I've been thinking about moving the blog for a long time. All of my other sites are on Wordpress, and I like it MUCH better than Blogger. Well, I'm turning over a new leaf and taking control of the life that was hijacked by my offspring (more on that later), so what better time to finally get the new site up and running?
I don't think most people consider me lazy but yesterday I did feel a little like a slug when I couldn't work up the energy to take all three kids into Starbucks. I REALLY wanted a coffee to enjoy at soccer practice while the other kids played on the playground and I vegetated in the car. Why the hell don't we have drive-thru Starbucks around here anyway?! They're all over the south!
So I did what tired-out moms have been doing since the good old days, when they'd send their kid down to the corner store for a pack of butts (my mom didn't smoke but a lot of my friends' moms did), I sent Aliya into Starbucks with my "grande non-fat mocha" written out on a scrap of food wrapper I found on the floor of my car.
I swear, the first woman who came out (wearing a modified snuggie and smoking a butt) after Aliya went in gave me a look like "you lazy slug, sending your kid into Starbucks." I hoped that the two kids fighting over a paper clip in the back seat would illustrate my immediate need for coffee and my reluctance to unbuckle their restraints and take them within proximity of breakables.
The coffee took a really long time, so I started to have those negative thoughts, like maybe someone kidnapped Aliya out the front door while I waited at the back, or Starbucks employees were holding her in the storage room until DSS arrived. She finally came out, with another woman who gave me a look like "I'm feelin you with those three kids and a jones for coffee," and I enjoyed every sip.
I really can't remember a week as busy as last week. I had so much going on at work, at home, and at school, that every moment was double-booked and I had to put all of my blogging activities on hold. It was a really hectic week and I'm glad it's over. On the bright side, all of the hard work paid off and we had a lovely teacher appreciation lunch, a successful school fundraiser, and a relaxing Mothers' Day, which I will post about shortly.
So as I was saying, when I look at other peoples' kids it feels like time is flying by. Case in point, we just went to our friend Victoria's first holy communion. Aliya and Victoria have known each other since they met at day care when they were 6 and 7 months old. It's amazing - that was 8 years ago!
Adlani and Shane were born just over a week apart, so they've known each other since birth. I will never forget driving Aliya and Vic to see Elmo or Barney in Worcester and telling Karen that I thought I was pregnant and finding out that she was too!!
Poor Sydney plays the part of the older sibling in the motley crew, and then there's Miss Norah, who tags along with whoever's nearby. I think it will be so cool to see everyone grow up together and remember all the little moments of their childhoods intertwined.
Here are pics of Aliya and Vic, and Shane and Adlani in the early days:
People (usually people with older kids) always say to enjoy every minute with your kids because they're gone before you know it. I'm not yet at the point where I look at my kids and think, "Wow! That went by fast!" (I'm usually thinking, "How much longer is this phase going to last?")
I do notice time flying when I look at other peoples' kids though. If my friends' kids are maturing, I must be getting O-L-D. I've got to stop looking at my friends' kids.
Today was a one-two punch of looking middle age right in the face. My next post will show the other "where did the time go" event, but this post is dedicated to our friends and neighbors, Leah, Nikki, and their mom, Nancy.
Nikki is the knockout in the prom dress, and Leah is the soccer star beside her. My kids idolize those two girls, and I can't think of better role models for them to look up to.
Tonight was Junior Cotillion for FHS, and as I stood in the back yard listening to Nikki talking about who was going with who, and who lied to their parents because their date didn't meet their criteria, and whose parents wouldn't buy a dress unless their daughter went with a boy (rather than with friends), and who was sleeping over at the girl-boy sleepover tonight (Nikki's not), I was having flash-backs to 1999, when we bought our house.
We weren't married and we didn't have kids yet. Nikki was about 6 years old and Leah was a baby. Leah didn't give us too much trouble the first few years, but I clearly remember Nikki standing on her deck watching us eat on our back porch ("Hi! Hi! Hi!"), and then there was the pogo stick incident.
I woke up one Saturday morning to the sound of Nikki jumping on her pogo stick in the driveway (on the same side of the house as our bedroom) and counting each jump. When she got to 72 she fell off and ran to report the record number of jumps to her dad. As I got ready to head back to LaLa-Land I heard her father say, "Great! Let's see if you can get to 100!" boing-boing-boing-boing-boing-boing :~0
I don't have any photos of Nikki and Leah from when we first moved in, but here's a flashback to the summer of 2002, when Aliya was about 9 months old. Time flies.
