Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Consider these the "before" pictures

People keep asking me for an update on the house, and so I thought I'd put up a little virtual tour to show you around a little bit. I know I made it sound dumpy in the last post - it's not so bad, really. Actually, despite buying it with plans to fix it up, we really don't HAVE to do much. There are a few things we've known about since the inspection that are must-repairs, and the appliances were all basically shot. We've replaced the washer/dryer and the dishwasher so far, and the fridge and the stove have maybe 2 years left in them, so those are next on the docket (but hopefully can stay in the on-deck circle a little while longer. 3 major appliances in one month were enough, thankyouverymuch.) The major problem with the house is not how much space we have, it's how that space is arranged. So here's what happens when you walk in the front door. what you see right in front of you is the following:
That's the living room. It's fairly good sized, about the size of our old living room. you can see beyond it the entrance to the kitchen. we have a nice fireplace in the center of the room. Right now, our hutch is a bit awkwardly placed besides the couch - it's serving as a bookshelf and keepsake holder at the moment. we'll revisit the dining room issue shortly. Still standing right inside the front door, if you turn to your right, you'll see the space we're currently using as the kids' playroom:
the front of the house is very large picture windows - lovely design element but not terribly energy efficient when it's 20 degrees outside. that explains the large, floor length curtains. So, the playroom space is cute, and I don't mind it. But, the problem is what happens when standing in the doorway you turn to your left:
yeah, I know. Yick. Another large picture window, and this is where we've out of necessity put the desk and an enormous tv, that used to live out of sight in the basement. The problem, of course, is that we don't have a finished basement here, and we don't really have a good spot to put either the computer desk or the TV. the people before us had a plasma TV hung above the fireplace (that's A solution, but a pretty expensive one given the only thing we really use the tv for is kids dvds and for andy to watch sports) and their office area where we have the kids' playroom. they had their dining room table in front of the front picture window. It looked ok when they had it that way, but ours doesn't really fit in. they had a rustic style farm table with long benches....we have a formal mahogany table (matches the hutch) with upholstered seats...it just wouldn't look right right in the front of the house. But, of course, that desk/tv mess doesn't look good either, so it's a work in progress. suggestions welcome. moving on - here's the kitchen.
There are two sections to the kitchen. to take these photos I was standing right in between them. the first photo is of the sink/cabinets (forgive all the dishes, I've been making candy all afternoon). to the right are the stove/fridge. The second photo was taken with me turning 180 degrees. there you can sort of see the original-to-the house glass door built ins and the eat in area. our kitchen table is just a smidge too big for the eat in nook. Enough of a smidge that I think we may need to replace that too, unless we go with one of our plans that involves moving the major appliances to the nook and putting the eat in area at the back of the kitchen. but that's a different post. I didn't really take many pictures of the bedrooms, there are three. I didn't take photos of the master because it's a mess (but I did take a photo of the fireplace in the master, a nice touch) or the kids' room because they're sleeping in it. The guest room is in the back of the house and a total disaster. behold:
Finally, there's the bathroom. the bathroom, I like, actually. everything in the bathroom is fine with me except for the floor.
Yikes. what IS that? who would ever pick that for a floor? It's clearly original to the house. andy and I need to troll home improvement websites and figure out how we can replace that, because once we do I think the bathroom will be nice. I like the fixtures the previous owners chose (they replaced the toilet, sink and retiled the shower, I think) and we found a really nice piece at ikea that fits right in the space behind the door.
and finally, one more view, of Andy watching something on the poorly-sited TV. I'm standing back by the bathroom and the spare bedroom taking the photo.
hmm. that's a lousy photo. oh well. hopefully you get the idea. so, some general thoughts. first of all, the house is very, very white. every single wall is white. I wonder if the previous owners went through and painted it all that way to make it more of a blank slate for sale? In any case, we need color on the walls. I was advised we should paint before we moved in because it was easier that way, but I really didn't want to. We did that at our old house and I felt very rushed into picking out what colors I wanted, and with the exception of the kitchen and the boys' room I quickly regretted every single one, especially the master bedroom and the bathroom. I didn't want to have to commit to colors so quickly again. I'm a girl that needs time to think. I'm also a girl that needs the advice of more aesthetically inclined friends - design and decorations aren't my strong suit. So for now, white it is while we figure things out. Second of all, the layout is admittedly not ideal. The good thing about that is that there is a full, unfinished second floor (not pictured). So, if we get motivated, we could go ahead and finish it, putting a couple (or even three) bedrooms and a bathroom up there, and change around the layout of the first floor since we'd no longer need three bedrooms downstairs. We've had three or four contractors come through and give us as many different ideas on how to do that, so we need way more time to think about that, too. Ok, I have to finish my candy plate for the kids' school and my coworkers. more on the house later.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Update to Add....

