Nick Takes a Bath

So we have been home for about, what now?, three weeks and I have to admit that my son has only bathed twice. I feel like that isn't enough. My mom thinks so too. She is too tactful to say it out loud but she told me the other day. And Nick will need a bath tonight. So we gave him his first submerged bath.
Photographing boys poses some new problems. Like what angle is best for not capturing his 'man parts'. How to make him look all cute and baby without making him look like a girl. and can you post pictures that include his 'man parts'?
I guess we will learn as we go. Here are some pictures of Nick taking a bath.

In The Bronx

Abi's Mom is guest blogging here.

After spending several days in Queens, Amanda and I have perfected our New York accents (Cawl a cab, and we'll go for cawfee.) enough to venture out, so today we went to the Bronx. The Bronx Zoo to be precise.
For being in New York City, there were quite a few trees. As a New Wyomingite, my first reaction was that it made it hard to see anything. But we did manage to see a few animals.
We saw some lemurs in the Madagascar exhibit, but they were not singing I like to move it, move it...But if you ask Claire what a lemur says she says ,"move it, move it."







Here are just a few pics of my favorite parts of the day.











Before I leave the city I plan to venture all the way to Brooklyn. I think there may be a tree or two growing there as well.

Good Help

My mom has come, to help me out; that means holding the baby and playing in the pool out back.

My sister came to help too; that means playing at the park and holding the baby of course.


They keep saying they will start to help me tomorrow, but they are all the help they need to be just being here to play with my sweetheart and hold my baby.

Crazy

What's Under the Hat?

There was some discussion about the 'ethnicity' of our baby. Some say he is 'More Italian' than the other, some say 'exactly the same' and still some think there may be some alien influence. Decide for yourself.

Taco Babies

Nick has been subject to our crazy life for about a week now. We have not destroyed anything else that wasn't in the plans : (like my new tub?)

Claire likes him ok. She likes to hold him and loves to eat him up when we make him into a 'taco'. He likes her too. Hopefully this like-ing trend will continue.

We went to the Dr. today, Nick has a rash which will bring us back in two weeks... 'nothing to worry about' the dr. says.

Nothing else of note here. So I'll just post some cute baby pictures for those of you who are only reading for the visual stimulation. :)

When it Rains It Pours!

Welcome Nicholas James Iovino home from the hospital.

Born: 7-1-2009
Weight: 8 lb. 1 oz.
Length: 20 in.
Disposition: Pleasant

check him out at: nicholasjamesi.shutterfly.com

Please pray for our little family. Jim has been sick and unable to really help hands-on with Nick because we can't risk Nick catching what Jim has. Claire's pink eye has reemerged in the three days I was in the hospital so we are back on the hated eye drops, and tonight Claire started throwing up. Not sure if it is an isolated incident or not yet but here's hoping and praying. I am thankfully not sick yet, and trying to remain that way to care for this little sick family. Please pray that Nick escapes all the illness floating around our house. For now, Jim is sleeping in the guest room and hand sanitizer is flowing like the river Jordan (is that a lot cause we have a lot of hand sanitizer). Also, the hole in the ceiling lives on, continuing to surprise us as now it leaks into the living room every time you shower. When will it all slow down? I want off.

Is it Wed. Yet?

It is raining in my living room right now. Life just never stops. I need a pause button. If I could I would just go back to bed and it isn't even Tuesday.

Things that Make Me Smile

He 'was in all ways the model of a band director, and by that I mean he could have led an assault on an innocent nation, enslaved its peoples and had them marching in pinwheels, all in the course of one profoundly hot afternoon.'

-She Got Up Off The Couch
by: Haven Kimmel

My Water Broke

Right thru the ceiling.

We overflowed the bathtub (by accident, as if there were any other way to do that). And down came the living room ceiling.
Yes. that's the 'going to the hospital' bag on the table right under the gaping hole in the ceiling. Hopefully my 'real' water doesn't break tonight. Guess he's not coming home in that outfit.

What's Up?

People keep asking me what I have been doing and how I am doing.
If you ask my Dr. he will tell you that I am doing great and still 3 cm. I am still not sure what exactly I am so good at doing that makes me dilate. (I was good at it with my last pregnancy) But my mom taught me to take every compliment with grace.
If you ask my husband he probably wouldn't have an answer for you. When he gets home the house is a wreck and I am exhausted with swollen ankles and a cranky little girl. Where has the day gone?
If you ask Claire she would tell you we have been reading a lot of books, current favorites include the 'pancake pig' and 'gorilla'. We have also been spending as much time in the yard as possible to soak up the memory of having a yard before we move. We also took a trip to Nyack (praying the entire way that we didn't go into labor across two bridges during rush hour) to see Mandi before she moves upstate. Took a walk, ate a burrito and ran thru the best sprinkler/shower things. It took some getting used to but once we got the hang of it, it was a blast! good thing we packed extra clothes. :)

It is currently raining every molecule of water that ever existed on our house. But before it did that, we ran outside to get in some slide-time and take this picture, for those of you who have been asking for something that is recent and not of her butt.
So that's as current as you get, what we have been doing. What about you? Are you living every moment to the full?

