When I look back through old archives (Don’t try this at home, kids. Trust me) I find that I talked about the kids a lot more than I do now. There were tales of tantrums and of diaper explosions and of bedtime meltdowns. Now that they’re getting older we no longer live in the chaotic trenches of babydom and it also feels that they are less “bloggable”. They have lives at school that are separate from mine and I would hate to put anything out there that could cause any school yard grief. School kids can be mean enough on their own without any assistance from your parents. These past few weeks have confirmed to me that aside from general stories and quotes, Graham truly too old to be written about it great detail. How do I know this?
He calls me Mom. Not Mommy but Mom. And he calls Matthew Dad. As in, “Hey Mom? Can I have a snack?”
He hasn’t called me Mommy for a few solid weeks now but every time I hear him call me Mom my heart gets caught in my throat and I think, “That’s not my name.” I mean, it is, but it’s also not. Here is this kid who was our first one to make it out into the big huge world. He’s the first one I stumbled through middle-of-the-night feedings with, who I fretted over introducing solid food to, who made my heart explode the very first time he smiled at me and said, “Mama”.
Now he stands at a height equal to my shoulder, fires witty zingers faster that you could ever expect and calls me Mom. When you decide that you want babies, people try to warn you that they grow up so fast but it seems so far in the future that you just smile and wave it aside. Well, the future is now and it came without me inviting it in. It doesn’t appear to be leaving any time soon (or ever) do I better start getting used to it.
*Insert big, heavy sigh HERE.*
While I may not go into the minute details of our (their) lives I’ll still tell stories of family vacations and trips to the beach and things that just need to be documented. One way that I do this on a fairly regular basis is by quoting them on Twitter/Facebook because they crack me up all the time. My Dad (and many of you) don’t pay attention to either of those networks and I kind of like to have everything in one place, so I thought I should repost some of my favorite status updates.
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Graham: “I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny.” Me: “Why?” Him: “Because rabbits can’t lay eggs.”
The TV remote has been AWOL. I offered $1 to whomever could find it & Nathan did so within minutes. He’s a hunter/strategist extraordinaire.
Go, Canucks, GO. (I’m pretty sure that Graham is their #1 fan, based on this photo.)
Graham: “How old is God?” Me: “He’s kind of been around since forever.” Emily: “God’s birthday is EVERY DAY.”
Dudes are at Boys’ Club, Emily is having her Girl’s Night movie (Dora) and a treat (Smarties). Her: “You know what?” Me: “What?” Her: “You eat the red ones last”.
Nathan: “Who STINKS? Oh, wait. That was me.”
Graham: “What’s a Vegetarian?” Me: “Someone who doesn’t eat meat.” Graham: “What are people who eat meat?” Me: “A Meat-etarian.” Graham: “That’s not right.”
Me: “You say goodbye…” Emily: “And I say hello. Hello, HELLO!”
***
I may not remember what it feels like to be bored but I spend the bulk of my days laughing with these three monkeys. That is, until I get called Mom. Sigh. I’ll get over it eventually.
*That photo at the top makes me fear for the photos my darling daughter will post on Facebook one day.
It is no secret that I have had the opportunity to go on short trips far more times than (the average Mom, and) my dear husband. This past weekend the scales finally tipped a little in his direction. After weeks of planning, he headed up to a cabin at a local ski hill with his two best buds so that they could fire up their big machines. Snowmobiles, you pervs.
Due to a few snags in the preparation side of things (Snowmobile brake line, something, something, connection valve, something, something), I left work at noon on Friday to start my weekend of solo parenting earlier than anticipated. Luckily for me (/sarcasm) I got to take Emily to our Doctor in order to get a mole removed by BURNING IT WITH LIQUID NITROGEN. This is the third time that I’ve had to hold her while she cried and my heart hurt more than I was comfortable with. I asked the Doctor the name of this type of mole and it sounded something like Giganticus Painintheassidness. It is a type of mole that shows up in the first year of life and will continue to grow in size if it is not stopped in its tracks. She “was mean” (Her words) this time, and if it comes back a fourth time we’ll have to go to a dermatologist to have it surgically removed. Super.
