Curly Straight

TJ has a bad habit of sometimes getting too close to people's faces.

With his blanket, which he flops all around, his hand, or sometimes his face. It is a phase, it will pass. Julia, however, doesn't know this.

He got too close to her face once too many times and CHOMP. She bit him right on the nose. He was crying and crying and she just walked away with her stumbling steps, got onto her red Mickey Mouse plane, with this very serious, "Yes, I am a badass baby, DO NOT mess with me" look and took a few steps backwards on it.

So, I'm a talker. I talk on the phone pretty much all the time. In the car, I am usually catching up with friends or relatives or other acquaintances. Julia, my girl, does not like this. She wants in on the action.

When I hang up and say bye to the person, she yells "bye!"

Now, she's getting more into it, because she sees TJ talking to people on my phone sometimes, so I'm thinking she feels slighted if she doesn't get to speak.

In the car, she yells "more, more, more, more!" until I hand the phone to her.

"Hi!" She'll say, then maybe yell out "Mimi" or "Daddy" - while still holding onto the phone, which she then refuses to give back to me.

Today, she spoke to my sister and Mimi, both who, when she said "Hi!" answered with "Hi TJ!"

Mama: TJ, how does a waffle and cold oranges for breakfast sound?

TJ: Food doesn't make any sound, Mama!

Julia loves her little outfits. She takes her clothes out of the drawers, then puts them back in.

Today she was walking around with a bathing suit on top of her head.

Sunglasses? Loves 'em. Usually puts them on some cockeyed way, or upside down. She leaves them on, too, whether they are mine, hers, or TJ's.

She digs shoes. Today she came up to me with just one Dora sneaker. I couldn't find the other one, so I told her "go find two shoes" - she came back to me with a pair of black patent leathers and they complete her outfit in a perfect way.

Hats are definitely a favorite. Today she dug through her hat drawer until she found just the right pink hat with ABC embroidered on it. It looks super cute with her green sleeveless dress.

She's not so into the barrettes yet, although a hairband or two has made its way to her little bald head. She's getting more hair now, especially in the back, it's probably about 4 inches long. The top, still not so much.

Feeding the fish off the dock with a stark naked TJ.

Smells like autumn. Someone is burning a fire or maybe it is the sauna a few camps down. Sitting on the dock, with TJ and the dogs by my side, enjoying a glorious day. Across the pond, I see one small patch of red leaves nestled among the leaves of summer trees and the evergreens. The sky is a peaceful shade of blue and big white fluffy clouds are floating by. Every now and then the occasional airplane from the small airport down the road flies by. It must be a spectacular day to be flying.
The pond water sparkles. It is not all bucolic...lily pads and weeds dot the water. TJ is taking off his clothes - he is ready to swim!

So, we are part of a farm share which means we end up with more vegetables than we know what to do with. Especially since I don't like salad.

So I decide to make soup.

Chop up carrots, onions, squash, in this little tiny chopper device with TJ. It actually purees them more than I thought, but it's still kind of chunky. Throw some tomatoes and some garlic in, and simmer.

So, we are part of a farm share which means we end up with more vegetables than we know what to do with. Especially since I don't like salad.

So I decide to make soup.

Chop up carrots, onions, squash, in this little tiny chopper device with TJ. It actually purees them more than I thought, but it's still kind of chunky. Throw some tomatoes and some garlic in, and simmer.

It's a full pot of mushed up veggies, good for us!

The only thing is, it doesn't taste too good. Kind of bitter. We add salt and pepper. Eh.

Decide it's too chunky so throw the whole pot into the blender and make it a little smoother.

OK, what's in the fridge...garlic hummus, we'll try it. Sour cream, why not?

Getting better, but a little bitter, so we throw in some sugar and a little butter. Really getting much better now, but needs something. Cook up some sausage and potatoes and throw those in. Bingo! YUM!

Mama: Daddy hooked me up by cleaning my car.

TJ: I told you he is an awesome daddy.

Having a beer in Nashville airport, working on the newsletter...

Where else but Nashville would they have have a live country singer? Yeehaw!

Julia has that new-learning-how-to-walk walk.

She kind of stumbles around, but definitely gets where she needs to go, and is getting more stable on her feet.

Today is the first day I let her walk from car to the place of errand. In this case, it is the post office.

It is so cute. She holds onto my hand, and her little body walks beside me, clad in pink pants with red hearts and a pink tie dye shirt on top. The step up to the curb is too much for her the first time, but she masters it the second time trying.

