Teach Me How to Mommy

Vacations with toddlers aren't really vacations.   This will end up positive, I promise.   But back to the start.  Preparing, packing, traveling and then living on vacation is no joke.  Challenging?  Yes.  Worth it....  For the second year in a row, Jerry and I have traveled to Maine to spend time at his Pepere's lake house.  Along with us come many members of extended family.  The kitchen table is always full of cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents.  Every bed is full and so are the couches.  Shoes don't have a rightful home, but laughs, beer and memories certainly do. So even though it takes nine plus hours in the car to get there, once you're there it's magic.  Limited internet, surplus of trees, off-road vehicles and lake walks.  Magic. Even better?  Plenty of 20-somethings, grandparents and teens who don't see my children as much as I do.  To them, most things they do are cute.  T...

The first few days of summer are in the books.... The kids have been so happy with our summer adventures that they are currently on a 7 day no-nap streak.  So even though I've enjoyed it all along with them, there are some things I have learned by spending 7am-730pm with my beautiful, busy children: 1.  Fighting screen time is a worthwhile battle, but an uphill one. 2.  Speaking of rules, many have to be broken in the summer.  I know I'll pay later, but it feels good to just let go. 3.  Working full-time affords more breaks - I've been missing my 45 minute lunch (time to go to the bathroom, eat and chat, a luxury). 4.  Things go pretty smoothly until 4pm, at that point I better have a plan or be prepared to guard the kitchen cabinets for raiders.  It's nice to have tissues to catch the many, many fake tears that are headed my way. 5.  How can I be expected to watch  Orange is the New Black  if I can't start until 10pm?  ...

Had a conversation with a coworker this week that really got me.   The jist of it was how hard having a teen girl really is.  It wasn't sugar-coated.  The things he said I could relate to (you know having been one myself and having two sisters). Yet, somehow I had forgotten...wasn't I always this amiable and easy to deal with? Wasn't I born sweet and awesome, just like Lucy is? (I think my parents my have a response to that...).  Instead of dreading it I am going to enjoy my time with this dancing queen.  Spending some extra time on these snow days building her up - making sure she knows just how great she was.  What else in the world could be any more important? PS.  Take me back to days at Memere's pool.  This dress won't fit her this year (although she still won't let me donate it) and I bet Memere's shoes are already going to start looking small.

This picture doesn't represent his usual state, but for some reason I love it.  Lucy and I tried to trick him by getting him all sleepy in the car and then transferring him into his crib at Memere's.  15 minutes later he woke up and didn't know where he was.  Since I was in the pool it took a few minutes to get to him.  When I walked in the look on his eyes was of pure devastation.  It was as if I had given him up for adoption and his new family hated him.  He was sad and angry and it didn't let up for awhile.  It was sad, but kind of funny. I talk a lot about how different my two children are.  Often, I realize that it insinuates that Lucy is somehow easier than John.  She always slept better, she appears to need me less and (with the exception of a few brief phases) she listens and wants to be good.  I could say the same about John on many days, but he does seem to need and want me a bit more than Lucy - he always has.  He can b...

Fresh off a fantastic weekend with beautiful friends (new and old).  We were gone for less than 48 hours, but I felt like I was on a different planet.  Sure we were in Cape Cod and not Mars, but it felt like a brief stop in time (or during many moments a flashback to my "old" life). These are my top 5 reasons why it is still ok for a 32 year old to go to a bachelorette party and really (REALLY) let loose. 1.   We went to the beach all day, which isn't a rarity for me, BUT it was with adults only.  I was able to relax and do the beach how I used to.  Instead of sand castles and umbrella time, I swam in the waves, had a beach drink and tried to nap.     I read more of my book than collect shells (but I still did both). 2.  I didn't drive the entire weekend. No car seat buckles and no kiddie snacks, no mediating and no toddler tunes.  Better yet, no pressure (safety, caution).  I left that to others.  Mostly to Meg for driving ...

Today I had just enough time to watch a grocery cart swiftly crash into my car.  Technically I had more than enough time to stop it.  In fact, it was kind of walking parallel to me, but then picked up speed and SMASH. The reason I couldn't stop it (even though it was bright green and headed for my shiny black car) was because I was holding 5 bags of groceries and two little people's hands. I went to the local grocery market so that the kids could both get their little carts and make a quick stop fun.  Ok fine, quick stops don't happen anymore, but they did have fun. I didn't want them bringing the carts in the parking lot, because that would be a disaster (both managed to tip them over in the store a total of three times). So I thought I could grab it all.  I didn't anticipate Lucy wanting to hold my left hand.  It was a really big deal to have the left hand - you know that one I had carefully balanced all the groceries on so I was frazzled when we walked ...

I am fresh off a wonderful trip to Maine.  More on how full my heart is later.  For now, let's just quickly recap how awful a 9 hour car ride can go, even when you plan everything right. For the record Jerry was nervous about the drive.  I naively assumed all would go well. Since it was a 9+ hour drive we wanted to maximize the kids' sleep/nap time.  Sooooo, Jerry and I woke up at 2:30 am.  The car was packed so we scooped up last minute things and attempted to transfer the kids peacefully. That damn milk cup. The kids were so excited that they got up and stayed up.  They wanted to know when we were "at Maine."  John chugged a milk cup about 4 hours too early, but who cares, right? Well, apparently we should have.  He puked it all up within the first hour of the car ride.  That's right, milk puke on him and the car seat. We cleaned up as best as we could in the dark, at 4am, off an exit ramp with no stores open. After 7 hours ...