Wow, I Forgot about this...for 2 years!

So, I totally forgot that we had a blog.  So, here a short run-down of what's happening in the Benson household in the 2+ years since our last post.

1. I graduated from Penn State in May 2011.
2. I had a job lined up by February of 2011.
3. We moved to Warrensburg, Missouri.  I am now a professor of Scene Design and Technology for the Department of Theatre & Dance at The University of Central Missouri.
4. My colleagues are incredible.  
5. We love it here.
6. Angie is going back to school to compete her degree.
7. Angie is getting much work as a pianist and music director around Warrensburg and Kansas City (about an hour away).
8. I am getting much work as a scene designer, in addition to designing for the department.
9. I hate the school's mascot.  It looks like a braying ass.
10. Max in 4 year old now.  
11. He's awesome and he loves it here.
12. I have a show opening up in Kansas City today, at the American Heartland Theatre.  Hound of the Baskervilles, ala "Reduced Shakespeare Company."

That's the short run-down.  More to come!

Hopping Back in the Blog Saddle Again

A lot has happened since our last posts. Two short days after I returned from my professor's memorial service in Iowa, my brother was critically injured in a construction accident. He fell 40 feet onto concrete through an unmarked skylight.

Without going into detail, I'm pleased to fast forward to the present and report that (two and a half weeks later), he has taken some strides, though it will be a long road ahead. Needless to say, life has taken on new meaning since the tragedies of this fall & early winter.

To quote one of my professor's and my favorite musicals, RENT, "There's only us. There's only this. Forget regret or life is yours to miss. No other road, no other way, no day but today." I'm living my life by these lyrics now.

With that, yesterday I started my latest quest to get back into running regularly. I have vowed to run to only Michael Jackson tunes and will run to nothing else until my brother is able to join me again, no matter how long it takes- days, weeks, months or even years.

Why MJ? He's one of both my and E's childhood favorite artists. Our family had 'Thriller' on vinyl (awww yeah) and when my mom was at church council meetings, we (all four of us plus my dad) would blast it at maximum volume and make the house shake. As soon as we saw the family van pull up in the driveway we'd turn it down. :) One of my favorite childhood memories! E & I also share a great love of last year's movie 'This is It' and I plan to take the DVD to the hospital to watch with him sometime soon.

On the Max front, he continues to be a thriving and energetic little dude and the light of our lives. He's currently all about Thomas the Train, trucks and Matchbox cars! His sense of humor and general well-behavedness are sources of pride for both of us. Christmas with his two cousins in the midwest will be very special this year!

M had a very successful fall semester here at Penn State and is just one semester shy of receiving his MFA. It's been a long three years, but well worth it. Feel free to check out his website to see some of his incredible accomplishments! www.mgbensondesigns.com.

I had a great fall as well. I music directed 'Altar Boyz' and 'The Drowsy Chaperone' (which M also designed!) and will be playing Keys2/Guitar2 this spring on 'RENT'. This will be very meaningful and special given the loss of my dear mentor & friend.

I'm just realizing that this post has kind of turned into what would probably be in our Christmas letter (that will not get sent this year), so to wrap this up, we'd like to wish everyone near and far a happy holiday and very blessed and healthy new year. Thanks for reading us! And hey, do me a favor, will you? Take a second to hug your loved ones a little bit longer than usual and tell them how much they mean to you. Life's too short.

National Prematurity Awareness Day

Today is National Prematurity Awareness Day. According to the March of Dimes website, one in eight babies is born too soon. Our Max was born two months premature and spent one month in the NICU. Not all families are as lucky as we were. Should you choose, I encourage you today to support the March of Dimes or Friends of Maddie, a wonderful organization whose purpose is to support families of premature babies during their time in the NICU. We are honored that Max's story has been posted on their website.

On a lighter note, today (apparently in honor of Prematurity Awareness Day) our preemie taught us that Mom & Dad need to start watching what they say.

Three words: mimicing parrot son.

The Best Part of Wakin' Up...

So for his birthday, Max's Nana got him a toy Coleman camping grill. It's actually pretty awesome. The burners light up and make noise when you turn them on, and it comes with a myriad of cooking utensils, including tongs, a spatula, frying pan, and of course, a percolator.

