I’m just going to say it – I’m not an overly emotional person. I mean, I’m not a robot or anything but i’m definitely not a crier. If you’ve seen me cry then it must have been over something MAJOR. So to answer everyone’s question, (and I mean everyone! i’m looking at you, Trader Joes checkout guy.) “No. I am not sad about my daughters first day of kindergarten.”

It helps that I have a one and a half year old monster dude at home. But its mostly because Mckenna and I are so ready for this school business. Preschool was cool and all but kindergarten is full day which means serious big kid stuff. All Mckenna has talked about this summer is school and her excitement has been evident by various countdowns until the “first day” that we’ve had on our chalkboard wall for the past month. And it helps that I’ve been excited as well. You won’t find me weeping over the sight of a back pack or sobbing over her baby pictures. Am I a bad mom? Emotionless asshole? Nope.  I just know this is the next step in our journey together. And we both know that its time to move forward.

Its no secret that I had Mckenna when I was 21 years old. I literally knew nothing about having a baby. While everyone else I knew was in college or bands or working bullshit jobs, I was changing diapers and comforting a teething, fevery baby. But don’t get me wrong, I loved every second of it. I was, and still am, very lucky to be able to stay home and spend every day with Mckenna (and now her brother). Proof:

But now our days together are done. Now there will be teachers and classmates guiding her through her days, shaping her views, teaching her new skills. I want to say that I raised Mckenna for the past five and a half years but that’s not true. Mckenna raised me. She watched me learn and grow and now its my turn to watch her test out the world…

… to learn, to grow. (good luck out there, little one)

“Are you sad?”

“No, I’m happy.” I reply.

And it’s true, I haven’t been sad for even a single second that Jackson is one year old today. Although I am pretty certain that everyone on earth wants me to feel otherwise. I can’t even count how many people have gotten super sentimental on me lately, pushing their personal perspective in to my brain, trying to reshape my view on a “baby’s” first birthday.

Lets get one thing straight – I love babies. I go crazy for teeny, tiny, helpless newborns. I want to hold them and talk like an idiot to them. I want to dance around in circles and bark like a puppy in their face, all to get a cheap laugh or at the very least, a half smile. But to be honest, the work put in to maintaining a new baby reaps very, very little rewards. I have logged hundreds upon thousands of hours taking care of infants and for what? Nothing! Newborns don’t do anything! I mean, sure, there are some cute moments. Milestones will start happening that can never be replaced. But it’s mostly months and months and months of work.

But then one day the stars align and all that work pays off because you suddenly have a real live person in front of you! Around a month or so ago, I went to get Jack up from a nap, and there he was. Standing up in his crib, staring back at me, cracking up hysterically. I’m talking full-belly-baby-laugh, head back, teeth exposed, tears almost rolling down his cheeks, hysterics. All because he was standing up! And he knew that I was totally shocked over it and that just sent him over the edge! And so began our journey in to the “real person” stage.

I now spend my days with the craziest, funniest, happiest dude that I know. I literally get to see the wheels in his head turning as he figures out how things work and how to communicate with other human beings. And it rules! Because, hey, I totally had a hand in developing this cute creature! (Therefore, I rule?)

When Jackson was born, I was convinced I would never love him more than I did in that very moment. He was so new and quiet – I honestly thought that there wouldn’t be another moment that would be as profound as the first time I held him, snuggled in a hat and blanket, sleeping his first day on earth away. But I was wrong, because last night he started fussing in his sleep, and when I went in his bedroom to calm him down I realized that I loved him one million (maybe even one billion) times more on day 364 than I did on day 1.

And now here we are, day 365.

happy first birthday to you, my love.

What I am trying to say is, this rules.

Crispy Black Bean Tacos with Feta and Cabbage Slaw

I promise to get back to regular scheduled programming soon. I have lots of things in my brain these days, including Jacks first birthday party (yikes!). Until next time…

However, I decided to pop in one last time before 2011 hits and do a year in photos. I have to say, 2010 was a pretty solid year. Although, to be fair, I have never really had one of those, “OMG (insert year here) WAS THE WORST!” moments.

