Jeeping

Before I met my husband, I thought Jeep was a noun. It was only after my first trip to Colorado that I learned that it was also a verb.

jeep - verb (lower case) - the act of driving on really rocky, unpaved roads, in a rugged motor vehicle having four-wheel drive and the ability to climb up vertical walls; extra points for bad shocks and uncomfortable seating; is not necessary for the vehicle to actually be made by Jeep.


My children spend 3/4 of their time in Colorado strapped into their car seats, driving over mountains.

Clearly, this thrills them.

Babies on Mountain Passes

We are raising some hardy chillies. Both kids went over 13,000 foot passes at +/- six months. As you can tell from the pictures, the kids were thrilled. Or not.

Stoney Pass, 12,624 feet, in case you can't read the sign.

Snow on Engineer Pass. In August, no less. That is just WRONG.

Square Marbles

Around our house, when we talk about bad days, we say that our marbles just won't roll. We have abbrieviated that to square marble days. Today was the quintessential square marble day for me.

It started out well enough. The kids let me sleep until 7:00 or so and ate their breakfasts without much complaint. I got on the (SLOW) internet at my in-law's and found the directions to the warehouse where I get to pick up T's big Christmas gift. When the printer was out of ink, I should have known what I was in for.

I hurriedly scribbled down the directions and herded the kids into my car. I had done some rudimentary measurements and decided that a recliner could fit into the back of my Ford Freestyle. I figured that as a worst case scenario I could scoot a carseat over and fold 1/3 of the backseat down. No problem.

The day was clear and traffic was light. We made it to the warehouse without incident. Well except that Q fell asleep. No nap for him! We went in and the gals at the counter were very nice. Even when the afore mentioned napless toddler had a tantrum on the floor then went to the water cooler and made a giant mess. Soon they had me sign a paper and we were off to the loading dock to get the chair. Wow, that was easy!

Um, except the box they wheeled out was the size of my first car. The guy was very helpful, and even took it out of the box to see if we could shoe-horn it in that way, but no dice. It was simply too big to fit into the back of a small-ish SUV.

So we had to drive all the way back home to get another larger vehicle to go retrieve the chair. And unlike Small Town, all the way home was 22 miles or so. And there was a wreck. The formerly clear highway was at a standstill. It took us over an hour to get home. Ack! With Z asking about every 30 seconds if it is time to eat yet. Imagine that episode of the Simpsons where Bart and Lisa are asking to go to the amusement park. I never felt so much empathy for Homer!

When we get back to Casa de In-law, I have to install carseats into the grandparental car, which took an age. I am not used to their baby seats, but I didn't want to take ours out of my car. When I get that done, I change Q's diaper and load the munchkins up (again).

Z requested McD's for lunch, but we had eaten there two days previously and I just wasn't up for it again. I decided to head to the food court and the play area at the mall. We were cruising the parking garage when we started smelling a terrible smell. I was thinking to myself, "Wow, there must be a sewer leak. I'll have to be sure to park far away from it."

I park and pull out the stroller and open the door to unload Q. OMFG! My beautiful little boy has turned into a pretty little poop machine*. Danger! Danger! He has dug both hands into his diaper (damn his big boy Levi's!) and has rubbed it all over his belly, up his arms, on his seat, and all over his clothes. Of course, since I had just changed him, I had forgetten to throw in the diaper bag, and there wouldn't have been a change of clothes in it in any case.

The stroller goes back into the car and we head back to home base. Upon further inspection, there was nothing for it but that Q had to be bathed. Oh, the humanity! His skin was absolutely stained with poop. Even after a very thorough washing, I kept getting whiffs of merde. Lovely. And we get to drive home today. Yay!

Back to the mall. Eat lunch. It takes some doing, but both kids eventually eat a decent meal. Or at least as decent as is available at the mall food court. Z flat out refused to go see Santa, which was a pity because there was NO line to speak of, and we headed over to the (germ infested) play area.

In a departure from the rest of the day, the play area was great. Not too crowded, but with a number of kids just the right age for Z and Q to play with. Q did manage to escape a time or two when I was talking to Z, but he didn't get far. Turns out I can run if the situation demands it! I'm sure my knees/boobs will tell me about it tommorow.

The fun ended when it was time to go, both for the children and for me. Z decided to engage in some flat out defiance and refused to come get her shoes on. Q kept jumping out of the stroller and trying to run back into the play area. I finally browbeat the two of them into the family restroom - which was awesome! Grown-up and tiny potties! - and discover that I had, erm, intestinal distress from eating too many apricots. Great.

By the time we are bound for furniture pick-up it is 4:00. Ginormousville rush-hour traffic is starting to ramp up. In spite of this, we make decent time going accross town, but let us just say I was in a hurry to get there. I was afraid to fart. The ladies at the warehouse are surprised to see me back, but I assure them I don't want to pay $80+ for delivery.

The loading dude wheels out the gigantic box and takes one look at the Expedition and shakes his head. I was all, "But I called and the guy said it would fit! Can we take it out of the box?" We did. And it fit. Barely. Whew. My kids would have learned some new words if it hadn't.

