The Small Family     

Hi all! We’re back from our great journey to the East Coast--and what an excellent trip we had! We were gone for 12 days, so to keep this blog post from getting too long and tedious, I’ll try to hit the high points and keep it to that. Our days were packed with fun activities, but I won’t bore you with every single one. ;-)

As most of you know, we flew into Pittsburgh, which Theo was pretty sure is the most exciting city EVER! And actually, it did seem like a nice, pretty city, though we weren’t there long…. After a brief night in a hotel (we got in late), we headed out the next morning, Virginia bound! We decided to drive through West Virginia most of the way, since neither Chris nor I had seen much of it, and my Mom had never seen it. And we were not disappointed--it was a lovely, green drive through the mountains. We arrived in Lexington, VA, around dinnertime--my Mom stayed with my aunt and uncle, while Chris, Theo, and I bunked at a nearby hotel. And so we have High Point #1: our hotel! We had a lovely little balcony that overlooked the hotel grounds, and Chris and I enjoyed relaxing on it each afternoon while Theo indulged in a show or two. Our hotel was actually part of a historic plantation--the main building, which we could see from our balcony, is on the National Historic Register; it was built in the early 1800s. It felt like we were living in the grand old South (minus all the racial tensions and problems, thank god!) for a lovely little bit of time each afternoon. Speaking of the South, quick book recommendation: I read The Help while on vacation, and I could not put it down! Excellent book, in my opinion. Fiction, but a really good, entertaining read--and also thought-provoking.

We had a wonderful time visiting my Aunt Sally and Uncle David for several days, and we did a lot of neat things. A couple of high points: a trip to Natural Bridge, which is a really neat historic park (?) based around a rock formation that is, well, a natural bridge (thus the name!). One of its claims to fame is that its surveyor was none other than one George Washington, who reportedly carved his name into the rock. (You can see where he carved it--now, whether he did it with his own two hands or had a minion do it for him is up for debate….) Aside from the neat historical significance, it’s also just a really pretty, shady place to walk around along a creek--lots of neat vegetation, a little Native American village re-creation, etc. They also have a butterfly garden where you can go in and have the butterflies land on you--very neat!

Another high point was a trip to Boxerwood Nature Center, which is also right near my aunt and uncle’s house. I wish we had something like this near us--it’s like a utopia for Theo! It’s just a big garden that someone donated--some of it is now sort of an arboretum, but there’s a large area devoted to children, with a dig pit, a stream for them to play in, an outdoor “kitchen,” and all manner of activities for them to just run around and get dirty with. Heaven for little ones--and a really nice place for their parents to take a load off and enjoy some pretty scenery.

But perhaps the biggest high point of our time in Virginia was Theo and Uncle David’s nightly march concerts! Knowing that Theo loves, loves, loves all things music, my uncle decided that this year he would introduce Theo to a few of his favorites: non-Sousa marches and Jerry Lee Lewis. (They did Sousa marches last year, thus the non-Sousa ones this year.) Well, what a hit! Uncle David gave Theo a little flag to wave around, and they had a grand time each night with their march concerts! Uncle David was pointing out the different instruments to Theo when they’d come into the music: “Listen for the tuba!” “Wait for the piccolo!” and so every night, Theo would say, “Want to listen to tuba music!” And when they’d finish their concert, Theo would come running out and say, “That was fun!” Aside from being just plain fun, the tuba will be significant later in this blog post…

We hated to leave Virginia, as we’d had a wonderful time, but soon it was time to head for parts north--specifically, Buffalo! We broke the long drive into two days, and let me just add a strange trip highlight here: learning that a paper mill can smell like a rotting corpse. How do I know this? Oh, let me tell you…. Some hours into the second day of our drive, we came upon a small, rather distressed-seeming town called Johnsonburg, PA. And oh boy did it ever smell! My Mom insisted at first that Theo had gas (what kind of grandmother blames this on her grandson?! HA!), but it soon became apparent that the smell was far, far worse than any human gas. It was so bad that I had to breathe through my mouth, as I thought I was going to gag. As quickly as we could, we got through Johnsonburg, and I Googled, “Why does Johnsonburg PA smell?” Turns out there’s a paper factory there. Wow. Would never have guessed paper would smell that bad. I was amused to see that many, many people have written things on the Internet about Johnsonburg’s odor. Some claim it’s barely noticeable anymore. Um, we beg to differ… I shall heretofore describe all putrid odors by saying, “It smells like Johnsonburg….”

