Maybe This Time

I once really, really had my feelings hurt by my husband who said (and I paraphrase) "It would be nice if you followed-through on something."  Ouch.  That stung.  But, as the adage says, the truth does hurt. 

I have a giant bin full of half-started, half-hearted art projects.  I don't have a problem starting a book and leaving it for another time after just a few pages.  I plan my weekly meals, do the grocery shopping, and rarely do I actually cook everything from the list.  Instead I get tired of cooking and take the family for McMenniman's instead.  I buy cards for friends, often address the envelope, but never send them.  I "plan" trips for our family that we never take.  Embarrassing, don't you think?

What does this say about me?  What does it say about my priorities?  About my reliability.  Loads.  I am a flake.  I let things slip that I should really take care of.  Its embarrassing and I am working on it, but I am trying not to fixate on what a completely failure I am.  I keep telling myself that what people will remember about me is my kindness and not my not-so-stellar follow-through.  I may be kidding myself, but it really helps keep me from hiding away in my house embarrassed to be seen by someone I may have offended.

I stay at home with my kids and I continue to struggle with the whole idea of an identity outside my children.  I know many moms do. I know I am lucky to be able to stay with these two kiddos in their first few years in this world, but goodness gracious, its lonely! A tidy house, home baked bread, and a sink empty of dishes only provides so much fulfillment, and so I've found myself spending much of my free time browsing other mom-blogs.  I find their openness and honesty refreshing and inspiring, infuriating, gag-inducing.  AND intimidating.  I'm not a writer.  But maybe, just maybe I have something to say.  Maybe I should try to do this on a regular basis.  *gasp* Can she do it, group?  Probably not.  But I may as well give it a whirl.  Right?

We're Leaving On A Jetplane

The amount of planning and laundry and folding and packing that are going into this vacation is just so vast... I mean, its been a week of tedious preparations and I have a sinking feeling that I am forgetting something really important.  But, once we're there, I'm going to sit back and let other people hold Miles for hours at a time.  And take Owen to the playground. 

I'm planning on sipping gallons of ice tea, maybe sleeping in, definetly getting in a couple of date nights with my handsome husband.

And I feel like crying right now just because there's all this stuff just lurking out there... Sippy cups.  Formula.  Enough diapers to get across the country.  Snacks.  Change of clothes.  Breathe.  In and Out.  In and Out.  In and Out.

See you all soon!

And don't forget your sunscreen!

So we dodged a bullet.  A big, scary, moley bullet.

A while back (like a few months ago) Owen was at his two-and-a-half-year check-up with his pediatrician, and I happened to mention that he had a funny looking mole below his diaper line that I wanted her to look at.  She was particularly interested because she had just had a melanoma removed from her leg.  She looked at it, said "I'm sure it's nothing, but go see a pediatric dermatologist." So, off we went to make appointments with a pediatric dermatologist, who saw it said "I'm sure its nothing, but go ahead and call a pediatric plastic surgeon to have it removed."  So, off we went to make appointments with a pediatric plastic surgeon, who saw it and said "I'm sure its nothing, but let's make an appointment at the end of the summer to have it removed."  So a few days later, I get a call from the surgeon, and they had an appointment available for 3 days later.  I snatched that appointment up, stewed with worry for those three days over the general anesthesia he'd be under, and come Monday morning, we drove into Fairfax, and marched our little boy into have a very, very minor surgery.

After the surgery, the doctor asked us to make a follow-up appointment for two weeks later to make sure the site was healing well and to go over pathology.

Two weeks later was two days ago, and I was battling traffic, dealing with cranky kiddos, and needing a nice hot cup of coffee when we finally arrived at our appointment.  Dr Oh came breezing in on his way to a surgery looked at Owen's site, told us it was healing nicely, then said "Its a good thing we had that mole removed, because the cells came back atypical."  Heart stops.  "What?!" I say to him.  Nothing to worry about, he assured me, but we have to watch Owen like a hawk.  This mole on his abdomen had never been exposed to sun.  He's never had a sunburn.  He wears SPF 70.  How does this happen?  My crappy genes.  That's how.  Poor kiddo.

Anyhow, we're thankful that we were pro-active and we're thankful that we had this reality check.  Now, go forth and lather up!

Strawberry Picking

How The Weekend Was Won

We had a Weekend.  Like deserving of capital letters weekend.  I felt like a great mom, a great spouse, a great friend.  How great is that?

So to begin, we spend a lot of weekends milling about, without a plan, without any really cool things happening.  We clean the bathrooms, and fold laundry, and watch bad TV.  And then every once in a golden while, we hit one out of the park.  This was a home-run, folks.  I swear a big part of it was that we were still in the no TV zone, which means we didn't get sucked into the vortex.  Instead we did cool stuff as a family, and our time didn't zoom past us.  We just enjoyed every single minute of our time together.  And my husband didn't talk about work, which was won.der.ful.

To start, Saturday morning we went to pick strawberries at Butler's orchard.  http://www.butlersorchard.com/  It was super humid, and the air was almost foggy and it was in the mid 80's, so it looked hazy- like a battlefield.   But a battlefield of delicious goodness.   We picked around 8 pounds of berries, consumed another couple in the fields.  It was magic.  Made it home for naps, dinner, a walk to see fireflies.

Sunday was another great day.  We decided to play at Cabin John Park and on the way we stopped at the grocery store to pick up sandwiches, some iced tea, and crunchy red grapes.  We arrived at the park a few minutes later, found a lovely spot under the trees to have lunch.  Ben and Owen spent a really good amount of time running from playground to playground and when Miles got hungry, I sent Ben and O to the miniature ride-on train for a ride around the park.  We had one very happy camper on our hands.

Monday morning, I was feeding Miles at about 6:30 when we got a phone call from Sander.  His dear Martha was in labor and we were on-call to watch Thomas while she was at the hospital. So at 7am, the Otte family arrived at our house with one cranky 15 month old for Owen to play with, and once again, the morning was great.  The whole time, we were wondering what was happening at the hospital, and at about 1:30, Sander arrived at our door to pick his son up, and he proudly announced that they had a beautiful new baby girl- Sophie.  I was so glad that we were able to help them out and proud to be a part of the whole process.  Years from now, when the kids ask about the day they were born, we'll be a minor part of the story!

 When it was back to just the 4 of us, we packed up the car and headed to the splash park to cool off a bit.  Owen was fearless.  He just charged out into the spray and had a grand ol' time.  Ben wanted to read and to watch Miles, so I followed Master Owen around for the next 45 minutes until his lips started to turn purple and he couldn't stop shivering.  That was my cue to wrap him up in a cozy, cozy, cozy beach towel and head on home.  Thank goodness Ben had been to the store earlier in the day for Memorial Day hot dogs and corn, so we grilled up our food and sat down to eat.  Owen at one point looked at us, after eating his second corn on the cob, and said "This is good stuff!".  Huzzah kiddo!  Huzzah!