to this:

in the blink of an eye.

And on this, the 5th anniversary of William’s birth, I’d like to acknowledge once again, as I did last year, that it is Audrey’s 5th anniversary of becoming a mother, too.

Here’s what I wrote…

I always knew that Audrey would be a phenomenal mother. She was always like a (very protective) second mother to me growing up, including me in things she did with her friends, and keeping tabs on me no matter where I was.

Watching Audrey experience her pregnancy with William was so beautiful. She couldn’t wait to meet her little guy, and the love she felt for that little miracle inside her belly was so evident. She simply glowed throughout those 9 months.

And when she welcomed William into the world, becoming a mother, that glow just got brighter and brighter.

It’s hard now to remember Audrey as a mother of one child. That time period was rather brief, as she became pregnant with Alexander just 3 months after William arrived! But that just shows how motherhood came so naturally to her. She knew that the love she felt for William would just multiply with another child… and she obviously has applied this same logic again and again, as she quickly became a mother of 4!

One thing I love about Audrey as a mother is that she has not lost any of her sense of humor. I have seen many new moms become so consumed with motherhood that they lose their ability to just relax and have fun. They practically become different people. This is not the case with Audrey.

Audrey is seriously one of the funniest people I have ever met. When we were younger and had to entertain each other in the car during long trips (there were no DVD players! The horror!), we would play a little game and see who could make the other laugh first. Audrey would always win. I cannot help but crack up whenever I’m with her.

So of course, it just makes sense that Audrey finds ways to laugh with her boys every day. They make her laugh. She makes them laugh. If one of them does or says something funny - especially unintentionally - we crack up together.

And that is one of the things I admire about Audrey… she finds such humor in motherhood; in the mundane and in the craziness alike. With 4 boys, one can imagine that life can get pretty hectic in her household. At any given moment, one or all of her boys might be playing chase around the house… or throwing Legos and blocks around the living room… or coloring anywhere but on construction paper… or building train tracks… or asking for - maybe demanding - a drink or snack.

But I have never seen Audrey get out-of-control frazzled with all the activity and/or destruction going around her. Instead, she’ll smile one of those sarcastic, isn’t-life-grand smiles (we call it the “Daddy face” - inside joke!) and once again, we’ll just crack up at the absurdity of it all. Because, really? 4 boys 4 and under? It’s absurd!

And I know Audrey wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Audrey gets a lot of comments on her blog like, “I don’t know how you do it!” Sometimes I don’t either. Her ability to multi-task and get everything done astounds me. How she can even think straight baffles me. And yet, she never, ever complains.

So many times people have told me, “You’re so smart to wait to have kids. They’re so much work.” (Many times, this comes from parents with one child!) I have never heard Audrey say anything like this. If anything, she’ll hold one of her boys in her arms, hug and kiss him (and get a hug and kiss back!) and say to me, “Doesn’t this make you want to have kids?”

You can imagine the (sometimes rude) comments Audrey gets from some people about how crazy she is for having so many children. But having a big family is something she has always wanted. She enjoys being surrounded by all the love that comes with having a big family.

Audrey’s boys adore her. And Audrey adores her boys. That glow she had when she was pregnant with William… that glow that just beamed brighter once he entered the world… it radiates from her times 4 now.

Today is a special day, indeed. While we celebrate the anniversary of William’s birth, we also celebrate the anniversary of Audrey’s journey into motherhood. It is a role she was clearly made for.

I just love to see my sister fill this role so beautifully, and I thought she deserved some recognition on this special day.

When I lost my dog Bismarck to Gastrointestinal Lymphoma in July 2007, just 8 weeks after his diagnosis, my devastation was beyond words. He was only 5 years old, so to say that I was completely unprepared for his diagnosis and his death would be a gross understatement.

I was also unprepared for the cost of his medical bills. From the moment he was diagnosed, I vowed to do everything I could to save him. Even though each vet I took him to told me that he had, at most, 6 months to live, I wanted to try to beat that prognosis. So I took him to Tufts and did every test, every treatment they recommended. I also took him to a holistic vet who put him on special vitamins and supplements. I kept both the “traditional” and the holistic vets abreast of what the other was giving him so that they weren’t doing anything detrimental to his already fragile health.

Over the course of those 8 weeks, I - with the very generous support of my parents and other family members - spent thousands (yes, thousands) of dollars trying to keep Bismarck with us as long as possible. But the cancer was too strong, and it spread so fast that on July 27, 2007 there was nothing left to do but hug him close and put an end to his pain. I remembered the second anniversary of his passing with this post back in July.

