Riley

So, yes, I know I slacked way off with blogging. I said I was going to try for every other week or so and here it's been, well, a lot longer than two weeks. But hey, life gets away from us all. I guess I need to not make blanket statements like I'm going to blog every two weeks or I'm going to mop every Wednesday. Things just don't seem to happen that way, no matter what my intention is. Today, though I want to devote a blog to my lovely Riley-girl.

Riley is turning nine years old on Monday. She has grown so much, and I do mean grown...

I give you exhibit A

And exhibit B

See, I told you she had grown a lot. :) You hear all the time you are growing up and even as a young adult, about how fast time goes by. I remember when I was a kid thinking that my body clock must be off or something because time did not go by fast for me. Christmas always took forever to arrive and then time just d r u g by till summer break. Summer break itself felt never ending and idyllic. But then something must have happened to that faulty body clock of mine and pregnancy was apparently the trigger. All of a sudden, I went from days moving at a normal, easy-to-handle pace to the days flashing by so quickly I hardly had time to live through them! I seriously just found out I was pregnant for the first time, and now that child I conceived is NINE?!? And I have two other children too? Really?

Anyway, I wanted to actually talk about Riley, not the passage of time. :) I always thought girls would be easier to raise than boys would be. I mean I am a girl, so surely relating to another girl who is also the fruit of my own body would be a cinch. I, myself, was an easy girl to raise... *buffs nails against shirt* (and no contradictions from anyone who might know any different, let me live with my illusions) so surely my own daughter would be like me. Ha, yeah, that's not how things have worked out. I've now come to realize that I don't have to be a boy for them to be easy to relate to, at least at the stage my boys are at. I know there is every chance that they will pull a big switcheroo on me when they hit their teens and suddenly Riley will be the one I understand and can relate to and the boys will be mysterious aliens who happen to live in my house. But right now, the boys are easy to understand and predictable in their reactions to things.

Ok, so I don't really feel like Riley is a mysterious alien, but she very much did NOT inherit my personality, or even Paul's. She is full of emotion and drama and the illogic that kids (and some adults) can have. (I'm sure I also was illogical as a child but I don't remember that time so it doesn't count.) I love every part of her personality, even the parts that she is going to need to work on adjusting so she can survive as an adult, but, so here's my problem with that. She is only nine. Yes, I was just going on about how fast nine years went by, but really, that is still just a kid. Not even a tween or a preteen or anything like that, just a little girl. (I guess she's pushing the tween age, but she isn't there yet.) But my little girl is not little. She reaches my chin now. She is just very tall! She can't help that, but her size does make me sometimes think of her as being older than she is. That is my struggle and I fight it and try to remember that she isn't a teenager yet and can't be asked to be any more responsible or to act like anything except a child. It is a daily battle for me though.

One of my greatest desires is to have the kind of relationship with Riley that I had with my mom (only in reverse of course). I worry sometimes that we won't be able to develop that kind of bond because she is so different in the way she thinks about things and reacts to things. But my prayer is that our differences will just bring us closer together. Right now we are still very much in the role of parent/child where a lot of our relationship is still a mixture of instruction, discipline, encouragement and snuggles that kids need. But the time will come when she will begin to use that instruction and discipline she is receiving now to start making her own decisions and build her life experiences as she matures and is ready to begin making those steps. And that is when I hope our relationship will be able to change to more that of confidante and mentor with still some of that other stuff in there when necessary.

So I want to share a little bit about Riley right now, for her sake so that if she ever reads this blog someday, she'll know what she was like at this age and what I thought about her.

1. She is a sweet mixture of reserve and friendliness. She has a side to her that is nervous to talk to people she doesn't know or who she is seeing in an unusual setting (like seeing a friend from school at Wal-Mart). We are working on reassuring her that feeling uncomfortable in those situations is understandable but she needs to make sure she doesn't let that discomfort stop her from being friendly to others. She is doing a great job of making an effort with that. A new girl has moved into the neighborhood and started riding the bus with Riley and Jake. She even gets on and off at the same stop. She is Riley's age and everything. I told Riley to be sure and be friendly. After the first day, where all she did was smile at her, and the second day when she smiled and said hi, today, the third day for the girl to be at their stop, I watched as she and the other girl talked at the corner while waiting for the bus, and even lingered behind while the others got on as they talked together. I was so proud of her for reaching out to someone in compassion and in a gesture of friendship even when I knew she was nervous about doing it.

2. This little (big?) nine year old can draw like nobody's business. She is decent with things she is just drawing from her imagination, but you give her a picture to copy and she is really good at it. Especially people. She likes books from the library that have the cartoonish like set up (i.e. Diary of a Wimpy Kid but some are more elaborate with their drawings) and she'll copy some of the pictures from the book with more success than a lot of adults could probably do.

3. She is in the highest reading group in her grade. Riley loves to read and has recently discovered the Little House on the Prairie books, which is think is pretty cool. If she enjoys those a lot, I'm going to get her going on the Anne of Green Gables books. She has definitely taken after me with her love of reading and with her speed with it as well. She got one of the Spiderwick Chronicles books once and read it in a day. Speedy.

4. Riley is definitely moving out of the little girl stage of playing with dolls and toys (that I didn't feel like lasted very long) and wants to do bigger kid things like have a phone and a TV, but she also still does play with toys on occasion. She particularly likes these little miniature dolls that she will play with for quite awhile.

5. She is a wonderful big sister. Riley and Jake play so well together, with a minimal amount of bickering. With all of her tendency to want to act older, she really loves playing with her little brother who is still completely into toys. I've seen them play Barbies, G.I. Joes and all kinds of pretend games with each other. The two of them have their moments of getting on each other's nerves, but when I really think about it, that's not hugely common. She is great with Tyler too, but treats him more like she's his other mom than like a sister who wants to play with him. There are six years between them so that's not very surprising. I am glad that Jake has Tyler coming up to an age here where they will be able to really play together because he will miss Riley when she loses interest in playing like she does now.

There are many other things I could write about my beautiful, sensitive and imaginative daughter, but I'm going to stop there. She is a huge blessing to us and the thing I am the most thankful for about her is her tender heart to God. She was almost six years old when she accepted Jesus as her Savior and my thankfulness over that is so huge. But since then she is very open to correction in order to live more for the Lord. My prayer for her is that she will deepen her relationship with God as she grows and that she will believe in herself and in the power of Christ in her to do anything that she puts her mind to or that God puts on her heart to do. Happy birthday Riley! I love you, sweetie!

The Musings of a Former Dog Owner

Well, it didn't take me long to slack off on that whole "I'm going to write in this at least every two weeks" thing. But at least I didn't go months and months this time either.

Life has been somewhat hectic these past several weeks. Many things have happened, such as:

• We got a dog
• The dog bit Riley
• We gave the dog back
• The kids started school
• Tyler has begun potty training again
• Paul has begun studying for his next CPA exam

And more things will be happening in the near future, such as:

• I will get two of my wisdom teeth removed
• We will celebrate our 11th anniversary
• We will go out on a date this weekend because the oral surgery will interfere with the weekend of our actual anniversary
• Paul's parents will be visiting

I could go on into the rest of the year but I'm sure you get the drift by now. I'll elaborate on the dog fiasco and the kids starting school today though so that those things don't get overlooked.

