Really, you stupid freaking bird?

El bird, alive. In the morning. While playing baseball outside before school as we were all dressed and ready to go way too early. The kids were freaked out about this stunned bird. They wanted to help it. They wanted to, like, kiss it's mean, shiny, SHARP ass stunned beak. I held them at bay, and called my Mom. My MOM, who is famous for picking up snapping turtles and wounded birds who then peck her to death or get eaten by snakes, and other famous family incidents of "kindness". I figured that she would tell me to help the bird. She DIDN'T! She told me the bird was stunned, to take the kids to school, and that she would be gone by the time we got back. Awesome. Bird and beak freedom. So, I took it. We all were extra quiet and reverent due to the bird. I may actually buy a fake hurt bird and position it strategically around the house, now that I know what it is that I know. The power of the bird, and all.

So, the whole way home we talked about the bird. As she had moved from laying to standing before we left, I was 100% on team "better" for this freaking bird. So we talked about how the bird was probably at home talking about how she met this awesome family of baseball players and about how respectful they had been and whatnot. So as I drive my gigantic SUV into the garage I'm breaking my own neck to make sure that the bird is gone! It's gone! We all cheer! HUZZAH! El bird LIVED and is talking about our awesomeness in a beautiful happy little nest.

Except. Except that while I walked around to unbuckle Jake, Luke and Julia, (who let themselves out, now, thanks to Luke) ran into the driveway and tripped upon the dead freaking bird. Dead. Upside down. And super dead. Somehow my gigantic tires escaped rendering the dummie the final indignity of smashedness, but it wasn't pretty.

Of course, Jeannie and Henry, and the "dishwasher man" bringing us a new dishwasher, were all due in 15 minutes. No pressure, bird. Jerk.

I had to quickly shut the garage, rescind my plans of "you can play outside while I cook" and have like 30 awesome and spontanious talks about death! Because that is super fun! And when you say that you are going to bury the bird, and then throw it down a hillside with a snow shovel while your kids are eating, and they want to know where you "barrrrrried that birrrrrrrd", and you want to super stab yourself in the face for not remembering to dig a fake shallow dug up spot, you get really mad at birds. I had to explain how she died, too. It went something along the lines of "she was looking to meet a husband........" and really went downhill from there. I give my kids way too much info. If you are that parent at school who doesn't want your kids to know about where babies come out or how birds mate, don't send them to my kdis school. I don't even mean to be honest, it happens by accident. How the heck else do you explain some vain ass birds death in our driveway? Shooting? No.

Playground. Day 1. We are now in the eve of day three and I Love my life in new ways. Spring is where it is AT, baby.

Yes, that was me who accidentally dressed them all the same. Weird how that happens, literally unintended. Will say, learned a new lesson ~ At the playground (or pool) we are going color coded. As we spent 3 hours at the park with friends that afternoon it was SO easy to find my kids!

Three big kids on swings!

Three cheers to death, and to death visiting us in our driveway! Thanks, bird! Happy week over 70, to everyone on the east coast. This is some crazy wonderful stuff, and I can't believe it. The kids are already turning blonder and I have sock tan lines. Crazy.

An apology to the universe.

Story hour at the kids soon to be school. I discovered that the WCASD has a preschool link for Mom's of kids heading to our local public school. I signed us up for a story hour at Fern Hill Elementary, which is where Luke will (*Gasp, Sob*) go next year. I know that you can't see it in this picture, but my dynamic duo was holding hands when I took this. It was so much fun to be out on a random Thursday night while smalls slept and Nate studied at home.

The early part of the evening. We mixed up the dough and let it chill while we all took a shower and then I put an exhausted Jake to bed at 6:30. I admit to having lots of "WHAT THE HELL AM I THINKING" thoughts during this portion of the evening.

It got better, way better, this is my post shower pajamed kids rolling out the cookies. Jake was blissfully asleep, christmas music was playing courtesy of Pandora, and things were looking up.

They were a seriously huge help. They rolled the cookie balls, placed the mint M&M's, and sprinkled the sprinkles. We banged out 120 cookies in an hour or so. It was awesome, and fun, and we had great conversation.

The finished product.

I am stressed, and half of it is unfounded. I admit to being the queen of undue stress. Not proud. I just like to overthink and overplan things to the point of personal stomach aches.

Today was one of those days (again). Wake up, kiss Nate goodbye after barely saying hello as he has been away or studying all week (an end IS in sight, really really in sight!), pack the bigs lunch, make coffee, empty the dishwasher, make breakfast, clean breakfast, nurse the baby, do laundry, chug coffee, get em all dressed, get to school, get to the mall, meet Jeannie and Henry, shop for something relatively suitable for the three parties that this weekend entails, pick up things at Moms house, pick up the kids at 12:30, get the kids to nap, do laundry, talk to Bec and kiss sweet Tessa as she stayed at the house during nap time, run to nail place for a mani/pedi/wax, race home, do laundry, get to gym, make dough, feed kids dinner, shower kids, nurse Jake and put him to bed, make 120 cookies, bag them, and straighten up and fold 4 loads of laundry that Nate dropped off in his few hours at home this week. Cakewalk, yes? Everything happened except the gym.

We have three parties in the next.........48 hours or so. Two involve the kids (who are supposed to look relatively holiday fancyish, and all three involve me being some sort of presentable). One is downright fancy. I need one of those Superman phonebooths. I don't have one of those booths, damn it. I had grandiose plans. I thought that perhaps I would watch what I ate for a few days so as to be holiday fancy dress trim looking. I considered getting a spray tan. I even admit to putting some self tanner stuff on my face. I DID get a manicure and pedicure today, big treat.....but I ate 3000 cookies and everything else in my stressed out sight this week, am decidedly NOT holiday trim, and my awesome manicure is great.....but my fingers are stained red from the sprinkles that I put on the cookies all night. Oh, and I'm sporting like eleventy awesome zits courtesy of the self tanner I applied to my vain face. Super hot. I pretty much stink at this whole "trying to primp" thing.

