Dear Children (and me),

I just finished reading yet another Facebook "shared"message about what an epic fail I am as a parent.  I usually read these and feel terribly guilty and roll around in all of the things I did wrong today according to the article, all the missed opportunities in my child's life because I was in a hurry. Well, today, children, I refuse to be guilty.

The fact is that we are in a hurry. There are magical rainy Sunday afternoons where all five of us lay on the sofa and watch TV and ignore everything in life but cuddles and each other, there are beautiful days that we explore and play, but let's face it, this cannot be every day of our lives. Sometimes, we have to get up and get two adults and three children ready for school and fed and lunches made and have several arguments over putting on shoes or what shirt to wear or the fact that you hate eggs and then cry because Dad ate the eggs and now want eggs. I am sorry that I don't always stop to build a Lego house with you or lovingly gaze into your eyes and take in every Cheerio that goes into your mouth. There are laws against me being tardy for school every day and "taking in the moment" is not an excused absense. Sometimes, a child eats a green marker and I cannot stop to look at your scribble picture for the tenth time because we have to go to Target and find out if the Target brand lives up to the non-toxic claim of Crayola. Sometimes, no matter how much you want to be held for hours, I actually do have to sleep and no matter how much you pull on my leg the other four people in the house (plus dog) have to have their dinner cooked. Sometimes, I just plain get irritated that I spent 10 minutes of my finite life telling you to get in your car seat. According to internet bloggers and old ladies, I will regret the time I spent cleaning the kitchen or doing the laundry because those things will be there and can wait but my children will grow up. In what? A dirty ass house with no clothes and paper plates?  I will miss stepping and subsequently smashing the blueberries and yogurt you drop all over the floor. So, we just abandon all forms of etiquette and enjoy the gift of cockroaches and entitlement?

I am all about memories. I have 1200 photos from 2011 alone, I have blogged every detail ad nauseum since 2008, I make their clothes, I room mother their classrooms, I have an arts and crafts box that we actually use. However, in the middle of the moments that make up the memories of the movies we will replay when we are old to our grandchildren, there is life.  I am tired of feeling guilty for living it.  Instead of focusing on what we are not doing with our kids, I am going to chose to focus on what we do for our kids.  You take for granted that you clean your house and cook your dinner until you don't.  I am a neat freak, OCD, anal person about my house, but I don't make my kids' beds everyday. But, once I did.  Alden asked me if the maid had come.  Another series of nights, I went on cooking strike and we ate out for about a week. One of them cried and begged for me to just boil some noodles at home. It is always the case that the favorite shirt, or all the socks, are dirty on the one day they really want them.  My point?  The kids actually want you to clean, cook, and do laundry! They would get sick and tired of me if I was breathing down their neck all the time so that I wouldn't miss a moment. Sometimes, it is the cooking and the cleaning and the sewing and the "distractions" that actually speak to their love language. There is something to be said for being cared for. How many people would love to have meals, clean clothes, and a well taken care of home? Isn't that what Donna Reed and Mrs. Cleaver taught us in the Golden Age of America? Point two: While cooking dinner, my two older boys played learning games on the computer together. "Help me learn this" was actually a phrase I heard from a little brother to a big brother. I didn't need to be all up in that. I was cleaning up dinosaurs, the littlest thought they were great, we stopped and played for his five minute attention span, he moved on, I put them away.  Ok, let's face it, that was also my attention span for playing dinosaurs with a one year old. Is it not okay to admit that sometimes I just don't want to play?!

I read my kids a Lemony Sniket Christmas book last night. Instead of the Series of Unfortunate Events, it basically should have been the Series of Fortunate Events. The fortunate events are everywhere. The memories don't have to be every moment just a culmination of moments. We saw my son's preschool teacher and she asked how school was going. The first thing he said that his mom had been doing crafts with his class and that she came to his class and helped his friends. I am sure that somewhere in the last few weeks I ignored him to do a chore or I let a four letter word slip or maybe even rushed when rushed wasn't needed, but none of that mattered to him. Mommy comes to my class to do crafts was the number one thing about Kindergarten. Boom. There is the memory in a blurred day of errands and chores and discipline. I didn't need the whole day.

