so much for romance...

this coming weekend marks our fifth wedding anniversary...hard to believe that I haven't killed Dork by now (although I'm sure that he has wanted to kill me on several occasions, too!!) we were planning for a nice little get-away -- neither of us have been to the smithsonian for a number of years and we thought we'd enjoy an afternoon checking out the different museums, followed by dinner in some cool downtown dc restaurant, and then drinks and some live music (he doesn't go for that much here at home, but i thought i could at least talk him into it since we'd be away from home!!) then more drinks at the hotel, a good night's sleep without the fear of being awakened, and brunch...and more time at the museums. (and yes, you should detect a theme involving much alcohol for the weekend. i have had exactly one hangover since i had morgan, and that was one too many...once a kid comes on the scene, the possibility of just lying around the house and nursing your headache and vegging in front of the tv no longer exists. the only possibilities for large amounts of alcohol consumption anymore only exist when i'm away from home!)

we were looking forward to some time for the two of us, since we really don't do much at all without morgan (and that is by choice, because i just frankly don't want to be away from her!). unfortunately, it looks like our romantic get-away weekend will now be accompanied by our daughter. my mom fell last weekend and her back is still sore, so she can't lift morgan in and out of her crib without doubling over in pain. my in-laws are consumed all weekend with their involvement in a local arts festival (my FIL has a photography display there....and my MIL has to stay with him all weekend to show her support. hmmm, passing up a chance to spend all weekend with your granddaughter to sit in a tent and help sell photos?? don't even get me started on that one...)

i'm looking forward to taking her along, but i have to admit that i'm a little bummed that we'll have to change our plans for a carefree no-set-plans weekend to one with a little more thought put into it. now naptime will need to be incorporated into our time at the museum, which will be a challenge since we'll be taking the metro into the city from our hotel in arlington, and i'm not quite sure how many 'family-friendly' hotels we'll encounter. either way, we'll have a fun time together as a family -- and when you stop to think about it, isn't celebrating family really what an anniversary is all about? if Dork and i hadn't met and married five years ago, we wouldn't have this wonderful little person in our lives that we both love with all of our hearts and who has enriched our lives more than you can ever imagine until you have a child. Dork and i will toast with wine at dinner, morgie can toast with her sippy cup with apple juice, and we'll look forward to a weekend of love and togetherness!

can't believe it's over already :(

just as much as i was looking forward to vacation, i'm now bumming just as much that it's over. for the past few years -- actually, since morgan was born -- i've taken long weekends off, but we haven't gone anywhere for a week since she was born, and i had forgotten the sheer joy of not having to worry about a schedule or being anywhere at a given time....heck, aside from that, let's not forget the joy of not having to wear footwear that resembled anything other than a flip-flop for a week!

i also never realized just how much *STUFF* you could actually pack into an suv for a week-long trip! as i mentioned in my last entry, the days of just piling a few things into a suitcase and not giving any forethought to what you're taking are long gone now that morgan's here -- but it was a great learning experience because now i know that i won't need to take nearly as many toys or clothes on vacation next summer. i figured it was better to be prepared than to need something and not have it -- but i also found out that morgan was so exhausted by the end of a day spent swimming, building sand castles, eating ice cream on the boardwalk, riding kiddie rides and hitting the outlets with mommy that the last thing she wanted to do when she got back to the beach house was play with her toys.

undoubtedly one of the best parts of the whole week was the afternoon of the first day we arrived. we decided to just walk along the boardwalk and take in all the sights then walk on the beach for awhile. when morgan saw the sand and the waves, her eyes grew huge and the biggest smile spread across her face. "my beach! my beach!," she exclaimed, amazed by what appeared to be the world's largest sandbox beneath her tiny toes. she was a bit daunted at first by the sound of the waves crashing against the shoreline, but as she stood staring out to sea and held mommy's hand on one side and daddy's on the other and we helped her jump high over the approaching waves as we counted 1...2...3...jump!!, she loved it and couldn't wait to come back the next day, shouting "beach, i'm coming!" and running toward the sand.