So that is cool. I'm going to look decidedly holiday harried for the slew of parties ahead of us. It is actually a great thing for me, my kids keep me in check from being as crazy as this area can encourage one to be when it comes to personal vanity and whatnot. So, I'm decidedly not at my best, and I have to get three kids all dressed up tomorrow, wake them up early from naps, and get to a party (solo, with kids, to meet Nate there) looking relatively put togetherish. I also have to have all of their pajamas laid out and ready here at home, so that when we drop them off and quick change and race off we can hand them off to poor Brooke without too much hardship on her part. Do I sound like I'm complaining? I'm so not complaining, this is just me trying to work through my to do list.

Anyway. The point of this post is to rave about my kids. I had the super angst about today, for nought. The kids made tonight awesome. They are SO.MUCH.FUN at this age, once I get poor Jake to bed. I'm struggling with feeling like I don't get enough big kid time alone with the bigs.....so am trying to incorporate more evening activities, and work the two shows that they are allowed to watch on TV into the day or the post nap afternoon so that I can enjoy my post jake time with them doing more grown up things. That was a wordy sentence, but what I mean is that I miss Luke and Julia. I miss them because I get very little alone time with them, and juggling three is doable, but oftentimes I find myself negotiating to the least common denominator (Jake). Jake is super powerful, and he knows it. I am the queen of not negotiating with the little terrorists that preschoolers are......but then Jake figured me out. He has learned to SCREAM. He has learned to scream not just when he has been wronged (which is rarely) but when he wants something. And I have on occasion committed the cardinal sin of negotiation, I have actually said "JUST GIVE IT TO HIM!!!!!!". This is deeply, deeply wrong, unfair to the bigs, and simply does not jive with my parenting. So, I'm learning and changing course. Less will get done around the house, when all three are awake. I will learn to live with that.

I need to adapt. This is my goal.

Tidal waves.

The moment when one feels like they are failing at everything, yet has nothing to do, is a painful one. I caught a long, wonderful triple play of a nap today. The house was clean, but I was dirty, so I fixed that with a long hot jacuzzi......in which I tried to remedy the growing pit of anxiety in my stomach with some deep breathing. It didn't work. So, I got out.

Then I pretty much paced around the house. Then I made a list. I made two. When my post nap time freed up because a friend was busy, I decided to go to Target. The kids got up, we got in the car, we had a great talk about picking out gifts for others (the sharing tree at school) .......and I realized half way to the store that I didn't bring either list. Awesome.

Taking three kids to Target is a bit like rubbing glass into ones eye. You just keep rubbing and blinking, though it doesn't really make anything better. In target talk, you just keep saying things like "no, they don't need that (a vacuum) and don't touch that, and Jake, stop saying "BALL" and wiping Jake's horribly copiously snotting nose surreptitiously with ones hand because to carry a diaper bag would just be gauche when one is in this deep, and explaining why the everysinglething is not something that we need..............while simultaneously trying not to visibly sweat through ones down coat or Ugg boots and wonder how exactly one is going to

a. prepare dinner for ones husband who is en route home (due in at 6!) from 3 days away and

b. expalin to ones husband how a mop head and some cookie supplies and some 'cheap gifts for the sharing tree' totaled $180

while:

c. Trying to think,

because

d. One forgot the damn list.

Then, when one gets home, and goes to turn on the damn grill, and the damn propane is empty, and one tries to replace the damn tank in the damn dark with three (darn) kids standing at the door..........well. One sweats. A lot.

Damn.

Animal Identification.

So yesterday Luke was going to the bathroom up in the kids bathroom. Julia was keeping him company while I ran around getting their outfits for the day together. I overheard them talking. Luke was telling Julia (in detail) what he was doing.

"See Julia? Now I goin pee pee in the potty".

"Yay Luke. Now I goin poop Julia."

"Julia, no we not gonna take a bubble bath now, silly Julia"

"MAMA! Julia is getting in the tub!"

etc etc while Julia giggled and chattered back.

I started getting Jules undressed when she told me that she had to go potty. I took off her diaper and her sleeper, left on her undershirt, sat her on the little potty, and started getting Luke undressed.

I got distracted by a phone call and walked away from them for a moment. Still on the phone, I heard them talking heatedly back and forth. As I got off the phone and was walking back towards them, this is what I saw.

Jules, sitting on her potty, naked but for her undershirt. Luke naked but for his Mickey Mouse underwear and his socks, squatting in front of her, inches from her body, pointing at her shirt.

Jules was yelling "Lamb!" as she pointed down at the fluffy white creature on her onesie. Luke would yell "No Julia, that's a SHEEP" right back at her, while also pointing at the creature.

"NO! Lamb!"

"NO! Sheep!"

Mama quickly stepped in. "Guys, you are both right, a lamb and a sheep are the same thing".

I asked Luke what a sheep says. He said "Baaaaaaaa". I asked Jules what a lamb says, she said "Ba Ba". They both started laughing.

This is when I blew our little moment of mutual understanding and education by over thinking it. "A lamb is a baby sheep, I said." (Or is it a girl sheep, I was thinking? Or ARE they same thing after all? ) Someday my kids are going to be asking for help with conjugating Spanish verbs, or geometric proofs, and I don't even know a sheep from a lamb.

I don't know if this is pregnancy brain, or if I am really just very dumb.

(I did look it up, here was my answer).

