Successful Thanksgiving

This is the first full year in our new house and I decided to have everyone here for Thanksgiving so my mom and grandmother came to visit for a few days. My mom didn't have any horror stories about the first one where she did all the cooking, but m mother-in-law did. Her first time cooking the bird went like this...it was dry and tasted burnt. Mine, however, had a positive outcome. Thanks to Food Network and those great chefs, my bird was moist, tender and got rave reviews. I have to admit though, after everyone was gone, I cornered my mom and asked her what she really thought of it. I knew my in-laws and my grandmother would say nice things no matter what, but I've always been able to count on my mom to tell me the truth. Her response...it was great. So, thanks to Bobby Flay, Guy Fieri, Sandra Lee and Giada De Laurentis for your great recipes and helpful hints. It made cooking my first Thanksgiving meal less stressful and the food was great.

Blogging time for mommy

So it's been almost 2 months since I my last post. Why??? Because once again I can't find any time for mommy. I have difficulty even getting alone time in the bathroom. My son likes to be in the same room with me at all times. Don't get me wrong I LOVE that he wants to be with me, but it would be nice to at least be able to go to the bathroom by myself. I love my husband dearly, but he doesn't help matters, because when my baby comes looking for me instead of getting him and giving me time alone, he and our son then both join me.

Guess who's awake...my beautiful miracle baby..I"ll try to do better and get more time for myself to keep my blog going...

Yes, Yes, Yes

Does this sound familiar to anyone? I bet it does to a lot of you women out there. I LOVE and I mean I REALLY LOVE being able to solve a problem for someone even if it means putting aside something I enjoy. To this end, it also means I can't say no. Well, actually I did just a little while ago. I had to go to the doctor for a checkup and the nurse said I had to get on the scales. I DO NOT use the scales at the doctor's office. I know theirs are different from mine (heavier) and if I got on them I'd just get depressed. No matter that I weigh the same, it's the number that bothers me. Normally it doesn't, but I've gained about 10 lbs and an upset with myself because of it.

I keep saying I'm going to start going back to the gym, but I can't find the time. I know I have to make time for me, but I don't want to take time away from playing with my son. I have started walking in the evenings. We live in a neighborhood with a couple of miles worth of streets and I load my miracle baby into the stroller and off we go. He loves to go for a walk. So much so that he has started asking to go every night after dinner.

This of course leads me back to not being able to say no. If I could say no to more things, then maybe I would feel like I could go to the gym and still have plenty of time with my son.

One of multiples

So my last post was about the cost of having more than 1 child. My husband and I want more, but we're not sure we can afford it and at my age (I'm 38), we're not sure we can wait and try later either.

I'm torn. If we decide to stop at one, we can give Michael more, take him more places and do more things. On the other hand, my mom was an only child, and has wanted all her life to have a sibling. I have a sister and can't imagine being an only child. When our dad passed away suddenly, we depended on each other a lot. We constantly called and just cried together trying to get through it.

Earlier this year, our mom had some major health problems and spent almost 5 months in the hospital. One Friday night, my sister and I got a call from the doctors saying she wasn't doing well and we needed to come immediately (a lot easier said than done when you live 3 hours away). Once again, I don't know what I would have done without my sister. I love my husband dearly, but it's not the same. My sister and I have a bond that can never be broken. We may get upset with each other, fight, scream, whatever, but we'll always be sisters no matter what. I really want my son to have that.

My husband is one of three and just like me, he knows he can always count on his brother and sister no matter what happens.

That's about it for now. Our stove was one the fritz and so I had to take the day off to wait for the repair guy...now it's time to get my miracle baby and spend the rest of the day with him.

The Climb

Many of you may have been like me at one time. You had grandiose visions of sitting in the corner office overlooking the little people below while taking home your mammoth paycheck. Hordes would scramble to your office desparate for your answer to life-changing, world-defining questions.

Then, one day...YOU WOKE UP or like me you had a baby. Those dirty diapers and midnight wake-up calls changed it all. Now, your grandiose visions are of taking a day off to play with your little miracle baby. Then again, your vision may be a bit blurred by the flying food or toys being hurled past your head without warning.

My grandiose visions now are of promotions with enough pay increases to be able to have more kids - daycare isn't cheap, you know... I want at least 1 more. Then again, at my age, we might have trouble getting pregnant at all or at the other end of the spectrum, we could end up with multiples... then I better really get a big raise...

I was thinking about this just this morning as realized, 2 kids in daycare would run us $1000 a month. That's almost a mortgage payment...and my mother-in-law wonders why I'm not pregnant again yet. Of course, that doesn't count the formula, diapers, clothes, etc. We're saving all Michael's "stuff" just in case, but with the costs involved, we're not sure we can afford to have more kids.

