Kid-free weekend

So last weekend was Alex and Larry's wedding up in the Cape. Since the wedding plans got underway, Mike and I have been debating whether or not to take Ella with us. We considered bringing our babysitters (A.K.A my parents) along with us and making a real vacation of it, but we ultimately decided that we wanted to just be on our own for once. Both Mike and I have been away from her for several days before, but we haven't had the opportunity to do that together, so we were really looking forward to it.

The funny thing was that it was strange to both be away from her and not have any grading left to do. When we arrived on Saturday, it was raining, and we had some down time before the party started. In my normal life, I never, ever feel moments of boredom, and I don't really know how to deal with having nothing to do, so I had my first little itch of "I kind of wish Ella was here," mostly because I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself.

However, once the parties got underway, I was glad to have the freedom to enjoy myself. Our other friends who had brought their children had to play the, "Which one of us is going to go to bed now?" game, and we were glad to not play it.

At one point, one of our friends who had left her ten-month-old for the first time came up to me and said, "Do you miss Ella?" implying that she was having a really hard time without her little girl. And, I realized how much things change in just a couple of years. Before Ella was a year, it would have been nearly impossible for me to leave her. I would have worried about her nighttime routine, her napping, her eating, everything. Now, she really is just a kid, and if she stays up late, then she stays up late. If she eats cotton candy and lollipops for two days, she'll survive. I so understand how my girlfriend felt, and I'm so glad to be past that feeling.

I did slip away around ten on Friday night to call my parents and see how bedtime went. My father answered the phone and said, "We're just pulling in the driveway!" I assumed she was asleep in the car, but my father said, "Nope! She's wide awake. Want to talk to her?" I couldn't believe it. I had never spoken to her at 10 PM in the three years she's been alive. They had just arrived home from my niece's dance recital and she couldn't have been more excited about all the things she'd seen. It was shocking, and heart-wrenching, and wonderful to know she was having a great time without us. A while later, my father sent me this picture of her evening at Izzy's recital.

I saw that look on her face, and I knew that she certainly wasn't any worse for wear. When we got home, I gave her a big hug and we had the following conversation:

Me: El, did you miss me?
Ella: No.
Me: Didn't you ever think, 'Gee, I wish Mom was here?'
 Ella: No, I never think that.

And even though her reaction was super harsh, I was glad to know that she is okay without us. She is her own little person now, and she doesn't always need Mommy and Daddy around to have a good time. Though, being missed just a little bit wouldn't be so terrible.

Congratulations to Alex and Larry, and thanks so much to my parents for putting that smile on my little girl's face.

Balance

So, it's been a few weeks, but at least it hasn't been a month. I'm improving, a little.

Anyway, I went away last weekend. For three nights. For fun. Without my husband or my child. I know. Craziness. I've been away from her before, but only when Mike and I had a wedding or I had to go to training for work. This is the first time I've left her for more than one night just to have a good old time with my girlfriends. And yes, I did feel the obligatory mom guilt gnawing at me from the bottom of my stomach, but once I filled that puppy with Espresso martinis and lobster, that gnawing was replaced by another feeling all together. That feeling was "Freedom!" There. I said it. Staying up late, sleeping until 11:30 (are you serious?), and doing whatever I wanted to do during the day felt pretty amazing.

Even though I've only been a mom for three years, I have grown accustomed to the constant reminder of her presence. I always know where she is, what she's doing, whether or not she has pooped, if her hair is up or down (down- obviously), if she is wearing the Cinderella underwear or the Dora underwear (Cinderella- obviously), and even while we're both sleeping, it only takes one tiny "Mommy?" for my eyes to shoot open, ready for action. When you are a mom, you are always on-call, 24 hours a day.

I think that was the thing that initially freaked me out about motherhood. I had understood, of course, that this would be the case, but it wasn't until that first night in the hospital when Lost was over and I was ready to go to bed that I realized, "Oh my God. I don't get to just 'go to bed.' There is no "clocking out" of this job, no union to help me negotiate working conditions and personal days. No, there is only this very small and very unreasonable tyrant telling me I will never have five minutes to myself ever again!" This went on for quite some time. You've all heard the sob stories about my devil baby, so I won't bore you with them again.

