Benjamin – Page 3

November 6, 2013

Halloween

Halloween was fun. I got up in the weeee smalls and went into work early (partially because I couldn’t sleep and partially because I had a ton to do). The beginning of the week was manic, but it ended well because I took off by 11:30 on Thursday and took ALL OF FRIDAY off. YAY. My first stop was Tabby’s school to be room mommy. We spent some time decorating and then I got to do T’s makeup, which was fun. I improved my game from the first go-around and added blue eyeshadow which was a fun touch.

I’m room mom along with Tabby’s best friend’s mom. I didn’t really know her (new best friend) until we started all of this and it’s been fun. Neither of us are over the top and we’re pretty much on the same chill wavelength. We just did a few games … math, madlibs and mummy and a bookmark craft. Food was decidedly. I made rice krispie treat pumpkins with tootsie roll stems. I initially balked at the idea of sculpting the rice krispie treat and was just going to cut it out with a cookie cutter, but I really hate smashing the krispies into the pan and I think in the end this was easier. There were NONE left, so I guess the kids liked them OK. Other parents brought fruit and veggies and crackers and cheese and juiceboxes and water. Tabby’s teacher was very appreciative of our work. He’s made it into a very nice class and we had fun.

After the school party, we picked up Ben and got to work carving pumpkins (totally procrastinated on that!) and prepping for having people over. We were set for a group of 24 (!!) and we had to haul to get it all done. Matt had his robots in full force. They now number three: silly-string-shooting spider, eerie floating ghost and swooping bat. The bat was this year’s project and unfortunately still needs a little work. It was fun though.

The kids were a quivering ball of over-sugared craziness by the time guests started arriving. Our friend who was bringing toppings for the carnitas I’d made was late and we had to start eating without her … or the toppings. But it was really no big deal because another friend had brought seven layer dip and we just used that as toppings. It was surprisingly good. The last family showed up shortly after dinner and then my dad and sister after that. They stayed to eat and hand out candy in peace while the rest of us braved the ‘hood.

The kids were crazy, running all over the place and having too much fun and sugar. Matt bought LED gloves for us on Amazon and they were a big hit and it also made it easy for the kids to find us. We only did two blocks since it was windy and cold, but the kids filled their buckets. Back at Casa de Nichols, the kids sorted and ate their candy and the adults had another adult beverage. A short while later, we bid our friends adieu.

My kids got their jimjams on and brushed their teeth extra carefully and closed out the evening with Grammy Stories … read by Papa.

October 9, 2013October 28, 2013

Grammy Stories

My mom was the queen of reading – but not in the sense where she’d read every “classic” book or constantly had her nose in a book. No, Mom’s reading always centered around interacting with kids. From the time we were small, straight up until we were either too cool or too busy (probably the later), Mom would read aloud to us every night. Dad did sometimes too, but mostly, it was Mom’s thing, particularly as we got older and we could listen to “chapter books.” Mom read us loads of series: Anne of Green Gables, Little House on the Prairie, All of a Kind Family, Indian in the Cupboard. She would read a few chapters and then we’d beg her for more and usually she’d let us have at least one more. She loved it as much as we did.

So when the kids were born, we started reading outloud to them every night before bed. And my mom did too. And where we, the busy parents frequently only had time for a story or two, at Grammy’s house, bedtime stories were practically unlimited. Mom would go to the library nearly every week and load up her Jefferson County Public Library tote with as many books as it could hold. She found books that we had loved when we were little and completely new authors that we’d never heard of. And when the kids latched on to a particular favorite, chances were good a copy would show up on their birthday or under the Christmas tree, signed “Love, Grammy.”

After Mom died, I worried that since the kids are so young, particularly Ben, they might not remember her in the vivid, technicolor way that I remember her. That thought terrified me. She was an amazing, wonderful, never-to-be-duplicated grandma and I want them to remember her. I wanted something routine to keep her memory going. I wanted something that was essentially Grammy to keep them connected to her. And then I had an idea.

To preserve and honor Mom’s memory, we made a small adjustment to bedtime stories. They are now known in our house as “Grammy stories” and they are read every night that we can possibly manage. The kids have embraced this idea and demand their Grammy Stories nightly. They love to pick out the books that she gave them, remembering, “Grammy gave this to me for my birthday” or “Grammy got this book from the library.”

As I sit with the kids, cuddled up on either side of me, so engaged with the story, I feel closer to Mom than I do at any other time of the day.

September 30, 2013

Rolling Along

There’s one thing I know about life. It goes on.

