Our Kids

Today I have a mother’s helper over and while she is doing science experiments and building race tracks with the girls I am cleaning out drawers, filing documents and getting ready to get something done.

Anyhoo, as I am cleaning out things I am struck by the volume of little things that Lela has made for me and for Jason.

Little eggs drawn on paper and cut out with zig zag scissors, drawings of birthday cakes carefully folded and tucked in to an envelope, a picture of the sun, a drawing of a heart and the word mommy on paper with pink trim and a rubber band taped to the top for hanging. The list goes on and on and I just want her to know that even though I can’t keep everything she makes me I do cherish it all for a short time before I “file” it away and it lives forever in my memories:)

Thanks Lela for being so true to yourself and for expressing yourself the way you do through your drawings, you are such a gift:)

The girls started the USTA Quickstart Tennis program today. Just like their music class it is all play based and they loved it. So they play chase and other games to help them build the skill set for tennis. They use over-sized foam balls that bounce lower, a child sized court, small/lightweight rackets and a very low net. We are so excited for them and for us because it gives us something else to do with them during the day (practice our tennis drills) and something for us to do as a family. Next up….golf!

I was folding Landis’ clothes this morning and thinking about what a year she has been having. Just looking at her clothes made me realize how much she has changed and how much change has been put upon her. So I decided to document it here before I forget.

So Landis here goes:

About halfway between ages 2 and 3 you decided you would only wear dresses or skirts. A lot of the time you want to wear a dress and a skirt. You are VERY picky about what you will wear and NOTHING can have a tag on it. If there is a tag anywhere you demand to have it removed. You don’t like to wear shirts to bed, you just wear pants, shorts or panties.

You love to have things put in your hair but you take them out about 5 minutes later.

Your vocabulary has increased tremendously. You are very articulate about what you want and you mimic all of us. Sometimes you echo Lela and that drives her nuts:)

You potty trained in about 5 days. You were pretty surly about it and did not want to wear panties and did not want to go back in diapers. You threw your diapers away and we never gave them back. You potty trained for the day and night at the same time.

You learned how to ride a bicycle with training wheels and skipped right over the tricycle.

You slept in your own bed for the first time right before Phoebe was born in February. You go to bed in your own bed every night but you end up in our bed at some time during the evening. You gave up napping and you only nap when you can’t keep your eyes open and that is usually when you are in the car.

You are very good at independent play and don’t mind playing by yourself. You also like to role play with your sisters. You are very loving to your baby sister Phoebe and can be found lying in her crib with her (something I try to keep you from doing for safety reasons).

You adore baby dolls and playing in your kitchen. You make tons of food for everyone including pizza, ice creams and soy chai or coffee drinks.

You are such a joy and delight and just looking at the tremendous changes you have been going through amazes me, no wonder you are cranky some times:)

EDIT: I had to edit this to include that you never met a green vegetable that you actually LIKED! I do get spinach and kale in to your smoothies and you will now eat broccoli in your eggs and pasta but that has taken monumental effort. You love to eat fruit, rice/beans and cheese (although I don’t give it to you often) and you love mints (any and all of them).

We have had one busy week. It did not start out to be a busy week but it ended up that way and we still have Friday to go!

Monday started with Great Play for Landis, a playdate with Kate for the girls and then open gym at Great Play for the girls. On Monday afternoon we picked up Corbin and Noa and we all went to Toy Story 3.

Tuesday we went out to get the oil in the car changed and played around the house. Jason and I went to see the Dbacks and the Yankees play and Kelly babysat the girls.

Wednesday we had a blissful playdate at Kate’s house that involved swimming in their supersized kiddie pool, imaginary play, making fish and everyone making their own pizza for lunch.

Thursday we got up and we went to see Sesame Street Live (why they make shows for little kids 2 hours is beyond me). They loved every second of it and we had awesome seats thanks to the DSMOM ticket getter:)

So tomorrow is Friday with Great Play class for Piper and Lela and then open gym for all the girls.

On top of all those things we made gloop (the girls love that), made and played with dough (and then threw it away), made cookies (and ate them) and did all sorts of fun things using just our imagination, a few cardboard boxes, some babies and some zhu zhu pets. As if that wasn’t enough Phoebe has decided that 5AM is when she is going to wake up every day AND I have started running regularly again.

All this excitement spells early bedtime for me.

Oh and I forgot about Saturday, Tennis lessons for the girls, golf lessons for me and Great Play for Landis. I already need a nap.

Well this will have to be quick because I can hear Phoebe calling me.

