How great it is to wake up every morning to a little arm grabbing my neck and a sweet voice begging to “just stay in bed and snuggle.”

How watching 2 sets of chubby cheeks sipping pink milk out of sippy cups while piled up in the middle of our big bed makes any morning feel like the start of a great Saturday.

What it feels like to be led around by someone 2 feet tall, their soft little hands gripping onto your index finger and tugging you around.

The feeling of fine baby hair on my cheek when I carry Em, collapsed on my shoulder, up to his nap.

Laying forehead to forehead after lights out, waiting for At-man to fall asleep so he doesn’t have to be alone and scared in the dark.

You know that you are setting a new standard in slacking when your in-box is full of “Where the hell are you?” and “Is everything o.k.?” type messages. The truth of the matter is this…At-man is frying my brain. Do not get me wrong, I am loving every sizzling minute of it, but after hearing a live 4 year old human being utter off more words than are included in the entire audio version of “War and Peace” the last thing you want to do is write. Most nights all I am capable is slinking my ass on to the couch and sitting mindlessly in front of mind-numbingly crap-tacular summer reality television.

Now, At-man is a great conversationalist. He is very interested in science and can spout off facts about things that I never even knew. He is also hitting an age where he can come up with some pretty deep and sensitive questions, ranging from “Why do people get buried when they die?” all the way to “How do girls pee?” I think I have permanently injured my brain in an attempt to come up with a decent answer to these, especially when they come shooting at me one after the next. To add to the difficulty level, these questions are most frequently asked when we are at the pool, in hundred degree heat, while I am in the midst of reading some type of fluff about the “trials of being Brittney Spears.” It is at the point where I have voluntarily taken my own I.Q. down to a “summer time fun” type of level that At-man feels compelled to begin pondering the great mysteries of life.

It is also at the pool that At-man has earned his new nickname. Our neighbors have all started calling him “the mayor”. He has earned this due to his habit of making the rounds starting at one end of the pool and working all the way around, stopping to chat at every single chaise. He cares not if you are 3 or 83, he will find a topic to engage you. I know the real reason for his “grass roots campaign style” is to size up the pool toys brought by the other kids, left tossed around and under chairs. He works to finesse the other parents into relinquishing their own children’s toys to him. “He’s so darn cute, and Tommy isn’t playing with it anyway…sure he can use it!” For the most part, everyone loves him. Occasionally you get a group of teenagers who try to brush him off quickly so as to get back to planning who will steal their parent’s liquor for that night’s party, but over all he seems very popular.

Adding to all of this is the fact that the blond marshmallow is becoming more and more vocal everyday. While he adds new words all the time, Em also has an entire vocabulary of his own. May-may (Spiderman), Bay-may (Batman), Dank (thanks), a-pay (airplane). You really have to listen but once you catch on you realize he actually has quite a bit to say. I grew up sibling-free, in a very quite home…all this noise is so new to me. It’s great, just very different.

When you take all this conversation and group it with the fact that we are out of camp for the week and Hipster D was home for a four day weekend, you now have the answer to where I’ve been. I bet you thought I was out on my deck with a glass of pinot and a Marlboro Light. No way baby! Its six sweet smoke free weeks today! Once again I will try to be more regular about posting but it is summer, so we shall see. I love you all, thanks for worrying about me. I feel so special!

Parenthood is basically a series of decision making tests. If you skills prove effective, you may just find yourself the parent of a child with a full scholarship, or perhaps even offspring so successful they buy you a summer house in gratitude.

While these decisions may possibly add up to the future success of your brood, for the most part they come at you as small, seemingly inconsequential matters. Skim? Whole? 1%? 2%? Soy? Organic? Private… Charter… Public… Magnet… Boarding? Elmo or Barney? Baby Gap or Children’s Place? The playground or the museum? It never ends.

