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oren

August 29, 2006

last week sometime, i was accused of--well, i suppose 'accused' is a strong word to use--not writing as much about oren as i do about seb. it's true, and that doesn't say much in my favor since i don't write a whole lot about seb lately either. in my defense, the things that seb does and says blows my mind, and there is a conflict between his three-year-old misbehavior and sweetness that is much more interesting to me to write about. as a second child, oren may always be on the sidelines of what seb is doing, just because seb is doing everything first. what oren is up to is old news, so to speak.

that said, with seb as the template, i'm realising how much fun it is to have a baby at oren's stage. oren is going on nine months old, and he's just cute. his wide blue-moon eyes soak up everything around him, watching and learning as the world goes by. aside from the teething angst, oren mostly smiles and laughs. he's too young to fight with me yet, thank goodness. i get enough of that with seb. two weeks ago, oren figured out sitting up all by himself, so now he'll play seated on the floor: lumpy legs sticking straight out in front of him, back staunch and straight, his arms flailing around at his sides, his toes clenched on feet rotating around and around and around in his excitement to be seeing the world from a new perspective. yesterday he played with me for a while. we had some blocks out, circles, triangles, squares. he picked up one in each hand and cracked them together while screeching in glee. one of the blocks inevitably ended up in his mouth. as he was sucking on it, his eyes found mine, and suddenly, he took the block out of his mouth and offered it to me. i obligingly took the offered block, making funny gnawing sounds on it with my mouth. oren laughed and laughed. back and forth we went with oren laughing in between. good stuff.

road trip countdown

August 28, 2006

five days will see the janaszek/hemphill clan on the road to denver. that's right, i said denver...colorado. twenty-four hours of driving bliss or hell. only five days remaining until we find out which one it will be for us. i'm on the fence right now--half of me (mostly my brain) says it's going to be hell, and we need to get to our destination as quickly as possible; the other half of me (mostly my heart) says it's going to be bliss, and we should be leisurely and see as much as we can on our way out there. i'm sure it will be somewhere in the middle.

we've got the thule box for the car, and seb has a new sleeping bag which he sleeps in all the time--day and night (i don't care--it's good practice!). last week, we tried putting the boys together in their room to sleep, hoping to break them in before this trip to not wake each other up. that didn't work--or my nerves were just overly taxed and i didn't deal with it well--so now we just hope to suddenly all sleep in the same room together. i've begun to madly download music (mostly from a blog called ((sm))all ages--thanks!) so i can create amazing cds. memories of a road trip are made sweeter by the music you listen to in the car. everytime i hear johnny cash or neil diamond or john denver (and many others) i see snapshots of the american landscape rushing by the car window from trips my family took when i was a kid. i see myself learning how to tie my blue and white sneakers in the backend of the station wagon we called "bluebell" in colorado, and then later crying over a young deer we hit somewhere in idaho. separate trips. separate years. but all my memories are tied together by music. my kids are a little young yet to be making memories like that, but hopefully they will at least have happy feelings conjured up when they listen to the music.

now it's time for me to sign off and begin the cleaning frenzy. if the house isn't clean while we are here, it may as well be clean while we're gone, you know. i think this completely irrational cleaning thing is left over nostalgia for raod trips taken long ago.