Because You Made Me a Muffin

Julian, my favorite.  Sometimes his name just rolls off my tongue in the most loving, delicious way. Isn't it great to love the name you give someone?  For Mother's Day, let's have some Julian quotes.

 "Mom, I give up!  I just forgive up. "  and then,  "I forget up."    :D
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Julian, playing with a game in the other room and then out of the blue declared,

"Mom, do the commandments!"

Yikes.  Fortunately I wasn't in the middle of a some big sin but i was a bit shaken up by its suddenness.

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Instead of expressing his dislike for something, often something that frustrates him, he turns it on the thing itself and personifies it.  For example, let's say he doesn't want to go to a place. Instead of saying he hates it there, he will say,

"I don't want to go there. It hates me."

The thing he doesn't like doesn't like him.  As if it has something personally against him, which I think is a very interesting way to view things.  What does it mean? I don't know, but it's funny.

"I don't want this; It hates me."

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Instead of "what did you say?"  Julian says,  "what you said?"   It will be a sad day when this is no more, like when Eeyotes became Eeyore.  :(

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"Mom, when you die, I'll have a cheetah mom."

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Julian turns everything into a verb sort of as an abbreviation and it's kind of ingenious.  For example:

Doing the dishes = dishin'.   "Mom, we're dishin'!" I also love that he's being consistent with that one.

Being grumpy =  grumping.  as in,  "I'm not done grumping!"

Action words make life more fun.

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In the middle of church one Sunday, he was playing near me and whispered,

"Mom, I will marry you."

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Julian also calls Sean "Sean" and I not-so-secretly love it.  It's not to be funny, at least not anymore. He just does it. When we're out, when we're at home.  I just read in his baby journal from Oct. 2011:

"You love saying Dad's name. You will call for him throughout the house.  'Non? Non! Where are you, Non!'  Dad isn't super pleased, but I am."

Non.  so funny.  

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And to make my heart burst with pride:

Jen: Ok, let's start!
Julian, busy at my desk: Wait! Wait for me, I'm writing down the thoughts of me.

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Lastly, at church today we were having a special lovey moment and I whispered closely in his ear, "I'm so grateful for you because you made me a mother."  He stared at me for a couple of seconds and said, "I thought you said "muffin."   Which, let's face it, is just about as good.


3 cheers for kids!

The Birthday

Well, we just finally finished celebrating! Ok, not really. But perhaps I am suffering a bit from a birthday hangover?  Or maybe I'm just really lazy.  It could be anything. You don't know.  Irregardless, here are the pictures from Birthday Week 2013!

So, for me, what Birthday Week means is doing everything in the name of Birthday.  This can be anything. Because guess what? If you give something a birthday title, no matter what it is, it makes it special.  For example:

Birthday Playground


There are a thousand playgrounds in this town. Every once in a while we like to playground hop. There's the one closest to home. Then there's the one in the park, the one further in the park--it's awesome and by the lake, but it's a bit of a walk to get there.  There's also the gungy one down the road that's ok, and then there's our latest favorite, the 5th avenue playground,or the J.J. Byrne playground. It's new and magical. It has small kid swings, big kid swings, stuff to play and climb on that look like art sculptures they're so cool, water stuff, etc.  I love the big kid swings. Since I am now elderly and growing ever elder, (as the birthday implies) I can last approximately 5-7 minutes before i want to heave. But those 5-7 minutes are just heaven.  And this year I introduced to Julian The Spider, which I have probably not even thought about since I was 9.  You know, it's where you sit on the swing and your lighter friend sits on your lap, facing you and you swing with your legs dangled, each taking turns pumping, and talk to each other 5 inches apart. 

I asked a nearby dad to take a picture and he did and then tried it with his kid and I felt good about spreading the joy of The Spider.  Here is a bonus pic of the joy of the playground:

This is a chair that spins around and around and
if you get it going, it NEVER. STOPS. It's kind of
freaky,actually. But the kids sure do like it.

Birthday Brunch, or more specifically, Birthday French Toast.  I don't have a picture of the toast, but here we are at our favorite place:  

Oh wait, yes I do--it's there in Julian's mouth. You are welcome.

Birthday Colors 

my new favorite color combo, peacock blue and lemon yellow--YES

Birthday Booger

 

Birthday Tulips

There was also Birthday Concert.  The plan was to watch a NY Philharmonic rehearsal but due to his extreme all-consuming fear of semi-darkness and semi-loudness, the boy did not last 10 seconds.  This may or may not be due to subjecting him to ride after dark tunnel ride with scary animatronics at Disneyland.  Oh and the circus a few weeks ago, which is totally confirmed to be absolutely terrifying for people of all ages.  Here are some pictures from that, as a side note: 

Elephants are so cool. We loved them and applauded but then the clapping quickly turned uneasy and with pity for the elephants, and we felt a little sick in our hearts, confused as to our feelings on the subjugation of circus animals and all of the conflicting feelings pertaining to all things circus, etc etc ETC.


The terrified-but-still-clapping-and-trying-to-enjoy-it pic:

And the still-terrified-but-could-i-have-some-popcorn pic:

makes me laugh

So, instead of the concert, we walked around the Lincoln Center compound for  a while.  Here's the Avery Fisher hall, where the Phil plays:

I asked Julian to take my picture.  I am trying to smile through the tears and heartbreak:

And the hall where the Met Opera performs (i forget the name):

After that, we walked over to the Central Park and walked amongst the pretty flowers and grassy knolls. It was nice, though I didn't hear any orchestral music coming out of those flowers, but whatever. They're nice to look at, I guess. If you're into that.

 

I had brought some binoculars for the concert that turned out to work very well for long distance hide and seek.

On the way home, Julian immediately passed out and took a subway nap. It was adorable until I had to wake him and he transformed into the (as legend has it) Abominable Subway Monster.  Fellow passengers were lucky to catch a glimpse that day.

Birthday Bum.  

A pit stop on the way to or from the bathroom. Either way, some emergency reading needed to take place: 

 

I picked up my birthday cake at the most delightful Italian bakery. Every time I go i see these hamburger cakes and other fun shape cakes on display and this time I thought, you know what? I'm getting my hamburger. This is funny because after, I came home and walked to the post office to pick up a birthday box from my sister who had sent me an assortment of doughnuts from my FAVORITE doughnut place, which exists only in Utah. How happy was I?  There were plain glazed, cake doughnuts, a giant chocolate ring doughnut, and...yes... a hamburger doughnut, for long ago in the days of yore, whenever we would visit this doughnut place in my youth, I would select either the largest (chocolate ring) or the strangest (hamburger).  I loved that she sent me this and that i had brought home the hamburger cake because not only does it reflect how much a sister knows you, but also that you are the same girl you were at 13. It makes the heart happy.   Behold the cake:

 

Finally, Sean and I fled the scene and Jen's Jurassic Park 3D Party officially commenced.  Here we are with our t-shirts:

We sat with a group of about 15 friends and enjoyed some pre-movie trivia with prizes (I tried hard not to win, i swear!) and as the movie started, I felt my heart start to race in a reverential way, and with quiet exhilaration, Val and I clasped hands  a la Thelma and Louise, as she put it.  All of usspent the movie loving it, laughing, tooting our silent dino-blowouts at all the good lines, and swooning over Dr. Ian Malcolm. 

Afterward, some birthday froyo with candles--aww

And lastly, some presents:

And thus ended Jen's Birthday, an event made far, far larger than necessary as witnessed on/from this blog. But what of that list, you ask? Weeeeell...

pillows from my gal pal Angie

all things harem

And one more thing:

Thank you, MelBroek