June means sunny days
And with bare feet and shoulders
We welcome Summer
Charlie was in China for the first part of June,
making three trips since January. I'd like to say the end of these
extended travel trips is in sight... but there's another one on the calendar
for the beginning of August. Yes, it’s difficult on all of us, but we're
learning how to "do this" and it isn't so terrible. I think
this go around was especially challenging for Charlie though - the stress of
meeting for and working on several different projects there, combined with the
cultural "differences," being away from home, battling exhaustion
while trying to keep a cold at bay - let's just say that he was happy to
come home. And we were happy to
have him home.
While Charlie was gone, Bruce and I spent a lot of
time watching the weather. Thankfully, all that came of it was rain.
And more rain. And even some more rain. I don't know what the
official "amount" is to date so far this year, but considering last
year we qualified as having a "desert" climate, I think it's safe to
say the drought is over. All the
rain swamped our garden, actually hindering it more than helping I think, but
now things have dried out again and the plants have exploded into life! We’ve picked our first tomatoes and
small peppers, and there are tons of tiny zucchini that should be ready any day
now.
Bruce and I had a few little things on our
calendar while Charlie was away that kept us fairly busy, but when the weekends
arrived, we headed for the farm.
We found time to throw rocks in the creek, transplant some flowers in
the garden, go nuts over Charlie’s old matchbox cars, and of course, drive
various farm vehicles. Granny K
even took us to the John Deere Tractor supply store and let Bruce pick out any
toy he wanted. He quickly snatched
up a little lawn tractor toy and immediately convinced us it was time to “pay,”
which is what he says repeatedly anytime he’s tired of shopping with me and
ready to go. That boy has been
obsessed with lawn mowers lately!
When Bruce and I are just hanging around the house,
we’ve found a few activities that occupy our time nicely. He loves play-doh, and it’s great fun
until he decides he can’t resist eating it, and then we have to put it
away. He doesn’t really mold it
much himself yet, but he loves telling me what to make with it, and then he
starts to giggle as soon as he can recognize what I’m making. Either I’m a stinkin’ good sculptor, or
he’s got a great imagination, because he always approves of my creations,
regardless if they look like the item he’s asked for or not. Not to brag, but I do make a pretty
spectacular string bass, which is one of his favorite things to request. Then he’ll ask me to make a “stick” and
he’ll sit and play his bass for the longest time… until he decides he has to
eat it. Naturally, our budding
musician often wants us to make him play-doh instruments - so along with a
bass, I also have a trumpet, trombone, guitar, saxophone and various drums in
my repertoire. The trombone
probably should have been classified as a failure, but Bruce didn’t seem to
notice and still jazz-danced with it around the living room.
We still hardly go a day without a family “jam
session,” and Bruce has been trying really hard to figure out how to play the
harmonica lately. He just can’t
seem to blow hard enough for it to make a sound, so he just hums into it
instead. Whatever works,
right? Charlie got the electric
guitar out of the closet for the first time this month and Bruce has been in
heaven. We haven’t plugged it in
to an amp for him yet, but Bruce still thinks it’s pretty special because it
looks like “that guy’s” (referring to the coffee table book pictures of Bruce
Springsteen) guitar. Other news on
the music front - Bruce got a new guitar this month! We already had a small guitar that was Charlie’s when he was
younger, but you could never tune it right, so it always sounded a little
wonky. Charlie had some leftover
Christmas money burning a hole in his pocket, so he bought Bruce a nicer
miniature guitar that looks “just like Daddy’s.” As you might have imagined, the gift was a big hit. I was pulling for the ukulele at the
store, but it wasn’t my money.
Maybe Abigail will need one of those in a few years?
Another fun activity that we’ve enjoyed this month
is floral design, initiated by Bruce!
It started with a few dandelions and one little bud vase, but has grown
to all sorts of flowers from around the yard and every single bud vase I can
find in the house. We have a rose
bush on the side of the house that I’ve never really appreciated because it’s
ugly and scraggly and the red blooms aren’t really red - more like a cheap orange, but man I’ve loved that bush this
season! I can clip as many flowers
off for Bruce as he wishes without even batting an eye. And they’ve become beautiful to me.
