Dance dance dance

Easing myself back into the blog world today. Let's start with this great new video.

To be competed with only by some of the recent Wright household dance parties.

Kindly ignore the mom cackle.

It's fun having a musician husband who has lots of talented musician friends. This is J.J. playing with our friend Anna, who used to be a very serious contender on the fiddle competition circuit. Yes, that exists. In fact, fiddler gossip has it that among fiddlers in the US, she is one of the best. And these days we get to enjoy that talent in our living room -- so fun!!! This is the first time the kids actually danced together, aka Peter dragged poor MF around in circles until she repeatedly fell over.

PS - The cutie pie baby is henry, son of Lauren and Steve (better known as SLawson). We loved having them come up for a visit!

PPS - My grandfather was super tech savvy way early on, and used to love showing us this video. Remember that one? We thought it was SOOOO cool. Love you, Bapa!

Party Across the Street

In my former life, pre-marriage and pre-children, I was fortunate enough to work at a beautiful Washington DC Art Gallery and Art College in the special events office. While in retrospect I wasn't great at my first job and I admittedly spent much of the year distracted and a little overwhelmed by my engagement and pending move to NYC, I was nothing if not enthusiastic and blessed with the most gracious and kind boss in the whole world. The job felt glamorous, working across the street from the White House and hosting parties for embassies (oh, Poland, you were the death of me) and DC socialites. On my first day of work I headed out to lunch with my new boss and co-worker, and we were asked to pose for photos in front of the White House with Japanese tourists as the quintessential blonde, brunette and red-headed "American Girls". It was fun. It was tiring. It was a great first job.

source

One of the highlights of that year was President Obama's first Inauguration weekend. The gallery hosted three nights of back-to-back HUGE parties, with event equipment and caterers rolling in at the crack of dawn and finally loading out around 4AM each morning. That meant our job was to protect all of the precious art in the gallery and the historical building itself from cranky waiters, to beg Secret Service to let our catering trucks inside the barricades because we had 1200 people on their way expecting to eat, deal with nasty political staffers and musicians, all on about 3 hours of sleep that were taken each night on our office floor. Because the subways were so crowded, we even got to walk about 3 (hundred million) miles to catch one shower in the midst of it all at the home of the museum's director (awkward! and COLD.) I guess the upswing of the weekend was that President and Mrs. Obama never actually showed to any of our parties (avoiding the need for complete Secret Service insanity and my self-control to restrain my personal moral and political feelings about our new Mr. President), and that it was an exciting, once-in-a-lifetime experience to tell stories about.

**Not sure if this is actually one of the photos from those nights or from a different party we hosted, but I was too tired to remember details and my old computer housing my own personal photos is buried in a moving box in my basement. Like I said, I was enthusiastic, if nothing else. But you get the idea**

So today I am throwing up a few prayers and wishing the best of luck to all of the event planners, caterers, florists, lighting vendors, Secret Service, etc., etc. who are working themselves into a frenzy trying to make this weekend historic and memorable, especially Kathleen and the team at the Corc.

And Allie, and Brooke -- Cheers to us! Tonight we can sit on our couches and toast to 4 years ago and our dear sweet Joe!

Work it, work it!

The week before Christmas we headed home to Buffalo to visit J.J's family. While I grew up there, I am sad to say that many of my connections have faded as can happen when you leave home. Over this visit, though, I finally rallied everybody into the car in semi-clean clothes to go meet up with some dear friends from my childhood. Eliza was one of my best girlfriends growing up as we spent the summers near each other on Lake Erie, and her mother Katie and the rest of her family were always so special to me. Now with my little guys in tow, I was bound and determined to make time to catch up with Eliza and Katie.

Eliza has become very interested in the whole foods/healthy living world, and started the wonderful Buffalo vegan restaurant and art space Merge with her sister Sarah a few years ago. She's a talented musician and still has the deeply kind, glowing heart that's always been her trademark. Katie is taking gorgeous photos, which is one of her greatest talents besides being an awesome mom and now grandma to little Augie. They so thoughtfully brought clementines (aka Wright children's crack) for my kids to snack on, and we had so much fun playing with the photo props in Katie's downtown studio. This family is so full of life and goodness, and I'm blessed to have had them in my life growing up, and glad that my kids have been able to experience their joyfulness.

