Starting New Traditions. Finally! A Live Tree!

The first Christmas tree I can remember is the five or six foot artificial one my dad pulled out of the attic space in the garage every year. He kept it stored in a big box and setting it up took hours. The fake trunk had to be bolted into a metal base and every individual branch was color coded to fit into a specific slot on the posts that locked together in two or three different places.

Back then, in the '80s, there was no such thing as a pre-lit tree, as far as I know. After we got the tree put together, my dad spent another dozen hours griping and growling and cussing out the light string, unscrewing every single bulb one at a time and trying to figure out which one was burnt out to replace so that the whole thing would finally work. It was an event that I remember him tackling solo.

My brothers and me, long, long ago. Keith on the left, Mike on the right.

A couple years after my mom died, when my dad remarried, the tradition of the Christmas tree in our house changed greatly. My stepmother much preferred live trees. So for the next seven to eight years of my life, from 1990 to 1998, I remember us driving out to Galehouse Tree Farm to pick out a pre-cut tree. I don't remember ever hiking out to pick our own and cut it down. What I recall is my stepmother investigating every already cut tree available until she found the one with the perfect fullness that she liked. 

Every single year, she picked one out that was much too big to even fit in our living room. I'm sure we tried to talk her down to something shorter, but she wouldn't have it. The fullness and roundness was perfect, so we'd have them bind it and tote it home. My dad spent hours on the porch sawing off the extra three feet from the bottom just so it would stand up in our living room and not be bent at the top. Then we smothered it in boxes upon boxes of ornaments.

After my dad died, I don't recall much in the way of Christmas trees. I moved out of my stepmother's house, and even without him she still managed to get a too big tree into the front living room. I don't remember much of that Christmas. Nor much of the ones that followed. My brother had a fake tree he put up when I lived with him briefly, but I don't recall being much involved. 

Working retail crushed my Christmas spirit quite a lot. When I met my husband in 2002 I don't recall enjoying the season. We got married in 2003, and I'm sure we put up a tree in our first apartment. It started off small, and I'm sure it was a gift from a relative. Something prelit and fake just to have a tree. I bought a couple of boxes of bulbs and did it up in blue and silver. We had to replace that tree for a slightly bigger one at some point. They don't build the fake ones to be durable the way they used to be, like the one my dad fought with every year for the first eight to nine years of my life, and probably some time before I was even born.

Our girls have had to suffer fake trees in the early years of their lives. We started in one apartment, then a townhouse, and couldn't really afford a live tree until this year. For all the bad I might have suffered, those trips out to Galehouse Tree Farm every year is a fond one I wanted to carry forward. So this year, now that we're in a better financial position than we used to be, we took the 30 minute drive trip out to Doylestown to rekindle a tradition I enjoyed and bring it to our own family.

It may look dark and dreary from the outside, but inside that barn is a world of festive color and holiday joy. Of course, I remember the interior being much bigger when I was a kid. That memory had me relating to my own daughters and realizing just how magical it must be to them. Never mind how many times I had to tell them not to touch something because it was fragile. Some things were still pretty kid friendly.

My experiences with my stepmother taught me not to go too overboard and look for a tree that would actually fit in our living room. So we spent the extra energy and took the time to hike to the top of the hill and look for one that would last, smell nice, and look nice. It cost a little less to cut your own tree, so that was an added bonus.

Our little Usurper is a trooper. She didn't complain about the hike one bit. Never asked to be picked up. She doesn't like to be carried and much prefers to walk anywhere we go. For that I am super grateful because I am not a strong person and don't like being a vehicle for my children. Their independence pleases me greatly. 

So we found our tree, cut it down, toted it back down the hill to have it shaken and bound. We shoved it in our car, tied it between the seats, and drove it home. Then the most adorable thing happened. My husband had bought the tree stand the day before and explained to our girls what it was for. To keep them from turning it into a toy, he put it in the office at the back of the house. As soon as we got home, the Usurper ran to the office, picked up the stand, and well... This:

I'm constantly surprised by how much my littlest nerdling understands and remembers. She might not say much, and getting her to give up her pacifier completely is still a struggle at 2 1/2 years of age, but she's one smart cookie. This time last year I wouldn't have dared to bring home a live tree and set it up where she could reach all the ornaments, but she knows now not to touch and that's good. 

She was very happy about our new tree. I almost feel like it was the best Christmas present she could have ever asked for! And she didn't even ask for one! She was so happy that she spent a good ten minutes or so smothering her daddy in hugs.

I tried for another video, but apparently it's too big for blogger.

We got the tree up without any hassle. The girls even helped hold it steady while we screwed it secure to the base. Amusingly, the trunk was almost too small! We got it to work, though, and then the decorating happened.