She had her 4 month appt and it went great.

She was 14#14 oz and 25.5 inches long. So she looks like she is going to be another tall one:) She sprouted up 3 inches in the last two months and is in the 90 percentile for height (not that I worry too much about percentiles:)

Healthy as a horse and happy as a clam.

Last year I attended a home school conference and heard a traveling mom of six talk about simplification. I heard everything she said, you could have probably seen my head nodding in agreement as she spoke but I don’t think I was actually listening.

During her talk she said your kids don’t need all that stuff. She went on to list what they did need. For example, she said your kids need two pairs of jeans and one pair of dress pants and that’s it! This is what she did, she asked her boys what they liked to wear (they were 6 or 7) and one picked jeans and one picked shorts. So she picked out of their clothes what they liked to wear and got rid of the rest. The boys were happy, she was happy and the laundry machine was lonely.

Landis is a prime example of this (as well as her father and myself if I look at it). We like to wear just a few things out of our wardrobe and nothing else. So this weekend we are thinning the herd big time. The girls have no less than 20 pairs of shoes EACH! What kind of mad world is this? Piper’s feet haven’t changed sizes in over a year and a half (which explains her glut of shoes, hers plus Lelas). So I bit the bullet and they are each down to 4 pairs of shoes, that’s it the rest are gone. They also picked out 10 stuffed animals and I have about 100 to get rid of. Is that insane or what?

We thinned out the clothes, not as much as the example above but a lot. I feel lighter already and no one is complaining. Sigh, why didn’t I listen sooner?

Edited to add:
I just want to say that it is a process and that the girls were not running about trying to find things to get rid of:) It was painful more so for Lela than anyone else. But I did not want to give any of you readers the idea that this thinning is easy on anyone but in the end everyone is okay.

I want to add that I like to have two weeks worth of clothes for all the girls which amounts to a lot of clothes. I do this because it relieves some pressure on me to get every piece of everyone’s clothes washed every Sunday. I like to do laundry on Sunday, to say I was a creature of habit would be an understatement. So we have thinned but by no means are we skinny.

Is TV really that bad? I think no:) We have been abstaining from TV and everything has gone on fine. In fact I think it has given me time for reflection as well as re-connection with my kids. The thing that makes TV bad is the misuse of it and I think that is very easy to fall in to.

For example, I was restricting TV already and only using it at the end of the day when we were all at our wits end. But that meant when Dad got home he was met with a bunch of glassy eyed stares and not even a hello, who wants to come home to TV zombies? The other thing I noticed is how much fun we have without it. Now when it comes to 4:30 I just tell the girls they have to play independently until Daddy gets home, no more mommy direction. They can still use the red activity bag but it has to be a self driven activity.

The other day we were incredibly busy making oobleck, several father’s day gifts, painting, making fuzzy creatures, making chocolate chip cookies and all that was on top of a trip to the store to buy tshirts for crafting and a home cooked lunch of sweet potato, broccoli, cauliflower and chickpeas. By 4:30 I was beat and the house was relatively clean.

I have also found that with the girls home all day and us busy all day no one gets any downtime. TV equals downtime. So maybe a happy medium is only one show, 20 min and mommy picks. I think the girls are okay with this compromise since it gives them something back that they want and something I think they need, downtime. We do sit quietly and read books to ourselves but it really isn’t the same yet but maybe it will be and we can replace TV altogether. I think when they start kindergarten this fall TV will be a non issue and non existent but during these long dog days of summer you might find us catching a show or two as needed during the week.

So I learned a lesson here, it’s about moderation. Man I don’t like moderation, he is so gray and I like black and white:) But I supposed Mr. Moderation and I should become friends in more areas than just TV watching:)

Well Phoebe continues to be an easy baby. She is following along in the footsteps of her twin sisters. The other day we were talking about how easy she was and we decided to rank the kids in order of ease as babies. In doing so we realized just how difficult Landis was as a baby. She was so difficult that we ranked her above the twins. The thing about Landis was that she never slept and was colicky. I don’t think she slept though the night until she was almost two with many, many night wakings and feedings. Of course now she is cute as a pin and no trouble so we are definitely only talking about when she was wee.

Phoebe on the other hand is easy to put down to sleep, sleeps pretty much on a schedule (her own but it is easy to spot), sleeps well during the night, goes down at 5:30PM and gets up at 5:30AM (which is early no doubt but consistent). She is always happy unless she is hungry, tired or wet. Cute as a button and easy peasy:) Maybe we will have more…..NOT.