This is Not My Beautiful Life...

You know that Talking Heads song...


And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, 
With a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself - Well...How did I get here?

This kind of feels like my life - except well, I don't have a wife, but when I take the time to really look around and think about my life (during the 3 seconds between checking fevers, running errands, doing my best Darth Vader impression, and patting a little bum in hopes that the little boy attached to that little bum will please, please, please go to sleep) I sometimes wonder how I got here.

I look at the extra bedrooms that we designed and see them filled with little boy clothes and little boy shoes, little boy toys, and little boy boundless energy and love. I watch these two little silly beings splash and play and fight over toys in the tub and I wonder how on earth we got so lucky. It's really enough good fortune for one lifetime to simply find someone to love and spend your days with, but to grow a family with that person and build a life and home...well I have no words (rare I know) for how lucky that makes me feel.

And on top of that, our children are happy and healthy (and silly and loud) and we can provide them with all of the things they need and most of the things that they want. While I would love to say that we don't spoil our children, I think we probably do. We don't always wait for special occasions like birthdays or holidays to give them new toys or new clothes. We simply can't wait to see the joy on their precious little faces when presented with a gift we know they will love. We both spend most of our weekdays away from them at work, and maybe we feel we need to give them these things because we can't give them ourselves all the time.

While we work a lot, when we're not working we try our best to give them our full attention. We get on the floor and play . We listen to them and ask about their days. We have dinner together. We both give them baths and get them ready for bed most nights. And, if the littlest one cooperates, we read books together. We make our children our world. And I have always been proud of us for putting them first and being able to give them "the best" despite our meager carpenter and environmentalist budget. We have been able to give our children nearly everything we have wanted to give them...and it has been blissful. It has felt successful. And it has made me feel that, even though I can't spend every minute of the day with my sweet little boys, I am a good mother because I give them "the best" - whatever "the best" may be...star wars action figures, organic food, ninja legos, fresh berries regardless of the season, cozy bedrooms, colorful play spaces, a hundred "I love yous" and "I'm proud of yous", and endless time spelling words over and over again until Brody knows the letters by heart. It means a million other things, and maybe most importantly, it means finding the best people to care for our children when we cannot.

So when I look around our house and see everything we have accomplished and provided, when I drop Brody off at his fancy private school in my new (to me) fancy big car that I park next to all the other fancy parents' fancy cars, I feel well, fancy. And again I feel successful...and it feels good!

This fancy life feels good, until we got next year's tuition increase notice in the mail for Brody's fancy school...and the bubble burst...and I realized this fanciness is not reality...this fanciness is not my beautiful life.

"And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!"

Ok, so I'm being a bit dramatic...it is an amazingly beautiful life, and all of the things I have described (minus the fanciness) are real and true, but the thought of not being able to afford Brody's magical, 2-miles down the road, perfectly perfect school just devastates me.

I cried.

Well, after I called the school to make sure there wasn't a mistake that 10 months of kindergarten was going to cost more than a year of what I paid to go to college...I cried. 

And after I ran the numbers to see if we cancel cable and lower our cell phone plans and sell the tractor and sell a kidney on the black market if we could afford it and realized that we still can't...I cried. 

And yes, even after I sent his name in for public kindergarten registration and toured a great after-school center for him to be bussed to after kindergarten (yes, I realize I am going to hell for even considering having my precious child take a bus without me from kindergarten to the after-school center)...I cried. 

But my tears are not so much because the school or the after-school center are worse than the fancy school he is at now. The public school will be a brand new (dare I say fancy) building and the center is awesome. They have a very structured program for the 5-6 year olds. The building is clean and pleasant and they have afternoon clubs, sports, and activities. They even have a pool for cryin' out loud. 

I have realized that my tears are because I feel like I failed and because I feel terrible that my boy has to change schools again. While I'm sure he will have no trouble making new friends and getting used to a new place, my whole intention of sending him to the fancy school was to be able to take advantage of full day kindergarten. I feel like I didn't do enough research and didn't make the best decision for him. Had I known that we wouldn't have been able to afford for him to stay there for kindergarten, I would have expanded my search to find a place that we could have afforded for him to stay another year. My tears are full of guilt for not being able to provide him with what I consider "the best". And I am disappointed in myself.


And I don't quite know what to do with that yet...because how can I possible disappoint this boy?

Oh Brody...

A few of my favorite Brody quotes from the week...

When asked what he wants for dinner on the way home from school, his response:
"I have absolutely no idea"

When asked how the toilet seat (and part of the floor and wall) got covered in pee, his response:
"I have absolutely no idea"

When asked how he got a black eye, his response:
"I got it on the stairs this morning."
Me: "At school?"
Brody: "No, at home."
Me: "You didn't get a black eye on the stairs at home this morning."
Brody: "Oh. I meant that I got it at school." (while shaking his head at his silly mistake).
Me: "You fell on the stairs at school?"
Brody: "No, I banged my face on the door at school. It didn't even hurt."
Me: "Wait, I thought you said the stairs?"
Brody: "I meant the door."
Me: "What door?"
Brody: "That door." (as he points to the right- I think indicating the side door at his school that goes out to the playground). "It was stuck and I pulled it like this" (makes exaggerated pulling motion), "and I bonked my eye and then I bonked my eye on the other side of the door too."
Me: "Did you tell your teachers?" (Thinking maybe I can get a straight answer from them about what happened.
Brody: "No 'cause it didn't even hurt!"
...I give up and the mystery of the black eye continues.

