favorite moments from the fall

without a doubt, the fall is my favorite season here in New England.  actually i love every season here except for March, April (and sometimes May).  but this was our last fall here in boston and so i really wanted to capture the beauty of it on film and to enjoy being outside.  unfortunately the early snowstorm in october shortened these opportunities.  but i wanted to post some of our favorite moments we had this fall.

i am irrational and emotional at 40 weeks of pregnancy

who knew??  not me....i wasn't still pregnant with jude at this point.  jude came a week early (he is very type-A like his mother - actually he makes me look normal).  but this baby is in no hurry (maybe he's greg's prototype) despite my urgent pleas for him to come quickly.  maybe he's trying to give us more time to come up with his name since we're struggling so much with that.

regardless, i am still pregnant (even though I'm not technically due until monday), and i have made many irrational decisions in this past week....i was completely normal until we passed the day that he should have arrived on jude's time table.  feeling huge and unattractive, i went to get my hair cut only to leave feeling even more unattractive and still huge.  i was on the verge of tears, but didn't let myself go there.  then, today i was fed up by everyone's comments about jude's hair needing to be cut and time to get rid of the curls, etc, that i caved in to the opinion of others and cut his hair myself in a rash moment this morning.  then i sat on the floor and cried.  i butchered it (see exhibit below) - and completely cut off all his curls except two troll-like ones above each ear.  i didn't mean to cut off all the curls - i was trying to just clean it up to get people off my back, but i've lost my baby's curls and at the moment it seemed like life was an utter loss.  my friend, mimi, called to tell me not to make any more major decisions between now and baby.  good advice.  i'm not even sure i should leave the house.   i didn't experience this craziness with jude because he came earlier than i expected.  i'm ready to have this baby - to be able to go running, sleep on my stomach, drink caffeinated coffee, sit on the floor, have a good glass of wine, and be normal once more (at least as normal as you can be when sleep deprived).

so i'm in the business of cheering myself up now - after the disastrous haircut.  so i'm watching old jude videos and thought i'd share a few of my favorites.

Reading Jude's favorite book in September (he has subsequently thrown it into the toilet, so it hasn't been read now in quite some time).  Please ignore my early morning pregnant look.

The hard thing about Jude learning to verbally say please along with the sign language is that it is so dang cute, i think i might give him a knife if he asked for it with a please.

New words from October.  You only need to watch the first 30 seconds or so - I wasn't sure how to shorten it:

And lastly, Jude riding his favorite toy:  his radio flyer scooter which he rides all over our house and outside.  I'm mainly posting this because I get to watch his curls and i miss them so much.

Shutterfly Christmas Cards

I love pictures.  I love writing cards.  So I really enjoy sending and receiving Christmas cards each year.  I have found a favorite place to get them too, and think I'll stick with Shutterfly each year.  They have really great designs, but what I love is that you can design your own and upload it using the blank card choice.  This allowed me to take several designs and blend them into one that I liked and write my own wording.  I was so pleased with our cards last year - the turnaround time was fast, and they have great quality cards and printing.   Here is our card design from last year:

You can check out their designs and prices for holiday cards, Christmas cards, and invitations by clicking on the linked word.  Also, pay attention to different deals you find around you.  There are many different ways to save money on your cards.  My grocery store often prints out Shutterfly coupons on the Catalina machine.  I cash in my Pampers Gifts to Grow points from diapers for free cards at Shutterfly.  Also, some maternity stores in our area give out Shutterfly gift cards. So there are many ways you can cut down on the cost of cards if you piece the deals together!  And most of you know how much thrill I get out of a good deal! :)

Fall in New England

The fall has always been my favorite season.  But we especially love the fall here in Boston.  Apple picking at one of our many local farms is one of the best parts of it - cider donuts, hot cider, fresh apples, hayrides, pumpkins, changing leaves, and crisp fall weather.  We went to a couple of different orchards this fall and we loved our day at Tougas Farm with some good friends - it was a great way to spend my birthday!  Jude loves his good friend, Nora, so it was really fun to watch them picking and eating apples together.  Here are some photos from the day - our friend, Paul, captured a fantastic moment of the day - Jude getting his diaper changed mid-air, mid-apple-orchard.

