Flashback Friday....A History of Alex

To bring Alex's birthday week 2011 to a close, I thought it only fair to do a photographic flashback summary of some highlights from his last three years...These are in no particular order.  I just picked a random sampling of photos from the past.  Enjoy!

 Meeting big brother

♥ My fuzzy haired boy ♥

 

 

photos by Sweet Potato Photography

 

Alex with his beloved "fway"

He had this strange infatuation with Aunt Wendy's fuzzy socks!

photo by Antiquities

Dirty Boy

1st Birthday

At his baptism with Godparents, Aunt Wendy, Uncle Noah and Aunt Tiffany

And somehow, in three short years, the little spud above grew into this handsome little boy.  

How does that happen!?!?

Flashback Friday - Traditions

Growing up I had my fair share of traditions to look forward to each year - traditions to celebrate birthday, Christmas, and annual Vacations.

I struggle with traditions to establish with my boys.  Sometimes I think I even over think it (gasp!) at times and try too hard to make everything a tradition that they can hold on to.

Today, however, I decided to share an old tradition my Mom established years ago.  When I was Nate's age, I remember coming home from Kindergarten (it was half-day for me) and my Mom would give me a snack of peanut butter saltines with a sprinkle of sugar...Mom would allow me a certain number of crackers depending on my age, and proximity to meal time, I suspect.  I'd count out the crackers, and create my masterpieces.

Not only are these little ditties delicious even to these days, but they bring back such fond comfort and memories for me.  I remember coming home from rough days in college and making that for my snack.  I'd sit at the table, using a paper towel for a plate, just as I remember Mom doing, and I'd count out my crackers, build my crackerpieces and savor.

I was so happy to be able to share this simple snack from my past with my boys.  Nate got 4 (one for each year) and Alex got 2 to follow suit.  And both seemed to enjoy them as much as I did.  I'm not sure they understood the importance these little concoctions hold but I do hope they realize it the way I do someday.  I at least hope some of my traditions stick...If not this tradition, than the next.

Flashback Friday...Our New Home, 2004

In April 2004, Dave and I purchased our first home.  We had looked in many places but finally settled on finding one in a decent location in the City because that's what we could afford.  Not having any kids at the time (nor thinking we'd have any soon), we purchased this little (900+/- square feet) ranch on Avery Street.  

I do love our house.  It has a HUGE garage, a nice-sized (for the City!) fenced in backyard that doesn't back up to anyone else, and a gigantic dry basement full of possibility.  Unfortunately I am not a big fan of sending Nathaniel to the City schools and the crime and problems in our neighborhood have escalated over the last 6 years.  We've moved from "innocent" little car break-ins and thefts of personal property from our yard, to actual home break-ins and shootings down the street.  I'll pass.  Anyway, I thought I would take a little walk down memory lane with this Flashback Friday and post some photos of our home from when we bought it.  

Our new home!

April 2004

The ugly mint green, maroon, and yellow kitchen with dark green carpeting!

When we moved in that refrigerator had been closed and RUNNING so it was nasty!  It took me HOURS to clean that out!  Dave took to tackling that green carpeting and tearing up the (asbestos!) tiles underneath.  He laid new subflooring and put down a new linoleum tile floor that really helped to spruce the kitchen up.  

This was Nate's bedroom, complete with pee soaked shag carpeting where the old man who lived here would sit in his rocking chair and not quite make it to the bathroom in time.

Our vintage 1970's dining room, with gorgeous (*cough*), gold velvet curtains, gold chandelier, green carpeting and scalloped blinds with fringe!

Here is Nick helping to tear up the pink (!) rug that was in the master bedroom.  Also pee-stained, thankyouverymuch.

Our less than drab living room that had no TV, only a sitting room where people must have sat around and talked (*gasp!*) to each other!

(The living room/fireplace after we painted - much better!  We had every intention of painting this room the soft powder blue we had purchased, but my artistic sister begged me to let her at it.  So she pulled colors of the bricks out to choose the wall color and complimentary accent color for the trim and I think it looks fabulous!)

I have many more photos like this to show the progress we made with weeks of painting, cleaning, replacing carpets/flooring, etc.  There are a million other things I would have loved to do to this place if we were going to stick around and wanted to invest the money (sliding glass doors, deck, finish the basement, etc.).  But the point is that over the last 6 years we have made this house our home and given it a touch of us and I will truly miss this place.

