Around these parts

Around these parts, we read books about dump trucks and steam rollers and bulldozers while sitting in Mommy's rocking chair in our pajamas at 10am. Why rush to get dressed when you don't have to, take advantage of a day when Mommy isn't traveling for an interview and soak in the fun times.


Around here we find kitties sleeping in strange and forbidden places and let them get away with it for a few minutes while we run to get the camera.


Then of course we send the toddler in after them to clear out the party!


Around these parts, we ride in the kitchen in police cars and sirens are the the symphony to life.


Around these parts things are sometimes stressful and full of worry over the future, but looking back I hope I remember moments like these instead. What good are memories of childhood if we can remember them fondly?

Playing in the kitchen

We took a mental health day on Monday and I made a conscious effort to not think about the job search and the life-altering decisions that we will be making over the next couple of months. Instead, we baked cookies. Delicious, chocolaty, gooey cookies! They aren't part of my healthy eating push, but everything in moderation right?

Noah helped with some things, he lost interest in other parts, but he thoroughly enjoyed the end result!


While the cookies were baking we practiced some jumping, he's getting quite good, No?


Then we taunted Daddy and the camera and made funny faces for amusement.


Then we hid behind Mommy and played peek-a-boo. If only all of life was so simple and sweet. At least we can take time to occasionally make a silly face and laugh and pretend that things are nearly so complicated.

Why not?

Long story very short, someone just got offered the job I really, really, really wanted. I interviewed for it a few weeks ago down in North Carolina and while I thought it went really well, apparently someone else was better. As I am sure to be told many times in the next couple of days, I know there is always a small chance that the top pick who received the offer will decline and I might be offered the job as the second choice. My pessimistic self that is exhausted with the job market scene counters back that there is also the possibility that the top candidate will do the smart thing and take the job, or worse yet, that I am not the second choice and am in fact the 3rd choice of the 3 finalists and won't get an offer anyway. I am told that things work out for a reason, but I am still trying very hard to find that "reason." There is now only one remaining school to hear from where I would actually be interested in taking a job. If that one falls though, I may be going yet another year on the job market come next fall, and that is just not a concept I can even think about right now.

What the???

Our house got egged this weekend?!?! Are we back in middle school?? Who still does this sort of extracurricular activity. I thought the youth these days were too busy smoking things or sniffing glue to drive around in 3 car mini egg-throwing gangs and hurling the results of chicken reproduction at random people's houses.

It has to be random, we don't hardly know anyone around here, and certainly not well enough to provoke any sort of egg throwing backlash. I am not sure I care that we are the unwitting targets of this random act of annoyance, but am pissed that I now feel the need to clean disgusting egg bits off of our front porch. Seriously, get a life and perhaps a productive Saturday night pass time.

Finger painting

With all of the job search traveling going on, I was really looking forward to a quiet weekend to relax and do very little. Saturday morning we ran a few errands and while we were out, I decided to test out the world of finger painting. I knew there was going to be a big mess, but if big fun was involved, I can handle the mess afterwards. The little guy had lots of fun and there was indeed a big mess, see?

I must say though that the world of finger painting has changed significantly from my recollections. I remember bright colors and white to be mixed in and experimenting with just how many different shades it took to make that hideous brown color. Noah's new finger paints are just boring, take 10 steps back in terms of fun. We tried the Crayola washable finger paints, and while I do indeed give them an A+ for ease in clean up, the colors are pathetic and look more like water paints. They also don't combine well at all, so its a huge kill joy in terms of teaching the color wheel. Of course the 2 year old didn't care, but in the future, I will be on the lookout for some more effective (yet still easy to clean up) finger paints since Crayola has officially failed me for the first time ever!

And the media hits....

So today we had a slight media frenzy at my store. We had reporters from the Boston Herald, the Patriot Ledger (local paper to Quincy) and some people from NECN at the store today for some program Hannaford is Launching. It is supposed to help the local (New England) dairy farms by raising awareness. Out of the 170 hannaford stores, they chose mine to come too to give a big speech for. I spent my morning helping them figure out how to put together the sign you see the lady standing in front of, and all the shots you see of milk are from my shelves! Oh yeah, and the shots of the store are my store as well!! Here is a link to the NECN piece they did on the program, it was kinda cool.

http://www.necn.com/Boston/Business/2010/01/12/Hannaford-backs-Keep-Local/1263337091.html