The dishwasher does not work. I would like a rebate on the home inspection now.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Moving Right Along

So we moved into our new house, and although this new house has approximately 1 closet, 3 (total) electrical outlets and is crawling with mice, I couldn't be happier that we are no longer living in Copake. I will say that as moves go, this was a pretty brutal one, and it's not like we don't have practice. I realized this weekend that Andy and I have moved together 7 times since we've been together, and that's a heck of a lot of moving. In case your doubt my math: we moved in together to 2205 West Grace. Then we moved to 2 Avalon Drive in Marlborough. From there to 160 Stanton Ave in Newton, then a brief stint at 24 Lyons Court, then to 55 Cerdan Ave, then to 1501 County Rt 7A, and now, here, to Lakeville. And I'm not even counting the fact that just after we met I moved to a new apartment, and between us meeting and us moving in together, Andy moved from his apartment in Lincoln Park to a friend's condo downtown. However, as little fun as all those moves were (especially the one when I was 8 months pregnant) this one was probably the worst - both for me, because I had the one of the worst bouts of stomach flu I've ever experienced (the remnants of which are still plaguing me 3 days later) and for the people that actually did the moving and the watching of the children (if it were not for my tireless brother in law and our amazing friends Sharon and Erik, our heels would still cooling in Copake). The timing of the move was bad to start with - Thanksgiving the previous week so we were travelling, I just started a new job working a normal days schedule and have no ability to take time off for 6 months, and Andy was really busy at work the week before - and then when Elias got sent home from school on Thursday vomiting with scarcely a box packed (foreshadowing! foreshadowing!) we knew things had the potential to go off the rails. Which, of course, they did. Most of my perspective of the move is comes from with my cheek pressed to the floor of the bathroom tile, but I'll tell you that from there it didn't look like much fun. We were much less packed than we should have been, the truck wasn't big enough to get it all in one go (or even two), the kids were cranky and still had a touch of sick themselves, and so overall you can probably imagine, it was a bit of a situation. On the bright side, however, we're now settling into our new house in Lakeville, which despite being old, mousy and a bit hard to live in (storage and furniture placement are a bit of an issue at the moment) is very close to everywhere we need to go so the 50 minute commute I've been slogging through each way is now toast. We're now 2 miles from Andy's work and about 8 miles from mine, and the boys' school is 1.5 miles down the road. And, when Owen goes to pre-k next year, the town elementary and middle school is right across the street! Since we now live in a place where schools serve a VERY large geographic area, and you could be putting your kid on a bus for an hour to the "local" elementary school, I'm very happy about that. Also, we knew the house was a bit of a fixer-upper when we looked at it, and we think that it can be fixed-up (in a little while, not right away) in such a way so that it will be much more liveable (and hopefully much less mousy and with a few more electrical outlets) without too much disruption and money. I think those are probably on the list of "famous last words" but we're in the bright side paragraph right now, so I'm going to let it slide. We seem to be in a really great little neighborhood, and the house next door to us just got sold to a family with to babysitting age daughters which is another plus. I haven't taken any pictures of the house yet because it's still in complete disarray - I still feel badly and we had to go back to work on Monday after moving over the weekend, so we've scarcely had time to unpack anything but the most essential boxes. You know, the trucks, the bedtime stories and the fireman hats. The stuff we can't get through the week without. Hopefully next weekend we'll have some free time to put the house to rights and I'll post some photos of the new digs.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Some things to be thankful for

As we pack up our house in preparation for the second move in 6 months (yay! not.) I'm reminding myself of all the things we have to be thankful for this week. Like, a brother/best buddy to play endless hours of fire chief with:
getting into the holiday spirit early decorating gingerbread men:
ymmy desserts and matching shirts on Thanksgiving:

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Hallowasn't

Well, Halloween was kind of a bust this year, and most of it is my fault. Luckily, the kids are still young enough that I'm pretty sure they didn't notice, so all's well that ends well. But I must admit, I feel a tad guilty anyway. Oh, well. We decided to go to Boston to celebrate the holiday because a friend of mine was having a giant halloween party Saturday night, and also because my parents' favorite holiday is and always has been halloween. Since trick or treating was on a monday (and my new job starts in a few days, marking the end of my weekday flexibility) we decided we'd hit up the halloween party in west roxbury and then trick or treat at my parent's house Monday night. Earlier this month Owen told me he wanted to be a firefighter for halloween. which I was estatic to hear, because we already had 2 fireman hats, and it's a pretty easy costume. I figured I'd make both kids firefighters and that would be that. Of course, while packing the car for our trip to Boston, I remembered the kids toothbrushes, their blankies, my work phone, my computer, a bag of snacks and distractions for the road, two pairs of shoes for each kid and every other damn thing in my house EXCEPT the firefighter costumes. Which is how I ended up in the Watertown Target at about 5pm on Friday afternoon staring at a very, very sparsely hung rack of halloween costumes. The other worst mother in Watertown and I were standing there dejectedly poking through the sad remains of witch costumes missing the hat, a few rumpled and returned costumes which looked worse for the experience, and a wide variety of dog halloween costumes (I spent a while debating how I could get Elias into one of the larger dog pumpkin suits without raising suspicion, but alas, it was not to be). Finally, I found a doctor costume that looked undamaged and said "fits most, ages 3 and up" on the label. perfect! Paging Dr. Cox to OR 3, stat! And that's how this happened:
Clearly, that costume is not designed to fit any 3 year old this side of the NBA. I couldn't figure out what had happened until I looked more closely on the label. Yes, in prominet letters it did say "fits most ages 3 and up", but in much smaller letters on the side of the cardboard was a little letter "M". On the back, I noticed that they had a size chart - XS, S, M, L, XL. Ahah. so in fact, you have to buy the size that corresponds with your kid's age, with XS being 3-4. duh. So the M was for ages 6-8. oh, well. we rolled up the legs and arms and just went with it. Eli ended up with the last Yoda costume in the store, which was pretty much just a robe, because he refused to wear the hat unless I was actively bribing him with candy:
and in fact, he only agreed to wear the robe for about 5 minutes. for some reason he really hated the yoda getup. I have no idea why. We're not big Star Wars fans around here (I've never even seen any of the movies) and so of course neither of my kids know or care who Yoda is, making it overall a flop of a costume. The above pictures are of both kids right before the halloween party. they both took them off immediatley, Owen because his was so huge he couldn't walk or hold anything and Elias because he was just being petulant. nonetheless, I convinced them both to try again to go trick or treating (read: bribed them with candy). Joke's on us, though - my mom's town cancelled trick or treating due to the storm. Luckily, my mom's next door neighbor called and said we could walk over and trick or treat there, and we left my dad at their house so they could go at both houses. This went a little better in the costume department - I mean, what life experience doesn't candy make better, really?
So in the end, it actually ended up fine. neither kid objected to only going to two houses, and I don't think they even noticed anything was amiss. which actually saved us from having 2 big tubs of candy which we wouldn't let the kids eat and then snarf after they went to bed.
A good time and plenty of m'n'ms were had by all. better luck with the organization next year, and in the meantime, happy halloween!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Eli loves beets

