Flashback to the Fourth

This year we were tempted to do things the exact same way as years past for the Fourth of July. You know, pancake breakfast at church, parade in Barcroft, fingers crossed for good naps in order to stay up until dusk for driveway fireworks. And honestly, we mostly did. Except the threat of rain put a little hiccup in the plans.

Rather than waiting until Monday night to set off the fireworks, risking rain and resulting in me dealing with sleep deprived toddlers all alone on the fifth, we pushed the party up to the night before. As you can imagine, none of my boys were disappointed by one less day of anticipation. They'd already been setting off the pop-its and snakes (using a magnifying glass!) for days.

We invited the neighbors - including the ones who had just moved and we will miss terribly during our after school sidewalk scooter races - to fill the yard and benefit from J-Man's pyrotechnic love affair.

The show was a success, with two finales no less, and ended with pitch black bike riding and enjoying summer weather that was days away from shifting into a July inferno.  And when the boys still woke up at normal time the next morning, J-Man and I worked together to head to church for pancakes and overcrowding and small talk.

From there we changed things up and headed out to see Great Grandma M. The boys played well as we talked about the usual topics: Redskins, American public schools and education trends, family business, and the status of the neighborhood. PDG refused to take a picture, but we at least snagged one.

After all the excitement we snuggled down early as the rest of the east coast began their own celebrations. And we had zero regrets.

Lil Bro Comes to A-town

Oh how we G's love company. We really, truly do. You should come visit us in our tiny house and see for yourself. That's what Lil Bro did for a few days over vacation, and he was beyond loved.

I haven't seen Lil Bro in far too long. He got to meet MDG last year at a funeral I was unable to attend, so that makes it closer to one year than two since we got to hang out. He's far from the little kid kneeling with the ring and making sweet toasts at our wedding. He's, like, an adult.

The boys were in heaven. He taught PDG how to build even better towers, and PDG chose to listen, such that now there is only one tower-building approach allowed in our house. He read stories and tickled and shared his candy the way any terrific uncle would. Once, when he stepped outside for a moment, PDG broke down into hysterics believing he had left forever and I thought he might hyperventilate. That's how much the little boys loved Lil Bro.

J-Man and I loved having him too. Except, that is, when we felt really old. He filled us in on all the apps that I hear my students discuss, but never actually see during school hours. I still don't understand periscope and snapchat or the need to video face to face if the goal isn't for a toddler to better recognize his extended family, but I've seen them all in action. I even figured out the whole swiping left and right Tinder lingo.

not his baby. or mine. just fyi

We were glad to have him come, hold all the babies we could put in front of him, put his marine muscles to work making fresh juices, and out-technology all of us in an instant. Hope it won't be so long before his next visit.

Thanksgiving Break 2015

Thanksgiving was really, really nice. Why?

1) No school on Wednesday! - This was a change now that we start before Labor Day, and one I can definitely get behind. After all, it's when I had a chance to handle all my hair anxiety.

2) A nice visit home! - The boys love seeing their Mama and Papa H and the feeling is mutual. Sometimes when I get annoyed by NOVA or get antsy like I want to pick up and move on a whim, it's nice to be reminded why we moved here in the first place. Seeing MDG and PDG light up and rush inside for hugs and toys and stories as fast as they can does just that trick.

3) Christmas card photo success! - I'll do another post on that when I'm sure I've tracked down all my addresses and gotten them out. Hopefully you've gotten yours by now. Clearly we needed Mama and Papa H to help with this year...

4) Family photos! - Mama H is sending a letter and some photos out with her cards this year and asked for something non-silly. I'll post what we got below. Someone please explain to me why my very happy baby boy refuses to look happy for the camera. The fact that we got a smile for the card was its own Christmas miracle, and clearly not repeated.

5) A nice trip to Great Grandma's house! - Sometimes MDG and PDG flip out when we go to GGma's house in Maryland. They have tantrums or refuse to give hugs/kisses/any attention at all. It leads to conflict because we don't visit enough and stress levels go up. Of course, we usually aim for morning visits. This time we did a 4pm arrival, the kids were awesome even without many toys to distract them, they were super affectionate, and we all left feeling all holiday happy.

