BOGS

donde esta senor sandman?

Just a few of the things emanating from Henry's room during "naptime" today:

• "HEY!  Stop it!  [indecipherable chatter]  STOP IT!" (he was alone in there, so I can only assume his stuffed bunny was seriously out of line) 

• A medley of songs, including "Newwww Yooorrkk" (Empire State of Mind) and "like a rainbow in the dark, they might be lost and never found, it's Zeus, on the LOOSE, with TJASSE!" (from the boys' Greek/Norse mythology mash-up school play, which H now sings ALL the time), and my personal favorite, "We will, we will, ROCK YOU"

• "Kung fu panda!"

• Sounds of judo chopping and a one-sided struggle

• "He's too biiig too biiig too biiiig."

• Outburst of excited cheering

• "Echo echo echo echo!"

• Assorted loud thumping noises

• "Yoda!  Yoda?"

• More ominous loud thumping noises, at which point I gave up and declared the "nap" over.  

 

These pics perfectly capture Hank.  He ever-so-carefully builds up his tower, narrating the entire time.

Celebrates for a nano-second with a big "I DID IT!" or something similarly self-congratulatory.

And then promptly drop-kicks the thing.  That's my boy. 

 

 

mother of all days

The boys truly outdid themselves this year for mother's day.  They each drew a portrait of me (B inadvertently gave me vampire fangs in his first attempt), and answered questions about me on the back.  My hands-down favorite was: "I want to live with my mom until I am..." Brendan apparently will be living at home until he turns 26 and Owen plans to stay "until I get kicked out of the house."  Hee.  They also made me necklaces.  Super slick secret agents in training that they are, on Tuesday night they both casually went on and on about how they didn't "do anything special after school at all today, no, nothing at all, we just went to the park.  No, actually, we just came straight home and didn't do anything at all, nosireee."  Turns out Kevin, who is a bit better at keeping a secret than his six-year-old children, ducked out of work to meet them at the craft studio to make jewelry history.  For our family, that counts as serious advance planning.  Brendan insisted on preparing and serving me breakfast - ever so carefully layering the yogurt, granola and blueberries just so and it was all exceedingly adorable.  Of course, then we had to race around like crazy people to make it to baseball on time (little league callously ignored the NATIONAL HOLIDAY), where we met all the grandparents and cheered on the Red Sox.  To give some idea of the caliber of play at this age, Coach Kevin told his team at one point during the game, "Ok guys, two rules.  The first rule is you have to hustle.  The second rule is you have to stand up, no sitting down in the field."  Post-baseball, we ventured north for a truly delicious mother's day picnic at Storm King, followed by an almost-unbearably-abbreviated stop at Woodbury Commons.  One hour is wildly inadequate for outlet shopping.   

I love that Brendan isn't even wearing his glove and that Owen, although in a seriously fierce defensive crouch, has no glove on whatsoever.   At least they're both standing up.  Please note the awesome cleats.  I think they lend a certain aura of professionalism to the proceedings. 

Owen preparing to dash home.

B crushing the ball.

Storm King exploring.

Our deluxe spread, with pastoral views of the parking lot on one side.

Sue chugging the rest of the prosecco.  Leave no wine behind is our family motto. 

After lunch, some of us rode the tram around the grounds, others walked, and still others managed to finagle themselves a ride.

Superhuman strength.  Must have been all that prosecco.

Interactive art.

Pretending to be sculptures.

The artistes.

The newest additions to my jewelry collection.  B's spells out MOM surrounded by two silver starfish and is actually fairly minimalist.  O spelled out "Owen loves Mommy" and then added basically every kind of bead they had - a huge tree pendant at the bottom, large peace symbol charms on one side and bumblebees and ladybugs on the other.  It's awesome, but it certainly qualifies as "busy." 

My boys in their mother's day best at the end of a phenomenal day. 

 

worth remembering

• Henry plopping himself down at the breakfast table with a cheery "hello boys!" to his brothers.

• Brendan coming in for one last snuggle after his customary 11pm bathroom run.

• Owen excitedly declaring that the New York Bats had beaten the New Jersey Lions to win the Eastern Conference series in his epic imaginary basketball series.

