Let's Hear It For The Girls!

As a mother of five with a mixed brood (3 girls and 2 boys), I get to experience so many fun phases.  We've had our share of Matchbox Cars, Rescue Heroes, Power Rangers, Little People and Superheros.  Right now though, as the kids are getting older, we are interested in expensive electronics, perfume, nail polish, Xbox and computer games.  Luke is still young enough to allow for the occasional fight with a light saber or Nerf gun and we all know how much he loves Legos.  But, one of my hands-down favorite phases is the little-girl with a bigger-than-life imagination-phase. 

Charlotte, who is six, is going through this right now and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.  I'm not sure if it's because she's my youngest, but I just want to hold onto this time in her life for as long as I can.  She can play for hours with her Polly Pockets, Strawberry Shortcake or Lalaloopsy dolls creating drama and intense stories for them to act out.  It's neat to see her work through some real-world situations with these dolls.  Creating conflict, resolving it, expressing loving relationships and sometimes being just plain silly!  Then there are times when she plays a little Mommy and straps a baby on her back while pushing a stroller with another baby around the house, pocketbook slung over her shoulder (now where would she ever get an idea like that?!).  The very best part about Charlotte's playtime is that she sings through all of it.  Sometimes it's songs that she has learned in school or heard on the radio, but more often she expresses her entire stream of thought through a melody.  You can't help but smile when she does this and wish that you knew the lyrics so you can sing along.

The other day, my son Luke was sent home early because of a possible stomach bug.  Thankfully it turned out to be nothing but a self-proclaimed "wet-burp" (snips and snails and puppy dog tails), but it allowed me to cancel all of the evening's activities and simply sit in the backyard and do nothing for a change.  This couldn't have come at a better time because it was a week filled with more activities than I could possibly handle.  I was outside for about 10 minutes reading "Dracula" (little light reading) when Charlotte came outside decked out in a white ballgown.  She tottered over to me on her plastic high-heels and announced that tea would be served in the "riving room" (that's "living room" in Kindergarten-speak) in 10-minutes.  As she teetered away I cringed a bit because I wasn't really feeling like my imagination was at it's peak after the long week I was having.  I decided with Mommy-resolve that I was going to join my little Princess for tea and I was going to drag her wicked step-sisters (well, not step per se) along with me.  I was so pleasantly surprised as we entered my living room as it had been transformed!  Her little-girl finesse was all over the room and my heart swelled as she yelled rushing towards the tv, "Wait, wait, I have to put the music on!" and put on some, "mood-music".  My baby is practicing being the hostess that hopefully one day she will be as she fills her own home with the sounds of music and laughter and the smells of a heart-felt meal shared with friends and family.  The following are pictures of our exquisite time together.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed this precious time with my little girls.

The spread complete with wildflowers picked by the hostess!

The very willing (or not so) sister.

Our amazing hostess.

New guests (The Veggie Tales Gang) arrive!

It's not polite to EAT the guests!

C'mon Maddie, you know you love it!



Ladies, where are your manners?!

Love Reign O'er Me

So why would someone who has a leaky roof that happens to leak over her bed be hoping for downpours?  Because in my life, sometimes a bit of water is the only thing that may keep me from completely drowning.  Let's face it, life with five children is always busy, but something happens in the Spring that makes it absolutely insane.  It's like the same forces of nature that cause the plants to grow, lay their hands on my life and act as a cosmic Miracle Grow causing my responsibilities to multiply.  It's one of those instances where we're almost too blessed.  Doesn't that just sound terrible?  Too blessed?  How can someone be too blessed?  It's not the same as too much of a good thing (like eating a vat of ice cream).  It's more like, every good thing that we have, takes a lot of hard work.  All of our labor comes to fruition and yet, it still takes more work to enjoy it.  I'm not adverse to hard work, but sometimes I just don't know how I'm going to get through the week. 

