Kids do the darndest things

So tonight at dinner with my Dad, Aiden finally crashed. He did not want to go to bed last night (on account of daylight savings time) and this morning he didn't want to get up. He is getting quite like his dad when it comes to getting up in the morning...they both believe if you hide under the covers, mom can't see you and you don't have to get up.

I realize this sounds funny, but to me it's a downright miracle. One of my friends has a 4 mo. old baby and she is exhausted! I can't help but ache for her when I see how tired and frustrated she is some mornings (It was about 4 months when I gave up on breastfeeding - so she is about at my breaking point). Even after that though, things stayed hard for awhile. I didn't know about sleep training - I was doing up all nighters with Aiden until he was 9 months old! I would spend an hour rocking him to sleep at 9 o clock at night. Then be up with him twice a night to feed at 4 months and once a night to feed after 6 months. This involved 30 minutes to finish a bottle, anywhere from 10-20 minutes to burp, then an hour to fall back asleep being rocked and another 30 minutes or so of back patting in the crib once he woke up from being laid down.

I did this for 9 months! Granted the first 6 weeks are pure hell that no one can prepare you for and the first 3 months are about as bad but you at least find a groove. But when this didn't end for me after months and months and months....I would be up all night with Aiden asleep in my arms, sometimes crying from sheer exhaustion, sometimes counting the leaves painted on the nursurey wall because I was bored...it sucked.

Aiden put himself to sleep for the first time 9 months old, while on vacation

The miracle? Now, it is impossible to get him up at 6:45 in the morning to get dressed (I can't even tell you how upsetting it is to have to remove his pjs once he is up). During that first 9 months I thought "I will never do this again" and now it's like, "well I survived once, and tons of other people survive everyday...maybe it wouldn't be so bad." That is until Aiden is up an ready to go at 7:00 on Saturday morning...hey I said miracle not "wonderous sign of God that I am meant to get enough sleep."

On top of the joy of getting more sleep when babies get older you get to see all kinds of other miracles. Like learning to talk. I hear about one new word from him every day plus a few garbled words that I've dubbed Aiden language which he can't quite pronounce but very specifically knows what he is talking about. Tonight on the phone, we called Steve to say good night (hate when Daddy isn't there to interrupt story time with his ridiculous antics) and Aiden perfectly annunciated "I love you Daddy," clear as day. That is 5 syllables!!! I know that sounds so silly to be excited about but really, when your kids put together 2 syllables it is a huge milestone. He has done 1-2 words together before but this was just awesome, Steve heard it over the noise in the shop and got so excited. I almost dropped the phone (just like my jaw) and thought, "You are a boy genius!"

He's also getting into all kinds of curious behavoirs, some good, some bad. He likes spending time with the boys (Steve, Nik and Grant) even though I am not always sure he knows what they are doing, he wants to be a part of it. And he is absorbing everything he sees. Last night I was so totally captivated watching him watch Toy Story. Since I have a fully developed adult brain, I never thought Toy Story was too complicated - but he scanned every inch of the TV over and over again to make sure he didn't miss anything and there was a lot going on. A couple months ago, his mode of learning was monkey see-monkey do, these days it's "Aiden will try it his was 3 times then ask Mommy and maybe try his way one more time before doing it her way." This sometimes leads to time outs or tantrums. But sometimes it leads to total independence and creativity and much laughter.

Being Creative....

Being really creative....

My little monkey

I Hope - A Photo Essay

It's that time again...

Visit Greece

Be a soccer mom - or little league or lacrosse or ballet coach..whatever Aiden wants to do, oh yeah and I wanna be fierce while I do it

I want a gazebo where I can drink tea and read books and paint and remember my childhood

I want to paint a mural in my own home

How you can help

In response to the earthquake - here are some options.

In response to the quake, The Red Cross has already launched efforts in Japan. Visit Redcross.orgor text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 from your phone.

Save the Children has also responded. Eiichi Sadamatsu of the organization released a statement, saying:

"We are extremely concerned for the welfare of children and their families who have been affected by the disaster. We stand ready to meet the needs of children who are always the most vulnerable in a disaster."

The organization is currently organizing efforts and donations to their Children's Emergency Fundwill support their outreach.

Also,

The Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Fund was launched at GlobalGiving.org to garner funds for relief organizations helping victims and has already raised thousands, particularly from concerned Twitter users around the world.

* this all from the Huffington Post - if you are anything like me and hate giving cc info and worried about scams, the text option is your best bet as Red Cross is the most legit organization. Plus you can do it as much or as little as you want.

