First McDonalds

I am not a fast food person, but for some reason, since Lent started, I keep getting these cravings for Filet o' Fish sandwiches on Fridays.

So what just a month ago was John Michael never in his whole life having visited McDonalds (with me, anyway), has now turned into us having three Happy Meal toys floating around my car. Crazy! I guess this is how it happens. One day, they only eat dried mango, organic edamame and brown rice and the next, it's all Mickey D's, all the time. I kid. Everything in moderation. Including moderation! Ha!

Last week, John Michael got stuck high up on the McDonalds playscape and I had to climb up and help him come down. When I returned into full view of baby Noah, this is what he was doing.


Yes, he was eating John Michael's cheeseburger. That baby has Go-Go Gadget arms to stretch across the table to get whatever he wants. I emailed this to Michael at work and he showed his co-worker who said, "Isn't your baby a little small for a cheeseburger?" He's very advanced, this Noah. Of course we didn't give it to him intentionally, silly!

Monumental

On Friday afternoon, something magical happened. John Michael told me that he wanted to pretend to be a "baby frog" so I put him in Noah's crib while Noah was in there. I sat there for a few minutes observing them squeal and roll around in there, then realized my presence was not needed: they were PLAYING TOGETHER!

People said this would happen. "Some day they are going to be the best of friends," they told me, as I was feeling that monstrous guilt after introducing this new human into JM's perfect solo-child life during the needy newborn stage.

Sure, enough, it did indeed. They played together happily, allowing me to put away laundry for about 5 minutes in another room. Don't worry, I could hear them and could interfere, if necessary. Which it was not, until old toddler's short term attention span kicked in and he was ready to play something else.

I have hope, people!

Remembering Grandma

It's been kind of a crazy week.
Monday, my uncle called to let us know that my grandma had passed.
My last living grandparent, Grandma was 95 years old. She had been declining in health for a long time, so her death was not altogether unexpected. God bless her, she did bounce back a number of times (the women in my family are strong and live a long time), but finally passed.

Anyway, fast forward 16 or so hours and Noah, mom, Lauren and I are all on a 6am flight to Pittsburgh for the wake Tuesday and service Wednesday. The trip was nothing if, not a well-timed whirlwind. Someone was looking out for us, as we all used miles at the last-minute to book flights together. It was nice to go and visit with family that I haven't seen in years.

Nobody else offered to do a eulogy, so I wound up reluctantly agreeing. I am a much better writer than I am speaker (and you see here how good that is!) and with all the planes, trains and automobiles, only wrote a few bullet points on the way to the Mass with a lot of help from my mom. I hope I did Grandma proud talking about the things we could learn from her life; specifically dedication and love for family, hard work and faith throughout struggle. My dad, uncle and grandpa were my grandma's life. No one worked harder than she did in her yard. She was dealt a lot of blows in this life, including loss of a childhood helping raise her younger siblings (she was one of 13), multiple miscarriages and my uncle born months premature, not being able to be as close to us grandkids as she would have liked as we moved to Iowa when I was 4, the loss of my grandpa to prostate cancer and the loss of my dad to stomach cancer. Losing my grandpa 20 years ago was difficult for her, but losing my dad broke her heart. Nonetheless, she remained devout in her faith. I learned on our trip that she and my grandpa founded their neighborhood church, which turned from a small country parish into the much larger suburban parish it is today.

I hope Grandma has some peace.

We left late Wednesday afternoon amidst a huge storm stretching from the Midwest to the East Coast, that had hail and tornadoes in the area and a promise from our pilot that the flight attendants would be seated for much of the flight. The three of us are big chickens when it comes to flying, so I thought it was going to be bad. Again, someone must have looked out for us, as my prayers were answered with the sky clearing up and only a few bumps going home, getting in at 11:30 Wednesday night. Whew!

For the record, I hope I am saying the same thing at 15 months, but Noah Charles, I will travel with you ANYTIME! Noah was a trouper, sleeping on planes and foreign cribs, in funeral homes and restaurants. He was up past his bedtime on multiple occasions and generally happily along for the ride, working only his sunny disposition and Nana's bribery bowls of ice cream and offertory french fries. He was extremely patient when we had to run to make our connection in Dallas and then again when at close to midnight, we had to file a claim for his lost carseat and stroller in Austin. It was nice to get some one on one time with my happy lil guy. He is so precious to me.

It's nice to be home. Thursday afternoon, John Michael said "we missed you" and it about melted my heart. Prior to being a parent, I thought people embellished a lot when they said their kids said things like that, but he really did!

9 months

Dear Noah,
We had your 9 month well check this morning and I'm pleased to say that it was one of the more boring doctor's appointments. I will take boring, any day. You are doing great. You are meeting milestones, like pulling up to stand and crawling and talking in baby talk. You are sleeping well, with two naps a day and good 12 hour stretches at night. You are a good eater and have chunked up from 5th percentile at 6 months to 15th percentile in weight at 18 lbs 4 oz. and your height is good, too at 28 and 1/4 or 50th percentile (I don't trust their height measurements, for the record. There is way too much room for error with a squirmy baby.)

