Play-Learn-Grow-Repeat

From Friday Mom – Jaime:
The week between Christmas and New Years daycare is closed. It’s always interesting trying to figure out what to do with this week because our offices are always open. Hubby and I usually take turns, one day going in to work and the next hanging home with Andrew.

It’s fun now that Andrew is older, because we can do so much stuff with him. Today I took Andrew to the Morris Museum. They were doing a special kid event, complete with readings of Polar Express, arts and crafts and special exhibits. Kids got to make all kids of stuff – jingle bells, gingerbread men, ornaments, toy soldiers… Andrew wasn’t thrilled with the “Journey Into Candy Land” performance, but he was psyched to check out where they were hiding all the different crafts stations.

“MOMMY! Let’s go find more art stuff!” he would yell, grabbing on to my hand. It was adorable, but I also confess to melting a little bit every time he still calls me “Mommy” or holds my hand in public…

I feel like my little boy is growing up so fast, and I know I have to enjoy moments like that while I can.

I still can’t believe that he’s already 5. Andrew was asking me today about when he was born. He cackled uncontrollably when I told him that he bit the doctor, who had never before (or since) had a baby gnaw on her knuckle as part of his or her entrance into the world. It doesn’t seem like that long ago, but it goes to show everyone was right when they told me not to blink. “Don’t blink. Before you know it, they’ll be all grown up and you won’t know how it happened.”

I didn’t believe them then. But now I know how true their statements were.

Have a great weekend everyone. Enjoy this time with your little ones. You know, while they’re still little.

From Friday Mom – Jaime:
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, a very special celebration was brewing for… Oh forget it. I can’t think of a decent rhyme for house that wouldn’t sound ridiculous. 🙂

Let’s begin again.

It’s almost Christmas Eve. I hope you all are done with your holiday shopping. If not, get to that mall for some last second insanity shopping! (I can’t even call you guys slackers. I did most of my holiday shopping at the last second too this year!)

Where Christmas Eve used to mean Chinese food and movies, for the past 5 years, it now means Andrew’s birthday. The tradition of the family pizza party continues this year, and some of Andrew’s favorite girls will also be in attendance. He’s been excitedly talking about the end of Hanukkah because then “the next day is my birthday and then Christmas.”

Yeah… Not only is that not a totally accurate in terms of timing, we’re still working on Andrew understanding that Christmas isn’t really our holiday… The other day he got wildly upset because we didn’t have a Christmas tree or stockings. “MOMMY! I need a stockin’! If I don’t have a stockin’ how is Santa going to leave me presents in a stockin?”

I always had visits from Santa (and Grandma) Claus when I was this age, so I try to temper the “it’s not our holiday” with the “it’s okay to believe” kind of message. For now, it’s adorable how excitedly Andrew sings Christmas songs and speculates about how Santa can possibly get around the world to bring all kinds of toys to all the girls and boys in the same night. Though he’s seen enough holiday movies to know Santa has a very cool sleigh and some powerful reindeer power to motor him around the world…

Even though Andrew sings about Rudolph in the middle of the summer and talks about Santa like Christmas is the main holiday we celebrate this time of year, I don’t see anything wrong with him believing in Santa and looking forward to his visiting us… Believing in something good and that makes him so happy is just fine by me.

Have a great weekend everyone. Merry Christmas. And to my little guy, a VERY happy fifth birthday.

In under 2 weeks, Andrew will be 5 years old. Before he was born, I remember the daycare director telling us not to blink because before we knew it, Andrew would be all grown up. We didn’t really believe him at the time…but it’s been so true.

I ran into one of the defendants in one of my cases last week. We both sustained pretty bad damage to our homes in the storm. And even though my client has sued her, and we fought bitterly for HOURS at our last mediation session, she gave me a big hug as soon as she saw me, saying that she said a prayer for us every night. Then she immediately asked how Andrew was doing. I told her the story about how after we got to my parents’ he ran around to every room with a flashlight to inspect all the rooms so he could tell me we were safe and everything was going to be okay.

This woman, who is tough as nails, got a little misty-eyed before telling me that he’s such a little man. That it was amazing how he had such a fierce instinct to protect me. And how it was a reflection of what a great job I had done, and was doing, with him.

At that, I got a little misty. And I hope she’s right.

There are still some days where I feel as clueless about being a mom as I did the first day we brought Andrew home from the hospital. I can still remember the feeling of utter hopelessness that first day when Andrew did nothing but cry, no matter what we did. I remember looking at Hubby, crying along with Andrew, wondering what in the world we got ourselves into.