As many people have noticed around here, one of
Bruce’s favorite things to do is push things around. Previously he’s had a walker toy, a shopping cart and a lawn
mower to satisfy this desire, but this month he’s also added two doll
strollers, courtesy of the always-generous neighbor girls, and a miniature
wheel barrow, courtesy of the sucker store lady at Lowe’s who said Bruce looked
so adorable pushing it around the store collecting plumbing supplies that we
could have it 50% off, and the sucker we call Daddy who shelled out the other
50% while Mama was across the street at Wal-mart getting groceries. He indiscriminately rotates between the
wheeled objects, but always seems to want to be pushing one of them
around.
I guess I can’t give Charlie a hard time about
getting Bruce the wheel barrow, because last week I got him a kiddie pool. Nothing fancy, just one of those cheap
plastic ones that you don’t have to feel guilty about throwing out at the end
of summer when you don’t feel like storing it. I say I bought it for Bruce, but really I think I bought it
for Abigail. And seeing as how I’m Abigail’s host
for the next few months, I’ve been enjoying wallowing in the kiddie pool
thoroughly while Bruce runs around the backyard like a banshee, completely
unfazed by the heat.
Speaking of Abigail, she’s doing just fine! I don’t have too much to report on her,
other than things are progressing normally, and her movements are sending ripples across my belly that you can see now. By this time of summer while pregnant with Bruce, my ankles
were already turning into puffy monsters, but so far so good with Abigail. No swelling yet, and physically I’m
still feeling really good and energized, so I can’t complain! I'm not sure if Bruce has clued in to what's all going on, but when you ask him what's in my belly, he'll say, "a baby," and when you ask what the baby's name is, he'll say, "Abby." Those might be conditioned responses though, who knows. I know it'll completely rock his world when she finally arrives, but we're trying to get him as used to the idea of a new baby as best we can.
Charlie made it home from China in time for
Father’s Day, and we celebrated throughout the weekend by doing a lot of fun things
together. We started Saturday
morning off by heading to the train station in Norman bright and early. Charlie has always loved train rides,
and Bruce has become a lot more interested in them lately, (Is it because he’s
almost 2? It seems all two year
old boys love trains…) so the two of them hopped on the Amtrak train and rode
it one stop south. It was only a
15-minute ride, but that’s about the length of Bruce’s attention span these
days, so it was ideal.
I drove the van and met them at the station, and
then we headed down the road to a cute little shack called the Railhead Diner
for some awesome fried pies. If
people can justify eating donuts in the morning, why not fried pies?
That afternoon we went to the Sam Noble Museum of
Natural History. I know I’ve mentioned
it before, but I love that museum!
We’ve gone several times lately because for the WHOLE month of June,
admission has been FREE! You can’t
beat that.
Sunday afternoon we went to the Splash Pad in Noble
for some fun in the sun! The one
in Noble isn’t as fancy as the ones in Norman – there are no rainbow misters,
or automatic dump buckets, or water canons – just small fountains that squirt
up from the concrete slab – but I actually think it’s better for
Bruce. You still get all the benefits
and fun of running around in water, without all the unexpected water surprises
or annoying probably-too-old-for-splash-pad
crazy teenagers. Bruce loved
it! And getting sno-cones
afterwards topped off the day nicely.
When I asked Bruce what he thought Daddy would want
for a gift for Father’s Day, he said a “gun.” Hmmm…. I was
caught a little off guard by that one.
We found some fun water guns at the dollar store though that were easy
enough for Bruce to operate, so we picked a couple of those up and the fellas
had a little showdown in the back yard!
I would say that the weekend was perfect. Almost.
Unfortunately, we had to say good-bye to our very favorite animal
friend, Mr. Pants.
We adopted Mr. Pants as a (best guess) two year old
cat off the farm seven years ago, and he’s been a special member of our family
ever since. His name was Calvin
then, but we quickly changed that – naturally he preferred to be called Mr.