When it was all said and done, our girls were so happy that the Overlord even made up a song about it. I think it's safe to say that they love our tree this year. I give myself an A+ for creating memories my girls will hopefully remember for all time, and a tradition that we'll continue with from here on out. And I... Well. I'm surprised by how happy this one simple little thing made me. It's been 17 or 18 years since I last had a live tree in a house I called my own. This gives me so much joy... I can't even.

How a Stuffed Giraffe Became an Important Lesson On Loss

Today, the Overlord ran up the stairs from her play room, all the way to my office, to tell me, "Mommy! Giraffey's broken! His music winder thingy doesn't work anymore. Look! Can you fix him?"

Giraffey never had a name before today, by the way. The toy in question is a baby toy that Great-Grandma sent the Usurper when she was born. I think. The whys and the whens and wherefores aren't so very important to this story, though.

Basically, Giraffey is a plush music box. There's a wind-up key attached to its side. You wind it up. It plays a song. Well. No more, unfortunately. Something inside is broken, and neither me nor my husband know how to fix it. So...

Sadly, I told her, "No, honey. I'm sorry, but I can't fix this. There's nothing we can do about it. He's broken."

There was a look of absolute heartache on her face. The pout and the moisture in her eyes was nearly unbearable.

"Honey, I'm sorry, but I think it's time to say good-bye to Giraffey."

Her daddy came in to join us in the talk saying he couldn't fix Giraffey either. He told her she had the choice to keep him as is, broken but still able to be played with, or we could say good-bye. She chose to say good-bye. So I told her we'd send him to a faraway place where broken toys go after they can't be played with anymore.

This seemed kinder to me than telling her we were going to throw the toy in the trash. Little did I know it was going to turn into an elaborate story about Toy Heaven.

Later, I found her playing downstairs with her sister. They were having fun, giggling and make-believing with their My Little Pony toys. Then Lilah looked up with a pout and asked, "Mommy, where's Giraffey?"

"Honey..." The toy was upstairs, still. Her daddy was investigating it and trying to figure out if there really was any way to repair it, but we both knew it was a lost cause. So I told her, "Giraffey went to a faraway place where broken stuffies go when they no longer work, where they can live with other stuffies and be happy even though they can't be played with anymore."

As a nonreligious individual raising my children pretty much atheist, I never thought I'd be making a Heaven analogy to help my daughter deal with loss.

She accepted this story.

Later, upstairs while watching TV, she was pouting about Giraffey still, talking about how much she missed him. There were actual tears. I hugged her and told her, "Oh, honey. It's okay to feel sad when you miss something you love very much."

Wiping the tears off her cheeks broke me.

"Would it make you feel better to see Giraffey one more time, if he came back from the faraway place to say good-bye?"

"Yeah," she said.

So I got him back out of the closet where I'd stashed him to hide so she wouldn't keep asking us to try to fix him. She gathered him up in her arms and held him tight.

Unfortunately, her little sister was right there and wanted to play with Giraffey, too. It was a struggle getting her to let Amelia have the toy, but she relented when I told her to let her say good-bye in her own way. This was a concept that had to be drilled into her head repeatedly by both her father and me.

My husband told her, "You let Amelia say good-bye to Giraffey in her own way. He will stay with us until bedtime, and then he has to go."

Eventually she stopped trying to tell her sister to tell Giraffey good-bye. Some time later, she brought the toy back to me in my office.

"Mom, 'Melia put Giraffey down," she said, handing me the broken toy.

"Do you think Amelia's done saying good-bye to him then, in her own way?" I asked.

"Yeah."

Amelia didn't come running back to my office crying, so I figured it was true enough. Though, I'm also pretty sure she had no idea what was going on. The Usurper is only two and a half to the Overlord's almost five now!

Somehow she got the impression that the faraway place I mentioned was an island. I didn't correct her. I like the idea of it being an island. Somehow I'm sure that makes it seem more soothing and an okay place to be.

"Is the Faraway Island magical?" she asked me.

"Yes, dear. The Faraway Island is a magical place where all stuffies and broken toys can talk to each other and be happy when they can't be played with anymore."

I do not regret expounding upon my lie.

"Oh. I never heard Giraffey talk."

"Well, maybe if you listen very closely you'll hear him talk to you. ... Are you done saying good-bye now?"

"Yeah."

After dinner, we revisited with Giraffey one last time. I brought him out of my office and told Lilah, "Giraffey doesn't want you to be sad when he leaves, Lilah, so he told me he'd like to take a picture with you so you'll always have something to look at and remember him by."

So we took a couple of pictures, both of Lilah with Giraffey and Amelia with Giraffey.

Lilah came back to talk to me a little more about Giraffey and the Faraway Island. She told me she really wanted to see the Island and see all the talking toys. I told her that'd be nice. She asked where it was. "Is it up in the sky?"

"Maybe," I told her. "It's so faraway that even I don't know where it is, honey. I've never seen it. I'm not a toy, so I can't go there."

