Mother's Day

I'm a day late and a dollar short (okay a few days late and lots of dollars short!) for Mother's Day. After a jam-packed Friday and Saturday celebrating our town's awesomeness, I was down for the count on Sunday (and Monday) with a terrible head-cold and wrenching cough.

Luckily, I had already given my own fabulous mom her gift (with four hearts, one for each grandson + the baby on the way!) and card when we saw her in person last weekend.

Anyway, today, after re-entering the land of the living, I thought I'd share my two most favorite Mother's Day posts from the interwebs. Enjoy!

First, Here's to Us from Scary Mommy (whose book I must purchase STAT!).

And, second, this fabulous video from The Mother Company via my friend Leticia.



Hope your Mother's Day was grand. Or, that at least that you got to talk a nap.



Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Guess who visited us last night?

The tooth fairy!!

Lucas's tooth had been loose for several weeks and it finally came out last night. My mom had given me the great advice of not pulling it out because if it hurt he'd be scared/worried about future teeth. So I just made a game of having him wiggle it 10 times whenever I thought of it. Last night we were working on his homework (yes, kindergarten homework!) and it seemed SUPER loose. I suggested he push it back instead of pulling it forward and out it came!

He was SO excited!

The tooth fairy left four quarters, an Avengers activity book, a small magic kit and...the tooth!

Apparently Lucas had taken the tooth out of his tooth turtle pillow and hid it under his regular pillow. The tooth fairies couldn't find that tooth for the life of them! As Lucas raced out of his room with his gifts this morning, he also exclaimed, "She left my tooth!"

Abel and I were quick to suggest that maybe she left this one because it was his first and therefore extra-special! We also let him know that probably he got extra gifts this time for the same reason (with 19 more to go, the tooth fairy will be broke if she keeps giving so much!).

Then I casually asked where he had put the tooth and got the full story!

Oh that boy. My baby boy. How is this possible? I remember so well when that first tooth broke through. That itty-bitty baby tooth. It had already gotten way too small for my big boy's mouth but the one coming in behind it seems impossibly large. He's still my baby after all, right?


Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Launching cake to heaven

Lucas asks and thinks about my death quite a bit. I'm not sure why but I always try to reassure him that I plan to be around for a long, long time. Mostly these questions/comments come about in reference to something of mine that he wants. For example, he knows/believes that when Abel and I die he'll get our house "for free." (I do try to remind him that he'll have to share with Nathaniel!) He's also looking forward to getting my wedding rings "for free" after I die. (He's always desperate to wear them but he's lost/broken so many pieces of my jewelry over the years that I won't ever let him.)

The other night, after books and songs and snuggles, Lucas told me that after I die he'll make me a birthday cake every year and put it on my shrine. (Yes, he used the word shrine...where does this kid get this stuff?? Did Phineas and Ferb recently build a shrine to someone?) I told him that was very nice, but since I know he loves cake SO much, he should just go ahead and eat it. He quickly agreed... very quickly. But, he also told me that he'd save me one piece:

"I'll save one piece for you and I'll put it on a rocket ship and send it up to heaven. But I'll put a really tight lid over the plate so the cake doesn't fly away and I'll write your name, Aimee, on it so that God knows it is for you."

I can't stop thinking about this conversation for several reasons.

1. So, so sweet.
2. How quickly he agreed to eat the cake. That boy does love cake! (Maybe even more than his Mama!)
3. So smart -- he knows all about gravity.
4. That God would need to know it was for me via a name tag and that he would write "Aimee" on it instead of "Mama."

Man, I just love that kid.


Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

The Summer of our Lives

Fab graphic available as a free postcard download at Frolic

A few weeks ago, on the Saturday night before the first day of school, after our yard emptied of the dozens of friends who had come over for an end-of-summer hot dog and s'mores roast, Lucas emphatically declared it had been the best day of his life.

Then he reconsidered as he started listing all the other best days of his life that summer.

We ended up agreeing that it had been the best summer of his life.

Ah, how that made my heart sing.

The summer, well, late winter and early spring, actually, had started out as possibly the worst time of our lives for Abel and me when his small organization closed down and he was laid off. The first few weeks were horrible. Scary. Filled with anxiety. Dread.

Not only was Abel laid off, I had been a stay-at-home mom since Nathaniel was born 19 mos ago so our weekly income suddenly = $0.

Luckily we had some savings. Luckily Abel qualified for unemployment. Luckily we also qualified for food stamps. Luckily a free lance gig came up for me.

