A Confession

Hi All-

I have a confession to make.  Prepare yourself…

I don’t love having kids every single second of every single day. 

I know, I know.  How could I say something horrible like that?  And after we worked so hard for so many years to get them, right?  But yeah, it’s true.  I love love LOVE being a mom but sometimes I miss what life was like before the kids. I miss being able to hop out and see a movie whenever I feel like it.  To make plans with a friend that I then don’t have to cancel because someone gets sick.  To wake up leisurely or read my book uninterrupted.  Most of all, it annoys me that I can’t just hop in the car for a quick stop at the grocery store (since I go several times a week these days).  Instead, a trip to the store involves making sure everyone has a snack and toys so there are no meltdowns, that everyone has coats, shoes, and a clean diaper.  That all zippers are zipped, teeth and hair are brushed, and noses wiped before we head out the door.  I spend the time there trying to make sure that no one grabs anything off the shelves, knocks anything down, throws things, yells, runs, asks too loudly, “Why’s that lady so FAT?”, whines for candy/pancakes in the shape of Disney characters/stickers/juice boxes/a cookie from the bakery.  Mostly I miss the quiet and calm of pre-kid life.  And I miss my Peter time too.  It used to be that I could just hop in the car with my sweet hubs on a Saturday afternoon while he ran around delivering golf clubs.  We would hang out together (in the daylight for gosh sakes!), drink coffee at Starbucks and just ponder the meaning of life as we drove.  But that’s just not possible anymore.      

BUT

Then there are times like tonight when my darling husband has packed up the car, the kids, and everything they need to spend the night at Grandma’s house and taken off with my precious darlings and I miss them.  I mean I MIIIISSSS them.  A lot.  But it’s nice.  It’s nice to have the chance to feel their absence and to remember why we tried so hard to make a family in the first place.  I miss the laughter, the kisses, my tiny boy hanging onto my leg, my big boy talking non-stop, and just the general chaos of life with my boys.  The bed next to me is empty and I have trouble falling asleep and when I wake up in the morning, I know immediately that something is not right in my world before I even open my eyes.  The house just feels different. 

Having an entire day to myself is like that movie that has been remade about a million times where the storyline is that two people switch bodies.  The guy who is single ends up in the body of the guy with the family and vice versa.  And it leads up to the big lesson about realizing what is really important in life.  Life is not about the bigwig job, the late nights out at a bar, jetting around on vacation (though I do love an exotic vacay).  It’s waking up to a little voice in my ear at 7am saying,  “Mommy, I made breakfast and Bek is awake.  Can I get him out of his bed and take him downstairs?” when Peter is out of town and Rin has been entrusted with the job of taking care of his mom and brother.  It’s my sweet boys rolling around on the floor naked after their bath and laughing so hard they can’t breathe.  It’s Rinat spending a dollar of his first allowance money ever to buy something for his Daddy in addition to himself.  This life is more than I ever hoped for.  It’s more chaotic.  It’s more exhausting.  It’s more frustrating.  But it is so much more full of love.  And that, of course, is what life is about.  I am so lucky to love and to be loved by these marvelous boys. 

And I am so lucky to have time to myself to be reminded of it.

Love to all, -m

ps- No, the photos have nothing at all to do with this post.  I took them in October but never posted because of Big Pete’s death.  So I am putting them up now.  It’s nice to be reminded that even in the middle of a horrible time in our lives, there are still shining, happy moments.   

And I'm Done with Christmas (whew!)- the rest of the family, a couple of birthdays, long drives, and a game

Hi all-

So after opening Christmas gifts at home, we drove down to spend time with family.  Rinat was barely in the door from our trip when he asked, “So what did you get me?”  Now I had practiced what to do when you open a gift that you don’t like or one that you have already but I had apparently neglected the lesson on asking for stuff.  But GigiMar were happy to oblige at least.  So there was more unwrapping (Bek’s starting to get the hang of it at this point) and more toys to play with.  And that night a holiday party to attend. 

 And then the next day came and it was Rin’s 5^th birthday.  He woke up before the sun that morning asking, “Am I five yet?”  “Yes, Honey, you’re five.”  And as I rolled back over to snooze a bit longer, I realized he was undressing and he asked,  “Where are my size 5 clothes?” like he’d magically grown overnight.  How did I not notice?  And he also decided that, “I’m five and I can do anything I want now.”  This apparently includes making his own snack of cookies and candy and crossing the street on his own.  Um, NO buddy.  Not gonna happen but good try.  There was more family who arrived in town that day, more gifts (both Christmas AND Birthday of course), a fancy dinner, and a cake with candles to blow out.

