BOGS

brooklyn bridge

We took the boys on their first walk across the Brooklyn Bridge when my parents were in town a few weeks ago so we could take pictures of Brendan for his page of their I Heart NY class book project.  That's what happens when you hesitate for even a SECOND on responding to preschool group emails - all the easy locales are snapped up and you're forced to head to the outer boroughs.  It was actually great, the boys walked all the way across in the highest of spirits, and were totally fascinated by being able to see the cars and the river through the slats beneath us.  The original plan was to hit Grimaldis for lunch, but after we slooowly moseyed across, my parents started panicking about being in Brooklyn with only four hours before their flight home and fled back across.  We opted to skip the huge Grimaldis line in favor of a lunch of ice cream on the pier and then all promptly passed out in the cab on the way home.  

Some outtakes from B's photo session, as well as a few of the rest of us.  

 

  

  

 

 

 

giving thanks

From the looks of their November school "curriculum," the boys had a full month of Thanksgiving prep this year.  They started the month off packing the Mayflower "ballast" and studying rotting food, specifically strawberries, bread, milk and beer(!), which is how I came to hear all about how the "poor pilgrims" had to eat food with bugs in it and the kids had to drink wine and beer because there wasn't any milk or water on board the boat.  They then turned to making paper bag turkeys, acorn squash turkeys complete with cranberry and mini-marshmallow tails to serve as centerpieces for the big Thanksgiving breakfast at school, and of course, pilgrim hats.  So you'd think all these kids would have been ridiculously excited to have their parents descend upon the classroom last Tuesday for the breakfast festivities.  But I think the whole experience kind of freaked them out what with the long tables and bumbling, hovering parents awkwardly trying to make themselves useful and full thanksgiving feast at 11am.  Owen ultimately rallied and proudly showed off the huge Mayflower on the wall and his particular "ballast," and kindly provided Kevin with lengthy plot synopses of just about every single book in their class library.  Brendan fared less well, since he'd been puking intermittently the day before and thus wasn't exactly bringing his A game that day.  Black vulture Brendan (for those of you not up on your ornithology, we learned way back when at a bird sanctuary that black vultures use projectile vomiting as a defense mechanism, which seemed a particularly apt nickname for little baby B who was "happily spitting" his way through life at the time) has always had a hair-trigger gag reflex and I'm almost positive the puking was all cough/phlegm related, but still, traumatic and not fun for anyone.  So by the end of lunch, he was pretty much lying limply with his head in my lap, having given up the will to live, or at the very least, try a single bite of his meal.   

Owen processing in to lunch:

 

Brendan putting on a short-lived happy face:

Showing off the acorn squash turkeys:

And the paper bag turkeys too:

Once more, this time with feeling:

 

And pilgrim hats:

 
 We set off bright and early on Thanksgiving day for Natick, to spend the holiday with Kev's grandmother and aunt and the rest of the clan.  The drive was uneventful, but for some backseat puking from poor B (luckily, I happened to have an empty bagel bag on hand to contain the damage).  When we got there, Owen ran around taking full advantage of his extended captive audience while Brendan generally just lay there looking wrecked.  He insisted on only eating broccoli for dinner, although he did later manage to choke down a piece of pumpkin pie a la mode.  Which happily we all got to revisit with him a few hours later.  Other highlights - dizzy races on the lawn, hunting for wild turkeys in the woods behind the house, and a walk down to the nearby Charles River "waterfall," during which walk Brendan sternly talked to his stomach, saying things like, "Tummy, you listen to me, DON'T be sick."  We also introduced the family to killer hearts, one of my family's long-standing traditions, which I was totally dominating until Kevin's aunt sneakily sandbagged me in the very last hand of the very last round to take the win.  And on Thanksgiving no less.   

