Soooooo,

Do you remember that train table Ben has so desperately wanted for two years that we finally caved in and purchased from Craigslist, I mean asked Santa Clause for and he dropped it by early? Remember how Ben played obsessively with it for 3 days straight? Well, now he could hardly be bothered with the table itself - but he plays with the various pieces that came with the table (bridge, sheds, tunnels, mountains, hills, etc) all over the house just as he used to (and still does) with his old tracks. It turns out it wasn't so much the TABLE he wanted but the GOODIES that he always played with ON THE TABLE. I could probably sell the table and keep the goods and he wouldn't even notice! (See pic below)

But I won't ditch the table just yet. Our play dates love it and Emma gets a lot of enjoyment out if it - believe it or not - designing new tracks and making up fun stories. It cracks me that I didn't figure this out before purchasing the table. I really should have understood his request. Whenever we went to a store that sold the goodies, he would always request one - but they are like $25 bucks a pop, so I was like, NOPE. Needless to say, we absolutely feel we got an incredible bargain with the fancy table and all the goods for $75.

Mr.Conductor on the FLOOR!

Girl Talk

I go into the office every Wednesday evening after dinner to teach a class. Emma often sits on the toilet and watches me apply make up and we chat about this and that. Tonight's conversation went exactly like this.

"What's that?"
"It's called mascara."
"Why are you putting it on your eyes?"
"Well, I use it to make my eye lashes look longer. You and Benny have nice thick long eye lashes like Daddy, so you don't need to use it."

I then grabbed my electric toothbrush and brushed my teeth. Mid - brushing Em asked, "Why do you have an electric toothbrush?"
"Because I like the way it cleans my teeth."
She contemplates that while I finish brushing.
"Would you like an electric toothbrush, too?" I ask.
"Yes."
"Okay, maybe you can ask Santa for one." (I am thinking stocking stuffer...)
"But I already saw Santa."
"Well, maybe you can write him a letter?"
"Hmmm, how do you spell 'Dear'?"
"D. E. A. R. Maybe your can write something like, 'Dear Santa. I would like for you to give me an electric toothbrush for Christmas instead of a dollhouse.'"
Without hesitation and with a great amount of teenage sass, she simply replied, "Ah, NO."

Saturday goodness

It was a grey misty bone chilling day on the island today. Instead of walking around the village for the Dickens Festival freezing our fingers off, Em and I decided to hit up the local ballet school's matinee Nutcracker while Daddy and Ben stayed home and did boy stuff - you know, watching college football. The ballet school brings in 3 professional dancers for the major roles and I gotta tell ya, at first I was all - why would you hired professional dancers, give the local talent a chance to shine! After seeing the performance I must admit they professionals were AMAZING to watch and I believe really elevated the desire of the local gals to push themselves to practice harder resulting in extraordinary performances across the board. It was a two hour show with a 20 minute intermission. Em got a little wiggly here and there, but mostly enjoyed watching the show. It certainly did not hurt that one of her school's Kindergarten teachers (not hers) that she adores played the toy maker in the first act. He was a joy to watch and reminded me again just how lucky we are that (most of) our teachers are so committed to the local community. Em asked lots of good questions throughout the performance like, "Why are they dancing in dust?" (Fog in the dream scenes.) "How do they make the dust?" (With a fog machine.)

The Nutcracker!

Last night Ben would not eat dinner. Surprise! Daddy was intent on him eating just one piece of tortellini (which if you recall was ALL HE WOULD EAT about a year ago) or he would lose train table privileges. "I don't like it! It's yucky!" He said over and over through heaving sobs. At his wits end, Daddy starting breaking down the elaborate track that I built the other day and putting it away in the train table drawers. Benjamin starting shaking! He was so sad and upset. (Mommy was a little shaky and sad, too - it took me forever to built that dang setup!) When he finally calmed down, he ate some raisins and went to bed semi relaxed. He was up at 6:22 this morning and tiptoed into our room so as not to wake Daddy and whispered to me sweetly, "Mom, can I built a new track on the train table?" Yes, buddy, you can. And he did!! That kid recreated a sizable chunk of the track from memory all by himself before any of us got our lazy bums out of bed. Stud.

