Learning to Leap

I really couldn't skip it this year.  It would be irresponsible, I suppose. Well checks. You know the ones.  You take your kids in to see the doctor just to make sure everything's normal and they're growing in all the ways they should be.   Don't tell their doctor how many years of this I've kind of skipped.  Oops. In the last three weeks, I've taken all three girls and even our new puppy for their well checks. I was handed some forms to fill out with lots of questions about the girls' development, health history, and a chance to express any concerns I had for the doctor.   Right off the bat I was met with a quandary.   How honest should I really be?   Look at this list! I was supposed to circle any symptoms I was currently seeing in them or wanted to discuss with the doctor. I'm sorry, but if these are actual symptoms, then every child in the entire universe is very sick. "Irritability" ...

Remember the first time? It was magical, wasn't it?  You had anticipated it your entire life.  Imagined how it would really cement your relationship, where it would happen, and how unforgettable it would be. I bet you still remember it like it was yesterday:  the sacred moment when you first heard your child call you "Mom".   What?  Where did you think I was talking about?   Remember how you coaxed and pleaded and taught your little diaper clad child to say "Mama"?  Remember how you longed to hear that angelic little voice utter your name?  Remember how completely exhilarated it made you feel and how it was absolute music to your ears?   Actually, now that I think about it, yes, I do vaguely recall that thrill.   Nine years and three kids later, all that work I put into teaching them how to say my name has really come back to bite me.   I love it and I hate it.   For the love of all things ...

I used to find it fairly odd to see a scene like this one: Not anymore.   These days, if I see a woman with her rear end sticking out of a large trashcan and her head and arms fully immersed in filth, I hardly bat an eye.  Yep, I think to myself, she's a mom and she's on a mission. In this case, it was a Spiderman action figure her young son had accidentally dropped in the trash.  I'm sorry to say he could not be retrieved.  It was a sad moment for superheroes everywhere.   If you've a mom, you've likely spent some time dumpster diving.  I never really thought I'd be the kind of person who literally digs through the trash of others, and yet, after nine years of motherhood, I'm learning that I never really thought I'd do a lot of things which I do quite regularly .  This happened to me most recently at Costco a couple weeks ago.  Joyfully full on samples, my daughter went to a trashcan to throw away her trash.  Moments late...

I will never forget that night. Now, I am keeping it in perspective and remembering that Hank was, after all, a pet.  He was not my child and our sorrow could have been immeasurably greater.  But we are still sad.   Looking back, I can see God's hand of providence on us that night.  He was protecting our family and providing for our needs in ways I didn't realize until later. Michael has been out of town most of this week.  It is an unspoken law of the universe that terrible things happen mostly when daddies are out of town.  We have a bit of a track record for bad things happening when he's traveling.  Plumbing problems, stitches, behavior issues, etc.   I'd brought the girls home from the ball field that night.  Reluctantly, because it was a school night, I'd allowed Olivia to stay with our neighbors during their son's baseball game.  She wouldn't arrive home til 9:15pm.  This meant she was not home when it happen...

Motherhood tends to change your perspective on a whole lotta things. One of these is my view of exercise.   Before I joined the honorable and blessed estate of motherhood, I used to think of exercise as a chore.  I look back upon those days of my newlywed bliss and remember with regret all the perfectly beautiful moments I let slip thru my grasp where I could've been at the gym or outside running or on a treadmill or watching an exercise video or SOMETHING!  This also had something to do with the fact that I was in my early twenties and my metabolism and I got along just fine.   Today Mr. Metabolism and I are NOT BFFS.  At all.  I hate him, actually.   Once you become a mother, the way you view exercise changes.  It's no longer a chore in my eyes.  It's ME time.  Freedom.  So I may be about to pass out from exhaustion and my aging joints may be screaming for me to stop, but when I am exercising, I am an independent ...

Her screams could be heard halfway across the store. Walking by, I heard her mother say, "No!  We are not going BACK to the bathroom!  We're not going to spend all our time at the store in the bathroom." The screaming resumed with even greater intensity. "But I want to!  I have to go!  I HAVE TO GO!!!" I sped up my pace, not wanting my own child to be reminded that Target actually has a restroom. What IS it with kids and public bathrooms? Between the ages of 3 and 8, public restrooms are the mecca of their religion or something.  Their Holy Land.  A place of wonders and beauty indescribable.   For real.  I have spent approximately 68 hours waiting on my youngest child to finish up in the bathroom.  And that's just this summer. It typically goes something like this: 1. choose a stall and after several attempts, figure out how the lock works 2. change your mind and struggle with figuring out how to UN...

*Sadly (for you, NOT me), I have no photographic proof of the incident I describe in this post.  So instead, I have scattered various pictures from the trip throughout the blog.  But trust me, I could never make up something this ridiculous and embarrassing to get myself into.  Every word is true.* I will be FUN. I will be spontaneous and step out of my box. These were the dangerous promises I made to myself and my husband as we began our kid-free cruise last week (Which, by the way, was fantastic.  The kids even started speaking to us again after a couple days when we returned.  Totally worth it.). Those who know me can attest to the fact that I can tend to be slightly reserved.   Okay, I'll just be honest.  I am pretty boring.  I'm not exactly what you'd call a wallflower though, either.  I love to be with friends and I'm not shy.  I'm just not the person who's going to be the life of the party.  I'm pretty h...

The other day a friend and her kids were over to play.   Her youngest, a beautiful and very happy little two-year-old girl, has some hearing loss. In order to help, her mother wears this very cool little "FM transmitter" thingy around her neck, which is connected to her daughter's adorable pink hearing aids.  Whenever my friend speaks, it's as if she's right there with her daughter even if they're not in the same room.  It's pretty amazing, actually. Of course, this can prove to be messy when my friend forgets to turn it off and MAY say some things a two-year-old really should not hear when her daughter is not in the room.   That's a pretty funny story, actually, but I'll save it for another time (and maybe get permission before telling it since I'd prefer to keep her as my friend). This got me thinking. I have an entrepreneurial business idea for mothers of young children.   "Mama Surround Sound" I am...

I would classify this one in the "things nobody tells you about motherhood" category. Once you're a mom, you will never, for the duration of your remaining years in this life, take a trip without your children WITHOUT enormous guilt.   Case in point: at this very moment I am seated in an airport terminal awaiting a flight to Orlando for my first EVER cruise.  My husband is sitting next to me.  We are totally excited for a seven night Caribbean cruise in the crystal clear waters of tropical locations.  It's going to be great! But in order to get to this point, we had to endure heavy attack.   Our oldest daughter, who is unfortunately mature enough to understand how long one week is, was crying 14 hours before we even dropped them off with their grandparents.  This lasted off and on the entire day.   To make it even worse, we are missing not one, but TWO of our three daughters' birthdays in order to go on this trip.   Our ba...

I want you to remember this face.  Doesn't she look happy? I should've seen it coming. After all, I've been a mother for nearly a decade and am fairly familiar with the behavioral patterns of and triggers for each of my children. But it just sounded like so much good, old-fashioned, American fun that I couldn't possibly pass it up.   You see, we spent a lovely 4th of July with my sister and her family out of town. There are few things more fantastic in the eyes of my children than hanging out with their super cool cousins. The guys had a 7:10AM tee time for a round of golf the morning of the 4th (and incidentally, I was corrected today that they did not play a "game" of gold, but rather a "round" of golf.  This is very important.) Anyway, this left my sister and me in charge of the kiddos and in need of something fun to do with them. We were in luck!   A 4th of July Parade?!  Fantastic!  SO cute and ...