It's so quiet!!

The boys are spending a few extra days in NJ visiting family and I flew back last night for a few glorious days of mama R&R. I spent a delicious day cleaning and organizing to my heart's desire. So far: did 9 loads of laundry, put a fresh finish on the wood floors, re-organized the library, cleaned out my email box, cleaned the wood stove with bacon grease (an internet suggestion for ridding it of rust spots- worked great but now my house smells eerily like i-Hop), cleaned out the fridge, and ordered everything on my 'to get' list from amazon. Just finished my dinner- popcorn, fresh sqeezed oj, organic baked french fries and a turkey hot dog. Mmmmmm....

Right now I'm waiting for my friend to swing by after work so he can open a can of Tung Oil for me since my strapping husband is not here to do it. I've got my heart set on shining up our counter tops and wood stove pad with it. I tried about 30 times to get the damn thing open and I think I may have actually pulled a muscle in my shoulder.

Success! My 180 lb martial arts teacher friend needed pliers and all his strength to get it open, I don't feel so badly now.

My nephew's bar mitzvah was wonderful. It is hard to believe that he is 13. He has turned into such a lovely young man. And it was so great to see both close and extended family. I did, however, get a bit overcooked by the whole weekend. I am the sensitive sort and too much stimulation can easily put me over the edge. There was a parade of people to meet, visitors to see, dinners, luncheons, photos, presentations, meetings, etc. what felt like every second. Don't get me wrong, it was great to see everyone but W-H-E-W was it insane. The little one did just great. It's tough though, knowing that he's so easy going that his signs of stress are not apparent to friends, family, etc and that it is my/our responsibility to read his sometimes subtle cues that he needs a break, doesn't want to be picked up etc.

Here are a few of the weekend highlights.
(More photos to come when hubby gets home with the camera. These are from brother Mike.)




Highlight #1. Tess.
Tess (the adorable blond in my husband's arms) will be 3 in June and is Julian's cousin. She is a tiny little pixie, and smart as a whip.
Julian was enamored.
On our last morning I arrived at the table and sat with Julian, Tess, and a mess of Jon's family while Jon went to get some fruit for Julian. I announced with my typical snarky humor that Julian had fallen off of the bed that morning and I was pretty sure that Jon threw him.
When Jon came to the table Tess called out in her tiny voice..."Jon, Jon, Jon?" I pointed out to Jon that Tess was speaking to him and everyone quieted down and Tess with furrowed brow asked, "Jon, did you throw Julian off of the bed?" her high estimation of Jon plummeting by the second. I have to keep reminding myself that I'll need to be careful with the literal minds of toddlers.

Among other fabulous Tess comments was to my cousin's S.O.
"Norman," she proclaimed "you don't have very much hair." I missed that one...much to my chagrin.

Highlight #2. The cousins.
Cousin Amy is Jon's first cousin's daughter which makes her his first cousin once removed. Amy is a riot. Her parents are a riot. Her siblings are a riot. We had the privilege of joining their family for a ski trip to Vail about 3 years ago and with the exception of Jon fracturing and dislocating his shoulder, it was one of the best vacations I've ever had.

Amy's son Kevin loves his Nana soooo much that he has decided that his favorite new discovery, his balls, should be shared with his Nana. During the bar mitzvah his father Brian took him to go potty and when he was done he refused to pull his pants up and had a melt down yelling "Show Nana balls, show Nana balls!" Retrospectively, Brian was relieved that Kevin's request wasn't audible to the celebrants, and Nana was relieved that Kevin's father was able to assuage him and she didn't need to excuse herself from the ceremony to actually view said balls.

Highlight #3. Throwing away the bread crumbs from my mother-in-law's cupboard.
I love organizing. I love making room. I love throwing stuff out. I was able to convince my M-I-L to throw away a container of bread crumbs dated 1992, and also the Italian spice mix that smelled like cardboard and had a price stamp of 39 cents. I told her that the best present she could ever give me was to let me clean out her cupboards. No go so far, but as doing this at my own mother's house was one of my fondest memories, I am hoping she'll give it a second thought for our next visit.

Highlight #4. Visiting with my parents.
My mom and dad took a 2 hour drive to visit with us for a few hours. I miss them so much. I seriously never laugh as hard as when I am with my family. If anyone out there has any influence over them, please encourage them to come out to visit soon.

Highlight #5. Connecting.
Although it may have been overwhelming, it was such a lovely gift to get to be with Jon's whole family. There is so much love and support there. I feel lucky to be part of the family.

A few photos more photos from Mike. We'll see what we have on our camera when Jon gets home tomorrow.


My father-in -law mocks me mercilessly because I can't seem to keep my mouth closed when I feed the baby.




Emma and her ear to ear smile. She's entertaining the idea of becoming an actor. I think she'll be great.

Captain McWhiner

Julian is starting to get frustrated when he doesn't get what he wants.
He sobbed for 10 minutes yesterday after I put the vacuum away, and we'd already been using it for 45 minutes. He was enjoying it so much that I found stuff that I didn't even know was possible to vacuum. Today we were looking at a magazine and JLEB saw an add for our vacuum and zoomed over to the door of the room where we keep it and started signing vacuum over and over again. Whining and actually crying when I didn't take it out. What is UP with that? Why would anyone love something that loud?

