Saturday, March 31, 2007

Friday, March 30, 2007

I *wish* I could add this to our wedding registry.

Who wants to bother with a troublesome flask when you can smuggle booze somewhere AND give your breasts the illusion of grandeur?

Multi-tasking? I'll drink to that.
Even if it's through a hose connected to my bra.

Signs that we might be watching too much TV:

1. When my 3 yr. old sings his ABC's, it goes "...H-I-J-K-Elmo-Pees..."

2. When pretending to sneeze, my son says "Picachu!" instead of the traditional "achoo".

3. I overheard Maddy say this to Brady today while they were playing together: "Brady, stop singing! You don't know the right words! Where's Simon Cowell when you need him?"

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Return Address of the Jedi


My son, although only three, knows almost as much about Star Wars as your average twenty-something male superfan. (Things they also have in common: virginity and living with their mother.) Ok, that was mean. Point being, the best part of his day is when we drive by the R2-D2 mailbox. I really earned some Mom points today by letting him get out of the car and see it up-close. (That should make up for forcing him to eat tacos for dinner every night this week.)

Have a good day, and
Mail the force be with you.

Happy Birthday To You, You Live In A Zoo, I'm Not Just Teasing, It's Actually True.

We celebrated Maddy's seventh year of hell-raising on planet Earth this week with a family shindig over at my mom's house. My mother showed off her Cake Goddessery by making a strawberry-and-vanilla checkerboard cake, which was equal parts delicious and confusing.

wish
How do they do that?
checkerboard

Seven years. Whoa. Seven sounds exponentially older than six, which sounded exponentially older than five, etc. The morning of Maddy's birthday, I was getting very sentimental about my baby girl, being so grown up. In a lot of ways, I don't think of her as a daughter, but more like my sidekick. Sometimes I get sad when she's at a friend's house or with her dad because I want to spend time with her, because there's things I want to tell her, things I'd like her opinion on, like she is a peer. For a long time, it was just Maddy and me against the world, and that team connotation often times is more prominent than an overwhelming maternal feeling. She doesn't give me much of a chance to feel maternal, since she's been out-diva-ing me since she was two. These were the things I was thinking about as I was watching her get ready for school on the morning of her birthday, watching her as she checked out her reflection, making sure her bangs were perfect, then doing a full turn to check out her outfit in the full-length mirror. All growds up.


I was reminiscent that morning almost to the point of being morose, despite the fact that Chris and I were heading straight to my doctor's after we dropped the kids off at school. Chris was extremely excited- it was the day of the potentially-gender-determining-ultrasound, but I couldn't get too jazzed- I was so preoccupied thinking about all things Madelynn. I was also trying not to get my hopes up because both of my children required multiple ultrasounds to figure out what sort of equipment they were packing. Imagine that- my kids, shy? No, I don't think that's it, I think of it more as them being uncooperative. Ah yes, makes perfect sense.

Once we were in the dark ultrasound room, watching our baby on TV, I snapped out of my melancholy. There was Baby, wiggling and waving, face pressed right up against my uterus. And then there was the baby's body in profile, where the sound waves from the ultrasound machine projected such a clear image that it cast shadows through the spinal column like rays of sunlight through clouds. As the ultrasound technician moved the wand over my belly, the baby turned it's head to look at us dead-on. That part was kind of creepy... but, you know, really awe-inspiring at the same time. And, on the morning of my not-quite-a-baby girl turning seven, I got a present- the opportunity to do it all over again with another baby girl.

Here's to more pigtails, more bows, and more pink cakes in our future!

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

"Foodie" is short for "Food Snob"


(That's my honey in the background in case you don't get the joke. He gets paid to cook very hoity-toitily.)

Sunday, March 25, 2007

And with only minor burns to show for it!


Invitations: Check.
Photographer: Check.
Exorbitant Stress: Check and Check.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Worth 1,000 Words

Ryan the Jovian took some awesome pictures at our BBQ last weekend, here's a few of my favorites:

Brady. Jovi gets the photo credit, but I'm the one who made him cute.


My adorable almost-niece, Skylar:


Andrea, from scout, doing some scouting of her own:
andy cam

And there's some more photographic deliciousness this-a-way: Ryan Jovian's Virb Photos

I love my friends, and continue to hang out with them for the excellent company and the hope of gleaning talent through osmosis.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Chris won't let me touch his pot.

