To Begin

I thought I would begin this blog with some clips from Snail mail letters that I wrote -- so that those who did not receive the original letters can be caught up on our adventures to date. The first letter is from this past summer when Tom was sent to Italy by his company. The boys and I decided to go visit my mother in Arizona and what follows is a brief summary of that period:

While Tom was off in Italy, battling the fact that the place he was visiting was a ‘cash economy’, I took the boys and we went to visit my Mum in Tucson. Ah, and wasn’t that the adventure! Two little ones and me, traveling by plane and bus. Of course, I made a serious mistake. I thought to save some money and bought tickets that involved changing planes in San Francisco then had us taking a bus from Phoenix to Tucson. The outbound flight was on United, an airline I had sworn never to use again. Big mistake. Big. The flight out of Seattle was delayed, though only by about 20 minutes. When we got to San Francisco, I loaded Alex into the makeshift stroller (His car-seat atop our carry-on on a roller) and taking Jason’s hand, we raced across the airport to the other gate. We needn’t have hurried. When we got to the other gate, it was to discover that the flight had been delayed. At first it was only ½ an hour but I am experienced with United so I called my mother. “We are delayed in San Francisco. They say it will be half an hour but this is United so that means it will be longer. Call the bus line, get them to give you a rain check, then find us a hotel for the night, please.” She did so, wonderful lady, and it turned out that I was right. The flight ended up being delayed by 2 ½ hours. We did arrive though and, with the kind assistance of a variety of folks – none of them airline staff, I might add! – we collected our suitcases and transported them to the tram that would take us to the hotel.
The hotel was a serious bust – and I wrote one of the nastiest notes I have ever done. It was the Residence Inn, we had a suite and all that would’ve been fine except (1) they claimed to have cribs but in fact had only pack and plays – and pack and plays, if you do not know, are NOT good substitutes for cribs – at least not if the child is older than 6 months and (2) they put the knives in the lowest draw of the kitchen. I found that out because Alexander, my not quite 2 year old, marched happily up to me, carrying a carving knife between forefinger and thumb… OHHHH! And of course, there were all sorts of entertainments for the boys: They entertained themselves by jumping from the couch to the coffee table (arg), by turning the television on and off and on and off and on and off, by bouncing on the bed, bouncing off the bed, and by making phone calls… By the time I finally got them settled for the night, my hairs were grey – in the otherworld, if not in this one. OF course, they slept. I did not. I had one of them on one shoulder, the other on the other shoulder and lay all night trying to keep them from falling off the amazingly narrow double bed.
The next morning we went down to breakfast. It was a zoo. For some reason, though no rational one that I could see, they had arranged the food on both sides of the room so that one had to cross back and forth between the tables and diners. So there I was, and oh, you would’ve laughed to see me!, racing about, from table to food and back again, getting the little ones breakfast. Their eyes were far bigger than their stomachs and they kept asking for something new. When I finally got a chance to sit down, I saw the clock and realized that we were out of time. I needed to get the boys and the luggage back out to the front of the hotel so that the tram could take us back to the airport where we were to pick up the bus. I think I got a sip of bad coffee, though truthfully, I have no memory of it.
At any rate, we did make the bus but that was not to be the end of our problems. The bus ride from Phoenix to Tucson is about 2 hours long. I had not thought to bring water, a serious oversight given the temperatures in Arizona in the summer. Normally, according to my mother, the bus driver carries a supply of water on the bus and the passengers are given access. This was not the case on this trip. The driver was a surly lout. About 1 ½ hours into the trip, both boys were saying they were thirsty and in need of a potty break. The driver pulled off into a truck stop then, having stepped out of the bus, turned to the passengers and said, in the shortest tones possible, “Stay here!” He then proceeded to talk on a cell phone for about 15 minutes before disappearing out of sight for another 10. A good twenty five minutes in which the boys could’ve gotten a drink and used the loo. I was pissed but was too busy trying to keep them calm to be able to do much about it. What a relief to finally arrive in Tucson! And when we arrived at the bus stop, there was my mother along with the car that her friend had offered to lend us – and she had water! Yea! You never know how precious something is until you are denied it.
The rest of the trip was relatively peaceful. The boys were missing their daddy so I ended up sleeping with them – which meant that I got little sleep for the week we were there. On the other hand, we did have lots of adventures: we went to the mountains and wandered down dry river beds, we went to the circus, to the zoo and rode trains. I took them to libraries and bookstores – of course, and fed them serious junk food (McDonalds!) And they spent time with my mother and my father, separately, of course. My mother was delighted – the boys would wake her each morning and would drag her off to go swimming in her pool each afternoon. My father took Jason ‘birding’ (My father is an avid birder – volunteers his time to help ‘count’ the various species populations in Arizona.) and lectured him on rocks (Dad almost went into geology, he was that passionate about the subject). Lots of excitement but oh, we were all glad to get home again and the boys were even happier when their father met us at the airport!

