Back on track

We have settled into week two of school here in January. Emma's Math homework continues to fluster me on a daily basis. I contacted her teacher about her HATE of homework, about the drama, the crying, the "I can't do it, it's too hard!" The teacher assured me she understands everything she is learning in class and agreed it is probably more of an exhaustion thing than not understanding what to do. Now when she cries out the "too hard" crap, we stop, I grab her hand and ask God to help Emma get good at the hard things. When I did that again yesterday, she stopped crying and said, "Mom, you already asked that!" I told her I would need to keep asking until she GOT GOOD AT THE HARD THINGS.

We have had some pretty solid rain storms in the past week. The bad shot is a pic of the kids and Daddy being mesmerized by a down pour.

Not quite as good as a white noise machine!

We've been enjoying all the games the kids got for Christmas on a daily basis. I am concerned with Emma's observations about Santa Claus though. Now that she can read, labels like "Sold exclusively at ToysR*s" are causing confusion for her as well as the fact that Santa brought a lot of gifts that he clearly purchased at our mom and pop toy store, Lainie's Way... She has commented on both!

Though still has no doubt that Santa is the real deal.

Well, lookie here. Emma started indoor lacrosse this past week. The Sketchers sneakers she had were not holding up to the rigorous play, so we went to an actual sporting goods store and bought her a pair of proper athletic sneakers. Thanks to Abuelita's generous support over the years of shoeing up our kids, this is the first pair of real sneakers we have ever had to buy. She was so excited she wore them out of the store.

I'm the real deal now.

Em and I had a big shopping day together the other day - just the two of us. We hit up 7 stores making holiday exchanges / returns / using gift cards and she was a real trooper. When we got to VicSecret, she saw this pink chair and plopped down. "Hey, Mom, take my picture!"

Cozy cozy cozy

Ben has been cracking us up on a continual basis. The things that come out of his mouth at random times bring great joy. For example, in the car the other day he asked me a question, I answered the question, then at the top of his lungs he yells, "You are correct!" He is questioning his privates a lot lately too and it's cute, "Hey, Mom, why is my penis frozen?" (He was cold, his testicles were shriveled up... ha!) "Hey, Mom, why won't it stay down?" (I'll let you figure that one out...)  Here he is trying to juice a lime for me. Wow, my kitchen looks a cluttered mess in this pic. Doesn't it make you feel good about your own homes??

Look, Mom, I'm doing it!

Ever since the "Let it Go" song from the movie Frozen has come into our lives, these kids love to sing and dance to it. They entertain not only daddy and I, but all our dolls, too. Today after school we were playing outside and Ben was "singing" it full voice. Seriously, I could see all the way down his throat! If ever I need to check his tonsils in the future I will simply ask him to perform this song for us.

a captive audience

We continue to take advantage of the Maritime Explorium in our village on the weekends in the afternoon. This is another pic of Ben playing in the rice boat - these kids cannot get enough!

And neither can the little blond boy apparently, he is ALWAYS there in that spot when we go!

home, schveet home

I landed at JFK at 6:48am. It was cold. I did not have a jacket. Oh, wait, let me clarify cold - 10 degrees with a wind chill factor that felt like - 7 degrees. It was the bitterest of owie immediate frostbite fingers I have encountered in many decades (surely had something to do with the NO JACKET bad decision I made...).

I caught the air train from the united terminal to what I THOUGHT was the connecting train to Jamaica (not the warm Jamaica - the NY Jamaica which equals -7 with windchill factored in...). Turns out, in my red-eye flight sleepiness I went too far and had to catch a return train back two stops which led me to MISS the ultimate LIRR (long island railroad) train I was hoping for that would have gotten me home in a timely fashion. Did I mention when you miss a train and it -7 and you aren't wearing a jacket because you didn't want to have to haul one around CA where it was 80+ degrees, you get bone chilled-ed-ed cold and almost just almost wish you had bit the bullet and drove yourself to JFK like you normally do and parked in long term parking like you normally do but didn't do because you were going to be gone for 10 days which costs like a semester of college somewhere like ND?