Apparently, I'm not the only crafty one around here, as you can see from Kev's mother's mad apple pie turkey skills:

 

Owen eagerly awaiting his pie:

 

Brendan pretty much looked like this the entire time - dazed and haggard:
 

  

lazy sunday

Today was a big day around these parts.  First, I had a random Michael Kors sighting on my way home from a pedicure, followed not two minutes later by spotting the fabulous Tim Gunn buying a mop (him not me) at the hardware store.  And while I was rubbing elbows with the fashion elite, Kevin was taking the boys to church for the first time ever if you don't count their baptism almost four years ago.  Kevin failed to consider, however, two essential details - first, St. Ignatius' large murals depicting the stations of the cross and second, Owen's relentless curiosity.  Owen methodically took Kevin through the various stations, asking "Is that baby Jesus?  Oh, that's grown-up Jesus?  Why are those men killing Jesus?  Why did they want to kill Jesus?" and so on and so forth.  Apparently, the best Kevin could come up with on the fly is people killed Jesus because he wanted people to be nice, so when they got home, Owen told me that "Jesus was a really nice guy, and he had to carry a really heavy cross because people didn't want him to be nice."  Not so far off the mark, I suppose.    

After church, we introduced the boys to How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which was a huge hit and had us all bursting into refrains for the rest of the day of "I wouldn't touch you, with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole" (Brendan's favorite part) and "The three words that best describe you are, and I quote: "Stink.  Stank. STUUUNNNK" (my personal fave).  Kevin also made the potentially misguided decision to introduce the boys to web surfing, meaning that Brendan can now easily navigate the Playmobil website all by himself.  If he ever figures out Amazon's "one-click buy" system, we are DOOMED.     

This afternoon, because I'm crazy, we hosted a holiday crafts party for seven little four-year-old boys.  I'm not sure whether to blame the nesting instinct, the Michael's super-crafts store that just opened up in our neighborhood, or just general holiday preparations with two preschoolers, but I've been on a serious crafting kick of late.  To give you some idea, starting at SEVEN AM last Saturday, the boys and I spent a good hour or two making paper snowmen and clay reindeer, santa's sled complete with presents, and of course, the traditional christmas cow.  Seriously, who have I become?  So of course, this new Martha-y me thought it would be fun to have a crafts party, which it totally was, even if the actual crafting was interrupted by prolonged stretches of trucks and trains and other more macho pursuits.  The boys were in heaven getting to spread glitter glue and sequins and paint on pretty much everything with all their friends, and are already talking about when we're having our next party.  It's safe to say that we'll have the most beautifully decorated tree ever this year.  

some of the crafting crew:

 

a mere sampling of the finished product:

 

some of last weekend's masterpieces:

 

As if that wasn't enough excitement for one Sunday, Kevin ended up taking Owen to the Knicks game tonight.  Brendan was happy as could be staying home with me, was adorably thrilled to help make dinner, kept singing little happy songs to himself and saying how his salmon and dinosaur spinach bites were the "most delicious ever," reveled in being able to stretch out in the tub and pick all the bedtime stories, and after a brief foray out of his room to tell me with a mischievous smile that he was scared of his shadow, was sound asleep by the time Kev and Owen returned home at the ridiculously late hour of nine pm.  Apparently Owen had insisted on staying to the very end to see who won the game, despite Kev's attempts to explain to him the futility of a come-from-behind victory at fourteen points down with two minutes left on the clock.  He's now decided that David Lee is his favorite player, presumably because that's the only jersey they had in his size, although when Kev bought him the jersey, Owen worriedly asked, "but daddy, if he's playing in the game, is it okay that i wear his jersey?" so he may not quite understand yet some of the crasser marketing aspects of basketball.  He very sweetly at one point asked Kevin, "daddy, are you having fun?  do you like having company for the game?  i LIKE having you for company for the game!"  And when they got home, after telling me all about David Lee and proudly showing off his jersey, he excitedly told me that "the Knicks had something even BETTER than winning.  They had ladies and KIDS dancing for them, but the Magic didn't have anyone dancing for them."  Sadly, given the Knicks' decidedly crappy season so far, that's about all they have going for them these days.

