6710 Grand

I love New Years.  I didn't realize how much really until a few years ago.  It's fun to have a fresh start--to clean out the old and simplify.  Tomorrow, everything starts over.  At least that's how it normally is.  This year, I have to wait for February for that.  I can't spend the day tomorrow putting away Christmas decor (I can't reach most of it and I can't lift the heavy bins we store it in) and hauling trash away.  I can't start a new exercise regime and I can't change up my diet.  So, this year I'm delaying New Years until April when (I hope) I have enough energy to start fresh!

It just might be the cutest thing she's ever said.  I took the girls shopping at the mall this afternoon.  After a week of Christmas vacation we were all feeling a little cooped up.  My parents sent the girls shopping money as a gift which meant I didn't have to say "no" to every silly thing they wanted to buy, which is always nice.  I can be the best mom ever for a little while.  We started with lunch.  It's never as much fun without Nick but we made the best of it.  To Macy's, their favorite store, after that.  No trip to the mall is complete without Starbucks, so that was next on our list.  I'm thrilled that they can make my favorite drinks in decaf and if they're not crazy busy, they're happy to accommodate my requests for blended chocolate milk with whip for the girls.  After we ordered our drinks and knowing it would be a few minutes (and OK, I'm 33 weeks pregnant) we sat at one of the tables.  Bebo climbed up into one of the very h

Linus is a strange cat.  We "rescued" him and his sister, Lucy, in 2011 when we lived in Phoenix.  Someone left them and two others in a pet carrier outside of our daycare.  In July.  With no food our water.  They weren't the friendliest of cats to say the least.  Fortunately, one of the moms worked for a veterinarian and she took them all with her to the office and had the doc look them over.  They were just kittens.  Severely malnourished, full of parasites and rather aggressive, they weren't exactly adoptable right away.  But the vet agreed to sterilize them, get them back to health and adopt them out.  We happily told them we would take any that were left--however many that happened to be.  Two of the four were taken rather quickly.  The other two took much longer to warm up to people but seemed to be much calmer when they were with each other.  We brought them home and turned them loose in our house.  They quickly found places to hide and we saw very little of

I love a good quotable movie.  We have so many as a family that regularly get quoted.  Even some that the girls have never seen but they've heard Nick or me say often enough become part of their regular cadre of phrases.  A perfect example is from the "best worst movie ever", The Room .  I have seen this movie only once and once is quite enough.  If you've seen it, you're familiar with the phrase "You're tearing me apart Lisa!".  If you haven't seen it, don't bother.  It's like The Rocky Horror Picture Show --just, why? Anyway, as children do, mine are constantly asking questions.  Most of them completely irrelevant to just about anything.  I get so tired of the questions.  We developed a way for me to say that I've had enough questions without them feeling like I was brushing their concerns aside.  After all, sometimes that questions were relevant.  I had simply run out of patience.  So, we agreed that when I'd had enough, I

I had an ultrasound today...again.  This is the joy of being an old mom.  I get to have these lovely things every month.  They're telling me that this kiddo is already above the 90th percentile and at about 5lbs 11oz.  That's at 33 weeks.  Add another 3.5 pounds to that and that's more than a 9lb baby!  Yikes! It has me more than a little worried.  I really don't want  c-section.  I know, they're practically routine.  But my genetic mutation that increases risks of blood clots weighs heavily on my mind.  I already can't breathe or sleep right.  He's only getting bigger. Of course, there's nothing I can do about it but pass the time.  Still.  I'm much more nervous than I want to be.

I miss commercials.  Not what's in  them, just that they're there .  I need that 3 minute break.  Let's face it--at 32 weeks pregnant, I'm heading for the bathroom every fifteen minutes.  But even three minutes isn't enough.  It takes me that long to get out of the chair I'm in.  What I need is for everything I watch to have a good bathroom song.  With all of these sappy Christmas movies we're watching, I've had to introduce my kids to the concept of the bathroom song.  I have my dad to thank for this--he's the one who coined the phrase.  It's the song nobody likes that you let run through while everyone gets up to use the bathroom.  Every musical has one too.  We recently watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers --"When You're in Love" is the perfect bathroom song.  Last week we watched The Muppet Christmas Carol .  "The Love is Gone" was the perfect bathroom song.  But just as I was getting ready to identify it, IT WA

I'm sad to say that this is possibly the last year that Iris will believe in Santa.  She's 10.  It's time.  But it's still sad.  Most of the time I think her head knows what her heart is hoping isn't true.  As an adult, there are certainly ways I know and fully believe in the magic of Santa.  Stories of selfless generosity and ordinary people doing extraordinary things.  Our own holiday giving to strangers and going out of our ways to make someone's day, all in the name of Christmas--these are the Santa Tracking ways Santa is kept real.  You never know who you might be playing Santa to in an everyday gesture or kindness. For us, that all goes back to Jesus.  And we don't need Christmas for that.  It's easier, sure.  It feels more natural.  People are more likely to just say thank you and accept a gift than at other times of the year.  It is these things for which I choose to believe in Santa--and I hope they are why Iris (and Ivy) continue to beli

