It's just day after day after day after day around here. But right now we're on school vacation so at least that shakes things up a little bit, which is nice. The weather has been perfectly gorgeous which makes for an excellent April vacation. We spent the entire afternoon in the back yard. It was lovely.

I joined the local Y and have been partaking of the exercise while the kids enjoy the child care. Aaaah, a gym with child care. Most excellent. I've tried out a number of classes and they have all been good although the first one I did totally kicked my arse and I was kind of worried that maybe I'd gotten so ridiculously out of shape and feeble. And then I took the others and realized that the first one was just really, really intense. Whew. I am not as feeble as I thought.

I'm leaving on Thursday to spend three days in Seattle visiting my cousin and her girlfriend. I haven't seen my cousin since we were 17 years old. 19 years ago. Hot damn. I am excited. (Also, it is kid- and wife-free.) I am beyond excited.

Random post is random. Hi.

So if you somehow missed the news of the world, there was a big early snow storm in the Northeast. The snow was very wet, and very heavy, and we got nearly a foot of it. It fell onto trees that still had their leaves, weighing everything down further. Every tree in our yard broke. We have six. Two maples, four oaks. The maples are in the back yard and now our back yard is full of limbs. Less of a big deal than our front yard, which has huge limbs blocking the driveway and the front door. Some fell on our new car and it has some dents on the roof but thankfully nothing worse than that.

We lost power on Saturday night and actually our entire town and the town beside us have no power. 100% of customers. The town north of us has partial power, but really, there are power outages halfway across the state. On Sunday we left our cold house (it was 59 when we left) and went to stay with a friend in Boston through to tomorrow morning. We wanted to trick or treat here because all of the ToT in our area has been cancelled or postponed. Normally I would suck up the cold but it's near impossible with a baby because you can only bundle him up so much and you can't really stick him under a bunch of down blankets.

Now that some local folks have power, Tuke and I will likely sleep with a local heat-having friend and Punk and Jen will hang out in the cold house. We will be in the cold house during the day though. That should be interesting.

They are expecting we will be out of power for at least a week. Since our power lines got ripped both out from the main wire AND out of our house, we could be longer. It's bad news.

Sucks.

Punk and I are in South Carolina and have been since last Thursday. We are visiting my brother and SIL, and my mother and her husband are close by as well. Days and evenings have been packed with exciting preschool-friendly activities such as miniature golf, indoor bounce house place, Chuck E Cheese, the beach, the library, etc. It is very fun and very, very tiring. We are eating out a lot and I haven't been making the healthiest choices and I wouldn't be surprised if I gained 10 lbs here. We head home tomorrow.

Jen joined us for the first three days of our trip but returned to work so as not to use up vacation time. It is apparently still very hot in our house and I'm not looking forward to that after 10 days in central air. :)

Senor Cupcakey seems to be chugging along and we are 23 weeks pregnant at this point, very visible. Haven't taken a single belly picture which I'm sure is setting him up for lots of therapy when he gets older. That, and being called Cupcakey. But aside from some pelvic grouchiness all seems to be well on that front. I have another midwife appointment on Monday.

Punk had a rash last week and the pediatrician thought it was folliculitis and gave us an antibiotic ointment before we left on vacation. It has continued to get worse and worse, and my fear is that it is molloscum contagiosum, which - as its name suggests - is super contagious and takes a long time to go away. Sigh.

We have a busy week coming up. Jen's parents are coming to our house today (I'm sure they'll love the heat and humidity in the house) and staying until Tuesday morning. Punk has an appointment at 9am on Monday for the rash and I see the midwife later that afternoon. Punk has an appointment with an allergist later in the week, and also 3 year old portraits. We arrive after Punk's bedtime Sunday night so I'm sure Monday will be full of tired crankiness.

I am not in a great headspace which is not really a good place to be when a full-time mama on vacation and looking down the barrel of expecting #2. But I guess that's just sort of how it goes.

I'm sure you know by now that it is hot outside. Quite hot indeed. When I'm not complaining about the hotness of my house, I love the heat and would take it over cold any day.

