Here's lookin' at you, Cary.

The boys' pre-school does a complimentary eye screening, and when the results came back last month, Dean passed, but Cary did not.

So yesterday, we took Cary to see a pediatric opthamologist.

And sure enough, my little sweetie is nearsighted and has astigmatism.

This is what things look like for Cary. And if they're too far away -- forget it.

That poor kid, I swear. If ain't one thing, it's another with him. First his ears (which I have some lingering concerns about, by the way, but that's a post for another day) and now this.

In the scheme of things, having to sport spectacles is far from the worst thing that could ever happen to a child, I know. But I still feel sad that my little 4 lb.-4 ouncer seems to have really borne the brunt of being born too early and too small. I keep thinking, "If only I could've kept him in another week! Even a few more days!" I know that's silly. But if I could go back in time and force myself to stay in bed the week before my water broke, I would so do it. (I'd do a lot of other things differently too, come to think of it, if I had access to a time machine. Most of them involve traveling, saving money and avoiding narcissistic, emotionally unavailable knuckleheads. But I digress.)

We ordered a pair of glasses for him that look similar to this (but not exactly these) and they'll arrive in about seven business days.

OK, I gotta admit. He is pretty darn cute in glasses!

The doctor says he will need to wear glasses all the time - and forever. He said the astigmatism might actually improve with eyeglass-usage, but he'll be nearsighted for the rest of his life.

I'm not sure how one gets a 4-year-old to keep a pair of eyeglasses on all day, everyday. So if anyone has suggestions, I'll take 'em. I did order two books for him about having to wear glasses. And we've been trying to downplay the "problem" with his eyes and play up the coolness of getting to wear glasses.

But other than that - I have no frame of reference for this (no pun intended). Pro tips, anyone?

All I know is, despite the ear challenge and the eye challenge -- and whatever else comes up in his little life -- all my eyes see when I look at him is pure perfection.

Fun, friends and facepainting on Memorial Day

This Memorial Day was busy, busy, but a lot of fun.

We went to Spirit's 5th birthday, which was like a mini-festival, complete with a moon bounce, a magician, a popcorn machine, and a facepainter. (People are determined to put my eat-your-Duncan Hines-cupcakes-and-go-play-with-your-cousins parties to shame!)

It's a flower, even though she kept calling it a butterfly.

The facepainter kept exclaiming about how still Clair was, and how relaxed her face was. Dean, not so much.

My little monsters.

Technically, I think Cary is an avatar, but whatever. He still roared at people.

The magician was a huge hit. I have not seen my boys both crack up so much at the same things before. But they thought his antics and his magic were heeelarious.

I was always just a hair too slow to catch Dean in his full-on belly laugh.

Cary giggled through the whole thing. P.S. I think it is so funny that both my boys like to chew on straws (these are from juiceboxes), just like my uncles and cousins on my Mom's side.

 

Clair, petting the magician's bunny.

The boys' friend Marcus was at the party too. We'll be seeing a lot of Marcus, because they're going to be in the same class at Friends next year!

 And we got to hang out with two former Sun people who we don't get to see nearly enough. Uncle Dusty (Rashod) and Athima!

Me and Rashod go way back to the Sun's features desk! He very much disliked me at first, because he said I was too cheerful. But I won him over -- with my cheerfulness! Today, I can always count on him for friendship, honesty, loyalty and salty language. (Not to mention, good music suggestions.)

Clair let Uncle Dusty help her with her bubbles. This is monumental. She usually throws him so much shade.

Colby, Brent, Kevin and Lester AKA (the fellas).

Jen and her two girls, Athima (yay!), Andrea and Lester.

Keegan and Molly (Jen and Kevin's girls) and Clair were quite adventurous. Keegan and Clair are just two months apart. Molly will be 5 in November. It was fun to see all our kids playing together.

