Sugar detox

It's day four of implementing my one dessert per day rule, and I think I'm going through withdrawal. I have a wicked case of the munchies, and a piece of cheese just does not do for me what a piece of chocolate does. But I'm hanging in there. We have a wedding at the end of the summer and I'd like to lose some weight before then - so it's walks with the boys and sticking to the one dessert rule. So far, so good.

Of course, there was a double entendre with that title because my love for desserts is what has me in the wardrobe pickle I'm in - so that's my just desserts. And then, as we all know, I'd like to eat just desserts, so you see...it's a little play on words. Get it? Is this thing on? You guys are like my accountability group. Except I have no idea who reads this thing. What's a girl have to do to get a little comment love around here? Come on, now - don't be shy.

Okay, on to some pictures and a funny story. You deserve that much if you're still here because I'm feeling extra silly tonight.

Going to Aunt Tori's house was like Christmas around these parts, since she gave us some really great things that her kids have outgrown. We're experiencing the fun that is the Little People collection - so cute. Jack just loves them. And we also got something Patrick has been dying for: a bike trailer for the kids. Well, for now, it's just for the kid, but eventually, they'll both be in there. Patrick loves riding his bike for exercise, so we've been talking about getting one, but there's just no room in the budget right now. Then, lo and behold, we're walking around the zoo and Tori asks me if I know anyone who could use a bike trailer since her kids are too heavy for her to pull. Cue the choirs of angels, "AAAAHHHHHH!" Thankful, once again, for our minivan, we brought that baby home and it's been used every day since.

We literally laugh out loud every time we see Jack in his helmet. I guess this is not a good thing because it might make him too self conscious to want to wear his helmet, but when you see him in it, you'll understand:


See?

Ok, now on to the funny story. Do you see the small stuffed Dalmatian dog in there with the yellow vest that's "sitting" next to Jack? Here's the story of how he came to acquire that little gem.

Monday morning, Memorial Day, I was sitting in the living room talking to my sister on the phone. Patrick was going to take Jack somewhere - I forget where - in the minivan. He went outside, and about two minutes later, he came in and said "Eileen, I need help." Well, we all know he needs help (ba-dum bum), but I could tell this was serious, so I hung up with Devon. "I just locked the keys in the van, and Jack's buckled in there," says he. Ok, not to worry - I'll call the police. I didn't want to call 911 because this wasn't really an emergency, it wasn't like we were in Arizona with 110 degree temperatures or anything. So I called 411 and asked for the non-emergency number for the local police station. When I got the dispatcher, I told her what happened and where we live. "How old is your son?" she asked. 18 months. "And is he in any immediate danger?" Not at all. She says she'll send someone out. I leave it in Patrick's capable hands and come inside to nurse PJ. Well, about 4 minutes later, I hear them - the trucks, plural, that pull up outside - and I know that there are probably 10 service people outside our home all working to get my son out of the car. Did I mention the non-emergency, no immediate danger thing? Well, if I weren't nursing PJ, I'd have been out there with my camera, but it turns out there was a fire truck, an ambulance, a police car, and three other volunteers who came in their own cars, blue lights a-flashing. Shocked and slightly embarrassed (at the sight of Larry in a towel...Veggie Tales?....anyone?) at the number of people who showed up, Patrick was out there assuring all the neighbors, who were now coming outside to see what was going on, that everything was just fine. After they got Jack - who thought all this hubbub on his behalf was quite amusing and who was thrilled beyond belief to see a firetruck - out of the van safely, one of the firemen went to the truck to retrieve that cute little stuffed dog and give it to Jack.

The end.

I'm hurting for a segue here, but can't come up with one. Firetruck, hose. Hose, water. Water, bath. There it is! PJ had his first big boy bath this week. He doesn't get bathed quite as often as he maybe should, and I've been doing the sponge bath thing with him until now, trying to put off the screaming as long as possible (Jack hated the bath at this age). I was pleasantly surprised, though, to see his reaction...

Not sure what to make of it here.

