Happy Birthday Sweet Girl!

5 years old.

This was a hard one for me because it seems like you have officially left the toddler/little girl stage of your life and are peeking through the door of the big kids' playhouse. I'm not ready, but you are and have been for some time. Fortunately for me, you still love to snuggle-up when we read books and hold hands when we are just about anywhere outside of the house. You have changed so many ways in the last year and I'm just thankful there are a few of the sweet little things still around that you have always done.

I wonder why I hold on to you so tightly. Why I simultaneously rejoice and have an eensy bit of melancholy with your every accomplishment. I know it is because I am, at my deepest levels, selfish and want you to need me for longer than you will. A classic example: I love to hear you read, and yet I dread the day you won't ask me to read to you. Yes, all the wiser parents out there tell me you will always need me on some level and they are right. They're always right. But let's make this year last a little longer, okay? For while I can barely tolerate you turning 5, I know age 6 will surely do me in. You just aren't allowed to be older than 5...or at least until your dad and I want to retire and then you are free to go to college, etc.

My big girl. Always with the sunglasses on top of your head.

Wardrobe Malfunction

I have a knack for making an idiot out of myself. Regularly. I'm not even including the ridiculous stuff that pops out of my mouth sometimes and that's so bad I'm considering duct taping my mouth shut every time I go to a social event from now until...forever.

Anywho, I've had several catastrophic and lesser clothing fiascoes in the last few years. Sure, everyone has left their zipper down in their lifetime and if it's just the pants/jeans zipper it is grouped along with the something-in-your-teeth category. I've had my share of those. No biggie.

I've also had my share of this:
1. Stopped by the mall on a SATURDAY after a luncheon (good grief did I look cute!) because I hadn't had time to buy clothing in a couple years. This is true because I had been preggers with Ainsley and then had actually worked out and was at a fun size again. Time for a reward. So, tried on some outfits at one store, obviously got redressed to wander around some more. Actually ran into an ex-student. Walked around almost the entire mall and noticed 45 minutes later (while in a dressing room trying on something else) that I had forgotten to zip up the back of my BLACK skirt and the tail of my PINK dress-shirt I had tucked in was sticking so far out it should have had a red flag dangling off the end of it because it was illegal for the roads.
2. Same skirt. Got dressed in a hurry and forgot to zip. Sweater worn this time, so instead of a shirttail for everyone to see, it was my hiney. Lots and lots of hiney. Did I mention this happened at church? And John noticed, grabbed a handful of sweater and yanked me back to him (thank you honey! really!) as I was walking down the aisle looking for a place to sit? And we were late (as usual) so everyone else was already sitting? Sigh.

Why am I posting about this? Well, we had "meet the teacher" day at Ainsley's school several days ago and I wore my summer uniform: skirt of some sort + t-shirt. No worries, right? What could go wrong? Silly, silly, Kitty. It started going south early because:
1. I had to bring the triplets with me
2. It was during snack time, which necessitated bringing in the backpack I use as a diaper bag
3. Every family in her class decided to come at the same time for the open house. (30+ bodies in the room = unavoidable chaos which is distracting)

My hands were full of 2 screaming children (Johnny and Gracie thought I was leaving them there), forms to turn in, talking to the teachers/parents/other kids, throwing snacks at the triplets, and trying to block the door so Lizzy and Johnny wouldn't escape, yet let other parents and children in at the same time (WHY do people stand in doorways? Stop that!! Or at least have the wherewithal to grab a kidlet as they are running out so I don't have to shove you aside!). Lots of bending down and lifting up and bending down again. All of this added up to my t-shirt rising up my back (unbeknown to me) and my skirt sliding down from my middle (also unbeknown to me) which resulted in a good 3" portion of my underwear-covered fanny displayed every time I leaned forward or squatted down a bit. This happened a lot because of what I mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph. After, oh, about 20 minutes (did I mention all the PARENTS that were there???) I felt a tugging on the back of my top as a fellow mom casually rearranged my clothing because "your underwear was hanging out". Ugh. Fabulous first impression. Classic.

