Friday Night Leftovers

• Wow. I haven't posted all week. Not because I meant to, but because things have been so crazy this week. I've been really busy at work, but also prepping for our block party tomorrow.
• I've got pretty much everything in place for the party, which is exciting. Lots of food, drinks, a bounce house, and even the ice cream truck is coming.
• I'm glad that my kids are of the age that they will really enjoy it, because if not, some of the planning headaches wouldn't have been worth it.
• One of the reasons that this week has been so insane is because on of my guys is on vacation this week, and the guy that used to back him up quit about two weeks ago. So I haven't had time to find a replacement (and even if I did, there is a hiring freeze on now) so I'm his back up. And wow. Does this guy deal with a lot of crap on a daily basis! I'm totally going to get a welcome back balloon and treats to have at his desk when he returns next week.
• We don't have a big Father's Day plan, but I did get us tickets to see the new Superman movie tonight - Aaron has been looking forward to it for a while.
• On Father's day morning, I'm swimming in a big open water race - which will be my first open water swim 'race' in years. I'm excited. The kids expect me to win. I expect to finish.
• My mom is coming for the weekend to see all of this, which is great.
• Last year, Aaron and I went to some AAA baseball games, and they had these things that were basically Capri Sun juice packs but with alcohol in them. As we were sitting outside the other night, Aaron remembered them and said we should get some. But we had no idea what they were called. Well, I found them and we got some and yep. Going to be a perfect summer drink. 
• It's been raining NON stop here for the past few weeks. We'll get a day or two of sun, and thankfully we have had at least one good day on the weekends. I've been freaking out that the block party would get rained out, but tomorrow we will have full sun and 75 degrees! Not too hot not to cold. Perfect.
• And I have a mini-vacation to look forward to - after work on Wendsday, I'm going to Falmouth and staying at a friends house for a couple nights. First night all by myself, next night with a girlfriend. And thankfully, the weather looks good! My plan is to sleep in and then sit on the beach, drinking a few pops and reading.

Friday Night Leftovers

• I was bragging about my son to another mom, like an asshole, telling her how he is always gentle and kind, and rarely throws tantrums. Can I get some guesses as to what happened directly after I said this?


• Can we talk about tee ball for a second? I had sworn up and down that I would never put my kids in tee ball. It looked like torture to me to all parties involved. I just think that tee ball is expecting a level of patience that 3 and 4 year olds just don’t possess. But, I succumbed to peer pressure and both kids did it this spring. Wow. It sucks just as much as I imagined. Maggie is thankfully done (and honestly, had a good time) as of last night. But Cam’s tee ball has been canceled 3 times so far for rain, so it just keeps getting extended. I’m SO thankful that Cam is old enough to start town soccer in the fall.

• Today is the last day for my friend at work that I joke is my ‘work husband’. I’m really going to miss him.

• We’ve decided to have the kids do daycare only 3 days a week this summer, and take our vacation time in long weekends. Saves us a big chunk of money, and kind of forces us to take things a little slower this summer.

• It’s been a stressful work week for both Aaron and I. I’m very much hoping that we are able to shut down and log off for the weekend and recharge. We’ll see. I think I should be able to, but it’s often a challenge for him.

And so it goes

Work is pretty busy (lots of people are quitting and then others are sick or taking vacations and I'm the only one left. Which is fun. NOT.) Anyway, I popped online yesterday to take a break, planning on telling everyone about our wonderful and fun weekend (Everyone! We had a fun and wonderful weekend!). I did some blog reading first, and over at Ask Moxie she had a post asking for people who have lost an infant if they could help out with a study.


I'm all about helping others where I can, and definitely when it comes to helping people deal with the loss of a child. There was this whole disclaimer for who you could contact if these questions were too triggering for you - and I basically just scanned over that section. Because really. What harm could a ten minute survey have?!

Well. The woman is 'investigating the availability and impact of bereavement options and ritual on parents who have experienced the death of an infant' so the questions centered on burial and support and ceremonies and what you did/didn't do. Wow. That is apparently a very sensitive topic, because once asked, I was transported right back to the days after Nora died. I distinctly remembered calling my minister and leaving a message. I was crying and just kept repeating, "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do." (just typing that is making me cry right now). I thank my lucky stars that I started attending that church just a year before, because our minister did swoop in and take charge. And when people were giving me options. Do I want a casket? A cremation? A cemetery burial? Do we have a family plot? What kind of service do you want? What prayers? What songs?

