Midwest 2011 Ottoville

Sorry for the delay in posting about the last leg of our Midwest adventure. I have been busy packing and taking a quick trip to NY to present at a conference. In fact, I am on the train home now and the physical inability to pack has created a bubble of free time.

Anyway, we had a great time in Ottoville. Stacy and Paul's wedding was the capstone, but Nicholas enjoyed the whole trip. He made lots of fast friends with members of Stacy's extended family and formed an immediate bond with Paul's godson who is close to him in age. When you ask Nicholas about the trip, he gives a list of names, talks about playing basketball (and the too many cars that were in the way), begs to go back to "Aunt Melissa's" to ride the tractor, and gets excited about "Aunt Stacy's party."

I think the second to last of those is the only one that needs any explanation. Nicholas alternated between calling Stacy's older sister "Miss Melissa" and "Aunt Melissa," even though I was only using her first name with him. I guess all women of that age in his life have one of those titles. He and I went down to her house one morning and she let Nicholas sit in her husband's tractor since he didn't have it out in the fields that day. Andy offered later to take Nicholas out in it, but the rest of our stay was so busy that we never got a chance. Nicholas was absolutely in love with that tractor and pretending to drive it. I was in awe of how huge it was. Unfortunately, the only pictures are on my phone and I am not tech savvy enough to get them off. However, I do have a picture of Melissa pulling Nicholas around in the toy tractor in their basement.

From 2011 June

It was a little tricky to navigate helping with wedding prep and a 2-year-old and I feel like I shortchanged Stacy some on my matron of honor duties. Thankfully one of our friends volunteered to watch Nicholas during the rehearsal and Saturday morning until Joe arrived, so I was able to be fully present at the most important parts. I am so grateful for that.

By the Ottoville leg of our trip Nicholas was running on fumes. So while he had fun, he also had points where the exhaustion and over-loaded weeks of activity caught up with him. The first night he had a couple accidents due to playing while exhausted, resulting in what I'm sure is the first of many scraped knees. He did such a number on it that it is still healing. Then the second night he had the worst meltdown of his young life. He got himself so upset at the idea of going to bed that he could hardly breathe. And the screaming was so out of control that if there had been neighbors instead of cornfields all around us we might have had problems.

But, in typical Nicholas fashion, he pulled himself together for the wedding.

From 2011 June

Aided by a long nap between the ceremony and reception, he partied hard, having a blast dancing with the other kids.

From 2011 June

From 2011 June

From 2011 June

Joe and I didn't get to dance much, though, because apparently a week alone with me made Nicholas a little jealous. Every time Joe and I tried to sneak in a dance during a slow song, Nicholas would abruptly stop whatever he was doing, demand to be picked up, and then push Joe away, saying, "no, Daddy!" It was hurtful to Joe, I'm sure, but I do understand where the little guy was coming from. The whole week the two of us had been a team, taking on all sorts of crazy adventures together. And here was someone trying to butt in. Joe and I did get 2 swing dances, I think mostly because Nicholas was too busy trying to figure out what we were doing to interfere.

But, really, how handsome is this little guy?

From 2011 June

Because we were so anxious about getting the packing done, we pushed and made the drive home in one day. By the end Nicholas was going a little stir crazy. Joe took this video of him playing rock, paper, scissors with himself:

From 2011 June

This is a little boy who is very sick of long car trips.

Nicholas is still trying to recoup from the last few weeks. He has been taking 3-hour long naps, something he hasn't done in probably close to a year. I am so grateful that he has been spending most of his days in the calm normalcy of my parents' house. This gives him a brief respite before we head out on our next adventure next week. But as much fun as we have all had this month, I think we will all be happy come July 11th, when Nicholas starts his new school and we can establish a routine and begin to develop a new normal.