Christmas 2008: Crap Sandwich Sprinkled with Christmas Miracles

The title really says it all. Crap Sandwich. It perfectly describes the von Elling 2008 Holiday season, but there were also 3 Christmas miracles, by my count.

It all begins with Caden getting sick the week before Christmas, leaving me home all week with a SUPER whinny and sick 2 year old and a newborn. This is tricky to say the least and by the time Pete gets home every night it's a miracle I'm not hiding in the closet with a six pack. By the 23rd, Reece and Pete are also sick. For a short time I think that maybe I'm super human and will escape the plague, but get hit hard that night. Nobody in my family wants to come over for Christmas Eve festivities anymore (understandably), and Pete and I can barely choke down a few bites of the cookies that Caden left out for Santa to make it look like he was there. (Below: Caden sick on the couch)

Christmas morning was sweet because it's the first time Caden was really into the whole concept, but we were all still super sick and spent most of the day laying around on various surfaces in the house. Happily, my mother decided NOT to cancel our invitation to Christmas dinner, so it did feel a little bit like a holiday. To make things more challenging, we are leaving for Florida on a 7:00 am flight the Saturday after Christmas. You'd think that we'd all be feeling better by then, but you'd be dead wrong. It dawns on me that I should take these children to a doctor before we leave the state, so we schlep in to see our favorite pediatrician, Dr. Fishelberg, on the 26th. Caden has a sinus infection, but Reece, while totally pitiful, is still not in need of antibiotics. He suggests prayer and reflection. I love this man and I'll write a whole different post about Dr. Fish some day.

So here's the crap sandwich crescendo, and also the miracles. It's best viewed in a timeline.

3:30 am Saturday morning: Reece wake up to eat, like normal. I figure he'll nurse and go back to sleep, giving me an hour before we have to wake up and get us all out the door in time for our obscenely early flight. Instead, he POWER VOMITS all over me and himself which leads to...

4:00 am: unscheduled shower for me, bath for Reece and couch cleaning

5:00 am: First Christmas Miracle. I go wake up Caden expecting the usual baditude and crying, only to be greeted by an excited little boy ready to go on the plane. AWESOME.

5:15 am: Out the door and on our way to the airport.

5:20 am: We are pulled over on the side of the Dulles Toll Road because the rear window has randomly ROLLED ITSELF DOWN and refuses to go back up. Pete has to pull and yank on it for a good 5 minutes. Bizzarro.

5:45 am: We get to the airport and start to go through the gauntlet of airport baggage check in and security hell. I'll spare you the details. It wasn't pretty.

6:40 am: We are finally through security and on our way to the plane and we are LATE. Of course the gate we're going to is the furthest possible point away you can go without getting on the tram. We're hauling ass with kids and several assorted bags in tow. People are throwing little cups of Gatorade to us like we're marathoners.

6:58 am: We get to our gate. The attendant takes one look at us and lets us through. Unfortunately, the plane is already almost full. It's Southwest of course, so it looks like we won't be able to sit together. I'm having visions of having to nurse Reece stuck in the middle seat between 2 boy scouts as I hear Caden screaming for me from the back of the plane. I start to cry.

Christmas Miracle #2: The very last row of the plane is totally empty!! It's ours and we all get to sit together!!

Christmas Miracle #3: Reece slept the whole way and Caden was SO GOOD. We managed to NOT be the parents of screaming babies and annoying toddlers. Yay!

10:15 am: Southwest Airlines looses the stroller and Reece's car seat.

Crap. Sandwich.

Food, or lack their of

One thing that nobody tells you about having a baby until you already have one is that, if you're nursing, the only thing you can eat is boiled chicken and plain rice or it will hurt their little bellies. This probably isn't true for every baby ever born, but it's true for every baby ever born to me. Since Reece's arrival, I've cut out:

1. caffeine - this one hurts the most
2. dairy
3. caffeinated dairy - tastier than it sounds
4. anything green
5. anything acidic like tomatoes, oranges, grapefruit
6. everything else

I'm making a list of all of the things I'm going to eat once this phase is over, and I'm going to write it down here so I don't forget:

1. A huge vat of coffee
2. Giant salad with peppers, avocado, tomatoes and blue cheese
3. black bean burrito
4. Broccoli with melted cheddar
5. Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Brownie Fro Yo shake
6. a pizza with an ice cold coke
7. an entire wheel of brie
8. more wine than necessary or advisable

Any other suggestions? What am I forgetting?

