Milestones

For many years I looked forward with anticipation to the day when all my children would be in school. It would mean no more preschool payments. It would mean no more schlepping them to and from preschool. It would mean no more trying to coordinate preschool hours with bus stop times. It would mean no more last minute grocery runs to provide snack for the preschool class.  It would mean a slightly bigger window of free time than I had ever had before.  These are some of the reasons it was a milestone I eagerly awaited. The day arrived and unlike so many mothers sending their youngest off to kindergarten, I didn’t feel an iota of melancholy about it.  She was ready. I was ready.

The school year has flown by.  There’s just over a month of school left.  Now, suddenly, I’m feeling nostalgic.  Frequently I find myself staring at that little girl, shocked to see that she has somehow turned into a big girl.  Her legs are long and lean. She’s losing that round baby face. Yesterday we drove down to the bus stop in the rain, and while we waited for the bus she read to me from the back seat. Again I found myself staring at her and thinking, “Where did this big girl come from?”

When I was a young girl, I always dreamed of going to college and what I would do and how fantastic it would be. That was the pinnacle. Luckily for me, those four years lived up to my high expectations. At the last minute I opted for a college close to home but I made great friends and had a blast. My sophomore year I went abroad to France and those memories are everything I ever hoped they would be. My junior year was back with my old friends and new friends and it was just as great as all the previous years.  My senior year I changed schools and again, I loved it.  College was definitely a high point for me. But after I finished, I remember feeling that I had made it into uncharted territory. I had never really imagined life after college.  I mean, of course I had planned for a career and I had vague ideas about a husband and children but I didn't have a clear picture of what might come next.  That is exactly what I’m feeling now. 

When the children were younger, I would always imagine how great it was going to be when my kids were all in school and I would finally have some time to myself. This September it’s happening. All my children will be in school for a full day.  I will have seven and half hours every weekday to do things without them. But I never had a clear picture of what the future would look like. Will I go back to work*?  Will I become an exercise fiend? Will I increase my volunteer hours at the school? Will I revisit my many hobbies that have fallen by the wayside these last few years?  I’m not sure. But the more I think about how quickly time has marched me to this place, the more I know that I’m no longer eager for any future milestones. Hopefully those daily seven and a half hours of quiet will give me the rejuvenation I need to be able to slow down and enjoy this process.

*I just couldn't let that sentence go without commenting on it.  It pains me to use that turn of phrase because of course these past nine years of "not working" have been a ton of work. I just wasn’t getting paid to do it. But I digress.

Rockets

Me to Oskar: "Oh, guess what?! I just got an e-mail with an invitation to Matthew's party."
Oskar: "Yes!  He's going to watch 'Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters."
Me: "Actually he's going to launch rockets into space, well, not space."
Oskar: "Yeah, into the air, not space.  Liquid fuel or air pressure?"

Seriously?! And here I was so pleased for catching myself on the "space" thing.   

We Got Cannibals Up in Here

This morning Kardynn and I were discussing the importance of being honest.  I was trying to drill into my little five year-old that every time she tells a lie, we trust her less and less.  She piped up, "Yes, it's part of being a cannibal."  I was startled and trying to figure out the connection until she repeated herself, "It's part of being ah-coun-able (accountable)."

I feel safer already. 

(For the record, it does seems to me that cannibal children have a mighty big incentive to be honest to their cannibal parents.)

Third Grade Woes

Yesterday Oskar was playing with a fellow third-grader.  Knowing they had recently studied Roman history, I pointed out to them that it was the anniversary of the day Julius Caesar was assassinated.  Oskar's friend said, "Wait, that's a guy?  Up until now I thought it was a girl."  I chuckled but realized he had a lot of reasons to think that.  We always see Caesar depicted wearing a robe and with a laurel around his head.  And the average little boy probably isn't encountering the name "Julius" too often in his everyday life.

