Just Powers

This past Tuesday we returned from our 12-day excursion to Boston. It turns out that our little family can kick it like the Von Trapps when it comes to traveling together.

As we prepared for the trip, I was most anxious about whether the four of us could successfully live in one hotel room for a week. What I have learned is that I am happy to live in almost any size space with my family as long as we have a pool to swim in whenever we want, someone to clean up after us daily, and meals that I don’t have to plan for, cook or clean up after.

No one got on anyone else’s nerves any more than usual on this trip and we all pretty much kept our cool - even when someone, who shall remain nameless, at least until he learns to talk and can defend himself - started projectile vomiting in a local restaurant. Nice huh?

Some of the highlights:

• Waking up in the middle of the night to start our trip - and hearing Emma’s excitement from the backseat: “I love trips so much! That’s why I was jumping around last night, because I’m so excited! Now we’re on the highway. This is called the beltway. Look at that big truck, and there’s lots of small cars and silver minivans. I think this is the street we go on for the airport, but that’s not a car trip, that’s for a plane….”
• Watching the kids marvel over the planes, trains, boats and buses we could see out of our 12th story hotel room.
• The Swan Boats, Make Way for Duckling Statues, Public Garden, Frog Pond and Boston Common. Over and over and over.
• Spending time (albeit way too short) with, as Emma says, “KateJimJackandMolly”.
• The Children’s Museum. So. Cool.
• The Flour Bakery and Cafe - great vegetarian options. Went there for dinner one night. Sadly it was too crowded when we back for lunch a couple days later.
• Molly!! Our server at M.J. O’Connor’s, the hotel restaurant, where we dined twice. She was awesome. If you ever go there, ask for her and tell her Will and Emma say hi!
• Spending lots of time with Grammy and Grampy. When you spend most of your time solo with two kids, it is an amazing gift to have other adults around on a regular basis. Not only to help carry the literal load of the diaper bag or to push the stroller, but just to have someone to talk to who doesn’t try to negotiate or whine at you. Thanks G and G.
• Spending July 4th weekend at Grammy and Grampy’s house in Bolton, Massachusetts, the town and house Mike grew up in. Emma decorated her bike and rode in a July 4th parade in Bolton, then spent the rest of the weekend tearing up and down the street on her bike and playing soccer in the yard with Grampy. She also got to make a July 4th cake with Grammy for the big party where we got to see all of Mike’s extended family (Hi A & A and O’Brien’s!!) and our new, 3-month old and stupendously cute nephew/cousin C. When we left (in the middle of the night of course) to go home on Tuesday morning, she cried and said “But I don’t want to leave Grammy and Grampy’s house…”
• James Taylor and Carole King at Tanglewood in Lenox, MA. I have seen James Taylor in concert many many many times. With the possible exception of the first time I saw him in high school, this was the best JT concert I have ever been to. Extra special thanks to Mike’s parents for letting us have a night off.

There were tons of other memorable moments, but I am getting sleepy and you are probably getting oh-so-slightly-tired of hearing about every little detail of our trip. Suffice to say, we had a great time and are no longer afraid of long road trips or small hotel rooms.

Or vomiting in restaurants. Ick.

We went to the Boston Children’s Museum today and had a great time, except it meant William missed his morning nap. So he got in a few extra zzz’s at lunch.

AFSCME Convention 2010, originally uploaded by Justpowers.

Our family is in Boston this week for the 2010 AFSCME Convention. Well, Mike is in Boston for it, we are just along for the ride, enjoying the adventure of a new city, seeing old friends and hanging out with Grammy and Grampy.

Traveling is always a mix of fun and stress, especially when kids are involved. So far we have had far more fun than stress. This picture was taken in our first few minutes in our hotel room that has an amazing view of Boston Harbor. It is incredibly similar to the photo I took of Emma in our hotel room at the 2008 AFSCME Convention in San Francisco.

