NYC Revisited: Day One

Earlier this year a few girls in my first period class taught me all the wonders of Snapchat. This obviously made me feel old, but also brought me around to capturing the fun moments in life as they arise, writing all over them, and then adding stickers. Like this...

And while instagram is trying to steal the Snap thunder with their story feature, I've only just recently gotten the hang of these, and won't be converting to anything new too soon. So, since you probably aren't one of the four people who ever look at my snaps, let me use them to tell you a little about J-Man's and my trip back to NYC.

First off, it should be noted that Facebook reminded me that J-Man and I have been friends for ten years now. And that's pretty exact, because back in '06 I was pretty quick to add a friend right after meeting them in order to preserve that connection forever. I was in a brand new city, he was a crazy guy who invited me to see spectacles, we were both on a journey to make a difference and be grown-up teachers. Oh, and he had air conditioning.

Ten years later we were back to see another Teaching Fellow, E-Drizzle get married. We hopped on an Amtrak train, left the little guys behind, and set forth into nostalgia.

Within minutes of hailing our first cab (J-Man didn't want to subway and I felt weird using Uber in the world of yellow taxis) we remembered just how loud and smelly and hot and vibrant the city is. We dodged a street fair and multiple ambulances as we swerved our way to the Upper West Side to stay in our friend EK's lovely apartment. There we'd stay alongside another couple attending a different NYC wedding while EK and her husband were off at yet another wedding in Wisconsin.

Within the next hour we bumped into my friend V - who tends to disappear for months at a time - so it was pretty amazing that our paths crossed at all. We promised to catch up later and continued on our way.

E-Drizzle's wedding was lovely, even though we ended up inside rather than the outdoor park as they'd hoped. It was me, J-Man and two other former NYCTF English teachers and we hung out and talked books. My self-published one, another's upcoming poetry one, and another's currently in the query phase one. After some bouts of not feeling very accomplished in life lately, that conversation reminded me to snap out of it and enjoy the things that have made me happy. I wrote a book. It exists, imperfections and all, and it's ok to feel proud of that.

I proceeded to eat too much, meet new people, dance a bit, smile a ton, and have a fantastic time in the upstairs bar reception. The whole event was incredibly New York, and incredibly them and came along with the beauty of remembering my own vows in the place where I met the man I would love more passionately than I could have ever imagined.

cab ride home - 2016

cab ride home 2006

The day was wonderful, the company too, and it was only the first of the fantastic trip.

Snow Day One... Of Many

Tomorrow I return to work after seven consecutive snow days. Seven. And tomorrow is a work day, so that means it will be eight business days - twelve actual days - without seeing any students. That is a really, really long time.

So long that I've lost my mind, just a tiny bit.

It started kind of cute. Wednesday night before the storm we were supposed to get a dusting. With J-Man having a terrible work trip to Atlanta all week, Mama and Papa H, along with Big Sis and Baby C, had come over for dinner and playtime. As they went to get in their car we saw this scene.

Over an hour later they made it to the onramp of the highway, only to learn the highway was shut down and not moving. Turns out no one within the beltway pre-treated the roads so it was a giant skating rink for rush hour. A little over another hour later they made it back to my house where it turned into an H family sleepover. Poor Baby C had no pack-n-play or crib, so it wasn't our best rested night in this house, but given that MDG exists, it was still far from the worst.

My school system doesn't play with snow anymore, so we shut down before midnight and the next day the boys got to ease into winter.

Little did I know that would be the beginning of an extended staycation snowed in. I'm looking forward to the return to civilization. But only sort of. I also really enjoyed an impromptu reason to stay home, build forts, watch too much TV, and get to know the neighbors through shoveling parties and shared outdoor child supervision.

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.

Goodbye Pathfinder

You guys, changing cars is hard work. It shouldn't be, you know, and yet it is.

