Monkeying Around At Grandma Sue's

Dear Laney:

The highlight of my autumn thus far: You pronounce "leaves" as "weebs." As in, "Hey mom, 'es go jump in da weebs!"

Love it.

-Mom

The Name Game

Dear Laney,

We still have no idea what we're going to name your brother. Surprisingly, having people ask us every day, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T HAVE A NAME PICKED OUT???" isn't speeding up the process.

Here's the problem: By the time you get to your mid-30s, you've pretty much met someone with every name out there, and even if you like the name on its own, you don't want to name your offspring after That Guy Who Did That Annoying Thing That One Time.

For the record, your vote is still for naming the baby, "Baby." Again, a strong choice for the first year or so, then drastically more awkward every year thereafter, 'til he becomes the joke of assisted living.

Last night, I got out a sheet of magnetic paper and wrote down all the names your dad and I have ever considered so we could make little tabs to put on the fridge. This way, we can move 'em around and experiment with middle names, and see how each combination looks with our last name. We're still no closer to making a decision, but we were able to turn our dilemma into a craft project. Progress!

...And that's how we named your brother Bocephus Frigidaire Burbach.*

Love,

Mom

* Attention Southern Ladies Of A Certain Age: This is obviously a joke. Please step away from the monogram machine.

Birthday Party of Three

10/26

Dear Laney,

Today is my birthday, and let me tell you - when you get to be 35, it's just one big non-event. And that's perfectly fine. My morning still turned out to be super-awesome-fun, because Cedar's parents had stuff to do today, and we volunteered to baby-sit.

Cedar came over early this morning, and we spent half the day playing together. You showed her how to play your flute! We crawled in and out of a tent and a tunnel! We played with Play-Doh! We ate Mac O'Cheese! We brought out all 286 of your toys so that you and Cedar could wrestle over the same lame thing you hadn't even looked at in months! And we gave Cedar some time to catch up on her phone calls; she had a nice long chat with whomever lives at 123933-46-205-411-876. [Attention Homeland Security: If this number includes the international dialing code for the interior of Afghanistan, trust me when I tell you this is all a big misunderstanding.]

You also wanted to hold Cedar's hand every time you guys went up or down the stairs, "So we be safe!"

You girls giggled and squealed all morning long, and had the best time. Thanks for making me feel so young on my birthday.

Love,

Mom

Beating A Path Back Home

Dear Laney,

It stands to reason that you're going to be unpleasant from time to time, and your dad and I are pretty good at realizing that when you're throwing a tantrum, it's typically because you're tired or hungry and not because you're an awful person. In general, I pride myself on being extremely patient with you. Once, about three months ago, you hit me, and I reflexively popped you on the hand. At the time, you gasped and rubbed your hands together and moaned, "BE NICE UH ME!" That moment has seared itself into my brain, and I try whenever possible to be nice uh you.

I say all that to lay the foundation for the story of our trip home from Atlanta.

We woke up at 4am Montana time to take the shuttle to the airport. We made it through security together with a minimum of fuss, and our flight to Salt Lake City was pretty uneventful. You did not, however, want to take a nap. When we landed in Salt Lake, we learned that our next flight to Spokane had been delayed by three hours, giving us a 4.5 hour layover. I invented games. I taught you how to jump on and off an escalator. I took totally unnecessary elevator rides just so you could press the buttons. I took you to eat pizza at Wolfgang Puck's. All this time, I was wearing a 30+ pound backpack and carrying you when you got tired while also carrying your brother because I sorta have to.

It was finally time to start heading to our gate, and you got to ride the automated walkway. I was carrying the backpack, the pizza you didn't finish, and your juice, and only had one free hand. When I reached down to take your hand to help you jump off the end of the walkway, you yelled, "NO! LET GO MY ARM!!" Well, no, I wasn't going to let go you arm, because I didn't want to see you take a header at the end of the walkway. So you screamed and wrestled, and because I was carrying all that other stuff, I couldn't just pick you up. When we got off the walkway, you threw yourself down in the middle of the airport and started sobbing. I did the only thing I could: I dragged you across the floor by the arm and deposited you behind a potted plant. I had a talk with God and said, "Lord, if she's going to pitch a hissy, let her do it behind this-here ficus." And I waited for you to quit crying.

