Book Review: "Maine" (Courtney Sullivan)

Maine (Courtney Sullivan)

I had previously reviewed this author's first book, Commencement; while I enjoyed that one more than this one, I still liked Maine.  I found that I "clicked" more with the characters of Commencement, but then again, I probably shouldn't be comparing the two books to each other all that much just because they're by the same author!

I'll say this about Maine....I wanted to hate each and every one of the characters.  And in fact, I did hate them in many parts of the book (and there are quite a few characters!)  But the author did a great job of building these characters up as complete and total narcissistic jerks that you found yourself all fired up about not liking them, only to then be presented with their back story, or parts of their childhood, or another little snippet about them, where you stopped hating them long enough to feel compassion toward them instead. I enjoyed it overall and would recommend it.

Up next: Naked Heat by Richard Castle

Jake Quotes

I haven't done a round up of Jake's quotes recently, so here we go!

*After telling him about my BFF having a baby and how his buddy Ben is now a big brother, too, Jake responded with, "Let's get me a little sister next, ok?  I think that's a good idea".

*While driving home from the doctor's office (when he had pink eye) he had it in his head for some reason that we were going to McDonald's (we were not).  He proceeded to cry the entire drive home, then dramatically fling himself to the floor when we walked in the house, still whining about not being able to go.  I said to him, "Jake, I'm very disappointed in the way that you're acting, it is not ok to behave like this".  He stopped crying long enough to shoot back to me, "Mommy!  I am very disappointed in the way that you...(dramatic pause)....didn't take me to McDonald's!"

*At dinner a few nights ago, this was the conversation between Jake and Brian:

Jake: So, daddy...did you have a good day at work today?
Brian: I did, thank you for asking!
Jake: What did you do at your work today?
Brian: Well, I help people with their money.
Jake: Oh.  Did you remember to take my cash register into work with you?


Also, I think he might have some OCD tendencies.  He will literally spend 15, 20 minutes lining up his cars in a perfect row.  Sometimes he even sorts them my color and/or type of car.  He's very dedicated to his craft.

Liam's Baptism

It was a beautiful day to be baptized at Heinz Chapel!  Who knew it would be 70 degrees in the middle of March?  Heinz Chapel is very special to our family, it's where Brian and I were married, and where Jake was baptized...so happy we could carry on the tradition with Liam (and the same pastor has performed all 3 ceremonies for us!)

My brother Nate and his wife Katie are Liam's godparents; I must say, I was very proud of Uncle Nate, he held Liam for most of the ceremony! (he has a small fear of being spit up on...and by small fear, I mean paralyzing fear) 

I was a bit nervous for the baptism; Liam is older than Jake was when we did this (10 months, versus 5 months) and is definitely in a phase where he gets upset sometimes when someone else besides me is holding him.  But I was so proud of him!  He must have been fascinated by everything going on around him, he let Nate and Katie hold him throughout the ceremony, and went right into the Pastor's arms with no problem. 

The grandparents stepped up to light some candles, promising to spoil Liam to the best of their ability, followed by the Godparents lighting their candles.

After that, it was time for his big moment!  Liam spent most of the time in the Pastor's arms trying to steal her glasses :)  She attempted to just leave them off, but then couldn't read the passages that she was supposed to be saying, so it was entertainment for the crowd, watching her trying to keep his little hands off of them.

Where am I??

Oooh, I'll take these pretty glasses

No, really...give them to me.

I said I wanted your glasses, not water on my head!

 I was also very proud of Jake; the ceremony started at 12:30pm which is usually very close to lunch and nap time for him, so I wasn't sure how sitting still for 20 minutes would go (especially since his BFF Ben was going to be there, I knew he'd be excited for that big reunion!)  But both Ben and Jake were angels, sitting with Uncle Dennis, enjoying some snacks.

these two crack me up!

We had some extra time after the ceremony, so I was excited to get some pictures before everyone started losing it from starvation.

GG & Pappy

Nana & PopPop

Aunt Amy

both of our families :)

everyone!

The Martini Family

After the ceremony, we headed back to our house for a reception.  If you ever need to order food for a smaller gathering (we had 12 adults and 2 children) I highly recommend ordering a party tray from Mad Mex. We chose the taco bar, and it was very reasonably priced and you can't beat the convenience of just picking something up right on the way back home to the party.  All I had to do was get some drinks and set out some chips/salsa/queso, and we were set. Oh, and cupcakes, of course! 

Thank you so much to everyone who came and made Liam's day so special.  God bless you, Liam Joseph! 

Cue "Pomp & Circumstance"!

My baby just graduated!!

I probably don't need to tell you that the transition was harder on mama than it was on Liam.  I may, or may not have cried when I proudly hung his diploma up on the fridge.

We loved the teachers in Infant 1 but knew he was ready to move in.  He was the oldest baby in the room by more than a month, so the teachers said he was starting to get bored.  (they typically don't move them to the next room until they crawl, which he's not yet, so that's why he was still in the younger room)  But we're also hoping that maybe seeing all of the other mobile babies will motivate him to get moving! 

He'll be 10 months old on Saturday, and I just packed up a lot of his 6-9 month clothes last weekend.  He's still loving food, though he's starting to reject purees, so we've moved on to a lot of finger foods (which I have to say I'm very grateful for-I was really getting tired of making purees and having to spoon feed him everything).  So far he's had: chicken, all kinds of diced veggies, blueberries, bananas, crackers with hummus, cheerios, waffles, pancakes, tacos, and pasta.  He will occasionally do the sign for "more" but most of the time, he's just too impatient and finds that banging the tray and yelling is a much more effective way of communicating :) 

Alright now STOP-Banana time! 

