McDonnell Place

Saturday, May 27, 2006

My Blue Heaven

Praise the Lord that it's that time of year again and this weekend we're beach-bound!! No better timing. Come this afternoon we'll be starting a week of sand between our toes and salt in our hair; the good life. The beach of some of my first footsteps... first swims... first kiss... and my son's first sand castles and concotions of seaweed soup; a place where you can undergo an unusually immediate transportation into a mode of relaxation and romance.

Now, I don't know if it's all the dirty diapers and kitchen messes that brought me here- or all the wedding news on Heather's site that I've been enjoying so much- but I'm in a place where a little romance sounds really appealing. So goodbye, Blogland! This is me hanging up my "out of office" sign.

See you all in a week!

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Watching Shannon

Shannon is the 6 month old little sister of Evan and Madalyn's good friends. We got to watch her the other morning while her siblings were at swim school. As you can see, she's a GOOD baby despite what her mother says about her... JUST KIDDING, Dana. I know you love her... (or at least I won't report you to DFS just yet.) But seriously, my kids LOVE Shannon and we're thrilled to keep her anytime, if for entertainment purposes alone. Look at these intense eyes and the cheeks that provoke the cliche'd phrase "couldn't you just take a bite" right out of me.

Although, I can't help but wonder if we're setting the kids up for false expectations re: their little brother on the way because 1) he won't be as happy as Shannon 2) he won't be as sturdy as Shannon 3) he won't be as entertaining as Shannon, and most importantly 4) he will be much more demanding than Shannon and also unlike Shannon, he won't go home after a few hours. It's okay, though... really... it is. Because Dana, being the veteran mom of three, is going to talk me through it with the skill of a hostage negotiator talking down someone near a neurological breakdown. What else are friends for?

Evan LOVES Shannon and can't get enough of her.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

I can't believe I'm posting about this

Mostly because now the internet will know I watch American Idol. You may as well also know that a) I love Simon Cowell, b) I have an overwhelming urge to punch Paula Abdul more than once per episode, and c) I've been rooting for Taylor Hicks since his audition. (Because where I sit in this house and this family, a little A.D.D. has become endearing in a person.)

There. I said it. I watch the show.

But what I'm really itching to ask is did anyone else find the shot of David Hasselhoff crying like a newborn baby at the announcement of the American Idol winner a bit, um, random?

I mean- "Boobs McPhee," (as some have named her,) well her dad cries like he's watching his daughter overcome cancer every episode, so that sort of thing we've come to expect... but the cut to "Mr. Babe Watch" all teary-eyed and touched? What was that all about? Personally, I would have been less confused if the camera had cut to Wolfgang Puck's reaction in the final seconds before credits. At least he was featured earlier in the show.

And one more thing- why did everyone on the stage look thrilled- and Ryan Seacrest downright giddy- that there were more votes for this show than for any American president? Was this really regarded as an achievement? Shouldn't we be lamenting such a horrifying statistic; tearing our sackcloth or breaking out the tissues and Zoloft?

Apparently I'm in the sad minority on that one. At least I can say I wasn't one of those voters. I may watch the show but I've never voted, and I'm hoping that with that truth I can restore just the smallest grain of my dignity... and if not, can we just pretend that I did?

Monday, May 22, 2006

Express Yourself

Overheard this week:

* Evan: "Hold on, Madalyn, I'm trying to put your shoe on... this is unbelievable!"

Madalyn's response: "Okay."

*In a dramatic forcefully exhaled remark of frustration all too familiar to a noise I make: "UHHHR!"

*When Madalyn wouldn't play with him, Evan passed through the room and muttered under his breath in anger: "I am so upset with you, Madalyn!"

*In regards to the balloon she got at the store: "Don't pop it, Madalyn- you're going to pop it. Madalyn- you can pop it, or play with it... which do you want, Madalyn?"

*Evan, very sweetly before we left the house: "Do you want me to put your shoe on? Here, sit down, Madalyn. I'll put your shoe on."

*Another time, not so sweetly: "I'm trying to get your shoe on... I am so sick of this..."

*And said directly to me on more than one occasion: "Don't leader me, mommy!"

What? You didn't know that "leader" was a verb?

Friday, May 19, 2006

Here's Looking at the End, Kid

At the close of this weekend I'll be 34 weeks along. I'm banking on 5-6 more weeks of pregnancy, putting a lot of stock in the fact that Madalyn was a week early. We leave for the beach next weekend and will come home the following... from that point on, I'm good to go, and will actually be nearly full-term.

