Happy St. You-Know-What Day!

I'm still on my little blog break but I wanted to post these photos here today in honor of this cute little holiday. It's been fun to wear green and celebrate this time around since I have a little baby to dress up and I'm not suffering from pregnancy-induced fatigue like I was last year at this time. Also, John is old enough to understand a little better why I would do crazy things like turn his milk green or give his dad a pinch for not wearing green. (Not that I really completely understand those things myself!) I have strong Irish ancestry on my father's side, so my boys have some of that lucky green Irish blood running through their veins too. May the luck 'o the Irish be with 'ye too!

My little leprechauns! This is the mischievous one:

And this is the little innocent one (for now, anyway!):

On This Day Five Years Ago...

...I became a mother. My son, John Clayton, was born at 10:10 a.m. and changed my life forever, and for the better. Happy Birthday John!

John on his actual "birth day" in 2005

1st birthday, 2006

2 years old, March 2007

3 years old, March 2008

4th birthday, 2009

Turning Fabulous Five on March 8, 2010!

Blog Break

FYI, I'm going to be taking a little blog break for the next week or two. Life is pretty busy right now--among a number of other things, we're putting our house on the market this week! So I'm not going to have much free time for a little while. But I'll be back soon!

Redemption for February!

I spent last week happily entertained by women's figure-skating at the Olympics. I love, Love, LOVE figure-skating, and since it's not on very much, I really look forward to events like this. It didn't disappoint. The skating was beautiful and the skaters were extremely talented (they're the best in the world, after all). If I could go back to my childhood, I would have taken figure-skating lessons along with my ballet classes. But it's okay. If I ever have a daughter, you know what she'll be doing. If she doesn't like it, I won't force it, but if she does...she'll have one happy momma who will be able to live vicariously through her experiences. That's why we have kids anyway, right? Ha ha.

February 2010: Cursed?

This month isn't going so well. It's actually the worst one I've had in a long time, and the things that keep happening one after the other have made it almost comical. It's been like the dominoe effect! Why does the concept of "When it rains, it pours" actually have to work when it comes to the difficult things in life?!

To briefly summarize this strange, frustrating month, it started out on February 2nd with a trip to the E.R. for my 4-month-old baby Sam. Something had somehow gotten wrapped super-tightly around the little middle toe on his right foot. He's fine now, but it was VERY stressful!

Then there have been various ongoing anxieties and issues that are still causing some inner turmoil. All of that stress coupled with the E.R. trip gave me a kanker sore last week that made life fairly miserable. (Although on the bright side, I think I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight because I could hardly eat for days because it hurt too much.) Then John got sick, Sam got a temperature, a supposedly big snowstorm never materialized (disappointing!), I was having weird aches and pains in my feet and legs, and I felt like an unfocused, overtired, unhealthy, disorganized mess. We're supposed to put our house on the market in a few weeks, which is overwhelming, as is the fact that we'll be moving away to a new part of the country in a few months. It's all too much!

This week we're in Massachusetts with my family for February vacation and life should be better. I'm planning on catching up on sleep and trying to get myself organized and re-centered. And things are starting to look up. Peter and I enjoyed a lovely Valentine's dinner at one of my favorite places on Saturday night. The Winter Olympics is happening, and I enjoy that, especially the figure skating. Right now as I'm writing this there is the prettiest snowfall outside.

So that's been my month. I hope yours has been better! If the month is indeed "cursed," at least it's halfway over. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to March and the coming of spring!

Our Big News

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I might have some news to share. I do in fact have news to share, and, without further ado, here it is: We're moving to Iowa. That's right, Iowa!

Why would we leave Connecticut, a wonderful place where we've lived for four years and like very much, a place where we're 90 minutes away from both my family in Massachusetts and Peter's family in Rhode Island, a place where we're close to the ocean and to the great cities of Boston and New York, a place where history, culture, and natural beauty abound all around?