And so on it has gone at the Nichols household. I am very grateful for my darling little distractions who constantly need to be snuggled and fed and clothed … and who also entertain me so thoroughly and occasionally break my heart with their insight and sadness. I am busy and that is mostly nice.

The kids started karate lessons basically in the midst of all this mess. We went to try things out the week before Mom went into the hospital. Ben was the original target, but after seeing what was up, Tabby REALLY WANTED (“Please please, Mommy, let me take Karate too!”) to join him and we agreed to let her. They have private lessons two days a week (this will only be for a couple of months before they go to 1 day/week) and then Tabby can attend up to 3 group sessions per week. Ben is not yet ready for them, but they think he’ll be there in a few months.

I really like what it is doing for the kids. It is all about concentration and determination and there is a good bit of memorizing and precision as well, even when they’re little and of course the physical conditioning. Tabby is her focused self throughout her lessons and Ben is all energy and power – the concentration is a bit harder for him yet. I really really love watching them do their stuff.

Ben is doing only karate and it feels like enough for him, but Tabby is involved in a couple more activities. She is taking Spanish lessons after school two days a week. This is only the second week, so I don’t know a ton about them, but they do “normal kid activities” like duck-duck-goose in Spanish and she seems to be enjoying it.

The other activity that Tabby is doing is Let’s Play Music, a music curriculum specifically for little kids (pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before). It uses fun activities to teach music theory in a pretty sneaky way. They’re learning things like relative pitch, audiation and beat and rhythm divisions. I attend with Tabby every other week and she goes on her own the other weeks. It’s been really fun and I hope to start Ben next year.

At school, things are pretty normal for Ben (just how he likes them) but Tabby is in a whole new league as a first grader. We get lots and lots of paperwork for us to read about curriculum concepts and classroom rules, etc. and Tabby gets a packet of homework every week. We have generally about 4 assignments to complete over the course of the week and it’s a good idea in theory, but with all that’s been going on, we’ve been hard pressed to get it done on time, especially since we had the equivalent of an extra week of work from the day she missed. Oy.

I do think her teacher is a good one and I know she’s learning a lot, but with our extra crazy (on top of normal crazy) schedule lately, I’ve been pretty overwhelmed with his expectations. I’m really hoping as things are getting back to “new normal” that it will feel more manageable.

We had a great time camping this weekend. It was a great way to end our wonderful camping season and the fact that Dad and Kelly were able to join us made it that much better. I hope to soon actually download some photos from the camera and write about it!

August 20, 2013

The Haps

So … a mea culpa on continuing to suck at blogging. I’m trying hard not to give up. But a LOT is going on!! Tons!

We went to family reunion. Where we did things like … hike to a waterfall.

And take family photos… most of which my kids managed to screw up by being goofy.

We celebrated other stuff too. Like Matt’s and my 11th anniversary. We mainly goofed around and played video games and stuff like that. Simple.

We celebrated my dad’s b’day! Tabby made him a chocolate cake.

Then the kids started school yesterday!! Technically nothing changed for Ben. He moved to the next class at the beginning of the summer, but we made a big deal like he was just starting too. The super good news is that his best buddy has now moved back into his class. Yay!

Tabby started first grade! She’s in official specials classes (art, music, PE) and having a lot of fun.

Her first day was made that much more special because she lost her very first tooth!! During story time. She wants to keep it forever and has refused to surrender it to the tooth fairy in return for the cash reward. Ah well.

So that’s the haps!

July 9, 2013

Down but Not Out

I’ve had nice little emails and texts from people who have been missing the blog – family from far away who only get to see us regularly through this medium and friends from afar who enjoy catching up on my life as I do theirs (even though I haven’t had time lately). I’ve been missing it too, along with other things. But work is the time bandit right now, stealing what precious time I used to use for blogging. It hasn’t been unusual lately for me to work 11 or 12 hours in a single day without a break. I know it won’t always be like this, but it is going to be different. Anyhow, let’s play catchup:

The Kids

The kids are having a great summer. Tabby is at school with Ben and both of them LOVE IT. She also has a couple of friends from school and other venues (a family friend, soccer) in her class and that makes her very happy. Ben was moved up to the next level at the beginning of the summer. This was bittersweet because he and his best friend, Cruz, were separated. However, it was in some ways for the best as they are a wild comedy duo and his behavior is improved.

We have been going swimming at least once weekly and traveling tons which the kids LOVE. They are both looking forward to our cruise immensely and Ben keeps asking to “see the Disney Cruise stuff!” whenever he sees Matt or I at the computer. Tabby is reading everything she comes across and has really stepped up her game big time. There’s not much now she can’t read, at least with a little help.