Co-sleeping problems

My adorable 27 month old boy has taken to sleeping with my husband/his father and I. At first, I wrote it off to being in a new place (we bought a house last Dec), but 8 months later, I'm out of excuses and nothing we've tried works. Until we moved from the apt, we put Michael to bed every night by himself and he drifted off to sleep and was fine. Now, if we put him to bed still awake, he screams until we finally give in and hold him until he falls asleep. Then, we put him in his bed only to be awakened in the middle of the night when he wakes up and cries until we put him in the bed with us. At first, we tried letting him cry himself back to sleep, but my husband and I both work and have to get up at 5 am. It's a little hard to do our jobs if we're falling asleep at our desks.

My mom is coming to visit for a month and I'm hoping she has some suggestions, but I'm open to suggestions from anyone. My back would thank you as well since I now seem to wake up with a backache every day.

Grandma visiting

My mom is finally getting to come visit for about a month and I can't be more excited. She spent several months in the hospital after having a brain tumor removed and had a really hard time. We even almost lost her a couple of times. Now she's home and is doing much better and is even feeling up to traveling. My husband and I bought our house in Dec and so far she's only seen pics of it, but next month, after my niece's baptism, mom is coming home with us and staying.

The best part is our son getting to spend so much time with her. Every time we visit I feel bad, because it takes him several hours to get used to and comfortble with her and even then she doesn't get to see his real personality. I think this will be great for both of them. She'll get to see him in his usual environment and he'll get to spend plenty of time with her so even after she goes home, when we visit, he'll be comfortable.

The only drawback is that since she hasn't seen the house yet, I want everything to be perfect and that means quite a bit of work in the next few weeks to get everything done before she gets here. Get that hammer ready honey...

Pop tart toddler, etc...

For the last month, our 2 yr old has asked for and eaten nothing but POPTARTS!!! I'm sick of looking at them and it worries me that my sweet baby is not eating better. Of course, it's our fault because we haven't forced the issue until now. So what did my husband and I do? We distracted him and hid the box. He still asks for them, but we show him the empty space (yes, I'm so anal even poptarts have their own spot in the cabinet) and he's fine. Of course, now we're dealing with only wanting a PB sandwich for every meal. And you know what's really frustrating is that at daycare, he eats whatever they put in front of him. Why??? Because he knows he doesn't have a choice there. At home, he knows I don't want him to go hungry and so I'll fix him something else if he doesn't eat dinner. He eats for grandma and daycare and I can fix the same thing they do and he won't eat it. What's with that??? So my mom's coming to visit. She'll get here about the middle of Sept and will be here for a month. Maybe some of you don't understand, but I'm thrilled. My mom had a brain tumor removed in Feb. Although it was not cancerous, it was causing a lot of health problems. She also had a lot of complications...so much so that we almost lost her a couple of times. One Fri night, we got a call from the hospital telling us how bad she was and that we needed to come immediately. Not easy when you're 3 hours away. For my sister and BIL even harder. They're 4 hours, 1 infant and a dog away. At least we only had to worry about our 2 year old and he traveled REALLY well. What made it even worse was that 4 years ago, our dad laid down to take a nap and never woke up. He was only 57 so now I'm paranoid about my mom. We have a small family to start with. It's me, my sister, my grandmother (mom's side), my uncle (dad's bro), aunt (dad's bro's wife) and cousin (who we've only seen once in the last 10 years and that was for my dad's mom's funeral.

Ooops, my sweet one is awake from his nap... so this will have to wait. I'll be traveling soon and I should be able to get this updated then.

Shipping off my baby - part 2

We all survived the trip to great grand-parents. I guess I should say, they (my-inlaws) survived it and my hubby and I just endured our son being gone for 8 days. It wasn't as bad for me because I was on travel for work. But my poor husband was all by himself for 8 days. It definitely gave him plenty of time to study, but I don't think he enjoyed the house being so quite. Since Michael got home, he hasn't wanted to let us out of his sight for anything. The last few mornings when I drop him off at daycare, he wraps his arms and legs around me so tight it actually hurts. Then he really breaks my heart. He cries and screams for me not to leave him. You'd think he was being beaten. Yesterday, it was so bad, I almost called in and told my boss I was taking the day off. Then I decided that wasn't teaching Michael anything except how to control me so I sucked it up, left him with this friends and teachers at daycare and got myself to work. I just keep reminding myself, this is just the tip of the iceberg and it will only get harder as he gets older.

