Happy Birthday Nate!

Happy 34th to my wonderful husband! I hit the jackpot in the husband and Daddy category, and I am forever grateful. To celebrate their Dad's big day, Julia took her first step (!) and Luke climbed out of his crib (!) for the very first time. Big boy bed here we come tonight (I am terrified).

Nate, may your 34th year be the best one yet. Thank you for loving us the way that you do.

We love you.

Happy Birthday!

Schooled

These pictures are unrelated to anything, but they will serve as a belated happy 30th and 25th birthday post to my wonderful brother and sister. It was fun celebrating with both of you. Thanks for being a great Aunt and Uncle (And Godmother and Godfather) to our children. Pete, I know that this pic is of Samantha, not of you, but I didn't get any good ones of you at your party, just a few of Sam. You are great, but not quite as photo worthy as your adorable daughter, apparently.

In other news, I have officially registered Luke for pre-school. He will start in a 2 & 1/2's program and will be in school from 9-12 two mornings a week. I don't know why this felt like such a big decision. I mean, it's like pre-pre-pre K. Coloring and singing and the like. I started where every first time Mom starts anything..........with my friends. A few of my friends already have their Luke's age tots in a preschool program, most are starting in the fall, and a couple are waiting or did wait until after age 3 to start. My girlfriends are pretty well spread over about a 25 mile radius from my house....so many of the schools that they were looking at were out of my driving range for a bi-weekly commitment. Many of the schools in my immediate vicinity have cut offs of Feb 1st for their 2.5 class. As Luke is Feb 13th, he didn't make the cut. So....to the Internet I turned.

I found Chesterbrook Academy. There is one about 1/2 mile from my house, and practically adjacent to our gym. I called. Turns out that "Academy" is fancy faux school talk for daycare. Now, in no way do I have anything against daycare, but I want a true preschool, not a daycare where my child joins all of the other full time daycare kids two mornings a week. Plus, it was clearly priced at daycare prices. Ouch. I didn't even go look.

Then I found a Goddard School about a mile from our house. Set up a tour. Was totally impressed. Clean, organized, safe. They have kiddy yoga, and music, and computers, and Spanish and all sorts of fabulous things. Super duper. I was totally lapping up the Kool-Aide. Their program seemed a little long to me (8.30 till 12.30) and I wasn't sure that I was ready to commit to that much school at only 2.5. Only after they suckered me in with the facilities and curriculum did we got to price. Oh! Over $500/month for pre-school? Oh! And it's year round! So I have the great opportunity to send my son to learn how to color and sing and do some downward facing dogs for $6,000/year at the age of 2.5. Super.

I kept talking to other Mom's. I found programs with waiting lists, and crazy lotteries, and parents who have to show up at 3 am to stand in line to get their kids into a preschool. I found a couple of church programs, but they were only from 9-11. By the time I got there and dragged both kids of the car and dropped Luke off, it seemed like it would be time to pick him up again. One friend in DC had highly recommended getting involved in a co-op. She said that it was a great way to really know what was going on at the school, to be involved, and vested in your child's education and educator's. She raved about the like minded parents and kids who were a part of her children's co-op.

I finally found one in our area that would take 2.5's. We did the tour there two weeks ago. We liked it. It's in an old farmhouse. It's homey. It's warm, and inviting, and the kids appeared to be well taken care of, and loved. At this age, their focus is more around encouraging play and exploration and expression (art, music etc) than a rigid curriculum of the 3 R's and computers and the like. It seemed more my pace, and Luke's pace. We signed him up.

I live in the NE. We have probably 25 secondary schools in our relatively immediate area that cost well over $25,000/year. There is a lot of mania about going to the "right" schools, and about knowing the "right" people. It can get a little crazy, to me. One of my biggest fears is buying into that Mommy Mania. The parent trap of 3 bagillion "exclusive" sports camps, the most expensive schools, the pushing and pulling and performance-chasing that can happen as we all want what is best for our kids. I'm scared of it. I really am. I truly believe that it will take a concerted effort on our part to remember what is most important to US, and to OUR kids, and not worry about what other people are doing with their kids. I feel as though we are spoon fed this thing about giving our kids the "best", which all too often, at least around here, simply means the most expensive or most exclusive. I want to be able to remember that the "best" to us is whatever will enable our kids to best become the people that they want to be. I admit, not proudly, that there was a part of me that worried, for one brief fleeting moment.........."But will Luke be BEHIND if he isn't learning Spanish and computers and trigonometry at 2.5?". I only entertained the thought for a second, but it was there, before I resolutely buried it. I don't know where this dread fear of "behind" even comes from. Is it just from growing up around here? Is it a total innate parent fear thing? Do the schools plant it in us as they trot out their fancy curriculum's and shiny brochures? Is it my own issues as I didn't go to a school that I enjoyed or related to from 6-12th grade, and want my kids to be somewhere that they feel loved and supported and challenged? Is it the "Joneses"? Damn those Joneses.

