Christmas 2008: Everything but the snow

We spent a week in Missouri, from the day after Christmas until the day after New Year's. It's always a blessing to get to spend the holidays with family. The three of us celebrated on Christmas morning and then enjoyed an afternoon with Ian's mom and stepdad in Waco. The following day, on the exact anniversary of my moving to Austin, we made our way to Missouri. For the next week, we made food, watched movies and hung out with old friends. Julian and YaYa baked cookies, sang "Jingle Bells" and played in parks. Julian, Aunt Chelsea and Uncle Kenny wrestled for the first time. GaGa taught Julian how to do the "This Little Piggie" toe game. PaPa brought Julian along on emergency trips to the grocery store. No snow, but plenty of good family lovin'.

(If you're not seeing a slideshow of images above, log into your flickr account or add me as a contact. If you're not on flickr, you'll have to start an account, but it's easy.)

Embracing 2008, looking forward to 2009

Props to the hundreds of thousands of bloggers, especially those with children (whom I will NOT automatically call mommy bloggers :)), who can keep up with photos, videos and heck, even posts themselves this time of year. I find myself at the end of the holiday months, the longest and best I've had in years, if not ever. Work simultaneously invigorated and overwhelmed me. We welcomed lots of new friends in a new house. Julian could identify Santa Claus and open presents on his own. Ian and I kept up our positive attitudes and couldn't pinch ourselves enough to make sure all this happy goodness was real and not just some wistful dream from earlier in 2008.



People keep saying what a crappy year 2008 was. It most definitely held unprecedented lows, both personal and economic, but with a new president, a new job, a new partnership, a new home, a new social circle (even for Julian) and a new wardrobe and subsequent quasi-fame, I am having a hard time remembering anything but the good from '08.



In terms of my own person growth and change, 2008 was right up there, if not ahead, of 2001, 2003 and 2006. Look at the hardship and joy suffered in those years: starting college and 9/11, followed by exiting adolescence and living in Spain, then moving to Austin, losing Troy and embracing Julian.



I'm just thankful that this year, like the others, the lemonade we made quenches our thirsty lips.



My hope is that our collective momentum will continue into this new year. 2009, as every year before it, holds countless opportunities for my family and yours, and my wish is that we all greet them with open eyes and a straight head.

Ohhh-klahoma, where the families camp

A few weeks ago, the Knox-Broyles family drove six hours north to meet up with the Broyles duo, who had driven six hours south. A little place called Chickasaw National Recreation Area was our home for two days. We cooked. We hiked. We saw tarantulas. See for yourself in this photo gallery. (If you can't see it, you need to become my friend of Flickr. It's a pain, I know, but if you have a Yahoo account it's even easier. I have to keep one iota of privacy here, people.:))

A (not really all that terribly) troublesome toddler

With his 18 month birthday, Julian officially entered toddlerhood this week, but to Ian and me, it's been a long milestone coming. He's been kissing, crawling, climbing, "no"-ing, "juice"-ing, laughing, playing, tickling, swimming -- all those toddler things that either make you melt or make you crazy. We've found parenthood this book of chapters that get both easier and harder the further you get along.

For example, he sleeps and sleeps, which we're eternally grateful for, but when he's up, he's up, and you don't really get a break until he's sleeping again. Before, when he was waking up and breastfeding and such, you could (relatively) go about your business. Not that this is different than any other kid in history, but when you're in it, you really understand this for the first time. You also start to understand that as soon as you *get* it, it all changes and it's like the first day of class all over again.

It's been long days for Ian while I'm at work, but he's figuring out how not to lose his sanity and still be a full-time parent, a feat I have so much respect for. And I go through the quintessential working mom emotions: feeling guilty for not spending enough time with Julian on one hand and on the other hand feeling slightly ashamed of the relief that sometimes accompanies walking out the door and into my other life.

It's been hard for me to balance my full-time work and also to alleviate some of the stress of his full-time work. And equally difficult, Ian's on call nearly every day for whatever strange schedule or event that comes up that takes me away from him and J.

But it's such a marvelous way to spend your days.

