Too Old for Princesses

So I was feeling good, I just finished doing our taxes, we were getting a little mullah back which I had earmarked for our good ole credit card and then...dun dun dun...my sweetheart threw out the idea of going to Disneyland.  We are all off for the week and needed a family adventure.  I had some day trips in mind, and at one point had toyed with the idea of Disneyland, but I was hoping he had forgotten.  Fat chance.  Now, I love the magical kingdom as much as the next gal but old Walt and his fam are just milkin it.  That place now costs what would be the equivalent to buying a small village and we aren't even talking about actually staying anywhere near the park.  So my darlin got some resistance from the old ball and chain, aka the bean counter.  But then he had to go and play dirty.  He went and said that our oldest is on the verge of getting too old for princess stuff.  Too old for Disneyland.  He knows how to get me, that's for sure.

There was definitely some tossing and turning and weighing of pros and cons and well let's just say, we're going.  I couldn't help but think back to the first (and only) time we took the two older girls and how their eyes sparkled upon first walking into the park.  How they were so overwhelmed with the whole experience they weren't sure what to even make of it.  Now our oldest is looking on the internet planning which ride she wants to make sure to go on.  While the middle one is making sure everyone knows she doesn't want to go in the Haunted House again.  Obviously that one made an impression.  Then there is Jess all wide eyed and just excited watching her sisters talk about Disneyland and what they want to do and see.  This afternoon they got her all dressed up in a Cinderella costume and didn't even seem interested in dressing up themselves.  I guess it's true they are getting older. The middle one probably would dress up, but her older sister won't so forget about it. 

So yes I think there was a slight bit of pulling on the Mom strings to get me to agree to go, but I think Rick might have been right.  We are on borrowed time.  Soon they will want to go to Disneyland but not with us.  They will ask if they can bring a friend.  They will want us to bring them and then meet up with them later.  The "family vacation" will consist of Rick and I wondering what the kids are doing and watching the clock until its time to meet them.  So I will try to put the fact that I'm coughing up a small fortune out of my mind because spending these last princess years truly is priceless.

The Forgotten Art of Sleep

I can remember a time when it didn't matter how noisy, what was going on, if I was tired I was going to sleep.  I've never been a huge sleeper. I come from a long generational line of earlier risers.  But I do remember a time when I could sleep through anything. Heck I went to college at San Jose State.  Now though, one eye is open, one ear is always listening, and one foot is practically on the ground ready to leap out of bed and address whatever nighttime issue comes up.  Boy do I miss those good old sleep days.

When I tell people I used to be a good sleeper before kids I always bring up my favorite living in downtown San Jose story.  I was sharing a small two-story house with four other girls.  That is an entire blog in and of itself, trust me.  One night the cops came to our house and asked if anyone had heard a commotion outside.  I guess someone had been beaten up right outside our front door and nada one of us heard a thing.  Boy if that happened now, I would have heard that commotion, a fight down the way on 11th street, a car backing out of its driveway, etc, etc.

Now I assumed that all Mom's became light sleepers.  Yet another special Mom bonus, right up there with saggy boobs and worry lines on your face.  Interestingly enough in talking with other Mom's it's not a given for all Mom's.  Maybe it's only a special privilege for those of us born with the overly large worry vein pumping through them at all time. Who knows.  But it's definitely irritating. I would love to jump in and get a good nights sleep.  It's almost uncanny even to myself how I can just jump up at someones first stir and be right there having a conversation with them figuring out what's wrong.  Occasionally I have some groggy nights where my response time is a little slower, but normally I feel like I'm just resting at night waiting to get up and address an issue.  Sometimes when I can't sleep I try to figure out who will I hear from first. Will it be Alex having a nightmare? Will Jess misplace one of the 10 pacifiers in her crib and be sitting up screaming while she looks for the right one?  Will Gabby come in to tell us that she needs to go potty and get a drink of water?  The other night I thought about what great practice this would be for when they get older and they go out.  There will be no sneaking in after curfew with ole light as a feather watchin the clock. 

