As soon as BD and I moved into our little house nearly three years ago I knew right away that we would have a slew of family photos leading up the staircase. As a kid I grew up mostly in apartments and we never had a stairway gallery. I would see them in movies or at friends houses and feel that thats what ever family should have in their house. I love kitschy photos with the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. And I’m particularly fond of the portrait with the full view and 3/4 side view combo. The professional family photo is something I’ve been longing to do too. Ours will be from the Queens Center Mall where they have all sorts of trashy airbrushed backdrops to choose from. Gawd I love an airbrushed backdrop.

Anyway our stairway gallery did start the minute we moved in and is growing slowly but surely. I thought that I would share some of our families prized photos that made it to the stairs. Enjoy!

This one was taken in Vegas pre-babies. Anytime BD and I see a cool photo op we’re in.

This is one you guys have seen before. To me this photo embodies the carefree party days when BD and I first met.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I had a chance to catch up with one of my girlfriends. This particular girlfriend happens to be about five years younger than me and hasn’t been all that lucky in love since we became friends. About six months ago she started a relationship. Now, she’s hopelessly in love. I’m really happy for her. He could be the one. I see in them exactly the same love and excitement that BD and I had when we first met. They kiss spontaneously, take showers together, giggle incessantly and are inseparable.

I’m not gonna lie, I’m kinda jelz. New love is intoxicating. I had that once, I mean, we had that once. At one time BD was BF and we flittered around the city without a care in the world. I was absolutely gaga for him. He was all I could think of, all the time. The sensation of finding the person you want to spend the rest of your life with is amazing. Back then I dreamt of the life we now have and I got it, I got it all. I got the guy, I got the ring, I got the house and I got the kids.

What is it now five? six years later and here we are with our life and our kids. The kids. The kids change everything. Now let be be straight, I wouldn’t have it any other way. As you know I adore my children and I am still head over heels for BD, but the honeymoon is most certainly over.

When your first child comes into your lives there is a shift in the paradigm. The world no longer revolves around just the two of you. Eventually you get used to the third wheel. The first child is hard at first because you know nothing, but some months down the road a cozy threesome is not so bad. Suddenly you find that you are getting a chance to go out with friends and have dinners alone, even whole weekends. At least we did. Thanks to parents near by we had it relatively, dare I say easy, the first time around.

Que baby number two a.k.a Lola Bean. Now here we are, the four of us. Life is good but a far cry from our first years together as a couple. What were we expecting? When I saw my friend and her new BF today I got totally sad after I left. BD and I haven’t been alone in ages. Almost all my love and affection goes to the kids. They are demanding as hell. I can only imagine that he feels somewhat neglected. Sometimes I feel neglected too. We have our moments of reflection on how good we have it but these kids do a number on your relationship. It’s not exciting right now. After the kids are in bed I’m spent. The routine is too precise. He plays Call of Duty. I go to my computer. We read. It’s fucking boring! We can’t go out together. He goes out and I resent him for it. I can’t go out at all.

It’s so easy to put the relationship on the back burner but it’s the worst possible thing you can do. We are the reason this family exists. If we don’t nurture and reinvent our our relationship as our lives change the inevitable will happen. The fact is we are in a rut. We have a three month old infant and a demanding toddler. We need a jolt. Possibly a heart to heart? Friday night chess games (an old pastime of ours)?  Date night? Late night dinner in our dining room when the kids are in bed? Nap-time romps? We need to connect without the kids. I worship my family but sometimes I miss just us. What’s a girl to do?

Here’s how my mornings typically go; Fritz has been waking up screaming at about six-thirty on the nose. I scream back for him to come in our room hoping I can catch a few more Z’s. Yea right. He wedges his way into bed between me and BD and begins poking me or hammering his heel repeatedly into my back. This make’s me really pissy first thing in the morning. I plead for him to ‘give me five more minutes’. Then he grinds his elbow into my side (totally on purpose) which causes me to mutter some profanities but ultimately gets me out of bed.

I usually make him brush his teeth first thing then head downstairs with his clothes for the day in hand. He plops on the couch and we flick on Sponge Bob. He’s so over Blues Clues. I stick a straw in a yogurt drink for him and make my first cup of coffee. Ahhhh. The rest of the morning, about forty-five minutes until he’s out the door for school, is spent getting him dressed, shoving food down his throat and making his lunch. Some mornings are better than others, but all I know is, the second he’s out the door, calm washes over me. Then I settle in, feed Lola, drink coffee and chillax with the morning news. So begins my day.

