Reasons why I haven't been blogging lately...

Its been two months today that I wrote the last entry on this little piece of the internet. I needed the break! If you know me at all you know that I DON'T LIKE CHANGE!!! I hate it and if you don't know me well, then I most certainly don't want you to watch me hate it while I'm in the middle of being miserable. So while we moved, I kept silent to many so that I could maintain some level of decorum here in my little corner of the interwebs and so that I could have time to process how I really feel about the whole thing before I regurgitate my feelings about it all here. What I can say for certain is that I certain don't hate it here in the land just north of Syracuse, but it isn't winter yet and I reserve the right to change my mind when the lake effect snow arrives in full force. I quite like it here actually, except for that pesky part where all of the awesome family support that I enjoyed so much is just too far away for the emergency swoop in for back up support. The area is cute, there are tons of things around and we aren't far at all from Syracuse where there are even more things to do. The restaurant scene is pretty decent, but being spoiled in Boston with an almost unlimited amount of online takeout options, the eat in scene here is nothing short of pathetic...one major adjustment to get over. The town house is really nice in terms of what we have seen at a lot of other rental properties around the area. The quality of the place is very nice even if the size is a bit minimal. My position has been a nice transition for me. I really needed a new work plan. All research all the time was not the right fit for me. For the moment it is all teaching all the time, but hopefully once I get my initial semester of all new courses to prep and teach, I will be able to find the right balance. My work colleagues are absolutely great, lovely people who have all made me feel very welcome. The students are students...undergrads who may or may not be afflicted with a "the world revolves around me" complex, but there are a few great ones who have made it fun. Noah has finally begun to settle into his new daycare setting. We picked another family based daycare with an ex-preschool teacher, Miss Lori. There are 3 other boys, one only a couple months younger than Noah, his 1 year old brother, and Noah's new best bud Owen who is 16 months or so. It was a UGLY transition and there were many weeks there where I wondered what I had done to our happy, nicely functioning routine, and man did we ever (still do) miss Nana Lou! Once the school schedule started though and we got into a regular routine, things settled nicely and he seems to really like it there during the days. We still have mornings of listening to the little guy announce that he isn't going to Miss Lori's house today, but they are getting less frequent and significantly less insistent. I must say, I still miss Nana Lou in ways I will never be able to express, but we are hobbling along for now unscathed. So as you can imagine its been a whirlwind couple of months for us, months I will never be able to fully catch up on in this blog format. But what I can do is provide a list of all of the reasons why I haven't blogged for the last 2 months...

• packing, unpacking, & cleaning...pretty much covers everything
• we still don't have functioning health insurance even though we will theoretically have coverage retroactively through Tim's work until my coverage picks up in mid-October
• we are on attempt 3 to register my car in this state and we still have yet to be successful...thanks MA for not having hard copies of titles...thanks NY for requiring titles for cars still under payment (even though most other states don't), thanks JP Morgan Chase for continuing to accept our car payments even though you can't manage to produce an accurately addressed permission to register letter
• did I mention the part where I had to start a new job doing something completely different. I now have no time for research since I am teaching 3 sections of 2 different new courses that I have never taught before
• I am now responsible for the drama of 116 undergraduate students, some of whom suffer from a terrible disease known as the "what do you mean I'm not the center of your universe-itis"
• that pesky part of starting a new job known as social networking. I'm the new kid (one of 2 thankfully), so everyone wants to say Hi, introduce themselves, and make sure I haven't spontaneously combusted yet. Love all the new colleagues, but I don't intend on combusting any time soon, thankyouverymuch!
• we spend our weekends trying to find fun things to do to get out of the house and to convince ourselves (okay mainly me) that this is a nice long-term location and we can settle here and not do this again.
• did I mention the part about prepping 2 new courses. I lost count of how many nights I have been up until midnight prepping lectures for the next day only to be up at 6am to be out of the door and on the road in time bright and early.

Yeah, things have been crazy... not much time or motivation in the blogging department, but I am hoping that once I finish this first semester of chaotic prepping and I am teaching the same classes again next semester, we'll have more room to breathe and will have more fun to share and update here.

Mommy time didn't work out like I wanted it

Way back in April when I got my official job offer, my boss was kind enough to give me a gift certificate to a local spa for an herbal facial. The spa had been rated as having the best facials in the city for 3 years running and touted themselves as being one of the few places in the area to offer 100% natural ingredients for all of their spa products. I did a bit of reading up on the owner/founder and she has a degree in biochemistry and trained in Russian as an aesthetician. The write ups all claim that if you are looking for a facial, she is the woman to see.

I was excited about the prospect of a couple of hours of "me" time. The boys were back at home, both napping and not missing me in the least. The initial plan was to park the car, get the facial, and then walk the block down the street to do a bit of bead shopping for a project I have in the works. As usual, parking was an issue. There were a shortage of spaces and all the ones I saw open had 2 hour limits. I hadn't a clue how long this whole process would take, plus I had gotten there a bit early to avoid a harried rush right before my relaxation time. So I sucked it up and parked in the garage below the Marriott and ended up paying $8 for under 3 hours of parking (and no time for bead shopping mind you). I got to the spa, after a great deal of aimless walking around trying to find the right place, with about 15 minutes to spare. About 40 minutes later I finally got taken back to my little room. I got myself situated and comfy and the woman comes in and asks what I hope to get out of this facial. I said I would love some relaxation time and an exfoliation. Her remark back was that "facials here are not time to relax, we will get you clean, but you may not like it!" DEAR LORD, what did I get myself into???