 

 

 

bogsx3

In an effort to avoid later recriminations from bogx3 about never getting his fair share of blogosphere love, I thought I'd share some of the boys' reactions to their impending sibling. We first broke the news to the boys over dinner one night this summer. I casually mentioned there was a baby in my tummy, and noted that it was about the size of an avocado. The boys didn't really react, other than to say as they both gobbled up bites of broccoli, "There's a baby in my TUMMY" which was a little disconcerting. Neither one brought it up again for the rest of the week's vacation, until the drive home when Owen piped up out of nowhere with, "it must be lonely for the baby in your tummy by himself. And the next morning, the very first words out of Brendan's mouth when he greeted our nanny at the door were, "MOMMY HAS A BABY IN HER TUMMY!!!" Surprise. 

B&O have been insistent all along that it's a boy and that they want a baby brother. I can only assume this is because, through some random quirk, almost all of their boy friends have little brothers and all of their girl friends have little sisters, so it must seem like the natural order of things. Fortunately, the sonogram (and bogx3) cooperated. Their thoughts on naming have evolved over time. The original name proposals were "Ruby Diego" (Owen) and "Thomas" (Brendan), no doubt inspired by this for those of you who don't watch Nick Jr.:

Ruby

Diego

and Thomas

Yes, we are excellent parents. 

The name then somehow morphed to Len Schmed Bunny-Bee W_____. Owen came up with the "Len Schmed" and his rationale was that we can't name the baby glen because that was pop pop's dad's name, so len rhymes with glen, and we can't name the baby ned because ???, so schmed rhymes with ned. B came up with the "Bunny-Bee," a sort of homage if you will to his cleverly named and much cherished bumblebee doll and to Owen's equally creatively named bunny doll. B is deeply attached to Bunny-Bee as the middle name, to the point where he gets seriously upset if it's excluded from the full name recitation. Anticipating problems down the road on naming day, I cleverly suggested that sometimes you wait to meet the baby before deciding on the right name, and threw out some possibilities, Henry, Andrew, etc. Owen totally fastened onto Henry, such that the latest name is Henry Bunny-Bee W____, "nickname Diego" according to Brendan. I must confess that Bunny-Bee is growing on me and has an oddly pleasing, sort of weird, old-school prepster ring to it. 

We talk about the baby a LOT. B&O both often ask me if the baby hears our bedtime stories and they give him lots of hugs and kisses which is just as adorable as you'd expect. We also talk a lot about how it's kind of boring to be a baby, and how they"ll have to show him how to do everything, which they find very intriguing. They've already proposed putting up a gate to protect their toys from the baby, and seriously tell me how they'll have to make sure the baby doesn't eat their stuff. And apparently they've been telling all their friends at school that their mommy has a baby in her tummy. Of course, their absolute favorite thing is to hear stories about when they were in my tummy, and they fall over laughing hearing about how they had nightly parties in there, complete with lots of elbow throwing and kicking and dancing. So they now ask me quite a lot whether the baby is partying by himself in there. 

We've also been discussing possible new sleeping arrangements. When I asked the boys if they would rather move into the playroom or share a room with the wee babe, Brendan said, in all earnestness, "here's my good plan. We should put bunk beds in your room so we can all sleep together and the baby can sleep in our room!" When I suggested that they might be happier sharing a room with the baby, Brendan cleverly pointed out that the baby might keep him awake at night and "this way, if I get scared in the night, I can just call 'mooommmy' and not get out of bed." Riiiighht. 

 Finally, on a somewhat more bittersweet note, a few nights ago, Owen exclaimed, "I can't WAIT for the baby to get here because then you'll stay home every day with us and we'll have no more [nanny] days!" and Brendan then gasped in wonder, "you're staying home forever?!?" That came down firmly in the "crushing" category.

