Uh "O"

John's friend from high school, Mr. O, and his wife have 2 adorable little boys. Interestingly, the oldest is exactly 20 days older than Nat and the youngest is exactly 20 days younger than Jules. Weird, huh?

Anyway, over the years the men have kept in touch and our kids have gotten to see each other a few times every year, regardless of how far we are apart. Now we live in the mens' old hometown, we should see each other even more. This should be especially pleasing to their oldest, Andy.

You see, Andy has been smitten with the idea of Nat-nat for some time. He has drawn maps to her house, calls her one of his "girls of rock and roll" (like on Alvin and the Chipmunks) and made his gramma take him on a recon mission to our new house even before we moved in. We've only known about this apparent affection via his parents' stories - until now.

When they came to visit in February, the kids were a little slow to warm up. Then Andy suggested we have them sit for their routine picture together. Everything was normal (except Joshie wanted nothing to do with it.) Then slowly, Andy slipped his arm around Nat's waist, then cuddled into her shoulder. By the time they left, he had informed us that he couldn't leave her. He "just couldn't help it." By the time they finally cajoled him to the basement door, he had to run upstairs one last time to say goodbye. Nat handled all of it surprisingly well. Maybe a little too well =)

It was too cute and we all giggled about it. At least John tried to giggle about it. Truthfully, I don't think we're ready for all this jazz and if it had been the kid of any other parents, well....

It's All About Perception

"Julsie, do you have chocolate on your face?"

"No. My licked it off. Now my all clean."

The Pressuuurrrre of a name

With each child, John and I seem to struggle - slightly - with choosing a name for our new bundle. For both girls we were dressed and ready to leave the hospital with the baby in the car seat still trying to think of a name.

You may be asking WHY? It's not like the child was sprung on us. We've had months to prepare for this. I don't blame you, I wonder the same thing! {Nat has had a boy's name since before we were even trying and settled on a girl's name a few months ago (Ben and Sara).} If it were just me, maybe. I can be a little bit of a procrastinator, but JOHN?! He is a planner. I mean, a real planner! Why can't we do this?


It's not for lack of trying - books, on-line, the Bible, suggestions from friends, family, and even OB nurse's name tags. When we were having Nat, we thought of almost everything for a girl. I mean everything:
- We had the conventional, like Theresa, Allison, Sydney, Alexis, Kaitlyn.
- The familial, like Grace, Mabel, Louise
- Then we had John's suggestions, like
"Arnolda" (after Arnold Schwarzenegger, of course) and
"Dana" which, in itself, is a fine name. I just think "Dana O'Day" is too much. "Da-na-O-Da-na-O-Da-na-O-Da-na-O-Da-na-O-Da......." Where does it end?
- Then there were the truly clever from my office gang:
A la our favorite vending machine snack: "Frieda" and then we'd have "Frieda O'Day." Like Frito-lay
A la Gwenyth Paltrow and her daughter: "Apple" and then we'd have "Apple O'Day." Like "An Apple O'Day keeps the doctor away!"


Crazy to Common, Sentimental to Silly, we've tried them all. Somehow we did it, and somehow we settled on Natalie Grace and Julia Louise. I am satisfied. Hmmm. I wonder what #3 will be.

Ugh, The Winter Weather

Let me just first say, I can't stand the winter. Nope, not at all. Can't find one redeeming quality. John says I'll like it when I learn to ski, but until then, I'll just have to take his word for it. The coldness, the dry skin and nasal passages (yes, I'm getting old, thank you), the coldness, the bundling up kids and jamming huge coats into car seats, the buckling of those car seats with brittle icicles for fingers, the dirty boot drippings all over the car, and did I mention the bitter coldness?

It doesn't help that we just moved either. I'd love a nice, warm play date/mom chit-chat time. Instead, I feel couped up and stir crazy!!! Yet somehow, I choose to stay inside, slowly going insane, rather than wrestle my big belly and two kids through the snow and ice.

Oh, do I need to mention that I've been cranky and a little pessimistic lately?

Whatever, here are some pics of our winter thus far:
The first slide show is of our house in the "big snow" and the one day it all melted. Don't worry though, the water went down and was completely replaced by a new coating of snow overnight. We still haven't seen grass yet.

