Ashton meets Papa and GG!

MY Papa and GG! As in, my mom's parents. As in, Ashton's great grandparents! Papa and GG live in Southern California and we had so much fun visiting them growing up. Their pool, the beach, our cousins...and then as we got older, lots of good shopping and relaxation from our busy lives.

The last time I was out there I was about 6 months pregnant with Ashton. So it has been a little over two years since I've seen them. Life has been a bit hectic and there has been no good time to visit so luckily for me, this past weekend they came HERE! And Ashton got to meet his great grandparents, it was so wonderful. We saw them three days in a row and I don't think anyone will argue with me that Ashton and Papa were two peas in a pod almost immediately! The first night Ashton sat on his lap and they played this little game, stacking magnets on top of a wine cap. It went on for at least 45 minutes, I'm not even kidding.

Naturally, we cheered when he stacked them all :)

Then they watched some planes in the sky:

And then Ashton moved on to some playdough with GG:

Then we tried to get the perfect Papa-GG-Ashton shot and out of honestly 20 attempts these are the best ones!

Over the next couple days we did some walking, some splash-parking and lots of beautiful outside deck time just hanging out and being together. It looked a lot like this a lot of the time:

Everyone is laughing because GG had gone to pick Ashton up to sit on her lap, and he scrambled right off and hopped over to Papa and sat there with an expression like, I'M NOT MOVING.

As I said, two peas :)

One of my favorite pictures (for the meaning, NOT how I look) was this one. One bench, four generations!

Anyway, it was just a perfect visit. Papa and GG- I love you so much! Thank you for coming.  And I will send you some prints. XOXO!

Tripp Halstead

I need to do a post about Ashton meeting his great grandparents last week! It was such a great visit and I have adorable pictures :) But first, I'd like to say something about a little 2 year old boy named Tripp Halstead who lives near Atlanta. Last fall, he was playing outside at his daycare and was struck in the head by a huge, heavy falling tree branch. He suffered a traumatic brain injury and since then, there have been numerous surgeries, a lot of ups and downs for his parents (he is their only child) and plenty of uncertainties about his long term prognosis.

His mom, Stacy, started a Facebook page for family and friends to learn about his condition, updates, etc. She posted several times per day, and with such honesty, hope, despair, and love that today she has over 750,000 followers. I am one of them and I feel like I know her. Her son is my son. There is not a single parent that can read her story and look at her pictures without their hearts breaking. The last time I cried so many times for children I had never met was the Newtown shootings. I can physically feel the pain.

Following her posts (which often receive 30,000+ likes in a matter of hours) is an example of how far faith and prayers go to bring together total strangers, and a reminder to cherish what we have every day, something many people (including myself) often need. Tripp was a joyful, energetic toddler on the morning of October 29, 2012 and by that evening, it was a question of whether he would survive. It was a freak accident with no one to blame.

Today Tripp is in a special wheelchair, taking lots of meds, being fed through a tube and Stacy takes him to all kinds of doctor and therapy appointments. Although he has difficulty with movement and expression, she knows he understands her and can comprehend what is going on around him. Every little thing he does is a victory and gives her hope and it's palpable in her writing. She is beyond dedicated and it is the type of courage that inspires others. I root for Tripp with all of my being.

Which brings me to the next part. One of Stacy's many followers is the wife of seven-time Ironman Dave Nazaroff, who also co-founded the Toga Multisport triathalon club in Nyack, NY. In March, she began to brainstorm how to raise money for this family and ultimately, they decided that Dave would ride from Nyack to Atlanta, over 900 miles in 5 days, and present the Halsteads with a check for all the money they had raised in the first ever RIDE to GIVE. For every $35,000 raised, Stacy could stay home another year with Tripp and be by his side through his long recovery. The check Dave is bringing them is over $125,000, and he left today.

If you like their page on Facebook, you can get live GPS updates. As of 45 minutes ago, he was in Califon, NJ:

I get goosebumps thinking about how many people are tracking his route along the eastern seaboard so they can cheer for him as he rides by, and especially the last mile of the ride, when the entire town is planning to meet him and run with him as he delivers this check to a family he has never met. Of course they know he is coming, and I can only imagine how emotional it will be.

Naturally, Owen and Ashton have their official RIDE to GIVE/TEAM BOOM t-shirts and Chera made my day by sending me pictures of our little cheerleaders this morning: 

I think anyone with small children feels how close to home this hits. GO DAVE GO!

So here is where I say: if this had happened to Ashton, and Stacy was me, would you consider donating even the smallest amount of money? I don't know how many people read this blog, but if everyone gave $5, it would add up. So please, let's do it! I'd be forever grateful - this little boy is in my heart.

