Fits and apologies

This week, I took Avery and Donovan to the store. They were both sitting in the cart and both having giant fits. You know those moms you see in the store who have kids that are completely out of control and you are both embarrassed and feel sorry for them and wonder what kind of mothers they could possibly be to have such horrible children? Well, that was me. People were peeking around the end of the aisles to see whose kids were being so terrible. It was really embarrassing. Anyway, I think I must have lost my cool, because when we got home, Avery made this card and gave it to me.

I'll translate for those who aren't fluent in the reading of preschooler penmanship.

This is the front, it says "Mommy I hope you love Avery."

On the inside, it says "Sorry Mommy. For Mommy Love Avery" the other side is a picture of the two of us with a heart. It's upside down.

Big Boy Beb!!

First off, I need to start by saying that yes, I know there is a typo in my title. I'll tell you why in a minute, but first, I need to say to all the non-parent readers out there (yes, both of you) that this is one of the things that you'll get when you have kids. Before I had kids, I admit that I was completely annoyed by parents that perpetuated their childrens' baby talk by using the same word themselves. I considered them enablers and vowed that I'd never do that myself. I judged my own sister-in-law and BFF for calling her son's sippy cup a "ba-ba" (sorry, Sarah, but I do get it now!). The truth is, I just didn't get it. I didn't understand just how cute and endearing it is when your child says the word adorably wrong. I hate saying "You won't understand until you've been there," but this is truly a case of that. I am a total hypocrite, and can write pages of words that we purposely say wrong because our children do and we think it's cute: peppernini (pepperoni), dinky (binky) and beb (bed), just to name a couple. So I am now one of those annoying people.

Ok, back to my story. Donovan has had some trouble sleeping lately. Well, not sleeping so much, but actually going to sleep - once he's out, he's out for the night. But lately, he cries when it is bed time, and yells that he wants to sleep in "Sissy's Beb" or "Daddy's Beb." For weeks now, he has been begging to sleep in Avery or my bed. He has come to hate his own bed. So, we decided to make the plunge into a big boy bed. Yesterday, we spent all day going all over town buying a mattress and bedding, taking down the crib and putting up the new bed. We thought it was perfect timing because Avery was the EXACT same age when we put her in her first big girl bed. In fact, we got her bed on Memorial Day three years ago. I took this as a sign that he was ready, that it was fate that my kids start this new era in their lives on the exact same weekend at the exact same age. We let Donovan pick out his own bedding - Lightning McQueen. We cheered and squealed and got very excited for Donovan, telling him what a big boy he was, how he was going to be just like Avery and how cool his bed was. He couldn't have been more excited. He couldn't wait for bedtime! We were out and about before bed, and on the way home, we talked up the bed again, and he just couldn't wait. Throughout his bath, we discussed sleeping in his big boy bed. He got into his pajamas, said his prayers in which he thanked Heavenly Father for his big boy bed. This was all going perfectly! I kissed him goodnight and told him to get into bed, and he promptly started crying because he wanted to sleep in sissy's beb......

Anywho, here he is in his big boy beb:

He did finally go to sleep.

And, just for the sake of good memories, here is Avery when she advanced to her big girl bed, three years ago. I thought they looked alike, but as I look at these photos of them at the exact same age, I realize that they don't really look all that much alike.

PS, Donovan is now napping in his new beb, and went down with no problems. Keep your fingers crossed for us tonight!

Preschool Graduate!

Last Thursday, Avery graduated from preschool. Now, I was always one of those mothers that thought preschool "graduation" ceremonies were a little cheesy and a bit of a waste of time, but you better believe that I cried my eyes out at that ceremony! My kids are in such great stages right now, it makes me a little sad to see them grow up and change. Yet it's exciting at the same time. I just can't believe she is 5 and will start kindergarten in the fall.

Wanna see how much she has changed in preschool?

Here she is, on the first day of preschool last year (Monkey class):

Here she is on her final day of preschool:

She started preschool with three of her BFF's, Emma, Adrienne and Merritt. They have been friends since birth. Here they are on their first day at school last year:

Merritt and Emma have already gone on to kindergarten, so only Adrienne and Avery were left for the annual pose on the stairs this year.