While I'm on the topic of little boy, perhaps fellow moms-of-boys can relate to this conversation I was having with my son.  I was trying to convince him that as soon as you feel the urge to pee, you should go do it.  (Um, yes, this kid is nearly ten and we're still having this conversation.)  But this is when I discovered that there was more to the tale.  He told me that XYZ Friend had told him not to go to the bathroom so much.  Wait...what?  I said, "Why on earth would he tell you that?!"  So he explained that he had confided to his friend that he doesn't think he's very cool at school. This friend is older so of course Oskar puts incredible weight in everything he says.  This is the advice his friend had for him, "Don't go to the bathroom so much."  I asked Oskar if he's been going to the bathroom a lot at school (because he sure doesn't at home).  It didn't sound like that was a particularly frequent occurrence for him.  But I guess his friend just thought that was the solution to life's problems. I'm still baffled by it.     

I tried to convince Oskar that that was terrible advice and that it's definitely NOT cool to be doing the potty dance at school...or worse. 

Meanwhile, I feel sad for him that he feels out of place with his peers.  I feel his pain...or at least I did back in third grade.  I remember struggling to fit in too.  I had always been so confident that if *I* had kids, I could spare them all the misery and suffering that I had gone through. But now that I do have kids, I've learned that it's not quite that simple.  Oskar's a really smart kid who seems to be interested in things many of his peers could care less about.  It seems to me that it's awfully hard to be smart and cool.  There are certainly plenty of kids who pull it off but I've known more who have struggled in their youth. Fortunately, by the time you become an adult, being smart is generally considered super cool...at least by all the other smart people.  *hehe*

Sweet Oskar

That is my wonderful son, Oskar.  Doesn't he look like a sweet, thoughtful, considerate child?  He definitely is. 

The other day he was talking to me about how much he wishes he could spend more time with his Dad.  I know it's a little hard for the kids to understand - now that Dwight works from home - that he's still not really available during work hours.  So I explained to him that Daddy has to work and that's how we earn money to pay for our house and food and everything else that we need.

Oskar's reply, "But how come you can't be the one to work?"

I take back that comment about him being a sweet boy.

The Flu

My kids are each taking a turn getting sick, it seems.  It's very bizarre because they're literally going down one-by-one, one after the other.  It started with Kiersten.  It seemed we had finally gotten through the HSP fiasco when one day she announced that she was looking for her dad.  I told her that he'd gone off to play basketball and she said, "Oh, I wanted to see if he would take a nap with me."

First of all that made me laugh.  Dwight definitely has a reputation for sleep in our family.  But after the initial chuckle, I was slightly alarmed that she *wanted* to sleep in the middle of the afternoon.  I offered to let her lie down in my bed while I folded laundry and before I knew it, she was out like a light...for several hours.  More alarm bells were going off.  For the next several days she was a mess.  Her eyes were so blood shot and watery. She had a high fever. I felt miserable just looking at her so I can only imagine how she felt.  But she eventually got over it. When she was still coughing a few days later, I got nervous about the HSP returning so I took her to the doctor,  She shared my speculation that Kiersten had had the flu. 

A few days later, I picked Oskar up from an activity and was surprised to hear that he'd fallen asleep in the middle of it.  I got him home, took his temperature and sure enough - a fever.  He followed Kiersten's pattern almost exactly. I can just copy and paste from Wikipedia's influenza entry for their symptoms, "The most common symptoms are chills, fever, sore throat, muscle pains, headache (often severe), coughing, weakness/fatigue and general discomfort."  With an apparent flu epidemic sweeping the nation at the moment, it seems a pretty safe bet that they had the flu. 

Another week passes and then Annika comes home, says she doesn't feel well and falls asleep for several hours.  Well now I know the drill. 

Of course now I can't help but wonder if Kardynn will come home after school one day next week and fall asleep for several hours.  Although, I know she fell asleep once for several hours during the holidays so I'm hoping maybe she already had her run-in with the flu and it just didn't hit her as hard as it hit the others.

Hopefully Dwight and I continue to evade this!

