tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40085842242604430162023-11-16T09:27:15.755-08:00EWZO for TwozoPrymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-66693627255293788132013-10-25T11:23:00.000-07:002013-10-25T11:58:56.121-07:00The Zeb file, section "Offenses, Recent" - Opened several bottles of water, emptied them onto the floor, then refilled them and emptied them again, then threw all the soda and seltzer cans out of the cabinet onto the wet floor, causing several to be wrecked without opening as evidenced by the bulging cans<br />
- Shows absolutely no interest in potty training. Claims to be "scared" of the potty when placed upon it, screams and cries until he is taken off, then five minutes later takes a man-sized dump full of impossible-to-remove black banana specks in his pants.<br />
- Has huge crying fits and claims to be tired when forced to do such horrific things as putting on a shirt or going to the playground<br />
- Drools constantly and voluminously - is always soaked in a mixture of drool and spilled water, and has started chewing and mouthing more things than the baby does<br />
- Bolts away at full speed in public places<br />
- Ripped the cover of the atlas in half, ripped pages out of the Waldo books he loves<br />
- Repeat naptime escape artist - can pick the lock on the door. Climbs up on top of the bunk beds and throws things at the fan if the ladder is not disabled pre-nap. Draws all over himself and his bedclothes. Took his diaper off and ran around naked because his cheap Daddy-purchased generic diaper had some stringy stuff coming off of it so he ripped it all off and claimed it was "spiderwebs," then wrapped his genitals in the spiderwebs. Only naps one fifth of the time, rest of the time will just wreak havoc, but he NEEDS to nap because when he doesn't he's SOOOOOOOO cranky the rest of the day<br />
- Turns the cable box off all the time, which messes with the DVR and takes several minutes to reset itself<br />
- Ate a candy off the ground in a gross mall petstore (apparently a result of being born without the ability to listen to any instructions ever)<br />
- Flushed a rubber snake down the toilet in the morning and broke out the produce cleaning spray and sprayed his brothers, the fridge, the table, his playpen and his breakfast with it, claiming it was "syrup;" then about half an hour into his morning "TV time" (when he's supposed to be watching TV while I nurse the baby and catch my breath for half a second) he broke my cherished green glass head that we got off the free table in our apartment building in the funky neighborhood of Seattle nine years ago, which spread fifteen billion tiny shards of glass all over the downstairs tile floor<br />
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Let's go back to a Zeb happy place:<br />
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This is just the terrible twos, right? And he's just going to magically turn into a perfectly behaved Dennis the non-Menace in a couple of weeks when he turns three, right? RIGHT?!?!Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-16074818136436615612013-10-14T16:55:00.001-07:002013-10-14T19:34:20.538-07:00Another Florida birthday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfM05LoQRG_fULCV9Jqto8AGAp8ObmDMfkKNQCxAZoNqrluF57KoXu8-FnaxOt9kR_GzM29IWrH3S6DGZ7_AwtNRWgo-TzOT2VG98l6tmKBA23c4GPg-H6Vzp4uvDxIf0IjgIyv_NFhH-S/s1600/October+2013+(107).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfM05LoQRG_fULCV9Jqto8AGAp8ObmDMfkKNQCxAZoNqrluF57KoXu8-FnaxOt9kR_GzM29IWrH3S6DGZ7_AwtNRWgo-TzOT2VG98l6tmKBA23c4GPg-H6Vzp4uvDxIf0IjgIyv_NFhH-S/s320/October+2013+(107).JPG" /></a></div><br />
When we came down here with Opal for Nic's job interview in July, I rode around the area with the baby and a realtor while Nic was getting interviewed. One of the things I was sad about losing by leaving the Philly area was the proximity to the Jersey shore and Ocean City, MD. I asked the realtor where people here went when they wanted to go to the beach, thinking the answer would be either Galveston or Mississippi. I'd been to the beach in Mississippi, though, and it was gross, brownish cloudy water like at one of the worst Jersey beaches but with no waves and without a boardwalk. But she told me those beaches were too silty and most people who wanted a beach getaway went to the Florida panhandle beaches, most of which were three to five hours away. So not quite as easy as the ninety minutes to two hours proximity of the Jersey shore, but more like the four hour drive to OCMD. Would it be worth it, though, I wondered? I'm happy to report that yes, it is!<br />
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I told Nic I wanted to go away for my birthday, either to Texas for SeaWorld in San Antonio or to Florida for the beaches. He wisely decided on Florida, as he can't take any time off until the new year and San Antonio is like eight or nine hours away. So we left Friday evening, listening to satellite radio on the way there. I'd been hinting to Nic that I wanted satellite radio for years in Philly, but my main reason was I wanted to hear oldies from the 1950s and oldies and discordant minor-key folk music from the 1960s that they no longer played on Oldies 98 or any other station in Philly. But the oldies station in New Orleans is actually really good, playing all those kinds of songs plus skeezy, sexually disturbing flash in the pan hits from the 1970s, so I kind of forgot about satellite radio. But it's pretty cool. Once I get the hang of it I'm looking forward to listening to the various talk shows, which I miss because I no longer am in the car at the right time of the day. This will be even better though because now there won't be commercials, which is huge because in the morning somehow all the stations always collated their commercials so that for the majority of my ride all the shows I liked to listen to would be all playing commercials at the same time.<br />
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Anyway, we got in super late to the condo in Fort Walton Beach, which is just outside of Destin. It was your standard beach condo right on the beach, could have been in OCMD or anywhere family beachtastic. But that view we got Saturday morning was definitely Floridian - crystal clear turquoise water, clean white sugary sand (apparently some of the best in the country - it squeaked when we walked) and gently swaying palm trees. The condo buildings themselves were very Florida Spanishy, white stucco walls and terra cotta roof tiles (real or fake I don't know). Here's the view from the parking lot (a sentence that always entices, I know): <br />
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The boys were very jazzed about the circularity of the walkthrough bathrooms and Wolfie in particular loved this wallpaper:<br />
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Saturday morning we woke up really early despite having gone to bed so late the night before. This was good because we ate up the morning with a lot of errands. First Nic went out with Opal to get breakfast, which ended up being from our old Florida favorite, Publix. It was a good thing we brought some pumpkin biscotti, because somehow the only thing he could find was decidedly non-dairy-free apple fritters, one of which we had to tell the fruit-phobic Wolfie was a "cinnamon fritter." "Thank you so much, Daddy, this cinnamon fritter is the best donut I've had in my whole life!" Ah, the many benefits of lying to your children. After that I had to go myself and Opal bathing suits. I left my one fitting non-maternity swimsuit in the hotel shower in Mobile, Alabama on the way down on our big move by accident. Opal needed a suit because I didn't have one for her because she hadn't been swimming yet. Her first beach trip! Anyway, I took Wolfie with me because when I asked if he'd go with he said "Sure Mom, it's your birthday so I'll do whatever you want." Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, so precious I almost forget that he picks his nose and smashes things for no reason when bored. <br />
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After an odyssey to several beach stores (none of which carried baby suits) and then Old Reliable (aka Target), we finally suited up and headed out:<br />
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The water was great, nice and warm and calm, the depth shallow and gently sloping down. The big boys of course were extremely excited to get into the water, especially expert swimmer Eli. Opal saw Wolfie walk into the water and immediately started hysterically laughing, which she doesn't do very often. She LOVED the water, slapping it and kicking around. It made me so nostalgic for the early days back in Florida with Eli laughing and smiling and happy in his little yellow baby floaty ring, slowly spinning and floating until he'd get all cutely tired and zonked out. I can't wait to get a floaty ring for Opal, I just hope we go back before she's too big or squirmy to use it! We didn't bring our camera out at first, then when Nic went back inside to get it, someone spotted a pod of dolphins not too far offshore. The whole almost three years we lived in Florida we didn't once see dolphins at the beach, but there they were, coming up for air every few seconds and even once doing a small leap out of the water! I was worried they'd be gone by the time Nic got back with the camera, but they stuck around for a long time!<br />
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We even saw them again from the balcony the next morning. So cool! So Florida fantasy! Zeb was oddly afraid of ocean, and didn't even want to be carried in, so he just played in the sand.<br />
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Opal fell asleep at the beach, so I laid down with her on a chair, covering her up with a towel so she didn't get too much sun, while Nic and the boys played at the pool. After we all got cleaned up, had some lunch, and relaxed some at the room, we headed out to Destin for some mini golf and dinner, and Hawaiian shirt modeling for the dudes:<br />
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Those koi were ravenous. Anyway, it was an extremely lax game, what with me being weighed down with the Ergo baby and then Toddler Jefferson going buckwild, putting his ball Aunt Sally-style one centimeter from the hole then putting it in, then running crazy go nuts to the next hole. Scores were not kept. We had dinner at this little fake boardwalk shopping center Mexican restaurant, <br />
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where of course Zeb fell asleep at the table, then we headed back for non-dairy chocolate cake. <br />
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Sunday we had to check out too early to actually be able to go in the water, though I did stick my foot in the ocean for a second. Instead we stopped for lunch in Pensacola Beach on the way back. <br />
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We had lunch at the Hemingway Grill, which was on the water and exactly the kind of place I'd hoped to eat at the night before, but it was even better during the day because of the view. <br />
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Nic and the boys had breakfast food but I had a nice blackened fish sandwich with beans and rice with a bottomless champagne glass. Opal had the table:<br />
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Then we headed back to New Orleans, stopping in Biloxi on the way to feed the baby/pee at a beach store/confirm that the water is gross and brown in Mississippi (indeed it was). All in all, it was the perfect little birthday getaway, and it actually made me fall in love with Florida again!Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-78267874913727628472013-10-10T12:30:00.001-07:002013-10-10T12:31:55.583-07:00Random sprinklings of madness"I miss Grandma Ellen, it doesn't feel like a family without her."<br />
"Aww, that's ni-"<br />
"It doesn't feel like a family without her computer." - an exchange between me and Eli where I almost thought Eli was expressing a nice feeling about another human being.<br />
<br />
"Are you chewing a piece of that board game?"<br />
"No, I'm just chewing a tire. It's my favorite bubble gum." - Me talking to Zeb, the house ogre.<br />
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Memo to my kids - STOP BEING SPORADICALLY CHEWING GARBAGE EVERY TIME I TURN MY HEAD AWAY FROM YOU FOR FIVE SECONDS!<br />
<br />
Necessary ingredients that must be present in order for Zeb to actually fall asleep during his nap:<br />
<br />
- The time is between 12:30PM and 3PM<br />
- Zeb has been outside at some point, preferably exercised for at least half an hour at a playground<br />
- (MOST IMPORTANT) Zeb is tired but has not actually closed his eyes and fallen asleep, not for even thirty seconds in the car ride back from the playground. Even if he spent an hour and a half solid sprinting up and down a football field in the blazing hot sun, if his eyes close on the way back from the park for longer than a blink, he's up until bedtime. Cranky as hell, but up.Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-70499546374066029872013-10-07T16:43:00.002-07:002013-10-07T16:44:44.330-07:00Hi dere!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYqrvRdDZaeKiU8Y1riQj1NNbsFRPGO4ucGE-IxtUNT9JcqoSF8eLWV1Kyhj-kolWl3Hf_773rATFMxSPhVf1jom6v4-unZjn4_xYGScXXhX3CLPDRqUKTCIkkHiVhf_7MTAXCv-K6OLrO/s1600/082.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYqrvRdDZaeKiU8Y1riQj1NNbsFRPGO4ucGE-IxtUNT9JcqoSF8eLWV1Kyhj-kolWl3Hf_773rATFMxSPhVf1jom6v4-unZjn4_xYGScXXhX3CLPDRqUKTCIkkHiVhf_7MTAXCv-K6OLrO/s320/082.JPG" /></a></div>
That's right, I'm back! Back at the keyboard typing an entry, and back in the Big Easy. It's been a crazy couple of months - Nic getting the job offer at the end of July while we were on the Alaska cruise (for pics of that, see my Facebook), scrambling to get housing and schooling lined up then packing up the whole house (with help from Rick) and driving all our stuff and our kids (again with help from Rick but also my mom) down to New Orleans. Mom was only supposed to be here for like ten days, but she ended up staying a whole month (more if you count the trip itself). Now she's been gone a week and a half.
