An Ode to Our First Home

I was hot and tired and little loopy from a long day’s work moving. I guess “the break” to go make another donation run to Savers and grab some lunch was long enough to take me away from the moment. As I turned the key and opened the front door, my mind on auto-pilot was expecting my usual greeting.

There would be Chloe rushing to the doorway’s edge, wagging her nump and running into me with excitement. Miles would be running around the circle – the 15 foot circumference that went through the living room, kitchen, dining room and entry way – yelling gibberish at Chloe. Mana would be in the kitchen in the midst of cooking dinner. It always smelled amazing and it was always all within my view from the entry way.

It was utter chaos and it was beautiful. But instead, this home once bursting at the seams with life and love greeted me with complete emptiness, minus a couple leftover boxes of stuff.

Reality of the fact this commonplace scene will never be lived again finally hit me and I immediately broke down.

As I lifted my arm to wipe away tears, I was brought back with the realization I was still holding my lunch; quesadillas from the Taco Taxi, and I was damn hungry. Shock gave way to a more urgent human need.

I had been meaning to eat at this restaurant for at least two years, but, for one reason or another, never stopped by. Now, I stood devouring some of the best Mexican food I’ve eaten in at least two years cursing myself for not enjoying more of the foods up and down Lake Street when I had the chance.

After lunch, I made another tour of the house to take stock of what yet needed to be done. But, all that was really left was just more surreal reality. Even the gunk in the bathroom sink suddenly went from gross to touching remnants of a life now past.

It’s not that I wasn’t excited to get out of a house that was no longer fit for our growing family, but permanent goodbyes are hard.

I grabbed what was left and headed out to what is home for now: my father-in-law’s house in Minnetonka.

When I got there, I was greeted by Chloe running recklessly toward the car. After she finally let me open the car door, I made my way to the house as she circled my legs. I opened the door to find Miles running through the entry way, yelling gibberish at all the dogs.. Mana was in the kitchen making dinner. It smelled amazing.

My heavy heart lifted immediately.

Later that evening as we were pulling away from the final family tour of the old place, Miles said it best, “bye, bye house.”

Weady. GO!

Nine, 10!

While visiting last Sunday, Grandpa Mike and I took a stir-crazy Miles out for a walk around the cul-de-sac. It’s become a frequent trip lately. Honestly, it’s less of a walk and more of an exploration for Miles. Most trips find him stopping, squatting and yelling, “whoa,” down every gutter and pointing out every flower. We really don’t get very far.

Sometimes successfully, but usually not, I’ve been trying to get Miles to hold my hand when we’re walking places like a restaurant, or a store, or down the middle of the street. This walk was no exception. My efforts were met with an immediate tantrum and screaming.

Then, Grandpa Mike quickly grabbed his other hand and starting counting, “one, two, three!" And, we lifted Miles up in a swinging motion to his laughter. Crisis averted. Whew.

But wait, there’s more. After a few rounds of this, to our surprise, Miles started to count along. We’d start with, “one,” and he’d finish with, “two, free (three)!”

This proud Da-Da was beaming. But I’d soon find out, that was nothing.

When I got home from work on Monday, an excited Ma-Na reported that Miles can count to 10. She explained that as she was preparing dinner, she was counting to 10 and encouraging Miles to join. During one round as she got to eight, Miles quickly finished with, “nine, 10!”

This went on in a back-in-forth of Ma-Na starting with, “one,” and Miles chiming in with, “two,” all the way up to ten.

Since then, “counting” has become one of Miles new favorite things. Lately, six is coming after one, but we’re working on it.

Our good morning...

As usual, it started with a tiny whimper. From there it grew into what sounded like the dozy, nonsensical blathering of an infant. This was followed by, “row, row, bot. Row, row, bot.”

The statement is just one shining example of how much Miles has evolved in the past few weeks. “Row Your Boat,” is currently his favorite song, with many others as a close number two. As of recently (past couple weeks or so...) he can now request it verbally. And, for better or worse, this request is almost always met on demand. File under: too cute to turn down.

Unfortunately, this request was being made at 4:00 a.m. Sorry bud, even cute has its limitations.

His request was followed by more chatter, which, as it tends to, grew into louder chatter and eventually full blown wailing. Shit.

My quick snooze dream he had fallen back asleep was shattered. He was awake. And now, so was I.

It doesn’t help that he’s currently sleeping in the same room as us. With our house on the market, rooms need to be staged in a matter of minutes and it just makes sense for him to be in our room. Adding to this, life’s been crazy lately and it seems the changes and variances from day-to-day are even catching up with Miles. He’s been waking up (way too) early a lot these days.

I crawled out of bed, stumbled over Chloe and made my way to his crib. As I picked up Mr. Bright Eyes, he was already engaging in his current favorite pastime – pointing at things and saying what sounds like, “what this?”

“It’s your crib, Miles,” I said.

“Wha’,” he said as he pointed at it again.

“Crib.”

“What this?”

“Window.”

“What this?”

“Door.”

“Wha’?”

“Door,” I repeat, as I often have to over, and over and…

I carried him downstairs and we went through our routine, which involves filling a bottle, and lately, giving him a shot of medicine, usually in the dark while holding him. Some attempts are better than others. Mostly at this stage, I’m on automatic pilot.

We sat downstairs so ‘Ma-Na’ could get some more sleep.

I flipped on the tube and zoned out to some infomercial with Miles resting between my legs, enjoying his ‘Ba-Ba.’

Finished, he tossed it to the side without care. Always makes me think of Dennis Leary’s fantasy of arrogantly tossing styrofoam cheeseburger containers out his car window….

As I sat there half-awake, tired, grumpy and a bit overwhelmed by my day ahead, Miles turned to me and said, “row, row, bot.”

