Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da ….BATMAN!

We have entered the stage of super heros.  Batman is my son’s newest obsession.  He still loves Thomas & Buzz Lightyear, but Batman has quickly become a 3^rd favorite.  We introduced him to the 1960’s Batman TV show with Adam West and he is in love with it!  His favorite part is during the fight scenes when the big words come flying across the screen….. “BAM!”….“KAPOW!”….”BONK!”.  He just laughs and laughs.

Since everything is batman, guess what A wants to be for Halloween?  Yup, you guessed it.  I thought for sure he would have picked Buzz Lightyear but he’s been adamant for weeks now that he wants this one:

He’s also started his Christmas list early.  He is writing his letter to Santa asking for these:

I can’t wait to see how cute he looks in his batman costume.  He had also asked told me that I should be batgirl or catwoman for Halloween….so I might just have to throw some cat ears on for trick or treating.

Batman to the rescue!!!

Jamaican Me Crazy

My husband and I just got back from a very relaxing week in Jamaica…..alone.  It was our first vacation by ourselves since our honeymoon 5 years ago and while we missed our son, we enjoyed every single second of our alone time.  No whining, crying, potty breaks, etc.  Just uninterrupted quiet and (dare I say it) sleep!!  We went down there for a close friend’s wedding for which we both were part of the bridal party (my H was the best man).  We flew down on Sunday, the wedding was Tuesday and then we stayed the rest of the week and flew back on Saturday.  The resort was just beautiful.  We didn’t do anything except lay by the pool, the beach and sit at the swim up bar drinking yummy rum drinks.  Ahhhh!!  Going back to work today was very difficult and sad.  Although being in meetings back to back all day very quickly made Jamaica start to fade away...

While we were on vacation my mom and my in-laws watched A and he was extremely well behaved for both of them.  This was the first time we had ever left him for more than a weekend so we were nervous how he would do with a longer length of time away from us. We decided not to tell him far in advance about us going away since we knew he would be worried about us leaving and the less time he had to think about it the better off we thought he would be.   When I dropped him off at my mom’s the day before we left he seemed perfectly happy to spend some time with Grandma.  When we picked him up however, he seemed different…almost as if he was mad at us.  When we got him home he immediately started throwing temper tantrums like we’d never seen before and driving us crazy.  I guess being away from us and his normal routine took a toll on him.  About 5 time outs and a 2 days later, he’s slowly getting back into the swing of things.  LOL  I just hope we get him back to pre-vacation A soon because he’s driving us crazy!

Remembering this September

A decade has passed since that fateful September morning, and it feels like it just happened yesterday.  Most years I can’t watch the TV coverage, but this particular year I am a documentary junkie - watching a lot of the ones that have been broadcast on the History and Smithsonian channels. 

Like so many others I will never forget where I was that day and the weeks that followed.  I was living in Queens at the time and was working an auditing job at Seton Hall University.  I just happened to not be in Manhattan that day.  I had been listening to the radio on my drive to Seton Hall that morning and in the time between when I parked the car and walked into the building the first plane had hit.  I walked into the office and was immediately greeted by a co-worker with “did you hear what just happened?”  No work was to happen that day.  We all rushed upstairs to a student lounge and sat in front of the TV to watch the news.  Family & friends who thought I was in Manhattan tried frantically to get in touch with me but with the phone lines jammed it took quite a while for me to get through to people.  My husband and I were on a dating ‘break’ at the time, but he was still one of the first people I called when I got service back. After the towers fell we all decided it was time to try and make our way home.  The drive up the Turnpike is one I will never forget.  The sight and smell of lower Manhattan was just unbelievable.  It seemed like a dream - an awful dream.  All of the bridges and tunnels were closed so getting back to my apartment was out of the question.  I spent the next week at my mom’s until I could get home again.  As with our parents and their attachment to “where were you when Kennedy was shot?” my generation sadly has their own attachment to “where were you when the towers fell”.

I think about how when my son grows up all he will ever know is life post 9/11.  Everything I lived through he will read about in history books and see in pictures.  He’ll never know what life was like before terror alerts and homeland security.  It will all be normal to him.  In a way I sort of envy him for that.  Ignorance can be bliss.  He doesn’t know what life was like before 9/11 so he can’t miss it. 

Today we honor those who lost their lives on that Tuesday morning in September ten years ago and those who have helped fight for our country in the years since that day to help keep the rest of us safe.