The Curtis Clan - Spring 2005

Spring Equinox to Summer Solstice

Easter

The Indy Sages came in for the holiday and on Saturday and the pre-school cousins came over for some egg dyeing fun. Aunt Jenny and Randy took the lead in the decorating tutorials, as the adult Sage kids had never actually dyed eggs growing up. Evidently Gramy had done it once with some hollowed out eggs, and just used the same eggs over and over again. No wonder no one in the Sage tribe actually likes hard boiled eggs. They never had to eat several dozen of them the week following Easter in progressively creative ways (straight, as egg salad sandwiches, deviled eggs, etc.). Really, how can you truly celebrate the Rising of the Savior without multi-colored, boiled, non-fertilized poultry ova delivered by a mythical rabbit? It sounds a little anti-American if you ask me. Anyway, the best part is, that Randy ended up with all the eggs and in a month or two, they’ll be pickled enough to take to work (cholesterol smesterol). BTW, the Denver Airport has the hardest/most uncomfortable terminal seating of anywhere (can you guess where I write this stuff?).

Aunt Jenny and Cousins dyeing eggs

Cate’s Birthday Uno

The Birthday Girl playing on her slide in the afternoon

A few days after Easter, Cate’s first birthday was cause for another round of Forced Family Fun with the Sage and Curtis tribes. Her first tastes of pizza, chocolate cake and ice cream were met with a bit of “skepticism”, although a crowd of family focusing on her with flashing cameras might have had something to do with it, as the hesitation was absent in the subsequent days. In the following weeks she became quite the good eater, pretty much gobbling up anything put in front of her.

Cate with her first cake

Although, she wants for nothing, there were plenty of gifts for her to unwrap. Bethany and Randy were most pleased with the savings bond (thanks RoRo and Patrick), but Uncle Van and Aunt Lisa won the “paybacks are hell” prize with a toy drum and percussion music set that both girls took an instant liking too.

Cate with musical instruments

Actually from Jane’s perspective, Cate having a birthday had to be only slightly less gratifying as having one of her own. She got cake and ice cream, helped unwrap all the presents and got to play with gobs of new toys. The slight hitch that the toys weren’t actually hers mattered little. Taking stuff from a one-year old is literally child’s play, as long as you can put up with the resultant screaming.

Aunt Rhonda and Jane

Cate’s cruising around the sofa (particularly in hopes of grabbing the TV clicker, or grabbing a cat or Maddie) but not walking yet.

Cate with Maddie

Jane Camping with Dad

The older we get, the more we appreciate springtime. The flowering of each new plant in their regular month long secession during early springtime in Missouri is certainly cause for celebration. So on the 2nd weekend in April in recognition of peak Redbud blooming season, a bit of cabin fever, and a desire to give Bethany a break from the most rambunctious of the children, Randy and Jane went camping. They enlisted Todd and his 3 1/2+ year old David (who had similar desires for his wife Linda and their 3 month old Jonathon at home). In a moment of weakness, our neighbor Charlie volunteered to accompany the dads and toddlers on the camping trip as well. I guess this is clear proof that going through a divorce will change your perspective on what is “relaxing”.

Jane enjoying her Smithy’s Pancakes with Uncle Charlie making a Blood Mary

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Jane in boots in the river

We went to our favorite camp site (#7) at Maramec Springs outside of St. James on Friday morning. Although there weren’t as many Redbuds along the river as we hoped for, with clear skies and warm temperatures, the weather was perfect. As expected, Jane got a kick out of feeding the fish at the MDC trout hatchery, wading in the water in rubber boots and playing with her new roaring Lion flashlight. On Saturday, we made a 2-mile float in our kayaks from the Highway 8 Bridge back to the campgrounds. We generally had the river to ourselves, except for the dozens of turtles sunning themselves on logs. Jane mostly enjoyed it, though we did have to “turn this boat around” and park it at the "crying" gravel bar during an outbreak of extreme fussing. About halfway though the float, we stopped at another gravel bar for rock throwing. Although, it took a bit of time to convince a reluctant Jane that not only throwing rocks in the river was OK but terrific fun. David eventually had Jane doing it with vigor, albeit little skill. There is no apparent pitching career on her horizon at this point. Except for a mild case of sunburn on Jane’s arms (Dad forgot to apply the sun screen on the float trip), the weekend was a complete success. Plans for another Dad’s camping trip next spring are in place, and hopefully both Curtis girls will go.

Jane and bunny at the campfire

Todd and David

Camping Postscript: The following Wednesday, Jane got upset over something and was yelling to her mother. Bethany stopped and asked, “What are you saying? I can't understand you when you are yelling. Speak slower and more quietly." To which Jane replied: "Mama, I said SHIT. Daddy said Shit. I get in trouble; Daddy gets in trouble.” True.