No one warned me, or perhaps I should have asked first before scheduling, but facials are not all that they are cut out to be. I was under the movie screen false impression that you got to lay down with cucumbers over your eyes while some lovely individual gently rubbed your face and neck. I thought I would be walking out glowing and feeling like a million bucks. Not.So.Much. I got something akin to the cucumbers, I got a bit of the cleaning and some pathetic attempt at the exfoliation, and then I got the pain, lots of the pain. The lovely woman turned into a sadistic freak and proceeded to squeeze every offensive looking pore until my shoulders shook and a solitary tear escaped from one of my eyes from the shear volume of pain she was inflicting. Not fun, not relaxing, where did I go wrong? After my pores met with her approval, she proceeded to lecture me that all of the facial cleaning products that I use are terrible for my skin, that I eat too much dairy, and should seriously thing about going 100% organic for all of my foods. Well, thank you for the life lessons, but can I go now? I got my deep cleaning mask and a bit of a massage and walked out the door with white crusty dots of 100% organic skin healer on my face because she had inflicted so much damage. I had a headache for the rest of the day and half of the next and I am still working on (and will be for a few more days) healing up some of leftover spots where she was particularly aggressive. Now, don't get me wrong, my face is clean, my pores are spotless, and I haven't felt this smooth in years, but was it worth the pain? Good thing it was a gift certificate!

It has hit the fan people

All of it, every last bit. I am so overwhelmed with the practicals and hypotheticals of this whole move that I am not even sure where to begin expressing myself. I just know that today was NOT a good day. I have listed a small portion of my issues with this day below, feel free to tranquilizer dart me and wake me up when this whole thing has blown over.

• Noah was in an offensive and foul mood this morning and it all began over a banana. Yes, a piece of fruit ruined an otherwise lovely morning. He wanted it NOW! I kindly requested that he wait until we get to Nannie Lou's house so that I wouldn't have to clean up smooshed banana in the carpet, off the couch, in my car, etc. Noah's world ended at that moment and I was made VERY aware of that fact. I had given him a small bag of Kix cereal to tide him over since I had kindly asked to delay the banana 20 minutes. To protest the injustices in his life, Noah calmly took the bag of cereal into his bedroom and when I went in to try and get him dressed for the day he opened the top of the bag, looked right at me and then violently shook the bag creating something akin of a mushroom cloud of Kix spraying through the air and peppering his entire bedroom. I don't know how I managed to prevent my head from exploding clear off my neck, but I kept it together long enough to get him in the time out chair for a chill out break.
• It was just at that moment that I heard the unmistakable sound of the garbage truck that wasn't supposed to come until tomorrow (July 5th was a holiday, no???). With a half dressed screaming toddler still fuming in the time out chair, I ran out of the house with stringy wet hair and threw the trash bins by the curb with about 30 seconds to spare.
• After much wailing and protest, an abrupt end to his Curious George episode (as his behavior had not earned him any privileges), I was ready to get out the door. Unfortunately, Noah had a different idea and pulled the ever popular limp noodle routine. When it was clear I was winning, he decided to switch things up and go stiff as a board. We left the house with Noah over my shoulder kicking and screaming, it was a lovely sight to behold. Keep in mind, I had tried reasoning with him, I had tried speaking calmly, reasoning with him. There was no peace to be had this morning, none.
• The work plan is to try and finish up writing 2 manuscripts before I pack up my office and leave the lab at the end of the first week of August. It will probably happen, but my sanity may or may not suffer significant impairments as a result. Just today, I sat at my desk and ran analysis after analysis on 3 different data sets that are supposed to all be published together. After 10 hours, no lunch, and the clock indicating that it was almost 7pm, all of the numbers started looking wrong and I decided to head home to the boys. I had been working all day, but still hadn't managed to finish my section and pass it off.
• Tim met with a moving company rep today to work on a quote. Nothing official has been passed on, but it was made unclear that our belongings may or may not fit into the largest sized moving truck that will fit down our excessively narrow road. They were willing to charge us twice as much to go with 2 smaller trucks, or to use a smaller truck to transport things to a larger truck (not able to fit down our ridiculously small street). The parting option from the ever helpful man we will most certainly not be hiring was that we could always gamble on one smaller truck and then decide as they were loading it what we would be leaving behind...um, does he actually succeed in making a living with that technique?? If so, I am underwhelmed and we will be finding another option thank you very much.

So, in sum I could use a few more hours added to the day, more than a few more feet added to the width of our street, a few less tantrums on the part of the short statured person that lives here, and that tranquilizer dart would be nice too! Help anyone?

Happy early 4th, on the 1st!

As much as we would love to go party with the rest of the city and celebrate the 4th of July at the Hatch Shell with the Pops and quite possibly some of the nation's best fireworks, I just can't see dragging out a toddler in the middle of the HUGE crowds to wait for fireworks to start at 10:30 at night and then fight the same crowds to make our way home. Just not practical these days unfortunately. So as not to miss the celebration, we headed up the street to Somerville's block party and fireworks display last night, on the 1st.

The block party was hopping, a little too hopping for the little man. But, let's face it, there were all kinds of emergency vehicles to check out, and even a few to sit in, so Noah was good to go!! He got to check out the big fire truck, twice, and a police SUV with its lights flashing, a couple of ambulances, lots of police men on their bikes, and the paddy wagon in case things got out of hand I guess!

Some how the little man let the fire man pick him up and put him in the front seat (probably because he was so excited about getting to sit in the front seat while most of the other kids were stuck in the back!). He was very impressed...

He did manage to give the fire man the stick eye though. Apparently, it is totally okay to metaphorically bite the hand that feeds you" when you are of a toddler persuasion. Can't you just hear him in his little head telepathically telling the nice fire fighter to to "back the crap up."

