Year: 2012

Truths

So we’ve been plugging along in our little routine for several months now. Ashton has his naps, his bedtime, his bottles, his meals, and we manage to do a little of this and a little of that in between. Reflecting on the past year, I am absolutely, one hundred percent a living, breathing, motherhood cliche. It’s really no wonder that women bond over the good, the bad and the ugly that children bring. In any event, here is my personal list of motherhood truths after a year in the trenches. 
1) Sleep can only be truly appreciated when you aren’t getting any. Night.after.night.after.night. C’mon, this had to be first! Sleep, or lack thereof, is like the ubiquitous new parent joke. Ah, if only it was funny.
2) Fact: our water consumption has increased more than 400%. I know this because bills do not lie. I won’t be surprised if I go downstairs one of these days and the washing machine has up and left. Just gone, perhaps to a beach in Mexico to retire.
3) Moms like to buy in bulk. It’s a survival mechanism really. Moms also like Target. A lot. 
4) Personal hygiene takes a back seat. I do sometimes forget to brush my teeth. Um, or shower. And my poor hair has seen nothing but the insides of a ponytail since Ashton was born. Shockingly, this hasn’t changed in a year.
5) I’d rather buy something for Ashton than for myself. It’s quite sad, I spend more time in the baby section at TJ Maxx than my once-beloved shoe aisle. What do I personally need to shop for? If I buy a new shirt, it’s either going to be (a) immediately stained or (b) banished to a drawer so it doesn’t suffer the fate of (a). New clothes shouldn’t live like that, so I leave them for better owners.
6) Sometimes, with no explanation, things are just sticky. Or wet. Or both.
7) In my next house, I’d like my kitchen sink to have a window in front of it. That design idea must have been thought up by a mom because honestly, I spend more time there than anywhere else: washing, wiping, more washing, drying…it would be nice to have a view. 
8) Stale cheerios are still cheerios and quite snack-eligible. Babies don’t know the difference. And while I’m on food, besides the leftover squishiness from pregnancy (yes thank you I’m aware it’s been a year, but it’s still there) are the pesky pounds that have lately resulted from a very particular kind of perfect storm. Weather front A: the end of breastfeeding, which burned a nice 500 calories a day without me having to do a thing. Weather front B: Now that Ashton’s meals are so important, and wanting to expose him to all kinds of foods, I really try to cook things. Meatballs, chicken and turkey burgers, salmon, pasta and sauce, fresh steamed veggies with melted cheese…Of course, he eats none of this and prefers watermelon to pretty much everything so I end up having most of it myself, plus my regular meals. I put so much effort in that I don’t want it to go to waste! But without my “freebie 500” to balance it out…alas, it does go to waist. (Terrible joke, was that a pun? Sorry about that, haha.) But it’s a valid point! Moms eat their kids’ stuff and a little bit of extra fatness results. 
9) You miss your friends. But you make new ones in other new moms, and appreciate them equally. 
10) Teething deserves its reputation. It’s really that bad, practically a horror movie with all the drooling and the whining.
11) You think that everything your child does is amazing and can’t stop taking pictures. Despite knowing deep in your heart that almost no one cares about Ashton’s newfound ability to bring you clumps of dried grass from the yard, you still manage to mention it on your blog. 
12) In my diaper bag right this minute are not one, not two, not three, but FOUR kinds of wipes: diaper, boogie, facial, and antibacterial, and they actually all get used. The diaper ones are self-explanatory. Boogie wipes have saline and are grape flavored and gentle, used on stuffed up noses. Facial wipes are safe for mouths and pacifiers, and the antibacterial ones are the closest thing I have to weaponry.
13) Wine has never tasted so good. It’s my favorite four-letter word.
14) Baby steps really are little. These things are like an inch at a time, and they are the cutest inch you’ve ever seen.
15) I happened to be sweeping the other day when Katie called. Jason was within earshot when I answered so I waited for the usual, “So what’s up? What’s going on?” and then said loudly, “Oh you know, JUST A MODERN DAY CINDERELLA AROUND HERE.” I am always cleaning up. Always. You’d think I was bad at it too because you can’t even tell, it’s so frustrating. But I crack myself up because I actually do hum that song from the movie that the little mice sing: “Cinderelly cinderelly night and day its cinderelly…” You know which one I’m talking about?