Am I a bad person?  I don't know.  Maybe I am.  I'll let you decide...not that it changes anything.  I have a musical family.  My dad (the coolest dad ever) is a drummer.  My little brother Andrew plays piano (and so do I, though not very well).  Little sister sings and plays the guitar.  Come to think of it, Andrew plays the guitar too.  Music was a big deal growing up.  Dad always had CD's on his birthday/Christmas/father's day list.  We would listen to various things (usually in the car because he insisted my mom wouldn't let him listen in the house) and he'd ask me why I couldn't play like "that".  My own kids have taken a liking to various things as well.  Ivy plays the violin and the piano.  Iris plays the piano, the cello and a snare drum.  They come by it honestly--Nick's family is musical too.  Because the girls both play a string instrument through school they have practice both before and during the school day--partly to prepare

I love Amazon.  Who doesn't these days!  While I fully respect the in-store retail experience (having done that for 7 years during high school and college) nothing beats the convenience of on-line shopping.  As a busy working mom, it is SO great to be able to order that whatever it is the kids need.  Or when my hairdryer blew out and I had NO time to get to Target that day.  Maternity clothes, sugar-free coffee syrup, replacement bowls for the ones I just dropped and broke--Amazon has it all.  Christmas shopping?  Wow!  SO much easier now.  No crowds.  No shopping around.  No parking and with a Prime account, no shipping costs!  They've taken away just about every excuse.  But there is a downside--at least for us.  And honestly, it's not really a downside.  Just something to navigate. Being hours (and sometimes days) away from our families makes Christmas shopping and shipping easier for us and our wonderful families.  We ship to them and they ship to us.  The challenge c

I am so done with this whole pregnant thing.  I know, I know--still 9 weeks to go.  But really by the fourth kiddo, the novelty has long worn off.  I am not one of those women who enjoys being pregnant.  It's all well and good in the earliest weeks before the nausea and exhaustion but that whole second trimester energy thing is a myth.  Or maybe it just is when you already have a house full of people and too much to do.  Other moms are always saying to me "at least you're not pregnant in the summer".  Well, I've been pregnant in the summer--twice.  And let's face it the Phoenix summers are really year-round.  I'd way rather that than being pregnant over the holidays.  There's just so much going on.  I'm extra busy and extra tired.  Plus no wine!  Summer days are lazier.  I can lounge around on the weekends and go to bed early during the week.  Not so in December!  There's the concerts, the events, the activities, the shopping and let's no

I try really hard not to get too political.  Never discuss politics or religion, right?  Well, I've screwed up the religion thing so here goes with politics.  All of this horrible hatred makes me sad.  Social media makes it worse.  I "hear" so much name calling and generalizing and I wonder--if you knew how I felt or how I voted, dear close friend of mine, would you say what you're saying in a place where you knew I could hear you? It's like all of the people who say things to me about the distance between my children.  If they knew how many I'd lost, they would keep quiet.  I have lots of friends who disagree with me on a wide variety of things.  I'm happy that we can agree to disagree and that it's OK.  Most  of the time, my closest friends don't say politically charged things that would be hurtful to me.  Now, I'm not talking about voicing an opinion.  I had a healthy debate with a friend about abortion and the right to choose.  We d

This picture doesn't do it justice but as you can see, Santa goes a little crazy at Christmas in the Olson house.  Every year we say, wow--that's a lot and every year the pile under the tree grows.  I shudder to think of what we're going to have next year with an extra kid in the house.  Of course, as Ivy gets older, her gifts get smaller (though substantially more expensive...) so who knows. But it was because of the mad rush of children and gifts that Nick and I invented what we call "Private Christmas".  We tried to hold the kids back--really we did.  We tried the whole, everyone wait patiently while each person opens one gift at a time and honestly, it's just torture for them.  They're SOOOOO excited.  I remember--I was too.  Plus, because we're here in PA without family, they get all of their gifts from everyone who is kind enough to ship presents to us all at once.  There's no visit to Grandma's house later or the cousins are coming o

The glucose tolerance test is cruel.  CRUEL!  It's bad enough to make a pregnant woman fast for hours but to then expect her to suffer through half a day with no coffee, perforate her arms, sit in horribly uncomfortable chairs for hours and drink an overly sweet flat orange soda is torture.  TORTURE! What did frontier women do if they had gestational diabetes?  Ok, so the doctors tasted urine and that's way worse but still!  I contend that this is cruel. I've taken the dreaded 3-hour test twice with my last two babies and after both of them rushed--RUSHED--to the nearest fast food establishment to avoid eating my own arm.  I do not have gestational diabetes.  I am sorry for any woman that does.  I can't imagine having to carefully monitor one's diet for sweet treats during the month of December.  I am thrilled to pieces that it isn't something I have to worry about.  Now, let's talk about these non-stress tests...  Really? 

