22 Things My Children Have Taught Me

At the suggestion of Stacy Julian, from her wonderful blog located at http://www.stacyjulian.com/, I put together my own list of things I've learned from being a parent. This ties to a project created by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, which you can treat yourself to right here: http://www.whoisamy.com/ -- go to her "small films" link, and select the film button with the yellow rubber duckies.

And please do watch her short film - it's lovely.

22 Things My Children Have Taught Me

1. How to teach kids to ride bikes

2. How to fix a dropped chain on said bikes

3. Holding two babies at once can be done

4. Feeding two babies at once requires dexterity and ingenuity

5. To trust my instincs about my child's health

6. Clean is great, but dirt on the floor proves we're playing in the yard

7. You can cook dinner, help with homework, feed the dogs and struggle to remember if you really did add money to the school lunch account, all at the same time

8. To listen with everything - my ears, my hands, my very skin - to really "hear" my kids

9. Bike helmets really DO prevent head injuries - but they do nothing for elbows, knees and shoulders - just ask my 12 year old

10. How to let my boys go - to daycare, to preschool, to school-school, to the 1st Homecoming Dance with the first girlfriend

11. How to be a teammate with my husband so we parent as a team and not as two visiting rivals

12. Caterpillars, earthworms, slugs and snails are to be "rescued", not overlooked or stepped on

13. Socks are only intact for about a month after purchase, because shoes are always apparently optional

14. Moo-ing can become a ridiculous funny family ritual

15. SpongeBob is actually NOT the crappiest show on television

16. 7-Up and saltines still soothe an upset stomach...or heart....or soul

17. Twins can reach higher than singletons because they see each other as ladders

18. Listen even when your ears ache from the constant input, because when kids know they can tell you anything, the payoff arrives when your "little one" is suddenly the 15 year old towering over you in the kitchen, telling you all the gory details of his day in high school - and you thank your lucky stars

19. Legos + Hot Wheels/Matchbox cars + wooden blocks = endless hours of play

20. Electric toy + batteries = interrupted play, while boy impatiently waits for parent to remember to buy/replace/locate the appropriate size batteries

21. Traveling as a family is just smarter, because otherwise you and your spouse spend the whole trip saying "Oh, I wish the kids were here to see/taste/smell/feel THAT!"

22. Life is better with my four boys in it

New is not always better

Once upon a time, we lived in a house that we simply adored. It was a big, rambling Tudor, with lots of land, and deer who apparently thought the land was there specifically for their daily strolls. After three years, pretty much against our will, we had to relocate and leave that house, and we moved over 800 miles away to the sweet, smaller house that we reside in now.
So, here we are, four and a half years later, and our old house is up for sale. So I checked it out online, and found photographs. The photographs are significant, because the new owners "updated" and "modernized" the house...so I looked at the pictures, and found myself so saddened.
The pictures show a house with extensive complicated landscaping, and a beautiful patio with a fountain and a pond. And the interior - the walnut tongue and groove walls are gone, the built-in bookshelves are gone, and everything is light and modern and...I looked at the pictures and felt like the soul of that house had been simply cut right out of it. It had been such a unique and lovely older house, and now, it looks like so many other big new homes, with little personality and lots of bells and whistles. And while the changes to the yard are pretty, and heck, we might have added a similar patio ourselves, many of the changes are ones that -again - are the sort of thing you see frequently in higher end houses, and they are hardly specific to this particular home.
I know how potentially idiotic it may appear to be, to be this affected by a home I no longer have any responsibility for. But you see, this house was what we hoped would be our "forever" house, where we would bring up our boys, live our lives, bury our family pets, run on the trails we built...and instead, we had to leave it. And now, someone has taken this grand older home and turned it into just another updated house.
Back in late summer 2002, my husband brought us to this house, so that we could see the house in person that we had looked at online for the last few weeks. We were moving from Colorado to Missouri, and we wanted to buy rather than rent, so this was our last chance to find a house. We literally just dropped into a realtor's office, asked to see this house - and this house only, which the realtor thought was just bizarre. So we opened the front door, my husband walked in first - he looked around the foyer, and as he turned to hold the door for me, he said "This is it." And so it was - just like that, we knew. This empty old house, which had sheltered the family that built it for their entire lives, opened itself to us and said "Finally! I've been waiting for you! Welcome home." -- and yep, we were home.
I've never felt that way before or since.

Getting some air

When son #2 goes outside to "get some air", he means it in an entirely different way
than most folks...

