Roadtripping to Des Moines: Part 1 - We'll Cross That Bridge When We Get to It

I can't remember how I came to have a copy of The Bridges of Madison County in my hands, but I think it may have had something to do with the women in my family. Most likely, one of them read it and the copy got passed around until it was my turn. I zipped through it in about a week, relishing every steamy, forbidden love scene. Yes, her husband and children were away at the State Fair with their prize pigs or whatever when the main character fell in love (into bed) with a National Geographic photographer who just happened to be passing through. And no, now that I'm married with a kid I probably wouldn't read more than 3 pages of a book where the wife cheats on the husband. But I read this book when I was in high school and, oh lawsy, it set the fires a-burnin'.

And then the movie came out.

And then they cast Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep as the two star-crossed lovers and all of us who grew up thinking they were old when we were babies just rolled our eyes and gagged a little. Really? Matt Damon wasn't available? What about Tom Cruise? Truly, I would have even settled for Keanu Reeves. And what about Francesca? The most popular actresses in 1995 included Nicole Kidman, Elisabeth Shue and Mira Sorvino. I would have chosen any of them over Meryl Streep. Well, maybe not Mira Sorvino. She has a weird face that makes her look like she just stabbed either your gerbil or your grandmother...a little hard to tell which.

My point is, I had just finished my junior year of high school when the movie premiered and I was completely grossed out by 2 very old people chasing each other around the kitchen while trying to get naked. I gave up halfway through and went back to watching While You Were Sleeping.

But...I have always loved the actual bridges of Madison County...which are, as a matter of fact, in Iowa. Most of them dot the landscape around Winterset, Iowa and are so close together that if you visit the area during the Bridges of Madison County Festival in October, you can board a Winterset school bus that will take you to several of them.

And that is exactly what Blue and I did. We drove from Fort Leavenworth, KS to Des Moines, IA just to attend this festival and walk the bridges where Francesca and Robert flirted and fell in love. (Although in my head, Francesca is played by Sandra Bullock and Robert is played by Robert Downey, Jr.) And we visited with our friend, Holly, an Iowan who loves random adventures as much as we do...especially when it involves a school bus full of people who are at least 30 years older than any of us.

But before we could go here, we had to get on the bus...

Holly is kind of a creeper. She's like Mira Sorvino in that way. Actually, she photobombed our picture and I said, "You better be careful. You'll end up on my blog." Three years later...

So, we got on the bus with a lot of people who probably thought Clint Eastwood was perfectly cast as a sex symbol (which is going to be me someday when I talk about how profoundly hot Patrick Swayze was in Dirty Dancing) and rode out to our first stop, Roseman Bridge.

For the record, Blue was 3 years old when we did this and was completely bored by touring covered bridges. But I promised him ice cream at the end so he wasn't a total nightmare. He still refused to smile or even look at the camera, though.

I spent a lot of time checking him for ticks.

Someone just couldn't resist jotting down a lyric from The Bridges of Madison County, the Musical on the inside of the bridge. Don't let them near the Titanic exhibit. They'll be scribbling "I'll never let go, Jack" across a glass case before you can call security.

It's like a painting. The red bridge contrasting with the green landscape and the blue sky...this is God's country.

I would have renamed that road, too. Why not cash in on some of the fame? Iowa was due.

The bus then brought us to North River Schoolhouse, a one-room school built in 1874. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and has been impeccably maintained. There was even some sand to keep Blue entertained while we listened to the guide.

We saw Cedar Bridge from the bus, but it's accessible through Cedar Bridge Park.

One more drive-by. There isn't enough time on the tour to get out and walk through each bridge, but you can always come back - which is exactly what I did 7 months later.

When we returned to Winterset, there were food trucks and arts & crafts waiting for us in the town square. We stopped to watch a farmer shear his sheep (which is a much rougher affair than I was expecting but the sheep didn't seem to mind).

And a place to sit and ponder how much you would love to own this place where you are sitting.

There is even a mini covered bridge where you can get a selfie (or a normal picture where you actually ask some random person to hold your phone and try not to crop anyone's head off).