She loves to try to open the door, but her little 23 pounds just isn't enough. She makes sure it is closed on the way out, by giving it an extra push with her tiny little hands.

The older gentleman in the car next to us wants to get involved in the fun and chats with us a little. Julia looks at me and says "who's that?"

She's practically asleep by the time we make the 5-minute drive home.

Big day.

Julia loves asking "what's that?"

She looks through magazines like Parents and Time and points at pictures - "what's that?" then onto the next one - "what's that?"

Repeat 100 times for each magazine. When she recognizes something, mostly dogs and babies, she lets you know.

Today at the oil change place, she was pursuing through the Subaru accessories catalog. "That's a rear cargo mat, honey. That? That's a remote engine starter." All really important things to know at 18-months-old.

Her favorite book is one from Auntie KK, it's called Baby Words. It has a theme on each page - food, baby toys, etc.

She takes my hand and guides my finger to each of the pictures and says "what's that?"

As soon as I say the word, she moves onto the next one. Multiple times per page.

It's a good read.

I have a book, it's called No Excuses by Harvey Walden IV, I think he's on one of the weight loss shows, he's a Marine who inspires people to exercise, boot camp style.

The book is broken up into stages, I am doing the Stage One, Get Off Your Butt, sometimes when I am at home and miss the gym that day or don't walk. It takes about half an hour and consists of exercises, broken up into 30 second spurts, with 30 seconds of marching in place.

I didn't get a chance to do it today, so when TJ comes home from school, I ask if he wants to exercise with me. "Yes!" he does, he tells me. I'm worrying that it will be too much for him, he's had a long day already, but I figure we can stop if it is too much for him.

So we do it.

The marching part turns into fun, with TJ saying "I am the leader!" and yelling "hup, two, three, four" with me chasing him around the room. We are both laughing.

I teach him how to do lunges, somehow he already knows how to do push-ups and crunches. He does the cutest "steam engines" in the world with his hands behind head, elbows out, alternate touching knees with the opposite elbow. He gets the concept, sort of.

We finish all the exercises, do the last flutter kick. "Woo!" I say, "great job!" and give him a high five.

"Let's do it again!" he says.

Looking at the Victoria's Secret website on my laptop.

Julia is looking at the hot model on the front page and saying "Mama, Mama."

When I go to a different page, she says "Bye Mama."

Hey, I'll take it.

Spring - Sam Adams Cherry Wheat

Summer - Wachusett Blueberry

Fall - Pumpkin Ale

Winter - Harpoon Winter

Julia and I are upstairs. She spots the laundry basket with the clean clothes and pulls out a pair of my socks. White with pink and purple. Argyle.

She cries until I take her socks off and puts mine on her feet. Happy now.

Wears them at Chelo's underneath her pink sneakers.

I don't know how it happened, but suddenly TJ has become a true artist. It's really amazing to see.

He stays in the lines, he picks out the coolest colors, he does colorful stripes that cover an entire page.

Tonight he is coloring in a dinosaur polka dot and stripes. He let me pick out some of the colors.

TJ: I played with Gabriel today.

Mama: Oh I saw his mom today. She seems really nice.

TJ: What does she look like?

Mama: She is about my height and she has brown hair.

TJ: What shape is her hair?

TJ finds an old pacifier in a drawer today and tries to give it to Julia. Neither one of the kids ever used pacifiers. Julia sucks her thumb, but only at night and TJ never used a pacifier or sucked his thumb.

Mama: No, don't give that to her.

TJ: Why not?

Mama: It's for little babies.

TJ: When they are first boring?

The inspection is over. Phew. Big sigh of relief here.

We passed.

My program did well.

I bet we get an outstanding next time.

Bought a pair of sweats at an outlet mall in Nashville, Tennessee last week.

I am so glad that the sweatpant people have opened up the legs and the waist. Who needs tight elastics around your ankles or your belly?

Not me, brother.

Best $8 I have ever spent.

I have always loved dogs. I was so excited when I got Amadeus to go for walks and to go running and to have a nice mellow dog that would protect me if needed, but could still be pretty chill and hang at parties without causing a scene. I know that getting a dog from the pound is a shaky bet, you don't know what you are getting into...

Amadeus was definitely beaten. It still freaks him out to this day if someone makes a sudden move. It's sad, it really makes me question how someone can hit a 6-month-old puppy. I got him a few months before John got Georgia, although none of us knew each other yet.

