My Big Apple dreams are crushed, broken, and ended by my children. Though the births of these sweet boys have kept me from yearly and extended trips to my favorite city, I have little mementos here and there to remind me of my time there. That is until now. Exhibit A:

Picked up off a very high, or what I thought was very high, table my the baby of the family effortlessly slipping from the clutches of those chubby fingers to a cracking sound on the floor. The added bonus was the coffee inside which also let to the demise of a footed sleeper taken out forever by New York coffee stains. And then, Exhibit B:
The Statue of Liberty was part of a NYC coaster duo with her friend the Empire State Building. It was the victim of a slightly larger set of hands capable of more force as it was thrown to the ground. Good-bye New York souvenirs. It is the end of an era. Trips to this fair city are replaced by trips to Target and the zoo, and all memorabilia cracked and taken over with dinosaurs and Disney characters.

Mess is not just saved for Mommy's prized possessions. I have found that if I need to clean up one area, I must resign myself to the simultaneous destruction of another. Cooking dinner often means every single drawer in the kitchen emptied, folding laundry means my closet being torn apart, and just to clean up the power cords in the drawer for a mere moment results in this subsequent mess.

Sometimes the mess is just in our hair. I sent this picture to his father who emailed back, "Is it paint or blunt head trauma?" With Alden, he would still be playing if he had head trauma. Nothing every phases him and everything can be fixed with a band-aid. Although, I assure you that I would not have been emailing photos if there was this much blood on my child's head.

Since I can no longer share wonderful stories of meeting celebrities in Central Park, I shall share the activities that currently occupy my days. Diapers. Specifically, my new obsession with the gDiaper system. I love these! They are precious for one on that little bum, but the easiest cloth diaper ever created. Previously, Spencer would basically have to wear spanks over his cloth diapers in order to wear a onesie. Since clearly, spanks are not an option, this diaper is bulk free and environmentally sound. Makes me feel better about our carbon footprint on the earth and is fashion friendly. Who can ask for anything more? gDiaper can thank me for that free marketing.

Who needs the Mets? I mean, my own David Wright is in my backyard. Alden is starting T-Ball next week. I am taking bets on how long he will actually stay put where his coach attempts to place him. This should be interesting. At least we can hit the ball. That at least one obstacle we can say we can face head on.

Spencer would like to be the bat boy. Sadly, I have a feeling that he would be more cooperative in his job than his seemingly more capable big brother. Every time the ball falls, he runs, well toddles, to replace it for the next bat.

Ready with the bat. He removed his suspenders from around his shoulders to allow him more movement for his job. He looked like a little old man in his undershirt with his suspenders dangling around his sides. If the paci was a cigar he would have the look down.

I look across the room. I think, something is on my son's face. I ask son, what is on your face? Son looks blank and guilty. Then I wonder how I missed him finding and unloading my purse. Finally, I discover the fact that I no longer have lipstick. Clean up son. Go buy make-up. Move purse to safer location. Realize there is no safe location in my house. (See aforementioned destruction of cups and coasters)

Pay close attention to the Lego tower in the background. One day, I get a call from Alden's Mother's Day Out. They want me to come and get him because he was not following directions that day. I show up the director tells me he crushed nuts with his cup, ate someone else's snack, and poked someone at the table. While I am trying to figure out what part of two year old this doesn't describe, she really drops the bomb on me. "And," she says, "he made a tower in my office. Do you have any idea what color was on the bottom row?" Umm...I sit and contemplate what answer I was supposed to give. "Pink?" I say, thinking possibly she was thinking in gender terms. "Yellow. All yellow." I stare blankly. "I am just saying," she says as she shakes her head with a added eye roll. "I, mean, I don't know what that means exactly. But I am just saying." Beware parents of the yellow block tower syndrome going around. Then I say,"Well, when I help him build houses, we usually make the house one color." She stops, as it seems to all come together for her now, "Humph. I guess he gets things from you then." Thank you school director. Not only is my son looney for building with yellow blocks but he is gets it from his mother! I also crush nuts with my cup, eat other people's food, and poke people at the dinner table I suppose. However as you can see, the tower in the background of this recent photo shows multi-colored blocks being used. Whew! Dodged that bullet.

I cannot deny, however, that we spend a lot of time here. The time-out chair. It is pretty bad when all I have to say now is, "Where do you have to go?" To which he screams a violent fake cry and says, "I don't want to go to time out!" This precedes one of those famous Mom statements I am shocked come out of my mouth. "Well, you should have thought of that before!" Really?

There are fun times.

There are sweet times.

There are special times.

There are these moments. More often than not. What says more? The hair or the face?

When we get really out of control, we have yoga time. It works. Breathe. Just Breathe.

This is Spencer. See Spencer climbing on his chair.

See Spencer playing Legos.

See Spencer playing with friends.

See Spencer in the ER with an unrelenting 105 fever. The same night. Spencer climbs the stairs all day and all night making me run to to fetch him. During our little party, I go to fetch him off the stairs and he is making happy sounds and playing while shaking with his lips turning blue. The on-call nurse says to take him to the ER at Children's. When we left the house, he had 102 fever (he already had an ear infection) and by the time we make the four mile trip it was 104.7. The ER doctor spent an unbelievable amount of time with him checking him neurologically and watching his every move. When we put him down to walk, he couldn't. No matter what medicine they gave him, his fever didn't move. We had him wrapped in cold, wet washcloths and watched his heart rate go up and down. Four hours later, we left with 104.5 fever and diagnosis of virus. Sure enough, in a couple of days his walking had returned to normal and fever was gone. And then the rash came. Yep, he was right, Roseola. Learned something new: When a fever is spiking, you can shake almost like a seizure, loose your muscle control, and yes, your lips can turn blue.

All better!

For a much better Spencer story, Spencer loves bananas. We went to a store last week that had a banana display at the check-out. I didn't even notice. All of a sudden, Spencer starts screaming. He is normally a very calm and go-with-the flow guy and this shocked me. My first question was, "Alden, what did you do!" Then the little finger starts pointing. I got some and put them in the cart but he did not understand why he could not have one. Tears are streaming and finally he just lays his head and watery eyes on the side of the cart (covered with cart cover) looking around me staring longingly at this banana display. All of a sudden again, he perks up and screams. Not cries. Screams violently! I realized that it was because I had put our bananas on the counter to check out. The lady is going as fast as possible to get us out of the store. Then he got home and was in heaven eating a whole banana all by himself. No time to cut it up! He just paraded around the house making happy sounds and holding his banana.

A summer picnic with friends. Pretty funny stuff.

Until next time, Namaste.