Baby's All Growed Up

Last night I took Patrick to the open house that my school was hosting for upcoming students. It seemed like I was the only one there who had come to grips with the fact that he would be in Pre-K next year. All the faculty could not believe he was there already...but there he was, parading around Mommy's school like he owns the place! He is actually very comfortable there--obviously, since he has spent a lot of time there with me, but next year is going to be so cool. I can't wait to have him right down the hall all day long and have him come to my office after school each day. We had a great time last night showing him how fun big kid school is going to be!

We visited each of the Pre-K classrooms, but I forgot to take pictures of those because I was so busy talking with the teachers, then we went to the cafeteria to sit at the looooong tables and have a snack. We met up with his friend Nikki there (you may remember her from the Polar Express). Patrick actually ran into a lot of his peeps last night--they're going to have quite a little posse going on next year! After snack, we went down to the library, where they're having the Scholastic book fair, so he got to get a book called--what else--The Trucker. At least this time it's an actual story--that's progress! Then we played some games in the gym with some students--which I had to drag him out of--and when we left he got to pick out a big balloon and a school cup filled with candy. I think all of this won him over--he was pretty psyched when we left. The only downside is that he now has to wait six months to actually go there!

The Many Faces of Me

Copying Mandy here...but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? This is a picture of me, probably the best picture I have ever taken in my life (note the lack of multiple chins). So what better way to memorialize this picture than to take it and completely massacre it on the web?

Here we have me portrayed nine different ways. First up is me as a Mucha painting, which is fairly nondescript except that it looks eerily like a former student of mine. Then we have Asian Becky, who doesn't look all that bad. Next is Man-Becky, which is just downright frightening. I am staring at this picture trying to visualize any of my male relatives, but all I can see is Dana Carvey. Yikes! Fourth is Black Becky, who for some reason has two dead front teeth??? Fifth is me as a Manga Cartoon, which is not that inventive since I look identical to all those other freaky Japanese characters.

Sixth is the Botticelli painting of me, and again I look more like someone else than me, but I'm not really sure who. I'm kinda thinking Katie's sister-in-law, Lisa. Then there's the creme de la creme--Ape Girl Becky, which makes me really glad I was born in the 20th century and not 350,000 years ago!!! Next comes me as a Modigliani painting, and what can I say? The dude just wasn't that talented. Finally there's Elderly Becky...I don't know how old I'll be when I look like this, but I know I won't be blogging, so get it while the gettin's good!!!

Final thought: I have a new and improved self-image. I'm glad I look like me!

Muffins with Mom

This past week was Muffins with Mom at Patrick's preschool. In the past, this has actually meant "Bagels with Mom" or "Cantaloupe and Grapes with Mom", but this year they really pulled through and provided muffins--good ones, too! So after gorging myself on a blueberry muffin the size of a softball, Patrick presented me with an exclusive one-of-a-kind haute couture jewel box made from an Altoids tin, which I will love and cherish forever, or at least until he swipes it and loses it in his closet.

After muffins, it was performance time, which has not gone well in the past, as you may remember. The kids sat on their names and did their morning circle routine for us, which includes singing songs about the days of the week, the months and the weather. Patrick decided about two seconds into it that he was not going to perform and sat sulking until he saw that neither me, Mrs. Cindy or any of the other mommies really gave a flying flip whether he sang or not, at which point he cheerfully joined in. Then we all did the Pledge of Allegiance to the good old US of A and called it a day. Good times.

Flashback: In my mind I'm going to NYC

Being stuck in my cold house for months on end brings two things to mind--warmer weather and getting the heck out of dodge! Which brings me to the topic of this week's flashback--a trip that Mandy and I took over spring break of our senior year in college. We packed our bags and headed off to "be a part of it--New York, New York!" As I perused my files, I came across this picture of us chowing down on some good old hotdog stand fare with our pal Casey in Central Park. Man, can you tell we were enjoying those weiners?

Yep, that was quite a good lunch, and we had a few interesting things happen while we were eating. First off, a man approached us asking for money. He was planning to spring Charles Manson from the slammer, and I guess he didn't have enough to post bail. Mandy, not sounding at all like her southern genteel self, told him where to take his money and shove it! We all have a little New Yorker in us, I guess. Then an Asian man with a large camera strolled by and snapped our picture, convincing us to this day that we are being featured on the cover of a brochure for NYC in some travel agency in Japan. Hey, it could happen! Then after a little more time laying in the sun watching the crazies walk by, we got up, stretched our legs and headed down to check out FAO Schwartz, at which time Mandy asked a truly existential question: "Is there really a Central Park?"