Healthy for him. Messy for me.

 
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Monday, September 12, 2011

Sometimes the hipsters are right. buy your kid a balance bike.

So, about 2 years ago, I was standing at the playground talking to one of the Cool Moms I know. She was talking to me because none of her other Cool Mom friends were around - I'm definitely not usually hip, toned, well dressed or well travelled enough to make the cut. Anyway, a little guy zipped by on a kettler trike. "those kettler trikes are pretty neat", I mused. "I think I'll get one for Owen for his second birthday". "They are ok", said Cool Mom. "But what you really should do is get a balance bike. In Europe (side note: as far as I know she's from New Jersey and has never lived in Europe, but whatever) the children don't use trikes and they go right to riding regular 2 wheeler bikes without training wheels at age 3 or 4. They use balance bikes instead. I just bought one the other day".
Since Cool Mom's kid was, like mine, about 16 months old at the time, she didn't have the bike with her and I have to admit that I had no idea what a balance bike was. So I went home and googled it, and found the skuut website. I forwarded it to my mom. "this is what I think you should get Owen for his second birthday". I wrote. She was skeptical, and suggested she get a snazzy radio flyer trike. I persisted. "no, really. I heard that in Europe, they don't even use tricylces, they use these. And all the kids can ride a two wheeler bike at 3." She wrote back. "that is ridiculous. No 3 year old can ride a two wheeler bike. you didn't learn to ride one until you were 8." But I went ahead and got him the balance bike anyway - what can I say? I am susceptible as the next gal to Cool Moms, and a whiff of European sophistication. But I have to say, in this instance, whether Cool Mom has been to Europe or not, she was right. Behold, my barely 3 and a half year old cruising on a 2 wheeler like he's been riding all his life:

those Europeans and their balance bikes and socialized medicine. Always a couple steps ahead.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Hi Blog Readers. Who are you?

I get a little email with stats emailed to me every Tuesday. I can't remember when or how I signed up to make this happen but I assume that at the time I thought it would tell me somthing about who reads my blog. It actually doesn't really tell me very much, just the geographic location of where my blog is accessed from. What's interesting to me is that the few people who seem to regularly read my blog I honestly cannot figure out how I might know them. There is one person (hi, whoever you are!) who reads my blog every time I update it from Canada. I have thought and thought and simply don't know a single person in Canada. On the other extreme, my own parents and husband do not read this blog, so I'm somewhat amused that there are people that don't even know me reading my posts.

Anyway, all this just sort of randomly to say that although I'm under the impression that almost no one reads my blog (and I still think this is largely true - I'm wondering if a lot of the blog 'hits' I get are from web bots or some other not-real source) I actually get over 200 page views a week. Again, people who actually know me (with some exceptions) tend not to read my blog, so I have no idea who you guys are - but whatever, if you like visiting my blog, great! that leads me into my real reason for musing about blog traffic....

I haven't had the greatest luck driving donations through facebook (again, trying to hit up people I know) so I thought I'd give it a stab with people I don't know! Hey all you anonymous internet friends....I'm glad you're here. Now that you are here, please take a look at my cute pictures and unoriginal thoughts on being a parent and while you're at it, could you please donate some money to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society? I'm trying to reach my goal of raising $2000 by October 2nd for the mission and I'm 80% of the way to my goal. If all of the 200 people that stop by here in a week donated $20 I'd be there! Your gift goes directly to patient services and research, is tax-deductible, and I really hope you can find a few spare dollars to donate. I am participating in an event with team in training in october (a half marathon in maine) which is the impetus for me raising this money, but the race is neither here nor there - the important part is helping LLS reach their fundraising goals. You can donate here: http://pages.teamintraining.org/ma/maine11/jcoxpa, and feel free to tell your friends!

If you don't feel like donating, but you do feel like introducting yourself, please do. especially my canadian friend. You've been with me since the beginning....here's your shout out. But a curious blogger wants to know...who are you? and will you make a donation to cancer research?