When he passed away, through my grief, I remember feeling the need to make something positive come from Bismarck’s death. I thought about how easy it was for the medical bills to pile up, and shuttered to think of what I would have done without my parents’ help, as well as the help of other family members. I already blamed myself enough for not finding out about Bismarck’s illness sooner, even though I was assured there was nothing I could have done differently. I would have been an absolute mess had I been unable to find a way to pay for his treatment, to feel like I was doing everything I could for him.

I decided then and there that I wanted to set up a fund for people who couldn’t afford their pets’ medical bills. That would be Bismarck’s legacy.

But in December 2008, as I was making a list Things To Do in 2009, I realized with regret that I had not done anything in terms of this fund. So I put it on the top of my list. Specifically, I wrote:

An idea I’ve had is a fund for people struggling to afford their pet’s medical bills. I just really want to do something to honor my boy, who brought so much love and joy into the world and into my heart.

Fast forward to August 2009, just a few weeks ago, when I found out that one of my oldest (in terms of how long we’ve known each other, not her age!) blogging friends, Dawn from So A Blonde Walks Into a Blog, was struggling with her beloved pup Sophie’s medical bills. Dawn had lost her dog Copper back in August 2007, just weeks after Bismarck passed away, so we had bonded over those losses and helped each other in our grief. I remember when she got Sophie and how excited her family was to have another dog to love… so hearing that Sophie was having problems - and that the medical costs were becoming a problem (did I mention that Dawn’s husband was diagnosed with cancer this summer?) - galvanized me into action.

Sophie would be the first dog to benefit from Bismarck’s legacy, I decided.

And so here we are.

And here is Sophie:

Go to Dawn’s blog and read Sophie’s story, and if you are able to help, you can come back here and donate below. Dawn’s vet has agreed to verify Sophie’s story to anyone who would like to check. Since there are so many scams out there, Dawn wants people who don’t know her to feel comfortable giving. Simply email her at ablondeandherblog [at] yahoo [dot] com and she will give you her vet’s contact information.

I know that, especially in this current economy, money is tight for everyone. But from experience, I know that every little bit helps. So if you are so inclined and are able to help as one of Sophie’s Angels, you can do so through Paypal by clicking Donate here:

<center><a href=”http://www.momgenerations.com/blogs/jane/index.php/2009/09/10/be-one-of-sophies-angels/#comment-2363″ mce_href=”http://www.momgenerations.com/blogs/jane/index.php/2009/09/10/be-one-of-sophies-angels/#comment-2363″ target=”_blank”><img src=”http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll303/BlondeBlogger/1sophie.jpg” mce_src=”http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll303/BlondeBlogger/1sophie.jpg”></a></center></texarea></p> <p>If you are a frequent reader of my blog, you know that I have never done anything like this before. I’m doing this not only as a dog lover, and as a friend who sees a friend in need, but for my sweet Bismarck, to whom I promised that something good would come from his passing… and as a thank you to those who helped me out when completely unforeseen circumstances found Bismarck in need of his own angels on earth.</p> <p>Thank you!</p> <p><b><i>*Update - There was an issue with the Donate button not linking to the correct page. It should be working fine now! Also, feel free to grab one of these buttons and link it to this post to spread the word:</i></b></p> <p><img src=”http://www.momgenerations.com/blogs/audrey/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/sophiebutton165.jpg” mce_src=”http://www.momgenerations.com/blogs/audrey/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/sophiebutton165.jpg” alt=”" /></p>

Yesterday was the official “kick off” (get it?) day of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular’s 2009 season, complete with “snow” coming down on Sixth Avenue.

Spectacular, indeed!

Here are 3 things I was happy to stumble upon…

1) Old IDs - lots of ‘em. Should I ever need backup proof of identity, I think I’m covered. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to throw these out. I just seem to collect them… old college IDs, old beach club IDs, old YMCA IDs, old licenses. I guess I see them as unique links to my past, and as we’ve discussed, I’m unapologetically nostalgic. So with me they stay.

2) My yearbook from Senior year. I thought I was destined to only have yearbook proof of high school from my Freshman, Sophomore and Junior years. Not the case! We had a small graduating class, so we each got half a page to ourselves. It was fun to look back at the things I wrote - and to whom I wrote. Also? My hair was SO LONG.