Once the fire man got the hint that he was a little to far into Noah's personal space (which has a WIDE berth for many people at the moment), he was back to checking the place out and asking what all the buttons did. This would have been a good moment to make friends with the fire man since Mommy hadn't a clue what the buttons did, but perhaps that lesson will be learned another day.

After all of the emergency vehicles had been properly checked out, it was time to wait around for the fireworks to start. Noah managed to get himself his first obnoxious light up toy, which, in reality is a plastic magic wand with LED lights, but since he is a boy, he decided to make it a poker of all things "innocent and minding their own business" (mainly Mommy & Daddy, but occasionally a small patch of weeds).

Once the fireworks actually started, Noah ceased with the violence and was transfixed. I was a bit worried that he wouldn't really appreciate the loud noise, but he loved the whole thing and we ended up staying through the VERY loud and impressive finale. He was a bit exhausted by the end, but we made it home and ready for bed without much trauma.

I'm sure Noah will be long asleep when the real Boston fireworks go off this weekend, but at least he got a taste of the holiday celebrations and enjoyed the party!

My first tagging!

Hey there, will you look at that...I have been tagged! This is a small feat I must say since my blog is not listed in google. You can only get to it if I have given you the address or if you are linked here from a friend's blog. Beth from Ted, Beth, Kate, & Teddy has tagged me and I am "it!" Here are the rules as I was handed them (so to speak).

• Go to the 8th folder in which you store your photos
• Select the 8th photo
• Post it to your blog and tell the story behind it.
• After following the above instructions, you are ‘supposed’ to tag 8 other bloggers

Okay, well I have had to "adjust" to the rules a bit since I store my photos in a slightly over organized fashion. I have level 1 folders for the year_month, then within each of those, I have level 2 folders for the day the photos were taken, and within each of these are the actual folders. So I just extrapolated a bit and went into the 8th folder, and the 8th folder within that folder, and the 8th photo in there! Make sense, it doesn't really to me either!! Anyway, here is the picture:



This is from April 15, 2008 (see my over organization pays off sometimes!!). I had been back to work for about a month and a half at that point and was doing my pumping at work each day and bringing home the results to send with the little man at the sitter's house the next day. Noah got ahold of one of the bottles before I had a chance to store and label it and was desperately trying to bust into it and have a little snack on the contents. He kept looking at me very confused as to why I wasn't willing to fork the good stuff over. Poor little guy, he was so tiny....and SO BALD!!!

I am going to have to gracefully bow out of most of the passing along the tag to others, since the bloggers I would be comfortable with tagging have already been tagged and the other blogs I read aren't written by people I know well enough to tag, but I will tag 1 soul who I would love to see more pictures from.

Nicole from Nicole's Weekly takes gorgeous pictures, so hopefully she will be willing to keep this going for at least another day or so! Have fun, and thanks Beth for the tag!

Mean people suck

And while we haven't found many of them in our travels in upstate New York so far, we have found a couple of doozies. We headed upstate to look for housing and interview daycare providers, and get some paperwork done on campus, and give Tim a chance to interview a couple places before we actually move in August. It was an enormously stressful long weekend with high stakes involved. When we moved up to Boston, there was always the back up of our family up in Maine, which is only an hour and a half from here. Worse case scenario and we didn't find an apartment, family could look at places for us if we set up appointments, or we could crash up there for a brief period while we finished the search. We also didn't have a little person depending on us for routine and consistency and a sense of normalcy. Talk about feeling the pressure!! When we set out for the road Friday afternoon, we had 5 appointments for housing viewings, 3 appointments with day care providers, and 2 interviews set up for Tim. We ended up physically entering 2 places and doing a drive by "oh heck no" of a third place. The other two...not so much. First, there was the jerk who hung up on us Sunday morning as we were getting ready to confirm our second viewing of the day. In our research for rental property (which is easier said than done in an area like central NY), we have been very upfront about the fact that a) we are moving from Boston, b) we were only going to be in town for one long weekend prior to the move, and c) we have 3 cats and they WILL be moving with us. The confirmation call went something like this...

Tim: Hi, my name is Tim, we spoke previously about the townhouse on blah, blah Street in (suburb of Syracuse) and I just wanted to confirm our viewing of the place at noon.

Jerk: Oh right yeah. Do you have any family? (this info was emailed multiple times)

Tim: Um yes, I will be moving in with my wife and 2 and half year old son.

Jerk: When did you want to move in?

Tim: We are hoping for an August 1st start date on a lease. (also discussed previously)

Jerk: Do you have any pets? (this was also discussed on multiple occasions previously)

Tim: Yes, we have 3 very well-behaved indoor-only cats.

Jerk: Oh right, I remember you saying that....CLICK

The Jerk hung up on us without confirming our appointment. There was fabulous cell signal the entire route to that area from our hotel. This was so NOT a dropped call, this was a situation where he clearly had other interested people who didn't have pets and we lost out because of our love of fur. I cry discrimination, but regardless..

Cross one off the list.

One of the other town houses, in the downtown area, not far from campus was to put it mildly not the type of place we were interested in calling home. Not only was the "backyard" closer to a trash heap, but the inside was to put it mildly...derelict and completely disgusting.

Cross two off the list.

We had a similar feeling about another place, this one a single-family home close to the down town, but a couple miles away from campus. We had been having a little bit of difficulty getting in touch with the property owner, but we finally got the address Sunday evening and stopped by to scope out the outside of it on the way out to dinner. Suffice it to say that we found a polite way out of that viewing. It was a repeat performance of the previous viewing, derelict and disgusting, again.