On the last two weeks of pregnancy-

My 33 week Babycenter.com email update:

This week your baby weighs a little over 4 pounds and measures 17.2 inches from the top of his head to his heels. His skin is becoming less red and wrinkled, and while most of his bones are hardening, his skull is quite pliable and not completely joined. This will help him ease out of your relatively narrow birth canal.

My 34 week Babycenter.com email update:

Your baby now weighs about 4 3/4 pounds and is probably almost 18 inches long. His fat layers — which he'll need to regulate his body temperature once he's born — are filling him out, making him rounder. His central nervous system is still maturing and his lungs are well developed by now. If you've been nervous about going into preterm labor, you'll be happy to know that 99 percent of babies this age can survive outside the womb — and most have no major long-term problems related to prematurity.

Once again, gotta love how they always address one of the "worst case scenarios" like "in the event that you were wondering whether you might have the baby TODAY! it would survive and most likely have no long-term problems... and if you hadn't thought of this possibility, THINK ON IT."

A recent conversation with Evan:

"And then after the beach is baby Jack gonna come?"

"Yes, sometime after that."

"That will be so exciting! Then our home will be so excited!"

"Yes, it will!"

"Who's the baby's mommy?"

"You're looking at her."

"I'm looking at her?"

"Me- I'm the baby's mommy."

"Nooo, you're my mommy."

(I laughed and he mimicked my laugh- which is always humbling...)

"Yes, I'm your mommy and Madalyn's mommy and I'm Jack's mommy, too."

At the dinner table the other day Evan asked if the baby "pee-pees in the bath inside there?" (Meaning into the warm water he lives in in my stomach.)

I wonder if he was majorly or only slightly horrified to hear that the answer was yes.

All along we've said Madalyn's in denial about giving up her baby spot in the birth order, pretending to have no idea what we're talking about when we pat my belly and talk about it, or developing a timely fixation on my belly button to redirect the subject of conversation. But this morning she proved otherwise.

This morning, as Shaun was sucking a roach out of my car air-vent outside (it crawled down my windshield on the inside of the car while I was driving home from coffee with a friend last night and you all know how I hate roaches- I swear it was like seeing the dark shadow of the spawn of Satan appear and I just knew I would feel it on my ankles before I got home, leading me to drive with them twisted and as far away from the last sight of his location as possible, audibly talking myself down and leaping like grease off a skillet the second I got in our driveway and threw the gear into park)... I'm telling you I wouldn't last 5 seconds on Fear Factor and a video tape of that drive home would've won first prize on some reality tv show any episode, hands down... but ANYWAY... back to this morning, when my HERO of a husband went to exterminate the thing and found it dead on the dash, when meanwhile the kids both ran into our bedroom and climbed in bed with me...

Madalyn showered me with hugs and kisses and Evan crawled around to my other side to not miss out. I rubbed Madalyn's back and with a domino effect, she began to rub Evan's... and then his hair, so tenderly, gently, sweetly. He smiled and blushed until it tickled too much to stand... and I think that was the moment then when Evan asked something about the baby, the moment when Madalyn put her hand on my stomach and said plain as day; "Jack."

To my ears that was the equivalent to the sounding of a shotgun at the start of a race. We are officially ready for this baby's arrival, and my uterus has authorized permission to start its engines.

32 weeks

This is one of those totally awkward pictures you're not sure how to pose for... do you let your arms dangle and let that stomach lead and end up looking not so unlike one of those high school boys on the weight-lifting team who sticks out his chest like a proud rooster, (except your bold "sticking-out" is involuntary)... or do you try to pose like this only to end up looking uncomfortable in your own body as though your baby is this unconnected growth hanging off the front of you that you're not quite sure what to do with it...? Of course, the expressions on my face don't help... like I'm snarling through gritted teeth, "just take the thing already I'M HON-GREY!"

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

The Magical World of Cinema

Lately, the hottest movie in this house is Cinderella. Madalyn calls it Rah-rah, and Evan asked me if the prince was Jesus and if the fairy godmother was Mary. (She is draped in a blue cloak.) The other day they lay on Evan's bed side by side on their stomachs, elbows propped, with their chins cupped in the palms of their hands. It didn't last long, but man were those 5 seconds of Kodak-ready perfection.

