she twerks!

and it's really, really cute.

will is three!

on saturday, we threw will a birthday party for all of his friends, 

gathered from play dates here and there. 

 it was a humble little party, at home, with a long table cloth and 

paper napkins and a homemade cake and train-themed goody bags.  

bunny crackers were served in festive cups and juice boxes were available for the grabbing.  

everyone got a turn to hold the lightning mcqueen balloon and pull a string from the thomas pinata.  

it was, i think, everything a third birthday party should be.    

the gentle smile on his face as he scanned the room while everyone 

sang him "happy birthday" was my favorite part of the whole day. 

pure magic.

 cake-eating was like a marathon sport for these kids.  

quinn missed her morning nap and struggled to partake in the festivities.  

she did enjoy her cake, though!

will hugged each one of his friends good bye as he handed out their goody bags.

at the end of the party, a guest commented, "will must have felt like a king." 

in the very least, i know he felt loved, and that's enough for me.  

no greater joy

the moynihans

11.8.13

                           

  

(photos by tara trimmer)

willspeak, 35 month edition

on wanting more friends:
(points to dead bug on play mat) "mommy, can i have a play date with dat bug soon?"

on needing to poop:
"there's a mystery in my tush!  i don't yike mysteries.  i want a diaper with no mysteries!" 

when the cat walks by him and accidentally brushes against his leg:
"mommy, emmy gave me a yove snuggle!"

when he spots bean sleeping in the sunlight:
"oh, yook at dat precious dog!"

on his sister's tears:
"oh, mommy, does quinnie have some beers?" (no, bud, that would be daddy)

after farting, twice:

"daddy, my tush said 'woof! woof!'"

on the differences amongst his friends:

"mommy, my bad friends yive in de bad houses.  my cool friends yive in de cool houses." (um, okay?)

on colin's singing:
"daddy, you're not very good at dat song i sink."

on the recent picture of him and quinn hung on the wall:

"mommy, i yove dat picture!  dat's when me and quinn were happy!"

several times a day:

"i have a hangnail!" (stop everything!)

in a high-pitched, sing-songy voice, while snuggling dog bop:

"oh yes, dog boppie, i yove you!  i yove you dog boppie! dog boppie, i'm your boy will!"

upon realizing he forgot to bring dog boppie downstairs after nap:

"oh, mommy, you better go get him."

when we began sleep training his sister:

"what the f**k is up with quinn?"  (thanks for that one, daddy!)

every other moment of the day:

"mommy, you're a poopydoopsie!  quinnie's a poopydoopsie!  daddy's a poopydoopsie!  bean's a poopydoopsie!" (forced, maniacal laughter follows)

halloween 2013

behold, the very hungry caterpillar and his funny bunny sister.

and one sassy lady.  work it, boyfriend!

this october

quinnie boo, the boo, girlfriend, soul sistah, angel girl, beautsy.  can be won over with even the most off-tune rendition of "leaving on a jet plane," and may join you in singing it.  has discovered the joy of feeding bean.  has also discovered the joy of the iphone.  wants whatever her brother has, much to her brother's chagrin.  kicks like a wild woman in the bath tub.  finds getting dressed highly offensive. likes sparkly things. gets googly-eyed over her daddy, and yells at her mommy (mommy works for her).  eats cheese.  army crawls (to will's toys). inspires. possesses endless depths of calm.  knows the secrets of the universe.  knows way more than we do.  knows it's all good.  

will, bug bite stew, bug-a-lug, sweetest, boy boy, burp boy (that's what he likes to call himself).  says "yet's play some cars" all day long, if he's not saying "i wanna watch a show."  fights naps by claiming he has a fever, headache, or big poop.  climbs into his car seat by himself.  wants to be told a story, and you'd be smart to include yake yawn yodge when you tell it.  pushes grocery carts and races his cars down the slide and hops on his pogo stick like a big boy. impresses.  has an exciting new friend, paxton.  journeys to the magical forest.  demands band aids.  runs the show. yells. challenges. loves.

and that's what you need to know about my boo and my bug this october.

she came with the house

it was mid-august when she arrived, meowing loudly at the fence while katie and i played with the children in the backyard.  she simply showed up one day, enthusiastically and expectantly, and never left.  

