Cursed

So one of the harder things about being a parent is travelling for work.  On one hand you get a bit of a break, and sometimes get to go to decent locales, like Miami and San jose- my last 2 destinations.  You generally get some good cuisine and nights where you don’t have to have the usual 4 pm “Who is picking up the kids/what are we having for dinner/how the heck are we going to get food ready to avoid a meltdown/should I go home and start dinner and you pick up or vise versa/etc” conversation.  You don’t have to chase emma around to try to convince her that in fact staying up all night wouldn’t be a good idea for anyone.  You get to come  back to a hotel, watch whatever you want.  You have nice white sheets and other people clean up after you when you decide to be a mess, you know hypothetically if you are that type of person. Your workout requires an elevator ride, you get to have starbucks every morning.  Wait what was my point?  Oh yeah, that traveling as a parent can be overrated.  But there is so much you miss.  You miss Emma eating large amounts of cantaloupe that a hippo would scoff at.  You miss Emma screaming “Daddy” as she runs at you in the almost scary voice I have mentioned before. You miss praying for every teacher in Emma’s daycare per Emma’s request.   You miss the homemade iced coffee brew Lela and I have perfected.  You miss having more than 5 min to talk about what’s going on in your wife’s day.  And you miss having a dvr, which I have determined is now essential to living.  I hate having to stay next to the tv to see when the Today show is going to get around to interviewing various Olympic athletes, I want to see it when I want to see it and if I happen to be shaving for 2 minutes.  Oh and then there’s the actual physical traveling.

So since I have started at QTS I have now travelled twice, again once to Miami and once to San Jose.  Again in theory playing a Will Smith song and looking for the Zuchster in Silicon Valley seems great.  But getting back from said destinations haven’t worked out for me very well.  In March, we headed to Miami to go to a NAREIT conference, or as I like to refer to it, “The National gather of mostly men who where sport coats and likely think they are significantly more important than they are.”  Anyway, on our way back, our flight had mechanical problems which were going to cause us to miss our connection.  What resulted was getting to fly through the ATL, whereby we had to run to another terminal to try to catch a connection on standby only to discover that it was spring break weekend and standby was 8 deep.   Subsequently we had to fly into Springfield MO and drive from there.  My boss and I.  It was a long day and night, only helped by the fact that we had XM and could listen to the NCAA tourney.  Fast forward to August.  After putting up with insane heat for many months, I got to head to Silicon Valley and enjoy some lovely temperate California weather, hang out with many Asiatic people (note I like to use the term Asiatic now after watching Hangover II, its grown on me and I find it funny to the point where I will likely say it past the point of it being annoying), and feel good about hanging out near Mr. Zucherberg.  Everything seemed to be going okay, other than the fact that Cali’s roads lack sufficient signage and are hella complicated which resulted in a scramble to get to the airport.  Got on the flight in time and seemed like I’d make my connection in the DEN with ease.  Then as we approached the runway, the plane turned around.  Then some dude got off the plane and all of a sudden there were police around and everybody got the joy of deboarding, going through some secret back hall in the airport, going through security again and waiting for 2 hrs while we watched them search the bags we had to gate check, which resulted in returning home 5 hrs later than originally anticipated.  Good times.  I am boycotting travel with my current employer indefinitely.

Kinsley is continuing to work on backing that thing up, one of these days she’ll start moving forward.  Its exciting/scary times because we all know that once you go mobile you don’t go back.  I am interested to see how her interaction with Emma changes when Kinsley can move and can start taking her stuff from her.  Emma is continuing to be her full of personality self.  We as a family have enjoyed the Olympics and every once in awhile we’ll show Emma some gymnastics and she seems to enjoy it, it’s only a matter of time before I am convinced that Emma is the next great gymnast to bring home the all around gold in 2028.  Yes, I did the math, that’s when she’ll be 19 as she won’t be eligible at 2024 because she’ll be 15 and you have to turn 16 in the Olympic year, thus she’ll be the mature leader of the team who helps keep the team focused.  We should have planned her birth year better as that’s not ideal, Kinsley will be much better set up to be a 16 year old in the same Olympics.  Huebner sisters leading the US to the gold?  I like the sound of that.  Of course if Emma goes the more conventional sport route, say basketball or soccer as she’s currently projecting in the Mike has unreasonably high expectations and is trying to not  be an overbearing parent scale, then she’ll be more of a 2032 or 2036 participant.  She could actually perhaps do both, and transition at age 20, good idea self.   Sometimes being an overbearing parent with unrealistic expectations is just too easy, you should try it.