Our neighbor Fern, the one with no short-term memory who walks her dog Lucky about a dozen times a day, always reminds us of what a wonderful life ahead we have. "Don't you feel sorry for people who don't want to have children," she asks. "They don't know what they are missing out on."

She also always asks us when, not if, we're going to have another. That's a whole other story, a scenario I cannot possibly imagine right now. Our plates are full, and we're happily busy and occupied with one dog and one child (who just yesterday started saying sometime similar to "good girl" to Shiva).

For all the energy it takes to raise a child, you get it back tenfold, not over the course of a lifetime, but in the span of a few minutes or seconds, in moments like the one below, when Julian got to play with his cat friend, Toby.

It's the hardest job we'll ever do, and it ain't over yet.

A road trip to Missouri, baby in tow

Julian and I drove up to Dallas to pick up my old Spanish roommate, Erin, so we could go visit another roommate, Rachel, and her husband Russell, who were visiting the Southwest Missouri homeland. We had a grand time, driving 12 hours each way through the backroads of Oklahoma and Arkansas to spend two days with our closest friends and family.

It was a fantastic four days.

Happy Birthday, Chelsea!

My sister and mom at Mangia Pizza
just a few days after the wedding last month.

My dear sister Chelsea is celebrating a birthday today. Happy birthday, sis! She's in such a great place in her life, graduating from college, getting her first teaching job, wrangling all these kids in her youth group, keeping a happy marriage with husband Kenny. I'm so blessed to have her. She was the mastermind behind decorations at the wedding, and she did an awesome job. She's as capable as decorator as a teacher, in my mind. :)

Love you, Chelsabels!

Giant

Whew, what a nice break from everything. We drove out to the Big Bend of Texas (not Big Bend park itself, but the area just to the north) to take in Fort Davis, Marfa, Alpine and any other adventures we stumbled upon. We found much success in our main goal, however, which was to get away from the craziness that has built up around us in Austin and enjoy each other with the help of Mother Nature. Eight hours of driving was worth it to be surrounded by miles of open land and open sky and a couple million of our closest stars. Javelinas outnumbering e-mails and phone calls. Julian running around wild-child like among the brush and rocks. Addie and Ian filling up the wells. Feeling small never felt so good.

I've posted a slideshow over in the Through My Lens section of the Web site, which I reserve for other photo galleries. Here are a few of the highlights:

Orange I happy?

I guess the phrase "when it rains it pours" can apply to both good and bad events in life. The Knox-Broyles house happens to be in a harvest time right now, and don't doubt for a minute we're not thanking the universe with every grain of our beings...

I'm going to be the new food writer at the Statesman! All this WNTW stuff really allowed me to flex my media and writing muscles, and so when the opportunity arose to apply for this position, which is most definitely what I could consider a dream job, I couldn't help but take it. Not only am I thrilled to be writing about food, I'm on cloud nine to be thinking about generating content rather than editing it. I feel like I have so many ideas and so many ways of telling stories that are just bottled up inside me right now. This blog has been the only outlet for some of it. Of course, I'm a little nervous about all the changes this job will entail (goodbye, long, lazy days with Julian and Ian; farewell, the pleasure of leaving work behind when I leave the building), but I can't wait to resume what I fell in love with so long ago: using words and images to tell people's stories.

I don't start officially until the end of April, but I imagine there will be lots of planning and preparing that will be done in the meantime. I can't tell you how exciting this is for me, Ian and Julian. We're in the midst of a lot of change right now, but everyone is handling it tremendously. And there's no way I could take on this job without Ian's support.

:) I feel like the luckiest girl in the world...

Things worth looking forward to

What a week! With the What Not to Wear show coming up on Friday, things have been picking up around here. I've been working on an article for Thursday's newspaper, talking to the three other contributors from the Austin area, doing interviews for the Aurora and Springfield newspapers, and, of course, taking in some South by Southwest. We also squeezed in a trip to Fort Worth yesterday and today for Ian's birthday. Whew. Makes me tired just recalling, but it's been an awesome week.