About Us

Today we are sick. Claire went to the dr. yesterday and received her first prescription for Moxifloxacin which as it turns out treats pink eye. We contracted said pink eye from Joe who 'absolutely does not have pink eye'. We have been up several times last night and probably logged about 10 hrs of sleep if you add all the hours up that the three of us slept. :( Other side effects of pink eye include eatting all the cereal in the house before 9am (Claire is on her 3rd bowl) and whining. And this morning my eye looks puffy and feels funny. (Not sure yet if it's just psychological or not) I hope it is just in my head because the treatment for pink eye is apparently either a grey area or a no fly zone if you are pregnant.
Please pray we excape this bump in the road so soon to our due date. Speaking of, the update is: we are due on the 5th of July. I am already 3 cm dialated as of Tues. Jimmy is packing 'his' bag this morning and canceling weekend plans, he thinks we are going very soon. The Dr. said probably this week, but that's just a guess. We have everything a baby needs to come home; clothes (including socks this time), a bassinet, diapers (SO tiny!), and mommy.

My Husband Hangs with Famous People

I figure since I blog for Claire already, I might as well blog for my husband too. His life is significantly more interesting than mine. He leaves the house everyday, not just some days, he meets interesting people and does interesting things in interesting places. He needs a blog but has no time or desire to share his life with the world, so I will share it for him.

Yesterday, Jim got to hang out with Jared. Like fat subway Jared. All day. He was not overly excited, but you have to know that Jared is like part of our family. My cousin Jared, was born right around the time subway Jared was getting famous for not being fat. Cousin Jared was not so lucky in the weight department. He was the chunkiest little guy you ever met. There were many different jokes tossed around about cousin Jared and subway Jared. He is like family. And my husband didn't take any pictures to document his interactions with Jared. He even got to tell Jared what to do. Fortunately for all of us (and those who wouldn't believe me without photographic evidence) YouTube exists and documents strange and random things, like your husband hanging out with Jared. Unfortunately there are no shots of them hugging or Jared taking off Fat pants or actually being in a subway (which they were). Jim is in the background, wearing the grey polo and khakis. Look for him and you will see. (he appears first :37 into the film)
Here he is hanging out with Mr. Depp, just having some serious conversation and guy time.

Ok, But he did really hang out with Jared.

With Love

For grandFather's Day

From Claire

When Girl meets Boy

Claire: (brings helicopter with toy inside to show mommy) Lady.
Mommy: Oh the Lady is in the helicopter?
C: 'copter
M: Where is she going?
C: Shopping

Day at the Beach

We took a break from renovation (since Claire and I are integral parts of demolition and remodeling) and went to the beach today. We went with Aunt Rachel and Aunt Jen and Cousin Joe and Rachel's roommate; who looks eerily like her twin separated at birth. It was cold, like 68 degrees cold, but we had a good time anyway, playing in the sand and even sticking our feet in the surf once or twice; but no more than twice, cause it was freezing.
I love how you can capture a moment in time with a picture and it looks so sweet and innocent to everyone who looks at it but if you were there you would know it wasn't really what it looks like. I caught one of those moments with Joe and Claire today. In the midst of Joe's efforts to either throw Claire into the surf or keep her from being anywhere near the fun he was having in the surf I snapped this:

Sweet huh? and the best part is, ten years from now, they will never know that they weren't best buddies playing at the beach with big, brave Joe protecting little Claire from the surf. :) Memories are funny things.

Demolition

We Own It!

We had a bit of trouble getting into it though, it took some trying and some sticking out the tongue, while the neighbors upstairs looked on, we fin-angled it and finally we were in. Now, time for some demolition!

Here are some before and after shots of the demolition, keep in mind that this was all done in one day, by three and a half guys (and no my husband was not the half-a-guy).

It amazes me! Now time to rebuild...

Things I am Glad to Have 3

I am so glad for my sister... who is a wonderful aunt too :)




I'm also thankful for friends that span lifetimes.


I guess I have a lot to be glad about...

Things I am Glad to Have 2

I am glad for My husband!

We lost nothing in the great hard drive crash! YAY! I love him so much!!! (he gets extra exclamation points)

Pictures we did not lose:



Movies we did not lose:



My husband is amazing!

I am finding it difficult to believe that you guys can comment 5 times on my post about crazy weekends and yet have nothing to be glad about... come on we started at skin and underwear... what are you thankful for?

