Did You Ever Wonder

Luke: Mom, if a tree grew up underneath my bed, would it push the bed up, or break the bed into pieces?
Me: I think it would push the bed up.
Luke: No, I think it would break it into pieces.

Daddy: What's wrong, Jack? You don't like having your diaper changed?
Jack: (Grabs pacifier out of mouth and throws it aside.) Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga!

Hall Of Mirrors

Dave spent a night in Arizona last week, so I took the kids out for dinner. We had sushi because we are a good yuppy family. We were seated in a tiny booth and the wall next to us was one giant mirror, and when Luke turned to say something to me he got distracted. "I thought there was a boy at a table next to us that looked just like me!" Luke likes to look at himself in the mirror. I give him the option of taking his time outs in his room or mine and he always picks mine. Recently, he was crying quite dramatically and Dave gave me the "What the heck?" look. I said, "Five bucks says he is standing in front of the mirror." Oh yeah, Dave, you owe me 5 bucks. But back to dinner. Soon he noticed there was a mirror on the other wall too. "I can see myself over there! And I can see six Lukes!" (Reflection of a reflection and so on.)

I didn't plan on the meal taking quite so long, but what with the mirrors and the chopsticks, and the looking at yourself in the mirror using chopsticks, it was quite the leisurely affair. And this meant that Jack wanted to eat, and yeah, I didn't bring his/my privacy blanket. No worry, the linen napkins were on the large side. So I was trying to feed Jack, and I had us covered with a linen napkin, and I looked in the mirror to my right and we were clear, and I looked in the mirror to my left and we were clear. I looked back to the right, and back to the left. Clear. I made eye contact with the waiter, and if he's able to make eye contact, then good, he's not seeing anything else. And I look down and make eye contact with Jack, who has stopped eating and casually tossed off the linen napkin. And I don't need to look in the mirror at the 6 copies of myself to see that I am exposing myself to the entire room. I covered Jack up and started over and the entire process was repeated about 3 times.

I am not the most modest person in the world, but I think all the mirrors did me in. Because the next day I was pumping in the lactation room and I heard someone talking really loudly, so loudly it seemed like they were in the room with me and I thought, "Oh. My. God. I forgot to shut the door. I am in the lactation room, pumping, and the door isn't even CLOSED!" But the door was closed. I think I was just delirious because it was late afternoon and all I had packed for lunch was Luke's leftover kid's meal, which was a tiny square of tofu and about 7 edamame, and I had eaten it at about 10:30. And someone was talking really loudly right outside the door.

Day at the Park

Today we did some yard work, played some baseball in the yard with a few neighborhood kids and then headed to the park for a family outing. Very All-American. I can't believe I didn't think to make apple pie today! But I did make granola yesterday so, close enough.

We packed some snacks, the stroller, the sling, sunscreen, a picnic blanket, a magazine for me to read, and Dave's fishing stuff and headed to the park. The picture above is from two summers ago. Good times.

This park has a great playground and the first thing Luke wanted to do was talk through the intercom. You can't see from one speaker thingy to the other, which I guess makes it more interesting. We had this conversation:

Me: Hi, can you hear me?
Luke: Can you hear me mama?
Me: I can hear you, can you hear me?
Luke: Yeah.
Me: This is fun. What do you want to do next?
Luke: Dada
Me: Daddy is fishing. Do you want to go on the slide?
Luke: Dada.
Me: Are you saying dada?
Luke: Mommy, I'm behind you. A baby wanted to use the intercom, so I let him.

Nice - he left me talking to a baby.

Then Luke wanted to be pushed on the swings, which was really fun. I had Jack in the sling, and every time I pushed Luke, Jack laughed hysterically. So cute.

Then we walked around for a while, picked the perfect spot, laid out the blanket, got Jack out of the stroller, started to get the snacks out, and "Mama. I have to go to the bathroom." Okaaaaay. So I packed everything and everyone back up and we walked all the way to one end of the park where the bathrooms are, but they were not yet open for the season. So we walked all the way to the other side of the park where there are two porta potties and three young baggy pants wearing gentleman. As we approached, I saw one go in one of the bathrooms and one start to go into one of the bathrooms but then change his mind. We had this conversation:

Me: Is that bathroom really gross?
Young Gentleman: Yeah.
Me: OK. We'll wait.
Young Gentleman: Well, uh. I think it's gross. You might not.
Me: Do I look like I have lower bathroom standards than you do?
Young Gentleman: Sorry.