6) A warm day for putting up lights! - J-Man is slowly becoming less grinchly over time, and while he's still winning the artificial tree battle, our yard gets brighter each year.

7) Even more warmth for raking the leaves! - Procrastination can pay off, folks. I've been too lazy or cold or dry to want to step foot in the back yard for a while, but then this warm spell came through and I was so glad I didn't do it earlier. PDG jumped, then taught MDG to jump, and I raked for all of ten  minutes before just taking pictures and heading back inside.

So yeah, a great five days with a million things to be thankful for. Now, when's Christmas break?

MDG Summer of Crazy

The summer was hard for MDG. We're still not completely sure why. I suppose that the 18-21 month time frame is pretty overwhelming for babies. They're trying to talk, and failing, They're trying and failing to do just about everything independently, and no one knows what the heck they want.

this day apparently, he wanted an entire tub of aquaphor

At Big Sis's house, there was no pack n play or high chair, so he got thoroughly confused. Papa H started lying down with him on the air mattress for every nap and bedtime, which got him crazy spoiled. Then he got to sit on someone's lap at every meal, which got him even more spoiled. Throw in a couple tantrums and this mama was about to lose her mind.

Everyone there knew MDG as this happy-go-lucky fun kid, and then here I was with a little monster. Yes, we understood it was a phase, we aren't totally clueless, but the phase was passing slower than it had with PDG.

I don't think it helped that there was no daycare structure to his day. I tried the Camp Nicole approach, but things are always different with mom than with acaregiver. At church, when I tried to drop him off with his brother in Nursery, he flipped out. Lots of babies cry, and they're used to it, but this was the sort of irrational screaming that meant they came and found me to say either I stay with him down there or he'd have to stay with me in my Sunday School classes.

that's the wax from one of hundreds of cheese snacks we ate this summer

When it came to meal time, he mostly just wanted cheese. Not much else. Maybe yogurt. Some milk. Really he would've been happy if we just bought a cow for the backyard to be his own personal dairy supplier.

No matter what we were doing, he needed me. At the park, in the living room, walking from the van to the house. If I wasn't touching him there was a good chance he was crying. Even around other people he loved.

When he climbed out of his crib I thought I'd lost my mind. PDG never did that. PDG never did anything I mentioned in this post. PDG was this weirdly easy kid that I thought was a typical kid and now I had a typical kid that felt like an off-the-charts psycho. Had I changed? Was I a totally different parent? Could I fix it?

Nope, nope, nope. Turns out, kids are different. I should know this. Big Sis reminds me of how different she and I are all the time. My parents probably turned to each other almost daily back in the mid 80's saying, wow, Nicole sure is different than Big Sis.

At any rate, we did survive it. He's now back sleeping through the night in his toddler bed. He doesn't try to run out of the room purely because he's awake; instead he lies there patiently with PDG until given the go ahead to come out. He sits in his own grown-up chair at the table where he doesn't eat everything, but he does eat more than in July. He'll stay in Nursery with his brother as long as I disappear ninja-style while he's distracted. If he cries, he can be calmed with some snuggles.

The only battle still remaining is probably the scariest: the car seat. He unbuckles himself. We thought he was mad about me still keeping him backwards, so I gave in last week, two months short of turning two. And yet, still, I found myself pulling off the highway a few days ago because PDG (my resident whistle-blower) announced MDG was being unsafe. Sure enough, happy as a lark he'd still chosen to undo the clip and couldn't put it back together himself. If he were older I could reason with him better. As it is, it's tough to find the balance of scary enough discipline to fit how scary the consequence of this could be. I have no idea if I'm handling it right at all.

I'm hopeful, in the end, that this is part of a stage too. One that ends super duper fast.

About July...

So I woke up before 6am this morning and thought to myself, I miss blogging.

