you'd think we needed to call poison control

on saturday, alexander turned five and a half months. now before you think i am one of those crazy moms who celebrates insignificant milestones, i just want to say two things: first we did not celebrate alexander turning five and a half months, we just used that date as the rough time around which we would introduce solids. and second, we celebrated alexander turning one month old by lighting a match that we stuck into a brownie square. and we took a picture, so just in case future babies feel like we love them less, we can show them just how much or little rather, fanfare alexander received. so anyways back to five and a half months. the time has flown. look at my baby at five and a half weeks and now at five and a half months.

on friday, i went to trader joe's and brought my scrunchy bunny an acorn squash. i spent part of nfl sunday roasting that thing and puree-ing it - i missed part of the redskins game, which it turned out, i didn't really need to stay and watch anyway. here is a chronicle of our first try at "solid" food.

*proud pureed squash maker and clearly a first time mom. check out that serving size!*

*a giddy alexander sitting at the grown up table, pre-squash*

*post squash GAG! he's thinking, "someone call poison control, my parents are trying to off me"*

*please mommy, no more squash. please."

when you can't beat 'em, you join 'em

i'd like to dedicate this post to my girl b. the otherday, we had an off and on text conversation for an hour, about deep things, like the game candy crush. (side note, yes, i said an hour conversation via text. i hate phone conversations. i'm either all or nothing. if i can't have a face-to-face conversation with you, i'd prefer to be as impersonal as possible, so please just text me. of course this makes no sense whatsover, but hey, that's my modus operandi).

you should be impressed that two moms, both having five month olds, could carry on a text conversation for over an hour. those of you without babies, you just go on not appreciating having the use of both your hands, at all times. 

we were discussing how awesomely useless our husbands can be as a result of candy crush. not just useless in the "babe, please take out the trash," and he responds, "uh huh..ok [glazed look staring at fake candies dropping down his computer screen]" way. i mean also useless in the, "it's eleven pm, the baby is asleep, time for us to have our quality deep conversations" emotional kind of way. 

sample deep conversation:

me: babe, i'm fat

husband: uh huh...[trill of candies vanishing off the screen in the foreground]

me: babe, i'm talking to you about important things

husband: i'm listening...oh crap, i only have four more moves to get the cherry down to the bottom

me: forget it, i'm going to bed

husband: no no no. i'm listening. really. [pushes the button to start a new round]

see what i mean? candy crush had been threatening my marital bliss for weeks. so the other night, as husband lay in bed, gleefully playing to the sound of candies vanishing, i scooted on over and peeked over at the game. what's this? intriguing!!! and there i was, telling the hubs which candies to switch around, and before you knew it, together, we had beat a round of candy crush. i knew we were invincible as a team, and clearly, candy crush proves it. and now i've crossed over to the dark side. candy crush here i come. sorry b. if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

now eleven pm quality time around here, is us laying side by side, shouting candy crush moves at each other. i'm convinced this is what long lasting marriages are built out of - marital candy crush teamwork. please feel free to email me for more marital advice. i'm an expert ;)

now excuse me while i go brush up on my candy crush skills. i've got a date around eleven tonight and i can't let my partner down.

never forget

*baby alexander remembering grandpa alexander*

i often think back to september 10, 2001. life pre-9/11 and how i can never go back. i think of how starkly divided my life is -  my soul before september 11 and a different, wounded soul after. i use to believe that this rip in my soul could be fully healed and the two versions of my being could be reconciled, but i have come to realize (and accept, a little bit) that there will never be a time that my "now me" will not long for the carefree, whole september 10, 2001 version of me. but that version of me was a lifetime ago.

there is really something amazing about the human ability to go on living; a new normal takes shape and we stumble our way into it. at first, it seems impossible. the grief is blinding. but one hour, becomes one day, and then before we knew it, we had survived the grief and loss by a week, and then a month, and then a year, and suddenly ten years. and now it has been twelve years. twelve incredibly long and incredibly short years. twelve years of big events: birthdays, graduations, weddings, babies. twelve years of mundane events: work, emails, phone calls, family dinners. when i look back, it hardly seems possible that we have made it twelve years without my father, but then what other choice did we have? we had to go on. so yes, this resilience is amazing.

but my father's absence these twelve years makes our new normal bittersweet. in this new normal, we are always aware: dad. isn't. here. new memories keep getting created and none of them include my father. now when a memory of my father pops up in my head, it seems so long ago because it is so long ago.

so today, 9/11/2013 we never forget the lives lost. we always remember. but for my family, it is not just today - everyday, as part of our new normal, we never forget.

have i mentioned?

that the carlsons looooooooove fridays? the weekend is on the horizon, so close i can smell it - almost touch it! i've already got  a mighty to-do list for tomorrow; as usual, i am sure i have planned far more than we can get done, but at least i am good at something. it's called overreaching and overestimating my capacity. it's a real good self esteem builder when i fail time and time again.