So, we got a dog...yeah, never thought that would actually happen. It's my fault mostly. My cousin, who goes to our church, recently got a dog off of craigslist and for some reason (probably boredom) I decided a few weeks ago to look at dogs on craigslist just to see what was out there. My kids, especially Riley, regularly beg for a pet, and most recently have focused on a dog as the pet of choice. It started out as a cat, but became a dog when my parents got dogs. I have been known in the past to look with smug superiority out of the window during the winter and watch a neighbor walk by bundled to their eyebrows, taking their dog on a walk. Or watched as a neighbor stood shivering in their backyard as their dog used the outdoors for their own personal toilet. And I shook my head and declared that I would NEVER want a dog, especially not in a place where winter is actually cold. Other times, Paul and I would say to each other that if we ever did get a dog it would have to be an indoor one that was already potty trained or no way would we get one. No puppies for us, thankyouverymuch.

So, in my safe little bubble of dog-free land, I looked on craigslist at the cute canines that other people are trying to shove out of their homes. Now I admit to being a person who isn't a huge animal lover (I mean I love them from a distance but have never craved an animal of my own. That's what I had kids for.) but I am also a person who thinks dogs are cuter and have nicer personalities than cats. However, cats come with their own indoor toilet (or you provide them with one anyway) and a built in instinct to go to the bathroom there, AND they come with a lack of desire for regular exercise that doesn't involve chasing a disembodied laser light or a piece of string around. Put a cat on a leash and try to take it for a walk, and in most cases I bet you are going to regret it. So while dogs are cuter and more fun to be around, cats are lower maintenance. So I always figured that when the day came that we would get a pet, it would be a cat. I wasn't counting on my husband paying quite so much attention to what I was rambling about when I talked about my day during those days when I was looking at dogs on craigslist. I figured he was just listening politely but not really retaining what I was saying, but apparently not because not many days into my craigslist viewing enterprise, Paul took Jake out one Saturday and they ended up in Petsmart parking lot on adoption day looking at a cute little dachshund named Turbo. Jake is our kid who we have thought would benefit from having a dog because he has been scared of them. This little dog and Jake did well together walking around the parking lot and Paul suddenly decided that if we were going to get a dog, this breed would probably do well for our family, with it being a smaller dog who doesn't have a ton of fur to shed off and wouldn't need miles of walking to burn off excess energy. So he came home talking about this dog and all of a sudden, all of our reasons for not wanting a dog were forgotten. I took Riley and Jake back to Petsmart and we arrived just in time to see Turbo being adopted by a nice young couple. Oh crushing disappointment! Honestly even Paul and I had gotten caught up in the excitement and were disappointed at the loss of this dog. So I continued looking for dogs on craigslist hoping to find another dachshund that we could adopt who was already potty trained and wasn't going to bark our house down. A few days later, I hit pay dirt. A five year old dachshund named Popcorn was available not far away. So we went to visit him. I had, by this point, begun to come to my senses and started thinking "Do I really want a dog? Really?" I recognized the fact that I was going to be the one taking care of it the most, especially when school started again, but after meeting him and seeing how well he did with our kids, he didn't bark at us at all, he loved Tyler and let him poke around on his face even from that first meeting, I just couldn't say no. I thought hey, even I had a dog when I was a kid. I mean, they were all family dogs and never lasted longer than it took for them to grow out of the cute puppy stage (not that we killed them, we just gave them to someone else), and they were all outdoor dogs but, we had them nonetheless. Could I really in good conscience deny my own children the opportunity to experience having a dog of their own? At that point I couldn't do that.

So we went home that night with a little wiener dog whose name quickly changed from Popcorn to Big Poppy to Oscar. I know, quite the little name revolution. But Paul was worried about his (the dog's, that is) street cred with the other dogs in the neighborhood if we called him Poppy. And I, for some reason, stumbled over the name Popcorn too much to call him that. I love popcorn the snack, but that name for my dog just wasn't going to work. Anyway, things started out well, with few barking outbreaks (only when visitors actually were visible in the doorway) and only one initial accident in the house. But other inside accidents were discovered over the course of the next several days and by the end of the first week we had also discovered another quite nasty tendency. He felt the need to guard himself and his territory when he was under a piece of furniture or in a small space of some kind. If you tried to touch him when he was in those places, you better watch out or you might pull back a stump. In fact, he did make actual biting contact with Riley the very first time we discovered this about him. He didn't even break the skin of her finger enough to make it bleed, but man, a dog bite like that is a huge trauma. I'm pretty sure that the whole thing upset me more than it did her. After she got over the initial shock, she was back to loving the dog and never wanting to let him go. I was ready to kick him out the front door and say good riddance.

But we decided (or at least Paul convinced me) to give him another chance. He was still very new to our house, we were still working to establish "pack leadership" over him (did you know that you have to establish yourself as your dogs pack leader or else they are very hyper, barky (especially little dogs) and won't respect your personal space? Yeah, that's another thing you don't have to do with cats...I'm just sayin). The whole biting thing could have been a fluke right? I mean, the kids had been following him around for quite awhile that day. Maybe he just needed some space. But we had two more occurrences of that kind of behavior (directed at me this time) though no contact was made. I started getting pretty nervous. I was nervous around the dog himself, never really knowing for sure if something was going to upset him, but I was also very nervous when Tyler would be around him. And there was no way for me to warn Tyler to stay away from the dog when he is under the bed or under the desk or something like that. Tyler doesn't get that yet and my big fear was that he would decide he needed to pet the dog in one of those circumstances and then we would have a trip to the hospital for stitches on our hands, plus a possible trial or whatever for animal abuse for me for killing the dog. In the midst of all of that, I was finding more and more suspicious yellow spots on our carpet. It went from accidents that he was doing while we weren't in the room every two or three days to every day. I'm sure that with some work we could have stopped that, but by that point I just couldn't do it. I no longer even wanted to be inside my house. The dog was really stressing me out. And after his last time to lash out at me, Paul said enough is enough and we returned him to his previous owner.

The kids handled that surprisingly well. Jake had liked the dog a lot, even with his aggressive issue so we felt like he was in a healthier place dog-wise. Riley was very sad the day we got rid of him, but that was this past Friday and I've not heard her mention him more than three times since then. School is providing her with a good distraction but I think too that she was starting to realize how much work she was actually going to have to put in to this dog. When she was home, she was the one who had to take him out to potty or to go for his evening walk or to brush him or any number of other things that came up with him. So the lack of work involved in a cat is starting to be pretty appealing to her. And she likes cats too so it wasn't a matter of her not wanting one of those and really wanting a dog. She doesn't seem to care much either way unless we have the pet in our house at that very moment.