8 Weeks with Reece

I can't believe it's been 8 weeks since sweet little Reece was born, but there you have it. When you have a brand new baby in the house, time manages to drag unbearably and rush by you all at the same time. So what have we learned about our new son so far? 

Well, he's an easier baby than his brother, that's for SURE, but I still wouldn't call him an "easy baby" when compared to... uh... other people's babies. We do an awful lot of bouncing to keep the crying at bay, and at night he really like to let loose with the wails (I wouldn't quite classify it as screaming), so we have been walking up and down the stairs as well. But somehow it all seems so much more manageable than the first time we went through this with Caden. Maybe it's because this time, we know that this is just a very short phase, and soon we will leave crazy town behind. With Caden, Pete and I thought we had ruined our lives permanently.

Okay so let's see.. Reece has been smiling for weeks now and just around Thanksgiving he started to coo at us. Just yesterday he blew raspberries at me. He's so advanced! His other favorite thing to do is stand up and look around. It can stop a crying jag. Amazing.

I Knew This Would Happen Someday

Well shit. I knew this would happen someday, and now that day is here (and has been for a while, I know). The gentleman above is Kevin Madden - CNN commentator, former Romney Press Secretary, All around dashingly handsome and charming guy... and former Capitol Lounge regular.

For anyone who doesn't know, the Capitol Lounge is a bar situated just 2 blocks from the Capitol building, and has been an institution among the capitol hill set, both young and old. I was a bartender there for a few years, and the place was a mad house. It's amazing what you learn about people at 3 in the morning, after they've been on the same barstool for the past 6 hours. The longer I worked there, the more I came to dread the day that these people actually started to be in real positions of power. But I knew it was coming. The first time I saw one of them featured in Time Magazine last year I almost choked. And now this.

To be fair to Kevin, he was always very nice. Never started a fight. Never got sloppy drunk. Always said please and tipped well. As far as bar regulars go, I really liked him. I think what's so disturbing about seeing my Lounge Folk in the national spotlight is losing the sense that people in real positions of power - and the people commenting on them- were somehow different and only two dimensional. But now it's our turn, and I know these guys. Right now it's just a CNN pundit (and really, Madden was clearly born to be on TV). But someday, one of those F*ers is going to be president. And I'll probably know all about that time that he or she drank 6 shots of Jaeger and fell down the stairs after stripping of their shirt and punching their best friend in the face.

God Bless America.

Random Thoughts

I have a few friends who's blogs I check every day, just to see what they're up to. And I find myself getting all antsy when they don't have new posts. But I guess that's not fair when I haven't bothered to update my own blog in so long. I don't have any one, coherent thing to talk about, so here's a random gathering of things that have been running through my head.

1. I still don't know how to respond the the lady who told me that I look "ripe" yesterday.


2. I'm really proud of my husband for actually volunteering to go knock on doors for something that he believes in.


3. Everything makes me cry recently. For example, Caden woke up at 6:00 in the morning on Monday, and I cried.


4. Pete and I will be lucky to make it to dinner and a movie for our 5 year anniversary this weekend. This is lame.


5. Caden is into declaring things "beautiful" lately. Yesterday, as he was running up and down the hall, he told me that he was a "beautiful race car". And he totally is.

Here's a recent photo of the beautiful race car:

This is just funny

John McCain has single-handedly made comedians all over the world feel alive again with his choice of Sarah Palin as running mate.

Attention Teenage Shoppers...

I need to let the shopping youth of America in on something. I am 35 years old and 8 1/2 months pregnant. I'm at the point that most maternity clothes don't even fit me (shut up, it's normal). This weekend I actually had to go get a few shirts that would carry me through these last few weeks. And guess what... I found 3 totally cute shirts that actually accommodate this belly to the point that I can keep hitting the ice cream, no problem - IN THE TEEN SECTION.

I just thought you should all be aware of this a) for your general knowledge of the big picture and b) in case you want to make any fashion adjustments in light of this information. In the meantime, I thank you for your current sartorial aesthetic.

Tick Fest 2008

Last month, we went up to New London, CT for a family reunion. My mom and aunt Kathy refer to this now yearly even as "Camp Cousins". It's a happy name, and it refers to the fact that 1) there are a mess of cousins and 2) almost everyone sleeps out in a tent in grandma's backyard for the week. (Luckily, having children under the age of 3 and/or being pregnant exempts you from this. We stayed in a beach house 10 minutes away. Yay us!)

