The Memory Game

As we wind up this year, and I find myself only having written two entries this month, one about each of my daughters on their birthdays, I feel compelled to round it out with an entry about my son.

Ahhhh, my son. Here's a good story. After fighting a horrible flu during late November and early December, I got behind on my holiday shopping. When I was finally feeling up to leaving the house, I suggested to my husband to meet us out for a quick bite to eat after I took the kids to a store, and then we could go by another store afterward. Sounded simple enough.

But the store I went to first was TJ Maxx, which has clothing and housewares. I was there looking for clothing for teenage girls that I was donating to a holiday program. Having no idea what to get them, since I don't know them and don't have any teenagers, it was taking me a while to decide. During my attempt at making a decision, my son was getting restless in the cart. So I let him out and told my oldest to keep an eye on him. I too was watching him. So when they went out of eyesight, I followed, listening for her voice telling him to "go back to mama".

I knew I was headed for trouble when he went straight for the housewares department.

And then I heard it.

The big crash of shattered glass.

At that moment all his never-ending movements stopped. As I approached them on the other side of some shelving, I saw him standing over his mess in amazement.

I'm sure he honestly had no idea that when he threw a little cardboard box he had picked up that it was going to land on a glass martini shaker, knocking it off the shelf and causing these shards of blue and green beauty on the floor.

When you think about it, his life is fun and games. And like most two year olds, he thinks the world is there for his discovery and amusement.

And it is.

But at that moment I didn't much care for his view of life.

I cared about mine. About being that mom that lets her kids run rampant in the store, running about breaking things. I've been a mom for 8 years and this was a new one for me. When you combine "3rd child" with "boy" and "high energy", I'm finding that I'm discovering a lot of new things lately.

So I swept up the pieces with my feet the best I could, and then moved on. No one was there to tell me what else to do. I waited, but no one showed up. So we got the few things I had picked out, got in line, and got out of there. With him crying the whole time until we got outside and I let him back out of the cart.

I guess it had been so long since I'd taken him shopping anywhere besides the grocery store, I'd forgotten my usual tricks. And his usual restlessness.

I find that this is a pretty common occurrence. Time passes and we forget things. Especially things not worth remembering. It's the memory game. We forget the bad stuff and we remember the good. I mean who wants to hold on to all those annoying experiences in life, right? Unless it's traumatic, the chances are you will forget about it in time.

Lately I have been forcing myself to remember the tantrums my oldest had when she was 3 and 4 years old. And 5 years old too. They are starting to fade in my minds eye. But I want to hold on to them long enough to be able to say "this is what kids do when they are this age" whenever my other two do the same things. It's easy to apply sainthood in retrospect.

Just ask my mom. According to her, she had the most well-behaved 3 young children any mom could ask for. She even said this week that we didn't whine when we were kids. Or at least not like my kids whine.

But I remember. I remember one time complaining so much and being such a pain-in-the-ass to her that she didn't let my sister and I go somewhere with her. So we proceeded to cry and tantrum. And we were 11 years old at the time. Around that same time I remember getting into fights with my sister that involved throwing household items at each other, like hangers and scissors.

We were not all sugar and spice. The truth is we weren't perfect children. But we were children. And kids do some pretty crazy stuff as they explore the world and where they fit into it.

I've referred to my son as that kid many a time, and he certainly has those traits that put him in that category. But after these holidays, when all I seemed to hear about him was criticism from relatives, or the more gentle descriptions of "special" and "high energy", I feel the need to get my mama bear face on.

He is all of those things. And he's also a lot more. When you spend some time with, especially one-on-one, you see that he's also sweet and loving, very smart, and he can be more of a "controlled energy" type of kid. He has learned to behave within limits; he doesn't run away from you snickering when out in public, he doesn't approach strangers, he doesn't bite or hit other kids (at least not on purpose), he holds hands when crossing the street.

It is true that when he's in a crowd, he feeds off the energy and makes himself heard.

But more importantly, he snuggles and hugs, laughs and smiles, and runs around having fun.

So we'll continue playing the memory game. Knowing that, like many of us, his best years are yet to come.

And he too will achieve sainthood in retrospect.

High Five

We are on a birthday roll in the house and today is our younger daughter's birthday.

She turns five.

And I think my husband and I are breathing a sigh of relief.

She's the passionate one in the family, and she saves it all just for us. She's quiet out in the world, but when she comes home she lets it all out. And her quietness combined with her passion can make for a girl that likes to express herself with noise and motion, as opposed to words. If I only had a dollar for every time we've told her to "use your words". We'd be living on a beach somewhere and she'd be able to karate chop as many coconuts as her heart desires.

I'm really hoping that this past year as a four year old was the climax of a lot of her behaviors. I do see her settling down a bit as she heads into the next year. Turning five is actually a pretty big deal. She's no longer a toddler, and she becomes "school age". We've really seen some wonderful changes in her lately.

She's SO much easier to drop off at school now. No clinging or crying. Although there isn't quite a verbal "good-bye" yet either. But again, she's living up to her reputation as the quiet one. She'd rather just silently walk away into the rest of her day, which she's excited about in some ways, and nervous about in others. Hence her silence.

Her teacher has said how much she adores her because she is sweet, she listens and follows directions, and she's nice to everyone.

She's taken quite an interest in playing with her friends from school and is always asking me when she can have more play dates. As much as I try to make it happen, it's hard to juggle and she's proving yet again that she can be very patient.

Although, even with all the desire to play with friends, recently she told me that she wants to be left alone more often. She says she needs to be by herself sometimes.

I know exactly how she feels.

In fact, I know how she feels in many ways. She's our child in which I see the most of myself. It's in her looks for sure. One day the UPS guy came to our door and she and I answered it. As I was signing for the package he looked at her and said "you have beautiful eyes." Then I finished signing and looked up at him and he surprisingly said "oh, you have them too!"

But it's more than just eye deep. It's that feeling that you are watching a bit of yourself walk around on the earth. I don't think I can define it exactly. It's just something in her spirit that connects with me.

And it could be that she hates skirts and dresses and loves to play sports and run around with the boys. Because I did that very same thing until I was in about 6th grade. Then I still didn't wear skirts and dresses, but I did start dancing with the boys instead of running around with them. I have a feeling she'll be a bit of a late bloomer much like myself.

It's funny how each of your children can be your kids, and yet you can see them in such different lights. You connect with them in such different ways. And I'm glad she has this connection. Because my first is my first. There's no other child that can compare to that. She's the first one to take me through so many experiences as a mother. And my last child is my last. My little one that I want to stay little, and that I'll cuddle with longer than either of the other two, simply because I know it's the last of my cuddling. And he's my boy.

So I'm very thankful for this connection with my younger daughter. She's the middle child that I hope will never feel lost in the middle. She's my girl that I will always keep an eye out for, and that I will always have a sense of what she might be feeling. But I'll never assume I know it all, because she surprises me all the time.

In the spirit of giving her her own light to shine in, here are my wishes for my brand new five-year-old.

May you always love to make funny faces and sing silly songs.

May you always be able to entertain yourself for an hour with construction paper, scissors, and a roll of scotch tape.

May you always love the attention from your siblings and yet cherish your time alone.

May you always be so careful in choosing your friends, and may you be open to making new ones whenever you need someone with which to share a snack or a play date.

May you never forget that passion is what makes for an exciting life, no matter how it is expressed, so long as it's peaceful.

May you forever know exactly what you want in life, and may you find the means of attaining it while still being nice to everyone.

Happy Birthday sweet pea.

Eight is Great

Today my oldest daughter turns 8 years old. Which amazes and underwhelms me at the same time. It amazes me that it has already been eight years since she was born, when it seems like such a short time ago that she was my one and only child that I would rock to sleep at nap time and sing to sleep at bed time. It also underwhelms me a bit since so much of the time she seems like she's already 12 years old. Eight is definitely not a big enough number for her personality.

This past year has been one of new experiences for her. She played some new sports, made some new friends, and acquired her own bedroom.

While she enjoyed softball, especially since her dad was the coach, she wasn't as keen on soccer this Fall. Which I think I could have predicted. She doesn't have the drive inside her to run like her younger siblings. She's a mover, don't get me wrong. But she's more into short and fast. I don't see any long distance running in her future. Personally, I can't blame her as I have the same tastes. So as you could guess, her favorite position to play in soccer was goalie. Which is just as important as the running positions. After all, I was a goalie too. For pretty much the same reasons. Perhaps she gets more of her physical make up from me than I thought.

This summer we moved the bedroom assignments around and gave her her own bedroom. We just felt like she really could use the space and the sense of ownership. She's grown into it with a flourish, especially since we just finished the last touches over the past week or two. She has already moved into the tween years, complete with posters on the wall and her constant desire to bring a purse with her everywhere we go, filled with all the little girl essentials, like a ponytail holder and comb, some cash, lip gloss and a mirror, and usually a fake cell phone.