Mom was DEFINITELY a huge help and I really miss her company (and laundry/mopping skillz). But I wanted to make sure she got paid in entertainment for all her help, so I was trying to do something fun with her every day. Now that she's gone, we're settling into more of a toddler/baby-centric routine. Nic takes the big boys to school in the morning, then I hang out with the littles on the third floor (which is basically one huge playroom) for an hour or two.
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I didn't realize how little crawling room there was at the old house until we got here. Opal's scooting her boot all over the place! The downside of that, though, is that every time I turn my head she somehow grabs some disgusting carpet garbage and crams it into her still-toothless maw, so that I turn back and see her big knobby cheeks mum-mumming on something mysterious and I have to stick my finger in there and sweep around until some lint ball or mysterious plant material falls out. One of these days, I just know I'm going to do that and a chewed-up roach abdomen is going to fall out. Yeah, the roaches? They're big enough to leash.
Anyway, then I put Zeb downstairs to watch a show for a bit while Opal and I take a nursing TV break (that's her nursing and me watching TV, not both of us watching shows about nursing, because sadly my "I Didn't Know I Obese and Pregnant and A Stripper With OCD and a 136 lb Scrotum" Discovery Fit and Health isn't on our cable plan, which I keep meaning to look into but keep forgetting because I'm distracted by our nightly dose of "The Sopranos" and my deep well of depression from the end of "Breaking Bad," plus "Ink Masters" and my queens are keeping me entertained enough for now). After that we head out to a playground (there are several good ones, some in very nice city park settings) then get home in time for lunch with Nic, who finally works close enough that he can do that. Then Nic puts Zeb down for a quick nap and goes back to work and I try to get some stuff done before I have to get the boys from school, after which we only have an hour or two before Nic comes home for the night.
"You know what my second favorite thing is, after weather and snakes? Baby Opal!" - tender little Woog, who has declared he's going to marry his sister. Meanwhile, Zeb is the whipping boy, sustaining multiple scratches and even bite-induced bruises from Wolfie (Eli's anti-Zeb maneuvers leave fewer obvious marks). When I try to remind Wolfie that he used to dote on Zeb the same way he's doting on Opal now:
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he tells me "I only like babies when they're babies, not when they're toddlers." I'm hoping he keeps his special moosh moosh spot for Opal, but I'll make sure to take pictures like this every chance I get just in case the warm fuzzies don't last:
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Otherwise, Eli is very obsessed with cities, specifically Google Earth looking at them, checking out skylines, comparing the sizes of cities population-wise and area-wise, comparing skylines, comparing airports, and drawing cityscapes both real and imaginary. Wolfie, as previously mentioned, is focusing his obsession on weather, specifically "Strangest Weather on Earth," and to a lesser extent scientific shows like "Outrageous Acts of Science." Zeb has been, um, challenging (getting up on chairs and stealing cookies in the blink of an eye and mixing glass candleholders with my bird from woodcarving class into "soup" in the garbage disposal being the two most recent examples), but I think now that we're settling into a routine his sweet loving side is starting to outshine his naughty side once again. Not that the sweet loving side wasn't always there, it's just he is definitely the most energetic and challenging toddler yet. Even Grandma Ellen, who is usually a big softie who quails when I get too harsh and irritated and start doling out punishments, was being driven insane by the dude by the end of her trip. She even said, and I quote, "I don't know how you do it - Moms of boys deserve an extra Mother's Day!" They were all acting really nuts, largely because of the move I'm sure, but they're all starting to get better. And our first true "terrible twos" two year old has even more hope around the corner - next month he turns three! I can't believe that's already almost here!
I'm going to have to put up a BUNCH of Opal weekly pics. I haven't put them up in forever but we've definitely been taking them every Wednesday! Gotta go shower now, because it's not a rare luxury like I sometimes treat it, it's basic hygiene! But here's the inspiration for the title of the post - Opal can wave hello now!
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXiYnz8c8GAc_4H_wxJR47uhHod7WLhzrD7F5MouFE7ouGDTZ3uy2_LkZGL0kwMU0-P7o39RkyOJPOjgRUTa5GN-fKcHAGYrmPIWfipY8ClwZsxmI_C3F7_9g_3TTNuHSZh6ujaMok-v4e/s1600/085.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXiYnz8c8GAc_4H_wxJR47uhHod7WLhzrD7F5MouFE7ouGDTZ3uy2_LkZGL0kwMU0-P7o39RkyOJPOjgRUTa5GN-fKcHAGYrmPIWfipY8ClwZsxmI_C3F7_9g_3TTNuHSZh6ujaMok-v4e/s320/085.JPG" /></a></div>Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-48084541818303399052013-07-30T17:39:00.001-07:002013-08-01T14:57:06.994-07:00Travel torture survived, family returnedJuly was crazy busy! Who goes to Louisiana and Washington state then Alaska within the span of one week? We do, apparently! <br />
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Picture-filled Seattle/Alaska cruise post to follow, but give me a few days as we just yesterday survived perhaps the crappiest day of travelling I've ever had. Picture this - it was our first flying trip with all four kids (Eli and Wolfie flew out to Oregon for a fun-filled big kid week with Nic's parents the week before the cruise, so it was just me and Nic and Zeb and Opal on the way out to Seattle, which was grueling enough). After a five hour flight from Seattle to Charlotte, NC, which arrived at 9 PM EST, the plan was to scarf some dinner then fly out to Philly at 10:30 to arrive at 11:59PM, which would have gotten us home at about 1:30AM with bag collection and driving back from the city. Awful enough, right? <br />
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But after scarfing said dinner and strapping on She Who Must Be Held for a quick walk, the departure time started creeping up and up and up, until finally around midnight the flight disappeared from the departure board. Yet they didn't cancel it until about 2AM, at which point Zeb had passed out on some chairs with a Where's Waldo book harassingly placed over his face by his brothers and Opal was squirming angrily in my lap with a pantload of feces. <br />
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It took forever for the airline rep to find us a hotel with two adjoining rooms and a crib, and once they did we went outside to wait for the shuttle and literally every other shuttle from every other Charlotte hotel passed by and collected people at least twice before our cigarette stinking busted ass van finally showed up. And of <em>course</em> it ended up being a terrible motorcourt-style Days Inn, which I famously swore to never again patronize after the filthy disgusting crustatorium we stayed at in Williamburg, Virginia this past November. This one was at least superficially clean to the naked eye, but it felt looked and smelled like it hadn't been stayed in since "The Shining" came out, which I bring up because it also felt similarly haunted. Or maybe that was just the fact that it was three o'clock in the gad-dang morning by the time we walked through its doors and we had to get up at 6:20 for our flight to Pittsburgh. Yes, Pittsburgh I said, because we had to route through there to get to Philly. After checking the beds for bedbugs, Nic said he'd stay awake because he thought it would be worse for him if he fell asleep, and he wanted to take a shower, and someone had to call the airline because they accidentally printed out two boarding passes for Eli and zero for me. So after dozing on top of the covers of the bed with Opal (because those "cribs" were busted gross looking unpacked Pack and Plays sans sheets, so yeah, those aren't getting used) , I had a feeling Nic wasn't in the room. So I got up and checked and lo and behold, he was passed out on the bed next to Eli, buck naked, with the hotel phone in one hand on hold with US Air. I'm sad to report he sat up with a start mere moments before I was able to frame the shot with my camera.<br />
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So three hours later, off we went on a (late) shuttle to the airport with three cranky dazed boys and a miraculously not that tired baby girl (she barely slept the whole cruise, so what's one more night of not sleeping, right?). The flights went off without a hitch and the kids were actually very well behaved considering (especially Opal, who proved herself the worst baby flyer we've ever had on our trip to Oregon last month and our trip to New Orleans earlier this month). Then when we got to Philly and met up with my parents who took the two big boys and our luggage because we couldn't fit all the kids and stuff in the car together, of course we then simply could NOT find our car. So I sat there waiting for literally almost an hour for the courtesy car to come and drive me around the garage to find it while Nic walked around and I teetered on the edge of insanity. I actually called my dad and found out he was home with the big boys before we even found the stupid car! So the return time ended up being about 2PM, a mere twelve and a half hours later than we thought. So yeah, lemme catch my breath!Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-36939548067095517492013-07-06T06:28:00.000-07:002013-07-06T07:38:34.891-07:00Fifth of July, the awesomest "of July" there isIn this neighborhood, July 4th is just okay. We might fire up the grill in a minor way, maybe a couple of (secretly turkey but don't tell the kids) burgers, maybe have Grandpa Teddy over, maybe light a couple of sparklers and smoke bombs and shoot some cap guns.<br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Or just lose our minds.</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bad '60s Batman special effects?</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Woog: Amused</span></em></div>
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And that, combined with our next door neighbors we've only spoken to like once's semi-pro level fireworks display (they bust them out for pretty much every holiday and sometimes for no discernible reason but they go the biggest for this one) and supplemented with TV fireworks (always DVRed in the case of the downtown Philly ones because they always have the longest, most boring concert ever beforehand and the 'works themselves don't air until like eleven, usually mostly in the range of when the news is supposed to be, so you have to DVR both, and you want to get them in HD of course, so it's this huge chunk of your DVR space, but you feel like you can't <em>not </em>DVR the stupid Philly fireworks since they're local and in the cradle of liberty and all, so you have to decide if you're going to delete "Apocalypto" which you saw in the theaters six years ago and DVRed over a year ago but you might, no you definitely want to rewatch it at some point, or maybe one of the fourteen episodes of "The Mindy Project" you keep meaning to watch because you watched all the previous ones but you just can't bring yourself to ever actually watch another one, or maybe one of Wolfie's nature shows, yeah a nature show that's the ticket, so you get permission from Wolfie to delete the "Snake Wranglers" he says he doesn't want to watch again anyway, yet you feel guilty that it had to be one of his shows and not one of your own obviously hoarded shows, and maybe you've got a problem, maybe you should start watching "Hoarders" again, I think you still have one in your upstairs DVR from 2011, the one with the chicken hoarder . . . ) ahem, anyway. What was I saying? Oh yeah, the 4th.</div>
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July 4th is certainly nice around these parts, but the big enchilada, the best day of the year to live in this neighborhood, is the Friday closest to July 4th (July 5th this year), which is when the Ambler Kiwanis Club puts on their big fireworks display at Wissahickon High School. It's definitely one of the biggest pro displays in the suburbs. I remember going to it multiple times growing up, and we always had to park super far away then walk, sometimes on a really busy road, then find a place to sit in the field with the huge crowd. But now that we live on the same street as the school, we just have to drag out some lawn chairs to the end of the driveway and enjoy the show. </div>
