No more romantic getaways, please

You couldn’t pay me to go on a romantic getaway with my husband. No way. Not happening. And I’ll tell you precisely why:

Every single time we try one of these weekend getaways, one of us falls terribly ill.

Not just a cold or a bad headache or some pre-menstrual cramps but a stomach flu or mysterious raging fevers. And this weekend it happened AGAIN. This makes the fourth of fifth time in the past year or two.

David and I drove up to the Hudson Valley to attend the wedding of my dear friend Amelia, whose letters from Port au Prince I posted after the earthquake. Amelia kindly invited the children to the wedding and I kindly declined to take them. The last wedding they went to, my cousin’s, was such an ordeal we’ll never forget it. Apparently, neither will my cousin. Last year she told me the clearest memory she has of her wedding ceremony was Primo yelling, “I DON’T WANT TO GO TO THE CAR!!!!!” as David dragged him kicking and screaming down the aisle, after he had a tantrum during the wedding vows. So we don’t take our kids to weddings, if at all possible. Plus, since our own anniversary is coming up we thought we’d make a romantic weekend of it, have some steamy loving in the Courtyard Marriot. Cue Marvin Gaye.

On the drive up, I had definite presentiments of illness. Scratchy throat, growing feeling of weakness. By the time we reached Poughkeepsie, I called Amelia to let her know we couldn’t make it over to her parents’ house forthe pre-wedding pizza party. I was feverish, shaking, seriously ailing.

And so it was that our first romantic night was spent with me shivering in the hotel bed watching The Real Housewives of New York City (OMG my new favorite show, I was loving it, though maybe it was the fever) while David drove up and down the highway looking for Tylenol, cough drops and a pair of pajamas, since I’d neglected to pack them and a sick person needs her pajamas.

Then we ate hamburgers from the diner next door in our bed while I moaned in misery.

In the middle of the night, the chills came. I despise the chills. There is little worse than the feeling that your blood is freezing in your veins. I hobbled around the hotel room in search of more blankets. There were none. I called the front desk and was sent to voice mail. SO helpful. Then I put on my sweater, David’s fleece jacket AND my own jacket, and laid all the towels from the bathroom on top of me, under the blanket.

Are you getting a picture of the hot loving? The R and R? The marital renewal??

Raw suckage, I tell you.

Next morning, I propped myself up, Weekend at Bernies style, and survived the wedding. It was a beautiful wedding and I cried like I was making French onion soup. By 5pm I was back in the hotel bed, shivering and moaning. Repeat Friday night feverish festivities.

Sunday morning, though, we received an EXTRA treat. David and I were roused by a mindblowing, earsplitting fire alarm going off. The alarm was going off in our room as well as in the halls and everyone else’s room in the hotel. I can not possibly describe how loud the fucking thing was except it reminded me of those devices hardware stores sell which emit sounds at a frequency that mice hate to keep the vermin from your house (don’t work, by the way, our mice just frolicked around them). So we stumbled around throwing our belonging in our bag, half-mad from the roar of the alarm, tripping over bottles of Tylenol.

I feel REJEUVENATED; let me tell you, after that weekend away.

Maybe on our next romantic getaway, we can both get root canals.

How to get a baby boy or girl

Since the dawn of man, people have been trying to figure out how to conceive babies of a specific gender. There are books about it with various crazy strategies to increase the chances of having a girl, or a boy. But I am here to tell you that yesterday my grandmother told me the secret.

Yes, I now know how to conceive a specific gender, and I will share it with you.

Here’s what my grandmother told me.

"You know, in my time, everybody used to say it was the woman’s fault if she didn’t have a boy baby, and you know, these men would get mad at her. ‘Why didn’t you give me my boy?’ and it was terrible. Me, I don’t care. Me, I was so happy I got two daughters and I got five granddaughters. But anyway, all these time everybody thought it was the woman’s fault and they blame her and call her names. Sonofbitch.”

She went on:

“But now, of course, they find out it’s the man’s fault. He’s one who makes it a girl or a boy. He’s the one who plants the seed, you know.”

This still was unclear to me, but thankfully, she went on to clarify:

“You don’t plant a tomato and get a pepper. You understand?”

So there you have it. Men, it’s up to you. Get your seeds straightened out before planting time.

Me, I’m grateful my husband likes a diverse assortment of vegetables because I hit the jackpot and got a tomato AND a pepper.

Commitment, 5 year-old style

Primo's BFF, Leigh, the chick he made the mix for, has been talking to him about commitment.

Yeah, that's right, going steady. Primo is pretty clueless about what it means to be boyfriend and girlfriend -- thankfully -- and Leigh probably is too, but she's a girl, and by the age of about 3, girls know they need to be married. I know this because of my recent daily proposals of marriage from my daughter. Stands to reason that by age 5 or 6, they know that having a boyfriend is a precursor to having a husband.

