleep.

All that whining aside, there have been some moments of summer grace that I’m clinging to. Summer grace #1 was our trip to St. Louis for the albinism conference.

For me, the very best moments of childhood involved waking up when it was still dark and hearing the muffled sound of suitcases being zipped and car doors closed. In that moment my anticipation became so electric the very air seemed to snap and crackle.

Of course now I realize that that moment of excitement was made possible because the adults had already spent hours and hours planning and packing and stressing. For parents, there is less snapping and crackling and more groaning and moaning.

Luckily the kids’ excitement over taking the train to St. Louis was so palpable that even as I stood bleary-eyed on the platform at the crack of dawn, I couldn’t help but bubble with their anticipation. Their enthusiasm about the train ride didn’t wane through the 13 hours of traveling and layovers that day and it continued on the equally long trek home. Any trip on any form of transportation is exhausting with three kids (especially a toddler), but the train was so much better than a car or plane any day. Damn those lucky Europeans with all their fancy pants trains.

But I digress.

The conference of course was wonderful – connecting with old friends, meeting many new friends, attending informative sessions, and in general just soaking in the joy of having so much white hair in one place. There were some rude or stupid comments and plenty of staring when we went out as a group, but for the most part we enjoyed our blissful albinism bubble. 

The boys were much older this time compared to our first conference in D.C., so I was most interested to see how they would handle the kids’ programs. We have talked openly about albinism in the past, but they hadn’t seemed interested in the topic. I chalked it up to the fact that we live in a very diverse city, they have each other, and we are pretty active with our Michigan chapter of NOAH.

That is why I was a surprised that Fionn walked up to another little boy the first day of the conference and said, “Hey, you have white hair just like me!” They never said anything about albinism the rest of the trip, but it was interesting nonetheless.

A month later, they were running around a playhouse in the ophthalmologist’s office when a new boy walked in and started asking them why they have red eyes. Emerson did what Emerson does and ignored him. Fionn stopped and responded in a very matter of fact tone, “No I don’t, I have blue eyes.” Then he smiled and added proudly, “And I have white hair!”

Is there an emoticon for heart swelling? If so, insert it here.

Moment of summer grace #2 was on a camping trip with friends. It’s pathetic to say that we started planning this camping trip back in February as a way to reunite with college friends we hadn’t seen in years. The pathetic part is that despite months and months of planning, half the people still canceled at the last minute and we were down to three couples/families. Despite the setback and despite the intermittent rainstorms throughout the weekend, we had a great time. The kids loved it all too: eating s’mores, sitting by the fire, sleeping in a tent and playing in the canoe (whether or not it was actually in the water).

Even though the highlight of the weekend was spending time with our friends, my moment of grace actually happened thanks to a large group of German Baptists (if you are confused, think Mennonites) that set up camp across from us. They had the foresight to create a dining area under a huge white canopy so that they could stay together even if it rained. We looked on with jealousy as we retreated to our tiny individual tents every couple of hours.

As we were getting ready for bed the second night, a new storm starting brewing and the camp managers came around to say that it would be a big one. We were instructed to take cover in the bathrooms, which was not reassuring. A few minutes later, the wind started thrashing the trees and the lightning and thunder began a booming symphony that went on uninterrupted for hours. We huddled in our tents and told the kids it was fine to go to sleep, but I have to admit a tiny part of me was freaking out.  I love a good storm usually – just not when I have three kids in the middle of it protected only by a piece of cloth and a few flimsy poles.

Finally the worst blew over and I started to breathe again. At that moment, over the still rumbling thunder and drizzle of rain, I heard the sound of people singing. The German Baptists were sitting together under their canopy, completely unruffled by the storm, and now they were singing hymns.

By that time the boys were asleep, so we took Miren out of the tent and walked to the beach across from us to watch lightning strike over the water in the distance. We watched the sky and black water light up every few seconds and we listened to hymns. It was…. surreal.

A few minutes later, the singing stopped and their children came out onto the grass with sparklers. Through the rain and mist, it looked like frenetic fairy dust that swirled and exploded and danced. Apparently my always-good-citizen husband had given them one of our boxes of sparklers earlier that night and the kids were ecstatic. He had also offered them canoe rides that day, which they seemed excited about but never took him up on it.

After our strangely magical night, the Baptists returned Robbie’s generosity by bringing over a batch of homemade donuts that had just fried. They were the most amazing donuts I have ever eaten, although I still can’t figure out how you fry donuts while camping.

So finally to summer grace #3. Even though our camping trip had been on a beach, the crazy weather this summer had caused an algae bloom that prevented us from swimming. Last weekend we finally got a chance to swim on a local lake for the afternoon. It was a tiny bit cold for lake swimming, but we dived in blue-lipped and shivering nonetheless.



The moment of summer grace came watching Miren explore the beach. She is an exhausting handful all the time, but she is also refreshingly curious and fearless. I’m not sure if it was five minutes or an hour, but I just sat there watching her squeeze sand between her toes, walk backward to examine her footprints, squat down in the water and let the tiny waves lap at her back, taste test some washed up plants (did I mention she has really fast hands?), and poke at debris with sticks.