But on to non-stinky topics--Buffalo! Okay, my Buffalo relatives love Buffalo. My readers who have never been to Buffalo are saying, “Huh?” Because let’s face it: Buffalo can get a bit of a bad rap. It’s known for extremely cold winters with lots of snow, for one thing. And the economy hasn’t always been kind to it. But here’s the reality: Visit Buffalo in the nice weather, and you’ll see what a neat place it is. I’ve never been there in the winter, so I can’t comment on the harsh weather. But I’ve been in the summer plenty of times, and I’ve always loved it. It’s very green, and there’s actually space between the houses! Being from California, my first thought is always, “Imagine that! Space between you and your neighbors! A big, green lawn! Big trees!” To me, it’s sort of heavenly, given that I come from the land of brown and yellow grasses, the major sources of green being things that people have planted and then handled with kid gloves for years to keep them green.

It’s also a little less intense than what I’ve grown up with. California cities, as many of you know, really are rather intense. It’s always go-go-go. And although I’m often a go-go-go person, I have to admit that the somewhat more relaxed pace of smaller cities often appeals to me. So I go to Buffalo, which has all the things a city any good city has--but at a bit more relaxed pace. And I take a deep breath and think, “Ahhhh….” It’s just a nice change for me, I guess.

And the food! Several high points of our trip to Buffalo relate to food. Hot dogs, for one! It’s very hard to find a good hot dog in California, for the simple reason that almost all places boil them. I personally think a charcoal-grilled hot dog will beat a boiled hot dog any day of the year. Plus, western NY has this spicy red sauce they put on their dogs…yum! Needless to say, I had hot dogs twice while there. And I could’ve had them more. ;-)

And frozen custard! This delightful treat has not made it out west yet, with very few exceptions scattered here and there. But it’s all over the Buffalo area. It’s like soft-serve ice cream, only more rich and creamy. It’s so good that even Chris eats it--and he has to put up with 24 hours of itching for cheating on his dairy allergy to do it.

And my Mom was absolutely delighted to get cinnamon ice cream, which we can’t get out here. Not cinnamon the spice, but cinnamon as in those little Red Hot candies. As long as I can remember, my Mom has told me how my Dad used to take her out for cinnamon ice cream when they were dating. But we could never find it out in CA. So at long last, we found it, and I got to try it in a little town outside of Buffalo. And oh, was it ever tasty! Brought back good memories for my Mom, I think.

But hey, not all of our Buffalo high points revolved around good food or admiring the lush greenery around the houses. We had wonderful visits with lots of family members! We spent an afternoon with my Great Aunt Ginny--she took us to a really neat carousel museum that had an antique carousel from Crystal Beach (more on this later) and some fascinating old artifacts from the amusement park. The big hit for Theo was the old player organ--one of the men at the museum turned it on for him, and he was just absolutely rapt. Apparently, carnival-type organ music is another one of his great loves. Who knew?!

After the carousel museum, we headed over to my cousin Nancy’s house for dinner. (Okay, she’s my Mom’s cousin--disclaimer here. I have a lot of second cousins, third cousins, cousins removed, etc. in Buffalo. And I can never keep straight who is what to me, so I just refer to them all as my cousins. Some of the people I talk about here may actually be second cousins and whatnot, but we’ll just call them all my cousins.) And here’s where the tuba comes back into play…. (Hey, like that pun?! Not intended, actually!) Theo had been talking about the tuba every day since my Uncle David introduced him to it during their nightly march concerts. And after a yummy dinner at Nancy’s house, Katy (Nancy’s daughter--we’ll call her my cousin too!) remarked that her husband, Kevin, might get his tuba out for Theo to see. I knew Kevin had majored in music (he and Katy met at Oberlin while both were studying music), but I had forgotten it was the tuba. Anyway, Katy went out to the lawn to play catch with Theo (who hasn’t quite mastered the finer points of that game yet), and after a few minutes, Kevin stepped out of the house and blew a single note on his tuba. I laughed so hard at Theo’s expression! He stopped in his tracks, whipped around, caught sight of Kevin, and said, “A tuba!!!” (If you’ve ever seen the Disney movie Up, think of how the dogs turn around the minute one of them says, “SQUIRREL!” and you’ll have an idea of how Theo looked.) And for the next 45 minutes, there was absolutely no diverting his attention. Kevin brought his tuba down to the grass, and he and Katy sat for 45 minutes straight, playing music for Theo, showing him the different parts of the tuba, letting him press the keys, and even teaching him how to blow into it to make music on his own! And amazingly, he was able to do it. I’ve never played a tuba (or any brass instrument), but according to Kevin and Katy, it’s actually pretty darn difficult to get a sound out of it, because you have to have a lot of lung power, and you have to blow in a very precise way to make a sound. And what do you know--Theo could do it! I give credit to both my kiddo’s sheer will and to Kevin and Katy as teachers--I don’t know how on earth they managed to teach a three-year-old correct mouth technique to make sounds out of a tuba, but they did.

