jennanddave.com

My parents came up for the weekend on Friday and left this morning. Although it would appear on a day-to-day basis that there's absolutely nothing to do in the neck of the woods we call home, we managed to have a crazy weekend anyway. Each day Henry's nap got later, as did his bedtime, but who wants to sleep when you can play with grandparents instead? The best part of the weekend occurred last night when, after months and months of coaxing, Henry finally said "Grandpa". And since he said it once, he decided to say it a lot. The saddest part of the weekend was this morning when he said "Bye-bye Grammy!" and waved as she went out the door. Henry said bye to his Grandpa after they were in the car and driving away. He's been asking for them all day.

Tomorrow is Halloween which means I have five million pumpkins to carve. I always set a lot out down near the sidewalk in order to lure kids to our part of the street. Most of the neighborhood is older and so there are a lot of porches with the lights turned off; people don't bother coming our way much. This year will be worse because our street's closed off due to construction. Of course none of this stopped Dave and I from stocking up on enough candy for 2000 kids, which led to the following conundrum at the store: do we buy candy we like because we're probably going to have lots left over, or do we buy candy we don't like because we're going to have lots left over? We bought candy we like, but probably we should have gone the other way.

Who am I kidding, we did the right thing. I plan on being in a Butterfinger/Snickers-induced sugar coma by nine o'clock tomorrow night and I'm looking forward to it!

Posted by Jenn at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Henry had his last tumbling session today. He was a little maniac too, running circles around the gym many times over. I'm attributing it mostly to a touch of cabin fever: on Monday, because it was my birthday, we both stayed in our PJ's until after naptime, then yesterday we woke up to a gray rainy day. Indoors is not the natural habitat for a toddler, at least not my toddler, so by this morning he was ready to see lots of people other than his mom and he was ready to expand his realm to a much bigger indoor arena. So, on his last day of tumbling, he ran around in circles, jumped on the trampoline, walked a bit on a balance beam, crawled through a tunnel, attempted to vault a big foam thing shaped like a mailbox (but then thought better of it), rode his beloved airplane for three seconds, stole some safety cones, got a timeout, spun around on a sit and spin, and got a lollipop for his trouble ("Oh boy, pop!"). The end. Last Wednesday because we were feeling totally wild and crazy, we decided to go ahead and sign him up for the next session. Henry really is enjoying it and after the first class I noticed he was doing more physical things outside of tumbling, like learning how to jump, and that can't be a bad thing.

I also signed up for the next session of belly dancing. This time we're going to learn Turkish style belly dance which is going to be a lot more aerobic. It also features a 9/8 beat which when I first heard the teacher say that thought was impossible because you can't have 9 beats in an 8 beat rhythm, but apparently you can. Can't wait to see how I do with that.

Posted by Jenn at 03:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dave and I watched the Disney version of the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" last night. It was narrated by Bing Crosby, who also contributed a few songs which begs the question: how scary can anything that features Bing Crosby be? The answer: not very scary, at least when you get to be in your 30's. I will confess that I while I was watching it I did recognize the parts of the movie that scared me, not because I remembered the scenes, but because I remembered the soundtrack. Technically, last night was the first time I'd ever actually seen those particular parts of the movie, what with my hands not being in front of my eyes and all. Anyway, Dave and I laughed all the way through it, and Megan, Phoebe, and I watched it again this afternoon while we were carving pumpkins. I was inspired to create an Ichabod Crane pumpkin, an activity which hopefully exorcised any lingering "Sleepy Hollow" demons that may have been hanging on for the last 25 years.

Posted by Jenn at 09:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There are some moments in a person's childhood that had such a profound effect on you at the time that you carry them into adulthood. You can remember every emotion as if it happened yesterday; instantly you are five or seven or ten again.

Something happened when I was six that I can never, ever forget.