Then there are the toys. Will they learn from this? Lose the pieces in less than a week? Will it promote their creativity? It was this question that was crossing my mind last Sunday morning. We had told At-man that if the Cane’s won the Stanley Cup we would buy some fire works to set off. Even though he had only been there a handful of times, he immediately asked to go to Wal-Mart. What the heck we thought; Wal-Mart seemed for some reason to be the perfect place to get decent cheap fireworks. As we strolled through the endless sea of crap, on the end cap of one particular isle At-man spotted “sidewalk paint”. He had excitedly shown me this particular item several times at Target, but at Target it was 10 dollars, which seemed a bit pricey for something made to wash away at the end of the day. Wal-Mart, amazingly enough, had the same item for a measly 3 dollars. It was at this time that a decision was made. A decision so lacking in reason that photographic evidence will be presented in order to give you a visual aid to help you realize just how little actual thought went into this particular decision.

As you can see, sidewalk paint is a euphemism for florescent child coating. It was everywhere. It started innocently enough. One minute the boys were happily painting on the driveway, the next Em was rolling his own tummy. After losing inspiration he became rejuvenated when the idea struck him to start painting his brother. As luck would have it, the “sidewalk paint seems harmless” decision coincided directly with the “let them use it right before we are supposed to start dinner” decision. I must admit, they did seem to be having a great time, and I laughed so much I was a bit sore the next day. It was one of those unwise decisions that turned out being good after all.

Now I’m pretty sure an evening spent with eyelashes full of blue paint won’t rate me any less of a beach house, but I do promise to consider the clean up factor a little more carefully in the future. No wonder the stuff was marked down to 3 dollars.

As an only child and a female, my poor dad dragged me into trying out every sport he possibly could, in the hopes of finding at least one “male” activity we could bond over. Much to my fathers dismay I turned a cold shoulder to baseball, hunting, fishing, football, and anything else he threw my way that might result in my somehow getting dirty. I preferred slumber parties, painting my toenails, and lip-synching to the latest Madonna album while dancing around on my bed. I never thought much of any sport at all, until my dad took me to my first Islanders game. I was about 9 years old and totally bummed that I was being forced against my will to sit through another stupid sporting event. Bummed until I saw Bobby Nystrom.

Bobby Nystrom appealed to my pre-teen sensibilities. He was all blond and Swedish, how cool was that? He had a great 1980’s style Magnum P.I. mustache and since he was drafted by the Islanders in 1972 he got away with playing sans helmet, a wise move since we surely didn’t want him to mess up his bad ass flowing mane. Not only was Bobby nice to watch, he was a great hockey player. He scored the winning goal in the 6th game of the 1980 Stanley Cup playoffs, winning the first of 4 Stanley Cup championships for the Islanders.

I loved me some hockey! My parents got me a number 23 jersey and I proudly wore it to school every game day. I even got to meet Bobby after a home game, and when my dad took our picture I swear I almost passed out.

When I was 13 we moved to Connecticut. I wept at the thought of leaving behind my beloved Islanders for a state who’s home team was the lowly Whalers. Here I was being raised on some serious world class hockey, and there I would be with no one but the suck-ass Whalers to meet my hockey needs. Hartford had Ronnie Francis and as far as I was concerned, that was about it. I followed the Whalers on and off, but it was never the same. After high school I moved to N.C. and lived in pretty much of a hockey void.

That is, until Peter Karmonos decided to start packin’ and bring the Whalers down south, only now…they were The Hurricane’s. Ronnie Francis was right here in my new home town. The Harris Teeter sold cheap “ticket and a meal” deals so anyone could afford to go catch a game. Hockey and I were together again, and it was great. I was actually at a game the night before going into labor with At-man.

