I've been gone

It's me. I am sorry for the prolonged absence. Everything has been so crazy with the end of the school year and Memorial Day. I feel like that was all so long ago.

Between my last post and now I planted one side of my flower bed.


Beautiful, isn't it? It took some real muscle to get the holes dug and the plants all planted. I am proud of myself and my garden. The agapanthas have since bloomed and today W snapped off one of the blooms. I cannot even explain the disappointment, not in W because when he realized he shouldn't have done it he was sad, but in losing my beautiful bloom that I feel I grew myself. Anyway, I started work on the other bed but I still need more flowers so you will just have to wait to see that. It's killing you, hunh?

I snapped an awesome photo of the boys in the bath. But some people think that's a no no to post pictures of your kid in bathtubs so you are missing out on the pure joy that was on their faces.

and then we went on a road trip to the North Carolina mountains to visit Mimi and Papa. That was quite an adventure and it will all be in my next post. I just need to upload photos first. But I promise it won't be longer than a day.

I'll leave you with a picture of the boys in their Sunday best.

My boys are growing up. It seems like everyday they look different now. W's legs are getting long and gangly, his face is maturing and Master P looks more mischievous by the hour. I hate to see them grow up. I hate to see them grow up because I will miss my babies but I also hate it for them when they will have to deal with grown up issues. Right now they are so footloose and fancy free.

They have not a care in the world except whether they will get to eat 2 mini cupcakes instead of one. Of course W is inching over that line of foot looseness as he starts to learn to swim and potty train. He's can't live as near the edge as Pman but those are the most of his worries.

Their birthdays are both coming up and while it seems like they have only been here for a short time it seems like they have been my boys forever. Even just a year ago they are a blur to me.

And while I am not in a hurry for them to grow up, W is. He is busy listing all of the foods that will make him big and strong....french fries and veggie nuggets and grilled cheeses and vitamins and of course.....wine. Maybe I should ditch my nightly glass so he doesn't get the wrong idea or at least wait until he goes to bed. He is also talking about what he wants to be when he grows up. One time it was a tractor driver. The latest is a dirt digger on the streetcar track.

Pman like I said is quite a little pistol. He has taken to mocking everyone around him. The last time W cried (he was the cause of it mind you) he stopped in his tracks, turned around, made this horrifically fake looking scowl and pretended to cry as W was sobbing in my arms.

Another time he was in a staring contest with an older boy. It went on for a minute or two when WHAM! Pman slapped him up side the head. B.A.D. I tell you. Sometimes it seems cute but when you really get down to it it is kind of troubling. I don't want to be the kind of mom who promotes the badness because she thinks it's so funny. But it's tempting.

So it seems we have a lot of growing up going on over here although there personalities are still quite the same. We've got sweet and salty.

NEWSFLASH
W is a picky eater.

All my fans know about W's eating habits and yes, they are still driving me crazy. I read somewhere that by age 4 picky eaters start to abandon their stubborn eating habits and become more open minded about trying new things. So the countdown has begun and I am so keeping my fingers crossed.

I think back to when I was a kid and what we ate or what we were allowed to eat and I know that my mom's consistent "health kicks" had an influence on the way I eat now. These were the unwritten rules:
1.No cokes, only water
2.No bread unless whole wheat and then only for school lunches
3.If you get anything processed, Mom will read every ingredient until you are so grossed out that you don't want to eat it anymore.
4.No macaroni and cheese
5.Only fruit for breakfast (I think this was more that she hated to cook breakfast than a health thing) or bananas smoothies topped with wheat germ (which I actually still remember fondly)
6.Must drink a small glass of juice from her juicer whenever she hands you one (but you are never allowed to have more than one glass-this was prudent. I made myself a pitcher of juice one time when she was out of town and I was in the bathroom pretty much the whole weekend-a fiber thing)
6.No sweets (unless it's a special occasion in which case you eat a Sara Lee Cheesecake with canned blueberries)

Now, I am no health fanatic but I am very educated in the ways of nutrition because of Martha and I know what to eat to stay healthy. I love food and I am certainly not saying that I am a saint when it comes to healthy eating but I do my best during the week and am making a concerted effort to do the same on the weekends (except when L insists on eating crappy food at events on Friday nights) So I am still kind of worried about the way I have handled W's pickiness and how it will influence his future eating habits. I don't care what you say, I know in my mind that I cannot make W eat what he does not want to eat and I have stopped trying but when he asks for another mini cupcake, I give it to him. I let him eat french fries for supper or lunch or even breakfast just to get those little bit of calories in him. I bring him goldfish when I pick him up from school even though it's lunchtime. So if he is as influenced as I was by what his mom lets him do....Little W will be a blubbery Big W by the time he is 10.

Happy Mother's Day!

I was going to write about what it means to be a mom. I truly believe it's why I am here. I have my ups and downs but I love being a mom and can't imagine life without my two little babies. But I decided to write about what my mom means to me.

Lately, a lot of acquaintances of my mom have told me that I look a lot like her. "Oh, you must be Martha's daughter. You look just like her." or "I can tell you are Martha's daughter. You have her smile." All of these comments are so strange to me because I have never thought I looked like her. I am brunette and freckly and have small eyes. My mom is blonde, with creamy skin and big eyes. She looks like a 1950's movie star. and well, I am more of a Peppermint Patty. She is just plain beautiful. Really, she is. I don't mean to say I am ugly. I think I am pretty darn cute. But there is a difference between cute and beautiful you know. and that's not her only strength. She's a go getter, a doer, a personality to be reckoned with. She's a great mom and a great wife and a great grandmother. It's not to say that she doesn't have her moments. She's kind of neurotic and definitely will get what she wants when she wants it no matter how but she is the best mom I know. Really, I wouldn't trade her for the world. Having a mom like mine... I thank God everyday for her. Because if you had Martha for a mom you would be one lucky girl, like me.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

J went to lunch with 2 guys that he frequently goes to lunch with. It sound so dreamy to me, an adult lunch without kids screaming or crying or whining around you. and then, get this! The 3 of them went for a stroll around downtown. I guess to people watch and check out the architecture. Sounds like a bunch of old ladies to me. J even admitted he felt like an old lady when they stopped to admire The Roosevelt Hotel. Old ladies or not I was and still am a bit envious. To be lollygagging around downtown as an adult alone without kids.....like I said, heavenly.

What I wouldn't give for a day without someone sitting on me. It's tiring. I know, every stay at home mom blog has posted at least once if not ad nauseum about how exhausting it is being a stay at home mom. It's a constant and Pman wants to be sitting on me wherever I am. As long as I am not standing. I stand a lot. Because when he is on me, I may be sitting, but he is not. He is squirming and climbing and squirming some more. Now if I start tickling his legs at just the right time I can get him to calm down and sit still. and I try my best to drink in these moments of stillness and enjoy the cuddling from my little baby who really is not a little baby anymore. and I even try really hard to enjoy the times that he is squiggling around because I know one day soon, he will not want to even sit near me anymore.

Retraction

I have to print a retraction of my post about Superior. J said that I was feeling sickly before we went to Superior so it most probably wasn't from eating there. Phew! Makes it a lot easier on me. I hate break ups.