Wordless Wednesday

What a difference a year makes...Not only was it a million degrees hotter this year, but J ate so many apples that she did this cough/choke thing and threw up some apples and kept right on eating....

Apple Picking, September, 2009 (6 months old)

Apple Picking, September, 2010 (18 months old)

I May Have Married a Rock Star

The last few nights have been some of our worst ever.  I don't know if we're spoiled with a good sleeper but my body just can't handle the middle of the night wake ups.  Thinking back (and it's kind of strange that my memory is blurry) I was never great at it.  Very early on, when J was still waking up to eat at 12 and 4, I remember saying to Mike, I'll take the 4:00 because I needed to get a decent stretch of sleep in order to function.  Waking up at midnight was too early in my sleep.

But this weekend, we had a very sick little girl on our hands.  And middle of the night wakeups ensued...not to eat, but to medicate.  And not only are we not used to it, but now I'm back at work, where I can't really "fake it" during the day.   I love teaching, but one downside is that I can't just sit in front of my computer pretending to work and check emails.  I have 27 little kids who require a whole lot of me (especially this time of year). 

And Mike has been a rock star.  I'm talking as soon as he hears her stir over the monitor, he's in her room, settling her back in.  He's prepared with medicine, water, and hugs to get her back to sleep.  And all this with a smile mouthing to me "Go back to sleep, babe." I fought with him a few times, but then I stopped fighting and went back to bed.  Still awake, but at least resting. 

He's a rock star.
And so is a gigantic cup of coffee which keeps me from turning into a mean mean teacher. 

So thank you Mike and Dunkin!

Berry Fun Day

We finally had some humid-free beautiful weather this past weekend and wanted to take advantage of it.  Mike has been talking about berry picking for months now and we finally got our act together and went.  We found a place all the way out east on Long Island (about 1 1/2 hour ride from Queens) and took along Jenna's grandma, aunt and her #1 favorite first cousin (Jenna seriously ADORES her cousin Ella, who is 3 1/2 years old).

I found the farm by checking out this site which gives lists of local farms in your area. We picked Patty's Berries and Bunches because they got the best reviews and talked about some "family fun" being across the street. They did not disappoint.  This was seriously a highlight of our whole summer.  We got to pick the most amazing raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries I have ever seen and eaten.  It was like candy.  The girls had a blast - The bushes were right at their eye-level, so picking was easy for them and since they don't use pesticides or spray, they could eat right off the bushes.  Needless to say they both had messy hands and faces!  Mike apparently knows a bit about berry picking (which was news to me) and "taught" the girls how to know if the berry is good for picking and they both filled up their own baskets. 

After about an hour and a half of picking berries, we headed across the street for some "family fun" at Harbes Farm and Vineyard. And it was awesome. We had some great snacks (corn on the cob, muffins, cookies) that were all delicious.  And then we went to the farm area where the girls could pet the animals, do a potato sack race, watch a pig race, ride a pony, check out a bee hive....the list goes on. 

I feel like an advertisement for these places but they were really that good.  It was a bit of a drive for us, but well worth it.  And we stopped along the way at some farm stands and picked up some amazing cucumbers, tomatoes, and peaches. 

I picked the winning pig &  won some kettle corn!

When 4 days feels like a week...in a good way

We hightailed it outta here on Friday.  I'm not mincing words here when I say that we needed some time off.  Between Mike not working to finding a job he's super excited about, to me going from SAHM to Working Mom in a few weeks to Jenna starting full time daycare in two weeks and lots of house guests coming and going the next few weeks...We took a well-deserved break.  I'm not going to call it a vacation (if you're a loyal follower you know this already) because I believe once you travel with kids, it's not really a vacation, but more a change of scenery. 
We drove up to Mystic, Ct., which is normally a 2 hour drive, but the traffic on Friday was RIDICULOUS, so we stopped off at Norwich for the Aquarium and dinner.  Jenna LOVED it! she was running around, touching animals, and playing with everything.

