View from the Prairie Box

Veronica Mars

Along time ago, we used to be friends but I
haven’t thought of you lately at all
Come on now, honey!
Bring it on, bring it on

I used to raise my eyebrows at uncontrolled children in grocery stores and malls. I used to think, Boy, when I get to be a parent I’ll do so much better than those people. In fact, if I was that kid’s mom I’d [insert perfectly-crafted discipline policy here], and my kid would never behave like that. (Fellow mom bloggers know what I’m going to say next.) HA and DOUBLE HA! The laugh is on me. All the judgment I cast out into the universe is now biting me in the backside.

Livia was this beautiful angel child almost all weekend. Sure, there were points of naughtiness, but overall things were fun and easy. But this morning Uber Toddler (her Hyde side) came out in Gordman’s. She’s all, “I DO IT!” while pushing the shopping cart despite the fact she has no understanding of steering. I’m sure the cashiers at the front of the store could hear her, my two year old, squealing “NOOOOO!” while her little hands swatted at mine when I’d try to angle her in the right direction. Mentally I wrestled with looking like a pathetic pushover to other shoppers, picking my battles with Livia, and chucking her over my shoulder and heading for the nearest exit. I settled for a Sponge Bob video in the children’s section, and Liv and I curled up there until my mom was done with her shopping. (Praise Jesus for Nana, by the way, who is graciously watching Uber Toddler this afternoon.)

All this to say, people, don’t judge me. Yes, I did judge you for years and years, and I’m truly sorry about that. But when you see us coming down the aisles at Super Saver, Liv screaming all the way because she didn’t get to ride in the special car cart, just give me an empathic smile. A little mirth goes a long way in these situations.

The Good:
– This photograph of Livia, snapped by our dear friend Renae, is definitely good. In fact, it’s great! I love how Livia’s green-grey eyes match the grey tones of the screen door and how her toddler fingers frame the hole in the screen. Note: the door had a gaping wound prior to our purchase of the house, however it keeps expanding due to one particular little person, who will go unnamed in this post.
– Also good, exercise. See “The Ugly” below for a more detailed explanation.

The Bad:
– This whole entire week. Okay, that’s a bit unfair. Most of the week has been hard due to the yucky, sinful, fallen-ness of this world. S-i-g-h…
– Also bad, speeding tickets. CHiPs caught up to me somewhere between a nearby bridge and my house, and pulled me over at an intersection that has bad vibes for me (I was rear-ended there last winter). My mind had been preoccupied with all the “bad week” issues and I had no clue how fast I had been going. Yikes. Twelve miles over the speed limit – I’m not surprised, but I am ashamed – and I’ve got to pay a whopping fee or else pay a smaller fee and attend the dreaded STOP class. STOP class it is, for insurance purposes. Ugh, ugh, ugh. Note: if you’ll be attending STOP class in the near future as well, let me know; we can go together and make a day of it. Heh.

The Ugly:
– Exercise. It’s kind of an ugly experience for me. It fits in the Good category, though, because it makes my heart happy (literally), gives me energy, and allows me to have fun with friends. The ugliness comes with the truth that I haven’t exercised in forever and that we do our aerobic set in front of mirrors. Mirrors. Mirrors which reflect the out-of-shape, somewhat rhythm-less, pasty pale reality of moi. It may be a bit ugly now, but Baby, after the Tredway Summer Challenge is over I’ll be reporting The Good, the Bad, and the Smokin’ Hot.
– Also ugly, naked mole rat babies at the zoo. (Hey, I needed a second Ugly point. And it’s true, they are not very attractive in their wrinkled nakedness.)

Sometimes music has the power to touch my heart in an inexplicable way, but yesterday it was the words of this hymn, and not the music, that brought tears to my eyes.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
when sorrows like sea billows roll;
whatever my lot, thou has taught me to say,
“It is well, it is well with my soul.”

O Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
the clouds be rolled back as a scroll,
the trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend,
“Even so” — it is well with my soul.

[Horatio G. Spafford, 1873]

Liv took her first ever paddle boat ride last weekend at Mahoney State Park. Buckled into her teeny life vest in no less than four places, she was passed into my arms while I stood on the boat, which bobbed and bounced as boats tend to do. The bobbing and bouncing increased exponentially when my father-in-law came on in — and continued as the rest of the family clambered on board. By the third paddle into our 30 minute boat ride, Livia was frantically signing “ALL DONE!” (Ah, we’ve created a landlubber. Go figure, we live in the middle of the plains.) She cautiously eyed the little lake until her funny daddy made her crack a smile, and then happily spent the rest of the time splashing in lake water while my mother-in-law and I mused about why our boat was taking on so much water. Just ask Jeremy about how easy it was to paddle five chunkies around the lake. (Make that three chunkies. Liv and Grandma Karen have no need to embrace the Tredway Summer Challenge.)

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Tredway, we enjoyed the rest of the evening in their lodge room. Fabulous steak dinners were consumed at Around the Bend Steakhouse (home to the infamous Testicle Festival) and Livia passed out into a paddle-boat/no-nap/lots-of-the-time-in-the sun-induced slumber by 9pm that night. Well-rested by sunrise the next day, she forgot the first rule of vacation (You Must Sleep In!) and “encouraged” mom and dad to rise and shine at the crack of dawn. Before heading home that morning we drove through a Nebraska Safari, on the opposite side of I-80 from Mahoney State Park. It turned out to be a really interesting little expedition where we rolled up our back windows so the elk wouldn’t consider our toddler a nice appetizer. Bison, white-tailed deer, and cranes, oh my!

**This blog post is all for Jill, by the way. If anyone else enjoys reading it, that’s cool. But the pics? Primarily for Jill’s enjoyment.

It’s nice to know that Livia really truly thinks about things.

I went into her room a few minutes ago to pick her up after a nap and she said, “Sun down?” while pointing around her room.

“No, it’s still up,” I said, tugging on her room-darkening shades and twisting the mini-blinds open. “The sun is still out.”

She blinked in the brightness and nodded in affirmation. And I thought, Mission accomplished, room-darkening shades!

I ain’t no Keith Ghormley, but the Nebraska State Capitol is a building that just begs to be photographed.

We started off with a Baby Einstein and a Veggie Tales or two — gifts, all of them. But then time went on and being the word-lovin’ mama I am, I felt Livia needed a new Baby Einstein DVD, Baby Wordsworth. Now, I believe it was entirely worth it to buy this one for Liv. She’s learned many words and a lot of sign language from it (and she has thoroughly entertained us during all the learning), but overall I would rather not spend another dime on a children’s video. Why is that? Because our library ROCKS.

I can pick up scores of different children’s shows on DVD (many more on VHS) at our library for, and here’s the clincher, FREE. Free! We can check them out for three weeks at a time (four weeks from the Bookmobile) and return them any time before that, at our own convenience. That’s not all… I recently learned that if Livia checks out her own books (and, ahem, some of her mom’s, too), late fees are reduced to a dime per day, per item. This is definitely something that works me me considering the fact that my late fees alone could pay for the eventual renovation of the public library downtown.

Normally I’d consider it redundant to post on a topic someone else has already covered, but I feel I must mark the passing of time by sharing photos of our glorious catalpa trees. There’s something stunning and unexpected about our “wedding” trees. They are fairly ordinary and commonplace (albeit to the untrained eye, not you, Christina!) during most of the year, except for late spring/early summer when they develop white blossoms, which eventually fall beautifully on our lawns. When I walked out front to snap pictures today, the flowers looked like snowflakes, gently falling in the midday breeze, blanketing the green grass.

It is trees like catalpas, not to mention the numerous perennials and annuals planted in our gardens, that make this season, the spring season, my absolute favorite.