Click here for more about Tripp.
Click here to follow Dave and his ride.
Click here for the gray donation button and what I assure you will be the best $5 you'll ever give.

Sorry this got long - just gives you a sense as to how this affects me! I want to help in some way and I figured sending as much love through this blog as I could would make a difference. Love to all, and thank you!!

A Nice Little Saturday

Jason works a lot. Umm, a lot. His new job has been going extremely well and he is pouring his heart and soul into it. I am 100% supportive but as a result, Ashton and I often find ourselves to be a two-man circus (I'm sure you can guess who is the ringleader and who is the act). By the time we woke up today, Jason was long gone and we had nothing but a long beautiful day ahead of us. It was one of those clear-blue-sky, almost-hot-in-the-sun-but-not-quite, slight-breeze kind of days. Gorgeous.

We got a late start, so late in fact that I packed his breakfast to go and fed him in the car on the way over to Somerville for a playdate. The playground has a great splash park but I didn't even think about the water being on and I forgot to pack any kind of aquatic clothing. So I sent him in with his jeans on. Pretty sure he didn't know the difference.

We played for an hour, came home, and went for a walk around the block. Ashton found some mud in no time.

Just sat right in it. Great. We turned around, hosed off, and it was time to eat.

Sorry for the blurry picture. The point is, he ate almost his entire meal with his head resting on his left hand. Apparently lunch was boring.

While Ashton was taking his nap after that, I gave some love to this little patch of irises we have in our backyard. They originally lived in the front, scattered here and there, and when we landscaped it and dug them out we decided to plant them in a group at the end of our driveway, just to see if they grew. Because why not. And they have done beautifully, grown tall and strong since the transplant, but not necessarily many flowers. The little bed they live in has been so invaded by weeds that during my free naptime hours, I decided to clean it all out and mulch it. There is no before picture because it is simply too embarrassing, but imagine it looked like this:

No discernible species whatsoever. And now it looks like this:

Ta-dah! Ignore the, um, otherpatchygrass. Isn't it lovely? I opened the garage and got out the mulch and everything! All by myself! Dear readers, this is no small feat. The maximum amount of yard work I've ever done is to watch Jason mow the lawn.

Anyway, I felt productive about that. I haphazardly picked at other weeds around the house until Ashton woke up and it was all systems go. Are you ready for splash park #2? I said, ARE YOU READY for SPLASH PARK #2?!

We were no lightweights this time. In color-coordinated lycra, sugaring up with a frozen yogurt and taking in the scene:

And then we stormed it!

For that last picture where Ashton is pointing, I thought about doing a caption contest. Like, "YES this is my shovel! Don't mess!"

(Lol. Sorry, I get carried away sometimes. In real life it was nothing like that.)

After our splash, we went to the Craft Beer Cellar in Belmont Center in an attempt to get a cool six-pack for Jason for Father's Day, because isn't that the equivalent of flowers for men?. A) It was beyond crowded and B) Ashton was WILD. Wouldn't let me hold him and ran around laughing maniacally. We left empty-handed. Sorry Dad.

Got home, ate dinner and then had some nice crayons al fresco.

I can't even explain how beautiful it was outside. A perfect 10. We watched some airplanes in the sky, some birds flit between branches, and then it was time for bed. In NEW pajamas, isn't that the best? (A note: I bought the PJs on clearance at Old Navy. I thought, hmmm. Size 18-24 months. These will be a bit short, but they are $2.49...eh, he can squeeze.) Turns out they are perfect. Who doesn't want capri-length in the summer anyway?

Ashton's bedtime process begins around 7:15 pm and takes anywhere from 30-45 minutes depending on whether there is a bath involved. We had such a great day today that when I was singing him his goodnight song, I found myself wishing he could stay up longer. He was so good, I love him so much that I am sometimes afraid of squeezing him like, too hard. I think every mom knows what I'm talking about! Hope you all had equally wonderful Saturdays :)

A Perfect Example

I know I talk a lot about Ashton's shenanigans. It is never a good idea to take your eyes off him, sometimes even for a second. If you do, you might get lucky and the result of your carelessness is fairly benign: he'll hide his milk sippy on you (and finding that two days later is not a sweet surprise), a heavy pot will be dragged out of the cabinet and clang loudly on the floor (perhaps a small tile chip on that one), or your diaper bag is yanked off the counter in a manner so violent that even the stuff in the zippered pockets spills out.

Other times you won't get lucky (like last week) and you'll have a very bruised, very tearful little boy on your hands.

