Valentine's Day Gifts

Here are a few V-day gifts from my Valentines to you.

Conrad wants to share kisses. This is his latest trick. You say "kisses" and he puckers his lips and makes a little fishy face.

On the eve of his 11th month birthday, he's becoming less baby and more toddler. He's standing all on his own (look, no hands!), he's tearing into every cabinet, drawer and closet we have, he's saying words - bah for ball, uh-oh and ki-ki when he sees the cat, and he throws tantrums - full out kicking, screaming, crying tantrums. 1 month left and I'll be baby-less again.

And the actual toddler, Joseph...he wants to share his sweet dance moves with you for Valentine's Day.

Napoleon Dynamite's got nothing on this kid.

Who needs fancy dinners, roses and champagne when I have these sweet Valentines?

Another Mini-Me

Remember this post?

Strike EVERYTHING I said.

In the last few months, Conrad has become another mini-me. I don't know what happened but this child resembles me more and more everyday. Sometimes I catch of glimpse of him and can place the exact baby picture of mine that he resembles. My mom took this picture over the weekend:

And I immediately knew there was an identical picture of me:

The kid has my crazy, un-tameable hair as well. You can wet it and comb it twenty times a day, but as soon as it dries, it's sticking up all over the place. I've stopped even trying...

and apparently, so did my parents:

Sorry, Rich. It looks like I've got the dominant genetics...at least in the looks department...you've got me beat in the personality department.

Giving Thanks

I'm going to be a copy cat and just hope that my BIFF Mandie truly believes imitation is the greatest form of flattery and is so happy I FINALLY got around to blogging again, she doesn't care. Her Thankful post the other day inspired me to blog about the people I'm most thankful for. Sorry, it's a day late.

So here's the top 5 people I'm thankful for (in no particular order):

1. My husband. I'm thankful to have a husband who is a true partner in every aspect imaginable. Thankful for a husband who gives babies baths with more gusto than an exhausted mama can muster at tne end of the day. Thankful for a husband who in all honesty does more of the late night paci insertions, patting back to sleeps and settling downs after bad dreams than I do. Thankful for a husband who e-mails his boss at 4 am to tell him he's going to be late when I wake up with a 101 fever in the middle of the night (and then loads up two kids in the car and high tails it to the pediatrician's office that morning to get a double ear infection diagnosis). I'm thankful for a husband that strikes just the exact right balance between his responsibilities to provide for our family through a job he loves and his responsibilities to give us all his love and attention. I could go on and on...

2. Joseph. I'm thankful for the way he makes me laugh EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. The exuberance and intensity he brings to EVERYTHING.SINGLE.THING he does. For the hilarious things that come out of his mouth. For providing me, through his antics, with countless Facebook status updates. Thank you for making me a mom and showing me what unconditional love means. For showing me how perfectly two people's genetics can blend to create one perfect, beautiful, vibrant little person.

3. Conrad. I'm thankful for him finally giving me the opportunity to experience the way your heart warms when a newly awake, still sleepy baby greets you with the sweetest smile and baby babble the minute they see you walk in a room (Joseph doesn't really wake up in a good mood). For being a calm, predictable, happy little personality. I'm thankful for the way he watches his brother with an intensity that says "I want to do everything you do". I'm even thankful for those afternoon naps that sometimes don't last so long. Sometimes they make me stop the toy cleanup and laundry doing and dishwasher unloading and just sit and rock a baby while I drift off to sleep myself. I'm thankful for him making our family just a little closer to being complete.

4. My Mom & Dad. They continue to show through example that your job (and sleepless nights) as a parent never really ends. I'm thankful for a mother who on a May morning rushes to you on the first plane she can catch when all hopes and dreams are crashing down around you. A mother who says "I'm coming down there" before you can even get the tear choked request out of your mouth. For a father who spends an entire week of vacation hauling boxes and driving across the country and organizing cabinets and closets when you decide to move 14 hours away with a 2-year old and 2 month old. I'm thankful for parents who love my babies the way I love them and don't mind responding to their 6am wakeup calls so Mommy and Daddy can make the teeniest of dents in the 3-ish years of sleep deprivation we've accumulated.

5. My brother (and Renee too!). For continuing to be my partner in crime in harassing my parents for doing things like wearing bright orange reflective vests when they take walks in the evening and buying TV dinner trays so they can eat dinner in the living room while they watch TV. For being witty and funny and making me laugh with crazy antics. For picking a chica who's the complete opposite of the crazy, psychotic future-sister-in-law I could have ended up with. And for the future nieces and nephews he'll give me (hopefully sometime BEFORE my kids are old enough to babysit for them). I might even be thankful for that sometimes ornery, high maintenance personality that seems to have made it's way into my first born's DNA. At least I know what to expect since I grew up dealing with it (Disney World won't be the most magical place on Earth for us).

