The one where I ramble on about nothing in particular

We're planning a trip to New York.  Have I mentioned that?  What's that?  Only about 18 dozen times?  Sorry about that.  It's kind of what's on my mind these days.  Jesse has developed a fear of terrorists and his main contribution to trip planning is to get a slight frown whenever I mention Times Square.  Between that and my general fear of um, travel and New York and things I've never done before, this whole planning business is just SO MUCH FUN!

When I first started planning this trip I had the attitude of "Who cares how much stuff costs?  We're going to do everything we want and do it the right way and not pay any attention to the price because after all, this might be our only time in New York! Tra-la-la!"

Now it's morphed more into something like "Tra-la-holy crap!  That costs how much?  For all four of us?  FOR ONE OF US?"

I've come to the conclusion that we can afford either food or shelter while we're in New York.  We'll have to skip entertainment all together.  The only exception will be on Joseph's birthday.  He's hoping to spend that day at the Natural History Museum.  We'll just have to buy one ticket and send him in on his own.  Maybe every so often he can come back out and tell us about what he's seen.  Of course, then we run the risk of him never coming back out but then at least we would have one less person to feed for the rest of the trip.  If I can think of a way to lose Elle too Jesse and I might be able to afford a nice dinner at McDonalds one night.

Speaking of things that are totally unrelated, I have made progress in my quest to eventually be involved in the birth, raising and feeding of every child on the planet.  The twins have moved on to formula but I'm still pumping.  (It allows me to lose weight while eating nothing but various dark chocolate coated foods from Trader Joes.)  This past Monday I was able to give 450+ ounces of frozen breast milk to a friend of mine who had a baby just a few weeks after me.  She has not had a lot of luck with nursing so she was so glad to get it.  I was glad to have room in my freezer for ice cream again.

In other news, I had a really nice Mother's Day.  Jesse made up for not buying me a birthday present by going way overboard on the Mother's Day gifts.  Thanks to my new nook and my new ipod I'll now be able to carry my entire music and book collection with me wherever I go.  That is, of course, until I make a total me move and lose them both in a gas station bathroom.

But Mother's Day isn't just about the presents.  Mostly, but not only.  The rest of the day was good too.  The kids were sweet and well-behaved.  Without any prompting at all Joseph gave me several hugs and told me how much he loves me.  That kind of spontaneous physical affection is unusual for him so that was nice.

One of the best parts of the day was getting calls from both pf my pairs of former IFs wishing me a happy Mother's Day.  I know I'm not their baby's mama but it's still nice to be thought of on Mother's Day.  Especially since I am neurotic and I ave this fear that now that they've got their babies they're just waiting for me to lose their phone numbers.  Insecurity, it's what's for dinner.  So getting those phone calls was extra nice and after both of them I did a happy cry.  Which looks a lot like my sad cry in that they are both ugly cries.  I didn't even care that my face looked like a stewed tomato, I was just very happy to get those calls.

I have no good way to end this post and I'm too lazy to come up with one so instead I'll post this cute picture of a baby hand.

One year ago today I shared too much information about body hair.
Three years ago today Joseph wrote the sweetest essay ever.

Word to your mother

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. I hope you all have a great day! I'm already having a pretty good one. Jesse made me breakfast and caught me flowers. Elle's being her usual adorable self. Joseph proclaimed me the best mom in the land.

The bank that my parents go to had an essay contest for kids where they could write about why they had the best mom. Joseph entered and won. Turns out that what I had always suspected was true. I really am the best mom in the world. Anyone who wants to challenge that will have to contend with a laminated copy of the following essay:

"I love my mom because she can play computer with me when Elle, my baby, is sleeping. She likes me. We have stuff in common. We like chocolate. We like Elle. We both like not getting our picture taken. I have the best mom in the world. We love each other. When she gets angry at me she still loves me. She likes it when I watch my baby sister."

Oh that boy. I do love him so. Even when I get angry.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!