I'm going to refer to this yearly event as "Tick Fest" instead and here's why. There are at least 3 people who have not only been bit by ticks in this yard in recent years, but have actually gotten Lyme Disease. My uncle Barry, my grandmother and my own mother. So 7 children plus all their parents, grandparents, great aunts and uncles and even great grandparents are hanging out in this yard for days on end. But every 2 minutes you hear my mom or aunt yelling "Check that kid for ticks!", "don't sit on the grass!", "you're gonnna need to strip down and really look because ticks are tiny!" Jesus Christ.

So anyway, we take the train up and got in really late, so the fun begins for us the next day. We take an hour drive through the winding Connecticut countryside, then turn into a national forest and drive another 15 minutes over an unpaved road. We get there you will never guess who else is there:

It's the Crips, and they are having a pic-a-nic. Did anybody know that the Crips go for picnics in Connecticut? Luckily, the Bloods playing golf in Vermont or something, and everyone had a great time.
Here's Caden "catching" his first fish. He was so excited and damn it was cute. When he finally saw the fish come out of the water he said "Hi Nemo!" Thankfully, everyone had the good sense to let Nemo back into the water rather than killing him on the spot, saving us years of therapy bills.

Pete was having a good time. Bethany not so much.

The rest of the time was spent mostly just hanging out together at Grandma's, eating constantly and watching the kids play together. It was more exciting than it sounds because everyone really likes each other and we don't see my cousins and their kids that often.
It was about 100 degrees out, so somebody had the great idea to fill some buckets and coolers with water for the little kids to cool off. Tucker and Ava stripped down and hopped right in, but not Caden. He's a sophisticated little guy, and would no sooner sit naked in a bucket on the front lawn than I would. So he made it his job to make sure the buckets were full, and he also very thoughtfully sprayed everyone's feet and pants for them.

Of course, the other big thing was for all the kids to fling themselves down Grandma's hill. I used to do this when I was a kid with my siblings and cousins. It's always been the big deal at grandma's. I even made a little movie about it. Last year it was the older kids who ruled the hill. But this year, the little guys got in on the act. So did a few spouses.

In all, Tick Fest was a really good time, and nobody got Lyme Disease. I'm so glad we went, even though the week before had been so rough. Unfortunately, 5 more people got sick afterwards, and I know for a fact that Caden was the Typhoid Mary. Oh well. In 20 years when we're looking at the photos, we won't remember which kid it was, exactly, that gave everyone strep throat that year.

Photo of the Day

No. Indeed it's not.

The Stupidity Continues

Without skipping a beat, the stupidity continues to this day at our house. All last week, Caden had a really high fever and Pete and I took turns staying home from work with him. To further complicate things, we were supposed to be heading up to New London, Connecticut for a family reunion early Friday morning. It was touch and go, and at one point we'd made up our minds that Pete would stay home with Caden and I would just go by myself. So we cancelled their train reservations and I switched mine to leave Friday afternoon and come back earlier than planned. Then by Friday afternoon Caden was fine, so we bought them tickets again (more expensive of course), and re-reserved the rental car (double the price), and hauled ass up to CT on the train.

I have to say here that Caden was SUCH a trooper about the whole thing and he deserves ice cream every night until he's at least 7 years old. I'm so glad we made it and I'll write more about the weekend in my next post.

... But back to the stupidity. On monday morning I wake up with Caden's fever and Pete has pink eye by the time we get home. Sweet.

Back in the Saddle Again...

A few weeks ago I got an email out of the blue from one of my brides. I shot Jennifer and Matt's wedding a few years ago and really liked them. They'd since both done tours of duty in the military, had a baby, moved overseas, and then come back. She was wondering if I could take some family photos.

It was really nice to get back behind the camera for a while, and the whole thing was easy since we already had a good photographer/photographee(?) relationship. And god bless them, they've agreed to be my guinea pigs on a sound-with-photo idea that I have. More on that later.

Thanks Jen and Matt!

This Week was Stupid

This whole past week was just annoying and stupid. I'm going to summarize here so hopefully I can clear the bad juju and get on with things.