Only 2 weeks til football starts and I can pin my mood for entire weekends on 19 year olds, so I am already preparing my mind for our children to be there . Can’t wait!

Emma has 2 things that are important to her right now.  Spelling and matching.  We have to match everything, and we have hit the lovely stage where she wants to pick out her clothes, which obviously doesn't result in any tantrums ever or anything.  And Emma has really been working on how to spell her name and a few others.  When we drive by any sign with an E, M, or A, she yells "That's an Emma" and can mostly spell her name, get 5 or so letters of Kinsley's, and I am BIDDY, which makes me feel a little Sean Puffy Combs.  She is also getting really good at coloring, to the point where she stays in the lines 90% or so of the time!

My only pick this week is of us in front of Union Station after the Race for the Cure.  See below

More about 3

I think every child is unique and Emma is no different.  She is they type of girl who will wrestle around with me and is adventurous where she feels comfortable, all the while if something new comes across her she is shy and hesitant.   She loves to be the center of attention and to be a bit of a mother hen per her daycare teachers, but if she doesn't know people around her very well she is fine with blending in.  She is the most stubborn person I know, even outdoing both Lela and I.  But she has a knack for making us smile and will literally tell you the same story 5 times in 2 minutes, but somehow its not annoying. . .well not too annoying.  She loves puzzles and can sit for a long time and do fairly advanced puzzles, but is just as happy running around (walking doesn't seem to be an option ever).  We can't say enough about her, she struts around, is her own person, and we hope she stays that way.  Well except for when that results in her laying on the ground in protest about how she wanted put on a different shirt than was laid out for her, but the individual who is okay with who she is and doesn't want to be any different unless she decides she should. 

Onto real events, Emma had quite the lead up coming to her birthday party.  My sister and fam came down (aka Emma's mega fun cousins) Wednesday night and we spent Thursday and Friday doing a lot.  Thursday we started by going to Deanna Rose.  It was hot and we got there literally as they were opening the doors.  it was great, we even had 10 minutes or so where it seemed like just us.  We checked out the new Leawood Oklahoma Joes and then the afternoon was time for the family pics (I will post those later).  After dinner all of us headed to the neighborhood pool.  We are really blessed to have a great pool with a slide that the kids love.  Emma even started going down the slide with us because she saw Julia doing it (more on Emma and the pool later).  Friday we got up and went to Legoland.  The kids loved it, next year we'll have to hit up the aquarium.  finally Saturday came the party.  We had a pinata, which was at least 30 minutes of entertainment and a few other things which didn't entertain for nearly as long.  When it was all over and it was nap time, Emma was aglow.  She couldn't get herself to sleep for her nap for well over an hour as I heard her in her room talking and singing.  All that made everything worth it.  It now took us at least 2 weeks to catch up on life.  i am only partly kidding.

As for the pool, again, Emma is a child that has to decide she wants to do something herself.  We entered her into swimming lessons a few weeks ago and it was very clear that she didn't yet want to do it.  As in she spent the first 2 sessions crying. . .for 30 minutes straight.  She literally wouldn't do anything.  Then came the bday weekend and we both went to the pool a lot and she got to see her cousins playing in the pool.  It then all clicked and now Emma really seems to like it.  As getting out of the house with an infant and a cranky toddler isn't what I would call fun, it has really enticed us to go to the pool more.

Kinsley is moving on up too.  she started eating baby food about a month ago and really seems to like everything so far.  She loves to just sit and play, and mobilization may be around the corner as she has started pushing herself backwards.  She still smiles a lot and makes some crazy faces, even more than i remember Emma doing.