It was a great spur of the moment car decision to pull off the traffic-ridden road and try out a new place.  We got to hang there, grab some dinner and hit the road again (thank god the traffic died down) and got up to Mystic in time for bed.  Mystic was awesome.  We hit up the seaport and did a boat ride (Jenna's first), went to the aquarium there, and went to Ocean Beach Park. 

Loving the spray park!

Thing is, it wasn't what we did that was so good for us.  It was so nice to just be the three of us for four days straight.  We're big family people, so we're always seeing family and friends and sometimes our weekends feel like we don't get a minute to breathe.  So it was amazing for us to just be together, with no real plan of action.  We took family baths in our room jacuzzi...laughed all the way home from dinner one night just from making raspberries with our mouths...touched sting rays, starfish and shells...played in a spray park for what felt like hours...and realized that Jenna is in fact afraid of carousels. 

Jenna does not like carousels

It was great to just stop and enjoy ourselves.  It didn't matter that we ate dinner on the early side so Jenna could go to bed at a normal hour, or that we ate at family-friendly restaurants, as opposed to some fancier places (they have liquor and beer at the family friendly ones too), that we didn't get to read all about the seaport and it's history, or that we couldn't spend all day laying out at the beach.  It was great to be away.

And despite my feelings on these things, it actually felt like a vacation...

Unplugging

The three of us are taking a last minute weekend away...literally last minute - like it's Thursday night at 9:00 pm and I just booked the hotel and we leave tomorrow morning.  I love to go away and it's kind of exciting to be so last minute about it. 

Anyway, Mike got some good news and we're going away to celebrate. 

I'm officially going to be unplugged until Monday (or at least going to do my best to be)

I'll post about it Tuesday! Have a great weekend!

so proud

I really sucked at my blog last week.  Sorry to those who care, sorry for myself because there's been some real life stuff that just took over my brain...some I can write about, other stuff not so much.  That's what pisses me off about blogging - I know the mantra "it's my blog I can write what I want" but I know some of the people who read this and they know me and my family.  So I'll leave it at that and stick with some good/fun news that's been going on...

I write so much about how proud I am of Jenna's accomplishments, but this weekend, Mike took the cake.  He completed the NYC Triathlon yesterday. It's always an amazing event, but this year it felt even more important.  He's been doing this race for years (this is his 5th one) but last year he missed it because we were knee dip in infancy with Jenna and the thought of him training was just out of the question. Our agreement was that he would do it this year.  This meant lots of training and time away from us and some fights, and some compromises (like our jogging stroller which I love!).  So this year, although he was the one swimming (1 mile), biking (26 miles) and running (6 miles), all in under 3 hours, I might add. 

I felt like it was a family affair.  We made signs and Jenna was super cute cheering him on. 

I can't begin to express how proud I am of him for doing this year after year.  It's really remarkable.

End of the race - tired baby & tired daddy!

A Weekend Just for Us

This past weekend was really nice. For the first time in a really long while, we had absolutely no plans! This is a major thing for us because we're always running around and it was great to slow it down and do some local things, hang out and chill.

Since we're working on this whole one-nap a day thing.  We got up and got out Saturday morning.  They were announcing rain for most of the day, so we figured we'd take advantage of the good weather and hang at our local playground.  I love it there. We spend lots of time there and Jenna just loves it. Between the swings, the slides, the jungle gyms, she's one happy little girl. Had some brunch with my parents. Went to the local farmer's market (which is new in town) and bought some stuff for Mike for his NY Triathlon which is next Sunday.  Saw my brother for a little bit and just stayed close to home.  It was nice to have nowhere that we had to be. 

Sunday Mike took Jenna for a run (god how I love that jogging stroller!) and then we went to our playground which had an imagination playground.  It was super cool because although it's our same old playground, it had a bunch of new things to do for the day.  Then we went and got our free slurpies at 7-11...my first slurpie EVER.  (honestly, not so great, but my hubby loved it).  Went home for naptime and then ventured to a different playground in the afternoon.

