an update

ok i've been on a serious hiatus from blogging. and i have to confess, it's because i've been busy rediscovering an old love in my life...knitting.

it was exactly 5 weeks ago that i first stepped in kaleidoscope yarns with my mother on a whim. before then, i'd done some knitting on-and-off, but it had been a while. in fact, the last time i'd held my needles was in january of 2009, when i began knitting cleveland a sweater...that remained unfinished. until now. since that day, i've been quite prolific. i made fingerless mitts, 4 hats, finished the sweater, and a number of other items, which i dare not mention since many are intended as holiday gifts:)

a few picks of my rediscovered hobby...

these are the mitts i sent to my mom. she picked out the yarn. also, i made up this pattern:



this is a hat for phil (also a made-up pattern). i did one for cleveland that looks similar only the colors are reversed and i knitted his name into it.



here's cleveland's sweater finally blocked. it's now put together, and i think he likes it. thank god when i started it in 1/09 it was clearly sized large.



more pics to come, i'm sure.

that being said, dear blog, i do miss you. so i promise that i will be back, and with more frequency.

the birthday issue - an opportunity to gloat, wonder and hope

Seven weeks ago i began my 4th decade of life. yup, 30 long/short years. of course it makes me think about lots of things. 30 things, in fact.

First, 10 great accomplishments:

1) Life. I've managed to live through 30 years (credits to mom, dad, gen, mads)
2) Love. I married a wonderful man...
3) Children...then gave birth to two beautiful children who weighed 8lb14oz and 8lb15oz respectively with no medical intervention (thank you DHMC and FAHC midwives!)
4) Vocation. I acquired two graduate degrees, and am now a member of the most honorable profession of nursing
5) Persistence. I ran in the VT City Marathon this past May (ok, so I only ran a 5.8 mile relay leg, but still, my first race ever AND i was just 4 months post-partum).
6) Yeast. I can bake bread. many varieties.
7) Sportsmanship. I'm cool with losing to phil when we play scrabble. trust me, this is a serious accomplishment.
8) Literacy. I know how to read music
9) Contributing. I recently became a sustaining member of VPR
10) Generosity. I'm knitting hats for everyone!

Next, 10 great aspirations:

1) Educate. I want to teach my children to love music and to play the violin
2) Create. As in a cohesive/publishable work of poetry
3) Persist. I'm training to run the 1/2 marathon portion of the VT City Marathon next May
4) Sisterhood. I'm ready to reconnect with my sisters, so i can know them. really f****n' know them, and finally cut that album with them, the one where we pay homage to Motown, gen gets her barry white on, and i finally live out my fantasy of being smokey robinson)
5) Travel. I'm planning to take a vacation with my husband. as in go to a place where our children are not where we sleep/eat/drink/dance/explore
6) Complete. I've got my sights on finishing a Boston Sunday Globe crossword puzzle (well, maybe actually just reading a Boston Sunday Globe).
7) Extension. My needles, that is, so that I can get better at cable knitting.
8) I just want to learn to sew, so that one day i might be able to assume the perrinez family legacy of quilting (ruth, i'm going to need your help, a lot of help)
9) Comedy. Let's just say I'm looking to perfect my joke delivery
10) Juggling. I'm committed to keeping my babies/husband/house/job up in the air, never dropping a thing long enough to lose it.

Finally, 10 great blessings:

1) Hair. My mother always said i was blessed with great hair. it's a little frizzy at times, but she was pretty much right
2) Employment. As in, i'm employed!
3) Helpers. I have a list of qualified friends/coworkers all willing to double as babysitters
4) Continence. While he's not officially potty-trained yet, i'm finally seeing the light at the end of the long diaper-filled tunnel of cleveland's bladder and bowel habits. when can we start with lucie?
5) Health. Here we are so fortunate. All of cleveland's concerns are now more idiosyncratic than genuine health risks, and lucie's greatest health concern is her hyperverbalism, which i'm quite certain she inherited from me.
6) Wealth. We're blessed with exactly enough, which i believe is exactly as it should be. We pay our debts, our house is warm, the babies' bellies are full, and we can (usually) get our cars started.
7) Cleveland Robert Perrinez. You remind me daily of the joyous world that surrounds us. you laugh at finger puppets and play dough and you dance to david bowie like you've met the guy (have you?)
8) Lucienne St. Germain Perrinez. You remain the biggest bean of all the beans, and you're a crazy beautiful baby and i'm so glad i'm your mama. your cooing and giggling and babbling get me through the day, not to mention many long car trips.
9) Phillip Robert Perrinez. You haven't only given me strength, but you've been patient enough to be a window into which i have found my own strength. you're already to best doctor i know, and you'll make a fabulous orthopedist/radiologist/wicked smaht MD one day.
10) Today. It's Wednesday and today i'm finally getting over being chronically and persistently afraid of things I don't know. And i'm suddenly optimistic about learning how to do/see/experience some of those things. I guess that's called growing. And, when it's done right, shouldn't growing be synonymous with aging? hmm...