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Well, we're here.

I'm trying to be positive. I'm really trying. And believe me, that's not my usual MO - my ability to see the glass half empty is long and well documented. But since even I can figure out that refusing to give it a chance out here will end badly, I'm forcing myself to look on the brightside.

So, the brightside:

It really is beautiful here. There's a reason people buy second homes and take their vacations here - the scenery is pretty spectactular. Among the dozens of reasons I'm bummed that my camera broke is because I'd like to post some pictures to illustrate my point, but I'm sure your imaginations will suffice.

There's a pretty endless number of places for the boys to explore - between the abundance of state parks, rail trials, mountains, valleys, and all the cultural stuff the Berkshires has to offer (which is, suprisingly to me, a lot) it's not like there's nothing to do. Plus, we have a 5 acre backyard with a stream running through it, which so far has pretty much fit the bill as far as they're concerned.

You can get more house for your dollar out here. When we're ready to buy our next place (which may be sooner, rather than later, since our rental isn't really working out as well as we'd hoped) we'll be able to get a nicer house for less money.

For obnoxious food police like us - hey, it's true - this place is a heaven. We live down the road from the adorably named 'pigasso farms' which sells natural and pastured beef, chicken, pork and lamb and free range eggs. In addition to Piggaso, which is just the closest, there are I think three others on the 27 miles of rt 22 between here and the pike. There is a farmer's market with local and organic produce on pretty much every corner, and I'm loving the roadside stands with produce where you just put your money in a box. In the winter, of course, the fresh produce options will be less, but there are still some farms that make a committment to year round produce. there are several dairies we can buy direct from. It makes me feel less depressed that the nearest grocery store is 35 minutes from here, because the remaining things I need to get at a grocery store can be condensed into trips I can stretch out to two weeks or so.

There's no traffic. At least not around us. This is nice, especially coming from Boston. I can get 37 miles in about the time it used to take Andy to go 8, from Cambridge to home. On the negative side, of course, is the monstrous amount of gas we're going through. From someone who put less than 6000 miles on her car last year, this is a total culture shock. Drive 22 minutes to get to the playground? are you kidding me?? but people around here think that's nothing.

In terms of the bad things...well - you know, I think I'll just leave off here and try and focus on the good. Because of course I could go on and on (and on and on!) about what I don't like, but I think the wise advice to "bloom where you're planted" is appropriate here. Focus on the positive and eventually you'll actually feel positively, right? At least that's the plan!

Friday, July 22, 2011

Vacation

We just got back today from our vacation to Newport, RI. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to show you, because the very first day we were there, the camera (which was in the beach bag) got sand in the autofocus mechanism and no longer works. I'm so sad about it, because I now don't have any photos of this vacation except for a few random shots on andy's cell phone. Which is ok, I guess, because although we went down there with grand plans to do all Newport had to offer, including packing our bikes and gathering data about local kid friendly attractions, all we really did for 4 1/2 days was go to the beach. So all of our pictures would have looked the same anyways. But the longer term issue of the camera being broken is a bummer.

Last summer, as you may remember, we went to Smuggler's Notch in Stowe, VT for a week. That was totally awesome, although it definitely fell on the once-in-3-or-4-years end of the price spectrum for vacations, and that was with both our kids being able to stay free and going during a "off" week to get a reduced rate. This year, we spent aa little less than half as much and rented a condo from a friend in Newport. And what did we learn? We learned that it's not how much you spend, it's the quality time that you spend with your family that makes a great vacation.

ha! Do you really think that's what we learned? no! We learned that you get what you pay for.

that's not to say the kids didn't have a great time - they did. But the bottom line is that whether you're doing it at home or somewhere else, taking care of a preschooler and a toddler is a lot of work and coupled with the threat that one or both or them might drown if you drop your guard, totally exhausting. Andy and I have decided that it would be more accurate to call it a "family experience" than a "vacation". I mean, it's lovely to spend your vacation at the beach. It's slightly less lovely to arrive at the beach at 7:45 am because your kids have already been up for two hours begging you to take them there. Pros: at 7:45, you have the beach to yourself, and the chances of getting a sunburn are significantly reduced. Cons: you're already at the beach at 7:45 am. Which means you're in for a really, really long day.

Both kids had a lot of trouble with thier behavior and also with sleeping the whole trip - I'm guessing from the combination of excitement of being on vacation, over stimulation, and being in a strange place. The first day, Eli refused to nap entirely, resulting in epic crankiness all afternoon followed by him passing out face first on the floor at 4:30 pm, and then proceeding to wake up at 4:15 am the next day raring to hit the beach again. Both kids were up multiple times each night, to the point where even I, the queen of all night waking suckers was ready to baby gate them in their room and put in earplugs. Owen's behavior could have been a lot better, and that's a charitable understatement through the rose colored glasses of motherly love. I also don't think it helped that the condo we were staying in had significant noise transmission issues to other units and we were on the top floor. We were constantly following the kids around hissing "don't jump! don't yell! no banging!" etc. I think it probably stressed them out a little bit.

We did do a lot of fun stuff - we rode a carousel, went to an aquarium, took the kids on a boat tour of Naragansett Bay (the point during the vacation at which the chances one or both kids would drown peaked), walked the cliff walk, went to see a yacht restoration shop, went out to lunch,etc. but overall we just beached it. I worried the kids would get tired of the beach after the first couple days, but it turns out there's no amount of beach that's too much.