Theo would’ve spent hours with them, I suspect, but after about 45 minutes, we gave poor Kevin and Katy a break and told Theo the tuba was getting very tired. It’s funny--Theo is such a typical preschool boy in that his attention span is typically very short, bouncing from one thing to the next. But put a musical instrument near that kid, and he suddenly has the attention span of a 40-year-old man. He got similar pleasure out of playing my Aunt Sally’s organ and playing Nancy’s piano--though the tuba certainly won the prize as his favorite. For the rest of the trip, every time I’d tell him, “We’re going to so-and-so’s house,” he’d reply, “There might be a tuba there!” And even now, at home, he’s telling us he’s going to “go to Kevin’s house and play the tuba.” For your viewing pleasure, I've added a video to the "More Videos" page of our site that shows Theo playing the tuba--as well as the organ and the piano. And as an added bonus, he does a backflip on a hanging bar at the end of the video. He somehow mastered that at cousin Grace's house, though I have no idea how--it's not something they taught him at Little Gym. Anyway, scroll to the bottom of the "More Videos" page to see the whole video--tuba, piano, organ, and backflip!

Another Buffalo highlight was our trip to Crystal Beach in Canada (Theo’s first time across international borders!). Crystal Beach was an amusement park for many, many years--it’s just across Lake Erie from Buffalo, so really not far at all. It closed in the 1980s, I believe, and now people rent cottages in the area and just enjoy the town and beach. My cousin Peter (again, somehow a cousin!) and his family had rented a cottage the week we were there, so they invited us up for the day. What fun! I grew up listening to my Mom talk about Crystal Beach, so it was neat to see the area. And we loved the beach! The water in Lake Erie was warm (76 degrees), and Theo waded in up to his neck--holding my hand, of course. He wanted to go farther, but he didn’t quite realize that he really couldn’t go any farther, as he’s not tall enough! The water was also quite clear, so we could see the nice, sandy bottom and little minnows swimming at our feet. I mention this because several people have informed me that Lake Erie is gross and dirty, and I have to say that the Crystal Beach part is actually very clean and clear--cleaner than many of our Pacific Ocean beaches around here, actually. My Buffalo relatives tell me the U.S. side of the lake isn’t nearly as nice as the Canada side, but I can’t speak of that, having only been to Crystal Beach. Anyway, it was lovely, and I wished I had my swimsuit with me so I could’ve actually swam.

We spent the entire afternoon and early evening with Peter and his family, and we had a great time. Peter and Sandy’s granddaughter, Addie, was there, and she and Theo played together really well. Addie is almost two, and she’s a very sweet, talkative little thing, so she and Theo got along very well. The highlight was probably when she told Theo to eat his chocolate cake faster--and then proceeded to help him with it when he didn’t eat it fast enough!

We also spent an afternoon/evening with my cousin Heather (okay, she’s officially my real cousin--her father was my Mom’s brother) and her family. She has a five-year-old daughter, Grace, and Grace and Theo had a good time playing together. Most amusing was on the ride home from dinner (and the famed cinnamon ice cream stop), when Grace and Theo were both chattering/singing loudly in the car while Chris tried very hard to listen to Brian’s directions for how to get back to he and Heather’s house. My brain is still rattling with the cacophony of two noisy kids high on sugar!!

We also spent some my with my Great Aunt Laurel and Great Aunt Norma the day before we left. My Aunt Laurel had us over for lunch and served some delicious salad that I need the recipe for (hint, hint, Aunt Laurel!). I admit that it sounded strange, with a combination of chicken fingers, rice, lettuce, and peas in it, but it was absolutely delicious! And hey, a visit isn’t a visit without some of my Aunt Laurel’s fabulous cookies and pastries. I think I gained about five pounds this trip, between the hot dogs, the frozen custard, and the cookies! (But I was actually sick enough during my first trimester that I lost a few pounds instead of gaining, so hey--I was supposed to pack on some weight, right?!)

On our way back to Pittsburgh for our flight home, we stopped in Erie, PA. I mention this because if any of you are ever there, there’s a really neat little zoo there. It’s not terribly large, but they pack a lot of animals and activities into a small, pretty, shady area. We really enjoyed it--and it broke up the drive nicely. And I got to have a HOAGIE for lunch!! You may recall my great love affair with hoagies, and I was determined to have one this trip, come heck or high water. I finally accomplished it my last day of the trip, and it was worth waiting for. It was slightly different than a Philadelphia hoagie, but still delicious. (Why do I love hoagies? Well, they’re good. But also, my father-in-law, before our first trip to PA, kept telling me I had to eat a hoagie. And I kept telling Chris, “It’s a sandwich. We have sandwiches here. Why do I need to have this sandwich?” Still, to humor Tom, I tried one. And oh, I was hooked! Tastiest submarine-type sandwich ever! I insist on getting one each time I’m in PA now.)