I hope we all realize in moments like this how vulnerable we are and that sometimes it happens to third world countries but thriving countries are not immune and a life lost is a life lost no matter where it happens. 

All I could think of this morning watching the news was how frightened for my son's life I would be in such a terrible situation and in the aftermath how are the children going to be taken care of. I guess being a mommy really changes how you think about things.

In the end we are all the same and at some point we will all need help.

I cannot contain my excitement for spring!

So today it is a sunny, beautiful 60 degrees, I have the sunshine pouring in my office window, and flip flops showing my painted toes for the first time this year. Life is good. I am not even letting tonight's looming Anthro Exam or the depressing movie that is "The Romantics" get me down today.

A couple weeks ago, while on a binge shopping trip with one of my gal pals (I had to cash in my Christmas gift cards eventually...) we stopped by Burlington. I have no problem admitting that one of my biggest fashion secrets is wholesale/mark down super stores (a la: Ross, TJ Maxx, Burlington, etc.) on my Mommy budget, fashion requires creativity. Creativity means stretching your money by investing in flexible pieces that can be the center or the accessory to any outfit. Looking in my closet you might think, hmmm all this black, white, and grey is kinda drab! I myself am surprised when someone tells me how much they like something I am wearing. The reality is, all I do is stock up on these very simple pieces in large quantities and varieties. Alternately, I pick up a couple colorful things here and there and *Ta Da!* I have a million outfits for the cost of one or two.

Anyway, as I mentioned, a couple weeks ago, my shopping binge (this usually means $60 or so) led me and my friend into Burlington. I saw some nude colored, peep toe pumps that I kept circling back to. I had no reason to buy them, it was snowing outside (not conducive to heels at all much less peep toe pumps) and my number one rule for "fashion" is that if you aren't comfortable, it doesn't matter what label you're wearing - it won't look good. But for whatever reason, I kept coming back to them and thinking, "If I get these, all I am going to hear is how boring these flat colored shoes are and what a waste..." but my second rule for *fashion* is follow your gut. I am not one to hear what color looks good with my complexion, or does/doesn't compliment my blue eyes, even if someone says what I am wearing isn't flattering....I don't pay much attention. 

If you can't please yourself when you're looking in the mirror, that is the root of your problems. And if you let someone else tell you that you don't look good, the problem is proliferated. As funny as it sounds, the major person who I have gone to for fashion advice has always been my dad...cue your hysterical laughing now.

But really, my mom wasn't around when I was getting ready for school for 12 years - my dad taught me not to mix brown and black, he told me about clashing, he even acted as a personal stylist once when my sister told him she was tired of looking so athletic and wanted help dressing more feminine. I realize how silly this all sounds, I do, but it makes sense - until I was about 15 he was buying all my clothes so he had a great deal of say in what I wore. That's not to say I didn't branch out into the much less classy realm of clothing when I started shopping for myself, but to this day, Dad's voice is still right there with me when I shop.

It doesn't surprise me so much I guess, because I am sure any sort of fashion sense he found trendy was that of this lovely lady -- Arline Cormack. And she, like many women in her trendy days, got their fashion inspiration from Jackie Kennedy:

Unfortunately, being a preacher's wife, she didn't get to go out and buy all the lovely things she saw Mrs. Kennedy wearing - but there are stories of her standing a while at store windows, admiring dresses, then going home and making them herself. This must be where I get my disposition, to spend a little and make a lot out of it fashion wise.

This is all just a really long way of saying - wear what you like, love what you wear and trust yourself when it comes to fashion because no one will tell you the truth - unless you take my dad shopping with you....

In fact, I think it was him in my head at the store saying, go ahead, get the pumps! After all, rule number 2 is *follow your gut* and so I walked out with a pair of lovely knock off pumps for about $18. I haven't worn them yet, because it really does need to be sunny for your toes to be exposed if you ask me (note - I never claimed to be an expert!) and this morning my ever trustworthy Yahoo! told me....

http://omg.yahoo.com/photos/2-hot-2-handle/4642?nc

OMG! Nude pumps and mini dresses for spring! Talk about luck...or coincidence...or intuition...me and my pumps were destined to be together this spring!

Revel in the beauty that it my new shoes <3

On love stories and horror stories

About 2 years ago when I picked up a translated copy of Let the Right One In I knew it was going to be just one of those books...I was shopping at one of the big bookstores (I know, traitor) and the salesman asked what I was looking for, I said, "Something really different, and really scary."

His reply was so funny, "How do you feel about the Twilight books?" I thought for a second we must have misunderstood each other. Twilight is not really original in many senses and it certainly isn't terrifying (except when you think how many tween age girls are learning about love and relationships based on Edward and Bella -YIKES, but lets steer away from that can of worms....) plus I thought to myself, you're a little late to be offering me something that was a "craze-read" about two years ago. I said, "Not really what I am interested in," and prepared to continue searching by myself.