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This is the day we have the big BBQ party. It feels like a less stressful Thanksgiving in July, plus kind of like Mardi Gras at the end when all the random strangers are wandering down our semi-shut-off street. I make gross Jello shots nobody actually wants (Arnold Palmer and "Red" flavored this year), we make some basics and people bring other good stuff, we bust out the smores, everyone has a good time. Earlier this year I was tearing up thinking about how we might already have moved far away by the time the fireworks rolled around this year. It's probably my favorite thing about this house, it makes the neighborhood seem so wonderfully Rockwellian Americana. While I do wish we had the moving plans locked down already, I am super glad we got to enjoy the fireworks one more time here this year.</div>
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Eli got inspired during an art session earlier in the week to make a huge display of pictures of "Eli City" for the party.</div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">The sign on top reads "Welcome to Eli's Art Galery"</span></em></div>
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Since school ended, Mommy has been carrying Opal around in the Bjorn almost all day every day while running up and down and all around wrangling dudes. Her favorite thing is watching her bros, and while the Bjorn makes it easier to give her a good seat to the bro show than pure arm carrying, it still kind of is breaking my back and neck. So after some mother daughter posing - </div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Matching strawberry dresses almost unintentional</span></em></div>
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I heeded my aching back and let others Bjorn the young miss for a while.</div>
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Of course you can see the aforementioned Jello shots in the Daddy pic. I thought the Arnold Palmer Jello Shots, despite being extremely difficult to say without either slowing down or having your words turn to mush (at least if you have a gorgeous Philly accent like we do), would be the big hit of the party. Sweet tea vodka is the zenith of modern invention, after all. But the red were actually slightly more palatable. Oh who am I kidding, everyone hated all of them.<br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">The face of pure enjoyment</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Alan just got a smooth infusion</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">But we bought special spoons!</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Not helping I guess</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Lovin' that ice tea refreshment</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Maybe actually lovin' it?</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hide your pain for the sake of the baby</span></em></div>
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Of course you all might know that I do have a sadistic side when it comes to serving food and drink to guests, so I suppose I was satisfied with the reception after all. I can't believe I didn't take a picture of our annual fireworks visitors, Shoshana (my friend from back when I was Eli's age!) and her sister Aliza. I could have sworn I took one of Shoshana forcing down the Jello, but I guess not. The big boys cavorted around the yard:<br />
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and we all ate, then it was time for fireworks:<br />
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Eli and Wolfie were totally loving it, as they always have. Eli a couple of years ago jumped and cheered for the entire lengthy display, then for several months afterwards was entertained by Youtube fireworks displays (I remember one of his faves was a New Year's display in Sydney). Wolfie likes them in a more quiet way. I remember when he was around Zeb's age and fixated on the color green he delighted in pointing out the green fireworks. Two years ago he famously holiday-gorging-on-chips barfed right before the display, necessitating a rushed bath and resulting in him viewing the display naked in a zebra towel on Grandpa Teddy's lap:<br />
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Note that second pic from 2011 with background barfed Woog. Eli is wearing the same shirt Wolfie wore last night! Too fast, too fast! Also note that baby Zeb is totally chillaxing in my lap. Not so last night. Zeb, while he enjoyed the fireworks on TV earlier in the day, buried his face in my lap and declared in a loud but relatively calm voice that he didn't like this and wanted to go inside. Grandpa Teddy obliged. Opal we knew wouldn't be cool from when she freaked out at the neighbor's display the night before, so Nic stayed inside with her most of the time, but he had a good view from the window in our room. I tried to relieve him a couple of times but the view was pretty good, and Opal had gone to sleep but in a resisting-crib-or-arm-transfer kind of way. I still feel guilty though.</div>
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We somehow didn't end up going to the carnival at the elementary school last night (another fun thing in the 'hood, and we get to anticipate it the week before by taking walks up to the parking lot and watching as the rides and booths appear), so we're going up there tonight. Since I'm not pregnant for once, I'll actually be able to ride some rides maybe! Good times, good times.</div>
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Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-90226231097082291822013-06-22T14:32:00.002-07:002013-06-22T14:32:17.963-07:00Opal 23 - 26 weeks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Recently this baby lady has grown from being a clingy little monkey to being a clingy little monkey <em>person.</em> She's really turning into an actual human. When she's not insisting on being carried around the house in her human arm palanquin or the Bjorn, she's rolling all over the floor, gumming toys, pulling down the changing pad, and getting stuck under the bed. Opal is getting really good at lifting up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth, the prelude to crawling. This is the squirmy age too when they start trying to spin and roll during diaper changes. Who knew you could have tiring wrestling matches with someone who weighs just under seventeen pounds? <br />
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Opal is starting to get that chubby cheek baby Popeye look that Zeb had around this age. She likes watching people while they eat and gumming the air, or even better, grabbing a huge handful of Mommy's hair, wrapping it around her fist, and jamming that into her face. She's doing well with cereal and I'm sure she can't wait to start real good foods (she looked extremely jealous of Eli's surplus school birthday soft pretzels). Maybe part of the reason for all that urgent gumming - the doctor says Opal is officially teething! Little pits are visible on her gums on the bottom where the teeth are eventually going to bust out. <br />
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The best of all is seeing Opal interact with her brothers. Wolfie is especially nice with her, from the self-slapdancing he does to entertain her to holding her and letting her eat his hair, but she loves watching all of them. And when the boys start bouncing off the walls, she's beginning to add her own squealing vocals to the mix! Yeah, I know, remind me of how cute I thought it was next year when she's toddler screaming along with her crazy brothers! All in all, though, she's my Nuggetina Ocarina of love!Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-52303722518697717392013-06-18T09:40:00.001-07:002013-06-18T14:40:56.575-07:00June happenin'sSo Opal had her first plane trip to Oregon,<br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">A photo of one of the eighteen seconds Mommy and Opal got to spend with groomsman Daddy at the wedding</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">One of the other eighteen seconds, aw smoosh</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">What you see when you look up "ideal baby girl."</span></em></div>
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and now we're back!<br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">See ya later, Mt. Hood</span></em></div>
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She was good on the first three planes, cranky and crying for a good chunk of the fourth plane, which was fortunately the last and shortest leg of the trip. But boy, did she require a lot of jostling and amusement, and girlfriend barely slept at all. Between all that aviatory exercise and not eating six pound breakfasts plus ten pound dinners plus hitting up the old-timey M&M dispenser for the first time ever while visiting Oregon due to dietary restrictions, I actually managed to lose a pound and a half while I was gone, even though I did eat a ton of chips the one time we went out for Salem must-have Mexican. (I'll put up more pics of Oregon later this month on Facebook of course. I'm trying to figure out how to keep a blog but not be redundant with pictures now that I'm posting pics of all the kids over on the ol' FB profile too).</div>
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So it's been me and two three and four here for the past week now. Things can be a lot easier with Wolfie keeping Zeb out of my hair all day, but I have to remember Wolfie is five and half the time he's throwing his shirt up in the air and spazzing the sheets off all the beds in the house while babbling nonsense about peeing or butts or whatever. I also have to remember to try to keep up with the good work he was doing in school. He was asking for blank flags of the world to color in like he was in class, and so far he's done Central African Republic but declared Tibet too hard after begging for it.</div>
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All the boys were really impressive on Father's Day when we went for a walk to the school playground and played a game of state trivia using the giant USA map that's painted on the ground near the kindergarten playground. We called out state names and Eli and Wolfie raced each other to the correct state on the map. Then when we were done with just calling out names, we started throwing out trivia questions, like "This is the state where Aunt Sally and Aunt Lizzy went to college" or "This state is home to the Grand Canyon." They pretty much immediately knew every single state, even though they weren't labeled or anything. Zeb even knew a bunch of them. I think that's really something special. I'm pretty sure I only recently as an adult figured out how to identify the inland states based on shape and location alone. </div>
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We actually mostly celebrated Father's Day the night before at Cheesecake Factory since Dad went to the US Open on Father's Day proper. I think it was my first time back at the ol' Factory since my ritual night before C-section gorging session back in December. Of course this time I had to thoroughly research the menu ahead of time and bring a post it with the five or six things I could actually eat, but it was still a really good time. Zeb passed out on his worshipful aunt's arm,</div>
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probably foreshadowing his assumption of the "dude who passes out every night at dinner on the ship" role on the Alaska cruise next month, a role previously played with great success by Wolfie on the New England cruise of October 2011:</div>
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On Father's Day itself, besides the traditional Giving of the Ties and the trip to the playground, we finally introduced Opal to solid food. Well, overly boob milky rice cereal. She's been jealously watching us eat for months, and recently started making Popeye-like faces while gumming the air, which is baby face language for "put some food in my belly!" She liked the cereal okay on Sunday, but it mostly dribbled down her face while she grabbed the spoon handle. </div>
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But last night we made it a lot thicker, which she seemed to really enjoy. I guess she was like "forget this dribble, I want real mush!" Also Nic started playing the computer game I gave him for his birthday (Bioshock Infinite). It's a good one to spectate (while the boys are sleeping or busy of course), which is always the best way for a game to actually get played in this house. Not so good - the Voodoo Donut bacon maple flavored beer by Rogue Brewery that we brought back from Oregon that we drank while Nic played. Tasted like the smoked pig ears my dogs used to chew growing up, and Nic says he was burping it up well into the next day at work. Yum.</div>
