“I have to go potty!”
“I need a drink!”
“Mom, I had a dream!”
“Mommy, I peed in my bed.”
“My skin is itchy.”
“I’m cold/hot/tangled.”
“I can’t find my blanket.”

and the dreaded
“Mom! I threw up on my bed/self/floor.”

This morning, at about 1:45am, I was awakened by the familiar little tap on my arm that is always Lidia when I open my eyes. What did she have to say?

“Mom, my tooth is out.”

The Queen of missing teeth lost her 7th tooth while she was sleeping. How on earth she did not just lose it or swallow it is beyond me, but there she was at my bed side, already asking if the tooth fairy would come tonight. I told it was more likely she’d come the next night, put her tooth somewhere safe and sent her back to bed.

Her tiny little teeth are all falling out and her tiny little mouth is suddenly sprouting these huge teeth. I cannot imagine all those adult teeth are going to fit in there. Her baby teeth are so small that the Tooth Fairy has a hard time finding them. Uh, I know because she told me.

Adam didn’t really appreciate the humor in being woken up by a toothless daughter as much as I did. He kind of rolled over and grumbled something while I giggled. Oh well.

I am off to arrange things with the Tooth Fairy. She and I are tight now, you know, after 7 teeth in 1 1/3 years.

Oh. Well, that explains a lot….

First let me re-cap our day. We were pretty busy for the most part. I got up and got everyone fed and ready so we could meet some friends on the East side of town to play at a park. The kids had fun, it was a beautiful day–warm and sunny, but still a nice breeze.

We came home and jumped on our usual routine–lunch, and then nap for the boys. (Or rather, the nap that wasn’t really a nap as both boys had slept the last 10 minutes of the ride home–thus re-energizing themselves enough that they would not sleep again). While the boys napped (er… hung out in their cribs making noise, playing and intermittently fussing), the girls and I had some fun dying play silks with Kool-Aid. (Playsilks: think silk scarves used in play–they are really quite fun and can be anything from dress up clothes, baby blankets, dancing props, picnic blankets…whatever). The girls had a blast with that project and even more fun playing with them once they were dry. They are still playing with them this morning and are very proud that they put the color on themselves (they were white to begin with). Once we got the boys up, and snack was eaten, we sunblocked up again and sat by the pool. That sound so much more glorious than it really was (well, for me anyway). The kids had a fabulous time in the kiddie pool. I had fun playing lifeguard :) After a couple hours, it was time to go in, get dry and start dinner.

Dinner was delicious–we made one of my favorite dishes: Apricot-Ginger Glazed Salmon. So simple, yet so yummy. Even the kids will eat this one–and all of them are very fussy about which meats they will eat, and how they are prepared.

After dinner we split into teams. There was much sunblock and sand to be washed off of the 4 small people in our charge. It was boys against girls- Adam bathed the boys in one bathroom, I bathed the girls in the other. The boys were done first (they don’t have all that hair to wash! Nor all the pretend play that seems to happen whenever these 2 girls get together). Once everyone had hair combed and were properly jammified, the 2 teenies went to bed, and we set the girls up with popcorn and a movie. Finally, the man and I got to relax for a while. The girls really didn’t need us much while their movie was on, but once bed time hit, I knew any relaxation would be over. The teeth were brushed, the tucking was done. A slipped out with a goodnight and wandered back downstairs (with monitor in hand because I knew they would need a little bit of “supervision”). I sat down in my chair, with a sigh, and flipped on the monitor.

Yes… Let the giggling begin.

There were no less than 10 treks made up the stairs by us (mostly me) in the next hour. There were tiffs to mediate, shushing to be done (Lidia’s room borders the boys room on one wall, and they were getting loud enough that they were waking the boys), and drinks of water to be gotten.

There was much giggling to be done, in proper little girl fashion. Of course, I expected this, and it did make me smile, fondly remembering my own sleepover days. After that hour, suddenly things became quiet and we knew that the exhaustion of the day had finally caught up with them. So they were asleep by 10:30–earlier than I had expected, really. Lidia is a master at keeping herself awake, no matter how tired she may (should) be.

I was hoping after this late night, they would sleep in–not so much luck, on Lidia’s part anyway. Lidia was up watching t.v. when I got up at 7:30 to get Liam up. Gavin slept til almost 8–Naomi, until at least 8:30 (I believe Lidia may have suck in and woke her up when I wasn’t looking).

All in all, however, it was a successful sleep over. Lidia had her usual melt down once or twice, but she is 4. What can I expect, really? She isn’t all that used to someone being here full time, getting into all her stuff (the stuff in her room that the boys aren’t allowed to touch).

