Oren, today.

There's no way these pictures are an accurate representation of just how homeless my child looks right now.

• snotty, running nose
• busted up eye
• shirt covered in food and drink from dinner
• melted chocolate ice cream under his fingernails, on his face and in his hair from dessert
• no pants on
• one sock off
• purple marker drawn all over both of his legs from ankles to hips
• he even colored on his diaper to illustrate to me exactly where he peed
• he's also running around the house with one fist up in the air yelling "super batman!"

      jesus, i love this kid

      and i hope he never, ever changes.

Noodlekids

So, I know I just posted about this place a few weeks ago, but we already had to go back! Not just because it's delicious (which it is) but because they were having a kids event Saturday where the boys could build their own bowls of Ramen with the chef. They loved it. Between all of the foods they had to choose from and try, the chalk board wall and the gong. Yes, the gong. They were in noodle heaven. Thank you noodlecat for giving us an excuse to leave the house in the middle of another frigid, Ohio weekend. I think we all needed that.

Also, here's a little bonus side story about that day. After we left the restaurant we decided to make the most of our drive up north and headed toward bonbon on Lorain with a craving for some of their fabulous desserts. Well, duh, it was a Saturday afternoon in Ohio City and traffic was crazytime around the market, so we skipped it. Wes was super disappointed, ok, we all were. But what can you do? We started to head south back toward Akron when we had the bright idea to see if there were any good bakeries or pastry shops in Independence on our way home. I was driving, Abby was madly googling on her iPhone as the exit quickly approached when she found some great reviews on a little place called the Sunrise Bakery. The only problem was, they closed in ten minutes.

"Should we do it?"

sigh...

"Let me get some directions..."

Sufficed to say we spent the next eight-ish minutes swerving through traffic while abby frantically called out directions and Wes howled from the back seat "Someone find me a bakeryyyyyyyy!"

(cuz he's my kid and all)

So, basically at about one minute 'til close I pretty much peeled in to their parking lot sideways and Abby made a dash for the door.

And wouldn't you believe that that mother-effer was locked.

I thought Wes was going to lose it.

But then! Then the owner who had apparently just been getting in to his car to leave, saw us there and came back over and unlocked the store so we could get in. Our savior! After he let Abby in to pick out some things for us he made his way back out and gave the boys a little thumbs up as he passed our car.

Now that's a guy who understands. Pastries were obtained and had by all and we headed for home with very full bellies, smiles on our faces and lived happily ever after, the end.

On his four and a half year birthday

Today he's officially a half. Which means tomorrow he will be closer to five than he is to four. Which really, can't possibly be true, can it? I've been all kinds of heartsick over this boy of mine lately. The pictures from my last post have me missing that roly poly baby he once was with his bulldog cheeks and those rubber band wrists. And it's strange, you know, missing someone who's sitting right next to you. But that's how it feels with these kids, man. They're one person one minute and you fall head over heels in love and then the next thing you know they're walking and talking and someone completely new. And then I wonder, what will I miss about this Wes a few years from now? With all this pining for the past I sometimes forget that this Wes, this four and a half year old Wes, is only temporary too. And this Wes is completely, positively marvelous. This Wes asks me to snuggle him to sleep every, single night. And so we lay on his pillow face to face in his tiny twin bed where I scratch his back and guide him safely to his dreams. But most nights, after his breathing slows to heavy sighs and I think he's finally asleep I will try to inch my way out of the bed. To which he cracks open an eyelid, throws an arm over me and and lets me know it's not quite time yet. And so I stay.

This four and a half year old Wes is a running, talking, non-stop eating ball of energy. But he's also sweet and sensitive and thoughtful, and funny too. He's my listener, my nurturer, my rule follower and the most darling big brother I have ever known. The other day we were all upstairs, folding laundry and doing miscellaneous chores when I noticed Oren had gone missing (as he does). Wes told me, "I'll go check on him!" and raced downstairs to find him. A minute later he called up, "Mom, you better come see this. Oren's standing on the toilet with a box of tissues and it doesn't look good."

This is what I'm talking about. The kid kills me.