It's all because my husband got lured away from Prudential, the company for which he's worked for all eight years of his career. He wasn't looking for a new job, but late last summer an executive recruiter contacted him about an attractive opening with another insurance company. It turned out to be "the one" for Peter: a big step up in the areas he's good in with a lot of responsibility and leadership opportunity. This company just happens to be headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

This was such a difficult decision to make. There were many factors to consider. I had months to think about it, and I went from "No, absolutely not, NEVER" to "Probably not" to "Hmmm, maybe" to, finally, "Yes." I visited Iowa at the end of December with Peter to see if it was a place I could agree to move to, and I was impressed. It wasn't all flat cornfields like I'd been expecting. In fact, many of the areas that we saw looked a lot like the Northeast, with trees, rivers, hills, a sprawling university campus, and similar shops and buildings to what we have here.

So anyway, there's a lot more I could write about, and I'm sure I'll do that in various posts in the months to come, but that's the scoop. We won't be moving until this summer, thank goodness. I need all the time I can get to get used to the idea of becoming a Midwesterner!

Book Review: The Goose Girl

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is fantasy writing at its best! I enjoyed the story very much and was totally drawn into it. The "moral of the story" was really well-done too, without being overly saccharine and obvious. I wish I'd read this years ago when I first heard about the book. Now I'm looking forward to reading the other two books in the series. I bought the second one at Barnes & Noble yesterday and have added it to my too-high stack of books to read.

The Wisdom of the Ottoman

When I was cleaning up the house one evening back in the fall, I noticed that the things that were scattered on the ottoman in the family room constituted a random but very accurate microcosm of what my life is about right now:


They are all things for John (my 4-year-old) and Sam (my 4-month-old): John's preschool books and craft project, part of an Aquadoodle pen, and his current favorite movie. Sam's bottle, diaper, bib, socks, and little baby slippers. This is evidence of how my life right now revolves around taking care of these two boys. I haven't lost myself in this process; it's simply that they are my full-time job. My husband gets up and goes to his office in the city in the morning; my office is my home, nurturing, feeding, and caring for these two future citizens of the world.

If I didn't have kids, the things on the ottoman would be completely different, representing the life that I used to have when I wasn't responsible for anyone but myself and could do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to do it. Sometimes I really miss that freedom and that way of life. But I love where I'm at right now and the phase of life that I'm in. This is the time and the season for me to be a mother of young children. I wouldn't change the objects on the ottoman for anything.

Paying Homage to My Christmas Tree

It happens every year: the post-Christmas January blues. They're officially here. I guess it's not really January's fault. It just has the misfortune of coming after "the most wonderful time of the year." After the festive excitement of the holidays, January seems cold, dark, and bleak by comparison.

In order to help alleviate my blues, I want to pay tribute to our wonderful Christmas tree, because it was pretty amazing this year. We got it on December 5th and took it down on January 2nd--almost a full month--and to the end, it wasn't dropping many needles, and it had retained its fresh piney scent. And this with it sitting right in front of the heater, and with us being gone for four days and not being there to water it. In fact, when we got home on New Year's Eve after being away, we found that the tree had done this:


It actually started sprouting new buds! For being dead for a month (when it was lopped from the ground), this is pretty amazing. We've never had a tree that has done that. Peter says it must be the mineral content in our well water. If that's the case, those are some pretty potent minerals!

Look at those healthy, glossy pine needles!

It was sad to take the tree down when it was doing so well. I wish we could have planted it in our yard. But instead, it's now laying on its side in the woods behind our house. I can see it whenever I look out the kitchen window. John and I are going to pay it a little visit soon. Sigh.


There is now a big void where the tree stood.

I wish we could keep a tree in our house all year long!

Book Review: Kids and TV

Into the Minds of Babes: How Screen Time Affects Children from Birth to Age Five by Lisa Guernsey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is an informative, interesting book about a subject that I think about a lot--young children and the benefits/drawbacks of TV viewership for them. The author addresses many good points on this topic and her research and resources are good. Her overall findings from delving into numerous studies are that the less TV the better, while also recognizing that good-quality children's programs can have definite benefits for the kids who watch them. My only problem with the book was how she went into too much detail about many of the studies she researched, citing the details of how they were conducted and the methodology behind them. I don't think it was necessary to include all of that. Otherwise, it's a very helpful book, with some great resources in the back too.

View all my reviews >>

New Year, New Look!