Rebuilding complete!

12 square foot

Here in the Penthouse our floor space is limited/coveted. Daddy and I have been "discussing" (and by discussing I mean Daddy suggests and I veto) toys to purge and toys to keep as the holiday are among us. I finally agreed to a mini purge and bagged up the little people zoo and airplane... (Small, very small victory for Daddy.)

From the time Benjamin could speak sounds "trains" have been in his daily vocabulary. We truly thought he would grow out of it by now and move on to Spiderman and Batman like all his pals, but NOPE, Thomas and friends it is! For 24 M.O.N.T.H.S. now he has been asking for a train table. We have always said no because we simply do not have the space for it. We have purchased / been given awesome tracks that we have built all over the penthouse and have had a blast playing with them yet STILL Ben goes wild and crazy whenever he goes to a library / book store / playdate that houses a train TABLE. 

Monday evening was the last straw. I chaired a PTA fundraiser at the local Barnes and Noble and because Daddy was out in the field helping a family I brought the kiddies with me to the store for 3 hours. Wanna know what Emma did for 3 hours while I "worked" the event? She did the crafts, sang the songs, listened to the stories being read, and played the bingo games, etc... Wanna know what Ben did FOR THREE HOURS? Played with the train table in the children's section AND could not have been happier.

Needless to say, Daddy and I hit up Craigslist after putting the kids to bed Monday evening and found a killer table plus tons of trains and tracks and bridges and tunnels, etc for a whopping $75. We STALKED the craigslist posting person until she returned my call today and I rushed with my cash to her home to retrieve the table for Ben for Christmas.

NOW, we don't have any storage in the Penthouse so we needed to devise a plan to give him the table from Santa NOW, and not wait until Christmas.

Here is where the Academy Awards steps in. We decided that Daddy should disguise his voice and "call" Ben on the phone and let him know how proud his parents are of him for being such a good boy this year. Also, Santa is aware the kids will be in FL for Christmas and it would be too hard to bring a train table home on an airplane...

My cell rang around 10am this morning, I looked at the caller ID and exclaimed to Ben, "BEN! LOOK!! SANTA CLAUS IS CALLING!!!!" He got all giggly and cutesy and snuggley and we answered the phone. Daddy, from the other side of the penthouse in his BESTEST Santa voice praised Ben for being a good boy and told him that because he would be in FL for Christmas... blah blah blah, if he would like, his Mommy could take him today to pick up his present from a lady who was holding it for Santa in Islip.

Ben was flip flopping and giggly and sssoooooooooo happy jumping all over the couch and thanked Santa and promised he would continue to be a good boy, etc.

(Daddy wins the Oscar for best Voice Over. Mama wins for best Actress in a Fake phone call from Santa!)

Ben and I picked up the table this afternoon and brought it home. He giggled the entire time!! (Those of you who have spent time with Ben know his giggles can cure all that ails you...) We borrowed Henry's Mommy's muscles to help Mommy get the table up the stairs because there was NO WAY Ben was waiting until Daddy got home after bedtime to play with the table.

The set up he wanted on the table was quite elaborate. He did not help me build it AT ALL. Instead giggled and directed me what to do. When it was finally complete, I said, "Do you want me to play with you?" and he replied, "No, Mom, you go relax on the couch."

WHY THE HECK DID I WAIT TWO YEARS TO BUY HIM THIS GIFT FROM...THE TRAIN GODS???

He got in about 30 minutes of play before I had to get Em from the bus. When she walked in the door she was all, "What the...?" They played together sweetly for about 15 seconds, then WW3 broke out because it sunk in that Santa gave Benny an early gift but NOT HER.

We had written her a special note from Santa explaining the situation but she could have cared less ignoring all the continue to be a good girl / you will get an even SPECIALER gift on the 25th, etc. The next 60 minutes was a blur of time outs and yelling and throwing coaches and busting up tracks that took me forever to build... Lots of tears on both kids parts, and one or two on mine, but I am happy to report they are now sleeping soundly and I am "relaxing on the couch" blogging.