"Oh," she said. "I hope there's a moon there. The moon is magical. It's like an island."

All I could do was smile as she walked away.

New Year! Old news. (Mostly pictures.)

Well.

Hello, Loyal Fans!

As you can plainly see, I have been very remiss in updating this blog. The last time I wrote an article for this thing was back in August with Hello Not-a-Kitty, in which I talked about the newly created Hello Kitty Convention that I'd some day love to take my girls to.

Since that time, quite a lot has happened! Here's a run-down of everything you missed in 2014 before we get started on 2015:

In September, Your Future Overlord met her very first toad at her friend Addison's house. We were invited to a barbecue and had a very good time. At their old house (they have since moved), there were apparently a lot of toads in the yard and Addison had a habit of collecting them. A very good experience overall.

We started our second year of dance classes! The Usurper is not yet old enough to join a class, but she is learning quite a bit from her sister already. The Overlord is taking traditional ballet again this year as well as tap. It's been a rocky road so far, in which she fluctuates between wanting to participate and not. I'm told this is normal for her age.

Both of my girls have an amazing imagination, but at not even 2-years-old I think the youngest has the eldest beat. Her imaginative play has been amazing these past few months, and continues to astound me. The above picture was taken in September. She and her sister got dressed up and set this up all by themselves.

Which brings me to October. You may remember the article I wrote in July titled "Keep the Shears Away," in which I talked about how I refuse to take my girl to get her haircut until she tells me she wants one. Well, that happened. We turned it into a big birthday event, and I'll write about that later, because it's worthy of it's own individual article.

That's right. Your Future Overlord is now 4 years old! I'm a big slacker for having not covered her birthday like I should have. Not like I can't write about it later, though. It'll give me some material to work with when I'm floundering later on. Your job, Loyal Fans, is to constantly harass me about it until I do. So don't forget to pester.

We found some time to help Daddy rake (and play in) the leaves!

And then Halloween happened.

In November, we joined the Overlord's best friend Addison in celebrating her 4th birthday as well. And then of course all the Thanksgivings happened.

Before that, it snowed. It was the most amazing thing the Usurper had ever seen. I regret that we did not yet have appropriate snow attire so that the girls could go outside and enjoy it. The Overlord had to have asked me a hundred times.

The Usurper has been making quite a lot of discoveries lately. I absolutely love this gleam in her eye that she gets when she finds something new and fascinating, and everything is new and fascinating to her. I hope she never loses this investigative spirit that she has. My little scientist.

We slacked off a lot in December. Didn't put our tree up until a few days before Christmas. Didn't even really put up any other decorations. And to be honest, our tree is still up. We should probably work on tearing it down and putting everything away.

At least I remembered to stash our creepy ass Elf on the Shelf. I'm a terrible person and hardly remember to move that sucker and sure as shit don't do anything fun with it. Except, Fred (our girl elf) does leave a present for the girls on Christmas Eve. That's a tradition I'm sticking with. Fresh PJs every year.

Christmas came and went like it always does. Being a non-religious household, we don't put a lot of emphasis on the holiday other than Santa Claus. Magic, family, and the Winter Solstice are our reasons for the season. Your mileage may vary.

So now here we are in January. The turn of a new year. Your Future Overlord is 4 years old, and in less than a month the Usurper turns 2! I have quite a few stories to fill you in on that I have neglected to tell, so stay tuned. Hopefully another four months doesn't go by before I update again.

Hello Not-a-Kitty!

This is something I think everybody has heard about by now, and apparently has shocked millions of loyal fans worldwide. Honestly, I'm not the least bit surprised by this news. When I first heard about it, I think one of my friends tagged me in a Facebook post saying the tweets for this thing were amusing. I'm not very good at following Twitter, so I had no idea what she was talking abut. Then I saw a link on my Google+ feed from a friend and read about it this morning.

All these discoveries keep falling under the category of Things I Wish I Had Known About Sooner, because I am not made of money and I would love to be a part of this sort of epic celebration. What are you rambling about now, Stacey? Oh. Right. Well.

Newsflash: Hello Kitty has never been a cat.

I am not the least bit blown away by this news as I think so many other people have been, crying in outrage. It probably helps that we own quite a large collection of Hello Kitty cartoon DVDs and that my eldest, Your Future Overlord, watches them constantly. Our love for Hello Kitty in this house is not unknown. At least 40% of my daughters' wardrobes consist of Hello Kitty something-or-other, and every time one particular outfit of Lilah's is washed and available for wearing in her drawer, she immediately picks it out to put on.

The Overlord's current favorite outfit.