when i was anticipating my vacation and thought about the fact that i wouldn't be able to lie on the beach and relax and read like i had done before morgan, i was a bit upset....but honestly, i had so much fun running after her as her little legs carried her down from our perch under our umbrella to the shoreline that i didn't even miss it. we crafted sandcastles from the plastic molds that we brought with us (and kept sending poor daddy back to fetch water to make the sand just the right consistency!) and we buried our legs and toes so they were hidden below the sandy surface. i chased after her with our videocamera, watching her as she helped daddy launch a kite on the beach at dusk. and she and i split a hot dog and a coke that we got from a beach vendor....hmmm, does eating sand count as fiber?? (and yes, i know that i'm a quasi-vegetarian and a hot dog is off limits; i also know that a two year-old shouldn't be making a diet of processed meat and soda....but this was vacation, after all).

i was also pleasantly surprised at how well morgan adapted to our new home-away-from-home. i thought she might be homesick for some toy she forgot to bring or for 'mam-mam', my mom whom she loves dearly and will choose anytime over daddy and mommy. she loved our house and explored each room as soon as we arrived, and she quickly learned what our house looked like, pointing to it as we approached it each afternoon after a long day at the beach or an evening of fun and exclaiming, "my house, my house!" (yeah, she is at that great age where she thinks everything is hers). she even made sure to say good night to the beach and the sand and the seagulls and the moon and the boardwalk each evening when we headed for home, eagerly anticipating the next day.

and now, after being back at our real home for almost a week, it's a bittersweet feeling to look back and reminisce about our week together. after all, it was morgan's first trip to the beach and the first week that the three of us spent together without the distractions of phones, computers, work concerns, daycare, and TV (ok, we cheated a little bit on that one....but it was only on for about an hour a day, when we watched Curious George in the morning!). unfortunately, we're now back into the swing of real life and i miss having her all to my self....but i'll always have great memories of our first true vacation as a family!

vacation - and fall - are just around the corner

well, i've been eagerly anticipating this week for most of the summer, and it's finally here! yes, this is the week that my family and i leave for vacation. i'm especially excited because it will be morgan's first time ever at the beach and i hope she loves it as much as i think she will. she loves to swim, and one of her fave things to do at home is sit in her sandbox and throw sand everywhere and make a mess -- which are the two things she'll get to do a lot of next week and will hopefully love at the beach.

there's always so much pre-planning to do before vacation, though, and even more than i ever realized now that we have a child. no more grabbing a few pair of shorts, flip flops, tossing everything in a small suitcase and heading out the door -- nope, we now have to make sure we have beach umbrellas (so morgan doesn't burn in the sun), sand pails and toys for the beach (to build the perfect sandcastle and hopefully keep her from wanting to constantly eat sand or run head-on into the ocean), spf 70 in spray form (again, the no-burn thing -- a red screaming child at the beach isn't my idea of fun), a backpack to hold all of her gear at the beach (so that i can hold onto her, along with the beach chairs, umbrellas, blankets, cooler, toys, and all the other assorted stuff that will be weighing us down as we trod onto the sand). hell, i even found a site online that has vacation checklists that you can print out -- since we've never done a full-fledged vacation with a child (and yes, since i'm a control freak...) i wanted to make sure that we have all our bases covered and i'm not forgetting something vital. after all, i don't want to scar my daughter for life because i forgot to pack her fave juice boxes to drink on the beach.

her clothes have been washed and set aside for a week, and i'm finishing up the last of the laundry tonight...so now it's time to grab her toys and find that ones to take that either (a) aren't going to cause a meltdown if we happen to lose them while we're there, or (b) don't have so many pieces to them that they'll get scattered throughout the beach house we're staying in, or (c) don't require batteries to operate that will inevitably go dead while we're there, or (d) aren't so cumbersome that they'll take up valuable packing space, or (e) won't cause a meltdown because she can't play with them during the 24 hours between the time they're packed and the time we arrive at the beach. so once i narrow down that list (unfortunately, i didn't locate a list on the 'net for selecting the perfect toys to take on vacation), i will hopefully have one less thing to worry about.

as much as i love this time of the year and look forward to it each summer, there's always a melancholy sadness that goes along with it for me. summer is my favorite time of year, without a doubt -- i hate winter, hate snow and ice (even though it is quite beautiful), don't like to be cold, don't participate in winter sports because i don't like to be cold (and i live in the northeast, where we get actual winters and school delays and closings), yada yada. problem is, right after summer is over, fall is quickly ushered in, and that means winter isn't far behind. in my mind, once vacation is over, it's all downhill from there because cold weather will soon be on its way....and along with it, snow, ice, and darkness when i get up and when i leave my office at the end of the day.

