Staying Out of Their Friendship

Growing up my sister and I were enemies. Not merely bickering siblings, we were the worst kind of advisories, we worked against one another, furiously and with intention to harm, it was a famous hatred that our friends and family knew about well. There was no hiding it. As an adult it's one of those regrets that just stick in my ribs, it's a dull shitty pain that isn't going anywhere, we are fine to one another now-- manage pleasant conversations, laugh, it's nice when we do make the time to talk. She has a cool life, great kids, happy marriage. I enjoy our talks when we have them. But... I'm afraid that we will never be truly close like a brother and sister are meant to be close. It was the kind of damage that can't be undone, we can forgive one another for the past, and we have, but the forgiveness doesn't replace the time we lost, it doesn't forge a bond like: watching out for one another, keeping secrets and sharing whispers, shaking from belly laughs, these are the things that tie you together tightly. Some people want to go back and be a kid again so they can raise hell and eat candy and play all day, I just want to go back and be my sister's friend.

As terrible as that memory is of my relationship with my sister, remembering how sad it made my mother and father is almost more unbearable to conjure up. They wanted us to be friends and love one another so very badly. They pleaded with us. It hurt them. Looking back on things now, I believe that was a big part of the problem, seeing them upset about our resistance to our bond was a lot of power to be wielding as a kid. It was an easy way to get a rise out of them. I was especially bad, it was like blood in the water, if I saw an emotional response to something I did, I went after it. I was a monster. Truly.

Enough about that.

So of course now, armed with lessons learned and my regrets, I have been hyper sensitive to the budding relationship between Tessa and The Littlest Buddy, it's something I keep my eyes on, but my mouth shut about. I promised myself that I wouldn't instruct them that they're supposed to be friends and that they are to love one another. In fact I don't think I have ever suggested it. Cole and I both have taken a real hands off approach to their bonding after LB got over his initial month long freak out that Tessa even existed. We were convinced he was never ever going to chill out. I mean that kid was pissed, top the emotional rage off with the genetic disorder and we were worried. Real worried.

I wonder what Tessa thinks of her brother, how is she coming to understand him, how does learning to communicate with someone who is largely non-verbal work when you're just learning to talk yourself? Would she understand him when he does speak? Would she bite her hand when she got upset as well? Would she tantrum when faced with an unexpected change in the days routine? Does she feel our stress? Will she resent the amount of attention he requires? What does LB think of Tessa, does he understand that she is growing and learning new things every day? Yeah, I could keep writing questions like this for ten pages. There is always too much to think about.

We leave them alone about their relationship. It's their friendship to navigate and nurture, not ours. We enforce the basics, no hitting, no pushing, don't be a jerk, that kind of stuff. I can say for certain, that it has been my greatest joy as a parent so far to see their friendship grow naturally. Cole and I will hear laughter from the other room, and realize they are playing together, they found a way to play. You have no idea what a relief this is. LB's Smith Magenis Syndrome has kept him at a distance from almost all other kids, so why would Tessa be any different? Why would she want to play with him? But she does, it took them awhile, but they have figured out how to make the other laugh. We see kindness from LB constantly towards her. She drops her milk from her high chair at dinner and he gets up to rescue it: "Here ya go Tessa." and she responds, "oh thank you."

This has been a slow build, they pretty much ignored one another for two years. And just recently over the last few months we have seen their little relationship really take off. On the days when LB is at his fathers, Tessa will look for him when she wakes up, and continues to ask for him throughout the day. When she paints she always includes a little blob of paint that represents him, he is always included. Hearing them playing off in another room together literally caves my chest in, it feels so good. I keep this secret from them, I don't want them to know how important it is to me, I am of the belief that kids shouldn't know what's important to us emotionally, because as soon as we take something away from them and it hurts, they will try and do the same to us. Maybe that's not true, but I know that's who I was.

