7 candles

Happy Birthday to my sweet, smart, comedic little nephew. 7 years has gone so fast.

monday, monday

there is an amazing breeze, soaked in saltiness.

the skies are blue, just a few perfectly placed cotton balls up there.

the sun is shining, bright.

the forecast said 90, but i'm chilling in the high 70's.

it could not be a more pleasant fall day.

thank you Earth for making such a perfect day.

thank you God for letting me experience it.

hugo

It seems like just yesterday, although today marks 20 years. But still, I remember it so vividly. It was a Thursday. I know because I always had gymnastics on Thursdays. My Mom picked me up and when we got home, I recall her saying (to my Dad): Ray, I went to the grocery store and all the milk and bread was gone. I saw people boarding up their windows. This storm isn't coming for us. Why are people panicking?

It was only a few short hours later that I woke to a loud rumbling in the attic just above my bedroom (boxes, moving around). Scared and a little confused about all the talk of this guy they called "Hugo", I crept into my parent's bedroom. 5 minutes later, we were all three in the downstairs bedroom - trying to sleep but waiting. The rain and the wind picked up and I heard it. The train. You know, the train they always talk about. When a hurricane is coming. It's true. I clearly remember that sound and laying in the bed with my parents in that tiny downstairs bedroom. I was terrified.

Somehow we slept through most of the madness and rose the next morning to find a true mess. Granted, it wasn't the disaster experienced in my new hometown of Charleston, but, at our house in Lancaster, trees were toppled (5, I think), one giant tree-trunk lay slain across our front porch, debris was scattered, power was out... we lived on a dead end street, the entrance was completely blocked by a grand-daddy sized oak. My poor swingset had been massacred - my biggest concern.

As a child, it was almost like an adventure - no escape from our street, dinner by candlelight for over a week, no school, and lots of talk and wild stories. Now as an adult, I realize the severity and how lucky we were to escape with so little damage. Three tall pines nestled right in beside our sunroom windows, and they were all down that morning. Had the wind blown in any other direction, our house would have been traumatically beaten. But they fell away.

It's a day I will never forget as long as I live. And almost impossible to believe that it was 20 years ago.

blogging for boredom

these last few days at work have been so slow. and when i say slow i mean maaaaybe 5 phone calls in one day, zero closings, zero projects for me to immerse myself in, and the sound of the air conditioner buzzing in my ear all day long. slow! so to kill some time, here i am, blogging. blogging about who knows what. stuff. instead of spring cleaning, i am fall cleaning... my mind. (i'm excited, so I sit up proper-like in my chair and brush my hair back)

speaking of hair, i got a new cut. the evening before our flight took off to dc (2 weeks ago) i dragged john to my fabulous hairstylist, trayce, back home for some much needed hair therapy. john was looking like a shaggy mess, my split ends had split ends and to let you know how bad it was, trayce winced when i pulled my ponytail down and said "ooh, this is pre-tty bad court". she's never said that to me - not in the 13 years since i started going to her. 13 years is quite an accomplishment, p.s.! that's longer than most marriages last. maybe i should send her a "thanks for keeping the hair on my head all these years" card. so anyway, she's asking me what i want to do with my moptop and i say "i don't care". so she looks to john and john says, "how does your hair look short". fabulous! so short i got. 3 inches shorter to be exact - right up to my chin-line and i love it. i felt new and improved. it's amazing how a haircut, even just a trim, can do that for you. then john hopped in the chair for his first "professional" hair cut. he goes to sportclips and thinks he's getting a good cut. ha! i wanted him to see what a real stylist could do. and do, she did. it was his best cut yet. we left there feeling like a million bucks and ready for our adventure.

but before our adventure, we did a little birthday celebration - for me! at that point, my birthday was still 2 weeks away but we celebrated early - we're rebels like that. so we joined my family at a local wing-joint, leo's (legendary raw fries!), and grubbed. then we ventured back to my parent's house for singing, cake, presents, and the funniest damn joke i've ever heard in my life. my uncle, big gavin, who is notorious for his ability to draw a laugh, tells this "potato chip" joke and the whole room was dying from laughter. just crying. i don't even know how he told it with a straight face. he's been telling this joke for 25 years. 25 years! let's be real, people. a joke has to be pretty good to hang around for 25 years. so if you know big gavin, the next time you see him, you have to make him tell it.