I truly believe this table will be a positive addition to the penthouse. I lost 12 precious square feet - but the giggles from the boy echo in my mind and the smile on his Chiclet teethed face will forever be burnt into my brain and I will be happy...

Plus who doesn't love it when the needy son tells you to relax on the couch so  he can play on his own???

Santa Parade

Our little Village hosts the local "Santa Parade" every year the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was only 42˚ this year, but the sun was shining and we ran into so many of our best friends and had a blast. It was enough of a good time to inspire us to go out and purchase an actual tree this year even though we will be in Florida for the holiday. The kids "helped" decorate it - well Emma helped - when Ben came across the snow globes all helping stopped and he has literally not put them down for four days now, even sleeps with the little one!! We love the finished product - love it even more that it sits on our dining room table and we eat by the lights of the tree, its so relaxing and Benjamin actually sits quietly while he (doesn't) eat instead of whining the whole time that "I don't like it."

The CREW.

Santa is coming!!

The finished product.

Ben hoarding the snow globes.

"Good Helper" lives on!

Gobble gobble

We had a lovely - semi relaxing - Thanksgiving. Daddy did the bulk of the main course fixings, Gramma Lou made the desserts, and I was in charge of the steamed green beans and crock pot butternut squash. My cooking took a total of about 10 minutes of my time - just how I like it, Daddy spent a larger chunk of time on his part - but the outcome was well worth it - that was possibly the juiciest turkey we have ever eaten! Hooray for beer brine! (See bottom pic.)

We hit up the local YMCA on Wednesday for their open swim to get the kiddos out of the house. (See pic.) I am happy to report that neither kid has regressed in the water and they had a blast with their cousins, Leah and Frank.

At Em's school pow wow Monday, she Native American Indian named herself, "Good helper." She proved her namesake in the kitchen helping Gramma make an apple pie (see pic) and some cookies for our feast. She was actually very well behaved the entire time we were away. The minute we crossed the threshold into the penthouse though, three days worth of good behavior melted into her usual pile of goo...

Pool time!

"Good Helper" Emma, indeed.

Good work, Daddy!

Benisms

We made it to PA to celebrate turkey day in great time yesterday. The kids were awesome on the 3.5 hour drive and we needed no extra pit stops other than our usual half way stop in NJ to fill up on cheap gas ($3.55 compared to 3.99 in NY) and pee.

The kids came into the ladies room with me while Daddy was gassing up the car. When we entered the restroom immediately on the right was one of those koala care fold down changing tables. If you recall for the first three years of Ben's life he would scream bloody murder every single time I laid him on one to change his diaper. I am 99% sure he rolled off of one in an alternate universe and sustained major injury. Well, he hasn't had to lay on one for 11 months now because he is fully potty trained - so you can imagine my surprise/humor when we walked into the restroom yesterday and he stopped dead in his tracks, pointed to the changing table and said, "I don't wanna lay on that!" I assured him he was now a big boy and didn't have to ever again. The relief on his face was heartwarming!

We played the evening away at Grandpa's house, then about 7:00 said our good nights and headed to Gramma Lou's casa. The kids got their second wind upon seeing Gramma and were up until about 9:30. We put them to bed in Gramma's room. Ben fussed that he wanted to go home and sleep in his bed for a bit. We gave him the choice to sleep with Emma or sleep in the basement where the spare rooms are. He cutely said, "I wanna stay with Emma."

We were hoping the late bed time would translate into sleeping in. Nope. Up at 6:00 on the dot, little turkey.

At home we sleep with white noise machines. I bring them with us when we travel. I forgot this trip and this is what I learned: Ben talks in his sleep! When I went to bed we grabbed a sleeping Ben and brought him into the basement w us. All night long I heard him chattering. At one point he was talking and giggling and I was sure he was wide awake. Nope again.

