Nicholas is changing every day. He is a constant mimic, so we have to be very careful about what we say or do. Once I was tickling Nate with my foot, and he walked up and practically stepped on his brother. When I shouted he cried, of course. But because he was confused - wasn't I just doing that very same thing?

The other day he was out on the porch with Steve. Steve was talking on his cell phone. Nick was sitting in his little chair, holding a broken remote control to his ear and having an imaginary conversation.

Yesterday he took a little box full of outdated insurance cards and hotel keys into a store with me. As I was paying I caugt him leaning out of the stroller, "swiping" one of the cards against the wall, and then punching an imaginary keyboard with his index fingers.

I can't explain how I feel when I see him do these things. It's an urge to laugh and cry at the same time. I know he doesn't really know what he's doing, and that makes it funny and cute. But part of me also knows he's going to be doing these things for real someday all too soon. Even though I'm glad about that, it also fills my heart with sadness. Does he really HAVE to grow up? Can't he just sit on my lap and stay small for a few extra years? I mean... once he's out of diapers.

This morning I went to change Nick's diaper, as usual, but I noticed something odd while shoving the diaper into the diaper bin. The diaper was the wrong color.

Steve gave Nick a bath last night. Apparently he put one of Nathan's diapers on Nick. I should have known something was wrong when Nicholas wailed for an hour instead of settling down to go to bed, but it never would have occurred to me to check that he had the right diaper on.

I haven't told Steve yet, since he was in a rush to get to work this morning. I would be horrified and a little angry, but in the past two days, not only have I also tried to put one of Nate's diapers on Nick, but I have also almost put one of Nick's diaper's on Nate. We're talking about a diaper the same size as he is. I only noticed when the tabs reached just under his armpits.

I've said it before, although not on this blog: Thank Goodness for Velcro Tabs!

Whenever I see an old picture of Nicholas I am struck by what a round, bald head he had. I can't tell you how happy I am that he finally sprouted some hair. Now he has so much of it that I can't keep it combed properly. It curls up every which way. A post about a first haircut (not counting the snip I made and the extra bald spot I gave him) may be coming up soon.

When Nicholas was born we ended up with a flyer called Building Block to Heathy Social / Emotional Development. It offers suggestions on how to help your kids succeed from birth to age 5. I have had it posten on my fridge, and just this morning I took the opportunity to read the "Ages 2 - 3" section, since Nick will be 2 in a little over a month.

Let me just say that most of these suggestions are good ones, but they are not always practical. For example, in the "Birth to One Year" section it states that Holding a baby will not spoil him, which is something I happen to agree with. But it doesn't tell you how to make a meatloaf while holding the baby.

In the Ages 2 - 3 section there were a couple of items that, again, I agree with, but don't seem to be working. The first is Temper tantrums are normal - stay calm. I assume by "Stay Calm" they mean "please do not place your child in the dryer or send him to play in a busy street." Great. But what would have been MORE helpful would be tricks to either avoid tantrums or end them. Nicholas has tantrums because he wants something and when he tells us we give him blank looks because we have no idea what "gada gook don" means, and obviously our guesses are far off the mark. Once he starts throwing sip cups and has melted into a puddle of goo on the floor, screaming and crying and kicking out at us, how do we figure out what it is he wants?

Another suggestion this flyer has for Nick's soon-to-be age range is "Offer your child two choices of food and clothes." I'm all over this. When we go to the grocery store and I say "Which cart should we get?" expecting him to go for the ones with the ride-in-cars, he picks the automated ones for people who need help getting around the store. When I pick two shirts and ask "Which shirt, this one, or this one?" he looks at me and says "no." "Do you want Macaroni or balogna?" his answer is "Yes." The doesn't understand the CONCEPT of choice. So for now, I go through the motions. I pick two shirts knowing he will say no and I will choose for him. I pick two books knowing he will want them both and then add three more. And I pick what we have for dinner because, let's face it, it won't matter to him.

I feel downright evil today. Like a cross between Joan Crawford and that dragon from the Lord of the Rings movie. And it's my own fault.

First off, my left leg would be in less pain if I just cut it off. I like to run on the treadmill every day. Lately it's been difficult to get Nick to sleep long enough for me to run for a full half hour. So instead of just accepting this and cutting back on my time, I stopped stretching beforehand.

I KNOW! Stupid, Stupid me. I expect no sympathy for the pain I am currently experiencing in my knee and foot.

But the REAL issue, the REAL reason I feel like every nerve in my body is exposed and I might explode any second... is that last night I did not sleep in my own bed.

It wasn't Steve. I should say right away that, although Steve and I have argued and then gone to bed, the arguments are never bad enough to banish one of us to the guest room. Or else neither one wants to give up the good mattress. The issue, of course, was Nick. Nicholas bgan crying at 11pm last night and WOULD NOT STOP unless he was resting his head on a part of my body, even if doing this meant that he had to bend his neck at a 90 degree angle from the rest of his body. After 45 minutes of his crying and my clutching my chest with the fear that he was going to wake his brother, I finally went in and crawled into bed with him, figuring there had to be something wrong.

There MIGHT have been something wrong.

But I am still never doing that again. For the following reasons:
- Nick keeps more small items in his bed than I have in the diaper bag, including small cars, books, sipcups, and small round bouncy balls.
- Nick does not understand the concept of giving me my own space, and sleeps with his head pressing against my neck AT ALL TIMES.
- Nick breathes in my face. Hot, I-have-a-cold breaths.
- Nick rolls over onto my hair, which hurts
- Nick wakes up at 4am and tries to play with me. When I try to go back to sleep, he helpfully points out every single mole on my arms, chest, and face. He pokes each one and says "mole?" It turns out I have a lot of moles.
- When I finally get back to sleep, Nick manages to WALK THROUGH THE WALL (or climb over the baby gate but honestly I'm hoping it was walking through the wall which would be easier to process mentally) and at 6am I wake up to the sound of his little feet runnin up and down the hallway.

I will be napping instead of working out today. I hope. As it is I have had to have a coffee just to deal with getting dressed and not packing Nick up into a box and mailing him to an orphanage when he started making those fake-cry-whiney noises this morning. I will need another cup of coffee to deal with taking the boys to the grocery store. I hope the caffeine lets me nap.

If I can't nap, the next blog post will be done from some faraway South American resort where children are NOT allowed.

The Easter Bunny brought Nick a lot of chocolate for such a little boy, which is amazing when you consider the number of times she had to return to the store and replace items such as choclate bunnies and peanutbutter cup eggs. That's what you get, Easter Bunny, for purchasing things way in advance and not having enough will power. Shame on the Easter Bunny!

But now, thanks to the Easter Bunny and Steve's mom, we have more chocolate in my house than in the rest of New Hampshire. Which is great... sort of. If there's one thing I've learned over the past three weeks, it's that I WILL eat chocolate if it's around. Self control will have to be practiced... oh, well.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

When I was a kid we'd celebrate Easter by dressing up in frilly dresses with petticoats and hats - well, my sisters and I would, and my brothers wore suits. Then we'd go to church - the only time we'd go to church all year long - to hear the pretty music. (Once my brother actually whined "Do we HAVE to go to church EVERY YEAR?" It doesn't matter what you do or how often you do it - children will complain.) When we got home we would have our Easter Egg Hunt, and then we'd have a fancy meal of lamb and mint jelly or duck or a roast or something.

But I will celebrate this year by telling you a SPRING STORY about... you-know-who... NICHOLAS! Who else?

Yesterday we were outside, celebrating the warmth of the season. I was working on weeding my hopeful flower bed. Steve was playing with Nick. He stopped by Nate's bassinet to say hello. Nate sneezed, and Steve said "Hey! I got your sneeze on me from all the way over here!" Then Steve lay back, staring up at the blue, blue sky... and that's when Nick walked up to him and threw up on his head.

