I think it's a spring flicker

Last night the girls and I walked up to our neighbor's house for a quick visit. It was raining lightly and when Emery noticed the water hitting her cheeks she wondered aloud, "What is that hitting my face?" I told her it was sprinkling but she quickly corrected me, letting me know that it was a spring flicker hitting her face.

Of course. Sometimes I just don't know what to do with her outfit choices other than laugh. They are part ridiculous and part perfectly appropriate for a lively almost five-year-old little girl. Who knew when we went shoe shopping last week that the pair she selected would coordinate so well with her outfit?

In other news, Anna Kimball is mastering the art of potty training. I'm writing this down here so that I won't be discouraged when it comes time to train Jamison -- the first day and a half is dreadful, awful, beyond frustrating, but then it will click. It will.

On day two she took her show on the road to our neighbor's house (does it sound like we go there a lot? We do.) This pic will definitely be making into her rehearsal dinner slideshow one day.

As for Jamison, he's still lapping the house on all fours, most often in search of me. I try to treasure the first hour or so he is awake in the morning, even if it's before 6am, because it is only then that he is truly and utterly content with anything and anyone.

I can't believe we will be celebrating his first birthday in two months. Whoever coined the phrase "The days are long, but the years are short," hit it spot on. This year has been no exception, although when I think back to last March it seems a lifetime ago. Jamison loves to clap his hands, observe his sisters' antics, not play with any of his toys but eat all manner of refuse on the floor and attempt to snatch my iPhone wherever I might have laid it down.

Sometimes I just want to eat his face -- I love the girls but I don't think I ever had quite the appetite for their cheeks as I do for his.

'Tis the season for ...

Winter weddings. Emery was a flower girl in our neighbor's daughter's wedding last week and she handled herself, and her jingle-bell pompadour oh-so-gracefully. For a four-year-old that is ... she had to stand up front with the bridesmaids for the whole ceremony and was only somewhat distracting as she tried to decide what exactly to do with her pompadour. Should it be a purse or maybe a baby in her arms? Maybe she should turn around and see what the bridesmaids are up to? There were nearly 400 guests at the wedding but that didn't seem to bother her - there is so much to love about the lack of self-conscience young children have. I know I will cry the day that changes.

Minor surgery. This was a simple procedure we knew Jamison would need soon after he was born. I just dreaded actually going through with it mainly because I knew he would have to fast before anesthesia and, well, what baby wants to do that? I have to say, though, that once we got through that part, and really it wasn't that bad since Matt took care of distracting Jamison from his favorite food source, it turned out to be one of the best days I've had in a while. I got to sit in a private waiting room alone and listen to podcasts alone, read alone and just BE alone. It was heavenly. No, wait, here's what was heavenly - finally getting to feed Jamison and then holding him in my arms while he slept and literally COOED for a very long time.

Christmas windows. We took the girls on a mystery ride the other night to see the Christmas windows downtown. Left Jamison cooing in his crib with a sitter. The displays this year didn't seem quite as magical or enticing to children as they have in the past but we still managed to get a few "wide-eyed wonder" photo opps.

Red overalls. This boy just keeps melting me. He is motoring around the house on all fours faster everyday. I think he set a record today because usually he just crawls around whatever room he is in. Today he finally realized he could find me when I left the room and I think he did several laps around the house as a result. So now we can bid farewell to the awfulness that is him screaming every time I leave the room? One can only hope ...

Haircuts and chocolate

This morning the girls were playing in their room with the door closed. This isn't unusual these days, but it doesn't mean they're just sitting on their beds reading books. (Although actually it did the other day when they were pretending to "nap.") Still, it was so nice to have a little peace and quiet that I tried not to wonder what was going on in there.

Anna Kimball eventually wandered into the living room and said something about how she didn't want a haircut. To which I said, "No, honey, that's ok. You don't need a haircut." Didn't think much of it until I went to check on Emery a few minutes later ...

She was in a corner, kneeled over with her head on the ground, silent. And then I saw the scissors. And the hair. And the deeply ashamed look on her face.

