Life of a Spaceman

It is now 2:06pm and Abby is still not napping. She's engroseed in Curious George with Katelynn. She is trampling all over the living room, getting into this thing or that thing, mostly playing. She comes over to me, with one hand raised just standing near my chair. I look down at her and shake her hand. "Hi Mom-my" Then she toddles off. Yes, she is starting to say "Mommy" now in addition to "Mama". It just melts my heart.

A few minutes later, she comes back over to the chair I was sitting in. Only this time she has a crayon in one hand and has taken a bite out of it and is clenching the broken piece of crayon between her teeth with a huge smile on her face.

Good thing crayons are non-toxic, right? Part of the reason I am so loath to really kick her pacifier habit is because it keeps her from eating crayons, etc. I swear, lately her diet seems to consist of crayons these days, which is why I am usually diligent about keeping them from her.

She was so proud of herself. She calmly stood still while I wiped out her mouth and face, eyes sparkling. She was probably thinking about the next little scrape she could get herself into. Who knows?

After we came back from our Colorado trip, we decided it was time to get Katelynn a pet. We can't have cats since Matt's allergic and we have both agreed we do not want to get a dog. Hamsters and guinea pigs didn't appeal to me and seemed to be too much work for Katelynn. Mice, rats & snakes are just right out and I think anyone in their right mind would agree. :) We settled on a betta fish. We bought a male one since they are pretty. We bought a small tank and put it in Katelynn's room. She loved him and named him "Dorothy". (Dorothy is the name of Elmo's fish on Sesame Street, in case you didn't know. That is a public service announcement.)

We enjoyed having Dorothy around. Katelynn would feed him morning and evening. When we first got him Matt said that we would have to clean the tank every month. It got to be the beginning of August and I asked if we should clean the tank. "Oh, I'll get to it before we leave for Tennessee and we'll let the neighbor kids watch him while we're gone." As we got closer and closer to the trip, the answer changed from cleaning the tank before the trip to after the trip.

I've never had a fish before so I don't know these things. Matt has had fish before and I thought that I would let him take care of it. In the last week or two, I noticed that Dorothy wasn't swimming and eating as much and his beautiful garnet color on his body had turned translucent. I thought it didn't seem right and even Matt thought it was strange too. We fed Dorothy and then took off for Tennessee last Thursday morning. We spent the time up there for Aunt Suzi's wedding and had a great time. We drove back on Sunday, so that we would have all day yesterday to recuperate. We got back at 12:30am and Matt went into Katelynn's room to check on Dorothy, but alas, poor Dorothy was gone.

Well, what do you do? And what do you tell Katelynn? At first we told her that Dorothy was sleeping so she wouldn't tap the tank. Then we had her play outside and Matt took care of Dorothy and the tank and we agreed that we would get Katelynn a new fish. Katelynn came in from playing and immediately saw that there was no Dorothy and no water in the tank. She started asking questions, all the normal ones a child would. We decided to be up front with her, but not too detailed. We told her Dorothy had been sick and had died while we were on the trip, but we were going to get her a new fish. She perked right up at that. Matt got her a new fish which was named "Rainbow Dorothy", yet another male betta.

Katelynn was full of questions about Dorothy dying, where did he go? And she was full of statement along the lines of wanting 2 fish or how she had 2 Dorothys, but one had died. Then she asked if she could tell her friends at preschool today that Dorothy had died. I cautiously said okay (knowing she could very well forget and probably would) and quickly added that she needed to tell them she had Rainbow Dorothy now. She has taken all of this in stride and has been matter of fact about it. I expect questions or comments throughout the week, but we'll see how she does and so far she's fine. And we have a beautiful new fish. :)

We had a blast in Colorado last week. It was a busy, busy week though, in typical Spaceman family style. We flew into Denver on Saturday morning and drove down to Colorado Springs. After finally finding the local Fazoli's (we didn't think we'd make it and the natives were super restless!), we ate there in the shadow of Pikes Peak. How cool is that?!

Our energy renewed, we made our way to Walmart for supplies for the week. The trip there only reaffirmed my deep dislike for the place. It was crawling with people who didn't seem to know what in the world they were doing. People would just stop in front of our cart, looking dazed & confused, then looking at us like we were the crazy ones because we'd say, "Excuse us, you're blocking the aisle."

The rest of Saturday consisted of us settling down in our hotel room and Matt & Katelynn swimming in the pool.

Sunday we hiked at Garden of the Gods, visited a friend of Matt's from his time out in Colorado Springs and then a trip to the Air Force Academy, specifically seeing the chapel & visitor's center, and finishing up the day at the Chapel Hills mall for dinner.

