'Twas the night before The First Day of School

'Twas the night before The First Day of School, when all thro' the house,
Not a creature was stirring, except for Mom who was catching her breath;
After the backpacks and lunchboxes were hung by the chimney with care,
In anticipation that the school bus  would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of new sneakers and school clothes danc'd in their heads,
And Mom in her 'kerchief, thought about a night cap,
After spending all weekend checking off the to-do list she was tapped,
She could not quite believe that the summer had passed,
And the school calendar was reset at One Hundred and Eighty Days so fast,
As memories of summer evenings passed drove out of sight-
and she thought on the sweet, growing children all tucked in tight,

Happy First Day of School to all, and to all a good night!

So, this happened.

 

 

I am such a dork. All I could think about while standing next to Andrew McCarthy at a book signing, was "What about prom, Blaine? What about PROM?"

The 14 year old that lurks just below my surface was freaking out. My much older self was suitably charmed and impressed.

It's The Little Things

I am not big into New Year's resolutions. I am terrible at keeping them and it seems to me that January is the worst month to begin major changes. It is too cold and I am just catching my breath from the November to December whirlwind of the holidays. September, with the back to school vibe and tinge of fall in the air, is a good season to start fresh. And, June with the promise of summer and long days of sunshine, always motivates me. In January and February, I just want to hibernate.

But, this year, feels a bit different. I look at the kids and cannot believe how quickly they are growing. Their limbs are long. My oldest reaches to my shoulder and he is just 9 years old. My baby, the 2 year old, looks like a little person, a little man. His infant, newborn features are long gone. The last ten years have truly flown by. I have become very aware that now is the time I have with them to make our traditions and create our family history. The horror and loss in Newtown has shockingly reminded me that the time I am lucky enough to have right now is not promised and each moment, each second, is precious and priceless.

So, I haven't made any concrete resolutions, but I am trying to reset my brain to make more room and time for what matters. To put the energy and effort into that which will count the most. All the little things that make up the Big Things. Write more. Read more. Make a plan to get healthy. Create more - learn how to sew and teach Kate, finally finish a quilt, update the baby books, take more pictures, clean my room, take more walks.

There is another little thing arriving in 2013 that will be a very Big Thing. It is finally my turn to be an Aunt. I can't wait. I am lucky enough to have two sisters who love and adore and spoil my three children beyond measure. And reason. They are the High Priestesses in the Village that raise my kids with me.  I am so happy the kids will have a cousin.

So, the only resolution I am willing to commit to is that this will be a year in which I seek out all those momemts, instead of letting them pass by and hold on to them tightly and fiercely.

And, also to clean my room. Really.

It's All Jon Hamm's Fault

Well, March came and went, didn't? I have many reasons and distractions as to why attention to my little blog was so scant during the Ides of March. But, I think I will just lay down all the blame at the well-tailored feet of Jon Hamm and the loveliness known as "Mad Men."

I watched three seasons on DVD. In about 3 weeks. That is 24 hours of television.
I am a little ashamed.

Enjoy how many ways one man can say "What?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsJSRP7cZVo

Savoring the Extra Day

Things I wished I had done today on Leap Day:

1. Spent more time inhaling the sweet smell of my baby boy's hair.
2. Sleeping in
3. Reading
4. Laughing with a friend
5. Writing

Things I actually did today:

1. Idled in traffic
2. Rushed to work
3. Worked at a tedious job
4. Went to the dentist
5. Gave three kids messy baths and counted the minutes until bedtime

The best part of the day:

After rushing through dinner and cajoling three hyper, semi-clean kids into bed, I was in the middle of a half-hearted attempt to tackle the sink full of dishes when I caught myself and stopped.  I went into my daughter's room. She was still awake. She asked me earlier to read her a book. I said "No, too late, time for bed, c'mon, let's go! Brush your teeth! Hurry up!"

Seriously? Too late?

Who turns down a 5 year old's request to sit and read with them? What had my day been about?

Somewhere in the middle of all that I had to do today and all that I wished I had done, was the one absolute, certain thing I should have never hesitated to do.

