Gains and Losses

Proud and hovering mom that I am, I was very excited over AJ's first official playdate this morning. Actually, this playdate was originally scheduled for the last week of February. Of course this was the time that our household was plagued with the virus so we had no choice but to reschedule. Finally, we got to reset the date to today, and I honestly don't know who's more excited, AJ or myself!

AJ's playmates this morning were CA and WK, both boys are from AJ's preschool. Initially, I was a bit apprehensive on how the playdate was going to turn out as sometimes it takes AJ a lot of time to warm up to a new environment. This playdate was going to be held at CA's house, so I wasn't sure how my son was going to take to that. Then there's also AJ's issues with the other boy, WK. Some days, AJ will tell me how he didn't want to play with WK because of one reason or another. On other days, he'd just be indifferent to him. My personal take is that he might just be feeling a little jealous that he has to share CA's attention with WK.

However, the fates must be smiling because the morning just passed by so swiftly for the boys and moms alike. I must say that the boys' respective moms, LA (CA's mom) and VK (WK's mom) were very accommodating and easygoing. Although it was obvious that they've been friends for a longer period, they never made me feel left out. They were very easy to get along with that there were hardly any awkward moments among us. Needless to say, the boys had a blast. Naturally, there were a few squabbles here and there, but these were quickly settled and all was forgiven once again.

I guess it also helped that CA's house is probably one of the most kid-friendly houses that I've ever been in. There were toys nearly everywhere... for both girls (CA has an older sister) and boys. The kitchen and breakfast areas were decorated with the children's artworks, an alphabet poster, and a huge and colorful kids' calendar. Everything in the home was just so comfy! And have I mentioned the toys? My gosh, CA's birthday is coming up soon and I have no idea what to give this boy. He's got everything! His home is a showcase for Toys 'R Us, complete with an inflatable jumping/bouncing watchamacallit and a mini playground in the basement! We've got tons of cardboard boxes (now arranged, thank you) in the basement, and this boys have more toys. Suffice it to say, that AJ was drooling when we he first saw the treasure trove upon treasure trove of toys.

The Three Superheroes: WK, AJ and CA

Before we all knew it, it was time to say our goodbyes because LA and VK had to fetch their respective kids from kindergarten. Of course, this was the perfect time for AJ to throw a mini-tantrum over who gets to open the front door. He and WK both want to open it (all these toys around and they fight over the front door!). Overall though, and with LA's very calming and persuasive voice, both boys were appeased.

This morning's event just brings a smile to my face and warms my heart because I just realized that CA and WK may very well be my AJ's very first friends! Not that AJ never had friends prior to this. It's just that prior to these boys, AJ's friends were all "forced" upon him simply because they were the children our friends too. It's like having relatives... you neither have a choice nor a chance to pick. But CA and WK, they were picked by AJ himself and we the moms are the ones who have to get along with one another (good thing we did so effortlessly!). It's such a simple but resounding revelation that my son has yet taken another tiny step towards independence.

On the other hand, a sad development has transpired at the boys' preschool. The school board has decided to close the school next school year. They said that they've been losing money the past four years and they simply won't be able to afford to keep the school open for another year. I didn't think that this piece of news would affect me as bad as it did. It's like being told by your landlord that you'd have to find another place to live in when your contract expires no matter how much you just love your current abode. I was beginning to look at the preschool as a second home for AJ with its very warm and welcoming environment. I was looking forward to next schoolyear where AJ won't have to start from scratch and get acquainted with everything. Unfortunately, this won't be the case.

I forgot to inquire to which preschool the two boys will be moving, but no matter what their decision, I've already registered AJ to another preschool. This new one is not too far off from where his current one is located. I just hope that it won't be too huge of an adjustment for AJ this fall. I'm also hoping to forge his newfound friendship with the boys a little stronger so that it can hopefully withstand them being dispersed to the different preschools within the area. Sigh! I haven't the heart to tell AJ yet. Anyway, fall is still far off especially for a four-year-old. There's an entire summer ahead of us, so there's no need to disappoint the little boy just yet... not when he's just had a fantastic playdate.