I firmly believe that Luke and Julia will be the people that they are because of who they are, innately, and because of the time and care and love that they get, from us, and from all who love them. I can't believe that the worry about the "right school" already flirted with me, and he isn't yet 2 years old.

I hope I did okay. I hope I found a good balance of play and structure, and safety, and kind teachers, and great classmates and parents, and all the rest. I hope that it's a place that Luke loves, and I love. And I hope that I only get more confident as I face many, MANY more school/camp/sports/tutoring/music/art or whatever decisions down the road. These are the easy ones, these preschool decisions. It only gets harder. Sigh.

PS - To any Blogger users out there.........do you have any idea why my paragraphs sometimes don't stay separated into paragraphs, and why I can't indent my paragraphs like normal? I type it out that way and then when I publish it it comes out as one big post lump. It's maddening.

Tagged

Alexis tagged me.

This is the 4th picture from the 4th folder in my picture folders. It's my totally random file, labeled AAA. This was our Christmas card from last year, which I didn't even remember that I had saved electronically. Thanks for the reminder, Lex! This is also one of my all time favorite pictures of my Luke.

In other news Julia is a nightmare of neediness. 4 teeth about to pop up top, and a continued ear infection that Abx do not seem to be touching. The M family has lousy ears, and mine were pretty bad as a child, so it seems that our children are also doomed to many ear infections. We are taking her to an ENT doc in Feb at the recommendation of our Pedi. At this point tubes are welcome, I'm losing my mind this past week and she seems to be as well. Thank GOD she is still sleeping through the night, but she pretty much wants me, just me, all day long. ALL DAY LONG.

From the Archives

I just found this picture on my computer. Its my family, on the beach in Cape May two summers ago. I love it. I had totally forgotten that I had it and I need to print a copy. That's Luke's little head on my shoulder and Jules is in belly.

Nate has been away all week and it's been a long one. Everyone is healthy, which is great, but Jules is working on 4 new top teeth and she has taken to following me around the house, crying, for the past 2 days. That gets really old. Jules I love you to death but jeez. Cut me a break, kiddo.

I am so glad that Nate gets home today. And I really really really want these teeth to come in and stop driving my baby girl insane, because she is driving me insane.

Changing of the Guard

Julia was a little nervous at the beginning of the motorcade. The hype and some security fears had gotten to her. She was gnashing her (2) teeth.

Things seemed to be going well. She was pleased, and hopeful.

"DANG!" she said. That was some speech!

I pretty much try to keep politics out of my blog. I do so because some of my closest friends and family members cast a different vote than I did on election day. (And, because probably just about everyone I know cast a different vote than I did on primary day :)) I respect those who voted differently than me as I know that every single one of them did so with forethought, research, and the knowledge that they were casting the right vote for themselves and for their family. I did not vote for Obama. Yet I can tell you that I watched his speech today ~ riveted to the screen, and prayed for my country and for my President. Julia didn't actually watch it, the above narrative is totally fake, both kids did me the favor of going to bed right before Obama's inaugural address, allowing me to watch it in peace. They, of course were totally oblivious to the goings on of the day ~ yet I am sure that this is a day that they will someday study in school, and I hope that they will someday say that this was a great day in our Nations history for many many reasons, broken color barriers being just one of them. Kids, if you ever wonder what you were doing on the day that Barack Obama became President.....you spent the day at home with Mom, shaking off the lingering vestiges of a stomach flu, and baking some gingerbread cookies.

This was the part of the speech that hit me the most:

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.
We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

I don't think that it was a particularly climatic part of the speech, but the italicized part in particular are words that I love, not just for our country, but for my children. It was a great speech.

