Our family

Our family

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

What a fun week we are having at the house. We have Sara, my niece visiting with her friend Kate. This has been so much fun. I think it is adorable the way that Matthew and Christopher are so excited to be with the "cousins" as they think Kate is a cousin too, and who needs to bother correcting that?
We spent the day in Manhatten yesterday, the truth be told, at first I was so nervous, I have work to do, a party to plan I can't take time to traipse around the city. But I did, and you know it was really, really fun. I had a blast. Only Matthew came with us and he was an angel, to the point that even the girls noticed. He was beaming with pride when they commented on how grown up he seems.
It was great to have some "alone" time with Matthew. The girls had eachother so I really got to spend that elusive "quality" time finding out what is on Matthew's mind. What mainly seems to be on his mind is bugs, worms and dinosours. He had some inisghtful questions mostly I had to tell him to ask his dad.
We all ate at the original Jeckyl and Hydes which was fun, but at some points way too scary for Matthew. They have a creepy butler who kept coming around to harass the girls and tell them they only had a 50/50 chance of getting out of the resturaunt alive.
I bought some cute stuff and got the kids some candy. Matthew loved the trains and the girls kept there cool on the subway. Oh except maybe for when they were dancing to the conga drims on the 'c' line platform, then I really thought we only had a 50/50 shot at getting out of there alive!

Wednesday, July 18, 2007



I am an Innocent alien. I came to earth to be friendly and put things I find around the house in the toilet. Those are my only goals, oh and to walk around like a zombie with my arms outstretched pretending to be monster Mark. My earthly sister Cara does this quite well also. We also play well at being dogs, actually Mikey does this too.

Cara has recently taken to calling me Alessandro, which is my middle name. I have found that what Cara decrees, is so. There is recent talk in the house that Cara needs to receive her own au pair or attendant to meet her innumerable needs. She does not just want juice, but she only wants certain people to fetch it for her, no substitution are allowed, she will drink only from certain cups and her cup choice is given to change, and after the juice has been poured it can be changed back. Generally she wants the cup I have. And then doesn't. It is clear on my visit to earth that the last born female is the largest and the most vocal. Therefor ruling the house of boys with ease. I have seen Mikey take her on and it does not end well. I try to humor her or redirect her attention to Mikey.

The largest children in the house have an endless list of activities, we younger ones are dragged unceremoniously around to their events. These big children are given a lot of responsibility. They must hold our hands in parking lots, never make us cry, and understand all directions given by the mommy person, who spends an incredible amount of energy each day, much of it yelling directions at the big children. Much of these directions have to do with me and the other two, hold the babies hands, watch the babies, give it to the babies, get the babies juice, snack, and be nice to the babies! To our dismay we are referred to as the babies still, though by any standard we are pre-schooler we find it insulting, and yet a relief because the mommy thinks we don't understand things.

The other day I almost gave away the truth. The mom was talking to big ones she said " we are going to gram and papas" I couldn't control myself I shouted "yeah!"
Her head snapped around and she said your happy about that? what could I say besides "yeah!" Because you know, I am. I am really, really happy about that.

Friday, July 6, 2007

Some weeks are rough


The car is broken, and not just a little. The automatic sliding doors are not automatic any more. The driver seat does not move , but thankfully the position that it got stuck in, though not terribly comfortable for anyone, is still manageable for 6' tall Steve as well as 5' tall Dalila. So we just lived with it. Then a few weeks later the odometer stopped working and the back light got stuck on. Still we persevered. Then the call came. Dalila is stuck on Roosevelt Ave and the car is not moving.
All five kids are sick. I don't mean the sniffles. I mean Matthew had 105.1 at one point. For the most part everyone is hovering around 102. Steve and I though not hit as hard are feeling pretty bad as well.
Dalila continues alternate between sulky and teenager-esque giggly.
All together the family has spent the past week bumping off each other with an edginess and tension that makes everyone grateful for bedtime.
But the fourth of July was here and it seemed as everyone had party plan so I made ours. Swimming and illegal fireworks at Nonni's house. So in the early evening, we picked up the KFC and the whiny kids, piled them into stifling hot Big and off we went.
It was cold so swimming was out. It was raining so fireworks were out. We spent the night in a oven hot house, eating bad food trying to keep the miserable children from killing each other. Matthew spent 5 out of every 20 minutes in time out. I finally caved at 7:15 and piled all of the kids back in big to head home. Steve had his own car and followed us. This of course sent the kids into a tizzy, "we want Daddy! Where is Daddy" I did the only thing I could think of, I turned WBAB on full blast and rocked out in the drivers seat. When we got home our exhausted sick kids had fallen asleep on the short trip, in a loud and hot Big. I felt bad for all of the yelling I had done at our fiasco of a party. I felt tired and desperate to get the kids to bed.
But like a dog that can't learn its lesson I have continued to make even bigger plans for the summer and my heart races with excitement to try it all again.