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In other Zeb news, his grimey orange dog-like teeth necessitated an early trip to the dentist. His first appointment was pre-Oregon at our regular dentist, but Mr. Stereotypical Toddler was far too "busy" to sit still long enough for our dude to be able to get in there and do the deed. So we had to make another appointment at the circus-like office of a pediatric dentist last week, where Nic says he did fine until the necessary scraping part at the end, where they gave the option of giving him knock out juice, but Nic opted for a good old fashioned holding him down while he screams bloody murder. This caused him to throw out his arms and scream out a classic gem on the way home - "It's a STINKY WORLD!" Stinky, of course, being Zeb's recent favorite negative adjective to apply to any situation - "This show is stinky!" "You're stinky, mama!" Of course, his even newer toddler rage phrase, acquired while we were in Oregon as far as I can tell, is "You're fired!" As in, dropping to the floor in the middle of a tantrum, then pointing at the offending parent and screaming "You're fired, Daddy!" His extremely silly haircut and puffy little face make him scarily Trump-like when he does this. Another Zeb gem - he recently noticed and became fascinated with the mole on my forehead. He likes pointing it out, touching it, and remarking on its circularity.</div>
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Tomorrow is Eli's eighth birthday. Eight years ago today at this time I was in a ton of pain, about 24 hours and halfway through a failed induction. I tried to tell Eli that this morning, but he made a point of ignoring me and saying in a typically surly fashion "I'm not obsessed with baby stuff!"</div>
Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-36798631225643236992013-06-06T06:56:00.000-07:002013-06-06T06:57:49.727-07:00Beautiful birthday family albumWell, since I've been so remiss at posting lately and since I'm leaving in a couple of hours here with Nic to take Opal on her very first plane ride on a trip to Oregon to see one of Nic's old best friends get married, yet I have some pics that need urgent posting on here, I'm just going to leave the following "notes about cute kid stuff going on for me to write about when I get a minute to myself on the computer" pretty much unedited:<br />
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Wolfie holding Opal and saying "It looks like I'm going to the dentist," Wolfie saying "when I wanted a baby boy we had a baby boy, when I wanted a baby girl we had one" and him saying he wants twenty kids total in the family and another girl next, Opal grabbing poopie diaper during changing, Wolfie's wild shopping outfit old man suit while helping me find dress with Aunt Lizzy, Eli in the car line making me laugh hysterically by saying "what are those two legit moms doing?", naughty zeb dumping his full cereal bowl in the running dishwasher, Opal being close to sitting and scoot propelling herself and smiling at gpt<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ1diIHs9jKD-snPZYASgiC0e7fUVV2e0AaeFsl49GcaYMd8Vu6prxD3Hv9Ee-q5kVGdvEBqJlIvrH31RPTcOtjIsZYhPj-Lt7tCCpw_zjToA4-rMCOXAtq8Ci5sPjs8iyAnX1weW6Z_3d/s1600/woogsuit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ1diIHs9jKD-snPZYASgiC0e7fUVV2e0AaeFsl49GcaYMd8Vu6prxD3Hv9Ee-q5kVGdvEBqJlIvrH31RPTcOtjIsZYhPj-Lt7tCCpw_zjToA4-rMCOXAtq8Ci5sPjs8iyAnX1weW6Z_3d/s320/woogsuit.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bet you can't tell what this one refers to.</span></em></div>
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I do have to mention in non-notespeak that today is Wolfie's last day at his preschool, which of course is breaking his teacher's heart because she tells him literally every day he's her best student. I don't think it's an exaggeration, either. Mom told me that a few days ago when she picked him up, another student's mom came up and asked her what program Wolfie's parents used to get him to read so well. The answer, of course, is fart humor and booty dancing and a self-selected steady diet of his own boogers, I mean, Wolfie's natural intelligence. I don't want to think about this being our last time at our preschool we've been at since Eli too much or my tear ducts might explode. <br />
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Won't we send the youngest two, you ask? Well, as many of you know, we're trying to move out of the area this summer. We thought the destination would be in place by now, but it's been a little more challenging this time around. It doesn't matter for this school, because we aren't sending Zeb to school until the 2014-2015 school year anyway and I'm sure we'll be out of this area by then, but I do feel more than a little sheepish when it's still not 100% set that this summer move is happening but I hear about how Wolfie and the teacher talk like every day about him moving and then yesterday he comes home with a card saying "We'll Miss You Wolfie!" signed by all the kids in the class. I mean, he's graduating anyway, but that's not what the card meant. Gotta get these plans set already!!!!<br />
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Eli had his first grade spring show yesterday, which birthday boy Nic came home early for. The theme was "Bugz" (almost typed "Butz," which is of course our daily life theme here), boys were army ants, girls were lady bugs. He was nervous but smiley and proud:<br />
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We went to Rita's for water ice/gelati afterwards. The boys had birthday cake cream ice with custard (aka a gelati). I was surprised I was able to convince Woog to try ice, and he liked it, but Nic had to finish his. They smelled wonderfully cupcakey, but me and my dairy-fearing-but-31-pounds-so-far-weight-loss-inducing diet couldn't partake (Woog gets his fruit flavor loathing from me; I'm a cream ice and gelati girl all the way). Then we went to Pumpernick's Deli for Nic's birthday and got the same waitress we had on Mother's Day (gotta repeat these restaurants to go to wherever has my delightful dry turkey clubs on rye or the other two things I'm allowed to eat for dinner). This time I did get the whitefish appetizer as well, so at least I changed it up a little. Nic got double cake (chocolate at the restaurant and carrot at home) and shared with the boys, so we had two near-barf whine balloon gut boys last night, yet miraculously no beds full of ralph. <br />
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And now, my raison d'blog this morning - the hideous head photo shoot. I took this ridiculous picture of Zeb making one of his favorite awful photo faces:<br />
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Which reminded me that photos shot up close and from below are hideous and terrifying, so we took the following gorgeous family shots:<br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Beauty muppet</span></em></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAnQimq5I7IMnH98fuIDy-gfvPMyMq1jMhAO8Ol58pg6lFyF2QEF1EgcYsGaFKXBLQrp-j7tFi7kNKo9gmv7Ykf6sasDFu2GCNDnXqjyLN7B-tTMKlOxCsCv0_zCBcsLdD04U3_IFMsrSj/s1600/066.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAnQimq5I7IMnH98fuIDy-gfvPMyMq1jMhAO8Ol58pg6lFyF2QEF1EgcYsGaFKXBLQrp-j7tFi7kNKo9gmv7Ykf6sasDFu2GCNDnXqjyLN7B-tTMKlOxCsCv0_zCBcsLdD04U3_IFMsrSj/s320/066.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">I'm the naked warning lady from the Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark book!</span></em></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKQRwbnFrqt6_2lJ6Ihkht49tcJ6amA-25YjXhaNZAkf_Rye6OJ6WzQvnJk9RMbs2ip1PgRDeH-eZQ4T71BYRuxA0TvoWHFxxRAtEjjV8xUB6RfmK8uFhxZ_R8JwZQzuA8oPCLvvY2ynzc/s1600/067.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKQRwbnFrqt6_2lJ6Ihkht49tcJ6amA-25YjXhaNZAkf_Rye6OJ6WzQvnJk9RMbs2ip1PgRDeH-eZQ4T71BYRuxA0TvoWHFxxRAtEjjV8xUB6RfmK8uFhxZ_R8JwZQzuA8oPCLvvY2ynzc/s320/067.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Rotted out eyes on a sick dog</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Turtle man!</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Dental champion</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Lookin' gorgeous</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Aliens could land in this Neanderthal's beard</span></em></div>
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Opal was asleep upstairs and thus did not join in the highly attractive fun. Aunt Sally needs to be added to the roster as her muppetyness is sure to work well with the medium.</div>
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Gotta get ready to jet with this pretty lady, wish us bon voyage!<br />
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Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-91756244235976518652013-05-22T16:35:00.001-07:002013-05-22T16:35:21.624-07:00Opal 19 - 22 weeks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSh1TmQGMTui4hOOHxtyX_NwyxMjNWVX_mJ9qdP92zGYj3toof-bzZstecVKddfScFWHOg8p56QAHNvn3NX5c7qBV9LgNT7t-uGTUavkfuTmvJ0ypaGpYjuw_dIz-b9gNSBrHiX1v63YUN/s1600/April+2013+(386).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSh1TmQGMTui4hOOHxtyX_NwyxMjNWVX_mJ9qdP92zGYj3toof-bzZstecVKddfScFWHOg8p56QAHNvn3NX5c7qBV9LgNT7t-uGTUavkfuTmvJ0ypaGpYjuw_dIz-b9gNSBrHiX1v63YUN/s320/April+2013+(386).JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Opal is a pretty jolly lady for the most part these days. Sure, she was having some grouchy times around the 19 week mark, as you can see from the picture above, and she's been waking up a ton at night this week because she's got a cold (Sunday night she woke up every hour, oy!), but during the day as long as she's being entertained she's a pretty happy camper. And why wouldn't she be, living in this crazy silly brother family zoo? The only thing that would make her happier is some solid food. Soon, tiny lady, soon!</div>
Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-60595510531672056252013-05-17T09:01:00.002-07:002013-05-17T19:01:33.140-07:00Namers and suchWhen I was a kid, I remember how much I loved naming things. From toys to pets to flour babies (where are you Oliver Otis, my secretly-exchanged-for-a-store-bought-flour-sack-because-I-got-unhealthily-attached-to-you-and-your-little-cut-out-magazine-ad-babyface flour son?), naming was one of my favorite parts of playing. But maybe it's more of a girl thing to like naming stuff, because Eli has never been interested, and Wolfie's creativity, when called upon, is limited to an eye-spy type mentality, like Building or Window or Lightswitch, said in Wolfie's "crazy eye" voice which signals that he's about to either smack himself repeatedly in the head or throw something up into the air that definitely should not be thrown into the air. <br />
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In Zeb, though, I think we've finally got a namer. There's this giant bear Nic got me for Valentine's Day at a drugstore senior year of college. After a brief but intense romantic relationship with Brumby, it's mostly just hung out as part of the nameless hoard of stuffed animals hanging precariously in the net above the diaper changing table, occasionally descending with the other animals for one of their only two functions thus-far in this household - to either get thrown around by a bunch of manic giggling little boys about to make each other squealingly cry, or to get hilariously piled into the crib while whatever kid is currently sleeping there jumps up and down, happy at first then distressed. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Option two, part one - Wolfie</em></span></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Option two, part two- Zeb, with the bear in question being sleazed on by Eli</span></em></div>
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But all these years it has remained nameless. Finally, this week, I randomly asked Zeb what its name was, and after a few moments of careful deliberation, he came up with a true original - Jhajha! Here are Zeb and Jhajha hanging out shortly after the naming:<br />
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I think Zeb might be the most imaginative one so far. I mean, Eli can think of some crazy stuff and he gets very creative with the Legos, and Wolfie is certainly very bright and can make all sorts of genius connections and questions and scenarios, but Zeb is the first one to do really imaginative play, complete with characters and their little voices. It will be neat to see how that plays out as he gets older. Real emerging human personalities!<br />
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In the Woog file, that guy is so thoughtful. My grandma slipped on ice cream at the mall on Cinco de Mayo, broke her femur, had to have surgery to fix it, and has been in rehab since (she's supposed to come home next week). It's a terrible situation, and my mom has been over helping my grandpa out a lot. Anyway, without even being asked, Wolfie randomly decides to draw multiple get-well cards for "GG" (great-grandma). How sweet is he? Then there's the times where he picks all the gross hairs and pubes out of the drain during his bath and puts them in a little cup and calls it his "official hair collection." Just in case you thought he was made of pure spun sugar and golden dreams.<br />