We hosted a fairly large-ish engagement party BBQ this weekend over here at Camp Cantwell. The entire day came as a not-so-gentle reminder that I am not as extroverted as I am inclined to expect myself to be. The amount of people who showed up for the BBQ is a fair representation of how many people will be at our wedding, and although I adore each and every one of them (EVEN MY FUTURE IN-LAWS!) individually, the grand mass of people as a whole is totally overwhelming. I am never, ever complaining about not being able to invite more people to the wedding again.

Aside from the chocolate covered strawberries and the deviled eggs, the best part of the day was when everyone had left, the kids were in bed, and Chris and I sat on the living room floor opening our presents. It's hilarious that we were so excited about things that we had essentially picked out for ourselves, but we were like little kids on Christmas. We ripped open presents, screamed, and were near delirious with glee. Well, except when Chris opened up the gift from his grandparents. When Chris saw that he had an All-Clad pot and pan in front of him, to call his very own, he looked as if they had been set in front of him by Jesus Christ Himself. I will state here for the record that my fiance ain't no sissy man, but he got tears in his eye. I think I tried to snap him out of his religious experience with his new cookware by saying, "You can use those to make something for dinner tomorrow night!" He looked at me like I had just suggested Rachael Ray run for president, or that I had told him I was really craving some frog legs. "Oh no no no no Honey," he said in a church-whisper. "I can't use these! I can't get them dirty!" Right. I'm sorry. I didn't realize when we were doing our registry that those were shiny stainless steel works of art we were asking for. Silly me. One can understand my confusion- they were right there in the middle of the cookware section. Next up, we opened up the coffee maker of our dreams. After the whoops and the high-fives, I made sure to clarify that we were actually allowed to use it. For coffee. We are.

And I'm sorry for anyone who, from the nature of the subject line, assumed I was referring to drug use. NOT THAT SORRY, FOOLED YOU! NEENER NEENER NEENER!!!

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

In the meantime: I'm not dying, we won't know till next week, and babies still like me.

I've been remiss in my blogging duties lately, which I feel guilty about. Is that odd? Is there something wrong with me? Am I missing some vital component that makes me wholly unresponsive to my growing piles of laundry, but completely conscience-stricken when I let my blog go a few days without seeing any action?

Here's what I've been swimming in lately:

1. I got my biopsy results back today. I am cancer-free! I am even pre-cancer free! I almost didn't believe the nurse practitioner when she told me. I had convinced myself, beyond shadow of doubt, that I had cancer. Since I don't have to worry about that anymore, I've cleared up loads of time to devote to stressing out about the wedding, and about the baby.

2. Speaking of Baby, we'll be taking a peep inside my belly via ultrasound in a little over a week. Hopefully we'll come away from the visit knowing that our baby is developing properly, and particularly, what exactly our baby is developing properly.

3. I spent some time with my friends' son over the weekend. It's been a long time since I've been around a 1-year old, and I was really excited to take a refresher course in Baby 101. I only watched him for about two hours, and I was sad to see him go. Here's a picture I took of Jacob:
jacob 001

Thanks for bearing with me while I neglected the updates...
You'll be hearing more out of me soon!

Friday, March 09, 2007

Photo Friday




Because The Crazy Hip Blog Mamas say so, I am posting this pic for this week's Photo Friday: Your Silly Little Baby Face. So, this might not techinally be the silliest photo I have on record, but the brilliance behind it is that while this shot is completely candid and taken mid-fit, Brady actually looks like he's having fun. This was a tough day... If you didn't catch the pic/post the first time around, it's right over here.

The rest of the submissions will put a smile on your face. Go give them a look-see if you have time. If you're intersted in anything crazy, hip, blog, or mama related, there's some brilliant blogs over there!

I don't allude to high school girls in bikinis until paragraph seven. Bear with me.

Planning a wedding reminds me a bit of being on Prom Committee. My school didn't technically have a prom committee, because we didn't technically have a prom. I went to a private Christian school, where the absence of such a notorious rite of passage was explained to us in a simple mathematical equation: Prom = Dancing = Pregnancy. When I ended up pregnant the summer after my freshman year at a Christian college, I was really confused. I hadn't danced with anyone, I swear!

