me & my thithsters

We rarely get a picture of the 3 of us,
so I want to share.
I think you can tell we are related, but at the same time, I think we each look so different.
It trips me out.
I want Joanne's height, Jill's eyebrows and both of their flat tummies.
Love you both, girls!

Feeling the love from the USPS*...(not)

I love mail.
I love to give and receive. Especially birthday missives.
Today, I tripped happily down to the mailbox with Sadie after her nap,
anticipating a couple of belated birthday cards.

(deleted pic of mangled piece of envelope with my address on it - no card)

Just the mangled top half of the envelope

that my friend Holly sent my birthday card in.
No chance of ever seeing which
perfectly appropriate (clever or corny)
bee-themed greeting she found for me this year.
No hope of recovering the undoubtedly funny, sweet and
heartfelt words that were in it.

I guess I'll just have to call her and test her memory.

*I will say that in my 20+ years of written correspondence, I've never had an experience like this.

Caption Contest...

Anyone care to take a guess at what she was thinking? And by the way, I don't have the answer!

I grew up and became a CEO

I was raised Catholic. We went to church on Sundays and said a prayer before dinner. I didn't really mind any of it, but I also didn't really pay much attention. My clearest memory of church (other than the smooth, cold wooden pews we sat on) is of my grandmother giving us butterscotch candies, Lifesavers and Chewels gum (remember that stuff?) during mass. We always went either grocery shopping or to brunch right after, both of which I loved. I generally have fond memories of going to church with my family. We were one of the few families with 4 children, and I always garnered a kind of pride from that. I liked dressing up, listening to the music & singing, and (always the voyeur) enjoyed watching all of the other families interact. Sunday mornings were special, and I guess overall I enjoyed the ritual.

The only exception to that was my mom's insistence that we observe Good Friday. We had to sit in our rooms in silence from noon until 3pm -the hours that Jesus was on the cross- without books, toys, etc. (on a Friday afternoon in Spring when we were off school, no less!) I distinctly remember disliking that. We weren't even supposed to nap (although I suspect that might be what my mother was doing, and I can hardly blame her - that might have been the only 3 hour break she got each year when all 4 of her children were quiet at once.)

I remember her commenting on how crowded the church always was on Christmas and Easter. She would jokingly say "Look at all the CEOs - Christmas-and-Easter-Onlys." She was right - the parking lot was always jammed and sometimes there was standing room only in our very large church. I remember wondering why these people bothered to go to church on just those holidays, and as an adult I think have a pretty good understanding of the myriad of reasons why. It doesn't bother me in the slightest and I think it's sad if regular church goers allow themselves to be upset by the influx of worshippers on specific holidays. After all, it just makes the celebration that much larger and we aren't supposed to judge, right?

At some point we'll decide what kind of religious education our children should have, but I have a feeling it will be based much more on spirituality than following any particular doctrine. I'd like to get The Golden Rule imprinted in them and to foster a sense of awe, wonderment and reverence for the universe as a whole. But other than that, they'll just have to join the ranks of everyone else who is searching for meaning in this thing called life.

The last religious thing we did with Sadie was Christmas, and I did make a point to explain that it was "baby Jesus's birthday and that he was a very special boy who loves us all" (or something like that). I admit that I'm undecided about how to present the meaning of Easter to a 20 month old, but tonight I am putting together an Easter basket for her.

I guess I'm a CEO.

Seriously.

I sat down at my computer a little while ago with the intent to clean up my desk area while Sadie naps. I managed to tear up a few junk mail envelopes, add to the pile on top of the shredder, move some paid bills into the "to be filed" pile to my right, and generally just shuffle a few things around. Then I got sucked into my email and checking a couple of blogs...
Here I am over an hour later, and my desk is still a complete disaster. I am thoroughly annoyed at myself and I decided to punish myself by posting a picture. This is what my desk looks like, 90% of the time. I can't stand it, and yet I never seem to make any progress with getting organized.
I hate the whiny tone of this post, but I'm putting it up anyway.
Does anyone have any theories (aka armchair psychiatry) for me as to how a person who craves organization can't seem to accomplish it?!

(picture removed due to sensitive information on papers, etc. on desk)
but trust me - it was bad!

HELP.