So our doggy saga came to an end and we are wiser for it. No more dogs for us, at least not until I am working outside the house and the kids really are old enough to be responsible for the dog without reminders from us. We've told Riley that a cat is on our horizon but probably not until Tyler is old enough to handle a kitten without fear of him hurting it. We figure a kitten would be best so we can avoid the unknown past that an older animal in a shelter has hanging over it. Plus if a kitten is raised properly from birth, they'll already know how to use the litter box so no major worries on that front.

Now I don't feel like going into the beginning of the school year. The dog thing overlapped the start of school slightly so I'm just being chronological by starting there. I'll follow up with the start of school later this week.

Where Has All My Motivation Gone

We have thankfully entered our uneventful time of the summer now so not much has been happening at my house. But I'm determined that if I'm going to have a blog that I'm going to write in it somewhat regularly so in the spirit of doing that, I'll write about what my mind has been on lately.

It seems to be a theme I'm seeing a lot here lately from other people I know: weight loss. Yes, yes, that again. If you aren't thinking about it yourself, I bet you know someone who is. I "successfully" managed to gain a whopping 78 pounds from the time I got pregnant with my first child until after the birth of my third. Yikes! B.C. (that's Before Children) I didn't worry much over my weight. I wasn't skinny by any means but I was at a healthy weight for my height and bone structure. That's not to say I didn't have moments back in my thin days when I didn't wish away what I considered my "thunder thighs" or my slight pooch in my belly. I look back at my thin self and think "Why in the heck didn't you get on a treadmill or something a few times a week? That would have firmed up those jiggly thighs (which I realize now were trim and nice) and maybe we wouldn't be in the position we are currently in!" But, that's another conversation for me and my thin counterpart.

In between babies, I would lose some weight and then regain, you know the cycle I'm sure. After Tyler's birth and when I realized just how high my weight had gotten, I decided something must be done. So we bought an elliptical and I started making a much more concerted effort toward losing weight. This time I hoped to actually lose and keep off the weight I had gained over the years since our intention is to not have anymore children. I actually did really well. I simply took control over my eating instead of doing that without thinking and I exercised every weekday. I ended up losing 30 pounds! I was beyond thrilled. And then...Christmas came. The season of holly and candy canes, of wreaths and sugar cookies, of nativities and fudge, of turkey and pie. I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. I just can't in good conscience deny myself the treats of the holiday season. I know, my conscience should be screaming "STEP AWAY FROM THE COOKIES!" but hey, apparently at that time of year my stomach and my conscience battle it out and my conscience is left to limp away and lick it's wounds until after the new year. Anyway, it probably wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for the fact that I let the exercising slip during the week that my husband was off work over Christmas. Getting back into that after the season was over became such a challenge, not to mention the fact that my conscience apparently went into rehab or something for its injuries because my eating never really got back under control, which resulted in my weight loss, which had become a weight maintain before Christmas hit, gradually reversing itself until before I knew it, I had gained back 20 pounds! Yes, I'm ashamed to admit that, actually. I had lost so much and then to gain most of it back was very discouraging. And once that had happened, it was so difficult for me to start trying again because I was now so down on myself over it all.

I was able to restart my workouts to an extent by changing the time I did them to early morning. When I did that, during the school year, I really liked how it worked out. But it seemed like every time I would get on a good groove with my exercising, I would get sick or the kids would get sick or something would happen that would disrupt my routine, making it either impossible to exercise or giving me really good excuses for skipping it. When summer hit, I decided that I was going to really get back into things and one way I would try to make that happen was to walk outside instead of on the elliptical. I hoped that changing the scenery a little would help motivate me to get out there. But June was just a crazy month for us with sports camp for Riley that started earlier in the day than we were used to being ready by, even during the school year, following immediately by our vacation to Disney World, which was followed by a visit from my sister and then a quick trip to Pennsylvania for a family reunion. Once we were back from all of that, I then had the excuse that I was so tired from everything we had been doing, I deserved a week of not worrying about it. Thankfully during all those times (at least the times we were home) I had my mom, who is trying to get back into an exercise routine, and who is walking outside early in the mornings three days a week to motivate me to get out there even if it wasn't every day. So I've still been walking some, but on the days that she and I don't have plans to meet up and walk, I am still having a terrible time getting myself to get up and exercise. Not having anything pressing to do in the mornings, like get the kids off to school, makes it very hard for me to get out of bed until I absolutely have to.

There are two things that I think are really going to help me with all of this though. One thing is school restarting in a few weeks. When I know I'm going to have to get up and get the kids going, I won't be as likely to put off exercising (I hope). Also I have discovered this website that seems to be pretty popular right now called myfitnesspal.com. It counts calories for you and has a huge database of food for you to enter into a daily food diary to keep track of those calories. I've never been huge on counting calories on my own but when I saw the site I decided to just use it as a food diary. I had really liked that about Weight Watchers when I used that years ago because I felt like I was less likely to eat something when I wasn't actually hungry when I knew I would be writing that thing down later. It just gave me some good accountability. And that is what I wanted to use myfitnesspal for as well. I wasn't going to worry about the calories. But it didn't take me very many days of using it for me to start getting in to keeping my calorie number from turning red. And since I started using that tool about two weeks ago, I've lost some weight. It's either one or three pounds depending on how you look at it. I ended up gaining a couple of pounds after my first weigh in entry when I joined the site and I've now lost three pounds from that higher weight. But I didn't enter the higher weight in to the site (I refused on principle) so the site only shows that I've lost one pound. But I know the truth, sad though it may be, and now you do too. Don't tell myfitnesspal though.

So I hope to continue walking with my mom three days a week until it gets too dark at that time of morning for us to be comfortable walking then, and I do want to use my elliptical the other two days of the week if I can roll myself out of bed. But my hope is that it'll fall into place easier for me after school starts. At this point if I can just lose the weight I had gained back before the upcoming holiday season, I would be thrilled with that. I feel for all of you out there who are in the same boat I am in. I just hope this boat doesn't sink before we can all lose some of our weight!

Disney Adventures

So I figured I better write about our trip to Disney World before I start forgetting details about it! It's been such an exhausting month that the forgetting of details will probably start happening soon because there was just too much going on for me to remember it all.

The drive down went fine. The kids did really well with such a long (16 hours) drive. The promise of Disney kept the older two going, not to mention the snacks and portable DVD players.

We stayed at the Coronado Springs Resort on Disney property. It is really beautiful and we highly recommend it as a place to stay for anyone going to Disney. When we booked our trip, we did so through a special offer we had received through email to get their Quick Service dining plan for free. After the trip, we would be willing to pay for it to get it now that we have experienced how it works and seen how much food costs at Disney World. Very expensive. But the dining plan, while not cheap, does save money and it just makes your time there so much more relaxed. We didn't spend every meal trying to get the cheapest thing on the menu or sharing food or insisting the kids wait for a snack till we got to our hotel room. The plan included two meals and two snacks per person per day (except Tyler since he is under 3). At the end of our trip, we still had over 20 snacks left on our plan! And that wasn't because we had been frugal with them either! When we were hungry we got snacks. By the next to the last day we had realized we still had a lot left and at that point we started practically making the kids have snacks! But thankfully, they had a lot of packaged candy and snacks like rice crispy treats that are all sealed up that could be bought as a snack on the meal plan so before we left the park on our last day, we let the kids pick out candy and used up the last snacks we had left that way. They still have some of that candy left, by the way!