As we were leaving this morning, Owen said "we have to go home? I want to stay on vacation forever!" which is high praise, I suppose. But Andy and I couldn't pack up the car fast enough. we've had enough family vacation, and we now need a vacation.

and I think we're opening a savings account for another trip somewhere like Smuggler's Notch in a couple years. Somewhere where part of the vacation experience includes babysitters.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

we're famous!

the cox family has made it onto another blog! for today only, if you click over to my friend Cara's blog (take one shot, in the sidebar -which you should be following anyway, because she's awesome) you'll see a preview of the pictures she took for us. I've only seen the two she posted so far, but they're adorable.

back to enjoying our week at the beach. I'd promise you pictures, but our camera broke yesterday. sniff.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Down on the Farm

This week I've been inspired by the fear that we may have to move to take better advantage of all the fun stuff there is to do around the Boston area. Yesterday I took the kids to Castle Island, which is hands down the best day trip with young kids in Boston, I'm convinced. There's a huge playground, a fort, a beach, a french fry and soft serve shack - and it's free! Especially on a sunny weekday when the crowds are down, it can't be beat as a way to spend the day with your kids.

Today, high off my castle island success, I decided to take the kids on a trip to Ward's Berry Farm in Sharon. Ward's is the most popular of the local pick-your-own strawberry places, and Owen seemed pretty enthusiastic about the idea of picking strawberries, so I packed up the kids and went. Unfortunately, our Ward's trip was significantly less successful than our trip to Castle Island.

To be fair, I think it would have been ok had I brought along a second adult, but it definitley was not a single parent activity. At least not without any sort of baby contaiment device (of all the times in the past 3 years to be caught without an Ergo....)

We got started right away setting the tone for the failure of the entire trip. There are three choices of receptacle for berry collection at Ward's. They had little pint containers, slightly bigger baskets, and very large cardboard trays. As I was selecting 2 baskets, one for each boy, Owen asked if we would have enough strawberries to make strawberry jam. Looking at the baskets, I realized if we wanted to make jam we'd need a lot of strawberries, and should get the big tray. This, of course, was mistake number one. What Owen knows (or cares) about making strawberry jam comes entirely from a passing reference in one of his Berenstien Bears books, and furthermore, the sheer quantity of strawberries it would take to make an acceptable quantity of jam exceeds my own attention span, not to mention that of a 3 year old and 17 month old. Nonetheless, however, I forked over $20 for the big tray, which I then set out with toward the strawberry fields.

Halfway there, the not-such-a-great-ideaness of it all started to hit me. The promised "short walk" to the fields was, in fact pretty short. To me. To Elias, it may as well have been to Athens and back. He walks just fine these days, but at his own speed, which is best described as an amble, and an amble punctuated by frequent limp-body plopping to the ground when he's decided that he's either walked far enough or (more frequently) doesn't feel like going in the direction you are going. The hot sun was beating down on us as we slowly, slowly, made our way to the fields, with me awkwardly carrying the diaper bag, their lunch bag, my purse, the empty strawberry tray, occasionally Elias, and trying to keep Owen at at least an arm's length.

For some reason, I thoght things were going to get easier once we got to the strawberry patch. But Eli proved equally difficult to redirect within the confines of the strawberry field, with the added wrinkle of a complete inability to explain the finer points of strawberry picking to him. Oh, he got the whole point of the strawberry plants allright - that child is somewhat of an expert in all things edible - but he immdiately turned into a rampaging, strawberry-hoovering monster. Ripe ones, unripe ones, hulls on, rotten ones, berries out of other people's unattended baskets and trays - he ate them all. This occupied his attention for about 14 minutes, after which he had eaten his fill and got bored of the strawberry picking experience, and converted to just regular old rampaging. Owen, for his part, was a pretty good strawberry picker for the 14 minutes Eli spent eating every strawberry he could see. Unfortunately, because he's 3 (note to self) he promptly lost interest in the whole endeavor. For those of you keeping score at home, we had one very large strawberry tray, filled with only the contents of one 3 year old's pickings for 14 minutes. So, not very many.

I started to sweat. The tray looked cavernous and I realized I had no hope of maintaining the kids' saftey and/or attention for the time it would take me to fill the damn thing. I embarked on a mad picking mission, raking my hands throught the plants while desperately trying to sing any silly song or tell any silly story to keep the kids vaguely interested and hanging out relatively near me. Owen it worked out allright for, but Elias just trampled and terrorized the strawberry patch. Luckily, at some point he decided he had room for more strawberries and spent about 10 minutes sitting in the middle of a particularly berry-laden plant eating more. I was relieved about this for awhile, because it gave me more time on the clock to fill the tray. Relieved until Owen went over to check on him and yelled "Mom, Eli's eating more rotten ones. Really Rotten ones." I called back, "Ok, honey, it's probably fine. Just show him where the good ones are." To which Owen replied "and dirt. He's also eating dirt, mama".