I ususally hate throwing up. I have to clean the floor, do laundry, plus I have to immediately find a way to comfort Nick without picking him up, which is what he wants me to do. But this time I also had to deal with Steve, who kept saying "My hair... it's in my hair." I have to say, it was totally worth it to have this little incident tucked away inside my brain.

We are all fine now, and clean. Happy Easter!

Here's the song I made up for Nate. He loves this song, especially when you grab his arms and make him dance to it. He opens his mouth really really wide and shows you that he has no teeth.

It's to the tune of "Coppacabana." (Did I spell that right? Oh well - I don't really care. I don't even really LIKE that song. It's the tune that's important.)




Ahem:

His name is NAto
He'a poTAto
And NAto poTAto is GREAT-o

His name is NA - TO
He's a poTA - to
NAto poTAto is GREAT-o but WAIT-o
He is NAto....
And he's my BOY!

(Practically anything can be substituted into that last line. "Mommy's in LOVE" is a big one. But I've also used. "Let's go outside," "Time for a nap," and "Sir Stinkypants.")

We all have a cold. Yesterday night Nicholas threw a fit at being put to bed, sobbing and wailing. After an hour of listening to him, we finally went and got him, and then all sat down to watch a movie. Nick fell asleep during the movie (that was the idea) but he woke up about ten times during the night just to cry. I kept Nate in with me so he wouldn't get woken up, and so I wouldn't bother Nick going into his room for midnight feedings.

Of course, Nate woke up only once for the first time in over a week.

This morning Nick is congested. Nathan keeps sneezing. And I have one of those sinus headaches. Feeling less than 100% is completely different when you have kids. Nobody really cares. They still want their juice and their TV shows. They still want to play outside. They still expect clean utensils and clean clothes and diapers. It's fine, though. I'm looking forward to taking the boys into my bed and all having a big long nap there.

Nicholas is a very friendly kid.

Yesterday we met some friends at the park. Of course, after the initial thrill of recognition, none of the kids wanted anything to do with each other, and they each headed off towards a different corner of the very huge playground, where Nicholas found the man of his dreams.

He was wearing a yellow T shirt, sunglasses, and was either a very young father or an uncle. He and two girls (years older than Nick) were playing on the slide and the bridge Nick was attempting to scale. From the moment he saw the man, Nick knew he was special. He pointed and said "Dada?"

I nodded. "Yes, he's their father," I said. Best to keep things upbeat and simple. But Nick wouldn't let it drop, He followed the man around the slide asking "Dada? Dada? Dada?" and pointing. I laughed and took his hand, leading him away. But he would always return to the man. I explained to Nicholas that this man wasn't HIS dada. I also explained that he had a perfectly good dada at home. But Nick didn't seem to care.

I should also let you know that Nicholas also fell in love with two older girls at the park. One of them was jumping on the bridge - Nick immediately began to jump on the bridge, which was only a problem because he had enough trouble walking on it. When she and her mother left Nicholas ran after them into the parking lot shouting "Bye bye! Bye bye!" The thing was, the girl had hardly given him a glance. Thsy didn't know this little boy was trying to go home with them.

On one hand it breaks my heart. Nicholas is trying to find someone to play with, and I am not very good at finding people for him. I see him reaching out for attention and wonder if I am giving him enough - after chasing him into the parking lot while holding my 3 month old in one arm and trying not to bounce too hard so his little head won't fall off... But on the OTHER hand, we came there to see two people willing to play with him, and he wouldn't have anything to do with them...

Last night Nathan decided that it wasn't worth sleeping unless he was pretending to nurse at the same time. I kept feeding him until his body went limp and he stopped sucking. Then I would oh so carefully brgin him to the crib and place him on the matress...

... and he would almost immediately begin kicking and making those "heh heh heh" sounds that exist simply to give you some time to fix the problem and avoid the real screams.

We did this four or five times before I realized that I needed sleep badly enough to qualify me as insane. I went on a mad search for the one remaining pacifier we have in the house, but it took me a while to find it, as it had fallen out of the carrier in the TV room and wedged itself under the giant football pillow. Once I gave him the pacifier I could still hear him fussing, but the screams were somewhat muffled. I had to go back in twice to replace the pacifier, but I didn't care. At least I wasn't nursing him and awake.

This happened because he slept all day yesterday. I will not be making the same mistake today. Oh no. Back to our Schedule, like it or not.

My sister Anne-E was here for a visit this past weekend.

Anne-E lives in San Francisco, and I only get to see her two or three times a year, so it's kind of a big deal when she decides to just come out for a weekend. But she loves Nick, and she had never even seen Nate in person.

I love my sister. But I have to tell you I questioned her motives while she was here. Within the first 12 hours of her visit she managed to wedge both of Nathan's legs into one pant-leg while changing his diaper, put the diaper on the baby backwards, and drop the baby on the floor. That's right, she DROPPED MY BABY!

It was an accident. The carrier the baby was in can be tricky. The handle thingy was in the wrong position, Nate wasn't strapped in, and he has this way of scootching down. When she picked it up he slipped onto the floor and started crying. He was more upset than hurt. In fact, we don't think he was hurt at all. He was fine. We told Anne-E it was fine. But she felt bad anyway.

I'm so glad she came out here. We just don't see enough of her. Our lives are very, very different, and we live on opposite sides of the country. But all that is OK. As long as she keeps making visits.

Anne-E, I promise you that we wil somehow get out there to see you before too long, OK?

Tonight I am going to see Spamalot in Boston! I am very excited, not only because I love musicals, Monty Python, and this soundtrack in particular, but because we will be going out WITHOUT THE CHILDREN!

However, if I were going to be at home, this would be a TV night. We have HBO, and Steve and I are big Sopranos buffs. I also happen to be a huge fan of Big Love. Not that I could ever truly understand either the Mob or Polygamists, but there you go. It's the magic of television.

Tonight, however, there is also another show that I might watch at 8pm. The Gospel of Judas Iscariot. Not only do I find things like this intriguing, my cousin Chris is involved with the film. Find out more about Chris and his company HERE. So even though I can't watch it tonight, I recommend that you DO, and I'll catch it when it plays again, which I'm sure it will.

And now, for a photographic image of the show that is probably illegal to post here, but I'm going to do it anyway because I can't see that it's really hurting anyone:

Today we went to the Town Hall for the Town Easter Egg Hunt.

When Steve first told me about the Easter Egg Hunt I pictured it in my mind immediately. Young children rushing around in Eastery clothes, clutching baskets on one hand and pushing aside branches of trees and peering under bushes to find brightly colored Easter eggs. The sun would be shining, birds would be singing, parents would be talking, laughing, getting to know each other, and watching their children, snapping photos when they could. Everyone would be happy. Hearts would be light. Then the children would line up in an orderly fashion to meet the Easter Bunny, who would pat each smiling child on the head before moving on to the next...

Things are never the way you think they will be.

First of all, there was no sun. This is New England, so I guess I should have expected this. The sun is onely a sometimes thing up here. But it was also cold. Not crisp, not chilly, but see-your-breath and wear-your-mittens COLD. We arrived at the town hall just at 10am. The driveway was filled with parents and children tightly packed together. I kept looking for a table or a posted sign telling where the 1 to 3 age group was supposed to go. But there was none. Then this man started speaking into a megaphone and I had a very surreal feeling that I had entered a silent film. I could see him speaking. I knew his voice was supposed to be very loud. He was gesturing, so I knew what he ws saying would probably pertain to us in some way. But all I could hear was the crowd of parents and children.

Even though the megaphone was obviously broken, the people closest to him must have heard what he had said, because they began to move as one united mob up the driveway. Most of them moved towards a small circle of hay that had been placed on the lawn in front of the hall. Again, I could see the man with the megaphone, but couldn't hear him. I waited for him to explain the rules, to introduce himself... to do SOMETHING that would inform us as to what was going on...

