I hope you are not too disappointed in me. I am simply not finding the time to sit down and write about all of the tantrums and growth spurts that are happening around here. To borrow a phrase, I keep 'waiting to exhale.' Before we had our third baby, it seemed that I had ample time for breaths in and out, for writing, and for reading the most ridiculous variety of novels you can imagine.
But here I find myself, occasionally relaxing, but knowing that while I laze, I am letting something slide. While I was sipping tea and composing that email in which I reminisced about my 11th grade prom dress, my two year old was pulling all of the shoes out of my closet and filling them with fistfuls of cat food. It can also be argued that my time would have been better spent changing the sheets after some child ate a sleeve of crackers (apparently using half of them to make confetti) in my bed. If I were to only write or relax when there was nothing more sensible to do, then there would be no time for any foolishness. Ever. I have convinced myself that this is true even though I know that a better time manager could probably sort my life out for me. An accomplished time manager is simply not who I am. I like to think that I traded organization and time management skills for other gifts.
There is another thing that has gotten considerably more difficult since we brought our third kid home from the hospital. We are finding it impossible to appropriately entertain all of our children at once. The things that are fun for a two year old are NOT the same things that are fun for a seven or nine year old. I realized recently that 99% of the time when we are deciding on an activity, the 2 year old at our house wins (because she is the biggest pain when she's unhappy). Of course this is completely unfair.
A couple of weeks ago, we called our faithful babysitter and had a night out with just our two big kids. Wow! That was nice. We realized that, since their little sister can't roller skate, handle a bowling ball without injuring someone, or sit through a movie, our big kids were missing out a lot. So... a somewhat regularly scheduled "Big Kid Date Night" has been added to our list of priorities.
Today, however, there was lots of snow on the ground, and we were sure sledding down the big hill was one of those rare active outings that the whole family could enjoy together. With some effort, we all bundled up in waterproof, woolly gear and headed for the hill. We did not anticipate this on the three minute drive...
Still we were not deterred; we literally dragged that little girl up the hill were she slept out in the cold, fresh air for about 45 minutes. We took turns sledding and standing guard over our baby.
She even had a go sledding with her Dad. (Everyone knows that Mom would not have been an appropriate sledding partner for Lili since Mom screams ridiculously all the way down the hill. It's one of the things they all love about Mom even though they never admit it.)
It turned out that Lili wasn't terribly impressed with the sledding and the cold. After two trips down the hill and some animated chatting with a shivering bulldog pup, Lili was ever so ready to go home. Even though her mama was holding her, she howled repeatedly, "I WANT MAMA!!" all the way back to the car.
We counted the afternoon an overall success. 4/5 of us had a really lovely time, and we all agreed: sometimes it's okay if the 2 year old doesn't win.
But here I find myself, occasionally relaxing, but knowing that while I laze, I am letting something slide. While I was sipping tea and composing that email in which I reminisced about my 11th grade prom dress, my two year old was pulling all of the shoes out of my closet and filling them with fistfuls of cat food. It can also be argued that my time would have been better spent changing the sheets after some child ate a sleeve of crackers (apparently using half of them to make confetti) in my bed. If I were to only write or relax when there was nothing more sensible to do, then there would be no time for any foolishness. Ever. I have convinced myself that this is true even though I know that a better time manager could probably sort my life out for me. An accomplished time manager is simply not who I am. I like to think that I traded organization and time management skills for other gifts.
There is another thing that has gotten considerably more difficult since we brought our third kid home from the hospital. We are finding it impossible to appropriately entertain all of our children at once. The things that are fun for a two year old are NOT the same things that are fun for a seven or nine year old. I realized recently that 99% of the time when we are deciding on an activity, the 2 year old at our house wins (because she is the biggest pain when she's unhappy). Of course this is completely unfair.
A couple of weeks ago, we called our faithful babysitter and had a night out with just our two big kids. Wow! That was nice. We realized that, since their little sister can't roller skate, handle a bowling ball without injuring someone, or sit through a movie, our big kids were missing out a lot. So... a somewhat regularly scheduled "Big Kid Date Night" has been added to our list of priorities.
Today, however, there was lots of snow on the ground, and we were sure sledding down the big hill was one of those rare active outings that the whole family could enjoy together. With some effort, we all bundled up in waterproof, woolly gear and headed for the hill. We did not anticipate this on the three minute drive...
Still we were not deterred; we literally dragged that little girl up the hill were she slept out in the cold, fresh air for about 45 minutes. We took turns sledding and standing guard over our baby.
Finally she did wake up and enjoy the scenery.
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