At any rate, onward!

see you in 2011.

I’m about to get real serious on you here, blog. You see, I’ve been having a couple panicky moments lately. I chalk it up to the fact that Jackson has started crawling, er, scooting as fast as he can push his body forward (which is pretty freaking fast). And I suddenly have that dreaded thought of a full blown toddler on my hands and my head starts thinking, “Am I really doing this again?”

When you are pregnant all you can think about is the baby arriving. Names, baby gear, nursery themes. You think about going through labor. You think about the first few weeks and doing the newborn routine. You certainly don’t think about, well, when that baby grows up. Especially when you are a new parent because everyday is filled with some “holy shit” moment because your kid picked up a cheerio by using his pincers. But all bets are off when the second baby comes around. Because you know that after the pincer grasp comes the finger foods and after the finger foods comes a grocery bill that is sky high because your toddler/preschooler/kindergartener doesn’t want anything else besides chicken nuggets and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so you are stuck making two different breakfasts, lunches and dinners for the rest of your life for the week.

And you know, crawling is exciting when you’ve never had a baby do it before. I mean, sure, it’s exciting the second time around too. But now I know what happens after crawling. Now I have to really cover my bases (and my electrical outlets). It won’t be long before Jack starts pulling up on the coffee table and I spend my days gasping out loud for hours on end because he somehow always manages to be within one inch of knocking his block off on every piece of furniture in this place.

But I also know that this feeling of dread will pass. Because it’s a lot of fun to watch Jack push up on all fours and rock back and forth while he is grinning from ear to ear. And I remember really loving when Mckenna could run around outside with us. And it really ruled when she started talking and could actually tell us what she needed instead of a constant guessing game. And when she could feed herself and use the bathroom on her own and even get herself dressed, ding dang! A whole new life opened up for me then and I quickly forgot the, sometimes, arduous process to get there.

Recently I have had a lot of my friends who are expecting ask me about pregnancy and/or labor and/or the newborn phase. I quickly start rattling off a time line of how cool pregnancy is at first and then I get in to the final stages and all the gross, painful things involved in labor and postpartum recovery and how much work it is to have a newborn, etc. And all the while I am telling myself to, “SHUT THE FUCK UP AND STOP FREAKING EVERYBODY OUT!” and then I am all like, “JK LOL! It’s no big deal! You totally can do it!” Because the truth is, you can. All of these stages and phases are over in an instant. I remember driving to the hospital when I was in labor with Jackson and being so totally afraid to go through labor again because I already knew all the shitty things that were going to happen to me. And I was dreading the postpartum recovery SO HARD. But guess what? I hardly remember it now. Just like I will hardly remember how much it sucked to sweep the floor everyday so Jackson wouldn’t put the lone crumb I didn’t clean up in his mouth. To be honest, sometimes I look at Mckenna and forget she was ever a baby at all.

So consider this an open letter to myself, and to all of you almost/new/seasoned mothers out there – nothing lasts forever as far as your kids go (unless you have a daughter who took a liking to sleeping in your bed one night THREE YEARS AGO  and has never left since because I truly see that lasting forever. For real. We might as well invest in a bigger bed now because her husband and kids are probably going to be in there one day with us.) and all these phases and stages are nothing to worry about. Things get easier and things get harder everyday but there is no use in sweating it. After all, that’s what wine is for, right?

Here is the meatball, post nap:

And here is Mckenna on her first Thanksgiving in 2006, completely unimpressed:

This post is brought to you by Jacks absolute favorite (and appropriate) song on earth:

Our little monster is just over 8 months old, which means he is sliding closer and closer to the big first birthday. I can’t believe how much time has passed since he was born. I know everyone says that, but it’s true. I keep thinking about this time last year and how I was miserably pregnant and now I have my little dude with me (and sometimes a seasonal beer, which I dearly missed last fall and winter).

