Our life as we know it is over

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It's official. Dylan's a walker. That means the path of destruction he leaves behind as a crawler is about to double in size and intensity. Oh, and he also likes to climb. It may be time to pad the walls.

Oh, so that's what nice weather feels like

When we moved to the northeast we fully expected to deal with the shock of our coldest winter we've experienced. I'm proud to say we now truly understand the term "ass crack cold" (given to me by my friend Amy), which is when you can actually feel that your ass crack is freezing. I'm also proud to say we survived that just fine, ass cracks still in tact. What we were not prepared for is the length of the winter. I mean, it's the end of May and it is just now getting consistently warm. That's a relative term -- today's high is 74 degrees, but tonight's low is 55. Still, I finally feel confident putting our winter coats, scarves and clothes away ... now that we're almost halfway through the year.

Anyway, Memorial Day weekend was the most amazing weather -- clear skies, almost 80 degrees, beautiful. So we packed up and took a day trip to the Jersey Shore! In less than 1.5 hours, we were in Point Pleasant, NJ, a nice beach town that looks like it belongs in a 1950s movie, complete with a touristy boardwalk and quiet, clean residential streets that look like everyone on the block knows each other.

We had a great time at the beach, although the water was too cold to get in. Dylan didn't much like the feel of the sand, which means he actually stayed put(!) on our blanket, shoving fruit into his mouth by the handful and throwing beach toys only to discover sadly that they wound up out of his reach. Kelsie, on the other hand, loved playing in the sand and finding shells.



Once we got tired of the beach we headed to the boardwalk where Kelsie rode a bunch of rides and we all had corn dogs. Back in car, home by 8:30pm. So glad to know how easy and fun that was. We'll definitely be making more trips there this summer.



Next day we outfitted our redneck backyard with patio furniture and a fire bowl, and had a lovely outdoor dinner and wine by the fire. Redneck b/c we haven't yet laid grass or fixed the fence so we've got semi-nice stuff sitting on a dirt ground next to a shoddy chain link fence. Goes nicely with our upstairs neighbor's redneck roof deck, decorated with Florida Gators patio furniture, a baby pool and a speaker that blares country music. Yes, we southerners are fitting right in here in New Jersey.

P.S. - I challenge you to find a piece of writing that uses the term "ass crack" more than this one.

Thank God for girl trips

Last weekend was the annual LSU girls trip to Destin, FL. We had 12 girls this year and about 12x the amount of alcohol and food that would be considered "healthy" according to "experts." But that's okay because we worked it off by sitting by the pool and/or beach, and we broke an occasional sweat by dancing to Thriller (props to Critter for bringing the 25th Anniversary DVD ... yes, it's 25 years old).

Sometimes these trips are very restful. This one was not. The most childish of us never went to sleep before 3am. We regressed to our college days, and loved every minute of it.

I hate to say it, but I thoroughly enjoyed being kid-free and mostly responsibility-free for a few days. I even caught myself cursing under my breath at the noisy kids upstairs for waking me up at 10am.

A few of my favorite things:
Pizza rolls. Mudslides. Splotchy sunburns. Cougars. Jamaica. Flavor Flav. "These shoes aren't made for bull riding." Tweeners. Cookie cake. "Write that down." Amanda jumping the fence. Crazy lady jumping the fence. C.D. corners.
(how embarrassing that most of the things I want to add to this list aren't PG - man, we really did regress)

To any of the girls reading this, I love y'all! I'm so thankful to have such a smart, successful, warm, loyal group of friends and I'm a better person for knowing each of you. Honestly.

Now it's back to real life ... so far since my return 3 of the 4 of us have gotten a stomach bug and my work world got turned upside down by the departure of my closest colleague. Sigh.

Dylan at his finest

I realize I haven't posted about Dylan in a while, so lest you think I forgot about our little wrecking ball, here he is at his finest (make sure your volume is up).

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Other Dylan updates:
- His newest words are hola and gracias, thanks to his wonderful teacher, Julia (pronounced Hulia) who doesn't speak much English. He absolutely adores her and I think he's rubbing it in our face by choosing to speak Spanish words instead of the words we're trying to teach him.

