Last weekend, our family hopped over to Spokane real quick. And by real quick I mean the duration of the trip not the pace at which we traveled. That is more accurately described as trying to run in a giant bowl of honey.
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| Nursing Ruby road-side |
I wonder if amazement will ever cease at how much stuff we need for one night away. I wonder if I will ever plan an appropriate amount of time to get ready. I always think we’ll pack up and be on the road in 12 minutes. I mean, all we need is a change of clothes, a few diapers, some fruit leathers and my camera. Oh yeah, and to feed and water the chickens, scoop the cat litter, take Alice for a walk, arrange pet care, turn the hot water heater down, fill up the car with gas, get an oil change, take the compost out, change Margot’s pink bear’s diaper, and have at least three pacifier scavenger hunts and two emergency potty breaks. By the time we are in the car and pulling away I inevitably have forgotten my sunglasses. By then we are at the next meal time so we also have to order in some sandwiches to pick up.
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| “Safety first”, says Darker Pink Panda Bear |
It was quite comical and definitely an adventure. Made even more adventuresome by our re-entrance into Missoula. We pulled off I-90 at 6:40pm and Andy rolled up in front of the grocery so I could leap out with Ruby and grab dinner ingredients and a few bottles of sparkling reisling. We raced home where Andy changed the girls into their pjs, fed Margot a tofu dog and took them to a friend’s house while I made pad thai and readied myself. He then picked me and pad up and we headed to our bistro dinner club thai extravaganza. We were there by 8pm. Amazing, no?
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| We left a trail of cheerios from Missoula to Spokane |
So yesterday we rewarded our gogogogo weekend with a lazy Sunday. A bit of a walk, a bit of garden harvest, lots of coffee, not unpacking.
The drive to and from Spokane was led by golden larch and I couldn’t stop thinking about how we did this same drive at this same time of year three years ago when I was pregs with Margot. I wrote about that reflection in this week’s mama digs, like a larch.
25 Comments
I love the photo of you nursing roadside! so great I get so excited when i see you have a new post!
It’s so funny how getting out of the house is such a big event after having children. I remember being at least 20 minutes late for EVERYTHING for almost an entire year after my first daughter was born… it was terrible, and embarrassing! Thankfully we’ve got a better grip on the process now though, even with two little ladies to pack up.
I love the picture of you nursing Ruby on the side of the road. I’d love to have some pictures of me nursing my little bear.
You had me at Thai Extravaganza.
Oh, I love this post. I remember nursing my babes on the roadside. After succumbing to the reality that travelling would be forever changed, I became grateful for the perspective I had from my nursing spots. I would have never seen the things I saw in those random places if I had just been speeding by like I had planned. And the music–just last week my 9-yr-old asked,”is REM even a band anymore?” Our travel music these days has turned to downloaded books from the library like Bunnicula, Ramona and Beezus, and The Chronicles of Narnia. We still squeeze in some REM once in a while when we can! Thanks for sharing your journey!
I love this post. I must admit that this year I have bailed on 2 days in the car with 4 kids and have used all my airmiles to fly myself and the kids to the coast and my darling husband is driving solo. He does get 2 days of holiday alone though which he reckons is a fair trade.
I have never commented before but I just wanted to thank you for inspiring me to haul my sewing machine out after several years and I made gorgeous bean bags for my kids (out of soft fairtrade cotton, locally produced, in bright prints which makes me so happy). Planning on some summer dresses for my little girl now…
Love from sunny Africa
ooooh, i miss that drive. ok, not the interstate, but the gorgeous larch in the fall.
Love the first paragraph of this post. Amazingly enough you always seem to get er done. Roadside nursing…how many pictures do you have of that scene? Love the trees they are spectacular Nici.
You were in Washington! A belated welcome, welcome! I will say I am very impressed by the road trip to thai food transition. I would have probably shown up to the party an hour late with a bottle of half drunk black tea and a can of sweetened condensed milk and said something lamely like “I’m going to make everyone….a sip…of thai iced tea….yea…”
well done!
xox
Melina
http://www.thewildercoast.com
The amount of time required to get out the door…something that Amazes me over 4 years into it!
