Top 10 Petersen Happenings of 2012!

Top 10 Petersen Happenings of 2012!

1.  Moving into our first house, after years of renting.  We had tons of fun, making it our own.  Painting walls, getting furniture your parents aren't afraid to sit on, and being able to keep more than 2 suitcases worth of clothes in a normal sized closet.  Ahhhhhh, domesticity.

2.  Getting our first Disney Annual Passes as a family.  Need I say more?

3.  Soph begins to sing full songs from memory.  The first night she sang her lullabies with us to sleep, we had an "I can't believe this is happening" moment.

4.  Sophie's first day of preschool. Tears.  She's going 3 half days, which is postponed to 2013 (explained as you read on), but she thrived the few weeks she was able to go.

5.  Potty Training Sophie.  She nailed it!  Let's be honest though, not until the experience yielded a good cry from Mommy, Daddy, and Soph.  It is after you reach the cliff hanger and consider that peeing in your pants the rest of your life might not be THAT bad, that all of the sudden it clicks and we can all pick ourselves up and pull it together.

6.  Mom Morabito babysits overnight, so we are able to go away to a resort outside Santa Barbara.  A generous gift from dear friends that we finally got to use.  We really enjoyed and needed that overnight vacay at that moment this year.

7.  Lisa signs with an LA agent and gets back in the game with a regional commercial for Robbins Bros. Engagement Rings.

8.  Eric works on Disney Channel's number one kid's show "Jessie" and subsequently gets cast as a recurring character called Catawampus on Disney XD's "Pair of Kings."

9.  Eric books the broadway show "Peter and The Starcatcher."  We transport the fam to New York for a magical Fall into Winter.  Renting out our house to 4 recent college grads, we crossed fingers and prayed that they'd take care of the place.   We packed the garage with our personal items, emptied the closets and drawers we just finished organizing, cleaned out the kitchen and bathrooms, and de-babyfied Sophie's room.

10.  Survived living in the tiniest one bedroom on the Upper West Side, with a toddler.  The hotel rooms on tour were often bigger than the apt. we are renting now.  We took great pride in really New Yorking it up though.  Frequent visits to The Museum of Natural History, The Children's Museum of Manhattan, Central Park, Riverside Park, and many other New York City landmarks were both fun and educational for us, as well as Soph.  You can't help but bond as a family when you have to work as a team just to get in the door of your apt.  Okay, open the door, everyone go to the bedroom so we can shut the door, and now you can come back into the living room.  It's a dance.  Please know we view this as an adventure, not a problem.  aka. 1st World Problems.

Bonus Happening:  Eric shoots the pilot of a new TV show for TVLand called "Giant Baby" in which he plays the Giant Baby of Kirstie Alley.  In this super funny show, Eric is alongside comedic legends Michael Richards (Kramer), Rhea Pearlman (Carla on Cheers) and the aforementioned Kirstie Alley.  Let me just say, Eric is totally ready for this moment.  Can't wait for everyone to get to share in the excitement when, contingent on the network pick-up, it will air in the Fall of 2013 on TVLand.  This show will bring us back to our home in LA!

Looking forward to an adventurous 2013!


Tell us your favorite family happenings of 2012!!!!!!!    We want to know!

Si-i-lent No...