Dean followed Andrea around like a lovesick puppy, holding her hand and asking her to play, chase him, and take him to the bathroom. I told Andrea she better tell her fiance, Zac, that he has some monstrous competition.

Love this photo of my sweetie. She wore her sandals proudly, saying, "I wear my sandals. And I not cry!" That's my girl!

We also went to swim class, Lester took the kids to the park and the grocery store, we both went separately to DC to do various things at Lester's house (which should soon be on the market, yay!) and I cooked for almost seven straight hours yesterday. So there was nothing relaxing about this 3-day weekend.

But I don't imagine those kinds of long weekends will come again for quite some time.
Not with these three around.

Cary looks annoyed. Dean looks like a big boy. Clair looks adorable and devilish. In other words, the uje.

Throwback Thursday to my Baltimore Sun days

I spent nine years at The Baltimore Sun - the longest I've ever done any one thing in my whole life.

I was in elementary school for seven years (counting kindergarten), middle school for two years, high school for four, college for four, The Kansas City Star for four. I've been a Mom for four years; I've been married for almost seven.

So although I was really ready to go when I left in 2008, and haven't regretted the move away from The Sun or from journalism, it's not surprising, I suppose, that sometimes I get a little nostalgic about my days as a Baltimore Sun reporter. I spent a long time there.

Me at my desk (to the right) during my last summer at The Sun.

I'm very happy where I am now. The work is interesting and important, I think, and the culture fits my life much better than daily reporting ever would've. The pay is better too, and with three children to feed and clothe, that means more to me than I would have imagined when I was in my 20s, fighting the good fight, "comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable," for pennies and a byline.

But there is really nothing like being a reporter -- going out meeting new people, learning new things all the time, getting the story, crashing on deadline, writing for a living, and sometimes, occasionally, bringing about change.

Some of my best friends in this world were made during my time as a reporter. My friend Su in Portland,Oregon I met while interning at the News & Observer in Raleigh. My friend Candice I met when we both worked at the KC Star. And I can barely count the number of people I know and love now because we met at The Sun: Laurie, Jill, Kelly, Andrea, Rashod, Lisa, Erin, Erika, Monica, Jennifer, Sumathi, Doug, Stephanie S., Stephanie D., Liz, Brent (and now his wife Monique), Tima, Andre Chung...honestly, I could be here all day counting the people I count as Sun-made friends.

And if it weren't for The Baltimore Sun, I never would have met Lester, who interned there the summer of 2004 -- dapper in freshly-pressed button-up shirts -- and impressed me with his work ethic, laid-back attitude, maturity and sense of responsibility.

It wasn't until 2006 that we started dating, but the groundwork was laid at 501 N. Calvert St.. Journalism brought us together and sparked a love that created three amazing, beautiful children.

For that, and so many other things, I'm immensely and eternally grateful.

Those lapels SO should have been off the record.

Reminiscing about our teenage years

This past Friday, Lester and I met up with Stacey and Hugo to go to the St. Pius X festival, a small community fair held by a local school/church community.

It was a beautiful Friday evening, and there were a ton of families out, enjoying the fried food and ice cream, fair games and spring weather. There were rides and cupcakes, a book sale and a flea market. It was just perfect!

Hugo and Cary, firefighters on duty.

This one wanted no parts of the rides.

Dean and Hugo loved this helicopter ride.

But Cary was happy just to do the train, safe, on the ground.

They had so much fun!

 

There were also a zillion teenagers strolling around the grounds and hanging out on the steps of St. Pius X high school. They gathered in groups or meandered in pairs, couples all immersed in starry-eyed young love. Seriously, there was so much lust and hormones in the air, it was almost palpable. I felt like I needed to shower after all the heat generated by those kids.

Lester and I found ourselves staring at these kids -- most of whom were taller than I am (that's not hard, but still) -- and we were hit by so many of the same thoughts.