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And don't forget the continued whining about dinner. Wolfie is starting to revolt against all dinners but mac and cheese, as I think I mentioned before. The full-on sobbing he did over the spaghetti with meat sauce this week would have made you think the meat was carved from his first pet or something. And oh my gosh, the outrage lately at our weekly beans and rice. Zeb still crams it down (though even he this week was like "where's mah mac and cheez?" all whinily), but Wolfie and Eli treat it like torture. Eli, the most vocal anti-bean lobbyist, actually wasn't so bad this week after I bribed him with a cup of my coconut milk. "It tastes like all the tropical fruits and our vacation to Hawaii!" I don't mind sharing my overpriced allergen-free nasty vittles when at least someone can respond like that. The only thing better was Wolfie's review of the chocolate gluten-free-egg-free-dairy-free chocolate cookies when he first tasted one: "This is the best thing I've tasted in my whole life!" With a review like that, why the heck did they yank them out of stores two weeks later?!<br />
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Opal, meanwhile, would probably love to join our dinners. She's really starting to try to grab everything and cram it into her spitty little gob. The baby fists are almost always covered in slobber. <br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Where's my pastrami sandwich, you guys?</span></em></div>
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I know she's ready for rice cereal (if not deli meat), but what with her gut issues, I think we're going to wait until next month. As for now, I think I'll continue to enjoy the ease of a purely boob-fed baby.</div>
Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-24396665441180232432013-05-07T16:56:00.001-07:002013-05-07T16:57:18.277-07:00Not more twirling!Yesterday I noticed Opal doing something ominous - while nursing, she was scrape-patting the back of her baby-fuzzed head with her fingers. This is what Zeb did back in his nursing days, which of course evolved into the dreaded twirling once his hair got long enough. At first it was just while drinking milk bottles, so an obvious transition from nursing self-stroking soothing. But now, as you faithful readers all well know, he does it all the time. Until recently we'd just been jokingly speculating that he'd get a bald spot, but this weekend Lizzy spotted an actual nascent bare patch at the back of his poor toddler head. I think we're really going to have to cut his hair relatively short ahead of schedule.<br />
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But Opal's a lady baby, we can't have her twirling her way into a preventative crew cut! It's weird because Eli and Wolfie never soothed themselves with their own hair. Eli always stroked my hair while nursing (we used to have a song about how Eli loves his mommy's hair). Wolfie I vaguely remember being a boob slapper. Now that I think about it, I think the whole pre-twirling stroking thing started with Zeb after he became way too violent with my hair, tugging it aggressively like the little baby ogre he was and is. That led to me defensively adopting the now-infamous "babyami" hairstyle (named for what Lizzy's friends call the uncooked middle part that poops out of a fire-toasted marshmallow when you remove the stick):<br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">To think I was once embarrassed to leave the house like this</span></em></div>
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It eventually evolved from the unicorn turd on my forehead to a slightly-less-ridiculous mid-head bun, which is how I often wear it today. It has many advantages - keeps my hair from strangling me when it gets really long, keeps me from worrying about if my hair is brushed or clean or full of food, and also, when you take it down after sleeping in it, it usually looks something like this, which is very thrilling for a girl with fine stick-straight hair:</div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">and crazy eyes.</span></em></div>
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Now I realize that taking away the comfort blanket that is my hair by wearing it up all the time might be what is causing my children to start ripping out their own hair. So I guess I'm going to have to start wearing my hair down more so Opal doesn't turn into a trichotillomaniac like poor little Zeb.</div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">It's cool, you guys, I just want to rip out all YOUR hair, mommy!</span></em></div>
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In other Opal news, I've noticed she's starting to look a little less like Wolfie and more and more like Daddy, and a little like Eli as a baby, too. I really was struck by how much she looked like pictures of Nic as a kid when she was sleeping the other day. Something about her ears, I think.</div>
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In Wolfie news, Wolfie finally took his "terrarium" in to school today. Terrarium of course meaning an unrinsed empty jug of bubble soap filled with gross bugs and dirt from the backyard. I made sure to ask the teacher because, come on, but she loves Woog and thinks everything he does is sheer golden genius, so of course it wasn't a problem. I can't believe some of the bugs are still moving around in there after nearly a week in that soapy prison. Good job Wolfie picking out the right leaves maybe? </div>
Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-48489204250009408432013-05-07T16:21:00.001-07:002013-05-07T16:21:19.568-07:00Cinco de Mayo "fun"Oh stomach viruses. Just when you think they're finally out of the incubation range and whoever didn't get it is safe, boom, Zeb barfs all over the place. "I barf Teddybear's hand!" - direct gleeful quote about Sunday's projectile episode. Nic and I were about to pull out of the driveway with Opal, on our way to take a walk at some unexplored area park Nic found and have a Cinco de Mayo drink with Lizzy at Cantina Feliz, and Grandpa Teddy had just taken Zeb inside for his nap after hours of playing, when Grandpa Teddy comes racing outside yelling "Zeb just puked all over me!" There were actually several positives to the situation - Zeb managed to empty his gullet in the dining room on a wood floor instead of the carpeted upstairs floors or the rug in the living room, and he didn't hit any of the baby gear crowded into the corners of the room; the barf mostly got all over my dad who was of course wearing his customary seventeen layers of clothing despite the warm weather; and Zeb wasn't upset and seemed totally fine afterwards. In fact, he hasn't shown another sign of sickness since. Of course, Wolfie, the only other one to experience this illness as barfing, had two and a half days between his two episodes of puking, so I'm still on high alert.<br />
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The attempt at Cinco de Mayo drinks gets a grade of D-. It wasn't a total failure because I did get to ingest my coveted margarita, as did Nic, but Opal was terrified of the restaurant for some reason. So I had my drink with Lizzy first, then went outside to check on Nic and Opal and found that she'd been screaming the whole time. So I nursed her in the car for twenty minutes while Nic had his drink, then attempted to re-enter the restaurant with the now-calmed baby Opal, only to have her start screaming bloody murder as soon as we passed the hostess's stand. Oh well. We have the ingredients for margaritas at home now. I made Nic get actual Cointreau and whatnot instead of the mix, so we'll have to redo Cinco de Mayo this Qdoba Friday. <br />
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Before all that, I took Wolfie to a party at Bounce U Sunday morning. Due to pregnancy then the newborn period, most of this school year it's been my parents taking the kids to parties. But recently I've started resuming party-schlepping duties. Wolfie's interesting to watch at these affairs. He enjoys all of the activities with gusto, but he's kind of reserved with the other kids. He's not antisocial because he definitely talks to the other kids and they talk to him, but it's like he's just having his own good time. The dude is getting difficult about food, though. He rejected the pizza for having too much sauce. In fact, he's actually not all that into pizza period these days. A lot of nights he ends up whining no matter what we're eating, unless it's mac and cheese. I'm starting to worry he's going to end up on an episode of "Freaky Eaters" a dozen years or so down the line.<br />
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While we were out at the party, Eli took it upon himself to go spelunking in the cave of costume storage that is his crawlspace. Which is how this happened:<br />
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He also found a cache of my old college-favorite insane platform shoes. "Which costume do these shoes go to?" he asked over and over, holding my beautiful forgotten sculptural wooden platforms and my KISS-like kneehigh six inch platform boots that I somehow used to wear while biking around cracked-sidewalk New Orleans. I don't know about the boots, but the wooden ones I'm vowing to rehabilitate (the tops aren't in the best shape) and reincorporate as I get out of my pajama-wearing shut-in lifestyle and back into living in the outside big person world.Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-71743766859375104252013-05-03T18:42:00.002-07:002013-05-04T09:03:32.339-07:00Hangin' out with EliThe past two weeks have been mostly full of enjoying the beautiful spring weather, trying to plan for the future, and fighting a mild but persistent stomach bug. Plus drag queens and a visit from Uncle Andy!<br />
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Two weeks ago we took Eli out on an overdue special "date." I know you're supposed to do that sort of thing pre-baby, but what with Opal being born during the already-birthday-crammed holiday season, it was too hectic by the time it occurred to us to do that. So we took our video game addict to Dave and Buster's in Plymouth Meeting. On the way there, we stopped for some root beer float flavored gum for snack-forbidden Mommy, which I shared with Eli in an effort to make him feel like more of a grownup. Later I realized the gum had expired around last Christmas, but eh, such is weird-flavored gum at a gas station. Daddy (oh, excuse me, "Dad" is what Eli calls him now) and Eli started off with a creepy abandoned themepark full of clowns shoot 'em up:<br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Did you know clowns can be cannibalistic mermen?</span></em></div>
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followed by various racing games. Check out Eli's ID pic, featuring baby sister:</div>
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He played a ton of other games, included a heated air hockey match with yours truly, then finished up with some good old fashioned skeeball, purchased a Dave and Buster's mug with the ticket winnings, and then had his first-ever Blizzard from DQ (mint oreo):</div>
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Afterwards, since we were in the area and Eli asked, we decided to pop in at the hotel where Nic and I got married. Despite new management and over eight years, still looks the same!</div>
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The next day was Earth Day, which at Eli's school means "recycled hat parade." This translates to making a hat out of garbage. Eli went with a robotic theme:</div>
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He said it was the "second biggest," which was of course important to him. Then this thing sat on the floor in the dining room then the living room for about ten days, after which Zeb decided to rip off the tube on top and peel off the foil, forcing us to actually recycle it. The hoarder in me, which is mostly activated by kid-related stuff, felt guilty about it, but really come on - isn't the ultimate destiny and purpose of the recycled material hat to end up being recycled?</div>
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So Eli was home sick with a stomach bug most of this week. Wolfie had it last week in that he barfed once on Monday then played and scampered and acted fine all the way up until Thursday when he barfed again at 4AM. Then he ate and acted fine once again. So we weren't even sure what was going on until I got it Monday and Eli got it Tuesday, but we didn't barf if you know what I mean. Thankfully it's a pretty mild bug. Wolfie's the family barfer in that if his stomach is even slightly messed up, he'll probably spew. It's actually almost a BBQ tradition at our house that Wolfie barfs by the end of the night. </div>
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I think if I hadn't been up way late Saturday night at a club in the city watching my favorite drag queens from RuPaul's Drag Race (team Alaska, woot!) with Jyl and Sally then I might not have gotten sick at all. I think I'm just not made for staying out late. Too often it destroys me for like a week at a time (Sally's birthday party a few years ago). I'd say it's because I rarely do it and I'm getting old, but back in college I remember long stretches of time where I'd be sick and I wouldn't go out because I knew it would make me sick indefinitely. Beforehand I was anxious and guilty about leaving Opal at bedtime for the first time, and afterwards I felt guilty that I was so tired and wrecked for Uncle Andy's visit. But the show itself was soooooooooo much fun.</div>