Hello Kitty has become such a big thing since I've had children. I fondly remember it from my own childhood, but never knew it quite so well then as I do now. To children everywhere, she is not a kitty in any case. Even to my daughter she has always been "a friend" and "a little girl" just like her. As far as my daughter is concerned, she is Kitty White, and her little sister is Mimmy White, which is conveniently coincidental since we've dubbed the Usurper with the nickname Mimi since as long as Lilah first started trying to say her name. She responds to that more than her actual name.

We have so many Hello Kitty accessories and toys in this house that I don't even think I could ever gather them all together for a "collection" picture. Besides, I don't do collectibles all too well. In my daughters' eyes, these are toys, and to keep them from playing with them would be too cruel for me to bear. Every year around Valentine's Day my husband has traditionally found the Overlord a new TY Beanie Baby, and Santa even put one in her stocking once. We're up to four now, and are likely to eventually end up with a swimming pool full of the things by the time she heads off to college or a trade school or an apprenticeship, whichever she chooses to do with herself.

"Snowman Kitty," "Glasses Kitty," "Kitty," and "Lollipop Kitty."

As for the celebration I mentioned above? Well, it turns out that Hello Kitty is turning 40 this year, and there's a first ever annual Hello Kitty Convention scheduled to take place in Los Angeles, California at the end of October! By the looks of things, tickets are going to run us $60/day for me and my husband to attend. Fortunately, both the Overlord and the Usurper are young enough to get in free. If we went for just one day, that would be all right. All four days add up to more money than we should be willing to spend, but gosh wouldn't it be nice!

Add on top of that figuring out how we're going to get there. I, personally, have never flown on a plane before in my entire life, and admit a little bit of trepidation. It's not really the plane itself that makes me nervous so much as all the security and check points and degrading searches people have to go through these days in America, that I've heard of, just to travel. Flying would be the fastest and probably best way to get there with two small children, I imagine, but I have no idea how much it would cost! Very likely it would exceed our budget.

Traveling by train would be a fun adventure for all of us. Again, I have no idea how much that would cost, but I would not be averse to the idea. With two small children, I'm even reasonable enough to consider only going to one day of the convention and not trying for the couple hundred dollars worth of an entire weekend trip. Seeing more of California on the side would be a bonus, though.

Attending Hello Kitty Con would be a better first convention for my girls than Bronycon, I think, which I still want to go to with them some day. But why does it have to be so far away? This gives me a sad.

I always find myself envious of my sister-in-law and her family going on all these family vacations anywhere. I envy my friends who go on family vacations. We have never been on a family vacation. Ever. Had I known about this sooner, I would have squirreled away so much money so that we could go, if even just for one day to the convention. Factoring in the cost of hotel stays, too, and it's just not something we can afford at all. So, so terribly disappointing.

Oh well. I suppose I can hope that they'll do it again next year. I'm going to start saving now, just in case.

Because we love it.

Back to Zoo

At the beginning of this week my Facebook wall was flooded with photos of all these kids posing for their first day of Back to School. Many of my mom friends rejoice about this time of year with exasperated relief. Finally! I hear them shout, because once again they get to be rid of their children for several hours a day, five days a week.

I have mixed feelings about this phenomenon. On the one hand, I am super envious. I wish I could be free of my children for several hours a day, five days a week. I would love to have more than a couple minutes a day to myself in which I can just sit down to think and don't have to meet the needs of my demanding little monsters, only one of which can form actual sentences and talk to me, whereas the other just points and squeals urgently to get my attention for the things she wants. More aggravatingly often than not, she wants to sit on my lap and keep me from doing anything at all but being her chair.

Don't get me wrong. I love my children. I wish them only the best. I want to do right by them. I want them to have the best education possible. I want to see them succeed in their futures and not be delegated to just another fast food drive-thru attendant. I also super hope that by the time they are adults all this misogyny and gender stereotyping that goes on these days is obliterated from the world entirely.

While I would love to be rid of them for just a little while, to have a vacation to myself, I still find myself frowning at all these bright and smiling faces of children dressed up in the nicest thing they're likely to put on all year in an effort to make a good first impression. I remember those days with a certain sort of eye-rolling bitterness. What you wore the first day of school sealed your fate for the entire year. Either you'd be that kid with the brand new designer jeans that will instantly make you everybody's best friend, or you'd be the kid in your Great Aunt Lucy's hand-me-downs taken in at the waist to better fit you and ridiculed the rest of your life.

These are things I don't have to worry about with my children, yet, and desperately hope I never will. I think the only guarantee that I won't have to put them through that sort of exhausting social ringer is if I stick with my plan to home school. But that also means sacrificing my sanity and me time, and as an introvert this is an extremely difficult need for me to give up.

On the other hand, however, I've noticed that with so many other kids going back to school, everywhere else becomes virtually abandoned for several hours a day, five days a week. This is a bonus for us, with my husband's new work schedule. On the first of September he'll have switched up his week to having Sundays and Mondays off. This is nice because most of the nation goes to church (which we do not) on Sundays and kids are in school most Mondays (except those pesky holidays that always seem to fall on one; I'm looking at you, Labor Day). Therefore, the world is our family outing oyster! Free of crowds! An introvert's dream come true!

