At Least I Can Cross This Off My To-Do List (Once I Add It)

We leave shortly for our trip up to Massachusetts - less than 36 hours, in fact. I should not be blogging, I should be packing. And also picking up, since the house is due to be cleaned tomorrow. Thank goodness, as the amount of salt in our entryway (which I could have cleaned, but did not, for unknown reasons) is astonishing. Two inches of snow, and I believe the state of Maryland has probably emptied an entire salt mine in response.

I digress. I am online for two purposes: 1) to upload some new pictures of the kids (though I hope that they will be far surpassed in quality by pictures to come from the actual holiday, a hope that I know will be dashed); and 2) to buy some new songs on iTunes and update my iPod before THE BIG CAR TRIP. So, let me commence with #1, so that we may get on with #2.


Lucy rocking a high ponytail and a sweater dress, although you'll have to take my word on the whole "dress" aspect of the outfit


Finn has latched on to this little fellow, a likely free Snoopy doll (origin unknown), and carries him everywhere. Snoopy has become his baby and patient in all manner of parenting and injury/hospital-type imaginary games

Lucy caught on to baby fever, and both kids had me swaddle their "babies" for most of Saturday

Finn learned that one must get used to carrying one's baby EVERYWHERE. Or else they CRY.

Lucy and M. hanging out with a swaddled Mickey Mouse. You should know that I kindly cropped M.'s belly out of this photo before posting - the man is in desperate need of a sweater or two that is not too short.

This child absolutely refuses...

...to look at me...

...when I try to take her picture. So frustrating!

My three favorite people (and a piece of rice cake)

They will one day kill me for this, but LOOK AT THOSE ADORABLE BUMS!

And The Answer Is...

I will do my best to take some presentable photos of my kids this weekend, and post them for my deprived family. I had high hopes for the daycare Christmas party, at which Santa made an appearance. Last year I got pictures of each child sitting with Santa, and while Lucy WAS crying, it was only a little bit, and still made for a cute picture. This year, she can't stop shouting "Sa-ta" (Santa, obvs.) excitedly everytime she sees a likeness of the Man in Red, so I thought her clear enjoyment of the season would make for an even better picture. Alas, our track record with posed photos held, and though I dressed both kids up in adorable Christmas-colored ensembles, Lucy apparently refused to get near Old Saint Nick. And by "refused," I mean "screamed in horror." Apparently she likes her Santas to be of the non-living variety. Finn apparently did great, per usual, but I haven't seen a picture yet.

In the meantime, I shall follow up on my quiz from yesterday:

1) My relatives were part of the Underground Railroad - TRUE. And I think I'm NOT misrepresenting anything here, but please keep in mind that this is information I learned prior to college/grad school drinking, two pregnancies and motherhood, thus all memories from that time are susceptible to fuzziness. The Jenkins family of Andover, MA was known to be part of the Underground Railroad, helping escaped slaves hide on their way to Canada. Harriet Beecher Stowe even stayed at the Jenkins house not long after writing Uncle Tom's Cabin. All this is true, I just couldn't find a family tree online to verify that the William Jenkins that did all of this is actually an antecedent of my grandfather. But I am about 87% sure that is true. Andover was not that big a town at the time, so the likelihood of many Jenkinses is low. Also, William's house was on 89 Jenkins Road, and I know my family had a homestead on Jenkins Road (which we no longer have), so it all SEEMS to match up, despite my doubt in my synaptic connections.

2) I hitchhiked in the Pyrenees mountains - also TRUE. I was thirteen, and the story also involves a mountain-side fire, lots of blisters, getting picked up by what I hope was an entomologist who was wearing a belt of vials with bugs in them, and cramming way more people than I thought possible into a small white VW Bug(ha! a bug - never saw the joke in that before). I was with my sisters and our host family daughter Paloma, and we were supposed to be taking "a shortcut" to get back to her parents' car once our mountain picnic had ended. Oh, and I spoke very little actual Spanish. I won't go into more detail, but it was a very, very interesting experience.

3) I had my first car accident the day I got my driver's license - FALSE. It was the day AFTER I got my driver's license. And all I have to say about that is that parking lots are scary. In particular, the parking lot behind the CVS in Andover is far too small for the number of spaces and rows they have crammed in there. Also, I was clearly lacking in the part of my driving education that involved teaching me to check the front corner of the car when backing out of a space, rather than just staring fixedly out the back window of the car as I was doing. Also, lucky for me, there was an actual person inside the car that I hit, as he was apparently just waiting for his wife to pick up a few things in the store. So I got to do the "exchange of information" in my nervous, fumbly, 16-year-old way, except that I didn't even know if I HAD any car insurance, and certainly didn't have an insurance card. I had to call my mom (my memory tells me I did this on the way home, but that can't be possible because I didn't have a cell phone then, you know, BACK IN THE DAY) and ask if she had put me on the car insurance yet. Luckily, she had, though nothing ever came of the accident (seriously, it was a TINY dent. And the car was not nice to begin with).