- He still refuses to walk, even though I KNOW he can do it. He's just lazy/stubborn/chicken.

- He has developed a discerning palette for crayons and markers, and Kelsie has a knack for leaving hers out and unattended. So we often catch him with a Periwinkle tongue or Burnt Sienna teeth. Good thing they're non-toxic.

- He is all boy. Where Kelsie would acquaint herself to something new by examining it closely, Dylan will taste it and then throw it as far as he can. He crawls with full force and has no qualms about running into things, and he prefers everything within his reach to be tossed on the floor and kicked around.

And man, he is demanding!

Young love is rough

"I'm not going to marry you anymore because you're only three," said Kelsie to her good friend Aryan, who is 8 days younger than Kelsie.

The birthday party

Sometimes I forget how literal you have to be with Kelsie. We had her party on Saturday, 3 days after her actual birthday. So every time someone would wish her happy birthday, instead of saying thank you she'd say "No, it is not my birthday. It's just my party."

Anyway, the music and puppet show was great -- he involved the kids in a treasure hunt that included pretending to swim in the ocean (complete with a bubble machine to set the mood), chasing a monkey puppet, finding mardi gras beads, magic tricks, singing songs, etc. And it was funny -- the adults were entertained, too, which was a nice surprise -- but I think a lot of it was us laughing at Kelsie.

The premise of the show was that a witch puppet named Grizabella was supposed to present the birthday crown to Kelsie but she decided she was going to keep it for herself, so the kids had to go through a series of adventures to find it. Well, Kelsie was determined to get that crown! She even tried to take it from the witch puppet. At one point the performer said they needed to trade something for the crown (of course he had something planned for that) and Kelsie, panicked, jumped up and said "TAKE MY WATCH!!" and tried to give her new watch to the puppet in exchange for the crown.

You'll see in the video that the performer had to get Kelsie and the other kids to back off from time to time!


Victorious with her crown:


Dylan enjoying the show, with a little help from Aunt Betsy:

Rock star

Here's one to file under "What Were We Thinking?" Kelsie's main birthday present was a pink guitar. How cool is she ...




Check out Brian trying to teach her how to play ... I hope the humor in that is not lost on his friends and family.

Birthday Girl!

Kelsie is 4 today!! She was too excited to fall asleep last night. We kept hearing her in her bed singing Happy Birthday over and over again to various friends and then to "me, me, me, me, me, me ..."

We brought some donuts to her school this morning and gave Mardi Gras beads to each of her classmates. She's the one with the giant pink birthday crown.




Her real birthday party is this Saturday. It will be a Mardi Gras-themed music and puppet show at a bookstore in Hoboken, NJ. All her school friends know that she is from Louisiana, so we decided to run with that theme. Should be fun. I'll post pictures.

The problem with smart kids

... is that they are sometimes right. I've mentioned before that Kelsie has been arguing a lot lately so we're working hard to correct that. Well, yesterday she was arguing that our house was on a different street and I was explaining why she was wrong. We went back and forth a couple times until I told her that she was arguing and she needed to stop. So she thought about it for a minute and then said, "but Mommy, you were arguing too."

Dammit. She's right.

Now what?

Oh Kelsie. Last night she was having trouble falling asleep and kept calling for us. I finally gave in and went to check on her to find this ...



She was oh so proud of herself for putting dots on her forehead. We tried our best to get it off but she went to school this morning looking like she had just gotten a bad chemical peel.

What do we do with her??!! This isn't exactly out of character lately. She is definitely trying to establish her own set of rules. If we tell her "no" she sees that as a starting point for negotiations (and she's a pretty good negotiator for a 3-year-old ... scary). So we are having some serious battles of wills these days. And it doesn't help that Dylan eggs her on by laughing at everything she does, especially after we've told her not to do it. They are already teaming up against us!

Kelsie's first haircut

She made it almost four years without a haircut. When her hair is wet it reaches the small of her back. But the curls make it appear much shorter when it's dry. Still, after four years it really needed some attention. So we had a girl day getting our hair cut today.

