Update on the van clan

Deep apologies to the handful of faithful followers... it has been two months since my last confession, I mean blog post. A few significant updates:

• John turned two. His choo-choo train cake was... wait for it... LEGENDARY. The party was fun and he enjoyed being the center of attention. He continues to talk up a storm and there is rarely silence in the van. "Big truck. Mommy, big truck! Big truck going? Paul, big truck. See? Big truck. Paul!! Mommy!! Big Truck!!! See? See?" You get the idea. I felt bad for the poor man sitting next to us on a recent bus trip out of NYC. John narrated the entire event. "Bus ride. Tunnel. Bus tunnel. Mommy? Bus go? Bus go tunnel? Big tunnel." etcetera..



• My six month maternity position came to an end and June was wrought with worry and stress. Thankfully another teacher is due in August, and after an intense interview on the second to last day of school I was able to secure employment for a few more months. I will be teaching English this time around and am very excited to try something new and to be able to stay in the same building. Hopefully things will begin to slope upwards in education and I can secure something permanent in 2012. For now I am happy to continue doing what I love in somewhat continuous spurts.



• The van family of four took our first vacation. Nothing major - a trip to the Jersey Shore and NYC. It was a lot of fun, but a bit too screaming hot for my taste. Paul chose the venue in part after learning about the huge toy stores in the City. After spending time on/near the beach for a few days we ventured up to the City to spend an entire day in giant toy stores and decided we were not coming back to the City until the boys were completely over the whole stroller thing. Poor hubby had to push 70+ pounds around in 95 degree heat. (I tried to help but kept getting stuck on the curbs and lacked the enthusiasm to bust through large crowds of people and roll over their toes if they refused to make a path for us.) The one advantage was our "rock star" arrival at Hard Rock Cafe: We were escorted down the elevator, bypassed all the other people waiting in line and got a spot at the bar right away. Sweet.



• Paul has been on the mad race to grow up way too fast. He is now nearly able to ride a bike without training wheels (still needs help getting started) and will soon be swimming unassisted. He starts Kindergarten in the fall and appears very ready to fly the nest. More on all of that in later posts.



• No major projects on the house recently - hubby is waiting for me to take the kids somewhere for a few days so he can tackle our bathroom. In the meantime he has been fixing up things here and there and we have been trying to continue the outdoor beautification. The garden is struggling but I refuse to stray off the organic path no matter how many hours I need to invest pulling out weeds.

You are now up to speed with our happy little lives. Provided I can keep the children occupied with cereal and television, I promise to post more exciting adventures and witty opinions in the near future.

The Land of No

My youngest is about to turn two and we are headed full steam ahead into the land of No. It is one of John’s favorite things to say, second only to “I want more” a phrase he says on endless repeat until the desire he is seeking is filled. But he takes much more pleasure in uttering the word no, exercising his defiance like only a two year old can. Sometimes it is funny, like when I asked for a bite of his cannoli on Easter and he quickly pulled it away from me with a firm, “No!” Generally open to sharing, the boy is secure in his passion for sweets and will rarely allow anyone else to partake. Sometimes he tries too hard to be funny, saying no simply for the reaction it gets. Sometimes he contradicts himself and will say no to two opposing choices. Desperate to be like his older brother, he will respond in the affirmative when asked if he wants to wear underwear but loudly announce his refusal to use the potty. Even when I try to eliminate the opportunity for choice, he still responds with the favored word. “John, hold my hand when we go into the parking lot.” “No!” Cold hard stare given by mommy. Not too cold or too hard however, or he launches into hysterics. Somehow I don’t remember this with Paul. He exercised his right to an opinion, there is no doubt about that (he was doing so the minute he came out of the womb), but we did not endure the level of tantrum that John has displayed. The giant tears. The flinging of oneself onto the floor. Ah, two. On the plus side, his language has exploded over the past several months. God was definitely thinking of parents when he accompanied the pain of tantrums with the thrill of hearing your child uncover the complexities of language. John repeats everything and has starting to string words together. This morning on the way to school he was pointing out all of the buses we passed. “Bus! More bus! Here come bus!” It is sweet to hear him repeat words, often with complete clarity but sometimes in a mumble of sounds only he understands. Part of me wants to freeze this time in his life; the innocence of his discoveries will never be matched. But then I remember the NO ringing in my ears and I know why we pass through each stage so quickly. When it gets to the point when you can’t take another minute, they move on to something else. Ah, childhood.

The new and improved basement

I love my handy husband. He has recently transformed our large, junk filled basement into a glorious playroom/workout room with oodles of storage. Here are some early project pictures. He converted the front part of the basement into two rooms on either side of the stairs. To the left would become the boys new play area. As you can see, Paul was anxious to have some space away from his brother and we allowed him to play with Legos and other small toys in the back corner. Please excuse the pile of food - the pantry was in progress when I snapped this photo. To the right of the stairs would be a workout space and would close off CJ's wood shop in the back corner. Under the stairs he planned to incorporate storage - yipee! At the bottom of the stairs he built a giant pantry. Behind the playroom he put in a cedar closet and extra shelves for storing the kids' clothes. (I didn't include an after picture because I am still working on the organization as we switch over to summer wear.) On the other side of the cedar is the cat box - no more stinky smell in the basement!! Here are some shots of the final product. Paul now spends hours down there building elaborate battle scenes and John enjoys the extra space to use his ride on toys while we wait for the weather to improve.