Over the past year her loving spirit seems to have grown a well. She's like a little mommy to her brother, constantly helping him move through his ever-changing life. She's slowly shifting into the role of mentor to her sister. And she's becoming more of a helper around the house, someone I can count on for an extra pair of hands when I'm in need. Her desire to help take care of others and make sure everyone is included makes me proud.

When we talked about what she wanted to bring to school to celebrate her birthday, she said it had to be something "dairy-free, meat-free and nut-free so everyone can have one". This sort of amazed me since she really could have picked anything she wanted. So we came up with jello jigglers. Then yesterday she came home disheartened because she said that one boy in the class couldn't eat gelatin since he was a vegan. [I'll have to do some research on that one.] She then asked if she could bring him a cupcake. I told her that was very sweet, but that we'd have to be fair and just bring the one thing, and that I was sure he'd understand.

I think that I am finally seeing all the years of hard work starting to pay off. It's not that we didn't see all of these wonderful behaviors before, because we did. But now they are her lifestyle and personality, and not just what she does when we are right on top of her.

Her sense of generosity and caring. Her responsible and loving nature. They are all hers now. She acts on them because she chooses to, not because we are telling her to do so. Because these things are some of the many wonderful traits that make up her incredibly beautiful and unique personality.

And that's why I say Eight is Great.

Here's my birthday wish for you this year my love.

May you always socialize with confidence, making new friends with ease while still cherishing those who have remained loyal.

May you always love and appreciate your younger siblings, never take them for granted, and know that they will forever look up to you as you make your path in life.

May you always have so much energy and life that you brighten any room you enter.

And may you forever know that I am proud of every hit, cheering you on for every catch, excited for every new endeavor, and here for you if ever you should fall.

Happy 8th birthday big girl. I love you.

Half Full

Anyone who knows me knows that I always try to be a glass-is-half-full kind of girl. If there's a bright side, I'll find it. And I'll hold on to it as long as possible. It's all about being thankful for what you have. Especially on a day like today, the Thanksgiving holiday.

Like, for example, if it's been 2 weeks since my last post, I'll just tell you that it's because I've been saving up something really good. And that life had been busy with all kinds of great distractions. It's not necessarily because I can't seem to find a half hour to sit at the computer and just idly write away to my heart's content.

It's all about staying optimistic. Noticing how green your own grass is so you stop checking out the nieghbors' yards.

Although yesterday I was certain that the glass was half empty. In fact it was entirely empty if you had asked me. It all started with my husband having what we thought was a bout of food poisoning late Tuesday night. But then yesterday afternoon both my daughters started having upset stomachs.

So I was thankful that on the way home from the movies I didn't stop at a store as I had planned, and I came straight home. Because the second after we walked in the door my oldest ran to the bathroom and lost her popcorn. After I wiped down every surface with Clorox (to hell with the all natural cleaners when there's a stomach bug in the house), I was hoping that would be the end of it.

Then, a couple of short moaning and groaning hours later, my younger daughter lost her popcorn too. All over our bed. Yes, that's our bed, not hers. Pillows, comforter, and all. After that it was hard to be thankful. And even harder to use clorox to clean.

Of course during this time my son had a pee-pee accident, which really seemed more like cleaning up a glass of water after all of those other bodily fluids that I'd been up against. Did I mention that he's now potty trained? We've taken advantage of the strong interest he was showing and over the last couple of weeks we've been putting him in his "big boy undies" more and more. Usually it was just a couple of hours, because that's as long as we were ever home to work on it. Then it was official this week when Monday morning he went off to school in underwear. Only one accident that morning, and the occasional one here and there since. Of course he timed one of them to be in the middle of all the barfing. Way to go, son. In this case, I was thankful I still had the Clorox wipes handy.

But all the wiping and laundry loads didn't end there. Shortly after putting her to bed, my youngest daughter was sick again in her bed. Off went more sheets and pillows to the laundry room.

By this time I was convinced that I was going to be praying to the porcelain god come morning time. I had lost all optimism and had become convinced that Thanksgiving dinner wasn't going to happen. And what's worse, I was convinced that my son would get it too. Which would mean a lot more laundry and carpet cleaning, since he would never be able to control when and where it happened.

We woke up this morning and my husband and I said "let's wait until everyone gets up" before we decide if we were making the turkey that sat waiting a better fate in the refrigerator. But low and behold, everyone got up and everyone was fine. Including me. And our son.

I started making the apple pie and that glass was half full once again. Right then and there I put on a happy face and was thankful.

Thankful that the flu bug was short-lived and the vomiting was kept to a minimum.

Thankful that I escaped it's evil grasp.

Thankful that my kids are healthy enough, on any given day, to be running around our house, making noise, spouting their opinions, and leaving plentiful messes behind. Even if two out of the three didn't eat a bite of the dinner that took me all day to make.

Thankful that we didn't have more company coming over for dinner, and it was just an intimate gathering.

Thankful that my belly, and those of my family, is full. Even if some of them are full of chicken nuggets instead of roast turkey and homemade gravy.

And thankful that my glass - of wine - was always half full tonight.

Girl of 100 Lists

Do you remember that Go-Go's song, "Girl of 100 Lists"? Lately I hear that song in my head quite frequently. It pops into my mind whenever I come across one of my oldest daughter's lists.

She's really into making lists right now.

Considering that I have a shopping list on the fridge, a to-do list on the kitchen counter, not to mention post-its multiplying by the dozens on my desk, I'm not too surprised this trait has popped up recently.

One of the first ones I noticed a few months back was a list she made for her sleepover at her grandmother's house. She numbered everything and even put checkboxes on the list so she knew when the item was packed. It was full of all kinds of essentials like "P.J.'s, underwear, clothes for tommorow, tooth brush, tooth paste, a pair of socks, head band, a book, a pair of flip flops, floser, pic of mom". That last one is one of my favorites. She's taken to keeping me with her at all times by having a photo of me in her backpack that she takes to school, and now I've even made the list for sleepovers. That one makes my heart smile.

On this list she even took it a step farther and had a section for the details of all of those items, so she knew exactly which pajamas and tooth brush and book were coming with her.

Then a few weeks later, she wrote a "To Do List". Apparently one day she felt like she had a lot going on and she needed to keep it straight. Fortunately for her, her To Do list looks much different than mine. In hers, it's all about what she's actually doing that day. I guess that'd be more of a schedule, but she's still fine-tuning her list skills. This one had the following items listed on it:

1. Piano lessons from 4:00-4:30.

2. Do my homwork around 2:55.

3. Jump on the tramp from 3:15-3:40.

4. Bring Bunny for sharing.

5. Friend's mom to pick me up from school.

6. Wear sparkly peace shirt.

Her day was very organized and orderly, even if the actual list was out of order.

She's also been making lists of all the birthday parties she's invited to, so she can keep track of all the good times headed her way.

Then there is the "favorite songs" list, which has gotten quite long lately.

And of course she's been making a list of who she will be inviting to her upcoming birthday party.

One of my favorites was her shopping list that she wrote out for me last week, on my actual list that was on the fridge. It went a little something like this.

Tootsi rolls

Gummi bears

Jelli bellis

Fruit by the foot

Pears

Bananas

Donuts

She wrote it out and then came over and told me she put down 2 healthy things for me to buy at the store. After my "good job!", she gave me a sly smile and said she might have put some other things on there too.

She also left my husband a note on his pillow around that same time. It said "Buy Milke way Mid-night Carmel Fudge". That's it. No please. No title.

I guess that one was really more of a command. But a cute one. And one motivated by her recent Halloween loot I imagine.

Can't you just hear that song going over and over in my head as I collect these lists that she leaves lying around the house?

"I am the girl of 100 lists
From what shall I wear
To who I have kissed
Check items off
Let nothing be missed
Sing I to myself and my 100 lists"

But there better not be any kisses on her lists.

Or we'll be coming up with a whole other list of things to be talking about.

Shut Up Already

By the title of this post you might think I'm being rather insensitive to my children. But that's not so. I'm talking to myself.

I just got back from watching my first soccer game for my daughter's team. And that sentiment is what I was telling myself the entire time. Just shut up already Jessica. But I couldn't. From the second that whistle blew, there was a force that swept over my brain and wrapped around my vocal chords. It took complete control over my thoughts until I was screaming things I never thought I even cared about.

It has finally come.

I'm a soccer mom.

Now you might be looking at the calendar and thinking to yourself "isn't soccer season almost over?". And you'd be correct. Because of my new career venture, my weekends have been pretty busy and I've managed to miss every other game up until this point, with the exception of the first half of one game a few weeks ago. So here we are three games from the end of the season and I'm finally getting to watch. It's really been heart-breaking to get the text message updates throughout the games as my husband keeps me up to date while he has watched the entire season up to this point. Especially last week when my daughter scored her first goal. Man did I wish I was there when I got that text. Tears even came to my eyes. In fact I'm getting a bit choked up just writing about it.

Now I was so excited that I finally get to go to the last 3 games of the season, and I couldn't wait to watch her play. Except that last night when she went to bed she wasn't feeling well. I think she had a very slight fever, which was probably from a long day of Halloween festivities and being run down, but nonetheless, I had a feeling she might not be playing today. Sure enough, she woke up with a big headache, although no fever, and a bit of a tummy ache. She ate her breakfast, but she just wasn't herself.