But more than luck, we buckled down. We counted every penny. Literally every penny. It became a personal challenge--and triumph--for me to calculate our grocery bill down to the dollar. To go for days and days and days without spending a dime. We started line drying when our dryer broke. (In February. Brrrrr.) We gratefully accepted gas cards from my parents and when they visited they brought lunch or paid for dinner.

And after I was able to fall asleep instead of laying in bed fretting for hours on end. And after we were able to go a day without questioning, worrying, wondering. After we settled into our poverty. After that?

It did become the best summer ever.

We had a house. A car. Two actually. We had the most amazing, wonderful, happy children on the face of the planet. We were together. And in love.

If there is one thing I am most proud of about our little family of four, it is the abundance of love. Of hugs. Of kisses. Of never-held-back I love yous.

Summer 2011 featured no camps, no beach vacation, no amusement parks.

But it did feature lots and lots of adventures -- parks, museums, s'mores (a very cheap way to entertain friends!), the zoo (free in DC!), back yard camping, cardboard robot making -- adventures of all shapes and sizes but with one common factor: free or very, very inexpensive.

Our yard never looked better! The floor of our laundry room was visible on more than one occasion!

Because there was time. Time together. Time around the house. Time for adventures.

And nearly every day (after I stopped freaking out) I thought to myself, "This, this is the time of our lives." We were poorer than I ever hope to be again. But we were happy. Because we were together. And as hard as it was, especially at first, I think I will always look back at the summer of 2011 as the best summer of my life.

{I'm back at work (er, outside the home!) full-time and Abel's home with the kids but still looking for a job. We are doing okay on what I make + unemployment. Thank goodness for unemployment. But we are hopeful that something will come along for Abel soon. And in the meantime, he's trying to savor his time at home, especially all the time he has with Nathaniel.}



Though I didn't initially write this post with this in mind, I've decided to link up to Elena and her Be Enough 4 Cancer Campaign. Because I think this post really is about our family, our love, our togetherness just being enough.


Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Home Alone

For the first time in more than five years (since Lucas was born!) I was recently home alone in our house for more than a few hours (38 to be exact!).

It was heavenly.

Kind of.

More times than I can count, I've taken the boys to my parents house for an overnight, weekend or several days, because Abel had to work or to let him get some major home repair project done without interruption. And while I know he was always hard at work during these times (repairing the dining room ceiling, insulating the attic, renovating our basement, building a stone retaining wall) I also know that he would crack open a beer and watch a movie at night, sleep in or just kick back for at least a few hours during the time he was home alone.

I was always so jealous!

Recently my parents wanted/needed him to do a small home improvement project for them, and due to some outside commitments (including the deadline for my first freelance editing/writing project--woohoo!) I couldn't take the time to go. So, he took the boys with him overnight.

Ahhhhhhh.....I was practically giddy as they pulled away!

In some ways it was wonderful. You wouldn't believe how neat and picked up I was able to keep the house! In other ways it was just strange. I kept hearing Nathaniel stir from his nap or wondering when he'd wake up.

So while I'd definitely take the chance to be home alone again, I no longer think it would be the best thing in the world. Even though those two boys create a lot of chaos in our home, it feels awfully lonely without them!

Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Collections

If I was the kind of girl who could keep up with a daily project for more than a few days then I'd start taking a photo-a-day of the contents of Lucas's and my pockets!

The other day, just before his bath, Lucas pulled out a (beer) bottle cap, a feather, two rocks, a bead, and-- as the piece de resistance--a mangled and wilted handful of (what looked like) weeds mixed with grass mixed with dandelions (oh, do you call those weeds, too?), while exclaiming, "Oh, yeah, and my bouquet!"

And on another recent evening, I pulled out a small piece of glass (worn around the edges, but still obviously something I was trying to stop Nathaniel from eating!), an acorn, a sticker backing, a rock and a lego.

Lucas's pockets contain precious and prized possessions. Mine contain all the little pieces of stuff I take away from children throughout the day!

Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Six Signs of Spring

1. Crocus spotting!

2. Mulch (from our nearby park) in Nathaniel's diaper.

3. Bath night becomes almost every night, instead of every other night (or even possibly every third night as sometimes happens in the winter when we're stuck inside for days on end!).

