Oh, and have I mentioned that he has amazing biceps?

I look at the men in our neighborhood, my friends’ husbands who coach their kids’ teams, host bbqs, show up to school open houses, cook dinners, stay home with the kids so their wife can go to work, stay home with the kids so the women can go away for a whole. entire. 24. hours.  And I am blown away.  We ask them the do all this (and so much more!) and also to be proficient at careers, providing some, most, or all of the income for their families.   These men not only take it all on, but they do it pretty darn well…considering that they are not women. 

There are days when I think I could simply get by without a man in my life.  I mean, who needs another freakin day of tripping over those giant shoes in my kitchen.  Or of explaining that cream cheese does not go in the freezer.  Or of sharing a bathroom with someone with that much hair. 

But I get over it.

So, today I celebrate the dads I know:  Dave, Steve, Jim, both Ryans, Ben, Tom, Darin, Mike, Jonathan, and all the others that have turned Father’s Day into something to really celebrate.

Happy Father’s Day!

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

As cute as it was, it was a frustrating experience for ALL of us. Mainly because Emme kept trying to stick her head in the neck hole first, rather than go up through the big waist part of the  shirt.  I can see her point.  She was thinking, this is where my head goes.  But it doesn’t work that way.  And she kept trying and trying and failing and failing.

And, she would not let us help her.  Every time I reached over and tried to just show her the right way — she furrowed her brow (a trait she inherited from her father….) and frowned, jerked the shirt away, and continued to try to put her head in the wrong way.  So, I sat on my hands.  Finally, even Dave couldn’t take it anymore and he tried to just SHOW her the way to be successful and she actually shoved him away and said, NO  ( a trait she inherited from her mother!)! 

So, we both sat on our hands.

And as I sat there and watched her it struck me that we were experiencing a microcosm of parenting that we would face for the rest of our lives.  It is nearly torture to watch your child try their best and fail — especially when you know… YOU KNOW… how to help them, how to reach over, turn the shirt around and just hand it back to them so they can do it!  You are not trying to take over, just help, for the love of God!  But she insisted on doing it herself…wrong. 

And that is what we get to do over and over.  We watch our kids try and refuse our help and fail.  They insist that they know better than us — or that they can do it themselves — or that they don’t need us.  And we have so sit there saying, “Please let me help you, I can’t stand to watch this!”  But they GET to do it themselves.  We GET to wait, watch, pray, and lose sleep.

Finally, Emme solved the problem.  She switched to a different shirt.  One that buttoned up the front.  She put it on and then… and then…. asked Daddy to button up the front. 

Thank God.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

But the last one:  the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after–oh, that’s love by a different name.  She is the babe you hold in your arms for an hour after she’s gone to sleep.  If you put her down in the crib, she might wake up changed and fly away.  So instead you rock by the window, drinking the light from her skin, breathing her exhaled dreams.  Your heart bays to the double crescent moons of closed lashes on her cheeks.  She’s the one you can’t put down.”  Barbara Kingsolver from  The Poisonwood Bible

I just can’t put Emme down — even when she squirms out of my arms, I am still holding her close.  Maybe it is because I know what is coming — namely the hormones of a 9th grader, which I would not wish on anyone.  But mostly I think I just know in my heart how fast it all goes, how even when I try to hold on to every single detail of what she looks like and what she says, that so much of it gets lost.  And so each afternoon when I rock her to sleep for her nap, I put away the to-do list that threatens to rattle in my mind, and I stare into her eyes.  I whisper promises of ever-lasting love. I hold her and try to memorize what it feels like to nestle her in my arms.  To remember what it feels like to cuddle someone who oozes joy.  And I am so thankful that at 21 months she is still so much of a baby.  She only has a few words and talks in her baby babble most of the time.  He hair is a mop that has never been cut, in some sort of flip, feathered, girl-mullet… and I love it.  I don’t want to cut the hair that has always been there.  Maybe for her 2nd birthday, but not. just. yet.  I love that her kisses are outloud, spoken “mmmmmmmmmwaaahhhs” and her cheeks and legs are chubby and delicious.  She can point to her nose, her ears, her belly button, and her arm pits.  And will stick out her tongue on cue.  I want to bathe in her cuteness, letting it flow over me with the profound love that a mother has for her child.

