for the love of God

It's summer so the kiddo's and I are home most days by ourselves.  We are right in the middle of B's 19 day stretch, my least favorite 3 weeks of summer.  Anyway, I'm getting pretty used to getting up and out on these days to go to festivals, grocery shopping, friends houses, etc.  My goal is to be a "together mom".  You know, one of those mom's that has everything packed, her kids look cute, and she even has on makeup.  I have yet to have that happen on any outing.  I always forget something...Today, one of the worst showings in reaching that goal.  We were going to church, A already put up a fight to get dressed for some unexplained reason.  We finally got out the door and head to church.  I get halfway there and realize I forgot the ENTIRE diaper bag.  We turn around.  Head back to church, we forgot to let the dog back in.  We turn around.  Head back to church, Baby Bella's pants fall off.  I promise to put them back on when we get inside.  Enter church, we forgot Baby Bella's pants in the car.  Head back to the car to retrieve said pants.  Finally, in the pew with 4 minutes to spare.  Whew.  K sleeps through the first part of church, A is well behaved.  A and I go up to children's time while K. stays with my friend, E and baby SL.  Pastor Rebecca asks the group of kids, "what is one way to treat others as friends?"  A says, "my daddy plays with me downstairs."  OK... I take A down to the nursery and K is still with E and baby SL.  I come back up and baby SL was crying so E is in the narthex and some random nice lady is sitting with K.  I guess being in church makes this somewhat acceptable.  People should be trustworthy at church, right?  Anyway, I listen to the lay leader speak then the joys and concerns while K eats.  Finally time for the sermon and K poops.  Not just any poop, out of the side of the diaper onto my dress poop.  Fantastic... I join E in the narthex.  I tell her what happened but forgetting where I am say, I'm covered in shit."  Great, curse in church... I start to change K but realize that I left his clothes in the pew.  I give up.  We wait out the rest of the service not as a "together mom" but as a shit covered, cursing mom with a baby in only his diaper.  I guess God loves me anyway.

napping?

K. is a fantastic night time sleeper but this kid will not sleep during the day.  For me, he takes a cat nap in the early morning, middle of the day, and then again at about 6:00.  For my fabulous babysitter, he sleeps 4 hours.  I just don't get it.  I feed him, swaddle him, lay him down... nothing works.  I haven't let him cry it out because it hurts my heart and my ears.  Today, we reached a breaking point.  A was on her way to sleep and K was SCREAMING.  He was sooo tired but would not go to sleep.  I was about to scream as well. So, I put him out on the deck.  Before you report me to CPS, it was only 77 degrees, he was in the shade, and on my upstairs deck that no one else could get to.  In other words, he was safe.  I regained my sanity after about 2 minutes and went to go get him and this is what I found....

a nice calm baby

So, now we have a dilemma. I brought down a fan so that he would be cool enough and left him there. I checked about 5 minutes later and this is what I found...

a sleeping baby. 

So, it may have put a damper, yet again, on my application for parent of the year but today he will nap outside and we will all be a bit better off.

ode to dads

I started to log in today to write about how wonderful all of the dads in my life are.  I am so blessed to have B as the father of my children, my dad, and an amazing father in law to boot.  However, a strange thing happened as I began to log in that changed the idea of the post...

back story-- I think that I have written enough now so that everyone knows how close we are to our Maryland friend group.  We were lucky enough to find these guys shortly after B drug me kicking and screaming to MD; all of the boys worked together.  As time passed, we became closer and I began to see this place as home.  We started a blog on Oct 6, 2008 where we would all write about our days, make plans etc.  Whenever I sign into this blog, that one comes up as well.  However, no one has written on it in forever.  Today, I accidentally clicked on it instead of this one and found a little blessing from our friend Brian who changed our whole world when he passed away in September.  This blog that he wrote was the last written on that site and it happened to be posted June 18, 2009, exactly 2 years ago.  Here is what he said...

I know no one reads this anymore, and I am just as guilty, but I have decided to write tonight. It just feels good to write. I thought about a creative quick one sentence thought on Facebook or Twitter but then I thought that I don't need to share my thoughts with the world (sorry Brian, but I'm sharing them now). It makes me feel better to share it with close friends and it won't matter to me one bit if anyone reads it or not. It just feels good to write. I had a meeting with some summer camp counselors tonight and one of them who is going to be one of my new goalies this season asked me to play golf with him and his father tomorrow morning. I did the math and I could play 9 and get to work in time to get everything done that I need to. I thought about texting Russo to ask him a few questions like what end of the club do you hold or should you take that goofy looking sock thing off the driver before you use it. I was very excited to play because I haven't touched my clubs, unless I need to move them to vacuum or something, since I left Woodmore in late October. I was on my way home from work tonight and realized that our staff meeting was moved from today to tomorrow and there was no way I could play any golf and still get to the meeting. Not a big deal, I'll get out and play one day soon, no worries. I didn't mention, but I'm driving home at 11:30 at night when I realize this. I texted my player to tell him I have to bail on him and his Dad. I start to think that I hope his father is still up so he can go tell him now and not surprise him early in the morning. Instantly I think of walking down the stairs of my old house, turning into the living room and seeing my father sitting on the hearth of the fire place. The vision I saw in my head was perfect. I could tell you what he was wearing, what decorations were up and what was on TV. This isn't that hard to do though. None of those things had changed in the 12 or so years I lived in that house. Two things about my father: 1) He never slept, so he definitely would have been awake for me to walk downstairs and tell him and 2) He always smoked sitting on the fireplace hearth so he could blow the smoke into the fireplace. It worked, our house never smelled like smoke. He didn't smoke that much at home and hadn't had a cig since his heart attack in like 2004 or 5, but he always sat on the hearth. I think of my father a lot, but it is always tough to think of him when I'm alone late at night. When I thought of him late tonight on a dark road, I knew it would be a long night. I came home and tried to get online to track down some old hockey guys that I've been thinking about to be my assistant coach this season. This didn't help because I can't stop thinking about how perfect my father would be for this position. He would let me make the decisions and let me be the one responsible for the wins and losses, but he would also be there to help me out and give our team the grit that we are going to need. I guess tonight might be worse than most nights because the US Open is tomorrow morning. I went to the US Open in 2005 with my father. The US Open always falls on father's day. It was a great trip and I still wear some of the things he bought me down there. He spent a fortune in the merchandise tent on me. I guess this all comes down to one thing. I would give anything to play golf with my father tomorrow morning or be able to watch a little of the US Open with him this weekend or be able to coach one hockey game with him this season. Well, here's to all of our fathers and to the father in our group of friends...Happy Father's Day.