So for now. We have two brand new friends on our hands. And I love it, and I hope that from the love we pour onto them, they will just follow our lead. This all feels so complicated, and simple all at the same time. Right? People say: You just love them with all your heart, sounds simple enough right? But somehow all of this is still freakin hard.

owners of just one iPad, you know things are going good when they are happy to share this thing.

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A few weeks ago we were driving to my father in laws house, and all of the sudden from the back seat the two of them start playing together. Taking turns being silly. Hearing them play and bond is the best, no matter what they're doing. It was the grossest music to our ears ever....

Total pals.



And of course we know, that this is just funny and beautiful to us.



** I wanted to post this, because for me helping to raise a special needs child it's always comforting to hear about positive and strong relationships amongst siblings. Any time that I see a post where there are strong bonds between brothers or sisters who have special needs I get a great big sigh of relief. For us it is imperative. We need to know that long after Cole and I are gone from this earth, that as an adult LB will have people around him that love him and care for him. It's frightening to imagine him not having anyone. So for anyone that stumbles across this blog from searching SMS, I hope that this post helps a little.

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Currently During Nap Time

Polaroid 600SE with Fuji 3000B

Lately on Cole's days off, when the kids go down for their nap, she heads straight for the garage, and dives into her new passion project -- She picked up two 1970's his and hers Raleigh Sport bikes and has been slowly bringing them back to life, one nap at a time.

Something that has always been a strong link in our compatibility is the fact that we can both pour ourselves completely into a project when we have free time. We both completely understand what it means to have hobbies, and their direct connection to sanity. I've really enjoyed watching her figure out how to piece this bike apart and get it shiny and new again. She will get stuck at a point, clean her hands up, grab her phone, google some stuff, watch 3 or 4 videos, read a forum, and then she is right back at it. It's quite incredible what can be done to rust with some water and a piece of aluminum foil. She has practically brought the bikes chrome back to brand new with her old tooth brush and some aluminum. She hasn't touched the bike with a single bit of metal polish at this point, and it already looks great.

This weekend she really went to town on these bikes, and even had Tessa and I helping at some point. It was a gorgeous weekend, a high of 77, shorts and tanks are still being worn, we had the house open, the football game on, grease on our hands, and we even sat in the garage and drank an ice cold beer and messed around with tools and talked shop. Incredible.

Once these two bikes are all a sparkle again, she is going to outfit them with a few new bells and whistles, but it's undecided if these are keepers or not, this pair of bikes might be headed for the classifieds.


iPhone 4S


Polaroid 600SE with Fuji100C

Canon 7D with 85mm 1.8

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Slobs

Currently there are four pillows in this bed, one is covered in that freaky medicated old person smell of Tiger Balm, one may or may not have been peed on by Tessa, one is the wimpy pillow that vaporizes to a thin flat sheet as soon as you put weight onto it, and then there is the good one. Cole has the good one right now. At least we think so. It could very well be the pee pillow because that one is pretty solid as well, but if you hit the wrong spot with your face, well... it smells like urine. We think. It's just a theory. Can't be sure.

Pillows are like seven bucks at IKEA... but the thought of actually leaving the house to go and purchase pillows that would make our life a little nicer at nighttime is unthinkable to me. I was faced with this decision recently, and I'm like: "We can't just throw these out!! They're our pillows." Either I have formed some crazy sentimental attachment to these things, or I have a deep rooted obligation to not be wasteful. How long are you supposed to keep pillows for anyway? I know people who have pillows from when they were kids still. Which is totally gross to me, because I know the crazy stuff I was doing to my pillows when I was a teenager and well... gross.

I can't think of a reason more terrible to have to leave the house. I mean we have four of these big nice looking from far away pillows. Why do I want to drive down I-4 to the IKEA to walk around that giant ass showroom to buy more of these? I like to think that my day has more priority to it. Making free time to go and buy pillows? Who does this? It's not like Milk. We have to have Milk.

Friend: "Whatcha doin today Ryan?"