Hahaha 🙂 I’m laughing right now just typing this. OBVIOUSLY it’s not like that but I love to exaggerate.

16) Lastly, there’s a scene in Sex and the City when Charlotte and Trey are trying to conceive and have just gotten back from a dinner at their friends’ house. Their friends have three kids and the meal was generally a disaster: food being thrown, tantrums, screaming, parents bickering over the children’s behavior, just totally uncivilized. The pandemonium and utter chaos have Charlotte and Trey in a quiet mood when they get home, like, “Oh boy, is this what we are in for if we have children?” They ponder this and Carrie’s voice narrates: “But then Trey told Charlotte something that all parents-to-be have to tell themselves: Our kids will be different.” Oh, everyone thinks theirs will be: that their baby’s cry won’t be as piercing, that their baby will nap and sleep perfectly and will never have avocado under its fingernails or a dirty belly button. Their kid won’t destroy the walls, throw food or terrorize the dog…well, you’ve heard it from me: no kid is ever different. Ever. ever. I admit, even I was guilty of assuming mine would be. But if kids were perfect and made no impact whatsoever on your life, what fun would that be?

p.s. Tate’s food bowl met its end a few days ago. Let’s just say it didn’t survive the beating. R.I.P.

12 Months – Part 2 (A Party)

It would be my dream come true (and I do mean, my dream come true) to have one of those party blogs where all the pictures of all the little details are in perfect focus and the whole thing looks like it is straight out of a Martha Stewart magazine. Here’s how I am making this happen. First, we were given a professional photography gift certificate back when Ashton was born and I had decided to save it for his one year portraits. Then, when we started to plan his birthday party, I thought BINGO! Have them come take his pictures and also snap some party shots before they leave. A little two-for-one if you will.  And so they did just that. Great! But what I didn’t count on was how long it takes for professional photographers to post the pictures they take and right now I have been told it will be another couple of weeks. Well, A New Nill must go on! What follows are my own (and friends and family members’) totally amateur, decidedly un-Martha-Stewart-blog-like pictures from Ashton’s first birthday party last Sunday. A poor man’s Real Simple or any other very nice living magazine, truly. But, as I believe is true in life for just about everything, you do the best you can with what you’ve got.

So here we go. First, you should know that this party started out as a cowboy theme. That was the theme for Jason’s first birthday party 35 years ago and we thought it would be cute to continue the tradition. Here was the invite:

I immediately got to work on the decorations- I made bunting flags out of scrapbook paper, a giant #1, a banner, the favors, signs, and centerpieces, accented it all with rope and I ordered tables and chairs and red checkered linens. After weeks of thinking about everything, my brother Erik came to visit the day before and we were casually discussing the party. “So how exactly is this cowboy and not, ummm, barnyard?” he asked. I froze. Omg. It WAS barnyard. Besides a couple of sheriff’s badges I had glued on some mason jars, there was not one cowboy hat or anything pertaining to horses except a bale of fake hay. In fact, the predominant patterns were cow print and bandannas, so it wasn’t even barnyard because there were no animals!! Truly, what kind of party was I throwing here?? Martha would have been so disappointed. At the end of the day, I settled on “western”. Without further ado, here are pictures of Ashton’s WESTERN birthday party.
We had two main drinks: Six-shooter Sweet Tea (regular iced tea) and Lasso’d Lemonade (definitely spiked and re-named from Grandma’s usual Laidback Lemonade (pink Countrytime mix and Southern Comfort)).
Here’s the saloon in all its glory (next to the chuckwagon table, which was obviously for food :))
Those coolers were painted with cow spots by none other than my amazing husband (quick shout out to him: Thank you for the many, many miles you drove the day before the party in order to find me the straw that I absolutely HAD to have to sprinkle on the driveway for decoration. The straw that I decided not to use in the end. Love you honey.).
  
