Surprise!

Guess what we did today?



Yep, you're right! "Otsukaresamadeshita, Mazda-chan." and "Yokosoo!, Vinnie-man!"

(That would translate into "Thank you for working so hard, my little Mazda." and "Welcome! Vinnie-man." Which is what Emma called it accidentally once and I like it so much I am keeping it.)

We hung out for what felt like the ENTIRE day at the Toyota dealership (why does it take so darn long to buy a freakin' car? and why do I always feel dirty when I drive away like I've been had?) But I am happy to announce for just $20 more a month than what we were paying I now have a vehicle that fits my entire family plus our 2 dogs and a whole lot more. (Our car insurance actually went down, too - figure that out.)

Click on the pic and check out the sexy retro New York plates, too. SWEET!

This is not my first minivan... I bought one 12 years ago when I first went to LA to haul all our band gear when having dreams of record contracts and tours up and down the coast. 12 years and 3 albums later I now simply have dreams of driving comfortably with the crew in tow back and forth to Gramma's house in PA! Did I mention the car came with a built in DVD player and wireless headphones??? YIPPEE.

So now if you come to visit me, HINT HINT NUDGE NUDGE, I can pick you up at the airport, too, and you won't have to take the train to the port. (It just keeps getting better.) : )

Sunshine day, everybody's happy!

Picture this: morning time, uncontrollable sobbing.

All I said was, "Let's get your big girl panties on before breakfast."

"This is TOO HARD!" she sobs.
"What is too hard, sweetheart?" Daddy inquires.
"Getting up is TOO HARD!" she chokes out in an Academy Award winning performance. Daddy and I snarf our eggs through our nose...

As I was making lunch yesterday I overheard her disciplining her Princess Jasmine doll, "Jasmine, you are a BAD GIRL. You pee peed on Mommy's new sofa! You have to sit in time out. Now sit down. Now! Sit right here! You such a bad girl." Then later she plucks Jasmine from "time-out" and has her beat up Pocahontas and again yells at her, "Jasmine! No hitting! You want time out again? You sit in time out. You no move!" You can probably detect from her conversations that she has been hanging out in time out for hitting Ben and having accidents...

We hit the beach near our house again today - yes, it is such an awesome space that I will go as often as possible. And, I remembered my camera!!





I swear while at the beach, I busted out my water bottle and gave Benny a sip. He was so excited to drink fresh water (vs the salt water that kept splashing him in the face) that he yelled, "Water!" I'm sure of it. He said it. REALLY! I think...

Bittersweet weekend.

I was enjoying a nice quick shower this morning, finishing up with a good face scrubbing and a long rinse. I heard some rustling of the shower curtain and figured (with eyes closed) that Benny was outside ready to rip open the curtain like he often does. Nope, the kid had already CLIMBED all stealth like INTO the tub and was splashing at the water at my feet fully clothed! I think I need to get a small pool for our balcony - this kid cannot get enough of water!

Yesterday as I was dropping Emma off at her new nursery class, the teacher asked me hold old Ben was. I said 17 months and she said, "Leave him here, too!" I was like, "No way, this kid is el-destructo, and you already have 12 kids to keep an eye on." She insisted so I dropped him into the pile of toys and he wandered about playing with this and that. It is a two hour class and I was just planning on staying the whole time to make sure he wasn't grabbing at anyone's face or causing his usual I can't talk so I will just do-do-do ruckus, but he actually assimilated so well that by the start of the second hour, I sneaked out and went to my own class! It was a joyous/super sad moment. Joyous that I had a whole HOUR of adult conversation without interruption, and sad that my little baby is growing up! At one point he was sitting at a long table with all the other kids all grown up like eating a snack and my heart actually "pinched." He looked like such a big boy. BITTERSWEET...

My favorite comfort food is peanut butter and jelly toast - with Daddy out of town for the weekend I ate alot of it the past 3 days! When Ben sees me eating it, he wanders over with his monkey, "Oo-oo-oo!" face and paws at the toast. I grab his hands so they don't get all sticky and offer him a bite. But, the kid doesn't bite at the toast, he simply licks the jelly off the top. Silly Benny.

