Happy 2nd Birthday Cian!

I can't believe Cian is already two. It went by in a blink of an eye.

24 hours old

1 years old



2 years old

We are so incredibly thankful this little miracle came into our lives. The joy, the love, the laughter, even the tears you have brought us is beyond anything we could have imagined. You are so funny, so caring and sensitive and so loving. Even the days when we put you to bed, close the door and collapse on the ground out of complete exhaustion, when you push everyone of our buttons (no! is a favorite word right now and its AWESOME!) we wouldn't trade a second of it. We count our blessings everyday for you. We rush home to be with you and can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring. And I, of course, cry when we talk about how much you have grown and changed over the past two years. We are so honored to be your parents - Happy Birthday Cian! We love you so much.

Cian's little world:

~ Loves Super Why, Sesame Street, Dinosaur Train (roars when he sees Dinosaurs)

~ Loves to run. Nonstop. Every. Day. Brian has a little loop upstairs and downstairs for their nightly running. Cannot wait for spring and warm weather to get this boy outside again!

~ Once Cian gets tired from running, he suggests we play "night night". Its where you pretend you are asleep and he wakes you up. Its his way of resting from running, while still delaying his actual bedtime. Suggesting we "clean up" is another tactic Cian uses to delay bedtime.

~ Loves cheese, yogurt. Ketchup. Cereal with milk is a big hit, and a HUGE Mess. Oatmeal "like Grammy makes". Pizza is a new favorite.

~ Is collecting more items for bedtime. Blue blanket, paci (this needs to go soon- pray for us), Grover and a book.

~ Must study everything. Just like his daddy. Cian has to figure out how things work before playing with something.

~ Is obsessed with babies. Points them out, wants to visit the babies at school. And once in a while wants to pretend he is a baby and curl into my lap w/ his "bottle" (sippy cup). Anything small is a baby. Have a large piece of cheese and a small piece of cheese? The small one is now baby cheese. Seriously- its god's practical joke for a woman who desperately is trying for a second child to have a child constantly talking about babies. Where is the wine?

~ At times, Cian is scared of himself. Anything new, loud or different will scare him. Vacuum cleaner (Roomba scares him to death). Blender. Took him to a bouncy house- scared to death.

~ However, take him to the park and show him the slides for big kids? Cian is running for it. No matter how big the slide, Cian wants it.

~ When tired, his whine could make your ears bleed. He learned how to scream "no" at school (thank you). And he has mastered completely ignoring us to do something bad (like climb on a chair). I'm guessing this ignoring us part never goes away....


~  Is such a loving, caring little boy. His teachers always tell me Cian is so sweet and loving to his little friends. He is the first to sit down for story time, the boy who helps clean up and the first to scream and run for his jacket to go outside.

Final Scores - Valentine's Day: 0 Pyschotic Mom: 1

Remember when mom would bake her M&M cookies and send us to school with a batch for our birthday celebration? I miss those days.

I know this isn't news to anyone, but I'm late to this mom game so its news to me: When celebrating birthdays at school, treats must be store bought (so they have an ingredient list to reference for kids with allergies) AND be made from a peanut free factory.

I have now received the crash course in bakeries and peanut free factories. And what I learned is.... they suck.

You can't put in special orders for peanut free factories. They are big, giant factories that produce peanut free goods for giant supermarkets and stores like Walmart.  And they only produce what sells.

Which is why Cian's birthdate of February 13th - the day before Valentine's Day - will result in a lifetime of peanut free pink cupcakes for him.

Because the peanut free factories right now are only churning out beautiful little pink cupcakes for Valentine's Day. I have been to 5 different stores. I have looked for any other possible color than pink- no dice.

And listen. I know he doesn't know the difference between pink cupcakes and blue. But I know. And if I start his first time ever of bringing in birthday treats with the low standard of passing off valentine's day cupcakes as birthday cupcakes... what happens in 3 years? How much lower will I have sunk? I can't allow myself to start with such a low standard. I NEED to leave room to slack off in the future.


Maybe its the brutal winter. The cabin fever. Or my anal craziness. But I did this: I took tweezers and removed all of the pink sprinkles from the white cupcakes and replaced them with blue and orange sprinkles (made from a peanut free factory, of course).

I am embarrassed to admit this. I won't even begin to address the conversation I had with myself during the sprinkle removal about if I was letting boy / girl stereotypes affect my judgement and should I let Cian embrace pink. (In the end, I decided this was more of a valentine's day vs birthday issue, not a boy/girl vs blue/pink issue).

Not sure if I was really the winner or the loser in this case......

Would you like some ice with your snow?

what a fun week.

After Monday's snowstorm we got almost 12" of snow. Tuesday morning our backyard looked like this:

so beautiful, so peaceful.

 

Then Tuesday night, we got hit with an ice storm.  Lost power around 4am Wednesday. Brian and I laid in bed, listening to tree branches breaking from the heavy snow and ice.

Before the ice- see those 2 pine trees on the left...

24 hours later, branches on the ground

bare trees, branches on the ground

our poor trees!

And a sign the world is ending- 100 little birds suddenly appearing out of nowhere to attack this holly bush. Such a weird sight.

Worried it might be days before we got power, I tried driving to Peggy's house to see if she had power (nice week to be on a cruise Peggy!). After an hour of driving, I was unable to get close to her house w/ all the downed trees.  Thankfully, we were lucky and our power was restored early Thursday morning. 

more snow. so. much. snow.

Is it summer yet? Another storm, another 10"? 12"? of snow! And more expected later this week.

Got Cian outside to help with shoveling this time, never too young to start!!! And we finally got him to wear mittens - score one for mom and dad.

Cian's new best friend

Meet Grover. He is Cian's new best friend. He goes EVERYWHERE with us. Grocery shopping, naps, school, eating dinner.

Who would have thought that Grover would be such a hit???  I mean, its Grover! He's no Elmo. I ordered him (and Elmo, Cookie Monster and Oscar) as little decorations for his birthday party. Grover arrived last Friday in a padded envelope by himself, masking his true identity. I, thinking it was something else I ordered, opened the envelope in front of Cian  (my mistake) which was quickly followed by "ROVER!!!!!" And he hasn't left Cian's side since.

Winter Storms

Third or fourth snowstorm of the year. can't remember. this one brought us 10" and 2.5 hours to drive the 10 miles home from work.

How many days until this? (video of waves crashing for those who can't see the video)

powder room stripes

Finally got around to painting the powder room downstairs. Wow, did this room need some paint and attention. The horrible builder paint showed every mark and water drip and the room was a dingy yellow. And with potty training coming (months? years?), I figured we were going to be spending a lot of time in this little room so I better make it a little more appealing.


Before pictures:

Ignore all of my paint swatches. Indecisive

 In progress:

Brian's handy work! Stripes on the back wall

Time to remove the tape and see the results- so scary!

Yeah! The stripes came out awesome!

Hard to tell the color but its a grayish green

I LOVE this little Boston print. It was created after the Boston Marathon Bombing to raise funds for the victims. Its a great little story , that started when a designer at an agency in Boston made this design to post on his facebook page.   And now I need to go windex this frame...


Loved this new paint color so much, I repainted the mudroom too!

Before

After