Chuckster

Charlie boy, it's been almost seven months since I wrote to you, and while I could make a thousand excuses why so much time has slid by, mostly I'm just sorry. You're kind, articulate, patient, imaginative, agreeable, smart, adventurous, athletic, and oh so funny. In the past seven months, you've started school, gone absolutely out-of-your-mind-baby-crazy, and we've added a family of kids to our every day routine. We've been busy, but hey, what's new?

School was a big step for all of us. After your flawless, jump-in-with-both-feet first day, we lost a bit of momentum. You got anxiety when it was time for me to leave, and while everyone reassured me it would work itself out, I was a dang mess every time I left you. Finally, after almost two weeks of tears, the Co-op's director, Pat, watched you run full-force into your classroom yelling hellos to your teacher and friends and stopped me as I walked in saying, "I get it. These tears for the last two weeks aren't I-don't-want-to-be-here tears; they're I-love-you tears." Her words stopped me dead in my tracks. You told everyone how much you loved school, were so excited to go in the mornings, but as soon as I turned to leave, you lost your mind. Your tears never lasted long, and you were always so happy when I peeked into your classroom at pick-up. Pat nailed it. We'd spent the last three years together all day almost every day. I miss you too! So I followed you into your classroom that day with a little bit more perspective and understanding, and ever since, drop-off has been a breeze. You love school. Your classmates are sweet and their families are kind, and we've made new friends and learned to navigate this new world together. Your dad and I get to help in your classroom once a month, and it's unbelievably fun to watch you interact with all those funny, energetic, sweet three-year-olds. We couldn't have asked for a better teacher - Cass has your whole heart (you just asked if we could invite her to your birthday party...I die), and we feel so lucky to get to be a part of your first years of school. I can't even kind of believe you'll be in school every day next year. It's our next big step. I know you'll be ready.

Speaking of next big steps. You are a passive aggressive, sometimes just plain aggressive, downright baby crazy baby pusher! I can't even pinpoint when it all started, but in the last year or two almost all of our closest friends have added a tiny person to their family, and you are just green with envy. It started with a cute obsession, turned weird when you started asking random moms at the park, "How did you get two kids at your house?" and turned downright uncomfortable when the neighbor down the street introduced us to her new baby and, without acknowledging her tiny newborn, you said quietly to me, "Sure wish you would have one of those." and headed back to the playground. I scooped my jaw up off the pavement and tried to return to normal conversation. Truthfully, bud, your dad and I hope for nothing more than for you to be a sibling some day, but your dad and his brother are four years apart, and your uncle Kevin and I are five years apart, and both of those splits made for really great childhoods for us. Aside from the fact that you bring up something baby or sibling related every freaking day, we're in no rush. We love you. We want to give you everything you want, but a baby is a big ask, dude.

Luckily, to help ease some of the sibling void in your life, we've started picking up our neighbors from school in the afternoons. The boys are three and eight and are a great addition to our life. Their moms were looking for help, I was looking for something part-time that would fit into our schedule, and it all just seemed serendipitous. I love having a car-load of kids, taking y'all to new places around town, and working through homework and school projects, and you love having those boys around - Sawyer is one of your very best buds, and Evan is always including you in soccer games or wrestling matches or bike riding. In hindsight, I've asked you to be pretty flexible with this recent change, but you've taken it all in stride. I grew up with a community of kids and parents that I loved and loved me, and ever since you were young, I've hoped for the same for you. We've got a pretty solid little village surrounding us here in Austin. There's not much that makes me happier.

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And because I've missed so much, here's just a few of my favorite Chuck stories from the last seven months...

Holidays are just the best with you around. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Valentine's Day, and St. Patrick's Day have all passed, and it was the most fun to celebrate them with you. You have loads of questions - at some point during decorating for Christmas we got talking about the birth of Jesus, and by the time your dad got home from his run, you and I were discussing the resurrection. Your dad stood there trying to calculate just how long he had been gone.

You're forever stalling at bedtime lately, but sometime in the fall you shouted, "Moooooom!" And when I walked through the door, admittedly a bit perturbed, you said, "Hey mom, I gotta tell you something. I didn't know I was gonna get a mom like you. You're a really good one." My heart pretty much jumped right out of my chest. I didn't know I was going to get a boy like you, bud. You are undoubtedly the best.

You're a bike rider! I never thought you'd figure out that strider, and then after two weeks of daily painfully slow walks around the block, something just clicked. When we went to pick up your new bike the salesman was adamant that we take off the training wheels and put you right from the strider to a real bike. I was so skeptical. But sure enough just when I thought my back might break from running alongside you as you nervously pedaled, you got it and cruised right down to the end of the street on your own. It's amazing to see your three-year-old self pedaling on those two wheels. Last week you took off down the gigantic hill at the field by our house, and I had to bite my tongue practically off to stop myself from shouting for you to stop. You did it though, and when I got down to the bottom to congratulate you, you said, "Mom! I'm just like a rocket!" No doubt, bud. No doubt.