Flash forward to last night...I couldn't fall asleep. I had a pain in my side and down my leg that was keeping me up. So when the alarm went off in the morning, I was hitting snooze pretty frequently. At one point, Max came into the bedroom and grabbed my hand with a cheery "Hi!" and tried to pull me out of bed. I suggested he curl up with me for 9 minutes, but he refused; his day was well under way and he wasn't going to let his bleary eyed old man slow him down. Well, I was really interested in those 9 minutes of sleep. I rolled over, Max left the room silently, but rapidly. Nine minutes later, he was back at my bedside, but this time, he had his grill, the percolator, and one of the toy camping mugs. He proceeded to make me a cup of the best pretend coffee I've ever had and served it to me in bed with a huge smile.

That has got to be the best way to wake up in the morning. Period.

Monsters & Homecoming

I went on a quick jaunt to New York City last weekend to attend an amazing concert honoring a dear friend. It was a whirlwind 40 hours and I was fortunate to see my uncle & aunt, cousin and a handful of very dear friends in the short amount of time I was there. As you can see above, I had my picture taken with a couple of furry monsters in Times Square. After said picture, Cookie Monster started talking to me- "You make donation now?". I was all "For REAL, Cookie?", but gave him a dollar anyway. Then Elmo chimed in, "You make donation?" and I realized that you can't tip Cookie Monster and then leave Elmo hanging, so I gave him a buck as well. It turns out one of my friends had been trying to warn me that they were going to make me pay for the picture, but I was too excited about the prospect of getting a pic of me with two Sesame Street characters for Max. The look on his face when I showed him the picture was worth a MILLION dollars. :)

This weekend was Penn State's Homecoming. Normally I'd hide indoors and stay away from the craziness downtown, but something about having a super interactive 2 year old changed things this year. The weather has been GOR-GEOUS this weekend, so we spent the bulk of yesterday afternoon walking around campus. My ultimate goal was to take him to hear the Alumni Blue Band play whilst eating Creamery ice cream. I ended up heading in the complete opposite direction at first, thus our long walk. We arrived at the Alumni House just in time to hear the last 10 minutes of their concert AND meet the Nittany Lion! We were fortunate to get a really great spot in front of Old Main for the parade, too. We waited about 45 minutes and just as Max was starting to get testy, lo and behold- a firetruck! He was in it to win it from then on. Tractors, light up floats, bands- he had a blast. We definitely have a little percussionist on our hands, too. He loved the bands all around, but whenever the rhythm section marched past he went totally bonkers- screaming, clapping, screeching, you name it! Michael has decided he'll need to take up the bass so we have a whole rhythm section. We'll be on the road like the Partridge Family before you know it!

We Are! Penn State!

Birthday Party

Last weekend was an exciting weekend in the household. The show I music directed (ALTAR BOYZ) had a fantastic three day run at Penn State and fulfilled all my childhood rock star dreams. :) (Max's as well- see above pic of him at the drumset!)

Then on Sunday we had a joint birthday party for Max, E (our friend Grace's 3 year old) and A.M. (a faculty member's 3 year old) at a local park. The weather was perfect- sunny and not too hot! Michael grilled and everyone brought lots of yummy side dishes, not to mention the CARS cake for the boys. We were very touched by all of our friend's generosity with gifts for Max. He really stocked up on fun books, trucks, cars, Legos & trains!

In general, we've been so fortunate to have made such awesome friends here at Penn State. Every different group has been so amazing with Max and just adores him. He's become a mascot of sorts for all the theatre folk at everything from the paint/scene shops to rehearsal to production meetings. We're so thankful that everyone is so accepting of having a little dude running around underfoot.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Miracle Max!

Happy 2nd Birthday to our amazing son, Maxwell George! It's hard to believe it's been two whole years since we became a family of three. We have treasured every day and look forward to many, many more. We love you more than life and pray that it continues to fill you with wonder.

Specs

This is how we pass the time away in Wal-Mart while we wait for prescriptions to be filled. P.S. This little whippersnapper is going to be TWO this Sunday. What?!


I think the glasses make him look like an Asian version of Sid the Science Kid's grandma. The one with the creepy laugh. I may be biased, but Max is cuter.

Running For My Health

We will continue to post about the Maxster here, but I have started another blog to chronicle my running and health related issues. You can find it at: www.runangerun.wordpress.com.

Double Digits, Baby!

I ran 10 miles non-stop this afternoon. TEN. 1-0. Double digits! Whoa.

