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.

No Apologies, There's No Time!

So I have about half a second, shit, it's over... to catch you up.

Had another baby, she totally kicks ass, and the other one's still cute and screaming.

Two observations thus far:
1. If you measure success by days until you shave your legs for the first time post baby, I'm f-ing Warren Buffet because it was day 6 people! Day 6! Like, there was absolutely no reason whatsoever to actually shave my legs but for the fact that if I did I could tell you I did it on day 6 post-partum! Bam. Tiger blood.

2. There is a limit to perfection. Witness: Today was the first day I've been able to nap, shower, do laundry, sort mail, pay bills, order groceries, and cook dinner all whilst 2 little angels are asleep. People, that's downright insane right there. It's taken me a month but it's finally happened. However, not before setting off both fire alarms TWICE. Nothing says wakey-wakey to a baby like ear piercing smoke alarms. Time to rise and shine! Hope you had a nice nap! Your mom's an idiot! L'chaim!

Just Don't Blame Me Later If They Don't Turn Out Like Mine

Several things on my to do list include:

Tell you about why I owe a certain pediatric dental hygenist 3 fingers and a fortune in medical bills...

Explain to you why my child will never recieve a formal education...

Get your opinion on why 1 minute I love my job and the next minute I would rather dismantle my limbs than spend 1 second at work...

But first! I have another Griffin tale of make-your-day goodness to share.

So, sorry about the tata shot but it's important for the story. See that necklace I may or may not have purchased for myself for my birthday as a little "to me, from me" gift? Yes? You do that too? Okay. So glad we're on the same page.

Anywho, I came upstairs this morning with it on and sat next to Grif at the breakfast table. He was engrossed in his morning coke habit - the Backyardigans, and barely noticed me. Finally, when he came up for air he looked at me, thought for a second and said, "Mama listen to me?" Which in translation means he thought my necklace was a stethoscope and he wanted me to listen to his heart and back. [Go ahead and die of cuteness now.]

So, not wanting to disappoint my little genius of medical knowledge, I grab my necklace, shove it into his shirt and pretend I'm listening. And I crap you not, he tilts his head to the side, smiles at me and says, "Boom-boom, boom-boom". People, the entire week of screaming unearthly banshee child is totally worth it for those few minutes in the morning. Go ahead and procreate with my blessing now. Your serious side totally needs it.

Hold On To Your Cowboys!

Updizzle: Apparently the reason I've been ten times sicker this pregnancy than with Grif is because we're having a GIRL! So that does not exactly bode well for her teen years, I fear. But the bambina is healthy and gorgeous and building her little bones and muscles just fine, which is amazing. She is kicking me right now for talking about her, so once again with the teen years...

Griffin has never been more hilarious and has added several phrases to his daily comedy stream such as, "Of course!" and "That would be great!" But only if you ask him if he'd like to watch another episode of Little Bear, or would he like some more milk and pretzels (the only things he eats now). I tried asking him if he'd like to move out into his own apartment where boys don't ever have to potty train and they can wear diapers until they're 60 and he did not say, "Of course!" It was worth a try. He also sings and makes up songs now. His favorite being the "Polar Bear" song. It goes like this, "Da. Dadada. Da. Polar bears are sleeping. Polar bears are sleeping" [pause for applause from all available audience members within earshot]. It is quite possibly the most beautiful thing I have ever witnessed in my life. Sometimes he ratchets up the showbusiness element with wide sweeping arm motions. (I think he definitely gets that from his daddy). And almost always he is up on some sort of a step, or "stage", or some random stranger's doorstoop.

Otherwise life is ticking along, work is cyclical, and the weather is awesome. We have a whole hellabuloo of traveling coming up, one trip of which is to visit my BFFTWD (till we die, obvi) in Dallas, TX, so if you need a new lasso or saddle, drop me a line before I go and tell me what size/color etc. I am so excited to see everything Dallas and especially to find out if "Everything's bigger in Texas" applies to my boobs because if so, we're all in for some inclement weather.