Ten years

Ten years ago, D and I had recently returned from a trip to Italy and Greece.

Ten years ago, D and I had recently purchased our second home, the one we are still in today.

Ten years ago, my parents sold my childhood home and moved into more spacious place.

Ten years ago, my baby brother got married.

Ten years ago, D and I still weren't sure if we wanted kids or not.

I was on my planning period when Michelle R, the French teacher across the hall, came into my room and told me a plane had just crashed into one of the World Trade Center buildings.  I turned on the tv and stood transfixed.  I don't remember the timeline of what I saw next on the tv.  

I picked up the phone and called D.  His company happened to work on an airline system.  He told me there was an unaccounted for plane.  It was scary to know that something else devastating was going to happen.  This was the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.

Like everyone, I watched television nonstop, and I cried nonstop, hearing the stories of survivors, of family members who received phone calls from their loved ones.  At the time I used to listen to Bob & Tom in the mornings on my way to work.  There is a new world order when Bob & Tom and Chick McGee are somber.

Days or maybe a couple weeks after the plans crashed and the buildings collapsed, D and I were taking a walk through our neighborhood.  I remember it was cool, well into autumn.  We were talking about family, and while I don't remember the specifics, I always think of that walk as the time when he and I decided that we did want to start a family after our 5-year "childless period of fun."

September 11 made me realize that I did want a family of my own.

Ten years later, I am so thankful for D and my 3 children.
My family is the phoenix that rose from those ashes.  

I'm not sure what this full van says about me....

One of my annoying habits is that I do things waaaaaay in advance of when they actually need to be done. I was always the student who started her long-term project the night it was assigned and usually had it completed eons before anyone else.

I try, when possible, to purchase gently used clothes and toys for the kids.  The truth is that most kids simply love new-to-them stuff whether it comes in a brand new box or in a big brown paper bag.  N is starting to get to the age where she can differentiate between brand-spanding new or used, but the boys definitely can't.

With this in mind, I occasionally check craigslist.com to see if anyone is selling items that I think the kids would like for their birthdays or Christmas.  For M's upcoming 2nd birthday, I found some Thomas the Train trains and track through craigslist and paid $20 for 2 trains and numerous track pieces, including a bridge.

The boys really like the GeoTrax toys that we have in the basement.  A couple years ago I bought G the airplane track, and I think I paid between $35 and $40 new for it.  Last week I decided to look on craiglist for GeoTrax items and found someone selling over 250 pieces (track, trains and buildings) for $100.  Since I really didn't want that much, I emailed her and asked if I could just buy a few items.

She replied and basically begged me to take them out of her house.  I figured that for $100, I could give both G and M pieces of it for Christmas 2011 and then save some for M's 3rd birthday (yes, this is a year from October).

I trekked over to her house and managed to cram 4 containers full of GeoTrax items into my van.  Among the items were the GeoTrax Grand Central Station, Remote Control Alpine and Will, Working Town Train & Railway Set, and GeoTrax City Lights Super Set.  (There are at least 4 more that I didn't list.)

The van was chock full o'toys, but what made getting the GeoTrax in such a difficulty is that also in the van were 106 items tagged and ready to be left at the local kids' consignment sale where I was headed after picking up the GeoTrax.

How insane is it for me to purchase $100 worth of stuff while trying to get rid of stuff???????

I am a little disappointed in myself since this just seems like something someone on a reality show would do, but I prefer to buy gently used, and I have found it can be very difficult to find certain popular items like Thomas the Train, GeoTrax and Disney Cars items.  

Motherhood is being in a perpetual state of buying, storing and selling/donating.  

Approaching birthday

Next Tuesday I turn 38.  And with all this gym angst, I have decided to tell D to take the kids out this weekend and get me some actual gifts.....mostly because the kids like having me open something.  Ya know, a birthday isn't a birthday without presents....at least if you are 7 and almost 4 (and if you are almost 2, at least in this house, you just play with your penis alot).

So what to suggest?

How about a digital jump rope?

Or a pepper mill?

Or some new rain boots (since mine leak)?

Or a rain trench coat?

Or something fall and Halloweenish (since this is my favorite time of year)?

Or some actual workout clothes, since I own none?

D is taking me out to dinner next week.  I will play hooky from my neighborhood board meeting to take advantage of my MIL coming over to watch the yahoos.

38 is gonna be crazy, I tell ya.

My whiney "You cost too much" letter to the Y

                                                                   ABCD Street

                                                                   Somewhere in the US

                                                                   September 9, 2011

David Somebody

YMCA of Greater Somewhere

1234 Street

Somewhere in the US

Dear Mr. Somebody

I just called the corporate offices of the YMCA to share my disappointment about the organization’s prices.  

My name is Carrie Something, and I am a stay-at-home mom looking to join a gym.  Two of my three children have taken swim classes at the North Y, and we have always had good experiences there.  My hope was to get a single community membership and pay a small additional fee per month to bring my almost 2-year-old to childcare while I worked out (since my two other children are in elementary and preschool).  Once the spring arrived, I intended to upgrade to a family membership so my oldest two children can take swim lessons and we could go to the N's great pool/splash park next summer.  

When I called to get information from the YMCA about membership, I was told that in order to get childcare for my toddler, I would have to purchase a family membership ($80 per month).  I was shocked that childcare would cost an additional $28 per month.  

I called Urban Active to see what their fees are and was told I could get a single membership with childcare included for up to 4 children for $39.95 a month.  They have a pool as well (which was one of the draws of the North Y).  

In my frustration I called the YMCA’s corporate offices to voice my disappointment that I really cannot justify joining because of the huge price differential.  And this stinks because I really, really do like the Y whenever my kids have taken lessons or we’ve attended birthday parties there.  The issue isn’t whether I can afford it;  it is whether I am getting value for my money.  I wonder how many other people would join the Y if the prices were more in line with what they can get at other gyms?