Matt and I

With me working so much, it’s been hard not being able to spend as much time with Matt. He’s also been picking up some major slack that I’ve dropped lately and doing it with grace and generally good humor. Since the weeks have been so crazy, we’ve been trying to get out for date nights whenever we can. We’ve tried out some new restaurants, gone to see some movies and been pretty lazy. It’s nice.

Training

Another thing we’ve been doing together is training! I am signed up for my first triathlon near the end of August and so I’ve been training with one of my friends and then sometime with Matt. It’s been some early morning swims in the pool and some weekend bike rides. A few weeks ago my friend and I did an open water swim. The best thing I can say about it was that I didn’t drown. Still, by the end of it, I had new confidence in my abilities and I feel like when I attempt it again later this week, I will do much better.

Aside from tri-training, the rest of my working out hasn’t been awesome. I was going to bootcamp only once or twice a week and since I’m going to miss the last two weeks of July anyway (since we’re traveling), I took the month of July off. The lack of fees alone paid for me wetsuit. Yay.

Travel

What’s probably compounded this whole work situation immeasurably is all the travel we’ve been doing on the weekends. A couple of weekends ago, we had our third camping trip of the season, to Cow Creek (above). It was wonderful, but it’s also been exhausting. In addition to camping, we went to Vail for the holiday weekend (and got back around 11:30 on Sunday night). We’re heading off for our big summer trip with Matt’s family in less than 2 weeks.

Still, we’ve had a wonderful time, and I want to share some of our adventures.

Work!

Despite the fact that I’m working hard, overall, I am really enjoying my new role. It is definitely not all rainbows and sunshine, but we’ve won a few projects since I’ve started and that is a really really awesome feeling. I get to do a lot of stuff I’m good at and enjoy, like laying out pretty marketing materials, managing databases and organizing things. It’s also an excellent challenge, which I really thrive on.

But my vacation in 2 weeks is going to be very very well deserved.

So that, in a nutshell, is life right now. I hope to make at least one more post this week and slowly get back to doing 3-5/week and also reading some of my other favorite blogs. Life is good. It’s just very very busy.

May 5, 2013May 6, 2013

A Good Weekend

Friday was a bit of a bummer. Poor Ben was down for the count. He’s had a cough but Thursday night he threw up three times over night and was feeling terrible. Matt took the kids for their yearly checkups in the AM and then Tabby went onto school, but Been laid in his bed practically all day and slept and watched movies on the Kindle.

We cancelled dinner with friends and on Ben’s insistence tried to go to dinner, but he just laid in my lap and wouldn’t eat a bite. We went straight home.

Saturday I took off bright and early to do a race with a couple of girlfriends – Shape’s Diva Dash. It’s a pretty darn tame obstacle course, but lots of fun. Just three miles and 8 obstacles … running through hanging balloon/ball things, over a pile of tires, over a canal, under a net, up a rope wall, over a wall, through some spider-web kinda bungees, monkey bars, and a teeter totter. We made good clock time and had a great time.

Meanwhile back at home, Matt asked my sister to watch T and he and a much-improved Ben took off for a b’day party at a roller rink. For 4 year olds. A bit weird, but they had a good time.

I picked up T at my sister’s and then met up with Matt and Ben. We had lunch and Ben went down for a nap and Tabby and Matt went off to soccer.

After soccer, we packed everyone up and the kids went to stay with my parents. Matt and I went on a date … a quintuple date …? Us and 4 other couples, well actually 3.5 other couples – one hubby ended up staying home. Drinks, dinner, trivia and more drinks. We got home at a very respectable hour and watched a movie and crashed. This AM we grabbed some breakfast and headed to my office so I could get a few things done. We weren’t there long but it was quality time. Then we ran errands and cleaned up the house. I thought we’d see the kids around lunch time, but they ended up staying with my parents until dinner time! They do love their grandparents.

We had Sunday dinner and a little homework and again … weekend is done.

