It's about time

Well, in perusing my friend's blog, it came to my attention that I've neglected my blog for at least the past fifteen months. I figured I should rectify that situation. But it's about time, in more ways than one. Simply put I just haven't had time in the past fifteen months, or energy for that matter, to do anything besides grow a baby, take care of said baby, and feed, clothe, and clean the other kids I've already got! Don't ask me what I do for fun because I couldn't tell you. I know I've started reading a book or two but I never had time to get past the first couple of chapters and couldn't name them right now if I tried. Having three kids in three different elementary schools and having a newborn probably didn't help much either!

Having a baby at 35 yrs old is quite a bit different than having one at 24, 26 or 29. Considering that my get up and go got up and went when I was 31, it's been quite a challenge just to survive, much less thrive. I get one mess cleaned up, turn to find another one and by the time I get the second mess taken care of, the first mess is back! So I live the movie Groundhog Day very consistently.

Despite how I have felt, we've done quite well. S2 was in the gifted program last year and it took a lot of my energy to keep him focused on his homework. This year he's in the program again but gets going on his homework on his own this year. However, he gets distracted easily and I find myself expending energy constantly redirecting him (his baby sister and legos are major distractions). His science project may just kill me. He's doing the work but it takes so much time. He played baseball this summer and was on swim team and loved them both. I even managed to make it to a few games and every swim meet, I think.

S3 loved kindergarten but did well switching to a new school for first grade. Now he and S2 are at the same school. I begged the principal to take pity on me so I'd only have kids in two schools instead of three this year. Thank goodness it worked! S3 loved soccer camp and gymnastics over the summer. He was also super excited he was tall enough to go down the water slides by himself this year. He's playing in a Fall/Spring soccer league right now and loves to play defender but does a decent job as a "striker". The hardest part is getting him to try and "take" the ball away from an opponent.

S1 still loves his private school and his aides there. He will now say bye as we walk to the car instead of when we drive away in the car! When they go on walks he stays with and follows the group instead of taking off on his own. Now if he'd only do that when I take him out. As always he surprises us with the things he knows and his clever tricks. He is also listening and understanding better and making good choices. The other day when we went out to the van, he ran into the middle of the road in front of the house. I yelled at him while moving toward him, "Michael, get out of the road. You wait by the van or on the grass - Out of the road!" Usually that's his clue to run like a maniac down the middle of the road away from me. But he ran directly back to our van. I was amazed. Of course I heaped on the praise.

D1 just grows and changes everyday and is truly a bundle of joy (and energy, determination, and spirit!) She is more of a monkey than I remember the boys being. If we are all doing it, then by golly, she wants to be doing it too. Forget being a baby. And sadly, all too soon she won't be.

Dave switched jobs in August and now has a marching band. We essentially haven't seen him since August. He re-enters our lives mid-November. With fall break we may actually get to see him for a few days before then!

Apparently I am feeling hopeful about time and energy as I went to my local library and put myself on the wait list for "The Help". Don't get too excited for me yet though, I am like number 23 for one of 11 books so it could still be several weeks-which is fine with me because I don't know if I've got time to read yet! At least I've seen the movie so I'm not dying to read what the fuss is all about.

I guess the other reason why blogging has gone by the wayside is that I finally got a Facebook account. It's a lot easier to post snippets than entire paragraphs! Although I admit that sometimes paragraphs do get posted.

So maybe I'm back to blogging, who knows? I do feel I should write something about D1, because she's just a little ray of sunshine in our lives. But I'll leave that for another time when I'm not quite so tired. And if you really want to know how we are doing, just give me a call!