Of course this would also be the one day that we were in charge of snacks for the team. So I was up this morning baking Halloween cookies and cutting up watermelon. Before you know it I had to leave, and she was a trooper and put on her team shirt with her sweats and said she wanted to come with me.

So there we are on a wet field, watching the girls run up and down playing their game. I'm keeping my daughter warm and feeling a bit guilty that she's there. Either way you think about it I wasn't on the right side of the equation. I was either dragging my sick child out to a soccer game in the wet and cold morning (who makes those schedules and thinks that 9am is a good time for a Saturday morning soccer game, anyway?) or I was bringing out my somewhat healthy almost perfectly fine child to her team game without any equipment and letting her just sit and watch her teammates work hard for a win. But that's neither here nor there I guess.

As we watched her team fight hard on the defense through most of the first half, I was overcome from the first kick. "Get up there in front of the goal girls!" "Forwards get open!" "Kick it out of there!" "Pass it to the middle!!"

You name it, I was yelling about it. I seriously didn't know I had it in me. Since I've never been to a game and I am part of a carpool for practice, I don't know all the girls on the team. So I'm asking my daughter "who's the one with the ribbon in her hair?" and "what's the name of the girl with the pink shirt on underneath?". Then I'm yelling their names telling them where to go to get the ball and what to do with it.

Seriously. I started laughing at myself. At one point I told myself to just shut up for a while. I'd be quiet for about a minute and then it would just start coming out again.

As I was being possessed, I realized why it might be happening. I'm so used to knowing what to do myself, and watching games where players know what they are doing, that I couldn't help but feel a bit frustrated watching half the team just stand there and wait for the ball to come right to them before they even moved. And even then they sometimes didn't move. To the credit of all the girls, they all did the best they could. It's just that some of them get it and some of them don't. Or they don't care.

Which is totally fine. And I wasn't at all mad about it. I just wanted them all to do better and work hard for their team. So I couldn't help myself from yelling at them. For the record, mostly I just screamed out the obvious and I never pointed anyone out specifically unless they did something great and I told them so.

At the half time, the coach said he would try something new and he told everyone to just go play whatever they wanted and he wasn't going to assign any positions. My inner voice said "WHAT!?" and I panicked and started to tell the girls "someone needs to be on defense!" and shouting other instructions. Seriously, who did I think I was, the coach? I had to shut myself up again.

My daughter toughed it out through the whole game (we had a couple moments where we thought we'd leave) and by the end she was feeling better. And she was right there with me on the sideline yelling for her teammates to get a goal.

It was really rather fun. A bit of an adrenaline rush. Or perhaps that was just the coffee that I was sipping throughout the game.

Before today I had told myself that I would work with my daughter to see if she could play at least 2 or 3 years of soccer so she can get the feel of what it means to be on a team. Between that and softball, she should get some great life lessons. There's responsibility, teamwork, discipline, just to name a few. All wonderful qualities that most athletes possess, and ones that I'm glad she will be exposed to during these few years.

Just over the past week or two I was wondering if I should stick to that philosophy. I certainly don't want to force her to play something she doesn't like. I think I just really want her to like it.

And now after today, I want her to like it even more. I want to be her biggest fan on the sideline screaming like crazy when she gets a goal.

I want to be her soccer mom.

To Play or Not To Play

I've run into a new dilemma lately. So get ready to put on your thinking caps and offer any suggestions that might come to mind.

Recently I got an email requesting a play date with my oldest daughter. It was from the mother of a child in her class. My first reaction was "how nice!". And I of course politely accepted and we started working on dates and times.

While the plans were flying through the virtual world, I mentioned this impending play date to my daughter. And the funny thing is, it didn't occur to me until just that moment that my daughter is too old for me to be setting up her play dates for her. These days she comes to me herself and asks for the play date. More specifically she says "mom, can I go over to so-and-so's house tomorrow after school?" and then we talk about whether this has been cleared through the friends' parents and all that. And then I work with the parents to make sure it's okay, clarify timing, etc.

There have even been times lately when a friend of hers calls the house and they talk about a play date over the phone and arrange it. This is like a bad game of "telephone" with me on the second-hand conversation side with my daughter and the other mom on the second-hand conversation side with my daughter's friend on the other end of the phone. It's like 3 conversations all happening at once.

But I think these are sort of the bridging years for my daughter. She's able to make those calls, or receive them, and then just clear it all through me. In fact, there are times when she goes riding her bike around the neighborhood with the "older" girl next door, and I never even talk to that mom directly. I just assume that mom knows what they are doing, that she's getting the same request as me, and that if she's cleared it with her daughter then it's okay by me.

At some point we are just going to hit the "mom, I'm going outside to play!" point [editor's note: we have actually hit that point, I'm just refusing to remember or admit it] and pretty soon I'm going to have to start sneaking around the neighborhood spying on what she's doing if I want to know exactly who she's with and where they are.

And I don't even want to think about the next stage after that when it involves the opposite gender.

So back to the play date scheduling. I mention it to my daughter and she sort of makes a funny face. We talk about it and as it turns out, she doesn't really know this girl very well and it's not one of the girls she "runs around with" at school. She tells me she's a perfectly nice girl, it's just that it seemed sort of strange to her that they would set up a play date since they are pretty different personalities. I think I may have put a nicer spin on that than my daughter, but you get the idea.

Fast forward and the day arrives. The girl comes over and makes herself at home. I tell my daughter to show her around the house, which she does, and then they pick out a game to play. They spend an hour or so, which is all the time we had, playing politely together. I can of course immediately see the difference between this play date and her usual ones. Much less energy and excitement. Much less drama. And I'm thinking a little less fun for my child.

And that's when I realized that I was put in a tough spot and I did the best I could.

And so did my daughter. I coached her about being nice and open minded, and she did an absolutely wonderful job with it all. Which quite frankly surprised me a bit, since she can be a lot like a 13 year old at times with the attitude.

So we got through it all with flying colors, and when it was over I asked my daughter what she thought of it. She said "it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be".

While not a gold-star response, I'll take it. I told her I was proud of her for being open minded and a polite host.

And then it happened.

Another request. Almost immediately.

Now I'm really in a tough spot. I had no choice but to be "breezy" and say how lovely it all was and that our scheduling is really crazy right now, so "I'll be in touch".

I can't help but feel like one of the "mean girls". But honestly, my children can pick their own friends; that's not part of my job.

So I guess what is part of my job is being politely "breezy" on their behalf so as not to hurt too many feelings.

I hope it worked.

Quotables

Here are some amazing quotes from my younger daughter in the past couple of weeks. I'm not kidding when I say that they were so funny and they were coming so often, that I started writing them down so I could save them in a blog post. And this is coming from the girl that doesn't offer too many words to the public. So today I'll speak on her behalf.

While in the car driving home from the library, talking about nothing in particular.

"We have the best family in the whole world."

Again, while in the car. Again, while talking about nothing in particular, certainly not baby-making.

HER: Where do babies come from?

ME: Inside your tummy.

HER: How do they get in there?

ME: They start out reeeaaallly small, and then they grow bigger.

[This is the same thing I told her sister and it seemed to end the conversation. Not so much this time.]

HER: But how do they get inside your tummy?

ME: Well they are in there and they are really really tiny.

HER: As small as a crumb?

ME: Yes, as small as a crumb. Even smaller.

HER: But how does the crumb get in there?

[Strike two.]

ME: It happens when a mommy and daddy are in love and it comes from their love. And it's really tiny. How small do you think it is?

HER: Like a crumb!

Then I divert her to something else.

One day we were in the kitchen and I was cleaning up some papers and art projects that came home from school with the kids. These same things that seem to accumulate on a massive level every day, let alone every week.

HER: What do you do with all the stuff that I bring home from school?

ME: Some of it I save, and the rest of it I recycle.

HER: You mean you throw away the stuff?

ME: Yes, but just some of it.

HER: Well whoever's mom would do a thing like that?

That'd be your mom, I'm afraid.

Another day we were...you guessed it...in the car. My younger daughter was talking about picking up her sister from school, and all the carpooling we do to and from school and soccer practice.

HER: It's a good thing we have so many booster seats. Cuz you have to have those for the kids in the car. If we didn't, mommy would get a ticket.

ME: That's right. You always have to be safe and make sure everyone uses a booster seat if they aren't big enough to ride without one yet.

HER: Yup. Cuz if you got a ticket then you and daddy would have to clean up the streets.

Good thing we have those booster seats because neon orange has never been one of my colors.

When I was trying to fix her bothersome cheap dresser from IKEA, I was pounding away at the side of it trying to make sure it would stay together. She came up to me and said one heck of a stunner.

HER: Daddy should do that.

ME: Why? I can fix things too.

HER: Yeah, but you're the pretty one.

ME (after regaining my composure): Well thank you for the compliment, but just because I'm pretty doesn't mean I can't fix things.

HER: Oh.