The Famous Perfectly Positioned Leak

                                               
For starters, I try to do it one day at a time.  This is a really difficult thing to do when you have kids who want a weekly itinerary every Sunday.  There are some days when I'm driving from one appointment to the next and Charlotte says something like, "Mom, for my next birthday can we have real monkeys?"  "  Gee Charlotte, I'm not sure, we'll see." (now please note that I would never be able to have real monkeys at a birthday party but I realize that if I state this right now I'm opening up the possibility to a complete blubber-fest, so I do what every good mother does...I stall.)  "But Mom, what are we going to do for my next birthday if we don't have real monkeys?"  "  Charlotte, your birthday is 360 days away, we have plenty of time to think about it."  Now, poor Charlotte doesn't realize that Mommy can only concentrate right now on the road, and the 20 different places she needs to be in the next hour.  This rule applies to anything in my life.  I can only be concentrating on what I am doing at that moment.  A very wise person once told me that when my head starts to wander to the next hour or to tomorrow or what I have to do next week, to look down at my feet and remind myself that I am right here, right now, where my feet are standing.  I can't possibly be standing in next week.  Now, there's a fine line between living in the day, and having no plans or schedules for the future.  I definitely need a balance.  I obviously can't wake up in the morning, and be like, "Gee, I wonder what I'm doing today?"  I have to have some clue as to what I'm up against, but as far as worrying about it, (and believe me I have turned worrying into an art-form), it's just not worth it.

Then there's my good friends denial and procrastination.  What, you thought this was going to be a positive piece?  Nuhn unh.  This here is my reality.  It's not squeaky clean.  Now, I'm not saying that either denial or procrastination are going to get anything done.  But, sometimes the mind can only handle so much and it's those times where you find yourself doing a mental fetal-position.  Like the fact that my daughter's dancing school teacher told us about a week ago that we need to sew elastic into their ballet costumes.  She lost me on, "sew".  I don't have a working sewing machine and the last time I used one was in middle school home ec.  So, let's get this straight.....you charged me $75 for a costume that will be worn for one weekend and now I have to sew something on to it?  As far as I'm concerned this thing should come in perfect condition.  Heck, this costume should be sewn with diamond dust that's been woven into thread by magical elves.  Wait, it gets better.  Not only do I have to sew elastic into the sleeves of this dress, but it has to be nude elastic.  Knowing that nude elastic is hard to come by, the teacher suggests taking white elastic and soaking it in Lipton tea for 24 hours.  So, armed with this ridiculousness, my brain went into that mental fetal position I was talking about.  It started with unrealistic optimism (denial).  I figured I'd just ask my friend who has helped me a million times with sewing and she'd whip it up for me in no time (she can't BTW).  I put off the phone call for a couple of days because, well quite frankly my focus was elsewhere (procrastination).  Well folks, it's Tuesday and I still have no elastic, barely a plan and it needs to be done by Thursday....awesome.

Larger than Life and Worth Every Gray Hair

So, I digress....how does a bit of rain help to bail out this sinking ship?  I need my son's baseball game to be cancelled.  Yep, I'm rooting for a downpour.  Boo! bad Mommy.  Let's take a brief look at my week, before you judge me too harshly.  (This is only the after-school activities so we're not even mentioning work and other engagements before 3pm, also take into consideration meals, homework, housework, and there's this chicken poop thing.....).  Mon:  Dress rehearsal for Char in Paramus 4:15- 5:40 and baseball game for Jason in Hawthorne 4:00-6:00 (easy-breezy!).  Tues:  Twins tutoring 3:30-4:30, Jason baseball in North Haledon 3:00-5:00, Luke baseball in West Milford 5:45-7:45.  Wed:  Jason baseball in North Haledon 3:00-5:00, Gwen concert 6:00-8:30.  Thurs:  Twins tutoring 3:30-4:30, Jason game in Pompton Lakes 4:00-6:00, Gwen dress rehearsal 5:00-8:00.  Fri:  Jason baseball in Glen Rock 4:00-6:00, Luke baseball in West Milford 5:45-6:45.  Then, more baseball and 3 dance recitals this weekend.  Husband: WORKING.  Nanny:  Hahahahaaaaaaaaa! 

This boy, the computer nerd, made a double play last Thursday.

Just like at home.....yeah right!