This Wes, who loves knights and dragons, star wars and adventure time and C-A-N-D-Y more than anything else. This Wes who will still be just as content with a pile of books as he is with an ipad. This Wes with the big imagination and big ideas and even bigger heart? Yeah, this Wes is pretty, darn great. And I'm going to miss him someday.



An old favorite post about Wes, here and a post on two and half year old Wes, here.

oh, and also, this. Just for funsies ;)

Some pictures I found of baby Wes, and then I almost died.

april, 2009

Valentine's Day and Happy Friday!

 

even though we don't put too much pressure on ourselves to make valentine's day a big event, (especially when it falls on a thursday) we still had a sweet little day yesterday with just the right amount of fun and celebration and probably (...definitely) too much sugar. wednesday night, i put josh in charge of getting a few small things for the boys to surprise them with in the morning, while i baked them cupcakes. so, i really shouldn't have been surprised when he came home with reeses cups, star wars suckers and "they didn't have balloons, so i got an economy sized thing of cheeseballs."

 

huh.

 

i will say, josh did win the day with a few small, thoughtful gifts for me and he had chocolate covered strawberries delivered to my office. meanwhile, i got him a very sexy and romantic new roku box. (which, is basically just for streaming netflix on our tv in case you case you weren't privy.) i mean, he has been wanting one and i did wrap it pretty? that counts right? also, it meant we got to watch oren try to play angry birds on the tv screen with his fingers like it was an ipad, so that alone was worth it.

 

and then, THEN marisa the magnificent dropped off cookies and a handmade adventure time valentine for the boys thus securing her position as best valentines day gift giver of all time.

 

then i just made pancakes for dinner and we called it a night.

 

...that marisa, i tell you what. she's a good one, she is. that's for sure.

 

 

 

 

 

Valentine's, 2008

I thought today would be fitting for a post about the valentine's day we announced to everyone we loved that we were having our first baby. We'd decided to wait until I was three months along before telling anyone our little secret. And it just so happened that the three month mark fell right around valentine's day. Never allowing a good opportunity to go to waste we decided to use the holiday to surprise them with the news. So, we baked off a few dozen heart shaped cookies, frosted them pink and blue and boxed them up with our first ultrasound picture - ready for delivery! Of course (because it's what happens to me on the most important days of my life) the flu hit us the next day and we barely made it out of bed at all let alone to all five of our parents houses. But we did manage to suck it up long enough to get the boxes delivered to both of our moms, which was no easy task that day. But it was completely worth it because I will never forget those moments, watching them open up their cookies and seeing the realization of what this really was register on their faces. My mom was literally clapping her hands and jumping up and down with excitement. It was perfect and oh, how my heart just swells even thinking about it now. Never have two ladies been so excited to become grandparents as those two were that valentine's day.   

 

 

xoxo

"Look Mom, Spiderman is really Peter Partner!"

 

I'm back, y'all! I've missed my little corner of the internet here so, so much! Things have been stupid busy lately. My work life right now? Basically ridiculous. I've been having to work weekends just to keep up with the asinine amount of work that needs done and there is NO END IN SIGHT. It's like one long panic attack from the minute I hit the door at seven a.m. until I run frantically out of that place at five o'clock, hoping I remembered to grab my sanity on the way out. On top of that nonsense, we're about to put our house up for sale. And you know what's actually super stressful and not fun at all? Getting your house ready to put up for sale. No, really. So we've been appliance shopping and doing small repairs and mostly wondering why we didn't do all of this before we were about to move out. Life questions, people. Life questions.

 

One good thing to come out of all of this is that it's forced us to start cleaning and purging. Which just happens to be one of my favorite things, sadly. Most recently we took on our basement and in all the chaos going on down there Wes stumbled upon the spiderman costume Adam wore for Wes's 4th birthday party. (oops!) But Josh just played it off like it was a long lost, old halloween costume of his and Wes didn't seem too concerned. The only thing he was worried about was how fast he could get Josh to put it on. Because ultimately, this is what he was after...

 

 

 

related: how lucky are these boys to have Josh as their dad??!