I don't know why i found this today.  Maybe it was to make us happier thinking of him golfing in heaven with his dad when we are missing him so much on his first father's day with his son, baby SL. 

Don't worry Brian, your son is loved by more people than you could have imagined and your wife is an AMAZING mother.  So, enjoy your day golfing and give Rory McIlroy a little boost from above to win the open.

baptism

On Sunday, K and baby SL were baptised together at our Church.    
 We had about 40 people between the 2 families to watch these to awesome little guys.

Here is K wearing his outfit that B wore for his first Easter in 1981. B wore it at age 6 weeks, we squeezed K into it at 14 weeks. He was a little frilly, and a little squished b/c he is a HUGE boy, but I loved it!

Pastor Rebecca did a great job of telling their birth story and honoring Brian and B.'s mom too.  Of course, I say that, but I kind of missed that part b/c A was nose to nose with me asking, "Do I have to get my hair wet? I don't want to get my hair wet!"  I guess it kept me from getting teary, so I had that going for me!

The baptism did resonate with A though.  Since Sunday, during each bath she has played "baptism".  I have to call her Pastor Rebecca and then she says, "who do you give this child?"  I make up some name and then she puts water on the baby's head 3 times for the "father, son, and ghost"  Then she sings the baptism song that our church does and that I sing to both my kids all the time.  So cute!

Congratulations K. and baby SL!!!

questions and jokes

Someone told me that the average 3 year old asks about 300 questions a day.  Well, my child is definitely above average.  B counted this morning as she stumbled into the bathroom as he was getting ready at 5:45 am.  She asked him 38 questions in 17 minutes.  If my math is correct, that gives her 1609 questions in the 12 hours that she is awake.  I do believe that she often meets this quota.  Here are some of my favorites from today.
1) She walks into my room to "pick me up" and take me home.  She does this several times a day to pretend she is the mommy and I am A. getting picked up from daycare. 
A: "Are you ready to go Mommy?" 
Me: "Yep, where are we going to go?""
A: Home.  Mommy, do we live in Africa America?"
Me:  "uummm, nope but it is as hot as Africa outside."
A:  "What?  Lets go to Africa America"

2) We went to costco to get some things for this weekend's party for K's baptism.  We got our typical hot dogs for lunch afterwards.  A rather obese person sits at the table next to us
A:  "Mommy, is she going to exercise after she eats her hot dog and pizza."
Me as I'm spitting out my food while simultaneously hiding my face:  "I don't know what she is going to do."
A:  "Maybe she wants to go running with daddy."

3)  A:  "Mommy, listen.. abbreviated pause... George Washingmachine.  Isn't that funny."
Me:  "Yeah, baby, that's funny."
A:  "Why aren't you laughing?"
Me:  forced laughter
A:  "That's better"

So, since she was making her own jokes, I tried to teach her a knock knock joke.  This comes for 2 reasons.  1) I am the only 30 year old that legitimately thinks that knock knock jokes are really funny.  I laugh outloud and sometimes cry when someone tells me one.  2)  My grandfather is coming into town this weekend and he used to tell this joke everytime that he saw me. 
Knock Knock,
Who's there
Amos
Amos who?
A mosquito that just bit you (as you pinch the person)

A. and I have been practicing all day.  So far, she is really struggling with her timing.  She'll say the first 2 lines together or forget to pinch or completely change it to Amos McGee, a character in one of her favorite books.  So, we'll see if we can actually make this question turn into something useful.  Until then, I'll just keep answering why, why, why over and over again.

what is k. doing

I find myself always writing about A primarily b/c almost 3 month old babies don't do much. Here is what K. is doing....

Surprisingly little of this... He is a super calm baby, most of the time he is doing this...

lounging on laps, couches, play mats etc. 

My kid is an eating freak; during the day he eats ever 2-3 hours.  So much so that my almost 3 year old began to breast feed her doll.  Yes, I do recognize that she will hate me for this picture sometime during her life. hehe

Other stuff he is doing:

• sleeping every night from 8:00pm -5:51 am.  I don't know how he knows it is 5:51 on the dot but he starts saying "ma, ba" every day at 5:51
• sucking on his hands and thumbs
• smiling.  He's been smiling every once in awhile for everyone else but me.  In the past few days, he has started smiling to tickles and faces.  However, he still thinks his daddy is the funniest person on earth.  Me, not so much.
• Cuddling

I think that's about it.  Not to much yet, but we love him!