4. Muddy jeans, muddy overalls, muddy faces, muddy hands.

5. Puddle hunts!

6. Lucas's two pairs of shoes turn into the "muddy pair" and the "clean pair." Unfortunately, the clean pair often gets muddy, too, and so "clean" actually just refers to the least-muddy-at-the-time.

Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Annnnnnnd he's back!

Yesterday, after not finishing his breakfast, Lucas lounged on the living room couch for about an hour.

I said to Abel, something is wrong with Lucas.

I don't think that child has ever sat still for an hour (without the TV on, of course!) in his entire life. Not to mention, he asks for more to eat for breakfast almost every day.

He didn't have a fever. Nothing bad was coming out either end (ahem, you know what I mean). He seemed fine.

Except, that he didn't.

It was quite bizarre. We let him watch a few cartoons on TV, he ate about a bite of lunch, then lounged for a few more hours. Mid-afternoon I bribed him to eat with a little bit of ice cream, which he finished but didn't ask for more. (Again. Very strange.) And then I started to get worried.

Could something be really wrong?

He slept in until 8am this morning. Not totally unheard of, but surprising because he had such a low key day yesterday. But, the moment he boisterously bounded down the stairs, I knew he was okay.

After about an hour of talking, playing, hugging, moving his brother, telling stories, asking for breakfast, more breakfast please, playing, asking me to play with him, jumping, more hugging and more and more and more talking, I realized that since nothing was really wrong in the end, yesterday was kind of a nice change of pace.

But, I sure was glad to have my crazy little buddy back.


*I realize this could also be titled And, she's back. Sorry for the long absense.

Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Advice for my baby sister, on the birth of her baby boy

Dear Sarah,

Despite your radiant look, lovely locks and ever-growing belly, it is nearly impossible for me to believe that you are about to give birth to your first child. Yes, I realize that you are older than I was when Lucas was born. But, as you know, you're still my baby sister and always will be. And so you as a mom is hard for me to grasp.

Don't worry, though. I know you will be an amazing mom. There is no doubt about that. And, I am so excited to become an aunt, to begin my life-long love affair with my first nephew and future friend to my boys!

Now that Mike is back and your family is reunited, we're all ready for baby to arrive. And, so, I thought I'd better take the opportunity to give you my best advice.

1. Savor the moments. I know everyone says it, but it is so true: time will go more quickly than you can imagine, especially those first few hours, days and weeks. Hold your baby as much as you can. Truly, you can not hold him enough. You have my permission to be selfish. You'll be in a unique position of having a lot of family around for quite a while. Be selfish: hold him as much as you want and when you want. Others can hold him while you nap.

That brings me to...

2. Nap! It is so important. You'll need to get your sleep in small 1-2 hour increments. Take naps!

3. Get out of the house. Every day. It is hard: you may not have showered and most likely will have dried spit-up on your shoulder, but get out for at least a walk or a quick trip to the store every day.

4. Take my advice about teaching your baby the difference between night and day. Start early, by 3-4 weeks. I speak with the authority of a mom whose children are both champion sleepers.

5. Let Mike parent in his own way. Trust me, he will do things differently than you, and you may feel strongly that he is doing them wrong, but let him do it his way. Don't correct him. Let him figure it out. The day you leave the house without giving him written instructions, you will thank me.

6. Leave the house. This time I mean leave the baby alone with Mike. If you are breastfeeding, you can leave for an hour or so. Later, you can leave for longer. He can handle it. If you take the advice of #5 then you won't even need to leave instructions. It will make him a better father and you a better mother.

7. Go out together. At some point (but well before your baby turns one!) go out on a date. Get a babysitter (Andrea will be perfect!) and leave. Do this on a regular basis. As mom always says, having a strong marriage is the best gift you can give your children.

8. Always remember: this to shall pass. From getting through the first minute of terrible pain while breastfeeding Nathaniel, to getting through the first 6 weeks of no sleep with Lucas, to dealing with Lucas waking at 3am every night for several months not too long ago, the one constant with children is that things will change. That stage will pass, something else will come along. So you didn't get any sleep tonight? Tomorrow will be different (not necessarily more sleep, but different hours of being awake!). So baby cried all day today? He most likely won't cry all day tomorrow. Although you feel that you will never, ever sleep again, you will (especially if you listen to #4!). You might feel like you can't possibly breastfeed for another day, but tomorrow will be better. Or the very next feeding will. You can get through it!