Strawberry picking stopped seeming like the cute family bonding activity I had envisioned and more like the exhausting, backbreaking labor it actually it is. My tray, which I had optimistically recently judged as half full now looked closer to a quarter full. I was sweating and still trying to pick berries as fast as I could. Just then, Elias made a break out of the strawberry patch, directly in front of a tractor pulling a haywagon full of families. Owen started screaming "mama! Eli's going to get run over by the tractor!" and just generally losing his bananas, during which episode he capsized our half (quarter) tray full. In truth, Eli was in no danger - the tractor was a good 40 feet away from him and going approximately 1 mile an hour, and he was caught and returned to the strawberry patch well before the tractor even passed us, but it certainly added to the, er, general ambiance.

I instructed the kids to put all the strawberries that had fallen out of the tray back into it so we could leave. I clearly didn't give very good instructions because they heard "eat as many of these spilled strawberries as you can before we go". I gathered up what berries I could save from their maws and then was faced with the return trip to the car. This time, I had all the acoutrements of the way out (diaper bag, lunch bag, purse, recalcitrant and dawdling toddler) but ALSO a tray of strawberries that had to be carried in such a way that the berries would not go flying. It took us an embarrasingly long time to go approximatly 1/4 of a mile, at the end of which we were several strawberries the lesser.

When we finally got home, Owen was still very interested in making strawberry jam. I looked at him, looked at the berries, and ALMOST pulled out a big pot. Then, I thought better of it, asked him if he wouldn't rather watch an episode of Bob the Builder, and suggested that jam-making was really an activity better suited to be done with Daddy.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

My Proud-Mama moment

I know, shameless bragging about my kid. But come on, what did you expect coming to my blog? It was pretty much created for that sole purpose. Andy and I are so proud of Owen for learning to ride a 2 wheeler. And we're even more proud that he figured it out only the second time we let him try it.

here's the link to the video.

We had a feeling he'd be able to do it pretty much right away - he has had a balance bike since he was 2 and we noticed the other day as we walked (and he rode the balance bike) to the park that he could pick his feet up and balance/glide for pretty long periods of time. We figured that basically, this is pretty much what you need to master to ride a real bike, so we bought him the smallest one we could find, didn't attach the training wheels, and let him go for it. he still can't steer and he's not terribly steady, nor does he understand the hand brakes (this bike has both pedal and hand brakes) but he can unquestionably ride the bike. We're pretty proud of him.

But don't worry. On balance, there's probably more to be mortified by than proud of in the case of this particular 3 year old, particularly lately, and particularly in the behavior department. So let me have my small positive moment...I promise I won't let it go to my head.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Burnt to a Crisp

If you're checking in to find out what the kids are up to, please, don't ask me. I have no idea, because I haven't seen them in a month. Not literally, of course, but I'm feeling like I may have finally reached my limit for how much I can manage at once. I generally like to think that in the 'keeping multiple balls in the air' category I'm above average, but I have met my match. To April, I say uncle.

Things started out ok, back in mid-to-late March. I have my normal work schedule (25 hours a week, Wednesday-Saturday, 6pm-12am and 5pm-12am on Fridays). I have the kids the rest of the time. Andy's been working a lot lately, usually at least one weekend day and several late nights, so we need occasional babysitters to cover the gaps, but at baseline, it's manageable. I've adjusted to getting less sleep, and though it's not ideal, it largely works. On top of that, the small business I've been trying to start with a colleage is actually taking off a bit, and we've generated ourselves a small but growing client base. Which is good, but layered on top of my normal schedule (so trying to meet with clients the three nights I don't work and on weekends) was making me feel like I had a bit too much on my plate, maybe. Right before we were supposed to leave for Phoenix we knew that the month was looking busy, but it still seemed manageable.

Then, right before we left for our trip, I got a call from my former boss. It's a long story, but let's just skip to the punchline, where she asked me to come back to my old job for a month. And how somehow, by the end of the conversation (a crack in the time/space continum? Momentary complete lapse in sanity? alien mind control?) I agreed to do so.

So, we return from Arizona, and the very next day, all hell breaks loose. Andy had a bunch of special projects and some staffing issues at work, plus he'd been away for a week. He essentially would need to live at work until late May. And I realized that I had signed myself up to work 32 hours a week at my former job, plus my regular 25 hours at my regular job, plus I had to keep all the commitments I had already made for our independent venture. Oh yeah. And the kids. Can't forget the kids.

I know. I'm with you. Nuts. Bonkers. Bat guano insane.

I generally am one that thrives off too much to do, and truth be told when I'm given too much free time I tend to put myself in predicaments just such as this one - it's somewhat of an inborn personality flaw. But this time I've really gone and walked a bit too close to the cliff. After three weeks of working a full and 2 part time jobs, plus doing the lions share of dressing, feeding, organizing, packing and transporting the progeny (who are remarkably flexible and having a great month at their old family daycare plus spending quality time with favorite babysitters, thank goodness) I've just about had enough. They say you can do anything for a short amount of time, but I think maybe "they" were thinking more like 5 minutes. One more week of this insanity and we can return to the regular, only marginally insane version of my life. And it can't come a second too soon, because for the first time I really understand what it means to feel "burnt out". I'm not sure I have more than another week in me.

