The post Happy Father’s Day: 14 Reasons Why This Guy’s Absolutely Nailing It first appeared on OliverTheWorld.
]]>Remember that article that used photographs of wonderful fathers to blast apart that age-old but annoying convention that dads are incompetent co-parenters?
Well, I went and made my own version FOR YOU.
1. DADS NEVER TAKE TIME AWAY FROM THEIR BUSY SCHEDULES TO DO ANYTHING FUN WITH THEIR KIDS.

2. DADS AREN’T ANY GOOD AT TAKING CARE OF GIRLS.
3. DADS NEVER TAKE THEIR KIDS ANYWHERE COOL.
2009-2010: Japan, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Nepal, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji
2012-2014: Iceland, Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, France, Scotland, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Morocco…
4. DADS DON’T BOTHER TEACHING THEIR KIDS ANYTHING.
5. EVERYONE WOULD PROBABLY GO HUNGRY IF DINNER WAS LEFT UP TO DAD.
Disclaimer: You did not technically prepare this meal, nor did our kids eat it (I did!). But if you were to make dinner, it surely would include your favorite food group…ice cream.
6. DADS DON’T HAVE A CLUE AS TO WHAT MOMS REALLY WANT.
That is a sweet, sweet broom you have there, sir.
7. DADS CAN’T WATCH THE KIDS AS WELL AS MOMS CAN.
8. DADS AREN’T PATIENT BY NATURE.
9. DADS ARE NEVER AROUND TO OFFER A PICK-ME-UP WHEN YOU NEED ONE.
10. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT DADS CAN’T MULTITASK.
11. DADS DON’T KNOW HOW TO LOOK AFTER A BABY, AND THEY CERTAINLY CAN’T HEAR THEM CRY AT NIGHT.
12. DADS DON’T BOTHER WITH GETTING THE GROCERIES.
13. DADS ONLY KNOW HOW TO PLAY ROUGH.
Disclaimer: No toddlers were launched into the Atlantic Ocean at the time this photo was taken.
14. A DAD’S LOVE IS ONLY SECOND-BEST; CHILDREN DON’T REALLY NEED THEIR FATHERS.
This date marks nearly 22 months we have been full-time on the road, and it also marks the nearly eight years I have been full-time, full-on head-over-heels in love with you.
I tried to think of every sad and ridiculous public misconception people have pegged on dads just so you could see how these photos paint a pretty clear picture of how you simply do not fit in those boxes. If we’re being perfectly honest here, I believe you absolutely obliterate these clichés.
Despite the wide range of happy memories that appear here, there were still so many little things that didn’t make it in…how hard you work for us, how much you invest in each of our happiness, how you give of yourself equally to those you love and those you hardly know, how you brilliantly implement the steps to make any dream a reality, how you love the three of us unconditionally and to no end.
So I hope you got a chuckle out of this, but I also hope you see just how much we love you. Because we do, unconditionally and to no end.
Happy Father’s Day, my Love. And Happy Father’s Day to ALL the dads out there who put in the love, time and effort!
The post Happy Father’s Day: 14 Reasons Why This Guy’s Absolutely Nailing It first appeared on OliverTheWorld.
]]>The post To the Love of My Life on Her Birthday first appeared on OliverTheWorld.
]]>Many who read about our travels have no idea that there is a story, many stories actually,that pre-date our traveling life. While I will not go into detail here, it is fair to say that you have played a vital role in shaping the man that I am today.
Since it’s your birthday, I’ve prepared some very special surprises for you…beautiful Mozarabic-styled pottery made by our good friends in Granada, a hack in the mountains on Andalusian horses, and even a child-free birthday dinner, as I miraculously arranged a baby sitter in our next port of call. But despite all of this, how strange is it for me to say that, in fact, I am the one who receives a gift each and every day that I am by your side?
As I reflect back on the nearly eight years that we have been together, a peace fills my heart and soul. Way back when, you did what everyone told you not to do. You bet your life and sacrificed your career for an unemployed alcoholic when you moved to California so we could try to start a family together. It was through your bravery, and your tremendous faith in me, that led you to see things in me that I could not see in myself. You believed in me and nursed me back to life and your support has been a cornerstone in my recovery.
