I recently have been reading about companies that specialize in digital wills for people who either want their digital lives memorialized or destroyed.  I am not too public about my blogging and got to wondering why I keep a blog.  I have told only the closest of family and friends that it exists, but do enjoy having an official place to keep my thoughts and a record of our family.  I at first kept pictures on my blog, but decided that I wanted it to be more anonymous.  I am not sure why, as I have a huge flickr site.  But pictures seem less private than my thoughts.  Which of course begs the question: why not just keep a journal?  I have a pretty big collection of journals from my teen years and early 20′s.  Oh, the pain and the misery!  But, I think that a blog is super cool.  I am a pushover for a way to conserve paper and space (have I mentioned how in love I am with my new nook?!).  And, I guess there must be a part of me that wants to connect with the world in a semi anonymous way.  But not enough to actually tell people officially that I keep a blog. 

So, it’s winter.  And I have become a cooker of casseroles and soup.  Since October, I have tried one new soup and one new casserole a week.  We are lucky to have a great library a few blocks from our house, and since we go there at least twice a week with Ari and Eli, I have taken to getting a new cookbook each week.  It is a little tricky as there is a huge market for meat casseroles and soups.  But, as it turns out I have yet to get a cookbook that did not have at least one vegetarian recipe that I could try.  So far I have found 3 that were worth copying onto recipe cards.  But, the winter is only half over.  And, as a side benefit, I have discovered that baking bread is very easy (mostly because I have a bread maker) and even easier than baking bread is making pizza dough.  I am honestly amazed that I ever bought pizza dough in the store, when it is half the price and about 2 minutes to make. 

Other than that, we have spent a lot of time in the house.  Some snow days we haven’t gone outside for over 24 hours at a time…which anyone with small children knows would be a test of sanity for even Mary Poppins.  But, we have found some creative ways to keep busy.  Some of the highlights include the time I brought in the baby pool into our sunroom and filled it with snow and different food colorings and gave Ari and Eli the container of sand toys (along with a very big space heater).  We also have discovered that Eli is a big fan of painting on the easel.  I think it is the longest I have ever seen him do one activity, and it is never his idea to stop.  I have also gotten good at figuring out how to prevent our house from becoming covered in primary colors when they are done (the things you can’t learn from parenting books).  Ari has really gotten into board games.  His favorites are Candy Land (more than anything the different Candy Land characters often spending a good 30 minutes talking about and acting out different scenarios with said characters), Disney Dominoes, Bingo and Go Fish.  And then there are the games that have just popped up out of sheer boredom.  For example, the “pan throwing game” as Ari refers to it which consists of Ari and Eli taking turns throwing a pizza pan across our living room and laughing hysterically.  And there is Eli’s favorite which is walking into the closet and yelling, “MOMMY!” and laughing hysterically when I open the door back up.  There also is the running game (you can probably figure that out) and the chasing game.  We have been doing lots of arts and crafts and baking, of course.  And making trips to the mall, the children’s museum, the library and our weekly gym classes, along with some time making snowmen, snowballs, snowforts…well, you get the idea.  

Just a few more months, and we will be back to the park and the backyard.  Maybe I might even visit the grilling section of our library!

That said, Ari and Eli have done incredibly well with so much going on.  I can definitely sense that they are going through transition behavior – for example, Eli has become intensely afraid of strangers the past few weeks and Ari has been clingy in the morning before I drop them off.  But, I am experienced enough in having kids in daycare that I know this will most likely improve in the coming weeks.

To add to this being such a busy time, Ethan has been extra, extra busy these last few weeks as he has had some rehearsals in the evening and was away for a conference last weekend.  And our dishwasher was broken, and our car got new brakes.  The car part was pretty easy to fix, but the dishwasher part has taken a few weeks to come in and I have to say that not being able to throw the dishes in the dishwasher has made for a much complicated morning and evening.  So much so that last Friday, with Ethan away and my desire to do dishes by hand at an all time low, I decided that Ari and Eli and I needed to go out to dinner.  So, throwing my fears of childhood obesity to the wind, I took them to the only place I could imagine taking a 17 month old and a two and a half year old to with one adult and we made our way to the land of the golden arches, freaky clowns and little, fat purple men.  Ari and Eli were in heaven.  They love McDonalds more than I love a good shoe sale.  And, I have to say, the crowd at dinnertime on a Friday night is pretty entertaining in and of itself.  While telling all the old people there, that no, Ari and Eli are not twins and listening to the parents give their children such gems of advice like, “I’m glad you’re scared of your teacher, now maybe you’ll listen!” and, “you need to finish those french fries if you want ice cream!” we sat down to enjoy our meal.  The first table we sat at we had to move from because the sun was in our eyes and when we finally settled down in our second table and got all of our food out, Ari looked at me and with panic in his eyes said, “I gotta go potty now mommy!” 