Before the man could say anything, as he was begining his little announcement, the mob made its move. Suddeny parents and children alike - many obviously over the 1-3 year age group or else suffering from severe glandular disorders - began rifling through the hay. Parents pushed past young kids, shouted at their kids to "Look there! Look there!" The megaphone man was shouting "there are enough eggs for everyone" but some parents seemed to think he was fooling, and that there were not going to be enough eggs to go around. Steve had to push past a group of parents to get Nick into the chaos, and helped him look for a few eggs. Nick found 2 eggs. He was happy with what he had.

Just so you know, these were PLASTIC EGGS people. They were not golden eggs. They each contained one sticker. They did not contain lottery tickets. And once you got an egg, that was it. You got the egg. There was no prize for most eggs found. There was no winner. It was just a hunt that was supposed to be fun and lighthearted. Instead, it turned into a chaotic mess because some parents - a LOT of the parents - turned pushy. I was afraid someone would step on Nick.

We had plenty of time to discuss the insanity and the craziness of the hunt as we waited on line to see the Easter Bunny. (It was obvious which kids had pushy parents. They were the 2 year olds with 3 dozen plastic eggs in their basket. ) Nicholas smiled when he saw the Easter Bunny, but when it was our turn to go to him, he simply said "No." I picked him up and put him on the Bunny's lap, but he kept saying "No,no, no, no, no" until he could get down. If you ask me, it was the best part of the morning.

I'm glad we went. But I know I don't have to tell you how dissapointed I am. Why don't people listen? Don't they see that everyone is supposed to have fun? Why do parent think it's OK to let thei 8 year old railroad a bunch of 2 year olds to find more stickers? Why do parents think it's OK to grab an egg away from a 2 year old kid? What is WRONG with these people?

Yesterday I actually purchased a double stroller.

Because I already had a child in the recent past, there was very little we needed to purchase for Nathan's arrival. Baby clothes? Check. Infant car seat? Check. I bought a bassinet so that I would have a few extra weeks to transfer Nick to his Big Boy Bed. But other than that, Nathan got nothing. From us. He was showered with gifts from family and friends.

But I knew at some point I would need a double stroller. Up until now I have either been pushing Nate and having Nick walk - carrying him half the time. Or I have been pushing Nick and carrying Nate in the Bjorn thingy, which is great, but I can't bend over or carry anything too heavy. When Nick was born I got a great stroller that weighed 50 pounds and was about the size of my Saturn. In fact, it would not fit IN my Saturn, which caused some problems. So I then had to buy a second, more portable stroller. This is a great stroller, but I now had two kids.

Yesterday was the day. I packed up the kids and headed off to Babies-R-Us, or The Huge Store I Hate. I seriously hate this store. But I can never find a place that gives me the variety of products. Except on the internet, which doesn't count, because let's face it, I want to SEE what I buy. I need to know how it will fold up so I can picture myself taking it to France and Tennessee and on my frequent trips to Hong Kong. PORTABILITY. FOLDABILITY. Will they let me check it as baggage without forcing me to treat it as an oversize item?

I really, really, really liked the Aria Twin MT for some reason. (Mom - the underlined type is a link - click on it and you will see the stroller I'm talking about.) If this stroller were a car, we'd already own it. It is that cool. It "drives" so smoothly, and folds up flat like a pancake! But it was the most expensive stroller in the place.

I ended up with the Twin Savvy Sport Stroller which is also really cool. (Mom - LINK!) This stroller cost a bit less (still more than I wanted to spend) But it is also WAY COOL! It folds DOUBLE. So you make it flat and then fold it IN HALF! OK, it's a bit heavier than the other one, but it's easier to carry, it has machine washible pads...

The other thing is, Nick loves it. Ever since we got the stroller home he has been sitting in it. He napped in it yesterday. He cried when I took him out to eat lunch. It's great! He'll just sit there while I fold laundry or make dinner, smiling. "Cha?" He asks. "Sit?"

I will post a photo of the boys in their new stroller soon, I promise.

Yesterday I helped Nick decorate Easter Eggs.

This was another one of those crazy, parent driven things. Like visiting Santa. Nick would never had noticed if we hadn't done it. He doesn't understand Easter, or the eggs, or the Easter Bunny. But some part of me, the part that remembered decorating Easter Eggs as a kid, had a NEED to show Nick the joy of getting his fingers stained with artificial dye.

Personally, my favorite Easter Eggs as a kid were the ones I decorated with Larissa. Her mother is originally Ukranian, and they had the whole set up beeswax and strang dyes... making an egg would take hours - days. But it was fun, and it was worth it. Compared to that, dumping your egg in "the blue cup" and then having a plain blue egg is just not the same thing.

But since Nick is just 22 months old, I figured regular old easter egg dye would be fine.

It was a fiasco.

First of all, I needed to phone my mother to ask her about the eggs - would they go bad in the fridge if I hard boiled them now? Then I had to look up how to hard boil and egg in The Joy of Cooking. I did have the presence of mind to boil the eggs ahead of time and let them cool.

Then the FUN began. I let Nick watch as I put vinegar and lemon juice in with the tablets of fizzy dye. I poured water in the cups. Nick wanted to drink them. I took out an egg and placed it in one of the cups. Nick wanted to hold an egg. "Bird?" he kept saying. I showed him how the egg was a little colored. I gave him stickers to put on the eggs. He would get so excited he would smash the egg he was holding agains the table. He wanted to put all the ggs inside the cups at the same time and stir with the egg dipper thingy. All in all, it was me decorating a few less than 2 dozen easter eggs while trying to keep Nick from smashing them all on the table.

He had a good time with it, which is what counts. But it was the most stressful fifteen minutes I had experienced in a long while. I would have taken pictures to go with this post, but until I hire a full time photographer to follow me around and document my life, there is no way I am ever going to capture most of these moments. My hands are full LIVING them.

I feel and look like I just spent the entire night beating my face against a brick wall.

I tend to brag about my kids being good sleepers. I do this because I compare each night to the first eight months I spent with Nicholas, where I was up three or four times every single night feeding him. I had to stop breastfeeding him and start giving him a bottle for him to start waking only once a night. And eventually he began sleeping all the way through, from 7pm to 6am. Just in time for me to get massively pregnant and need the sleep.

Nathan seemed like a magical baby. He started off sleeping for four or five hours at a time, and I had to wake him to feed him, which I think is insane, but I was afraid because he was jaundiced and I was supposed to be feeding him a lot. Eventually, though, his color improved and he would wake only once a night, and then he'd be up very early in the morning (5am-ish). I was ecstatic. I knew things were going really, really well. I even started giving up my nap in the afternoons to work out or do chores.

Well, for the past four nights Nathan has been waking up every two hours. I get tired and resentful going in there to feed him so much. I know many people would let him cry it out, but I feel he's still very young, and he may honestly need to be fed. Also, HE SHARES A ROOM WITH NICK which causes all sorts of trouble.

Last night I had to change Nate's sleeper because of a leaky diaper. But the outrage this little baby projects at not being fed RIGHT AWAY is amazing. He screams as though I'm pricking him with pins and lfails his little body around making it very difficult to change him quickly in the dark, especially as I am still half asleep. His screams wake Nick, who sits up in bed, crying, and then just sits quietly and watches as I finally feed his brother and put him back to bed. I then kiss Nick and rush back to my own bed. But thirty minutes later Nick begins to cry. I am afraid he will wake Nate, so I rush back to the room to comfort him. Nick clings to me and points to the Rocker. "Cha?" he says. He wants to be held and rocked. He is asking me to do my favorite thing in all the world.... but at 3:30am.

It breaks my heart because I know he is so little and can't understand why I feed and hold Nathan twelve times a night but insist he stay in bed by himself. I held him in the chair for five minutes, then told him he had to go back to sleep. He screamed. I ended up having to take Nathan into my room - which I'm sure Nick doesn't understand in the least. I could hear him at the baby gate, speaking into the dark. "Mom? Bye bye?" and then just sobbing.

