huck blog

the one

August 27, 2008, 11:50 am

At play group yesterday morning I was trying to have a quick conversation with some moms and Huck kept calling for me to sit with him while he ate his snack. Finally I did and he looked at me very sternly and said, "Daddy's the go-all-over-the-place one. You're the stay-with-me one."

'Nuff said.

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the big apple

August 23, 2008, 7:22 pm

The only bad thing about living in NYC is that we don't get to experience it like tourists do, so we decided to spend a couple days on vacation in our favorite city. Thursday we met Rosie, John and Sophia at the beautiful Bronx Zoo, promising ourselves we would return over and over again. Here we are on Huck's beloved Skyfari ride which he cannot stop talking about ...

After a little nap we joined Shannon, Michael, Shana and John for a wonderful Toshi Reagon outdoor concert at Lincoln Center, and it was here that Shannon and Huck made their relationship official. They're in love!

On Friday morning we took a long train ride out to Coney Island where we played on the beach and in the ocean, one of us ate a hot dog, we all rode some rides and ended the day with a trip to the New York Aquarium where we got to look at sharks, jelly fish and sea horses up close.

We're so excited for our next New York vacation!

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growing

August 17, 2008, 10:57 am

As the summer winds down we’re suddenly aware that most of Huck’s friends are going off to pre-school after Labor day. We decided to wait till he’s four when he can go for free (the cost of pre-school here is a little outrageous), and so this means filling the upcoming year with some structured activities as well as quality time for the two of us since this will be our last full year together. I’m glad he’s not going off to school quite yet and I think we’ll all be ready this time next year. In the meantime, we'll have music class and our parent cooperative group on Thursday mornings, plus a whole lot of trips to the parks, museums and pizza parlor down the street. (And maybe a few playgrounds all to ourselves.)

Huck has become quite the gum chewer, which can only mean one thing. He’s finally pooping in the toilet! He’s been pee-pee trained since June of last summer, so this has been a long time coming and almost drove me to insanity. For the last several months in our desperation we’ve told him that when he’s ready to poop like the rest of us he’ll also be ready to chew gum. (Oh, the things you come up with when trying to make a toddler do something.) He has three packs of Trident and can make a piece of gum last longer than you would think possible. He walks around chomping very loudly with much confidence and pride, because of course it represents a huge and frightening milestone, one that he's still not 100 percent sure about but is commited to, no matter how terrifying the experience may be. (Many thanks to Tiffany, Brian and Kadin for celebrating with genuine enthusiasm while looking at the evidence before it got flushed away.)

Right now I've got the place to myself, for Troy and Huck took a train up to Stamford, Connecticut this morning to check out a church who's doing the same children's program as we are. Huck has been very excited for his trip with Daddy, and as I kissed them goodbye this morning at 7:00 (before blissfully climbing back into bed) I was struck by what a big huge gigantic boy he's become. He had his little backpack on and was chewing gum, looking like he was off to school as he strutted down the hallway to the elevator, waving to me and shouting, "HAVE FUN AT HOME!" Another brief glipse into our future. Here are some more pictures of Huck and Daddy together. I almost miss them already.

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home sweet home

August 10, 2008, 3:43 pm

We're settled at home now, back to normal in our favorite city with beautiful weather, still reminiscing about our wonderful two weeks in the mountains of Colorado and the plains of Kansas. While Huck has many, many great memories of our time away, when people ask him what he did on his trip he generally talks about the moving sidewalk at the Atlanta airport. We're trying to figure out how to install one of those in our hallway.

Since returning, Huck speaks and writes in Spanish everyday, or at least his version of Spanish (which he would call his "virgin of Spanish"), which sounds nothing like real Spanish and a little like Japanese. Yesterday he made a very special birthday card for our friend Thos and inside he wrote a long message in Spanish. We asked him to translate it for us and he said, "I can't. I don't know what it means."

A few days ago Huck asked me to stand behind the monkey bars and then disappear, reappearing on the other side as a New Mommy. I was a little uncomfortable with this request and asked him why he needed a New Mommy. He explained that his New Mommy would not be a vegetarian.

And lastly, for the first few nights back in his own bed, he kept waking up talking about all the bugs flying around in his room. One night he said he had a snake under his leg and asked sleepy Troy if he wanted to touch it. All that Midwest nature made quite an impression on this tough little New Yorker.

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we are family (part II)

August 5, 2008, 9:47 pm

Then we got back in our tiny car and drove to Newton, Kansas to spend time with Troy's family. Huck was so excited to find his very own room waiting for him at Na-Na's house, complete with a safari themed bed, sticky spiders and Lincoln Logs! He loved playing in his special room and even cried a little bit after we left because he missed it.

One of the best things about visiting hot Kansas in the summer is all the fun we have playing in the water outside. Apparently this contraption squirts people right in the eyeballs, so be careful. (And don't do that trick Troy's doing in the pool.)

We spent an evening at Uncle Lew and Aunt Paulette's pond and Huck touched this fish that Pa-Pa David caught. As the days passed, the size of the fish grew when Huck talked about it, making him a true fisherman.