I had him in there with Jack, who was sharing his bath toys, so that may have helped.


And then....enough. Jack's like "Uh, Mom - could you do something about this?"

I'm sure that was the first of many shared baths to come. It's always more fun to play bathketball when someone's blocking the net, right?

And this just in...dare I make this post longer? While I was typing this, Jack walked up to me, holding his crotch, and said, in Jackspeak, "Help, Mom," which really sounds like "Ha, Mum." I asked, "You need help? Do you want to go tinkles on the potty?" (Just yesterday I brought the potty, which I had put away a few months ago, out again and thought we might try sitting on it a few times this week.) "Uh-huh," he said, running over to his little potty. Patrick went over, took his diaper off (Jack's, not Patrick's), and he sat down and tinkled! Holy cow!! Granted, none of the tinkle actually ended up in the potty, since that guard in the front is just a little too small, but still! We just cleaned up the carpet and went crazy clapping and dancing around. Yay, Jack!

Sidewalk Chalkin'

I just introduced Jack to sidewalk chalk yesterday. It was love at first sight.

"Uh oh, Mama." A piece broke. Okay, six pieces broke, but that's fine. Chalk's cheap.
He's bringing me a bug he found, but it looks like he's telling me something in an Italian accent. "I'ma gonna make-a da pizza!"

Is this fun, Jack? "Hnnn."

This little video perfectly captures, in just under sixty seconds, what a typical day with Jack is like. He's just the sweetest kid!

Just Desserts

I would be perfectly happy if my diet were just desserts. I think I have a sugar problem.

That being the case, I made a new rule for myself: only one dessert per day. You'd think being 34 years old, I might already know this rule, but I don't. I had to make it "official." I did this by declaring it aloud to Patrick after a day in which I ate the following in addition to my regular three squares: a brownie, a piece of pie, two Tastykake butterscotch krimpets, some Sunkist fruit gems candies, and a handful of jellybeans. Is that wrong? Um, my wardrobe suggests YES! So it's down to just one dessert per day, and yesterday was my first day of implementing that new rule. I should be able to get through a day with no desserts, I guess, but...well...that would be absurd.

So let's talk about the wardrobe issues of a woman of childbearing age, shall we? Namely, what clothes should be in my drawers and closet right now? It's just a simple question that I don't know how to answer.

My sons are 18 months and 6 weeks old, which means I've been pregnant for 20 of the last 30 months. Pre-pregnancy with Jack, I was far from svelte, but I weighed about 30 pounds less than I do right now. So my clothes from before he was born do not fit right now. I gained about 40 pounds with his pregnancy, and after he was born, I bought a few new things that were in a bigger size. I got pregnant with PJ at a high weight - truth be told, I was almost back up to my delivery weight with Jack. (Sleep deprivation makes your metabolism run in reverse.) As a result, I tried to be careful about my weight gain with PJ's pregnancy, and ended up only gaining NINE pounds (yay me!). Don't worry, I still weighed more than my 6'6" husband, so I was hardly wasting away or putting the baby in danger. The baby and I could have lived off my thighs for another year. So the clothes I bought after Jack was born are actually a little too big for me right now.

This is my predicament.

I wore maternity jeans to take the boys to the park today and once they stretched a little from their just-out-of-the-dryer fit, I literally had to hold on to them to keep them from ending up around my ankles. (As an aside, if they made elastic waist jeans in normal, non-maternity sizes, I'd seriously have a closetful of them. They're just that comfortable, and no Dunlaps disease - you know, where your stomach dunlaps over the top of your pants? So if anyone decides to start this particular line of clothing, I'll be your number one customer!)

In my drawers right now, I still have my maternity clothes, and I'm supplementing with some non-maternity capri-length sweatpants that are on the top of my dresser. If I do the rubberband trick, I can get away with a pair of non-maternity jeans with a slight case of Dunlaps, but I'm not really comfortable doing this. My closet is full of maternity clothes and pre-Jack clothes, none of which really fit right. Oh, add that while I'm breastfeeding, there simply are NO button down shirts that will fit correctly over the "ladies" without bulging at the middle.