Me: Oh you know, I have to go down to the Ikea and buy some pillows. They're like seven dollars there!!"

You know you can't really wash a seven dollar pillow, they turn into a mess, the stuffing separates and clumps up, so the weight of the clumps hang down to one side of the pillow, kind of like a ball sack. When you put your head on the good end it just squishes to the other side, like those crazy water balloon toys "water snakes" that you can't hold onto. Those things were like hand-job training for kids, seriously questionable toys.

So instead, it was decided that we should get these pillow cases off of them, and get things smelling good again on the outside. So the cases were stripped off, and been sitting in the mound of non-priority dirty laundry, and it has now become even more difficult to figure out which pillow has the piss on it.

Enough with the pillows.

Our house is like most houses with young kids in them, there is the clean section, where we entertain company, and trick visitors and family into thinking, "aww, what a cute little house." It's the side you see in all of the pictures. Clean floors, things are put away. And then there is our end of the house. The disaster. Where everything we neglect and put off exists in piles of junk and clutter. But, for every piece of filthy laundry, or halloween candy wrapper on the floor, it represents a few extra minutes of free time we had to play with the kids that day, or it's extra time for me to work on a blog post, or to stay on top of The Walking Dead, or for Cole to sit and pull hair out of her eyebrows. So it's tough to decide if this mess on this end of the house really makes me all that bothered. This mess is the spoiled brat side of ourselves that still thinks its cool to NOT have to clean your room. Im about to be 37 and I still think having a messy room is totally burning my parents. BURN!!!!

This mess, is the reason we continue to have the time we have to talk for a couple of hours at night. Sure you can talk while you clean up back here, but it doesn't feel as good as it does when you close the doors to the kids rooms at bedtime, and just completely turn to sloth. We melt into lazy soft butter. So this mess just keeps growing while all that good feet-up relaxing is going down. I just decided. I'm fine with it. It's just this one room.

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We have the worst mattress money can buy right now, because when we got married we were broke jokes, and so we went for a really cheap king size over a decent queen. We were greedy pigs. Hey! Anyone reading here about to get married-- buy a good mattress. Trust me. Don't go for the really big one that's irresistibly cheap, go for the one that won't cripple you.

So anyway, back to our shitty mattress, because it's so terrible we have to switch sides every 3 nights, because I'm like 150 thousand pounds heavier than Cole who weighs as much as a roll of quarters. My side smashes all the fluff onto her side of the bed, and she sleeps on a rock about 2 feet higher than me, and I am drowning in a pile of mushy lumps that screw my back up. Hence the smelly tiger balm all over the pillows. Ugh the circle of life.

So when ever we make the side switch like we did tonight, I always end up with the night stand that she has had rights to for the past few days. I just checked things out, was looking for a spot to put my phone down. Don't worry, there wasn't a spot. Right now, for some reason, there is a box of Reynolds Freezer Paper on it, a wad of jewelry, some junk mail, a remote for our fan, and an empty big ass 3 ring binder. Tomorrow I will wake up and scoop all of this up and dump it on top of our dresser, right on top of the piles of the other collections of junk that get displaced whenever we switch sides.

I look at this mess and it is the very last place I have where I have clung onto my youthful laziness, and the clock is ticking. This won't last forever. The kids are going to get older, and soon Cole and I will have to suck it up, clean up our pig sty so that we can tell the kids that they have to clean up theirs. So until that day. We will continue to let the mess pile up in exchange for the extra minutes of play and silliness we get to have because of our slobiness.

Oh yeah, any friends or family reading this post that were wondering what might make for a nice Christmas present this year... How about some pillows. I hear they're like seven bucks down at the IKEA.