Touring MA

I spent the last 2 days doing work "stuff" and then got to spend the afternoon touring Boston and the Harvard campus. Just being there made feel STUPID :) Tomorrow I'm heading to Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard. I hate being away fromy husband and son, but I love getting to see places I might not otherwise get to see. Last nite I saw the Red Sox play the Oakland A's at Fenway. My coworker said he thinks it's the oldest stadium in use. I'll add pics to my next post.

FL at last

Finally arrived, now have changed and am heading to beach

My new iPod

So I finally got an iPod. Actually my husband got it for me so he could buy himself a PSP and not feel too guilty over it. It's his money so it doesn't Matter to me, but I definitely got a great new toy out of it. I LOVE THIS THING. It just takes a little longer than normal to post a new entry but my one-finger typing skills are definitely getting a lot better.

Shipping off my baby

At 4:30 this morning my in-laws arrived and my husband and I loaded our 2 yr old son into his car seat along with clothes, toys and enough DVD's to last for a 16 hour car ride and a 7 day visit to his great-grandparents. These grandparents live in MI and this will be the first time they've been able to see their 1st great grandchild in person.

Two weeks ago we realized Michael would have to go with them for the week. I have to be gone the entire week on business and my husband who works and goes to school full-time has finals this week. Normally, that would mean we depend on my in-laws for help with taking Michael to and picking him up from daycare. This time though, they already had planned the trip to MI so we really had no choice but to let them take him.

Don't get me wrong, I trust them, but that a LONG drive and a lot of time on the road and there are lots of idiots out there.

You know, I thought I might be able to handle it. There's grocery shopping and general home "stuff" to do today along with getting my things packed. Boy was I wrong, they pulled away from the house and hadn't even gotten as far as the next door neighbor's drive and I was already in tears. I don't regret letting Michael go with them. This may be his only chance to see his great-grandparents and my husband and I are actually going on a date tonight. The problem is I just hate being away from my baby. It's bad enough being away from him when I have to travel, but this time since he'll be gone longer than I am, I'm at a loss for what to do without him. We usually spend Saturdays playing in the yard or going to the beach. I guess I should use this time to do my spring cleaning. Michael loves to help clean, the only problem is once we're done and there's nothing left to clean, he likes to make messes so he can do more cleaning. Let's just hope he doesn't grow out of that :) I guess I need to get dressed and get started for the day. I'll be counting the minutes until they call tonight letting us know they arrived safely.

Home renovations

My husband and I are in the midst of one of our first real home improvement projects. We've done some small projects since we bought the house last Dec, but this one is definitely a major one. We're redoing the kitchen floor. Some of the tile has started buckling on the sides and in a couple of places corners are sticking up. I'm taking before, during and after pics of all the projects we do and putting them in a scrap book. So here's the before shot. The day we closed, I started a notebook of ALL to do items for the house - including the ones we won't be able to afford to do for several years. I wanted a central place to keep track of everything that needs to be done and how much we spend doing it. I used to love PDA's, but I missed being able to "check off" a finished project. It doesn't feel the same when you just delete it. Then you can't see you actually did anything. All those checks in my notebook show how much we've done in the few months we been here and it's a great feeling to see how much we've already accomplished. Our son isn't too sure of what's going on, though he did try to help me take up the tile yesterday. Hey, he's a little boy, and when it's ok to tear up something, you better believe he's going to help if he can. I love doing all this work to the house, but unfortunately, it does take away time I spend with my son. And speaking of, he just woke up, so that's all for now.

Ohayou

FYI - This is good morning in Japanese. I used this title because this entry is about the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. I was there a couple of months ago and loved it so much my husband and I are turning our screened in back porch into a miniature Japanese Tea Garden. This is one of the pics showing how incredible the garden there is. If I'm lucky, HGTV will feature it....HAHA. Hey, it could happen...at least in my dreams...I had intended for this to be a LOOOOONG entry to make up for all the lost time, but I only have a few minutes until my beautiful miralce baby is back from grandma's house.

