Friday, November 21, 2014

Winter Quinny

 Perhaps the only redeeming factor of the recent arctic blast is seeing Quinn dressed like this:

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Thursday Thoughts because I wanted to write on Monday

I really wanted to write on Monday, like really, really. I didn't have anything especially important to say, except that I was having a wild craving for crepes with Nutella and ordered a whole lot of peanut butter from Costco, but still I wanted my fingers touching the keys something fierce. But that Miss Quinn, have I mentioned she's a little, er, sensitive? I was telling my Super, who seems to only see her when she's screaming at the top of her little lungs, that she is very particular about things and he said, "She's a woman, what do you expect?" (Make sure you go back and read that quote in your best Polish accent for good measure.) I hate to think it's a girl thing, but Quinn, we have got to figure this out girlfriend! If I put her in a pack she wants to be coddled in my arms, but boy if I try to coddle her and she wants to be lying flat on my legs she's going to pitch a heck of a fit. And don't EVER try to put her down. EVER. I made that mistake yesterday when I was trying to help T and his friend Rohan make turkey hats (pinterest for the win) and I thought that baby's eyes might bug out of her head. Rohan's the baby of his family and he told T, "Your sister cries a lot!" and T replied, "You haven't even heard the worst of it!" That's the truth, because you haven't heard crying until you've heard a bathing Quinn. Wow!

So...that's why I didn't write on Monday. Because bouncing that baby is an all-consuming job and turns out I'm pretty good at it. What I'm not pretty good at? Writing while I'm bouncing. But holla! Quinn fell asleep on our way home from picking up T at school and as soon as we busted through our front door and hot chocolated the children (because hello again Winter, you uninvited guest, you) I pulled out the computer and started typing this nonsense. Therapy. Keyboard therapy. She squawked and I binky-ed her and she took it. Hallelujah choir folks!

Maybe if I would've written on Monday things would've sounded a little more interesting around these parts. But alas, I have Thursday brain and I know that in no time I'll be simultaneously nursing a baby and frying some rice (and rocking both, mind you) so I better start writing. Here we go...

***Kindergarten is gross. The stories of sickness that come home with T are unreal. "My friend "A" went to the bathroom and then he came out and said, 'Whoa, that came out really fast' and then he went to the nurse and she sent him home. It's called diarrhea Mom." Oh, and another favorite. "My friend "L" was coughing so hard today he couldn't breathe. He sounded like a duck 'quack-cough quack-cough' and he had to go to the nurse. She told him his throat was really red and he had to go home. I know because he told me all about it before he left." Great T, just breathe in all those nasty germs. I hate winter.

***Let's talk about winter for a second here, since it's my most favorite thing to talk about from about mid-November until April (NOT! Well, kind of). I know it's technically not winter yet, but I dislike fall and it's cold weather just as much. New York's spring has a pretty bad rap in my book too. Anyway, so I was watching the news last night and the weather lady said, "The weather is going to warm up and tomorrow it'll be about 30 degrees." I'm just sayin, 30 degrees and warm should never be in the same sentence.

***Talmage, on the way home today: "We had a substitute for music. His name was Mr., well, Mr. Something and he's so cool! He plays the cello and he can play 5 Beatles songs AND Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." Good to know that Beatles songs and Twinkle, Twinkle are in the same category of coolness. He did say he was disappointed that Mr. Something couldn't play any Killers songs, I would've loved to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.

***And lest you think Talmage is the only one saying clever things, Everett tells me, "You are the mainest Mom in the world. That means you are the goodest cooker of hot dogs!" And also, "Do you know how much I love you Mom? 2 plus 10!" In preschool today they were learning about making amends after making mistakes and Everett yells out, "I NEVER make mistakes!" This from the kid who hit his friend in the face with a baseball bat because she's a girl. Yes, one of our finer moments from that spicy boy.

***But now let's go back to T, who recently told me that vegetables were his favorite type of protein. In the same conversation he told me that when he grows up he wants to be a construction worker, writer and crayon factory worker. This is a change because for the longest time he wanted to work at Trader Joe's so he could organize things! And when his friend Grace told him that she wanted to marry him someday he responded matter-of-factly, "No, I'm pretty sure we have to marry our line partner."

Well, there you go. The boys are in their room singing, "We are family, I don't know my sister Denise!" (AKA I've got all my sisters and me...) and I better go get things ready because, squeal, California here we come! Commencing cute Quinny photo dump now:

 How I live for Quinn's smiles. I love that girl so, so, so much. Screams and all!

 But keepin' it real.

Friday, November 14, 2014

Quinn in Pink.

My friend is an incredible photographer here in the city and offered to teach me a thing or two about my new DSLR camera. She came to my place so that we could snap a few pictures of Miss Quinn, and as luck would have it our little lady was having a REALLY fussy day and she screamed the whole time (minus about five minutes, no joke). I think I learned a thing or two, and luckily we got a few good pictures of the babe. Thanks Maria, you're the best!




And the picture below I did all on my own. Maybe I did learn something...or maybe my model's just making me look good!

