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Having a big family comes with its share of the traditional ups and downs. I mean, having two teenage girls and a baby means that feeling rested is really just a memory. But as I have mentioned before, the big family thing comes with its share of sweet moments. Sweet moments that are really more like a suprise, something I never anticipated.
My two oldest — Jade (14) and Izzy (13) — get up and ready for school on their own. ( I try not to feel too much guilt about not cooking them omlettes every morning – my energy isn’t endless…). Each morning they pile their backpacks and instruments next to our front door and wait for the HONK that signals the carpool is waiting outside. About the time they get their shoes on and switch into “hang out” mode before the carpool arrives, Ty, Emme and I mosey on down from upstairs to start our day.
But when Ty and Emme lay eyes on those two big girls, they go absolutely crazy with joy. If Dora and Anakin and Buzz Lightyear all showed up at once, they wouldn’t get the kind of reception that Ty and Emme greet Jade and Izzy with every morning.
The next 10 minutes is a carinval of love from my two youngest to my two oldest. Still in their jammies, Ty and Emme practically mob Jade and Izzy demanding the last few seconds of their attention before leaving for school. Lego catalogs come out to be delved into, toys materialize, the itsy bitsy spider and twinkle twinkle little star is sung…over and over… oh, and over and over… sometimes it is an imprompu game of hide-and-seek as Ty jumps under a blanket and instructs “come find me.”
Final snuggles are given and plans for their return in the afternoon are made (“If you don’t have a lot of homework, Izzy, will you play Wii with me?”). When the HONK comes Emme and Ty both run out to give one final goodbye to their big girls as they drive off. Ty shouting his BBYYEEE!!!!! and Emme blowing kisses with a MWAH ..MWAH.
It is only after all of this that I can change Emme’s diaper, make breaksfast, and get our morning focused on Kindergarten drop off and baby music class.
But I wouldn’t change it.
Jade will be heading off to college the year Emme enters Kindergarten — only 4 years away. And it is the time they have together now — even those few minutes in the morning, or maybe especially those few minutes in the morning — that will part of their relationship forever. There will be a day when Emme will run out to blow Jade a kiss and she won’t be coming home until Thanksgiving.
So, until then, I will enjoy that the highlight of their morning is with each other.
There I said it.
I love the show Glee.
Mostly because I, too, live my life in a musical. To me, it is totally believable that all these talented kids go to the same school and sponanteously produce show-stopping musical numbers AND burst into song walking down the corridors of their school. Because, this is how I live as well — only with much less…well.. actual talent involved.
Very early on Ty learned that it is important to have the “big note at the end” to your musical numbers. Each night as we sing him to sleep to tunes like “Too Rah Loo Rah” and “Hush Be Still” we are sure to add a glorifying money note at the end… “That’s an Irish lull-a-BYYYEEEE!!!!!!” Extending that last note for a good 10-15 second. Even Dave ends with the big note. Now, it is just common acceptable practice in our home to end on a big note — in fact, we sorta look askance at anyone who DOESN’T have a flashy ending. Sorta like, “Uh, what is up with you? Where’s your big note at the end, kid?”
When I was pregnant with Ty I got it my head that Dave needed to sing to this baby in utero. In layman terms, sing to my stomach. So, one night Dave leans down as if to use my belly button as a microphone to the baby and starts to …. RAP. Now, you don’t get much..oh… how do I say this?…”less R&B” than Dave. But there he was rapping to his future son. Let’s just say he is no Will Smith, BUT BUT Dave’s life as a suburban household rapper lives on. In fact, the girls live in constant fear that Uncle Dave will rap in front of their friends. Which he does on a semi-regular basis. It’s a little like living with Will Shuester.
Hey, we say, we live in a musical. Get used to it!
The cat even gets it. Our former cat, Bree (she met her end recently), used to howl when Dave and I would lay in bed at night and sing harmonies together. She would climb up on the bed and get right on Dave’s chest and ME-OWWWWWWWWWWW as loud as she could. We interpretted this as a total cat-endorsement to our amazing rendition of ”Going to the Chapel.”
We even have originals. Ty’s favorite song is called, “The Shoe Song” which I made up one night about, well, shoes. In a family of 7 there are an incredible volumes of shoes. Let’s just say they were inspiring. Here is an excerpt,
Oh, we have a lot of shoes in our house
We have boots, we have crocs, we have sandals
We have a lot of shoes in our house
And we wear them on our feet, oh we wear them on our feet and
We wear them out into the street, but we don’t wear them in the house
We don’t wear them in the house,
Cuz mommy doesn’t like shoes in the house, they get mud and germs inside
The big note at the end goes with this line:
This is the end of the shoe soooooonnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggg!
It’s a little like living with Rachel Berry.
Ah, that first day of school. Isn’t it lovely?
About a week back I shared on Me Ra Koh Photography my technique in capturing the first day of school photos. What was great this year was that the pics turned out so well last year with my “fingers idea” that we all just jumped right into it!
Check it out!
My 9th grader (notice the 9 fingers — which is kinda hard to do, getting rid of that one rascally finger!!!):
Now for my 7th grader (7 fingers) on her first day of junior high. She was nervous…
And then there is my 5th grader. Who, well, just said “Photo the hand!” Luckily a hand has 5 fingers.
Happy Back-To-School everyone!
If anyone out there needs information from me and they find me to be, oh lets say, resistant, the simple solution is to park me in front of a slow computer and make me try to compose blog posts on it.
It won’t be long until I am begging for them make it stop. I’ll tell you ANYTHING YOU WANT TO KNOW, I would whimper. Just give me a few more gigabytes, a faster processor, an a truck load of RAM. Just don’t make me restart one more time or wait 5 freaking minutes for my internet browser to load.
I am pretty sure that I would rather be waterboarded than use a slow computer.
Pretty sure.
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