Somehow we don't have pictures of this, but we also squeezed in a tiny WSU reunion with Heather, Aaron, Callie, Seth, Kyttra, David, Darby and baby Leo! We hope to meet Fletcher next time. Afterwards we played with bubbles (and tennis racquets) in Tina's and Scott's back yard.

On Friday night we went to the county fair and rode some rides. Those carnival people sure are crazy! (Do you see Troy running alongside the "Tubs ‘o Fun" like Forrest Gump?)

We also went to a real live rodeo! My team won.

We spent Saturday back in Western Kansas (we were getting very familiar with Highway 70) at the Schremmer reunion where we spent the day not only with Grandpa Gaylyn, Aunt Tina, Uncle Scott and Aunt Pam, but most all of Troy's aunts, uncles, cousins and second cousins. The last time we did this was in 1996. Here's four generations of Schremmer males: from 94 year old Grandpa John down to three year old little Huck.

Here's Huck checking out his grandpa's brothers and sisters Connie, Stan and Jeanette during a photo shoot.

I got to ride a horse at Uncle Stan's farm and was only mildly frightened as he gave me a quick lesson in disciplining Dusty, who is "not kid-friendly." I tried to act as grown up as possible.

We returned to Na-Na's for a smaller, quieter reunion with Grandma Twyford, Uncle Lew, Aunt Paulette, Tina and Scott. During our trip Huck became very interested in magic, and somehow Tina and I convinced him we were incredible magicians. We tried to teach him our tricks but he refused to believe the magic wasn’t real, no matter how many times we told him to “look over there.” Tina’s my second favorite magician ever. Here I am pulling some Play-Doh out of her ear.

Here's part of Grandma and Grandpa Twyford’s family. (Great reproducing, everybody!) Thank you, Family, for a magical and wonderful time together ...

(Here's a post script to our very fun 13 days away: We drove back to Kansas City to spend a quick last night with Aunt Lori, Uncle Steve, Megan and Lauren before heading to the airport in the morning, and Steve took me for a spin in his 1956 Oldsmobile. I haven't been this nostalgic since the North Pole.)

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we are family (part I)

August 5, 2008, 8:17 pm

We returned last night from a very long and wonderful Family Vacation with more family than you can imagine! Because our trip was two parts, I thought the blog about it should be, too. Part one was a few days in Kansas and then a twelve hour, four car caravan across the sunflower state into the Colorado mountains. There we enjoyed the Cox reunion (my mom's side of the family), a tradition that's been going on for many decades. Here began the picture taking marathon that would continue for the rest of our trip.

Here’s Huck with his pal Fin in Oskaloosa, Kansas, where I got stung by a wasp, Troy got a tick in his leg and a thorn in his thumb and more mosquito bites than I've ever seen a human survive, Huck pet a baby turkey and a little frog and we all cuddled with sheep. Thank you for the hospitality, Sally and Phil, and for bringing some country livin' to us city folk! (Burke can be seen in our Photos Page.)

Here's Huck on Dad's back at the water park in Aunt Lori's town. My best childhood friend Krishna and her little girl Addie joined us for a few hours of summer fun, beginning my trip down good memory lane.

Here’s cousin Lauren and Huck taking a walk at Golden Bell Lodge in beautiful Divide, Colorado, our home for the weekend.

Here’s Huck in a kayak (or funyak as they were called there) with Troy and cousin Megan. Aunt Jeni, Lauren and I also funyaked.

Here are my cute parents in the state where they met and married so long ago. (Mom loves to wear her Chalk t-shirt every chance she gets.)

On Saturday night of the reunion it's a tradition to do the Cox Talent Show. Back when I was much, much younger and could stay up much, much later, my favorite cousin David and I used to be in charge of these things, with him playing Michael Jackson to my screaming fan or David Letterman to my Paula Shaffer. It didn't seem to matter that we are nearly 40 years old; we still found ourselves in the stressful position of trying to come up with something clever and entertaining for everyone. Here we are thinking up ridiculous trivia questions for the "Are You Smarter than a Cox?" game show. (Incidentally, one of our questions became Huck's new favorite nature fact. Did you know a cockroach can live without its head for up to a week?)

And here’s my Grandpa Glen’s family, the biggest turnout at the reunion. My mom and Uncle Ronnie did a good job reproducing. (My Grandpa passed away exactly 19 years ago during the reunion weekend, so he and my Grandma Lennie were on our minds all the time.)

Once the reunion ended on Sunday afternoon we met Abbie and her new hubby Ken at the Garden of the Gods and ended the day playing skee ball and eating dinner in fun Manitou Springs. Thank you, Abbie and Ken, for making the drive to see us!

We then stayed near Colorado Springs for a few extra days and relived some of our favorite childhood Colorado memories, like spending a day at the North Pole. When I was about eight years old, a magician at this wonderful place brought me up on stage to be his assistant, something I still have not recovered from completely. You can imagine how I felt when we all sat down to watch the show last week and out came my magician friend, who I would later learn has been doing this gig since 1968. I talked to him afterwards (weeping a little bit), and as we were posing for this picture I heard my parents and sisters telling him I was in a movie once and that I got my start on his stage.

Hey, Family, let's do this again someday ...

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