So while we were there we visited all four parks and were able to go to Epcot and the Magic Kingdom twice each. Mine and Paul's favorite park has always been Epcot but going with kids made the Magic Kingdom more fun than I had remembered (not that it hadn't been fun before, just not to the level it was this time). Riley was tall enough to ride every ride and before we went, she wanted to ride them all. She ended up riding all but one - the Rockin' Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith at the Hollywood Studios. That is one of my all time favorite roller coasters. She got in line with Paul to ride it but at the last minute changed her mind. Paul and I both took turns riding it though. It's still as awesome as it was the first time I rode it. It would have been even better if there hadn't been a lady on the ride as I was getting close to the front of the line who suddenly decided she was claustrophobic AFTER they had put the shoulder harness bar down and locked it into place. The workers had to call in two ride mechanics to shut it down just enough to get her out but not shut the whole ride down for hours. So that was quite an adventure for me. While I was witnessing all of that (where I stood in line I was able to see and hear the woman and all the workers as they dealt with that) Paul had taken the kids to another area of the park and got them some ice cream.

Part of Riley's fear of the Rockin' Roller Coaster may have been because she had just gotten off of Hollywood Tower of Terror with me, where she got totally freaked out. I love rides that drop like that but I think the set up of the ride (they do this whole Twilight Zone story before you get dropped and it was very spooky) may have made it all too much for her.

We took the kids to meet the characters while we were at Epcot too and that was really fun. Tyler was totally convinced they were real and was just enthralled by them. Riley got all of their autographs. We also saw Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, the Stepmother and Stepsisters from Cinderella and her Fairy Godmother all just in different spots around the parks and sometimes walking through the park. That was really cool, though we were never able to get pictures with any of them.

Our least favorite park was the Animal Kingdom. It's not that it isn't fun, but it's more that there just isn't a ton to do there and what there is to do isn't hugely special. It's also very hot there because of the even more tropical feel to the air because of all the trees they have there. It makes it even more humid than Florida is on it's own. We liked it ok but did agree that if we are able to go back to Disney World in the future, we probably will skip the Animal Kingdom and maybe do one of their water parks instead.

Our last day was quite an adventure too. We went to the Magic Kingdom one more time that day, with the plan to leave the park mid to late afternoon and start driving in the direction of home. We then would stop hopefully just inside Georgia and get a hotel room and then drive the rest of the way home on Saturday. All of that went just fine but when we went to leave the Magic Kingdom, we first stopped for a few souvenirs and that candy I mentioned before. While we were in the candy store, it started raining. Well I had planned ahead for just such an occurance since we were headed to Florida where it's not unusual for there to be rain showers every afternoon. I had brought ponchos for everyone. We had already used them once earlier in the week and at that point I had discovered that Tyler won't wear one so the other two kids and I put ours on, Paul used his to cover all our goodies in the back of the stroller and we put the sun canopy up over Tyler in hopes that would give him some protection. We weren't too far from the exit of the park so we set out to catch the Monorail to the parking area where our car was. By the time we got to the exit gates of the park, the rain was coming down in torrents. Paul started running to get to the Monorail station. Riley was running to keep up with him and Jake and I were running too but Jake was just too slow to keep up. He started hesitating, I think because with the hood up and with as heavy as the rain was he wasn't sure where to go. I had stayed just behind him to make sure I knew where he was so I just scooped him up and kept trying to run. My hood ended up falling off and that was when I realized just how heavy the rain was. When it's coming down hard enough to almost wash your contacts out of your eyes you know it's raining hard. I tried to at least keep up a jog but hey, when you are carrying a five year old, plus your own extra blubber, running isn't exactly a long distance option. Not to mention the ramp up to the Monorail station is quite an incline. So I ended up walking up it through the heavy rain till I got to where Paul was. Poor Paul and Tyler were drenched. My head was soaked from my hood falling off. But Riley and Jake were fairly dry, though a little shook up from the experience. We ended up stopping at a gas station on the way out of the park to change our clothes.

We really had a ton of fun and the rain thing at the end didn't change that at all. Since it only rained one other time while we were there I think it was a due a good hard downpour. The kids seemed to have a lot of fun going by how they talk about it now. Riley did great and had a blast the whole time. Jake is more of a homebody and did more complaining, plus couldn't step into sunlight without sunglasses on his face without having a small breakdown. But we were expecting this trip to have an element of work for us and not just fun every minute. That is a drawback of bringing very young kids to a place like that I think. But it was worth it for them to have the memories they have now. I don't think Jake will look back and only remember how bright the sun was. I think he'll remember riding his first bigger roller coaster (Big Thunder Mountain Railroad) and riding the race car ride with his Daddy. Tyler won't have any memories really of the trip but he'll have the pictures of himself there. Plus he was free so him not remembering doesn't bother us as much since we didn't have to pay for him to get in. :)

The Strong One

I know we just got back from Disney World and you might be expecting a post about that. I do plan to write about our trip, hopefully later this week or early next week but while we were gone Father's Day came so first I wanted to do a post related to that.

The thing that sparked my thoughts for this post actually happened on our trip. Due to various circumstances (all planned) we spent our last night away from home in a hotel in Georgia and found ourselves in the position of having to get Tyler to go to sleep on a bed with us in it. The plan was that we would get him to sleep on our bed and then move him to the bed the other two kids were on. (He had spent all the other nights of our trip in a Pack 'N Play.) Once we were ready for the kids to go to sleep and the older two were settled in, I laid down on our bed with Tyler and had my arm around him in an effort to get him to go to sleep. He fought and cried and wrestled with me and just in general did not want to lay there and go to sleep. He was pretty strung out anyway from being in the car for a few hours and finally being free again but it was late so I knew he was tired too. He started asking for his daddy who was sitting at the foot of the bed watching ESPN (quietly). After listening to me struggle with Tyler for a few minutes and hearing him asking for daddy, Paul told me to let him try holding him. So he scooted to the head of the bed and took Tyler onto his lap. Tyler instantly lay his head down on Paul's chest and sat perfectly still. He in fact sat there with very little squirming and no fighting to get up at all until he fell asleep.

As I lay on the bed next to them, I watched and thought about how often this happens. It might not be these exact circumstances where Paul is required to get a child to go to sleep but how often do we just need him, for anything from killing bugs to feeling safe during a storm to making a decision about buying a house or a car or even what to have for dinner. You wouldn't look at my husband and think of a body builder. He doesn't have massive, bulging muscles. But if his inner strength was visible he could compete in any body building competition. (I'm sure he'll enjoy this analogy.) When Momma's arms don't feel safe enough to climb into, my kids can turn to their daddy and he is there, ready and waiting to share his strength with them. When I don't know how to handle a situation with discipline with our kids or with a conflict our child has with a friend, I don't fret and worry and wonder what to do (not much anyway). My first action is to talk to Paul. His ideas and advice are usually what ends up turning into our actions on any given issue in our home.

