All Is Right With The World Again

So we had our meeting last night with the preschool director, and it went really well. We actually “talked” instead of yelling at each other, and we got some issues out on the table. I was also able to tell her that I have a hard time with change that just comes through without warning, so she agreed to ask the teachers for more input and ideas. I know this is such a calm post compared to the one I wrote about the fight, but the meeting really was very calm (except for my son who screamed the whole time because he’s sick :( ). While she’s still never going to be my favorite person to work with, and while our personalities are so different at times, I know that we can work peacefully to accomplish what we are there to do.

We didn’t get home until around 9:30, so we grabbed McDonald’s for dinner, ate, and then my husband took the kids to bed. I stayed up to make my son’s cakes for his party on Friday. I figured this would be good because then I would decorate them tomorrow. The problem is that one of the cakes burned! I really wasn’t that upset because I had bought an extra box of cake mix, so I’ll just whip up another cake while I decorate the other one. I think it will be all good! The only problem is that I’m yawning now at 10:15 in the morning, and I have a feeling that I won’t get to bed until well after midnight tonight…I’ll let you know!

The Past Couple of Days Have Been So Relaxing!

I haven’t had much to write about, and honestly, that’s a good thing! Because for the past two days I have come home from work and played! There was nothing that we had to do or anywhere that we had to go.

My son has caught a cold, and he has had a high fever and is just not acting like himself. I feel so bad for the little guy! He’s been getting up 2 or 3 times each night, and because of this, I’m exhausted!

I’m starting to think about my son’s party on Friday….I always make the cakes and decorate them, so yesterday I went to buy the ingredients and tonight I’ll make the cakes, and then tomorrow I’ll decorate them. I luck out because since my sister is staying with us she can help watch the kids while I work on decorating! Now for the cakes, I made everything for my daughter’s from scratch. Bad idea for me! The cake was very dense and didn’t taste the best it could have been. But I have such a hard time just using a box cake…so I found a recipe book at Barnes & Noble yesterday that is full of cake recipes using cake mixes! So for one cake I’m add cocoa powder, marshmallows and cola, and the other one I’m adding raspberry gelatin and yogurt. I think they sound yummy! I’ll definitely let you all know how they come out. The theme of the party is baby Sesame Street…so I have a Big Bird cake pan and an Elmo cake pan (I got them together off of Ebay for a total of $20 with shipping!). I’m going to the little hole-in-the-wall cake shop during lunch today to grab the colors and cake boxes. I love decorating cakes! It stresses me out because I’m a perfectionist, but I really do love doing them!

Alright, that’s about it…sorry so boring! Oh, I meet with the preschool director at church tonight, so I’ll definitely let you all know how that goes!

Son's Birthday

I take the kids over to the relay and we walk and eat and hang out with my husband’s family, and then at 2:00 am I pack up the kids and head home (my husband stayed and camped out there because his company was putting on the slideshow). Then on Saturday it was my son’s first birthday!!! Happy Birthday! We went to a local festival, and then we went and bought him his birthday presents. At home he opened his presents and then I gave him a little cake, and he was so good about destroying it! His actual party is this Friday, but I couldn’t let the day pass without doing something!

Then on Sunday we took a road trip to see a Cleveland Indians game (my dad and husband are big fans, so this was the rest of the Father’s Day presents). It was great! The kids were good and we had a lot of fun…so it was a nice ending to what started off as a horrible weekend.

Little Reminders

I was sitting at work today, getting ready to dive into what needed to be done, and all of a sudden this little box pops up saying “Benefits Orientation in Five Minutes”. Shoot, I had forgotten that I had that, and what was worse was that it was in the building next door. So I quickly gathered my things and headed over there.

As I was walking over there I realized how much I depended on my calendar. If I didn’t have those little meeting reminders, I would miss 95% of all of my meetings. Luckily I can sync up my calendar to my pocket PC, so I have it wherever I go. I’ve gotten to where I don’t even worry about checking out my calendar anymore because I know that I have these little “alarms” to tell me when it’s time to go and where to go! And for the more important things, I just set the alarms to go off a day or so in advance so that I am able to adequately prepare. Not having to worry about these appointments frees my mind up to think about other things that need my attention throughout the day.