Regardless, I am glad I had Purell with me.

In other news, we went to see our friends' brand new super cute 8 pound 6 day old baby. It's been a little over 5 months since my 6 pound 10 ounce baby was born and I have a good memory, but I don't believe Jack was ever that small. I think my friends' baby maybe really only weighs 4 pounds, and they are just a little confused. Or else the gravitational pull on the earth has shifted and 8 pounds is different than it was 5 months ago. That might explain my own weight too!

Memory

No, don't worry, I am not going to sully this blog with some boring American Idol commentary about how bad the dread lock guy's rendition of Memory was this week, and how he said, "A cat sings this song? I had no idea." (More bad use of quotes since that is just what I vaguely remember him saying, and not what he actually said.)

No, I want to write about memories of real people that I actually know, like my children. I was putting Jack to bed last night and he fell asleep in my arms. He really snuggles into the crook of my arm, with one arm around my waist and the other grabbing the neck of my sweater with his fist. He has quite a grip, and today I started calling him Pinchy. His cheeks were rosy, eyes were closed, and he smelled sweet. I noticed all of this out of the corner of my eye because, while I was holding him with one arm, I was holding my book with another. I tend to read a lot. When I turned 16, I sat in the driver's seat of my parents minivan and looked out the window for the first time. I didn't know how to get around town, but I had gotten a lot of reading done over the years.

I can remember painting a sign with my grandma that she hung on the door for my mom to see when she came home from the hospital with my baby sister. I was three and my job was to paint little evenly spaced lines of green across the bottom to represent grass. My lines got bigger, longer, spaced further apart and, in general, messier as they crossed the page. My grandma said, "Oh no! Paint the grass like this." I looked at her grass and my grass and thought, "It looks easier than it is." The point of this story is that I have a great memory. I am the official expert on everything that ever happened. I am so good at remembering things that some people think I just make stuff up.

So you'd think that I would not need to worry about whether or not I am going to have vivid memories of everyday life with my baby. But my worrying skills rival my memory, I'm that multi-talented. Currently, when I try to ingrain a tender moment into my brain, I also think of memories of Luke. I probably have 3 or 5 or maybe only 1o vivid memories of nursing Luke. So I worry that I am doing too much reading and not enough memorizing of every moment with Jack. Pictures help, but this morning when I tried to capture the look on Jack's face when I went in to get him in the morning instead of capturing 1000 words I got maybe 5. Those 5 words were "Oh. there's the camera again." What I was trying to capture was that his eyes are still blue, with a glint of joy, a little devil, that he was happy to see me, but also that he had been content to look at the mobile before I got there, and maybe wants to glance back at the mobile right this second; a shade of worry passes over his brow, but then it's gone as he breaks out into a big smile, which is also fleeting, and then he's overcome with the joy that one can attain only by seeing how much blanket can be crammed into ones mouth, and then I snap the picture. OK, words aren't going to do it either. But the process of trying to come up with the words or the picture may be what helps me with the memory.

And I guess if I have 10 vivid memories of Luke five years later, that's pretty good. And I did a lot of reading when he was a baby too.

Lies and Fabrications

Jack is not napping well at daycare. Or at home. But at home, if I want to get a lot of work done, I sometimes let Jack nap in my lap. That allows him to sleep for over an hour and forces me to work instead of foraging for snacks. However, for some reason, Dave told the daycare about my bad parenting and I got lectured. Then I had to avoid three consecutive drop off/pick ups because I don't like to get in trouble.

Short story long, yesterday Jack took one OK nap in the crib, one relatively good nap in the crib, and one fabulous nap on my lap. As I was falling asleep last night I was strategizing to myself. "Just tell her he slept fine. No, tell her you made him cry it out with mixed results. No, tell the nap stories accurately as to length and location, but say you were forced to let him nap on your lap because before you got a chance to put him down you ended up on a two hour conference call and you don't have a cordless phone. Yes! That's it!"

Stress much?

Why can't I just take this fabulous advice I got from a good friend:

"The daycare just needs to pick a consistent routine for him there. He's smart enough to follow a routine with them and then be treated like a king at home."

(The picture is from yesterday morning. He slept from 8 until 6:30. Then had breakfast in bed and passed out, milk drunk.)

