What is LOVE???

Even at his age, Cruz is puzzled at the four-letter word...

And because I know that the male species often struggles with ever truly figuring out the meaning of the L-word, I decided to surround his existence with it one day.  A snow day experiment.

Instead of choosing to catch up on grading, clean the bathroom, or cook a nice supper during my snow day, Cruz and I played.  We cut out twenty paper hearts.  We, of course, took hundreds of pictures.  And we wrestled with this 'crazy little thing called love' all afternoon.

When I was growing up, I was aimlessly in awe of anything 'love.'  Heck, I memorized every song on The Bodyguard soundtrack, practiced my wedding vows at the age of eight, and dreamed about the first time someone would whisper, I love you, in my ear.  I was, and still am, loyal and quick to fall in love.  It's in my DNA.  I remember drawing up house plans with my childhood love, Dana, dancing in the living room and fishing off the front steps.  I remember the butterflies I felt when I saw the smile of one of my first boyfriends, pedaling to catch up with me as I delivered my paper route in the summertime.  I remember lying in the grass, staring at the clouds, sharing secrets and making promises.  I remember caring and aching for him and the pain he felt in his life.  And I remember the raw emotions of falling in love for the first time.   

But just as I remember the butterflies, the highs, and weightlessness of love, I remember the hurt, the heart break, and the emptiness when a love ends.  That is why love is so powerful.  It can cause the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. 

 

Teaching high school students, I oftentimes get bombarded with the highs and lows of love.  I worry about my sophomore girls who fall madly in love with a senior boy, and ache to warn them when I see the signs of heartbreak coming.  But most of all, I want them to see that it will all be okay, and that what they are feeling at the moment is a mere stepping stone in shaping them into a person who knows when love is the right thing.  

It may sound weird, but I want Cruz to experience it all.  And I pray I can be the mom he needs to celebrate the highs, and be there during the lows.  I want him to build a rock steady path for his future wife. 

But for now, I'm more than okay being the only woman in his life...

 

Happy love day, future heart breaker...

Celebrate and learn from it all...

 

 

What I'm Lovin'

In honor of love month, here's what I'm lovin' TODAY...

Cooking with a wok.  It's the closest cooking gets to art and it's completely deceiving.

Upon first glace, and more importantly, first bite, one would guess the meal took hours to prepare.  Hours of chopping fresh broccoli and green pepper, grating fresh ginger and orange, and hand-breading thin strips of juicy sirloin steak.  But the beauty of cooking with a wok is the combination of throw-together-whatever-has-been-in-the-fridge-too-long, a bowl of cornstarch for breading, a cup or two of Minute Rice, and vegetable oil, and voila, you have art.  This, plus the sheer sensation of the sound of the sizzle (how's that for a tongue twister), is totally worth the annoyance of storing such an awkward device.  We love our wok and now take pride in our wonderful patina ;.

The makings of a hilarious baby personality.  The last week or so, Cruz's cold has seemed to settle in his throat, making his little voice sound raspy and hoarse.  This, mixed in with his newly developed giggle, is enough to make me play peekaboo for a half hour straight.  Sometimes, it's hard to tell if he really thinks we are funny, or if he is giggling at how ridiculous we look.  Tonight, as I was changing him from his clothes to his pjs, we put him in his crib in nothing but a diaper while we checked on supper.  It turns out, Cruz loves hanging out naked in his crib.  So for about twenty minutes, Beau and I took turns blowing on his tummy, tickling his sides, and playing peekaboo in between the slats on the crib.  Although he laughed every time, his eyes said it all. 

"Wow...You two are easily entertained."

A baby and a sock monkey.  One of the very first things I bought while Cruz was in utero was this sock monkey.  I have no idea why I like this gangly thing so much; however, I've always been slightly drawn to misfit toys.  Last weekend, Beau pulled the sock monkey from its hiding place and introduced him to Cruz.  An instant friendship developed and before I knew it, the sock monkey had a name, passed down from a Chicago legend.

Ron Sock-o.

A baking day.  This weekend, I baked.  At Christmastime, I swore to myself and my sanity that I would never bake sugar cookie cut-outs again.  They are time consuming and messy, and frankly, I would prefer to eat the Pillsbury sugar cookies that come in a tube.  And while this vow was a liberating experience at the time, it wasn't until I found this perfectly pink heart cookie cutter at Kitchen Essentials that I began to reconsider this vow.  I began to mentally justify why Valentine's cookies would be easier than Christmas, with a single cookie cutter, two colors of frosting instead of twelve, and the absence of the countless other Christmas distractions that fog my cookie baking pleasure in December.  So, on Saturday, I put on my apron, pulled up a brand new recipe, and sought to avenge and conquer my cookie-baking stigma.

Call it the new recipe, the apron, or the audience, but it was as if Martha Stewart had stepped into my kitchen that morning.  I mixed, rolled, floured, and frosted, all while my two favorite valentines kept me company in the kitchen.

What else am I lovin'?

A welcomed casserole we had forgotten about in the freezer.  And it just happened to be lasagna.  

The way that I absolutely can't wait to pick Cruz up from day care after school.  I get so excited, it's hard to catch my breath.  And even more satisfying is the first smile I get when I greet him in the baby room.  It's one of the most validating parts of being a working mom.  The minute I see that face, it's Cruz time.  

The box of assorted chocolates I bought myself, along with a bottle of Cascade, some eyeliner, and three packs of baby pacifiers at Wal-Mart tonight.  I had the box opened and two caramel filled chocolates devoured before I even pulled in the driveway.

The realization that Spring Break is a mere month away, which means green grass, warmer temperatures, and long walks with baby strollers are getting achingly close.