Haha! Sorry Mandy, you know I had to put it...I'll leave it to you to explain what you meant!

Only 14 years, 7 months and a handful of days...

...until Patrick checks into his dorm room. You'd think with having two boys, clothes would be the least of my kid worries. Turns out that clothes are going to drive me to an early grave. Tonight was the last straw...tonight was the last time that Patrick changed his shirt for no reason other than to wear as many "cool truck shirts" in one day as possible. Tonight was the last time that I am going to have to tell him to go put the other shirt back on and hang that one up, only to go upstairs a half-hour later to find him in yet another shirt with five more on the closet floor. Tonight I have implemented a three-step program:

1) I have confiscated all--and I mean all--of Patrick's clothes. They are now sitting on my bed waiting for their new home in my closet, which is groaning at the mere sight of them, seeing as how there is not enough room. I will have to make room, which means a trip to the Salvation Army soon. I figure if I use my space for his hung-up clothes, Luke can clear out a drawer for his folded clothes. It's either that or empty my lingerie drawer--you pick, Luke.

2) From now on, Patrick must come to me for all of his clothes. My closet will have a child-proof door handle on it, so there will be no more sneaking behind my back to change. I will dress him in the morning with the shirt and pants that I pick out for him. I hope he realizes the consequences of his actions when we are still doing this in fifth grade.

3) Being a firstborn child, Patrick gets an entirely new wardrobe every fall and spring. I think this is where I made my mistake. Last fall, I bought him only truck shirts because that's all he wanted to wear. What I didn't realize was that he wanted to wear every one of them every day. This spring, he will get the clothes I want him to have, and it may well be seven identical red shirts and seven identical pairs of khaki shorts. If they are all the same, there will be no more temptations to change seventeen times a day.

Now, anyone out there think I'm being unfair?

This and That

Not much has been going on lately. My parents came to visit us this weekend. It was a quiet day, but my mom helped me get some stuff done, which was nice, and the kids had a great time seeing them. Here are just a few shots from the cold, rainy weekend...it's not the most exciting post, but it's all I've got in the dreary, monotonous and mundane time that is January...SPRING COME SOON!

My freedom ends where your rights begin.

I try not to get political on my blog, but the homily at church this week was too good to only be heard by a thousand or so people. The subject was the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade and the fallacy of "Freedom of Choice", a term often used to soften the reality of a mother terminating her unborn child's life, for the sake of her convenience. According to this term, she is free to do what she wants with her body. But how much freedom do we all really have? I really need some cash these days, am I free to rob someone? It would be convenient for me to steal someone else's money, then I wouldn't have to worry about my own. Or if a person finds out something about me that could damage my reputation, am I free to kill them, so that they would be unable to share my secret? According to the law, I cannot do either of these things. Why? Because my freedom ends where another's rights begin. The other person has the right to his money and life, and I cannot take those from him. His rights are protected by our law. Unborn children actually have rights protected by the law as well, except in this case, the goverment likes to talk out of both sides of its mouth. In my state, if I were to cause harm to a pregnant woman that resulted in the death of her unborn child, I would be charged with manslaughter and sentenced to time in prison. However, if this same mother were to decide to abort her child, she would do so with the blessing of the law. The baby's rights change depending on whether it's an unwanted pregnancy or not, which is absolutely ludicrous. What if everyone's rights were based on their popularity? Some would literally get away with murder while others would never stand a chance. The American government states that all citizens have the same inalienable rights--life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness--no matter whether that citizen is Oprah or a bum living under a bridge. Yet we do not uphold this in this case of unborn children. We hide behind more fallacies, like saying a fetus is not a person. What is it then? A bird? A squirrel? Here is a picture of my son Ben at 9 weeks in utero:

Even with the grainy ultrasound, you can see that he was a developing person with a head, a body, arm buds and an immature but functioning muscular system that allowed him to begin movement. He had the beginnings of eyes and ears. My doctors never once called him tissue or fetus. They treated him with respect and called him my baby. Here is a picture of Ben today:

He is the same object as in the picture above, only more developed. He will continue to develop his entire life, just as he has since the day that first picture was taken. But those are the same eyes that allow him to look at me each day, the same ears that enable him to hear my voice and the same arms and muscular system that make him capable of hugging me like no one else can. He doesn't look like he did back then, but he won't look the same in 18 years either. He was a person then, he is now, and he will be always, and he deserves to have the same fundamental rights no matter what stage of his life he enters.

