I was treated to a triple feature this morning. A triple feature in the span of an hour is unusual, even with our family, so I feel obligated to share the wealth. Here is a quick recap:
Feature One was “Liar Liar Pants on Fire”. While it was well acted and the actor certainly committed to the role, the lie itself was not plausible and therefore the audience new in the opening seconds that her pants were in fact on fire. I do give her credit however, as she was determined and stayed with the lie until it’s dying breath, only then switching to pleading and begging for forgiveness. All in all, while the material was poorly contrived, the actor is a natural.
Feature Two was an oldie but goodie performance of “I’m Cruisin’ for a Bruisin’ – Telling You 'NO' Just One More Time”. The dialogue was expected, a lot of “NO”’s, and again the performance was well acted as he owned the character. I did in fact want to bruise him, repeatedly.
Feature Three was a true joy to behold. A surprising and magnificent rendition of “I Can’t Fathom Why, But I Now Must Lose My Ever Loving Mind”. This performance had everything! It was unexpected, emotionally exhausting, and physically challenging, a true Oscar worthy performance. There was foot stomping and body trembling, throat burning screams and floods of tears. The audience felt shock, confusion, disbelief, anger, and amusement all within the opening 30 seconds of this lengthy, multi-dimensional, 20 minute performance.
If you are interested in experiencing these performances yourself you’ll be pleased to know that each performance will be shown again in limited release. I can’t confirm date, time or location of these fine exhibits of raw acting power, however, I can tell you if you spend any significant time with our family you are practically assured a viewing of at least one or more of these special impromptu plays as encores appear to be a favorite of these stunning young performers.
I love this picture, I love how each of these children are so perfectly comfortable intertwined with one another. The utter closeness it represents, the connection, the trust. The imagination and wonder of just being silly without worry of judgment. The total abandonment of self awareness.
When they get older, they’ll begin to get self conscious. They’ll worry more and more about what others think of them, their bodies, what they are doing, how they are dressed. It’s unavoidable. And when that happens they will lose a bit of the complete joy captured in this picture. My hope is to keep this loss to a minimum. To teach my children to consider, for no more than a blink of an eye, what others might think and then remember that what matters is what they already know – and to enjoy the moment, unencumbered, for everything that it is.
There is something special about a mother and son relationship, just as I know for a fact there is something special between a father and daughter, that I can’t put my finger on. It’s not that a mother loves her sons more than her daughters, not at all, but there is something deep seeded and completely undiluted.
Perhaps the thing is, with daughters (for mothers) there is some minuscule amount (no matter how we would deny it) of wishing and hoping they don’t make the same choices we did or that they join the teams or groups we didn't, have a hidden talent we always wished for. However, with sons, that thinking isn’t applicable so there is no amount of anxiety or wishful of what could have been tethered to that love.
When we decided to go for our third child we knew there was a very real possibility we would have another girl and we would have loved that. John had convinced himself that he would be a father of three daughters and I told myself I didn't care either way. When I was pregnant with Loretta and Caroline I never once felt I knew for sure what I was going to have. I always called my bundle of joy "the baby" when I talked about them moving or kicking. But when I was pregnant with Sam, before I knew he was a boy, I was referring to him as "he" or "him" in my mind from very early on. I began to realize that secretly I really wanted a boy, but I didn't know just how desperately until 18 weeks along when we found out the sex, something we hadn't done for either girl.
I had admitted, at least to my self, that I wanted a son and decided that if there was going to be even one millisecond of disappointment if this baby was a girl I wanted it to happen mid pregnancy, not on the baby's birthday which should only be pure joy. John didn't really want to find out the sex, but supported me and almost as soon as the technician put the wand on my belly she said "it's a boy!". It was pretty easy to see since Sam was pointing at himself, practically screaming "get rid of the pink mama!". I was surprised by my own reaction to this news. I knew I wanted a son, but I had no idea just how desperately until my little man was confirmed. I sobbed with happiness, moving so much with my own laughter and tears that the woman could barely finish the exam.