I am hoping tonight goes a bit mre smoothly. If I need to start giving Nathan a bottle before bed, or even at mindnight, then I will do that. Even if it has to be formula. But I can not have too many more nights like this.

By the way, if anyone was wondering where Steve was in all this, he was sleeping. Really. He woke once when Nick started to cry, but then fell back asleep. If there is anything more irritating than listening to your child cry at 3am, it's listening to your child cry at 3am while your spouse snores into your other ear.

A few words about SPAM... and I'm not talking about the pre-pckaged "meat product" you would find at the grocery store.

I received my first SPAM comment yesterday. Up until now, I had been confused about the concept. I visit blogs where you have to do a words verification to leave a comment. These random letters appear and they look like they havebeen twisted by a funhouse mirror, and you have to retype them to prove that you can read them. Somehow this prevents the blog from getting SPAM comments.

I have yet to turn this word verification do-hicky on for this blog for a few reasons. The first is my mother - she already can't figure out how to leave a comment. Adding this extra step might keep her from EVER BEING ABLE TO LEAVE A COMMENT EVER! Plus it's just a pain. But the second, and more important reason, is that I just hadn't been getting SPAM comments AT ALL!

This all changed yesterday, when I got my first request to visit a website and find out more about becoming a mystery shopper. Needless to say, the comment was deleted. Alhough I haven't turned on this word verification yet, I might end up doing it is other evil mystery shopper hunters start leaving me comments. So please consider this a warning.

ANOTHER WORD ON SPAM... kind of. Steve is taking me to see Spamalot! in Boston on Sunday. I am very excited. This is our first real date since Nate was born.

This is my 100th post!

I can't think of anything important enough to include in a "100th Post!" so instead here is a photograph of me. Moi. Yours truly. It was taken at my friend Betsy's wedding a year ago. I am pretty sure my friend Joanna took the picture. I give her credit because I really do believe this is the best picture taken of me since my own wedding. This was just before I became pregnant again, so I had lost all the baby weight I was going to before packing on the pounds again.

Plus, I'm just about to eat cake. DO YOU SEE THE CAKE? I mean, is there a better feeling in the world than knowing you're just about to eat cake? It's better than actually eating it.

A list of failed cooking / baking experiences:

- That time I was 9 and added 2 cups of water to the mix instead of 1/2 a cup because I didn't see the 1/

- That time in high school I made the bluberry muffins and ended up with a broken finger defending them.

- That time in college my singing group made a bunch of peanut butter squares and I stepped in one of the finished ones, leaving a sock imprint we ended up cutting around before serving them to our paying audience.

- That time I was showing Betsy how I made chicken stir fry and ended up dropping the whole thing one the floor just as it finished.

- Every single time I made bacon when I lived with Miranda, because I set off the smoke alarm every single time.

- The time I made Lime Chicken for Steve and he said "How can you mess up chicken" just before taking a big bite and then looking at me as if to say "By Gum, She's gone and done it!"

- This time I made cookies - the really easy kind that are already in precut cookie shapes and all you have to do is pick them up and place them on a baking sheet... only I put cooking spray on the sheet first, so they all slid around into each other during baking giving me this wonderful melting clock effect:
- This time I made the brownies and then dropped the entire pan on the floor as I was removing it from the oven. I scooped it up and ate it anyway:

- Finally, last week after the brownie incident when I tried to make a whole chicken and forgot to take it out of the freezer and eneded up microwaving it for 30 minutes trying to defrost it and take the paper sack of intestines out, but only managing to cook parts of it while the insides remained to frozen to budge, and after soaking it in warm water for 20 more mintes I decided that feeding my family drain cleaner might be safer than feedin this psrticular chicken to my family.

I have never taken a cooking class. but I do cook something at least once every single day. I'm getting better, and I'm learning. But honestly, powders and prepackaged, frozen meals are getting better and better. So many days I wonder if it's worth the effort.

Well, we've sent Nicholas packing on the last big truck that came driving through our town... just kidding. APRIL FOOL'S!

Personally, I am not a big fan of April Fool's day. Possibly because I'm not good at tricking people. It either doesn't work, or it does and I feel guilty. And when people play tricks on me I get hurt. Part of me feels that, by even recognizing this day, I will have more tricks played on me than ever. The same God owns April Fool's and Massachusettes Roads, and the one time I drove through Massachusettes and made fun of the names of the towns (DeadHAM, NeedHAM) I ended up getting horribly turned around and drove the loop from 95 North to 93 South about 3 times before I figured out what I was doing wrong.

Today was Steve's morning to get up with the kids. Miraculously, Nathan slept through the night until 4am, when he woke up soaked because his diaper leaked. He was also very offended that I decided to change him instead of feed him right away, but hey - I didn't want pee all over me. His screaming woke up everyone - Nick, Steve... various pets. After changing him I took him back into our room to sleep in his bassinet, which I still have in there. I didn't feel like changing the sheets on his crib, and thought Nick would go to sleep again if we left him alone. He did.
In fact, both boys slept very well.
Steve is always asking the boys to sleep until 6:30 on the day he gets up with them. Well, this morning Nick woke quielty and was playing by himself. I woke up at 6:20 to his shaking thebaby gate calling out "AGA! Ay AH ou?" (Gunther, where are you.) "Ama! Ay AH ou!" (Mom, where are you?) "Dada? Dada?" (Dad? Are you awake yet? Because I'm hungry.) After fifteen minutes of listening to Nick both over the monitor and down the hallway, squeezed in between Nate, who I had been feeding in bed and who was starting to fuss, and Steve, who was in the dead center of the bed, snoring and breathing on my neck, I finally caved. I got up and put on my slippers, upset that I had to get up when IT WAS NOT MY DAY!

Steve woke up while I was angrily putting on my sweatshirt, and gave me a choice between going back to bed or sleeping in tomorrow. Since I was already up (which happens after twenty minutes of pretending I don't have kids while reality is shouting in my ear) I chose to just get up. Steve expressed bewilderment that I was angry at him for sleeping! How could I be upset? He just doesn't get it. I'm not angry at him for sleeping... not really. I'm angry at him for BEING ABLE TO SLEEP THROUGH IT! Nate coughs and I wake up, tense, waiting to see if I need to go in, but Steve can somehow sleep through a circus over the baby Monitor. The buzzing made by said Monitor, though... THAT is a noise he complains about every day.

A few months after Nicholas was born, Steve sent me flowers.

Steve has never been the kind of guy to bring me flowers. The only other time I can remember him doing so was the first anniversary of the day we met. He bought me one hundred roses from this truck off the side of the road that sold 100 ROSES for $49 or something to that effect. The roses were uncut, full of thorns and leaves. He didn't have vases to hold them so we ended up cutting off the tops of plastic liquor bottles he neglected to throw out and sticking them in there.

When he sent me flowers after Nick was born, I cried. I was so happy and glad. It really meant something to me that he took the few minutes to go and do something like that.

I bring it up because, even on my best days, it feels good to be given a little recognition. Yes, we are married, and yes, I am the mother of your children, but I still like to be won over. Especially when you take into account all of the wonderfully unsexy things I do every day. The poopy diapers, the mushy clothes, listening to The Wiggles album 47 times... these things do not necessarily put me in a romantic mood. The breastfeeding that many men find so mystifying is simply a device to render all activities involving that area of the body sticky and gross and at times painful.

It's a trying time, also, because the first few months after a child is born is such a melting pot of hormones, sleep deprivation, self-doubt, body issues, and adapting to a new "schedule" which is just another way of saying "once you think you've got a schedule your infant will change it just to torment you and get you ready for teenage years." Yes, this is a trying time for fathers, too. I know Steve has made major lifestyle changes and adaptations in becoming a father. But I'm not a man, I'm a woman. So I can't speak for him.