Has anyone else caught the What Not to Wear preview?? My in-laws saw it Friday night and I saw it yesterday afternoon. It seems like TLC is running it about every hour. It's just a snippet of clips from my ambush and when they trashed my closet, including a sound bit of Stacy telling me I'm being more like "Raggedy Addie."

It's so surreal to see myself on TV. It almost doesn't seem like it's me. It seems like some body double, who happens to sound and act like me. So, it's concrete now: Friday, March 21, 8 p.m. central.

I have to work this afternoon (always on the go, go, go, you know), but a small piece of wonderfulness from our trip to visit Ian's family yesterday.

He has a 5-year-old niece, Jenna, a sweet, sweet child who loves life and those around her. We love going up there to play in the backyard with her and her 2-year-old brother, Michael. We were talking about birthdays yesterday (Ian's been thinking about it a lot with the big 3-6 coming up tomorrow) and I asked her what she thought was the best age. "Five," she said. "Cause you can do stuff when you're a kid that you can't do when you're an adult."

Oh, I share that sentiment when I look at a set of monkey bars and wonder how the hell I ever swung all the way across them. But I think it's cooler that she loves the age she's at. Despite all the toys, the Hello Kitty, the Bratz, the television characters, she still loves where she's at, not where she's going. Something we can all strive for, no matter if we're facing 6 or 36 or 66.

Exiting the recovery zone

I haven't posted much on what Julian's turning one has meant for me. It's been a few weeks since the big day, which really wasn't that big of deal. I didn't expect any revelations to come immediately, but a few have come in the time since.

I feel like the first year of Julian was a recovery zone. Maybe it was the C-section that really knocked me off guard physically for the first couple of months. Or maybe all mothers feel this. Everything was off because everything was new. The first few (dozen?) times you go to the grocery store with the baby, it's a strange adventure. Same with going to visit your parents or friends. It's easily six months before the things you did before feel remotely "normal" but even then, it seems a vaguely familiar version of your pre-baby life. I think it took even more months for life with Julian to feel as natural as life without him did. I mean, we're still working on that, but it's leaps and bounds better than even just a few months ago.

The interrupted sleep I think really starts to get to you, too. And Julian is truly an all-star sleeper! I can't imagine what some of my mommy friends are going through with babies still waking up all night. It can really screw with your head. Just like the whiny, pick-me-up cry that Ian still cringes at. And I had my own aches and pains post delivery; I can only imagine the aches and pains that lingered for some of my fellow mommies.

It doesn't take a scientist to tell you that babies are so adorable, especially to their parents, because it makes them harder to resent for making life so difficult at times. But cuteness aside, there's something so intrinsically gratifying about raising Julian that makes all of the hardships easier. I tried to describe it to some of the What Not to Wear crew members who are contemplating babies, all of whom were over 30 and looking at my 24-year-old self like I was a nut for having a kid "so early." But they just didn't get it. Moving to Brooklyn, giving up their Manhattan lifestyle were foremost on their minds. I tried to delicately tell them that post-baby, those concerns that seem like such monumental hurdles to parenthood become insignificant.

It sounds like I had an awful first year of motherhood, doesn't it? Being on the other side of baby's first year is just allowing me to be really honest with myself about how difficult it was. It's still challenging, don't get me wrong, but that year, that recovery zone, is just now starting to fade. I'm starting to be able to do more things for myself that I didn't feel I could last year. I'm taking some online classes, planning a family vacation and a wedding, renewing my passion for running, thinking about joining a fall softball league. Ian is, too. He's getting down and dirty with this recording unit to finish the album he started. He's able to juggle Julian and his own wants and desires a little better. We're both in consistently better moods despite the wrenches Julian may throw in our plans.

But no one could have told me about that year, just like no one can really tell me about the years to come. You have to live it for yourself to really understand it. Religious folks all my life have talked and talked and talked until they are blue in the face about faith. And if I go on and on about the topic of faith here, I will join them. Suffice it to say that having Julian has solidified my belief that faith is an action that others do not have right to doubt. We all have brains and ambition and instinct. So when Ricci volunteers in Senegal, my best friend from high school remarries a year after she divorces, the Shelton family prepares to welcome a wee brother or sister for Julian's baby friend Adeline and BAT picks up her life in Austin and moves to the sure-to-be-fabulous Steamboat Springs, Colo., wish them well. Acknowledge that they are living the life they intend.