Our new neighbors are not cute. (aka: I'm Getting Old)

It seems that we got some new neighbors. They must have moved in sometime during the 2 weeks while we were house-sitting at my folks' place.
It doesn't bode well that our first experience of them was a bunch of noise at 12:40 AM (shouting, laughing, car doors, music, more laughing and revving engines). Did I mention this was a Wednesday?
The next day, I watched as one of them backed his car into another car in our complex and drove away as if it hadn't happened. Now, I'll admit that I am predisposed to be wary of young men in these cars, purely a reaction to the very dark marketing strategy a couple of years back. "Little Deviants"? Seriously? That's a demographic for selling cars?
I digress.
Today I was treated to them pulling in at 4:00 in the afternoon, windows down, speakers distorting and bass thumping - singing along (loudly and oh, so poorly) to the last 60 seconds or so of one of my favorite (if sorely overplayed) songs. On a side note, it's quite possible that Andrew will be glad to hear that this episode may have ruined my attachment to it.
Anyway, I went over to introduce myself and have a very brief and polite "hey could ya try to remember to keep it down when you're the in the driveway of this complex because it's really echo-y and all of our windows including my one-year-old's face out?" KTHXBYE.

I have a feeling I'll be writing about these guys again. Soon.

Vegas, baby...Vegas.

I just printed my boarding pass for my first trip away from Sadie & Andrew. I am absolutely not ready to go, but I know I need to do it. I am doing it.
This little plan was hatched last September when we visited Meghan & Michael out in Colorado. I'll spare all of the details, but the stars seriously aligned for this to come together as it has. Here are just a few of the examples how:

• My mother-in-law is in town, so I'll have seamless and spectacular childcare for Sadie
• I'm only missing one night of rehearsal for the play that I unexpectedly got into last month
• Meghan's husband (an OB-GYN) has the entire weekend off to care for their boys
• By some magical 6th sense, Sadie has basically weaned herself perfectly for my departure*
  

The trip started out (in my mind) as a weekend getaway for some much needed "me time". Meghan informed me emphatically that two 2 nights was not enough for her and while I had my doubts that I could manage 3 full nights away from my family, I agreed to stay a 3rd night. After all, she has 2 kids and a couple of years' worth of mom experience on me. Plus, while I hemmed and hawed to anyone who would listen, the Future Me was loudly whispering in my head, "just do it, you pansy! Soon you'll be wishing you could be away for weeks at a time!" Well, 3 nights turned into 4 because for some reason it's over $100 cheaper to fly out on Monday morning versus Sunday night.
So here I am with a plane ticket, reservations at the Bellagio, and a long list of restaurants, bars, shows, shops and clubs to try to check out.

People have had very interesting reactions to the fact that my Mom Get Away Trip is to Las Vegas. "Las Vegas?" they say, with raised eyebrows/tilted heads/smirks/knowing smiles. As my hairdresser (who used to be a DJ and frequented the clubs there) said, "There are 3 types that go to Las Vegas: old people, families, and people who want to get f*****cked up."
Hmmmm. I don't fit into any of those categories, but I know he's right. I'll admit, there was a time when I might have been in Group 3, and I did have a gaggle of friends who went on Vegas weekend benders. But (in 20/20 hindsight) luckily that was many years ago when I lived in New York, so jetting off to Nevada for 48 hours was not an option for me. So - to all of you who looked at me sideways when I told you about my plans to visit Sin City, read on.

The things I want to do on this trip are:

• lay by the pool (it's supposed to be sunny and in the 70s)
  
• get dressed up (I used all of my Nordstrom gift cards for a fabulous top)
  
• go see a show (probably something by Cirque du Soleil)
  
• eat high quality food (too many places to choose from)
  
• have a spa treatment (body scrub? facial? or just hang out in there)
  
• window shop (gotta check out the Manolo Blahnik store)
• pull a few slot machine handles (I fail to see gambling as entertainment)
  
• people watch (my personal favorite)
  

I know it will be great for me to get away, relax, etc. but I also know that said relaxation won't come easily. I can see it now... I'll be lying by the pool atop a big soft hotel towel on a lovely, long lounge chair, hopefully with my iPod-if I can figure out how to work it by then-and I'll be wondering what Sadie had for breakfast and what she's doing that very minute. Missing me? Blissfully unaware that I'm not around? Giggling in that sweet, infectious way that she does? Having a delightful outdoor adventure with her Nana & Daddy? There's no doubt that she'll be expanding her vocabulary and will knock my socks off when I return. It will be so weird to have missed 3 and a half full days of her development, especially right now when she literally says something new every single day, usually multiple times a day. She's speaking 5 and 6 word sentences. It's crazy.

Anyway - blah, blah, blah. I'm going to Las Vegas. I hope I can enjoy myself. Correction: I will enjoy myself.


*originally, this was the biggest factor in whether I'd take this trip at all. The fact that I've breastfed Sadie this long is very special and important to me. There are a ton of reasons why, and let's just say that somehow, weaning her "so that Mama can go to Vegas" didn't exactly fit into my parenting schema. We got down to once a day in the morning and held that pattern for about a month. She got sick once, so she nursed through that. Then she started to only ask for it about every other day in the morning, and we held that pattern for about a month as well. That's where we are now. Seriously. Perfect.