I guess what I'm saying is, I really liked it that time Steve sent me flowers. I wish every mother could enjoy that feeling of support and encouragement at least once in her life - flowers for no reason. Just because.

Nicholas is learning how to undress himself.

This learning process began months ago when I was pregnant and trying to get him to nap twice a day. Nick would pluck off his socks; I would return to get him up and he would be barefoot. I was too pregnant to look for them underneath his crib. (He was still in his crib.) I was afraid if I crawled under the crib to retreive them I would get stuck and Steve would come home to find me half trapped under this large item of furniture with Nick sitting n my back jumping up and down.

In any case, Nicholas has now progressed to removing his pants. As with his socks, he refuses to remove them when it would actually be useful, such as bath time, or when his diaper needs changing. Instead he pulls them off while he is watching television, or while I am doing dishes and he has told me he would be at the library. I mean when I think he is playing quietly with toys.

I'm happy he is learning to do this - hey, taking off your pants is a step closer to potty training, right? But the trouble is, sometimes he doesn't quite finish the job. Especially if he happens to be wearing footie pyjamas. Then he can only pull them down as far as the ankle. And this wouldn't bother me so much if he wouldn't then decide to get up and move around.

I know it's old and used, but if this kid lives to be 2... Well, he will have scars and bruises all over him. His fingers are fine, for those who were wondering. And about this photo? No children were harmed in the making of this photograph.

BAD MOM award goes to... well, me. Who did you think I was going to say? It goes to me, yours truly, because today, under my supervision, Nicholas put his hand on the stove burner and burned his little fingertips. The screaming and wailing and tears and pain are evidence that I suck.

I was actually doing a good job at being "MOM" today. I unloaded the dishwasher. We went to Wal-Mart and did not purchase any bribe toys. We managed to leave the place without a tantrum. We played outside in the dirt. Then I took Nick inside where he helped me make Macaroni and cheese.

And there you go.

I said "Nick, please put on the water to boil while I change Nathan's diaper!" Just kidding. I boiled the water and we danced to The Wiggles, even though I can recite the entire album from memory and in my sleep... We played quite happily. When the pasta was done I turned off the burner. I drained the pasta. I put it back in the pot. I let Nick put in the butter and the orange cheese powder. He helped me mix it. Then I spooned in into bowls. I put Nick on the floor and said "come on over to your chair!" I walked over to the table and put down the pasta. And then Nick screamed.

I thought at first he was mad because I took the pasta away. He had climbed back on the step stool and was shaking and crying... then I thought he had hurt himself somehow with my can of Fresca... I mean, he really must have REACHED to get to that burner. It took EFFORT on his part. I don't know what he was trying to do.

All I know is that little white blisters are covering his fingertips. I know he cried for a whole hour and wouldn't eat the stupid mac & cheese. I had to sing him to sleep, which I haven't done since he was 6 months old. He's better now - he's using his hand. He peeled off the Shrek band-aids I put on for him. And he didn't even fuss in the tub. But I can't help wondering how much worse it could have been, and why I didn't stop it from happening...

By the way, this is a picture of Nick hugging his brother. It's one of my all time favorites.

No photo today. Blogger keeps giving me an error message.

Instead, here is ANOTHER VERY CUTE NICK STORY. I know, I know, you're getting sick of them. I understand. I can't reasonably expect you to be as enchanted with my children as I am. But TOO BAD! Life is more than pretty pictures, and even more than a few not-so-pretty pictures. It is also funny anecdotes.

When we went to visit Betsy and her 4 month old, Logan, Nicholas kept calling Logan "Nay Nay." Now, Nay Nay is what he calls Nathan. And it makes sense for Nathan. Betsy and I kept telling Nick his name was LOGAN, not NATHAN. And I kept pointing out Nathan and explaining that there was only one Nathan.

Yesterday we were reading the book "5 Little Ducks." And we reached the very end of the book which has the little ducks returning to their mother duck with families of their own. And Nicholas pointed to one of the baby ducks and said "Nay Nay?"

Baby. He gets the concept. The vocabulary continues to elude him

In other news, Spring is here, we are playing and walking outside, I am drying clothes on the line (is this good or bad?) and the days are lasting longer and longer. Hooray!

Unless he's watching television or strapped into a carseat or booster chair, Nicholas doesn't stop moving. This makes taking pictures of him difficult. These pictures of failed Nicholas shots that would have otherwise made the cover of some international magazine for their brilliance in composition, but Nick had to keep moving. I decided to put them all together for a background theme as I describe (or complain about) last night / this morning.

Last night we ordered subs to be delivered, so I expected the evening to unfold seamlessly. This was not to be. About five minutes after Steve placed the order and ten seconds after I told Nick to take his fist out of his mouth before he choked himself, Nick threw up all over the floor and all over his new shirt. I don't know exactly why he has these little bouts of bulimic activity, but I think it has something to do with his back teeth coming in. The evening was made complete when Steve chose "It's Alive!" as the movie of the week. I don't know if you've ever seen this movine, but unless you're trying to torture yourself or your date, I wouldn't recommend it. It was one of those horror films that wasn't frightening in the least, and this one even lacked a respectable amount of gore, so it was mostly just stupid, and I'm a bit upset I spent my time watching it.

Steve made some comment about getting up with the boys this morning, but since it isn't his day, and since he's said things like that in the past anddoesn't get up, I should have known better. He just isn't programmed to get up as soon as one of the boys cries, whimperes, or starts fussing. He slept through it. And it seemed stupid for me to wake him up when I was already awake. After all, it was technically my turn. But he HAD said he would get up, so I couldn't help but feel a little put out and a little resentful, especially when I saw that Nick's diaper had leaked, and his PJs were all wet, not to mention the bedsheets. I was changing sheets and doing laundry at 6am on a Sunday, which is just plain wrong.

Thinking back on it, though, it's just as well I was the one to get up. Steve wouldn't have changed the sheets - it wouldn't have occured to him.

That's it for today's festival of complaints. If you're lucky, next week I will have photographs of my latest baking tragedies!

The danger I face in writing every day is that I spend so much time talking about how busy I am, and how crazy all the little things are making me, that I forget to mention the bigger thing, or the little things that make my heart sing.

This picture was taken in Central Park, on one of those horse and carriage rides - my father's treat when we were visiting. Nick was nervous at first, but soon relaxed and started pointing out all the sights of the park. (Dog! Dog! Tree! Car! Dog!)

The other day when we went to Wal-Mart Nick fell asleep in the car on the way there and started crying when I woke him up and tried to get him to walk. So - in an act that went against many parenting instincts of mine - I actually gave him two quarters, hoping he wouldn't swallow them or choke on them or try to fit one up his nose. I told him he could use them to ride the Ernie and Bert fire engine - he always sits on it, but I rarely have the change to make it go. He was so happy to be given coins that he fell silent at once, only murmuring "money?" every once and awhile. And when we got to the fire engine, he just stood there. He was happier with the money in his hands than on the moving fire truck. Steve and I told each other he would be a wise investor.

And this morning while I was feeding Nate, Nick took his "baa baa" (stuffed lamb from last Easter) and pretended to put powder on it. He then dabbed the lamb with Desitin until I came over and helped him put a diaper on it, which pleased him to no end. It was so funny, and so sweet.

I wish I had more to say about Nathan. But he doesn't DO much. Except smile. He is a good natured baby. He hardly cries - fusses if anything. Even when he got his three huge shots at the doctor's office, he mostly whimpered, his face turnred red and his eyes teared, but there were no screams. His smiles make me feel like the most special person in the world. And he sleeps. It took Nick almost a year to fall into a regular nightime sleep pattern like Nate. Now we're working on a daytime schedule of naps and feedings - the only reason there isn't one is because I keep draggin the poor kid all over instead of giving him the time and space to sleep.

