Insert clever title here

Ok, ok - you were right. I paid $3 for the flowers!

Don't you agree that a bunch like that could cost at least 25 bucks in a florist shop? If I learned one thing from my professional floral design classes, it's to make your arrangements look like they cost more than they did, but the Amish lady up the road put that baby together...all I did was plop it into a pitcher!

Well, it was a beautiful day here today and it got me feeling like Fall is coming soon.

And we all know what that means.

That's right - Gingerbread Lattes! Pumpkin Spice, people! Bring it on!

If you want a chance to get a FREE $10 Starbucks card, head on over to Mommy Knows and leave your two cents' worth.

I have some cute videos of the boys to post soon. PJ is absolutely smitten with his older brother, and Jack likes to make him giggle. You can't help but smile.

How on earth did I forget these??

Indulge me, would you? Here are a few more gems I just have to share...

First off, we have a farm stand down the street (we can walk to it) that sells fruits and vegetables, fresh flowers, and, on Fridays and Saturdays, yummy baked goods. (In the fall, there's pumpkin roll. Have you had pumpkin roll? It's heaven on a plate.)

Anyway, check out this bunch of flowers I got there. It's enormous and beautiful. Guess how much I paid for it. Go ahead, guess. In fact, vote in the poll to the right.

This is just a picture of Jack from the weekend that I really love.

Our friends, the Gartlands came for a visit a few weeks ago. Uncle Viggy is showing Patrick how to work some piece of technology - a GPS? A blackberry? I don't know.

Kim is an amazing book reader. I was riveted. Seriously - she does all the voices!

Their daughter, Kaylin is just about the prettiest little girl I've ever seen.

But hang on to your hats for these next two shots! Patrick went to Fenway and got our little guys some Red Sox hats! Can you even stand it?

How in the world did I forget these in the first go? They're the highlight of the trip!

The Mother Lode

It's been a long time coming, hasn't it?

Well, thanks for bearing with me.

We just returned from a week in New England visiting with family and friends, and while I was gone, my new cord had arrived. Huzzah!

Here they are: a lot of pictures; not a lot of talk...just headings and captions below.

Some random pics of the boys

PJ always sleeps with his feet crossed like this. I love it.

Jack's first fluffernutter. Surprisingly, he didn't really care for it. He's much happier with ham and pepper jack on rye...with spicy mustard, please.

Just a cute picture that unfortunately caught some foodstuffs on his face. My kingdom for some photo editing software....and someone to teach me how to use it!

My little insomniac. Up 4 or 5 times per night, PJ is slowly driving me insane. We will begin sleep training in earnest once he's five months old...which I know is only in a few days, but for some reason they say to wait. (Whoever "they" are, I'm pretty sure they don't have a four-month-old with sleep issues.)

But darn it, he's cute.

Our trip to New Hampshire

We got to fly up, which beats driving 8 or 9 hours with two under two any day. Jack loved riding in the "boo pane!"

Auntie Maureen got to squeeze PJ.

Jack liked riding Meme's hobby horse, a big hit with all the kids, apparently.

Auntie Alyson loves her some PJ. The boys are pretty crazy about her too!

Patrick had a great time playing with his boys in the back yard. It's always fun for me to bring my kids to the house I grew up in. Even though he was in college when he moved there, I know he felt the same way.

PJ and his cousin, Sophie, check out the yard...and each other.

Auntie Katie and Sophie. So cute.

Uncle Rob and the boys - Jack and RJ.

As you can see, the boys had a lot of fun together. They're only five months apart.


Our friends' wedding

Mr. and Mrs. Ken Belbin. So happy together!

It was an amazing reception. Definitely the most fun I've ever had at a wedding. Here are some friends from our table. While we dined, there were Irish dancers to entertain us. Seriously.

Uncle Z enjoyed himself immensely.

A few days later, after a brief honeymoon, the Belbins actually brought their cake top to share with us. They decided not to freeze and eat it on their first anniversary (a wise choice - it's disgusting and Patrick's convinced that it's a rite of passage that married people trick newlyweds into doing). In any event, we were completely honored to have been able to share it with them!

A great time was had by all. We miss them already!

...Miles to go before we sleep

Sleep.

Just the word is starting to make me mad. The sleeplesness that comes with having a newborn (can I still call him a newborn?) makes labor seem like a breeze. Even the 36-hour-marathon-labor that Jack's was.