As I thought of those things I had to wonder if he ever thinks about how much we depend on him. If he does, it never shows. He never acts tired of me coming to him with a problem and never turns our kids away when they need him because he is too tired or too stressed from dealing with the other responsibilities he has. It seems to come fairly easily to him to be there and ready to handle any problem, lift any box, soothe any child to sleep.

I've always thought how strong moms have to be, how flexible and full of ideas to get through any shopping trip or rainy afternoon, and to keep up with housework while shuttling kids to and from activities. But the strength that a dad must have is really so much greater. They have the weight of the family's finances, especially if the mom stays home, they have the final decisions to make and everyone looking to him for direction. Our day is never complete till Daddy walks in the door. The kids are used to him being gone all day but a question I hear repeatedly, without fail, every day is some variation of "When is Daddy coming home?" I am thankful every day that God gave me a husband who's heart is for Him and our family, that his strength is great and founded in the Lord.

Camp: This Mother's Emotional Roller Coaster

This week Riley is attending an All-Sports day camp put on by our school district. It's basically just five days of different sports. We thought it would be a great chance for her to play sports that she doesn't really know if she would like or not rather than putting her in a league that we then would pay for and risk her ending up hating it after a week. It's turning out to be exactly what we hoped for with some kickball and dodgeball thrown in there. I'm a little confused as to why they would be doing those sports since they seem more like a gym class type of game and not really a "sport" that schools compete in. They are also playing softball, tennis, basketball, soccer, volleyball and lacrosse though so I'll excuse them a little dodgeball now and then. I don't think they are playing it every day.

This is her first activity of this nature (other than school) where we take her and leave her there and she does her thing. Her other extra-curricular activities she had done in the past (piano and soccer) we have gone and stayed with her through the practices and lessons. The camp is bigger than I was imagining although that was my own fault since I knew the facts behind it. It is for students in 2nd through 6th grades and it is for all the schools in our district. There are five (maybe six if I'm forgetting one) elementary schools in our district if that gives you an idea of how many kids we are talking about here. They meet at one of the middle schools so every morning this week she has to be there at 8am. I wasn't really sure what to expect yesterday when I took her for the first time, if the coaches and counselors would all be standing outside in a playing field or if they would go inside the building or what. I had intended to do a drive by the school over the weekend so I would be sure I knew where I was going but that didn't end up working out so we went on Monday not really knowing how it would play out. Turned out that they all meet in one of the gyms inside the building first. She was going to be issued a locker there and had to bring some sports equipment and things like that. So I walked her in, following the flow of other parents walking in with kids carrying sporting equipment and made our way to the correct gym (apparently there are two and the other one is occupied with band camp this week as well). There were a decent number of kids going in at that time but not an overwhelming number. When we got to the correct gym, however, I was really surprised how many kids were in there. She was directed to sit with the other 2nd grade girls and went to them without looking back but I knew how nervous she was about her first day so I wasn't sure if she wanted me to leave or not. I went to tell her goodbye just so she would know I was going and when I did leave it was so hard for me! She looked so uncertain going in but there was nothing I could do to make that better or easier for her except to encourage her to go on and get in there. She wasn't sure if she would even know any of the girls who were there.

She ended up having a blast yesterday and did know two of the girls who also attend the elementary school she does. She made friends with another girl who goes to a different school as well. But again today when I took her, she wanted us to walk in with her again, even though she is allowed to walk in alone if she wants to but once we hit the door of the gym, I asked her if she wanted me to walk her all the way in and she said no. I guess I am now the embarrassing mom who won't leave her kid. She went on in alone and I watched through the windows in the door as she went through the short tunnel that the bleachers form around the doorway and it was hard again not to follow her and make sure she found her way to friendly faces. Because she is in the youngest grade for the camp, the majority of the campers are older and bigger than her and I don't normally see her in groups like that with a lot of kids who are bigger than she is. She is so tall that when she is around her classmates, she is pretty much always the tallest one there. Seeing her moving through so many bigger kids, hesitating behind them because she wasn't prepared to push her way through, was so hard to watch and a major preview for me for how I'll feel when she moves out of elementary school, and especially when she hits high school. Our district has multiple elementaries, two each intermediate (5th and 6th grade) and middle (7th and 8th grade) schools but just one high school that all those kids filter into. I'm sure the high school is huge and confusing. My hope is that they will split it into two high schools before she gets up that far but for now I'll have to assume she'll go to just the one. I remember how intimidating high school can be and I now have those mom moments when I can foresee being nervous for her as she starts, that she'll be able to find her way and make friends who will be good for her and nice to her. I know she is only going into third grade but at this rate high school will be here next year!

It's funny because when my kids went through the younger milestones like moving out of a crib or starting preschool or even starting kindergarten I have felt an element of nostalgia for their younger years and stages of life but the older they get, especially Riley since everything she goes through is a first for all of us with her being the oldest, the harder it is for me and more emotional I feel. It's not that I don't want her to experience these things or that I want her to stay a little girl, it's just that she is getting old enough now to be much more independent in her milestones. I can't help her or be there for her to make sure she is OK anymore and while I want her to be able to have those experiences and I know she will do great and make friends easily, it's so easy for me to worry about her and if she is OK. I have spent the last two days praying for her through my chores around the house, that she would have fun and be safe and make friends. I guess this is an element already of letting go of my kids - letting her go in and do something completely on her own, without me knowing what was going to happen there ahead of time or me being there the whole time to make sure she is being treated right and having a good time and participating. It seems silly for me to have such a hard time with this when she goes to school by herself all the time. She gets on the bus no problems and it never really worries me. Maybe it's because she's been doing that for several years and I know basically what she is doing at school, I've usually met her teacher, and she's been doing the whole bus routine for three years now so that is old hat for us. Or maybe it's just me, and getting older is making me more emotional. Who knows?

Painting: The New Aerobics

Well, this has been some kind of week! This was the first time I've worn my hair all down rather than in a pony tail since Monday (except for sleeping or showering of course)! That's somewhat unusual for me even when the weather is hot, as it's been here this week, because if I wear a ponytail all day it gives me a headache. But I decided to put off my new jogging routine (OK, I admit that I've actually only gone out to jog once...but I fully intend to do it regularly...I promise!) and tried out a new aerobics routine: painting every wall in sight for at least two hours every day. I have to say, if sweat is a gauge of how effective an exercise routine is, painting comes close to beating jogging. Every day this week except Monday and Wednesday I have painted at least during Tyler's nap time, and some days after the boys went to bed for the night as well. I did both of those on Tuesday which explains why no painting got done on Wednesday. I could hardly move on Wednesday! I was somewhat sore but mostly I was just exhausted! I felt sort of drugged from lack of rest. And I had that headache from the ponytail thing going on. Sadly I didn't figure out till Wednesday night that it was the ponytail causing the headache. I had already put my hair up that morning thinking I would paint later but the headache wouldn't go away by that point and with being so tired I figured I should take the day off. My solution on Thursday was to wear a lower ponytail. For some reason it puts more pressure on my head when I wear one near the crown of my head or right on the back of my head for a long time. If I just pull it into a low ponytail though it doesn't bother me. Anyway it seemed very striking to me for some reason that I hadn't worn my hair down except to sleep and shower for nearly five days in a row.