May 1, 2013

A Midweek Update

Found this lovely bouquet in my bathroom when I got home today. Made me smile.
Checked out a cool music class with Tabby this evening. I think we’ll sign her up and maybe Ben too.
Matt is doing a science experiment for Tabby’s class pretty soon. It involves liquid nitrogen and making ice cream in the classroom. And molecules and stuff too.
The new job is going pretty well. I’m not up to speed, but I think I’m competent. Just a lot of new stuff to remember.
I did bootcamp after being gone (mostly) for 2 or 3 weeks. It hurts. Bad.
Have two races in the next two weeks (~3mi and ~6mi) and I think I will be ready (I have been running).
Matt is being a champ at picking up the slack while I’m busy learning my new job. I think I’ll keep him. Or maybe worship him.
Ben has had a little cold and he’s been kind of out of sorts. He woke up in the middle of the night last night and neither of us heard him (Matt was in the basement) and I was passed out cold from exhaustion. We both felt terrible and he needed lots of snuggles.
He has not been so out of sorts, however, that he cannot get into mischief with his best friend at school. They are the class clowns, I’m told.
It is snowing. Again. Why yes today IS the first day of May.

April 24, 2013

Ben is 4!!!

Four years ago today I was lucky enough to be prepped for surgery ahead of a wave of other ladies having babies and so they had to let me go ahead and have my c-section. Twenty minutes later, this little lad was born and our lives have been faster, crazier and more amazing ever since.

There is not much baby left in him, though he does still drag around his blanky and love some snuggles. Most of the time he is fast and furious, playing with Skylanders and Legos and skiing like crazy.

It has been a big year for Ben, chock full of change, which we’ve come to realize, he’s not a huge fan of. He started at a new school, went through a bunch of new teachers, and adjusted to a much more rigorous schedule. It hasn’t always been easy coping with everything, but I’ve been amazed at how well he’s done with the coaching we’ve given him on getting himself under control when the crazies try to take over.

He is happiest when he’s hanging with is people, getting doted upon and played with and read to. He is a real charmer and has the most mischievous smile I’ve ever seen. He also has a great sense of humor and I see a future class clown in him or really, a future anything he wants to be. He is a good friend and a good brother. He adores Tabby and they play really well together these days.

I’m super proud of the amazing little guy he’s becoming. He makes me smile every single day. Happy b’day to my awesome little man!

April 21, 2013

All About Ben All Day Long

Ben doesn’t officially turn 4 until Wednesday, but this weekend he got to celebrate his birthday with Nashville family and bunch of his school friends. Ben spends a lot of time being the little brother lagging behind Tabby – just the way it is when they’re two years apart – and it was awesome to make so much time and effort all about him.

He chose Chuck E Cheese for his b’day. He was adamant. And it was a great choice in many ways. I didn’t have to do a lot and he LOVED it. We had fun with rides and games, pizza and cake.

He loved all the clapping and singing and being the undisputed center of attention.

His cute cake came from Costco and they didn’t disappoint. It was tasty too.

He got to go into the ticket blaster WITH DADDY. Where Daddy successfully caught the 1000 ticket voucher and stuffed it into Ben’s crown.

There was a gift-free-for-all that I didn’t capture. Ben got many nice gifts from his friends. Then there was more time in kiddie-vegas and eventually back home for dinner and a couple more presents with the whole family.

…. including a new bike from Mommy and Daddy since he outrgrew his old one. He was pretty darn excited.

I’m sure if you asked him, he’d probably say the best part of his day was Chuck E Cheese. But I know what he really loved was hanging out with all the people he loves best.

And us with him.

April 18, 2013

Ben’s Party

So Ben is turning 4 next Wednesday and he is having a party. I tried to convince him to have a big friends-invited party NEXT year so he and Tabby could be trading off, but he was having none of it, so he is having his party this year too. Who can blame him?? Anyhow, just as for Tabby, I totally would’ve gone ALL OUT and made him some awesome themed something. But that’s not my little guy’s style. He had his heart set on one thing: Chuck E Cheese, i.e. kiddie Vegas. And there was no deterring him.

Later, I asked him if he wanted me to make his birthday cake. He did not. He wanted one from the store with “lots of frosting.” I am stingy with the frosting? News to me. Anyhow, last Friday we ran party errands. First we went to Party City to buy plates, cups, etc. He chose BATMAN. All Batman. He would have bought that store out of everything Batman, but we limited him to plates, cups, napkins, little batman rubber bracelets and some balloons. Then we were off to Costco to order the cake because if I have to eat store bought cake, Costco’s is about the best (besides Whole Foods and I am not paying $60 for a cake that mostly little kids with little appreciation for Berry Chantilly are going to be eating). When we got there and I saw the available designs, I was a little worried. They didn’t have a Batman cake or any sort of licensed action figure cake and I thought Ben might balk.

Nope. He got all jazzed about a dinosaur cake. And so that’s what we ordered. Maybe I’ll stick a Batman figurine next to the dino. And maybe I won’t. But Ben’s happy. So I’m happy.