Dream-killer nanny

Been thinking about dreams today.
Mostly because I've taken to thinking of myself as the "baby dream-killer" because I feel like I'm crushing the little guy's dreams all day long. I wish it wasn't so! Don't judge me for my dreamkilling! It just so happens that this baby's biggest dreams consist of, one day, being able to actually crawl into the dishwasher or refridgerator and explore to his heart's content. NOT GONNA HAPPEN. Sorry kid, but letting you crawl into the germ county fair that's partying on in the dishwasher is not my idea of good nannying. So I have to open the fridge super fast and try to get it closed before he crawl-sprints across the kitchen and uses his little baby strength to muscle his way in there. The other day when I was doing dishes, I turned around and he had actually crawled onto the door of the dishwasher. Poor guy was so mad when I set him back on the ground. Why is it that the things he most wants to do are the couple things he can't? Ain't that the way it goes? Eh, that's life. So anyway, my little trouble-maker is so cute :).
And also about dreams, yesterday I remembered a dream that I used to have. It was a recurring dream that I had in junior high/ early high school about coming to New York City. Isn't that funny? That I would just now remember that? What's really funny is that I can remember the dream, and how it made me feel. I loved it because I felt transported to somewhere so different, but looking back, the dream was far far from reality. See, since I'd never visited, I had no idea of what it was actually like, so in the dreams, "Manhattan" was a couple streets long and a couple stories high, and the buildings were just really close together. That was my idea of the city, a couple high buildings shoved together. I think there were a couple clothing stores and a toy store in there as well. ANYWAY this probably isn't making any sense to any of you, but it made tons of sense to me. I dreamed about this! I am, literally, living the dream. Isn't that awesome? God is so good about bringing our lives to exactly where he wants them. Pretty cool. The weird thing about this is that the dream might be over soon, and I'll be moving on to a new dream.
You see, for the first time maybe ever, the bosses are getting nanny-type things done in a timely fashion (maybe TOO timely?) and have already found a nanny candidate that they want to interview in person. When they found me, it was incredibly last minute and I started in two weeks. And now with this girl they're flying her out 2 months before I'm planning to leave? What what?? AND she wants to start right away. So that is pretty crazy news, that there's a possibility that I might be leaving way sooner than I had planned. And despite the rantings about New York and about nannying that I frequently fill the blog with, it's making me really sad! I want to be here for another Winter! I want to iceskate in Central Park again, and see the Rockettes do their Christmas show! I want to do all these things that I haven't done yet. I've kind of made peace in the last couple days about it, but it's still really disconcerting not knowing when I could be heading home.
God has so blessed me here. I mean it, he has given me an amazing church, unlikely friends, and awesome experiences. He's let me live a dream, grow up a little bit, learn how to save money, and enable me with New York driving skills (along with the road rage that comes along with them, oops!) He's adjusting me to the kids' new schedule, and helping me to learn how to be a good mom someday. Ahhh! I'm not ready to leave! But as my grandparents said, he brought me here and blessed me, in his perfect timing (which believe me, I questioned :) ) and he'll bring me back to Iowa in his perfect timing too. SO it is well with my soul. Or at least headed there :)
So yeah, that's my life right now. Still loving my new gym, and my water aerobics class is going good. Skipped last week, so I hope that tonight we don't have the water-nazi teacher that yelled at me last time for checking the clock. I mean, motivation is good, but I was distracted for the rest of the session, thinking of all the comebacks I could have retorted back if I were, indeed, the sort of girl that gets all defensive and talks back to the water aerobics instructor. INSTEAD I just think of things that one MIGHT say :). Ahh my funny little life.
So, this weekend I suppose that I'll try to squeeze in all the city fun that I can while not spending ANY money. Operation pad the bank account has just begun, so no more money spending. I've done really good about paying back loans while I've been here, but now I gotta get serious about just putting the money away for when I go home. NO MORE SPENDING! So I'll hit the free museums on Friday, and who knows what else for the rest of the weekend. Free stuff, for sure. Fun free things. My favorite :)
Love you all
christina

