Post for the sake of posting

Here is a post just to prove to myself that I can actually publish a blog post. I've started a couple of posts lately, but they're just not working out (one is just boring and the other one is too intimidating), but it's been almost two months (criminal!), so here's what's up in my life:

1. Pi day (3.14 - March 14) was awesome - pizza pi, berry pi, taco pi, coconut cream pi, chocolate pi, pink freezer pi - yum! Plus good friends, good conversation, and all-around general nerdiness.

2. I gave up sugary sweets for Lent.

3. No, despite teaching at a Catholic college, I didn't convert. It's a purely secular celebration (celebration? maybe observance or suffrance would be more accurate?) of Lent.

4. How do I reconcile 1 and 2? I just ate the Pizza, the taco pi, and the (sugar-free) chocolate pi. I enjoyed the rest in my mind (and in the knowledge that we'll just have to celebrate Pi approximation day in July (22/7) and it won't be Lent then).

5. Go-go sings an awesome version of "I'm looking over a four leaf clover that I overlooked before"

6. I thought Relief Society culture was a unique Mormon phenomenon, but the Sweet Adeline chorus I recently joined is eerily similar - women who will kill themselves trying to serve, slightly over-earnest and cheesily sweet, people who can't help but proselyte to you about how wonderful it is to be a member, lots of meal delivery when someone has knee surgery or a baby, and being assigned a pair of 'sisters' who are responsible to answer any questions and make sure I'm progressing with the music and choreography. I guess most relief societies don't go out for a beer after rehearsal or have a lesbian R.S. president, but those are pretty superficial differences.

7. I hate grading poorly written papers.

8. Mui-mui is amazingly cute.

9. My Grandma recently turned 95 and is amazing. I keep meaning to make Swiss bread in her honor, but haven't gotten up the gumption to do it yet.

10. In honor of the Ides of March, we're eating Caesar salad.

I love school

When I first got married and started to think about having kids, I thought that being a stay at home mom (SAHM) would be the right choice for me. I have a rather inflated opinion of myself and I think I'm incredibly competent, but I'm always losing my battles with laziness and inertia. Adding more things to my to-do list did not seem like a good idea. My mom always worked, but she somehow managed to be home when I needed her and have dinner on the table and keep track of everything we were up to. If there's one thing I'm confident of in this life, it's that I am not as together as my mother. I used to worry that she would think I was making a judgement about her working by making a different choice myself, but the truth is that it was a simple judgement of my own abilities.

The reality of SAHM-ness is miles and miles (and miles) away from my imaginary world. My kids drive me crazy most days, but not even the kind of crazy I used to imagine. It's not so much the things they do (OK, sometimes it's the things they do) as the relentlessness of being with them and being solely responsible for them. Go-go is charming and clever and full of fun. Mui-mui is cute as a button and it's amazing to watch her figure out new things. After a few hours of cute and clever and fun, I just need them to leave me alone. Stop climbing on my head, stop asking if we can play one more game of Connect Four, stop climbing on the counter to get the cookies, stop demanding my undivided attention (pretty please)!

Which is why I love school. Three mornings a week I get to get dressed (in professional clothes even), go talk to grown-ups (well, close enough to grown-ups), use big words (and explain the big words to my students), remember that I have a brain, and not be around my children. When my mom time is smaller and balanced with some grownup time, I am a much better mom. I have the sanity to paint with them, and do play-doh, and go play in the snow. And I've found that as I give them real attention, they stop being so demanding and momhood doesn't feel quite so relentless. For me, adding things to my to-do list actually makes the whole thing more manageable.

I've taught on and off since Go-go was born, so this obviously isn't a new revelation. But it's been a solid year since I've had a teaching gig and I'd forgotten how much better I am as a working mom (even if it's very part-time right now). So, three cheers for the start of a new semester!

Conflicted Emotions

Embarrassment that my car is so dirty?

Pride in Go-go's fierce name-writing skills?

Worry for his future as a tagger?

Merry Christmas!

Buffalo in the Snow

We had a wonderfully warm October and November here, but we finally got a little snow earlier this month (and the forecast is for a lot more this week). The kids couldn't wait to put on their snow pants and frolic in their own winter wonderland.

Merry Christmas!!

Fall

It doesn't seem fair to punish all of you for my blogging slacker-ness, but life is pain (anyone who says differently is selling something). So prepare yourself to absorb all of Autumn in one fell swoop (or, should I say, one fell blog post). We'll be covering Mui-mui's birthday, a visit from Grandma and Grandpa P., Halloween, a trip to the pumpkin farm, etc. Because I really do like you guys, I'll spare you the sagas of the craft fair from hell, the person at church who CTW (Chose the Wrong and stole my coat), and Erik's exciting business trips. Don't you feel better now.

We'll start with Halloween.

My brother-in law, Justin, made the coolest Optimus Prime costume in the world (here he is with my cute sister, Rainbow Brite - AKA Ellen):

So, I don't think it's possible to beat Justin, but I did make the 2nd best Optimus Prime costume in the world for Go-go (plus, it actually transforms - check out the video taken at his Preschool halloween party). Thanks to Libby for the awesome "Go-go Prime" shirt - he LOVES it:

Mui-mui was a fabulous pumpkin at some parties and an adorable monkey at others. Sadly, these are the only picture I have (the back of the pumpkin head is her at her preschool party). I promise that I took others, but they're on my stolen phone (or on Grandpa's camera):

Go-go's preschool had two parties, so he went as a pirate/cowboy on the day he wasn't Optimus (reversible vest)

His preschool also had a halloween field trip to a great pumpkin farm. Grandma P., Mui-mui and I came along too and the kids got to pet a chicken, milk a goat, brush a horse, ride a pony, take a hayride, and choose pumpkins. It was perfect weather on a perfect farm - all in all, a perfect day.



