nerd weekend

Sunday night.  All my nerds sitting at their various stations, doing nerd things.  Annika spent the day discovering the Starcraft Brood war while Brandon and I dropped $20.00 on the Starcraft 2 Major League Gaming tournament online.  We plugged a laptop into our office/family room TV and parked on the couch for the last two days.  We set up camp so that we could parent and veg out simultaneously.  The mornings were reserved for heavy toddler activity, lots of coloring, Spanish & French flash cards, super hero play with all Liam's "guys".  Around lunchtime, we would load up Liam's favorite orange plate with all his favorites, green beans, cheese, french bread and a fruit cup.  When you are trying to balance good parenting with super nerd, you stick with the favorites so as not to disrupt the perfect harmony.  


During some tournament downtime, Autumn made a red velvet cake.  


During nap times we started playing the game Brandon bought me for Valentines Day, Final Fantasy XIV.  


I'm fully aware 90% of you will have no idea what I'm talking about, but in my world, this is one of about 3 versions of a perfect weekend.  This is the "nerds only" version, where everyone gets to be a kid for 48 hours.  Meals aren't really planned, we actually stop to get enough soda for a weekend (normally not found in our house in any great quantity) and no makeup, pigtails and comfy sweats rule.  


There are no schedules, no bedtimes, no wake up calls, no projects.


As a rule, both Brandon and I prefer to stay home.  We love to do this nerd thing, but also to paint or sew or garden or read or order in all weekend with a great bottle of wine while we avoid outside commitments.  It's tough to get us out of the house.  


But sometimes we do get out and...oh I don't know...do something like...go to Vegas. 


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Vegas.  I have been there many times.  First as a fairly young child of about 5 I guess.  Since then, I honestly can't tell you how many times I've been there, simply because many were when I was so young, the trips are kind of crammed together in my head.  It's a mashup up of Circus Circus, red carpets and lots of mirrors.  Sparkly gold gilded smoke filled rooms and shows.


One spring break in college stands out.  I went with my best friend.  One of the best trips of my life, so much laughing.  It was on that trip that my mom and I transitioned from mother/daughter to our brand of mother/daughter/friendship.  I think we all have a period of time or moment when we look at our parents and see real adult human beings, rather than our perfect or imperfect mom and dad.  We start to cut them some slack and understand that they are just regular schmoes like us.  It was on this trip that I looked up and saw my in my mom a person, a woman independent of the nurturer who raised me.  It was a good trip and a different Vegas experience.


A couple of trips up when I lived in Phoenix, but was too poor to do anything but people watch, which is really the best use of one's time in Vegas.  


And now again on a business trip, which meant yet another version of Vegas.  Early morning seminars and speakers.  Suits + heels = blisters from running from one venue to the next.  Business cards, names to remember, happy hours to have just enough to be charming, not enough to be loud.  Oh the balancing act, it was exhausting.


I brought my baby girls to see the bright lights, glitz and glamor.  The spectacle of entire regions of the world confined to several city blocks.  To see shows on such grand scales it boggles the mind and some on such a small cheesy scale you can only say "that's Vegas baby". 


We stayed at Caesars Palace, the same place the guys from The Hangover stayed.  This was huge for the girls.  Autumn got to stand in front of the Bellagio at midnight and watch the same water show they watched after the big heist in Ocean's 11.   I don't remember if I had a Vegas movie memory the first time I went, but it absolutely came up again and again with my kids, a product of our nerd movie weekends I'm sure. 


Every morning Autumn and I would wake up around 4 am and fight to get back to sleep.  After it was clear we were not transitioning to the new timezone, we'd watch the sunrise.  Every single morning I sat on the floor with my oldest baby girl, coffee in hand, in front of the giant window facing the strip...watching the sun come up over a city that ignores the night.  


And every morning Autumn would say "hey Mom.  We're in Vegas."




















What will stick with me about this trip, is seeing my girls actually have some fun together.  We are smack in the middle of teenage/tween/puberty/bratty little sister/mean big sister years.  They almost never laugh together and cannot be in the same space together without bickering about absolutely everything.  They appear to be used to it, or feel like this is all normal.  But I hate it, I hate them being unkind to each other and refuse to give up the fight for civility in my home.

This didn't stop on this trip, but be still my heart...they actually had some fun together.

I learned that most places in Vegas do not want you snapping photos inside. And I barely had time to do any touristy photography anyway. But when I look at all the pictures of the trip I'm so thankful I got these.









Apparently 65 degrees is too cold for swimming in Nevada. Wimps.

But pools make fantastic natural light photos studios:)



























As always, you can see more shots of daily life at my other little blog project Wings for Maria  .

6 days in Vegas is a long time.  On the second day my mom got deathly ill, on the fourth my dad.  I desparately missed my boys.  It was difficult to balance being where I should have been for work and networking and being where I wanted to be...  taking care of my mom, spending warm, sunny afternoons with my girls or even feeling like I should never have gone at all, leaving Brandon home with the baby for so long.

It wasn't like running around Circus Circus with a bag of quarters.

It sure wasn't like spring break in college.

Even with the hiccups, it was better.  I was there as a professional in a role I can be proud of.  I was there as a daughter in awe of what her parents have accomplished.  I was there as a mother wanting to show her growing daughters yet another glorious take on how to live your one wild and precious life.

It was a good 6 days in Vegas and this was a good nerd weekend at home.

XOXOXOXOXOXO

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I love me some Friday night tired.  It's the content warm tingling of an exhausted body, having completed a full week of work, child rearing, good wifing and healthy "ish" living.  As with all good Friday nights, I'm still stuck in my work clothes because I've spent the night not worrying about schedules and routines, instead indulging each family member with time.  Time to recap the week, catch up on the drama, plan the weekend.  I don't cook on Friday's, we grab and sit in shifts, so that each person gets their own time with each parent.  Some of us eat, while the other's play cards.  Some play cards while one of us gives Liam a bath.  Fridays are a free for all love fest with no rules about what you eat, when you eat it or where.

