toddler bliss & mommy angst

We found ourselves in a magical place last Saturday afternoon….full of stuff to learn and get into and crawl on and mess with and touch and (much to my dismay) LICK and fall off of and run into and slide down and destroy….

The Children’s Museum was a trip to Heaven and an Attention Deficit Meltdown for Ben, all rolled into one….I’d love to say “his favorite thing was…” except he didn’t hold still long enough to discover it….which is exactly how life is supposed to be when you are 2...

although, if I had to take a stab at guessing, my money would be on the elevator….what can I say? Somebody has a mild obsession with buttons, and an elevator? Has more buttons than anything. Every time we went past it he was all ZOMGGGGGGG buttons!!!!!! And beelined straight for the open doors…

MY favorite part was the stop at Chipotle for lunch afterwards. Why have no pictures of that little slice of bliss nobody knows.

Every once and awhile in the middle of the depressing, blustery, grey days of winter up here in this delightful {sarcasm} place I am, for now, stuck calling “home”, you need to get out and stretch, spread your wings and absorb some color, excitement and gleeful toddler squeeling. It feeds the soul.

I’m happy to say my soul is fed for the next few weeks. My sweet boy had a blast.

Folks, don’t think it has gone unnoticed by me that things are a little strange here on this blog these days. I’m really trying hard, which I’m sure is obvious, because, at least to me, it seems the harder I “try” the more contrived posts tend to become and nobody wants to read that crap. It feels inauthentic, robotic and awkward, and I know you feel it too. Maybe it’s winter. Maybe it is the things in my life that go undiscussed (not a word, I know.) here….whatever it is, something is clouding my vision and squelching my creativity. Suffocating the ability I used to have to run wild and free over here. I miss it more than anyone.

let it snow...

And snow….and snow…and SNOW. 32 inches of snowwwwwwwwww.......

It’s taken this long to shovel out from the epic blast we got up here in the northeast a couple of weekends ago…

You’d think, as I did, that if we were going to get blasted with record breaking snow totals, the best possible scenario would be for it to start falling Friday afternoon…giving the salters and sanders and plowers and shovellers and blowers enough time to get the big ole’ mess cleaned up for Monday’s commute….except, apparently, when you’ve got some 102 year old on the news talking about how he's never seen this much snow in his entire life, well, all the shit just shuts down, yo.

There’s good news and there’s bad news….the good news is, we were lucky enough to be snowed in with our dear, sweet friends Andi & Grayson who had flown in from Denver to hang out with us, arriving Thursday night just in time for Snowpocolypse 2013. The bad news is, they was supposed to fly home Monday morning. Cue panic, cancelled flights, cabin fever meltdowns, lots of wine, and a healthy dose of tears….(and not just from the toddlers...)

We finally got them on a direct flight back home at the asscrack of dawn Tuesday morning, Andi wound up with the flu, and Ben is still walking around going “Addy? Eason??” looking for his buddies….

Cabin Fever aside, we made the best of things, bundled up the boys for some street sledding, ate lots of snow, took lots of naps and soaked up lots of hugs and love to last us till the next time we get to play with these two….hopefully with just maybe a little bit less weather???

i love you more...

There are places I remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
In my life I love you more

~The Beatles

is there a doctor in the house?

Does anybody know CPR?

My blog.

She is dying.

And I don’t know how to save her. I've got such tremendous stress over this, this silly little blog.

I've lost that lovin’ feelin’…

It’s kind of like when you miss a workout. And then you miss the next one too. And the one after that. And then you just stop going altogether because that momentum you’d built up at great cost? Just completely fizzled out in like 1/64^th the amount of time it took to build it in the first place. Don't ask me how I know about such things, I just do.

I feel like my heart is SO heavy lately. I can barely get through the day on auto-pilot let alone tap into my creativity to bang out a post that will scratch my itch. I feel like I am driving a toy tractor inside a shoe box. Drive drive drive…crash into the wall….drive drive drive….crash into the wall. No doors, no way out, no hope for change, just driving and crashing into the wall over and over again. Like, how many times do I keep doing this till I finally just give up, turn the engine off, get off the tractor and sit on the floor of the box, listeless? I think I’m close.

Source: someecards.com via Rachel on Pinterest

But they say Spring is around the corner. I guess that is supposed to invigorate me? I've seen snapshot of daffodil shoots breaking the frozen earth on Instagram. They say in the spring you feel renewed, is that right?  I'll let you know.

In the meantime, don't worry about me. It's probably just PMS anyway, that dirty whore.

saw it, pinned it, did it - valentine's edition

Um….sorry to toot my own horn, really I am. if you know me, you know I’m usually very uncomfortable with self-horn tooting however, when I do something rad, it’s REALLY rad….so let’s just own it, am I right, ladies??

Here is the original pin...