Today, I’m hoping to take it a little easy and get some things done in the house (though that will be hard with the weather being so nice outside!)

I’ll leave you with a couple pictures from yesterday.

3 of the 4, enjoying the pool–Liam really preferred to splash from outside the pool…

Gavin loved being in the pool with the girls…

Liam stayed in the shade, a lot, too, so it made it hard to get any good shots of him…I guess he’s all about sun protection ;)

Awwww… BFF?

We’ll start with the Princess, since she’s the eldest.

She had a grand time collecting dandelions…

But there’s always time to monkey around…

Next in the birth line is Gavin (still my Peanut Butter)

He finally figured out how to make the dandelions work…

But not without a few mishaps…

And last but not least my lil’ Jelly, Liam gives the dandelions a try…

But moves on to rocks and sticks…

All morning long, Lidia was bubbling with excitement over school. She must have asked if it was time for school 100 times. When the time finally came, she raced ahead of me to the garage, doing anything she could to help me and speed up this process. Once we arrived, she could not wait to go in. We went inside, put our papers and bags in their proper places, checked the job board–Oh, look! Lidia has a job today. Her job was to set the cups at the chairs for snack…Teeny tiny little chairs…Awwww. She did that, quickly, said a speedy hello to her new teachers and made a beeline to the dress-up/pretend play corner. After watching her play for a while and snapping a few pictures, there was really no reason for us to hang out anymore. I said goodbye and gave her a smooch. I told her to say bye to Daddy and her boys. She yells across the room, “Bye Daddy and my boys!” which was followed by chuckles from the other parents and teachers. Then we left. Huh. That was easy. Not that I wanted her to be pining away after me but–you know… It’s nice to know you’re missed sometimes.

I took the boys home, put them down for a nap and tried to tackle some of the mess in the kitchen. Gavin did not sleep long and soon it was he and I hanging out while Liam slept, for once. We even had to wake him up when it was time to retrieve the princess from school.

When we arrived, I noticed some kids on the playground, but did not see Lidia there. As the boys and I headed inside, I suddenly heard “Hi, Mom!” emanating from the bathroom that I had just walked by. “We’re going outside!” she announced loudly as pulled up her pants and began washing her hands. She then ran past me and–well, outside.

I didn’t really expect her to run into my arms, throwing her arms around me for a hug. “Oh Mommy I’m so happy to see you!” No, really. I did not expect that. But I kind of hoped, anyway. It is not easy seeing them grow up and not needing me as much anymore. For her, especially, it has gone too fast. I missed a whole year of needing mommy with her. I will admit, I’m not 100% ready yet. But I can see she is. The worrisome part of me wonders if this is a sign of an attachment issue–that she so eagerly let us leave her in a room full of strangers for a few hours–”See ya!” Then again, from another perspective, maybe it is because she IS well attached. She is confident that we would never leave her somewhere unsafe–and that we will always come back. I think I will choose to believe the latter, unless something else happens to change my mind.

Her teacher’s first comment was “Lidia is very outgoing!” I laughed. This, of course, came as no surprise to me. She is one to strike up conversation with anyone. She loves to talk to people, though I’m glad to say she still has a small sense of stranger danger, despite her open friendliness. We’ll keep an eye on that, though.

Teacher also mentioned that Lidia said something about being a baby in Russia. Wow, did not take her long to get her story out! Again I had to laugh. I hadn’t mentioned it since it didn’t seem important. I figured Lidia would mention it at some point–I just didn’t expect it to be the first day. I explained that she was born in Russia and we had brought her home at 12 months old. Teacher then asked if the boys were also from Russia. “No, they’re home grown,” I responded. That was that.

Upon discussing her day, Lidia informed me that she used glue, did something with a puzzle piece, painted, had pretzels, grapes and apple juice for snack and played in the sandbox. It sounded like she had a fun day.

At dinner she ate and ate. I haven’t seen her eat like this in a long time. Then, when she was done with dinner, she asked for ice cream. In the interest of teaching her not to gorge herself I just said, “Maybe we can have some ice cream tomorrow, you ate a LOT of yummy food for dinner.” Well, that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Instant freak out melt down. I was expecting this, really. Any time she has been over stimulated and/or over tired this happens. It only got worse as I cleaned her up (a task she usually does herself these days–but we had eaten lasagna…and she wasn’t about to clean herself up during a tantrum). So, Dr. Mom ordered up a dose of “Time For Bed” much to the princess’s misery. She was in bed at 6:40pm and sleeping in 5 minutes–she is not usually one to fall asleep quickly. It can take hours, some days. She was exhausted. The boys went down early, too, and at 7:45 we had all the children sleeping. That was strange. I even went to bed a bit early, though was up a LOT in the night. I did not sleep at all between 1am and 3:30. Then I was up again at 5 and 6:30. Blah. The boys had been sleeping a little better–or at least settling down better. But I suppose this can be blamed on teeth. Liam is up to 4 teeth now and more on the way, Gavin still at 2. Anyhow. Thus ends the first day of preschool. The princess is already anxious to return to school. But first, we are off to Michigan to visit that cute little baby nephew for the weekend.