I'm not sure that one really stuck with her, but we'll have to reiterate that point again soon. Really, where did she come up with that? How is it that she assumed it is an either/or situation? I think we need to start a show called "Barbara the Builder".

And finally, one other time....in the car. Do you get the idea that we do a lot of driving around?

HER: Mommy how do they build cars?

ME: Well they start with something called an axle. And they connect wheels to it. And they make two of them for every car, they are called a rear axle and a front axle, one for the rear wheels in the back and the front wheels in the front of the car. Then those parts are connected with something called a chassis, which holds all the parts of the car in.

HER: Just like skin! Our skin holds all the parts of our body in!

Yes, our skin holds all of our parts in.

Including that amazing little noggin of yours.

Buried Alive

Do you ever feel like you are slowly being buried in a pile of crumbs, wrappers, and crap that says "Made in China" on the bottom?

What? You don't? Well, lucky you, because I do. At least 13 out of every 14 days that is.

My house cleaners came yesterday and the second I walked in a did what I always do. I stopped and looked around. And I admired. Ah, a clean house. It only happens once every 2 weeks, so I always stop for a few minutes and just smell the cleanliness.

And then I proceed to fool myself into thinking that I can maintain it for a while. For the rest of that day, every time the sink gets dirty, or food drops on the floor, I immediately clean it up. I'll even get out the dust buster just to make sure that the popcorn on the floor is banished from my site. On house cleaning day, I just want the house to stay clean. Is that too much to ask?

Of course last night's dinner involved some grated cheese, which always seems to attract my children like ants on honey. Now don't get me started on the ant problems we are having lately, because that's a whole other picnic my friends.

So those little grubby hands reach up on to the counter, grab grated cheese and shove it into eagerly awaiting mouths. With no thought to the fact that it's getting all over my spanking clean kitchen floor.

It's just all downhill after Monday cleaning day. I get to enjoy the clean house for that one day, and that's all she wrote.

Within one hour of all three of my kids being home this afternoon the playroom looks like it just survived a tornado. They have moved the couch into the middle of the room, with pillows and blankets strewn around it. Then my son has decided to get out all the pieces to four different games, none of which are being played at the time, and he adds his decorative touches the mess. There are game boards and dice, Zingo cards and pawns, not to mention the Uno cards, all scattered about, making it look like...well, you get the idea.

I started to clean it all up and then I just threw my hands in the air. Lately I just don't have the time to clean up as I would like, and frankly I don't have the time to care as much about it either. Which is nice. A bit of a refreshing change in my life. It's teaching me to let go a little.

But I really don't want to let go of cleaning day. Just that one day.

Every two weeks.

Cleanliness and order.

In an otherwise chaotic life.

Too Much Diego?

What blog? Do I still have a blog?

Oh my goodness. You don't really want to hear all the complaining that I dish out to my husband, so we'll just suffice it to say that I've been a tad busy lately. I broke my own golden rule of writing once a week for the first time since I started this venture. It makes me sad, but I really don't have time to cry right now.

I've been so busy in fact, that I've had to employ the electronic babysitter a bit too much lately. Here's the proof.

You know your children have watched too much Dora and Diego when:

• Your barely two year old spontaneously starts counting in Spanish one to ten, in order and pronounced correctly, and no one around him has ever even said "uno" to him.

• You are driving along and you are at a red light next to a bus that has a nature picture on it with some hawks flying up above a mountain, and your son and daughter see it and shout out "condors!".

• You are pushing open a door and your daughter says "empuje!".

• You are driving along in the car (we do that a lot around here) and your son starts singing the theme song to Dora, complete with the "D-d-d-da-da-Dora" part.

• Every picture of a snake that your daughter sees she says looks like an anaconda. Last I checked she's never been to a rain forest.

• Your kids start singing "Old MacDonald" just like the singing bridge on Dora, who ends it with silly words. So you hear a lot of "Old MacDonald had a...bowl of spaghetti!".

• Your son wants to be Diego for Halloween. And you don't even have to go shopping because you have all the items necessary.

It Wasn't Me

As most of you know, one of my son's favorite words to date is "poop". It was poop this and poop that. It started out getting such a laugh from his sisters that ever since he's never let it go.

He's even saying it in his sleep lately. Well, let me explain. He'll fall asleep in his car seat just before arriving home, and even though his eyes are closed and the drool is already forming a puddle on his shirt, he'll occasionally open his eyes and attempt to wake up. And when he does, he says "POOOOP!" really loud and with a smirk on his face. Then he'll not his head off in the other direction and go back to sleep. Sometimes he'll even do one or two encores of this before finally settling down into slumber.

Well it seems now we may have a new winner. Although I'm doing my darnedest (notice the use of my child safe language) not to let it happen.

The new word that I'm hearing too often is "dammit." I recently told the story of the first time I heard this while we were on vacation. I heard it a few other times that week, and then it was pretty quiet after that.

Then the other day I was carrying him downstairs and he was mumbling "dammit....dammit....dammit."

Then the rest went something like this.

Me: What did you say?

Him: Dammit.

Me: No, that's not nice. We don't say that.

LONG PAUSE (filled with lots of two year old wheels turning).

Him: Daddy say it.

After stifling my laughter I simply replied "that's not nice...no saying that."

So there you go. Proof that it wasn't me. Sorry hubby, your son ratted you out and now I'm telling the world.

Non-Stop Fun

Yesterday morning I attended the first official school function of the year. It was a "coffee chat" with the principal and PTA. How it works is the aforementioned folks "host" a little gathering, complete with coffee and breakfast munchies, for each grades' parents at the school. Yesterday was the one for the first grade parents, which happens to be the entering grade at our school (that's another story about the Kindergarten process, so don't ask).

While my daughter is now a 2nd grader, which I'm still marveling at, I went as a representative of the PTA, since I'm on the Board this year. I really wasn't looking forward to it too much, other than the opportunity to have a cinnamon roll and another cup of coffee. I didn't even go to the one last year for 1st graders, namely because I'm not really one for sitting around and socializing with a group of relative strangers. I prefer to meet people in a smaller setting, like through the classroom activities. So this was literally my first "coffee chat" and I was focusing more on the coffee than the chat.

This event is timed to start after the bell rings for class to start in the morning so it's fairly early. And I figured I was taking my younger two along because it just seemed silly to have my husband stay home an extra hour for something that was so informal.

I had to wrestle my two younger ones into the car, after five rounds of "get dressed" to my four year old, and a couple of rounds of "let's brush your teeth", and a few more of "pick out your shoes". I swear, if I could take my 4 year old out in her pajamas with bed-head hair and her teeth not brushed, not to mention nothing in her belly except chocolate milk (since she has to be practically coerced into eating breakfast), I'd be the one parent that was early for everything. I'd have people marvelling at my ability to get to events and meetings on time with 3 small children.

At least until they got a look at my kids, and then they'd give me the passive aggressive "she likes to pick out her own clothes, huh?" as they roll their eyes behind my back.

So we finally manage to get to the school and do our perfunctory 5 minute wait for a parking space as the lot clears out a little. By the time I roll in there with my son in the stroller and my daughter dragging behind, the PTA President is already giving her spiel. And just then she starts to introduce the officers.

Sweet. Just in time.

I take my kids around to the other side of the room to get some food as she's rolling off the names. By this time my son is already saying "OUT!" to get out of his stroller. Of course we are in a large gymnasium-like auditorium and his voice is way overpowering the lovely lady trying to speak to the crowd. She names all the officers in front of her and says "am I missing anyone?", at which point I raise my hand to be acknowledged. Normally I wouldn't do this, but I just dragged my ass, and two little behinds, here for this very reason so I wasn't going to let the opportunity for due credit pass me by.

"Just us over here, the loud ones," I say to the crowd. I get a few giggles and my due acknowledgement.

After this point my son is not wanting anything to eat, nor is my daughter, so I let them go play in the courtyard outside some glass doors while the Principal of the school starts to talk.

Now all the talk I've heard so far isn't really very critical to me. I've been at the school for a year, so I'm fairly familiar with it's workings. I don't really need to be reminded about the parking lot fiasco, or urged to volunteer for things, since that's why my ass is in the room to begin with. So at this point I already start planning my exit.

Just then my son runs back over to the glass doors and screams "MOM! COME OUTSIDE!!" over and over again while banging on the door. This scene is a bit reminiscent of that scene in The Graduate where Dustin Hoffman is banging on the church windows yelling "Elaine!" for his beloved to stop her wedding. It sort of had the same stunned reaction too.

So I go out and keep my kids company for a bit to keep them quiet. I'm looking in at the Principal talking as if I can hear her, but I really can't hear a thing through the glass. But I figure this way I'm covered if anyone is watching me and I'll at least look the part. I even nod my head a few times just for show.

Meanwhile my kids run around behind me like monkeys at the zoo. It's really what it felt like, even though we were the ones outside and the other side of the glass was the inside. They are running, falling, laughing, and generally having a ton more fun than anyone inside the meeting.

At one point my daughter is standing on a bench and I do the casual "honey, hop down from there, I don't want your brother to get the idea that he can climb all over the benches." So she "hops" down. I realized as I said it that I was probably in trouble.