Well, we happened to be sitting next to the bathroom and I noticed that Eli’s high chair was on wheels, and I did what I consider to be one of the more shameful moments in my parenting career, and I wheeled Eli, while he was in the high chair right into the bathroom with Ari, french fries and all.  And he sat there eating happy as can be right next to the paper towels while Ari took care of business. 

Glad I carry wipes in my purse!

Hopefully life will slow down a bit as we get the mommy working routine down again.  I don’t know if I can justify condoning eating in the bathroom again!

For all my fears and reading and planning and telling Ari stories before bed about froggies and dinosaurs and turtles who went to Target and got big boy underwear and learned to use the big boy potty, it really was not a big deal at all.  Go figure?

When I think of our lives here, it really is very idyllic.  Our neighborhood is full of trees and parks and stores and restaurants.  The roads are packed with colonials and capes and bungalows painted inside and out with every shade of beige imaginable, a flower-pot on the doorstep and a friendly golden retriever looking out the window at you just to let you know you are safe.  Our homes are overflowing with the best food on the planet.  And despite the climate when in a building or in the car it is always the perfect temperature.  We are perfectly entertained, at any hour of the day.  It is a given that we are all going to be okay.  It is a given that our biggest stresses will be over the emotional and not survival.  And everything really is so beautiful. 

Yet deep within the beauty and the comfort, deep down, I come across something ugly every so often and I wonder how perfect everything really is.  Who else am I going to find out ruined their life and career for a few weeks of feeling young and crazy? What is really going on inside all that beige?

I recently read the divorce rate in the USA is up to 75%.  I found it hard to believe, but several people have confirmed that they heard the same thing.  How can it be possible that so many people are unhappy when we have so much?  We are less repressed and our roles are equal, yet man and wife for the most part are just not happy together.  Maybe all that luxury and beauty has made us forgotten how to work.  As that is the thing that everyone tells you when you get married: “marriage is work”  Before I got married I went on a self-help kick to end my streak of finding unavailable jerks for boyfriends.  And I remember that all sides of the argument for what makes marriage work agree that you must both dedicated to making it work.  And when people say you have to work to make a marriage successful, I have always thought that implied that along with working to be kind, to communicate, to make the other person a priority, you might have to work to not be a cheater, as well.

Of course, it is easy to judge.  I am lucky to be married to an incredibly devoted husband and father, and someone who more than anything I trust and know more than I have known anything else in my life will never break his promises to me.  The psychology that goes into me discovering how important that is is very long and complicated, but I know he is rare, and I will never stop being thankful for him.

And in the meantime, I think I will go pet my pug in my yellow diningroom.

Our routines during the week tend to be the following.  We all wake up around 7ish.  I go to the gym while Ethan gets Ari and Eli their breakfast and gets them dressed.  I drink my coffee on the way to the gym and have a 30 minute work out while reading or watching the Today show or listening to music.  I come home and Ethan takes Tika and Ari and Eli on a walk around the block while I take a shower (we live on a really long block!).  Then Ethan goes to work.  About this time Eli goes for his morning nap for around 90 minutes.  While Eli sleeps, Ari and I hang out.  No pressure to be anywhere or accomplish anything.  We just are.  During this time I do the dishes from breakfast and any other errands that I need to get done while Ari keeps himself entertained.  Then we play until it is time to get Eli up.  With Eli up and energized we go on a morning outing ranging from the park, the children’s museum, the library or the mall.  We get home for lunch, a movie and naptime.  During naptime…I actually have been also taking a nap!  I am  years behind on sleep and am happily working on making up on a very large deficit.  We all wake up and have a snack and play until Ethan gets home.  Then we have dinner and swimming lessons, and by the time we get home from swimming it is bathtime stories and bed.  And, here is the kicker.  When Ari and Eli go to bed, I don’t crash into an exhausted heap, I stay up!  Ethan and I watch movies, I read, I make cookies.  It is amazing.  Then we go to bed only to start the day over again.

I really can’t think of a time when I have had a routine that I have been happier with.  I sometimes wonder if I was a stay at home mom full time if I would like it as much.  Maybe I would start to get isolated and bitter and lonely.  I also wouldn’t have a husband working the leisurely hours that working at a summer arts program that starts at 9 and is done at 4 either.  At least not if we lived in the house we live in now.  Either way, I am tanned, getting enough exercise, having the time to prepare salads and cut up fruit with every meal, and well read and without the guilt that I need to spend every waking hour with my boys to make up for the time I am at work.  So I will cherish my summer and remember to be thankful for the job that I have that allows me these precious weeks.

