Twins :)

I know that I haven't said anything since I decided not to move to Chicago. It's been a really stressful couple of months with all of this drama mess, and it is just now calming down to a steady pace.

Next Wednesday is my last day with the twins as their weekly, consistent nanny. I qualify that because I will still see them for date nights and casual babysitting, but it doesn't make sense for them financially and for my time to continue with the same schedule. So for this week and last week I have been enjoying my time with these big, grown-up three-year-old boys, and not thinking about much else. Next week I will dedicate another post to them, but I thought I would come post this cute bath-time sequence from last night.

I am not moving to Chicago.

Holy moly. April has really kicked my ass and it's not even half over. We get back from this glorious vacation- from which I only put up the first day's worth of pictures- and then I get some news: I have been accepted to Erikson Graduate School of Child Development. Yay, right? Totally. I was so excited. Since graduation I have been looking for an answer to a question I'm not sure I even asked. I love kids, I want to work with them, and what better way to become qualified than to get a Master's Degree detailing such? So I decided- I was going. Andres said he would come with me if he didn't get the promotion he was up for, and that was that. I called everybody and told them I was going.

And then....

Well, and then, the excitement died down and I had to answer some tough questions. How was I going to pay for it? What could I do, exactly, with a M.S. in Child Development? How would I pay to move across the country? I wasn't sure. I mean, I had an idea. Student loans, firstly. I wanted to be involved in an organization or a social service agency, working with children and their families. I want to help people. I figured that the move would work itself out.

So I did some research. I found two concerns: 1. I couldn't find a ton of information about Erikson Alumni doing great things outside of Chicago. 2. It seemed as if a lot of students graduating were going on to become pre-school teachers. Not my style. So I did some more research. I e-mailed the admissions office and explained my concerns. I googled like crazy, and found one alum that lives near Seattle. She also happened to have done the same program, so it seemed like she could help. Then I waited. While I was waiting, Andres got his promotion. Yay! I mean... (yay). So he wasn't coming with me anymore. And then I heard back. The alum said she had difficulty explaining her qualifications to future employers, but since she had some pre-school experience, she was able to get a job working as a lead pre-school teacher with autistic kids. Awesome for her, but a little disheartening for me. On Friday, the admissions director called me and we had a long talk. She was super sympathetic to my concerns and what was her response? "You're absolutely right. Erikson's curriculum is geared toward education. It sounds like you would be a better fit for our dual degree - Child Development and Master's in Social Work. You would come out of it fully prepared to work within an agency that helps children and families." Hold up- a dual degree program? So 3-4 years at $28,000 a year in tuition plus living expenses for two degrees, one I'm not even sure I need, in a city across the country from everything I know? Carry the one... add the 3. Yeah. I can't afford that. In so many ways.

I talked it over with everybody. I feel good about my decision. I'm not going to Chicago. I feel like it is logical and good for me. Not only that, but I've had the swift kick in the butt I need to figure out my stuff. There's a plan in the works.

Anddddd... on top of that, I'm done working with the twins as of June 1. 18 months of crazy fun times, but it makes sense for both of us, and they will always be a part of my life.

So that has been my April. Sheesh.

In Paris- Day 1

 We have finally gotten over our jet lag and travel depression, and now we are home and back to work. Paris was so much fun- a dream. To sum up, it was a lot of walking, seeing, talking and eating. All my favorite things. We took many pictures, so I'll put up pictures from our most picture-worthy days.

 On our first day, after a seeing her the night before for dinner, drinks and meeting new friends, Abby took on the role of tour guide and photographer, but way less knowledgeable and way more fun to cuddle with.

We walked through a ton of the city that day, starting with seeing the outside of Notre Dame. We went inside a couple days later, when the lines weren't so long.

 We took a breather at the famous bookstore Shakespeare and Company, where big names in the game used to hang out way back in the day. You aren't allowed to take pictures there, so this is us being sneaky.

Of course we had to make our way to the Eiffel Tower so that we could, like millions of couples before us, capture a kiss. The weather was beautiful and we were tired, so we sat and enjoyed the view.

Chocolate tarte and the Eiffel Tower! It was beautiful.

Relaxing- did I mention that Abby took on the role of photographer? She is really great at capturing moments.

We ended our day at the Arc de Triomph and shopping along Champs-Elysses, the 5th Avenue of Paris. 

Day 1 was a beautiful introduction to Paris. Day 2 was not so beautiful- right after we finished our walk around the city, we danced the night away at a club near the Moulin Rouge. I don't have pictures from this night for somewhat obvious reasons, and since we didn't go to sleep until the sun was coming up.... well, let's just say we didn't do anything exciting on day 2 except recover and allow the jet lag to devour us whole :)

More to come!

One Week!

... well, from tomorrow. We go to fabulous Paris! I am so excited I feel like I am constantly peeing myself.

It is snowing this morning. SNOWING. I can't handle it. Nobody ever said, "I love it when it snows in Seattle. In MARCH." Ever. The city has an aneurism and develops a stutter every time it snows. I feel like this is Mother Nature's way of performing a trust building exercise for Seattle residents in the wake of the Peyton Manning/Huskies Big Dance Snub fiasco.  So I am excited to get out of this nonsense and into a new city filled with new adventures with the man that I love and my beautiful girlfriend Abby. I will miss my kiddos and my Gus but not that much :)

The other thing I'm really excited for is this new obsession I have. I have been overwhelmed with the desire to decorate our apartment- really, really decorate it. With DIY projects and everything. I've been pouring over Pinterest, tagging things that inspire me. Going to Paris will be all the more inspiring, and I hope to, at the very least, come back home with some amazing fabric or something. Squeal! Pee.

Here's one DIY project I completed not too long ago.