Sweetarts are my Sweethearts

I'm going out on a limb here and guessing in advance that Valentine's Day will be a complete wash-out around here. Don't get me wrong - we're a loving bunch around here, with a bumper crop of hugs given out on a daily basis by everyone except the aquatic turtles. But with the high level of distraction we have been operating under due to the over-abundance of snow, both my husband and myself have honestly not given V-day one moment of thought. Add to that the fact that this Friday will mark the 10th (11th?) day of school closures, and therefore there will be no classroom V-day fest for the two elementary school attendees, and the result is: crap-on-a-cracker Valentine's Day festivities.

One saving grace, however -- Sweetart Hearts. It is pathetic to admit this, but I buy these suckers two bags at a time, initially in an attempt to keep them all to myself. But then it became entertaining to get the rest of the family hooked. So now Sweetart dust is covering certain parts of the kitchen counter where the crock of Sweetarts resides.

Don't blame me if the CVS and Target nearest me are out. I only bought their remaining inventory.

Snow effects

Here is where the snow measured on Saturday night, February 6. This was all
"new" snow - as opposed to the old snow (some VERY old, dating back to oh, the last blizzard on Dec. 20 - yep, it's still taking up space all over the yard).











And here is our lovely nest, looking quite "gingerbread-like" in the snow. The beauty of this photo is the fact we have electricity!

And now it is today - Tuesday, February 9, and we are awaiting the arrival of the first flakes of the really "NEW" snow, scheduled to start falling any minute now. Yes, we are thrilled to hear another 7-14" of snow is predicted over the next 24 hours. But this time, the snow is bringing its pal "high wind gusts", so this time could prove even more interesting...

After the snowstorm...

It is 9:30 on Sunday, February 7. My 3 younger boys are just awakening in their father's office where we have been camping since Friday evening. The oldest is off with one or another crew, doing what he can to be helpful. I'm beginning to pack up our nesting materials, with the intent of returning to our rightful nest later today.

Stafford County (and all of northern Virginia and the National Capital Region) has been hit with yet another significant snowfall - 19" according to our front yard, but over 24" have fallen in north Stafford County, and over 30" in part of Maryland and western counties in Virginia, so we did get a little lucky, as it were. Since we have lost power during snowstorms before, and this one promised to be a "big 'un", we made the call (with considerable pushing by my husband) to relocate the fam to a safer place with backup power. As it turns out, the power in our neighborhood stayed on, so we are going home in short order.

I've been able to do all of my necessary work for VDEM, which has been a huge help. And our boys have been simply outstanding in their ability to "roll with the punches". Virtually no complaining, and just a little bit of restlessness. Thank goodness for imaginations, cable television, Nintendo DSi's, and iPods. And snacks - particularly Spicy CheezIts and Ruffles Cheddar & Sour Cream. Between all of those options, they kept themselves busy while their Dad and I did the work the snow event required of us.

One of the upsides of the all-in-on-room situation is that a freshly woken twin came and climbed into my lap, nestling himself back to sleep for a few minutes. I know these moments are not going to happen all that regularly as we move along the age-line. And I will stop everything I am doing when these moments come along. There is nothing to compare with burying your nose into the hair of a boy snuggled against you...

So on we go, moving forward into the snow-laden beyond. : )

Meandering my way through the holidays

It is December 14. 11 days until Christmas. To say I am "behind the eight ball" is to put a very mild spin on the situation.

And oddly enough, for the first time that I can remember, the pressure of running behind is really getting to me. Don't misunderstand - I run behind on a regular basis, and it OFTEN gets to me -- but being short on time at the holidays? Big deal!

But for some reason, it IS a big deal to me this year. I can feel the pressure in my chest. Ugh.

The tree is up, the lights are on, and about 1/3 of the ornaments are on the tree. The yard has been decorated since late November, thanks to Rob, and various decorations are showing themselves around the house. So I am not a complete putz. Nevertheless, I do feel quite putz-like.

All of that being said, I adore Christmas. The music, the movies, the houses lit up within an inch of their lives along neighborhood streets, the gift-hunting, the gift-giving, the food, the parties --- most specifically, the Christmas party Rob and I throw each year at our house. It is a source of angst and ridiculous amount of preparation squished into the 24 hours BEFORE the party, but it invariably turns out to be a grand ole time!

At any rate, the pressure of Christmas is currently mixed in with every other week phone calls with my siblings regarding my father's estate. And perhaps that is the source of the weight that is settling on my chest every damn day. It is an awful thing to discuss the distribution of the parts and parcels of a person's life. And it gets harder when we discover that out of the seven kids, more than one of us (of course) find particular parts and parcels to be equally important and therefore must find a way to decide who gets what.

Trust me, it is ridiculously unpleasant.

Now I must move forward in my holiday quest to figure what ELSE I have neglected to do/find/call/write or pay...