Anywhooo, I made it back by train (which once I got on the LIRR was quite pleasant and WARM) to PJS where I was met by my minivan chariot, my handsome prince behind the wheel and my sweet male offspring in his car seat behind me. The entire ride home, Ben was giddy - GIDDY - with love love love and appreciation that I "came back" (I always do, as he reminded me). When we entered the penthouse the kid jumped in my lap snuggled into the comfy couch where we spent the next 20 minutes hugging and snuggling and reading books and chatting before he needed to get ready for school. Pure awesomeness, I tell ya.

Fast forward 3 hours. I meet Em at the bus stop at the end of the school day. She hops of the bus, sees me and immediately asks, "Can my friends come over for a playdate?" No, MOM, YOU ARE HOME!! MOM, I MISSED YOU SO MUCH... our social butterfly! Once we got into the penthouse, the mood shifted and we snuggled on the couch and caught up on our 10 days apart. It was awesome and it 'completed me' ( I mean made me feel so much better about being away for so long...).

But here's the real deal. We are BLESSED. Blessed to have a Gramma Lou who can - with enough advance notice - take time off work to be our kiddos caretaker. We are blessed with an Aunt Lisa and her GOOD hearted teenage kids who have never hesitated to love on and play with E&B. Without them, we would never be able to achieve all the goals we have so far for our family and our business. Sprinkle in a little Abuelita-love and KABAM! we are the perfect family unit.

Blessed, I tell ya. B L E S S E D...

If u are having withdrawal pics.

My handsome hubby putting together Em's bike on Christmas Eve.

Me at age 24, I mean 42!! (with exceptional lighting / my good side / throw in a little black and white) HA!

This pic encapsulates all the GOODNESS that is our BEN. I cannot love him any more than I do.

My amazeballs little big girl. Moxie x12 / sweetness / old soul / world's biggest challenge... I love you, Emma B.

Our kickarse neighbors - photo by me - and it is pure perfection so I had to post the JOY it gives me to hang with these kiddos.

The sisters and their husbands. Wow, are those boys lucky to have won our hearts! Hmmmm, or maybe just maybe, it is the other way around.

On the road......still!

I cannot remember the last time I blogged. It surely was way back in 2013.

I am in LA.  I have not snuggled my babes in 9 days. I am going through withdrawals. I travel a lot and I do love it, but I have not been away from them this long before and it's just weird. I miss my Benny "I love you, mom!"s. And the Emma toothless smile as she crawls up next to me on the comfy sofa and reads me a book.

I am hoping and praying that JFK stays open for the next 15 hours...

Mending for real - piss off Murphy!

So apparently I jumped the gun the other day when I said we were mending - either that or Murphy's Law paid us a visit.

We woke up 'normal' to a busy Friday ahead. I had 133 people to feed for the PTA Holiday Staff Appreciation luncheon from 11-2:00. I was feeling under the weather but forged ahead. Emma went to school, Ben came with me to the luncheon. I wasn't sure whether I was going to send him to his afternoon preK or not, he looked fine all morning but still had a juicy cough - I honestly didn't want to be the cause of him infecting some other kid for the holidays just because it would make my afternoon clean up of the luncheon a little bit easier. He ended up staying with me the whole time and was an absolute stud even though he wasn't feeling 100%.

By 1:00 I could feel myself losing energy fast. I was hot then cold then hot then cold all the while faking a smile on my face for the staff and other volunteers. By cleanup at 2:00 I was getting that feeling I was going to faint and my skin was wicked sensitive to the touch. I held on, got the minivan loaded up and came straight home and crashed on my bed by 3:00. Ben knows hows to turn on and manipulate the Wii, so I gave him free reign as I collapsed. I didn't get up except to pee and rehydrate until 7:30 the next morning!

Here is the funny thing, Emma came home from school and by 5:00 without any dinner, crawled into bed with me where she stayed until 7:30am right next to me. Ben, the one I was worried about, played the Wii and hung out with Dad all happy until his normal bed time.