9. Take an extra shirt for yourself. You'll (most likely!) remember to pack a change of clothes for baby. But that won't help when he poops or spits up all over you! Keep a t-shirt in your trunk for yourself. And, in a similar vein, when you are going out somewhere (especially if you're wearing a particularly favorite shirt or want to look especially cute) get dressed at the last. possible. minute. In fact, get dressed in your garage after you've said good-bye or, trust me, you'll end up with a sticky hand print on your cutest, dry-clean-only black pants!

10. Don't feel guilty. Oh, I get so sick of moms and their mommy guilt. Yes, you'll mess up. Baby will be fussing and you'll have no idea why, until 20 minutes later, you realize it's because you left the plastic tag thing in his shirt. (Not that I ever did that, ah-em!) You'll make mistakes. We all make mistakes! I can guarantee this: you won't make the same mistakes more than a few times, but you'll always make new ones! I so often think of your favorite Maya Angel0u quote, "I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better."


So, that's my best stuff. I hope it helps and of course you know that I'm only a phone call, text message or e-mail away for lots and lots more!

I love you. I know you're going to be an amazing mother. Your baby boy is so lucky to have you. And I absolutely can not wait to meet him!

Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

A good laugh

Today was an amazing day with Lucas. He was awesome. Helpful. Kind. Fun. And it's something we all really needed.

We've had some rough days lately.

Tonight I put him to bed, and, while reading Olivia, we got to a page where she was just being annoying. We were talking about it and suddenly he punched the book. I immediately reacted, "Lucas. Don't hit!"

He immediately replied, "Mom. She's a pig. A pig who talks." (With a tone that said, seriously, mom, you're overreacting. She's just a pig. It's just a book.)

He was right. I started giggling and he was quick to join in.

For the remaining several pages, he interrupted every other sentence with, "Mom, she's a pig who talks!" Or, "Mom. Know what? She's a pig who talks!" Followed by us both giggling our heads off.

He loved making me laugh. He loved us both laughing together.

And so did I.


Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Solo Living

Sorry I have been gone for so long! I find that whenever I let a few days pass without blogging then let a few more days pass, I start to feel intense pressure to make the next post a really good one. Which, of course, means that a few more days pass...you get the picture!

So, what's been going on? Well, a few weeks ago, Abel and Lucas went on a 9 day epic father and son adventure to Ohio, leaving Nathaniel and me home alone! It was quite strange and also quite lovely to be home alone (well, essentially alone!) for more than a week. Since neither Abel or I have ever traveled for work for more than a few days at a time, this was an entirely new experience for me and the longest I have been home alone in more than seven years. Here are a few things I learned:

- If Abel had left me alone for 9 days with a 5 month old Lucas, I would have been having panic attacks about caring for a baby solo for so long. When he proposed taking Lucas and leaving me here with Nathaniel, I practically jumped for joy at the thought of such an easy week.

- I am pretty messy when left to my own devices! Without Lucas here to make an even bigger mess of my mess or destroy important papers, etc., I spent the time starting a project, leaving it out and moving on to the next one. The house got quite messy throughout each day.

- I have hermit tendencies. I rationalized this based on the 90+ degree temps, but without a 4yo or husband urging me to get out of the house and do something, I was quite happy to simply be home.

- I can't blame Abel for keeping me up too late. Abel and I are both night owls but our love of sleeping in ended abruptly with Lucas's birth. Now, with two young children, it is nearly impossible. Abel still likes to stay up quite late, but I try to be more realistic and get us to bed at a reasonable hour. I always blame him when we stay up too late! So, you'd think with him gone, I'd be in bed and asleep promptly at 10pm every night (my usual goal!). Wrong! I stayed up until around midnight almost every night.

- By the same token, I can't always blame Abel for not replacing the toilet paper when it runs out. Man was I annoyed with myself when I did that!

- Our house creaks and groans at night. It freaked me out a little. No wonder Lucas prays that God will get us a new house that doesn't creak. (True story!)

- As much as I savored the time to myself (and got a lot of stuff done that is hard to do with an active 4yo underfoot), 9 days without my big boys was Far. Too. Long. I am incredibly glad they had such a great time together but am even more glad to have them both back home.



Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Team WhyMommy's Virtual Science Fair

This post is in support of Susan Nieber, aka WhyMommy of Toddler Planet, a real live rocket scientist (okay, okay, technically an astrophysicist) who is undergoing surgery today after the doctors discovered a local regional recurrence of breast cancer in the lymph nodes under her armpit. Susan has been fighting inflammatory breast cancer and educating others about it since her diagnosis in 2007.