Funny thing is she sort of gave herself bangs and it doesn't look terrible. But I do believe she feels pretty terrible because every time I have mentioned it today the ashamed look comes back on her face and she quickly murmurs "Sorry."

Emery tends to be a model firstborn who plays by the rules and I kind of didn't think we'd go through this rite of passage. On the other hand, she has been begging me for a haircut the past few weeks. I guess she got tired of waiting. :) So we're getting a proper one tomorrow.

Tonight I told Matt that for much of the day I feel like crying and stuffing my face with chocolate. Just so he knows. And he does. It's that hard here in this house with three kids under 5, including one boy who shall remain nameless but is a terrible napper and frequently cannot tolerate it when I leave the room or when he is plopped on the kitchen floor over and over and over again. We are at that stage with him that we just have to keep handing him plastic to play with, any kind of plastic, anything that seems safe and interesting. And so the house is an utter disaster between all of his gizmos that don't really entertain him that much and all of the imagination explosions the girls concoct, which I love love love but dread dread dread supervising the clean up process for.

For the record, though, I did not cry today. And I kept the chocolate intake to one salted dark chocolate caramel and a small handful of chocolate chips. If that's not victory than what is?

Lately

"Water doesn't taste like anything. I'm tired of water," said Emery at dinner the other night.

What she isn't tired of is jumping. The girl is a crazy jumping bean these days. Every time I turn around she's jumping up and down as if I just announced we were going to live at the ice cream store. It took her a long long long time to learn how to jump, so I guess she is just making up for lost time.

Halloween came and went and naturally there were a fair amount of emotional displays from Anna Kimball regarding "more candies!" In fact, I even caught her licking away on a second lollipop after I told her she could only have one. Par for the course, I know, but seeing as how Emery is a first-born rule follower to the letter, I simply have no template for this kind of misdemeanor ... other than to throw that lollipop in the garbage and keep my eye on this one a little closer now. Oh and try not to start worrying about teenage rebellion yet.

I'm thankful the girls aren't really aware that many moms buy or make expensive and/or elaborate costumes for Halloween. That is just not my scene, at least right now. We were able to keep it simple with a borrowed Raggedy Ann suit for Anna Kimball and a few random items from the dress-up bin for Emery.

For Jamison, well, he got about four minutes in the spotlight. His average bedtime is 5:15 so he had already begun his night by the time the festivities started. I did manage to get him into our signature baby giraffe costume for a few minutes so that he could snag a little candy from our dear neighbor.

One big pumpkin ... one little boy!

At dinner tonight Emery prayed and the end of her prayer went something like this, "And I don't want to do anything. I just want to wash dishes and help Mommy in the kitchen when she is cooking. Amen."

Well, Emery, lots of times I don't want to do anything either. If you can manage to feed this family of five and keep the kitchen spic-and-span, have at it!

Sweet mornings

*I wrote this post a week ago. This morning was not quite so sweet. Jamison began his day at 4:55 and went down for his morning nap at 7:12. Fluke thing, right???

For some reason I feel compelled to document how our mornings go these days. Perhaps it's just to capture, in words, the sweetness of this season, a sweetness that is so easy to miss in the constant stream of meal making, nap-taking, nap-failing, diaper changing, potty-failing, car seat buckling, car seat unbuckling, tantruming, laughing, crying, whining, cheering, etc. etc. etc.

I've always been a morning person. I love a fresh start. Right now my mornings often begin earlier than I would prefer, but it's still my favorite time of the day with the children. These days, Jamison is first to rise and sadly, even as recently as the past few days, he has decided that 5:47 suits him just fine. The good news is that I can whisk him to my bed and nurse him back to a bit of a slumber giving my brain and body a chance to accept the reality that the day has begun. Before long, he fully awakes with the widest grin you've ever seen. All of his little toys are suddenly new again and he's perfectly content to lay around on the bed with me and fiddle with them while I attempt to have some semblance of "quiet time" with the Lord. 