We arrived home to a Daddy-free house. I “got to” solo-parent for forty-eight hours and it was awful. The kids woke up both nights; one to pee, one to need water and one to barf. The lack of sleep caused meltdowns galore on their part and many (empty threats, and) big, heavy sighs on my part. I barely survived it all.
I’m totally lying. My kids are in that magical age where they no longer need their diapers changed/bottles warmed up/clothes put on by me and want to make Mommy proud. They have also not yet reached the age where they don’t care what I think/have been invaded by pre-teen hormones/turn into alien beings. They’re fifty shades of rad.
Friday night consisted of the five of us (My brother Lance makes me a little less scared when Matthew is away) watching the Canadian hockey team win the quarterfinal. I had told the kids they could watch their shows on the other T.V. if they wanted, but they refused. It made this rabid hockey fan burst with pride.
Saturday was cleaning (They helped! Really!)(After I threatened taking away the treat of a McRaunchy lunch, but still), ballet, errands and lunch at Rotten Ronnie’s. I was all excited to treat myself to a tasty salad but they were out of salads. ALL OF THEM. Nicely played, McDonald’s, but I’ll spare myself the gut rot, thankyouverymuch. I had a Diet Coke as a treat instead. Don’t judge me.
Saturday afternoon consisted of hours (HOURS) spent outside playing in the warm sunshine. I know we’ll probably be besieged with a snowstorm next week but good grief it felt nice to be outside and be warm.
Sunday was yet another stellar day. I slept well, the kids slept in and then crawled into my bed for a snuggle. Then there was that whole Canada/U.S. hockey game deal. You know, THE ONE WHERE WE BEAT THE U.S.A AND WON THE GOLD MEDAL. It happened after hours spent pacing, holding my breath and screaming. I love my American friends, and their team put up the good fight, but…CANADA. WON. GOLD. I love my country.
I won’t say that the weekend was easy, as all of the care of my three little beings rested upon my shoulders. I was “on” all day. They play independently, yes, but I had nobody to pass the Torch of Responsibility to so that I could get work done/just shut down for a bit from the moment they woke up until the moment they crawled into bed.
I also missed being able to tell Honey all of the little (funny) things that happen during the day, though he did see this nugget on Facebook and commented on it:
Emily put a flag pole between her legs and said, “Hey Mommy! Look at my wiener!” Honey? It’s time to cut that out. She’s paying attention.
His reply: “That’s my girl!”
I love my family.
I’m happy that he got the chance to get away and I’m happy that I got more time with the kids than I normally do but I’m exponentially happier when we’re all together.
*I dressed the kids in red on Sunday morning to show unity with Team Canada. We. Are. Canadian.
Graham is seven years old and in the second grade. Some of his friends started losing their baby teeth in Kindergarten. More of his friends started losing baby teeth in First Grade. Not all of them, but a majority. Graham’s teeth have held fast and I was no way surprised as he only had his two bottom chicklets at the age of one.
For months now, he has been telling us that his teeth were getting “loose”. Loose is in quotes because we couldn’t see even a hair of a movement. But then! One of those original bottom chicklets was LOOSE. The whole “wiggling the tooth” thing sends shivers up my spine but I’d ask him to show me anyway because he was So! Excited! A Mother’s love and all of that.
Last night he showed me how his tooth could bend all the way forward (*Cringe*) and I told him to keep working on it (While I tried to purge that visual from my brain). Mere minutes later he jumped off the couch and showed us his tooth. HE LOST HIS VERY FIRST TOOTH. I told him that I needed a photo of his toothless smile. He was (more than) happy to oblige.
I had thought that him being in Second Grade meant he was no longer a baby. That right there above? Is concrete evidence. We’re now on the path of Snaggle-Teeth, pre-teen angst and the hormonal teenage years.
I’m both a little bit excited and a little bit afraid, all at the same time.