Wouldn’t it be nice for moms to have the same type of thing? What if we never had to worry about the safety of our children? Think about how much time that would free up to be able to freely play with them! Or what if we never had to worry about whether or not they were getting enough sleep, or vitamins, or attention? If we never had to worry about this stuff because a little reminder would pop up telling what was needed and what to do, our lives would feel so weightless and laid-back…our “calendars” would do the worrying for us!

But there is no such “calendar”, and that’s why being a mom is so important. I mean let’s face it…if there was no worrying involved, our kids wouldn’t need us as much as they do (or our husbands for that matter)! As much as we complain about our “dependent” children, deep down we all thrive when we are needed. And there’s nothing better than that “thank you” from your child when you have just given them something they needed.

Better Night!

Last night was much better. We did our best to separate out the little ones from the older ones whenever we thought it was necessary. So when it was time to go to the “big church” we only took the older kids, and it worked out so much better! We were all able to sing and dance without chasing the little ones! Then when it was time for the Bible story, we took the older ones to the next room over and told them the story, and then I took the little ones next door and did a very shortened version of the story…it worked out so well!

The kids got to go swimming last night in the little pools, and they loved it! It was a beautiful evening last night…it’s raining now so who knows about tonight. Hopefully it will clear up before tonight!

Not much else happened….just another long night, we didn’t get home until 10:00 again, and then it was time for baths and bed!

It's OK To Not Like The 2 Year-Olds!

Hmmmmm, my great night last night turned out to not be such a great night. Is it bad if I want to quit working VBS after one night?

We had 8 kids, which is a lot compared to last year when we only had 3 or 4! Now don’t get me wrong, the VBS program at our church is huge (around 1,000 kids each year) !!! But for the ages that we teach, it’s only workers’ kids, so that’s why there aren’t a whole lot. Anyway, it was supposed to by my husband and myself, and one other helper. And our room has 2 year-olds and 3 year-olds. This year, we have about ½ 3’s and ½ 2’s. We go down to the “big church” as my daughter calls it (it’s the sanctuary) and our other helper shows up. She’s very outgoing, which is good, but throughout the night I realize how strange she really is. Anyway, the 2 year-olds are running around like crazy and we don’t really get to enjoy the opening things because we are chasing little kids the whole time.

The other thing that was really hard last night is noticing how many things were different from last year. I’m all about change, but I don’t see the need for change when things are going along perfectly fine, and the change doesn’t even improve anything. I talked to the “head’ lady, and she just kept giving me excuses about how this is her first year, she didn’t know what she was doing, blah-blah-blah. Why didn’t she pull together those of us that had done it before and get our opinions on things? It doesn’t really surprise me though because she has done the same thing with the entire nursery program on Sunday mornings as well.

The next issue I ran into was with our helper….she started asking me about diaper changes. Now in our nursery program, in the little baby rooms each baby is to have their diaper changed at least once. However, I think that stops once they are in the 1 ½ or 2 year-old rooms. So I told her we don’t change diapers…unless they complain or they stink! Basically we don’t go around checking for diapers to change. We are the potty training room, so normally most of our kids are either training or already potty trained. Anyway, our helper made a comment stating that she would change them. I told her to knock herself out. The fact is I hate changing diapers. If it’s not my child, I really don’t want to change anyone else’s diaper. That’s why I normally teach the older kids….the potty training kids on Sunday mornings don’t poop in their pull-ups!

Then it was time for the closing down in the “big church” again, so we headed down there. Absolute disaster! The little kids were running around from the get-go. So I took 2 of them back to the classroom, which really stunk because I missed the drama.

As I was sitting outside the room at the check-in/out table, I saw a bunch of teachers walk by with older VBS kids, and I remembered how many people always come up to us and say “wow, I don’t know how you guys deal with the little kids, I could never do that!” And suddenly it hit me….I’m allowed to not enjoy teaching the 2 year-olds. God gives each of us desires and talents, and I’m not a bad person for not liking to change diapers, and to like telling a Bible story to a group of kids that are actually listening. I’m not bad!

