BIG Boy

At 7 years old, Aaron is not only my BIG boy, but my BIG toothless boy!! He has so far lost 6 teeth, two of which came out in the past week. He also left a note for the tooth fairy asking how many teeth he needs to lose to get her to bring him an iPod Touch. I think he thinks his toothfairy is Steve Jobs.

BIG Girl

The theme for April for NaBloPoMo is BIG. This might get tough, but here we go....

4 years ago you were born, a little tiny baby girl (who we totally thought was a boy!). We loved you from the moment we saw you.



You started to amaze us from the very first day. And all of a sudden, you were one year old! You had a big cake and were a birthday princess.







You grew, learned to walk and learned to talk, and another year went by, and then you were two! No longer a baby, but a toddler. And becoming your own person. And potentially a rock star.





This is the year you went to camp and school. And cried. Every. Single. Day. For what seemed to be a super long time. But you eventually learned to love school and made a ton of friends. You loved it all so much we had to put you in school an extra day each week halfway through the year! And then you turned three (and still a princess)...





Now you're a big girl. You have your own mind, know what you like and make a lot of your own decisions. You pick out your clothes, pick your TV shows, choose what you want to eat. You're four years old now, what a big girl!

Today is...

....a day that I did not want to get out of bed today.

....a day where pretty much nothing is getting done. I'm ignoring the vaccuum, laundry and all of the things that aren't where they are supposed to be. Isn't Sunday supposed to be a day of rest?

....cold with a ton of snow on the ground. I am so wishing for spring to come. Really soon.

....a birthday party day. In the past week, my two kids have been invited to a total of 9 birthday parties over the next 45 days. From a gift standpoint alone, that is insane.

....a day that I wish I could just skip. Even though tomorrow is Monday.

Can time stand still?

Vacation is over. After all the anxiety about staying in my grandma's house without her, our stay came and went. It was hard being there without her. I spent a week feeling like something was missing. I've been wanting to write about it but wanted to wait until I could wrap my head around everything I was feeling. But I realized that isn't going to happen. All of the feelings, all of the emotions - they were so big. So present. So full. With a giant gaping hole smack in the middle.

When we arrived, driving into the community, everything looked the same. The people. The scenery. It was almost as if time had stood still since my last visit 8 years ago, January 2001. Walking into my grandma's apartment, I had remind myself to breathe.

In and out.

Repeat.

Instinctively, I looked at the corner of the couch. Her spot. And for a split second, I think that I really truly expected her to be sitting there awaiting our arrival. As if over the past eight years, she'd spent her days sitting and watching her programs just as she always had as we all lived our lives back in New York. When I looked at her spot and snapped back to reality realizing that she wasn't there, I felt such an unbearable pain shoot through my heart, it was as if I lost her all over again. And although it did lessen some over the course of the week, I felt that pain every single time I walked in that door and looked at that spot on the couch.

The first day we were there, everything I looked at made me cry. Things I haven't thought about in eight years. Things that if you asked me, I never would have remembered.

Like the toothbrush holder in the small bathroom. Or the dishes in the rack on the counter. Or the clock hanging on the wall in the kitchen. Or the sound of the doorbell.

All of my grandma's little things were still there. The same photos stuck in the side of the mirror. The same jar holding pocket change on the dresser. The same pillows on the rocking chair in the bedroom. At that point on that very first day, I had absolutely no idea how I was going to last 6 nights in this apartment without drowning in my own tears.

The only laugh during that first afternoon was when my daughter asked, "Mommy, why are there pictures of me in this hotel?" I couldn't explain to her that this wasn't a hotel. I couldn't explain the special-ness of this place. I felt almost like I shouldn't have to explain it to them. I wanted my kids to feel it in their hearts and in their souls. I wanted them to feel the same special-ness and happiness that I always felt in this place. I wanted them to feel the love. I wanted them to feel like she was there. Most of all, I wanted to feel like she was there. And on that first day, I cried for how empty the place was. Because even though some of her things were still there, she wasn't walking in the door or sitting in her rocking chair. I cried because I half thought I would feel happy, feel like she was there. And I didn't feel either.

Over the course of the week, things changed. My tears were slowly replaced with laughter. And stories. And showing my kids all of the things I used to do. All of the places I used to go. Silly things like how I would throw the garbage in the dumpster every night after dinner. Or walk down the street and visit my aunt. Or cut through the walkway at the building across the street to get to the pool. And all of these things made me happy. And smile. And remember. And feel like she was there.

There were times I could hear her, see her, feel her. I could hear her feet padding into the kitchen early in the morning. I could see her opening the freezer and taking her nightly ice cream snack. I could hear her yelling to my grandpa, "Murray, what do you think, someone's going to break in and steal you?" after she came home to find the front door locked. And I started to enjoy being in her house, around her things.

It was a week of significant reflection and so many memories. I thought about how much she would have loved my kids if she had the chance to meet them and how much she would have laughed with them. I thought about how although she would have loved them with her whole heart, she would have felt, and said, that being a great-grandma made her old. I remembered so many good things and felt so much closer to her, like I never wanted to leave this place that had changed from making me feel grief to making me feel somewhat comforted. But although I miss her so much, now more than ever, and would do anything to have her back even for a second, I feel like she did know that we were there, and she was there with us.

But most of all, I remembered how lucky I was to have my grandma until I was 27 years old. There aren't too many people who could say that.

A little rememberance is nice...