Thank you for your time,

Carrie Something

Momma is feeling her age and needing some self-preservation

When N was a baby and toddler and even as a young preschooler, it absolutely pained me to be away from her for any length of time.  I waited until the eleventh hour to enroll her in 3-year-old preschool because I feared it was too much change at once (her going to school and having a new baby brother, G within a month's time).  

But by the time she started kindergarten two years later, I was out to THERE with a pregnant belly (fully of M) and had an almost 2-year-old G to manage, so I was levitating with excitement at the prospect of her going to all-day school.  

Tomorrow, G goes for his 3-year-old preschool orientation at the same school N attended, and I am thrilled at the prospect of having one less child underfoot for 5 hours a week.  

It remains to be seen how I will react when M starts preschool in two years, but my guess is that I won't  be welling up with tears.  

With my birthday coming up in a few weeks, I also told D that what I really, really want is a gym membership so I can take M (when G is at school) or take both boys and workout for 45 minutes or so in the morning, leaving them in childcare so I can have "Mommy mental health" time.  

It is absolutely impossible to walk on the treadmill or do an exercise video with two little boys at my heels.  I have tried at least a couple times and failed.

It is also impossible for me to wake up at 5:30 to exercise.  G continues to wake me up at least once or twice a night every night, and his morning wake-up call for me is 6:00.  I'll be damned if I am going to get up even earlier to exercise.

By the time the kids go to bed at night, I am in no condition to exercise.  That is my time to either 1.) get things done that I didn't get done during the day or 2.) decompress by blogging or reading or screwing around on Facebook.

When G does nap, if I don't end up napping with him (because of the interrupted nights and early mornings), I use that time to make phone calls and do things that simply cannot be done when he and M are awake.  

But I need and want to exercise more than just 1 day a week in my boot-camp session.  (And at that boot-camp the boys are with me in the same room, so I often have to stop what I am doing to tend to them in some fashion.  I can't tell you how often I have M climbing on my back as I do push-ups or tackling my abdomen as I'm doing crunches or yanking on my shorts as I'm doing monster walks.)

Since I started this boot-camp, my legs have gotten more muscular and I am much more fit, and I like the way that makes me feel.  I want to continue feeling that way mostly because this summer I have really started feeling my age.  Feeling tight upon getting out of bed, needing to stretch. Hearing things creak as I make my way out of the bedroom into the dawn.  At one boot-camp session, I did something to my knee and it has never quite gotten back to "normal."  

Finally, I have reached a point where I am simply tired of feeling like a martyr to my children and my life as a full-time mom.  Life just continues to get busier.....planning things for N's Girl Scout troop, taking G to speech therapy, running my normal errands.  I rarely make it to book club or bunco, so these aren't outlets I can rely on every week or even every month to relax, find myself, decompress, socialize with other people.  

While blogging helps keep me sane, I am still in the confines of my house when I write.  With sleeping children upstairs or children in the other room.  The walls of my house that needs to be cleaned about to cave in on me as I type.  

I need a regular, healthy reprieve from my children and my house that allows me to take care of myself and possibly have a conversation with another grown-up.  I am tired of feeling guilty about needing and wanting this.  

After 7.5 years of mothering children without regularly-scheduled "Take care of mom time," a change is in order.  

Apple picking with my boys

The last time I went apple picking I took this photo of N.

She was about 2-and-a-half years old then.

A year or so after this picture was taken, G was a newborn.  So no apple-picking.

A year after that, G was only a year old.  So no apple-picking.

A year after that, M was "this" close to being here.  No apple-picking.

Last year, M was a year old.  Repeat the refrain.  

(I have to admit that my MIL has a small apple tree in her backyard, and in the past 5 years when I wasn't 9 months pregnant AND when the tree produced fruit, I did climb up the ladder and get enough apples to make a pie.)

This year I was determined to go apple-picking, mostly to try to get a sweet photo of G picking apples.  

Because there are few things as sweet as a child picking fruit.  

Walking to the orchard.

I especially like the one on the right because he almost looks like he's off the ground (and it would be just like him to swing from the apple tree while picking.)

Now to sample them. 

Little brother had fun at the orchard too.

One gets thirsty when apple-picking in sticky high 90 degree weather.  

(G took this photo of me nursing M. He also took quite a few shots of his new shoes.)

 The spoils.  (Another G photo.)

The disgustingly, awful yet really awesome book series

One evening I went to pick up some books for the kids at the library.  I was sans children so I was able to peruse a little bit instead of my usual routine, which is chasing M, picking up books that he litters all over the floor, and asking G to stop banging on the computer keyboards in the children's section.

I happened upon a book that sounded really bad AND really good:  The Horrible, Miserable Middle Ages:  The Disgusting Details About Life During Medieval Times.  Now I have long been interested in the middle ages---Eleanor of Aquitaine being a favorite queen from back in the day---so I just had to pick this book up.

As it turned out, N was all over this book.  She kept wanting to read about barber-surgeons and rotten teeth and chamber pots.  (Oh, how she will love Johnny Depp's Sweeney Todd one day which is the wrong era but so yucky.)

Per my usual, when the kids seem fascinated by something, with the something this time being highly gross facts, I run with it.

In our local library system, I found two other books in the series:
The Dreadful, Smelly Colonies:  The Disgusting Details About Life in Colonial America and
The Terrible, Awful Civil War:  The Disgusting Details About Life During America's Bloodiest War.

Tonight we began the one about the Civil War, which introduced N to all kinds of neat vocabulary like dysentery and tuberculosis and cholera.

This is definitely a series that will make anyone glad to live in these modern times.
Hurrah for hand sanitizer and antibiotics!