Source: dandee-designs.com via Rachel on Pinterest

Sadly, I can’t take any credit at all for the creative genius that is Ben’s class Valentine this year. All the accolades belong to dandee-designs. I can take credit, however, for executing them perfectly and managing to take a trip to Michael’s during which I found absolutely every single exact thing I needed (miracle.) and got out of there without having a Crafting Envy meltdown. ::::high five:::

These turned out so amazing that I wish I could do them for the next 10 years. They are the perfect DIY boy Valentine, and I am totally obsessed with them. Obsession. How unlike me…..hmmmm…anyway…..a giant thank you to dandee-designs for the printable and the fantastic inspiration and for making the life of this stressed out, manic mama a real breeze for once.

Happy Valentine's Day, Lovers!!!!!

this is the story of a band...

That made me so happy this weekend that my cheeks hurt from smiling. Cheez-O, I know, but it’s the truth…It’s been a long time since that’s happened and I am still floating around in a post-show daze with pink hearts and stars floating around my head. I LOVE this band. Forever….

Friday night started off the weekend with some last minute running around…an eyebrow wax and a mani (Essie “marshmallow” because my standard “limo-scene” was nowhere to be found…) , a trip to ulta for fake eyelashes I didn’t end up wearing (necessary, obviously.) and a big box of vino to get me through the night of getting ready for Saturday (i.e. trying on everything in my closet – none of which fits me – drinking more wine – freaking out – deciding I am no longer going to the show – realizing I have to go to the show, even if I have to wear a mumu – crying – eating a giant bowl of pasta - passing out with nothing done.)…

Saturday morning, the boys headed out early to give me some alone time to get ready in peace, which I deemed a true Christmas Miracle, and I was even able to have a few extra minutes to run into Kohl’s and grab a pair of leather gloves (on which I saved something like $47 because I am a freakin’ animal.)…I had a haircut & blowout at 1:30 at a new place that I am completely obsessed with and, of course, they did an amazing job and since you get what you pay for, I am now broke as a joke. But damn my hair looked fantastic!

All this to drop Benny off at his Aunt Amy’s house and jam to catch the 4:26 train into the city....

We grabbed the F train down to 2^nd Ave & headed over to Katz’s Delicatessen for some indescribably amazing pastrami on rye and a much needed cold beer (Fake orgasm scene not re-enacted, thank you for wondering), did a double take in front of National Underground (which I always want to call Digital Underground, cuz, you know, The Humpty Dance is your chance to do The Hump. Duh.) and sent a quick text to my Sami to let her know that she and her lovah Gavin DeGraw were with us in spirit…

then we ran across the street and squished ourselves into the world’s smallest live music venue for some drinks & some snuggles & some good conversation with my favorite boys, Ninedays & some of my favorite girls too….

It was blissful being back in the audience amongst the devoted few who would still, many years later, travel far and wide to see that somewhat messy, kind of weird but always amazing band play their hearts and sing their brilliant lyrics. Those are my people. That is my happiness right there, and I missed it so.

Brian had sent me a message on facebook a couple of weeks ago making sure that I was coming to this show (as if.) because he had something to give me….and, not 3 seconds after their set ended my sweet friend waves me over, digs in his bag and, all the way from Nashville, unfolded, un-bent and in immaculate condition, produces David Cook’s autograph. To me. to ME.

I’m not going to lie, it was one of my most favorite moments of my life.

Not because I don’t already have at least 6 things signed to me from David…..or 12…or possibly a hundred at this point. I am sort of out of control….but because of the way it came to me. How thoughtful and awesome was Brian to do that for me? How elated was I that my worlds were colliding in such a harmonious and freakin’ AMAZING way?? I just stood there holding it, beaming, pretty much speechless except to say “OMG! TELL ME THE STORY!! TELL ME THE STORY!!!!” because, obviously.

It turns out that they’re neighbors! Brian moved down to Nashville a few years ago, and David moved there last year and, apparently, they ended up in the same neighborhood….with similar paths, similar talents and similar stories, of course they have become friends, plan to write together, plan to blow my mind! Sometimes life is just so cool…

It started to snow, so we snapped a few ridiculous pictures for old times sake, grabbed a cab back to Penn and made our way home to snuggle with The Little and rest up for Super Bowl Sunday….

Hmmmm…..yeah. There was not too much that was “super” about Sunday. Beaten and exhausted, we barely made it to the diner for breakfast by 11 (Big Thanks to our babysitter, Dora the Explorer for entertaining Ben all morning while we nursed our nasty cases of Being No Longer 22)….came back home to nap until 3 and then whipped up a quick Buffalo Chicken Dip and headed over to our friends’ house for food and football….and water….lots of water and Advil….

Who won the game? I passed out after Beyonce. Bish is fierce.

Linking up with Samilicious for Weekend Update!!