"Ooooh. I do dat!! I jump!" is what I hear next and he proceeds to get up and jump down off the bench a few times before I can pull him away. Then I try to re-enter the meeting and realize that I'm locked out. I have to quickly divert to a different set of doors through the community center so that we can change scenery and stop jumping off of and climbing over objects.

Now we end up inside at a couple of vending machines. While they are drooling over all the goodies I sneak back inside to listen a little bit more. I hear my kids just outside the room with my son's loud "I WANT DAT!" over and over. So I offer a little what-can-you-do? shrug when some parents look over at me and try to listen intently to the meeting.

Nope, still nothing too critical happening in there. So I grab some more coffee and food for myself and check on the kids who are still excited about the vending machine.

Now I deem it time to go. Enough is enough with the pretending to actually attend a meeting stuff. I go back and grab the stroller from the room just as I hear the principal recommending early bedtimes for grade schoolers.

Check. I have that covered.

And we exit. Whew. 20 minutes of non-stop action and now I can taste freedom.

This is where the "but" comes in. But then, after getting our vending machine goodies, my son runs out to play in the school courtyard on other side of the room we were in. Again, outside some glass doors, so all his craziness can be witnessed by multitudes of other parents. And to top it off these doors are open with people gathered around them since it's where we entered the room.

My son runs around in circles a few times and then leads another woman's cute little innocent and quiet 2 year old all the way across the courtyard, where he climbs up on a concrete wall and begins to walk around with his little buddy right behind him. I hear the mother gasp as she sees what her son has done, and I look up to see my guy leading the pack.

Oops.

Now he's going to be known as "the loud one" and "a bad influence", which we all know adds up to "that kid".

After I run over and rescue this other woman's son, who can't get down on his own, and my son just jumps right off like he actually is the monkey that he seems to be, I figure it's time to get out of there. I get my son to run back over to where the crowd is and then I ask him to leave with me.

At this point I knew he wasn't going to leave peacefully. So I bit the bullet and picked him up to go. Right on cue, as we are passing the open entrance to the room where everyone is still listening to the speakers, he starts his screaming and kicking in my arms.

I offer a little smile to some of the women while I'm doing my wrestling routine, and I say a pleasant "see you next week!" and get the heck out of dodge.

Yup, that's my kid. Non-stop.

Which is great if you're on a cross-country flight. Or at a concert. Or at a number of things that really only last a set amount of hours.

I'm afraid this non-stop doesn't end for another year or two.

And I believe the same can be said for the eye-rolling that I'll be witnessing, which I've somehow managed to avoid for the past 7 years.

Life's Simple Pleasures

Yet again I am reminded to buy more Mega Millions lottery tickets. Because even though the best things in life are pretty simple - spending time with friends and family being number one on the list - they don't always come free. Or cheap.

There is just no replacement for good friends and family. And since some of ours aren't nearby, we'd need to win some sort of small fortune to be able fly our family of five out to see them as often as we'd like.

Last weekend we returned from our summer vacation and ran smack dab into back-to-school week. So I apologize for being off-line for so long; it's not my preference, but it is a necessity at times. I have had to resist the urge to sit at the computer and chew through several hours, doing things like blogging, so that I can use that precious time to gear our family up for the new school year.

Two weeks ago we started the trip off with the suburbs of Philadelphia where my husband's parents both grew up, and subsequently it's the land of aunts and uncles. And all of them are Italian. Which means we heard rounds of "you're so skinny!" to my husband from all his doting aunts, who to this day probably think all we keep in our kitchen is a bottle of ketchup and hence I am depriving him of home-cooked meals.

So they proceed to try to make up for it all in one night. No kidding. The amount of food that went through the kitchen in one night was astounding. Not to mention the amount of people. Three aunts, an uncle, and multitudes of cousins, second cousins, and friends. And it was all wonderful; the abundance of food and family mixed together to create this amazing sense of security and warmth.

It really struck me on this trip just how important my husband's family is to him. It was a joy to watch them all swoon over him and our kids. Those Italian folks in the Philly area are some really good people.

From there we went out to beautiful Lake Anna in Virginia. We stayed with our good friends who were wonderful hosts to our not-so-small, not-so-quiet, not-so-good-at-sleeping-in brood. They even had a built in babysitter in their oldest son; the sweetest 13 year old kid you ever did see.

Much like last year, we spent time floating around the lake with a variety of water toys. My younger daughter discovered her love of the water and honestly spent more time in a life vest than out of it over the 7 days. She'd just bob to and fro in the water, from this person to that person, and sometimes just around in circles all by herself. I think she loved the independence of it all.

The week's highlight for my oldest was playing with her friend that she reconnected with after a long year apart. They took off from the word "hello" and were never apart for the next 7 days. Her friend even inspired her to conquer her fears and get up on water skis for the first time. She made momma proud!

And our son loved going out on the boat in the middle of the lake and saying "now go swimming?" every time we stopped to change people on the wakeboard, waterskis or water tube. And indeed, we did go swimming out in the middle of the lake, everyone floating around in their life vests. Apparently he needs 40 feet of water to really have fun; he always likes to push things to the limit so I guess it should be no surprise.

Our son also mastered the word "again!" as he insisted my husband throw him up in the air over the water countless times. Unfortunately he also showed us that he has mastered the words "dammit....gah dammit...." as he muttered them right in the spot where daddy would have said them if he had been the one cleaning up a mess. But instead it was my silence that he got (after an exasperated exclamation of his name), so he decided to fill in the blanks for me and dad with the chosen "bad words". Thoughtful little guy doing daddy's work for him.

I don't think I really have to mention just how special this time was to us. We were able to reconnect with family and friends that mean so much to our little family of five. To us, it's the most meaningful and rewarding way we can spend our time.

And though a year has passed since we'd last seen our friends at their house on the lake, it seemed as if it had only been a few weeks. That's the beauty of truly great friendships; they sustain and subsist over years and miles. Even when there are so many miles that the visits become too far and few between over the years.

All in all, you can see how simple our trip was. No amusement rides. No parking lots. No email and no cell phone.

For one week this summer we were once again wire free, screen free, media free and of course, care free.

Life's simple pleasures.

A Million Bucks

Alas, another installment in the School of Mom. Sorry to keep my public waiting. Things are picking up for my business and we are leaving on vacation tomorrow. And, oh yeah, I take care of 3 kids. Enough said.

Here's on an update on our game of Sleep Survivor with our son, which has taken on some twists and turns. In the end, it's just about a sure bet that I'll be taking home the million dollars.

I wish.

At the very least I'm starting to feel like a million bucks again, now that we have some peace and quiet at night. But it didn't come easy.

The very same night that I posted that last entry about outwitting our son, he turned around and outplayed me. Here I was all smug and patting myself on the back for being "on to something" by skipping his naps and it all back-fired. He was up just about the entire night that night. We went through about 4 rounds of "go back to bed" all throughout the night. Each one lasted over 30 minutes, and I was the one handling most of it (per my insistence that I would win this thing and finally make him see the light) until my husband took over and got up with him in the wee hours of the sunrise. Needless to say, I only felt like about two cents that next day.

In fact my son and I were both a wreck. I was beside myself feeling like I had failed at every attempt so far. Never having experienced anything like this with our daughters, I finally turned to the internet. Most of the advice I came across was similar to what I was doing. The GBTB (Go Back To Bed) approach that I was so familiar with over the past 3 months. Everyone said you should be stoic and strong, and show no emotion. Are you kidding me!? At 4 in the morning when I've barely slept yet I'm really leaning more toward seriously pissed off than stoic.

Then I came across one article that said the same things, but then acknowledged that toddlers often don't have control over their actions. They are impulsive and can't contain themselves. It said don't confuse their comprehension with their ability to control themselves. While I knew this to be true, I never really applied it to our game of Sleep Survivor. And then it all clicked. You know how you just know when something is the right answer? Well that's what happened.

The article went on to say that you should consider putting one of those tents on the crib. Or put a safety gate at their door, so they can't get out of their room. While I had thought about these options before, and people had recommended it to me, I really just thought that he would learn over time by what we were doing. But clearly it wasn't happening fast enough. If at all.

However we weren't really wanting to go back to the crib. And we knew that he would just crawl right over one of those gates. So we went with the only option we knew. Switching out the doorknob for one that he couldn't open. We have those annoying door handles in our house that are like levers, and they are very easy for toddlers to use; especially to get out the front door.

Since I knew he needed a nap that day and I had no patience to deal with his crankiness, and no new doorknob yet, I decided I would just hold the handle and see what happened. At first he cried for a minute, then he went down to the floor and looked out through the crack. He could see my feet moving around and whenever he quieted down and I would walk away, he'd get up and come out of the room. So I finally put a chair there and put my feet up while I held the door shut. This maneuver proved to outwit him and after a few minutes he fell asleep at the door on the carpet and took a 2 hour nap there.

During all of this I remembered that we did this with our oldest back when she was 2 years old. She spent a week or two falling asleep at the door until she finally started going to sleep in her bed. Yet another lesson that had somehow slipped through the cracks of my mush brain.

