Easter and fun with grandparents

My mom and dad came to visit us and we had a blast taking them around NYC. The funny thing is, now that we live in a place where we seem to attract more visitors, it's such a tight squeeze in our apartment! Thank goodness Mom and Dad are good sports and don't mind sleeping on the couch or an aerobed.

Ava and Grandpa had tea parties all the time. Cutest thing ever. Ava seems to have the white glove thing and pinky finger up in the air down pat.

At the Metropolitan Museum. I love that it is a nice walk through Central Park from our apartment.

Brunch at Cafe Luxembourg. David was on the phone a lot taking care of work stuff. Ava looks less than thrilled but she seems to like posing that way now.

At the Reservoir in Central Park. Seriously you can spend all your time in Central Park when you visit NYC. Mom and Dad fell in love with it and want to move here!

At the church across from Ground Zero.

Brooklyn Bridge-unfortunately it was a bit foggy

Ava chowing down at Grimaldi's in Brooklyn. Thank goodness we were one of the first people in line before it opened.

Ava and Arden's Easter baskets. I actually got it together this year!!!!

Arden with Ah-Ma at the Conservatory Garden. Loved the tulips.

Arden doesn't get mistaken for a boy when she gets all dressed up!

I try so hard to get good pics of the girls together but it never works out.

Easter Egg Hunt at the Todd's.

Dying Eggstravaganza

Ava and Daddy raising the roof while waiting for the eggs to finish. It was so adorable. My sole purpose of blogging is to embarrass David.

Ava with her finished products. Princesses on the bottom, and tiaras on top.

Ode to the Playroom

So this poem is so cheesy but the playroom in my building deserves an ode. I take the girls down there at least five times a week and we have met some great friends there. I don't think I would have survived our first year in NYC without it!

Ode to the Playroom

A life-saver to a mother when
a measly apartment of eight hundred and ten
square feet simply will not suffice
and outside is rain, snow or ice

A room full of possibilities and fun
a chance to dress up as a princess or nun
A place to look forward to after afternoon naps
before mommy starts pulling her hair out and snaps

The meeting place where friends big and small
all nationalities, genders, come one come all
Enjoy the slide and build a sweet fort
and children, nannies and parents cavort

This is a simple ode to a playroom
a beautiful space that dispels all gloom
where kids rule and imagination runs free
and lucky for us there's a potty for pee

Ava and Nathan in the playroom-these two are so sweet together

Ava and Aidan are always chasing each other around

Ava is pretending to be a princess patient

Arden loves crawling through the tunnel

Arden can't walk yet but she sure can climb up the big slide

Arden getting jiggy with the toys

Holy cow...Arden is one!

This post is so overdue. I feel like my blogging skills are deteriorating along the same path of decline as my brain cell count. I honestly feel like I am getting dumber with each successive child, so maybe I should stop having kids while I'm ahead.

I'm not sure how this happened, but Arden is one. She is so cute and smiley all day long. She has grown leaps and bounds but she is still the cuddly little baby she always was. She has a great disposition and will smile her squinty smile at anyone. She is so irresistible when she smiles and her four top teeth and two bottom teeth are showing. She does get a little shy sometimes and will shrug her shoulders up and tilt her head sideways.

One year stats:

Weight-19 lbs (10-25th percentile)
Height-29. 5 inches (50-75th percentile)

Arden was acting like a crazy baby during her one year check up. She did not want to go near the nurse or the doctor and she was frantically trying to climb off the scale. At least she didn't pee on the examination table like she almost always does. She had to endure a chickenpox vaccine and finger pricks but bounced back pretty quickly after that. She had to endure all of this on her actual birthday.

So no good news on the sleeping situation. In fact, her sleep habits have gotten worse. She still naps twice a day around 9am and 2pm. Now I have to lay her on my chest after nursing her to put her to sleep for naps and at night. Sometimes this process can take up to 45 minutes! Sometimes I ask myself why I spend so much time trying to get her to nap when she might only nap for 45 minutes. But I do it anyway and hope that we'll figure it out along the way. If I just let her hang out in her crib without laying her on me, she will just babble to herself or cry and not sleep at all. I can't nurse Arden to sleep anymore and just put her in the crib and walk away like I used to. Now she'll finish nursing, sit up, give me a sweet little smile, and crawl onto my chest. How can I resist her? But my patience wears thin by the third time she wakes up in the middle of the night. Not sure who wins "worst sleeper ever" title-Ava when she was under 2, or Arden.