Suffice to say, little HBBW, we all can't wait for you to get here...

vamamos amigos

We took a four-day jaunt to Mexico with the boys last weekend to meet up with friends from LA.  Because that's just the kind of thing we do around here, take jet-setter getaways on pretty much a regular basis.  Admittedly, it wasn't quite as fabulous as it sounds, since we were in Love-Boat land (Puerto Vallarta), had two four-year-olds in tow, I was sick with a hacking cough that undoubtedly gave our felow airplane passengers a bad case of swine flu hysteria, and was unable to take advantage of the all-inclusive margaritas (sob) due to our little gestating BOG3.  In any event, the trip was fantastic, and the boys handled both their first long flight and their first passport stamps with their customary aplomb.  The resort was beautiful and we had a suite with a terrace overlooking the tiered infinity pools and the ocean, which was quite an improvement over our apartment's less than picturesque street view.  The boys clearly noticed the upgrade, since shortly after arriving, Owen settled back into a chair on the terrace with a contented sigh, and said, "Mommy, this is the LIFE," and Brendan said he wished we could live there forever.  

Despite being rookies, the boys really took to resort life.  They made full use of the swim-up bar (another round of pineapple juice for everyone, barkeep!), insisted on daily room service breakfasts on our terrace (they had a tough time deciding whether they preferred blackberry or leprechaun - their kids-say-the-darndest-things word for apricot, hee - jam on their pancakes), and one night a wiped-out Brendan literally fell apart over the fact that I'd failed to order him LAMB for dinner (oddly enough, I managed to console him by telling him that he was getting broccoli).  The boys also turned the charm on both our friends' adorable 4-year-old daughter Sophia and the comely young ladies staffing the kids' club.  They luuuurvvved Sophia, especially Brendan, and the three of them were best buddies, running around yelling out "Sophia sandwich!" (her father has only himself to blame for that one) and 'hey, soph, soph, let's go SWIMMING!" etc etc.  Other than her questionable musical knowledge - when her dad broke into an impromptu rendition of the "I like big butts and I cannot lie" song to which he knew a disturbing number of lyrics, Soph piped up with "Isn't that the Beatles?" - the girl's quite a catch.  She speaks Spanish AND she can swim, I mean what more can you ask at age four?  As for the kids' club, I suspect the kids all would have happily spent their days there if we'd let them, what with the water balloon fights, pool treasure hunts, craft projects, afternoon popsicle breaks, and the aforementioned hot bikini-clad staffers.  But we cruelly kept their kids' club time to a minimum and instead forced them to play with their boring old parents, hunting for shells at the beach, splashing around in the big pools, having alligator fights in the kiddie pool, and relaxing on lounge chairs in the shade while enjoying the poolside beverage and fries service.  Life doesn't get much sweeter than that.      

Our internet connection isn't cooperating so I can't download pictures at the moment, but those of you on facebook can see some pictures here.

history lesson

The pilgrims, according to Owen:

There was a country called HOLLAND and it had a KING and the king was MEAN and didn't let people go to school where they wanted.  So all the people packed up their stuff and took a ship called the MAYFLOWER to America where they called land ho!  Then they all lived here and they could go to school wherever they wanted and that's why we get to go to our school! 

And one more little Owen moment from the weekend:

Kevin and Owen were going up to a psychologist's office/apartment for school testing on Sunday and Kevin said to the doorman, "tell her Kevin Wallace is here."  Owen promptly popped his head up and whispered "and Owen, tell her Kevin and Owen."  Kevin complied and then, after a brief pause, Owen added, "Owen BRANSFIELD."  I suppose any city kid worth his salt certainly knows how to properly announce himself to a doorman so I shouldn't be so surprised... 

trick or treat

Our Halloween pirates - "nice pirates" if you ask Brendan - hauled in some serious loot over the weekend, between their school party on Friday and the main event on Saturday.  Brendan commemorated the school party by throwing up an unholy mess of chicken fingers flecked with day-glo turquoise twizzler bits approximately one minute after getting in a cab to head home from our day of school-lunch-playground.  As an aside, between weak-stomached tots and drunken revelers, that kind of thing must happen ALL the time, since our driver didn't bat an eye but just very calmly handed back a roll of paper towels.  

In front of school:

Pre-puking playground visit:

Upon reflection, there may have been subtle signs that B wasn't doing too well:

On Saturday afternoon, Kevin and Owen headed off to the kids' costume parade in Riverside Park, which consisted of barely controlled chaos, a one-block "march" (hee!), bagpipes, and cider and donuts, because what kid doesn't need to start off a night of candy with a few donuts.  