Mama ~ I'm stuck.

So. Luke has been potty trained for about 4 months now. He only wears a diaper overnight. Now that it is cold out he wears one of his fleece sleepers to bed every night on top of his diaper. In the morning, we come down stairs, and while I get coffee and breakfast going he insists on unzipping his sleeper, taking off his diaper, and zipping back up his pajamas. He eats breakfast that way, and then we get dressed for the day.

This morning all was going according to our ritual. I was nursing Julia when I heard, "Mama, I stuck! I stuck Mama!". I told him to wait a second, assuming that his foot was tangled up in his sleeper, as some mornings he chooses to take the sleeper all the way off to get his diaper off. About two minutes later he yelled "Mama I stuck Mama come help me!!". I put Julia down to go untangle Luke.

When I got there I was aghast to see that it was not his foot that was tangled up in his sleeper. He has successfully taken off his diaper, and was halfway through zipping up his sleeper when, uh, something got stuck in it. Boy parts sort of something. I stayed calm (outwardly) as I did a quick and simultaneous unzip and yank move, freeing his poor tender boy parts from the teeth of the zipper. I instantly got tears in my eyes. He cried for a quick moment and then hugged me and patted my back saying "Thank you Mama, my pee pee all better now".

Time to reevaluate the morning routing. I forget that he has different parts than me. Time for a heart to heart between Daddy and Luke regarding penis protection, as clearly Mama is incapable of protecting the poor thing.

Simply no hiding it.

This is a picture of my leaf laden floor. Grandma brought us these beautiful glitter encrusted, bionically sticky, thick, leaf and pumpkin adornment thingies that we all love. I would call them stickers, but they are much cooler and thicker than stickers. The kids love them. We had been using them to adorn all sorts of art projects and windows and clothing. They are awesome. They were even more awesome before Luke learned how to peel off that super thin layer of paper backing on the sticky side, and decided to make a foresty sticker path through my kitchen while I cooked dinner the other night. In order to avoid getting angry, I decided to embrace the woody path and not peel the stickers up as I am loathe to see what the residual damage to my floor entails.




Meet Jack o Lantern and Winky the Wily Spider, our new friends who live on one of our kitchen light fixtures.



The playroom is now plastered with preschool art du jour. There are 4 windows and a sliding glass door in the playroom.....but every single surface that is not glass is wallpapered with finger paint/stamp/spelling/counting/art. I have friends who have lovely hand painted walls. Beautiful paint, furnishings, chandeliers, oil's. Artifacts from prehistoric times. We have finger paints and scotch tape. We are fancy like that.




This is Julia's first pen and ink on plaster. Or on drywall, or whatever our bedroom walls are. While I was out lunching with a dear friend last weekend, and Daddy was taking a shower, Julia was overcome with the need to create. My darling found a pen, be-lidded it, and expressed herself passionately in the 2 minutes Nate was in the shower. This is the result, directly above Nate's side of the bed.

A confession.

In the old house, with only one child, I was all "baby proofing is for the lazy and not paying attention not attached disassociated uncaring parent!". All, "I will use redirection and positive reinforcement to keep both my darling baybee and my darling possessions safe and intact!". "Baby proofing is for the negligent parent!" (Self congratulatory pat on back for such free thinking anti baby proofing rebellion.) About 5 minutes into having a wildly crawling 6 month old, or a wildly walking10 month old, or two mobile children under the age of 19 months, I re-evaluated those noble sentiments. I was so wrong.

Because you know what? That is a super idea! Really cute and sweet and indulgent and whatnot. And then, life comes in. And you had no idea that your child could unlock your bedroom door and run out. Or you had no idea that their body weight could pull over their dresser when they decided to climb up it. Or you had no idea that someday you would have another baby, or perhaps simply a phone call/delivery man/urgent bathroom need like puking from morning sickness with your second child etc. that would drive you away from your precious baybee at the very moment that your darling perfect one decided that throwing a pen in the toilet would be a fun experiment. (yes, the pen one was us. $185 and countless toilet plunging later, the pen was removed by a plumber.)

They keep us on our toes, these chilluns.

So ~ If anyone ever comes over and wonders where the fancy furniture, the nice paint, the anything not utterly destructible is.........I will refer you to another house. That will all come, in time, I am sure. For now, we are firmly esconsed in kidville. Drawings on the wall and spiders dangling from the ceiling.......and never, EVER rage about something "precious" being destroyed.

Pigtails, Pumpkins, Party Hats and Pig Flu

Those four P's pretty well sum up our October. NO, we don't have the dread pig sickness, I am just sick to death of reading about it, talking about it, and worrying about it. Our Pedi is not even offering the Vax. We are still undecided. On the decided front, we are way down with pumpkins. Painting, stickering, carving, drilling, eating, roasting, picking.....you name it, we've done it (I'm obscenely excited about throwing them off of the back deck on Nov 1st, I can't wait to watch those suckers explode!). Party hats are the new uniform around here, with Julia demanding to wear one every day. Can I formally recommend that everyone add some party hat to your ever day life? Really ups the ante on the good times! Anddddddd, (drum roll here) PIGTAILS! My 'bald is beautiful' baby girl actually has plenty of mullet to share amongst two darling little pigtails! I feel like I'm going to blink and my wee baldy will be wearing a bra, but lets not go there.