Wish me luck

I am sitting in the airport terminal waiting to board my flight down south for job interview #3 of 5 scheduled. This school is my top choice and would be a dream job in a perfect place to raise a family. I am trying to to put too much pressure on myself and instead remind myself to do the best I can and put my very best foot forward. In the meantime I am ready to hurl just thinking of everything riding on the next two days. I have two very long days ahead of me, starting at 8:30 am tomorrow with breakfast with 2 of the faculty members from the department. I don' finish tomorrow evening until close to 8pm, what with the cocktail party until 6:30 and then dinner afterwards. No rest for the weary though since I am back on campus the next morning for another half day of interviews. My flight home leaves around 5:30pm and once I am on the second leg of the flight back I should be able to relax. What person in their right mind think that a job in academia is a good idea. I know I did at some point and I am sure I will be happy with my decision once we are all settled, but in the meantime I am questioning my motivations and hoping that time moves quickly for the next couple of days. I miss my boys already and can't wait to be back home (though a little bit of extremely quiet time in the hotel doesn't sound like a terrible idea!). Wish me luck, think intelligent thoughts for me, and pray that I don't say something stupid over the course of the next 2 days! Here goes nothing.

Christmas

Wow am I late with this post, but I guess better late than never huh? We had a great time with Noah this year for Christmas. He is starting to really understand the concept of Santa and presents, but I think my favorite part is that this year he really didn't fully connect the guy in the red suit with all of the gifts under the tree, that was just an added bonus. He really spent the majority of the holiday enjoying the season of Christmas. He was obsessed with decorations and snowmen and demanded to help turn the lights on our tree on every morning and off every evening. The best part of the holidays this year was getting to watch it from a non-hectic and non-commercialized point of view. I know it won't always stay this way, but I am hoping it stays around for even just a bit longer.

Being that Noah is still the only grandchild on both sides of the family, he experienced no lack of presents again this year. Family happily fed into his obsession with all things transportation and got him police cars, ambulances, fire trucks, airports, and Santa even brought a tricycle just Noah's size!


It was a long couple of days with all of the visiting and excitement. It seemed like every time Noah woke up for the day or from a nap, it was time to open more presents. Its exhausting being this high demand!


To go along nicely with his birthday train table, Pepere L. & Nana found Noah an engineer's hat, and wouldn't you know it actually fits!


Not to be out done by presents, Christmas this year also marked the beginning of the teething process for those 4 eye teeth he just hasn't gotten around to producing yet. Incidentally, we are now a full week into the new year and the little buggers still haven't popped through, they are taking their dear sweet time. Much of the holidays were spent in this position, hand stuffed in mouth, which is not something we've seen around here is a LONG time.


Incidentally, Noah also spent a lot of time stuffing his face with all kinds of holiday goodies. I am beginning to wonder if the return of Noah's weight to above the 25th percentile could have been the direct result of the week and half of holiday munching just prior to the appointment!


We had a great time hanging out in Maine, saw a little too much snow for the new year, but oh well. There are a lot of great memories, which are best captured now by Tim's shiny new digital SLR camera.

Flashlights are fun even when you have tons of brand new toys around!


Bow instantly go on the head, and the best part is that he puts them there himself now! Proving that no matter what you can buy in a store, I really did get the very best Christmas present of all 2 years ago!


"Helping" Daddy and Uncle Chris assemble his new poli-cee car


He got bored with the assembly for a bit and Pepere taught him how to use Memere's old camera.


Copping a squat in the not yet fully assembled poli-cee car.


Sitting on the couch with one of Memere's kitties. I am not only amazed at how long the sitting still period lasted for (anything longer than 30 seconds is a minor miracle), but also at how patient and still the poor kitty was through all of this. I thought for sure she was going to bolt as soon as Memere's hands let her go (which is exactly what all of our cats do...smart little furry things aren't they!?!?).

My play Monkey Joe's?

After the Christmas present overload and all of the fun playing and visiting we did, Tim and I had the week between Christmas and New Years off for vacation. I always take this week given the fact that the university is closed and it has become a yearly tradition now that Tim gets the week off to play too! Usually, this is a nice time to get all of the new birthday and Christmas presents organized and the house back to normal after the holidays. This year we took care of all of that with one huge trip to Ikea and some house rearranging (and a good deal of freaking out trying to find space for everything). In addition to the rearranging, we had also scheduled a bunch of appointments to get them done while there was some available free time. Tim and I both had dentist appointments on Tuesday morning and then the little guy had a pediatrician's appointment that afternoon. Then Wednesday morning we took all 3 cats to the vet for shots and a check up and later that afternoon we brought Noah for his first official haircut. Whew! By the end of the day Wednesday we were exhausted and ready for our long weekend to relax and have some fun.

