The Hills are Alive

So I came home from work last night and Eli was talking about how he wanted to see "The lady on the hill." Mike said that he had popped in Sound of Music and Eli loved it! Whaaaat? *Cue the angels singing* My son now likes one of the greatest movies of all time???? I can now potentially watch The Sound of Music every day instead of Toy Story or Thomas? Mike put on the movie to show me... Eli LOVES the opening number where Julie is spinning. "Look mommy! The lady is spinning!" When he wanted to watch it again, he tried to describe it as "Again? The lady singing myself?" (Meaning the lady singing HERself). He loved the part where she was running down the hill. He also loved the goat puppetshow and the "cowboy song" aka "I have confidence" where she is wearing the hat. He loved the part where she was carrying the guitar and jumping to click her heels. I'm beyond excited. I took several pictures. :)

After watching a few of the musical numbers, I decided to pop in Wizard of Oz, a movie I tried to introduce a few weeks ago with no success. He LOVED it. Loved the scarecrow and the lion.... was ambivalent about the munchkins.... looooved the wicked witch and the flying monkeys. Oooooh this is going to be fun.

September 2nd: Liam rolls over!!!

So I was skyping with Jenn today and wanted to show her how strong this kid's head is.... I put him down on his belly and put the computer in front of him. Sure enough, he lifted his head waaaay up to look at the screen. I told Jenn that Eli had learned how to roll over on Sept 1st of 2009, so we were both figuring that Liam would roll over in October. I was telling her how I am NOT ready for him to be mobile and that I hope it takes him a long time to roll... when literally, he rolled right over! It's as if he was trying to say HA - WATCH ME. 11 weeks old and rolling over. Let's hope it was just a fluke... I can't have two mobile kids yet!!!!

Funny things Eli says

Eli and his 2 year old self are constantly amusing me with the things he says. My favorite conversations/the most interesting thoughts occur right when he wakes up in the morning or from a nap. Yesterday, for example, when his nap was over, I opened the door to hear "Mommy, I'm taking off my skin." Um...what? Upon closer inspection, I discovered that he had a "boo boo on the foot" and he was picking the scab off. He then asked me if Riley (the cat) had skin, what color it was, and wanted to know if she was also going to take it off. Lol. Typical conversation.

-Whenever he's doing something bad or something he knows he's not supposed to be doing, he tells me "I'm lookin." (As in, I'm just looking... I'm not touching). HA. Looking with your hands? WHENEVER he tells me "I'm lookin" I immediately drop what I'm doing to see what kind of destruction is about to occur.

-I tried to hype up any time Liam was looking or smiling or cooing at Eli to try to show Eli that he was being noticed, etc, and to try to further the bond between the two. Well now it's REALLY comical, cause in my intonation and everything, Eli constantly says (in a high-pitched voice)... "He's looking at you!" or "He's smiling at you!" or "You're a good big brother!" whenever Liam looks at him. He also uses this high-pitched voice to tell me "He's happy!" which usually means he's sleeping or crying.

Speaking of Liam, here are some more things he's going to be able to do when he gets bigger, according to his big bro: He's going to go on the bumper cars and the big choo-choo train. He can eat bread in his mouth.

I looooove hearing the logic/reasoning that goes on at this age. For instance... yesterday, I gave him a piece of ice cream cake (this kid LOOOOVES dessert, just like his mommy) and as he was gobbling it down he told me, "I'm gonna all done my ice cream cake!" :) I love that.

He occasionally busts out with phrases I wouldn't expect him to bust out with.... like yesterday, he asked me, "Mommy? where's the stickers? Tell me, where's the stickers?" Lol. Yes, the grammar was off, but so cute.

The BEST advice we've gotten in a long time was from Jenn who told us to freeze those squeezable yogurts and give them to him as if it were a popsicle. He toooooootally buys it and thinks they are the best dessert ever. Every night, he's begging us for a yogurt pop. He'll even take extra bites of things and eat veggies if it means he can get one. SCORE.

Today at noon, we made it to church (it's been a real challenge for us to get both kids ready at the same time for mass) and I'm so, so glad we did. Eli was REALLY good, sitting still and thumbing through his children's bible for a good 20 minutes before he started talking loudly. Liam slept the whole time. It was great. When I went up for communion, Father Robert blessed Liam and then said to me... "he's the one who got baptized this weekend, right? I'm calling you up to the front of the church at the end. um...okkk. So at the very end of mass, he had me and mike and the boys come up to the front of the church, welcomed Liam to the church and had everyone raise their right hand as he said a blessing for our family. At one point, he held the microphone up to Eli to ask who his brother was... "LIAM!!" who we were... "DADDY! MOMMY!" and who he was "ELIIII!" It's a shame he's so shy in front of a huge crowd of people. Lol... this kid was eating up the spotlight. I'm surprised he didn't grab the microphone and try to sing a rousing rendition of Yankee Doodle. :)

At night, Eli usually goes down to sleep around 8 and then I bring Liam in later. Sometimes, when I go to bring Liam into the room, Eli will surprise me by still being awake...usually he'll start talking in full volume which then wakes Liam up and I have to start the whole cycle over again... but sometimes, he actually whispers "goodnight mommy." I always say "sweet dreams" to him before I leave, and the other night he beat me to it... I told him "Goodnight" and he said "Goodnight, mommy...sweet dweams." Awww. It's moments like that that make up for the fact that he screamed my name on repeat when I was trying to get something important done....or kept his finger up his nose for a good minute...

