The Wild Rumpus

I can’t remember a February as pleasant. The four-seasons nature of this new place seems to have lessened that terrible draaaaagging out feeling of late winter (of course check back with me in April when it’s still cold and I might sing a different tune).

But what really made the month, and what continues to keep me nearly giddy with happiness, or at least contentedness, is that we have arrived. One year later (exactly), and our feet are firmly planted. Mark LOVES his job. Really, loves it. There is a rotating cycle of the boys’ friends coming through the front door, I have a slew of folks to call on if (ok, when) I’m running late to pick H. up from school, we’re having friends over for meandering Friday night dinners wherein the kids eat first, then watch movie after movie while the adults eat a leisurely dinner and forget about things like bedtime and hangovers, and on and on and on. And it feels darn good.

But back to February. We had a great visit with my parents early in the month. While I miss the drop-by nature of living a quarter mile from them, there really is something magical about a whole chunk of days devoted entirely to being together. The kids, of course, are in heaven to have such undivided adult attention (well, as undivided as it can be with a couple of siblings vying for the same), and even I feel like we’ve had more time to really talk in the longer visits. We try to explore new places when they come, even if it means frigid February picnics consumed mainly in the car on top of the breathtaking butte overlooking the snowy Palouse.

The weekend following that visit we headed to Spokane to celebrate Darcy’s birthday with ice skating and pizza at Rocky’s, then the next day took the kids to the Children’s Theater production of Willa Wonka. Yes, Spokane is our “big city” wherein we go to the theater and eat in restaurants. The drive is just a smidge shorter than the of-traveled (in our previous life) stretch of I-5 between Bellingham and Tacoma, but the two-lane through the country thing feels so much easier to handle on a Sunday evening. And we’ve perfected the trip pretty well, bringing headlamps so the boys can still read their books, ensuring we have bread + milk + cereal + cheese before leaving so as not to require the torturous stop on the way home (where Max unfailingly pees his pants in the carseat while Mark runs in), leaving late enough that Max will hopefully sleep on the drive, but not too late that if no one sleeps, we’re screwed. And really, a few up-and-backs to Spokane is a small price to pay to sustain cousin bonds like the ones such visits sustain.

We all spent a lot of time admiring the cuteness that is Grace

Henry found the sunspot and moved his lunch to the middle of the kitchen to enjoy it

The highlight of February, though, was a magical weekend getaway to Nelson B.C. – sans children. Yes, TWO nights WITHOUT our kids. My marvelously clever husband concocted the whole thing without an ounce of micro-managing by yours truly. And thanks to his incredibly generous (and brave) parents, we skipped away without the slightest hesitation that they were in competent hands. I know – we are very, very lucky.

It’s hard to decide the highlight. Just the drive up there – breathtaking scenery, no refereeing or snack distribution duty, long, meandering conversations like we used to have – was rejuvenating. And then the sleeping in, eating delectable food, exploring, beer at 3 o’clock, a long walk, more food (that I neither cooked nor cut into bite-size pieces nor cleaned up), remembering how smitten I am with this man…

We honestly didn’t talk too much about the boys. We talked about them, of course, but they are all in such good places right now, the crises non-existent, that mostly we marveled at them. The biggest difference between a one-night away (which we’ve done twice since kids) and the two-night was that we both were really able to step back, step away, think Big Picture. Evidence of just how much I “stepped away”? I took only these two pictures. Literally. And for me that’s saying a lot. I was too busy seeing.

And then back to reality – schedules and who’s driving who and what’s for dinner and why are these underwear on the table?! But it was lovely while it lasted.

Henry has recently discovered comics – Calvin & Hobbes and Garfield are favorites – and this was his first attempt at creating his own. “A guy shakes a wine bottle too hard and it explodes in his face!” he narrates.

Beautiful, no?

Now that I write this, I realize that so definitively declaring the Nelson getaway the highlight precludes just how much damn fun we had when my brother Matt and his wife Milissa and their sweet daughter, Kate, made the trek to visit. We loved showing them our little town, catching up, watching the cousins romp, and especially sneaking away while the littles ate mac n’ cheese and watched a movie with a sitter to eat a fantastic dinner at our schmanciest local option. And having snow to play in was just the icing on the cake.