A brief wrap-up and musing on travel with preschoolers and travel with Continental Airlines: Travel with a preschooler was surprisingly easy. Travel with Continental rather stunk! I mention this because I’ve been told by almost everyone that three years old is the absolute worst age to travel with a child. They’re old enough to be really antsy on the plane, and they’re too old to be strapped in a car seat on the plane. And yet, they’re too young to really understand how to be patient and sit nicely on a plane. And so, we were kind of dreading the flights. But Theo surprised us and was an absolute prince on the flights. Go figure! He certainly had his non-princely moments here and there on the trip--after all, he’s only three, he was consistently very short on sleep, and his diet was all wonky. (It’s rather hard to feed a dairy-allergic kid when you’re eating almost every meal out. He can pretty much eat chicken nuggets and fries every meal. If you get lucky, you find a restaurant that offers a side of fruit instead. But most kids’ menus consist of macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese, cheese pizza…and chicken nuggets. So Theo got a lot of greasy chicken nuggets and fries.) But overall, he was a fantastic traveler, and we had a great time with him.

Not so great, however, is Continental Airlines. In some ways, they’re no worse than any other airline: They nickel-and-dime you with baggage fees, fees to view anything on the plane (TV programs or whatever), fees for snacks (no free pretzels anymore, people!!). But their baggage handling and customer service really stunk. In fact, it stunk like Johnsonburg, Pennsylvania. (HA!) Our flight home left at 6am, so I told a rather chagrined Chris and Mom that we ought to leave the hotel at 4am. “Better early with time to kill than risk running late,” I said. We were four miles from the airport, so I figured we’d be at the airport by 4:15, return our rental car, check our baggage, and have a good hour to sit around and get breakfast before boarding our flight. Um, no. Continental has only baggage-check kiosks now--no full-service counter to check in and check your bags. Which would be fine, except the kiosks don’t work for 90% of the people checking in--and there were only two (grouchy) women working the kiosks. So we waited about 10 minutes for our turn at the kiosk. Then I proceeded to start checking us in--but our kiosk's computer informed me that we needed “staff assistance.” So we waited. And waited. And waited. After about 10 minutes, I finally got one crabby woman’s attention and said we needed assistance. She was rather abrupt and swiped some card, which enabled us to continue check-in. But then we had to wait. And wait. And wait some more…for our luggage tags to print. They finally printed, and she stuck one on one of our bags…and then ignored the other three bags. So we waited some more. She curtly told Chris that he needed to take our Pack and Play (it’s a portable crib, more or less) to some other area…after she finished tagging our luggage. We waited some more. Then she told my Mom and I and Theo to move out of the way, as the line was backing up behind us. I said, “Well, it’s backing up because we’ve been waiting to check this in for half an hour.” This was not an exaggeration--though I suppose I didn’t necessarily need to point it out. But really--10 minutes in line and then 30 more minutes standing at the darn kiosk because they were understaffed? It was ridiculous. I could see why the line was incredibly long behind us. And my Mom and I had stayed there to help Chris--I was doing the electronic portion of baggage checking, while Chris was hefting the heavy suitcases up one by one when the grumpy woman was ready to tag each one, so that I didn’t lift anything too heavy, given that I’m pregnant. The woman snapped at me, “You don’t all need to stand here! He can do it himself while you go wait over there!” Um…yes, I’m sure he can. But I’m not in the habit of treating my husband like slave labor: “Honey, you handle all of this. I’ll just sit over here on my rear end and fan myself while you do all the work.” Frankly, if the check-in for three suitcases and a Pack and Play hadn’t taken a ridiculous 40 minutes, it wouldn’t even have been an issue!

Sigh…the flight attendants were a bit rude to both Chris and me, too. So needless to say, I won’t be going out of my way to fly Continental again. Really, I mention all this to make a simple soapbox point: Sometimes, hiring human beings is best. Continental, do away with some of the kiosks and hire a few live bodies to work at a full-service check-in counter. I think your customers will be much more satisfied, and your overworked employees won’t be so grumpy that they need to rudely tell someone to get out of the way when they're just waiting to check in their darn bags!

To end on a happy note, our little Chickpea is now 14 weeks old! I am in my second trimester now--and morning sickness is nearly gone! Little Chickpea is apparently growing like a weed now, and his/her movements are now smooth, rather than the jerky movements of a younger fetus. He/she may be getting hair--though if Chickpea is anything like his/her big brother, it’ll be one BALD baby!!