We've come a long way, baby.

Today's blog title has a multitude of meanings, only a few of which I will discuss here. Moving from Los Angeles to Long Island is the most obvious...

But today was a very special/emotional day. Grandma's are very important in our little world and Abuelita finally got that kidney we have been praying about for so very long. As of this minute, the surgery went well (she JUST got out), and now we wait and watch her, our Saint Teresa, fight for function. Daddy left on the first available flight to Florida for the weekend, so I am flying solo parenting, but I have no complaints because really, a kidney match is a beautiful thing!! And from what I read on the information superhighway, transplants WORK pretty well these days - so, yes, we have come a long way, baby.

Secondly, when I was a kid - say 1st grade or so, the JETSON's was my absolute favorite cartoon. It used to come on at 3pm, just when I was getting off the school bus and I would race inside to watch it. Trouble is, we only had one TV and my Mama was addicted to "Guiding Light" at the time which also came on at 3. She was a waitress at a local lunch spot and would get home around the same time... We would race each other to the tv and who ever got there first, got to watch their show... But I digress, the point I am trying to make is on the JETSON's they had these amazing VIDEO telephone things - "impossible!" we used to think. Judy, the wife, would be looking all haggard when the phone rang and would dawn a mask that made her look fresh and made up and perfect. Well, we here in 2010 have yet to perfect the mask part, but we certainly have the video conferencing part down as I spent the most blessed evening on Skype with Auntie Cold in LA - she occupied my fragile Friday night mind with hubby away by entertaining my kids as I gave them a bath, then for another hour after they went to bed while we caught up. "We've come a long way, baby." and THANK YOU to the Jetson's for dreaming up that little ditty!

In the midst of all of today's drama, we managed to enjoy the beach as a family for a chunk of time this morning. Thankfully the beach nearest us is not so much SAND (which you all know I sort of DISLIKE) but lots of smoothed from the surf PEBBLES and ROCKS. Both children spent the entire time throwing rocks and Daddy and I got to just breathe in deep the fresh ocean healing air. VERY NICE.

I spent the late afternoon with my buddy, Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and a very HOT bucket of water. Our balcony is fenced in with a nice vinyl piece which makes for easy cleaning, but is also shaded just enough with the surrounding forest that the vinyl never totally "dries" which leads to unscrupulous mold growth. I decided this late afternoon was the time to tackle that job and, to be honest, it was easy with those magic erasers (what the heck are they made from???), just gross and time consuming. (But the deck now looks even more AWESOME!) Again, we've come a long way, baby, from scrubbing for hours with bleach and comet to get things clean!

After Aunt Lisa's heart

Today, Part 2

So I forgot to journal about the best moment of the day... Our neighbor's kid had been holding his Mommy's apartment key in the grass across the driveway and he being a whole 2, dropped it and lost it in the grass so we (Emma, Ben and I) offered to help search for it, which a) GAVE US SOMETHING TO DO! and b) made us feel like we were contributing to society.

Well, Emma and I worked hard searching for the "golden" key, which was nothing more than an apartment key that was fake gold plated, but, hey, it sounds awesome to a 3 year old!

Benny - and here is where the story gets sticky - decided that he was going to play with the tree across the way... He stood at the tree for a good 8 minutes - I thought he was picking at bark... Turns out he was picking at sap and by the time I noticed, his three main fingers were webbed together as if he had stumbled across an open spout of superglue. It took a good 5 minutes of soap and HOT water to melt the stuff, and needless to say Benny didn't like the clean up so much but we finally got him able to use his digits again like a good monkey... Benny Benny benny benny benny benny boogleheimer - WE LOVE YOU!

Library lovin'

Mommy needed a "time-out" tonight, so at 6:30pm after dinner and baths I hopped in the car and headed to the library and the supermarket leaving the kiddos in the very capable hands of Daddy who apparently had both in bed by 7:15. Why can't that happen on my shift??

