Productive Morning/ Busy Day

-Drop off Shelagh & Joe- check!
-Pick up then drop off bagels at Rorys preschool so I don't have to volunteer with the gardening Spring cleanup day- check!
-Drop off knives to be sharpened - check!
-Miscellaneous car cleaning- fill up tires, vacuum, car wash- check! How nice that one tire was at 15psi instead of 44- oops:)
-Permanently scar Kelly from driving through car wash- man, can she scream when she us freaked out- check!
-Watch Rory flop around the floor at sports class instead of running around. Oh wait - it's kickball - he's in! And he only got picked 2nd to last this week for teams...yeah. (he has no idea - of course - that is my hangup). Holy creepy Dad next to me...future anger management on the playground guy if I ever saw it.

Next, playground, then walk to art show with Shelaghs class. Let's hope Kelly naps on the way. Finally, swim and then I will collapse today!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Cologne Drives Me Crazy

A lady walked by me today and somehow the bottle of cologne she poured over her head jumped from her body to mine. I'm sick. Nauseated. I CANNOT get the smell off of me. Why the F$&@ do people use obscene amounts of scent??? I'm really sensitive to fragrance - I may have to go home and shower - this is making me insane.

Movie: The Blind Side

Okay, okay, I enjoyed this movie. But, I still hold that Sandra Bullock DID NOT deserve a best actress Oscar for this. She was good, but REALLY? Against Meryl Streep as Julia Child??? I didn't think Gabourey Sidibe should get it for Precious - that was an intense and well done movie, but not quite Best Acress material, in my opinion. I haven't seen An Education (it's on the list though) or The Last Station (Helen Mirren was nominated for this).

The movie was really inspirational, good sports story, a little hokey, but I liked Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw as the parents a lot. I didn't cry, miraculously. You have to love that it's a true story.

Kellys Yelling Game

So cute this morning...

Rory Guitarist

Rory plays a mean air guitar to the "Dan in Real Life" Soundtrack version of the Who song "Let My Love Open the Door". Enjoy.

Penne Alla Papalina

I got this recipe for Penne Alla Papalina from a parenting magazine sent home from the school. I've been wanting to try a Carbonara type of recipe (an egg based sauce), but I was concerned about "cooking" the egg or scrambling it accidentally or, on the flip side, having it be totally raw. I tried this Mario Batali recipe and it was pretty good. I did sort of curdle the egg and then I had a stomach ache, but I was fine and Joe liked it. I love prosciutto and I made this with Pappardelle instead of Penne. I would try again next time with a Penne or some other short noodle instead...the sauce stuck to the long noodles fine, but it was hard to get good bites of peas, prosciutto and pasta together with the longer noodle.

Movies: Fantastic Mr Fox & The Informant!

Last week I watched Fantastic Mr Fox while I was on my forced relaxation and Joe and I watched The Informant! together. He wasn't really into watching FMF since we just watched Where the Wild Things Are...bad Netflix timing on my part...2 "kid" movies at one time was not a good plan.

LOVED FMF - I have really enjoyed Wes Andersons other movies, for the most part, but this one might be my favorite. George Clooney as Mr Fox was, indeed, fantastic. I have to say I liked him more in this than in Up in the Air (sorry, Chris :) ). He was witty, charming, quick, and the writing, as expected, was perfect. It was not really a kids movie (although Shelagh and Rory did watch the end with me and Rory was laughing along). It was cartoon/claymation or something like that, but it was adult-themed. It didn't have any bad language or nudity or sexual themes at all. It did have a bit of violence - gun shots, shot off tail, a little blood, but nothing my kids can't handle now that they are knee-deep in the Clone Wars (more on that later). This was great - add it to your list!

The Informant! was okay. I fell asleep, but it was late and I was tired and on sleep medication. Matt Damon was a pretty good compulsive liar. The chick who played his wife was WAY annoying...maybe it was her dumb haircut and lame clothes. Who knows. The dude from Quantum Leap played his FBI counterpart and was decent (Scott Bakula?) - also a dumb haircut that was distracting. Good plot, but overall slow.