By the way, if you don't understand my shirt, you and Neal will have something to talk about. He didn't get it, either. Meanwhile, Holly and I were laughing to the point of making a scene while we looked for my size at RAYGUN.

As we ate our street food on the lawn of the square and listened to live music, we decided this was well worth the price of admission. The bridges of Madison County are charming. I can see why someone wrote a book about them. And it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to spot a photographer from National Geographic, wading through the creeks with his camera over his head, trying to capture all of this simple beauty in just one frame. The bridges are a treasure, tucked away in the outskirts of Des Moines and waiting for you to cross them, whether you are with a Robert, a Francesca or a good friend and your toddler.

In Defense of Nature

On Monday, I committed a cardinal California sin.

I allowed Blue to keep a lizard in captivity, inside of a plastic bin with flowers, grass, fresh water and the lid wide open, for 8 hours. Actually, when we arrived home from Vacation Bible School, the lizard had blown that popsicle stand so it may have been closer to 5 hours. It is not a lizard on the endangered list. In fact, some other kid had already "tagged" this particular lizard with blue marker on his belly and throat. I did not let Blue color his lizard. He examined his body, made notes about distinguishing features, examined how it moved about the enclosure and was extremely gentle when handling it.

Yet, when I asked on our local Facebook page if anyone had a wardrobe box leftover from a move, one that I could have to cut up and use as a home for this lizard for the next 24 hours, you would think I had just shot a Bald Eagle out of the sky and was going to use it to bludgeon a California Brown Pelican to death while the newly hatched sea turtles looked on. And then use a plastic, grocery store bag to bury the bodies.

No, we will not be retiring in California.

But this is not really about a boy and his lizard or even about the passion for animals that radiates from Blue's every pore, every day. This doesn't even have anything to do with the fact that shows like Wild Kratts and Jack Hanna are specifically scripted to help children learn to care about all animals, not just the ones who get top billing at the biggest zoos. Blue knows what a Banded Archer Fish is, the difference between a Sloth Bear and a Sun Bear, and he can do a spot-on imitation of a capuchin. Thanks to PBS and the many hours we've spent in zoos all over the country, watching animals, talking with zookeepers and supplementing all of that with a library of animal books, Blue loves animals. He refers to our cat as his sister and I can drag him to the most boring event in the world, as long as there's at least a squirrel or a bird that stops by so he can study it for a few minutes. I don't doubt that he will grow up to be someone who rescues injured pets from the side of the road and keeps the bird feeder filled, even during the abundance of summer. But I fully expect him to go further; to become a zookeeper or a veterinarian or work with a wildlife rescue agency. That is the intensity of the flame that burns inside of him at this young age. And it shows no sign of flickering out.

So, yes...when he finally caught a lizard after 8 weeks of trying, we called my friend in San Diego to ask her what it likes to eat, what kind of environment it likes to live in and then we did our best to re-create it, even though we both understood this to be a temporary arrangement. But I wanted his home to be bigger, hence my request for the wardrobe box. Those things are huge and unwieldy. I thought I would be doing someone a favor. Instead, I was told that what I was doing was illegal (but by all means, go on down to Pacific Coast Highway and score a dime bag because, hey, it's California!!) and I believe I may have been loosely compared to Hitler. I don't know. The guy made some comment about how humanity had killed more than one thing within 24 hours so my time frame was unreasonable. Apparently, anything longer than 24 seconds was going to give the lizard PTSD.

OK, look...I get it. We are all hyper-sensitive these days...about a lot of things. We don't force the tigers to jump through rings of fire. Elephants no longer have to dance on hind legs just to prove they can do it. Zoos continue to catch flack everyday, for everything from the size of their enclosures to their breeding programs. I worked at a nature preserve in Lexington one summer and more than once we had people threaten to break into our visitor's center so they could free the red-eared slider turtle and the box turtle that had been happily crawling around in their huge tanks for years. No one wants to see an animal in captivity but we are more than happy to breed Labradors with Poodles so we can get a dog that is hypo-allergenic, doesn't shed and looks cute in a bow. I don't care about your Labradoodle. I would love to have one myself. But get off my ass about going to the zoo and catching a lizard. If you aren't biking to work, wearing the same cotton toga everyday and living in a bush by the river, you are probably contributing to the downfall of an animal's habitat in some way. But maybe you recycle, use cloth grocery bags, plant flowers for the butterflies, preach about saving the bees' hives and encourage your children to engage with nature in a way that makes them care about what happens to it as they grow up. And that is what matters.