Yes my sweet boys, I will miss cuddling with you more than anything in my life. I will miss holding your little hands and your fighting over who gets to sit or lay beside Mommy. I have left the water boiling on the stove to sit in the floor with you when you needed to be comforted, I have left the laundry basket full for days to come do that school project or take you somewhere you needed to go. I have not slept to rock you when you had a cold, let you throw up in my hand, and gone to Target at 9:00 at night because you need something you forgot (or I forgot) for school. You will always, always come first. These precious years of making memories with you will fly by in the blink of an eye. The five of us under one roof are but a mere season of our lives. As much as I fear those days when you are no longer my little babies and you become my boys and then my men, I also don't want to waste those years being made to feel guilty about what I didn't do or catch, but being thankful that I was blessed enough to call my only job "Mom" and to wrap myself in the millions of moments that we will stop only for each other, no matter your age. But, gosh darn it, my sweet things, I will teach you to put your dishes in the sink and your underwear in the hamper along the way. I will do the laundry. I will do the dishes. I will probably leave you with a sitter sometimes. I will check Facebook from my iPhone when I am supposed to be listening.  I will just be plain annoyed with you sometimes and want to get away for a little bit.  I will make you walk up the stairs by yourself. And, yes, although I shouldn't, there will be nights when I will really want you to go to bed as fast as possible because I don't want to parent anymore.  But all that is okay. It is okay because I will tell you I love you everyday, I will help you with your homework, I will be your biggest fan, I will wrap your juice boxes like Mummies on Halloween because it makes your smile, I will know your friends' names and your favorite color, I will think of you first thing when I wake up and last thing before I go to bed for your entire lives, I will try, I will be your Mom no matter how old you are or how many time you tell me you hate me.

 I love you more than you will ever understand, but I am still going to do the laundry. I am going to give myself permission to not feel guilty.

October Happened a While Ago....

Because it is better late than never....

                                       

One of our favorite October events is the pumpkin carving at the club.  It is Alden's favorite event because of the pumpkin carving. We let Super A pick out the template and instruct Mom in the carving while Dad runs around and chases the other hooligans.

It is Spencer's favorite activity because there is sugar. Lots of sugar.    

                                          

This is also the time that Alden pretends to jump into the fountain to terrify his brother into thinking he is going to subsequently drown.  

                                          

Before nightfall, we make sure to look through the telescope. Alden is always looking for Children's Hospital where he says he will be a doctor one day.  He has also been enough for it to be one of his favorite places. Totally wish he didn't like it so much.

Spencer is always looking for trains.

The great thing about Halloween is that the food is totally geared towards kids. Corn Dogs, French Fries, Hot Dogs, Fried Shrimp. Awesome, unless your two youngest children refuse to eat meat.  Harrison and Spencer, therefore, felt it necessary to sustain their life one more day by consuming cookies and apple juice. Alden bragged about his healthy eating by adding a caramel apple to his hamburger.  

Harrison and Spencer still attend the Baptist preschool, so we cannot celebrate this pagan holiday at school. There is always a way around these slight obstacles, and the preschool finds it's route in the form of having Community Helper week.  Various community helpers visited the school to Spencer's unending delight. The highlights were the fireman and train conductor, although the biggest highlight is that I can now get him to help with anything as long as I tell him he is being a community helper. On the last day, they can dress up as a community helper of their choice and then trick or treat (which sounds a lot like Halloween to me). Spencer was no doubt a "Train Man," but Harrison was a third child victim of a dig thorough the costume box for anything resembling a helper. Fisherman it was!

We decided to pair up with our best bud neighbor with our costumes. Although the parents came up with Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Wizard of Oz as great three boy plus a girl costumes, I have two opinionated boys who found pirate costumes at Costco and wouldn't budge. So, we were three pirates and a parrot. The attempt at a photo of our mates was futile. The parrot kept flying away. 

The neighborhood pre-Trick or Treat dinner was a much bigger success.  Even though Mom had stumbled through the Noro Virus and spent much of the week before in stomach virus hell, I was able to stumble them through a little festive evening despite illness and rain.

The kids in the hood.

Pirate excitement! 

Trick or Treaking with our bests was pretty absolutely fun.  The walk was short, the loot was big, and the parents actually had fun. We even approached "the scary house" where the three teenage/young adults still take hold of their parents house with things like chain saws, blood, zombies, and various body parts strews about. It is fearless Spencer's absolute favorite house on Halloween.  He will do anything for candy!

Poor Harrison has succumbed to the fate of an overwhelmed Mom. He got an extra day of Mother's Day Out added in October. We actually have groceries and clean clothes now which is good, but I do miss my little buddy. He is my lunch date on his days off, but loves to go and play with his friends.  Good decision all around. If I take Spencer and not Harrison to school, he says, "I want out!" and tries to unbuckle his car seat.

This is often what I find when I pick him up. According to his teachers, he plays super hard, climbs everything, teaches everybody the bad habits he has picked up from his big brothers, eats all his lunch, and then crashes.

