February is only a week away

February is only a week away and I finally feel like I've recovered from the month of December. We had three holiday parties, one ornament exchange, one Christmas-themed bunco, one date night to the Nutcracker and several potlucks. My calendar was packed and when the time came to celebrate on Christmas Eve, I was under the weather and exhausted. I may have overdid it ... just maybe.

December began with Benny's work Christmas party, my 32nd birthday and a hunt for the perfect Christmas tree.

Benny and I

Olivia's first Christmas tree. She "helped" cut it down.

Decorated by Benny while Olivia and I napped.

Olivia using the Christmas countdown that I had as a child.

This was the first Christmas that Olivia was involved and understanding that December is a special time of year. This meant daily discussions about not touching the Christmas tree ornaments or Baby Jesus. Olivia was obsessed with my nativity set from Japan.

One day we were at the store when an employee asked Olivia if she was going to bake cookies for Santa. Olivia looked at me with a panic face. "Cookies for Santa?" she asked. "Yes, we'll bake cookies for Santa," I answered. Then every morning we talked about when we would bake the cookies. I thought we should wait until December 23. Olivia wanted to do it today. Every day.

Benny and Olivia baked the cookies together on December 22. It was quite the stressful adventure. Not nearly as fun as when we were children. I wonder if our mothers were stressed out during this activity with us? Olivia was in full helper mode and wanted to do everything which translates to cookie dough and flour everywhere. She later cleaned up by rolling around in the flour on the floor.

Rolling out the cookie dough

Using the cookie cutters that I used as a child

Oliva is bored with cookies. She creates a mountain with the flour instead.

The end result. Olivia said Santa wanted pink cookies.

Cookies for Santa wasn't Benny's and Olivia's only project this holiday season. They also worked together on our family Christmas letter. Olivia was hands-on by painting her handprints on each and every letter. (Benny's idea, not mine.) I took photos of that project, but can't seem to find. I promise once I locate them, I'll post them.

Finally Christmas morning arrived. We told Olivia that Santa came and she was excited when she saw presents under the tree. Prior to that, we only had brown boxes delivered by "Santa" AKA the UPS guy or mailman.

Olivia immediately dug into her gifts. She went for the presents with ribbons first. Then asked "where are the ribbons and bows, Momma?" Oh, Olivia, Momma doesn't do bows and ribbons.

Eventually she reached for a gift that wasn't for her. It was for Benny. This created our first of five Christmas morning tantrums. Hmmm, we should have explained that Santa brings gifts for everyone in the family, not just Olivia. So every time a gift wasn't for Olivia, she started to cry. Wow. Imagine if she had to watch her seven cousins open gifts. The drama of the two-year-old.

I will not smile for the camera.

The gift she requested ... her own computer.

We must play with each gift after opening it. It was more than 2 hours to open gifts.

Olivia's reaction when I asked to take a photo of her in her coat from Grandma.

Each time, I asked to take a photo of Olivia with her gift, she said "NO!" and made a grumpy face. Nice. Holiday memories to treasure for a lifetime, right?

On December 26, Olivia woke up and asked "Did Santa come?" On December 27, Olivia climbed out of bed and asked "Did Santa come?" She eventually caught on to my answer about Christmas is only once a year and explaining what Santa was doing that particular day (drinking hot chocolate with the elves, napping with Mrs. Claus, feeding the reindeer, etc.) Olivia is lucky her mother has such an active imagination to keep up with her constant questions.

We experienced additional Christmas withdrawal when Benny took down the tree and decorations one night. After searching the house for holiday items during breakfast, Olivia came to this conclusion while looking at her new calendar.

"First we have baby. I become big sister. Grandma comes. I have birthday. We have Halloween. We have Momma's birthday. We have Christmas tree. We have wreath. We have snow. Then Santa comes!!!! Then Olivia opens presents!!!"

Giant grin by Olivia.

Place Your Bets

It's January 14. Baby Valentino/a's due date is exactly one month away. And while Benny has a whole list of things to get completed before the baby's arrival, I thought I would work on the most important thing: the baby pool.

Is Baby Valentino a boy? Or a little sister, as Little O has predicted? For those of you who swear by the Chinese fertility chart, the "official" website predicts a girl. It correctly predicted that Olivia would be a girl.

Will it share a birthday with its cousin Hanna (Feb. 8) , auntie Patti (Feb. 12), or great-grandpa Donald (Feb. 13)? Will it be a holiday baby (Valentine's Day or Presidents Day)? Will it be a Mardi Gras (Feb. 21) baby? Or if it's way overdue, a leap-year bundle of joy (February 29)?

If you look back at historical data from Olivia's birth, a late, rather than an early delivery may be a wise choice. Olivia was born at 5 a.m. on March 8, exactly 24 hours before my induction appointment. I was 41 weeks, 6 days.

The winner for Olivia's baby pool was Auntie Colleen. Will she be a repeat winner?  Or will there be a new winner? Remember the winner gets a prize from the V-Team. It will be cool, I promise.