During our visit Katie surprised me with a great gift. She whipped out her camera and started catching shots of the kids. So far a professional photo session of the kids hasn't really been in our budget, so I'm so grateful to have these photos to mix in with my usual iPhone memories.

If anyone in the Buffalo/Western New york area needs a family photographer, now you know who to call!

http://www.katieschneiderphoto.com/

Hop to it

So now that Christmas is over, I'm experiencing my yearly resolution that next Christmas will NOT be as chaotic. In my head this means that all my gifts will be wrapped and ready by August (which is code for December 1). Of course, this has never happened, and this year we were an hour late getting out the door on a road trip because I couldn't find a roll of tape to wrap the gifts for our out-of-town fam.

Part of my problem is that I have an irrational hang-up about gifting. It pains me to spend, say, $20 on a gift from a store because it feels all so commercialized and like a cop-out and waste of money. However, I seem to have no problem dropping $40 at the craft store to make a gift that usually looks great in my head (or on Pinterest, let's be honest), and usually comes out looking...homemade. Makes no sense at all, I know.

I blame this on my immensely talented and creative mom, who made things for us that she dreamt up and actually executed flawlessly without any Pinterest inspirations or DIY bloggy tutorials back in the olden days. And they were amazing. Like a life-size teepee with hand-painted tribal representations of her four children. And the bear costume. And even this year, my children and I each received beautifully hand embellished wool winter coats that are positively chic. The woman's an artistic goddess.

Here lies my yearly Christmas panic, though. I have this compulsion to make most of my gifts, but it takes forever to make them look even almost presentable. So, if you are like me, here's an idea to get you started on your next DIY birthday or Christmas gift. Read it now, mull it over, get to the craft store in September, dedicate a nap-time in early December and you're set.

Based on some inspirations, I made our nieces an indoor hopscotch mat and bean bags to toss (safer than schoolyard rocks?). They live in Buffalo (cooped up inside 8 months of the year) and their mother has 6 children under 6. God bless Nicole! I figured she could use an indoor game that releases energy, is somewhat safe, can be used inside and doesn't require a lot of mess or storage. And as a bonus, this one actually was a pretty inexpensive project.

Indoor Hopscotch Mat (No-sew!)

3 yards of canvas, any color (you can find it at the fabric store by the muslins, and I chose a dark color to hide any dirty little footprints)
20 pieces of acrylic (cheap) felt (try to pick colors by selecting ten contrasting color pairs i.e. (1) blue and gold, (2) purple and green, (3) gold and red..)
glue gun and lots of glue sticks
sharp scissors (necessary when working with felt without going crazy)
permanent marker
Fabric scraps
Dried beans/rice/lentils

1. Cut your canvas. Just eyeball it. It should be about 9 feet long and about 3 feet wide. They way that my bolt was sold, the fabric was wide enough to cut in half and make another game someday. Not necessary, but for the look I folded the mat in half the long way and rounded off the corners to create an arch.

2. Hem your mat with hot glue. Turn the edges under by about half and inch and glue them down to prevent fraying. I found that it helped to iron the crease in, and then glue.

3. Write the numbers 1 - 10 each on their own rectangle of felt, and cut the numbers out bubble style around the sketch. Flip the felt number over and trim the contrasting piece of felt that you selected so that it is large enough to cover the cut-out. Glue the contrast patch behind the cut out.

4. Lay out your numbers on the canvas hopscotch style. if it's been a few years since you played, here's a reminder:

8 9

5 6

2 3

You're welcome.

5. Hot glue the numbers in place. If you want to decorate, you can use scraps from your felt and glue them down. I chose the always whimsical and lazy polka dot motif.

6. For the bean bags, take a rectangle of scrap fabric, fold in half (so that the fold constitutes one of the 4 sides), and glue two sides together, careful not to leave any gaps in the glue seams. Throw a handful of beans into the bag and glue the third side shut.

Ta-da!!!

Now that we don't have to keep any more present surprises, what other (more fabulous) things did you make for Christmas gifts this year? Leave me links in the comments so I can devour your craftiness!

Whose Birthday is it?

"Sweet Baby Jesus!"

We've been going for a most basic understanding of Christmas this year, and I think they finally got it.