The wardrobe organization rule of thumb is that if you haven't worn something in the last year, you should get rid of it. But this just doesn't hold true for people who have been pregnant in that year! There is just no organizational system that will work, and I'm living out of my drawers, Rubbermaid bins, plastic bags, and piles of clothes that are just taking over my room!

Somebody help me!

Oh, I guess the dessert rule might help too, huh?

Seriously, though - how do I make this work?

Announcing...

I wanted to wait until our birth announcements went out and people got them in the mail before posting it on here. Now that I've heard from my friend in Scotland who helped me make this one, I'm pretty sure everyone's gotten theirs by now.

So here it is:

I just love it and think she did such an amazing job. Props to Sophie for all the design work. Cheers, Sophie!

And just for the sake of reminiscing a little, this was Jack's announcement.

I still can't believe I have two children. Heck, I still can't believe I have a boyfriend (I didn't date much). Ours was a whirlwind romance, and I haven't even known Patrick four years yet, so I think "whirlwind" might even be an understatement.

Having a few pictures on here that I took on our honeymoon in Spain (my profile pic and the new header) makes me remember what an amazing blur it all was. Maybe I'll tell the tale in an upcoming post...

Serenity now

Was that from Seinfeld or The King of Queens? I know it was Jerry Stiller saying it - either as Frank Costanza or as Arthur Spooner - but I can't remember which. Either way, I chanted it to myself several times this weekend.

Thursday evening, we drove down to Virginia to visit my best friend, Tori, and her two sweet children. She and I were roommates in college and lived together for a while afterwards too, until she got married. Driving four hours in the car with both boys was tough. PJ does not love the carseat, and gets his ear-splitting wail on sometimes. And just at the time when we've all had enough, Jack starts crying too - he can't take it either. Serenity now. Patrick and I would just look at each other and start laughing because there was nothing else we could do.

Anyway, Tori lives near Washington, DC and we went into the city Friday morning for the ordination ceremony of one of Patrick's friends. It was a beautiful ceremony. I forgot my camera, but that's ok (serenity now), because I spent most of the time out in the lobby shushing one or both of the boys who were taking turns crying or fussing, so I wouldn't have been able to take pictures anyway.

Saturday morning, we all went to the National Zoo. Jack and PJ looked so cute that I thought I'd take a picture of the two of them together. Here's how that went:

Ok, boys....look at Mommy. Ready...Set...Jack, don't do that. Sit next to your brother!


Ok then, here - Jack you sit in the corner and just let PJ lean on you. Hey! Don't pull away - you're making him fall down.

Come on, Jack - stop that! He's not hurting you - he can touch your arm! (PJ's reminding me, "Serenity now, Mom")

Ok, that's fine. Now look at Mommy. Jack, look at Mommy! PJ? PEEEjaaaaay? Hey, look at Mommy. Boys, look! Look over here. Hey - what's Mommy doing? Hey, look! Yoohoo? Look at Mommy! Oh forget it.

I had such a great time hanging out with my friend. I don't get to see her too often because life just gets busy, but she's the kind of friend that you can just pick up with where you left off - even if it was months ago - and not skip a beat. She's having a hard time in her personal life right now, and I was so grateful that she was able to take the time to visit with us. She's the best kind of hostess because she makes me feel immediately at home, and our kids played together so well.

Jack really had fun with the cat, O'Malley. His cat sound has evolved over time. It now sounds like "Mow-mow" - not mow like mow your lawn, but mow, rhymes with cow. Oh, here - you can hear it for yourself.



And we did have some moments of serenity. Tori captured a few of them for me.

I can't believe my baby is six weeks old now. Where does the time go?

You know, I'm not a big country music fan, but Patrick is and sometimes we listen to it in the car. I got to know Trace Adkins through this season's Celebrity Apprentice. (Did you watch that? It was my first time watching any Apprentice shows, and I was SOOO addicted!) Anyway, Trace was one of the final two in the competition, and he was just such an upstanding, soft-spoken, all-around good guy that I really came to admire him. One day, I was driving in the car with Jack and a song came on the radio - the country station - and I instantly recognized his voice. As I listened to the lyrics of the song, I just started bawling. It's called "You're Gonna Miss This." Here's a verse:

There's a plumber
Working on the water heater
Dogs barking, phones ringing
One kid's crying, one kid's screaming
She keeps apologizing
He says "They don't bother me.
I've got two babies of my own.
One's 36, one's 23.
It's hard to believe..."
But
You're going to miss this
You're going to want this back
You're going to wish these days
Hadn't gone by so fast
These are some good times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you're going to miss this

It's so true.

Even in the midst of my Serenity Now moments - both kids crying in the car, up several times at night, attempting to get two babies and myself dressed to go out somewhere, Jack barging in on me in the bathroom saying "Mama? Mama? Mama? Mama?" a million times - I like to take a moment to recognize that soon they'll be able to dress themselves. I won't be able to just pick them up and cuddle them. They'll have upsets that are bigger than the fact that Blue's Clues is over or they can't find their blankies, and I won't always be able to make the tears stop.

I have to say, I am looking forward to being able to poo in peace, but for now, I'll take the crying because some day soon, I'm probably going to miss it!

A busy weekend

I'm a little bummed.

This weekend was PJ's baptism, and I just wasn't very good about taking pictures of everything. It was a bit of a whirlwind, as Patrick's family was in from out of town and here for about 24 hours total. They arrived Saturday afternoon, and we all went to Strasburg Railroad to see the steam engines. Jack and his cousin, RJ, are both into Thomas the Tank Engine, so they had a great time. They got to ride on a miniature train with their daddies.

I, of course, did not bring my camera to this outing, so there are no pictures to show you. (I didn't get off to a good start.) I'm a perfectionist extraordinaire - remember the sand in the water? - so this kind of thing really burns me up. I work hard and lose sleep trying to make sure that everything goes just right, and then when something happens like forgetting my camera - or I forget to even have us take one nice posed picture at the baptism - I seriously could cry. In fact, I usually do. I've spent most of my life calling this character trait "detail oriented" and pretending it's an asset, but I think in reality, it's more along the lines of "anal retentive" and is really a flaw. I'm learning something about myself that is not pleasant, and maybe God is trying to change me. Heck, He gave me two boys - there's just no way everything will go as perfectly as I plan when I have two energetic boys around. I think I need to learn how to be more flexible and go with the flow. I really would enjoy things like this so much more if I were less preoccupied with getting all the details right. It's not really "right" - it's only the way I want them. Anyway, enough armchair psychiatry.


When we came home from the railroad, Patrick made Chicago-style hotdogs for dinner, since his family is originally from Chicago. He ordered the dogs, the buns, and all the fixin's online in a kit from the Vienna beef website. Now, if you've never had a Chicago hotdog, buckle your seatbelt. The picture is almost disturbing.

See? I told you.

I'm a traditionalist. I had a hard enough time adjusting to the way New Englanders slice their hotdog buns (they cut it down the top - it's all wrong). But a Chicagoan? What the heck are they doing to that poor hotdog? First off, it's on a poppyseed bun. Poppyseed, people! Then, it's got yellow mustard, a kelly green sweet pickle relish, and onions (so far, I'm okay with the toppings, but here's where things just get weird), a dill pickle spear, two little "sport" peppers, two tomato wedges, and to top it all off, celery salt. What the WHAT?? Well, let's just say I stuck with the appetizers and crudite that night for dinner, but it put Patrick in his happy place, and I was so excited for him to be able to eat his favorite hotdogs.

PJ got to meet his Meme (pronounced mem-AY, but I can't figure out how to do a daggone accent aigu on this laptop). This is Patrick's Mom. He also met his Auntie Katie, Uncle Rob, Auntie Alyson, and cousins RJ and Sophie. I'm hoping some of this bunch will send me some pictures to post.

Anyway, here is Meme with PJ. The babies are always fascinated by her since she sings them fun songs.

The next morning was the baptism. PJ wore the same gown Jack did. This was originally my Dad's, and was also mine. Here are a few pictures of him in the gown that I took before we left for church, but unfortunately they're the only ones I have on my camera since I forgot to give it to someone during the ceremony.

We had a lovely party after church, which so many people helped me do. It really was just such a nice weekend.

In preparation for our guests, I planted some flowers outside and I think I found Jack's new favorite thing to do.

Every morning now, we fill up his little watering can and bring it outside so he can water the flowers for me. He doesn't even seem to notice the soggy socks!

Patrick took this picture Monday morning. I think you can tell that I've lost a little sleep in preparation for the weekend (and my arm looks a little like Carrie Heffernan's in the painting that Deacon and Kelly gave her and Doug), but really this is what it's all about. I'm hoping I can learn how to reel myself in and keep my focus where it should be - on enjoying the precious gift that is my family.

Outdoorsy

Just some pictures of my little man playing outside today.

Think he's having fun? This face says it all.

I call that last one "Contemplation".
Flowers, leaves, grass and sticks are pretty much just as fun as that slide, so he's always got to pick some of those when he's outside.

Now, on to the truck!

To get the inflection on this last one just right, you have to ask, "Buh BAH?"

Bye bye, Jack!

Family portraits

What a wonderful Mother's Day this one was!

Last year, I spent the holiday - and the six months prior to it - feeling like a total failure as a mother. A colicky baby, six months of sleep deprivation and a mean case of post partum depression takes a toll on a new mommy, you know? It was absolutely brutal. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Tom Cruise!

This time though, what a difference! I have two wonderful children and I have so much more confidence in myself as a mother. God is good!

We spent the day at my brother's house, where he, my dad, and Patrick made dinner for the ladies. It was wonderful! Any night where I don't have to think of what to make for dinner is a good night, actually.

Jack wore this adorable outfit that was somewhere between Preppy McPrepster and Gangsta rapper. What do we call that? Andre 3000? I don't know...all I do know is that Tupac's mom is the one who designed those Makaveli pants. What the what? Can you even stand it? I mean, really...


PJ is just getting cuter by the minute. Almost literally.

Jack is such a nice big brother! I love this picture of him showing PJ his book.

And here's his handsome cousin Bradley loving him up

So while we were there, camera in hand, we decided to take some family portraits because how can you do those well and all be in the picture, right? Here is my Mom and Dad (aka Nana and Pop Pop) with all their grandchildren. I won't tell you what my brother was doing to make them laugh like that.


This is my brother, Matt, with his beautiful family...

And here's the first picture of our little family since the addition of PJ...

Being a mommy is hard work, but it's so wonderful! I hope you all had a happy Mother's Day too!

All grown up!

First the minivan, now this.

We got new furniture! Aside from our bedroom furniture, Patrick and I have almost all hand-me-down things or things that we had when we were single. Well, we now have brand new seating in the living room and we both feel like grown ups. Here are a few pics

Check out the leather ottoman! It opens for storage and is probably big enough that I could hide in there myself during our weekly games of hide-and-seek. Oops! This is the grown up post!

I'm not crazy about the pillows it came with, but they'll do for now. Jack's toys are now all in the bin under the Breakfast at Tiffany's print and not spread all over the place. I just love coming down in the morning and seeing this room. And there's PJ in his swing, working hard.

I got a little crazy with the colors on here...thought I'd mix things up a bit and keep you on your toes. What do you think?

Anyway, here's another new purchase we made recently that has also made my life a little easier...a sand and water table for Jack, my outdoor-loving boy!

If you know me, you probably know that the fact that sand is in the water is bugging the heck out of me, but Jack tossed it in by the fistful almost immediately. Oh well - I have two boys now. I need to get over this kind of thing!

The best part is that I can actually make dinner while he's playing at the table - at least until the novelty wears off. Here's my view from the kitchen...a perfect shot!

That's all for today, folks. We'll see you later...hopefully not from this particular angle!