Oh Boy, Sheboygan

Ten years ago, someone I worked with mentioned bringing his kids to Sheboygan. A word I had never heard of, and a word I had forgotten about until early this year, when I was trying to figure out where we should go on our first trip with two kids.

Why not Sheboygan, WI? A three-hour drive from where we live in Illinois, a city with lots of kid activities, a county that offers the beach and forest. And boy, it did not disappoint.

We found a rental right on the beach and as soon as we got there, the kids raced straight to the sand. The joy on their faces as they rolled around, picked up shells, and dug holes. Sand in every nook and cranny. The wind whipped our hair and rejuvenated our spirits, now free from the confines of the van. The peace we felt as we listened to the waves crashing into the shore. No one else around us.

I get why families take vacations now. Despite G fussing in her carseat and Bub asking every few minutes when we’d be there. Despite lugging noise machines and remembering to bring diapers. Despite navigating nap times and trying to make a new place toddler-friendly. Being away from home took us out of our comfort zone but forced us to grow closer as a unit. No distractions.

Memories were made from swinging with G in the hammock, playing Green Bay Packers checkers with Bub, and tackling a Minnesota-themed puzzle with Steve and Bub while G napped. I want to remember Steve and G doing yoga together on the living room rug and watching Buddha ride the waves as she retrieved a giant stick. I want to remember that the kids were happiest outside in the sand.

And when we did drag them away from the beach, we had a blast visiting the Mini Mocha Play Cafe, Bookworm Gardens, and the Above & Beyond Children’s Museum. We found everything we needed at Nature’s Best Market. I wanted to leave the trip wishing we could stay longer, and I got what I wanted.

When we got home, before unbuckling his seatbelt, Bub turned to me with a smile and said, “Oh, I thought we were going to go run to the sand.” For a brief moment, he had forgotten that we had left Sheboygan. Feels like a dream now, doesn’t it?

Feel the Illinoise

Every summer, I am without fail bombarded with photos of people’s glamorous vacations. Drinking vino in Portofino. Roadtripping across New Zealand. Ramen-shop hopping in Tokyo. From celebrities to friends to acquaintances, it feels like everyone took an epic vacation this summer but me.

It almost entices me to book an international getaway.

Almost.

As I Google “nonstop flights to Oslo”, I’m reminded of how wiggly G is and how much she’d hate being cooped up on a plane for 9 hours. How restless Bub would be waiting at a busy baggage claim when all he wants to do is run around. How neither of them could care less about trying new cuisine, taking photos, and admiring scenic landscapes.

They don’t care where we are. They want freedom to play. They want food when they want it. They just want to be with Steve and me.

As much as my free-spirited, restless heart wants to roam the earth, it’s not the right time.

So instead, we made the most of our summer staying local. We visited every nature center in the county, played in our neighbor’s garden, and treated my sister’s home like an Airbnb when she went on a trip.

Now with the sun setting earlier, the temps getting cooler, and the trees beginning to turn, I look back fondly on our summer. The summer Bub was four and G was a baby.

The Morton Arboretum

Fabyan Villa Museum & Japanese Garden

Hickory Knolls Discovery Center

Springbrook Prairie

Shabbona Lake State Park

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Last Firsts

This week, I celebrated my last baby’s first birthday. G is officially a one-year-old. No more telling people I have a baby at home.

I could cry at the drop of a hat thinking about how fast my kids are growing. The days are long but the years are short. It’s truly unfair, especially when they’re little and just so freakin’ adorable. I started writing this post on March 4th, so clearly I’ve been dreading this birthday milestone for a while.

Dreading and looking forward to it at the same time. Here I go again, a complex web of contradictions.

I am tearfully rocking my baby, I mean, my toddler to sleep because she will be ever so slightly heavier and older and more independent tomorrow. At the same time, I’m thinking about all the things I want to do with my life after she leaves the nest 17 years from now. I simultaneously want my freedom back and my children to stay in their preschool years forever.

