My Mother

My thankful thoughts today turn toward Mrs. Joyce Ann Eiben, and her fabulous husband Jay.

I'm truly at a loss for words when it comes to talking about my mom. She's a very faithful, hard-working, compassionate person and she has set the bar quite high for motherhood! Every choice she makes and every breath she breathes is for the good of her kids and I don't tell her "thank you" enough. She and Jay have been a monumental help to Sylvain and me, especially now that we have our own house. She is always planning our next painting party or shopping day or weekend together. Without her, I'd have an empty house and no clothes. Thank goodness she's around!

My favorite thing about my mom is her constant effort to hold on to traditions. She's always trying to "pass on" something, whether it be a necklace or a quilt or a recipe. Holidays are a big deal and she gets such joy out of gathering everyone together around good food and fun games. A trip to Mom's house is sure to provide nourishment for the body AND the soul and I always leave there feeling a little more centered than when I arrived.

In fact, I changed my mind about my favorite thing. My favorite thing about my mom is that she succeeded in creating a "home." I've written about this before. All through college and the rest of my adult life, Mom's house was always "home." It's where I used to go to do my laundry and shop in her pantry. Where I could show up any time, day or night, and know there was a room for me and a place to hide. And it seems that she always knew what I needed. "Want some banana nut bread?" "Wanna go shopping?" "Wanna go to church tomorrow?" "Wanna go see Grandma?" Visiting her really keeps me grounded.

And don't even get me started on that husband of hers! I don't know where we'd be without Jay around. I remember when he and Matt and Jenny showed up at our door so many years ago. "Who is this guy?" I thought. Turns out he was the perfect person, and they were the perfect family for us. I don't have to worry about Mom being alone, I don't have to worry about who will help us cut down the tree in the back yard, I don't have to worry about who will watch our baby when we go on our Anniversary trips. Mom and Jay are just always....there.

And I'm so thankful!

My Husband

As the countdown to Thanksgiving begins, I've decided to combine this NaBloPoMo idea with a great idea I saw this morning on Facebook. Some folks over there are trying to post one thing they're thankful for each day between now and our favorite American holiday. I thought I'd try to blog about one thing I'm thankful for every day, and that way I can cover this daily post thing lickety-split, no problem. It might get a little more challenging as I go, but I honestly believe there is no way I can run out of things to be thankful for. So, without further ado, here's number one on my list:

Mr. Fasciotto! My favorite person on the planet. Thanks to our dear friends, Emily and Ben, we were set up in 2004 and haven't left each other's side since. I remember telling Emily way back when, "You know, he's the kind of guy that makes me NOT want to kiss anybody else!" And that was kind of a big deal for me. I was a "serial dater" and he was my rehab. The end of the line. The one and only. The "it doesn't get any better than this and I know it because I've seen it all." Maybe it was his French-ness, maybe it was his shy-ness, I'm positive it had something to do with his button-down shirt worn open over an old green t-shirt that got me. Whatever it was, it didn't take long for me to decide that I was done. Goodbye other boys, heelllloooo husband! Best choice I ever made.

During his birthday party this weekend, I had a "moment." I was watching him play pinball and everyone was crowded around - talking, laughing, drinking and partaking in the general merriment of a party. All night long I had been so grateful to everyone who came to see him on his special day, and I was honored that so many people came from out of town, but for one, tiny, brief spec of an instant, I thought, "This is more fun when we're by ourselves." We go to Game Works all the time, especially during Thanksgiving and Christmas break. We order a pitcher of beer, put a few dollars on the game card, and park it by the pinball machines so he can kick my butt at his favorite game. But I SOOO love spending that time with him. And I love playing pinball, even though I stink at it. I never thought of it as romantic bonding time, but while everyone else was watching, I thought, "Hey, this is our thing. This is what we do together and you guys have no idea how wonderful it is!" Then I snapped out of it and joined the party once again.

Now that there's a baby on the way, I'm really starting to appreciate the time we spend together, which is all the time. We can't get enough of each other and I know we're going to have no trouble sharing all that love with our kids, but I know we'll miss all the dinners out and last-minute "change of plans" activities that we like to do. I'll miss driving around town deciding what to do as we do it. I'll miss those quiet days at home where we both end up on the couch reading for hours and hours and hours. Not that we won't get to do those things anymore, but I know that our entire way of life will flip upside down once our little darling gets here. I can't wait until the kid's old enough to go to Game Works with us! I have visions of a wee tot standing on a chair to reach the pinball buttons with his (or her) dad hovering behind, watching and giving advice, celebrating every flashing light and ringing bell.

I married the pefect person for me and I'm so thankful!

Fun Times Were Had By All!

Well, the party was a roaring success! We are so grateful to everyone for coming, but especially to those of you who drove from out of town just to spend an evening of fun at the greatest Sports Bar/Arcade on the planet! It was so good to hang out with everyone. Here are some highlights (I finally have a camera)!

The Cake

check out www.bakerella.com for the recipe for cupcake pops

The Room

We had the whole back bar section of Gameworks!

Family!

This is my stepbrother Matt, but there were lots of other family there -including Grandma Neltner


Friends!
Michael and Sylvain - buddies for 12 years.

Presents!

Sylvain's new soccer jersey - French team. He promptly shoved it in my stepsister's face and teased her with inappropriate comments perfectly befitting a maniacal soccer fan.

And of course....lots and lots of PINBALL!

Laura and Sylvain

Pete and Victoria

Sylvain and Greg - quite a match!