Look how old these kids look. Can you believe our kids will be this big one day?
Look how young they are!
The pheromones in the air are off the chain!
They think they're so cool -- remember when you cared about being cool?
They look so cool!

At one point, Lester said to me, "I can remember being these exact kids, walking around a festival just like this. I remember having thought about what I was going to wear for days and days. And when I was there, with my fresh new sneakers on, I thought I was the flyest thing at the festival. I distinctly remember feeling that all eyes were on me -- and that every move I made was for someone else's benefit."

I so totally remember that feeling! Being at a carnival with my friends and thinking half of every second, "There are BOYS here! Are they looking at us? Is [insert cute boy's name] here? I hope he comes!" Or being at an amusement park with my boyfriend and thinking, "How should I stand so I look my most adorable and cool and like I like him but I'm not, like, OVERLY liking him?"

Boy am I glad I'm past those days! Just thinking back on that time period makes me exhausted! But also, so, so weirded out to imagine that one day, our boys will be walking through the St. Pius X fair, checking out the girls and looking like mini-men.  One day, our daughter will be one of a gaggle of adorable girls, tossing her hair and trying to look disinterested in the "immature" boys who are walking through the fair, checking them out.

One day, our kids won't want us to walk around the festival with them, snapping photos and waving as they ride the kiddie rides. We'll be an after-thought, an ATM, an enforcer of the curfew.

As much as I complain about my kids being crazy and defiant and tantrum-y and irrational, Lester and I looked at those teenagers at that fair and saw our pasts -- and our future.

And it made us oh-so-grateful to have a few years more in our present.
 

The summer of crazy busy weekends

This weekend started the summer of crazy busy weekends for the Davis crew.

Saturday mornings, the kids have swim lessons (Cary and Dean are in the same swim class as Abby and Maya; Clair and I do a "Mommy and Me" class together at the same time).

After swim lessons, which end around 11:30, we eat lunch and get the kids down for a nap. If Lester has shopped for groceries on Friday night, then I can start the cooking for the week on Saturday while the kids nap. If not, Lester shops while they nap and I try to get other things done in the house (although this Saturday, I napped a bit too -- shhhhh!)

After nap, the kids get a snack and then we go to Pee Wee baseball, which takes place at a field near Morgan State University, which is not far from our house. Yesterday was the first day of baseball, because last week's game got rained out. We weren't sure what to expect from this clinic -- there are a LOT of  3-to-5-year-olds in this league -- but it seemed pretty organized, and the boys seemed to really enjoy running the bases. (All the standing/sitting and waiting, though? Not so much.)

But look how CUTE they look running from base to base! 

I can't wait to show these to them when they're teenagers. Oh, the hilarity!

After baseball, we do dinner, bathtime and bedtime. And there's literally no time for almost anything else all day.

Sundays, we go to church, and I cook dinners for the week, and we Lester cleans up while the kids run through the house destroying what we he just cleaned. And aside from that, there's ALSO not much time for anything else. (Although yesterday, I did sneak in a couple hours at book club with my girls, which was awesome, as usual, and I'm so glad I did it. Thanks - as always - to Lester for being so supportive of my need to get out and be with friends and women I admire.)

In between all that, we're trying to finally get Lester's house in DC on the market (he drove down yesterday when I got back from book club to do a few things to it) and there's a thousand cookouts and festivals and birthday parties to attend. Not to mention our July beach trip. How we'll do it all and remain sane, I don't know. 

It's going to be a busy summer, but I'd rather that than a dull one! I'm particularly glad that my kids are doing swimming lessons (you guys know I can't swim, right? So I'm determined my kids won't be like me). And with scenes like the ones in the videos -- of C and D awkwardly and adorably running around the baseball diamond -- happening every Saturday evening, I think all the busy-ness will be totally worth it.

Fun Day at SFA

Today was Fun Day at the boys' school!

They got to purchase tickets to play mini-carnival-like games and win very exciting (plastic and tacky) Oriental Trading Post prizes. :-)

I spent a few hours volunteering to work one of the carnival games -- a softball tent.