I'd like to think that's what we're all trying to do here.

Julian's early birthday presents

LaVonne, Ian's mom, came down for a classic grandma-spoils-baby-for-first-birthday trip right before all the TV madness began. Julian and I met her at IKEA (she and husband Dan live in Waco), and we had the best time shopping for a new bed, among other things, for Julian. We found a converter bed that he can use as a crib now but that we can change into a toddler bed when he's ready. And of course, we had to find the cutest comforter/sheet set they had as well as a few toys. Don't forget the sultan mattress for the little prince to sleep on. Oh, and a milk whipper for mommy's coffee and a few of her favorite Swedish meatballs. :) I know everybody says this, but, man, IKEA is so awesome! I could buy out the place, if I had the space.

(Speaking of IKEA, one of the style writers at the paper turned me on to this guy who's been living in IKEA for a week while his NYC apartment is fumigated. Mark Malkoff is his name, and he's the guy who visited all 171 Starbucks in Manhattan in one day last year. He's been posting videos he's been making while staying at a New Jersey store.)

Grandma also bestowed upon our wee royalty the coolest car seat. It's seriously like a throne in a car. Mommy wants one of those, too!

We had such a good time that day. For those of you who remember a few of the mother-in-law figures I've butted heads with in the past (let's be honest here, there was only one), I'm as pleasantly surprised as you to know a mother-in-law and I could get along so well.

Aren't they sweet?

Top Dawg

Carolyn Cook at midcourt in the Ed Cook Gymnasium.

Aurora, Missouri. December 19, 2007

One of my favorite things about going back to Missouri is catching up on all the things I've missed while I'm away. All the things around town that have changed since my last visit. Sometimes it's people, but most often it's physical structures. A couple of new things from this last trip stood out.

1) A huge three-story building -- erected in the 1920s, supposedly haunted, home to many a high school history, debate and English class -- was torn down a few months ago. My sister and me, my mom and her two brothers all went to the same high school, had classes in that same building.It was weird even then, sitting in a classroom that my mom and uncles probably sat in, being taught by a teacher who was hired by my grandfather when he was principal.

But PaPa wasn't always the Top Dawg (pun intended. Aurora's mascot is the Houn' Dawg and there is a local honor given every year to Auroran who make a difference. My grandfather and father have both been recipients.). PaPa played basketball for SMSU (excuse me, MSU) back in the day. They moved to Aurora at the beginning of the 1950s. PaPa started out as a teacher and coach, doing janitorial work on the side to support the family. Then he moved up to athletic director, then principal. He made quite the impression on little old Aurora. My mom couldn't date anyone in town because they all feared going out with the principal's daughter. His took a basketball team or two to state. He coached football (not quite the position in Missouri as it is in Texas, but still...). After he died in 1989, they created a basketball tournament and scholarship in his name. A few years ago, they named a gymnasium after him. Which leads to...

2) They've added a giant "Ed Cook" signature high on one of the walls in the gym. I saw it for the first time when I was home. It's pretty cool to see his loopy, oddly familiar letters so big, announcing his very own basketball court. And it's so rewarding to get to share it with my grandmother, whom I clearly know far better than my late grandfather. Most of what I've learned about him is through my mom and GaGa. And they don't really sugar coat it, either. They loved him dearly and are so proud of him, but they were really the ones who sacrificed so that he could take care of the team, the school, the community. (I think of this when I'm hanging out with Ian. We see each other five or six times what Carolyn and Ed Cook did when they had children in the home.)

Going home and seeing members of my family affecting change on society in Aurora brings me such joy and pride. When I was in high school, there would be days when every single member of the family was in the newspaper (and not just because I worked there). My dad for city council. My mom and sister and I for some activity at school. I may still be working at a newspaper, but my presence in the community of Austin doesn't have near the impact it did on Aurora. I guess it's just one of those pillar differences between living in the city and living in the country. To be a big fish in a little pond or to be a little fish in a big pond. I've accepted that this will be one of my lifelong struggles.

