but, we didn’t. and somehow in the midst of the excitement, the newness, the change from everyday norm; in a moment when i was sitting in the quaintest of restaurants eating the most fabulous risotto crab-cake and sipping a warm, smooth glass of malbec – at the foothills of the blue ridge mountains no less- i wanted to cry. 

and i knew, deep down, that there was no way i could pull my children away from the people who love them, who they unconditionally love, right back. 

the people who make up their dotting family; grandparents, great grandparents, aunties and great aunts and uncles who they ask for by name, speak of and see often and really know. 

people like our  good friends and neighbors who creep through the flowerbeds to give kisses through a screen window, who babysit on the fly,  give the most incredible  hugs and whisper i love you in their tiny ears. 

there is nothing in the world more important and more right than surrounding your children with people who love them. 

and sometimes on nights like these, when i’m standing in my back yard amongst neighbors and friends admiring our newly leveled, poison ivy-free grounds,  the decision we made to stay in connecticut feels all the more right. 

when jackson runs to lisa with arms wide open, wraps his tiny arms around her neck, relaxes into her warm embrace and listens as she tells him how cute he is and just how much she loves him my heart fills with happy. she is our friend, our neighbor and our kids “auntie” and she loves them as if they were her blood. 

and that my friends is just one example of about as good as it gets. 

if your children know they are loved – and feel that love – what an amazing, powerful gift. 

we may not always live next door or within driving distance to those we love and who love our kids. 

but in the here and now this is what we need, what we want and what we are so incredibly grateful for. 

to all of you who make up this incredible circle of nurturing love, i thank you. there is not enough breath to tell you how much you are appreciated, how often just thinking of you makes me smile and how unbelievably humbled i am to know you. 

my children are growing into happy, confident people with your help. for this, i will be forever grateful.

one morning as we were getting dressed she explained how it had been a tough day so far because a piece of fuzz was stuck in her vagina.

another colorful day she described to me the differences in boys and girls and their anatomy, which was fine and dandy – until she thought it would also be appropriate to describe how she and her brother’s differed from her mom and dad’s. in great detail. oh, boy. way too much information, thanks. her mom and i have had a few good belly laughs about his one. oye vay.

during vacation i got a little glimpse of jackson entering this stage.

i was wiggling my nose at him – during noses - our version of an eskimo kiss (is that what it’s called?). he cocked his head to the side and got in real close to my face.

with the most inquisitive and perplexed expression he said, “mommy, grass in there?”

lorday. no, sweetie, that is just mommy’s nose hair. i know, it’s funny, but there is hair inside your nose. and yes, you are totally right, it does look like grass.

may i add now that i apparently have no shame;  nothing is holy anymore. from deflated boobs to grassy noses, i’m lettin’ it all hang out.

better out then in, my husband would say.

and while we’re airing the laundry, let me tell you about a lovely skin pigment condition called melasma. aka, hannah has a mustache.

i have known other women with melasma (or chloasma: onset during pregnancy) and started ever so slightly noticing it on my upper lip after a few sun-exposed days. but with my gagillion freckles, it was hard to tell. perhaps i was just seeing things.

well, upon returning from beach day numero tres i almost collapsed on the bathroom floor. i had a mustache. full on brown mask-ish mustache. you’ve got to be freaking kidding me.

after scrapping myself up off the floor and letting my hair down (as if that would help soften the blow) i approached justin and my mom and explained and showed.

it took a couple days for justin to stop looking at my lip when talking or looking in my direction (he’ll tell you otherwise, but i know the truth). and you know it’s really bad when your own mother doesn’t try to tell you you’re wrong. when she says, “i’m so sorry, hunny” instead of, “oh no, you can barely see it – all in your head”, you know you’ve got a serious problem.

the good news is that it did diminish and now is almost gone. but research says will return/continue as long as i’m taking birth control. or pregnant. gulp. let’s hope it’s the birth control that brought it out and not the latter.

double gulp.

and so today, a week after my mustache debut, jackson looks at me as we’re getting ready in the morning and says, “mommy has a mustache!”. funny what those little, incredible minds take in, filter (or not) and then regurgitate.

damn does it feel good to talk about your insecurities. you should try it.

as alice provensen says in the year at maple hill farm, “then again, no horse is perfect”.

she’s right. then again, apparently neither are any of us.

besides, i’m sure if i get huge boobs some day that will offset the direction of any onlooker’s gaze.

bring it on mustaches and hairy nostrils.

big (ger) boobs, i have loved you so.  i will forever cherish the day my milk came in. the day when most women cringe and yelp and apply cold compresses  i was trying on a triangle bikini top. bring on the pain. because trust me you, this is the only day that pam anderson and i will ever have anything in common. they were totally and utterly x-rated material. all huge and firm (ok, borderline bursting) and up in my chin. and ok, you get the picture. not to mention my dad reads this…

the months have gone by and the pam anderson look has, shall we say, depleted (ok, and deflated) but the memory will live on. at the time, i remember my friend lauren telling me to take a picture. and shit, i wish i had.