So sure I'm not getting my eight and my bag under my eyes are definitely packed, but will I sleep any better when they are away?  Well when the two older ones were at a sleep over not too long ago, I can tell you I actually slept worse.  I kept thinking I was hearing them or probably wanting to hear them.  I can only imagine when they are no longer living under this roof how I will long to hear their little voices in the middle of the night.  How I will long to have a little hand touch my face and want to know if its time to cuddle or not.  So in the big picture I'll have lots of time later for catching up on my sleep, but not a lot of time for my little people to be keeping me up.  Catch you later Mr. Sandman.

The scare

So last Wednesday I went to pick up the girls from school.  Let me step back a minute and say that Wednesday is early out for all the kindergartners through fourth graders so the scene is like the first day of summer break.  Whole lot of crazy kids running wild!  Jess and I wheeled up and got Alex who came skipping up rattling on a mile a minute about her day, stopped to 'Ms. Mary Mack Mack Mack' it with a friend, ran back to get her lunch and then we went on to get Gabby who resides in the next hall.  I was feeling a little anxious and already starting in on Alex about how we needed to tighten up the operation because it wasn't night to make Gabby wait, when we rounded the corner and where I would usually see my smiling Gabby she was not there.  I played it cool, I walk a little closer, looked up and down the hall/river of salmon.  No kid.  Heart starting to slow.  I found her teacher who quickly inquired with the other students still around.  "Nope we didn't see her at lunch."  Heart slowing to a near stop.   So...the teacher and I traipse down to the office and I get the principle pulled into my drama and they are just about to call her over the intercom when her sister sees her walking in the hallway outside. I have never wanted to shake/hug someone so hard in my life.  God love this child, she was helping a friend get something out of her hair, blah, blah, blah.  Needless to say, she got an ear load from her teacher and myself.

My kids know me, I hate hide and seek, we don't hide in stores, and although we live two blocks from school the question of when they can walk home by themselves hasn't come up because they know my answer.  I definitely border on being a helicopter parent I will admit, but I just love those little people so darn much that I make sure nothing is going to happen to them on my watch. So when I arrived and she wasn't there and her teacher wasn't sure where she was, her classmates hadn't seen her, and her sister was at a lose, to say I was getting a wee bit panicked would be the understatement of the century.

What was funny was the next day at work I was telling this story and every parent I mentioned it to had a similar story.  Everyone I ran into said the same thing, "Oh yeah I remember when..."  I was almost taken aback.  I almost felt like I had been through and passed the Mom initiation test.  If you can handle and live to tell about misplacing your child then you can handle anything.  What I didn't tell all of them was that I may have passed the initiation but I definitely feel scarred.  I may have somewhat kept my cool exterior in tact while looking around with her teacher trying to find her.  But when I finally set eyes on her I marched her out of the campus so fast because those tears were coming and there was no way to stop them.  I had know I was going to rip that campus apart trying to find what was mine and the let down of finally seeing her was too much. 

So you can keep your hide and seek games.  Just letting them out of my sight to go to school is proving to be all my little heart can take.

Is that the baby?

It's official Jess is enrolled in preschool.  Jess and I walked across the street the other day and turned in the first of many packets of forms we will turn in on her road to scholastic success.  I wanted to walk in the parking lot and Jess wanted to run, which actually seemed fairly symbolic of how I was feeling.  She proceeded to fall and part of me wanted to scoop her up and say, "See you're not ready yet. Come home with Mommy".  But truth be told she is ready.  I have watched her change so much within the last six months its mind boggling.  I was just telling Rick the other day how I was watching her in her little gym class sing to the songs, do the hand movements, and just generally blossom out of toddlerhood into preschoolness.  Hopefully no English teachers will ever read my blog or they will pull my degree back for my questionable made up words.  You get the idea...she's growing up.