Read to my daughter.

My 5 year old bundle of curls and spirit and attitude and love who one day will be 11, going on 15, going on 25. I will ask her to stop and sit with me and talk with me and laugh with me and she will be busy with her own world and her own life and remember the times when she was a little girl and she asked me to read to her and I said, No.

I curled up next to her and we read a book about a little boy who imagines what it is like to live in the jungle. She told me about the new eraser she got at school today and how she can't wait for her birthday.

It was the best fifteen minutes of my whole day.

My Funny Valentine

My big kid, is eight years old going on about forty. He is a confounding mix of serious and silly and sensitive and strong. When he grows up, he want to "be just like Da Vinci and invent lots of new stuff."

His favorite song is "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield. He learned it in first grade music class for the concert to celebrate the end of the school year. He was humming it in the car yesterday and told me "it is the most inspiring thing he has ever heard and the words make me really, really happy."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7k0a5hYnSI&ob=av2e

Waves

I am so glad I took a moment to tilt my head upwards this morning and notice a perfect January sky.

Reminds me of "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker.

"...just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off when you walk by the colour purple in a field and don't notice it."

The morning sky was showing off it's purple. I was lucky to see it.

I want to go there.

Was meandering about from blog to blog and just read this intro to finslippy.com

"Why, hello there. Alice Bradley is a writer, and this is her blog."

I am a little in awe and envious. I want to declare the same with such authority, but fearful mine would be more along the lines of "Hey, what's up? Jennifer is a well-intentioned, somewhat scattered mother, who got way-laid professionally and this is her online Dear Diary."

Nightswimming

I have always been a bit of a romantic, a sentimentalist who enjoys looking backwards from behind rose-colored glasses. With a milestone birthday arriving this year, I find myself being particulary caught under the spell of warm and welcome nostalgia.

Certain songs can bring me right back, like audio time machines, I am instantly transported to a moment and place. I spent a semester in Ireland. Six months in a somewhat ancient world that was all new for me.

There was a weekend trip to the Aran Islands. A cold, January excursion to Inishmore with new friends. I felt like I was perched at the edge of the world. We took an evening walk onto the beach. The strand of sand was illuminated by a full moon that shone like a spotlight on the waves of the cold Irish Sea.

I can't remember how the idea first came to us or who thought of it, but something in the air and in the moonlight was spellbinding and convincing enough that running, naked, into the cold, wintry, Irish water was the most appropriate and necessary thing for a bunch of girls to do.

"Nightswimming" brings me right back in an split instant to that crystal-clear moment of youthful exuberance. Plunging, laughing, shrieking into the icy water, with no concern for modesty or practicality. Far from home, ripe with possibility and full of ambition.

Nightswimming deserves a quiet night.

With the opening notes, I can taste the salt water on my skin and get goosebumps from the frigid air. I smile thinking about the naked abandon, literally, that overtook us for just a few moments. Pure joy.

These things, they go away, replaced by everyday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx9br5ISRpo

Feeling Sassy!

This post from GoodFoodStories.com brought back some great vibes and memories about Sassy magazine. It feeds right into the current nostaglia trip I am on about the early '90s. Those were good times.

http://www.goodfoodstories.com/2012/01/16/eat-this-sassy-magazine/

Is this thing on?

So, that was a longer break than I anticipated. I think my brain, or at least the part that can write more than a pithy Facebook status, took an extended hibernation for the past year.

I must pause now and take a moment to mourn all the brilliant musings and random thoughts that popped up and that I failed to capture and write down.

Some of them were epic. It is amazing what brilliance I am capable of while washing the dishes or stumbling down the hall at 2:00 a.m. to respond to baby #3's cries. But, during the day, while trying to be a fully-formed adult? Well, 2011 was a bit of a wash-out.

Onward, now then, near voyager, to 2012. The New Year's resolution gauntlet has been thrown down. Let the blogging commence.

