Free Time

I recently finished another baby quilt for a new baby:

Now I just need to get it in the mail before his arrival.  It’s small and plush and will hopefully be useful for baby lounging.  I always end up with “drop zones” all over the house when I have a newborn.  A blanket with a toy outside the bathroom, a blanket with a toy in the living room, a blanket with a toy on my bed…I set them up as needed throughout the day, pick them all up at night, then start over again the next morning.

And I FINALLY finished the top to one of the boys’ quilts, basted all the layers together while watching one of Trent’s favorite movies, and then –and I almost thought this day would never come- I started quilting.  After changing the design and adding more fabric to make one quilt in progress into two, then finishing the top of one only to realize it was a square instead of a rectangle and having to add more fabric, it was so nice to see that an actual blanket is coming together.  My self-imposed Christmas deadline is starting to seem possible.

And speaking of Christmas, we drew names with both Trent’s family and my own for the handmade gift exchanges.  Everyone has one family member to make a gift for, twenty dollar limit.  It was fun last year with Trent’s family so we started it with my own this year, but all of a sudden I realized that with 6 gifts to make total (adults only on my side), that could bring us to $120 for handmade gifts outside of the realm of regular gift giving.  Which means we will need to find inspiration and supplies here:

Agh!  Time to clean out the craft closet.  What are those wires hanging from the top shelf?  Sometimes when I’m wasting time I like to go to flickr and type in “craft closet.”  Those closets looks nothing like that.

Right across from the craft closet is our treadmill.  I was wondering why I wasn’t losing weight even though I’m working out with a trainer twice a week and no longer having Pop Tarts and beer every day…

Could it be the basket of fabric resting on the treadmill?  That closet has exploded all over that room.  I need to shift my free time priorities for at least the next month until the obstacle run I signed up for in a moment of crazy.  Especially since I haven’t been actually running.  At all.

What.  Was.  I.  Thinking.

Swaggering

Even with all the vases in this house, flowers often end up in mason jars.

We’re in the market for a minivan.  The thing I’m really liking about it is that there is nothing anyone can do to make it cool.  It is what it is.  We have two kids and a crowded SUV; I have no desire for a larger, crowded SUV.  It’s minivan time.  And really, there is something so satisfying about knowing that a minivan is inevitable and embracing it.

Plus a minivan is the equivalent of the Weasley’s tent at the Quidditch World Cup.  Unremarkable on the outside, but awesome on the inside.  I never thought I would feel this way, but I can’t wait to move the car seats from my Jeep into a spiffy new Sienna.  Hopefully soon…

Teething: Brooklyn Style

My mom recommended giving a teething child a really hard bagel.  There’s no way Tate is getting any of that in his mouth, but he’s enjoying trying.

First Day

Mother’s Day Out started again for Rush today.  He has been giddy about school and I know he’s ready to be back with other kids.  He was a little nervous once we actually got to school, but all the kids were nervous.  You could tell everyone in the classroom was trying to hold it together and all the kids cried at least a little, which was heartbreaking but understandable.   A lot of things take warm up time, but they’re worth getting past the beginning.

I was thinking we would sit around the kitchen table after school, eating the cookies Rush and I made yesterday and talking about his day.  The kink in the plan was that my car wouldn’t start in the school parking lot this afternoon.  By wonderful divine intervention, my friend Tiffany was still in the parking lot and after unsuccessfully trying to jump my car (the battery was beyond dead) she gave us all a ride home.  Rush got to ride home with his best friend Barrett, we stopped at Sonic for drinks, and I was reminded how amazing it is to have such a good friend living right down the street.

It may be my inner (and outer) nerd talking, but there’s something so exciting about the first day of school, all the possibilities. 

The Livin’ Was Easy

That’s it.  School starts tomorrow.  Thanks for the memories, summer of 2011.

PS- Rush is always super busy in the backyard – that’s the best picture I could get of him.

PPS- We’ll be eating popsicles outside after school.  Summer lives on in our hearts, as well as on the thermometer.

First of all, never bad mouth synergy*

Way back when I worked at Disney World, my very first day of work was an all day corporate training.  I remember two things about that day:  the first was the guy at my table who had tattoos removed so he could get a job there and comply with the “no visible tattoos” policy, the second was a long lesson on synergy.  At the time, The Lion King was the prime example of synergy:  your son could wear his Lion King t-shirt while watching the movie, then head to school with his Lion King lunch box, then go to Disney World for the Lion King attractions. 

