Finally we are back from the July 4th holiday. This is the only time of the year that we travel out of state, so we try to cram as much fun as we can into the 3 or 4 days we are gone. There is sooooooooo much to talk about so I’ve broken it all down into mini-blogs and hopefully by the end of this week I will be done talking about it.
It really was a wonderful time for us this year. Another benefit of having a new baby is that they have a way of breathing new life into these holidays we have grow to take advantage of. Fred changed a bunch over the past few days and after experiencing fireworks, swimming, a long car ride, sleeping in a new bed, and meeting my new grandparents and great-grandparents all for the first time, who can blame him. I’m working on getting new photo software so I will have to wait and post pictures in a couple of weeks. So with out further ado, I present “A BLOCKHEAD FAMILY VACATION!!!”…
THE EARLY BIRD CATCHES THE WORM
I only get to see my dad and half-sister once a year. If it were up to me, we probably would have drove all night. I know you can’t plan for what a baby is gonna do, but I try desperately. This time I got it right. Up at 2:30 and on the road by 4:00. Lucy thought I was nuts but she understood how important this weekend is for me. All the prep work was done the night before. The car was packed to the brim (we were only going for 3 days and would be on the road half of 2 of those. Any longer than that and we would have had to rent a cargo van), the house was spotless, cats had enough food, car was gassed up…I had it all planned out. We weren’t sure how Fred would do once we got on the road. The last thing we wanted was to get to my grandparents and have him be all fussy because we didn’t bring something from our arsenal of baby distracters. We got the bouncy seat, his own toy suitcase, playpen, Moses basket, 2 pillow, 4 bags of misc. items (makeup, diapers, gifts, etc.) and a suitcase into the trunk of my Focus Station-wagon. I couldn’t see out the rear-view mirror but who needs that anyway.
Roll Tidey Bowl!!
Tuscaloosa, Al. is famous for a lot of things. Number one on that list would be their college football team The University of Alabama Crimson Tide!! In my state you are taught from birth that you are a fan of one of two state teams: Alabama (Roll Tide!!!) or Auburn (War Eagle!!) This heated rival has caused families to split down the middle, people have been murdered, and employees to be fired. I personally am a War Eagle and am proud of it.
Thanks to an interesting pit stop at a Cracker Barrel, this city will now forever hold a special place in our hearts for a different reason…that’s where Fred went trough 4 diapers and 2 changes of clothes in under an hour.
Meals on Wheels
It was some time shortly after our breakfast that baby Fred decided he was ready for his. This is probably the best time to mention that Lucy had been feeling that “I know I forgot something but can’t think of what” feeling since we had left the house at 4:00a.m. At 8:00 exactly she remembered…moo juice.
Just let that sink in for a minute.
We remembered clean underwear, socks, tooth brush, bibs, an extra passey, the breast pump, Winnie The Pooh, church shoes, music for the road….BUT WE FORGOT FOOD FOR OUR BABY!!!!!!!
So with only one bottle of milk, Lucy was forced to pump in the back seat while we zipped along I65 at 85mph on a holiday weekend. You should have heard her as she kept demanding “DON”T YOU DARE PASS THAT CAR OR LET ANYONE PASS US EITHER!!”
By the end of the trip I was applauding her ever time she walked by. After all she may have been on vacation but her body was working overtime.
OH MY GRANDPA
So the first night everything was kinda quiet. Fred did his best to get back into some type of schedule and ended up sleeping most of the day. This meant he didn’t really make eye contact with anyone unless they were giving him a bottle.
Saturday he got up early and I was sitting there enjoying a big breakfast of bacon and eggs, when my dad walked in. Most fathers and sons resemble each other but it’s different with my dad and me. It’s as if some mad scientist back in 1975 figured out a way to clone humans and he used my dad as a test subject. Subtract 20 years and a mustache from him and you would have my identical twin.
Fred saw this right away and when my dad walked in to see his grandson for only the second time ever (including the day before)…Fred let out the loudest happiest laugh we have yet to hear. It was like he had two daddies. He started squirming all over the place and looking back and forth at the both of us. The more my dad was around, the crazier he got. I have never seen him act sooooo excited to meet anybody. Speaking for my dad I can say it was the perfect hello anyone had ever given him.
A Chinese Thanksgiving
My grandparents have spent a large portion of their lives as missionaries though out Thailand. When I was Fred’s age they lived very close by and this meant that while most kids would come home to find a plate of mac- n-cheese, roast, and green beans waiting…I found my loaded up with chicken curry, fried rice, beef pepper steak, basil pork, or if I had a cold… the nasty of all nasties…lemon grass soup. It literally had grass in it. Oh and chicken bones…not chicken, that went into something else…just the bones. One whiff and you were either miraculously cured or forced to convince everyone you were never sick to begin with.
Like most preachers, my grandparents move a lot and as a result I only get to eat homemade Chinese food once or twice a year. I mean really Chinese food. Not a buffet filled with warmed over frozen vegetables. Real down and dirty, take all day to cook, full of broccoli and basil, hot and spicy, sweet and sour, eat with chop sticks, make you think your in a hut in the middle of a rice field; Chinese food. I must have gained ten pounds in one day.
Imagine your favorite food and then picture only being able to eat it once a year. By the end of the weekend I swear I was speaking Tai…Lucy says that was just gas though.
Baby’s First Nightmare
Maybe it was that he had never slept in his playpen before.
Maybe it was a delayed reaction to the car ride.
It may have been that Lucy had been ingesting large amounts of Sprite since the water out of the tab was like baby oil.
I suppose it could have been all the new faces mixing together with new smells and different noises.
Whatever the cause, at 3:30 A.M. on Sunday July 2nd Fred had his first official nightmare.
Boy was it was a doozie. I’d say more, but it was as if I had one that morning also.
If you think back to where you were on fateful morning, you might remember waking up suddenly or putting a pillow over your head for some reason and you can’t quite remember why…well it was Fred screaming for relief from some unimaginable terror.
A Love Explosion
The trip back was pretty uneventful. No pit stop poop-a-thons. No nightmares. No one got flashed by Lucy, as she continued pumping every 3 hours. Just a nice quiet drive home.
There is a church a couple of blocks over and every year they put on a huge fireworks show. We live close enough so we don’t even have to leave the front yard to hear the music and see the colors in the sky. We just pull up a lawn chair and enjoy the night.
This has been a tradition for the last few years. Go to Granny’s, come back and watch our own private fireworks show. Just the two of us standing in the grass, watching the streams of color shoot up from over trees and rooftops.
This year was different …we pulled into the driveway, gave some attention to the pets, and high five’d each other cause we had cleaned house the day before we left town.
The clouds had been threatening to break loose all day and you’d think that rain might spoil a fireworks show…but as I stood there with my lovely wife and brand new baby (happy to be out of his car seat and trying desperately to look at everything all at once)…I couldn’t help but thank God for all the blessings he had provided me this year.
As the green, pink, and blue sparks danced across the sky, I imagined my dad still making his way down the interstate, my grandparents peering out their bedroom window, and we were all staring up at that same nighttime light show. For just a second… just half a second, as the pictures were painted above us by some unknown artist…we became awed by the beauty as if we were still Fred’s age.
Somewhere in between all the pops and crackles, I could swear I heard my heart burst with love.
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