We decided to take a road trip over Mother's Day weekend to Farmington, NM, to meet my mom and brother for a reunion at
the school where she used to teach. The trip was exhausting for us, and
I'm not sure we would have chosen to make the trip, except that it was
Mother's Day weekend.
I had forgotten how huge the US
is, having not undertaken a road trip recently. The land is tremendous
and all the larger when there is a two-year-old in the car with you. After trying various arrangements, we discovered that it was most successful for me to ride in back with Iris and let Evan do all the driving. I also admit to letting Iris play on her computer for far too long.
Trying to stave off boredom in the car
I'm
glad we had the excuse to travel this way through Colorado and New
Mexico, though, because I can't imagine when else we would have decided
to make a trip in this direction. Having a child with special medical needs has really cramped our traveling style. We brought her oxygen concentrator with us and she had to wear oxygen over the really high passes. Luckily, she didn't need it during the day anywhere we went. Or, perhaps better said, none of us could tolerate the idea of her being leashed with her oxygen cord for just the whiff she would need.
In any case, I can't adequately describe how
incredible the land is. We drove through the most incredible mountain scenes over and over again and then found our way to the New Mexico plains. All breathtaking.
We had snow on the drive back north.
Mesas by Farmington
For all the road trips I've taken, I don't think I've ever felt anxiety about being out in the middle of nowhere. I had a strange sensation of worry about what would happen if we had some medical emergency.
We met Mom and Mike in Farmington, and Iris got a chance to ride on Uncle Mike's skateboard, which was probably the highlight of the trip for her.
Sally remembers 1968
Moms and kids
By the end of the weekend we were exhausted and ready to be home. We also decided to wait to attempt another road trip for a while. The good news is that we think Iris doesn't need oxygen on planes anymore, so we can fly relatively easily.
My first Mother's Day was on the weekend we moved from State College to
Denver. Evan had left that Saturday (or was is Sunday?) in a UHaul with
his dad and Iris and I flew out on Monday the 13th for Denver. By all counts, this Mother's Day was more settled and peaceful. That's progress.
The weekend started with a trip to the newly opened Blue Spruce Brewing Company with some friends. Iris refuses to sit still so it was difficult to keep tabs on her while also trying to enjoy the place.
Mom's and babies. The dads are off stage right trying to make the babies smile.
On the morning of Mother's day I woke to some flowers, and a card, and a note that said, "Don't do the dishes I'll do them in the morning." Evan had stayed up till 12:30am working and then went to buy the flowers so I'd have them in the morning. He used to be much more anti-flower-buying than he is now. He doesn't like to buy in to any sort of cultural pressure to go out and buy stuff, which I support, despite my frequent trips to Costco. It's nice to get flowers, occasionally, though. That night he cooked dinner (fresh tomato soup, curried hummus, and roasted vegetables) after spending the afternoon installing some necessary plumbing into the downstairs bathroom so that the tiling guy can get started on tiling the shower.
Irises, the obvious choice. And something called bromeliads.
We didn't make any big plans for the weekend for several reasons, one of which was the weather. It was pretty bad all weekend -- we moved our garden pots into the garage and got around 3 inches of snow.
Our apple tree in May
Mother's day happened to fall on the 11th of May, the day Iris turned 13 months old. I may have mentioned that I can't get her to stay still so Evan helped with this photo of her below.
13 months old
And finally, Iris's favorite blanket of the moment, one that was mine when I was a baby.