Without sobriety, the life that I enjoy and cherish would never have been known to me, but without you, my greatest blessing and companion, the love that fills my life with meaning and purpose would simply not exist.
Thank you my dearest Emy for all that you have given me and for never giving up on me. Our love is truly a gift from God and below are the reasons why I Love My Wife:
1) My life is eternally better because you are by my side.
2) Every time I kiss Ollie and Kendley good night and sit on their beds and watch them sleep and listen to them breathe, I am reminded that all of the best in our children comes from you.
3) You are everything that I am not and more; my ability to multitask pales in comparison to your spirit, energy and soul.
4) You have always found happiness in the little things and you have taught me that what society tells us to value the most are usually the things that matter the least in life.
5) You are compassionate and kind and you always see the best in others.
6) You make up stories and go places in your head that I could never dream of. From the time you were a little girl and you thought you were a wolf, you have lived many lives and for that I wish the winds of your creative spirit could carry me away as well.
7) We first traveled and left the world as we know it because of you; without your firm nudge I never would have had the courage to stop working and break free of my own fears to face the great unknown.
8) Your gentleness provides me with a subtle reminder when I am too stern with our children and for that, I am thankful, as you have made me a better Father and man.
9) Everyday you help me to see things during our travels that I never knew existed as you can sit and shut your eyes and smell and feel the world around you.
10) You actually believe that Beast Master is a terrific movie.
11) You are a woman who expresses her love, not with words, but with action, loyalty, devotion and by always putting our family first.
12) Even after 15 months of traveling together 24 hours a day, I never get tired of being with you (I am not sure if you could say the same about me).
13) You are beautiful in everyway.
I asked Oliver and Kendley what they loved most about Mommy and here is what they had to say.
OLLIE:
1) I love Mommy because she is sweet;
2) I love Mommy because she reads the Hobbit to me and she sounds funny when she talks like Bilbo Baggins;
3) I love Mommy because she is my best buddy;
4) I love Mommy because she teaches me about the world, animals and plants when we travel and hike;
5) I love Mommy because she lets me wear my Ninja Halloween costume everyday (10 days and counting);
6) I love Mommy because she is beautiful;
7) I love Mommy because she makes me good food and she kisses me before I go to bed;
8) I love Mommy because I fall down a lot and she puts Angry Birds band-aids on my sores;
9) I love Mommy because she loves animals and she takes me to the zoo and aquarium a lot;
10) I love Mommy because she is always there when I need her and even when I annoy her and don’t listen, she still loves me;
11) I love Mommy because she makes me smile and happy.
I love Mommy more than anything!!!!!!!!
KENDLEY:
When I asked Kendley, ‘Why do you love Mommy?’ she said the following:
“I love Peppa Pig” (who is her favorite person in the world other than Mommy).
“I love Mommy TOO much.”
‘But no Kendley, why do you love Mommy?’
“Happy birthday Mommy; Happy birthday Mommy; Happy birthday” and she started singing and humming.
‘But no Kendley, why do you love Mommy? I am writing something for her birthday and I need to know why…’
Kendley promptly blurted out, “I have to go poopy; I need to go to the potty.”
I smiled and walked her over to the potty and she sat on the toilet and grunted like she always does and I held her hands and asked her one last time, ‘Why do you love Mommy?’
Kendley looked up at me with her beautiful blue eyes and she said, “I love Mommy cuz she‘s Mommy.”
I guess that says it all, my love.
Ollie, Kendley and I love you for you. The three of us love you with all of our hearts and as crazy as we are, nothing can replace the love that we have for YOU.
The post To the Love of My Life on Her Birthday first appeared on OliverTheWorld.
]]>The post Now, How On Earth Did I End Up With A Six-Year-Old? (Love, Your Mother) first appeared on OliverTheWorld.