"Hurricane" Irene

Last week, when new of Hurricane Irene came in, I wasn't too worried. To be honest, I didn't give it a second thought. Hurricanes don't come up here - they're only down south! I worry about my friends down there and think my family in MD might get some extra rain, but that's the extent to my hurricane troubles. Well on Thursday, my boss (I work Saturday and Sunday at a nursing home in Coney Island...on the beach) texted to ask if I was still coming in. Still coming in? Of course! Why would I not? Her text intrigued me and I came online to see what was up. FULL BLOWN hurricane, they said.... The worst storm in 100 years..... It wasn't due to start til Sat night, so I figured I'd go to work Sat and forego Sunday. HA. I then saw on the news that Mayor Bloomberg was ordering a mandatory evacuation of all hospitals and nursing homes in coney island. Whaaaat? So the choice was made for me... no work for me if there weren't even going to be patients to treat! That definitely worried us financially, since I don't get paid when I don't work and I'm only working those two days a week.... but I realized there was nothing I could do about it and I'd just enjoy my time with the family.

The news sensationalized this storm like I've never seen before. It was INSANE how much they were hyping it up. The mayor evacuated part of the city and the MTA shut down all transportation. WOW. We started to worry that this was going to be big! We live in the northern part of Manhattan, so we weren't too worried... and we're not in a high rise. Yes, we live a few blocks from water, but we're relatively uphill. Still... we prepared. I filled containers with water and got out all of the flashlights and candles. We filled our tub with water (so we could flush the toilet) and I packed a bag with all of our important documents in a ziplock bag. Liam and I slept out in the living room since his crib is normally under a window. And then we waited.

The rain started coming down before I went to bed, but it wasn't terrible. I had visions of my windows blowing in, our car floating away, the roof collapsing.... At 3:30, I thought I heard a tornado (HA.. it was the air conditioner). When Liam woke up at 6, I checked all the weather reports online. It said that the storm was still in NJ and wouldn't be hitting us til about 2pm. Oh boy, I thought... a whole day of worry! I finally got back to sleep and then awoke again at 9 (NIIIIIICE.... I NEVER get to sleep til 9! Guess Eli was confused since it was dark out!) and turned on the weather reports. It was only drizzling... we started thinking that maybe it was the eye of the storm.... HA - it was OVER. done. finito. That was IT???

They started saying things like... Hurricane Irene... er...tropical storm Irene.... and I realized... it wasn't anywhere as bad as they thought it would be.

YES, parts of NJ and NY are flooded, but nothing major. OUR neighborhood is fine... I posted a few pictures of some downed leaves and our car in 1/4 inch of water.... We are very lucky.

I think the news is RIDICULOUS... especially when they are STILL reporting on things that don't need to be reported on and are latching onto any kind of "story" they can find. My friend Lauren joked that up in New England, the reporters were cutting down their own trees so they could have something to talk about.

So now it's over and we've all survived.... Liam and Eli survived their first hurricane/tropical storm. And when all is said and done, we had a REALLY nice, really low-key family weekend. I neeeeever get weekends with my family (when I do...they are cause we have an event or something to go to). It was SO nice to have a low key, getting to do laundry and put away my stuff that's accumulated throughout the past month kind of weekend. Yay!!!

Things Liam will do when he gets bigger

Every day, Eli is telling me more and more things that his little brother will do when he gets bigger. He SORT of seems to grasp the concept of "He's too little!" but that generally doesn't stop him from trying to share his food, toys, etc, with his little bro. Today, he wanted to teach Liam baseball, which entailed holding his glove over Liam's face. It's hard to get mad when he's trying to be sweet.

Yesterday, he successfully picked Liam up from the ground. Uh oh. He told me "I want to pick him up." I told him.. no, he's too heavy. Eli... "no he's not mommy - see?" .... and then he PICKED HIM UP. I repeat. Uh oh.

So on to the list of things that Liam is going to do when he gets bigger, according to eli:

-get big muscles like Tito Tommy

-play basketball

-play baseball (more specifically, throw a baseball at the batter)

-wear shoes

-have pockets

:) There are more, but I forget. I'll try to be better at writing them down.

New things

Just wanted to say that yesterday, when we were at the Bronx Zoo with my mom, Liam learned how to stick out his tongue. He's normally SUPER smiley whenever he makes eye contact with someone, and now he's even CUTER with his little tongue sticking out. He was so proud of himself for figuring out how to do it and kept doing it all afternoon. Oh the joys in new discoveries. He also noticed his toes for the first time the other day in the bath, and today I caught him checking himself out in his new mirror toy.

I'm up way too late... just wanted to capture those memories. :)

Liam's Baptism!

Sunday was a fabulous day. Because Liam was getting baptized AND it was my birthday, I decided to take the day off of work. My mom got into town Saturday night, so it was really nice to be able to spend the whole day with her. I woke up early (thanks a lot, Liam, for not going through with my suggested gift of a full night's sleep) and decided to head to church... just me and Liam. It was really nice to be back (if I thought it was hard making it to mass with work plus ELI... try making it to mass with work plus TWO babies who are functioning on different schedules!) and it was REALLY nice to be able to just hold a sleeping Liam the whole time. Father Phillip usually has a stone face when passing out communion, but when he saw me and the baby, he cracked a smile. Yay!

Most of the morning was spent preparing food, something I should have done Sat night but was too tired. Luckily, my brother's girlfriend Kathryn and my mom were there to help me get things ready.

The ceremony itself was nice. There were 7 boys being baptized and the priest moved things along pretty quickly. Yay! Liam was a great boy, not making even the slightest of peeps for the whole thing. He was awake, staring happily at the ceiling for half of it, and blissfully asleep for the other half. He didn't complain in the slightest when the water was poured over his head or when he was anointed with the oils.

Having 18 people over for food afterwards was no easy task, but we did it and it all worked out well. The food worked great and everyone had a good time. Yay!

Today, Mom was still here and me and her and the boys took a trip to the zoo! Fuuuun times!