Family Vacation: Chapter One

When I had a baby, it was magical. And I thought of all the magical things that awaited: Cinderella's castle, EPCOT, the Main Street Electrical Parade, you know, the normal things--Disney World! I have plotted and planned for four years for RJ's first trip to the Magic Kingdom. And for his fourth birthday, we made it happen.

Day Zero:  We are packed. We have Huggies and Tylenol (infant and children). We have bandaids and sunhats. Fuffy (RJ's blanket) is washed and as clean as it ever gets. GiGi has swimsuits, sunglasses, and ruffled pants. Mommy is invincible. Super Mommy. She can do it all while holding a seven month old in one hand and a camera in the other. We are ready.

Day One:  The alarm goes off at 3 a.m. I have been awake for an hour. We're going to Disney World!!!! Three suitcases? Check. Carry-on luggage? Check. Kid one? Check. Kid two? Kid two? Oh snap. She's in the living room in her car seat. At least we didn't get out of the garage. And we're off.

RJ: "Look! It's the castle!"
Me: "That's Baptist Hospital."

Today is RJ's fourth birthday. "I'm four today!" He tells everyone in the airport. At 6 a.m. We are the family people are trying to avoid. Little did they know that my children are seasoned travelers. Both slept the entire way. It was the last sleep they would have for seven days.

Day One: (It just keeps going and going): "Hey look!" "It's the castle!" "Hey look!" "It's the monorail!" "Hey look!" "There are birds in the restaurant!" (Yes. Really. Birds.). On day one one, the birds are charming. I think I saw one toting a little sewing kit in her beak--off to fix Cinderella's sash.

We are at Disney World!!!!!

Mickey's PhilHarmagic. It's 3D. RJ is not a fan. GiGi is less of a fan. Ten minutes and two screaming children later, we emerge. We should have known better. RJ was scared of It's a Small World--the only reasonable thought he had all day. Jerky little arms and legs. Lifeless (but well lit) eyes watching from every angle.

A ride on the carousel makes things better, as does Pooh's magical forest. In actuality, it was the lollipops after the ride, but who's keeping track? (they have a nifty little card trick that makes sure you don't keep track--it all just charges the room! Whoopeeee! We're at Disney World!!!!).

The room should be charged with something. It is a cell.  But I digress. Day One: "It's cute. It will be like we're New Yorkers." Ask me how cute it is on Day Six.

Day One: (I told you, it just keeps going): RJ's birthday dinner. Tony's Italian Restaurant. The waiter has the patience of a saint. My child is falling asleep in his spaghetti. We try to put him in the stroller--"No! I hungry"! he yells, shoving a fist full of pasta in his mouth and falling immediately back asleep, face plant in pasta. Mother of the year. Right here.

He wakes up as we leave: "You said I could get a toy for my birthday!" He picks out a remote control car. He doesn't look at anything else. "This is it," he tells me. He is immeasurably happy. I am immeasurably happy.

Day One: The Photos: 

It's 4 a.m. There are fluorescent lights. 

GiGi knows. We're crazy. We won't discover this until Day Six. 

It begins. The double stroller. God's sense of humor for parents. It is indispensable. But the kids can see each other. And touch each other. GiGi wants a lollipop. RJ has one lodged in his mouth the entire trip;  some people smoke. RJ lollipops. 

It's a monorail! (Or a bird with Cinderella's sash in its mouth.). 

The parade is blowing his mind. We managed to walk through the gates at the precise moment the parade started. Magical timing. 

This smile makes it worth it. True wonder. Happy fourth birthday little man.

The first of many desserts. 

And...big stuff riding the monorail all by himself. He's four now. He does lots of things all by himself.

To be continued...

Jesus Jeans--A Short Funny

RJ entertains me and often comes up with some good lines:

On sorting his various soccer balls, footballs, wiffle balls, etc.: "These are some curious balls."