Really, I miss writing. That's half the reason I blog anyway. It's fun to write, and I'm a little less insane when I do it consistently - hence the overloaded handwritten journals of the early 2000s stuffed in random places around my childhood home.

Speaking of which, I discovered my journals from 3rd and 4th grade a month ago. Amazing.

So for the few minutes until the rest of the family awakens, let me begin a three month summary of life with the G's.

July
The babies and I flew to see Big Sis and celebrate our sweet new Baby C. She was tiny and precious and made me have all those feelings about how newborns are such miracles which naturally made my latent hormones say MAKE ANOTHER ONE OF THESE STAT!!! Then it would be time for a feeding or I'd see my sister's eyes after a rough night and my brain would scream back SHOP STILL CLOSED!!!

Big Sis had a rough go of July, so I was glad to get to see her and know that she was recovering from all the craziness. I got jealous of her beautiful big house that made living with your parents and sister's family for a week right after having a newborn somehow not the worst thing in the world. I tried to convince her that I didn't need to see any sights in town this visit, I just wanted to hang out with her and her growing family, and also not die of heat exhaustion. So there were sprinklers, and bubble baths, and a weird board game with a name I forget and lots of HGTV to pass the time. The week was fantastic, but far too short.

Back in our own house, we beat the heat with Camp Nicole some more, and bought a little kiddie pool that our little kiddies loved. Ok, that's a lie. PDG loved it. MDG thought about loving it, decided he hated it, and then after enough coercion decided sure, why not, I guess I could kinda love it.

The weekend before Grandma S came to town, the check engine light came on our beloved Pathfinder. Yes, the one I learned to drive on back in the late '90s. More on that saga another post.

We drove our new vehicle (you're in suspense, aren't you? I knew it! Ha!) to Ocean City where this family of non-water people did the best we could creating beach memories for the future. And it was all well and good until a stupid bug bite on my arm started turning puffy and red with streaks going all over the place. J-Man was sure it was nothing. Grandma S was certain I was dying. I was in the middle thinking it looked weird, but surely it could wait until vacation was over.

We arrived at Grandma S's friend's house in Annapolis on the last day of our vacation where, within 30 seconds of seeing my arm, she was telling me I had an infection trying to get into my bloodstream and needed to be on antibiotics within hours or else I'd be hooked up to IVs in a hospital like someone else I know had to be once before. Even though she's a nurse, it still sounded a little cuckoo, but I listened and sent J-Man straight to the pharmacy as she called it in.

If you're thinking all this still sounds pretty normal, throw in Grandma S having debilitating back spasms and her friend disappearing for four hours right after this moment because her dog was hemorrhaging and all of us hanging out at her house with her three dogs, praying my toddlers don't destroy anything. And, oh yeah, the dog got put to sleep before she got back so she called to insist we cook her food and eat dinner at her house without her. It wasn't the antibiotics making me feel a little dizzy...

In the end, there was swimming in the pool and smores in the fire pit and the swollen red streaks never hit my lymph nodes. July ended as fast as it always does and we moved onward into the final weeks of summer.

Merry Christmas 2014

Back on a lighter note

Christmas this year was truly magical. For the first time, we had that bright-eyed wonder of Christmas and Santa and Stickers and Presents and Cookies and Lights.  Yes, this boy and his lights!

It was so fun to watch PDG start to actually get it this year.  And to watch little MDG waddle around completely confused by it all but wanting to share in anything his big brother did or found.

We didn't make it out to any big light shows like the temple or the zoo, but we did make quite a few trips to nearby neighborhoods, driving 15mph and oohing and ahhing over even the smallest displays. Plus, each afternoon as the sun would set PDG helped me "wake up" our own two blow-ups in the front yard. I've never had decorations as a grown up, so I might've been just as excited as he was. And thanks to post-Christmas sales, next year we'll have even more to "wake up" in the yard.

Although the first round of cards didn't get this treatment, PDG helped with the second batch of cards by putting stickers everywhere and scribbling with a red crayon on the back. If you got one of those, know it was made with love. If you didn't, know it was done after bedtime for ease and sanity.