Why do I love the Port Jefferson library? You can check out up to THIRTY-FIVE items at a time. Yes, you read that right, 35 books/dvds at a time. Holy MOLY! I haven't been brave enough to max out my card just yet, but I have been on a 10 binge for the past two weeks. The children's section is ENORMOUS and they have a ton of FREE classes for children 12 months and older. We haven't had a chance to attend a class yet, but we will - oh, we will! I prefer going there sans children if possible, so I can skim the books real fast before borrowing them, then getting them home, reading them and saying, "Wow, that was a dumb book." (I really need to be writing children's books... The rhymes Daddy and I make up are MUCH more interesting than Sandra Boynton and her fellow authors...) Okay, who am I kidding, it is so much more fun going with the kids, it just takes 5 times longer than when I am on my own!

I haven't gotten used to the supermarkets here just yet. I still haven't figured out where everything is and I generally circle the store twice looking for this and that. Costco is about a 25 minute drive and our membership was up for renewal, so we wandered into a BJ's that is only 10 minutes away and were pleasantly surprised that they had more of the stuff we use on a regular basis than Costco, so we took the plunge and are now part of the BJ's Wholesale family.

Every day I meet someone in the complex that confirms to me we made the right choice in our temporary living quarters. Tonight I ran into a fellow dog owner and we chatted about this and that dog jabber and he told me about a beach 5 minutes away that dogs can enjoy off leash. I want to check it out with the kids tomorrow then take the dogs there this weekend. Everyone we have met have been 100% friendly - most think we are crazy for leaving LA and coming to NY, but they feel our excitement in what is about to happen and have been very helpful in facilitating our settling in process. All but one box is unpacked, I just need to hang a few pictures then I will take pics and get them posted here... Woohoo!

The cottage pictured in the previous post is truly a hit. We had a playdate today and the kids had a blast in it. I already feel like I got my $125 bucks with free shipping money's worth out of it!

Big Apple Part 1

Today, although super sweaty, was a very delightful day.

We were out the door at 9am and on our way into the Big Apple. First we hit up the Bronx zoo because it was pay what you want day. Parking cost $13 and we were going to give $20 for our family of 4 - but then we saw the premier membership was $154 for the year which gives you free parking and free entrance to ALL attractions inside the zoo as well as 3 other zoos in the area AND the Aquarium and figured - knowing our love of zoos and fishes - that $154 was an absolute steal. We are now the proud owners of a one year membership and cannot wait to put it to good use as we explore explore explore.

Let me say this first, if you live in LA, please lay out the $75 and get yourself a year membership to the zoo. Especially all you Burbank folks who read this blog. The joint is MINUTES from your home. It is not only relaxing to wander the zoo and enjoy the animals and maybe even practice photography, but it is a GREAT workout and you are not stuck inside some stinky gym. That being said, the Bronx Zoo kicks the LA Zoo's booty! It is much more woodsy and double if not triple the size of the LA Zoo, combine that with the humidity of the east coast and you are soaking wet sweaty when you get out of the place (i.e. lots of calories burned!!). We stayed our usual 2 hours (Mommy's time limit with 2 children - even though Daddy was there to help!) and still have lots to see - good thing we now have the annual pass! I noticed two things about Benny at the zoo today: 1) he stills enjoys people watching but now "gets" that there are animals to see, too. He was focusing in on individual animals and watching them as they moved around their spaces - something he has never bothered to do before. And 2) he is not content to just hang out in the stroller for 2 hours anymore - the kid wants to RUN, not walk, on his own. Every time his feet hit the path he was off on the 100 yard dash. I am beginning to think he has only 2 speed settings, "Park" and "Sprint." Therefore, I am concerned slightly that when I take them to the zoo (or any other attraction for that matter) I may be in for it! (Brooke, how do you do it with 4 kids on your own???)

From the zoo we headed over to Yankee Stadium. Yes, Daddy wanted - no NEEDED - to do a drive by of the new stadium. It is beautiful and to be honest, I can't wait to take the kids to see their first Yankee game there. I will allow them to wear a Yankee Jersey because I love their Daddy so much, but I will be sporting my Phillies hat and will probably end up in Yankee jail for fighting...

