The Wilsons

Whew!  It’s been forever since we posted.  We continue to use the ol’ real life + 3 kids + facebook time = little time to worry about the blog.  Lately, we’ve been letting facebook keep our family updated. But I’ll try to take a few minutes to recap the Thanksgiving break.

We headed down to Adam and Danelle Padd’s in Bemus Point (near Jamestown), NY on Thanksgiving morning. We’ve spent the last 3 Thanksgivings with them at their place and it’s been quite fun.  We also bought 4 acres just up the road from their 27-acre place this last summer, and are thinking about building a small cabin there next spring/summer so that we can continue to enjoy weekends near them and/or even move there.

The nice (ok, this depends on your personality) thing about where they live is that their area gets even more lake effect snow than Buffalo (ours).  They had about 1.5 to 2 feet on the ground when we arrived.  We can still see grass up here.  I much prefer to be somewhere the winter’s white.

I’m not sure if it’s the whole global warming thing, or a product of where we live, or a child’s memory… but I grew up in Harrison, Michigan, with a nice size sledding hill across the street, out in the country, and it seems that once the snow started about mid-Nov to December, we had snow on the ground until early April. Our snow up here, at least in the Buffalo area, seems to come and go, big lake effect blocks of snow, then bare grass on the ground for a couple weeks.

Now me, I prefer the snow.  It makes a winter. Look, if I’m going to be somewhere cold, then I’d rather have a blanket of white on the ground.  In addition to making winter, it also brightens the sky’s gray up a bit, and on the whole, just makes my mood a little more cheery… causing me to reach for the ipod and click on the Christmas playlist.

But I’ve digressed, what I was saying before that little sidebar is that we arrived to much snow, which completely pleased the kids, and Wil made sure he was out in it with Zechariah in no time.

Thursday lunch was great and the day was just relaxing.  Of course, I say that, but I have to give a hand to Danelle, her mom, and Melodia who really put some time in with food preparation.  Their gracious work allowed for a really peaceful and joyous time of sharing and reacquainting ourselves with the happenings in each others’ lives.

At night, after we put the kids to bed, we pulled out a boardgame we had brought to play with them, “Trailer Park Wars.“  We had a good time with it, even if the girls did gang up on us and usher in a win for Melodia.

We spent the night at their house - as we have often done in the past.  Wil and McKinley were great, and Izzabelle? I think she wanted to just sleep the whole trip away.  Wil surely enjoyed having Zechariah to play with, and another boy was there as well, albeit a little bit older, Matthew.

In the morning, the kids were up early, but our hosts graciously watched the kids and let Melodia and I sleep in a bit longer. Hey, we’ll take it wherever we can get it!  Sleep seems a lost commodity these days.

Once up, all the boys were talking sledding.  The girls had decided to stay in and make some Christmas ornaments with the bulbs, paint, and other supplies Melodia had brought. McKinley sided with the boys at the thought of going outside in the snow - she hadn’t previously made it outside on Thursday, so she was itching to go.

So we loaded up, Adam and Zechariah, John (Adam’s cousin) and his son, Matthew, and myself with Wil and McKinley, and headed over to a hill 5 minutes from their house.  We arrived as the first group, but we quickly got up to about 5 groups - most of whom were the Padd Families friends.

The kids loved sledding.  This was their first “true” sledding experience beyond two years of Papi’s preparing them by pulling them around in our purple, “Kiddie Boggin’” sled.  But having an actual hill to go down really fast, and then walk back up - well, Wil walked up a few times; I pulled McKinley back up in the sled every time, and Wil at least a half dozen times with her! lol.

Papi was excited to get sledding again.  I grew up on this.  And it is exactly the sort of thing I’ve wanted my kids to be able to experience with the snow. Now only if I could get Mami out in it.

But — sort of sidebar here — I did finally do something I should have done 3.5 years ago when we moved here. On Saturday, we went out shopping to pick up some necessities from Target and then a couple things from the mall. While at the mall, I went into Dick’s to buy a new sled (we’d borrowed one of Adam’s).  Once there, I thought, you know, it’s about time to just do this right.  So we went over to the snow gear section and bought mami the full gear (and if you know anything about snow gear, pants, jackets, etc., you know it takes a bit of $$ to outfit a person in some good waterproof gear.

We spent about 2 hours at Dick’s trying it all on for the right fit, and I made sure she bought everything she needed despite her concern over cost.  I wanted her to feel prepared for going out into the snow with her kids in the future.   So, we picked out the red waterproof pants, which led to the black waterproof jacket with gray zip out fleece liner, then to the white, down, quilt-stitched vest for under the jacket, then to a set of new waterproof gloves, and what the heck, why not a new beanie (with ear flaps) for a cute way of topping it off?!  Good stuff.

I walked away feeling good about helping Dick’s bottom line there and wondering why I hadn’t done that sooner, for Melodia’s comfort and fun.  Now I just need to buy her a couple more sets of quality under garments (smart wool) and some new snow boots, and she’ll have it all.  Me?  I’ll still be wearing my Jeans, rubber boots, down puffy jacket, beanie and leather gloves. The scarf keeps me warm. LOL.  Besides, I’ve put on a few pounds, so I can weather the outdoors a little better.

But, rest assured, after seeing how good she looked, and knowing how good our kids look in their snow gear, I was starting to feel the itch for some new gear for Papi!  Course, that’s a few paychecks away!

Sidebar over — It was a super fun time sledding with the kids, and I only hope to be doing it again soon, with Mami present and having lots of pics of her enjoying it too.  Only issue is, who’s watching Izzabelle while we’re zooming down the hills?  Any takers?!

