Leaving on a jet plane

I've been up since 4:30. It's our (my) plan to leave the house by 6am so we can be at the airport by 6:45 (factoring in time for traffic) so we'll have plenty of time to check in before our flight leaves at 8:45.

We're visiting Steve's parents in VA for the holiday, and it's both the boys' first time on a plane.

I don't know why, but I am so nervous about this. It's not that I'm a nervous flyer - I don't think the plane is going to crash (although it is super windy right now - I think there might even be a wind advisory in effect. Is that safe to fly in??), and as long as I take my Dramamine an hour before the flight I'm fine - I'm just thinking of how the boys will do.

I think Ben should do fine, as he'll be in a car seat in his own seat, and we'll take the laptop so he can watch Mickey and Manny DVDs.

It's Logan I'm worried about! He'll be on my lap... a squirmy 11-month-old who wants to crawl and cruise everywhere cooped up on a lap in a plane for 2 hours? Not my idea of fun.

I've heard it's a good idea to apologize in advance to fellow passengers... :)

Pictures... finally

I realized a few days ago that I've been terrible about putting pictures up on the blog. Funny, seeing as in my first post here I said that blogging would make me a better photo downloader and poster. Oh well... best laid plans, right?

Anyway, here are some pictures of the boys in their Halloween costumes. Poor Logan, of the perpetual hand-me-downs, wore the monkey costume that Ben wore last year. Ben absolutely hated it, and wouldn't let me put the hood up. Logan, on the other hand, was a ham as always and had no problem with the costume.

As handsome and lovable as his face is, I thought he looked the cutest when he was crawling away from me, and his monkey tail wagged around.

Ben dressed up as Handy Manny. Manny is one of Ben's favorite characters (the only other one he knows is Mickey Mouse and his gang), and I thought it would be an easy costume because all it consists of is a t-shirt, jeans, and a toolbox. I learned my lesson with the monkey costume last year that Ben does not tolerate complicated (yet cute) one-piece suits with attached hoods. And, Manny's outfit is essentially what Ben wears every single day, including the toolbox, so I thought I'd hit a home run. The last thing I wanted to do was have a battle over what he was going to wear to the Moms & Tots Halloween party, which was on the Wednesday before Halloween.

Well, wouldn't you know it - on both the day of the party and Halloween itself, Ben refused to wear his "costume." I couldn't believe it! He didn't want to wear the green t-shirt, and you'd have thought the handle of his toolbox was covered in toxic acid because he refused to hold it. I almost broke down in tears a few times at the party, because isn't the point of going to a children's-oriented Halloween party just to show off how cute your kids are in their costumes? Ben was the only one not wearing a costume :(

Anyway, on Halloween itself Ben refused to pick up his toolbox again... until Daddy got home. Somehow Daddy, hero of heroes, convinced Ben to pick up the acid-laden toolbox.

He's even smiling in the picture. Hooray!

The simplest things

For the past 10 minutes, I've been trying to load the dishwasher. Yes, "trying." Now, someone without children might think that I'm having problems moving things around to fit all the items in, or that there is some sort of problem with the dishwasher's functionality.

Those of us fortunate to be a parent of a cute little munchkin, on the other hand, will give a knowing smile and assume that one of the little stinkers is what's getting in the way.

Everytime I've opened the dishwasher this morning, I hear Logan's big old paws slapping the wood floor - he's crawling over to the dishwasher, which has, of course, become his new favorite toy. And he's gotten so darn fast! I literally only have time to open the dishwasher, stick one item in, and then close the door, making sure that the sharp corner doesn't hit his head.

Argh! All I want to do is load the darn dishwasher!!

Close to home

This morning, as I was half-watching the local news while getting the kids' breakfast, getting my breakfast, depositing them in the playroom hoping they'd give me 5 minutes of "freedom" so I could get the breakfast dishes washed and wipe down the table, high chair, and booster seat, I half-noticed a story about a house fire in a nearby town, and thought I heard that one person died in the fire. Stories about house fires always get my attention, because I feel like deaths in those situations can often be avoided, as it seems like in many of the stories there were no working fire alarms in the house. I've thought many times about initiating some kind of fire alarm inspection program for charity, in order to ensure that every fire alarm is working.

Anyway, after the story was over I moved on with the day's to-do's. I'd all but forgotten about the story on the news - it was a snippet I'd heard about, but was over as soon as the anchorperson moved on to the next story, but it didn't directly affect me.

A few minutes ago, Steve and I were sitting side by side at our computers. I'd just placed an order for both a toddler urban BundleMe and the BabyJogger foot muff, because, although they're essentially the same thing, I didn't know which one would work best with the boys. Steve, out of the blue, asked me if I'd heard that story about the house fire in Lawrence on the news this morning. I thought he was going to say he saw the house from the highway, or something similar, because he drives through the town where it took place on the way to his NH office. Instead, he said that the woman who was killed in the fire was one of his employees. She worked on the assembly line. She and her husband initially got out of the house just fine, but she went back in with the intention of saving her 20-year-old special needs son. She and her son both died.

I thought it was very telling that it was the mother who went back into the burning house to save her son, rather than the father. That is how strong the bond between mother and child is. Although this is truly a horrible story, I think that part of it is beautiful.

I am so deeply sorry for this family's loss.

These kids today...

As we're new to the area, I didn't know how many trick-or-treaters to expect yesterday evening. Added to this is the fact that our street has only two houses on it, and we're the farther one of the two, so I didn't know if kids would even venture down to where we are, or if they'd prefer to just skip it and simply get candy from the easier to access houses. Well, it turns out we did have some trick-or-treaters - about 20 of them within about a 5 minute length of time. They were all dressed up pretty creatively - I especially liked the bee and the motocross guy (I didn't really like the Jimi Hendrix, who had a fake cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and who said, "Who says it's fake?" when I pointed it out). What I didn't appreciate was that the majority of the kids didn't say "Trick or Treat" when I opened the door. They just put out their little paws and grabbed Kit Kats, Nestle's Crunch bars, and Reese's Pieces. I hated that they just took for granted that I was going to give them candy without hearing the magic Halloween words. What's even worse is that out of the 20 kids, only 2 or 3 said "Thank you" after they'd taken their candy. I'm really into teaching Ben to be grateful these days, and to say thank you after other people do things for him, whether it's me making his lunch, Logan surrending a toy that Ben has to have, someone opening a door for us when we're out in the double stroller, or the UPS guy bringing a package to our door. I think gratitude is an extremely important thing, and I was saddened that very few of the kids showed it.