Smiling Mom

Isn’t it funny how time just seems to slip by without you even noti­cing? Today after taking my mom back to the air­port (so sad to see her go!) I spent a good por­tion of the day in San Fran­cisco with my friend and her family. Shawnna and I have been friends since the fifth grade. That’s twenty years now!! I could of never ima­gi­ned that I’d have a friendship las­ting this long.

I vir­tually lived at Shawnna’s house for many, many years of my life. I lear­ned how to play Clue, Truth or Dare, did years and years of cheer­lea­ding with her, and had end­less slee­po­vers on her trundle bed. And many other expe­rien­ces etched in my memory from our for­ma­tive years. Some of which I don’t quite want to publish on this blog. None too bad though, Mom and Dad, I promise!

Today, both of us are married, her to her high-school sweetheart, and me to my college sweetheart, with chil­dren and have moved away from our home town. She now lives in another state. So I was thri­lled to get this rare oppor­tu­nity to go out to lunch with her today as she visi­ted San Francisco.

Her son, AP, and my son BC are just about three months apart in age. They were ins­tant friends. It’s so fun seeing our kids hit it off just as quickly as we did. BC and AP have simi­lar per­so­na­li­ties. They are both out­going, asser­tive (sounds bet­ter than aggres­sive ), very agile, ver­bal, happy, etc. On top of all that, they are both the most ado­ra­ble boys you’ll ever see! Just look at the pic­tu­res below, I’m sure you’ll agree. I know that if cir­cums­tan­ces were dif­fe­rent and we lived in the same town, they would be life-long friends. It was pretty cool!

Any­ways, Shawnna, her hus­band, her mom and I had a great time catching up. She’s one of those friends that I can be away from for exten­ded periods of time, yet start right back up as if we saw each other just yes­ter­day. Since I’m terri­ble at kee­ping in touch, that’s the kind of friendship that I truly che­rish! I feel so lucky to have her and others like her in my life.

Now for the pic­tu­res of this won­der­ful day, and my one from my birth­day din­ner last night:

Din­ner with friends & family

Heart­brea­kers!! BC &AP run­ning @ Pier 39

Watching the sea lions

20 years of friendship, 3.8 kids, 2 dogs and lots of laughs!

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The sur­pri­ses just keep coming! Hubby sent my mom and me to the day spa, my second trip in a week. But this time it was for a face mas­sage. What an expe­rience! My mom and I went in, had an ama­zing facial, hand/forearm mas­sage and foot/calf mas­sage. It was inc­re­di­ble. Turns out that my skin is quite oily at this time of my life. Who knew?

The end of my facial came and my aesthe­ti­cian put glo­ves on her hands, black out gog­gles on my eyes, tur­ned a bright light to my face and began the extrac­tion. Extrac­tion, you ask? Yes, extrac­tion. In layman’s terms, pop­ping my black heads. Now that was a first for me! Someone else pop­ping my face? Who’d of thought! I guess what goes around, does actually come around. I have, in the past, pin­ned down Hubby and pre­for­med a few “extrac­tions” of my own. Now I know how it feels, ouch!

Ove­rall, I was shoc­ked and touched by Hubby’s thought­ful­ness. It has been quite a birth­day week, one I will remem­ber fore­ver. After din­ner tonight, I think I’ll have to give up the fairy-tale goings on of a pam­pe­red prin­cess and resume my daily life. Thanks for the won­der­ful birth­day Hubby! I sure do feel spe­cial.

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Non­nie, BC, & eClaire making play–doh

Fun with sha­pes, tex­tu­res
eClaire pon­de­ring the play–doh
Mom & kids having fun

My mom, Non­nie, flew up from San Diego yes­ter­day mor­ning. It’s been nothing but fun! BC and eClaire have been in seventh-heaven. They abso­lu­tely love seeing her! Yes­ter­day, Non­nie watched the kids so Hubby and I could go on a date to see the movie Smo­kin’ Aces. Ladies, if you are asked to go see this, don’t bother. It was so horri­ble, in my opi­nion, of course! Also, if you are someone who strug­gles kee­ping track of which cha­rac­ters are which… not for you. Grandpa, you know what I’m tal­king about, right? But, that being said, I valued the time snug­gled up to Hubby in the thea­ter! This date thing cou­ples talk about is good, really good! I could get use to it.

Today we ended up making play–doh. It was so easy to do! Lite­rally, in five minu­tes we went from nothing, to a sig­ni­fi­cant amount of blue home­made play–doh. Pretty fun! BC and eClaire sat down at the table and pla­yed for a long time. Non­nie went through the kid’s play kitchen and pulled out a lot of dif­fe­rent tex­tu­red items for the kids to use. We had a blast.

Below is the sim­ple recipe you can make with your kids at home. By the way, cream of tar­tar is a spice. If you are like me, you might think cream of tar­tar is a cream. Not so. Click on the word to see a pic­ture of it. You are welcome!

Play-dough Recipe:

For those of you with young kids…here is the best play–doh recipe ever.
1 cup flour
1 cup water
1/2 cup salt
1 TB oil
1 ts cream of tar­tar
food coloring

Com­bine in sauce pan, cook over low heat sti­rring cons­tantly until play–doh forms ball and pulls away from pan. It takes appro­xi­ma­tely 2 minu­tes. Take it out and put in a plas­tic bowl or on wax paper to cool for just a few minu­tes. Enjoy with your kids! It lasts for months and is never sticky.

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(For the record, Hubby loo­ked at my com­pu­ter while I was wri­ting this and gave a HUGE eye roll at the title. I guess he just doesn’t appre­ciate my sense of humor. I thought it was hila­rious! )

The title of this post just about says it all. Today is my and eClaire’s first day without nur­sing. It’s bit­ter sweet. We’re loo­sing our spe­cial time together, yet gai­ning inde­pen­dence. My last baby, my last time nur­sing. It was a won­der­ful expe­rience, but on many levels, I’m glad it’s over. I have to con­ti­nue to remind my heart that my head belie­ves, strongly, in allo­wing my chil­dren to grow up and not have them tread water in a cer­tain stage that I am so fond of. Next steps: tal­king, eating with little adult help, and stan­ding up to her big brother BC (for­mally Bro). who loves to play rough with her and take her toys.

eClaire is a wal­king, tal­king machine. Well, almost. She mimics all the sounds she hears these days. She whis­pers the first let­ter of most everything I say to her so it’s only a mat­ter of time now before I have two todd­lers telling me what to do, and how to do it.

The most exci­ting thing that BC and eClaire are doing this week that is new from last, is their inte­rac­tion. BC still gets frus­tra­ted if eClaire crowds his space, he is two and a half, you know. The mood of our day is often deter­mi­ned by how well BC woke up that mor­ning, and whether of not he took a nap. Two is exci­ting, but that’s for another post.

eClaire and BC have been pla­ying behind Hubby’s han­ging clothes in the clo­set. They tic­kle, do peek-a-boo and laugh con­ti­nually. It is so much fun to see them finally pla­ying, really pla­ying. These are the moments when you know why it is so good for chil­dren to have siblings!

BC and eClaire pla­ying at Christ­maseClaire today at din­ner. Check out those blue eyes!! Isn’t she beautiful?

Non­nie (visi­ting from San Diego) and BC wor­king on a stic­ker book.

Non­nie and the kids. More on her visit tomorrow.

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