]]>For what it’s worth, today I still have a little boy. I still have a little boy who tells me not to go too far when it’s time to put out the lights, even though I’ve been sleeping in a bed right next to him for months. I still have a little boy who can somehow find the only muddy puddle to stomp in across all of Southern Portugal in the height of summertime. I still have a little boy whose knobby knees and two left feet have far outpaced the growth of the rest of his body. I still have a little boy whose idea of a shark-skin suit is more pretty much verbatim. I still have a little boy, but I’ll admit it… I’ve only got him by the tail.
The truth is, Oliver is slipping out of that little boy (shark) skin and trading up every day for something else; something that’s just a bit wiser, just a little more shrewd, something a little deeper, something that pushes the edge of my understanding further. His voice has grown clearer, his eyes more focused. He’s knee-deep in what one sympathetic Spanish mama informed me was the “Primer Resistencia”, the first resistance. And she was more than right. Ollie can wrangle a late bedtime better than any little kid I know, and he can stretch “five more minutes on the iPad” into twenty with the blink of an eye. It goes without saying that I have to run to keep up with him, always. But once in a while he’ll pull me close to him before he falls to sleep, hold my face in his hands and give me that look. He’ll say, “Mama, you keep on being a good mama, ok?”
Oliver is a force of nature. He hums along at a speed that has seldom been recorded in humans; he ricochets off hard surfaces as if his entire skeletal system was air force-grade. I have seen grown men begin panting with exhaustion after a semi-prolonged encounter. At three years old, he leapt over a cobra when it crawled across his path in the Bokor Mountains of Cambodia. He charms, he deconstructs, he conjures and he destroys. But just when I am sure that he must be Shiva incarnate, he bends on one knee to help the smallest child at the playground up on to the swings.
He desires an answer to all things, immediately, all the time. In fact, once it was extremely urgent that he had my opinion (which he still interprets as fact, God bless him) whether or not a hippopotamus or giant squid would win in a fight. When I told him there could never be such a chance encounter, he regarded me with deep sadness. He simply shook his head and reminded me that, “anything is possible”, followed by, “what about one orca versus six Bengal tigers? Who would win in that one, Mama?”
I suppose he’s right, anything is possible. Six years ago, a little boy with blue-green eyes was dropped right into our laps, and it just so happened that every fiber of his being was perfectly suited for adventuring. Six years ago when I was still an awestruck and somewhat petrified new mother, I would look down at that little infant again and again, recalling everything that had come to pass that had brought me to that moment, and think that, indeed, anything was possible.
The post Now, How On Earth Did I End Up With A Six-Year-Old? (Love, Your Mother) first appeared on OliverTheWorld.
]]>The post Happy 6th Birthday, Oliver: Love, Daddy first appeared on OliverTheWorld.
]]>Oliver, I still remember the day that Mommy called to tell me the good news that you were growing inside of her. There is no question that from that very first call, you changed everything in my life for the better.
I am quite certain that you helped to save me, as you gave me a reason to stay sober nearly seven years ago. There were times that I barely held on, but you were, without question, my saving grace.
While I strive to live a more spiritual and balanced life, the reality is that you are, by far, a better person than I will ever hope to be. Your heart and your spirit come from Mommy and all that is good in her shines daily in you. Thank you for being an amazing little boy and for filling my life with unimaginable love and happiness.
From the first phone call from Mommy, to the kicks and everything in between, the day you were born was truly a gift from God. I still remember tummy time when you were a little boy and laying you on the boppy next to me when I had to get on a conference call or actually get some ‘real’ work done. I also recall tucking you in on the 17-hour flight to Japan to start our first grand adventure roughly four years ago (when we traveled back then you were free and could fit almost anywhere).
We have now traveled for approximately three of your six years and I wanted to thank you, as it has been a great honor and privilege to be able to see many of the glorious wonders of the world through your eyes. Your innocence and loving spirit have helped me see things that I was all too blind to before. Hopefully, someday, you will be as lucky as me and will be able to travel all over the world with your little boy by your side.
We left ‘the world as we knew it’ when you had just turned two and I spent 13 months with just you and Mommy traveling through SE Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, India, Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji. This time we shared together are some of my fondest memories and the most cherished moments of my life.