Kids, you have a new President tonight.

Good luck, President Obama. May you, may our country, and may my kids, always choose hope over fear.

Portrait of an Artist

We busted out the finger paint this week. Luke had a blast, while Jules watched from the paint free safety of her exersaucer.

Both kids have been napping for over 3 hours. I don't know what to do with myself. This is far and away the longest period of time that I have had without a child (during the day) since Julia was born. This one nap thing rocks the house.

I'm off to try to remember what I used to do before I had children.

Dad's Program

Nate teaching Luke the three point stance

And the four point stance. Like father like son

Luke, getting off the line to tackle the sliding glass door


Julia snags a fumble recovery

And all fall down.

Dads are different than Moms. They just are. It's an important and necessary difference, yet strange all the same. I walked downstairs and into this melee the other day. I love it that Nate is such a hands on Dad. I love the way that he takes time to play with the kids, and that he gets to spend so much time with them on a daily basis. However, within that play time, some of the games that he creates illustrate some of the innate differences between us.

I remember the time that Nate was away on a business trip. Luke and I were rolling around and tickling one another, just being silly and giggly and cuddly, and suddenly he bit my finger, while continuing to laugh and giggle. He bit is HARD. Totally out of nowhere. Instantly I feared that Luke was about to turn into a biting, horrible kid......but as the day went on he was my normal sweet guy and another biting incident didn't take place. That night as I was talking to Nate on the phone I was telling him the story and my fears. It seemed unusually quiet on the other end of the phone. Finally I hear this sheepish little "Oh.....that might be my fault" from Nate. When I asked him what he was talking about he explained to me how he and Luke play this little "game" where Nate pretends to bite Luke's fingers and it's this big hilarious thing. Oh. Awesome game. A biting game! How fun! So biting is fun! Maybe we can make a hitting game too! Or a play with matches game! Rock on!

The above is another one of Nate's games. He got the idea to teach Luke a 3 & 4 point stance, and then teach him how to jump up out of the stance, and run and tackle. Cool, right?

Only the tackling dummy that Nate was using in this game was the giant glass sliding door. As soon as Luke did it once in front of me Nate turned to me and went "Oh. I guess that having him run full speed into the glass door probably is a bad idea, isn't it?"

Yes dear, it is.

The Program

Nate and Julia do the dishes,

While Luke takes care of the foodshopping,

Julia is a very efficient sweeper,

While Luke is a whiz with the vacuum cleaner.

Now that I have the whole household trained, I can finally sit around and eat bon bons all day like the stay-at-home-moms myth I have always heard about. As soon as I can get Mulligan better at folding laundry things will really get easy........

Actually, barring that first pic, these were taken at the new Please Touch Museum. Mom's in this area ~ If you have not been there yet, go immediately. It's awesome. From an entire kiddy-sized grocery store, to a fake town, to bus/plane/car/truck replicas, to water displays to a giant carousel, the place has it all. AND its clean (unlike the old one.....where Jeannie just told me a story of a friend of hers whose child got bitten by a RAT while playing in a fake archaeological dig display........)

I have to admit that it does strike me as funny that so much of what kids like to play with are simple things that mimic the actual work that I/we do all day long. It's so ironic considering that I will likely spend years of my life nagging them to clean/do chores once they get older. My latest trick is to give Luke a spray bottle and a paper towel and let him go to town "cleaning". He loves it. He also is a big help with diapers, I get them all stuffed/organized, and then he carries the stacks over to me so that I can put them in the hutch downstairs where we keep them all.

It's fun to have miniature helpers.

(Thanks for the kind words and phone calls about Jules ~ last night she slept until 4am and I have been up since then with her (growl).....but she is on her second nap right now, and Luke is napping.......so I'm about to go do the same. Hopefully she will be back to her cheerful self in another day or two.)

A sad milestone.

First ruptured eardrum.

Remember my whiny post about not getting sleep due to Julia's teething? Yeah......it wasn't teething. Simply a poor baby with a throbbing ear. Jules had an ear infection over Christmas that apparently did not go away. No fever. No other symptoms than the night waking, which I had attributed to teething.

Nope.

