Happy Birthday Ian!

The boy turned 6 last Wednesday, and we had a small family party at home.

Then yesterday, we had a swimming & pizza party with many of his friends.

NASCAR birthday

It’s worked out that many of Ian’s friends have birthdays in Sept/October, so we’ve been averaging one or two parties a weekend for the last several weeks. It’s been fun because we know the parents well too, and most of the parties end up being all-family affairs. But now, Ian’s party yesterday is the last one on our calendar for a while (that we know of right now, anyway). Now that she’s old enough to “get” the idea of a birthday party and having attended several recently, Shannon is looking forward to a party for her 3rd birthday at the end of November!

Kindergarten!

Birthday Fun

The pool party for Ian’s 5th birthday was a lot of fun.  After the swimming, we adjourned to the party room for pizza and cake, where Shannon stood by her big brother’s side as the song was sung, eagerly awaiting her turn at the cake.  Which she kept repeating, just so everyone would know what she wanted: “Cake?  Cake?  Cake?”

Happy Birthday

Dear Ian,

Happy Birthday!  I’m so proud of you and I can’t wait to see how you develop and grow during your 6^th year.  May your year be filled with many joys, a few challenges, and opportunities for growth and triumph.  I’ll be with you every step.

Love, Mom

Anxiety check

In three days I’ll be going under the knife.  While this is a minor surgery, it’s still surgery requiring general anesthesia and an overnight stay at the hospital, and I find myself nervous.  I continue to marvel at how my outlook has changed since having children.  Now that I have two little people depending on me, I’m so much more anxious about the possibility of something going wrong.  Naturally, I didn’t want anything to happen to me when I was a single woman, but as a wife and mother the stakes are so much higher.  It’s not just about me anymore.  Yes, of course I’ve always had family and friends who cared what happened to me…but it is different when young children are part of the equation.

Lest this post verge off any further into gloomy territory, I must remember that I’m having this surgery to correct a condition that impairs my day to day functioning, and that, if left untreated, could have serious long-term health ramifications.  So really, I’m doing this to benefit myself and my family in the short-term and in the long run.  I’ll just remind myself of what I’m telling the kids—it’s no big deal, and mommy will be back home the next day.  And I’ll stop thinking about those explicitly-worded informed consent and living will forms that they sent me.

Things I Want to Always Remember

I haven’t done very well at keeping the kids’ baby books updated, so I’m going to post a few notes here on the fly, just so I don’t forget.

Things I Want to Always Remember:

The look on the boy’s face as he doggy-paddled by himself for the first time in the pool.  Joy, pride, a tiny bit of apprehension, but mostly joy.

The way baby girl says “Hi Mommy” in her tiny little toddler voice.  She only says a few words clearly at this age, but those are my favorites.

The exaggerated “mwah!” when baby girl gives a kiss.

Bedtime conversations with the boy when the lights go out after storytime.  Sometimes I get frustrated because I just want him to GO TO SLEEP ALREADY! when I’m tired myself, and I have a list of things I need to do before I can go to bed.  But when I take the time to relax and just enjoy laying there beside him, we have some of the best conversations.  Before I know it, he’ll no longer be a little boy and I’m really going to miss the quiet conversations in the dark.

Baby girl’s glorious giggles when we find her tickle spots. 

The way the boy can make baby girl laugh and the delight he takes in doing so.

How it feels when the boy comes running over to give me a hug that nearly knocks me off my feet.

How good it feels to pick up baby girl and snuggle her against me.  She’s starting to become more independent and less willing to sit and cuddle, but there are still moments when she’s content to sit still and those are the greatest.

The way the boy always wants to play with his sister, and the way she wants to do everything he does.  I suppose as they get older they’ll go through stages when they don’t want to have anything to do with one another, but I hope the foundation will be there so that they will come back around and always value each other.  When my only sister and I were kids, we used to have terrible fights.  My mom would always tell us that we should love each other because when they (my parents) were dead and gone, my sister and I would still have each other.  And now, though I hope my parents will be around for many more years, I am grateful for my sister and understand what my mom was trying to convey.

OK, one more fun one before I get too emotional, as I am prone to do: the way baby girl says “splee-splah” (splish-splash) when she wants to take a bath, and the delight the boy has showing off his pedaling prowess on his bike.  Those training wheels will be coming off before we know it!

Sad turtle

Found this photo on my cell phone while clearing out some old data.  This was taken at Christmas during our visit to the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, CT. Looks thrilled, doesn’t he?

It also doesn’t make any sense that the turtle’s head would be looking out from the back of its shell like that, but whatever.

Our weekend

On Saturday we picked up a new bike for the boy from the MV Big Flea pre-sale. He took to it like, as they say, a fish to water. Last summer he had a 12″ starter bike and he rode it a few times, but didn’t quite have the coordination to pedal and steer at the same time. What a difference a few months makes. He sometimes needs a little push to get started, but once he gets going he does a great job with pedaling, steering, and braking. So we spent much of the weekend in the neighborhood, him on his bike and me walking alongside, or a few paces back once he really got going. This weekend I need to get some air in my bike tires so I can ride with him.

Talking about death with a child

The boy (4 y.o.) and I have a bedtime routine.  After bedtime stories, we turn out the lights and I lay beside him for a few minutes before he falls asleep.  Sometimes we talk, sometimes we just snuggle and enjoy some special time at the end of a busy day.  Two nights ago, seemingly out of nowhere, he burst into tears.  When I asked what was wrong, he said “When I’m grown up you are going to die and I will miss you.”  We’ve talked a little bit before about death and that all living things eventually die, but in a very superficial way.  In the past, telling him that I hoped to live a long long time and that he’ll be all grown up before I die was enough to mollify him.  That night, there was no consoling him.  He said, “I’m sorry, that’s just the way it is–you are going to die and I’ll be sad.”  I tried talking about Heaven, and that I’d always be watching out for him, and that we’d be together again someday…but it didn’t seem to make him feel any better.  I tried another tack, saying that this is why we try to eat healthy foods, and be safe, and go to the doctor when we need to–so that we can try to live long healthy lives.  He was unimpressed by that as well.  He continued to cry and repeat that “that’s just the way it is, you are going to die and I’ll be sad.”  By then I was near tears myself because I couldn’t seem to soothe his sadness.  I hugged him tightly and didn’t say any more, and within a few minutes he had fallen asleep.  He seemed to sleep well, and the next morning was his usual cheerful self.

While I know that these questions are normal for kids his age, I’m not sure what prompted his particularly fatalistic outlook that night.  And it depressed me to no end that I wasn’t able to console him.  Up to this point, most everything that bothered him, mommy could, in some way, make “all better.”  I know he will face many challenges and disappointments in life and it’s the job of his father and me to prepare him to overcome those and to move past them.  Ultimately we cannot, nor should we, fix everything for him.  But I didn’t think the time would come so soon when he would have a pain that mommy couldn’t make all better.

Bad Parenting: We All Make Mistakes

I’m not talking about the horrible stories of meanness and abuse.  No, Alice at Finslippy has collected these tales of bad moves by otherwise good parents, stuff that works out ok in the end, and makes for a good family story for decades to come.  So next time I have one of those cringe-inducing moments when I feel like a bad, bad mommy, at least I won’t feel so alone.