3) A gift from my college boyfriend - Love Poems and Sonnets of William Shakespeare. I think I’ve kept this over the years (almost 10, to be exact) because, as simple as it is, it’s one of the most thoughtful gifts I’ve ever received from a guy. We had actually broken up by the time my 19th birthday rolled around, but we had remained friends. His inscription was the perfect mix of sentimental and humorous. And who doesn’t love Shakespeare’s sonnets?

Then, of course, there are the things you didn’t necessarily need to find, like…

The missing half of a pair of pearl earrings. How it ended up underneath the futon in a bedroom I hardly ever went in is beyond me. I don’t have a photo because I threw it away soon after I found it; I had, after all, very recently - and very reluctantly - thrown out the non-missing half of the pair, thinking I’d never find the missing one. Murphy’s Law?

And there are the things you thought you would find during a MASSIVE cleaning of the house - but didn’t - like…

The keys that went missing in December 2007. I used my keys to drive home one day. The next day when I went to drive my car, the keys were nowhere to be found. As of August 2009, it remains an unsolved mystery.

Tomorrow we close on the house. The next move is to NYC. I’ll be going from a 2,500 sq. ft. house to something probably about the size of my bedroom. Many of the momentos will have to stay behind. But I’m bringing #1-3 with me.

Some news I can share, however, is that I have a buyer for my house and we will be closing within the next few weeks! This is very good. It’s another step towards the next exciting chapter…

It does make me think back, however, to about 2 1/2 years ago, when I had just recently moved into that house and I was in home improvement mode. Many, many things in my life were very, very different then. Just reading a post on my old blog from that time confirms that fact.

So as I say goodbye to my house, here’s a little blast from the not-so-distant-yet-so-very-distant past, when I was all about making a home rather than making a move:

I’m not what you’d call a Home Improvement Do-It-Yourself-er.

If I can pay to have something built, fixed, painted, tiled or whittled, I will.

But today I had to trek into both Home Depot and Lowe’s all by my itty bitty self to look for a thingamajig that I now know is called a wing nut (more on that later).

The whole experience of walking into a Home Depot or Lowe’s is daunting to me. There are way too many aisles, way too many thingamajigs I’ve never heard of, and way too many men who seem to realize that I’m like a frightened turtle in there.

Lowe’s was my first (and I thought only) stop. I attempted to locate - on my own - this thing that, until this point, I only knew as some piece of hardware. Luckily, I had brought a sample thingamajig along.

Since I couldn’t find it in the aisle I picked, when a man who worked there finally walked by, I asked for some help.

Not surprisingly, I was in the wrong aisle, so he led me to where I could find my piece of hardware. Lo and behold, Lowe’s was all out of my little thingamajig… and my “helper” wasn’t exactly apologetic. He basically up and left me before I could ask for any possible alternatives.

Down but not out, I got in my car and drove to Home Depot (yes, it was imperative that I got this thing today), just knowing I’d have to deal with another man looking at me like I didn’t belong.

These home improvement stores are not for women, I thought.

At Home Depot, I walked right to the Hardware department and went up to the first employee I saw. Holding out my palm, showcasing the thingamajig I needed, I asked if he could help me find one.

He looked at me as if I’d asked him to split the atom.

I looked around to make sure I was in Home Depot.

Check.

I looked around to make sure I was in the Hardware department.

Check.

“Let me call someone who works in Hardware,” he finally said.

You think that might help? I wondered.

And to my surprise, who came around the corner to help us out but… a woman.

She looked at the thingamajig in my hand. “Oh, you need a wing nut?” she asked. “What size is that, a ten-twenty-four?”

Talk about impressive. Not only did a woman know her stuff in a home improvement store, but she was actually… helpful and informative!?

Maybe home improvement stores are for women, after all.

Next time I need something whittled, I’ll know who to call for help.

I had my hands full during my walk with my two pups and my friend’s dog!

A bouquet from Bizzy.

Two years ago yesterday I lost my beloved dog Bismarck.

A few months ago I had unpublished this post about his life - and the sad, sad day of his death - because it goes into so much detail about stuff that’s a little awkward to put out there now. But I’m going to keep it published again for a little while, because Bizzy was full of life and energy and happiness, and I want that to be remembered most. He was loved beyond words… and the end of a marriage he was a huge part of is not his fault.

Yesterday, I just wanted celebrate his life as I grieved the anniversary of his death. And that’s what I did.

I’ve mentioned before that sunflowers are my “sign” from Bizzy that he is still with me. This is how it came to be… The evening we put him to sleep, I had to get out of the house. We had had a vet come to the house that afternoon. We had hugged Bismarck as we said good-bye for the last time. And had we buried him in our backyard. And I just couldn’t spend another minute there.

