Halloween, part 1

We sent the kids off to school in their costumes this morning. Kelsie announced months ago that she was going to be Snow White. For Dylan, well, Superman just seemed fitting. He has already outgrown the outfit, though, so he may have a wardrobe change before our Halloween parade and trick-or-treating this afternoon.




Dylan had his own interpretation of Superman:


This is at the Hoboken Fall Festival last weekend. It's a pretty good visual of the differences between the two kids. Kelsie is being incredibly meticulous to make sure every speck of pumpkin is covered with paint. Dylan, on the other hand, is barely aware of his pumpkin because he's too busy painting himself, the paint cups, the ground, Kelsie's hair, and of course, Mommy. Notice how he's gripping the paint brush by the bristles.


These have nothing to do with Halloween, but I just thought they were cute pics of our little streaker.


Showing off his cookie face:

The kid's got talent

The other night after Dylan was done eating he threw the remainder of his food, as usual.



That's his pizza in my wine glass.

The kid can aim. And he can throw pretty far. And hard. And he tackles his big sister. And he's fast. And he can already balance on one foot (Kelsie still can't do that!). Odds are good that he'll be an athlete.

As a mom I don't want to point out my kids' ... ummmm ... areas for improvement, so I'll put it this way -- Kelsie's strength is her intelligence rather than physical coordination. So does Dylan's physical ability mean he's gonna be dumb??

UPDATE: A couple days after this pizza-in-the-wine incident, Dylan threw his biscuit into my coffee cup while we were eating breakfast. This may not be a fluke.

More Kelsie-isms

A while back I posted a list of funny things Kelsie has said. She's been on a roll lately so it's time for more Kelsie-isms.

* ME: "Kelsie, are you finished eating?"
KELSIE: "Does it look like I'm finished?"

* "I want you to put some music on so I can rock out."

* "My tummy feels a little rumbly." (right after she threw up)

* "WHAT?! Are you kiddin' me?" (she says this a lot, even in response to very normal statements like, "it's time for dinner")

* "Dylan was like, 'it's time to do some throwing!' That's what he was like."

* "That puppy is JUST. ADORABLE." (with an expressive hand motion that spilled her milk all over the table)

* "I'm glad Dylan's school is closed today so I don't have to be alone with you all the time."

* "I'm never going to get married. I'm going to stay with you. But I might marry Joshua."

* "Ahhhhh BOOTY! Ahhhhh BOOTY" (she's in the other room repeating this to herself and absolutely cracking herself up)

* "I'm not a dog because I wear slippers when I'm inside and dogs don't wear slippers." (can't argue with that logic)

So inappropriate

In the bath last night, Kelsie put the cup over Dylan's privates and said "Look! I caught a fish!"

How do you keep a straight face with that?

Getting what you deserve

ME: Kelsie, what was the best part of your day today?

KELSIE: When we were throwing the stuffed animals at school.

ME: Are you allowed to throw stuffed animals at school?

KELSIE: Miss Jocelyn wasn't looking so it's okay.

ME: What was the worst part of your day?

KELSIE: When the stuffed animals got taken away.


Separately, Dylan has started misbehaving purposely so he can discipline himself. He screams so he can put his finger to his mouth and say shhhhhh. So we hear a lot of "AAAAAAHHHHHHH! Shhhhhhhhh. AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! Shhhhhhhh." He also slaps himself in the head so he can point his finger and say "NOT NICE!" (which sounds more like "nah nie"). He used to hit other kids at school, so I guess this is an improvement.

I knew I was old when ...

I took Kelsie to a birthday party recently, which just happened to take place right before the LSU-Auburn game. So naturally, we were decked out in our LSU outfits. When we walked into the Little Gym, the young guy on staff commented on what a big game we had coming up, asked about going to LSU and that led into a conversation about how fun it is to go to LSU football games. Then he said, "back in your younger days, huh?"

Ouch.