I was afraid that if they cut it too short it would poof up Orphan Annie-style, so they just gave it a trim. But she was a trooper and held as still as a 3 year old possibly could in that seat.


The pictures of me getting my hair cut just aren't as cute.

Happy birthday, Dylan - Part 2

Ta da! Here's the first birthday picture. I think the cake confused him more than anything. He kept digging into it and then trying to get the icing off of his hands.

When Dylan and I went to pick Kelsie up from school on his birthday, her whole class was singing happy birthday to him, and they had each made him a birthday picture. It was unbelievably cute. Her friends couldn't wait to give him their pictures. And he just sat there with a big smile on his face trying to figure out why the big kids were so excited to see him.

Happy birthday, Dylan!!

Dylan is a year old! What??!! How did that happen so fast? I guess when you throw a cross-country move into that first year it kind of makes time sneak up on you. We can't believe he's one already. Seems like we should have had more of a say in this. But regardless, here we are with a one-year-old and an almost-four-year-old.

Dylan is clueless, of course. To him it's just another day of "cwap cwapping," waving, making fart noises, and trying to walk while destroying everything in his path. Kelsie, on the other hand, is very excited about his birthday, as are her teachers. "Baby Dylan" is an honorary member of Kelsie's school, even though he's too young to attend yet. They even have his birthday on their school calendar and have planned for her to make him some sort of a birthday present for her art project today.

So, we're keeping things pretty low key. Kelsie will get to pick out a birthday present for him (should be interesting), we're going out for a fun family dinner tonight, Betsy and Andrew are gonna come hang out tomorrow, etc.

We'll be sure to take the obligatory picture of cake smeared all over his face.

Dylan's first word!

The verdict is in. After months of speculation on what his first word would be, he finally settled the debate yesterday. His first official word is ... drumroll please ...

CLAP!

We have been tell him to "clap clap clap" because he always responds with a big smile and a few chubby-handed claps. Yesterday, he started clapping and saying "cwap cwap!"

So cute!! And he said it several times, always accompanied by clapping, to assure us that it wasn't just a fluke.

(I have to admit I'm a little relieved that his first word wasn't a bad one. Especially since Kelsie has recently been fond of saying "dammit!")

Another year older

Had a very nice birthday yesterday, got some great gifts, Brian and I had an awesome dinner in SoHo. All in all a great day. As much as I loved all the gifts, I have to say this card from Kelsie was my favorite. She made it at school. It's nearly impossible to read on these pictures because her writing is so faint and the flash drowns it out, but on the front she wrote MOMMY and on the inside she wrote I LOVE KELSIE. Although, she insists that it actually says "I love YOU" and is signed Kelsie. She's just learning to write her letters and I know this required a lot of teacher involvement, but it's the most I've seen her write on one project so far and she was so happy about it. Nearly brought tears to my eyes.




Of course, she's most proud of the red heart.

This is kind of fun ...

http://www.dothetest.co.uk/


Cool way to get their message across.

Big questions

Most of the country is discussing big questions like how to cope during a recession, whether a black man can be president, how to protect the environment, etc. But here are the questions that are being pondered in the Pierce household ...

* Why doesn't ketchup melt? (Kelsie)
* Can I throw this at Dylan's throat? (Kelsie)
* Can we sleep in a hotel tonight? (Kelsie)
* What does that spell? (Kelsie - referring to ANY combination of letters ANYwhere)
* Can I have butter on this? (Kelsie - referring to ANY food ANYtime)
* What's inside the moon? (Kelsie)
* I didn't watch that cartoon very well. Can I watch another one? (Kelsie)
* Why didn't anyone tell us having 2 kids was so exhausting? (Brian & Corie)

Saturday morning cartoons

Fun with Aunt Betsy!

The kids love it when Aunt Betsy comes over. She babysat on Saturday and they played dress-up, much to Brian's dismay. (hee hee)




And in case you've been following along and are curious, Dylan didn't throw up once on Aunt Betsy this time!