To be fair, I used to not feel this way. I scolded Blue every time he picked a leaf from a tree to study its edges or wandered off the path and trampled the wildflowers as he excitedly searched for the Chickadee, whose call he recognized. Nature is fragile and we mustn't touch it. Just look at it from afar. We may damage it and then we'll lose it forever. Sort of an "if everyone picked just one flower there wouldn't be any left" kind of mentality.

But then I read THIS amazing article on Slate about kids and nature and it changed everything for me. I wanted to raise a child who engaged so much with nature that he became territorial of it, rushing to protect it when he saw others abusing it. And there is only one way to engage with nature. Pick the leaf, turn over the rock, climb the tree, temporarily re-home the lizard. Not every lizard in Southern California. Just one. They evolved from the dinosaurs. They can take it.

And y'know what? On the way home from Vacation Bible School that night we started talking about how the lizard's family felt when he didn't return home that evening. Yes, I may have equated Blue's captivity of his new reptile friend to kidnapping, but it got his attention. We talked about how Blue would feel if someone just ripped him away from us one day and took him to a new home; how scared he would be, regardless of how nice that new home was. We talked about what it would be like to not know where he was, who he was with, when he would see us again, if he was safe, if he would be fed or cared for. And then Blue said, "If I free the lizard tonight, will you put me to bed for the rest of the week?" He needed an out. He wanted to be Jack Hanna without being Ted Bundy. I looked in the mirror and said, "Of course."

When we got home, the lizard had made his escape, but Blue didn't cry the way he would have if we hadn't talked on the way home. He said, "I loved that lizard. I wish I had gotten his picture. I hope he got home OK." He's going to make a great animal caretaker someday.

I should also mention that I didn't write this so someone will comment about how wrong I am to take this opinion. You can quote your PETA facts but it isn't going to change my mind. This is for all the parents out there who worry that they will be ostracized for allowing their children to catch a minnow or tickle a sea anemone in the tide pools. Don't hold your breath and hope that no one noticed. We are carefully crafting great humans who will protect this earth with unwavering dedication. Don't ever apologize for that.

Champagne Friday: A Toast to Our Military Kid

Because April is, among many other things, the Month of the Military Child, tomorrow afternoon our unit will gather to recognize and celebrate our military children. I've spent this week preparing gifts and buying the ice cream for our little party. But even as we don our purple (the chosen color to represent military kids as it is a combination of the colors from each branch of service) and dish out the treats, somehow it still doesn't feel like enough. As I tossed and turned until 2 AM on Wednesday night, I thought about what life has been like for the past 6 years. This doesn't describe every military kid, but it does tell the story of ours.

Sweet boy, since your first day here,
this life is all you've known.
Though we may live far and wide,
we'll make this place your home.

As a baby when you napped,
the jets crossed overhead.
And at night when they played Taps,
we snuggled you in bed.

Your first steps were on a battlefield,
where men laid down their lives.
You squealed with joy as Daddy kneeled,
teetering, tottering, then a nosedive.

You've reached for a stranger's desert boots,
and tried on Daddy's dog tags for size.
You've stopped during Retreat to salute,
as pride welled up in our eyes.

You've moved five times in five years,
said goodbye to everyone you knew.
Acknowledged then faced all your fears,
You're brave even when you feel blue. 

You never signed up for this,
it was something you were born into.
We talk about the friends that we'll miss,
and the new ones we know we'll meet, too.

There's much to be learned from a mil-kid;
our "dandelions", they're considered.
Teaching us to bloom like they did,
resilient and hardy, not withered.