All I could do was blink at him. He kept smiling, completely unaware that he had just given me my "I knew I was old when" moment that I'd be reflecting on for the rest of my life. I looked up to check the lighting to see if perhaps I was standing under harsh lights that accentuated my wrinkles, but since that didn't do anything to rebuild my confidence, I just walked away and promptly found a mom I knew to warn her about that horrible person behind the counter.

On a separate note, here's a photo from that party that pretty much sums up our life: Kelsie bouncing around in her own little world (probably telling the other kids how they should bounce), Dylan trying to swan dive off the edge, and me lunging in a panicky attempt to catch him.



The scene changes, but our roles always remain the same (Brian and I are interchangeable in the role of diving to save Dylan).

Pretty typical meal

This is pretty much what happens at meal time at our house:



Notice the hairdo. We use spaghetti sauce instead of hairspray for our styling needs.



These are two different meals. We just find it more efficient to strip him down before meals and rinse him off after. Hence all the naked baby pictures on this blog.

Lots of pictures

We just got back from a great trip to Seaside, Florida for Ted & Nicole's wedding. Even though Hurricane Ike was nowhere near us, it still made the waves and water level too high for us to even attempt going to the beach. But we had access to a couple pools, good bars/restaurants and great friends to keep us occupied.

Here are a bunch of pictures from the trip.

Kelsie at a bar. I promise she wasn't drinking.



(and yes, that is an LSU cheerleader dress. I swear that was her choice.)

Brian, Russ and the groom at that same bar, shortly before the wedding:


Dylan playing peekaboo:



At the wedding and reception:

And that's when I turned into a puddle ...

Kelsie got a time-out yesterday that was particularly infuriating because she wouldn't sit still, tried to talk her way out of it, etc. Once she finally shut up and made it through the time-out, I went to talk to her about what she did and why that was wrong, blah, blah, blah, and then gave her a big hug and she said this:

"Mommy, you know what I love about you? You always can make me feel better."

I almost teared up just writing that.

Thoughts on New Orleans

It's almost the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and although there is still a lot of bad press about the crime rate, speed of recovery, government failures, levee inadequacies, etc., a positive story is finally starting to spread.

Adventure calls workers to New Orleans
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-07-22-new-orleans_N.htm


And this is a great post from one of my favorite bloggers:
http://cajunboyinthecity.blogspot.com/2008/07/could-new-orleans-become-new-new-york.html

If you're short on time (or lazy), the gist is that there is an influx of young professionals coming to New Orleans to help rebuild, start businesses and revitalize the place. The post-Katrina population is already better-educated than the pre-Katrina population. And there was a long piece in last week's NY Times about all the charter schools popping up in NOLA. Feels like it’s a turning point.

Gold medalist's mom wasn't there!?!?!

Nastia Liukin won the all-around individual gold medal last night, and I just saw on the Today Show that her mom chose not to attend the competition! She said she was nervous so she chose to take a tour of Beijing instead. I think her exact quote was, "The timing wasn't great, but it worked out." WHAT??? And then, she didn't even have her phone on so Nastia couldn't get in touch with her to tell her she won the gold.

I try very hard never to judge other parents because I know that what works for one family may not work for the next, but this just strikes me as crazy. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she thought her nervousness would rub off on her daughter (that's the only fair explanation I can come up with, and one she kind of hinted at during the Today Show interview after explaining that she took a tour of Beijing) but still ... I can't understand how a mom could totally ignore the most important event of her daughter's life. At least hide in the stands if you think your presence will make your daughter nervous. To not even have your phone on?!?!

Oh well, they all put on their smiling faces and seemed like a happy little family in the interview this morning, so who am I to judge? But to Kelsie and Dylan, I promise you this: I will never ever take a tour of Beijing while you're competing for the Olympic gold medal in gymnastics.

(And I just have to say ... poor girl having to grow up with a name that sounds like Nasty Loogie.)

Why play piano with your fingers when you can play with your knees?!

Dinner stats

6 feet: average distance of thrown food

75%: percentage of Dylan's body covered with food

6 minutes: amount of time we have to eat before the head-banging, food-throwing, red-faced tantrum begins

16: number of times Kelsie laughed at him and egged him on

2: number of times we caught sippy cup in mid-air

3: number of times we DIDN'T manage to catch the sippy cup in mid-air (I know, I know ... why do we keep giving it back to him?? Because without that our 6 minutes to eat gets shortened dramatically.)

