I worked my butt of and despite an unexpected snow day school cancellation I managed to get Zach half a day home on his own for his birthday.  We met up with his family for lunch at Chili’s and then Nana and Grandpa took the boys for the night.  Zach and I saw Girl With The Dragon Tattoo that evening (Great book and movie and on a funny side note, when I told Xander the title of the movie we were seeing his only question was ‘what color is the tattoo?’)

It turns out having the boys out of the house on the 23rd was awesome.  We got home early enough to clean and do Christmas preparation (stuff stockings, build toys, set out presents, etc.)  So on the 24th, we had very little to do before heading out to get the boys and get our Christmas on.  We spent the 24th with my family and had a great time – with plenty of time built in the play with the boys and their new toys.  We finally arrived home at 10pm on the 24th, but didn’t have to do all the Christmas prep (yay!)

The boys slept until 7:30 on Christmas day (win!) and celebrated the occasion with all of the excitement and joy that we all love to see from small children.  We opened our stockings and had some breakfast drinks (coffee/tea for adults, milk for kids) before Nana and Grandpa arrived.  Then we got down to some serious unwrapping.  That lasted us nearly two hours, and the house was filled with toys and discarded wrapping paper.  Some quick clean up and lunch, and then the cousins and aunt/uncle arrived.

Our 4th Christmas in two days commenced and the wrapping paper flew again.  We picked up and played and drank tea and ate and visited well into the evening.  That night we all collapsed, exhausted but thoroughly satisfied with the day.

The 26th we relaxed a bit before heading out to a princess birthday party.  I realized that I am the mother of two boys, and my idea of an ideal princess party these days is to invite the brother of the birthday girl over to my house to play with dinosaurs or toy guns.  But, the birthday girl had a wonderful time, and that was the important part.

I don’t think we got out of our pajamas on the 27th, but we did clean the house a bit in preparation of the 28th.  On Wednesday the family came back up to the house for Parker’s birthday breakfast.  Our house is big, but it turns out we really need a table that can fit 14 people+ people.  Thankfully, we all like each other, and getting cozy wasn’t a problem.

More relaxation, and then we spent a night with Nana and Grandpa so that on the 30th the girls (Mother-in-law, sister-in-law and two nieces) could make a trip to the Yankee Candle Factory.  We left about 10am, and spent the day browsing candles at both Yankee and Kringle factories.  The girls (12 and 13 now) talked us into going to the Deerfield mall ‘on the way back’.  Oh man were my feet sore by the time we left (I was so happy to find $5 fake Uggs at the Christmas Tree Shop!) but we had lots of fun without the boys for the day.  It was late when we arrived home, so we stayed another night with Nana and Grandpa.

New Year’s was a quiet event this year.  We spent a few hours at a friend’s house, visiting, and trying to keep the boys from destroying his place.  About 9pm we went home, and after tucking the boys into bed, rang in the New Year watching Friday Night Lights and playing The Old Republic (depending on your perspective).

Amazingly, the boys got along pretty well the whole week.  Zach and I had fun playing with them, and managed to get in some good quality time with each boy.  And when vacation was done, I was actually sad to return to work and not be home playing with the boys anymore.  So that was Christmas.  It was busy, and exhausting and kind of expensive, and fun, and silly, and happy and overall wonderful.

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We walked into the cafeteria and went to the registration table.  Xander got a name tag and we got a giant terracotta pot.  There were 4 ‘stations’ set up, and we were directed to the 1st station where Xander played with one of the kindergarten teachers (they are big on magnetic letters) on a baking tray (cool trick since it’s magnetic) while we chatted with the principal.  They got to test Xander’s letter recognition and organization and we got some handouts (which we could carry around in our handy pot).  Xander got to pick out a seed packet (to plant in the terracotta pot) and we moved onto the next station.  At each station they evaluated things like gross and fine motor skills, following directions, etc. and we met with people like the school nurse, the OT specialist, reading specialist and teachers.  As Xander finished whatever task was in front of him, he was given some sort of reward (a beach ball from the health table, gardening gloves from the OT table, a drawing/counting game from the academics table, etc.)