“We are like larch trees. Lit like candles for a hot second before shedding everything we know, moving through an unpredictable season, relying on our roots, regrowing armor and discovering what comes next”…
Nici, I might have to write this down and post it by my bathroom mirror, I love it that much! It speaks to me so much. Damn girl, you can write!
I do have to say I am not envious of your mile a minute life… I totally would have skipped the thai dinner, stayed in spokane another night and leisurly made my way back to home. Different strokes for different folks. I just find I get so much more out of life, if I slow it all down and choose to do less.
I do love reading your crazy, fast life adventures though!
xo
FROM~looking at art for long periods of time without distraction.long, slow meals, contemporary hotels w/ mirrored walls TO~ a backseat that holds two daughters, water bottles, glitter sunglasses, banana peels, an Elmo dvd case, coffee cups, a sock, a diaper, cheerios and a half-eaten fig bar, & choosing a hotel because it had a pool and was within walking distance to the carousel and duck pond….it’s all good! I love the view in your rear-view mirror!
A GREAT article!
xo
ps….I wasn’t sure if your last photo was indeed a photo or one of Andy’s painting….maybe his next subject…I’ll buy it!
read your mamadigs this morning and absolutely loved it. yes, i love sage’s favorite part too. nursing baby with one hand while typing..but i have to say i miss those girls. xo
What’re you going to do with the placenta?
Wrote a long comment earlier today(but seems to have disappeared) all about how much I look forward to mama digs each week and how I just love you in that non-psycho blog crush sort of way. And, no worries…I live too far away to just show up at your doorstep with my family and beg you to hang out with us. ha!
Jill B (Overland Park, KS)
ohhh how I miss the larch
great post. thanks.
It is wise to leave a path of cheerios to guide you home! I had to STARE, for several minutes, at Margot in her car seat with said ‘Darker Pink Panda Bear’….our baby has become a little girl.
Sweetie~I do not think you will EVER plan an appropriate amount of time to get ready….I have witnessed this for too many years :). You do amaze me that you ALWAYS get er’ done….as well as throw a good meal together in 3.2 nanoseconds.
Love you Burb!
xoxo, Mom
This post made me laugh out loud. The difference between pre-kid travel and post-kid travel – so true and all good. And the getting ready – endless. I used to be the person who was always early for everything. Now I’m the person who, last week, dragged the baby back into the house from the car to rewash her oatmealy face three times in a row (oatmeal apparently migrates but doesn’t clean up). And this for a mere trip to the grocery store (where I glanced down into her little face in the ergo, and noted she still had a good sized glob of oatmeal adorning her left eyebrow).
Lovey, Nici! Your family’s adventures are always inspiring; both for the honesty you bring to your stories, and your absolute ambition to do it all! There is something so deeply reflective about this time of year, don’t you think – I’m really feeling it this time around.
Oh, and I’m carseat shopping…and Margot’s looks so comfortable – what kind is it? Would love to know!
Ellie
http://www.bare-foot-notes.blogspot.com
Oops, I meant; lovely…not lovey! I don’t know you THAT well 🙂
I can’t wait to see the other 172 photos of the kids and goose. Iove the visuals that come to me when I read this post. Wasn’t it that first trip that you purchased the subaru? You all just crack me up and to think it was a great trip for andy and future prospects in the art world. I am proud of all of you. xoxo
Love this:
“The same car with the same driver and passenger at the same time of year over the same mountain passes. The view out the windshield nearly identical and the view in the rear-view mirror wholly different.”
This just may my favorite so far, Nici. Beautifully descriptive. I love the visual of the back seats holding the girls. I love the analogy of the larch trees. Life so changes when we have our children, doesn’t it? We had a subaru until child number three, and I remember nursing babies in very strange positions on several car seats!
Thank you for sharing your journey with us all…..to Spokane and to motherhood!
Just read your Larch tree analogy to Hal, so beautifully put! I love how you write and don’t tell you that often enough! Love you all!
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