Girl's Weekend

This past weekend, I took Abby with me to see my little brother graduate from college.

In the four hour car ride there, we listenend to music, watched a movie (she did, not me), read books (again, just her) and had fun conversations.  There was no fighting over whose turn it was to pick the movie or who got to sit where.  No emergency bathroom stops.  No crying for a bottle.  No changing a diaper on the side of the road.

It was lovely.

My favorite part?  When she took a bite of her chicken nugget and said, "My tooth is loose!"  I looked in the rearview mirror and saw it wiggling away.  Finally.  The girl has been burning with envy every time she sees her friends at school losing their teeth. 

We spent the night at one of my college roommate's house.  Kristan lives a half an hour from my brother's college so it worked out well.  Her kids thought Abby was awesome and kept following her around.  It was pretty cute.  Plus, I got to spend time with Kristan :)



Noah, Leah and Abby



For the first time ever, Abby and I shared a bed all night.  That was interesting.

First of all, I am used to a king sized bed, so sharing a smaller bed with a kicky six-year old was fun.  After she finally calmed down from playing with the kids until 10 pm, and then had some tylenol to help with the pain of her loose tooth, she fell asleep.  Truthfully, I am pretty sure I fell asleep before her.

I thought, "Great!  She will finally sleep in!"  Nope.  6:50 am she was tapping me on the shoulder.  Seriously?

Went to church with Kristan's family, where the sermon was about self-control.  Funny.  The way our children could not sit still during the service made me think they were not listening to the pastor.  Hmm.

Finally got to see the house that my brother has been living in this past year.  Typical college house-that should be enough description.  Something tells me that the girls' floor was a lot cleaner.

Abby was so proud of her Uncle Billy when he walked across the stage and received his diploma.  She kept waving at him and his girlfriend, Brittany, who also graduated that day.  I cannot imagine sitting through that ceremony with the boys, but Abby was a trooper.  Okay, so the bag of snacks that my mom gave her probably had something to do with her patience.

On the way home, she watched Tangled and promptly fell asleep after that.  I enjoyed listening to my music and being alone with my thoughts while she snored away.  Considering we got home at 11 pm, I gave her the choice to sleep in and go to school late.  She agreed, but come Monday morning, she was awake and ready for school.

I used to have that kind of energy.  Where did it go?  Oh, that's right-she took it from me six-years ago.

I am so thankful that we had that time together.  Too often, my only time with my daughter is helping her do her homework and then asking her to watch Noah while I finish housework.  The way that she kept hugging and kissing me the entire weekend, I knew that she missed our time together, too.

I Love My Boys

Why I love my boys...

-With new sand in the sandbox, Caleb will contently play for hours, running his cars through the roads that he creates.  If he is inside, he lines up his cars on the dinning room table and races them around in circles.

-During the past couple of weeks, Noah has accomplished a wonderful thing.  He can go from his belly to sitting up.  Every mother knows that this is a celebration time!  No longer do I have to run for his cries of help because he fell or rolled over and cannot get back up.  He simply keeps rolling and sits up.

(Granted, the crib now has to be lowered and he is into everything, but still...)

-Caleb told me on the way home today that he is happy that I am his mom.  He also added that he is happy that he has a brother.

Just as I was relishing the words, he added, "Noah will get bigger someday and help me get Abby!"

I think I will just ignore that part. 

-Anytime that Noah is upset, the song, "Jesus Loves Me" immediately calms him down.  Although, for some reason the other day I started to sing, "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly," and he found that inspiring as well.  Maybe he is just laughing at my voice.

-Caleb has really been excelling at two things, lately.  Baseball and Memory.

He destroys the ball when pitched to.  Then he runs the "bases" i.e. patches of grass, toys, or tree trunks with such determination that one would think his life is on the line.  His dad loves that he bats left.

We play Toy Story Memory a lot.  A lot.  Both Nick and myself started off by letting him win.  Then we realized that he actually beats us without our assistance.  Seriously.  I tried my best at the game today and he beat me by five pairs.

I will blame that on the fact that each child has taken away a few brain cells with his or her arrival.

-Finally, Noah has two adorable features that I absolutely love.  His hair is straight with one big curl in the front.  It just kind of hangs there, looking cute.  He also has a huge dimple when he smiles-which is most of the time. 

