The Fabulous Life of Stefanie

On Maddie's last day of school she brought home a summer reading list, and while many would recoil at another thing to get done, and over the summer no less, I jumped with joy that Maddie and I had another reason for our favorite date: going to our local library.  The ladies and I try and go once or twice a month to stock up on new books, see what programs are going on and let Annie throw someone else's board books all over the ground, but since it is summer and dinnertimes and bedtimes aren't such a huge deal I wanted to try and make it a weekly event that just Maddie and I do together for a little one-on-one time while Annie gets some floor play and cuddles from Daddy.  So last night Maddie put on her unicorn helmet, grabbed her scooter and off we went, stopping to say hi to some friends in the neighborhood, gawk at the ice cream truck that I wasn't prepared/stocked with cash to indulge in and chat about the life and times of my favorite four year old. We knew ...

The best part of Maddie starting preschool last fall is definitely the love that she now has for school, added to her already instilled love to learn and socialize that seems to have developed immediately out of the womb but the second best part? Summer vacay, y'all! No dragging the kid out of bed at 6:00! No more rushing to get everyone dressed, fed, teeth brushed, packed, and out the door at exactly 7:15. Not that the grown ups get to stop doing that but to take away the stress of doing it for the kiddo for a few months...hell to the yes. When you have a baby up at 4:55, one grown up running,  and one 4 year old who literally has to be dragged out of bed in the mornings, things can be, well chaotic. Couple that with my need to make sure beds are made and toys are picked up (I cannot leave a messy house, it will haunt me all day), I get in about 3 miles of walking around the house before I actually walk to the train for the day. But not after next  week, suckers! Sorry, I...

It's been almost two months since I have had the time to come here and put words down, though I have done it in my head a million times, and I don't even really have the time today (I just really have a case of the Mondays). Life is BUSY, but that is stating the obvious if you didn't just randomly stumble across this blog. A newborn, a toddler, a career, a marriage, friends, running, neighborhood involvement...it doesn't end and I love it, really, every single day I feel so lucky to have it all, even when I can barely spell my name or apply lipstick with a straight hand (hello, today). Let's just use this blog as a little (big) catch up and then get back to regularly scheduled programming, shall we? Annabel is a joy. She is so sweet and snuggly and smiley and I really just cannot get enough of her. She also does one thing that Maddie didn't do, which is sleep! Like, at night , when I want to sleep. We are cosleeping with her, as we did with Maddie, so s...

Parenting has been a trial and error situation; we had a pretty good idea of the type of parents we wanted to be and what we wanted this child-raising thing to look like but really, you don't know shit until you are in the thick of it and trying to make it all work in real life. Am I an expert? Hell no. Do I make mistakes? Absolutely (all parents do!). But as I approach baby number two, I think there are a few things that I have learned along the way that have really worked for our family and hopefully they can help out at least one of my many friends who are expecting their first bundles of joy. Consider this one in what might be a few of the big things we have done that have been wins (I promise to share the fails too, because we have definitely had our share of those!). If anything, this is something I can come back to when I am having a day of fails to remind myself that we are (usually) nailing this parenting thing. We don't have a coffee table. Our living room floor ...

Things are not well. As a matter of fact, they are pretty unwell. Work. OH work. How does one maintain an open door policy when the need to shut the door and cry is so great? Something has to give, but it hasn't. Home. My home sweet home that I do love so much but the project list is not moving because it is a daily task just to keep it together with a very energetic toddler who cannot get out and run around and be a toddler. Our commute time home has doubled, even tripled, on most nights so we get home, get dinner and get to bed. The time we spent playing and coloring and getting a few things done is spent on the road staring at brake lights and snow banks as high as the eye can see. My me time. I see the runners on the Esplanade with their millions of layers and frozen tears and don't remember my own runs against snow drifts with chapped red legs and impossible miles ahead. I just miss it. I am so, so jealous. I want to get up and layer up and go for a run in this terri...