It is no secret (Obviously) that my eldest child, the great Master Graham was born a mere four days after a certain huge annual holiday. It involves baby Jesus, presents galore and big family gatherings consisting of a whole lot of food and possibly, a little bit of Beatles Rock Band. Having your birthday so close to the hugest event of the year can make your special day pale in comparison. As a January baby myself, I get this. I really, truly do. January is the dullest month of the year and if I could have my way I would get a petition signed to rename it “Meh.”
In the past few weeks we have encountered people in our travels. Graham would tell them that his birthday was next week/in a few days/TODAY and the response (to me) is pretty Universal.
It must be hard to have a birthday so close to Christmas.
As these are either strangers or acquaintances, I respond the way I normally do. I explain that we do a dinner party on his actual birthday with our family and close friends. Once school starts up again, we throw a party for his close friends. He’s lucky! He gets two parties!
What I don’t tell these people is that I had always said that I never wanted a December baby. My youngest brother was born December 22nd. My Step mom and my best friend share a December 27th birthday. I know for a fact that December birthdays suck. And blow. I had vowed to never have a baby in December. Or in January, for that matter. I can attest to the suckitude.
When Matthew and I first decided to start a family we made sure that we planned it so that we had many months of leeway in order to get pregnant and avoid having a December baby. We found out on Christmas Eve that we were pregnant. We shared the news with our families, friends and co-workers. We were beyond excited, apart from the fact that I felt like barfing all the live-long day.
If you haven’t figured out the math, Graham is not that baby. We lost it. Almost eight years later, I still cry when I stop to think about that baby (and dream) we lost. But then I wouldn’t have Graham and that makes me exponentially sadder, so.
After going through a D&C to remove a baby that had passed almost a month before, we were advised to wait for one regular cycle before attempting to get pregnant. I spent many an hour searching the Internet message boards in the hopes that we wouldn’t have to wait those torturous four weeks before trying again. Google confirmed what my doctor had said and so we waited.
As soon as it was deemed “safe” we tried again to get pregnant. It worked during that very first cycle. It was Graham, and he was due December 29th.
Do you know what?
I did not care that his due date was in December. I was pregnant with a baby. Flesh of my flesh and bone of my bones. So many people struggle just to fulfill that very same dream. Graham came right on his due date (after some suction/forceps help THANKS TO HIS HUGE HEAD) and I was just happy to have him. Be it in December, or January, or June. It really doesn’t matter.
We do our best to separate Christmas from his birthday. The decorations come down before the 29th. He gets two parties. He has a special day. Two, actually.
When he is old enough to understand it all (which will likely coincide with the time he realizes that a December birthday isn’t as great that he thinks it is right now), I will tell him the truth. That we never intended for a December baby. That we lost a baby that was due in August and that we were horribly heartbroken. That we tried as soon as we could to have another baby and that we got to have him. That I’m pretty sure God knew that his brother or sister would be better in Heaven from the beginning.
And that we all needed a little Graham in our lives.
A few weeks ago a friend (who also has three children, all teenagers) told me that whenever she reads my site she gets the feeling that I have it all together. (Regarding parenting, I’m assuming. We all know that I’ve been pretty open with the struggles that I’ve been dealing with personally). She said that she’d then read Amanda’s posts and think, “That is what I remember experiencing.”
I laughed and told her that I, too, remember those crazy days when I had three kids under the age of four. I was sleep-deprived; short-tempered and wondering what on Earth I had gotten myself into. There is post upon post of me ranting and venting and sobbing into my Diet Coke. Babies are the hardest. They fuss, they cry, they (Emily) bite their friends, yet have no words with which to tell you what is going on in their wee little heads.
The crying is the worst. Are they tired? Hungry? Sick? Teething, yet again? Seriously. How many teeth does a kid really need?
I’d hate to come across as though I have it all figured out now that my children are so old. You know, with them being three, five and (almost) seven. It’s not as though this stage doesn’t have its share of challenges.