This was one crazy flu. Do I regret my decision not to get everyone the flu shot? Not one bit.

Am I glad the worst of it is behind us? You're dang right!

My mentor always reminds me, "In every adversity lies the seed of a benefit - but only if you look for it." The bright side of this flu? I got to snuggle with Em for 14 hours - I forgot what a good spooner she is, warm and toasty, too, that kid.

Benefit #2? I finally invested in one of those fancy ear thermometer's that many hospitals use. Boop! And you have an instant reading. Em was the only one high tonight at 99.6. No complaints knowing that we were all rocking the 102+ earlier...

Two weeks of vacation started today!

Midnight chat

It's 1am. Why am I awake? Possibly because I went to bed at 8 with the kids... Actually Ben fell asleep on my lap at 5:45, poor kiddo is still fighting the flu! I was all ready to send him back to school today. Both kids slept through the night last night and were happy go lucky this morning. I got Em on the bus, came back inside and played with Ben for a while. I hopped in the shower around 10 and then came back into the living room to find him curled up on the sofa, eyes glazed over with a fever of 100.3 again (it was way higher earlier in the week). I gave him some tylenol which seemed to help break the fever. By 2pm he was no longer warm, but had little energy and spent the afternoon on the couch in this position watching PBSkids (see pic). Notice the scarf? Em is knocking out scarfs daily now. She hand knits the long pieces and I weave them together for the perfect warm scarf. How's that for teamwork?

Both kids missed their holiday parties in class this year. I actually had to go to Ben's all by myself at 2:45 today because I am the class Mom and had the teacher gifts! It was adorable and I taped the kids performing their songs. I'll play it for Ben tomorrow and get him to put on a private show for us.

Don't worry about me, Mommy, this cozy scarf is making me feel better.

Mending

Emma's aches on Monday after school = strep throat again. Because she just did a course of amoxicillian over Thanksgiving she had to use a different drug, Cedifir (or something like). Or what should really be called Liquid Goldifir because it cost $50 vs $8!! And that was for the generic. Forgive my language here, but that was one of the first times I said "Holy Shit!" out loud in a public place in about 6 1/2 years...

Ben is absolutely on the mend. He slept great last night and could have easily gone to school today as he has been fever free for more than 24 hours EXCEPT I am now down for the count with a gnarly chest cold and I did not have the energy to drive him. So, it is 2pm and we are still in our pjs - actually Em and I are still in our clothes from yesterday - yep, it is that bad...

We were supposed to have our meeting with special services at the school this morning for Ben but the school had a 2 hour delay due to ice and we obviously weren't in the best shape for it, so we rescheduled for Jan 9th.

Em seems to be bouncing back pretty quick as well. At least the liquid gold is working. She was disappointed that she missed her holiday party in the classroom - they were going to make gingerbread houses. So we made some with basic ingredients we grabbed at Walmart while waiting for the liquid gold to be mined at the pharmacy. Both kids chose to use chocolate frosting vs vanilla so our houses are very unique...

Taken yesterday, not to be confused with today even though I am wearing the same clothes...

Part two, taken today - yep, still in jammies.

 

 

Our village is growing...

Rut-roh

We love Sundays - Family day! We woke up and played away as usual. At about 4:30, our normally happy go lucky Ben had a weird look in his eye. It was almost instantaneous - he went from sweet fun guy to sicky go licky in the flip of a switch. He snuggled into the crook of my arm and I could feel him burning up. I tried to get him to take some ibuprofen - nope - little turkey refuses medicine!

He did not eat dinner, drank some milk and went to bed. He woke up at 3am delirious, still refused to take medicine. I pulled him into bed with us. It was like that song my sister and I used to sing with our parents when we were kids, "...and they all rolled over and one fell out, there were two in the bed and the little one said..."

Benny crawled in and Daddy crawled out and was banished to the (comfy) couch. Ben and I tossed and turned the rest of the evening which is why we looked like this in the doctor's office the next morning:

We need sleep!

