Bad Mama, Great Baby

This is G in her little rain coat. So Cute, right?



It was raining yesterday morning when we were all getting ready to go to work. G slept in late, rare for her. She didn't get up till quarter to 8! So, she went to work in her jammies. And her rain coat. She looked so darn cute I had to take a picture. So, I put her in her car seat, which was sitting on the dining room table. And I turned around to grab the camera that was on the dining room hutch.

Notice I said that I PUT her in her car seat. I did not say that I strapped her in her car seat. I did not say that I followed every instruction on the car seat label and put the car seat on the floor. No, I put her in the car seat and then I turned around. And G sat forward, because she is not a fan of the car seat and likes to make it difficult to strap her in. And when she sat forward in the car seat that she wasn't strapped into and that was sitting on the dining room table, she fell out. Onto the floor! And the car seat followed her! Onto the floor, thankfully, not on to her!

Now notice that in this picture she is strapped in. And notice that her face is not red and puffy from crying. She has no visible bumps or bruises or cuts. Notice that she is sheepishly SMILING in this picture! This picture was taken approximately 4 minutes after she fell out of the car seat her BAD MAMA did not strap her into. This kid is resilient! She cried, of course. And I cried (and felt faint). And then she stopped crying. And she was fine. Amazingly fine. And when JOHN put her back in the car seat (not BAD MAMA), she was smiling! What a great baby!

Valley of Opportunity?

I've had this post rolling around in my head for a week now. I needed to get some pictures, and I wanted to get some thoughts together. Sweetfern's post, here, got me thinking.

This is my house.



It is affectionately known as an "EJ House." That is because it was built in 1937 by the Endicott Johnson Corporation for one of it's employees. The employee was then able to purchase the home, financed by EJ at a reasonable interest rate. We live in whole neighborhood of these EJ homes. They mostly consist of about 4 different designs, some a little bigger, some a little smaller. Over the years, different owners have personalized them, of course. It's a nice neighborhood. Good layout to walk, comfortable size lots, a neighborhood park. The park has a carousel, another gift from EJ-specifically from George F. Johnson.

Here's the entrance to the park.




Here's a close-up of the building directly across the street from the park.


Nice, huh? This, too, is a gift from EJ. These old, decrepit buildings litter my hometown. Once, they were vibrant and full of industrious people.

I have lived in the "Triple Cities" my whole life. The "Triple Cities" consists of Binghamton, Johnson City, and Endicott. You have probably figured out that Johnson City and Endicott were both named for the forebears of the Endicott Johnson Corporation. Though I have lived all over the area, I now live (and own a house) in Endicott. Endicott is not only the former home of EJ, but it is also the birthplace of IBM. Endicott was once teaming with engineers, factory workers, businessmen, machinists, and other assorted workers. My grandfather was one of them. He put in 30 years at IBM as a mechanic and retired with a nice clock and a pension. Though he was certainly never rich, he raised a family (FIVE kids), owned a comfortable house on a large plot of land, my grandmother never worked, was able to retire and travel until my grandmother fell ill. Both my grandparents endured lengthy illnesses before they passed away, but their health coverage kept them from going bankrupt.

My grandparents certainly weren't the only ones who lived this life story in "The Valley of Opportunity," as this area was once known. Through the generosity of the Johnsons at EJ and the shared success of IBM families were able to not only survive, but prosper-on one income.

Not so today. EJ moved out of the area and then folded completely in the late 80's. They left behind these big, empty building infested with who-knows-what. IBM moved out of the area in the 90's and left behind more buildings, most of which are still used. But they also left behind major ground pollution. Our entire neighborhood is polluted with TCE and various other chemicals. There is a ground water sample well directly in front of our house measuring the pollution levels. Luckily, the first results have shown that while our neighborhood is polluted our house and lot is thankfully not. And when EJ and IBM moved so did the jobs that brought prosperity to our valley. Not just the factory jobs but all the industries and shops that supported the communities around the factories. Gone. Empty. Falling apart. Just like that ugly eyesore a block and a half from my home. Directly across the street from the park my daughter will play in.

This community has such a rich history. I love living here. My friends and family are here and it is important that G have these things in her life. Most people will tell you that though there isn't a lot happening here, "it's a great place to raise a family." It has been. I hope it continues to be. Some of the recent headlines describing criminal activity have me worried. But I guess if all the good people leave to go elsewhere who will be left to save my hometown?

