Monthly Archives: March 2015

On the eve of the terrible twos.

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Our youngest will be two in just over a month, but I fear we are witnessing early moments of the dreaded terrible twos phase already. In addition to shouting “No!” to multiple family members multiple times a day to express her unhappiness about some situation, she has also taken to hitting—well, more like swatting—her sister, and throwing herself down on the floor with lots of hysterical screaming and crying when she is reprimanded or told no.

And if this weren’t bad enough, she wakes up and insists on talking in a grouchy, hateful tone to everyone about just about everything. The dragon voice usually fades at some point, but returns without warning off and on throughout the day.

Me: What do you want for breakfast, Frances? Eggs?

Frances: No! No eggs. Me no eggs! No breakfast!

As if the first response was not emphatic enough. Sheesh.

Me: OK, let’s go change your diaper then.

Frances: (with disgusted look on face) No! No biper! No wipe! Runs away and hides under the table or behind the couch.

Nora: (trying to be helpful and supportive) Come on, Frances. Let’s go into the bedroom and change your diaper. 

Frances: No, Nor-nor, no! (runs at sister and swats pathetically in her general direction, maybe connecting, maybe not, but in any case, not with enough force to actually hurt)

Nora: (runs away wimpily) Mommy! Mommy! Frances is trying to hit me!

Me: Seriously?!?!?!

Frances has also been teething, so perhaps this is part of the cause of the nastiness. I recall Liam’s brother-in-law once saying he and his wife blamed every unfortunate behavior their sons ever displayed from birth through age four on teething. I’m of the mind to do the same thing here.

Thankfully we didn’t have to deal with too many tantrums with Nora. I think this was because she was always able to express herself adequately. And, we could reason with her when she was upset. Frances lacks the verbal skills her older sister had at this age, so I’m expecting the frustration level to remain high.

On a brighter note, at church last Sunday, Frances showed a slightly more angelic side of herself when she began making the sign of the cross haphazardly, over and over again during the second reading. She looked like a confused third base coach giving signs to a runner, but Liam and I recognized her actions right away from practicing saying grace before dinner each night. Also, she accompanied me to the bathroom at one point during the middle of Mass. Upon walking back inside the church, she paused thoughtfully and genuflected on her own, entering the pew ahead of me. After several of us who witnessed the event enjoyed a chuckle at her expense, Liam leaned over and proudly exclaimed in a voice slightly above a whisper, “She’s going to become a nun.”

After observing her behavior this past week I am quite sure he has reconsidered this thought. Right now I am thinking drama queen. Major drama queen. We might be in trouble here.

Excuse time.

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Over the next few weeks, if I happen to miss a day of writing and posting to the blog, it could possibly be assumed that I have:

A) fallen asleep with one or more of the children ahead of my bedtime and against my will (as happened one night last week)

B) gone into labor and given birth to a child

C) gone off the deep end, motivated by ever an increasing lack of patience, screaming children, messy house, and raging hormones, or

D) fled to Mexico

I nearly fell asleep with both girls again tonight (it’s a basketball night). Well, I did fall asleep for a spell. But an overactive bladder, which is being squashed by what must surely be a nine-pound baby by now, forced a bathroom break.

And so, I rallied to type out these words. Now it’s back to bed and the warmth of my babies, one of whom will be four tomorrow!

Lazy days and a photo post.

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I’m happy to report that there was much resting at the roost this weekend. I was able to nap both days for a couple of hours, and didn’t leave the house to do much. Feeling like I’m ready to take on the work week ahead.



A day at the park. Finally able to get outside!



Our mean-faced dragon child.



Getting ready to head out for groceries. Take note of floor litter and my being totally OK with it alll.



Salami and cheese eating snacker. She is her father’s daughter.



Trying on her mother’s boots. The poor thing couldn’t take a step!



What are we going to do with a third child?

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Seriously. What are we going to do?

Last night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I started getting stressed out about adding another body to this family. I feel like we have our hands full all the time as it is. What were we thinking? And having them so close together?