Before we even managed to take off, you fell asleep in your seat. I closed your shade and made a pillow out of my jacket and sang a hallelujah chorus inside my head.

This is when the unpleasant old woman in the row across from us asked me, "Excuse me, do you think you could lift that shade so I could see out that window?" I looked at her, said, "I don't believe so, no," and went back to reading my magazine after briefly entertaining a fantasy of rolling it up so I could beat her about the head with the latest issue of Skymall.

In Spokane, we made it to long-term parking, picked up our car, and started the 3-hour drive to Missoula. At this point, we were 13 hours into our travel day, and I hadn't been more than 18 inches from you in all that time. I was sick of you. You were sick of me. You dropped your toy and asked me, "Where my toy go?" I said, "I don't know, Laney - maybe it's on the floor." You looked at me through the rearview mirror, narrowed your eyes and demanded, "GET IT."

And so help me Jesus, I thought: This is it. THIS is the moment when I pull the car into the emergency lane so I can turn around and beat the ever-loving tar out of this young'un.

But I didn't.

Instead, I called your dad and said, "On my Mother's Day card from Laney next year, please remind her to write, "Thank you for not killing me on October 22nd of 2011."

Love (no, really),

Mom

Zootiful

Dear Laney,

For our last big outing with your Florida grandparents, we went to Zoo Atlanta.

You were able to identify a lot of the animals - at least as many as your grandmother, who referred to everything that lived on/near a tree as "Hey, look at that monkey!" She obviously needs to watch more Diego, where she would learn that those "monkeys" were actually albino ring-tailed pygmy lemurs.*

There was a children's petting zoo, where you petted every single animal in the place...

...and then put your hand in your mouth.

If some crazy African Goat Flu starts sweeping Montana, we'll know who Patient Zero was, won't we?

It should surprise no one that your favorite part of the zoo was the playground, where you went down the slide umpteen times, until your hair looked like this, and you had to be hauled out kicking and screaming.

It's hard to pretend not to know you when I'm the one carrying you.

Thanks to Peg and Tex for a great first trip to the Zoo!

Love,

Mom

* I am making this animal up, but that's the kind of crazy thing they always have on that show.

A Brief Update On Your Brother

Dear Laney (but mostly grandparents),

We went to the perinatologist today to have a second ultrasound to check on Baby Boy. At our last appointment, I was diagnosed with something called Single Umbilical Artery. I strongly advise you not to google it. 99% of women have two arteries in their umbilical cords - I'm part of the 1% who just have one. While it can cause kidney and heart issues, the most common problem you see in SUA babies is slow/restricted growth. Having given birth to an eleven-pounder, I couldn't imagine this scenario would apply to us.

Sure enough, your brother seems perfectly okay. All of his organs appear to be in fine working order, and not only is he not growth-restricted, he's large for his "age." Especially his enormous Lee/Tetz/Burbach head, the size of which is almost 3 weeks ahead of schedule. No, really:

gestational age: 30 weeks, 1 day

head measures: 32 weeks, 6 days.

I told the doctor, "We don't make tiny babies." He said, "Oh, I remember." Then he looked at your dad and said, "When women meet guys in bars, they always ask questions like, 'What do you do for a living?', but they need to be asking, 'What was your birth weight?' and 'What's your hat size?'"

Probably a good thing I hadn't heard this advice when I met your dad, or I might have been scared off by his stats.

Love,

Mom

Montgomery or Bust

Dear Laney,

Before boarding the plane back to Montana last Tuesday, your dad dropped us off with Peg Peg and Tex so we could move on to the Alabama portion of our visit. That's right - he drove allll the way to Columbus just to have lunch with his in-laws. At an Applebee's. If you ever want to know how I know we'll be married forever, it's because he does stuff like that (where "stuff like that" = "responds easily to guilt trips and subtle prodding.")

