Best Friends

Remember how I told you about meeting up with one of my oldest and bestest friends Desaray and her wife Lauren?





It's amazing. And crazy. And extremely wonderful. I got to introduce my child to a woman whose known me since I was a child myself.





And Lisel also got to meet her beautiful baby whispering love of her life.

Life man. The circle of.

Wow.

Post From My iPhone

I'm ready to see my baby girl

Three days is an awful long time. I'm getting into serious baby missing territory. I have a plan, and that plan is to make time pass quickly by sleeping as much as possible until this bus hits Austin tomorrow afternoon. That also helps with the getting rest portion of this trip.

I feel lucky that I get to see so much of her. But these weekends...they alway seem like a good idea. And for the first day an a half when I'm sleeping and/or watching a Law and Order marathon in the hotel room, they feel like a good idea.

But I'm ready to see my baby.

How about y'all? Does your job put you in situations of baby separattion and longing? And how do you deal with it?


-- Post From My iPhone

A Weekend Away

Is always strange.

On the one hand, we get to get caught up on sleep before the big tour to Canada. Dave gets to be driven rather than drive. And my parents get to commune with their granddaughter.

On the other hand, there is the missing. Because everything is really is less fun without her. Because seriously, she is the most fun. And the then there's the self doubt. What kind of parent leaves her daughter...

I think this is just where I live these days. In trying to balance child care and husband care and self care, I often end up in the compromise zone--where things are workable but not perfect. Where as soon as I feel resolved that yes, this is cool, I feel good about this...then the other side shows itself.




I think they call this being a grown up. Dude.

-- Post From My iPhone

I'm Tired...Tired of Playing the Game

Ain't it a friggin' shame...

It's strange. On Saturday, I thought I'd finally hit my stride. I was feeling good and unstressed and rested. On Sunday, I was feeling a bit fatigued. And on Monday, I was toast, of the burnt to a crisp variety.

Just when I thought I'd gotten the hang of this crazy experiment, the road totally schooled my ass!

Admittedly, it was an insane weekend. Here's the quick rundown.

Thursday -- Claire and Dave leave in at 6pm in the baby bus, headed for Louisville, KY.
Friday -- I get up super early and fly into Lexington, KY. We hang at the hotel. Dave and I play a gig at 8:30pm
Saturday -- We get up at 5:15am, leave by 6am to drive 8 hours to Boone, Carolina. Play a gig at 4pm. We're asleep by 9pm.
Sunday -- get up at 6am, leave by 7am, drive 4 hours to Newberry, SC. Play a gig at 3pm. Meet up with one of my oldest and bestest friends Desaray and her wife Lauren. Hang until 9, hit the rack, wake up at 11:30pm, leave the hotel by 12:30pm. Drive 4 hours to the Atlanta Airport, fly from there to Dallas and then home to Austin. Get in about 9:50am.
Dave and Claire? They drove home from there. Total driving time, 23 hours.




Luckily, I have the most amazing parents in the world. They picked Lisel and I up from the airport, and watched her while I napped. They even suggested that I sleep over last night, so Dave could get a full nights sleep after a full days drive.

And yet even with their help, I woke up today, zonkered. I was kaput, done, practically empty and bone tired.

Yeah I've been thinking, thinking, thinking and worrying. Because I'm starting to think that Dave and I might be doing some real damage stress wise to ourselves.




The baby? She's fine. She's happy. She seems to be rolling with this quite well. It's Dave and Clair and me that I worry about.


Here's my deal. At home, I get just enough sleep. Lisel still wakes up during the night but Dave takes night duty. He can get her back to sleep relatively quickly and easily. And about 5am, we bring her bed with us. I'm still nursing, and I love, love, love co-sleeping and waking up with Lisel is definitely one of my favorite things.

On the road I pretty much get no sleep at all.

Because on the road Dave is exhausted from driving. And sometimes Clair sleeps in the room with us (because we can't afford another room all the time) so it's up to me to take night duty. And letting Lisel cry it out is not really an option because if she cries for a couple of hours then no one gets any sleep.

We need a quiet, sleeping baby.

My solution? Bring the baby in bed with us and nurse her back to sleep. Which is quite quick and effective on the quiet sleeping baby front.

On the mommy front, not so much.

Lisel sleeping next to me all night is a tossing, turning, thrashing, nursing bonaza. As I told Claire earlier today, Lisel is basically sleeping next to her favorite food.

It would be like me getting in bed with a big plate Tamale House migas. I'd be asleep, and then I'd wake up just enough to smell the migas, and I'd be all, "Yum, migas, me want migas." and I'd eat a bite and go back to sleep for an hour, and then I'd wake up and be all "MMMMM migas, just one bite," and then I'd fall back asleep only to wake up 45 minutes later smelling those delicious migas...

You get what I'm saying right.




So we go on the road and I get all sleep deprived, and then we get home and I get a little sleep, and then we go on the road...

