Happy Thanksgiving!

Yep, it's Thanksgiving. Yesterday we loaded up the old family truckster with both kids, the dog, and more luggage than I care to think about. Enough for two small children and two technology-addicted adults to survive comfortably for three days, at least (fortunately, the dog is a light packer).

As a single woman, I was always an overpacker. I defended the excessive packing by saying that I wanted choices, and not to feel like I was "stuck" wearing one outfit or another. As a parent, the overpacking is pure self-defense. If I am not prepared with at least 3 outfits per day for my kids, it is practically daring the universe to smite us with a blowout. Despite the two bags of clothing I packed, we've already done one load of laundry and have another on deck.

In addition to the clothing, we've packed a portable DVD player and movies (car trip), the Wii (my 89 year old grandmother is a MAD bowler), two laptops (both sets of grandparents have wireless internet, thank God), and an Ipod touch (when you just can't get to that laptop fast enough). Also, enough winter gear to weather a blizzard, or a 3 year old.

Now that we're here, there's nothing left to do but unpack, and play and EAT (the best part of Thanksgiving, of course). If I can roll myself to the computer, I may update later. more likely, I will drop into a turkey-induced coma :>).

Poppy Racing

So today's "good morning time" was the relatively decent hour of 5:15. After some shuffling of children, our boy and I ended up downstairs, with Daddy and the baby in bed. What do you do with an eager-beaver 3 year old that early in the morning? Poppy Racing, of course!

In other households, Poppy Racing is known as Mario Kart Wii. It was forever renamed by our little boy, who has a grandfather that's a dead ringer for Mario. Other Mario games are lumped under the title "Poppy Running and Jumping", but "Poppy Racing" is far and away his favorite.

This morning's round of racing began with selecting the correct racing clothes. For our boy, this meant construction jammies, a hoodie, his new spiderman snowboots (already a wardrobe staple), and his new mittens. I was allowed to race in my jammies (thank God), but was strongly urged to select an appropriate racing hat. Our boy loves the hats, which means I had my choice of construction, fireman, baseball, lion, pirate, or standard winter hat. I dug deep into the bin and pulled out my own favorite, my Year of a Million Dreams Mickey ears. (Hey, it only took me four trips/two years/$8000 to win those ears! Thanks, Disney!) This proved to be an appropriate choice, as our boy's construction hat was quickly abandoned for an identical pair.

Once clothes are selected, we need to choose our racers. I always go for the princess, but our boy will choose between Scary Purple Guy, The Turtle, The Dinosaur or Poppy. He generally insists that everyone choose the same car model known as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (this choice chafes my competitive nature, because it doesn't drive as well. Yes, I want to win, even when my challenger is in pullups). The last choice is the racetrack, and our favorites are Cows, the Mall, The Bouncing One, and the Pirate Ship.

Without further ado, the starting gun goes off, and we begin to...have a Dance Party! That's right, did you know that if you do not accelerate, but merely turn the wheel from side to side, your racers will boogie down inside their little cars? Now you do! And after 5 or so minutes of dancing, Poppy Racing is officially over, signified by our boy wandering away and picking up another toy.

That is Sunday morning in our house. It may sound like a lot of prep for 5 minutes of race time, but as anyone with a 3 year old will tell you, five minutes of sit down entertainment is a precious commodity.

Saturday Part 2, A Vent

Okay, as an avid TV watcher, I am willing to suspend my disbelief to a shocking degree. But honestly, is there anyone in the universe that really believes that at a "Masked Ball" where the masks consist of 3 feathers and a handle, people are really rendered unrecognizable? As GOB Bluth says, COME ON!

If you are going to craft some sort of Shakespearean case of intrigue and mistaken identity, PLEASE make the theme of your "masked ball" Gorillas in the Mist, or something requiring similar full body coverage. Not the Gossip Girl style corset and nose-bridge coverage. Thank you!