When the check engine light came on last July, we already knew what to do. J-Man and I had talked about this a bunch. We weren't dumping any more money into the Pathfinder. We loved that car. It wasn't about feelings, it was a practical choice. We've had it since 1999 and despite the fact that I learned to drive in it, or that it carried me back and forth to college countless times, or saved the day as our second family car when we became northern virginians, and transported both PDG and MDG home from the hospital and to and from daycare a zillion times, it had to go. It was a sad day.

Also, it should be noted, it was terrible timing. Like, we almost decided to abandon our carefully discussed action plan because that stupid light came on just two days before our planned trip to Ocean City. We couldn't very well drive a dying car to the beach. But we couldn't fit Grandma S in the back of our bitty Volvo for three hours either. We were stuck, and there was only one thing to do: used car shopping-palooza.

Oh, I'm still patting myself on the back months later. We were pretty amazing. J-Man made the appointments, I took Grandma S and the boys with me to wait while I test drove. That evening I took J-Man back to my favorite one, we signed the papers, and drove off with this bad boy.

I love our Odyssey. Love it. Those doors! The heated seats! The auxiliary port! And, oh my goodness, the trunk!!! It's fabulous. The boys love it. PDG can climb all the way in without me doing anything but the final crotch buckle. MDG has endless places to throw his shoes and socks (which somehow still makes me smile instead of grimace. Crazy kid.). Yeah, there's a whole bunch of dings and scratches, but it's not going in a beauty contest. It's just taking me and the littlest G's to school and back every day, and the occasional trip out 66. I didn't realize what a life changing event a minivan could be, but I might never look back.

Of course, that's only half the story. That was the buying. The selling.... oh my, the selling.

Our plan was to donate it and write it off on our taxes. We ran that poor Pathfinder to the ground, so we knew we'd get hardly anything for it, and time is worth something when you have two kids. It's worth a lot. Instead of following our plan, though, we got swayed by our salesman Tony to let him sell it to a guy who was already looking for a Pathfinder. He sounded so certain and he'd told us his whole life story and shown us his beautiful wife who came to the US with him thirty years ago and yes, Tony, sell this car. We won't tell anyone at your dealership how you're doing it off the books. Go, make money, give us most of it, and it'll be grand.

Ugh. Tony.

He didn't have this supposed friend. He did have a craigslist posting no fancier than what we could have done. He did come by and borrow the key to let people check it out. He also did tell us it was in bad shape (duh!) and he'd need to lower the price (which he had set, not us). Then, he also flaked on the days we were supposed to all meet up and sell it. When J-Man called to say we sell it by Monday or we donate it, he had the nerve to show up on Monday with the buyer and HALF the money. Say what?

Tony....

Finally, waiting for the rest of this buyer's money to get in from Africa (that's all we knew, and we just prayed he wasn't getting conned in a Nigerian prince scam) we decided to cut Tony out of the picture. Apparently he was taking a commission from us and from the buyer on this cheap sale so we promised him his cut and told the buyer to come on a given day, with or without Tony, and as long as he had the rest of the money, the title was his. Tony, nervous we'd cut him out of the transaction, managed not to flake out that day, and finally, finally, finally, three weeks later, that car was out of our driveway.

We were super annoyed, but in the end, we have a van. We love that van. And one day, when we've driven it into the ground and our boys have destroyed the insides with their milk cups and sand deposits and muddy cleats and melted crayons, we'll remember this story and just follow the plan to handle things all by ourselves.

Spring Break 2015 aka TX2NOLA2TX

Here goes, Spring Break in pictures:

 PDG spent plenty of time just like this. We flew into Houston, drove to Austin, made our way all the way to New Orleans, then headed back to fly back out of Houston again. Saturday to Saturday.

 In Austin we saw a great friend who taught in the Bronx with me and her sweet family. My boys fell in love with her girls and vice versa. They played to exhaustion while we caught up and we all enjoyed Texas staples like barbecue and kolaches.

