I'm Cheating.....

It's been a while since I've blogged, I have to admit, it's hard to keep up when you have a more than full time job and 2 small children at home. The free time I get I find it hard to just stare at a computer screen, when there are so many other things I'd like to do, but here I am 2 am and I'm blogging.. perhaps sleep should be at the top of my list, since I know my children will come running into our room at 6am waking us up.

It's been an adjustment but I have to say I've fallen quite fond of it so far. I come home at midnight make lunch and dinner for the next day, 2am is when I'm finally in bed then back up at 6am to play with the kids, until I leave for work. Then the cycle continues again, is it exhausting yes, but I have a wonderful husband that on some days will let me sleep in. But on the days I have off, it's a magnificent feeling, Thursdays, Gael and Sofia are in their early preschool classes, then we head off to NYC have dim sum and just hang out so I can soak up my need for an urban landscape. Fridays Gael's in Soccer and Sofia will start music... one of my friends used to say my babies need a blackberry because our Saturdays are packed as well, then it's back to work on Sunday.

At first I felt mundane, thinking great.. here's just our routine.. but then I felt attachment to it's regimen..and frankly when I went to Chicago I missed it here. Could it be that I've fallen in love with another city? Am I cheating?? I find myself searching events in NYC, I find myself loving the food choices.. still not choosing NYC's Nathan's over my Chicago hot dog.. but I still... I'm finding a sense of security creeping up on me.. just because I love how comfortable my family is feeling. Granted.. I do miss my mom, my sisters and my niece and nephews dearly.. I miss them every second God gives me. I look at their photos every day, but I'm a grown up now, and I have to make a place for my family and it's becoming more and more like home here. I drove to work on Saturday night, I just had finished feeding the kids, Danny was serving them dessert.. and when I pull away from the driveway, I can see them through the window at our dinner table, I paused for a second just to look at how happy they are... and then it hits me.. that's it.. that's the picture of the life I've always dreamed up.. if I had nothing, no money, no job.. no friends (because here I really don't) I have that image of Danny laughing with our kids sitting at the table and just loving life. So if I'm cheating on my beloved Chicago, I guess I am.. and I have to say I love the excitement of this affair.

it's been almost 3 months now.....

So it has been a while since I've updated this blog, things have been more than hectic since we moved, work has me so busy and the little time I've had I've been spending with my babies... I can't believe it's been almost 3 months now, summer has been over and the leaves are beginning to turn. The one thing that I have been excited about here is seeing the changing colors of the leaves, I would always find that so amazing, when I was a child I used to collect them and I was just fascinated with the colors, and I loved raking leaves with my sisters in our backyard... except for the one time I thought it would be funny if I scraped my sister's back with the rake... didn't go over so well.. We live on an acre and it has many trees in front and in the back, so Gael and Sofia Lee will have a wonderful time jumping in piles of leaves... I am very excited about that. I'm getting used to living here, I still get homesick but I do enjoy watching my children run around in the backyard and play on the swing set Danny put together. We've been to NYC many times, driving and taking the train, it's extremely easy to do, so in many ways I have the best of both worlds, peaceful living and a major metropolitan city near by.

Gael is enrolled in a preschool readiness program in Manhattan, it's pretty awesome I think. It's a drop off program that lasts about 2 hours, it's great, they teach him how to write, count, make his own snacks, and then we get to spend the afternoon taking a walk in Central Park and visiting museums, it's been fun so far and he's doing great! Sofia Lee begins her One's program in Westport, I'm excited to see how she'll adjust because she's so attached. She's also become so attached to Gael, she does what he does, tries to speak when he does, when he cries, she goes to him and pats him on the head to soothe him. And most of her previous classes had him there. I'm interested to see how she'll adjust without him. I have yet to adjust, I haven't met any other mom's, partly due to my work sched but it would be nice to have the kids play with children their own age. I've always wanted to have a Halloween party for kids, if I were in Chicago, it'd be so easy to do with all of Gael and Sofia Lee's friends and cousins. That's one of the reasons why we're flying back for Halloween, I want to see them, we miss them all so much.

Until then I've packed my calender with autumn events both here in Fairfield county and in NYC. This weekend a big Family Picnic and next Sun, we're headed to Brooklyn for a street festival!