B and I met up with them at their friend's place afterwards for kiddie dinner and grownup cocktails. The boys and their three besties then hit the mean streets for some serious candy collection (and by streets, I mean their friend's building, such are the oddities of Manhattan trick or treating).  All five boys were quite beside themselves at the chance to ring so many doorbells although it took them a few doors to get the hang of it, as initially they would all simultaneously knock, ring, and yell out "TRICK OR TREAT!" long before anyone opened the door.  Since the doorbell ringing is still more exciting for them at this point than the actual candy, they were all a little perplexed about how to handle those apartments with bowls of honor-system candy out front.  And at two apartments, the door-opener jumped out with an enthusiastic "BOO!" and the boys just about fainted (one of the "scary" homes also handed out loose skittles, shudder).  But they quickly parried with their best "trick," which consisted of telling the candy giver, "there's a sea serpent on your head!"  I suspect we've got a ways to go before they're ready for toilet paper and rotten eggs...

fortifying themselves for the night:

ready to hit the elevators:

ummm, you knock, no you knock:

hey, i know, let's all knock:

 

i can't believe this actually works, must remember strangers = candy: 

success! (suckers):

     

day in the life

Yesterday morning, Owen and Brendan came sprinting into our room to perform their usual parental wake-up routine.  Usually, this involves them both jumping on me but this time, Owen leaped up on the bed and began tickling me and saying “wakey wakey, time to get up sleepyhead” while Brendan literally ran around in circles laughing himself silly.  When I asked B what he was doing, he said, reasonably enough, “running and laughing.”  He then ran through all his favorite jokes (example – while slightly wiggling your fingers, ask “what’s this?” “a micro-wave”).  The boys then threw on their pirate costumes over their pjs to show Kevin, and after a demonstration of their ferocity and lots of“aargghhhs” and “ahoy mateys,” all three of them did the boys’ new favorite “butt-shake dance” (unfortunately, exactly what it sounds like) out of the bedroom and into the living room to start the day.

The butt-shake dance in action:

When I got home that night, the boys somehow STILL were completely hopped up on goofballs.  In less than an hour, they proceeded to (a) demonstrate their understanding of the rules of football, (b) practice their "championship racing" (as far as I can tell, this entails sprinting the length of the playroom and flinging themselves face-first on the couch, if this ever becomes an actual competitive event, Brendan will clearly dominate), (c) re-enact the Lion King, and (d) put on their winter coats, hats, and mittens to pretend they were drinking hot chocolate in the snow.  Just watching them made me exhausted.

As you can see, their grasp of the nuances of football is a little shaky:

And here they are, suited up for the winter storm that's no doubt a-brewing somewhere:

p.s. for any tech-nerd readers out there (darren, i'm thinking of you here) who noticed the videos are in vimeo and youtube, i'm just experimenting to see which takes less time to download.      

fishing for compliments

I'm fairly certain that when Cathy leaves the three of us alone for the weekend, half the reason is to hear stories like this, which inevitably follow.  

On Friday night, after Cathy left for a "Baby Sprinkle" in DC, Brendan stubs his toe.  Weeping, gnashing of teeth  and rending of garments ensue.  Brendan begs for Mommy.  I tell him that she's gone, but I'm here.  I foolishly ask why that isn't enough.  He then wails: "Because I love Mommy sooooo much."  Nice.

At that moment, Owen bounds in the room with his bedtime book and announces, "Speaking of wanting mommies, I want to read Owl Babies.  Bill wants his Mommy on every page."