The doc checked his ears and throat - not red. She chose to swab him for strep as Em had it three weeks ago; she also swabbed him for the flu (a quickie boogie swipe in each nostril) AND HE LET HER. The verdict? Yes on the strep - and his throat wasn't even red! And positive on the flu. She asked if he had gotten a flu shot - NOPE! She confided she didn't personally believe in them either (ha!). We left the doctor and headed to Walmart with his strep prescription in hand. The poor little man was a total zombie - except when we passed by DUNKIN DONUTS, "Mom, did you forget to stop for donuts?" Hahahahaha! (A freakin' DD opened up about a block from the dr office. We may or may not have stopped there both times Em was at the dr last month... IT'S NOT MY FAULT!) Seriously though, talk about Pavlov's dog - Ben totally expected DD even in his "walker" state. We got home, he drank the amoxicillian without a fight AND chewed some ibuprofen - that is how sick he must have felt - he actually took the medicine!!! And then did this on and off all afternoon:

Come snuggle me, mama.

At one point he woke up and ASKED FOR A DONUT. I apologized and told him DD was closed (liar!). He suggested we MAKE our own donuts. I asked him how I should do that? He said, "Take a bagel and put chocolate on it and sprinkles." I gotta tell you, in all of my 42 1/2 years I NEVER THOUGHT TO DO THIS (and I LOVE donuts, people!!!). So what did I do? I grabbed a bagel. I melted some of my Trader Joe's dark chocolate. Smeared it on the bagel, and sprinkled some of our Christmas cookie decoration sprinkles on top. He ate the whole thing. I am possibly up for Mother of the Year. Yep and Yep. Thank you and good night. (Oh, wait, poor Emsadoodle came home from school complaining her leg muscles hurt. She didn't eat much dinner and passed out on the couch at 7:30... Say it ain't so!!! Daddy and I spent the night with our hands wrapped around cleaning spray and paper towels and Lysol...)

We shall forever and ever call this recipe THE BEN.

Winter owies

Emma has had bloody nose after bloody nose the past few weeks. I finally busted out my WARM mist humidifier for the Winter, and wala! No more bloody noses. Her chapped lips have disappeared and her dry crusty nose is also gone. Toss your cool mist humidifiers in the trash, people! Warm misters are our best friends.

The only thing I have to be careful of is mold - the room they share is small and the moisture build quick. If I open the slider to the deck of their bedroom for a few minutes every morning it seems to not only give us a burst of fresh cold air, but keeps the moisture to a minimum. As we don't pay for the heat and it is quite powerful, I don't mind the cold blast every morning! Ha!

Getting Ready...

The great toy purge of 2013 happened this morning after Em got on the school bus. Peg+cat comes on at 9:00am so I knew I had 30 good minutes to make it happen. (I approve so very much of this Math show! Check it out!)

I was able to pack up 7 TJs bags for delivery to the local thrift shop with only one Ben interruption.

Reduce! Reuse! Recycle!

After he spied me packing up toys for "kids who don't have any", he pulled out his train set just to be sure I was aware that I was NOT TO give it away. Ha! Whatever works...

I am still an engineer, ma!

The great toy purge was necessary as this red guy is coming to town soon. We went to visit him on Saturday. It was freezing and windy at our favorite spot where you have to wait in line OUTSIDE to see him, so we opted to find him at an alternate location - a fire house the next town over! The kids were so well behaved, got to chat with him for a bit, then eat a ton of cookies and climb all over the big fire truck. Sweet!

You better watch out...

Getting behind!

