Sunday Night Dinner

On the menu:
Hamburgers on white whole grain buns (2 for M., 1 split between the kids, veggie burger for me)
Cheese, tomato, onion, avocado, pickle slices, ketchup and mustard for the adults
Plain ketchup for the kids
2 slices of cheese (on the side, for the kids)
5 ears of corn on the cob
Milk for the kids

Food consumed:
1 veggie burger
2.3 hamburgers
2.25 ears of corn (admittedly, it was not good corn - very tough)
2 slices of cheese
2 cups of milk

Food thrown on floor:
0.4 of a hamburger, cut into small pieces
1 ear of corn, thrown 3 times
1 cup of milk, also thrown 3 times
Several plain pasta noodles, given to appease shouting toddler who would not eat anything else (including said noodles)

In pictorial:

Lucy enjoying a bite of her corn the "right" way.

Lucy demonstrating how she usually tries to eat corn on the cob, by gnawing on the kernel-less ends.

M. is clearly angry that the corn was disappointingly tough, on this his Celebratory Day of Fatherhood.

Finn looks angry here, but is probably just concentrating hard on getting the bite with the least meat and most ketchup possible.

Lucy is contemplating throwing something on the floor. Maybe the tough corn?

Handsome

Pretty

Dessert - a "dummy" worm

So ready for bed, or at least for someone to take that piece of cheese out of her hair
.
This is a typical view of how my living room looks by the end of every weekend. I can tell you are all jealous.

And now some non-dinner pictures while I'm here, since I haven't had a chance to post many photos lately:

The kids have found a new "hiding" spot wedged in between the kitchen wall and the back of their play kitchen (if you call constant giggling and calls of "you can't find us" hiding). If Lucy looks a little alarmed here, it likely means she was. She often gets dragged into Finn's little hiding spots involuntarily.

Finn is a constant, constant source of questions, which is a blog post in and of itself. But the latest adult activity he has become determined to spoil with incessant why's and what's is my Saturday morning magazine reading. Here he is paging through the Economist and demanding to know the meaning behind a satirical cartoon. Not so easy to break down into 3-year-old speak...

Once you move past those gorgeous blue eyes, you may notice 2 Batmen (Batmans?) that appear to be passed out and an Iron Man missing 2 limbs. Fighting crime is a tough job.

Bonus pic. I won't even try to come up with an appropriately witty figure legend, I'll just point out that of the 3 items of clothing Finn is wearing here, one of those is a pair of my dirty gym socks.

Edited to add: Sorry the resolution of my photos is so crappy - seems to be an upload issue. Is anyone else having trouble getting Blogger to publish your photos at a decent resolution? This seems worse than usual, maybe something changed recently?

Life's Lessons

It is our usual practice to ask Finn how his day was and what he did at school during dinner time. Sometimes (usually) this seems like an exercise in futility, as he rarely answers with anything more than "good" and "I played with my friends." Scintillating, no? Last night, however, we got this for an answer, "Aidan and I pretended to be bad guys stealing someone's puppy."

Um, OK. How to respond here? A "that's nice, dear" doesn't really seem to cut it.

My reaction was actually one of humor, and the thought that at least he's using his creative side, right? At least he's not ACTUALLY stealing a puppy. But I wanted to know more. So, between smiles and chuckles, M. and I quizzed Finn on this little play scenario.

Who's puppy were you stealing? Keira's.
(As one of only two girls in Finn's class, she often gets the brunt of any imaginary play, she is always the one in need of rescuing/in peril.)

Did anyone try to stop you from stealing the puppy? Yes, a super hero.
(Finn has been getting really interested in super heroes over the last few months. It must be an age thing, as he has never really seen any movies or TV shows about super heroes, they just sort of appeared on his radar and he's been running with it. Currently Spider Man and Iron Man are his favorites, but he's also very curious about Super Man, Batman, and the Incredible Hulk.)

Which super hero? Iron Man.

Was Keira upset you were trying to steal her puppy? No, we were just pretending, so it's OK. But Miss Z. (teacher) says we can't pretend to be married.

OK, wha...? I was tracking with the fake puppy stealing story, but now we're talking fake marriage? Has someone been taking tips from Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag again?

Upon further conversation, it seems as though one of the 4-year-olds in the next classroom up wanted to "pretend marry" one of his classmates (meaning Finn was not the groom in question). Miss Z. overheard this and told the two involved children "We don't pretend to be married" (Imagine Finn retelling this in as stern a voice as a 3-year-old can muster). I'm not really sure what catastrophic event Miss Z. thought was going to happen next. Simulated sex in the playground playhouse, perhaps? For goodness sake, these kids are barely more than babies! Pretend marriage is harmless enough. My brother may not remember, but I have plenty of memories of dressing him and a childhood friend up and forcing the two of them to marry each other. All in good fun, right, Andrew? Of course, perhaps that has had repercussions into his adult life I hadn't anticipated...

Bottom line, Finn's lesson from school yesterday: Stealing puppies is OK, marriage is bad

If we can just stress that the puppies should be stolen from puppy farms only, and not loving homes, I'm pretty sure there are plenty of activists out there that would call this one a victory :-).

A Slippery Slope?

M. and I are officially immersed in planning for our week-long beach vacation this summer. Once nearly a year away, we now have only about 6 weeks to go until the much anticipated trip arrives. You may think, "Oh, how relaxing, a week at the beach." And then I let you know that we are going to be taking this trip with 30 of my closest family members. And all of us are sharing two houses together (large though they may be).

