Halloween...Then and Now...

Then...

I remember the feeling of excitement when I would wake up on Halloween day. It would be a loooong day at school. And the, 3:15 p.m. would arrive. It was often a day like today...windy, cloudy and cool. But you could feel the excitement in the air. Back then, I don't feel like there were a lot of Halloween events leading up to the big day, so it was usually the one and only day to wear the beloved costume.

4 p.m. Running around the front yard...counting down to trick or treat. Reviewing the decorations outside. One year, I recall some sort of "ghost/cemetary scene" on one side of our house...creepy and cool all at the same time. Another year, we did spooky music from the upstairs window that would bellow down the street. Soooo creepy but loved it.

For some reason, we always had Taco Bell for dinner. I have no idea why this is, but my sister and I both have distinct memories of eating Taco Bell right before trick or treating. If I wasn't so technically-challenged, I would scan an old photo of me in a sweet gold one-piece jumpsuit - post-school but pre-costume. Mowing on a Taco Bellgrande (does anyone remember these??). Ahh the memories....

And off we would go with family friends around the neighborhood. Once home, we would "organize" our candy (and, of course, make sure everything was safe - remember the razor-blade scares?) into little piles and feel very pleased with ourselves.

Now....

It's been a not-so-great day. As I type this, Lucy is having her 10th meltdown of the day over "Wanting some candy" and "Is it time for trick or treating yet?" It is day #4 of Halloween events and she is on her 3rd costume. Not quite the same perspective as a mother, than as a child. But, it is what it is when you have a 19 month old and 3-year old.

And they both do look darn cute in the costumes. Here's to a great night tonight, hitting a few houses, and some cute pictures tomorrow...

Happy Halloween!

Two "Firsts" That May Stick...

I'm proud to say we had some "firsts" at our house this past weekend. The first "First"?
We visited a new church! After months of "we really need to get back to church..." "I wish the kids would be good at church..." and "why doesn't our church have a nursery? It's not worth it!" - my neighbor and pal, Stephanie, recommended theirs. This new church has a nursery AND a little Sunday school program for preschoolers! I liked the sounds of that.
So after running, showering, feeding and dressing 3 humans (and Matt as well), we headed out to check out the church at 8:35 a.m.
We were not disappointed. The Sunday school has a wait list, due to a lack of teacher volunteers. But the lead teacher was very nice, took my name (I said I'd be more than happy to volunteer!) and added Lucy to the waiting list. She thinks if she can just get a couple more people to be teacher volunteers, an additional class can open up ASAP. With any luck, she will be in a class by Christmas. And I've been wanting to volunteer, so this would work out great for us all!
Then, we headed off to check out the nursery for Tommy. Such a cute little room with a ton of great toys! The volunteers were very kind and Tommy didn't even look back as I headed out. They even allowed Lucy to join him to "watch over brother." She happily obliged.
Matt and I couldn't believe, after 3 years of sweating, reading books, coloring, feeding snacks and taking turns in the "cry room" or lobby during mass, we were actually standing there, listening and actually getting something out of the mass! Shocking! To say we are sold on this church, is an understatement. Relaxed crowd, nice priest and good music. Cha-ching! A great "first" for us and I look forward to what is to come for all of us.
The second "first"? I did my own, very first "Sunday dinner" for my parents and our fam. Again, my extremely friendly neighbor, Stephanie, has turned me on to Everyday Food. She has been passing them on to me when she is done with them. Great recipes that don't seem overly "frou frou" and therefore, don't intimidate me. You also don't need 5,000 ingredients and $1,000 to do the shopping for any of the dishes. Tonight, I tried cheddar meatloaf, brown sugar glazed carrots and corn bread stuffing. It was a hit!
I have now sent in my subscription to Everyday Food and can't wait to try even more recipes. I could really get into this whole "Sunday dinner" thing. AND - I am dying to make some new dishes. It was getting boring, people...how many things CAN you put in spaghetti sauce? Enough is enough.
So overall it was just a low-key weekend with some Halloween fun and family time. I really don't want October to end!

***This just in! I received a call from the Sunday school teacher last night and they are going to make space for Lucy starting next week! Whoooo! And I get to volunteer for the "Jesus' Birthday Party" class in December. I am so sure...hilarity to come for sure on that one...

Me Too...

Last week was a surprisingly tough week with Lucy. One of those weeks that makes you feel defeated as a parent...even if you try so hard to do everything right. I say surprisingly, because she was doing things that I thought we had gotten past...things that I thought could be left behind with her 2-year-old self. Apparently, not quite yet.
However, the past couple of days, Lucy has just been adorable and a breeze to hang with. And I have to remember that 3-year-olds ebb and flow with each passing day and week and mood. And there may be one or two horrible days, and then a week of wonderful days (or vice versa sometimes!).
Today, as we headed down the street, Lucy did something that merited me to ask for a "high five!"
She then proclaimed out loud, "I am the happiest girl in the whole world."
If she only had one sentence to represent her whole life, that is exactly what I would wish for her to say.

One of the Best Times of Day...