It was right around Halloween. My elementary school was decked out in cardboard skeletons and witches, the pieces held together with grommets so they could be posed in all sorts of spooky ways. Teachers had tacked orange and black paper up over the bulletin boards and covered them with drawings made by the kids of pumpkins and ghosts. Everyone was abuzz with what they were going to dress up as for Halloween (I was going to be Annie, my hero.).

One day, a couple of teachers combined the second grade classes and led us all into a room that was empty with the exception of a television that was holding court at the front. Nothing is more exciting when your a kid than walking into a classroom that has a television. That usually means no math! No phonix! No nothing educational! Sure enough the teachers had us sit on the floor and told us they had a surprise. They were going to show us Disney's cartoon "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". Great! I'd never heard of it before but it sounded cool and everyone else was excited. The film started to roll. There went Ichabod Crane's unfortunate nose followed by the rest of him, and boy, that sure is a gloomy path he's on...

Then, the horror. I watched the rest of the movie through my fingers and by the end I had to remind myself to breathe. I've never been so glad to have a movie end in my entire life. The rest of the kids, however, loved it. They loved it so much in fact, the teachers decided to play it again.

I don't think I slept for two weeks after that, and I haven't seen it since.

That was 25 years ago. I told this story to Dave on the ride home from Boston. I also told him I've been trying hard to face some of my fears lately so I can let them go, and so perhaps it was time for me to watch Walt Disney's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow". So tonight, at approximately 9 PM, Dave and I will be sitting on the couch, firing up the VCR, unless it's available on DVD.

And I have no doubt I will be clutching Dave for dear life the entire 35 minutes.

Posted by Jenn at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We just got back yesterday from our annual Fall trip to Boston in search of caramel apples and other fun autumn in New England activities, like perusing the Halloween section of Target and taking naps. We had so much fun. My only complaint is that when you visit a place like Boston after spending many months in a place like where we live, you tend to go nuts the first few days trying to pack in as much excitement as possible, and then you crash a few days and really relax. Since we were there for only three full days, we did all the excitement-packing but none of the crashing, so we're all completely and utterly exhausted. It was worth it.

One of the big Fall traditions for us is going to Arena Farms to eat as many caramel apples as we can. (Well, I eat two and Dave eats as many as he can.) We remembered that the caramel is usually melted and ready for dipping around noon so we waited until then before heading over on Saturday. When we got there we were greeted with a big sign that said Arena Farms had been sold. (After snooping around online I found this article dated from last Spring which give an idea of what happened.) To rub salt into the wound, when we got to the caramel apple stand there were a bunch of people standing around a big unmelted vat of caramel looking confused. Apparently they were having some trouble. So no caramel apples were had. It was a very sad day indeed. Instead, we procured some apples, caramels, and peanuts at the grocery store and made them ourselves, which led to two questions: 1. Is it better to use a double-boiler to melt the caramel or put it over direct heat; and 2. Should you add something to the caramel like butter or apple cider? It was a decent substitute for Arena Farms except Dave only got two instead of his usual six. I enjoyed eat melted caramel with nuts in it and forgoing the apple altogether which is what I tend to want to do anyway.

Henry had a great time with his grandparents. He fell madly and completely in love with his Grammy. Since we got back, every other time I buckle him into his car seat he says, definitively, "Grammy's house." I explain that we're eight hours away from Grammy's house but I think he's perfectly willing to spend the day in the car driving back. Today when we stopped by the library he climbed up on a bench and patted the seat next to him and said "Grammy's chair." I asked him where my seat was and he leaned all the way over and indicated a teeny-tiny square inch of space that had a hole in it and said "Mommy's chair." I was offended until I realized it was better than what was set aside for Grandpa and Daddy, which would be nothing, so I crowded onto my square inch and thanked him for saving me a spot.

The other great thing about this weekend that I'd like to share with you all, mainly because I'm thinking about it right now and could really go for one, is a drink my dad made for me. It's a version of the Caipirinha cocktail:

1 lime cut into eight pieces
2 Tbsp sugar
1.75 oz cachaça

Muddle the lime with the sugar in a cocktail shaker. Add the cachaça and a couple of ice cubes. Shake, shake, shake, and pour everything into a rocks glass without straining. Yum!