We’ve learned a lot together, just like Hubby said we would as I was freaking out about having a little boy. I’m begrudgingly learning about football and cars along with Andrew’s growing interest in them. I’ll never learn to like bugs, but Andrew comes to the rescue with his little shoe in hand to be my “bug killer hero” when Daddy isn’t around. We’re sharing our love of reading. Andrew is even into some of my favorite books from when I was his age.

Andrew and I may clash swords sometimes, and I may not completely have the whole parenting thing down, but I do have a great kid. He has a good heart. He really cares about other people. And I suppose that is, at least in part, because of his parents, his grandparents, and the rest of his family who have helped him grow into such an amazing little guy.

So I think it’s about time to shut down the computer and spend some time helping Andrew build his lego train set. That’s another thing I never thought I’d see myself doing…and I may not be very good at it…but I’m giving it a shot.

Have a great weekend everyone.

From Friday Mom – Jaime:
December is a big month, full of presents. We have Hanukkah. We have Christmas. We have Andrew’s birthday. It’s almost literally an entire month of giving this kid stuff.

Andrew is currently obsessed with watching Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman. He runs down the halls singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Jingle Bells. Every so often he butchers the lyrics of Feliz Navidad.

As much as Andrew enjoys the month-long present obtaining celebration that this month is, it’s nice to see that he’s also into getting stuff for people. His good friend Dean had his 5th birthday last weekend. Andrew was SUPER excited to get Dean some art supplies because “Dean will LOVE this! He so loves to do art station.” Andrew helped to pick out presents for Hubby and me. And, of course, he has asked when we’re going to the mall to make a Build a Bear for another kid.

It’s nice to see that he still remembers (at least a little bit) that the holidays are also about giving and not just getting.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

I remember thinking far too often in law school that being a 1L – a first year law student – too closely resembled reverting back to elementary school. Suddenly, any guy I walked down the hallway with was a secret boyfriend. (I was engaged at the time.) Wearing form-fitting clothing was somehow a sign of being a stripper. (Okay, the leather pants were perhaps a little risque for the bars of Concord, NH, but still!) And speaking to someone of the opposite sex, of course, meant we were in LUV. (Yeah…riiiiight)

So we graduate from law school, pass the bar and get our first job as law clerks or big bad lawyers. And you’d think with all those years of schooling and those fancy degrees on the wall, we’d finally learned the art of growing up.

Unfortunately that’s not the case with all of us who have that fancy “,Esq.” after our names…

As a female attorney, I have to deal with nonsense that my male counterparts never have to encounter. I’m sure that upon seeing a young MALE attorney walk into a room to take a deposition, no one has ever loudly told their client, “HA! They sent a little boy to do a MAN’s job.” I have male adversaries who insist on calling me “sweetie,” “honey” and, my personal favorite, “dearie.” UGH! Really? Do you pick up the phone and call your male adversaries “bro,” “dude” or “my man”?

I’ve been engaged in what can only be described as a day long grudge match (I’ve cleaned that up considerably) between two law firms. My innocent request for an update on a case spiraled out of control due to the arrogance of another attorney who decided to insult not only me, but my firm and everyone in it. He’s continuing to do so – in front of the client – as I write this.

And I’m still baffled how this even happened… We represent the same client. In the same case. We HAVE TO work together. So why turn this into something so ugly so unnecessarily?

Also as I write this post, I’m watching my son playing a board game with Hubby. Andrew is losing. He’s not taking it well. In fact, he’s whining and pouting. In a couple minutes, I anticipate either the fake tears or some major foot stomping…

Yes, he’s still 4. But we’ve tried to teach him better. To know that winning is REAL nice, but it’s not everything. That he should play fair and not cheat so that when he DOES win, it’s because HE did well – not because he was sneakier than the other guy. To shake the other team’s hands and say “good game” at the end of a crushing defeat instead of bragging…because he will see them again and they will remember how he handled the situation…

And I sincerely hope that these lessons, even though he rolls his eyes at them, are sinking in at least a little bit. He should be better than the guys I’ve been dealing with all day. We’ve certainly raised him that way…

Have a good weekend everyone. And try to play nice in the sandbox with the other kids, even the mean ones who may not really deserve it…

From Friday Mom – Jaime:

As Andrew would say, “Happy Thanksgiving, gobble, gobble!”

Wednesday we got to see Andrew’s class put on their seven and a half minute long holiday show. Their teachers asked the kids to keep things a secret so all the parents would be surprised. Shockingly…Andrew did. All we knew was that we needed to dress him in BROWN when he went to school on Wednesday.

Brown? Who owns an all brown outfit??? It prompted a round of frantic, last second Tuesday night shopping. But we managed to acquire a brown shirt…which was actually pretty cute…AND on sale. (If you know anything about me, then you know that I am the kind of shopper who will walk into a store where EVERYTHING is on sale and manage to walk out with the one item in the whole store that miraculously was NOT discounted.)