I think I was just reluctant to use this method again, seeing as it seems sort of cruel. But it makes sense. And in the end, it's what has worked to give us all a good night's sleep.

That first night with the new doorknob he cried for less than a minute, then went to the floor and started calling "Daaaaady" over and over again. Until about a minute later when he quieted down and fell asleep at the door.

This is how it goes most nights. Occassionally he puts in there a "Mooooomy" and at times he even calls for his sisters. Thankfully it was a very pleasant voice and one we can easily overlook. Every night around 10pm my husband goes in and moves him to his bed. Those first few nights we wouldn't hear a peep from him again until around 5am, when he'd call out again, but then go back to sleep at the door until 6am when my husband would get up with him. And so it went for the first week.

Although we did have a hiccup in there a few nights into it when we went away for the weekend. The first night away he was up again all during the night. My husband ended up sleeping next to him for part of the night. But the second night he slept in his bed (after we put him back) all through the night until 6am. One step back, but two steps forward.

When we returned home, he started going to the door as usual, but then he would go back to bed and go to sleep. We even had one night when he didn't go to the door at all. But then he was back at the door a couple more nights after that, with us moving him to bed again. But every day he has been sleeping all night until after 6am without a peek out from under the door. Most mornings he even sleeps until 6:30am! That lazy boy.

And the kicker here is that he's still napping every day. Most days we are out and about and he falls asleep while in the stroller or car. But if we aren't out, I put him down for a nap at home. And he'll just go to sleep in bed without even coming to the door.

This, combined with the fact that he's in his room at 8pm every night, means that we are all getting more rest in this house.

And last night when my husband put him in his bed he once again didn't go to the door. He was sleeping nice and snug in his bed when he went to check on him.

We are definitely on to something now.

And I don't care if he's a teenager before he figures out how to use that doorknob.

As long as we are all sleeping happily ever after again.

Outwit. Outlast. Outplay.

We have been playing a little bit of "Sleep Survivor" around my house this past week. There have been experiments and challenges that keep us all on our toes vying for the power in the family. And it's all centered around getting our son to sleep in his "big boy bed".

As I've mentioned before, he was getting out of his crib for the past couple of months. So we figured if we are going to go through all this rigmarole, why not just get the big bed and get all this over with. And I'll admit that in the back of my mind I thought, who knows...maybe it will be better if he has a big bed.

Nope.

We started this process just after my last post, so I'll try to sum up the past 10 days of sleep angst in the most succinct way possible.

Basically, he didn't want to fall asleep on his own in the bed. He needed to be lulled, rocked, sang to, back-rubbed, magic spelled upon - whatever we could do to get him sleepy enough to put him down in the bed so he wouldn't get back up. If we didn't, we were in for an hour or two of the same looping roller coaster over and over and over again. And I like roller coasters. But this was enough to make me want to scream after 20 minutes.

So we took the easy way out. At the time it seemed like the only sensible option.

Now how many times have we said that to ourselves?

Turns out we have created a monster. Now I feel I need to preface this all by mentioning that we never had that many problems with our girls. My oldest fought the big bed for a week or two, but after our consistent "go back to bed" talk she gave in to our wisdom. And our younger daughter never even fought it. It was a non-event.

Nowadays, we just don't have the energy or time to do all head-to-head combat that we did with our oldest. Or so we thought. Now we are paying the price. Not only would he not go to sleep without us cuddling him into his slumber, he started waking up during the night and coming to get us. Twice each night.

Ugh. Now we were in a pickle.

He was so tired during the day after all his nighttime shenanigans that he started taking long naps. After a few days of this he was all ass-backwards with his sleep. He wasn't going to sleep at night until 9 or 9:15p, only to get up some time between midnight and 2am, and again around 4 or 5am, and then finally he was up for good at 6am. And then he'd take a 3 hour nap during the day.

Now I can't be positive since I've been so sleep deprived lately, but I'm pretty sure this a HUGE step backward in our sleep regimen. It's like we have a 3 month old again. And this boy has been sleeping through the night for almost 2 straight years with nary a peep.

Again with the Ugh.

After a tryst at 2am that lasted until 3:30am with both my husband and myself up trying to figure out what the hell we had done wrong to create this situation, I knew that something needed to change.

I started doing the math and figured out that he was sleeping about 11 to 12 hours every day. Which the doctor assured me at his 2 year well-check was perfectly normal. And she also happened to mention that he'd probably give up his nap sooner than his sisters, since boys usually give it up sooner than boys.

That was the only green light I needed to decide that we would once again forge ahead and start going without naps. Why not go back to the crib? Why not go back to the head-to-head combat and the nauseating "go back to bed" cycle? Because I am trying to outwit this little dude. Or at the very least outplay him.

My reasoning was that he would be so tired if he didn't take one that we could put him down around 7:30p and he would be way easier to get to sleep. And we wouldn't be dorking around with him until 9 at night. And hopefully he'd be so tired that he would sleep through the night again.

Now the moment of truth. You are all wondering, did that stroke of genius work? Or was she just so desperate that she tried something really stupid and she'll be voted out of her family?

So far, so good. Of course the first day we tried to skip the nap, on Sunday, he fell asleep in his car seat at 3pm before we even pulled out of the parking space we were in. We let him sleep an hour that day. Then on Monday he went without a nap. Monday night he went to bed at 7:30p and was, unfortunately, up at 2am. But just that once, so that was an improvement.

Yesterday he had another short snooze, but was easy to put down by 8pm, and stayed asleep until 4am. A marked improvement! Except he was up again at 5am, and then 6am for good. Once again, Ugh.

But I think we might be on to something. I think we will be able to outlast him at this point, since we have outwitted him for a few nights now and we can finally have the 8 to 9pm hour back to ourselves again.

Now on a related note, sadly, our younger daughter has gotten in the mix the past couple nights. When we had that ugly session I mentioned that lasted an hour and a half the other night, he was crying so much with us trying to put him back to bed over and over that she woke up and started crying too. Then this seemed to have reset her sleep cycle, and the past 2 nights she has been up at 2am. She wakes up, looks around, and then claims "it's too dark!".

Well duh. It's nighttime. But that bit of outwitting doesn't really work on a 4 year old in the middle of the night.

So last night I had a pep talk with her, which usually works when she goes into these cycles. I am determined to outwit her as well, and get some damn sleep around here.

It seems it hit home a bit, since she started talking to her sister this time when she woke up. She was complaining to her, hoping that her woes could still be heard, but that she wouldn't wake up my husband or myself as she had promised.

One point for her in the outwit department. She is a worthy adversary.

But I will not be outplayed and I will definitely outlast.

Life Moves Too Fast

In the words of the famous Ferris Bueller, life moves pretty fast. And if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, when you have kids, you have a physical reminder of just how fast the time goes by. You watch them grow up, and as it's happening, you barely notice it. Then, before you can say ""do you have to make pee-pee on the potty?" your oldest child is off and running, riding her bike around the neighborhood looking for a friend to play with her and talking about the cute boys in her class.

These past couple of months have been a bit outstanding for my oldest. First, she got her ears pierced. A sweet, cute, slightly painful moment of her childhood that came and went. Now we are already past the swab-the-piercings-three-times-a-day stage and we are off to buy new earrings that she can wear.

Then she got her hair chopped off, cutting off ten inches to donate to Locks of Love. This haircut gave her a much more sophisticated look, even though I was sure it was that long hair that was making her look so much older this year.

Next up she completes 1st grade and is now an "incoming" 2nd grader. 2nd grade? Really? It just somehow sounds so much older than 1st grade. Of course it is, but that's beside the point. And the fact that some of her good friends that are one month older than her are starting the 3rd grade is just startling to me. Her birthday missed the cut-off by one day. One single day. And that means she has to stay at home one more year than those friends. When they are off to college and she is still under my wing for her senior year, I will be very thankful for that one single day. I'm not sure she will be though.

Now see what I've gone and done? I've already aged her to high school in a single paragraph. But that's really how it feels around here lately.

We recently decided that she will have her own room as well. We are going to put the younger two together in a room and give her the room she currently shares with her sister. And she'll even have a queen bed too. I think this is making her a little power hungry in the family, but so far she is handling it well. And she really needs her own space these days. My younger daughter and my son are pretty close in their sleep schedules, and also love playing and being with each other, so we figured, why not? We'll see how it all falls into place. Right now we are in the midst of trying to get our son to sleep in a big boy bed, step one of the plan. More on that another time....much more. Suffice it to say, me need sleep.

This week my oldest made fast friends with a 9 year old little girl that moved in next door. And she's always got some friends down the street - one direction or the other - that she wants to go out and play with. This is the first summer that she is stretching her wings a bit, although still within my stated boundaries. And while it's so freeing for me, as well as her, it's a little bittersweet.

