Tag Archives: fun

parentals and a birthday

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We’ve really been on our game this past week.  Our house has been clean, laundry folded, Jason and I have had time to read on occasion while the boys have been happily entertained for hours on end and…oh, wait, that’s because my folks were in town.   Man, we really feel like we’ve got things together with my mom and dad around.  We got a few extra minutes every morning while my parents read books, studied maps, tossed frisbees, and played games with the boys.  We prepared and served meals without stress while the aforementioned things continued.  We came back downstairs after putting the boys to bed each night and the dinner mess would be picked up, floors swept and the kitchen spotless.  Really made us feel like we’ve got this parenting/life/work/marriage thing down.  Everything seemed so smooth and seamless.  But then they leave and reality sets in so stinkin’ fast.  They have been gone less than 24 hours and there are GoLean Crunch crumbs all over the bathroom floor (mixed with some pee, unfortunately), dinner was a Pinterest disaster last night,  Isaiah has been a hot mess as he has fought the good fight against nap and bedtime and I’ve been wondering who we could get to move in downstairs in exchange for potty training Isaiah and cleaning my house (or, at the very least, that bathroom floor).

A look back at their visit, which included Gryffin’s birthday party, among other things…


Isaiah, hanging with his pal, “Do-paw”


He’s got a pretty great “pout” these days


Thankfully, he also has a rad smile.  And isn’t his hair awesome?
This was the day before the boys got haircuts.  I’m always a little sad to see the curls go.


Still 3… just one more day until his birthday and he was SO excited


I cried when I put him to bed the night before his birthday – gazing at him one last time as a 3-year-old and getting all weepy.


We woke up the next morning to this sunrise and…


This guy!  Speaking of haircuts…whoa!


Gryffin’s one request for his birthday was to have “Chocolate Rah-sants” (croissants) and NO banana (or any other fruit).  Done!


Checking out a gift from Muti and Dopaw.  Doesn’t he look old here?


Birthday hug from Papa


Isaiah chatting with Muti after the birthday breakfast


On the evening of Gryffin’s birthday we were treated to an incredible moonrise and we watched the birth video Jason made 4 years ago (don’t fret, it’s “sanitized” – except for the mildly scary belly bouncing at the beginning – sorry about that)


Next morning Jason and my dad took the boys out for haircuts while my mom and I got things ready for the party.


G-man checking out the party favors


Some of the guests… “Baby” Abe, who is not so much a baby anymore!


Sawyer, Gryffin’s new neighborhood friend


Baby Stella, of course


Lilly, the only big girl, hung by herself most of the time.  Poor gal seemed a little out of her element with all the boys running around!


And James – Gryffin’s first-ever friend.  They’ve been buddies for over 2 years now.


This was what the party was ALL about for Gryffin.   The cupcakes.  They needed to be chocolate.  And vanilla.  And they HAD to have sprinkles!


Isaiah took a few minutes to stop crying and carrying on and demanding to be held warm up to the party and all the guests.  Here he is, finally relaxed and showing off his new ‘do


And… the after-party.  Dopaw helping with something very important, I’m sure, and somehow both kids are half-naked (as per usual)

Whew.  It was quite the week.  Being a glass half-empty person means that I usually expect visits from my parents or friends, vacations, outings – anything I’m looking forward to, really – to be totally disastrous.  So when we made it through the entire week without any drama (illnesses, injuries, major meltdowns, etc), I was sort of shocked.  And elated!  Maybe there’s more in that glass after all!

Surprise!

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I really like to pull off  a good surprise.   And Jason is a pretty easy guy to surprise.  He’s just ever-so-slightly aloof* when it comes to picking up on subtle clues that might give something away.  For his birthday last weekend I (with the help of several friends) managed to pull off a surprise camping trip.   It was not an easy feat but it was completely worth it when he pulled up to the campground on Friday evening with Jordan.

First I asked a few of our closest friends if they would be game to go camping with us.  Once that was established, I searched (and searched and searched) until I found a potentially good campground.  There is no dearth of fantastic camping sites in the PNW but it’s summer and pacific north westerners tend to get a tad slap happy (we go absolutely crazy, people) when the sun comes out to stay in the summer time and I could not find a single campground in the entire state that was reservable 5 days out.   So I was stuck with first-come, first-served.  I managed to find a good-looking spot just an hour outside of Seattle and decided it was worth a shot.

I told Jason that I was “working on his gift” and that he wasn’t allowed to come into the bedroom, say, when I was packing our clothes or the kitchen when I was packing our food in the cooler on Friday morning.   It took a lot of finagling (read: lying through my teeth) to pack the car up and get out the door but I managed to do it with some serious help (more lying) from our summer house guests, Jordan & Belinda.