Last week was just a tough week. I was up late almost every night between the Springsteen concert, the Phils, and being out with friends. Nate was away some of the week. I was feeling a cold coming on. I was, uh.....overly emotional? Sensitive. Pregnant. Tired. Ugh. I felt as though I was being really short tempered with the kids, and as though surely they were taking annoying pills. This weekend was fantastic, I got caught up on rest, caught up on time with my sweet husband, and took a gander in my kids mouths on a whim. NOOOOOOO, it wasn't annoying pills, it was molars. Luke just popped his bottom two two year molars, and Jules just cracked BOTH 1 year molars, BOTH eye teeth, and another tooth. So, the good news is that my bad mood and impatience did not forever ruin my children and turn them into whiny demanding needy brats, the onset of a collective 7 teeth in one week did. Big relief. Thankfully other than the slight case of brattiness, they slept fantastically and the worst seems to be over already. Luke is back to being my cheerful little lover, and Jules is just killing me with her funny faces and phrases lately. At 19 months old the child is pretty much carries on entire conversations and is capable of making all of her needs or wants known.

After sleeping till 9 and then taking a 4 hour nap on Sunday, I knew something was up with the kids. Sure enough, they woke up from their marathon nap with fevers. We have been hunkered down for the past two days, relaxing and keeping our germs to ourselves. The fevers are gone, and Luke is fine, Julia slightly snotty. Being housebound isn't too bad now that the little critters are back to being themselves.

I hit a point last week where I was SO ANNOYED. Just frustrated beyond belief. I wanted the kids to just get with the freaking program, to stop acting like uncivilized demanding task masters. I was quite sure that they had not only figured what the most annoying sound on all of the Earth was, but that they had figured out how to make it in tandem. I wanted the "MAMA I WANT A NAPKIN NOOOOOOW! NAPKIN MAMA! NAPKIN! MAMA CAN I PLEASE HAVE A NAPKIN?" while I was doing 5 other things at that exact time insanity to stop. I felt frustrated at their neediness in the face of all that I felt that I "had" to get done. I began to understand how people spank their kids, or scream insanely at them, or have adult temper tantrums.

Sunday night I was cuddled up with Luke in my bed as my feverish little guy watched Dora. Jules was asleep. Luke was pink cheeked and clean and so sweet smelling I was literally huffing him. His thick dark lashes were so long and beautiful over his green/blue/brown eyes. He reached over to me and held my hand. I found myself utterly transfixed. I look at Luke and Julia all day long. But somehow, after such a hard week, I found myself just LOOKING at Luke in a whole new way. I was struck by how entirely small and soft and new and fragile he is. It hit me that just a moment ago, really, he didn't even exist. Just three short years ago he was still a dream in my belly, not even at the point of viability yet. I was struck by how hard it feels for me (at 34) to cope with the stresses and frustrations of life, at times. I suddenly became aware of how much I expect from this little critter ~ This tiny person who is fully conversational, yet only 2.5. His easy going nature and his sunny personality sometimes allow me to overlook or to forget his utter inexperience, his total lack of understanding of some of how the world works. WHY on earth do I get surprised that the briefest of delays in the procurement of that freaking napkin might feel like such a tragedy to him? OF COURSE it does. Problems that I deem so inconsequential can seem so large to someone so small. With no sense of past or future, the MOMENT is very important to a toddler.

Its all obvious stuff. Motherhood is really just a continual state of remembering and forgetting. As soon as I "remembered" how little, how new, how busy my little ones are with learning all that there is to know in this crazy world, I felt refreshed. It's hard to be a toddler. It's hard to be the Mother of a toddler, too. With just the simple remembering of those truths, I felt patience come pouring back into my body. Thank God.

Balancing Act

We are slowing down. I watched Luke cross the balance beam with ease at the PTM, then watched Jules fall off about 20 times, and realized in that moment that I have been a lot more like Jules than Luke on my personal balance beam lately. I have been feeling pulled in too many directions and it's time to take it down a notch. Late nights, concerts, sports, girls nights out, city trips, preschool, gym, Nate's travel, house demands, play dates, cooking, Internet, noise, noise, noise.

More being, less doing, right now. New motto for at least the time until the Holiday's are upon us.

I need to refocus ~ Less time spent getting everything done, and more time spent enjoying these fleeting days of toddlers and mess and slight chaos. If nothing else, pregnancy is a great (albeit forced) reminder of how sometimes we can get caught up in running and doing and not take enough time to simply enjoy how simple and good life can be if we just allow it to be.

When I realized that there is nothing wrong in my life, barring things that I am self imposing (artificial deadlines, distractions, over scheduling, etc) I recognized that it was time to make a little shift. Not a big one, just a slight adjustment.......I need to take the opportunity to focus more on every single good thing, and let some of the other noise fall aside. I know in my heart that the kids, and Nate, and mostly myself will benefit greatly from a little focus. A little more gratitude and patience and slowness.

A giant pancake and bacon and coffee breakfast, a long day of enjoying my kids and napping and rain and football, and an evening with friends seems to be just the band aid that my soul needed today.

Why is it so hard to maintain balance? Why is it so easy to lose focus on what matters?

Orange you glad I'm not YOUR Mother?

This is Jules, talking to Daddy on the phone while he was out of town this week. She signs off with a giant smacker of a kiss directly onto the phone.

In other news, Thursday was my first school failure. Orange Day. STUPID "Orange Day".

Orange day was written on my calendar. Luke's (orange) "Orange Day" shirt was picked out and clean. His "Orange Day" show and tell item was picked (his basketball). Yet Thursday morning came and went ~ Nate out of town, the kids sleeping late, me rushing around feeding and dressing and only thinking about me and my stupid boxing class and WHERE ARE MY BOXING GLOVES and JULES STOP THROWING OATMEAL ON THE FLOOR! and MULLIGAN YOU STINK! and LUKE STOP DROPPING DOG FOOD IN THE WATER BOWL AND LAUGHING WHEN IT SWELLS UP LIKE A BALLOON...............

and forgetting all about the shirt, and the ball, and my calendar.