Especially when it comes to the fact that she's still just a 7 year old at heart. And I mean that literally. She might think and act like a 10 year old most of the time, and even a 12 year old some of the time, but she's still emotionally just a 7 year old. And I've found that while she loves spending time out playing with her friends, or over at her friend's house all day, she comes home and is even more needy of my time. It quickly becomes physically obvious that she still needs a lot of my support and love and attention. She'll throw herself at me, wrapping her arms around my waist, squealing "mommy!!". And she's right there when her little sister tries to get in on the action, jockeying for my lap or my attention.

This was never more evident than this week when she went to a Little Gym camp day. Long story short, but you can drop in to their camps and do just one day, or a couple, or the whole week. So I had a certificate and figured I'd use it for one morning this week while she wasn't doing anything else. She had just spent the entire day before with her friends from school at a play date, so I hadn't seen her much in the past 24 hours. I dropped her at the gym and she's perfectly fine, interested to see how it's going to go. And even though she hasn't done a Little Gym class in a while, she's been there a ton while her sister does her class, so she's very familiar with the teachers and the space.

But an hour into it I get a call. "She's homesick and wants to go home." They put her on the phone and she's crying saying she wants to leave.

I'm so shocked by it all that I don't know what to make of it. I ask her if someone hurt her or said something to her. Because I'm sure that this child can't just simply be homesick. But indeed, that's all it is. You'd think after that last stint of camp earlier this summer, and the occasional tears that went along with it (although those were before she actually got there and started having fun with the other kids), I would have been more prepared for this. But she came out of that experience so well I'd just about forgotten it. And besides, this was just one single morning, and she understood the whole thing. But she said all the kids were "strangers" and she just wasn't having any fun and she missed me.

While her brain may have been telling her "sure - this will be fun", her heart was telling her that she just wasn't as happy at a camp full of "strangers" when she could have been in the nurturing company of her mother.

I know that she will continue to want to stretch her wings and fly far for the rest of this summer. And she'll fool me into thinking that she's capable of handling it all and she's ready for the freedom.

But she'll always be my little girl at heart. Both in her heart, and in mine.

Little Wonders

Today, for whatever reason, I was at my wit's end.

Wait a minute. Hummmm....let me think about that. Oh, I got it. I was at my wit's end because my three kids had eaten all the way through my wits until there was only a little crumb left. Yup, that's the reason why.

Although truth be told we were having a perfectly fine day. And in fact we've had quite a few good days lately. I think we may be turning a bit of a corner in our family now that our youngest is just over 2 years old. Although today a bit of my sleeve got caught in the door and pulled me back around that proverbial corner again, showing me that I shouldn't count my preschoolers before they've hatched.

Today's wit-eating all revolved around a crying 2 year old after he woke up early from his nap, which he sorely needed since he was up this morning at 5:45am. As far as the morning routine goes, he's been pretty consistent with getting up at 6:20am. He teased us a couple days and went until 7:30, but then he was right back at the 6am times just when we were starting to catch up on our sleep.

The 6:20's are still earlier than any of us need to be up, and way earlier than I want to be up. And then the occasional 5:30's are just down right rude. But to his defense they are driven by bad dreams that he can't seem to get over, and always seem to happen at that time. Then the morning starts even earlier than usual. In fact, my loving, charming, handsome and incredibly virile husband has been the morning volunteer, getting up with the little lad while I catch some more shut-eye. He's a saint. I'm hoping, more for their sake than mine, that our son goes into a later morning routine once the daylight time shifts and the sun isn't rising at 5:30am anymore. We'll see.

So, back to today. Here I was with a crying 2 year old, and I was just moments away from starting a scavenger hunt with my oldest. I had suggested it and gotten everyone excited about the idea, and then someone came along and rubbed his snotty tears all over the plan. And I mean that literally, since all the little scraps of paper that my oldest had prepared where lost somewhere in the juggle of my balancing act with the 30+ pound boy-wonder (plus his two favorite stuffed animals) and a sippy cup and a snack, all bobbling around as I tried to find something, anything, that he would eat so his mood would cheer up.

I endured about 45 minutes of this crying, with him occasionally pointing to something that he wanted to eat or do, only to change his mind when I went and got it and put it in front of him. All the while still juggling his dense little body and those of his two stuffed friends. No matter what I offered or tried, they were all short-lived remedies.

And of course during this time my sweet oldest child is getting her little sister's clues ready for the scavenger hunt. I really wanted to help get hers ready, since I was put in charge of doing them for my oldest and she was in charge of doing one for her little sister, but I had absolutely no patience left. Every time she would ask me something I'd just bark at her "not now!". But she was a trooper and stuck to her task at hand.

Then my younger daughter decided to start some coloring with the book I was trying to show my son to calm him down. Which was fine, but she didn't want to share and let her brother color, or rather scribble, on it, so we got yet another showering of tears.

At this point all three kids were in separate places, all asking me for things, or else just slobbering and snotting all over me. No one was especially upset besides my son, but I was just wearing out and wanting to run away screaming.

I felt pulled in too many directions. And frustrated from all the crying. A headache was starting. And I had a momentary flash of going to our bathroom and closing the door behind me. I knew he would just be blubbering on the other side of it, but I thought for a second there that I might find some kind of reprieve. Alas, I knew I was fooling myself. Plus I knew my sitter was only a few minutes away from showing up. Which in itself was enough to hold on for, as well as enough to keep me from locking myself in any room, lest she show up to such a lovely scene.

So I grabbed my son, still with his 2 stuffed friends, and took him out to the garage. I pulled out a chair and sat in the driveway. And then I tried the old distraction thing and said "do you see an airplane? a bird? a helicopter?". We don't get too many helicopters around our house, but he's really into them lately, so I thought I'd give it a try. What the hell.

But I got nada. Still the crying.

And just then, out of nowhere, flies a monarch butterfly. It makes a few circles right in front of us, and then pulls one of its friends out of hiding and they do a little fluttery dance right before our eyes. We were both mesmerized, watching them flit around with effortless beauty.

Then the tears stopped. And the smiles started. And we enjoyed the show.

Then I thought to myself, isn't that just so typical of parenthood? Just when you are all worn out and you think you have nothing left, something beautiful happens and you are reminded of life's smallest wonders.

You get an amazing smile and some cheerful giggles, a little snuggle, and the world is right again. You are restored to your normal level of sanity.

Then you go on with your scavenger hunt, looking forward to a little treat at the end.

My kids got some Oreos after their scavenger hunt.

I got the ability to leave three happy children with the babysitter and get some quality "me" time.

God bless the butterflies and babysitters of the world.

Balancing Act

This past week has presented some new challenges for me. These challenges seem to be pulling me in different directions, so I am having to really work to maintain my balance in it all. I feel a bit like the guy we saw at the circus last week, that balances on all these rolling tubes stacked on each other. You just never know which way you'll get pulled, but you do you best to stay on your feet the whole time. Really, I think I just summed up motherhood right there.

This week for the first time ever, my oldest has voiced a strong desire not to be social. She's been at a local camp for a two week session. This is a camp hat she was at last summer and the one before, so she's familiar with it. And she's loved it every time. This year, four days into her 9-day camp, she exclaims she's done with it. Last Thursday they went on a field trip, and we all thought she was going someplace we go to a lot, but as it turns out, the event was sort of mislabeled and they went someplace different.

But where they went was not really the point. The point is more that my oldest daughter can go with the flow in almost any situation, so long as she understands all the parameters of said situation. In other words, she's a things-must-go-according-to-plan-or-I-must-be-forewarned-of-possible-detours-lest-a-meltdown-occur kind of gal.

So when this sort of detour arrived, she was not very happy. I don't know what happened at camp, but when she got home I got an earful. And a cupful of tears to go with it. Add to this unexpected surprise two little girls that seem to have taken on the role of camp bullies and you get one unhappy 7 year old. I guess these twin girls have been up to the usual elementary school mischief; calling people names, pushing them, cutting in line. Since when do we have 6 and 7 year old bullies, anyway? The drama is starting way to early these days.

After much talking I surmised that in a sense my daughter was homesick at day camp. It seems she'd much rather just hang out with me and her siblings at home, and occasionally roam the neighborhood for a playmate or two. When I proposed if she'd like camp better if one of her best friends was there in her group, she said she'd still not want to go if those "mean girls" were there.

Now don't get me started on how upset it makes me as a mother to see these girls stealing some of my child's carefree fun from her. Mama bear has her teeth bared and is ready to go tell those girls - and their mother - just where they can put that cut-in-line name-calling crap. Aarrrrgh.

But it's a waste of energy to do that, so I just day dream about it instead. And I tell my daughter - not in so few words - that we must make the best of it. The pep talks are working a little as she's having more fun this week, and she's been able to ignore the mean girls or steer clear of them so she can still have some fun. Although there were still tears showing up when it was time to go to camp yesterday. And whining today. This is just so unheard of for her.

But summer must go on.

Now on the flip side of this occasion is my younger daughter, who is now asking to spend more time out of the house. She got it in her head quite a few months ago that she wanted to try staying at her preschool all day, which includes a nap. I think a friend of hers was doing this from time to time, and most of the kids in her class are there for day care as well as preschool, so she's one of the few that leaves everyday at 12:30pm.