So, Merry Christmas to you all, and

Happy Birthday, Sweet Baby Jesus!

Love,

J.J. + Alexandra

Peter, Mary Frances...

and BABY!!!!

"Hey, Peter! Aren't you excited about our new baby on the way?" "Sure, Sis. As long as he/she's as cute and *cough* attention grabbing *cough* as you were!"

7 Quick takes: Gross Things

I've been inspired by some of yesterday's events to talk about a couple gross things today. Feel free to skip this one, and I'll spare you any pictures.

1) As I'm sure you're dying to know, Peter has come through his ordeal. Or, I should say, his ordeal has come through him. No more worries about spending the rest of Advent recovering from emergency surgery, because Peter delivered the bolt safely to his diaper this morning. And J.J. was the lucky parent who got to excavate that diaper change to check for it. Win!

2) As I expected, my father was unable to control himself with his humor about the whole screw issue. Poppy (as the kids call him) is a little squeamish, but never misses an opportunity to draw out jokes that are completely unfunny. My brothers and I can't help but think they are hilarious because they're from Dad. Here are some Poppy's texted gems from the situation:

"Has the screw exited Peter's (s)tool box so to speak?"

"WD 40?"

"Diaper Magnets?"

Upon my suggestion that he come out and help us: "Some things in life require a mother's touch!"

Peter believes Poppy can fix anything, but Poppy says, "Poppy can't fix that Poopy!"

-->I warned you above. You might want to just stop reading now before you never read my blog again.

3) Last night we had the pleasure of watching the first episode of Jennifer Fulwiler's show Minor Revisions. There were some fabulous shots of her dealing with a scorpion and a wasp, in which she wondered what the New York crew must have thought about the critters in Texas. To this I say (as a recent New Yorker), " We have rats and roaches in NYC. No big deal." But this is not entirely true.

4) As for rats, just ask my bestie Janet Sahm about her NYC rat experience. It's a sweet story about them being IN HER KITCHEN. Rats, that is. And a random latino man in the Bronx stomping on them for her.**

5) As for NYC cockroaches, I can field that one. We lived in a not luxury, but not gross or run-down apartment building in NYC. That said, it wouldn't have mattered anyway, because every building in NYC has cockroaches, no matter what the real estate agent or landlord tells you. Unless it has mice, which eat the roaches, but then you have mice. There are the tiny roaches which are slower and smaller, but they get into your food (gag, die). And then there are the monster roaches that are 1 - 8ish inches long and don't get into your food but are faster than olympic track medalists and have wings. Meaning they can fly. AROUND YOUR INFANT'S NURSERY.

6) If you ever have these roaches, you just have to accept that they will not die. Remember Wall-E's little cockroach friend? That was accurate because robots and cockroaches would survive the earth's toxic fall-out. We have tried suffocating them with flour. Poisoning them. Drowning them in water. Drowning them in dish soap. Drowning them in bleach. It doesn't stop them. Yes, you can smash them, but then you have a heck of a mess to clean up and you can never let your baby crawl on your floor again, no matter how well you sanitize.

7) What is the solution then, you ask? A Dyson canister vacuum off Craigslist, a toilet and two able-bodied adults. When the little bugger darts under your baby's swing, or out of your clean frying pans, or under the arch of your 9-month-pregnant foot in the middle of the night on your way to the bathroom, scream bloody-murder and hyperventilate until your husband comes to your rescue with the vacuum, cursing and asking where the damn thing is. Watch him use fencer-like agility to suck up the cockroach with the extension tube and observe it whirling around in the canister while hoping it's suffering (don't worry, it's not). Take up your role in the extermination process and gingerly pop the canister open over the toilet and flush before it climbs out to kill you in your sleep. It won't die, but it will take at least a few days before it navigates the NYC sewer system back to your apartment. Move to Indiana and pursue a normal family life.

Nauseated? Mission accomplished. Head over to Jen's for more quick takes or just look at some pretty things on Pinterest to calm your stomach.

**By the way, check out and subscribe to Verily Magazine if you haven't already! It is the complete opposite of this post and full of the antithesis of gross, AKA it's GORGEOUS.**

Nuts and bolts of naptime

*Interrupting my somewhat unplanned blog hiatus, because this one is just too good to miss. *

Last week Peter took it upon himself to make the very executive decision that he is no longer going to take his daily nap. I consider it ill-advised, based on his 6-8 meltdowns between 4PM and bedtime, but what do I know? However, I still need one or two uninterrupted hours to operate my brain sans toddlers, so the naptime routine is still being enforced.