Everythings coming up baby food

I think everything in our kitchen is covered in a thin layer of baby food.
Including me.
Baby has developed some strange little obsessive behaviors in the last couple of weeks, one being that he thinks it's fun to spit his food out in a way that covers nanny, floor, and kitchen appliance, all with a laugh and a smile. The other thing he's doing now is chewing on EVERYTHING. Now, I don't know many other babies, but it seems that his razor teeth get into more than normal babies. Literally, nothing is safe from this kid. The other day I came back downstairs from the bathroom to find that he had somehow miraculously reached my McDonalds cup and chewed up the entire bottom of the cup. And a couple days ago I found him trying to chew on the fridge. Not the corner of the fridge, the front. Like the cold, hard, front of the fridge. He had his entire mouth open, trying to chew on the whole fridge. Then today, on a totally non-teeth related incident, he tried to actually crawl into the dishwasher. I mean, he is completely entranced by that thing. Every time it opens up he gets this crazy look in his eyes and sprints across the house to try to fully experience the wonder that is the open dishwasher. Same with the fridge. And it's a bit of a downer when you sit down to rock the sweet baby to sleep, and instead of cuddling up to his nanny, he's trying to crawl over me to try to chew on the top of the rocker. Strange kid.
Anyway, his big brother is home today. Mom was home to see his pre-going to school tantrum, and determined that he must be sick, for he was not acting like himself. I tried to nicely remind her that he'd thrown tantrums bigger and badder in past days and had gone to school all the same, but what Mom says goes, so here we are, at home with both kids all day. Which I don't mind, it is actually really nice to not have to drive the 2 hrs of New York driving I'd been doing every day. And nice to gain 2 more hours of productivity to my day. Too bad the 2 more hours are on a day when the kids are particularly crabby and needy. And that's nannying :) Gotta roll with it!
Got a new haircut last week. I am calling it the $100 haircut, because of the crazy journey of bad haircut decisions that finally led me to this particular haircut. It started out about 1 1/2 months ago with quick trim I decided to get while I was with the boys at the BARBERSHOP. I know, I know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. So of course the barbershop look didn't have much pizazz... in fact, it was basically a triangle shape on my head. Ok, so I did the ponytail thing for a couple weeks. It's hard to get to a haircut when you're with babies all day long! SOOOO when the baby was getting his manhood straightend out in a little urological surgery last month and I just had big brother, I decided to stop into a little beauty shop the Connecticut town that we happened to be hanging out in that day. He was in a good mood, we had plenty of time, I figured it was as good a time as any. Well, the people at the place we went didn't happen to speak English, so hand gestures were wildly used to indicate the "pizazz" I was looking for. I KNOW, I KNOW. What was I thinking? "This might be my only chance," that's what I was thinking! ALSO, to get a good haircut here it's 50 or 60 bucks. So I was really trying to get by cheap. So... that haircut made me look more like Little House on the Prairie/ Amish Girl than New York up-and-comer, so I had to break down and do a real salon haircut last week. Bringing the grand tally of money spent on a haircut to an impressive $100. LESSON LEARNED.
This weekend was pretty great. Friday I went out for "Girl's night" with Patrick's church. I visited his church a couple weeks ago and there was a signup for a girl's chocolate night, and they didn't seem to have anything against someone signing up that didn't actually attend the church, so I decided to go! And it was a blast. I mean, a blast. There were like 20 girls my age and a bit older there, all awesome Christian women. It was almost overload, because in the entire 9 months I've been here I've only met like 5, and then there were so many! In the same place! It was awesome. And it was at a chocolate restaurant that all women should try. A Chocolate. Restaurant. Enough said. So that was fun and I made a bunch of new friends.
Then on Sunday (Saturday I relaxed all day) I ended up going hiking with a bible study friend and her husband over by the Hudson river, and it was so fun. The REALLY funny thing was talking to them (they're Chinese, moved here from China 30 or so years ago) and their surprise at how "normal" the farm girl from Iowa was. In Mike's words "It's been so good for me to meet you! You aren't simple or boring at all! " (To which his wife hit him and scolded him in Chinese about how he can't say stuff like that.) Haha. Also, an almost-naked man was stumbling around the street outside our restaurant, so we kept joking about how we had the best seats in the house, we got dinner AND a free show! It was a wonderful, funny day.
Ok, I think that's about enough for now. The kids are up from naps now, so there will be lots of snacks to administer to crabby, just-woke-up children. YEAH! :) Alright, love you all.
Christina