There’s a reason that throughout human history child-spacing has occurred naturally every four years or so. It makes sense to me that the body should wait until a firstborn child is older and more self-sufficient before it decides to have another. But, having these babies two years apart? Total craziness.

But, I will be thirty-seven in little over a month (I know, apart from the gray hair, I don’t look a day past twenty-three), and we wanted to try for a boy, so it was either keep-them-a-comin’ or just stop and say enough is enough. As you know, we decided to keep going. I don’t regret it for a second, but man-oh-man am I feeling overwhelmed.

Last night I was considering posting an ad to Craiglist for a roommate so we could keep the adult-to-child ratio in balance once the new baby gets here. I’d even be open to the possibility of letting the roommate live and board for free. So long as she is open to changing diapers, giving baths, cleaning the house, doing laundry, cooking an occasional meal, co-sleeping with one or more of our children (we only have the two giant beds, although I guess she could sleep on the couch if she prefers), and maybe, just if she’s feeling up to it, being a wet nurse from time to time.

Sounds like a pretty good offer, don’t you think?

Three weeks without Facebook. And as far as I can tell, I am no worse for the wear.

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It’s been a little more than three weeks since I’ve checked my Facebook Wall for news of family and friends. Though it’s been a harrowing and difficult experience (extreme exaggeration here), I’m happy to report my suffering has not been as bad as I imagined it might be.

In fact, in the beginning, I felt relieved not to have to play catch-up each day. Ignorance is bliss, right? Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy going through posts and updates, but it seriously stresses me out to make time to read through everything, especially when people post links to articles that look interesting.

I usually end up clicking on the links to the articles I deem worthwhile, and then I store them on my phone in a queue in Safari for a time to be read later. This means I sometimes have as many as fifteen windows open at once. And they all sit there throughout the week, as a constant reminder that there is always more to be consumed. 

I’ve taken much needed breaks from Facebook before. I find it’s a good practice for me that encourages mindfulness and time spent doing more productive things. Usually, what gets me is the fact that I’ve got the phone out and on in front of the kids too much. Not exactly the kind of behavior I want to model for them. 

Or, I read in succession one too many heartbreaking stories of parents who’ve lost children to a variety of illnesses or accidents. It matters not that these folks are strangers. I internalize and imagine their pain, shed genuine tears, and then of course begin to be consumed with worry that our family will be next to experience tragedy like theirs. This is obviously no good for someone with my anxieties. As a side note, one would think I’d know better than to go read about these things, but I don’t. So the break from these kinds of posts has been welcome too.

Still, I’ve felt myself itching lately to be connected again. When I get home from work and put my feet up on the couch. When I’m nursing the youngest to sleep. When I’m awake with pregnancy-induced insomnia in the middle of the night. These are all times in the past when I’d have pulled out the trusty phone to waste time and indulge in the details of others’ lives. 

The past few days I’ve found myself wondering, well dreading actually: What have I done? What have I missed?! And then I like to remind myself that we didn’t have Facebook years and years ago and we managed to keep in touch and maintain friendships all the same. 

It’s kind of like my cousin Brian quipped on Instagram a month or so ago:

Remember the good old days before Facebook, Instagram and Twitter? When you would take a picture of your dinner on a disposable camera, go and get the photos developed, then go round to all your friends’ houses and show them the photos? No? Me neither. Stop it.

Very funny. We once survived well enough without daily glimpses into the intimate details of each others’ lives. I try to keep things in perspective and not get too overwhelmed by the fact that I’ll essentially be missing out on forty days’ worth of news and updates from all of my best peeps. 

But, I am looking forward to the day when I can jump back in again, with good balance of course, and preferably not when I should be minding and or playing with the children, and be smack in the loop of the current events of the times and the lives of my favorite people.

See you soon!

Everything my child ever learned she learned from Caillou (and other outside influences).