We have already seen the Swan Boats and the Make Way for Duckling statues, hung out in Boston Common and had lunch at Faneuil Hall. We are here till Friday, with big plans to storm the museums - Children’s, Science, and the Aquarium - with a boat ride and trip to the Harbor Islands somewhere in there. Oh and a little train named Thomas happens to be visiting the Boston suburbs this week too, so we will also be making a trip out there to visit with him.

We are going to be wrecked when we finally get home. Wrecked but happy and with lots of stories to tell.

We bought a minivan a few weeks ago. I have to admit that I was not prepared for the level of emotion I experienced after the purchase.

I was never one of those people who vowed I would never own a minivan. In high school my family had a white Dodge Grand Caravan with wood paneling, and I loved it - the size, the myriad of places to stash things, the fact that I could sit in the third row far from my siblings. I always kind of assumed that I would own a minivan someday. When we bought the Mazda 5, classified as a “microvan” by some, it was a tiny step in that direction, what with the sliding doors and third row of seats. The Mazda was different enough though that I felt special in it - it had sliding doors sure, but it also had Zoom-Zoom and a sunroof. People stopped us to ask us about it and we loved to tell them. I was a rock star in my cute little red Mazda and no one could tell me any different.

When the Mazda got totaled, however, we had to replace it with something and it seemed to make sense to replace with something that was newer, more reliable, had more space and ended up being substantially cheaper for us each month, so we decided on a silver 2009 Toyota Sienna.

For a week after we bought it, I will not lie to you, we thought we had made a terrible terrible mistake. I will go so far as to say I was downright depressed about our purchase. I was no longer a rock star, I didn’t have any zoom-zoom, and no one stopped me to ask about my cute little car. Emma started saying “I just saw another silver mini-van! Mommy, why are there so many silver mini-vans?” and I wanted to cry.

When you are a stay-at-home mom who lives in the suburbs and cares for small children all day, it turns out your car plays a pretty vital part in shaping the identity you create for yourself. I hadn’t realized this when we had the Mazda, but once we had the same car everyone else has, it became clear that the car had become my identity. And I didn’t really like who I had become. In the Mazda I was cute, different, agile and downright sexy. In the Toyota I was big and cumbersome, not to mention boring, practically invisible, and definitely NOT sexy.

I am feeling better about the purchase now. The Sienna is comfortable, it gets us from point A to point B safely and it seats eight with room left over for the stroller, the bikes, stadium chairs, a kitchenette and a porta-potty (ok, a kitchenette doesn’t really fit, but if we put the back seats down it almost might.) It isn’t sexy but in the end I know we made the right choice for all the reasons we decided on it in the first place. Someday, all too soon, I won’t need all this space and then I will buy something tiny and zippy that decries my age. But as I drive it off the lot I will probably be jealous of all the young families in their generic mini-vans driving on the road with me.

Here is my dilemna - my daughter adores the children’s show “Caillou”. I do not.

It isn’t that Caillou doesn’t have some redeeming qualities. He is a big brother, helpful for teaching Emma lessons about having younger siblings. His parents are less than perfect - I completely love that they are slightly paunchy and definitely over 30. He has lots of multicultural friends and even a close friend named Emma. I mean c’mon, he’s even Canadian - what’s not to love about that?

Here’s my issue: Caillou giggles. A lot. As in makes-me-want-to-throw-my-television-through-the-window a lot. And the problem is that Emma can now do a dead-on impersonation of Caillou’s giggle, making me want to throw HER through the window. It is this unbelievably high pitched “hee hee hee hee” kind of a thing that you can’t even imagine could be so annoying until you hear it. Over and over and over. Even Emma’s preschool teacher has remarked that Emma seems to be doing a “giggling thing” lately.

Other issues I have with the show - Caillou is a whiner and his sister talks in baby talk. The whining - ugh - is something anyone with a 3ish year old child will tell you is a constant battle, so thanks Caillou but we really don’t need YOU to reinforce that it is cool to whine for everything.