Anyway, it went well and now we, the parents, are informed on how to do this preschool thing.

I have had some people say, “Why do preschool? You are the preschool!”

This prompted me to think about my own reasons for sending her and to think about my early childhood educational philosophy. First and foremost, she is attending a preschool 2 days a week (Tuesday and Thursday afternoons) for 3 hours each day. I am definitely not sending her to learn reading, writing and arithmetic. The biggest reason for sending her is to socialize her with other children her age. Of the children she plays with here and there during the week, only 1 is close to her age–and Lidia is the eldest of them all. While there is nothing wrong with this, I feel she can benefit from socializing with more kids her age. She needs to learn more about sharing and general social interaction. I also want her to have a little bit of time away from me–to prep her for the big day she goes to kindergarten and will be away from me most days.

No, we will not be homeschooling. That is not the right method for us.

I am frustrated (though I do keep it to myself, because to each his own method) when I see parents throwing so much effort into teaching their young pre-k children reading, writing, arithmetic…all of the things they really don’t even need to start learning until Kindergarten. In my experience, the children who did not know these things pre-kindergarten are caught up to their peers within the first year or 2 of school. What is the point of taking away their play time with rote learning when they are going to spend the next 13+ years of their life in school? Not for us. Teachable moments are the best in my book. Lids will learn what she is interested in when she is home. Despite a complete lack of effort on our part in teaching her letters and numbers (aside from singing the Alphabet as one of our songs and telling her the names of the letters or numbers if she inquired), I recently realized that Lidia knows pretty much every letter and numbers 1-9 (zero throws her often–confuses it with O). Proof to me that the lessons will come in time, as she is interested in them.

I learned one more thing on Sunday. As we were preparing to go to a friend’s birthday party, I asked Lidia if she’d like to “sign” the card. She agreed eagerly and I gave her the pen. I asked her if she wants to try to write her name and she said yes. So I helped her with the letter order by spelling it out for her. To my surprise, she wrote the L and I’s quite well and even made great attempts at the d and a! wow…

I’m proud and impressed that she has absorbed this knowledge just by asking questions/listening.

In reading back on my words, I almost feel as though I sound like we don’t try to teach the girl anything. This isn’t really what I’m trying to say. Our focus is on life lessons right now. Learning to be a person who can function in life is our priority. We read, daily, of course and I believe that is where most of her letter knowledge has been absorbed. We always try to answer her questions, expose her to new activities and teach her how to properly interact with people. Of course I want her to do well in school, but most of all, I want her to be happy and adjusted. I don’t base my parenting assessment and the smarts of my child on what she can recite back to me when I drill her with questions.

In the end, I think the preschool thing is a good decision for her. These days, my time can often be sucked into the void that is infant twins, thus leaving her bored. Winter is coming and the days that I will be able to push a double stroller around the block are numbered–cold and snow are just around the bend. (Yikes!) She will have fun and is already quite excited. I am excited for her.

One funny thing, though.

As I was looking at the name tags on the cubbies in her class, I realized something. Of the 12 kids in the class, 11 of them are girls. Poor little man in her class… No way he’s going to be able to avoid all those cooties. (Oh wait, girls don’t have cooties until at least Kindergarten, right?)

“I love you, my sweety-pie Mommy
Sweety Pie, Sweety Pie
Sweeeeeeeeeeeee-teeeeeeeee Piiiiiiiiiie”

A month or 2 ago, I got up and began my usual routine of getting one boy, changing him, dressing him, transferring him to the living room. Wash, rinse repeat with boy #2. As I’m doing this, Lidia comes in and says something about breakfast. In my morning stupor, I didn’t hear her completely. As I bring boy #2 to the living room, Lidia excitedly greets me with, “I’m making my breakfast, mom!”
er what?
I approach the kitchen and find she has taken frozen waffles from the freezer, gotten her stool, put the waffle into the toaster oven AND turned the toaster oven ON. Luckily it had only just been turned on and I was not detained long in dealing with the boys. I didn’t even know she knew how to turn the thing on! Guess she was watching.

