Still Here, I Swear

Hey. Remember us? I have given out this blog address to a couple of friends at work lately and it made me realize how ridiculously long it's been since I updated this here thingamajig.  Whoops.  No good reason for the disappearance, just your basic not-enough-hours-in-the-day problem that is the plague of my entire life and that which will probably follow me to my grave. Sigh. The scourge of the working mother. (which, by the way, doesn't the term "working mother" just sound so...so...power suit wearing, briefcase carrying Diane Keaton in "Baby Boom"? So grown up lady with a real career? That's what I always think of when I hear that term. I don't think of me in my ratty t-shirts with the sleeves cut off, rolling into work on my bike whose seat is held together with duct tape. Yet here we are.) And I also have to mention that my computer is so insanely old and nearly dead that half the time when I turn it on it doesn't work.  So I would rather not spend my precious little free time at night yelling obscenities at my computer trying to post on here. Besides, if I wanted to yell at something that drives me nuts because it's not doing what I want it to, I could yell at Joe. (JUST KIDDING JOE! I LOVE YOU!) But I am here now, so let's catch you up, shall we?

Our big summer trip was to New Jersey. Duh. We had a blast with all the family members and this time around we even got to go hang out at Mom Mom and Pop Pop's new beach house. Fun was had, sun was soaked up, junk food was eaten.  We covered all our NJ bases.

                                Pop Pop and his ladeez (Sody and her Cousin Ryan)

   A whole hell of a lot of Finlaws.  Not sure why Sody looks so distressed here, but it cracks me up.

                  Stone cold chillin' in the lake at Bayberry Cove (where the beach house is)

Bayberry Cove had a little Halloween-in-August party complete with trick or treating. We had to improvise a costume with what we had around the house, so Sody was a kitty: inside out gray t-shirt, mom's makeup to make whiskers on face, colored cardboard ears taped to a headband. Ryan's costume was "Miss Bayberry" with a sash made out of duct tape.  DIY, y'all.

Back to Brandywine Zoo, the scene of The Fall of 2009.  (I fell down some stairs here with 6 month old Sody in a baby carrier, my knee got skinned to bits and Sody hit her head.  Motherly panic and Sody's first emergency room trip ensued - not to mention many many dollars for a doctor to tell us absolutely nothing because she was perfectly fine). I am happy to report no one fell this time!

Joe's sister Courtney is getting married next year and Sody is going to be a flower girl. We went to a dress shop to look at gowns and Sody FLIPPED out at the mirror set up.  She had never seen anything like this, where you can see your reflection at so many angles at once. It ruled. She spent soooooo long watching herself, singing, laughing, acting like she was playing with a bunch of friends. Her best quote: "There are so many Sodys!!"

                                                                    BUBBLES!!!!!

                                                          Isota: Washers Champion.

           This is one of my favorite pictures ever. I have no idea why she is examining this donut.

                                                               Shiny Happy Siblings


See ya next time East Coast! Missing you already...

Happy Fourth of July (aka Come Back Soon, Uncle Cory!)

Vote for Sody Lou

We entered Sody in a photo contest.  She is about ten thousand light years behind the kid in first place, but let's try and turn it around...Go here to cast your vote:

http://photos.parents.com/category/vote/photo/1357268 Voting ends 7/1.

I shouldn't tell you that I have been sitting here checking out the competition on the Parents site and finding that absolutely no kid there holds a candle to mine... but, uh, well...I really can't help it if I gave birth to THE CUTEST child that ever lived, right?

Auntie Beth Comes to Visit

Oh, what can I say about Auntie Beth? Beth is my best friend. Beth lives too far away in Washington. Beth is the one who I was randomly paired with to share a dorm room when I started college, and here we are nearly 18 years later. (Yes, it pains me to think I started college almost 20 years ago, but I shall save that for another woe-is-me-and-my-old-ass day...) Beth is the yin to my yang. Where I am an annoyingly talkative and hyper open book, Beth is an oasis of calm. A gorgeous, kind, generous, amazing listener who is a bit of an enigma. (That was for you, Beth - you can kill me later.) Also, she is the one who started this blog for us right before Sody was born, so you can go ahead and blame/thank her for all these silly and increasingly rare updates.