Cruz's funny sleep positions.  The other night, Beau was making some insurance calls at the kitchen table, and I was doing a quick dust in the living room.  Cruz usually likes to watch, so I gave him a front row seat in his lambie chair.  A few minutes and quick vacuum later...

My little heart breaker.  He steals my heart over and over again.     

Happy Love Month

Call it a Hallmark holiday, but I LOVE Valentine's Day.  Heck, I might as well put a giant heart over the entire month of February.  We ate too much during 'Turkey' month, soaked in the magic of Christmas month, and made it through the long, bitterly cold, January month.  February is all about celebrating love, and this year, well, I'm exploding and melting in it.  

There's something about Valentine's Day that brings back sweet little memories for me.  I remember sitting at the kitchen table with Mom, transforming shoe boxes into little mailboxes that would hold treasured Valentine's cards from my classmates.  I remember Mom always setting the table nice for our annual Valentine's Day dinner, with red napkins, a vase of red carnations, and little presents on our plates.  I remember hearing a knock on the door one Valentine's afternoon, my 5th grade love, Dana, standing at the door with a smile and a single red rose.  And I remember spending hours getting ready for the high school Valentine's Day dance, a gold necklace, and a kiss goodnight in the driveway of my parents' house. 


There's something about this month that makes me smile a little bit bigger, and love a little bit deeper.   That makes me want to bravely try that tube of bright red lipstick I just can't pull off, cut out a million construction paper hearts, or eat conversation hearts until my stomach hurts.  And there's something about this month that makes me want to soak my baby's cheek in wet kisses and write love notes to my hubby on the bathroom mirror.

Cruz is feeling much better and after two welcomed snow days last week, I am finally feeling back to my old self again.  At almost four months old, I'm pretty sure Cruz is in one of my favorite baby stages yet.  It seems he has learned so much this month, and we're starting to see the makings of a personality.  The best part of four months, though, is the smile.  Life is complete when I'm staring into his face, and I'm quite certain there's no greater accomplishment than making him smile.  My favorite is after I pick him up from day care, pile him in the car next to my school bag, lunch cooler, laptop, and diaper bag, and close the door for our short trek home.  I pull in the garage, lug my bags one by one onto my shoulders, and open Cruz's door.  But before pulling him out of his car seat, he almost always flashes me this little smile, one that has the power to move mountains and forget to-do lists.  A smile that says, 'We're home, Mommy.'

We're home. 
   

 

Good stuff to come this week!  I've been making up for my lack of pictures last week, and had some fun in the kitchen yesterday.  I'm usually not much for baking (aka, cake balls), however, yesterday, I was Martha Stewart reincarnate.  

   

 

 

Happy love month!  

Eat, Pray, Love...and Be

If I had true superwoman powers and could freeze time, tonight would be the night.  Just like a little music box that plays the same song over and over and over again, but never ever grows old, last night was my music box.  Last night, I lit a single candle and decided to watch Eat Pray Love.  I read the book this summer and although I wasn't an avid fan, I appreciated the beauty of Liz Gilbert's writing, the fluidity of her words, and the images that seemed to jump off the page.  As she recounted her year abroad to Italy, India, and Bali, dreams of traveling the world and igniting my adventurous spirit outnumbered the sugar plum fairies.

Italy has always been on my Bucket List.  Since my first homemade plate of spaghetti marinara and first glass of Merlot, I've had Rome on my mind.  I want to walk the narrow cobblestone streets hand in hand with my husband, order pizza mahgerita in Naples, and try thirty or more gelatos with a tiny plastic spoon the size of my index finger.  I want to experience the romance, the elegance, and il dolce far niente...the art of doing nothing. 

In the book, Luca Spaghetti, an Italian friend of Liz's, goes on a rant about Americans.  He curses our inability to relax, our need for ambition, the guilt we feel when we aren't accompishing.  We are busy and grow unsatisified easy because of.  Most of all, our busyness, ambition, and need for change causes an aching feeling of discontentedness.  A discontentedness that explains why schools are 'failing,' marriages are 'crumbling,' and credit card debt keeps sky-rocketing.   

As I read these words as I waded in my kiddie pool this summer, I've never felt so American in my life.  After all, I am a girl that needs to pencil in, 'relax,' on my to-do list.  I make myself busy in order to feel accomplished, and feel a deep need to work hard in order to achieve time for myself.  I'm accomplished, successful, and in control of my life.  But am I content...that's a question that's often hard for me to answer.

That is until tonight.  Halfway through the movie, I scooped Cruz into my arms, cradled him in his favorite 'sleeper hold,' and laid on the couch.  He fell asleep within minutes, tucked his face deep into the sleeve of my shirt, and breathed deep breaths of contentedness.  He slept until the final 15 minutes of the movie.  And as the final moments of the movie played out, I looked down to see my son smiling at me through his pacifier.  I couldn't stop staring at him.  For the first time, I realized just how special he was to me, just how much he's changed my life.  I couldn't believe he was mine.

For the next several minutes, Cruz sat on my tummy with his back against my legs.  He was so happy, so content.  It was at this moment that I realized what Luca Spaghetti was all about.  The world just stopped for a minute, and I experienced contentment in a way I'm not sure I ever have.  Exactly where I'm supposed to be. 

So I will continue to practice this art of doing nothing, of counting the little lines on Cruz's forehead, or trying to capture the smell of the top of his head forever, or working ever so hard to get that little giggle out.  I will continue to listen to Cruz's little coos, the absolute best sound in the entire world, until contentedness nearly explodes from me - for I'm learning that this 'nothing' is far more fulfilling than my former idea of accomplishment.

This week, Christmas week, we are practicing il dolce far niente as if our lives depended on it. 

I really have nothing else to say about my little gator.  He steals my heart every day.  I'm completely invaghito.