My poor girl had an another waking at night episode last night ~ I was up with her from 3-4.30 and could not get her to go back to sleep. She finally went down, and slept until 8.30. I got her in the tub right after she awoke as we had friends coming over this morning. I was washing her face when I noticed stuff in her ear. Gross stuff. Stuff that I won't go into detail on. Stuff that very clearly did not belong there. That happened two more times, and I took her in around 2 this afternoon to confirm my suspicions that her ear drum had, in fact ruptured.

I got all teary in the Dr's office. I felt horrible guilt for not knowing what was hurting her, and for coming to the wrong conclusion in blaming her discomfort on her teeth.

I hate seeing my child in pain.

Hopefully she will be on the mend ASAP. We got her first dose of ear drops and antibiotic into her tonight.

Sorry, baby girl.

Sprung.

Goodbye to the Toyota.

The ole gal went back to the dealership on Friday afternoon. Three years ago I picked her up as a childless woman, and by end of her 3 year lease she had dents from two car seats pretty firmly embedded in her leather seats. With no accidents, flats, break downs, or speeding tickets in those three years, along with safely carting two newborn babies home from the hospital , she treated us well.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I shed a tear as we drove her for the last time. I'm weird like that. End of an era and all that jazz.

I met a mom at our gym a couple of weeks ago who had kids who appeared to be close in age, like mine are. I asked her how far apart her kids were, and she told me "Well, these two are 14 months apart, but they are # 3 and #4 in our family.....our first two were 14 months apart, then 18 months till #3, then 14 months till #4." Do the math on that, and her first child was still 3 when her fourth child was born. THAT'S busy. I immediately asked her what the heck she did about naps. The Julia napping from 9-12 and Luke napping from 12-3 thing was simply killing me. I never ever had a moment to myself, and it was hard to do some of the things that I wanted to do with Luke. She told me to get her to one nap ASAP.

We have been working on this for the past couple of weeks. I gradually moved her morning nap later by as long as she was happy each day. This whole week Jules and Luke napped at the same time. Like a prisoner sprung from jail I have been on the go every single day for a week straight.

Monday ~ Morning at the gym and an extra long yoga class
Tuesday ~ Had 3 friends and their toddlers over for the morning and lunch
Wednesday ~ Playgroup
Thursday ~ Please Touch Museum with our friends
Friday ~ A friend and her two kids over for the morning and lunch.

Saturday we spent the afternoon at the Villanova game, and Sunday had friends over for the Eagles game. This morning we were at a birthday party. Tomorrow we are having a friend and her 3 kids over. Wednesday playgroup. Thursday a pre-school open house. And Friday going to a friends house. It's a binge.

Like an addict who has had their first taste of the forbidden substance, I got a taste of freedom and am going hog wild with it. After months inside the house, occasionally for a day, or three days in a row, I am drunk on my new found morning freedom. I am intoxicated with the 2 to 3 hours of alone time that I get from 12-3. I hardly even know what to do with myself without a kid underfoot. I need to slow down a little bit........

I had been totally impressed with the way that Julia was handling the two-soon-to-be-four teeth that are already in/coming in....until last night. Last night she went to bed at 7, but had me up at 11, from 12-1, 3, and then woke Luke up at 5.....I got about 4? hours of sleep. For the past few months I have been sleeping through the night, every night....so last night felt unduly cruel. We tried to snuggle in Luke's bed for a bit, but he would not go back to sleep. Nate relieved me at 7 when Jules woke for the day, and I got a great 1/2 hour of sleep while he took the kids downstairs to get them fed.

I'm tired. Heading to bed. All this freedom is simply exhausting.

Quiet Time

Luke gets his text on while Julia tries to sneak up the stairs.

I'm in a post holiday~insanity bliss out. Nothing to write about. Too busy eating and wishing that I could justify staying in my PJ's all day, even when friends are coming over.

Luke now does a Superman impersonation. This was just discovered at dinner tonight. I don't know how this came about as Luke has no idea what Superman is.

Julia is the suddenly the bounciest baby I have ever seen. Anything that is funny or interesting to her gets her bouncing up and down while she cracks up. She played a bouncing version of peek a boo with Luke for 30 minutes tonight after dinner.

January respite before Feb and March madness. Thankful for January respite.

Here Comes the Sun

Julia loving all the activity at Maggie's

Julia and her Godmother Amy catch up!