Cross three off the list.

My personal favorite, however, the even bigger jerk who we have been in touch with for almost 2 months. This was supposed to be for a single family home about 30 miles east of campus. We were lined up to look at it early afternoon on Sunday. When Tim pulled up his email to grab the phone number to confirm the viewing, he pulled up a message that essentially indicated that the owner of the single-family home we had intended to view that afternoon had gotten in touch with an old friend. Said old friend had offered his house as a down payment for our potential rental house in question and owner in question said "and well, we have decided to go with that plan." As in sorry for you peeps, too bad if you were hoping to rent this place, we have a ghetto deal in the works and you two are out of luck. Our first choice housing option has now left us high and dry.

Cross four off the list.

Thankfully, we did look at a great town house in the cute suburb north of Syracuse on a little cul-de-sac. Its a bit smaller than we were initially hoping for, but it was immaculately well-cared for and had the requisite 3 bedrooms, so by default it will be ours for the next year. Since the university is not reimbursing for our move and Boston is expensive to live in, we can't make another trip out there to look again, not that there are many additional options for 3 bedroom places, where cats are not discriminated against. Most of what is out there is in Syracuse itself and that is too far south for my commute.

It seems like it will all work out in the end, no thanks to the couple of jerks who managed to screw us over during our visit to the area. Thankfully, the daycare search was much more positive and very low stress. The woman I connected best with during my phone interviews, did indeed turn out to be a peach and is being very flexible with our chaotic move out there schedule. Let's hope we manage to have similar luck with Tim's employment situation. Think optimistic thoughts!

It started off so innocently

Last we went up to Maine to relax for Father's day and to hopefully have some family fun. The initial plan was to leave Friday early afternoon to make it in time for a Portland Sea Dogs game. It was slated to be Noah's 2nd baseball game, and his first since he has started having an opinion about things. We have no pictures of this event, why, because it NEVER HAPPENED! Friday morning, the little man woke up throwing up (again!). We never managed to get breakfast in him, but the juice we got in came back to visit. By lunch time he was interested in some toast and juice and that all stayed where it belonged as he collapsed in a heap of sick exhaustion on the couch. Everything looked good when he woke up from his nap so we chanced it and packed up the car and headed out. All was well until the border of New Hampshire when I heard a terrible noise from the back seat...one I hope to never hear again. The end result was a big mess to say the least at 70 mph and a 45 minute clean-up attempt at the NH Welcome Center. An experience I could never experience again and it would be too soon!

Flash forward to Saturday morning and all is well with the world again. No sign of illness other than a less than stellar appetite and so we headed to the beach to do some relaxing. Tim dug a hole, Noah got in it, then Noah spent the rest of the day trying to fill it with the ocean. Thankfully, it wasn't until we were starting to think about packing up to head back for nap time when the worst possible thing happened...seaweed touched Noah!!!! The end of the world came and there was no more ocean for the little dude. He still wanted to play, he still wanted to fill up his bucket with water, but on the way down to the water, he dramatically steps around the bits washed up on the sand. And when he reached the edge of the water, he was to be picked up immediately. What a nut! While his reaction was certainly hilarious, I can say that I understand the creep factor.

We had a nice dinner out Saturday evening to celebrate Father's day with some great seafood, but by Sunday morning when we were supposed to head out to take Noah to the local amusement park, whatever Noah had on Friday was now firmly in my possession. Thankfully, the weather was beautiful and there were Memere & Pepere back-ups on hand to do the heavy lifting while I tried to find the life that had been sucked out of me.

Noah played with the hose in the driveway and helped to water Memere's plants.

It all started out so innocently. He "watered" Mommy's car...

Then he decided to try and figure out where the water comes out from

And you can see where this is going....

Yep, a hose spray in the face. It all happened so fast that just as the words "Noah, turn the nozzle around buddy" came out of my mouth, it was too late. He was not impressed, but it all started out so innocently.

All is well that end well though and since Tim offered for Noah to help him wash Mommy's car, every thing was right with the world again

And then Uncle Tim and Hunter took him for a ride in Mommy's old wagon. It doesn't get better than that!

Happy Wedding Alisha & Chris

Last weekend, amongst all of the illness craziness we had going on with poor Noah, we managed to make it down to Connecticut to celebrate with Alisha & Chris as they got married. I have been working with Alisha for the last three years and can say that she and Chris are perfect for each other! We wish them lots of love and happiness, they had a beautiful day that would have only been more fun if Noah hadn't been slightly under the weather.

The ceremony itself was outside in a beautiful park and while short, it was so meaningful and special for them. After the ceremony, we blew bubbles for the happy couple. Noah tried, but I think that he ate more bubble solution than he managed to get in bubble form. Its a work in progress! :)

On the way back to the car, Noah and Daddy munched on each other's necks to pass the time!

We attempted a size up in the shirt after we discovered that his shirt from Aunt Marian and Uncle Chris' wedding wouldn't stay tucked in. Sadly, even with a bigger shirt, we never managed to get a shirt to stay tucked in. In my next life, I am making a dress shirt with a onesie bottom so it will actually stay in those pants! But he looked regardless!

Poor little guy wasn't feeling 100%, so he certainly didn't cut a rug little the dancing fool he was down in Charlotte, but we did manage to get in the conga line action!


Congratulations Alisha & Chris, hope you are having a wonderful time in Europe on your honeymoon and thanks for inviting us to celebrate with you!