i hope you like your hat...

things can be pretty crazy

recently there has been a lot of whining at the st. perrinez household. and just a touch of assault and battery:

observe cleveland and lucie as they play in parallel.



lucie touches any toy.



cleveland attacks lucie for touching toy.



lucie takes attack in stride and fights back with a double fist hair/ear grip.



cleveland sulks off but returns renewed and with a new toy for lucie.



lucie feigns interest just long enough to give cleveland false sense of security, then lucie moves in for the kill.



cleveland says 'no, no, NO!'



repeat. repeat. repeat. only stop for diapers, naps, and snacks.

it makes a mother wonder, will they ever be sweet?

**********flash forward************

we were driving home last weekend, and after lots of whining things were suddenly quiet in the back seat. suspiciously quiet. and that's when i turned around to see this:



be still, my heart...

if you're grumpy and you know it...

...refuse to eat

...say 'no' to everything

...refuse to sit while eating

...face the wall

...whine a lot

...refuse to eat anything but lucie's mum mums

...refuse to sit in car seat

...kick your mom

...whine some more

...sit on your sister

...flip your s*** for no reason except that...

You're TWO, and two truly is terrible.

as of yesterday, cleveland had pooped in lots of places, places like these:















but until today, there was one place he had never pooped:



that's all changed. i guess it's time to get some of these:




in other news, lucie finally started sleeping through the nite, but i have to give credit to a bottle of formula before bedtime. i guess my boobs aren't the magical soporific sacks i thought they were...

10 Questions for a Tuesday evening

motherhood makes me wonder about a lot of things

1) How did Cleveland spontaneously learn to pick his nose AND eat it? Seriously, it's as though turning two somehow turned on the nose-picking gene that had lay dorment for the first years of his life.

2) Why, despite the myriad colorful, fun gizmos at her disposal does Lucie consistently choose the least child-friendly object in sight to play with (read: the lid of my travel mug, or Phil's comb, a Sharpie pen, scissors, can opener, meat cleaver, etc)?

3) Why, despite the myriad colorful, fun gizmos at his disposal does Cleveland consistently choose to rip the above object out of Lucie's hand/mouth in an aggressive manner that is decidedly out of character for him?

4) Here's a typical morning: Cleveland gets up and has breakfast. Not long after this, he points to his little bum bum and says 'poo poo'. I diligently check his diaper and it is almost always dry. So, I say, 'do you want to sit on the potty?'. With some coercion, he generally agrees. We spend some time on the potty, often reading 'Once upon a potty', and sometimes playing with the 'special potty toy' (my cell phone or other contraband). After a while he sweetly says 'All done', and we resume by diapering and hand-washing, etc. Then, minutes, nay, SECONDS later, he poops. WHY?

5) Why does Cleveland refuse to eat anything that isn't oatmeal and raisins or goldfish when sitting by himself, but will literally devour a plate of tofu/broccoli/red pepper and brown rice stir-fry if I'm willing to eat some, too?

6) Why do my children insist on opposite nap schedules (one goes down, the other gets up)? And don't say it's Gods way of giving them each some one-on-one time with me. I want some one-on-one time with me!

7) How can Cleveland never fail to hear the bus go by our house (8 times an hour), no matter where in the house he may be, but can literally tune me out when I'm standing right next to him?

8) Why is Lucie about to walk? Seriously, I deserve at least three more months of only semi-mobility, don't I?

9) How do they both manage to steal my breath careening around the corner by the staircase, or standing at the table and clapping, teetering on tip toes, or barely missing their hands/heads when slamming the cabinet doors?