I lay Mary Frances down without ceremony and she immediately and gratefully falls asleep in her crib *PerfectChild*. Peter is then placed in his Pack n' Play, with his 3 blankies, his water bottle, his nightlight, and his sound machine on. Because he can now climb/hurl himself out of the Pack n' Play, I have to shut the door, put up a baby gate in his doorway, and then use two of my belts to secure the baby gate against the small prisoner's escape attempts.

Because he chooses not to sleep, yet cannot escape from Peter's-room-katraz, he's been playing contentedly/throwing every flipping item in his room into his Pack n' Play or over the gate into the hallway. As long as he is quiet enough for MF to sleep and we all get a little rest and alone time, I don't really care what he chooses to do up there. He sleeps on a crib mattress on the floor or the Pack n' Play regularly, so we've really childproofed his room and never have to worry that he's going to hurt himself or the house while he is unsupervised in his room.

Or so we thought.

This afternoon when J.J. and I went to retrieve him from his hour of solitude, one of his dresser drawers was pulled out onto the floor and he was playing with the the drawer pull, which he had obviously unscrewed. Not thinking much of it I took the pull from him and went over to replace the pull on the drawer. However, the bolt that is used to screw the pull on was missing. I casually looked around, but didn't see it. I asked Peter where the screw was, holding up the pull to illustrate. He looked momentarily confused, and then replied, "Mouth!" He must not have understood my question.

We looked and looked. J.J. and I completely tore the room apart searching, but there was no bolt. As we're digging through baskets of socks and buckets of toys, I thought about Peter's answer and I started to worry. J.J. pulled an identical bolt out of the dresser and looked closely. Its was an inch long and not narrow.

"There's no way."

"No really, I think he might have!"

So J.J. now turned to Peter and asked, "Peter, what did you do with the screw?" This time delighted, Peter responded, "I CHOMP!"

Still (hoping?) not believing that Peter would swallow a bolt, J.J. handed the second bolt to him to see what he would do with it. Sure enough, he immediately popped it into his mouth! I swiped it back before we had two missing bolts, and called our pediatrician. At the nurse's direction we were off to the ER to confirm whether or not he had managed the feat.

We were in quick and had an X-ray. I got to stand in the technician booth and see the image on the computer immediately. Up until this point I still only partially believed he had actually swallowed it, but BAM! there it was on the X-ray!

And it looked gigantic in his little tiny body. **Insert even more mom guilt HERE** I still can't believe he got it down without choking on it!

Because it's not a screw with a sharp point, the doctors are confident that it will pass on its own without any damage. I have to keep an eye out for it and bring him back in three days if we're still waiting. The doctors and nurses found the whole scenario particularly amusing, even asking my permission to take a photo of his X-ray on their iPhones. I was just relieved that there is no immediate surgery needed.

So, I guess we'll be putting that potty training thing off for another week.

La Luna

After 2+ years of sleeping in exclusively pitch black rooms, this week Peter has suddenly developed a hysterical fear of the dark. The minute dusk hits (thanks a lot, daylight savings...) the child will not go near a window that leads to the dark world of the outside.

Bedtime has been drawn out for hours, as J.J. and I alternate snuggling him to sleep. To solve this element of the equation, I found an awesome, albeit rather pricey, LED nightlight shaped like a "FOOOOBALLLLLL" helmet. It freaks me out a little bit because at first glance it kinda looks like a glowing skull, but it's giving me my evenings back so I'll take it. And he loves it because it fulfills his current obsession with ND football (9-0!) through all of his nocturnal hours.

Even with bedtime solved, we still had the several hours leading up to that blessed daily milestone to work through. On the second or third night of hysterics, I suggested that we all pack up for an impromptu family field trip over the the Grotto on campus to pay a visit to Mary in the dark. My hope was to instill a logic of "If Mary's ok in the dark, then so am I." Truthfully, I think he missed the point a little, but it was fun to go as a family to the Grotto at night for the first time.

