Picture Pages

 

I'm considerate like that

So Friday morning saw me at the OBGYN's office, bright and early.  So bright and early, in fact, I didn't even get to kiss my Shorty good morning, because he was still in snooze city when I left.

So I'm chatting it up with Amy, catching up on the last year and talking about timeframes for trying for a second baby.  And then we have to get down to the business for which I, completely naked under my leave-it-open-in-the-front sheet gown, was there. Starting with the breast exam.

And Amy jokes that we probably don't even need to do the breast exam, since I'm still breastfeeding at night and therefore probably touching my boobs more than 90 percent of women anyway.  At which point, I open up the gown to expose the gals for Amy.  And then I peer down, catching something slightly amiss.

So I blush briefly, excuse myself and explain that my boy is battling a bit of a headcold.  Because how else would I appropriately preface the act of peeling a 12.5-hour-old, big, crusty, green booger off my right nipple?

Hey, I'm considerate like that.

At which point Amy and the nurse standing by completely lost it, howling with laughter.

Comic relief in extended breastfeeding.  Good stuff.

Some of my best drinking friends

Holy shit, we've been acting like stupid 21-year-olds together for ten years now.  TEN YEARS.

And while we see each other far less frequently than we did ten years ago, and while our visits ten years later involve far less cheap beer and Bankers Club than they used to (well, most visits), we sure do jam as much celebrating and reminiscing into each window of catching up as possible.

Now with our babies.  And toddlers.  And "for the kids" now has a completely different meaning for us, one we're all learning the joys and limitations of along the way.

And how funny it is to watch our littles -- little versions of ourselves -- interact with each other. 

I like to think they'll grow up to be friends. 

Although Erin has already made clear that Cayden will not be allowed into Abby and Nora's East Halls dorm room their freshman year. 

Picture Pages

Christmas Cookies

Much messier this year than ever before (Cayden got into the flour, then threw spoonfulls around the kitchen, as evidenced by the chair), but a whole lotta fun to have a little helper to make and eat chocolate chip cookies.

More

So there are a lot of things new parents become “more” of, when a child turns a comfortable couple into a floundering family. Or at least things Daddy and I have become “more” of over the last 16 months:

More tired
More careful
More vulnerable
More fulfilled
More scared
More busy
More conscientious
More imaginative
More empathetic
More doubtful
More spiritual
More hopeful
More frugal
More charitable
More patient

But you want to know the biggest more we’ve discovered? More productive. And that realization hit me over the head like a frying pan last Saturday around 11 a.m.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving. Let’s rewind three or four years and see what was happening around 11 a.m. Not much, considering we were still sleeping off Friday night’s celebration and staring down a great big day of zero commitment, zero plans and zero initiative. Save maybe getting some Christmas decorations out, but only if inspiration really hit.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving 2010? We were up by 6:45 a.m., and before lunch I had done a load of laundry, put the diapers through three cycles, unloaded the dishwasher, cleaned the hardwood and kitchen floors, cleaned both the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms, pruned the roses and raked the leaves from the front and back yards to the curb.

So the question becomes, will this state of super-fly productivity persist, even when Cayden grows old enough to understand the value of sleeping in and lazy afternoons? I hope not; I enjoyed the luxury of downtime.

Picture Pages

Like father, like son

Guess who else, besides that Daddy and PopPop of ours, has a fond fascination for firewood and fires?

The boy.

He even knows how to blow on the embers to get the flames goin'.  Well, at least he starts blowing as soon as Daddy does.

Oh, and he's also a fan of lazy football Sundays.

Thankful

For a lunch with my boys at the office.






















For childhood determination.

For childhood curiosity.

For childhood excitement. 

For an adorable new interest in helping.

For the opportunity to watch generations influence each other.

And for so much more the camera didn't see in the past few weeks:  For good friends with whom we can catch right up, never skipping a beat, despite the miles between us and the months between conversations.  For loving, generous families who are as excited as we are to share joy and new experiences with the youngest member of the family.  For a cousin-to-be who will enrich all our lives even more.  For our comfortable, welcoming home.  For professional fulfillment.  For the beauty all around us in the changing season and holiday anticipation.  For good, old-fashioned Christmas carols and the first snow flakes of winter.  For the opportunity to introduce a little boy to the magic of Santa Claus.  For a perfect partner in life I can't imagine experiencing any of this without.