Saturday Part 1, 5 Reasons

5 reasons I love my husband today:

5. After staying up until the wee hours to watch his DVRed Bruins game, he got up at 6 AM, when the baby decided she'd had enough snuggling (extra points for recording the game so I woudn't have to watch it).

4. Two words: Litter box!

3. He wants to spend the afternoon watching Christmas movies and snuggling with our son. Is there sugar in hot cocoa?

2. He didn't make (too much) fun of me for totally screwing up my Netflix list, resulting in my Season 1 of Gossip Girl discs to come in reverse order (disc 3 and 4 before disc 2).

1. The biggest reason I love my husband: He actually volunteered to put Disc 2 of Gossip Girl in his own Netflix queue so I wouldn't have to send the other DVDs back unwatched. If you know my husband, you know that nothing goes against his grain more than Gossip Girl. By putting it on his list, he's enabled me to spend this snowy Saturday morning watching absurdly beautiful people in amazing clothes make bad decisions. Swoon! He knows the way to my heart is through trash TV.

Good morning time

Now that our second baby has arrived, my husband and I have taken the stance "been there, done that", which is not as bad as it sounds. Having lived through the sheer terror of first time parenting, it's much easier to go with the flow. We weren't perfect the first time, but we still have an amazingly smart, funny and verbal 3 year old. This time, we can relax, because even the new challenges seem less intimidating.

One of our new challenges is sleeping arrangements. Our big boy has been on sleeping in his own room since he was around six months old, and has been in his big boy bed since the spring. Pre-baby, my husband and I were pretty proud that we had successfully dodged the "crawl into bed" bullet that some parents face. Our guy got into bed and stayed there until one of us came in to get him at "good morning time". Of course, he would sit in bed and holler "Dad! Dad! Hey, Dad! Is it good morning time yet?" until we got there, but who cares when he's in his own bed? What good parents we are, I thought smugly.

The arrival of our little girl has changed all that, of course. The bassinette at the foot of our bed sits empty every night, because our little peanut is snuggled next to me. Yes, I know that co-sleeping has some dangers for the unprepared, and no, I do not anticipate that I will squish my baby. Sleep, sleep, sleep, for everyone, including my husband, who is NOT on maternity leave. Because I'm breastfeeding, my little peanut and I don't have to wake up for feedings. It's delightful! Win, win, win, right?

Well, it didn't take long for my big boy to realize what he was missing out on. Bed, with Mom and Dad? I want in! He still goes to sleep in his big boy bed, and he'll stay there for most of the night. But now, we go to bed knowing that at some point we will awaken to the sound of running feet, the door, and our big boy saying "Hi! Can I climb in?" And our queen sized bed gets a little bit smaller, as our squirming three year old makes himself comfortable. Blankets are adjusted, and pillows are shared, little knees find the hollow of my back. Just when we're all settled in, and eyes are closing, our little chatterbox will start his morning discourse, anything from dreams to breakfast to what's on the TV that I keep on for light. Without further ado, we are up. Well, my husband is up, and he and the little man head downstairs. On a good day, this happens at 5:30. On a bad day, like today, it happens at 2 AM.

My husband wants to make our bed as boring as possible, so he won't want to come in. My guess is that as long as his baby sister is allowed to be in the bed, he will want the same thing. My secret is that I love it when he comes in. I love it when he puts his head on the pillow facing me and says "I want to look at you, Mommy". I love it when he tells me about his dreams (usually about construction vehicles or baby dinosaurs) in a loud stage whisper because we're having "quiet time". I love it when he sits between my husband and I and softly rubs our arms, just like I rub his when we're singing our lullabies together. I just love the sensation of being warm in my bed with all of our little family snuggled beside me. The day will come soon enough for both of them when the last place they want to be is with us. I will enjoy this phase while it lasts.

