How Do You Celebrate Valentine's Day?

It's almost Valentine's Day. We've never done much to celebrate it. We're of the annoying "I celebrate my love to you every day" ilk. But really, do we? Most nights, we clean up after the kiddos, pop on the DVR and stare at our iPhones for an hour before I slog sleepily off to bed and he works from home for an hour or two. I mean, we fully appreciate each other's presence, but we're both usually spent from our days and ready to veg out. I guess that's not really expressing our undying love on a daily basis, but for now, it'll have to do. These kids poop us out.
So while we won't go out to a fancy restaurant or buy each other expensive gifts or enjoy a Love Toilet, we'll maybe sit on the same side of the couch and snuggle a big more, or fold the laundry together or something super romantic like that.
Oh, and I bought myself flowers yesterday. Romance!

Cooking with kiddos

We're all hacking up lungs today. So early on, I decided I wouldn't be changing out of my pajamas. I put the kiddos in comfy clothes and we hunkered in for a quiet day at home. Ok, so quiet isn't exactly the right word. A rambunctious day at home, more like it. I was expecting a good nap out of H because he's been snotty and snuggly so I started to plan something quiet to do for W and I during H's nap. I knew if I had to listen to Toy Story one more time, my head would explode. So I started flipping through my William's Sonoma Kids Cookbook. I got it for W a few months ago. It's a bit old for him, as he can't read or operate a stove. But one day, I know he'll love the recipes in there. For now, he's just my little sous chef. We chose a recipe based on the ingredients we had in the house, cinnamon swirls.
We rolled the puff pastry and spread the sugar with our hands. Messy cooking is the most fun, says W. Then W jumped up and down as I rolled the pastry up into a log and cut it, and placed the pastries on the cookie sheet.

 This recipe was great for a three year old because it only took 5 minutes to make and ten minutes to bake. By the time I cleaned off the cutting board, they were ready.

We gobbled up way too many of them. I'm kind of ashamed of myself, really.
These snacks are completely void of nutritional benefits, but whatever. The kids had a kale smoothie (sshhhh... they don't know there was kale in there) for lunch, so I'm not sweating it. And really, I think the benefit of cooking with Mom outweighs the butter and sugar he inhaled. I hope he always loves cooking with me. It's such a great way to spend time together and it helps reinforce the importance of every day mathematics and following instructions.
Today, a kid's cookbook. Tomorrow, Mastering the Art of French Cooking!

Starting over isn't so bad

Since the baby was born and the father decided to parent, things haven't been too bad around these parts. We were busy with incredibly warm beach days, grown up get-a-ways and little W's third birthday. All of which have been excellent distractions.
Wednesday night we scrambled to throw together a last minute weekend getaway. We gave the boy and the dogs to my parents and we took off to the Finger Lakes in upstate New York. We went there for a short weekend about four or five years ago and we fell instantly in love with the area. We're just two soggy winos at heart and it was calling me back. Loudly.
This was a very healing trip. Our hotel was warm and luxurious (by our standards), our suite was about the size of our home (ha!), the porch was cathartic and the jacuzzi literally healed my (broken) bones.

View from our hotel porch

On Saturday, we hired a chauffeur to take us around for the day to all the wineries on Seneca Lake.  We got soggy and stupid by 5:00pm. And we bought a LOT of wine. Like, a serious lot. That's all I can really recant from that experience.

This is me after about eleventy billion glasses of wine. Mmm... wine

Sunday was a quick trip to Kauka Lake for a visit to a few vineyards before the long trip down to pick W up at my parents. And what trip to wine country would be complete without stopping at super classy Bully Hill?
The ancient memory of twenty three year old Lindsay that lives deep in my head, somewhere was reveling in all their cheap-wine-splendor. Once upon a time, many a night was spent with a bottle of Bully Hill in the crook of my arm. And of course I had to get a few bottles of Sweet Walter. Because, well, that's my Little W! And by late Sunday morning, we were really jonesing for our own sweet Walter.

Bully Hill: Giving Young Lindsay headaches since the year 2000

By the time it was all said and done, we sloshed back down the highway with over three cases of wine of varying colors, flavors and fancy winey words we don't care to understand (seriously... you can't tell me the tannins of your table wine matter as you're downing Wegman's brand spaghetti in your sweatpants on a Tuesday).