From there we crossed into Manhattan via Harlem and headed south down 7th avenue to Central Park. We just wanted to do a drive by to reacquaint ourselves with the area and the location of the Natural History Museum - one of my favorite museums in the world next to the Smithsonian. By this point it was almost 1pm. Our goal was to make it all the way to the south of Manhattan for lunch in Chinatown but the kiddos were getting restless and my belly was growling a bit, so I made daddy park in a yellow loading zone while I sprinted over to the hot dog cart and got us a $6 lunch (4 dogs and an apple juice - LOVE IT!). Yes, I know hot dogs are not healthy, but we were HUNGRY and both children scarfed down an entire hot dog and bun on their very own - Uncle Raul would be proud.

I haven't been to New York City for about 12 years and I must admit - they have really cleaned it up. We drove through some sketchy areas, yes, but in general, the city had a nicer vibe to it than I remember. Time Square was a mad house and it took us about an hour to get from Central park down to Chinatown because of all the people and cars and traffic. Tourism is not dead in the Big Apple!

We parked around the corner from Little Italy, which is sandwiched inside of Chinatown, paid the parking meter, and got the kiddies out of the car and into the stroller. We only had about 30 minutes to wander around because we wanted to beat the rush hour traffic out of the city so we hightailed it up to Mulberry Street and enyoyed the sights and smells of all the restaurants. We grabbed Emma some ice cream ($4 for one scoop!) and some REAL cannolis ($5 each) for Daddy and I. (Hot dogs, ice cream, cannoli - WHO AM I? ...a stranger has invaded my body!!) All were delicious and I just may get real fat here - but it also just may be humid enough that I drink 10x as much water than normal and hopefully burn a lot more calories (chasing Ben - haha).

The drive home was traffic filled despite our timing and we pulled back into our driveway at about 4:25pm wanting to drink about a gallon of water each. We can't wait to do it all again next week and maybe we will even try to take the train into town this next time - I think Emma will get a huge kick out of it.

Of course, I FORGOT MY CAMERA and have no photos to show you. I promise this won't happen again.

P.S. Emma's birthday present arrived a few weeks early so Daddy put it together while I made dinner. It fits PERFECTLY on our balcony and the kids went crazy. Hooray!

"Love is in the air."

Just in case I haven't mentioned it recently, I want you all to know how much JOY Benjamin brings into our home every day. The kid has this infectious smile and sparkling eyes that I simply cannot get enough of. Today I was reading my book and he came over and slapped it out of my hands as if to say, "Yo, lady, pay attention to me!" I was mad for about a millisecond because he was smiling that David Letterman toothy grin and I just had to pick him up and wrestle with him and tickle him and smooch him - which is pretty much exactly what he wanted anyway. Lucky me!

Emma's is starting to create these elaborate stories in her head. And by elaborate I mean she is a giant fibber! She was having one of those emotional days yesterday and was playing out front on bikes with her 2 year old buddy, Henry who is also in her nursery class. They were doing great for a chunk of time but Henry kinda wandered off and did his own thing for a bit and that upset Miss Social a bit. She started crying and crying and we had to leave the playdate and go up to our place. Inside I said, "What happened out there?" to which she replied, "Henry hit me on the leg, then the back, then the head." Now my friends, I was sitting there with Henry's mama the whole time and let me tell you, Henry is the sweetest little man next to my Benny and there were certainly no altercations. I said to her, "Emma, no he didn't. You are making up stories." She totally didn't understand that AT ALL and my ever so smart hubby later pointed out that I should have said, "Emma, you have an amazing imagination! But I was there and that is not how I remember it." Of course, today her and Henry played with no memories of yesterday...

Funny story... Emma pretty much uses our regular toilet seat when she goes number 1, but when she wants to settle in and go number 2, she is still using the converter seat on the potty. Daddy and I were trying to find a place to hang the "ducky" potty to get it off the floor in our super tiny bathroom where it wouldn't be in the way. Turns out, our bathroom is so small that it is in the way everywhere to which Emma the problem solver came in and said, "The ducky potty can go here." She took it from daddy's hands and hung it on the door handle. DUH, PARENTS. Sometimes the littlest mind solves best the littlest quandary. By the way, I love me the Emma, too!

Bella No Tail

Oh, what a day.