I'm sure this can be said of a lot of places, but Binghamton et al. is a complex area. There are some efforts underway to revitalize it...the downtown arts community and First Fridays, EIC, BU, natural gas drilling (at what cost, though?)... But there is always the negative naysayers who hold sway, too. "We can't do that here...that's not how it was done before...it will cost too much..." Frustrating.

I guess I don't have a lot to add to all of this, other than: I hope to be part of the solution, not the problem. I hope I can help create new communities and opportunities here. I'm trying. I have been working to get an innovative art and music program for kids up and running for 3 years now. I have the total support of my agency, STIC. It would be a great program; a space for kids to create and learn to express themselves in an integrated environment, to become a part of a larger arts community in Binghamton, to become interesting people. It is so close to becoming a reality but now the funding is threatened by bureaucrats in Albany. Frustrating. That seems to be the way it goes around here way too often. Someone has a great idea or an idea to address an existing problem in a creative way. But...something stops it, no money, no support. Frustrating.

Ugh, this was not really meant to be a negative, complaining post. It was just a jumble of thoughts running around my brain. So, there you go. I got nothin' else right now.

My Other Half

The Yin to my Yang, the Romeo to my Juliet, the Bark to my Dog...hmmm, running out of good pairs already. Anyway, he's blogging!! Here.

Check it out, he's actually pretty funny.

Random weekend notes

We stayed home this weekend. It was good. G is becoming quite a little domestic goddess in her own right. Observe below.


Fixing Lunch

Emptying the Dishwasher

What a little helper! Ok, actually, here's what she does. She loooooooooves the dishwasher. When she hears/sees you open it she comes crawling as fast as she can from whereever she is in the downstairs. She hurries her little self right over and climbs up so she can...I don't know exactly-look at the dishes? She likes to hang on to the racks and she bangs on the silverware. An odd thing to be enamored with, no?

She also likes the fridge, though not with the same intensity as the dishwasher. She also hurries over to the fridge, I think she knows it's likely to only be open a few seconds. She usually sits herself down and begins to gleefully pull things off the bottom shelf. In this picture, of course, she is standing and pulling stuff of the middle shelf. She's flexible.

She learned to clap this weekend, too. Sooooo CUTE!

What I didn't take a picture of, but should have, was our feast on Sunday night. Here's the deal. John's whole family spent last week in Delaware. We all go down to the shore every year, courtesy of my wonderful mother-in-law, and spend a fun week at the beach. John and I couldn't go this year because neither of us had the vacation time after spending so much time at the hospital this summer. So, anyway, one of the traditions of our summer vacation is a scrumptious seafood dinner. Since we didn't get to participate in that this year, we decided to have our own at home. John made a trip to our local Giant, which has recently been remodeled and now has a great seafood department. He got a pound each of shrimp, scallops, clams, and two pounds of snow crab legs. We spent the next hour preparing all of this yumminess and John also made some "Red Lobster" cheese biscuits, too. These are extremely easy-just use the Bisquick biscuit recipe and add about 1 cup of shredded cheddar to the mix. Then, just after they are out of the oven, brush them with melted butter, garlic and parsley. Delicious! Anyway, so, we GORGED ourselves on all of this seafood! We literally have about 1/2 lb of shrimp and some biscuits left and that's it!! Granted, we forced ourselves to finish the rest because, of course, you can't save any of that stuff-it doesn't do leftovers very well. So, we feasted and watched football! What a Sunday!

Oh, and I got a haircut on Saturday. This is my new look.


Kinda hard to tell, I couldn't get a good picture on my own, but basically, I lost 3 inches in the back and got a whole lot of layers to add body. The layers start at my cheekbone in the front-so, like long bangs and kinda flip out a little bit. I think it's cute and a little sassy. What do you think?

Labor Day...A Summer's End

This is a little late in coming, but I finally installed the camera software on the old computer, so now we have pics of Labor Day!

Labor Day is always bitter-sweet, don't you think? It is almost always a gorgeous day, hot and sunny, that tricks you into thinking summer is going to last forever this year. This Labor Day was no exception. This was the first weekend that I actually felt like it was summer for us! The three of us headed on out to West Fest on Sunday and caught The 2nd Class Citizens. This was Giuliana's first music fest, and she loved it. She was asleep when we got there and slept through at least 3 LOUD songs. When she woke up, she had a "what the he..." expression and cried just a little bit. I walked around with her for about 2 minutes and she calmed right down and enjoyed the show. That girl loves music! She was just born to dance :)

Monday was a perfect day, too. We went over to John's mother's house in the afternoon. His whole family is on vacation at the beach in Delaware. We were supposed to be with them but due to all the fun times we spent at Binghamton General Hospital this summer neither of us had the time to take off of work. So, anyway, we had the house and pool to ourselves. Mr. and Mrs. Dandelion Dreams came over and we all sunned ourselves by the pool. G rocked the baby pool, which she absolutely adores.