Monday put Sunday to shame. We were off early to Florissant National Monument for hiking in the morning, visiting the town of Cripple Creek and a couple of museums there. We went back to Colorado Springs to visit the World Figure Skating Headquarters/Museum and since we were in the area, we tapped off the day by going to Seven Falls. Matt hiked...not the word...took the stairs all the way to the top of Seven Falls. There were a lot of stairs...

Tuesday was Pikes Peak day. Again we were at the Cog Railway Station at 7:30, ready to get on board the train to go to the top. So were a gazillion other people, including many Amish. I don't think I've ever heard so much German in one day! It was fascinating! We think since we had gotten reservations for the trip we ended up with the sweetest seats ever in the very front. Up we climbed 14,110 feet above sea level and I finally understood what "Rocky Mountain High" truly means: feeling light-headed, lack of energy and irritability. Once we got down to 12,000 or 11,000 feet I was feeling much better! I enjoyed the view and the train trip there and back immensely, but I was so thankful to get down to lower altitudes just for the sake of my head and mood.

But all was not well when we descended. After about 5 or 10 minutes, Matt and I looked at each other and asked, "Where is Katelynn's blanket? I thought YOU had it!" Then we looked up to the decreasing building of the visitor's center and realized we had left it at the top! As you can imagine, this sort of thing happens all the time. Once we were back at the station, we had the workers call the top and sure enough it had been found and they would send it back down with a conductor during the next descent which wouldn't happen until about 2pm. That left us with extra time to walk around Manitou Springs.

Manitou Springs was reminiscent of Gatlinburg, but much smaller. We had fun window shopping and killing time there. There was the unfortunate incident of me falling onto the jogging stroller with Abby in my arms. I have a bruise on my leg, Matt says, the size or shape of Colorado. What a souvenier! ha! After collecting the blanket, we were off to drive to Grand Lake on the western side of Rocky Mountain National Park to stay for the night. We ended up in a quaint hotel. I tried, in vain, to get Abby to go to sleep while Matt took Katelynn to a waterfall on the western side of the park. I think I did get Abby to sleep when they got back, but their entrance woke her back up. None of us got very much sleep that night and poor Abby fell out of bed. The hotel before this one and the cabin after both had pack & plays for her to sleep in. Eh, we survived.

Wednesday morning was our day to explore the western side of the park and drive across the park on Trail Ridge Road. We stopped at Coyote Valley Trail which took us next to the Colorado River, where it is only a few feet wide and deep. So amazing that the little "river" turns into the mighty one that fills Lake Mead! Next we headed up the road to the Holzwarth Heritage Site. This was a site where people would stay at the turn of the century when they came to visit the park. There was a lot of children's activities for Katelynn and I'd say it is safe to say that her favorite activity was dressing up in an apron & bonnet, washing the laundry the old fashioned way. We could hardly tear her away from that. We succeeded and talked her into lassoing a fake horse or calf. I'm happy to say that I lassoed it in the quickest of time. Thank you very much.

We drove across the park...beautiful scenery, dizzying heights, sleeping girls...words can't express how incredible it was. We stopped at the Alpine Visitor's Center for a break and the descended to the eastern side of the park into Estes Park where we drove to our cabin at the Jellystone Campground, surprised that my parents had made it there about a half hour before we did.

Thursday we drove into the park with the intention of hiking a trail to Alberta Falls, then taking the shuttle to Bear Lake before returning to the cabin to do stuff with the girls around there. We drove to the shuttle area and took the shuttle to Glacier Gorge. We started hiking from Glacier Gorge to Alberta Falls. On the way there we came to a fork in the trail. Left went to the falls and right went to Bear Lake. Both trails were uphill and rather strenuous for our bunch especially since we did not have the jogging stroller for Abby. We simply could not use it. We made it to the falls and everyone enjoyed the view. Since Mom was the slowest, she decided to start back first by herself. We all assumed we'd catch up with her. Unbeknownst to her though, Dad was coming down with altitude sickness and of course wasn't admitting THAT! He kept saying it was low blood sugar. I insisted he start drinking water right away and that helped him immediately. At this point we were about 10 to 15 minutes behind Mom.

Dad, Abby & I were ahead, Matt & Katelynn behind us, we all booked it back to the shuttle area of Glacier Gorge where we would get on the shuttle to go to Bear Lake. All the way back, Dad & I wondered why we hadn't caught up with Mom yet. Pushing ahead, we assumed we'd meet her at the shuttle area. We got back to the benches and there was no Mom. Anywhere.