Your mispronunciation/confusion of words are just my absolute favorite - sidewalk is slidechalk, hamburger is hangerbanger, onion is minion, you're constantly confusing your knees, wrists and elbows, and just can't quite figure out what meal is breakfast, lunch or dinner. We love you anyway.

You've declared your presidency for 2048. Congratulations.

You picked all the teams in your first bracket challenge. I read off the names to you, and you picked without hesitation the whole way through. You gave me some insight into some of your selections, "Hawaii! That's where GaGa just was," or "Stephen F. Austin! I live in Austin. I love it here!" and I tried not to interject. When you continued to pick SFA to win the entire tournament, I just couldn't quite break it to you that they're a 14 seed and probably won't make it to Houston nor are they located in Austin. They have Austin in their name, and they're the Lumberjacks, so it actually seems like the most perfect pick for you. Godspeed.

We took you to the Wild Kratts show, and while you didn't completely get all the ins and outs of what was going on, you were cheering with both hands high over your head almost the entire show and couldn't stop exclaiming, "I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY ARE REAL LIFE!"

We bought you a new pair of jeans and a plaid button-down shirt for the Wild Kratt show, and well, you never take them off. I've started refusing to do your laundry because if it's clean, you wear that shirt no matter what we're doing. You call it your "fancy" shirt and are so proud of how you look in it. I'm kind of over it.

A bird crapped on my head just the other day as we walked into the doctor's office, and when I asked you if there was bird poop in my hair you said, "Oh yes," and after I checked in, I turned to tell you that we were heading to the bathroom, so I could wash out my hair, and you had your fingers pinching your little nose. I asked you what you were doing and you said, "I have to cover my nose because I'm pretty sure you smell disgusting."

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Your dad and I have endless stories to tell, but the short and sweet of it is you're hilarious, imaginative, and make life more fun that we ever thought it could be.

First Day of School!

Charlie boy, you darted through the school doors this morning and left me in the common area offering excuse-mes in an effort to keep your pace. When we got the email this spring that you had a spot at the All Austin Cooperative Nursery School, my heart burst with happiness and anticipation. You've been ready for today for awhile. I thought I was too, but when my voice broke this morning as I asked to take your picture by the school sign, I could tell this might be harder on me than you. After shouting hi to your teacher, the tub filled with soap, sponges, babies, and towels caught your attention, and you set hard to work scrubbing those babes down (eyeballs and all). When the babies were properly rinsed, you rushed inside to play with the kitchen and looked up to find a "REAL PHONE FOR KIDS!" You immediately started calling Joe, your favorite person who doesn't really exist. We moved into the block room to build a road for the bus and then to painting and dough and finally outside to the plastic horses and dump trucks. For an abbreviated day, you surely made your rounds. You were kind and friendly and open to all that was around you. I felt proud of your words, your heart, and your adventurous spirit. I can't wait for you to learn and really play with your classmates and make friends. I immediately fell in love with a few kids in your class. I'm anxious to see who interests you. You're rocking this school thing. Nobody is surprised. 

It was just four years ago, after an adrenaline-filled first day back at school for me, I found out you were just the tinniest nugget growing in my belly. I spent almost every day that school year listening to The Head and the Heart's Rivers and Roads. Basically, every day singing and sobbing in my car, "Rivers and roads. Rivers and roads. Rivers till I reach you." I knew I might, ultimately, think pregnancy flew by, but I just couldn't wait to know you. Now this song has become my mantra with you. I still cry almost every time, but on our trying days, it reminds me this is all temporary, and then on our best days, it also reminds me this is all temporary. More than anything you've taught me that change is what this life is all about, and change isn't my strong point. Truthfully, whether it's a good or rough day, I'm acutely aware that someday, in the not so distant future, we won't be attached at the hip anymore, and just like when you were in my belly, I'll be counting down the days until I get to see you, squeeze you, know you a little better. We're so unbelievably blessed to have had these past three years together, and now on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, we're welcoming some new, wonderful people into our community. I trust them whole-heartedly with your sweet soul. School served us so well this morning. I hope we have a whole year full of blissful days.

Summer Tour

It might have been an eternity since you blogged if you had to search back through your Facebook to remember the website. Sorry, Char.



Boy, we had a SUMMER! A finding-water-every-dang-day-lake-loving-wave-dodging-family-filled summer. My heart is full, and my energy is tapped, but I wouldn't do one thing differently. I sat down at least three times throughout June and July with every intention of documenting our time in great detail; it just never quite happened, so here it is. 2015 was one for the books.