Gramma got up and was out of the house to work by the time Ben was up this morning. At 10:30am he asked me with all sincerity, "When's Gramma gonna wake up?" He wanted to play with her and thought she was sleeping in!!

Mama down

Ben has caught the first real cold of the season. He is sneezing up a storm and hacking like crazy. He refuses medicine but will let me rub Vicks on his feet at night ("Hee hee hee, it tickles, Mama!"). He has been kind enough to share it with me - my nose has been running all day and my throat is scratchy. I think I'm going to hit the hay early tonight and try to sleep this one off as this upcoming week is BUSY.

The kids and I went to Daddy's childhood best friend's baby blessing yesterday. It was at the Old Field Club over by the beach - it was a gorgeous day and we had tons of fun. The DJ was basically instructed to "keep the kids busy and happy" giving us parents plenty of time to relax and socialize - that is unless you have a Ben who has zero desire to play musical chairs and the such. Thank goodness I allowed him to bring a train and his new troublesome truck (Thanks, Henry!) because he loaded and unload that thing with all kinds of goodies and played the afternoon away solo.

I wanted to go the bank in port Friday before Ben's library class but it is still closed. They had a lot of flooding and I guess they are still drying out. So, we went to the next best place, Dunkin Donuts next door and Ben had a treat while Mommy splurged on a coffee. He ate every last morsel of that dang donut, too - tis a shame they don't puree spinach and hide it in the cake. COME ON!! They would triple their business because Moms would not feel so bad about going there often!

While Mama was feeling out of it this morning, Emma painted a birthday picture for Aunt Lisa. Why is it so hard to get the girl to smile normally?

The last picture was our home by 8:23am this morning. Hurricane Ben.

She really did have a good time. This pic makes her look bored!

Why you always gotta take a pic of me, Ma?

Our homemade card.

...before she dumped the paint on the carpet...

Who needs Santa?

I wanna be a caveman

Emma has Phys Ed three days a week. On those days, she is required to wear sneakers. She only has one pair of sneakers so when the time comes for her to get her coat and shoes on and get out to the bus, there is no drama because there is no choice.

On Wed and Fri she has art and music. She is still required to wear shoes, just not sneakers.

Two days a week at 8:32am I go red in the face and usually start hollering like a lunatic because Emma cannot ever seem to choose which pair of shoes she wants to wear. Can you guess what days those are?

The problem is not that she is Imelda Marcos and has too many pairs to choose from, the problem is on any given day the pair of shoes she wore recently "hurt" her in some new way even though they were fine 12 hours ago.

I don't disbelieve she is growing and she is definitely in need of larger sized shoes, the challenge I have is simply the fact that she is stalling. Trust me, by 8:20 every morning I try very hard to get her started on the 'choose your shoes' process. It takes her THAT LONG. I want to foster independence in the kid, but I am about to donate all her shoes leaving her barefooted.

Rant over. You may now return to your regularly scheduled blog reading.

Hmmmm

Take a good look at this pillow case and come on an adventure with me. Let's go back in time - 3 years to be precise. Abuelita gave Emma a Princess Bedding set for Christmas 3 years ago. I believe it was purchased from Macy's and cost way more than I thought necessary for a two year old girl. This sheet set has been on the girl's bed for three years now. It has been washed countless times is HOT HOT water. It has yet to "pill" up and is still in excellent (soft) condition. The colors have not faded. It continues to be the best gift ever. As you can see from the pillow case, Emma suffers from bloody noses here and there in the middle of the night. Often I have had no idea this occurred until I go to wash the pillow case. The blood is set in and will not come out - yet Em refuses to let me throw out the case. She is convinced that without it on her pillow every night she will have bad dreams. (I have to schedule my laundry around whether the case will dry by bedtime!) Ben has cheap sheets bought this summer on his bed. They are already deteriorating and will need to be replaced soon. I have learned if I am going to buy sheets, you really do get what you pay for.

The bottom pic is Ben on his way to school this morning. I can't handle how delicious he is on a daily basis. I LOVE THIS AGE. Today he wanted to wear my baseball cap to school and it had to be on backwards - our little rapper.