Within a few moments, Matt & Katelynn appeared. "Where's your mom?" It hit us. Remember the fork in the trail? Mom needed to turn right to get back to the shuttle area. She had gone straight down the half mile trail uphill to Bear Lake. Matt threw me the keys to the SUV that I wasn't on the register to be allowed to drive and took off to find Mom, with the instructions to us to go to Bear Lake. Almost immediately after he left, a shuttle came with the sign "Bear Lake" and so Dad, the girls and I hopped on. It took us, not to Bear Lake but to the originally shuttle area where our SUV was. Hmm...not helpful. The next bus that came by was another "Bear Lake" shuttle and we made sure it was going there. It was indeed. Again we hopped on. In the meantime, Matt had found Mom and they were on a bus from Bear Lake to the shuttle area where we were and as we were all travelling, Matt happened to see me or rather my IU hat on one of the buses going in the opposite direction. He left Mom at our start point and hopped on another shuttle to meet us at Bear Lake and to go back. Once Dad & I had gotten to Bear Lake, we of course didn't see Mom or Matt and Dad was worried. Really worried. He talked with the rangers and he was coming up with a plan of his own to find Mom. He wanted to go up the trail to the fork in the trail back to Glacier Gorge. He said he'd be back in an hour.

Well, I had had it. There's not much I know about hiking and the great outdoors, but the one thing I do know is that if you get separated from your party and you have a rendevouz point, you stick with it. And that is what I told Dad, so he stayed. Within 10 minutes, Matt appeared out of the bus and we got on to meet Mom. Mom felt bad that she had gotten separated from us, but was feeling pretty well and not sore at all. All's well that ends well. Of course we have not stopped teasing her about it and for the rest of the trip, if anyone was slow in getting somewhere, we'd ask if they had gone to Bear Lake.

The rest of Thursday was noneventful. Friday we drove back up to the Alpine Visitors Center so Mom & Dad could enjoy the scenery. On the way back to Estes Park we saw an elk grazing on the tundra about 11,000 feet. It was an amazing sight to see! The rest of Friday was low-key and Saturday we flew back to Orlando. Within 10 hours we left the doorstep of our cabin in Estes Park and then arrived at the doorstep of our house. You can't do that driving! So all in all, it was an exciting trip. I'm sad that it's over, but you know us, we are already planning out the next big trip and right now we're looking at California. All I can say is that we will definitely see my family out there. :)

2010-07-04 Colorado

So there is the album, in the order of pictures taken with the missing Air Force Academy, Pikes Peak summit & descent, Adams Falls (the Matt & Katelynn trip while we were at Grand Lake), and other Trail Ridge Road pics that are missing from my facebook album. Sorry there's no commentary or labeling of the pics yet. It took 2+ hours to upload everything and I am done with the computer for the day. Maybe week. Enjoy!!!

Since I have request to blog my experiences with the girls this morning, I will do my best to cut and paste. :) It's just another day in the Long household...

Ahhh...I can type now that I have Abby in the pack & play. Sigh of relief!

So after Matt left, about 7:30 this morning, Abby was done with her bottle of milk. She squirmed off my lap and crawled in a beeline to Katelynn's door where she proceeded to stand up, bang on the door and yell loudly "KAAA-KAY!!!!!!!!!" It was closer to 8 before Katelynn appeared, but as soon as Abby heard Katelynn's door open, she was off in a flash, giggling hysterically. If that's not a "Good morning! I'm so glad to see you!" I don't know what is!

I asked Katelynn what she wanted for breakfast. She replied, "Oatmeal, please!" I showed her one of your instant packets of oatmeal and asked her if she was sure. She said she was. She ate pretty near 80% of it. I was proud of her. In the meantime, I got Abby's baby oatmeal ready and Abby found the box of granola bars and had dumped them out all over the floor. I told Abby we needed to put them back so she could eat and she tried to put them back in. She got a 3rd of them in the box. The other 2/3rds she tried missed the box, but she was trying. I made sure they all got back in.

We three sat down at the table: Katelynn with her oatmeal & water, Abby with her baby oatmeal & hawaiian delight and me with my cup of coffee. Katelynn & I sang "The Lord is Good to me" and Abby cackled and laughed and clapped her hands. The girls started eating. After a while, Katelynn looks at me and says, "Where's your breakfast Mommy?" I told her I was going to fix mine after I was done feeding Abby since my food would go cold anyway. It just makes sense for me to wait. Then Katelynn says, "You got your cup of coffee, right?" Right. "I know! Your coffee is your breakfast!" Well, it shouldn't be... "Oh yes it is!" A few moments later Katelynn asks, "What is Abby eating? I'll give her my oatmeal." I tell her that Abby has her own baby oatmeal and I show it to her. "Oohhh. Abby has baby oatmeal and I have big kid oatmeal." Katelynn returns to eating.