After throwing out some of his candy because we told him we would throw out some of his candy if he wasn't being a good listener, his response (after crying):
"That's OK, because those jelly beans had a little brown on them so they would taste yucky anyway. My vitamins can be my special treat."

After I told him that if he couldn't say anything nice, he needed to stop talking, his response:
"Well, you're making me angry when you say that and you're not going to be in my family any more."

Sometimes that boy is so precious he melts me and sometimes the things that come out of his mouth make me want to put him outside and lock the door. Yes, I realize that probably makes me a bad mother, but I promise I would send him out there with his coat and hat so he wouldn't get too cold. And eventually, I'd let him back in...I think!

Happy Halloween (a bit late)

We've been a bit sleep deprived in our house the last few days (months) and somehow I missed posting about Halloween. Somewhere, on my good camera, there are some better pictures from the evening...I'll have to update this post with real pictures when I can find two minutes to myself (i.e., when I'm not pumping, feeding JJ, making someone something to eat, doing dishes, driving, or attempting to sleep). In the meantime, a quick picture from my phone will have to do.

This year is the first year that we felt Brody was really old enough to go out at night trick or treating. I realize most people bring babies as little as Jameson out for such a fun occasion, but that's just not our style. I think when kids are too little to enjoy being dressed up or too little that a night out is likely to ruin the next week of sleep, they're just too little. Of course, since Jameson sleeps like doggy-do most nights, we weren't so much worried about ruining his sleep. What we were most concerned about it that it was damn cold - DAMN cold! So JJ stayed home with Grammie while Ryan, Brody and I had a night to ourselves. I love Jameson with every cell in my body, but there was something quite nostalgic about having a moment in time with just the three of us again.

Main Street has a Halloween Howl where they close down the street and all of the stores stay open and hand out candy. Some of the restaurants had cookies and hot cider (we LOVE hot cider). They have live music, a halloween costume parade, horse drawn carriage rides...it's pure, delightful chaos - and bonus, Mama got a coupon for my favorite little shop downtown that sells fabulous skin care products! We thought it would be a perfect way to kick-off the Halloween weekend. So we met up with Auntie Laura, Uncle Jeff, and the cousins and had ourselves a spooky good time.

SIDE NOTE: It turns out is a good thing we went because we got a B.I.G. snowstorm with 22 inches of snow just before trick or treating - mass power outages, icy snow-covered sidewalks, full on snowstorm, and we didn't go out again. Good thing Brody is only 4 so he didn't realize that we missed the real trick or treating!

Brody (aka G.I. Joe) and Wilder (aka Captain Jack Sparrow) at the Halloween Howl!

Brody and his friends Seamus and Connor.

This skeleton looking guy freaked Brody out! He wanted nothing to do with him or his candy. Poor kid!

A walking shot that didn't come out so hot...the boys are behind the Greek goddesses, Belle and her friend Alex!

And because Brody's legs were "too tired" to go see what he looked like in the mirror, he asked me to take a picture of him with his crazy teeth and crazy eyes that he got from a friend at school for Halloween. (Question for parents...was I supposed to put Halloween goody bags together for all of the kids in Brody's preschool class? He got a handful of Halloween goody bags in his cubby last week. Most days I already feel like a slacker mom because I have to leave my kids to go to work - these overachieving parents with goody bags for every occasion are killing me!).

My Boys

So we brought up the next stage of toys for Jameson to start playing with. I don't know who is more excited about it, Jameson or Brody!

Yes, that's right...somehow Brody still fits his little buns into the bumbo! 

Yesterday I got Lost in the Circus

OK, so the Deerfield Fair was a bust this weekend because of the weather. Ryan had really hyped up the fair to Brody and he was disappointed that they weren't able to go. I personally could care less about the fair. The noise, the crowds, the smells...ugh, I can do without. The only things I personally find enjoyable about fairs are the fresh squeezed lemonade, those curly, shaved french fries that they peel from one single potato (mmm, wish I had me some of those right now), and the occasional Made in New Hampshire craft tent. But even those things usually don't tempt me enough to want to go to a fair. Brody and Ryan are like carnies though, only pouring rain with a chance of yet more rain can keep them from going.

