No such thing as perfect

2288 Nickelby :)

Waiting to meet the "Easter Rabbit"

Anderson and Jake thought he was great!

Love this one!

I'm really in over my head with the school thing. It seems like I'm always doing homework, but yet feel like I'm not doing enough of it. This blog has suffered greatly because of it. I'm down to the final two weeks of the semester so I have to get this done.

Anderson and Jake are thriving. They are doing awesome with the potty training, when it comes to number one. Number two is a different story. They just have no interest no matter what the bribe. I guess we'll just wait it out and as it gets closer to fall we'll start to panic. Not only do they have to be potty trained for preschool but they also have to be able to manage the whole process without assistance. I cannot even fathom that at this point, but we've got some time.

Last week we dropped off some clothes at the dry cleaners. Anderson asked me where Kevin was going and I replied that he was taking the clothes to the dry cleaners. There was a long pause and then Anderson asked "Are they wet?". These little men are just too cute for words. Even when they are getting sassy, my first reaction is to kiss those little cheeks. Jake has told me on a couple occasions this past week that I was his girlfriend :).

This weekend we went on a wild goose chase to track down a new kitchen table. Shortly after moving, I put our kitchen table on Craigslist to kinda "feel out" the market. Our table wasn't going to match our new kitchen at all so I knew a new one was in our future. Surprisingly the table got lots of interest within just a couple of hours of me posting it and it was sold the very next day. We have been eating off a card table and folding chairs ever since. So for the past three months I've been scouring the stores and internet for the "perfect table". I found out the perfect table costs about 5,000.00. Uh no, not with two three year old boys.

So finding something within the budget that was good quality has been near impossible. On a whim, I called the Pottery Barn outlet that is about an hour and fifteen minutes away if they had the table that I liked there (not the 5,000 one, just a runner up). They did! I was thrilled, I confirmed with the employee that it was the one I was looking for and Kevin and I headed out to Birch Run. Did I mention it was less than half the price of the one they have in the regular store? When we arrive we find out they have the table, but the two leaves are missing!?!?!? SOB. The table isn't nearly big enough without the leaves. They had another table we liked, but the colors were just not right for our new house.

This morning I found a table I liked at World Market online. All the World Market stores in our area had closed a couple of years ago, but there was still one open in Ann Arbor. So for the second day in row, we drove over an hour to reach our destination in hopes we would like the table we saw online. It's a great table, solid wood, heavy, good quality and most importantly it got 105 reviews online and all of them were glowing. It's not my "perfect table" but it beats a card table.

Our basement was finally dug this past week. For a while there Kevin and I were beginning to think the builder ran away with our life savings. It would appear not. The basement has been dug and the phone number is still connected. Whew!

Wedding weekend

Rishi and Vinaya

Neal, Kevin, Rishi and Mehul

The head table

Cutting the cake...you can sorta see just how gorgeous the dress was

Kevin and I spent this past weekend in Raleigh, NC. A friend from college was getting married and it turned out to be an event to not be missed. Kevin's friend is a Hindu Indian as well as his wife, so this was a very traditional Indian wedding. Lots of culture, vegetarian food and gorgeous Saris.

On Friday we arrived around six in the evening. Friday night was the Mehendi, so we quickly changed out clothes and headed to the party. There was probably over a hundred people at the Mehendi, they served a full dinner, had entertainment and even a cold stone creamery type set up. I had my hand painted with a beautiful design covered in sparkles.

The next morning we were served breakfast at the hotel and headed out for the Barrat. The bar rat is the groom's procession to the actual wedding ceremony. They (the police) actually closed down some streets in downtown Raleigh for the groom's Barrat. The groom was in an adorned carriage being pulled by an equally adorned horse. There were traditional Indian dancers/drummers that led the procession through the streets. Once we arrived at the venue, the wedding ceremony began. It was a two hour ceremony and the bride didn't arrive until 40 minutes into the ceremony. It was acceptable to leave during the ceremony and have some hors devours that were set up right outside the ballroom. The ceremony was broadcast live over the internet for the families in India that couldn't make the wedding.

Later in the evening was the reception. Everything was beautifully decorated. The food was all vegetarian Indian dishes. The bride had on a beautiful pink and gold dress covered in beading. There was entertainment from two different groups and a picture slide show of the bride and groom with the families over time. It was by far the most extravagant event I have ever been to.

I haven't been keeping up the blog lately and I'm just not feeling a well thought out, insightful post so here are some of my thoughts in random order...