10) Why does my soul still leak with love when I open their bedroom door at night and see them sleeping; when they are still and quiet, and I only hear them breathing? And I think to myself, so that's where my breath goes...

new camera

phil splurged on a lovely new nikon, which we tried out for the first time last nite. we've got a lot of learning to do, but so far things look pretty nice.

this is cleveland reading barbara tannen's classic 'you just don't understand; men and women in conversation'. one can only assume he intends to improve relations with his sister, or perhaps make amends with a would-be foe on the playground.



smiley guy...



super-cute girl...

if i were a birth control commercial

i might relay this story:

i'm on the phone with my health insurance company, literally seeking pre-approval for the insertion of an intra-uterine device designed to, of course, curb my fertility at least slightly. i've been on hold 20 minutes. just as the operator comes on the line, i look over to see my son reach into the back of his diaper and pull out a (heavily soiled) hand which he proceeds to wipe down his leg. you can imagine my jaw dropping as the operator says 'ma'am, are you there?'.
'um, yeah,' i say in a distant tone. 'i just saw my son do...something, and i'm trying to figure out...'
'is this a bad time?', she asks.
yeah, i'm thinking to myself, my kid just rubbed s*** down his leg, it's a bad time.
but wait, can i afford any more s*** rubbing kids? not right now, so i say 'no, no, this is just fine, and i proceed to obtain the necessary documentation for my procedure while simultaneously grabbing my son under his armpits and lift him, kicking, up the stairs and immediately into the bath, where i strip him down and say behind clenched teeth, 'stay there!'. 'poo poo', is his reply. yeah, poo poo is right, i think. that's multitasking.

or i might tell the story of how much he enjoy's 'helping' me when i'm pumping milk for his sister:




trust me, that's not all he's tried to pump.

two-year-old-you

oh, the way we began:

i have a vivid memory of sitting in a rocker in our living room looking down at you, sobbing uncontrollably, just thinking of how i would do anything, absolutely anything to keep all the pain and hurt and dissapointment in the world away from you. and then i realized that was impossible, that there would be plenty of pain at times. that you would get sick sometimes, and we would wake in the middle of the night to hear your whimpers. that one day we'd find ourselves in the Emergency Department ruling out acute head injury from a simple fall off a step stool. that, before your first birthday, all those little 'insignificant findings' at birth would lead to an MRI and surgery in the course of a few months. and i realized that with all that and more, we would still be lucky.

oh, the person you are:

sure, there's the walking and the talking, but that's average stuff. for you, it's all the moments in between: the pause and shoulder shrug when we ask 'where is your other shoe', the quiet 'sorry' when you 'accidentally' bowl lucie over. the way you 'ooh' and 'ahh' at a piece of cheese, or a ladybug, or your special cold drink (ice water). the way you sing with your hands, miming the itsy bitsy spider, the wheels on the bus, twinkle twinkle, and whatever song involves nodding your head and bouncing your index fingers. i wish i knew.

oh, the places you'll go

cleveland robert perrinez, you have always been and you remain the sweetest, most thoughtful, careful, generous, loving boy i know. you look when you listen, and you place your hands gently on my face when we talk close. and you give real, loving kisses and bear hugs.

thank you. thank you for the priviledge of letting me stand beside you on your 'big trip' through the world. thank you for letting me listen to your makebelieve whispers, and kiss your bo-bos. thank you for the opportunity to look at your face and see all the wonder of the world reflected in it. thank you for giving me a second chance to dream every dream, big and small, and to watch as you make them all come true.

to louisiana and back

at the beginning of the month, we went on a trip to louisiana to visit my extended family. for this trip, 'team perrinez' (as we affectionately call our vacationing posse) including me and phil, both babies, as well as my dad and phil's mother. we spent most of our 6 days in baton rouge, where we visited with my paternal grandfather, along with my father's sister and her family. then we headed to new orleans (where my mother's family lives) to enjoy the all the g-rated wonders of the crescent city and french quarter (where we stayed). here's a short pictoral narrative of our adventure:

my grandpa's first encounter with his newest great-grandchild:

getting acquainted (my cousin kimberly at far right):

the entire gang in st. martinville (an historic town from where my grandfather's family hails):

lucie on the move:

phil and cleveland at the aquarium:

Bourbon Street, Sunday morning, 10am:

generations 1, 2, and 4...

a picture post - loooong overdue

The last few months chronicled in photos: Here are the kids after the marathon. you'd think THEY were the ones doing the running:

Photos from Lucie's Baptism. The nuclear family
With the grandmothers, meme and grammy:
and the extended (the not complete) family:

So I gave Cleveland the tiniest bit of a candy bar while we were in the car. What was I thinking? I have no idea. What followed never occured to me until I looked in the rear view mirror to see this:

Lucie eating solids. She really is this possessed over sweet potato:

Ok, cute baby pics, beach pics, bath pics. Enjoy!

here we go.