• Henry insisting on climbing into bed with me in the morning (subtext - I am lazy and need to be dragged out of bed by my children), snuggling under the covers and happily declaring himself to be "SO COZY!"

• Trying to explain both what drugs are and why you would go to prison for selling them while reading a Dwayne Wade biography (happily Mama Wade found god in the joint).

• Henry popping up in his crib and announcing, "MOMMY!  You came back!" when I bring B&O into bed.  He's truly surprised/thrilled Every. Single. Time. 

• Owen saying seriously, "Mommy, I am really on edge right now."

• Owen saying less-than-seriously, "I'm whimpering in pain here!"

• Brendan heading out the door with a jaunty, "see you later suckers!"

• Brendan dancing around naked instead of getting dressed for school and yelling, "WHO WANTS TO SEE MY TUSHY???"  Sadly, he usually has several (well, two) takers.

• Brendan saying "I have the best mommy in the world," Henry trying to swallow my lips with his wide-open kisses, and Owen holding my hand on the walk to school.   

the hank

Poor Henry.  I stop the monthly photo posts and all of a sudden this site reverts back to the Brendan and Owen show.  It doesn't seem fair somehow, especially with him being so cute and all. 

"Play ball on the field!"  He was seriously miffed about me taking pictures instead of playing ball per his quite explicit instructions.   

Pretend food + binoculars + nudity = quite an evening. 

Although pretend cooking while naked is a tad risky. 

"Want to go swimming!"  Done and done. 

"I fight you" followed by singing the duh-duh-duh star wars song.  

Parsing the literary subtleties of the Curious George pop-up book. 

Being winsome, no doubt trying to charm me out of either my camera or my iphone. 

The Knicks' only hope of winning a playoff game. 

imagination station

Owen plays a LOT of basketball.  We play P-I-G at home, he plays by himself constantly, and he and Kevin shoot around at the real hoops in the park on weekends.  Well, Kevin thought they were just shooting around until Owen mentioned a few minutes in that he was winning 18-11.  My absolute favorite though is when he invents these incredibly elaborate playoff series that last for weeks.  He writes out his own east and west conferences, comes up with imaginary teams (e.g., the NY Sharks, NJ Monsters, LA Beasts, the San Antonio Spiders) and playoff rankings, then plays out both sides of all of the games on his (madeup) schedule until a champion is crowned.  Anyway, tonight the Boston Coopers played an away game.  Turns out that the Coopers think they're better than other teams.  As a result, they've been on a huge losing streak for away games because they get so distracted by all the taunts from the home team fans.  Specifically, the taunts of "Boston Poopers!  Boston Poopers!"  Oh, and their (imaginary) star player Piper gets booed and called "Diaper."  Phenomenal.   

sports stars

We went to the Tribeca Family Festival on Saturday morning, braving the frigid wind for the chance to throw footballs through a tire, try out cricket, race through an inflatable Jets-branded obstacle course, play soccer against the Red Bulls, pick up Knicks playoff swag (extra depressing in light of the Knicks' atrocious game one in Miami yesterday) and of course score free samples of hummus and pirates booty.  Posing for these photos was one of the highlights.  What can I say, I'm a sucker for a green screen.  Owen was concerned about the authenticity of his first shot (two basketballs, he's not playing any D at all, it's like down is up and black is white) and B was troubled about the whole Yankees thing, so we went back for a do-over.  Sadly Hank had been whisked away home by this point so he missed out on the fun.  Next year, kid. 

That afternoon, we went to a real Red Bulls game, where the boys watched the goings-on with mild interest, but really came alive for the shirt-buying and chicken-finger-eating portions of the game.  Sadly, although Owen was able to get a shirt emblazoned with HENRY across the back (for their captain, Thierry Henry, which I'm sure you knew, just like you knew the Red Bulls are a soccer team), such wonders didn't come in our Henry's size.  Drat.