Road nanny rage

I tell you, people, there is no rage like a mother (or nanny) late for picking her kid up from school. I mean, before I started shuttling kids around, I was a pretty calm driver. Taking my sweet time and getting to wherever we were headed. WELL ,today I realized that the fear of being even a MINUTE late for picking up the kid at school and facing the scorn of other parents and even worse, teachers, can make any sane person go a little horn-honking crazy. Today I got to school early and thought I would maybe have enough time to run down to Dunkin Donuts and get a couple of "munchkins" (donut holes) to satisfy my sweet tooth and of course on the way back all sorts of crazies were blocking my way back to my sweet little boy.
WHILE I'M WRITING ABOUT THIS "SWEET BOY" I must mention that on Wednesday, this sweet boy had a 5 alarm tantrum in the parking lot of our townhouse complex. He got out of the van and collapsed in a blind toddler rage right there, screaming MOMMY, MOMMY! (that's what he yells when he's having a tantrum with his dad or me, like as if Mommy were here he'd be exempt from whatever travesty he's being subjected to, i.e. behaving himself.) It took 15 minutes of him screaming (after I moved him off the pking lot and to the sidewalk) and eventually even the neighbors got annoyed and closed the window. One of those moments where you have no idea what super-nanny would do and after trying numerous tactics, you just gotta throw the little monkey over your one free shoulder and get back to the house where they can tantrum without embarrassing the heck out of nanny "Stina."
Whew, so that was quite the experience.
Tonight I'm meeting some new friends in the city for dessert, so I'm getting all dressed up and heading down to Manhattan for that. Pretty excited... I've been watching "what not to wear" as religiously as ever, so of course in true Christina fashion I've planned out the perfect outfit and I am raring to go show it off in the city. :)
love u all
christina

Stinky clean clothes

Today, I folded half a load of laundry before realizing that the pile of clothes conspicuously laying in the hallway next to the kids' room may or may not have gotten washed. I swear I put a load in the washer, put detergent in, and started it. I swear I did. Basically, I'm losing my mind :)
Welcome to childcare :)
so anyway, other thoughts...
I had a great Labor day weekend, I was unsure of how it would go, with no plans and thinking that it would be a missing-my-family like crazy weekend, with little to no plans to divert my attentions. But I made a pretty nice weekend for myself, hanging out with my bible study ladies, my Iowa friend Patrick came up to visit the suburbs on Sunday, and on Monday my friend Lori (bible study leader) and I had an amazing Indian lunch (yep, Allison and Tom, I had Indian food again. I really DID like it! :) ) and walked around a cute town on the Hudson. Pretty sweet weekend. One of those times when you can be sad and sit around or you can CHOOSE TO BE HAPPY, choose to get out there, do things, and make life happen. I've heard that if you keep doing what you're doing, you keep getting what you're getting. So if you like sitting around feeling sorry for yourself, you can do that. OR you can do something different, ASK those 40-year-old awesome ladies in bible study if they want to hang out, become a volunteer and meet people who have the same passions, join a painting class and learn a new skill (or better an old one) and have a great time. :)
my wisdom for the day :)
My mom sent me a package yesterday- a new mug that says "You can't scare me, I'm a nanny!" I took a pic with it today to send to her, and just showed it to Reily. I said "who's this?" and he said "Stina! and coffee!" Haha. Funny what kids learn. He knows what I need in the morning :)
All of you who know Caroline, say prayers for her today, she had a tough morning getting to her first day of work in Chicago. I've heard the story, it was PRETTY TOUGH. So if you think about it, pray that she has a better time tomorow and that her new bosses were understanding with a small town girl trying to get around on public transportation. ( I know how that can be-confusing and frustrating!!) I'm excited for her this semester- I think it's going to be an awesome experience in the big city, while still being in college. A pretty sweet plan if you ask me. Now that I'm done with school, it makes me wish a little bit that I had done things like studying abroad and things like Care is doing. The truth is, once I found my niche at Iowa State, I was just having too much fun to take a semester away. A semester away from the life I loved? No thank you :) and really, I guess I don't regret it a bit, my 4.5 years at Iowa State made me who I am, and even the times that I didn't love, I love now, because I learned who I was, who my God is, and who he wants me to be :)
Ok, I feel like I've been talking about college in the blog a lot lately, I guess it's because I've been reconnecting with many of my college friends lately, and so I'm catching up on this whole world that I haven't thought much about since moving here. College life goes on without me, and it's so good, hearing about what all my friends have been doing and how their lives are.
On a totally unrelated note-
one of the reasons I haven't written much lately is because the KIDS ARE RUNNING ME RAGGED! whew. For real, people. You think that the baby is behind everybody because he isn't walking yet, because he can't pull himself up, you're even trying to give him little lessons on the bench, feeling insecure anytime to see a baby his age doing cooler things. THEN HE STARTS DOING IT!! Semi-walking, scooting around the room, and it's super exciting...
until you realize what this will do to your life.
turn it upside down.
Now, he can get into almost anything in the entire house.
The kids officially fight over toys now, and the baby is like a hurricane that turns over everything in his path, which now includes even things on surfaces all over the house. Whew. It's exhausting. The fact that the baby can now reach all the 2 1/2 year old's toys, along with the teething, makes putting the kids in the car just to drive around for an hour to get a moment of rest sound pretty good (that's what I did this morning for awhile haha.)
So yeah, our life has gotten pretty different around here.
Here's some pics, of 2yr old dancing while I finished up this post, and baby playing with diapers? whatever makes him happy haha.
love you all
christina