Inconclusive

That was the ruling on the gender ultrasound yesterday. This child is already deciding not to cooperate with me. The tech *did* say that she thought she may have spotted 3 dots bewteen the legs - which apparently signals a girl - but they weren't spread far enough for her to make an official ruling. Three dots.

What if it's a boy and he has 3 balls?

Oh, there's no place like home for the holidays

Five more days 'til Christmas! Honestly, I feel like such a kid again during the holiday season. Now that I have my own child who can semi-understand what's going on at this time of year, it's all the more special to me. Our first Christmas with the baby last year was, obviously, special and a memory I'll keep forever, but he was too new last year. This year, my heart melts every time I see his eyes light up when he looks at Christmas lights, decorated trees (pretty-pretties, as he calls them), and when he turns the radio on to play Christmas music or when he says "ho ho ho" whenever he sees Santa.

Our goal as parents is to, of course, spoil our child(ren) at Christmas, but also to instill a sense of what the season truly is about. I look forward to teaching the Jesus-is-the-reason-for-the-season stuff, to carrying on traditions and creating our own that will, hopefully, be carried on some day, and to performing some kind of holiday good deed every year. Of course, I am beside myself with excitement at the thought of playing Santa this year. Nat doesn't quite fully get Santa yet, but he's learning. I don't see the point in spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on Christmas gifts - the true meaning tends to get lost - but each Christmas will be special. I look forward to finding new ways to make memories...for just Nat this year, and for Gumdrop as well.

Speaking of Gumdrop - we (hope to) find out the sex tomorrow at the gender ultraound. The plan, however, is to have the tech write the sex on a piece of paper and stash it in an envelope to be opened on Christmas day. A bit of a Christmas surprise.

We'll be spending Christmas Eve and day with my family. Memories of Christmases past have flooded me the last few days. Early years with the entire Italian side of my family crammed into my grandmother's small, small home on Christmas Eve...followed by the Irish side gathering at a great aunt's house later that evening. Home to bed, and up early to see if Santa had, indeed, stopped by.

So much has changed in the years separating then and now. Family dynamics and relationships, traditions - I suppose such is true for many, if not most, families out there. Still, though, it makes me sad that things have changed so much - my children won't grow up surrounded by and knowing their extended family the way my sisters and I did - but it also makes me extra thankful for memories that I have and what still remains.

Merry Christmas to all of you - may your holidays be merry and bright, and filled with much laughter and love.

Motherhood

My child will do anything to keep from having to take a nap. This includes falling and hitting his head hard enough to make him loopy and sleepy, warranting a trip to the ER and a CT scan to rule out a head injury. Once that was cleared he decided to get an ear infection which magically turned into a full-blown nasty cold approximately 2 hours after leaving the ER.

I guess he won. No one slept last night. It was like one big party.

Motherhood.

Ho ho ho

My child wasn't thrilled about seeing Santa. I think Santa was equally un-thrilled about seeing my child. Even *before* the baby started creeping out about being on a strange old man's lap, Santa made a comment about how he'd probably cry and then rolled his eyes. He didn't even "ho ho ho" for the baby. Lame. We were, as you can see, suckers enough to buy the photo commemorating the event. He was too new last year to be taken to a busy mall, so this is our first picture with the baby sitting on a pedophile's Santa's lap.

Baby #2 checkup yesterday. I love waiting 45 minutes to an hour in a waiting room, only to pee in a cup, listen for a heartbeat that I couldn't even hear, asked if I have any questions, then sent on my merry way. I will, however, have an ultrasound next week to hopefully find out the sex of this child. Then I can stop calling it "it" and "the fetus" and by his or her chosen name. I do know, however, that this child is already huge, and that it has an attitude problem, as it kept kicking or punching or head-butting the doppler as if to say, "Get that damn thing off the roof of my house!"

I realized that I never posted a 13-month update on the baby. Still no walking - seriously, any day now. How long have I been saying that? He "talks" more and more every day - he can say mama, daddy, book, kitty, pretty pretty, tree, oh man, cheese (as in for the camera, or when he wants you to smile at him), ball, hi, bye bye, zoom (for the vacuum), Jesus(for Baby Jesus in our nativity set...not as an expletive. I think.) car, and caca (for a trash can, paper/dust/lint/hair/junk on the floor/couch/pant leg/rug, or for "Hey lady, I just went caca in my pants.") When he's not endlessly repeating "caca" he's speaking in tongues, and he constantly leaves me wondering what in God's name he's saying. He has finally started to clap his hands, something I thought he'd never do. Just started doing it one day, and in the right moment. Smarty pants. He loves to play with cars and makes a sort of "vroom vroom" noise when he moves them. He's obsessed with Winnie the Pooh. He enjoys washing his "parts" in the bath and dunking his head under the water. He loves to turn the radio on the listen to Christmas music. There are days when it must be on ALL DAY or he's not happy. By the time the hubs gets home on those days, I've had more than my fill of Bing and Dean and Eartha Kitt and the guy who sings the song about the little boy who doesn't have enough money to buy shoes for his dying mother on Christmas Eve so that she can look nice when she meets Jesus later that night. Seriously, dude - was that song really necessary?

