Unedited

Today it's cool and overcast. It feels cozy in my heart. I want another chai tea latte. Cindy Jane and her daughter blessed my socks off for the past 24 hours. Gianni's so cute in his pajamas that I might not change him. Ever. Danny's super grown up & I miss him crawling into my lap, but I absolutely adore who he is becoming. Today I'm wearing tassels & croc snow boots with a skirt. Which means I'm either making my own style or I have none. You pick. T minus 10 days 'til my big Mary Kay blast off. Country is playing on my radio. Church tonight. T minus 11 days 'til my MIL visits for 3 weeks. Last day of the first week of preschool with no help in my home. I survived. At the beginning of the week I cried. By the end of the week, I wrote down the 500th gift since last year & can say I thrived. It's Fall. I am blessed. He is Good.

Preschool Drop-off

You could write a comedy routine based entirely on the antics of dropping off children the first day of school.

Today was Danny's first day of his second year of preschool. He woke up excited, but was a little anxious before walking in. He asked me a few times if I could stay with him and I assured him that I would stay for a few minutes. He didn't want me to take his picture. He definitely didn't want to smile. And he wanted his snack to stay in his backpack, not in his cubby basket. But then the doors opened and we walked in. He found his name tag and the apple with his name on it. We stuck the name tag on his shirt and the apple on the tree and then, in a stroke of brilliance, the teachers abandoned the idea of circle time and called every child to the table to play with play dough. Danny found a spot and was delighted to find hot pink play dough in his cup. Then he found a pair of scissors - who would've thought of letting them cut play dough? These women are brilliant! - and he starting cutting the pancake that he had just rolled out. After a minute, I braced myself for tears and said, ”okay, Buddy, it's time to say 'see you later mom' so I can go.”

And without a moment's hesitation, he said brightly, ”see you later Mom!”

I guess play dough and scissors was all he needed.  Ah, my child. How I love it when you are this easy! :)

Working with play dough is serious business. 

The real entertainment, however, is in watching the parents.

There was the mom who was in tears, and the daughter who was bawling inside.  “I can’t leave while she’s still crying!! I have to wait for her to be okay!” 

“We don’t have time for that, honey. It could take all day,” muttered the husband as he rolled his eyes and their older children stood by amused at their mother. 

There was the pregnant woman peering in the window at her four-year-old blubbering, “I’m crying! Why am I crying?! I didn’t think I would cry!!” 

There was the mom who practically skipped out the doors of the preschool, giddy that her kids are finally in school once again. 

There was the couple who held hands as they somberly walked out, consoling each other down the sidewalk toward their car. 

There was the mom exclaiming, “We were here!!!  We were here on time 8 minutes ago!!  But, she didn’t have any shoes on!” As if anyone is really worried about her sweet preschooler missing the first 10 minutes of play-dough.

There was the mom who fearfully asked her husband how it went.

“It was fine,” he said. 

“Did he cry?” she pressed.

“It was fine,” he repeated. 

“Promise me he wasn’t crying.” 

“Come on,” he said, “Let’s go to McDonalds.”

“You didn’t promise me!” she countered, “You’re not telling me the truth!”

“Come on. Let’s go.”

There was the dad who encouraged his son, “Come on, buddy! This is the real deal!” 

There was the mom who consoled her older child.  “I know you’re mad at me, because you wanted to stay and play…” and her younger child who sobbed, “I wanna stay and play! I wanna stay and play!” 

Somehow, all the parents and even the kids made it through their first day successfully. When I peered in through the window at the end of the day, Danny and all of the kids were standing, jumping, stomping and roaring along with the story as though they'd known each other for months. 

All the kids went home with big smiles on their faces, crowns reminding them how precious they are in His sight and their letter with round cereal glued onto it.

I'd say, it was a successful day. 

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Crutches

So I'm on my second full day of crutches, after having a bit of pre-cancerous skin removed from the bottom of my right foot.  My Mom (who is here acting as my hands and feet) says that day two of recovery is always the worst.  I think I might agree.  My foot doesn't really hurt too badly at all, but the rest of my body is achy and sore from the bench-press and ab crunch that I do each and every time I need to take a step anywhere and am using crutches instead.

The forced rest has been nice.  Asking for help 50 million times a day is awful.  I'm horrible at being helpless. The chance to blog more often is wonderful.  Being unable to carry my baby anywhere stinks.

The worst part?  You know when you first wake up in the early morning, before you're really awake, but when you know you have to get out of bed to go to the bathroom, lest you have an accident?  If not, you must not have turned 30 yet.  For the rest of you, imagine that moment when you sit up in bed and you're getting ready to stumble your way with your eyes half-closed to plop down on the toilet and do your thing.  Now imagine you have to ab-crunch and bench-press your way all the way to the bathroom.  Gooooooood morning!

The best part?  The killer abs and upper torso strength I'm going to have by the end of all this.

I'm going to find the silver lining if it kills me.

4 Months

Dear Gianni,

A week ago, I was pregnant with you.  Yesterday you were born.  Today you are 4 months old.  How did that happen!?

At 4 months, you are 16 pounds and you are in 9-12 month clothes and size 3 diapers already. You are round and squishy and you have rolls upon rolls of cute baby goodness that I can't get enough of. You've got cellulite on the tops of your knees, kiddo, and my favorite little roll of all is on the back of your knees.  Holy moley! I adore everything about you!

Your beaming smile takes over your entire body and lights up the whole room.  You are smiling and giggling all the time these days.  You can grab things and you shove everything possible into your mouth. You are trying and trying to roll over onto your tummy, but you haven't quite managed yet.  (Unless you count the time you did it in your crib and screamed because you were caught face down. I about went into cardiac arrest.) You've rolled from your tummy to your back a few times, but not entirely on purpose.

You do the "Danny dance," with a little wing flapping addition when you're tired and sometimes in the middle of diaper changes. You LOVE diaper changes! You like to be rocked bounced rattled to sleep, and you fight it until you pass out and then your whole body goes from tight and arched and fighting, to limp in my arms. Unless of course, I put you in your bed before you're too tired, and then you usually fall asleep easily on your own.

You eat at about 7 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 2 p.m., 5:30 p.m., asleep by 7:30 p.m. and then I wake you to eat once more around 9 p.m.  This week you want to party and snack at 3 a.m.  Could you possibly be growing even more?  Usually you sleep through the night until 6 or 7 a.m. pretty consistently.

If it's possible, you are even more easy-going than Danny was.  You rarely cry.  You just sort of complain. You squeak and squeal when you are tired or excited and you adore your big brother. You follow me and him around the room with your eyes.

Only a month ago, you were barely getting used to sitting in the Bumbo seat and now you try to arch your way out of it after a few minutes. You are pretty close to sitting on your own and you help pull yourself to sitting with your arms and stomach muscles when I pull you up.

You have the best expressions ever and I so adore that you are mine. I love you to the moon, baby.

Hugs and kisses,
Mama

Denver Botanic Gardens

Last month, Charmian and I took the kids to the Denver Botanic Gardens while she was in the States.  It proved to be an absolutely perfect setting to photograph them and the flowers all day long.  Here are some of the shots that I got:

The kids ran barefoot in the grass, and Danny was stung by a bee, 

so Alessandra checked to see if he was okay.

And since that meant I had two kids who couldn't walk...

...I improvised.