And when I got to school, and saw the other kids (the ones with the good Mom's) in their Orange Day orange shirts and with their Orange Day orange items, I felt like a failure. I had my stupid boxing gloves, but forgot everything my kid was supposed to have (even including his bucket ~ epic fail day for me).

I confess to getting teary as I pulled out of the schools parking lot. Luke could not have possibly cared less. The entire concept of Orange Day mattered not to him, all he cared about was playing with his friends. Didn't phase him at all to be the kid with the sucky Mom. I know that. I do. But it phased me. Babies are easy ~ You can't forget to feed or change a baby ~ they have wickedly effective ways of letting you know when you are forgetting something. I started having visions of being the same Mom as I was student ~ rushing to cover my kids books the morning of school while the bus is outside waiting, forgetting to return permission slips, forgetting field trips, or special days. Argh.

I need practice.

Till then, all I have to say is LOOKOUT black day (next week).......I am going to be all OVER you. I OWN you Black Day.

Note to self:

When your almost 17 month old daughter asks for a plum at dinner, give it to her. When she asks for a second plum, give it to her. When she asks for that third plum, listen to the little voice inside of you that says "hmmmm.......plums are prunes" and do not give it to her so that you can continue to enjoy your own dinner.

When you disregard that still small voice of wisdom, you may well wake up to a really, REALLY gross mess.

Diego Drama

So. Luke seems to be wanting to potty train. I decided that rather than have him running around naked all day, we could create some excitement and go buy Luke some underwear. I mentioned that perhaps we could get some Diego underwear. Of course, Luke went CRAZY with this idea and was talking about his "Diego Unwear" all morning. I sweated the entire ride to Target ~ having never underwear shopped for a toddler, I had no idea if I would actually be able to procure Diego underwear. I had to ask three people to even find the kids underwear section, and when I did I immediately saw Diego's smiling face adorning a three pack of underwear. I never imagined that seeing a little cartoon character frolicking with a football on some tighty whities could so relieve and thrill me. Luke carefully selected three three packs (Spider man (which I thought funny as he has no idea who Spidey is), Diego, and Mickey Mouse). As I shopped with my two happily chatting toddlers, I had a flashback to one of my previous trips to Target. (I hardly ever go there, it overwhelms me, so my bi-annual trips always seem to be for some significant purpose). I was 39 weeks pregnant with Luke, on maternity leave, and bored. It hit me that I would need some "supplies" for the post partum birth joys. I waddled around Target, and spent about 30 minutes in the feminine hygiene aisle. I had no idea what to buy. I had never done this before. I was not familiar with the products, with what I would need, with what I should get. I had that 39 week pregnancy brain, making a decision seemed paralyzingly difficult. All around me harried Moms were pushing/pulling/dragging children around the store ~ all of whom seemed to be miserable. I had this one moment of sheer PANIC. Like, lose my breath type panic. I felt trapped. I felt like my brain didn't work, and likely would never work again and like I was facing years of wandering around Target with the look of a caged, cornered animal as I wrestled my impossible children into submission. I left the store, called my best friend (the mother of two small kids) in tears, asking her if this was all horrible and I was surely facing the end of life with the soon to be arriving baby. I asked her if I was going to die a slow sure death of Target shopping motherhood misery. She reassured me that life was not about to end. Anyway, 2.5 years later, the trip was actually fun. The kids were great, we picked out underwear, and my short term panic is something that I can just look back at and laugh at.

We got home and Luke immediately needed to try on his underwear. Each pair, in succession. He then determined that "Luke do dat" and insisted on putting on his own underwear. He frequently put both legs in one leg hole, and shimmied the underwear as far up his legs as he could. He then said ~ "Mama, HELP!" when he realized that he could not walk. Underwear went from thrilling to annoying to me in a space of about 15 minutes.

Tonight I put him to bed and went downstairs. About 10 minutes later he was crying and calling me, which never happens. I ran upstairs, and he told me he had to poop. Golf ball (puck is out and golf balls (2) in this week) in hand, I got him up on the toilet and sat down on the tub so that we could have a chat. I was thinking that getting his mind on something else might distract him and he would poop. He pee'd, we chatted about the Dog, and I heard a splash. I have to admit that I jumped up excitedly to peer into the toilet ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ only to see a golf ball in the toilet. No poop. "Oh Jeez" Luke said, as he looked up at me. Something overcame me. I don't know what happened. I blurted out, "Luke, can you poop on the golf ball?" ~ I don't know where that idea came from. Somewhere deep in the weird illogical part of my brain I was thinking that it might encourage him to go. Luke looked up at me, his eyes HUGE, and said "NO Mama! No go poop on Luke's golf ball!". I felt as though I had just asked a Priest to defile a Bible. I felt terrible. I had just asked my child to poop on his favorite thing in life. I started cracking up at the inanity of it all. One slatted spoon and some bleach later, Luke and his freshly cleaned golf ball were back in bed.

Easter Eve

Things all went awry yesterday. Nate took the day off, to recover from his 8 days-out-of-10-on-the-road-stint. We took both kids to the Dr. for the coughs-that-would-not-end (thanks, sucky, cold, PA spring weather). We had 9 yards of mulch delivered. We delighted in the idea of getting a ton of yard work done while the kids were napping. Kids went to bed. Nate to the gym, briefly. Me to the yard. I came inside to get some water after about an hour of weeding to hear both kids awake. Wha? I ran upstairs to find Luke IN Julia's crib with her, both wide awake. (Yes, we are the parents who don't use baby monitors). Luke (my always 3-4 hour napper) had either never gone to sleep, or else woken up unfathomably early, and decided that Jules would make a great "supposed to be napping" playmate. I groaned. I got them both up, and out, and tried to do more yard work. 9 yards of mulch is a veritable mountain of mulch, I came to learn.