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The Press

One of my favorite things about Sesame Street growing up, besides Cookie Monster, were the short films that played during an episode that were centered around the production process of something delicious or curious. I loved getting to see how the things on the grocery store shelves ended up there. I'm not sure if they still do this on Sesame Street any longer, but I hope they do. Of course it would require Americans actually having jobs where they make things. Do you remember them, the films? It would be a little 2 minute film about something like an orange grove and how orange juice is made, and a group of kids would narrate these things, and just randomly scream stuff like, "ORANGE JUICE" as the oranges would get pulverized. They would do films about where crayons come from, or how peanut butter is made, chinese noodles.... stuff like that. I loved all of them, and they are strongly ingrained in my memory, and I was always fascinated by them growing up. They were strong little propaganda films, because by the age of 8 I wanted to wear a hair net and work in a factory.

So...

A couple months back I went to Hadley, MA on a job to make a book trailer for Storey Publishing on a new title about sewing, (which at first I was like, Sewing?! How do I? and then it turned out to be such a great project after talking to the authors. Can't wait to show you the results.) And while I was there, not only did I fall in love with all of Western Mass, but I met a family that were in the midst of the exciting final stages of launching their new apple cider business. We took a quick trip up the north-west slope of Mount Warner in North Hadley, Massachusetts to a barn, and in that barn was this fully restored and most splendid apple press that I was told was well over 100 years old. It looked brand new again, magnificent candy apple red, bright shiny piece of mechanics, gears and pulleys, and blades. It was one of those contraptions that I immediately wanted to see in action. I was a kid again. Randomly screaming, "Apples!!"

So I went back. Cole and I took a trip back to Hadley, and we were invited to the very first pressing of the season, and we were lucky enough to get to document this process. It was the first time I had just decided to make something for myself, just because, and it was the first time that Cole was on hand to assist me. So this exercise really woke something up inside me. I was like... THIS!!! This is what I want to do more of. With her. I loved working with Cole on this.

The music was provided with permission by the insanely talented Rickolus who has made his album American Backyard free for download over at his place HERE.

As you can see from the video, Carr's Ciderhouse is a family run business, and while I was filming I couldn't help but get choked up thinking about how cool it was when their little boy asked for that apple rake, and his dad just handed it to him without hesitation and let him start helping. I just know as a kid, it was moments like that, moments of inclusion and trust that really stuck with me and shaped who I became. It was awesome to see this moment. Father and son moments really kill me.

So if you are curious for more info about the actual Cider press and this family run business, Nathan from the ridicuoulsy gorgeous online magazine Kinfolk is giving this little film a home today on his site. So take a jump on over to Kinfolk and check the post (that will be up later today). If you have not heard about Kinfolk yet, do yourself the good favor of taking some time to look around some. I don't think you will regret it.

If you are now thirsty for cider, you can take a look at the family's web site that is in the process of being constructed, they are still in the just opening up for business stages, and it's an exciting time for them. If you live near Hadley, or Northhamptom you can pick some up for yourself right now. More info is being added to their site. If you are not near Western Mass, you can contact them through the site and try and strong arm them into selling you some cider. Tell them you saw the video, and say pretty please, it might work. Take a look HERE.

And a huge thank you to this really amazing family, who not only shared this special experience with us, but extended inspirational amounts of hospitality and warmth to us. They absolutely gave southern hospitality a run for its money. I'm not sure I have ever felt more welcome anywhere. So thank you to Jonathan and Nicole we hope to see you again soon. There is always Lego Land :)

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Prep

Cole practicing her Grape Leaf rolling skills

Next week starts the food madness... we are happily preparing ourselves this year. Last year we made Turkey Burgers and pretty much skipped the entire holiday. I'm not going to lie, it was nice to take a holiday pass from the stacks of traditional food over eating. This weekend we will be figuring out our menu, and our schedule. We have to do the rounds, how many dinners can we hit up in one day? So yes, there is much to plan.

This time of year always gets me a little sad, and I know I'm not the only one. The holiday blues is a real thing that does terrible things to an ego. I have always tried my best to find something good I can do for others, and in return that sadness moves to the back of my head space whenever I do. It doesn't go away, it's just maybe not on top of me so much.

