Week of Milestones

Baby Girl learned to crawl last week.  It was not a milestone I was particularly looking forward to because, well, anyone who has had more than one kid can attest, it all seems rather downhill from here. Don't get me wrong, I love the development of their personalities, but it seems downhill in that they can now CHOOSE to leave me whenever they want... or see something shiny.  I had prepared myself so I wasn't a total mess when it happened, I was rather excited in-the-moment, but I must confess, I did spend half the night laying awake reveling in memories of all four kiddos and wondering where the time has gone.

For the record, if Zora wants someone to take an interest in her, she tilts her head to one side.  If she REALLY wants someone or something to notice her, she fairly turns herself upside down tilting her head to the side.

And then, when I thought I was having enough trouble grasping how big, how old, how non-infant my baby is getting, Em goes and starts riding her two-wheeled bicycle.  I don't mean we pranced around for over an hour taking turns holding the seat of her big-girl bike while she wobbled and panicked at how unsteady it was.  I mean I suggested trying to take the training wheels off, she got on, Todd held the seat for the space of three steps, and that was that.  Turning?  No problem.  Stopping?  A bit tricky but only had to show her once.  Starting?  Again, one explanation and that was it.  It very much reminded me of her toilet training, or learning to talk or essentially any undertaking she has accomplished in the last 5 years.  She just did it.  No fan-fare, no exciting climax, just a simple look of, "What?  This is a big deal?  Okay, then I'll smile really big for the camera but I still slightly think you're all nuts."

I'm not sure when they get their personalities.  I'm not sure how much is temperament or nature or nurture.  However it happens though, I'm pretty sure both of these girls are fairly amazing already.

Sisterhood Of The...

I'm not sure if every mamma out there experiences this, but I have to say, I'm feeling it rather acutely these days.  My kids are growing up.  GROWING.  UP.  

Translation, they are closer to growing away from me, and that is bringing with it so many, many emotions.  A few months ago, I heard a devotional that perfectly accentuated this feeling of both pride, nostalgia and agony over each of these new milestones.  The author spoke about how, especially first-time parents, we celebrate and capture the "Firsts".  First bath.  First smile.  First food.  First day of school.  But how rarely are the "Lasts" captured.  The last time they sneak into your bed at 5am to snuggle on a Saturday.  The last time they voluntarily kiss you in public.  The last time they ask for help buttoning their pants.  The last shoe lace tied.  The Lasts.  

I've been feeling the Lasts a lot.  I think it's one of the curses of having kids so close... you get so frantic with #1 and #2, and then start to regain your footing by #3 and once #4 comes around, you have sorted out how to grocery shop with four kiddos and how to do laundry for six people and how to get everyone, yourself included, out the door with shoes, clothes, snacks AND brushed teeth.  That's when you can look around and realize:  This is the last newborn-meeting-the-family picture.  My last 'first smile' moment.  My last newborn baby squeaks that I swore I would record with Em and have yet to get anything... on any of them.  

So, to honor the Lasts and all that comes with that, I made an effort.  I made an effort to remember not just the firsts which have been so dutifully put on the family calendar to hopefully (some day) be transferred to some sweet keepsake calendar just for that child, but also the lasts.  Zora is a speed demon.  She's intent on keeping up with, or at least being able to observe at her leisure, the rest of this zoo she lives with.  She's angry when she can't move with them outside, or to the next room, or upstairs.  She gets angry when they're eating and she doesn't have a spoon in hand.  But it's not an anger at being left out so much as her way of saying, "See, I'm just like you guys!"

This week, I had another Last moment.  It was gut-wretching too.  Auntie Em, who is family in a thousand ways and whom I love more than I love my shinny blue pot, fairly looted a going-out-of-business outlet when Em was a newborn.  When I got this massive package from her, it had clothing that at the time looked ENORMOUS and I couldn't fathom my daughter ever wearing them.  Then, we left for South Africa and sure enough, Emme fit into one of my favorite footed numbers.  At first, I loved it because it was so obviously pink, thus, girly.  Em had a rather androgynous look to her in those days and I appreciated the "I'm A Girl" statement of this outfit.  

