Once upon a time....

Once upon a time, way back when it was just RR and me; I used to get up early nearly every Saturday morning and have "me time".

It was back before everyone was on Facebook and people hung out on-line on message-boards. Do people even still use those? I was a community leader for a couple of them and on Saturday morning I would drink my coffee in peace while RR slept and spend time on-line. I used to post a weekly feature called "Saturday Stuff" where we would all chat about the nuances of day to day life.

This morning I am awake, down in the dining room alone. Almost like "old times".

RR is technically awake, but around 8:30am I gave him his DS so he could go watch videos and play games in his room. QUIETLY. After all I did get some snuggles from him this morning, which at age 11 I will take them when I get them.

TT is catching up on some much needed sleep. As is Husband.

And ERP; ever since his reflux medication kicked in his sleep has greatly improved. I don't think I updated about that. ERP's been having signs of silent or not so silent reflux for ages. Everything from ear infections to back arching crying and screaming in the middle of the night. At his 18 month well child appointment I went in to it with an agenda. Try and fix this mess he was - his pediatrician agreed to try the reflux meds, and really something else to give he had started to lose weight. So after about one and a half weeks on medication he turned the corner. He stopped waking five or six times a night, like he had been for the last 18 months and was waking one or two times. He stopped the back arching crying and crying in the middle of the night. He started eating, most days. And now he sleeps until eight or nine most days; instead of up and crying and miserable at five or six.

Anyhow; here I am alone. Just me and a cup of coffee, and possibly some of the worst chocolate chip pancakes I have ever made. How chocolate chip pancakes can be "bad" is beyond me. But I did it.

Since I have started writing this the dog is now down here with me. This can only mean one thing. TT is awake. She sleeps under his bed, with his bedroom door closed.... and that's how we know he's up... Lily is out. This works out great at nap-time when he's not napping.

And with that... I have run out of things to write about this morning. And my coffee is getting cold. And I cannot eat this nasty pancake. So... have a great Sunday everyone!

Wise Protector & Christmas

Raymond means "wise protector".

So Christmas Day RR and I served at the 9:15am Mass. "Thankfully" the boys were up at 6am on Christmas morning and TT had no interest in unwrapping presents; he would rather play with each gift before opening another one, so we were all able to get dressed and fed and out the door on time for Mass.

Husband and the little ones were seated in the second row of the church. He seemed to have a rough start to Mass, getting ERP to settle and all that. But once ERP was settled the little ones seemed to be behaving well for Husband.

And then, there we are; during the Eucharist, all of the Eucharistic ministers, myself and the alter servers lined up to receive the Host and TT falls in the pew. He took some sort of tumble, and his cries soared out over a quiet church. Husband worked as fast as he could to comfort and quiet TT. But in RR's book it wasn't fast enough. Several times he had to pull himself back in line; as he was about to dash into the church and rush to his brother's aide.

It was a good Christmas. Full of love and memories and really good food. But RR wanting to rush to take care of his brother is what I will always remember from that day.

And now some photos... to share some of our other memories with you.

Little Things

When TT was a wee tiny baby we bought him the cutest one piece summer outfit.  It was green, with a polo shirt collar; and it had little dark blue motorcycles embroidered on it.

When Husband and I picked it out; I recall standing in the store talking about how much Pepea Ron would love it.  Pepea Ron was an avid motorcycle rider; a Harley man.

Pepea Ron passed away shortly after we bought that little outfit, back in the summer of 2011.

Now that ERP is getting bigger and warmer weather is coming; that cute little motorcycle outfit fits him just fine.  And every time he wears it I think of Pepea Ron.

It's funny how the littlest things, seemingly unrelated, remind us of those we love.

Tears in McD's

Why hello blog.... long time no write.  So much has gone on recently and I have a head full of blog ideas and I was hoping to put some thoughts out there this morning; while I sit in McD's drinking my ice coffee while the Big Boy is in CCD.... and I was hoping to work more on my practice IBCLC exams.... but alas, I sit here with a tear running down my check.... and I must say a pretty terrible ice coffee.  But I am in such a mood I have no desire to get up and complain and get it right....

Today marks 5 years since my youngest brother left this world.  He should be turning 29 in a couple of months.... but he's not.

So much has changed in the last 5 years, so much has stayed the same.  Hell, so much has changed since just this time last year.

Where to start, what to tell him about updates.  Hopefully he's been watching and knows... hopefully he is getting ready to make sure everything is going to be alright today.

In one of the stars, I shall be living.

In one of them, I shall be laughing.

And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing when you look into the sky at night.