So what is Jack up to? He is a beast. For real. I am estimating he is around 25 pounds. For reference, Mckenna wasn’t 25 pounds until she was around 13 months. So homeboy is huge. He wears size 12 month clothing which sort of stinks because all of those cute cold weather, snuggly baby things just won’t do. He needs big boy clothes already. Boo hoo.

Because of his 97th percentile weight, it makes it hard for him to move around. He is thisclose to crawling but once he gets up on his hands and knees, it takes so much effort for him to propel his body forward that he usually just flops down and gives me a big grin. I am not disappointed about this, however, I am dreading the “baby on the loose” days. We are just around the corner from him shoving random objects in his mouth, bumping his head on the coffee table and me not being able to lose sight of him for even a quarter of a second. So, take your time Jack, seriously.

And now what you really came here for, the pictures! (these are all from the past few months since I wasn’t regularly posting over the summer)

That Sunday was just like any day. Except Mike was gone recording an album with his band all day and night. I was pregnant and exhausted and not in the mood to be solo parenting. My hormones were in over drive and I was super pissed that Mike was gone so long so the best thing for me to do was just go to bed and get over it. I finally got comfortable when my phone rang. But damnit! It’s in the kitchen! And I don’t want to get up! And since it’s 11-ish on a Sunday night its probably just Mike telling me he is on his way home.

But it wasn’t Mike. It was our friend Ryan. Which made me start to panic. So I called Mike. And he said that Ryan called him too and that he would call him back and let me know what’s going on. As soon as I hung up with Mike, my voicemail alert went off. But I was too scared to listen because something in me knew it just wouldn’t be good. And when Mike called me back, my hands were shaking as I picked up the phone. I thought for sure something had happened to Angela or one of our friends. Mike was sobbing. I couldn’t understand anything he was saying. I just kept hearing “Jerry’s dead”. Jerry. Jerry? Jerry who was just in town Jerry? Jerry one of my most favorite people ever Jerry? Jerry Mike’s good friend Jerry? What? How? Mike could hardly form a sentence, let alone get in to the details so he got off the phone and I bravely hit the voicemail button. “He fell down a fucking elevator shaft and died.” Ryans words shot straight through me and my heart was beating out of my chest. I immediately called my dad and asked if he had any frequent flier miles so that we could get Mike out to New York. And then I went online and googled “Jerry Fuchs” and a stream of articles came up. Photos attached to them, Jerry staring right back at me. “He fell down a fucking elevator shaft and died”. That sentenced looped in my head for hours.

Mike finally came home and went right to bed. But neither of us slept. Everytime I closed my eyes, I saw Jerry falling backwards. My eyes would shoot back open. Over and over and over again. Waking up the next day was weird. Mike took the day off of work and I spent a better part of the morning rifling through news articles and deciding which ones were okay for Mike to read and which were a little too detailed and gruesome. But there was no avoiding what had happened. The story started popping up everywhere. At one point not only had it shown up on cnn.com’s front page but it also even filtered it’s way to the celebrity gossip websites I frequent. The ones that talk about an eminent Britney Spears breakdown and whether Brangelina is together or not. Jerry was everywhere.

But then the tributes started rolling in. Beautiful things written by people who knew him the best. Or people who never met him at all, fans who saw him drum once and were never the same. And things started feeling okay again because it felt good to read about how funny and kind Jerry was.

I wrote this a few nights later. And I stared at the cursor for a good 20 minutes before I started to type. Because nothing I could write would ever do him justice. And one year later, I found myself staring at the cursor again.

Life moves fast when you have kids. One day you have a sweet, little baby and then before you know it, you are planning tours of Kindergartens in the area. In fact today, I mentioned to my brother in law that they would have to come back in town for Jacksons first birthday because it’s only a few months away – when did that happen? With that said, it seems like Jerry died years ago. It’s singlehandedly the only thing in my life that has ticked by. And I can’t pinpoint why. While most will say, “I can’t believe its already been a year”, I find myself thinking, “I can’t believe its only been a year.”

