Sunday, January 30, 2011

We Went to the Zoo today.

And we had a really nice date last night.

But given that Caspian's been keeping everyone up all week with his bottom molars arriving and K is down for the count AGAIN, I am too pissy to go into the good things.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

The washer broke. We got pooped on. (These two facts do not coexist well.) I drove to Oxford at 75 miles an hour today with a grimacing Annaliese in the back seat. Then she puked. K. went on a three-day business trip AGAIN. Then he came home grumpy and sick.

But! The weather is beautiful-- think first signs of spring-- and the kids are Alright. Caspian's basically talking, if you take the time to converse with him. He gives beautiful wet kisses over and over again. Annaliese says things like "Mommy, cars eat chickens when they're hungry," and her favorite song is Swing Low, Sweet Chariot which makes me feel like an accomplished mother.

I really enjoy NOT having an infant. There are still tantrums, and whininess, and clinging, but the desperate tunnel days of infancy are behind us, and man, it feels good. We're finding our rhythm as a family; K and I no longer have to cram every minute of relaxed time into the hours after the children are asleep. The golden days of them feeding and entertaining themselves while we sleep in on Saturdays are beginning to take the shape of someday possability.

I like 2011. Knock on wood.




Annaliese, in her new tutu, wearing her boots because it was raining and she refuses to let her dancing shoes hit the ground anyhow. She carries them in her ladybug bag and only after she has hugged her best friend Maddie BrockBrock and exchanged compliments on tutus will she plop on her butt and extend her foot for ballet slippers.




The kids now having matching dinosaur PJs, which I LOVE. Sunday morning: cereal, pjs, and Bob the Builder so I can have a quiet cup of coffee. It's a trade I can live with.




Lounging with the bebes, watching something or another, loving how they cuddle with me now.

In another year, people are going to think they're twins. Caspian's still 4 inches shorter but he's within a pound and a half of Annaliese's weight and growing like a weed. I kind of think of them as twins, though 17 months is not Irish-twin territory. There's one on my right and one on my left and it feels right. The urge to have another baby hit hard 6 months after Annaliese's birth, but we're 19 months in with Caspian and while we haven't totaly ruled it out, both of us shake our heads when it comes up.

Plus a rash of people have gotten pregnant lately. And the thrill of it Not Being Us is pretty heady.

I wonder if that will change.
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Monday, January 24, 2011

Anecdote

Caspian calling "Mommy" from his room. I go in, say, "What?" (He'd dropped his pacifier.)

Annaliese says, "Brother wants you to spank his butt."

"Really?"

"Yes." Pause. "I don't want to be his best friend."

Kid better learn to talk soon.

Friday, January 21, 2011

New Year, Same Old

Maybe that's our New Year's Resolution? To resist the temptation of change and just stick with what we've got-- renovations, cars, kids, business, garden-- for a whole solid year?

I guess.

We'll see.

For anyone making New Year Resolutions out there....

Buy from independent stores. Eat locally produced food. Walk the walk. Real people are trying to make real livings doing something honest, and if we don't support them, they'll stop.

Just sayin'.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Finally



First, Quebec City pics here.
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Saturday, January 08, 2011

Greetings from Quebec City

Other than K asking me to speak in French as we wander around, and I'm all like "HONEY I DON'T SPEAK NO FRENCH," we're having a pretty story-book time. The story? Mommy and Daddy get to DO WHATEVER WE WANT!

I feel like we just robbed a bank and got away with it.

It's 2011. Annaliese just turned three. Caspian is doing GREAT. But home life aside, it was reassuring to jump in a car alone with my husband yesterday and spend 7 hours getting to a city made of stone above a river and finding out that kids, chores, life aside... we're still the same kids we always were, packing cold pizza and going on a road trip.

Of course, we are now staying in a suite in a fancy auberge complete with soaking tub, rainfall shower, duvet, and Bose sound systems. Age has SOME benefits :)


Sunday, January 02, 2011

White Christmas


It really happened.

I know, I know, the East Coast was paralyzed. But here in Mississippi, a little girl and her awesome auntie suited up and went out into the snow.


The snow was gone by the afternoon, but the snowman stayed on our porch for days.




I feel about 100 times better this week than I did last weekend. But even in the midst of blah-ness and the sore throat, watching my kids with eliza and nonni was awesome. It's an amazing thing, the ability of the extended family to take the new children of the next generation-- ones they had no part in creating-- in as their own.

It was super. Thanks, family!
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