We decided it would be nice to warn people about the Southern Comfort as it was completely undetectable taste-wise, so here is me making a note on the sign:
Here’s Ashton testing out the corral that was built for all the babies
The favor table. I made s’mores on sticks for the grown-ups and the babies each got a little board book of “Cowboy Small” by Lois Lenski

Other detail shots

After the party got started, the cameras were put away for the most part but I did get a couple including an aerial view

The cake

The aftermath

Now, this cake was vegan due to Ashton’s egg allergy. Whole Foods clearly substituted butter and eggs with oil and extra sugar and let me tell you, it was A-mazing. Like, so good. Dense and sweet… It was really important to me that Ashton be able to eat his own birthday cake and I was so happy with it. Honestly you’d never know it was vegan!

To wrap up, having family and friends surrounding him and singing Happy Birthday was one of my best moments of this past year. To everyone that was there, I am so grateful you came. And to those that couldn’t be, we were thinking of you and counting our blessings that, present or not, this little boy has so much love in his life. Because really, besides a proper cowboy, er, barnyard, er, western themed party, what else is there. xoxo

12 Months – Part 1

Well, here we are. My baby is one year old. I have thousands of pictures and hundreds of videos, so I’m not quite sure how to accurately capture what a milestone today was. I think for this post, Part 1 of the 12 Month series, I’ll just do a quick recap of how Ashton spent his day. We are throwing his big first birthday party on Sunday and I have sooo many things to do. But for now, let’s start with a quick glimpse of Ashton exactly one year ago:

One year later, it’s August 3rd, 2012. We had our usual playtime in the sun right after waking up:

If you’re looking to book an appointment with Ashton’s hair stylist, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. His crib does not have a phone number.

Poppy and Mema were here for a quick visit so we went out for a big boy first birthday breakfast!

He was so good, he ate his watermelon and yogurt and the mess we left behind was far smaller than I anticipated.
Attempt at a family picture back at the house after breakfast. After regarding Poppy fairly heavily (look at that chin?!) Ashton decided he had had enough and was ready to walk around some more.

Yes, I said walk. Well,

toddle  (ˈtɒd ə l) 
— vb  (foll by round, over, etc )
1. to walk with short unsteady steps, as a child does when learning to walk

But boy, that’s some technique right there. See you at the next Olympics.
There was more of his usual shenanigans…
And then we hit a speed bump after his second nap. A little “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to” type thing 🙂

Luckily he pulled himself together just in time to look like Brad Pitt’s baby son from A River Runs Through It:

If you’re thinking that Brad Pitt didn’t have a baby son in A River Runs Through It, you are correct. That’s because Ashton hadn’t been born yet and they couldn’t cast the role. If you’re also thinking that Ashton really doesn’t look like Brad Pitt and I’m totally delusional…well, a mom can dream. 
Later on, more toddling in the park with Tate…


 By the way, he simply will not let go of the blue Chuck-it. He clutches it for dear life in the house and generally just feels better holding it when we are out and about. So funny – for anyone that doesn’t own a dog, it’s a tool to throw a ball extra far. You might have seen it in the above pictures, maybe I’ll make it a “Where’s Waldo” type thing if he continues to be so attached to it.
Last picture of us before bedtime:
And last thought of mine before I sign off: Happy first birthday Ashton. I have to repeat a quote from another blogger (way more popular than me) who said that to be a mom is to walk around with your heart literally outside of your body. This could not be more true and although I have had what at times has felt like a tough year, it has generally been full of a different kind of joy than I have ever known or ever could have imagined. Stay tuned for first birthday party pics and the nitty gritty statistics after our 1 year pedi appointment on August 13th (12 Months Part 2 and 3 respectively). 
Um, I have a toddler. Holy sh$%#^&*t. (Sorry Mom 😉 )

Trying to keep up!

Hi readers! If you’re still out there. I have no excuses for my lack of posting this month! Each day that goes by that I don’t write something, the task gets more and more daunting. We have been all over the place. Actually, it’s more like Ashton has and I just follow him trying to mitigate any damage (to our house or to his person). He’s definitely leading the charge; terrorizing Tate’s water bowl and scooping the dirt out of our plants has been just the beginning of his adventures.