Second to Rah-rah would probably be the movie-choice Madalyn passionately refers to as Fugger! (Only the "g" is really pronounced as a strong "ck" sound which makes sense when you discover the real name of what she's spouting out in this backwards, dyslexic fashion.) Should I even admit how many laughs have been shared and savored over this one... how many times we've prompted her to say it and clutched our stomachs in pain. And we're not total middle schoolers- part of it is just her voice and inflection. (We'll have to catch a clip of it soon.)

In line after these selections would be Finding Nemo; Madalyn's "Dawdy" interpretating to be the character Dory, and main character, Nemo is "Eh-mo." Whenever it ends she says, "Bye bye, Dawdy. Bye bye Ehmo. Bye bye wawduh. Bye bye fish."

Evan and I had a long, long, long talk about this particular flick that began by him asking if Dory was Nemo's mommy. Feeling oddly defensive of the cartoon character, I wanted to be sure the mommy wasn't percevied to be the dingbat Dory, but rather the tender and intelligent Clown Fish at the beginning. In other words, I set a trap and stepped right into it because then he wanted to know what happened to Nemo's mommy at the beginning, which,though left somewhat vague, was portrayed as her being consumed by a larger member of the food chain along with all her offspring except for Nemo.

Now I tried to think of a creative and happy answer to his question, but everything I came up with would make the cartoon mother out to be a dead-beat mom who abandoned the parenting scene for a livelier reef. Every alternate explanation left me staring at the truth; "a shark ate her," I finally said. (I know, I know- you can't believe I told him that, but sometimes you wind up in these situations when a toddler probes at you; where your brain just sort of liquefies and oozes out your mouth with some raw and morbid response.)

Anyway, naturally this led him to then ask "Well is a shark going to eat you?"

I wanted to say, "If one does, I'll be sure to live in its belly like Jonah from the sheer guilt of this conversation till it spits me out and gives me up to be good for my word, I swear it..."

But instead we talked about how fish don't really talk or have feelings, how it was just a movie... but then he asked if sharks live in the ocean where we swim. "No, no, they're out at sea- far, far, far out- away from where we swim," I insisted, wiping the media-driven Summer of Shark Attacks far from a few years ago far from my mind.

He wanted to know why Nemo touched the boat... was he looking for his mommy? Did he know what happened to his mommy? I tried to turn this one to my advantage in saying Nemo didn't obey his daddy when he told him to stay near him and not run off and so somebody took him.

Then we continued to talk until Evan came up with his own satisfying solution to the vague disappearance of the mother Clown Fish; she was probably lost and Nemo and the daddy would look for her at the end, after they found each other... the answer I probably should've given at the beginning; "The mommy was just scatter-brained like Dory and got herself all lost and the daddy would have to find her after he rescued Nemo."

Or in other words; "Yes, the mommy is just a ditz... and anything else that's self-abasing to me as long as you hear Butterflies and ice cream and balloons and happy endings... and never, never depravity or darkness..."

My grandmother doesn't read the newspaper or watch the news, I won't talk about missing people and regret it if I hear much about them, nor do I watch so much as the previews for C.S.I., and by golly, Evan won't accept the death of Nemo's mother. Why should he? Denial-schmile. What about Philippians 4: 8? In light of that, who can blame him?

Who can blame any of us for loving Cinderella and big red dogs and all things lovely and soft? For insisting on happy endings? These things whisper of a Romance and Reality to come that will be far deeper and far more tangible than anything we've yet known. So dream on, Evan. You and Madalyn both- keep dreaming.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

The April Batch

playing in tin washtubs of water and in a baby pool filled with sand and water... with kitchen utensils... and the hose... and all while naked as a Jaybird. Life is good for toddlers.

Heather's Shower Hosted at Mom's

Bridesmaids

the bride with her mother and grandmother

Lorraine, Fran, and Donna

flower child- Doug put that daisy there behind her ear and she left it... shockingly enough...

I took this of the bride and bridesmaids. What's funny is it turned out kind of revealing about their personalities.

Around the House

we've never seen her this tired- she fell asleep on my lap at the computer. that's a first.

Before we made the room-switch, when Evan was anticipating the event, he made these two beds. The one in ther rear is a crib for baby Jack and the other is a bed for Madalyn. He called me in to see them.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

The Good, The Bad, and The Just Plain Nasty

This afternoon I attempted to paint over the Crayola murals Evan drew in his now "old" room, which will soon be his brother's room. I caught a great deal when I asked the paint color from the maintenance guy and he offered to fill up my own containers with the paint he had in storage. Free paint. A whole 2.5 gallon container of it and about half that of the trim color. Awesome. I spent 30 dollars total on a curtain rod and paint supplies and that's well worth the thousand dollar deposit we'll get back if I can tackle the job.

