Go West

In the weeks before we left Norway to come to America, Michael listened to ‘Go West‘ as he walked to work every day. Going west was an adventure, with wonderful parts and difficult parts. It is strange, in the days before we leave here, to be in a place which so soon will only exist for us as memories. I think Michael’s favourite part of being here was all the photo opportunities. The images take on lives of their own, often more resonant with suggestiveness than the moments themselves had been. The dogs panting at the Interstate Oasis, the fierce red rock of Moab, the cross-hatched textures of earth in the Kennecot Copper Mine, and the mountain-tops, lakes and deep forests of the Glacier National Park. Below the fold are images that didn’t make it into earlier posts – a montage of doorways, cars, characters, creatures, and, always, the open road.

 

Packing up

Felix has been getting into the spirit of things. No, really. This week, for the first time, he has been all about putting things inside other things. The other night in the bath, he spent a good ten minutes assiduously stuffing his squeezy sheep into a plastic cup, and then immediately scrabbling it out again. Michael, I said, come and look at this! And he sat on the bathroom floor, and we cheered and cheered, amazed at our son putting a toy in and out of a cup, over and over. Clearly a genius. (This is not to discount the pleasure of putting a baby in a box.)

We have only two days left here. We are mostly packed. We’ll ship our last two boxes tomorrow, and somehow fit everything else into our bags (maybe Felix will help). We’ve started cleaning our apartment but there is lots more cleaning to go. It will be a relief to get on the plane, despite the fact a long flight with a nine month old may not be terribly relaxing.

Today was Thanksgiving, and we had dinner with two of the women from my Mom’s group and their families. It was a lovely way to conclude our time here. The Mom’s meetup group has been, for me, one of the best things about being here. They even held a farewell meetup for me on Tuesday; I was so touched.

The past few days I have been walking my familiar paths, stopping in my familiar places, feeling like a ghost of myself.

On Monday we said goodbye to my friend Katya and her daughter Willow, who is almost exactly Felix’s age. Sharing our entry into motherhood over the past six months has been wonderful and I felt so sad after saying goodbye. We have decided to rectify the situation and see each other one more time before we leave. And I do so hope they visit us in Norway someday.

But this time next week we’ll be in Australia. This sounds too good to be true!

 

Little pumpkin

Warning: gratuitous cuteness ahead.

My plan was to dress Felix as a pumpkin, get him to hold a pumpkin, sit him down among the autumn leaves, and get Michael to take pictures of him. (These are the discretions we allow ourselves as parents.) But he was more interested in the leaves. And the leaves, I admit, were pretty great.

 

Happy Halloween!

So far we’ve been loving the build-up to Halloween. We went for a walk this morning around one of the older neighbourhoods here in Idaho Falls so Michael could take some pictures of the decorations.

It is really quite lovely having such a popular celebration of Autumn – it feels like a good thing to do (and it postpones the encroachment of Christmas paraphernalia!). Halloween doesn’t really work in Australia because it is utterly the wrong season.

I don’t get into the really scary stuff, but it is nice to have markers of harvest and the encroaching shadows. The bakery has been flogging its choc-chip pumpkin bread lately, and I must admit I have become a bit of an addict.

Everyone is going completely nuts for candy. In the Walmart there’s a huge aisle devoted to combo pack bags of sweets and chocolate bars, just for Halloween. Michael was there the other night and he says there’s a worker employed full time just to re-stack it, as customers crowd around it like honey bees.

Last night I took Felix to ‘Boo at the Zoo’. The Zoo has special late night opening hours for three nights, and is completely decked out in Halloween decorations. Local businesses are running little stalls handing out candy for trick or treating, and the zoo is utterly over-run with mini pirates and lions and spider-men and witches and ghosts and princesses and strawberries pointing at the animals and lining up for candy.

I’m not sure what the zoo’s regular inhabitants made of it all. Taking Felix in the stroller was the wrong move, as there were so many people we could barely get through the crowds. The turtle’s enclosure was taken over by pumpkins, and the penguin cove was decked out with a pirate theme.

Boo!