We did lots of other fun things while Grandma and Grandpa P. were here. We took a cruise on the Erie canal and got to go up and down through the locks, went to the Anchor Bar and Grill - home of the original Buffalo wings, and took a trip to Goat Island at Niagara Falls. It was so fun to see them and show them around our new house and neighborhood.






October was also Mui-mui's birthday. I can't believe my little baby girl is two years old. She's talking up a storm and is just cute, giggly, and playful. Her Grandpa P. made her the most fabulous ducky booster seat ("duckie seat!") and Grandma and Grandpa got her lots of cute ducks to go with it (toys, purse, towel, and bath confetti). She gets a lot of practice saying "Quack!"



Grandma and Grandpa B. sent a great tea set which goes perfectly in the play kitchen we got her. She loves to pack the set in the cupboard then pull it out and "dink tea". When Go-go saw the kitchen, he declared that he had to give her a present that was as big as Mommy and Daddy's present. So he had a great idea to make a playhouse for the backyard - he wins - it's bigger!



So, there's our fall in a nutshell. Grandma and Grandpa B. are coming for Thanksgiving, so I'm sure we'll have lots more adventures in the coming weeks. And maybe I'll actually blog about them sooner than two months from now. Tune in to see.

Boundaries

The past three days have been pretty hellish around here (from my perspective anyway). I've been caught in the grips of what I'm fairly certain is H1N1 and haven't been able to do much more than lie in bed in a fevered stupor wishing for the oblivion of death (or at least the oblivion of sleep uninterrupted by hacking, wheezing coughs). Erik has heroically been serving as both single parent and nurse this weekend, but today was the day I've been dreading - the day Erik went back to work and I somehow had to become responsible for the well-being of myself and two small children. To facilitate this, we put the blow-up bed in the living room for me, and the kids have been watching movies and jumping on the bed (and on mommy) while I lay there like a large, lethargic, blob of yuck. The two-year old decided that it would be fun to play hide and seek with all of the stuff on the shelves. So the cell phone was hidden down my shirt, I had a book up the left leg of my pants, and my waistband was stuffed full of 7 or 8 DVDs. And, yet, I barely registered that any of this was happening or that I might want to stop it until I heard myself saying, "No, Mui-mui, 'A Bug's Life' does NOT go in Mommy's underwear." After all, a girl's got to have some boundaries, right?

Just because they're cute

Go-go's first day of preschool at the YMCA:


Go-go and Mui-mui playing at the window:






Super Kids!

Great Weekend

Any weekend that starts off with an ice cream party on Friday night has to be good. We walked a few blocks over to a neighbor's house where there was plenty of ice cream, lots of toppings, tons of kids (and their parents) from church, and good conversation. I started out feeling like I must be the Grandma of the ward - I definitely seemed to be the only person there over 26 or 27 - but as the night wore on, we met some great families (of assorted ages).

And Saturday just continued the fun. The weather was perfect for a breakfast baby shower in the park and it was good to meet even more of the women in the ward. After it was over, three of us (Diana, Amber, and me) just sat under the pavillion and chatted away for several more hours. Eventually, we realized that it was 2:30 and that if we wanted to continue gabbing, we should do it somewhere with food. The obvious answer was endless shrimp at Red Lobster. YUM! Coconut shrimp, teryaki shrimp, garlic shrimp scampi, cajun shrimp - just keep it comin'. Mmm, makes my mouth water just thinking about it. The fact that Erik hates seafood made it all the better - no guilt at all about leaving him out of the fun.

As soon as I got home, it was time for another party - and we didn't have to go far. They closed down the street in front of our house, had a bounce house, a rockin' band, a face-painting booth, food, and tons of people. The block party was just for the 2 blocks of our street, but I couldn't believe how many kids there are here (and I scouted a few potential babysitters as well). Go-go and Mui-mui loved it! Erik and I had a pretty spiffy time too.

The highlight of the evening was the traditional "gutter sundae". The kids all line up on the curb with their spoons at the ready (iphone camera at twilight equals fuzzy, dark photos - but you can hopefully get the idea):

Then the sundae is brought out in the section of gutter that has been passed down from year to year and family to family (and, I'm assured, thouroughly scrubbed) and it's time to dig in.

Go-go was the last one still going at it.

Sunday was a day of rest. I stayed home with a sick Daniel (maybe too much watermelon and ice cream at the block party) and we just had a pleasant day. On Monday, we went to Rochester to the Museum of Play. It is the coolest children's museum I have ever seen. We've been there lots of times, but we never seem to make it very far. This time, we started at the end in Reading Adventureland where we climbed Jack's beanstalk, played in the giant's castle, had adventures in Robison Crusoe's treehouse, solved mysteries with Nancy Drew, and just had a great time. We also saw their amazing butterfly garden (it really was jam-packed with butterflies, despite the fact we didn't seem to catch any on camera).

When we first walked into the museum, I noticed a familiar face in line just ahead of us. Then, two, and three, and four (and then all of their kids - a total of 10 familiar faces!)! It was our new friends Amber and Diana and their families. We felt a little like stalkers (although maybe it was them stalking us - they obviously didn't get enough of me at Red Lobster), but we had a great time all playing together at the museum, and then the park for a little while when the museum closed. Then we all headed to LeRoy, NY (birthplace of Jello) for some delicious chicken pot pie.

All in all, an almost perfect weekend!