As silly as this revelation sounds, it was very liberating….I walked back into the classroom and played with my group of 3 year-olds that were calmly playing in the back while my husband played with the crazy 2 year-olds

I Can Say "No"!

So remember how I was saying that I need to start saying “no” to things? Well, I did a fantastic job of it this weekend! Go me! First, on Friday night after work, we headed right out to the mall to pick up a gift for my dad for Father’s Day. But on the way there the kids fell asleep, so we decided to go and check out the new house. We have basement walls! It’s so neat to see the house coming along. By this time the kids were awake and hungry, so we headed to McDonald’s. After that we went to the jewelry store by the mall to get my dad’s present.

See, my dad started this thing way back when we were little….we each went to the store and picked out a cross pendant for him, and he wears them on a chain around his neck. His intentions were to give each of us our cross back when we got married (I think to symbolize our independence or something like that – not sure), but he changed his mind and has kept them. He has also continued this tradition with his grandchildren, and I had to go and get a cross pendant from my son to him for Father’s Day.

Luckily I found the perfect one at the first store (which also happened to have an entire area for kids with video games and a climbing thing, etc. so my husband took the kids over there and I shopped in peace), which was not expected at all. So we went to Home Depot and my husband pointed out something he needed, and I was able to run back yesterday and get it for him for Father’s Day – that was a relief!

Even though it sounded like we did a ton of stuff, it was all very relaxed and not hurried at all, so it was very nice! Nothing was a "have to do this". Then on Saturday we went over to our local amusement park and spent the whole day in the sun! It was over 90 degrees here, so the water felt so good and my daughter got to ride a lot of rides. The really nice part was when my son fell asleep, so my husband took our daughter to ride rides, and I actually got to lay out! It has been forever since I’ve gotten to do that, but I just pulled his stroller next to me and laid back and relaxed!

Then on Saturday night we were invited to a “chocolate fountain” party. Some friends of ours (who also conveniently live in our neighborhood) are planning a huge 60th birthday party for her mom. So she bought a chocolate fountain for the party, but she wanted to try out some of the different things before the actual event. So we put the kids in the stroller and leisurely walked over there. The chocolate was amazing! I want a chocolate fountain so bad! We had a great time….the kids all played together and we got to just hang out and talk. Again, relaxing and not hurried, and it was something I really wanted to go to, so I was still following my “say no” rules.

Then yesterday, we went to church and came home and played. It was very nice. My dad was up to see us and his dad, and he told me they were having a cook-out at my uncle's and we were invited….you know what I said? “NO!” I told my dad about how stressed I was feeling and he completely understands, so there was no pressure. Instead I went to the store and grilled up a great meal for my husband (and gave him the air hose that he “picked out” at Home Depot) and it was a great night! Oh, and I also heard that my mother-in-law no longer wants to do the thing she had wanted to do next Saturday, so I’m off the hook! This is easier than I thought!

However, this week will be torture….we have VBS every night this week from immediately after work until about 9:30. I know that we will have a blast for a couple of reasons: 1.) Last year I was huge at this time (my son was born on June 24th) so this year I’m going to enjoy being able to run around with the kids and the ability to get down on the ground with them! 2.) Our daughter is in our class again, and she just loves going into “the big church” to sing songs and 3.) It’s always great to see your friends every night.

The only bad part is that nothing around the house will get done since we’ll be getting home so late. Oh well….I’m saying “No” to housework this week!

1 Down, 1 To Go!

We found out last night that our neighbors sold their house…YIPEEEEE! Now we have to get our house sold! We’re very excited because we both have our houses priced pretty high, especially compared to others in the neighborhood, and since theirs has sold, it just backs up our price decision even more. Now I just want ours to sell!

