I wrote this last year on the Fourth of July - Another Quiet Night - and here I sit, one year later, contemplating the same things I have for the past three. It’s funny how having kids changes so many things; things that were once simple become mountainous, impossible. Moments of simplicity are precious.

Sam has yet to see any fireworks in his lifetime. It is dreary here and the forecast calls for rain again. I mentioned that on our walks we’ve been counting the flags in our neighborhood. Over the course of a few blocks we easily can find over 50. Now, to be fair, one house accounts for about sixteen of them. The Fourth is a big deal in this little place where we now live. A parade is scheduled, and the fireworks go off near enough that we’ll be able to see them from our yard, assuming they go off at all tonight. Sam really likes the flags - he notices them. We talk about them and why people put them up. The other day while we were driving somewhere he asked me to sing him a song about a flag, and I sang the Star Spangled Banner, loudly and un-self consciously, for the first time in a long time. We have a flag up on one of our trees in our yard; it’s the first time my husband and I have displayed or even owned an American flag.  And I have to say, I do feel proud when we return to our house and get to count our own, “57 flags!” and that feels good.

Labels: Holidays

Two years ago today Hubby and I faced a perplexing quandary. It was our first holiday with a baby. Sam was born in May, so he was almost 2 months old and we had no idea what to do for the 4th of July. We knew fireworks were not an option, but it felt wrong to do nothing to celebrate his first potential festivity. It didn’t help that he was the fussiest baby we had ever seen or heard of in our entire lives. Come to think of it, we were probably totally crazed at the time due to lack of sleep and the ring of constant screaming in our ears. Whoever said colic was generally limited to an evening “witching hour” wasn’t even close with this kid. Anyway, there was much conversation about what we could handle at the time. If we drove somewhere would Sam scream the whole time, if we had to park far away what would we do if he started to scream in his stroller or carrier and the car was too far away, would it be way more trouble than it was worth, etc? We decided it was his first holiday and we had to do something. Really I think we needed to at least attempt some sort of normalcy for our own sanity at the time. We decided to drive up to Evanston (this was back when we were still in Chicago) where they would be having fireworks in the evening and we would just walk around before they started so we could at least see others celebrating and maybe there would even be some early music/food/family activity. On the drive up it started to rain. And then Sam fell asleep in the car, which was unheard of. It was our first moment of quiet in 2 months. And so for that 4th of July Hubby and I drove around and talked to each other, that’s right - we actually spoke to each other - for the first time since having a baby. We did that until he woke up and started screaming. I have no idea if the fireworks were canceled or not.

One year ago today we were at my in-laws’ house in Connecticut. We were debating whether or not Sam might be up for fireworks that year. We discussed how we would handle it logistically if he freaked out or was scared, how we’d get home quickly, was it too far of a walk to the park, was it worth keeping him up late, etc. In the midst of the debate/as we tried to explain why this would not be easy to my in-laws, it started to rain. Soon after they canceled the fireworks at the park and rescheduled them for the weekend when we would be back at our house. From what I remember my in-laws ended up going out to a movie that night, leaving the house to us after Sam was asleep, for a moment of quiet as we listened to neighbors setting off their own fireworks.

Today we woke up with every intention of hitting some serious firework action. We weren’t sure if Sam would enjoy them or be terrified, but we figured it was worth a try. In the morning we went to the zoo, both as a fun activity and also as a means of ensuring that Sam would get tired enough to nap (more on that later - this kid is killing me!). A successful nap was crucial to our firework plan since we knew he be staying up later than normal. Despite our efforts there was no nap. But lucky for us, by this time the weather forecast was then calling for “severe storms” with “potential hail” and a “tornado watch” in our area. Clearly we would not be missing fireworks because there would be none. I posed the possibility of taking Sam to his first movie. I figured Shrek the Third has been out long enough that it might not be too crowded and we certainly had a lot of time on our hands since he’d refused to sleep. So we headed out and for the first 15 minutes of the drive I second guessed myself as to whether or not Sam was ready for a movie theater movie. I wondered if he’d sit longer than 10 minutes or if he’d just want to explore, if there would be anything scary in the movie, if it might give him nightmares, if they’d refund our money should we have to bail, etc. It was at this point that Hubby looked in the rearview mirror and pointed out that Sam was totally asleep. And so Hubby and I spent our second 4th of July driving around in the rain, talking to each other until our baby woke up and stretched and started looking out the window after calmly saying no to my offer of juice.