2: number of times we had to shampoo his hair to get all the food out of it (and of course last night was the night he decided to hate the bath)



The worst part of this is that it was Sloppy Joe night and we knew better! We looked at each other right before giving him his food and said "this is a terrible idea," but we gave it to him anyway because we didn't prepare a separate meal for him. But most of the stats hold true regardless of what we feed him, it's just not always quite this messy.

I'm here, I promise

I've been so bad about posting lately that now I feel pressure to make my grand return to the blog really pithy or at least amusing. I don't really have either. But I figured that was no excuse to keep ignoring this public diary of mine, so I'll just post an update.

Let's see, since last time I posted we went to the beach ... in Delaware. Who knew that Delaware was so nice? Our neighbor's parents own a former B&B in Rehoboth Beach. Awesome backyard with outdoor kitchen, one short block from the beach, and they cooked for us all weekend. My great friend from LSU, Christine, and her husband and baby drove up from their home in Arlington, VA to meet us there. Great, great weekend. Hard to leave. We came dangerously close to returning home with another pet -- a hermit crab in a brightly painted shell -- but then remembered that with 2 kids and 2 pets (and our upstairs neighbors' pug, who we're keeping for the weekend again) we already have enough mouths to feed and s*** to clean up and don't need another living creature in the mix, even if it is just a hermit crab. Close call.




Brian's parents and his oldest nephew, Daniel, came to visit last weekend. Daniel wanted to see a Yankees game for his 12th birthday, so he got to spend a wide-eyed weekend doing all the NYC touristy stuff. We joined them for the Yankees game (so fun, even though the Yankees lost -- good thing I don't care), a Statue of Liberty outing, and a couple meals. It was really cool to see Daniel be exposed to things he has never seen before (his first plane ride, first big city, etc.), and probably become a Yankees fan for life because his Papa took him to a game in "the house that Ruth built" when he was 12 years old. He was so awe-struck that it made me really appreciate the city and our opportunity here, even if it's not our permanent home.





Work has been NUTS. We're understaffed and new business keeps coming in. I suppose that's a good problem in this economy, though. So far this week I've managed a client announcement, a new business presentation, a 2-hour client "check in" (which turned out to be less scary than it sounded), while keeping my existing clients running and happy. Wouldn't be so bad if we had another person or two helping out -- that's actually a pretty typical week -- but it's a lot to stay on top of and I can't shake the I'm-forgetting-something-really-important feeling.

Our car got broken into, which sucked. They took our GPS unit, and that's clearly all they wanted. It was in the glove compartment and they took the time to find it, make sure they had the right charger for it (left our phone chargers), and removed the base from the windshield. And left our car open in the rain. A tip to car breaker-inners: if you're going to break into a car, at least do it on a night that it's not raining. C'mon. Use your manners.

Dylan gave me a nose bleed this morning with a head-butt to the face. That was awesome. Kelsie apparently thinks she's in the running for Mother of the Year. She has taken it upon herself to discipline Dylan and take things from him that she deems inappropriate.

In the meantime, we're trying to do important things, like go green (under the theory that small changes can make a difference, we're trying to be a little nicer to the environment), save money on groceries (I'm not exaggerating when I say our grocery bills have almost doubled just in the 10 months that we've lived here), figure out our future, turn our million dollar ideas into ... well ... a million dollars, relax a little, get enough sleep, get some exercise (Brian's doing well on that, me not so much), teach the kids to be respectful and independent, keep our apartment clean (how is it that this is our biggest challenge?), stay in touch with friends ...

At least we're never bored. Saints play tonight. Go Saints!!!!

Exercising

Just got my exercise for the day -- drove the car around the block to find a new parking spot that's not on the street cleaning side of the street. Then walked ALL the way back inside and sat at my desk again. Phew. I feel great.