There's a hummus among us.

We had a brief glimmer of hope that his reflux was starting to go away, but then the whole mess started up all over again in the past week.  I gave it a few days, thinking it was a fluke, but unfortunately, that's not the case.  After talking to the pediatrician's office, they advised that I increase his meds again so he went from 2.5 ml of zantac twice/day to 3 ml twice/day.  The nurse could probably tell that I sounded discouraged on the phone and assured me that even though we have to increase it now, it's still a good sign that he probably is getting better with it since he had been on that previous dose for a good 3 months now, whereas before, we were increasing his dose every 4 weeks or so.  Baby steps, I suppose! 

It's hard to believe that he'll be a year old in just 2 months!  The obsessive planner in me started to gather ideas for his birthday party months ago...pinterest certainly helps to feed my addiction to gathering up ideas!

Little Leprechauns

Have you ever tried to have a photo shoot with 2 kids at 6:30am?  I wouldn't advise it.  This is what happens....

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Tales of the Bus: thanks to your mama

My bus stop was approaching, so I moved toward the front and swiped my ID.  We got stuck at a light, so I was standing near the bus driver and he turned toward me and said, "The next time you talk to your mom, tell her I said thank you".  I could have sworn that's what he said, but thought perhaps it was just too early in the morning for my ears to be properly functioning, so I said "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you?", to which he replied, "Please tell your mom I said thanks...I'm assuming that's where you got your beautiful blue eyes from". 

So if there are any single guys reading this blog (for some weird reason), there you have it...I just spoon fed you your next great pick up line, courtesy of my bus driver.  You're welcome.

Last trip of the season!

Due to the incredibly warm weather we've had pretty much all season, Brian and Jake took what was most likely their last ski trip of the year this past weekend.  Jake's buddy, Mason, from school also skis and his parents were generous enough to invite all of us to stay with them at their condo over the weekend at a local ski resort.  They also have a baby, so I decided to stay at home with Liam because it just seemed like way too many people in one place with a huge risk of no one getting any sleep.  But Brian and Jake headed up on Saturday night; the boys had a great time playing all night on Saturday and Brian was finally able to get Jake to settle down around and get some sleep around 10pm.  He was up bright and early the next day, too (in addition to losing an hour of sleep due to daylight savings time!), but Jake somehow managed to rally and ski almost all day.  That kid is dedicated to that sport.

Brian said that Jake has been getting much better at turning on his own without falling over, and he probably won't even need to use the harness much next year. 

He fell asleep in the car within minutes of pulling out of the parking lot, and once he woke up out of his coma at home, he spent the entire evening talking about his buddy Mason and their big ski adventure :)  Then, he crashed around 7:30pm last night and didn't get up until almost 7 today.

Animal House 2: Babies Gone Wild

WARNING: if you have a strong gag reflex, stop reading...this is a story  about spit up.  and playing with spit up.   And pee.  And more spit up.

The scene was the same as many Saturday mornings across the country at various college campuses: guy ends up naked under a kitchen table, surrounded by his own vomit spit up.

I turned my back for 5 seconds tonight and Liam starts pretending he's Picasso, playing with his spit up (ew, ew, I know).  In case you were wondering, he had been stripped down to just a diaper after making a giant mess out of himself at dinner.

But wait, there's more!  The frat party continued after cleaning up the kitchen floor.  Brian took off Liam's diaper to put him in the tub, but before he could do that, Liam peed all over him.  He finally makes it into the tub, only to spit up a bunch IN the tub.  Major party foul.  Baby evacuated, water drained, refilled tub.

So to summarize....Liam got naked, went under the kitchen table, puked, peed on someone else, then puked again.  We were one toga away from being able to film a sequel to Animal House.....

TOGA, TOGA, TOGA!!

We will rock you!

Entertainment during our trip to Virginia over the weekend was brought to us live from Jake and Ben.  Their crowd-pleasing renditions of Train's "Soul Sister" and LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem" had everyone smiling (which is sometimes difficult to achieve at such an early hour when dealing with a room full of sleep deprived parents).

Check out their first music video!

Some action shots:

Liam was their #1 fan

Welcome to the world, baby Parker!

So excited for my BFF and her family, they welcomed their baby Parker into the world on February 22nd!  We were able to make the trip to Virginia this past weekend to visit with them, giving me plenty of time to get in some newborn snuggles. 

We really lucked out with the weather on Saturday, and the boys were able to spend hours outside....riding power wheels, bouncing and playing football. 

So here's something that's interesting...Jake was born in January of 2008, Ben was born in September of 2008, making them roughly 8 months apart.  Liam was born in May 2011, Parker was born in February 2012, making them roughly 9 months apart.  So our children are pretty much spaced out exactly the same.  Jake and Ben have this bond that I can't explain (kind of like their mothers!); they have always played so well together, and even if they don't see each other for awhile, they pick right back up where they left off.  If you ask Jake who his best friend is, without hesitation, he says "Ben".  Needless to say, we are assuming Liam and Parker will be the same way.  Here we are, introducing them:

Prior to the camera coming out, Liam was gazing adoringly at Parker; we got out the camera and he immediately put on his cheese face and we couldn't get him to stop!

 Before leaving on Sunday, we attempted to get a picture of all of the brothers...easier said than done.  Here are the outtakes and the one shot that was about as good as it was going to get for now! :) 

What do you mean there are more babies??

um...smile, I guess??

 

Ok, my turn to hold him!