**Congratulations to Luke's cousin Jennifer, who is scheduled to give birth to her fourth child today. I know that she will bless and enrich your life as much as the first three have!

Flashback!

Yes, I realize that I've been a little scan-happy lately, but my kids are boring me to tears right now, so get used to it. Today I walked into the spare room to find that Patrick had dumped a huge box of pictures all over the floor and was crying at what he thought was a horribly scary picture of Mommy. I don't know which one it was...he pointed to a few of them and well, there was nothing really scary about the pictures, I guess he just realized that I'm not as pretty as he thought. So as I was cleaning them up, I found this one of my eighth grade confirmation and I had to crack up for three reasons:

1) Unfortunately, I am the bad-looking one on the far left. While I will admit to having unbelievably frizzy and puffy hair with no style or shape whatsoever, I don't get why my face looks as round and as flat as a frying pan. Must be the camera angle, I have always had a fairly-oval shaped face.

2) And who is that girl, second from the right? Oh yes, that's our very own beloved Cup of Joe. Girl, I got a million of these, we might be having a lot of flashbacks in the near future! Mandy, watch out, I've got a big stash of college pics too!

3) Lastly, I want you to check out the dresses. I have no doubt in my mind that each and every one of you had a dress like this sometime around 1990. That's because these were the epitome of style back then, weren't they girls? A few years ago, back when I was a teacher, I had to take the winner of our school spelling bee to the archdiocesan spelling bee in Atlanta (Mandy, you remember, you came with us). It was held at one of the other grade schools and in the front hall they had all the graduation pictures from the past 20 years or whatever. It wasn't my school, but there were lots of pictures of people that ended up at high school with me, so I was showing them to my student and saying who they were. She looked at me and said "Why are you guys all dressed like Little House on the Prairie?"

'Nuff said about the dresses. We shall never speak of this again, okay? But there'll be more flashbacks...watch out girls!!!

Postcards from the Edge

...or at least the other side of the pond. I got this postcard from Shannon today--yay! You might remember that we had a little conversation a while back about this goat in her country that climbs a type of tree, eats the fruit, and spits out the seeds, which are the harvested for a tasty cooking oil, much like olive oil. I heard about this on Iron Chef America and thought it was whack! Thanks Shannon, for thinking of me! It was a sursprise and a treat to get this postcard today. I may put it in a kitschy frame and hang it over my spice rack...it'll be a great conversation piece!

Happy Anniversary!

Today is David and Sandi's 3rd wedding anniversary and I just wanted to give them a shout-out since there are no two people in the world better suited for each other. David and Sandi are like two peas in a pod and I am so glad that they are lucky enough to be able to live happily ever after together. Here's wishing you a great anniversary and many happy returns of the day!!!

Be Prepared

It's the motto for the Boy Scouts of America, but I think it's much better suited to motherhood, don't you? Over our weekend of wonderful weather, Luke took Patrick to visit the Scout troop that he sometimes helps out with. They were camping at someone's property nearby and parcticing their skills for badges. Patrick had a blast hanging out with them, helping them collect wood for the fire and having a picnic. I gave Luke the camera and told him to document it well, and I love the pics he got...they are priceless!

When Patrick got home, he jumped out of the truck and came running over to tell me all about it. I asked him if it was awesome and he said "Yeah! Mommy, I pooped in the woods like a DOG!!!!" That's my boy!

Great Expectations

What a great day it was, huh? We spent almost the whole day outside. This morning after church we went for a long walk around a nearby lake. Then after the kids snoozed we headed back out to wash the cars and play in the yard. Patrick has been begging me since it got cold to take his shorts back out so he can be like "Quiet Rule", so today it was finally warm enough that I consented.

Our older neighbor came over to chat while we were outside and commented on Patrick's shorts. She said that it was still too chilly for her to wear shorts since when you get old, your blood doesn't pump as quickly and forcefully to keep you warm....to which Patrick responded "When I get old, I'm going to drink beer and chew red gum."

We're so proud.

He can sleep in a chair, he can sleep on the stair, he can sleep most anywhere!

Of all the places Patrick has fallen asleep lately, face down on the stairs--in the middle of the day--has got to be the wackiest.

It's Baaaaaack!

Blogger's not letting me post pictures today, but I wanted to put something up, so please put your hands together to welcome back the Friday's Feast! This may just be a guest appearance...I'm not sure if I'll really start it back up again...

Appetizer: What comes to mind when you see the color orange?
Some seasons I think "yuck!" and some seasons I can't get enough of it. It's generally not my favorite color.