I can’t believe a year ago we were bringing her home from the hospital. I can’t believe today, she’s walking and climbing and communicating. She’s drinking from a straw and prefers solids. I can’t believe that this is the year she’ll learn to talk, to run, and maybe move out of her crib. Tell me how the first year of a baby’s life makes sense. Seeing her grow from gremlin to a little girl in just 12 months is mind-boggling.

What’s also weird is that I don’t even remember Bub at this age. I had to look at photos and videos to remind myself, which made me terrified that I might someday soon forget what G is like at this very moment. Oh please let me remember her chubby cheeks, the sound of her babbling, her toddling to me with arms open wide. A big toothy grin on her face. I want to remember all of it.

Now I’m crying again.

Girl Mom

Before G was born, I falsely assumed that she would be more fond of Steve than me. Once she was born, I gave her every opportunity to bond with him. From the beginning, he was on duty most nights and took her out on his own during the day. Though I try not to use labels, I assumed G was going to be a “Daddy’s Girl”.

Much to my surprise, she wants nothing to do with him. At least, at this stage of her life.

I feel honored when she takes the bottle from Steve’s hand and gives it to me so I am the one who feeds her. My heart swells when she reaches for me, rushes to me, wants only me. I try to stifle my smile so as not to hurt Steve’s feelings when she pushes him away and fast-toddles into my arms.

I hope she and I have this close connection forever.

Because I don’t have a close relationship with my mother, I find myself thinking of people I know who have a special bond with theirs. How did they do it? How do I do the same with mine? How do I become the person she can call, no matter what? How do I not screw it up?

For now, I’m doing my best to simply be there for her - as much as I can. She is my second, but no longer my second choice. I love her just as much as her big brother but the love is different. Just as I love every person in my life differently. She is her own being. One I am loving getting to know.

They’re There

When I walked into my parents’ house the other day, I saw two large boxes of old photo albums near the front door. My mom said that they had been sitting in my grandparents’ basement for over a decade, collecting dust. When I told her she could digitize them, she said she didn’t have the time.

It made me wonder if someday, my zettabyte of personal photos would do the same. Sit in a dark cold datacenter, collecting digital dust. My children and grandchildren too busy to look through them.

That’s the blessing and curse of modern technology. On one hand, our cameras allow us to take thousands of photos and we can store them in perpetuity in the cloud. But, what for?

If you looked at my Google Photos today, you’d see a hundred photos of Bub eating cake on his first birthday, 30 photos of a random meal I had, a five-minute video of G eating oatmeal in her highchair. No one is going to look through all of this footage when I die. I don’t even know if I will look through all this footage while I’m alive.

There’s this pressure, perhaps from social media, that I have to take as many photos and videos of my children as possible, especially when they’re small. Gosh, the first few years - they grow up so damn fast. My brain mush from the sleep deprivation and constant pulling in a million directions - sometimes a photo is all I have to remind myself of their milestones. The big events in their lives and the simple daily joys.

But, I find myself rarely looking back at the photos and videos I’ve taken. I certainly don’t need so many photos of the same experience. Just one good one. At this point, a clean-up of my digital assets sounds exhausting. I keep telling myself I’ll do it someday when the kids are older. Maybe when I’m 50 I’ll make a three-hour long film with all the videos I’ve taken throughout their childhoods. It’ll be screened in our living room to an audience of two.

If I’m constantly trying to take photos and videos and I’m not going to look back at them because I’m too busy living my life, then what is the point of taking them? As soon as I turn to grab my camera, that moment with my children is gone. I am no longer present. Either I’ve interrupted the moment by being a distraction and cutting it short or I’ve lost touch with reality by putting a lens between us. As soon as I look away, I’ve lost it. They’re there, but I am not.

It’s a delicate balance of being in the moment or capturing it. They’re there, and I want to be too.

“When they were taking the picture, they were never there in the first place.”

— Charan Ranganath