 It feels like we were both just in NYC falling in love and tearing our hair out at the craziness of our CSSJ administration and students. Yet here we are, eight years later, married with babies.

From Austin we drove a ridiculous amount well into Lousiana, stopped long enough to sleep, and kept on chugging until we hit the Big Easy. Needless to say, J-Man's favorite part was the seafood. PDG and MDG had their own reactions 

 I insisted that we do all the touristy things like Cafe du Monde for Beignets and balloons and J-Man held his tongue about how much he dislikes standing in line for things that everyone else wants.

 At Mama H's insistence we took a carriage ride through downtown.

 Well, PDG missed most of it... but I had a grand time.

 Um, I don't know what this church is, but it was pretty and looked important. I'm not a very good tourist it turns out...

And... uh-oh... look who found the leftover beignets...

 This next one is just because J-Man is J-Man and looks for a good joke wherever he can find it.

 We took the trolley to the flower district which the boys love because they're boys and love trains and adventures and fresh air.

 We got a little lost looking for the zoo. but ultimately had a great stay.

 Soon enough we packed up and headed for a Louisiana resort (not an oxymoron) that happens to be a casino with a lovely lazy river.

 The next day we made it to Houston where we frolicked in one of their great parks like true Texans. I mean, look at PDG with his bare feet and blue jeans.

While Houston itself was fun to explore, especially the Children's Museum (which puts DC's to shame) the highlight was seeing another NYC Teaching Fellow and her family.

All in all it was a pretty fantastic trip. Not particularly relaxing, but jam-packed and lots of fun, book-ended by great friends.

Gooooo-ing to the Lodge

Somehow, the photos in this series taken in our hotel room actually sum up the whole experience pretty well. So...

When I first told PDG we were going to a place called Great Wolf Lodge and that it would be a giant spray park but that his daddy only got to take one day off because of work stuff his face probably was about like this

 And when he'd had a full car trip's worth of anticipation, plus a visit to the Wal-Mart for snacks, Sonic for food, and been walked all through the lodge without getting to get wet because our room wasn't ready yet, he looked more like this

Finally, though, we got into our giant loft room, slapped on some bathing suits, and hit the fabulous indoor water park. There was so much for a 2-year-old to do and see his mind exploded a little. Like this

Thankfully he wasn't a perplexed scaredy-cat for too long, and we got him to go down the medium-kid water slides all by himself, jump around in the wave pool, and master the little-kid slides. He was totally like this

We spent three days and two nights there - the perfect amount of time. Yes, I did at one point push him down a slide crying because I knew he could do it and he'd had fun before. Yes, he also got scared in the big family raft tunnel/slide. But. Yes, he was so proud of himself exclaiming "I did it!" every time he did something he was scared of.  Just like this

We had fun. Mama and Papa H seemed to have fun too, letting J-Man and I tackle the bigger slides while they babysat and waded in the shallow pool.  I may have shrieked "ohmygoodness" on repeat during the entirety of at least one slide, but I kept going back for more.  The water is finally out of my ears and we'll for sure be going back in another year or two to see what little man MDG thinks of it all.  My guess is he's gonna be far more fearless than his big brother.

And, speaking of MDG, here he is too. In his reversible wolf ears. (italics are for you, J-Man)

 

And one more silly one, for good measure

Fire Trucks, Woo-Wooh!

PDG is really into firetrucks these days. I mean really into firetrucks.

Now, you're saying, come on every little boy loves fire trucks. He was practically destined to like them, what with his nursery theme being transportation. He's been seeing planes, trains, and automobiles since his eyes could focus!

But, look here, this thing has gotten real.

For instance, he thinks every car with any sort of light attached is a fire truck. He'll point and exclaim in a near shriek "Fire truck?!" His voice goes up ever so slightly, just in case he's wrong, but with a volume level that asserts he's right.

Then, I have to confirm it for him and say "Yes, fire truck," to which he can reply "Woo-wooh!"