Time is flying. Em was a midnight pukarino on the Wed / Thurs turnover, then woke up complaining her throat and ear hurt. We kept her home from school, coughed up yet another copay to simply confirm she had the stomach bug that was going around. The "my ear hurt" threw me a bit - I'm not one to rush to the doctor, but she has had so many ear infections over the years I wanted to be sure. By lunchtime she was her insane self and I was all, "Can I send her to school now?" Instead after dropping Ben off to preK, she was my Christmas shopping buddy - we hit up a few stores for the PTA staff appreciation luncheon I am chairing, and also a store to get Daddy some gifts. Daddy, she picked everything out, so you cannot give me the eye! I most certainly turned her down on many choices like a superman t-shirt - yes, you are our superman, but I know you wouldn't necessarily want the shirt...

Santa decided to send "Elfelina" to us this year as our children can sometimes be behaviorally challenged and in need of an Elf apparently to whip them into shape. She has proven to be excellent at playing hide and seek. Emma is so far winning the seek Elfelina out every morning game, but is most certainly losing the "You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I'm telling you why," game. Daddy and I must say 50 times a day, "Elfelina's watching!" Ben's favorite Elfelina spot so far was finding her looming a Christmas bracelet early one morning.

It's any easy one to loom.  Maybe I should have given her the iPad to watch youtube videos...

Speaking of presents, Gramma Lou gave Emma this wagon on her 2nd birthday and it still gets play. Nothing like a good 'ole red wagon to pass the time after school before the neighborhood kids get called in to do homework.

We love our culdesac friends.

Food: as Daddy's turkey was beyond amazing on Thanksgiving, but we didn't take nearly enough leftovers home, we decided to give his butterflying the Turkey recipe one more shot to ensure it's deliciousness was not a fluke. Nope, no fluke. It was juicy and mouthwateringly perfection. Proof positive:

Our sweet cavegirl...

Posh (that's a fancy word for fancy) Daddy popped by our local french bakery and picked up a loaf of sourdough to accompany the veggie chili he made for dinner Thurs night. He also picked up mini fruit tarts. Emma chowed hers, Ben took off the real fruit topping and (surprisingly) ate the custard and the (not surprisingly) shell. Delicious once again!

I look at least 8 in this pic.

The annual Charles Dickens Festival began tonight in our village. It was rainy and cold, but that did not deter these kids from wanting to walk around port. This is a shot of them at the Masonic Temple's Gingerbread house exihibit.

Sooooooooo should have been our Christmas pic!

Em's parent teacher conference

Daddy and I enjoyed Emma's parent teacher conference today. I have a new found appreciation for her teacher after our 15 private minutes together.

Let me explain: Last year, Em's K teacher Mrs Shannon was PERFECTION. She set the bar VERY high. Long story short, the half dozen or so encounters I have had with her current teacher (who Emma LOVES, by the way) have left us less than impressed. (Again, I reiterate, that dang Mrs. Shannon has probably skewed our perspective of what a teacher should be for life!!! She really is that good...)

Today her 1st grade teacher was everything we think a teacher should be. She looked us in the eyes (never did that before), was confident in her explanations of Emma's achievements so far, engaged our questions with enthusiasm, etc etc. Today she moved up a few notches on my scale of who I "want" my kid spending six hours a day with.

As for Emsadoodle, the report is similar to all the evaluations we have heard in her short school history thus far. She is very bright, very social, very nurturing. She is well like among her peers. She is engaged in learning and excels academically. She gets high 5s all around.

Her only challenge - as it was last year - is taking "pride" in her work. She simply rushes to get things done so she can move on to the next thing. That ultimately means her penmanship can be improved upon - surely she gets that from her father as my handwriting is the bees knees...

We left the conference as we always do when it comes to Emma with a smile on our face. As "challenging" as she can be in the home, the kiddo is a super stud in the real world, and ultimately, what more can we ask for. WE LOVE YOU, EMMA!

Gobble gobble

Kids go back to school tomorrow - hooray! A little normalcy for three weeks, then BAM! 14 days of madness, family, coast to coast travel, cold weather, warm weather, vision stretching, food, and surely blog worthy memories. Thanksgiving week was a blast. We left for PA right after picking up Emma from her half day of school and got on the road by lunch to avoid the traffic. It worked. We whizzed across the island, through the city, across Jersey, and up into PA stopping at Grandpa's house to say hello and see how he was feeling. Blessedly we were all healthy and could give giant hugs and kisses and not compromise his immune system which I was very concerned about when Em came down with the strep and crazy rash!

