Cee Turns Three

My, what a difference three years makes...

My baby turned three today. I'm getting used to the idea. She, however, is not. All day she has been saying, "I hate birthdays. I don't want my birthday." Aren't you supposed to wait until you're 30 to do that? Guess we're on the same page. NO MORE BIRTHDAYS!

Since I interrogated Dee last week, I figured I better give equal treatment to his littlest sis.

At three years old here are some of Cee's "favorites" (some in her words, some observed by me):

Food: "cake, broccoli, mashed potatoes", chocolate, milk, chocolate milk, anything sweet, anything on Mom or Dad's plate, soup, fruit strips
Drink: "chocolate, water", lemonade, Mommy's Shakeology shakes
Color: "blue, green", all colors
Animal: "cow", all animals
Person: "princess", Mommy, Daddy, Jeigh, (fights like crazy with Elle, but there's love there...I hope.)
Movie: "princess movie" (?)
To Sleep With: baby dolls
Wear: everything; she changes clothes ALL. DAY. LONG. Skirts, sisters' clothes, pajamas, swim suit, nothing but her underwear and maybe a pair of shoes or boots
To Do: change clothes, play with dolls, help Mommy (especially in the kitchen), cuddle, dance, take baths, be with the big kids
Song: "princess like a ballerina", "I'm Like a Star Shining 'Broccoliiiiii'", "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", lots of primary songs and Top 40 songs. She loves music and loves to be sung to every night.
Book: "Lalaloopsy book" (?)
TV show: "Lalaloopsy", Peg and Cat, Dinosaur Train, Curious George, anything on PBS
Candy: "Five candies!", Mommy's gum out of her purse, any candy
Toy: babies, clothes
Place to Eat: "Chick Fil A"
Place to Go: "Chicken nuggets!"
Best Friend: "A green girl and a yellow girl.", Bria Hospodarsky
Thing about Lucy: "Baby dolly."
Way to help Mommy: "Dirt and flowers."
Saying: "I love you!"

  
What do you want to be when you grow up?: "Green. A dolly and a yellow dolly. Nothing." She's so tender and diligent with her dolls. I can only imagine she will be a wonderful mother.
What's your favorite thing about the world?: "I like the moon."
Where do you see yourself in 5 years: "In the dark."
Where do you see yourself in 10 years: "11. And then 12, 14, 16, and 17, 20!"

Cee is such a funny little thing. She's rather bipolar. She is giving you a tight squeeze around the neck one second and screaming at you the next. She wants her blanket on and immediately wants it off. Or vise versa. She wants cheese on her sandwich and then she doesn't.

She gets so upset about the littlest things, starts throwing a fit, and gets sent to her room or even just goes there on her own. She throws her tantrum in her room for a few seconds and then comes strolling out with a big grin on her face like nothing happened. "I be a happy girl now." She talks very well and has for quite a while. Sometimes I just stand and marvel at this miniature adult that walks around our house.

She's bossy and demanding, but so loving too. She loves to cuddle and be held and with her being my little "caboose" I'm grateful for that tender mercy from heaven. She says "I love you!" more than any child I've ever heard and she is just so easy to love back.

We celebrated her birthday a little early on Sunday since Daddy had to leave for work on Monday, her true birthday. She asked for mashed potatoes and broccoli for her birthday dinner. Well, she actually asked for cake, but I convinced her we needed to eat something more substantial before the cake. (Mashed potatoes! A girl after my own heart!) So I made Chicken Cordon Bleu, mashed potatoes and gravy, and broccoli...which she didn't eat a bite of. Guess I should have just given her the cake. Pink cake of course.

The Kuglers came to help celebrate and we even had a surprise drop in from Colin and Massi and Rico (who cornered her in Dee's room, scared her to tears, and bit her.) :( She got a few dolls, a dress up dress, shoes, and bag, a puzzle, and an activity center travel case (from Kuglers).

