Wednesday, January 28, 2009

That’s it. I am convinced. I am going to Mommy Hell. Ok – well at least purgatory… Today I kept Sarah Anne home from school. She has been battling a cold for two days now and last night she literally looked like death warmed over, so today I kept her home. Not because I thought she was sick enough to warrant a day off of school, but because I need her healthy for our upcoming vacation for which, we will be leaving on Monday. Is this a viable reason to keep a child home from school? I am not fully convinced, but I do know that our plane tickets are non-refundable.
So, this morning, I let Sarah sleep in. I watched as her school bus made the trek past our home with some regret in the pit of my stomach. She woke with sleep in her eyes at 7:30 a.m. She was stuffy and had a bit of a cough so I felt justified in my decision. That is until 9 a.m. when she, now fully awake and fully aware that she was not being shipped off to school, was bouncing off the walls!
“Can we dance, Mama?”
“Can we go outside?”
“Can we play playdoh?”
“Can we pretend I am a horse?”
And that was just from 9 – 9:05.
We played playdoh and I ate my fair share of playdoh cookies while her brother mouthed an Elmo playdoh stamp. I pretended she was a horse while she ran circles around me in the living room and Aiden mimicked her high pitched whinnies. We danced to Nora Jones in the kitchen and pretended we were dinosaurs as Laurie Berkner sang the dinosaur song.
That was when I remembered the text message I received from a fellow MOPS mom the day before about meeting at the local McDonalds play land for lunch. Humm….Can I rightly take a “sick” child out into the elements and to a germy play land filled with other little children and expose them all to my disease ridden child? I texted another Mom to get her take on the situation, knowing full well we should stay home, but I was desperate for adult interaction. Desperate I tell you!
The response I received assured me that it would be fine to take my ill daughter to lunch, and that she was taking her son, who had just moments before thrown up. Well, at least Sarah is not throwing up, we can do this! I instructed Sarah to stay FAR from the puking child, bundled her and her brother up and off we went. I am going to Mommy hell.
What do ya know, we had a fine time. Sarah was right in there for a playtime, we kept hand sanitizer handy as not to spread the wealth, and even though neither one of us ate much, we enjoyed seeing someone else besides ourselves. I still have that twinge of guilt for taking my child out on a sick day, but after all – we are only talking about Jr. Kindergarten, it is not real school yet, right? I will do better in Kindergarten, I promise…
To top it off – we came home and I fed Aiden Jell-O. Hey, it was sugar free at least!

Sunday, January 25, 2009

The Playdate...

This is Audra.


This is Audra and Aiden meeting for the first time.


This is Audra figure out why Aiden is in her house.

This is Audra wondering how such a small boy can have such a huge head.

This is Aiden with Audra's toy.

This is Audra noticing Aiden with her toy.



This is Audra with her toy and Aiden wondering what happened to the toy.



This is Aiden distracting Audra with another toy in order to retrieve the original toy.

Clever children.

Aiden and Sarah







Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Baby Bonnet

This past weekend we traveled up to the north country to meet Baby Alex (or A.J. as he is lovingly referred to by his parents). So here I go again - all that new baby bliss. The smell of his head, the softness of his skin. I have baby longing coursing through my veins once again... Then I watch Aiden as he crawls across the floor only to entwine himself in a phone cord or attack a soda can left within his line of sight, and I remember, babies grow. So I am happy once again where I am with two children and my sanity...


But seriously, who could not fall in love with this little fellow. He was so sweet, you could eat him with a spoon. We took a million pictures (actually it was 210), hugged him tightly, kissed his sweet little cheeks, smelled his yummy baby smell, and tickled his tiny baby toes, then we were forced to hand him back over to his parents. I guess he did look a little happier with Mom.

And he is fortunate to have one of the world's best big bros on his side too.







Tuesday, January 13, 2009

There Is A Reason

There is a reason I have not been posting lately...

There is a reason I cannot find time to bake...

There is a reason I have not been available for long phone conversations, or sit-down lunches...

OK- there are several reasons...
Reason #1 - Aiden is crawling
Reason #2 - AIDEN IS CRAWLING!!
Reason #3 - I took up knitting and watching Aiden when he is crawling
Reason #4 - We have been building bookcases
Reason #5 - We had to paint said bookcases
Reason #6 - Who are we kidding!? I got THIS for Christmas!! I cannot stop shooting! I shoot Aiden crawling, building the bookcase, snow, dogs, horses, birds. I knit so I can take pictures of my knitting. This is bad. I may never be the same - and I LOVE it! No wonder I am not getting anything done anymore.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Movin' On Up










There are times when I look at my children and wonder "Who are you?" and "Where did you come from?". Not only for obvious reasons, like the fact the Sarah is so cooky and she never stops talking (I do not know where she gets that from!) and Aiden is far too busy a child to be mine, but because it seems like just yesterday they were teeny tiny babies and I cannot believe how fast the time is passing me by.
Over Sarah's Christmas break, she and I, along with a dear friend and former riding student, Sarah #1, went ice skating. It has been two winters since Sarah Small and I went up to the rink, seeing as I was extremely pregnant last winter. The last time we were there, she was small and shaky and on double bladed skates. I don't know if it was the repetitive playing of the Micky's Christmas movie (in which, Minny Mouse and Daisy Duck compete in an ice skate-off) during which Sarah would pretend skate all over the kitchen floor, declaring to me how skating is easy and that she was a professional now, she was sure; or if it was just the coincidence that she is now older and more spacially aware, but she was magnificent on the ice! Well, as magnificent as a five year old can be...
She moved up to single blade skates and was even able to execute some pretty good turns - without falling! Ok - there was still PLENTY of falling!

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Goodbye Holidays

Well, the Holidays have come and gone around the Foley home. We woke to a beautiful Christmas morn with a pristine white blanket of snow.

We opened presents at home,



At Nana and Papa's,






And at Grandma and Grandpa's.




We woke up at 6 a.m. with really bad hair and fought with packaging twist ties and dolls with sewn in hair.


We got some really cool presents, and witnessed some really bad wrap jobs.





We ate, we celebrated, we sang, we socialized and we are now thoroughly exhausted.









Today I said goodbye to the Christmas tree by wrestling it out the deck door while it coated me and a ceiling fan in sap and pine needles, and I was glad to see it go.