We were perhaps so prepared for the holiday this year in part because J-Man had to fly home to attend his grandmother's funeral, and took MDG with him for some silver lining on the trip and to introduce him to some of the G Family.  That left me alone with one kid (which feels easy now, after juggling two - how did that happen?) so I could decorate and shop and wrap at the beginning of the month.

That, plus amazon prime is a life saver.  How did my parents ever actually shop for everything for us growing up? In real stores?

We had our annual brunch which is quickly becoming full of babies.  Baby boys to be specific. MDG was caught between the big boys, now old enough to just go play in PDG's room building lego towers by themselves, and the smaller babies content to roll on the floor with the toys he's now grown bored by. But it's MDG, so mostly he just sort of walked from person to person, checking out their plates, laughing with that goofy grin of his, and then deciding he was scared and wanted no one but his mama.

By the time Christmas did finally arrive, the boys were ready. They'd been filling up on Advent calendar chocolates all month, watching the present pile under the tree gradually grow, searching for our Elf on the Shelf named "Elf" and running around with reindeer antler headbands long enough to have broken most of them.

We went to see J-Man's family for Thai take-out Christmas Eve dinner, woke up to Santa's presents at our house, then drove for more food, family, and present exchanging with the H Family. We all got a little spoiled by each other.

 

Perhaps one of my favorite moments was when my parents opened their gift from me, Big Sis and Big Bro - a new pillow with a family photo on it.  It seems only yesterday we got the original, even though Big Bro's sons are probably older now than I was in that first photo. It seemed time for an update.

I love Christmas and the chance it gives us to focus on the people we love and making them happy. Yes, I believe in religious pieces of the holiday, but even if you don't, I think we can all agree that sharing a gift that will bring a genuine smile to the face of someone you love is a wonderful pursuit. And yeah, receiving a gift like that isn't so bad either.

Silver Lining Questions

This week has had too much dying. Far too much. Isn't this stuff supposed to stop at three? From a girl I ran track with to J-Man's grandma to my high school librarian who used to bring us farm-fresh eggs to my sister's childhood friend to the 16 year old student that was murdered at the edge of school property... Just way too much.

I think I'm handling it all.  I think we all are.  It's just a lot.

I'm thankful to have my faith and a set of beliefs that includes a restful and joyful afterlife, but that doesn't make thinking about the families of these people magically less painful. It doesn't make me wish that J-Man's trip west hadn't been able to take place early enough for MDG to meet his other great-great-grandma on the G side. It doesn't make me less furious that drug-related crime has led to a second student's murder in my high school in less than a year. It doesn't make me ache less for a seven year old who watched her mother battle a relentless illness for nine months.

So, rather than spending tonight dwelling on loss, I think I'll look at cute pictures of my little guys and consider a new angle to life after earth.

Cute, right?

But anyway, what I'm getting at is, what if when we die, we get to look back at our lives and really truly see everything? Not just the big spiritual stuff like - was I honest or compassionate or charitable, but the silly little details that you just can't get answers to while you're here.  What would I look for?  Here's my work-in-progress list

1) Did Adnan do it? (come on, you're listening to Serial weekly and wondering too, right?)

2) And what about all those episodes of Disappeared I watched this summer? What are those folks up to?

3) Where did PDG hide my school ID cards that day he went in my purse and took my work lanyard and then lacked the short term memory and vocabulary to help me find them?

4) Just how pleasant (or unpleasant) of a surprise was I to my parents when they got the news they were gonna have a 3rd kid... six years later?

5) What happened to my pet chicken, Peep-Peep, that disappeared with just a trail of feathers back in fifth grade? Was it really as gruesome and sad as I imagined? Or did he make friends with the wild turkeys and leave for a life of leisure?

6) What do the Russian ladies say at the park when they look my direction, then at my kids, pause, then lower their voices? I've been correct to assume it has nothing to do with me, right?