4 am the next morning came pretty quickly, and john and i hit the road towards the charlotte airport, leaving sweet baby and the doggie with my parents. at 9am we landed in baltimore to see the beautiful face of my bff, her hubby, and their little boy. we had 3 full days to enjoy their company, see their new home situated nicely in a suburb of dc, sight-see, party, and exhaust ourselves. we walked, what felt like, the entire length of the city, saw some amazing sites, went on an eventful all-day (should have been 2 hour) tubing trip with them and another couple (that day could be a whole blog in itself), ate some scrumptious sushi and to-die-for fried mashed potato and blue cheese balls, drank beer, and just chilled. some time away was much-needed for me and john and we couldn't have spent our time and money in a better place!



tuesday morning came and i was ready to see my little boy. so we hopped another plane and headed back. it was so good to see him and hold him. all i wanted to do was snuggle with him for a month and stare at his sweet smile. only, there wasn't much snuggle time like i had anticipated. wednesday morning woke to find me sick. sick as a dog. actually, i've never understood the expression "sick as a dog", but whatever. i was sick. like an idiot, i went online to discover that i had all the symptoms of the swine flu. needless to say i spent the better part of the day freaking out that i was infected, everyone i had encountered was infected, what was i going to do, poor little sully and all the babies in his daycare - ahhhhhhhh. but the doctor did a nose-swab and said all of my hysteria was for nothing because it wasn't swine flu. it wasn't even the regular flu. it was an upper respiratory infection. silly me! she gave me 2 days off of work (god bless her) and home i went. i already blogged about this so i'll stop with that.

so i worked 1 day in a span of 2 weeks - pretty awesome.

i spent this past weekend recovering from my non-swine flu and from a heartbreaking loss with the usc game and come monday, it was my birthday. still a 20-something. i wasn't feeling completely up to snuff yet, so when john asked what i wanted to do that night, i was confident in saying "stay in". he and sully surprised me with a birthday cake, lit with 20-something ( :) ) candles and a fabulous homemade spaghetti dinner. after sully dozed off, john and i rented the new kate & leo flick, revolutionary road, and vegged out. i even got a shoulder and foot rub. it was perfect. there's nothing like a birthday to make you feel loved. dozens of excited people calling to serenade you and cards expressing their love. it's the besssssssst!

now things are winding down a bit and i'm looking forward to a weekend with nothing planned besides a possible trip to the mall. it's supposed to be a rainy one this weekend and there's nothing like staying in, in your jammies and all-day movie marathons on those dark messy days. and snuggling with a little sweet pea.

a tribute to mom & campbell's soup

I had a revelation last Friday. As I was laying on the couch, drenched in sweat from a fever triggered by a "viral upper-respiratory infection" and basking in all those other fun symptoms a virus can bring, all that I could think was "I want to be 10 again! I want my mom to be here, smothering me with medicine and blankets and hands on the forehead checking for signs of fever." I began to regret all those days growing up that I was rude to my mom while she hovered over my sick body and nursed me back to health. In those days, when I got sick, I could BE sick. No obligations, no wondering who's going to take care of the baby, clean the dishes, take the dog out, make dinner, bla bla bla - NOTHING. Just me, the couch, a tv, and my ever attentive nurse, MOM! I would have given almost anything to travel back and hear the clanking of the spoon against a bowl of Homestyle Chicken Noodle Soup, as she walked down the stairs into the den where I always rested. She brought me blankets, magazines, movies, cleaned puke off my clothes, dissolved my medicine tablets when I was too much of a sissy to swallow them whole, and made sure to have my favorite snacks on hand. Now I'm a mom and am quickly realizing that even when my body feels like every last ounce of energy has been tackled, I still have to get up off the couch and carry on. I'm sure that's exactly how she felt, though she never showed it.