Anyway, the teacher started off by saying that it was really good for the kids to get into these kinds of social interactions and it was really hard for some of them to perform before an audience. One of the little boys was too nervous to do any of his parts. Not Andrew though.

MY son was loud. He was giving everyone else stage directions. He knew exactly when his parts were coming up and was up there well in advance of his cues. And, I regret to say, he actually blurted out “Okay, I’m done with this!” after the first song… He also had a battle going on with the little boy next to him, who had the misfortune of being dressed as a turkey, tail feathers and all. Well, the feathers hit Andrew’s arm and Andrew spent the rest of the show alternating between slapping the feathers away from his arm and giving the turkey hugs. (Yeah… we were less than pleased with that one.)

Afterwards, one of the teachers came up to us. I thought it was going to be a “will you control that one” kind of talk because I was more than a little embarrassed over his turkey-bashing performance… But she actually said how great it was for the other kids that Andrew was so confident and so into it. He apparently had been great about helping the other kids with their lines and not being scared to talk about what they were thankful for. (In case you were wondering, Andrew is thankful for “his house and his toys.” You can’t see me, but I’m rolling my eyes.)

Yesterday the family got together for the Thanksgiving trough at my parent’s house. We were very happy that Grammy and Papa schlepped down from Maine and that my cousin Matt was able to join us this year. We ate too much. We embarrassed each other with ridiculous stories. With everything that’s going on recently, there hasn’t been a lot of time to just relax and be with everyone. But that’s exactly what I love about the holidays and this one was no different.

Andrew promised this year he would try some good Thanksgiving stuff. He still refuses to try the stuffing which both horrifies and overjoys me. For the record, my mother makes the best stuffing EVER. So while it’s annoying he won’t try it, it also means there’s more for ME 🙂 But somehow Grammy convinced Andrew to eat turkey and sweet potatoes. (Way to go Grammy!)

We don’t really do the Black Friday thing. So today my sister and I are going to a movie (yes, it’s Breaking Dawn, part 2 – don’t judge!) while Andrew and Daddy go to the zoo to enjoy what could be the last warm day of the year.

I hope you all had a great thanksgiving, found some good deals shopping and enjoy the long weekend!

From Friday Mom – Jaime:
I promise that not every post from here on out will be about how we’re doing since the hurricane, but it’s been kind of an all-consuming thing these days.

There are days that I’m angry. There are days that I just want to cry. My mom, with all her psych degrees, keeps assuring me that it’s perfectly normal to be mad at the trees for coming through the house, frustrated that other people got to go back to “normal” as soon as the lights come on, and sad that I can’t just go home.

Andrew has been going through a “I’m not going to listen to anything that anyone says to me” phase. That too is frustrating. But more so because I don’t know how much of that is normal, 4 year old boy attitude or if it’s because he’s also having trouble dealing with being displaced… And if it’s the later, how can I really get mad at him for acting out? I do it myself!

Our insurance company hooked us up with a great company who helped us find a townhouse that we’ll be living in for the next couple months. Being a tenant again is not really what I expected at this stage of the game, but it’s a nice little place and will suit us fine for a couple months. We’ll move in over the weekend, though we have a bunch of stuff there already.

Last night we were trying to get Andrew excited about the place, telling him about it and how he’ll have his own room again. While he’s very excited to have his own bathroom – which is CONNECTED to his room (truly important stuff here!) – he’s also confused. He scrambled up into my lap last night and said, “Mommy! I am very confused. We have our new house. We have our old house. We have the hotel. We at Nana’s. We not at Nana’s. Now we have this other place?”

I couldn’t really say that some days I wake up and am so disoriented it takes a few minutes for me to realize where I am too.

I tried to explain the best I could. Maybe he understands some of it. I wish there were some kinds of magic words to make him feel better about everything that’s happened the past couple weeks. Well, I really wish there were some way I could just speed up time and fast forward to when we can all go back to our place… But for now, he’ll have to settle for some extra hugs and whatever extra patience I can muster up.

It’s hard to believe that next week is Thanksgiving already! I hope you all have a great one.

From Friday Mom – Jaime:
It seems so strange that while virtually all of New Jersey was without power and devastated by the hurricane, the rest of the country was largely unaffected by it. On day 3 of being without power or heat for most of us, I was getting all my news from Twitter and Facebook posts and only knew that it was Halloween seeing posts of other people’s kids in costume. Trick or treating was “indefinitely postponed” in Jersey.