We said goodbye to Dad after lunch and headed over to Montgomery, where your grandparents and Granny Jack walked you up to Frazer United Methodist Church to check out the pumpkin patch. Since you were gone about an hour, I can only assume that your great-grandmother had time to sign you up for a church committee. Come Wednesday Night Supper, I bet they're going to wonder what became of their green bean scooper. Eh, it's probably best that you don't show up - we don't want those church ladies accusing you of getting a prime spot on the hot food line through nepotism.

___

The next morning, Peg Peg and I took you to the children's exhibit at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art.

Here's the thing about Peg Peg - she isn't just "Type A," she's positively A+. She likes to see and do as much as possible in the shortest amount of time; every outing is The Amazing Race. I can recall vacations from my childhood with moments like, "There'sTheGrandCanyon.Didyouseeit?Good!Getbackinthecar."

I tried to prepare her for the fact that there are days when you accomplish absolutely nothing. Tried to remind her that when adding a toddler to the equation, you should also triple the time you think any given activity should take.

I can't tell you how it entertained me to no end when you'd sit down and do something like play with blocks at the museum with no interest in doing anything else for hours... and Peg had to sit still and watch you until she positively got the shakes because don't you know we could be AT TALBOT'S?!?

She finally got you away from the blocks long enough to play with her on the animated display, but you were over that in about two minutes.

For Peg Peg's sake, we did stop at a mall later in the day, where she took you off to buy a smoothie so I could actually check out the stuff on sale. When y'all came back ten minutes later, smoothie in tow, you yelled across the store, "MOM! I miss you SO MUCH!!" To clarify things for our fellow shoppers, Peg Peg hollered, "We were only gone ten minutes!! We just went to Panera!!"

Basically, as a group, we probably shouldn't be allowed in public.

Love,

Mom

Knocklurs

Dear Laney,

As a result of your fanatical devotion to Go, Diego, Go, you're really into "saving the animals." Whenever you see an animal - a duck at the lake, a bird on a lamppost, the giraffe at the Atlanta Zoo - you throw your arms up and take off running in its general direction while screaming, "I SAVE YOU." I don't have to worry about any actual animal encounters, because your approach seems to scare the bejeesus out of all animals, foreign and domestic.

There's a definite advantage to having a grandfather who owns an antique mall, because when I told Philip that you'd been miming looking through "knocklurs" a.k.a. "binoculars" for "Ah-muls in rubble" a.k.a. "Animals in trouble," he showed up to dinner with a pair of Laney-sized opera glasses. This, combined with your hot pink "rescue pack," means that there's nothing holding you back from saving all of the animals here in Mineral County.

Tip: The bears do not need saving.

Now Go, Laney, Go. But be back in time for your nap.

Love,

Mom

True Grit(s)

Dear Laney,

Last Monday (hooray, we've made it past last weekend!), we went to dinner with your grandfather to Clay and Connie Mercer's house. Clay has chickens and dogs and ducks and a goat and a donkey and Heaven only knows what else hanging around in his backyard. And sure, those things are cool...

But you know what else he has? HORSES. And more than Mac O'Cheese, more than Dora 'Splora, more than opening presents that belong to other people, you love horses.

Clay was kind enough to saddle up one of his horses so you could go for your first-ever horseback ride. The two of you rode together at first, then you got to ride all by yourself.

To say that you thought this was cool would be like saying - heck, I can't even come up with a comparison. For several days after, you would announce to me, apropos of nothing, "I ride horse." And we would all agree that yes, you had ridden the horse. "I ride horse." I know, I saw. "I ride horse." No kidding. "I ride horse." I've seen the pictures.

I was particularly fond of Clay's horse Tucker, who is basically a much bigger version of our dog, Gus:

He reminded me of that drunk guy who winds up in every picture taken at a party. That's him on the right.

