The boy from Queens ...

Five years, man! FIVE! Five years. Five YEARS! Five years!!

Who'd have thought when I met you for the very first time, way back in 2001, on St. Patrick's Day Eve, that you were the future Mr. P? I certainly didn't. And I know YOU didn't since you don't even remember meeting me. (Let me add a hair flip and a "hmmphh" in response to that very first display of forgetfulness. It should have been my first clue that you truly are the absent-minded professor.)

Fast forward a few months to that random night when Molloy said, "Hey, Mr. P's in town and we're all going out. You coming?" (Oh goodness, wouldn't that be funny if he actually called you "Mr. P" too?) I still didn't see it coming.

And then ... you did it. You said you'd call me when you got back to Cali — AND YOU DID. You actually called me. Incredible.

But I still didn't know you were the one.

Not until that fateful visit to California, when we both thought, "Hey. I really think we've got something here." And, boy, then it was ON. The next six weeks were a happy blur. I went from yeah-there's-this-guy-in-LA-I-kind-of-like to oh-my-god-I-have-an-all-caps-BOYFRIEND-and-he's-moving-back-to-the-East-Coast-and-wants-to-marry-me all in the short span from Memorial Day to the Fourth of July. I don't know if you realize how momentous that was for me. I don't open my heart easily, and hadn't even peeked through a crack in the door in the five years I'd been in New York. Thank you for keeping your heart on your sleeve, so mine could catch up.

Five years ago today, we celebrated our commitment to each other on a gorgeous Indian summer day in Oklahoma. All the wedding-planning stress was absolutely worth it, as our friends and family gathered around us, supporting us. But as fun and busy and enjoyable as the entire weekend was (and damn, it was a great weekend, wasn't it?), do you know what still stands out the most to me? Our vows. The emotion was almost visceral as we pledged to join our lives. So many little choices, big decisions and happenstance, since the day each of us was born, culminated in that moment. It was intense and electrifying.

And here we are five years, one house, quite a few cars and, most importantly, two fabulous kids later. Thank you for supporting my desire to stay home with those kids. Thank you for continuing to pursue your dreams in a way that still makes me feel safe. Thank you for liking the same TV shows as me — and for agreeably watching the ones that you don't. Thank you for getting along with my family. Thank you for making me laugh and being the funniest guy you know. Thank you for wanting to know, and even listening to, my opinions on your work. That goes a long way toward making me feel like a contributor, although an unpaid one, to our family's fortunes. Thank you for hearing the oh-so-slight difference between my normal voice and my sarcastic voice. Thank you for being my best friend.

I'm still amazed that we found each other — the boy from Queens and the girl from Oklahoma — and that you are so utterly perfect for me. I honestly can't imagine anyone could be better suited to be my husband. I thank my lucky stars every day that you are mine. I can't wait for the next five years, and beyond.

Happy Anniversary, my love.

It ain't easy bein' cheesy.

Dear Bigga Bit,

I'm sorry. I know you're not into dairy products, but that slice of leftover pizza was calling my name this afternoon. I simply had to eat it. I know I said I'd cut out cheese for a few days to see if you napped better, and I really, really tried. But it's HARD. Cheese is so tasty and apparently a more common ingredient in my diet than I ever imagined.

A piece of string cheese for a mid-morning snack. Sprinkled on my favourite salad. A slice of provolone on my turkey sandwich. Melted and gooey in a black bean burrito or a chicken quesadilla. And pizza. Yummy, yummy pizza.

But not yummy for you, it seems. Unless all that wiggling, crying and man-sized tooting this evening was just part of you and your brother's master plan to torture me. Good job, by the way. Tell your brother the plan worked.

I didn't complain (too) much when I had to stop drinking milk and eating ice cream. It was tough to give up ice cream — after all, it was summer and I had already suffered through an ice-cream-free pregnancy thanks to gestational diabetes.

But cheese? You're asking too much, baby. Too much. But a necessary sacrifice, I suppose, to keep you sweet, happy and SLEEPING.

And just so we're clear ... don't get any ideas about chocolate. Capiche?

Love,

Muenster-free Mama

Of course, THIS is where he naps ...