Brendan looks up sadly and says, "Sniff. Like me?  Sniff."

culture vultures

This weekend was chock full of culture, between rubbing shoulders with the literati at the school book fair and the boys' broadway (audience) debut.  At the book fair on Saturday, B&O and their cronies had a grand old time, 

going bonkers over the tattoos: 

pretending to be lions during a reading of "library lion" (during the dramatic scene - spoiler alert - when the librarian falls off her stepstool and hurts her arm, Owen also kept yelling out "why can't she get up?  why can't she get up?") :

scoring an autographed copy from the esteemed author herself:

and of course, spending a good chunk of time with their shirts pulled over their heads:

Brendan dominated the lollipop ring toss with a record-breaking THREE winning throws, which almost sent Owen into a despair spiral (as you can see below) until Brendan very sweetly offered him one of his hard-won lollipops, 

Owen made elaborate Halloween artwork at the crafts table, an activity Brendan inexplicably rejected, a decision he (exactly as I predicted, but does anyone whose name rhymes with Shmendan listen to me, nooooo) deeply regretted approximately three minutes we got home.  He then proceeded to stomp around declaring “I AM SO MAD!!! because I didn’t do CRAAAAAFFFTS!!”  Admittedly, this was very self-aware of him and an excellent demonstration of "using his words" but it still took everything I had not to break into an I-told-you-so dance.     

On Sunday, Kevin's parents had incredibly generously bought tickets to a Lion King matinee for the whole extended clan, an idea which I believe originated from the boys' deep love (obsession?) of the hakuna matata song last summer.  I must confess, I was fairly skeptical that this would be a successful outing, considering the terror caused by this summer's pirate adventure and the fact that Brendan actually hides his face in fear whenever the grumpy old cartoon troll makes an appearance on Dora the Explorer.  But we hyped it up well in advance and hoped for the best.  

Things started off great, as B&O were both super high-energy outside the theatre as they ran around doing their best lion imitations.

However, as soon as we made it up to the orchestra level, before even getting to our seats, Brendan started looking terrified, to the point where he initially refused to even enter the theatre.  The first five minutes of the play were seriously touch and go – Brendan immediately began crying quietly, buried his head in my shoulder, and pressed my hand over his ear to block out the horror, while Owen just whimpered over and over, “I want to leave, I want to leave now.”  I exchanged meaningful looks with Kevin and regretted our amazing seats smack dab in the middle of an extremely long row, effectively trapping us. 

About halfway through the first act, Brendan started peeking up at the stage and saying, “that’s not so scary.”  He gradually even faced fully forward and actually seemed to genuinely enjoy the hakuna matata number and the antics of zazu the hornbill/royal advisor.  Owen watched pretty much the whole first act with a somewhat dazed expression while reclining on Kevin's lap.  They both wanted to leave at intermission, but then willingly came back for more, although Brendan did begin asking, “can we go now?” several songs into the second act.

Unfortunately, Kevin made the well-intentioned but ultimately fatal mistake of previewing for Owen that there would be a fight between Simba and Scar but that Simba would win.  During the second act, Owen must have asked Kevin at least fifty times, "Where's the fight?  Is that the fight?  Are they fighting now?  Is that Scar?  Why does Scar want to fight?  Can I close my eyes at the fight?  Who's Scar?"  And when Scar ultimately falls from Pride Rock to be dragged off (I mean tenderly nursed back to health) by the hyenas, Owen piped up, loud enough for the neighboring rows to hear, "Is Scar DEAD?!?"  Of course at the end, when asked their favorite part, both boys cheered “THE FIGHT!!!” 

As we left the theatre, Brendan was singing something to himself and when I leaned in closer to make out what it was, I realized he was chanting, “I am a very brave Brendan, I am a very brave Brendan.”  At dinner that night, they talked incessantly about Simba and Scar "taking turns" being king, what "surprise" Scar planned for Simba (spoiler alert, it wasn't a good one), and puzzled over how Simba's dad could fall to the ground (and get trampled to death by stampeding wildebeests, although I'm not sure that really sank in) and then be up in the stars.  The whole experience was very similar to how after crying through almost all of our Cape Cod pirate adventure, both boys went around playing pirate for weeks afterwards, yelling out "Aaarrgghh" and "Ahoy matey" and "Man the water cannons!" and chasing the bad pirate Slash away.  Which in my book, is the sure sign of an unqualified success.