We told Jason that Belinda was taking me for a surprise outing with the boys.  I feigned wariness with Jason about where Belinda might be taking us, pretending to be concerned about the boys and nap time and such.   And so with J encouraging me to “just go and enjoy” we made it out the door by about 8:40am, bikes atop the car and all and Jason none the wiser.

We caught the Fauntleroy ferry to Southworth and we were on our way!  We arrived at Illahee State Park around 10:15 and snagged the largest and best campsite just as a thunderstorm rolled in.  Awesome.  We were admittedly a little nervous about the gray skies but Belinda and I were undeterred and we cautiously set up camp.  I then sent a strategic text to Jason telling him that Belinda had surprised me by bringing to Olympus Spa and that there was incredible childcare on site.   He thought this was just grand!  And a few minutes later Jordan popped in to the office to tell Jason that since Belinda had taken me out for a belated birthday surprise, he thought he’d take Jason out for an early birthday bike ride later in the afternoon.

Jason texted a couple hours later to ask if I was bringing the boys home for nap time and I wrote back, telling him that I was going to see if I could put Isaiah down for his nap there at the spa and have Gryffin do a “quiet time” in the daycare’s reading room.  All of this was complete fiction.  I made it all up.  I’ve never even been to that spa and they do not have childcare.   But dude bought it, hook, line and sinker.

I then attempted to put the boys down for a nap in our tent (total fail) while Belinda went in to town.  I insisted that they stay in the tent for a 2 hour “rest” and then got them up and we played in the campground and eventually made our way down to the playground in the park.   The timing couldn’t have been better.  We glimpsed Jordan’s car pulling into the park and had just enough time to grab the boys and hide behind some bushes.  Just as their car started to pull up to the campground entrance, we popped out and shouted “surpise!!”  The look on Jason’s face was the best.  He was SO confused!  ”Whaaaat?  You came over here from the spa?  Are we going to have dinner together before our bike ride or something?”  I wish I had a picture of him when I told him that the spa was all a lie.  He was stunned.  He really thought I had been soaking it up all day, getting massages and pedicures and walking around naked at the Korean spa (which, by the way, is reportedly an incredible spa) while Gryffin and Isaiah happily puttered about in the on-site day care.

Shane and Kelly pulled up about 20 minutes later and our campsite was officially set up for the weekend.  Jack and La Verne arrived the next morning and the rest is history.  Here’s the rest of the weekend in pictures…

Remember last year’s camping trip?   It wasn’t much to write home about and this was our first camping trip since. I feel obliged to tell you that the first night was absolutely wretched.   Isaiah slept soundly until about 10pm and then he woke up crying/screaming every. 45. minutes.  Until 4am.  Ghastly.  We tried every possible sleeping configuration (in the pack and play, in his own sleeping bag, in my sleeping bag, on my face, on my chest, next to Jason, on top of Jason) to no avail.  We seriously considered packing it in and foregoing a second night.  But it had taken me SO much work to get there, our friends had come, and I was hellbent on sticking it out.   At one point, Jason had to get out of the tent all together and while he was fumbling with the zipper, he inadvertently stepped on Gryffin’s arm and then G-man was screaming, too.   This is Isaiah sleeping off the rough night.  He napped for almost 3 hours on Saturday afternoon.  The second night both boys slept the entire night without a peep.


Gryffin spent a significant amount of time on Saturday watering our car.


Going for another fill up of water.
Somehow Gryffin ended up without his shorts for the second half of the day.
Not at all surprising.  Kid digs being naked.


Jack, of course, supplied us with some serious eats.   Here he is shucking oysters.  Only Jack shucks oysters on a camping trip.  He also cooked clams and a live crab.


Classic Jordan & Bees

Jason dive bombing the hammock fest


The guys decided to take a late afternoon plunge into the sound.
It doesn’t look high in these photos but it was a definitely a jump


Excellent form, as always


Where’s the famous toe point, Jordan?


Shane, feeling a little nervous!



The gang


Happy Birthday, Pal!  Hope it’s a great year!

