Category: Home

Paint by Numbers

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The royal purple in our hall

Remember paint by number activities?  There may be an ocean and an umbrella and a crab and a sand castle and they all had certain numbers in them 1 through 6.  A chart would be on the side listing the colors corresponding with the numbers.  Piece of cake to paint if you knew your numbers.  I want color by numbers in the rooms of our new house.  It would be a lot easier.  

But alas, suffering is a part of life and I must be due up for some based on my recent run-in with interior paint colors.  Meg had come over a week ago and helped me with my palette, deferring to my color tastes but ensuring that the tone and colors all flowed well.  Jon mentioned in passing as we were wrapping up the day “You should probably get samples of those colors to make sure you like them.”  I brushed him off and said “You don’t worry about color – this is my baby.”  He didn’t say another word.  I should have listened to him. 

I instructed our painter to order the colors I chose for the living room, study, dining room and family room.  12 gallons.  Jon went over the next day and the painter threw on some of our kitchen color for him to view.  He called me at work: “This color is awful.”  “What color?” I asked.  He explained that the color was putrid and could never be painted throughout our kitchen.  I took his concern with a grain of salt.  Jon’s taste and my taste can be very different and I figured the color was a little too funky for his style.  We went over to the house that evening and when I walked in the kitchen I thought a baby had pooped on the wall.  The green I had chosen looked like the color of a baby’s poop when the baby starts eating strained foods, e.g., peas.  Lovely.  Because I hate to lose or waste money, I kept trying to look at the green in a different light and find something beautiful about it.  Nothing worked.  We opened another color that was going to serve as an accent color in the family room and that green paint was a tad bit better but still failed to impress us.  All of my work last week down the drain along with a couple of hundred of dollars.  Damn!  I don’t know why but it stressed me out a lot.  I came home and searched the internet for color schemes, examples of colors of rooms, etc.  I even dreamed about the paint (way too complicated and strange of a dream to discuss here!).   I woke up the next morning and took a deep breath as I put on my I-pod to take my morning jog.  “Mary, it’s paint.  Really, let go of it.”  And that was it.  I changed my thinking (stop stressing – paint is not a big deal) which changed my behavior (stop moping – go out and find new paint) which changed my results (feeling helpless to being proactive).  I hit Sherwin Williams at lunch and studied more colors.  I left with five samples.  Our painter kindly painted each sample on the wall for me to contemplate.  I really liked them all!  And so did Jon!  Bingo. 

Maria, Grace, Zach, and Mario

We are still debating over a yellow or green in the kitchen (green is getting a little more love at this time) and a peppery orange or a cream in the dining room (cream will allow us to do more with our accessories so that one is getting some more love at this time).  But I think we have found our downstairs colors.  Now for the bedrooms.  But I will keep the mantra in head… Thinking pushes behavior pushes results.  I need to take myself out of my habitual thinking (e.g., my habit of stressing over everything) and mold my thinking to what is going to get better results.  Yeah, a lot easier said than done.  I can tell you that my brain usually beats down this mantra, especially when I am tired or irritable, but I am a work in progress.  

I tried to explain the mantra to Maria on the way home tonight after she got in a fight with her friend Zach who called her a lazy-butt.  “You just have to understand that Zach doesn’t think about what he is doing.  He just gets mad and acts smart alecky which leads to his friends feeling bad.  If he would think about it how he is feeling and know that it will lead to bad behavior and hurt feelings, maybe he would not do it.”  Maria looked down at the sidewalk, listened for a minute and responded “Zach meant to say those things.  I don’t like him anymore.”  Ok, so maybe Maria is still a bit too young to process the mantra or maybe she did process it but she just knows Zach and knows he knows what hs is doing. 

Who knows?  I don’t know.  All I know is I have some sweet paint colors because I let it all go.

We closed!

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Maria showing off the house and Mario protecting it!

We did it! 

We closed on our new house at 10 am yesterday morning.  The sellers handed us the keys and the garage opener and wished us a happy life in the house they had lived in for 12 years.  The closing is a strange ordeal with a closing agent at the head of the table, Jon and I and our realtor on one side and the sellers and their realtor on the other and our bank representative at the other head of the table.  Papers fly across the table for you to sign and the print is so small there is no way to read it all unless you want to hold up the 6 other people in the room all day.  Besides, not like our bank or the title agency would change anything if I pointed to a clause I wanted to bargain.  They would chuckle and say “Good try” and that would be it.  Anyway, what’s not to trust about our bank?!  How could they try to do anything but be our buddy? 