I'd never been through the death of a close family member, but I will assume when a death is expected (or at least on the horizon - Aaron and I have talked to each other about what we would like in a round about way) you have an idea of what you want. Like my mother. She wants a full on burial. With the church service, very specific songs, I even know what she wants on her gravestone. But when a baby dies? It's just SO unexpected, you just almost can't think about it. I for some reason felt very deeply that she should NOT be in a casket in a cemetary. To me, I just didn't think that was where my baby belonged. As for the service, I mostly let my mom and my minister drive that, with the one request that the song "Saying Goodbye" from the Muppets and the Ode to Joy were played.

But the pain and confusion and even the unexpected expenses of a funeral, it was all totally overwhelming, and remembering it kicked me in the gut yesterday. I do hope by filling out that survey I help her help others, but I don't even know what I mean by 'help'. It's a brutal time, and I wish no one had to experience it. If I find someone close to me going through it? I will just stand close and help however I can.

Friday Night Leftovers

• All my anxiety about the one dinner thing was not needed. I prepped both kids that we were all having the same dinner because I thought they were big enough to eat what we ate now. Maggie was all for it. Cam, not so much. But, I served sweet Italian sausage, biscuits and corn on the cob. And they ate it.
• It is HOT here. We have friends who can't play with a sprinkler in their backyard because their dog loses a nut when they do it. He loves the water so much he runs around like a crazy dog and won't let the kids play. So invited them over for a sprinkler party tonight, but they already were planning on a play date with another family on the street - and asked if they could join in. Of course they could, but they got us up to 9 kids with just our three families. Might as well make it a party right? So invited all the neighborhood kids.
• And one said we should use her inflatable water slide! It's going to blow the kids minds to get home to that!
• I'm hoping that this starts a weekly Friday night cookout with our buddies on the street.
• It's also hopefully the first weekend we get to go to the town lake and beach. We love going there.
• Tomorrow, we are probably going to hang close to home, so I'm trying the idea that I've seen on pinterest of freezing little plastic toys in a block for them to chip away at in the heat. People claim that it occupies their children for over an hour. We shall see.

Happy Friday!

And so it begins

I have a long history with food. Not all of it great. Lots of dieting, thinking different foods are BAD, obsessing about it, counting calories and then stressing about passing that onto my own kids. One of my big parenting goals was to NOT pass this disorder thinking about food onto my kids. I try very hard to live by the advice "I give the kids the good food, and it's their job to eat it". We try to sit down and eat as a family as much as possible. On the weekends, when they are too excited to sit and eat breakfast, we explain that you can get up without eating, but no snacks. Next food chance is lunch. Food is a relatively low stress parenting area for me, honestly.


I try to get them to try new things, but in general, they eat pasta, mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, pizza, and grilled cheese sandwiches. All fruits, a few veggies, and usually both kids eat what I would classify as a good dinner. Sometimes we will have ice pops or cookies or brownies, but I try to not make that a nightly thing. And I also try to not tie the treats to finishing their dinner. On the other hand, I don't let them only have cookies for dinner, either. (I will admit to ice cream for dinner every once in a while, though).

I don't know if I over think the food thing because of my history, or if this is totally normal for all parents, but I am grateful that in general, my kids eat decently and have age appropriate table manners.

As with all things parenting, I've finally gotten to my breaking point with dinner. Every night we cook what I would classify as 1.5 dinners. We cook for Aaron and I, and then we are sure to cook something we know the kids will eat. It isn't like it HUGE time consuming thing, but it's another pot to clean, appliance to turn on, blah blah blah. And since I haven't been working from home, I can't prep dinners in advance like I used to. I just want things to be a little easier, and I feel like the kids are old enough that we can all just eat the same thing. I know, Jen. You are smart and have been doing this since day 1. But I feel like now, the longer I put it off, the harder it may be! So, tonight, we begin the hardcore 'this is what we are serving for dinner'. I know in my heart that they won't let themselves starve, and I also know that even when I give them exactly what they want for dinner, they sometimes don't eat it. My kids usually eat really well at two meals.

But I also don't relish losing my relatively safe and drama free dinner time, either. Hold me.

Neighborhood

When I sat down last night after tucking the kids to bed, I was thinking how lucky we were when we bought our house. We were searching for our house in 2005, right at the peak of the crazy house buying. Everything was super expensive, and when something went on the market, it would sell that weekend, and sometimes for more than it was listed. Aaron and I looked a loads of houses, had a few fall through, and it was February when we found this house. I will admit, we didn't do huge amount of research. We have family in our town, but mostly we were looking for HOUSE we wanted. We were more worried about the number of bedrooms, and if it had a fireplace or not. I cared about the school system and the crime rate, but I hadn't thought much about the actual neighborhood.


