Plan D: Disappointment in the Form of a Sundae

So our plans to go camping this weekend were thwarted by Mom's inability to plan ahead. I failed to recognize that Memorial Day is a HUGE camping weekend. When I went to the Iowa State Parks Website yesterday to reserve a one-night campsite for Saturday (tonight), the site practically laughed at me. "Are you crazy, lady? Nothing is available for the holiday weekend, not even that treeless site by the bathrooms." Okay, kids, Plan B: hiking and exploring the caverns in Maquoketa and then a tent in the backyard! Yippee! Then we awoke this morning to downpours of rain. Not "scattered showers" as had been predicted, but full-on soak-fest.

Plan C: pillow tents and pirate ships INSIDE, singing (daddy)/attempting to sing (mommy) duets from musicals on request ("we want the ones about loving each other!!") so the girls can dance to them, dollhouses and blocks, laundry and dishes, and Mommy collapsing in a nap while still recovering from a knock-down stomach flu.

Then Mommy pulls out her trusty book, "Iowa: Off the Beaten Path." I bought it about 3 years ago and have dragged the family on various Iowa adventures. (They've loved every one of them, too!) As time here grows short and weekends sparse, I have become more frantic in my insistence that we go places so I can cross them off my list. Today's adventure: The Wilton Candy Kitchen, the world's oldest continuously running old-fashioned soda fountain and ice cream parlor!! I was picturing "It's a Wonderful Life," with young George Bailey working at Gower's store, sprinkling toasted coconut on little Suzie's sundae in a cute little glass container with a cherry on top.

Plan D: We load up for lunch at the soda fountain. Wilton is about 20 minutes away, so with gas prices the way they are, I figure we've spent about $157 by the time we get there. Looks cute enough from the outside. There's the required counter with red-topped bar stools and all kinds of nifty pulls and levers to release the flavored soda ingredients. The walls have the menu handwritten on them. The first thing we hear is the owner lady telling a dad to make sure his kids don't touch the walls. In the 45 minutes we are there, she tells them at least 5 more times not to touch the walls. For the record, the kids are not paying any attention to the walls, and to top it off, the mom is sitting in between the kids and the walls, making it virtually impossible for them to touch the walls.

Pete goes to the counter to order after about 15 minutes of no service. They have three sandwiches and variations on them: ham, turkey, and tuna, with or without cheese, all grilled. They are out of both turkey and tuna. The guy tells Peter, "If you had come on a different day, we would have had tuna." In a tone suggesting it is perhaps our fault that we came today when there was no tuna. So, grilled cheese for 2 and grilled ham for 2. We're looking forward to the hand-pulled flavored sodas and ice cream sundaes anyway.

Pete comes to sit down and in about 10 minutes, the lady with a bee in her bonnet about the walls comes to tell us with a sigh, "Normally we have people order at the counter, but I'll take it here." We tell her we've already ordered at the counter. "Oh." She turns and walks away. Passive-aggressive, anyone?

Sandwiches with barely melted rubbery cheese arrive, sans chips or any fixin's. The sodas are warm, ice has been added but is melted, watering them down, and there is no detectable fizz. So far, not "It's a Wonderful Life."

So we order a "homemade chocolate sundae" to share. I'm excited about the pretty glass container and the cherry. Instead, a small styrofoam cup arrives with an even smaller scoop of ice cream and chocolate syrup on it. No whipped cream, no glass, no cherry. I think seriously about instructing the girls to wipe the chocolate syrup on the walls with the writing on them. But I don't. Because I am a good mother.

We are so disappointed by this encounter that we bypass the World's Largest Truck Stop on I-80 on the way home. Too much to bear.

My Sister Saves the World

While she may poo-poo that title, my lovely little sister Meredith is doing amazing work on the Thailand-Burma border. This is an area of the world that few in the US pay attention to, but what's going on there is atrocious and worth our time and effort to understand (think Darfur). She works with Burmese refugees who have fled violent oppression from the military junta in power in Burma (officially called Myanmar on most maps). This is the homeland of 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest after the political party which she leads won most of the leadership positions in free elections in 1989.

Many of the people Meredith works with are actually not classified as refugees by the Thai government, and that deprives them of a great deal of assistance. It is a complicated problem, but at its core is one of humanitarian concern and should outrage us. Please, please, please read more in the latest issue of World Ark magazine (go to page 28) and see my links on Activism for further information and how you can help. Perhaps the best thing you can do is to educate yourself and others about what's going on, because knowledge is power.