I happened on this great article the other day about how raising four kids is easier than one, which I do actually agree with.  Albeit three in my case.  The end of the article gave a great analogy of kids being like balloons just floating up and passing by us and giving a quick bump as they go.  That really spoke to me.  My three girls are in such a rush to get big and move onward and upward and here I am with my feet planted on the ground trying to figure out how I can hold on to their strings just a little longer.

The next six months are going to be big ones for Jess.  Her vocabulary is getting bigger every week.  My latest favorite quote, "you're going to make me cry Momma"  just never stops being cute.  She jumping and getting air.  Plus spending all her waking time chasing her sisters and learning from them.  Which, as we know, can be good and bad.  Luckily I couldn't ask for better mentors (for the most part).

So once again, I find myself in that same spot of loving the every growing person my girl is turning into and wanting to scream at the world to slow down.  I'm holding onto that balloon string as tight as I can.  There's a little give, and each day I convince myself I should let it out a little more.  Just don't ask me to untie it from my wrist.  I'm not ready to watch it float up so high I can't see.  That goes for all three.

Super Sensitive

I was at work the other day and there happened to be this speaker that came to talk about distracted driving.  Now I didn't happen to make it to the presentation myself, but I was talking with a male co-worker, father of three, after the presentation and he was telling me all about it.  The speaker went on and told some great stories to our student about the dangers of driving while distracted, gave statistics, etc.  But then came the whammy.  Her son was killed in a car accident where the driver was being pressured to drive quickly, he wasn't wearing a seat belt, and his story came to a tragic end.  The teacher and I both agreed that the story was heart breaking, but what we most agreed on was the fact that when you become a parent something gets turned on inside you that makes you highly sensitive to hearing stories where there are kids involved. 

I've always had a great imagination.  Heck, I'm an only child who had more imaginary friends than I care to admit.  Of course I have a good imagination.  When I read a story, I start channeling Picasso and get busy painting that picture.  I also tend to be a little on the passionate side. When I read a story about injustice or the like I tend to get a little excited.  Can you tell I'm downplaying that a bit.  Yeah I get really excited.  This combination was problematic enough and led me to turn off the nightly news before going to bed.  Then eight years ago we threw in the cherry on top by becoming a Mother.  If you couldn't tell from my other posts, my family is my life.  So when I read a story in the paper or hear a story on the news about a child being hurt or killed, my heart hurts. But it's not just a sympathetic 'ah that's too bad kind of hurt'.  It's a pain that is indescribable.  It's the same pain you feel when you look at your child and know you can't make them feel better.  Or the pain you feel when they are crying out your name and even if you're choosing to ignore it, the ache is still there.  As my co-worker so perfectly stated, "something just happens the second you have a child, you just feel more." 

I'll be perfectly honest there are some days I would love to turn this "feel feature" off.  I love that my heart is bursting each time I set eyes on or even think about my three little people.  But balancing all that love with all the scary stuff going on in the world can just turn a persons heart inside out.  I think that heightened "feel feature" might just be one of those perks of being a parent that no one mentions because it's kind of not a perk.  It's just something that you take along with the job because the rest of the gig is so awesome. 

Right of Passage

My two oldest girls just had their first sleepover during the Christmas break.  I had held off on doing the sleep over because I said they were "too young".  But I finally gave in to peer pressure (aka Rick) and let them do it.  Truth be told I think I held off because I wasn't ready not because they weren't.  I wasn't ready to have them be out of my grasp and from under my watchful eye.  Control freak much?  Can't you hear the helicopter blades screeching above your head?  And wouldn't you know it, they had a great time.  It started me thinking about all the rights of passage that kids go through.  I remember having a sleep over at my house.  I remember my first TV crush.  I love you Ricky Schroeder!!!  I wish I still had that autographed picture.  Took six months for me to get, but man was I excited.  I remember begging my Mom to let me wear make up and her finally agreeing to every other day. Although somehow I just happened to convince her that 'nope I didn't wear it yesterday'.  And what about the ear piercing? That has already come up in our house.  So many things you go through as a kid.  A sleep over is really small potatoes. 