Some Assembly Required

So it's been a month since my last post...blame it on work or travel or whatever, I've been going nuts not to be able to update my blog. This one goes back to the weekend of Memorial Day. My son turned 2 that weekend and my husband and father-in-law built him a swing set. With my husband's architechtural background, a boxed swing set was out of the picture. Our son had to have one-of-a-kind designed and built by my husband. My first thought was it would be cheaper to buy the boxed one. Boy was I wrong. My son now has a HUGE swingset (partially made of composite boards) with a ramp & slide including a fort with a steering wheel and telescope (we're still debating whether or not to add the sand box underneath). Keep in mind, we didn't find any boxed ones that included everything my son has and yet we spent half of what the boxed ones cost. As for the time it took to build, well, the boxed one would probably have been faster. Turns out, my husband and father-in-law ended up spending about 20 hours over the long weekend. If they had stuck to the original plan, they probably could have finished in 1 1/2 days, but they kept adding to it. It started off as just a couple of swings and a slide w/ladder. Then a ramp was added, then the fort on top, then the steering sheel and telescope. Now, he's talking about adding a small rock climbing wall and a sand box. Guess I don't need to worry about landscaping, my entire back yard will soon be 1 great big play ground - then again I can't blame my husband for all of this, since the swing set was actually my idea :)

Seduced by Green

No, it's not money if that's what you're thinking or a person by that name. The green that seduced me is our environment. Over the last 5 years I've become more enviro-conscious. What really did it for me was the birth of my son 2 years ago Sun.

After he was born, I joined a gym to get back my size 2 (yeah, I wish) figure. Ok, I really just wanted to lose the baby weight and be able to wear my regular clothes. (By the way, I did that). Anyway, I'm at the gym one day climbing stairs like I'm trying to chase down my favorite celeb and all the while reading an article about a few other celebs who've gone green in one way or another and a lightbulb goes on. All that energy used on the machine and I still had enough to turn on a lightbulb :) I realized, even though we have all the child-proof locks on the cabinets with cleaning supplies, it didn't matter. There was residue left behind everytime I used those HORRIBLE chemicals and everytime anything touched one of those surfaces and then my son, he was being exposed. THAT WAS NOT ACCEPTABLE!!! (That was on a Thurs.) But, after chasing down celebs on the stairmaster, I was too tired to do anything that night.

I got home Fri and that was a completely different story. I got online and looked up all kinds of enviro-friendly cleaners and I packed up all those cancer causing, horrible smelling, filthy chemicals and first thing Sat morning, hauled them off to the local Household Hazardous Waste drop off site. Then I headed out to get the ingredients for my new friendly cleaners. I wasn't sure how they would work, but I was willing to scrub twice as hard to keep the bad stuff away from my baby.

Guess what, those friendly cleaners did a much better job. The oven cleaner FAR surpassed any of those horrible smelling ones from the store. The wood cleaner (2 parts oil to 1 part lemon juice) even has multiple uses. It cleans wood great, but is also fantastic on leather furniture. Who'd a thunk it???

Then, according to my hubby, I got a little fanatical. I recycled everything and wouldn't buy it if it had any bad "stuff" in it. I basically told him to get over it. What was more important, our health AND that of our son or being a fanatic? He finally got on the wagon train and is now just as much of a fanatic as I am. Then again, now, he says I'm NOT a fanatic, I'm just being a great mom.

If you've read my other posts, you know we bought our first house in Dec. That's not exactly a good time to start a compost, so we waited. About 2 months ago we got an amazing compost contraption. I don't know what else to call it. It looks like a huge green sphere and doesn't require worms. You just load your "stuff" into, put it in an area that gets lots of sun and wait. We had soil after just 6 weeks. Then again, I also had 4 HUGE bags of leaves I had raked that were just waiting to be composted. Speaking as the enviro-fanatic, guess whose idea it was to buy this contraption instead of using something else...Yep, you're right, my hubby.

I have to say something else about him. He's the most wonderful husband and father I can imagine. He has endless patience and would love nothing more than to spend his days rolling around on the floor or in the yard with our son playing whatever game our little guy wanted. Who could ask for more than that?

It's almost time to pick up my little piece of heaven from daycare, so I'll see you all around later....

Contortionist Monkey

Did that title get your attention??? That is my son's new name. If you're a parent, you probably know what I mean. You're at the doctor's or heaven forbid in church and they have had it with sitting still. They want up and they want up NOW. When my son reaches this point, he can contort his body in ways I didn't know possible to try and get down. Then again, maybe I used to be able to do that and just don't want to admit it now.

The monkey part comes from him climbing anything and everythin he can get a toehold on including us, his parents. He climbs the dresser, the couch, the entertainment center, the kitchen table the foyer staircase, and especially the baby gate (needless to say, we gave up on that) you name and he will climb it. Luckily, so far, we have always managed to catch him after just a couple of steps. But, I know the day is coming when neither my husband nor I will be fast enough and he'll get to the top of something and then jump. Hello hospital and probably social services the ways things are today.

