Wonder of Wonders

Most Sundays consist of 12+ hours of the following:

*waking up too early
*being exhausted/cranky
*fighting with the kids to get them to take a bath/do their hair/eat their lunch/get ready for church/sit still during Sacrament Meeting
*rushing home after church (sans husband) to make dinner
*dealing with cranky kids who have missed their naps
*rushing to eat & not cleaning the kitchen
because it's already time for jammies
*fighting the girls to get them to settle down and go to bed
*collapsing on the couch and falling asleep
before I even brush my teeth

But every now and then, the planets align. And when that happens,
I am blessed by the following:

*Honey bathes the girls because he has
late meetings in the morning
*Sacrament Meeting is manageable (many thanks
to our friends, F & P!)
*Mommy learns something during class
*Honey comes home with us right after church
*Honey makes dinner, while
*Mommy takes a nap
*Honey puts the girls in jammies while
Mommy cleans the not-very-messy kitchen
*Mommy gets to snuggle in bed with a 5-year-old, playing "name that tune," and telling stories about 3 Little Grapes named Blinkie, Blonkie, and Shploonkie-Shplonkie
*Mommy gets to exchange said story with a 3-year-old as well
*3-year-old asks to go to bed at 8:25
*Mommy trucks off to bed at 10:30, leaving
Honey sacked out on the couch

Planets, thank you for your gift.

When, oh when, will you align again?

So Cute I Can't Hardly Stand It

So yummy, it's hard not to just eat her up.

The New Office

A while back, I asked Miss J to put something on my desk, and she responded with, "it's not just your desk. It's my desk, too." Of course, that's where she was wrong. Just because you use something of mine that doesn't mean it is yours...it's one of the cardinal rules of parenting that my children don't seem to comprehend. It goes right along with just because I let you have a sip of my soda that doesn't mean you can drink the whole thing, and just because I am helping you clean the playroom that doesn't mean that it is my job. But those are other posts for another time.

Anyway, her off-handed comment certainly got me thinking that it was probably time for the girls to have desks of their own, both for my sanity and for theirs. (And apparently I enjoy rewarding my kids for being smart-alecks.) So we found these Leapfrog desks at D.I. (minus whatever element that originally made them Leap-froggy) and snatched them up.

I had a little too much fun buying them desk accessories--post-its, folders, little staplers, etc., and putting their desks together. Craig was shaking his head at how excited I was about the whole project. Looking back, it my have been more about fulfilling a childhood fantasy of mine than anything else...but at least Julia doesn't call my desk hers anymore.

Here are the little cutie-heads in their new office on a casual Friday.

In Which a Very Small Girl Goes to Kindergarten for the First Time

Just like turning 30, or finding gray hairs, or buying a mini-van, the inevitable has happened to me once again. My little Julia has started schoolia.

When we first moved to Arizona, J was not yet two, and school was still an unimaginable hurdle not yet looming on my personal horizon of doom. When she turned three, I still never thought that she would ever be old enough to go. I had friends with kids in school, of course, but those kids were, well…old, and mine was still near to baby-hood. The next year she was four, and the countdown had begun until I was forced to throw her to wolves—a.k.a., Kindergarten and all of its inherent evils. But, hey, I still had a whole year, which would surely never actually arrive, so why worry?

Well, somehow, in the last days and weeks and months of our little lives, time has indeed raced ahead at unauthorized speeds, and the moment for school has officially arrived. Anticipated, yet uninvited, expected, yet unwanted, the first day of school has stormed into our lives and planted itself firmly on the calendars of our hearts.

So even though everyone else’s children seem so old when they start school, why, oh why does my daughter, who is the same age, still seem so little?

Because, in my heart of hearts, I still wish she was.

Part of me is excited about the doors and opportunities opening for her, and for all of us, for that matter. But another (bigger) part of me is mourning at the door that has just closed, the one with all of the babyhood and shenanigans and long days together inside. And I might grieve for a while, but I know that time will softly and necessarily alleviate some of that sadness. One day I will come to embrace the Change, just like every other time in my life when I thought I didn’t want anything to ever be different but then I found out I did.

So here is to change, and growing, and learning new things.

Some pics of the big day.

Before:

After:

Free at last, we went out on a family date to celebrate.

There's nothing like a mint & chip ice cream cone

to make you go from this...

to bliss.