Eli is really turning into a little boy lately.  He has shown a very small amount of stranger anxiety at this point and just loves people.  Especially pretty ladies who smile at him!  Eli has started to get excited about watching Elmo when Ari watches it and even goes up to the TV and points to it and says, “Ehhh-moe! Ehhh-moe!”  Other words he is working on saying is pool (pronouned ”Boooo”) Balloon (pronounced “bah-oon”) and shoe (“Doo”).  Eli has stopped nursing but still takes a few bottles each day.  He loves food and is a great eater so far!  He also continues to love naps and has made great improvements with his sleep at night the past month.  Hopefully, that will continue as well!  I could get used to this whole rested feeling that I have not felt in several years.

While Ari is slowing down his growth Eli continues to grow like a weed.  So much so that in the past week, while taking the boys out in their double stroller several people have asked me if they were twins!  I suppose it won’t be the last time I hear that question.

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Ari reading the letters on the Exit sign at the front of the high school Ethan works at:
Ari: “E-X-I-T….that spells daddy’s work”

On the way home from swimming lessons:
Ari: “Mommy I want a big hug!”

Me: “I can’t give you a hug right now because you have to stay in your carseat. Do you want your towel?”

Ari: “Yah, I want my towel to give me a big hug.”

Pointing and reciting the letters and numbers on my lisence plate Ari looks to me and says proudly “That says mommy’s car.”

Me talking to myself while shopping at Walmart:

“Okay, milk and butter…and that’s all”

Ari repeating:

Okay, milk, butter and Elmo toy…and that’s all”

Looking at the hole in his tortilla, “I gotta fix this with tape!”

Pointing at all the other babies in the store and then finally pointing to Eli “That’s not Eli-Joe, That’s not Eli-Joe, That’s not Eli-Joe….THAT’S ELI JOE!”

After Ari having a coughing fit.

Me: “Ari, you got a bad cough…where’d you get that cough?”

Ari: “I got my cough at Home Depot!”

After walking outside.

Ethan: “Is it sunny today, Ari?”

Ari: “No, it’s not sunny, the sun is shining.”

After me dropping a pan on the tile kitchen floor making a very loud noise.

Ari: (after just watching me drop the pan)  “What did Daddy do?!”

In the car on the way to daycare:

Me: “Who are your favorite friends at school? Do you like Michelle?”

Ari: “No.”

Me: “Do you like Bryan”

Ari: ”No”

Me: “Do you like Jayden?”

Ari: “No.  I like Daddy.”

While trying to get Ari to put away his toys:

Me: “Ari, can you please pick up the Elmo doll and put it in the toy box?”

Ari:  “Oh no mommy, that’s way too heavy!”

After waking up Eli, Eli was lying in his crib Ari repeated something Ethan says when either child is lying down relaxing:
“Are you at Jones Beach, Eli?!”

Most of the time I try not to think too hard about this topic, because I fear I could very easily cross over into insanity land and just go ahead and bubble wrap everything, never leave the house and bathe everyone three times a day in hand sanitizer.  So I try not to think of it.  But, I suppose the question will always be with me: “are they okay? are they okay?  are they okay?” like a second heartbeat, whether I am awake or asleep, beating over and over and over, whispered softly over the paperwork, over the noise of my classroom and the phone calls, emails and meetings.  “Are they okay?  Where are they?  How long until I get them and know for sure?”

Trying to get over this is imperative when you have your children in daycare.  Daily, I take a leap of faith that everyone will be okay and I try very, very hard not to think too much about it.  I try to quiet that whispering question, “Are they okay?”   so I can go on.  It is the only way that I am able to ever be away from them.  And I will always be one to worry that something is going to go wrong.

Phone calls from daycare in the middle of the workday are never a good thing.  Last week I got a phone call that Ari had fallen.  When I found out he had broken his arm and was on the way to the ER with Ethan it felt very similar to getting the crap beaten out of me.  In the car on the way to the hospital there was an unrest in me, an itchiness, a panic that simply would not go away until I was holding Ari in my arms and I knew he was okay.  That and my desire to punch someone.  Someone let my baby get hurt and I wanted to just punch someone.

When I got to the parking lot of the ER I ran, noticing people looking at me like they were worried I was at the hospital for something very serious  — really the only indication to me that I might be overreacting a tad.  People go to hospitals for much worse things than broken arms.  I ran into the ER, down the hall until I heard a very calm and cheerful Ari talking to Ethan, “I got iye-keem cone!  iye-keem cone ah-done.  I wan new iye-keem cone!”  It was all going to be okay.  My baby had a broken arm, but he was going to be okay.  I could breath again.