But now, fully emerged from the baby fog, I realize that there is life after motherhood. That I can find the balance between my role as a parent and my role as a friend. This past weekend was about celebrating the end of single blessedness for my dear friend Alex, a girl I have literally been friends with for 27 years. Going away for the whole weekend seemed impossible when the idea was first presented, not because I didn't think my husband could handle Ella (he's always been better at it than me), but because it seemed like a lot to ask of him, and because, well, I am a mom now and moms aren't supposed to spend a weekend drinking booze and riding through P-town on something called a "Funk Bus" while their friend gets an impromptu lap dance by a stray lesbian off the street. Moms don't sleep until 11:30 and play Sexy Slang until the wee hours of the morning. But then I remembered that before I was a mom, I was a lot of other things, and namely, I was a friend who enjoyed the company of her girlfriends more than almost anything. This is a part of my identity, too, an important part of it that I want to cherish and cultivate, just as I want to cultivate the relationship with my husband and my child. The good thing is that these relationships have always felt stable to me, but it is the quality of those relationships that is tenuous. Partner, child, friend. I am lucky enough to have all of these things in my life, and I know that with that blessing comes an obligation to nurture these relationships every day. That's a lot to take on, but it's a job I'm lucky to have.

So, I relished the time with my girlfriends as much as I could, and when I got home on Monday, there was a smiling little person, no worse for wear, so excited to see me that she ran in front of my car, and I had to stop in the middle of the driveway, get out, and hug her. She wrapped her arms around me tighter than she ever had before and said, "I'm so glad you're home, Mommy!" She kept grabbing me intensely all week, saying over and over again, "I missed you Mommy. I missed you so much." And I took her in my arms, holding her little body against mine, and I relished that blessing, too.

Ella B taking over my spot in bed. 

Oh, hello again and Christmas part 1

Wow. One blog post in December. And it was a real downer. Sorry about that guys. Between work and the holidays, I just couldn't make this whole blog thing happen lately, but I'm back, and I am glad I had at least one blog post in December, because as bad about blogging as I can be sometimes, in almost two years, I've never missed a month, and that sounds like a pretty good accomplishment to me.

So, where do I start? I guess I'll start with Christmas and fill you in on the rest later, or, on second thought, it's almost 10, so I might have to break Christmas down into multiple parts. Let's just get started and see what happens, shall we?

So, this was the first year that Ella was old enough to really get excited for Christmas. Once the old-school holiday specials started playing on the T.V. and it seemed like everywhere we went there was a Santa (like even at the diner), she started to get that Christmas itch, and, I have to say, I got a little bit of the itch, too. I loved watching Frosty the Snowman with her and talking about what she wanted for Christmas (Spiderman slippers- the only thing she asked for was Spiderman slippers). It was the first time we did the Elf on the Shelf, and the first time we put cookies under the tree for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. We even sprinkled some special reindeer magic dust on the lawn and spun around three times and made a wish. When I asked Ella what her wish was, she said, "Mommy, Daddy, Ella, Nene, PopPop." I figured that sounded like a pretty good wish.

On Christmas Eve she went to bed knowing that Santa would be arriving soon, and I can so remember that joy and anticipation. It was always so hard to sleep that night, but something in the air just felt so good. I remember how my parents always put those fake candles on all the window sills, and I would go to sleep by that light and feel so warm and happy. This was the first year I got to see that joy in her eyes, and I realized that it means I get to live that feeling all over again. Once you grow up, but before you have kids, the holidays can become this tedious time of shopping and cooking and cleaning, but then, when a little person in penguin pajamas asks you if Santa came last night and her eyes are all sparkly and sleepy, the holidays become something else entirely. This is the first year in a long time that I'm really bummed that Christmas is over, but I'm so looking forward to all those fun years ahead.

Well, I barely told you anything, but I have to go to bed. Stay tuned for more Christmas stories later. Oh, and here is a video of Ella singing her favorite song, Frosty the Snowman.

The Whole Wide World

Major adventure number two of the summer was a girls only mini-vacation to Cape Cod. One of my girlfriends from work has a house in Dennisport, so Amy, Ella, and I headed up there last week to enjoy a few days of girls only fun. I, of course, was petrified to be on vacation with my little two going on sixteen ball of toddlerness, but I went anyway. I decided today actually that the theme for this summer is "Embrace the Disaster." There was really no chance that Cape Cod was going to go perfectly. I was with a two-year-old, without my husband, and in an unfamiliar place. Because Ella was such a difficult baby and we were forced to put her on a really strict routine about where and when she slept, she has become accustomed to that routine and doesn't do well with change. She likes her crib, her bath tub, her stuff, and her space, so there were bound to be some tantrums and tears.