I learned how to do it here. The only thing different is that I used a paper over canvas so there is a little bit of the pattern peeking through the paint. Food is love, don't you know? It's how I show my love, anyway. This sign is a perfect reminder to  never take a meal for granted.

Props to my man.

I've never been the type to go on an on about boyfriends. I'm pessimistic and superstitious about love. Talking about my happiness makes me feel insecure and braggy, and usually I just assume everybody is thinking, "Oh my goooood. Nobody cares about how Andres thought it was cute and hilarious when you accidentally farted the other day."  However, I overcompensate for this paranoid delusion by not talking about him enough. When people ask how he is, I have this tendency to think I should say something neutral so as not to seem too happy and make the other person uncomfortable by my happiness. These conversations go like this:

"So how are you and Andres?"- friend I haven't seen in awhile, genuinely interested
"Oh, fine. You know. Just kind of moving along in our boring settled life. *eye roll*." - Me
"Boring? What do you mean? Are you guys okay?" - friend, now, seeming a little concerned
"Well, not boring boring, just you know... good. Nothing too exciting. We just... work. Both of us have jobs. We are really good, actually. Great. Actually, the funniest thing happened the other day... so I totally accidentally farted...." - Me, sweating and rambling.

The truth is, Andres is a wonderful person and a really supportive boyfriend and I probably don't give him enough credit. We are boring to you, but to us we are awesome. So I want to dedicate this blog post to him and to us. The greatest part of us is that I'm not constantly waiting for excitement or entertainment. He listens to me tell stories about my nanny kids,  laughing in all of the appropriate parts, and he will tell stories about the punk kids who take hours before buying one shirt at Nordstrom. He is tolerant of my sloppy-eating and my obsession with politics, and accepts my messiness in the same way that I accept the absence of punctuation in his text messages and the fact he is the only person alive who doesn't like my chili. We see a lot of movies together, and he always holds my hand, wherever we go. We both say we're going to work out and then don't. He takes care of his feet and he loves my cat. These are things that don't matter to anybody but me, but they are really important. Really.
We are besties in love. This means that we disagree often and bug the crap out of each other, but don't care too much. It means he knows how I like broccoli steamed and I know how much creamer he likes in his coffee. It means that I will put away the hot sauce left out in the living room everyday and he will fold my laundry. It means that late night IHOP is always a good idea.
So there it is. We're good, and we're happy, but not too exciting. If you ask me how we're doing and I'm awkward, it's because I don't know how to convey this is a normal way. He's wonderful, and I'm weird.

And the two of us wonderful weirdos are in love.

Updates.

I know that I've neglected this sharing spot- that is mostly because I've been writing privately more about things I'm not really comfortable sharing. When things are tense or frustrating, it gets harder to focus on the wonderful things. Like everything in life, this too shall pass, but I am anxious for that. I am looking forward to this weekend, when Andres and I are cashing in my Christmas gift to him and going to Long Beach, WA. We get a hotel on the water and a 4-course meal.
It will be a great way to get ready for the following week, when I will spend the weekend with Molly, Charlie, Howie and puppy Buckley alone, while mom and dad go away for a wedding. I've never done an overnight with the kids, let alone an entire weekend, but I honestly think it will be totally and completely fine. The trick to kids is making sure they never get bored, right? I'm going to have to visit pinterest for some good projects to do together. I have no doubt that Howie and I will be fine- he and I have a great thing going. I don't want to brag or anything, but he took his very first steps to me a couple weeks ago. Just let go of the chair and took 6 steps to me, placed his head on my shoulder and then acted like nothing happened. It was amazing.

And my twins! Oh, my twins. They are big boys now, learning how to recite ABC's, making up stories, and becoming avid readers. Here is me and Theo enjoying the depressing musings of Dr. Seuss's The Lorax. You wouldn't think the story is about the end of our environment as we know it by the delighted looks on our faces, though.

Gone shootin.

I'm working on not being a weenie. I don't believe in new year's resolutions, but I made a life resolution to not be such a stinkin weenie. So last week, when Andres asked me if I was finally ready to accompany him and his lovely sister Andrea to Wade's Gun Range ("Come on, please? Tuesday night is Ladies Night- you can rent any gun for free!" I can't make this stuff up), I said I would go. I would watch! I would see what it was like up close and then maybe next time I would hold a gun. And then maybe the next time I would point it. And then the maybe next time I would shoot it. Maybe.

Everybody knows I'm a bleedin-heart-elitist-liberal. But I'm also from Spokane, WA, where many of my classmates welcomed hunting as the most important rite of passage on the day they turned 12. They brought in pictures of their first bucks and  proudly shared the venison jerkey at lunch. My fifth grade boyfriend wore camouflage to school everyday. I don't have a problem with legal, safe hunting. I have a problem with getting shot. I have a problem with the logic that handguns should be allowed in public places like parks, restaurants, and bars (seriously? it's your right to carry your gun into a room full of drunk people, where you'll be drunk yourself? You're more likely to shoot your balls off than you are to need to defend yourself from a lethal threat. When that happens, I have the right to laugh at you). I don't care if you know how to safely handle a gun- get it away from me. If you have it in your home to protect yourself, you have the right to ignore the statistics about being more likely to have a child shoot themselves than the need to shoot an intruder to protect them. Just please keep it away from me.

So I'm a weenie. I put on my goggles and my earmuffs (I know they have a name, but that's what they are), and I watched Andres and Andrea load and shoot a Smith and Wesson .22. What can I say? I'm easily influenced. I blame peer pressure. With a lot (none) of pushing and persuading and calling me a weenie, I held, pointed, and shot the gun. And you know what? It was pretty damn cool. Was I good at it? Mehhh... ask the PVC pipe holding up my target.