Don't Quote Me On This

"Bean" was a pleasure to have. That is what it said on the note from the kennel. Dave wondered about the use of quotes around his name. I suggested that maybe the kennel thinks "Bean" is Bean's nickname. But I really shouldn't make fun of them for two reasons.

1.) I started to look up proper and improper uses of quotation marks to research this blog "article" that I am writing here. But then I got sort of lazy and decided to "give up".
2.) I should probably have put quotes around the first sentence since I am quoting a line from the note from the kennel. Is that right? I don't know - see point 1.

I should also not be making fun of the kennel because they let me take Bean without paying since I forgot my wallet. "Oh, we trust you! We'll see you soon."

Regardless, I think that a more accurate sentence would have been, Bean was a "pleasure" to have. Just "kidding" Bean!

In other Bean news:

Today I brushed Bean's hair and got such a big pile of hair that I was thinking of taking it to someone I know who spins fiber into yarn and then weaves things out of the yarn and asking her to make Bean a dog hair sweater. I wish I could take credit for this fabulous "idea" but Dave and I have been joking about the "dog hair sweater" ever since I overheard that same person accepting a zip lock bag of dog hair and saying, "I can't wait to work with this and see what kind of yarn I can make."

Lastly, I thought a "funny" blog sidebar to have would be something along the lines of "Bean has gone N days without an accident in the house." Where N=number of days. But then I realized that it would just be so depressing to keep resetting that number back to zero. On the other hand, I guess the number would go up more often than it would go down. And today we could be celebrating "1" day without an accident. Yea "Bean"!

Update: While I was dropping Luke off at daycare this morning, Bean ate a granola bar and a mocha clif shot (contains 50mg of caffeine). Dave is out of town, so if history tells me anything, I should be rolling up the rug and covering the floors and walls with plastic. (If I had been blogging at the time, I could now link to the "eating everything out of the refrigerator incident", the "eating the care package from Beth incident", the "eating a bag of chocolate chips and jumping out of the window and running away incident", the "eating a bag of whole wheat flour incident", the "eating a bag of brown sugar incident" and everyone's favorite, the "eating a box of Malley's Chocolate and you don't even want to know the rest of the story incident".)

Pacifier Peekaboo

Where's my pacifier?
There it is!



Let's play again!



Where's my pacifier?
There it is!

Fruita

I jinxed myself the first night by hoping for warm weather. I think it's safe to say that since I came to my senses, stopped winter camping in the snow, and bought a Eurotrashvan, I have never shivered through such a cold night of camping. Luke did a lot of tossing and turning but every 2 hours or so I said in a loud whisper, "LUKE. If you are too cold, come sleep down here! Do you hear me? Are you too cold?" He never answered. Once, around 5am he said, "Mommy, I'm freeeeeeeeezing." But Dave told him to get all the way inside his sleeping bag and to pull it up over his head and he'd be warmer. Jack slept the whole night and didn't even fuss when I checked his head and hands to see how cold they were every half hour or so. Dave also slept really well, and only stirred every 15 minutes or so when I quietly whispered, "Dave! Do you think everyone is too cold? Should we make Luke come down here and snuggle? Or would he roll over on top of Jack? Do you think Luke might be smothered inside his sleeping bag? Dave?"

We did get have some great cuddle time in the morning though.








And Dave refused to get up and "start the long laborious process of making my coffee and breakfast" until he could see someone out the window wearing shorts. I'm not sure the person in shorts ever materialized but Luke and I begged and pleaded and Dave finally got started on breakfast at about 9:30am.




But the best part of the day was when Dave put Jack in the stroller and Luke and I hopped on our bikes and did some serious mountain biking. Luke said, "I love camping because I love to mountain bike." I was very proud of my little mountain biker.






Two quotes.

Luke: I was climbing the tree and the highest I had gotten was level 5. I was about to go to level 6 when I noticed people were packing. I said, "Are we leaving?" And Daddy said, "yes" and then I started crying because I didn't want to leave.


Jack (when we got home and he saw his mobile over his bed): Aaaah!

Yes, it was a good time, and it was also nice to get home and sleep in our warm, soft beds.

(Click on any of the pictures to see the whole album in a normal size. You'll see that it did warm up.)

Is That A Poem In Your Pocket Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

It's National Poem In Your Pocket Day.

We're off to camp
Cuz in Boulder, it's damp.
In Fruita it's not
I hope that it's hot.

Excuse Me Ma'am, Did You Pay For That Donut?