Kids played (aka ate mulch, beheaded tulips, and Luke decorated his sister with handful after handful of mulch). We worked. The joy of new construction is a horror of a yard and never ending lists of "to do's".

At some point I came inside and started to get dinner ready. I turned on the Masters, one of my all time favorite Spring delights. As Julia banged away at pots and pans at my feet, Luke got really strangely silent. I wandered into the living room to check on him, to find him securely cuddled up in the big chair, sound asleep. My sweet son had gotten into my favorite golf watching position, and sucked his thumb, and been lulled into the sweetest sleep known to man ~ golf sleep. There is nothing quite like laying down with some great golf on and taking a snooze. I hope with all of my heart that this is but one of MANY great golf snoozes that you fall into in your life, Luke. I had to take a pic. Your first Masters watching. He watched some more today....and every time someone makes a putt he claps and says "Yay!" and every time someone misses he shouts "Ammost!". I love it.

Tomorrow is Easter. I remember back to last Easter, when we celebrated with a not quite yet 4 day old baby at my Mom and Dad's. Our neighbor brought us a homemade bunny cake last year, and again this year. We attacked that sweet bunny cake today at snack time (yes, Luke is pants less....and yes, "no pee pee on CAKE!" was uttered.)

Tastiest bunny I have ever eaten :)

Tomorrow we celebrate Luke's third Easter, and Julia's second. It hit me on Thursday that "Oh SNAP! I'm a MOM. I am supposed to have EASTER BASKETS!". So I ran out and grabbed Jules a pink pail to match Luke's blue one, and a few things to stuff them with, and came home. This whole Easter thing snuck up on me this year, with the wedding a week before it. So it's Easter Eve. The little Easter buckets are all ready to go. The morning will be crazy with church, a visit to Mom Mom and Pop Pops, home for naps, and then off to Kevin and Meredith's for some Easter dinner and cousin chaos/delight. Happy Easter all. Happy Masters. Happy yard work.

Snow much fun?

Jules finds nothing funnier than crawling under the coffee table for an early morning round of peek a boo.


Luke and his buddy Ben

Ben is an equal opportunity bear, lavishing his love amongst both kids.

Luke, in motion. This picture cracks me up, as it is like something from a parallel reality. The way it actually goes is that nothing in the house is moving, and Luke is CONSTANTLY moving.

I have absolutely no idea where the week has gone. Time is passing too quickly lately, its frightening. Friends are over almost every day, the gym is taking up more of our time as I am trying to get my act together and work out more, and we had playgroup at our house this week. Books/puzzles/coloring/cooking/diaper washing/date night/terrible singing/picking crusted oatmeal off of the floor/groceries and three million loads of laundry later....and I blink and it's Friday again. We came home from the beach a little early as we had one of those "in like a lion" March snowstorms approaching. We woke up Monday morning to snow on the ground, but no snow falling. Nate started snow blowing the driveway and clearing off the decks. Pretty much immediately after he did that it started snowing again, hard. We got several more inches throughout the day, and it was beautiful. It hit me that what I do all day long is pretty much what Nate did that morning. I spend so much time cleaning up messes throughout the day, when the mess is still being made. The snow is always still falling inside, until 7.30 when both kids go to bed.

I learned something about snow. It's just not as fun as I want to pretend it is. At least, not yet. Nate was working. I felt the need to get the kids out to play in the snow. Cause, you know, thats what good Moms do, right? I hunted down the snow pants, boots, gloves, and Julia's snowsuit. I made the mistake of putting on my coat and boots first. I then got into a wrestling match with Luke's boots that left me sweating, angry (boot rage is more accurate, if I am being honest here), and the boots in the trash. Craptastic boots those were. We found other boots. Wrestled poor Jules into her full body puff daddy snowsuit. Went outside. I had to hold Jules (who after starting to walk a week ago seems to have decided that walking is for sissies and now prefers not to do it ?!?!?!) as she could not be crawling around in the wet and freezing driveway. Luke loved jumping in the puddle in the driveway, but didn't really care too much about the snow. The most he did was put his hands in it, then get bugged at the fact that there was snow on his gloves. I taught him the old "clap your hands to get the snow off" trick, which got snow all over his face. Great trick, Melis. The wind was insane. The temp was below 20. Luke is low enough to the ground that the wind was whipping snow into his eyes. I tortured my poor children for maybe 10 minutes and then we went inside. All told? 25 minutes, cursing, sweating, and even a little crying from Julia to get ready. 15 minutes of strip down/clean up melted snow. For 10 miserable cold minutes outside. Next time I am saying to hell with it and going straight to the hot chocolate. To anyone with toddlers and babies, BE THE BAD MOM. STAY INSIDE.

I took the pictures of the kids with Ben the Bear this morning. I love Ben, and he has become an important member of our home. Luke alternates between beating Ben silly and smothering him with kisses. We lay on Ben and read books throughout the day. Julia plays king of the Ben mountain and laughs when she goes rolling off of him. Ben is a well worn, much loved, hand me down. Years ago (like serious years ago, 15 or 20 years ago) my Dad had been travelling even more than normal for work. As the story goes, he was coming home from NYC on the train, and Ben caught his eye in Grand Central. On a whim, he bought Ben, carried (man sized and furry) Ben home on the train, stuffed Ben in his car, and drove Ben down to Cape May as a surprise for us. He became part of the family, first in Cape May, then at home. Luke was over at my parents months ago and discovered Ben.....a bit lonely and a tad dusty these days with no kids around. Ben came home with Luke, and is enjoying a golden era of baby love again.

