4 month marker

Four months marked the time in which Baby Girl ceased observing the nightly witching hour from 7-9 p.m. "Okay, you bumbling parents," said she, "You seem to have suffered enough. I will decline your bribes of hot pink Vespas, but will concede to this early evening siesta of which you speak so highly." Imagine the ecstasy that Loverpants and I enjoyed as newbie parents. Watching the sleeping cherub doze while we ate macaroni dinner that had not taken on the consistency of something you would buy in the $.25 vending machine at KMart, but which was still PIPING HOT! In a queer twist of fate, Little Man, who has, up until now, slept in intervals of 5 and 6 hours at night, has passed the 4 month mark and has decreed that he will now wake up every 2-3 hours with a voracious hunger and a diaper that feels like a frat boy's wifebeater after a day of sand volleyball in the sun. This has resulted in his mother being so beatdown that even the magic of Mary Kay cosmetics cannot touch these puffy undereye bags full of soot and ash. Seriously.

But who am I, this blithe, whiny parent? I'm only a combined total of 33 months deep into the throes of parenthood. What about in twelve years when my kids bring home friends that ask why our house is so small, and what it's like to have a Chinese dad. What about when my kids give me their essays to proofread and I write whole new essays in the margin because I am my father's daughter? And then the alliance of Little Man/Baby Girl will inevitably join forces with Lovey Loverpants -- who will still look like he is in undergrad when both of our children are taking driver's ed -- and the triumvirate will spend whole weekends doing awesome things that I am not invited to do, because I have to take the mini-van for a tune-up and probably re-write their essays on Great British Imperialism for which they will resent me, wholeheartedly.

Yeah, so anyway, did I tell you that while my children are still portable and not full of vitriol toward me, we went to an awesome farm with splendid pumpkins and playgrounds and possibly CIDER DONUTS???

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Summer that Was

Hey, September, how yoo dooin'? September, here's what: I'm happy you're here. You always bring with you the smell of U-Hauls and giddy college students, the sounds of wonky high school trombone players, "Haa-yaaang on, Sloopeh, Slooopeh, Hang Onnnn!", freshly cut football fields. Your days start to slope, the sun waning, 7:30, 7:15, on on on down to 6:30 p.m. and by the time your turn is almost up, there is a coziness to the night and an acquaintedness with new school textbooks, while still a hopefulness that there are big things still to accomplish this year.

But let me tell you about this past summer, September, the one you're sweeping up for me in your wake. I'll be frank. I thought this summer 2010 was going to suck. I thought I was going to be all soaking bedsheets with milk and wandering zombie-like around my creeky home at 3 a.m. But this past summer was awesome in its unremarkableness. It was just lovely, and smooth. We didn't go anywhere spectacular (Newport? Cleveland, anyone?). I don't even think we went out to brunch somewhere splendid. We just ate a thousand popsicles on our cruddy patio, watched the airplanes overhead, and wasted a lot of sprinkler water on ourselves, which, if you ask me, wasn't a waste at all.

Sure, it was no party when Loverpants got pneumonia. And the hematoma thing I could have done without. But I'll always remember Fourth of July, sitting with Brother Greg watching the "Boston Pops" on our couch and talking about how his blanket and law textbook were waiting for him on the Common, but instead he was sitting watching the performance with us on TV.

I'll remember chicken parm night with my old man and Julie, defining bummerooski with my mom and Goobs, and just being so grateful and shmoopy to come home from OH and come back to my life with my hubby.

I'll remember getting to know the girl that Baby Girl is now at an articulate 2.5 years-old, how she used "I'm sulking" totally appropriately, how her sapphire eyes, framed by her pixie cut, look out at a world and see not a complicated planet but only the ripe cherry tomatoes in the box garden, the sequined pink slippers on sale at Target, the travesty that is the removal of the "Shrek 3" billboard on Gallivan Blvd.

Most obviously, though, I'll remember the ease and wonder I felt for 104 days of meeting this new Little Man in my life. I don't know what angel interceded in Heaven so that I could have this little boy with a halo all summer long, but I am grateful. He is so marvelously adaptable that holding him - which I try to do as many seconds of the day as I can - is a tranquilizer, it's possibly the best drug a hospital lets you leave with, no prescription necessary. Just hold Little Man for a minute, ohhhh those soft little cheeks and fluttery eyelashes! And you will know.

So all that is to say that life until now has been wonderful, and welcome to you, September 2010. 30 more days in this month of turning 30. Yahoo.

*** Some snaps that our new friend, the talented Dr. Paul Yoo took at Boston Temple in the Fenway.

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5 years

5 years2 addresses 2 offspringlets 1 name change 3 new pairs of glasses 3 international trips 6 new jobs 1 highway breakdown 2 new in-law members 0 broken bones 0 root canals 0 cases of leprosy...

5 years blessed with 1 wonderful Loverpants!

*** Celebratory trip to Newport, RI

Loverpants made me snap this pic. The quintessence of Newport.

newport, quintessence of

Gelateria

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My fave flavor in the gelateria: baldy

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My little hambone, post ice cream IMG_4533IMG_4535IMG_4534IMG_4530

Practicing stroller safety first

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Seeing how the other half lives

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Pit stop to ponder the Cliff Walk: Baby Girl loves to mock me by saying, "Let's sit down and talk about it." I say this roughly 8 times a day.

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