I'm a daddy's girl and proud of it. I miss being close to my family so much and a girl always needs her mom, but deep down I'm a daddy's girl and I know all about that wonderfully special father/daughter connection. And it was pretty clear to me even before I got pregnant with Sam that Loretta and Caroline both were well on their way to a wonderfully special father/daughter relationship with John too. It's even more obvious now. John relates to both of them so well and on such different levels. John and Loretta are both naturally athletic and energetic. They love to be outside and explore and collect rocks and leaves. John and Caroline connect on a more emotional level. It's more subtle, but they just seem to get one another. There are times when they both just need their quiet time and sometimes Caroline pulls into the inner shelter of herself a little and when that happens it's often John who brings her back out of her shell.
I think more than anything, I wanted that connection too. Like the one I had with my dad, like the one John has with the girls, which will only grow stronger over the years. Like the one my mom has with Paul. Sam is emotional and stubborn, tender and sweet, loving and funny, destructive and adorable. He's this little man in my life who is forever sitting on my lap and loves and dotes on me, battles and defies me, teases and tests me and cheers for me like I'm a super hero. I'm completely wrapped around his grimy, car crashing, little boy finger and I love it.
I think this might have been our best Christmas yet. It just seemed...easier, somehow. I'm not sure why, but the aggravations that usually come along with the joy of the holiday season were few and far between. We did, however, have a minor episode with holiday lights that nearly brought me to tears. You would think after three children I would have no problem understanding the female/male plug coupling requirements, but alas after stringing 12 strands of lights, somewhere in the middle I reversed the order and couldn't plug them into the outlet. As always, John saved the day (and my sanity). But other than that the holidays just felt right and simple. The pictures for the Christmas card were no trouble and we actually had too many to choose from, no stress, no tears, just fun.
Loretta and Caroline decided they needed an Elf on a Shelf and after John and I put it off long enough they volunteered our Dopey who was an excellent stand in. Loretta received an Ipod from Santa and Caroline got her pink kitchen. Sam loved his motorcycle and rides it in the house non stop. All three kids loved going shopping with their Christmas money from Grandma and Grandpa and we got to spend Christmas day at Grandma and Grandpa T's with Ed, Sharon and the kiddos. Baby Tanner is such a sweet little baby.
John and I attended a Christmas party with all of our old Shrewsbury friends and we had a tree decorating party with Becky. All in all, I think it was a wonderful holiday season with little drama and much love. I can't say as much about New Years Eve/Day, all three kids were terribly ill and I followed shortly there after, but I won't dwell on that. We are all looking forward to the exciting things that will happen this coming year. Loretta will turn 7 and begin 2nd grade, Caroline will turn 5, begin kindergarten and hopefully learn to ride a 2 wheeler, Sam will turn 3, hopefully potty train and maybe begin pre-k. John and I will celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary and there will be trips to Ohio, The Cape and hopefully Mississippi.
2011 was very good to us and we are so thankful that we are healthy, that John and I have jobs that we love and that our kids are thriving. Welcome 2012, we hope to make you proud.
Just wanted to pop in and share a few pictures of our Fall shenanigans thus far. We've had some leaf pile jumping, indoor soccer playing, swimming (but NOT jumping off of the block), movie nights with friends, practicing writing our names, birthday partying, cookie baking, crazy days.
We spent a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving with Mom and Dad T and then met our sweet baby cousin Tanner, followed by a parade and sleepover with the big cousins. We even had a professional photographer (aka Becky and her new awesome camera).
John has had a sudden influx of Christmas spirit and Loretta got tired of waiting for us to buy an Elf on the Shelf so she assigned Dopey the Dwarf to the job. Becky helped us decorate our tree and we're all ready for Santa's visit in just a few days.
They have been busy, fun filled days which is why this post is so sort on words, but heavy on pictures. More to come soon, I promise!
Posted to my ever faithful Facebook friends on 10/28/2011 and re-posted here for my non Facebook friends amusement.
Thank you for inviting me to be your friend on Facebook. If I am a new addition to your list, please allow me to set some expectations for you. When I post it’s typically directed to one of two audiences. The first is what I’ll call Core Family & Friends. These are people who are genuinely interested in me and my family’s day to day life and vice versa. These are the people, who if they are far away, I think of and miss dearly and just want to remain as an active part of their life as possible. The second audience is local friends, old and new, who I’d like to stay in touch with, get to know better, and actually hang out with in real life. All others, I consider the frosting on top of my cupcake, rainbow jimmies and a cherry.