Y'all, I know about sleep training okay! And we're trying it! But we're never home long enough to get any kind of rhythm going! And well, maybe we're not trying so hard but when we're home we need our sleep! So letting the bean cry it out...maybe we're putting it off okay! Stop judging me!

Um, what? You weren't judging me? You were just reading. Maybe I projected a little. Dude, I'm sorry. But I'm so tired...

Anywho, here's the deal. We're going to start experimenting on making this road thing more doable, and less stressful. And I'm going to blog about it. And I'm open to any and all advice. I think we can do this and make it work without killing ourselves, but I have a feeling it's going to take all the creativity we can muster.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Lexington Kentucky...

Makes me want to wear big hats and buy a horse and/or a horse farm with rolling hills and miles of painted white fence that rolls with those hills.

Am I too predictable y'all?


-- Post From My iPhone

Get Rhythm

It's such a weird thing, getting into a rhythm.

Spend all day packing up the bus.

Hug Claire and kiss Dave goodbye.

Get the baby to sleep.

Clean the rest of the house.

Go to sleep later than expected.

Get up earlier than is comfortable.

Fly somewhere.

Meet Claire and Dave.

Play some gigs.

Get dropped off at an airport at an unreasonable hour.

Fly home.

Collapse in a heap.

Spend a couple of days at home doing home stuff.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

I realized tonight that this is the rhythm of my life right now. The road life seems all loosey goosey, but under all the chaos a pattern emerges.

Right on.

Marfa

Sigh.

















We love us some Tina Rose.





And we heart El Cosmico.





We wish we'd taken a snap at Padres with Dave Beebe.

Thanks to KJ and the Valentine Library for getting us there.




We're definitely going back.


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If you're ever in Odessa, TX

Dave and I are big fans of Yelp. When you're rolling through a town you've never been to before, and you're hungry, and corporate food chains just won't do, Yelp to the rescue!

So when we read the review of Janies Restaurant, in Odessa, TX, we knew we had to go:


My mom's restaurant. Am I biased? Hell yeah. Who doesn't love Mom's cooking?

Breakfast served until 11am. If the prices are still right, you might get out of there spending less than 5 bucks.

Lunch until 2pm. again, you might get out of there spending less than 5 bucks.

Tip my sister you cheap bastards!

Breakfast made to order. call for the daily lunch specials. they come with soup, meal, dessert, tea or coffee. 4.75 i think. if knew of a place like that I would be there every day.


So we went. And yea, it was awesome!


















Tip my sister you cheap bastards!

-- Post From My iPhone

It finally happened

We blew a tire. Well, actually, the tread started coming off, and we caught it before it actually blew out...but still, there was some tire changing.

At 3:30am.

In the middle of nowhere.

During a twelve hour, all night drive from Norman, OK to Marfa, TX.





Luckily Zeke was with us. And the boys fixed her up.

It was bound to happen sooner or later.


-- Post From My iPhone

After the gig...

I run to the Baby Bus, straight from the stage. When I left Lisel with Caitlin, who we just met tonight, my baby was crying for me to come back! Please!

But I had to go to work.

So now, I run to the Baby Bus.

And the baby is asleep in the back.

And I pay the babysitter and thank her for watching our sweetness

And I sit by our child and feel my baby's chest rise and fall.

She is good. She is beautiful.

Friends come by and we visit. I stand in he door, propping it halfway open. I hear Lisel move and I excuse myself, because I need to make sure...

She is fine. She is still asleep.

And we hug our friends and say goodnight. And while Dave packs up the rest of our stuff, I lie next to my daughter.

I am a mother with her child

Who was crying when I left

And sleeping when I returned.

And whose chest is rising and falling, rising and falling, under my hand.


-- Post From My iPhone

I played a gig

This past Tuesday, I played a gig. It's wasn't the first non-Wheel gig I had played since Lisel's birth, but it was the first one in a long time.

Because for he past nine months, I have had zero to no interest in pursuing music outside of Asleep at the Wheel. The whole having a baby, touring with the baby and hanging with the baby thing was enough for me. And I get a good music fix every time I'm on stage with the band.

So my own thing, well it just seemed like more of a hassel than anything else.

Until last Tuesday.




I was going to play solo, but at the last minute called my friend Lauren Gurgiolo and asked her to accompany me. It was the best decision I could have made.

We've been playing music together pretty much since I moved to town, though to tell he truth, we hadn't played together in a long while.

So on Tuesday we basically just dug on each other for two hours playing some Firebrands numbers mixed with jazz standards.

And then our friend and fabulous horn player John Doyle just happened to be walking by, and just happened to be carrying his horn, and also just happened to be carrying his jug, and just happened to say yes when we asked him to sit in.

Which is how the impromtu jazz/jug/country/rock band came to be.




Thanks to my brother in-law aka, the Fatman for these pics! Do you see he jug??????! Awesome? Why yes it was.

It was like those pre-baby days in a very I heart Austin, I heart my musician community kind of way.

The baby and Dave were hanging at the crib. So there were no worries there. And for a moment, I saw how I could be both the mommy Elizabeth and the Elizabeth that was.