That's my smart ass way of admitting how pathetically out of shape I am these days. Gotta work on that. At least lifting kids keeps my upper body fairly strong. But as I sit here I have a sweatshirt rolled up behind my lower back because it is killing me, and I can almost feel my thighs getting mushier. The other day Kelsie told me my body was "wiggly." Which I presume means jiggly since I wasn't doing any kind of a wiggle dance move at the time.

I'm too young for this. (and yes, I recognize that just yesterday I posted an article about my 72 year old mom tap dancing and performing for exercise)

My dancing mom

My tap-dancing, musical-performing mom was featured in the Dallas Morning News today. For some reason Blogger has never let me add hyperlinks (grrr) so I pasted the article below...

Grandmother keeps fit by dancing - sometimes with teens

By NANCY CHURNIN / The Dallas Morning News
nchurnin@dallasnews.com

Genell Kelso has never liked to do what we usually think of as exercise.


Genell Kelso, 72, is taking a Dallas Summer Musicals dance class with teens including Brooks Vickery, 13 (left), and Katie Kelley, 14.

But the 72-year-old breast cancer survivor and Dallas grandmother of four keeps fit by doing what she likes to do: performing.

This month, she signed up for a song-and-dance class at Dallas Summer Musicals, a lone septuagenarian in a sea of teens.

When her application for the program came in, the DSM School of Musical Theatre's new director, Kevin Cook, thought it might be a mistake. Ms. Kelso received a call at home asking whether she knew that she would be the only one of her age in the class.

"I said, 'Yes, but I will keep up as best I can,' " she recalls during a lunchtime break in the workshop. "I said I hoped I would be able to live through it. But I figure I will because I'm too pinchpenny to drop out."

That was good enough for Mr. Cook. And on the second day of class, Lori Woods Smith, who has choreographed for the DSM School of Musical Theatre classes for 11 years, said that while she has never had a student of Ms. Kelso's age, she hasn't treated her differently.

"She did a great job," Ms. Woods Smith said after the morning session. "She has a great attitude."

The American College of Sports Medicine advises aerobic and muscle-strengthening activities for healthy aging. Among the recommendations for people over 65 is moderately intense aerobic exercise 30 minutes a day, five days a week. Singing "Toledo Surprise" while dancing the Charleston from The Drowsy Chaperone, as Ms. Kelso did on her second day of class, seems to fit the bill.

And one of the great things about what she's doing, as she would be the first to point out, is that anyone can do it. After all, she didn't get serious about dancing until after her first half-century.

El Centro professor

A working mom with three kids, Ms. Kelso was a founding faculty member at El Centro College and a professor there for 35 years. She took tap-dance classes at El Centro in the 1980s. But it wasn't until 1990, when her youngest child was in high school, that she became a founding member of Dallas Tap Dazzlers, a troupe of dancers 50 and older. They will perform in the Spectacular Senior Follies at the Eisemann Center in Richardson Sept. 5-7.

She's trying the musical theater class because she loves musicals and because "when I grow up, I would like to write musical comedies about aging and dying," she says.

Besides, she needs exercise, and walking and jogging bore her.

"What fun is it being on a hot sidewalk by yourself," she says, "when you can be in front of an audience with music and applause?"

The class will culminate in a free showcase called Curtain Up! that is open to the public at The Majestic Theater on Saturday. Along with the song from The Drowsy Chaperone and another from Jersey Boys, Ms. Kelso is to perform "Bop to the Top" from High School Musical with a hip-hop step.

Having fun

Ms. Kelso feels her age when she's sitting on the floor and has to get up quickly. But that's OK, she says. She's learned to laugh at herself. And she's having fun. Which is why this is her one piece of advice for others:

"Just get out of the chair and get it going," she says. "The more you do, the more you're able to do."

Make it a double

There are some days that I am very proud of being able to juggle working around the clock with raising two kids. Then there are all the other days.

I recently had one of those out of body experiences where you see yourself from above. I was holding my laptop in one hand and wiping down the kitchen counter with the other. The series of events that led to that particular maneuver are irrelevant. Viewing myself that way made me laugh out loud. Should anyone really be thinking about writing messaging for a client and cleaning up lunch box messes at the same time? Because I do that juggling act for about 15 hours a day.