Things I am Glad I Have

My previous post makes me feel as if I need to be expressing my thankfulness in a more tangable way so here is a very partial list of things I am glad I have. Some of them come from songs that my daughter has discovered this week since we lost Steve. Thankfulness has been a theme here lately.

I'm so glad I got skin, that's what holds my insides in.
I'm so glad I got arms, that's what holds my hands on.

Thanks you God for underwear, thank you God for underwear, thank you God for underwear, right where I am.

I'm just so glad. :)

what are you glad that you got?

Advertising

There has been a rash of giveaways lately in the blog world. I guess the recession has people thinking ... well I don't know why you would give things away because you are being laid off, maybe the thought is that we are more thankful for what we have and realizing that we have more than we actually need and we want to share the 'wealth'. Whatever the reason I have seen more giveaways lately than I have ever seen before. It makes me think I should be giving something away. Something exciting and BIG ... I am moving, closing this next Friday actually YAY! And with that in mind, I have some BIG things (lesson the exciting side) that I am not moving.. like a dining set, a loveseatwould that is extra loved, some fireside wingback chairs, a bedroom set and a lovely white crib from the 50's that has NOT meet safety standards since the 60's. I'm thinking that having a giveaway would be a great way to get rid of these things! :) However, most of my readership (that I know of) has no use for these items, nor do they have space, although miss Ami has an entire roof that she is not taking advantage of. So I will simply have a garage sale next weekend. Come on down, if you mention this post you will receive a free prize!

My Very Long Weekend

And the saga continues. This weekend I am wishing we had taken last weekend off. Being gone every weekend for a month sounded really good before today around 4 o'clock when Jim was screaming obscenities at other drivers and then at our navigation system and I was threatening to throw Claire's happy meal box out my window. How did we get here I wondered. Well, we left at 4am on Sat. to go to my friend Meg's wedding (she was lovely, there are pictures that I will post when I get Steve back) And before that we welcomed Ami to our house on Thursday afternoon, we went to the park, sat around and watched strange 80's movies with Bannana Splits (pictures of this too when Steve lives or Ami finds her camera cord) and generally hung out. So we left Ami on her own at my house during the wedding trip. She did fall prey to our traveling habits.. there was no shampoo in the shower for her to use (I think we caused her to open her trunk!!) (AH) and there were no clean towels. So she washed some and folded all my laundry. She has yet to accept any of my generous offers to become my live-in. I will get her yet, I still have about 17 hrs left with her. Sorry Mark. So After Ami arrives and we leave and go to the wedding (at 4am)(which sounded like a better idea than it was) we stopped off at Aunt Nancy the Great's place. Which is very nice. We plan to visit again. She has clean towels and several kinds of shampoo in her shower. We celebrated Steven's birthday, roasted marhsmallows, saw some chickens (we are still chatting about those) and the highlight of Claire's visit, gathered some rocks from Aunt Nancy's mud room. Kudo's to you Aunt Nancy for providing hours of car-time play for the ride back, who would have thought 5 rocks and a ziplock bag... We are home now, we were going to watch a movie, but we cant find it so the guy on vicodine went to the movie store to find us something... (Ami is still here) (She is planning to leave on Tues now, because Mark has classes so she wants to spend some more time with her sister)(she says I'm lying, again SEVENTEEN hours, I will change her mind) So overall, this weekend was just too long and full of stuff that was wonderful. My plan is to never leave my house again and just continue to relive the events of this weekend over and over and over...
I can't beleive you are still reading this, please get up, go have an adventure of your own and blog about it so that I can have something to do while I live at home for the rest of eternity. But before you go, leave me a comment and let me know you love me.

My husband is the best! Theater experiance for the same price but in a much more comfortable setting!

Revised

So I think my husband read my blog and felt bad about my recap of our weekend. So we salvaged what we could. We went to RI for the day on Sun. and spent it with my in-laws at a house up there. Fun with dogs and bugs and smores around the fire-ring! And then a ferry ride back to Long Island for a send off party for Cousin Joe (the medium one). A walk to the lake provided a front row seat for a family of geese and a family of ducks.. the babies were SO cute! Overall we packed 5 days worth of fun into two and ended up having a blast! So happy Memorial Day. (which doesn't seem like it should be a 'happy' holiday when you think about what you are 'celebrating') I hope your weekend was just as eventful. If you can top prarie dog babies you win.. that's the best thing I have heard of so far.