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As parents and primary caregivers, there is a lot that my husband and I can take credit for when it comes to building our children’s world knowledge. We were the first to teach them important vocabulary words, like names for common household objects and body parts. We’ve sung songs and read books to them. We’ve modeled for them, and continue to model, how to be kind. We insist they use words like please and thank you. And, we use real life experiences to teach them about nature and the outside world whenever we can.

Still, there are things that come up, from time to time, that neither my husband nor I can take credit for. For example, just last week, Nora was dancing around and singing to a Frozen song in the living room. When she finished, she promptly, and rather cutely, I must admit, executed a bow and a curtsey. I chuckled out loud and asked her where she had learned to do that. I hadn’t taught her, and surely my husband had no part in it. I thought maybe she had picked it up at school since her teacher has a flair for the dramatic. Instead, Nora admitted that Candace, our babysitter, and her daughter had taught her how to bow and curtsey. Later, she added, “Then I saw it on Caillou and I practiced again.”

As far as I can tell Caillou is a cartoon about a bald four-year-old boy with an annoying voice, and his little sister, Rosie. Why is he bald? I don’t know. The subjects of the cartoon seem harmless and worthy enough. I really wouldn’t know, as I’ve never seen an episode from start to finish. This is a program Nora mostly watches when I am working. It is astounding, though, the number of references she has made to the show in terms of how she is constructing and representing her world knowledge.

Another example: A few days ago Nora was drawing free-style on a piece of blank paper. I was only half-watching her at first. I noticed that she had taken a break from her normal, go-to picture, of a family of five, in ascending height order, with the littlest being a baby inside his mama’s belly. At one point, I looked over at her very colorful design and asked, with genuine curiosity, “What are you drawing, honey?”

“A rocket ship,” she replied. “Here are the wings,” she pointed out, “and this is the top.”

Again, I assumed she’d learned about this from school or a book she’d read recently. Or maybe Liam had drawn one with her before. I was so pleased with her creativity, I told her she should hang the drawing on the wall. She did, and just this morning, it seems, Liam noticed it for the first time.

“Did you see Nora’s rocket ship?” he asked me proudly.

“I did,” I told him. “Did you draw one like it with her before?”

“No,” he admitted.

When we asked Nora how or where she learned to draw it, she said, “I just knew how.” Of course, she did. She’s brilliant.

When we pressed her further, she admitted she saw one on Caillou. Of course, we should have guessed. Caillou has taught her a great deal. But so have Candace, and my parents, and her teachers and classmates, to name just a few individuals with whom she has close relationships.

We hear new songs weekly, with hilarious lyrics and accompanying motions we’ve never heard or seen before.

We are asked things like, “Mommy. Have you ever had Cinnamon Toast Crunch before when you were little? Isn’t it so good?” (It can be assumed that almost all junk-food references can be attributed to Grandma’s house).

And then she’ll out of the blue tell me that there is a picture of Martin Luther King in her sticker book. I know she learned about him briefly in school. When I go to look, assuming she’ll just see some kind of picture of a man of color, I see instead that it is simply an old white man with a crown—a king, indeed, but not Martin Luther King. It is so much fun being both a teacher and role model for the girls, but also witnessing how they’re learning from each other and those around them.

I’ve always loved the saying: It takes a village to raise a child. It tickles me to discover how other individuals, and yes—cartoon characters too—are influencing our children and their education in positive ways. Thankfully, at this age, most of the influences are positive ones. I know we will have to deal with peers and other forms of more questionable media at some point as they get older. But for now, we’ll take all the help we can get when it comes to broadening our girls’ horizons and view of the world.

Perfecting her bow.

The Caillou inspired rocket ship.

Doing the bare minimum. No extra flair here!

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I haven’t seen the movie Office Space in years and years, but I’ve watched it enough times to have bits of it memorized.

The past few days I keep recalling the scene where Jennifer Aniston’s waitress character argues with her boss about the amount of ‘flair’ she is wearing on her work uniform suspenders. The flair is just a name for the fun pins and buttons the waitstaff are encouraged to wear to express their individuality or something. The boss requires each employee to wear a minimum amount of flair—fifteen pieces—which Aniston’s character does, but then he’s always on her about wanting her to wear more, but without every actually coming out and saying so. One of their hilariously awkward encounters goes like this:

Stan: We need to talk. Do you know what this is about?