Thursday, November 13, 2014

T and the Tooth Fairy

It seems like just yesterday I was writing a letter to the tooth fairy begging her to drop off Talmage's first tooth to end our teething drama, and on Tuesday the tooth fairy heard from the Wig's again when Talmage wrote his own letter asking her to pick up his first tooth. His first tooth--MY BABY LOST HIS FIRST TOOTH! How did that happen? I feel like I'm blinking and whole years are passing. Talmage is getting so big, so fast. We love that little boy so much!

The tooth fairy gave T $1 in exchange for his tooth. He couldn't have been more pleased!

UPDATE: T lost his second tooth just three days after the first. He's a dollar richer and now whistles as he talks! See proof below!


Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Quinny is 6 weeks old!

This little lady celebrated six weeks on earth with a smile. A cute, looking-at-her-momma, totally on purpose smile. And somehow I caught in on camera. The shot is a little blurry, but holy hannah she's sweet!

And this was Sunday! Having a little girl to dress up and pose with in spontaneous pre-church photo shoots is a dream come true. I love being Quinn's mom.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

A Walk Home With T


 (Pictures from Family Friday in T's class)

Picking up Talmage from school is like jumping into a twister that lives in that little boy's mouth. From the moment he high-fives his teacher at 2:50 pm (the official hand-off between school and home) his lips start moving and they don't stop until we walk in our front door a few blocks and about ten minutes later. Who am I joking? That mouth doesn't stop moving until he passes out in bed a little after 7:30. But those ten minutes on our walk home, those are some of the most entertaining, exhausting and enlightening moments of my day because Talmage, he's just such a Talmage sometimes.

Today his saintly teacher let him lead closing circle and share a picture of a Clark's Nutcracker that his Papa and Gigi sent him in the mail. As we walked by the first graders swinging on the monkey bars he told me about how he read the letter they sent, gave the kids rules about touching his print and then fielded questions from the class. "So I told them not to bend it, or crumple it, or rip it because some of those boys Mom, you just never know what they're going to do. Just yesterday they threw Ms. Owl across the circle!" He said, shaking his head in true disgust. Just the image of T playing teacher in front of his peers puts a smile on my face that I can't shake. I was thinking about how mature he was getting when...

"HOT DOG! BLUEBERRY! " T was screaming at the very top of his lungs, but before I could even ask what the heck he was yelling about I saw a superhero backpack with a curly mop of dishwater hair crossing over 70th Street with a huge grin on his face.

"PIZZA!" The little boy yelled.

"FRUIT SNACKS!" T replied.

"Talmage! JUICE BOX!" The boy said again, this time sending both of them into fits of giggles before the walking man invited us to cross the street and even the loudest of screams could not overpower the taxi horns on Broadway.

"Mom, that was Evan. He's in my class Mom. That's just a game we play together. It's so funny!"

"Oh," I said trying to act super impressed with their game. "So...do you guys just yell the foods that you like to eat or something?"

"No Mom. We say foods that sound funny. Like blueberry. Isn't blueberry funny Mom? And hot dog." And then he just fell apart with giggles. And so did Everett for that matter. It must be a boy thing? A little boy thing? The whole situation had me re-thinking the whole "T's so mature" thing!

The giggles led into a discussion about feelings, naturally, so as we passed by the School of the Blessed Sacrament (which is a whole other fabulous story for another day!) T says, "So today we learned about 'I feel' messages, like 'I feel sad or I feel frustrated or I feel angry.' We're doing that because lots of people have been tattling lately. Instead we should talk it out with each other, we can say, "I feel upset when you take my pink baby during dramatic play." And then I was the one giggling. Because there's my little 5-year-old using the phrase "dramatic play"! Does anyone else find that ridiculously funny, or is it just me?

By this part of the conversation we were nearing our apartment and Quinn was squawking in the stroller. It doesn't seem to phase him though, he just talks LOUDER! "First she was a mouse and then she looked like a squirrel. Now I think that Quinn is graduating to pigeon." Yes, that's what he had to say about his sister today.

So there you have it, a walk home with Mr. T.

But one more story for the road:

A few days ago he said, "Mom, you must be so glad I go to school so that I can teach you things, because I know so much more than you do." He wasn't even being rude, just completely earnest. And how am I supposed to respond to something like that? Am I supposed to be all Actually I'm way smarter than you are son? For some reason I don't think that would boost his self-esteem. But really, after spitting out those kind of comments I doubt I need to worry about his confidence. That boy knows everything about everything, just ask him. Except how to say auditorium. In that same conversation he told me, "It was rainy today so we watched a movie in the augidorium." I smiled and didn't correct his cute mispronunciation (not that it would've mattered...I know nothing, remember?) You're still little Talmage, and I'm going to keep you there as long as possible!

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

This is Halloween!

They dressed up like this:


But in true Ninja Turtle fashion, they spent most of their time together doing this:
 

She trick-or-treated in this get-up, because, cold:


But she did dress up (cuter pictures to come!) like this:


We saw T march in his kindergarten costume parade, Ev went to a party with lots of his little friends and the bowl of candy at the end of the night was unreal. But no pictures, because it turns out that three kids is no small thing. But I did get a picture of this:

I didn't carve it, but I'll claim it for my Quinny girl!

Happy Halloween, 2014