There were definitely some difficulties along the way. She cried pretty hard the first night when I put her down to sleep, but it only lasted about fifteen minutes. She wouldn't nap in the pack n' play, but she did sleep for a good two hours in the car. There were some bratty moments here and there, but there was also this glorious thing called "the beach." Everyone knows that I am not a beach person (reference any picture available of my translucent skin). I have always found it to be pretty hot and sandy and boring, and I wasn't really looking forward to spending three days lounging on the shore. Of course, once you have a child, there's never really any lounging anyway, which turned out to be a good thing for us. I realized that while I don't really like being a grown-up on the beach, I do still like being a kid on one. It turns out that building sand castles, giving Ella mermaid legs, collecting shells, and running from "sharks" (a.k.a Amy) in the water is just as much fun now as it was when I was a kid, maybe even more so because now I get to see the glint of fun and excitement in her eyes as well.

One moment in particular that I will remember was when we swam out "really deep" as Ella would say and turned to look back at the shore. She held out her arm in a very grown-up sweeping motion and said, "The whole wide world." I don't know where she got that phrase, or what she meant by it, but it felt like an important moment to me. It felt like she was telling me, "Pay attention, Mom. This is a good moment. Be here with me right now and breathe it in." And I did. I let everything else go, and I relished the sun on my face, the water all around, and the little girl with her arms around my neck, and I was so glad to be seeing the "whole wide world" with her.

A special thanks also to Amy and Ali for making that trip happen, and for being so patient with my little one. She can't wait for her next "bacation."

It's not always fun to be right.

From my earlier posts, you know that my husband is a fearless, "Sure, why not" kind of guy, while I am more of a, "Gosh, I don't know" sort of girl. This helps to balance our relationship, but it also causes a lot of strife. A few weeks ago, our friend Alex organized a little camping trip with some other parents and kids and invited us to go along. That's right. Camping. Outside. In a tent. With a two-year-old. Don't get me wrong. I love to camp. I am happier in the woods than just about anywhere else, but that red-flag side of my personality came to life and squealed, "Ella going to sleep in a tent? This is going to be a complete disaster." To which my husband replied, "You think everything is going to be a disaster." Cue the giant fight in the car. I'll spare you the details, but ultimately Mike won and soon we were camping bound with our tent and a tiny little sleeping bag for Miss Ella B. 

Now, the title of this post indicates that I was right. I was and I wasn't. Let's begin with the wasn't part. Camping was not a disaster. We swam in the lake, took a family boat ride, roasted marshmallows, made new friends, and overall, had a really awesome time as indicated below.

Super excited about the boat ride and the life jacket. Also, she is obsessed with her water shoes and wants to wear them everyday. She now calls Target the "water shoes" store.

Eating lunch with her new friends Emmett, Ned, and Finn

In her new camping chair, ready to make her first s'more.

With Larry

Caterpillar

 These pictures definitely prove that our camping trip was mostly a success. Ella had a great time and so did we. The failure part came as the sun began to set. All day she was in love with the idea of sleeping in a tent. She loved her little sleeping bag and the idea that mommy and daddy would be sleeping right next to her. She loved hiding and playing in the tent and thought the whole thing was pretty great, until, of course, it was actually time to sleep in the tent. We read books, we pretended to go to sleep with her, we let her stay up late in hopes that she would pass out, but she was having none of it. She finally looked at Mike and said, "Want to go home," with these big tired eyes. Quite shockingly, Mike looked at me and said, "You were right. I was wrong." Now, these are not easy words for my husband to say. I'm glad I was sitting at the time or I might have fallen right over. I was right. She wasn't ready to sleep in a tent, so Mike packed her up, put her in the car and drove home. He told me to stay and enjoy myself and that he'd come back in the morning.

As I watched his tail lights disappear behind the trees, I should have been thrilled. Not only did my husband admit that I was right about something, but he also gave me the whole night off to enjoy with my friends. So why did I feel so defeated as they drove away? Because sometimes you really do hope you are wrong. As much as I can't stand to hear him say, "See, she's fine," whenever Ella succeeds at something I don't think she is ready for, it is always worth it because it means we are doing something fun together. The truth is, I would have gladly traded my "rightness" to have my little family sleeping together in that tent so I could wake up to her smiling face right next to me.