Right now, my afternoons are pretty blissful. I spend a lot of time bonding with Lola. She is such a peaceful baby. If she even let’s out a little yelp I know just what to do to to please her. I lay down on the floor next to her baby blanket and play little games like peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake. Her smiles get me high so I just lean over her and do anything I can to keep um coming. We run errands together and visit with friends. Soon when the weather is nice we’ll be strolling and sitting in the park. It’s all very dreamy and I’m going to enjoy it as long as it lasts. Not that I won’t enjoy all the rest of my day’s with her and Fritz, but there is something about doting over a new baby that’s just insanely delightful.

Then at approximately two forty-five every afternoon the chaos resumes. I walk into Fritz’s class room and lately he pretty much ignores me. Other kids run up to their parents happy to see them, not Fritz, I guess he’s too cool now. Already? Then once I get him out of school, which always takes a bit of coxing, a rocky road of emotions follows all the way up until he is read his bedtime stories and tucked into bed. The second calm of the day and I’m usually spent.

Now, I know this sounds a bit like favoritism, but I assure you that I love both my kids equally. Lola is just a little thing, still attached to my breast. And Fritz is a growing boy who I can have a conversation with. He drives me insane at least fifty times a day but he melts my heart just as many times. I’m just saying that right now my afternoons with Lola are very special and this is one of the main reasons I made the choice to stay at home with my kids. It’s my face she sees pushing her stroller, and mine hers. I believe it’s the best thing for both of us and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

There are no words for this….

Let’s welcome another little munchkin into the blogosphere, commenter Juli went and had her little baby girl, Lila Dove, two weeks ago! Girls! Girls! Girls! And we can all hate her now, because on her blog she’s written ‘I have been a little sick the last few days with some ‘digestive’ issues, but I’m feeling a lot better today. The good part about that is I have managed to lose all the baby weight I gained except for 5 pounds, in only a week! Very excited about that.’ I would take after birth ‘digestive issues’ any day if it meant losing all my baby weight in ONE WEEK!!!! But back to the baby…look at these two! Sweetness. Check out these pics from Yo! Momster Raps of her son Vaughn laying with his new lil sister on her play gym. Everyone….’Awwwwwww’. I can’t wait for this exact scenario. We wish you well Juli!

Holy fu*k ya’ll!! This school thing has really turned this place upside down. Either That or were hitting another curve in the equilibrium/disequilibrium diagram from ‘Your Two Year Old: Terrible or Tender’. We are spot on the 2 1/2 disequilibrium mark. I think it’s a little bit of both really, school and the so called ‘terrible twos’. This book that’s pictured, I haven’t read it. But that spiral diagram has been permanently burned into my brain. My parents picked the book up at a used book store and it’s in my ‘to read’ pile. Maybe I’ll get around to it by the time my daughter is two. Anyway, today has been a doozy. It was Fritz’s 3rd full school day and it started out with him waking up  and crying to not go. From 7-8:15 he cried and whined while I struggled to get him up, dressed and fed. Thank god on the ride to school I got a respite from the madness when I put on Cars (yes, we have a DVD player in there…makes me feel like a soccer mom. Kinda weird). He put up quite a fight all the way to the classroom and finally settled down after about 5 minutes. It made me feel really good that I didn’t have to leave him there screaming. Fewww, guilty conscience averted.

It’s so hard when you in the mist of the chaos to figure out what to do. Like, how do I make this stop. I try yelling. I try reasoning. I try threatening. I try hugging and baby talk. I did all that this morning and tonight. And I’m not talking about a single instance that can be taken care of with a disciplinary action like a time out but a full on tantrum/meltdown situation. But everything that goes up must come down and when I picked up Fritz from school, it was all good in the hood. He was happy as a clam. Warren and Allison came over and things got a little cray cray. He seemed to be a bit more hyper than usual and was driving me a little nuts. Fine. Then bath, then stories, then bedtime and then meltdown #2. This one was of the full on incessant whining/crying variety. The sound of screeching whining may be one of the worst noises in the world. I’m pretty sure they use it in Guantanamo. Again I tried everything. The final threat was putting him in the crib, that’s still set up in his room for his sister, and shutting the door (pitch black, kinda scary). It sort of worked but I still had to go up a few times and slowly he mellowed out.