I wanted to bring Tucker home with us, but your dad expressed concern that he would come home from work one evening to find Tucker and me on the couch, watching Oprah. Entirely possible.

Figuring that your dad was missing Montana, Clay was nice enough to take your dad out for what he described as "South Georgia's answer to dog-sledding." I wasn't with them at the time, but I know it involved a dog - also, a truck and a case of beer and a firearm or two and the hunt for wild hogs. I can only hope that the radio was tuned to a country station so that I can continue imagining this as a perfect storm of southern stereotypes.

Knowing that your dad is a mountain man, Clay was kind enough to point out the highest point in Dooly County, although your dad said it pretty much looked like the rest of the cotton field that surrounded it.

Thanks so much to Clay and Connie for a great night - we had a blast.

Tell Tucker to come visit.

Love,

Mom

ADDENDUM: I have since received a enlightening and informative e-mail from Clay, further explaining the field trip he took your dad on:

Re: the truck ride, I left the radio off so I could provide Thor with the best, most informative information regarding the countryside and, since he was a guest, offered him choice of weapons (rifle or pistol) and explained the rules of etiquette involving hog hunting from a truck (everything right of the centerline was his, everything left of the centerline was mine) and politely pointed out that he shouldn't fasten his seat belt in case, while running from the law, we got stuck in a ditch and had to run for it. Many a redneck would have let him strap himself in and then run off and left him. Not me.

Our $12,476 Day At The Fair

Dear Laney,

Last weekend (Yes, I'm still re-capping last weekend - hush) we attended the Georgia National Fair in Perry. I know I have complained about the Missoula Fair in the past for being rinky-dink. If you put the Missoula Fair in a Xerox machine on 8000% and added barbecue, you'd get something close to the Georgia National Fair. Like your dad said, "I've never seen so much food in one place." They had an exotic petting zoo, racing pigs, trained bears, two midways, three buildings of commercial exhibits and a ski lift.

We saw it all with my uncle David and Aunt Melanie, my cousin Heidi and her girls Katie and Hope.

Here's what I can tell you about the money-sucking, gnat-infested, hot-as-Hades good time known as the Georgia National Fair: In order for a two year old to ride any rides, one must first purchase her a $16 bracelet. One must then be constantly vigilant, and continually insist that the toddler STOPS TRYING TO TAKE OFF THE DANG BRACELET. Heidi told me, "It's not so bad, because an adult can ride with her for free." Wrong. We were turned away at the carousel so your dad could go buy ANOTHER $16 bracelet to accompany you on the rides. At that point, we were $32 into riding a carousel that you didn't want to ride with your dad, and your dad didn't want to ride at all. Who's having fun? I know I am!

We moved on to a ride called "The Crazy Bus," where you happily took Katie's hand and climbed on board. I thought the bus was just going to jiggle around a little bit. Again: Wrong. Instead, it shot up in the air like this:

I thought I was going to lose my cotton-pickin' mind.

When the ride came to a complete stop, you and Katie climbed off, still holding hands. Katie hollered from the steps, "BEFORE YOU EVEN ASK - SHE LOVED IT." Note to self: Send Katie and Hope a thank-you note for saving my child's life by keeping her inside the Crazy Bus.

Your dad rode the spinning dragons with you, then got off and said, "I'm so glad that ride is over, I thought I was going to throw up." Note to the US Navy: Find a way to employ Spinning Dragons in your flight training to help separate the men from the boys.

Finally, we found a spot in the shade where you happily ate your way through a $6 peach cobbler.

Heidi told me that after they took her girls to the Fair last year, her husband Jason pulled their car over on the way home and told them, "Based on today, I can tell you this: When you grow up, you're going to need to marry money, And I don't mean new money." I wish I could go back in time and be in that car while he made that speech, just so I could nod my head and agree, "Yeah! What he said."