Anyway, when the bug hits, they all end up missing several days of school.  When they're sick I don't mind if they sit around and watch TV or play on their laptops.  Kiersten has really gotten into e-mail.  The kids only have a handful of people that they e-mail but Kiersten has been sending those few people a lot of messages in the last few weeks.

One of her favorite e-mail recipients is my Mom.  She's always asking my mom to send her jokes.  Although I don't think my mom minds - particularly when she's traveling. (Mom frequently points out that only one of her four children is good about keeping in touch...and no, that child is not me.)


Mom actually travels a lot and most of her travels are international.  Unfortunately this means her laptop ends up in some sketchy places...like Nigeria.  (It's no coincidence that those "send-me-your-bank-account-number e-mails" are often called "Nigerian e-mail scams".)  Numerous times she's tried to legitimately connect to sites and had them lock her account because they could see she was trying to connect from Nigeria. Nigeria is a seriously hostile environment for your computer. And it would seem that she did indeed get her e-mail hacked the last time she was there because suddenly my kids are getting fake e-mails from her. 

Up until now, we've not had to worry too much about their e-mail accounts because of the small number of people that they exchange e-mails with.  But these spam e-mails made me realize that I needed to have a conversation with the kids and explain about some of the perils of the Internet - specifically viruses.  Because, while I'm jaded and wary, I was certain that my sweet, innocent children would click on any links that came from their grandmother. 

I knew the message had gotten through when earlier this week Kiersten informed me that she'd gotten a flu message from Grandma.

The Bed Fairy

We had a very nice New Year's surprise from Annika.  She had made everyone's beds and left one of these little notes on them. 





(Do not judge us for the fact that the bed wasn't already made.  Or at least don't judge ME.  You can judge Dwight since he's always the last one out of bed.)

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Well, this holiday season is one we're not likely to forget.

This year we decided to stretch the holidays a bit and for the last few days before Christmas, we let the kids open one gift every day. December 23 was one such day. Kardynn picked out a gift from Annika.

She was delighted to unwrap a Hello Kitty makeup/toiletry kit. The girls immediately started to play with it but then they moved on to other things.  They were using post-its and making "beards" and taking turns pretending to be Santa.  We watched several performances of Santa interacting with little girls.  (In this case the "little girl" is bigger than Santa.)

They had also opened a marble run present so everyone took a turn making a structure.

Eventually we encouraged the kids to take showers.  But after a while, Dwight and I realized that it had been quiet for too long.  I went off to investigate and found two little girls locked in the kids' bathroom - never a good sign.

They had taken the three bottles of Hello Kitty nail polish and decided to "highlight" Kardynn's hair.  I only took one photo before Dwight suggested that I was giving the wrong message by taking photos.  So I have no pictures of the ensuing buzz cuts...which probably would have been tricky anyway since I became somewhat emotional watching their beautiful tresses falling to the floor.  But I'm getting ahead of myself, what you can't see here are the additional "highlights" on the sides, not to mention the additional mess of nail polish that was unveiled when we removed the bun.  It was definitely impressive.  That one blue streak, for example, went the entire length of her hair.

 

I spent quite a bit of time reading online about how to get nail polish out of hair and most of the suggestions were for nail polish remover (which I did NOT want to put on my baby's sensitive scalp).  Dwight tried to get it off with water but that didn't do much on the thick glob of nail polish.  We thought about just leaving it, and letting her have multi-colored hair, but that didn't seem like a good idea either.  So eventually we decided to go with the second most popular suggestion on the Internet - cut off the hair.  We had warned Annika that if Kardynn's hair ended up having to be cut off, we would cut off her hair as well.  Initially she was enthusiastic about the idea but when she saw my reaction, as it was happening, she started to get second thoughts.  I'll admit, it didn't really seem like *that* big of a deal until I saw the hair falling to the floor and then it seemed like the worst idea we'd ever had. 

But, hey, it's just hair.  It will grow back.  And on the bright side, I don't think we have to worry about these two putting nail polish in their hair ever again.  Let me tell you that seeing those two girls with their bald heads makes me incredibly grateful for two healthy - albeit mischievous - little girls.