I digress. This morning you had mini pancakes for breakfast with cereal and banana yogurt. Last night we went to Maudie's and gave you some finger turkey vegetable raviolis, a tortilla and some avocado which you rubbed all in your hair and our next-door table neighbors called you "guacamole baby."

You continue to be totally enthralled and fascinated by your older brother. Your face completely lights up around him. Just recently, he is starting to think you are pretty entertaining, too. I put you on the bed when we are tucking him in for his nap and you crawl around on him and scream and he thinks it's hilarious and starts screaming, too. Actually, every time you scream with glee, JM wants to do it, too. You both are hilarious (sarcasm) with your loud noises (but, I'm glad you're having fun).

At 9 months, you have 4 teeth. Your top ones just came out last week. When you are teething, you get really sad, which makes us sad. Someone asked me about your personality at Peter's wedding this weekend and I described you as being generally easygoing, however if there is something that is bothering you, you are VERY outspoken and let us know. You are kind of dramatic in your unhappiness with loud cries, but then calm down quickly when your needs have been met. Sometimes you go from screaming with discontent to utter joy within seconds in a kind of bipolar way. It's very entertaining.

We love you very much, Noah and want you to stay babyish forever.

Love,
Mama

Somebody's Getting Married

My brother got married last night!
My only little brother. :(
It was a small, informal family wedding, perfect for Peter and Sarah, who are fun and not fancy.
The ceremony was at St. Edward's Chapel, where my brother went to school.
The boys came with us to the wedding, but came home and went to bed while we went to the reception. The reception was in a private room at the Clay Pit, where we all ate lots of tasty Indian food and drank, ehem a lot of wine (dispensation). It was really nice to be able to visit everyone who was there celebrating these two special people! There is something to be said for an intimate wedding with music on an iPod, lots of toasts, no head table, mango cheesecake as wedding cake and happy, smiling people .

We are so thrilled for Peter and Sarah!

Here are a few pics. I wish I would have taken more, but I was busy being thrilled for my brother, emotional missing my dad and then just having a blast kid-free at the reception!

Category 10 Meltdown

Man, did I ever pick a bad time to quit the nightly red wine.

John Michael woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning and went NUTS when I wouldn't let him open the car door on the way to school. Lately, I'll admit I've been letting him do it. He wants to do everything himself and quite frankly, it's helpful to have him do it when I'm trying to get Noah in the car, however my dad lost the tip of his pinky in a car door accident and every time JM does it himself, it makes me nervous. This morning I told him I needed to open the door from now on, so he went crazy. Then he got madder when I tried to distract him by asking him if he wanted to feed Bella and when he didn't come after 2 minutes (he was sobbing in the driveway), then I did it. Since we were now late for school, he got even madder when I had the nerve to buckle his carseat (he likes to do the top part), but as we were already late for school, I did it myself. It was one of those mornings where reason was not present for the mister. I gave him a considerable amount of time to feed the dog or to buckle himself up, but he was still so upset about opening the car door that he cried and cried and could not act.

He screamed all the way to school. He screamed in the parking lot. He screamed all the way up the walkway. Around the parking lot he started hitting me saying "I'm hitting you, mama!" And continued to throw himself on the ground in the courtyard outside his classroom, attracting the attention of sympathetic parents (many of whom came up to me with similar sob stories. "My child did that in the Gap. I feel so bad for you. God bless them), his teacher and the school director. JM's very patient teacher invited him in to which he screamed, "NO!!!!!"

People, I had no idea what to do. Nothing was working this morning. Not redirecting. Not distracting. Not threats. Not counting. Not his teacher. Not the school director. It was a category 10 meltdown. All I could do was laugh. Thankfully I've only seen a few category 5 meltdowns from JM, so far. This level of insanity was new. He had an ear infection last week, but has been on antibiotics for a week now, so I don't think I can blame that. He was well rested yesterday, both napping and going to bed at a decent time. I think this was just the scary underbelly of toddler independence.

The director and I made the call that I should just leave him there and get me out of the situation. They told me they'd call me if they needed to. I called to check in a little while ago and he had settled down.

Thank God for small miracles that Michael worked from home this morning, so at least I just had JM to worry about on the way to school... This parenting thing is not for the weak of heart.

Loungewear

I'm tired of seeing my "Dear Noah" post at the top of this page, so here I am, checking in while I'm making tonight's dinner at 3pm while the boys nap.

Today is a day where I'm in some nice elasticized waistband pants, which reminds me that a good tip for being happy staying at home is to have some cute loungewear. Living in sweats or pajamas makes me feel "frumpa lumpa" as I believe Oprah coined once (as only Oprah could, who says that?) I digress. Oprah was on the right track. It makes me feel happier when I feel pulled-together, so most days, I wear jeans and hopefully make-up. However, not every day feels like a binding-jeans-type day. Loungewear rules. Gap Body has some cute stuff. My favorite pants are some cheapies I got at Academy. They are black cotton pants that are fitted at the top and slightly flared at the ankle. They are super comfy and double as my Zumba pants.

It's Lent, starting today! I'm giving up my nightly glass of wine, which I will miss thoroughly!