Next up, The Blind Side. I have zero interest in this movie other than the fact that SB won the Oscar for what looks like a mediocre role. Joe likes sports movies and wants to see it. I have to see how far off her winning was so that I'm annoyed based on fact and not on presumption (I'm thinking this is akin to Julia Roberts winning for Erin Brockovich which still annoys me x years later). I'm legit like that. Plus, I have a ridiculous curiosity about her b/c of what is going on in her personal life (like we know the truth anyway). I, unlike other people who said "this was going to happen", liked the idea that she found love with someone totally unexpected and that she turned his world around. I'm bummed for her and the kids. I wanted to think he was way cool and grown up after having met her. Oh well. Maybe Bombshell McGee is lying about the whole thing. Crazy bitch.

Could This Day Please End?????

8pm cannot come soon enough. Make that 730 tonight. OMG, my kids are being total pains today. Tantrums, teasing, fighting, ANNOYING...I've now taken away the Light Saber, Family Movie Night (we were watching the Clone Wars movie), Cookies from the Cookie basket that our friends sent us today....I have nothing left to take away!

Calgon, take me away...Thank God I bought new ice cream today.

Spring TV: Justified, Parenthood, the Pacific, Treme

With all the home time we've been logging due to our current circumstances, Joe and I are totally caught up with our TV schedule and have started a few new shows.

Justified: I'm 50/50 on Justified right now. This is on FX and is about 3-4 episodes in. It stars Tim Olyphant (Deadwood, a few films I can't think of right now and I'm too lazy to IMDB him - my work PC is slow today) and the creepy dude who played Shane on The Shield (another awesome FX show). Tim O plays a Federal Marshall working in his small W Va hometown tracking down White Power a-holes and other criminals. He is a bit too suave/too-cool-for-school for me so far, but Joe likes it. Plus, it's FX so it's already better than most network stuff. I'll wait it out and see how the season progresses before making a final judgement.

Parenthood: We watched 2 episodes so far and I like this. However, it has sad moments and I've bypassed it over the last few weeks since we have enough sad in our house right now. I'll go back to it though. I will say that I keep thinking of Maura Tierney in the role played now by Lauren Graham and while I like LG, I think MT would have been great. I LOVE Peter Krause although he is a hair whiney in this so far.

The Pacific: This is the miniseries based on the story of WW2 on the Pacific side of things. It was made by Stephen Spielberg and Tom Hanks, who did the same thing with the European side in Band of Brothers, which is perhaps one of the best miniseries of all time (other than The Thornbirds in my humble opinion. I'm sure Joe would vehemently disagree). We've seen BoB multiple times and get sucked in every time it's on regardless of which of the 10 episodes is playing. The Pacific is well done, but I have to say it's not grabbing us into the characters as much as BoB did. Still great though.

Treme: There have been 2 episodes of this New Orleans music/recovery/community show made by the guys who did the Wire. The Wire was so fabulous that despite me having little interest in this show I tuned in anyway and it doesn't disappoint. I'm totally in - it's nice to see Steve Zahn, Melissa Leo from that drug smuggling movie she was nominated for, and the chick from Deadwood who played the hooker/good business woman in that show get some juicy, cool roles. As with the Wire, it's hard sometimes to "translate" some language, inside info, and intricate politics. A friend told me about a blog run by one of the New Orleans web sites that elaborates on these things. I haven't checked it out yet, but I will. Maybe I'm falling for a one-sided view of what is going on in New Orleans; but, based on what I know about the people who put together the Wire from all points of view and with a lot of history and experience in Baltimore, I feel like they are exposing a lot of the day to day problems that N.O. has and continues to face after Katrina.

Also, Party Down Season 2 is starting this weekend. Hurray! Sad to see Jane Lynch and Jennifer Coolidge departing, but Megan Mullaley has signed on and Kristen Bell will be guest starring again which are all good signs. I did hear that the scruffy surfer guy might be leaving for another pilot, which would be a bummer, but I'm still in. It's a great show on Starz that you should tune in for if you have that channel. If not, I think they stream them online and some new episodes are already up according to Pop Candy.

Joe is officially out of Glee - it's too musical soap opera for him. I agree, but I like the unique renditions of songs that they pull out so I'm still watching. I could drop 1/2 the story lines at this point, but Ryan Murphy also did Nip/Tuck so I expected some ridiculousness in the plot.

I also started the last season of the Tudors, which is also complete soap opera. I love it though and Joely Richardson, from Nip/Tuck, is starring this season as King Henry's last wife.

That's it for now. Yes, I do other things in my life. TiVO helps me skip commercials and we really only watch 1 show or maybe an hour and a half-hour show per night. I keep meaning to have a "no TV" night, but whatever. I'm not a total vegetable...I read too.