Georgia faked out John. She sat there, as quiet as can be, tricking him into thinking that she was a mellow dog. Once he brought her back to his apartment, she started running laps around the entire place, one million miles an hour.

The Rottens both attended obedience school as puppies. Separately.

Didn't work.

They are spastic, energetic dogs. Especially Georgia. That dog. Ugh.

When John and I found out that I was pregnant with TJ, we hired a trainer to come in once a week so we could ensure that we were doing all we could to keep our new baby safe.

All I remember from him is that he used a clicker that made a noise and that was the positive reinforcement. Wait, now that I think about it, he would actually give them a treat when he clicked it. He also said "good, good, good, good, good, good, good" a lot.

We even took notes.

Didn't work.

At some point we found out about sending them to Boot Camp. For a lot of money, they go to a training camp for two weeks and they use the shock collars. I remember struggling with it, is it inhumane? Is it crazy to spend so much money on the dogs? John felt the shock collar on his arm, he said it wasn't bad. So off they went. It was a nice two weeks.

It sort of worked, especially before one of the collars broke. We weren't the best at using the collars all the time and we got kind of lax with the training when Julia was born.

They are still super crazy when people come over or when someone knocks on the door or when we are going to take them for a walk (which we do not do enough). Amadeus does 360s in the air, howling and Georgia races from one end of the yard to the other. This lasts for about three full minutes. It's a long three minutes.

So, we have a new trainer/dog walker in our lives. She starts on Friday. She tells me I need to give Georgia a chance.

Let's see.

I used to tell this story to TJ before bed. I would let him fill in the blanks. I am pretty sure that this is where the tradition of telling a story without a book came from in our house. John has taken it and run with it and tells really good bedtime stories to TJ without a book.

Tonight's story - the Black and White Dinosaur - was inspired by the homework that TJ and I did together earlier.

Once upon a time, two flowers named (fill in blanks - he would always say TJ and Mama) were walking down the street. The flowers were (fill in the colors).

They were walking down the street, singing "du du du du du du", when they came a great big crocodile. (maybe it was alligator, I don't remember.)

They looked at each other and said "AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHHHH" and ran as fast as they could.

The crocodile chased them and said to them "No wait! Wait! I have a question for you."

So they stopped. The crocodile said "I would like you to come and live with me in my crocodile house."

So, TJ and Mama had to discuss it because they didn't think it was a good idea to make fast decisions.

They went to check it out and it was a beautiful crocodile house and they ended up living there, happily ever after.

The End.

Julia is a really good natured baby. It doesn't take much to make her happy.

Case in point.

She finds a small, speckled rock. Throws it. It lands. She laughs.

Crawls over to where it lands.

Picks it up. Throws it. It hits another rock and makes a different sound than before. She laughs.

She walks over this time.

Repeat about ten times.

Her laughs are just precious.

She's easy to please.

She was also very happy the other day in the Hess Gas Station - due to the inflatable beach balls, fish and various other summer items decorating the ceiling, which she also found so truly delightful.

A coonskin cap looks much like John's cat Taylor.

Each and every time I walk by the hat, no matter where it is - and it travels around, believe me - I wonder why is Taylor on top of the toy box, on the stairs, and my favorite - in the hat box.

It's amazing how much better it makes me feel when I weigh one pound less than my normal weight.

And how chunky one pound on the scale can make me feel. Has a palpable effect on my day.

My little boy can write!!

TJ is coloring and asks me "how do you spell Thomas?" I spell it for him and he proceeds to write it down on a little line he had drawn in his blank drawing book, underneath the pink, gray and orange shapes he had just drawn and colored. The line wasn't long enough for the "s" at the end so he drew it a little bit longer.

Then he asks me to spell Mommy. Then Daddy. Then Julia. If the line he drew wasn't long enough, he would add a little bit more at the end to fit in the last few letters. It is the cutest thing.

Then Dear. Then Daddy. Then I love you.

He writes it all down!!

In his letter to his Daddy, he wanted to write "I have a lot to do, even going to school." but he didn't have enough room on the page.

It made me cry when he wrote Thomas and I gave him a big hug, he looked at me all funny, like I was crazy. Then he started writing all the names and when he would finish, he would look up at me to see if he was going to get hugs.

A cool fall day.