ok so it's been quite a while since my last post. quite. a. while. 6 weeksish. and there's really no one reason or excuse. mostly it's simple. i can't. find. the. time. and the time i do find i find other things to do. and there's one other reason. a while back phil and i decided that we would do well to consolidate important media in our lives (read digital photos) onto one computer, and, naturally, we chose his, with it's bigger more beautiful screen and higher res and more bits and bytes, etc. the problem is that i no longer have unlimited access to all our great family pics and thus my motivation to post has declined. and no photos today. phil and his comp are in hanover.

but don't despair, i can still give some updates:

1) yes, we ran in the marathon. on may 30th, phil made it a whopping 13.1 miles, from the starting line to oakledge, and i enjoyed the scenic 5.8 mile stretch aloooooong the beltway. the babies were fearlessly watched by a lovely med school friend of phil's, lizzie, and all was well. thank god it wasn't too hot. my st. germain genes may have melted. working the night shift following the race was not the best plan, but of course i hadn't thought of that.

2) we baptized lucie on june 6th. she was so beautiful, i totally had tears in my eyes. and she was a total star despite pooping all over the place in the moments preceding the ceremony (fortunately, we had yet to get her into the 100-year-old gown...) unfortunately we weren't able to celebrate at storr's pond as planned due to lots of rain. but my mother-in-law generously opened up her home. and again we made it back to burlington for the sunday night shift (this is beginning to become a theme).

3) we have enjoyed a lot of world cup futball. maybe too much. there have been some lovely mornings when we might have gone walking (or running) and have instead gone to get bagels and sit of the couch. i think one month will be long enough...

4) we made our plans to go to louisiana in august. this is exciting b/c we will get to see my family and especially my grandfather, who will see cleveland for only the second time and meet lucie. otherwise, i don't know how the trip will be. it's louisiana. in. august. also the oil situation has rendered the otherwise fantastic cuisine (obviously a huge selling point) virtually nonexistent. but i'm looking forward to it. my father and mother-in-law will be joining us, so we'll have extra help with the kiddos on the plane, and we can rent a minivan. awesome.

5)baby updates. cleveland says lots of words, words like 'up high' and 'outside'. more recently, he's added the two words which are destined to change our lives forever. 'no' and 'mine'. but he's exercising restraint so far. he only says 'no' in response to a question (any question) we ask, and he only uses 'mine' every time he sees lucie holding, mouthing or eyeing something he wants. lucie is suspiciously mobile these days. flipping herself this way and that, and getting pretty close to army crawling. also last week we moved her into cleveland's room, a transition that went more smoothly than expected. with the light block shades in there and starting her on some solid food, she's getting just around 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night. we still have a collective waking hour of about 5:30 but we're getting there.

6) it's summer! we have gone to the beach and taken our kids out in the wagon and walked and strolled and had ice cream and stared at the sky, and barbecued and had water play and sidewalk chalk dates, and it's been great. there's also been grass eating, and bug eating and sand eating, and chasing ants out of the kitchen, and hiding out in our air-conditioned bedroom and trying to keep our very fair son from getting too much son, while getting lucie to keep her hat on.

ok so i'm without new pictures but i'll put some up soon. and there's so much more to tell. we'll get around to it all. meanwhile i'm going to shower and pump and get ready to get my babies.

best to you,

an addendum

***warning: explicit post***

so i bought a new sports bra.

wow, the things i learned. i said to the clerk, 'i'm looking for a sports bra. it needs to be supportive. very supportive. now that i'm a runner, i need some serious support. however, i also want to be able to nurse my daughter after the race, so easy in/out would also be nice. not paramount. just nice.'

'i'll see what i can do', was the reply. 'what size are you?'

i thought i was a 36D. i was wrong. after trying on 5 different bras i found that they all left a gap under my bosom (ahh, the dreaded gap that leaves unnecessary room for the ladies to escape at inopportune moments). turns out i'm a 32DD! Say what? this is a size?? yes, the sales clerk assured me. this is, indeed a size. 'see, it's here on our chart', she told me. well, being on the chart and being in the store are two different things. turns out 32DDis not a size that is routinely carried by sports bra companies. that is to say, they are rarely made and even less frequently in stock. so scratch that. the next best thing was, naturally, the 34DD.