As previously noted, my grocery shopping schedule is totally out of whack. Instead of going Friday with just Jack, I picked Luke up from daycare and took both boys with me after work.

I didn't bring a snack for Luke because I figured I'd let him have one of the free cookies when we got to the grocery. We made a bee line over there, which screwed up my usual traffic pattern through the store and somehow caused us to circle the entire store about 6 times. But worse than that was the fact that the cookie section was... EMPTY. He decided he wanted a donut instead and being the good, health conscious, anti-dinner spoiling, trans-fat avoiding mom that I am, I said, "OK, but you need to share it with me."

Luke: Just take a small bite
Mom: Mmm. Mmm. Yum.
Luke: That's all you get. Is this free?
Mom: No, they are 3 for a dollar.
Luke: So how much are they?
Mom: 33 cents.
Luke: How will you remember how much it costs?
Mom: I have a good memory.
Luke: Will I have to give them the donut at the checkout?
Mom: No, just eat it.
Luke: How will you pay for it?
Mom: I'll hold onto the wrapper and it will remind me to tell them that we ate a donut.
Luke: How much is it? 33 cents?
Mom: Yes.

Somewhere during the second lap around the store, I noticed he was still carrying the donut.

Mom: Eat that, or it will be too close to dinner when you finish it.
Luke: I decided I wanted to save it until we get home.
Mom: I don't like that idea
Luke: Will I need to hand the donut to the checkout person?
Mom: No, I'll say, "We need to pay for this donut." And I'll point to the donut.

--Repeat 3 more times --

When we finally arrived at the checkout I said, "We need to pay for one donut."
The clerk said, "OK"

Then 2 seconds later I looked down at Luke and he had empty hands and donut filled chipmunk cheeks.

I guess he was really worried I would forget to pay for that donut.

There's a Lemon in My Jewelry Box

There. I said it. Not much more to say, the title says it all. But since I can't stop myself, I'll explain. On Sunday we had dinner at our friends' house and I thought they needed a lemon so I brought one. Turns out they didn't need it. So I guess when I got home, I took the lemon out of my pocket before hanging up my coat in my closet. It appears that I put it in my jewelry box. That was two days ago. So when I noticed the lemon, I took a picture of it, wrote a blog post, but did not move the lemon. Stay tuned for "My Closet Smells Like Rotten Lemons."

Pencil Me In

Jack is five months old tomorrow, and I am happy, so happy, ecstatic really, to announce that we are finally on a schedule.

As anyone with a new baby knows, getting on a schedule is like summiting Mount Everest. There is planning, training, Sherpas, oxygen tanks, permits, trips to Tibet, guides, altitude sickness, a high risk of death. Ok, it's not really like summiting Mount Everest at all, it's much more challenging.

And the worst part is that the schedule is so fragile. Just the slightest imbalance can send the whole thing into a tailspin and it may take weeks to recover. Like taking a nap too late in the day, falling asleep in the car, or something like baby's first camping trip.

See this is our schedule: On Wednesdays we do laundry and on Fridays we shop for groceries. There, I said it. Other new moms, try not to be jealous of our awesome schedule. But we are leaving for a camping trip on Thursday so I guess I need to shop tomorrow for the groceries for the camping trip? But do I plan menus all the way through to the following Friday? Or just shop again when we get back? And then again next Friday? Do you see what I mean here? Don't even get me started on the laundry situation.

Oh, did you think I was referring to a nap and night time sleeping schedule? Oh, no. No no no no no no no. Have you ever heard of K2? It's like Mount Everest except it's a little shorter and the weather is worse, and fewer people have summited and more people have died on it. So I guess it's sort of like getting a baby to sleep through the night. Except not really. Although, attempts on Mount Everest and K2 are made in the spring, so maybe we'll be summiting our own little mountain soon.

I know I'll often stop and think about them

Luke is already getting nostalgic for his daycare days. He often waxes melancholy in the evenings and more often than not it's a bedtime stalling technique. But last night was no act. Sob after heart wrenching sob.

"RUUUUUUUUUUUUBYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. I'll never see her again."

I tried to offer sympathy and solutions but they fell on deaf ears. I told a long story about the last night I spent with my high school friends before we all left for college. How we dressed up in 70's clothes and hung out at the airport, and topped the evening off with coffee at Denny's. And how it was sad, but if I had never left for college I wouldn't have met Daddy. He was not impressed. Or maybe he was just embarrassed that his mom was so weird. Yes, I said WAS so weird.