I stood in silent awe as I watched 100 hundred little Chinese boys and girls form a circle around you in Tiananmen Square. With all of the gigging and smiling faces, you and another adorable little girl, both holding the PRC flag in your hands, were chasing each other with reckless abandon. It was a moment that touched me and it is when I knew, undeniably, that traveling together as a family was the right thing to do.
We snorkeled the Great Barrier reef with you in a tiny ‘stinger suit’; we rode camels in India, elephants in Nepal, and petted tigers in Thailand with you on our laps; we walked through the streets of Luang Nam Tha, Laos when you met your first true love, Garuda; we watched you sleep under huge mosquito nets in Cambodia and play with kids in an orphanage in Phnom Penh; we rode mopeds all over SE Asia with you asleep, tucked between Mommy and me, with a helmet that was twice your size; we bicycled with you in a basket, on my back and every which way possible; we canoed through Halong Bay, Vietnam and went swimming in Koh Rok, Thailand; we hiked in the mountains of Nepal with you on my back; we saw crystal blue waters in Esperance, Australia and we watched in horror as you tried to feed the dingoes in remote Western Australia (and we almost hit a couple of kangaroos along the way as well); we had Christmas in Fort Cochin, India and Vienna, Austria; we have been in bounce houses all over the world and water parks wherever we could find them; I fell on my face with you on my back in Tiger Leaping Gorge, China; we circumnavigated New Zealand with you in the back of a motor home with a giant bucket of toys by your side; we learned of the atrocities of Hiroshima, Nuremberg, the Vietnam War and the concentration camps in Trieste, Italy and we marveled at the heroism at Normandy; we watched you collect 15 Junior Ranger badges during our three-month trip through the US West Coast National Parks; and the list could go on and go.
Everything we have seen and experienced would not have been nearly as meaningful or as much fun without you there to share it with us.
Thank you for giving me a reason to stop working my life away and for showing me that no amount of money is worth the time that I get to spend with you.
Thank you for always kissing me on the lips and giving me big hugs and being the most affectionate and caring little boy that I know.
Thank you for ‘never listening’ to me and turning around to tell me: “Daddy, I do not know why I am so crazy; I just can’t help myself.”
Thank you for being such a loving little boy that when we pray at night and I get tears in my eyes after telling you how much I love you and how thankful I am for you, you always grab my cheeks and say: “Daddy, you don’t need to cry. I love you more than anything. You are the best Daddy in the world.”
Thank you for your faith and for always lighting a candle for those people in our lives who are suffering.
Thank you for your endless energy and beautiful smile.
Thank you for being such a wonderful BIG brother to Kendley;
Thank you for being YOUl!!!!!!!!!!!
Ollie, each day I spend with you is truly a gift from God, as you have helped to heal my soul, calm my mind and fill my heart with love and gratitude.
While you might not understand or totally grasp everything that is written above, hopefully someday I will get to return the favor and wipe the tears from your eye and hold your cheeks and say:
“Ollie, you don’t need to cry. I love you more than anything. You are the best son any Father could dream of.”
The post Happy 6th Birthday, Oliver: Love, Daddy first appeared on OliverTheWorld.
]]>The post What it Means to Captain This Ship: To My Husband On Father’s Day first appeared on OliverTheWorld.
]]>This has been a challenging week, to say the least. Somewhere in the lovely Picos de Europa, our van started to sound as if it were towing a refrigerator up and down the mountains. After consulting a mechanic in Oviedo, we learned that our driver-side caliper was shot and our tie rods were close to giving up the ghost. Still we pressed on, through the Asturias and the better part of Galicia.
We finally began our descent down the length of the Iberian Peninsula only to be held up in Vigo, the last largish town in Spain before crossing the Portuguese border. Conversations with Mechanic Number Two, whose sought-after advice seemed prudent given our faith in second opinions, have instead landed us in a further predicament. Evidently, our detour through the mountains cost us an entirely new brake from the ground up: disks, pads, caliper and all. To top off this sloppy mess, we’ve been reminded that we are on our last thread with regard to our back tires, and by thread I am quite literal…right down to the millimeter. The Spanish financial crisis in the form of off-label Mitsubishi auto parts has officially come home to Chez Rauch.