I have to say though, you know how when you start a new exercise routine and you are really sore but you tell yourself, OK I need to just go and do this again and it won't be as bad but then you find that in fact it can get worse? Well I went through that this week. I learned in fact what it would be like if I took a part-time job as a painter. Every day (except Wednesday) after I finished my morning housework, I would prepare whatever room I would be painting in so that when Tyler went down for his nap, everything would be in place and I could just pour the paint out and get started. Then that's what I would do. I would paint until I either finished whatever I had decided to do for that day or when Tyler woke up, whichever came first. He generally naps for 2 to 2 1/2 hours so that's a good amount of time painting for someone who usually spends those hours of nap time sitting in front of the computer or on the couch with a book. On Thursday, I painted three walls during nap time and by the time I was done and had cleaned my tools and myself (I'm a messy painter) I couldn't even walk at a normal pace. I was groaning every time I went to sit or stand. I have never needed a hot tub more in my life. I was actually afraid that I wouldn't be able to do anything again on Friday. We took that evening off of painting just in case. On Friday, however, I got up feeling pretty good, walked with my mom early that morning and by nap time, felt good enough to give the walls in my bedroom another go. And what do you know? That whole thing where if you start a new exercise routine and just persevere eventually you'll get to where you don't want to die when it's over turns out to actually be true. Friday evening I was fine and in fact good to go with painting some more. (Until I accidentally stepped in the paint pan and was sent to the shower by my long-suffering husband who finished it up for me. Don't worry we were almost done anyway. :)) Today I was again just fine except for some soreness in my shoulders from all the unaccustomed lifting of my arms and the whole painting motion.

So you would think that with all this work I've been putting in that I would have dropped some weight. I mean, hey, if you could have seen me some of those days, wearing my sports bra and a pair of shorts, dripping sweat off my arms and face, you would be convinced I'd lost a good five pounds of water weight. But you would be wrong. All I have to say is I better have been building extra muscle and that's why I haven't lost any weight from this. I had never really produced enough sweat to have it drip in my eyes and actually burn until this week. That's not very fun. I probably should have invested in a sweat band. Or at least worn a shirt so I could have had something handy to mop myself up with. But in the afternoons when the only person who would see me was Jake, and it was hot in the upstairs of our house with the windows open to let the paint fumes ventilate, I wasn't about the subject myself to another layer of clothes that were technically unnecessary.

But all my sweat did pay off, even if it wasn't in lost pounds. Because now we have a wonderfully, completely painted staircase and playroom and a completely painted bedroom! The staircase is wonderful because now we don't have to see the horrible smudges and finger prints. The scribbles from the dreaded toddler are now nicely covered. And we now feel like we are in someone else's house when we go into our bedroom. My hope is to get my bathroom painted tomorrow. Bathrooms are never as big of a deal because there is actually very little uninterrupted wall space with the toilets and baths and sinks taking up so much of it. We have paint for Tyler's bedroom but that will have to wait for a good Saturday to get that done. Painting the bedroom of a person who naps is not an easy prospect. It will get done eventually but it's not a huge priority for me.

The Secret to a Happy Marriage?

I recently read an article on MSN about the dangers of a "semi-happy" marriage. Since then I've been thinking about what the article said and decided to take a break from kiddie posts and do one about another topic I like to talk about. This is actually one of my soapboxes (you notice I don't limit myself to just one) but my only audience who hears me on my soapbox is Paul and he agrees with me and hears me go on about this periodically so I decided to expand my audience to you fine people. What's that? You thought I had some kind of fabulous idea for a happy marriage that hasn't been thought of before? Ok so I don't actually have a special secret to a happy marriage. That's what the question mark was there for people! Not that I don't have a 'secret' that the world could benefit from but it's not even mine. It's God's and He isn't really keeping it a secret either. But as far as I'm aware my readers are all Christians and probably know everything I'm going to talk about anyway. But you all love me and will read anyway because you don't want me to feel bad about myself....And now that I've guilted you all into continuing or bugged you enough to leave we'll move on.

So back to that article about those dangerous semi-happy marriages. What is up with that? The article was actually an interview with an author who wrote a book about semi-happy marriages and how risky it is to let yours get into that state. The author stated that even if you aren't fighting and constantly in conflict with each other or having issues like cheating or some other major breakup-causing thing going on, if you are really more just friends than anything else, your marriage is at risk. Sadly, that's probably true. I think a lot of people get to a point in their relationships where they do realize "hey wait a second! We used to be so giddy in love with each other and now we just do our regular routine, chase the kids, watch TV, whatever, but what happened to that huge "in love" feeling we had when we first got together? What's that you say? We lost it? Oh well then I'm out! Later!" And then they call this the "amicable divorce". Ugh. I hate that term. I swear, if something ever broke up mine and Paul's marriage (and I hate even saying that, it would have to be something seriously MONUMENTAL and I would feel like I had cut my body into two pieces if that happened) I would seriously have to do a ton of repenting every day because I would probably equally love and completely hate him. I don't know if I would ever recover from that and I know I would never be able to be in the same room with him. But I digress...So once the couple realizes they still care for and want the best for their spouse, why isn't the next logical step to start working to rebuild that passion they once had for each other? Why do they think it will be easier or even different to start over with someone new? Why don't people realize that we can't sustain that kind of chemical reaction we feel when we say we've "fallen in love" for years and years without actually consciously working to maintain it? I actually blame people like the author from that article. Now I'll give her the fact that in her book she does have tips for keeping the magic alive in a marriage and that's nice and all but why does she have to start it off by making people look at what is probably a very nice and maybe even wonderful relationship and doubting it just because they feel like their spouse is their friend and they feel comfortable with them? If she wanted to write a book giving people advice for keeping the love alive in their marriage she should have just started there. I feel like starting it out by saying "If you are in a relationship where while you feel like you are more friends with your spouse than anything else then your marriage is actually in trouble" is going to result in more broken relationships than might have actually happened without her interference. That is probably going to get two reactions. One is the one she was going for - they read her book and put into practice all the tips and maybe actually revive some of the original passion in a relationship. Or two, they say, "Oh, man! She's right! We are headed for Splitsville! Well, we might as well get off this slowly meandering train that might or might not have stopped there and catch the express straight into Divorce Station! I don't want to waste time trying to revive something with this person when I could just as easily find someone newer and shinier!"