I credit his knack for making me smile to his father, who on occasion has some good lines too:

On fashion: "You know, he wears those designer jeans. You know the ones...the Jesus jeans...[pause]...True Religion! Those are the ones."

I hadn't ever given it much thought. But logically, it does make sense. It still made me giggle.

I don't want to imagine

I get involved in the lives of strangers. I followed the rescue of each and every Chilean miner. I stayed up all night to watch the royal wedding. Recently, I started following the blog of a fellow mommy who was a high school acquaintance. We were never really friends, but we grew up in the same home town, and we both have two children.

That is to say, we both have preschool boys, and we've both been blessed with baby girls. My baby girl is fine, fat and sitting in her bouncer right now. The other baby girl was born with a heart condition. I followed her mommy's blog and rejoiced at the news that she was coming home tomorrow.

Until she wasn't. While I fed my baby girl apple sauce last night, another mommy mourned the unspeakable loss of her baby. While I watched GiGi play tunes on an iPhone, another mommy shed tears of grief I can't imagine. I can't imagine the grief. I don't want to imagine it. I barely know this mommy, but I cried for her this morning.

And I pray for her. I pray for her family and for her little boy who will, no doubt struggle to understand why his baby sister won't be coming home. I pray for understanding of all things "why." I ask that you do the same.

House, no, Home for Sale

Quick! Someone take a picture! (or two or three or four). For the first time in a month--or let's face it--a year, my house is clean. Not clean as in "the laundry is crammed in a basket under a cat's tail end," but clean as in "holy cow, we bought a house, sell, sell, sell!"

This house has a lot of memories.  We moved here right after we got married. We swore we'd live here for two years. We've been here nearly eight. We had some knock down fights. Thank God the walls can't talk. We welcomed two new kittens and said goodbye to our old Catty friend in this house.  We celebrated graduations and baptisms. I spent many a Saturday afternoon arranging and rearranging my shoe collection in the best walk-in closet I'll ever own.

I rocked my babies to sleep in the living room.

 and I sat delirious in the middle of the night on a laptop in the nursery praying that I could find a nanny to take care of them.

I learned to make a killer lasagna and a dozen cupcakes at the same time thanks to my double ovens, and RJ and I spent hours cooking together when we first brought GiGi home.

I cursed the weeds and the ants and learned how to find and hire every home improvement guy out there.

I taught RJ how to blow bubbles in the neighborhood pool and survived the hottest summer on record. Eight months pregnant.

But it's time to move. And so, the floors are shiny. The dust bunnies and cat furries are vacuumed. Thomas the Tank Engine is lonely because his friends are already packed, and Lightening McQueen needs a new highway because Radiator Springs is packed up too.


So, there's a home for sale. Ready for a new family and new memories.

Bubbles and Lights

I used to imagine my firm's partnership vote in the year 2012. I imagined celebrations and champagne. When I joined the firm, I had one goal. I wanted my name in lights (Figuratively of course. I haven't had the nerve yet to pitch my concept of a new marquee for the front lobby.) There was a vote today, but I didn't make the ballot. I knew when I went part time that I was putting my career into a holding pattern. I agonized over the decision. And I thought I was okay with it. Until I wasn't. Because there was a vote, and I didn't make the ballot.

Work/life balance has been discussed, swept under the rug, and discussed again until the very mention of the idea makes me roll my eyes. Recently our bar journal tried to shed some new light and some new ideas. All of the articles except one were written by men. Secretly I believe that's because the mommy lawyers were up all night nursing babies and up all day taking care of all of the men in their lives. (In reality, I could have written an article too--life is about choices, and I chose to make a casserole instead of write an article. Or something like that). There is no balance. I'm not even sure there's a juggling act anymore.

At the end of the day, my career is in a holding pattern. And I'm not okay with that. But I will be. So today, I mourned a vote that could have been. I celebrated and did a little dance for a friend. And while my day didn't involve champagne, it did have bubbles (and twinkly lights too):

R.J. got his first pair of light-up shoes. He asked so politely that how could mommy say no?