December 26 marked two years since I moved to Austin, committing myself (at least, for now) to the latter. To swim along, enjoying the sights, sounds, scents of a big city. (Hey now, Aurora has 7,000 people; Austin qualifies as a big city.) Not make too many waves. Not get my picture in the paper. To anonymously shop for groceries and go out to eat. To shop at stores I've never been to. To take Julian to a park we've never seen.

But will I ever have a gymnasium with my signature on it? A scholarship in my name? A Top Dawg award? A woman as sweet as my grandma visit me every day when I'm old and have a hard time taking care of myself? My mom and dad, my grandma, even Chelsea and Kenny are key players in the game of Aurora. People notice if they go on vacation. I used to be one of those players. Now, I just go back and watch everyone taking care of their roles. I'm a spectator rather than a player. Almost seven years after I graduated high school, it still feels strange.

Jovial Julian

(Give the video a minute. Julian warms up toward the end...)

Julian finally worked out his funk he had during the first few days here. I think he was just overwhelmed with all the people who wanted to spend time with him and love on him. But now, just as we're getting ready to head back to Austin, he has found his groove with YaYa, PaPa, Auntie Chelsea and GaGa. They had a full on play session this afternoon with Julian's new toys. He's making this silly noise with his lips now, which in combination with his goat laugh is pretty irresistable.

I'm off for one final gathering with my folks and Ian around a bonfire in the backyard. I intend to soak up every minute of it...

Sticky fingered impostors

Copy editors are afflicted with the irresistible habit of copy editing everything they read. I have a hard time reading Hemingway because of his inadequate use of the comma, for example. I laugh outloud at the extraneous use of quotation marks. (if you do to, you must visit this Web site.) I inspect the food labels when I'm standing in the kitchen, which lead me this morning to a horrendous find. The honey Ian bought at H-E-B last time is called "Texas Honey Blend" and is mostly made from, not the beloved nectar of the Earth, but high fructose corn syrup. The nectar of Coca-Cola and caramel coloring mixed with a little bit of honey. I was lead to the ingredients by a claim on the front label. "A delicious mild honey taste!" Wha? Who wants a mild honey taste? Isn't that kind of like olive oil companies marketing those brands with a mild olive oil flavor? I'm so very confused. If you don't want an olive oil taste, use vegetable oil. If you don't want a honey taste, use sugar for God's sake. If you're worried about getting fat, stop drinking sodas before you cut back on honey.

The worst part about impostor honey is the packaging. It's in a small plastic bear with a yellow top! Oh, the inhumanity!

All of this lead me to the closest thing to a Web page for Kelley Honey Farms (P.O. Box 45, Chicota, TX 75425 if you are riled up enough to write them personally), titled "Donkeys We Have Sold and Some of Their Stories These little donkeys have moved to their new homes and are enjoying donkey hugs". Apparently these guys, the farmers, not the donkeys, really love them some Kelley Farm honey. And on the flip side, on a site called the BeeSource Forums, I found this discussion about the impostor honey. Remember the maple syrup, some posters lamented. I certainly hope honey is not en route to the fake sugarfication of syrup as we know it.

Anyway, all this honey thinking takes me back...

I had a great uncle who was a beekeeper. Lee Handy was married to my dad's mom/grandma's sister Mary, who was also the sister of Aunt Pud, for those of you out there familiar with her. Lee and Mary had a restaurant in downtown Branson, Mo., for years and years. My dad worked there as a kid, back before Branson became what it is now. Lee and Mary were workers, boy. Always were. Lee farmed honey until probably the year before he died, maybe 7 years ago.

When I was a kid in Aurora, we would take monthly trips to Branson to visit Grandma Joyce, Uncle Bob and Aunt Pud, who all lived together in Branson, and Uncle Lee and Aunt Mary, who lived in Hollister, just on the other side of Lake Taneycomo. Lee and Mary had this giant vat of honey in their kitchen. A 3 gallon barrel, at the least, with a spout at the end. I can remember eating honey until I was sick in that kitchen. Chelsea and I licking our fingers, while Mom and Dad sat 'round the kitchen table and drank coffee with the two of them. I dreamt as a kid of owning that property and spending all my time gardening and making trails through the woods. I still dream of that sometimes. And the thing is, you could buy a house like that on land like that, in a land far far away from here, for what you'd pay for a 700-square-foot apartment in downtown Austin. ...