7) Lastly, but possibly most importantly, where was that bar where J-Man first bought me a coke, danced on a table, and sat by me discussing best-movies-ever while Guacamole Girl stuck her finger in my appetizer? The night we exchanged numbers. Spectacle night. Some might say, the night it all began. Where between 1st and 3rd avenues and 77th and 96th streets was it and why could we never, ever find it again?

I think answering these questions, plus a giant game of who-was-on-the-same-plane/bus/train-as-me-before-we'd-ever-met, should be a fun and not so heavy way to pass time in the eternities. If, you know, passing time there is a thing. At the very least it's nice to imagine that some day I might conceivably get some clarity.

What would be your burning, totally unanswerable questions?

Grandma S and the Fair

So, Arlington has a county fair.

Kind of.

I mean, it has one. It's just, if you've ever lived in a county that actually has zoning for agriculture, you'll have trouble calling this a fair. It's more like a carnival. Yeah. A big carnival with some booths and a few contests. Oh, and four cows you can pet at the entrance. But whatever. We had a blast at the fair!

We actually went twice.  The first time was pictured above. PDG love-love-loved it. It was opening night and the lines were super short. He is over 36in tall so at not even two and a half, he could ride all the little rides by himself. Our little boy is getting all grown.

his very favorite - the ferris wheel

The next time we took Grandma S.

Let me just say, we were pretty excited to have Grandma S in town. The visit was short, and had to be cut shorter because of a sick relative, but we soaked in as much as we could while she was here. The other Washington is far away, so it's extra special when she makes it out here to recharge on snuggles and kisses.  Sadly we did a terrible job taking photos.

Her first morning in town we headed back to the fair (only a mile away!) and hit up the rides again. We also checked out the free bouncy castles, which PDG was surprisingly brave enough to try out, and cooled off in the rec center with the booths and expositions. J-Man and I accompanied PDG on our favorite rides from childhood, and even both got to give the teacups a whirl (pun obviously intended).

The rest of the week continued on that high.  I did spend two days in professional development trainings, which was annoying for me, but a great chance for the boys to get spoiled by Grandma S.  We also took a trip out to see Great Grandma in Maryland for a barbecue. I love that PDG gets a chance to meet such extended family from so many generations.

All in all the visit flew by too quickly. We can't wait for Grandma S to come back. Or maybe for us to go back out to WA to visit? But thinking about that means thinking about flying with the two boys in tow, so yeah. We can't wait for Grandma S to come back to us... :)

Road Trip to LeJeune

Last weekend J-Man and I went on a road trip to see Lil Bro. He's now a Marine, having conquered boot camp, and is temporarily stationed at Camp LeJeune for MOS and other acronyms I don't know/can't remember.

Camp LeJeune is approximately 6 hours away by car. Can I just say, thank heavens I will never travel that distance with a two month old again. Phew!

The boys did great, all things considered. Despite PDG's new favorite word being "don't" and the fact that he is now forward facing and therefore kicks my passenger seat nonstop, we survived. And I guess MDG's two hour eating schedule did give us plenty of chances to stretch our legs.

The trip as a whole reminded me of our Vegas trip in 2012. The nights of horrible sleep in a hotel room. Pumped milk not surviving the hours without a fridge. Getting lost and frustrated beyond verbal expression. Some great smiles of a chubby baby on puffy hotel linens. A random food service worker holding my baby.

Some parts were very unlike Vegas though.  Namely, the energetic toddler in addition to a chubby, hungry baby.

PDG is almost two and talking constantly.  He knows all his capital letters, though forgets a few on any given day, and can identify some numbers.  I don't want to be the mom that pushes things like that too far, so we go on his cues and keep it a game.  His color recognition extends only to the four colors of the stickers we use on MDG's daycare bottles - yellow (lello), green, orange and pink.  Outside of that he's got nothing.  Or he's colorblind.  But most likely, it's just because colors are only interesting when stickers are involved, because apparently these days there is absolutely nothing better than stickers.  Well, maybe sausage.  