A Closet Chore-Doer

So, I've become a closet chore-doer.  This is still a little bizarre to me as I expected to maybe become a closet ice-cream eater, coke drinker, or anything-I-don't-want my-toddler-to-see-me-do doer.  Unfortunately that has become the chores.  I can eat or drink anything in front of him, but I can't do the chores without him wanting to take over.  So I find myself doing them in secret.  I sneak around to do the laundry.  I only load/unload the dishwasher when he is asleep or confined in a high chair (but even then he starts saying "all done" very emphatically so that he can get down to run to the dishwasher).  I sweep and mop only when he is asleep.  And the groceries - well, I can't get around unloading the groceries while he's awake so it just takes me about an hour longer and finding stray produce around my kitchen later.  I hope he loves to clean for life - if only this will last to an age when he can do them without destruction, I will be utterly grateful.

Here are some glimpses into my world.  We went from "sorting" the laundry when he was 15 months old to putting dirty clothes into the washing machine at 19 months old.  This would be fabulous if he understood the concept of what the washer does. But yesterday, I opened the washing machine to find 2 books, several hangers, a shoe, and a toy car.  Likewise, in the kitchen sink today, I found my slippers, Greg's loafer, and a football.  We've got some tweaking to do. 



This is grocery unloading help at its finest.  I can loan him out for short periods of time if you need some help around the house :)

Greg finally turned 30 yesterday - October 1st!

well, greg finally joined the ranks of the 30s yesterday.  it was a great day celebrating as a family and with our close friends.  we had a yummy breakfast of bacon, egg and cheese biscuits (greg's favorite), greg and jude had some daddy-son time watching college football, and in the evening, we had a "surprise party" for greg where we got to share a meal with our close friends at our house.  happy birthday, greg!  your life is a blessing to so many people. 

Language Acquisition Training

this past week, we were in class from 9-5pm every day for language acquisition training.  since all of us here are going to different countries all over the world, i was very skeptical about how a general language acquisition training could benefit us more than the time spent to work on our language specifically. 

i was very wrong.  this was one of the most helpful weeks we've had in our preparation and training.  i can't tell you how excited it got greg and i both about starting our language study again, but also gave us very concrete tools, strategies and ideas to approach our language studies in the most efficient and beneficial way possible. 

the large group broke up into 4 groups - each one practicing the tools that had been presented in class all week to learning one of four languages:  Korean, Japanese, Arabic and Portugese.  My group learned Korean.  I can't say that my Korean is very good after 2 days of studying it, but I feel much more confident and excited about going back to language school!  Very thankful for this past week.

jude's terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-day

little man LOVES to eat lemons

... even though this is his face while eating them.

note: the above pictures are irrelevant to the story, but since it's about him, i thought i'd put some cute pictures of him to go with it.  :) 

last thursday, jude had quite a rough 24 hour period.  after getting out of class thursday night, we grabbed some dinner at a thai restaurant and took it to a park on our way home so that we could observe people there for one of our ethnographies.   without thinking, i fed jude several bites of chicken from my pad thai dish.  this was his first exposure to nuts, and sure enough, about five minutes later, a splotchy red rash began to appear all around his mouth.  surprisingly enough, i did not panic, but for good measure called one of my friends who is a pediatrician.  unable to get a hold of her, i called our pediatrician's office and spoke to the on-call nurse.  she made me feel a little more panicked as she was very urgent in her instructions to get benadryl in him immediately, that our pedi wanted to call in an order for an epi-pen, and telling us to watch for swollen tongue/lips, difficulty in breathing, vomiting, etc. and when to call 911.  so we get home, i start getting jude's bath water ready while greg goes to rite-aid to buy the benadryl and i realize that the silence is a pretty good indicator that a catastrophe is looming.  so i went looking for jude in our apartment only to find him chugging a sippy cup of milk.  this would have been fine if we had actually given him a sippy cup of milk.  so i looked at him while my pregnant brain replayed the events and realized that no, he had not been given a sippy of milk, which means that he was chugging his morning cup of milk that had been sitting out in our HOT apartment for 12 hours.  fantastic.  i jerked the sippy cup out of his hands to find that he had drunk about 2 oz. (discerned from the visible line where the curdled milk had stuck to the sides).  fabulous - of all nights when i didn't need for jude to drink curdled milk, it was this one.  all i could think about was the inevitable conversation with the on-call nurse that would happen during the middle of the night:  "hi - my son is vomiting, but i'm not sure if it's from the allergic reaction he had tonight or the curdled milk i let him drink....any thoughts on what i should do?"

