Organized chaos

We're winding down our girls weekend while Daddy is away. It's been a fun two days. We had a lunch and playdate at the library with my friend Emily and her daughter, Lily one day and we went swimming with our nanny from the past school year, Sarah, today. We made cookies and pancakes and did lots of snuggling,but I think we're all ready for Daddy to come home tomorrow.

We did have a few small mishaps. Averi tricked me into thinking her sister had a dirty diaper when in fact she had shoved the lid to the shape sorter perfectly into the back of her sister's diaper. Our trip to the library was pretty uneventful until I had to try to figure out how the new self checkout system worked for books. As I m trying to figure out this new technology, I hear this shrill librarian's voice screeching, "Whose child is that?! Would you please remove her from there?" Of course, I knew it just had to be my child. Where was she? And what the hell was she doing now? There was an circular shape oak three level book display right off to our left. And my daughter was sitting on top of it! Averi has done a lot of crazy, sometimes stupid things. But this time I found myself rather embarrassed. What was she thinking?! Where does she get crazy ideas like this? She's three. Can't she rationalize yet what makes sense and what is a bad idea?

Then I told my sister earlier I understand now why sometimes parents don't take their young children out very often. Somewhere in the chaos of trying to get the baby in those stupid heavy carriers, my wandering three year that I don't like to take my eye off for a second, and the two or three bags I was trying to keep track of on the way out the door of the restuarant after lunch yesterday I lost my credit card that I used to pay for lunch.

I'm an oxymoron; my life is in a constant state of organized chaos. Some that know me will vouch that I am a little OCD at times. I do not like clutter, everything has to be in its place, I tend to be a neat freak, I have a minimum of probably five sticky notes of reminders and to do list at a time, my life is planned out and organized around probably three different calanders or planners. But yet I LOVE to be busy and go, go, go (which drives my husband crazy). But because of that I feel like I'm always running around like a chicken with my head cut off, forgetting this and forgetting that, not paying attention to this or that (which I think is when Averi gets into mischief half the time). I once walked out the door with my two kids, my husband in tow, and all the ridiculous amount of bags that always seems to have to go with us everywhere on our way to spend a fun day with friends that we rarely for a  birthday party. Except I locked the keys in the house. So we couldn't drive our car and we couldn't get back into our house. We ended up sitting on our front porch on what was luckily a nice January day for two while we waited for a friend with keys to our house to come let us in. And because the party was over an hour away we didn't end up going. And I'll just add that this was the same week that I drove to work with both sets of keys in my pocket so when my husband got up to go to work he didn't have any keys to get there. That was all my first week back to work with two kids.

My husband and I want one more child, and after actually being able to spend quality time with my two girls these past two weeks, I would love to have a couple more. I've always loved children which I guess is why I became a teacher. But I'm a basket case with the two I have now!!! Two kids, a husband , a career, a household to manage, and with everything else in between I feel like I'm two steps from the cookoo's nest half the time as it is.

Sometimes, after incidents like yesterday with Averi I just kind of worry that sometimes Averi's daredevil, silly behaviors are because of something we're doing wrong, which we need to know to correct. Some kids act out for attention, and because Averi is so constantly showered in attention she does occassionally misbehave for attention when her dad and I are distracted with something else, which her dad and I can usually pick up on. But I have no doubt she is a child well showered in love and she shows the same affection back to her sister and others. She starts preschool in the fall, which she is super excited about. She loves people and she is her mother's daughter in that she wants to constantly be busy. The first thing out of her mouth every morning is "Are we doing something today? what we doing today? I wanna go somewhere. I wanna do something." So I'm thinking school will be good for her. 

What was going to be a short update, turned into a rather long list of worries, stories, and rationalizations. I guess parenting is something all of us do without experience. By the time we have the experience, our kids are grown and have become who they are going to be. We all learn as we go. But then once I've figured out how to handle the little girl stage it'll be the preteen stage,  and then the teenage years. Well, there s my crazy stream of consciousness in parenting. I'll take the craziness, the worries, the frenzy, and the chaos. Every moment is worth it to be their momma.

Vacationing with my girls

My first week of summer vacation has been well....awesome. It has been sooooo nice to hang out with my girls just here at home. We've been swimming, to the park, rode a boat (water taxi but Averi was excited cause it was a boat), went to explore the ships in the Inner Harbor for the Sailabration, to the drive in, to three cookouts/birthday party with friends. I've been saying surely at some point Averi's just going to drop from sheer exhaustion. We spent one day, a rainy Tuesday laying around on the couch, watching my childhood favorite Mary Poppins, and all the rest have been constant go, and here today when we finally have a slower day she s asked about five times already, "We going anywhere today. Let's go somewhere, Mommy." But for right now she's laying on the couch with her daddy.