It's been a really, really good couple of weeks, and we can't wait to savor everything coming our way in the next month...

Uninspired and Tired.

This time of year always seems to drag and fly by, all at the same time, what with the weekend trips, holiday events and seasonal must-dos.  And this year is no different, except that instead of having a largely immobile and inactive infant, we now have a tearing-into-everything-and-running-all-over toddler.  Plus a more demanding (ahem, full-time) job and some home improvements we didn't see coming.

So I know a lot has been going on lately, and I'm doing my best to keep up on the scrapping, but I just can't seem to find time or inspiration to sit down and update. 

Insert disjointed information dump.

Our 15-month well child visit proved the beast is still off the charts, yet proportional, with his nearly 31 pound and 3-foot tall self.  And the overly large dome is still growing.  2T clothes are the standard for winter.  But thankfully, his bulkier-than-sposies dipes don't seem so bulky and disproportionate on his bigger frame, so that means he finally has his first pair of jeans!

By the way, baby GAP rocks the house, even if the jeans are more expensive than any pair I've bought for myself in the last ten years.  But whatever, that's what free money (gift certificates we forgot we had -- totalling almost $50!!) is for.

The boy's Halloween experience was awesome, as was his first ride on the Hershey Chocolate World ride and the second birthday party for one of his future girlfriends.

Not-so-awesome are his new-found love of grabbing his wiener every time it's available, his inability to last through a 45-minute meal without screaming through much of it, the evening tooth-brushing ritual (which I'm sure our neighbors think involve some sort of bodily injury) or the big, fat, cartoon lip he got after chopping his bottom teeth into his top lip when he tripped over the carpet in the living room.  Screeeeeeeeam city!

Oh, and the daylight savings transition S.U.C.K.E.D.

Home stuff has also sucked lately, but that's to be expected when you waste an entire Saturday doing yard work, it gets dark at 5:30 p.m. and your hot water heater floods the first floor, requiring replacement immediately. Whatever, it is what it is.


Wow, hello impromptu bitch-fest.  Sorry.

And work is work.  I love the challenge and responsibility, but also love to leave it all at the office at the end of the day.  I don't think I checked my blackberry once all weekend.  Shhh.  But now we're in a weird, calm-before-the storm kind of environment, and everybody is just kind of quietly watching and waiting to see how things will pan out in coming weeks and months.  So it's not really any big deal to have left the phone in my purse for two straight days and nights. 

But we've got bittersweet fun coming up.  A weekend in the DC metro area next weekend for the PSU game, although we'll have to split from the boy for two nights and two days.  We need the mini adult vacay with great friends (even though we'll put our sleep banks in even further delinquency than they already are, teetering dangerously close to sputtering-to-a-stop empty), but we'll certainly miss the block-throwing, cheerio smashing, cat licking, water-bowl-flipping tyrant. 

Let's see if Grammy, Dude, Uncle Jeff and Aunt Lauren have any interest in satisfying the boy's Christmas Wish List after this weekend, when they'll have to entertain and appease the little devil...

Picture Pages

Snicker

I'm so that mama.  You know, the over-the-top, balls-to-the-wall, she-must-have-way-too-much-time-on-her-hands kind of mama that all the other daycare mamas roll their eyes at, but secretly envy for the sheer awesomeness of dedication and creativity.

Because while I certainly don't have way too much time on my hands -- in fact, it's all I can do to get home by 6 p.m., spend an hour with the boy, get him ready for bed, do a little cleaning/laundry/chores, shower and throw something down my gullet before hitting the hay around 10 -- I do have boatloads of determination and creativity.  Which fuel excitement and pride about turning an ordinary assigment into something extraordinary.

Since the boy only goes to school Thursday and Friday, we were the last to sign up last week to bring something for today's Halloween party.  The only thing left?  Finger sandwiches. Who knew what a fierce fire finger sandwiches could light under my butt.

So, after Daddy wondered aloud about making sandwiches in the shapes of ghosts, a lightbulb went off in my head, and the planning began. 

Enter Pampered Chef cookie cutters, a combination of traditional and try-something-new ingredients and a whole lotta this-is-gonna-be-great determination.

The end result?