And some honorable mentions (again, no particular order):

* My extended family. I'm thankful for countless childhood memories. The glazed donuts at the Star Market lunch counter with Grandma Carras. The collectible crystal pieces I still treasure from Grandpa Carras. The popsicles and special treats and over-the-top spoiling by Grandma and Grandpa Conrad. The girls-day-out trips that my Aunt Kathy, Aunt Pam and Aunt Janice always included me in. I'm thankful for the football games and basketball games that Aunt Kathy and Uncle Larry came too regularly just to cheer me on with my poms-poms on the field. Thankful too for my Aunt Risa with her generous heart (and Uncle Lou too for the countless laughs over the years). For my cousins and built in best friends...for going along with some of the wacky games I came up with (Olympics, Saratoga Race Track) and putting up with my...hmmm...sometimes slightly bossy personality. I love you all and am happy to live closer to you all.

* My friends. The in-real-life ones and the interwebs one. I'm thankful for the times you've been there to celebrate with me and the times I've been sad and disappointed and you've cheered me up. For people like Anne and Erin and Lauren, for the inside jokes and hilarious memories. For Mandie and the e-mails in the middle of the tough afternoon that make me LOL, literally. For Harmony and Mandie who are still some of the only people in my life that completely understand that no matter how long it's been, there's still a tiny piece of your heart that is sad this time of year. I'm thankful for their blogs who make me feel close even when thousands of miles separate us.

* My in-laws. I'm thankful for the way they accepted me into their family without any of the weird jealous "you're stealing my son/brother" dramatics that so many crazy in-laws pull. For the way they'll do anything for us and they way they love my boys unconditionally.

* Sofia, my 3-morning/week nanny who saves my sanity many days. I love the way Joseph yells "Sofia coming today! YAY!" and jumps up and down in the morning and the way Conrad lights up when she walks in the house. I'm also really thankful for her laundry folding skills and the way I leave with 3 loads in process and come home to 2 hampers filled with folded clothes.

* Barack Obama. Despite being part of an ever shrinking group that feels this way, I still think YOU ROCK!!!! I'm thankful for the holidays we'll share when one of my boys marry Sasha (she clearly is going to like younger men) and we share grandchildren.

* Price William and Kate Middleton. Thanks for giving me something to obsess over for the next 5 months. I'm thankful for the fact that your romance can allow me to be naive and believe that yours will be the royal romance that finally lives up to the fairy tale. And of course I'm thankful for the future princess who will marry my other son. I've got lofty expectations for my boys.

So there you have it, my 2010 thankful list. And Mandie, in case you don't subscribe to the whole "imitation is flattery" thing, I'll throw in some overt flattery. Y'all need to check out her blog. It's hilarity in blog form. Seriously, this girl needs to write a book.

Mr. Personality

Oh, yes. Mr. Conrad is certainly starting to develop a personality. He's babbling and laughing, rolling after toys and trying to scoot around the floor. He's started taking baths with his big brother (thanks to this awesome invention) and he loves to kick and splash. Joseph kicks and splashes right back and it's a big old giggle fest in the tub (assuming everyone has napped well and one - if not both kids - are not near meltdown mode by bath time). His babbling is a little bit like screaming...

People ask me a lot if Joseph and Conrad have similar personalities. The answer is yes and no. No in the sense that Conrad is not bat.shit.crazy. Joseph is....oh goodness, it's honestly, hard to even describe Joseph. He's just more. More? What does that mean? He's a typical child but with more persistence, more energy, more passion, more zest for life, more ker-aziness than your average kid. He's just Joseph...and we love him...but we didn't need another just like him.

Luckily, Conrad is calmer. He can be quite content with a couple toys just watching Joseph and I build block towers. While Joseph was at school today, I laid toys out all over the basement, turned on some music and ironed for almost an hour while Conrad played with minimal fussing. I NEVER could have done that with Joseph. 5 minutes in and he would have been telling me in his infant way "Oh hellz no, lady, you best be devoting your attention to me real quick". Conrad wants to crawl - he gets up on his hands and rocks his little tushy - but when he realizes he can't do it yet, he just lays down and rolls. Joseph's failed crawling attempts ended with screaming and crying and utter frustration. Joseph has always jumped in to new things with both feet. He's never been hesitant about new people or places or experiences. New = fun and exciting. Conrad is more hesitant. He's wary of new people and crowded places make him visibly nervous. He does not like little old ladies all up in his face cooing. He's definitely the more cautious child.