~ The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery

3 Months

ERP turned 3 months old yesterday.  I told Husband I felt like this time with him was flying by, that he was growing up way to fast and I swore TT's infancy did not go by this quickly.  Husband assured me it did; but having the holidays and two birthday's plus a whole slew of other things going on since ERP's birth has made it seem like life is rushing by.

Things have been different for me, this time around.  I didn't get the baby blues or PPD like I did with TT.  I am weepy today for the first time since ERP has been born, but that has more to do with my maternity leave officially ending tomorrow than anything.

ERP is still an "easy" baby.  He had a period of 3 days of crying and being terribly inconsolable a few weeks back,  but I chalked that up to hitting one of those Wonder Weeks early.  However, since that episode he's back to waking 3 or 4 times a night; he was only waking once.  Oh well.  I am sure I will sleep again.

These days he is awake more and more, unless he's going through a growth spurt. Speaking of growing, he is getting bigger but he is still a little peanut.  He is just now growing out of his newborn size onesies.  For clothing he is wearing a 0-3 months with a couple newborn and a couple 3-6 month outfits sprinkled in.

He is babbling up a storm and has giggled for Husband and his brothers.  He is super social and loves to flash his baby smile at anyone that talks to him.  His cries have changed as well.  My favorite is his "protest" cry in which he lets out a sharp wail of totally indignity.  He has found his hands and will stare at them for hours, he is also holding toys and fingers now and batting at his toys.

We have settled on Godparents and are looking to have him baptized in June - once his Godfather gets confirmed.  What a wonderful and special Uncle he has to go through all of that for him.

Things I don't want to forget:
~ The way his bottle lip quivers at times
~ How he stops and smiles at me while we're nursing
~ How when we are nursing and my milk lets down, he rolls his eyes back - a sign of total satisfaction in my eyes
~ How he holds me shirt while he nursing
~ The smell of him first thing in the morning
~ His baby mullet with a bald spot
~ His blowing bubbles with his spit
~ How warm he feels when I hold him
~ His grin, I can't get enough of it


Sorry, no pictures now.... my phone is having cord / charging issues.

Uphill, Barefoot, in the Snow

During dinner tonight my cell phone chirped with a text message, and then again.  I had just assumed it was one of the Big Boy's games telling me some sort of animal needs to be attended to or a new land was created.  But Husband felt the need to check it; and low and behold, it was a text message from the school system that school was cancelled tomorrow during to the impending snow storm.

Five minutes later the phone rings, and it's the telephone tree from the school system telling me school is cancelled for tomorrow.

And I bet you good money I have an email waiting from the school as well, telling me - you guessed it.

But I digress; the text message and telephone call turned the dinner conversation into a "back in my day".

Sure back in our parent's day they had to walk to school uphill (both ways) while barefoot in the snow - our tale of "back in the day" woh was a little more mentally challenging.

We told the boys about how we used to have to sit in front of the TV watching the news, hours before school began hoping and praying that we would see our schools name scroll by on the bottom of the screen announcing that we too had the day off.  Or worse yet, we had to listen to the radio and wait for breaks between songs to hear the list of school closings.  Then we had to convince our parents that we heard or saw our school name.  Sometimes said parents didn't believe us, or wanted to check for themselves - and this required standing at a snowy bus stop (back before buses picked you up at your house) waiting and wondering if the bus was ever going to show and how long until we could go in the house.  We had to explain to the Big Boy about how Netflix wasn't around and people all watched the same thing at the same time, about how the internet wasn't around and we couldn't look up school closing.

Ah yes.... back in the day....

An Oldie

Recorded Thanksgiving 2008 (RR was 4).  Dancing with Grammie.

Waffles and Ice Cream

When I was growing up and my father went out of town on business my mom would make "fun dinners".  One of my favorite was waffles and ice cream.  She would send one of us to the corner store to pick up a half gallon of our favorite ice cream while she made the waffles.  Yum!!

This is a tradition that I am happy to pass down to my boys; except in my house we never run out of ice cream so there is no running to the store to get it.  So when Husband had a dinner time appointment this week the boys and I whipped up some waffles and got down to business.

I have no idea how Teddy's shirt got so wet.

They both helped cook.  

Yum!!

Double YUM!!

While I was making he Waffles TT took it upon himself to get the syrup out of the pantry.  Honestly I never thought of putting syrup  real or otherwise; on waffles and ice cream before... but it worked for them.  Me, I stuck with just the ice cream.  Both boys had three waffles and two spoons of ice cream.

And yes, we went to the park after this to run off all that sugar.  

The Heat

What do you remember most about your wedding day?  The one think that pops in your mind when you think back to that day.