We moved in and didn't really meet anyone until the spring. But when we finally did? I saw that we moved into a real neighborhood. I found that people in our town wait for houses on our street to go up for sale because of how great the neighborhood is. The kids run in and out of different houses, playing tag and hide and seek and catch until the sun goes down, and the women in the neighborhood plan holiday parties and I quickly made a bunch of friends. We get together to knit, I've started a book club, and this year will be the third year of our block party. I love where we live.

This weekend was so enjoyable, and it's in huge part due to the people in my neighborhood. We had toyed with different ideas for the weekend, maybe going to Nantucket or my mom's cabin - and then realized that Cam had tee-ball and we couldn't go anywhere until Saturday afternoon late, so opted to stay home.

Saturday, we kept to ourselves. Got little things done around the house, I went swimming and we went to see Epic (good kids movie! Totally recommend). Sunday I invited our friends over for breakfast, and they stayed until mid-afternoon. Then other friends came over on their bikes and we all played outside until dinner. Monday, I decided to take the kids to Drumlin Farm (a place I would have never gone to but for several friends giving a recommendation) while Aaron did some work around the house, and then we rode our bikes to the town parade. The whole town was out at the parade, which my kids thought was AWESOME (total classic small town parade. The veterans walked at the beginning, the high school marching band, the Girl and Boy Scouts, and finally the Stow Minutemen. Then everyone follows behind to the town cemetery. Cam and Maggie were THRILLED to be in the parade and walking on the main road). Afterwards, Cam rode in the car with his good friend to the ice cream stand, while I rode with Maggie (Aaron was helping his Aunt, we picked him up on our way). Then we pedaled home, played in the backyard, hung out at our next door neighbor’s pool, and ended the night having gin and tonics with another neighbor while their 'big kids' (11 and 9) played with Cam and Maggie.

To me, we live in such a special place. Within easy walking distance (like 1/3 of a mile), there are 6 families that we enjoy spending time with and that our kids love playing with. We have impromptu cookouts and play dates all the time. I'm so excited that my kids get to grow up in a place like this. To me, it's almost magical. I love it.

9 Years

Today marks nine years of marriage. In the past year, we've seen a few marriages around us end in divorce. It's sad, and every time it makes me think about what makes our marriage work so well. We have a foundation of a lot of love, and love that has grown as we've been through both great things and some awful things. We make each other laugh. Our basic morals and life outlook is very similar. We enjoy a lot of the same things, but we also have diverse interests that we pursue on our own. We support each other.


But lots of couples have that. I think the secret to long term success is about communication and compromise. When we first met (12 years ago!) we had both come out of horrible relationships (I for one, had actually planned to be alone for the rest of my life). In the honeymoon stage of our relationship, we had our first 'misunderstanding' (I wouldn't call it a fight). But he said something that pissed me off. We were riding our motorcycles (so not like I could say anything then), and we just rode home. When we got home, he asked me what was wrong, and I said it was 'nothing'. He said he was pretty sure it was SOMETHING, and we talked about it. He hadn't realized what he said, I didn't realize until he asked how much it pissed me off, and right then, we made a pact. If something was bothering us - we would talk about it right away. Not let it fester, not brush it off. Because no matter what, things like that build up and fester. Even when it's difficult, we talk about things right as they happen. We don't wait days or weeks and bring it up as ammunition, we address it right away. It's a habit. Before we do anything - we talk about how we will do it. Even little things - like what is going on during the week. I usually start Monday with a list of everything we have planned, and we work through it together how we will attack the week. But also big things, like when I was pregnant and nearing time for maternity leave, we set expectations of what he could expect from me when dealing with a little baby, and I knew what kind of help to expect from him. It's amazing to me when people don't have those talks and think that their partner will just somehow magically will know what they need.

Also we have our ability to compromise. I care passionately about some things and Aaron cares about others. It is actually freeing to me to not have to worry about certain things, because those things are his domain. Same with me - I have the things that I deal with in our life that Aaron doesn't have to think about. Sometimes we'll rein each other in, other times we'll push the other towards something they may be reluctant to do. But our happiness as a couple is the fact that we always work together with an open line to each other.

Do I want to kill him sometimes? Oh yes. Like when it's 11 PM and I can't fall asleep because he is snoring like a freight train!? Or when he piles up all the dishes right above the clean dishwasher?! But to me, it's surprising that we have lived together for almost 12 years and I have so few things that bug me about him. We are a true team and I love us. Happy Anniversary, Hot Stuff.