So we have a couple of big things going on. First birthday is in one week. As in, seven days. This milestone is not enough in and of itself though: it marks the beginning of the end of my time at home with my sweet baby boy. I am officially looking for a job. We have outgrown our condo (and the third floor and busy road!) and my gainful employment will help facilitate getting a (certainly little considering the prices around here) house. This is a topic that will arise in future posts as the process unfolds but, there you have it. If I think too much about it I get really sad so without further ado here are the latest pics, in Ashton’s own words.

Sometimes I like to make myself a coffee table sandwich.

God if I could just find something to eat around here. I mean, note that I appear to be holding up the pantry drawer with my head. Yes, cute girl babies everywhere, I am that strong. This one’s for you. 

Tate, are you home? You can’t hide from ME. I have eyes on the back of my…um…well…

Mmm, I love a good clean sock. Fresh out of the dryer.
Another demonstration of my brute strength. It’s not easy to balance like this you know.

My love for the kitchen stools is a close second to the coffee table. 

Also, in looking at the above photo, I’d like to make a statement. Tate thinks that I drag his food dish around the kitchen, but he’s got it all wrong. I’m telling you, that bowl follows me. 
Whatever this is, it’s cold. The freezer is decidedly not my favorite thing to stick my hand into.

I command thee beach rock, DON’T MOVE!

I’m far too busy to be held and to pose for a picture. Put me down. And by the way Mom, you look tired. How come?
This is what I think of your meatballs.

Read the onesie.
Explains it all.

New trick

This is a cheap blog post but in addition to Ashton learning how to high five, he also has started to mimic what I do. Today in his highchair I was opening and closing my mouth to imitate him chewing. This was his response…

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Official Post: Summer Vacation

How do I even begin to sum up June 29th – July 8th?? We spent our summer vacation down in Hampton Bays, NY with Jason’s family and it was perfect. Just the right amount of beach time, pool time, down time and cocktail time 🙂 Looking through my pictures, 90% of them are Ashton playing in the water or in the sand and the only thing that makes them different is the bathing suit he’s in. Sigh. I’ll do my best to create an interesting post out of said pictures.

First, a quick guide to Summer Vacation 2012.

Main cast of characters: Grandma, Grandpa, Jason’s brother Chris and his sister Melissa (Liz) and her husband (also Jason but called Stone due to last name) and their 2 month old Owen. (Fun fact: We are not only Owen’s aunt and uncle but officially his godparents as well!) Dog Tate and Dog Saki (Liz and Stone’s Yorkie)

On location at: Tiana Beach (on the ocean), Meschutt Beach (on the bay – more kid friendly as there were no waves), the backyard pool and the deck (site of many dinners and even more cocktails)

Celebratory occasions: 4th of July, Jason’s 35th birthday (July 6th)

Off we go, in no particular order with the exception of the first photo.

On the ferry! Strong, spicy Bloody Mary for me and very non-alcoholic cheese puffs for Ashton
Although I worried that the Bloody Mary might have looked good to him because he ended up trying to eat the lime out of Jason’s margarita…
 And his Corona bottle.
Luckily, he soon gave up drinking for more physical pursuits. 
Like bocce.
And trying to ride the Pooh car. (Or Pooh bus? Pooh truck? Oh who knows with these baby toys.)

And plotting his escape from the beach playpen.
Now, no beach trip is complete without a hole. I don’t know about you, but we used to aim for China and came close once or twice. What is it with boys and their buckets and shovels? Berg came to visit the last couple days and honestly, these three spent at least 45 minutes down by the water digging around. 

What’s funny is they worked so hard on Ashton’s first hole, and then I kindly pointed out that it was too far from the waves and would never fill up with water. Poor baby was just sitting there waiting in a hot sandy pit. Um, fail. So they ended up digging a proper one, which is pictured above.

I also got to spend a lot of time with our new nephew (and godson) Owen!

We woke up on July 4th to an overcast morning – Ashton took a late nap so we bagged the Southampton parade and knew we probably wouldn’t see the fireworks because they happened after Ashton’s bedtime. This is about as patriotic as we got:
Although actually the boys did wear matching outfits 🙂

What about our four-legged friend Tate? Grandma and Grandpa’s backyard is heaven for him: it’s fenced, has lots of things to smell and he romps around without a leash. He had a ball. He really did. It was orange.
Ahhh, pool time.

