Catching Up

It's first thing in the morning and nobody is awake except for me and the birds. Julianna is sleeping again, she's been waking at five or five thirty and nursing for a bit, and then drifting back off for another hour (sometimes longer). We've got big plans today - my cousin and I are taking our toddlers into the Children's Museum in Boston. Becky and I grew up together, lived together for most of our twenties and I'm enormously happy about the fact that her daughter and mine are a mere seven months apart.  Julianna has worshiped Abby from the beginning, and I'm so looking forward to spending the day with just us.   I'm pondering if I need a carriage, Julie hates it, so I think I'll just stick with the sling, if she desperately wants to be carried, and I might just skip that too.  She's a running girl, and I can always throw her up on my hip or shoulders if she needs to be carried.  She'll be my only one today.  


There's something glorious about having a day with just one of your children.  I'm equally thrilled with whichever one it happens to be, and am planning on "dates" with the older ones as well.  I want to take Jessie to Starlight - the roller skating rink down the street, and am trying to decide what would be the most fun for Sam.  Maybe hiking.  He likes being outside in the woods.  


Marc will be home with the other two, plus his daughters from his first marriage. There's so many fun things going on in Worcester today, between the Day of Play at Elm Park (our old stomping ground), Father's Fest at Institute Park, and of course, we've also got the Ecotarium membership. He's not sure what he'll be doing with them, and there's a good chance that the day will involve Jessie's radio, a really long extension cord, and CD's being blasted out into the front yard so that she can dance. Because that's how my nine year old rolls these days.

It's the end of the school year, and I feel like I'm running, running everywhere. After school activities have mostly ended for the year, and my days are a flurry of concerts, field days and plays. My mother is recovering from surgery as well, so I've spent a couple of days down at her house. My house is mostly in shambles, I can just about stay on top of the dishes and the laundry, if you don't count folding and putting it away. I don't like to think of housework as such a major part of my day, but several days in a row where I'm out of the house, and it looks like a pack of rabid animals partied HARD in my house. Yesterday, I declared a Day At Home (well, except for the nine year old's concert at school, but that was less than an hour), and cleaned like a mad woman. All the laundry is actually in dressers. Staggering... 

We have decided to repeat kindergarten for my Sammy.  For a whole host of reasons, but one of the biggies was that he hadn't gone to preschool and spent most of the first couple of months figuring out how to be without me. I thought preschool wasn't necessary, he was a relatively social kids, we had friends his age over all the time, but the part he was missing was functioning without me there. He's just not ready for the rough and tumble world of first grade. It's been a really hard decision, but in the end, I know it's the right one. He's a summer baby too, so he's on the young side to begin with. He's delighted about the prospect of another year with his beloved teacher, so in the end, we're good. And I'm realizing that this really is going to be such a gift - I get another year with him. That's an extra year that he'll be at home, an extra year that he'll be at this stage, academically and socially.   When my friends are shipping their kids off to college, I'll get another year with him at home.  By then, I might be ready to send him off into the world, but right now, an extra year sounds like heaven.

My nine year old is delighted by everything these days. She's just growing up so fast, and I sometimes have to stop and just absorb the wonder that is Jessica. She's brilliant and bold and smart and funny. She's taken to lugging notebooks everywhere with her, writing chapters in novels that she's crafting and spends hours after school these days dancing on my front lawn. She's still a little girl sometimes, snuggling up to me before bed, but more and more these days, I see this girl who's so much older than I think she should be.

Julianna, my love bug baby girl, is getting awfully big as well. Still a steadfast nurser, I don't see her weaning anytime soon. She's learning everything so fast, knows all of her colors, can count up to ten (if you don't notice that she misses every number between three and nine), and sings like you wouldn't believe. She's a stubborn little autocrat sometimes, firmly convinced that she's the boss of everyone. Being the youngest of five, she's also a serious entertainer, and will perform on command to amuse her siblings. I wonder about what she'll be like at five, or nine. So much of who they are is right there from the very beginning. Jessie had the drama and the pathos, Sam had the passion and pure devotion. I wonder what aspect of Julianna will follow her thru her life.