     I can't say I was surprised that my child acted like an outright angel upon arrival in FL.  Grandmommy came into the airport to help and Sophie put on her sweetest face and reached out with excitement.  She got in the car and kept us all laughing all the way to Chipotle, with her comedic timing and the way she repeats what everyone says, she is just the most priceless parrot on the planet.  On the way to the restaurant, she melted their hearts as she held hands and said "loooove you.".  Everyone they passed looked on approvingly.  I looked on said onlookers and welled with pride.  By the time we all sat down with our food, Soph had that look in her eye. You know what look.  That, I know I'm really cute and I might be able to actually get away with something using my cuteness as a distraction, look.  From her high chair, looking round the table as if she had called us here for an important meeting, she folded her arms, gave a big head nod and reprimanded us all, out of nowhere, with a defiant "nnnno.".
     The approving looks snatched into raised eyebrows and flashed back to their own tables. Grandmom and Granddad couldn't help but laugh a bit, and my pride turned to my signature mom look coupled with a dash of close eye contact and pointed direction as I factually "took care" of the matter and said Sophia, "There is no reason for you to act that way.  If you don't want something, you can say no thank you."  There.  All fixed.  Moving on.
     Not so fast, said my baby girl.
     "No.".................  "No."   She played her cards slowly.
     "If you do it again, we are going outside," I cautioned her.
     My 2 yr old put her arms up as if it were a roller coaster ride, looked at me coyly out of the side of her eyes, and mouthed the word "noooooooooo.".
     She soon found out that mouthing the word and saying the word are one in the same.
As we left our food and the restaruant and the company of fun great-grandparents, she began to realize that mommy was serious. That look of "What?  You were for real about that leaving thing?" washed over her face.  Boredom is my ally right now. Taking her out of a fun situation, removing toys and cell phones, and sitting in a time out where mommy is an icy version of quiet, has proved to elicit just the right penance.  Soon enough, she relinquished an "I'm sorry, Mommy" and we headed to the car. She was asleep in minutes. A flight can be exhausting, but having to learn follow rules can really do a toddler in. I reflect on this "Silent No Showdown."  Could I have done a better job of getting her food earlier, did I understand she was tired from a different schedule for flying?  Yes.  Rules are rules though.  No matter where you are.  I will say though, that I appreciate that my little girl enjoys a challenge. We'll just have to try to direct that into a fun, healthy, competitive soccer career or something.  She is one tough cookie, but a cookie nonetheless.



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Where Was I?

      I cannot express in words the deep sorrow that filled my soul on the day of the shooting in the elementary school in Newtown, CT. Somehow, I doubt that I need to, as most of you felt the exact same sorrow on that day and for the days that followed. Immediatly, I thought of Soph, who was with my brother and sister-in-law, in FL. I felt so sick about the whole thing I couldn't feel my arms. How could this happen? How are the parents ever going to cope? This is something we have to worry about now? An elementary school? God help them.
     2012 held a great amount of change for our family.  We were constantly riding the current of a sometimes fast and furious, sometimes tortuously slow transition into Los Angeles from NYC, back to NYC, and then back to LA.  Every decision hinged on what was best for Sophie and her future.  I went to work full time briefly in LA, while Eric had a slow time for a few months.  Then Eric caught a wave and was working like crazy and I was once again able to be with Sophie full time.  My point is, at every moment of every day, our children are with us, whether they are physically there or not.  They drive our decisions and thus everything that comes to be in our lives.  Our life becomes something more than we could imagine, constantly being pushed outside the boundaries of what we know.   With that being snatched from underneath our fellow parents in a moment, it's difficult to imagine how they'll go on.
     It is impossible to speak to what those families must be going through.  They have been separated and they are going to need a great measure of faith to get through this separation.  I believe those children are in heaven now and that they are experiencing peace beyond our understanding.  It is all those left behind...the families of the departed, the survivors, and the world that mourns them all, that have to find a way to get through this life without them and without the surety of what we previously defined as safe and secure.  We are all forever changed.
     How do we go on?  After just standing in disbelief for days straight, we have to focus on the life those children did have, on the teachers who acted as heroes, and on a world who is left with a demand for change.
     Eric called me crying the day of the tragedy, which happened to be the same day that they would record his new tv show.  The show is to be comedy, something to help people escape the tragedies life brings us and cope with laughter at the silly shenanigans of pretend characters and situations.  He felt as  the rest of us parents, that he could see nothing else that day.  I told him that we would be dealing with the reality of this tragedy for many days to come, but he had a responsibility today.  He had to think that there will be a time when these families need to laugh, need to escape their tragic reality and this is a show that could help them...even one of them.  Focus on your artistic responsibility to tell a story that will, for a brief moment, bring someone some joy, or at the very least draw their attention from the stark reality of their lives.  In the next few hours, he and the rest of the brilliant cast, put the world outside, and brought the audience into a world where we could laugh and awww at their mishaps and silliness.  Comedy is really a beautiful sort of therapy.
     In the days that have followed Eric and I have both cried tears for those directly effected and for the new reality that we all live in wherein things like this do actually happen.  I hope and pray for those parents that by the grace of God, they find a way to survive this tragedy.

