there's a reason housewives used to eat Valium like candy.

Some days, the three of us have great days. The kids get an educational - or at least engaging - activity or two, the house stays reasonably clean, dinner gets made, and no one loses an eye. And some days, days like today, I wonder what the hell I was thinking replacing my blessed daycare lady with...me. Sure, I am technically the mother, but we're living in a world of outsourcing. Why do what I can pay someone else a subpar wage to do? It's worked wonders for corporate America's bottom line.

Anyway, I digress. Actually, I was feeling a bit smug this morning when we left the house at 8:50 am. I had recently recieved an email from Portrait Simple saying if you brought your kids in for thier christmas pictures before September 30th, you would get 50% off your christmas cards. Well, sign me up for that, right? So I was actually congratulating myself as we headed out the door on being a together enough mom that I was actually getting my Christmas cards made...in September! and at 50% off! look at me, mom of the year.

Oh, how we all did laugh.

The pictures were a flop. After 45 minutes of trying to pig wrestle my two (adorable, by the way, but you'd never know it from the photos) kids into some semblance of a passable photo, I gave up. The pictures are actually hysterically funny in their bad-ness. you can check them out yourself at portraitsimple.com (online portraits, search cox, password is 2803). I think I'm going to go ahead and order that one you see mocked up as a holiday card - I think if you can't get a great picture, the only thing to do is to send a flat-out AWFUL picture...sort of a go big or go home holiday card ethos. But the amount of time and trouble the whole endeavor took left me needing a drink by 11.

After the pictures, I decided to head over to watertown to return some shelving for the playroom I had bought from Target the day before. I had bought some shelves for the playroom downstairs - the toys are out of control and we have only an old 3 drawer dresser to contain them - but Andy didn't like it and thought we should get one he saw at Ikea instead. So, fair enough, I troop all the way back to watertown to return them. The dang thing weighs a TON, and I had both kids to wrangle as well, so when I ever finally get all three of us plus the shelving system up to the service desk to find out that somehow I didn't have the recipt....so, moving on. let's say I was annoyed, yes?

Heading back home, now about noon, I get caught in some god-awful construction on arsenal street and end up spending 25 minutes sitting in traffic cursing fate. Normally, Owen would be interested enough in the digger activity to distract him from the car not moving, but he was starving and had to pee. Elias also, (I think, he can't talk) was starving. Either way, I was treated to a meltdown in stereo.

Driving back up Galen street, I pulled into the parking lot of a Bertuccis. I can still save this day, I thought to myself. I'll bring the boys out to lunch, everyone will pee and then we'll head home for a better afternoon. Well, remember the part about the kids having their pictures taken this morning? right. So what were they wearing? right. Matching white button down shirts. NEW. Matching. White. shirts. Bertuccis = pizza place. You do the math.

Feeling duly chastised by the universe, I brought the kids back out to the car.

Which doesn't start.

Yep. Dead battery. Oh, did I mention it was raining? And that I didn't have ths stroller in the car? So we had to walk to a nearby garage (thank God we were relatively near to one) and present our damp, sorry butts to the mechanics there to ask for assitance. After a jump and an assurance that I needed a new battery posthaste, we were finally on our way home.

hubris. It'll get you every time.

say it with me now....

Awwwww.

Owen goes to a Pre-preschool program Monday mornings. It's a drop off class for kids ages 2.5-3.5. It's billed as "preschool readiness" (I know. the insanity). Basically they run around the gym at the y, stand in a line, have a snack, listen to a story, go potty and get picked up 2 hours later. It's great fun for him and he gets to bring a backpack, which is pretty much the highlight of the whole endeavor. Of course, all that's in there is a change of pants and underwear in case he has an accident, but it's the spirit of the thing that counts.

Here's my baby boy growing up before my eyes.

I'm still here!

Once again, I've let my blogging fall by the wayside, but I'm determined to keep up with it - if for no other reason than one thing I know about myself is that I am not the baby book type. Heck, I'm not even the photo album type. Ever since the advent of digital photography every picture I've taken (which are remarkably few - I came back from my honeymoon with 15 pictures. 15. Total) is just in a jumble of files somewhere on this computer with easily archivable names like 1103329m4.jpg. So the blog functions as the baby book I'll wish I had 30 years from now. If they ever, I don't know, cancel the internet or something, I'll just have to go and print it all out beforehand.

So what's new? Nothing, really. Things are great. The kids are GREAT. Forgive me for getting nostalgic but Owen is such a big kid these days it kills me sometimes. He's (forgive my mom bias) smart and funny and remarkably coordinated. He's also 2 and a half, so he has his "moments", as they say, eupehmistically. Overall, however, he has fewer moments than he might have, and those moments he has are pretty funny. Today, I was vaccuming the living room sofa (why? because www.motivatedmoms.com told me to. Laugh all you want, I need structure, dammnit.) and after I unplugged it I let Owen play with it for awhile. When it was time to put it away, he wasn't having it, and yelled at me "you can't touch this! it's too dangerous! you have to be safe!" when that didn't work and I proceeded to continue putting the vacuum away he protested "don't touch that! it's really expensive! you might break it!" I find that my biggest parenting challenge these days is keeping a straight face.

Elias remains a joyful, snuggly pile of baby love. He is the most good natured and charming baby I've ever come across. When I was pregnant with Owen a coworker told me her 'decoy baby' theory. She said when you get a baby that is really easy and smily and laid back, you must be on high alert, because that baby is dangerous. He or she is a decoy baby. You'll be convinced that you should have 10 more babies - or at least another one. And when you do, that next one will have 10 months of colic, guaranteed. Eli is absolutely the most devilish decoy baby there ever was. I'm ready for a conversion van full of Elis. I am aware, however, that another Owen would probably cause total system failure, so I am able to keep my head about me in these matters.

I've gotten the swing of my new schedule and it's going well. We're packed with activities: We have something every day in the mornings. On Mondays, Owen goes to a 2 hour program at the Y called "kids club" which is really just running around the gymnasium like a maniac with 9 other 2 year olds. On tuesdays, he has swim lessons. Wednesdays, we joined a rotating-house toddler playgroup. Thursdays, we have our music class at the local Alzheimer's center (it sounds odd but is actually awesome. Both the kids and the patients adore it) and Fridays we go to public skating at the ice arena down the street. In the afternoons, we generally try to do playdates. all these activities alleviate my biggest fear about staying home, which was that I'd be trapped in my messy house going nuts with the kids bouncing off the walls, but really we're hardly home at all.

So in sum, I'm back to blogging and have resolved to do a better job of it. If I don't start updating twice a month or so, feel free to pester me.