Then the weekend comes and we spend so much energy trying to keep up with the kids that by the end of it we need a weekend to recover from the weekend! Today Dylan is really perfecting his hair-pulling technique. Even managed to pull Kelsie to the ground by her hair. Impressive. It has taken me an hour just to write this because I have stopped repeatedly to separate them, get the light bulb out of Dylan's hand (don't ask), wrap Kelsie's hair in a bandana so Dylan can't pull it, refill milk cups, fix a snack, change a diaper, help with the potty, catch a chair just before it gets pulled to the ground, etc. Next interruption (I hope) will be a coffee break for mommy. Or a tequila break. Either way.

We've got this whole parenting thing figured out

When the kids act up ....



Okay, for the record, it was Kelsie's idea and she jumped in while my back was turned. Then Dylan followed her. See, they were happy ...



That is the kennel of Gigi, the pug from upstairs that we're keeping for the week. Here's the snoring butterball herself ...

My life in bullets

I've been struggling to find time (and mental energy) to blog lately, so here's a quick update.

* Kelsie is transforming into a teenager before our eyes. She's suddenly tall and thin (but her squeezable cheeks are still holding out) and she has so much attitude that I wonder if she's already hitting puberty. The other day she performed her first stomp-to-her-room-and-slam-the-door act to demonstrate that she was mad at me. And only me. She made a point to interact with Daddy while intentionally ignoring me.

* She is in summer school now. Remember when that used to be a bad thing? This is more like regular school with some field trips thrown in. She's thrilled to get to go on a school bus next week. She told Brian, "I'm going to go on a school bus, Daddy. Geez."

* Dylan has discovered the joys of standing on anything he can. That includes grocery carts (despite being strapped in), rocking chairs (even though it won't hold still for him), and beds (and he can bounce up there too!).

* If anyone has suggestions on how to get him to stop throwing his food, I'm all ears. The dog is getting fat.

* Dylan tackled Kelsie and took her to the ground last night. Brian's response: "I know he shouldn't do that, but it was just so fundamentally correct. He threw his shoulder into her mid-section, wrapped her up and took her down! I'm just so proud. We have to find a pee wee football league. He could take down 20-month olds."

* "Shut up your mouth," said Kelsie.

* On the positive side, she continues to amaze us with her nurturing instincts. She just adores Dylan. And she's eagerly trying to learn to read. The other day she was cutting pictures out of a magazine and cut out the word MOM, gave it to me and told me it said mom. She is really into artwork lately, but she calls it work. She tells us she has an important appointment and then will sit at the table coloring and cutting and muttering things like, "work, work, work" or "I wish I could come sit on your lap but I have too much work to do."

* And Dylan gives the best hugs and is starting to give (slobbery) kisses upon request. Almost makes up for the determined look in his eye right before he does something wrong. Almost.

* We went to DC last weekend for 4th of July and met Karen (sister), Steve (brother-in-law), Chris (nephew who is as tall as his dad now) and Rachel (niece) there. Very fun. Except for Dylan's refusal to sleep the first night, his teething, and the rain shower that threatened to ruin the fireworks. But it all worked out. We even caught the kids in a cute and very rare moment of both of them holding still at the same time:

This picture was taken at the restaurant where we met Christine Salvo (aka Tina T) and family, and the kids were wild enough that Christine and Steve probably vowed never to have another.

* I'm sure there's more that I'm forgetting right now.

So there you have it. My life in bullets.

Tonight's quote

"Mommy, I want you to change your mind and make a deal with me."

My 4-year old is destined to be a lawyer. Or in the mafia.

Say Cheese!

Here's what happens when you expect 4 kids to sit still for a picture after 3 of them have been swimming and fighting over bubbles, and the 4th is only 4 months old ...






We had a great time seeing Andrea, Ed, baby Ana(!), and Andrea's sister and her family (Juliana, Matt, Ella) in Lambertville, NJ. Even if these pictures lead you to believe otherwise.

If you're happy and you know it ....