This is the thing about this weekend - we didn't do anything too exciting or crazy, but the three of us got to spend a lot of time together doing stuff as a family.  Sometimes when we're running around, making all sorts of plans, I feel like I didn't get to spend time with my husband or my daughter.  So this weekend it was nice to do just that.

Seeing into the Future

You know how sometimes you start to have a conversation about your hypothetical future and then all of a sudden it's 15 minutes later, and you're practically arguing over something that has not happened yet...no?? Well then you have never witnessed some of my best arguments with my hubby.

Tonight's argument was about Jenna (who is 15 months old) and her not-yet-conceived sibling(s) and their sports schedules in high school.  Seriously. Ridiculous. I think one of my winning quotes went something like this, "If you think I'm going to work all day then go driving around to pick Jenna up at 7pm from some practice with the little one (who, I repeat does not exist yet!), you're crazy!"

Umm...yeah we were arguing over how many sports she (and futures) will play and how often and how many weekends it would take up...until finally, Mike (who is definitely the more level headed one) said "You realize that we're arguing about something that may or may not happen 15 years from now!" And we both laughed and moved on....

But seriously, mark my words...I will not be schlepping around every freaking weekend or every night for sports teams.  Ahhh it feels good to have the last word in - even if the argument shouldn't even be discussed.

Mothers and Daughters

This past week on our 2 part family vacation, we got to spend lots of time with our extended families and it was awesome!

But...I also got to see daughters of all ages interacting with their moms and I gotta be honest, I'm a little excited and definitely scared!

Looking forward to the 4-10 year old stage when she'll be a little more independent.  I got to watch cousins who could let their kids go in the pools and watch from the sidelines.  Or let them go run off with other kids and do an arts and crafts project.  Or play some flag football with some of the older kids and adults.  The cool thing was that kids that age were able to be on their own to some extent and not need an adult on top of them at all times.  That sounds very cool to me right now especially since we're at the toddler stage, where I feel like Jenna really needs us to be right.next.to.her most (or at least much) of the time. 

No swimming alone for this little girl!

Then there's the 11+ age group - I gotta be honest, this seriously scares me.  And I know my mother is probably reading this laughing to herself because I was such a "gem" to her during these years.  The rolling of the eyes? Not cool The fresh back talk? Definitely not looking forward to it.  The doing whatever she wants without caring about what I think? Oh god, I'm not sure how I'm going to get through it.  The being really beautiful and making sure boys don't take advantage of her? Seriously, scared!

But I also got to see adult women and their moms (me included) and at least in the families I was with - the relationships are pretty damn special.  As my adult cousin said so bluntly to her mother as we were making fun of her crooked sunglasses, "C'mon who's going to tweeze your chin hair when you can't see it anymore?" We may all make fun of rip apart our moms, but we do love them to pieces and I'm looking forward to having that relationship with my daughter.

And I guess that's the return on the daughter investment...you'll always have someone to tweeze your chin hair! It'll be worth every second!

Sorry but my kid is awesome

I'm going to apologize ahead of time because honestly, after this past weeks craziness, I am so lucky to have an easy-going, laid back kid.  So seriously, stop reading right now if you don't want to hear about how great my daughter is or if you're going to hate me for it because she was amazing.

Here's a few highlights:

*Slept for an hour and a half on our flight down to Florida in Daddy's arms - this meant that not only was it 'easier' for us than entertaining her the whole time, but also that I got to chill and read my book and watch TV.

Sleeping baby on plane = very happy daddy & mommy

*When she got up - was perfectly happy to eat some snacks, flirt with the people sitting behind us, and color with her crayons.
* Although we messed with her typical schedule BIG TIME - she napped when we needed her to and went to bed at night (usually 2 hours after her normal bedtime) with no fuss
* Napped in her jogging stroller by the pool/beach - amazing because we got to hang with family, with each other and enjoy the pool and ocean without having to go back up to the room
                                                                                                          

*We ate dinner out both nights we were down there and she was amazing - ate her food, walked around a bit, but no fussing - We were totally prepared to be "those" parents who have to leave, but we weren't

*Our flight was delayed four hours -this meant that we were in the airport for close to 6 hours - this could have been a nightmare, but she was such a trooper -ran around with some other little kids and took an unexpected nap at a later hour which really helped keep us calm about the whole situation.