A little background: Bigga has been DRIVING ME CRAZY with his no-more-than-30-minutes-at-a-time naps this week. Three two-hour naps? Great. Five half-hour naps? Not so great.

So when he fell asleep on my lap after nursing this morning, I just sat there. And sat. And sat. Eventually my need for coffee won out and I gently transferred him onto the couch. And he stayed asleep. Miracle of miracles.

Even more miraculous? He's been that way for almost two hours now. Wonderful. Except that you KNOW as soon as I leave him for any amount of time longer than a coffee refill or a trip to the bathroom, he'll splat right off the couch. So I'm trapped in the living room with him.

Great for watching reruns of "Angel." Not so great for my mile-long to-do list.

First Day of School 2009

What I should have done with my first six hours of Kiddle-free time:

• Exercise
• Laundry
• Sort through the horrifying amount of old mail lying around
• Clean up the kitchen
• Weed my flower beds

What I did:

• Go to Target
• Talk on the phone
• Obsessively check Facebook
• Play peek-a-boo with Bigga
• Watch reruns of "Criminal Minds" and "Without a Trace"

There's always tomorrow, right? Fifteen more years of school days, in fact. Plenty of time to get it all done.

Gloom and Doom

WHAT I NEED:

• Exercise.
• A drink.
• Kiddle to eat his dinner.
• A clean house.
• A break.

WHAT I'VE GOT:

• An elliptical so buried (and dusty) in the garage that it will cause more frustration than I'm already feeling just to get to it (and clean it).
• Not a drop of wine or beer.
• A three-year-old who doesn't want to turn off the TV long enough to eat. (NOOO!!!! I NOT HUNGRY!!! NOT YET!!! NO DINNER!!!)
• A mess so out of control I'm simply paralyzed.
• A husband who has disappeared to the basement to work on his soon-to-be work-from-home office.

It's just one of those days and it's made me realize I've had perhaps six hours totally to myself since Bigga was born. And there's no glimpse of any me-time on the horizon because Mr. P really does need to get his office space renovated AND he's going to be out of town the next two weeks. Kiddle starts school on Thursday and I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it — on a personal level anyway. Hopefully Bigga will cooperate and I can get closer to regaining a sense of control around here.

Beach Babies

A good example of our crazy cold wet summer ... yesterday was our FIRST beach outing. And also a good example of the weirdness of three-year-olds. They always do the exact opposite of what you expect. So I guess I should expect it by now, huh?

Last time we were at the beach was a random day in April or so. The Atlantic Ocean in New Jersey that time of year is FREEZING. Yet Kiddle eventually made his way down to the water and would not come out. Seriously. He was blue and shivering, but he kept getting further and further in. Eventually we had to drag him away from the beach, with him screaming, "I GO WATER! I GO WATER! I GO WATER!" all the way to the car and all the way home.

So I was thrilled to finally make it to the beach yesterday, thinking that Kiddle would absolutely LOVE it this year. Silly me. He had a great time running around and digging in the sand. But he wanted NOTHING to do with the water. And if I went in just to rinse my feet off, he stood on the beach screaming, "NO MOMMY! GET OUT OF THE WATER!" Weird, weird, weird. The only thing I can attribute his fear to was how rough the surf was. The waves were pretty intense, and — as a child of the bathtub-water Gulf Coast — I can certainly understand how intimidating it can be.

This, of course, marked Bigga's very first beach trip. He was a trooper as usual, napping in the stroller and hanging out under the umbrella tent.


Want some chips to go with that sand?

Don't you just love summer?

This kid just might be from Oklahoma after all

Business in the front ...

... and a party in the back.

Two-Month Checkup

We had Bigga's checkup at the pediatrician today and he's still truckin' along in the weight gain. But he remains longer than he is wide, as I say, so he's good and healthy. But, boy, what a noggin!

Weight: 13 lb 1 oz (63rd percentile)
Length: 25 1/4 inches (95th)
Head: 41.5 cm (greater than 97th!!)

Compared to Kiddle at two months:

Weight: 12 lb 9 oz (52nd percentile — or 60th? did I use fractions or ounces in my notes? argh!)
Height: 23 inches (31st percentile)

Great report from the doctor. He's doing everything he's supposed to do and then some. She pulled him by the arms toward sitting to check his head control and said, "Oh! He thinks he's a three-month old!" I'll tell you, there might have been some disadvantages to (kind of) popping out a nine-pound-plus baby, but right now there just aren't any. I love that he's strong and easy to handle. No delicate flowers around here, no sirree.

