Happy Fourth

The house is clean, the food is made and now we are just waiting for the usual suspects to arrive for the fun to begin.

As the girls get older it is nice to have help around the house that is really help. When they were much smaller I would give them jobs to do, but I had to supervise the event. And the small job was an event for them.

Today I assigned jobs: dishwasher emptied, floors mopped and bathroom cleaned, and then I went downstairs and worked out with Jillian Michaels.

It is a good thing the kids can clean because after Jillian was done with me I don’t think I even could lift a broom.

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Parents of the Year

Larry and I have been putting off things to do for the last couple of weeks of the summer. We keep saying when school starts back up we will… This sentence can be finished with any number of things. When school starts we will diet again. When school starts we will clean the office. When the girls are back at school we can write every day on our blogs. Take the pool down. Clean the house. I could go on and on.

It would be nice if I actually paid attention to when school starts. All summer I have been counting down to the Tuesday after Labor Day. My neighbor and I were talking about the first day of school and how we were both waking up the kids earlier every day until Tuesday. She kind of looked at me funny when I said this, but I get a lot of weird looks from my neighbors so I just ignored it and kept talking away. The next day the neighbor flagged Larry the House Husband down as he was leaving. She wanted to let us know that we could call the school to find out who our kids teachers were and by the way you do know that school starts WEDNESDAY?

That’s right. Sign me up for Mother of the Year.

Speaking of Mother of the Year…I would like to nominate my husband for Father of the year. He took all three of the kids to the grocery store today. His first mistake. On the way there two of the girls were bickering, most likely about who was going to push the cart or maybe one was touching the other one in the car. Whiny kids always adds to the shopping enjoyment. After picking out a few groceries and getting in the U-scan line he realizes he doesn’t have a special store discount card and has to fill out a special form. He paid with a check and when the cashier asks for his ID a bad feeling comes over him. He has left his license at home. He has to leave the groceries there and go home and get his ID and then drive back and get the groceries he left there in the cart.

I would have just sat down on the grocery store floor and cried at that point or figured we could just eat at Taco Bell for the rest of the week and forget grocery shopping.  

You can send our awards to us at any time.

The Blanket

My daughters each have a special blanket. More of an addiction really.

Emma was given hers at my baby shower. It was a beautiful mint green with tiny white polka dots on one side and an adorable print on the other side. There were yellow bows at each corner. We didn’t mean to make her love that blanket so much, but she did. It was her favorite. I would place a corner in each of her tight little fists and she would rub the ribbons on her face as she drifted off to sleep. I used to think how can a baby have a favorite blanket or toy? It’s just a baby. How would they know?

Trust me. They know.

They know when you try to trick them with another so called Blankie when you have to wash their lovey. And when it comes back from the wash they will look at it funny. Like you ruined it by washing of all the sleepy smell.
Or you can’t find it. Horrors. Sometimes blankies need a break and they hide behind couch pillows and under tables.

Claire and Susy are just as addicted. We tried to rotate blankets with Claire thinking that would help. It only made her addicted to two blankets.

Susannah would rub the edge of hers on her eye. And hers came with a Binky. She had to have both. Thankfully we lost the binky.

Those blankets have been capes and tents and magic carpets. They have been sneezed on, puked on and torn. Two of them are so faded and have been bleached so many times it is hard to tell what color they were. Grandma has even sewn the tags back on a couple of times.

So every time a friend or a lady at our church has a baby I give them a blanket. I bought one today. And when I brought it home the girls oohed over it longingly. It’s so soft they said. I wish I were a baby again.

And sometimes I wish they were too.

Claire

My middle child is now eight. It seems as that is how I measure time now. How old was Claire or Emma when that happened? Was Susy born yet?

She went to school for the first time this year. She wrote a paragraph the first month of school about what she was thankful for. She wrote, “I am thankful that my parents let me go to school for the first time.” We thought it was time to let her out of the house.

She has grown two inches this year. She is still the same height as her older sister. Maybe she will pass her up this year.

She was baptized this year. The first of the three girls to do so.

She can never sleep at night. She can’t hold her caffeine. And it bothers her that she can’t sleep. Which makes it worse.

She still has that little stubborn streak that wasn’t so little when she was two and three. Every once in a while she will pull it out and I see that chubby toddler laying on the floor kicking and screaming. Except now it is a tall, skinny 2nd grader with a scrunched up nose.

The pouty lip is still the same.

Every day she amazes me with what she knows. She is a sponge that soaks up information with amazing force.

She can play the guitar like nobody’s business.

And She is now eight.

Happy Birthday Claire Bear.