Now, while I have a spot of fondness for our van Sherman, whose likeness and therefor namesake is a rusty old tank we spied on Utah Beach, I am currently keen to convert him to scrap somewhere in a Vigo back alley. After all, I tell myself, there was once a time before Kendley when we were far fleeter of foot and didn’t rely on our own private vehicle to whisk us off from one adventure to the next. But that’s my impulsive, damn-it-all side speaking. It’s the part of me that would prefer to “toss-a-hand-grenade-and-ask-questions later” as Ryan likes to say.
Times change, after all. At this moment, time has morphed our little foursome into an overweight gaggle of Lisbon-bound packrats, and one need only to sift through Sherman’s trunk to see proof. Irish hurling sticks and bundles of winter coats; sleeping bags and a tent used only once in ten months; bags of toys donated by various Airbnb hosts, crayons, pens, textbooks, cooking accouterments and a few bottles of French wine that I’ve sacked away for one of these rainy Galician days. Cripes, there are three used bikes lashed to the back of the van! Where did it all come from?
It’s true, we are heavy and slow and consuming far too much diesel for my liking, but this is where and what we are at this particular moment. But since it’s also Father’s Day this weekend, I have made a promise to myself this afternoon to stop gritting my teeth and muttering about the car. So let me end this rant and meditate for a moment on MY HUSBAND.
Dear Ryan.
It’s been nearly two weeks since I sat down at a computer to write, and in your infinite empathy, you took the kids to the park today, for the entire day. So while I could be catching up on a post about France, or uploading pictures from six months ago, I am compelled to thank you in the most public of all forums (aside from Facebook, which you loathe) in a manner that is so unaccustomed to me. As you say, I am capable of expressing just about anything with the written word, aside from my feelings. Please allow me to prove you wrong.
In my mind, Ryan, there is no equal to you. And while that’s a phrase that you are likely to see on many a Hallmark card back in the States at this time of year, it couldn’t be truer.
While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I am a terrible mother, I am certainly no natural. The task of raising children, especially ones like ours (lunatics, both of them), in the manner of our choosing (all over the world), has not been for the faint of heart, and there have been many times I’ve doubted myself, compared myself to others and felt I was coming up short, and otherwise known deep inside that that I wasn’t giving it my all. I am the sorry one who rolls over at night, pulls the pillow over head head, and prays the kids go back to sleep on their own accord. I am the one who, when their kid is sobbing for whatever reason, tells them to get over it, and that (bruise, scrape, broken ankle) will only make them stronger. I am the one who shrugs matter-of-factly when a favorite toy has been dropped on the trail or out the window of a speeding (car, bus, train, boat), but not you. You are none of what I am, for you have compassion. For the sake of our children, and for me, I am grateful they have a father like you.
You are the master of the small comforts. Every night without fail, there is a glass of water for me on top of whatever it is we are using as bedside table these days, and every morning, vitamins that I would otherwise forget are waiting somewhere near a mug of coffee that you’ve percolated in the Moka before I even got out bed. You’re the one that hauls our gear out of Sherman every time we settle into a room for the night, and you’re the one who magically crams every last item back into place at the beginning of every crazy day. Someone (your mother) instilled a work ethic in your heart that knows no limits, and someone else (your father) has inspired you to give your all, every day, to those you love the most.
I have seen you elated, living in this precise moment as the Program has taught you, lost in the embrace of one of our kids. I have felt you radiating as I followed you down a shady ravine in a European mountain chain as Kendley and Oliver held fast to fingers on either side of your hand. I have watched silently as you have knelt beside Oliver to help him say his prayers at night. I am thankful that you are sharing the wisdom you have gathered from changing your life for the better. Oliver, Kendley and I are the benefactors of every ounce of hard work you have invested in yourself. I am a better mother because of what I have learned from you.