When we left and I asked Xander how he liked it, he said ‘it was ok… but they didn’t have any dinosaurs for me to play with’  On the other hand, this morning he asked me where he was going to school today, and when I told him, his current school he made a face at me.  I asked him what the problem was – he loves his school and he informed me yes, but he wanted to go to kindergarten!  So, I guess any qualms I had over him being ready (the OT lady’s first comment when she met us was ‘wow, a little guy – he just barely meets the cut off!’) are moderately relieved since he’s pretty confident that he’s ready

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IF I  HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER – by Erma  Bombeck (written after she found out she was dying from cancer).

• I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren’t there for the day.
• I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.
• I would have talked less and listened more.
• I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained, or the sofa faded.
• I would have eaten the  popcorn in the ‘good’ living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.
• I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his  youth.
• I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband.
• I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.
• I would have sat on the lawn with my grass stains.
• I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and more while watching life.
• I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn’t  show soil, or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.
• Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I’d have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle..
• When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, Later… Now go get washed up for dinner.’ There would have been more ‘I love you’s’ More ‘I’m sorry’s.’
• But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute, look at it and really see it. Live it and never give it back. STOP SWEATING THE SMALL STUFF!

Don’t worry about who doesn’t like you, who has more, or who’s doing what. Instead, let’s cherish the relationships we have with those who do love us…

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I love chapstick - especially whey they let me put it on myself!

It’s been far to long since I last posted.  I can point to a number of reasons for this.  Wordpress works funky on my iPad so I have to type everything in the excerpt box and then move it when I get to a real computer.  We haven’t uploaded new pictures to flickr for ages, and those usually give me inspiration.  The second child always gets shafted.  The milestones are still exciting, and while they are new for Parker, they are not new for us.  Couple this with the fact that he hates to have his picture taken and the result is far, far less blogging from Sara.

Our friend Jenny gave Parker some books (among other things) for Christmas.  One of the books is No No Yes Yes.  The first time I read the book to Parker, I had an strange sensation of reading it before.  We read through it again and I realized I had not read the book before, just lived every single No No page.  The book shows two pictures, a ‘no no’ and a ‘yes yes’ (no no dumping your food, yes yes eating  your food, etc.).  Parker does every single no-no in the book (except for pulling the cat’s tail).  He dumps his food, he plays in the toilet water, he pours water out of the bath tub (didn’t discover that one until it started soaking the carpet the floor below).  He runs away from us in parking lots, he hits his brother, the list goes on.  Read the No No Yes Yes book and you’ll get a pretty good idea of how Parker acts.

I love the kid to pieces, but he is just a naughty little boy about 65% of the time.  It’s harder to write about that stuff – I don’t want either of my kids to look back at this digital preservation of their lives someday and see all the glowing, loving posts about Xander and pages and pages of text about Parker’s latest behavioral flaw.  And yet, I constantly struggle to find the good posts, the ones where Parker sticks up for his older brother or tries to give me a fish kiss with a face covered in applesauce.  I’ll try harder to find the good stories along with the not-so-good to share, and I’ll try to carve a little time out of my crazy days to sit at a computer and write, and I’ll also try to upload more pictures to Flickr which will almost certainly make me remember lots more things to blog about.

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My baby boy is two years old now.  Two.  Where did that time go?  He is wonderful, amazing, and challenging in ways I could never have expected.  Parker is in many ways a polar opposite to Xander which often keeps us on our toes.  He’s a good sleeper – the transition from crib to bed was a little tough, but we all sleep pretty well these days.  He loves stuffed animals and in particular his “guys” (thanks Matt & Abby for the original ‘snuggle doggie’ who still goes with us everywhere).  He drinks mostly milk and uses his guys, a binky and milk to soothe just about any stressful situation.  The past three months he has been ‘mama’s boy’ to the point where Zach can’t really help with much to do with Parker, because when I’m around no one else is an acceptable substitute.  When our little family is at home, he’s fine.  When we’re visiting friends or relatives, I have a child in my arms at all times.  I love the cuddles, but it’ll be nice to be able to eat with two hands again someday.