P.S. GiGi turned 6 months old today. Time moves too fast to spend much time thinking about what could have been. What is is this: 

The soccer player

"Today's my first soccer game. I gonna put on my soccer blades [cleats] and my long socks, and you gonna say that's my boy!"

And that, is how my Saturday morning started. RJ played in his first soccer game. I was worried he would be intimidated. I was worried he would get hurt (and he did--a scraped knee--he toughed it out). He surprised me.

On the way to the game, he fell on the sidewalk and skinned his knee. So, we entered the soccer "fields" as a pair--his arms around my neck--a big boy all grown up and being carried by his mommy. It made my heart smile a little bit. The soccer "fields" were the grassy area of a city park roped off with orange cones and chalk. It's Oklahoma, and the wind was sweeping down the plains at about 40 miles an hour.

RJ didn't mind. He promptly picked out a pink ball (he's my son after all), and away he went to practice.

Game time, the whistle blew, and 10 three year olds endeavored to hit the right goal. RJ's coach is smart--he hangs a giraffe (whose name is GiGi) in the goal. My son promptly found a ball on the sidelines and drove it toward GiGi. Right goal. Wrong ball.

At one point his coach told him to "run for GiGi!" He ran straight to his baby sister.

But, at the end of the game, we discovered we have a soccer star. Compliments abounded: "He sure is fast. He aimed for the right goal and everything!" The standards for three-year old soccer are exactly as they should be: ground scrapingly low.

My baby is a soccer player (and he asks to be called the soccer player on many occasions):

Someday I may convert this to black and white. Or not. He really did love the pink ball. 

GiGi watched from the sidelines. I will have to have a discussion with her about putting her dress over her head one of these days. 

This is not the best picture of the game. But it captures the best moment of the game. He was joyful. Pure  and simple joy of a child that is unmatched. 

And when we got home, my big boy reminded me that he's my baby. He melted. And wanted to be rocked. He ate chicken nuggets wrapped in a quilt on the sofa. We snuggled. Pure and simple joy of a parent that is unmatched.

Two slices of white bread and cheese

I made a cheese sandwich this morning, and it made me want to cry a little bit. RJ has been in preschool since August, but just two days a week and for only two hours. Last week he told me he wanted to stay with Miss Lindy at "stay and play." Stay and play runs from 11:30 until 2:30--adding another three hours to the school day. RJ has staunchly resisted. "No, I just gonna go home and eat lunch with you," is the response I usually get. 

So, why the change of attitude?

A lunch box. Tin. Decorative. Lightening McQueen. I've been cleaning house (or rather, cramming broken crayons and the random cheese-it into cute decorative boxes in order to make the clutter look prettier--cleaning is not in my repertoire). RJ's lunch box came to the surface, and I immediately filled it with paintbrushes and glue sticks. "Hey, I have a lunch box!" he yelled at me. "I can go to stay and play!"  A lunch box? That's what has been holding him up? Apparently.

So this morning, I made a cheese sandwich (American cheese, white bread--RJ has simple tastes). He told me he didn't want it cut into train shapes, and it kind of broke my heart. But then he made sure he had his Tow 'Mater apple juice box, and I was happy  that he's still my little boy. He left me at his classroom door holding a soggy umbrella and a jacket that miraculously resurfaced in the lost and found box this morning.

My little RJ is getting big. He's growing up. He wants to spend time with his friends at stay and play. It makes me happy, and my heart feels warm (except when I remember that he's eating a cheese sandwich with his friends in the lunchroom today, and I want to cry just a little bit).

For now, I'll pretend to focus 100% on a receivership and foreclosure action and hope that the phone I have propped against my computer screen doesn't ring at lunch time. I hope that two slices of white bread and a piece of cheese in a Lightening McQueen lunchbox will be enough to get my little man through his day.