Most often, though, he gets caught in the act. Like, mid-disaster. I'll leave him doing one thing, go to pick something up or put something away, turn back around and:

No real harm done, but the potential, oh the potential. He's standing on top of the coffee table, about to dive bomb off the couch, or trying to feed his cheerios to an electrical outlet.

For whatever reason, we woke up this morning and our cable wasn't working. Not a big deal on most days but Ashton was super cranky and I knew the only thing that would help was a little Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. So I did what any mom would do and improvised. I got out the laptop, found an episode on YouTube, tilted the screen just so, and set him up with his chair and a snack in the kitchen.

Oh he was into it. He sat for awhile smacking his grapes (grapes that, 15 minutes ago when he was in his highchair for breakfast, were nowhere near good enough to eat, but that's neither here nor there). All was peaceful, so I (wrongly) assumed it was safe to turn around to do the dishes. I guess between the water running and Mickey et al making such a racket I didn't hear him get up and do THIS:

Refer to cartoon above.

He dragged his chair about five feet, flipped it and climbed right up. I mean, $&*#@%t!  He could have thrown the computer on the floor and broken it! ;)

Anyway, just thought I'd let you know what I'm dealing with around here. Perhaps I should call the circus? What do acrobats get paid these days?

Home for the Weekend

Despite the fact that I've lived in the Boston area for the last 10 years (?! gasp!) when I go up to Vermont I always say I am "going home". Now that I am on my summer schedule (Fridays off, woo!), and Jason was going to be at work all weekend, Ashton and I decided to head home last Friday. As an added bonus, Kari and Ben were there visiting from Boulder and John and Patricia were up from DC so we had peeps to see.

Expected total napping minutes on the 3.5 hour car ride up: 60.
Actual total napping minutes on the 3.5 hour car ride up: 0. It was a long one.

But our first stop was Poppy and Mema in Colchester, we arrived around 5 pm and hopped right into the motorboat for a little bay cruise:

We relaxed considerably and the fresh air felt so good! Here is my sister Kari and I (not exactly a Nautica ad, but about as fabulous as I get these days):

The cottage in Colchester is a 6-month temporary home for Poppy and Mema while their new house is being built, but has a great view of the boats in Malletts Bay. Ashton had tons of fun watching them coming and going. Vermont is so beautiful.

After dinner and around 8 pm, we headed back to GG (my mom) and Grandpa Pat's in Williston. As expected, Ashton fell asleep in the car immediately and basically didn't wake up until the next day. Which was fiiiiine with me because the fun was just beginning!

Saturday was a big day. He played with Grandpa Pat on the iPad and then practiced his golf swing (with a stick, naturally) in the backyard:

He then went to the Farmer's Market in Shelburne with GG:

I'm told he was a total star. I did not go and it was amazing to be baby-free. Ahhhhh. 

And THEN we went to Erin's farm! I am so mad that I left my phone in the car for this- Kari got a couple of pictures but it was the coolest experience. Erin is Kari's oldest friend and has been a big part of our family. She got married last September, is expecting her baby girl in about a month and helps run the Farr Farm in Richmond - she has a barn full of dairy cows and a field full of tractors (ACK-ter is one of Ashton's main words). Here he is on a ACK-ter and an upclose of a one Miss Henrietta :) 

So we got a tour of the farm, how everything works, the milking machine, etc. and it was just incredibly neat and very fun. (Erin - wonderful to see you and thanks for our own personal guided tour :) Can't wait to meet Baby Farr! xox)

The day marched on. Home for lunch and naptime (during which I went to Marshalls, baby-free again, and was so blissed out I bought everything in sight) and then Ashton, GG and I were off to Lake Iriquois for some sun and sand. It's a little kiddie beach and Ashton played and played and played! It had clouded up a bit which was a welcome relief from the heat. 

In the above left picture, that is indeed three shovels in his right hand. I can't decide which is worse: the fact that he has a hoarding problem or that he stole from other kids to support his habit.

After his dinner and bedtime, I got to sit outside and have dinner with John and Patricia. It was a lovely evening and we all chatted and got caught up. And then yesterday, time to drive back :(  I busted out the kiddie pool when we arrived because it was 94 degrees, but it wasn't the same as being on the motorboat with Poppy or at Lake Iriquois with GG.

We heart Vermont! Oh well. But then Jason got back from work around 4:30 pm and came into the backyard. Ashton said, "Da-da! Hiiiiiiii."and smiled. It was so cute. And then we had some fun together as a family out in the yard - the first time in awhile that it was all three of us considering how crazy Jason's schedule has been. And it felt good to be home.