Soup: Did you ever get in trouble while you were in school? If so, what was it for?
I remember in 2nd grade, I had a teacher named Portia (pronounced like the car) Hendricks and she was going to save the environment. So she made us recycling bags to hang off the side of our desk. One day she caught me storing markers (gasp!) in mine and yelled at me. I was such a goody-goody that I put my head down and cried until my whole desk was soaked.

Salad: Which topping(s) make up your perfect pizza?
Tomatoes, mushrooms and pepperoni.

Main Course: Do you believe in UFOs/aliens/etc.? Why or why not?
Agent Mulder tells me that The Truth is Out There, and I don't argue with Mulder. Based on his looks, his rationale is perfect.

Dessert: What color is your bedspread/comforter/quilt?
Yellow and blue and green...but seeing as how I like to change my comforter as often as my socks, this could be different soon...

Hot Shot

Since January 1, Ben has accomplished the following:

1. Taken three steps.
2. Mastered the use of uh-oh and tried out night-night, gone-gone and moon.
3. Learned to drink from a real sippy cup, gave up the messy ones with straws.
4. Charmed the socks off of Mommy!!!

2007 is only ten days old, and already he owns this year!

I'm going to my happy place...

As we've been cleaning up the new game room (which was formerly the "storage room"), I ran across some pictures that I've had stashed away for a long time. One of them was this one, which is pretty much my favorite picture of me ever. This photo means a lot to me--I always had it on my bulletin board growing up, as you can see by the holes in the paper--but more than that, it represents some really great times in my childhood. We had a summer beach house in Old Saybrook, CT (famous for Kathrine Hepburn living there, and being only a stone's throw from Old Lyme, which is I guess where Lyme disease first became a big deal), and we got to spend all summer there (back when summers were three months long). My grandparents had a beach house in Madison, which was only about 20 or 30 minutes from our house, so we visited a lot. I loved their house. I loved it so much that you are going to hear all about it right now, because that's where this picture was taken.

The house itself was great to me. It was small, but there was only the two of them, so that didn't matter. It was on a neighborly street that was lined with big trees, maybe oaks, I don't really know, but it was always shady and cool outside. My grandfather had a big inboard motorboat in the side yard that he let us play in when we weren't at the beach. There was a huge screened-in front porch, with those chaise louges and chairs with really comfy squishy all-weather plastic cushions on them--that's where we'd hang out if it was raining. Their living room was decorated with lots of driftwood and those colored glass balls that hung in nets. I don't really know what those were, but you'd see them at the beach a lot in those days. They had a huge kitchen with vinyl-covered barstools that would spin around really fast. The kids room had wallpaper covered in toy soldiers and my grandparent's room had a giant white and pink conch shell on the dresser. My grandmother told me that one day at the beach, someone discovered a huge bed of conchs way out in the deep and she made my grandfather swim out there and dive for one. Out back was a really small porch where my grandfather would do his grilling, and we used to toast marshmallows out there after dinner. My grandmother would always pinch my side to see if I'd saved room for marsmallows.

Their beach was great, too--only because it was so unusual. I think it was meant to be a private beach, so there was never any appropriate public access. You had to walk down a staircase that was built into the side of a wall and then scoot across a ledge to get to the sand. It was easy at low tide, but at high tide the waves would be crashing on you as you walked along. I'm sure it was completely safe or my parents wouldn't have let me do it, but it always felt scary. Once you got down to the beach, there was so much to do. Being a northern beach, it was rocky. The rock in the picture was covered in mussels, which were great for catching crabs if you could pry them off the rock and smash them open. Out in the water was a HUGE rock called Betty Rock. You could walk out on a bunch of smaller rocks that formed a jetty. We would take our mussels out there and run all over that rock looking for crabs and playing. But we had to be careful and watch the water, because when the tide came in, the jetty was gone and then you'd have to swim for it. When I was little, Betty Rock seemed as big as a house to me. My mom took me back when I was a teenager. It wasn't as big as I remembered it, but still pretty large.

I still remember the day this picture was taken. My cousins Eric and Andrea, who lived in PA, were up to visit my grandparents, so we drove over from our house to see them. It must have been early summer, because my mom had thought it was too chilly to swim. But when we got there, Eric and Andrea were ready to get in the ocean. My brother David was okay...I guess he swam in his shorts, but I didn't have a suit and Andrea only had one, so I just rolled up my pants and played on the rocks that day. I can't remember if I was upset about it (probably not--I got to swim in the ocean every day), but now I'm glad it happened that way. Like I said, this is one of my favorite pictures, and it never would have been snapped if I had gone swimming with David and my cousins. It's one of those pictures that really portrays a moment frozen in time, and I remember that my grandparents always kept a big 8 x 10 copy of it in their house. To me it kind of represents the person I still feel like inside when I am not swept up with mommyhood. It's one of my most sentimental possessions and I will always cherish it.