My favorite appliance - the fridge!

Jon and I walked out of the closing feeling excited but a little sticker-shocked.  Nothing like having two mortgages to wake ya up to smell the coffee.  I was still fighting the sticker shock when we drove over to the new house.  I wanted to feel you were supposed to feel when you buy a new house – elated, on cloud nine, speechless.  Jon was near those emotions; why couldn’t I be?  We left and went back to work.  When I got home, the kids ran up to me and yelled about going to the new house.  Jon had told them we could head over.  I put on a smile and got changed.  I still felt ambivalent. 

The kids jumped out of the car and ran towards the front door.  They burst into the house and ran around the living room and family room.  They rolled on the floors.  They darted up the stairs to the bedrooms and the attic.  They loved everything.  As I watched them, I started to feel excited.  I let go of all of my worries about selling our current house, money, expenses and just let myself breathe in our new home.  The reasons for buying the house flooded my mind – holiday gatherings,

On the steps of the basement - their new playroom!

the go-to house for the kids’ friends, resting spot for traveling family and friends.  When I went to bed last night, I felt more relaxed and welcoming to our new home.  Today I met with Meg to discuss paint colors and carpet for the house.  She has a decorator’s eye, and we came away with some kick a—colors for the downstairs and ideas for the rooms.  When I rode my bike back to work, I caught myself smiling nearly the whole way, and thinking about how beautiful our new home would be and how great it would be to have our family and friends over to create a lifetime of memories.

Movin’ on out

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Jon and I walked through our new house tonight after work to do one final check before closing tomorrow.  I love our downstairs – the living room has a beautiful bay window to sit in and read my Newsweek; the family room scream for movie nights with the kids; the dining room will embrace family on holidays; and the kitchen may finally be used for cooking dinners!  The upstairs freaked us out a bit.  The rooms are really small compared to our rooms here.  And there is zero closet space.  The bathroom upstairs is outdated.  We stared at each other for a few minutes knowing that we were both thinking “what the f— were we thinking buying this house with such small rooms?!”  I think it is the stress of not selling our current house that is coloring our excitement and concern about the new house.  After talking that out for a few minutes, we looked at the rooms in a different light and realized they were smaller than ours but still plenty big for the kids and us (nonetheless, we will knock out the wall to make a master bedroom for us eventually).  Besides, the bulk of our awake lives will be spent outside of the bedroom so why is a big bedroom necessary?  Mario’s room will fit his bed and a desk easily.  Maria’s room, too, and when she moves to the attic, she will have quite the spread. 

As we moved back downstairs and outside, our excitement re-emerged.  The back yard is charming with its flower border and wooden deck and basketball hoop against the garage.  The study will provide a nice refuge from the kids and a great writing nook for me.  The street is quiet.  This house hit us when we first walked through it – we both envisioned ourselves in it for the rest of our lives.  We saw the kids growing up in it with their friends coming over.  We saw our family arriving for the holidays.   So, we took a breath, gave each other a hug, and realized it is all going to work out just fine.  Our house will sell eventually (hopefully before we have paid it off!) and we will love and nurture our new home. 

When we got home, the kids ate macaroni and cheese on the counter while Jon and I continued to talk about the house.  Maria kept begging us to move out tomorrow (little does she realize how difficult it will be to transition); Mario just kept worrying about the colors of his room (“I want red and green and black”).  As I started to stress later in the evening about selling this house, mortgages, etc., I surfed the internet to take me away from it.  I found a site on gratitude.  I loved the idea of writing one thing you were grateful for each day.  I opened up a black journal and wrote the date.  I asked Maria what she was grateful for this day.  She mentioned mom and dad and Mario and Cy and school and our new house.  Mario mentioned mom and dad and sissy and Cy and his Wii girlfriend (yeah, ridiculous).  I even made Jon give me an answer because I believe that you give your body and mind a boost by just recognizing that you have things in your life to be grateful for and life is not as stressful as you may see it at a particular moment.  I mentioned being thankful for a gorgeous day that allowed me to ride my bike to work; for walking Maria to school this morning and seeing her smile at me when I left; for Mario greeting me while on a bike with dad during my walk back from the grocery; and for our new home that will bring us gems and enduring memories.