This brings us back around to falling in love with the sport. It hasn’t happened for At-man yet. He has complained up and down through out these entire playoffs. He wiggles around on the couch and talks about why he doesn’t like hockey, and why he should be allowed to watch “peanut TV.” instead. People! I have given up Oprah, Ellen, the news, The View and just about every other television show that involves any type of grown people conversing with one another. I try to set a good example here, but not watch the Stanley Cup series? Well, that is more than I can bear. I know I could DVR the game, but then there is the risk of finding out the end result before having a chance to actually watch it. It’s just not going to happen. One day I hope that At-man develops a love for the only spectator sport I enjoy, Em too. For now I will just have to live with the fact that the only thing At-man is taking away from these hockey games is the wonder why the feet on the Tinactin commercial get “so angry and catch fire?” He is pretty concerned that his feet may one day become this angry as well. I have to admit, the thought of your feet suddenly sprouting eyes and bursting into flames is a bit frightening. When I was 4, the Tidy Bowl Man scared me to death, but I’m straying. As I said, one day I am hoping my boys will love hockey as much as me, that we can share a night swearing at the TV, or calling the away team’s goalie a “big girl” at the arena. If things keep going the way they are, we may have the cup in town by the end of the week. I would probably have a more poignant ending but I think my mind is still too much of a jumble from the game that has been on the entire time I’ve been writing this. Go Canes!

Asleep in the jogger

Before you know it, these 2 will probably be swiping beer money from my wallet…but for now, this has to be the perfect way to end a run. Just to sit on my porch and breathe in a view like this. The past 4 years have gone by so fast I refuse to let these moments slip by unnoticed. I can’t even say anymore, just looking at their sweet little sleeping faces is making me all misty…

Since there is no game on tonight, I am hoping for a renewed sense of clarity in my writing. It looks like we’ll just have to keep on hoping. While I’m sure the ability to focus will eventually return, it has not happened yet, and it is starting to affect more than just my blogging.

I feel like I have lost my mind, and my children are hard at work sealing the deal. Last night after dinner D decided we should all go out for some ice cream. As I packed up the usual week’s worth of provisions that are required when ever we drive up the street, I noticed my keys were missing. No big deal, they will turn up somewhere.

This morning my mother in law and I had planned on dropping off my car with the mechanic. It had begun to appear that my little ride would “piddle” every time it was parked somewhere for more than an hour. Since I am assuming they don’t make Depends in “Nissan size” you just need to get them right in the shop. Since the keys were still nowhere to be seen, I had to grab the spare set. Now I had to wonder all day…”Where the hell were my keys?”

By the time we got home I was hell bent on finding them. I tore up every spot in the house where they could possibly be stashed, but no dice. It became obvious that they had somehow fallen into the wrong hands…the wrong, teeny, tiny hands. “Where are mommy’s keys?” I asked a bit too chipper. At-man totally ignored me, his usual M.O. and Em, well, how the hell are you supposed to get answers out of someone who is still largely incapable of putting together two consecutive words in English? The look in his eyes told me, the keys cold be anywhere. I tried to think like Em. “If I were pretending to be Cookie Monster hiding mommy’s keys, where would I put them? After about an hour I had to face facts. I had no idea where he could have put them, and me pretending to be Em pretending to be Cookie Monster had no idea either.

It was at this point that I decided to chuck the entire search and fold some laundry. Right in front of the dryer was a 12 pack of Diet Sprite and as I went to drag it out of the way I noticed something not terribly Sprite-like. In the front of the cans was a toy microphone. Odd, they must be running some type of new promotion. I pulled out the mike and behind it, in the very last place in the entire universe I ever would have looked, there were my keys!

Many years ago my Grandma gave me a key with St. Christopher on it. I have it on my key chain and consider it my “lucky” key, because I was raised in an Irish family that firmly believed things like someone was going to die if you put new shoes on a table and lucky keys are what I took from that part of my upbringing. I was actually getting misty at the thought of never seeing my lucky key again. I’m sure you are as relieved as I am that this story actually has an end. My lucky key and me are together again, footloose and fancy free. I have come away from this experience with a word of advice for all of you. Never leave anything important lower than 4 feet off the ground, that is, unless you never want to see it again.