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Random Acts of Christmas

 Random Acts of Christmas   
     On a cold day in 2006, I was working on the Upper East side of Manhattan.  On this particular day, I was feeling home sick, tired, and beaten down.  Eric and I were dating, he was on tour, and I was in a dry spell as an artist.  As I walked down the west side of 3rd Ave., a bustling stranger with arms full of bags hailed a taxi a few feet in front of me.  He opened the door of the cab, ran over to me on the sidewalk, said "Merry Christmas" and shoved a package into my arms and disappeared into his previously hailed cab.  I opened the bag and peeked in...It was a giant balsam Christmas candle!  Oh, it smelled like my parents house at Christmas!  I immediately loved it!  I wanted to thank him, but he was long gone.  I felt like I had lived that moment in "A Christmas Carol" when Scrooge realizes the error of his ways and goes up and down the streets shoving money and joy in peoples faces.  I don't know if he was Scrooge, Santa, or someone in between, but it was a magical happening for me.  I believed again in the spirit of Christmas.  I didn't even know the spirit had gone missing until I found it again, in the smallest act of a stranger.
     As my perspective of Christmas has changed with my role of being a parent, I feel a responsibility to instill a heart of generosity in my little one.  Please share ways that you let your little one be on the giving end of generosity.  Do you know of volunteer opportunities for kids and parents?  Have you done any random acts of kindness this season?  

Ready, Set,...Craft! Celebration Trumps Complication.

     Like so many fams, we let Sophie make a Christmas craft for each family member.  So, I began the search for the elusive perfect craft.  You know, that one that makes her look like a genius and, oh yeah, that she has fun doing.  We came up with some really cool ideas.
     By the time we got to the point of actually executing said ideas, I realized that these crafts were more us than her.  Make your own snowglobe...cool!  She can first cut out little...oh, wait...cutting may not be a great place to start for a 2 year old.  Scrapped.  Back to the drawing board.  Is this the first taste of impending Science Fair project competition?  And...it begins.
     What could we do that was beyond the scribble, at her level still, but looked like something she could recognize as Christmas once it was done?  We settled on a few versions of hands and feet prints in various Christmas shapes and colors.  Sophie then chose glittery stickers, cotton balls, and decorative balls, directing me where to place the glue and mashing them down on the canvas herself.   She had a ball painting her hands and feet!  Although our shapes were smudged and imperfect and it looked as if we forgot to decorate the left side of the craft (she was oddly drawn to the right), the trained eye of a family member would be able to see that the beauty and heart of this piece could transcend even the Mona Lisa.
     Sophie did her first painting when she was just a few months old and loved it so much that I went and got brushes, washable paint, and paper.  She has been doing a painting almost every day since.  For her 2nd birthday, which was a Rapunzel party, we put mini canvases and brushes and finger paints out and just let the kids go at it.  Did I mention it was an outdoor party?  It was a big, fun, beautiful mess.  Her first art work, that she painted at a dear friend's house on a small square canvas, sits on display on the mantle in our home to remind us of how to see the world;  Through the eyes of a child.
     She is so proud of her work!  As she walks by the drying pieces she puts both hands out, steps back, and says "TADA!"

P.S.  If you want to know what exact crafts we did or to see a pic, you'll have to check back after Christmas.  Don't want to spoil the surprise for the family!

Too Much Popcorn Makes The Baby Go Barf.

   Today, we took Sophie to Disney's Rockin' On Ice.  Our Zipcar rental was perfectly convenient for getting us out to New Jersey's Izod Center.  From the moment we set foot in the door, Sophie was wide-eyed...taking it all in with "ooh" and "ahh" and "I love it" and "cuuuute."  The adorability factor was just off the charts.  Allow me to take you there for 30 seconds of cuteness.  Prepare yourself.

