Random

The kids are on day 2 of being back at school. Yesterday I took a completely lazy kid-free day, caught up on my MTV Challenge Reunion, ate several cupcakes and went grocery shopping. Today I felt like I needed to try to earn my keep around here. I had to strip away the old calk and dig out all the junk around the tub again because I used the wrong kind last time. I did the "cyclical" chores that are neverending, like emptying and refilling the dishwasher, laundry (and actually put it away - bonus!), cleaned the kids' bathroom (well, halfway), and finished organizing Christopher's room, and went to Whole Foods to round out our groceries. I need a new cell phone because mine is completely dead and I think I'm going to stick with an old school phone, with texting. As much as I drool for an iphone, I think the added web access will just serve as additional distraction for me. Plus, the addtional monthly charge isn't that appealing.

I have to go get the kids in a few minutes. Meghan cried again this morning and had to be pulled away by her teacher. Brutal. I have a had an anxious stomach all day. When I emptied her lunch box yesterday, I saw that she, for the second year now, won't throw her trash away in the cafeteria trash bins. There are all kinds of rules about recycling, liquids, trash, finishing healthy snacks before treats, etc. All things that we take for granted as status quo, but that scare the crap out of a brand new first grader. I told her that if she wants to bring her trash home (I know, I'm a total enabler) that she needs to dispose of it as soon as we get home. She burst into tears and told me that if you're not finished with your lunch when the kids that are lined up go outside, you have to go by yourself. Great. Now I'm afraid that she's not going to eat her lunch so she can get in line in time. And they don't have snack time, since lunch is smack in the middle of the day. Anyhoots, that's where we are Day 2. The big kids love their teachers and all is back to normal with them.

You've Been Served

The kids go back to school in two weeks. We have been together almost every single moment of this summer vacation, the exception of a week of full day sports camp for Erin and then Erin and Chris did a half day soccer camp for a week. No break from Meghan, and all access kidtime the rest of the time. Today I blew my lid. My mom and dad are visiting, so I always love showing off my skills as a model parent when they are around. Here's how the morning went.

I put on water to poach an egg for myself at 830am after having 2 cups of coffee. In the meantime Erin asked me to do her nails, including removing the old gunky stuff and therefore I also had to trim her desperately jagged nails. Repeat for Meghan. At the same time, Christopher needed help gettting into his rollerblades. My dad called from the kitchen that the water was boiling. I asked him to turn it off because now I was in the midst of manis and pedis. My mom mentioned that she was going to take a shower. Prompting Meghan and Christopher to fight over who was next. (Couldn't be bothered with showers last night, much to the grossed-outedness of my mother) Yell at kids for fighting. A bee flies onto the porch. Erin starts waving a cup of apple juice to keep it away, dumping the contents on herself, the porch and a chair. She heads to the shower. My mom calls from upstairs that Chris would prefer a bath. I start to let loose a string of PG rated obscenities about FINE I DON'T CARE WHAT THEY DO GOD GEEZ IVE BEEN TRYING TO EAT BREAKFAST FOR AN HOUR DONT YOU KNOW THAT YOU NEED TO LEARN PATIENCE AND TO WAIT THE WORLD DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND YOU GOD YOU GUYS ARE READY TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yup, I bit my tongue all summer long making sure I didn't utter that phrase. But I did. I feel crappy and blame myself for creating this system of instant gratification. I've likened it to a short order cook. When I worked at the snack shack of a swim club when I was a teenager I always tore thru the line taking 3 to 4 customers at a time to keep the line moving. Inevitibly making errors along the way. Just trying to move them through the lunch rush to get a chance to relax when everyone had been served. Being a parent doesn't work like that. When you are home with your kids you can't really rest, but you can be rest assured that there is always one more repeat customer coming back because they ordered their burger without pickles. What I've taken from this is that I need to teach my kids to wait. They'll be better people for it, and they will have a much better shot of getting what they want.

Lily Pads

We took these pictures on my birthday at the Cape. We've walked past this lake, Lake Elizabeth, countless times in the past 10 years that we've come to stay at my in-laws house on Cape Cod on our way to the beach, and I have only noticed them peripherally. Then Erin asked what lily pads felt like and we decided to investigate. I love how very green they are. And for the record they are smooth on the top and slimy on the bottom.