He stopped me and said, "Perfect!" Intrigued like never before, I would have suddenly followed this odd fellow to the end of the world. He handed me a translated copy of Let the Right One In and said, "It's Twilight for adults." Hmmmmmmmm

It took me a while to get into, and nearly 5 months to finish all the way. The translations weren't always on point as you can tell with miss matched grammar in a lot of modern translated books - slang and newer attitudes reflected by colorful language don't always lend themselves to being reverberated especially when you are dealing with things like pedophilia,bullying, murder, etc. etc. etc.

Anyway, once I was done I was convinced that this had to fall into the Gothic Horror category (not that I needed another reason to love it) but also, a breath taking love story. Immediately I searched it out on Netflix and discovered that I would be watching it with subtitles if I wanted to see it at all. So I added it to my list and decided I should do a little research on the screen play. Since I speak no Swedish I wanted to be able to follow the movie as much as possible without staring at the bottom of the screen and since there are always discrepancies between film adaptations and their novels - I wanted to be ready for any surprises that might confuse me.

Fortunately for many movie goers, a lot of the complicated issues from the novel are avoided; unfortunately the movie goer misses out on some important things:
1. The old man taking care of Eli (the vampire) dies after leaping to his death from a hospital window in the movie (He is played by a stellar Richard Jenkins in the new film) - what you need to know if you see this, is that in the book, he is so in love with Eli he comes back to live as a vampire and only seeks to find Eli, to make her love him - as it is painfully obvious in the movie - he loves her so much.

2. In the novel it is discovered that Eli was once a boy and had been castrated when he was turned into a vampire (hundreds of years ago). In the movie, there is no mistaking that Eli is a girl and the issue is never raised, probably to help further the love story between her and Oskar (the little boy next door who falls hopelessly in love with her).

3. The other big difference that I felt was left out and really shouldn't have been was Oskar's resistance to the bullies at school. The bullies who were truly terrifying, disturbed children pushed Oskar to fight back in the book. Not successfully but, none the less. In the movie, he resisted fighting back until Eli was present and she did all the "fighting" in the end. For some reason, this really stuck out to me. I don't understand why Oskar was made to look so weak.

Anyway, why am I bringing this all up now over a year later? Because I finally saw the remake of the movie. It was out in October 2010: Let Me In.

It unfortunately had to leave even more out than the original because of our cultural differences in the US I am sure. But I loved it. It stayed as true to the book as possible (don't worry all the bothersome story lines we cut out of this version too) and if you have never seen a movie starring Chloe Grace Moretz then I beg you to please please please make this your first. And the boy who played Oskar *excuse me* OWEN - sounded a lot like the little boy in The Road. He was extremely impressive! Also, it brought in an American element that didn't exist in the book or the original movie (if it did, it fell on deaf ears...) and that was the paranoia of the Cold War. Even though it wasn't directly addressed, they tell you that the year is specifically 1983 and the glances and spying type of voyeurism between neighbors is all too reminiscent of what we learned in high school history about the US's fear of potential Soviet bombings. Funny that a "witch hunt" for American traitors is taking place on top of a vampire "witch hunt."

Don't jump when you see these pictures....

This is Chloe Grace Moretz as Abby (Eli)- fierce!

This is the original Swedish Eli - not too scary right?

In case I may have scared you off, I want to remind you that at the bottom of it all, this is a love story. And if you are not one for horror movies - the picture above is about the scariest that movie ever gets and it only happens a couple times for a couple moments each. Some of the scarier things are actually moments between humans (ie - Oskar and the bullies). But they are totally worth the torture when you come to the end. Whoever told you Edward and Bella were anything like Romeo and Juliet obviously never heard of Eli and Oskar...

And since I am making recommendations, may I recommend that if you like weddings, or love, or fairy tales at all -- stay away from The Romantics. It will ruin everything for you. I haven't yet had a chance to watch the film which has a huge name filled cast, but if it is anything like the book, chances are I won't believe in true love at all by the end of the week. Talk about a scary book.... ;)

Copping Out

Last night I started The Abstinence Teacher  - I don't know what it wrong with me, because this book and I are not off to a good start. I think recently I have somehow obsessed myself with epistolary novels and suddenly everything which doesn't fall into this category just doesn't seem smart enough or complicated enough.

I know I need to and will get over this, but in the mean time, anyone ever had a "readers-block" before? Know how to get past it? 