So...there's that.
I was surprised with a 15 minute intermission in the middle of a 90 minute show, however...I began to realize the rational as I set out for the potty and found myself in line clamoring for the Rapunzel braid and the light up toy septor.   The lights filled my eyes and I felt I had been brainwashed by some happy robot, as I fell in line behind all the other drone parents, waiting my turn to hand over the plastic and sign the paper.  I was under their spell.
Eric and Sophie were enjoying a bucket of popcorn, when I returned to our seats.  Sophie danced and sang and just generally enjoyed the second half of the show.  As the end drew near, I prepared our things to run out of the theatre.  Eric had to get back to midtown for his matinee, so we were in a time crunch.  Waving goodbye as the cast did their bows, we ran to the parking lot, buckled Sophie in and headed for the Lincoln Tunnel.
I turned and asked Sophie what her favorite part of the show was, to which she replied,"Dancing!"  I looked away for a second to tell Eric to keep right and when I turned back to Soph, this is what I found.


As our tiny car fell victim to the stop and start of the Lincoln Tunnel traffic, Sophie was jolted awake.  She groggily looked at me, muttered something, and grabbed at her chest.  Then, like a chunky, greenish, yellow waterfall...a straight gardenhose-like stream of barf streamed from the princess's mouth and filled her seat.  The spell was broken.
Jumping into the backseat, I assessed the situation.  I told her it was ok and mommy was cleaning it up. Got my trusty canister of wipes and began cleaning off her hands, coat and face.  There was no hope of getting it out of the seat in this moment.  I informed Eric that he would have to take us home, instead of us dropping him at the theatre as planned.  There was no way, I was going to drop off the zipcar and then walk 3 blocks home with a barfing toddler, a carseat, and our show swag.  When he pulled up to our building, I removed Sophie (still in her car seat- which was d-ripping with liquidized, semi-digested popcorn.)  Once we got upstairs, I left everything in the hallway, cleaned her up, and put her to bed.  Then came the daunting cast of washing the coat, clothes, and carseat crevices.  The stench entering my nostrils tried more than once to elicit some puke from myself, but was no match for my mind over the matter.
Again Sophie has taught me a valuable lesson:  Too Much Popcorn Makes The Baby Go Barf.  Maybe the bigger lesson for me was that while I want to let Sophie have a great time, but too much of a good thing can go south.  We have always applauded ourselves on giving Sophie experiences.  The experiences of life are enough to give her.  The plastic knick knacks and popcorn all go in the trash...or the toilet as the case may be, but the togetherness and experience are what transcends the moment.

Heart of Thanksgiving.

     We got to experience Thanksgiving through Sophie's eyes this year.  At 2 years and 4 months, she can really express all she is absorbing and enjoys all the frilly festivities of decorations, parades, and family gatherings.  She had been talking about Santa coming to town since she woke up and squeals of delight filled the room as Santa's float indeed came to town.  In true Petersen fashion, she jammed along to all the broadway performances, pre-parade.  She even wanted to watch the dancing again when we got home last night!  We, of course, enjoyed cheering on our friends who were performing!  Every year, we seem to know more and more people that are performing and it's fun to celebrate our friends success, as it is a sort of cool and legendary thing to get to perform in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Our excitement must of rubbed off on Sophie, cause she had a ball watching it.  Hmm.  I may have that backwards.  It was Sophie that rubs off on us!  Any bit of rigidity or callous that the world puts on us is brushed away with her genuine and easy happiness at the simplest things.

     We were a bit worried when we came here to NYC.  Worried that Sophie wouldn't understand not having a yard, her room, her toys, or just a little space to call her own.  Well, she really taught us something.  Once I told her that this was going to be our home for a while, she accepted the fact with such ease that you would never know she had known any different.  She loves her Tinkerbell Canopy Toddler bed here that we decorated with purple lights.  The head is in the closet and it sticks out into the bedroom.  To make it not feel sterile and awkward, we put wall decals from home all around the bed and moved some furniture around to make a little nook for her.  It actually looks really sweet and most importantly...she loves it.  Her adaptation to a new environment reminded me that we have the most important thing...each other.  We said from the beginning that we felt the most important things was to be together and have experienced that above all things... togetherness is the single most important ingredient to our family's happiness.

   

At this time, Eric and I have two very sick family members.  This serves as a reminder to us that life is short and every day we have is given to us by the grace of God.