Christmas is Coming

It's almost that magical time of year...you know, when parents everywhere can begin forcing their children into submission with the universal Santa threats.  I'm an overachiever so I've already been using them for weeks now.  So with the onset of "Santa is watching!" also comes the daily "I know what I'm going to ask Santa for."

This morning at 6:30 am.

Luke:  I'm going to ask Santa to make me be able to fly.  And also for him to build me an iPhone 6. 

At least he has an imagination. 

Just Journaling

There are so many things that I want to remember about the time that is now, the time that my kids are young.  I find that my memory isn't as sharp as it used to be and I completely blame this on the utter exhaustion that having young children creates.   So I do my best to log certain things in that area of my brain that I have labeled "things you should try to remember."  This file is getting very large because there are just so many moments that I want to keep.  And I hate being cliche but the saying "The days are long but the years are short," is just so darn heartbreakingly true.  Many people have told me, write it down, write it down!  So, here we go.

The other day Luke smelled cologne on Matt and asked him why he smelled "so handsome."  He also claims he's marrying his classmate Zoe Sheehan.  Her name is going to be Zoe Sheehan-Zappia.  Luke loves flannel sheets and at 7 years old, still wants to hold your hand while he falls asleep.  He also still sucks his wrist when tired, something he's done since infancy.  Current;y likes playing minecraft on his ipod but has been asking for the new iphone 6 and a golf cart.

Adrienne, when talking about devouring food, says she "ate it like a wolf."  This often sends Matt and I into hysterics.  She also says "Fank you" instead of thank you.  Adrienne loves to cuddle and likes to fall asleep with you laying next to her with her feet wedged between your thighs.  She's currently into drawing rainbows and hangs many or her masterpieces on her bedroom walls with masking tape.

Coco, makes a sound that goes like this: nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnaaahh.  Shakes her head no at just about anything and does a cute little wiggle dance when music comes on.  She pulls her hair and ears when she's mad an drubs her nose with her pointer finger when falling asleep.   She LOVES to climb stairs and play the piano.  

And for our part, Matt and I want to remember that relaxing time after the kids have gone to bed where we watch shows or read books while having a beer or a latte with the fireplace on.

A normal trip to the dr. with all 3 kids - waiting for the dr. to come in.

They love Starbucks

Little piano player

Adventures in putting an infant to sleep at bed time

I just reread my last blog post and realized it captured everything but wasn’t very entertaining or funny.  Rest assured that I haven’t lost my mojo or my abundance of material.  Please read below. 

Adventures in putting an infant to sleep at bed time:

So you’ve worked all day, strained to keep inappropriate comments in your head instead of spewing them at your coworkers, picked up all the kidlets from their various childcare arrangements, kept your patience in public while dealing with said kidlets, made dinner while your pants are literally being pulled off your body and demands are being shouted from the couch for refreshments (multiple), ate said dinner while attempting normal conversation while reminding said kidlets that they need to actually sit at the table every 15 seconds, scrubbed infinite germs of the bodies of the babes,  and it is now the challenge you’ve been waiting for all day! Oh, it isn’t?

 A true competition of wills, a scorecard of your parenting skills, an ego booster or failure reminder: Bed time. 

Let me preface the rest of this post by saying that Corinna has been the best “sleeper” we’ve had so far.  And that ain’t saying much.  She did start sleeping through the night around 6/7 months which is way earlier than either of the other two infant non-sleepers who I will not name.  The problem with little miss Coco is that getting her down seems to be quite a challenge these days (it used to be easier, dammit!).

 Now, this is a story all about how my life got flipped - turned upside down…

So it’s 7:30 pm and I’ve already been through the experience I outlined above previously in the day.  I’ve got a cute and clean babers in my arms, relaxed in the glider, lights off and it’s go time.  I peacefully begin to feed her and this, my friends, is the exact moment when she starts faking me out.  She closes those perfect little baby eyelids and nuzzles in all warm and cozy while quietly nursing away.  This continues for a good 10 minutes and right about then, I’m thinking to myself:  good job self, tonight’s the night she’s going to go to sleep quickly and easily.

Sucka! 