M & M are out of town for the weekend visiting family, but I stayed behind because I'm playing aux keyboard for a delightful production of Hairspray. (One more performance tonight- come on down!) So I've got a lot of free time on my hands, which I won't lie- is a big fat slice of heaven. ;) Max has been waking up anywhere between 3-5 am this week for various reasons (thirsty, wanting to play, etc), so it was awesome to sleep through the night last night.

But I digress. I started training for a 10k a couple weeks ago in hopes of running one before Thanksgiving. I've been a pretty hardcore treadmill fan because it's what I can use while Max is in daycare at the gym. Monday of this week I decided to switch it up: I took him to the daycare at the Y branch in town, which is further from our place, but has a 2 hour time limit. (A whole hour more than the local branch!) After I dropped him off, I ran an awesome trail within the vicinity of the gym. I feel like I get a better workout when I run outside and really wanted to kick things up a notch. I ran 5k on Mon and then 4 miles on Wednesday. Knowing I'd be alone at home this weekend and didn't have a time constraint, I planned to make today my 'long run' day.

I headed out with the intention of doing 5 miles, possibly 10k if I had the gumption and was feeling it. It was the perfect day- not humid at all, a nice breeze, amazing views and sunny to boot! I ended up running to the post office in the next 'town' over and arrived at 12:34. I'm kind of a numbers geek, so the time number order tickled me to no end. (Insert geeky *snort* here.) That was about 4 miles, so I made it my goal to run all the way home and top out at 8 miles. Honestly, I didn't really think I'd be able to do it, but I figured I'd be happy as long as I got to 10k (6.2 mi). I was feeling great by 10k, so I decided to extend my route. Again, the numbers were in my head and DOUBLE DIGITS (aka 10) were inching towards the front of the line. I finished my extended route and headed through some pretty residential neighborhoods and was still feeling good until about 8.5 miles. Then I started to whimper and trying to talk myself into stopping and/or walking.

The bull-headed side of me won out. If I was going to do this, I was going to do it without stopping! Needless to say, the final mile and a half was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle slow and painful. If I'D seen me on the road at that point, I'd have stopped and asked if I was okay and needed a ride home.

But I did it. 10 MILES. 3.8 miles over my previous personal best of one 10k on the treadmill! Excuse me while I go take an ice bath...

(Oh! I should note that this run would not have been possible had it not been for my Bondi Band and Mind Over Matter hat! The combination of the headband and hat kept ALL sweat out of my eyes for the WHOLE run. I'm not even joking! This. Is. Major. Note: M.O.M. is a non-profit organization founded by one of my elementary school classmates and her family in honor & memory of her mother. The purpose is to encourage "personal wellness" and "community betterment" – enabling people to help others while helping themselves. Karen has been very encouraging in my running efforts and I'm proud to wear my M.O.M. hat!)

Happy Birthday, Michael!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband, my better half and my baby daddy! :)

Cupcake Wars!

My cousin and his wife were contacted by the Food Network to submit a video application to be on 'Cupcake Wars'! How cool is that? :) Here's a link to their video- take a look if you have a spare minute or two! The FN folks will watch it tonight and the more hits it has, the better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpeZQeOPsXg

Semi-Wordless Wednesday

I asked Max to help select some books at the library this afternoon. His random pick off the shelf? 'Amazing You: Getting Smart About Your Private Parts'. Mom isn't quite ready to teach him about boy & girl parts yet, so we went with Curious George and The Pigeon.

And so it begins...

Wordless Wednesday

Max's 1st Minor League Baseball Game

Thanks to the generosity of the theatre department, we attended the State College Spikes vs. Vermont Lake Monsters baseball game last night. Michael & I used to love to go to Winston-Salem Warthogs games when we lived there several years ago. (Fun fact: a PSU alum/friend was the mascot, Wally the Warthog! We didn't know it at the time, though! I used to basically stalk him and take a bazillion pictures during each game.) It was fun to think back to that time and then realize we were at another minor league game WITH OUR SON. :) He had a grand old time eating ballpark fries & a corn dog and cheering at the top of his lungs. Max & I stayed until about the middle of the 2nd inning, but then he was ready to head home for bath & bed. I'm told that the Spikes won!

Firecracker 4K

My friend Kelly and I ran the 4th of July Firecracker 4K on Sunday. Kelly is the most awesome of awesome friends because she normally runs much faster, but registered to run the race *with* me at MY pace to keep me going. It meant so much to me- thanks, Kell!