Em wore it the whole plane ride from the US of A to South Africa.  She learned to walk in it and I had to hunt through all of Joburg for puffy paint (side note, things can be called by different names in different countries... learned that one real fast) to put on the little feet so she wouldn't slip and slide all over our tile floors.  Then, she got too big for it and I packed it away.  Not because I was thinking of saving it, but because I honestly wouldn't have known anyone at that point to give it away to.

 Then my Fireball of a Second Daughter came.  And I pulled it out because, once again, it was hard to tell gender.  I think it might have been those shinny bald heads that gave everyone so many issues.  Especially since we live next to so many retirement villages.  Either way, the same dots were on the feet that had been put there and the same ladybug that I loved.  But again, it got packed away because, again, she got too big for it.

 After Baby Girl was born, I was THRILLED to be able to pull out my stash of "girl clothes" once again.  My stack was diminished from a home assignment where many things were left and because of stains that no amount of hand scrubbing could redeem.  But amongst my favorite, out came this one.  THE ONE.  My baby clothing version of creme de la creme.  I washed it with the newborn clothes so I wouldn't forget it.  And then, all too fast, Baby Girl was in it.  And, all too fast, Baby Girl is out of it.  Three girls, one outfit, four very different milestones.  

 The last, and final chapter in the Sisterhood of the Growing Footed-Sleeper.  

Inside Voices

Inside voice please.

Inside voice please!

Inside voice please!!

INSIDE voice please!!!

INSIDE  VOICE  PLEASE!!!

Emme:  Mommy, how come we have to use inside voices but you don't?

There are days, many days, when I feel like I have said the same five phrases at least a thousand times.  Sometimes, it feels closer to a hundred thousand.  And while I'd love to be able to admit that I always ask nicely, always keep my cool, the brutal truth is, I don't.  Sometimes, I have to take a small ear and bring it really, really close to my face and use the very best "scary whisper" I can muster to get my point across.  Sometimes, I give up and do it myself.  Sometimes, I simply sink to their level and yell louder than they do in order just to be heard.  When did I become Charlie Brown's mother?  Wah wha-wah-waahh wah wha???

I honestly don't know how mothers survived before the internet.  Before the mommy-blogging people who posted encouraging things and various ways to keep a toddler occupied so you can do something productive... like the dishes, or take a shower, or just use the toilet alone.  I often have days when, just after bedtime, I head to my little dark corner of the house where the computer is and get on to a blog just so I can be reminded that I'm not a total failure.  I haven't irreparably damaged my children from what happened today.  One of my favorites is this youtube video.

This last week, I felt like I was just a sounding gong or a noiseless cymbal to my children.  I tell them to clean up, so they get more out.  I ask them to wash up for dinner, so they rip the trampoline net down.  I tell them to get clothes on and Todd is late for getting them to school because, low and behold, it wasn't done.  Then we stopped at a traffic light.  There was a hawker and once he realized he wasn't going to get a sale from me, he moved on to the kiddos in the back.  He was enticing them to start begging poor, tired mommy for whatever it was he was selling and Cooper (I promise I'm not making this up) from the far back row of the mini van says, "No thank you.  We don't need that."

This is one small step for Cooper, one giant leap for his mamma!  I could not have been more proud.  I could not have been more shocked.  That's when I remembered the video and the mommy-talk.  I don't tell them a hundred times we don't "need" whatever for me.  I'm not seemingly-endlessly spinning my wheels for me.  I'm not really even doing it for them.  I know my days when they aren't sulking at me, hating me, or punishing me for not letting them...oh... eat junk food, hang out with that friend, go to this party, whatever, are numbered.  I do what I do because I serve a God who SEES what I do.  I serve a God who SEES every ketchup stain I conquer, every ice cube of baby food puree I make, every single time I suck it up and read that book one.  more.  time.

Just as He sees the carved bird in the rafters that no one else will, He sees me, day in and day out, mundanely, tediously and monotonously guiding this zoo of mine through life.