Then I gave a stern, "OK, now it's time for bed!" when he started worrying that he would never see Kobie and Kai again if they moved to Sweden. They spend the summers there, but this fall they will all be at the same kindergarten. No need to mourn for those friends.

I was thinking this picture may make Luke less nostalgic for his current daycare. Or at least make him laugh.

His reaction, "Who are those people?"

Toe Worship

Jack: Mom, I realize I am required to pose for the camera whenever I see it, but if it's all the same to you, I'd really like to get back to chewing on my foot. Thanks.
Mom: Jack, seriously, I am trying to get a candid shot here. Chew away. Please stop looking right at the camera.
Jack: I'm afraid that's impossible. Now if you would just move along, I could get back to my toes.
Mom: So sorry, carry on.

The Dummening

In an episode of The Simpsons, one thing after another causes Lisa to fear she is losing her intelligence. She keeps a journal of the process, which she refers to as The Dummening. In our house we use that term to describe the slow decline into madness caused by pregnancy, lack of sleep, and breast feeding. Without further ado, I give you some examples from this week:

1.) I took my pump to work, but none of the pump accessories.
2.) I spilled a bunch of breast milk
3.) While deeply engrossed in a newspaper article about sharks, Dave asked me what the weather was going to be. We had this conversation:

Me: Sharky with a chance of sharks.
Dave: What?
Me: (A little louder.) Sharky with a chance of sharks!
Dave: It's not that I couldn't hear you, it's that you aren't making any sense.
Me: Ooooooohhhhhhhh.
4.) At work I repeatedly referred to a symbolic link as a database link. Except for the word "link" they are completely different. I said, "Oh. Ha ha. I am just saying the wrong words today! Here, I have everything you need to know in this email from a month ago, I'll forward it." And yes, in the email I had written database link instead of symbolic link.
5.) I took a picture of Jack playing so hard in his exersaucer that his arms were blurry. I tried to send it to 3 family members with the title, "So busy!" But all they got from me was the text, no picture. Yes, family, I am so busy! Just wanted to text that to you in case you were wondering how I am doing. I'm really busy.

Stop Making Sense

Dad: Goodbye Luke! I love you have a nice day.

Luke: Bye Daddy!

- Door closes -

Luke: Daddy left without giving me a kiss and a hug and that makes me feel sad.

Mom: Luke, you need to say that before he leaves, not just as soon as the door closes. (This issue is not new.)

- Silence -


Luke: Mommy, if I said "Daddy left without giving me a kiss and a hug and that makes me feel sad" before he left it would not make sense.

Periscope Up

The subject of periscopes came up recently, as did the subject of experiments. As in, "Can we do an experiment? Why haven't we done any experiments lately? When are we going to do that one experiment?" So I had been casually saving the necessary parts of a periscope for a rainy day, a day when there would be another sudden interest in experiments. That day was today.

I got out my mirrors and my long, skinny cardboard box that I had been saving for such an occasion and we got to work. We held the mirrors in different positions and talked about reflection and angles. (OK, I actually made no attempt to explain how the process worked, but I would be an awesome mom if I had!) Maybe my mistake was to attempt to make the periscope in such close proximity to the basketball hoop. Maybe I am just slow. If I had made the periscope in 30 seconds then I would have had Luke's attention for the entire time. "Oh well," I thought, "At least this gives me something to do while I watch Luke play basketball." And, really, I had fun making a periscope all by myself. When it was finished he looked through it and said, "Cool." I said, "Hey, let's sneak upstairs and spy on Daddy and Jack." Luke said, "Yeah!" So we started crawling up the stairs, quietly. So quietly. And I slithered across the floor and got the periscope in position behind the couch and whispered, "Oh, I see them, come look." And I turned to look over my shoulder. And I realized I was alone. Alone, at the top of the stairs, on my stomach, whispering about a periscope. Alone except for Dave and Jack who were looking at me through the other end.

Luke may not be impressed now, but just wait until we incorporate the periscope into the giant cardboard box I want to turn into a pirate ship!

Laughing Over Spilt Milk

When I returned from work after my maternity leave with baby Luke I thought that there would be a room I could use for pumping breast milk. When I asked where the room was I was told, "Just use Jim's office. He's hardly ever here so he won't know." Um, does it lock? "No." Determined not to spend my 15 minutes 3 x per day in a stolen room with a chair barring the door this time around, I put a little more effort into securing a room to use.

