Goodbye July!

Adios, July. I cannot believe that tomorrow August begins ~ which means that September is coming right up. Which means that Luke is starting pre-school really soon.

I just went through all of his pre-school stuff and wrote it all down on my calendar ~ meetings, holidays, "Muffins with Mom" mornings and "Doughnuts with Dad" mornings ~ and I started crying ~ NOT just because I prefer doughnuts to muffins, but because I am not really ready or willing to accept the idea that my kids are growing up this fast.

July, I am sad to see you go. We loved one another well, though, so onto August we go.

Hot Day Heartbreak

The emotions of a toddler are so very raw. So very readable, so relatable. I feel like Luke did today many times in a week (day?) yet have learned to hide those feelings, or to deal with them, or to do whatever it is that we adults do with our feelings to make them more socially acceptable.

Babies have none of that. Its why I scoff at the idea that a baby can "be held too much" in fear that we "spoil" them. Babies have needs, and only one way of vocalizing those needs. Toddlers are different, they have learned that they have several ways to vocalize those needs, some of them terribly annoying, some of them wonderfully sweet and refreshing and endearing.

Its hot out today. Nate is away. As a "'spesh treat!" I stripped the kids to their diapers and let them loose on the porch with some popsicles after dinner. This is indeed a "spesh treat" (is it gross if I admit that this giant box of popsicles is from last summer? I hope not.). While I finished cooking my dinner, I handed the kids their popsicles and let them loose in the playpen (aka the deck with no ground access). I soon heard a most wretched cry. A full out straight on "I HAVE BEEN WRONGED" sort of cry. Assuming that Jules had perhaps grabbed Luke's popsicle, I ran outside. Alas, it was just that Luke had, in his novice popsicle eating enthusiasm, pushed his treat clear out of the paper container, into a sticky, sodden mess on the floor. He was heartbroken. Literally aghast at the unfairness of the universe and it's working against him. As I played the part of a good Mama (meaning that I laughed privately and grabbed my camera before plucking him up in my arms and promising a better outcome) I thought about how sweet and pure his simple disappointment was.

The ensuing pictures are proof that sometimes, occasionally, Mama can right all that is wrong with the world. My Dad told me when I was first pregnant, "Small kids, small problems" ~ I am learning both how true, and how false, that phrase is. Our problems are relatively small at this point. A popsicle dropped. A toy not shared. Not drugs, not speeding tickets, not "I hate you Mom" sort of things. However, I am also a big believer in the idea that even in the small problems, there are bigger lessons learned. Sometimes (okay, a lot of the time) life is unfair. Sometimes, one has to share, or to endure a time out, or not get what one wants. Sometimes thing are done that cannot be undone. Someone dies. Feelings are hurt. Joy is crushed. Hearts are broken. I try not to indulge my kids. I try to let them learn that there are consequences, that there is simple shit luck, and that sometimes even doing everything right does not ensure the hoped for outcome. I believe that those little lessons will someday, I hope, make my kids better able to endure the ultimate unfairness of life. I pray and hope with all of my being that I can teach my children that sometimes life is hard, and sometimes life is unfair, and that all we can do is to try harder, accept what we cannot change, and keep on keepin on.

Other times, I just hand out another popsicle. Today was one of those other times. Today, I could solve Luke's problem. And today, solving a problem brought both of us joy.

The joy of water

I pretty much cried the entire way home from the beach today ~ I had picked up a Jodi Picoult book at the library this week ~ no mother should ever read a Jodi Picoult book. I knew this, yet willingly (and obsessively) entered into it and devoured it in a day. Nate just shook his head as I wept, and looked at him, and looked at the kids, and looked back at the book.

I know that I am a glutton for punishment, at times.

I don't know if it is a blessing, or a curse, to know how many things can go wrong in life. How many things can be taken away from you. How the things that can give you joy beyond belief, can also give you pain beyond belief.

No more Jodi Picoult books for me for a while. Can't take it.

We are home safely, tired, bags to be unpacked, and a glorious thunderstorm raging.

The Beach

The family, four generations of DiLullo women, and my incredible sister. We are back at the beach, and life is good.

Dirty Dawgs

This is the end result of an entire day of playing outside. I actually had to fill the tub, drain it, and refill it to wash the kids as the water got so disgusting. We had a great play group this morning, and I learned that there is absolutely nothing funnier than putting a sliding board into a kiddy pool ~ The hilariaty was contagious watching the kids slide wet and slippery and squealing into the quickly filthy water. We came home for their naps, then I took the kids for a run (pushing 76 lbs of children in a 30some lb stroller is WORK, let me tell you) then spent the rest of the afternoon at the park right behind our house. I made my first batch of popsicles, which I gave to the kids after stripping them naked. Popsicle stickiness mixed with a mulch toss between Luke and Jules resulted in these pictures. Notice that my son is not put off by a little dirt, and swooped right in for a kiss on his sticky mulch encrusted sister.

