Boobyholder to the Rescue!

Gehcbcnucnooi wouchljwddouwfunvbcnojwd.  (!)

I had this mildly witty post from a week ago and my (insert bad verb) iPad deleted it.

So now I'm not witty, I'm not happy, and you are just what?  Witty-blogpost-less. We should go get a beer. Wait, it's 2:54, maybe a bit early...  Or is it?  

I can give you a picture instead. It's much more enjoyable than my lost post. 

Behold:

She's Superhero Summertime and she's here to rescue us all from Nasty Winterman.  I don't know about you, but I feel much safer now.

(Ps. She loves this bathing suit because it has a "boobyholder like Mommy's".  I love it because that sentence right there drives her father insane).  

Luck O' the Irish

Griffin: So, is St. Patrick one of the guys who brings stuff while we're sleeping?

Me: No, he's a Saint that teaches us how to be nice to people.

Griff: Oh!  Ok, I want to be a Saint.

Me:  Let's start with washing your hands after you use the restroom.  Then you can work on the Sainthood.

Library Time!

I have a confession, I mean I have plural but I'm not telling you all of them now (you know, like in the soaps when one day you come home early and your gardener is sleeping with your tennis instructor or somebody dead is alive again, or someone's all "Over my dead body!" [door slam])...  You know, like that.

I do this...  

I take the 3 year old to the library so I can e-communicate with the outside world.  That's me doing it, guilty.  And she totally loves it, double guilty.  Just don't tell her 15 year old self because that attitude is so bad, I can hear it 12 years into the future, as in right now.  Scary. 

More on that topic, is there some kind of karma law that confirms if I was a total a@@hole* as a teenager then my children will be as well?  Please God tell me no, because I was a rotter, an A++ rotter.  I'm a bit of an overachiever.   I once locked myself in my room for three days blasting Metallica as loud as my 1990 boom box would allow, why?  See earlier *.  And because I didn't make Varsity volleyball, oh the first world problems I've endured!  The horror.  

Okay, that was two things and I said I'd only admit to one so now it's your turn.  Fess up, you'll feel better.  

On flying south

 

Holy hell, look what the cat dragged in...  Me!  It's been a title, (f-ing autocorrect) titch, so I'll catch you up to speed.  I'm in Florida, for a "mommy-on-vaca", "daddy-and-kids-in-a-frozen-tundra", "mommy-guilt-spiral" weekend.  (Sorry to start things off with an exorbitant amount of punctuation, but I have to weed out the weak).  So, petitioning the wider Internet audience (Hi Ellen!) for backup, See?  If you let me go on more vacations, I'll write more!  We both win.  And China looses, more importantly.   

Status update: family in Ohio - yay.  

Griffin, now 5.5, in Pre-k: so thrilled, he loves it, kind of get a lot of "communication" from his teachers, all love though, read: I can't really say what I'm thinking, read: look for another anonymous blog on the horizon with possible dets.  He is super smart and though proud, I find myself daydreaming of the luxury of having a dumb kid who I may have a chance of outsmarting...

Camille, tomorrow 3.Years.Old, wow: easily the funniest person in our family/entire human race, capable of crumbling entire democracies with one word or flip of the double pony-tail.  Proficient in driving her older brother insane in seconds, mostly by employing the age old technique of ignoring the living shit out of him.  Can I just say that she is a MASTER at ignoring?  If ignoring was the single only weapon the earth had against its enemies, Camille would be the front line.  Completely solo.  I'm so not kidding.

Grant: frequent flyer debonnaire, did I just use that word correctly?  Most likely, not.  He makes being a dad look good, and all the while not breaking a sweat, which sometimes makes the conspiracy theorist in me check for computer wires while he's sleeping...  Kidding!  (?). He has the most good natured, level headed personality I have ever tried to destroy, er, I mean ever seen.  And he has the ability to make me hysterically laugh simply by shooting me a "are you totally f-ing serious right now" look.  One that he has mastered over the past 17 years, omg.  

Me: I am staying at home to orchestrate several futures, and once they fire me, I'll go back to work at the hospital, but for now, clean up time and constant bathroom repsponsibities are my forte of choice. I love being in O to the H, and thank God every day for my family here.  I miss dearly my NYC friends and habits but try to get back as much as I can to visit.  