The first of June threatened to be bleak. John started a new job and part of the on-boarding included two weeks in Seattle. Two entire weeks. In our fifteen years together, I don't know that we've ever spent two whole weeks apart and certainly nowhere near two weeks since Charlie-boy was born. Everyone around me had the same appropriate reaction, "Two weeks? Are you gonna be okay?!" Dallas begged me to come north. My in-laws proposed we take over the extra rooms at their house. My best friend offered to fly us all the way to Portland to be with her family. I'm actually not sure if I should be grateful or embarrassed that everyone knows my weaknesses so well. We politely declined all invites, John jetted off one Sunday morning, Charlie started swim lessons that Monday, Tania vowed to come down for the last four days of the two-week separation, and we did it!  We tackled a wicked summer stomach bug and strep throat all while John was gone, and I felt empowered and brave and exhausted and ready to see my husband, but mostly, I felt grateful for this community we've built around us. Charlie and I busied ourselves with play dates and swim dates. Friends and in-laws invited us over for dinner, dropped over to watch late-night movies, took us on museum tours perfectly suited for Charlie boy and surrounded me with doses of adult conversation. Adult conversation. Who knew I'd miss it so very much? And Tania and the boys battled through the rainy end of the weeks with us - strep throat and all. Magically, Charlie finished swim, John came home, and all was right with the world again.

John, however, came home to a different household. In the two weeks he was gone, we had a new full-fledged swimmer in our house. Charlie started swim school with his cousins early this summer, and the familiar faces and the kind swim teacher served him so well. (His competitive spirit may have come into play too.) There was one boy in the class that was, by all accounts, already a swimmer except he couldn't swim the necessary five feet by himself to move into the next class, and when Charlie saw all that the swim teacher was letting that boy do, he started asking what he had to do to be like that. She showed him how to blow "humming bubbles" with his face under water, encouraged us to swim everyday after swim class, and the rest is history. Watching this kid swim swells my heart to an unbelievable size, and he couldn't be prouder of his new-found skill. Those two weeks shaped our entire summer. I felt motivated to help him develop his skills, and swimming, shoot, it wears a kid out. Our new goal was to find water every dang day, and we did a pretty good job of it.

Minnesota was next on the summer agenda, and after two weeks of separation, I was so grateful to have our family together for an entire week. We spent Sunday on airplanes and then in a car, but it was all worth it when Charlie stepped out the back door of the cabin. He couldn't get in the water fast enough, and in typical Kavanaugh's fashion, there was a whole crew of people cheering him on and sweet Jamie even ran up, threw on her suit, and jumped in with him. My heart bursts with love up there and watching Charlie on the receiving end of all that love makes me a complete puddle. Kavanaugh's is just plain family fun - a week-long retreat from technology, from the hot Texas heat, and from reality, but this year I realized John and I long for Kavs for completely selfish reasons too. Kavs offers mentorship and encouragement. Almost like clockwork on the first night, John stays up entirely too late catching his uncles up on a years-worth of work. They swap stories, offer advice, and listen intently to all the changes we've encountered over the year. I'm not sure there's much that fills my heart more than seeing people take the time, invest interest, and listen intently to the person I love the most. John walks away from those nights reassured, encouraged, motivated, and hungover. Selfishly, I look around for seven days and watch an entire generation of people who created families with kids in their teens, twenties and thirties who actually still want to hang out with their parents, their siblings, their cousins, and their cousins' kids. They've built the healthiest kind of family dynamics, and while it's an imperfect system, that's the absolute beauty in it. You don't have to do everything right. You simply have to invest time (over and over again), and it's in this week that I'm encouraged and reassured in my daily job. And the cousins. Oh geez, don't even get me started on the cousins. John got to grow up with friends that were also family, and they're all so good at welcoming us newbies into the fold. Our hearts are always a little fuller and our bellies a little bigger when we leave Minnesota, and every year we can't wait to go back for more.

We had almost three weeks in Austin before Charlie and I made our great voyage to the beach with my family. It was great to be home all together for a good stretch, but I also couldn't wait to get Charlie to the beach for his first ocean adventure. When we decided Charlie and I would drive, John would fly and meet us mid-week, and then we'd all ride back together, it seemed like a no-brainer, but as our departure date approached, the thought of eleven hours in the car together gave me the cold sweats. In hindsight, I should've been worried about almost 16 hours in the car. Ignorance is bliss. I won't detail every bit of our car trip, but know that an eight and a half hour day took almost twelve, and there were about a million bathroom pit-stops. The Bastrop forest fire was a topic of hot debate, Louisiana almost put me to sleep, a gas station in Mississippi made me grateful for the portion of the south we reside, and shells at the Gulport beach are actually hermit crabs. (Charlie and I almost peed our pants laughing.) Overall, it was a really good, easy car ride, and Seaside was the ultimate treat. Put me with my siblings for a week, and there's not much that could go wrong. I laughed until I cried every day, and Charlie ran around non-stop for seven days straight with his older, cooler and (sometimes) wiser cousins. I'm eternally grateful for the time I got to steal away with my niece and nephews. They're some of the coolest kids I know. There were death hikes, forest walks, catching up with extended family, horseback riding, airport races, too much food and Cards of Humanity. Oh Cards of Humanity. I've never seen my husband giggle harder. I want to play it with every inappropriate person I know. The week was restorative. If I could, I'd live right next door to my siblings and parents. Being with them makes me feel more like myself than I ever do anywhere else.

We're home, and it feels so good to settle back into reality. We're prepping for Charlie's first day of school and jumping back into work. My boy transformed this summer, and he picked the perfect time to do it. Hope this love, gratitude and these summer vibes carry us right through the year.