Dinner Conversation

Overheard last night at the supper table.

Annika and Kiersten were discussing a boy in Kiersten's class, who has apparently told both of them that they're pretty.

Annika, "He said that I'm hotter than Kiersten."
Kiersten, to Oskar, "What does that mean? That she's like, cooler than I am or that she's sweatier than me?"

DNA

Kids are great for keeping things light. Last weekend, when Dwight, Joy and I were talking to the kids and explaining that Grammy had passed away, at one point it was pointed out to them that Grammy lives on inside of each of them because she's a part of them - we pointed out some specific similarities - and that they all have her genes.

So yesterday I was talking to a friend and mentioned my mother-in-law's passing, in our conversation. Kardynn plugged her ears which I thought was coincidence but once we were back in the car, we had this conversation. "Mommy, do you know why I plugged my ears? I don't like to hear you say that Grammy died. It makes me very sad." Her little lip was quivering and tears were welling up in her eyes. I told her that it makes me very sad too. She attempted to comfort me and said, "It's okay Mommy. Her body parts are in all of us. But mommy, are her pants in us too?"

Boys and their Toys

On the way home from Oskar's allergy shots, I was having a conversation with the kids about their strengths and skills.  Oskar piped up from the back, "I'm good at playboy toys."  Me, "WHAT?!"  Oskar, "I'm good at playing with boy toys."  Ohhhhh. 

Career Day

Annika's class is doing something special every day until the end of the school year.  They're working their way through the alphabet with various special activities each day.  Today was "Career Day" - for C.  Annika had told me that she wants to be a firefighter when she grows up so was intending to wear our fireman costume.  Unfortunately we both forgot about it this morning so she went to school wearing a brown shirt and brown striped pants. 

When she got home she reminded me that today had been "Career Day.  I said, "Oh no!  What did you do?"  She pointed to her clothes and said, "It's okay. I'd also like to work at a Hershey Chocolate Factory."  

I love that she rolls with the punches.

(Ahem...next time I will move the rug before taking photos from this spot.)

Sanitize

On nights like this, I'm so grateful for Sanitize mode on my washing machine...

Little Girl

Kardynn and I pulled into a parking space at the gym.

Me: Are you going to put on your sweater, little girl?
K: Yes, big mama!

Um...point taken...I will now stop calling you little girl.

The Odyssey

Here's a typical day in my life. I woke up at the usual time and got the kids up. We actually started off pretty well and Annika finished her breakfast a few minutes early so she offered to help me pack lunches. We were all in good moods and joking around with each other. I happened to glance at the clock and my stomach flip-flopped when I saw that the time was 7:17.  We're supposed to be walking by 7:17! They started stuffing things into their backpacks and we all threw on shoes and coats and ran for the car. When the garage door opened and I saw Dwight's car blocking my car, I should have realized that was a sign of the day I was about to have. We quick jumped out of my car and into his car and fortunately I did manage to get them to the bus before it left.

A few hours later we had a small playdate mishap. Kiersten's friend got a little homesick but we couldn't reach her mom (which was very understandable since her mom had been sick). I managed to cheer her up but when it came time for the bus, I immediately realized that wasn't going to work. Her friend typically drives to school and today was not going to be a good day for a change in routine. So we all jumped into the car to head for school.  The only hitch was that Kardynn's buddy was supposed to be headed to our house before we would get back from driving the other two girls to school. But that was nothing a quick phone call couldn't solve. I got a little mixed up about the new plan with Kardynn's buddy, which resulted in us being a little late driving to elementary school. Fortunately we made it before they closed the "pony express doors"...but it was close.

By this point we were in a rut and it's not surprise we were also a little on the late side getting to preschool. But we managed to make it in time for car line. I picked up my friend for lunch. Before we actually made it out to eat, we had a little adventure at her son's school but it seemed quite eventful after the crazy morning.