Here was my assistant, Colin, who's in the fifth-grade. Hiiii, Colin!

 

What's that you say? What's going on with my hair?

In the spirit of Fun Day, I put pipe-cleaners in my hair and also sprayed it with hair dye, but my hair is too dark to see it.

Fun hair on Fun Day!

The boys thought my "kooky hair" was the funniest thing. And they had a total blast.

Lester took them around from booth to booth, and they collected a bunch of junk prizes, including a fistful of lollipops. We even brought a lollipop home for Clair, who exclaimed, "I LOVE it!" when we gave it to her.

Speaking of lollipops, it's been raining a ton here the last two days and this conversation happened in the car this morning on the way to school:

Cary: Why is it RAINING SO MUCH?!?
Dean: I think the clouds are crying because they want a lollipop and their Mom said "NO!"
Cary: Oh.

LOL! My kids crack me up. I'm so glad I get to spend these seemingly silly, but really important moments with them. Pretty soon they'll be the age of my able assistant, Colin, and nearly as tall as I am.

But today, they're still my little boys.

Dean - an adult trapped in a child's body

Tuesday night, Lester and I decided to go out to eat with the kids. We went to a really fun restaurant, Clementine, that serves adult food, but also has a kids' area, so parents can sit and enjoy their meals without having to constantly police the children.

At one point toward the tail end of the meal, while we were finishing our drinks (margarita for me; sangria for Lester) and talking about how we would change the public school system if we were in charge, Lester noticed Dean chatting with the hostess. She was a really friendly woman, with a bright smile and a way with kids, and Dean likes to talk to adults, so we didn't pay it much attention.

But then, she came back to our table with a little ramekin of strawberry mousse with a sweet basil coulis, sprinkled with oatmeal crumble.  We'd ordered one of those earlier and the kids demolished it; it was delicious!

Here, they're destroying the lemon tart, which was supposed to be Lester's. The strawberry mousse is beside Dean, as yet undiscovered. But it soon will be -- and will last about .3 seconds after the vultures get their first taste.

Only problem was - we didn't order a second one.

You know who did? I'm sure you can guess.

Mr. I-Think-I'm-a-Grown-Up.

The hostess was apologetic. "You told me your Mom and Dad said you could have it," she very sweetly admonished Dean, while we glared at him.

"Dean," we said. "Why did you do that?"

"I just ordered it!" he said, quite pleased with himself.

Not wanting to be "those" people, we chose not to send the dessert back. After all, it wasn't their fault that our child thinks he can just order food in restaurants like a man with a job and a 401K. (Also, it really was delicious and you know me and desserts.)

If he were older, and had an allowance, we would probably have made him pay for the dessert. (It was $6.) 

But all we could do was have a talk with Mr. 4-Year-Old about what is appropriate for him to do in a restaurant and what is not.

He nodded at the appropriate times and seemed agreeable, but knowing Dean, this is not a lesson 100-percent learned. No doubt, we will constantly have to remind him that he is not a grown-up, is not the boss, has no money, makes no rules, is not Cary or Clair's parent, cannot do everything he wants to do whenever he wants to do it, does not know how to operate kitchen appliances, should not try to take the (full) gallon of milk out of the refrigerator and pour a glass of milk, cannot put Clair's shoes on if she doesn't want them, is not the decider, cannot order extra desserts at restaurants and -- to sum up -- is A CHILD and has to do what we say.

So far, he does not seem to understand very much of that. In his mind, he IS the boss - of everyone. All I can say is, let's hope he uses his confidence and leadership skills for good someday.

Big Boys during the day, but not quite at night

For many months now, we've been promoting the idea of "big-boy-underwear-at-night."  We've talked it up with the boys, made it sound like a real prize.

When you turn 4, we told them, you get to wear big-boy-underwear at night! Isn't that COOL?!