Love,

Mom

Lee Girls: We're Just Like You. Only Prettier.

Dear Laney,

Last weekend, we attended the annual Lee Fall Family Festival at my uncle Keith and aunt Donna's house in south Georgia. When we walked up the drive, you saw other kids playing in a tent in the yard and you waved to us and said, "Bye, Mom. See ya way-ter." Safe to say it took you exactly 0.08 seconds for you to get accustomed to being a Lee.

They had you at "bounce house."

You painted a pumpkin, you ate chocolate-covered Oreos, you bounced in that house 'til your brain was probably rattling around in your head and you ran around the yard with a sharp-ended stick that my cousin Erik gave you. He can't be counted on to know better, because he's only had three girls of his own. Your cousins Hope and Victoria painted each other's faces to look like Native Americans, and we all agreed Hope got the short end of THAT pointy-ended stick. As Uncle Keith said, "Hope, you look like you have one of those biblical diseases."

My uncle David helpfully showed you how you could wiggle out of your shirt, and then you took off running topless through the party. When I caught up with you and told you to put your shirt back on, you yelled "DON'T WANT TO SHIRT!" I know there's one at every party, but it doesn't always have to be you.

With all the great moments to choose from, I think your favorite thing about the reunion - hands down - was the hay ride. You climbed up in Erik's lap and the whole family rumbled off down the street.

One thing the Lees are good at is having girls. We've had tons of 'em. I took so many photos of your female cousins that I decided I'd just put together this little tongue-in-cheek video. Hope you like it.

Love,

Mom

YOH-GWIT

Dear Laney,

I know it's been days since I posted an update. In the interim, you have been to a family reunion, attended the Perry National Fair, met dozens of relatives, accidentally ridden a death-defying carnival ride, tried peach cobbler, ridden a real horse, learned how to operate a slot machine, careened off a slide, and battled the gnats of south Georgia that even your peacenik of a dad described as "homicide-inducing." And I have about 120+ photos on my camera from each of the above events to sort through so I can (and will!) do a post on each.

I can say that the most amazing thing thus far about our whirlwind tour of the Confederacy is that you haven't once pitched a fit or thrown a tantrum or cried over anything that wasn't actually painful. OK, I take that back - there was this one thing that happened the day before yesterday:

I bought you some snacks to keep in our hotel room, including a pack of Dora the Explorer yogurt cups (I know what you're thinking and you're right - that hussy is on everything).

You were hanging out in the hotel room, watching a movie, enjoying your yogurt and sitting on what I helpfully coined, "The Yogurt Towel." See? It just sounds like fun. When you had eaten all the yogurt you could reach with your spoon and had reduced yourself to waggling your tongue around the inside of the empty container, your dad (crazily, wrongly, stupidly) assumed you were done with the yogurt and threw the container away.

Oh holy hell at the storm that rained down in our hotel room. It sounded something like this:

NO, DAD! IS MY YOH-GWIT! MINE! MINE! DAD! YOH-GWIT!!! YOOOHHHH-GWIIIIT!

...And then real tears started springing to your face as you clutched at the sky and thrashed around on The Yogurt Towel and otherwise mourned your loss. I swear, if it had been a scene in a movie, the part of Laney would be played by Marlon Brando, and it would look like this:

And that's when - God help us - your dad and I tried our hardest not to laugh. I don't know if it was the histrionics, or just the way you were pronouncing yogurt, or just the effort involved in not openly mocking you, but I think both of us actually cried.

Sure, it may have scarred you for life, but it was a vacation highlight for us.

We're terrible people, but we love you very much. So there's that.

Love,

Mom

Southbound

Dear Laney,

Since I'm getting bigger by the day, this is the last week I could probably get away with traveling across the country. For months now, we've been planning a trip to Georgia and Alabama so we could see all of the relatives on my side of the family while I'm still allowed to leave Montana.