Oh...and did I mention that all morning I had also been exchanging phone calls and e-mails with friends about a) the possibility of a Van Halen concert this evening b) going to the gym tomorrow morning at 5:30 am and c) having a wrap-up party with my Odyssey of the Mind kids either at 3pm or 4 pm in the afternoon?!

After a very nice and relaxed lunch with my friend, I drove her back home and then ran to pick up some paint swatches at Home Depot and some cupcakes for the now-confirmed 4 pm OoTM party. I did feel quite lucky when I got back into the car just as big, fat raindrops were starting to fall.

I drove to the bus stop and picked up my kids.  We went home so that I could order pizza for the party and so that they could drop off their backpacks.  As we all piled back into the car to pick up Kardynn, Annika said, "Mom, shouldn't you take your umbrella? It's raining. What if we run out of gas?"  I assured her we would not run out of gas and we set off for preschool.

We got about 3 minutes from my house when the car suddenly started making crazy noises.  It sounded like we'd gotten something caught under the car. I immediately thought that we must have run over a branch or something although it was odd because I hadn't seen anything in the road. But I pulled over to check.  I was concerned when the noise didn't stop when the car did.  So I turned off the engine and immediately called my husband.

Then came another flurry of phone calls.  I called the preschool to let them know that I was going to have to find someone else to pick up the kids and that person would likely be late. I called the mom of our preschool buddy to see if she could pick up the kids. I called my neighbor to see if she could pick up the pizzas that were due to arrive at my house. I called all the OoTM parents to let them know that the party was now off. Dwight arrived and called a friend to get suggestions on where to take the car. I called the Honda Dealership. We called a tow truck company. I called Papa Johns to ask them if they could deliver the pizzas to my neighbor's house. And so on and so forth.  I think you get the idea. While we were waiting for the tow truck I went to pick up Kardynn and we got back to the car just in time to follow it to the Honda dealership.

I believe it's the the drive belt that was starting to fall apart but I'll know more tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for me!  Oh, and I also thought it was interesting that not a soul stopped to ask if everything was okay. I was crawling around on all fours in the rain and car after car just cruised on pass.  At one point cars started lining up for a bus but no one so much as rolled down a window. Personally I would definitely ask someone if everything was okay but I've been told many times that I don't quite fit in here so I guess those people might have been on to something.

I wish I could say this was unusual but you know what, two days ago I was posting about getting glurch out of my carpet so I think this is just how it's going to be for a while. *sigh* And now I'm off to send an e-mail to Oskar's teacher to explain how Oskar's homework ended up in the back of a minivan which is now sitting in a parking lot at the Honda dealership.

Check out the pretty rainbow in the background.  I really hoped that was a good omen, at that point.

Glurch vs. Vinegar

The other day my daughter brought home "glurch" from preschool.  You might know it as oobleck or slime or flubber or gloop or goop and countless other names, no doubt. If you didn't already know what I'm talking about, you can probably get a pretty good visual from those various names!  Specifically, this glurch was a mixture of glue, borax and food coloring.  The kids love it but as you can imagine, I've always been a leery.  It just seems like that glurch could do some damage.

So when my daughter brought home her glurch, I was a little paranoid and kept close tabs on it.  But I did let her play with it a little bit, at the table.  Unfortunately, when I went away for the weekend, I never thought to mention to my husband that there was a dangerous item within her reach...a rookie mistake...and a mistake I would pay for.

Within minutes of returning home yesterday evening, the kids informed me that the glurch had made a bit of a mess.  As it turns out, there was a large stain in the family room and an even nastier stain in my daughter's bedroom.  To give you perspective, here's a picture of part of the mess in my daughter's room.  It might look wet in the photo but that's dried glue, folks - crusty and solid...and blue.

I was not happy. 

After a quick Internet search, I discovered that supposedly vinegar would dissolve the glurch.  The stain on Annika's floor was pretty bad.  Could the vinegar actually get that stuff out?!

