Saying good-bye to summer (vacation, that is)

I shouldn't be blogging. I should be making lunches--peanut butter & honey sandwiches cut in dinosaur shapes was the request. Plus, Sweetie wants raspberries with sugar in her square container while Mister never deviates from the standard grapes. I need to write names on backpacks and fill out forms from meet-the-teacher night tonight. I need to be getting ready to kiss my kids good-bye and send them off to school in the morning.

I'm feeling emotional at the thought, though. Last year I expected to be emotional, with Mister going all day for the first time. But H was a newborn and life was busy and sleep was a rarity and I didn't have much time or energy for extra emotions. Plus I still had Sweetie at home. But tomorrow it will be just H and I. And, yes, there will be bonuses--naptime free to do what I want rather than play legos or mediate sibling arguments, a shower free of knocks on the door to tattle-tell, and only 1 child to cart around on errands--a child who still sits in the seat of the shopping cart so I know exactly where he'll be at all times. But I think I will be a little lonely. I think I will miss Mister telling me about Star Wars and Batman and Sweetie telling me jokes and singing and recapping the morning's adventures for me. I think I will miss playing "I Spy" while eating lunch. I will miss having someone prattling on about this or that. H only shrieks and says "Whoa!"

So I have tried to slow down this past week and enjoy having these two great little souls home with me. Because who knows if next summer they'll want to build forts in the basement or beg me to play Atlantis legos with them. Who knows if they'll still snuggle up next to me and share their caramel popcorn when we have a read-a-thon. I know that some day they won't and I will wonder why not and what happened.

Here are some pictures from this last week of summer vacation. We also visited the new children's museum downtown, which was a lot of fun. The kids climbed, pretended to shop and bake, painted the castle, and ran through the noodle forest (H and I joined them in some games of hide and seek before I got claustrophobic):

My tug-of-war with young motherhood

I'm not a baby person. Just give 'em to me at 6 months, I've always told people. When they sleep a little better, when they don't need to eat every 2 hours, and when the guessing game is a little more informed--when I can tell a little better just why it is that they're wailing. I try to endure the frustration, the exhaustion, the never-ending giving of babyhood and I look forward to the time when the night-wakings will end, the trying-to-get-them-to burp will end, and so on and so on. I look forward to them getting older.

Yet last night as H fell asleep eating and then out a big sigh and snuggled his little head into the curve of my neck, I held him there for a while. I breathed him in--that smell of baby shampoo, the softness of his cheek, his fine, wispy hair tickling my nose. At nine months old, he doesn't snuggle much anymore. There aren't many moments in a day or a week when he lets me cuddle him close. I wanted to slow time down and delay the endings and the growing older.

It's birthday week at our house--Mister's was 2 days ago (which I will eventually blog about, I'm sure!), and Sweetie's is on Monday. On each of their birthdays, I hold them close and tell them the story of when they were born. And inside my mind, I think back to that day--was it really 7 years ago? Was it really 5 years ago? It seems like just the other day that I was willing the difficulties of their babyhood to end. And now they are well into the journey, marching ahead to the day that they will leave our home and forge out to make homes of their own. So on birthday week, I feel the tug back again, to slow time down and keep them close.

It's a tricky thing, this mothering, a tricky tug of enduring and relishing. I'm still trying to figure out the tug-of-war. But I'm oh so glad I get to play.

Kissing and Growing up

Every once and a while, I'll have a day where it sinks in that, somehow in the process of breakfasts, cleaning, making lunches, walking to school, driving to T-ball, my kids are growing up, growing older. Today was one of those days.

Mister decided that he is growing too old to give me a hug and kiss before school in a place where his friends can see. He's now resorted to in-the-privacy of the van or the before-we-turn-the-corner-to-the-bus-stop kiss.

Sweetie decided that she is growing too old for the single life. When I picked her up from playing at a friend's house today (a friend who happens to be a boy), she informed me that she and Duncan were going to get married because they went on a date to Duncan's club and they kissed, which means "True Love," that they promise to marry each other, and they can't change their minds. When I told her that it's not a good idea to kiss people not in our family and that she needs to wait until she really loves someone, she said, "But Mom, I really really love Duncan."

And little H decided that he is too old for those boring baby toys. The lamp, the plant stand, the cord to the piano light, the cardboard box in the corner, the garbage, and the drawer under the stove with the pots are all more his style.

1. The smell of orange blossoms, 2. A quiet morning, 3. The anticipation of a trip

Growing . . .

There are signs of growing everywhere these days. I will not be showing my own growing (due to Halloween candy). J will proudly show anyone his growing muscles from the gym time and all of those protein shakes/bars he's been downing lately. And the kids are growing up and older. (They warned me this would happen . . . ).

Here's Mister, with his 2 new bottom teeth:

And Sweetie, with her new older "do":

And little H with his new thumb (new to him anyway! He thinks that new fist and thumb are the best things to have happened to him lately).