Since the little man was such a great helper for all of the less fun parts of the previous 2 days, we decided a couple of hours of wee man fun was in order. On the suggestion of Nana Lou, we tested out an indoor inflatable playground, which was perfect. We got out of the cold and the little dude got to play around and run amok on his own. He was a bit small for some of the structures and got knocked over a couple of times, but nothing seemed to slow him down. He had an absolute blast and hasn't stopped talking about it since. As we were driving out of the parking lot, he was already asking to go back and play. It looks like we'll be making the drive up to Danvers more often this winter to give the little guy some room to run!

2 year check-up

Just after Christmas Noah had his 2 year check at the pediatrician's office. It doesn't seem possible that we have been in and out of that office for both well-baby check ups and sick visits for two years now. Aside from the fairly normal doctor's office backup and waiting around, we had an uneventful visit with the doctor himself. The doctor seemed impressed with his vocabulary skills and happy with all of the other development. The next step involves potty seats...I don't think I am ready for that business. Things went downhill a bit when the doctor announced that while there would be no vaccines, it was time for a blood draw to check for anemia and lead levels. We did this once before back when the little guy was 9 months, so I knew what to expect and it wasn't going to be pretty. While, things certainly did go better than they did the last time, there was the initial shocked silence and then the insult hit him..."HOW COULD YOU DO THAT!!! YOU STUCK THAT THING IN MY ARM AND HURT ME!!!" He was inconsolable for a few minutes there, the stickers helped a bit, but not much. He kept talking about his boo boo and he was seriously pissed off about it. Much more so than when we have had to do multiple vaccines in a visit. The extreme insult lasted most of the evening until I managed to get the band aid off. Once the reminder was gone, apparently so was the pain! If only everything in life healed that quickly.

Here are the stats for the 2 year check-up:

Height: 35.25" (just shy of 3 feet! and in the 70th percentile)

Weight: 27 lbs even (36th percentile

First Official Haircut!

Back in August, I trimmed up the little man's hair a bit to avoid the baby mullet look he was beginning to sport. I am no expert, but I was able to keep his hair clean enough to last for a few months. Now that he is old enough to understand the idea behind hair cuts (especially since I have done a few of them here and there), and he has watched Daddy get a few haircuts of his own, we figured he would be good to go on his own official first haircut.

He was as good as gold. He sat still, all excited to be getting his own haircut at the "haircut store." Of course the distracting movie and the promise of a lollipop afterward certainly helped a bit.

I am not sure we will pay the hefty price tag every time to take him to the kids only salon, but with a coupon for almost half off and the promise of saved locks and a hair dresser who is especially good with little people, we figured it was worth the drive and the few extra dollars.

Such a nice clean haircut and a happy little man with his very own lollipop!

Things you wished your child didn't say outloud

"I has boobies!"

Said in the middle of the waiting room of the lab area at the pediatrician's office. Said quite loudly I might add in response to the vast insult he received when he was poked with a needle for his 2 year blood draw to check his iron, lead, and red blood cell count.

Everything came back normal thankfully, cause I don't want to set foot in that room for a good long time!!!

Incidentally, we are pretty sure the poor little insulted dude meant that he had a "boo boo" and not boobies, but one never know with him you know!

Caped Crusader

We spent a quiet and almost entirely snowed-in weekend in Maine with Memere and Pepere. We had plans on visiting a few people and finally getting a chance to go out on a date night, but no such luck. In the northeast here, it has snowed on and off for 4 days, with the worst coming Saturday afternoon and evening, exactly when we were planning on going out. Yet again, no date, but we did have fun playing in the snow and taking Noah out sledding for the first time.

The little dude had a great time running around Memere & Pepere's house and wouldn't you know he is in fact turning into a real boy. He turns 2 one week and goes and sprouts a cape and runs around the house like Superman the next. Can we please slow down? Granted the cape is his favorite lovey blanket and he is still sporting a "pacier," but really, isn't the super hero phase supposed to hold off for another year or so?

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! We had a wonderful 2009! A happy healthy little baby turned into a rambunctious and talkative toddler, what a ride! The last few months have been a bit stressful with all of the potential upheaval coming our way, but here's hoping that 2010 will bring exciting news on many fronts...career, a move, a house, an expanding family. The best and worst part of life is that you just never know what is coming your way.