The boys are using the potty pretty regularly. Anderson is staying dry during the day and will tell us when he needs to go. Jake will only go when we make him and if we don't make him often enough he will just use his pull up. Neither guy is going number two, they just don't have the patience to sit and wait for it. For now I'm pleased with the progress they've made.

There has been absolutely no progress with the new house. Nada, nothing. We have no basement and with the weather the way it has been I don't imagine we'll have one anytime soon.

I've got three classes down and two more to go. I hope to finish by April 15th.

The boys sleep patterns have gotten totally ridiculous. They jump around like maniacs in their cribs every night till nearly 10 p.m. We put them to bed at 7:30. I HATE having them in the same room, life was so much more calm when they slept in separate rooms. It's just not the late night mayhem, it then filters down into the daytime. They are overtired and crabby and it makes for very long days during the winter. Tonight was the mother of all meltdowns, poor Jakey was in hyperventilation mode.

Everyone keeps asking me when I'm getting my braces off. Honestly I have no idea because I'm too afraid to ask the orthodontist. I've been back three times since my surgery and I haven't asked the most obvious question. In my mind I'm going with June and at this point I just couldn't bear to hear any longer than that. My mouth is in such a constant state of irritability and I'm so sick picking shit out of my teeth that if it were any longer than June I fear I might just quit and have them taken off now. The goal of June is what gets me through each day and if it's not June I don't want to know.

Kevin and I are going to a wedding in Raleigh, NC in a couple of weeks. Kevin's friend from college is getting married at one of the hotels downtown. The bride and groom are both Hindu Indians, so I am looking forward to experiencing the culture and traditional wedding. We are even going to attend the Mehendi so this should be a great experience. I bought a new dress and I'm going to get my hair done and try a spray tan right before we leave. Of course I'll still have a mouth full of metal and rubber bands, but a girl can pretend right.

Virgina Piorkowski

Valentine's Day started off great, the boys loved their little trinkets and Kevin made us all homemade waffles. I had plans to meet up with my sister to head out to Oxford to visit my Grandma. After the visit we would meet up with the husbands and children and all have dinner at the Rochester Brewery.

When I arrived at my sister's house, it was clear that everyone had been crying. My sister was extremely choked up and broke the news to me that my Grandma had passed away. Grandma moved to an assisted living home where my cousin works as the director. She has been there for about 5 months. Her overall health and ability to live on her own has been deteriorating for the past year. She really seemed to like her new place and was in better spirits than she was when she was living on her own. Although she had been growing weaker with age, she had no major health issues whatsoever.

My niece, Claire, had spoken to her around dinner time the day before. She said she wasn't feeling well, but anyone who knows my Grandma knows she never feels good. She could be a bit of a hypocondriate. The assisted living community calls their residents every morning to make sure that they are okay, and Grandma didn't answer the phone. They sent someone to check on her and discovered that at some point after her dinner, she collapsed. The medical examiner concluded (without an autopsy) that she suffered from either a stroke or cardiac arrest.

I felt very sad but at the same time I couldn't help but feel pissed off. Not at my Grandma, but at the whole chain of events. We had gone to a birthday party two weeks ago close to her home and I called her that day after the party asking if we could come visit. As I mentioned earlier, she often didn't feel good and that day she said she didn't want any visitors. So we missed out on an opportunity to see her that day, and then on the day Tina and I planned to visit her she passed away. I spoke to her on the phone about a week ago and I'm frustrated that I can barely remember our last conversation. She called while I was dealing with crabby boys and I'm sure I was short with her but other than that, I can only remember a couple of things that she said.

The last time I actually saw her was Christmas and that was just a week and a half after my jaw surgery and I was feeling miserable and not exactly in the moment. So that's why I am pissed. People you love aren't just supposed to disappear out of your life without a proper goodbye. The whole situation just feels so unfinished, I was supposed to see her on Sunday. I was supposed to give her my undivided attention because I was coming alone, without any distractions. I know for certain I would have kissed her goodbye and told her I love you.

My Grandmother was complicated. When my mother was pregnant with me, my Grandmother experienced a nervous breakdown of sorts. She worked at a bank and something triggered her and after that she became very mentally fragile. She developed agoraphobia (sp?), a fear of being in public places, and suffered through bouts of depression. I have always known her to be very up and down. During a majority of childhood I have nothing but wonderful, warm memories of her. She often took Tina and I for the weekend. She and my Grandfather spoiled us rotten as we were their only grandchildren. She spent time teaching us to crochet, bake and took us shopping. She never said no. Always slipping us a couple of dollars or some kind of chocolate treat. I always knew how much she loved Tina and I, she never let an opportunity pass to tell us.