“doc  i’d like to look like this, please.”

not that i’d ever really consider implants. well, maybe if they didn’t have to detach your nipples and put pieces of giggly plastic in there i might…i mean, has no one figured out how to make boobs larger with fat deposits or something healthier and more natural?

i digress.

but dang it’s fun to talk about boobs, no?

ok, i digress (again).

besides deflating boobs, lots has been happening in our house – or our beach house, i should say. well not our beach house. but the house at the beach that we were lucky enough to get to stay in (again) this summer (thank you clarke family!).

 most important, the ocean (and newly constructed anti-erosion, gobi-ish beach)

a blissed-out  beach babe

and water chasing (or avoiding) toddler.

a new croc wearing, stair climbing extrodinaire

and a smiling, toes in the water, sun on the back, happy to be alive, family.

not to mention the silliest of 2 year olds and his admiring side kick

the most amazing late afternoon sail

and a few sand dune jumps. why not?

now, it’s back to reality. and a lawn that looks incredibly like a field of corn. (too bad for jackson, no cows to go with it.)

on the plus side, the road adjacent is getting re-paved and all the big equipment and burly shouting men are stationed smack dab in front of our house.

this has provided endless hours of enjoyment (and rekindled love for the steam roller) for jackson and some breathing room for mommy to get things done  chase around an almost walking, into absolutely everything 11 month old.

oh happy beachy, summertime wednesday to you.

take  monday morning for example. i am on the phone with someone from our corporate office going through a cash flow statement. no biggie. phone to cheek, toddler hanging off one leg, baby dangerously close to scaling the staircase – this is routine, and doable.

but then a few moments later came the dreaded words, “uh oh, mommy” followed by a waddling, almost (operative word here) potty trained 2 year old.

and i wondered as i knelt down to pick my son’s poop off of our hallway rug and wood floor what this lady on the receiving end might do if she had a visual to go along with the audio. it takes a seasoned professional to simultaneous clean human feces, keep a 10 month old out of the infected area, hush a too loud toddler from trying to explain why his poop is now on my floor instead of in his potty (while trying to poke and inspect it – trust me, it’s real) and carry on a work-related conversation.

i so deserve a raise. (vic, i know you’re reading this.)

and i know that blogs are way more fun to read when there are pictures involved – because really, who can stay stimulated long enough to get through these things without a picture to break things up. but trust me. you’re much better off with only the words on this one.

chances are i hadn’t showered. wait, let’s be honest, i definitely had not showered. and was absolutely sporting the outfit i had gone for a run in just an hour earlier complete with sweat stains, blood and dirt (from the baseball field pit stop – for said toddler to run bases – gone awry).

it’s all about deception, really. trying to paint a picture of idealism in a world of total chaos. but really, when it comes down to it my world is ideally chaotic. or chaotically ideal. however you want to slice it.

and later that night as i snuck away to put my little girl to sleep it hit me again – how lucky i am.

and because this is just too sweet to handle, and because this blog is my kids “baby book” and i want to remember these things…

we rock in a chair while she nurses. i stroke the little arm closest to me as her fingers trace the outlines of my face; my cheek, my lips, my nose. i bend down and kiss her sweet head, let her intoxicating aroma fill my nose, my lungs, my soul.

when she’s had her fill, i stand and she lays her head on my chest; nestled in snugly under my chin. one arm under her bottom holds her up and the other wraps around her back – rubbing and holding. and her tiny toes sweep across my legs – when did she get this big?

i cock my head to the side and catch a glimpse of her face – the rhythmic motion of her pointer finger rubbing the top of her nose as she sucks her thumb, eye lids heavy and closing.

and the past few days i started whispering to her. saying out loud the thoughts i have always had but was too afraid to utter in the perfect stillness of her room.

i tell her how much she is loved. what light and wonder and amazement she brings to my world. i promise to teach her the really important stuff: to be kind, and wise and confident in the beautiful skin that is her own.

and i hold her as long as i can, which is inevitably too long. until she squirms and wiggles and leans towards her crib.

i kiss her one last time and whisper in her ear. she nestles into her cozy bed, belly down, butt pointing towards the heavens.

quietly i tip toe out and into the hall already anxiously awaiting our sweet reunion in the morning.

and so goes the cycle – from hair pulling, poop cleaning, sweat stained days to nights like these. and back again.

imperfectly perfect.

i grew up in a small immediate family but in a very large extended family. my mom and her 5 siblings lived in and around the same area (except for one long island branch, who we still saw often) and there were lots of cousins, aunts and uncles. and our own family lives pulled us in dozens of different directions – that is until we met up at the hill.

this is the hill.

