(im)perfection

No better way to capture the complete and utter delight of Christmas vacation than to think about two fuzzy pajama-clad boys reading together, tearing around the house, and scrambling to open presents. Luke is my joy; Sam is the man. Oh, and Lily...When I first saw her, she took my breath away. Those big eyes that stay glued to you...I guess the reason I haven't been blogging is because I have *no complaints* whatsoever. Life is just rich and good. When do you ever hear me saying that???

Ha, ha. Anyway, I labored over how to make a cake for Luke and I finally settled on *buying* a guitar cake pan, over Joe's scoffing, and making a drum cake to go with it. They both turned out, well, let's just say...a little less than professional. The guitar cake looks alright but the frosting colors are downright ugly. Turns out that when you add a certain amount of blue food coloring, there's no more additional red you can add to make it purple. The color just keeps getting more and more of what I like to call steel grey.

So there's that.

The drum on the other hand, is not only ugly, but sloppy. It looks like a third-grader did it - while playing a video game. I can tell you all of the various reactions before I even hear them:

Me: "This is so embarrassing." (self-deprecating over-analytical criticism)
Dad: "Could you use a knife to guide your hand while you draw the lines?" (attempt to be constructive)
Mom: "It's fine. What's the problem?" (pragmatic indifference)
Joe: "Too...many...jokes..." (brotherly mocking)
Dave: "I love it!" (unbridled adoration and enthusiasm)
Luke: "Want...cake" (single-minded determination)

Two years ago tonight, Dave and I went out to dinner with his family and then headed home for a quiet evening of rest. Not long after midnight, I uttered the fateful words that changed our lives forever: "Water...breaking!" and nothing has been the same since. I was truly freaked out in the beginning but now I am at peace. I think of our lives as kind of like the drum cake - ragged around the edges and really kind of a mess, but just so sweet.

I love you, my two-year-old boy.

not changing a thing

Yeah, so it's been six months of blogging and griping, griping and blogging. Well, let me tell you: Right now we're home again, all together, we just had Sal & Joe's, Luke is happy and even volunteered to go to bed, and I'm not changing a thing. Well, OK, so I've been healthier. And I've felt less like crud in my life. And it would be nice if my lips weren't so parched they crack every time I move them. But hey, we're cool. Really.

full circle

Well, here we are, back to Christmas again, and almost back to the East Coast again, which is where (and why) this blog started. I've been waiting all year for this, and yet I'm not ready...still need to pack, still need to put labels and ribbons on fudge, still need to address more cards, and still need to rest and have some down time with Dave. Now that I've read Joe's stollen blog, I'm reflecting more on yesterday with Dave's family, and thinking - even though I think I'm grown up, there are times when I still don't *get* it. Dave's been wrapping up work so that he spend two whole weeks with my family, and I was ready to say that I was too stressed and over-committed to spend an afternoon with his family yesterday. And his dad doesn't seem well, which makes me sad and nervous. I spend a lot of time thinking how far away I am from family, but Dave's family really is family to me here.

So, speaking of immediate family, Dave and Luke and I had one last Sunday here for the year and we decided to spend it the way we could only do it in California - at the beach, at a drum circle. Luke was in hog heaven. He jumped right in and picked up the beat, and some of the big guys were nice enough to help him with the spare drums and shakers. How many passers-bys' (passer-bys'?) pictures did he wind up in today? Enough that he's bound to be immortalized in at least one person's vacation photo album.

Luke is hilarious. Dave is a dream guy. We are rich, let me tell you, rich as kings, because we have not one but two full lives, on either side of the country.

A decade

When you read the above, please pronounce it as "a deck-uhd." Thank you.

Anyway, so it was 10 years ago today that Dave and I met at a party (notwithstanding the time we had met several years earlier, but that didn't count). We celebrated in style today, baby. Homemade waffles. Commemorative t-shirts. Rollerblading (r) on the beach. Fireworks and a boat parade. Laughing about our "million-dollar" house (it's all imaginary money, people). Laughing along with our most beautiful boy. Being completely unable to get over how much we have to be grateful for in the past 10 years.

Speaking of that boy, I have to somehow mark down the unspeakable, which is to say that he is actually weaning this week. I can't talk about it when he's around because I don't want to give him the power of suggestion. And I can't talk about it when he's not around because it's too darn sad. All I want to do is hold him on my lap and not let go. I guess I'm feeling super touchy-feely this week because of it.