I sang, we mimicked rowing and he ‘screamed’ on cue during the crocodile verse. He even put his hands to his cheeks right on time. I finished to his roaring applause. It's confirmed, Miles is the best, completely unpredictable, alarm clock ever.

One small step for...

Text message from Miss Amy at Artisticrats:

"So Miles just spent the last 15 minutes walking around the room w/out holding my hand"

So, that happened..

It’s February 2010, and this only our second post since 2009. And that post was well before Christmas.

Its times like these I’m glad I don’t have to answer to a higher blog authority, especially if the authority was Mrs. Leidman, my 8^th grade English teacher. She may have only been five-feet tall and 120 pounds, but she was tough and feisty. If she was in charge, I’d now be typing blog updates every day after school until well into 2011, and just happy to be alive.

But I digress, much like I blog.

Since our last post in 2009 a few things have happened. Let’s begin with Christmas and start with the annual Riddle caroling party.

For all intents and purposes it was Miles’ first appearance at this long-standing tradition. Last year at this time he was only a couple months old and spent the evening sleeping or snuggling on his Mana. This year he stayed up well past his bedtime enjoying Grandpa Mike’s guitar playing, the Christmas lights and the chorus of voices that, as a whole, are always more joyful than in-tune. I accept my part for both adding joy and subtracting tune.

For a better part of the night the party was minus Sarah and Jeremy. They were busy preparing for a little trip that would take them half way around the world to be with their kids and add to their, and our, family.

That leads me to Christmas Eve. The first time we hosted a Christmas gathering.

As it turned out, it was the first time ever we weren’t expected to be anywhere on Christmas Eve. A first, and unique enough that we were happy to be where we were.

With an open docket, we decided to do church and dinner with Sarah and Jeremy, joining them for the First Universalist Christmas Eve children’s service. Although the journey only took us to Uptown, a few miles from home, it was still an adventure. It was snowing and raining (seriously, raining in Minnesota on Christmas Eve?) as generously as the season is holly. It was a short, traditional service that featured a number of performances from children’s choir. After each reading and song Miles felt the need to either applaud or respond loudly verbally. We laughed in the comfort of all the other parents attempting to “wrangle” their wee ones doing the same thing. Whew. Actually, it seemed the few of us who made it were just happy to be in each other’s company on such a winter’s day…

Service was followed by dinner at our house. We chose a traditional meal: Carnita Tacos. It was a memorable dinner for many reasons. The gathering ended early as both couples still had lots to do. Us with Christmas, them with Christmas and that little trip…

Christmas Eve…. full of last minute to-dos… Katy was busy getting everything that needed to get done, done; I was busy trying to stay awake and baking goods in the spare time. Eventually, the night wrapped up with both of us passing out in the living room.

This led to Christmas morning. It marked our first Christmas morning at our house with our first baby boy. Obviously, this was more significant to Katy and I than Miles (marked by me tearing up as I wrote this), but he had a great time too. Gifts were unwrapped and good times were had. He was more interested in the wrapping and bows than the gifts… we should hope to only be so lucky for the years to come…

This was followed by Christmas Day at Grandma Becky’s and Grandpa Mike’s then onto Great Grandma’s for a full family celebration and dinner. On all accounts, it was a wonderful Christmas full of unwrapping gifts for Miles, who continued to show that sometimes the best gift is the wrapping and the box it comes in.. Had it been a few degrees cooler, it may never have happened this way as it continued to rain all day. The oddest Christmas weather we can ever remember.

Christmas with my family got a bit disjointed. The weather led to undesirable traveling conditions, so we had Christmas in mid-January at my sister’s house in Brainerd. Actually, it was kind of nice to extend the holiday.

Miles had a great time with his older cousin, James. They both got sleds from Grandma and Grandpa Tepley and Miles enjoyed his first sledding outing.

What seemed to be a never-ending trip eventually came to a fantastic finish. Sarah and Jeremy returned from Ethiopia with their children Hirut, Helen, and Binyam at the end of January. Since we spent the better part of January waiting with baited breath for updates on their travels and adoption process, to finally have the family home was a true splendor.

All in all, we’re all happy and making our way through another Minnesota winter. Here’s to more consistent, less weighty blog updates. Pictures and video to come. Hopefully yet this year…

Cheers,

The Tepleys.

Like a Date

“Oh, it’s like a date,” Katy said after the attendant told us it would be about a half-hour wait.

Surprised by the thought, I gave her a puzzled look. After all, it was Sunday afternoon and we were at Bobby & Steve’s getting a slow-leaking tire fixed. On the surface, nothing at all like a date really.

“They have coffee, and a café; and look, they’re showing a movie,” she continued in defense of her statement. “Or, we could actually just sit and talk.”

As luck would have it, a malfunctioning tire was pointed out by my parents who were following us on the freeway earlier in the day. Our original plan to meet for breakfast turned into more of an adventure after Katy offered to take my mom to Kitchen Window to look for a lefse roller she’d been searching for.

After breakfast at Emma’s (Miles recommends the blueberry pancakes, of course) we caravanned up 169, planning to meet back our house. The peaceful drive was quickly interrupted when I noticed my folks blazing up to us in the left lane.

With a look of concern, my mom yelled, “pull over!” Never good. Indeed, one of our back tires was nearly flat.

Thankfully, we were able to drive to a service station just up the road. After some commotion that involved the discovery of a nearly worthless car jack and a screaming baby, the tire seemed to be holding air okay, so we decided to get back home to take care of the problem.

When we got home, Grandma and Grandpa were more than happy to look after Miles, giving Katy and me some freedom to take care of the car.

So there we were at Bobby & Steve’s, alone for the first time in long time, on like a date.

p.s. - BIG thanks to Grandma & Grandpa Tepley for all the help and for what turned out to be a great day.