Paris 2023

I've never been to Paris, but I think I love it. If I could visit anywhere in the world, Paris would be the place. I've had the City of Light on the brain ever since the summer before my freshman year of college when my friend Brooke visited Paris and returned with an album full of beautiful photos, a huge smile on her face, and a print of Van Gogh's "Starry Night" that she purchased for me from a vendor along the Seine.

Lately I've been on a bit of a Paris kick, which was begun by a book called Paris Was Ours, a Christmas present from BJ's parents. The book is a compilation of the reflections of 32 writers who lived as foreigners in Paris for a period of time. In some ways the book is kind of depressing but that's probably because it is an accurate portrayal of a city that is often wildly romanticized. While each of these writers loved Paris for their own unique reasons, the ubiquitous indication from them all is that Paris is wonderful but a tough place to live because the people are so hard and unforgiving. Fortunately for this conversational Oklahoma gal, I never plan to live in Paris!

To continue the Paris theme, a few days before George was born BJ and I rented "Midnight in Paris." I was won over by the theme of the movie and BJ was won over by the critical acclaim and 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, and neither of us was disappointed. If you haven't seen the film we both highly recommend it, but I'm not giving any insight into the plot because I don't want to give anything away. I will say that the movie was light-hearted while also having philosophical and cultural undertones, and it also had a talented cast.

The title of this post is Paris 2023 because that is the year that I will get to finally see Paris with my own eyes. BJ has promised me that our 20th wedding anniversary, which will be in 2023, will be celebrated in Paris with our boys. It's important to me to include our kids on a trip to a place like Paris because they ought to be able to experience such a place too. We've made quite the habit of taking Silas with us wherever we've gone, and you've seen the state map that he has visited in his 21 months of life.

George won't be far behind since tickets have already been bought to Massachusetts for next month, and we also plan to hit Destin, Florida and Los Angeles again this year (Disneyland, here we come!). I remember that during my college years, one of my closest friends Diana would tell me the tales about the times that her family visited (insert country here...Scotland, England, Italy, etc.), and I was amazed at the places she had seen before she even graduated from high school. I would LOVE for my children to have these same kinds of experiences, which is one reason why I plan to keep working part-time throughout the years, so that we can have the money to do these kinds of things. So, on February 9th we celebrated eight and a half years of marriage...I guess that means we only have 11-1/2 to go before we see the City of Light with our very own eyes.

My Two Under Two List

You know you're the mother of two under two when:

• your finger seems to constantly smell like Desitin.
• you've been on a continuous supply of prenatal vitamins since August 2009 because you've either been pregnant, nursing, or trying to get pregnant.
• you wisely choose to not stay up for the fourth quarter of Thunder games, instead DVR-ing it and looking forward to watching it during your middle-of-the-night feedings.
• the songs you hum in the shower have lyrics like "The horse says neigh--neigh neigh neigh!" 
• You routinely find things in strange places and don't think it's strange at all. A toothbrush on the choo-choo tracks, goldfish crackers in the dishwasher soap compartment, and flip-flops in the broiler make perfect sense!
• A concerned policeman rings your doorbell in the middle of the night, checking on you because you left your garage door wide open, your car in the driveway with doors open, and the keys in the ignition. He apparently doesn't realize that you have a newborn and a 20-month-old, which newly entitles you to endanger your home and yourselves when you arrive home late, get the kids to bed, collapse into bed yourselves, and forget the little things like locking up. This is TOTALLY made up, by the way...yeah...
• You have two monitors sitting side by side on the nightstand, and when one lights up you both ask, "Which boy?" And when they are both lit up, you both sigh, take one lingering look at your bed, and leave it behind for the next hour.
• You have amazon.com subscriptions to diapers in size 3 and newborn, wipe refills, and travel wipes...and they all seem to need constant replenishing.
• You have bras in four different sizes and you've used them all in the course of the past two years (with no surgeries, I might add!).
• Even though you're tired, you realize that nap time is the only time to make headway on things that need to get done.
• You realize how amazing your own parents and in-laws are, both because they are so helpful with your kids (if you're lucky) and also because you now understand how much work they put into YOU.
• Every night before going to bed you open two bedroom doors and gaze in awe at two beautiful, sleeping boys in their beds...and you wonder about the mayhem that will ensue the next day, and also about how you got so lucky. 

***Note: While some of these items apply to me only, the word 'parent' can be substituted for 'mother' on many of them, as BJ feels the joy and pain of these things as well.*** =)

One More Week

Have I mentioned that I have an extremely fabulous mother-in-law? For the past year and a half she has kept Silas on Wednesdays for us so that I can go to work, and she is continuing to keep Silas on Wednesdays for us now that I am on maternity leave with George. With Silas at his Mimi's today, it frees me up to get in extra cuddles with George, write a blog post, and mop my floors for the first time in six weeks. (Don't judge me; at least I have been vacuuming and sweeping.) So, this blog post is courtesy of Susan, who is keeping half of my work load (and joy!) during the daytime today. I'm sure you're excited.

I'm so ready to begin jogging again. I self-prescribed myself a four-week recovery, and today marks George's third week of life. I honestly feel physically ready to begin jogging again and get some of this pregnancy weight off, but I'm still pretty drained from all of these middle-of-the-night feedings. I'm kind of hoping that one more week will get us in a few longer stretches of sleep so that I can begin the process of building myself up for the Memorial Marathon relay at the end of April. We have already signed up and paid the money, so there is no backing out of this thing! Our participants will be family members, including BJ, who is running a 10K, my mom and sister, who are both running 5K's, and BJ's cousin Jordan, who has generously volunteered to take the lakeside 12K leg. I myself will be running a 10K leg, which leaves me something like nine weeks to go from my current state to a 6.1 mile jog.

This year I did not set a specific New Year's resolution, but I did resolve to maintain a new attitude. Although it's difficult to put my intentions into words, the new attitude is something like 'Do what I can to the best that I can, but don't worry when it isn't perfect.' I say this now because I know that, realistically, running the entire leg is probably not going to happen. My attitude will be that that is okay and I can still celebrate what I do run, but that doesn't mean I'm going to cut myself a bunch of slack either. I'm definitely hoping to run at least four miles of this thing and shed the rest of this weight before we start trying for baby number three. I will accomplish this in part by leaving the boys with BJ so that I can jog solo, but we also purchased a used version of my dream stroller, the double BOB (the used version saved us 300 dollars!). We plan to purchase the infant seat adapter for this stroller so that we can begin using it immediately for errands. BJ, however, was making the argument that I ought to be able to begin jogging even with George in the stroller, provided that he is in his car seat facing the rear and the seat is covered with a blanket so that he doesn't gulp air. I wasn't so sure and began arguing that I think he needs to be older before I can start jogging with him. And then BJ jokingly delivered his bomb:

"I doubt that you're going to be generating tremendous wind speed."

Word for word, that's what he said. I laughed, swatted him, and called him a jerk. I know I jog at the pace of a turtle, but come on! Distance is more important than speed for me, but maybe I can let this be some comical inspiration.