You know when I was growing up, kids got hurt all the time and no one jumped to conclusions. In the summer, we could leave home first thing in the morning, ride our bikes to a friends and stay all day. The only rule was to be home by sundown. Unfortunately, times have changed. I can't imagine the day I'll have to turn him loose and out of my site (daycare doesn't count). I'm getting nervous just thinking about it.

Lunch is about over...so have a great day and I'll see you here later...

Joys of Wawe

One last post for the day...in case you're wondering what wawe is, it's what my 2 yr old calls water...

House hunting & buying

My husband and I bought our first house in Dec...(got in just before the first-time home buyer minimum downpayment went up!!!) We had been looking for about 8 months and finally found one we both liked. Let me tell you, that was not easy. My husband grew up in this area and his parents live in one of the historic areas and he LOVES architecture especially from the turn of the century (20th not 21st). He really wanted one of those houses...luckily, the few up for sale were all WAY outside our budget.

The outsides may be great, but they have either teeny tiny closets or not at all. (What, did those people not have any clothes???) I need at least 2 walk-in closets just for my stuff!!!

Anyway, so we got a great deal (one of the few situations where the current economy helped us) and from the day we first say it to the day we closed was only 23 days...I'm sure that has to be some kind of record.

So before we moved in, I had to at least paint a few things...I love the accent walls you see on HGTV so I have 2 of them and if I do say so, I think they look great. We also had all the carpets cleaned. The previous owners had at least 1 pet who apparently had accidents reguarly in the living room. So everything is moving along and I have my notebook of EVERYTHING I would eventually like to do to the house.

So the other day I get home and apparently one of our cats decided the litter box wasn't clean enough and used the living room floor - the same place the previous pet had used. As for housekeeping, I love to clean and the only thing I ask of my husband - keep the litter box clean. So I check and it's horrible. I sure wouldn't have used it :) Needless to say, my dear hubby got an earfull when he got home. Of course, 30 minutes later, I felt horrible...he works full-time and goes to school full-time so I apologized.

Anyway, we start really examining the carpet and OMG, it smelled aweful. I don't know how we had never noticed it before, or maybe we did and just ignored it or maybe all the paint fumes hid the smell. So, now we have to pull up the carpet and I'm certainly not going to put down new and start the cycle over. We agreed on hardwood floors. The main house, entry way and hallway all have pale hardwood floors. I tell my dear hubby, we need to match it and put that down in the living room.

That did it...the architect in him kicked in (he never finished his architecture degree - he's an engineer) but he starts in on how each space has it's own purpose and should be separate from other spaces. OK,I agree with that...but watch any HGTV show and they say everything should flow... The only thing separating the living room floor from the entry way (with pale hardwood) is one of those little kickplate thingies...so now I may have to live with stink until we can agree...HELP!!! The only thing I know to do is possible get my mother-in-law to help. If we ask her opinion ( hope she agrees with me) that would settle it...then it's just a matter of getting it done. I just wish my MIL would get back from the trip so we can get started...Oh no, what if she doesn't agree??? Then I guess it's dark hardwood and may I can put down a BIG area run and cover it.

Cheaper than a Shrink

Ok, so I'm new to blogging, but I figure it's cheaper than a shrink and I can get things off my chest...I don't want any of you to think I have a horrible life...I don't. I have a wonderful husband, amazing 2 year old, a good job and a roof over my head which is a lot more than some people can say these days.

On the other hand, I have issues to deal with and hate to always turn to my hubby (especially when he's sometimes the problem) and I tried the shrink thing years ago and wasted money because I don't like talking to them and usually don't tell them the whole truth anyway. So why did I go in the first place you ask...

That was years ago and it was not my choice at that point, my parents decided if I wouldn't talk to them then it was off to the shrink. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't a bad kid, just very quite and introverted and didn't make friends easily. They were concerned because I preferred to be by myself rather than out with friends. I don't know if I just outgrew it or am great at faking it, but I'm certainly no longer an introvert and while I do need "me" time, I do enjoy being around people now.

Thinking back on it, a lot of it probably had to do with the fact that I was always a bit on the heavy side and as kids do, I was teased horribly. I think things started to change when I finally outgrew the weight issue and made the cheerleading squad. I still wan't the most popular, but definitely started being more outgoing.

So I'm almost 38 and you wonder why I'm having flashbacks to junior high and highschool. It's because my 20 reunion is coming up in a few months. Of course more of us are on facebook, but I've only kept in touchwith a few of them.

I remember when my mom had her 20 year reunion, I gave her such a hard time... "It's been 20 years???...OMG you're so old." Needless to say, she got a kick out of it when I told her I got the invite for mine.