For me, it's the heat.
Followed by the humidity.

Sure I was nervous and excited.

I remember walking down the isle.
I remember getting ready with my girlfriends.
I certainly remember RR loosing our wedding rings in the garden right before the ceremony.
I remember our first kiss and our first dace.
I remember the terrible poison ivy my brother had on his hands.
I can recall bits and pieces of the toasts and what we ate.

But I have not forgotten the weather.

We were married in May, in New England.  Which means the weather is a total crap soot.  Some years the temperatures barely get out of the 70s; but then there are years like 1986 when my youngest brother turned one and we all played outside in the kiddie swimming pool.  The little hard-sided one with the slide built into it.  That year, 1986; the highest May temp was 94F.  The year we were married the high temp was 98, the second highest on record.  Combine those temps with the high humidity and I am sure you can imagine how pleasant it was.

Husband and I originally wanted to get married outside, in the park; but decided instead to get married in a small, non-air-conditioned; chapel at the park.

The AC in our limo was broken on the way to the ceremony.  The guests were melting inside the little chapel; and Husband and I had decided to ride to the reception in my uncle's classic car... which as a classic also had no AC.

I remember everyone wanting to rush through the pictures because it was so hot and I remember all of the flowers wilting in the sun.

It was HOT that day and that's what I remember the most.

What do you remember the most about your wedding?

RR and my niece during pictures.  He was warm, and I think she did actually melt that day.

Vermont (or part of it)

Husband and I have not gone away overnight since our honeymoon.  We haven't taken RR on any sort of vacation in a few years.  And before you feel bad for him he goes away to camp and goes on vacation with my mom and his cousins; he is certainly not vacation deprived.  That being said Husband and I were itching to get a way for a little while so we planned a mini-vacation in Stowe, VT.

We headed up on a Friday.  A very wet and rainy Friday, which turned into a snowy and freezing rain Friday.  The drive was terrible.  What should have taken a little over 3 hours took more than 5.

OK, the weather sucked for the whole trip.  Let's just put that out there now.  I don't think we saw more than 5 seconds of sun the whole weekend.

RR is getting "too cool" for pictures.

These are the boys hanging out in our first hotel room.  It was wicked small, after the first night; which was borderline hellish; we stopped being so cheap and sprang for the much larger room for $10  a night.  (Seriously if I knew it was only $10 more we would have moved sooner.)

Now the whole trip was centered around taking RR to Ben and Jerry's (and being able to take the boys swimming).  RR loves those TV shows that feature food eating contests; and consequently loves being in food eating contests himself, even if they are made up and in our kitchen (like the time he changed his 17 year old aunt and 19 year old babysitter to a pancake eat-off).  In on the shows he watches he saw someone trying to eat the Ben and Jerry's Vermonster; and wanted to try it himself.

Now if you have never heard of the Vermonster it has 20 scoop of ice cream, cookies, brownies, bananas, caramel and hot fudge sauces, plus many more options.... but NO cherry.  (What is up with that?)  It also has upwards of 10,000 calories (and costs around $50). This is a serious sundae people, and my family are serious ice cream lovers.... me, I could eat it everyday (and so could my boys), but this sundae was just out of our league.  So after the factory tour I convinced RR to go with the mini-Vermonster sundae.  There is nothing mini about this people.

We tried.  We almost made it.

Yes, that is snow on the ground in mid April, and no we are not in the Dakotas.  

Any ice cream product that is served in it's own bucket is serious business.  RR started out strong, but had a weak finish and was the first to call it quits (so not like him).  TT hung in by himself for a while (man, can that kid eat) and even Husband got in on the action (after he swore he wasn't going to, but I made sure I got his Chunky Monkey ice cream in it... so he was putty in my hands).  But despite our best efforts we just could not finish it, we came close though.  Sadly, because of the weather

Now before you start thinking we drove 5 hours to eat ice cream, I will have you know there was more to this trip.  There was an trip to the cider mill, and Cabot cheese and yummy chocolates.  (Can you say, total food fest.)

Aside from all the food we spent time hanging out at the pool and hanging out with each other in the hotel room and just plain relaxing.

It was good to get away and the trip home was much less adventurous than the trip up there... and we even left early... because we woke up and it was snowing, again.  We stopped at the Vermont Country store and looked at silly hats, old fashioned toys and left with giant pickles, penny candy and a bar of Fels-Naptha soap (to get out all of the ice cream stains.)  But it was good to be home again as well.

   In case you are wondering, this is how much milk and sugar Husband needs for his coffee.  Two small silos are cream, 2 are milk and the big one is sugar.