I won’t have measurements for a few more days, but I can list current likes and dislikes:

Likes:

• anything electronic.  In particular, the iPad which he can run with ease.
• Horton Hears a Who (favorite movie to watch bits and pieces and preferably not in constitutive order)
• stuffed animals
• his “guys”
• Animals in general
• Xander (when they aren’t fighting over a toy)
• broccoli
• noodles
• milk
• Mom
• Reeghan (cousin)

Dislikes:

• Rubbery feeling things (balls, toys, etc.)
• Holding someone’s hand in a parking lot – he would much rather run at his own pace, which we won’t allow him to do
• Giving up his binky
• Sharing
• Building things (he much prefers to knock them down – I assume he has the ability to stack 6 blocks by now, but I’ve never seen him do it…)
• Being told ‘no’

Parker seems like a pretty typical 2-year-old.  He desperately wants independence (“me do it”) but isn’t quite ready to let go yet.  He isn’t interested in sharing and while he exhibits love and tenderness at times, he doesn’t yet have empathy to sympathize and share.  I’m sure that will come in time.  We love the little Squeaky boy who thankfully has stopped screeching so much now that he has more words.  His memory and ability to repeat things continues to impress me.  I love that little boy more than I can adequately express and he is growing up faster than I am ready for.  Hopefully year two is just as or even more fun than year one.

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Yes, that's a Christmas stocking on his head and yes, he asked me to take his picture...

Jenny The Bloggess inspired me.  Last year we had a tough Christmas.  Luckily for me, we have an absolutely wonderful family and they saved the day.  This year things are better and we are more comfortable.  It was not hard to find the Christmas spirit this year and my children are seeing the magic of Christmas all over the place.  It’s time to pay it forward.  I will select 3 random comments from this post (please include email address!) and send each person a $30 Amazon Gift Card.

Happy Holidays!

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Tuesday:

7:08 am: Sara attempts to log into Facebook  only to learn her account has been disabled.  She follows a link to appeal the decision.

9:20 am: Sara submits an appeal – including a scanned image of her Driver’s license.  And then waits and worries the rest of the day.

Wednesday:

3:24 am: Facebook sends Sara the following message

Hi,

Fake accounts are a violation of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Facebook requires users to provide their real first and last names. Impersonating anyone or anything is prohibited, as is maintaining multiple profiles on the site. Unfortunately, we will not be able to reactivate this account for any reason. This decision is final.

Thanks for your understanding,

The Facebook Team

7:15 am: Sara reads the above message and gets a little confused and upset.  She spends several hours attempting to find a different way to contact ‘The Facebook Team’ as well as blogging, tweeting, plurking, and submitting her post to Digg and Kirsty.

Thursday:

2:06 am: Facebook sends Sara the following message:

Hi,

We apologize for the inconvenience you have experienced. Your account was disabled in error. Your account has been reactivated and you will now be able to log in.

Thanks for your understanding,

The Facebook Team

7:25 am: Sara reads the above message and gets confused and annoyed.  First, Facebook disables my account – mistakenly.  They force me through a ridiculous appeal process and then 24 hours later deny my appeal.  24 hours after that they send me a form letter telling sorry, it was a mistake.  So, they made a mistake on Monday night and 3 DAYS LATER they ‘fix the problem’ and apologize in a form letter?  A form letter that can’t even include my name, and is signed by “The Facebook Team”.   This might possibly be THE WORST customer service I have EVER received.  EVER.  I realize that Facebook has millions upon millions of users, but it’s time for them to stop seeing usernames and start looking at the PEOPLE behind those usernames.  Isn’t the whole point of their freaking billion dollar machine making connections with PEOPLE?

Thanks for fixing what you broke and sending along the barest minimum of an apology.  Assholes.

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Hi,

Fake accounts are a violation of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Facebook requires users to provide their real first and last names. Impersonating anyone or anything is prohibited, as is maintaining multiple profiles on the site. Unfortunately, we will not be able to reactivate this account for any reason. This decision is final.