It was another crazy night last night…we had some friends over, along with our neighbors and my parents for dinner last night. I was pretty stressed. In fact, last night when I laid down, I couldn’t sleep because my pulse was racing and I had a very heavy feeling in my chest. I talked to my husband about how I’m sick of being so busy all the time…I need to slow down. I know that our lives are going to get very hectic the older the kids get…it’s a fact of life. But we need to sit down and enjoy them right now. And I need to learn how to say “no” to people, which I have a really hard time doing right now. Next Saturday we have 3 very large things going on, and if I just would have said “no” to my mother-in-law, we would only have 1 or 2 things going on. I need to get rid of this stress in my life; it’s not good for me or anyone in my family.

Do any of you have ideas? Please leave me a comment and give me some ideas!

Girls Rule!

Last night was a wonderful “girls'” night. First, I took my daughter to get her first hair cut (trim really) at the age of 3. Poor little thing! My sister-in-law is a stylist, and my husband was getting his hair cut, so I picked the kids up and rushed them over to her salon (horrible traffic problem….bad night to be driving). Anyway, she climbed up in the chair and put the cape-thingy on and she looked so big yet little at the same time. She loved it! She got mad when my sister-in-law didn’t use any products in her hair! So I grabbed some of the hair to put in her baby book, and then it was time to go home. We ate dinner outside and then played while my husband mowed the grass. I swear all of the neighborhood kids were in my backyard! It’s nice to have the house that everybody comes to! Then we went in and gave the kids a bath (they were so tired), and I put my son down to sleep.

My daughter has these cute little ways of saying she has no intentions of going to bed. She will ask questions like “can I go downstairs for a little bit?” or “Can I watch something?” Since I still had to wash the dishes (our dishwasher is broken and we’re waiting on a part, so I’m back to hand-washing!) I told her she could come down and play for a couple of minutes. She kept asking me to play “beauty shop” with her (she has a cute little Cinderella beauty set with a hair dryer, nail polishes, combs and brushes and a mirror). When I was done with the dishes I asked her if she wanted to go up and play in my bed. So we headed upstairs to play.

My alarm clock has a light on it, so I turned off the big light and turned this light on. It also has different nature sounds on it, so my daughter asked me to turn on “the water” which is the sounds of a stream. The ambiance really did feel like we were in a spa! So we played beauty shop for a while, and I had great visions of the future when she is older of doing a little ritual like this with real stuff….how fun it is to have a daughter! She loved it, I laid her down over a pillow so I could “wash” her hair, and she got a “manicure” and “pedicure” and then I styled her hair. Then it was my turn, but she went really fast so that it could be her turn again. We had a blast! Then we finished the night up with a Dora episode and drifted off to sleep. It was a great ending to a very hectic and frustrating day!

Life Without Kids? I Can't Remember!

It’s sad, but I really cannot remember what it’s like not to have kids. We went to visit some friends of ours last night. They are both teachers and this is their first week of their summer vacation and I’m so jealous! I think that would be the best life….being a teacher and being married to a teacher. Anyway, I started to think about what we would do if my husband and I both had 2 months off of work, and every thought and idea revolved around the kids. What in the world would we do if we didn’t have kids?

When we first graduated college we bought the house we are currently living in (actually, we bought it before we graduated….what was that mortgage company thinking!). My job didn’t start until October, and my husband didn’t have a job yet. So we had the whole summer to do whatever we wanted (OK, not WHATEVER…we were so broke! We lived on Ramen noodles!). But I can’t for the life of me remember what I did all day. Now, even when I have a couple of hours without the kids I can’t figure out what to do with myself, let alone if I had weeks and weeks!

I interpret this whole train of thoughts to mean that we love being parents, and we love that our lives are so filled by our kids that we can’t imagine our life without them (or even a couple of days without them!). What’s sad is that I’m sooooo dreading the day that my kids grow up and leave the house….what in the world will my husband and I do then? I guess that's what grandkids are for!

Can any of you remember what life was like before you had kids? Leave a comment and let me know!

Score 1 For The Parents!

Last night on the way home from picking the kids up, I looked in the backseat and saw my daughter looking kind of sad. I asked her what was wrong, and she said “mommy, I’m tired”. It was 5:30, so I told her she needed to stay up a couple more hours and then she could go to sleep.

