Red, White and New

This year we celebrated our first July 4 in our new hood.  It was SO fun!  We loved our old neighborhood, but the median age there was about 85.  This neighborhood is chock full of little kids.  The morning started off with a parade/party at the circle.  My kids were too little to bring bikes/scooters, lest they get run off the road by a burly 12 year old.  They were pretty bummed about this, but next year I'm thinking they'll be all over it.  We ate breakfast tacos, and the kiddos played with squirt guns while everyone visited.

We tried to walk in the neighborhood parade, but that lasted all of two streets before everyone started complaining about being hot, sweaty and tired.  (Me included)  The kids couldn't concentrate on the parade because they were fixated on the iced sugar cookies they had seen back at the circle.  Daddy had to go get the car while we sat on a street corner.  We drove back to the circle to collect aforementioned cookies, which no one ate.  Sigh.

Later in the day, some of our friends and family came over to swim and eat.  Shawn and I love fried chicken, but know how horrible it is for us, so we decided that July 4 is going to be our annual "Eat Fried Chicken Day".  We're going to limit it to once a year, so that when July 4 rolls around, we'll be really excited about that chicken.

The littles had the best time in the pool.  The daddies spent their time throwing people (too high for this mommy) all over the pool, which the kiddos loved.  At one point there were waves in the pool about three feet high....it looked like the middle of the ocean.  Hopefully we've started a little tradition for the fourth....

Listen.

I love this kid, and how his mind works.  

He is in a building phase, and loves his Legos the best.  

I have learned what it means to step on a tiny lego piece while walking through his room, and I think the pain may rival the contractions I felt as this baby entered the world. 

The daily threat of stepping on a Lego is SO worth the entertainment it brings him, though.  He really, really loves making something, ANYTHING....but mostly airplanes.

(This makes his Popo proud.)

The first time we got him a lego kit, we were dumbfounded by how easily he could follow the directions (the booklets are sometimes 30+ pages long) to perfection.  

That (along with the attention span it took to complete these little projects) was really impressive.  

At first, he was really worried about the direction booklets getting lost.   He thought he HAD to have the booklet to make something.....but his mommy (being the rule follower she is NOT) explained he could make anything he wanted with the pieces.  

Once he figured this out, a whole new world was opened up....

He works and works and works on something, and tells us all about it with great interest and determination.  

I listen and listen, because I love his little voice, and how much enthusiasm he feels about his creations.

Plus, I just read something online that goes something like this:

"Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what.  If you don't listen eagerly to the little stuff while they are little, they won't tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff."

Dude.  Convicting, right?  

I'm trying so hard to do that, and it's hard when there are three of them always wanting to be heard.  

So I love the moments like this, when I get one on one time with one of them, and get to hear all about what's in their tiny heart and mind. 

Because really, I desperately want them to tell me the "big" stuff someday.  

Let's hope we're doing something right, and that at least some of the time that happens.

For now, his "big stuff" involves Legos and tiny plastic toys and for that I am grateful. 

Summer Swimmin'....

Since this house has a pool, I was serious about these tiny ones becoming competent swimmers, and FAST.  The twins were already pretty great, but Liv...not so much.  We signed up for swim lessons at the Alamo Heights Pool (which I highly recommend!!) and they loved it!!

Hayden and Cale were in separate classes, and since they divide them by skill level, I had to determine who was doing better at first.  It didn't take long to figure out Sis was in the higher skill group, because my son, (who is a great swimmer, mind you) refused to swim without holding his nose!!  This is sort of my fault, because I'd been letting him swim at home with a mask that covered his nose, and he wasn't used to blowing air out while he swam.  Sissy, on the other hand, happened to have goggles instead of a mask, so she was ahead of him in that aspect.  He got so much better by the end of the two weeks, but then his "non-nose goggles" broke and he's using the old mask.  (Bad mommy)  The big ones got SO MUCH better during the session, and have been blowing us away with their swimming at home.  They can retrieve anything off the bottom of our pool, will jump in from crazy heights, and are now getting into racing each other, which is hilarious because you can totally see that they will be competitive like Shawn and I.  The baby went from using floaties to SWIMMING alone.  This was fabulous, except for the fact that after lessons, she thought she was a big deal and refused to ever wear floaties again, meaning Mommy had to get in EVERY time they got in.  No more reading poolside for me.  She has gotten so much better since lessons were over too.  She is a daredevil, and will swim across the whole pool alone, or imitate her brother and sister jumping off the side.  She cracks us up, because she thinks she can do cannonball, jacknife and "pencil" but all three tricks are identical.
We have loved watching them become swimmers....I know they are WAY ahead of either their Daddy or I at that age.  So fun!