There was a first-person NY Times piece last week by a mom of a 10-year-old who was trying to set boundaries on physical contact and she decided she had to cut back on the amount he jumped into her arms, played with her hair, etc. There's part of me that thinks it's a little icky; there's another part of me that feels great solidarity. I can't hold back from wanting to hold him. But maybe I'll wait a little longer than just the very week he happens to be weaning to see if it's a trend or not.

Believe it or not, there's more celebrating to be done tomorrow: Brunch at La Cabana to watch the lady cook tortillas, then a snow park and more fireworks in the afternoon. Seems like this is turning into a trend of some kind: Ten years ago, it was all I could do to drag myself to a party; now we have fireworks every day.

Buddy Rich

Luke the Drummer has been studying drumming videos online, carefully memorizing each drummer and their technique. Now he knows to ask for them by name, as evidenced by our visit to the preschool yesterday: The teacher hauled out a big box of drums and Luke jumped up and shouted, "Buddy Rich! Buddy Rich!" It was entirely lost on the teacher, but Dave and I stood in the background, crumpled up from laughing so hard.

Dave told the story much better elsewhere, but I guess I'm more distracted by the larger point of the story - that he's going to be going to daycare/preschool soon, and a lot of his funny eccentricities will probably be lost on the teacher and others. I guess I can't even talk about it right now. Everyone has heard me go on and on about the pros and cons. I guess I just want to have more time to have him sit in my lap while I can kiss his head and think about what is best for him and us. *Sigh* At-work posts never end well.

baby book

In our never-ending quest to make millions, Dave and I frequently have the conversation about how to design a product that Everyone Needs, No One Has, and Costs Very Little To Produce. We were talking yesterday about how lots of people, once they have kids, decide that they can do x, y, or z better than any other company out there that's marketing stuff - and so they wind up going into baby-oriented businesses (childproofing, swaddling blankets, etc.). Today I realized that I do have a product I could redesign, though I don't think it would make me millions: The baby book. My current baby book gives me all sorts of puzzling options for recording stuff I hadn't even planned on remembering. Example: After the baby is born, there are two full, empty pages to record "Impressions from the Hospital." Are you kidding? My impressions from the hospital could pretty much be summed up as "blrrrrgghh". Then there's tons of space to record "First Reacts to Sound" "First Temper Tantrum" "Fears" and two separate pages for "Favorite Activities" and "Favorites". As the Wiggles would say, "Huh?" "Huh?" Huh?" Anyway, what I really want is a bunch of pages where I can record "Things that Crack Us Up" and "Unexpected Words" and "Odd Habits".

"That's why you have the blog," Dave says. So until I or someone else writes a better baby book, here are some of the things I want to remember:

When Luke is eating something he really enjoys, he pumps his fork in the air with his fist and says "MMM! MMM! MMM! MMM! MMM!" (As Dad puts it, "Reviewer Luke Fratello gives it five fist pumps - it must be good!"

His eclectic compound word list includes: Dustpan, snowman, nutcracker, chopstick, chimney, trash truck.

When he's goofing around, sometimes he plays Jeff the purple sleeping Wiggle guy: He pulls a chair into the middle of the room, sits down, and very placidly closes his eyes and pretends to sleep for several minutes. (Suzi and Bill asked us yesterday - Is he giving himself a time-out?) When you wake him up, he cracks up.

When Dave sings "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" to put Luke to bed, Luke has been "singing" along with his own improvised lyrics, presumably designed to lull himself to sleep: "Dig...dump. Dig....dump. Dig....dump."

Hahahahahahahaha. I could go on and on (and I probably will) but I feel better already knowing that it's written down *somewhere.*

pit of my tummy

Well, Wednesday's post turned out to be prophetic - that is, the part about the pizza rising up and coming again. Thursday I was sicker than I can remember being in years. I thought it was food poisoning because no one else was sick and I seemed to be feeling remarkably better on Friday. But Saturday I was all wobbly and weary again, and today wasn't much better. We had the Suzi-and-Bill babysitting team over today for what was supposed to be a crazy afternoon out on the town, and it turned in to just a mild-mannered house tour, a cup of tea at a restaurant, and a quick grocery-shopping trip. Call us crazy. I'm feeling better now, albeit just a little sad because I had almost no time with Luke at all today, and because tomorrow is Monday and it may be my Day of Judgment at work. Let' s just hope we can all hold it together, with minimal interference from viruses and food-borne organisms, for the next three weeks.