Time Change/ Time Flies/ Time Stands Still: All of the above!! My last blog entry was 6
months ago! That is a long time,
right? Life today could have been the
next day from my last blog, but so much has happened in between.
Summer. One 90-day
long preschool frat party: Coloring,
swimming, playdough, popsicles, swimming, camp thurmand, girl scout camp,
swimming, trips to Colorado, New York, Florida, time with grandparents and
cousins, swimming, more popsicles. It
was the reason I chose to stay home with my kids. It was amazing. It was exhausting! That feeling at the end of a vacation when
you need to rest up from all the vacation fun…that is how I have felt for the
first 2 months of school. In recovery
mode from lots of fun and very little routine.
The first summer road trip with mom to Colorado could have
been measured in the number of times we stopped the car for Stephen to try to
go potty. No accidents (grateful) but
more false alarms than one would hope for on a trip that takes 16 hours without stops. One highlight was him sitting on his roadside
potty off some 2 lane highway in the middle of the panhandle… here comes a
train – tooting his whistle as he crossed the street where we had stopped. Can’t blame the child for stage fright on
that one. Then only 6 weeks later, we
drove to Florida, the boy was a champ and only stopping when there was
action. Note to other parents of potty
training toddlers: yes, it is worth
waiting those 6 weeks to take your roadtrip!
Now school time is here and it is time to get serious. There is schoolwork (now called “homefun”) to
do. Activities to plan. Piano to practice. And still the beloved nap. And don’t forget the girl scout cookies finding
you soon (yes, I am cookie mom again this year).
Of particular interest to Stephen right now: the clock and
the weather channel. He is infatuated
with numbers (wonder why?) and I LOVE it...he can stare at the weather channel
and try to say all the numbers he sees for much longer than I can stand hearing
the background music. My favorite is to
listen to him reciting what he sees: “62”: sixty two, “65”: sixty five, then “60” : sixty zero. Nothing brings me delight like seeing him try
to find different ways to hold up 8 fingers and his laughter over showing me
that there are different ways to count to 8… in his eyes, you are either a
young child (almost 4 like he and Rachel), 7 like Elise, “medium” (like his
teenage and preteen cousins), or 39 (gwown ups like mommy). Even Elise came home one day last week and
over snack announced how much she loves to sort. Seems like it is part of our nature to try to
sort things into recognizable patterns and categories.
One day last week Rachel counted out something really well,
so I gave her a healthy amount of praise for her effort, and she responded with
“Stephen is really good at numbers”. The
last 6 months have brought change to how they are starting to take on the world
together. I am surprised at how much of
the time they do get along. On their
first day of preschool, their teacher put them side by side at nap time and
said that they actually held hands in their sleep. A few days ago I walked in on Stephen giving
Rachel instructions on how to play with one of his toys…after each step, he
would pause for her to do it, and then say “Good job, Wachel…good job. Now….” It was so cute but I was more than
shocked to see how she will take instructions from him!
Rachel had her first ‘compliant’ school picture. Instead of the serious pose without smile and
a hint of a scowl, this year she sat with her ankles crossed, her hands on her
lap, and a fake smile. I kinda missed
the scowl but I can definitely appreciate that she is starting to comply with
instructions. There is hope.
Over the weekend, we had a photographer take some pictures
of the kids. When it was Elise’s turn
for her solo pose, she struck a perfect Travolta disco pose and gave a look to
the photographer that made me think I was looking in the mirror. Can I freeze time and just skip the
preteen/teenage years that everyone warns about?
Just as we found the school year groove and routine,
daylight savings hit last weekend and now we have a new small bump to the
schedule… 3 consecutive wakeups within 10 minutes of 5 am. Even in my slightly delirious tired state
this morning, I am thrilled to be back in the blog world and hope it won’t be
another 6 months until I find myself sitting here again. I will blame
grammatical errors and stream of conscious writing on the before mentioned
sleep deprivation.