Oh, and last fun fact about PDG - he has started calling J-Man, "J-Man."  I mean, he calls him by his first name, but also, actually, "J-Man." That one started as an indecipherable "J-Mo" but within minutes had been adjusted and clear as day.  I guess J-Man doesn't call me by my first name as much, because he's the only one getting the new attention.  We think it's a phase.  At least, we hope it is.  Right now it's kinda adorable/annoying all in one, the way most toddler phases are.

So it was a good trip.  A good, long, exhausting trip.  I'm glad we went.  I'm glad we're home.  I'm glad J-Man had the week off while in-between jobs to help us both recover from it.  And I'm glad this next weekend we have no plans at all.

Worst Month Ever?

I know we're only halfway through, but I'm ready to label January 2014 as the worst month of J-Man's and my time together.

Is that a little dramatic?  Perhaps.  But that doesn't make it less true.

Yeah, January, I'm lookin' at you

Also, I should clarify, this isn't to say that it's the worst our relationship has been.  Granted, throw enough stress inducers in the pot and any marriage will hit a bump or two, but that isn't really it.  It's just, um, everything?

There's the obvious one.  We have a newborn.  And he cries.  A lot.  Similarly to PDG, it isn't the kind of cry that requires any diagnosis like reflux or colic or what have you.  Just general fussiness until he figures out what life out of the womb is all about.  So, yeah, there's that.  It makes us feel a little nutty sometimes......

Then there's work.  My fears about returning so soon.  I go back next week at only 7 weeks - a far cry from the 5 months I had with PDG (though only 12 of those were expected if you remember).  And there's J-Man's work.  Where they're doing restructuring and being generally jerkish to him.  Which he would never want me to elaborate on so I won't.  But I think we can agree that when work feels miserable, it's easy for everything else to be miserable, no?

Plus, PDG threw up at daycare last week.  We thought it was just one of those random things that happens to little boys who eat as much as he does.  But, again, worst month ever.  Seems he had some kind of bug.  Bad enough that he didn't even want to play at the park with his grandma that afternoon.  Bad enough that he'd keep throwing up all evening.  And then bad enough that he'd pass it along to his exhausted and already dehydrated mama, who would lovingly share it with her annoyed-with-work husband.  Fingers crossed the baby doesn't get some form too.  I'm hoping the incessant nursing at least is passing along my antibodies to protect him.

I seem to recall there being something else craptastic these past 15 days, but you're getting the point, right?

On the upside (did you think I'd be negative ALL post?) a few great things have happened.  J-Man's mom is in town from Washington state.  She's been super helpful - especially during the stomach madness.

And, fans could argue even better, the Seahawks won.  We donned our tattoos and duct tape and jerseys, bibs, and hats to cheer them on.  Go Hawks.  Ca-Caw

Christmas '13 in Photos

Christmas this year was everything Christmas should be.  There was some snow (but not the kind that messes anything up), there were lots of hugs, there was family, there was too much food, there were naps, there was rewatching old family home videos, there was ripping open presents, there was Santa...

There was lots and lots of happiness.

So, since my moments to blog are limited these days, this post will be handled mostly in pictures, in semi-chronological order.

Oh, and photos from our Christmas card aren't on the fanciphone so I'll get those up another day (or during a different MDG nap while J-Man has taken PDG outside to entertain him -- logistics...)

Our Christmas tree - I gave in and we got a non-living tree this year. 

Big Sis came to town and got to meet MDG!

So did Lil Miss N

We made it to church with the H Family - then returned home for naps and play time. PDG did that hat placement all by himself

Opening presents Sunday afternoon - Cousin Christmas Day

PDG and Papa H - according to J-Man they share the same spirit animal 

adding another boy to the bunch

Lil Miss N also loves her some PDG

Loving his "cahs" from Big Bro

Actual Christmas Morning - PDG loves his bus

... and his microphone

Making up for not sleeping the night before. This kid and his night/day confusion

see that big box in the background - PDG's first bball hoop. And the pretty table runner - made by Grandma S 

Reading Brown Bear Brown Bear together

PDG loves selfies. Also, I really don't like the word "selfie"

Mama H and MDG.  Love.

One day soon I'll write some more.

Until then, Merry Christmas