Hunter:  gets his own update!  Yay!  Is happy to be home with us, eats all of the kids toys, mopes every time Grant leaves, seriously though?  Who feeds you, takes you to the vet, walks you, pets you, acknowledges your existence!  Me!  That's who!  But whatever, traitor.  

Hope to write more soon, but you know, broken promises don't look good on me.  

Have a great life!                      -Mr. Rossetti, St. Francis DeSales HS principle, 1999

We're On, We're Off, Who Cares?

Well, this is embarrassing.  How long has it been?  I can't even use the brain cells to find out but just know I've been thinking about you and that message you wrote on my dorm room dry erase board that night you were totally hammered...

So I broke my kneecap in a broadway theater last night.  Long story.  Actually, it's not.

I keep using weird sayings like, "geeked", these days.  Does that mean I'm old?

Another question about being old, at least 14 new social media websites have launched that I have no idea how to participate in.  That's totally normal and young-sounding right?

My new hobby is hashtagging my text messages but I refuse to Tweet.  #sodon'tevenask

The kids are awesome and make me laugh so much harder than any Friends episode ever did.  THERE I GO AGAIN!  Sounding old!  And now I'm YELLING!  Which is also OLD!

I just decided the theme of this post.  Oldness.

Let me see if I can find a pic...  I did!

Caption: We're at an Indoor Waterpark and it's so awesome we're sitting in our hotel room watching Dora!

Nutrition-ish

Do you know what I just said to my 3 year old?

"Eat your bacon and then carrots and you may have your sour candy".

Friends, do not judge. I am a creative type. I believe food pyramid means different things to different people and that is a-ok with me.

PS. If you saw his face when he ate the bacon, you'd realize it's totally awesome to be the one who gets to make these decisions...

Welcome back! My presence today is brought to you solely by MacBook Pro! I have been blogosphere-evacuated for the last oh, 12 months due to my previous PC and all if it's ridiculously cumbersome antics. But alas! Today is a new day around here and I am love-ing it.

What to catch you up on first... How about some pics?!

Camille's first birthday party in NYC: (notice the fur...)

It was a really fun day. Although at times I felt like we were running a marathon we were never going to finish. Ever. Never ever.

And other than that, and a lot of cold weather, not much else has happened around here lately. So I'll fill this space with some quotes from the quote board of which you must be informed:

1. Griffin: "I'm not putting my butt away until you listen to me!" (Curiously, an effective technique for accomplishing his goal...)

2. [Scene: the four of us driving around late one night over Christmas while Camille screamed her head off because she hates the car seat.] Griffin: "Camille says, 'It's not fair!' Mommy".

3. "Mommy, we can walk this path or nothing!" Also similar to, "Mommy, you can drink this water or nothing!" and "Daddy, would you like yogurt or nothing?"

Oh, that child. He keeps us on our toes for sure. I guess that's the price you pay for precociousness? Some stranger told me that one day. Must be true.

Larry, Curly, Moe, and Pokey

Right. Status update in numbers:
Griffin - 3 years old
- 2 weeks to school starting (OMG, what?!)
- 2-3 timeouts per day (down from 15-20 a few weeks ago)
Camille - 6 months old
- 2 thousand weeks until school starts because I am not going to let her grow up any more
- 2 vacations she has rocked so far (San Francisco and Marco Island)
Me - 0 days until my maternity leave is over because I'm RETIRED! Or on hiatus, whatever. There is no shame in sounding like a 68 year old insurance agent getting ready to move to Florida full time. I applaud those individuals. Actually, several times I've tried to move into retirement villages only to learn you have to be over 60 and collecting social security to live there... Thwarted again.
Grant - 30 hours he will be on his own this weekend with both kiddies. Mama's going on a bachelorette sleepover (Did I tell you the story of the last bachelorette party I went to in the Hamptons? No? In a nutshell, it was named "Mom's gone wild, 2009" and I was the only one there with kids... Whoopsidaisy).

1 funny story. Dave and Caitlin, our first and great friends here in the city, came over for dinner last night. Griffin has seen them dozens of times and they even stayed with him the 2 days I was in the hospital having Camille. But he's taken on this air of authority in all matters Camille lately so when they came in and said hello to him, he re-introduced them to Camille (whom they've met several times) and then proceeded to instruct them to "not poke her in the eye, because she's a baby". Which caused me to laugh in the first part because it was funny and in the second part because I have video evidence of the first several times Griffin held Camille and constantly tried to poke her in the eyes with his chubby little fingers, like the 4th Stooge or something. But just so you know, you aren't in the inner circle of people who can poke her in the eyes, that's reserved for family members only.