i've never been much of a cat person.  all my life i've had and loved a dog.  dogs are in my blood, my bones.  cats, not so much.  they kind of scare me.  i don't really trust them.  but emmy insisted.  and insisted.  and insisted.

we began to feed her morning and night, and she made our bushes out front her bed.  with every crack of the front door she dashed to meet us, meowing and purring along and around our legs as we walked to the car.  

she also bit us.  and scratched us.  first me, then colin, then my dad, and my mom, and the plumber, and then me and colin again and again.  we acknowledged that it was a problem.  it is a problem.  

but most of the time she wanted love and affection, actually seemed to need love and affection, from some desperate place inside of herself, and we couldn't help but feel like the chosen ones.  

then, as they do, the nights began to cool, and we began to worry about our wild little friend.  and so, after the kids were asleep, and bean was in bed, too, we let emmy in.  it was a little dance at first - in and out, a treat here, some catnip there.  colin spent the night on the couch with her a few times, and then she seemed to settle on the chair.  she was always out by four or five, gently meowing at the door, escaping before anyone else was up, and returning to her bush for a long days work.  

colin and i did our own dance, too.  should we keep her?   we can't.  not with the kids.  not with bean.  i cannot handle another mouth to feed right now, or more poop to clean up, for that matter.  absolutely not.  no.  she's going to a shelter.  we're attracting skunks with all this cat food.  maybe we should feed her inside?  how do we feed her inside?  well, she seems to be settling down.  she really wants to be here.  i'm starting to trust her.  i'm not.  i am.  i'm not.  and so on.

and then, we started to worry about her getting pregnant.  a certain black cat has also been lurking around the neighborhood, and emmy acted particularly wired when he came her way.  we started to envision little emmys all around, and we got scared.  so yesterday, colin took her to be spayed, and like that, the decision was made.  emmy is ours.  emmy is here.  

she's up in colin's office at the moment, recovering from her surgery, which ended up being entirely pointless, as the vet found no ovaries after making that big, brutal incision on her belly.  poor girl was either born without them or was, more likely, fixed at some point in the past (though they couldn't find a single scar to prove it).  i'm sneaking in when i can to give her treats and a pet, and though she was disoriented and scared yesterday, today she seems calm.

i've found myself wondering throughout this ordeal, who is this cat?  who was she in a past life?  did i know her?  did colin?  why did she choose us?

probably, because she smelled a sucker and knew we were keepers once we fed her.  but i like to think there was something more to it.  something mystical.  something magical.

i also realize this makes us crazy.  i mean, really, taking in a stray cat when you already have a dog and two little ones?  crazy.  i suppose we're willing to wear that hat.

so anyway, please welcome emmy, now the newest, and the littlest, moynihan.

kindred spirits, soul sisters, and so much more.

everything went wrong, and yet everything was exactly right.  our trip to the waterfall was cut short due to a crying baby and slightly ambitious dreams to fit all eight people onto three bicycles, it rained on the neighborhood petting zoo party, and we visited the apple orchard on a "no apple picking" day. peter choked on a hot dog, and quinn woke up nearly every hour, every night.  

but, the missed waterfall led to a stop at the dam, with its barges and elevators and long ramps and waving captains, and our little boys' hearts swelled with glee.  the rained out petting zoo resulted in shared conspiracies to watch another caillou on the ipad, and probably a dinosaur train, too.  the "no apple picking" rule at the apple orchard didn't apply to those deep bins of honeycrips in the barn, which was all our boys wanted anyway.  and peter, well, peter was okay, and anne's heart will be too, though maybe it isn't yet today.  

and quinn.  quinn, in all her indescribable beauty and cuteness and serenity and smiles, was driving mommy off the deep end with her nighttime nursing.  five times on friday night, six on saturday.  and then, anne and i treated ourselves to a special mommy-only dinner on sunday night, which, in itself, renewed my heart and soul in a way that only a dinner with anne could.  during this dinner, during which the dads cared for and put the children to bed, something mysterious and unspeakable occurred.  it's a secret tom, colin, and quinn will take to the grave, and i believe involved some crying, but lo and behold: quinn now sleeps.  nearly through the night.  it's incredible.  i might survive, afterall.

there's a bigger story here, though, than the events of the weekend, which were, in themselves, legendary.  the bigger story is about friendship; friendship in multiple shapes and depths and people. friendship of the heart, which is the best kind, the most real kind, maybe the only kind.  the kind of friendship that makes it all worthwhile, the kind that life is all about.