Please know that 99.9% of all updates are about me, my children, their shenanigans, my husband and exercise. Silly antics, goofy pictures and basically the sometimes predictable sometimes not of being a mother of 3 little monsters. While I can’t promise you that I won’t post about bodily functions occasionally these things come up, especially during naked run around time. If this is not what you were hoping for when you friended me, please defriend/unfriend me now. It won’t hurt my feelings and it will save you frustration later.
Now a few things I will and won’t do on FB. Please accept that while I may elect to not do these things on FB it in no way implies judgment if you do. Actually, the fact that you do is often what makes my time on FB amusing (they are often my jimmies and cherry on top).
While I don’t try to make my life out to be better than it actually is on FB, I am a positive person and highlight the good and downplay the bad. I don’t look at FB as a place to pour out my woes, cry in my (3rd cup) of coffee and hope for “hang in there” replies, it’s public for god’s sake. Take it for what it’s worth.
I have a strict policy about not getting wrapped up in political or religious debates on FB, although this does not prevent me from liking posts. If you were to actually track my likes you’ll see I have liked religious, anti-religious and political posts on a variety of contradicting view points on a regular basis. Some of my favorites are church signs that are written in such a way that they imply some sort of sexual act or criminal behavior. I don’t care who you are, those are funny!
If a post begins or ends with “Post this if…” I probably won’t post it. I love my children, my husband, my life, blah blah blah and don’t feel the need to prove it by posting some prewritten (and let’s be honest) sappy message to prove it. I will however ALWAYS like anything related to causes I care about, like the “It get’s better project” or equal marriage rights. Also, I realize that by not posting that I have accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and savior on FB I may actually be denouncing him, so be it. Don’t worry my Bible belt friends, God and I have an understanding, whoever he or she may be, and it doesn’t include FB declarations.
I also have a strict policy of not posting chain letter type posts, with the only exception of those breast cancer awareness posts where I can imply some sort of sexual deviant behavior just by posting where I like to keep my purse or store my shoes. For those, I’m totally in. You may be seeing a trend here, but if not, I have the sense of humor of a 12 year old boy, there I said it.
So there you have it, with me as your friend you won’t get a steady stream of interesting articles from all over the world, hysterical YouTube videos about cats or that guy who can belt out Queen like nobody’s business or political rants (not that I don’t love getting those from you). NOT that there’s anything wrong with that. But, hopefully, you’ll get a few gems along the way that make you smile.
We were so lucky this fall. We had Grandma and Grandpa visiting for 2 full weeks and Uncle Paul here for several days as well, and we had an amazing time. I won't talk about the Rugged (again) but focus on other highlights of the visit. Paul, Mom, the kids and I went to King Richard's fair, which was a ton of fun. I hadn't been in probably 8 or 9 years and it was surprisingly...the exact same. It's pretty amazing how many people really get into the Renaissance time period, visitors in full garb and dialect.
Dad got in several flying trips and Mom got her visit to the Norman Rockwell museum which I think was enjoyed by Dad too. Mom gave Sam his very first haircut (it's tradition after all, Superman cape and all) and he was an excellent little customer. Caroline wanted to get her ears pierced but in the end she chickened out and Loretta got hers done. One of the funnier moments was asking Sam to point out all of grandpa's facial parts (lips, nose, eyes, eyebrows) and then when I asked him "where is Grandpa's hair?" him looking on top of his head and craning all the way around until he found hair on his back, "Der it is!". For some reason Loretta decided it was funny to call grandpa an "old hag" the entire time, which of course was completely encouraged by us all.
Each night after I picked up the kids from daycare we would be driving home and a few houses before ours Sam would start cheering "Yea Grandpa's home!". And for their entire visit, each night at bed time, after goodnight kisses downstairs, the kids and I would head upstairs for teeth and night nights and Sam (as is his habit) calls out each person before he kisses them... Daddy, Mommy, Loretta, Caroline.....and GRANDPA! then I would say, "no silly, you already kissed Grandpa", then he would yell out GRANDMA! This little scenario played out every single night for weeks after Mom and Dad went home.
I'm pretty sad I won't be seeing everyone over the holidays this year, especially Chris, Trish and Jordan because it feels like eons since I did, but there is a possibility we'll all get together in March and I'm clinging onto that little life raft. This will be the first holiday ever, if I'm remembering correctly, that I haven't been home for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. I'm pretty sure if I hadn't just had this fall visit with Mom, Dad and Paul I would be a complete basket case by Christmas Eve.
a few pictures...