Joanna: My, uh, flair?

Stan: Yeah, or, uh, your lack of flair. Because, I’m counting and I only see fifteen pieces. Let me ask you a question, Joanna.

Joanna: Mmm-hmmm.

Stan: What do you think of a person who only does the bare minimum?

Joanna: Huh. What do I think? Um, you know what, Stan, if you want me to wear 37 pieces of flair, like your pretty boy over there, Brian, why don’t you just make the minimum 37 pieces of flair?

Stan: Well, I thought I remembered you saying that you wanted to express yourself.

Joanna: Yeah. You know what, yeah, I do. I do want to express myself, okay. And I don’t need 37 pieces of flair to do it. [she gives Stan the finger]

Joanna: All right? There’s my flair! Okay? And this is me expressing myself, okay? There it is! I hate this job! I hate this goddamn job and I don’t need it! [she storms out]

So why has this scene in particular been playing out in my mind recently, you ask? Because I have no flair any more these days. I can do no extra, be no more than the bare minimum.  And, I’m surprisingly OK with this.

At work, I find myself wanting to hide under my desk and nap all day long. If no students were to show up at my door for instruction, I wouldn’t go seek them out, or complain about it. Instead, I’d offer up silent prayers of thanks, and sit about rejoicing in my lucky fate. Like a woman who’s all too aware of her impending retirement (or, rather, maternity leave, in my case), and overwhelmed by teaching demands, and general physical and emotional exhaustion, I have checked out, so to speak. I may be showing up on a day-to-day basis, but there’s not a whole lot going on behind the great and powerful curtain.

Likewise, at home, I am all about simply surviving—just getting by. Sit on the couch or at the table coloring pictures for an hour? Great! Leftovers for dinner? Check! Take a bath for an hour and then sneak away to the bedroom to lie down while the hubs plays endless games with the girls? Absolutely. Dirty dishes left out on counters and tabletops? No problemo. Laundry not been done in days and days? Ain’t no thang.

Gratefully, my mom and our sitter, both of whom spend time watching the girls in our home, do a phenomenal job of cleaning and tidying up the house while we are at work. They make it so it’s easy to relax when I come home. Also, l’m fortunate to have a partner who can pick up the slack now that I’m getting more and more tired earlier and earlier in the day.

Taking it one day at a time over here. And hoping I don’t have to flip anyone off for attempting to get me to do any more than I’m capable of doing right now—just the bare minimum, please.

Basketball Mondays

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Liam has been participating in a basketball league on Monday nights for over a month now. He usually doesn’t make it home until after the kids have gone to bed. Since I’m by myself with the girls and typically exhausted, and Nora doesn’t nap most Mondays, we all go to bed early, in the same bed (usually Liam is the one who puts Nora to bed in the other room while I’m with Frances in our bed).

Of course, Nora has come to love these nights. “It’s a basketball night? Oh goody!”

“Why ‘oh goody,'” I ask her. “Won’t you miss seeing daddy?”

“Yeah, but I get to sleep in your bed with you and Frances!” Thankfully Liam’s feelings aren’t easily hurt.

I treasure these nights too. Not only do I look forward to the early bedtime, but I enjoy being able to snuggle close to both of my girls, while at the same time marveling at the movement going on inside my belly. I know I won’t always be able to hold all three babies as close as they are right now. So I’ll enjoy it while I can.

Four more weeks to go!

Anxiety Episodes #9 through #13 (all in a day’s work): Making orphans of the kids, and a variety of unexpected, undesirable birthing scenarios.

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#9: One of my first fears upon leaving the girls for an overnight last night was: What if something happens to Liam and to me? Like, we get in a car crash, or kidnapped by terrorists, or killed in a drive-by shooting. What then? We really need to make a will.