World Ark: http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.201480

Wet-n-Wild

Hot fun in the summer (spring) time! Oscar (Dog #1) could play in a sprinkler for hours, but Quincy (Dog #2) prefers to stay nice & dry. Rebecca and Molly had a blast!

Some Pig!

Molly's Preschool had a week to celebrate reading, and one day they could dress up like a character from a book. Most of the kids wore Halloween costumes of Little Mermaid, SpiderMan, Snow White, etc. While these are all in books of some kind, we took the initiative and dressed as a character who is known for being in a book (instead of known for being in a movie first). Molly was Wilbur the Pig from Charlotte's Web. She had a tail and a Web around her neck (to distinguish her from some other non-descript pig).

Brusha-Brusha-Brusha

with "Dr. Matt"

Last week was our semi-annual trip to the dentist. It was actually Rebecca's very first visit. Molly had prepared her well, advising her that the dentist would count her teeth and "the lady before the dentist" would tickle her mouth with toothpaste that had a flavor of her choosing. The best part, Molly promised, was the water game toys you could play with in between the two people. "You're gonna love them!" You remember these from your childhood, I'm sure--they are rectanglular plastic boxes filled with water and you push a button on the bottom to make the rings/balls/animals jump into the pockets/hippo mouths. Anyway, I digress...

Hawkeye Ponderings

This is the University of Iowa Hawkeye, in case you didn't know.

We have now lived in Iowa for 4 years, having just barely satisfied my desire to at some point live "west of the Mississippi" (the river is about 5 miles from our house, so we eeked into the West by a nose!). My last day at my clinic here is June 29, and my first day at my new clinic is the week of July 16, so somewhere in between, we will load up yet another U-Haul and haul butt out of the Midwest. During our drive up to Galena for Mother's Day yesterday (and you will be enthralled with that story on the blog once I download pictures soon), Peter and I started talking about what we will miss about Iowa. (Lest you believe we failed to engage the girls in coversation, please note that they were staring mindlessly at the two-screen DVD player in the very back of the van, choosing to be as far away from us as possible so we would not disturb the 5 millionth viewing of "Heffalump Halloween.")

We will miss...

...the convenience of getting around the Quad-Cities (this is the name give to the 4 towns here, 2 in Iowa, 2 in Illinois, all linked by bridges across Ol' Man River). Nothing in any of the 4 towns is more than 20 minutes away. Pete's "commute" is a whopping 10 minutes, mine is 10-15. Rush hour is non-existent.

...being 10 minutes from rolling farmland. It's really pretty if you drive north on Highway 61.

...quality day-care from a person we know and trust. We love our Pammy!

...our backyard. Hopefully, we will be able to recreate this in Memphis eventually, but at first, we will be in an apartment.

...the amusing marquee at the Quad City Times distribution center on Brady Street. It's electronic and flashes "It's Fresh! It's Awesome! It's News!" after the headlines. The amusing part is when the headline is about something tragic and is followed by this line. Example: "Girl in Moline found beheaded, dismembered." Then, "It's Fresh! It's Awesome! It's News!"

...colloquial Midwestern speak. Misuse and misplacement of the word "anymore." Example: "Anymore, kids will talk all the time." Huh? The phrase "Lookit," which is actually "look at it." Example: "There is a bug. Lookit!" The added unnecessary phrase "and that." Example: "When she goes on vacation, she takes pictures, eats too much food and that." I think it's sort of like "and all that kind of stuff," but there are times I've heard it used in a slightly different context I can't quite identify.

...great fall festivals and pumpkin patches.

...the people we've come to know and love that we work and play with.

...rabbits. They are like squirrels here, all over the yards (and unfortunately, mangled all over the streets). While they are certified pests, eating & ruining tree trunks, rose bushes and veggies, they are still cute little buggers.

...snow. At least the first few hours of it, when it's coming down in big, fluffy flakes and lays so white and pure on the ground. (Once you have to drive in it, it's less appealling.) We love sledding, making snow angels and building snowpeople. We'll have to find a vacation spot to go to sometimes in the winter to experience this beauty again!

Molly made a sign at Preschool last week. One side said "Good-bye Iowa!" and the other side said "Hello Memphis, TN!" Rebecca, on the other hand, started crying last night as we were rushing out the door to make way for a last-minute showing of the house, saying "I don't want to move unless all my friends can come, too!" So, there are some positives and some negatives and there will be a transition time before we are settled in. But: Goodbye Hawkeyes, hello Tigers! The countdown is on.