Our home for the next 10 months

Okay so I've been holding out on where we're living... I think it's denial mostly.. again.. I have to stress I hate the idea of moving, not only moving in general but moving out of Chicago. We found a place in the Cranbury area of Norwalk, near Westport, the home of the late Paul Newman and Martha Stewarts old home... why we chose this who the hell knows.. I'm so not a suburban person..and this home well.... it's the suburbs. I'm filled with anxiety about it, it took a whole week to sign the damn lease. It's a beautiful home, built in 1998, 3500 square feet with 4-5 bedrooms. I picked it because of the size of the yard.. I want my kids to play in the yard. Frankly I don't think I'd be happy anywhere.. if it's not Chicago, then it's not home. But I'm going to give this a shot for a 10m and we'll see where it leads me.

Breathe.....Breathe...

A parent should never see their children suffer... no matter what happens, a cut on the arm to the most horrific diseases..  a child is a child and they should not know the feeling of pain or suffering.. unfortunately they do.  Gael had a severe allergic reaction to peanut butter on May 31st. I was simply giving him chocolate cake and did not know there was peanut butter in it. A few minutes later.. my boy's face blew up like a red balloon,his eyes swelled shut,  hives all over, him screaming in pain, then as we were entering children's memorial hospital, he went limp for a few seconds.. then jerked up and started vomiting... for those few minutes.. I saw my world crashing in on me.. as a parent you protect your children, and when you see them in any sort of pain, nothing else matters but fixing it. So we spent the night in the hospital, he is anaphylactic and has to carry an epipen with him now. Doctors were afraid he was going to suffer another attack and stop breathing so for that one night I was on breath watch, I held my boy for 6 hours straight standing up, not only just to keep him comfortable but to feel him breathe. Nothing in the world mattered at that moment, not the move to CT, not the economy, not my stupid blackberry, not standing there with regurgitated chocolate cake on me nothing.. just wanting my boy to get better. It was hard to see them put an IV in his arm, it was hard to see him writhing in pain.. if you know my boy, he's nothing but a package of joy, laughing, gibber-jabbing, jumping.. beyond happy... and for 24 hours.. I did not see that same boy.  I cannot imagine what it is like for parent who has to go through this with their terribly sick children.. I wanted out of Children's Memorial, although thankful for their expertise, I wanted far away from that place.. 

I have a new appreciation for allegry sufferers.. I always knew the stresses of it, but only by word not from experience, my sister Stephanie suffers from several allergies, one of the being the dreaded peanut...When we were frantically going to the ER, I called her, she is an encyclopedia of knowledge when it comes to this, and she knew the symptoms right away. After my frantic call to the doctor, she was the second one we called. I had no idea the trauma she has to deal with when it comes to these allergies, I had to go through my pantry and toss so much out because there are so many packaged foods or ingredients that contain nuts, or tree nuts, or have been made using equiptment that has been exposed to tree nuts.. You've always got to be on your toes.. I recalled an incident that Stephanie went through, she was in college and my sister Sybil was visiting, Stephanie was to receive an award at U of M, and they had went out to eat at Bennigans, she had asked if her meal contained nuts, they said no.. they were wrong.. shortly after, she suffered an attack so terrible it sent her to the hospital and intubated. Sybil still says an "angel" saved her, a strange man gave her one breath of air and said she'll be ok.. then left.. my mother went immediatly to the hospital and told the docs and nurses to take the restraints off to let her fight on her own. And with my mother there... she opened her eyes and said "Where's Pa?" she was looking for my father. I reminded my mother of this tonight as we spoke about Gael, and she started crying as she told the story, she said it was the worst feeling in the world to see Stephanie like that, but the best thing she heard was hearing her speak, my mother said she remembered thanking God over and over.. it's been years and to this day, when speaking about what happened to her child, it brings tears to her eyes. I have a new appreciation for the struggles Stephanie has had to go through, my son seems to have that gene from her and as she said.. they will have that special bond. 

I am glad it happened here...I knew where everything was.. the hospital, doctors, close proximity to my family to help.. In some ways it happened like that for a reason, I know what to prepare for when I move... and within the dust of this craziness and stress I'm coming back to reality and what matters most.. my babies... and every air of breath they take... God am I grateful for that. 

Last 2 days... after 11 years...

So it's my last two days at NBC tower.. I've been walking into this building since 1998. It's bitter sweet.. there have been so many times I've told myself that I need a chance of scenery and it's finally going to happen and I'm freaked out about it. It's been comforting, taking the same ride in, parking in the same area, digging through my bag for my ID, same elevator button pushed and saying hello to the same people. Who knew I'd miss it so damn much. The odd thing is this dysfunctional place has somewhat become my home away from home. I've spent almost every waking hour here. Now as I transition my life to another state, I've found myself to become very sentimental about the smallest things here... right down to the clipboard I used to carry every showday.. I started this job not even thinking I'd last this long. And now I'm moving my family for this job.
I'm trying to be hopeful.. hoping to be hopeful.. but as I sit in my office staring out my window looking at the beautiful Chicago buildings.. I can't help but tear up... I hope that the friendships and bonds I've developed here will carry over to our next chapter.. my last two days have proven to be too emotional... I can't even think about what it will be like when I say goodbye to my family...

