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Mr. Rogers would be proud

21 Feb

I’ve been so fortunate to have lived next door to some really wonderful people.  I really can’t take credit for any of it – my mom and dad picked the first house and with our two houses, we had no idea who lived next to us.  Call it fate or luck or God or whatever you want to call it, but so far, we’ve had some of the best neighbors.

The neighbors I had while I was growing up are like family to me.  I’m so happy they are there for my mom and that my mom is there for them.  We’ve always had the key to their house and they’ve always had ours.  We’ve shared in ALL the happy family moments together, as well as the sad ones.  I couldn’t imagine my life without them.  I even got introduced to their culture and religion, attending Greek Bible School with them and even learning some of their language and traditions.  Words really can’t touch the appreciation and love I have for them.

When we lived in Savannah, the couple across the street helped take care of me while Andrew was deployed in Iraq and I was pregnant.  They landscaped our front yard and decorated our house for Andrew’s homecoming.  When they moved away, we tried to stay in touch.  One time, we ran into each other at the Atlanta Zoo and it was only because they recognized my laugh echoing through the trees!  I heard, “Nicole Valles, is that you?!?!”  It was a great feeling and we still continue to try to keep in touch.

Our neighbors now, Allison and James, are just as wonderful.  They’ve done the usual ‘neighborly’ thing of caring for our turtle, Clark, while we’re away and collecting our mail, but they’ve also alerted us to two outdoor spectacles that we would have missed if it wasn’t for them – the snow that fell here last month and tonight’s lunar eclipse.  Allison has even invited me to go with her and her friends for a birthday celebration this weekend in Atlanta!  I was like, “She likes me!  She really likes me!”  And so far, I haven’t done anything embarrassing to change her mind!

 

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Patience Wanted: Apply Here

18 Feb

Stay-at-home mother of two, ages 4 and 2, is in need of patience immediately.  Must be willing to work long hours, lift 30 to 60 pounds (depending on whether both kids want to be held or need to be separated) and endure a short-tempered boss who loses it when asked the same question 20 times in a row.  Must have a proven track record of handling unnerving situations with ease while maintaining a calm composure.  Salary is negotiable between a bag of chips and a pint of Ben-n-Jerry’s.  Benefits include a few beers or a White Russian at the end of the day.

So there it is – my somewhat confession that my patience is gone.  Lost.  Or maybe it just ran away.  For Lent this year, I didn’t give up junk food, chocolate, cuss words – I made a promise to try and be more patient.  Well, the first weekend of Lent just so happened to be the trip to Philadelphia – so much for keeping it together then.  Now though, I feel as though I still haven’t really been trying.  The littlest things set me off – I already wrote about Nia asking me the same question over and over again (even though I answered her 2 or 3 times already) or repeating “Nate” over and over again until my eyes want to bulge out of my head as it pops off and explodes (I think Nate feels the same about that one).  Nate’s tantrums have another kind of effect on me.  I more want to bury my face in my hands and start crying.  He’s just exhausting.  Then there’s the both of them together.  The SCREAMING.  Oh my goodness.  The SCREAMING.  I know I’m going to be deaf.  I can almost feel the damage happening as the shrieks pierce my ears.

Well, so much for my period of peace as the kids rest.  I just heard Nate throw some things out of his crib.  As long as he doesn’t have poop on his hands like he did yesterday – I’ll be fine. Well, I’ll try to be anyway.
 

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The Sweetest of the Sweet

14 Feb

Nate and I crashed Nia’s Valentine’s Day party at her school today and I captured our little sweetie getting ready to dig in to her sweets –

Happy Little Valentine

They passed out cupcakes and chips for the students and Nia made sure her uninvited little brother didn’t miss out – holding her cupcake out for Nate to sample and loading him up with cheesy Doritos.

What more can I say?  That’s what Valentine’s Day is to me – love.  Pure and simple.

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Hotel Bathroom Blog

8 Feb

So here I am – in a fancy Philly hotel with a beautiful view of downtown – trapped in the bathroom as I agonizingly wait for Nate to stop fake crying and fall asleep.  Don’t worry, I’m not dropping the kids off at the pool or anything like that –  I’m just sitting on the beautifully tiled floor hoping that they clean it really well.

Nate and I should be at a wedding rehearsal with Andrew and Nia right now but the little angry man decided he was going to have a terrible-two fit and not eat and not take his nap.  (I mean, what did we think?  We did just have him strapped in his car seat for the most part of the last 24 hours!)  Nevertheless, a No-Nap-Nate wasn’t going to work for us because there was no way we would have been able to make it through a church rehearsal without causing a major scene.  Nope.  We – number 1 – aren’t that brave to test it out and – number 2 – aren’t that stupid to test it out.

Wow.  I wrote that whole last paragraph in peace.  I don’t hear Nate anymore.  That, of course, doesn’t mean he’s sleeping but still, at least I don’t have to be tortured with the whines anymore.  Nope, instead I’ll just be stuck in here – me, some toiletries and this computer until the battery dies because I left the adapter out in the room.

At least I have a yummy (free) dinner to look forward to tonight!  I’ve already got my fancy jewelry on that I got for Christmas!  I just hope I don’t smell like Eau-De-la-Toilet!