Also in her honor, and in honor of my mom who also battled breast cancer in 2007 I recently joined the Army of Women. I hope you'll click over and join today. We need more research. For Susan. For my mom. For all of us.

I am definitely not a scientist so taking on the challenge of being part of this Virtual Science Fair in honor of WhyMommy (as conceived by the amazing Stimey of Stimeyland!) was a bit out of my comfort zone. You see, if we were at home right now, Lucas, Nathaniel and I would have simply packed a picnic lunch, hopped in the car and spent a lovely afternoon at the NASA Goddard Visitor's Center.

But, alas, we are still in Pennsylvania for an extended Easter visit with my parents so I had to think a little bit harder about what to do. Lucas has been quite interested in volcanoes lately, and you know I just love anything to do with baking soda and vinegar, so I did a google search for "easy volcano with baking soda and vinegar." Among the things that came up were directions to make a rocket! A baking soda and vinegar rocket in honor of an astrophysicist? Perfect!

Of course the rocket was a big FAIL.

Why aren't you exploding high in the air little Ziploc container rocket?

(The directions were to pack a small container with a tight-fitting lid with baking soda, add a few tablespoons of vinegar, quickly close, turn upside down, stand back and watch it shoot up in the air. We packed and repacked and added more vinegar and still, there it sat. What? Went? Wrong?)

Lucky for me, I had prepped Lucas about how experiments are a way to try something and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't but it is fun to try and see what happens.

(Whew! Score one for Mama!)

Also to be filed in the lucky-for-me category, baking soda and vinegar produce a ton of foam which is really, really cool to a 4 year old.

So cool, in fact, that we used the entire bottle of white vinegar to watch the baking soda foam over and over and over and over and over again!

Also cool to a 4 year old: a paste of baking soda!

So, thanks WhyMommy for inspiring this mama to step outside her comfort zone and conduct a fun experiment with her son. We're thinking about you today!


Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Success!

I'm sure over the past four plus years and into the next 20 plus years, I've made and will make about a million parenting mistakes. But there's one success I claim with GREAT PRIDE.

Nathaniel, like Lucas before him, falls asleep On! His! Own!

Yes, my friends, when it is time for bed (at whatever hour I deem that to be...usually between 10pm and midnight), Abel or I change his diaper, wash his face, put on his jammies and sleep sack (yes, my little baby has already moved beyond the desire to be swaddled!). Then I feed him, burp him and put him down in his little bassinet. He lays there for a bit and falls asleep On! His! Own!

Sweet Success!



Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Flying Solo

Nathaniel turned one month old yesterday. One month! Poor second kid. I'm not even writing about that. I did draft a post about it--about him--in my head and even started actually writing it. But, this isn't that post because if I write that post today it will end up basically being about how I am totally exhausted today because the little bugger was awake and fussy--and yes, mom, I tried to let him fuss and cry for several minutes, several very long minutes, at a time before picking him up--from 3:30am until 5am last night. The night before my first day at home ALONE all day long with both boys. A fact that I basically had a panic attack about last night. I mean HELLO how in the world am I expected to be home alone with both boys? Home. Alone. Two. Boys.

Okay, okay, I knew this day was coming. Obviously we planned for and wanted to have a second child so I wanted this day to come. But that doesn't mean I still wasn't scared out of my shit about it being here. And, in my defense, I didn't expect it to come for several more weeks. Abel's work very generously has said he is welcome to work from home through the end of February. And, I assumed that when Abel did go back to work Lucas would be at school for a large portion of the day. But, for various reasons, Abel felt like he really needed to show his face at the office today--another snow day--and so I ended up Home. Alone. Two. Boys. two weeks earlier than expected.

But, it went okay. Maybe better than okay. Maybe well.

We watched a movie in our PJs, played Animal Scramble, made some homemade gummi candy, ate lunch from Lucas's lunchbox (he was SO EXCITED about this--clearly school has been out for waaay too long!). Then Lucas went for a nice long play date and Nathaniel was a fussy wussy the entire time. Meaning no nap for me. And so now I'm totally exhausted (well, I was totally exhausted at 10am and 3pm and 7pm, too) and I'm sitting here blogging waiting for the baby boy to wake up and eat again so we can all go to sleep. For a few hours, at least.

And tomorrow? Tomorrow I'm totally sleeping in. And then maybe Nathaniel will get the one month post he deserves.


Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!