Letters to Isaac, Months 13 and 14

Dear Isaac,

Hey there, big boy.



Look at you! You’re huge! Only, not really. According to the growth charts you are still teeny; like eleventh percentile or something. At your one year check up our doctor tactfully told me that I shouldn't avoid feeding you more high calorie foods, like ice cream smothered in bacon drippings.



We’re working on it, buddy.

You are a funny eater, little man. You are like a camel. You will go for days on, like, a bread crust. Then very few weeks you will have a day where you eat so much we can’t believe you aren’t puking. And when you do eat, you are so dainty about it. You must have your little fork. I have actually seen you eat a peanut butter sandwich with a fork.

It’s funny, because in every other way you are such a boy. You love dirt, have no fear of picking up bugs; and were the first of my kids to play in the toilet. You generally have no interest in any activity that does not involve running at full tilt. Books? Puzzles? Meh. If you see anything vaguely round you delightedly scream “BALL!” and chuck it as hard as you can. You are so much happier now that you can run around and keep up with the girls. In fact, you were barely running before you discovered the joys of tackling. Be careful, buddy! They are still bigger than you! You and Isabel are starting to play together, though. It’s awesome. Your favorite game to play together is “Screaming Match”. Not Mommy’s favorite, as you can imagine. But I am so happy to see you two interact that I let it slide. I have a feeling I am going to be in trouble when you guys actively start teaming up.



And boy, are you talking all of a sudden. You say: mama, dada, Babell, no, mine, juice, shoes, ball, ni ni, bye bye, nanny, cheese and GG. We are working on getting you to say “Geeze”. Actually, we are working on just getting you to look Geeze in the eye or allow him to touch you.



You are definitely a shy little guy. There are only about five or six people who have really met you. These incidentally happen to be the five or six people that you see almost every single day. You are a biiiiiiig fan of your routine. I’ll never forget your reaction when we walked into our house after our recent trip to Philly. You were so happy to be home! You actually walked around the house in circles, touching things and chuckling.



You have the best little chuckle, buddy. I can’t tell you how much I love to see you smile. Or how wonderful it is to have a baby who voluntarily gives hugs and kisses! We are endlessly amused by your antics and blessed on a daily basis by your sweet, lovely nature. I love you, little miracle boy.



Love,
Mama

Letters to Isabel, Months 37 and 38

Dearest Isabel,

Boy, I seem to have fallen very behind on these letters. That did not take long, did it? We are having an awesome summer together. Honestly, we have just been having too much fun to sit down and blog about it. It is almost too fast, I wish I could put our lives in slow motion right now. It does not feel like there is enough time to properly soak in all the joy in our lives.

Your mama has always had trouble during times like these. When there is a crisis to deal with, I am The Prepared One. I know how to function, to get through things one day at a time. It seems counterintuitive to complain when things are going so great, and I am working really hard to just enjoy our life and not scramble around trying to figure out when the other shoe is going to drop.

You help me so much in this, dearest. Yesterday during the little kids’ naptime you were waiting impatiently for me to get done with my chores so that I could read you a story.

“Not now, honey.” I kept saying. “I’m just too busy”.

Then I remembered that I was supposed to be including you in the clean up process, to teach you about responsibility and ensure that you learned to take pride in accomplishing tasks which leads to a healthy self-esteem and blah blah blah. I turned to you dutifully.

“Isabel, can you be my biiiiiiig helping girl and pick up these toys?”
You glanced at me balefully from the sofa.
“Not now, Mommy. I’m just too busy!”

Touché, little one.

Eventually we finished our clean up and finally snuggled up on the couch together. You heaved a great big sigh and said,

“Ahhhhhhh! The best part of the day!”

I can’t begin to describe how that felt, and the sunshine that you bring into my life at the most unexpected moments. When I am tired, frustrated, feeling sorry for myself, ready to sell you to the gypsies; all it takes is one little sweet word from you, one unexpected kiss, to bring me to my knees with gratitude. And I know that I am not alone in this. You spread smiles like peanut butter, to anyone and everyone you meet. You are the friendliest little thing, and you looooove an audience. We recently took a trip to Philly to visit your Aunt Katie; and while we were there you took your first cab ride. You hopped in and immediately started bombarding the driver with your usual barrage of questions,

“Guy? Hey guy! Look at my new shoes, guy! They’re soo beauuutiful! Guy? We’re going to a fancy restaurant, guy! A faaaaaancy restaurant! Just like Fancy Nancy! Hey, guy, talk to me! Are you driving, guy? When are you gonna talk? When you stop driving. When you stoooooop driving you can talk to me, ok, guy? When you stop…”

This continued for 23 minutes. No joke. I don’t know how that driver managed it, but he did not look at you or acknowledge your existence once. You were flabbergasted. You had never met an adult that did not melt into putty with one bat of your eyelashes. This guy was not amused by you. Your Dad and Aunt Grace and I could not stop laughing.