With two co-worker moms on maternity leave, and another mom-to-be on my side, I managed to get an old office turned into the new "lactation room." I guess, in the past, other women have chosen to just pump in the bathroom. Other than Kramer with his in-shower disposal, I haven't heard of too many people preparing meals in the bathroom. Also weird, the men seem to be jealous of our girls-only hideout. One co-worker thinks equal opportunity dictates that men should be able to nap in there. Twice I have knocked on the door to kick out male co-workers who were in there using the phone or the computer. Both times after I knock I get, "Oh, sorry. Do you need this room?" Um, yeah. I don't even work in this building. If I am knocking on the door, it's because I need to pump out some milk so my baby can eat at daycare tomorrow.

At IBM in Boulder one mom was stressed her first week back to work and she left a note for the other users of the former janitors-closet-turned-lactation-room. The notes back and forth eventually became a book called The Milk Memos - How Real Moms Learned to Mix Business With Babies And How You Can Too. I haven't read it but I think the gist is that you need to get support and guidance from other moms. We have our own support system at my office. Some great advice has been posted on the walls. (See picture.) And our notes range from snarky comments about J Lo's nursery in the latest People to the creepiness of an incredibly lifelike babydoll for the low, low price of $49.99 in Ladies Home Journal, to the fact that we can't go a day without milk spots on our pants. And when meetings cause my pumping schedule to get all messed up, I know there is always a willing co-worker who will offer to call me on the speaker phone and pretend to cry like a baby to help with let down. (I passed on the offer once I stopped laughing.) It's important to have a good support system of other new moms who will tell you that a printed skirt makes it impossible to notice a gigantic ripped seam. (And just this morning I was so proud of myself for being able to fit into a 10 year old skirt. A ten year old skirt that is ripped at the seams... not such a feat.)

We may not get a book out of this experience, but I know there will always be something in there to make me laugh, even when I spill 3 ounces of milk all over the desk and and myself. Three ounces of liquid gold. Three ounces of freedom, three ounces of security, three ounces of my baby's nourishment. Oh, wait, this is about how I didn't cry. At least I knew that the print in my skirt would make the milk spill totally invisible!



(Oh - and we all know breast milk is sterile, but I stole the Lysol Wipes from C's desk and used them for cleanup. I attempted to clean the keyboard, but lysol is no match for those cooties!)

What to Expect Without What to Expect

I saved almost everything we had from Luke's babyhood, confident it would soon get used again. Five years later, everything is back in use except the three things we donated to charity:

1.) The Baby Swing
2.) What to Expect When You Are Expecting
3.) What to Expect In The First Year

The swing was a hand me down and we didn't have a box for it, and it's sort of a hard thing to store without a box. We figured, hey, we may never need this thing and if we do, people are practically giving them away all the time, so we'll just get another one. Well, I did buy another one that I found on Craigslist and it is the cleanest, fanciest, nicest swing I have ever seen, but it doesn't work so we are forced to pretend we are a pioneer family and swing it by hand.

What to Expect When You are Expecting was easier to live without because I think the sole purpose of that book is to make sure you are worried about something during every moment of your pregnancy, and I can handle that all on my own, thanks.

That leads us to What To Expect in the First Year. With Luke, I dutifully read the chapter about Month 1 right after Luke was born and then I probably read Month 2 right away, just to plan ahead. I was very aware of every milestone and when it was supposed to happen. I remember some mildly stressful months when he insisted on not learning how to stack blocks. But he did "focus on a raisin" waaaaaay ahead of schedule.

But it is nice that the week-long vigil of Waiting for Jack to Roll Over started with us noticing that it looked like he might roll over soon and ended with him rolling over, with no book involved at all. Luke said, "If I am not the first person to see Jack roll over I am going to be SO MAD!" So I was excited for him when he ran to get me, yelling, "Jack rolled over!" I ran in* and sat down on the floor with Luke and Jack while Luke told me all about it. I saw Jack roll over the second time out of the corner of my eye while I was reaching for my camera. I caught the third event on film, which is good because he hasn't done it since. And now the moment you have all been waiting for: (apologies again for the poor video quality. I'll figure this out, I hope.)




It's just so nice not to be obsessed with milestones this time. Well, maybe just a little:



(* Dave was with Luke and Jack when Jack rolled over. As I read this I imagined myself in the other room eating bonbons and reading gossip magazines while my infant son almost rolled down a flight of stairs. What I was actually doing was getting ready to go on a date with Dave for the first time in 6 months. But the children were supervised.)