Hipster Mom and kids

About a month ago, during one of my all too frequent trips to the mall, I saw something startling out of the corner of my eye. As I browsed my way through Victoria’s Secret I passed by a full length mirror and there they were…the two whitest surfaces I had ever seen. Sadly enough, I was looking at my own legs.

Now I have to say, who ever designed the lighting plan for the Victoria’s Secret chain was on some serious crack. It doesn’t matter how thin you were feeling when you walked in the dressing room, by the time you walk out you have discovered cellulite that probably doesn’t even really exist outside of that store. Cheryl Crow can probably spot some cottage cheese on her thighs in those dressing rooms. You would think it would behoove them from a sales standpoint if they tried a bit more of the “Oprah lighting”. You know, the great soft, hazy glow they add to any woman over 30 on talk shows and “news magazine” type programs. I’d be sellin’ my momma on the street for bra money if I could try everything on under the same lighting conditions they use on Barbara Walters interviews.

Anyhoo, there they were my frosty white legs. They needed help fast…but how? Believe it or not, my legs are actually sort of sun repellent. While the rest of me is still never actually tan, I am usually able to achieve a natural flesh like color by mid-August. However, regardless of their amount of exposure, my legs remain a Day-Glo bluish-white. Fears needed to be set aside; it was time to try self-tanner.

After about a week of daily slathering, I was feeling down right tropical. Bring on the shorts, I was tan baby! I was actually looking forward to our pool opening last weekend, feeling confident that I would blind absolutely no one. Saturday came and D and I had a great time playing with the boys in the shallow end until Em decided he needed a snack. So cute they were, my two boys sitting side by side, kicked back on their chaise lounges with a juice box in one hand and a bag of gold fish in the other. I had tucked our old digital camera into the pool bag, just incase some major cuteness ensued and low and behold…it did. D grabbed it and got a few shots of our poolside babies, and in the background of all the adorableness…there they were…the white legs I thought were gone. Apparently, I was delusional all along. I had been walking around town, with a deep, dark Hawaiian Tropic like glow…ALL IN MY HEAD. In reality I was still the same pale-ass Irish girl I had been all along. I know I have been a bit scattered since school ended, but if you knew how much of a difference I THOUGHT my tanner was making, you would understand my concern. I have officially lost touch with all but fleeting glimpses of reality.

I feel like I just finished 2 weeks of White Strips only to find out that my teeth still look like a still from Ren and Stimpy. Is my hair really red? Am I still of average height? What more am I in denial about? Maybe this is what’s going on when I see all these women walking around the mall with their guts hanging out from the bottom of their shirts. Perhaps they really do have no idea! It’s amazing how a light can go off in the midst of such fog! It’s suddenly all so clear…self denial is everywhere. I may be pasty, but at least I’m not the only woman in America who is fooling herself.

What a relief!

I have started about 5 different posts so far but as I go back to read them they all look something like this…

“Boring boring blah blah blah…BORING! I am so mind numbingly boring I can’t believe you are still reading about how boring I am, Holy shit “I’m boring” Boring blah boring blah, blah -d- blah…You get the picture.

In light of the fact that the interesting and wittier portion of my brain is for some reason on hiatus, I shall spare you all the details and move this post directly on to a bullet list…because I care about your personal comfort, and cannot bare the thought of you my reader, writhing in this sea of dry, white, crust less toast that currently has control of my mind.

Item #1 - GO CANES!!!!

Item #2 - 1 week! We rock! We made it one week, I am nicotine free, and have managed to do it without killing anyone. Did you know that nicotine withdrawal can lead to a lack of ability to focus? Well, now you do.

Item #3 - I NEED THIS so bad, you have no idea…

Item #4 - Only 3 months and 1 week until school starts!

Item #5 - I am not even interesting enough to think of an item #5…

So with that said, I will leave you, and don’t forget…

Go Canes!