The bright side, if there is one, is that I do get the whole day completely off tomorrow. The plan was that we were going to all go to CT where Andy's parents and my sister live for Easter. However, I had to work 9 to 5 today at my old job (daycare inconvieniently closed on Monday and full on Wednesday) and then 6 to 12 tonight. Much as I wish you could, you can't drive to New Haven in an hour, so we would have had to leave Sunday morning. But since I am still working next week, and need to be at work Monday, we would have had to turn right around and come back tomorrow night, and since tomorrow is the first day in the entire month of April that I didn't have one thing for any job scheduled....I just couldn't handle the thought of driving to New Haven and back in one day. So instead, the boys took a roadtrip to Grandma and Grandpa's, and I stayed home. And how will I spend Easter Sunday?

Cleaning. I trust you can use your powers of deduction to figure out what our house looks like right now.

Happy Easter, if you celebrate. I did buy the boys matching spring green plaid shirts, and assuming Andy gets some good pictures I'll post them when they return from their trip.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Lie to your children. It's good for them.

I plagarized the title of my blog post which is funny in this case because it's one of the criticisms (among many) that was leveled at Jessica Seinfeld when she published her book Deceptively Delicious. And in general I would have to say that I agree the book is kind of dumb. First of all, it's not really teaching your kids to eat healthfully if you're putting spinach puree in brownies. You're still feeding your kid brownies, which you really shouldn't do very often if you want them to be healthy. Plus, putting 1/2 cup of spinach puree in an entire pan of brownies really isn't boosting the nutritional profile all that much. On the other hand, hey - if you were going to be serving a dessert anyway, at a birthday party or whatever, why NOT put some vegetables into your baked goods? I guess. But, making purees (and baking, for that matter) are not really things I have the time and/or energy for, so the cookbook never interested me much.

Until we started having our produce delivered, that is. And as anyone who has ever joined a winter csa knows, there is pretty much no limit to the amount of beets and kale those people will try and fob off on you. We have gotten to a point where we're trying to put away 2 lbs of beets a week - and hey, I like beets. But that is a LOT of beets. The kale I find much easier to dispatch, but I was getting to the point where I was actually consider trying to use the beets to dye fabric with.

I know. Pull myself back from the edge. But don't worry. Like I said yesterday, I can't find time to shower so I'm not dyeing anything with anything.

But I still have all these beets. And my friend had the cookbook, which is how I ended up making a quadruple batch of these pink pancakes and the kids LOVE them. I use hodgson's mills 100% whole wheat pancake mix and they come out really well. They also freeze really well, so I put 2-3 in a baggie and put them in the freezer and then just reheat them in the toaster for breakfast.

The best part is that I now have an excuse to avoid eating any more beets. They're for the kids!

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

The great debates

I guess it's been a little while, sorry about that. I haven't had that much to blog about lately, or rather, I've had so much to blog about that I've had trouble finding things small and manageable enough to encapsulate in a post. But, in the spirit of not letting the blog get too far away from me I'll udate today just to get a post on the board in March.

First, I'm putting a new blog in the "blogs I like" section of my blog. I wanted to call attention to it because it's just been started by a friend and neighbor of mine. She and I met a little over 2 years ago through our knitting club, and bonded over the fact that neither of us had a very good idea of what we actually wanted to be when we "grew up" despite the fact that we both had full time jobs and pretty clearly defined careers. I'm really happy to say that she's found a passion in photography and I hope that she is able to parlay it into, if not a career, at least a wonderful and satisfying hobby. She's currently doing a project where she's going to take a photo every single day and post it. I am extremely impressed by this, because I can barely shower every single day. So, kudos to Cara and please check out her blog. I personally think she's extremely taleted!

As for me, as many of you know I've been spending the past couple years working toward a self directed career as well. I'm happy to report that, although I'm not ready to pull back the curtain on it yet, I think I'm only about 6 months away from being truly and exclusively self employed. I take my licensing examination on March 24th at 8am, and provided I pass it, the last puzzle peice will be in place and I will be independently licensed by the state of MA. It has been a pretty arduous journey to meet the clinical requirements while also having and keeping track of 2 kids, but I finally finished at the end of February. Now I just need to pass the exam. If I do pass, all systems will be go. I have a colleague, an office space, an idea...stay tuned on that front.

Finally, Andy and I have been agonizing (and agonizing is really quite an understatement) about our house situation lately. Should we stay in Boston (which we love, is best for our careers, is convienient and comfortable) or should we move to an area that has better public schools? we go back and forth on pretty much a daily basis now that Owen is 3 (next week? I can. not. believe it.) and pre-k is more of a reality with each passing month. We want to stay, but my parents really think we should move. Half my friends around here with kids are committed to staying and making school options in Boston work, and the other half are busy going to open houses every weekend. What we really want to do is put a second floor on this house and never leave, but that seems to be an option that no one thinks is a good idea. Ugh. and so the debate rages.....

Owen's birthday party is this weekend, the big 3. I'll try and remember to take lots of pictures to put on the blog.

Friday, February 18, 2011

I don't know about you, but.....

I'm tired of opening up my blog page and seeing a picture of a toilet. So while I wait for inspiration to strike for my next post, please enjoy these photos of Elias on his recent 1st birthday.





PS: I've only been to the grocery store once since December 15th! I bought one carton of yogurt, one package of deli turkey and 2 loaves of gluten free bread. success!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

What will they think of next?

