"That's Not Food!"

Andy boarded the kindergarten bus without a single glance backwards.  We waved pointlessly in his general direction as the bus rode off, but he was too busy beginning his new life as a big man about campus to bother to look our way.  That's it.  Armed with a bag of Teddy Grahams that I carefully pre-cut open for him (just a little snip to get you started, son) and the confidence of someone who has never truly been told no, he was completely ready to get the day going.  Later, he would act annoyed by my thousand questions, but the answers were so deeply unsatisfying that I could barely stand it. What do you mean, you didn't make any new friends?  How can you not remember what you did all day?  Did you miss me at all?  You didn't miss me AT ALL? People warned me about the first weeks of full day kindergarten.  They said: He will come home and be so very exhausted.  False.  He comes home and begs to go the playground. He will be too ...

I've had a daughter for almost eight weeks now.  As a mother of mostly sons (fully 67% of my spawn), there's been a slight learning curve to the mothering of a (very) young girl. For instance, if you put her in a ducky onesie and cover her up with a truck blankie, people are going to automatically assume you are some poor soul with three sons and treat you thusly.  "Oh, three boys!" they might remark with a better-you-than-me type smirk on their face.  That's when you have to dig around in the car seat looking for that pink bow that you just know is in there somewhere.  One must never forget the gender-defining headband bow.  "Oh no!" you'll have to reassure that nosy stranger.  "Two boys and a girl!"  And then they will go on with a suddenly genuine smile to say how spoiled that little girl is going to be, and before you know it, it's all princess this and princess that. Of course, I have called her "princess" myself.  It...

It's Andy's fifth birthday!  He swears he's grown overnight and that he knows he's taller.  Maybe he is.  I tell him he's getting bigger everyday and that one day he'll be taller than me, to which he emits a nervous laugh, as if the prospect of being bigger than mommy is rather unlikely and also quite terrifying. Today, in honor of Andy turning five, I am copying and pasting the first blog entry that I wrote after Andy was born.  It's from the blog I had before this one, which I keep buried in the unsearchable realms of the World Wide Whatnot.  I apologize in advance for my blatant usage of the phrase "lady junk." Jul 21, 2010 My baby Andy is nine days old today. I've been meaning to write a blog entry about the labor, delivery, and our first few days, but time has been getting away from me. At this rate, I'm going to be back at work before I know it. How is time going by so quickly when all we do is nap, eat, poop, and cudd...

Andy and Alex started swim lessons this week.  Andy is doing great.  There is no story about Andy and swim lessons other than how adorable he is scuttling off to the diving board to ensure that he gets to be first in line.  But, Alex, on the other hand.  Oh, Alex. One of these boys is about to get banned from the park district. I was afraid that it would be hard to get three kids out of the house in time to make our 9:10 swim lesson each day, but turns out all I had to do was just set an alarm.  Boom.  We're on time.  It's not easy to wake up at 7:00 am when you've been up every three or four hours and the baby is still fast asleep when that clock starts buzzing, but kids need to swim, and so we do it.  I haul all three of them to the park district, and Andy runs off with his class, and then there's Alex in the preschool swim group.  And to my great chagrin, he is the worst kid in the class. I'd like to think it's because he's bored,...

Alex turns three tomorrow!  He was to be my last baby, and here we are three years later with Alex already firmly planted into his position as "middle child" and our new addition, the picture perfect definition of Little Sister.  Now, if for some reason, I am writing about Emily turning three in three years and there's ANOTHER baby in that role, then let me be the first to admit that something has gone horribly, horribly wrong.  But, in this case, things are horribly right.  I mean, wonderfully right.  And Alex, since the arrival of Emily, is suddenly back to his old self.  I would like to qualify that last statement by saying that that's a good thing. Alex's behavior up until Emily's birth was awful.  Then something magical happened.  We brought home that little sister, and suddenly I feel like Alex is okay again.  He is back to being my good, sweet, albeit mischievous little boy.  Now, how does that make any sense?  Bringing hom...

And so it seems that the system starts to break down when the third child is ready to arrive.  The nurses basically leave you alone for your entire hospital stay, and not even the doctor seems to really take it seriously.  "I was in the shower when the nurse said you were ready," my own doctor said, strolling into my delivery room with wet hair. "Let's get this baby out before my conditioner needs to be rinsed." Chris was unfazed by the entire ordeal as well.  At one point, the nurse had her whole arm up my birth canal while Chris stood less than three feet away casually mixing cream and sugar into his coffee.  When Dr. Straight-From-The-Shower showed up, he stood off to the side eating a granola bar and silently doing the math on how soon we could check out of the hospital if the baby was born in the next ten minutes.   Jackie could be home in time to cook us dinner tomorrow , I heard him think. I had my elective induction.  I made it!  However, w...

Andy's preschool graduation is on Wednesday.  The director sent an email today stating that, as parents, we will look back on these preschool years with an "indescribable fondness."  I'm sure that's putting it lightly.  I can't believe Andy is almost in kindergarten, that he's flown through these first stages so quickly.  Baby, toddler, preschooler.  And now he's going to walk across that stage and leave it all behind.  I can already see his smile.  I know how proud he will be, and I know that he will wave to me in that uninhibited way of his. That's Andy, the only boy I ever hear at the park to shout his love for his mother across six yards of mulch.  That will end at some point soon, I'm sure.  And it's a good thing I can picture his smile and walk across that preschool stage in my mind, because I might miss the actual event due to the blur of tears in my eyes.  Or because I'm in labor (fingers crossed that I don't go into labor a...