Freedom in the Hills of New Hampshire

Haakon and I just got back from visiting family and friends in Kansas and I tell you what, each time I return to that state, I’m more glad I don’t live there anymore. It just doesn’t feel like home and, even though it’s January, there was no snow on the ground.They got a trace of snow the first day I was there and then it melted and it was bare ground. Everything was just brown and flat.

I know, I know, the mounds of snow we currently have everywhere make it a little difficult to see when you’re driving. Our parking lot is now a lot narrower than it used to be thanks to the piles everywhere, but man it’s beautiful. We have 4 distinct seasons up here. Compared to Wichita– where “spring” consists of the 5 minutes between cold weather and hot weather– New Hampshire’s weather is really great.

The family was quite happy to see Haakon and everyone commented on what a happy, cute baby he is. And you know, he is a happy baby. Well, except when people scream, he’s hungry, wet or I’m not around or he rolls over on his belly and can’t move any more than that. Then he dissolves into tears of complete frustration. As for the cute factor, I also believe that’s true, but then again, I’m hardly impartial

I’m not sure what Haakon thought of being in Wichita. I spent most of the trip worrying that he would miss his father a lot and would never be the same. The first night seemed to confirm my suspicions. I put him to bed then when to the bathroom and apparently he woke up, so my sister took him and when I got out, she gave him to me. Nothing but screams for at least an hour. He cried huge baby tears, his face turned red and he made that dreadful sound that sounds like he’s dying. His fists balled up and swung wildly, he arched his back and screamed like he’d never screamed before. It must have been the shock of waking up in a strange place with no mommy because I have no idea what else it could have been. But he recovered went to sleep eventually, but I felt horrible. The other nights were better, but he’s been comfort nursing a lot more since our trip and seems to need more reassurance than before.

He did enjoy my sister’s pets and laughed everytime Big Foot (Akita) liked him in the face, which was pretty much all the time. Then Big Foot liked him in the butt after he pooped and I began to have second thoughts about letting him like Haakon in the face like that…

The cats were even more fun, if only they would have stayed put a bit longer and let him grab at their whiskers and noses. They were not so fond of Haakon and would run away as soon as they made sure he wasn’t going to keep half their fur. I did not introduce him to the rabbit because of his scary claws. My sister, however, did and reported that he seemed to like him. Well, alright then.

My sister has two boys, my nephews, whom I’m sure I’ve mentioned and holy crap, those kids are loud. My youngest nephew, Tristan, discovered talking early and hasn’t shut up since. From the time he gets up to the time he goes to bed, it is one long stream of verbosity. He was reprimanded a few times at school for talking so much, so my sister thinks that he must be quiet at least a few minutes there. Topics are irrelevent and he flows from subject to subject like a river running over rapids. His new “thing” is art and his New Year Resolutions were “1. Get better at art. 2. Get better at inventing stuff. 3. Get better and not letting my pants fall down.” He’s definitely failing the last one. I held him up by his ankels several times and can report his pants fell off each and every time. He needs a belt.

My oldest nephew Zach is 13-years old and is mired in the Cool Stage. He wears a fake aura of Too Cool For You and sports skinny jeans and high tops. I asked him where his legwarmers were and he just stared at me. I guess I am just hopelessly uncool. Unfortunately for him, he’s started getting into trouble. He’s a good viola player and told my sister he would stay after school one day and do some stuff for Orchestra. Instead, he and three other kids went to a nearby church and some of them (not him, according to Zach) tried to break in, damaging a door in the process. Naturally they were caught and the church is making them pay. The bill is $105 per person. Or as my nephew told me, “It’s $420 total, so $120 per person.” And people wonder why I’m going to homeschool.

Schools really do suck. My sister got suckered into going to a lecture on standardized tests while I was there. She received an invitation for a Student Appreciation Breakfast at Zach’s middle school, so she took off work to be there at 8am with Zach. They handed out a few awards for things like “Improved Attendence” and then handed out Data Sheets on the standardized tests. Zach was meeting standard on reading, but approaching standard on math. Then the hosts launched into a long spiel about how they needed to get the standardized test scores up and how they needed to close the gap between white andd black students (an odd topic, considering my mixed-raced nephew has closed the gap between black and white) and how if only the parents would tell their kids they loved them, they would do better on the tests. Rich, considering they took Zach out of class for this lecture. Really, schools don’t give a shit about educating your kids. As long as they fill in the right bubbles on the standardized tests so the schools keep getting their federal funding, they couldn’t care less. I suppose it’s my fault for telling Zach earlier how I used to just make pretty patterns in the answer sheets when I took standardized tests. Whoops.

At any rate, my nephews were quite pleased with their cousin, though they never got over the drool. “Oh my god! He’s drooling all over me! Ewwwwww!!” they would shout, handing Haakon back to me. We did manage to get some cute pictures of all of them (plus my sister’s German foreign exchange student) together, although Zach would not put his legs around Tristan, saying it was “homo.” Somethings never change: when I was in middle school, it was also not socially acceptable to be gay.  I’ll upload the pictures later, my computer hates me at the moment.

If anything, I’m just glad to be home. Wichita is a “nice place to live,” but it will never be anything more than that. It has redlight cameras everywhere and the voters just approved another bond issue, but it turns out the city might not get the funding for it they from the feds they promised the taxpayers they would get. So guess who gets stuck with the bill? The taxpayers, of course! If you live in Wichita, you should be feeling quite paranoid about your backdoor because I think you’re going to get screwed in a most unpleaasant way during this recession.