Sunday, November 14, 2010

Time to baby proof


Well baby #3 is ALL over the place. He is a crawling fool and leaves his trail of spit up for us to find him. So glad we opted not to replace our carpets yet and instead invested in a carpet cleaner. G brings out that sucker once a month and within 2 hours our carpet looks like a bad 70s shag with orange, green and yellow spots.

When we left for Disney last month P was just starting to sit unassisted. He conquered that while we were gone as well as started to move ever so forward on his hands and knees. Since then he is a master of sitting, crawling and pulling himself up on his knees. He is into EVERYTHING. Nothing is safe. His favorite toy: the hideous vertical blinds in our kitchen. He loves pulling on them. He also got a wonderful report from our first home-bound PT appointment (our one and only). He is in the 90 percentile for gross motor skills and he is officially written off of home PT. We are so thankful. We have OT coming this week and I suspect it will go just as well and all early interventions will cease. What a true blessing.

We have been enjoying much of the last 7 months with P home. We are shocked at how fast time is going with #3. It is amazing. It feels like everyday a new skill is learned. The older two are working with P to get his verbal skills rolling. They repeat every noise he makes and he responds by making a new noise. It makes for loud car rides but I love it. I love that my two oldest want to help P become more verbal.

Speaking of the other two...Ry is growing like a weed. It seems overnight she shot up. She is now as tall as her good friend S. Also she is growing her hair out which has completely changed her appearance. She looks like a big girl. I love her to pieces and can't believe she will be entering kindergarten next year.

E is talking up a storm. He's favorite phrase; No Way or Go Away. He is such an even tempered little boy who generally is a gender neutral player. He loves twirling in his sister's dress up gowns and playing with his trains and matchbox cars. I love how happy he is and his favorite place to go is home. He is not much for running around town and needing to constantly go, go, go as my oldest. He loves being home, playing with his toys or his sister's playdates.

I can't believe the holidays are almost upon us. I have started the shopping but now need to go in overdrive this week to get it done due to G's crazy schedule. I am so looking forward to Christmas as a family of five and that we get to spend it all together at home.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Monday, November 8, 2010

Somewhere in the middle

These past 12 months have been extreme. I have never felt the weight of life and how precious it is as much as I have in the past year. This isn't only from my own experiences the last 12 months although there have been a lot: losing my mother-in-law, hubby spending time in the hospital, a diagnosis of a heart defect in my newborn son, losing my father-in-law while waiting for life saving surgery for my son, etc, etc, etc. Just as we would catch our breath some thing else would happen. Then there are the events outside of my family. Amazingly tragic events happening to people I know or know of...
The whole experience got me thinking about the downside of middle-age. Yes this is admitting that I am there, in the middle of what should be my life expectancy. Gone are the care free days of playing, giggling and learning my ABC's. The excitement stemming from getting to be a year older and that much closer to being a big person. The walks down the hallways of high school with friends, passing notes about what you're going to wear to the football game and getting the answers for the quiz for 4th period class. The carelessness of the college campus life bubble of discovering who you are and what you want to be when you grow up.
Nothing I ever imagined as a child, teen or college kid about being a grown up is exactly true. Sure I get to eat ice cream when ever I feel like it and I don't have to listen to my mother but now that I am here I think it would be nice to just go back.
Adulthood has unimaginable highs and incredible lows. The middle of your life you get the immense pleasure of bringing new life in and such pain to see life taken away.
I now understand the mid-life crisis. The want or need to capture your youth, to hold on to the carefree days and it sounds exquisite. However due to life experience there is really no way to go back and grab a hold of it. You know too much.
So here I sit in the middle watching with doe eyes at how precarious life really is...