Sock-in-Ja-way-ah

Have you had the pleasure of seeing the movie "Night at the Museum"? It's a recent offering from Ben Stiller about a dad who gets a job as a night guard at the Natural History Museum in New York City. At night, the displays in the museum come alive. Hijinks ensue.

So, we rented this movie (which is sure to win an Oscar) recently and the kids were fascinated with it. In their imagination play, the girls kept calling Rebecca "Sock-in-Ja-way-ah" or just "Jawayah." It took me some time to figure out who she was supposed to be. Then, in that sweet innocence that kids have, Molly told me she was "that lady who looks like Pocahontas and Tiger Lily." One of the magical displays in the movie museum is of Lewis and Clark with Sacajawea, their Native American guide. I was telling them what I knew about this historic figure, expanding their minds with wonderful tidbits about important women figures of the past. Then Molly said, "But in the movie, I like the giant Easter Island head better. And God is always the coolest." Oh well, can't argue with that one. Guess I'll save the feminist revisionist history for another day.

Welcome, Courtney, to the 21st Century!

I have figured out how to put pictures on the blog! Thank you, Shana, for the tutorial. It's so easy, I feel like a complete idiot for not figuring it out before now. Now I'll have to figure out the slide.com thing, because that is super-cool. See Shana's blog for examples!

And we are not alone in this blogging effort. In a recent issue of Time magazine there is an article about hipster "parent-memorists" who WERE cool and are now PARENTS! Do not fear, however, we are still cool to someone--maybe that someone wears diapers or shirts stained with ketchup, but we're still cool.

Chunky Monkey

Okay, so I realize I am more round now than I was at the start of the other two pregnancies. But here I am at the four-month mark and not fitting into my previously well-fitted (and in some cases even baggy) pants. Already. I would like to point out that I have not gained even one pound. I am definitely at that stage of "is she pregnant or just fat?" But my jeans and my black work slacks and my brown work slacks? All too tight. Fortunately, Mom flew up for an emergency grandparent-fix visit this weekend and brought a maternity outfit for me as a gift, which I promptly put on & wore all weekend. I think I may wear it everyday. I did save other maternity clothes, but they are mostly for cooler weather and we are not experiencing cooler weather. (The other thing you may not realize--if you have never been hugely pregnant--is that at the end, your clothes become so worn out that you vow never to wear that orange shirt/black dress/blue sweater again.) The more exciting part about having been pregnant before, though, is you recognize baby movement earlier--and I am, every once in a while, feeling a little flip-n-flutter!

But it's good to know I'm not alone--I'm right on target according to BabyCenter!

Ten Things You May Not Know About Rebecca

By popular demand, the next installment in Get to Know the Marshes:

10. She rubs other people's forearms when she is tired.
9. At this time, she is obsessed with getting dressed. She wears approximately four outfits per day, making laundry time even more of a chore (because she manages to get every single thing at least a little dirty). Peter annouced yesterday morning: "your youngest daughter has no fashion sense," as she wears whatever suits her, not what matches.
8. Her toes are sort of mangled. When she was born, they piled on top of each other, as though she had been well-crammed into a small space for a long time. We were reassured that as she started walking they would straighten out. They have, a little. Since they don't hurt her and don't impede her movement, we are not inclined to do anything about it. It's just one more way she's special!
7. Since we told her "there is a baby in mommy's belly," she insists there is also a baby in her belly. Hers is a girl wearing a blue dress.
6. Rebecca does not like most of Mommy's shoes. "Those are not pretty as a princess, Mommy."
5. She likes to paint her own fingernails. Needless to say, all fingernail polish is strategically hidden.
4. She prefers to eat off of everyone else's plate, even if what she has on hers is identical. "Can I have just a nibble/sip/teeny bite?"
3. She is extrememly ticklish on her neck. Her belly-laugh is awesome!
2. I call her my "peanut." If I try to substitute any other nickname (sweet-thing, baby, etc.), she will correct me. "I am your peanut, not your sweet-thing!"
1. She is fearless, trying to cross the monkey bars without help, riding Molly's big bike, jumping off of anything higher than she is. She will be our ER Kid. So far, so good on accidents, but I am knocking on wood right now!