May 15, 2017 | Uncategorized |
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| 2104- the year I became a mother and didn’t think I’d make it through the day, let alone the next 21 years. |
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| 2015- the year Annabelle and I had our first Dunkin Donuts ice coffee/hash brown date. |
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| 2016- the year we got sick on vacation again |
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2017- the year I miraculously found a matching dress for Sesame four years after I got my dress.
Also the year she refused to cooperate for the photo. |
I’ll make her match me on Mother’s Day until she’s 112 years old.
May 12, 2017 | Uncategorized |
It has been many moons and countless miles since I last checked in.
More than 3,900 miles to be specific.
We just returned from spending a week with Elizabeth in Arkansas. The trip of such lengthy proportions is not for the faint of heart/those who are not mentally prepared to travel with a toddler.
We had to wake at 3 IN THE MORNING to make it to the airport in time. Upon arrival we were told that our flight had been canceled. Jorge at the desk said we could hang around the airport for hours before the next flight or leave from the Boston airport in two hours. As commander in chief of the travel expedition, I chose to brave the Boston traffic. It totally undid my careful planning which had us leaving from the close airport, but we make our plans and the TSA totally ruins them. We got stuck in traffic on the way there and screeched into the airport with literally minutes to spare. Naturally we were at the wrong terminal. I cursed myself for packing 47.5 lbs of clothes. I was sure this whole fiasco was a foreshadowing of things to come. We finally got to the very last row in what appeared to be a spaceship.
By 8:02 AB was halfway through the movie Sing and I was eating the pizza I had brought for lunch. That’s what happens when you wake up at the crack of crazy.
After we landed we had to drive three hours to the farm Elizabeth lives on with her friend’s family. Annabelle’s excitement over the goats made up for the travel hassle.
The farm was lovely and delightful in every way. We got to feed goats, go for a ride on the four wheeler, walk in the woods, have ice cream parties, and in general enjoyed ourselves immensely. We never once got up at 6:45 to help with the morning goat feeding which I still feel slightly guilty about, but we were there at night to hold bottles, tell them they were cute and generally be in the way.
Part of the reason for our visit was to witness Elizabeth’s baptism. In a very countryish fashion she was baptized in a river. Annabelle was not impressed with the solemnity of the occasion. She insisted on throwing in rocks at all the wrong moments and I barely got her to the side before she starting having a mini fit because I was ruining all her fun.
After the baptism I let Annabelle play in the water. She was having a ball until she lost her beloved stick. No other stick was a good replacement. She sobbed and sobbed. It was obviously a very difficult time in her young life. Someone mentioned her stick half an hour later and she started crying again. We spelled the word from then on out. Thankfully the farm has it’s own stream with more than enough rocks and s-t-i-c-k-s.
We celebrated Elizabeth’s birthday with a garden party. She and Aaron are now 23. HOW DARE THEY CONTINUE GROWING. The Mother’s Day they surprised us was one of the best days of my life. I asked for a baby and I got two.
We had no issues with making our flights home except for complete exhaustion and lack of snacks. On both flights Annabelle fell asleep as we were landing. I do wish she could have made herself more comfortable.
Unfortunately we hit some turbulence because our ride went to pick us up at the wrong airport. I was so proud of myself for staying calm and level headed with all our other travel issues but this was too much. We had been up and traveling for nearly 12 hours. All I wanted was a shower and a large bowl of French fries. I told Mom she had to handle it, dragged all our overpacked bags and stroller to a bench on the side and gave up on travel and life in general. (Overly dramatic, party of one.) I unknowingly picked a bench in the smokers section but I was too tired to move. After many phone calls and someone having to climb through a window to get a carseat inside a locked house we made it back to Mom’s house.
This morning we drive back to our home where I’ll unpack, do laundry and repack before our next trip in a few weeks. It’s ironic how I never did this much traveling before I had a child. The few trips I did take I didn’t fully appreciated being able to read all I wanted or the quick trips to the bathroom without having to make sure no one rubbed their hands on the toilet seat. Now I have a child it feels like we’ve gone a million miles together.
May 5, 2017 | Love & Marriage, Uncategorized |
Saturday was our 6th anniversary. We spent a few hours walking by the ocean and gawking at all the houses 28 times larger than ours.
The traditional sixth anniversary gift is iron. The iron bookends I ordered Christopher weeks in advance were back ordered so I went to the deep recesses of my brain searching for a temporary alternative. I read somewhere that a modern gift alternative is sugar/candy, so I bought him a box of Nerds. Nothing says I love you like a cavity in a colorful box.
That evening we went out for clam cakes and chowder to celebrate Dad’s birthday. Annabelle was in her happy place. She lives for time in a sandbox and having an entire beach of sand was beyond exciting.
Baby Ivy was there also. Annabelle insisted on holding her or her hand as much as possible. Ivy stole my clam cake and crawled to the other side of the blanket. On that same weekend last year Ivy had just gotten out of the NICU. Look at her little bald head now! She’s so cute.