And it felt good.

-- Post From My iPhone

All my rowdy friends...

It's just around 11 here at Casa Sanger McQueen. My baby is asleep. My husband is asleep. And right after I finish this post, I'll be joining them. This used to be the time when I went out. Sometimes, it was around the time I left the house. I'm a musician, so a couple of years ago at this time I would have been either playing a gig or watching one.

Yes, even on a Wednesday night. Because hello! I live in Austin, where the music happens all night every night.

I played many a Wednesday night gig that started at midnight.

Started at midnight.

I get tired just thinking about that.

Because now, 11pm is bedtime. In fact it's past bedtime.

The times they have a changed.

In truth, my going out slowed way way down a couple of years pre-baby. But still, even if I didn't always rock the midnight hour, I had the option. Because I was a slacker musician and I could sleep until 2 the next day.

But that's not me anymore. That's kind of not my life.

But it was me. It was me not very long ago.

Dude, who am I?

This evening while walking home with some friends from a impromtu baby party at my neighborhood park, I realized that I and pretty much everyone new parent I know is in this transitional phase. We're trying to figure out how to work this new existence, this parent life. Because we don't think of ourselves as parents. We think of our parents as parents and ourselves as kids. So this whole us being the responsible party thing is weird.

But by the time our kids are cognisant enough to develop long term memories -- you know, in a couple of years -- we'll be way more at home in our parentalness. And it will be hard for them to ever imagine us staying out until after the bars close, sleeping until three, living in the glorious mess of youth.

Because we'll be their parents.

It's so circle of life.

It's totally blowing my mind.

P.S.I was going to include a random wacky family shot to lively up this post, but blogger once again refused to allow me to upload a picture. I'm not going to have to switch over to wordpress am I?

I should be napping...

And yet I am blogging.

As I write Dave and Lisel are having adventures at the playground so I can nap. Because, you know, I'm so tired.

And here I am, awake and writing.

Maybe it's not just the road that's wearing me out. Maybe it's me.

Dude.

Let's attempt this nap thing again...


-- Post From My iPhone

Lest you think I was bragging...

Okay, so maybe yesterday I was bragging on my girl and my friend. But I think what I failed to convey, and maybe what I've been failing to convey in general in these posts lately, is how utterly astounded I am at the adaptability and coolness of my child and my close friend in the face of exhausting circumstances. Because make no mistake, this journey is exhausting. Utterly physically and emotionally exhausting.

I realized yesterday when catching up with an old friend from across the pond via email that I've kind of been avoiding talking about this in the blog. Because I want to be, you know, cool and upbeat and adventurous and all that. I don't want to be supermom exactly, just supermom-ish.

And then again I think, do I talk about the tired-making too much? I mean, I have referenced it a bunch. and I sure don't want to be redundant, but....

I'm exhausted y'all! And so is Dave. We're finally discovering what actual, real life, ongoing stress feels like. Our job before was relatively stress free. I know touring sounds rough to most people but seriously -- we were paid to hang out, sleep a lot, watch loads of tv, travel to new places and play music. We were being paid to extend our adolescence. The major stressors were mostly personal -- a result of constantly being with 10 other people. But mostly, pretty chill.





Now, now our lives are consumed with work. There's the constant problem solving and trip charting when we're home -- how do we get there, who wil watch the baby, how do we get home -- then when we're on the road there's the physical stressfullness of getting to and fro. Gone are the days of sleeping 14 hours between destinations (I did that on the regular!). It's been replaced by a life of intermitant road sleep, all night drives and early mornings every morning (the baby will wake at 7:30, no matter where she is!)

I've talked about this before right? Well, I still blow my own mind when I think about the then versus now.

Make no mistake, we're totally down for the work, because being with each other and the bean is amazing. She's totally worth it. Our relationship is totally worth it. We're clear on that!

But dude, we're tired! To the core. And after years (in Dave's case decades) of slackerdom, we're having to readjust everything and figure out strategies to deal with heretofore unexperienced stress.

So when my 9 month old daughter goes to her first huge rock fest and is so totally chill that when she get's overwhelmed she simply puts herself to sleep and then hangs on a six hour drive to a place she's never been and is totally happy the whole way there and then gets walked around a street fair and doesn't freak out, and then falls asleep easily on the bus...quite frankly I'm amazed, seeing as how I kind of want to freak out, or at least have a good cry.

And when my friend goes through the same day as me, and is willing to take care of my little bean in extreme circumstances (we didn't even have a hotel room y'all!), and never gets flustered or frustrated...well I'm in awe.





And I feel really, really, really lucky.

Two gigs in one day

It is confirmed. We have the best baby in the world. And the best road nanny ever.

Yesterday, we played ACL @12:30pm.




Backstage at ACL. Lisel actually fell asleep during our show.




Then we all hopped on the big bus to play a street fair in Snyder, TX at 9pm.

Marathon day dude!

And the both hung like champs.

Lucky only begins to describe what we are.


-- Post From My iPhone