Funny Nora and Eliza cuteness

 Tonight Nora said, "Mom, I just can't remember what I look like! I try to think about it, and my brain just, poof! Can't think of it. I have no IDEA WHAT MY OWN SELF LOOKS LIKE!"

Right now I'm eavesdropping on Nora and Eliza chatting when they're supposed to be sleeping. Eliza asked, "Would you rather have a pet rock, or a pet whale?"

I can't hear Nora's answer, but they are still talking about 10 minutes later so it must be a pretty good discussion.

I had a big mom fail today. I didn't do all the paperwork required for Nathan to show his pigeon in 4H. He showed up tonight for registration and was told he won't be able to show or sell his bird. He was pretty upset and I feel pretty crumby.

Fourteen

 When I think of close we were to not having Olivia here to celebrate her birthday with us, I literally cannot breathe.

My sweet baby girl, who was the size of a jelly bean when I started this blog, tried to take her own life in November.

Every day since I have wondered what I can do better for her. Will she try it again? How do I keep her safe? What else should I do? Why can't she see how amazing she is? How needed she is. Was I too harsh and impatient when she was a toddler? Was I too lenient and spoiled her so much I didn't give her the chance to build her self esteem? Did I put too much responsibility on her being the oldest? These are questions I never stop asking myself.

Have to keep it going!

 Nora's vampire story

I love looking back on this blog and reading about the long forgotten silly things my kids did when they were little.

Right now Nora and Matthew are the littles and I won't have any stories for them when they're older and ask me about the cute funny things they did and said.

I'm going up to try to add a video of Nora telling me a story she wrote about a vampire.

Olivia is about to turn 14. Tomorrow night we have high school registration. I started this blog before an ultrasound could even detect her heartbeat. Time is an interesting thing.

People talk a lot about the teenage years and honestly it's a thousand times harder than I ever could have imagined. I much prefer the days of them wanting all of my attention, to never wanting to talk to me.

So let's talk about the little ones. Matthew is a sensory seeker, hilarious, busy, busy little boy. He does not stop. All day long. He goes, goes, goes. He is constantly into something he shouldn't, despite the fact that there is so much he is encouraged to get into. Toys? Why bother, when someone concurrently conveniently left this pet food here for me to throw all over the place. An entire indoor jungle gym? Thanks Mom, but I'd much rather spend my time unraveling all the toilet paper. He's also a very picky eater and is very particular about things being the way he thinks they should be. 

As much as a handful that he is, he also brings us so much joy and laughter. We delight in every met milestone, and everyone loves hearing every word he comes up with. He has a mind of his own, for sure, but he's also the first to say sorry, give you a hug, and he lives to hold open doors.

"I knew you were going to do that, Mama!"

 The other day Nora wanted to ride her little tricycle through our neighborhood. She came to a slight incline in the sidewalk and before she could start to struggle, I gave her a little push from behind. She turned to me and said, "I knew you were going to do that, Mama! You always help me." And for some reason those words struck me and brought tears to my eyes.

I wish every problem in her life would be as easy to anticipate as struggling up a hill. I wish she'd always be grateful for my help. But I'm so grateful that she knew I would be there to help her, and I hope I never let her down when she "knows" I'm going to do something. 

At the same time I'm comforted by knowing that our struggles are what help us grow. And if I hadn't given her a boost in that moment, her legs would just become all the stronger for going through the struggle. But sometimes it's nice to have the extra push up the hill, and I'm glad she knows I'm always there, ready to help give her that push when she needs it.

Nora woke up in the middle of the night with some tummy troubles. Our 3am conversation went like this:

Me: "Looks like you're having some tummy troubles."

Nora: "Wait, poop comes from your tummy? I thought that was where the food goes."

Me: "well it is, but then your body turns the food into poop."

Nora, looking like a light bulb just went off above her head, "Now that explains EVERYTHING!"

I'm too tired to even question why that explains everything.