Selling a House = Painful

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We have had eight showings of the house since we listed it two weeks ago.  Not bad, I am told by my agent and others.  But I can’t help but still be down in the dumps about this whole process.  It is a time killer and emotionally taxing.  We spent hours and hours getting the house to a point where it did not look like we had children – all of their toys and our extra “stuff” is shoved in corners and closets and in the attic and basement and garage.  Nearly every night, Jon or I are scolding the kids to pick up their toys and not drop a crumb on the floor.  Last night, I chastised Maria about getting toothpaste in the sink (I got the “Really, mom, really?” response which immediately made me laugh and see the ridiculousness of it all). 

M&M showing what they'd do if they lived by themselves

And, I never dreamed that I would take the rejection so personal.  When we got the buyer’s reasons for declining the house, one reason was that it was “underwhelming” to them.  My first thought “take this “underwhelming” fist and shove it…” My blood pressure shot up and has remained in the “Above” range for the last two weeks as I continue to be inundated with rejections.  Jon and I should have known it would be this way because too many people told us that we would sell this place immediately: “You will have no problem selling your house – its in a great location; great curb appeal….”  Complete jinx.  Granted, it has only been listed for two weeks, but it feels like two years. 

Last weekend, we had a couple walk through for the second time.  We got the house completely scrubbed down, flowers everywhere, window sills sparkling.  They called our realtor within 15 minutes and told him they were going to put in an offer.  By 5 pm, we had it.  $30,000 lower than our asking price with a ton of contingencies.  Still, we kept hope alive and gave them a reasonable counteroffer back.  They never responded.  Finally, their realtor called ours and told him they weren’t interested any longer because we were too far apart monetarily.  Whatever – my irritation and frustration have been mellowed by sheer exhaustion from cleaning the house, loading up Cy to take to my parents’ apartment, and stuffing things away in closets. 

Maria keeps reassuring me that we will sell the house and if we don’t, it’s ok.  She and Mario can live in this house and Jon and I can live in the other for a while.  “I know how to clean, mom.  And I help you cook pancakes all the time.  Mario and I will be fine.”  If they had the mortgage money, she would have the keys.

Cranking it Out

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We erected the “Coming Soon” in our front yard.  Actually, Jon and the neighbor, Dave, ambushed me with it after I ran to the store and returned to see it firmly planted in our yard.  I felt queasy.  Maria jumped out of the car and rushed to it. 

“Mom, can we move to our new house now?” Yeah, she is quite the sentimental one. 

Maria and Mario are both ready to pack up and move.  I wonder if they will feel nostalgic about this house. I wonder if they will miss their rooms, the bathtub, the kitchen?  I have been thinking about what I will miss the most.

1. The confined space.  As crazy as that sounds, there is a part of me that likes our small house.  It is easy to clean!  It is easy to call for one another on different floors.  And it keeps us close. 

playing on the patio

2. Our patio. I love our patio in the back with the magnolia tree and the spruce trees.  I have a lot of memories of the kids playing in the hose out there or swimming in their old plastic pool or pooping (Maria!) and peeing (Mario!). 

3. Maria’s room.  Meg and dad painted her room for us when she was still in my belly.  They put such love in their work and created a tender light purple and green bedroom for Maria’s entrance into this world.  I remember all the nights I sat in her room with her, rocking her in the chair, walking with her, feeding her, reading her stories.  I love the feel I have in that room.

maria celebrating her 6th b-day in the dining room

4. Our dining room.  I love the brick red color of it and the memories I have of the Thanksgiving dinners and the birthday parties.  The kids have had all of their birthdays celebrated in that dining room and both smeared cake all over their faces on their 1st birthdays in that room (probably still have remnants on the baseboards). 

5. Mario’s room.  We always complained about Mario’s room because it was so small but do love Mario’s room even though we have always complained about how small it was because it was where my little man slept since he was born and where I walked with him nearly every night to get him to fall asleep. 