There will be time for hair and shoes and fashion and lots of talk…probably on the phone to, gulp, boys.  There will be time to get her that cell phone or the latest music player or whatever it will be in 13 years that she “must have.”  Dave and I laughed last night that by the time Emme is in high school (and the other four kids are out of the house), she will have a phone in her room and her own number and a TV and a computer and a lock on her bedroom door and probably no curfew. That we’ll text her to come down the hall to have dinner with her aging parents.  And maybe that is how it will be when she is a teenager.  But more than likely I will want to sneak in at night and climb into bed with her and watch her, hoping that she will sleep through the antics of her crazy mother whose heart aches a bit. 

For she is the last one.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

This doesn’t alarm me at all — I know that this is totally normal as kids grow up and explore family relationships and love.  Often times a kindergartener will want to marry the parent of the opposite sex.  Ty used to want to marry me, but I have been ousted for the new and improved model…little sister.

“Oh, Ty, I am so glad you love Emme so much.”  Even as I say this I am envisioning the torment she put him through only hours before.  How no matter what he wanted to play with, she snatched it out of his hands and ran off with it.  Not really an inaccurate foreshadowing to marriage, but still…

But just to be silly I ask Ty, “Why don’t you want to marry Lily?”  One of his older sister-cousins.

“Because, Mommy, she. wants. to. be. a. dentist!!!”

Of course, this makes perfect sense to me.

————–

Click here to learn more about why I don’t like the dentist.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

Happy Thanksgiving!

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

I had been longing for snow since last week.  I usually don’t like snow because in these parts the whole city shuts down and goes a little nuts. 

This year,  however, I  have been looking forward to the snow.  For a lot of the reasons. And ALL of them selfsih.  I have just been longing for a break from “real life” — a forced work haltage (is haltage a word??), hot chocolate, spiced wine, movie day, etc.  I spent the weekend stocking the fridge just in case there was snow.  I made a final trip to get Jade a winter coat and Lily snow boots.  I have been ready for days for snow.

So when the flakes waited until 7:30am to start falling I have to admit I was a little disappointed — the snow was beautiful but it came to late to halt school and offer me the respite I so longed for, and so off the teens went all bundled up.  I then spent the next part of the morning trying –unsuccessfully — to get Ty to wear snow boots to kindergarten.  “But, Mommy, they feel weird!”  That is because they are snow boots and you only wear them about 3 days each year.  You will get used to them.  No luck and on went the sneakers.  The outside temperature read 26 degress and so I gritted my teeth as I walked out the door to take Lily and Ty to school (by the way, Lily did wear her snowboots…).  The moment we walked outside I heard a GASP.

The gasp came from Emme.  In all the bustle of the morning I had forgotten that this was her first snow ever.  She stopped, looked up, smiled her big authentic, “I love life” smile, and pointed at all the flakes and rattled off her paragraph of gibberish that makes perfect sense only to her.  But this time  it was pretty clear what she was saying:  Snow is awesome.  Followed by: Why have you waited this long to show me this.  Then:  Isn’t life amazing, mom?

As the first flake got caught in her long lashes I thought about all that she has yet to discover.  And how lucky we moms are to re-discover so much through the eyes of our children.  We get to see so much for the first time all over again.  Watch as our children’s eye light up at their first Halloween, or eat their first tast of ice cream, or pet their first puppy.  Then we get to see them make their first goals in soccer, or play their first wobbly rendition of “Go Tell Aunt Rhodie” in elementary band.  We  get to see them have their first dates, fall in love, read Shakespeare. 

And we get to sit in horror as they cry because their friends didn’t walk home with them.  Or they didn’t make the goal.  We watch as they come to terms with the fact that life isn’t fair. Or Just.  And that many people don’t know the meaning of mercy or compassion.  And I swear that if I could I would stand in the gap for all five of my kids and take all the crap for them.  Just suck it in to my body and let it destroy me in order to spare them. 

But I know that is not how it works.   Even though I get to watch their journey, their road to discover is all their own.

So, TODAY  I will decide instead to find the patience to let them struggle with the lumpy snowboots and to marvel at the snowflakes in their eyelashes as they discover the world for themselves  — and for me, all over again.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

It is a well known fact that Ty can negotiate just about anything.  A friend and neighbor announced recently that he planned on having Ty — age five —  negotiate the re-fi’s on his mortgage.  I have to have nerves of steel and a heckofa line in the sand when Ty sets his sights on something.  And recently he set his sights on that box of Swiss Miss and that bag of marshmellows.