Now here we are at day 11 post-storm. There are still at least 2,000 people STILL without power or heat, my parents included. (Thank you again to Grammy and Papa for schlepping generators and gas down from Maine to keep them warm!) Entire towns were so decimated that they may never make a come back. But slowly, we’re starting to recover from the wreckage Sandy left behind.

Daycare got its power back Sunday night and was able to open its doors Monday morning. At first Andrew fought trying to go, but he missed his friends and teachers. He has been so happy being back in some semblance of a routine again.

Tomorrow they are finally getting to do their Halloween party. Andrew is psyched to bring in munchkins. In the afternoon, all the kids are dressing up for “Trunk or Treat.” Yeah, it’s exactly how it sounds. Trick or treating out of the trunks of cars. I still need to acquire some candy for that one!

Halloween in our town has been postponed a number of times, but yesterday the state of emergency was lifted in town. Saturday will be the official trick or treating day. Andrew is going to be Luke Skywalker. 🙂

It’s going to be a while before things are back to “normal” for my family. But having these little things – going to school or work again, having a snowball fight in the middle of a parking lot, or celebrating Halloween – make everything seem a little more normal.

Have a great weekend everyone. And to those of you who are also finally able to participate in a belated Halloween, enjoy!

From Friday Mom – Jaime:
I want to start off by saying that my family and I are all alive and well.  The storm was pretty bad, far worse than we had predicted. But let me repeat  – we’re all alive and well.

I’m saying it again, in part to reassure my family, and in no small part to reassure myself. It’s been a rough couple days.

So, the bad news is that like most of Morris County and New Jersey as a whole, we are still without power.  It’s challenging to entertain a 4 year old without it. But so far, we’re managing.

We have a fully charged portable DVD player, a stack of puzzles and books, board games galore. And so far, that’s holding Andrew just fine.

We’re also currently residing with my parents while the damage to our house is being repaired… I won’t get into all the gory details, but the repairs will be significant, as will be our time out of the house.

The good news though, beyond the fact that we’re all safe, is that everyone has been wonderful so far. My parents took us in Monday night in the middle of the storm, have been watching Andrew and somehow have managed not to throttle me, no matter how much of a pain I’ve been.  Our insurance company has been awesome. Friends I haven’t talked to since high school have hooked us up with tree guys and other repairmen. Neighbors we’ve never talked to before have gone out of their way to try and help us. People across the country have been offering us their support and help. It’s been pretty amazing.

I think Andrew has come through this better than all of us though. He is such a brave kid.  I was pretty badly shaken when we got to my parents Monday night (who wouldn’t be having a couple trees punch through their house?) and promptly excused myself so I could lose it away from him.  Andrew grabbed a big flashlight and walked around the house to every room before giving me a huge hug and reporting everything was safe.  Even when the power went out, he thought it was “cool.”

He started coloring lots of pictures of houses and trees. At first I thought this was yet another source of concern, but I’ve been reassured it’s perfectly normal and actually a very good way for kids to deal with traumatic stuff that is outside their control. Apparently on paper, they can make the uncontrollable controllable.

The house is whole. The tree is upright. They’re both full of bright beautiful colors. And everyone, inside and out, is safe.

That’s the story Andrew keeps telling in his pictures… And what I keep reminding myself.  The trees will be gone. The house will be whole again. But in the meantime, we are all safe and together.

Have a good weekend everyone. And to those of you who were also affected by the storm, stay safe, stay warm and take care…

From Friday Mom – Jaime:
I hate when daycare calls. It’s never for a good reason. And it never fails to freak me out.

But after I flipped out on them for NOT calling my cell when Andrew got a cut on his head, they’ve been a little more overzealous than usual about calling us. Every single time Andrew bumps into another kid on the playground. Which is often.

Andrew’s supposedly a typically little boy (not that I have any real basis of comparison). He will never walk if he can run. He plays rough. And he often runs into other kids or stationary objects on the playground.

So we got yet another call from daycare today. Andrew and another kid were playing soccer when they ran into each other. Andrew was supposedly fine, but had a bump on his nose that didn’t go down even after they had ice on it.

This is, of course, exactly what a mom wants to hear right before heading out from the office to pick up our kid.

I don’t want to say I’m a totally overprotective mom. That’s in me, for sure. But usually, I can temper that with some semblance of reason. Except when I think someone or something hurt Andrew…

I drove like a bat out of hell all the way to daycare, which is no small feat in north Jersey rush hour traffic. I was almost daring some cop to pull me over so I could tell them I had to get to daycare to check on my kid.

Andrew was fine. The rational part of me knew he would be. But I couldn’t really believe that until I saw him with my own eyes…

Have a good weekend everyone. And to those of you on the east coast, I hope you fare well in the storm they’re predicting…