I’ve always had a fear of things going wrong.  Something in me will always be afraid to be too sure that things will stay as good as they are.  And there is nothing that has ever happened to me that is as good as my children.  A big part of parenthood is illness and injuries and quite frankly, there is a lot you can learn from getting hurt.  Until Ari’s broken arm, I have never heard Ari talk about how he doesn’t want to get a bad boo-boo again, and I have never seen him so careful around playscapes before.  It is a fact I have learned over and over, pain causes growth.  It is bound to happen to my children too.  I need to let it happen so they can grow.  But the thing is, I can think of no worse pain for me than that of my child.   

Besides the x ray, which Ari was terrified of, he was pretty unphased by the whole experience.  His arm broke right under the shoulder, and it is not possible to put a cast that high on the arm, so he has worn a sling to support the arm while it heals.  He just had a second x ray taken (which was less traumatic) and got confirmation that in a few weeks he can go without the sling and he will be good as new a few weeks after that.  There is something pretty adorable about tiny little Ari walking around with his very grownup looking sling talking very seriously about how he got a ”bad, bad boo boo when he fell off the playscape.”  It is all going to be alright, and there is nothing that I have ever wanted in my life than that.

I had no clue as to how to plant a garden when I was struck with this thought.  So, after several conversations with gardening pros and several books later, I have carrots, squash, tomato and rosemarry plants growing in a nice neat 10 by 10 square in my backyard.  I can already see what I want to do differently next year, but the whole experience has been very positive so far.  Eli does not seem to notice much of what I am doing in the garden, but Ari is definitely interested in helping to water the plants and he often comments that mommy’s “garben is booful”.  I have a vision of Ari helping to harvest the vegetables when the time comes, but he may not be quite ready to understand the concept.  We’ll see.  In the meantime I am quite fond of working in the garden under the hot sun while Ari and Eli play in the backyard.  How do we possibly survive the winters?

In other news, Eli has become very mobile and is constantly pursuing his interest in understanding how the world works.  Just when Ari lost interest in emptying the contents of the cabinets, Eli has discovered the joy of taking things out and throwing them on the floor.  Eli has also started to say some words with regularity including, baba (for bottle) dog, dada, ball, all done and no….but  still no mama though!  Oh well.

Ari has also become very fond of singing and pretty much sings to himself all the time.  He also has become fond of telling jokes.  These are 2 year old jokes, like when he randomly is walking around his room and he looks up and says, “Cookie fell in the toilet!”  in reference to the part of the book “Cookie’s Week” when Cookie, the cat falls into the toilet.  Or “Baby Bop ate lemons!” in reference to the part of a Barney movie when Baby Bop accidently eats lemons and has a very strong reaction to them.  Oh, to be two and be so easily amused with life.

There are only ten more school days and then the heaven of summer vacation begins.

I am starting to notice that all birthdays bring shock to me.  How can you possibly be turning one?  It sounds cliché, but wasn’t it yesterday that you were swaddled and sleeping, a tiny little thing curled up in the crook of my elbow, lying on my chest, snuggled next to me with the tiniest little cry there ever was in the whole world? 

And now you are a toddler?  How could this have happened so fast? 

When I found out I was pregnant with you, I couldn’t believe it.  I was told it would be very hard to get pregnant, if even possible with Ari, and there I was with a seven month old, and I was miraculously pregnant again.  I’ll admit it, I was a little scared.  How could I give you what you needed when there was already a baby to be taken care of.  But from the moment you were born (actually even when I was in labor with you), this first year, you have been the most delightful, laid back, easy-going child.  And you have made it so I can’t imagine life without you and am thankful every day for the gift that was given to me when I had you.

As a baby you have had a gift for napping.  Even as a seasoned mother of one, I asked the doctor if it was okay for a newborn to sleep this much.  You sometimes sleep through the night, but other times, it will be the middle of the night, and you will be in your crib looking at me like, “I have to share you all day with Ari, let’s have some snuggle time and nurse while everyone else is asleep.  Just you and me.”   There will be a time when I sleep through the night on a regular basis, and the pain of sleep deprivation will have faded. And even with the lack of sleep fresh in my mind I think fondly of you laying on my chest in the middle of the night in a dark, quiet room curled up into a ball of warmth and love.

While easy-going in nature, you seem to be developing into a bruiser.  There is something about hanging around with a two year old all day that has made you a pro at running, climbing and laughing.  You climbed your first set of stairs at the age of 9 months and mastered walking at 10 months and running at 11 months!  And your laugh is so unique, anyone who hears it comments, “That is the cutest baby laugh I have ever heard!”  If Santa Clause were a baby, he would sound like you when he laughed.   

There is no way to give your second child the same things you give a first child.  I suppose there will always be a part of me watching to make sure you are given all that you need in the world because of that.  However, you have been given a built-in playmate and experienced parents.  And you have brought our family tremendous joy.  You mean the world to us, Eli. 

Love,

Mommy