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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.
On Saturday I came home from a scorching hot (74 degrees) soccer game to discover that Ty(5) and Lily(10) had embarked on a new money-making adventure.
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!
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.
One of my good growing up memories of my father is when we would lie on the big master bed in the big master bedroom at our house in Glendale, California. We would lie there on the turquoise and brown bedspread (hey, it was the 70′s) and he would teach me words in Spanish or repeat huge vocabulary words and have me say them and then teach me the meaning of those words. I must have been about five or six at the time. I have to say that it introduced a love of language that I still have today.
A few years back I introduced my own version of the vocabulary game.
Each year, I pick a word or phrase that is organically grown out of our everyday language at home. By this I mean, that I actually have used this word in front of my kids and then said kids look at me askance, wrinkle their browns, and say,”huh?” Anyway, I pick a word and challenge them to use it when speaking to an adult in their lives. IF they can do so, they win the game. At first I thought about delivering some sort of prize to any kid who can pull this off. But, soon it became apparent that the legendary status that comes with using the yearly challenge word appropriately with a teacher or coach is reward enough for my sweet little nerds.
So, a few years back the challenge phrase was “CARTE BLANCHE” — you should have heard the story of Jade going up to her then 5th grade teacher asking her for “Carte Blanche bathroom priveledges.”
In case you were wondering, the answer was “no!”
Last year I picked a phrase I heard Dr. Phil use one time, “No matter how flat you make a pancake, it still has two sides!” Seriously, the kids had to weave that into a conversation with a grown up? Yup. The winner? Izzy. She used it in a book report over the book Swindle
when the protagonists had to break the law, but for a good reason — her 6th grade teacher was there, so it counts. Well done, Izzy, well done.
This year the word is REMISS.
I mean, THAT is a great word.
Think of all the real-word applications. “So sorry, I have been remiss at feeding my fish and, thus, it has perished.” “Excuse me, but I have been remiss in informing you that I need a ride to soccer practice tomorrow.” “Mrs. Smith, I fear you have been remiss in giving me that grade I deserve.” Okay, maybe not that last one.
Or maybe the example I just used moments ago when talking to Izzy, “I have been remiss in telling you that this year’s word is… remiss.”
Nevertheless, my kids will be out there looking for reasons to use the word REMISS. Watch out, they could be looking for you! So, try not to judge them too harshly when they point out that you have been… well… remiss.
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