even though i'm a glass-is-half-full kinda gal, this is one thing that's always gotten me down as long as i can remember in my adult life. i've always fought to stay positive after i get home from vacation, but i don't totally succeed. sure, this year will be fun because morgan will be more into halloween and we'll have so much fun picking out our costume and dressing up. the chancellor at the college where i work has an awesome halloween party for faculty and staff at her home and i look forward each year to dressing up and having a great time. and fall is no doubt very beautiful where i live, and morgan and i will have a great time jumping in the piles of leaves and picking out pumpkins, and we might even attempt a corn maze this year, which was hard to do in a stoller last fall. but that dark cloud of impending winter still permeates my thoughts and bums me out. i'll try more than ever to not let it interfere with enjoying all the great moments of the season with my husband and daughter that i possibly can....and who knows, maybe i'll even find a checklist online that will tell me all i need to do to have the perfect winter!! if you have any ideas to keep me bright and sunny instead of cold and dreary, do share :)

amusement parks? AAAHHCH!

back when i was a kid in the late 70's and early 80's, god love my parents for trying to make sure we had a fun family vacay every summer. it usually consisted of either trekking to a new jersey or maryland beach for time on the sand and on the boardwalk, or else hitting a place like hershey park, sea world, or kings' dominion for rides and amusement time.

now that i'm a parent, i can fully empathize with what my parents must have gone through, and that empathy process began this past weekend as the three of us spent 10 hours at hershey park. sure, i've gone to amusement parks as an adult and have been mildly put out by the lines, the rude people, and the cost of food, but i let it roll off my back because the fun time i spent with my friends or my then-boyfriend outweighed those little inconveniences.

but now that i'm responsible for the well-being of a certain very special two year-old little girl, the story changes. no longer am i content to ignore it when someone cuts in front of me or when i can't find a restroom with a clean diaper deck within a two-block radius. no, i'm now looking out for the fun and welfare of my little daughter and it's not just about me anymore (NOTE - coming from a self-indulgent only child, that preceding phrase is pretty profound).

it was a sweltering 90+ degree day with lots of humidity, but i braved the sun and heat so that morgan would have a fun time. i made sure she was sprayed throughout the day with WaterBabies, properly hydrated with bottles of water, and entertained on the kiddie log flume, choo-choo train and kissing tower. we even stood for an hour, waiting for Daddy to get on the Roller Soaker ride so that we could drench him with a water bomb from the ground. (hmmm, bet that's how i got totally fried on the back of my shoulders and knees!) and the time that i would typically have spent pre-morgan browsing through the cute little gift shops at the entrance were replaced with time spent waiting in line for a clean bathroom while trying (albeit unsuccessfully) to ignore the tattoos, green and purple hair and pierced navels of fellow line-waiters. instead of shopping for fun souvenirs, i spent my money on bottled water, burgers, and chicken fingers.

as i was wilting from the heat, i kept envisioning the water park looming up ahead and thinking how good a few little sprays of water would feel. well, it did feel good -- except the few little sprays of water were downpours, thanks to the little asshats who kept setting off the water bombs when morgan and i were standing nearby. so much for trying to look cute in my new tank and madras plaid shorts -- i looked like the loser in a wet t-shirt contest, and the hair that had been so perfectly flat-ironed just a few hours earlier was now frizzing and curling in the humidity. and of course the mascara i had so artfully applied and the perfect bare minerals makeup were now making their way down the sides of my face, and the underwear i had put on that morning were now creeping up into uncomfortable heights, thanks to my soaking wet shorts. the best part, though? all of my dry clothes were in my suitcase....which was back at the hotel. i felt sticky, stinky, and gross, and the fact that Dork didn't quite understand WHY i felt that way made it even worse. the fact that he's italian and has dark skin that never burns and hair that perfectly curls, no matter how wet it gets? that could be part of the issue.

i phoned my mom at one point to chat -- i think it was right after i spent $10 for a burger -- and check in with her, and it was then that i thanked her like i've never thanked her before. now that i'm a mom, i fully understand how she put on a happy face for me so i'd have a great vacation. but now i know that she was also probably counting down the minutes until the park closed and she could break out the flask and have her own little private party to celebrate the end of a wacky day!