Woohoo!!! We're off to kindergarten!!!

How do you hot wire a car?

This morning, Donovan had a playdate at the mall with his friend Anna. He loves "Nana" and they had a great time. Lest you think I make my children have playdates in Sears, I should probably explain that the mall around the corner has a soft playground that they run and play on, see?



After they played for a bit, they decided to take some "rides" on the motorized cars and motorcycles. You know the type, you put in a quarter (or three quarters, due to the increasing cost of gas these days) and the car bounces you for about 27 seconds? Well, Anna and Donovan were having a great time climbing around on the vehicles, when Donovan decided that he wanted to make them go. He kept asking me for money, and I didn't have any quarters, nor did I want to shell out 75 cents per ride. So I told him that we were just going to sit in them today. He didn't seem too upset about not getting money and begged me for my keys, which I gave him. He kept poking my keys at the dashboard of the car, which I thought was cute and funny, when suddenly the car sprang to life. Anna and Donovan had hotwired the mall car!

Here are the cute little felons. Look how proud they are of themselves:

My embarrassing moment of the week

This afternoon, Avery has her friend Adrienne over to play. They have been playing beautifully in the basement, but suddenly came running upstairs, claiming that they are afraid of the "bird outside." I went down into the basement and sure enough, heard what sounded like a baby duck stuck in the window well. It was quacking and scuffling around. I can't see through the window, so I went outside to look, but the window well is under a bush and I couldn't see anything there either. My neighbor was on her porch and said that she had heard it as well and that her cat was going crazy and clawing at the door. There were also several squirrels under the bush. I figured there must be a baby squirrel stuck in the window and that's why all the animals were distressed. My neighbor said that's what she thought too, and suggested that I call the maintenece people to come and get it out.

I called the maintenece folks, and they arrived within a couple of minutes. I poked my head out the front door to see what was caught and saw the maintenece guys laughing. Apparently, there were not one, but two squirrels down there. As the guys explained to me, it's mating season, and the squirrels were, um, well... not stuck. Then, I got a very hepful and nice instructional lecture from the maintenence man about how it's perfectly natural this time of year, and that it's nothing to call for help over. I think he thinks I'm an idiot.

A couple of minutes later, the girls came back upstairs, saying that the noise had started up again and they were scared. I told them the squirrels were playing. This cheered them up, and they were no longer scared of the noises coming from the window well. They said they wanted to go back downstairs to listen to the squirrels giggle. Oye. I'd better call Adrienne's mom....

Fab Sissy Week!

I just dropped off my little sister Makelle at the airport after a fun-filled sisters week. I'm not quite sure what we did, but the time passed quickly and I was so sad to see her leave. We did make a trip to Ikea and one to Amish country, but other than that, we sat around, chatted, and ate too much food. Before she arrived, I had just lost 12 pounds, I'm sure in the 5 days she was here I gained 27...


Makelle brought her gorgeous new baby, Ruby. I seriously wanted to eat this baby up. If this kid doesn't make you want to have a baby right now, you are a person without any maternal feeling whatsoever. I wanted to get pregnant about 5.2 seconds after I saw her.
Donovan loved, and I mean LOVED "baby Wooby." He wanted to hold her every second that he got. He woke up every morning yelling "Baby See!" (see the baby) and literally couldn't get enough of her. They had an almost perfect week together, until he stepped on her head this morning. Whooops! But babies are resilient, right?

Avery, suprisingly, didn't want to hold the baby. I was completely shocked by this, seeing as how she is constantly trying to get me to buy baby stuff for our next baby who isn't even conceived yet. Every time Makelle offered for Avery to hold Ruby, she said "Not right now," and was "busy" doing something else. We finally got her to hold the baby yesterday. I think they look a little bit alike.

Makelle was lucky enough to be in town when Avery's preschool class had their end of the year program where they performed all 40 (FORTY!) songs they learned this year. It was hilarious and cute all at the same time. I can't believe that she only has 3 days of preschool left and then she'll be in kindergarten. I'm old.