When do I quit embarrassing myself?

Wasted Time

The other day I was thinking about those long years of waiting and praying for a child and how I always felt we were in limbo, believing our life together would not really start until we were given a baby. That we were somehow falling further and further behind in the growing-up journey as we watched all our friends have their first, second and sometimes third child and we were just our usual selves. I realize now how utterly absurd that was of me.

I wish I would have had the depth to know "life" had started for us and was racing along at a nice little clip while I was busy allowing myself to be distracted by some pain over which I had no real control. Wasted, wasted time. Hours that could have been better spent in gratitude for what we had. Days and weeks lived in such a way that the world around me would have seen that I believed my life was just right. No perfect, but a life in which I was gloriously content. I was not gloriously content. Not even close.

This is not supposed to be a woulda, coulda, shoulda post. It's just hard when the realization hits that one's heart was not where it should have been and it was like that for a big chunk of time.

Here's to self-reflection...

My Love/Hate Relationship With Pre-K

Ainsley started "Pre-K" last week and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I absolutely LOVE the fact that "school" is back in our lives (we are not allowed to call it "preschool" around here - "That's for babies"). Ainsley had her fill of the trio this summer and it was getting a little tense at Chez Laird. By the third week of August she was ready for more structure, kids her age and less, well, less of the madness and noise and dust-devils that roller coaster through our home all day long.

I absolutely do NOT love the fact that my baby is now only one year away from kindergarten. I am most definitely not ready to think about it and "Pre-K" is making me. I still want her to be three-years-old and stay that way forever. Maybe not forever, but I would like to have had her linger there awhile longer.

She Insisted

Lizzy kept this headband on for the duration of her lunch. She would start to freak if it slipped off, which it did a lot...

Silly, silly kiddo.

Why?

The triplets are weirdly attached to the sippy cups they use for milk. They could care less about what color or brand is used for water, although fights have been known to break out if one is more coveted that minute. Milk, though, is apparently supposed to arrive in the same color and style of cup every_single_day. For a long time with Lizzy, she would only drink out of this bad boy:




For a long time, that cup was lost in my house. Lizzy begrudgingly accepted a pink version of the same make and model. When I finally found it under the train table, five days had passed with the precious purple vessel filled 1/2-way with milk. I didn't even bother to open it up and attempt a cleaning, but unfortunately decided to take a picture of the thing before I threw it away. I had obsessed about it and had torn my house apart looking for it and for some ridiculous reason I felt the need to document the object that caused my latest insane behavior. Sweet Lizzy Lou happened to wander into the kitchen at that time, spied it, and started freaking out. Oh man. I threw it in the trash. She went after it. No amount of "yucky", "grody", or "nasty" worked. She was inconsolable:



I finally managed to get the cup out of the house so when she foraged in the garbage for it she would not find the thing. Here's the kicker, though. When the pink one was missing for a few hours I figured I had better try and find some sort of back-up. My brilliant mind thought I could get a purple one because I knew she liked it and so I did. The next morning, Lizzy was given a new purple sippy and she eagerly accepted it, took one sip, and FLIPPED OUT. Why? Because the lid was new and not chewed up and nasty and broken in. That's why. I give up.

I Finally Did It

My new chacos arrived in the mail a couple days ago (got an awesome deal on ebay!) and it is with great sadness that I say goodbye to my old friends. Why did it take me so long to take the plunge? Well, the last straw for me came when I was on my girls' weekend and open flaps on the soles of my sandals kept making me trip whenever I pivoted. I'm lucky I didn't wipe out a couple times.



This is what the soles of these shoes are supposed to look like. Sheesh. I didn't realize it was that bad...



The problem is, I can't bring myself to get rid of the old ones. Someone from my real world is going to have to dispose of them while I'm away. I just request they be handled with dignity.