but before i start shouting commands at husband and strategically mapping out my saturday, i am going to sit here, drink my black tea, and savor the thought of the weekend - oh so close! (as my blackberry rings off the hook)

what better way to kick off weekend than this?

is there any other more appropriate response to the onset of the weekend? 

romance is a box of tampons

random photo of alexander to kick off a post that is entirely not related to alexander. off to a fantastic blogging start already!

this one's for the ladies.

ladies, one of the signs that you have won the husband lottery, even in spite of his ability to play computer games ad nauseum, is if your husband will go to the local drug store, in the light of day, and pick up a box of tampons. bonus points if he is man enough to call you, and ask you what brand, what size, how many, etc., while in the drug store.

i just have to say, i feel like mother nature has cheated me. i was told that i would go many months, and likely up to a year, with a 'flo no mo' life after giving birth, as long as i was breastfeeding. well despite being a class A milk cow, with the ability to feed africa (said the lactation consultant), flo came back with a vengeance, leaving me curled in a ball. lucky for me, husband took the baby on a walk to the local drug store to pick up some flo necessities, leaving me to take a hot shower and feel incredibly bloated in private. if that's not love, well then i do not know what is.

and so, in this post baby world of ours, a walk to the drug store, and a box of tampons later, and i am swooning. it's the little things i tell you.

note to husband who may or may not be reading this post: a box of tampons does not then excuse you from the obligation to plan date nights or buy me flowers, or take a cue from a chick flick. (what kind of lawyer would i be if i didn't protect myself from liabilities here?)

it's the hormones!

i do not cry in movies. i just do not. ask my friend, dianne, with whom i watched, i am sam. and while she sniffled next to me, i looked at her derisively, and said, "it's a movie. it's not real. this would never happen in real life." [i just got a blindingly bright revelation, i am my mom, because that is word for word, what my mom says to me every time we have watched pretty woman.]

ask my husband. i tease him all the time. you know those sport movies about overcoming racism and going all season undefeated, like remember the titans or glory road, the husband always tears up at the end. husband teared up at the end of the most recent les miserables movie. i am just that hard hearted. stone cold grace is my name. 

so i knew something was up when last friday, as friends gathered around our dining table, and we started to talk about charlotte's web (how did we even get there?) and all i could see in my head is the very last scene, when charlotte dies and wilbur is screaming, "charlotte! charlotte! charlotte!" in that adorable and hauntingly grieving animated pig way of his, and then all her babies but about three of them fly away once they hatch, with wilbur sort of chasing them saying something like, "wait! wait! don't go! don't go." and then i felt it so necessary to reenact this scene (myself starring as wilbur of course, all the while narrating the baby spiders flying away). 

ok all of you out there, you can pretend not to remember this scene, but please, this is one of those scenes from childhood that is burned into forever memory. and out of nowhere, i started to tear up (mid reenactment), much to my embarrassment, and husband's extreme surprise. actually, it was more than tearing up, i started to cry, cause hello, charlotte died!!! and the cute animated pig is heartbroken. i straight up started using my cloth napkin to calm down the waterworks, and for at least five minutes after that, i had to force myself to stop thinking about it, otherwise, the tears would have started to flow again. it just does not happen to me. i turned and looked at husband, and we simultaneously said, "what is going on? must be the hormones!"

so when i set out to write this post, i had every intention of finding the scene, a la youtube, where charlotte dies, and wilbur is desperately trying to keep her with him, but i just could not find it. this is the best i could find. 

but let's be honest, you all remember what happens next and that scene is playing in your head now. happy tuesday night!

finding the "ade" when given a lemon

as some of you know, husband and i have really been going through it with the house remodel and the crook of a contractor we hired. i have been going to bed angry, and waking up with clenched teeth, wondering to myself, "where is justice and righteousness in this world? and might it be ok if i carried out my own form of righteous punishment??"

but this week, as repairs and redos continued, we had fresh concrete poured in for new steps and a new driveway. progress! no more mud piles (for now)! husband had the brilliant idea to make our imprint and mark this momentous occasion/create a semi-permanent reminder of the h-e-l-l we have been going through.

so our little family marched out in the hot virginia sun, fyi, we have been going through a pretty killer heat wave. i feel that you must know this fact in order to appreciate how dedicated we were to turning a lemon of a situation into something more akin to lemonade.

**papa getting alexander's hands nice and moist to optimize hand imprint**

**papa unfurling little hands. surprisingly hard**

**and because it is so hard to unfurl those tiny hands and you can't exactly mash baby hands into mostly dry concrete, the finished product only displays alexander's knuckles. but isn't it the cutest knuckle print you ever did lay your eyes on? just say yes. **

and now, something totally not related. i had a special visitor at work yesterday. i think my boss thought i was kidding when i said i was going to go home with him. but i wasn't. but oddly enough, alexander went home and i had to stay at work.

**this little visitor definitely turned the lemon of working into more of a lemonade kind of day.**