It has been a very busy time around here. Punk turned three (how is that possible?) on the 1st and we celebrated a little bit with the little family (just dinner and a princess cupcake). My brother and SIL arrived late Thursday night and stayed through Sunday. Friday we all (minus Jen, who had to work) took Punk to the zoo and to lunch and just had lots of fun in general. Saturday morning was Punk's huge birthday party at the children's museum, which was a smashing success. Then lunch out. Then crash and burn. Sunday we went to my grandmother's house for a cookout to celebrate Punk's birthday. Then Ralph and Lori came to spend the night and see some fireworks for the 4th. It was like Birthday-O-Rama around here. I am TIRED.

I wasn't thinking and got Punk's varicella vaccine last week so she would be set for preschool in the fall. It's at a real school (a Montessori school) and goes up to 6th grade and they are much more stickler-y about vaccines than the home day cares, so I needed to get it done. I neglected to think about the fact that a lot of kids end up with a mild chicken pox rash around the injection site and can theoretically be contagious and pass around pox. Awesome timing with a pregnant lady and a non-chicken-pox having person in the house, and a birthday party scheduled. She did get this ambiguous and mysterious welt that did not look like chicken pox but was close enough to the injection site that we covered it with a band-aid and have been praying for the best. Whoops.

We are heading to South Carolina soon to visit with my brother, SIL, mom, and her husband. Good times. Part of the vacation will be just Punker and me. I have never had to take her on a plane by myself before. Thank goodness she is old and self-sufficient. Pretty soon I will be putting her to work.

She is so big and grown up and amazing and I adore her. She is pretty much the best child ever, even when she is testing my patience. She is so bright and creative and hysterical. She tells me I'm cute or beautiful pretty much every day. ("Oh Mama, you're so beautiful!") See, I told you she was SMART. :)

BOGO baby is nearly 22 weeks cooked and is growing accordingly. Punk has named him Cupcakey, which is fine because we haven't named him anything. My grandmother recently presented me a list of about 30 names, including ALFRED and CODY. Where is she getting these names? Still, it's cute that she is so involved. So far, everyone is happy and healthy and that is what is important to me. We will see the midwife again after Punk and I return from SC. Then Jen's parents will be visiting. This is a busy summer. I've forgotten what it's like to work, like that part of my brain is off and disengaged. I can't believe I ever had a job.

I have started babysitting my friend's baby on Thursdays. He is 8 months old and umm, hanging out with two kids all day is HARD. Especially when one doesn't want to share any of the baby toys. (Hint, it's not the baby.) Punk is adorable with Braedan, though, which warms my heart and makes me think it will all be worth it in the end.

I have no idea how I can conceivably plan and prepare dinner in a kitchen that is currently (3 hours before dinner prep at the hottest time of day) 85 degrees.

I effing LOVE hot summer weather. OMG, I am going to weathergasm.

We have had some amazing weather lately. Really amazing. Yesterday it was 90°! Oh my goodness, it was glorious. Tomorrow is supposed to be cooler and rainy, of course, because I am not working.

On the plus side, I'm not working next Tuesday either because day care is closed. And then I'm off the following week for April Vacation. Woot woot!

I made some complaints about our Merry Maids cleaning the other weekend. Basically, they rushed like woah and because they left in 2 hours instead of the 4 I was told, that really raised the per-hour rate to an obscene amount... and they skipped a bunch of stuff. I wasn't going to complain, really, but I filled out their online survey to say I would not recommend to others, and of course they followed up. I don't know if it was the part where they didn't clean my tub, or nearly lost my wedding ring because she "flicked it away and was so busy I didn't really care where I flicked it," or perhaps the part where one of them in my kitchen kept saying it was filthy (which umm, if you know me you know it is not), probably because of the cat fur. I felt super awkward making the complaints but now the branch manager is giving me a replacement cleaning. On Tuesday, actually - so right in time for my mother and her husband to visit. SCORE.

Hopefully the weather is bad because I don't want to be trapped in the house all day Tuesday. Although I guess we can play in the yard while they are in the house. And the gas company is already coming on Tuesday to replace the gas meter.