This past weekend we made an appointment for a gender determination sonogram at one of those weird "see your baby in 3D and make a pop up video about them" places because my doctor said that she couldn't order another sonogram since I have a healthy, low-risk pregnancy (a lovely problem to have, I know). So, begrudgingly, but really wanting to know whether this is a little brother or little sister, we paid $70 and finally got a good peek at this little baby.  The sonogram tech was super nice and made it really fun by slowly typing out "it's a girl" on the big screen we were all watching and once I saw that "g" I was so excited, but at the same time felt very un-surprised. We are two families that make girls, and I just feel like I am made to be the mama of girls. Boys are awesome, and I like the one that I married an awful lot, but girls are my thing and I am thrilled to be bringing another one into the world along side my little firecracker, Ma...

Halloween was my niece's 2nd birthday so after a night of trick-or-treating we woke early Saturday to drive to Brooklyn and celebrate. We were supposed to go to a little Halloween parade in her neighborhood but the rain caused it to be cancelled, which turned out to be a good thing since a four hour road trip and a potty training toddler take a lot longer than usual.  Maddie did awesome telling us when she needed to stop and only had one accident after she told us a little too late, but not bad for her first few weeks of no diapers. I am pretty sure she loves this whole stopping at each rest stop situation because it means she gets to chat with strangers and get something to snack on (she sure is her Mama's child!). We made it to Brooklyn with most of the day ahead of us so after a visit with our family we headed off, just the three of us, to get lunch at Momofuku Noodle Bar. I had so cruelly gone without my beloved back in March, so I really wanted to make it up ...

I have been thinking a lot lately about seasons (and not just because we are in full-on fall mode in New England with this lovely nor'easter blowing through) and specifically about the seasons of our lives. I would say we are in a serious " check that off the life to-do list" season with our first home purchase, one kiddo growing up and another growing in my belly, Matt plowing his way through school and both of us really trying to grow in our careers.  It is a busy, busy season and one that can be considered a little stressful. Our expendable income and savings does not exist; we owe a lot of money from buying our home both to the mortgage company, people that helped us out, and the credit cards companies that we had to utilize to get us through that time. Add in to that a mortgage, paying for school and paying our nanny to help us raise such an awesome little girl and there is not much leftover for the rest of life. Right now most of my income goes to chil...

"Mama. put down your phone and dance like a ballerin-o wif me. Twirl Mama, twirl."  You got it baby girl. You. Got. It. Her imagination slays me. Sometimes she decides that she is a baby giraffe or baby bird and calls everyone else the same animal plus their name. She will only respond to her animal moniker in these moments and asks for grass to eat for her and her "fwends". She asks about the "new house" often and seems pretty excited for it, which I totally feel, baby girl. In the afternoons her nanny picks me up then we drop her off and pick Dada up so we have that extra time in the car to chat and review our day. She always gives her beloved nanny air "ugga muggas" (like Eskimo kisses) when we drop her off and she insists on calling Dada on the way to his work to tell him about the boats or the runners on the Charles in the few minutes before we see him. When we get home she needs a minute to sit on the porch and watch for planes...

I had my first pang of "holy crap, stop growing up" today as I was leaving a meeting and thinking about how crazy it is that this little baby girl of mine is officially two and a half and now closer to three than to two. She is closer to school days and the grown up world and waaaaaaaaaahhh . But really, I love this stage so, so much and this little lady of mine is just blowing my mind and making my heart explode into a million pieces every single day. Before we had Maddie my exposure to children was pretty limited; not a lot of my friends have kids (especially not in Boston), I babysat a bit when I was really young but usually just babies and for a couple of hours and I had never had siblings or younger family around me. I was probably about as novice as possible and because of this I was scared about how I would feel as she got older. I was literally scared that I would not like my own kiddo. Babies are cute and they don't really do much, and they certa...

In addition to writing this extremely popular, internationally followed blog (teehee) I am also a big fan of reading blogs and, like everyone else and their mother (and my mother) I also follow a lot of friends and non-friends on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. A lot of wonderful content is shared there but, let's face it, a lot of it is the bright side of life and we tend to leave the nitty gritty difficult stuff out. We see beautiful smiling babies, dressed up date nights, fun vacation shots but not so much the meltdown in the car seat, the slow nights at home catching up on the DVR or the bank balance that follows a wonderful vacation. There are some people that balance it out, and there are some people that take it waaaaay to the extreme and put their entire life out there, dirty laundry and all, which is sadly sometimes too crazy for me to look away from. I admit, there are some people I stay friends with on Facebook just because their dramatic lives and status updates are ...