Thanks for your understanding,

The Facebook Team

I have no clue what I did.  The last thing I did on facebook was browse the wall updates.  I don’t think I even commented on anyone’s status update.  That was 9pm on Monday night.  The most frustrating part is that I don’t know why my account was deactivated.  I don’t know what I did, and instead of speaking to a human about the problem I’m getting form letters from some nebulous group.  It’s not the end of the world – it’s just Facebook.  But, I connect with friends and family on Facebook.  I can’t keep up on comments about “The bachelorette party that never happened” that I’m attending next month, or email my sister-in-law.  I’ve also finally started to build some relationships with the college students I supervise, and Facebook is a big part of that.  They live in Facebook, and I was trying so hard to connect with them in their digital world.  Now I’m forever on the outside and I don’t know how I’m going to regain those connections.  It’s taken me nearly six months to get some of them comfortable enough to friend me on Facebook.

I want another course of action.  I want a second appeal process.  I want to talk to a real live human.  I want to know why my account was deactivated and I want a chance to defend myself.  Is that too much to ask of Facebook?

Update: I responded to Facebook’s email with this:

Good morning,

I apologize but I don’t actually understand.  I am not fake.  I have never provided Facebook with false information.  I submitted my NH Driver’s License as requested.  I do not have multiple profiles and have not violated your Statement of Rights and Responsibilities in any way that I am aware of.  Can you tell me what prompted the deactivation?  Is there someone else I can speak with?  Is there a phone number I can call?  I’ve spent 2 years maintaining my Facebook account.  It’s sort of a shock to lose all of those connections randomly at 10pm on a Monday night in November for no apparent reason.

Sincerely,

Sara

I also sent them a link to my blog article.  Do you think they’ll respond?

Update # 2: I found an email address (thanks Google) of appeals@facebook.com (and received an auto-reply that I should update my contact to use appeals@fb.com in the future).  So I sent this note to that email address:

Good morning,

I believe that my Facebook account was deactivated by mistake.  I believe that I am a victim of the ‘bug in the systems designed to detect and disable likely fake accounts’.  http://gawker.com/5691682/facebook-gives-women-the-third-degree

I followed your appeal process and sent an image of my NH Driver’s License with my name and date of birth on it.

My appeal was denied, but with no explanation about what term I violated in the User Agreement or why, after I had verified that my account was indeed real, not fake, the account was not reactivated.

I am a supervisor of 35 college students.  Maintaining a Facebook relationship with my students is vital to my communication and relationship building strategy.  This is more than just a personal loss for me, it seriously degrades the quality of my professional relationships as well.

Is there any other recourse for me?  Is there a person I can speak with on the phone?  An email address I can use to communicate with someone in the Customer Service Department?  A different appeal process?

Any help or assistance you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Sara

I’ll update again if I hear anything from the Facebook Machine…

Update #3: I have my Facebook account back!  I have no idea when or how or why, but mysteriously when I returned from lunch I could log in just fine.  No explanation or error messages or warnings about impersonating fake people, just my regular old account.  I’m glad it’s back, but I’m still confused about the whole event…

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Once there, the 8 of us settled into the house.  The view was beautiful, and being able to walk out the door and onto the beach was awesome.  The mosquitoes were a little too friendly for my taste, but they mostly left us alone when we were in the sun.  We spent several days just hanging out in the sand and sun.  The weather was beautiful.  The kids had so much fun running in and out of the waves.  And in the evenings, we sat on the couch and sucked up the free wireless (which was wonderful for those of us without home internet access) and often spent a little time in the hot tub before bed.  After 5 fun-filled days on the beach, we packed up again and headed out.

The ride back North was much more stressful.  We left at 11am, and by 3pm the kids had had enough of the car.  They were tired, and cranky, and sick of being cooped up.  We had to stop more often, and the frequent stops were stressing Zach out.  By 9pm we had arrived in New Jersey.  We stayed at another Marriott.  The first one was quite nice.  And while this room was slightly larger, the beds were hard as a stone slab.  It was a very uncomfortable night of restless sleep for the 4 of us.

On Saturday morning we got up and drove into New York City.  We stopped at Liberty Park and found a pretty awesome playground.  The boys had a blast running around and it was nearly deserted which was nice for us.  The wind was pretty unbelievable there, and after about 1/2 an hour we were all ready to retire to the protection of the car.  Then we drove into the city.  Xander enjoyed looking at the tall buildings for a little while.  Parker fell asleep.