Like when Graham spent an entire five minutes arguing with me about where Emily was born. He kept telling me that she was born here in Summerland because he “remembered.” Dude. You weren’t even four at the time and I am the one who pushed her out of my hoo-ha. It happened in Penticton, and I know this for a fact because there were no drugs involved. I was fully coherent for the entire experience (Yes, REALLY) and I know which hospital I birthed in. There is also the fact that Summerland hasn’t had a maternity ward since before any of my kids were born. He, however, is still not convinced.
There are times when Nathan pulls one of his classic “WTF?” moves and we ask him why he did it, only to get the response that we fully expect from him: “I don’t know.” Don’t even get me started on the battles we stage to get that kid to eat anything other than bread and butter.
Then there is Miss Emily, who channels her inner Diva on a regular basis. She crosses her arms, sticks out her bottom lip, brings out The Scowl and murmurs an audible “Harrumph.”
We’re not all sunshine and daisies over here. At least not all of the time.
Aside from these regular bumps in the parenting road, our days are pretty fantastic. Do you want to know why?
My children are wicked.
Not in the watch-out-because-they-might-hurt-you way, but in the holy-crap-they-might-blow-your-mind way.
I spend the bulk of my days amazed by their wit, marveling at their intelligence (Even Nathan! He’s “Exceeding” at Science and Math!) and laughing at their quirkiness. We’ve fallen into a pretty awesome groove where my kids can tell me their hopes and fears, crack jokes that are funny even if (and especially because) they make no sense, and sometimes rip a big fart and know that we’ll all laugh (Potty humor is funny. Yo.)
Instead of praying that I’ll simply make it through the day, I’m praying that our days will stay as awesome as they are now. I like where we are, relationally. I like my kids, individually. I like our lives together, immensely.
I said it above but it bears repeating again.
My children are wicked.
Matthew and I entered this parenting gig with great ideas and aspirations. Not only have many of those pre-conceived notions been blown completely out of the water, there have been so many issues that have come up that weren’t in the baby books.
Apparently, you need to register your kids for school many months before they start Kindergarten. Somehow the school has absolutely no idea that your child exists, or that they may want to start their academic career. How do they not intuitively know about your precious babies? Don’t they read your blog?
It seems as though the older your kids get, the more questions that arise.
Who do you invite to your child’s birthday party? The entire class, or just his close friends? What sports should you be signing them up for? Baseball? Soccer? Hockey? Swimming? All of them? Why do kids ask so many questions? Is it because they LEARNED FROM YOU?
Heck, I’m so far behind in my parenting that Graham is *just* potty trained, and he’ll be seven next month. I’M KIDDING. Not about the turning seven (WHAT THE HECK?) but about the potty training. Though there is still the rare occasion where he will bend over to show me his sphincter and ask me if it is all clean. You are welcome for that visual.
Giving the kids an allowance is another topic that we’ve been delinquent in instituting. I know that some people are opposed, or have negative feelings toward them and, well, BULLY FOR YOU. I grew up with an allowance that was dependent upon me doing set chores. When I got to my teen years I had to use that allowance to buy personal items (Clothes, music, etc.) and I know for a fact that it taught me how to budget. I want my kids to learn the value of money and the consequences of what happens if you spend it too quickly.
I’ve been keeping my eye out for piggy banks to buy them, but when the only place you have time to shop at apart from the grocery store is a place that rhymes with “Ball Fart”, I’ve not succeeded in my quest. I want to get them something cool that they can keep for years to come. I had a globe piggy bank that looked just like this. I have no idea whatever happened to it but I kind of wish I still had it.
Not only do I want their bank to be memorable, I want it to be unbreakable. Kids are notoriously clumsy (At least mine are – they come by it honestly) and I don’t want something that can smash into a billion pieces. I threw the question out on Twitter and Facebook and had suggestions such as Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond. Not only do we not have those chains in Canada, they won’t ship to us either. Jerks. I had a few suggestions that do exist in Canada (Michael’s being one of them) but they are of porcelain banks. Yeah, no. Schmutzie sent me this Etsy link which made me laugh…but it might be more appropriate for Matthew.
I think I’ll need to spend some time browsing shops or surfing online. If you have any suggestions of cool options, I’d love to hear them.