But I know this much is true, Jerry was hands down one of the most incredible people I have ever met. He was our family’s number one fan. I hope he knew that we were in his corner too. We still are.

(Jerry was a fantastic drummer and there are dozens of youtube videos to prove it. But this is what I like to see – my pal Jerry joking around, laughing that great laugh. I miss. I miss.)

But things weren’t always this way. To be honest, I don’t remember the first Halloween we spent together. Mike was probably on tour or something and I probably just ate passed out candy. The following year was not only Mckennas first Halloween but our maiden voyage at the annual Davo party. I was Jackie O at John F. Kennedys funeral and Mike was dead JFK, of course.

And Mckenna was the cutest loaf of Wonder Bread that you ever did see. (I can’t seem to find a photo of this! I think its on a CD of pictures from our old computer. And that is probably in the basement. Which, have you seen my basement? OMG.)

2007 brought us Davo again. That year I was Amy Winehouse, which was a total hit (except to the drunk dude who SWORE I was Marissa Tomei instead). I had my sister, Lauren and Mike draw her tattoos on me and I even wore her disgusting shoes. Mike was a zombie, and a gross one at that.

And here is Mckenna as a “pumpkin witch” which was all her idea. She is so little and sweet in these pictures.

Can you guess where we spent 2008? Yep, Davos. Little did we know, this would be the last year for this Halloween party. Which is a total bummer. Lauren was finally 21 so she we dressed as the Olsen twins and hit the floor. Mike was just a plain old zombie again, until we arrived at my dads house and a strike of lightening bolt genius hit him. A wig + ripped tshirt + permanent marker = Bob Zombie (Rob Zombies weirdo brother) The best part of the night was when we ran in to someone dressed as Rob Zombie – I wish I had taken photos of their encounter.

Mckenna was a ballerina princess. She seems to have a hard time sticking to one idea so a lot of years have been spent making hybrid costumes.

But 2009 was a cinch. She wanted to be Cinderella, no ifs ands or buts about it. We went to some freaky thing at my brother-in-laws parents house which, looking back, is probably the reason Mckenna is absolutely terrified of Halloween now. That street even scared me a little (no surprise there).

Mike and I had nowhere to go, which sucked because I was pregnant and I wanted to be Arnold Schwarzenegger from Junior so badly. And Mike would have made the perfect Danny Devito.

This year Mckenna was dead set on Strawberry Shortcake as her costume. But did you know that Strawberry Shortcake has crossed over in to the likes of Bratz dolls? Homegirl got some sort of She’s All That makeover and is now all about little dresses and high heels. In fact, when googling Strawberry Shortcake, Mckenna asked me if the original one was Strawberrys mom. Is that kid for real?

Anyway, SS got tossed to the side when my step-mom broke out my witch costume from when I was around 5 years old. Mckenna had to be a witch, and so it was.

This her costume, take 2. The relic from my youth was torn within 2 hours of a preschool party. So I dug through the trenches of Target on the day of Halloween and found this strange witch outfit for $4.90

And let’s not forget about Jack! This was his first Halloween ever! Last year he was cozily tucked underneath my striped shirt, seen here:

I really wanted to dress him up as a hot dog because babies dressed as food are funny. But he is so bald and round that I couldn’t resist Uncle Fester. One of Mckennas turtlenecks paired with jogging pants and a string, voila! I dabbed a teeny tiny bit of gray eyeshadow underneath his eyes and made a light bulb out of a plastic Christmas ornament, a votive, a piece of white cotton and duct tape.

He seemed to enjoy all the costumes and wasn’t too terribly scared. Okay, I lied. He was totally freaked out by my sisters Joan Holloway costume. But he seemed to take to Spiderman just fine.

And I went to a Halloween party where I dressed as my friend Paulson (Note: Scrubs are ridiculously comfortable. especially when they are 3 sizes too big. I am considering replacing my entire wardrobe with them.) Most of the night was spent with me pronouncing everyone dead because I couldn’t seem to find anyone’s heartbeat. Too bad for them.

I hope you all had a safe and fun Halloween!