So, in conclusion, just when you think you’ve got this thing nailed, the bedtime thing, the meal time thing or whatever thing, it changes. Your kid is an angel for a week and goes to bed with a story and a kiss, but then all of a sudden your hit with a night of chaos. It’s parenting. I’ll deal with it, you’ll deal with it, we all will. But here’s the kicker, out of all the shit that happened today the moment that I picked up Fritz from school and he ran to me, hugged me and totally on his own said ‘I love you Mommy”…that moment trumps all. At least now that the status quo is resumed, Fritz is soundly sleeping and I’ve vented to you guys, that’s how I’ll choose to remember today. Ahhhh, I feel better. I’m going to watch Top Chef. Toodles.

This past weekend BD went away and Fritz and I were on our own. Friday we went through our normal routine, park, lunch, nap, repeat. As Friday night rolled around I popped up some p-corn and got the party started. Movie night! In the living room I let Fritz have full reign of the TV. He chose the usual, Cars! We threw p-corn in the air and caught it in our mouths and played with the accompanying miniature figures to the movie. Then it was my turn to choose a movie. We moved the partay up to my bedroom, nestled in and put on I Love You, Man, a movie my husband would rather stick tacks in his eyes than watch. Fritz happily snuggled next to me and giggled along to all the funny parts. We cuddled, I told Fritz “I love you” (like 50 times) and he always responded, “I love you Mommy”. He eventually fell off into a sweet slumber and I gazed at my sons perfect little face. His skin with not a mark, sign of damage or age. His little heart shaped mouth breathing in and out. His chest gently rising and falling. 

This little boy has grabbed a hold of my heart and made it whole in a way I never knew was possible. It’s a different kind of love. A love of someone that is completely and totally dependent on you. A love without lust. An innocent, untainted kind of love. The loving feelings I have for him are so strong and pure it scares me sometimes. It scares me because deep in the back of your head you will always fear anything bad ever happening to them. As my son becomes a walking, talking being and is forging his very own personality, my love grows with each passing day. The minute these kids are born I believe you start falling in love and never stop. Sometimes I look at him, my heart wrenching, and I bite my lip hard, it’s all I can do to bring myself back to reality because cartoon hearts are pouring out of my eyes. 

I feel so lucky to be able to spend the time that I have with Fritz this summer. I’ve had the chance to bond with him before the new baby comes and he goes to school next week. I’m feeling so emo it’s borderline ridiculous. I’m overflowing with love for my family…my husband, Fritz and the little baby that’s growing inside my belly. I’m feeling like the luckiest woman on the planet these days.

At 4:15 pm on August 14th, 2003 New York City went  black. The power went kaput. 9/11 still very much at the forefront of peoples minds, a chill went through me realizing the entire city was powerless. I was on 28th street, just about midtown, sitting at my desk. I was working a crappy job for a jewelry company that I could have cared less about. I used to steal Xanax from my boss. When we realized it was a black out and all rules were off, he broke out his weed stash and we all got high in the showroom. I had been chatting with my boyfriend all day on AIM and suddenly being cut off was too much to bare. This was a momentous occasion after all. With no contact, no computers, no phone, how would we meet? At the time we were both sporting Nextels. As luck would have it, I began to fiddle with the ‘blinger’, that’s what we called the 2-way radio device on the Nextel, and got through. He told me he’d jump on his bike (as in motorcycle) and he would meet me walking down Broadway. I would start heading South and he would be heading North.

With the rest of NYC I set out on foot. It was hot. A store owner gave me a water to stay hydrated. It was fun, all the people walking together, looking at each other like ‘Woah, this is crazy’. I’m sure for some this was far too close to 9/11 to be enjoyable. As I made my way downtown, the excitement of seeing my guy grew. We had been dating since mid June and had outrageously intense chemistry. I was totally in love but hadn’t mentioned it yet, only mouthed it to him behind his back. I knew in my heart this was ‘the one’. I knew almost the moment we met and the feeling swelled each time we hung out. This guy was everything I ever wanted and more. For 2 and a half months we partied, lived it up, we made out  on a water tower high above the city , we went to Atlantic City for the 4th of July and I squeezed him tight, trusting him with my life, flying down the BQE on the back of his motorcycle.  Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Samantha, 

I know you are on your 2nd pregnancy right now (congrats) and Fritz isn’t much older than Aiden is. Do you ever get that crazy mom feeling that you will show one child less attention than the other? Or you just couldn’t imagine sharing your time because you love your little man SO much? 
Yes, random. We’ve been talking about having baby number 2…and those are just some of the things I worry about. I was wondering if I was the only one!

-Alexandra  Read the rest of this entry »