She also mastered the little push down cabinet safety locks long ago. Apparently she watched me do that one too many times.

Not only that, we have installed on our kitchen drawers the magnet locks…the ones where you have to hold the magnet key up to the right spot on the cabinet/drawer and pull out at the same time to open the drawer. Relatives and friends visiting our house have a hard time opening these drawers with said magnet keys. The princess got a hold of one of the keys recently and put it on the EXACT magnet spot–as though she had been doing it her whole life–and opened the drawer like a pro. She didn’t even have to “feel around” for the lock! Unbelievable. Even I have to feel around for the lock at times, and I open the thing all day long.

She has learned which nuks belong to which boy. They are the same nuks except Gavin uses the blue ones–and Liam uses every other color. We never told her this.

I was having a Mommy moment, loading the boys into the van yesterday. Lidia suddenly says, “Mom, that’s Liam’s seat, not Gavin’s.” She caught me ready to put the boy into the wrong seat. The boys have identical car seats, but Liam always sits on the right side of the van, Gavin on the left. She had observed this and filed it away with all of that other information I didn’t know she had.

Where, oh where, is that tiny little thing we brought home from Russia?

Now I’m waxing nostalgic again. It is so cliche….but my baby is just growing up too fast.

I’ve always said how the Princess reminds me of a teen in a three-year-old’s body, so really it should not come as a surprise. From the beginning this girl has had attitude about her. She is certainly spunky. It’s one of those things I love about her.

Yesterday, as we were headed home from Story Time at the local giant bookstore chain, I buckled my little diva into her car seat, as usual. Occasionally, when she starts to become tired, her body suddenly becomes hyper sensitive to EVERYTHING. Seams in clothing, something is touching her arm, her sock is twisted, there’s a tag in her shirt, the babies are too loud… I would have pegged her for some sort of sensory disorder, if I did not know that this beast rears its head only during times of sleepiness or over-stimulation. In this case, the chest buckle on her seat was “too tight.” Now keep in mind, the straps on this seat have not been adjusted since summer began and she no longer wore a coat in the seat. In fact, it was exactly the same tautness when she arrived to Story Time in said seat not 45 minutes earlier. Despite my checking and confirming that indeed, it was not too tight, the meltdown quickly ensued.

“Nooooooooooooooo it’s too tight it’s too tight bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.”

I gently explained that I could not make it looser, as that was unsafe. Of course, what does the 3 year old care of being safe?

Tantrum continues. I decide it’s not worth arguing over, she’s just tired, so we’ll head home and get some lunch and a nap. I drove on, pointedly ignoring her screams.
“I want my daddy, I miss my daddy.” This is what she resorts to when the Meanest Mom in the World arrives and begins parenting.
In the middle of her tantruming, she sees something interesting–some road work being done.
In a half way normal voice, she pulls out of the tantrum to say, “Mommy, why did they break the road?”
I mentioned that it had holes in it and needed to be fixed.
Suddenly, she remembered how pissed she was.
The demon voice takes over and my little princess screams,

“I HATE YOU!”

ouch.

Like I said, a little sooner than I’d anticipated, though I knew it would happen sooner or later.
Luckily, I also know that she did not really mean it. It stung a bit at first, but my mommy sense took over. She’s just mad. I know I must have said that a million times about my parents, growing up. After a moment, I almost laughed to myself. My little girl is caught in a world where she is old enough to know she wants to run her own life…but too young to make good decisions. That is a tough place to be–especially when you have to be in that place for so many years! I don’t have the heart to tell her just how long it is until she turns 18.

My response to her outburst?
I feigned hurt. I explained how she hurt my feelings and that wasn’t very nice to say. I didn’t want to talk to her anymore because I was sad. I wished she would apologize and make me feel better.

She ignored me and cried for a while. She then made a stab at changing the subject, suggesting we have peanut butter and honey sandwiches for lunch. I reaffirmed to her that I was very sad and didn’t want to talk to her until I felt better.
She cried some more.
Then, finally, she decided to say, “I’m sorry Momma”
“Why are you sorry?” I asked, wondering if she truly knew why I was sad.
“I said I hate you,” she replied.
“Oh, thank you for apologizing, I feel much better now. Do you really hate me?” I asked.
“No, I don’t.”
“That’s good, because I love you.”
“I love you, too.”

*phew*
Crisis averted.

After a lunch of peanut butter sandwiches and a good nap (for all 4 of us!), life was once again happy in the Princess’s castle.