Springtime on Tuxedo (and the Zoo)

Jane in our Redbud Tree

Jane Bethany and Cate on St. Louis Zoo RR

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Jane and Randy at St. Louis Zoo

Both Jane and Cate started swim lessons at the YMCA in April. It was the 2nd time for Jane but a first for Cate. Although she’d been swimming a number of times last summer, she had some reservations about the whole thing the first lesson. By the third lesson, she was a little duck, enjoying the experience a great deal. She really loves to swim.

Cate in her swimsuit

Power of Advertising

For about a half a year now, we’ve noticed that Jane has been able to identify stores we frequent based on signage. She’s been able to identify a Schnucks or Sam’s in territory and will gleeful tell us (in the case of Steak and Shake it was usually just “French fries”). Our first clear sign that this was partially induced by TV was when she did the same for Applebee’s, even though she had never been to one. Recently, her Gramy shared with her a milkshake at McDonald’s, which we don’t visit too often except on road trips. She was quite smitten. A few days later, she saw a commercial for Streak and Shake on TV, and was gleefully asking to be taken to there for a milkshake. The genie is clearly out of the bottle.

Play Ball!

On April 27, Bethany and Jane rode the Metro link train downtown and met Randy for a Businessman’s Special Baseball game. With ½ price tickets from friendly street vendors, a sack of food from McDonald’s and pistachios from Trader Joe’s and we were able to go for under $35 (it was the first time in years that R&B didn’t have a beer at the game). That we considered the sub forty dollar amount a GOOD deal is a bit disturbing.

Jane was very excited and trotted up the ramps to the terrace section, squealing “Go Cardinals” every so often. The game held her rapt attention for 2 innings (OK 1 ½ innings). After that it was squirm city. During the musical interludes between innings, Jane tried to get people to sing “Snuggle Puppy”, her favorite song, with very limited success (even her parents didn’t join in with vigor). We considered bringing Cate so both of us would have a wiggly child to enjoy but Nana offered to watch her at home, which sounded like a Win-Win for everyone.

Bethany and Jane at Bush Stadium

As for the game, the Cardinals beat the Brewers 6-3 with Mark Grudzielanek hitting for the cycle (only the 3rd Cardinal to do that in Bush Stadium). All in all, a good afternoon at the old ball game.

May

Mother’s Day

In order to avoid an overloaded day, we split celebrating Mother’s Day over 2 weeks between our families. First up was the Curtis family with Aunt Rhonda hosting dinner at her house (a better choice for the girls than a family friendly restaurant).

Rhonda Cate Nana Jane and Maggie

In what has become a bit of a family tradition, there are no pictures of Bethany with her children on the designated maternal tribute day. At least, this year there’s a bit of a better excuse. During brunch with the Sage tribe, Cate’s face broke out in red puffy blotches after eating some scrambled eggs. As it turns out, she has a bit of an egg allergy. Fortunately, it seems to be only a contact allergy (i.e. where she rubbed her face with egg encrusted hands) and there wasn’t any apparent tongue or throat swelling. There was some nervous banter about how no holiday is complete without a trip to the ER that proved to be no more than a joke.

Memorial Day in Indy

Over the Memorial Day weekend we made our first family road trip of the year, having had several early trips to DC and Fort Worth been canceled or delayed. Our destination was Indianapolis for Cousin Justin’s first birthday. Randy spent Saturday helping brother-in-law Justin assembling a playground set for the kids. Bunged up threads on a bolt, caused some frustration and slowed progress to make a requisite trip to the local home improvement warehouse to get a replacement. Several beers and 5 hours latter it was done. If during the rest of the weekend, some other toy occupied the attention of the cousins, they were ever so gently reminded to go outside and enjoy the swing set. We had a great time and the cousins all got along fabulously together.

The Curtis Clan with the Indy Sages and their new swing set

Home Improvement

Another few items got marked of the never ending House Addition to do list during the springtime. Randy constructed some lattice panels for underneath the side porch, concealing the trashcans and recyclables from view. The design is weak and they will need rebuilding but they'll do for now. He also made some to surround the air conditioner condensers too. Eliminating those eyesore had to make the neighbors happy.

There was some concrete repair work as stone steps and the side stone retaining wall had been damaged and we added a small terraced flowerbed next to the steps. The big job was removing all the sidewalk on the west side of the house in order to bury the gutters drains and (hopefully) redirects the drainage away from the house and hence prevent the seepage in the basement. It was a shame to have to remove it all especially since it was 4-5 inches thick (about 1-2 inches thicker than the city strip sidewalks we replaced 5 years ago). The most disagreeable aspect was actually removing all 45 linear feet of it and finding dumpsters to take it. We replaced it with a Quickcrete pattern to imitate cobblestones that looks pretty good. Randy and his Dad knocked out most of it on a Sunday in early June (a task made much easier with the use of a 2 bag electric cement mixer). The final step of cementing the “cobbles” together hopefully won’t take too much extra time; it’s just finding an open weekend, which between trips out of town hasn’t been too easy.

