The Freezing North
We spent a week at my parents’ place. I worked two of the days – my firm has an office there, which allows me to extend our visits. The two days I worked were long and harried, but the rest of the time was not so bad. I worked a third day by billing the entire New Years’ Eve drive up from my parents’ place to our stop in northern Indiana- working on a detailed case assessment for one of my matters, the perfect project for a long boring car ride. We paused for less than an hour during our drive, to visit the Professor’s cousin and her little guy (around Craig’s age). Then we got back in the car – much to the baby’s displeasure – and headed a couple more hours north. By the time we arrived at the Professor’s aunt and uncle’s lovely home, we were all beat and ready to get out of that car.
The Professor’s uncle (by marriage) is a paraplegic man with the patience of Job. The amount of futzing my children did with his automatic wheelchair . . . it has horns and backup beepers and, much to Craig’s delight, a seatbelt thing with a metal clasp that just fascinated him. Liam spent much, much time in timeout for poking buttons without permission. I never heard a sharp word out of the possessor of the wheelchair, who endured my children’s fascination with cheer. He’s a cheery dude. His lovely wife also endured the descent of my children upon her ordered home with much kindness and understanding. It is nice to bring the circus from a place of welcome to a place of welcome.
We moved ourselves in, had a meal, watched the ball drop and then went to bed. Spent some time over the next couple of days enjoying the company of the Professor’s extended family, including the beloved Grandpa we had specifically come up to see. He came over for a few meals, and we went to his place for a memorable evening of tooling around on his myriad musical instruments. He and Jack played a sort of duet at one point, which was quite sweet.
We also had a memorable afternoon of ice skating. The Professor’s parents joined us for that – they held onto the baby while the Professor and I went out with the big boys. Jack very quickly caught on, and became a reasonably skilled-for-the-first-time skater in short order. Liam could not keep his spaghetti noodle legs together, and just basically flopped from section to section of the ice. They had trainers (they looked like walkers made of PVC with stoppered feet). Jack discarded his trainer after the first pass ’round the ice. Eventually I had to push Liam’s trainer for him while he held on, and even then he couldn’t keep on his feet. It was madcap fun, and required some big time Advil shortly after.
Once the boys had had their fill, they sat in the skate rental hut and enjoyed popcorn and hot chocolate while the Professor and I took one turn around the ice together. One of our first dates was an afternoon of ice skating. It was fun to reminisce for about five seconds before diving back into the chaos of the boys.
The Professor had a birthday breakfast meal at a pancake place with the whole family, and there was lots of football and pizza on another day. Then it was time once more to pack the little car for a long 8 hour drive, this time heading back south to the parents’ place for a night.
The first day driving south happened to be the Professor’s birthday. Jack made a little plan for the party he decided we had to throw. That night was a Steelers game, and my parents planned to watch it. So some Steelers decorations needed to be included. However, he knows the Professor’s favorite team is a certain set of tigers, so some tiger decorations also needed to be included. So he drew a checklist of one of each type, then grilled the Professor on what he preferred. “Steelers party or tigers party?” “Both” “Steelers balloons or tigers balloons?” “Both.” “Steelers wrapping paper or tigers wrapping paper?” “Tigers.” Etc. I found the finished product so charming – an analog pinterest board, almost. I texted it to my mother, and she found a way to get some of it together just in time for our arrival.
The next weary day, we loaded up and drove eight more hours, to home at last. My mother came along on that trip, coming to help us through a childcare crunch. With the six of us plus dog plus stuff, it was a loaded sleigh heading home. But we made it ok, just in time for us all to unload, eat a quick meal made of something left in the pantry, and get all ready to go to work the next day. BLECH.