Teach Me How to Mommy

  When one of your best girl scout friends gets married to a cowboy fireman in Texas you go .   You take a personal day, you get on a plane at 4 in the morning, you get a couple layovers and you go. You leave your kids at the very beginning of the school year (not to mention your own beginning of the school year activities) and you go. You take your best friend as your date and leave your husband to take care of said kids and you go. You don’t sleep after the wedding (at all) and get right back on a plane so you can get home to put the kids to bed and get back in the classroom the next day. You do it because it’s worth it.   You do it because you stayed in a place with an infinity pool and armadillos.   You do it because you’ve never been to Texas and it’s good to try new things. You get a convertible instead of a Camry. You even pump and dump, because it’s what’s right and it doesn’t even hurt because you are having a blast. You d...

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...

It's Good Friday and what a good Friday it has been.  In fact, it's been a really wonderful vacation, the only bad thing being that it's almost over.  Amy talked about the "last stretch" . Fourth quarter is here, summer is around the corner.  She's right, well kind of.  May hasn't begun, and even though it's nice out, I still worry the cold air will come back and the work days will still be long.  Anyways, let's just go with her mindset - summer mode . We did a lot of things this vacation, including hosting a birthday party, a night away at the beach, the Aquarium and more.  Although many people we know went on vacations to Florida, California or further the farthest we went was outside of Boston to the Great Wolf Lodge.  I have to say that it looked really cheesy from all the ads, but it came highly recommended by a few people we know.  We wanted to take the kids somewhere  - some place new, exciting before we tackle a longer, farther vac...

Our friendship spans over two decades, but it's this photo that really marks the start of this blog.  Three kids just months apart hanging at their grandmothers' beach.  They organized themselves from tallest to shortest and most to least hair - just kidding, this was the best we could get.  They knew how to walk, but not that great yet and whether they knew it or not their futures as "beach babies" had already been determined. We may joke, bitch or even exaggerate (what Amy and I..how dare you!), but always in our hearts and in our every thought are these three blondies.  We live for the summers which makes January especially painful.  But we will make it there again and take this same photo - as we will be doing until our walkers don't push on the sand. Happy Flashback Friday all - let's hope for an early summer.

Having my husband home this week has been useful and exciting in many ways.  Little nit-picky arguments aside, we managed to have a lot of wonderful family time and actually get some stuff done around the house. Rather, I should say we got a lot of different projects started and nothing actually finished.  Like, my husband gutted our upstairs bathroom (you know the only one up there) so that's a start.  Then we arranged the family room for a new couch and went shopping, but came home empty-handed.  We are making progress. More importantly my husband and I both when through our closest and dressers and purged (donated) all our old/ugly/ill-fitting/stained clothes.  We had three black industrialized bags full and it felt so good to drop them at Savers. I am not positive what I'll be wearing over the next couple months, but everything is so much cleaner and lighter.  It's worth having to go naked to the grocery store. While I was playing with the anti-na...

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 ...

About to "plug-out" for a few days.  I'll still be taking lots of pics of my adventures and chronicling things for the blog, but I am going to try to stay off social media for a bit.  Notice I've let a bit  lot of my free-time go to facebook, insta and email perusing.  Must detach!! Don't we all need just a tiny break sometimes? Wishing you all a restful (or fun) few days. For now trying to enjoy these "perfect" days.  By perfect I mean there were laughs (and tears), smiles (and whines), skipping (and boo-boos), sun, fun and crappy naps. More please.   For the record her bathing suit is a size too big and he is not even wearing one.

Lucy and John are at the stage where they are starting to fight.  It's kind of cute at the beginning, and then turns immediately un-cute.  Since they are of different sexes I don't have anything to compare it to.  When my sisters and I fought we used really hurtful words until one surrendered.  Sure maybe there was some hitting when we were young, but we knew exactly what to do to get the other one to stop (insult them) . Sidenote - Once you tell your sister that she is adopted and that's why she looks different then there is really nowhere else to go from there (that "she" was me and I am still a little shaky on my heritage).   These two are different.  John is very VERY physical.  I have seen him hit, pinch, slap, push and kick his sister.  It's a cross between not being able to communicate how he wants and being instigated by his sister.  We've had lots of chats and time outs and overall he is doing so much better.  Lucy's no...

This has been my first full school year in awhile.  Back to back babies got me used to maternity leaves (I'm starting to get the itch again, haha).  Well school is just about over and eight years later, I am still learning. It hasn't been an easy year, but I know in the scheme of things that I have it pretty good. This I learned: 1.  Tardies, sudden absences, leaving early... I used to look down on other people who seemed they couldn't get it together.  Like, just get to work on time...get dependable childcare.   GET IT TOGETHER ! Well, I am organized, prepared and have dependable childcare and I was still late this year.  I also had to call out last minute (twice).  I also arrived at school just to immediately turnaround and go back home.  I've had to leave early and I've had to get creative.  Even with great help it has been a trying year. Everyone's got their own circumstances and this mama is never judging again. 2.  Found t...

The vacation I (and teachers and students) worked so hard for is quickly coming to a close.  This week has been equal parts fulfilling and trying .  After the whole family recovered from the stomach bug and the weather decided to catch up to normal it has been wonderful.  No more puke, brings on a lot less whining and my kids are beginning to act like themselves.  There was a point (Tuesday afternoon) that I thought, how will I do this all summer?  Literally, how could this possibly work?  Why have I heard "Mommy hold me" 10000000000000000000000 times before 10 am rolled around?  Why have I cleaned the same area 10000000000000000000000 times only to see it worse the next time?  Turns out half of that is just normal behavior (at least for my kids).  But also, we were all still sick, exhausted and cranky.  It was pouring rain and still cold and we were just getting our appetites back.  I was going to throw in the towel that day ...