there's me and anne, of course, and tom and colin, and adam and will, and petey and quinn, but then there's also will and anne, petey and me, tom and quinn, and adam and colin, and so on and so on.  in small moments and big moments, brief hugs and full on kisses, friendship bloomed and flourished and touched us all.  

it's hard to write about, hard to fully capture, because there's an element of the experience, or, more specifically, of the experience of my friendship with anne, which has, for the most part, existed in writing, and has involved and required examining the deepest parts of our worlds and beings; there's an element of it all that surpasses words.  it surpasses language.  it just is, we just are, and that's the way it is.  and it's pretty awesome.

here are a few photos from our weekend in saint paul.  

hauths and moynihans on the hayride at the apple orchard

touring saint paul on bike (not shown: mommy and daddy on the tandem)

so many hugs.

fun at the apple orchard

the start of the train ride (note: will's hand affectionately resting on adam's  leg)

the end of the train ride (note: will's laying down?)

painful goodbyes.  will's protest sit-down and quinny and petey's final embrace.

me and anne.

sometimes a dog bop gets thirsty

see this magical concoction?

this is dog bop's water.  dog bop is will's most special, treasured, precious, stuffed animal/blanky creature.  dog bop sleeps with will every night and has existed since the beginning of time and holds a sacred place in my boy's sensitive and open heart.  and sometimes, apparently, dog bop gets thirsty.

we realized dog bop was thirsty on thursday, when instead of the usual trip to the park or children's museum or errand or play date, we decided to just stay home.  in truth, it was because i was too tired to do anything else, and the compulsion to "get out! get out!" wasn't strong enough to fight my extreme exhaustion.  thank goodness we did stay home, because otherwise we might never have realized 

dog bop needed a drink.

we began with a clear plastic cup, which we decorated with a few choice stickers, and, over the course of an hour, added several magical ingredients that we knew dog bop would love, including oranges and strawberries and corn and broccoli and water and some unspecified mystical gray goo.  when we finally went to give dop bop his first sip, will whispered in the sweetest, most serious little boy voice, 

"dog bop, mommy and i worked very hard on this water for you."  

at that moment my heart exploded and i melted into a puddle of love and gratefulness for that little boy and the time i get to spend with him. for the first time in a long while, i let myself float.  

i let all of it be.  

sometimes, you need to allow for nothingness.  

sometimes, that's where the greatest somethings come from.  

thanks for the reminder, little boy.  i needed it.

there's something happening here

(what it is ain't exactly clear)

call it the evolution of girlfriend, call it the sleep rebellion of 2013, call it crazy baby, call it crazy mama.  whatever you want to call it, it's flipping hard.

take last night, for example.  last night, i put quinn down to bed at 8:00.  i nursed her and popped in the bink and laid her in her crib ("time for cribby, quinnie boo!").  she screamed.  i rubbed her back and popped the bink back in and she rolled about and got an arm caught and got a leg caught and screamed some more.  i put her back in position and popped the bink back in and rubbed her back and avoided eye contact, which invariably leads to a case of the baby giggles.  this went on for twenty minutes until she finally, blessedly, fell asleep.  until 10:30.  quinn woke up screaming at 10:30 and 11:00.  both times i popped the binky back in and she rolled over in her crib and went back to sleep.  at 12:30 she woke and only nursing would do.  so i nursed her.  then she flailed about in the crib for a while so i put her in the swing.  she swung and slept until 3:15, when, again, only nursing would do.  so i nursed her and laid her back in the crib.  she slept in the crib until 5:00, when, again, only nursing would do, but no, the crib would not then do, so the swing it was.  she swung until 6:00, and nursed again, popped in the bink, and slept in her crib until a solid 7:45.

take last night and multiply it by twenty nights plus daily nap battles, and you'll find me, here, exhausted and desperate.  it's a place i know quite well (hello, will).

but really, what's a girlfriend to do?  who wants to sleep when crawling is just a moment away, and baby food is so very, very yummy, and mommy laughs and works for me and daddy sings and will is fascinating, and bean, oh that bean, not enough can be said about that dog bean.  who wants to sleep when you live in a world like that?  i get it, girlfriend, i do.  now go to sleep.

that quinn.  mighty, indeed.