Abby has been zipping this way and that, and the final straw was her going up to the tv and turning it off. I knew I couldn't fire off an email to you if she was wandering around, so I needed to contain her for a little bit. And I am eating my breakfast of bagel & chive cream cheese. Mmmm...

So that is our day so far. Crazy and funny...wouldn't have it any other way. :)

Someone once "Love was a battlefield." They were sadly mistaken. Lunchtime is a battlefield. Whoever said the other was completely wrong and did not know what they were talking about. I would post pictures, but it's not pretty, folks. Really, it's not.

Since Abby was sick when Matt was camping, her appetite went down. That's no surprise and she's been steadily getting her appetite back. She's been showing great interest in table food, especially sandwiches I make for lunch. So the brilliant idea I had was to make her her very own sandwich, cut up into tiny pieces and to have baby food as back up. Also since the sickness, all she wants to eat is something sweet, like fruit. I give her pieces of sandwich. Those immediately end up on the floor or chewed up and spat out. I give her baby food and she immediately decides to blow raspberries at me.

Raspberries are cute when food is not involved. I've had to start tapping her lips and saying "No" firmly when she does it. Sometimes she gets the idea. Other days she doesn't seem to care. Today was one of those days. I got sprayed by even the fruit. The only thing she's interested in eating are the brown sugar & cinnamon Ritz.

Katelynn, on the other hand, gobbles her chips, her dill pickle and then systematically disassembles her sandwich only to eat the tomatoes, ham and cheese.

Just one of those days, I guess. Abby does look cute in her "new to her" IU outfit.

Day 3 without Matt. I count Thursday as day 1 since he was at work all day before the trip. Thursday night was awful as Abby would not sleep through the night. At. All. I was up with her 5 times and after trying everything to get her to go to sleep, I put her in her crib for the umpteenth time, stumbled back to bed and was out like a light.

I managed to get about 4 hours of sleep, waking up at 6am to a crying Abby. Time to get her up anyway. She was snotty, coughing, crying and hot! I turned on the light and her skin was a rosy color all over, almost as if she had been sunburned. Taking her temperature wouldn't have told me much since it reads about 2 degrees low. I kept alternating between Tylenol & Motrin for her which seemed to manage her fever. She still had her appetite and acted like her old self after she had a bottle. But the congestion plus fever worried me. Remembering how Katelynn's ear infections would explode out of a simple running nose and mild fever, I felt as though I would be a very bad mommy if I didn't at least take Abby to the doctor to check her out. I took both the girls yesterday afternoon and the doctor said, "Yep, it's just a cold. Her ears are fine." She told me the things to watch out for for an ear infection and she gave me helpful hints to help Abby rest and me too. I absolutely HATE having to suction out her little nose. It seems so like baby torture, but it really does make her better. Her little "I'm sick" cry breaks my heart, but I have to play the Mom card and do the right thing for her. Thankfully they worked, since Abby slept about 13 hours last night.

Katelynn has been really good about going down for the night too. She tries her hardest to stall going to bed, saying she's afraid of the dark, she wants Daddy or Mommy to read one more story. But the past 2 nights without Matt, she has been good as gold.

All three of us still have colds, but we seem to be coping okay. I hope it's all gone by the time Matt gets back tomorrow.

A couple of minutes ago, both the girls were playing at the coffee table. And it's not at all unusual these days to see Abby grasping the table kneeling. As I was reading a friend's blog, Katelynn exclaimed at the top of her voice, "LOOK MOMMY!!! ABBY'S STANDING!!!!" And sure enough, she was on her own power. I would have taken a picture, if I had a camera. I did write it down on the calendar so I wouldn't forget to tell Matt.

Just over 24 hours before we hear from Matt again. I have never been so ready for a weekend to be over before!

As Matt was preparing for his upcoming camping trip this weekend, Katelynn was intrigued and asked if she could go camping too. She wanted her sleeping bag. She wanted Abby and me to go too. He was making the final preparations last night, explaining all the while that Daddy was going to see alligators and crocodiles. "I want to see alligators and crocodiles too, Daddy!" Oh do you now???

Honing her arguing skills, she looks at me and says, "Mommy, it will be okay. I will hold your hand while we see alligators and crocodiles. Don't be afraid. It will be fun!"

Right.

I've told her that I have plans for the three of us this weekend visiting her friends while Matt is away. Now she's saying that all her friends can come camping and adds, "Please, pretty please Mommy? They will love it!"