Well I finally decided to stop saying "someday" and we made it happen today. Right now she's at the school, seemingly refreshed from her nap, and playing for the afternoon with her friends. As she says, "it's like a play date at school". And that brings up another one of her requests; more play dates. And she wants more sleepovers too, like her big sister.

Seriously, who is this girl? I think I've gotten so used to her being so close and holding on so tight, that now that she's starting to let go I barely can get it through my head that she will really be okay if she does all these things. I don't think there will be any tears or "come pick me up right now" demands. She is telling me that she's ready and I'm starting to finally come around in believing her.

So here I am, letting one child go further down the path on her own, while the other that's been out frolicking all these years just wants to stay by my side.

As if I never noticed how totally different they are from each other. Here it is, right in my face.

Now I just need to remember how to balance in the middle to make it all work.

Cracking Up

Tonight at dinner I lost it. I started cracking up. And I mean that in the I-started-laughing-and-couldn't-stop kind of way. Not in the way that might mean I was starting to crack. Although that's probably the reason behind my laughter-driven tears.

It all started with a long afternoon chasing around a 2 year old. And then we hit the unhappy hour. These days I have resorted to turning on the TV at 5pm so I can get some dinner cooked without 30 pounds stuck to my legs insisting on being picked up. But today I was feeling like I had already used the doctor recommended allowed time of 2 hours of "screen time" per day. In fact most days that allotment seems to go by the wayside before nap time. Oops. Perhaps I shouldn't admit that to the public. But hey, look at you. You're sitting there glued to the screen right now. So you can't throw stones from inside your glass monitor.

But they were all playing pretty well together at about 5pm tonight, so I just made a quiet move over to the kitchen and got things going. Now is when the fun starts. About every 3 minutes I am either pulling one of my kids off of their sibling or crawling on the floor picking up pieces of something that was thrown through the air or knocked over. At the very least I'm barking out orders to "leave her alone!" or "stop throwing things!", or the classic "STOP YELLING!".

This continues for the better part of an hour while I cook some ground beef and cut up some vegetables. Now in most homes across the country this culinary skill may take only 10 minutes. But in my home, with no "screen time", it can take up to an hour, which is what happened tonight.

Finally my husband gets home, which means the relief shift has begun. I finish what I need to for dinner and get everyone's food on the table. Then we all sit down for dinner.

Wait. That's an overstatement. There's not a whole lot of sitting going on. At least not for my husband or me.

First I forgot the napkins, so I was up again to get those. Then one of the girls needed more milk, so I was up again for that. Then someone dropped a fork, so my husband went to get a new one. Then my son finished his peaches, so my husband went to get some more. Then my younger daughter wants more peaches too. But she doesn't like "those kind" of peaches, can she have the other kind? And during this time my husband and I have barely touched our food, and yet my oldest claims "I'm done - can I be excused?".

This happens a lot at dinner time. She wolfs it all down and then wants to get up again. She's not the type to sit still for long, so I can't blame her. But we always make her wait until someone else is finished as well before she can get up. I'm not sure why, other than to make her pay for her carefree life and the envy she causes us at her ability to eat food while it's still hot.

Then my younger daughter decides her taco won't stay together so she won't eat it. My husband gets up to get a toothpick to solve the problem. About one minute later she declares that she doesn't like what she's eating and asks for a plain tortilla. As my husband is up getting a tortilla, my oldest decides she wants one too, but can we put butter on it and heat it up for her? Sure, WHY NOT? We were just standing around the kitchen wondering what else can we do around here besides sitting down to eat the rest of our dinner?

Now they are all armed with tortillas, plus the bag is now in the middle of the table, with the milk and an extra fork. Frankly, they don't make lazy susans big enough for all the crap that needs to be within reach of us while we sit at the dinner table.

As I approach my chair one last time I just start laughing. I think I had a moment where I saw this all through my husband's eyes, and I had to laugh. He gets home and every single day he gets the "hero's welcome". The kids run to greet him and give him smiles and hugs. And that's about where the fun ends for a while.

Because we go right into this song and dance we call dinner time. Suddenly I saw the past 30 minutes rush through my head all at once, like some crazy-ass dance you might see if there were ever a musical about whacked out exhausted parents of three small children.

Sit down...stand up...open cupboard...sit down..."eat your dinner"...bend over...pick up fork...stand up...open drawer...sit down..."eat your veggies"...stand up...open fridge...sit down..."don't throw your food"...bend over...pick up food...stand up...open pantry...sit down...standupsitdownstandupsitdown...TA DA!

And it just cracked me up. I was laughing so hard tears were streaming. My kids were asking me what's wrong and I couldn't answer. My husband just said "I think mommy's losing it." Which is a bit true really. Why else would I be laughing so hard at the very thing that drives us bonkers?

Because the alternative was to cry out of sadness and exhaustion I guess.

And I choose laughter.

My glass is always half full.

At least until one of the kids finishes it and asks for more.

So Many Moments, So Little Typing

Where do I start? This past week had so many precious moments. And funny moments. And exhausting moments. And I wanted to remember them all so I could write about them later. Well not the exhausting ones because we all have enough complaining in our lives already. I know I do. But try as I might to capture all these moments in writing, they remained only written in my mind. So I'll try to sum up the good ones for you.

Last weekend we took my oldest to get her ears pierced. Yikes. Talk about an age marker. I can't believe she's old enough already. But we said we'd talk about it after her 7th birthday, and then we settled on her being 7 1/2. Which was officially last week. So off we went to the mall. And there were 2 girls ahead of her in line. The first one we saw was a very brave and stoic role model which I was pleased to see. Then it was time for the next girl to go. She was fine until the moment of truth on her first ear and she flinched just as the girl was doing the piercing. The job came out okay, but the girl started bawling and saying that it hurt and she didn't want the other one done. That poor mom had to calm her down and then talk her into sticking around for the other one, which she knew wasn't going to feel good. But thankfully she did it and survived. Then my daughter went up there and was very brave through it all. She ended up lucking out and having the second employee available to help when it was her turn, so she had both done at the same time. And she never shed a tear. Now she LOVES having her little pink crystal flowers in her ears. It goes great with her new haircut, which is about 10 inches shorter (and now Locks of Love is the recipient of all her patience over the past year).

Then last week was the end of the school year, which somehow gets translated into hurry-hurry-hurry-have-lots-of-events-and-meetings-and-too-much-fun-before-the-world-implodes. The first event that fell under this category was the recap and brainstorm meeting for the PTA Board. Did I mention that I got shanghaied into being an officer on the PTA next year? Okay, shanghaied might be a strong word. Let's put that under the category of It's An Honor To Be Asked To Serve My Country School, and subcategorize it under I Can't Say No. Anyway, back to the meeting. The only reason I highlight this event is because I had one of those "yes, that's my kid" moments. So here was this group of lovely ladies that were sitting around a family room in a lovely home, and I there I was with my two youngest rugrats. I brought them along (with fair warning to the group) and figured I'd put them in front of a show and they'd stay happy for a bit. Which worked for a while, but then my youngest got restless and decided to go up to the sliding glass door to watch the dog in the back yard. A little time passed and I was just thankful they were still quiet and staying out of the middle of the room and conversation. Then one of these sweet ladies gets my attention and points to her open mouth, and then points to my son, who is behind me. I turn around to see my son licking the sliding glass door and sharing a french kiss through the glass with a golden retriever. And he was leaving more drool on the window than the dog.

Yup. He's with me.

Another great moment from last week was on Thursday night. My younger daughter had a gymnastics "show". This is sort of a recital that they do every 6 months and invite us all in to watch from inside the gym so that we can feel like our kids are really getting something out of all the money we sink into the place. This being her 3rd or 4th show, and her being the rather shy one in the group (although she will always participate and perform, which we love) we weren't expecting anything too new. But low and behold, when it was her turn to run in and jump on the vault up to the platform and stand up on that platform all by herself to introduce herself to the crowd, she did just that. Did you get that? SHE DID JUST THAT. She introduced herself to the room. In a clear and somewhat loud voice. With eye contact no less.

Whaaaatt?! Who's child was this anyway? My husband and I could have been blown over by a feather. She's never done that before, and it was a HUGE step toward her blooming social side. One of the teachers, that she has had for the past 2 years, came up to me afterward and expressed her pleasant shock with it all. She couldn't believe it either. When I asked if she ever talked in class, she said that her public introduction was just about the most she's heard her say, ever.

One other moment from that night deserves a shout out. My daughter and her crowd pleasing introduction was not the first one to make an entrance for the class performance. The first boy that came in did so in the same fashion, running and jumping up to his shining moment on the stand. And just after his jump onto the platform, we all heard "ooooh....I try it!" and then we saw the streak of my son running past us all, crossing the entire floor exercise mat to reach the platform, then hurling himself at this kid's ankles up on the stand before my husband could retrieve him.

Yup, that's my kid.

So many moments in such a busy week. I wish I had time to capture them all with the details they deserve. But suffice it to say, just because this blog goes quiet for a few too many days, it does not, in any way, mirror what is happening in the daily life of this mom.