One year from today we will have a 3 year old and a roughly 10 month old. I wonder what we will be doing. I wonder if we will see fireworks. I wonder what questions I’ll be asking myself about what is appropriate for my kids as far as what they might enjoy, what we can handle logistically, how we should celebrate, etc…I wonder if it will rain, and if my husband and I will drive around in the car with our two sons sleeping in the backseat, us enjoying a fleeting and infrequent moment of quiet and conversation.

Labels: Holidays

A few holiday pictures are in order…several weeks after the fact.

We have some traditional Christmas cookie making…

I decided Sam should be Rudolph.
I guess he was going through a weird growly phase. I swear I’ve never even seen him make the face he has on in that last one. And he seems to be making a similar face in a few of the others. The odd thing is it is a happy face for him. It’s kind of a smile…that looks evil.

We don’t seem to have any gift unwrapping photos because we did some video of it instead. So the growly will have to do for his pictures this Christmas.

Labels: Holidays, Pictures

I’m feeling rather festive. Hubby and I finally got out and did some holiday-related errands today. We picked up our wrapping paper, ribbons, and so forth so that I can wrap the presents that are sitting in the closet. All of them are for Sam. I’ve done nothing for anyone else. Don’t even know what Hubby will be getting this year. But Sam’s gift shopping is done and has been for over a month. Because we are on such a budget I stretched out the purchases for him over the past several months, buying a few things each month so that the expenses wouldn’t overwhelm any one pay check. The result is that I love all of his gifts and put a lot of thought into each one of them since I couldn’t just go crazy and buy everything, and it was done in November. We also got our little table top Christmas tree. We decided it probably wasn’t a very good idea to have a tree on the floor where Sam could get to it, especially after seeing his reponse to the tree we put up at my parents’ over Thanksgiving. I need to be able to leave him in our living room alone without envisioning him trapped under a huge tree he has just pulled onto himself and being repeatedly shocked by Christmas lights. So the little tree sits on our dining table so that now Sam can just scream through every meal as he tries to reach the ornaments - his favorite things: “bawus,” which we now hear about 8 million times a day along with “ah oo” (uh oh).

Anyway: festive, that’s right, festive. And some time ago Scribbit tagged me for this meme that she sort of tweaked to be about childhood memories. I like it. And since I’m feeling festive I’m going to try and throw in as many holiday memories as I can. I have no idea who to tag, so how about if you are also feeling festive and/or you went to Target today then consider yourself it.

One of my all time favorite memories of childhood is this…

My dad took me to see E.T. in the theater when it came out. What year was that? 1982. So I was 5. It was a special Father/Daughter event. Considering when it took place in retrospect I imagine he and I were out together without my mom for some reason related to the birth of my brother, or perhaps she was just very pregnant. As I’m sure you all know E.T. is one of the best movies ever made, but it is also painfully upsetting. It still makes me cry today, as it did when I was 5, only now I can contain it a bit more. At the end of the movie I was a wreck, totally sobbing because ET and Elliot had parted and I loved him, see, both of them. As we sat in the empty theater after everyone else had gone my dad asked me if I wanted to see it again. As the usher cleaning up the theater came around my dad handed him what I can only assume was money - whether or not it was for the price of two more tickets or it was just a bit for this kid to pocket in order to keep his mouth shut I have no idea, but we sat there through the break between showings after the usher passed by. My dad sat through ET a second time in a row and that time around I didn’t cry so hard.