Inside the mind of Kelsie

When left to her own devices, Kelsie comes up with some pretty creative ideas. (That's my mom version of saying she's a whack job.) Recently she told us she was going to get ready for her party. We were not aware of any party, but that's irrelevant. About 30 minutes later she comes out of her room dressed like a princess and invites us to her party. You have to look closely -- the picture does not give the full effect -- but notice that she put all of her books in stacks everywhere in her room (except on the bookshelf) and then topped the stacks with toys or fanned-out books. We were told these were the decorations. Clever.




On another recent day, she decided that the floor was a big puddle and she needed to create a trail of stepping stones from the living room to her room:





The most amazing part of this one is that she actually cleaned it all up by herself.

Dylan's on the move!

Click the green arrow to play.

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Since I last posted ...

...Dylan was out of school for an entire week with a nasty stomach bug. Poor guy was miserable. Then I had an incredibly painful toothache that led to emergency oral surgery. Now the resulting swelling in my cheek has made me look like a chipmunk storing nuts for the winter. Or like somebody in a fat suit (Nutty Professor). Brian is calling my cheek my "lovely lady lump." But I'll let him since he has been an amazing help while I was laid out in pain/drugged up/grumpy/trying to sleep through it all. The pain is gradually going away and I have high hopes that I'll feel human again next week.

So, that's my excuse for not posting. There have been a couple high points in the midst of the craziness. Kelsie has started writing some words. "Stop" and "soccer" are her two favorites right now (it was S week at school). Dylan has started pulling up to standing everywhere he goes and he's trying to cruise around, and he now claps on command. Kelsie says she's "sooooo proud of him!"

I'll post some pictures shortly.

How perfect

Dylan's on day 3 of a nasty stomach virus, while I'm still trying to work. While I was drinking heavily to unwind, this cartoon showed up in my email. Perfect.

Traveling and getting yelled at

I haven't posted in several days -- I've been in San Francisco for work this week. It's hard leaving the kids, but I have to admit I really enjoyed having "me time" in a nice big hotel room. And the kids always behave perfectly for Brian whenever I leave. I guess that's good -- helps alleviate some of the mommy guilt.

I took the redeye home Thursday night and arrived Friday morning during a snow storm. Then I stood in a snowy taxi line that was about 30 people long, without a single cab to be seen. And that's when I got yelled at by grown men.

A cab driver finally showed up and asked for people going to Hoboken, which is right by us. So another woman and I got to bypass the line to get in the cab. Well, then the dispatch guy starts yelling at the driver saying he has to take people at the front of the line. Meanwhile, 3-4 men at the front of the line started yelling at me saying I cut in line, it wasn't fair, I had to wait my turn. They sounded like they were in first grade. ("But it's my turn on the slide, I was here fiiiiirst!")

So they wouldn't let us get in the cab. The driver drove away empty while we had to return to the line! Most people in the line were on our side -- ridiculous to send a cab away empty when that many people were waiting in the snow.

But, we got some redemption. The driver snuck into the bus lane so we could get in his cab without technically cutting to the front of the taxi line. So we got to smile and wave at the people who yelled at us and who were still standing in the snow. Ha! The whole scene was quite amusing.

And this was after my taxi to the airport a few days earlier got pulled over because it was a stolen car. At least it wasn't a boring trip.

Saturday night ... sigh

Brian and I had a great date night planned tonight. His sister, Betsy, came over to babysit and we were going to dinner and a show. We had tickets to see Avenue Q, a Broadway show that keeps getting amazing reviews. Earlier today Dylan threw up but we were in denial that he was sick. Kept telling ourselves he just ate too much or got jiggled too much. (Sidenote: we were at Baby Boogie, the dance club for kids, when Brian lifted Dylan up in the air above his head and Dylan puked all over him. I hate to say it, but it was hilarious! Looked like something on a sitcom.)

Anyway, it's rare that we have a date night, let alone one with non-refundable tickets, so we hoped for the best and went. At dinner I started to feel queasy and could barely eat, which just served to fill me with guilt that we had clearly left our sick child. Then Betsy called ... he had thrown up twice already.