Even as a thirty something grown woman, my Grandma still gave me chocolate bars. She was generous, friendly and kind. She was also vain, stubborn and difficult. She was 100% Polish and along with that came crazy superstitions and a very unhealthy obbession with cleanliness. It also meant delicious polish dinners, angel wings and homade periogis.

She was very much up and down. As a I grew older she had more bad days than good. It was a slow spiral after my Grandfather died of cancer when I was 15. The past five years, the good days were far and few between. She increasingly became paranoid about living alone and no matter how often we visited or picked her up and brought her to our homes to visit we could never relieve her feelings of lonliness. When she called us on the phone, she usually ended up in tears, she struggled with anxiety daily. It consumed her and she was no longer able to carry a normal conversation. Our conversations strictly revolved around her anxiety and medications she was taking and usually ended with her mad at one of us because we weren't doing enough to help her. It had become a tragically sad situation, she was in a place that none of us could pull her out of.

But every now and again, she would call and not have a care in the world. I would catch glimpses of the Grandmother I remembered and cherished. It would remind again of just how lovely she really could be and how much of her life she dedicated to her family. I'm thankful for the those conversations, because they gave me the patience to handle the "other" phone calls. As I have reflected on her life the past couple of days, it's been all about the good times. I haven't even given too much thought to the past five years and how difficult it has been rather I find myself remembering her generousity and love. It's interesting how the love can trump everything else.

Great Nanny will be missed

My Grandmother~ Virginia Piorkowski

My Grandmother passed away unexpectedly today. Too tired and sad to write much now, it's been a long and emotional day. I'm deeply saddened that her time with the boys was so short. They'll never remember her, she absolutely adored them.

Finally

Both Anderson and Jake have produced for the potty!!! We aren't even minutely close to anything consistent but at least they finally broke the seal. Both of them are pretty impressed with themselves and will only use the potty on their own terms but its progress.

We have tried out wearing some undies around the house, Anderson only had them on for about 15 minutes before he pee'd on the floor. As he did it he said "um, I think I'm pooping on the floor". Thank goodness it wasn't poop. Right now they have a potty chart and are working towards getting RC from Toy Story.

Jake is doing somersaults. He just randomly started doing them at the McBride house on Sunday. Little stinker is pretty good at them too.

I checked out a pre-school program for next year last week. I met with the teacher, toured the facility and quietly observed. It had all the elements you would expect to see in a pre-school. I know the boys would have an absolute blast while they were there.

Next week is mid-winter break. Kev and I are contemplating taking the boys to the Great Wolf Lodge again. I think we'll decide as it gets just a little closer. I'm afraid a reservation now will almost guarentee us that someone will get sick, cause that is just the law of nature.

Elmo's Green Thumb

Waiting to enter the theater

Kev and his bubbies

Can't go to the show without some popcorn and m &m's

Abby's Fairy Flying School is the boys' favorite part of Sesame Street

This weekend we took the boys to see Sesame Street Live. It was down at the Fox Theater in Detroit and the boys had a fantastic time! It was bone chillin cold so no photo ops outside the theater but the boys loved being downtown and meeting up with their "Sesame Friends". The amount of anticipation and excitement in the air was precious. The show did not disappoint, everyone on the show was there....even Grencheta. The boys were excitedly shouting out the monsters names as they came on stage and listening to them sing "Sunny Days" with their Sesame friends was heart melting.

Outdoor colors we chose for the new house. This is the brick, stonework, roof and paint colors we will have.

Possible kitchen inspiration

Possible Kitchen inspiration II

The front door we picked out

Time for an update. It seems like things should slow down after the holidays, but it's been a very busy time for us. I'm feverishly working at finishing the 15 graduate credits needed by the end of the school year for a salary increase at work. Rumor has it we are facing a 20 percent pay cut so this is just to try and balance the scales. If we do get such a large pay decrease I won't be actually getting an increase, just less of a decrease. Sad, but I'm thankful for my part time gig. Last weekend I attended class ALL weekend and it finishes up next weekend. I so missed my bubs.

Kevin and I have also been spending a considerable amount of time making color choices for the new home. We met tonight with an interior decorator provided by the builder. My head is spinning. There are so many choices and I like almost all of them. I'm just trying to make this home as timeless as I can. We are there for the long haul and I don't want the house to look dated before its time because I chose something too trendy. We have looked through all the home magazines out there and one recurring theme we see over and over is white/cream kitchen cabinets. I've never lived in a home with white/cream cabinets so this feels like a real risk to me. I love them, but not sure we could pull them off. The interior decorator tells us this is the way we should go for longevity and that is what she has in her home so that helps. I'll need at least another weeks worth of sleepless nights before the final decision can be made.

