Mr. Sand Man

This is Owen's favorite past time activity lately. He could spend the whole afternoon in the sandbox near our house. Digging, pouring and dumping....over and over again.

He is a very busy boy, so it is great to have found this outlet for him.

He has started to say "It's not fair!" when he feels injustice has been served. It made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it. Hmmmm....I wonder where he learned that line from?

I heard this new phrase repeated over and over after his run-in with a four-year-old boy in the park sandbox. Owen was flinging sand, and getting comments from Mom to stop. So, a boy in the sandbox decided to help discipline this "naughty boy" and walked up to Owen and threw sand right in his eyes.

Point blank.

Owen's face was a sweaty and covered with sunscreen so the sand stuck instantly- and was almost impossible to wipe off. His eye lashes were completely coated. He screamed for about 30 minutes straight, as I tried to irrigate his eyes and get the sand out. It was a pretty traumatizing time for both he and I. The dad of the boy was completely humiliated and left pretty quickly after apologizing. I felt bad- there wasn't really anything he could do, and the boy was really too young to fully understand what he had done.

After the 30 minutes of screaming Owen finally started saying, "all done mom, much better!" between sobs. So, I took that at face value and let him get up to play, feeling pretty confident that the sand was all out after my cleaning efforts.

The next morning though, the sides of his eyes were filled with sandy goo. Another screaming fest began as I tried to clean it out. The whole experience made me ill. I am trying not to think about all the strange eye diseases he could have picked up from this sand encounter :)

I guess he has not been too traumatized by it though....this morning he stared begging for "sandbox mommy..... sandcastle!"

Maybe we will get some safety googles.

Botany Class

The Brooklyn Botanic Gardens provide a fabulous classroom for botany class. We have been heading here every couple of weeks to check out the beauty that each season brings. Here is what we found this time:

Bluebells. Lots and lots of bluebells. A whole field carpeting a forest floor, in fact.

I really wanted a back yard today.....and a gardener.

Peonies. I love these. They are in full bloom right now, and there are bushes, and bushes, and bushes of them. I had to take a picture of this one because I have never seen a yellow peony- only white and pink. They are probably quite popular, and it is just my experience that is limited, but while I was taking the picture I was absolutely certain of their rarity.

We found an amazing weeping Beech tree. Amazing. Its branches extended all the way to the ground in all directions. Owen was so excited to finally be in a jungle. "Jungle, mommy, Jungle!" Well, almost.
Not only did this tree have an amazing canopy, it also was very climbable. I am pretty sure this was against the rules.....but hey, those leaves provided ample protection for our covert operation to go undetected from the garden powers that be.

Wisteria....one of the many things I miss about Cincinnati.

A major perk of this trip was realizing how many honeybees hang out at this garden. We never see honeybees in Manhattan. Wasps, yes- we have those- but no honeybees. So, the girls were quite excited to meet a bunch. I am convinced the BBG must keep its own personal hive. Admittedly, I am a bit of a "bee nerd" - my dad was a bee keeper when I was young. Looking for a great book about bees? We are loving this one right now.

Thunder Cake

My kids love the book Thunder Cake. It is about a girl who is afraid of thunderstorms until her grandmother helps her to overcome her fear by baking a Thunder Cake.

At the end of the book there is a recipe for real Thunder Cake. The girls beg me to help them make Thunder Cake every time we read it. Usually, I have a pretty good reply: "We can't make Thunder Cake-there is no thunderstorm!"

Here in NYC we get nary a thunderstorm. Rain? Yes. Whoa, we get a lot. Thunder and lightning? Not really. Sometimes I miss the spectacular storms we experienced during our time in Cincinnati. The mid-west knows how to throw a good storm. Some storms would last for hours, with an unbelievable intensity.

Here, we are lucky to get a few cracks of thunder to accompany a rainfall that can last all day. But the girls still held out hope. They knew their day would come.

Our Thunder Cake day arrived last Friday. I was giving Madeline a piano lesson, and almost jumped out of my seat. The thunder was so loud, and the lightning was so intensely bright that I even hurriedly glanced outside expecting to see a downed tree right outside our building.

"Oh, Oh, Oh Mom! Thunder Cake!!"

Yep, she remembered.

It was 4 o'clock. The kitchen was a mess. Dinner hadn't been even been given a thought.

And yet somehow, I was convinced into making cake.

Luckily, we had all the ingredients on hand- which was pretty miraculous considering this recipe calls for tomatoes (shhh! the secret ingredient!) and strawberries.

Of course we had to add candles to the top. Owen was sure it was someone's birthday-when else does mom make cake?

I Did It!