First, let me share with you some lyrics:

"This is the night, it's a beautiful night,
and they call it bella no tail.
To the stars, when you want one,
to the east the sun rises in the east,
and they call it bella no tail."

Needless to say, Emma has been on a "Lady and The Tramp" kick this past month. Auntie Cold ever so sweetly got it for her as a good bye gift from LA and she requests it regularly. This morning at church while we were all singing some pretty song from the hymnal, Em broke out into this song, then sang it for the rest of the day. (If you are a facebook friend, see the 15 second video I posted - it is adorable!)

Our new church seems pretty cool - and VERY NOISY. There are a ton of kids there and finally my children are not the ones causing the majority of the ruckus! hahaha

Yesterday the humidity was getting the best of me so I suggested we go to the mall to play and cool off. Well, I must have been in CA for too long because I was very surprised when this GIANT mall did NOT have a play area. Whaaaaaaaaat? What am I going to do on a rainy day? Humid day?? Hmmmm. Gonna have to get creative!

At Target, Emma was walking by the lingerie section and grabbed a black bra and said, "I need this!" Daddy assured her that she wasn't quite ready for it to which she replied, "But Mommy has one!"

Ben is now tall enough to actually climb up on my dining room chairs and rocking chair. Trouble is he climbs up, then gets stuck. He took a nice tumble off the rocker today, cried for 2.2 seconds, then was trying to crawl up on it again. He then decided that the brand-new-we-literally-only-had-it-for-20-minutes oscillating fan would work better on it's side then in the standing position, knocked it over and broke off the face plate. No allowance for this kid this week!

We made a sizable dent in the boxes this afternoon. I am quickly running out of storage space and am in need of getting creative. I already have 2 bins out on our balcony covered with a cute plastic table cloth, but I am afraid to push them up next to a rail to save space lest our little adventurer climb up and take a tumble from the second floor. OI!

Lastly, I am reading a book! I know, crazy, right??? I haven't finished a book in 3 years (hmmm, could that be since Emma arrived??) but I have decided that now the the kids are actually playing together and not needing me the entire time to officiate, that I may as well try to get back into doing something that I used to LOVE so dearly. I actually read 96 pages yesterday. HEAVEN!

We have achieved STUFF!

Hello there, super quick update because i am TIRED. Our goods arrived today!! HooRAY! Now the daunting task of putting everything away! : )

Like all good parents, we attempted to get the kids room together first so they had some semblance of normalcy after all the temporary living. (Can I share a secret with you? When your kids are this age - they really don't know any better...)

Or so I thought. When I busted open the wardrobe box that said TOYS, Emma went CRAZY. She pulled out all her little people and got them on her freshly made up bed and made up elaborate stories about the past 3 weeks of living out of a suitcase. IT WAS AWESOME. Benny was just excited that she was excited. That kid is so madly in love with his sister - it is the sweetest thing. I just hope it continues until they are 90!!

The main furniture is all in place, now I just have a good 30+ boxes to find resting places for in this tiny abode. But we have decided that it is definitely bigger than the Califa (Encino) place so surely if we fit it all there... WAIT A MINUTE, we had a garage there to store a ton of boxes. OI!

Once again, huge thanks to Gramma Lou and Abuelita for all their love and support. And also to all of you who offered up prayers of safe journeys - WE THANK YOU and LOVE YOU and can't wait for each and every one of you to come and visit!!

P.S. Daddy took the kids to the beach today while the movers were unloading. He has GREAT stories to tell. I am hoping I can pursuade him to go ahead and tell them here!!

Home Sweet Home

We are still furniture-less but settling in (nothing to settle!) into our new space. Here are a few pics to tide you over until we get our stuff (hopefully in the next 3 days... but I have stopped even checking the status updates because I am sure they are computer generated and deceitful).

Here is our apartment building. It sits on a sizable chunk of hillside deep in the forest on the edge of Port Jefferson. We can hear the wind rustling the leaves all day long and the occasional ferry horn as it leaves the harbor.





To the left of the building is a giant patch of grass for the kids to tear around. The giant white fence in the back corner houses the trash bins which is where I walk to whenever Ben has a poopy diaper as our diaper genie is still journeying across this great nation.