6. The neighborhood. We have the best neighbors.  Doris and Kim have been our neighbors since we moved into the house in 2000.  They take such good care of us, and have been a godsend with letting Cy out when we go out of town.  The kids adore them, and they shower them with treats and love.  The other neighbors have children close to Maria’s and Mario’s ages and I will miss not having them around to play.  Two little girls love Mario and Maria and they call their names all of the time.  As one neighbor put it “Maria and Mario are the rock stars of the neighborhood!”

M&M and Ahjeni

But, as much as I will miss it, Jon and I are ready.  We are excited about the new adventure that awaits us in the Glenn Avenue house.  The beauty of the new house is that Jon and I both really love it and are both able to picture ourselves and the kids in it for a long time.  The excitement continues to hit us at odd moments and it continues to build up in us to the point that we drive by the new house and just admire it at random times (e.g., after a DQ run last night).  It is a quiet street with  mature trees and gorgeous, unique homes.  It will be a good nesting place.

In the meantime, we can’t focus too much on it because we are in the midst of a major clean-up of our current house.  The attic and basement have become storage sites for not only ten years worth of things collected but for all of the random things we had collected pre-Mary and Jon world.  Boxes and boxes of trinkets, toys, clothes, books, paperwork that we really never needed when we moved into the house or after.  We woke up this morning sans children (thanks to Patty and Joe who took them off of our hands last night through tomorrow) and started up the process at 10 am (after a 10 mile run by me and a coffee trip by Jon).  By 3 pm, we had cleaned out the attic to the point that you could actually see the floors and the window in the front of the room.  Jon purged eight giant black hefty bags worth of folders and materials.  He gave a bunch of old clothes to Goodwill.  We had boxes of books and tvs and printers for Goodwill.  We treated ourselves to Skyline Chili in the midst of it all (probably a bad move in retrospect as we both were fighting some stomach reflux when we started back up!).  

We are looking forward to the basement clean-up tonight (ha ha).  We figure if worse comes to worse and the Glenn Ave. house falls through, we at least have accomplished a major clean-up.  But all will go as planned, and we will soon find ourself sitting in the bay window looking out on Glenn Avenue excited to create more memories in our new home.

Forgiveness

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Jon and I have been ridiculously stressed about the possibility of purchasing a  new home.  We have been wheeling and dealing with the sellers for about a month, and a deal is now coming to fruition.  And, of course, we are second-guessing it all.  Very normal reaction, I am sure.  You get attached to your home.  Jon and I spent our wedding night in this house.  Maria and Mario came to this home after their births.  Cy and I took off on our long runs from this house…. 

Lovin' the tub

Our realtor/neighbor Dave came over two nights ago to talk to us about moving forward with a final bid that would seal the deal.  We sat on the porch with him biting our nails and asking a lot of questions.  Maria and Mario played in the bath tub upstairs.  They yelled for me to come up within two minutes of the start of our meeting with Dave.  I ran up and threw them some barbies and toys to play with in the tub.  I ran back downstairs. 

Dave had just started talking about inspection companies when I heard Maria scream for me to come up again.  I ran up and Mario had put soap in his eyes.  I grabbed a wash cloth and helped him rub the soap out.  I ran back downstairs to hear the tail end of Dave’s thoughts about an appraisal. 

Three minutes later, Mario yelled for me.  I ignored him.  Maria yelled, too.  I ignored her.  When they both screamed, Jon and I decided that maybe one of them was actually needing assistance.  I ran upstairs.  Water soaked the floor, the bath mat, the area around the sink.  They both pointed at the water and gave me a blank look. 

I reacted as any stressed, hungry, overly worked person would: I flipped out.  Lost it.  Yelled at them and slammed the bathroom closet door.  Told them that I could not believe how inconsiderate they were to get water all over the floor.  I stomped back down the stairs and out the door. 

The little rascals come through

Then I felt horrible.  Why do I do that?  Why can’t I just take a deep breath and walk away?  As I sat on the porch listening to Dave and Jon, I saw the front door open.  Within about ten minutes, out walked Maria and Mario all clean and dry and in their nighties.  Tears automatically flowed from my eyes.  I scooted them back in the house on the couch and sat them down. 

“I have to tell you both something. 

Thank you.  Thank you for being such wonderful children and for knowing that mom was upset and for doing your best to make things better. Mom has been really tired and stressed lately and sometimes I take that stress out on you.  I don’t mean to do that.  I love you both very much.” 