Aside from the fact that she's really involved with and knowledgeable about the kids, I'm loving our new pediatrician for another reason ... she automatically vaccinates on an alternate schedule. Such a relief because, while I'm not anti-vaccine, I do worry about how much their new little systems are stressed with so many vaccinations at once. It means more trips to the doctor for us, but that's ok. I'm much more comfortable with this schedule than the regular one we followed with Kiddle.

Sprinkler Time

It took him a while, but Kiddle finally crossed that line into realizing it's actually FUN to get sprayed with cold water. His very first friend Max is in town from Tokyo for a few weeks and they had a great time this afternoon getting as wet as they possibly could.

Bigga G is in da house!

Extra Little no more. He's now Bigga Bit. An homage to Kiddle's original (and sometimes current) nickname of Little Bit. One day, when he's an infamous white rapper, he's gonna be so embarrassed when it comes out he's been known as Bigga G since he was a WEE LITTLE BABY.

Not so gangsta now, are you Bigga?

Running with scissors

So I was on the phone with my sister early this evening and around the corner from the dining room comes Kiddle — WITH A PAIR OF SCISSORS IN HIS HAND. I jump up and gasp, "Where did you get those?!" as I dash past him to inspect for damage. This is what I found.

"Is that dog hair? (We don't have a dog.) What is that?! Oh. My. God. Tash, I gotta go ... KIDDLE'S JUST CUT HIS OWN HAIR!!"

Shockingly, thankfully you can barely tell what he did. Even in person it looks pretty good. Even more amazing considering how big that pile of hair is. And the irony of it all? I finally broke down and trimmed his bangs a few days ago. Now they're just layered, I suppose.

Please, sir, may I have some more?

I have a sneaking suspicion it might be time to move him into his 3-to-6 month wardrobe.

I can't imagine why I think that, though. Hmmm.

Two months old today

Lots of great progress in the last couple of weeks:

• His hair continues to fall out but is also starting to grow back in. No definitive colour direction yet, but I still think he'll be blond. Kiddle's blondness wasn't really apparent until after he hit six months.
• Eyebrows! So weird to notice one day that they were suddenly there.
• Great eye contact. He can hear my voice and then find my face. What a joy to see that big grin as he focuses in. Lots of cooing and chortling too.
• I finally dug out a couple of toys for him (curse of the second child ... oh, you want something to play with? hmmm ... ) and he's really gotten into batting at the duck chime on his playmat. I've been pretty impressed with his aim.
• Still eating and sleeping really well. He consistently does a seven-hour stretch and one night we even got 10 hours out of him.

Now, Kiddle was a good, good baby. Not the best sleeper (I think I was jiggling him to sleep already at this point), but didn't cry a lot, very smiley and happy, a good eater — once we got past our first two months of breastfeeding hell. But this kid? He's just so damn EASY, we're amazed. He's made our transition to a two-kid family really pretty stress-free. I'm almost holding my breath, waiting for something to change.

Keep your fingers crossed for me. I'm trying not to screw him up.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

In a happy coincidence of events, Mr. P flew back in to LaGuardia this afternoon AND it's his dad's birthday, so I packed up the boys and met everyone in Queens for a little birthday celebration.

The not so happy part was that Kiddle fell asleep on the way over there. Normally that would be a positive thing since he still really can't handle going out to dinner without a nap. But this was one of those impossible-to-wake-up-from slumbers and, once he was finally up and relatively coherent, he was a completely grumpy-to-the-point-of-embarrassment BEAR. His immediate reaction to any and everything was "NOOOOOO!!!!" He seemed to have forgotten that he hadn't seen his dad in three days. And I had to drag him into the restaurant while he protested loudly that he wanted to stay OUTSIDE, MAMA!

Back to the positive side, at least we were at a tiny, neighborhood restaurant where Mr. P's parents are regulars (and Mr. P worked at in high school). And since we were there at 4:30 (yes, I said 4:30!), we were literally the only customers. There was absolutely no way Kiddle was going to sit at the table without a meltdown, so I finally just left him lying on floor by the front door. Eventually he got over himself and managed to join us for a bit.