Our days in court

Paul: At 18 months old he became an official member of our family and entertained the courtroom with his, as daddy calls them, parlor tricks. We taught him to say "YES!" while pulling his arm down (you know the move I am talking about) when asked if he wanted to join our family forever. He did it right on cue. Everyone laughed. He high-fived the bailiff. It was classic Paul.John: At 22 months old he behaved much differently in court. He nervously chewed his cheek while waiting. He was completely mute in front of the judge, despite being taught "AWESOME" and practicing many times. When she tried to high-five him, he buried his face in my shirt. John is an incredibly friendly little boy once he trusts someone, but until then he is very wary. Not Paul. He is not afraid of anything. I'll never forget the time he offered some of his granola bites to a random man sitting on a park bench. It amazes me every day how different my boys are. And how perfectly they fit into our family.

Cake: Version 5.0

For anyone who has been waiting on pins and needles to see pictures of this year's cake, I sincerely apologize. Here is the story, with slightly less drama than last year. After being told by my husband that I care more about impressing friends and family than making my son happy, I tried to reel it in a bit. Fortunately this year we did not hit 85 degrees the day of the party and I was able to comfortably bake the cakes required to make dueling light sabers. And because I actually listened to my mother's advice this year and used waxed paper at the bottom of the pan, the cakes came out beautifully. They were so pretty that I had to take a picture. Sadly the icing was not as pretty. I didn't measure as exactly as I should have (okay, I didn't measure AT ALL) and just went by feel. A strategy that works well when cooking - not so much when baking. The icing was lumpy and runny and did not look as fabulous as last year's batch. I kept having to scrape it off the tray and reapply. And then there was the licorice. Our local grocery store ran out of the skinny black licorice that I used in last year's drum set, and I had to settle for giant Twizlers. The problem with the bigger licorice is that it does not conform as nicely and kept popping out of the sides of the cake. CJ tried to fix the problem by shoving them into the sides but just ended up creating giant holes. Overall though, I think this year's cake was a success. Judge for yourself. The boy was pleased. In the end, that is what truly matters; although I do enjoy the accolades.

The obsession continues

P's birthday is a mere four wakeups away. And somehow I am not completely freaking out about his cake. A little background for any readers new to the blog: When I started documenting my family's life on the world wide web, I began with a photo of my first ever fully realized totally awesome birthday cake. I was told it couldn't be done. Which is not something anyone should ever say to me. When Paul turned two, he was obsessed with Elmo. So he got an Elmo cake. It was pretty darn cool. Fueled by my success, I went completely three dimensional with his three year old cake: the bulldozer (did you catch the pun???) Paul was very excited to eat all of the candy accessories as everything but the driver was edible. Last year was my biggest challenge, especially when we had a freak heat wave the day before and of his party. But the drum set came out beautifully and I was even able to share the many yards of leftover licorice with a friend making a ladybug cake. So what is in store for this year you ask? Anyone who has spent any amount of time with my oldest in the last six months knows it can only be one thing. STAR WARS. I have decided to make dueling light sabers, which should be remarkably more simple than the last two designs. I am not worried, but perhaps I should be. I want them to look authentic. You see, after spending the last six months listening to a four year old relate every minute detail from every Star Wars book he can get his hands on I have learned A LOT. It is hard not to get swept up in the obsession. The whole family sings the theme song on a daily basis, often making up new words to fit a given situation (okay that's just me). My husband administers regular quizzes to see if I can identify all of the Jedi in P's collection. And P can tell you who someone is based solely on their light saber. His cake has got to be good. Stay tuned.

The meal

Whenever we go out to eat my boys are pretty well behaved, but they are definitely not perfect angels. I have had my fair share of public humiliation, moments when I want to crawl under the table with my veggie lo mein or casually walk away explaining that I must have accidentally sat down with the wrong family. I learned several key lessons early on, things like: 1. Never leave home without a stock pile of snacks, coloring books, crayons and various other distractions. 2. Carry bendy straws because the straight ones are just a recipe for flooding. 3. Don't wear anything that I don't want covered in food. Despite my many precautions, we have endured some pretty difficult moments and I developed a keen sense of empathy for other parents experiencing dinner drama. Last night may have been an exception.
We arrived at one of our favorite Thai places with hungry bellies and were happy to see that there would not be a wait. (Everyone was out getting fish as it was the first Friday of Lent) However we were quickly informed that there were no available high chairs as two other families had already laid claim. No biggie, John is much better about sitting in a booster seat than Paul was at his age and we happily wedged him against the table between myself and CJ. I noticed that one of the families was sitting at the next table. Their little boy was a few months younger than John, and he was unhappily perched on his father's lap, leaving the high chair available. Apparently the mom mentioned that they should give us the chair since their child was refusing to sit in it, but the dad grumbled something about not caring if we were pissed off about it. Which we weren't. As they waited for food to arrive, the little boy cried and carried on, and I could feel the tension rising from the table. I felt bad, knowing how difficult it is to get a hungry toddler to sit still and be calm. Thankfully my children were being sweet and patient as I pulled out all the distractions from my bag of tricks and let them occasionally get up and look at a nearby fish tank. Then John did something naughty - I can't remember what it was exactly - and CJ spoke to him about it. A little background: John does not like discipline. What child does, right? But most children can handle the hard stare, the firm angry voice, a 2 minute time-out. Not John. The second your voice hits the discipline range he bursts into hysterics. Which he did at that moment. And the mom across from us whipped her head around so quickly I could feel a breeze. Ah, so they aren't perfect! I could hear her thinking. That is when my attitude shifted. I had been sitting there, feeling bad for these parents who were trying to console an angry toddler and occupy a whiny preschooler, and they had been sitting there, waiting for my kids to screw up. Like it was some sort of endurance competition. Parenting is hard. Why do we need to make it harder by pitting ourselves against others who are trying to succeed at the same thing?