I can't get over the cleverness of this thing. After seeing it at two friend's houses recently, I just HAD to have one. This is simply an ingenious product:





A toilet seat with a potty seat BUILT IN. I love it. I love it most because it means we can now dispense with the disgusting potty seat that must be moved on and off the potty multiple times a day and best of all, Owen can now make the potty kid friendly all by himself without bellowing for me to retrieve the seat. Simply genius, I say.

Speaking of geniuses, Owen may or may not be one. Here's some evidence in the "not" column. Owen's new favorite game is called "trash pile". It consists of...well...



gathering up as many of his toys as he can and creating a heap with them. I have to say, the appeal escapes me. Also, slightly discouraged that we go to all the time and trouble to find toys that we think will be both entertaining and educational and the favored game involves making them into a....trash pile. Let's not dwell too much on that, shall we?

finally, how cute is this photo:


I hope you all are enjoying the snow as much as we are this winter.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Snow Day!

As you may know we got about foot of snow in the city. I had to share these pictures of frolicking in the snow.


Friday, January 7, 2011

New Year's Resolution

I admit it: I love self improvement campaigns (and self help books, although I've learned the hard way that most people don't love them as much as I do. While I would love a self help book as a gift, I've learned that most people....don't. Message recieved.). Anyway, as a logical extension, I LOVE new year's resolutions. This year, my resolution is to stop shopping for food. There are several reasons I really want to do this:

1) I hate shopping for food (or anything else) with kids in tow. I have 2 kids under 3 and no daycare. Need I say more?

2) I would rather have our family eat no meat than industrially produced meat; and although in the early years of Jenny and Andy Andy was willing to go along with my no-meat stance I've pretty much lost that battle now. So if meat we will have, then I don't want to buy it in a grocery store, unless the grocery store can guarantee the meat has no hormones and was raised humanely. Even if it can, see #1. '

3) I'm a pretty ineffective shopper, even without the kids. I only make a list 1/4 of the time, of the times I do go to the trouble, I without fail leave it at home on the counter. I usually wander around the store aimlessly and return with a random assortment of foods (mostly in the salty snack and frozen dessert categories) and nothing for dinner. I also always buy condiments that I'm sure we're out of, which is why we have approximately 8 backup ketchups in the basement.

I'm happy to say that a week into the new year and I think I'm 3/4 of the way to my goal. This is how I did it:

1) I'm continuing our weekly delivery from Boston Organics. We've been doing this since September and so far, I've been incredibly impressed with the service. We get a weekly box for $29 that is 2/3 vegetables and 1/3 fruit. Every 4th week I get a $39box for a little extra, and that mix seems to be exactly the right amount of produce for our size family. I love that the boxes are customizeable and that (unlike a csa) if you can't take your box one week (because you're away or whatever) you can just suspend your delivery at no charge. Also, I frequently make changes and deletions to my preference list and/or change my box size and they always get it right, customer service has been excellent. I haven't had to purchase produce at a store in 4 months.

2) we just re-enrolled in the Stillman's Farm Meat CSA. We were members of this CSA two years ago, and were really happy with it until we got three months in a row when the meat share was all or mostly pork. We had split a "full share" (20 lbs) with a friend, and as he noted when it was time to renew "I like the idea, but my freezer is starting to look like the US Congress." So despite the fact that we loved getting our meat directly from the farm, and being sure that it was all pastured, free range and hormone and antibiotic free, we didn't renew. But, I've confirmed with several people I know who are currently participating in the CSA that they've fixed this problem, so we're back with bells on. We again got a full share and are splitting it again with the same friend, so hopefully we won't be disappointed. I found last time that 10 pounds of meat a month is a little less than most families of 4 might consume, but because it's more expensive (the price per pound is about $7.75) than meat you buy at the grocery store, the overall meat budget is probably the same. I would much rather exchange quantity for quality, and Andy has fun making the meat stretch creatively.

3) I recently set us up with delivery from Thatcher Farm in Milton. In adittion to hormone and antibiotic free milk (but not certified organic) they also deliver all other dairy (cheese, yogurt, cream, etc.) as well as organic eggs, bread and other bakery products, juice and a few other items.

So, we've got produce, dairy, meat, and bakery covered. That leaves staples like grains, cereal, snack foods, canned goods, and laundry/cleaning items.

I have a peapod account, and I've used it. But overall, I'm kind of unimpressed with them. First of all, since there are so many categories of things I don't need to buy from them, my orders are small and don't hit the $100 mark where the delivery fee goes down. $10 per order for delivery is too much. I could order less frequently with greater quantity, but I've yet to get myself organized enough to plan what I need in these categories a month in advance (although, it's theoretically possible). Even so, they don't carry a lot of the things I like to buy when I physically go to the store, and they don't have a good selection of gluten free items, and they tend to only have one brand option of things. for instance there's a certain kind of saltine I like to buy for the kids that don't have soy in them, and although I can get them in the regular store I can only get standard saltines through peapod. So, I'm trying to figure out if I can use amazon prime (which has free shipping) to replace peapod. We'll see. I haven't actually tried it yet. Peapod is also OK for laundry/cleaning/housewares but again, they don't carry as wide a selection as I'd like and their eco-friendly products are limited. I'm hoping amazon is better.

Here's to 2010! I'm hoping to have to enter a grocery store less than once a month. So far, I haven't gone once since December 15th, but it's only January 7th so we'll see. What's your resolution?