"Well the sun is slowly sinking down...
but the moon is slowly rising...
This old world just still keeps spinning 'round...
And I still love you..."
-James Taylor

Well at Least She Appreciates....

It was bound to happen. Lucy and I have been taking showers together lately. It's often times the first chance I get, after Tommy has been put down for his big afternoon nap and before I start to tackle a few household chores during Lucy's "quiet time" (aka doll playing, cutting up of Time magazine, drawing with pen and sticky notes, tea parties of water on the back deck, watching Shrek the movie, eating popcorn, anything to keep her entertained for 1.5 hours).
She doesn't like me to leave her side, and this includes when I need to bathe, so into the shower we go.
"Why do you have those, mom?" (pointing at my really attractive boobs)
"Well Luce, sometimes moms have breasts to feed babies milk.
"Did you feed me with them?"
"Yep..when you were just a little baby that I wrapped in a little blankie."
(Thinking....pondering....sitting on the shower floor....)
"Mom! I drank your milk when I was little! And I remember...it was so, ummm... milky! I am so proud of you, mom! That was so nice of you!"
(And immediately back to the cleansing of the body...)
"Ummm...thanks, Luce."
It could have been worse. At least she didn't ask why they hang so low to the ground.
I am just sayin'...

So Grateful...

So grateful today...for these girlfriends of mine...seven of my most favorite people in the world. We have known each other for 13 years. We all lived together at one point in time from 1994-1996. We have seen each other through good times, horrible times, and some of the funniest moments of my life. Jokes that will never die. True friends. No judgements. Understanding and picking up right where we left off... even if 6 months or more has gone by since our last conversation.
I was lucky enough to be one of those people who had an absolutely awesome experience joining a sorority. It was everything I hoped it would be and even more. We all saw the best in each other. There was a real feeling of looking out for one another and creating a family away from home.
So with new babies, jobs, husbands, families and life taking over all of us, we managed to get 8 different schedules to line up to spend the weekend together.
See you next fall in Mt. P, girlies!

Buddies...

Is there anything cuter than two kids...

1. All bathed with wet hair, dressed in jammies, and drinking milk on the couch all cozy?
2. Dancing at library class together and putting their arms around each other?
3. Watching a show together, with their backs to me, sitting close to each other and indian-style?
4. Wondering where and yelling out for "Sissy!" every morning when he wakes up and when arriving at her preschool parking lot for pick-up?
5. Playing chase and peek a boo with each other for pure fun, not initiated by me?

I am so happy I had these two kids close together. It is such a fun time and they both seem to basically enjoy the same things. My favorite thing to see is when they are looking out for each other and wanting the other one near them. I don't know, firsthand, the relationship between a brother and sister. I can only hope they are very, very good friends that can always count on each other.

The Children React...

The girl's day/night away was a total party. We laughed, shopped, drank and ate A LOT. Good times...

When I told Tomma all about it, he was all..."No Way!"


And then he was all, "Say Whhhaaatttt??"


And after another story from last night, Lucy creepily came around the corner and was all, "God bless your soul, you crazy woman!"



No sense....

You Can Sort of Do the Old Things Again...

Tomorrow I leave for a much-anticipated girl's day and night on Lake Michigan. I will be gone for exactly 24 hours and I am very, very, very excited about it. Matt's been gone for 12 of the past 21 days. It's been a lot of work and pretty mentally challenging. Lucy keeps me on my toes. And bless the Tomma's heart...the kid has teeth coming in left and right so he's a professional whiner at times.
I just need to "not be a mom" for a day or so. That, alone, will help me come back to the kiddos refreshed. For some reason, these thoughts took me back to a memory I conjured up on a run the other day.
Lucy was very young. Maybe a month old? I was breastfeeding her in bed at about 3 a.m. Did you know they rerun that night's Tonight Show at that time? Anyway, here I was...20 lbs. overweight, totally overwhelmed by the responsibility of motherhood newly placed on my shoulders, panicked that I would never sleep 4 hours in a row again, and convinced I would be fat, ugly and never go on another vacation. EVER.
And then...I turned the channel to MTV and watched this absurd rap song. I am warning you. It is a ridiculous video. I mean state of the art absurd. And as I watched it...I was all PLG thinking..."Wow...I will never dance again. I will never look like my old self again. I will never shake my booty that way. I am a mom now."
O.k. let's all be reminded I was totally post-baby nursing hormones whack job woman.
Never mind the fact that I never looked like the girls in that video or would ever shake my booty like that if my life depended on it. But there I was all sad...with child on boob...as far away from that MTV video you could be. O.k. I guess I could have been some amish woman churning butter but I wouldn't have owned a TV to watch it, right?
So anyway, I was thinking back to that memory and those feelings and almost laughed out loud on my run the other morning.
Hey Luce - while I'm thinking about all this (and will probably forget someday soon), I wanted to tell you something I wish someone would have told me before I had you...
You are going to feel like CRAPPOLA after you have your first baby. You will feel yucky and not cute and exhausted and like you will NEVER EVER get to do ANYTHING FUN again. But you will. You'll get your body back. You'll go on a vacation. You'll do fun things again, and they'll be even more fun because you'll have cute kids to do stuff with. You can do things alone, but you might have to make lists for people and plan things out and get people to help and have things laid out and birthday gifts wrapped and ready to roll for Dad and a fridge full of food but yes...you'll get to go do stuff on your own again.
And you won't have it any other way.