Red Light, Red Light, Red Light

My latest parenthood epiphany is called "Red light, Green light: My Life in the Passenger Seat of My Toddler's Car".
Friends, I love my children. (And you know it's going to be bad if I feel the need to say that up front). If you've ever experienced a 2 year old - going on 3 year old child up close and personal, away from the safety bars and moat pond, you will know what I'm talking about. For the rest of you, listen here and don't ever say no one told you it would be like this.

My life is a constant game of Red light, Green light. The actions I would like to do or accomplish on any given day are the ones that get Red lighted and the actions said 2.8 year old would like to do are unfailingly Green lighted. A.l.l. d.a.y. Every day. Now that you know the rules, let's see how you do on a test run...

Game score: 0-0. You are peacefully slumbering away in the dead of the night like all functioning and happy people should be when your opponent starts hollering from his bedroom that he would like some milk. A "big, tall milky. Huge like my hands" to be exact. Your sleep - red lighted, so you try to red light his request and return to sleep. Only in my house, this would only be achievable if you either moved out of the country or went instantaneously deaf so as not to hear the screaming, crying bedlam that is coming from his room now. You wearily get up to fetch the master his milk... Score: You - 0, Toddler - 1.

Next up, you struggle to collect a few more moments of sleep until he wakes up for the day when in fact, he wakes up for the day. Signaling you are now waking up, you try to book it to the bathroom before he melts down so as to relieve your already bursting bladder. Red Lighted. His bladder is also bursting and since you just got your crap together enough to potty train him 2 weeks ago, you must put your bladder on hold (getting dangerously close to buying your first box of Depends) and help him back and forth to his potty. Score: You - 0, Toddler - 2.

Don't even get me started about meal time. Score: You - 0, Toddler - 4,278. And you will never need to diet again because to diet you'd have to be able to eat.

Outdoor adventures. You use every piece of creative enterprising you have ever possessed to get him ready to go run some errands with you. You make it out to the sidewalk and instead of following you the 4.5 feet across the street to the dry cleaners, he's halfway to Brooklyn without even a glance in the rearview mirror. What? How does that happen? Dry cleaners, Red lighted. Grant will learn to build his own washing machine before he gets those shirts back... Playground, Green lighted. Score: You - still 0, Toddler - we gave up keeping track because it was depressing the scorekeepers.

Lately, our game has taken a pleasant turn, however. There is no longer a score, there is no winner and loser. Peace reigns for the time being. How, you may ask? Because I f-ing gave up. My ambitions have been taken over by a 2 year old. I now want nothing more than to throw toys and eat hot dogs. But hey! We're not arguing anymore! Success?!

On Hitting the Lottery a Second Time...

Camille is officially 5 weeks old today and time is speeding by so fast my cheeks are windburnt. Already her personality is shining through the poopy diapers and the 2am wake up calls. And let me tell you, she is freaking hilarious. She already has the, "Mom. You-are-not-one-bit-funny-so-quit-looking-like-an-idiot-to-try-to-make-me-laugh" look so down pat she can do it in her sleep. Which is sometimes necessary to utilize because even though her eyes are closed, I'm still unable to stop looking at her beautiful face all night. :) You'd think after 6 months of uncomfortable sleep while pregnant, and 5 weeks of constantly interrupted sleep for baby needs that I'd be sucking up as much sleep time as possible but, no. I lie there in bed at night, exhausted, but thinking about what her eyelashes look like on her cheeks when her eyes are closed or how her chest moves up and down as she breaths and I have to get up to watch these tiny miracles happening over and over again. I could never get enough of it.

To sum up the feeling: I've had not many, but a few moments in my life that have transcended earthly descriptions in there magnitude. One was after Griffin was born, and the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind for days, weeks, and months afterward was, "Now I understand how much God must love me". And Camille's moment is this: "It takes less than 1 second to memorize the features of a child you've been waiting your whole life to meet".

Though I cannot get enough of looking at her, after just a moment of seeing her face every color, eyelash, and feature is permanently in my mind, and I can't imagine not knowing her.

I love you, Camille.