At any rate, it had been about a year and half since I had last seen my Beth, which is far too long in best friend world. So she made an impromptu and much needed visit down here to stay for a few days, and it was the best medicine in the world. I'm not sure she was quite prepared for the bundle of energy that is Sody at age 3 (the constant barrage of questions/fact sharing that Sody started the second we picked her up at the airport brought on one of my favorite Beth quotes of the trip: "Wow, you DO take after your Mommy!") but she rolled with it. We had adventures. We ate a lot.  We tried to convince her to move here.

some dorks taking pictures in the Chez Panisse bathroom

We didn't have enough time!!

Right, Mommy?

Sody logic, as of late:

"Dogs don't eat you, only rats. Right, Mommy?"

"If you have too much food in your mouth you choke. And then you die. And then you are sad because have no more kids. Right, Mommy?"

"A car can squash you because it has sharp wheels. And then you die. And you have no head and your head breaks open. Right, Mommy?"

Sody (after a very large man walked by the house): "That man was fat."
Me: "Yes, but it's not polite to say that."
Sody: "We only say that in the house. Right, Mommy?"


Uhh...so that's: animals eating you, death by food or car, and rudeness about larger people...we are laugh riot over here, huh?

Easter, a List

Dyed eggs with Best Bud Trent. Yes, it was a mess. (I may have bitten off more than I can chew with overseeing this project.)




Went to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Woke up to Easter baskets and and egg hunt. She did not really buy the whole bunny-leaving-stuff concept. She kept referring to the goodies in her basket as "The toys you bought me, Mama."

Got dolled up in a pretty little white dress and her fancy sweater and pink tights and gold shoes for a fancy brunch with the grandparents. Wanted her nails painted just like mine - smurf blue for the fingernails, hot pink on the toes.




Ate nothing that wasn't sweet at brunch: fruit, ambrosia salad, french toast, juice, four plates of desserts. (we sat right next to the dessert table and I just plain gave up after a while)






The dress took a hit: stained with blue cupcake frosting, blackberry juice, and dirt from the tumble she took outside while trying to burn off some energy. She fell fairly hard and stood up bawling: "I'm all covered in diiiiiiiirt!!"

Refused to nap. (How could she when her mother let her eat sugar all day?)

Passed out on the drive home Sunday night.



Perfect.

If I Don't Write it Down, Did it Really Happen?

I miss writing. I miss having a notebook stashed in my bag just in case the mood strikes and I have to write something down. I have carried a notebook in my backpack every day since at least college - where I was semi-famous for disappearing for large chunks of the days, running off to a cafe to read and imbibe way too much caffeine and scribble in journals like any self-respecting, moody, college age girl would - and I still usually do carry a notebook around, but right now it just stares back at me. Taunts me. Wonders when I will come back to it. And I look back at it and feel like writing is a chore lately, like I need to force myself to document my days, which is the exact opposite of how I want to feel when I am writing down my life. There is so much that factors into why I feel like this: no time, no drive, not as much time with Sody (who provides the best material), feeling like all my random thoughts get out through other channels like facebook or twitter or texts or good old fashioned actual conversation, etc etc etc. But my main problem is that I just never want to write because I feel like I should, I want to write because I want to.

So I sit and wait for inspiration. But waiting for the desire means that I am missing out on documenting all the stuff happening right now: the big and the small and the dumb and fun and the everyday goodness we are surrounded by. The way Sody is now, her disposition and her intense gregariousness and all the silly things she repeats so often that we think there is no way we could ever forget them. And of course we will...I know it from looking at the journals I kept when she was a baby. But I just don't want to forget any of the little details that make her HER right now: how she is obsessed with "Annie" and how she sings "It's a Knock Hard Life" instead of "It's a Hard Knock Life." Her little way of blowing a kiss that ends with a thumbs up. How she came up with her own way of saying how much she loves us: "I love you four times!" Her tantrums about teeth brushing almost every single night. How she found Cate, a best friend at school. The way she waves and says goodbye to her friends at school at the end of the day - something about it just seems so grown up to me. Watching her as a walking, talking, potty trained, school-attending little lady doing the things one does in polite society - and watching her do them unprompted - takes my breath away. Just her saying thank you when she is served a meal in a restaurant can make me so incredibly proud and happy and I know that if I never ever do any other thing with my life, I did this: my kid. My amazing and heart-stoppingly perfect kid.