You are constantly cracking us up. One of your favorite games begins with you running up to your Daddy and asking, “What do you eat for breakfast, Daddy?” His eyes will widen dramatically and he will answer, “I eat THREE YEAR OLD GIRLS!” He then will chase you around and pretend to gobble you up. A few weeks ago, in the midst of this game you screeched, “Don’t eat me Daddy! I’m too skinny!” Where do you come up with stuff?

Oh my goodness, I don’t know how I can cram in everything I want to remember about you at this stage in your life. The way you pretend to be a dinosaur. The way you tenderly mother your Duckie through imaginary illnesses. The way you bop your head and sing along to your favorite songs on the radio. The way your eyes widen when you are about to do something silly. How whenever I get stressed out or grumpy you pat me tenderly on the arm and say, “Don’t worry, Mommy. Everything will be all right.”

It’s more than all right, darling. It is wonderful.

Love,

Mama

Coming out of hibernation

To tell you about this:

http://drhorrible.com/

Oh. Em. Gee.

Joss Whedon. Nathan Fillion. Neal Patrick Hakfljseiofhzs kfhkjfo;ijfksdfnj iejhz;oifjdj

Sorry, petit mal excitement siezure. I'm fine. Seriously, I cannot wait for this. Check out the teaser and the "Master Plan". Take that, Show Business!

We call him "Scarface"

Dining room bench: 1
Isaac's face: 0

Those Who Are About to Rock

Ladies and Gentleman,

That is all.

In which I am anal retentive and also there is a flow chart

Most of you are aware of my obsession with Let's Dish! Yes, the exclamation point is part of the name. For those of you who are unenlightened, Let's Dish! is a once-a-month cooking store/service. That's the closest I can come to explaining it. Basically, you sign up for a session online. You choose a menu. Then you go to the store and they have stations set up where you can make up to 24 meals. They have all the ingredients chopped and prepped, and you just assemble them. You freeze the meals and just pop them out of the freezer throughout the month.

I love to cook. I love diving into a recipe, losing myself in the flow of it. I love looking at a pile of random ingredients and using them to create something new and unique. What I do not love is trying to do all of this while two or three very short people are using me as a jungle gym. So I have loved Let's Dish! You go in, cook your ass off for two or three hours, and you're done for the month.

Which is why I was so supremely bummed when my local Let's Dish! stopped offering in-store sessions. They still offer what they call Dish-and-Dash. They will assemble the meals for you, and all you have to do is pick them up. I have tried it a few times, but it wasn't the same. I like being able to leave the paprika out of a dish, or add an extra pinch of cumin. I like seeing what goes in to what I am serving.

So I have decided to take the leap and do some once-a-month cooking on my own. In typical Monkeysparkets fashion, I have excessively over planned. There are color-coded spreadsheets involved. I have sticker labels and a flowchart. You are jealous, people, don't try to hide it.

My sister, who recently expressed a desire to learn how to cook, came over today to help me chop stuff I mean...partake of my culinary genius. Here is our menu:

• Lemon Dill Salmon
• Vegetable Lasagna
• Mushroom chili with homemade French bread
• Grilled Barbecue chicken
• Balsamic Grilled Chicken with Roasted Red Peppers
• Chili Lime Grilled Chicken with Black Bean Salsa
• Prosciutto Wrapped Chicken with Garlic Herb Cheese
• Chicken Fajitas
• Pepper Beef Stir Fry
• Baked Beef Rotini

All together, we made thirty meals in just over five hours. So, that breaks down to a meal every ten minutes. And I won't have to cook for a month! Yee haw!

I will do a few things differently next time. I will definitely do my shopping the day before I cook so that I can get an earlier start. I also may try bi-weekly cooking, as 5 hours was a long time to be on my feet in the kitchen (and a long time for Mr. Monkeysparkets to have both of the kids). If you are interested, here a few sites with good tips and info on OAMC (ooh-acronyms!)

http://www.frugalmom.net/once_a_month_cooking.htm

http://www.once-a-month-cookingworld.com/

The Birthday Extravaganza

This weekend we celebrated the Sparkets family collective birthdays. All four of us have birthdays within four days of each other. Don't ask me how we managed that one, it was not a planned thing. And for all those of you who are counting backwards on your fingers

The first week of May - Nine months = August 16 (our wedding anniversary)

That may have been too much information for some of you. Sorry! Anyways, we had an awesome backyard barbecue, and now I have a touch of the post-party blahs. You know, where after a perfect perfect weekend everything else just seems a bit lackluster and without focus. I need something new to plan, dangit.

I was going to write a long detailed post describing the whole shebang, but it can really all be summed up by this picture:

Or maybe this one:

We are a family that likes our cupcakes. Even when they lead to the inevitable

Happy birthday, little sparkets. And Daddy Sparkets, too.