On a weeknight, I enforce a fairly rigid schedule of chores, homework, dinner time and bedtime.  There is always a smattering of dance parties and orange soda happy hours because all work and no play makes momma freak out a little. But every night at the exact same time the kids heads hit the pillow...I turn into a pumpkin.

A couch pumpkin.

But on Fridays, I'm in it until the end baby.  Did you know that "the end" of a Friday night is 11pm?  True story.  For me it is anyway and if I make it that long, I fee kind of like a rock star.  Sometimes I worry I'm making my kids super lame.  My 15 year old daughter just woke up from a half hour nap on the floor to tell me she is going to bed.  15 and turning in at 10pm on a Friday night.  Does that mean I'm doing a good job?  Or a terrible job?

2.6.12

I cannot prove this, but I know Liam lays in his toddler bed, waiting to hear the sound of my ass hitting the pleather of my office chair.  Waiting for the sound of fingers being gingerly placed on the keyboard and for the deep cleansing breathe his momma takes at the end of the day, when she thinks she has some time to her self to write, or edit photos, or blog stalk.  Or maybe have a good laugh at Damn You Auto Correct.  Or a good cry in front her her computer so that she can blame it on something there, but really just cuz she needs a good cry.

He waits and when he hears any combination of these things, he gets sick.  BAM.  And stays sick for days, irritable & adorably pathetic, needy and cuddly, demanding and helpless against his booger nose.  And this guarantees my undivided attention day and night, I'm locked in.

This phenomenon is the reason I cannot piece together a blog more than once a week if that.  I have dozens of one paragraph blogs, all begun in a sincere moment of inspiration to write, to share something, interrupted by the crocodile tears of a my little prince.

His little voice breaks me down to the very core.  When he looks at me and uses his new big boy words he gazes into my eyes.  He is like his dad that way, always flirting, always looking into you, never just at you.

"Momma sleepa Liam?"
"Come on momma...follow me follow me!"
"One more book?"

And when I give in and climb into his narrow twin bed with him, suffering the panda pillow pet as my only option, he touches my face and confirms "Momma sleepa Liam?"

"Yes baby, momma will sleep with Liam."

He touches my face, tracing my eyes and nose, whispering what he knows "eyes...nose...cheeks...boca".  Almost without exception, he puts me to sleep with his face tickles.

And this is why my blogs are so few and far between these days.  I thought you should know.

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I have never felt like I had to go out looking for inspiration for my writing or photography.  I don't do either as a source of income, just for creative therapy which allows me a lot of room to move in.  I'm accountable to no one and if suddenly no one read this blog, I'd still write it.

With that big a playground to play in, virtually no rules about how and why I do this, it's easy to do.  Inspiration is automatic, just write what I want.

But you should never ignore inspiration when it kisses you right on the mouth.  That would be rude.

I was gifted inspiration once before and it about sent me into orbit.  I've been gifted inspiration again.

I love this book, this journal.  I want to carry it around with me at all times and live the life that I imagine as I fill in the blanks.  So I have been.

I'm going to tackle each unfinished answer here as well.  One by one, on no particular timeline with no particular agenda.

I'm feeling like stretching myself, exploring and learning something new about myself.  I'm feeling like growing and moving towards something.

::

I made the cake.  I'm making a lot of cakes lately because of a cake plate we found at a thrift store.  It's perfect and begs for a cake.  See...inspiration.

I did not make the lovely pot holder, but I want it.

I did drink the wine and the beer.

There is that Superman t-shirt again.  Heaven help us when he outgrows it.

We got snow!  It was short lived, but it allowed Liam the chance to wear his new snow pants and boots.  Wouldn't you know it, the first year I've EVER had my poop in a group enough to have everyone geared up for winter before it starts, and it doesn't start.  Unbelievable.

But for one day, I had some snow babies.

I needed there to be some kind of cold snap, some kind of warm cozy snowed in day.  I was pouty about the non winter winter.  I guess this will have to do.  At least I got pictures.  And now spring can come.

::

We've given the girls a choice:

Quinceanera

Sweet 16

Autumn chose Quinceanera - (lit. meaning One (f.) who is fifteen), sometimes called "Fiesta de quince años", "Fiesta de Quinceañera", "Quince años" or simply "quince", is the celebration of a girl's fifteenth birthday in parts of Latin America and elsewhere in communities of people from Latin America. This birthday is celebrated differently from any other birthday, as it marks the transition from childhoodto young womanhood.^[1] The celebration, however, varies significantly across countries, with celebrations in some countries taking on, for example, more religious overtones than in others.

Good thing they can vary because her's is a Japanese flavored quinceanera lacking entirely in religious overtones.

I am so very excited for this party.  It's all her, I'm just here to make sure it all comes together for her.  It's Japanese food and language,  anime and cosplay and of course...the Anime Detour. It's a weekend party in Minneapolis, it could be no other place with no other people.

The invitations are done, complete with origami crane gift from the birthday girl herself.

I am so very excited for this party.

Back to the book...or rather the journal.  Feel free to play along, it's simple. Just finish the unfinished.

Chapter 1 - A Handmade Life (identity)

My body is holding onto...

baby fat

mystery pain

youth

the dance

the urge to go...somewhere

it's early morning internal alarm

the force

power

junk food

the rhythm

fatigue

 a more comfortable version of itself

Ahhhh a completed post.  Feels good:)  XOXOXOXOXOXO