It takes a village

 
Restless and unable to sleep, I left the comfort of my warm motorhome and stepped out into the cool, dark night. As I walk through the towering redwood trees, making my way towards a softly lit, central area of the campground, I hear only a slight, repetitive squeaking to interrupt an otherwise still and silent night. I arrive thirty minutes early to take over my watch of a wild boar roasting over a bed of coals, while rotating on a rotisserie being turned by a small electric motor. squeak... squeak... squeak... The motor strains each time the heavy side of the 108 pound pig, made its way around to the 12-o'clock position before finding relief on the down side.

  In a chair on the far side of the rotisserie is seated my good friend of sixteen years, Ben; eyes closed and head nodding forward and back in a restless slumber. It was 3:30 am. I awoke Ben and sent him off to bed, added coals under the pig, started a fire in the fire pit right next to the rotisserie, and sat back in the chair, still warm from Ben's watch. The fire crackled as I gazed hypnotically into its dancing flames. Feeling drops of water on my cheeks, I looked up to see the tops of the redwood trees, outlined by the glow of the fire, disappear into the misty fog that was rolling in. It was a perfect. I sat back and contemplated the fact that in less than 12 hours, my brother Gooch would be wed to his amazing bride, Kim. Our entire summer built up to this one climactic event, and I was way too excited to sleep.

  It was not long before I was joined by Tassos; One of Gooch's pilot friends and coworkers, who had traveled all the way from Greece (along with another friend/pilot, Ed). I had only briefly met Tassos several hours earlier when he, Gooch and Ed, prepared the pig to go on the rotisserie. For the next hour and a half, I enjoyed some great conversation and some much welcomed company. As the time neared 6:00 am, Tassos released me from my watch so that I could try to get some sleep. Upon returning to my bed, I felt as if the moment I closed my eyes, I was woken up by Apollo and Orion. It was barely light out and my last chance of sleep was gone. It was time to get up and continue setting up for the wedding.

  As most of the food was greek inspired, I  was tasked with making some greek donuts for breakfast on Saturday while the next round of meat was prepped. In addition to the wild boar, we also roasted 2 young lambs on the day of the wedding. Gooch, Ed, and Tassos spent most of their time cooking meat either at the BBQ or one of the three rotisseries. We were well fed, and the food was delicious.

 Looking back a few days after the wedding, I realized what made this three-day, two-night, wedding/camping trip so amazing, was the diversity of friends and family, old and new, all coming together and working for a common purpose. And I mean working in a literal sense; everyone jumped in and helped decorate, cook, set up, clean up...it was incredible. It is how I imagine an old world wedding or even an early american wedding. Everyone in the village contributed in some small or large part to make the wedding day a special event. I think that everyone felt as if they were part of the wedding. Everybody contributed something that made this event all that much better. Everyone mingled and many new friends were made. By Sunday morning, what started out as several groups of strangers, some form the brides side, the others from the grooms side, had become one large happy bunch of friends. Even Apollo and Orion made new friends and both boys had a wonderful time.

  I could write endless stories of what I saw, and what I experienced on this weekend. It was memorable to say the least. Everything was perfect from the ceremony, to the weather. But besides the the fact that two people that I love dearly were married, I was impressed most by the quality of people that surrounded them that day. How everyone worked together as a team. How everyone got along and cooperated. How everyone, for those few days, became part of our own little village.

 

Apollo shared his thoughts about the wedding camp with me on Sunday morning, as we were getting out of bed. He really summed up the feeling that we were left with; "Dada, I want to live here forever, but only if our new friends can live here too. Can you make everyone stay?"

The art of self expression

Its 5:30am, and I am in exile; expelled from my very bed by an agitated wife. My spawn had been accused of pinching, bitting, slapping, head butting, and whining for the past hour. He made enough noise to wake up Apollo in the other room. I could hear him climb out of bed, his foot steps hurrying down the hall, and in he walked into our dimly lit place of slumber;
 "Dada, is the sun coming up yet?" he asked.
  "Take your baby and get out!" came an almost demonic sounding voice from the other side of the bed, before I had a chance to answer.  (Okay, not demonic, but highly aggravated. Sorry Melly) I scooped up my poor, neglected, starving little toddler in one arm, and grabbed Apollo's hand with my free arm.
  "Come on guys, let's get out of here before mama shakes the baby," I announced as we left the room.