"I love my Mom, my Mom is cool, but now it's time for having fun at school."

back to normal

It's always hard to keep up with writing this time of year. I'm sure the visit from Sandy didn't help. We are pretty much back to normal. I am no longer paranoid at every wind gust that we will lose power. Benjamin is the only one needing therapy at this point - he still says at least 5 times a day, "Hey, Mom! The frig has power!" or "Mom, look! The baffroom has power!" or in the afternoon when all the lights are off and the tv is not on, he will pause, "Mom? Do we have power?"

The gas shortage seems to be over, too, or at least people are no longer hoarding gas and the lines have been eliminated. That was a stressful two weeks, let me tell ya.

What have we been doing? Emma had her last soccer for the season last Saturday. Indoor lacrosse starts up in Feb or so. I was thinking to sign her up for basketball at the church nearby but it is a three month season - not sure if she is up for it. She has been requesting to go back to ballet - not so much for the dance, but four of her good friends are in the class. I'd love to get her back in but the time is so inconvenient. Boo.

Emma has been to three "Bounce House" birthday parties this month. She has already asked me if we can have her party next Summer at a bouncy place. Oi.

Ben continues to excel in school. He has turned into a arts and crafts maniac often coming home with two crafts of the day instead of just one. (I am guessing because big sister is not there to push him out of the way and demand that SHE DO IT and not him...) So very glad both kiddos are well rounded in their love of music, art and physical education!

3:15, nap time for me! Ben usually lets me close my eyes for about 3 minutes. Power nap in deed.

Pic post

Our life in the Penthouse:

With my beloved Eastern Standard Time in full force, our schedule has shifted a bit around the penthouse. The sun is setting by the time Emma gets off the bus at 4:00 and due to the fact that she barely eats anything for breakfast and then talks too much at lunch to finish her food in the allotted time, she is ravenous and we end up eating dinner by 4:30-5:00 - talk about an early bird special!

Yesterday while I was making dinner the kids entertained themselves with a game of Thomas tennis. (If only you could see the surface of my beloved dining room table - it is in serious need of a resurfacing, but what's the point, really... Maybe when Ben goes off to college?) They used our giant candle (which got some serious use the past two weeks!) as the net and Ben's Thomas that they basically just threw at each other across the table. And I let them do it (good parenting, eh?) because they were having so much FUN.

What can we learn from this picture?
1) The crooked pictures on the walls might lead one to believe Hurricane Sandy came through our house made of bricks.
2) Emma is sitting in Ben's booster chair that he doesn't really need but I refuse to get rid of because I can "lock" him at the table when he is being difficult - which is each and every single dinner occasion.
3) The dog under the table continues to drive me batty. He has separation anxiety when we are not home and trashes the place.
4) Emma made the crown she is wearing on a playdate the other day and has worn it consistently since I picked her up.
5) The rocking chair in the corner doesn't get any use. Seriously, I haven't used it since I nursed Emma. (Look closely! The nursing stool stills takes its place a the foot of the rocker.) I don't know why I can't seem to let it go. It is a beautiful oldschool wooden rocker - maybe when we move into a larger space with a library in it, I'll gravitate back to it.
6) The ledge of the window is our "catchall" space - keys, wallets, change, biz cards, pens, etc. It drives me crazy to see clutter there, yet I still seem to be the major offender of the clutter!
7) The window art on the bottom right of the window was meant for our neighbors. We made it for Henry and Jane about three weeks ago. Their door is about a 21 second walk from ours... Maybe we can get them to the kids by Christmas.
8) The Chinese Lantern reflecting in the window is probably the best 6.99 I have ever spent. It gives off the perfect about of light lightly muted from the paper covering. Ahhhh, the little things.

Table tennis, anyone?

11 Days

11 days of indoor camping thanks to Hurricane Sandy.