The following day (yes, it keeps going), Nana came in town with auntC/uncleA and the cousins so there were yet MORE gifts and people showering our boys with love.  And yet ANOTHER party at the house that night to celebrate Ann passing her NP boards (anyone hiring?  She's good stuff!). 

The next day was pretty quiet thank goodness because the one after that was now our sweet Bek’s BDay.  Is anyone else exhausted just reading this?  It’s making me tired just to write it.  It started off with Rin wanting to know the exact status of his brother at 6 in the morning.  “Mom, is Bek two yet?”  “Yes Rin, Bek is two.”   And then he turned to his adoring little bro and said, “Oh my gosh, Boo, you are two years old!  You can talk now!  Say Water, Boo!” to which Bek answered, “WaWa.”  And he turned back to me and said, “Look Mommy, he can talk now!”  Now, I don’t love being woken up at the ass crack of down but hearing that little interaction definitely makes it a little more bearable.  This was the first birthday that we have spent with our sweet cuddly little Bek and it filled my heart to know that he finally had us to spend it with.  No more of just the nannies at the baby house giving him a kiss or two on his special day.  He was absolutely covered in kisses.  And cake icing too.  When I tell you that this boy knows cake, I mean he knows EXACTLY what to do with cake at this point.  So he dove right on in when he had his birthday cake at lunch.  And then we got in the car for a 6 hour drive…

We were on our way down to Atlanta for a UVa game.  The trip down was pretty uneventful.   But there was much excitement about the boys’ birthdays.  I would hear these little conversations coming from the back seat about how big they were.  One of them went like this:

Rin would say, “BooBoo!  I’m so happy that you’re 2 now!  Can you say ‘water’?

“WaWa”

“Can you say ‘pillow’?

“Mo” (that is ‘no’ for anyone who doesn’t know Bek)

“Can you say ‘restaurant’?

“Mo.”

“Can you say ‘dinosaur’?

“Mo”

‘computer’?

“Mo”

‘sippy cup’?

“Mo”

and on and on

..pause..

“OK. Can you say ‘no’?

“Mo” 

“Very good Boo!   You’re such a big boy!” as I laughed in the front seat.  I know I must be doing something right when I hear my Rin being so patient and encouraging with his little brother.  I’d like to think that he learned from my example but maybe that just my big head. 

A stop at Cracker Barrel along the way made the drive a bit easier to take and before we knew it we were checking into the hotel at 11:29 at night.  Have you ever tried to get a couple of super excited boys down to bed at almost midnight?  Yeah, not an easy feat.  But they went down eventually and the next day were just soooo excited to be there.  We have been talking about taking Rin to the Hotlanta aquarium for years now and it did not disappoint.  There were touch pools where Rin got to touch different kinds of rays (Bek, Mr. Doesn’t-want-his-hands-dirty was having none of it of course), a hammerhead shark, starfish and anemones and Amazonian rivers that flowed overhead.  But the coolest thing by far for me was the ocean exhibit.  There is a moving walkway that takes you under the most amazing tunnel of water ever.  Now I’ve seen fish before, and rays, and sharks, and the whole deal but at the Atlanta aquarium they have not just one but a couple of huge whale sharks.  They just glide slowly through the water above and around you and it is simply jaw dropping.  I highly recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in downtown Atlanta.  And both of the boys really enjoyed the dolphin show.  It was a little too Disney/Vegas for me lots of flashing lights and spraying water but they loved it and that’s all that matters.  Anything that keeps my little Bek making the sign for ‘more’ over and over again and puts a gigantic smile on Rinat’s face is a winner in my book.

That night was the big game and the boys could not have been any more pumped up for it.  And by boys, I mean Rinat and Peter of course.  Bek just sort of went with the flow as always looking around totally confused but just happy to be there.  When bother and daddy started pumping their fists and yelling, he followed right along. UVa lost but Rin could have cared less.  He spent half of the game yelling for the other team anyway- just for kicks. 

We got to our hotel room at 11:45 at night so we thought “what the hell,” got the kids in their pj’s and watched the ball drop in Times Square.  I can’t believe that they made it that long.  It was probably 12:30 in the morning by the time we got them down but really they were great.  And if you have a 10&1/2 hour drive coming up the next day, I highly recommend letting your kids stay up past midnight because then they spend a large amount of time sleeping in the car the next day.  Even when the trip turns out to be 12 hours due to a record number of bathroom stops.