People keep commenting on how happy Dylan is. Easy for them to say -- they don't see the grumpy side that we do. But in general, I suppose they're right. He's our happy little dude. Here's proof.

Cowgirl in the city

This was at the Kiddiepalooza festival in Hoboken. That's the Hudson River and Manhattan in the background.

Los Ninos Habla Espanol

Kelsie often tells us that she can speak Spanish. I've even heard her say that to people whose primary language is Spanish, which turns out to be a little embarrassing when she then tells them, "Gracias! That means hello."

But she does know (and usually understands the meaning of) a handful of Spanish words and phrases -- hola, gracias, rojo, azul, buenas dias, etc. But she is far from fluent. The other day I was trying to tell her that the Spanish word for Spanish is Espanol. She kept saying, "yes, but what does it MEAN in Spanish?"

So, as she continues to brag and we continue to encourage her to learn more Spanish words, Dylan sneaks up from behind with what is apparently a pretty good understanding of the Spanish language.

His teacher, Julia, told Brian this story this morning. Yesterday at daycare Julia told another teacher in Spanish that it was time to wake up Giovanni. Dylan said, "'Banni?" and pointed at Giovanni's crib. So Julia responded, in Spanish, "yes, let's go wake up Giovanni" and watched as Dylan walked to Giovanni's crib and banged on the side of it saying, "'Banni, 'banni!"

How cool is that? So, maybe all his gibberish actually means something in Spanish. Now we need to hire a translator to help us communicate with him, and a handy man to follow him around and repair the messes he leaves in his wake. This kid is expensive.

WLKOM HOMM MOMMY

This is the Welcome Home card Kelsie made for me when I was in SF. She sounded out the words by herself and wrote them. Isn't this sweet?



Notice the picture of me on the cover with the huge red hair!

She had a hard time while I was gone this time. She's usually a trooper and behaves herself perfectly for Brian whenever I leave town, but this time was different. Not sure why. She was very tearful the day before I got back. Then the day I returned she was incredibly clingy. I went to the Fathers Day party at her school in Brian's place (he had been leaving work early every day to pick up the kids while I was out of town, so he couldn't take the afternoon off to go to this event, unfortunately) and she never wanted to leave my lap. She's usually a little social butterfly but not that day. But on the plus side, I got tons of great hugs that day!

The Kissing Hand

I'm going to San Francisco tomorrow for work, so for Kelsie's bedtime story we read The Kissing Hand. It's about a raccoon who doesn't want to go to school and be without his mommy, so she gives him a kissing hand -- she kisses the palm of his hand so that when he misses her he holds his hand to his cheek and it's like she's kissing him. Sweet book.

So, I read that tonight and then Kelsie and I gave each other kissing hands to use when we miss each other this week. Then I gave her the book to flip through in her bed -- like she does every night -- and she told me she wanted me to have it instead so I could take it with me on my trip.

Awwww. It made me cry! So, now I have one more thing to pack, but that's okay.

She's lying now -- we're so proud

I know that lying requires a lot of cognitive development to be able to fabricate a story, keep it separate from the truth, etc. So, maybe I should be a little proud that Kelsie told her first true lie. But I'm not really.

She was sitting in the shopping cart, holding some Hello Kitty sunglasses that I told her we were not going to buy. When I went to get them from her to put them back, they were gone. Knowing that she had hidden them in my bag I asked her where they were and she told me she put them back on the shelf. I asked her how she did that when she had been in the cart all along and she looked me right in the eye and explained that she got out of the cart, walked to the shelf, put the sunglasses away, then got back into the cart. Kind of a complicated lie for a first timer. Sigh.

Maybe I should be most disappointed in how many holes there were in her story. She needs a little practice at this whole lying thing.

The teenage years should be a ball.

Simon Says ...

"Simon Says .... poop your pants!"
- Kelsie Pierce

My first gay wedding!!!

As you may have heard, California recently lifted the ban on gay weddings. So after a 10-year courtship our good friends, Dave and Richard, are getting married! Yay! We got the save the date card today.

Congratulations to Dave and Richard!!!!