Coco decides it’s time to start flailing her arms and smacking, and I mean smacking, me as hard as she can on the chest.  She loves that loud “whack!” sound. I do not love that loud whack sound.  So I restrain her arms so that I don’t have to explain bruises and scratches to others and this is when she begins her little wiggle dancing.  It’s a cross between bucking her body back and forth and wiggling side to side.  It’s cute, but not when you are thinking she’s going to sleep or when she has her teeth on one of your sensitive body parts.  Okay so the dancing is slowing down and now she pretends to close her eyes drift off to sleep again.  This is when the 4 year old busts in the room and announces that she “needs” me to come look at her bowel movement that looks like a big stick!   The baby’s eyes fly open and she listens very closely to the conversation.  I kid you not.  No laughing going on here.   Ok, so we take care of that situation and it’s back to rocking and nursing.  Baby eyes close again and approximately 10 seconds later, the cat starts meowing and pushes the door open.  Baby eyes fly open again.  I kick the cat out and mutter a few things under my breath and back to the glider I go.  Pretend sleep starts again and it has now been about 30 consecutive seconds of eyes being closed.  This is when the neighbor lets out his two very large, very fluffy, very white, very annoying dogs.  They begin to bark, baby eyes are open again.  I mentally rip neighbor a new one.  At this point, I attempt to sing as to drown out the barking but seeing as though I have zero musical talent I think this is doing more harm than good.  Ok, I’ll get out of the glider this time and try walking the room or swaying to lull her back to sleep land.  This is when the hubs arrives home from softball and opens the garage doors which can be heard all the way in Canada.  This is just a brief interruption and I continue on my way walking around the room.  The moment comes when I’m pretty sure the baby is asleep and it’s time to put her in the crib.  Of course, the second that tiny little head touches the mattress, the eyes fly open and the wailing begins.  I take deep breathes and try to calm myself.  You see, the wailing was coming from me, not from the baby.  Ok, I’ve given myself a new pep talk and pick the baby back up and she goes back to sleep in my arms.  I wait minutes and attempt the crib again.  This time, it appears that my stealth baby putting down skills have worked!  I go to take one step away from the crib, and wouldn’t you know it, my dang ankle cracks so loudly that it wakes the baby back up!    I am not making this up.  I search the room for the hidden camera because surely, I’m on that show Candid Camera.  This time I do not pick her up out of the crib because even though she woke back up, she’s still very drowsy. I spend the next 5 minutes rubbing her back in a robotic motion as to not break the pattern and cause her to wake up again. I roll my ankles to insure they won’t crack as I sneak away again and muster up the courage to try the exit again.  I make it out of the room and the door is closed – I did it!   One hour and 15 minutes later.  Whew.  And now I’m so exhausted that I put myself to bed.  And all the barking, meowing, children and garage doors couldn’t make enough noise to wake me up. 

The end.

Did you catch the Fresh Prince reference up above?    

 

 

 

T & K 7/11/14

The Zappia clan had the honor of being in Tommy and Karis' wedding this past July.  I'm just now getting around to writing about it because I've just now finally recovered.  While the wedding preparations surely took more time in the lives of Tommy, Karis, and Mimi, it also took a serious amount of planning and prep on our part as well.  Considering that I'm the only one, of five people who dresses herself, (appropriately, at least) the outfit coordination alone was no small feat.  Five people, 3 days, multiple outfits per day, for all weather types, activity types, and comfort types.  And shoes, don't forget shoes!  Don't forget the camera, the sippy cups, the necklace to go with the grey dress, the infant tylenol, the swim vest, the black socks, baby monitor, the phone chargers, the card, the actual baby...you get the idea.

So the months of prep are finished and the wedding weekend is finally here.  We take half days from work on Thursday, pull the kids out of camp/daycare early, feed the cat and head off to Corning.  

And then the real wedding prep began.

And by "begins," I mean the last 10% of turning the 80 acre farm into a ceremony and reception site.  There were signs and lanterns to be hung, table decor to be placed, chairs to be setup,  and lights to be strung to name a few tasks.  I tried to keep the kids out of the way as much as possible while trying to help at the same time.  That was next to impossible.  Friday was more of the same all day until we had to get our hair done.  Even so, I was still making the seating assignment display with my bridesmaid dress on while the first guests were arriving. We used every possible minute.    

We also had to fit in practice being the ring bearer, the flower girl and jr. flower girl so that we didn't have any runaway wagons, guests with flower pedals flung in their faces or untimely swims in the pond.  