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Anyway, I think Eli is like I was as a kid in that being sick enough with a virus to stay home from school makes him act a lot sweeter. Not that he was all laid up, either, just spending a lot of time on the can quietly contemplating if his guts would ever be back to normal. He's really quite a nice funny character of a kid, and I'm enjoying seeing him grow up and become a real actual person. Look at this guy:</div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">LATFH</span></em></div>
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Oh yeah, last weekend he also finally got to do his volcano from Xmas. I was really impressed with the paint job he did, pretty much exactly what you'd want from a stereotypical baking soda vinegar volcano dealy. We all gathered round in the backyard to make it erupt:</div>
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More updates on the other kids later!<br />
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Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-76727331839121992242013-04-19T18:54:00.000-07:002013-04-19T19:00:25.134-07:00Opal 15-18 weeks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG68qNSJbQuesm1bAsjY7bHErDEmOHoFuf7eWQaQ_3CUlbqcGje93eYKm89kuRWtVqMbKwcdVzhe9JYxkZXzVlE5BxmBJA2pZDUFO95dsNCXYW6MabfZzdmml0kQw_oENm8G9g4ukTQQv4/s1600/3-2013+(365).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG68qNSJbQuesm1bAsjY7bHErDEmOHoFuf7eWQaQ_3CUlbqcGje93eYKm89kuRWtVqMbKwcdVzhe9JYxkZXzVlE5BxmBJA2pZDUFO95dsNCXYW6MabfZzdmml0kQw_oENm8G9g4ukTQQv4/s320/3-2013+(365).JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">She still likes swaddle sacks and mitty pajamas</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hi there smiley Woogalina!</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">My stripey baby girl Buddha</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Bustin' out the unicorn Robeez for the first time - a bit too big yet, but the swan onesie is just right!</span></em></div>
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Someone is entering the baby golden days! While breaking Mommy's arm from demanding to be constantly held! I do have to admit, though, that while I complain about never getting a rest and having most of my meals spiced with desparate baby whining, most of me feels happy and honored and special that this sweet moogie oogie is so attached to me! <br />
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I'm trying to figure out whether her eyes are going to stay blue. Based on looking back at her brothers' pictures at this age, the two bigs had definitely started to turn brown by this age. Blue-eyed Zeb's eyes were a little darker than hers but also bluer. Her's are starting to get very light in the middle, even lighter than Zeb's were at this age, but they're kinda more gray than blue. When she was born she was so dark and hairy I thought, there's no way this kid is going to have blue eyes. Now as they've been getting lighter I've started to get attached to the idea that they'll be blue. But our pediatrician keeps making cryptic comments about her eyes that make me think she thinks they're going to be light brown or hazel. I wonder, do we have our first hazel-eyed kid, what with Daddy having hazel eyes? Meh, I still hope they turn out blue!</div>
Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-76236549359126925702013-04-17T17:47:00.001-07:002013-04-17T17:47:24.237-07:00Hasta luego, snack in a bagToday was a very sad day for me and Wolfie. A day of disappointment and unrealized dreams. <br />
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Shortly after I resumed schlepping to school duties last month, with all the trees and shrubs still winter bare, I noticed something gross in a long row of bushes across the street from the horse farm on Butler Pike. It was a large ziploc bag, stuffed with a mysterious orange snack-based substance and hanging pregnantly from one of the bare branches. I can't remember the first time I saw it. Perhaps I commented to Woog, perhaps not. <br />
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But as the days passed and still the snack remained, I usually tried to point it out. I could never figure out what, exactly, was in the bag. First I thought it was Cheez Its, then Apple Jacks, then maybe Doritos or something. Whatever it was, it captured Wolfie's imagination, much like a cup in a tree at the Broad Axe intersection did a few years ago when Eli was still going to preschool. Yet he never managed to actually spot it. I always pointed it out too late, forgetting until the last second that the bushes were approaching.<br />
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So today, after a few days of not thinking about it, I said to Wolfie as soon as we set out "today you're going to see that snack in a bag in a dead old bush!" So I concentrated on getting my bearings long before getting into the proximity of the bush, and he was primed and ready to see that rotten old snack in a bag. Sadly, though, we discovered the bushes in full leaf and the snack in a bag long gone and, as far as I can tell, unseen by Woogish eyes.<br />
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A song for the snack in a bag, sung to the tune of Zeb-favorite <em>Frosty the Snowman:</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em>Snacky the bag</em><br />
<em>Was a plastic bag of food</em><br />
<em>And it hung there in that dead old bush</em><br />
<em>Until someone had it removed</em><br />
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<em>There must have been some rotten food</em><br />
<em>In that gross bag that we found</em><br />
<em>'Cuz when we ate up that old snack</em><br />
<em>We barfed it back up on the ground</em><br />
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And that's what I do with my days.Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-68565013982894723562013-04-16T16:28:00.001-07:002013-04-16T17:10:41.364-07:00Springtime idyllsAutumn and spring are obviously the best seasons for enjoying the outdoors (if your enjoyment is based solely on comfortable temperatures and tree and shrubbery displays like mine is, not like some seasonal sport or something), but around here these between seasons can be totally unpredictable and sometimes practically non-existant. Autumn starts late most years. Sometimes there's none of it at all in September and it can switch back and forth during October to the point where the spring flowers get confused and come out. But it always eventually starts and looks like itself with the crisp air and colorful leaves. <br />
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Spring, though, is much less reliable. Usually it spends the first quarter being winter, the last quarter being summer, and the time in between changing between the two while raining. Actual pleasantly warm sunny spring days in the sixties and low seventies are so random that when they actually happen, you feel like a chump if you don't get outside and enjoy it for as long as possible.<br />
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This weekend was a gorgeous spring weekend. The weather was great and the the flowering trees are really taking off. Didn't get enough of my to-do list done but better than that, spent plenty of time outside. Saturday we took a walk to the "Whole Foods Playground" (a nearby park so named because the green and brown colors reminded Eli of the Whole Foods logo). Here are all my peeps in front of a neighbor's forsythia bush:<br />
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Gettin friggity fresh with it on the corner:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifMSJv40mSdbQW7J-gP7gLZc4nb1q3an28dxIGmFjrV_RKR3ldz8yIboNN302V1W0OGUNDu3weymWqP28F_OCxZ8nG5U6iwcqAbqtxuhTVF_GUdmo99abXrpMfcZH-5QYWhMg8el-w2zTB/s1600/064.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifMSJv40mSdbQW7J-gP7gLZc4nb1q3an28dxIGmFjrV_RKR3ldz8yIboNN302V1W0OGUNDu3weymWqP28F_OCxZ8nG5U6iwcqAbqtxuhTVF_GUdmo99abXrpMfcZH-5QYWhMg8el-w2zTB/s320/064.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Then once we got to the actual playground, we were only there a short time before tiny Miss Rumbleguts pooped all out her tutu all over my lap. Not very ladylike! Here we are under a tree secretly covered in liquid dookie, on my way to walking home with her:<br />
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The next day I woke up and said (okay, whined) "Why can't we ever randomly do something fun?!" Nic said what about the zoo since we are members, but uch, between the guaranteed two hours of sitting in traffic on 76 and then finding parking on a gorgeous weekend day, and also I think the new children's zoo opened that weekend. It was probably like Mardi Gras in the quarter, but with slighly less of a vomitty odor in the air. Then I called Sally who randomly had an awesome idea - meeting up at the Grounds for Sculpture in Trenton: <a href="http://www.groundsforsculpture.org/">http://www.groundsforsculpture.org/</a>. Way easier to get to, and way cooler too. It was like walking through someone's creepy dreams, but with more peacocks! It took a little while to finally find Sally and Leo after we got there. While we were waiting, the boys climbed all over these rusty circle things:<br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Mmmm, tetanus.</span></em></div>
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Then Zeb picked up a petrified dog turd to show me, and I only got mildly freaked out, good job me. The kids climbed around some more:</div>
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and Nic tried calling Sally:</div>
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but we still couldn't find each other. So we stood around a little bit:<br />
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then Eli found an innocent lady enjoying the sunshine and decided to wreck her day:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSAO-aCzxwRBLGv4GfmQFjAubY10nq4OZet1ipRirKAT7qN-qgOwEH9dblvzeNVNEvbpzAtsu5i79GTfQSoZCprUFhTOZQypeYjmlecIjD95sbY4213nqO7wfUWfSAGCpBGkqwxbYx22c0/s1600/100.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSAO-aCzxwRBLGv4GfmQFjAubY10nq4OZet1ipRirKAT7qN-qgOwEH9dblvzeNVNEvbpzAtsu5i79GTfQSoZCprUFhTOZQypeYjmlecIjD95sbY4213nqO7wfUWfSAGCpBGkqwxbYx22c0/s320/100.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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The middles found one of the peacocks nearby. I love peacocks. I might no longer be the animal-crazy girl I was back in the day when I had the dogs and the cat and the parrot and the lizard and the rats etc and dreamed of someday owning goats and exotic livestock, but if and when we someday have a big house with some land, I definitely want some peacocks wandering the grounds. They seem pretty low-maintanence. Nic, take note - peacocks! Anyway, the peacock let Wolfie and Zeb get unbelievably close:</div>
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Then, after more waiting:<br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Where are you, Aunt Sally?</span></em></div>
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Sally popped up!<br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Blah!</span></em></div>
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And Leo, of course:</div>
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Together, we wandered through the Forest of the Subconscious:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVuuFNEXPqVLGOo2uWNAtxBhDz5awzx6cH7Vf-rTl6Jim_1CLqyUaGAGnDYvKcuPjXMlpGwy8F1qvw3rb4DGL-W3P-9MG6f3RGyOI82GepsvULwtKqs6I4onlvDvBI5iEqAzFeq5aHlTG0/s1600/sculpsha+(18).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVuuFNEXPqVLGOo2uWNAtxBhDz5awzx6cH7Vf-rTl6Jim_1CLqyUaGAGnDYvKcuPjXMlpGwy8F1qvw3rb4DGL-W3P-9MG6f3RGyOI82GepsvULwtKqs6I4onlvDvBI5iEqAzFeq5aHlTG0/s320/sculpsha+(18).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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which ended in a box Sally described as being ripped straight from her own dreams:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLErMcfCLryWK1N5O88GC2Eocjm0VjYtyDg2lTopr9lj4fBs874masNOAfT7XfiYKNKjVji2K4qbxJa2JXz_npPXm8IsuQRnbLaLINhafUK0ldjkG__qzwmfQLf_devcq5vRjFjAdeHP2f/s1600/sculpsha+(12).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLErMcfCLryWK1N5O88GC2Eocjm0VjYtyDg2lTopr9lj4fBs874masNOAfT7XfiYKNKjVji2K4qbxJa2JXz_npPXm8IsuQRnbLaLINhafUK0ldjkG__qzwmfQLf_devcq5vRjFjAdeHP2f/s320/sculpsha+(12).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Zeb suddenly felt less safe around Aunt Sally</span></em></div>