These days Arden and I are roomies while David sleeps on an aerobed in Ava's room. So far it has worked alright but David has discovered that Ava has some weird sleep habits like standing straight up in the middle of the night. Ava also likes to sleep on the aerobed until David transfer to her own bed.

Arden doesn't take a bottle or a sippy cup very well. Somehow the "Teen Moms" on MTV can get their babies to sleep and take bottles but I can't do either. These days when I struggle with some aspect of parenting, I just shrug my shoulders and think "this won't last forever". Someday Arden will sleep, right? Somebody please tell me yes.

Arden does the cutest things, like growl. But if I growl at her, she gets a little scared. She likes to play peek-a-boo by putting her hands over her eyes, and she is an excellent clapper. She will blow kisses if we ask her to do it. She walks alongside furniture like a champ but has not taken any steps at all.

Words: she has mastered "dada", and her version of "uh-oh" (sounds like "hmm-mmmm"). I think she might know "dog" because one day we got in the elevator and she said "doh" at the dog in there. "Mama" comes out once in a while but it could just be a coincidence.

Favorite foods: chicken apple sausage, vegetable beef pilaf, baby mum mums, ribs, Indian chicken, salmon, tofu, and pasta.

Sometimes Arden likes to wave her arms around to music, with her hands looking a bit like pincers. This is not a perfect depiction of her "rapping lobster" look, but it is pretty close.

The sisters are starting to play well together, if by "play" we mean Ava sitting on Arden or pulling Arden's legs when Arden is crawling

Arden giving me a shy glance

This looks like the lamest first birthday cake ever but Arden enjoyed her carrot cake enough to smear it in her hair

Arden at her one year check up--before she knew what was coming

Arden and Henry in the playroom. Arden getting dolled up for her birthday. Too bad I didn't get a party together for her.

That is Arden's sleepy face. She sucks on her bottom lip and puts her fingers to her mouth. She is so cuddly!!!

Living it up with St. Patty's, Martha and The Strokes

David decided to take his birthday off (St. Patty's Day) as well as the day after. It was wonderful to walk down to 5th Avenue and 79th St. to enjoy the parade. We loved how patriotic it was, with a lot of policemen and soldiers walking down 5th Avenue while bagpipes could be heard in the background.

David had a great birthday (except I messed up the icing on his cake--apparently sour cream chocolate icing is not his thing). During one night on his birthday weekend, he and I were able to walk to the Metropolitan museum and enjoy some religious art right before closing. Then we walked through Central Park and enjoyed the breathtaking evening views while we were on our way to Gennaro, a cozy Italian restaurant. We ended the night with some gelato from Screme. David kept asking me all weekend, "How could anyone want to leave this city?"

Ava had the best view of the parade

Arden and David in green. For once David's neon green jacket wasn't an eyesore (just kidding, babe, you know I love your jacket)

I couldn't get enough of men in kilts

Hanging out with the Foss family and Colvin family during and after the parade

Alice in Wonderland statue was close by so I climbed on after the parade. Ignore my pirate look.

Enjoying brunch on David's day off. Check out David's hot new birthday jeans.

Isn't this baby cute enough to eat?

Ava waiting to slap on some strawberry butter.

I was able to enjoy some activities lately sans kids. My friend Tiffany and I have been swapping babysitting services and it has been awesome! Now that the weather is better, I am really excited to explore my big back yard. I don't know if it is because I have two kids now that I really feel like I need to go out with my friends and go on dates with David. I never really felt like I had to "get away" when it was just Ava. But then again I didn't live in NYC before!

Martha! We are the lucky ladies who got to see a Martha Stewart taping. We scored some free Minwax. Just watch I'm going to get all crafty and Minwax it up...not.

David and I scored some box seat tickets at Madison Square Garden to see The Strokes (he got tix through people he met at work). This is my way to see a rock concert--away from the crowds and with an arm's reach access to food. Here's to more good times in the city!

Fun in February?