This slideshow is just a few pics of us on a day the family went sledding, Nat and daddy walked out on the ice of Pymatuning and we found a swing-set to play on.
Upon seeing the swing set, Nat was uncharacteristically sedate
Daddy: "whadda ya think?"
Nat: "about what?"
Daddy: "the swing set. Do you see the swings."
Nat: sadly, "yeah, but they're somebody's"
Daddy: "No, it's a park."
Nat: "A park? They're not anybody's?"
Daddy: "No, you can swing on 'em"
She was elated and ran. Upon Julsie and I catching up, she said, "Mom, look at these swings! And they aren't anybody's, this is a park!"
I figure she is so used to Hershey, where she would see lots of swing sets on our walks that she would have to pass up because they were in people's yards. =)

My Baby Is 5 =(

I can't help it. This was a very hard birthday for me. I am excited to see her grow and learn new things, but the prospect of sending her away to school is just ... well..., just horrifying for me. I know it's probably somewhat selfish, but I love her! I know she'll enjoy making friends and showing me all the new things she has learned, but I will be lost without her. She is my little buddy. I don't think I want to spend my day Natty-less.

Ugh, and then there's the mean girls, and the inevitable misunderstandings with teachers, etc. that seem so unfair, and little boys who think she's cute and... ugh. Anyway, I'm sure there will be much more agonizing over kindergarten in posts to come.

Back to the birthday -

There were many other stressors for my already emotionally-fragile pregnant self:

-Family scheduling issues causing us to have the party well after her b-day

-Miscommunication between daddy and me so that we did NOTHING for her on her actual b-day (no cards, no presents, no cake). Just "Um, it's your birthday. You're 5 now."

-The entire weeks leading up to her party, she was talking about how she didn't have any friends here and she would have no friends at her party. She even told Nana, "I don't have any friends anymore, so I just invited all my family."

I was completely ready to have a melt-down. How could such a big birthday be celebrated so un-eventfully? My heart was broken.

Anyway, we did have a party, although everyone had to leave early. She got a lot of cute outfits and some fun Littlest Pet Shops. I made her a special cake too. In the end, the day turned out okay. The cake was very good and she was happy eating pizza. It was not the party I would have liked, but I'm sure I took it much harder than she did and in the grand scheme of things, she won't be too emotionally scarred. ;)

Hahaha! Finally Got My Camera Back!

And you will reap the benefits! Now, this picture goes with a previous story - the one on the mouse who eluded me for oh, so long.

Kinda gross, but I HAD to share ....

See those perfect little bloody paw prints!!!! I wasn't even kidding!

Another Nail Polish Nightmare

Once again, Jules' desire for girly fashion has gotten the best of her. Believe me, after the last debaucle (an entire bottle of Purple Passion on the floor of our Hershey bedroom one month before move-out), she is FULLY aware that she is not allowed to paint her nails by herself.

Anyway...

Earlier in the day we painted our nails together, over newspaper, very carefully. Once I cleaned everything up, everyone was dry and beautiful, I placed my tupperware container of polish on the stairs so I could take it up on my next trip. My next trip was obviously not soon enough.

Hours later, Nat came to me, "Mom, wait until you see what Jules did. It's bad!" Wearily, I say, "What now?" As if on cue, out comes Jules covered in "Brilliant Red." Her nails were painted from the first knuckle up and her toes looked like she was simply dipped. There was some in her hair and all down her belly. When I went to the scene of the crime, it was atrocious. There was the entire bottle, little mixing ball bearing and all, poured onto the beige carpeted steps which face the front door. The polish had already completely soaked through the fibers down to the matting.

I immediately started carpet clean-up and requested John clean the suspect and put her to bed. I knew my temper was likely to get the best of me if I had to deal with her. To ensure his didn't get the best of him (which it actually never does), I hid the evidence until after she was in bed.

After many hours, 1.5 bottles of Goo Gone, 1/2 bottle of dish soap, some Coke (who knows, thought I'd give it a try), the sham-wow, terry cloth towel, scrub brush and an emergency borrowing of my sister-in-law's steam cleaner, only a faint pink tinge can be seen. I don't know. We'll see if there is anything else we're going to do about it... besides completely banning all nail polish, that is.