I do remember sitting in homeroom in 11th grade, where my entire junior class- all 25 of us- were trying to plan our quasi-prom, the Junior/Senior Banquet. We had a class budget which we democratically tried to allocate, and I remember being thankful that I wasn't Class President, because I could care less if we sent out invitations that were hand-written by a calligrapher, or if we had three rather than four options for entrees. The only contribution I made to the entire shindig was suggesting that we hire a professional DJ, which was shot down by the majority of the class because apparently, "Javier's cousin" was a DJ and would do it for dirt cheap. I think we ended up paying him just enough to cover the cost of the four AA batteries it took to power up the boom box he used that night. Believe me, there's nothing like hearing Jars of Clay played from a boom box with a microphone propped up next to one speaker.

If someone would have warned me that planning Junior/Senior Banquet was going to prepare me for one day planning my own wedding, I might have stopped doodling long enough to pick up a few pointers. At that point, though, I thought I had a better chance of being the first woman to eat fried chicken on Mars than I did of getting married. I think the only thing I really gleaned from that experience was to NOT have Javier's cousin DJ my wedding.

I know that my wedding is supposed to be one of the most special days of my life, if not the primary placeholder. Most girls have been planning their famous walk down the aisle for years. I've only really thought about it for a month. The truth is, after spending the last seven years completely jaded, I'm kind of over it. Don't get me wrong: I do really want to be married, and marriage is something that I look forward to. The actual wedding, though? Is that really for me? I just picture a young, virginal bride being walked down the aisle by her father, and the whole connotation just seems a little too fairy-tailed for me. Like I could even wear a white dress without making the guests snicker. Would I rather spend money on flowers, or paying off my Target Visa? This is one area where my practical side wins out.

I'd probably be singing a different tune if someone else were paying for the wedding, and that tune would be called "A Serenade For Monique Lhuillier (Please design me a dress)". I might enjoy making decisions about all the details if I wasn't so preoccupied trying to calculate exactly how many hours of work it's going to take to cover the cost. We've got a baby on the way and debt that needs our monetary attention, and I'm supposed to coordinate a huge party where not only do I have to foot the bill, but I CAN'T EVEN HAVE THE DAMN CHAMPAGNE. Funny. Real funny. I love Chris, and I want to be with him forever. That doesn't cost me a penny, but I feel so much pressure to spend more money than I make in a year to announce that to our friends and family.

My first order of bridal duty was to work out the invitations. Wedding Invitations are such a big hoopla. (I use the word hoopla when I don't feel it's appropriate to say "pain in the friggen ass," just so you know.) There's a lot of pressure there because everyone says that the invitation sets the theme for the enire wedding. Knowing that, I searched high and low for invites with a "Shotgun" theme. (By the way, Chris doesn't think that joke is funny. And it is, of course, a joke.) After being astonished by the prices for everything that I "kinda" liked, I got frustrated and just went with the easiest, cheapest invites that I could tolerate. Easy & Cheap: of course that's the tone of the wedding. Of course. Now that just screams "NIK!"

I'm sure everything will turn out perfectly in the end. I just wonder if I can hire the local high school's prom committee to help me get to that point. Or maybe they can at least help me wash cars as a fundraiser for the wedding... I have enough friends with dirty minds- I MEAN CARS- to pay for "Trista & Ryan"-caliber nuptuals.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Tuesday, quickly.

Good morning!
good morning

Good night.
goodnight moo

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Boldog Születésnapot!

That's "Happy Birthday" in Hungarian, in honor of my grandmother. I'm actually not allowed to refer to her as a grandmother, because she thinks it makes her sound old. As long as I could speak, I've called her "Baba"- a nickname given to her from her Hungarian parents, which means "Baby." And I'm her baby still, which is a huge blessing (she helps me out more than I'd like to admit) as well as a huge frustration, at times (she can bring me to tears easier than anyone else in the world.) I love this woman more than I can express, and I couldn't imagine life without her. She's got so many qualities that I hope I can cultivate in myself, although I could live without ever becoming obesessed with a poodle. (Although I have to admit, it's part of her charm.)

When I called her today to wish her a happy birthday, I asked if her dog baked her a "pup cake", and I'll tell you, I was so proud of my spur-of-the-moment pun.
"Oh, no," she said. "Cookie just signed my birthday card 'Yours Drooley.'"