We hugged. 

“Will you both try harder to not get the floor so wet?”

“Yes, mom, we promise.”

We hugged again.

My babes

I walked back outside with them.  They played hide-n-seek and Jon and I finished up with Dave.  I sat on the porch watching them play soaking up the sweetness and sensitivity of their actions post mama-freak-out.  That one little gesture brought me back home – just what I needed.

I owe ya one, babe.

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One of the tender moments

So I had a horrible day.  The weather simply can’t get any more ridiculous between the spattering rain and the grey overcast skies and the windy bitter air.  I had to speak at an event and felt like a bumbling idiot.  Mario spilled chocolate milk and ketchup all over the sofa. Cy licked what he could before I got to him, and then proceeded to puke it all up so I got the added pleasure of not only wiping up milk and ketchup but also doggie throw-up and saliva.  Maria is going through 6-year-old menopause complaining of heat attacks and kicking all around on the couch until she jabbed me in the thigh. Work is gearing up again and I am losing the one person I have relied on the past two months to another job.  I haven’t had a good workout in at least five days, which is an eternity for me. 

I did get my hubby back tonight, though, and he even put the kids to bed.  He also reminded me of how precious life can be amongst all the turmoil and craziness of the day.  When he came through the door, the kids’ faces lit up and they chimed in unison “Daddy!”  He had arrived home at 10 pm from a day trip New York (got up at 4:45 am).  As much as the kiddies can get on my nerves, I would much rather come home to them then be forced to fly on those day trips.  So, I decided to calm myself down by reading through some quotes about life and found this one:

Why does a person even get up in the morning?  You have breakfast, you floss your teeth so you’ll have healthy gums in your old age, and then you get in your car and drive down I-10 and die.  Life is so stupid I can’t stand it.  ~Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

I laughed out loud at the rawness of it and the notion struck me as so true, at times – until you have someone who loves you remind you that it’s not all that bad and the sweet, tender moments are worth living for… Thanks, babe, for getting me through tonight.

My baby girl turns 6

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Maria Grace turned 6 yesterday at 2:41 pm.  I still remember her birth like it happened this afternoon. I remember how nervous but excited I was to have her through natural childbirth, aka, no drugs.  Mom had me that way, Meg had Jackson that way.  I wanted to follow in their giant footsteps.  Actually, the thought of getting a needle as long as a pencil shot into my back and losing all sensation from the waist down terrified me 10 times as much as the thought of foregoing drugs.  

I got pretty cocky in the delivery room for a while after they broke my water.  The contractions were uncomfortable but tolerable.  I remember looking at my mom and Jon and bragging “this isn’t too bad.”  And within minutes after that brash declaration, the universe shifted in ways only a momma in childbirth can understand.  Excruciating pain.  Sharp wrenching cramps.  Uncontrollable urges to bear down with nurses chanting “do not push yet.” I kept thinking to myself “if I have to tolerate this for 30 minutes, I will die.”  Luckily, within fifteen minutes, the nurses told me I could lay down and start pushing.  I can only liken this to having a huge dresser laid on your pubic area; having someone remove it for a few seconds; and then throw it back on with a few more clothes and knick knacks in it.  I was relieved after hearing the nurses tell me to start pushing but only for a few seconds until I realized that the actual pushing was just as painful as the restraint from pushing.  And then to look up in the mirror on the ceiling and see that there really was a tiny human that was poking her “little” head out of my body.  Holy cr–! 

“Little” being the extremely relative word in this instance.  “Little” is what the head was an hour after birth when I had been stitched up and regained some of my senses.  “Little” is not what the head was when it was trying to poke through my body and see the outside world.  It was HUGE and OBNOXIOUS and CAUSING IMMENSE PAIN!  But the body is an amazing thing because as much as I hurt and wanted to stop pushing, I also pulsated with joy and anxiety in meeting my daughter who I had nourished and cared for the last nine months in her safe cocoon.  When I saw her head crowning, that joy drove me to push harder and harder until I heard the shrills of excitement from the bystanders announcing that a baby was on its way out! 

Maria, Alana and Mario rockin' it out on Ri's b-day!

 

And then she was bundled up in that hospital blanket and placed in my arms.  Jon stood by me looking down at us.  There she was with her dark eyes and her black hair and warm skin.  A little Maria Grace ready to dominate the world.  And 6 years later she is well on her way.  