There is just nothing more disheartening than getting ready for bed at night knowing that it will only be a few short hours before you're up again - hardly enough consistent sleep time to make it refreshing. You start to wonder if it's worth trying to doze off at all because you know that as soon as you do, you'll start to hear that "eh eh eh." Each time I hear it, I get a boost of some hormone (adrenaline?) that keeps me up for another half hour at least, even if the baby does settle himself back to sleep, which is rare.

Usually, it goes more like this

"Eh eh eh," pause

(close eyes and pray please God let him go back)

"Eh eh eh eh," pause

(come on, PJ, you can do it)

"Eh eh eh .... WAHHHH!"

(Oh God please make it stop!)

"WAAHHH WAHHH I'm not stopping and I want you to feed me now or at least make my teeth stop hurting or turn me back over on my belly because I rolled over and can't remember how to get back WAAAAAHHH!!!"

(Shuffle shuffle shuffle to baby's room and feed, rock, pat him back to sleep. Shuffle shuffle back to my room, climb into bed beside my sleeping husband, and pray that I'll be able to get 3 straight hours before it happens again.)


Doing this on the first night is sort of dreamy in an I-can't-wait-to-hold-him-again sort of way.

On the 30th night, it begins to wear on you.

On night 131? Torture.


Thankfully, my Mom and Dad have both boys overnight tonight, night 132. Just in time for me to get a decent sleep under my belt before we are off to New England for our friends' wedding.


I think I never want to do this again. Two babies is plenty.


How do the Duggars do it?

An identity crisis of sorts

I've been having one of these crises. Mine is age-related.

In my head, I'm a lot younger than it says on my driver's license.

It's stemmed, I think, from the recent discovery of several high school and college friends on Facebook.

(Yes, I have a Facebook account, though I don't entirely know how to use it. I've been invited to super-poke someone, and have received a few martinis, but I'm really a gin and tonic girl (with extra limes, please), so I don't even know what to do with a real martini, let alone a virtual one.)

Anyway, back to my wake-up call that I'm way older than I feel. I see pictures of these people and their families and think, "Wow, so-and-so looks a lot older...and s/he has how many kids?" and then I realize that people are probably thinking that same thing about me.

But I'm just out of college, aren't I?

Actually, my ten year college reunion, if there was one, would have been two years ago!

How did this happen?

There are moms I meet and think surely they are my age or older than I am, only to discover that they're younger...sometimes five or six or more years younger.

It's unnerving.

I feel a bit like I imagine a comatose person might feel if they were aware of the things going on around them, but unable to move or otherwise communicate "Hey! I'm in here - I hear you!" That younger person is me, trapped - Freaky Friday-style - inside my soon-to-be 35-year-old body and I don't know how to let her out.

And I'm scared about feeling this way when I'm 60...or 80.

Maybe it's because I got a later start with the whole married with children thing. Other women married less than three years, or with children as young as mine are generally younger themselves, and since they're the people with whom I'm spending a lot of time right now, I'm older by association.

I need to start hanging out in retirement homes more.

It's comforting to know that God's timing is always perfect, and that Patrick and the boys were well worth the wait - even better than I could have imagined. So what if my ideal marrying age of 28 came and went without incident (or, more importantly, without a suitable suitor in sight)? I know I'm right where God wants me to be.

But sometimes, it feels a little strange.

Hello from nowhere

Hey, everyone. I haven't forgotten. I promise.

My power cord was received and I was credited, even though I was hoping for an exchange. So now I have to buy a new one. Blast and double-blast!

I'll write another "real" post from Patrick's computer soon, but we have some lovely out-of-town friends visiting with us for a few days, so I haven't had a moment.

And then, the pictures...I can only do it from my own computer, so they'll have to wait. Sigh.

I miss blogging!

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!

The weekend in review

Yes, I know it's Wednesday, and I'm a little late for a review of the weekend, but things happen, sparks flew, a quick whiff of ozone (can you name that movie?) and I'm trying to pick up where I left off.

As an aside, I've watched so many British comedies on DVD lately (Extras and The Catherine Tate Show) that I think with an accent right now, and if you can imagine how they might say "week END," that's how it sounds in my head.

I never said I was normal.