Little did I know that Crayola's washable marker color #666 would be nearly impossible to cover. I've painted 6 or 7 coats over Evan's artwork and that one color is still running through the walls like thick blue veins. Harder still to get rid of is the cleaner Shaun sprayed on the wall one day while I was gone- remember that part: while I was gone- to try to get rid of the artwork. FYI, Shout- (yes, as in the stain spray fit to meet your laundering needs)- is only meant for fabric- go figure- and more specifically for clothing. You put it on a wall and it drips likes grease. You paint over it and it bleeds through the paint with the persistence of a severed artery.

So I fought off Sciatica and Braxton Hicks while following both my son and husband's trails, and when I came to something green/yellow in color and crusted onto the wall, I just had to laugh. Of course there's a booger on the wall- why wouldn't there be a booger somewhere on the wall in a 3-year-old's room? Of course, judging by the other trails it could just as easily be a little gift my husband left for me. And it didn't really matter, because do you know what I did? Do you know what brought me great satisfaction and joy in my painting? I rolled right over that thing. Just one firm roll of cream-colored thick goop and it was as good as gone, wiped out of existence as if it had never been there.

That was the moment- right then- when two things happened simultaneously: 1) I wondered why in the world we didn't keep a small container of paint around at all times, and 2) I smiled. I smiled the broad toothy smile of a conqueror because while there were still grease stains and blue veins awaiting me, I had successfully taken out a booger without blinking or thinking twice. I didn't even stop to consider chiseling it off first or fetching a Clorox wipe. I didn't worry about the fact that it would always be there, sealed up underneath all that paint. But most impressive of all? Not once- NOT ONCE- did I so much as gag or throw up a little in my mouth.

You'd think I'd be more motivated now; to prevent any sort of nose-picking under this roof, however discrete. But I'm not. Not at all. Instead, I'm making lemonade out of these dirty, rotten lemons I live with by keeping a Tupperware of paint on hand, and then I'll paste those things down in their place with the agility of a cowgirl drawing her pistols. The next tenant will never know how many fossilized boogers are buried in the paint around them. It'll be like living on an oil well or a gold mine. Only with boogers. (Which would probably make it more like living on a graveyard or pet cemetery, really... or a land mine if they're total germ-aphobics... but who's computing anything I'm writing at this point anyway?) All you're thinking is that you don't want to visit us, and moreover, that you don't want us to visit you. And what can I say to that except- we'll understand.

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Freestylin' with E. and M.

This weekend's been an interesting one. Just last week we moved the kids into the same bedroom and then this weekend Madalyn began sleeping in a big girl bed. Their excitement resulted in their absolute refusal to fall asleep until around 9:30, but it's improving in slow increments and there've even been a few nights they went right to sleep. Madalyn is even staying in her bed at naptime... but Evan, who spends his quiet time on our bed now, is another story that I won't get into- shouldn't get into when it only just ended a few minutes ago and the frustration's still boiling just below my skin.

Anyway- there were some great times, too. Church this morning, and swimming at the pool frequently. We took this video clip Friday evening so, if you never have, you can see these two little people written about here so often:

http://www.mcdonnellplace.com/video/Swimming.EarlyMay.2006.Web.wmv

Friday, May 05, 2006

A Day of Celebration

Disney truly has "thought of everything" because there's now even a Disney-developed neighborhood in the area called "Celebration." They bring in snow in the winter, and summer activities in Florida are never a problem. It's kind of like spending the day in Pleasantville or in that Jim Carey movie... what was the name of it... where every lawn was perfectly manicured and not so much as a leaf littered the streets? Celebration is a place were charming diners and bakeries dot the downtown square and beautifully landscaped yards welcome you down every street. Staged with entirely traditional construction, every home has a front porch that spills-over with vibrant, blooming flowers. I can't imagine the neighborhood association requirements, nor the annual dues. There are pools and parks, and this fountain- the highlight of the day for the kids when we visited with our friends Stephanie, Ethan, and Sydney.

I think I could live in that neighborhood and walk my double stroller with the bent wheel to the Barnies on the square every morning, no problem, if I thought cutting out my organs and selling them on the black market to afford 1800 square feet of living space and a lot of contrived charm was worth it. Sure. Why not?