Apparently you can’t go to the beach without a pool so Ashton went in one there as well.
Next up, Jason’s 35th birthday. Another year, another Fudgy the Whale from Carvel 😉
[Trivia: How many birthdays has Jason spent on the back deck at his parents’ house and eaten this very cake?]

There are still about 483 pictures that I haven’t posted yet but this post is approaching monster status. A very, very special thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for taking such wonderful care of us during our visit (cooking, cleaning, everything!!). I can’t imagine having a more perfect summer vacation, we love you so much.

I think this about sums it up, taken on our car ride home. The End 🙂

11 Months

We are officially on the home stretch towards the big O.N.E. And all I can say is W.O.W. Besides using anything within reach to pull up on, he crawls at warp speed and is starting to balance on his own two feet for a few seconds at time. The mobility and activity level have really skyrocketed- this little boy is on the move. Cruisin’ for a bruisin’ is more like it. Literally! He has one on his forehead and one on his cheek in this picture (not to be blamed on Uncle Chris, these were a pre-existing condition):

What makes this can’t-take-your-eyes-off-him-for-one-second phase even more relaxing is the fact that his attention span is practically zero. I feel like he is the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, just barreling through everything because he doesn’t know what he wants until he stops and roars. Ashton’s roar is more like a small squeaking but that makes sense considering the difference in size.

Other Ashton notables this month…when he hears music he will put his arms out and shake them up and down. He is also starting to wave, babble a lot more, and his two top teeth are halfway down…

We were on vacation this past week (to be documented in a separate post) and between the big pool, kiddie pool, beach, sand, ocean…we literally could not wipe the smile off of his face.

Sleepwise, his favorite position is with his arms underneath him and his little behind in the air (mysterious dots in the first photo are pacifiers):

And we are still in a pretty good routine between a 7:15 am wakeup, breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and two 60-80 minute naps a day around 9:30 and 1:30. I still nurse him and pump twice a day so that he has an 8 oz bottle at his 6:30-7 pm bedtime. Between all of that, there are approximately 103 workable minutes each day for other things. 95 if you count diaper and outfit changes. With that precious time, if we are not on our nifty new playmat or in his new baby pool, we…

work on Tate’s friendship
swing (I know he’s having more fun than he’s letting on)

go to the park (the park is a great place for multitasking: Ashton gets a snack, Tate gets to run around (or stalk Ashton’s snacks, usually the latter) and we all get to be outside)

And lastly, spend some family time. Dressed down…
And up 🙂
(Thanks to Campbell Osowa’s christening for a reason to put Ashton in his miniature boat shoes!)
Favorite food at the moment is watermelon. I cut it into little cubes and he stuffs them in his mouth so fast it’s like Tate is trying to lick them off his highchair tray (oh wait, he IS). Anyway, this new little chipmunk skill he’s got going on is pretty funny. A solid 30-45 minutes after a meal he will laugh or sputter and chunks of food will come flying out. My favorite was this past week at Grandma and Grandpa’s on Long Island. The kiddie pool had been sitting out all day and the water was warm from the sun. After dinner (mini meatballs, among other things), Ashton was stripped (naked as a jaybird as my dad likes to say) and plunked right in to get the stickiness off. A significant period of time later, Ashton sneezed and all these brown chunks spewed out and into the pool and floated off into the water. I mentioned he was sans diaper so you can imagine how that looked. Nasty. 
I don’t have any height/weight stats as there was no check up this month. Stay tuned this week for what will hopefully be several new posts! I am way behind. Oh, here’s his official 11 month portrait on his 11 month birthday:

Oops! Wait! Sorry, that’s not it. I told Jason that bathing suit was too small.

Here it is:

He happened to have a little cheek rash for the first few days we were on vacation but that has cleared up and he has been peacefully asleep since 6:50 pm. Time to pour myself a glass of wine* and go check in on the Bachelorette. Good night!

*If I’m being honest, my third glass.