In honor of the new year and the new decade, I've given my blog a new look. Alright, so I've been meaning to do that for a couple of months anyway, but I finally got motivated to actually do it with the advent of the new year. I changed the background because it became pretty bland when my last background disappeared in the fall. I also wanted to change the font and style of my blog title to something cool that I created in Word, but I can't figure out how to do that (anyone know how to do that?).

So anyway, welcome to 2010! I hope it's a good year for you. I have a feeling that it's going to be quite an out-of-the-ordinary year for my family and I. There may be a big announcement to make in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

(A random picture of Sam and I from last month.)

Christmas Edition: You Know You Have a Little Boy When...

...you get him a cute Nativity set to play with...


...and he fills it with bugs.

I guess they have the right to see Baby Jesus too.

And with that joyful and uplifting image to leave you with, I sincerely wish you the happiest of holidays!

Book Review: Santa Cruise

Santa Cruise: A Holiday Mystery at Sea by Mary Higgins Clark

My rating: 1 of 5 stars
I thought this would be a fun, light read for Christmas, but I couldn't get into it. I didn't get past Chapter 3; I stopped reading when a "bad guy" named "Bull's-Eye" was introduced. What is this, third grade? I think I'm outgrowing these books. I'm finding them to be formulaic, predictable, and boring. I still like Mary Higgins Clark but I think her books are better when she writes on her own.

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Snow and Ballet in Boston

Last year, all I wanted for Christmas was to go to Boston Ballet's wonderful world-famous production of The Nutcracker at the Boston Opera House. I hadn't seen it in over ten years and I really wanted to go again. Well, thanks to my obliging husband, I got to spend a snowy, magical weekend with him in the city so that we could go to the ballet. I never got around to posting anything about it, and now that it's almost exactly one year later...no time like the present!

We had to beat out a big Nor'easter to get to Boston before it hit. We made it! It was so cool to be there during a snowstorm. The city kind of shut down for the evening, so restaurants and shops were much less crowded than usual and there weren't many cars on the streets. It was the most quiet and peaceful that I've ever seen Boston.

We were in the city from Friday to Saturday. We went to the ballet on Friday night. It was at the Boston Opera House, which is very beautiful and majestic inside. We sat in the first row, so we got to see the dancers up close, and the orchestra pit was directly below us, so the beautiful music of Tchaikovsky drifted right up. It was cultural heaven!


On Saturday morning, it was still snowing. So we went "walkin' in a winter wonderland," city-style!


One of the things I love about Boston is that it combines the old with the new so well. Everything blends together rather seamlessly, making history a physical part of the present. We took a walk through Boston Common, which dates back to before the American Revolution. Now it's surrounded by high-rises!

A lot of history happened on the Common: among many other things, the British set up camp there after the Boston Tea Party, George Washington met there with his victorious troops in 1776, and Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke there in the 1960s. It's neat to be in places where such significant things happened. I think elements of past events still linger in historic places.

The gold-domed State House can be seen across the Common through the trees. It was once my dream to work there. I guess it still kind of is. Maybe someday!

I thought this old building was so cool-looking and authentic, built in 1868. Right in the background is a skyscraper. History + modernity = one cool city!

It was a great Christmas present--a fantastic ballet and a snowstorm in one of my favorite cities.

Book Review (of a cool book about witches!)

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I really enjoyed this book; I think the author did a wonderful job with it. It brought the Salem witch trials to life in great historical detail, and the approach was an effective one--interweaving between the 1600s and the present-day, with the main character being the descendant of an accused "witch." This is the first book about the witch trials I've read that presents the very interesting possibility that witchcraft actually was being practiced at the time. I've always wondered about that and the book brings that possibility to life (with the added bonus that the author did a lot of research to back up this theory, as she explains in her postscript. The author is also descended from two of the accused witches). A few parts of the storyline are a little hokey, but overall it was a very good read that combined history, mystery, magic, science, and religion together very well.

View all my reviews >>

P.S. This is a new thing I'm trying out here on my blog--adding some of my book reviews that I write up on GoodReads. I love books and reading and this is a fun and easy way to include that here on the blog.