I hauled my supplies up to Annika's room: vinegar, a paper towel, my stiff brush and the steam cleaner. I poured the vinegar onto the paper towel and let it sit for a bit.  I'm not sure how many days the glurch had been there but I'm guessing it was a few.

 

The vinegar helped a little but there was still a lot of crusty glurch - particularly around the edges.  So I just went for it and poured the vinegar out of the bottle onto the stain and this time I let it sit for even longer.

Unfortunately I think the borax bleached the carpet.  Or maybe the borax and the bleach sitting together for a while bleached the carpet.  I can't tell if the pink was already there in the previous pictures.  I don't see any pink but there was a lot more glurch on the ground too.  Who knows?  But one this *is* for sure and that's that the glurch is definitely dissolving.

I poured more vinegar onto the remaining glurch areas. Several times I poured water from that cup, as well.  I also used my stiff wire brush.

On a side note, it is *quite* satifsying to see the water getting sucked out of your carpet by your steam cleaner.  A little bonus tip here: if you're going to be crazy enough to have lots of children and white carpets, then a steam cleaner is a must.  Although in my defense, when we settled upon the color of these carpets, we had no children.  Now I would totally know to get some sort of multi-colored, speckled carpet! *hehe*

I vastly prefer this stain to the original one.  I'm still bummed that her carpet got stained at all but these things happen when you have kids.  I think maybe if I could have gotten to the stain right away, the carpet wouldn't have gotten bleached.

In the end, I declare vinegar the winner, wouldn't you agree? Oh, and if you were wondering about the stain in the family room - it's completely gone.  I never thought to take before pictures but there's no trace of it now.  Yippee!

Parental Guilt

Today several of my friends linked to Momastery's recent post on parenting. If you happen to be a parent, you should take a minute and read it. When I finished reading it, I felt like she could have pulled that straight out of my head because that's exactly what I've been thinking (only it was quite a bit less eloquent in my head).

I've had Momastery's blog in my blog roll for a few years because one of my friends told me about her.  In fact, I believe they're friends in real life. (Or I could be completely confused about that friends in real life part. That's also highly likely.)  Anyway, like I was saying, Momastery has been on my blog roll for a few years so it was kind of random when three different Facebook friend linked to that post today because up until then, I sort of felt like Momastery was my private thing...well...private to me and our mutual real life friend (or not).

The post struck a chord. I've been in a weird place trying to figure out how to be me, in the midst of being a mom and a wife. Plus I'm feeling some sort of middle-aged thing going on.  I suppose technically I'm not middle-aged, but that's what it feels like because it feels very much like I'm between things. So I'm trying to figure it all out. How can I be a good parent and a good wife but still be me? Where's the appropriate balance? And how do I find my way there without feeling guilty about claiming that for myself?

This particular chapter in my life started in October of 2002.  I found out that I was pregnant. Somewhere between that moment and the following July, when my son arrived, I became a mommy.  By the time I laid eyes upon my son, I already loved him with an overflowing heart. I loved every perfect detail...because in my eyes, of course every detail *was* perfect. I didn't even know him, but I loved him with an intensity that was overwhelming.

Before he turned six, our household had grown to include three wonderful little girls. After each of their births, I was amazed yet again by that magical love that you can feel for someone you don't even know yet. I would admire their perfect little mouths and hands and toes. I would marvel upon these amazing little people who were mixtures of my husband and myself. With perfect clarity I can remember holding each of them in those first few hours after their birth. And yet, those early years of parenthood are a blur. I had four young children and it was all I could do to survive the day. The days that felt successful were the days I managed to entertain the kids long enough to wash the dishes or pay some bills or fold some laundry or sweep the floors or some combination of the millions of things that mommies do. And now, nine years later, after so many years of trying to tune the kids out, I don't quite know how to tune them back in.