It's genetic

In the last two months, I've spent virtually every waking ( and sleeping!) moment with our new daughter. She is beautiful, just like her big brother, and she's a living, breathing objection to the notion that small babies are nothing but squirmy, milk-filled poop machines. This girl has PERSONALITY! So much personality, in fact, that it makes me a little nervous.

No pre-teen princess could be so decisive about what she wants, or so vocal when she doesn't get it. What brought a smile yesterday will surely spell disaster today. What lulled her to sleep in the morning will bring her to violent, hysterical tears in the afternoon. When she is happy, she is radiant, funny, engaging, curious, but when she's upset, she's deafening. How can anyone who has only been on this earth for two months, and whose main life experience has happened in our living room, be SO SURE about what it is she wants?

I remember shopping for a winter coat with my mom, and I couldn't have been more than 10 or 11. I knew exactly what I wanted in a coat: charcoal wool, flecked with pink, matching scarf. My mother pointed out countless coats, none exactly right. Right shape, wrong color, right color, wrong flecks, right flecks, but with pinstripes (gross). I remember telling my mom that one particular coat was the "cousin" of the coat I wanted, another was the "sister", but none of the coats we saw were THE ONE. My mom was so patient with my diva self, and yes, we did finally find the right coat. For better or worse, the trend of wanting exactly what I want, has followed me into adulthood. Just ask my husband what it's like to pick out a Christmas tree with me. I guess our daughter comes by that fussiness pretty honestly.

Until she can talk enough to let me know what she wants, I can only do what my mother did for me, and practice patience. I'll work methodically through my checklist of things that have worked before, and sooner or later, I will hit on the right thing. All I can hope is that she understands that when she's hungry, I'll be there, when she's tired, I'll be there, when she's hurting, I'll be there, when she's happy, I'll be there.

And I'll give my poor husband an extra kiss when we're trekking through the cold next month, shaking the snow off yet another tree, because the last thirty-seven options weren't quite right.

Another one bites the dust...

Wow, I can't believe I'm starting a blog. I don't have a MySpace Page, or a Facebook page, I dont even have a text messaging plan for my cell phone. On the multiple message boards I frequent, I am a lurker, not a poster. It's safe to say I am "behind the times". But apparently, as of 2 minutes ago, I have a blog!

Why bother? The social technology scene has moved along quite nicely without me for this long, right? Well, let's call it one part guilt, one part peer pressure, and one part boredom.

Guilt because I never got further than the three month mark with my son's baby book, and he's now halfway to four years old. Now we have a brand new little girl, and no baby book in sight. I just want to be able to document the funny things they do and say, so we can look back and laugh someday. God knows, they will be bringing home girlfriends and boyfriends soon enough, and if you can't embarrass your kids, why be a parent in the first place?

Peer pressure, because my husband just sent me the link to a friend's blog. This is just the latest bit of evidence that I am one of the four people left in America without a slice of the internet to call my own. All of the boards I frequent have posters whose signatures lead to their own blogs, proudly inviting internet strangers to peruse their thoughts, their lives, at will. Having clicked the links to many a blog, I've found that your life really doesn't need to be that exciting to be documented. In fact, some of the blogs I've seen are people just cutting and pasting random crap from websites, and posting it to their blog. I can think of one particular poster on a baby/parenting website that I frequent who literally just cuts and pastes celebrity baby announcements for her blog. I take this as proof that if I ever run out of things to say about my own life, I can easily substitute someone else's.

Finally, boredom. I am currently on maternity leave, and I am lucky enough to have a generally easy baby who sleeps a decent amount during the day. This leaves me a chunk of time to fend for myself, and while daytime TV generally fills that void, sometimes there's just nothing on.

So here we are. And maybe in 3 months, this blog will have gone the way of my son's baby book (currently buried somewhere in our bottomless storage unit). Maybe I'll be posting here every day, leaving some sort of record of my little family that my kids can look back on. Time will tell, I guess. If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading. If you didn't get this far, you'll unfortunately never read the names I'll call you, so I won't waste my time writing them down.