Registration and the starting line was near the Penn State football stadium. This was my first racing 'chip' race (a chip you attach to your shoe that electronically marks your start & finish times), but I didn't know what it was at first. I'd heard 'tell' of the racing chip from experienced runner friends, but my previous races were the kind with racing tags that you pin to your shirt.

The race started with a lone firework and we were off! We passed Michael & Max on our right hand side a few minutes into the race, which was great motivation. We started off at a nice comfortable pace (one that was a bit faster than what I normally run) and I actually felt like I could hold my own with the pack. We were amused by a dude dressed in patriot 'gear', as well as two guys in full fireman outfits. (Side note: I just heard a radio blip about them this morning- one of them lost 25 lbs training for the race! They ran in their gear to promote physical fitness of firefighters.)

Kelly was the BEST running coach all throughout the race. She kept me going by pointing out buildings that her architectural engineering firm had worked on, as well as reminded me that I could do it and that we had only 'this' much left before we were done with a hill. It got pretty rough around the 2 mile mark and I honestly don't think I'd have finished had it not been for her!
Michael & Max had walked to the Creamery and were waiting for us as we passed. Again, much needed encouragement. You just can't beat hearing your son and husband yelling "Yay! Go!" :) After the Creamery we were in the home stretch. I spotted a woman in front of us that I'd passed in the Black Moshannon 5K last month and the competitive side of me said that I couldn't let her beat me. We eventually passed her, but I was hurting by this point. Surprisingly, my legs weren't the problem- it was my shoulders & arms. They felt like complete dead weights. The only possible explanation for the aches that I can think of is that I've been playing piano all day long every day for the past week and my muscles were sore? In any case, it was very weird and frustrating.

As we neared the stadium/finish, Kelly asked if I was ready to go for it. We saw a couple running in front of us and they were kind of in our way, so I said yes and we started sprinting. (Well, for me it was sprinting anyway. Haha!) We spotted one more woman in front of us and Kelly asked if I wanted to try to pass her. This time I said no, but I think when it was all said and done, we did actually catch up to her.

It was a great feeling to sprint over the finish line pad, but I was d-o-n-e. I immediately sat down in the grass because I felt like I was going to hurl. Kelly asked me to get up and walk across the street to get some water and then I could sit down again. Thank goodness she did or I'd definitely have gotten sick.

The final results were: 119th out of 146 in my age group and 812th out of at least 988 runners. I definitely found this race to be tougher than the 5K, but I also ran at a faster pace and endured more hills on this one.

And it was so awesome to have a friend by my side.

He talks!

Max: "Daaad!" (to Michael as he's trying to nap)
Michael: "Yes, Maxwell?"
Max: "It's me!"

Aaaaaand... scene.

Big Boy Bed

Well, the transition has been made! Max has now successfully slept in his big boy bed for three nights. I'm probably jinxing us by even writing about it, but it turned out to be a very smooth transition.

We decided to put Max in a regular single bed (with a railing) right away instead of spending the money on a toddler bed he'd outgrow. Michael went to pick up his childhood single, the headboard and some bedding on Saturday. Max and I stayed in town and made a trip to Target so he could pick out his own sheets. I'd been thinking all along that he'd go for Thomas the Train (trains are his big thing right now), but there was no doubt of the winner when his eyes lit up at the sight of Toy Story 3 sheets!

To say that the transition has been a dream would be an understatement. The first night (Sat) I only had to put him back into bed 10 times in a span of 10 minutes. The following night, it took Michael only 4 times and last night NONE. He just had to encourage Max to lie down as he was leaving the room and that was it- he was out! We're fortunate that he loves his new bed so much! I even found him playing on it earlier this afternoon, just hanging out. So awesome.

The other perk is that he's been getting solid sleep. We figure it's due to the extra warmth of the blankets (being tucked in is kind of like being back in the womb?) and he wakes up fully refreshed and chipper in the mornings.

Including this morning at 5am.

We'll work on that one...

Happy Father's Day to...

My wonderful husband- watching you with our son melts my heart a gazillion times a day. You're an incredible man and an even better father! We are both so lucky!

My own Dad- hope you're having a great vacation! Thank you for your love and support over the years!

My Grandpa, my 'Buddy', who is watching from above. I miss and love you!

Michael's Dad, Don, also above- your son is the best dad in the world and I have no doubt that he learned it from you.

And finally, to my brother-in-law, James. Today is his very 1st Father's Day, as his wife Katie gave birth to their very first child (Ian) yesterday afternoon!

"Any man can be a Father, but it takes someone special to be a Dad"