But this whole sleep over business just got me thinking...What's next?  My oldest is eight. Reasonably speaking we aren't really that far from potentially having our first crush on someone be it on the big screen (hopefully) or in real life.  We are only five years away from when I promised she could get her ears pierced.  Eek.  Here I am watching the little one finally learn how to jump with both feet while my oldest is sleeping over and having opinions about clothing and just basically ripping through life like a tornado. 

I have to admit the only exciting part to this whole lose of childhood has been to watch how my two girls have matured this past year.  I recently had a terrible migraine and I just wasn't able to rally.  Lex took the little one back and made sure she went potty and washed her hands, Gabby put her down for a nap and then started in on her homework, and then both of them were so quiet and let me sleep.  I was so incredibly grateful at that moment that I had two older girls to help out.   Sometimes I feel like I spend so much time missing them as babies that I forget to stop and be thankful for the wonderful little people that they have become. 

So I guess I need to get on the bus, strap on the belt and get ready for those rights of passage. I can try to postpone, prolong the inevitable, but they are coming.  They should bring me nothing but joy because they are a sign my wonderful girls are growing up.  I guess I should find a little humor.  It could be worse...their walls could be covered with Michael Jackson posters and they could be kissing their Ricky Schroeder autographed (did I mention that) picture before heading into bed.  We aren't there yet.  They still think their Dad hung the moon, at least for a little while longer. 

When is it too much?

I am among the fortunate ones to be a part-time stay home Mommy and part-time worker bee.  Each of my jobs I truly cherish and God love my husband for working so hard and allowing me the opportunity to have those two jobs.  But...I digress.  Since I'm home for part of the time I thought 'heck why not take on a few more roles this year'.  So I dawned my stylish volunteer cap and became a Girl Scout leader for my girls troop, a member of the School Site Council at school, helped out at the school walk-a-thon, volunteered to take the school recycling every Friday to the recycling drop off, baked at every possible school event, blah, blah, blah.  Basically if there was a job to be done, my name was on the list.  Honestly, people almost expected my name to be on a list. I would have people call me and make sure I was ok if they didn't see my name.  Now, don't get me wrong I love volunteering.  I get a personal high off helping people and it's a complete feel good for me.  But at the end of the year I ended exhausted and feeling a little sour.

I had scheduled a few too many events on one day in particular .  There was some running involved and maybe a brief rocking in the corner episode but I had managed to get everything in place for both events.  While I was running wild I kept in my mind that the girls would love it and the parents would love it and that would bring the joy for me.  Well the girls had fun and a few parents said it was nice, but the girls weren't appreciative and some didn't seem like they gave a rats.  I wasn't expecting fanfare, but a few thank you's or at least a 'this was fun' would have made all the difference.  I was even disappointed that some of the parents that I expected to help out didn't bother.  Kind of reminded me of when you spend that extra time making your kids that fun lunch and cutting their sandwiches in cute animal shapes and they don't even realize what you have done.  "HELLO those are ducks and frogs on your plates kids, not just a sandwich!  Wake up!!"

Anyways...I got over not having rose petals thrown at my feet, but it got me thinking about going overboard and doing too much.  Would the kids have been just as happy if I threw out a box of cookies and said 'here you go' as opposed to setting up a decorating station with homemade sugar cookies?  Could I just have worked an hour shift at the walk-a-thon instead of two full days in which I really  missed the entire event because I was trapped behind a table selling food not interacting with my kids?  Could I pick one event to give a baked good for instead of five? 

I guess with the new year this is the time to prioritize and really think about my time.  I think it might be time to draw some lines.  Does it mean I won't give when I can?  As my sweet Baby J would say "NO way!"  But I think I will definitely look at cutting back and making sure my giving isn't cutting into time I want to be spending doing other things.  Because truth be told, I'm home to spend time with my three little loves not prove I'm volunteer of the year.  Heck why stop at volunteer of the year.  I'm going for the big prize baby!  Watch out Mom's.  I'm going for the Mom of the Year.  Well at least in this house.