Poor Rory

We've been seriously housebound for the last week or so and it's school vacation week so I decided to take the kids to one of those bouncy house places this morning. All fun and games until someone decides to flip over the end of a bouncy slide and flop his body all psycho onto the hard mat on the floor awkwardly. Ironically, the almost vertical slide was not the part that got him hurt; but rather it was his flinging himself over the edge when he was done that did it. He cried for a long time, was all sweaty and could not articulate anything to me. I tried to get him to walk, sit, bend over, lift his arms, turn side to side...he was just a mess. Fruit snacks seemed to calm him down enough for us to get out to the car calmly.

I really didn't know what to do - bring him to the dr? bring him to the ER? bring him home to rest? After talking to the Dr's office and Joe we decided to lay him down at home with some ice, ibuprofen, and lunch and see how he's faring this afternoon. Joe's Dad is a chiropractor so we could always head up there for a quick x-ray and back check, I guess. Totally weird injury for a 4 year old. He fell asleep in the car on the way home almost immediately - I kind of wigged out about that and pulled over to make sure he was breathing. He was, of course. I had this quick flash that maybe he had a massive internal injury and was bleeding to death quietly. I guess that was a bit of an overreaction...no harm in checking :)

Here's Rory under a blanket on the couch recuperating.

Here are the kids at the bouncy house place before "the incident".

Me & the Kids Today

I haven't cried in 2 days until last night and this morning. I kind of thought "Ok, I'm moving on a bit and maybe the hormones are washing out of me". Not quite. I had a moment last night after the kids went to bed, but was determined to just get up and go to work today. It's school vacation week in MA this week and I figured people would be out at work and it would be a light week. I just want to get that "first day back" over with, ya know?

This morning, I was filling up my pocketbook, which I haven't used since before our loss, and stumbled on the last Ultrasound pics of the baby and just cried. Of course Shelagh walked in and I had to explain to her why I was crying. She is being so stoic and so I tried to let her know it was okay to be sad. This seems to make her mad b/c she does not want to cry for some reason. I told her it was okay NOT to be sad also. She wasn't so mad with that comment and just started hugging and playing with Kelly. I think she is coping through Kelly. Who knows...she's just shy of 6 so it's hard to tell and she's not so forthcoming about it. I continue to try though and Kelly is loving it so no harm I guess.

Joe took these pics this morning after that encounter before I left. I love both pics and they are cheering me up at work today. Don't you just want to eat them up?

My Girls

Adore each other...

Here they are playing this morning...it was hard to leave for my first day back to work, but this helped :)

Kelly's cheese is a little more difficult these days but equally as hilarious as before.

Shelagh went from being kind of indifferent and here and there towards Kelly to just all over her lately. We've been homebound for the last few days and Shelagh has taken over Kelly - playing with her, carrying her around, showing her things...for long periods of time. It's been amazing to watch. I kind of wonder if the loss of the expected baby has made her more sensitive and appreciative of Kelly. I know it has for me.

There is no Easy Way

to say this, so I guess I just will to get it out of the way and move on. Normally, I wouldn't post something as personal as this but since I already announced it, I kind of need to at least acknowledge what has happened. I've been avoiding it but really I've had lots to write about over the last few days and I should just spit it out already.

We are so sad to report that we've lost the baby we were expecting due to a rare genetic disorder called Trisomy 13. It is a chromosome abnormality that is not compatible with life and has very low survival rates both during pregnancy and after delivery. It has been a really shitty week but we're doing better and trying to focus on our 3 beautiful, healthy, and happy children. Here they are...I just can't get enough love and hugs from them right now.

This is a terrible loss for us, but we are so blessed and appreciative for what we have. Never moreso than now. The kids have taken this in stride and seem to feel okay asking questions and talking about it a bit over the last days.

I'm feeling better physically than I did and finally got a non-drug induced sleep last night which I'm so relieved about. My heart has been racing for days, despite almost no caffeine, and I had one night of zero sleep that was just the worst. It seems to have calmed...I guess it's hormones working their way out. Damn hormones.

So, I'm going back to work tomorrow since I'm getting stir crazy from being home and I need something else to focus my thoughts on. Plus I just want to get that first day back over with. People have been really supportive and thoughtful and having such caring family and friends has helped tremendously.

Anyway, that's that.