Last week was a primary example of the wonders of not being bound to society's expected nine to five grind. We took the opportunity of most of Cleveland going back to school last week and decided to have one last final end of Summer hurrah by visiting the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, just the four of us. The place was wonderfully deserted. Though we were a little sad to see the dinosaur exhibit was no longer operating, it was nice to be able to walk the park (even the Usurper) without having to dodge around the self-important and rude we encounter just about everywhere else.

The girls loved it. My husband and I loved the fact that we could actually enjoy ourselves and not get super cranky from having to deal with so many people. The last time we were at the Cleveland Zoo, we went with his sister and family, and the littlest monster pictured above left was so tiny that she slept in her car seat in the stroller the entire time. The place was packed with people then. We missed out on some of the exhibits both times, but it was nice to sit in the picnic patio and eat overpriced McDonald's for dinner without another living soul around us this time around. We actually got to hear the lions roar when they came out of their cave to bask on the sun rock. 

This time we got to see the timber wolves, too, unlike last time, but neither me nor my husband could get a good picture of them. However, the littlest Usurper was immediately drawn to these statues, so she and her sister stopped to ride on them a little bit. I think, perhaps, she was remembering our temporary dog Lucky who went back to live with his original family before she was even crawling. 

Sadly, the tiger was napping in his cave by the time we got to him. This was more disappointing to me, I think, because I was the only one who knew what we had hoped to see. The Usurper's favorite animal in the world is a tiger. She absolutely loves them. Probably in part thanks to Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. Had she seen the tiger, though, I think she would have tried to climb into the exhibit, like she kept trying to do when we walked through Kangaroo Land and saw the grizzly bears. Regardless of constantly having to battle her with her insistence on walking everywhere (I'm shocked she didn't pass out in the car on the way home), we had a good time. Admittedly, it was nice to be able to unleash her without fear of losing her in a crowd. Though having to pull her down off of everything and keep her from trying to squeeze herself through the bars of certain enclosures was an adventure, let me tell you.

We'll be going back to the zoo in a little over a month, but not the one in Cleveland. Ever since the Overlord was born, we've tried to continue carrying on a tradition with our friends to attend the Akron Zoo's Boo at the Zoo event. Of course, Cleveland does this too, but Akron is much closer for everyone involved. I'm hoping this year to get a bigger group of us together, now that more of my friends are having kids too. So look forward to October when I'll talk all about it!

The Usurper's Rise to Power

Today we celebrated Amelia's first birthday. I already told you about the day she was born, plus some, so I won't get all repetitive here. This past weekend we had family and friends join us in celebrating her day of birth a couple days earlier than the actual day. On this day in history, though, February 3rd, the future challenger to the Overlord's throne was born, and today we're going to talk about how we buttered her unsuspecting sister up by going out and having some private family fun.

Officially 1 year old today!

Apparently, my mentioning the birthday party that we had on Saturday inspired a bit of fun conversation in our secret Nerdling Moms group on Facebook. Mostly we talked about cakes, and shared a billion pictures of all the cakes all of us have ever made for all of our kids. Then we advanced into talking about birthday parties in general. One of my friends, Susan, told us about how she is absolutely drawing a blank on what to do for her daughter's upcoming 5th birthday. Housing the party off-site from her own house is a must, because she can't accommodate the number of guests she expects. In this bit of back and forth on suggestions and frustrations, she mentioned this place that I had never heard of, and now I'm going to tell you all about it.

Amelia's cake, by the way, was Daniel Tiger's face.

One of the biggest drawbacks about living in Ohio is that three months out of every year playing outdoors is pretty much not an option. It's cold, and when it's not snowy, it's slushy. Even if it's neither snowy nor slushy, it's still too cold to spend more time outside than it takes to lean out my door and collect the mail. We might as well be hibernating. In fact, I wish we could. Unfortunately, there are these things called jobs that people have in order to make money to pay for those things called bills. I don't work, but I still have these two little monsters to care fore every day.

Those two little monsters, by the way, love to play outside. When it's warm, I pop them in the double stroller and walk them either a mile to the park or a mile to the library, depending on my mood. The park is where it's at, though. They love to climb and swing and run around like lunatics. Especially now for the Usurper who only learned to run around like a lunatic about a month ago. Unfortunately, all that energy gets locked indoors during the winter. We can't go to the park because of the above-mentioned cold, and snow, and forget it.