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

A my-kids-party-food-kicks-your-kid's-party-food's-ass platter of friggin FANTASTIC finger sandwiches.  That's right, they're in the shapes of apples, maple leaves and pumpkins.  And they have cute little menu cards, and I found a perfect fall platter for a buck.

I may not have the time stay-at-home moms do, but I have imagination and resourcefullness in spades!

Picture Pages

Sensory Tub: FAIL

So every now and then I check in on this blog, No Time for Flash Cards, to see what kinds of creative arts and crafts I'll be able to do with Cayden when he's a little older.

And the ideas are so, so neat!  But alas, nearly every project involves glue, paint, crayons, play-doh or some other supply I'm confident Cayden would rather consume than use to express his creativity at this point.

But then I found a project the blogger swears is good for little kids, too.  One that involves basic ingredients that are either edible or too large to consume, and the entire projects can be created easily and on the cheap.  So I got excited to try our first home-made crafty kind of activity.

After all, the blogger did it two years in a row with her son -- age not identified, which turns out to be key to my misunderstanding -- so he must have been pretty little last year when she tried it for the first time, right?

Wrong.  So very, very wrong.  The Spooky Sensory Tub is not appropriate for 14.5 month old little boys.

How my husband knew that as soon as he saw my baking pan filled with black beans and orange split peas, I can't tell you, because I had every confidence this would be a productive experience for Cayden.  Yes, that darling hubby of mine washed his hands of our craft and any resulting melee as soon as he saw it.

Aw, hell, it probably was a productive experience for Cayden, as he threw beans and bats and skeletons into the air, giggling as they fell and bounced all around him.  And then when he discovered that if he violently swept his arm from one end of the pan to the other, he could bulldoze out way more beans in a few fell swoops than he could one or two handfuls at a time. 

And it was certainly a productive experience for me, as I learned that the boy is far to young to be presented with thousands of tiny little objects that make entertaining swishing and tinking noises when they crash to the floor and scatter about. 

And finally, it was a productive experience for our kitchen floor, which got a thorough sweeping and scrubbing after this.

I'm feeling quite dejected after our first homestyle craft proved such a failure. 

Seriously, how do his teachers at school get him to participate so neatly and expertly in arts and crafts, when I can't keep from eating his crayons or playing civilly with a pan of beans? 

Screw you, adorable, toddler-painted pumpkin on my front porch; arts and crafts don't count until Mama succeeds at them.

Picture Pages

Fall Family Fun: What a Great Weekend

This weekend was one of those weekends that makes me think there is a little bit of superpower dust in the hormonal and emotional changes that create and sustain a mama. Because somehow, we got to the end of Sunday afternoon and we had accomplished all the mundane gotta-get-it-done stuff we usually have to do on our two days off, plus a boatload more stuff that was just. plain. fun.

Family fun in a way we’ve never experienced before, because we’ve never had a rough-and-tumble, now-prefers-walking-to-crawling 14.5 month old before.

Saturday saw a visit to the church for the annual fall chicken barbeque and to check out the recently revamped church nursery. Which is really, really neat. Cayden loved the new-to-him toys, although he did drive Mama nuts by removing the shelf liner from every toy cubby before sitting down to play with any toys.

Then came the chicken. Mmmm, the chicken. Cayden ate more of my lunch than I did, right down to sucking the bones clean of meat. And then he got a special treat: a pumpkin, chocolate chip cookie for dessert. Although he was decidedly unhappy when lunch and dessert were over, and he threw a back-arching tantrum right in Fellowship Hall, insistent we shove more food down his gullet. But since he had eaten half a baked potato, 4 oz. of applesauce, part of a bun and an entire quarter of a chicken before his cookie, we decided to endure his tantrum and remove him from the table so as to avoid the overeating vomit we are sometimes blessed with, when too much dinner is consumed too quickly, then we’re not quite careful enough when removing the porker from the bathtub and consequently bend his legs too far at the hips and he pukes all over his bath towel.

I know, the joys of parenting a good eater.

Then Saturday afternoon saw Brian fishing and me scrapping, before we visited with Lauren and Jeff after Cayden’s bedtime to watch the Phillies.

Since the weather couldn’t be more perfect Sunday, we decided to daytrip it – to State College! Shorty’s first trip to Penn State.