Julia is wearing a blue long sleeve soft velvety shirt and a pair of pink satin shiny sweatpants, which are too long for her and cause some trouble when walking since they are essentially little slippery pads underneath her.

When I change her diaper, I try to change her pants into a pair of brown leggings. She wants nothing to do with them and won't put her legs through. I pick another pair of pants. Light green jeans with pink embrodiery on the pocket. No go. She's keeping her legs out of them and shaking her head "no" - she doesn't want them.

I hold up the original pink satin ones. "These Julia?" - she nods, smiles, and lets me put them on her.

Julia calls her stroller her ride.

She shouts out "ride, ride, ride, ride" when she sees it.

What a fun day of apple picking.

The best part was seeing Julia enjoy her apples. I am not a big fan of apples, so they are not around that much, but will be now. She ate at least three and a half straight from the trees today.

TJ and his little friend Jeremy had a blast, jumping in holes and running all around and worm whacking - not sure if that's the proper term for it - you whack the ground with a stick and worms come up out of the ground.

He also really enjoyed announcing the different types of apples - "This one is grandy smith; this is a macintosh." School works, because I certainly didn't teach him that.

We empty the trash because it's trash day and the trash can is nasty and I need to wash it because there is brown liquid stuff at the bottom, I don't even want to know what it is and I spray it with cleaning spray and there are no paper towels and now I need to replace the trash bag, but there are none, but I just bought some yesterday but they are still in the car. Typical.

Julia calls the following a ride: strollers and shopping carts and those little plastic cars that kids do the Fred Flintstone walk in.

She has a special sign that she made up herself for bicycle.

She says most of the words that we taught her as baby sign language.

A swing to her is a whee. Love that. When apple picking, we walked by one, she was determined to get on it. We bypassed it, she turned around and tried to march her way to it, yelling "whee, whee, whee, whee!" the whole time.

Insulted. Times two! Good thing I'm tough and can take it.

Manicurist to me:

So, what do you usually do for your cuticles?

Me: I usually just get manicures done.

Manicurist. I was gonna say, it doesn't look like you do anything to them.

As I am getting my nails done, the hairdresser comes over and looks at my hair.

Hairdresser: So, who does your color?

Me: I have a hairdresser who usually does it, but I haven't had it done lately.

Hairdresser: I can tell.

Then she goes into a big tirade how women should always color their hair and any gray makes them so much older....

So much for making me feel special.

Mama: TJ, I am making that special rice for you guys tonight.

TJ: Put some of that sauce on it that makes it feel good.*

*soy sauce

TJ falls off the slide at my friend's house.

From underneath the slide, we hear his little muffled voice say "a little help here."

For the last few months or so, TJ has taken a dislike to me saying mmm hmm, which I say kind of a lot.

Every time I say it, he says "Mama, don't say that!! I don't like it when you say mmm hmmm!!!"

I tried to break the habit but of course it still slips out.

Now when I say it, he says "Mama, you said mm hmm."

Came out the other day, when he was telling me a story. "Mm hmm," I reply, as he tells me about his day at school.

TJ: Mama, you said mm hmm!

Mama: Yes, honey, I did. That's what people say when they are listening to a story.

TJ: Allright!

And continues on with his story and hasn't said a word about me saying mm hmm again.

A bad night's sleep, due to a terrible diaper rash

plus

no nap this morning because of music class

plus

blankie going into the washing machine

equals

a very unhappy little girl.

So I read somewhere that deleting dairy from your diet helps make you feel better, more energetic, less stuffed up. I forget where I read it. Oprah may have told me in her book that is on my nightstand that I read when I can't sleep.

So I decided to try eliminating it from my diet starting two days ago. Today starts day three.

Nothing too dramatic yet, except I realized that I eat chocolate a lot. And that it's really hard to say no to white clam chowder in the fall in New England. Oh! And that coffee and tea without milk are not for me.

So, I bought almond milk. Milk made from almonds. Unsweetened vanilla flavor. I have one thing to say about it. Yummmmmmmmmmmm.

TJ: You got a baby in your belly?

Mama: No.

TJ: It kind of looks like you do.

The dental hygienist's advice...

Ask your kid who is acting up "do you want Mean Mommy to come and visit?"

Make your children speak loudly and clearly.

Don't tolerate whining. Tell them you can't understand whining.

Food always tastes better to your children at someone else's house.

Be consistent.

If they ask for it, make them stick with it, whatever it may be.

Oh, and floss every day.