Good Times at a Fall Carnival, Petting Zoo, Orchard Thing....

Official Cutest Moment of Day...

Tomma was eating animal crackers in the stroller during our morning jog. He grabbed a cracker that looked like a kitty and started "meowing" - which for him, is this high pitched little "meow!" that makes he and I laugh all the time.
Then, he actually stopped in his tracks and decided not to eat the cracker and held it the entire trip. In fact, he fell asleep holding the kitty...
I wanted to die of cuteness!!!

Change in the Bank...

One of my favorite bloggers, Secret Agent Josephine, writes an interesting post that struck a cord with me. It's the concept of what our children will and will not remember of their childhood.
I've felt sad about that idea before. After working really hard to make something fun for the kids or having an especially wonderful day with them...or an especially awful day as well, when I wasn't the best mom on earth. What will they remember? Was this or that worth the trouble when they were this small?
I decided my actions are based on this belief: What we are doing every day of their little lives is deposting change into their banks, their hearts. These small deposits will make up the person they will become...the wonderful grown-ups they will be.
So maybe they won't remember that day Dad took her fishing for the first time, that birthday party, or the particular book Boppa read him. What they will remember are concepts...someone was always there for me. I could trust, love, be myself, be relaxed, have fun, be silly, be angry, be frustrated...and it was all good.
And I think they are slowly learning all of those things every day, with every memory made.

Under the Category: Never Thought I'd Do That...

Some days, life is swell and easy. And some days, you end up throwing your naked son into a shower while yelling, "Lucy! Stay off the slide! Tommy's poop is up there!"

Yeah...I spent yesterday's naptime spraying down and disinfecting my swingset. From human feces. Ridic.

Matt's been gone 9 of the last 12 days...I need a drink.

"The Babies" and I in the Nursery...

Yesterday, the kids and I found ourselves in Tommy's nursery, just hanging out on the floor. I decided to pull some old baby towels and washcloths out of the drawers, since I've been meaning to throw them away and, at this point, they would basically clean Tommy's big toe.
"Whose are these, mom?" Lucy asked.
"They were yours when you were a little tiny baby. See the cute little pink flowered ones? I remember giving you a bath with those."
"Where was Tommy?" she asked.
"He wasn't born yet..."
"He WASN'T?" (all bright eyed) "So who sat on the other side of the stroller?"
All of a sudden I found myself sad. Sad about the little washcloths. Sad about my little nursery that I worked so hard to prepare and make "just right" only 3 1/2 years ago.
I've been having a hard time since Tommy turned 18 months old a few weeks ago. I just can't really believe it. Suddenly, he is closer to two than one. He talks a lot now, and has opinions about things! He's getting to be a big boy. Lucy was out of her crib at 22 months, for god's sake! Could that time really be drawing near for the Tomma? Let's hope not...
On that nursery floor, I made them both crawl onto my lap and I gave them both the biggest hugs on earth.
"I love you guys very, very much!"
Lucy replied with, "I love you very, very much too, mom."
I'm not quite ready for them to not be babies anymore. And no, I don't necessarily wish for another baby. I just want these two to stay little just a while longer.
Later, after the kids were in bed, Matt stumbled upon Lucy's 18 month picture from Sears and threw one in my lap. I couldn't believe it...she was Tommy's age in those pictures! And then, I semi-panicked because I felt like I didn't really remember in an instant, what she was like at that age. I grabbed my photo albums, flipped to the pages of that time and perused the pics of that Christmas. And then I sat back down, relieved that I had those to remind me.
So what do I do? Keep soaking it all in, I guess. Appreciate every single day with this two little wads of love. Keep stopping to smell the flowers. Be o.k. with doing nothing. And play in the rain on a Monday afternoon, for no reason...

Apparently a Sweater Can Be Delicious?

These women/moms at dance class are killing me...just killing me...(and yes, dance class went off without a hitch this morning, thank you Jesus). PLEASE LORD do not let me become one of these women in a few years.
They sit in the back of the viewing area. They do not watch their kids in the class. They drink their Starbucks and talks about absurd things with the tone of importance one might use to discuss the latest Democratic debate.

"Did you see this sweater she is wearing? It is DAAAAArling....they wear so well. I mean, just look at this material. Isn't it delicious?"
She used the adjective "delicious" twice in 45 minutes. WTF?

"Don't you think the sales staff at blah blah store is just GRAND?"
Grand? I am so sure....

"Well, I did some shopping damage this weekend. I'm going to be honest. But I look at my shoes and my bags and I am like, "I still have some serious work to do!"
Umm...does she think my Target purse has some work to do? Ohhh weelll....

I kept waiting for a giggle or some sign that they were being sarcastic. No laughing. VERY serious in their topics. These ladies are real.
Bless their hearts...