I have seen you at your worst, and despite hardships, your family is still tantamount. I have seen you fried beyond recognition after long travel days, or haggard in mornings after our children have cried throughout the night. Despite being exhausted and malnourished on account of a stomach that has never played fairly for you, you have still managed to put me first and insist on spiriting the kids off for an afternoon so I might have a moment’s peace. Morning sickness, night feedings, and trips to the ER in various countries… all the onslaughts that are part and parcel to parenthood are burdens shared. I have no singular hardships, nor can I claim any crosses to bear.
And then there are those things, too many to count, that you carry all on your own. Intangibles to me, realities to you. Logistics, finances, plotting the points on a route that has no beginning and no end. The cogwheels of the life we live turn indefinitely thanks mostly to you. Other men who would put their own comforts and convenience first would have sacrificed this life long ago, God only knows. With all we’ve been though, other men might have sacrificed the prospect of this very family long ago. But not you. You have shared in every moment, good and bad; you have been by my side every day since our little boy drew his first breath.
I have seen what tremendous faith you have placed in our journey, and I know what it took for you to turn your back on the career that had become your identity. I was with you in those early months of sobriety when it was all in question. But it is a fact that what you have gained as a result of your choices has made all the difference in our life together, and it is my great privilege to share it with you and our children. For like me, our kids have been given the gift of having not only a father in their life, but a man like you.
There is a reason why you are what you are today, and it is the same reason why we are here, together, in a little town on the Galician coast. It is the reason why we are a family. It is because of you.
The post What it Means to Captain This Ship: To My Husband On Father’s Day first appeared on OliverTheWorld.
]]>The post Happy Birthday, Little One: Kendley Turns Two (From Daddy) first appeared on OliverTheWorld.
]]>Happy birthday to my beautiful little girl. From the second I laid my eyes on you, I was in awe of you. You have always filled my heart with joy and have given me a lifetime of love in only two years. While you might not understand what we are doing right now, everyday that I get to travel with you and watch you grow up is a day beyond my wildest dreams. Where we are going is not important, but having you, Emy and Ollie by my side is where my home and heart is. Sobriety has taught me to live in the present and to enjoy life on life’s terms, so below are all the ‘little’ things that I am grateful that you bring to my life:
Thank you for your strong will and stubborn spirit and for yelling “mine!” at the top of your lungs whenever I (or anybody else) take something that you want.
Thank you for grabbing my face in your hands after you punch me in the nose when I ask for a kiss.
Thank you for eating more than any little girl I know, but always giving me your soggy, unwanted cheerios at the bottom of your bowl.
Thank you for going pooh-pooh in your pants every night right before I shower you so I get the unenviable task of cleaning off your ‘booty.’
Thank you for always waking up from your nap with a smile (well, almost always).
Thank you for insisting on feeding yourself and then putting more on your face and in your hair then in your mouth.
Thank you for giving me a little corner of your blankey and for rubbing my cheek when I am tired.
Thank you for always yelling, ‘Hi, buddy daddy’ every morning when I see you.
Thank you for sighing and scrunching up your nose when you are happy.
Thank you for breaking a glass at Mommy’s Mother’s Day meal (which was at one of the nicest restaurants in Nantes, France) and then throwing another one on the floor when we met our new friend Jarryd in La Rochelle.
Thank you for loving animals and trying to pet dogs that are 5 times your size.
Thank you for always sweeping the floor (with a huge broom I might add) in every new apartment that we stay in.
Thank you for hugging and loving Ollie even when he throws balls at your face and tackles you in the yard.
Thank you for running a little bow-legged and for falling on your face over 10 times a day.
Thank you for smiling and melting the hearts of even the toughest bystanders after we have gotten yelled at for your antics at every cathedral and museum we have visited (except for the ones where you are sleeping, that is).
Thank you for using baguettes in France as a club and for hitting us in the head and after doing so always yelling, ‘OPAHLA!’
Thank you for being an awful sleeper and for 90% of the time yelling, ‘Daddy, Daddy’ in the middle of the night (maybe you can start to yell Mommy more going forward)?
Thank you for always being able to get me out of my head and for helping me to enjoy the present.