Then as I was helping her get cleaned up and clothes back on she looks into my eyes and says "I think your green eyes are like dragon eyes. I think you can see farther away and you can see Coconuts coming to attack us and you can warn us like, 'Hurry! The coconuts are coming!' Am I right, mom? Can you do that?"

Yup, totally have dragon eyes, now please go to sleep, it's 3am.

Nora asked for an apple and when I told her that she already had one today, so she'd have wait until tomorrow she cried, "But Mommy, that apple is in my stomach. I don't have an apple in my heart."

Also while showering the other day she came in the bathroom and when I asked who came into the bathroom Nora said, "Uhm, it's me, Eliza speaking."

Right now its the end of a long day, after a long week and my heart is just really full of so much love for my people. My migraines have been really debilitating lately and Olivia has just stepped beyond what anyone could ever ask of a 12 year old. She takes the 2 year old and entertains him while I wait for meds to kick in. She cleans up without being asked. I'm just so proud of the wonderful young woman she's become. We're all really enjoying each others company lately - most of the time.

Abigail did tell me she thinks she is starting to go crazy because she thinks she can hear Binky talking to her. She said his voice sounds Alexa, and as she was telling me she said, "Like right now, he's telling me I shouldn't tell you this, and because I'm telling you he just scoffed at me."

Nathan also said his stuffed animals have started talking to him and even sometimes his clothes.

I'm itching for adventure and can't wait until we can go somewhere. I want to visit NJ, I want to camp. I just want to get out of this heat!

Today we went to the river and the kids found a rope swing. Eliza and Abigail both went on it, but everyone else was too scared. Honestly I was terrified and probably shouldn't have let them, but no one got hurt and all is well that ends well, I suppose.

How we've survived lock down

I'm trying to write every day. I feel like I used to love writing and I loved knowing my words made people feel something. I want to improve my writing, and as my kids are growing I'm finding I do have some free time to pursue some kind of thought like this. So here is my attempt on Day 1.

We have been "sheltering" at home for almost 8 weeks. The kids have been fairing pretty well. They say the miss school and things if you ask them, but they don't ever mention it if you don't. With the except of the time we drove past the school and all 3 elementary school aged kids yelled out the window, "LET ME OUT! LET ME GO TO DVA!" which made me happy.

There were a few HUGE things we missed out on that I'm still grieving over.
               1. Fair - girls worked really hard raising their rabbits and were looking forward to showing                    them at fair.
               2. The city's youth theater play. Olivia and Abigail both got lead roles and were so excited.
               3. Olivia's swim team and Shakespeare class/play.
               4. Our trip to NJ in May.

Shakespeare will probably be rescheduled, and our trip to NJ will hopefully still happen later in the summer, but it's still disappointing.

I enjoy not having the craziness of having to get kids to school each morning, swim team every day, play practice, gymnastics, etc. In fact, I can't remember the last time I stressed about how I was going to be in 2 places at once, and having to ask someone for help with transporting my kids somewhere. But not having these things also makes me realize how important they were. They were things that brought enjoyment and gave us something to do, and work on. Hopefully I'll complain less, once we can get back to normal. Another plus has been that they've shortened the hours Aaron's pharmacy is open, so he's always home by bedtime now, even when he has to close. I wouldn't mind if they decide to keep these hours forever.

It has really warmed up over the last week or so, which has made it even harder. Fortunately things are starting to open and people are starting to feel comfortable having play dates again. Really the last few weeks my kids have spent more time playing video games and watching Netflix than anything else. And I struggle with that. On the one hand, we're in a global pandemic so why worry about things like screen time. On the other hand, when I look over and see all of my kids faces in a separate device, I can't help but feel like a terrible mother who's letting her children waste their childhoods on things that don't matter, instead of making memories of playing together.

Well now, Nora has joined me and it's a lot harder to write with a 3 year old asking me a million questions so I guess I'll wrap this up.