Flashback Friday...April 2006

I thought I'd join back in on this Flashback Friday wave in an effort to pull out some old photos of me and the boys...it's fun to see them a few months or a year ago and see how much they've changed!  A friend of mine was in my office at work looking at old photos of Nathaniel the other day and was saying how funny it was to see him so little.  She said "the face looks like Nate's but I keep thinking, who is that little baby?"

Flashback Fridays are a popular blogging theme.  Heidi does them over at Starts at Eight (she's my personal inspiration in this, and many other things!)  I've seen them here and there's a whole list of them here and here, too.  I used to do a version of them but have since gotten away from it for whatever reason(s).  It's definitely not a new idea, but it's a fun one.  What better excuse to dig through old photos and relive some old memories before I forget them all!

Nathaniel, Easter 2006

 

So I decided to start this week flashing back to this time (April) in 2006.  I was on maternity leave with a brand new baby at home (Nathaniel, of course!) and my life had very recently changed drastically (for the better!!).  There was something to be said about those early days of Motherhood.  I was exhausted, no doubt.  I remember feeling a little bit like I was in a fog for the first few weeks (months?).  But I was on an adrenaline high of some sort, too.  I trudged through my days feeding and burping, changing diapers and rocking to sleep.  Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.  (Although that gives the illusion that I showered with some regularity but let me tell you...that was a novelty all its own!)

Nathaniel, 4 weeks old (even then with his beloved Boo Bankie)

 

I loved not having to go to work for the first time since I had started working at 16.  I stayed up late staring at this new creature that I had created, watching him sleep, making sure he was breathing.  I spent early mornings and middle of the night feedings watching VH-1 videos (it was music!) and would drift off to sleep snuggling the most precious thing I've ever been blessed with!  I cried a lot.  I stressed out a lot.  It was hectic with visitors and chaotic with trying to figure it all out.  But I loved it!

No one could have ever have prepared me then for how tremendously different life would be with a little one in it.  They could have told me all day long that it's hard work and that it has its rewards, but it is nothing compared to how challenging, difficult, and gratifying this job of Mom has turned out to be!

What do a princess, a ballerina, and Judy Blume have in common?

In 5th grade we used to get very general writing assignments such as "use your powers of persuasion to try to bring someone over to your side of an issue", or "tell us about your best friend", or "where did you go on summer vacation?".  It was always fun to write a short story on a specific topic.  

For today's Flashback Friday I've dug out one of my favorite stories from these assignments. Not because of its literary genius, by any means, but because it shows that I had aspirations of wanting to be a writer early on.  I've always enjoyed writing and its come easily to me but it's great to see that even before I consciously knew it, these skills and this love were being honed, developed, and molded.  It's funny because I wasn't able to actually identify this with any assurance until my early 20s.  Read on and I hope you enjoy at some level.

  

If I had the power to be someone else for a day, I would be Judy Blume.  Here is a story of the day I would have if I were her.

One beautiful Monday morning I woke up early.  The sun was brightly shining.  After I ate my english muffin for breakfast, I went for my daily morning jog.  Jogging helps me get ideas for the stories that I write.  While I was jogging down Main Street, I saw how beautiful it was outside.  The birds were singing, the flowers were blooming, and most of the children were outside playing.  That gave me an idea for the perfect children's story.

I ran home and went straight to my writing desk.  I sat down and began jotting down ideas.  I thought it out first and crossed out the ideas I wasn't going to use.  Then I knew what came next, the part I dreaded most, the rough draft.

I wrote it down, but it seemed like I used a ton of paper.  Paper wads were flooding the floor.  After a long while, that felt like an eternity, I got the rough draft done.  My story was called "Spring".  I ran the story over to my editor's office.  He revised it and we talked over a cup of coffee about the things I had to improve.  I took it home, did what he asked, and I took it back to his office.  He revised it and said it was absolutely magnificent.

{The End}

Riveting, stuff, I know.

I have a few comments to make.  First, let me remind you that I was in 5th grade when I wrote this.  That (I believe) would have made me10 years old, people.  (I'm secretly hoping that helps build some sympathy amongst my readers!).  Secondly, I enjoy how I seemed to have a good grasp for the English language, specifically in the appropriate use of the word "wad".  That's impressive stuff.  Also, the detailed description of the writing process is helpful for those who have never, say, done any writing themselves.  I also like that in the end I was able to compliment myself by how magnificent my story was with only a few small edits.  I must be good!  I am, however, quite disappointed in my non-green-friendly practices in this story (referring again to the wads of paper flooding the floor!).  Either way it's fun to look back on this stuff and see where my pre-teen mind was.

