Perpetual Motion

Cliches are made for a reason...that shit happens. For realz. Time moves quickly and you never sit still. In the back of my mind I figured that the hard part is out of the way once you get through the baby phase. Clearly I was way wrong. Things just speed up and you adapt and shift your perspective...and standards. Grade school years seemed like cake when I was up at 2 am feeding a baby. Its hard to quantify things because they are all hard, just very very different.

I looked at Raph the other day and dear Lord that child is big. He actually said, "That's what she said." today. Don't even get me started on those types of friends that corrupt your beautiful angelic children. Obviously he's never watched The Office, nor does he have any idea what he's saying but he knows its funny and somehow dirty.

Aside from his dirty jokes he's a budding athlete. He's not the most coordinated kid but he's enthusiastic about sports and hasn't disliked one since soccer. He even competed in a triathlon in September. The running part is what killed him in the end so he joined the running club at school. This is on top of Flag Football (he's a Dolphin) and basketball starts this weekend. The overlapping of sports kills me every time.

I got the inspiration for the triathlon from my friend Erin. Colin was supposed to race too but the whole biking on two wheels didn't happen in time for the race. Her boys kicked some ass though!


Then there's Colin who wrote out math sentences and sight words on a piece of scrap paper covered in his drawings. He's a fan of showing off his new found skills. He's come a long way since last spring. Its amazing what a few months of Vision Therapy will do for a child with a learning disability. He's comfortable enough at school now to get in trouble and then dispose of the evidence. He got busted coloring on his desk and his teacher said that she wrote a note to me on one of his papers. She mentioned it to me in the hall today and then when I checked his folder it was inexplicably gone! Imagine that!? Mike's been saying for years that we need a bail fund for that boy not a college fund.

 

Heidi is her sassy self and wise beyond her years. Her current favorite movie is The Sandlot. She also loves the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies and other movies that are aimed at the grade school boy. She's a hand talker who holds a grudge. I wonder where she gets that from?! Mike said she graduated from the Marcella School of Hand Talking. She's a straight A student as far as I can tell. She is explosive like Colin and gets her heart broken regularly. She so very much wants to be BIG and tells you all about it. She told me the other day that she wants to play soccer but needs a unicorn first. A little unicorn...wait, a big one, because she's big not little. I need to get her into dance classes because when she hears music she can't keep herself from rump shakin' across the room.

Did I mention that she's fearless? I feel like a lot of time I see her from behind, running away. She is by far the fastest growing of them all. Not literally of course because she's tiny but metaphorically speaking.

In the sage words of Ferris Bueller, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." I feel like some days all I'm doing is running around and moving and doing that I don't stop and see what's happening. Like, just how big and sweet my kids are. Naturally they are heathens and a huge pain in my ass a lot of the time but sometimes your heart hurts a little when you look at them. How many more years will Raph want to snuggle up with me on the couch? I don't expect Colin will always laugh so hard he gets hiccups like he did when he was a baby. Or Heidi? When she looks at you, puts her arms around you and says, "I love you too Mommy." for no good reason. My Little isn't so little anymore (statistically yes, she is still very little but I digress). I woke her up from one of her couch naps and she curled up on my chest like an amazon baby snuggled on its mother and I patted her butt. Its been a long time since one of my kids was a baby sleeping on me. I haven't changed a diaper in 6 months or more and even then it was a friend's baby. They just get so big, so fast. They are flying through grades and shoe sizes and playing sports with enthusiasm and just being kids. Its amazing to witness the growth of a child on so many different levels at once.

This is right before his big race. He had no idea what was coming but he ran through the cold air, his body steaming from the indoor pool and did his best. He never stopped, even when he completely wiped out 100 yards into the run.

 As a reluctant and restless Stay At Home Mom I do enjoy it and can't fathom how the hell it would all get done if I worked 9 to 5 again. I'm far too busy at this particular moment to have a job. Well, I do have a job...I own a company right? But a real job that isn't run out of my dining room. Yesterday I was in the car most of the day taking kids to and from sports practices, shopping, laundry and over seeing homework and that leaves very little time for sitting down and doing nothing. Part of me wants the kids to be in no after school activities but a bigger part of me wants them to be in MORE activities. I look around and see stagnant, obese children and I do not want to saddle my children with a life long struggle. I love that they all enjoy sports and can't wait for practice and games and want to do sports in all seasons. This is very good.

If you have never been to the City Museum you must go. Make sure your tetanus shot is up to date first but go and be amazed.

The problem is when there are three kids in the house and they all have to be in different places at the same time. Plus, sports are just fun. We don't live the world of The Sandlot where there were pick up games in the neighborhood. You have to have them in an organized sport if you want them to play baseball. So, I sign them up with enough sports without over scheduling them. There's a fine line between the two extremes. I don't want to make them so frenetic that they can't sit still in a house sometimes but also I want to be able to go do something that's not on my every growing schedule. I have had to abandon the mental calendar years ago and the paper copy in the kitchen won't cut it anymore. I must have a digital copy that I can see from my phone so I don't have to be across town at the same time as a practice. All the while, I have to find a way to not over extend myself and lose myself in the process. I am a "Homemaker" according to a recent medical form I had to fill out. It leaves such a bad taste in my mouth. I am so much more than that, yet that's what I really am. Its funny though, because I'm rarely at home.