Pants. We were sad to miss out on
the cutesy kitten phase, but thought it was well worth it to know we were
getting a great cat with an irresistible personality.
He didn’t live with us long before we realized he
had some fairly significant health issues. All the blood tests the vets performed couldn’t tell us what
was wrong with him, and we weren’t on board with starting the expensive process
of biopsying various organs, so we opted to put him on an inexpensive
prednisone pill, a somewhat special diet, and love him really well.
He didn’t seem to “suffer” with his illness really,
and most of the time seemed perfectly normal. Once every couple of months though he would have what we
coined a “yak attack” and spend a few days puking all over the house. Not fun for anyone, but we found a good
carpet cleaner and learned to live with it.
The past year or so we had noticed Pant’s health
starting to decline, and his demeanor turned a little more grouchy, and
although we were aware that this would happen sooner for him than most cats, he
still seemed pretty “normal” to us.
Then, a few days before Father’s Day, Mr. Pants
began another cycle of his yak attacks.
He kind of isolated himself a little, but we didn’t think too much of
it, figuring he’d snap out of it like all the previous times before.
By Saturday night though, we realized that this
time was different. His breathing
was heavier, and his eyes seemed “off” and it just felt different. We brought
him to bed with us to snuggle - planning to bring him to the vet in the morning
if things hadn’t improved, but feeling doubtful he would make it through the
night.
Sunday morning Charlie woke up and found him in the
bathroom, still struggling. So he
petted him for ten or fifteen minutes until he stopped struggling and let
go. It was like he was waiting for
Charlie to be with him, or that him being there gave him the assurance to relax
and let nature take over. Either
way, it was a bittersweet moment but I’m happy that Charlie was there for it.
So where are we now with it all? Doing well for the most part. We loved that cat like crazy and will
miss him dearly, but overall feel that it was probably for the best. We’re thankful that he died before he
got to a point of suffering with his illness. We’re still in that awkward phase though where we forget
that he’s gone – I still halfway expect to see him suspiciously perched to
ambush us in the hallway, or waiting patiently at the backdoor to be let in at
dusk after an afternoon of basking in the sun and chasing off Fluffy Gray, his
neighborhood nemesis. But he’s
never there anymore. And it’s sad,
but it’s okay.
So far, Bruce doesn’t seem to be affected by it at
all, which is a welcomed relief.
Since Pants was an indoor/outdoor cat, I think maybe Bruce just thinks
he’s outside or something. I’m not
really sure what goes on inside of that little head of his, but he doesn’t
seemed to be bothered by the cat’s absence, and I’m thankful I don’t have to
try and explain the situation to him.
I’m sure it will come up eventually, but we’ll cross that bridge when we
get there.
The weekend after Father’s Day, we packed up the
van and drove to Kansas to join in the wheat harvest. I really should capitalize Wheat Harvest I guess, because it’s quite the event. Charlie manned a combine for the weekend,
and Bruce and I tagged along to experience various aspects of the
operation. We spent a few hours in
the combine, hypnotized by the spinning auger reeling in acres of wheat heads,
made a couple trips with a farmhand to the grain elevator in one of the wheat
trucks, and chauffeured some guys from field to field when they needed to move
the equipment. Bruce took it all
in with wide eyes, an open mouth, and an eager spirit. The only complaints really were when
the shifter stick in the trucks became a “no touch,” or when the combine’s
steering wheel was “Daddy’s turn,” or when it was time to return from the
fields for a midday nap or bedtime.
It was a great weekend.
We returned from the farm with one thing on our mind – we have to finish
the bathroom! My mom and Rick are
coming for a visit the first part of July, and we wanted to have the project
completed before they got here.
The last few steps have been the most tedious of all, with a lot of hiccups
along the way. I’ve finally been
able to help a little though, which has made me feel a little more useful and I think helped
Charlie feel a little more hopeful that the end is near. It won't be completely finished for our "visitors," but we're getting sooooo close!
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