See? See where I get it?

Happy Birthday, Baba!

Baba & Nik, circa 1985 (?)
Baba & Nik

My favorite women on the planet, Christmas 2006
Baba, Myself, Madelynn, Mom, Jadyn
(You have to click on the pic to see my sister. Sorry J!!!)
Christmas 06

Get In My Belly!

I usually say "cimanim" unless I really concentrate.

In other news...

It's hard for even me to wrap my head around, but the world hasn't stopped because I had (minor) surgery. Go figure. Yesterday, Maddy lost her front tooth, making her look like a Jack-O-Lantern. (A really adorable one, of course.)
Wiggley
jack o lantern

I also finished the bloody invitations. I have to say that as much as I was dreading another trip to Michael's, it was actually a squillion times better than I was bracing myself for. I got a parking spot right up front, there was no line, AND I discovered a different way of putting the invites together that was just as cute and a heck of a lot easier. Mmmmm-mmmm, this Humble Pie tastes delicious. (I'm pregnant. Any kind of pie is welcome.) Here's how they came out:
invitation

And believe me, I'm thanking my lucky stars that I didn't have to tie each invite up with raffia like I was originally planning.
stars

SEE WHAT I DID THERE? "Thank my lucky stars"???? Oh, I kill me!!!

Allllllllllllrighty then, I'm going back to my lazy Sunday. I just pulled some cinnamon rolls out of the oven. I'd invite you over for breakfast and Nintendo, but then I'd have to get out of my jammies, and I'm so not ready for that yet.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

I see your tonsilitis, and I raise you cervical cancer.

Just as I was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, the tunnel called "Worst Cold Slash Sore Throat Thing Ever", Chris started feeling ill. I'm going to be totally honest with you here, at first I just thought he was being a pansy. A day later, I realized that he was legitimately ill; iller than I had been, iller than the grammar in this very sentence. Did I have sympathy for him then? Well, a little. Like, half of a micrometer of sympathy. When he came back from the doctor and said that he had an abscess the size of a golf ball, I felt a twinge of guilt for minimizing his illness. I also felt extremely jealous that he went and upstaged me! Oh yeah? Well, well, I was sick AND pregnant, take that! Oh, you had to have five shots and four people trying to drain your lanced abscess? Well, you didn't have morning sickness!

The same day that Chris had his follow-up appointment, I had my appointment for the dreaded colposcopy. The whole thing was frightening, invasive, and really uncomfortable. I tried turning my head to one side during the procedure, but I could see the reflection of the nurse handing a scary metal medieval torture device to the doctor, so I turned the other way and squeezed my eyes shut. Halfway through the procedure, Dr. Jacome popped his head up over the paper sheet resting over my knees and said to me, "Oh, and no sex after this," as casually as if he were telling me not to wear white after labor day. "No sex for at least a week. Actually, you're going to have to be very careful having sex for the rest of your pregancy. If you're not very careful, you could start bleeding..." and as the doctor kept talking about what complications could arise, I only half-listened. It was really hard to hear the doctor because the voices in my head were screaming at him. WELL, WHAT THE HELL ELSE, DOC? Should I stay away from ice cream? Are you going to tell me that Target is hazardous to my healh, too? ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE AWAY EVERYTHING? And oh my god, I finally started feeling sympathetic for Chris.

As soon as they were done, the doctor told me to sit up. I got about halfway to vertical when I blacked out and went back down. I opened my eyes a second later but I couldn't see straight and Dr. Jacome sounded like he was talking to me underwater. He made sure I was ok, then told me to lie down until the faintness passed. I didn't want to be half-naked in that cold, clinical room any longer than I had to be, so I did my best to pull it together. Admittedly, it took a good five minutes before I could sit up, and I was shaking as I got dressed. I checked my reflection in the mirror- no color in my face whatsoever, and beads of sweat all over my forehead. Thank god Chris was there, he practically had to drag me out to the car. I spent the rest of the day on the couch, feeling extremely naseated, weak, sore, and crampy. Now I just have to wait for the biopsy results.

On the bright side, I think I might have won the sick-off. Yipee. Ah, the Threat Of Cervical Cancer, my Ace in the Hole. (Pun very intended.)