family

story time

Melissa

This fall, Colin has joined a story time group at the library on Thursday mornings.

The last time we did story time was when Ellie and Grace were 4 and 5 and Colin had just started crawling.
We only lasted two weeks.
Trying to keep Colin quiet for an hour in a library was just too stressful.

But this time… this time the girls are in school. And when I send Colin into story time… I’m alone. I have an hour of quiet in the library.

I remember being jealous of those moms sitting alone reading as I chased a crawling baby around who insisted on making messes and screeching. I was so frazzled, trying to keep him quiet and entertained, constantly saying “Don’t touch!” or “Hush!”

Now I’m the mom sitting and reading, enjoying the quiet. And I see those moms chasing toddlers around saying “Hush.”

Which makes me treasure my short time of quiet all the more.

happy birthday, grace!

Melissa 3 Comments

Gracie finally, FINALLY got her birthday party yesterday. Her party was canceled by Hurricane Irene (Remember that? It was a long time ago… its been a long month.)

We had pizza, made ice cream sundaes, and had a moonbounce!

This is our rainbow cake. It was pretty cool.

If you think that it looks like its about to fall over, you’d be right. Seconds after this picture was taken, that whole side flipped off and landed on the counter. Cake making is not one of my gifts. I really should have known better – but the directions looked really easy. I need to just accept this shortcoming and move on with my life.

Happy birthday, Gracie girl.

Don’t grow up too quick.

touch-a-truck

Melissa 2 Comments

Like most boys, Colin has the Truck Gene. The gene that has teeny tiny babies making noises like “VrrrrOOOOMMM!” and gives them the ability to tell the difference between a bulldozer and a crane before they can differentiate between yellow and green. So Touch-A-Truck was a thrill, to say the least.

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Born to be WILD!

treasuring him more

Melissa

Colin now goes to school on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Some days he even stays until 3.

This is very new for us. I mean, we used to be together all the time. All. The. Time. I was very ready for him to go to school.

You should see him when I walk in to pick him up. His teachers all giggle. He yells, “MOMMY!!” and runs over into my arms and kisses my cheeks three times, then hugs me, then kisses me again, then he says, “How was your day? I was worried about you without me.”

Oh, I miss him when he’s gone. Now that I have a break a few hours a week, I am appreciating him more. His silliness, his jokes, his snuggles… Being apart has been great for us. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we play cars and trains, go on outings, play outside… and I treasure every minute. Because when he goes back to school, I remember how fleeting this time is. And how quickly it is going by.

when they try – and lose

Melissa 6 Comments

Last week, Ellie announced she wanted to run for student council. She’s only in third grade, so I’m not quite sure what the student council actually does, but whatever. It would be good for her.  She was so excited. We mentioned that she might not win, and she was like, “Yeah, I know, I know. But I might win!” I so loved her optimism.

She asked me to help her prepare her speech on why she would do a good job. It was the cutest little speech about how she showed all the Six Pillars of Character her school emphasizes (Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Trustworthiness, Caring and Citizenship):

She practiced her speech over and over on Tuesday night, in front of all of us, with a big smile and very political hand gestures. (It was like she was watching political speeches with the finger pointing for emphasis.) Before bed, she prayed she would win and asked the family to pray for her too.

So, it broke my heart when she came home on Wednesday and told me she lost. She tried to act like it was no big deal, like she didn’t really care and was happy for the winners. But I found her last night in her room, sitting under her desk. Crying.

It hurts when you try for something and lose.

We’ve been telling her over and over how proud we are, how important it was that she tried, how brave she was to run.

But it still hurts.

 

 

mean

Melissa 11 Comments

Yesterday Colin came home from school and we were sitting at the table eating our lunch. He was telling me about his day at school, how he had music class and painted on an easel and played with cars. Then he said, “Mommy, some boy called me stupid.”

*insert sound of my heart breaking*

I felt so terrible. He’s only three. Stupid is not a word we use in our house. He knows its a bad thing to call someone that.
Colin said, “When he said that, it made me feel really, really sad.” Then he asked, “Am I stupid?”

“No, of course not!” I said.
“Then why did he say that?”

Three is too young to learn that sometimes people are mean. Its too young to learn that sometimes people will say things to hurt you on purpose. Its just too young to be mean.