Meet Brownie.  Brownie is Brandt’s much adored animal that I purchased on a whim.  He (Brandt) was having a bad night.  Elena was gone.  He wanted to be with her, but he was stuck shopping with mom (me) and it threw him over the edge.  In a moment of weakness, I tried to make things right and let him pick out an animal at the Hallmark store.  It was a good investment.  His tears dried up, and he spent the rest of the evening hugging this guy. And chewing its nose.  And dragging it around on the grubby Goodwill floor.

Of course things are never that easy, and when Elena finally got to meet Brownie, she was less than pleased.  Because it is just not fair!  That Brandt got a stuffed animal! And she did not!

Since I am never short on “mom-guilt” I tried remedy the situation.  I gave her an incentive. Sleep in her own bed for five nights in a row… and I will buy her a stuffed animal to sleep with.  Like a trouper she attacked the incentive, she never missed a night, and five days later she was begging to go to the store for her own stuffed animal.

Well, in the meantime Madelyn had been born, and I, being one day postpartum, sent my mom with Elena to Target to buy a stuffed animal.

I prepared myself for an animal that I probably wouldn’t like.  Because naturally Elena would pick something that I wouldn’t care for.  Can you guess what it was?  Here’s a hint:  It is white.  With pink curly hair.  With lots of bling. And her own pointe shoes.  And a patch on her hind quarter that shouts: GROOVY GIRLS!

Elena had spoken and chose her very own ballerina-horse. I don’t want to be remiss, and not mention that it also whinnies when you press her belly.

Meet Lindia (lin-dee-uh) Yes, Elena is also in a class of her own when it comes to names.

This horse has brought me so much joy.  I look at it and laugh.  I was never into girly-girl colors, I never played with dolls, and I hated carrying babies around.  And now I have a girly-girl daughter whose color of choice is always pink, her toy of choice is dolls, she would spend hours holding Madelyn if I would let her.

I am loving watching her being girly-girl.

This week I had nothing on the agenda but try to keep the house organized, and keep our clothes washed, and keep the hungry family fed.  Actually, I think I did an ok job on all of those.  I tried to take the kids out of the house most days, so that we (more specifically they) didn’t just constantly trash the house every time I turned around.  Honestly the worst thing about house-keeping right now is that most evenings it looks like a several toy stores have barfed in our living room.  So to reverse that trend I tried a field trip week.  One day we went to the library, then bought soft pretzels, and then went to the park.  The next day we went to the outlet malls, (with a quick stop at the slide that was too baking hot to slide on) Kmart, and Staples (real kid-friendly field trip, I know) and Burger King, and the next day we went to Hayloft Candle Barn (Petting zoo).  Oh, and for suppers I would stop at road side stands and buy whatever was fresh and looked good.  I called our meals a Carnivore’s Dilemma, and I think Gene is ready to ingest some meat again.

  Then last night I decided that it was time for this baby inside me to be born, and by golly, I will take things into my own hands.  It was 10:30 the kids and Gene were all in bed, so I brewed some raspberry tea and went outside and drank it.  Then I decided to go walking.  So I walked up and down the driveway a couple times, enjoying myself and feeling very health conscious.  And then I was still on the driveway and I saw at the end of the lane, a van turning into our driveway.  And all I could think was I MUST NOT BE SEEN.  I MUST HIDE! 

 I was in my too-tight pjs, not looking too attractive.  So I did what any other full-term mamma would do, turned and ran as fast as I could and hid in the bushes.  The van turned around, and went back down the lane and I walked back into the house.  I sat down for a couple minutes, and WHEN I GOT UP. OH. MY.  I started a new habit of swearing.  This is why pregnant ladies should not run.  I could not walk.  I crawled to bed on my hands and knees, and prayed when I crawled into bed.  “God, I wanted to have my baby tonight, but I really changed my mind, I would rather have it when I can walk. Please not tonight, please not tonight.”

  So today I have been camping out on the couch most of the day, vacillating between the hysterical laughter and extreme self-pity.  The mid-wives think I tore a ligament in my pelvis.  But after lying around most of the day, I am feeling much more mobile than I was this morning.  Now you know, take it from me, just swallow your pride and let somebody see you in your ugly tight pjs instead of running and hiding in miscellaneous shrubbery.

Now I’m off to lasso the kids into cleaning up their toys.  Wish me luck, because my history in this has not been too successful.

PS.  In case you are curiously wondering if the people in van saw me??  No!  It was successful, I hid from them and they never noticed me.  And also, it was my very harmless brother-in-law and his wife wanting to give us some watermelon, and they have seen me in worse than tight pjs anyway, so why did I do this to myself?

If you’re looking for a charming, sea-side vacation with slightly dated hotels, Cape May is the place for you!  There was not a chain restaurant or chain motel in sight, which is good or bad, however you prefer your vacations.  I like the no-chain thing, Gene is more chain-oriented.

The cape is only a two hour drive from our place, and we really knew nothing about it.  Actually, I knew there was a beach, and I knew there was a free zoo.  So Esh-style is to decide about two days ahead, that hey, no work for Monday, the soil is too soggy to farm,  we could handle a weekend getaway, since 2008 held no vacations for us.

The problems with vacations is that I want so badly to relax, I want so badly for my kids to have a blast, I want so badly for my husband to get some downtime, that I get stressed trying to make it all happen.  And then it defeats the purpose.

So I wake up at 6:30 the first morning. (Actually Brandt, the scheduled alarm clock, woke me up.)  And I’m thinking.  We have to go to the beach!  We have to go to the zoo!  We have to go the pool!  We need to eat breakfast!  We need to sleep in!

Luckily we did all those things.  On day #1 we did the beach and the pool.  On day #2 we did the pool and the zoo.  And like vacations are, it was 60% bliss and 40% torture.

I found out that my dear daughter has the same problem that I do.   At the entrance to the zoo there was a merry-go-round that she wanted to go on.  We promised her that when we leave, she can take a ride.  While we were at the bears she asked about the merry-go-round.  While we were at the camels she asked about the merry-go-round.  The entire time at the zoo all she talked about was the merry-go-round ride she was going to have.  Finally I sat her down and talked to her. 

“Elena, we are at the zoo!  You wanted to go to the zoo yesterday and we’re finally here.  You got to see a zebra, and a lion! Just look at the animals and have fun looking at them.  Don’t worry about the merry-go-round.”

As you can guess when we finally exited the zoo the merry-go-round was not in operation.  They had covered up all the plastic horses with canvas tarps.  And as you can guess, many, many, tears ensued.

So later we went to Kmart and she took a ride on the little electronic helicopter.

Enjoy the moment!

Andrea