The boys are doing awesome. When aren't they? They are looking forward to an exciting weekend. We are taking them to Sesame Street Live and on Sunday they are off to a friend's birthday party. I am going next week to take a tour of a preschool program that is on our short list of preschools for next year. The plan is that I will switch my teaching schedule to mornings and they will go to school three days a week while I work. The other two days they will be at home with one of the Grandmas. If they were potty trained I would seriously consider sending them sooner than the fall. They really seem ready and I think they would love it, but potty trained they must be. Speaking of potty training... well that's just not happening around here. No way, no how, take a hike Mom and Dad. These little guys have close to zero interest and if you took the m &m's out of the equation they would have zero interest. We did however have success taking away the binkies. We're letting them keep them at naptime, but they no longer get them at night. This was a huge milestone and victory for us. Next up will be continue with the potty training and big boy bed transition.

Build a Bear

Anderson waiting in line with his moose.

Making birth certificates

All done!

This was their reaction to the stuffing process

Picking out a heart

This weekend we took the boys to Somerset Mall so that they could "build a bear". Anderson asked on the way there if he could make a moose instead. Not wanting him to be disappointed, we did our best to gently convince him they wouldn't have a moose. It is of course a bear workshop, not a moose workshop. No sooner did we walk in the store that Anderson was holding a moose feeling very satisfied. Jake chose a moose as well for his animal and we waited in a super long line to stuff our moose.

The boys were pretty unsure of the giant machine that stuffed their moose. They could have pushed the lever with their foot to make it turn on but they wanted nothing of it. They did enjoy picking out a heart for their moose and giving it a good bath before we left. There were some dicey moments during the process, the boys seemed overwhelmed at times but I think they had a positive experience.

Sledding

Getting all dressed for the cold

Daddy helping Jake.



Ready to go!

Dad pulling the boys up the hill

Dad and Jake cruising down the hill.

We got a decent snowfall overnight on Thursday, so on Friday afternoon we took the boys sledding. Behind my Grandma's condo there is a small burm that is just the right size for a sledding hill for the little people. The boys were crazy excited as soon as they woke to all the snow on Friday morning. They've been waiting for us to get enough snow so that they could sled. It was pretty cold out so we were only out for about 20 minutes, but the boys loved it. Jake enjoyed going down on the sled whereas Anderson enjoyed throwing the snow.

More Sledding

Jake getting pulled around


Anderson doing his throwing thing

Snow Bubbies

Jake Thomas

Wheee!!

First Teeth Cleaning

Anderson James ready for some oral hygiene

Looking good

Anderson is laughing cause he thought it tickled

Jake holding his own

All done!

Unfortunately it wasn't the first time that Anderson and dentist met. Last year the poor guy had to have a double root canal on his front teeth. This, however, did not detour this amazing little boy from be boppin into the dentist office for his first official cleaning. According to the hygienist, Jake had some "pep to his step" as well.

I was thoroughly impressed with my bubbies. I was so excited about how cooperative and happy they were about their cleaning that I even called Kevin from work to talk to him about it... and he was there for the whole thing. :)

They even tolerated having plaque scrapped off their little chompers, flossing, and a fluoride treatment. Afterwards Jakey didn't want to leave. That made me smile because on the way there he was nervous that the dentist was going to take some of his teeth.

It was as if I saw such a different side of them. They seemed so independent and grown up. Guess I'll have to go overboard with some TLC the next time someone trips. Just so they don't forget how much they need me.

More 3rd Birthday Party

Anderson, Ashley, Simon, Jake and Drew

Anderson sneaking some frosting

Happy Birthday beautiful bubbies!

Make a wish...

The boys had their third birthday party today. The theme was Buzz Lightyear and the boys had a blast. They ran laps around the basement, ate lots of junk and tore through the wrapping paper like little pros. A big thank you to the McBrides for hosting the party for us while we are temporarily displaced from a permanent home.

3rd Birthday Party

Jake wearing his Woody hat

Anderson wearing his

Eating dinner

Time to open gifts

The cousins

Birthday Luncheon

Today we took the boys to the Rainforest Cafe for lunch and a carousel ride. It was a quaint little family outing for their birthday. They have been seeing lots of commercials on PBS for the Rainforest Cafe so they have been asking to go for quite some time. We sat next to the gorillas which was not a good idea. Both of them were pretty freaked out by the unruly gorillas. We had to reposition them so that they were as far away as possible from the gorillas. Poor Anderson sat like a statue every time they came on and was scared to even look at them. They did confirm to us that they liked the elephants, just not the gorillas. Tomorrow will be the big birthday bash.