We all climbed into Apollo's bed, and after a few moments of rocking Orion, his head pressed up against my chest, he was fast asleep. I leaned back into the pillows I had propped up against the wall, and slid down deeper into the warmth of the comforters; Orion tucked into the nest of my left arm and chest, and Apollo tucked into my right.
  I would have loved to have fallen back to sleep, but with Apollo still awake and whispering every few minutes, "Is it time to get up yet?", and "Is the sun coming up yet?", it was not meant to be. The grey light of the overcast, predawn sky, illuminated the room just enough, that I could look over their faces, studying every peaceful feature, and admire the extraordinary little men that I held in my arms. To feel their warmth and hear them breathing softly is one of my most prized memories of their young lives.
  I tease Melanie a lot about her little outbursts, however, I have to give credit where credit is due. She usually does really well on the random rough night, but by the second or third rough night in a row, she is ready for a little break. When this happens over a weekend, it gives me the opportunity to enjoy Orion (once he falls to sleep that is) in a way that I rarely get to. It is one of the greatest gifts of parenthood, being able to hold your peaceful sleeping baby in your arms.
~

  I am constantly amazed and fascinated by the mind of a toddler. Just by observing them day in and day out, you begin to recognize patterns to their learning and thought processes. Everything comes in waves. That is to say that there is a huge upswing in one area of development, followed by a lull while another area is ramping up. For example; language development can be in high gear one week and they will learn words, sounds, and phrases, followed by a period where the language is put to the back burner while the fine motor skills are on the upswing, and so forth.
  Orion's language development is on the back burner at the moment. He uses one word for everything! Food, water, milk, snack, ball...it doesn't matter, it all sounds like, "Uuuuuueeeeeeeeeehhhhh!", coupled with the gesture of a fully extended arm, hand stretched wide, pointing in the direction of what he wants. In between the demands, there is the underlined babble of nearly familiar but unintelligible words and phrase. Don't get me wrong, he is still learning words and phrase, he is just not actively trying to say new words every waking moment. Today, he surprised us with "All done" while doing the sign language for the same phrase when he finished his dinner. I have to point out that by far his favorite word is "dada", at least for the time being.
  Motor skills are in full swing right now. Orion climbs on and out of everything! Even his high chair. He has to be restrained just to eat dinner, if not, he is standing up in his high chair and trying to climb off of it. We never had to strap Apollo down to anything. Last week was fine motor skills where Orion learned how to effectively eat with a fork and how to stab bean's with a butter knife and put them in his mouth.
  Orion's greatest strength is that he is an observer. He watches everything. Nothing gets by without him taking notice. He acts out everything he sees, and takes note of every item that is set down. His favorite items are the remotes to the t.v. followed by phones. He climbs on anything he can to be able to reach a remote, and once he has it, he will point it at the t.v. and press the buttons. He likes to walk around with a remote or phone in his hands and we are always on a recon mission to locate and recover them. We even found the cable remote control outside, under the lemon tree, and various remotes and telephones have been found in kitchen drawers, laundry baskets, cupboards, and even the drawer at the bottom of the oven.  
   ~

  Apollo is becoming more of a character with each passing day. On a recent outing with his mom and Orion, Apollo needed to use the restroom.  Melanie took the two boys into the restroom at the store that she was in. While Apollo lifted the toilet seat and prepared to do his thing, Melanie had to corral Orion in the corner of the restroom to keep him from touching anything, or interrupting Apollo while he was taking care of business.  Then came that dreaded sound of urine hitting everything but the water in the toilet bowl. In a panic, Melanie spun around to see what was going on.
 "Apollo!", she exclaimed, "What are you doing!"
With his hips going wildly in a circular motion as if he was using a hoola-hoop, Apollo proclaimed, "My ding-ding is going craayaayaayaazy!"
  Needless to say, Apollo got a lesson in what is appropriate and what is not, and then had to help his mom clean the restroom. Melanie was sure that the employee's right outside of the bathroom heard the whole incidence. She avoided making eye contact with anyone and hurried out of the store, vowing to stay away for several weeks until she is sure no one will remember her.

  Upon hearing this story from Melanie, I of course, laughed hysterically and uncontrollably. Melanie was not as amused, however, and blamed my genetics and lack of parenting skills for his behavior. Obviously, this was not meant as a compliment, but I sure took it as such. What father wouldn't be proud of his sons first attempts at artistic self expression. Besides, I am sure he was just practicing writing his name anyways.