*Some evidence of said aloofness…

  1. On Friday morning I had already stealthily packed our pillows and our books/reading materials for the weekend.   When I banished Jason from the kitchen so that I could “work on his birthday present before leaving with Belinda” (pack the cooler), I thought he would just go downstairs and start working a little early.  Nope.  Dude decides to go upstairs.   To read.  I thought my cover was blown, for sure.  How would I explain the absence of ALL his reading options?   But it was too late.  I couldn’t run to the car and grab them and somehow get them up there before he made it up the stairs.  But when he gets up there and doesn’t see his books anywhere in sight, he just shrugs and decides to make the bed.  Make the bed!  I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that he has not made our bed in at least 6 months.  I always make it.  But I purposely left it unmade so that if he went up there for some reason during the day, he wouldn’t notice that all of our pillows were missing.   But make it he did and when he asked what happened to the pillows, I just shrugged, avoided eye contact and mumbled something about the boys playing with them.  
  2. When I told Jason in the aforementioned text that the spa had childcare?  He looked it up online.  He wanted to see this incredible childcare set up I was raving about.  When he found NOTHING on their site about childcare, he apparently just shrugged and thought it must be a word-of-mouth kind of thing.  
  3. I should not have asked a 3-year-old to keep a secret but I had no choice.  I had to take the boys grocery shopping for the trip and, of course, had to pack with them underfoot.  Gryffin talked about camping several times, right in front of Jason (“Mama!  The sun isn’t out!  Does that mean we can’t go camping?”)  Jason did not even give it a second thought.   Just figured it was random preschooler rambling.    In Gryff’s defense, he did a remarkable job keeping quiet, all things considered.

Boo

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Apparently all holidays, milestones and special events make me a little sad. It’s not just birthdays. Last night was the first time we took the boys trick or treating. Jason and I took such delight in the whole affair. After the “trunk or treat” on Saturday, Gryffin had a vague sense of what we’d be doing, mainly that he would be getting some more “treats” to add to his bag and was SO excited. We took pictures in the front yard and then set off about the neighborhood.

Gryffin knocked on the first door and shouted “hey! hey! We want to come in!” He didn’t quite understand the concept. We reminded him to say “trick or treat” and had to pull him out of our neighbors’ entryway before he made himself at home. We explained again and again that we weren’t going inside. Just going to stand on the doorstep. He finally got the hang of it and just generally thought the whole thing was incredible. After each house, he’d cheerfully say “ok! just a couple more houses!”

Isaiah was mostly just happy to come along for the ride. He rode in his little red car and held tight to his candy bag, dragging it along the ground until it was threadbare.

We finally got cold and headed for home where we dumped out the boys’ bags to examine their loot. We had only decided on Saturday that we’d go trick or treating and it all seemed kind of last minute and no big deal. But Jason and I had such an unexpectedly happy time, watching the joy in Gryffin’s little face, the excitement so evident in his whole body. Watching folks delight in Isaiah’s astronaut get up and Gryffin’s exuberance and having the rare chance to interact more with our neighbors.

And when the boys were both in bed, after indulging in one of their treats of course, we both sighed and felt just a little sad. Again. We’ll never have THIS halloween again. Never see the boys at this exact stage on halloween again. Gryffin won’t be quite so transparent and vulnerable next year. Isaiah won’t be so content just to roll along the street next time around.  And so we talked and talked and talked about it last night over dinner, recalling each little detail and delightful interchange.  Can’t wait to see what next Halloween brings.

Isaiah was a NASA astronaut, thanks to the jumpsuit from Jack and La Verne
(technically given to Gryffin but he was too scared to “go to the moon”)
Gryffin was Spock from Star Trek
(chosen solely because he won’t wear anything that is even
ever-so-slightly different from his normal get up and we wanted something space-themed)
Jason was the sun (not sure about the hard hat).  I was a martian (sort of). 


Weekend Review, Camping Edition

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Well, folks.  We did it.  We survived our first-ever Rust Family camping trip.   We hit the road Friday afternoon with our car fit to burst.   Despite some gnarly traffic in Everett that added an additional hour to our drive, we made it to Larabee State Park with relative ease.   Our walk-in campsite was perfect.  The sites on either side of us were empty, we were away from the cars and just a few steps away from our friends at the end of the path.  Excellent.  So far, so good.


We set up camp, explored the grounds a bit, and fed the boys dinner.   Things were going really well.  But then… then we put Isaiah to bed.  That wasn’t pleasant.  For anyone.   He screamed and screamed.  We soothed, sang, hugged and cuddled.  And tried again.  He screamed and screamed.  And round and round we went.   I decided to take refuge with Gryffin down at our friends’ campsite while Jason attempted for a third time to put Isaiah to bed.   I could hear the wailing all the way down the path but I was still optimistic.  Still certain that this was going to be the best weekend ever.

About an hour later, Isaiah was finally asleep and it was time for Gryffin’s turn.  We decided that I would take him in, put him in his sleeping bag and lay with him until he fell asleep.  At which point I would exit the tent and spend some time with the grown ups.  Wrong.  Kid did not go to sleep for, like, 3 hours.  Nice.  There I am, in my jeans, contacts still in, teeth not brushed, and hankering something serious after some s’mores.    After hours of Gryffin popping his head up like a whack-a-mole, chit chatting about this and that, I finally brought him into my sleeping bag and he went right to sleep.  Why didn’t I think of this sooner?   Ok, he’s asleep.  Don’t. move. a muscle.  But it was not to be.  Jason returned to our campground just 2 minutes later to go to bed himself and woke the G-man up.    Sigh.  We finally all fell asleep around midnight only to be woken up once an hour throughout the night by the loudest train I have ever heard.   It was a long night.