Breaking News!!! Breaking News!!!

Jack rolled over! Details and video to follow later.

Oh The Places He'll Go

At three he was a bunny, just playing in snow
Today it's as if he's almost a pro!

His fave is Jug Glades he heads straight for the trees
I can't even follow! Poor me, oh poor me.

Dream and Scream's next like he's racing world cup.
At the base he says, "Mom, I was ripping it up!"

Sometimes we crash and we lay where we fall.
And sometimes we'll toss a little snow ball.

We chit chat on the lift and eat some starburst.
As we get close to to top, I prepare for the worst.

But he just hops off and starts to cruise
And I fall down and often get bruised.

He has a great teacher, Dad's number one!
Dad is the one that makes skiing fun!

Last weekend Dad took him straight down Mule Shoe
A black diamond that scared me till age 32!

In powder, on groomers, steeps, jumps, bumps, and trees
Sunny, or windy and 14 degrees

You'll find Luke at Eldora all over the place,
Tearing it up with a smile on his face!

Thank You Notes

Emily Post says you have a year to write your wedding thank you notes. Does anyone know the policy for your fifth birthday? We did a big push to get the thank yous out for the kids who attended the party, but the family thank you notes have been a long time coming. I had been writing it in my planner every week, and then I don't know what happened, but tonight we were back in business.

Our strategy is this:

1.) I write everyone's name on a list

2.) Luke writes the person's name at the top and his name at the bottom and then tells me something to write in the middle.

It seems simple, but there are so many ways it can go wrong. First of all, I have terrible handwriting. My r looks like a v. Luke read back the letters in Scott to me as "S - O - O - H". So there is that. And Luke is also a perfectionist, so that leads to other problems. Many tears were shed on Valentine's Day over an "A" that looked like "It's pants were falling down."

So today, Luke was writing while I was making chicken, pineapple, red pepper skewers for dinner. I needed to spell out every name, and the list was only useful in creating a sense of satisfaction when a name could be crossed off. Chicken, pineapple, red pepper skewers are sort of labor intensive for a week night so I didn't always know where I was in the spelling of a name. This led to an Anthony with two Os. Tragedy. Luke was also trying to write in block letters and had trouble with an N. I had a huge internal debate about showing him how to do it. Because all prior Ns had been written backwards. Do I show him the correct way and risk having to redo all the thank you notes? Do I dare contemplate making a backwards block letter N? Rest assured I did the right thing. And I was rewarded with a resigned sigh, "If you are right, then all the other Ns I have made are backwards." Sigh.

Such a relief! Thank you notes are finished!

* Please allow another 1-2 weeks for me to find stamps, envelopes, addresses, etc.

April Fools

Happy April Fools Day! We celebrated early on Sunday for many reasons. First, who has time to create an elaborate meal like this during the week? Second, I was confused about what day April Fools day was and I needed to cook the meatloaf cupcakes sooner rather than later. Luke and I got recipes for fried eggs (marshmallows and apricot) and cupcakes (meatloaf and mashed potatoes) from the Family Fun website. Luke had a good time helping me make the eggs, but when I started him on stirring the ground turkey and egg to make the meatloaf he said, "I can't stir this anymore because it reminds me of a bowl of worms and it's making me feel sick." I don't think that was the kind of reaction Family Fun was predicting when it came up with these fun recipes to cook with your family. Or maybe I was supposed to surprise my husband and children with warm cupcakes when they walked in the door from school and work? Yes, that is probably it.

Meatloaf was an interesting dinner choice for me, because, as everyone knows, I hate meatloaf and have been known to cheer when my mom's meatloaf was ruined. There was also an episode of Family Feud that I watched with my siblings some 22 years ago where the topic was "Favorite Foods" and a little old Gramma said, with a gravelly smokers voice, "Meatloaf." I had never laughed so hard at an episode of family feud. Survey says? Ding, ding, ding: Meatloaf!!!

Who knew that people liked meatloaf? I guess you can't believe everything you see on TV though because, while I choked down two cupcakes, and Luke forced down a no-thank-you-bite, and Dave said, "wow, I don't need to drown these in ketchup!" there are still quite a few left over. So I packed 6 cupcakes in Dave's lunch for today, and I will be going out for lunch!