Something bad

Happened today. I distinctly remember the first time I caught Luke with dog food in his mouth as a crawling baby. I was disgusted, but pretty much figured it had happened before to other kids, and would likely happen again.

It did. Several times.

After a month or three of redirection and intervention, Luke lost interest in the dog food. However, when Julia was 6 months old and started crawling immediately and directly towards the dog food whenever she was placed on the ground, Luke rediscovered the guilty pleasure of the dog food bowl. The worst was the day that I found the two of them sitting together giggling over their dog food indulgence. I was, again, disgusted, and again wrote it off to the fact that this was the sort of thing that Mom's of such closely spaced sibs had surely encountered before. I do my best to be diligent, but with a dog who prefers to eat his dog food off of the floor rather than his bowl, it can be an issue.

Then came today. Luke was still downstairs eating his oatmeal with Nate. I was rushing to get out of the house with both kids by 9 for playgroup. I took Jules upstairs, closed the gate so that she couldn't get to the steps, and started pulling out clothes and diapers for both kids. Julia usually plays in the laundry room while I do that, and I assumed that with her not underfoot, that was where she was. I got caught up putting away clean folded clothes, and realized that I had not heard from her for a minute or two.

Poked my head in the laundry room ~ no Jules.

Julia Elise, my sweet little almost 11 month old daughter had somehow found one of the two doors leading into the bathroom not latched, and was gleefully playing in Luke's potty. Skeevy, right?

That's when I realized that whichever parent was around for Luke's last potty (the morning before) had not emptied the potty. (it was me).

I feel so guilty I may eat some dog food.

24

24 hours. That's the turn around time to get from in to out in Luke's little body. Winding from mouth, to throat, stomach, intestines etc etc.... to its final destination ~ a cloth diaper.

We now know this courtesy of the plum pit Luke ate the other day. A call to the Dr. reassured us that generally speaking, if it could get in, it could get out.

And get out it did. Although I was plagued with visions of Luke's little intestines shredded to bits by the foreign body, he seemed to be totally unfazed by the hard little pit winding its way through his body. After several diaper changes where I got to play "CSI diaper Mom" and inspect the output with the thoroughness of a forensic scientist, I was rewarded by finding the object I so longed to see...........a plum pit.

I doubt it will be the last time Luke eats something that he isn't supposed to.

Another box checked off, I suppose.

We are at the beach for the next 10 days or so. Luke's tanned little legs and skinned little knees make me inordinately happy. Seeing him running around mostly naked most of the time is great. There is just something so loveable about a little dirt on a kid, maybe a scab or a mosquito bite or two that makes all seem right with the world. He plays hard, eats hard, and sleeps hard.

#100

We are in! Moving in turned out to be way easier than moving out, thanks mostly to the family and friends who helped with Luke so that Nate and I could unpack! Big thanks to both sets of Grandparents, Kevin and my Sibs, and my friends. All of our boxes are unpacked and we are all set up. There will be lots of furniture shopping and decorating down the road, but for now its time to hunker down, relax, and start getting mentally prepared for little Deuce's arrival in just a few short months. The house is awesome. I cant believe how homey and comfortable it feels already. We put up our tree on Monday night and Nate left Tues for LA....he gets in in the morning and I cant wait ~ Luke and I are missing him.
I had my first "I'm 27 weeks pregnant and have a little baby and Christmas shopping is HARD" breakdown at KOP yesterday. I (idiotically) thought that I could let Luke nap in his stroller while I shopped. Yeah.....not so much. Between the throngs of bit**y fur clad women, frantic men who all looked as though they were in desperate need of a drink, and the horrible, too loud piped in "rockin Christmas" music it was a nightmare. Luke was miserable. I was miserable. Shops were all so crammed with merchandise that it was a huge chore to simply navigate the stroller around. I cursed (more than once) as the stroller got snagged on racks. I kept looking down at my sweet, easygoing baby who was crying in his stroller with the knowledge that I DID THIS TO HIM by dragging him out at the wrong time of day. I was sweating, and lugging the stroller up and down escalators (walk around the entire mega-lo-mall to find an elevator??? Just not my style) and meanwhile the mantra "this is NOT what Christmas is about" kept swirling around my head over and over. I finally called Nate in tears. Poor Nate. He was in LA. I think that I just needed someone to feel sorry for me for just a moment. He told me to go home, relax, and that he would watch Luke for me on Friday afternoon so that I could go finish up sans baby. I pretty much RAN out of the mall, and smothered Luke in apologetic (and teary) kisses as I loaded him in the car seat. We came home, and cooked up some dinner as Jeannie was coming over to eat with us. Christmas music and candles did the trick until about 6 PM....I was feeding Luke when suddenly all hell broke loose outside with firetrucks and police cars swarming the street and front yard.....our neighbors home was on fire. Men with ladders and axes were running down the street, fire hoses wound through my front yard (well....what will someday be yard, right now its straw covered dirt/seed :)).......I could hear breaking glass as they broke the windows. It was about 3 houses down and across the street. The house has a lot of trees around it, so I don't know the extent of the damage or what exactly happened. How terrible to have a fire this time of year. It freaked me out and I will admit that I was scared going to bed....all alone in this big house I just felt vulnerable and wanted to gather up Luke and have a snuggley sleepover in my bed with him. However, I resisted the urge....went to sleep and lived through the night. Seeing that fire and my breakdown at the mall helped me regain some perspective......
Christmas is about family, and gratitude, and joy. NOT about gifts, or frantically "doing" everything, or obligations. I know all of that in my heart, but sometimes lose sight of it in my zeal to get everything done just "so".

I scream, You scream

We all scream for Ice Cream.

Now we know that Luke screams FROM ice cream too.