First stop, Nittany Lion Shrine. For a few shots so that I have options from which to choose when Cayden is the coordinator of the class gift during his senior year at Penn State, and the Penn Stater alumni magazine features a message from him to alumni, along with a photo of him as a senior, posing with the Nittany Lion. Because there’s always a “my first photo with the Nittany Lion!” insert on those photos. Phew, now we’re prepared for that scenario.

Then we walked around downtown and on campus, doing as a family the things we never have time to do on football weekends. Checked out the Hintz Family Alumni Center, which unfortunately was closed, since there was no football game this weekend. But the brick walk and the grounds are be-you-ti-ful! Gorgeous flower gardens featuring every color of the rainbow – even in October! – and the absolute best part of our day: a water pond with super-dooper friendly ducks! OK, maybe they were just super-dooper hungry, but whatever. Those things gobbled up half of Cayden’s penguin crackers (cannibals), and gave us all a ton of laughs and squeals.

And then on to Old Main, for some leaf-playing, sidewalk-walking and stair-climbing. And then some more back arching tantrums, when I wouldn’t let Cayden re-scale all the granite steps to the front doors of Old Main, after he had done it once already. What can I say, we were late for lunch, and we were fighting a losing battle with a hungry kid.

Only wrinkle in our PSU daytrip was leaving Cayden’s lunch on the counter in the laundry room, so we had to improvise when we got to The Deli. He did great with his kids-cup of water and ribbed plastic straw, but Mama and Daddy kind of shit the bed in ordering lunch for Junior. The retards we are, we searched all over the regular menu for kids options, not finding any. So we ordered him a $6 bowl of matzo ball soup, which had far less carrots, chicken and flavor than the menu promised. Our college kid waiter must have thought we were nuts. The noodles were a hit for Shorty, but they didn’t suffice, so again he ate a good portion of my lunch, a chicken quesadilla.

Oh, and then we found the kids menu. You know, at the top of the placemat provided to Cayden along with a handful of crayons for coloring on said PLACEMAT MENU. Hello, first-time parents who don’t take their child out to restaurants for fear of public tantrums or food-throwing. What a rip, once we realized that for $4 we could have gotten Cayden a much better lunch: mini cheeseburger, mini fish-n-chips, mini soft tacos, pasta or grilled cheese, each with a side of apple slices. Oh well, live and learn.

By then it was about time for Cayden’s afternoon nap, so we returned to the car and headed home for an afternoon of more walking and exploring around the yard and newly finished deck!

And on top of all that excitement, somehow laundry and diapers and winter squash roasting and carrot steaming and floor swiffing and carpet vacuuming and baseboard dusting and lunch-making and work-week-wardrobe preparing and grocery buying were accomplished, to boot.

See, I told you it was superhero dust.

Sick still sucks

This time, for Mama.  As in sick like I haven't been sick in years.  Head throbbing, bones aching, skin chilling, tears bursting, elephant-sitting-on-my-chest and coughing-so-hard-I-pee-a-little-even-when-I-bend-over-to-avoid-it sick.

And a dumb doctor, to top it off, who didn't give me the prescription he promised, even after I went through the whole story on Cayden's amoxil rash and asked the doc to make sure what he prescribed for me would be safe for the boy, considering our morning and evening nursing sessions.  Conclusion?  My prescription should be the same drug Cayden is on, the Z-pack.  So I fill the prescription on Saturday, after the fever and seriously-I-dont-know-if-I-can-get-out-of-bed body aches set in hard-core.  And I realize the prescription is for blasted amoxicillan.  Damn. Dumb. Doctor.  So even though I took off work Friday afternoon to see the doc and get some meds, I didn't get the meds I need until this morning. 

So it was a pretty miserable long weekend, spent largely in bed, convinced my head would explode or my lungs collapse. 

But there was a bright spot.  Chicken picked out three pumpkins from the Boy Scout Troop 10 annual Apple Pumpkin Festival.  Oh, and the military truck in the parking lot was a big hit for him.

Much props to Daddy for stepping up to the plate this weekend.  The thought of lifting a 30-pound toddler made me cringe all weekend long, and I was only forced to experience the resultant  mind-blowing body aches (seriously, they made me cry) a couple of times because that man of mine took on all kinds of extra baby duty.