Ah gez, the life of a beekeeper. Put it on the wouldn't-it-be-cool-to-be list along with campground manager and museum docent.

I just hope Uncle Lee didn't catch wind of this fake honey businezz.

Family ties

Among many activities and adventures of the past two weeks, the most monumental was a trip to Fort Worth and Waco to visit Ian’s family. It was my first time to meet his brother and sister-in-law and their two beautiful children, Jenna and Michael. We ate and chatted and played an awesome game of tag baseball in the backyard (even Julian got to participate! He laughed and laughed and just couldn’t get enough of running around with me to tag the kiddos.). It was the quintessential family get-together, full of all kinds of love and positive exchanges. 

To top it off, Erin was in Dallas for a job interview, so she got to meet Julian. She was pretty blown away by the whole Addie-as-mother thing. Seeing it firsthand is quite different than hearing about it on the phone or reading about it here. She is going through all kinds of life transformation herself, and it’s cool to see how much our lives are still the same even though on the surface they are very different.

After a day and night in DFW, we headed to Waco to have dinner with Ian’s mom and stepdad. We hadn’t seen them in awhile. To say that they have had a troubled relationship is an understatement, and neither is without fault. But a grandchild is a grandchild. They want to watch him grow and love on him like they do the other grandkids, so Ian arranged the meeting, not for him but for Julian to reconnect with them. The outcome Saturday was totally unexpected. Little did I realize what amazing healing powers sweet Julian already possesses. Something else happened while we watched a naked Scooter Boy do his gorilla walk around the patio, gave him a bath in the sink and ate Lavonne’s delicious homemade dumplings. It started to feel like a family should. Ian and his mom genuinely hugged each other. He earnestly expressed his love for her. She accepted us and our way of raising Julian with open, nonjudgmental arms. Somewhere during the course of the night, an old, rusty, well-used hatchet was buried. Everyone had tears in their eyes as we drove off and headed back home. 

Now it is my turn to share Julian with my family. I’ll be back in Missouri over the weekend. I can hardly wait.
 
So, kid update: Julian, who will be 8 months old in a week or so, is pulling himself up whenever he can. Not quite standing on his own just yet, but he’s starting to cruise (walk with assistance) along the couch. Ian will hold his hands and he takes steps, so he’s definitely making progress in that area. He’s sleeping pretty well in the night. He still gets up around 4 every morning for a snackerson (ah, the Troyisms are still being passed) and has been taking great naps (like the one he’s enjoying now so I can take care of some Web site business). He just ate a plum, one of his favorite big people foods. I scrap off most of the skin and remove the pit and he eats the rest. He is still way into bread and bananas. 

And I watched a DVD on baby signing and lost my cynicism that the concept was bunk. We’ve started using the signs for food, milk, more and up, but we won’t see the results for at least another 6 weeks. It’s one of those things that you have to put the time in at the beginning, but it will pay off many times over in the end. Just imagine a 15-month-old who doesn’t have to rely on the point-and-cry method of telling you what’s wrong. Or the 20-month-old who can tell you what’s so damn exciting in that picture book you’re flipping through. I’d heard plenty about it delaying their verbal skills, but I think that’s just unfounded hearsay. They will replace signs with words as soon as they can, but there’s a good dozen or so months in between the desire to communicate and the well-developed ability to speak. 

Overall, Julian is characterized by his charm and personality that are really starting to show. You can get him in a laughing fit just by running around with him or making funny noises. He is starting to want to show off what he is playing with or what he can do. His face lights up when he sees someone he recognizes, including girlfriend Ruby, who is showing him her new top teeth and first unassisted steps.

So, all is well. Love is in the air. We can’t wait for our trip to Missouri. Wish us luck with planes and airports!