I am always surprised at what people will say to pregnant women.  I think most of the time they don't mean anything by it but in every instance, it's rude.  It's insensitive.  It's intrusive.  A friend of mine had difficulty having children.  People were always asking her "when are you going to have kids?" or "why don't you have kids yet?".  Think about how that sounds to someone struggling.  I can think of a dozen answers that would likely shame such people into silence.  As a pregnant mom of 3 girls in the 4th decade of life, here's what I get: "Was this a surprise?"  None of your business. "Oh, you're finally getting a boy!"  As if having another girl would be a disappointment or somehow, my life is empty without a son or--BIG assumption--I WANT a boy. "Wow--four kids!  You know what causes that right?"  I just don't understand this one. The one I hate the most is "You sure waited a long tim

I'm still in denial.  At 30 weeks and 2 days I am not mentally prepared to have a baby.  It STILL doesn't feel real.  Sure, every time I try to stand up or roll over in bed I'm reminded by this ginormous belly but it's only the physical.  At work I keep planning for spring fundraising.  At home I keep thinking about how I'm going to do more this year--like New Year's Resolution planning.  I'm going to run more marathons, take the girls more places, travel more.  Um, probably not. When we had Isabelle I wasn't ready to say "this is my last pregnancy".  Well, I'm definitely ready now.  I do NOT enjoy being pregnant.  It's uncomfortable.  I miss wine.  I miss sleeping on my back.  I'm oh so tired of doctor appointments and blood work.  Well, kiddo, you're it!  Our last one.  That's OK with me.  I'm ready to be done having kids.  People ask me all the time if this one was a surprise.  First--that's a horribly rude qu

December 6th--it's St. Nicholas Day.  I have very fond memories as a child of this day.  At school, we'd leave our shoes in the hallway during recess and when we came back, St. Nicholas had filled them with treats.  At home, we'd awaken to stuffed stockings.  Fruit and peanuts were paired with a bit of candy and one toy.  My dad's stocking was often filled with charcoal--to remind us of what happens if you're naughty.  And, let's face it, Dad was pretty naughty.  Served him right for telling so many bad jokes. As a non-Catholic, I have struggled to fit this into our family traditions.  The girls don't understand what a saint is or how St. Nicholas is different from Santa.  Nick never had this tradition as a kid so the whole thing is foreign to him.  They had filled stockings on Christmas morning--you know, like normal people.  Despite it all, St. Nicholas did come last night and dutifully filled our stockings with some of everyone's favorite things a

Tuesday--just a day.  Nothing special.  But Tuesdays are go go go go go go go--all day.  I have a to-do list of 26 items--that's 26 just for me.  There are another 26 for work.  That's just me--then there's the girls--Tuesday is music day.  We have orchestra practice in the morning and piano in the evening.  Nick is somewhere in the world so that means today, it's all me.  The day begins like any other. 3:30--get up. 3:40--ok, now REALLY get up.  That's it lazy bum--out of bed!  Kick the cat off yourself and do your best to roll (literally) out of bed without over exerting.  Put on those gym clothes and get yourself going! 3:55--start the coffee 3:56--get down to the gym.  Do no procrastinate--nothing on that desk needs immediate attention.  You do NOT need to count how many boxes of Kleenex we have left or how many bags of chips there are.  Oh, wait--yes on the chips.  We're almost out. 4:00--start that warm up.  Put on the belly band, pop in the headphon

Today officially starts Christmas season—I insist on waiting until December 1st to call it that.  November is Thanksgiving—December is Christmas.  I realize I’m in the minority when most of the world sees Black Friday as the official start of Christmas but I like to give Thanksgiving it’s due.  I don’t go Christmas shopping on Black Friday and I don’t do Cyber Monday either.  Maybe I should.  But I’m not thinking about Christmas until December.  So here it is!  Another Christmas!  With Christmas comes COOKIES!  This is where I get ridiculous.  Every year it’s more and more varieties.  My goal is always 25—bake one batch per day.  But I’ve never made it there.  Last year I got to 23 I think.  But this year!  This is MY YEAR!  I’m going to make it! There are always standards—chocolate chip, sugar cookies.  But over the years, we’ve developed some new favorites like coffeehouse flats and orange snowballs.  Every year we try new ones and bring back old favorites.  It’s never the same 25