It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

They're going ba-ack!!

{to school}.

And I am very excited about it to be honest with you. It's not that I don't want my kids around, but I'll be even more honest with you...it's just that I don't think I'm going to miss having every sassy-mouthed, mess-makin', loud screamin' kid in the neighbourhood hanging out at my house. NOT that every kid in the neighbourhood is like that. Not at all. It's just that the sweet, polite, and quiet ones seem to be at the sitters during the summer and through some, ironic, twist of fate it's all the lovin' spoonfuls that are available to come over every day. I know that may sound very mean and grumpy, but this is the first summer in my life I've ever had a new baby in the house and two school aged kids at home. That is a, at times, very frustrating combination.

I'll tell you that more than once I've been in the bath-tub, when my kids have let other kids in the house and then come flying into the bathroom (as they always do when I forget to lock it). I'll screech "Shut the DOOR!!!" just in time. However, there was at least one occasion during which I stood there in just a towel when two neighbourhood kids were standing outside the door staring at me. For how long they were there before I even noticed them, I'm not even sure. (They just let themselves in my house!)

I've also been sitting on the couch nursing the baby when the kids have all come flying up my stairs. Now, I don't cover myself all up nice and discreet-like when feeding the baby in my own home so unless I whip the baby off and manage to grab her spit-up blanket for cover within 0.0003 seconds those kids were in for an eyeful. This happened a few times this summer. Not exactly the peaceful experience it is supposed to be for baby-one. She must have wondered, "What the...?!?"

And, the biggie, is the never-fail banging on the door 2 minutes after I've gotten the baby to (finally) go down for a nap (kids don't knock, then go away...they bang, and bang, and bang, and then kick, and kick, and kick at the door until someone comes to answer it, dammit).

Wait...that isn't even really the biggie. I think the real biggie is the fact that these are not my kids so I don't usually feel free to, let's say, remind them of their manners and/or common-sense when they are screaming, hitting, pushing, calling names, throwing stuff, littering, lying down in the middle of the road, dangling each other off the back of our truck, playing in the back of my husbands trailer with all his landscaping equipment, putting crap all over my lawn and my front entrance way, helping to completely destroy the Toy Room, yelling at my dogs, telling my little 4 year old to go "change her shirt" (because her tummy was showing and she) "looks disgusting", stomping on and killing the flowers in the bed at the side of our house...you know...that kind of stuff.

I'm actually really going to miss having my kids home. We've had a lot of fun together working on our "summer homework" and playing in our pool out back, and going on little adventures together. This special time with them made me question that Staples commercial in the past (What is so great about them going back? I wondered).

But, I've gotta' say, I think I get it now and I think it probably is

the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

{Anyway....

now that I've gotten all that off my chest...

with the kids headed back to school in just 12 short days I've started planning lots of fun stuff for us to do together. I'm really going to miss them and I want the school year ahead to still be full of adventures and Family Fun. So...more on that tomorrow...}

:)

So Much.

My girls...

I love my girls. So much. I am very aware of how lucky I am to have them. They are all wonderful, smart, sweet, loving, and healthy (knock wood). Since the littlest one came along I haven't had a whole lot of time for the bigger two. Little-one likes to be held when she is awake and she doesn't nap much during the day. Dinner time used to be spent around the dining room table, as a family, every night. But, baby-girl is always awake during dinner time and she is generally going into her hibernation mode. This means, she starts eating constantly. I think she is trying to stuff herself so she can make it through the night. That pretty much leaves Mommy out of family dinner time. So, now, the girls eat at the kitchen table either by themselves or with their Dad. I'm always in the other room...holding and/or feeding the baby. Sometimes they bring me a plate of cut-up food so I can eat with one hand and hold the baby with the other. Other times I just wait until everyone else is done and, then, Dave can hold the baby and I can eat. There has been a big part of me that has been thinking these past 4 months, "Wow. We are really lucky that the big girls still like the baby-girl so much...because she really is cutting out their time with Mommy".

They do love her, though. So much. So much that they never leave to go to school without coming in to the room to kiss her "good-bye" and tell her that they love her. Mommy sometimes doesn't even get a "good-bye" anymore. I think they kind of forgot about me. It was like I was there, but not available to them, so...kinda' not really there.

Yesterday was a good day. The baby napped during the day and Jamie was home from school. Jamie and I were able to hang-out together and play and do school work and read and even have lunch together. After school, when we got Maddie off the bus, we all headed out to play-park together. The girls had fun, with their Mom, while Colie hung out in her stroller. When we got home Daddy made dinner and then held the baby. I was able to sit down at the table, with the girls, and we had dinner together. It was great. At night, I even sang them songs again. This was another tradition that had gone by the wayside as I was always taking care of the baby...and, frankly, too exhausted by their bedtime to find the energy to move. Dave was in charge of bedtime and songs. I was in charge of baby. But, last night Colie and I went in there and sang them songs together. It was such a great day and the most time all of us girls have spent together in awhile.

This morning Jamie came running to me yelling, "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" and she hugged my legs. Maddie gave me kisses "good-bye" and waved at me in the window as she waited for the school bus. It was like they remembered me again! So nice.

And all it took was that little bit of time...for me to remember them again.

I love you girls. So much.

She's Not Heavy

When Jamie was born Maddie was still a few weeks away from her second birthday and, I think, she wasn't quite ready to share her attention with a new kid on the block. That is to say...she couldn't really stand her. She didn't want anything to do with her and she would often say that she felt it was time for the new baby to go back to the hospital. I'll always remember taking them to have their portrait done and Maddie would not sit close to Jamie and, certainly, she wasn't about to put her arm around her three month old sister. I had to sit there, just out of the frame and hold Maddie's arm around Jamie. That picture always makes me laugh now because I know the history behind it. Poor little Jamie - just a wee little thing - struggling to keep her head up straight while I held her up and held Maddie's arm around her just out of view.


Luckily, Maddie eventually got over her resentment of this new kid and they are now fast friends. In fact, they would be lost without each other. But, that probably took at least a couple of years of rocky roads to achieve.


So, a question I often get now that Lily-Pie has arrived is, "How do the girls feel about their new baby sister?"




I'll tell you...What a difference a year makes!!