Here is what a typical day looked like:
Ben up with the Sun, Emma up not long afterwards.
Ben immediately demanding pancakes for breakfast with peanut butter on top and a happy face drawn into the peanut butter. Emma would occasionally eat breakfast but more often not - she is just like her Daddy and doesn't like to eat right away. Guess who Ben takes after?
They are dressed and ready to take on the day by 7:15... what the heck are we going to do for the next 12 hours with no power?

We had lots of playdates at friend's houses who had power to charge our phones/iPad and dvd player and to wash clothes and raid their ice. There was a lot of iPad app play. We burned through the entire box of arts and craft supplies - maybe Santa can find it in his heart to replenish the goods. We watched Frosty the Snowman and Frosty Returns at least 20 times in 11 days - they are only 22 minutes each, the perfect length for a dvd player that is losing its ability to hold a solid charge. We ate a lot of soup, and mac and cheese. On Daddy's solo parenting days I heard there was a lot of Wendy's consumed and pizza... We made daily trips to the supermarket for fresh meat that needed to be cooked immediately as we had no way to keep it really cold. We showered by candlelight. We peed in the dark. We did not blow dry our hair (and vain Mommy had to go curly for more days than she wanted...). We were in bed by 6:30-7:00 every night because our circadian rhythms kicked in with no power stimulus to keep us up past daylight. WE ACTUALLY PLAYED WITH TOYS - like really played with them, and got along doing it.

Did you notice I am writing this post using the pas tense?? THAT'S BECAUSE THE POWER IS BACK ON! We've had it for 90 minutes now and I am feeling pretty good about our chances of keeping it.

Wanna hear something FUNNY? The power clicked back on at 5:59pm. All the lights were turned off in the house and the only reason I knew it turned back on is because the microwave beeped and the light inside the refrigerator that I have had propped open for over a week now so it wouldn't get nasty and smelly and moldy on the inside turned on. The funny part is I selfishly did not admit to the kids the power was back on!!! I wanted them to go to bed at 6:30 just ONE LAST TIME. I really needed them to go to bed. I did. I'm tired, friends. I needed me time. I am actually typing this by candlelight just in case one of them wanders out into the living room...

I am sure I am forgetting wacky wild and wonderful things that happened this past week and I will try to journal them as they pop into my head - oh, yeah, like the 3 inches of snow that got dumped on us last night with wicked winds that knocked out 7 newly fixed transformers on our street again. We heard them popping - sounded like gunshots and we could see the sparks flying. Scary.

But we are alive. We are healthy. We have milk in the frig (not much more, we had to toss the majority after 4 days). Daddy was able to drive into work today for the first time in 11 days because he scored a full tank of gas (all the stories are TRUE of people waiting 2-3-4-5 hours in line for gas!!). We now have heat and for the first time in days my bones are no longer cold. I cannot imagine how the families on the south shore are doing - the ones who were flooded out and still staying in shelters. I will take losing power any day to flood waters rising in my basement and sweeping my car away. We are blessed to be surrounded by friends with open doors and bags of ice and washing machines and working outlets to charge our electronic goodies. I'd like to send a personal thank you to Steve Job's team who invented the iPhone - it kept me in 3G touch with all my family and friends across the country - also thank you to Mark Zuckerberg for stealing the Harvard twins idea for Facebook and going mainstream with it - I may have snapped if it weren't for all the encouragement of my friends around the world via FB.

Halloween dud

We still don't have power. To be honest, it's not horrible. The kids are doing an extraordinary job entertaining each other. School has been called off every day and my guess tomorrow will be cancelled too. The big suck is lack of refrigeration. The ice blocks we made in preparation of the hurricane have finally melted and we are on to store bought ice which melts so much quicker. We have stove top gas so we can eat hot food. We blessedly have hot water and shower by candlelight.

We did not get to trick or treat. Downed trees and power lines are still everywhere and going door to door did not seem like a good idea to daddy and I. We did join up with a solid group of folks who were stir crazy enough to dress up the kids and hit the port for an impromptu parade after lunch. The kids got dressed up - daddy had to force Ben into his pirate costume. He sure was super cute though!! (Thanks, Abuelita!!)