Now let me back up here…..we are not schedule people. And our daughter has never needed a whole lot of sleep. So she usually doesn’t go to bed until we go to bed around 10:00 or 11:00. I’m hearing a lot of gasps and murmuring of what a bad mother I am….but hear me out. Since she goes to a private sitter, we don’t have to wake her up in the morning. We just pick her up and put her in her car seat….she usually doesn’t wake up at all. Then she continues to sleep at the sitter’s until she’s ready to get up. So she’s getting a good amount of sleep. We also started doing this because if we didn’t, and she went to bed at 8:00 every night, we would get two hours with her each day. Not enough for me! This way, we eat, we play, we read stories, and we hang out together. Now my son is a different story. He has to be in bed by 9:00 at the latest or he is just miserable. So with him going to bed earlier, we get some good quality time with our daughter, which is good because so much of the night my son is attached to my hip and I know she feels very jealous.

So back to last night….we eat dinner and go outside and play, and around 8:00 we tell her she needs to come in and take a bath (we were actually the first parents to call their kids in….that NEVER happens!). So she put her toys away, and went up and took a bath. I put my son to sleep, and then my daughter and I played for ½ hour….we had a tea party (all of the princesses were there!) and then we read a couple of stories. At 9:00 I told her it was time for bed….she protested a little, but then I remembered that my sister (who has to share a room with my daughter when she stays with us) said that my daughter really liked listening to books on CD with her. So I went downstairs and got her “Goldilocks and The Three Bears” CD, pushed “play” and left the room. I never heard from her again! So my husband and I actually got 1 ½ hours to watch anything WE wanted to watch on TV and hang out together. I can honestly say that it felt very strange to have the kids in bed so early! It was nice, but I don’t think it’s something I would want all the time – I missed my kids too much!

No Kids = No Fun!

This weekend definitely had some high points and some low points….the biggest low point was the weather. On Saturday I don’t think we even got into the 60’s! It’s June for goodness’ sake! Anyway, my cousin got married on Saturday, and I had been dreading the wedding for a long time. This wedding was adult-only, and wait, it gets worse – it was Saturday morning! Who wants to go to an adult-only wedding on a Saturday morning? We were starting the day $75 in the hole because of the babysitter. It was hard because that whole side of the family is all about kids, so my aunt and uncle and their nine kids and spouses had to travel from New York without all of their kids (which actually prevented about half of them from coming). So we go, and it’s at a local conservatory. However, it was supposed to be outside, but since it was raining and cold, they had to shove it inside, and there was no room. The meal was a brunch (waffles and eggs) and there weren’t even any mimosas! It was horrible. Then my uncle had planned a party at my cousin’s house for later that afternoon (my cousin was the groom). That was ok because we had gone and picked the kids up and we got to spend the rest of the day with them.

On Sunday we got to do a very momentous thing…we took my daughter to her first movie! We went and saw “Cars”, and it was great! My daughter did great through the 2-hour movie, and we all enjoyed it very much…my husband and I were laughing hard at some of the parts! My sister watched my son, so we were able to make it really special for her….and my parents went with us, so she felt like a princess!

The rest of the day was spent running errands and spending unplanned money (there was a nail in one of the tires, and we needed new ones anyway, so new tires were put on). Not a bad weekend, but Saturday was no fun. We’re thinking of going down to visit our parents this next weekend…it’s always a little mini-vacation when we go down to visit them, so it will be nice and relaxing! Now we just need to get through this week!

I Really Do Have It All!

Happy Friday! TGIF!!!

I’m so glad it’s Friday…now I just have to get by today and then it’s time for the kids, relatives, and the sun!

Last night I had the opportunity to listen to my neighbor vent about his life. This is also the same neighbor that is building a house by our new house. Anyway, he talked about how much he hates his job, his kids stress him out, and there’s no communication with his wife. I just sat and listened (and it’s hard, because I agree with him about everything, his kids rule the house and he and his wife need to communicate more). But what can I say? I just listen, and then as time goes by more neighbors come out and talk (we have a great neighborhood, I’m really going to miss it!), and pretty soon it’s dark. Luckily, my neighbor seemed to relax a little, and hopefully he’ll have a better day today.