So perhaps (or definitely) this trip will not be relaxing. I don't care, though, I'm super excited for it. For a number of reasons. First, my kids have never been to the beach. Which is just crazy in my mind, because with few exceptions, my family spent at least two weeks on Cape Cod every summer of my childhood. I think even when my sisters and I were only 3 months old (prematurely born triplets, fresh out of the NICU - crazy then? No. Crazy now? Maybe), we were likely schlepped to the beach for a couple of weeks. It's just how things were done (colic be damned! Which I apparently had, as my mother likes to remind me). Second, the trip is in honor of my maternal grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. SIXTY! YEARS! It's just so amazing and wonderful. Ten years ago we all got together for the same vacation - one week in the Outer Banks, NC - and celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. And I'm so glad that we can all come together to do it all again, ten years later. It's crazy to think of how things have changed since then. My sisters and I, all unmarried at the time, have gotten married and started families. Between the three of us, an uncle and a cousin, eight new members of the family have been born. There are new husbands, wives, significant others. Numerous cousins have finished high school, started and finished college, started careers. Since I live far away from all of them, and rarely get to see everyone, I cannot wait to catch up and hang out.

Work has been stressful for longer than I can remember, and we had a HARD winter. I need a vacation in the worst way. Needless to say, I have been anticipating and pining for and planning for and looking forward to this vacation for what seems like forever. But now we are legitimately close to the trip, and I am justified in my preparations. It's OK if I buy the kids water shoes, they will likely still fit in to them by the time we hit the beach. Swim diaper coupons can be used before they expire. A detailed and ever-growing packing list has been started. Every weekend shopping trip to Target involves conversations like "Ooh, hey, $5 movies, maybe we should buy some for the car ride," or "Do you think we need a canopy for the beach?"

Most of our discussions have centered on our mode of transportation to the beach, however. We have long planned to purchase a new car just before this beach vacation. At a very manageable 5.5 hour predicted route, we will definitely be driving to the Outer Banks. However, given our two children (with two car seats), multiple suitcases, beach chairs, pack 'n play, booster seat, and various other planned trappings, there is no way we can actually drive to the beach in one of our fairly compact (now defunct) Saturn sedans. Our older car is nearly 11 years old, and we can safely justify purchasing a new car. A bigger car, in fact. But nothing crazy, nothing really big. And NOT a minivan. I, like many other women of my generation who spent many road hours in a minivan while growing up, have sworn an oath to NEVER own a one. Despite M.'s best arguments (he would love it if we got one), I am determined to keep this oath. With only two kids and no large pets that need to travel with us (I frequently forget that we even HAVE a cat, no way would she come on vacation with us), I cannot see any valid reason or excuse to actually own a minivan.

We went to the trouble of testing several small/mid-sized SUVs, and even selected the car we would like to buy - the Chevy Equinox. It has a little less cargo space than the Honda CRV, but at 32 mpg on the highway is very fuel efficient (yet not as expensive as a hybrid). Unfortunately, everyone and their brother apparently wants to buy an Equinox. As such, Chevy is a barren desert when it comes to incentives and deals to purchase this in-demand car. We have been watching and waiting, but with crappy financing rates and no cash back in the last 6 months, we have not been able to pull the trigger. And now it's too late. At this point, if we ordered a car (low inventory at all the Chevy dealerships due to popularity means we can't just walk up and buy one), it would take 8 weeks to get to us. Two weeks AFTER our beach vacation.

Our new strategy is to wait a bit longer on buying the new car, closer to the release of the new 2011 models (and keeping our fingers crossed that a 2010 model of the trim we want will still be available then) when there should be some good deals. And in the meantime, we are renting a car for our beach vacation. A much larger car than the ones we currently own. A minivan, in fact. Lord help me, I hope I don't like it.

I will end this nonsense post here, but put out a plea. For those of you that have undertaken beach vacations with young children, what did you bring that you didn't actually need? What was right on the money? What did you not bring with you that you wish you had? Your tips are welcome!

Making A Liar Out Of Me

My last post demonstrated some of the havoc Lucy is able to wreak from a mere few inches off the ground, crawling. Well, as of this weekend, her havoc-wreaking tentacles have extended:



This happened, of course, about two hours after I left town for a few days. Mommy leaves, Lucy decides to start walking. Because why would Mommy want to see that anyway, right? Perfect timing. Apparently she was sitting in her PB Anywhere chair, stood up, and started walking. Just decided it was time, I guess.

We are not up to full time walking yet, there is still plenty of crawling mixed in. But we are definitely getting there, and despite my failure to witness the big milestone firsthand, I couldn't be happier. All of that crawling on the playground at school that is completely ruining Lucy's brand new white sneakers may have something to do with my happiness, but I'm also thrilled that she's found a new talent that she loves practicing.

This weekend marked another Lucy milestone, too - Lucy is now completely bottle-free. I thought it would be a huge struggle, because Lucy LOVED her bottles. She got so excited to see them, and would do no more than throw any sippy cups filled with milk. We hadn't been forcing the issue at all, but something seemed to just click, and all of a sudden Lucy started getting excited when we brought out a sippy cup for her (or her brother). So we just went with it, and ditched the bottles cold turkey. Surprisingly, it has worked out really, really well.

As I mentioned, I left town for a few days. I went from a 3-year-old with an attitude occasionally bordering on teenager-ish:

and a 1-year old who just learned to walk and drink from a cup:



to this:



Oh, the contrast! My babies are babies no longer! I happened to have a work trip in the Boston area, and used the opportunity to spend a couple of days with my sister, MommyEsq, her husband, her 21-month old twins, and her brand new baby girl Josephine Alice (Josie). Josie was only 5 days old when I arrived, and so adorable! I had lots of fun holding her and remembering all those sleepy, cuddly newborn days (the good parts only, of course). If MommyEsq or any of my siblings want to have dozens of kids, I'd be totally supportive - I'd come take care of them whenever they wanted! This baby factory may be closed, but I love, love, love new little babies, and I couldn't be happier for the Esq family.