Up @ 6am.  Not too shabby.  Jason and some friends took off early for a 12 mile run, in preparation for their half marathon in a few weeks.  I made the boys oatmeal, feeling very much like a really cool-camper-I can roll with anything-check me out-I can handle this by myself kind of mom, and then we set off for an “adventure” as Gryffin likes to call it.  It was a great time.  We explored the camp ground, Gryffin on his balance bike and Isaiah in the backpack.

After a good long time, we returned to the campground feeling good. It had been a good morning. Then I casually glanced at my watch.   8:45am.  8:45!   What?!   W o w.  Ok.  Alright.  No problem.  We’re having fun.  We’re rolling with it.   Jason and the other runners returned and we headed over to the other campground for a second breakfast.    The rest of the morning was spent eating and hanging out with our friends.   We went down to the beach for frisbee throwing, rock skipping, and exploring.  Good times were had by all.

Nap time.  This did not go well.    Isaiah woke up screaming after about 35 minutes and would only sleep like this…

Awww, cute, though, right?  Jason was pretty beat after his run so this was a pretty good deal for him.

Gryffin, on the other hand, who normally sleeps about 1.5-2 hours every afternoon, slept for about 25 minutes.    This was not good.   I sat with him in the campground for about an hour, reading books, eating snacks, waiting for the other fellas to wake up so we could go join our friends down in the park.  Poor G-man was exhausted and at the end of his rope.  There were several tantrums, time outs and toddler angst on his part.  For my part, also severely lacking in sleep or any down time by this point, I was also near the end of my rope.  And watching all of our friends walk by, heading off for some afternoon fun in the sun made me feel even worse.  They were all completely friendly, totally sympathetic and kind, of course, but I couldn’t help feeling kind of alone as I hung behind yet again.   I often feel this way, like Miranda in that scene in Sex & the City, right after she has Brady.  All her friends are heading off to go shopping and after hustling her into a cab with her newborn, the shot pans out, showing her watching from the cab’s back window, getting smaller and smaller as she moves further and further away from her friends.     Some people might interpret my feeling (or the scene with Miranda) as a wish to be free, to not have kids that tether us.  But that’s not it at all.   I wouldn’t change it for the world.  It’s just lonely sometimes, being the only ones with kids on a trip like this.

J and Z finally woke up.  We went to the park, just in time for everyone to leave to go get happy hour oysters down the street.  I stayed back with the boys so they could hit the playground and Michelle hung out with me (bless her soul!).    We had an incredible dinner later in the evening made by Jack & LaVerne and Brian & Nicole.   The boys both crashed hard, falling asleep within minutes so Jason and I BOTH got to enjoy s’mores (peanut butter s’mores, no less) and much laughter with our friends around the campfire.  A great way to finish the weekend.

We left after breakfast the next morning and had an uneventful ride home.

Despite all the tantrums, sleep disturbances, soaking clothes, trains running all the live long night, we had a wonderful time with our friends.  And you know, slipping noiselessly into the sleeping bag next to Gryffin the second night, listening to Isaiah’s sweet sighs and wiffly snore, gazing at Gryffin’s little face in the dark as I drifted off, feeling Jason settling in on the other side of him, I thought it really doesn’t get any better than this.



It’s a Party

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There are a lot of ways each week that I indulge myself in a little treat of one sort or another.  A smoothie on the way home from running errands.  A few minutes to read during nap time instead of cleaning and prepping dinner.  An afternoon coffee (ok, I have those every day).     So when Gryffin heard me say that we’d “party it up” while Jason was gone playing Ultimate Frisbee and decided that he really wanted to have a party, I thought, why not?   Maybe he just needs a little treat.  So I put up some streamers, brought out the party napkins, the stickers, stamps, crayons, made some smoothies and put on the “Dora the Explorer” Pandora Station for a real kickin’ lunch time party.

          

We stamped, stickered and colored with gusto, singing along to Dora and occasionally jumping up to dance around the room.

        

And then Isaiah worked on his new ability to show me where his cheeks are.  With a little help from his big brother.

    

Gryffin kept asking me over and over “We’re having a party, Mama?”  The very idea to him was just so very exciting and made our usual lunchtime routine seem much more special.  For a two-year-old (and a one-year-old for that matter), life is full of excitement and unabashed joy and grand silliness but also genuine fear, angst and grief.  Maybe they need a a little something special from time to time, too.