4) I've met two justices of the Supreme Court - TRUE. On separate occasions. I met Justice Kennedy when I was in grad school - I'd won a scholarship, and the foundation that gave it out held a reception for us IN the Supreme Court, and Justice Kennedy shook my hand and gave me a medal. I met Justice Souter when I was a tween or young teen, I can't remember exactly how old I was. My sisters and I had traveled down to D.C. for some sight seeing with my grandparents, and while there, my great-aunt, who has lots of GOP connections and is involved in New Hampshire state politics, arranged for us to meet her friend Justice Souter in his chambers. My super-shy self imagined asking him his opinion on abortion (knowing that he was a conservative jugdge) but didn't actually say anything. I just let my sisters do the talking, per usual. I'd like to kick that girl, the girl I was then (and still sometimes - often? - feel like). OK, maybe flaunting dubious Democratic stances (and by dubious I mean that there is no way I was informed enough to really decide if I was a Democrat or not at the age of 12 or so, and yet I had decided I WAS. I still am one, though I am hopefully a little better informed, and so I am not calling Democratic stances THEMSELVES dubious) was not a good plan anyway, and thus better off left unexecuted. But think of the questions I COULD have asked! Like "Have you ever changed your mind on a decision after the fact?" or "What is your favorite part of your job?" or "What case stands out most in your memory?" Had I been enterprising, I could have turned this into a seriously good project for History class, or Social Studies, or whatever the hell I was taking then. I was not enterprising, though.

Show Me The Mommy

My sister sent me a few photos from my visit with her last weekend, so I thought I'd play along with LauraC's Show Me The Mommy Friday theme.

Here I am with my adorable 6 month old neice, Josephine. In the background you can see my nephew Ned in his spica cast:



This was before I drank nearly a bottle of wine (nearly?) - I won't show you the "after" picture! In my defense, three kids are exhausting, even when they aren't your own :-).

And to update you on my holiday party dilemma, the statements I sent in for our "team building event" were:

1) My relatives were part of the Underground Railroad.
2) I hitchhiked in the Pyrenees mountains.
3) I had my first car accident the day I got my driver's license.
4) I've met two justices of the Supreme Court.

Can you tell which is the lie? Family members (especially sisters!) are not allowed to answer.

Fact or Fiction or Just Plain Boring?

My work holiday party, ahem "Team Building Event" is this Friday. Is it strange that it is sending me into a "woe is me" spiral?

No, this is not a Bah Humbug moment, my hesitation has nothing to do with a reluctance to celebrate the holidays. Rather, the source of my angst is the "Team Building" portion of the event. As was done last year, we are all supposed to participate in a game whereby we e-mail three true statements and one lie about ourselves to the game coordinator. Then, during the party, handouts of all the compiled statements are given out without associated names, and we are supposed to ask our fellow guests questions in order to determine who belongs to each group of statements, and which statement is the lie.

Last year I didn't hesitate much, just picked three true statements and a lie and sent them away. I believe they were: "I am the oldest of four children" (I thought this might throw some people off because they might know I am a triplet, but may not know that I have a younger brother), "I was born in Vermont", "My favorite beverage is tea" (the lie - it's either coffee or wine, but definitely NOT tea), and one other similarly veined statement that I can't remember because, like the other three, it was BORING.

And then I got to the party, and everyone else's statements were like "I'm a certified scuba instructor" and "I sat in Ricky Martin's lap" and "I speak four languages" and "I did some awesome thing that you didn't do." OK, so the last one isn't a direct quote, but basically, everyone else seemed really interesting and/or accomplished. While I... did not.

And now we are doing it again. I clearly feel the pressure to put some really awesome facts out there, things no one would ever guess about me, things that show how crazy or daring or smart or accomplished or awesome I am. But I'm drawing a blank here, folks. The most remarkable things about me are not really my doing, or they are way too embarrassing or work inappropriate to admit. Yeah, so I once bonged a beer in just a few seconds and then chased it with a flaming shot of 151 rum (and in the process kind of set the table on fire), but do I really want my co-workers to know that? Pretty sure that belongs firmly in the "no" category. Plus it's lame to clame college drinking experiences as something remarkable when in your mid-thirties. I can't really use the fact that I'm a triplet - thought it's usually a crowd pleaser, it would too easily identify me, and I had no part in making that happen. I wasn't valedictorian, I haven't met anyone particularly famous, I'm not particularly accomplished, I don't even play any musical instruments.

What would you say, if you were in this situation? What are three truths and a lie that people might not expect from you? Maybe they'll give me inspiration.

I'm probably the only staff member who's blogged about the party, maybe I can use that...

Nah, don't want them all headed to this site :-).