Today I’m 2.  Momma and Daddy and everyone else seem pretty happy about that.  To me it’s just another day with my cars and books.  I don’t feel any different.  I don’t look any different.  Trust me, I checked in the mirror…for a long time.  Have you ever made faces in the mirror?  It’s so fun!  Anyway, I guess it’s cool because I got some new cars, a book, some new pajamas and sixty-seven-eleventeen money buttons for my piggy bank.

On the television this morning while Momma was trying to find my train show, I noticed a lot of people were sad on different pictures.  “Oh noooo!  What happened?!  Boy cwying…”  I said to Momma.   She caught me staring at it so she snatched me up and hugged me.   She told me a story about buildings and people who got hurt and couldn’t be here anymore, like some of the people we love in our family have gone away too.  She told me about superhero people who tried to help.  She said some of those people were like my Uncle Brett and Uncle Josh who drive fire trucks.  It sounds like a lot of people got hurt and a lot of people needed many hugs and loves because of what happened.  That does seem sad.  Momma said this happened on the same day I was going to be born on, but many years before I was born.  That is why people talk about it this day.

After the story, I felt like hugs a little bit more, so Lyla and I stayed on Momma’s lap.  I guess people will never forget what happened that day.  I guess good things happened too though because it sounds like when people were scared, everyone helped everyone to try and make it better.  That seems like a nice thing.  That is what I’m going to remember.

I am almost 2 you know.  Next week it’s my birthday. The other night, before bedtime, Momma and Daddy were asking me what some of my most favorite things are.  I’ve known them both long enough now to recognize that they become reflective around birthdays and milestone dates.   They both like to talk about what has happened since the last time I had a birthday and how much I’ve grown and learned, although Momma goes on and on.  No really, she does.  She makes lists.  Always with the lists.

Here are some of those things… (You may have to sing this to the tune of some song or something- that is what Momma said.)

Nate’s Favorite Things– *with a few extra verses

Tunnels!!!

Race cars and tractors, and things that go choo-choo. Juice drinks and berries, corn, beans, avocado.  Sleeping all snuggled with Momma and Daddy.   These are a few of my favorite things.

Tunnels and fast cars, and cars and lots more cars.  Stories, my puppies, my cat and my chickens.  Talking and reading my books all day long.  These are some more of my favorite things.

Digging in dirt or just jumping in water.  Running in circles or dancing and singing. Riding on Daddy while Momma takes pictures…Yes, even that is a favorite thing!

Field adventures!  Learning new things!  Meeting people there!  Distracting the ones that think Momma is crazy…well, that doesn’t make the list!

Looking for lizards, rocks, lichen or acorns.   Finding the moon or the clouds in the sky. Taking my own pictures, yes Momma lets me!   These are just more of my favorite things!

Road trips, I have to admit they’re amazing.  Music and bath time, flea markets, my lovey. Playing with cars, oh yea, I mentioned that.  Well- that is probly’ my most favorite thing!

Coloring, painting or building with Legos.   Grandparents, cousins, my aunts and my uncles. Family dinners with laughing and joy.   Those are most definite favorite things!

Lyla laughing!  Momma smiling!  Daddy giving hugs!  Now those are the best of my favorite things.  The ones that show me I’m loved!

Yes, I know I’ve talked about the amazingness of trains before.  What? Like you’ve never talked about something you love over and over and over???  Where do you think I learned it??  Yea, I’m here to tell you that big people definitely tell the same stories over and over and over.   So, yea…trains.

This weekend Momma, Daddy, me and, oh yea, Lyla went to Sacramento.  Sacramento is….is…the Captain, no…yea, Captain City of California….or something like that.  We even got to stay in a different house that had soooo many bedrooms, and up and down closet ride, and a swimming pool.   On the car ride there, Momma started in on her “Nate- we get to learn new things” speech.   She’s always talking about how learning is so much fun.  Remember how I said big people repeat themselves?  Well, I’ve only heard this speech, like, a hundred-eleventy-five times in my short life of 23 months.  So, she was about 3 sentences in before I decided to shut that down.  I took a nap.