Memorial day around town

Its been a long week around here what with the Noah health crisis, which is thankfully, quite finished. We now have a fully functioning 2 year old with his usual attitude and appetite. It may take him a while to get rid of the bruise on his hand from the IV and to gain back the weight I am sure he lost through all that mess, but we are back in business on that front at least. With that behind us, now I can try to catch up on some of the blog posts I have been wanting to write.

Over the Memorial day holiday weekend, although Tim has to work for most of it, he has Saturday off and so we had a little cookout with some family and decided to head into the city and enjoy the weather. One of my email newsletters informed me that the carousel on the Commons was open, so we decided that might be a fun thing to let Noah try out.

The little dude wasn't so sure what to think of the whole thing when the ride first started. He hid his little face in his arms and held on tight.

Eventually though, he decided that riding the horsey was indeed a lot of fun. He was waving and smiling at his peeps each and every time around. I think he was a little sad when it ended.

After the carousel, the initial idea was to head over to the playground on the other side of the Frog Pond, but given the holiday weekend, it seemed that everyone else had the same exact idea. The place was swarming with kids and much older kids...kids who weren't being tolerant (or careful) of the smallest members of the crowd. Within 5 minutes of arriving, Noah got hip checked while trying to cross a little bridge on the play structure and I had to grab him before he fell through the side and hit the ground 3 feet below. Never been so glad to have joined him that time up there! Needless to say, I had a few words for the little punk (I mean delightful, yet over excited little boy) that nearly tossed him over board. Also needless to say, we didn't stay for a repeat performance at the playground, so we decided to head to the Public Gardens across the street and go to check out the swan boats.

But first Memere thought it would be a good idea to get Noah a balloon hat. Of course his doggie hat was quite the hit and even managed to survive the kitties at home until it deflated due to natural causes (may it rest in peace!).

"Hey Mommy, check out what I has on my head!"

There were a couple of weddings at the Gardens when we were strolling through...I forgot how beautiful that side of the street is. I hope we get a chance to visit again before we head out of town. We watched the swan boats from the bridge and Noah went down below to walk under the bridge and get a better look at the boats. It was all very exciting you know! The highlight of the day, however, was Memere's supreme photography skills, which landed us an updated family picture that I am quite pleased about. Everyone is smiling and looking in the right direction...go us!

Incidentally, while Tim was working on Sunday and Monday, Noah and I spent the mornings at a local spray park where Noah continued his role as a target of random acts of violence. An unsupervised little girl, maybe 4 or 5 years old, came running up to Noah in the middle of the park and actually tackled him to the ground, as in full contact football tackle. she didn't stop at that either, once she got him down, she made it her mission to pin him down as hard as she could and not let him up. I was appalled and it took me and another helpful (but in no other way involved) mother to remove her death grip from poor Noah. In the meantime, Noah is alternating between stunned silence an screaming for help. Thankfully, the second little punk (I have no nice alternative names for her) didn't hurt him physically and Noah was physically no worse for the wear. He is, however, a bit scarred from the take down and he mentions it still, over a week later, with some concern. Hopefully it won't ruin our future trips to cool off at the playground.

What's your thing chicken wing?

We've had a rough couple of days in the health department around here. When I wrote last week about the Mommy guilt, I wasn't prepared for it to hit a whole new level. Suffice it to say that I am wishing that I had stayed home with Noah on Friday. Of course he was looking like he felt great that morning and was acting completely fine. By afternoon however, he was a hot mess of a little man who had spent the day clinging to Nana Lou and just not creating the usual amount of Noah havoc and entertainment. By Saturday late morning he had hit a fever of 101 again and was looking pretty bad. Some motrin and a good nap had him feeling better for the rest of the day, with only a couple of scary looking diapers throughout the whole day. Unfortunately, Sunday brought more hostile conditions for the little guy. Overnight there was some throwing up, some sleeping with Mommy and Daddy and lots of cuddles. By morning though we were starting up a losing battle with the diarrhea. The poor little guy had so much of it that we were starting to wonder how to clean it up without tearing up his little bottom. At about this time was when he decided to stop eating, drinking, and the little of either he did resulted in the reappearance of what ever made it down. He actually even fell asleep for his afternoon nap on the change table while we were trying to redress him from a quick shower attempt to clean him up a bit, which is NOT something this child ever does.

With a terrible ominous feeling, I got on the phone with the pediatrician's on call nurses line, who confirmed that it was indeed time to throw in the metaphorical towel and drive him to the ER at Children's Hospital downtown. That was one place I was hoping to never see the inside of prior to our departure from the area. Nothing against what turned out to be a lovely staff of people, but who wishes for that sort of experience? Noah ended up with a severe enough case of dehydration and low blood sugar that the doctor recommended that they give him a dose of anti-nausea medications and get an IV started to help the little man feel better. What could have been a traumatic experience for everyone was made only slightly uncomfortable with the extreme distractionary measures taken by Robyn of the Child Life Specialist staff the and IV starting ninja skills of the nursing staff. A really exciting toy with spinning flashing lights took Noah's mind off of things at exactly the time that the IV needle was inserted and he let out one tiny whimper and he was back to showing us that he could press the button to turn it off an on! Amazing work, amazing people, we can't begin to thank them for making everything so much easier.

Over the course of the next 3 hours, Noah ended up needing to get 2 IV bolus' (250 mL each) of fluids and then a half an hour of maintenance or so...that's over 16 ounces of liquid replaced. We relaxed and cuddled and talked about how cool his new "chicken wing" was. He wanted to know why he had a kicken wing and we told him his hand needed a drink since he had been feeling so sick. He thought it was kind of silly that his hand was drinking, but it didn't really convince him that perhaps if he drank by mouth that he might feel better. While we were hanging out waiting for the IV pump to do its work, we managed to get one popsicle in him and finally managed to find one confirmed wet diaper for the day. By the time we left the ER department, we finally had a little man who was asking to be let go so he could play in the hopistal. We thought we were out of the woods, sadly we were mistaken.