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The Best Hints Ever

3 Feb

Lately, Nia’s been playing this game where she’ll say, “Momma, guess what I am.  I have wings and I fly.”

I pretend like I don’t know and that I need some help. To that she replies, “It starts with a b-b-b sound. B-b-b. B-i.  B-i-r.  B-i-r-d.  Bird.”

It is the cutest and most interesting thing – watching her try to quiz me and then sound out the answers. I don’t know where she learned it but it amazes me and leaves me asking, who is less than 3 feet tall, completely adorable and super smart?  N-n-n.  N-i.  N-i-a.  Nia.  My Nia.
 

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Too Cute to Correct

31 Jan

Instead of “Getting on my nerves,” Nia says, “Getting on my nerds.”
 

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Only a Kid Could Get Away with It

25 Jan

Papa Dave to Nia:  “Who lives in West Virginia?”

The correct answer would have been – “My grandparents.”

Nia’s answer?  “That’s where all of my old people live.”

How do I explain how not ok that was for her to say?  It was pretty darn funny though.

Oh and by the way – those “old people” are anything but old to me!

 

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“Go to sleep, Nate!”

17 Jan

Nate used to be so wonderful at taking naps.  He would eat his lunch and then say “Night night” and that would be all it took.  I would carry him to his room and he would put his thumb in his mouth as he clutched his blankie and then  he’d curl up in his crib full of stuffed animals and random toys (his new favorite is an old Fisher Price plane).

Now, it’s a much different story. He still eats his lunch and tells me “Night night” when he’s finished – but he will not just go to sleep anymore.  I now have to enter his room anywhere from 2 to 3 times and tell him to go “night night”.  Sometimes, I even have to pick up every blanket, animal and toy that he tossed on the floor.  I went through it all today – except this time, I had a helper.

“Go to sleep Nate!”

Nia had had enough of Nate’s naptime antics so she decided to scream at him as she watched television in the living room. I told her that I didn’t think screaming was going to get him to sleep and then I went downstairs to clean. A few minutes later, Nia walked up to me with a toy that was supposed to be in Nate’s crib.  She told me she got it from his room when she went in to tell him to go to sleep.

“He wasn’t sleeping so I just went in and gave him all the things he wanted and he laid down to go to sleep.”

In other words – our little girl took care of her little brother.  I just think that is the sweetest thing and I’m so proud of her.  Wouldn’t you know it?  That angry man is fast asleep – thanks to his big sis.

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What Nia Wants, Nia Gets?

10 Jan

While watching television the other day, Nia yells at me, “Wow momma!  That car had a table and cars around it with a TV!”

I walk in and catch the end of it and see it’s a commercial for a Grand Caravan.  I tell her, “Oh yeah – pretty cool, huh?”

Her – “Yeah!  I want one!  Can we get one?!?!”

Me – “Um… Well, they cost a lot of money.”

Her – “Like how many?  One hundred sixty two?”

I think we’ll take her to the bargaining table with us if we ever do get her one!  $162 sounds good to me!
 

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Such a Big Boy

4 Jan

"OOO, Geor!"

I know he’s growing up but it didn’t really hit me until the other day when I took him to the child watch at the YMCA.  Because he’s 2-years-old now, he gets moved up to the big kid room for children ages 2 through 6.

It was so weird trying to explain to him that he wasn’t going to the first room anymore.  He was all ready to bust in that door and bully around those babies.  I told him, “No Nate, you get to play with big kids today!”  He reluctantly took my hand and let me lead him to the other door.  When we walked in, he didn’t look so sure about this whole “big kid” thing.  Then, he spotted all the cool toys. I couldn’t even kiss him goodbye fast enough!  When I went to get him after my workout, he was sitting at the little table and chairs, eating his fish crackers and drinking his juice.  I got tears in my eyes.  He looked so tiny and sweet but yet so grown up at the same time!

He’s been talking so much more now but still not all that much.  In fact, on the morning of his 2nd birthday, we woke Nia up and told her, “Today is Nate’s Birthday!”  Her response?  “Can he talk now?”

One of the cutest things he says is, “Yet go a me!”  Or, “Let go of me!” – said while he and Andrew are wrestling.  And when he says “mommy” now it makes my heart want to melt.  I even have to look over and make sure that it was him that just said “mommy” so perfectly. He also says a few lines to certain movies as he’s watching them.  He especially loves “Shrek.” Those movies even make him laugh out loud and he will even make his Shrek toys talk to each other like they do in the movies.  “Dada!”

Overall, his personality is just so hilarious. He goes from being off the wall crazy – climbing over the back of the couch, standing on his rocking horse – to the sweetest, calmest child – finds his blankie and immediately inserts thumb into mouth.   He’s also so polite.  Today, he kept telling me “Bead do” after I sneezed and at the doctor’s office, he was crying and so unhappy but kept telling the doctor, “Dank do.  BYE!”  (Thank you. Bye.)  She and I laughed and I told her “At least he’s a polite angry man.”  And he’s all ours!

Still a Little Shrimp!

Helmet Head

 

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