Happy February vacation! We're getting ready to go off to Florida, where hopefully the temperature will warm up enough that it will feel like summer. I'm looking forward to so many aspects of this trip - getting away, being someplace where it doesn't snow, spending time together as a family, seeing old friends. What's nagging me a little bit about this trip is that there's going to be something missing. Or rather, someone. My grandma.

As a kid, every year I would spend my spring vacation with my grandparents in Florida. I'd get on the plane here in NY and they'd meet me at the gate in Florida, and I'd spend one or two weeks there, swimming and enjoying the warm weather. When my grandpa passed away in 1992, I went down after to spend time with my grandma. The last time I was down there was for her 90th birthday, 8 years ago. She was just getting better from being sick and in a rehab center getting ready to come home. Somewhere over the 6 weeks following her birthday, something happened. She passed away on March 2, 2002.

I haven't been back to Florida since that trip, but since we haven't seen my grandma-in-law in awhile, we decided to visit. Since my grandma passed away, we kept her apartment, mostly because it didn't pay to sell it. So that's where we're going to stay, instead of invading my grandma-in-law's one bedroom apartment with our party of four. And that's where the anxiety is. How can I stay in that apartment, her home, without her?

Although I'm looking forward to this trip, it's going to be weird. Only time will tell, and as we get closer to leaving, the anxiety grows. But so does the excitement, because a part of me feels like maybe I'll feel a sense of peace when we're there, like she's still there in some capacity.

In the meantime, this photo of my daughter totally reminds me of my grandma, mostly because of the purse.

What I Learned This Week

I've talked a lot on this blog about how I left my whole career (the career I went to school for and studied for hours to pass a test to get certified, the career that I worked and worked and commuted and commuted for) to run my own business and have the flexibility of working for myself and being around more for my kids.

What I haven't talked alot on this blog about is how although I love running the website, connecting families, giving parents information and helping small businesses, the one thing I hate is sales. Which really totally sucks because guess what the only way this business makes any money is? Yup, you got it. Advertising sales.

What do I hate about sales? Let me count the ways....

First, I hate calling a business owner and not being able to get through to the right person because the 15 year old kid answering the phone was instructed to not put through any sales calls.

Second, I hate the fact that at that moment, the 15 year old kid answering the phone basically has the power. And not only does he have the power, but he could care less that I am calling to help the business owner get information about his business to people who would actually want to be his customers. Because then that would mean that that kid would have to do things other than answer the phone.

Third, I hate to think that when people see me coming they'll want to turn the other way because they don't want to be "sold".

Fourth, I hate the thought of calling someone and having them be mean or nasty or hang up on me. Especially when more often than not, it's a 15 year old kid.

Do I need to go on? Thanks, I didn't really want to. I'm sure you get the point.

So it pretty much sucks when you hate the one thing that can earn you any money. Yes, it does.

But here's what I learned this week. It's the surprise of all surprises. What is it? It's the fact that I'm good at sales. Maybe I'm not great at the initial cold call, but once I get in front of a person, I am good at sales.

How do I know? Because last week, not only did I get a huge brand new client who is going to run ads in twelve newsletters, but I also got four other businesses who paid to have their businesses listed in our site's directory. And I did it all myself, scheduled meetings, sat with them, walked them through the information and watched them fall in love with this website. One that I created. I've learned that I am good at this very thing that I hate. And now I think I'm going to have to get over all the hate and turn it into love.

Here's a PS for my friends in Philly - I also learned that the Yankees are the Champions. For the 27th time in a row! Hip Hip Jorge!!

For more of What I Learned This Week, head on over to Jo-Lynne's blog at Musings of a Housewife.

The Scents that Linger

Twitter Moms and Downy recently posed the question "If you could define yourself with a scent, what scent would represent you and why?" As a mom, all sorts of answers come to mind, although maybe none of them are appropriate. Or anything I would choose to have as a defining scent. But I did start thinking about the question and came up with an answer. Sort of.

To answer the question, I started thinking about my favorite scent, and although I can't say what it specifically is, I can remember it well, describe it perfectly and smell it in my mind. As a little girl, I would take a trip every year to visit my grandparents in Florida. I would spend a week there swimming, getting sunburned and doing grandparent-ish things. Each night, I would open the sleeper sofa, take the sheets and blankets out of the cabinet and go to sleep. In the cabinet where they kept the blankets and sheets, they also kept am unwrapped bar of soap, I guess as a deodorizer. It wasn't a regular bar of Ivory soap, but instead a mixture of sweet and spice. Like a man's cologne. And cinnamon. And cloves. And medicine, but a good smelling kind.

When I hear the question "If you could define yourself with a scent, what scent would represent you and why?" I feel that the answer is really less about the actual scent and more about the feelings of why, more about the memories that the scent brings to the forefront of my mind. I could answer that I love peppermint because it smells clean or lavender because it smells like spring or vanilla because it smells like cupcakes. Instead, I choose this random soap from long ago that lived in my grandparents cabinet. Because even though my grandparents are both gone, I can still smell the bar of soap in my mind and remember who they were, what they were like and most of all, where I came from. I remember the time I spent with them and how I was lucky to have them for as long as I did. And most of all, sometimes, when I wake up in the middle of the night and catch a whiff of this familiar smell, I know that no matter how much time passes, they are both still here and always with me.

This was posted in response to a contest launched by TwitterMoms and Downy, asking bloggers to write about the scent that defines them. If you want to enter yourself, learn more about the contest here.