The Price of Business

6 markers. 1 roll of scotch tape. 1 dining room table full of marker. 2 foil-wrapped caramels. 18 saltine crackers. The headband off your head. 1 in-operable Blackberry. 1 load of laundry. A milk and juice soaked Onesie, AND a herniated disk from being 9 months pregnant and repeatedly picking up a 25 pounder yelling "up! no down! up!", while leaning for optimal cell phone reception. THAT. That my friends is the apparent price of doing business with me at 6:30 PM when my husband is at the Celtics game.

On the phone while dropping blanky.



Where'd those wrappers come from?


I am not sure there really is such a thing as an after-hours call, but when I told the partner there were 2.5 hours out of 24 that were really not a great time for me and he chose (after much polite protest and gentle encouraging otherwise) 30 minutes smack in the middle of that time, well, I can't say he wasn't warned. And I can't say, I was quite prepared for what ensued. I thought I could entertain Elliot with special paper pens & crayons. I set her up at the table (where she has previously played quiet and contently for 10-40 minutes at a time) right next to me and my computer and cell phone. She tore threw the paper, unraveled the entire scotch tape roll and marked up the place all during the 7 minutes waiting for the phone call to begin. Clearly I could not sit next to her, so I lugged my stuff to the kitchen counter, leaving her strapped in her chair. My call came in. 9 minutes late now and Elliot is already done with all the special activities I planned for her. She starts yelling to get down. I have to comply to keep her quiet and hear my client. She drags her chair to the kitchen counter. Climbs up and is banging on my computer with me. I take back the mouse and am "calmly" trying to explain to Mr. Partner what all these spreadsheets mean to him. Out of the corner of my eye, Elliot has a mustache. It is chocolate. Unraveled and being stuffed in her face from a Christmas basket leftover on the counter. OK, I think. So a little chocolate caramel before bed was not in the cards. At least she is quiet. The second piece I practically unwrapped for her. She wants down. She wants up. She wants my headband. She wants the phone from my ear. I am 6 spreadsheets in with only 4 to go. Elliot has not interrupted in at least 2 of them ... oh! because she found another phone and a bag full of saltines. She is a very busy girl and is looking forward to our next call and all she can pull off then. Oh, and I am pretty sure this one was only about 12 minutes. All photos were taken after the call (I am not THAT good, or irresponsible to take them during), though she was not sure we were off it yet.

Happy 70th Papa!

Ben's dad John, Elliot's "Papa", just turned 70. We celebrated in a lovely private room in one of Boston's oldest restaurants haunted (maybe quite literally) by some of Boston's historic royalty, like JFK. Though not required by the restaurant, we made it our own black tie affair - which is no small feat for a party of 10 with 2 pregnant ladies and 3 patrons under 8 years old.

It was touch and go if Elliot was even going to come to dinner with us. Since the night before, we took her out to eat with us, and without warning, no coughing this time, and no other signs of illness, she threw up all over us, the table and herself. And not just a dainty little bit. I am pretty sure we are banned from Not Your Average Joe's date-night Fridays for ever more and probably indirectly reminded some patrons to use birth control that night as we ran out of there like a scene in a horror movie. Poor Elliot! She recovered at home, but we feared a repeat performance at Locke-Ober (who recommended the private room in part bc they don't take kindly to babies!).

Turns out she was a super star diner. Enjoying her (dad's) JFK Lobster Stew, all the bread basket she could eat, mashed potatoes and french fries. Special thanks to Alex & Zoe & the ghosts down the hall for keeping her entertained most of the night.


The Kids in the Hall


Elliot explaining to Ammi what happened at dinner last night...

Posing with the posse.

The Ladies


The Gents.

The flaming dessert of fire! It kinda fascinated and scared the kids.


Elliot & Ben leaving into the night.

Tricycle Time!

Elliot loves her new tricycle and I love that I can steer it for her. Once there was a break in the snow, we took it for a spin. Pedaling is not yet a strong suit of hers (again the push bar steering thing is awesome!), but she loves being on it. We went for a mile long ride in her pink coat and sunglasses and she kept her gloves on and her feet on the pedals the whole way. Is she really only 18 months? Whatta trooper!



After the trike ride, it was time to get down to DJ business. Who has been singing B I N G O with her? We have never seen the moves she pulled out when this song came on. Oh, and I realize (and maybe you wouldn't if I did not point it out), she is still not capable of dressing herself. So don't ask what she is wearing.


Finally, she remains obsessed with her robe, and we remain obsessed with photos of her in it. Busy day at the spa for her?

Happy 2008!

Once again Mindy and Chris graciously hosted a rockin New Year's eve dinner. Last year, they did it out of pity on us with the "newborn" ... this year they hosted out of pity for us with the baby and the mama who can't stay awake past 9. We cleared out early, leaving them to celebrate New Years at the proper time.

The girls, however, did not seem to care that the "New Years" celebration was at 7:42 pm. They led us to the porch with pots and pans to bang. Happy New Year! This celebration was preceded by a delightful kareoke concert with Elliot on the keyboard and Charlie at the mike.

