STELLLLLAAAAAA

Congratulations Ed and Cindy, she is beautiful.

And, welcome to the world Estelle Jane!
We are so happy you are here.

17 months

Oh little big boy. How big you have become in one short month. You want so badly to do everything the big kids do. You want so badly to keep up. In fact, you do a pretty good job.

From walking to talking to eating to sleeping you let everyone know what you need or what you want, all with the shake of your head.

You love to dance. You love the cats. You love to walk. You love Sesame Street. You love the remote and the phone. You love your daddy. You love your shoes and your binki. You love hugs and blowing kisses. You love it all; well…you don’t love it when PJ swipes a toy out of your hand. And then, do we ever hear about it.

We LOVE you!
Mama

$290 million

What would you do if you won the Lottery this weekend?

Did you hear that?

There is nothing that makes me feel more proud than when we can sit in a restaurant and my kids can remain human. When they can sit nicely and color. When I can sit and chat with my friend. When they use their “inside voices” and then use please and thank you with their friends sitting next to them, when they would like the pink crayon. And today, was one of those days.

And then came the, “sssshhhh”. And then it came again, this time a touch louder, “SSSHHHHH”.

Clearly, the woman shrouded in black with her back turned to us, shushing us, has never been near a real child before. Let alone five children under the age of five all eating at the same time. Clearly, this insane woman did not realize that a miracle was actually taking place before her eyes, the miracle of children behaving in a restaurant.

To my kids and my kid’s friends…you made me proud.

And to you, shushing woman in black…if you ever give birth, may you be blessed with the loudest and most unruly children ever created. That should shush you up!

No…he’s not for sale

My husband always astounds me with his amazing talent for seeing five steps in front of most everybody else.

No really. In big and small things. For example, he started colleting antique fans about two years before Restoration Hardware started pawning them off.

And then, there’s this little device called a TiVo. He was one of the first people to have one. He actually won it by writing a song about the TiVo to the lyrics of “Whip It” by Devo.

And now, you can’t seem to turn the television on without some newscaster talking about the Avion Flu and how scary it is and that it isn’t a question of “if” but “when” and every time I hear about this virus I think…Adam has been talking about this for months and even blogged about it in May.

POP

Light match.

Sterilize needle.

Stick needle delicately into the base of the blister.

Oooooohhhhh. There is nothing more satisfying than draining the bloody-juicy-ooze out of ones very large blister.

Well, maybe there is…watching your kids watch you do it

Conundrum

Oh, what to write about today, on a Friday afternoon when PJ keeps coming in and out of her room asking for a cup of tea in her fairy costume. I know it sounds cute…but it’s not.

Hmmm. I could write about our trip to the gym this morning. When I was trying to get the three of them out of the daycare and PJ wanted so badly to finish her art project and after the few moments I had given her to finish-up she threw a hissy fit, flopped to the ground undulating like a fish out of water and crying that she was now too tired to put her shoes on, her coat on, and for that matter just too tired to move (with the exception of the convulsions). As the day-care workers looked on in horror, I picked her up off the floor and now with two kids in my arms we made strides to leave. Then, on our way out, she hawked a big loogie all over the door jam. And then… AND THEN, I sent her back in to clean it up.

Or, I could write about the book I am trying to read, Sibling’s Without Rivalry, How to help your children live together so you can live too. You know, simple stuff, like how to teach a three and five year old how to resolve conflict. I just wish someone could shoot this shit straight into my brain. By the time I am done reading this book my kids will be done beating each other senseless and onto some other parenting book subject that I can’t quite find the time to read all the way through.

Or, maybe I should write about the subject of dinner…our friends are coming over tonight and there ain’t much going on in the fridge. We’ve got ground turkey? Thoughts? Maybe if we drink enough wine, it just won’t matter.

I think I’ll just skip writing today. None of this sounds remotely interesting.

#2

Oh yeah, this one was easy. Once dad checked his teeth at bedtime and told him that one could go, CT thought about it for about 2 seconds and then started chanting, “GET THE GEL, GET THE GEL!”

What’s the gel you ask? Well, I had been to the dentist the night Adam pulled CT’s first tooth and I happened to have a conversation with the dentist about the tooth and how scared CT was about it being pulled out. He gave me two packets of Novocain gel. That night, Adam put on the gel and no pain, no problem, out came the tooth.

Last night, CT wanted the gel and Adam forgot where he put the other packet. So with out skipping a beat, Adam picked up a trial size tube of Crest, told the kids we had bought a whole tube of the gel since we will have a lot of teeth to pull and then put it on his tooth. CT said he felt it working and so they began the pulling process. CT gives it a try first and then Adam yanks it right out.

This morning PJ and CT were talking about the tooth, the tooth fairy and the pulling of teeth at the breakfast table. In the midst of the conversation PJ looks right at CT and says, “Yeah, I tink dat just tootpaste dad put on yous toot.”

I didn’t say a word.

I realized

right around mile 6, I had made the wrong choice in socks.

Snot nose

I have so much snot packed up in my head, I can’t even think straight. It’s like I am walking in a fog, or maybe that’s just the Sudafed.

When I bend down, my face throbs. When I look in the mirror, I can see that the bags under my eyes have even swelled with snot. I look like an exaggerated wood carving of an old woman who has worked her fingers to the bone in the sun and the snow and her face is filled with miles of puffy lines.

And, if that’s not enough…it’s always nice when you’re talking with someone in your daughter’s preschool class, who you don’t know very well, and snot just runs straight out your nose and onto your lip.