Bottom line, I love my kids. I am guilty of thinking they are the most special beings on this earth. Guilty, guilty guilty. But then, to me they are. So ha.

Today I thought I would just post my to do list and let that speak for itself.

My official To Do list has only five items on it. That's because there are things I expect myself to do every single day, and these things become second nature. If I only do these "every day" things I end up feeling that I didn't get anything done. So this list is not only to let those of you who wonder what it is I do all day know what it is I do, but it is to remind myself that I am doing a lot.

- Change the sheets on our bed, Nick's bed, and the crib
- do 2 loads of laundry (wash, dry, fold, put away)
- Swiffer jet the sticky spots on the kitchen floor
- clip the boys' nails
- do my own nails once boys are asleep
- take the boys to Story Time at the bookstore
- Swing by Old Navy to look for clearance items for Nick (and Myself, since nothing fits and I'm rotating between 2 pairs of jeans and 3 maternity shirts.)
- Make brakfast, lunch, and dinner
- do dishes from breakfast, lunch, and dinner
- feed Nate every 3 to 4 hours
- feed Nick snack between meals
- make sure Nick doesn't hurt himself... or Nate. Or any of the pets.
- Feed pets
- Let Gunther out at least twice during the day
- remember to let Gunther back in before he barks so much at the neighbors that they shoot him
- Spend some time with Nate that isn't just sticking him in a corner
- work out
- Get Nicholas to nap
- pick up all the items that Nick has managed to find and spread all over the floor
- give the boys a bath
- Shower myself (I need it after that workout.)
- Take multivitamin
- check diapers every hour or so and change as necessary.
- Spend some quality time with Steve so he feels valued and loved.
- use moisturizer and brush teeth
- Go to bed at a reasonable hour without any sleep aids or alcohol, and without making plans to run away to live in Greece with the 20 year old supermarket checkout guy.

Yesterday was one of those days that cause parents to drop their offspring off with unsuspecting relatives and run off to the Bahamas. Or to simply consume large quantities of wine.

It began well enough. Both boys woke up just before 6am. I made frozen waffles for breakfast since we were out of bananas, milk, bread, cereal, and most everything else. I packed up both boys and did a quick grocery run, and by 10am we were back home with everything we needed. I guess the day could only go downhill.

I figured I would feed Nick an early lunch and try to get him to nap before Nate's 1:30 doctor's appointment. But since there was so much time to play around with I decided to MAKE BROWNIES FIRST. Please don't ask me why I do these things. There is no reason to ever make brownies unless you're supporting some bake sale. I have this tic that makes me find extra projects on my busiest days to prevent relaxation from occuring.

Anyway, I ended up with Gunther barking to be let out, Nate crying to be fed, Nick crying to be let out of his booster chair, and the brownies being done. I sis a quick mental breakdown to prioritize and went for the brownies in the oven. I then promptly dropped the entire pan on the floor, so I had to scrape thm up with a spatula and ended up with what one might call a pile of brownie.

The next hour was spent feeding Nate and listening to Nick not nap in his bedroom.

Although I started getting us together in what I thought was plenty of time to make it to the doctor's, I wasn't counting on Nick's having a really bad diaper rash and throwing a tantrum during his change. I ended up shoving Nick in his carseat and rushing to make the appointment, forgetting the six forms I had taken the time to read, complete, sign, date... they are still on my fridge. Nick ended up falling asleep on the way to the doctor's office, and I had to wake hom up to get him into the building.

The evening was charming. Nate crying because he had received three huge shots, and Nick crying because he had not napped, had a bad rash, and because I was focusing on his 2 month old brother (who made the 90th percentile for weight.)

Once both boys were sleeping I ate half the pile of brownie and had a glass of wine. We can't afford the Bahamas right now, and the wine is pretty good for $4 a bottle. Then I took a look at this photo and I knew it was all worth it.

Today is Larissa's birthday. For those of you who don't know, Larissa is my oldest friend... and by that I mean she is the friend I have had for the longest length of time, not that all my freinds are younger than she is. This photo was actually taken when we were 15 at a mystery costume party at my house. It is my all time favorite photograph of Larissa, possibly because of her long hair, but really because I think she looks like a princess in a fairy tale. (Remember - we were in COSTUME!)

To celebrate Larissa's birthday I will be pretending that I do not have to go grocery shopping and make do with old rice, canned vegetables, and crackers.

Yesterday I went to visit Betsy and her baby, Logan. Logan was born just about 2 months before Nathan - in November. (ummm November, December... yeah - two months.) However, if you would please just glance at the photograph I posted, you can see that, despite one being twice as old as the other, Logan and Nathan are pretty much the same size. (don't they both look so pleased to be in this photo?)

I've thought about it, and I've decided they are the same size because 1) Nathan needed to stay in a little bit longer and 2) Nicholas needed to come out a little bit sooner. But doctor's being how they are and having really strange policies about things like pregnancy difficulties, and inducing Betsy's labor, and not letting me induce mine... well, there you go. Our kids are pretty much the same size. (BTW - size has nothing to do with difficulty of labor. I would describe mine as going well, and BEtsy describes hers as pure hell as you can ready for yourself on her blog which is linked to this site - it's very funny.)

If you try interacting with them, you can tell Logan is older. He's very smiley and very cute (this photo I took doesn't do him justice), and even though Nate is cute and smiles at me, he doesn't interact in the same way. He's still mostly a lump of a baby. But I love him anyway, because he is mine.

Anyway, it was a nice visit, but short, since I was trying to get Nick out of Betsy's place before he emptied all their drawers, pulled all of their appliances out of the walls, and damaged their cat.

Nicholas is almost twenty two months old, which means he is almost two. Like a typical two year old, he has turned into a very strange child with very strange habits and very strange tendancies.

For one thing, he stores things in strange places. I can not, for the life of me, get Nick to pick up his blocks and put them in the block bin. I may as well be trying to train Gunther to do it. In fact, I'm pretty sure that, with a few treats and a little persistance, it might be easier teaching Gunther to do it. However, despite not putting things where they belong, he continually puts items in places they most definitely do NOT go. Yesterday I opened the cabinet and found a kickball sitting in one of the pots. I opened the drawer to get a sheet and find three tiny cars. Cute! But last week I took a blanket out of the blanket basket and found a sip cup with strange purple goo in it - not so cute. Maybe Miranda hasn't been stealing them after all. They're all over the house, their insides turning into purple goo. Hooray.

Nick also is great at taking things OUT of drawers and bins. He absolutely positively cannot stand to have books on shelves. On the floor only. And all of these wonderful things I have in my desk drawers, things lke staples and decks of cards and plugs to items that may or may not hook up to my computer... these things also must be removed and placed strategically around the house so that I come across them at odd moments - like when I'm making dinner or when I accidentally step on one of them - and in the case that I am actually LOOKINg for one of these items, such as the baby monitor or my computer mouse, I need to go scouring every single corner and nook and cranny, underneath every pillow and blanket, and I will probably end up finding what I am looking for in the bread drawer or the trash.

In case you haven't figured it out, I'm very tired and very frustrated and I might be more calm about the whole thing if he would actually take a nap someplace other than the car, so I can get something done while he's napping.

The end for today.

Nicholas has become an escape artist.

I don't know when it happened, or where he learned it all. He must have been taking lessons while I looked the other way. But the result is the same. He is now into everything all the time and there is NO STOPPING HIM.

It began one night when I put him to bed and then went to give Nathan a bath. Someone knocked on the door and I opened it, expecting Steve. But no - it was Nicholas, standing ther with his sip cup and saying "Hi!" in the high pitched voice he uses... Gunther had apparently helped him open the door to his room and he found us in the bathroom.

Yesterday morning I went in to get him for breakfast and he had climbed over the baby gate into his closet and was in there playing with his toys. The same thing happened at nap time - instead of sleeping he was playing. SO I put him in the crib and left to feed Nate. Two minutes later I heard one of his musical toys clinking away... That's right - HE CAN CLIMB OUT OF THE CRIB. There was nothing I could do. No nap for him. I just let him play in his closet for an hour.