Probably that same year at Christmas I had a life changing experience that would set the tone for many a Christmas to come. OK, maybe not life changing…

As usual I woke up way early Christmas morning and ran downstairs to see if Santa had come. I scanned our living room to ensure that presents had, in fact, been deposited and took a brief inventory of what was there. I then ran upstairs to get my parents since it was a long standing and unspoken rule that absolutely no gifts could be touched until all family members were present. When I went upstairs I found my brother, Mom, and Dad standing at the top of the stairs ready to come down. When we went back down to the living room something was there that had not been before. It was one of those huge tubes that you crawl through sort of like this. It ran the entire length of the room and was right in front of everything. I was certain it was not there before and completely convinced that Santa must have left it there while I was briefly upstairs getting my family. My Dad totally milked it and started asking if I’d, “maybe seen a shoe in the chimney as Santa went up to get the crawl tube.” How I could have missed a huge freakin’ tube stretching about 8 feet in the middle of the room I have no idea, but clearly I did, and as a result I believed in Santa for many more years than the average kid. I’m not sure how I figured out what was up, but I know I probably emabarrassed myself telling that story to the already non-believers many a time.

I believed in Santa so long that I can recall this little tidbit from some time around 4th grade…

I couldn’t sleep, or wouldn’t, because I was certain this was my year to catch the man that had eluded me so many years ago. I was doing a pretty good job too, and I knew it because my mom kept coming in and making threats to get me to go to sleep. You know the threats, that Santa knows you’re awake, that he won’t come if you’re not asleep, etc. But clearly it was getting too late for my mom because she eventually pulled out the big guns. She came into my room and said that she’d been watching the news, that they had seen Santa on the radar, and he wasn’t going to get to our area for several more hours. I felt totally hopeless and I guess just gave up because I was asleep almost immediately.

And speaking of giving up…

The first time I ever had heartburn I thought I was dying. I thought I was having some sort of heart attack and that I was surely almost dead. As I lay on my death bed I remember telling my Mom that I loved her. I think I may have even written out a will. Then she gave me some alka selzer and 5 minutes later I was doing celebratory cartwheels. Oh, to be a 4th grader who has just had a brush with death!

Many years before…

I remember that we put the little synthetic Christmas tree in my room since we had a big, live tree for the living room. I got to lay in bed and look at it with its little lights and little ornaments and fall asleep imagining myself living inside the tree. That’s what I always did when we decorated the trees, imagined what it would be like to live inside them. I was fascinated with that Disney Christmas special with Mickey, Pluto, and Chip and Dale who hid in the tree that Mickey and Pluto had just decorated, resulting I think in Pluto destroying the tree trying to get to them. But there was a shot from the perspective of one of the chipmunks looking out of the tree through the lights, and I just thought it was the best thing in the world. So strange the things that catch our attention and stay in our minds as children, and so many amazing opportunities for that magic at this time of year…

Labels: Holidays, Tales

Here’s a little bit of unsolicited advice:

If you look at your child and think to yourself, “He needs a haircut before we go visit our relatives for Thanksgiving…I think I’ll cut it myself,” just stop right there. Even if it will save you money. Even if you just have such a long to do list that the thought of scheduling another appointment makes your heart race (in a bad way). Even if your friends paid you in college to cut their hair and you even cut your own hair for 4 years and the haircuts you give your husband are always his favorite cuts. Just stop. Because none of this will matter when you are feeling rushed because it is past bedtime and you and your husband are trying to trick your child into being still in the bath tub so that you can trim his bangs. Yes, that’s right, you will decide that the bath tub is the best place for this salon session to take place because your child’s hair will already be wet and the only time you can get a comb through the dreads in back is when you’ve glopped conditioner all over his head. And so you will think that you can get in the bath with him and sit behind him and cut his hair while your Hubby entertains him by pouring water from cup to cup. But you will be wrong, thereby predestroying all holiday photos by cutting your son’s bangs to an odd length that somehow emphasizes his abnormally large forehead. And that is why you should just stop. Ruined Thanksgiving pictures to follow.

And now, as if I didn’t have enough to stress me out before flying for the holidays with a toddler, did you see this crap? (Now that you’re enraged you can go sign this petition so as to not feel quite so powerless.) Let me just say that if Sam were to not nurse for take off and landing, and as a result his ears started hurting during the flight then every passenger on that plane would wish that they’d gotten to see both of my huge nummies exposed rather than experience the shrieks that would ensue. And yeah, just try and cover his head with a blanket while he nurses. I dare you.