How to Turn Three for the Second Time

Sody's first Third Birthday was on her actual birthday, January 2. It involved a family trip to Chuck E. Cheese, fun with Grandpa and Grandma and a few presents. In other words, a nice little age appropriate low key birthday celebration. I am slightly mortified that I haven't even mentioned the day til just now - my baby is THREE! it's a big deal! how can I have a blog about her and not talk about her birthday?! - but I am going to pretend that my sloth in blog-keeping is only because I was waiting to talk about her second Third Birthday as well.

Birthday #2 was this past weekend. Slightly late but hey, at least it's still January. And let's face it: she is three and has a limited awareness of the calendar, so she doesn't care when her birthday party is. Actually, closer to the truth is that she wouldn't even realize she needed a birthday party. But since Mommy loves a theme and everybody likes cake, a birthday party it was. A few of Sody's buddies, the accompanying parents who are our buddies, pre-nap start time: your basic preschooler rager.

Theme: The Sound of Music (Sody's favorite movie)
Food: Quasi-Austrian (apple strudel, red cabbage salad, "schnitzel" with noodles - it was really chicken nuggets)
Cake: golden yellow from a mix (THE HORRORS. what have I become?? a mix?!) with homemade chocolate frosting and decorated with edelweiss
Decorations: warm woolen mittens, snowflakes and cream colored ponies, of course.
Dress: Sody and I wore our white dresses with blue satin sashes. No one else embraced the theme - not even a single Hitler mustache in the bunch. Hmph.

So we frolicked and sang and ate and partied and wished Isota a happy birthday again. She deserved it.

Putting 2011 To Bed

I have to admit, 2011 wasn't our greatest year ever. I don't want to dwell on the negatives of the past 365 days (Resolution #27: Accentuate the positive! Eliminate the negative!) but I will say I am not too sad to see this year go. But we are all healthy and happy, so here is to that and to looking forward. Here is how we closed out our 2011:


We put up our Christmas decorations. Sody decorated the trees all by herself.


We BARTed to the city with Grandma and Grandpa for Mommy's birthday: Burger Bar in Union Square and getting caught in hordes of Christmas shoppers and stuffing our faces. Fun!


Sody did get a little tired on that trip, though.


There was a Christmas party at Mommy's office. Our Santa was one of my coworkers (shhh! don't tell Sody!) and when Sody realized it was almost her turn to sit on his lap, she solemnly turned to me and said, "I am not going to cry, Mommy." She wasn't *totally* comfortable, but she did not cry, as promised.


Then I took her for a ride around the halls at work on one of our red carts, which was awesome until she put her hand between the wheel and the frame and smooshed her finger. Totally my fault for letting her ride on here. Not cool, Mom.


She got a new doll for Christmas, which was obviously a hit. Another favorite present was a dollhouse, and I know that one was a favorite because that is the toy she would describe to strangers after Christmas. "Hi, my name is Sody...I got a DOLLHOUSE!" She also likes to ask random people we meet if they like her outfit, which cracks me up...but I digress.


One of our best days ever was New Year's Eve. We took Sody out to her first movie ever, The Muppets. Not only was the movie great, but her reaction to it was beyond anything I could have imagined. It was just so fun to watch her watch the movie. She was totally into it. She got the magic of the whole experience, I think...like, she would just turn to me in the middle of the movie and all incredulously exclaim, "MOMMY! We are in a MOVIE THEATER!" like it was the best thing that had ever happened to her. I can't explain it, but it was just one of those simple perfect nights that are hard to come by. The nights you can't really plan, they just serendipitously come together and the pieces fall into place and you look around and just think, Yes. This is a perfect night, a perfect memory, a perfect life.

Also, she was allowed to have popcorn that night, which was a very big deal and probably the real reason she was so happy.