Posted by Jenn at 09:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last weekend we experienced our first temper tantrums from Henry. I don't remember what the first one was all about, but I definitely remember the second one, because an hour later I was sitting on the couch madly knitting, chowing down on peanut m&m's, and wondering when the tightness in my chest would dissipate.

He's completely entrenched in the "I want to do it my way" stage of the game and it takes a bit of a toll on a person's outlook on life over the course of the day. By naptime we've both had it with each other and are equally pleased about getting some alone time to spend in a darkened room, staring at glow-in-the-dark stars or reading a book until nodding off, depending on which one of us we're talking about.

When they're little tiny babies, when the end of the day rolls around and you've put them to bed, sometimes you feel like all you've managed to do is keep them alive, nothing more and nothing less. Of course you've also been talking to them, playing, showing them around, but you don't remember that and you feel like you're not doing much of anything at all. Lately I've been feeling that way again, except this time around I feel like all I'm doing is being stern and aggravated. Sometimes I'm amazed when Henry wakes up from his nap and is excited to see me because I'm not sure I'd be all that excited to see me. He's testing boundaries all the time so it's not surprising I'm saying "no" and having to redirect him to other things a lot more, but it's still a little hard to get used to.

Yesterday a friend of ours came over for dinner. Henry was shy at the outset, and he came charging over to me so he could snuggle under my chin and inspect our guest from a safe location until he decided what he thought. It was the most glorious moment of the day, because it was one of the first times in a long time he wasn't running away from me.

Posted by Jenn at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We had the floors in Henry's room and our upstairs hallway sanded last week. This meant we had to relocate everyone's sleeping quarters to the first floor. We set Henry's bed up in the back room where the computer is. This is where he spent his naps and his nights. This is also the room in which the magic happens, blogwise, usually during Henry's naps or after he's gone to bed. Since he was all up in my space during key blogging times, nothing happened. Perhaps you thought we were living such full lives I simply didn't have time to sit at the keyboard and open up Moveable Type. You would be wrong. Most likely we were reveling in the novel glory of being able to eat in bed and watch tv at the same time. I love our sofabed.

I wrote a lot of great entries in my head though, does that count?

Posted by Jenn at 08:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Today is Dave's birthday. He's *mmmfffff* years old. He's a bit senstive about turning a year older so if you see him tell him how handsome, smart, talented, and young he is. Oh, and sing "Happy Birthday" as loud as you can.

Dave's parents, my parents, and I chipped in and got Dave something he really wanted. I ordered it a few weeks ago thinking it would take a little while to get here, but two days later there it was, lurking behind our boxwoods. I thought and thought and thought about where to hide it, then I remembered it's Dave, that although he showers everyday, I could still hide it in the tub and he wouldn't notice it. So I hid it in the garage, with a few boxes tossed haphazardly over it to camoflauge it. I thought you'd like to try and guess what it is, so I took a picture of it hidden. I should warn you this picture is not for the faint of heart because our garage is a complete nightmare and also should not be taken as an indication of how we keep our house. Okay, here goes:

Did you find it?

Here's a hint: it's a smoker!

We had some friends over yesterday to help us celebrate Dave getting older so he christened his new smoker by smoking up some pork roast for everyone. Notice in the picture above how you can actually see him saying "Ooooooooo!" as he lifts the lid up? Also, he smelled really good all day, like hickory.

Because he always gets what he asks for, I also got him two Heinecken mini-kegs, something he's been pining away for since he saw Adrian's earlier in September.

He also got the cake his mom used to make for him when he was a kid. It's pineapple and amazing.

True story: last night while he was having another helping of cake, he confessed to me that he purposely didn't offer any cake for our guests to take home because he didn't want to share any more of it. It's his birthday, he can hoard if he wants to. I think his friends will forgive him.

Posted by Jenn at 03:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)