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Zeb found another creep reading a book:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih9rqvGzBfXZraF92a1qY6KcLIhqaq6hyaDzRfisGdfGoG5gNTclsvbxcmbLmOLAJwr8eFyeEU1xVvRMaoKY_ihLdDPLOjre0HsJOCfPAsEYytp6g_FdTKNsRXz7aN9uzqdh60rLfLEav1/s1600/sculpsha+(3).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih9rqvGzBfXZraF92a1qY6KcLIhqaq6hyaDzRfisGdfGoG5gNTclsvbxcmbLmOLAJwr8eFyeEU1xVvRMaoKY_ihLdDPLOjre0HsJOCfPAsEYytp6g_FdTKNsRXz7aN9uzqdh60rLfLEav1/s320/sculpsha+(3).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Famous works of art were contemplated:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihg7m5x9R3Do3fwJGje9RJnMXjld6BhqsUHYodr5dFCvZKuEnnFP17yOlbG1irpr2htEMtuMX0okhMkrNAvHuLnAjiObE-PDNlOjTy6LVEpC_H10udv5xXJBefrT44OR7_eGh7byhGbOct/s1600/sculpsha+(14).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihg7m5x9R3Do3fwJGje9RJnMXjld6BhqsUHYodr5dFCvZKuEnnFP17yOlbG1irpr2htEMtuMX0okhMkrNAvHuLnAjiObE-PDNlOjTy6LVEpC_H10udv5xXJBefrT44OR7_eGh7byhGbOct/s320/sculpsha+(14).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirytKkqQ0SRKunal54jHlHLd6_95IE3cHZhYx8YBbbBy2MCOb49u_2pr8Ns_in7n6QpYYNbLjgtbDnhFnqjOcyU_rez4pWppXa_8zrjr5VI7-3aez2xeyDNKz3JnIIqrvPgDdhOPEOLkMp/s1600/sculpsha+(19).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirytKkqQ0SRKunal54jHlHLd6_95IE3cHZhYx8YBbbBy2MCOb49u_2pr8Ns_in7n6QpYYNbLjgtbDnhFnqjOcyU_rez4pWppXa_8zrjr5VI7-3aez2xeyDNKz3JnIIqrvPgDdhOPEOLkMp/s320/sculpsha+(19).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Perhaps not famous but definitely contemplative</span></em></div>
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We took a rest at a table set with a meal by a pond, but only one of us actually ate:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnG78tfqprHG6ZoSfXzNV4M1Qfy0ZkE7K3x7obZsUPJeY6w7a3u7sZiZ6mK0oilAXQFrOzdWemXc0FRDage3c03FZFPm8Ca2jbGHtkGH-yigzvZPsESE3UpA83a8DyP30fQhi1e29R_B5J/s1600/sculpsha+(29).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnG78tfqprHG6ZoSfXzNV4M1Qfy0ZkE7K3x7obZsUPJeY6w7a3u7sZiZ6mK0oilAXQFrOzdWemXc0FRDage3c03FZFPm8Ca2jbGHtkGH-yigzvZPsESE3UpA83a8DyP30fQhi1e29R_B5J/s320/sculpsha+(29).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdwpMiUvVE-Z4vlNUp-ni3etmzQT52msx8B0Tzrcx-lepoY556vvWuJYdcINgdIW0jZoiqjJOOORV-CW8DOvupfbBz7qJpe16QnNNGGyEN2t1iDuiISl-Tz5O6BuWrl4-6yfwbsupOWeHZ/s1600/157.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdwpMiUvVE-Z4vlNUp-ni3etmzQT52msx8B0Tzrcx-lepoY556vvWuJYdcINgdIW0jZoiqjJOOORV-CW8DOvupfbBz7qJpe16QnNNGGyEN2t1iDuiISl-Tz5O6BuWrl4-6yfwbsupOWeHZ/s320/157.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Full, mommy!</span></em></div>
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Zeb used his ogre skills to find an ogre-licious dinner:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAxCVBbqsmxdTmUBCImB2D5ktP5aD_U7XbwS_rZuU32FCxEsBFic1nnH5ZoMbwtF1Qbt6-E-umDbxhPgta8LP-hRfs2olI-JKhpei0KY4UWR3UuD_ytzDMR5dAOaWMebQ84fcipAgl7b05/s1600/sculpsha+(6).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAxCVBbqsmxdTmUBCImB2D5ktP5aD_U7XbwS_rZuU32FCxEsBFic1nnH5ZoMbwtF1Qbt6-E-umDbxhPgta8LP-hRfs2olI-JKhpei0KY4UWR3UuD_ytzDMR5dAOaWMebQ84fcipAgl7b05/s320/sculpsha+(6).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivanNjGKD-foxdHO9U6zbIQRsxbgTLM6XY_lwSYZSxD24xaBWZFTnO_ZQVCHElrY5mK51sKeVu7Mn7XclS_5TlG2xRNkAH5-XzCHQ9sgTo1Pp9iJLRRfVRNr2Ew__awG0aGemZFAmmsaxc/s1600/153.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivanNjGKD-foxdHO9U6zbIQRsxbgTLM6XY_lwSYZSxD24xaBWZFTnO_ZQVCHElrY5mK51sKeVu7Mn7XclS_5TlG2xRNkAH5-XzCHQ9sgTo1Pp9iJLRRfVRNr2Ew__awG0aGemZFAmmsaxc/s320/153.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Mmmmmmmmmmmmeat!</span></em></div>
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And Aunt Sally continued to disguise her favoritism:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3fhVicoCx4UU_4tIKcXfEu6RP4UpWAg5cF8xbWmg_AoVJoeubusRTNoIPolsvftJn3qYAo-xBisfG1i5dFGrJ6KWG84Y_Jo8AhgseF1CRtkJNXJlCHlVXziXYQZQCZQKWfgaWm-JGkYsU/s1600/167.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3fhVicoCx4UU_4tIKcXfEu6RP4UpWAg5cF8xbWmg_AoVJoeubusRTNoIPolsvftJn3qYAo-xBisfG1i5dFGrJ6KWG84Y_Jo8AhgseF1CRtkJNXJlCHlVXziXYQZQCZQKWfgaWm-JGkYsU/s320/167.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Nope, can't tell who she likes the best at all, especially considering most of the "Zeb POV" shots were actually taken by Aunt Sally</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></em> </div>
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Then we found a poker game that needed another player, and the boys tried to secretly imbibe:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeUc6ceIg7jA3557FayL2lVlZS-f8FLsxEvi7p0hw02wtYLmX3FDI0qQhg98zj2zKFBTWySIN4UO4SaS2-8fKswuZIzOoUpOBqed1Vuqk0UNHLupc9z1ESVLNTtgrdNDvp1_0I0Kne3ln7/s1600/sculpsha+(21).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeUc6ceIg7jA3557FayL2lVlZS-f8FLsxEvi7p0hw02wtYLmX3FDI0qQhg98zj2zKFBTWySIN4UO4SaS2-8fKswuZIzOoUpOBqed1Vuqk0UNHLupc9z1ESVLNTtgrdNDvp1_0I0Kne3ln7/s320/sculpsha+(21).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Right after this Wolfie and I spotted a white peacock, but it disappeared around a corner before Leo could see it. He tried to track it down without success. Then we headed for the parking lot, briefly examining a robot dude on the way:</div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Yes, that is what you think it is</span></em></div>
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Then, mere moments after parting with Sally and Leo and driving away, who did we spot but the elusive white peacock on top of a building!</div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Eeeyoy! (That's what sound peacocks make)</span></em></div>
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We tried calling Sally and Leo to tell them, but they didn't pick up. Dang! Anyway, a great time was had by all, and I'd definitely recommend the place! Gotta go do the steps!<br />
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Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-40885511721461125042013-04-12T11:47:00.000-07:002013-04-12T12:05:34.957-07:00Getting out with the kiddlezNow that spring is here I've been getting out on my own a lot more. And by "on my own," I mean with various cohorts of my offspring, of course. There are several ways to group our kids - the bigs and the littles, the "brackets" and the middles, the evens and the odds (or the Teej-models and the Woog-models since Zeb is relatively Eli-ish and Opal is definitely Wolf-like), and of course the boys and the baby girl. There are also various reasons for breaking them up and taking them out in the aforementioned groups - bigs are easiest for one parent to take into public for medium-length errands (like going to stores other than the grocery store when you pretty much know what you need or doing something big-centric like haircuts or shoe shopping); middles are the best to send off somewhere when we want to/need to do something without kids interrupting; any group not including Zeb is the easiest in the car. Of course I've taken just the baby out plenty by myself, at first mostly just to the doctor or whatever, but lately I've been taking her to the grocery store and out to get food as well. As long as you maintain eye contact at least half the time, she's cool.<br />
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Before this week I hadn't done much with just the littles, though, beyond driving home from dropping off Wolfie at school in the morning. But seeing as how it's going to be just me and the littles at home for most of the day during the week for a good long while since Zeb is still a long way off from preschool, I know I've got to start learning how to get out and get stuff done with the two of them. I mean, I know I can do it. I used to go out with Eli and Wolfie all the time when Wolfie was a baby, and Wolfie and Zeb when Zeb was a baby, too. But Zeb is only two years and one month older than Opal, so it's a little harder than it was with three years apart Wolfie and baby Zeb. And while Eli and Wolfie were only two and a half years apart, I didn't start going out by myself with the two of them until Wolfie was close to six months old and Eli was three since before that we were living in Florida where not only did Nic work way close to home so he was home every day at quarter after four and ate lunch at the apartment with me, we didn't even have a second car so I had to wait for Nic to be home to go anywhere, and then you might as well go together. <br />
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Anyway, point is this time it's a little harder and taking me a little longer. But Monday I took Zeb and Opal out on an errand by myself for the first time. We went to Target, mostly because we needed beans and they're the only ones that carry black beans in the organic BPA-free paranoia brand that I like, but also because it's fun to wander around and I don't think it's possible to not get a bunch of stuff you weren't planning on getting whenever you go there. I got a small bunch of clothes for Opal and Zeb despite saying I'd go through everybody's drawers and weed out the outgrown crap so I'd know what everyone needed before doing that. Opal definitely needs stuff since for some reason even though she's right around the 50th% for size, the month-based sizing in baby clothes is notoriously not grounded in reality. Both littles were surprisingly good. Other than Zeb getting his finger tied into his twirling knot at the back of his head again, it was a great success.<br />
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The next day I took the littles on a walk by myself. I'd done this once before, with Zeb in the crust-Maclaren and Opal strapped to my chest in the Bjorn, and that was quite an aerobics session. It was unseasonaby warm and gorgeous earlier this week (way to go straight from winter to summer again, Philadelphia region), so this time instead of breaking my back with the Bjorn, I decided to take the Bugaboo plus skateboard on a solo mission. I was worried about Zeb trying to make a break for it, but he held on the whole time. Maybe it was just too hot to run away. <br />
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A few days before that, last Sunday actually, I took the bigs shoe shopping since their shoes are all shot. I'm not a fan of the predominately white/gray boy sneaker with lots of complicated piping ugliness that you find at most stores. We favor bold crazy shoes (gosh I wish they still sold those jellybean Vans we got twice a few years ago) or traditional brand man shoes (like Timberlands or Sperry Topsiders) for boys, both categories found at Journeyz Kidz. <br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">One of my all-time favorite Wolfie pics, featuring the jellybean shoes</span></em></div>
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The salesman was a young guy, very "The Situation"esque but without that weird weathered Robert DeNiro thing The Sitch has going on. He was impressed with our willingness to walk on the wild side, or at least acted that way, which was nice. I remember when we bought Wolfie's rainbow leopard vans last year, the salesgirl seemed hesitant to let me buy them. But this guy got it, he actually read my mind from before and said it was like Redfoo style from LMFAO. Not that I'm trying to have my kids emulate that, but it's just an example of ridiculous male rainbow peacockery being stylish. So take that, salesgirl from last year whose opinion I'm only guessing. Anyway, Eli got some crazy colorful skate shoes (thankfully the styles are deflating again after a few years of most of the stock looking like pumped up clown shoes) and Wolfie got blue zebra vans, which I'm semi-regretting since they tend to get beat-up looking fast, but they don't fall apart that fast and anyway it's almost summer and he'll get new shoes in the fall.</div>
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On the way home, we were treated to a rare and always hilarious site - a clown in full costume and makeup driving the car next to us at a stoplight. Actually, I was able to deduce the clown's identity based on her vanity plate, which I thought sounded familiar, and I looked her up online. It's Judy Tudy, the "Mommy Clown!" Whatever the hell that means.</div>
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My suspicions were right - she's been around since I was a kid. Stuff like "Mommy Clowns" and other incredibly dorky toddler-centric stuff is exactly the kind of thing that made me laugh with derision as a kid, so I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that the bigs love to teasingly laugh at Zeb's toddlerhood so much. Poor Zeb, I'm glad at least he's a pleasant-natured gigantor.<br />
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Today it's back to being cold and drizzly, appropriate for mid-April. I kept Woog home from preschool for no reason since it had been quite a while since I'd done that, and he and Zeb have been keeping each other busy. Wolfie has rediscovered the Waldo books he loved during last summer's travels, and they both watched The Little Mermaid while I used the time during Opal's longest non-Mommy-attached nap ever to write this and start writing the long-procrastinated birth story for Miss Four Months Old Today. </div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Pweshuss!</span></em></div>