*Napped for almost the whole flight home and when we came home at 1:30am(!) she still went back to sleep for the night.

*Even though we had to wake her up in order to go upstate Saturday morning, she was such a happy girl all day, going from hand to hand and enjoying all the extended family's company.

Please don't hate me - I know we're lucky and on days when I forget or I'm feeling frustrated with her, I'll remember how great she was for us when we messed with her!

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The Outside Looking In

Every once in a while I feel like an outsider to my former life.  I love where I am right now but every once in a while - like an itch you can't reach - I remember the person I used to be and can't believe we're the same person. 

Let me just say that the majority of my close pre-Jenna friends do not have kids.  So our lives are just different.  I had a conversation with a friend about how Mike and I don't really go out that much anymore and she said 'well none of us go out that much anymore.' And I kind of laughed because she had plans that night to go out with a bunch of girls for dinner.  I said everyone may not party as much anymore, but I'm definitely in a place where even a dinner out is kind of a big deal and a lot of work to get done.  Between babysitters and bedtime and where's Jenna going to be - sometimes most of the time it's just easier to stay in.

For us, weekends are important, it's the only time that the three of us get to spend together and we try to make them as fun as possible.  Our weekends are more likely to include spending time with family (who let's be honest want to see the kid), or at the playground, or the Botanical Gardens or the Children's Museum of Manhattan or places like that as opposed to our friends' parties which usually involve afternoon drinking and eating. Trust me when I say that a day like that sounds amazing, just not necessarily in the cards for us right now.  Asking grandparents to babysit all afternoon into evening on a Saturday so we can go get plastered just doesn't seem realistic right now.  It's just a new reality that we're getting used to. 

Don't get me wrong, I really do love where we are right now, it's just that many of our friends are not in the same place, so at times, that can be difficult.  I know some of my friends are going to read this and I hope they don't take it the wrong way because I really do miss spending a lot of time with them and I hope they don't get upset when we have to miss things.  And it's not that we're using Jenna as an excuse - it's just that our priorities are completely different than they were 2 years ago.  Everyone says that when you become a parent "everything changes." And I expected for me to change but I think they forget to tell you that some of those changes can be really hard on all the relationships in your life - from your husband to your parents to your friends...

I guess it's really about trying to carve out time for everyone and everything - family, friends, kids...and most importantly yourself - it's just that sometimes it's easier said than done...

Car Sleeping for Both My Babies

Funny story which will be filed under "reasons I love my husband"...

This weekend we went out for breakfast with my parents and planned to go straight to the pool nearby but Jenna fell asleep in the car and we figured we would capitalize on her naptime and head to the supermarket.  (We've done this before - one of us stays in the car, the other does the shopping).  I was the shopper this time. 

Fast forward about 45 minutes...

I come out to the parking lot and Jenna is waving at me from the backseat (so freaking cute) and daddy is FAST ASLEEP in the front seat.  And I mean head against the window and feet up on the driver's seat...OUT COLD!

INSERT PICTURE I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN HERE

(AND HUBBY REFUSED TO "STAGE" IT FOR ME)

I knock on the window and he smiled as he wiped the drool from his face (okay...slight exaggeration, but he knew he was busted).  I mouth to him "SHE'S UP"  and the "oh shit" look was priceless....

I guess both my babies needed naptime.

"Me" Time

So I've been having a little trouble lately with this thing called "me-time." The problem is that I feel like I don't have any (or at least not enough of it).  It kind of came to a head when I told Mike that I need new bras and really need to go to a good place for them (like get measured and stuff).  He said that I've been telling him for months that I need new ones and why don't I just go shopping...In his defense, he meant well -in his head he was saying - "go! take care of what you need to! no problem!"