Good luck and happy guessing.

RU really from Iowa?

I knew that the Pinstripe Bowl was going to be a home game for the Rutger's Scarlet Knights, but I had to go to my first Iowa State football game in nine years. It was only 250 miles away, and Michelle said "you should go." I bought tickets before she had time to think about it and possibly change her mind. Were we really going to try and take Olivia and her uber-pregnant momma to NYC and possibly have baby Valentino in the back of a NYC cab, or even worse, a subway car? Not a chance.

Thankfully my friend was an honorary Cyclone for a day and joined me for our adventure to NYC. What kind of great friend would leave his house at 4am to be at yours by 6am, only to jump in a car and drive for 3.5 hours to catch a train and subway and be ridiculed by Rutgers fans for the next 90 minutes? Jeremy (after receiving permission from his better half).

Was it as easy for Jeremy to get permission to go? When I first asked Jeremy's better half (Andrea) if Jeremy could go, she answered with "Jeremy is not allowed to go." Thankfully she was only joking and started laughing after my jaw hit the floor in disappointment with a look that said "What did you do?" Andrea wished she had her camera to catch my reaction, I'm just glad she was only joking.

Back to the train. I knew it was going to be a long day when I walked on the train wearing my yellow Iowa State hat and was booed immediately, like a false start call before the train even departed. Thankfully these RU fans were good natured, and our conversation went something like this:
RU fans: RU really from Iowa?
Benny: No, I'm from Minnesota.
RU fans: Did you come all the way from Iowa?
Benny: No, I came from Frederick.
RU fans: Where is Frederick?
Benny: Maryland, but he (Jeremy) came from DC.
RU fans: Wow, we won't bust your balls so much. What time did you leave?
Benny: 6am for me, but 4am for him (and he's not even a Cyclone, now that's dedication).

The next fans on the subway had tailgated and had consumed more libations, and were doing the Rutgers chants all the way to the Stadium. Their chants were like a remix of being with Seabees. They somehow combined "RU" with "Ooh Rah" - it was impressive. On the subway, I was a classic picture of "Some of these things belong together, one of these things doesn't belong at all" with my yellow hat in a sea of red and white.

After the "RU, RU, something, something, Ooh Rah, Ooh Rah, something, something, Rutgers, Rutgers, something, something" chants faded on the train, my second conversation with a Rutgers fan went something like this:

Excited RU fan: We say RU, what RU?
Benny: a Cyclone
Excited RU fan: I know that. But we say RU, what are RU?
Benny: an Iowa State Cyclone?
Excited RU fan: No, no, no. We say RU, what do you say?
Benny: Oh, ISU.
Excited RU fan: whatta U?
Benny: I. S. U. - as in Iowa State University
Excited RU fan: shaking his head
Benny: Or we say Let's Go State!
Excited RU fan: Whatever
Benny: Is this the train for Des Moines?

Walking from the subway to Amy's B&B to drop off our bags, we passed a nice gentlemen who admired my yellow Iowa State hat and Iowa State pullover and let me know by saying "DAMN CYCLONES!" as we passed by him. I know he was nice because he followed it up by saying "Enjoy the game."

The Game: you need to score touchdowns to win. We didn't score one until the fourth quarter. A rough game to watch, but a fun one to be around other ISU fans in the bleachers... not so fun to watch the floozies spill beer behind us, all over the back of Jeremy's jacket.

Saturday morning we headed out and grabbed some grub at the Paradise Cafe (the breakfast burritos on the sign outside caught my eye). There was a smell that seemed to be everywhere. We determined that smell to be the beer on J's jacket or the subway. We later learned that most Midwesterners still appreciate a cheap lunch while observing the line of ISU fans that extended way out of Subway (or they were not going to be caught at Paradise Cafe).

We did visit the 9/11 memorial and are grateful to the memorial employee who hooked us up with tickets although we didn't have a reservation. It got me thinking about the events of ten years ago and how our lives have been changed since (as a result of 9/11 and events unrelated).

Other observations:
- The mumbling subway conductor "Ladies and Gentlemen, we will be arriv...., mumble, mumble, mumble."
- All the rules that apply to boarding a school bus in kindergarten do not apply at Newark Penn Station. Rather, they play a game of seeing if if all the people can make it off the train before all the people boarding are able to get on the train. I missed the orderly lines of the subway and train stations of Japan.
- I felt for the poor guy who was with his wife who apparently didn't realize that her poor husband had to experience the joys of boarding a train at Newark Penn Station every day for the last ten years. "OMG, this is retarded" she said. His response "This is nothing, I've been doing this every day for the last ten years."

All in all our adventure to NYC was well worth it, and I look forward to going again with Michelle, O, and Valentino/a. Hopefully the Cyclones can beat the Scarlett Johansson's next time.

(I forgot to post pictures, they'll come eventually... or maybe I'll forget)

Happy New Year!