My husband and I have talked about the significant lack of indoor activities for kids, particularly playgrounds. The nearest thing is the McDonald's Play Places, and those are steadily becoming extinct, I think mostly due to the increase in stupid people throwing lawsuits at the company because of their own stupidity. You know, like the coffee. But we (my husband and I) have talked about how awesome it would be to start our own business, if we could afford the start-up costs and get a loan, and build indoor playgrounds, because to the best of our knowledge they do not exist.

This brings me full circle back around to my moms' group conversation. Did you know that indoor playgrounds DO exist!? Neither did I! I knew about indoor giant inflatable parks, thanks to my friend Jen. But straight up playgrounds? No idea! Until this morning.

AMAZONE

To make the Usurper's first birthday special for just the four of us, we took the girls to this awesome indoor jungle gym and party center known as Rockin' Robin's Amazone, in Medina. Mucho many supreme thanks to my friend Susan for informing me of its existence and dropping me a link. This place . . . is AMAZing! I think it's also the only place within a hundred mile radius that houses an entire video game arcade, the likes of which I haven't seen since Aladdin's Arcade in the mall, ages ago. They also have laser tag! It's like a freaking nerdling paradise up in there! And the girls LOVED it. And it only cost us $12 for as much time climbing and sliding as we wanted!

The prices are equally AMAZing! They have a large selection of snacks, pizza, and beverages to choose from at wonderfully reasonable prices. There are also a handful of special bundles and packs that include tokens to use in the video arcade. They had quite a fun selection of merchandise, too. I think my only complaint there is that they were lacking in baby and toddler apparel. I totally would have bought both my girls a shirt if they had them in their size.

She's never going to remember this day, so I took lots of pictures to show her. I know she had a lot of fun, though. Her sister did, too! On the way home, we stopped by Toys R Us to spend the gift card her Papou gave her for her birthday. Based on the things she didn't get, we finally made our decision to blow some money on a toy she's going to outgrow and got her this Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Crawl Around Car:

She likes this toy so much that every time her sister gets in it, she actually yells at her. Serious, flat out, screaming. I'm sure if she knew the words she'd be saying, "Lilah get out of my car!" And she has this adorable way of scrunching up her face, squeezing her eyes shut, and squealing in outrage. I need to get that on video some time.

Her second favorite toy was a gift from her Uncle Benji and Aunt Sarah: the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Song and Story Chair. Fisher Price has seriously been pumping out some really awesome toys lately. They aren't obnoxious noise-makers either. Except for the fact that this chair went all possessed this morning at about 6:00 AM, waking me up and forcing me to grumpily crawl out to the living room to shut it off. Virgil, our cat, was sitting on the back of the love seat staring at it in fascination, because it was just playing itself.

They really hit it out of the park with this toy, though. Two of Amelia's favorite things are sitting on chairs her size and books. She might not be able to actually read them yet, but she just loves flipping through the pages of every single tome she can get her grubby little hands on. And it's for that reason that we concluded that she has been upgraded from a Level 0 Human to a Level 1 Wizard. All I have to do now is put together her character sheet and build her a spell book. My fellow D&D nerds will know what I'm talking about, and yes I do seriously plan on putting together a toy spell book for her.

This leads me to the next best ingenious idea my husband and I came up with as a potential starter business. Starting with our own children, we plan on making them character sheets to update every time they have a birthday. Next year on this day, Amelia will level up to 2, and we'll edit accordingly. Lilah is already a level 3 something-or-other. We think bard because she's in ballet and loves to sing, horribly off-key, just like her mommy. Though that's an awfully cruel class to stick my kid with. Poor bards. Always with the negative reputations.

Over all, I'd say Amelia's first birthday party weekend was a roaring success. We had a larger domicile in which to accommodate all our guests. People enjoyed themselves immensely, as far as I could tell. The cake was delicious, though the Usurper didn't get to eat any. The food was spectacular, thanks to my wonderful husband. The presents were just perfect. Her big sister's unpredictable, unexplained emotional meltdown aside, we had a good weekend. And I'm awfully proud of myself for this little last minute corny idea that I had and put together.

And I'm grateful to everyone who put up with my craziness.

Silly Faces and Snow Days

Enjoying the first BIG snow storm at our first house: January 26, 2014.

I know I haven't published anything in a week, and you all have probably been coming back thinking that maybe I did but neglected to post a link on Facebook, but that's not the case. For the past seven days I simply haven't had any writing mojo. At least not for anything "serious" or "educational," which is what I originally planned to write last week. I have half a dozen unfinished drafts waiting for me to work on in my Blogger dashboard. This is why I don't write professionally.

In high school, the only reason I ever finished any of my writing assignments is because if I didn't I risked a big fat red F on my report card, which would have got me grounded at home, after a stern lecture about how disappointed my parents were in me. Most of the time I didn't care for the topic and managed to strongly suggest this to my teacher in my work but still be so grammatically perfect and on topic that I got an A+ marked on the paper. Often, though, I'd get this look when she handed the paper back to me. Worth it.