The next day we were busy getting Joe ready to go for his business trip but we made time for a birthday lunch out. She requested Chick-Fil-A which was packed thanks to Martin Luther King, Jr.

That night was pretty anti-climatic with the departure of Daddy; we all tend to get a little forlorn when he leaves. This is when that whole "I hate birthdays!" business came up. I asked her what she wanted me to make for her real birthday dinner.

"Broccoli!"

Done and done.

Happy Birthday, my little one.

Growing Pains

There's something rather malicious about January for me. My oldest and youngest were both born in January, only a week apart. Well, they weren't born a week apart. Their birthdays are a week apart. Six years and a week apart. So every January I get to celebrate my "big baby" and my "forever baby", BAM! BAM!! Just like that.

Which is wonderful but really hard too. It just kills me how time keeps rushing on and these children keep growing. There's no stopping it. My oldest keeps forging into new big kid territory and my youngest leaves all that territory behind never to be tread again. With every milestone Dee makes we joyfully realize all those firsts. With every milestone Cee meets we realize with a painful twinge it will be for the last time.

I don't mean to sound like such a sob. I really do get rather excited, if not a tad giddy, seeing the new stage of life we are in. It's liberating and fun and exciting. But I can't help but mourn the death of our baby stage. No more positive pregnancy tests. No more flutterings in my baby bump. No more birth stories. No more new baby smell. No more first sit-up, first crawl, first steps. No more first birthdays No more second birthdays.

As the mom it's hard not to have an identity crisis. For the past ten years I have been 100% committed to baby-making, -growing, and -nurturing. Now what do I do? What is my new position, responsibilities, frame of mind?

I thought I had been handling the transition fairly gracefully until the other day. Now that my oldest two are getting old enough to be at home by themselves for small amounts of time we are getting a home phone line. We've only had cell phones for most of our marriage and since I believe that children having their own personal cell phones is outlandishly ridiculous we will be providing them with a land line to get in touch with us if we are not at home when they are.

The other day my oldest two came home from school and sat at the table where I was working on a project. Seeing this as an opportunity to present the new home phone as an exciting big kid privilege I opened my mouth to relate the good news.

I only made it through "Now that you guys are getting older..." before crumpling into tears. As I listened to myself it just hit me: They really are getting older! After nine plus years of spending nearly every waking (and sometimes not so "waking") moment with my children they are getting old enough to be left alone. They don't need me for every little thing. They are growing up. How did this happen?

My children just looked at me with confusion. I tried to laugh it off, recompose myself, and launch into my little speech again. "Now that you guys are getting older..." Now I was just laughing and crying at the same time. My son giggled awkwardly while my daughter, in her typical loving fashion, rushed to comfort me, patting my back and brushing my hair away from my face. Which only made me sob harder. Like shaking body sobs. (I'm not proud.)

In an effort to get it all out and move on already I just ended up blurting/yelling, "WHY DO YOU GUYS HAVE TO GET OLDER?! JUST STOP GROWING, OKAY?!" And then I laughed a lot, probably more maniacally than intended, just to lighten up the situation and help my kids understand they weren't truly in trouble for doing something so horrible as growing up.

Poor kids. I wonder at which therapy session they'll bring this scene up...

Finally I was able to compose myself enough to tell them about the new phone and boy are they excited! And yes, for all my psycho-ness, I'm just as excited as they are. Excited at their excitement, excited at meeting yet another "first", and yes, even excited at my own new found freedom.

Ugh. "They" warned me about the contractions and the sleepless nights and the soreness from breastfeeding and the Terrible Twos and all the pain and trials and terrible-ness. But no one ever told me how much it would hurt when all that was over and it was time to move on.

Passing On the Morning Baton and Who is the Poop Pro?

As a newlywed, I worked nights in the emergency department of our city's hospital. I loved my job! I loved my coworkers! One particular coworker was incredibly kind and generous to me and everybody else. I just couldn't understand how she did it all: worked full-time nights, went to school, mothered three little girls, and still managed to be among the living.