This is where a good belly-breath would be appropriate.  "Imagine your belly as a pink balloon...."  See a prior blog if you don't know what I'm talking about.  So, am I over-scheduled?  Yes.  Are my kids over-scheduled?  Not individually.  There's just so many of the little buggers!  Could I simplify my life?  Absolutely.  I could tell them, no dancing, no sports, no extracurricular activities.  Will I do that?  Nope.  I do have a rule that you only can play one sport per season and only on one team.  I also usually have them take the winter off, except for Jason with snow-boarding and Maddie is begging for basketball next year so that hiatus may be short-lived.  I think that all of these activities are important to their development as well-rounded individuals.  I like to encourage them to exercise their minds and their bodies.  Working as a team is an important skill that they can use throughout their lives.  It's just that everything comes to a head this time of year.

My "New Years" starts in September.  June officially ends my year.  July and August are two delicious bonus months of limbo.  So with that, May means games, recitals, concerts, projects due, class trips taken and deadlines made.  It's all of the wonderful things that we've been working on for 9 months giving birth.  It's a messy business.   So I breath, I take pictures, I freak out sometimes,  I screw-up, I get so proud that I cry and sometimes I pray for rain.  Oh, and I wouldn't change a thing.

Growing Pains

It's the beginning of May, and because I live in the Garden State, it's time to get the garden going. I was raised in a house where gardening wasn't optional. There was no excuse not to have a garden. If we lived in an apartment (you have windows!), or a house (postage stamp yard is big enough!), we were growing something. My grandfather was the master gardener in my family. He used to let me tag along with him while he worked his masterpiece. I can remember him turning over the dirt and excitedly telling me his plans for the coming years' planting blue-prints, or picking me up so I could reach the tomatoes on his 8' tall plants. Even as a little girl I knew that earthworms were your friend, and I loved finding them and letting them wriggle through my fingers back into the overturned soil. To this day, I love the smell of rich soil. Gardening brings me closer to those memories and in its own way heals me like nothing else can. There's something so satisfying about literally seeing the fruits of your labors. How many aspects of my job as a mother are so frustrating because even though I know that I'm working hard for something so important, there's no real "finished" product. When raising children, there are small steps and you build towards a picture that is so big, there's really no day where you just sit back and say, "I'm done and it's good." At least, if there is that day, I'm nowhere near it. Gardening is great for the nurturer in me because there's a shorter end to my means. I work, I care for, I protect, I stay vigilant, and I will see results almost right away. Of course there's waiting so patience is required, but as a student in the school of patience, I know that it's worth it. The waiting is filled with an excited anticipation. There are disappointments too. I've had pests devour my hard work. I've fought wood chucks like Caddy Shack and found myself threatening winged insects with very strong words. Somehow, it's always worth it. For some reason, even after the hardest season, just one zucchini pie or if I'm lucky, a slew of raspberry jelly makes it worth it and I find myself digging the next Spring. Today was the day that I decided the digging should begin. When I lived in Bergen County I would start prepping in April. The weather is decidedly colder here so I start prep-work in the beginning of May and plant around Memorial Day Weekend. It was a rainy day and even though I had no motivation, I knew I wouldn't regret starting. I have a pretty large garden so I set small goals that I know I can reach. The biggest obstacle for me isn't the boulders in my rocky soil, or the limited time I have to dedicate to it, it's the space between my own two ears. Sometimes I just have to get to work, keep my head down and once in awhile, pick my head up to see how far I've gotten and then get right back to work. Doesn't that apply to so many things in life? Set a goal, put your nose to the grindstone, don't get overwhelmed at the size of the job and keep on working. Before you know it, the job is done and you have the satisfaction of knowing that you accomplished something.


Thanks to a milder than average Spring, my garden looks more like a jungle. I think the yellow flowers are part of a horse-radish plant.

One of two large piles of weeds and sunflower stalks cleared out by hand.

My goal today was to dig out 1/3 of my work area. I spotted a post, and got to it. Not bad for an hour's work.

Black earth...see the raspberry bushes already green?!

Rhubarb! I've downloaded over 300 rhubarb recipes...I've made about a dozen....

Future raspberry jelly!

Get dirty!

Needed waterproof gloves today...

Never too old to play in the dirt...

Who needs the gym?