I'm a firm believer that kids need to learn how to act properly in public. Although, I'll admit we've been debating if we should start bringing his little Leapster game while we're out to eat. CON: he's not gaining any dinner time skills; PRO: he's quiet, sitting in his seat, and I can actually enjoy my food. So it was more than a bit mortifying to have such an ill-behaved kid, but at that point I simply didn't care and I didn't want to turn Grandpa's birthday dinner into a major scene.

At least there weren't many witnesses.

Can it be true?

Are we really moving out of the dreaded newborn stage into real babyhood? I think we're so close I can almost taste it. Extra Little has added hints of cooing and laughing to his smiling, happy periods. He's definitely much more connected to the world around him and responds to voices (mine in particular, of course) and movement. Today he really got a kick out of Mr. P chasing Kiddle around the living room.

I'm sure this emerging personality has had a boost by my dad being here right now. He's been fantastic about hanging out with XL while I shuttle Kiddle around and get things done. He's even changed some diapers (non-poop only!) and attempted a bottle feeding. Extra Little is going to be very spoiled to having an adult doting over him at all times. Unfortunately it's back to life as a second child and lots of time in the Neglect-o-matic once my dad leaves on Friday.

Welcome to the world, little one! It's lovely to see your personality peeking through the squishy newborn facade.

For the birds.

One of my favourite recent additions to our county zoo has been the new bird exhibit. Simple concept: you can walk along a path filled with parakeets and other tiny birds. For a dollar you can buy a feed stick and entice a bird or two (or ten) with a snack for an up-close encounter. When it first opened, I wasn't sure how Kiddle would react, but he loves it. As long as the birds don't actually perch on his hand, that is.

Happy Fourth of July!

We celebrated a day early with Mr. P's family in Queens. His sister and her family are in from the West Coast this week, which means we finally got to meet sweet Mary Cate for the first time. Four months older than XL — and the only girl in the family so far. We hadn't seen them in over a year, so Kiddle really got his first taste of big-brotherhood now that Tag is actively in his business.

We spent a big chunk of the afternoon at the local playground. Very NYC with its black rubber surface, chainlink fence and giant dragon sprinkler (if only it was an open fire hydrant!), but a great park, really.

Beautiful Mary Cate.

Kiddle chillin' with the dragon.

Extra Little chillin' in the double wide.

The deluge continues ...

Well, I think we ended June with rain 27 out of 30 days and 10-plus inches instead of the usual three. And July is off to a horribly similar start. Wicked thunderstorm yesterday. And today? Here's a glimpse:

I love the pop-up can floating by. And you might not have noticed my neighbor trapped in his car across the street. Hee hee!

Rain, rain, go AWAY!!

And summer begins ...

It's June 28th. Summer would be practically over where I grew up, but around here it's just getting started. School didn't get out until this week and the town pool only opened on Father Day's weekend. Of course, no need for the pool when it's barely gotten out of the 70s so far and it's rained 25 out of 27 days so far this month. That's right ... IT'S RAINED ALMOST EVERY SINGLE GODDAMNED DAY IN JUNE. Seriously. Let me put it this way — I haven't switched my closet over to summer clothes yet.

Finally, FINALLY, we had our dear friends and neighbors over for a cookout last night. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I love, love, love having neighbors who are also friends. Kiddle, Jack and LK are the cutest little trio of three-year-olds. And I love relaxing under the soothing canopy of the 100-year-old dogwood tree with the adults, as the kids terrorize our backyard.

However... if I'd did this trek to the backyard once, I did it 50 times:

Over the years we've lived here, I've tried to make the set-up and execution of my backyard entertaining more efficient, but I simply can't avoid going in and out, up and down, down and up, out and in ... to the point of total exhaustion. MY NEXT HOUSE WILL HAVE A BACK DOOR RIGHT OFF THE KITCHEN! NO STAIRS PLEASE! Oh, and while I'm making requests, a fenced-in backyard to keep the kiddos contained without screaming, "Turn around! Back up the driveway RIGHT NOW!! Stay in the back!" over and over again. I want my outdoor entertaining to be as effortless as possible. Too much to ask?