Didn’t get anything written that day. Poor Xander is sick again – another sinus infection. That means he coughs and wakes all night long – and is miserable during the day. That also means that I don’t sleep and I am a miserable wretch all during the day. The one that that is hardest on is Jason. There he is, five years old, filled with the exuberance of youth and his mom is slogging about, tired as all get up and telling him ‘don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t make your brother cry’ – not fair at all since, when he is feeling sick, pretty much anything can make Xander cry! And then Jason stops listening – why would he want to, after all? And I get frustrated and yell… The other day, after such a pattern, I sat down, near tears and asked ‘Why don’t you listen to me when I talk nicely? Why isn’t it until I yell that you hear me?’ My ever so quick five year old cocked his head and said ‘It is the wax.’ I was startled enough to stop feeling sorry for myself and asked ‘Wax?’ ‘Yes,’ he said ‘I have a lot of wax in my ears and it gets in the way of hearing the nice voice. Only the scratchy voice gets through.’ I looked at him, a bit stunned and said ‘Why can you hear the nice voice now?’ ‘Oh,’ he said with one of his beautiful smiles, ‘you aren’t telling me what to do right now!’ ARRHGGGGHHH! Sometimes I feel like a character in a comic strip except without the ‘funny’ part!

Oh, grin. You should’ve seen the scene the other day. Tom and I went off to do some errands – we left the boys (Alex asleep) with a young woman named Hannah. (She has left now, gone back to Salt Lake City with her boyfriend.). We weren’t gone that long but when we returned, there was Jason trying to teach Hannah how to play chess. Now really, the person Jason needs is John Butler. They would understand each other perfectly, I suspect. Anyway, here is poor Hannah, all of 18, puzzling over the chess board. My five year old apparently picked up on her supreme ignorance of the game and used it to his advantage. He was ‘modifying’ the game rules so as to improve his chances of winning. She looked so entirely bewildered when we walked in that I had to go back into the back room and laugh. Jason had her coming AND going. “Now the knight usually moves like this” he said, showing her the correct positioning of a knight “except when you have already moved a king and a rook. Then the knight can do this” and he swooped down and took one of her pieces. “I can do that because I have ‘castled’ my king and you haven’t.” He looked quite pleased with himself. Ah me… His grandmother Donna, Tom’s mom, informed me that he tries to do that with pretty much any game he plays with her as well. “He makes up some interesting rules.” She told me “and they are all designed to benefit him! I let him get away with it for awhile and then I put my foot down.” Well, to be fair, he comes by it honestly. My grandfather used to cheat at every game HE played… of course, he expected to get caught. I remember once when he had bullied me into a game of cards. He was cheating blatantly and I was ignoring it. Finally, in frustration my grandfather threw down his cards and roared “I QUIT! I will NOT play with someone who doesn’t even KNOW when she is being cheated!” Ha! I won! I hadn’t wanted to play, after all… Grin. Poor man. That, of course, was about as subtle a piece of manipulation as I have ever pulled. Am not very good at manipulation – despite what one friend thinks. She insists that I am like the Japanese women, letting people think that they are getting their own ways when, in fact, I am pulling the strings. Truth is, I don’t have the patience for such deviousness. And I am far too arrogant. Just call me ‘Dragon lady’!