Ok so I don't completely blame the author of this book for all future "amicable divorces". I'm positive that a lot of people get to those same conclusions without the benefit of a book. It just makes me sad and mad at the same time the number of people who choose the route of splitting up, especially when they have kids. And especially when their reasons are just that their spouse isn't making them happy enough. When people with children, especially kids still at home, divorce just because they aren't "happy" that is one of the most selfish acts I can think of. Those poor kids now have to endure the insecurity and fear and brokenness that a divorce brings into their life just because their parents were putting their own happiness above their kids' and weren't even willing to try to make each other happy. This is something that I've already started telling Riley and that I even tell myself if I ever find myself disappointed with something Paul did or said or even just with life: No one else is responsible for my happiness but me. That might sound kind of New Agey but in my own head and to Riley I always follow it up with this: If I'm not happy with something right now, how is my relationship with God looking? Am I going to Him for my happiness and joy in life and just to be fulfilled? If I'm looking to Paul to make me happy and fulfilled, he might be able to succeed some of the time, but to depend on him for that happiness constantly is unreasonable. He absolutely CAN'T make me happy all the time. Nor can he fulfill every need I have. And it's completely ridiculous for me to expect him to. (And I say all of that even though I feel completely happy in my marriage and still very much in love with my husband.) I for sure don't want to be entirely responsible for his complete happiness. I know I will fail. All we can do is continually renew our relationship with God and do the little things that help keep the romance a live in our marriage.

And now I've gotten that off my chest and stepped down from my soapbox. I promise not to use my blog to do that too terribly often.

Clothes Off, Clothes On ;)

So yesterday was a milestone of sorts for Tyler. It was his first time to completely strip all his clothes off and run through the house in only his socks. Yikes! Not my most anticipated milestone. :) Surprisingly he is my first child to do the whole stripping thing. My other two would take off their shoes and socks like most little ones do but I have no memory of looking up and watching as they ran naked to me when the last time I had seen them they had been fully clothed. Tyler has long been obsessed with taking off his pants though so I guess I should have expected this. He figured out that his shirt had a wide enough neck opening to pull it down his arms and off that way rather than going over his head. He couldn't have gotten it over his head anyway unless he had unsnapped the crotch. That is what I like about those shirts, they keep the kid clothed when they might otherwise be able to take everything off. But my kid decided he wasn't going to let those pesky snaps stop him from having some naked time. My biggest fear when I saw him was that he had peed on the carpet somewhere, but thankfully that didn't happen. Nap time will now be a little nerve wracking though unless I take to duct taping him into his clothes.

While Tyler has been busy learning to remove his clothes, Riley is starting to make her own choices or what clothes to put on. After discussing it with Paul, we have put into practice allowing Riley to pick out her own clothes without any input from me. It has worked surprisingly well and I have enjoyed my past three stress and argument free mornings. It just so happened that when we started implementing that, we had a cool front go through so she actually had to think about what she was going to wear rather than just putting on shorts or capris. She agonized about it more than I was expecting her to. Yesterday she wanted to wear a sleeveless tunic style top with some black leggings and her black boots that come to her knee. If I had had a say in it, I would have vetoed that idea from the get go. The high temperature for that day was supposed to be the mid-50s so the sleeveless top would be chilly. Plus the boots seemed like they might look funny with the top so I was concerned about that too. But I told her that was fine if it's what she wanted to wear. She asked me what I thought and I told her both that she might be cool and also that I wasn't sure how the boots would look with the outfit but she could wear it with no arguments from me. I think she wanted me to tell her what to do but I just said it was her decision. She ended up changing into jeans and a regular T-shirt that she wore a jacket over. I was actually kind of shocked when she didn't wear what she had really wanted to wear since she had the freedom to but I guess a lot of the conflict we had was she was free to want to wear what she wanted to but she knew I was going to stop her from wearing something that wasn't weather-appropriate. Now that it's entirely her choice she is going to have to actually consider how it will feel to wear what she would initially want to put on. She was glad too that she wore the jeans and t-shirt since it really was a cool day! It was still somewhat chilly today and she chose to wear capris but I didn't say anything. She'll learn what weather is comfortable for what kinds of clothes. Also, she has always been very hot natured so she may be completely comfortable in the capris today even though I'm wearing jeans, a t-shirt, a sweater, socks and my warm slippers and I'm still a little chilly. Overall I think she is going to handle choosing her own clothes really responsibly and I'm proud of her and her willingness to ask what I think and take my advice to heart even if she really wants to do something else.

Tomorrow my little Jakey graduates from preschool! I saw pictures this morning of my nephew, Garrett, at his graduation and he looked so big and cute! Jake has been singing the songs they'll sing at his graduation here at home the past few days and it sounds like it's going to be really cute. Riley remembers singing some of the same songs at her graduation too (she went to the same preschool). I'll be glad for school to be out for both of the kids and to get to a more relaxed summer schedule. I don't plan on doing any more sleeping in than I normally do but I always enjoy having all the kids home and no other priorities or places to go for a couple of months. Riley won't get out of school till June 6th though so we've still got some time left for her.

Next week I plan to start a jogging training program called "Couch to 5k". It's a training program put together by a site called coolrunnings.com that my good friend Rachel told me about years ago. She got started jogging and eventually running through this program after having her last child and she is now so addicted to running that she recently participated in a marathon! I tried doing the program years ago right after Jake was born and while I made progress with it the circumstances weren't conducive for me to stick with the program of exercising. For one thing, we were living in an apartment and I was working out at night in the exercise room while Paul stayed home with the kids. Paul was also in the middle of taking classes to be eligible to sit for his CPA exams so there were nights when he didn't get home till late so I wasn't able to be very regular with my workouts. Then we ended up moving out of state so that just disrupted the whole workout thing completely. But now we are coming up on summer, I have had my eyes opened to the benefits of getting up early in the morning and working out before my kids get up, and we just happen to live in a house that backs right up to a jogging trail! So I decided that while I have a perfectly good elliptical that I normally use, I have been feeling a little burnt out with that so moving my workouts outdoors while the weather is nice seems like a good idea. And though I am by no means an athletic person, there is something about jogging and getting through this program I'm going to use that I find extremely challenging. When I worked on it the first time almost five years ago now, I made decent progress and I can remember how proud of myself I was as I started being able to jog for longer and longer stretches. I don't know if jogging is something I'll want to do all the time or anything like that but while the weather is good and it's light enough at that time of morning, I might as well jog while I'm out there. If I start hating it I can always go back to just walking. But I already feel that sense of challenge and I'm actually looking forward to starting on Monday. I'm waiting till then because of weather this week and various other reasons. But come Monday, I'll be jogging my tush off (hopefully literally), at least 60 seconds at a time. :)

Maybe One of These Days...

So I guess six month absences are to be expected for me on my blog now. But I was inspired to write again by my cousins. One has started a brand new blog and the other asked me to do a guest blog for hers which got me thinking of my own. I was actually surprised that I had written in October last. I thought it would have been further back than that so I'm doing better than I had first thought. Though not as well as I would have liked when I first started this. The whole point was to have something to look back on that had lots of fun and funny things about my kids or just stories about them growing up and how the experience has been for me as their mom. Something for them to read when they are older and for me to look back on when my memory grows dim of what life was really like with little kids running around. But my faithfulness has been seriously called into question! If I think of my blog at all it's with the thought that one day here soon I'm going to write. But does "one day" ever arrive? Well apparently so since that day would be today. I don't want to keep being so wishy-washy with it though so I'm going to try for one blog no less than every two weeks here for awhile, maybe even more often than that if I can get into a groove.