I’m too invested in Disney to do anything other than go right along with their plans.  I bought Rush a multi-pack of Pixar underwear and now I’m letting him watch the movies so he’ll be excited about the underwear.  He’s really into Toy Story, which he watched for the first time recently while holding his Woody doll, which we already had.  We listened to that “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” song twelve times in a row in the car today (already had that cd pre-children, and the DVD, yikes).  He picked out Toy Story fabric for his new nap mat cover for school too.

My favorite part is when the castle with the Pixar logo shows up at the beginning of the movies, Rush points to it and yells “I GO THERE!”  Yes.   Let’s go.  (Pretty sure the castle on the logo is Sleeping Beauty’s castle in California, but we get the point.)

And the new reigning Lion King of synergy?  We opened that Pandora’s box of having boys last night:  we watched Cars.

Tate is not allowed to watch tv yet, by the way.  As you can tell.

*thank you Jack Donaghy

Sweet

I’m having a tiring –and honestly, lonely- night, so I’m working on cheering myself up.  (Yes, 30 Rock is on Play All – did I have to mention it?)  Here’s a little something for anyone else who needs a pick-me-up tonight.

Miscellaneous Summer Wind Down Brain Wandering

Only a few more days of summer remain!  Rush is definitely ready for school.  Every day we talk about his backpack, nap mat, and new water bottle.  I told him there will be new kids in his class this year and he told me he’s going to hug them.

It’s still going to be summery, hot and sweaty and popsicley.  But once school starts, September 1 is right around the corner and regardless of what the thermometer says, my fall starts during the drive home from the beach on Labor Day.  I thought the summer was going to seem long and that we might have long days wondering what to do.  Clearly I underestimated the demands of getting two children fed and napping every day.  Finding an hour to leave the house was a challenge.  It has been an unusual summer for us in that we were home most weekends and we barely made it to the pool.  There was a lot of family time, but not a lot of beach time.

Last week I was in Beaumont and, as always, I came home with way too much stuff.  My mom and I turn into Becky Bloomwood and her mother when we’re together.  Among other things, I came home with two reams of computer paper, a brooch shaped like a kangaroo, and party supplies for a pirate birthday party.  I’ll throw a pirate party at some point in the future, right?

Next summer I need to plan a trip to visit with my sister so she can reign us in.  I could almost hear her voice admonishing “are you ever really going to wear purple eyeliner?”  But in the moment, with a Diet Coke and popcorn in one hand and the other pushing Tate in the cart, I couldn’t hear her voice loudly enough to put it back.  And surprise, it’s not a good look for me.

The kangaroo brooch is fabulous though.  I’ll be The Girl with the Kangaroo Brooch.

Bjorn is not allowed on the table, by the way.  But I’m not quite sure he knows he’s a cat.  He is allowed in the chairs and I think he sits and talks with my parents as they eat dinner. 

We finally saw the final Harry Potter movie a few Fridays ago.  I’m still genuinely upset that either Hogwarts isn’t real or I’m a muggle.  At least I can still wait for Rush and Tate to get their letters when they are 11.  But I guess since we're not British, they won't be going to Hogwarts.  I wonder what the sister school in America is?

My favorite thing about Harry Potter is how it connects people.  Last night I dropped by a friend’s house and her son showed me his new LEGO Diagon Alley.  I love being able to have a real conversation and connection with a seven year old.

Here’s another way I want to connect:  Casey, charming sister, best knitter that I know, please get out your Mrs. Weasley knitting needles and knit a sweater for me for Christmas.  You know the one, Gryffindor colors, big K on the front.  I would like it wrapped and sitting at the foot of the bed when I wake up on Christmas morning.  Thanks.  Love ya.

War Paint

I was in the room with him when this happened.  You can’t look away for a second, yet at the same time, you can’t watch every second.  I don’t want to watch every second, we’re trying to build independent individuals around here.  And yet – a clean bedspread would be nice.

I didn’t even know I had lipstick in my nightstand. 

My grandmother, Gran, used to have lipstick in her bathroom in fancy lipstick holders.  Casey and I knew we were allowed to play with that lipstick, and one day we decided to systematically cover our entire faces, starting with our foreheads.  The trick is that when we did that in 1986, Gran had cold cream. 

I do not have cold cream.  I do however have baby oil, Cetaphil, and a gigantic bottle of Shout, so happy ending. 

Vacationy Memory Lane

With only a few weeks of summer remaining, I've been reminiscing about old vacations.  Specifically Disney World vacations from the early eighties when we had some good times camping in Fort Wilderness.

Mom and Kelly

 Dad and Kelly

A good vacation makes that sighing-by-the-packed-suitcases feeling worth it.  