Not this look, but you're welcome.

This is going to be a short post. Today we are planning on venturing out into the icy wilderness after lunch to do some shopping for the Usurper's birthday. For the past two days it has been snowing, relentlessly. Your Future Overlord enjoyed rolling around in our front yard while her daddy shoveled the driveway. We even took her baby sister out for a little bit, but we have not left the safety of our own lawn borders all weekend. Cabin fever is starting to set in.

The eldest had the stomach flu last week. It was horrible. She didn't eat, and even getting her to drink something different (generic Pedialyte) was a chore. Today her appetite has come back with a vengeance. She has eaten FOUR bowls of cereal on her own, and is sharing her daddy's cereal with him right now, as I type this. I might have to readjust my dinner menu in order to feed a small army if she keeps this up.

The animals get crazy when held captive for too long.

We found ways to keep ourselves entertained while the blizzard of the century (I exaggerate) swept through. I learned a tremendous amount of patience while dealing with a super whiny, sick, vomiting three-year-old. Most of all I learned to remember that every experience my children have is a teaching moment, and that I should exploit the opportunities that arise to their fullest potential.

This weekend my eldest learned "left" and "right," with the help of the L and R I Sharpied on the bottom of her ballet shoes. After her illness passed, she displayed another tremendous leap in comprehension and listening skills. She learned the difference between a pentagon and a hexagon, with a lot of persistent repetition on my part. She again exhibited her amazing mighty math powers (Team Umizoomi for the win) when she informed me that her baby sister was walking around with two bowls, totally unprompted. Oh. And her daddy taught her how to make snow angels.

This week is going to present us with new challenges. Primarily, this Saturday we are having the Usurper's FIRST BIRTHDAY party! Exactly one week from today she turns one year old. She has come a long way from the tiny bundle of stubborn that had to be evicted from my belly a week after her due date. I've learned that finally there is someone in this house who enjoys the same foods as I do, such as salad! My husband hates salad. The eldest won't even try it. But my baby will stretch across the table to steal a leaf out of my bowl and gnaw on it happily. It's about time!

I watched her start crawling in this house. We struggled through a brief stint with food allergies that she seems to have overcome. She took her first steps for me on Christmas Eve, and now she's racing her sister up and down the hallway. Most recently she has learned to point and ask, "Uh dat. Dat." She still hasn't learned the inquiring inflection yet, but that's normal as I remember. I've watched her develop her very own personality that is totally different from her sister's, such as a desire to lay her head on my shoulder and just cuddle for about ten minutes when she wakes up from her naps, before she's ready to get down and play.

It's hard to believe that in just 12 months time, the sassy little monster that started off her life journey like this . . .

3 days old: February 6, 2013.

. . . has now sprouted into this even sassier, bigger monster who wants to kill me for taking her out in the snow.

358 days old: January 26, 2014.

Couple that with the fact that this time last year her sister was only just beginning to understand the concept of presents, and how fun tissue paper can be.

February 9, 2013: courtesy of Aunt Mandy.

And now . . . she's putting on her own snow pants.

February 26, 2014.

And Then It Happened Again

As soon as we had our first baby, it seems as if old friends suddenly came pouring in out of nowhere. To be honest, the falling out of touch was probably primarily my fault. There was a period of several years there in which I was terribly sick. All I wanted to do was lay around in bed and pretend the world didn't exist. Once we got my health under control, babies happened.

The situation I described in my previous post happened not just once, but twice. The circumstances this time around were a little different, but it still remains a completely unplanned event. These are the reasons I feel that there must be some kind of cosmic connection between us, even if I don't like calling it "God" and putting all my money on a single piece of classic literature being "the absolute truth." I'd sooner put my faith in the works of Tolkien. At least his history is more than a single volume long, and much easier to read.

Anyway! Let's talk about Ben and Sarah.

This is how I will always remember Ben. Freshly graduated from high school. Parked in my driveway in the driver's seat of his Aerostar minivan named Ivanzypher. (No really. He spelled it out on the bumper with stick-on letters.) Flipping me the bird while I took his picture shortly before a small group of us piled in to head up to Cedar Point. One last hurrah to celebrate our freedom from formal schooling, onward into the drudgery of adulthood.

Benji was a transfer student to our high school in, I think, our Junior year. He was The New Guy. Everybody wanted to be his friend. All the girls wanted to date him. Except me. I think perhaps that's why he and I became such good friends. I was the only one girl out of hundreds who wasn't prone to lapsing into a drooling catatonic state every time he wandered down the hall, with little heart bubbles floating around my head and punching me in the face. I was much more likely to have my nose buried in a book, ignoring all the gossipy buzz going on around me, because I really wasn't the least bit interested in dating.