Movies: Where the Wild Things Are & W

Where the Wild Things Are: I thoroughly enjoyed this movie despite falling asleep a few times. That doesn't mean anything bad these days, it's pure tiredness not boredom. The little actor that played Max was wonderful. The music contributed perfectly to the sort of melancholy mood of the movie. I really didn't get how they would mix the fantasy and reality of the book let alone make a whole movie out of a book with few pages and words. But Spike Jonze did a great job...it blended so well and was very touching. Really liked it.

W: I like most Oliver Stone movies...certainly Platoon and Natural Born Killers is one of my favorites ever. I thought this movie was interesting. It was obviously not an impartial accounting of George Bush and his life before and during his presidency, but who expected that? I didn't love Elizabeth Banks as Laura (although I really like her). I thought Josh Brolin captured Bushes mannerisms and general appearance pretty well. The movie was too long. I didn't love who they cast for Colin Powell, but Richard Dreyfus as Cheney, the guy they picked for Karl Rove, and the woman playing Condaleeza Rice were all pretty good. The movie didn't quite do it for me, but it wasn't terrible either.

Kelly Loves the Swing

So happy we're in playground weather... so is Kelly!

Maple Syrup Cheesecake

I made this Maple Cheesecake from Dec 09 Bon Appetit for Easter at my sister-in-laws. I didn't start it until 830 Saturday night, which was a BIG mistake. I forgot that cheesecake takes an hour and a half to cook, plus sitting in the off oven time, plus full cooling time. I was out cold on the couch at 10 when the cooking part ended. I took it out and give it another 1/2 hour...it was liquidy and hot still when I just said F-it and threw it in the frig and went to bed. I had full intentions of stopping at the market and grabbing a cake to swap out. In the AM, however, it felt like it had set so I went with it. Notice the whipped cream bunny in the middle...I know you are thinking how cute that is and all, but really it was to cover the crater that was the sunken middle of my shit-cake.

Actually, it was very good; albeit a little soft in the middle. Next time I will let it cook for 1 3/4 to 2 hours and then give it another hour in the oven turned off and then plan for another hour or so out to cool completely. Also, I was too lazy to make the syrup-cranberry compote which in retrospect looked like it would have added nicely to the cake.

Beaded Jewelry Making Class

On Saturday I took an all-day beaded jewelry making class in Cambridge. It was something I had been meaning to do for awhile and I finally just did it. There were some freaky individuals in there and it was in a basement on a 70+ degree sunny day, but I enjoyed it and here's what I made!

First we learned earrings. Not too difficult. We did the drops first and then I asked to make hoops just for some variety. The beads we had to choose from were not what I would have picked so I had a hard time coming up with designs. I'm really not that creative...I'm more of a math person.

Then we learned necklace and bracelet stringing and I made a couple of things for Shelagh. She requested something with pink, blue, and purple and then I made the bracelet on a whim.

The necklace and earring set were my attempt at being really crafty. I like them! Now I need some green clothes or something to wear to complement the jewelry.

I definitely think I can do this on my own now...I just need a few hours in the bead store the first time b/c you know it will take me that long to figure things out.

Happy Easter

Kelly posing at Jeans (her caregiver)

Easter pancakes

The Easter Bunny brought the kids Queen Amidala and Darth Maul and customized superhero capes - Shelaghs is pink with a big purple S on the back and Rory's is yellow (of course) with a big Red R.

My little Easter egg riding on her fairy vehicle.

Fish Soup

What a boring name, but it came out really good. Basically, I was buying fish and since the kids all like Haddock, I got that for the dinner meal. BUT, the cod looked so good that I wanted to get some for who-knows-what-purpose. Soup is always a good call.


I didn't want to make chowder since I've been eating like a complete pig lately including lots of creamed soups and butter and serious amounts of chocolate. I've packed on a few extra LBs this month unfortunately. So, I just did the following...

1) Sauted 3 chopped carrots, 1 chopped celery stack, and 1 small chopped onion in a bit of oil.
2) Added 48oz of chicken broth and brought to a boil. Lowered to medium heat and let it cook awhile.
3) Added 1 cubed, peeled baking potato and let it cook for awhile.
4) I then used the hand-held smoothie blender to thicken up the soup by pureeing most of the potato.
5) Added a little over 1/2 lb cod cubed along with a handful of chopped fennel fronds with some salt and let it cook a few more minutes.

It came out really yummy! Everywhere you see "let it cook awhile" means something was going on with the kids and I got pulled away. I guess you can't really screw up soup too much!