Tucker and Karl



AND THE WINNER IS.......

The Birthday Boy!

Happy 30th!

We're Gonna Party Like it's 1979!

Tonight is Sylvain's big Gameworks Pinball Birthday Extravaganza! Therefore, I won't have much to post until tomorrow, at which time we'll have pictures and some good stories to tell.

In other news, Mom and I went to Target today to register for baby stuff! It's amazing how much I DON'T KNOW about babies. Sylvain was not interested in registering with me, but has reserved the right to veto anything we've picked out, which he won't do, I'm sure. The funny thing about shopping with Mom was, every time I saw something I wanted, like the nursing pillows and the microwaveable bottle sterilzer set, she would say, "Why in the world do you need that? I didn't need that when I had babies! No one needs all this stuff!" And I told her that maybe her life would have been easier with a bottle sterilizer and she says to me, I kid you not..."I don't think I had to work that hard." I laughed and said, "Sure, you say that NOW, but I bet you were pretty pooped 28 years ago with a newborn." Regardless, we found all kinds of useful stuff, but we have lots more to add. I need to do some research on things like carseats and baby swings. A couple times we found ourselves standing in front of a wall of baby things completely confused and saying, "Um....let's wait."

Anyway, I can't wait to see all of our friends and family tonight, and I'll be sure to post pics tomorrow.

Ack!

I already forgot to post yesterday! I don't know if this National Blog Posting Month idea is going to work for me. I also realized this morning that posting every day in November is the complete opposite of the "no blog sacrifice" I had during lent. And now this whole thing feels like one big sin. Oh well. I bet if God read my blog, he'd like it.

And on that God note, we joined a church yesterday! You are now reading the blog of the newest member of St. Pius X. I really want to get this kid baptized and we really like the little church that's just around the corner from our house, so it all worked out perfectly. St. Pius looks just like St. Mary's, the church I went to in high school, and the priest, Father Bill, is one of the best ones I've ever heard. He's very progressive, in my opinion, and not afraid to talk about important social issues, which I respect. I'm sure there are lots of people in the congregation who disagree with him, but so far I have not, especially when he spoke about Health Care and Education. My kinda guy.

To completely change the subject: I've been working on Sylvain's birthday party "cake" for two days now. A pinball themed party is hard to pull off. It's turned into more of a "manly polka dot" theme than anything else. I'll post a picture of it when I'm done IF it turns out the way I want it to. There's a good chance we may just be driving through DQ to pick up an ice cream cake on our way to the party. Who knows!

Thinking Like a Parent

Now that I'm pregnant, I'm starting to look at everything differently. It's amazing how a 28 year old girl is so different from a 28 year old soon-to-be-parent. Tonight I had another "parent moment" while we were watching the new Coen Brothers Movie, The Serious Man. ("Why were you out at a movie on a Wednesday night?" you might ask. Well, because we're off school tomorrow AND Friday for no apparent reason. Our school district must really hate November's guts, because we're only in school for 16 days this month!)

So the movie takes place in the 60's and there's this awkward, red-headed Jewish kid who smokes a lot of pot with his friends. He and his friends are smoking up in the bathroom right before he has to get up and sing during his Bar Mitvah. Anyway, when he stands up and walks to the front of the temple, he is CLEARLY effed up. Red eyes, blurry vision, stumbly, slow...you get the idea. And the whole time he's walking and when he's getting ready to start, all the parents and adults are sitting there all proud and smiley and I'm like, "People! Can't anyone see that he's a MESS?! Wipe those smiles off your faces and somebody go GET MAD AT HIM!" Then I remembered how hard it was for me to tell when my friends were high in college (seriously, I got made fun of because I could NEVER figure it out). So I quickly tapped my husband on the shoulder and in the middle of the dark theater I said to him....

"You'll be able to tell when our kid's high, right?"

He said yes, and I relaxed with that fuzzy, warm, "Go team!" feeling. No kids sneaking drugs at our house!

National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo)

Okay, so I missed November 1st, but I plan to participate in the 30 posts in 30 days for the National Blog Posting Month challenge! I learned of this lovely activity from my dear friend Laura, who has recently ABANDONED her blog because she's crazy busy with school. When I checked her blog yesterday (like I do EVERY day) I found that she has revived her poor, lonely blog and is now posting every day! Yippee and hooray for me! So, after I thought about it for all of 30 seconds, I decided I should do it too. From the perspective of a writer, it's a great idea: trying to generate quantity before worrying about quality, just like I try to tell my kids to do in their writer's notebooks. I can sift through all the mediocre stuff later and hang on to the really good "gems" of writing that I might (possibly) come up with. The only downside: the four people who read my blog will have to read everything. Everyday. Well, I guess they wouldn't HAVE to, but I would appreciate it. I mean, there's only four of you and that INCLUDES my mother, who pretends like she doesn't read this, like she only checks it every once in a while, but I know better. She's my Mom. C'mon.

So that's that. And here's my thought for the day, or rather, just a random thought that I came up with in the hallway at school and would love to leave here for you to ponder:

Where do you think the phrase, "I hate your guts" comes from? I mean, how can you hate someone's GUTS? Do you think it just means, "I hate you to your very core?" or "I hate all the things that make up you?" or do you think some kid somewhere, probably in the 1950's, couldn't come up with anything better so he just blurted out..."I hate..........YOUR GUTS!" and everyone went "Awwwww, no he di'int!" Okay, "No he di'int" was probably not thrown around in the 50's, but you know what I mean.

Now ponder and reply, people. This is important stuff!