This morning he looked decent, asked for something to drink and liked the idea of some dry cereal. He begged for an hour or so to go out for a walk, so I decided a little fresh air wouldn't hurt. I strapped him in the stroller and headed out to check out the construction progress on our favorite playground (still not quite done yet). Before noon he was already out cold in the stroller and after returning home, I parked the stroller in the back yard and waiting for him to wake up on his own. He slept for two and a half hours and woke up looking pretty pathetic. After a good drink from his sippy cup and a couple of crackers, all of our progress was lost and it all came back up. We managed to get a dose of anti-nausea medication in and Noah collapsed on the closest lap and went from "perhaps he doesn't look so good" to "perhaps we need to head back to the hospital again???" I got back on the phone with the pediatrician's office and consulted with Charlie, the best nurse we have yet to encounter. It was decided that we had done almost everything that we could and chances were we would probably need to bring him back in to Children's. Charlie said to try teaspoonfuls of koolaid every 10-15 minutes and see if we could get it to stay down. If not, then pack a bag and head downtown as it was high odds the little man would be admitted. Hoping for the best, we managed to get teaspoon after teaspoon into him with little protest and no vomiting. He isn't well, but he isn't admitted to hospital either! I can't say we are out of the woods yet, but here's hoping we are heading in the right direction!

My touching trucks!!!

So, since today was a sick day for the little dude and I was remarkably productive during the marathon nap, I figured I would take a bit of time this evening to try and play a bit of blog posting catch up. A couple of weekends ago there was a fundraising event for a nursery school I had never heard of in a small town about 40 miles outside of the city. Now, I realize thus far, this is bearing little relevance to our lives, but there is a connection, I promise.

This is Noah, you are familiar I am sure by now. I am sure you also are EXCEEDINGLY well aware that this child LOVES trucks. He is a man about his vehicles and he is nondiscriminatory I must say. If it has wheels and preferably makes LOTS of NOISE, then he is all about it. So back to Noah, did you know he liked trucks?????

Being his parents, we are well aware of this small fact. Noah LIKES trucks. He sings about how much he likes trucks, he lives for rides in the car so that he can scope out all of the different trucks on the road with us, his days revolve around when we can next take another walk so that he can visit the nearby construction sites, or see the trucks drive by. (I personally want to thank all of the sweet drivers of said trucks who have waved, beeped, or chatted with Noah as he drooled over your respective vehicle. Thank you for your patience and kindness, and for helping to make one little boys day over and over and over again).

Anyway, back to the 40 mile drive to support a nursery school we have never heard of (and still can't remember the name of even as I sit here typing). Their idea for a fundraiser was a beginning of summer festival complete with fried dough, a bouncy house, and a touch-a-truck event. I think Noah completely died and went to heaven!

He had a chance to sit in every.single.truck they had parked there. He waited in line patiently for his turn at each vehicle. He beeped every.single.horn he could get his hands on.

He sat in bucket loaders and admired the wheels

He looked extremely tiny in one of the largest front end loaders I have seen with my own eyes

But mostly, he was a two year old boy, marveling at the awesomeness of it all and loving every.single.minute!

Incidentally, after we came home, the event left such an impression on him that he said to me in his sweet little voice, "Mommy my see trucks, my touch trucks today, that was VERY nice!"

One facet of mommy guilt

If I am like most other mothers out there, I find it all too easy to find ways of mentally torturing myself with self-inflicted mommy guilt. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people in the universe who will be all to willing to pile on some external versions of the mommy guilt, but it seems to me that I have always been the single person most effective in piling it on at the exact moment when I need it the least. Take for example today.

Today was a sick day, I was home with Noah attempting to decide if he was truly sick or if he had merely overheated himself the night before what with all of the blankets he has taken to piling on his head in the middle of the night. I am going with sick since the motrin kicked in and he fell back to sleep soundly at 4 am after a mid-night sick call, a wardrobe change, a bedding change, and a load of laundry started (all the while Tim laid in bed waiting to be fed instructions...um, general rule, if I am not back in 2 minutes, come help, it is probably needed...love you sweetie!). He slept in this morning, which is something Noah has not graced us with in weeks, this morning was unusually late though, almost 9 am, item # 2 in favor of the sick. We laid low and I strolled him quietly around the neighborhood so we could check out the trucks and other such vehicles. When we got back for lunch he had spiked a fever again, 101.2. Nothing dangerous, but with no motrin on board, I literally watched the energy drain right out of him. Some lunch, a little medication, a lot of juice, and a 4 hour nap made for a much happier and energetic Noah this evening, but when I checked him again just before dinner he was at just over 100 degrees. Now I am in the mommy-guilt inducing predicament wherein I try to decide whether or not to send him off to Nana Lou's tomorrow. The vomiting was a one time occurrence and even without fever-reducers on board, the highest we saw was about 101. He acted fine, ate well, and hasn't been any more clingy or needy than usual this evening. I am leaning toward sending him and hoping for the best given that half of Wednesday's workday was spent waiting for the construction vehicles to evacuate our driveway and now all of today (save the 4 hour nap) was spent home with a sick dude. The problem lies in the fact that this is one of those decisions that there is no right answer until after the fact...and oh how I hate playing the Monday morning quarterback game. If I send him and he is fine all day, then we are golden right? If I send him and he spikes a fever halfway through the day, then I spend the next few days wondering if I should have kept him home and if he would have gotten better faster if he had been home resting with me. Oh, and then there is the additional layer of guilt when I am left wondering if I sent a contagious little dude to spread his germs to the other two unsuspecting short people at Nana's Lou's. Finally, there is the line of logic wherein I keep the child home and spend the day trying to keep him rested and hydrated all the while he acts completely healthy, never spikes a fever, and is bouncing off the walls all day trying to figure out why Mommy won't let him have any fun...resulting in me feeling guilty for not spending the day working since I actually have things that need to be done in that realm. Just for a little additional frustration, this weekend we are scheduled to be heading to Connecticut for a friend's wedding, Noah included, and he has been talking about pulling out his dancing shoes for the last 2 weeks. If he is sick longer because I sent him when I shouldn't have and he misses the wedding festivities, it will be too sad for me to bare. We are cutting it close with the timing, he could be fine, he could be a mess, only the Monday morning quarterback will be able to tell me how it all turned out, and have I mentioned how I hate that guy???