Everybody in the school was talking about him. I do remember being vaguely aware of that. But when he sat down in front of me in Algebra II, I had no idea who he was and didn't care. Though I do think I remember blinking owlishly, as if I had just surfaced from a deep sea dive, drowning under the oppressive weight of a dozen jealous glances, and saying, blandly, "Oh. You're that new guy. Hi." There may have been a "Hi, I'm Stacey." and "Hi, I'm Ben." I don't even remember. I do know, however, that practically every class we had together, we sat together, one behind the other, and ignored lectures in favor of passing a piece of paper back and forth to hold written conversation on.

Ridiculous shit like this.

Most of the conversations I remember having with Ben involved him asking me what I thought of some girl, me telling him not to date her, him essentially saying "Screw you! I do what I want!," proceeding to date said girl anyway, and then coming back to me a few weeks later to tell me, "You were right." Everybody always asked me for my advice. I don't know why I bothered giving it, because my warnings were never heeded anyway. But I'm digressing again. Bad habit of mine.

Moving on!

So after high school, Ben got me a job at his place of employment: Cinemark Movies 4. It was the cheap-o dollar theater in the Canton area, at the time. The building it's in now has been overrun by some kind of medical company. I feel like I'm in a foreign land every time I drive by. Good times, though. Working for the movie theater was one of my favorite jobs of all time. I miss those days.

Ben worked in the arcade when it was still there. I worked concession with Sarah, his now wife. I had no idea they had even been dating back then! I left Cinemark to work for Sam's Club, quit there and went back to the movie theater, and during all that time I was clueless! I quit that job again, years went by, and suddenly he brought her to my wedding! I wish I had taken the time to get to know her more back then, because I absolutely love her now and can't at all recall having much of any thought about her whatsoever over a decade ago other than her being "that girl I worked with sometimes." Sorry, Sarah!

Best photo bomb ever.

Fast forward to after Lilah was born, and after Addison was born too. I guess during all the time that I neglected contact with my old friends, Ben and Matt had stayed in touch. Now that Matt and I have common ground again -- daughters of the same age -- we've been slowly repairing our relationship, though amusingly I seem to be better friends now with his wife. Weird how things happen. Such as Ben and I seemingly forgetting that seven years of no-contact had even happened. We picked up our friendship right where we left off. The only thing that's changed is that we have kids now.

Ben and Sarah got married on April 30, 2011. Lilah was just shy of seven months old. It's a day I'll never forget for very selfish reasons, because that's the day Your Future Overlord started crawling, too. My brother Mike had babysat her while we attended the ceremony up the hill. When we went home to get her before heading to the reception, he claims he saw her crawl while we were away. The first time I saw it happen was at the reception, in the middle of some kind of speech. I was so excited I kept flailing my arms to get Ben's attention to point down at her and mouth "LOOK SHE'S CRAWLING!!!"

Exhausted baby steals Mommy's shrug after reception.

I wish we could have stayed to attend the reception into the wee hours of the morning, but at the time I didn't regret using the baby excuse to leave early. She was exhausted. I was socialized out. I may regret now having missed out on celebrating my good friend's nuptials, a little, but could you have said no to that adorable face up there who just wanted to get home to sleep? That's what I thought.

On the first of the following year at Matt & Stacy's house, for what has become the traditional pork and sauerkraut dinner party, we all got together again. Our girls were both a year old and learning to play together in adorable ways. I remember sitting on the couch with Ben & Sarah teasing them about how they needed to plan to have their first kid in 2013, because that's when Jamie and I were talking about having our second, so that we could have kids the same age who could play together too. I was joking, but I think they took me seriously about a baby-making deadline!

Jamie and I did work on making baby #2 happen during that time, though. We wanted our kids to be close in age so they could play together and possibly be best friends. What we didn't know, however, was that Ben and Sarah had been working on making theirs happen too! Until I saw a photo of an ultrasound posted on Sarah's Facebook wall back in June of 2012. This prompted the following exchange via FB message:

A couple days later, this conversation went on between Ben & I:

Though the doctors proclaimed that Sarah and I were due within weeks of each other, Fate had other ideas in mind. There were some complications that forced young masters Oliver and Desmond to arrive a full 58 days earlier than expected. They were such tiny little things, kept in the NICU for less time than I imagine it felt like. I remember them sounding like little mewling kittens when they cried. Together they didn't even weigh quite as much as the monster that came out of me over two and a half months later. A week after she was born, they all came to visit.

Amelia sandwiched between the twins.

Ben likes to joke that he's going to steal my daughter when I'm not looking, and offers to trade us for one of his boys. It's funny because I was really hoping for a boy the second time around, even though every ultrasound said otherwise. Ben had been hoping for a girl in the pair, but got two boys instead. I think we're going to be keeping our little Usurper, though. Sorry, Ben. ;)

August 24, 2013

Maybe we should be talking betrothal, though...