Avery told me last week that she has two boyfriends - her best friend Cade, and Joseph, a little boy in her preschool class. At first, I was a bit alarmed, but then I asked her what a boyfriend was, and it turns out that she thinks a boyfriend is just a boy that is nice to you. So I relaxed a bit. Until I saw her posing with Joseph like this:

What is this, an engagement photo or something? She's five, not twenty-five, and where did she learn to lean in like that anyway? I think I may have to talk to her again and let her know that boyfriends are boys that you never talk to, touch or stand close to.


On Thursday, Makelle, Donovan, Ruby and I travelled up to Pennsylvania Amish country (or Amish Village, as my mom calls it - I think she pictures it like Pioneer Village at Lagoon). The kids were great in the car, we had a great time gawking at the Amish, and scenes like this made me think it might actually be fun to be Amish.





And then I saw this:

...and I realized that being Amish is hard work for the women too. I can barely keep up with my laundry and I have an electric clothes dryer. And they probably can't have epidurals when they give birth. Or air conditioning. Or McDonalds, the internet, Tivo and crushed ice. Or pretty much anything that I love about my life. I think I'll stay in the modern world.

Mother's Day Luncheon

Today, at Avery's preschool, there was a luncheon for Mother's Day. Avery has been talking about this for weeks now. The kids prepared a lot of the food themselves and made place settings for their mamas. I left Donovan at a friend's house, so it was a special day for Avery and me. I feel that she sometimes gets deprived the one-on-one time that Donovan gets while she's at school. She told me this morning that I got to pick out whatever I wanted her to wear today, and she got to pick out my outfit. Of course she picked something pink for me to wear. She thinks I don't wear enough pink. One day, she asked me why I wear black so much. I told her it's slimming. She asked me what that means. I told her that it made me look skinny. She told me it didn't.....

Here I am with my beautiful girl. I can't believe that she's going to be finished with preschool in two weeks and will be starting kindergarten in the fall!

We moved!

We are kind of officially in our new home. I say kind of because I am still surrounded by several boxes, we haven't yet closed escrow on our condo (it's currently scheduled for next Tuesday), and we don't have phone or internet in our new place. No internet, you say? How am I blogging right now, you wonder? Well, I'm pirating my neighbor's unsecured internet connection, like any good neighbor. If I sit really close to the window and hold the laptop at just the right angle, I can get a very unreliable and very slow connection on Scott's laptop. But hey, I've been without internet for two weeks now, so who's complaining? It's kind of like when you've been on a diet for awhile and you have fat free ice cream. It's not really good. It doesn't even really taste like ice cream, but you've been so deprived of everything yummy in your life that you convince yourself that it's delish and tastes exactly like Ben and Jerry's. I've been on an internet diet for so long that I am practically doing a cheer anytime I can connect to this weak signal. I have been on the phone with Verizon everyday for the past week and a half, trying to figure out why we still don't have service, which was promised to us on April 28. It has been very frustrating, and I'm more than a little skeeved by the $900 cell phone bill I'm going to have this month due to not having a landline. The latest I have heard is that they are coming on Monday between the hours of 8 and 5, so if anyone wonders where I am, they can find me sitting on my front porch, waiting for the phone guy because, of course, I have nothing better to do.

Other than the phone situation, I love our new place. It's roomier than our condo by quite a bit. We have a basement and grass in the backyard. My kids can play without me feeling like they're constantly right on top of me. A mommy needs some space, right? The kids love playing in the basement, running outside, and the park that is right across the street. I asked Avery what she likes best about the new house and she said "Everything." I like everything too. I'm definitely not going to miss the three flights of stairs to our front door, hearing the neighbors snore and smelling their stinky cooking. Our condo was perfect for us at the time, though. I really did love it while we were there. I'm going to miss our kitchen most of all. Scott and my dad renovated the entire thing two years ago and it was gorgeous. I'm also going to miss my assigned parking spot. We now have street parking, and every morning when we leave for school, I have to search for my car. May not be a big deal to some, but I'm one of those that loses my car in the mall parking lot after only being there for 2 hours, so knowing my car was in the same spot every morning was heaven to me.