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Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-47983417253760438012013-04-05T13:14:00.001-07:002013-04-05T14:19:00.392-07:00Quick spring break pics, one week laterI know I've said this a time or two before, but things have been hectic around here! Opal decided to start waking up in the middle of the night again and has been super clingy (she had been reliably napping without me holding her at least once a day for like half an hour, but the past week not so much) so I haven't had time to update. So now that she's sleeping and Zeb is Mickey Mouse Clubhousing, I'll just do a quick couple of words and pics about last week's spring break, otherwise it's going to be summer break before I get another chance!<br />
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The first weekend of spring break, Eli had a birthday party and the middles went to visit Aunt Lizzy at the nature center where she volunteers. It looked like this:<br />
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Then Monday, the first real day of spring break, was a gorgeous sunshiny spring day! Oh wait, no it wasn't:<br />
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">"It's like Cabo up in here!" - nobody ever</span></em></div>
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Legos were played with for hours at a time, pajamas were worn all day every day, and one brother hugged another brother willingly:</div>
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Then Wednesday, after I took Wolfie and Eli to get some overdue haircuts and soft pretzels, Daddy took Mommy and Opal to Annapolis just to get away for the night to somewhere we'd never been. The hotel room had a beautiful bay view:<br />
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And a smooshy little baby squirmer:<br />
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We ate giant soy and dairy free crabcakes (from a Man vs. Food vetted restaurant) in our room and drank some embarassing drinks (iced tea vodka and cherry vodka based) in the jacuzzi. Then the next day we walked around some:<br />
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Then we bought the boys some souveniers and went home. Big boys enjoying those souveniers:<br />
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In fact, Eli brought that moustache to school this week, put it on and called himself "Uncle Eli." I couldn't be prouder.<br />
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It got nicer later in the week, so we took a family walk to the playground. I was feeling guilty about almost never using my "Xmas present" Moby wrap, so instead of putting Opal in the Bugaboo with Zeb on the skateboard, we took Zeb in the crusty old sunscreen-stained Maclaren and I wore Opal in the Moby. Here we are outside the house at the start of the walk, demonstrating how hard it is to get a decent picture of four kids at one time:<br />
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Then once we got to the playground, playground action shots:<br />
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Opal finally but only briefly asleep in the Moby:<br />
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And then Easter happened! Legos and candy were received by the boys. I was limited to Peeps and some grainy gross good storebrand jellybeans (though the Peeps may not be on the menu anymore since after this week's baby poo doc appointment I'm now off eggs and marshmallows sometimes have them). Notice in this shot of the Easter baskets how we still have our sparkly non-denominational winter-themed twig display out due to laziness/preoccupation:<br />
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Of course that's a lot better than many folks in this area who still have wreaths and lights up. One person down the street had a wreath up AND Easter decorations. It's like, why wouldn't you take that opportunity to put the wreath away? Adorable egg hunters:<br />
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Opal and I also visited my friend Amy, who was in town with her adorable toddler daughter and husband and dog visiting her parents for Passover. It was awesome to catch up, especially with her mom who I hadn't seen in forever! And to spend some time with a NICE doggie for a change (sorry Brumby, you know you're the worst). <br />
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And now I've gotta go relieve Grandpa Teddy of stroller rolling duty, as this post has actually taken two breaks to write! In other news, Opal found her toes this week. I'll have to upload those pics another time!Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-59939421816779995272013-03-26T06:12:00.002-07:002013-03-26T06:12:19.499-07:00Opal 11 - 14 weeks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Still exhibiting the newborn "fencing pose"</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Look at that round gumdrop head!</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sweet delicious hands and arms - her favorite treat lately</span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hello jolly!</span></em></div>
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Good thing the days are getting longer, because maybe now we won't keep taking these pictures with the yellowish overhead light on giving a lot of them a weird tint and a looming Daddy shadow. Always keep improving!</div>
Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-11760540327264997372013-03-25T10:50:00.001-07:002013-03-25T10:50:07.910-07:00Spring break, soy veyLast week was kind of hectic. Nic's been having to stay later at work, and I've been trying to exercise more (who needs a gym when you've got two flights of stairs you can go up and down twenty times), so I don't have much time to sit down and write. Another thing that made last week not so great is Opal's gastro doc told me I have to give up soy now. At first I was really upset because soy oil and soy lecithin are in EVERYTHING. But then I talked to the nurse a few days later to ask if I should reschedule the April follow-up appointment, and she said lecithin and oil don't have soy protein, which is the potential problem, so it's not as bad as I thought at first. Takeout and restaurants will be difficult but not totally impossible. So we retest in four weeks. I tried quitting last Wednesday, but this morning after some internet research realized that these weird little guinea-pig-treat-like sunflower seed nuggets I've been eating may actually contain soy as they have "modified food starch" in them. So today is my first real soy-free day. That is, if I don't mess up again!<br />
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All the kids are home for the week for spring break. Well, if you can even call it that what with the steady and slowly accumulating snowfall we've had all day. The big boys are very into some sophisticated Lego building. Just today Eli made an Olympic swimming stadium, Wolfie made a zoo habitat for a snake (of course), and then Eli made a Lego Franklin Institute. And they insist on doing "Lego interviews," which is me recording them as they describe their masterpieces. They're also doing stuff with the jenga-like wooden blocks Santa brought this past Christmas. It's great to see them working so well together doing such imaginitive play. <br />
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Another thing I enjoyed seeing recently - the boys competing to make Opal laugh. Eli was dancing around naked before a bath and Opal was watching him and started laughing, and he got so excited and proud, insisting he was the first person to make her laugh (not true, but I sort of let him have it). Then after he bragged to Wolfie, Wolfie came in and tried to get her to laugh too! Even Zeb got into it! <br />
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Opal has been trying so hard to "talk" lately. She always has to be staring directly into a person's eyes at all times, and then in the afternoon and evening she'll just start gooing and gurgling at you. And if you do it back, you can go back and forth for quite some time. One big milestone reached last week - she rolled over! I forgot how angry they get the first couple of times they do it!Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-47553817437661452312013-03-18T14:59:00.002-07:002013-03-18T14:59:34.036-07:00Look what the leprechauns left!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">More precious than a pot o' gold!</span></em></div>
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Didn't get a chance to take pics on St. Patrick's Day itself as we were still recovering from the torture slog that was the Baltimore Aquarium, but I couldn't not put up a picture of Opal in this outfit! </div>
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The clover tutu was actually purchased long before I was even pregnant with Opal. Why did I buy this, you ask, when I'm not Irish and my kids are only one eighth? Well, after Jennifer Garner used and thus popularized my old first choice girl name Violet back in 2005, Clover became my top choice name for a future daughter. So a few times over the years, around St. Patrick's Day, if I happened to be in the kid's clothing section and saw something really cute in the girls' section with clovers on it, I'd get it. I figured it didn't matter what size it was because if her name was Clover she could wear stuff with clovers on it at any time of the year. </div>
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Well, once I was actually pregnant with a baby girl, the name Clover lost its appeal for various reasons. So now Opal is going to be disproportionately representin' on St. Paddy's Day for a while to come! Luckily, this baby-sized skirt actually fits her at the right time of year!</div>
<br />Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-33313756646324682152013-03-16T20:27:00.000-07:002013-03-16T20:27:14.335-07:00Warning to all mid-Atlantic state parentsThe Baltimore Aquarium does NOT, I repeat, does NOT allow strollers. Visit at your own risk. This may be my last post for a while as I will probably be in an upper body cast for the forseeable future due to the immense arm and shoulder strain of hauling around a certain loveable tiny creature nonstop without rest all day. That is all.Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-35384138276787622882013-03-15T19:51:00.002-07:002013-03-15T19:51:24.872-07:00Toddlers are still preeshussI know I've been complaining a bit about Zeb on here lately, and he is working through the terrible twos still, no doubt (like how he woke up last night at 2:45, then again half an hour later; how does a three month old sleep better than a two year old?). But the kid is still a little heartwarmer, that's for sure. He had a cute day today. First he was very helpful, wanting to carry all the baby barf rags in the laundry as soon as they got barfed upon and also closing the bathroom door in the hall upon request several times. He kept saying "Be right back!" <br />
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Then I gave him a small bowl of Kix (I think his appetite for Kix correlates to his behavior for the day - the hungrier for Kix, the more cheerful he is - because he hadn't been hungry for them in a few days). He insisted on using a big person spoon to eat them, which of course led to a bunch of Kix all over the table. So I asked him to put them back in the bowl, and he said "Okay!" (he always says that when you tell him to do something that he intends on doing, making him sound extremely agreeable) and put them back. Then once they were cleaned up I said, okay now put them in your tummy. So he lifted up his shirt and attempted to stick one right in his belly button!<br />
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Another cute thing he has been doing is he tries to impress Wolfie by yelling out "Tornado!" knowing that Wolfie loves tornadoes. Wolfie, meanwhile, I recently turned on to old episodes of "The Crocodile Hunter." I hope he starts doing an Australian accent.<br />
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Eli was impressive today in that he dressed in head to toe green completely on his own, which I think was suggested by school but not written down anywhere. Have I mentioned the huge Lego airport project they have going on in the basement? I got a good look at it today and Eli gave me an "interview" on it, and it's really impressive. I love how Eli and Wolfie are working together and getting along now. Hopefully now that I've said that Eli won't start refusing to sit next to him again! Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008584224260443016.post-18841580078953420062013-03-12T18:13:00.004-07:002013-03-12T18:14:28.100-07:00Three months already?!?!I heard "Isn't She Lovely" in the car after dropping off Wolfie yesterday, immediately started crying and then was weepy for the rest of the day. Because three nonths ago today I went from this:<br />
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to this:<br />
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and time has gone by so fast that she already looks like this!:<br />
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I love this squishy googoo moogoo so much!Prymatt74http://www.blogger.com/profile/09389377997104346965noreply@blogger.com2