Labels: Holidays, Mommyhood

As it turned out the Halloween parade was the perfect amount of festivity for us. Sam had fun playing with his friends in his lame costume. He actually did keep the belt on the whole time, but I would still say he was the least costumed of all the kids. He had fun carrying his bucket around and pulling out all of the snacks that people kept putting in it. Then he would transfer them to his hat that wouldn’t stay on, and eventually back to his bucket, but not before mushing them to a pulp. Please note the very sad NutriGrain bar in this first photo.

Want to know how many kids came to our apartment trick or treating? Two. How many bags of candy did we buy? Three. I think we have about 8 pounds of candy in our home now.

Labels: Holidays, Pictures, Toddler

First things first - I know you all have been buckling under the anticipation of finding out the true nature of the filling inside this deep fried goodness. And so I tell you now that that, my friends, is your basic deep fried Oreo. Yep. Oreo…fried. Gross, huh? Well, I ate them all. It was so bizaare I just had to share it. Sorry the picture clue of Sam in the pumpkins threw some of you. I was just trying to convey that we were at one of those pumpkin patch farms when we discovered the deep fried Oreo. And those two pictures are the only ones worth sharing because the place was a freakin’ mob scene.

For several weeks I’d been envying all your blog posts with your children frolicking among the pumpkins in fields of green under the blue, cloudless sky, so 2 weekends ago I insisted we give it a try as well. This was more like frolicking among fields of humans amidst a grey, smokey cloud. Seriously, are we not past the whole smoking around children thing? Guess not. The lines for things like hay rides and pony rides were hours (note the plural ’s’) long, so we couldn’t do much in the way of activities. We tried to take Sam to the playground area where you had to pay to get in, but that lasted maybe 5 minutes due to the extremely dense layer of children writhing around everywhere we stepped. And so we made out with our two pumpkins and our deep fried food. While Hubby waited in line to pay for the pumpkins Sam and I watched a guy and his girlfriend inspect and take one of the pumpkins from the little photo area that the farm had set up…while someone was taking their child’s picture. How’s that for class? Have I painted a vivid picture of this experience yet? Next year we’ll be driving to a farm further away from the city, I think.

Today we’ll be attending a costume parade with the moms and kids from “the club.” I totally half assed Halloween this year as far as Sam’s costume. You know what though, I kept my eyes open for costume possibilities and even did some active searching and I’m telling you I did not see a single thing that my kid would keep on his body for more than 30 seconds. With all the fluff and fur and padding and synthetic fibers there was just no way. Plus there’s the issue of budget. For a while Hubby and I brainstormed ideas for costumes I could make. We almost went with a vampire costume for him. He’d wear a t-shirt that said, “I vant to suuck your boooob,” on it and on the cape the name “Lactacula” would be printed. After a little while it didn’t sound like such a great idea as I envisioned the 3 year olds asking their moms about it and the moms not laughing but glaring at me. So in the end I decided to go simple and get him something he could play with after Halloween, unlike the skunk costume from last year that is now our cat’s bed. I also figured the more toy-like his costume was the more likely it might hold his interest for the duration of the parade. So Sam will be a construction worker this year. I got him a Bob the Builder toolbelt and hard hat and he’ll wear his jeans and a plaid shirt. Of course, the flannel is going to end up being too hot for him to wear this afternoon since it is almost 70 freakin’ degrees here today! I expect the shirt will be shed early on, as will the toolbelt and hat if this goes anything like the test run last night, leaving Sam to do the parade in his t-shirt and jeans. Impressive, I know.

As for tonight I’m not sure what to do with him. I had hoped that he would get to put candy in the buckets/bags of the kids that would come to our door, but the neighbors say the kids in our buildings generally leave our apartment complex and head over to more residential areas. I know Sam could care less about trick or treating, I just thought he might like to look at other kids in costumes. Maybe we’ll go take a walk through one of the neighborhoods so he can see. And after he goes to bed I’m sure Hubby and I will be enjoying any one of the fine Halloween flicks to be aired on tv tonight.

In other news we have a second word: “cah,” sometimes pronounced “gah.” Apparently my son is from Boston.

Happy Halloween, everyone.

Labels: Holidays