My son is also a creature of habit.

And when it isn't a fire truck, which is rather often given just how many vehicles have lights - especially on I-95 with all the construction - I have to search for what it really is. Sometimes it's easy, like a tow truck.  But sometimes I just say, "um, no, not a fire truck, just, a truck with flashing lights." Are boy moms supposed to know what all these vehicles are called? I still haven't finished mastering animal sounds. Goats? Giraffes?Zebras?

But back to the fire trucks...

He's obsessed.  We even google fire trucks so he can scroll through images on the phone. Each time he says "fire truck, woo-wooh!" and then maybe what color it is (on the off chance it isn't red). Shouldn't that be boring? Are we killing his brain cells? It just makes him so darn happy!

Even worse, and I blame J-Man fully for this, he is obsessed with this youtube video, which if you didn't click, is nearly ten minutes of fire trucks in all their glory, driving around with lights and sirens going. As if the Fireman's Parade during Apple Blossom hadn't been enough. And if you're like me and find songs with sirens in them to be a terrible idea, try driving along when some sweet, doting husband/father has given his phone all cued up to this video to your son to entertain him on the ride home.  It's ten minutes of constant, sweaty paranoia interrupted by an occasional "fire truck, woo-wooh" whispered in awed respect.

I love my PDG, I really do. But maybe, just maybe, it'd be fun to branch out a bit from fire trucks?  Or anything else that might go "vroom" or "whoosh." It's not like we're lacking for exclamations of "school bus," "airplane," hellicopter," or "motorcycle" either.

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.

November Thanks but No Thanks

Oh friends, what a trying first week of November this has been.  Rather than lament what feels like one disaster after another, I'm going to try to channel some of that Facebook what-I'm-grateful-for November attitude and reframe it all.

So with that said I'm grateful that....

1) PDG's doctor's office is open late.  Much better than a $200 emergency room visit when his random 102.5 fever joined up with crazy huge welts all over his body.  fyi - hives.

2) amoxicillin tastes like bubble gum.  Makes 10 days of antibiotics for strep for a 19 month old actually possible to administer.  Benadryl - work on that, would you? (did you know strep can cause hives? weird)

3) PDG is old enough for, and loves going to, nursery at church.  I do feel guilty sometimes at wanting to spend any more time away from him than I already do, but since he turned 18 months and started getting to attend Nursery, I've gotten to feel like I'm getting more out of Sunday School and Relief Society again.  Plus, it's helped him learn to fold his arms to pray - super duper adorable.

4) My nesting carried over into having my 1st quarter grades entered well before the deadline on Tuesday.  Otherwise I would've joined the ranks of teachers flipping out that our electronic gradebook shut down the three school days before all grades/comments were due.  Instead I got to spend all day making copies of worksheets for the next six weeks and weekly outlines of lesson plans for whenever this baby MDG decides to show up.

5) NPR keeps me calm when a tractor trailer full of fuel crashes on I-95 south, shutting down the entire interstate, and turning my 30 minute commute into a 90 minute one.  No longer can I say I've never been late to work.

6) Mama H answers the phone as early as 5:30am.  (Sorry Mama H for all the calls this week!)

7) Papa H insists I keep AAA coverage.  When stranded on the side of the road with a dead car and a very active toddler, knowing help is on the way is one of few positive thoughts

8) My coworkers are as excited about this baby as I am.  So when I thought my water might have broken during 1st period (I'll end details there for TMI reasons) I had an army of women getting a sub to cover, walking me to the bathroom, and getting me a ride to L&D to get checked out.  Of course, as you probably guessed, it wasn't my water.  And not enough contractions to move things along.  But a good practice run I guess.