I look forward to when Noah gets old enough to hang out with Caleb.  They are going to be a handful, but such fun as well.

Spouse Time

While I laid passed out on the floor, next to a happily playing Noah, Abby asked me a good question.

"Mommy, if you are so tired all of the time, why do you stay up so late?"

Excellent question.

Our pre-kid days

Actually, I do not stay up that late.  If I am crawling into bed after 10:00, I am already dreading the lack of energy that I will feel in the morning.  However, coming from my six-year old's perspective, that is late.  In her opinion, I should be going to bed at the same time as she does hours earlier.

My answer to her questions was simple...to spend time with my husband.

I explained how it is important for moms and dads to spend time together-alone.  Her daddy is at work all day, I'm with the kids all day and as much as we love them, we need to have time to just talk together and catch up on our days.

That seemed to make sense to her and she accepted my response.

It is true.  That time alone with your spouse is so important.  And it can easily get lost in the shuffle of a busy day.  Or busy week.  Or busy life.

How easy it is to let our marriage become about our kids.  But, what do we do when the kids are gone and it is back to just being "us" again?  We better have something to talk about! 

One of the best things that my parents did for me was that they were always communicating.  About everything.  They had their own friends, but their friendship with each other was clearly the most important to them. 

Thankfully, I married my best friend.  During our friend stage in college, I suddenly had the realization that if Nick dated someone else, I would lose my favorite person to talk with.  That is why I had to marry him :)

It is not easy to have the spouse time.  After a day of constant chatter from my talkative children and wearing a shirt that is covered in spit-up (Noah's, not mine), I usually just want to stretch out on the couch-alone.  I need my space!  And that is a good thing, but I do find that when I get into my own little world of facebook and angry birds and ignore Nick, I go to bed feeling restless and discontent.

How good it is that God does not want us to be alone.  I love my husband and feel blessed to spend every day with him.

*I am writing this as I sit alone on the couch and he is at the Reds game, tweeting about his excellent seats.  I think he has some making up to do :)

One Of Those Days

Today I dealt with an unusually crabby Noah, who did not take a good morning nap or afternoon nap.

I then dealt with a tired Caleb, who was making his painful face, meaning he needs to go to the bathroom.  I mixed some miralax in his juice, hoping that would help him out.

Throughout the afternoon, I dealt with Caleb, who kept having accidents in his underwear.  And they were not just pee.

Abby came home and I dealt with homework, dinner, more Caleb accidents, more whining from Noah, and fighting between the older two.  And a thunderstorm.

Finally had everyone out of the bath, the older two getting ready for bed, and was relaxing Noah with a bottle when I heard Caleb crying of more accidents.  Handed Noah off to Abby, cleaned up Caleb again, took Noah back and he promptly puked all over me.

Everyone is now in bed, I have the washing machine loaded and ready to go, but am waiting on Caleb to officially fall asleep just in case of more accidents.

I am writing this now so that when Nick gets home from coaching his game, he can read this and understand why I am passed out on the couch in a house that smells like lysol.

Mother's Day

Yesterday was a lovely Mother's Day. 

I got to sleep in.  By sleep in, I mean that I was not up at 6 a.m. in order to get everyone out the door on time.  I was in a deep dream when I heard a crash downstairs, followed by tears and Abby yelling, "It's all my fault!"

Unable to ignore it, I went downstairs to find out what happened.  Nick was feeding Noah and Abby had accidently knocked over the flowers that were picked out for me.  The water was dripping off the dining room table, onto the floor, soaking through all the random papers that were left out.  I pretended not to see the breakfast tray that was clearly prepared for me and helped her clean up.  Then I went back to bed and tried to fall back asleep.

"Tried" is the key word.

Within moments, everyone brought me breakfast in bed, which was lovely.  Even Noah got in on the action, crawling around on the bed with his brother and sister.  I was given flowers and a huge balloon, all of which Abby picked out the night before without me knowing.

My gift from Nick was that I could go do whatever I wanted all day while he stayed home with the kids.  And, to not feel guilty about it.

Yes, ladies, pretty sweet gift.