We crawl back home in stop-and-go traffic. I feel crippled because I can't see out of the rearview mirror and the giant SUV has blind spots that elephants could walk through. Yes, I was the one in the giant copper-colored car putting on my blinker a mile before my lane changes and hoping for the best as I eased over. Good times.

When we at last return to Grandma's house, I discover that Q has had another blowout. And then another. And another. His baboon butt is back and he howls with each wipe. It became clear that we were marooned in Ginormousville for one more night.

I am totally bummed. T was finally going to be home and I was looking forward to a great big hug. As it is, Z will miss school tomorrow and T will be at work when we get home. The world was just agin' me today.

The good news? Tomorrow has to be better.

*How hip am I? Slipping in a little NIN reference.

Sing it Willy! (On the Road Again)

Further proof that moving west would be good for everyone? We drove to the ranch from Ginormousville today – and it didn’t suck! T was in a good mood. The drive wasn’t long enough for the kids to get really crabby. The hounds had gone ahead with the in-laws, so there was no juggling of Pomeranians while eating our lunch in the truck. Practically heaven. (Actual heaven would involve first class tickets to a tropical island with sugar sand beaches.)

The weather has been just gorgeous. The skies are blue and clear. There is a nice breeze, but there is just enough of fall in the air to keep it from being too hot. Temperatures are probably in the 70’s, which is downright brisk by Texas standards.

T and I took a drive all around the ranch in his 1947 Jeep yesterday evening. The sun was setting, so it was rush hour for the wildlife population. There were deer everywhere. (T tells me he only shoots the mean ones to make me feel better about eating them in the very near future – like tonight at dinner. This sounds like a bunch of hooey, but as it turns out, is actually true. Old barren does are often aggressive with younger deer and are singled out for shooting. Who knew?) We saw flocks of turkey on the hoof – that’s a sight to see. Those are some seriously silly looking birds! We startled a couple of armadillos into doing speed racer imitations. I couldn’t help but laugh at their awkward escape. Clearly these guys have been naturally selected for survival around cars. We even saw a pretty decent showing of duck and dove as we did a tour of the ranch’s watering holes. It was a great end to a nice day.

The last time we were here I scoped out a cool place for family portraits. There were red sandstone steps with a backdrop of huge prickly pear cactus. I got us all dressed up in coordinating outfits and trucked us all out to our location. T got some huge bug up his hiney and was pissy the whole time we were there. I am guessing it is because I asked him to a.) tuck in his shirt; and b.) take off his sunglasses (but not his hat!) for the pictures. He said that he thought the lighting would be best just after lunchtime, so we were there around 1:00. The sun was directly behind us – photographic suicide. Arg! Anyway, his mood poisoned the well so to speak. The kids picked up on his vibe and were not very cooperative. Both of the in-laws were armed with digital cameras, so we probably took +/-50 pix. I think we may have ended up with 2 where we adequately resembled a happy family. I guess we will do it again on our next visit. At a different time of day. Like I wanted to. Sigh.

We paid a family visit to the catfish pond. They are as huge as ever. Z delighted in dumping an entire bowl full of fish food on them. Q mostly ignored the fish and focused on his true love: 'driving' the Jeep. T is going to have to fight him to drive before he knows it!

All in all, it was a nice visit. I guess I wouldn't mind too much if we lived closer.

New Addition

Well, we have a new member of the family. No, I'm not pregnant. And I did not risk divorce by bringing another dog into the house. My husband brought home his new Jeep yesterday. It is a lovely dark green (not to be confused with the hideous baby-poo green that is also available), hard top, 4-door Rubicon. He managed to find one with only one undesired whistle/bell: the mega sound and navigational system, complete with Sirius satellite radio. After less than 24 hours, he is already talking about adding Sirius service to the monthly budget. Funny, when I said that I wanted those same features in my next car, he laughed himself silly. But after less than a day with them in his new car, they have become necessities!

He has spent every spare minute since returning home with the Jeep surfing the internet for off-roading accessories. I call it Jeep p*rn. And like many men with their, ahem, visual aides he wants me to look and be enthusiastic. He's all, "What do you think of this bumper?" And I go, "Oooh, baby. That bumper is so big." Then he says, "What do you think of this (insert unintelligible part here)?" to which I reply, "Any way you want it, baby." And so on. Snore. Are we done yet?

A very cool side benny of the Jeep homecoming is that my mom-in-law (love!) came into town to help with transportation issues and stayed to sit with the monsters kids so T and I could have an actual DATE! Without kids! Like a couple!

We went to the local Japanese steakhouse where we discovered the reason that everything tastes so good there is because the chef used at least a pound of butter in cooking our meal. Who knew the Japanese took cooking lessons from Paula Deen? Over-cooked shrimp aside, everything was delicious, if not diet friendly. Afterwards, we drove around town like a couple of teenagers (they roll up the sidewalks at 9 pm here in Small Town) and messed around with the new cool sound system. We topped off the festivities (in for a penny, in for a pound!) with ice cream.

You would think that after such a nice evening out that we would return home to do the thing that loving married couples do when someone else has put the children to bed. And we did. We went to bed early. To sleep off all of the butter.