The kids have found some change in their travels, which is why the topic came up this week. They were carrying their nickles and dimes around in plastic cups or in their pockets and that just won’t do. Until I find the Piggy Banks Of Awesome, we needed something else. I grabbed some mason jars out of my cold room, went out into Matthew’s shop, grabbed a hammer and chisel and made slots in the lid. I brought the kids up to my craft room and had them pick out ribbon that they liked so we would know which jar belonged to which kid.
These will suffice while I continue my hunt for the best! Piggy banks! Ever!
The only thing we now need to decide on is how much the allowance will be. We’re thinking of giving them one dollar a week. Is that too little? Or too much? They’re only three, five and (almost) seven (I still don’t believe that last one). I’d love to hear thoughts on it from any one who has ever given or received an allowance.
Before we ever became parents, Matthew and I swore that we would treat all of our kids equally. We are both the Eldest Child and have both reveled in and revolted against what that position in the birth order meant. We are the Responsible Ones; the ones who take care of others, who pay our own way, who did it mostly on our own. While we love the praise for being so independently successful, part of us wishes that we had a break from the role we seem to find ourselves in. We could very well be the way we are regardless of birth order. Either way, sometimes being so grown up and responsible all the time is a little wearisome. Sometimes we envy the position of the Baby.
This is in no way a swipe at the Babies of the families. It’s just kind of the way that the world works. The older kids pave the way and the baby seems to have it a little easier. At least it seems that way in the eyes of the Eldest.
Being the ever-optimistic (and delusional) people that we are, Honey and I vowed that things would be different when we had kids of our own. Our kids would be treated the same, regardless of their birth order. They would also be loved equally, though differently. This has worked out, for the most part.
But there is this kid.
Emily.
She is my last child, my only girl, my baby. There’s something about who she is and where she is in our family that makes my heart lurch a little more than it usually does.
Throughout the day she will bounce up and down and flap her arms at different things that she deems exciting. Graham used to do the exact same thing. Used to. I can’t remember the last time he did it and that realization made me do that whole teary-eyed, heart-clench thing. Verklempt, I believe it is called. It was such a huge part of who he was as a small child and now it’s gone. GONE. I have no idea when it left.
I find myself reveling in Emily and her arm flapping because that means that she is still a “baby” and because it reminds me of when Graham used to do the same and and because I don’t know when he stopped doing it and because I’m not quite ready for my babies to grow up quite yet.
DEEP BREATH.
I feel like I might focus on her a little harder than I do on the other two. She is the last one to make the trek from baby to child and that means that each and every milestone she achieves is the last one I will will witness. The thing that pierces me the most is that I do not know when the last time for something will be. There are two kids before her who have stopped doing things that they used to do and I cannot remember when the last time they did it was. I just find myself reminiscing about how they used to do or say “that” and am blindsided by the realization that they don’t do it anymore. When did it stop? And why couldn’t I have known it was the last time so that I could have soaked in the moment a little more than I usually do?
For that very reason I find myself appreciating her not-quite-perfectly-clear speech, her arm flapping and her affinity for her thumb in a different way. These are the last little pieces of babydom that I still get to witness and I want to make sure I linger with them as much as I can before they are gone forever. Before I know it the day will come where I realize that she no longer has the pre-schooler lisp, that her arms no longer flap, that her thumb hasn’t found its way into her mouth since I don’t know when.
It appears that I have a soft spot for my baby that differs from the soft spots I have from her brothers.
***
I sat down to write a post about Emily’s first day at ballet class and that there segment above is what came out. I love/hate it when that happens.
So, yeah. My baby girl had her first ballet class on Saturday.
Sitting with the other dancers, waiting for her name to be called for attendance:
Hands up:
With her good friend (and also, preschool classmate) Avelyn.
Running around like “bumblebees.”
Waiting for everyone else to get their flowers:
Running on their “tippy-toes”:
Twirling:
The cuteness quotient darn near killed me.
(More ballet photos can be found on Flickr.)