Her style can be commanding “Uncle Jack, come stand HERE!”, or gentle “It’s ok, Baby Gracie, I got you.”  Her attitude can be sassy “Ok, dad, I get it – you don’t have to repeat it.” or sweet “Mom, you are the best mommy ever!”  

Maria makes her presence known wherever she travels through that loud booming voice of hers.  She has the Heile/Menkedick vocal chords.  Her favorite pastime is yelling just like she used to do as a baby in her crib every two hours of every night.  How Jon and I survived the first 15 months is beyond me (yes, 15 months before she slept through the night – we really need to be sainted).   Maria loves to take care of younger kids – the mother hen is alive and well in her.  No matter if it’s Gracie or Lucy or Maggie or Maura, she sits with them and shows them books or toys, she holds their hand when they try to walk across the room, she makes funny faces at them and makes them laugh, she pats their backs when they start to whimper.  She is a natural. 

Maria and her family

Maria and her family

Maria also loves to be around family.  She adores her grandparents who all bring something special to her life; she worships her uncles who even break down and play barbies with her; she frolics with all of her aunts and cousins who treat her like one of them and let her join in all of the festivities.  She especially loves her little brother who can be a pain in the butt at times between hitting her, pinching her, pulling her hair, waking her up, and sitting on her.  Nonetheless, she is always ready to squeeze and hug him when he allows, and she will protect him at all costs (we can never forget when Mario and her were in the bounce house and a boy tried to push Mario – Maria stepped in and pushed him back warning “Don’t hurt my brother!”).  She received the nickname “The Muscle” in daycare and  the name lives on as she gets older.  Her hugs can be lethal but always well-intentioned.

Trying out her new bike

She is observant like her daddy recognizing people’s goofy mannerisms or certain things in books or places that I would never have noticed.  She is wild like her momma running around and being loud whether it is at parties or at the house.  She likes to live life large.  She loves food and drink.  She is always ready for a loaf of garlic bread and pasta and meatballs, and could go without anything else if she had that plate at her side 24 hours a day.  Maria loves to help cook (which is a fascinating phenomena since her mama embarrassingly rarely cooks).  When we make pancakes or cookies or macaroni, she wants to read the box and add the ingredients and stir the food.  She looks forward to setting the table and having all of us eat together.  However, she is less fond of making a lot of conversation at the dinner table.  She is like her dad – there to eat and not to chat. She enjoys pretty dresses and beaded sandals but is still not hesitant to put her knees on the ground and dig for worms.  She loves to put on make-up but detests brushing her hair and wails at the thought of anyone else brushing it.  

Maria celebrating her b-day at school

She still climbs into bed at 6 am and snuggles her body up against mine; many times she lifts her head and places my arm under it (I always hated sleeping this way with boyfriends but with my daughter it is a joy!).  She adores her daddy and goes through serious withdraw when he leaves town for more than a couple of days.  He stands up for him when he is getting grief from me or another family member but quickly turns on him when Grandma Ionno is around demanding that she “take care of Dad because she is the boss and he is her son!”  She loves her mama as much as she loves her daddy but as it tends to be with mothers and daughters, it is much more emotional in nature.  She either thinks I am the greatest thing to hit this Earth or the most evil person to walk into her life.  I can only imagine how much more pronounced this will be as she gets older – teenage years are thankfully seven years away.

Ri giving me the bear hug

Maria exudes a spirit that few kids her age possess.  She is free and spontaneous and relaxed and aware and empathetic and magical.  I think she is the coolest girl on the planet, and I want to give her mondo kisses and lovin’ every time I lay eyes on her.  Luckily, I can still get away with doing that; I am certainly going to live it up while I am able.

127 Hours

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Maria and Mario post-mulching (Mario was proud of his dirty face and hands!

I had both kids in bed by 9:50 on Thursday night.  Amazing, and quite early for Mr. Mario who typically refuses to go to bed unless I lay down with him (especially when Jon is out of town).  I had to shower in the evening due to fingernails filled with dirt and mulch in my hair.  The kids and I hit up the flower store earlier and bought 10 bags of mulch – we got through 4 of them before the kids were ready to move on to better things, namely, dinner for Maria and basketball for Mario.  While I was soaking in the shower, Mario fell asleep in my bed (and Maria hit the hay as soon as her head fell on her pillow).  What a gift of time! 