Anyway, I've been thinking about this for a while now, so I guess it's time to get on with it...

I hate to disappoint, but I am afraid I am going to have to cop out of this one. I have been thinking long and hard the last few days over my response to this. And at first it seemed like there were a million things I  could put. When I started trying to choose one, it got tricky. My process of elimination led me to realizing, that none of these options were a good fit for the prompt.

There isn't something I am particularly angry about, and to avoid the cliche "I'm over it," the instances/situations/people that came to mind, are not people who evoke much or any emotion in me at all anymore.

I know I'm always saying what a forgiving person I am, but really - I can't think of something that hasn't been forgiven. All of the transgressions that originally came to mind I think, were things that I haven't received an apology for. But when I thought longer about it, I realize they were things that I would likely never receive apologies for and that's okay.

Like I said, I'm not angry anymore. Mostly, I just don't care any more. I don't care to bear the weight of grudges at all. Moving forward and my focus on myself have been my priorities long enough now that I don't know how to hang on to anger much more than a day at most. So, unless you are the person who took the last cookie at work today, consider yourself forgiven for anything you may have done to me.

I started a movement! Now I must get movin'

As I mentioned before, my current fixation is with the 100 Books to Read Before You Die...everyone else too! I had no idea when I stumbled upon this that it would start such a craze among my friends. It's exciting though. I think you can tell a lot about people by what they read so hearing which ones my friends had and hadn't read was really fun. And Carlye and I swapped book reviews at work, so funny, we ended up choosing the same book from the list to start with! I have to finish Humphry Clinker first though because it is all in the format of letters (no responses) and I know I will get lost if I don't do it in one sitting.

Anyway, I am just really happy to have something I am so excited about and to see that everyone else is really excited about it too. I like when there is a new movement of sorts (not a Charlie Sheen type movement) and I have never had the movement been my idea before. Except Frosty's and Fries...I'm not saying I like "invented it" but no one showed me how to do it....ha ha ha I kid I kid...mostly.

In other scholarly related news...it looks like Aiden will be starting his educational career just in time for mine to end.

I've been really interested in a particular daycare and stopped by yesterday to pick up his enrollment forms. Unfortunately, he can't start for 4 more months, but it will be June before we know it. Plus, I just am totally in love with it. I really didn't want to go the route of a big name child care facility because as a kid I just hated it. Granted, I was one of the first kids there every morning and one of the last to leave every night but it always just felt really impersonal and I remember really just feeling down when I was there even when I was only in kindergarten.

So, we are going with a local church daycare that is hugely cirriculum based - meaning it's not just a run around and color all day plan. Aiden will participate in PE, and Arts/Crafts, he'll have reading time, and nap time and all of this is sort of loose and flexible for his class (the 2 1/2 year olds), when he moves to the 3 year old class it really will be like getting ready for school. I don't know obviously how long he'll be there but they have awesome accomodations for kids going off to kindergarten too. Plus! It is literally 1/4 the cost of LaPetite...and at that rate very doable for us.

I like that it's not a forced religious environment but that kids can choose to participate in religious themed activities once a week when they are offered,which I really like! Plus did I mention how affordable it is?

I spent quite a while chatting with the 3 Year Old Class Teacher yesterday, and I got to look through the photos from their holiday parties and parent activity days. This really feels like a good fit for us -- if only Aiden had been born 4 months earlier he could be starting now!

And about getting moving....

I had a horrible feeling going to meet my academic advisor today - like maybe there was something wrong with my credits or I would have special stipulations on classes I needed to graduate, I don't know, it just felt scary.

But I got there, and the scariest thing that came up was MayMester. I can not take one of the classes I need (sort of like a Senior Seminar for English Majors - it's called a critical studies english analysis) in night school. So my 3 choices were - do it 3 hours a day M-F for 3 weeks, or 1 hour a day M-F for 5 1/2 weeks (the final being on July 1st -as in one day before Rachel's wedding) or I could take it MWF 1 hour a day for an entire semester. We are so busy in the fall at work that I decided no way can I do the MWF thing, I just have to get this over with. And I don't want to miss out on anything for Rachel's big day so I will be taking my first and last ever MayMester class.

In order to get financial aid for the summer term, I have to take two classes. So as soon as MayMester ends (actually 5 days after) I will be starting a term based online English class (lasts about 2 months) and then in the fall I will take my standard 2 evening classes and graduate before next Christmas.

I don't ever want to hear anyone say I don't work my ass off...this is going to be really hard. But Steve assured me he will do what it takes to help me get through it and since last year went so fast, I can only imagine this will fly by if I keep my head up and keep movin through it.