Well, apparently Ryan felt bad about not being able to go because, as I was cleaning the little boy pee off of the third toilet in the house (I mean seriously, can Brody just pick one toilet to use), Ryan came up to me to inform me that he was getting tickets for Bro and I to go to the circus. The conversation went something like this.
Me: Grrr (grumbling about cleaning toilets).
Ryan: (giddy with carnie delight). I'm getting tickets for the circus for you to bring Brody.
Me: uuhhh...I would rather you bring him.
Ryan: You always say that you never get to do anything just you and Brody.
Me: Ummm...o.k. (I reluctantly agreed as I thought of the creepy circus music, the brightly colored polyester costumes, the freakishly happy clowns).

So we went. And who-wudda-thunk-it, Mama enjoyed the circus. More than the circus, I enjoyed the rare - I mean so rare that we thought it was extinct - Mama and Brody date.  We decided that our favorite parts were the tigers and elephants, and the motorcycles that rode around in a metal ball - weird, scary, but very cool. It was magical to watch Brody take it all in. A few Brody circus quotes...

"Can we have some of that treasure?"
"Is she going to hang by her hair?" (funny because he verbalized my exact thought...and yes, she did indeed hang, suspended far above the ground, by her hair!
"Are those real superheros?" (about the flying trapeze guys who were dressed like Captain America.
and finally, my favorite and least politically correct...
"Mama, did you see that tiny grown up?"

God, I love that kid. And I am grateful to my husband for giving me time alone with my Brody.

Taking it all in.

tigers...

I just thought it was hilarious that after the tigers they made these poor donkeys and goats stand up on boxes. 

Ok, I know PETA will probably hate me, but these elephants were so cool. I just kept telling myself that they were rescued from poachers and the circus saved them and after the shows they get an all you can eat peanut buffet or whatever elephants love to eat. This elephant was particularly adorable. It picked up a dog in a basket.

I must admit that I spent a lot of the circus looking at this...just to watch Bro's reaction to everything. This was when the flying trapeze guys were starting...

And this was the look on his face right before he asked me if they were real super heros!

In his defense, it really did look like they could fly!

More elephants because, how cute are they that they hold on to each others' tails?!!

And this is some trick!

We don't know what these guys were supposed to be, but they were fun to watch

And the best part, spending time with my biggest, little man!

Brotherly Love...what could be better?

No words necessary...just feel the love!

Soccer Season

Brody started soccer last weekend and it was awesome! The whole family relaxed on the sidelines and cheered as Brody learned some fancy foot work and had a blast. We were so proud of him. He ran right over to the team - no hand holding necessary. He made a couple of new friends. He fell down and got right back up, got the ball stolen, stole the ball, and ran, ran, ran all! It was just good fun and so fun to watch. He can't wait for next Saturday and neither can I!

team rally

line up

 doing some drills

what a kick!

 soccer Bro!

 water break

 Jameson enjoyed watching from the sidelines as he chewed his soothie!

 Does anyone have any idea who this kid looks like? He's incredibly handsome, but doesn't seem to resemble either of his parents...

Another line up.

Waiting their turns

Brody!

Where did Summer go?

As I write this I am bundled at my kitchen table drinking a cup of tea thinking about having a bowl of chicken soup that I made for dinner last night! I guess it's time to say goodbye to summer! We've had a string of tropical storms that have brought a lot of rain and cooler weather to New Hampshire and while it doesn't really feel like Fall yet, it doesn't feel like Summer either. I am just so not ready for Summer to be over. I've been sleep deprived and foggy most of the summer and I am not looking forward to the upcoming cold and flu season. Just thinking about it makes my heart have palpitations.

Since I don't have a time machine to have a summer do-over, I'll share a few pictures of what we've been up to the last couple of weeks. Enjoy!

The boys have played together as much as is possible for a four year old and a five month old to play!

Jameson has decided that lying down is for the birds. He wants to sit or stand all the time. Of course he's too lazy to figure out how to roll over or sit or stand on his own. Props like the Bumbo are his best friends!

We seem to have gotten over the hump of hating tummy time. While he's still not the biggest fan, he doesn't scream like he's being tortured anymore! Bonus!

He's also learned that the swing ain't half bad! If only he had learned this before his little buddha body topped the weight capacity for the swing...

OK, this is a big one and really deserves it's own post, but...time is ticking so here is a picture of Brody on his very first day of Pre-K!! Can you believe it! Look how happy he is!

And here he is showing me how excited he is to start Pre-K!

And one of Mommy & Brody...yes, I realize I look terrible and sleep deprived. You'll have to bring this up with Jameson!

Speak of the devil...here he is chewing away. I forgot how teething can ruin a perfectly good baby!

Here he is with his favorite toy. Yep, that's right a burp cloth is this kids favorite toy. I guess with the reflux, the burp cloth has become somewhat of a lovey for him!

Just hanging around...a jammy sort of day!

And this is just to show you that I actually exist. I'm not just some blog voice-over. Here I am, unshowered, sans make-up, covered in dry spit-up, you know...the usual! I don't know if I'm delirious from not having a full night of sleep in over five months or from the post-partum hormones still lingering in my body, but as hard as life is right now, I wouldn't trade it for anything!