 

More Autumn

It’s hard not to feel a little melancholy in Autumn. Not that you’d know it from these photos, that Michael took last weekend in Salt Lake City. That day was just beautiful – perfectly mild and almost still, with a hint of cool when a breeze brushed your cheek, and a gentle warmth on your skin from the sun. (Sorry about all those adjectives.)

This week in Idaho Falls it has been much much colder – there has been frost most mornings – but it has been blue and bright every day, and the air is utterly clear. It’s very dry. Everything is charged with static. At night when I snuggle into bed my duvet lights up with dozens of sparks, like a mini lightening storm.

A couple of days ago the tree outside our apartment had the perfect ratio of yellow leaves on its branches and heaped in a bright ring at its feet. I recalled the many summer evenings I’d sat out there with Felix. One day, walking back from the park, I passed two girls raking leaves in their front yard. ‘We’re making a leaf pile’, the smaller one told me. ‘And then we’re going to jump in it!’

 

Tired

Since we got back from Montana, it’s all been go here. Michael had a lot of deadlines, and I had one big one. At the same time Michael had a workshop which meant he was home late every night. And then he went away for four days. And now there is a lot to sort out as Michael leaves for a week in Norway this weekend, and Felix and I are flying to Seattle to stay with a blogfriend! I am very much looking forward to that. But the past few days I’ve been so tired I’ve felt like I’ve been walking through treacle. Oh, and Felix decided he wanted to grow two teeth. Which I hope explains his new habit of staying awake for an hour and a half in the early hours of the morning. And I hope it stops soon, too.

It’s sort of cathartic to write it all out – I feel better already. I’ve been enjoying the gorgeous fall weather here in Idaho Falls – it’s cool (and sometimes cold) first thing in the morning, but the sun shines brightly every day and it warms up quickly to the mid-twenties. The mother’s group has continued to be great. Apart from that, I’m just getting a tiny bit bored of the four or five activities I have to choose between to keep Felix happy every day (two coffee shops, a bakery, a walk along the river and the park). Sometimes I try to do them in a different order just to spice things up a bit. He still loves the trains at Barnes and Noble. And he loves the toddler girls in the mothers’ group. They love him too. It’s very rare that I can spend a whole awake period (three hours or so) at home with him – he just gets so restless, but perks up the moment I put him in the stroller.

But we get a new adventure next week! (I am so so so glad – I would have gone completely nuts on my own for a week). And just two months until we leave for two months in Australia. Cannot wait. After that it’s back to Norway and back to work for the tail end of winter. So I must not wish these last two months in the US away – life will be so different once the little guy starts in the barnehage. I have a feeling he will not be very impressed at me leaving him, but I think he’ll like it a lot once he gets used to it – he’s pretty keen on social interaction. Well, better get back to folding the laundry to facilitate our packing…

 

Sunshine

Just so much warm beautiful shiny sun. Because of the altitude, the sun is quite fierce here – even when the temperature drops a little, in the sun it’s hot. I’m just loving these slightly milder fall days. This feels like the first real summer I’ve had since leaving Australia eight years ago. Apparently the fall can be fickle here – winter can hit with a bang at the beginning of October. But last year it was long and mild, and it looks like this year will be the same.

This morning I went for a walk along the river with the mother’s group. There was about eight of us, all with strollers (several with double strollers!). We stopped at the park half way along for the kids to play. One of the little one and a half year old girls has taken a shine to Felix – she keeps coming up to him and saying his name. He loves it. He is such a social creature. And talking to the other mothers is just so great. It’s such a brilliant group.

Felix prompts conversations wherever we go. He flirts with everyone. This morning an old lady stopped to say hello in town, and then she spotted us again in the bookshop this afternoon. Felix stared and stared at the man setting up his computer at the table next to us, until he relented and started showing us pictures of his family. Felix’s favourite regular acquaintance is one of the barristas in Barnes and Noble. (She loves him too.) He looks forward to seeing her so much that as soon as we stand in line to order drinks he grins and jiggles his legs in anticipation.