So, here we are. At home. Missing the show. In the hour that we've been home, he has thrown up an additional two times, once ALL OVER me. Gross. Now he's asleep, so I hope the worst is behind us. But this is definitely not the way we had hoped to spend our Saturday night.

Damn babies.

Kelsie-isms

Kelsie says some funny things. Brian's convinced she has impeccable comedic timing and will be doing stand-up at her school talent show. I don't know about all that, but I have been keeping a mental list of some of her better lines. Enjoy:

* After being quiet in the back seat for a while: "(sigh) That was hard work getting all those boogers out."

* After I told her I had to finish what I was doing before I could get her a drink: "Mommy, I'm going to count to three, and then I want some milk. Okay?"

* After Brian asked if he could have one of her chips: "Yes you may, if you're good."

* While holding a balloon between her knees and standing in front of a room full of our friends: "Hey everybody! Look at my vagina!" (pronounced, "Hey errybody. Look at my bagina.") Apparently she was pretending that the balloon was her you-know-what and thought we should all see it.

* "I'm gonna be a mommy because I can cook." Not sure where she learned that logic. I sure as hell haven't set that example!

* Through tears: "I wanna see the Statue of Liberty! I wanna see the Statue of Libertyyyyyyyy." (We have yet to take her to the Statue of Liberty, so I have no idea where that came from, but it was a major tantrum. A sure sign that she is adapting to our new hometown.)

* On a related note, and through even more tears: "I wanna go to LSUuuuu. I wanna go to LSU right nowwwwwwwwww!" A tantrum has never made me so proud.

* "Mommy, your booty is bigger than daddy's." (no comment)

* Overheard from the next room: "Look Dylan, see my booty crack? It's pink!" (We're working on the whole exhibitionist thing. Not much luck so far.)

I'm sure I'll think of more and will update this.

Health care wishes

Baby, it's cold outside - part 2

Brrrrrr. Okay, it's freakin' cold. Even to people used to this kind of weather. Monday was 12 degrees. Yesterday it warmed up to low 20s and snowed. I had my first snow-driving experience in our little Jetta (that Kelsie has inexplicably named Tico), which felt a little more like sledding but with seat warmers. It took me over an hour to pick up the kids, which usually takes about 30 minutes. Traffic was crawling because of the slick roads and an accident in front of Kelsie's school. The pedestrians here are so rude -- they just walk right in front of you with no regard to right of way -- and the snow didn't stop them. I almost skidded into a couple of them, which might have served them right. (I wasn't going fast enough to really hurt them, but a little bumper tap to the knee might have taught them a good lesson.)

Today it's in the low 40s and raining, turning the snow into a lovely slush and prompting flooding warnings. Here's our backyard. Notice it was too cold to actually open the door for the picture. (And yes, the backyard needs a lot of cosmetic work -- it will be beautiful come summer.)



And these pics are actually from December, but just pretend they're from yesterday:

Snow bunny

Boy in the bubble!

Baby, it's cold outside

Do you remember that scene from A Christmas Story when the kid is so bundled up that he can't move his arms and can't get up when he falls?


Welcome to life in the northeast, kid.

So much for writing every day

I knew I wouldn't keep up that schedule, but it was a worthwhile goal. So, once or twice a week might be more realistic. I think we're almost back to normal after the family trip to SF. Dylan is growing like a weed and starting to pull himself up to standing. Kelsie is becoming more like Brian every day. Yesterday she was making fart noises with her mouth and saying "if you spit, it sounds like a toot!" So I told her that wasn't a nice way to talk and she paused for a minute and then with a mischievous smile said, "but it's funny!" And I got outnumbered because Dylan laughed hysterically everytime she made the fart noise. I'm screwed.

So, as you can see, not much new is going on here. But I did see this interesting tidbit about something new in Mississippi. They are trying to pass a law to ban restaurants from serving obese people! Can you imagine? All the restaurants in MS will go out of business! (okay, that last part was mean, but c'mon). I'm not making this up: http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/01/no-fat-people-allowed-only-slim-will-be.html

And here is a totally unrelated picture that I'm pasting in solely because I think these posts are more interesting when they include a picture.