It was a Friday night and most of my family was vacationing in the Hamptons. My parents had taken a ferry back home the night before to say good-bye to Bismarck and to just be there with us. They were preparing to take another ferry back to the Hamptons to meet back up with Audrey, my brothers and their families, and I knew that I really needed to get away. So off we went with my parents. Ryder came with us - her first ferry ride!

I was beside myself with grief, but when we got off the ferry and drove to our hotel, we kept passing fields and fields of sunflowers, and for some reason, it just made me feel better. Call me crazy, but I knew it was Bismarck telling me that those were my sign from him.

There isn’t a day since July 27, 2007 that I haven’t thought about Bismarck. And I truly believe that he sends me signs to let me know he’s still with me.  Sometimes, at the strangest moments - just when I need it most - I will see a bouquet of sunflowers. Or a picture of one. Or someone will just randomly mention them.

Yesterday, I stopped by Audrey’s house to say hello because I hadn’t seen her since she had gotten back from BlogHer. Before I even reminded her that it was the anniversary of Bismarck’s death, she handed me a bag that she’d brought home for me from Chicago. The bag had a huge sunflower on it:

There were a few other sunflower sightings yesterday, too. Just for me, from my Big Boy, Bismarck.

I’m always looking forward to the next one.

Sunflower image courtesy of candy2nd

On July 12, I competed in my first half-Ironman - the Amica Ironman 70.3 Rhode Island triathlon. It was a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike and a 13.1 mile run.

My friend Pam Cotter at the Providence Journal asked me if I would write a guest post about my experience on her Projo.com fitness blog. I was more than happy to do so.

If you’d like to read about it, here it is!

I’m glad to know I’m in good company.

I definitely do not live in the past; rather, I find joy in remembering good times from my past… the people, places and things that have left lasting memories in my heart.

I’ve always been this way. I remember living in New York City during the summer of 1999, my first summer away from home, and being nostalgic for the carefree childhood days at my summer pool club. And now, 10 years later, I am nostalgic for that very summer I spent in New York City, living with Audrey, taking a summer course at NYU, making new friends and loving my independence.

And speaking of independence (or, more appropriately, Independence Day…), over the holiday weekend I was once again reminded of my penchant for nostalgia.

For 7 years - from the year I graduated from high school in 1998 to 2005 - my parents lived in Bristol, RI, home to the oldest continuously running 4th of July Parade in the country. It is one patriotic little New England town, and our whole family loved our time there.

My parents lived just a few houses down from the parade route, so every year we would have a ton of people over our house for the parade and all the festivities surrounding it - the fireworks, the carnival, the outdoor concerts.

Mom would decorate the house in red, white and blue - and we would all wear our festive outfits, too, as evidenced in this photo here, taken on our front porch on July 4, 1999:

For the first six years we lived in that house, we had gorgeous weather for the 4th. On the seventh year - 2004 - it rained.

No, it poured.

We knew that that year would be our last in our Bristol house. Dad’s business had moved and he and Mom would be selling the house so Dad could be closer to work. And I hate to say it, but the weather on that last 4th of July spent in Bristol kind of put a damper on the holiday.

It was wet. It was cold. It was pretty miserable. Instead of grilling outside, playing games in the yard, walking through town to enjoy the thousands of people celebrating in our little town, we and our guests were all cramped in my parents’ house, WATCHING THE PARADE ON TV - the parade that was happening 50 FEET FROM THE HOUSE.

The next year - 2005 - Mom and Dad had already moved to their new house. We didn’t go to Bristol for the parade. It was a beautiful July 4th that year, and while we loved the new house, it wasn’t the Bristol house, which had become synonymous with the 4th of July, and all the wonderful, sunny memories of previous 4ths of July.

And the nostalgic part of me was too sad to go back without a house to visit. Without our house to visit.

I wanted to remember the 4th of July as it had been the first 6 years we spent in Bristol.

I felt that same way for the next few years, too… until this year. Five years had been long enough. July 4, 2009 was a beautiful day. I was ready to go back to Bristol.

I stopped by our old house to take a photo, and was a little sad to see it not decked out red, white and blue.

If Mom and Dad still lived there, it would have been one of the most patriotic houses on the block, both inside and out.

But I’m OK with it. Mom and Dad don’t still live there. We were just there among the other thousands of visitors to the town.

And I know that the people, places and things in Bristol that have left lasting memories in my heart will always be there whenever I feel the need to dip my pinky toe in the past.