In other thrilling exciting weekend sports-related news, we had our first true "crazy dad" experience at Little League on Sunday.  A dad on the other team spent the entire game yelling things like "you're up at bat, go to WAR!" and loudly haranguing/aggressively cheering his son ("No you did NOT tag him out.  Get back on base!  Focus!" and so on and so on).  All with a pair of batting gloves hanging out of his back pocket.  Batting gloves!  Seriously, this is T BALL.  Every single batter manages to get on base (what I'm saying here is that they are universally terrible at fielding.  In case that wasn't clear).  They don't keep score.  It is as low stakes as it gets.  It was totally nuts/kind of awesome.  Oh, and Owen officially learned to ride a bike on Sunday afternoon.  So that was cool.  B opted to speed around the playground on his scooter instead, until he took a spectacular fall and somehow managed to scrape up his forehead, nose, hand, arm, and hit his knee so hard that he tore a huge hole in his pants (as he put it, "Wow, I hurt every part of my body!")   

henry's lament

Things that have caused Henry despair over the last 24 hours:

• Greeting Kevin at the door last night with an excited "Daddy!" and then a quizzical "Mommy?" followed by tears when he realized I wasn't there too
• The prospect of being put to bed instead of going "in mommy's bedroom and read Harry Potter" with his brothers
• Not being allowed to rip up the Harry Potter book because the boys were reading it (Owen added for good measure, "Yeah, and I'm going to read it again by myself when I get older.  Welll, actually, I can pretty much read it now.")
• Not being allowed to take our computer mouse onto our bed
• Brendan turning on our bedside lamp (Henry retaliated by turning it off and on repeatedly)
• Kevin taking Owen's electric toothbrush away from him and refusing to let him use Brendan's
• Suggesting he use the small potty instead of the toilet ("nooooo, big potty!")
• Having to sleep in his crib instead of in Brendan's bed
• Not being allowed water in bed
• Not getting two vitamins this morning like his brothers
• Not getting a refill on his mango smoothie
• Being offered a banana
• Having the iphone taken away
• Realizing we were all leaving (just like we do every morning)

On the happier end of the spectrum:

• Devouring a light pre-bedtime snack of applesauce with a cottage cheese chaser
• Laughing at Brendan and Owen laughing at the Penguins of Madagascar
• Reading Knufflebunny
• Actually using Owen's electric toothbrush before getting caught ("it goes fast!")
• Excitedly hugging and kissing his brothers goodnight
• Seeing me first thing this morning - "MOMMMYYY!  BIG HUG!!" 
• Stuffing his face full of "WAFFFLES!!!" this morning
• Deliberating over his diaper selection - "Want diaper with Mickey Mouse.  No pull-up.  Put diaper in my butt!" as he tried to put his own diaper on after "Big poop on big potty!  Penis go in."
• Putting on his super soccer starts tshirt for soccer this morning and singing "never touch the ball with your ... HANDS!"

easter-rific

We celebrated the rebirth of Jesus in grand heathen style out in Rye, dyeing eggs and brunching and tearing around the backyard hunting for candy in our finest Easter trackpants.  Kevin's mom went above and beyond this year by devising three separate sets of clues for each boy to follow in order to find their Easter baskets.  Of course, once Henry finally found his, he was considerably more taken with the watering can next to it than the actual basket goodies.  Not so B&O who were both beyond thrilled by their hauls, which included an assortment of treasures from the Michaels $1 bins, as well as some bigger ticket items like Asterix & Obelix books, NBA cards for Owen, and Mets and Star Wars cards for B.  After the admiring of the baskets concluded, the boys sprinted back around the yard hunting for eggs and very sweetly helping Henry find his share of the loot.  (Cleverly, we assigned them each a particular color plastic egg to prevent the speedier/insanely competitive among them from establishing a candy monopoly.)  True to form, no one ever questioned the Easter bunny's miraculous ability to hide candy mid-day without being spotted, and of course Jesus never came up once.  We win at religious holidays.  

Our first batch of eggs - pirates, cowboys, vikings, baseball players, and of course, Harry Potter.   

Egg dyeing round two in Rye.

Owen's Easter bunny imitation and Brendan's ... Easter moose?  I honestly have no idea.

B&H took a connect four break while Owen diligently finished dyeing every single last egg.    

Finally!  You read my diary!    

Playing with their new gliders and parachutes, while somehow never noticing the day-glo plastic eggs hidden all over the yard.

The hunt begins.  Release the hounds!

I literally have no idea what we're all doing here but hey, that whole watering can thing worked out awesome, so I guess I'll just roll with it. 