Cool thing is, Izzabelle is getting bigger all the time, and not just bigger, but starting to become a little “person.” She’s really able to push and hold her head up for longer periods when she’s on her tummy; and she reacts to us a lot more these days… all smiles, of course!

Well, that about sums up Thursday, Friday and Saturday for the Wilsons.  Happy Thanksgiving, now onto a Merry Christmas!

Our second snow of the season fell the other night, leaving us with just a dusting (in the spirit of that great 80s song, “making [something] out of nothing at all” - LOL, that is, not much snow here, but the driveway was glazed over with a little ice, so the sled slid along quite easily.  And again, when the kids see snow on the ground, they’re ready for snowsuits and playtime.

Wil was dressed and out the door first.  “Papi, will you come outside?” And with that, I was roped into it.  So out we went while Mami dressed McKinley.

Wil and I grabbed the sled from the garage and the kids “snow” shovels.  They’re really garden plastic shovels, but they’re kid-sized, and Wil’s used it since last winter as his snow shovel while Papi’s out shoveling walkways.

Of course, that was when we owned the house and the 70′ driveway. LOL.  Nice thing about apartment life for the year, I won’t be doing any shoveling - or at least, not much.  Of course, don’t be fooled, I do secretly love shoveling snow.

Thing is, having grown up in Michigan and moved away from snow at 15, I always secretly longed to get back, at least for a little while.  Melodia, being both Puerto Rican and a Tampa girl, won’t agree with me on the snow issue, but the truth is, if I’m in a cold Northern city, hey, baby, I want snow.  Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…

That’s just good music.  And, as I told Melodia back when we were dating, I wanted to raise our kids in snow, at least for a little while.  I had that in Michigan, and in some ways, I think I was better for it.  I remember being a college kid in California, with a good number of born-and-bred Californian kids, many of whom had never lived in snow, some had never seen snow other than at a distance or in pictures.  I thought, “what? Seriously?”

I just don’t want that for my kids.  And having them here, they don’t want that for themselves.  Wil loves snow.  So does McKinley. And I’m sure Izzabelle will love it, too.

McKinley only stayed outside about half an hour, then she was ready to go in for “warmies” and a snack. I couldn’t pry Wil away from the outdoors.  So I used the time to clean up in the garage while Wil upgraded to Papi’s shovel and started pushing snow up and down the apartment parking lot.  Slowly the sun came out and began to compete with him, melting away most of the snow not covered in shade.  Lucky for Wil, the front of the garage faces west and is shadowed in the morning from the eastern sun… so he was quite content to have his snow still staying while the rest was rappidly reduced to the appearance of morning dew.

We eventually made it inside the house. We enjoyed a few pieces of toast, with butter and jam (the kids got to have both! lol).  Then we bundled up again to head over to the airport.  Melodia’s mom, Maria (aka: Lala) flew into town for 5 days today.  The kids are so excited to have her here, and in truth, so are Melodia and I… with 3 kids under 4, Mami and Papi date time is either: a) few and far between or b) costly  or c) all of the above.

The kids enjoyed the rest of the afternoon and evening playing with and around Lala.  As I write, the clock says 1159pm, and I teach tomorrow.  Everyone’s asleep, but here I sit.  It’s just hard to find time to post; and I wanted to get something up.  Since bringing Izzabelle home from the hospital, we’ve moved away from daily posts (Facebook time has also affected this - we spend too much time on it! lol). Now I’m trying to keep to about one post every 5 days.  I don’t feel as if I’ve neglected our site too badly if I keep to that regimen.

Well, that’s it… until next time.

Mami left for a retreat tonight (Fri, 11/14).  It was a warm day today, around 60… warm for November in Buffalo. So I put the kids in their mudboots and we headed out in search of puddles!

The kids love wearing their mudboots and doing some puddle walking.  Of course, they love splashing and stomping, too.  It took about 32.4 seconds for McKinley to splash her pants soaked.  We were loading Mami up when we first went out, and Melodia was a little frustrated with their ability to stomp themselves wet.  But you know, as I thought about it, what’s the big deal?

I remember my parents not wanting us to splash and soak our clothes.  I mean, what’s the big deal? Look if you’re heading to puddles, getting wet comes with the territory.

Now, I should warn, the kids got sick about two nights ago, and last night passed it onto me; so all 3 of us are sick with sniffles and sore throats right now.  But, it was warm, and a little outdoor mudpuddle time is a nice relief.

So in the end, I’m left thinking, you know what kids, go ahead. Stomp away.  Get wet.  It’ll wash. It’ll dry.  It’s not a big deal.  Let’s just have some fun.

After Melodia left, I put Wil and McKinley in the car and drove down the road by the volleyball facility.  It’s on a dead-end road that runs into some wetlands.  I knew there’d be a nice, big puddle down there, and there was.  The kids enjoyed their time there.

In a smaller, isolated puddle, Wil suddenly stopped and pointed, “look, Papi, a worm.”  I swear, if there’s a worm within 30 feet of this kid, he’ll find it!  And he LOVES worms.  He found at least four this summer under the same tree.  Little buggers are one-hour, all-inclusive, Wil-musement parks.

So there in the bottom of the puddle is a drowning worm.  Actually, we must have come along at just the right time.  Wil pulled him out, and he was still alive. So Wil held and held him for the next 10 minutes.   Then I managed to convince him to let the worm return to his worm house.  So Wil set him down in the grass, and i wrangled he and McKinley into the truck to head home, dry off, and warm up. Good fun. But seriously, Wil and worms, hilarious.  Where there’s a Wil, there’s a worm.