What little boy's dreams are made of

Backhoes, jack hammers, dump trucks, and a vacuum cleaner truck. That's what little boys dreams are made of. Noah's dream came true this morning when all of the above pulled onto our street directly in front of our house. They have been firmly planted there for the last two hours (much to my chagrin since our cars are firmly pinned into our driveway!). There was a VERY deep pot hole in front of the driveway that had been blocked off by a construction cone for the last week or so. The cone itself had been a source of quite a bit of entertainment, with the little man announcing repeatedly to anyone who would listen (Hi Uncle Tim!) if someone had dared to knock the cone off the "hooooooooole." That is as far as the saga had gone until this morning when the parade of trucks (otherwise known as entertainment in the form of your tax dollars at work) pulled up the street this morning.

First there was the jack hammer that cut out the opening for the hole. Then the backhoe pulled up to dig out the pavement and the dirt underneath. While that was taking place, Noah was officially blowing a little baby gasket. He jumped up and down and screamed excitedly the blow-by-blow report. Too much! He made friends with the police officer that was supervising the work site and impressed everyone with his in depth knowledge about all of the various vehicles. The construction show lasted for at least 2 hours, until the men decided to take a break and start chatting on their cell phones and hang out in the hole not doing much. Typical to put in 2 hours of work and call it good, even if there was a car-sized hole in the road. Hopefully they have filled it in by the time I get back from work. Unfortunately though, Noah will have to find another source of entertainment!

The pool is out!

We had some beautiful weather this weekend and with Daddy at work and a trip to the park already taken in the morning, Noah and I spent the afternoon playing with his little pool in the back yard. Just as he did last year, Noah spent almost all of the time outside of the pool, playing with toys from the outside, but hopefully by the end of the summer he will figure out that really hot days warrant a little bottom to be plopped in the water.

For now though, since its the first pool play of the season, we'll let him do it his way...spraying water from the hose to fill up the pool all "by MYsef"


Crouching on the outside playing with his toys in the water. Watering the water in the pool with one's watering can is THE thing to do, didn't you know?


Eyeballing Mommy suspiciously when she actually suggests that its more fun IN the pool than outside.


Then you can always ditch the pool entirely and just play with the hose. Time to fill up and dump out water from the back of the little dump truck...fill up, dump out....fill up, dump out...it never gets old!


And after all that play, its important to hydrate. I love this picture, its the eyes that get me.

Nice weather brings us outside

The weather is finally starting to change for the better. We are getting multiple beautiful days in a row and we have been able to go outside and enjoy it. There have been almost daily walks to one park or another and a ton of time outside in the back yard. With the chaos of April behind us, Tim and I were finally able to get out to cut the grass and clean up the back patio for summer fun. Noah's playhouse has been up for a couple of weeks, but with the mess that it was back there, we hadn't gotten around to playing.

Needless to say, Noah was very happy to see his outdoor toys back from the depths of their winter basement hibernation! He figured out very quickly all of his favorite spots and opened up the gas station so his police cruiser wouldn't run out of fuel on any of those high speed chases through the yard.

It was as if he picked up where he left off from last summer. He made faces at us from all of the different windows.

He continued his favorite backyard game of strolling behind each chair and poking the occupant through the spaces and then laughing hysterically when they yell "Hey! Whatchu doing back there?"


Its a fun game, it doesn't get old (for him at least!)!!

Wow, I wish I had known

I know there has been a great deal of debate back and forth lately between pediatricians and parents and between parents and other parents about how long to leave children rear-facing in a car seat. This video gives a whole other dimension to the argument though. I honestly have to say that not long after Noah turned a year old, I was excited to turn that seat around. I wanted to be able to chat with him and for him to see the world from my perspective, so we could talk about the same things. What I didn't realize is that out of interest for our conversations, I could have been putting him at risk. I don't want to get preachy and start judging other people, but I watched this video and got very emotional envisioning the crash test baby as my own little man and it scared me...a lot. Its a fairly moot point now given that Noah is quickly approaching the rear-facing weight limit of 35 pounds in his "moo cow" Britax, but it will certainly color the way I approach things the next time around. That forward-facing milestone won't be quite so important for me next time. I can't imagine how I would feel if something had happened, if there had been an accident, and I had found this out afterwards. I am thankful that isn't the case, but also mindful that I certainly don't have this parenting thing totally figured out and there will be things I change next time around.

The teeth and their arch enemy...the toothbrush

Noah's thoughts every night minutes before some lovely stories...

Honestly, is there anything as insulting in life as a toothbrush coming after your teeth??? I mean really, who honestly wants clean teeth anyway? What's the point, they are just going to get dirty again in the near future.