This weekend I am going to include this into all of my plan making. Think extra hard what I can do for someone that will make a real difference this holiday season.

Happy planning.

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The Best Most Terrible Weekend Together Ever

The thing about planning a romantic trip, is that you're planning on actually feeling romantic during it. You can't plan for that? Can you? Is this really true? I mean, is it like a focus thing? Like you can psych yourself up for it... I am trying to picture a dude getting all pumped up before he dead lifts 300lbs over his head, spitting into his hands and taking intense quick breathes that kind of make that whistle sound like adorable old men do when they say their S's, but instead of a lift, he is thinking: "Man I'm going to be SO romantic tonight!!! I'm going to have sparkle eyes and everything. Let's do this!"

I can't remember the last time I felt romantic on demand. All of the romance in our marriage has come from the tiniest of moments that had nothing to do with the usual trappings of romance, and the greatest thing I have going for me, is that I don''t have a wife that lets these real moments pass her by because she has it set in her head that romance comes tied to flowers, and candles, and chocolates, all riding in on the sweet sounds of Billy Ocean. Im not saying that she wouldn't get swept away by some Billy Ocean and some rose petals, I'm just saying that it's nice that the romance has always been spontaneous and born from the super sexual lust we still have for one another despite how bad we smell from not showering for days at a time.

It was our second night of the "romantic" trip we just took, we were in our romantic room, after our romantic meal, and I had just showered so I could blow my nose really hard into my hands because I was so clogged up I sounded like a muppet, and I got into bed, I think HBO was on, all romantic hotels have HBO, and all the sudden she stopped my hand short just after I broke the underwear plane and she says, "No, I don't want to have an orgasm tonight, it hurts too bad to breathe. No touching that! get away from it."

Wait.

Let me back up.

Cole and I recently went to Western Mass, the Berkshires, The Hill towns, a place I have quickly fallen head over heels for, and a place I recently blogged about HERE. They should make post cards that say: "Fucking Gorgeous" across them in fine Helvetica placed carefully over pictures of anything you point a camera at there. Love this part of the country. Love. It.

It was a quick trip. day one was just for us, exploring, oohing and ahhing over foliage, and sugar shacks, and apple trees, and adorable small towns that you want to stop and make friends in and stay there forever. And day two was to make a film of something I thought was beautiful. More on that some other time. I have to get back to the romance here.

We were sick. Real sick. When we returned home from this vacation, Cole immediately went to the Doctor and opened her mouth and the guy flinched and said, "ugh, that isn't supposed to look like that at ALL." Great bed side manner right? But what can you do, we are the uninsured, and so you get the clowns in walk-in-clinics that recoil when they see gross swollen throats filled with strep throat. Cole had the strep. And apologies to anyone and everyone in Western Mass that got her germs. I have no idea how I didn't get this. I attribute it to the fact that I had my own set of gross things happening the entire time that kept us about 10 feet away from one another at all times.

During the day we were pretty decent. We ran around, laughed, played, and kept saying: "Look at that one!" and pointing at a tree. The feeling like complete dog shit part of being sick somehow lays low during the day, but as soon as the sun sets, and you want to get "romantic," the sick decides to turn on fevers that soak through shirts and beds with sweat, and plug noses with snot, and burn your throat so bad you don't even want to breathe.

I don't snore. unless I get drunk. Which isn't often. Anymore. Besides this last weekend at Cole's work party. Ugh. Save that for another post.

But guess who snored so obnoxiously loud on this trip that he kept his fever sick wife awake all night? THIS GUY!!! There is nothing more romantic than that is there?

So now that I have established the sickness. Lets get to the part where I was forced to have sex, because we were on a romantic trip...

Have you ever been to Disney World and you see that family, the family that despite the shitty time they are obviously having, keeps insisting to one another that they better have fun. The "You better enjoy this, it was expensive" family.

Cole kind of turned into that person on night two. It was our last night of the trip, last night away from the kids, away from real life, we were out in the world, in a hotel, we had packed 20 condoms, the good kind, that don't smell bad.

