My Baby is Free

Today, Baby Girl, you turned free. Free years old! I can hardly belibe it.

Three years ago you came bursting into our lives, like the star of a play bursting onto stage, smiling and singing -- and you've managed to shine in your own spotlight ever since. Despite making us wait for your big entrance, we enthusiastically cheered your arrival on stage.

You are the missing piece that we didn't even know was missing until you filled it's spot, completing our family puzzle perfectly, as you do.

You do things your way, in your own time, just like how you came into our family in your own good time. Refusing to be told how and when, you basically potty trained yourself in a few days, when you were good and ready. In just the last week you learned how to dress yourself. It seems every time I turn around you are mastering something new, on your own (being the third child means fending for yourself a lot more). Rather than try to keep up with you, I find myself sitting back and just observing you, watching you grow your wings and fly...

You are fiercely independent and you have a mind of your own, which you love to share if people around you would just listen. I do love listening to your chatter and stories, except maybe at 8:30 pm, when it's time to sleep and you have to tell us just ONE more thing, or do one more thing, or read one more book, "I promise just ONE more and I'll NEVER ask again". Mm hmm.

You love to be our special helper, whether it's cooking (trying to keep your little hands off hot burners while you sample everything), or laundry (matching socks or throwing folded clothes in the air); if you see a job being done you're the first to say "Can I help?" while pulling a chair behind you, not waiting for an answer.

You are sunshine and thunderclouds. You give the BEST hugs and kisses, and the biggest smiles, even (especially?) at 6 am when it's still dark out. You can throw the most epic tantrums. Go big or go home, right? You may be the littlest but you won't let that stop you from making the biggest impression. You're tenacious, and spunky, and you give mommy more gray hairs than anyone. You've found yourself in plenty of sticky situations, but you just shrug and smile and hold out your hands (for mommy to wipe). You've got a sparkle in your eye that makes it impossible for anyone to be mad at you -- and I think you know it. ;)

I love you Lolo Bird. Thanks for letting me watch as you fly.

Love, Mommy Bird

Not YOU... You're the Good One!

NO no no.

The "good" one has started to act up.

No, this can't be. She's our rule-follower. Our middle child, our quiet one. The pleaser. Sure she has her moments, her fits of crying, times when she's immobilized by shyness. But, she's our good girl!

But lately, I've seen a little flash in her eye, as she swears up and down and inside out that what she's saying is TRUE! It's TRUE Mommy, I didn't sleep at ALL last night! Or, For real, I got a elephant one [vitamin]!"*

*SIDEBAR -- why do my kids insist on classifying every little thing, and placing a higher value on things that are exactly the same?? The 'elephant' and 'hippo' vitamins taste *exactly* the same as the 'doggy' one, just with a different picture engraved on the side, little children! Can't you see that?? Gaah!

But I digress. The point is, The Girl has started to lie like a rug.

Now, I know it's a phase in childhood... it's just her age. She is 5.5... 5.5 year olds lie. They just do. And I know it's probably good for her, in the long run, to test out fact from fiction, her acting skills, asserting herself in the face of a challenge.

At least that's what I'm telling myself as I question her on these things that are CLEARLY lies (or "fibs" as we call them, trying to soften the edges a little).

She couldn't be The Good One forever... but come on, we only get 5.5 years? The Boy is WAY too smart for us, and Baby Girl is hell on wheels in comparison... don't we get ONE good kid to balance things out?

What really terrifies me, as a parent

As a parent in today's world, there are certainly a lot of things to be scared of. Kids getting hurt, contracting an incurable disease, the threat of the ever-ubiquitous Boogeyman, the worry that kids will grow up to be ax-murderers, or worse: garage band drop-outs. All things that will keep anxious parents up at night.

But what really terrifies me is none of those things. Maybe because they are all unknowns: you have no idea if any of those really scary things will touch your family in some way.

No, what really scares me is something that I know without a shadow of a doubt will affect my kids in a profound and unpreventable way.

A Few Things I Have Learned About Myself (As I Get Older)

It's funny to think about all the times in my 20's and early-30's I'd heard women say things about how they couldn't do certain things anymore, which things upset their stomach, "I can't lay on the floor or I'll never get up" etc.

I found it odd and couldn't relate, because nothing seemed to bother my stomach, give me black circles under my eyes, throw my back out... nothing was 'off limits' (other than staying up all night drinking... but even then it was a matter of staying in bed a few extra hours, a couple of Advil and a round of McD's to cure what ailed me). I always wondered if someday I would get to that point where my stomach couldn't handle things, I couldn't lift certain things for fear of throwing out my back, couldn't stay up all hours and just sleep it off the next day.

The answer is: YES. Getting (a little) older does do certain things to you. Now, I know if I ate a little better and exercised more (*cough* some *cough*) these things wouldn't as as much of an issue. Thing is, it sortof sneaks up on you, and you DON'T need to exercise or eat particularly well in your 20's and early 30's in order to feel okay. You just don't -- youth seems to take care of things for you. And even though I heard it 100 times or more, I really just didn't see this coming.

Anyway, I've learned a few things about myself lately. I know there will probably be plenty more to discover about myself as the years march on and things change, within and around me... but I thought it worth mentioning these new-found discoveries, for posterity if nothing else. How many more weird and wonderful things await me??

Rites of Passage - first cafeteria lunch

It's funny the things that kind-of get to you as a parent, and make you realize your kids really are growing up (despite you telling them repeatedly not to). 

For the first time in his short school career, we sent The Boy off this morning without a lunch packed in his backpack. For the first time ever, he'll be getting his own hot lunch in the cafeteria.

No big deal, really. He's been eating lunch at school forever. But, he's never gone to the cafeteria - and for some strange reason (lack of sleep, most likely) I'm kind-of having a hard time with this. Is he really old enough to wander down to the cafeteria on his own? Will he know where to go, how to load his tray with food? Will he feel anxious trying to find somewhere to sit? I've even had some somewhat neurotic thoughts about his ability to cut his waffles. (Ha! Okay that's definitely lack of sleep talking.)

All kidding aside, it seems like there are these little rites of passage that keep creeping up on us - first sleepover at a friend's house, first school crush, first time using Windex. (Haha... One of my personal favourites.) And just like that, I have a kid who just yesterday - or 2 years ago, who can keep track? - was wearing pull-ups and carrying around a blankie and drinking from sippy cups, and is now standing in the hot lunch line at school ready to take on the world.

Such a small, insignificant thing... But oh, such a big thing. 

Should I start packing his bags for college now??