But, she also finally got in the big pool with Mommy and Daddy! She only got her feet and bottom half of her legs wet, but she stayed in for at least 10 minutes, which was really great!


After she got tired of being a water baby she spent some time being cute playing on the porch with Mommy and Aunt Kate.


We BBQed and just had a fun time pretending summer would last forever. Oh, how I wish it would....

The Mama Circle

There is this right of passage in young motherhood (ok, there are MANY, but I am talking about one in particular) that SingleMom aka my SIL, Gina, told me about before G was born. When you have your first baby you suddenly crave to be friends with other moms. I call it your "Mama Circle." It's not that you don't love your old friends who don't have children yet-you love them dearly, especially now because they link you to your "old self"-the self that didn't have to wake up at 4am every morning to get someone a bottle, the self who could stay up late, sleep in, go out of town easily, etc. And the old self that is still caught up in the Relationship, which is important. I have 2 friends who just got married this summer, Mrs. Danby and Sweetfern (isn't it nice that all my friends have blogs that I can link to!) and it was so sweet to see them in full wedding mode!! That primary Relationship-the he/she or whatever you prefer-is of course very important. But when you have a child together, that Relationship so often takes a backseat out of neccessity. It's not that you aren't still in love or that you don't care to spend time together, it just gets so much harder to make that time. And you have this little baby who demands ALL of your attention at least 99% of the time for several months, and then at least 90% of your time for the rest of the forseeable future! That makes you squeeze the Relationship into that remaining time. Tricky. So, while you love to spend time with your old friends who help you stay attached to your old self and thereby help you maintain your Relationship, you also begin to desire the Mama Circle.

The Mama Circle consists of many women, young and old, new friends and people you've know for a long time but are now rediscovering in a new light. They are mothers who have both been there and done that, and mothers who are there and are doing that right now. And mothers who will be there and will do that soon. I find myself relying on advice from women in all stages of motherhood when I have questions or concerns about whatever G is up to. My own mother and mother-in-law. My sisters-in-law. My wonderful friends at work who have kids beyond the baby stage. And my friends who have just had babies and are in the same place that I am. I find myself relating to women in a different context. It's kinda like this secret society, which of course isn't secret and consists of roughly 40% of the entire population, but it feels like this secret society when you first enter it.

Anyway, I have been busy lately building the relationships that are building my Mama Circle. I cherish these women who have already given me invaluable advice and support when I have needed it. And, largely, I would bet most of these women didn't know they were doing that for me. It is just the way the Mama Circle seems to work. What's up with your kids lately? Oh, I had the same problem, here's what worked for me...Or, oh, honey, I have been there! Hang in there, she'll outgrow that phase. And here's the surprise for me that inspired this post. I get to be in other young mothers Mama Circles! There is a woman at work, let's call her M, who had a baby 2 months ago. She just came back to work yesterday. I spent sometime with her yesterday admiring her teeny sweetheart and offhandedly gave her some advice that worked for me. Afterward, I felt like maybe I had helped her out a little, and it felt good. And I realized that this motherhood thing goes round and round and everyone is included in their own way. It's pretty cool really.

I was trying to describe my desire for friends who are mothers to John. I said it seemed almost instinctual to seek out these women, almost like a tribal thing. And the more I think about it, the more that seems just about right.

I'm addicted to blogging, and I need a fix

Oh how I miss my laptop and my camera. Sigh. I still have the camera but I can't load any pictures to my blog. I have so much to say, but I just can't seem to get motivated to properly say it without pictures. I have a great blog response to this post by sweetfern about how big businesses have both created and destroyed this beautiful valley. That post will have to wait till I can get a decent picture of the old EJ building around the corner from my house. And I would love to write about some new stuff with G, but without pictures, its just not as cute.

So, tonight I am gonna suck it up and load the camera software onto the ancient beast in the computer room. And then the blogging can resume!

By the way, unrelated, but if you haven't read this other post by sweetfern, whose blog I am in love with these days, please do. She rocks in the kitchen and has made me feel inspired to create more homemade mamamade goodness for my own family. I am craving to attempt to make blueberry jam-something I have never done but MUST try. First I have to get me some blueberries!