And his sister Rosie is voiced by a grown up talking in baby talk: “Rosie want milk” “Rosie no like sleep” and on and on and on. Maybe it is because she is relating to the female character, or maybe it is because she is feeling some ambivalence about being a big girl now instead of a baby (developmentally appropriate mind you, but oh so annoying) but Emma now talks in baby talk constantly. I talked recently with the mother of a classmate of Emma’s - a boy who also has a baby sibling - and she said her son talks in baby talk all the time too. So it may be that Emma would be talking in baby talk at this point in her life anyway, but certainly the prevalence of it on her favorite tv show can’t be helping it. I choose to blame Caillou.

As a result of the above issues, Caillou is about to be banned at our house. I am not sure how we are going to do it, short of just telling her “it isn’t on”, and in the end it may not work. But we are going to do our darndest.

We just can’t take it anymore.

I think I voted for the wrong guy. No I’m not talking about THAT election, that vote was perfect and my guy remains rock-solid-butt-kickingly-awesome.

I am talking about my vote for American Idol.

Let me start by saying that I loved both finalists. and believe for the most part that as far as their careers are concerned, it doesn’t much matter who won. Adam and Kris are both talented enough that each will walk away from this with a recording contract if they want to.

So, two nights ago I voted for Kris to be the next American Idol. With all of Adam’s obvious talent, it didn’t seem like his was the type of music I would find myself bopping and singing along to as I drove down the road, like I do with Jason Mraz or John Mayer. Kris’s style and voice seemed more accessible, maybe less of a challenge musically, but a better choice for the soundtrack of my life. Plus I was really really annoyed by all of the pronouncements by Paula, Kara and Simon that Adam is a “rock god” and would the winner. All things being equal, which they seemed to mostly be in this case, I will choose the underdog every time.

So I voted for Kris. Then, watching the finale last night, I thought, “huh.” As I watched Adam rock out with KISS started to wonder if I had made a mistake. If a person can convincingly sing any song from KISS to Cabaret, isn’t that pretty iconic?

Then they announced the winner and Kris was all “I don’t know what to say” and “Adam deserves this” and “I wouldn’tbe anything without the other contestants” and the humble underdawg thing went just a little too far for me. “Christ dude, OWN this!! It’s YOURS!” I wanted to scream. And suddenly my safe accessible choice seemed really lame.

This is a year about change, about stepping away from what is safe and comfortable and having the courage to stand for something new. Well, I can’t think of anything more new for American Idol than Adam Lambert. And frankly he earned it. There is an odd similarity between Nick/Norman - the flamboyant multiple personality jokester from early in the season - and Adam Lambert. Where Nick used his alter ego to poke fun at the competition, Adam used his to play it straight and make it to the finals.

In the end, I think Adam is probably the better musician, and will do just fine, but I did wake up this morning feeling guilty that I hadn’t been a little more courageous with my vote. There are plenty of Jason Mrazs and John Mayers out there, but not too many Adam Lamberts.

Emma and EJ discuss what might be lurking in the hole in the tree. Or maybe they are just sharing ways to drive their parents crazy.

As a result of Mike’s obsession mad skillz with the internets, he scored us four tickets to yesterday’s White House Easter Egg Roll. Since Emma “hearts” Sasha and Malia, and Mike and I *heart* their dad and mom, we were all really excited to hang out at their house for a couple of hours.

Emma talked about going to “Sasha and Malia’s house” for a week before we went, and seemed to have a good time once we were there - although I think she felt there had been a bit of false advertising, since we never actually went INTO the house itself. She did get to ride Metro, meet Curious George, and show off her new Ladybug dress.

William’s adventures were a little more low key, but he still got some good stories. First he got to freak out the Secret Service guy who reached into the stroller to check it out and got the shock of his life when the “doll” started moving. Then he got to nurse on the grounds of the White House. Really, there can’t be too many people in the world who can say that, right?