Cole informs me at dinner: "We're doing it tonight." She says this while she is shuddering from trying to swallow a spoonful of french onion soup that she could barely swallow down (strep throat), at this really cool tavern, in this great old hotel, next to a glowing brick fireplace, with the cutest old lady in a cardigan working as the hostess that I wanted to be my grandma.

"For sure. We HAVE to" she says.

"We're going to."

I had my orders.

It's a short walk back to our room. Both nights, Cole is so frozen from the cold that she is literally shiver shaking. So like a real hero, I turn the heat on to like 79 and blast it until she says she isn't cold. We are both so hot now, we have to open the windows and let the room get cold again, and we end sleeping with the air conditioner on, and the window open, with the covers kicked off of us, sweating, and oh yeah-- I'm snoring.

Wait.

The sex.

So the sex we HAD to have.

It was terrible. It barely happened and by barely it was the first time I have ever done it where the point was to stay as far away from one another as possible. Don't put your face near my face, It hurts my entire head to move from all the sinus pressure, so I can't move, No. YOU have to be on top. why does my entire body ache?

Of course all of this was being said while it was happening. It was like every few seconds someone was saying: "ouch, stop it."

And then I snored.

***


The trip to Mass has provided Cole and I with so much comedy, and so many chances to laugh about how life tends to work in these so not very fair ways, that the romance has come in droves ever since, our suffering has paid off. I am so lucky to have someone that thinks all of this is so funny. I feel like any moment we share, no matter what the setting and circumstances are, that I can look at Cole and think-- "God, I love her" that moment becomes romantic. Most of these moments happen every day, right here at home. From the smallest of things.

There isn't any magic place or trip that will top that feeling. I don't think you can plan for romance. For me they came from the smallest moments: When we turned around and drove back up the mountain so she could see her first apple tree, on the side of the highway in a patch of woods that were glowing yellow from the fall canopy, wanting to stop at all the "scenic view" spots to peep through old school 25cent viewers, leaning over railing in a pigsty together marveling over piglets, sitting in grass sipping on cider at sunset after she helped me film. All the charming hotels and "fancy" dinners just got in the way.

Lessons learned.

P.S. I am almost finished tinkering around with the little film Cole helped me make while we were in Hadley. Will have it up around here soon.

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Taking The Same Picture in the Same Spot

Hi.

HERE is a post from one year ago that you should totally take a look at.

Oh my.

We just spent the last few days over on the East Coast at The Wakulla Suites on Cocoa Beach. The weather was great. The pool was warm. The company terrific. As soon as I heard we were going back to the Wakulla Suites for the Alchemy Christmas party again this year, I knew I wanted to take a portrait of Tessa in the same spot as I did last time. I am just a sucker for a series I guess.

That little boy snuggling up to Tessa, is the amazing baby Leo, who some of you might remember from HERE.

Have some videos to share here soon. Film has been sent off to the lab. I miss my blog. I miss this space. That was the point of the break.

See you all soon.

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In the Woods in Goshen

Consider this the first in many follow up post to "Finding Cole"

We found this little patch of gorgeousness along the side of the road near the city limit of Goshen, MA we were driving to the Berkshires to see the ass end of Fall. There wasn't much left after the freak snow storm that buried much of the North East last week. So when we saw this patch of woods we parked and ran around like a couple of ding-dongs, pointing and shouting, "look at that one! oh wow, look at this one!!! Look over here."

I love this smile on Cole. This little patch of woods became one of our most favorite places we have ever been. Side of the road in Goshen, MA. Who knew?! If you're not following along on Instagram, I updated the new Tumblr site with vacation pics.



P.S. Cole and I went to Hadley, MA together while we were on this trip to make a video of a family business we fell in love with. Will be back to share that soon. It was the first time I have ever made time to just go off and make something just for the sake of making something that I thought was cool. I need to make this habit.

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