I love this picture of Julia and her Great Grandmother. She is a lucky little girl to have you in her life Grandma.


Rub a dub two filthy babes in a tub


Slam DUNK. Whenever Luke slam dunks it he yells "BOOYA!" and it makes me laugh every single time.

I remember this children's book that I used to read to the little girl that I helped home school out in Seattle. I can't remember the title, but it was about the Winter Solstice. It talked about the return of this light, and how that was really what was being celebrated on the darkest day of the year. It was a beautiful book, (I think that it talked about the 'little fingers of light'? ~ If this rings a bell with anyone please let me know as I would love to find it for my kids). With the solstice behind us now, I see the light returning to our lives.

Both of our kids were incredibly easy newborns. They nursed, they slept, and they made the adjustment to motherhood easier than I had anticipated. Having been through infancy/the first year already with Luke, when Julia was born I had enough foresight to know that I had about 6 months before things got hard. Probably really hard. Exclusive nursing, no messy solids, and a non mobile baby would mean that life was still relatively easy aside from the sheer physical work associated with nurturing two small babes at the same time.

As predicted, September was the perfect storm of challenge and change. Julia started crawling. Julia started eating two meals of solids/day. We had a kids free vacation in early October, that, while wonderful, was tremendously stressful to me as I was so worried about leaving my babies for 4 days, worried about pumping/leaving enough milk, and worried about maintaining my supply while away. I really really wanted to make it to a year of breast milk only/no formula, and that vacation felt like a (much needed) but huge threat to my goal. The onset of winter illness started with colds and an ear infection or two. I felt trapped inside the house ~ Luke finally went to one nap and Julia got into rhythm with two long naps which meant that I pretty much had a child napping all day long, which made getting out hard. Nate was travelling a lot. It was busy.

Suddenly I feel as though things have gotten much easier. We survived that vacation without any formula (I actually had about 100 extra ounces of milk in the freezer when I got home, and worried for nothing, as usual :)), and Julia is nursing away at almost 10 months old. Getting to a year will be a breeze at this point, and I don't really see us stopping then, truth be told. The kids play together without needing us for at least an hour every morning and usually longer every evening. They love each other and are already entertaining one another. I am getting better at being more flexible with Julia's naps, and am beginning to again take advantage of Nate working from home so that I can get out more with one child while the other one is napping. Luke and Julia are both in just really happy and easy and funny stages. I have gotten used to laundry/diapers/meals for four people. They are at an age where we are starting to do crafts, and puzzles, and more artistic projects. They learn new things daily. Julia is sleeping till 7 and Luke till 8 lately, and both of them are sound asleep by 7.30 every night. I am so looking forward to the spring ~ I can't wait to be at the park with two little ones running around, instead of having two babies in vastly different phases. I know that I will get Luke and Julia on the same nap schedule sometime in late Spring or early Summer, which means fun morning excursions, and some actual alone time during the day for me. I can't wait to have the two of them on the beach. Soon Jules will be entirely off of purees and we can all eat as a family outside on our deck. There will be no winter coats, or multiple layers, or hats to worry about. The evenings will be long. The park trips will be daily. I feel really grateful to be where we are right now. After the difficulty of fall, life seems so easy, just knowing that Spring is in sight.

We had a great visit to Scranton and the Burg this weekend. It was a joy to spend some time with Aunt Maggie, Kelly and Amy and their families, and to see Grandma M (my kids Great Grandmother). While at their house sometime on Friday, little Julia cut her very first tooth! Her bottom right center tooth is just poking through the gum. She also seems to have sprouted more hair almost overnight, and she becomes more interactive by the day. She loves to be a part of things now ~ she watches everything Luke does, when he laughs, she laughs. She says hi when she waves. She sleeps beautifully. She stood in the middle of the room for about a full minute the other day without holding on to anything at all. She just started giving those big wet sloppy baby kisses this week. I love it. Thanks to Aunt Maggie and to Tony and Carolyn for having us ~ we love you and it was great to see you. Thanks for helping us start off our 2009 surrounded by the love of family.

My Wordle

This is the coolest thing that I have seen yet today. I just went to the site and entered my blog's address, and it made this for me. So cool.

The joy in my life came straight through in the words it chose.

Via Jenn

If you want to make your own, go here