Cary and Dean totally bit. They were so excited about this milestone! And on Monday, the day after their birthday, we did it! No Pull-Ups!

I was nervous as can be that I'd get awakened in the middle of the night to change someone's sheets and pajamas, but somehow both boys made it all the way through the night without wetting the bed!

Whooo-hoooo, right?

Not so fast. Last night, both of them decided they wanted to go back to Pull-Ups. I have no clue as to why. Maybe big-boy-underwear is too much pressure?

Anyway, we didn't fight them on it, and we're not really stressing about it either. I know that nighttime dryness for (many) boys is a long, hard road. So we'll take baby steps with this one. We'll offer the underwear at night and if they go for it, great. If not, then that's just one additional night I won't have to worry about being awakened in the middle of the night to change sheets and pajamas.

#winning

#zenmamalooksgoodonme

Cary and Dean are 4!

Cary and Dean turned 4 on Sunday, which was also Mother's Day.

I honestly couldn't think of a better way to spend Mother's Day than to celebrate the birthday of the two sweet boys who made me a Mom in the first place! The boys are FOUR. Can you believe it?

We spent their day at my Mom and Dad's house, where they were surrounded by 10,000 cousins, stuffed full of jelly beans, cupcakes, juice boxes, lollipops, ice cream, chips and a million other things. This is the first year they really get what it means to have a birthday, and they were so excited all day! They especially loved getting to do any and everything they wanted, eating crap all day, and playing outside with all their presents and cousins. If you ask them, they would probably say they had the best day of their lives so far. And I couldn't argue with that. It was pretty great.

Here's the day in (way too many) pictures!

Headed out to the festivities. Look who's wearing her sandals!!! (After being bribed with gel pens.) And look whose shoes are on the wrong feet (as usual).

The party was construction themed, hence the little hardhats.

Blowing out the cupcake.

I made cupcakes for C and D, and also some for Aminah and Kwahli, whose birthdays are on the 4th and 5th, respectively. The boys graciously shared their birthday party with their cousins.

Hi Matty!

Opening 1 million presents from Nana and Granddad and Auntie Hira.

This series of three photos of Clair cracks me up.

OK, I am taking a picture with this stupid hat on.

Now what do you want me to do?

Seriously. I am way too old for this. LOL.

My beautiful Mom, who bought the boys all the things they asked for. They were so happy.

Happy Mother's Day to us!

There were 10,000 children outside. No kidding. If you count the three teenagers (one of them, Kalonji, is in this picture, with an early 1990s-style high-top-fade) there were 14 kids. FOURTEEN. All 1st and 2nd cousins. This is why I don't really ever have to plan a real party and invite kids over.

Dean running one way.

Cary running another.

My Dad bought them scooters, which they LOVE. Especially Dean.

Russy is looking more and more like a big boy every day!

Aminah is 9. I can't get over that.

She has major attitude and drives my sister crazy. But she is still always super sweet to me.

This picture of Clair makes my heart skip a beat!

Alahna is at that age where she is always super sweet and still super helpful.

Kwahli did not get off this bike, except to try to help Dean learn how to pedal on it. Which lasted all of five seconds.

My sister bought the boys these blow up mallets and shields so they could beat the crap out of each other. 

Lester got on one of the kids' bikes and Cary thought this was so funny!

My sister's husband, Reggie. My husband. Same stance.

Reggie and Kalonji tossed the football around for awhile, until the ball smashed into my sister and that was the end of that.

My Dad bought Clair and Matty matching tricycles.

And he bought all the mothers of the family chocolate-covered strawberries. Isn't that sweet? (He had my sister write the note, to which she replied, "Why do I have to write my own Mother's Day note?")

When it was time for us to leave, Matty cried and cried. My boys didn't want to leave either, but they were too exhausted to cry. This birthday wore them out.

Happy birthday, Dean and Cary!