Picnicking

The true sign of how hot it is this summer is that I don’t even notice it anymore.  We just go about our business, playing in the backyard and going on picnics at the park constantly drenched in sweat.  Then I look at a photograph from an outing are notice that maybe the heat is starting to wear on us.

I think (?) we enjoy our nice, sweltering summer picnics.  I really don’t care how hot it is; it’s so much easier to make sandwiches in the morning and bring them with us than to get everyone out of the house and home and fed before naptime. 

Tate is teething, plus he loves apples.  So far apples have been great for him.  It’s an improvement over the teethers of my grandparents’ generation:  a baby mitten filled with sugar, then soaked in bourbon.  That explains so many things.

See the fly on Tate’s cup?  Rush is letting him know it’s time to move on.  “GO AWAY BUG.” 

It’s time for me to stop putting off unloading the dishwasher.  There’s nothing else left to say about the heat; drought or not, it’s always hot in August.

Yeah.

Yesterday a key fell off our piano.

Thursday, With Two Kids & An Overworked Husband

Sometimes, in my head, I like to pretend that I’m being interviewed in a magazine in a quick, let’s-promote-this-film sort of fashion.  Favorite drink?  Diet Coke or champagne.  Last movie I saw?  Friends With Benefits.  Gadget I can’t live without?  Seam ripper.  Last thing I purchased on itunes?  Gershwin’s Greatest Hits.

I’m never going to have a hip answer to that last question.  Music is so accessible these days that it’s just too much work for me to stay on top of it.  I love that you can buy any song for roughly a dollar and no longer have to sit next to the radio for hours with a blank tape ready and your hand on record.  But it’s no longer as easy as listening to the radio, finding a song you like and that’s that.  Theoretically I could devote some time to not skipping articles about singers or browsing through itunes more often, but there are just too many other things I want to do in life and something has to give.

Getting back to Gershwin, the long way…

Trent and I have a gigantic bedroom.  I mention that not in a “we’re sooooooooooooo lucky” way, but in a “why did the people building this house select that option?” way.  It’s the suburbs, so there are at least 5 other houses exactly like ours on our street and we make a point of checking them out whenever one is for sale.  It’s always fascinating to see how differently people can make identical spaces look.  The thing we’ve realized is that every other house has a normal master bedroom and an extra living room.  Who chooses a big bedroom over an extra room?

Besides our bed and dresser, we currently have a bookshelf, two arm chairs, two ottomans, and a couch in our bedroom, but just haphazardly thrown against the walls.  Our new plan is to move furniture and make an actual sitting area, which we will hopefully do once Trent stops having to work late every night, which hopefully is soon.  So last night I mention that I think I’m going to download some Gershwin.  Trent’s immediate response:  “Great, we can listen to that when we’re hanging out in our room!”

I’m so glad we found each other.

The thing about listening to Gershwin, which I’ve been doing all day, is that it’s transporting me to a dreamy version of New York.  I know I’m not the only suburban housewife with a baby food covered v-neck t-shirt and a ponytail (how cliché) daydreaming about the city.  Maybe it’s the blood of my immigrant great-grandparents and my first generation New Yorker American grandparents and my Brooklyn born, Queens bred mother coursing through my veins, but the first time I went to New York as an adult, I really felt home.

One of my best vacation moments ever took place when I went to Manhattan with my aunt for a medical conference.  Trent and my dad both advised me to stay in the hotel while she was in her meetings. (Note:  I’m an adult and was at the time working on the 22nd floor of a building downtown in the fourth largest city in the US – not sure where they thought I was going from 7-5 every day or how I was getting to work…portkey?)  Since that was one of the most insane bits of advice I’ve ever received, I ignored it and spent my time exploring by myself.  It was heavenly.

So why do I choose to stay in Texas? 


There they are, the reason.  I’m choosing family and not working and sweeping up Cheerios.  As much as I would love to walk out of an apartment every morning for a bagel and cup of coffee, all three of these guys need grassy space to run and build and I wouldn’t trade any of them for anything.  Plus I don’t think I would be very good at yelling at people on the subway. 

But my mom would be great at yelling at people on the subway.  She’s really good at getting into altercations.  Decades after leaving Queens her accent still appears when she’s really mad.  I think it’s worth planning a trip to NYC with her just to witness it.

Tate Goes Bananas

Stock Up

Damn, I love school supplies.

It’s been years since I had an actual school related reason to buy this stuff, but who can resist?  I’m halfway stocked up on glue sticks for the year; I'll try to pick up a few more before the seasonal sections change from back to school to Halloween.  As for everything else I bought…how can you resist composition books for $.40?  It’s buying possibilities.