Maria biking and Mario running

I think the mulching and the run up the street to the pizza store helped wear the boy out. Lately, Maria has been all about her bike and Mario has been all about walking/running.  He can make it a mile without stopping to take a breath or rest.  He has got his mom’s lungs.  Maria keeps us truckin’ because she zooms on her bike – the same bike she has had since she was three with training wheels wobbling, rust growing and princess stickers falling off.  I think a new bike may be in order for her 6th b-day.

Back to my evening.  I got downstairs at 10:15, cleaned up the living room and kitchen, and flipped through the movies on pay-per-view.  One of my favorite past times is hitting up the movie theatre with popcorn and pop in tow (and usually a box of whoopers or goobers).  Since I could not leave the children alone (oh, how tempting!), I had to be content with the tv, chips and dip, and a diet 7Up.  I flipped through the new releases and it came down to Black Swan and 127 Hours.   My brother gave 127 Hours rave reviews and it was only one and a half hours long.  It won. 

I’d give it a 5 out of 10.  It kept my interest for the most part but there were times in it that I grew impatient watching James Franco make videos of himself.  I know the director wanted the audience to get as accurate and real a picture of this climber being stuck in this crevice – his arm wedged into the rock by another rock – but I thought it dragged out a little too long.  However, Franco did an excellent job recreating the absolute horror and intensity of cutting off his arm.  The detail of that scene itself sticks to my bones.  The ending failed to meet my expectations, too.  I didn’t feel an ultimate connection with Franco at the end, which is something I look forward to in watching a movie (Annette Benning wowed me in The Kids Are Alright).  

There was one scene right before Franco cut off his arm where Franco was beginning to give up and he had a vision of himself with his future son.  That part struck me because I remembered back when I had a minor health scare.  There were about two weeks where I waited to hear back from my doctor.  Maria and Mario were both born, and the only thing that kept me up at night was the thought of leaving them at such a young age and not being able to watch them grow.  When I was pregnant with Maria, I still remember thinking that I could never love her as much as I loved our pup, Cy.  Sad but true (and it did take about 3 months to love her as much because she was such a fussy baby)!  But now I cannot imagine not being a part of their lives and the amount of love that I have for them feels limitless.

Maria and Mario in a loving state before school!

The next morning I paid for my “crazy movie night” when Maria and Mario woke me up at 6:45 am.  I felt like I had slept 2 hours.  It reaffirmed the fact that I need to go to bed by 10:30.  The kids knew I was tired and took care of me by getting dressed in a reasonable amount of time and walking the entire way to school.  When we arrived, Maria began to pout and complain that she did not want to be in school.  She did not want me to leave.  She has been getting like this lately, especially on the weeks that Jon is gone.  I hugged her and told her that she would have a great day, and without prompting, Mario also hugged and her and said “Don’t worry, Ri, school will be fun and I will play with you this afternoon.”  She planted a long, hard smooch on his cheek, and we walked home. 

I told Mario I was proud of him for helping out his sister, and he looked at me and replied “I love my sissy.”  Watching their relationship continue to grow is a gift for Jon and I.  Jon returned that night, and the kids were ecstatic to see him walk through the door. Echos of “DADDY” still ring through my head.  Later that evening, Jon and I relaxed in our normal fashion – Jon with some tv and me with my computer, and I was fast asleep by 10:30.

Happynomics

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Precious babes ready for their stroller ride.

I woke this morning to a compliment: “You are a pretty flower.” Spoken from the lips of my son as we sat in McDonalds eating Timbits and burritos this chilly morning (ignore our diet, please, it really is a Sunday morning treat – and sometimes Monday and Wednesday and Friday treat…).  He had bitten into a timbit and fixed his stare on me.  I tilted my head and looked perplexed.  That is when he softly spoke the words to me.  I pursed my lips and rubbed my eyes and thanked him for saying something so sweet to his mama.  Maria saw this entire scene and quickly chimed in with “Mom, you are a…a… pretty flower.”  She is usually pretty quick with a quip to follow-up on her brother’s so she must believe that Mario summed it up pretty well to simply repeat his compliment.  I swallowed both of their compliments up and stored them away in that place all of us mothers have – the “I need to remember something positive about these kids” storage chest that we can open when all heck is breaking loose and we feel like we need to escape but cannot.  If we can just take ourselves back to one of those memories, hopefully we can stay sane enough to make it through the breakdown.  Kinda like chocolate….