I went to bed feeling a little sad and a little lonely, but in the morning, when Mike and Ella returned, I remembered that camping is not just about sleeping in a tent. It's about campfires, and caterpillars, and swimming, and getting good and dirty, and laughing with friends. Ella may not be ready to sleep in a tent, but she is ready for the fun of a camping trip, and she enjoyed every minute of it.

This time around, I was mostly right. I can only hope that next time I'll be completely wrong. That would be the best.

Operation Awesome Summer: The Sequel

This post is coming in a bit late, mostly because "Operation Awesome Summer: The Sequel" is off to a bit of a slow start. If you read the first post in this series "Operation Awesome Summer" than you know that I am not always very good at summer vacation. I know, all you none summer vacation people are thinking that I am a big jerk, but every year it seems my good intentions amount to very little tangible summer fun, and when people ask, "So what'd you do this summer?" I reply a harrumph and say, "nothing" like a grumpy teenager after school. But just as last summer was way better than my first summer as a mom, I think this summer has the potential to be even better. In my personal experience, since one-year-olds are way better than babies, than two-year-olds must be way better than one-year-olds. Therefore, with the advent of the regular nap and the improvement in communication and motor skills, summer should just keep getting better and better. These were my thoughts as summer got underway this year, and I was excited to be able to spend my days running and playing with my full-fledged kid.

Who could have guessed that it would be me who derailed our best laid plans, not Beezer? On day two of summer vacation (that's right- day two) I decided to be productive and get a little weeding done with the beeze. We have some pretty unruly weeds growing behind our shed and I wanted to take advantage of Ella's love of dirt and worms to both play and get something done, every mother's goal for a day spent with a child. Being the absent-minded bonehead that I am, I failed to notice the poison ivy I pulled out of the ground and apparently rubbed all over my face (really? my face?). Two days later, my face looked like that witch from last season's True Blood had put a hex on it, and I was officially miserable. I didn't want to go in the sun, or be around people, and sitting in the house made me think of nothing but itching. Ella was going stir crazy, I was going itch crazy, and it all turned into a grumpy summer mess just two weeks in. I admit, I gave myself a good long time to wallow. Then, I rubbed some Calamine lotion on my face and said, we need to do something fun.

It had to be something special if it was going to jolt me out of my poison ivy funk. It also had to be cool (both in temperature and fun factor). The solution to this problem is called Kid City. If you've never been, I highly recommend it. It is essentially a giant house filled with room upon room of imaginary worlds. Ella was particularly fond of the fishery where she collected fish off a conveyor belt and carried them to another conveyor belt (honestly, she would have spent the whole day there. I am seriously considering getting a conveyor belt and a bunch of plastic fish). She also liked the fence that you could "paint" with water and brushes. Okay, looking at this description from your perspective, it doesn't sound too great, but I am telling you that there is a lot of stuff to do besides sorting fish and painting fences. Check it out.

Anyway, it was the kind of easy, fun morning we needed to get ourselves back on track. We've got a week chock full of plans ahead of us including playground excursions, library storytimes, and even camping (more on that later). Here are some of the other summer plans we have in store:

1. Cape Cod
2. New York City
3. Beardsley Zoo
4. Maritime Museum
5. Stepping Stones
6. Brooksvale Park
7. Hiking up a big mountain (per Ella's request)
8. Swimming
9. Visiting family and friends
10. Not getting poison ivy

That last one isn't very fun, but is one of my new summer priorities. Hope you guys are having a fun, itch-free summer yourselves.

First time away

So we finally did it after a year and a half. (Get your minds out of the gutters people). We went away together, without the little nugget. We have both been away from her seperately, but this was our "first time away" together.

Mike was in the wedding of his good friend, so we drove down to Lancaster, Pennsylvania to enjoy the festivities. It was held in this beautiful, old barn/mansion that I have decided to start living in if they will let me. (spoiler alert: they won't).

The ceremony was supposed to be held on the lawn but due to the flooding it was held under this pavilion instead. I think it worked out perfectly.