Sigh...a huge relief that February is over. Not only was the weather less than desirable, three quarters of the Smock family got sick. Ava missed two days of school, Arden was a serious mess, and even I succumbed to some kind of debilitating virus. Arden and Ava both had fevers, and Arden went on a nursing strike. She wouldn't nurse for about three days and everytime I tried she sharpened her chompers on me. I was so stressed out about it because Arden doesn't take a bottle or a sippy cup. I tried to feed her liquids through a syringe or pouring breastmilk/water into her mouth from a cup. I wondered if my nursing days were over with Arden, but she got back on the wagon when she started feeling better. Thank goodness that ordeal is over and thank goodness David stayed strong. We did manage to eek in some fun. Here's the proof (albeit the pictures after the first two aren't stellar quality because I took them):

Playdate with Lillian J and Ella. I can't think of a sweeter picture than this one, where they are holding hands and all smiling so sweetly. All the girls ever want to do is dress up like princesses.

Lesley (Ella's mom) took these two princess pics. I want to remember Ava like this forever. I constantly stare at this picture.

David and Ava sledding in Pound Ridge


Squinty smiles


Robbie and David's joint birthday celebration. That's Ava in the leopard suit

Ava the clown with cousin Lily

Ava with Lillian F and Ella outside of Alice's Tea Cup

Ava drinking her fruit tea (by this point she had broken a tea cup already) and devouring her pumpkin scone. Kelly Ripa was across from us at the other table.

Ava waiting her turn to be sprinkled with fairy dust. We love Alice's Tea Cup!!!!

Cousin Grant's birthday party

Such a fun party with Grant

Valentine's Day party at Ella's house after ballet class

Ava and Lillian F frosting cookies

Sweet Arden likes to sit at the door of Ava's ballet class and watch the action. I will post pics of Ava's beloved class when I get some good ones.

So long February!

Arizona!

This post, as usual, is long overdue. I just had to get this post about Christmas up before March and it looks like I did it just in time! The girls and I spent 3 and a half weeks in Phoenix and Tucson. David joined us on Christmas Eve and left on New Year's Eve. The weather for the most part was great in Arizona (50s and 60s) while NYC was busy shoving snow left and right!

Ava with Auntie Michelle and cute Jaden at the Phoenix zoo

Hanging out at The Farm in Phoenix

Arden and Jaden holding hands. We loved meeting Jaden for the first time. We call Jaden our little goober.

Arden was obsessed with Ah Ma's necklace

Happy family

Arden's first Christmas present. Ava had to get in on the action, of course. Sorry to David for posting a not so fab Christmas morning pic.

Ava got a tricycle for Christmas for my parents. She loved riding it around the lake. Too bad we had to leave it behind. But that's the grandparents way of luring us back to Arizona for another visit!

Totally blurry picture but I love how much fun everyone is having in this picture.

Ava wasn't scared of Santa, but it seemed like she could take him or leave him

All aboard the Christmas train

Pony ride at the Christmas fair in Tucson

This was the cutest thing ever--grandpa and Ava on the swing together singing songs

Chronicles of a Clueless Mom: Incident #1

I think of myself as a clueless mom and oftentimes use harsher words than "clueless" to describe my mothering skills. But I need to be kinder to myself. Can I just say that motherhood is kicking my butt? It's been a rough couple of weeks with sick kids, Ava peeing in her bed constantly, Arden refusing to attempt to sleep through the night, and succumbing to illness myself. But I've survived it all and will survive whatever is thrown my way! Ha!

"Chronicles" implies that this will be an ongoing documentation of my foibles, and most likely I will do enough stupid things to fill a whole book. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Let's start with incident #1.

Sometimes I just have to let Arden cry a little bit in her crib in hopes that she'll fall asleep on her own. But that girl has a serious gag reflex and will vomit if she gets too worked up. So my hopes and dreams of letting her "cry it out" have been dashed. I'm joking about it being my hopes and dreams, of course, but to completely eliminate the crying it out method without even fully attempting it just means more sleepless nights for us. When David and I hear the dreaded gagging sound we both rush into to room and there in its full glory is a little puddle of her dinner. So the other night, after Arden's dinner made its unwelcome appearance, David stripped Arden's sheets and I threw the nastiness into the wash. After the wash was done, I started to transfer the sheets to the dryer and noticed some strange little wet circular substance fall out from the wash. I discovered that I had thrown in a diaper along with the sheets into the washing machine. Smooth! Finding a bloated, ripped apart diaper in the wash is the worst. As far as I could tell it was not a poopy diaper, but who knows? Trying to clean these water absorbing polymers from the washing machine was such a pain. I re-washed the load and somehow that took care of whatever I couldn't get out of the machine. Lesson learned by this clueless mom--check what I am washing!