So the moment of truth arrives and it's time to walk down the aisle.  I'm the first one to go down and as I'm standing there, I realize Matt is standing next to me.  He was supposed to be with the groomsmen but he claims no one told him where to go.  Like this is the first wedding he's ever been to.  So we go down the aisle together and it works out fine.  The rest of the wedding party proceeds and then it's Luke's turn with Coco.  He did a very nice job of pulling her in the wagon slowly and and an even nicer job of conveniently parking the wagon in front of Matt instead of me.  Hallelujah! Ade comes down with her petals next and also does a great job. I expected her to come stand by me but instead she chose to stand with Karis' sister Libby.  Maybe I smelled bad?  Anyway, next came our beautiful blushing bride and the ceremony commenced.  I'll have you know that my kid was not the first one to melt down.  She may have been the second one but she wasn't first and she wasn't the loudest - I was so proud.  Actually, Corinna wasn't that bad but she did cause Matt to exit the groomsmen line for a short jaunt as quickly as he could exit stage left and as far as he could get - "stage left" being out into the middle of the field away from the ceremony.   

Tom and Karis had a really nice and brief (!) ceremony just as they had planned.   They could not have looked any more perfect and all of the hard worked paid off.  

Day 2 of the wedding was the "reception."  And there were quite a few people receiving and receiving pretty hard.   The weather cooperated and there was lots of fun happening left and right.  This included our own little maniac Luke on the golf carts.  Note to self: do not ride with Luke on anything with a motor.  It is scary and life threatening changing.   And it is now September and we hear about the golf carts every single day without fail.  Luke might actually be let down by Santa this year.

Anyway, we all had the best time that we never want to have again (kind of like college spring break in Mexico) - you're glad you did it and had a blast but it was exhausting and a lot of hard work having that much fun.

Summer

Our summer is well under way and we are having a fabulous time so far.  Luke is back at Camp Sisol and Adrienne is back at the JCC.  Coco continues in her same infant room at the JCC so that makes 3 kids in the same place for drop-off and pick-up!  It still takes me at least 30 minutes (at least) to get through the place when picking them up!  We spend extra time admiring all of the pre-school artwork, pushing ALL of the buttons in the elevator, talking to all the teachers, running people over with the stroller, stopping to use all of the restrooms (and steal the rubber gloves stocked in them), making sure we sample the water at each water fountain, using all of the handicap buttons to open doors...you get the picture!

So back to our fun filled, no spare minutes, summer...

We've had bonfires, been to lakes, gone to festivals, had a lemonade stand,
lived it up at the waterpark, been to parties with water slides and bounce houses, been to parks, swung on the neighbors' swings, ridden bikes,  and everything in between.  After the winter we had this year, this nice warm weather is just what we needed.

We are about halfway thru the season and dreading the change of weather already.  And I almost had to start boycotting Target (gasp!) because they have back to school supplies out already.  Not what I want to see, Target.  You don't want to lose one of your best customers.  And take those jeans and sweaters out of the store, too.  stat.  Do not even think about putting Halloween decor out or you're finished! We still have more summer to experience!  And while I'm making threats, you listen to me Rochester, it better be a warm fall and winter or I'm moving!  Rant over, proceed.  


Luke's last day of 1st grade:

The Cutest  Lemonade Stand that Ever Existed:

Somewhere over the rainbow!

SMORES!

Babers!

Twins matching:

Squish

Look at my squishy baby!  I just love to squish her.  I will call her squish!  Actually, I've been calling her piglet because she does the sweetest little squealing noise when she wants something.  She is *this* |<--->|  close to crawling and is just starting to pull up on things.   She has also mastered the butt scooch and is putting that, uh, extra surface area to work.  

We are up to 4 teeth now - ouch, and we've started solid foods. So far she loves bananas and avocados.  She does NOT like apples!  Is that possible?  You know what she really wants to try?  Chocolate cake.  Yep, that's right, she was throwing elbows at me trying to get a taste of some cake at a recent birthday party.  Girl knows what she wants.  And she is my child, after all.

Oh , oh, OHH, and she's been sleeping through the night.  Hallelujah! So here are some pictures of the babe:

Birthdays, 2014 Edition

So we've had a few birthdays: Luke #7 (WOW!) and Adrienne #4 (double WOW!).  Both kids wanted parties at "fun centers," but "fun" isn't quite the word I would use.  Nevertheless, Luke had a blast on the go - carts and Adrienne bounced her little heart.   Each birthday is so bittersweet. So bittersweet, in fact, that we take at least a week and a couple of cakes per birthday!

Attention!

Here ye, here ye, we have a grand milestone to document...princess baby finally rolled over. all the way. over.

Ok, so maybe it's not that exciting but what kind of mother would I be if this went undocumented?  At least I was around to see her do it for the first time (that, or the daycare ladies have learned the art of not spoiling "firsts").

High Tea

Anyone want to come to a tea party?  High tea will be served in Adrienne's room today!