I was looking through some things last night and ran across my journal from my last year of college and the first few years in California. Lots of Overwrought and Earnest. There’s a big break after the decision not to move home to Wisconsin, and then an entry that starts like this:

3/24/95

So here I am happy and warm watching sea otters & naked people on a beach in California. I still haven’t figured out if happiness is the same as complacency, but then I don’t really see any point in constructing a purpose for myself just to have one…

I was struck by a few things reading the journal – for one, that entry was five pages long. I had a lot of time. I was apparently boy-crazy. I was aware of where I was in life, of the possibilities in front of me and of how good things were at the moment. And I write differently when I write for myself instead of an audience. I think I need to start a personal journal again, but where to find the time?

A few weeks ago Griffin said his first compound sentence. We’d gotten sweet corn from the farmer’s market and I was explaining to him that you can’t just eat it raw. He carried an ear of corn over to me and said “Cook it and eat it”. Exactly one week ago he got pronouns. He was sitting in the car right before our camping trip and he said “You and me and daddy”. He also just got possesives, the other day I asked him if he was ok and he answered “My eye hurts.” It’s so great to be able to communicate with him on this level. Yesterday I asked him what he wanted for breakfast and he considered it for a while before answering “Beans on toast”.

Since I haven’t posted many pictures lately, here are some pictures from last weekend’s camping trip:

A close friend’s mom died on Sunday. I spent a lot of time there growing up and she was a wonderful person. She was strong and funny and she made great spaghetti sauce and she really listened when you talked. My friend moved to California around the same time I did, but she’s been home visiting for the past few weeks. I just saw her and her mom at the fair on Thursday, I’m very glad to have seen her one last time. We knew she needed a liver transplant but she seemed so strong and so healthy that no-one was prepared for this. Her wake was tonight and her funeral is tomorrow morning. The visitation started at 4:00 and from the length of the line I’m guessing there will still be people there past midnight. She was very well loved. This isn’t my story to tell, but I didn’t feel like I could talk about anything else without acknowledging this. She had been married 37 years, she has four daughters and many, many grandchildren and I don’t know what they’re going to do without her.

The last few weeks have been really busy. Last week I went to a training class for work which was a great opportunity but meant I was away from Griffin 8+ hours/day. The first day was especially hard, I could actually feel the minutes ticking by in the afternoon. Griffin held up pretty well but I’m glad I don’t usually have to work full time.

Friday afternoon we met up with Melissa, Joe, and Mary at the Madison zoo. Then Friday night we went down to Chicago to visit my sister and niece. There was a heat wave everywhere and Chicago seemed especially hot but we had a good time visiting the Shedd aquarium, chasing pigeons, and hanging out at a park with a big water fountain for the kids to play in. Carrie said lots of parks in Chicago have water spraying to keep the kids cool in the summer. It was great to see her and Eve as always.

This week we have two sets of friends in from out of town so will be visiting as much as possible. This weekend we’re camping with Griffin’s playgroup/my mom’s group, and then we have a birthday party for my niece Megan on Sunday.

Cute Griffin anecdote, he’s very into my elbows. I think it’s a transference thing since we stopped nursing, when he’s tired or just wants some bonding time he sits in my lap and rubs my elbows. Mostly this is nice and cuddly, although when he does it a lot it can be a bit like Chinese water torture. We don’t watch Sesame Street much but when we do and the little red guy comes on Griffin gets very excited, jumps on my lap, and yells “Elbow!”. (It’s Elmo for those of you without small children.)

We had a family reunion today in Wiota for my grandma’s side of the family. That side of the family is part vampire I think, everybody lives for a very long time. I had a conversation with my great-grandmother’s brother today where he complained that his job made him cut back his hours once he turned 90.

I’ve been thinking a lot about DNA lately, learning lots of genetics for my job. I was briefly bummed that I’m a dead end for my mitochondrial DNA since we’re only planning to have one child and the mitochondrial DNA only passes down through females. Being at the reunion today brought home to me that not only do I have three sisters, but my (maternal) grandmother also has three sisters. There must have been 50 people there today with my mitochondrial DNA, so I think we’re covered.

I’ve been thinking of adding some food trivia and DNA trivia to each blog entry. So, here goes.

Food trivia, on Thursday Julian and I splurged on dinner at Eno Vino and it was easily one of the best meals we’ve had in the five years we’ve been in Madison, on par with L’Etoile. Julian’s trying to learn to like wine and the wine selection there was great, too.

DNA trivia, on the subject of mitochondrial DNA, they’ve been able to trace back far enough to know that every person alive today descended from a single woman who lived in Africa about 150,000 years ago.

A few years ago my parents bought a small fishing shack on the Mississippi river and have completely remodeled it, built a pier, and bought a pontoon boat. It’s a great place for the family to get together, and since it was my mom’s birthday we planned to go down and spend the night for the first time since we’ve had Griffin. Until my dad called on Saturday morning and warned us not to come, the “fish flies” were hatching. Once a year mayflies hatch, mate, and die in a single day and leave everything covered in dead flies. To give you an idea of the extent of this, this year’s hatch showed up on the weather radar. Apparently this is a good sign that the water quality is improving, but we decided to stay home and avoid the plague.

Instead we had a nice weekend of hitting up the new Madison pool and the zoo, and then we went down to the Mississippi on Monday. Here are some pictures:

Last night Griffin wasn’t falling asleep so we decided to pull out our old stand-by and go for a drive. It was a beautiful warm night and when we opened the garage door Griffin ran out onto the driveway. After greeting the moon (“Hi moon!”) we noticed something amazing. Fireflies! Everywhere! He wasn’t old enough to notice them last year so this was so much fun. I lifted my hand under one to catch it and then realized I’d made a tactical mistake. I thought Griffin wouldn’t be able to catch one himself and we’d be headed for a frustration tantrum. Instead he ran over to a firefly and exactly mimicked the hand motion I’d just done. He caught a firefly on his first try! He was so gentle with it, just watching it until it flew away.

Watching this scene Julian and I burst into applause. A while ago I read a book called Unconditional Parenting which talks about some of the problems with praising your child. I don’t fully buy it, but last night I did notice this. After we clapped Griffin went from being completely amazed and happy about the firefly to manically running around trying to catch more fireflies so we would clap again. Now, I know if his worst problem ends up being that his parents praised him too much we’ll be in fine shape. Even so, I’m going to try to be a little more aware of letting him be happy without making it about external approval.

The rest of the night was totally off schedule but fun. Griffin stayed up hours past his normal bedtime. Julian went out to see a band and Griffin was still awake. He likes the “Move it” song from Madagascar and kept requesting that I play it over and over again. Then we looked at the moon some more and read some books and snuggled and finally fell asleep.