Monday was our sweet W's third birthday. How that happened, I'll never know. He's been begging to go to the Franklin Institute to see the traveling dinosaur exhibit for weeks. So we took him there for his birthday. And it scared him to death. Like, little hands plastered over closed eyes the whole time, scared. I have to admit that the exhibit was pretty spooky. Lots of mood lighting and creepy noises gave it an eerie feeling.
So we showed him the rest of the FI, which he loved as much as I remember loving it as a kid. After a long walk down to Reading Terminal Market for his favorite food in the world (Amish pretzel dogs) and back, he decided that "the dinos weren't too scary and I'd like to try it again," which yielded the same, petrified results. Oh well. At least the kid tried. It was a good birthday, for sure. His favorite restaurant sang to him and he was up on an ice cream and present high until 10:15pm.

Now we're all home and our souls have been recharged and we're ready to jump back in and redo our home study and profile book et cetera et cetera. I can not wait to get The (next) Call. I'm so ready for W's little brother or sister. I'm not sobbing myself to sleep at night over this disruption, but I'm not 100% ok, either. I'm in a weird, emotional limbo place and I'm not sure how to express what I'm feeling. "It is what it is" is really the best way to describe it.  I'd like to take some time and try to write through my feelings some more, but I'm not quite there yet, from an organizational stand point. I'll get there.

What I can take away from this experience right now is that I am an incredibly fortunate girl. I may have the most amazing husband in the world and my son is just the sweetest thing on two legs. What else can a girl ask for?

Catharsis

Thank you, Global Warming for providing me with an unseasonably warm, tshirt/shorts/flip flops kind of day. It did wonders for what ailed me.
In the morning, W and I ran to our adoption agency to drop off checks for the updated home study (um hello salt in the wound!?) then we tossed a blanket, some fishies and juice boxes in my trusty old LL back pack and high tailed it down to the beach. I laid on the blanket and watched the waves roll in and W drove his trucks-du-jour through a maze of old tire tracks. We hunted for shells, dipped our toes in the frigid Atlantic and barrel rolled down the sandy dune hill (broken ribs and all). It was the definition of catharsis. The salt air helped to heal my wounds. I just wish Neil could have been there, too. But then again, someone needs to bring home the bacon.
My doctor, himself couldn't have prescribed anything better. I still smell like a mix of salt and SPF 50, and my hair's wonderfully unsalvageable.

 I'm almost ready to go to work tomorrow and field the endless barrage of questions. GAH.

Ok, now I'm ready.

The best part about today is knowing that as awesome as it was, it's not going to be able to hold a candle to what we just planned for this weekend. Stay frosty, friends <insert some kind of winky emoticon here>.

Aaaaand..... exhale

Phew. This girl here is glad the holidays are over. Not because I'm a grinch or anything... I love and all the frenzy it brings. Especially now that Little W is old enough to get the whole Santa thing. It was a blast. But it was tiring as heck. Thank goodness for online shopping (and double thank goodness for free shipping).
My husband, Neil was home with us for two weeks so we tried to fill every day with fun stuff for W. We soaked up all the holiday joy-based goodness in Philly including eating our way through Reading Terminal Market. In fact, we ate our way through everything these past 6 weeks. And it shows. Yikes!

We had to tear him from the train display at Reading Terminal. 

Helping Santa prepare all the Christmas magic was more fun than I ever imagined. By Christmas eve, W was worked into a hot Santa lather and on his very best behavior (by 2.5 year old's standards). And I was glad for this because I was desperate to document picture perfect family memories to slather all over our updated profile.

I failed miserably. Christmas came and went in a blaze of wrapping paper and tight schedules. Narry a memory was documented in focus.

This is seriously the best Christmas morning shot I got. Kid was on full throttle.

New Year's Eve was quiet in our house. We took down all the Christmas decorations, inside and out. Space is a precious thing in our busy little house, so as much as I love my tree and our decorations, it all had.to.go. I needed my space back. After everything was back to normal in our house (except my waistline), we packed all creatures great and small up and headed down to the river for a peaceful stroll. These unseasonably warm afternoons are soooo appreciated (sorry polar bears. I promise to donate to the WWF later this year).