Bad parents. Lesson learned. No matter how cute that wide open pleading "I want a bite of that" face is, no matter how fervent and insistent the "feed me that" cues, we must resist feeding the baby ice cream at all times.

Its been a long couple of days. On Monday night Luke had a few bites of Rita's ~ some of the vanilla custard part of a Gelotti. Didn't think twice about it. My adventurous little eater is flat out fascinated with all things food and has not balked at a single thing we have fed him. So, a few small harmless bites of soft serve from Dad...great idea....right? Cute and funny how delighted he was at the taste, right? Wrong. That night I was up about 3 or 4 times with a crying baby ~ very unlike Luke. That morning as I was changing his third poopy diaper of the day (again, not like Luke to go so often) I noticed some snotty like mucousy blood in the diaper. Ugh. Not normal, not good. Luckily Jenny was about 2 minutes away from our house as we were getting together that day, so I greeted her at the door with an "I need you to look at something gross". Luckily Jenny is not just a pediatric nurse, she is also one of my best friends and shares my penchant for OCD~like worrying. She confirmed that it did appear to be blood, and told me to call the DR but not panic, it was likely absolutely nothing. I wracked my brain to come up with some potential cause, something new in his diet. I had let him suck on a pickle when Dee and I were out to lunch the day before, could that be it? When Dad was over for dinner that night we had handed Luke a roll to gum away at, could that be it? Never thought of the ice cream.
Anyway. Long story short, Luke is fine. It appears that the blood in the stool (ew, and sorry for the explicit grossness that telling this story mandates) was caused by what will likely turn out to be a dairy allergy. Babies are not supposed to have dairy before at least 9 months of age. Add to that the fact that I had a dairy allergy as a child, and it is likely that this is the culprit. I did take Luke to the DR......sheepishly confessed what we had inadvertently done to our innocent child, and she made me feel a lot better with an admission that her husband fed their son ice cream with nuts in it at 7 months! Doh. The part that was stressful was that the DR said that I should eliminate all dairy from my diet as I am nursing and this is likely a dairy allergy. This was like a bomb going off for me. I am pregnant, and nursing, and love me some milk.
After much soul searching, talking to Nate, and Jenny, and Leanne, I have decided to keep a close watch on Luke and continue to follow my normal diet. Luke pooped a whole lot of times yesterday, all of them normal. I feel as though the ice cream was a jolt to his little system, and that it worked its way through, and things are (hopefully) back to normal. I will continue to keep a close eye on things and hopefully all will be normal from here out.

I find it ironic that a post or two ago I was complaining about changing diapers with morning sickness, and then mere days later I was literally examining each and every part of gross dirty diapers to ascertain what exactly what was, or wasn't, in them. Nothing so stomach clenching as sifting through baby poop with your heart in your throat hoping not to find any blood.

It was really scary. I take it for granted that Luke is healthy, strong and thriving. The moment that something caused me to question that, it hit me full force how fragile and tenuous that presumption of perfect health is.

It was so much fun to have Jenny over as Maggie and Luke are almost exactly the same age spread as Luke and our new addition will be. This new baby is also due on the exact same day as Maggie was! I can only hope for a little one as sweet, beautiful, and easy going as little Maggs is. It was just a surreal feeling to watch Maggie walking around like a little Frankenstein as Luke sat around and watched her ~ its like fast forwarding a year.

Nate and I have been driving around and looking at areas that we would want to live in, the DC condo is on the market now, and we are getting ready to get this house ready to list, although we are in no huge rush to get this house on the market. It will likely sell quickly as the borough is very desirable. Maybe by the end of September or early October. Anyone interested in a Mclean VA Condo?

Mom Mistakes

So at playgroup last week we were commiserating about mistakes we have all made as Moms, or ways that other people make us feel as though we don't know what is going on with our own baby (i.e the relative who constantly says "I think that baby is hungry" ~ all the time, even if its moments after you finished nursing them). Luckily I don't have to deal with the bossy relative thing at all, but the mistake part made me laugh out loud thinking of something that I did when Luke was maybe 7 or 8 weeks old. It was one of those first lovely spring days, sunny and warm. Luke was at the point where he had the head control to face out in the Bjorn. I decided to take Mulligan and the baby and head out for a walk. I got Luke into the Bjorn, grabbed the leash, and headed out. Birds were singing, the trees were really just coming into full leaf, and it was a positively lovely day. I was out with my boys, my son and my dog, and all was right with the world. I loved the sweet glances of strangers, the looks, the smiles. Everybody loves a little baby, and they attract a lot of attention as you are out and about. I just remember feeling so put together, so happy, large and in charge. Me and my newborn taking on the world.
We eventually wandered up to Gay St, the heart of town. So many people were looking at the baby, looking at the Dog, smiling at me. I felt like the Mayor or something.
As we walked by Iron Hill there were lots of people outside eating at the sidewalk tables. One woman looked at me and said "Oh, sweetie, one of his legs is stuck inside the Bjorn ~ I'm not trying to butt in but I'm a Mom too and have had the same thing happen ~ I just wanted you to know"..........
I turned and looked at our reflection in the windows, and sure enough ~ there it was ~ me and my one legged baby, stumpy. Luke seemed totally unfazed by it, but I know I got red in the face. I just had to start laughing as I finagled his leg out of the hole into its proper place, hanging next to the other leg. All of those sweet glances that I got were probably people thinking "Wow, look at that Mom and that one legged baby! She seems so happy even though that cute baby only has one leg!! Good for them!!!"
It still makes me laugh thinking about it. Proud Mama and Stumpy, her kid.

If I ever see a Mom with a baby stuck in his Bjorn incorrectly, I will help her out. I've been there.