Monday was my dear old young husband's birthday and even though we had just ran a marathon, traveled thousands of miles and had a really good birthday celebration for me, there was no way I was going to let the day go without a little special love for my amazing fella. Our nanny needed to get to class early, and we were both feeling extra tired, which made for the perfect excuse to leave work early and head outside. One of my favorite things about living in Boston is all of the big open areas we have to choose from, and on the top of that list is Castle Island in Southie. The views of the water, the puppy watching and the ice cream from Sullivan's make it the perfect place for our little family to run around and enjoy any beautiful weather that gets thrown at us, so that is exactly where we headed. We had two hours to frolic before our planned little dinner date with friends so we let Maddie run around to her heart's desire, climb the highest ladders at the playgr...

I often say that my career has prepared me pretty well for parenting: five years of Starbucks taught me how to live off of no sleep; working in the prison taught me how to appreciate my freedom; working with mental health patients taught me how to deal with schizophrenia, violent outbursts and periods of mania and managing has taught me how to have difficult conversations and to use positive reinforcement. Maddie, however, has taught me the most important lesson of all, which is how to love unconditionally, even when she is exhibiting all of the aforementioned lessons.  Toddlers, my friends, they sure are something. Luckily, they are also hilarious little humans. This morning after getting dressed (which is either the most awesome or the very worst most terrible thing ever, depending on the day, or minute) Maddie dug around in her toy box pulling out a pair of bright orange star sunnies and a metal Curious George radio. She then proclaimed "mama, I going to school"...

I don't know why, but Maddie has been having some serious sleep issues again, which results in her waking up in the middle of the night and one of us sleepwalking to bring her into bed with us and then her keeping us up for a couple of hours until we either put her back in her room, where she eventually passes out, or us almost giving up on ever sleeping again when she eventually passes out....at which point an alarm always seems to go off. This morning, my sweet, sweet husband actually got up with her at 5am and let me have a glorious hour all to myself in which I had the deepest sleep ever.  But then it was time to get up.  I know that someday we will all joke about what a terrible sleeper little Maddie was and how it helped her study so hard to become the engineer/train conductor/macaroni and cheese chef she ends up being, but for now, it just sucks. A lot . And it makes for some pretty hard Mondays, especially with those long runs on Sunday. Oh, parenthood...

Giving me her "mad face" this morning. Maddie is at this fantastic stage where she is SO talkative but is actually pretty capable of holding down a solid little chat. As soon as she and her nanny pick me up from work she starts telling me all about their adventures, whether an ever exciting grocery store run or visiting the "dine dines at the science" (dinosaurs at the Museum of Science). She tells me if she went to the "playplace" or "ayebrary" (library) and whether or not she shared (although sometimes she gives herself more sharing credit than her more truthful nanny can attest to). She tells me that she loves me a lot, and it makes my heart swell and burst into a million tiny rainbows each time. Yesterday while picking something up at CVS (which she calls BS, so obviously she knows about their customer service at two years old) she introduced me to the cashier: "this is my Mama" then she said "I love her" and I thoug...

I have gotten into a good routine of prepping things for the week on Sundays so that we have more time when we get home to play trains and less time having to chop onions, because, priorities, you know? I am always on the look out for recipes that can be made ahead, and I recently stumbled across a delicious quinoa stuffed bell pepper dish on another blog that looked like a good make-ahead meal. I paired it with some baked beans (Maddie and Matty both prefer them over black) and a nice Abita Pecan Harvest poured into a fancy Allagash glass from our trip to the brewery two summers ago. Delicious! Here is my version of the recipe, modified to make ahead (I made them Sunday and we had them Tuesday night).  Quinoa Stuffed Peppers, serves four to five adapted from A Beautiful Mess 1 cup quinoa (I used a mixture of colors) 5-6 tablespoons olive oil 4 cloves of garlic, minced 1 jalapeno, seeds removed and chopped 1/2 onion, chopped 1 teaspoon cumin 1/2 cup tomato sauce (I used 2...