We went to church and once we were home, I immediately took off.  I really did not know where I was headed to, but quickly decided on Ikea.  Why?  Because I could. 

I walked through the showcases of rooms at a slow pace, taking in every idea for how to decorate a room.  Around me, there were couples, with the woman in the lead and the husband looking like he was being tortured.  Clearly, the women were getting their Mother's Day gift of shopping.  I also saw families shopping together, with small children running around in circles and older teens arguing about what they wanted.

Oh, the pity I felt for them.  Too bad those moms did not have the freedom gift that I had received that day.

After taking pictures of numerous table and cabinet sets I liked (our old, but free, dining room set is gradually falling apart), I left Ikea and headed to Panera.  Why?  Because I could.

I savored my soup and salad in the quiet restaurant.  No "Can I have thats?" or rushing through my food to keep a baby happy.  I opened up my notebook and wrote a children's story that had been on my mind.  Seriously.  Had an idea a few weeks back, but never had the quiet time to actually write it down.

I finally gave in and headed home, since we still had to go to Nick's parent's house for dinner.  After all, we needed to celebrate the wonderful mom who raised her son to know how to give a good Mother's Day gift to his wife.

Even though all I asked for from the kids was "No fighting, no arguing and clean rooms," but got none of that, I cannot complain.  I had such a lovely afternoon just being me and had my amazing children and husband to come home to.

That was yesterday.  Today, I have changed diapers, fed children, cleaned the fish tank, baby-sat my neighbor's kids (and changed more diapers), went for a walk with three children (only one was mine), did laundry, and cleaned up the messes that were left from yesterday.  And that was all this morning.

Back to reality.

Yep, Caleb Again

The boy is never boring.

-We had the following conversation the other day...

Caleb:  "I just had a baby."
Me:  "But, boys can't have babies."
Caleb:  "Oh!  I mean my husband."
Me:  "You mean your wife?"
Caleb (looking embarrassed):  "Oh!  Yep."
Me:  "What is your wife's name?"
Caleb, "Um, I forget."
Me:  "Is it Isabella?" (His carpool friend)
Caleb:  "Yes!"
Me:  "And what is your baby's name?"
Caleb:  "Isabella!"

Isabella should be flattered.

-While praying tonight, Caleb went through his usual lines and then suddenly said, "Please be with our enemies and let us love our enemies so that they can know God."

What?

Somehow, in the midst of a week of our world celebrating death (which I found myself doing, in memory of the horrible events of September 11th), Caleb decided to pray this way.  He never ceases to amaze me.

The Dancing Conspiracy

I miss soccer.

Okay, so maybe I do not miss it during this ridiculously rainy spring, but I miss the simplicity of the sport.  As I parent, I know that I will pay for a uniform and shoes, pay for the season, and eventually throw some money in for a gift for the volunteer coach.

Dance, on the other hand, is a whole other story. 

We paid for the dance class in December, when Nick bought Abby the package for Christmas.  He also bought an outfit, tights, and shoes.  Great.  Not too bad.

Then I realized how short of a time that money got us.  Before I knew it, it was payment time again.  I could not believe the amount they expected for five hours.  And of course my energetic daughter went through two pairs of tights at that point. 

I love that Target sells them a lot cheaper than the dance studio.

Once Abby was officially hooked and looking forward to her recital in the summer, I found out that we had to buy her costume.  And it was not cheap. 

We were finally in the home stretch, knowing one more big payment was coming up, when I began to hear rumors of ticket sales for the recital (or, as they call it, The Showcase).

Seriously?  I have to buy tickets to watch my daughter dance for three minutes?  I never had to pay extra to watch a soccer game.

Oh, and this is my favorite part.  In order to purchase the tickets, the balance for the rest of the year had to be paid in full.  So, I had to pay money so that I would be allowed to pay more money.  Sure.

There cannot be more, right?  Wrong.

Every girl has to have her hair done the same way and have on the same make-up.  They have little bags of supplies at the front desk-for a price.  Thankfully, the make-up they are using is Mary Kay, which I sell.  Ha-ha!  Got you dance studio!  You will not receive my $3 for the sample make-up kit!

My favorite sentence to come out of Abby's mouth this past week?  "I like dance, but I am ready for a break and want to play soccer in the fall."

Bless you child.