How are they similar? Conrad is as perceptive as Joseph is. Joseph's scarily perceptive. My dad put a smoke detector up when he took a nap one day. He hadn't been out of his room 5 seconds and he was like pointing at it yelling "Oh, oh, oh...wuz that?" Joseph has an insane sense of smell. Rich was eating fries one night when Joseph woke up in his crib. Rich went in to settle him down and immediately Joseph starting yelling "FRIES!!!!". Joseph smells everything. He sniffs his clothes, his toys...definitely his food...which equals VERY picky eating. He chokes and gags if he eats something he doesn't like. Conrad is the same way. He completely dry heaved and vomited after getting a single spoonful of peas.

Conrad doesn't miss much either, which as we learned makes traveling and needing to share a bedroom with him slightly difficult. Rich and I couldn't go to bed while in Vermont without him waking up. Almost every night he ended up snuggled in bed with me for an hour before I put him back in his crib....Only to be awakened by him at 3 am pulling down the bumper, staring at us and squealing (as if to say - "Hey peeps, I see you over there. I'd like in on that snuggle action").

He's also quite energetic with his toys....like a certain somebody also was.

Although, he's got some work to do because I don't see him getting THIS crazy with an exersaucer anytime soon.

I did find Conrad like this this morning:

I fed him breakfast, cleaned it up, came back 3 minutes later and there he was...asleep. I can assure you that never happened with Joseph. If it had, I probably would have called 911.

Fall Funsies!

Hello People! I don't have a good excuse for my lack of blogging behind the same tired "we're busy" excuse. Which is true but you're tired of hearing it and I'm tired of typing it. So let's just cut right to the point of this post: Fall photos!!!

We've been enjoying our first family fall in New England. While we have seasons in the south, autumn isn't really autumn except in New England. The air is crisper and the leaves are brighter than anywhere else in the country. We even got to enjoy a little taste of Vermont last week with a visit to "PopPop and T" (my parents).

I'm tired (Thanks to a 7 month old who decided at 9 pm last night he randomly needed another bottle but has parents that are so stupid they didn't realize he was waking up every 20-30 minutes because he was hungry until after midnight. Thanks also to this city's ridic waste management department who feels 4:00 am on Monday mornings is a perfectly acceptable time at which to collect garbage and a 2 year old who is petrified of the "boom boom" truck and screams bloody murder at the "boom boom sounds".) so I'll limit the commentary and just share the pictures.

So, our trip to Vermont involved hanging out at the Vermont Country Store:

A trip to the pumpkin patch where Joseph ate apple cider donuts

And we attempted some family photos:

And we hung out with the uni-bomber (aka Uncle Jeffrey).

We just hung out at PopPop and T's house:

(Uncle Jeffrey looking less terroristic)

And Conrad got some bonding time with the great-grandparents he's named after:

And we tortured naked babies in hollowed out pumpkins:

And made some forceful attempts at capturing brotherly love on camera (which ended with Joseph climbing over the couch yelling "No touch baby!!!" and "Mine pumpkin!")

And in true Vermont fashion, fall left as quickly as it came because on Friday we got a snowstorm. A full out, hardcore snow that lasted 3-ish hours that left us with 2-3 inches of snow!

And because their true northeasterners, my parents celebrated thinking this meant they'd be hitting the ski slopes early this year. And because I'm not yet that reacquainted with the frozen tundra, I cried myself to sleep thinking about snow suits and hats and gloves and two kids in and out of the car and being trapped in my house for months. Luckily, winter isn't quite upon us in Connecticut.

It's Been So Long Since Last We Met.....

Well, yes. I'm sure you are thinking it has been a long time since I met my blog. Unfortunately, a hubby in the midst of a whirlwind travel schedule and kids who ended up with colds = little time or energy for the blog.

But what I'm really referring to is my recent reunion with one my bestest college friends, Lauren (and FYI...the title of this little entry is the opening line of the Georgetown Fight Song). Her week long East Coast tour brought her to the big old city and she was more than willing to hop on a Sunday morning train out to the 'burbs. Amazingly, it's been over 4 years since we saw each other but a move from DC to Phoenix (for her) and 2 kids (for me) doesn't make it easy to see each other very often.