When I woke up we were in Sacramento, and Daddy even looked excited.  Momma gathered us, did a weird clap/jump maneuver, and said, “Okay- let’s go learn! Yay! So much fun!”.   How can so much dorkiness live in one person?   I often ask myself that as I stare at Momma.  Then I looked past her to…trains.  A whole building full of them, and even more behind the building.  Well, no one told me trains were involved!!  Pshaw.   It’s possible I missed that part of the speech while I napped.

It got better.  We RODE a train!  Some nice people talked to us on the train about…you guessed it: trains!   As we rode along the river, I heard so much stuff, letting it sink into my growing brain.  Did you know that trains are used to move people and things from town to town?   Did you know that a train runs every single minute of the year? Did you know that the average train weighs more than ten elephants? Elephants are HUGE!!! Did you know that, if the weather is snowy outside, you may not hear a train’s whistle?  What’s snow??

I was sad when we got back to the station, and it’s possible I freaked out a little.  Can you blame me?  I loved it.  I didn’t want it to end.  I wanted to learn more!   Wait…Momma was right!  Learning is fun. Oh man…learning IS fun!!  Shhh.  Don’t tell her or Daddy I said that.   But you should look at the train pictures!

If you would have told me that I’d be dragged out of my bed before the sun woke up, be thrown in a car seat and watching a fanatical woman run around outside a McDonalds in Nowhere, Nevada…I wouldn’t have believed you.  If you would have told me that woman would be taking pictures of statues, the flag, the sunrise and the ground…I would have started to get scared.   If you would have told me that woman was my Momma…well, I would have been scared because that is my life. 

As I sat there that early morning, watching my crazy Momma kneel down just feet from the drive-thru lane so she could get a better angle on the bear statue, I closed my eyes.  I closed my eyes hoping I could go back to that warm yet lumpy hotel bed.  I closed my eyes hoping that when I opened them she wouldn’t be acting so silly.   I closed my eyes hoping her next move would be to come back to the car, put the camera down and behave sensibly.   I mean, who jumps out of a car after ordering her baby’s oatmeal and orange juice, on a barely light morning, in the middle of almost nowhere to take pictures??? 

Just so you know, there were cars behind us.  Just so you know, I was slightly concerned.   Just so you know, people were watching, even pointing.  I’m used to the stares and funny expressions of passersby.   But usually I’m on her back to save the day and distract people with my charm.   I’ve even added, “move along”…and “we walking…we walking” to my phrases.  I sat helpless though, strapped in the car seat for like the twenty-eleventh hundred mile.  When I opened my eyes, instead of returning to the car, I saw my Momma had actually climbed on top of the baby bear to get a close up picture of some deer animal with really big things coming out of its head.  I, of course, slapped my forehead and tried to cover Lyla’s eyes. This was mistaken as misbehaving and earned me a glare from Daddy.  I think I heard the woman at the window ask, “Is that woman climbing the statues?”  Oh man. Welcome to my life.  

Some kind of deer with really big things that come out of its head.

As I resigned myself to this life, I watched my Momma.  She was so focused.  She was unaware of people staring…or she didn’t care.  She was even smiling a little.   She was happy.  And that made me happy.  I could actually tell that she loved what she was doing.  Not like she loves me and Lyla…but pretty close!  As I watched my Momma that morning, I actually loved her just a little bit more for running around crazy like that.   The things I do for love…really aren’t so bad. 

Seriously?  You already expect me to have an answer to that?  You do realize I’m not even 2 right?  And as far as I can see, people who are 10 times my age still haven’t grown up…so, yea.  Don’t expect an answer from me today on that.   Pfff.   Societal pressures are just too much sometimes.   Can’t a kid just be a kid anymore? 

Okay, so I don’t have an answer for what I want to be when I grow up, but I’ve decided that taking pictures isn’t such a horrible option.  Yep, I admit it.  Watching Momma and Daddy capture moments of time and preserve things as they are isn’t so bad.   Course I’m not supposed to look at it that way at my age.  Besides, the best part is the camera. 

Future Photographer?