Happy Birthday Matthew!

My sweet lil nephew Matthew is two years old today--a great age despite what they say. Matthew is a hoot, very funny and charming to be around. He has a lamb named Larry and when he's tired, instead of napping, he "goes to see Larry". Right now he loves all things train--including Thomas the Train--and is at that starting-to-really-talk age that is so fun to listen to (he calls Ben "Men").
Happy Birthday Matthew! I hope you have a great day and a great year. Aunt Becky is a slacker and hasn't gotten your present yet, but I will soon and then you'll get to open a present on a regular day, which is great fun! There's a method to my madness...um, yeah. Anyway, HAPPY TWO YEARS OLD!

Ping Pong Mania!

We have recently re-acquired Luke's ping-pong table--he's had it for a while, he was just storing it at someone else's house. I was against this, but I have to admit, I have enjoyed it the past few days. We have a large extra room upstairs (which used to be Ben's room, hence the pastel walls) which has morphed into a game room in the past week. The past couple nights we've been going up there after dinner, blasting the Jimmy Buffet and having some pretty intense dart games and ping-pong matches. At this point, Luke is the leader--he has beaten me twice in ping-pong (barely!) and he has the high score in darts. But revenge is coming and it will be sweet! Mwahaaahaaa!!! Yes, this whole game room thing could be a trial on our marriage since Luke is rather good and I am rather average but competitive. We will have to see what comes of this...

Patrick is getting the hang of it very slowly; Ben just likes to cheer us on! My favorite thing to do in the game room however, is just lay on the bed and try to catch forty winks while being pelted with little plastic balls.

Filter? What filter?

Patrick--like all kids his age--says whatever is on his mind. There is no filter to keep the outrageous stuff in his head, it all just comes pouring out. The other day I took him with me to Victoria's Secret to get some jammies with a gift certificate from Christmas, which took a while. So after he passed the time parading around the store modeling black satin bras, we finally headed to the check-out counter, where there was a pretty college-age girl behind us. She obviously didn't have kids, but she tried really hard to be nice when Patrick struck up a conversation with her:

Patrick: Look at this! (pointing to some sort of massage oil or something)
Girl: Yes, what is that?
Patrick: It's SHAMPOO!
Girl: Oh, do you wash your hair with shampoo?
Patrick: Yeah, I wash my hair. My hair doesn't stink anymore. I also wash my butt and my penis. My butt doesn't stink anymore, either.

The story ends like it always does...as the girl and the salesperson were convulsing in laughter, I grabbed my jammies, quickly apologized and hightailed it out before he could say anything really bad.

And because Katie says a blog without pictures is like a book without words, and because no blog is complete without a snapshot of kids in the bathtub, here are a few pictures of the boys getting ready to wash said body parts so they can be sqeaky clean in case someone asks again...

This one takes the cake.

For those of you who aren't familiar with my house, this is the landing at the top of the stairs. Straight ahead is his bathroom and to the left is his bedroom...where we keep a twin-sized bed for him. I have no idea why he saw fit to set up camp in the hallway tonight, but he was obviously comfy because he was sleeping like a log when I went up to check on him. There is nothing more to say here except that my kid is weird, weird, weird.

Get your smile on...

...with V-Smile learning system! Okay Katie, this one's for you...Patrick got this V-Smile for Christmas and he LOVES. IT. TO. DEATH. He asks to play with it every day, and will sit and play for an hour by himself, no instruction needed. We got him the Bert and Ernie Sesame Street game to go with it, and at first we had to help him figure it out, but now he can work the controls by himself, and the content is hard enough that he can still learn something from it. All I've got to say is, if Joe was to love it as much as Fat-pick does, it would be your dream come true, your search for the holy grail would be over. Maybe next time old Pops comes around you can drop a few hints??? I gotta give props to Luke for picking it out, it was totally his idea. Let's just hope it lasts...

2007

Happy New Year to everyone!

2007 is going to be a good year for us, I know it. We're going to settle into a groove and just cruise...haha, famous last words right? Well, I'm going to do my best to make it great, starting today, when I eat those naaaasssty black-eyed peas and turnip greens. Yuck! But hey, I'll do whatever it takes for a good year!
Here's to 2007!