I hope next year she and Annabelle are building sandcastles together.
May 2, 2017 | Uncategorized |
* Autumn has always been my friend who can have any hair color or wear quirky fashions and always look good. I sent her and Joanna a picture of a shirt I found in a consignment shop that screamed her name. It had pictures of doughnuts, popcorn, hotdogs and soda cans and in general would look stupid on me. Autumn could wear it and look cute.
I got this response-
She was wearing the same exact shirt as we spoke. It made me laugh so hard.
* Annabelle is such a good little traveler. We have our travel routine and she knows what to expect. The first half of the drive she can listen to stories, read or play. After lunch she gets her Memere blankie, Mr. Lion and a show before her nap.
I hope the good travel luck sticks because we’re traveling again this week and next and I can’t be dealing with germs and/or meltdowns.
* Annabelle told her first joke this week. “Mama! Guess what?” “What?” “JEALOUSY!!!!!” Then she laughed at her own weird humor for a good five minutes. I hope she doesn’t quit her day job and become a comedian.
* Sesame wanted me to hold her tiny bunny in my shirt while she took a nap. I forgot it was there until I lay on the couch. I even answered the door with it sticking out of my shirt.
* During a recent spell of spring cleaning I went through my hair, skin and makeup product graveyard. I had enough tubes of peach lipstick and palettes of teal eye shadow to start my own beauty store. For someone who can’t put on fake eyelashes to save my life I sure had a lot of them. Annabelle wanted to help by squeezing all the bottles and trying the lotions. Please note her outfit. She found leg warmers in her drawer and my socks in the laundry basket.
She must take after Autumn.
Apr 28, 2017 | Friends & Fun, Uncategorized |
Many many years ago I held a week old little boy and fell in deep love with him. We attended the same church and were joint at the hip every Sunday and any visits in between. Every person who knows us both knows we were, to use Noah’s words, “best buds.” At one point he said he wanted to marry me but couldn’t do the wedding on Saturday as he had to be at karate. We planned a Friday wedding instead. Taking my own offspring out of the picture, I never loved a child more.
He wrote me a collection of “love letters” which I saved and have no intention of ever throwing away.
“I think I’ll follow you for the rest of my life.”
Dear sarah I hop you hav a grat time wiel wer gon yer one of my best pals and happy birthday. Love Noah
Dear sarah I love you so much. I hope you had a grat thanksgiving i love you. from: Noah
to: sarah I love you
All that to say- I saw him on Sunday and he is a giant.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE THREE YEAR OLD WHO WANTED TO MARRY ME?
Uncle Ronnie has an extremely busy social schedule but he managed to squeeze in a Dunkin Donuts date with us. It really confused people when I first started calling Aaron by the name Ronnie. It seemed an obvious nickname to me.
We’ve mostly visited family so far, but one afternoon we went to a nursing home to see a sweet friend from back in the day. She’s known me from the day I was born and it’s special that Annabelle got to see her too.
Annabelle asked Memere if she knew how to play the battery operated piano. Memere didn’t understand what she was supposed to do so she shook the piano like a rattle. Then she asked if AB knows the very old song “I’m a Lonely Little Petunia in the Onion Patch.” Annabelle did not. I think they’re dealing with some generational gaps.
Apr 13, 2017 | Uncategorized |
Helga’s Diary by Helga Weiss.
I picked this up on a whim because I enjoy books about WW2. Can’t accuse me of being too cheery! It’s written by a girl who survived life in multiple concentration camps during the war and eventually made it out with her mother. It was so hard for me to get through not because it was sad (although it was), but because the writing was difficult to follow. I assume if someone read my diary they’d think the same thing, but I don’t want my diary published so it doesn’t matter. The timeline was confusing and it filled with words like haftlingsnummer and tagesbefehl. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t finish books I dislike, but I felt like if she could survive what she did the least I could do was finish the book. I was very impressed with the good attitude Helga had the entire time. I don’t know that I would be as cheerful.
GI Brides: The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love by Duncan Barett and Nuala Calvi.
I LOVED this book. It was everything I hoped it would be and more. It tells the stories of four British girls who dated and eventually married American soldiers during, you guessed it, World War 2. The American soldiers showed up when most of the British men were gone and wooed the ladies. As someone who married a soldier and admittedly has a slight obsession with them, I would have been BESIDE MYSELF to have an abundance of men in uniform trying to get my attention. GIDDY WITH DELIGHT. The stories follow the women as they travel to America and attempt to make a life here.
Home by Julie Andrews.
I’m listening to the audio version and it’s read by Julie herself. If only she would be the voice on the gps I wouldn’t mind getting lost nearly as much. I didn’t know Julie is British, not American. Am I the only one who didn’t know that? No wonder she did such a good job playing a British nanny. It’s a very well written story with lots of details which I enjoy since I’m nosy. It includes snippets of her singing and is delightful in every way. I’d like to add Julie to my list of people I’d like to text.
Linking up with Steph and Jana