Around 6:45 we hear Matt resurface from the basement, where he gets ready for the day. (His man cave is a whole other blog post :) ) He begins fixing his breakfast and I transition Jamison to the kitchen for his morning exercise in the Johnny Jumper. 

The coffee gets started, dishwasher unloading begins and chattering from the girls' bedroom usually can be heard. Praise. the. Lord. they are so obedient to their "OK to Wake!" clock and generally don't show their faces until 7:09 when the "clock turns" as they put it. 

Then at 7:10 on the dot they march out of their room, Emery always in the lead, and always bearing some kind of complaint about her finger, elbow, knee or some other very minor but very important ailment. Anna Kimball is all smiles, gleefully announcing that she has a "bouncy diaper." 

(Their animal lovies are under their shirts because they are babies of course)

So it's back to their bedroom we go and Jamison comes with us. There he will sit while Emery takes approximately 47 minutes to change into her panties. I have no idea why she is so leisurely about this. I am ever so glad he finds this entertaining. 

It's not long before Anna Kimball declares, "I hungry," and it's back to the kitchen to thaw whatever breakfast goodies are in the freezer, or fry up "an egg like Daddy's," or a smoothie to sneak in whatever nutrients I can get away with serving her ...

I could go on and on but you get the picture. It's all very ordinary, even mundane ... but there's something to savor in the routine, in the sweet morning spirits of these three children who really won't be so little and endearing in these small ways for very much longer. 

I could clean a bathroom

Or make these cookies. Both take about six minutes. So really I guess I could do both because I can definitely find 12 minutes in my schedule for these kinds of necessities.

These are not overly sweet so I think of them more as snacking cookies, which means I can eat them anytime I want and also feed them to the kids, guilt-free. Win-win!

Mash up two very ripe bananas and combine with 1.5 cups of quick oats, 1/3 cup of peanut butter and 1/2 cup of chocolate chips. Into a 350 degree oven for 12-15 minutes. (I suppose that's when I should be cleaning not one, but two bathrooms!)

Working on manners and bottles

This is how every single sentence Anna Kimball utters these days sounds:

"I wove your kitchen ... Mommy,"

"Daddy has a truck ... Mommy."

"Henny has a pool and I can go there ... Mommy."

"Emery has her sandals on ... Mommy!"

In case I forget who I am, to her and two others, she is faithfully there to remind me. Anna Kimball also is bordering on developing another habit that isn't quite as cute, one her sister developed at exactly the same age. The one where she interrupts me whenever I am talking to another adult and insists that I  "Stop talking Mommy!" so that she can get her very important question posed, statement uttered, or what-have-you.

So we are working on manners these days and I am seriously considering strapping my four-year-old in a high chair any minute now for I am beginning to lose track of how many times in meal she slips out of her seat, ambling on toward more interesting pursuits than finishing her half-eaten meal.

We/I also working on not getting too freaked out by Jamison's recent refusal of the bottle. Just a stage, right? He's so darn cute otherwise, but I tell you, I didn't even want to make eye contact with him yesterday after he refused two bottles in a day. I heard him laughing in his crib and all I could think was "the nerve! to laugh!" But then of course I went in there and saw him kicking his left leg like crazy and doing this new adorable thing where he sucks in his lower lip under his upper lip and somehow I forget the dreadfulness of his bottle boycott.

Yes, Anna Kimball is sitting in Emery's lap - Emery wants to mother everyone right now :).

Moments before he tried to fly out of the Bumbo. Definitely not a reliable holding spot but it'll do for about 10 seconds. 

This was taken on a walk to the neighborhood playground early the other morning. The girls were so excited and kept exclaiming "we're having so much FUN!" Guess we haven't been frequenting the playground recently ... I loved their enthusiasm over it all because really, playgrounds get old pretty fast ... but not on that magical morning. That also happened to be the day a wet bed woke them both up at 5am, Anna Kimball put herself down for nap at 11am and we sure needed a little magic to see us through a day that literally would not end.