Sigh.

We're starting to work on self-feeding. I know Aileah has been letting Julian use a spoon for a while, but I am way too neurotic to let that that happen after the child is dressed for the day. I realize though, it's gotta happen or he'll still be eating with his hands when he's 35 (no cracks from you, mom.)

Here is JLEB eating his greens mix. Greens mix, by the way, is steamed chard, kale, spinach, and green peas blended up to a slurry. We mix it in, usually with his breakfast cereal, along with berry flavored fish oil. No, really, he loves it, look!







Laura was up visiting again. Julian has really taken to her.



Jon, for some reason, only put on the top of Julian's jammies. Kind of looked like a tux jacket so we snapped a few shots. I have the same pajamas btw, but I promise you wont ever see me in them on this blog.



Last photos are of Julian and me last night when I was on my way out for a few drinks with some girlfriends. The amazing dress was my mom's in the 1970s. Formally first hand evidence of the conspiracy by the fashion industry to make us buy more clothing. The dress is a size 8. I wear a size 2 or even a size 0 in some brands. A size 8 in 1977 is a size 0 now? Where will they go next? Negative sizing? "Do you have that skirt in a minus 6?" Huh? I have friends that are way smaller (I call it 'less curvy') than I am...do they have to shop at the tween department? What if they don't want their belly buttons showing?





cya!
-s

PS I just realized that today Julian has been home for 8 months. It is amazing how it seems like so much less time than that and so much more time than that all at once.

Back up and running!

I hit the Apple store at the mall today for my appointment with a mac "genius." Not sure if he was a genius or not but he got my computer working again. Woo hoo. We had to reinstall the operating system on the computer. He made me hit the button to "continue" in order to make sure I understood I was responsible if the hard drive should perhaps, fail. Talk about pressure!

Here are some freshish photos for those of you who have been missing the boy.

1. A few shots of Julian's new obsession with Elwynn's anus.





2. No idea where we got this hat. I think my sister may have gotten it at the thrift shop in her neighborhood. No, he has no dreads under there.





3. Jon was trying to adjust the baby gate to keep the fat cat from getting downstairs where the little cat is now sleeping at night. Julian insisted on "helping." Anyone remember Free To Be You and Me?









4. The captain has taken to my Kate Spade bag. He hangs it around his neck and wears it about the house. Thinking about getting a beeper for it because already I can see that it could end up in a mystery location.



5. And finally, we can add eggplant to Julian's allergy list. We gave him some tonight and within 2 minutes he started rubbing his nose and his face and he broke out in a bright red rash. When we saw the hive starting on his lip we dosed him with some Benadryl. You can kind of see it here. Poor bunny was so uncomfortable.



Glad to be back!
-S

No photos...want to know why?

Well...my mac is, um, on a hiatus. I'll spare you the gory details but suffice it to say that the SOS-APPLE guys can't help. We have an in-store appt on Sunday. I know that we have backup of all of our photos and music, but it's been a while since I tested my backup so we're on pins and needles here waiting to find out if we have lost anything important. Until it's handled, no photos for all y'all. Sorry.

Then yesterday, using Jon's laptop at home the "y" key was jiggling and as I tried to fix it, it came flying off. Jon and I collectively spent over an hour trying to get the tiny tiny pieces to fit together. No go. So as I type every time there is a "y" I have to stop touch typing and line up the little rubber thingie on top of the key to get it to work. Still looking for someone willing to help us get the fricking thing back on.

OK...not so bad. This morning I went to work to find that the patient who I added onto my schedule NY eve, who took over an hour and a half instead of an hour, who spent the entire visit arguing with every suggestion I made, gave us a bad check. I was not happy.

Then this afternoon I went for a car seat safety check as we are switching baby cakes from back to front facing. The woman didn't have me on the schedule and I was told to wait and she'd be there in 10-15 minutes tops. After going up and down the stairs about 30 times and touching everything in their office, and playing on the couch, and 45 minutes went by, we finally left.

On the way home I decided to stop at the bank to deposit some checks from work. Loaded the baby up in my arms, balancing my purse and wallet and keys, I put the first envelope in and it SUCKED IN another envelope without any keyed info. I yelped and everyone in the bank turned around to look at me. I have no idea how many checks were in there or how much it was for, and it will land in the pile of envelopes inside the bank machine with no markings.

We'll assume someone will figure it out when they open it up and see checks written to me and stamped, but I had to spend 30 min at the bank making a game plan for the branch to handle it all. This included a diaper change on the bank manager's desk (he thought the floor would be "too dirty" and it didn't seem worth explaining that the child spends most of his time on the floor...)

To top it all off I spent the next hour and a half at home with Julian where I said no less than 50 times, "please don't touch the kitty's anus."

Jon thinks I'm getting all the minor difficulties of 2008 out of the way this week. I'll go with that...