But even after 4 years we still had a great time reminiscing about good ole days on the Hilltop and catching up on life. Lives that are pretty much polar opposites right now. See, she's still single and LOVING it! She can just decide there's a whole lot of people on the East coast she hasn't seen in too long and head out east for a week. And this trip involves a suitcase and a computer. There's no double stroller and carseats and 1 carry-on with just 47 diapers (just in case your flight makes the morning news for setting some sort of record for time spent trapped on the runway). Her weekend nights (and a lot of her weekday nights too) involve ethnic restaurants and hipster concerts. Mine involve takeout and some DVR. I fell asleep on my couch at 10pm on New Year's Eve last year. She randomly booked a flight and spent NYE in Chile (or something like that) because there was a good deal on the flight. My Christmas card last year was the standard family picture on the beach. She sent a CD of her favorite music from the last year with bands that I had mostly never heard of. It arrived in the mail one day when I was standing in my kitchen barefoot and pregnant (literally) baking Christmas cookies, rocking out to Michael Buble (is that an oxymoron?) with a toddler playing at my feet.

Despite her super coolness, she was still thrilled to spend a day in the 'burbs, sitting on the beach, watching Backyardigans and having pretend sword flights with a 2-year old, feeding an infant a bottle and just generally loving on my babies.

That's why I love her and why Joseph was pretty psyched to make a new friend. He liked Lauren so much, you'd think they were blood related...and well, they sort of are since my boys certainly bleed Hoya blue.

And I just had to add this picture of Joseph:

Taken after he kept putting sand in his mouth and my repeated warnings of "Joseph - that's not going to taste good. Joseph - Don't do that. You're going to get mad."

All Growed Up!

Well, not quite ALL grown up....but we're getting there. Both boys are celebrating significant milestones today. Today was Joseph's first day of pre-school. I really hadn't been all too worried about it because Joseph is a pretty social kid and because I have super awesome friends (in Charlotte :-( ), I had left him alone at play dates when Conrad was first born and he had done wonderfully! So I was sort of surprised when I was a little anxious and tearful this morning. Anxious that he wouldn't do as well as I expected, anxious that something would happen to him while out of my care...yada, yada...if you're a parent, you know what I am talking about. I was a little tearful too at the thought of my first teeny, tiny little baby being big enough to go to pre-school. He looked like such a big boy in his jeans and rolled up collared shirt and vest and sporting his backpack. Well not too big - because those jeans are Gap adjustable waist jeans, size 12-18 month (he's 29 months) and adjusted to the 2nd to last tightest setting. The child is so skinny and short legged!

In expected Joseph style, he paused for a total of 3 pictures outside before realizing other kids were beating him to get inside and he started demanding "Go in school. Hurry! Hurry!" Once we got in, he made a straight shot for the puzzles and blocks and trucks and laid claim to a specific truck. 2 minutes in and we were having a discussion about sharing the truck. He barely took notice when we kissed and hugged him goodbye.





I returned to a VERY tired Joseph. I didn't even have to talk to him to know he was spent. The teacher reported he had been a non-stop, on-the-move kid and never once asked for me...no surprises there. As also expected, he melted down about 3 seconds after getting in the car. Joseph overtired and overstimulated is a Joseph you don't want to see. A quick drive home, a quick lunch, and 4-5 more meltdowns that left his first pre-school craft project (a clothes-pin butterfly) in numerous pieces and he was off for a nap....which he screamed through for the first 30 min but has now been asleep for 2-ish hours.

Please note the reason the quality of these pictures suck is because we made the rookie, 1st time parent mistake and forgot to charge our nice camera last night. We got 1 picture before it decided to die. Luckily, I still have my trusty little PowerShot.

So on to Conrad. Today Conrad turned 6 months old!!! Has it really been 6 months since I walked into a hospital in shock that I was absolutely about to give birth again. 6 months since we first laid eyes on this sweet, tiny little face:



Conrad is just happy to be a normal 6 month old....eating (well, sort of eating...he seems to have Joseph's picky eating traits) pureed bananas and sweet potatoes and carrots and pears. He's sleeping through the night most nights although this means his wake-up time has become somewhere between 5-6 am. He's tripod sitting like a champ and sitting independently for longer and longer periods. He rolls around trying to keep up with his brother. He's quickly learning rolling isn't going to help him keep pace with big brother and he's becoming increasingly frustrated with his inability to crawl. I can't say I'm excited for the crawling, especially since when held at his waist, Conrad can pretty much handle standing. Crawling turns into pulling to standing which turns into cruising which turns into walking very, very quickly.

In the meantime, we'll enjoy these pictures of Conrad's attempts at sitting. He's looking super cute in the adorable baseball coverall that his great Aunt Helen sent him.



Seriously, when did I become a mom of a pre-schooler and 6 month old?