Mommy's perspective, aka the view of those of us with emotion regulation abilities and personal hygiene standards...

I can't understand it. I don't remember when I started routinely brushing my own teeth, it was so long ago that I don't remember learning the process. I certainly don't remember ever loving the whole thing, but it was not worth the battle every day that's for sure.

Yet, for Noah, we wage the battle every.single.day. You'd think it would be less of a fight as the weeks and months wear on. You'd think he would eventually realize that this is a necessary part of the bedtime routine and just get it over with as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, Noah has chosen a different path...he has gone for a "fight to the death" approach to this form of oral care. It now takes Tim and I together to get the job done. Tim sits and holds Noah on his lap, occasionally intervening when extremities start to fly in various directions. I get the distinct honor of wielding the weapons of torture (i.e., the toothbrush and toothpaste), which means I spend 10 minutes pleading with the little dude to open his mouth, to stop spitting toothpaste foam in my face, etc., etc.,. Its not a fun game and I know it would be even better if we could get the job twice a day, but with the work and sleep schedules, its just not possible to have the both of us around at the same time in the morning to brush teeth then as well. For now, we have begged Nana Lou to attempt some semblance of teeth brushing after breakfast in the morning. Perhaps with a well-behaved Dante as a "role model" we'll make some progress on this front. But for now, we'll just keep at it and hope that its a very long phase that is about to snuff itself out any second?!?!

Gobble, Gobble???

After a busy day out on the town on Saturday, we were just pulling back onto Main Street. Out of the corner of my eye I saw some traffic at a dead stand still up ahead. With no good reason for the backup, it did seem kind of suspicious, no street to make a left turn onto, no cross walk nearby. Tim mentioned that he saw a turkey in the road!?!?! I don't think so...we are in metro Boston, quite close to the city limits, there are no wild turkeys here. I knew there were a few rogue ones near the golf course up in Newton, but that was a far cry from the densely packed area we are in. Not to be distrusted, we grabbed the camera and went for a walk up the street to try to prove that he hadn't seen things. Wouldn't you know, in a backyard behind us a couple houses up, we found the very lost wild turkey roaming around looking very confused. Don't know where he came from, don't know where he was going, but given the stories I had heard from those with previous interactions with these creatures, I wasn't very interested in getting to know him well! Not only was it kind of disturbing that there was a rogue turkey in our neighborhood, but a few minutes later when I went outside to paint another coat of chalkboard paint in Noah's playhouse, I heard a couple of kids screaming from the street behind us! Being chased by the rogue turkey that was taking over? Perhaps!!

What's going on lately?

We've been busy dealing with the terrible twos around here lately. Most of the time life is fun, lots of toddler-type conversations about trucks and whatever else is occupying his mind. There is also the sass, the "NOOOOOO Mommy, DON'T DO DAT!" Its the defiance that gets, he will go from a sweet, even-tempered helper to a defiant little Tasmanian devil in no time flat.

Thankfully when we look back at pictures of these last few months, we don't have any of him red-faced and screaming in the time out chair, though what a picture that would make!

Instead, we have sweet pictures of the happy little helper boy putting away all of the silverware in the right spots.


And pictures of a sweet little dude going for a walk up the street with Daddy...


Running errands for Mommy and excitedly telling me what he brought home for me!


Thankfully, instead of sassy memories, we have couch forts


and hide-and-go seek in the laundry basket


and "help" folding the laundry


Even when there is sass and two-year old attitudes, behind the scowl there really is a sweet little man who is trying very hard, and hoping to make us happy.


So, we'll let him be two. We'll pick our battles carefully, fight the fights that need fighting and let the rest go by. I find myself on some days singing a song that we hear in Finding Nemo..."Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."

The Easter bunny was in town

Contrary to my lack of posting lately, we have been having lots of fun around here. It seems bizarre to talk about Easter when we are actually much closer to Mother's day, but since this is the first year that Noah is on board with all of the holiday excitements, I didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to share the fun.

What with all of the job interview traveling, we hadn't had an opportunity to visit Memere & Pepere B's house since the New Year, so it was very nice to have a long weekend break to travel up there.

The Easter bunny found its way to Memere & Pepere's house and dropped off Noah's Easter basket. This time he came in the front door and left his little bunny tracks (Thanks Beth for the awesome idea!!!). Noah was VERY impressed with the bunny tracks and was talking about them all weekend!

When he came down in the morning, he wasted no time in noticing the basket that the Easter Bunny had left.

Somehow the Easter bunny knew that Noah wanted his own tractor like the one he has been obsessed with at Nannie Lou's house. This has been a big hit and has been toted around every where.

After the initial excitement of opening up and exploring the Easter basket, we sent Noah on an Easter egg hunt through the living room. He had a bit of a practice run the say before at the local grocery store. They had an hour long egg hunt set up for the short statured customers. He had a great time and was very proud of his egg stash from both hunting opportunities!

After some breakfast, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and we made beautiful chalk art on the driveway and in general ran amok for a while.

Noah also was very excited about the Easter egg decoration's on Memere's tree in front of the house. Not as though he really needed an excuse, but it provided a good target for some jumping practice.

After a bit of playtime, we headed over to Memere & Pepere L's house for an Easter lunch. Noah had some ham and green bean casserole and then played with Pepere in the driveway with his new bubble wand.

It was a beautiful weekend, we had a chance to relax and enjoy family and give the little man a bit of a change in scenery. With the upcoming move at the end of the summer, it is all the more important to make the time to hang out with all of the people that adore the wee man so much while they are still close by.