(courtesy of realtor.com – yes, it’s for sale. if only i had $344,900. oh, and lived in new hampshire)

it’s the home my grandparent’s bought and moved their family of 5 into in the early 1960’s. leaving new jersey behind, in a station wagon packed with 5 kids, 2 adults and two cats (one of which-the pregnant one- escaped somewhere around hartford) left new jersey and headed north to new hampshire to start a business; a new life.

and from 1981 to 1995 it was also my life.

my rendering of this special place is my own. it may differ from my cousins, my aunts and uncles, my mom. but, for me, the hill was the epitome of family. it was the gathering place for birthdays, holidays and pool-side bbq’s. it was the place my cousin alex and i played forts and spied through the grates at our family below. shot rubber bands from home-made rubber band guns – hey, it was the ’80’s -  scaled the laundry shoot and hid in the lazy susan. i have a repetitive dream with images from the wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom. and the blue shag carpet in the closet that my cousin locked me in one day (until i screamed bloody murder and was set free by some cousinly paserby).

it’s the home of tropicana hannah – the song my grandfather wrote and performed with his trumpet for an eager and proud family. with the ultimate easter egg hiding stone walls and fire work settting off back deck.

it was in this room that we spent each christmas – a group of 30+ scattered among couches and chairs and the floor opening, one by one and in order of age, our presents.  i can remember the smell and the sounds of our laughter as if it were last week.

this fireplace, the place my mom and her siblings hid their old shoes – in hopes of tricking my grandmother into buying them new ones. i found several pair one day in the side ovens,  dusty, covered in soot and smelling of fire. my grandmother was shocked and baffled. those tricky little children.

and over the years much has changed. the hill is no longer ours. my grandmother, and the backbone of our family, is no longer with us. my cousins and i grew up and moved away. many of us busy with our own little ones and the daily life that seems to speed along faster and faster with each passing month.

we are fortunate to see each other on holidays and for the occasional dinner or birthday party but often, for me, these times seem too rushed and too surface and too…not like they used to.

and really i can’t help but wonder if my memories don’t depict reality – that maybe they are just the remnants of a young care-free girl, barefoot and giggling, running with knotted hair and black-bottomed feet. and i know that even if i could re-create those days now – the house, the people, it would be different. that era has ended.

i don’t want to be debbie downer;  even without the hill i am fortunate to share my life with the people i do. i have been blessed with a family of wonderful, kind, good people. this, i’m sure, is why i chose them. and really, i think, i miss them. i miss knowing them on the level i used to. i miss sharing daily nuances, birthday’s, bbq days, whatever days; you know, the kind where you kick back, open up and are real.  

and now that i have children of my own i am  desperate for their creation of similar memories. i want them hanging by their undies from the door frame in the ultimate wedgie from uncle dan. i want them picking blackberries in the bushes around the pool at the edge of the woods. i want them running through a house full of people, out a metal screen door and onto a porch worn from years of bare feet and bottoms;  the simple grandeur that was life on the hill.

i know, and have known for a while now that this won’t change without effort. and without the desire and passion of the next generations. i know my desire runs deep and burns fiercely. i am too proud of where i come from to let it slip away.

so, this is my goal -along with humpteen others -  this year.

my hope is that soon i’ll be sitting amongst the chaos of children, the buzz of voices eager to share, listen and laugh. and it will hit me, out of the blue, that i am there. in the new era of family traditions, overloaded with the faces i love, the embraces i have felt for a lifetime.

when i get there, i’ll let you know. it’s going to be fabulous.

in the meantime, if you’re reading this and have an extra $300 grand laying around, there’s this house atop a big hill i’d love to buy.

it involved a long, warm shower and an ice cold beer. if you haven’t tried this combo before you have greatly missed out. something about the warm, steamy air and the ice cold goodness is relaxing, refreshing and revitalizing all at once.  

my great friend christina turned me on to this, i think. we had a shower in our dorm that had a seat in it. again, shame on you and your running-free minds. but yes, you’re right. what designer puts a seat in a college dorm bathroom. moving along…  

a few weeks ago i tried it for the first time since college. and almost as quickly as the water came out the beer went down - hip checked it off the side ledgy thingy. unbelievably it didn’t shatter but it did turn completely to foam and foiled any chance of wonderfulness. i vaguely remember justin asking what the heck was going on (and maybe if i was still alive) and sheepishly muttering something about my beer…slippery…every thing’s ok.  

so tonight with a quiet, husband-less house, i tried it again. miraculous.  

might i add that i’m looking for a backer to help fund a bathtub surround with built-in cup holders…  

the past few weeks have been hot, humid, curly, frizzy and full of cows. jackson is totally obsessed with farms and the cows that live on them and the poop that comes out of them.  

luckily for us, farms are abundant here. as are farm related books. and make believe barns, like under dining room tables and in toddler beds. and even luckier for me the best farm of all has a world famous (ok, maybe storrs famous) creamery called the dairy bar.  

i found this when googling the dairy bar to insert the hyperlink. it was kinda educational, made me giggle and paints the picture. so here you go:  

and this is how we spent last sunday and a couple others the last few weeks. and boy does it feel good to live life together, exploring the place we live. something i’ve been missing and really needing.  

kellogg farm, storrs, ct

i’m not really sure how we got from drinking beer in a shower to a day at the farm, but there you have it.