Hibernation

So, we are finally coming out of our end of the year hibernation. Nothing like 18 inches of snow to make you feel like burrowing into a hole and going to sleep until May.

Christmas was a wonder. The kids had a magical time. The trees and the decorations finally came down today. It was bittersweet to pack all the pretty things away, especially the personalized ornaments that the little ones made this year.

There is still the smell of Christmas in the air though. I expect to be sweeping up pine needles for weeks.

Random query I have after the classic Rankin/Bass animated Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was viewed in my house at least 20 to 30 times since October;  was everyone always so mean to Rudolph? How come I never picked up on just how brutal and cranky Santa is when I watched the show every year as a kid? After he tells Rudolph's Dad that he should be ashamed of himself because Rudolph's nose glows red?  Ack!

Santa should be on the naughty list just for being such a jerk.

Fortunately, the Rudolph dvd was slyly tucked away with the Christmas lights this week. I think we can all have a greater appreciation of it's classic nature if we only view it during the holidays. Not in February.

Now, if I could just make the dvd of Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel magically disappear the New Year will definitely be off to a good start.

More Christmas magic

For a great way to see Santa in a magical place and also support a good cause visit Santa's House at Burr Homestead this weekend in Fairfield. It is sponsored by the Junior Womens' Club of Fairfield.

Visit their site for all the info http://www.jwcfairfield.com/UpcomingEvents_SantasHouse2010.html

Yes, there is a Santa Claus.

 There is nothing quite like the complete and total faith of a seven-year old.

 Except maybe that of a four-year old.

 They truly believed that Santa was indeed climbing down face of the Landmark Building in Stamford tonight. They believed without question that Santa, Mrs. Claus, Rudolph and even the Grinch were all taking the night off from the North Pole and spending their Sunday evening rappeling down 21 floors to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. 

Because isn't that what Christmas is all about?

Jennifer 

'Tis the Season

The Season is upon us now, a time for gifts and giving. And as the year draws to a close, I think about my living. The Christmas time when I was young…….

Back in the good old, but somewhat hazily- recalled days of elementary school, I vaguely remember having a part in the school Christmas show.  I can’t recall what grade I was in, but I was old enough to recite some lines and introduce the Glee Club. I can clearly picture myself stage left, sitting in a chair and speaking lines I worked so hard to memorize, in a nervous voice.  Some of the lines stuck with me but I never could recall all of it or where it came from.   

As the season begins, I finally thought to look them up. Thanks to the wonderment that is Google and the internet, I discovered…

 John Denver.

 A Christmas song!

Not Robert Frost or Walt Whitman or some other New England scribe.

John – 1970s-earnest folk singing-Denver. And it’s about his son.

Who knew!

I never would have guessed the poet in my head all these years was John Denver.

What happened to John Denver’s music ? Especially his Christmas songs? Why don’t we hear this more during the 9,000 Days of Christmas that take over every radio station this time of year?

Listening to “A Baby Just Like You” strikes the same sappy-sentimental vein in me that gets goose bumps when I hear “Danny’s Song.”  The Kenny Loggins original version.  Not Anne Murray. I can't help it, the sweetness and earnest nature of the lyrics appeals to my Mom-vibe. Especially as  this is Doodle #3's First Christmas.

It is the first week of December. Enjoy the season and hope you find some time amidst all the holiday flurry to “set your soul to dreaming.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkEYyuvrIPE&feature=related

The Heights and Lights celebration in downtown Stamford is a great way to kick off Christmas on Sunday, December 5.

http://www.stamford-downtown.com/UserFiles/File/HeightsLights/2010HL/Web_Hts-Lts_2010.jpg

 Santa Claus, his elves and Rudolph rappel down the side of the Landmark Building, with fireworks and lots of caroling. A tree -lighting follows in nearby Latham Park. The kids love seeing Santa Claus scale down the tallest building in the city.

This year, Brian Cashman, the general manager of the Yankees is going to join Santa. Go figure. It is good thing, it is not Jeter. I know a few otherwise well-adjusted female fans who would find a way to climb up that building if it was.

 Jennifer