The badness begins on Saturday when I get a stupid haircut. It's all uneven and weird looking, plus she didn't thin out the ends. I have really thick hair, so when you don't thin out the ends, it looks all puffy and blocky. In short, I'm suffering from triangle head.

Same Saturday: We go to a bbq, only to have Caden announce 20 minutes later that he wants to go home and then stands at the door. We fight this fight for about half an hour until it's clear nobody will have any fun. We leave.

Tuesday: Caden throws the biggest screaming tantrum I have ever seen. On the front lawn. Neighbors stop their yard work to watch.

Wednesday: Okay, so I am about 7 months pregnant, and your body does weird things when you're pregnant. You know that red dot on my forehead? I call it my bindi, or my third eye of consciousness. Not to ruin the mystique, but it's really a blood vessel close to the top of my skin. Well, another one randomly crops up right above my lip a few weeks ago. On Wednesday at noon it pops, and blood starts pouring out of my face. I have to keep a towel pressed to it or else all hell breaks loose. It keeps going and going. I go through work like this. I have to walk into Caden's school like this to pick him up. We get home and I'm trying to get all of our bags and junk through the door with one hand like this. I have to let go in order to get milk and snacks. Blood pouring into my mouth. I knock over a WHOLE CONTAINER of juice in the refrigerator. I loose it. Finally stop bleeding at 10:00 that night.

Thursday: Very nice huge red scab on my lip. And remember my stupid triangle hair?

Friday: Go to different salon to get hair fixed. Come out looking like Carol Brady circa 1978. Only puffier on top. 

See what I mean? STUPID.

Our Little Green Frog

Caden is starting "preschool" at the JCC on Monday. Last night I went for the parent orientation, and I'm pretty sure that I'm going the be the one crying when we drop him off for his first day. I'm going to blame it on pregnancy hormones. The place is wonderful, the teachers and counselors are all sent straight from heaven, and they get to play in the sprinkler every day. He's so ready for this, and I know he's going to thrive. But then we went on a tour of their classrooms, and I saw this:It's the name tag on his cubby in the classroom, ready and waiting for him. He's in the "little green frogs" group. I took one look at it and just cried and cried. Luckily, I was the only one in the room at the time. Sheesh...

Korean Ladies Know Some Stuff

So for the second time this month, a Korean lady has taken one look at me and said "You're having a boy." How do they know this?

Yesterday, I was standing in line at Old Navy, when I suddenly feel a hand on my belly which I'll admit was a little surprising. That never happened with Caden. Anyway, it was this Korean grandma smiling at me and she told me I was having a boy. Correct. Then she was saying something about how I'm very young. Uhm... not correct. So aparantly her gift has nothing to do with actual eye sight.

The first time it happened was a few weeks ago when I went to get a pedicure. Pretty much the same thing went down, only she didn't even need to touch me. She just took one look at me and told me I was having a boy. I asked her how she knew, and she said it's because I'm small. Hahaha. Also not correct. But I tipped her a thousand dollars.

If a Tree Falls in the Woods...

... How many people could hear me yelling "Holy CRAP!!"?

We had a really powerful storm come through town yesterday, and I just happened to be at home to witness it first hand. The cleaning ladies were there at the time too. It was just after 3:00, and the wind started to blow, and the sky got dark. Like, 9:30 at night dark. And I was hearing a noise, but wasn's sure what it was. So I was kind of running around the house trying to figure it out, and I'm standing in front of the wall of windows when I see the tree go down. CRASH!

It was a HUGE mature oak tree. When it fell, it took up the entire length of our backyard and keeps on going into the neighbors' yard, demolishing a fence in the process. All I could do was stand there and point, saying "HOLY CRAP!" The cleaning ladies were frozen for a minute too, then they all started rubbing my belly and saying something in Spanish. I don't speak Spanish, but I assume it roughly translates into "HOLY CRAP!"

So here's a view from the other side. I was standing right in front of the glass. Of course later I find out that there was a tornado spotted in the area, and everyone was supposed to stay away from their windows. Kind of difficult in our little house made of glass. I'm pretty lucky that the tree fell away from the house instead of toward it. I'd have been a gonner I think.

Nice Try, Sucker.