The hard part was the whole time that he was talking to me, I just kept thinking about how lucky I am to have the “perfect” life. I have the best husband in the world, my kids are such great kids, we both have jobs that we love, and we’re so happy! Don’t get me wrong, you can easily walk by our house some night and hear screaming through the closed windows (from both me and the kids!), but if there aren’t disagreements, then that means that someone in the relationship is not voicing their opinions, because no two people agree on EVERYTHING. And the kids definitely have their moments….last night my son, again, only wanted to be with me, so I’m trying to push my daughter on the swing while holding him at the same time, and he’s not light! But as a side note, it was really cute because my son watched me push her, and he decided that he was going to help push her too! So whenever she swung back, he put his little hand out and pushed her shoulder. It was too precious.

At the end of the night I realized that you really can have it all and still be miserable. My neighbor has a good amount of money, two beautiful little girls, and a wife that does everything for him….but he’s still so unhappy. You know why? God is no where in his life. His wife and kids go to church, but he doesn’t….he doesn’t “buy into the whole thing”. We’re working on him, but it’s like trying to move a boulder…just when you think you make progress, the rock rolls back. But we know that God is helping us, and that’s probably why they are actually moving 25 minutes away with us!

All in all, God showed me again last night how truly blessed I am, and for that I am very thankful.

What A Stressful Wednesday!

Phew! Yesterday was rough. It started out fine, everything was normal. But a little before lunch I got a call that a realtor wanted to show our house that night from 6:30 – 7:30.

Oh yeah, we’re selling our house :) We are building a new house that we will hopefully be able to be in forever (or at least a very long time). We want to have at least 4 kids, and our current 3 bedroom house is really closing in on us (mainly because my mom comes up once per week to stay and watch the kids, and my dad comes up at least once, sometimes twice per week, so while there might officially only be 4 of us, a lot of times there are 6 or 7 of us trying to live in our house). Anyway, we just started digging on our new house yesterday, so we have about 4 months to sell our house.

So back to my story…our house was A MESS!!! It was horrible, and that’s not like us, but this week had been so busy that there were toys everywhere and the laundry had piled up everywhere…both clean and dirty clothes filled the house! The people said that if they didn’t look at the house last night, they couldn’t look at it until next week. Of course we don’t want to pass up any potential buyers, so we said “fine”, and I left work early to clean the house. I ran around like crazy trying to get everything taken care of, and I have to say in the end, the house looked awesome.

To add to all of that stress, it was the night of my monthly moms’ night out dinner. So we had gotten a babysitter, since my husband had to work last night, but now I had to make sure that the babysitter kept the kids in the basement, got them fed, and didn’t take out any toys until after the showing…easy, right? Thankfully, our babysitter is the daughter or our daily sitter, so I called her to see if I could pick the kids up a little later, and she offered to have her daughter watch them at her house. Talk about an answer to prayer! So she fed them dinner, and my house stayed clean (at least until they all came home ;) ).

It all ended up working out…my dinner was fabulous…we got there at 7:00 and didn’t leave until about 9:15 or so. And you know the topic that got us most riled up? DVR!!! For those of you that don’t know what that is, it’s our cable company’s version of TiVo. We all agreed that it was sad we were so excited about it, but then again, we are probably the first set of moms that are not actually missing out on our shows just because we have kids…we just watch them after the kids are in bed! Pure genius I think!

I’m very thankful for my “mom” friends…it’s the first group of women that are not crazy moms….we’re all normal! The majority of them stay at home with their kids full time, which I’m always a little leery of because of the whole “mommy wars”. But these women are just like me! I feel that a woman does what’s best for herself and her family, and that might be different than what is best for another family. I also feel that if you’re completely secure in your decision (that’s not to say you don’t question yourself about switching) you won’t have the need to fight and argue with the women that are doing things differently. Anyway, I have met so few “normal” stay-at-home moms (SAHM), so many of them are judgmental, or have very wacky ways of doing things. But these ladies have the same beliefs as me, and we are all pretty much raising our kids the same way. So I can come to a meeting or dinner and say “wow, my son kept waking up all night and crying for no reason - I know nothing was wrong with him, so I had to just let him cry in his crib” and I don’t get looks of disgust insinuating I’m a horrible mom….they’ve all been there…and they all understand!