Around the back you can see our balcony. It is off our bedroom and a very nice size. I hope to buy one of those Step2 or Little Tykes houses on sale or second hand for the kids to play in and put it on the balcony to get them into the fresh air even more!








Even though he has a giant big yard to play in, Ben prefers to RUN up and down this sidewalk. He will take off when you least expect it and practice his 50 yard dash - surely we have an Olympic caliber track and field star on our hands.





Our pad is on the second floor which makes for a bit of struggle with 2 kids and 2 dogs - Emma gives me mini-heart attacks as she climbs up and down because she jumps and I fear a tumble! But my ever thinking on the bright side hubby reminded me that at least all our feet are wiped clean by the time we make it to the top so our brand new carpets should stay fairly clean! : )

Below are my newly painted bathroom (thanks, Daddy!) and the nook where my fancy dining room table will go when it arrives. You can also see a glimpse of the kids very big bedroom (we gave them the master so we could have the balcony off our room) - and yes, that is Emma sleeping on the floor, not on the air mattress we bought for temporary sleeps - go figure.



And, finally for this morning, here is where Daddy and I have been sleeping - our new microfiber sectional sofa. It is very comfy and easy to clean. We had it less than 45 minutes when Benny walked up to it with cinnamon graham cracker gooey hands and wiped them all over one of the cushions. Daddy did some research online and found out Lysol cleaning wipes will work wonders - which they did - good as new! : ) (Benny is having his breakfast "picnic" on the floor - bagels and blueberries and eggs. YUMMY!)

Gramma Part 2

If you know anything about me it is that I am "semi-health" conscious. I LOVE that Emma is tearing into a fatty chicken wing and Ben is HOUSING an impressively hunky mass of carbohydrate. Grandma's RULE!

Grandma's! Part 1

As Daddy took our computer with him to NY, I have been using Gramma's new laptop to surf and blog the past 2 days. Tonight before going to sleep, in my boredom I clicked on her iPhoto storage of all her pictures. Guessed what I missed while driving across country? A picture (or 6) speaks a thousand words. This is why we LOVE our Gramma Lou:

33 hours and counting.

Daddy left PA on Friday morning and headed to Long Island to secure our housing. He signed the papers, got the keys and headed to our new place. I was apprehensive all morning as we never actually saw this apartment - just one like it in the complex - so I wasn't quite sure what we were getting. I am pleased to announce new carpets throughout, new kitchen cabinets and appliances, and a nice bathroom. Phew! I asked him if the closet space was as nonexistent as I remembered it and he replied, "Yep!" Ugh. I need to make new friends with houses and basements fast so I can store a few boxes there!!

I believe I have mentioned my criteria for renting a place for this next year - I want to be able to plug in the vacuum cleaner into an outlet and then be able to sweep the entire place without moving the plug. I think we have achieved this! My family was teasing me yesterday that we are simply renting a "walk-in closet" in Port Jeff. I laughed but agreed knowing it was exactly what I wanted minus the closet space. (The reasoning behind wanting a small space is less time cleaning a house and more time out and about meeting people and building our business!)

My car finally arrived via giant transport carrier on Friday. $850 later and I was driving through the countryside back to Mom's house. It honestly felt so weird to be driving MY car in PA as whenever I visited I always borrowed a car from someone. Our house goods are somewhere just west of the Mississippi. I don't have any idea when they will arrive but the good news is they are on a truck heading east! Gramma Lou is helping us get the kids and dogs to NY tomorrow after she gets off work - hopefully that will make us miss NYC rush hour traffic and we should be arriving to our neck of the woods on LI by 9:00pm. Fingers crossed!

We have been enjoying hanging out with my family here in PA the past two weeks filling the days with swimming, outdoor explorations and FOOD. I have probably gained 10 pounds from the drive across our fast food nation to PA and from enjoying meals with family here. I am excited to explore Port Jefferson ON FOOT this summer and wear off these new lbs and then some. I can usually joke and say chasing after children has helped me shed some weight, cousins Frankie and Leah have been such a giant help keeping the toddlers entertained that I have actually gotten to relax here and there. Thanks, cousins!!!