For days now he has been asking me about the weather report. It took me a while to figure out why.  His angle?  Rainy, wet, or even snowy weather equals….Hot Chocolate.  But I once I was onto him I could tell him, hey, it is not quite cold enough yet!   He then turned to the “others” he figured would cave in or at least didn’t know the rules.  He asked babysitters and friends for hot chocolate.  Nope.  No luck.

Driving home from school Monday afternoon he told me, Ah Mommy, I am soooooooooo cold. 

I was distracted by a garbage truck and the rain. Ah honey, I am so sorry.  What can we do to warm you up?

You see it coming, don’t you?  Well, I didn’t.  Moment of weakness, I guess.

I need Hot Chocolate.  He says in his sweetest, I love you mommy, voice.   So, I answered with the good ol’ mother standby.  Let me think about it. 

He smilled and then actually cackled.  Because, basically, he knew he had me at “I’ll think about it.” 

An hour later, out came the tea kettle.  Out came the mashmellows.  Out came the Swiss Miss.   I even got out the whole milk.

Okay, bud, I said.  You can have the hot chocolate on one condition.  You have to let me take your picture while you drink it.

I am pretty sure that his internal dialoge goes something like this… “SUCKAAHHHH!”

I am doomed, aren’t I???

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

It goes like this.  Izzy knocks over her milk and it spills everywhere and someone announces, “Izzy is THE SPILLER tonight!!!”  She smiles.  Ah shucks.  I get to be THE SPILLER ?  Cool.

We spill so much around here that also have an expression that immediately  follows any spill.  The glass goes over, water goes everywhere and I shout, “Mobilize the Spill-Unit!!!”  Upon this command,  Jade runs for paper towels, Izzy grabs plates and other gear out of harms way, Lily grabs napkins and goes low — mopping up the drips that are already hitting the floor, and Ty… well, we are working on him.  Usually he helps Jade.  I coordinate.  In this fashion we get spills cleaned up and everything back in order in less than 90 seconds and dinner continues.  We are a well-oiled machine.

Except for the time that Lily overwhelmed the Spill-Unit with FOUR back to back spills.  No sooner had everything been put right when.. bloooppp… over went another glass.  She spilled Jade’s milk, Ty’s milk and her own milk…twice.  It was epic.  We still talk about it when the conversation lags.  Hey, remember that ONE TIME when Lily was like the Spiller-Extraordinaire?    Oh yeah, we all say, that was epic!  Then we sort of chuckle.  But the chuckling doesn’t last because another spill is iminent and we have to be ready, on our guard for possible spill-unit mobilization.

Usually the SPILLER is Izzy.  That girl could enter the Olympics if they had a SPILLER event and bring home the gold. 

Last night Ty was the spiller.

The night before it was me.  Like I said.  It is an epidemic.

—————————-

Click here to see Emme and me during a Me Ra Koh photo shoot (last November) for her upcoming book!!!

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

 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.

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.

They had set up a water stand.

And they were selling water.

From the tap.

Ty says, This is how we are going to get rich!!!  Now, mommy and daddy, you need to buy some water and drink it.

Dave has never been able to pass up a stand where kids are selling things and so he diligently paid a quarter (even though the price tag said 1 cent) for a kid-sized cup of tap water. It had one ice cube floating in it.  All eyes then turned to me.  I said, hey honey how about buying me some water, it can be like a date. 

Dave frowned and dug through the junk drawer and produced another quarter for my glass of water.  I guess he had other things in mind for our date.

This money-making venture produced squeals of delight from Ty as he has huge dreams of purchasing the LEGO Death Star, which costs a mere 400 dollars.  He then required that I buy another cup of water but this time I had to select the heart glass because, he said, mommy you love me so much. 

Yes, I do.  I am buying water twice to add to your Death Star fund.  Water, by the way, that was mine to begin with.  Or at least mine by marriage.

But I kept these thoughts to myself and enjoyed the joy of the little ones as they tallied up the 56 cents they “earned” and clinked it into their money banks.  And the water tasted really really good.

Cheers!

©2012 MamaBloo. All Rights Reserved.