The British vote a few weeks ago to separate from the European Union, or ‘Brexit’, was as perplexing to us as it was to our friends and relatives from the UK and Europe. It was shocking.
In other news, Timothy has a strong will and a lot of energy, and these can be an exciting cocktail of forces. He will sometimes do something contrary or run decisively in the opposite direction.
Until now, I haven’t been able to explain it, but the British vote has finally given me a language for the rash ‘exits’ for our little TRBL (Timothy Robert Brandon Lee) – ‘TRexit’.
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I said in the prior blog post that I was out of Timothy’s inner circle. But as noted in the above ‘TRexit’ comment, his tastes change frequently. So if you’re out of the circle, you always have a chance of being invited back in. Oh, but also vice versa.
More recently, I’ve seen a resurgence in my prospects with Timothy and so at bedtime last night, I offered to read to him and he said, ‘No. Baba.’ (meaning ‘sorry pal, you’re still out, mom’s in’). I handed him his water and he was somehow able to start drinking his water with his left hand while he used his right hand to gently grab my elbow and guide me toward the door. That’s talent.
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Faced with a bunch of old family chairs and a sofa sitting in storage 600 miles away, most people wouldn’t think twice about calling a mover to have the furniture transported to its new home.
But not us.
Given that summer has been busy and our girls are both getting ready to spend a year overseas, we decided that a little ‘forced family time’ was in order.
And so we piled into the Honda CRV and drove down to Indianapolis – note: small detail, but that car feels like a tiny Matchbox car when it’s packed for 12 hours of driving with 4 adults and a redhead in his car seat. Then we put the furniture in a rental truck and drove it all back up to Minnesota.
We love car trips and had a lot of fun and visited a few friends and family, but even for us, 1,200 miles of driving in 72 hours was a lot, and at times it was a wee bit too much family time. But I’ll take a risk of erring on that side of the equation.
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This morning, after Timothy finished his morning swim in the hotel pool, I carried him into the bathtub in our room to shower him off.
Maybe he didn’t like the small enclosed space, and maybe he didn’t want to get washed.
Or maybe he wanted to do a little science experiment on how quickly a standing object can be put into motion.
As I stood in the bathtub, holding him with one hand and used the other hand to start putting shampoo in his hair, the little gremlin put both feet on the shower wall, and, like a swimmer doing a turn, he quickly pushed off, propelling us both away from the shower.
Had I not been lucky enough to tighten my grasp on the soapy boy and cling to the flimsy shower curtain for dear life, I would certainly have been thrown toward the nearby toilet and I’m not sure where TRBL would have landed.
Laura quickly arrived on the scene to find us giggling amidst a shower rod pulled from the wall, a shower curtain lying on the floor, and water running all over the place.
I have one word for that — ‘TRexit’.
Grateful, if not always so graceful,
The Lee’s
He’s suddenly licking a lot of things (chairs, toys, his cousin, etc), and while Timothy’s kisses have always been a little on the wet side, the tongue is now a full partner in his smooches. We’ll need to curb that new instinct, especially when we get a dog.
It’s great to have Elisabeth back from college for the Holidays. Timothy has loved having both sisters in the house.