Spring Fling and a Preview to Spring Cleaning

Spring is coming and announcing itself with a flourish. Temps finally broke through the 70F mark here in the Northeast this past weekend. My kids even got to play outside unhampered by bulky clothing! Tomorrow temps will plunge back into the 30s again, with some snow thrown in for good measure, but I don't care. I've had the taste of spring and I know that she'll be here before we know it!

With the great weather the past weekend, my hubby and I decided to celebrate it with some preliminary spring cleaning. Wish I could say that we spent an afternoon in the park, or even just carried on lazily while the kids played between themselves. But no. The rise in temperature made us rise out of our lethargy and prompted us to put a bit of order into our perpetually dishevelled home.

Bruce, our family car, must have heaved a big sigh of relief when I vacuumed him and buffed him up inside and out. Poor thing hasn't received such TLC in weeks! If plants could grow on discarded cookies, crackers and the like, I would have a rich and diverse fauna growing in the backseat. Lucky for us, Bruce is a patient car even if we do treat him like the workhorse he was intended to be. So far, he's never given us big trouble and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he never will.

Next item on the list was to clean up the garage. It was finally time to put both our Halloween and Christmas decorations in their respective nooks in the garage. The oversized scarecrows and Christmas posts were just leaning against one of our garage walls near the door, greeting us everytime we pulled in. It's scary how long we've been turning a blind eye towards finding a proper place for them. My hubby and I are definitely not the most organized people, but we've come to a point where the disarray was just too much. Halloween and Christmas stuff greeting us at the (garage) door, tools on the floor, box upon box piled on top of each other sans labels, clearly we were quickly descending into domestic chaos!

After we finished off with the garage, which we've cleaned up as best we can, we tackled our basement and its quickly diminishing floor space. Imagine, we still have unopened boxes from when we moved in... and we've been living in our new home for nearly a year and a half! We've certainly brought on a new spin to the saying, "Out of sight, out of mind." After rummaging through the different boxes and what-have-yous in the basement, my hubby and I decided that we'll need help in organizing.

Thus off we went to DIY people's nirvana, a.k.a. Lowe's. We got ourselves shelves. Shelves for shoes and shelving units to bring some semblance of order to the dense forest of cardboard that is our basement. Hubby shopped while I chased AT, my toddling diva, around who took it upon herself to inspect every aisle of the warehouse. I think that I may have lost at least 100 calories chasing her up and down the store and trying to get both her, and her equally fidgety brother, out of trouble. With this strenous exercise, I suggested that we stop by the nearby Barnes and Noble where they serve Starbucks coffee and Cheescake Factory goodies. A perfect pairing for stressed-out moms like me. Having thus regained the 100 calories that I've burned, plus an extra 700 more from my carrot cake and coffee frap, we trekked back home with our supplies. By then it was late evening and we decided to continue our mission the following day.

The next day, with our tummies once again full from lunch (and our dear little AT napping away), we attacked our basement with a vengeance. First step, weed out the junk. For a couple of broke homeowners, we've definitely accumulated a lot of stuff. To think that we came from a much smaller apartment before we purchased our home! We had boxes of AJ's old clothes that were saved both for posterity's sake and in case our second child turned out to be a boy. Naturally, with AT being the princess that she was, she got a whole new wardrobe and these boxes of AJ's baby clothes languished in the basement. Then there were our boxes of books. I've already posted that my hubby and I are bookworms. Even with our tight budget for purchasing new books, we've accumulated quite a bit over five years' time. Naturally, my all-time faves have gained instant entry into my bedroom, but the others... well, you know the rest. After these, there were boxes of toys that my children have outgrown, or waiting for AT to grow into. There were at least three large boxes of my parents' knickknacks (I swear, they're making our home their storage space away from home!), seasonal items and of course, my packing materials for my eBay sideline.