That is all.

Bye bye

Elle can wave! Sort of! Ok, if you wave to her she moves her little hand around in what seems to be an attempt to wave back. Whatever it is, it's very cute.

Joseph is still sleeping in his toddler bed. It looks like a fire truck and it uses a crib matress. Even though we've been pushing the idea of a big boy bed for a while he's pretty attached to the fire truck bed. Once in a while he says he might like to get a new one but he wants it to be one that's shaped like a spaceship or a car or the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. We've tried telling him that they don't really sell bigboy beds in the shape of things but he's got big plans anyway. Tonight he told Jesse "When I go to heaven and then come back again and I'm this same age I'm going to pick out a boat bed next time."

Crazy kid. For now we'll just keep the toddler bed and keep talking up the big boy bed.

Sunday I did more yard work (voluntarily) than I have probably done in the last 10 years combined. I was happy to do it because it was an early Mother's Day present for my grandma but I have got to tell you this: Yardwork blows. I don't get the appeal of gardens and flower beds spending hour after hour weeding and digging in the dirt. As long as my yard is mowed and relativly free of trash I'm happy. We have some flowers in our yard but they're the kind that require no attention at all. Anything beyond weeding once a year I just can't get into.

Fun Mom memories

I meant to post this yesterday in honor of Mother's Day but I got distracted by other things. Here are a couple of fun memories I have of my mom.

1- One time Mom was making chocolate chip cookies and she made a special one for me. At that time I got home from school before Ben so I was the only one to get one. It was probably twice the size of a regualr cookie by in my distorted childhood memory the thing is as big as a pizza. She told me not to tell Ben I got the big cookie and when he got home his "special cookie" was a tiny one about half the size of a regular cookie. It was awesome. I'm sure I was able to not tell Ben for about 3 seconds.

2- Once Mom told Ben and I to dress up in some "fancy" clothes from our dress-up box. She then put a bad sheet on the table to make it into a "restaurant". Then she put out lettuce and salad stuff like a salad bar so we could fix our own salad. The best part was that she made up "menus" with all the leftovers in the house written on them so that we could order whatever we wanted. This is one of my most vivid memories from childhood. I even remember the color of the sheets that were used on the table and salad bar.

3- When we were living in the trailer park Mom came home from work one night and woke Ben and I up. She had a suprise for us, plastic Pac-Man mugs! The pictures on them changed when you moved them around. As young as I must have been at the time I remember that night so clearly. We were so excited, I can picture Ben bouncing around on his bed. I think we thought those mugs were the best things ever and it was made extra-fun because we were woken up to get them.

4- On our family trip to Disney World we went to eat after a long day of theme-parking. We were all kind of slap-happy and everything seemed extra funny for some reason. We were reading triva questions that were on the table and one of them was to name all 7 of the dwarfs. My mom's strategy was to just quickly try to copy whatever anyone else said regardless of if it made sense or not. This is hard to explain but to this day I get a chuckle when I picture her trying to look serious and counting off on her fingers "Sleepy, Dopey, ok, Sneezy, Sleepy, Doc, Right" and including "Ok" and "Right" in her count.

5- During a visit to some theme park in California (I think) we rode on some cheesy ride where you went "back in time!". The ride started with this scientist yelling at you to get away from the time machine and that you were going "back in time!". We got stuck there for about 2 minutes and when the ride started up again Mom gave the animatronic scientist the finger. We all laughed for the rest of the ride.

6- This is not one specific event but it has to do with the face my mom makes when she tries to do something like cross her eyes or roll her tounge or wiggle her ears. No matter what she's trying to do she makes the exact same face! Then she says "I"m doing it! Am I doing it?" but really all she's doing is half closing her eyes and pursing up her lips. It always kills me. I love my mom.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to my mom! Thank you for everything you've done for me. Thank you most of all for showing me by example how to be a good mother so that I could do the same with Joseph. I love you!