The funny thing is, instead of crashing, he just got more and more hyper. WHen Steve came home he accused me of putting speed in the kid's juice. Which I would never, never do. But I could see why he would wonder, the way Nick was bouncing off the walls and singing and spinning and climbing and jumping and in all ways into everything without stopping. The only way to slow him down is to carry him. And he's WAY too heavy.

This photo is one of him actually stuck in the pot. Maybe he'll nap this way?

Today is a historical day.

First and formost, it is the Ides of March. It is my understanding that "the Ides" basically means "the Fifteenth" and that there is actually also an ides of April, May, June, etc. But we remember The Ides of March because of what that crazy soothsayer said to Julius Ceasar - "Beware the Ides of March!" Also, it just happens to be the date that Ceasar was stabbed to death. "Et tu, Brute!" and all that fun stuff.

March 15th also happens to be Miranda's birthday. Miranda is a friend of mine from college. She is crazy - she actually admitted to breaking into my house and stealing Nick's sippy cups. But whatever. It's her birthday, so I'll forgive her.

And last but not least, my mother is getting knee replacement surgery today. Ick. Ick, I say. But I know her knee has been hurting her for a while, and this operation is long overdue. So best of luck to her. I wish her no complications and a speedy recovery. May she be hiking the streets of New York, Thailand, and Ste. Maxime within the next few months, pain free and happy.

Today we voted in the March elections. This really is a grueling experience. Showing up is easy. Steve and I arranged to take turns watching the boys, which was also a simple thing to figure out.

But the actual ballot...

Actually, I should say BallotS. When you walk in they hand you four legal sized sheets of paper, and each of these is covered in itty bitty writing - double sided! The actual items go something like: Petition #3 - to raise and appropriate the sum of $75,000 in order to finance the renovation and maintenance of the sidewalk in front of lot 4927B for the next five years. What? Where is lot 4927B? What is it? What does the sidewalk look like now? And what they don't say is that the sidewalk is fine, but they want to repave it in rubberized gold plate because it matches the decore inside the bank which it's in front of, and this will require every pedestrian to take off their shoes as they walk by, and it will also poison your dog.

I walked out of the Middle School Gym in such a state that I just HAD to purchase two boxes of Girl Scout Cookies, even though I had already consumed an entire Hershey's bar. Not one of the small ones, one of the BIG ones used for cooking. I wonder if the Girl Scouts plto with the politicians to word each item on the ballots like that just so that dazed voted will emerge and purchase large quantities of cookies.

We're back from New York! We saw a lot of people that dropped by for a quick hello on Saturday, and left early Sunday morning. (So if I know you and you live in NY and I didn't tell you I would be there, please forgive. I knew we wouldn't have enough time to do everything, and I opted for sanity.

I have to say that I love visiting my family. But driving to New York is a major pain in the neck. We were making fantastic time until we got caught in that awful traffic on the Cross Bronx Expressway - some of the worst traffic I have been in my entire life. Worse than the time Steve and I were on our way to New Jersey for our own wedding and we came to a standstill and the steering wheel started smoking and I was actually asking myself if I should grab my cat or my wedding dress out of the backseat first...

...but not as bad as the time Nick was four months old and I was driving back to New Hampshire with him by myself and it took me FOUR HOURS to get past the Cross Bronx Expressway, and he was crying in his carseat, facing the other direction, and I was trying to drive (very, very slowly, but I was still behind the wheel) and feed him a bottle and I had to pee very very badly and there was just no place to go...

One of the people we saw this weekend, Jim Egarian, told me that if New York needed an enema, the Cross Bronx would be where they'd stick the tube...

The trip was worth it. I'm glad we went. I'm glad we're back. As soon as I download the photos of the trip (all three of them) I'll share them with you all.

I can't believe it's been a whole year since Betsy's wedding! Notice I picked a nice photograph of the happy couple during my favorite part of the wedding - any wedding, for that matter. Congratulations to them! Happy Anniversary!

We're in NY visiting my parents. This is why there is no picture,

We drove down yesterday night. It took 3 hours to get to Co-op Blvd. It took three more hours to get to my parents' place in Manhattan. If you check a map, you should know that it's only about 5 miles or something ridiculous like that. The kids slept almost the whole way - thank goodness they are so wonderful, or those last two hours would have been unbearable.

I'm trying to take pictures that would be interesting to all, but I'll have to see what I can get. Meanwhile I'm trying to keep Nick and his homicidal curiousity under control. Wish me luck.

A Trip To The Frame Store should be simple. You take the goods to be framed, drive to the store, make your deal, and go home.

Not MY trip, though.

First I had to get in the car. This involved making sure everyone had dry diapers and that Nick had a sip cup of milk. Then I had to get Nick's coat from the laundry room - I washed it because he puked on it yesterday. It was dry, but it still smelled like puke. So I threw it back in the WASH pile and stuffed Nick in a coat some nice person had given us last fall - size 3 years. It's huge on him and hangs down to his knees, and will be great for next year, if not the year after that, but right now I might as well have put him in one of my coats.

Then we hopped in the car (one trip for Nick and the pictures, one trip for Nate and the diaper bag) and off we went to the Frame Store! When we got there the window was oddly dark. Why? BECAUSE IT WAS 9:15 IN THE MORNING! I forgot, in my infant filled life, that many people don't begin their days until 8am or so, and that many stores do not open until 10am. At least around here. So I was left to kill 45 minutes with two infants in my car.

First I went to Dunkin Donuts. I got myself a coffee and two donuts - one for me and one for Nick. Nick happily took half a donut and I promptly swallowed the other whole.

Next we drove to Mac's Apples. Mac's has ducks and goats year round. As we pulled in I got the bright idea to feed the ducks the other half of Nick's donut, as he really didn't want the half he was crumbling in his hand, and because if I didn't then I would eat it myself, and that would be too much. (I AM on a diet.) So the ducks got it. Then Nick caught sight of the goats and started yelling "BAA BAA! BAA BAA!" and I didn't have the heart to tell him they weren't sheep, but goats.

As soon as I took him out of the car the goats all jumped up on their hind legs with their front legs on the wire fence. Nicholas clung to be and started shaking. I think maybe he thought I was going to FEED him to the goats or something. After all, I fed his donut to the ducks. So we got back into the car. It was 9:25.

So I got the bright idea to get a car wash. Never mind that it's overcast and about to rain. Let's not let logic dictate my life. Once we got the the gas station I was so busy looking for the car wash entrance that I drove over the curb of the lane divider, announcing my arrival to everyone present, customers and employees alike. I then purchased $5 of gas for a $7 car wash. It took three whole minutes for the machine to spit out my receipt with the special car wash code on it. Once we were IN the car wash Nicholas started crying because he was scared.

Finally it was over. I am SO glad I got the car washed because I had forgotten what color it was (blue). And back to our original destination: THE FRAME STORE.

I spent way too much on getting these pictures framed - more than I thought it would be - and Steve doesn't know I took them there. PLEASE - nobody mention the new frames or the missing pictures to Steve! I'm really afraid of what he'll say when he finds out how much these cost. I feel a little justified because these are old photographs of HIS relatives, after all. Still, I'm hoping he won't notice the blank spaces on our walls or the chunk of money missing in our bank account. But the framing will actually take a couple of weeks, and he just might notice something before then. And I'll have to tell him.

Here's what I want to know: why do I always have more groceries than anyone else in the store?

I really don't think we EAT more than the average family, alhough I suppose that is something we would have to consider. But each week I drag the kids through the supermarket loading the cart up with only what I think we will need for the week. Many times I underestimate or forget items.

