Stratton Stories

Stratton has been keeping us thoroughly entertained this last week. He is growing up so quickly, but he still very much his own little man. He has a new joke. Jokes have been a tricky area for him. His two favorite jokes are " Fred Meyers" and " Do you know what dinosaurs are? Extinct!" On the way to preschool yesterday, he debuted his new joke that he had obviously been formulating for some time. He asked me " Mom, what would you say if you saw a horse with antlers?" He had to repeat this question a couple of times because I had no idea what he was trying to say. Finally I said, " I don't know Stratton. What would you say?" Stratton said, " Silly mom! Horses don't have antlers!" At least we are getting warmer. He also came into our room in the middle of the night 2 nights ago crying because he said his bed wouldn't stop shaking. Brigg put him back to bed and was a little short with him, telling him that his bed wasn't shaking and to just go to sleep. I thought it was a strange excuse, even for Stratt, so the next morning I checked and we had had an earthquake right when he woke up. Brigg felt pretty bad about having not believed him and had to go and apologize to him over breakfast for not believing him. I also had my first preschool parent teacher conference for him. He is doing great, but one comment his teacher made is that he will not dance at preschool for love or money. For any of you who have been around Stratton and music, you should know he has some serious moves and dances all the time. On the way home, I asked him why he wouldn't dance at preschool. He told me, " Mom, there isn't enough room for my moves with all those other people." He does have a point. I think he is set on remaining a solo performer. Today, I didn't really have anywhere we needed to go and wanted to stay home and get some work done, but that can be a hard sell for the boys. I talked to Stratton about it this morning and he told me, " Well, I guess it's okay if you will do lots of art projects with me." We had to do some serious negotiating on how many "alot" was. But we have had a great day together painting fish and rainbows and shoveling the snow outside. I'm not sure the dump truck brigade made shoveling the walk go any faster, but they were good company!

The Yukon Quest

  
  I think the Alaskan in me is reasserting itself. I have been thinking about a dog race almost constantly for a few days straight. Most of you are probably completely unaware that the first finishers of the Yukon Quest made it into Fairbanks last night. You may even be trying to remember what exactly the Yukon Quest is. But let me just say, that is the kind of sporting even that has some real drama, even without the stagey music they use for professional sports games on TV. I'll admit that when the Quest started this year, I wasn't following it too closely. How many Quests and Iditarods have I read about and followed in my life? I just didn't feel so invested. Especially when Hugh Neff kept increasing his commanding league. It seemed like there wasn't much of a race going on, just a bunch of guys (and a few women) mushing through the wilderness. But then the mushers crossed the border from Canada into Alaska, and things got much more exciting! Hans Gatt, a former Quest champion who was running in 2nd place, couldn't get his team over American Summit in the severe cold and high winds.  The next musher, Brent Sass, came upon him and hooked his team up to his and made sure he made it over and into the next checkpoint. The next day, Hans Gatt continued on and was crossing the Yukon in the middle of the night when his entire team and himself fell through a patch of overflow up to his neck. Overflow happens when water pushes itself over river ice, and then can refreeze a thin layer over the top, making it almost impossible to differentiate from the solid river ice. He said when he broke through he couldn't feel the bottom, and thought he may have broken through to the actual river until he was able to find some footing. Once again, another musher, Sebastian Schnuelle, came upon him and pulled him and his team out the water. Not only had Gatt been drenched in ice cold water, the outside temperature was around -50 that night and he ended up with severe frostbite on both hands that forced him to scratch at the next checkpoint. Then Hugh Neff,  who had been leading by 10-12 hours over any of the other mushers, attempted to make it over Eagle Summit, the next stage in the race. He too had fallen through overflow on the river, though not nearly as deep as Hans Gatt. He spent 12+ hours trying to make it over the summit with his dogs in the wind and cold, and could not get his team over. He ended up being withdrawn from the race, leaving a race that I had thought was locked up and not particularly exciting, wide open. Last night, Dallas Seavey, a 23 year old rookie, crossd the finish line first just after 11:00 pm, making him the youngest person to ever win the quest. Brigg went to see his first finish of a "big" Alaska dog race, although he had to wait a little longer than anticipated.... after 1,000 miles of rough terrain and terrible weather, the dogs on the leading teams really slowed down the last few miles. Just 1/2 hour later, Sebastian Schnuelle came in second, making it by all accounts a close race. 30 minutes might not sound like a nailbiter, but when you're talking about a 1,000 mile, 10 + day race, that's pretty impressive to be that close at the end.
       None of this has anything to do with our family.  I just felt like some of the stories from this year's Quest were too good not to share. You should really read the stories from the trail. These stories are better than a movie! I think the best part is listening to the mushers who went through these dramatic experiences talking about them- they act like it was no big deal, just another day on the trail, of course they helped their fellow musher. They are so matter of fact about all of it. The even more remarkable thing is that many of the mushers who have just finished, or are still finishing the Quest, will turn around with their dogs and run the Iditarod in 10 days from now. That should make marathoners feel a little wimpy!