Now, if only everything goes smoothly with the buyers on Tuesday, life will be just perfect...

I heart New York

I've been back from NYC for a few days now. It has just taken me some time to recover from it! We were so busy and ran, ran, ran all weekend. We started off at 7:30 on Saturday morning aboard the Bolt Bus.

When we got off the bus, we headed immediately to the Manhattan Temple. It was my first time in that temple, and I thought it was just beautiful. It is different than most temples, being in the middle of a large city and all, but it was wonderful. It was amazing the quiet peace that we could feel inside, knowing that just outside was all the hustle and bustle of New York.

After the temple, we hurried back to our hotel to check in. We stayed at the Millenium Broadway Hotel. It was nice, but due to a Priceline mix up, we only had one kingsized bed. No problem, since we didn't really attempt sleeping anyway.

After a quick bite to eat and resting up at the hotel for about 5 minutes, we headed out to see the Broadway show "Wicked." It was incredible!!! When we left, I wanted to go right back in for a second showing.

Sunday morning, we slept in a bit. Well, most of us did. Amanda woke up at the crack of dawn and showered and got ready before the rest of us even knew it was morning. Apparently, she has some sort of self discipline and went to sleep while the rest of us sat up chatting and laughing well into the early morning.

We went to brunch at Jane's and stuffed ourselves with French toast. Afterwards, we went to the matinee showing of "Curtains," which was quite good. During the show, however, I thought to myself that I maybe should have seen "Wicked" last, not first, because I think it set my expectations of other shows a bit high.

During intermission of curtains, Amanda and I left the theatre to sprint 3 blocks to the TKTS booth (discount show tickets you can get day of for about half price). We scored some great seats to "Legally Blonde." I literally laughed my way through the entire show. Great singing and dancing, just what a Broadway show should be. I think I liked it just as much as I did "Wicked."
After "Legally Blonde," we went to dinner at Junior's. It was the first really good food I had had all weekend. Jenni, Jill and I had wonderful salads. Amanda, for some reason - either wanting to save money or calories, decided to order just a baked potato. When the food came, we all enjoyed these:

while Amanda choked down this:

Doesn't it look appetizing? She did, at least, share the yummy desserts with us.

Monday morning, we got up before the crack of dawn to go to a taping of "The View." Since we didn't have tickets, we needed to get there extra early to wait in the standby line. Unfortunately, it was pooring down rain, and we had not come prepared for the weather. Some of us (who shall remain nameless) did not even bring umbrellas. I think those are the same two that got washed over by a rain puddle on the curb when a cab sped by. We ended up at The View soaking wet and freezing. But it was worth it - we got in!!!

We even got to hang out with our new best friend Sherri Shepherd!

A definite highlight of my trip was seeing one of my BFF's Erin. She lives and works in Manhattan and is getting married in July. You know those friends that you have where months can go by without seeing or talking to a person and then you get together and it's like no time at all has passed? Well, Erin is one of those people for me. She's gorgeous and even nicer than she is beautiful. Plus, she introduced me to Scott on a ski slope more than ten years ago, so she'll always have a special place in my heart.
On the way to Erin's, I went on the Subway. I did it by myself, with no directions from Erin or anyone else. I went straight there, and was feeling very independent and confident. Perhaps overconfident, because when it came time for me to leave Erin's apartment and head back to meet my friends for the bus ride home, I somehow ended up in Brookly, with no idea how I had gotten there, and not really much of a clue as to how to get back to the bus. I had a panic attack in the subway, thinking I would get very lost, miss my bus back to DC, and have to sleep on the streets of New York. Somehow, I got myself figured out and made it back to the bus stop in time to both get a ride home and eat some PinkBerry. I'm not sure which I was happier about!

I also leared more about my friends than I ever cared to know. It takes a girls weekend to really get to know a person, and I think I really got to know them this weekend. Who knew that Jill could command such attention with a bat of her eyelids, that Jenni could do a better herky than a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader, and that Amanda is a peeping tom?

Thanks for the fun memories, ladies!