while worrying about when the vomiting would come, i bathed him and put his pjs on, went in the kitchen to get his nighttime milk (we generally keep milk refrigerated) only to see jude come blitzing in the kitchen and run full-force into the wooden island and fall backwards onto the floor (nailing his head in the front and the back).  could a concussion make you vomit too?  this was not turning out to be the best night. 

thankfully, the benadryl made him sleep soundly all night.  and thankfully, i think the apple he ate off the ground last week in the middle of NYC strengthened his stomach enough to make curdled milk digest with no vomiting.

so while getting him dressed that morning, he suddenly stood up on the bed and in a split second, ran towards the edge (imagine a child with no fear, no concept of what causes pain, and reckless) and did not even hesitate at the edge - just kept running off the bed.  i dove across the bed for him (onto my pregnant belly) only in time to grab his legs as he went head first off the bed - body rumpling backwards in half as he landed on the hardwood floor.  you can imagine the screams.  my heart-rate didn't come down for another 30 minutes.  thankfully - he survived with no broken anything.

and if you think that the 12-hour period couldn't get any worse....  we left the house for class; i went to get coffee and met greg and jude back at the bus stop.  while i was gone, greg and jude were waiting for the bus.  jude's stroller was laden with his diaper bag, our backpack, and lunch sacks all hanging on the handles.  while greg was looking down the street to spot a bus, he noticed that a women kept staring at jude with a strange look on her face.  so he looked back at jude only to see that jude's stroller had tipped over backwards and jude was laying there strapped in with his feet up in the air and head near the ground ... not making a sound.   poor guy, by that point, i think he was feeling like nothing else could really make the day worse, so why not lay upside down waiting for the bus....

i promise - we actually do watch him - but it's moments like that when i think people look at us with jude and, seeing me pregnant, think to themselves, "and she really thinks she can do this again?"

ministry in astoria, queens

lest you think all we do in nyc is eat (considering my last three posts were about food), i thought i would give you an idea of our days here.  our team is partnering with astoria community church (a site of queens presbyterian church).   the first two weeks, we spent our mornings in the community of astoria meeting people, observing the community, assessing the needs, and advertising, planning and teaching an ESL course. we loved the students who came to our class - from mexico, bangledesh, and korea.  while not professionally trained ESL teachers, Greg and I enjoyed teaching the intermediate class together and I realized how helpful my job training (SAT tutoring) in helping me know the grammar rules and how to teach it!  our students were wonderful, our team made incredible conversation partners, and we pulled it off somehow!  our last day, we had a party where we had asked our students to bring food from their culture and explain it to us in English.  it was delicious and so fun to see them excited to share their culture with us!

jude doing his part and keeping us in line.

In the afternoons, we are in class - learning a breadth of things about culture, raising kids overseas, contextualization, etc etc.  jude is in the childcare all afternoon while we're in class - the childcare interns are amazing and really love our kids well - the only challenge is getting jude to nap in the "sleeping room" with other toddlers!  i thought he was flexible before....but he's going to be a whole new little man when we leave here!

this week, we are in class all day from 9-5pm doing language acquisition study (more of a practical linguistics study of learning a new language).  Next week, we'll go back to the ministry/class schedule.  i'll share some of the things i'm learning as we go along in case you are interested.

the food in nyc

we are a family that loves to eat.  we love trying new things, so living in an ethnically diverse community has immense benefits.  there is a vast array of restaurants on our one main walking path:  thai, indian, greek, middle eastern, bohemian, italian, chinese, mexican, japanese, korean, french, brazilian.... and the list could probably go on.  we rarely eat out in boston, so we're usually limited to my breadth of cooking.  it has been so fun for me to not cook very much this month and just try different things here.  i am paying close attention, asking lots of questions, and taking notes (literally) so that I can broaden my cooking horizons at home.