Boy, that last paragraph makes my life look REALLY exciting, doesn't it?

Also, first prenatal appointment is on the 21st and my first trimester screening (which I didn't do with Punk) is on the 22nd. Fingers crossed. I always get so nervous.

1. Child slept until 7:30am.
2. Child woke up in good mood.
3. Child peacefully watched Super Why so I could take a shower.
4. Child agreed to take a bath.
5. Child sat still through making of adorable pigtails.
6. Child eagerly went to church.
7. Child participated in preschool Sunday School, and showed me her coloring picture of Jesus.
8. Child, after initial fight, ate good lunch.
9. Child IS TAKING A NAP. In her bed. Without me being there.
10. (And I only had to say, "Go to sleep!" once.)
11. Laundry is started.
12. Girl Scout Cookies have been eaten.
13. The sun is shining.

I just made a meatloaf. Me! A meatloaf. My girls are at the store fetching cat litter and god knows what else (they have been gone a while) which has given me enough time to craft a meatloaf. Not sure if it will be done in time for Punk to eat dinner but I gave it the old college try.

This weekend has been positively gorgeous and I hope the beautiful weather continues. It is a true taste of spring and I know that in typical New England fashion, winter will return with a vengeance before we are done with it, but for now I will enjoy it. This morning we didn't go to church since Jen was sick in bed, so Punk and I went to an elementary school that has a really nice playground and we had a great time for about an hour. That playground gets a lot of sun so it was snow-free (unlike my backyard) and since it is covered in wood chips, it was pretty dry. Ideal conditions, really. Towards the end, Punk befriended a 3.5 year old named Zoe and the two happily made "cakes" together out of mulch and sand. I really really love watching Punk play with other kids. It was adorable when I told her to go ask the girl if she could play with her and she said, "Can I come and make some cakes with you?" I almost died.

I need to do about 347984379843 loads of laundry tonight and at some point I really need to get off my arse and do the taxes so we can get some money back. At least I got some time to pay the bills online this afternoon because Punk actually took an hour nap. I had to practically hold her down while she screamed at me, but by golly, the kid napped!

(I should have napped, too.)

I ate so many deep fried pickle slices this afternoon that I think I might seriously puke. But even if I did, it would be so worth it. Yummmmmm.

I have a two-and-a-half year old now and woah, it can be a challenge. She has discovered hitting. Or, well, slapping. In the face. GOOD TIMES, I tell you. I think she is still reacting to me being back at work full time (and thus getting home at or after bed time) after being off on vacation for 12 days.

Also, it is cold. Very very very cold. Brr.

I have been reluctant to post because I liked keeping the Iran post on top. But I suppose it's time for a little update since Punk /finally/ went down for a nap. Mad nap-fighting day today, yo!

We have had a full house this weekend! carina_s and the girls arrived on Thursday evening and are leaving tomorrow. Today they are out east visiting relatives and I am trying to catch up on tidying and assorted things. I am enjoying the calm quiet of nap time.

I think we are probably boring the twins to death with our lame boringness. It's kind of hard with a toddler because the day tends to get broken down into chunks (pre-nap, nap, post-nap, bedtime) so it's hard to make big plans. And, umm, if you live anywhere near New England right now, you know that our weather has pretty much sucked the entire month of June. It has rained pretty much every day. Bleh. So the girls are always asking what we're going to do at any given time, or what we would be doing if they weren't visiting, and I don't think our answers of "chores" or "errands" or "you're looking at it" are quite what they had in mind. ;)

We have done a lot of eating out and a lot of hanging out. The girls enjoyed learning to play Bohnanza, and I took them all to eat wings and play trivia last night which was a good time. We went up to the Book Mill in Montague on Saturday for a little while, too.

It's times like this, with a house full of guests, that I really take notice of and appreciate the little family life I have with My Jennifer. (Even though it is boring to tweens!!) I suppose I don't take notice of it, and take it for granted a bit, until something shakes it up. Things are mostly seamless in our house and that sense of stability feels very nice.

It has been really good to see Carina and the girls. I've really missed them. The kids have grown up so freaking much.