There are only two checkout lanes open at the time we go - usually in the morning, at around 9 or 10 am. One is the express lane. The checker for the express lane doubles as the bagger for the other lane. This is bad news for me, because as I unload my 437 items onto the conveyor belt, there will be 27 oher people who want to pay for their items, and they will ALL have under 13 items. ALL OF THEM. There will be one poor soul stuck behind me and my screaming kids with 20 items, sweating because I am taking so long. But the other people, the 27 people with under 13 items, these people will need to be checked out. So my bagger WILL LEAVE to check them out, further slowing down the process of getting me and my crying kids out the door and home.

How much is normal? I mean, do these other people go to the store every day? Is that why they have so few items? Does no one go only once a week? Do they have stores of frozen foods they use and go to the gorcery only for fresh items and soda? WHAT IS UP? Where are all the other BIG grocery shoppers?

This post was going to be 24 hours of my life. It was going to convey the chaos of the early morning hours when both boys wake up at 4:15 AM, the insanity that is both boys crying simultaneously, and how great it is to change Nates diaper four times before 6am. It was going to include gems such as finding out the "clunk" I heard while changing Nate's diaper in the dark was Nick's sip cup with the medicine in it, which has leaked all over the bottom shelf - the one with the diapers and the shoes. Or the one how I managed to GAIN weight instead of loose it this past week (I still have 35 pounds of baby weight to loose.) And finally, it was going to show how effortlessly I juggled all of my responsibilities, such as the laundry, making appointments, doing the dishes, etc. It would leave the reader in absolute awe.

But honestly, I only got to 8am before I realized the post was longer than my usual post.

Then I was going to write about the Academy Awards, an Awards show I used to watch religiously, the same way other people might watch the Superbowl, or a horse race. But this year I was a bit removed, since the only movie I had seen was CRASH, which I thought was absolutely horrible. Well, not THAT horrible. I understand the significance of the topic at hand, but I hated having my face rubbed in it. I also thought the cast was amazingly talented and beautiful, and there were moments I found touching and others that made me laugh. However, I often found that I was laughing at moments I was supposed to find touching, simply because it was so cheesy. And I found the dialogue unbeleivable. So I was surrirsed when it won Best Screenplay, and promptly fell asleep, missing it win the Best Picture title as well. (Again, it's the only movie in ALL the categories that I managed to see - perhaps the others were just worse?)

So here you are: my focus-less post. Although I'm not sure it's really different than my other posts. The truth is, it takes too much time to finely construct a post that is organized, says anything deep, or is concise. Instead you get the ramblings of a woman mad with sleep deprivation. Too bad for you!

By the way, this IS a photograph of Nicholas pouring salt onto the table. Sorry it's blurry, but I was torn. It's hard to take a picture while you're shouting "Stop it right now!"

I am probably more sleep deprived now, at this moment, than I have been since I started this whole process of having kids. And that includes the night I went into labor at 11:30pm and was then up all night and most of the next morning actually HAVING a baby.

You see, Nicholas is sick. If you read my last post then you know this already, and you know Thursday night I was up cleaning puky sheets and such. I actually didn't even TRY to spend Friday night in my own bed - I decided to put Nathan in the crib, and to keep watch over them both from the rocking chair. I slept a bit, but mostly I was either nursing Nate or trying to sooth Nick. I ended up in bed with him, his hot hands pressed against my face.

Steve took the kids yesterday morning, so I got a couple of hours of sleep. Sleep so deep that I missed my parents leaving, the doorbell ringing, and when I woke up I felt as though it had been two minutes as opposed to two hours. But since Nick was sick and crying, and since I really did need to feed Nate, I got up.

And then there was last night. After wrestling with NIik to get him to swallow cough syrup and tucking him in, he pretty much passed out. I was excited. I could put Nate in the crib and sleep in my own wam bed...
Well...
Nate can sleep in the crib. And sometimes he does. Last night, for example, he did. But only while I was standing right over him.
That's right. I'd nurse him, he'd fall asleep, I would place him in his crib. He wouldn't move. I'd check on Nick, walk down the hall to my bedroom and crawl into the warm covers... and the screaming would begin. I would pull myself out of the bed, stagger back up the hall and hurdle the baby gate to the boys' room... and there Nate would be, in the crib, crying. Until I got within five feet. Then he would mysteriously fall still, asleep and calm.
This happened about fifty times last night.

Nick woke up at 4:30am, probably because we'd put him to bed at 5pm and also because Nate was screaming. I tried climbing into bed with him again, to clam him down and get a few more minutes. He agreed, but he did manage to get every single ball he owns into the bed with us, and he kept trying to bounce them off my head as I tried to sleep. He also poked my nose, pulled on my hair, and tried chewing my sweatshirt.

I finally gave up and turned on the light at 5:30. I am very, very tired. So tired I can't even remember what I've written or why this post is so long. But I'm posting it anyway.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMILY!

My Sister Emily is 26 today. Which just makes me old.

I decided to start celebrating Emily's birthday last night by having a glass of wine after Nicholas threw a fit for NO REASON just before dinner, refused to eat or drink anything, cried all through a bath, and fell asleep an hour earlier than usual.

This was stupid, bcause at 8pm he woke up, and expressed interest in watching "AirForce One" with us. (My dad picked the movie.) I cajoled him back into bed and back to sleep, only to have him wake up at midnight, crying. I tried sleeping in his bed with him, rocking him, reading to him - nothing worked. Finally, at 2am, I asked him if he was hungry, as he hadn't eaten anything since lunch. He said yes, then promptly threw up on both of us, and on his bed.

So there I was, at 2am, so tired I couldn't see, changing PJ's and sheets as Nick cried. I was also covered in puke at the time.

So far today Nick's temperature has reached 101 F and My mother and I had to wrestle with him to get him to swallow some cough syrup. I tried giving him a popsicle, since he still hasn't ingested anything since lunch yesterday, and he liked the popsicle idea, but only to hold. He would scream each time I tried moving it near his mouth. Between the cough syrup and the popsicle we managed to cover all of our clothing, the floor, and the couch in purple sticky goo.

I am now doing laundry, washing all purply puky items, and a few other things than fit in the washer so why not?

Happy Birthday, Em! If there's a better way to celebrate your birth, I know not what it is.

There is a flurry of grandparent activity in our house at the moment. With Steve on a business trip, Lillian up and down, my parents up for a visit, Nicholas down with a cough, and Nathan being Nathan, there is now only a mere suggestion of a schedule left. The TV is on and off, often playing odd programs. Snacks happen on the run. Naps happen when they happen. Oh, and the house has regained all the clutter I have so far managed to beat out of it.

It is good to see my parents. Nathan - after a day of hardly napping, slept for 6 hours strait, then slept for four more.. life is good,

Yesterday I went to the doctor. It was that post-baby check-up I was so looking forward to. Other than being forced to step on the scale and having that fun internal exam, it went very well.

The one topic I am never prepared to discuss is that of birth control.

I HATE discussing birth control. I can do it in a general way, such as "if teenagers are going to be having sex they shoudl use BIRTH CONTROL." Or even "If you're thinking about getting pregnant you might want to change the type of BIRTH CONTROL you are using." But wheneve a doctor asks me what my thoughts are, I freeze.

Because at this point they are asking me "Are you having any more children? WHEN are you planning on having these children?" And I am just not able to answer these questions until I get six consecutive hours of sleep. So now I have a perscription for THE PILL, which is sitting in my bag. The good thing about THE PILL is that I can start it when I feel ready and stop it when I feel ready. The bad thing is that I am breastfeeding and the type of pill they give you when you are breastfeeding is different. You have to take this pill at the EXACT SAME TIME EVERY DAY. Or you know what will happen. You will get pregnant.

Obviously you have to do other things to get pregnant as well. It's not magic or anything.

But still. I hate having to remember. I am not good at it. With Nick I stopped taking it - quite by accident. Because I am a forgetful person and one day I will say "Hey - I stopped taking those a couple of weeks ago, didn't I? Oh well..."