 

And here we are in 2012.  Can you believe it?   Here’s wishing you a year full of adventures and lots and lots of love.

Love to all, -m

Part 4- A holiday with our family of four

Hi all-

I don’t know if anyone else is crazy enough to do this, but I feel like every Christmas holiday we are running a marathon.  I mean, that's what the holidays are about, right?  Seeing everyone you love?  And it IS tons of fun.  But it involves different people in different cities and lots and lots of driving.  This year was no exception.  We clocked in at 21 hours of driving, 6 bathroom breaks, 5 movies, 4 drive-thru windows, 2 stops at Cracker Barrel, 1 600 page book read by me while Peter drove, and thousands of calories consumed by eating candy to stave off the boredom in the car.  It’s always 100% worth it when we get there but I always feel like we’ve been on tour or something. By the end I am having physical cravings for my own bed in my own house with my own family.  Not that I don’t have a ton of fun along the way but home is gooood.  Let me rephrase- not having to sleep in the same room as your kids is good.  What is it with the noises that they make in the middle of the night?  Whoever came up with the whole ‘sleep like a baby thing’ obviously didn’t have a baby.  Or maybe they were just trying to mess with the rest of us.    

This holiday was a little weird though.  It was our first Christmas without Big Pete but it was our first Christmas with our sweet Aibek so it was sadness and happiness flip-flopping back and forth the whole time.  There was one particularly psychotic episode on my part when Peter was gone and I was taking out Christmas stuff for Rin.  I couldn’t get this bear that Pete had given us who reads The Night Before Christmas to read the frigging story for Aibek and I flipped out and pretty much took the thing apart trying to make it work.  I stopped when I realized that both of my kids were sitting there looking at me like I had lost my mind.  I guess I might have gone crazy for just a short minute.  It just seems to hit at unexpected times when I have my guard down and comes out of nowhere to smack me around for a bit and the retreats again.  But I digress.  

As I mentioned before, it took me a little while to get into the spirit at all.  It wasn’t until I got harassed by our little RinCakes who was drilling me relentlessly about when exactly we were going to get our tree and how long until Santa came and if the reindeer would come in the house too on and on and on and we finally gave in and went to get a tree and it finally hit me that this was all new to our little Bekerpies. And from then on I decided to be excited for his sake (and Rin’s) no matter how I was feeling myself.  And with each stocking that we hung and each little Christmas tchotchke that Rin found a place for in our new house I felt myself getting more and more excited about it.  Rin was an old hat at the whole thing but for Bek it was an entirely new experience and it was fun to be there for his first one.  He was excited about the tree, the decorating, the train ride, the random fun stuff placed around the house, and even a little bit about Santa even though you’d never know it.     

We had our fancy Christmas Eve dinner as our family of four (first one!), we left cookies for Santa, and then it was time for our little men to rest their sleepy heads. And finally after a month of Rin asking "How many more days?", we got to the big day when the kids get to rush downstairs to see what Santa brought them.  I thought Rin's head was going to explode with excitement about the whole thing.  It’s only this year that he’s started to care about getting stuff.  It’s always been fun but it was sort of a surprise when people gave him things before.  This is the first year that he expected it.  And it did not necessarily lead to the best behavior.  No worries, I’m working on it.  It doesn’t help that there is not just Christmas but also both his AND Bek’s birthdays during our holiday tour.  It’s a gift-getting extravaganza with three times the amount of toys. 

But I have to say that Rin was exceedingly patient on Christmas morning and waited a whole 10 minutes after waking us up to absolutely insist that it was time to wake Bek up and go downstairs.  How could I resist my sweet excited little boy?  His excitement was the best Christmas gift I got this year (last year, just for the record, it was Bek.  Bek is the best gift of all time).  Rin raced downstairs and was in a gift opening frenzy.  He got more and more excited with each gift that he tore into.  He did however slow down enough to make sure everyone had something to open before he began and he was incredibly patient with confused little Bek who spent most of the morning trying to figure out what in the world was going on.  Sweet big brother Rin showed him how to rip the paper off and get at the good stuff and it was pretty much the only time he sat still all morning.  And once he was done opening the gifts under the tree, he asked, “Alright, when are we going to see GigiMar?”  And it was off to pack and hop in the car to head a few hours down south to see the fam.  And thus started the East Coast Christmas Tour.   

More to come.  Love to all, -m