They say that I won't last too long on Broadway....

For Elisabeth and Heather

The story of how and why I chose to pursue singing is so incredibly long. I'm not sure if you want the entire back story - if you do, let me know and I'll be happy to write it. It'll just take forever. For now, I'll just give you some cut and dry answers.

My singing ambitions didn't come about until just a few years ago, the result of a medical incident, a book, a Broadway recording, and a Broadway actress. I had always had secret ambitions of acting...or something in the entertainment field. I had a lot of people tell me that I was funny, that I had incredible timing, and that I could be a true comedienne. But singing? Nah. Never really entered my mind.

Once I had ambitions, I immediately decided that I wanted to be the best. I tracked down a well-known voice teacher in NYC and arranged to meet her. I lived in Albany at the time. Fast forward a few weeks - she decided that she wanted to work with me, and we set a day and time that I would go into the city to meet her, show her my raw talent and we'd figure out where to go from there. After meeting for her and singing for her, she told me that she loved my voice and that I had potential to make something big out of it. But what direction did I want to go? In the beginning I decided that I wanted to work to pursue musical theater...or, more specific, I wanted to be on Broadway, damn it. I asked her to be honest - did I have it in me? It would take some work, she said, but I had a unique sound that would be perfect for the stage...but she did encourage me not to close my mind to other genres. It would be later that I learned I had a voice for jazz - a bit raspy, sultry...once I found it I loved it. This woman has worked with countless Broadway actors/actresses, Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera...and now me! Wow! Could I really make something of myself? I felt that she believed in me, I knew that Will believed in me, and for a small time, I believed in myself. After a while, though, I began to doubt what I could do. I held back. I talked myself down a lot. And then I got pregnant. I "pursued" this dream - a dream that was once so fierce and seemed so possible - for close to 2 years.

What was I in? Nothing. :) And I don't regret a single thing. I took a chance on something that, at one time, was so big to me, and, in retrospect, was probably near impossible. I wrote a letter to my voice teacher shortly after I had my first baby. I wanted her to see the amazing thing I accomplished. She called me after a few weeks and we chatted. She let me know that, had I stuck with what I was doing, she believed with all her heart that I would've been able to accomplish other amazing things. And she urged me not to give up.

My favorite musical? I have a special place in my heart for Wicked. Wicked when it first opened on Broadway, not the traveling show, not the crazy-fan-girl show that it has become. I read the book long before seeing the musical, and it touched me in a way that a book never has. Sounds crazy, huh? Especially since it's a book about the Wicked Witch of the West. Ha - I can name one person who would surely not be surprised - he/she doesn't know that *I* know he/she reads my blog. Boo! I also love Rent, although I never saw it with the original cast...and I'm pretty sure I would have loved it even more if I had been lucky enough to see it early on. Amazing story, amazing music.

Favorite musical actress? Idina Menzel...kind of goes along with how the whole story started. I find her voice amazing. It was *her* voice teacher I found, her voice teacher who actually felt me worthy enough to work with. I had the wonderful experience of meeting her one night after a show. Not just a quick pass-by on the street. I was able to spend a bit of time with her at the Gershwin, talking like normal people...she's simply amazing to me.

I could honestly go on and on in this post. All of that was another lifetime ago, though. I'm a mom now. Gone is the skinny(ish) girl with sexy hair extensions who walked around the streets of NYC, going to auditions, forever carrying around a bag filled with sheet music and a demo cd, just in case. No regrets. I miss that life sometimes, even though we were flat broke living in NYC...but had I pursued it further, I wouldn't have the amazing little baby toddler asleep in the next room.

I'd give my left arm for some Motrin

I'm feeling terribly uninspired. I can't come up with anything witty or comical or remotely interesting to blog about. I've had a bitching migraine for the last 3 days and am convinced that my brain is slowly deteriorating as a result. I imagine it'll just be a matter of time before the remains start to seep out of my ears.

So to you, dear readers, I make this request. Whether I know you or not, give me something to write about. I don't imagine I'll receive a flood of comments, but if I do I'll address everything over a few posts. The topic request can be anything. A question. It can be serious or funny. It can challenge something I've written about before. If you don't want me to know who you are then just comment anonymously. As long as it's not incriminating, I'll write about it. Bring it! :)