So, Leigh wants to marry Primo, pretty much as soon as possible, and though she is his best friend, he's not ready to be tied down.

"Maybe," he told her, "But I might have to marry Seconda."

Kid's got priorities, after all. Family first.

So today I pick Primo up from school and he told me that this month, he's excited because he's sitting at Leigh's table.

"But Leigh's always talking and talking about how we are boyfriend and girlfriend and how we have to get married," he said, "and its really annoying."

If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say . . .

Then don’t say anything at all.

This is my new motto with Seconda who has become, I have to confess, outright hostile to almost everyone she encounters – strangers, friends, people in authority, her family. If someone in the elevator says, “What a beautiful hat!” she will say, “No! You can’t say that!” If a friend's mother says “Hello!” she’ll reply, “I don’t like you.” We’ve moved way past “Go away!” in terms of rudeness. And the worst part is, of course, my SEARING embarrassment because people must think I’ve raised her to act this way.

But I realized yesterday that my daughter is not the only one in our family who needs to learn a lesson about tongue-biting. I will now relate to you a one-hundred percent true and un-exaggerated list of remarks my grandmother made in the span of one hour:

12:27pm:

“Dio mio! This house is a pigsty! I don’t know how you people live like this!”

12:45:

About the new photo of Seconda I’ve hung on the wall:

“What a terrible picture. She’s so gorgeous! Why don’t you ever have a nice picture of my poor baby!”

12:54:

About the new, expensive curtain we hung up on the kid’s Maxtrix bunk beds:

Her: “Why you hang those things up? I think the baby’s gonna feel suffocated.”

1:15:

Her: “You husband came to my apartment yesterday after he did his exercise and he was wearing these little itty bitty shorts and – Dio Mio – I was worried! I say to myself,‘These are Nicole’s shorts! Why he dressing in Nicole’s clothes? Something wrong with him?’

Me: “Those are biker shorts, Nonnie.”

Her: “No, its impossible a man gonna wear something so tight!”

1:23:

I see that a dress Seconda is wearing is looking a little tight so I remark: “Wow, that dress is almost too small on her.”

My grandmother says, “Don’t worry, You’re gonna lose weight.”

“Non!”

“What? You said you pants are too small and I’m telling you they gonna fit you again one day!”

“Ok, that’s it, Nonnie. You know what I’m gonna have to do now? I’m gonna have to write a blog about you.”

“Good. I’m gonna write a blog about you too.”

Meme'd!

I've been memed by the ladies at All Kinds of Pretty. Now, I don't know precisely (or really at all) what that is, but who am I to resist what seems to be a viral zeitgeist-y phenomenon? I present to you, my bag:

This bag was purchased from Old Navy, for $19.99, about 3 years ago. It’s not a diaper bag, but has worked perfectly as one, with the twin side pockets for bottles, and now sippy cups. But dude, it has not fared well over the years and I am definitely due for a new one. Look at the size of this tear in the front of the bag:

Now for the contents:

What surprised me about this exercise what how little of this crap is for me – it’s all stuff for the kids:

Five kinds of snacks (to be fair, we just got off the plane from Tennessee, so my snack supply was fully loaded).

Change of clothes, training diapers and wipes even though my youngest is pretty fully potty-trained (I know the first day I go without them, I’ll have a kid with shitty britches on my hands).

One plastic bat, because you never know when that’s going to come in handy.

I do, however, have my favorite H & M sunglasses, a mirror, and one very wonderful lipstick I stole from my 23 year-old sister. Oh, and my wallet is from my sis too – Miss Sixty and very snazzy if I do say so myself. So that’s where the glam is hiding.

And there you have it. I’ve been memed.

In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it

This year, we took the kids for the first time to the 5th Ave Easter Parade where New York's haberdashers flocked to the streets in their finest Sunday Best. Behold:






Since I spent FOUR HOURS icing those crazy Martha Steart chick cupcakes (and then forgot to take a picture to show you how damn cute they came out) I didn't have time to fashion my own Easter Bonnet. But I do have one very fetching picture from this new LOVE statue located on some side street in the mid 50s. I like how Primo and I are having a magical mother-son moment whilst I try to keep Sec from running into the street at full speed. Motherhood!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, folks! We are on our way back to the Big Apple, to go on my father's famous scavenger hunt with clues written in rhyming couplets and Elizabethean English, and to take in the Fifth Avenue Easter Parade, We will also we making these delightful little chick cupcakes, thanks to the expert tutelage of Martha Stewart.

Mine are gonna look JUST like these, I assure you. Enjoy Easter, if that's your holiday, or just a lazy, sunny Sunday.