I’ve had a madly busy week trying to put the final edits into an article, in between caring for the little guy. The days have been pretty exhausting. But it’s done now. And the sun just shines and shines.

 

Symphony in the park

Felix and I went to a concert in the park this evening. Michael went to a demolition derby instead. I think we had more fun. The Idaho Falls symphony orchestra played Strauss, Grieg, and Elgar, as well as a couple of American classics. If Strauss counts as Germanic, Felix had a good proportion of his adopted nationalities represented! They just needed a rendition of Waltzing Matilda.The Star Spangled Banner was oddly moving as everyone stood up and put their hand on their heart. I felt conspicuous not doing it (I stood, but left my heart alone). The Land of Hope and Glory could have done with a couple of thousand Brits madly waving Union Jacks Flags, but it was uplifting all the same (apparently here they play it at high school graduations!). The Firefighter’s pipe band also played a few tunes in honour of September 11. If that wasn’t emotional enough the orchestra moved straight onto Grieg. (They love Grieg here, it’s always on the Classical radio station.) So I was on the verge of tears several times but it was a fabulous night. The trees were glowing in the late sunlight, just getting ready to turn golden. Felix thoroughly enjoyed his picnic, eating two rice crackers, two crusts of bread, half a jar of butternut squash and half a jar of pear, making a grand mess. He met a white fluffy dog and a ten month old baby called John. We managed to stay right till then end – an encore of In the Hall of the Mountain King. Just awesome.

 

Felix goes grocery shopping

Felix had his first ride in the front of a shopping trolley today. There are so many unanticipated firsts. He looks very big and brave in the photo but he really did look so tiny there, clinging on and looking around. I was so excited I told the Walmart greeter that it was his first time, and he gave her a big smile. He liked the new angle it gave him on things but he’d had enough after about half an hour (even in the stroller he can only survive for half an hour in Walmart and I can’t blame him). It felt like a big deal. And it was much much easier than pushing the stroller with one hand and trying to balance a basket in the other. Afterwards, he was exhausted.

Sorry for the one dimensional nature of the blog at the moment. There are other things I want to write about and show you, but this feels like the most important one right now.

Earlier in the day we went to storytime. At the moment he just wants to sit at my feet and untie my shoelaces. He got quite annoyed when I tried to lift him onto my lap to join in with the songs!

This evening for the first time he managed to finish his bowl of mashed banana and baby oatmeal.

This past week, sometimes strangers make him cry.

He is getting more and more interested in his board books – he loves to scratch the pictures and whack the pages, and sometimes he tries to turn them.

When he sits and plays with his toys, he likes to put them down as far away as he can reach, leave them for a minute, and pick them up again.

When he’s hungry he lunges at my breast, or munches enthusiastically on my shoulder. If we’re out and about, though, the feed will only last for two minutes max, because the world is far too exciting.

Today he almost almost managed to roll from his tummy to his back, about three times. (He has been able to roll the other way with ease for ages, but noisily demands to be rescued every time.)

Last night just before bedtime he was sitting up in my bed absorbed in a private game. It looked for all the world like he was pretending to pick things up and put them in his mouth, over and over again.

 

It’s all happening at the zoo

Idaho Falls has a lovely small and shady zoo, perfect for sunny mornings. We liked the giant tortoise the best. (This photo is courtesy of my Dad and his telephoto lens.)

We visited with my parents two weeks ago, and Felix and I went back last week. Felix led the way (until he ate the map).

We felt a bit sad for the big animals in the small enclosures, but they seemed happy enough, and the zoo was filled with baby animals, so they must be doing something right. (Michael speculates that the animals get so bored over the winter that all they can do is breed.) There was a baby zebra, a (nearly grown-up) baby snow leopard, various baby mini monkeys, a baby camel with crazy hair, and two beautiful wild cat kittens. They traipsed after their mother hassling for a feed, and when she gave in and flopped down, licking their heads while they ate, I felt quite a connection with her. It was hard to get good photos, but Michael got some nice shots of the lions.

There’s even an Australian enclosure. When I went back this week I watched a black swan chase two emus around, which was a sight I’ve never seen before.

This guy was more Felix’s size.