But when should I go shopping?? (insert sarcasm here) When Jenna is sitting nicely in her stroller for a few hours?? - right - cause she NEVER does that! Stroller sitting is down to about 20 minutes TOPS and that's with lots of snacks to help keep her occupied.  I could go when she naps, you say? Well she naps in the morning around 8:30 am - find me a store that's open that early...and her afternoon naps can be anywhere from 25 minutes (today's) to 1 1/2 hours (yesterday's) - seriously hard to plan a shopping spree when her naps are so inconsistent. Weekends are an option I suppose, except it's the only time the three of us get to be together and we've been swamped lately with family and friend stuff.  There hasn't been a block of a couple of hours where we're not doing something.

I didn't exactly explain this is a nice calm manner like I should have.  It came off more as a rant (or a rage) about how I don't have time for some of the simplest things anymore.  I went on and on about how we're going to Florida next month and I'd really like (need!) some new bathing suits and summer clothes...and honestly it's getting nice out and my toenails should not see the light of day (and that's unfortunate because flip flops and I are bffs).  So the conclusion to this rant was that Mike would take a day off from work next week and I can have the day to myself to do things FOR ME!!

Mommy guilt is setting in as I think about my day off...Is it bad that I'm so looking forward to a day by myself??

PS - Discussed this with Mike a little further (after I wrote the post) and I was explaining how even though Jenna goes to sleep early, it's not really "Me" Time because I always have an ear on the monitor or waiting for him to get home and he said "Well that can be considered 'mmm time' - you know like half  'me' time" 

I laughed - he's lucky he's funny.

Babysitting

Just had a conversation with my hubby re: babysitters...

We have a baby who goes to sleep (pretty consistently) around 7:00.  She also (pretty consistently) sleeps until 6:00.  I know I know - we are very lucky.
Here's the catch - we were invited to a friend's house for dinner Friday night - we're talking BBQ!! To apartment dwellers like ourselves, this is awesome! Our friends have a kid who also goes to sleep around that time, but of course he'll be upstairs in his room, sleeping while we have dinner/drinks. 
Now J is not wonderful about falling asleep outside her normal routine (I guess that's the catch with consistency - you can't be inconsistent!!)
So I ask my parents to babysit Friday night so we can have a night out.  No big deal.  Grandma and Papa are happy to do it - Mom will come over early, hang out with J and then help me put her to bed...When hubby gets home, we'll go out.

I'm excited - I call Mike and his response?!!? "I don't think it's fair to make them just sit in our house while she sleeps."  Ummm that's what babysitters do! What are we supposed to do? Keep her up so they can have some quality time with her even though that probably means a very cranky baby on Saturday?  He said we'll discuss it later.

I think he's nuts. I'm going to win. I would like a night out with some friends.  Mike loves to BBQ. I think this is a no-brainer...

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You know it's a good weekend...

When you wake up on Sunday morning and think it's Monday!! Awesome Feeling!

I think part of it was that I had two back to back ladies nights last week - that's right two in a row! Thursday and Friday I got some much needed ladies time with my friends...which included dinner, wine & cocktails (wine on thursday, cocktail on friday!), laughter, tears, and good times.

I have made some great girlfriends over the past year.  I never thought that I would meet new friends in my 30's but moving to this neighborhood and having Jenna opened up a whole new world to me.  We're such an eclectic mix - some are stay at home moms like me, others are back at work full time, some are part time, some have nannies, some have kids in daycare.  Some are from near here, some from far...some are planning to stay in the area, others are planning to move away - you get my drift.  But they've all been amazing friends to me and I am lucky to have them in my life!

Anyway so back to the weekend...Saturday we did something we don't usually do in the morning and when Jenna woke up (around 6 am), we brought her into bed with us.  We were both still tired (I got home kinda late) and we put on some Nick Jr. and we hung out in bed (which meant Mike and I closed our eyes and I think Jenna watched some TV).  It was nice to just get a lazy start to the day, unlike our usual get-up-and-go routine.  We had a great day with grandparents - grabbing brunch, playing at the park, getting ice cream, and napping (for Jenna) outside.  It was a rainy Sunday so it was the perfect day for chores (grocery shopping and new cell phones) and watching a bad movie (Bride Wars).