I made the silly, silly mistake of thinking that I might be able to go a day without Zofran last week. Zofran, for those who don't know, is a little white miracle pill straight from Jesus himself that controlls nausea. As it turns out, I am Zofran's bitch. My little experiment lasted exactly as long as it took me to pull myself off the bathroom floor and drive to CVS to beg the pharmacist for mercy.
My mom told me a few months ago that she was sick all 9 months with her babies. And now she just told me that my grandma was sick all 9 months with her babies as well. I guess I'm resigned to the fact that this probably isn't going to end for me this time around. But the big question on my mind is, why in the world did these crazy ladies keep having babies (4 for each of them), if it meant puking for 9 months? NO THANKS!

It's A Boy!

Pete and I went for my 20 week ultrasound and found out that we're having another little boy. I've been surprised at how excited I am by the news, although I think I would be typing the same thing right now if we had found out it was a girl. But right now I'm really loving the thought of brothers.

Early on, I was absolutely convinced that this was a girl, but I think maybe it's just because I couldn't picture having a son who wasn't Caden. But I eventually got over that, so the feeling wasn't so strong. Most women say that their pregnancies for boys and girls were like night and day. But this pregnancy compared to the one with Caden has been like night and... later that night. Same fatigue. Same never ending nausea. And then 2 weeks ago I had a dream that we were looking at the sonogram screen and we saw a boy. That sealed it. I was pretty sure I knew the score before the tech confirmed it for us.

I sure hope boy #2 likes cars and trucks, because Caden is already excited to teach him everything he knows.

A Good Farewell

My grandpa Tommy passed away last month, and it was my privilege to take part in his final send off. Let me say one thing: My family knows how to throw an awesome funeral. It fit him to a T, and he would have loved every second of it.

As you can tell from the photo, he was a total bad ass Marine. At his funeral service there was a full Marine Corps honor guard and a 21 gun salute. And these weren't your old, pretty wooden ceremony rifles either. Those Marines were carrying the same semi-automatic weapons you'd see on the streets of Baghdad because this is wartime, son. (Did you catch that grandpa? The beauty is in the details, isn't it?)

The other thing we did was tell stories. All 7 of his grandchildren stood up together and just told stories about our favorite memories of him. And we didn't just eulogize him. We were talking and laughing with each other and with the people out in the pews. What a wonderful thing to inspire at your own memorial service.

I hope with all my heart that when I die (after a very long and happy life with my husband and children, Inshallah), that people have so many stories about me that it takes 3 days to tell them. I hope that there's at least one story that's so crazy and so juicy that my grandchildren fight over who gets to be the one to tell it. So I'm going to remind myself to take my kids on adventures, and tell them jokes, and teach them the real value of being ridiculous as well as forthright and upstanding. There's room for everything.

And I really hope, when my time is up, that they remember to put up that photo of me looking all hot and sassy in my bikini on the beach in Portugal.

Grandpa giving me a bottle.

Grandpa meets Caden for the first time.

Happy Birthday Sweet Boy

Today is Caden's second birthday, and I have to say that two-year-olds get a bad rap. Everyone has heard of the terrible two's, but I think he's more fun now than ever before. I love the fact that he gets jokes. I love the fact that he has opinions and things to say. I can't get enough of his truck/helicopter obsession. I mean, sure, a fight broke out at his birthday party over a super cool silver truck. And yes, the left side of his hair is significantly shorter than the right because of a total meltdown during a haircut. But still... I love it.



We had a party on Saturday and invited his neighborhood buddies, plus my family -his Auntie Cathy made a special trip down just for special day. We stuffed them with cake and ice cream, then let the hilarity ensue.


Opening presents... going okay so far...


Silver truck is opened... all hell breaks loose. Daddy is a little stressed.



Here's the truck. It IS very cool, and I can understand the stir that it caused. You needed a screwdriver just to get it out of its packaging. Very cool. The doors, trunk and hood all open. Super cool. Under the hood is a scale model of a real engine and in the trunk is a pimped out speaker system. This had the dads trying to get their hands on it too.


Our little man went to sleep that night feeling loved and stuffed full of cake. And under his arm, pressed close to his shark jammies, was that truck.

Is There Something You Need to Tell Me?

So the other day I went to get my eyebrows waxed, and the girl behind the counter says to me "Do you want to wax your upper lip, too?" And I was all, "Huh?" and she says "Your upper lip, do you want to go ahead and wax that too?", real slow and loud like I was feable minded and just not understanding her.

Bitch, what?? Do I have a 'stache? Is there something you people haven't been telling me? Seriously, I rely on my friends to tell me these things. But don't look now! I'm too self-conscious.