Thank you for giving me a reason not to drink and for wanting to become a better man and Daddy for you.
Thank you for always making me smile and for reminding me how precious life is.
Thank you for helping Mommy to keep on ‘open mind’ to have another one of you (or Ollie).
Thank you for helping me realize that my self-worth is not found at the office or in a ‘normal’ job and that a smile or hug from you is all the recognition that I need.
They say that to love another person is to see the face of God and every second of every day, I feel like I have God right by my side.
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]]>The post Happy Birthday, Little One: Kendley Turns Two (From Mommy) first appeared on OliverTheWorld.
]]>Today our daughter turns two years old. To celebrate, we followed our GPS for ages around the sprawling suburbs that spiral off Bordeaux’s ring road until it brought us to Récréa’Land, an indoor gymnasium/fun zone complete with multilevel play structures, slides and several enormous, child-swallowing ball pits. In the past, we have found that these kinds of places offer free Wi-Fi to the parents, at least to those who don’t neurotically cling to the protective webbing enveloping the pulsating hive of activity. My brain has finally adapted to the surrounding din, and the stereophonic screaming no longer causes me to cringe as much as it did the first fifteen minutes we arrived. I ask you, what better atmosphere could anyone conceive in which to genuflect on how much we adore our children!
We return to our heroine. Kendley, our newly minted two-year-old, is our little fire-breather. She is equally as shrewd as a fox and as stubborn as a mule, but mostly she is steadfast in her love for those who meet her discerning standards. She is a tiny locomotive that is set precisely to her own particular schedule. Ever since her grand escape, when she turned 21 months, we have yet to find any kind of baby cot that can contain her. She sprints like a jackrabbit with an added measure of bob and weave that is specifically designed to evade her parents on crowded market days. On a mad dash, she will seldom turn around unless it’s to see whether or not we’ve given chase, which only makes her run faster. When caught, she morphs into a rabid howler monkey, but somehow manages the phrase “PUT ME DOWN NOW!” with perfect elocution. On various occasions, Ryan, Oliver and I have all either simmered in her pale blue eyes or been bathed in light; her little fists have alternately cradled our faces and met the ends our noses.
She is, as one of her grandmothers calls her, a little myna bird that is quick to imitate, and an adorable ham that is keen to put on a show. On long drives through European countryside, she will reliably belt out a tune of her own making that usually pertains to ladybugs. She can charm us like no one ever has, with her precious blankey under her arm and her two fingers in her mouth. Her first two words in the morning are invariably “Hi, honey”, followed by a “breakfast pleeeeeese”. She struts, she supplicates, she snuggles and she screeches. We have all loved her fiercely from the second she drew her first breath.
Truthfully, the concept of her turning two years today has me a little thrown. Recently I have been stealing moments here and there to watch little home movies of her taking her first steps in California before we left for Iceland. Her wobbly determination is evident in her every move, and I am astounded that nearly twelve months have passed since that milestone. I have always been one for whom the passage of time never came easily; I am forever too caught up in the here and now to register the ephemeral aspect of our lives. But time is indeed passing, whether I like it or not.
Before our eyes, Kendley has become a little goldilocks sprite, full of sass and spirit. She is a traveler now like the rest of us; she continues to blossom in the light of so many different days encountered on the road. She is one of four equally critical pillars upon which this family stands, and I speak for all of us when I say that, for her, there is nothing that we would not do.
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Before getting underway, I’d like to give credit to the very good friend of mine who came up with the title of our blog. If it weren’t for the creative genius of Ms. Ruchi Gupta (who coincidentally works for a large advertising house), Olivertheworld might otherwise have come to be known as EatenbyMonkeys.com or worse, Dysentery’r’us.com.
As the winner, Ruchi will receive the left-over toiletries stashed underneath the sink in our master bedroom that we’re unable to pack with us on our trip. Thank you, Ruchi and congratulations!
Per my promise, listed below is a selection of the entries that were submitted, each one of them brilliant in their own right.
The post Credit Where Credit is Due first appeared on OliverTheWorld.
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