Randy and his Dad finishing up the side sidewalk

Cate – Walking and Stopping

After teasing us for a few months and only cruising the furniture, in mid-June on our trip to Texas (see below), Cate was clearly taking several steps in a row moving across the room and standing by herself for long stretches of time. In the weeks that followed she became more adept and was able to across patches of the uneven mulch at the playground. Her first steps have also roughly coincided with discovering the joys of ascending and descending the staircase at our house, which has brought the return of baby gates at the top and bottom of the stairs for a few months.

Cate standing next to the front wall

The stopping refers to stopping up, which is your warning to move on to the next paragraph before reading further. Cate had a really difficult time with constipation following the transition to regular milk. She would literally shutter in abject pain for minutes at a time on occasion. It took some time to get a regime of juices and prescription stole softeners down so that we didn’t need the suppositories any longer and dismiss other potential causes (not a milk allergy). It’s a delicate balance though, and sometimes things have gone too far the other way, which is definitely preferable and at times almost cause for celebration. It was really rough to see her in such pain with little immediate relief available.

Bethany and Cate

No story for this picture, except we really liked the unstaged gesture.

Jane offering her mother a flower

June

It’s been nearly half a year since we tried to get a family picture with everyone looking at the camera. This represents our best effort in front of the rose bush, which was in peak bloom at the time.

Curtis Family - 4 June 2004

My dad was over for dinner that night, so we also got a shot of him, his children and grandchildren.

3 Generations of Curtis's - Ron (PaPa), Jane, Winger, Rhonda, Randy, Cate and Maddie

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Texas or Bust!

The Curtis family ended spring with a trip to Fort Worth, Texas. Randy had a week’s worth of research at the regional archives, so Bethany and the girls decided to make a road trip and join him. Due to the near monopoly that American Airlines has at Dallas Fort Worth airport (thanks to the Wright amendment), the cost of the negotiated government roundtrip air fare is at $1,000. Therefore we had up to that much to pay for all our lodging, car mileage and per diem along the way instead. The first night, we stayed in Springfield, MO. What’s there to do in Springfield on a Friday night with children in tow? Visit the World headquarters flag ship Bass Pro Shop. With its numerous animals (both stuffed and live) the girls had a grand time at this next best thing to a zoo from their perspective.

Bethany, Jane and Cate at Bass Pro Shop

The next day, we were at the Oklahoma City (OKC) Renaissance, which was to everyone’s liking (and at a rate of $69/night, a supper deal!). We visited the Frederick R. Murray Federal Building Memorial, which wasn’t as solemn as expected. I guess the joie de vie of two toddlers tended to lighten up the expected somber mood from the tragic site (supposedly the St. Louis R.A. Young Federal Building where I work was on McVeigh’s short list of possible targets, which still gives me a bit of the willies. While in St. Louis, I still think I’m a more likely a target of domestic terrorism than international terrorism). We stopped at the OKC Zoo before leaving, which allowed all fathers in for free for Father’s Day. The girls were good for about 2 hours before getting antsy. Viewing white peacocks and multi-colored chickens can only go so far.

Jane, Cate and Randy enjoying a snack on a bed at the OKC Renaissance

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We arrived in Fort Worth on Sunday and moved into a Residence Inn next to Trinity Park in the museum district. During the days while Randy worked, Bethany and the girls enjoyed the surrounding attractions of the Dallas Aquarium, 6th Floor Museum (Kennedy Assignation), Fort Worth Zoo and the Amon Carter Art Museum. At night, we took the girls swimming and to the adjacent park to feed the ducks, which was a big hit (although Cate ate the Cheerios and bread snacks instead of tossing them to the ducks). We returned via Tulsa, stopping en route on the OK turnpike to visit the World’s Largest McDonald’s over the highway. All in all a very pleasurable and successful trip.

Gilmore Girl Junkies

June also marked the point when the Curtis’s became Gilmore Girls fanatics. After listening to several friends (Aunt Katie and Kathy) rave about it, we slowly started watching the show after Christmas and got completely hooked by the end of the season. We got the DVD set of the first season from the library as reruns began and watched 21 episodes in the course of 6 days. Bethany secretly purchased the 2nd season as a Father’s Day gift for Randy and we watched 22 episodes in the next 7 days. The third season would have gone as quickly too accept Randy was out of town for a couple of weeks. We’ve pre-ordered the 4th season DVD release and are anxiously waiting the start up of the 6th season. It takes an episode or two to catch on, but after that the rapid dialogue, peppered with oblique cultural references ensnare you. Jane's favorite part is the end credit music and gets up and dances each time. Once Cate started walking, she too gets swept up in the Gilmore Girls dance party frenzy.

And least you suspect that Jane isn't really watching the show except for the credits, we seen evidence that this isn't the case. While watching an episode of the 3rd season, she asked "Where's Richard?...What's Emily doing?" when Lorelei and Rory arrived at their parents/grandparents for their weekly Friday night dinner and Mr. Gilmore was absent and Emily was mixing drinks. Yes, the thought crossed our minds that perhaps we were watching a bit too involved with this show.

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