It was brought to my attention last night (after I suggested that I had it) that I have ADD….and re-reading this post has confirmed that! I’m sure there are a couple of my friends reading this and laughing out loud because that was the joke last night as I jumped topics 100 times within the same breath :)

My plans for tonight? NOTHING! I just want to play with the kids! Preferably outside, but it might be raining, so we will have a blast inside. I’m looking forward to a lot of family time in the next couple of days….we should be taking our daughter to see “Cars”, which will be her first time at the movie theater. We also have a family wedding, so we'll get to see a lot of out-of-town family, and then definitely visiting a pool or the amusement park again. I will definitely post updates!

Weekend Recap

Happy Wednesday! Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve updated this…it’s been pretty crazy in my house the last couple of days.

We had a great weekend! While my husband was out of town on his little “guys” weekend, my sister came to stay with me to help with the kids. We took them to a local amusement park on Saturday and had a blast! It was empty! I think because the majority of it is a water park, and the water was freezing. But we had the best time. Then on Sunday we went to church and then all took naps! It was a great weekend.

On Monday, with a lot of coaxing from my husband, I decided to take off work and just stay home and relax. So the kids went to the sitter’s and I spent the entire day in the sun…it was great! And then last night we went to my nephew’s preschool graduation, and then over to their house for dessert and hung out with the in-laws. The problem is they live ½ hour away and we didn’t get home until 10:45….I’m so tired!

Tonight I have my monthly dinner with friends. We are in a moms group together, and we have a moms-night-out dinner once per month, and I’m really looking forward to it! We are all pretty good friends, and it’s so nice to catch up with all of them each month. And of course we all enjoy eating a meal without having to worry about feeding kids! I’ll give you the recap tomorrow!

Why Is It Easier For Dad To Let Go?

Last night was so very bittersweet for me…we went to Babies R’ Us to get my daughter her first booster seat for the car. While I’m very excited that she’s growing into a very happy, healthy preschooler, at the same time I realize that the time is slipping away too fast.

She was so excited! All through dinner she kept asking when we were going to get her booster. When we got to the store, we pulled down every booster and tried it out on the bench that is out of a real car that you use to test the car seats and such. She had a blast climbing in and out of each one, testing to see whether she could reach the cup holder, or whether or not it was comfortable, etc. She is still such a small little thing, but seeing her sitting there in the boosters, she really looked like a big girl, and tears started piling up in my eyes.

Honestly, we could have kept her in her car seat for at least the next year, but the problem is that my son needs to move to a real car seat, and since we take turns taking them and picking them up from the sitter’s, we each need car seats for both of the kids in each of our cars. And then my sitter takes them places with her, so we also have to provide car seats for her car. Basically that means we have to purchase 3 more of something, and we decided we would much rather purchase 3 booster seats at 1/3 of the cost of the car seat, and then let my son use my daughter’s car seat.

After trying every one they had, we finally found one that was perfect. Out in the parking lot my husband pulled the booster out of the box and put it in the van. My daughter was ecstatic! Then we put my son in my daughter’s old car seat, which was turned around for the first time (front facing now instead of rear facing), and again, tears began welling up. I pulled his carrier out of the shopping cart and went to put it in the back of the van, and with a shaky voice I made the comment to my husband “I guess it’s time to put this away until we have the next one”. His response: “Uh-huh”. He has always gotten so excited as the kids accomplish new things – with every new milestone he rejoices and pushes a little bit harder - for 3 steps instead of two or to say two words instead of one. But the amazing this is how easily he reverted back to “baby-mode” when our son was born. But I still don’t understand, why is it so easy for him to let go of our babies while I’m still struggling so hard to hold on?