Stratton has a Sick Day

Stratton woke up this morning with a bad cough, so we have been home all day long. I think it is the first time we’ve been home all day in weeks, maybe even months. I thought in honor of his first sick day out from (pre)school, I would write down some of Stratton’s funny things lately, as well as the rest of the news around here.

Our house continues at a wild pace with lots of sound effects along the way. Dashell is constantly running around in his cape telling me he is a “Super Guy” and narrating every moment of his life, his current favorite phrase being, “ Wow! Neat!”  Stratton continues to come up with funny phrases that you don’t expect from him. This week, he keeps telling me, “ That’s the number one point” when he wants to emphasize what we NEED to do that day. One BiG news flash....Booger Dog has returned! We lost Stratton’s faithful lifetime companion a couple months ago and after looking for weeks, gave up the search. Two weeks ago when Brigg was shifting some boxes, he was found! It’s still not clear how he ended up where he was, but at least Stratton’s primary childhood legacy to this point has not been lost. Another major change....Dashell has moved into a toddler bed in Stratton’s room. There is an excellent possibility that this was a huge error in judgment on my part, but after the first night there was no going back. Dashell refuses to sleep in his own room under any circumstances. Even the separate naps are a losing battle at this point. 

Brigg has had the flu all week. After months of nagging him to go get his flu shot, he just went ahead and got the flu. Maybe his experience will humble him for next year! He is not one who gets sick, ever. I can only think of 2 or 3 times in our married life that he has been really and truly sick. Lucky for him, this is one of those times. Luckily, the rest of us did get our flu shots and seem to have escaped. We did go to the Banff Film Festival this past weekend before he got sick, so he has been busy dreaming of fishing trips to Kamchatka while he’s been laid out. I think he has found 4 or 5 places he wants to go in the last two days. Having him sick in bed is dangerous to our vacation plans!

Stratton has continued his ice skating lessons under great pressure. He will go ice skating with us during the week and laugh and giggle and love it, but come Saturday and time to skate without us, and you would think that we were asking him to swim the English Channel. We will all be relieved when he finishes his last lesson this week. I am not sure that hockey is in his immediate future. 

On the other hand, he does make us laugh. Tonight we were talking about shots and I was telling him that he didn’t have to get anymore shots until he was 10.I said, “ I said you don’t have to get any more shots for even longer than you have been alive!” And he said, “ But I don’t want to die.” Brigg started laughing so hard at him. Apparently we are still a little fuzzy on life spans and how some expressions work. He also has an imaginary friend named Mr. Bakinley who he drives to see in his own super fast small blue car. Mr. Bakinley has 6 arms, 3 legs and blue hair. I hope he is a good influence! He is such a sweet little boy, and he certainly doesn’t get it from me! He is very naturally complimentary and kind. My mom was watching them the other night and after she put them to bed and it was totally dark, she heard Stratton say, “ Grandma? I really like your socks. They are very nice.”  Today, he missed his Valentine’s Day party at preschool because of his cough, but his preschool teacher let me bring all his Valentines home for him since I had to drop something off at school even though he wasn’t going. This was his first year really getting Valentines and he loved it! About 2 minutes after he started opening all of them he said, “ Mom, I really like all the valentines my friends gave me. I think I should make all of them thank you cards so they know how much I like them.” Now we just hope that he is better in the morning!