Who is that handsome devil in the fancy suit? Oh wait, that's my husband. (the smirky one)

We ended up having a great time dancing the night away. Congratulations to Marty and Mary-Jo!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Ella B couldn't have cared less that we were gone. We had to pull her kicking and screaming out of my father's arms, and she cried until their car pulled out of the driveway. So I guess if anything happens to us, she will be perfectly fine, so there's that.

Here's to having your kids not miss you! Hope you guys had a good weekend.

Sweet Home from Alabama

We have officially survived our first family vacation and it turned out to be pretty great. All the things I was really worried about ended up working out thanks to a little planning and some surprise good behavior from Miss Ella B. Here are some final pics from our trip.

Ella B, our niece Madelyn, and Ella's favorite thing about Alabama, Lulu

Enjoying a little Wubbzy time on the plane

Ella B at the playground on the coolest swing ever!

The lovely Madelyn, the best babysitter ever

The friend Ella B made on the trip home. The flight attendants just loved that we let them hang out in the aisles.

Lulu!

Thanks to Tony, Lisa, Madelyn, and Karen for a great trip. A special thanks to Lulu, Bessie, and Marlow for being so patient and sweet with the sixteen month old trying to touch their noses and tails. Hope to see you guys in the CT next summer.

Horsey rides, the zoo, and the YMCA

Our days in Alabama have been filled with adventure. Well, usually about as much adventure as we can stand before noon when the heat becomes unbearable. Lucky for us, Ella B has been getting up at 4:30 (yeah, the whole time difference thing, that sucks), so we have been able to get out of the house as early as we want. On Tuesday, Ella B had her first ride on a horse! Here she is with our niece Madelyn, an avid horseback rider, and by herself on a pony.

On Wednesday, we took a lovely trip to the Montgomery Zoo where Ella B saw all her favorites: monkeys, elephants, lions, tigers, bears (oh my!) and many different kinds of birdies. She especially liked a giant toad in the reptile house and the water misters that she and Madelyn could run through. She fell asleep in the stroller and Maddie and I got to feed giraffes out of our hands.

Here she is looking a particularly friendly monkey.

And me feeding a giraffe!

Yesterday we took our adventure to the YMCA, something I thought only existed in the 70's, but is apparently live and well in the South. They have an awesome kid pool that gradually descends, so Ella could walk right in. She was obsessed with the slide and begged Michael to take her on it, much to my dismay. The fearless wonder that is my baby daughter thought it was great and would have spent the entire day sliding down that tube if we'd let her.

So, we're having a pretty good time so far. It's too bad I'm a pretty terrible live action photographer, but you get the idea.

First family vacation

Hey blogosphere! Long-time no see. Sorry if you've been loyally checking in and not finding any new posts, but between my wireless internet cutting out, misplacing my camera cord, and focusing on our first family adventure, I haven't had much opportunity to update ya'll. Why the ya'll, you ask? Well, we are currenty wrapping up Ella B's first trip to Alabama, home of darn good barbecue and ridiculously hot weather. We came down to visit Michael's brother, sister-in-law, niece, and mother who all met the Beeze for the very first time.

Now, you might imagine that I was a little nervous about taking her so far from home and, I was especially worried about the plane ride considering she generally travels about as well as a pair of linen pants. But, much to my surprise, she did quite well for a sixteen-month-old. We were able to time the plane rides just right so that she slept on the longer flight and hung out for the shorter one. The only thing she didn't like was when I had to hold her in my lap during take off and landing. Otherwise, she thought that looking out the window and at the people sitting behind us was pretty cool.

There are a few tings that made the travel much easier for us that I would recommend to any parents of toddlerish people.

1. Buy your baby her own seat: I know that this sounds like a frivolous expense, but for us it was the right decision. Ella loved having her own seat in between mommy and daddy and it gave all of us more room since she doesn't actually take up an entire seat. It also eliminated the possibilty of having to sit next to a stranger who Ella B would have been poking at for two hours ("Yes, that is his nose, please stop touching him now").

2. Get a portable DVD player and her favorite show or movie: This thing has been a lifesaver. We didn't show it to her until we got on the plane, so it was a huge novelty. As you can see from the picture, she was mesmorized. Thank God for Wubbzy is all I have to say. It was also great once we go down here because she could watch Wubbzy whenever she needed to without punishing everyone else in the house.

3. Benadryl. That's all I will say about that.

So, overall the trip down was pretty smooth. I've got lots of pictures and stories of our adventures to come, so stay tuned!