Today we packed up his toys,
his stuffies, games and the books.
We made some notes for his teachers,
took the coats down off of the hooks.

We're checking each box off the list,
taking pictures to help us remember.
Squeezing in the things we've missed,
Wishing we had until September.

On the hard days he still stops to ask,
When can we not move anymore?
When can this be the last?
Can we live in the woods by the shore?

Then I distract him with stories
of generations who came before him.
Soldiers who fought for Old Glory,
a family tree of honorable men.

When it's all said and done he will know,
he will have more than a thought or a clue.
That we are all in this together,
because he has served honorably, too.

To all of our military children, who serve involuntarily in an all-volunteer force, we love you!

Promises, Promises

New Year's Eve Eve. I never quite know what to do with this day as it still holds a shred of the promise of the current year but also begins whispering the commitments I've made for the coming year. I quit making resolutions several years before Blue but had I not stopped then, I would surely have done so by now. Kids have a way of making you want to be a better person but by way of challenging you every second of every minute of every day.

For example, Blue started saying "whatever" to us about 2 months ago. So, imagine a 3 year old, dressed in a John Deere henley and dinosaur pajama bottoms, rolling his eyes with great exaggeration and muttering "whatever" when asked to do anything besides watch Daniel Tiger or eat chocolate chip cookies. Kind of gets your hackles up, am I right? Or it should anyway...because if he's trying this on for size at 3, imagine what will roll off that tongue without a second thought at 13. So, Dear Old Dad and I brought it all to a screeching halt immediately. I quizzed him endlessly about where he had learned such a thing. I named all of his friends (although even in doing so I couldn't imagine any of them were capable of that kind of disrespect). He simply shook his head no with each one. Eventually we settled on a punishment: time-out for every time he said it. Three years old, three minutes. Three minutes alone in a chair in the back of the house, where we seldom turn on the space heaters because time-out shouldn't be tropical temperatures and a room full of toys. Nevertheless, he continued to push us and almost always as we were walking out the door. Putting on shoes and coats, on our way to the gym/church/a meeting/a party/pretty much anywhere with a defined start time. He would cast his eyes in my direction, bow his head slightly and say it. Whatever, Mommy. Dammit. Now we are going to be 3 minutes late. But that's parenting. Consistency or die. I started building in 3 extra minutes after the 3rd time of this little game. Now we are 3 minutes early everywhere. But as they say, early is on time and on time is late. So...silver linings and all that.

About a week after Blue's attitude adjustment, I was working feverishly to get him buckled in his car seat before all of my limbs froze and dropped right off at the joint. He wasn't doing much to help the process along, something he's been doing since, literally, day 2. In frozen frustration I pleaded, "I need you to help me! Put your arm through!" And he answered with, "But I don't know how." And incredulous at this sudden lack of ability, I snorted, "Whatever!"

Oh. My. Stars.

It was me.

I just stood there for a second and looked at him, already knowing that I had rolled my eyes and dropped the W word. It sounded so much worse coming out of his tiny toddler mouth. It sounded dirty and rude, like he was off to punch a grandma in the face right after he stole a bag of Doritos from the 7-11 and mooned the manager on the way out.

So now, Whatever is banned from our house.

May I be the first to tell you that a 30-year habit is hard to break. And Neal's got 10 years on me. He's been busted more times than I can count. Although my slip-ups are legitimate, eye-rolling, huffing events. Neal is generally saying something like, "Oh you're headed to the commissary? Will you grab some breakfast stuff...yogurt, bananas...whatever." Suddenly, from the frozen tundra of our back room we hear, "DADDY!! You said whatever! You need to say sorry!"

There was a time when I thought this child would never talk. As it turns out, my fears were completely unfounded.

My only resolution for 2016 is to remove whatevereyerollhuff (and any other Ally-ism that may sound like a hooligan headed out to prowl the mall when it comes out of my toddler's mouth) from my lexicon. At least my mom will thank me. Thirty years too late.

Sorry, Mom.