Anyhoo - the house swap. It was lovely, as I said (because I'm thinking in British). My parents came here Saturday evening at about 4:30 and we headed to Blockbuster before going to their place. I had a gift card that gave us two movies, two drinks and a bucket of popcorn. Ah, the things you can get with your Pampers points. (If you don't know about these, ask me!)

We walked in, and they had a basket of popcorn and boxes of movie candies - you know, Raisinettes, Sno Caps, etc. - out in the living room in preparation for our movie night. So fun! That night, it was National Treasure 2. (Liked it.)

Upstairs, my Mom, always thinking ahead, had replaced pictures of her and my Dad with photos of Patrick and me - just so they weren't "watching" us in the room, you know? I found that to be quite thoughtful. There were also fresh flowers from the garden and unscented candles, so as not to aggravate Patrick's asthma...also thoughtful. Too bad we were both cross-eyed from exhaustion by the time we went up to bed...at around 9:30. (We're party animals.)

The next morning, we slept until 10.

Not.

We should have slept until 10! Even if we did, we wouldn't be anywhere close to paying off our sleep debt. But instead, we woke up at 6. SIX! This is the time that Jack usually wakes us up by calling to us from his room, but this particular morning, there was no Jack. There was silence and a comfortable bed, and no baby crying and yet we were both up at six o'clock.

Why does this happen?

Oh, and to top it all off, when I asked my Mom how the kids slept for them while we were gone, she told me PJ was up once, and Jack slept until 7.

Why does this happen too?

Seriously. I want to know.

Anyway, Sunday was just divine. We watched I Am Legend (really liked it) and The Great Debaters (liked it). We had steak and eggs for breakfast. We went to the pool. We talked (talked!). It was so nice.

So all in all, I'd say it was a wonderful weekend to recharge and reconnect.

Patrick had Monday off too, so now we're back to the daily grind, but it's good to remember that we have each other's backs.

Tune in later this week for a book review or two...

So much to say...

...so little time!

Literally.

Like two minutes before my laptop battery dies because the power cord broke. Remember the bit about the sparks? Well, I finally decided it was time to send it back to get a new one. So my battery icon has a big red "x" through it. Not good.

Sorry to leave you hanging.

I'll write more soon!

Oh, and our house swap was lovely!

TTFN!

And the winner is...

Ok, so it's not Monday, but I have a little bit of time in between cleaning like a madwoman for my parents' stay, Patrick's taking the boys to the park, and packing some of my own things to stay at their house tonight (we're doing a house swap - how's that for fabulous and free?) to post this news.

The winner is...no one!

Not one person posted every time in July!

Geez - I can't give this stuff away.

Holly had the most posts with 11 out of the 12, but that was only counting her extra credit post, which I didn't count in the 12, if that makes sense.

Oh well. Was the contest a bad idea? Did I post too often to keep up?

I tried not to do every day, and to allow comments after the day of the post, but I do understand that people have a lot going on.

So maybe we'll do another contest in the fall...what do you think?

In the meantime, here's the scoop on the weekend:

PJ was up three times before it was even midnight last night, with a total of 5 or 6 (I lost count) for the night. Just brutal, people! It's got to be a combination of teething and his cradle cap itching like mad because he always scratches big gashes in his scalp. I know that if I had a wicked itch, I wouldn't be able to sleep well either. Anyone who has suggestions on how to make the itching stop, please (PLEASE) let me know! Baby oil? Does that work?

So Patrick and I are getting out of Dodge as soon as my parents arrive today - at around 4:30 or so - going to their house, and doing ...are are you ready?...NOTHING. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

We are both like walking zombies. I'm slightly better than I was when Jack was this age - and Patrick is slightly worse, mainly because I'm having him help me after the 3rd or 4th wakeup of the night - but we're both just completely exhausted.

Autumn's idea of a movie marathon and Chinese takeout is just what the doctor ordered. In fact, Patrick and I were the two people who voted for staying in and watching movies, so how's that for a concensus?

My parents even have a flat screen TV with a DVD player in their bedroom (hooray!), so we don't even have to get out of bed, except to change the disc.

And if we feel up to it, we may walk down to the neighborhood pool to take a dip.

Does that not sound like an absolute dream weekend for a pair of sleep-deprived zombies?

Yes, it does! Er...or no, it doesn't not.

Why did I have to word that question so weirdly?

Okay then, it's back to work so that we can rest.

Enjoy the weekend!