I'm having a hard time finding balance lately. It's hard to find the right mix of doing for your kids, and doing for your house, doing for your husband, and doing for yourself. I seem to have weeks where all we do are play dates every morning, which is both awesome and terrible for me ~ awesome because I am with my girlfriends and the kids are playing with other kids, but terrible because I have learned that if I don't go to the gym in the AM, I don't go. I seem to have weeks where I to the gym every day except play group day, but then at the end of the week find I am missing my friends terribly. So I go on a play date frenzy, meeting up with someone every morning somewhere (park, playground, moon bounce, Please Touch Museum, Zoo etc) and don't get to the gym at all except to use the pool with the kids. It's always such a work in progress. My new goal is to try to map out gym mornings and play date mornings at the beginning of each week, so that I mix things up better. Summer is in full swing, and I love the freedom of being outside all the time. I am trying not to dread the fall, as it is my favorite season, but lurking stealthily behind fall is the dreaded winter, of colds, and jackets, and too much time inside.

In other news, Luke has officially embraced "I" and "my/mine/me". Up until now he only talked about himself in the third person (you know, like TO)~ "Luke want that", or "Luke likes that". Every day new phrases tumble out of his mouth. Little gems like:

~ But Mama, I don't like dat one big bug! (a spider)
~ Yeah, me too! (which still makes me laugh every time he says it)
~ My finger is in Julia's yogurt Mama!
~ Oh my gosh, its rainin Mama!

The oh my gosh thing also immediately made me laugh out loud. My baby is using slang. He is already endlessly entertaining, I can't wait to see what this fully conversational little person has to say.

Childhood

Is awesome. My kids remind me how much pure joy is to be found in the simple wonders of a river and a sunshiney day.

In my inbox

I just checked my email (I am such a failure at email lately) and these two pictures had just been sent to me.

They really are going to look like twins soon.

A Perfect Day

Some days are just perfect.

Yesterday was SO not one of them. Yesterday was the "return from three weeks of being away" day. Filled with food shopping, house cleaning, laundry, and a fun (if exhausting) pick up at our CSA.....it was just one of those often time necessary days when I found myself saying "NO" more times than I wanted to. I fell into bed thoroughly exhausted last night, and feeling as though while I did what I had to do, I didn't enjoy it (or my kids) as much as I hope to.

Today was an entirely different story. Luke climbed into my bed at 6:30 for a "Mama I love you" fest, and Jules slept till almost 8, when I woke her as we had to be out of the house by 9. We headed down to a fabulous place that we had never been to before, the Smith Memorial Playground in Philly. What a fantastic place. So clean, such great toys, such beautiful weather, and such fun times with seven of my friends and their 11? ish kids. We played all morning, and then had a picnic lunch in the shade on a lovely lawn filled with children. The kids loved the toys as much as I enjoyed the companionship of my girlfriends, and they fell into the car tired and warm and happy at 12:30. They fell asleep immediately on the ride home, transferred seamlessly into their bed/crib, and slept soundly until I had to wake them at almost 3:30 when I realized that I was due at the pool in 5 minutes to meet my friends and their kids. I had cooked dinner while they were sleeping so that we could stay there until 5 or later. We hurried out the door to find the upper pool in a "Code Brown" (Yes, a floater), so we played at the downstairs outdoor waterpark/pool until 4:15 when we went up to our usual pool. They played happily until it was time to go, came home for an already cooked dinner, and fell into bed soundly right on schedule. Some days it just feels so easy. Of course, it is impossible to have days like today without the trials and tedium of yesterday, so I suppose that I have to be thankful for all of the days.

We did have one scare at the playground today as one of Luke's best buddies had one of those horrific "time stands still things move as though underwater" falls down a giant flight of stone steps. On what was probably a 25 step staircase, the little guy jumped with both feet from one step to another when only about 4 steps from the top. His inertia carried him forward, and I can say, that for all of its horror, it was an AMAZING display of athleticism as the little guy stayed on his feet, in an uncontrolled but foot first run until about the fourth step from the bottom, when inertia finally won, and he tumbled face first onto the ground. I saw it happening, and screamed, as did a few of my friends, and we all ran towards him as he tumbled, but could not get to him quite in time. It SO reminded me of Luke's fall off of the beach house steps last summer, and his landing on a brick sidewalk. Luckily the sweet little guy escaped relatively unscathed barring some scrapes and likely bruises considering the dramatic nature of the fall, and myself and my friends probably shed as many tears as he did as we watched him recover.