                                                    Daddy with his girls at the park

                               Mommy and Averi exploring the ship in the harbor from Mexico

                                    The girls sharing the stroller on our stroll through Fells Point

Speaking of daddy; it is Father's Day today. My girls I have to say have a pretty special daddy. I always say he's such a great girl daddy. Good thing since he has two. He can braid hair, is more about dressing them in girly fashion than me, loves to snuggle and cuddle with them, but at the same time will wrestle and rough house with them, and go out in the yard to kick a soccer ball around or hit a ball. One of things I have come to enjoy as I've started my own family and it keeps growing is to watch the love that is so clearly shown from one to the other. I will never forget the awe Nathan had when he held his first baby in his arms. If you could visually see the moment a person falls in love with another, it was that moment. As I said before, watching the love and bond form between my two girls these last seven months is another thing that has awed me that I hope  I never forget, even when they're teenagers and fighting. As for myself, I know I love them all more than anything and I thank God everyday for this wonderful and beautiful family that has become ours. Getting to have this much spare time to spend with them is another added blessing and I plan on enjoying every day of this summer vacation.

A recall of Averi stories

I have a rare, and I mean rare moment at the moment, where both of my girls are sleeping so thought I would actually update some things on here. I say rare because the only time my oldest sleeps is pretty much when we are sleeping as well. Most of the time she doesn't finally fall asleep for the nigh until we do. She goes to bed before us but she's up every 15-30 minutes it seems like until we go to bed in which we just let her crawl into our bed cause otherwise she's Averi and who knows what kind of mischief she can get into while we're sleeping. On the rare occassion that she does fall asleep for a nap like last week when I was sick and could have really used a nap myself, Kenzi was wide awake and she's not quite the independent baby that Averi was. She wants someone to play and entertain her. I should be working on trying to figure out how to unclog our bathroom sink from the latest Averi mishap but I think that's going to be a daddy job. For some reason she thought it made sense I guess to shove toilet paper down the bathroom sink. And then to top it off I caught her, along with her partner in crime, a friend's son, washing their hands in the tiolet!!! For those that know my daughter, this is just another Averi incident. Averi, as I tell people, is not a bad child. In fact, I like to think most of the time she is a well behaved child. She has a occassional defiant, annoying three year old moments. She is a very loving child, almost always willing to share and make a friend, always willing to help when asked, and for the most part will do things when she's told, and aside from the one time I carried her out of the store kicking and screaming because I said no to buying a lufa of all things, she never throws fits when she's told no. She may pout a little but that's about it.

But she's Averi. What do I mean "but it's Averi"? I don't know if I know where to start and I'm sure I'll miss many incidents that hopefully those that can recall the Averi stories will remind me so I can add them to share with her one day. I guess I start to notice she was a mischievous child at about fifteen months or so when she would not only crawl out of her crib, but I would double baby gate her room with one gate on top of another and someone she was still getting out of her room. Turns out, she would pull herself up to the window that was cut in the wall between her room and the spare room on the other side and flip herself through the window to land on the spare bed in order to get of her room. She once sat on the floor and literally colored my dog and he sat there and let her. He was blue and red for awhile before it finally all washed off.  She has moments like the following story:

There are times when you let your kid do things at home cause it seems okay then but then out in public you realize oh, no. First, because her sister was crying while the doctor was checking her out, she grabbed Kenz's feet and yanked her away from the doctor. Second, I really wish Chipolte didn't have to play such tempting music that she thought it necessary to get up and dance while eating her dinner. Third, marching with the thing from Kenzi's stroller like a baton through the grocery store isle isn't such a good idea when you keep accidently hitting people and knocking things off the shelf. She was once pretending to be a dog like Bettis and just like he tries to catch flies, she once a bug off the screen door. She has drank and washed her hair, not her hands but her hair,  more times than I can count in the dog's water bowl. When she was still in diapers, she once chased her cousin who was a little younger and  in a diapers down to take off her diaper and was halfway through "changing her" before us adults stepped in. The two times she has been sick she threw up at her sister's feet, barely missing puking all over her and unfortunately the first time I was not so lucky as she threw up in my hair and down my back. Now, that's a parenting experience you never forget. She went through this phrase where she would give us passionate kisses because that's how the princesses kiss on TV. I think we've broken that habit before preschool. You really have to know her to appreciate the crazy humor she brings to life. There are so many more stories I know I've shared about her. Any more that anyone else can remember would be great so we don't forget to share them with her when she's older and we want to embarrass her. 

As for Kenzi. She's doing pretty good. Unfortunately she has a nose that I swear never stops running. I'm really starting to wonder if she has allergies. One of the concerns of a friend of mine that's getting ready to have her second child was worried about her first child not getting the attention that he needs or wants when the baby comes. I always feel the opposite. I worry that poor Kenzi is deprived of attention because of all the attention Averi gets. Hopefully she's not. At this age they both need attention for different things. Kenzi gets irratated with Averi some times but most of the time it's Averi's attention more so than adults she wants anyway. I love, love. love watching this special bond they're developing as sisters. I wanted Averi, still want Averi, to quit growing so fast. But with Kenz I can't wait until she's a little older and can play and interact with Averi on the same level.  Every now and then I encounter sisters that don't have a very good relationship or that special bond that I feel I share with my sisters, and I hope everyday that they have that more than sisters but best friends relationship that is so special that sisters can have.