At any rate, a great way to end the year on a high note. Thanks Muppets, thanks family, thanks friends, thanks everybody. Let's all have an amazing 2012, ok?

School Report

December, you always escape me. I thought I was doing pretty well this year until I had the horrifying realization that Christmas is THIS WEEKEND. Oh, lordy. Unprepared, always unprepared. My holiday To-Do List is nowhere near completion. I have visions of cookie baking and gingerbread house making and doing Christmas-y crafts with Sody...but in reality, none of that is going to be happening in the next few days because of work. Plus, when you are broke you need to make your Christmas presents - actually, I still like to make presents when I am not broke - and that means finding the time to make Christmas presents, which is definitely hard to come by this year. It been a big, messy, busy month so far: my birthday and preschool parties and work parties and all of us getting sick at the same time and a short last minute trip to NJ for Joe because his grandma died. I think we are all a little exhausted already.

But I realized that in all the hubbub I have not yet done a report on what Sody thinks of preschool. She has a few weeks under her belt now and I would say so far it is going swimmingly. The first couple days were no trouble at all - dropped her off, she was ready for adventure, left us in the dust. After that, I think she started to realize this wasn't going to be a once-in-a-while adventure, so there was a little more trepidation (worse when I dropped her off than when Joe did, as neither she nor I wanted me to leave) but all in all she has been a total champ. The best is all the stuff she comes home with: the menorah finger painting and Kwaanza noodle necklace and glittery Christmas card she made. And the songs! She is singing us new songs she is learning, and I am eating them all up. My favorite thing is picking her up at the end of the day - I am never a worse driver than when I am going from my work to her school, all impatient and excited and zooming there too fast - and watching her play and interact before she realizes I am there. I get a teeny glimpse into her world without us. I want to know so much: does she like the kids there? do they like her? does she miss us? is she happy? did she eat her lunch? what did the teachers talk about today? did anyone try to take her baby doll? does she stand up for herself? does she share? etc etc etc.

Above all though, she seems to like it there. Thank God. Here are a couple of shots we took on the first day of school (she called her braids "Dorothy braids" as in Wizard of Oz) :

Time, Time, Time, See What's Become of Me

There is just no time for anything anymore. I realize this is the dumbest complaint in the world because everybody and their grandma has this problem. Have you ever met anyone who has had enough hours in their day? No. I know this. But, Jesus... everything is just about rushing these days. Rush to get out of the house with everyone's teeth brushed, rush to get to work on time, rush to pick Sody up from school, rush to get dinner on the table and Sody in the bath and then, finally, wrestle Sody into bed. Bonus points if it's actually anywhere near her bedtime of 8 o'clock. And then all I can manage to do is zone out to some idiotic tv show, pass out, and start all over the next morning at 6 am. It's exhausting. And it's life. That's just the way it is, the way we live, the way of the world.

I'm not really into it, I gotta say. I do like being busy and I do like having a job, but the relentless schedule of constant motion seems hard to keep up with. Where is the time for my kid? My husband? For keeping my house in order, or working out, or cooking healthy meals, or - god forbid - a hobby for myself? Where do people find time for their lives?? I truly do not understand. Every moment is starting to feel accounted for, which scares me. I don't want to keep moving and moving and moving and then miss everything important. I need to take a breath. I need to have an afternoon with absolutely nothing on the agenda. I need to have many uninterrupted hours with my kid to do absolutely nothing with her but hang out together. Slow down, smell the flowers, blah blah blah.

How do we keep up on this hamster wheel? Or, WHY do we? Short of escaping to some bizarro locale in the middle of nowhere to live in a cheap little shack, I am struggling to figure out an answer to all of this. My saving grace is that I have an easy job that is close to home - one that I don't have to think about once I leave the building. How do working moms with actual stressful jobs and commutes even begin to do this? It's so puzzling. I feel like I am missing out on some key piece of wisdom about making it all work. Maybe there was something other moms studied in school and I was absent that day. Something about making all the little pieces of your life fit together nicely so that all the trains keep running smoothly. Because, really, I feel like my trains are seconds from derailing most days around here.