We bounced Tues / Wed / Thurs between Grandma and Grandpa's houses cousins in tow. There was a lot of silly play and lots of love flying around. Good times! The adults celebrated Aunt Lisa's birthday Wednesday evening at a new restaurant in town while the kids hung out with their cousins and a few pizzas at Grandma's.

Daddy and Grandma got their cook on Thursday and made a spectacular meal for all to enjoy. Daddy was on turkey duty and outdid himself this year - it was the juiciest turkey I had ever eaten! He brined it as usual, but before cooking it, he butterflied the bird - it cooked quicker, thereby not drying out the breasts - it truly was outstanding!

There is a turkey brining away in there!

The finished product - I love how the breasts look like a heart! It was certainly made with love.

I stole the chef for a quick pic after I realized we only have TWO pictures of us together all year long.

My plate - the before!

My plate - the after, and Ben's UNUSED plate - such a turkey this kid! Next year we may just cook him up!

We were all in bed by 9pm and slept until 7am the next morning while our tummies took 10 hours to digest!

We came home on Friday after breakfast. The traffic was great again and we made excellent time. We chose to take the Lincoln tunnel through the city to get to the island so we could stop and get a hot dog at a red light from a corner vendor - I LOVE this tradition and don't care one iota that they have zero nutritional value - it only happens once a year! :)

Upon returning home from our mini-trip we found a package on our door step. Santa sent us our very own Elf on a Shelf to report back to him over the next 25 days. The kids are very aware what the elf means, many of their friends have them, so it was fun to name her (ours is a girl). We went back and forth on a few names and finally settled on a combination of what they both wanted, ELFELINA. She's quite the character. The first night she snuggled up next to Santa on our tree. Emma found her the next morning immediately. Last night she got her gymnast on and flipped herself up into a Chinese lantern. The kids couldn't find her for ages, until Ben finally spied her - he was quite proud of himself for being the one who found her.

Cheeky little Elfelina.

Our village hosted a Santa parade yesterday afternoon. It was freezing out - we literally showed up right at the start of the parade and booked it as soon as it was over. Today was much warmer, so we hung out in the harbor park for a while late this morning, then popped by a pizzeria for a slice for each kid, then headed to our pal's cheese shop for clam chowder and a cheese plate (see below!) then hung out at the maritime explorium for an hour getting our science on. My kind of family Sunday!

Cheese, anyone?

We were sending notes back and forth to each other.

This is an old boat filled with RICE! So much cleaner than sand. Love it!

Parent Teacher conference #1

Daddy and I went in for Ben's parent teacher conference on Monday before the holiday week started. His teacher, Mrs Giglio, is super sweet and she went on and on about how smart he is. They expect preK kids to finish the year recognizing only upper case letters and the numbers 1-10. She showed us how he knows all the letters - upper and lower - and could find 1 through 20 on the page. He knows all his shapes, could identify patterns, could follow two step directions, etc etc. We already knew all this from his recent evaluations, but it was nice to see his teacher is very aware of where he is at academically. She also said he was improving in developing his social skills - meaning trying to make conversation with his classmates vs hanging out on the periphery. She asked if we had heard anything regarding the scheduling of the meeting with us, her, the outside evaluation team and the school's special services department. I told her I would follow up with them, which I did and our big meeting to decide his fate is Dec 18th.

Now, that makes me laugh a bit - decide his fate - Ben will be fine no matter what "the committee" decides. The kid is an absolute stud! But basically his teacher said during our conference that he would be so much better off in the classroom if he had his own one on one adult to work with him. What I take from this is simple, if the class of 16 kids can have 3 adults vs 2 adults, everyone wins as there is more hands on instruction to go around. I will push for that - I may even call the outside evaluation folks and tell them just that so they can do what they need to do to get the school on board.