Finally... finally our in-between things (in-between because we're either too lazy to find a place for these items in our home or we're too much of a packrat to throw these items away just like that) have been properly sorted out. After arranging them in hopefully a much neater fashion, my hubby and I patted each other in the back and tiredly collapsed on the sofa. Funny how we're proud of ourselves when we've barely scratched the surface! Everywhere I look, things need tidying up. My home office is still a mess, my children's bedrooms have just been haphazardly put together, and please don't let me get started on the living areas. So I guess that all this exercise in organization in precisely just that, an exercise. It's a preview of things to be done once the warm weather finally sticks in.

I can't believe that I'm actually not dismayed at my growing list of things to do. Rather, I oddly feel a little excited about it. Maybe it's because I am not as helpless as I once felt when I was still pregnant and subsequently gave birth to AT. Or maybe I just can't wait to be rid of the winter blues and feel a little more sunshine on my skin again. Of course, I might be singing a different tune tomorrow or the next day when my growing list turns from being a challenge into an overwhelming burden. But with the coming spring, I'm trying to inject some positive thinking into my system... hoping that it'll translate into action. In the meantime, let me put on my socks and try to bundle up for the cold night ahead.

Swooning Over Mr. Darcy

I am an incurable romantic. Despite my seemingly practical gal-with-mind-over-heart facade, I am still a sucker for knights (in any armor, shining or otherwise) winning the hearts of their respective damsels (whether they be in distress or kicking butts in their own right). This is probably why romance novels, alas even the so-called trashy ones, still share shelf space in the growing book collection that my hubby and I share. It can be a little disconcerting to find such novels among my hubby's fantasy and sci-fi books and his IT and management related resource materials. My romance novels may also seem out of place when placed alongside my child-rearing books, cookbooks and novels by James Patterson, Dan Brown and the like. Yet there they are, quietly waiting for me to pick them up again for a quick romantic fix.

One of my all-time favorite romance novel is Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice." Like millions of readers out there, I can just see myself in Elizabeth Bennet's shoes. I fantasize myself to be as smart and witty as dear Eliza who has such a remarkable self-esteem in the midst of her circumstances... maybe even because of it. Of course, who cannot help but fall in love (at least eventually) with Mr. Darcy? He first comes accross as haughty and aloof, whose prejudices are eventually won over, even worn down, by Ms. Bennet. Like Eliza, I also fell in love with Mr. Darcy once she got to know him better.

This post doesn't claim to be a review of "Pride and Prejudice." If it were, I would be making a rather botched-up job at it. However, it is my chance to declare my big-time crush on Mr. Darcy. I just love Mr. Darcy on print, and I must say I also love Mr. Darcy on screen. Speaking of the movie adaptations, I must admit that I was a bit biased against Matthew Macfayden's portrayal of Mr. Darcy when I first viewed the 2005 adaptation. In my mind, Colin Firth (in the BBC series) was the quintessential Darcy. I mean, Colin Firth even managed to let us fall in love with Bridget Jones' Diary's Marc Darcy all over again, right? How could anybody else top that? Fortunately, Macfayden's Darcy showed me another dimension to the Darcy character. I just love Darcy's vulnerability in the new version! He seems less austere and condescending. I especially enjoyed the part where he showed his tender side to his sister, Georgiana, and how he seemed almost shy when he noticed that Elizabeth Bennet probably saw that side of him as well.

Oh, Mr. Darcy, you are certainly making it very tough for my dear hubby! Hahaha! As such, by virtue of transference, I now think that Matthew Macfayden is hot, hot, hot! Needless to say, I've already looked up his roster of movies and tv projects, and have lined up what I could to my Netflix queue. Naturally, my dear hubby just can't figure out where this infatuation is coming from. Poor fellow even sat through the movie just to see where I get my kicks. Well, my hubby has weathered through my lust for Hugh Jackman, I'm sure that he'll bear this one with dignity as well. Hehehe!

Anyway, I'm so glad that I decided to purchase the latest "Pride and Prejudice" because it'll certainly be a good quick fix for the repressed romantic me. These days, it's tough to find a whole block of quiet time to myself and indulge in my reading; but I think that I can spare an hour (if I fast-forward to favorite scenes) or two (when I just must have the movie in its entirety) for Mr. Darcy... oh, and of course, for Kiera Knightley's Elizabeth Bennet too.