I finally ran a race here in Manhattan! Now, before you get too impressed, I must disclose that it was only a 5k. I know, I know-I have heard your very impressive half-marathon/marathon stories, and fully embrace that this is very small beans on the distance spectrum.

But, for me it was big. I am not really a runner. I enjoy running. . . for about a mile, and then I feel pain. My knees hurt. My stomach hurts. My lungs hurt. I can feel every step. And, if pain was not enough reason alone to stop, I also had asthma as a kid- so there is a little fear associated with running.


But I did it anyway. Ran the whole time....the whole 3.1 miles which I never really do- I like to take walking breaks during my "runs." I made the track star husband of mine real proud. I think I averaged 13 minute miles, so there was definitely a nice grandma jog going on.

The kids enjoyed watching me finish in all of my glory. I think I finished in 20,000th place, which sounded pretty impressive to them. I will never really know, because they don't keep track of placement -it wasn't one of those kind of runs.

If you live in NYC, and aren't really a "runner" I would definitely recommend taking on the Revlon 5k. It helps raise money for cancer prevention/treatment, and it is a beautiful jaunt through Central Park. Also, most of the 40,000 participants walk the entire way-so you feel like a real athlete racing along, leaving those speed walkers in the dust with your 13 minute mile.

Owenisms

Owen's vocabulary grows a little every day. Most days, I welcome his new-found communication with open arms. Some days, however, I miss his caveman speak....which he still fully owns, but it is swiftly diminishing.

Today, he sat in a park swing, looking up in the sky at the looming clouds, and with perfect pronunciation exclaimed, "Oh no mom, watch out, a storm is coming!"

The pronunciation was so perfect, in fact, it made me wonder if it was a phrase from Diego. Somehow, Owen master's all phrases Diego. For example, one day he was walking around the house speaking emphatically about "Spectacled Bears." I had no idea where this obscure animal knowledge originated, and it remained a mystery until I overheard his Diego Jungle Adventure movie playing one day.

Wherever it came from, his perfect phrase at the park made me pause and think about the days swiftly passing with my baby. He is turning into a big boy- and fast.

I will miss hearing his little feet pattering down the hall. I will miss his tiny hand in mine. There will come a day when he won't eagerly climb in my lap with his favorite train book. Sometimes his milestones, as exciting as they are, also serve as reminders of chapters closed. Time passed, never to experienced again- only to be remembered.

Just when I am sure my baby is gone--"look mom, I see an oct-A-gon!" I hear one of his little Owenisms. Yep, I still have a two-year-old. Phew.

"Momma, I wanna hold you!" translation: "please pick me up!"

"I'm Scary!" translation: "I'm freaked out!"

"I wann appa juice!" translation: "I want orange juice"

"He's tees'n me!!" translation:"Go away, you pesky sisters!"

Brooklyn Botanical Gardens

Two weeks ago we spent a fantastic day at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Spring was just beginning to show itself. There were crocuses and daffodils everywhere. Trees were just about to flower. I am excited to go back this week and show the kids how much difference a few weeks can make in the spring.

When the weather gets a little too cold or rainy (like it did this day) there is plenty to see indoors. They have a jungle, desert and bonsai house.

Owen in the Bamboo Jungle. If you can't tell I am a little obsessed with taking his picture lately. He has been growing up so incredibly fast. I am looking for a pause button somewhere on his skinny self, but can't find it. Instead, I am just trying to document what I can, when I can.

In the "fragrance garden" Owen spotted this fountain girl about his same size. Long after the rest of the group had moved on, Owen lingered by this statue- talking to it in a worried voice. I can understand his concern- she is green, doesn't move, and is standing naked in 40 degree weather.

Looking out at the Japanese Garden and the Koi pond, wishing for a new pet.

Owen loves the fish. "Come, come here fishy, fishy, fishy!"

Happy Birthday to Me

It's official. I am 31....as of a few weeks ago, I am just slow to get these posts up. Check out Owen's shoulder blade in this picture. I have one very skinny son...one very skinny son that doesn't like to wear clothing. I imagine you may have already picked these facts up from previous posts.

My cheesecake was made by my wonderful friend Maria. It was a pumpkin cardamon cheesecake with sugared pumpkin seeds on top. It was delicious, and I was very impressed by her baking skills.

This was Owen's favorite part of the whole evening. One advantage to getting older is that the candle lighting gets more and more spectacular.

After cheesecake, we headed out to dinner at Lombardi's with my sister Angie and her husband Bert who were in town. Somehow, I have no pictures of us all together. They were here for four days, and we had a fabulous time showing them New York- and somehow I have no pictures to document it. This picture is of Marc and I in front of Lombardi's in Soho- a fabulous place to eat some NYC style pizza.