We went to a Brazilian BBQ buffet last week - $6.99/plate.  It was so delicious.  Jude ate my meat faster than I could cut it (he rarely gets meat, so I think he ate so fast in fear that the supply might end soon)!  This was my plate:

I had the best Green Curry at a nearby Thai restaurant - and the cashier has really taken to Jude, so we love to go by and visit sometimes.  The Chicken Tikka Masala we ate tonight was one of the best I've ever had.  But yesterday's lunch might take the cake for me so far.  We've mostly been eating pretty unhealthy compared to our normal diets (very few greens, lots of white rice, etc), and this poor baby boy inside of me is definitely getting second rate treatment compared to how I ate when I was pregnant with Jude!  So I was craving a really good salad this weekend.  Yesterday, we had the day off, so Greg, Jude and I went to Soho to walk around and grab a sandwich for lunch.  The only sandwich-ey place we found was from following a name on my iPhone - and we happened upon a JEWEL ... Le Pain Quotidien.  I love this place.  I love the freshly baked bread, the pastries, the way they mix flavors, and I love sitting at their communal tables.  We became fast friends with the family beside us as Jude thought it was his duty to provide entertainment for their meal.  Greg had a really delicious chicken, mozerella, and tomato open faced sandwich.  I captured a picture of his below.  I had the most wonderful salad I've ever had: a kale caesar salad.  It sounds plain - but it was so fresh, with the best combination of flavors and I can't wait to make it all the time when we get home. 

i promise i won't bore you with what we eat each day, but i am super excited to get back home and try lots of new foods - and if you'll humor me on my blog, then you can come over for dinner.

chinese noodles!!

after class one night during our first week here, greg and i decided to head over to the 'real' chinatown in flushing (queens) (rather than the more touristy chinatown in manhattan) for some good spicy chinese noodles.

so speaking chinese definitely has its advantages.  even if it's done poorly :)  we must have asked 6 different people on the street for recommendations on their favorite place for good chinese noodles.  after being unable to follow directions very well in chinese to find one of the places, we finally found another one that a sweet lady had recommended to us.  it was definitely a hole in the wall within a hole in the wall.  the napkins, tables, chairs, everything made if feel just like we were in china.  i loved it.  jude had his first taste of chinese food and LOVED it (i took out a good bit of mine before he added the spicy paste).  while the noodles weren't the best i'd ever had, our company sure was.  we had lots of chinese ladies fawning over jude, met an older chinese woman who has been in america for 25 years and has been a believer for as long as she can remember as she is a 3rd generation christian in her family.  it was such a wonderful night ... igniting my heart for why i love the chinese people and their culture.  three cheers for chinese noodle night.

nyc life: weekend excursion #1

last weekend, on saturday morning we walked a couple of blocks to eat breakfast at our favorite little coffee and bake shop, Astor Bake Shop. 

i have fallen in love with this little bake shop.  everything i have had there is excellent - breakfast pastries, coffee, lunch and dinner foods - everything.  i live rather vicariously through them as i dream of their pastries, how i could make them, and how i would love to own a bakery/cafe one day.  my daily almond croissant makes me so, so happy and i eat it freely since i am pregnant and gaining weight anyway. ;)  (i know that is flawed thinking, but just let me lie to myself this month and maybe i'll make almond croissants for you one day.)

then, we went to a local park where there was a farmer's market, free yoga in the park, and met an awesome couple in their 60s from Armenia.  they have lived in astoria for 26 years and gave us all their best restaurant recommendations.  i love meeting people here.  people have been so friendly and warm and welcoming.  not the nyc most people imagine.

after jude's morning nap, we took the staten island ferry to see the statue of liberty.  i hadn't see the statue of liberty since i was 11, so it was fun to go again.  jude enjoyed the ferry ride. :)  and then we had dinner at a great little hole-in-the-wall pizza place with only 2 tables inside but a steady traffic of people testifying to the yumminess of the pizza.  it was a fun day as a family.  we haven't had many days like this over the past year of just enjoying a day with no responsibilities and nothing we need to do.  it was quite a blessing.

kisses!