#10: What if my labor begins away from home, in Philadelphia? Would we just stay and stick it out there? (I made sure the hotel in which we had a reservation was close to a hospital. Also, I insisted we bring the hospital bag with us as well as the baby car seat, despite funny looks from both my father and my husband. Always, always be prepared.) Or, do we try to chance it and drive back, giving rise to Anxiety Episode #11, risking birthing a baby on the road, in the car, and/or following a police escort of some kind.

#12: Because Liam had to stay in Philadelphia for an event late tonight, I decided to take a train home to be with the girls at home early-ish on a school night. He stayed with the car. Of course, as soon as he dropped me off at the station, I started to wonder: What if my water breaks on the train and I deliver just seventeen minutes after that? (Why seventeen minutes? Seems someone I know must’ve recently had this experience. Not the whole train thing, but the water breaking and delivering soon after). That would be so mortifying. And I’d be without my partner. Such a mess.

#13: I got to my parents’ house safely, thanks to my dad, who was able to come and pick me up at the train station. No water broke and no babies had to be delivered by strangers in a confined train car. While I was at my parents’ house, I was able to put my feet up for a bit, enjoy some dinner, and tackle some lesson planning for the week ahead. After snuggling with the girls for a bit, I even got to enjoy a bath. When I finished the bath, I just couldn’t fathom squeezing back into my skinny maternity jeans, or my tall boots, the only clothing I had with me. Instead, I scavenged around the house for a comfy pair of black sweatpants. I’m not sure who they belong to, but they fit! In addition, I asked my mom if I could borrow a pair of flip flops. But, the only shoes she had available were fairly dressy, but still casual, black weaved, open-toed sandals with a slight wedge. I looked so ridiculous in those sandals paired with sweatpants paired with t-shirt and bulky sweater. Although, I was super comfortable. Of course, my sinking fear was that I’d be in the middle of the drive home and get stopped or arrested, or go into labor and have to appear in public in front of others feeling ashamed and embarrassed due to my state of dress.

Alas, both Liam and I are safely home at our house now with the girls. They are wild and wired and out of sorts due to the time change. We hope to make it to bed, all of us, before midnight.

I am not planning on leaving town again in the next few weeks, or wearing any ridiculous outfits, apart from what I choose to wear in the comfort and privacy of my own home, thus eliminating the possibility of the above anxiety episodes from occurring again. It was all worth it. We had a great, if brief, little trip to the big city. Below are just a few photos to highlight our day together.

We got to enjoy Mass this morning without any kind of distraction, or giving of snacks to little children, listening to crayons drop on the floor, or the crinkling of Ziploc bags and whispers and whines. It was pretty incredible, actually.

Enjoying breakfast with the birthday boy at one of our favorite spots—the inspiration for this trip, actually. I chose the hotel and last night’s dinner restaurant based on their proximity to this place. The best breakfast sandwiches EVER.

Our last stop of the afternoon: The Barnes Foundation. This is a museum Liam has wanted to visit for some time. It’s the first time we’ve done an audio tour in a place like this. We both scoffed at the idea at first, but the iPod/headphone set provided tons of relevant and engaging information we would have not gotten in viewing the paintings and art alone.

Birthday Celebration #1: A twenty-four-hour getaway.

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Well, the cat’s out of the bag. 

A couple of weeks ago I made a plan to celebrate Liam’s birthday this weekend, a little early. I asked my parents if they would watch the girls tonight (Frances’s first overnight!) so Liam and I could stay the night in Philadelphia. I made a dinner reservation at a happening restaurant and managed to keep things a surprise. 

Well almost. Up until two days ago, when Liam told me that he might have to do a last minute meet and greet for work in Philadelphia tomorrow. When he saw the horrified look on my face he said, “Or not. I could try to find someone else to do it.”

Ultimately, he could find no one else to go in his place. And so, I felt compelled to disclose the details of the weekend. Now here we are, in the City of Brotherly Love, celebrating the start of another season of birthdays, the impending arrival of a new baby, and a night away without our little loves. Feeling blessed. Hopefully the little munchkins are sound asleep by now and dreaming peacefully.