9) PDG can cheer up just about anyone.  After this long week, and particularly long day, I told PDG it was time to go "night night." Because he's a strange little boy who loves bedtime - don't hate me, ok? - he immediately put down his toy, started waving his arms to say bye, and then looked at J-Man.  He stopped, smiled, said "kiss" and then walked over and gave his daddy a kiss.  Then he began climbing the stairs waving at us both again and repeating "night night."  I don't think I could love that boy more.  And I don't think J-Man's smile could have been bigger.  What a perfect way to end a far from perfect week.

So, November, what are you gonna throw at us G's this week to keep us focused on gratitude?

Miss R's Wedding

A few weeks ago was J-Man's 30th birthday.  And like a true grown up that he now is, he unselfishly gave up the weekend for a trip to New Jersey for one of my closest high school friends' wedding. Yeah, he's pretty swell.

The trip started a bit rocky, not gonna lie.  Getting out of DC, even during a government shutdown where traffic was significantly less than usual, is always a nightmare.  Then, 295 adds its own brand of agony.  By the time we'd reached Baltimore it was like we'd been on the road forever.

We couldn't agree on a dinner location, so somewhere outside of Havre de Grace we ended up at a restaurant as the youngest customers by a good 30 years.  On the up side, PDG ran freely through the quiet establishment to the amusement of grandmas and grandpas, the servings were huge, and J-Man and I really did need a chance to decompress before the rest of the trip.

We finally arrived around 11pm, got little man settled into his crib and passed right out.

The next morning we got to see the beautiful bride, whose room was down the hall, our friend FR, also down the hall, and our friends (now engaged!!!) M and N, who somehow got placed on a totally different floor.

The G's were up before everyone else - shocker! - so we had one breakfast, and then later another with the ladies.  I think we even did a good job of not just focusing on old high school stories that bore my poor, patient husband.  We talked and talked and talked while PDG played with crayons and lights - another shocker - until we had just enough time to pretty ourselves for the big afternoon event.

Miss R, the bride, managed to plan a wedding that fit her personality and her relationship with her husband so perfectly.  That might be one of my favorite things about weddings - seeing how the personalities come through in every little selection.

Outside by a lake, as we sat on sheet-covered-hay-bails, Miss R traded vows of love and loyalty with G, in a sweet and short service.  We blew bubbles to celebrate before heading into the lodge for a cozy reception.  Pizza and beer were the appetizers - showing R's true Jersey roots - and let me tell you, that pizza was a-maz-ing.  Tortellini pizza?  Taco pizza?  BBQ chicken pizza?  Oh it was all there, and all so delicious that we forgot to save room for all the other food coming shortly thereafter.

PDG started the dance party immediately, and poked and prodded the speakers that were bigger than he was, trying to figure out just how this music was coming out.  Aside from one balance mishap leading to a little forehead carpet burn, nothing but food kept him from the dance floor all afternoon/evening.  When J-Man and I tired of dancing with him, others took over.  He even started to catch on when the chicken dance came on.

Miss R did her time on the dance floor, but as usual worried about the rest of us having a great time, as she mingled in her beautiful dress and held sweetly to her new husband.  She may not love the spotlight, but she deserved every second.

When it was time to wrap up, everyone pitched in.  Leftovers were divvied into take-home boxes, which served as perfect late night snacks.  Centerpieces were claimed, dishes returned to the kitchen, and the place was nearly cleared by the time we headed out.  Her family knows how to throw a party, and how to work together to clean one up.

Back at the hotel we talked and laughed more in FR's room until, unsurprisingly, I started to fall asleep mid-conversation.  Even though FR had just moved to DC, and M and N live here too, there's something about all being on one hall that felt like camp, or college, and we didn't want to end the socializing before we had to.

But home we came the next morning.  Back with a renewed appreciation of love and vows and marriage and family.  Back to our super cute little duplex with our super cute little toddler.  Back to less than cute jobs and alarm clocks.  But happy to have spent such a great weekend in a truly beautiful area of New Jersey with girls I've known for fifteen years and couldn't be happier to still have in my life.