On our way to campus, J.J. pulled a hero-daddy move, and drove us down close to see the train passing through. "See! Even choo-choos like the dark!" Of course, having a gigantic, fast, deafeningly-loud rumbling train tearing through your neighborhood may not seem to be the most comporting experience for a child already petrified of the night, but his little eyes were filled with wonder and joy.

When we arrived at the Grotto, Mary, St. Bernadette and playing with open flames were met with an attitude of been-here-done-this. However, we did gather a very useful bit of information about our son on the trip. Turns out Peter has a particular affection for the moon. "Da muuuuuune! Da muuuune!" We've used this last little tidbit to get us through our dinner hour. Because it is dark when we sit down for dinner, Peter spends most of his time sending leery glances over his shoulder at the window behind his seat and clinging to J.J.'s arm in fear. Since the outing, though, our dinner conversation has turned to the moon. "Did you know those are moon-beans, Peter?" Down the hatch. "Would you like to try your moon-trees?" Broccoli gone. So, recently we've been happily feasting on moon-chicken, moon-meat, moon-rice, moon-tacos, moon-greens, moon-soup, moon-fruit and best of all, moon-mousse. The things we'll do for a little peace.

Dress it up.

Annnnnnnd...we're back. Sorry for the unplanned vacation. Lots and lots and lots of house guests and little little little energy left over.

There was, however, energy for a little Halloweening. We have a famous bear costume for a toddler in my family (my mom made it for me for a frighteningly elaborate video production), and it has not failed us yet. Wearing it is a childhood right-of-passage, and yesterday Peter's day had come. Even Papa Bear, who claims that he abhors Halloween, was obliging.

Without further adieu, I give you Mary Francielocks and the Three Bears.

First Quick Takes!! Intros, intros

Ever since I started courting the blogging world I have looked forward to Friday Quick Takes. Jen is brilliant, BRILLIANT I say! I'm going to use today's quick takes to tell you a little more about the characters here on Hawthorne:

1) I, Alexandra, am 26, mom/play-slave to these guys, wife to him, and aspiring blogger. I grew up in Buffalo, NY with my three younger brothers and mom and dad, and I attended an all-girls high school. I was the crazy one in my class who liked all-girls education so much that I continued on to Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, another all-female institution and it was WONDERFUL. I love to make things beautiful, but hate to clean. I want to really learn how to sew and how to paint. My bed is one of my favorite places in the whole world.

2) JJ is my beloved husband and the other keeper of our two little zoo animals. He is an incredibly talented pianist, and he uses that talent to take good care of us. When we started dating he was finishing his fourth and final year as the pianist in the US Naval Academy Band, and after we were married his music took us to NYC where he studied at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music and was the music director at a church north of the city. It's terribly romantic to be married to a pianist because he serenades me while I cook dinner and is instilling a great music taste in our children. However, we can't have background music on when we are doing anything that requires his attention (like, say, talking to his wife) because he goes to another world with his mistress, Music. I love him anyways.

3) Peter Laurence is our oldest. He is now 28 months old, aka 2 (when do moms stop counting their kids' ages by months?). He was the quietest, most laid back baby ever. He went to lots of NYC bars and clubs with us at obscene hours, because he would just chill in my sling. He's making up for it, though, as a toddler. But all 2-year-olds are tough, right? Peter is frighteningly athletic, extremely particular and usually a little nervous. He doesn't talk much yet, but I would love to have a peek into his busy little brain. I adore him.

4) When Peter was 4 months old we found out that we were blessed with a 3% chance possibility (according to my doctor) named Mary Frances. We do actually call her Mary Frances, or sometimes Mary Frank, Mary Frankenstein, MF, Willy, Franklin, Mary Francie, France, Frenchie, French Revolution, or Baby. Peter calls her Sis. She and Peter are 13 months apart, to the day. My sweet girl was born with an extreme amount of hair which has become her trademark, and she has the 'tude to go with it. She is a little sassy, very willful and completely darling. I adore her, as well.

5) We are Roman Catholic and we love the Church, the Trinity, and Our Lady.

6) We recently made the very exciting move out of NYC and back to my stomping grounds of South Bend, where JJ is branching out from his Jazz background to study Sacred Music at Notre Dame. We miss a lot about New York, but our day-to-day with the kids is much more manageable here.

7) As for tomorrow, GO IRISH!