So many things we take for granted as children and even adults and, often, never truly appreciate them until they're gone. So here's to Homestyle Chicken Noodle Soup... thanks Mom!

be happiness itself
~ buddha

WHAT??...

Big Seller At The State Fair

My little buddy is 7 months old

It's hard to believe that 7 months have passed so quickly. It seems like just last night they were wheeling me and my sweet, brand new little bundle into the recovery room of the hospital where we spent our first days together as mommy and son. I pray that January 30th, 2009 stays as fresh in my mind as it is now and that the first site of his adorable wrinkled forehead and big beautiful eyes don't get lost in the shuffle of every other amazing thing that we witness from him. Change is an every day occurrence in our home lately and at times it feels almost impossible to keep up. He's turning into a little boy, right before my very eyes.

sitting/crawling/walking - my little man has mastered the fine art of sitting all on his own. No more holding on to the floor with his hands to keep him steady AND no more laying on the boppy like a little vegetable watching everyone else have all the fun. I was so happy and relieved when he mastered this. Now we can sit on the floor together, play, roll the ball, pat-a-cake, and all those other amazing things you do with your baby. He doesn't really show much interest in crawling. In fact, he truly hates tummy time. Dare I say that i'm almost hoping he completely by-passes crawling and shoots straight into walking. No dog hair, carpet fuzz, or shoe dirt in the mouth. You know? His legs are so strong that sometimes it amazes me. He's 7 months old and he can stand, with ease, as long as he has a leaning post. Maybe it's normal, but this proud mama is totally amazed.

talking - boy, is this ever a skill he possesses. His favorite word is, of course, "da-da". But he does throw many other 2 letter mixes into his "da-da" ramblings. Sometimes I swear he's saying "hey". I adore his tiny voice and love that he's expressing it so well. I'm eager to hear more. Especially a big, loud "mama".

eating - his little taste buds have been exposed to a wide variety of flavors recently. His likes so far: pears, peaches, banana, applesauce, butternut squash, sweet potato, blueberries, yellow squash, zucchini, avocado, sweet peas, carrots His dislikes so far: I added lime and cilantro to his avocado and he refuses to eat it - I think it's the tartness of the lime. I gave him a vanilla flavored teething cookie last night for the first time and he went bonkers. He loved it so much that he cried when it fell on the floor and I had to throw it away.

teething - oh yea! We've got the whole enchilada going on - constant drooling, fussiness for no reason, random & mild fevers, chewing on hands, breaking out around the chin. They are COMING! I was putting Orajel on his tired little gums last night and could really feel the tops of his front bottom teeth. I can't wait for them to make their appearance. I've been hearing alot about these "teething tablets" that i'm going to look into. Any thoughts?

This little man continues to be the light in my day (can you tell?). Everyday comes and it feels like I couldn't love him any more and then another day awakes to find me with a touch more than before. He almost ALWAYS has a smile on his face. He loves new people and new places and has yet to develop stranger anxiety which should have made it's appearance by now. This makes me happy. He is fascinated by light, but I believe this may be a characteristic for most babies - his fave toy is the one that lights up and play music. He loves to sit on the bed, playing with his blocks, while John and I get ready in the mornings, and has already figured out that "our" t.v. remote works and "his" doesn't. One of my favorite qualities is his amazing ability to observe. He watches so intently and within no time is trying to imitate my actions, i.e. clapping his hands or blowing bubbles. He is fascinated by the dog and lights up like a little firefly when he receives a good hand licking.

He has the most beautiful big brown eyes - the first thing people comment on when they see him. His smile is so big and open that it lights up his whole face. And the little chunk rolls on his legs are almost irresistable.

I'm fascinated by this boy, and more so each and every day. I was talking with a mommy-friend a few months ago and we were agreeing that we didn't want to become those mommies that only ever talk about their kids. Now, 4 months later, I realize WHY those mommies do that - because having a child is the COOLEST and MOST INTERESTING occurence in a woman's life. Nothing else trumps it!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET BOY!