Little House

Hooray for me -- I finally figured out how to scan pictures into my computer. The only problem is I don't know if I will be able to locate them in the future. Anyway, this picture is our first little house that we lived in when we were in Scituate that I wrote about a while back. This may actually be the only photo I own of it. That's Erin in the stroller with Tom next to her. He and my dad built that tiny front porch right before I came home from the hospital with her, because the previous stoop was crumbling stone and I was afraid I would fall carrying the baby. It was completed about a day or two before I went into labor. I think this picture was taken right before we moved out.

This and That

I love this kitchen from Better Homes and Gardens, and particularly the track lighting on the ceiling.

These images are from a blog called Something Blue Maine, which makes me want to be a wedding stylist, a designer and to live in Maine.

Backsplash Gorgeousness

Lazy blogging and grabbing inspiring pictures from decorating blogs of what I would love if we ever get around to doing our counters and backsplash. This way I have an easy place to find them. I would love to credit whomever originally posted these, but that ship has sailed. Happy 4th!

Scituate

This is my beloved Scituate, MA. We lived here 10 years ago and I never really appreciated it. I was always itching to get back closer to NYC, with Fairfield County, CT as our ideal place to put down roots. We moved from Texas, to Washington DC, with the Coast Guard and when Tom put in his papers to get out, he had a potential job offer with GE Capital in Fairfield that the guy told him was his. Just waiting on a formality from HR. We literally were down to the wire, moving out of our DC apartment when we got the call that he didn't get the job. I still remember his buddies were holding our enormous bedroom mirror when the call came and I excitedly passed the phone to Tom. No dice. They gave it to some internal. We were off to Massachusetts and a job with Frito Lay. Womp Womp. Disappointment shadowed the excitement of the move. The Frito job was our safety net. We quickly shifted gears (we had no choice), and got excited for moving to Boston. Except we couldn't afford to move to Boston. We ended up in a 3rd floor walk up in Braintree. We couldn't even fit alot of our furniture up the stairs and had to store it in Tom's parents basement. All of these items were newly purchased since we had just been married a year before.

The apartment never quite felt like home. Almost immediately we started looking at homes and on a lark found ourselves in the quaint little beach and fishing town of Scituate. There was a house on a marsh, with views of beach beyond the marshes. It was out of our price range but we were in love with it. In hindsight, we probably could have made it work if we both hadn't started grad school the year before. But we found a cute little 2 bedroom fixer upper, and got to work. Within a few months I was pregnant with Erin. Life was really coming together. I loooooved my teaching job and graduate classes, and was expecting my first baby in November. We put in the cursory New Englandy hydrangeas, shingled the cottage in cedar shake and were living the dream. But I was always pushing. How about Westchester? Why don't you try Gillette in New Haven? How about looking in New York City? Couldn't settle in and enjoy myself. We enjoyed the restaurants and shops in Scituate Harbor, but the grass was always greener down near New York.

Erin was born shortly after September 11th and by then I was truly homesick. Postpartum set in and colic exascerbated it. The six hour drive to New York to see family was brutal with a screaming baby. It never occurred to me to take her to the beach once she was crawling. I had no idea what to do with a baby at the beach. What if she doesn't like the sand? or the sun? or the water? I wish I had known then that babies are at their happiest at the beach. So we sat in our tiny little house and watched insane amounts of Elmo. Soon I was pregnant with Christopher and lo and behold a job that Tom had interviewed for in Central CT months before came through. Tom finally conceded and we moved our growing little family to West Hartford. It took me about 3 weeks to realize how much I missed Scituate. We are pretty much landlocked here. The summers can be stifling. The closest beaches are over an hour away. Tom hadn't wanted to leave Scituate at all. I got what I had been pestering him for, and while we were now in a big beautiful home, I missed Scituate.

So here we are. I love it here. I love the friends I've made, and the kids are at a great school and have made great friends in the neighborhood. The town and my neighborhood are unbelievable. It's all I ever wanted. But whenever we go to the Cape to visit Tom's parents we pass through on our way. And eat at our favorite restaurants and take them to the beach and the lighthouse. They have the same sense of ownership over Scituate that Tom and I have. Last year the little marsh house came back on the market. It's still on the market a year later. It's supposed to be ours. I know it. I see us retiring there. I would love to get there sooner. Maybe it will come back to us in another ten years.