Seeing a Whole New World

I’m not talking about the sorry excuses that Momma and Daddy have tried to pass off as a camera.  Those silly plastic ones.  Mere toys.  On our road trip, I got to use real cameras.  Oh my.   It’s cool because you can look at mountain.  Then you can look through the camera and see something different.  You can focus on just the grass in the corner.  You can focus on the clouds above the mountain.  You can focus on the rocks on the mountain.  I understand now what Momma means when she says she gets to see a different world through her camera.   And when it’s all done, when you’re looking at your picture, you feel happy.  You feel like someone just gave you a juice drink, a new toy car AND offered to read you a book.   You feel content, like when Momma or Daddy hold you in a big hug.  You feel excited like when you haven’t seen your monkey stuffed animal in a while and then find it under your bed.  

So, yea.  I think I will be taking many many eleventeen pictures when I grow up. It’s a super cool thing.  Now, where’s that camera…

Well, we FINALLY made it home. I think I’m mostly happy about it.  Momma went over the numbers when we got home, and kept saying, “All good things come to an end, Nate.”   Okay.  I guess that is what I feel like when my favorite train show is over.  But why would she say that about the trip? 

So here are the numbers.  We drove 5,125 miles from home, across that crazy map to Minnesota and back home.   86 hours of driving- might as well have been a trillion-million-eleventy-four as far as I am concerned.  16: the number of times Momma yelled, “Stop!  I want to take that picture!!!”.   3 toy cars lost to the open road.  5 stops due to planned pooping (score for Nate) thus allowing me to run in slow motion while yelling, “freeeeeeee!”.   5,962 pictures taken by Momma and Daddy.  221 of the pictures were just of me and baby Lyla.   6 pictures taken BY me.  Those are the BEST ones.   In my opinion, there aren’t enough pictures with the blurry effect on the websites.   Nobody asks me though.  

Moving on… 12 car naps, 11 tunnels, 10 states, 9 books read, 8 hotels, 7 tantrums (guess who), 6 McDonalds stops (the horror), 5 early morning starts before 7am, 4 light and drum shows, 3 National Monument stops, 2 amazing nights in a pool…  and 1 prison (besides the ever-present car seat).  

The number of times we laughed- so many I can’t count that high yet.   Yep, I guess all good things do come to an end. 

Related articles

• Nate’s Notes: Here We Go Again: Road Trip- Day 1
• Nates Notes: On the Road Again
• Nate’s Notes: Heading Home

On the road again….just can’t wait to get on the road again.   Whaaaattt??!!!  Whoever wrote that song never spent 5 days in the back of a minivan strapped to a lumpy car seat, unable to use his legs.  5 days. 5 days of my life I’ll never get back, even if we did make it to Minnesota. 

The song is stuck in your head now too, huh?!  Man…if I never hear that song hummed or sung again, I’ll be okay.  I mean, I’m a toddler- we love repetition.  We thrive off of repetition.  C’mon though… repeating the whole car seat thing is not something that should ever be continual for over 2,000 miles across 7 states.  Again, I don’t know what miles or states are, but I do know that my butt will never be the same.  Thank goodness for diapers. 

And Momma wouldn’t shut up about how cool maps are.  “Maps this… maps that.  Nate, just wait until you see how cool maps are!”   Yea, yea.  I have an idea for her maps, but I probably shouldn’t share it.   I’m not supposed to say things that are mean or ugly.   

Sure there were cool things to see out the window.  There were rocks I’ve never seen before, things called farms I didn’t know could exist.  Corn field after corn field after corn field.  I love corn.   I got to see and hear my first lightning and thunderstorm too!  Lights flash all over the sky and then people play drums after the lights!  I wasn’t scared at all…mostly because Daddy was holding me.  Please don’t tell anyone.

There was also a cool place that Momma said is where bad people and kids who don’t listen have to spend a lot of time.   Really?  Because I thought that place was called a car seat in the back of a minivan.   Anyway, there were cool wood ladders, lots of windows with bars, different brick than what we have seen, and big b-balls with chains on them everywhere.  Cool!  These bad people get to play with b-balls?   What do they do with the chain?  Hmmm.  

We also got to stop at a spot called Pioneer Village.  There were so many tractors!  And a train to climb all over!  And airplanes!! And room to run and use my legs!!  And…then they shoved me back in a car.  Again.  For 2 more days.

As they buckled me back into my prison, they were humming “On the road again…”.