thoughts and things

it's only taken me 18 days into the new year to sit down and publish my first entry in our 2012 rothschild blog. it's not that i have had lack of material or inspiration, more or less, i have been lacking motivation. after plugging away night after night with that elf, my creativity and desire to do a nightly project has dwindled. i was in the bathtub tonight reviewing things and i remembered a post from grandma and grandpa's friend, pam young. her mother kept a journal for a while titled "thoughts and things." i think that is such a straight forward approach to all of this chronicling. so here i am tonight, without anything particularly amusing or inspiring but wanted to get down a few "thoughts and things" to kick the year off.

thus far, its been an eventful year with little or no down time. it seems that the bulk of our friend's birthdays are between the months of november and february so every other weekend has been filled with some sort of dinner party or outing. we have literally been eating and celebrating for three months now. your dad's birthday was on sunday and after years of swinging and missing with the gifts, i finally hit a home run. he has a HUGE melon and i special ordered some big daddy raybans that actually fit! its a christmas birthday miracle! all he needs is a mustache and he would totally look like he belonged on reno 911.

this new year also has meant new teachers, new classes, new schedules, new activities. both thing one and thing two are swimming and vivian is taking gymnastics. two year old gymnastics might be the funniest thing ever. its like herding cats; each with their own agenda and short attention span. every once in a while one of them will notice their mother's sitting up in the stands and race across the mats to wave "hello!" its hilarious. its a small class, for containment purposes, with six tiny two year olds. i had to wait for someone to move out for vivian to move in. this finally happened and in the irony, our vivian is replacing another vivian! it was meant to be! at our first class, buggy was going last so they could show her the ropes. by the end of class she was leading the pack! she is absolutely fearless and wants to jump off of everything and anything. as she was not-so-patiently awaiting her turn for the balance beam, she hopped on behind a tiny brunette. this girl was not going fast enough for her, so she hopped off, ran around the girl and jumped on in front of her. i would expect nothing less from her. i don't even remember her walking, she went straight from crawling to running.

she is totally going to be pissed about this comparison later in life, but the resemblance is too funny not to note.

jack's doing well in swimming, he's the strongest in his pack of three, but still only feels secure with the life jacket on and his hands firmly on the side of the pool. vivian is afraid of nothing and jack is cautious about everything. he will make a fine big brother and protect her from herself some day! ha!

baby eleanor continues to be a dream baby, she is happy most days, despite her crummy sleeping pattern. she is content to just cat nap all day long, which means i accomplish very little. today, for the first time in a very long time, i just held her while she took her morning nap. we rocked and i looked at her tiny little angel face. if anything i am certain about, its that the three of you have already gotten cuter this year! eleanor thinks jack is the funniest person in our family and he can make her belly laugh like no one else. there is certainly a special bond between jack and his stunt double. she is looking more and more like him all of the time. that is when she doesn't have her tongue sticking out like gene simmons. she discovered it over the weekend and its been sticking out ever since.

also this year seemed to be a great opportunity for new germs. i am not certain which carrier monkey brought it home but its managed to work its way through everyone but your iron clad father. i can only be puked on and have my face sneezed into so many times before you all infect me. another joy of motherhood. and ironically, you all seem to begin to feel better just about the time i start to feel lousy. this is probably my fate for many a year to come, but i get really sick of snot.

one last funny thing before i end my first entry; i have to recount this story about jack. i had a hell of weekend with my girlfriends- a pub crawl, spa day, shopping, dinner and girl slumber party a few weeks ago. it was a real commitment to fun, but i came home on sunday pretty exhausted and ready to go to bed. we've been playing bedroom shuffle trying to find the perfect balance of who-goes-where lately, and on this particular sunday jack ended up in bed with me while daddy crashed on the couch. he some times talks himself to sleep or tries to talk to me to avoid sleep. he was laying there and i was checking my phone when out of no where, he yells "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?" this was one of those parenting moments where i should have kept it together and scolded him but i couldn't help myself from hysterically laughing. when i finally got it together and told him that wasn't very appropriate and asked where he had heard it, he simply said "you know, that guy marty mcfly? you know, calvin klein?" and i was like "WHAT?" he proceeds to tell me about watching all THREE back to the future movies with old lady grandma while we were out to dinner in kansas city. "mom, its so funny. marty says the funniest stuff. what the hell is going on?"

indeed, jack. what the hell is going on? just logging some memories with my mom. she probably let him drink a can of coke too, but its all good, because he will remember that night, hanging out with her on the sofa feeling like a big person with grandma.

ah, i am looking forward to many more of these moments, these "thoughts and things" this year.