There were exactly four in that size in the store. Next thing I know, there they are, all in the dressing room, just staring at me, daring me to shovel and scoop my floppy, ample self into them. i turned to my sister and shopping partner and said 'i hope this is like wedding dress shopping. i hope i just put on one and i know it's the one'. i took a deep breath. she assisted me into the first.

it felt like a straight jacket. worse, it looked like a straight jacket. it was not the one. the second one, i'm certain, was a knock-off of a bra worn by Madonna in her 'Vogue' video. needless to say...no. number three was equally unattractive. all rigid nylon with a mesh overlay. it did have some periwinkle piping, i guess to make me feel a little feminine. the clerk assured me that this was her favorite bra. 'i own three of these. they're not pretty, but they're so supportive. and they're redesigned to be easier to get on/off. see this clasp? you undo it to put it on and then cinch it in afterward' no, it was not pretty. even hannibal lector couldn't pull this off. whatever. i tried it on. my sister helped me fiddle with the clasp in the back. and i shoveled and i scooped and eventually everything was in place.

then i jumped and i skipped and i ran. arms up, arms down. wow! very little bounce. snug but not dreadful. i undid the clasp, and, voila, i popped my boob out so fast. this would make feeding lucie post-race a breeze! i was sold.

so i bought a new sports bra.

and the price for this kind of front-sided nirvana? $57. 00. yes, you read that right. my life as a well-endowed super-stellar athlete ain't cheap.

pride

i did it! today i ran 5.8 miles. this is my target distance. yippee!

here's how i'm feeling:

i have a big blister on my left ankle, but i taped it and it was fine. stung in the shower, but ok otherwise.
i have a small strange pain on the top of my right foot. upon closer inspection it appears this is something like a stage I pressure ulcer. it hurts! i may need new shoes.
my knees are sore.
i definitely need a better sports bra. way better. the girls are all over the place. i really had no idea until i caught a glimpse of myself in The Block Gallery window in Winooski. they were making figure eights around my chest. it was like they were running in their own relay. it was ridiculous.

sick day

lucie's sick. not super-duper sick. just has-a-cough-and-keeps-spitting-up-mucus sick. the kind of sick that makes you rise at 1:30am to change bed linens, then jump in the shower with her to loosen up her chest. in any case, at 1:48am i realized we'd be home today, so i called out of work (so nice to work at a place that you can call at 1:48am and actually talk to people).

cleveland went to daycare, so it's a mommy-daughter day, though she seems content to sleep through most of it. this is giving me time to update quicken (really, i know), bake a cake (mexican chocolate), and get back to the blog. hurray. some updates:

a while back i signed up to run in the burlington city marathon on a relay team. phil got me on, as it's affiliated with the med school. recently learned that i'm running the 2nd of 5 legs and that my team is made up of all post-partum women (i think everyone's had a baby within the last 18 months - some of us, two!). let me remind you that 1) i'm just four months post-partum, 2) i agreed to run in this before lucie was born, when i was so uncomfortable and delusional that i might have agreed to an ironman if it offered an expeditious delivery, 3) i'd never run more than three miles prior to training, 4) 'training' (a term used lightly) consists of maybe running (another term used lightly) 3 times/week depending on schedules (phil is running the 1/2 marathon so he needs training time, too), and 5) my leg is 5.8 miles down and out the beltway. this is actually a good leg for me because it's very flat. this is actually a bad leg for me b/c it's a lot of pavement pounding, there's no shade, it's pretty boring, and it's 5.8 miles (see distance limitations above). in general when it comes to running (and by running i mean any athletic pursuit) my enthusiasm is about as long as my stride. i'm not very confident. i don't think i look cute in shorts. really, there's not much going for me. however, saturday i did 4.5 miles and, frankly, it wasn't too bad. as i was in the last mile, i realized that, i really could keep running. and suddenly, i'm not scared that i won't finish. and our neighbor is going to be watching our kids downtown, so i'll get to see their smiling faces when i finish. and since phil and i are running different legs, we agreed that we'd meet and run the final mile of the course together, just so we can cross the finish line. thinking of all that as i was running brought tears to my eyes, which is dangerous because tearing up while running makes it difficult to see, and sobbing makes it impossible to breathe. but i'm beginning to get excited. really excited.

other news: phil gave cleveland a haircut.


cleveland sat still for a total of 35 minutes and it looks great. i don't know whether to be more impressed with phil's scissor skills or cleveland's patience.

lucie thinks cleveland is the funniest thing around.

he's the only person who can consistently get a belly laugh out of her. i feel like they already love each other, and it warms my marathon relay-strenthened heart.

also lucie's cute:


and yesterday, cleveland sat down to eat lunch, took one bite, and when i asked if he thought it was good, turned to me and said, 'oooooh, ahhhh, mama!'