It should help that my own personal routine has changed recently and we also have a very nice new computer so I don't have to guiltily slink onto the church's laptop we have at our house to access the internet. Now I can do it whenever I want without feeling bad. I've been on the computer much more often because of that lately too so I guess we'll just have to see how it goes!

The changes to my personal routine are that I am now what you might call an early bird. You might call it that if you get up later than I do now, or you might say I get up at a reasonable time for an adult and to stop whining about it already. Well, fine, then if you're going to be that way. AN-yway, I now get up at around 6 most mornings. And I even do this willingly, meaning no child is coming into my room to get me out of bed nor are they crying from their room, which also has the same result. No, I'm getting up at 6 AM in the MORNING to....wait for it....exercise. *GASP* I know, it shocks me too. Every time I do it I'm surprised that I'm actually up and exercising and until here recently it's still dark outside! And I have always been one of those if it's dark outside and I was sleeping before I should keep sleeping till the sun comes up people. But the guilt was starting to wear on me. The guilt from holing up in my room exercising and then showering and basically leaving my kids to fend for themselves for a hour every morning when I was doing all that after Riley got off to school. I actually know they were probably fine for me to leave them like that but I now have a dreaded and fearsome toddler who is capable of and regularly practices opening doors and climbing onto bookshelves so I figured I probably better be present and accessible just a wee bit more just for safety's sake. So now I get up at 6 when my husband gets up for work and I work out and shower before my kids get up in the morning. I've got to say, the idea of doing this had occurred to me before but I never went with it because I love sleep and would never volunteer to miss any but I should have done this a long time ago. For one thing, I can exercise in complete peace AND have a totally uninterrupted shower. Plus, by the time I leave my room, I am ready for the day! I was amazed how much more housework I got done just because I had those other things that seemed to take so much of my morning up done earlier. So anyway, all that to say, I should now have more time to blog because I get done with my housework so much sooner. Don't you wish I would have just said that without all the rambling and drama? He he...

So my kids are all still in the same grades they were in in my last blog but we are now coming to the end of their school year. Jake is preparing to graduate from Pre-K next week! We got his graduation pictures on Tuesday and I've just gotta say, I have one cute 5 year old. If you think you have a five year old who is cute...well I don't know. You need to see mine. I plan to scan his picture into the computer so maybe I'll put it on here in my next blog (next week? the week after?). Seriously though, Jake is just really growing up. He's an average sized kid as far as his height and all that but compared to his giantess sister, he has always seemed small to me but here recently he has really started to seem like a big kid. Physically speaking, I'll glance at him sometimes and do a double take because he'll look so tall to me all of a sudden or his face is turned in such a way that I'll think, "there, that is what he's going to look like in five or ten years". Those moments are almost scary to me because he seemed to go from this little boy who wanted to crawl on your lap or be carried to this big kid who wants to ride his bike all the time and can read an entire Dr. Seuss book by himself. Thankfully he still likes to climb on my lap sometimes so those days aren't completely over yet. Not so thankfully, he still acts like a little boy sometimes with his inability to suffer the most minor of injuries without screaming like his arm is half cut off from his body.

Riley is my teenager in training. I don't know who is in training exactly, her to be one or me to mother one but one of those things is happening. If I have to argue with her one more time about her clothes I might have to jump out the window. I'm seriously thinking I might just start letting her wear whatever she wants whenever she wants and not question her at all. She doesn't really own anything questionable in it's modesty so I know she'll be dresses properly as far as that goes. And that isn't our battle. The battle is we live in Indiana and with the exception of the past three days, the month of May is not necessarily shorts weather yet. And Riley has a deep and abiding hatred for jeans of all things. What is the deal with that? No really, I'm asking that as an honest question. Who hates jeans? I live in jeans. During the winter, all she wanted to wear were some skinny leg black pants she had, some brown corduroys (also skinny leg), or leggings with a tunic to school. If she had to wear jeans she would complain. I actually wonder if some of that wasn't just a skinny leg pants thing and if she'd had some jeans in that style she would have worn them without question. And now that the weather has started warming up, every day it's "What's the weather like today? Can I wear shorts or capris?" Thankfully it has been nice enough some days for capris and then three days this week we've had weather in the 80s so she's been able to wear shorts. I dread tomorrow when a cool front comes back through and drops us back to where our temperature is supposed to be and she can't wear shorts again. Oh, and lest you think that maybe denim is uncomfortable for her skin and that's why she doesn't like jeans, ALL her capris are denim and all but one of her shorts are denim. No arguments for wearing those though. So my consideration is to let her wear whatever she wants and learn on her own how uncomfortable it is to wear shorts when it's in the 50s outside. Not that my only experience with Riley right now is arguing, though. Don't want to leave that impression. She is coming to the end of her second grade year. She won't get out of school till June 6th though which seems nuts to me. She is really maturing fast. Especially physically. I'm going to have to have "The Talk" with her pretty soon just because I don't want anything to happen to her and have her completely freak out because she wasn't expecting it. She is so tall that I've always thought she was going to be an early bloomer and all signs are pointing that way. She may kill me for this some day but we recently bought her her first training bra. It was kind of a traumatic thing for me because I've sort of been in denial that I might need to get one for her until my mom pointed out that she thought she needed one too. And I was like WHAT!?! My EIGHT YEAR OLD needs a bra already?!? I didn't actually say that to my mom. But it's kind of how I was feeling at that moment. It's not all the time that she needs one but there are a few shirts she owns that fit a certain way that makes modesty demand a bra. She of course thought it was cool. What girl isn't excited at her first bra? But my feeling is still that this is my baby girl and she should not own a bra or wear one unless she is playing around with my stuff. But I guess this happens and I need to wrap my brain around it. She is so tall you wouldn't think I would be in such shock over this.

Tyler continues to fill his role as the dreaded and fearsome toddler with gusto. As the walls in our playroom attest, he is an adept door opener, pen or pencil sneaker, and wall colorer. To this day I don't know what pen or pencil he used but the walls have huge scribbles up there now. He must have gone into Riley's room and then put the pen back when he was done to hide the evidence. Needless to say, her door now has one of those door knob covers that he thankfully still hasn't figured out how to operate. But I'm sure that day will arrive before I'm ready for it to. He is now sleeping in a toddler bed, fully decked out in Disney's Cars bedding. He made that transition without the slightest whimper. We made a brief attempt at serious potty training recently but he's not quite ready for that so now I take him after naps and offer periodically throughout the day when I think of it. If he wants to try we try and if he says he's done I let him down even if he only sat there for a second. I want to keep the thought alive in his head so when he is physically ready for more intense training, he won't have forgotten all about the concept. He learns new words and phrases every day and surprises me with the things he'll say or questions he'll ask me. His "what dooing" question is very reminiscent of Joey on Friends' "How you doing?" The word "doing" comes out almost the same. And if anyone is gone from the house he thinks they are "a' work". We take Jake to school and then come home and he asks "Jake a' work?" That comes from hearing that Daddy is at work every day.

So our lives are mostly the same with some growing and changing and hopefully I'll be posting a little more regularly and hopefully not as lengthy. If you have stuck through till now in this blog, you are a trooper and you must really like me so thanks! :)