Just because I'm only two, do they really think I don't notice they gave me the "girl" colors?  Or that my fleece is basically a crop top, for that matter?

Assessing the haul.

Holy cow, did you know there's CANDY in these things?!? 

in brief

We were talking about basketball tonight, like we do seemingly every night, when Owen randomly asked me whether I would high five LeBron James if I saw him.  I said I might but it would depend on the circumstances, and by way of example said I certainly wouldn't high five him if the Heat had just beaten the Knicks.  Probing for inconsistencies, I guess, he asked, "what if it was half time at Madison Square Garden during a Knicks-Heat game?" to which I said absolutely not.  "Why," he asked, "is it because LeBron is your ENEMY?!  Do you HATE him?"  Before I had a chance to really get into my response, he promptly continued, "You know who I really hate?  Paul Pierce!"  He will no doubt be very pleased by tonight's Knicks win over the Celtics then.  Which, by the way, he'll find out about first thing since his morning routine currently consists of hustling to get the paper so he can check the NBA standings.  Usually followed closely thereafter by trying to log onto espn.com to watch the highlights, and some in-depth analysis of the standings, who the Knicks will likely play in the first round, etc etc.  The kid is OBSESSED.

By the way, at bedtime, Owen posed another hypothetical: "What would you rather have, poison on your hand that gets in your eye and gives you a poison eye, or ... a cold?"  I went with option B.  This is just one in a long line of random hypotheticals with, to my mind anyway, fairly obvious answers ("would you rather be murdered or stub your toe," for example).    

 

spring break the second

Spring break, the thrilling conclusion!  Henry and I headed off to meet the rest of the gang in Sarasota.  Things did not begin well.  HRH, clearly miffed at being woken at 6am, dramatically lost his sh*t and proceeded to scream his head off for a solid twenty minutes.  Holy crap, it was beyond ridiculous even by two year old standards.  I actually had him in a HEADLOCK on the floor at one point so I could wrestle him into his pants.  I managed to fling him into the stroller, very much against his will, wearing his pj top, no shoes, and no coat, and somehow get out of the apartment while he strained mightily to escape and dragged his hands on the floor and screamed and screamed and screamed.  Did I mention the screaming?  There was a lot of it.  At very loud volumes.  He screamed "NOOOO STROLLLLERRRRRR NOOOOOO!" until we hailed some poor unsuspecting cabbie and then he switched to "NOOOO TAXXIIII!  WANT STROLLLLERRRR!!!" while trying to claw the cab door off its hinges.  Luckily, I was able to use the power of technology (specifically, a Max and Ruby episode on my iphone) to calm him the hell down.  Thankfully, the rest of the trip was a breeze by comparison.  Our flight left exactly on time, arrived early, we read and snacked and played with stickers and before we knew it (well, sort of, even an easy flight entertaining a toddler seems interminable and leaves you thinking wistfully of your kindle), we were in SRQ.  

After napping (by me and Henry), B&O decided to open an art gallery our first day in my parents' house.  They plastered the windows with masterpieces, created tickets for all of us, and led in-depth artist tours.  It was quite something.

Showing off his "stinkeye" pose which he happily performs on command.

One more spring training game, the Orioles against the Tigers(??).  Could anything be more boring than a pre-season baseball game between two teams you couldn't care less about?  Their friend Liam is actually an Orioles fan, so he took things a little more seriously.  We were mostly in it for the Italian ices and the souvenir swag.

I must say, the stadium is really nice though.

My parents had the brilliant idea of getting scuba gear for the boys.  Huge hit. Despite having zero access to a pool, they're somehow becoming really good swimmers.  Maybe it's all that perpetual motion bathtub time? 

Naturally, Hank wanted in on the action.

Daily trips to the beach, including numerous historical castle sand recreations spearheaded by Papa Doc.  And playing in the giant hole someone had thoughtfully dug out in advance of our arrival.  

Henry decidedly prefers lying down to play with his various cars/trucks/trains.  You really have to respect that.  Maybe it's just a toddler thing, although I have no memory of B&O doing this.

Our annual check-in on the Mote aquarium.

They don't measure up favorably to the extinct penguin, but could totally crush any regular old modern-day penguins they happen to come across.  

Show-off manatees.

 

We are scarily bad at taking family photos.