Moving on and Settling in....

We're finally really settled in to this new house....it's been an adventure, and not one I care to repeat for quite a while.  Luckily, we can see ourselves in this house for the duration, because moving with three tiny people and a husband that works sixty hours a week was a pain in my arse.  The house is in great shape, but there are a million and one tiny projects lined up that will help make it feel like OURS.  The kiddos love the pool, and their new rooms....they ask about the old house sometimes, and Hayden wanted to know when we were going to go back inside it.  I told her "probably never" and that made me sad.  I drove by twice to see what it looked like since it changed hands, and I probably won't do that again for awhile....it made me really sad.  Moving on was necessary, but it's hard to separate myself from the house that held so many good memories for us!  

So for now, we start in on making new memories here.  It's days like these that we do just that....play with chalk in the sunlight, waiting for Daddy to get home from work.  

Every day it starts to feel more and more like our new home.....and I'm excited for all the fun memories we're going to make here!

My fifth mother's day....

Five years!  Has it really been five years that I've been doing this?  I'm no expert, but I'm surely a lot better at this than I was five years ago....me and these three tiny humans learned together.  I didn't know what I was doing when I brought two tiny babies home from the hospital (one with her legs up by her head in the car seat because we didn't know how to strap them in yet).....and I was only marginally better at mothering when we brought home Livi...

but I know now this mothering thing isn't about being perfect.

Because if it was, I would really, really stink at it. 

But wouldn't we all?

I mean really, who is doing this mothering thing so well that they go to bed thinking, "Man, I really knocked it out of the park today!  I am pretty much the world's best mother!"

I know I don't....ever.  

Lots of nights I lay in bed and feel like I didn't do enough...

I remember how I spoke harshly, or didn't have enough patience, or hurried someone through their story and into bed, and I wish I could get a "do over".  

And although you can't "do-over" your mistakes, you can learn from them and get a little bit better each time.  

I think I've gotten easier on myself.

I know I can be impatient, (especially by the time 5 p.m. rolls around and I've broken up the 12th fight of the day) but I know no one could ever love my kids exactly the way I do.  

I know my kids know I'm not perfect, but I know they know how loved they are.  

I know they think their Mommy thinks they are smart, funny and lovable...and loves them best of all.

So even though I'm not perfect at this thing called mothering, and it's BY FAR the hardest thing I've ever done, EVER...

I'm so grateful I get the chance to do it.  

I remember when I was pregnant with the twins, and a friend's mother gave me card and in it she wrote, "Think how special God must believe you are that He trusted you with the job of mothering not one, but TWO babies."...and I was so grateful for that sweet sentiment.  It wasn't about "Good Luck: You're going to need it." or "How are you going to HANDLE two babies???" but "WOW.  You are going to be amazing at this, and God knows it."  

Not that it meant I was always going to do the best job, but that whatever job I did, it was going to be enough, because God believed in me enough to give me these sweet gifts....

allowing me to be someone's MOTHER. 

Even though it means getting pooped on, peed on, barfed on, embarrassed in the grocery store, kicked in the face while you're sleeping, yelled at and it ruins the stomach that used to look good in a bikini,  etc....

it's still the best thing ever.

Isn't that funny?  

No matter how good you think you have it, becoming a mother makes all that other stuff completely insignificant.  None of it matters anymore except them...

Are they healthy?

Are they making friends?  

Is someone (God Forbid, because I'm coming after them) being mean to them?

So today I'm grateful for three feisty, precocious, creative, interesting, smart, thoughtful, hilarious, loving, tender hearted, brave, healthy children.....and grateful that I get to call myself their mother.   

They are absolutely the best thing I never knew I'd be lucky enough to call my own, and I'll take a kick in the face any day to get to keep doing it...

All I have to do is look back through these sweet pictures to remember how fleeting it is....it was yesterday that we brought the twins home, and now they're five!  FIVE.  How did this happen?  

It speeds by like lightning, and someday I will MISS tiny bodies taking up my sleeping space, three tiny people clamoring for more milk, another spoon (while my dinner sits getting cold.) I will miss potty training (did I just say that??) and miss being woken up when it's barely light outside by a tiny girl who can barely see over my mattress and is standing in the dark eating a can of pringles next to my bed....

so today, during this season of my life, I will be grateful for this, for this job God's given me...

grateful for ALL of it, everyday....

I will leave my floors dirty to spend 2 hours putting together a Lego Ice Cream shop with my girls.

I will ignore laundry to sit at the table with Cale and help him spell as he writes "tickets" for us all for doing something wrong.  

I will take my kids to the park when I really just want to watch HGTV and let them play here....

because I'm so glad I get to be their Mommy....