So, sometimes random things happen.  What about the afternoon that Alden put Spencer on the old mattresses in a black trash bag in the garage and said that we were playing hide the dead guy in the city dump? Um, that's not alarming or anything.

Sometimes, you catch your children in the front yard with the hamper. They are very interested in the upside down hamper and you begin to wonder what is in there.

And then you discover it is your one year old.

Tough guys, right?

This is yet another game to play.  UPS man.  Yep, that is the truck and that is the packages. Alden is the photographer.  This was great because they were playing UPS and I thought I might be able to sit on the steps and read one magazine article. Pleeez.....the next second I looked up, happily informed about Pop Culture, there was styrofoam snow all the way down the driveway in teeny tiny pieces and flowing into the street. After an hour of clean up punishment, I gave up and let that wonderful gift to the environment take care of itself.

And then you get homework assignments like this: Bring two bugs to school for the Terrarium tomorrow. The only prerequisite is that it could not be roaches. Really? Although this sounds horrifying to me, apparently there have been people that just send in jars full of roaches to these poor teachers.  So, out I go with a jar and some leaves because this ultimate boy homework is part of Mom's job.  We find a centipede and a roly poly which are two bugs I can handle.  Walking Alden and a friend to school a couple of days later, we find this little caterpillar on the sidewalk.  They, of course, want to add it to the Terrarium so we have to carry him the rest of the half mile on our take home folder until I stole/borrowed a plastic newspaper bag from a neighbors circular in their driveway.

In more random school projects, I got the room mother charge of making field trip t-shirst for the whole class which the teacher wanted spray painted blue with a pocket attached and an owl stamp. Since I appreciate all things crafty, I was up for the challenge, but got a lot of stares with eighteen blue t-shiest laid out on the lawn with a spray bottle in hand.  My grass is still blue. Joey came home and in all seriousness asked me if I was making a hopscotch grid in the grass. What? Is it weirder that he asked that or is it weirder that he thought nothing of the fact that I would be likely to do something like that?

Since that same Dad refuses to let us get a puppy, and Lucy refuse to play with my children, we go and play with other dogs in the neighborhood. "Doggy" is Harrison's favorite word. We took up a half a day visiting the white dogs and waving to them.

That about sums it up.

I am sort of liking this five year old thing. Who says it is sad when they are not babies anymore?!  Check it out! He can also take the dog out, put clothes in the washer, and pick up after himself. I am not saying this all goes down without some fights, but hey, we are making major progress in some future husband training around here.

I took the boys to the community high school homecoming parade. This is what they were interested in. The sewer system.

Until this happened. We were suddenly back on track.

Because we are all about anything and everything with wheels! I have started going out of the front door instead of the garage for two reasons. One, my husband will put off cleaning out the garage until the end of time so I can't walk through it.  Second, if you open the door for even a second these blurs of cherubs zoom out into the front yard riding something. On the way to school, church, or anything else where we are in a hurry. Of course, they never actually put them back in the garage, so we are going to be the luckiest people on earth if we do not have a bunch of rusted things with wheels in our garage pretty soon.

Guess who discovered pumpkins? I kept arranging them in decorative order on the front porch. This is what kept happening. Probably a much better use for them.

Three boys can now all take a bath together. Three boys in a tub. Nuf said.

Alden's school had a race. Each class ran against their own age.  These kids take this very seriously and some of them actually trained for this little half mile adventure so that they could win.  Yeah, we don't run around here so it was labeled a "fun run" for us.  All of my worries Dad could not make it that far to accompany Alden were for nought because Alden told us that he was running with his friends not us.  The one time I am going to be fine with this statement! In typical Alden, he wanted to make sure everyone was  watching him run in the race and after this waving and smiling spectacle for the camera, he ran straight into the fence.

In typical 2013 generation fashion, we are ALL WINNERS of course! Everyone gets a metal!

He was very serious about showing us he could also do gymnastics.

Harrison's first haircut.  It went really well. He was a trouper. And then, of course, because my kids are obsessed with all things hygiene, the other two got haircuts as well.

Perk of being room mother gets to be going on Alden's first field trip ever to the Pumpkin Patch.  Hanging with his bed friend and wearing the most awesome field trip shirts ever!

Don't you know the bus ride was the absolute best part of the day!

I leave October with one more Halloween tradition of Boo at the Zoo. One more chance to wear costumes, one more chance to get candy, and one more good excuse to hang out with friends.

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Joey said the proudest he was this year was that I did not make the family do every single Halloween event possible.  Well, it helped to be sick for a week, but I am just too tired people. Too tired. Because this pretty much sums up why it is December 8th and I am writing about Halloween in front of the Christmas tree: