The Dinosaur Sleepover

The boys like to type on our computer, and I'll often open a Word document for them to make letters and see what they're writing. Jack sees Patrick and I typing rather quickly (ahem) and so he is frequently pretending that he is typing quickly too and will start talking while he's typing.

One day, he said he was writing a story, so I asked him if he would like me to type it for him. He said he would, so this is his story - The Dinosaur Sleepover.

Once upon a time there was a baby dinosaur, a pteranodon named Rex.

His mommy thought she would keep him forever and ever, but she was wrong. (!?)

One day a big brachiosaurus came to visit and was nice. His name was Rex too.

They played a game of hide and seek together.

Then they had a snack. The pteranodon had fish and the brachiosaurus was an herbivore so he ate a leaf pizza.

The brachiosaurus came to visit for a sleepover. The sun went down quick like on Dinosaur Train and the two dinosaurs went to bed. The pteranodon slept in a nest and his mother made a special leaf bed for the brachiosaurus. It was big.

They had a good sleep and they just had good dreams, not bad dreams.

The next morning, they ate breakfast. Then they finished playing their game of hide and seek.

The brachiosaurus’s mother said it was okay for him to sleep overnight again!

The sun went down quick again and the dinosaurs went to sleep.

I loved hearing his thoughts and listening to him come up with the story with very few promptings of, "and then what happened?"

He and PJ have just started to become so imaginative in their play together. It's a joy to listen to!

I missed it!

Well, yesterday was my one year blogiversary ... and I missed it.

Nausea and fatigue have settled in like unwanted house guests and the new focus of my days has been trying to stave them off.

It's a good sign, I know, and I'm glad I decided to enjoy the nausea-free weeks of early pregnancy instead of worrying that something was wrong, like I did with the first two. Unfortunately, though, if I thought it was hard keeping up with Jack when I felt nauseous with PJ, keeping up with both of them is even harder. I have no tolerance for two-year-old tantrums - even when they're as few and far between as Jack's are. I'm ready for bed by 7 p.m.

We had a relatively low-key holiday season, which was perfect. Family came here on Christmas day, and then Patrick had the whole week off between Christmas and New Year's day. We did next to nothing, which I know bummed him out a little bit (his to-do list was posted on our blackboard weeks before vacation started and I think he got...let me see...NONE of the things on it done). But I know he was going fast and furious to meet his year end deadlines for work and he really needed the down time. We vegged out, we spent way too much time online, and we played with our boys. It was just perfect.

Oh, we also moved Jack into a toddler bed! He's so tall that he's been easily able to swing one leg up and over the side of his crib for a while now, and we wanted to avoid the eventual fall. My brother and sister-in-law gave us a toddler bed that their little ones had grown out of and we painted it black to match the furniture in Jack's room. Eventually, Jack, his toddler bed, and his furniture will be moved into PJ's room, the boys will share a room, and Jack's room will become the nursery.

Jack is very excited about this, and PJ, who adores his big brother, is going to be thrilled, I'm sure. I just hope they will actually sleep in there together.

We could never have known, when we moved into this house in August of 2006, that just three years later the bedrooms would be filled with three little children! It's unreal.

And finally, just to continue the whole lack-of-rhyme-or-reason theme of this post, following is a conversation that just took place:

Me: Jack, I think you're cute.

Jack: No, my not cute.

Me: Yes you are cute!

Jack: No, no my not cute.

Me: Okay, then I think Daddy's cute.

Jack: No, Daddy not cute. My cute.

Me: You're cute?

Jack: Yeah. Mommy cute and my cute.

Go vote!

It's so important! I'm trading babysitting duties with a neighbor so that we can each get to the polls sans toddlers.

Jack had his first public temper tantrum yesterday, and I have to say, it caught me a little off guard.

I thought it might be nice to take the boys to Barnes and Noble to play with the Thomas train table that they have set up in their children's area. A good time was had by all until we got close to PJ's nap time and he started getting fussy.

"Come on Jack, it's time to go now," said I.

Four times.

The last time, I took him by the hand and said, "It's okay we can come back another day. Say bye-bye, choo-choos."

Well, you'd think I'd just said, "Come on, kid, I'm marching you home where I'm going to strap you down and stick bamboo shoots under your nails." The screaming that ensued was literally that dramatic.

Then there was the throwing himself down on the floor so that I couldn't hold his hand and carry PJ's carseat at the same time.

Unfortunately, the child play area is in the back of the store, so we went all through the store with him screaming bloody murder and me struggling to keep him on his feet and walking so we could get out.

To anyone who was in the Barnes and Noble near our house yesterday morning hoping for a quiet time browsing self-help materials or travel guides, I apologize.

We proceeded to get as far as the little vestibule between the two sets of doors in the front of the store, where I put PJ's carseat down, picked up Jack and, pointing my finger at his mouth, said "You stop that!"

He promptly grabbed my finger and bit it. Hard.

I seriously almost laughed, it was so out of character for him. I wasn't sure how to discipline him, knowing that he's working on some painful molars, having a hard time adjusting to the time change, and is usually a really easy-going kid who's very obedient. I figured a time out when we got home would be too far removed from the situation for him to associate it with what he'd done in the store. We just got to the car and he got an earful from Mommy.

I thought I had two more weeks until the Terrible Twos reared its ugly head, but I guess this may be a sign of things to come. I need to work on a strategy so that I'm better prepared next time.

Finally, I recognize that my Story of Us dragged on, potentially ad nauseum, and it was a little anticlimactic at the end there, since Patrick is out of town and I was a little rushed in writing. Thanks for hanging in there with me. You guys are the best! I think part three was my favorite. I saved a whole bunch of those email gems as fodder in case I decide to write a book about it. I'll throw a few others out there when you least expect it for a good chuckle.

Now, please be sure to get out to your local polling place today, and if you happen to pass a Starbuck's on your ride home, stop in, tell them you voted, and get yourself a free cup of joe!

Happy Election Day!

The Story of Us - Part Three

I figure I'd better get this story moving along. November 5th is just around the corner.

The day I turned 30, I cried from the time I woke up to the time I fell asleep. This may be ok if you work in a cubicle, but it's not such a great thing when you're a teacher. I'd be able to pull myself together for most of the teaching time, but if the students were working on an activity, I was stifling sniffles and wiping away tears.

It wasn't really the turning 30 part, but rather, the idea that I'd hoped to be married by then. For whatever reason, I'd always had it in my head that 28 was the ideal marrying age. When 28 came and went, I thought, well maybe if I'm married by 30...(then what? My life would have purpose? I'd be validated as a person? Everything would be okay?) I never knew how that sentence was supposed to end, but here I was at 30, and I had hardly even dated, let alone had any serious relationships.

It was around this time that I'd decided to start giving Internet dating a try.

But Internet dating, I found, is a very bizarre way to date.

People can, and do, put up a good facade online.

Or they don't and you're left wondering why, if someone only has a little blurb in which to convince a member of the opposite sex that they're worth getting to know better, they didn't try a little harder.

Here are some actual samples from the profiles of people who contacted me.

Describing himself and who he'd like to meet, this one said:

A girl that likes go away at spermont on the weekends or go long rides or walks. Would like meet a women that likes joke. Likes scary movies and a women likes sex. A women that can open up to me.Im very normal guy wonts same as all other guys.I love to maintonbike and play sports.I dont like games of any cond.I like to cook.Looking into buy a house.I like play at the park play frezby or thorl ball around or rollerblade.

His headline said "Don't Pass Me Up!" Really? Watch me.

I mentioned that I taught biology, physics and French, and one guy emailed me with the subject line "Newton was right..." The message:

Hi, Well for every reaction there is definitly an equal and opposite reaction, nes pas?
I enjoyed your profile.....Tell me more?

Totally corny.

Another guy described himself in this way:

I am a responsible,down to earth guy....intelligent,honest,caring,loving,generous,goal oriented,adventurous, a Leo,romantic,fun, occasional drinker,healthy mentally,physically,and dentally! (LOL!),opinionated,an excellant lover,with a great sense of humor,and own my own vehicle.

To which I thought, Dude, you're 42. You have to say you have a car? (And you can't spell "excellent"?)

Perhaps I was a bit too critical, but there were many others like this, and it just made me wonder why, at a minimum, someone didn't just take the 30 extra seconds required to do a spell check.

There were others, of course, that were much more interesting. A few times, I'd exchange a lot of emails with people and maybe some (or several) phone calls before meeting them in person. This was usually a recipe for disaster, as we each tended to romanticize what the person was actually going to be like and inevitably, we'd fail to live up to each other's expectations.

Frustrated with the whole process, and feeling relatively stagnant in life in general, I decided it was time for a change. I needed to shake things up a little bit.

I decided to move to Boston.

Testing 1...2...3

Trying to learn hatemail HTML.

YAY! Thank you, Dave Brown!

THAT Mom

Am I turning into that Mom? The one that whips out the accordion-folded string of wallet photos when you haven't seen her in a little while, and gives you all of her children's updates, including every last up-to-the-minute detail ad nauseum when a simple "We're doing well, thanks" would have sufficed as an answer to your "How's your family?"

Well, I've come to realize that my family is pretty all-consuming right now. Patrick and I are both working hard (and sleeping little), Jack is developing his vocabulary by leaps and bounds (and mastering the art of the temper tantrum), and PJ is getting bigger every day (despite my efforts to keep him little forever). I am absolutely, 100% in love with my family, and even though sometimes (sometimes?) this is the hardest job on the planet, I wouldn't trade it for the world.

That said, it's my blog and I'll do what I want.

Just kidding - love ya, mean it - but I guess that even though I'd like to blog about a lot of things, the majority of the time, it's about the fam. It's that blog, and I'm that Mom...and while I'd love to be spending my free time (free time?) writing that novel I've always wanted to write, I'm actually doing laundry, checking out Facebook, or resting myself.

So this blog will continue to be about the things I love, and right now, I don't have too much time to love anything other than my family.

Did you guys need that disclaimer?

Probably not.

But I think I needed to work that out for myself. Thanks for bearing with me.

Now, on to the aforementioned cute videos.

I've decided not to post them all at once (who wants to spend five minutes of their life watching some other person's kid?) so I'm going to dole them out one at a time.

Here's the first one, from a trip to the local petting zoo. The donkey decided the donation box was just the right height for scratching that itch on his head...

...and Jack decided he needed to check it out for himself.

Yup - that hit the spot.

Telling stories

First of all, I have to apologize for yet another post without pictures. My power cord is still not back, and of course all the photo uploading software is on my laptop.

(Or is it downloading? Am I downloading them from my camera onto the computer, or uploading them? I'm never sure which one of those to use. Just when I thought I was all computer savvy having a blog - Hey, check me out! I blog! - I go and show my complete lack of understanding with a comment like that. And don't even get me started on HTML. Not only do I have no idea how to use it aside from occasionally putting the word "center" along with some greater than/less than signs in front of something I want centered, I have no idea what it stands for, and when I see it, I say "hate mail" in my head.)

Anyway, sometime relatively soon, you'll get a big ol' post chock full of photos. I promise.

So in the northeast, the weather the past few days has been absolutely gorgeous! Clear, cooler, low humidity...it's a little reminder to me that the summer is almost over and fall is close on its heels. I couldn't be happier. I adore the fall. In fact, if forced at gunpoint to rank the four seasons in order of how much I like them, I'd say fall, winter, spring, summer. That's right - summer would come dead last.

Why, you ask? Well, for the simple reason that it's too dang hot. In the winter, one can always put on another sweater and eventually get comfortable. In the summer, it's always uncomfortable, even with nothing on. Not that I go outside with nothing on, but I'm just saying - even if I did, I'd still be hot. There's just no relief, and I'm so thankful for air conditioning.

As an aside, do you remember that awful heat wave that hit Europe a few years back? Most Americans don't - we didn't hear too much about it in our news, despite the fact that in France alone, the death toll was around 11,000! That's right - eleven THOUSAND! I took a trip to the Netherlands that summer and brought some newspapers back to show to my French class, and was shocked that my students knew nothing about it. I asked them to guess how many people died - they didn't even come close and didn't believe me when I finally told them.

This post is taking on a life of its own.

I had three reasons for entitling it "Telling stories" and now, to get into all three seems like it would just make it entirely too long. But I'll keep going - I'm trying to put off folding a load of laundry that's been sitting in the dryer since yesterday. Maybe I'll just hit "fluff" first and come back to finish. Why don't you do the same and I'll meet you back here in a minute?

Okay, so first of all - Jack is telling stories right now. Three or four word stories, and I am just loving it! He's gotten so verbal lately and loves to repeat everything. He has just started telling me that a cow is a cow and not a "Moo." It's like he'd been hearing the words cow and sheep and they were in there all along and only just finally came out...which makes me want to be extra careful about other words he might hear all along and which might eventually come out.

Anyway, a few of his favorites to tell right now go like this:

There's the one about his orange balloon that popped - you remember that one, right? It goes "Pop...boon...or (sounds like "are" for "orange")...Nana." Translation: the orange balloon popped but Nana got me a new one.

Then there's the one about going to Strasburg Railroad with Patrick that goes "Back choo-choo...Dada...woo-WOO!...wau (sounds like the first syllable of "water")...shhhhh!" Translation: I saw a black choo-choo with Dada and the whistle said woo-WOO and they put water in it and then it made a noise like SHHHH!

I just can't get enough of these little stories, which is good because he likes to tell them about 10 times per day. He goes through his entire repertoire. There are about five all together. It's my new favorite thing.

The second story telling thing I wanted to talk about is the two (TWO!) books I've read since we've been sans television. I'm loving it! Both were murder mysteries, and I thought I'd give a little review of each.

The first, St. Patrick's Day Murder, was the one I likened to an episode of Murder, She Wrote. If you liked that show, back when the things that seem way too big now - like glasses and hair - didn't seem way too big, then you'll like this book. The characters are likable, the heroine is charming. It was a perfect fluffy summer read.

The second, Vita Nuova, was a little more somber and I liked it a lot less. It was nothing like Dante's La Vita Nuova, in case you're wondering, and I wasn't particularly fond of the author's writing style. Plus, there were so many typos that it was almost painful. In this day and age, I don't understand how books get published with typos in them. With spell checkers and grammar checkers, it seems like there should be something that would catch the mistakes. Anyway, I'd give this one a two out of five star rating. Maybe even one.

Lastly, I'm no stranger to story telling myself, and although my first attempt was foiled by a computer meltdown, I did start to write a novel about my adventures in Internet dating. I think I am going to start writing it again. I was able to salvage a few segments of the eleven chapters I'd written, so maybe I'll post a few on here to get your feedback. Even though I didn't know it at the time I started writing, it ended up being the beginning of the story of how I met Patrick. Now that the story has an ending, I think it might be fun to put the whole thing together.

If you made it this far, you're a loyal reader and I'm grateful. If this were a diary entry, my hand would be cramping by now. I'm signing off.

Have a great week!

Simple Chronic Halitosis

Do you remember that commercial?

What was it for? Listerine? I can't remember, but all I do remember is realizing for the first time that there were special names for things like bad breath, and wondering why that was.

Why does bad breath need its own special name?

Since then, I had a trauma nurse as a roommate, and I learned all kinds of special names for things. Like those parentheses-shaped lines that go from your nose to the corners of your mouth? They're called nasolabial folds. Fortunately, I don't have nasolabial folds...yet.

What I do have, however, is a mean case of postpartum alopecia. My hair is falling out by the 3-month-old-baby-sized fistful.

And you lovelies are learning this why?

Well, because who else am I going to tell? Jack doesn't care.

This is the beauty of the blog.

It's like you're getting a glimpse into my own personal diary, but instead of writing about how John Malkovich has this certain je ne sais quoi that I think makes him kind of sexy in a weird sort of way, I'm writing about my hair falling out. Don't worry, I'll write the John Malkovich thing sometime too. I have to keep it interesting, or else you won't keep reading.

But why do I want you to read? Why do I think you should care what I have to say? And, let's be honest, aren't you mostly here for the pictures of the cute kids?

I know I am.

So today I'm realizing that almost seven months into this blogging thing, I'm still really liking it. In fact, I think I'm liking it more and more.

I wonder if I will feel that way three years from now. Angella, the author of Dutch Blitz, another blog I like to read, is celebrating her three-year blogiversary today. I can imagine that like me, she finds blogging oddly therapeutic. And after three years of therapy, she's got to be feeling good!

There's something about just putting your thoughts into words that helps you sort through them and decide which ones are worth dwelling on.

There's something about bouncing things off other people and getting their opinions and ideas on things that makes you feel like you're not alone.

There's something about sharing victories and struggles that doubles the joy and halves the burden.

Thanks for letting me do all those things.

And for not sending me a bill.

Word freak

I tend to be a word freak. Some people might say I'm a nerd. Heck, I'll say it.

I like games like Scrabble. And Huggermugger. I really liked this book:

I get a "Word of the Day" email. I like to learn the etymology.

Today's word of the day is laconic. It means using or marked by the use of a minimum of words.

The funny thing is, that for as much of a word freak as I may be, I tend to be rather laconic in person. Especially if something's bothering me, which drives Patrick crazy because he's a talker. He likes to talk things out, and if I clam up his wheels start spinning trying to figure out what's wrong.

I like to write, but I think that laconicity (is that a word? I need to look that up) would be a fun idea for a blog. A friend of mine writes a one-line blog, but he posts way too infrequently. (Yes, Z, I'm talking about you. Post more! Please? I liked the venti post.) The idea intrigues me...just to take one line from your day - the most interesting thing or the silliest thing or what have you - and use that as the blog entry. It sort of leaves you wanting more. I wonder if I could do it. I don't think I could.

Another blog I like uses no words at all. Just photos. Visual blogging, they call it. Check it out. In addition to the photos, I love that they describe themselves by saying they don't stay up too late. It gives just enough of a tiny glimpse into the kind of people they are that it makes you want to know more. Why didn't I think of that? I don't stay up late either.

If I had to describe myself using a slightly obscure fact, I might say I go barefoot as often as possible.

How about you? What's one line that describes you?