I asked her one day how she did it. She mentioned that her oldest was five and perfectly capable of taking care of herself while her tired mom was catching up on an hour or two of sleep. Not having any experience with children of my own yet and knowing this lady was anything but a deadbeat mom, I figured five must be the magical age a child could start taking care of themselves in such things as serving food for themselves and getting ready for the day.

Then I had a five year old...


NO WAY!

But this morning when my five year old Dee walked into my bedroom at 6:51 am asking to be fed and dressed I was compelled to conduct a little experiment. I had been up multiple times through the night with his two younger sisters and in no mood to leap from my warm bed to wait on him.

I also keep remembering (with a slight sense of horror) that in a very short three months there may be another little sister (or brother) here wreaking havoc on my night time peace and morning mentality. It was high-time to see if my co-worker friend was onto something.

"Dee, you do it."

"What???"

"You're a big boy. You go find your clothes and get dressed. Then eat breakfast and brush your teeth."

"Are you sure, Mom?"

"Positive. Now go and do."

Sounding a little unsure: "Well oooookay, Mom."

I laid in bed, refusing to open my eyes, but certainly not about to fall asleep again. Let's see listen how this goes.

In fifteen seconds he was back. "Mom, I can't find my pants."

"Then go eat breakfast first." I heard him wander back to the kitchen.

"Mom, I can't find a bowl."

"They are in the dishwasher, Dee."

"Okay."

In a few seconds I heard the clothes dryer opening. "They're not here, Mom".

"That's the clothes dryer, Dee! Check the dishwasher where the dishes usually are."

"Found one!"

Pretty soon I heard the glass tap of one bowl on the table immediately followed by the metallic tap of a spoon. Then a second glass tap and a second metallic tap. Then a third. And a fourth. Knowing full well a mess was in the making, I chose to snuggle down deeper in my blankets and leave the boy to his own devices. Besides if I hover we may never know if he can truly do this.

Soon the sound of cereal and milk could be heard. So, the boy can feed himself. Interesting.

In minutes he was back in search of pants. Knowing I had just washed every last piece of clothing in our house the day before, I informed him there was a clean dry pair in the dryer. You know, the dryer... where we keep bowls.

With eyes still clenched shut, I hear him wander back in claiming he was dressed (looks like he can dress himself too...who knew?) and wanting me to help him get his boots on.

"Go brush your teeth first". Teeth brushed. Add brushing teeth on the list of things Mommy no longer has to supervise.

Since he had brushed his own teeth I felt certain his face was in a state of disarray. No peeking yet. "Go get a washcloth and wash off your face".

"Okay Mommy...{water running}...All done!" Well that was easy.

Then he was back at my side, boots in hand. If I could have figured out a way to tie them with my eyes shut, I may have done it. Instead I opened them to see how my big five year old had done.

He looked good! And happy!


I sneaked a glance at the clock. And all done in twenty minutes?! That's got to be a record! All ready and no "Come on Dee! You need to hurry. Dee! You are going to be late! Hurry up!"

Looks like my friend was right: Five year olds are capable of taking care of themselves!

Just not the rest of the house...






Extra points to Dee for putting his bowl "in" the sink after breakfast.


And bonus points for feeding his sisters too!


Let's not forget Mommy! Extra points to Mommy for letting go and not hovering! And bonus points for having enough time to take a shower before school!

*** *** ***

Lest you thought I forgot... Are you wondering who won the diaper game? Who is The Poop Pro??


No one guessed Milky Way MIDNIGHT (the only kind of Milky Way worth human consumption...in my humble opinion), but I won't hold that against you. Many of you came close. But only one person got all four.

The person who performed with the most particular poop prowess was...Lisa from The Thomas Tribe! With two kids and one on the way, I imagine she's changed a few diapers...or eaten a few chocolate bars. Either way, CONGRATS TO LISA! Your prize will be in the mail shortly.

Thanks everybody for the "poop" play! Now, who's hungry? Maybe Dee could make my lunch too...