Back in the day...

For Flashback Friday I was trying to find a poem I had written years ago when my paternal grandfather passed away.  I had just turned 16 at the time and was struggling with these new emotions of loss and grief.  As I've learned is my way, I wrote about it.  I will share that poem another day, but in searching for this poem, I found many other writings I have saved over the years.  Some of them are entertaining merely because of the innocent perspective my young mind had and the things I held dear at the time but others are impressive for the age at which I wrote them.  (Or at least I think so).  So, I provide you with a sample and am considering sharing more on future Flashback Fridays if I don't start losing readers as a result (Ha?) :)

This is an incomplete story I drafted (complete in my 13-year-old scrawl) in 1989:

Standing outside my house practically bursting with anticipation, I stood, waiting for my parents and brother to walk out the front door and say, "Okay, let's go!".  But they didn't.  They still weren't ready.


It was the summer of 1980.  I was a child of 4, my brother of 7, and my sister, a mere baby.


Our parents were packing for a weekend's vacation at Marineland in Canada.


After what seemed like a long time of waiting out by our car and going in and out of the house to check on things, we were finally ready!


On the long trip there my brother and I often got into fights over stupid things like how much of the seat was mine and how much was his.  My parents probably would have freaked had we not fallen asleep!

Like I said...it wasn't complete but it was a good start.  It told a story of an actual event in my life, I assume for one of those "tell us of a vacation you went on when you were little" type assignments.  I wish I would have finished it.  I'm curious as to how it may have ended!

Summer days, drifting away...

As I walked into work today with a chill in the air, I realized I had forgotten to grab a jacket this morning on my way out. Then I stopped and thought, "A jacket!?!". To be honest, the thought had never even crossed my mind.  For the last couple weeks it's been almost 80 even before I had to be at work at 8 AM.  However, this morning I sadly realized that with this second morning of cool temperatures, apparently summer is over. Yes, cool nights make for easier sleeping but cool mornings serve only to remind me that summer in Rochester is an all-too-brief season. As if in a small town, "don't blink, or you might just miss it". 

So for today's Flashback Friday, I'm rewinding just a couple of short months back to my relaxing summer vacation in the 1000 Islands. I know, it's not much of a flashback, but it will help me prolong summer just a little longer, if only in my mind.

So here's a riveting (ha!) observation I would like to share with you that I journaled about recently while on my vacation in the 1000 Islands:

July 15, 2009

This place has a very predictable schedule of bugs and nuisances.  

The squirrels come early in the morning in search of any morsel you may have left out, dropped, or inadvertently made accessible the night before and reek havoc on your site.  They knock things over, poop on your tables and chairs, dig in your garbage and make their loud crashes, chatters, and bangs known in the wee hours of the morning.  It's impossible to ignore them.  Or sleep through them.

When you first get up and the dew is still fresh, the gnats are everywhere.  Large clouds of gnats hang in the air, tempting you to walk through them only to come out the other side with a parting gift in your eyes, teeth, and hair.  

The chipmunks come and steal what they can but they're so darn cute, you can't help but want them to visit.

Throughout the day it’s the seagulls.  They’re everywhere!  They come in (too closely, for my taste!) and steal anything they can get their grubby beaks on.  They’re LOUD, too.  I’m always chasing them away at nap time so they don’t wake Alex up.  Their territorial squawking is aggravating at best.  They’re pretty ballsy, too.  Not much scares them and they’ll walk right up under your nose to get at something.  

As dusk settles, the gnats make their appearance again.  Millions of them, everywhere.  Don’t breathe too deeply or you’ll be sorry.  They show up in all my pictures looking like fireflies.  They're insane to see.

As soon as the sun sets, however, they mysteriously disappear.  Then, peace and quiet.  The campers get quiet, the bugs get quiet.  It’s fantastic.  

And the best part?  The reason I love coming back here year after year?  No mosquitos.  I have yet to put on mosquito spray!  Nathaniel doesn’t have a single red welt left by their pesky bites.  I love it.  I’ll take the squirrels and chipmunks, the seagulls, even the gnats in exchange for not a single mosquito!!

And with views like these, who can blame us for loving it there?!?