I hate how "accidents" are truly just that. Little shining moments of joy where everything is just SO right, and everyone is happy, and healthy, and whole, and then, LIKE THAT, in a horrible moment, everything is different. As stated, this had no horrific results. But I feel sure I will dream of that darling awesome little guy who I love dancing way too fast and entirely out of control down those steep stone steps tonight. I have said it before and I will say it again, Motherhood is not for the feint of heart. These little ones own us, and own us completely. I would fall from a thousand staircases to stop a little one from having to endure it (despite the fact that their rotund rubbery little bodies would likely recover from it much better than my old self would!). Seeing a little one hurt, or be afraid, is simply too much to bear.....yet bear it we do.

I wake up every day grateful for healthy kids, and go to sleep each night feeling the same way. To focus too much on the "What could happen" is to drive yourself insane. To never think about it at all is simple denial.

The kids are in bed and the house is clean (another by-product of the kids and I being out of the house all day). Thank God for little R being fine, and for all of the hideous things that did NOT happen today, AND for all of the wonderful things that did happen today.

I hugged my babies more tightly tonight.

Bugs

My daughter has absolutely no fear.

We had a fantastic few days at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

On Friday, after spending the day at their pool, the kids found a beetle.

Luke found it first.

"Mama! It's a bug! It's a biiiiiiiiiig bug!"

Mama said, "Touch it, Luke".

Luke approached the bug........shivering with excitement. He pointed at it, reached out his finger............squealed with a mixture of fear and fascination, and pulled his finger away. In typical Jules action, she came over to see the excitement.

She examined the critter with her discerning eye.

She picked it up, brought the bug of excitement up to her face, and commenced to play with it.

Luke looked on with a mixture of abject horror and utter delight.

He literally was enthralled at the image of his little sister, his companion, his best friend, manhandling the item of his curiosity and terror. He stood by, pointing, talking about the bug, and getting goosebumps as he contemplated the horror that Jules had willingly brought upon herself as she welcomed the bug into her little hand. Meanwhile, Julia just knitted her studious little brow and studied the beetle intently.

Jules even offered her little plaything to him, and he knocked his little knees together and screeched with the shivering fear and wonder at the idea of actually TOUCHING the bug of horrors.

We eventually put the bug back in the bushes and life went on.

My girl, bug lover, student, fearless and brave.

Thanks again to Grandma and Grandpa for the great visit, for the babysitting while we golfed, the great food, and for loving us and our kids so very much!

"I love you"

Jules is a giant baby. She recently had her 15 month well baby visit with our new Pediatrician. She rocks the house in the 97th percentile for height, and is a solid 25.4 lbs, which puts her in the 80th % for weight. That explains the 2T clothing. I love our new Pediatrician (thanks, Jenny!) and we are all done with shots until Jules is 4.

Jules is unbelievably verbal, and seems to chatter away all day long. Nothing makes me happier than hearing my girl tell me "I love youuuuu" while giggling away and poking my nose.

We are off for some family fun with Grandma and Grandpa.

Video, for a change.

This is what feeding little vultures on the beach is like. Chaos.




Leaving Luke alone with his Dad, Grandfather, and Uncle results in Luke playing with fire. Literally.

Fourth

Happy Birthday America!

We just got home from a jam packed yet relaxation filled 6 days at the beach as we celebrated the Fourth of July.

Luke played his first round of miniature golf, the kids slept for about 3 hours each day on the beach, and we got to celebrate all of the blessings of family and friends. A veritable festival of great food and great friends was had by all.

I get an inordinate amount of pleasure witnessing my kids playing on the same beaches that I grew up on. They love, love, LOVE the ocean, chasing seagulls, finding shells, eating, sleeping, and playing on the beach. The simple joys of playing in sand, swimming in the ocean, and being entertained by a host of family and friends were rediscovered this week.

I am eternally grateful for adaptable kids.........you guys amazed me with your great sleeping, your flexibility, your ability to play with a single seashell for long spans at a time. I love how you crave being outside, the joy you get out of witnessing the beauty of the Jersey Shore, and the pleasure you find in loved ones.

You loved the fireworks, even though it meant late naps and late nights. You gave Nate and I long spans where we could remember the adult pleasures of napping on the sand, or reading huge chunks of books while we sat uninterrupted on the beach. You reminded us of how much fun making and destroying sand castles can be. You made sandy bathing suits fun, and showers outside a joy. You made us recognize how lucky we are to have kids who simply love being happy, and who roll with the punches.

We got home today, only to get ready to turn it around on Thursday to head to the Poconos for more fun with family.

Thanks, kiddos. I could not possibly be more proud or more grateful for you.