We parked near Central Park, and walked through it.  I think Xander would have loved a horse-drawn carriage ride, but we didn’t really want to spend $50 on that sort of novelty.  They both had lots of fun at the playground  in Central Park, which was great.  Then we walked to FAO Schwartz.  And they of course fell in love with the giant toy store.  My favorite part was how much fun the employees were having.  It’s all staged of course, but in nearly every corner, there was an employee playing/demoing some new, fun toy.  They had hackey sacks and tossing games; skateboards and digital music displays and even a story hour.  Parker found a giant meerkat stuffed animal and fell in love.  It was (of course) $60 and much more than we wanted to spend on a stuffed animal.  Then Xander discovered it, and also fell in love.  We pried both boys away and wandered back through the store, trying to find a small souvenir, something more reasonably priced.  As we were walking out Zach told me that he had fallen in love with the giant meerkat as well, and really, how many times are you a little kid in FAO Schwartz?  I agreed.  Both boys were tired and hungry and starting to melt down, so we decided I would start walking towards the pizza place we were planning on for lunch (how can you go to NYC for the day and not have pizza for lunch?) while Zach got them their toy store souvenir and poked his head into the Apple Store next door.

As we walked to the restaurant I reminded Xander that he would have to share the toy with Parker and that the two of them would need to take turns, be good brothers, blah, blah, blah.  Zach caught up with us, and placed a large bag on the stroller, telling Xander that he had to wait until we got to the car to open it.  Surprisingly, Xander didn’t argue this point.  We ate some fabulous NYC pizza, although the restaurant we ended up at didn’t seem very kid friendly.  The hostess sort of sneered at our stroller, and the waitress took nearly a million years to even come for our drink order.  It’s the one time that cranky kids in a restaurant are useful – if you let them make a little noise, someone eventually pays attention to you!

Then we found our car.  It took a long time for the attendants to bring it up, and we were hot and tired, and ready to get home, so it probably felt even longer.  We finally got both boys buckled in, and then Zach opened up the bag and brought out not one but two giant meerkats.   The boys’ reactions were priceless and they were so beyond happy.  They laughed and giggled the whole way out of the city.

A few hours later, Zach mentioned that we needed to find an alternate route around Keene, since the pumpkin festival was going on that day.  We had been planning on stopping in Lempster to pick up Oscar from Zach’s parent’s house, and Keene is the most direct route.  I suggested that perhaps we shouldn’t find an alternate route, but instead should see if we could get a reasonable parking spot.  This is the last year that the current company is hosting the pumpkin festival.  Unless someone takes it over, it’s the last one.  I didn’t want our children to miss out on a Keene pumpkin festival, so we decided to swing by.  We got there at 8:30 pm.  We were lucky enough to park at the post office in Keene and did a brief tour of the thousands of pumpkins all lit up.  Then we were back in the car by 9pm and in Lempster by 9:30.  We slept in Lempster that night, and finally returned to our house the following morning.

It was a long but fun-filled vacation.  Parker got a bit roughed up by North Carolina (I’ll do a follow up post on that) and didn’t sleep well at all, which meant that Zach and I slept next to each other for a total of 1.5 nights during the 10 day vacation, but other than odd sleeping arrangements it was a blast!  The boys seemed to have a great time, and Zach and I had lots of fun doing new things and showing them around a few new parts of the country.

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This blog has been pretty quiet lately.  It’s been a perfect storm of circumstances. Last February we moved to a house that has no high speed internet access. We’ve been working with the town and Time Warner and now Fairpoint to improve the situation for 7 months now. Every time we think we’re close, another obsticle pops up. The current obstacle is that Fairpoint has scheduled 1 month for exactly 1/2 an hour of work that needs to be done and this is apparently faster than the average we’re told. So we are currently hoping that by November we’ll be connected to the rest of the world again. It’s been difficult and challenging in so many ways. Not the least of which is my blog. I can’t seem to find time to go pee during the day, never mind posting on my personal blog. Plus we haven’t uploaded pictures in ages so I don’t have any new fun pictures to share.

There is so much I want to blog about but my lack of time and Internet connectivity have prohibited me. But I haven’t abandoned this space – I will blog more regularly – just as soon as I have spare time at the same time as an Internet connection. Someday soon I hope…

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