This probably seems like a strangely inane moment to focus on, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot. How sad it is that we stop exploring the world like that when we get older. How sad it is that I can’t be that present in the moment more often.

I hope we get to go back to the beach and slip in another moment before school starts…or maybe we’ll have other equally good summer moments. But in any case I’m holding tight to these for all they’re worth. To do lists be damned.

On the Blog Again...

So last summer I took an unexpected break from blogging for a couple overwhelmingly busy months (as if I have any other kind).

After the summer was over and the fall routine settled in again, I sat down to write my "sorry I was MIA all summer" post. Then it dawned on me: no one - not friends, family, or distant readers - had commented about the fact that I disappeared for months. I thought about this for a while and realized that Facebook was sufficient for keeping loved ones up to date and my blogging life had probably reached its natural end. I decided to write a final post and call it good, but that post just wouldn't come.

For some reason, people have recently started asking me what happened to the blog and it got me thinking about why I started it in the first place. Certainly not for the fame and glory and money (although if anyone wants to offer me that, I won't refuse). Mainly it's a diary of our life. I realized that so much of the boys' first few years were documented, while Miren's first year will soon be fuzzied by mommy amnesia.

So I'm back - even if it's just to satisfy my own navel-gazing and family journaling needs.

With that in mind, here are a few of the most important moments of our last year...

We got the world's coolest bike. And despite my tricycle past, I can actually ride it:

Took a trip to Mackinac Island with my parents:

In front of the Mackinac Bridge.

Held Miren's Dedication:

Celebrated Robbie's 30th Birthday:

Had one family reunion or family party after another:

Celebrating Grandma Marion's 80th Birthday

We remodeled our only (and incredibly tiny) bathroom, forcing us to travel to our neighbor's empty bathroom (they were in Europe) every night for bathtime for months. Our children decided that most of the trips needed to be done naked, which our neighbors doubtless appreciated:

The crappy "Before" picture.

The equally crappy "After" picture.

Fionn started his first year of preschool:

  

 

Emerson made huge gains in all areas and got a wonderful kindergarten placement for next year. I pushed for more testing in the fall and - as I suspected all along - he qualified for autism spectrum services. More on that later:

The handsome man himself.

Miren learned how to do all the important baby things:

Miren also learned that her smile could help her get away with pretty much anything:

Once mobile, she quickly dispelled the myth that at least one out of three kids is bound to be easy:

Miren enjoys her first Popsicle.

I celebrated my 30th Birthday. It was not quite as exciting as Robbie's :) :

We lost our beloved "Mama:"

Mama meets newborn Emerson for the first time.

Fionn earned the title "World's Best Big Brother:"

Fionn shares his Valentine's sucker.

We enjoyed visiting friends and drinking good beer in Wisconsin:

Fionn enjoys the view of Milwaukee from his "bubble" in Discovery World.

We decided to rip up our entire yard and fill it full of edible plants and perennial flowers (pics coming).

The boys got to go on their first fishing trip thanks to dad and papa:

I continued to slog through grad school classes and finally decided the focus of my ministry will be the environment:

I started a Michigan chapter of Kidical Mass (kidicalmass.org):

The kids help me run the booth at "Bike Bash."

Families setting off on our first ride.

And in general we had some crazy fun:

Miren's first Easter egg hunt.

April Fool's Parade

Robbie brought the boys some wrestling masks from Mexico.

Christmas chaos.

Feel more caught up than you ever needed to be? Good. Now hopefully I'll write again before next year.

Happy Father's Day

Seven years ago, I was sitting in a bowling alley on some godawful date and I started thinking about what qualities I wanted for my future husband/father of my kids. I had just escaped a horrible on-again off-again relationship of more than two years, so I already knew what I didn't want.

As I stared into the computer screen pretending to keep score, I suddenly thought, "I want someone as good as my dad." I had dated a wide variety of guys, but no one had ever come close to being as good as my dad.

A few weeks later, I met Robbie. Now I have two of the world's greatest men in my life and two little boys who will follow in their footsteps. Happy Father's Day!

In the News

High school student has never let vision impairment affect his goals...

Miren's Birth Video

As if the pictures and long blog post weren't enough, I made a video too. :)

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!


You will see my butt if you watch this video. There is no blood and nothing pornographic, but there is my butt. I thought a long time about whether I was ok with sharing this and decided that it's important to let people see what a natural homebirth looks like if they are interested.

Plus it's not nearly as bad as when I gave birth to Emerson and Robbie uploaded our entire camera onto photobucket without editing out any of the nipple, crotch, or otherwise gory pictures first. Then he proceeded to send the link to our ENTIRE email list - including my classmates, neighbors, church friends, family members...well, you get the idea. Luckily I realized it and deleted the pictures before everyone saw them, but enough people saw them to permanently strip me of my dignity. Hence, I present you with my butt.