Sad

Our Steve (that's our computer's name) is not with us. He had to go to the Mac store to get some work done on his harddrive. Actually he needed it replaced :( We will miss him this week. We will also miss the month worth of pictures that are potentially going to be lost because of his harddrives untimely death. :( My husband beleives he can retreive the pictueres.. if he does I will declare my undying love for him (again).
In other news my husband had his wisdom teeth out, the second and last set. He followed his surgery with celebratory nerds and now lies in bed in severe pain and the stiches are still bleeding. He would like me to point out that he beleives the two (nerds and pain) are not connected in anyway. This may be true but I see at least a phone call to the good Dr. if not a trip in our future.
Claire on the other hand had a great day yesterday. She went garbage shopping with her mom and got a new slide for the backyard! She is also in the process of perfecting her whining voice and impatient stomping feet. (thank you cousin Joe for the invaluable lessons you teach us). In Cousin Joe's defense he has taught us other things like chalk drawing and fire engine washing.
Overall a great day. Sad about Steve but happy otherwise. Well Jimmy isn't so happy. So I guess it's just Claire who is defying the odds here at our house and enjoying her days with her Dad; even though he has spent most of it drugged up or sleeping off the drugs or pain. We will do better next weekend when we travel out to Bradford to see Miss Megan tie the knot with Mr Rob!

My Life in Photographic Form

I'm the baby in the corner...

A Piece of Some Peace

Nothing clever to post lately. Nothing really of note. I must take note of that lull because I fear we have passed into warp 5 and will soon be inventing warp 7. This whole buying a home thing is really a process, a long process that we are trying to cram into a little tiny container. We are buying a co-op (see pictures), we signed the contract and the sellers decided that even though they live upstate, and they never lived in this particular dwelling (it is their father's estate), and even though the unit is cleared out of all things except a year old beer and some bandaids and sanitary pads; they would like to hold onto it for another month or two. I say 'Boo Hiss'. My husband makes some calls, and we have the contract signed by the next morning. Amazing. Then we have this co-op board. They are the people who get to sit around and tell you everything they think you shouldn't do, which apparently noone pays attention to. But they are also the ones who decide if you get in or not. We can't talk to them without being preped. We must talk to Linda first. Linda has been described to me in many different terms some of the nicer ones include; nutjob, hard headed, difficult and 'She just has that title'. So several realeste agents and others talked and BAM we are at the head of a list of 20 names and they are holding a spot for the meeting there was no way we were going to get into. Great. Now we must get things in order, things that we can't possibly get in order without time travel. We need to get our mortgage approved and get forms that take weeks in just days/hours. We get it all done, I think my husband whored himself once or twice to our broker but we have the papers. (and the broker will hand deliver them to the co-op for us) I call Linda to set up the 'preping us for the board meeting' meeting. She says, 'sorry, if you had just called a day earlier we could have put you in this meeting but now you'll have to wait for the next one.' (which is next month). This makes me wanna cry, I try to get her to change her (nutjob, hard headed, difficult, ...) mind but no go. OK. My husband calls her and we are scheduled for this morning to meet and we'll make the meeting hopefully. Wonderful. Now all we have to do is get through this step and meet with the board on Monday and have a walk thru of the property and have some renovating done and we can move in. Oh and have a baby. It's a process they say. I hope the rest of it goes smoothly and without bribery and sexual favors which is how I imagine we have gotten this far.

The shortened version of our homebuying process:
We are buying a co-op. Boo hiss. Amazing. Bam. Great. Ok. Wonderful.

Just looking for some peace:

Amen! The skies are BLUE!

What is on your Luke List?

The more I watch Gilmore Girls (one episode every weekday)(probably why I have these problems) the more I find myself wanting a Luke.
*Not that I don't love my husband. I do and I am completely contented with the fact that I have him for the rest of my life on earth. He has given me 1 and 1/2 beautiful children and some wonderful moments to look back on in my old age.*
But I would like a Luke, Cause if you watch the show (which I believe everyone should watch at least once) you will notice that Luke is always there, like he just leaves the diner to fix the window in room 3 of the inn or cook when Sookie (a lovely name for a girl) gets put on bed-rest. Most men are not that handy and don't have that kind of job security/freedom. I would like a Luke and on his list I would put:
Empty the trash in the bathroom and laundry room
Pull out the refrigerator so I can clean up the granola that spilled there yesterday
Move the couch so I can sweep under it (cause I'm not sure anymore what could be under it)
Take out the air conditioners in my room and Claire's room
Just things like that. Things I can't do myself or shouldn't do myself but probably will end up doing. Or things I just don't wanna do.
I guess if I didn't watch so much Gilmore Girls I would have time to get these things done myself....

Never Too Young

Proof that you are in fact never too young to wear heels and hit the mall. :)
Just a little happy to brighten your day...

Days and Counting :)

Today I had iced tea, the kind from the mix (not sun tea like my dad likes cause it was rainy). We also had corn on the cob. For some reason that took me to my grandparent's house. It made me miss summer days eating out on the porch or around their table. I guess I REALLY can't wait till May, even my subconsciousness is anticipating this small family reunion.