It scares me a little...okay, it scares me a lot.  Every time someone tells me that these are the best years of my life I think "Oh crap! Is this seriously the highlight?" followed closely by, "What the heck am I doing wrong if I'm supposed to be enjoying this?!"  I try to remind myself to enjoy this special time of my life because I KNOW that some day I'll look back on it and miss it.  I've been informed.  But it really doesn't work. Oh sure, I could live in the moment and skip the chores but it *would* catch up with me.  Even if it's nothing more than a grumpy husband who's annoyed at the mess, I'm telling you, it *will* catch up with you. There's no escaping the responsibility of being a parent.

I think we can all agree that we're going to love these little beings to a degree that we never knew possible. And it's totally amazing.  Plus they kind of look like mommy, they kind of look like daddy, which of course makes them pretty much the cutest thing ever. And they say all the stuff you say, but in cute little kid ways which makes it absolutely adorable. Yep, they are cute to the nth degree.

But what you don't quite realize at first is that they're like giant tethers. You won't be able to leave the house because a) it's a pain in the butt or b) it costs too much money. Okay, I may have over simplified things a bit. But it is kind of true. Kids require that you be very responsible, and as we all know, being responsible is NOT exactly what comes to mind when you're trying to have a good time.

I don't enjoy taking my kids to their various activities but I do it because I love them. If I didn't have to feed my kids, I would probably skip dinner as often as not. I certainly never feel like doing the dishes. I don't like helping them with their homework. I absolutely detest resolving their squabbles. I do not enjoy picking up after them. It breaks my heart to watch them struggle with friendships and social missteps. I could go on and on listing all the "parental baggage" that I get bogged down with every day. And I don't feel bad admitting that to you.  Why should I?!  Who *would* enjoy that stuff?!  Why should I feel guilty for not enjoying it?

Am I enjoying my three year-old sitting on my lap right at this very moment...moving my mouse around and occasionally making this screen disappear?  Kind of, actually. I really do love her a lot and she is pretty cute. Her hair is soft and smells sweet. Plus it's kind of funny that I'm sitting here complaining about parenting but since she can't read she has no idea. I've kissed the back of her head several times and played several rounds of "Mommy, close your eyes" so I'm pretty sure she has no clue that she's actually driving me a little crazy.

I guess the trick is figuring out how to enjoy them. I love them and I know that they're totally awesome, but somehow I need to figure out how to just chill out and have fun with them.  (And not just from behind my camera either!) So I think that's priority #1 for this year.

And in the meantime, my back up plan is this blog.  Years from now, when these days have become fuzzy memories and I start to feel nostalgic about the years gone by, I'll pull up these blog posts and remind myself of how much work these years were! And then I'll sit right back down in that rocking chair on my porch and enjoy the peace and quiet while I read another chapter on my Kindle.

Post script

As I sat here reflecting about this post and poking around online, I ended up at An Inch of Gray. I read this post which eventually lead me to the post about Jack's tragic death. The crazy thing is that I suddenly realized this must be someone who lives in this area because I remembered reading about this story back when it happened. Suddenly everything I'd been thinking about the misery of parenting sounded very trite. I'm no longer feeling lighthearted and sarcastic. I've lost interest in trying to "pull it all together".

I do hope to find a better balance in my life. But as much as I beat myself up about my failures as a parent, there's one thing that I can unequivocally pat myself on the back for. All four of my children know that they are loved beyond measure. They are confident, joyful children who feel comfortable being their quirky selves. And for that I am humbled and grateful.

Lip Gloss

My girls love chapstick, lip gloss, lip stick - anything to do with lips. So I couldn't help but chuckle when I saw this drawing lying around. (Courtesy of Kiersten)

Questions

I was washing dishes and Little K was eating breakfast. She asked me to come to her because she wanted to see me while she talked to me.  I walked over and she said, "What's my question?"  I said, "I don't know. It's your question."  She became quite agitated.  I said, "It's okay, you can ask me when you remember."  She cried, "But I can't remember still."  Suddenly her face lit up and she said, "I remembered my question!  It's something I don't know!"  And that was it. End of conversation.

Overheard at Breakfast

Annika, "Kardynn, I know you might not remember this but how come you didn't turn upside down in Mommy's tummy?"
Kardynn, "Because it hurt my arm."