Maria (Ms. Serious) and Mario (Mr. Jolly) playing Wii.

On our stroller ride home, Mario finally admitted he was cold.  Both kids refuse to wear big coats or hats or gloves even though it is only 38 degrees outside.  I bring their coats and accessories because I know eventually they will request them – or I should say, one will request them.  Mario.  Maria is a cold weather machine; a heater; a polar bear.  She has our warm blood streaming through her and it takes a blizzard to make her slightly chilled.  When we got home, Mario went straight to the Wii for a b-ball game.  Maria and I went back out for a stroll and talked about Mario’s birth, her birth, what kind of car I had growing up, what kind of car she wants when she gets older, and boyfriends (she is so inquisitive about the past – I love it).  

When we got back home, Maria and Mario played Wii together while Jon worked and I cleaned.  They went upstairs after five games and took a bath.  Maria loves it when Mario is in a good mood because he will play Barbies with her.  He still uses his Spiderman figurine but he will act like Spiderman is talking to Barbie, they go on dates, talk about their friends, and so on.  It is hilarious to listen to from behind the door.  They played a good half hour before they started to splash the water around the tub and all over the floor.  We politely screamed at them to get out, and before we knew it, there were two naked children in Maria’s room reciting “we are robots” and giggling hysterically. 

Maria and Mario fashion models

Jon and I continued to work and clean and Maria and Mario played together upstairs.  After another half hour, Maria yelled down asking if we were both ready for a fashion show.  “Sure!” we yelled back to her.  She introduced her and Mario while they waltzed down the stairs and stepped off the landing in a beautiful display of velvet green and plaid.  Mario in a button down shirt and Maria in a dazzling dress.  I screamed like they were teen idols, and asked for their photo and autograph, which Maria loved.  I also asked if I could kiss her cheek and she blushed with excitement.  “You are such a superstar, Ri, thanks for saying hi to me!”  She laughed and waved goodbye and went up to help Mario who realized he had a tear in his pants (causing him to bolt up the steps to avoid being seen by any other fans).

I finished cleaning the cabinet in the kitchen.  While I scrubbed spaghetti sauce off the white paint and listening to M&M laughing upstairs and talked to Jon about our week ahead, I felt a surge of happiness through my bones.  Pure, raw happiness.  Life could have stopped right there at that second – my head swirled with happiness about who I was, people I loved, experiences I had, places I traveled, choices I made.  All in that moment.   

This evening I perused the NY Times and happened by Roger Cohen’s post titled The Happynomics of Life.  England’s prime minister has decided to create a happiness index.  Cohen argues that this idea is not outrageous and could be helpful if used wisely.   He notes that when Western industrialized societies started measuring gross domestic product, the issue for many was survival.  But now that most of us have enough to live on — or far more than enough by the standards of human history — the question may want to turn to: “What’s going on inside our heads?”  Trying to make a shift from financial prosperity to emotional prosperity.  Putting value on things that don’t have price tags: open spaces, clear air, security, release from pressure — things of growing importance but also growing scarce.

The kids playing it up before Jeni's

Cohen thought of some recent moments of happiness in his own life. “One came walking across Regent’s Park, my skin tingling at the first brush of spring. Another came kissing my daughter goodnight as she slept and seeing how peaceful she was. A third came in Cairo seeing the powerful dignity of the Egyptian people coalescing to bring peaceful change.  These moments were linked to nature, to finding time, to feeling the transcendent power of the human spirit. Emotional prosperity is not the next e-mail in a relentless life.”

His piece struck me based on my experience earlier in the day, and stayed with me as I took Maria and Mario and Maria’s friend, Jonera to Jeni’s for ice cream.  They all ran ahead of me laughing at Mario making silly faces at them.  They giggled the entire time at Jeni’s about goofy things – Mario’s dancing, Maria’s kissing frenzy, the puppy at the window waving to us.  We walked home with the crisp cusp of Winter at our side but with birds chirping and people on their porches clearing the way for swings and planters.

The kids enjoying Jeni's