Don't let the serene scene fool you. W was probably screaming about fish poop and trying to jump in the river.

But I did get to sneak of on my own for a minute to do a little nerdy photography.

 I love me some global warming

Later that evening, after W was zonked, Neil and I had a sushi making date followed by gorging ourselves on our creations. Holy soy sauce overload! We watched bad tv and rung in the new year like old farts.But it was a perfect night. I happily said hasta las pasta to the wild and crazy nights out of my youth. Well, I'm still pretty youth-ish. 32 ain't ancient, but after chasing a toddler around all day, we felt pretty antiquated.
At least I made it until midnight.

So that was my holiday in a nutshell. In case you were wondering. And now here we are in twenty-dozen. I'm hoping for big things this year. Maybe this will be the year I make it back down to a size 10 (ha!). And I'm hoping beyond hope that this is the year our baby finds us. I don't think my heart can manage another year of The Wait. It's so painfully obvious that little W feels the same way. He wants a baby as much as we do, I think. We got him a baby doll for Christmas and he's very into making sure it's healthy. Repressed NICU memories, perhaps?

"Lungs sound good, mommy."

So here's to 2012 and here's to friends known and unknown who are navigating The Wait with us. This is going to be our year, I can feel it.

A Chicken By Any Other Name

About ten years ago my parents relocated to the country. We had always been city folk all our lives. Well, suburban folk, really. But compared to country folk, we're city slickers. I, being in my early twenties and just starting to forge my way in this wild wold had zero interest in moving to the middle of nowhere with my parents. So I remained a city folk and bid adieu to the comforts of parental proximity. Gone were the days of free laundry-doing and home cooked meals. I mean, they didn't move across the continent or anything, but 90 minutes isn't quite a stone's throw, either. It's just far enough to have to plan the trip. Especially now that we have a toddler. Ninety minutes of "IWANTMYAPPLEJUICENOOOOOOOW" isn't for the short of patience.
My dad recently built a chicken coop and got my mom 5 lovely little hens to live in it. So we packed up the family yesterday and headed over the river and through the woods to attend their coop warming. Good times were had by all and nary a foul was served as food. And most importantly, Little W went ballistic chasing the ladies around the yard. He named two of them Happy Chicken and Fried Chicken. It was a time.

W with Happy Chicken and Fried Chicken (I think)

As much as I enjoy living in a bustling neighborhood so close to Philly, watching W with the chicken and all that open space made me wonder if maybe our kids would have more fun if they were country boys (or boys and girls). Playgrounds, museums, walking to school and skads of close-by friends or a horse, room to roam and a pickup truck?
I'm sure there's pros and cons to both lifestyles but I'm curious. What do you think? Are you a country mouse or a city mouse?  What are your kids' favorite aspects of where they live? Do you feel they're missing out on anything? Do tell...

An Unexpected Addition...

This weekend was full of happy additions. On Friday, my piano was moved from my parent's house to my abode which filled me with all sorts of mushy emotions. My grandfather (Big W) bought it for my mom back when she was a little girl. She and her sister both played it dutifully but it was so much more than just an instrument. It was a backdrop for so many family memories. Christmas morning, Easter dresses, proms and plays. The piano was always there, helping to mark so many occasions. Then it was moved to my parent's house and was my piano. I sat at that thing every day of my life for 30 minutes banging out wrong cords and flat keys. Now it's sitting in my dining room as Little W's piano, waiting for him to learn it's ways.

                                       

A house just isn't a home without a well loved piano

Another addition this weekend was less anticipated. We done lost our minds and adopted two kittens from the shelter's adopt-a-thon. They're lovely little babies that have turned our house into a full blown zoo. They've settled into their new home like they've lived here a million years and promptly put the two dogs in their place. The swiffer is a-sweepin' and Little W is just tickled pink with his new babies.

Between the toddler bashing the piano and the cacophony of animals, our home might actually be the loudest house in NJ. Now all we need is baby#2 and everything will be (insanely) complete.