Manic Nesting Underway

Still recovering from the unnecessary but very cool Mini-Kitchen project, it donned on me that it is nice for Elliot to have a place to store her fake veggies, but we have no place to store Baby #2, arriving in just +/- 6weeks, who is planned to share a room with Elliot. As calmly (ha!) as any hormonal pregnant mama could, I shared this thought with Ben. Who started buzzing again. He immediately set off measuring Ellie's closet - in the dark, while she slept and then designing online; ultimately creating a list of materials. This time for our 3, yes ugh 3, trips to Ikea. We are really big fans of their installed closet systems and it helps that Ben can customize them for our wiley closets. Turns out, we should not have built a kitchen for Elliot, but a construction work bench (watch out, birthday is coming) since she took to this project like no other. She wasn't around for the kitchen project, so she jumped into this one. Literally. She had a screwdriver and every time we turned around she was like a little grease monkey looking for screws to turn and drill buttons to press. She was very good at hard-to-reach places!


Elliot is so excited to start a new project that she lost her shirt. She is starting a "take my clothes off if I can" phase.

BUT, she really loves her new robe. She gets out of bed pointing at her closet, "Ro...Ro...Ro..." until we put it on her. Then, she makes us wear ours too and will not let up until we are all in Ros. Hmm, and I thought she would never wear the thing!


So here is the closet "Before" picture. We accidentally deleted the really good one that showed this closet with all the stuff in it. Picture a closet bar packed to the gills with mini kid hangers of clothes and from the shelf above to the floor below otherwise just filled and stacked on top of each other with bags of diapers, supplies, outgrown clothes, baby items out of rotation, that practically fell out the doors every time they were opened. Oh, and Auntie Kassi, if we ever pick a name for Newby, you are going to have to cough up some new hand painted letters!



This is one of the 75 photos we have of Elliot helping out with her screw-driver. She preferred the hard to reach locations and did not like to be interrupted for photo shoots!


And, midway through the project, she let me in to pose with her. I've been accused of "Austin Powers"-style hiding my pregnancy on this blog - not intentional. See, I really am due soon!



And voila! Finished product. Who wouldn't want to spend New Years Eve doing this?

Christmas Continues

Somehow, this is the only picture we have of Elliot in one of her 3 Christmas outfits.  She and Zoe had quite a time sitting on the floor between the pews at church playing.  We brought Elliot up at Communion - not meaning for her to partake, and they gave her a wafer, which she promptly dipped in the wine as it passed by.  As we walked back, she was pointing to the front saying "mo mo more!"  That girl hates to miss a snack!

With presents mailed in from Grandma & Auntie Shannon, every morning seems like Christmas.  We took this photo with the fun new tri-pod Grandpa sent.  Not sure what we will do tomorrow when Elliot wakes up and there are no presents to open!

Elliot modeling all her new scrunchies - at once.  

Snow Days!

That lil' Nor'Easter that kept us from decorating Nana Spitzer's cookies did not stop us from fun at home.  Elliot donned her "Chef in Training" apron (and now requires all of us to wear them) and got to work.  First order of business is spearing and then biting a square of butter!  hmm, maybe she is not ready for commercial work just yet.

And don't despair, there were plenty of cookies to decorate at Ammi's with Uncle Jamie (et al) the next weekend.

Cooking is over and now it is time to go outside and shovel with Daddy.   She has been out in the snow once before and here is what she thinks of it.  

In spite of her sporty new snowsuit, Elliot refuses to move.  Not one step as the snow builds up around her.  She softens up a little bit only after Ben swoops in and holds her up high.

'Twas the Nights Before Christmas

And we realized that the toy chest we bought from an estate sale months ago to paint into a play kitchen for Elliot was shelved until spring when we could sand & varnish outside... do it properly, blah, blah, blah.  This seemed fine until it was the Friday before Christmas and we had no big fun toy for Elliot.  Ben's Heywood gene kicked into overdrive as he declared he was stealing my paint project and going to build the kitchen.  It would be done by Christmas morning.  No worries that we had a thousand other errands and fun we had planned to do during this crucial time that was now to be spent under heavy construction.  After several trips to Home Depot, Target, Marshalls, and the scrap pile at Jamie's, finally Santa's Workshop was created in our Den of Slack.   Ventilation be damned!  Noise in the middle of the night? Who cares!  Elliot will have a kitchen!  And by golly, it is going to have running water and heat!

Here is the bare toy box, with the lid already removed and the drop cloth in place.

Santa's Workshop has already sanded & primed, getting ready for the tough stuff...anyone spot Ben's favorite "tool" to accompany him on all projects?  Its in the picture, upright on the left.

Fast forward after documentary picture slacking and here is the finished product.  The oven door opens.  The faucets are real (and Kohler!  just kidding).  The sink is removable and the lid still opens for storage.  The only painting I was allowed to do (from a project that was not meant to be 3-D or this cool, and a paint-pretend kitchen) was the burner knobs, and I was micro-managed!  But it made it to the tree before Christmas morning. 

 

And Elliot went to work right away!