Wake me up...

I need someone to slap me in the face.. just one hard slap.. followed by a  loud  "WAKE THE F**K UP!" you see I've been living in a daze for a while now.. I have several personalities.. Work, Home, Self, Family... and I'm a completely different in each setting.. Work being the most drastically different then all of them. I detach myself from reality at work.. I've always had this sinking feeling that I'm going to fail.. and I've been training myself for years to make sure that never happens (I just took a stupid facebook quiz about "the thing that scares me the most" and low and behold... "fear of failure").. I'm in a constant state of pressure when it comes to anything that is career orientated.. I'm looking for ways to better myself, or looking up other careers to study.. because I know one day I'm going to make that leap to do something different.. or at least I think I am. It's not that I'm unhappy with my career choice.. I just feel like life is so short and there's so much to learn.. I just bought the book, becoming a physician... last year I read... becoming a chef.. so its not that I'm leaning toward a certain career, I find myself fascinated with them all, recently you'd be able to find me looking up information on becoming a Montessori teacher for infants and toddlers. And when I should be focusing on my BIG move and stressing about that.. I decided to sign up for a week long intensive course on whether or not Law School is right for me. Seriously.. someone slap the shit out of me.. 

I know I should just settle down.. in fact as far as Home goes, I am settled, I'm a good homemaker at least I'd like to think so.. when I get home from work at 2am, I'll begin preparations on the next day's lunch and dinner so Danny and the kids have food ready, I'll wake up a 7am to make sure it's cooked before I leave for work at 11a. 

When it comes to Myself.. I'm truly someone who just love to be alone.. I crave solitude, I thought I could be happy just me and my thoughts, but then the constant state of worrying whether or not I'm doing enough with my life sets in and then I'm back to being a neurotic over acheiver.. 

What best defines me, and what gave me my true voice was having my babies.. They smoothed out my rough edges.. I get to be everything I've ever wanted when I'm with them, to them, I'm their chef, their doctor, producer of their favorite events and shows, montessori teacher..and the best job of them all... mother.  Right now We have the perfect childcare.. the perfect proximity to our families.. they'd be growing up in the same neighborhood I was raised in.. I had the perfect set up.. and then BAM... life threw a curve ball... and how do I respond? In what personality?? Home, Self... family??? My Work attitude's got this one covered.. I need that strong personality to stomach the stress that will follow me, because I cannot fail.. if I fail I take them down with me... and I will not allow my children to see their mother fail. 

So someone.. please.. slap the Sh*t out of me so I can focus.....

Lucia's big day...

9 months old and started to walk! I'm speechless, thrilled and sad at the same time.. she's so small and growing so fast....

Danny and I always knew we wanted our children close in age... when Gael was born, I was already thinking about baby #2... I wanted them about 15 month apart.. I didn't expect 13 months. But I don't regret it, in fact I love it more, I welcome the challenge. When I was pregnant with #2 I wanted a boy, I fell so in love with my son, I wanted one just like him. We had the ultrasound tech write out on a post it the sex of the baby and put it in an envelope and on Danny's birthday we opened it, and there it was...."It's a girl!" My mouth dropped, I was shocked and nervous, happy and scared. Girl? All I kept thinking was.. she's going to be just like me, and that terrifies me. I have so many faults, I wouldn't wish them on anyone.. my fear of failure cripples me, my lack of patience, I'm stubborn, I live in the past, I dig myself into the deepest holes when I'm upset, and that's not even gracing the surface... then there's society and it's influence on girls, from weight to fashion to labels... and that even continues on into adulthood, I cringe when I hear terms like "Alphamom/wife" "Power this.. or that" Then if anyone knew me growing up.. then you know the trials and tribulations I put my parents through.... Having a girl is God's way of smacking me back in the face... But I take it now as my opportunity to make things right, serve as an example to my daughter, show her the mistakes I made and how I fixed them, ignore the labels etc.. I can't imagine life without my sweet little baby. I love her so much I fall to my knees each time I see her... She is my soul, my strength and the passion that drives me every second of the day. She captivates me. Gael brings out the best in me, his happiness exudes in our home, and he melts me. When I had my son, he filled a void in me I had for a long time, he completed my existence in this world.. gave me a reason, and when I had my girl.. she gave me fight, enhanced the passion and focus I had to live my life every second for my family. She's is what is keeping me focused on this big move.