The last time your dad and I left the state, we waved goodbye to you as you were playing Play-Doh with Grandma Sue, and then didn't come back for three days. I think you've grown suspicious, and have begun to worry that we're going to drop you like a hot brick at the first opportunity. To hedge your bets, you camped out in the suitcase.

We drove over to Spokane on Thursday night and checked into an airport hotel so we'd just need to walk across the street to catch our 6am flight on Friday morning. It was a good plan in theory, but in practice, we still had to get up at 4:30am and get dressed and ready and haul all our stuff down the street. Since you are only an unreasonable human being when you're tired, this meant that you were primed to be an unreasonable small person all. day. long.

We got situated for the first leg of our trip and pulled away from the gate, only to have the pilot come on the loudspeaker to tell us that the computer needed a mechanical adjustment, and we had to go back. I considered pressing the attendant call button and informing the crew that my two year old needed an attitude adjustment, and the needs of Row 7 trump the needs of the cockpit. But it's been my experience that flight crews aren't willing to play rock, paper, scissors with passenger safety. So we sat on the tarmac for an hour.

On the second leg of our trip, you decided that you hated sitting in your seat, you hated coloring books, you hated the window shade, you hated your tray table, you hated peanut butter and you hated the seat belt. In fact, you hated the seat belt so much that you figured out how to remove it in 2.8 seconds, and I had to spend all of our take-off and landing time holding the buckle together so you couldn't undo it. All while you screamed your fool head off.

Mom: Maybe I'm wrong, but I think flying with her when she was 4 months old was easier than this.

Dad: I think Navy survival school was easier than this. And they made us eat bugs and live in a box.

Love,

Mom

Greetings From A Former Life

Dear Laney,

Back in 2003, I earned my first producing credit on a show for the USA Network called Nashville Star. I think I was 25 at the time. I got to live in Nashville and meet great people and see some amazing musical performances. If I had to point to the moment I became a grown up, I'm sure it would fall somewhere during that time in Tennessee.

As is often the case with that kind of reality competition show, when we got down to just a few contestants, we filmed what's called a "hometown package" for each - we took the contestants back to their small towns so everyone could make a fuss and have a parade and a concert in a parking lot somewhere. I know this part is confusing: Only a few of the executive producers and network honchos knew the voting results each week. Because one of these contestants would have already been eliminated, it meant that we were shooting their "hometown package" for no reason - it would never air. In short, we producers knew that one of us had been assigned to Dead Man Walking. I was assigned to Miranda Lambert.

Because I was inexperienced and had never had an assignment of that magnitude, I thought for sure Miranda was a goner. I mean, who would put ME in charge of something that might actually air on national television? Who would be that crazy?

I think Miranda (who was 19) thought the same thing, and it had the effect of taking all the stress out of the weekend I spent with her at her house in Lindale, TX. It didn't matter what we did - it's not like it was going to ever be seen by anyone.

Imagine our shock the following Saturday night when the show went live and it turned out that Miranda had not been eliminated, and instead had made it to the final 3. And our footage aired.

Eight Years Later...

Your dad and I went to see Miranda in concert here in Missoula last night. I didn't know if she would remember me, but we did the southern girl squeal and hugged each other and talked for a few minutes. She's moved to the top of the charts and married a fellow celebrity and created some first-rate albums. I've moved to Montana and married a furry mountain man and created two people. But in all the important ways, I think we're still the same girls who were once stranded in the Dallas airport together, with no idea what lay ahead.

She sang the song "The House That Built Me," one of the prettiest songs I know, while the projection screen behind her showed photos of her as a child. Your dad wouldn't want me to admit this to the general public, but he got a little teary-eyed. Later that night, he confessed it was because her childhood photos look so much like you. I'll admit that I straight-up cried when she sang it, because for all that frustrates me about the house we live in, I became a wife in this house. I became a mom in this house. And every weekend, your dad tackles some project that will make this house as much my dream as his.

Somewhere in the middle of all the great music, last night became a really profound look back at all the things that have built me. Thanks, Miranda.

Love,

Me