Lily's First Day of School

On the day that Lily was born I thought kindergarten was so far away.  I remember thinking that she would be our baby forever.  Just like many things with parenthood, I was so wrong about that.  Yesterday was Lily's first day of kindergarten.  It was also Jeff's first day at his new job (he accepted a promotion last week).  So it was a big day in our house.  As I was making lunches for everyone on Sunday night our sweet nephew Sam called Lily to wish her good luck on her first day.  Such a sweet boy!  Jeff was sad not to walk Lily in to her class, but I told him it would be mostly Mom's.  I don't think Lily was nearly as excited for her first day as I was. 

Once I promised her pancakes for breakfast she perked up.  Of course I had taken Lily shopping last week to buy her first day of school dress.  It was something I have looked forward to doing and we had a fun day getting school supplies and her outfit. 

We got in the car and started driving and I realized I don't know exactly where the school is.  Jeff always drives and I am distracted with the other kids.  No worries,  I can just follow the trail of tears and minivans to find my way.  Once we got to the school and I of course had to take some more pictures:

We got to her class, which was mass chaos.  I put Lily's things away and she sat down and started coloring.  I was excited to see that sitting right next to her is our pastor's son.  Jeff was hoping that they would be in the same class and was very excited to find out that they are not only in the same class, but sitting next to each other.

Lily endured a few more pictures and really wanted me to go so she could get on with her day.  I was very proud of myself for not bursting into tears and grabbing my baby and running out of there.  I even managed to keep it together and not fully cry (just a few teary eyes) the whole day.

I often marvel about how fast Lily is growing up and I wonder where time as gone.  When I was eating breakfast with Lily I almost fell out of my chair when she said, "What's up with my hip?  It hurts."  We just went from kindergarten to the old folks home?  Hello reverse Benjamin Button.  Lily is taking her new found responsibility of being a "Big Girl" very seriously these days.  Yesterday afternoon Lily was cleaning her room since she promised Jeff she would.  I went upstairs to check on her and this is what I found:

I asked Lily how Lawson got in the chair and she told me she put him there.  He was in time out for messing up her room.  As you can see he looks really sorry.

Poor Abby and Chloe did not know what to do without Lily and Daddy home yesterday.  So they did the only they could.  Crank up the volume.  I think they both spoke only at a yell the whole day.  Poor Lauren is having to get here earlier now that Jeff is leaving early so I am sure that did not help her morning routine.  Abby's new thing is to ask, "How?".  When I tell her not to touch my computer she says, "How?"  I say, "By taking your hands off of it."  She says. "How?"  then "How am I touching it?"  I thought these kids couldn't drive me any crazier.  Good thing we love them so much.

Meet The Teacher

Last night we took Lily up to her new school for Meet The Teacher.  Wow!  She starts her first day of kindergarten on Monday, and it just does not seem possible.  The memory of her first day in this world with us is still too vivid in my mind to believe that this day has come already.  As we walked down the halls of her school in search of her classroom, I could not help but be excited for her knowing all the wonderful things that lay ahead of her over the next years through elementary, middle, and high school.  The cheerleaders from Celina High School were there to greet all the kids and I began to wonder what activities Lily and all the kids would participate in.  Would she would be a cheerleader, or would she rather play soccer, basketball, a musical instrument, or would her talent for arguing shine through on the debate club?  What about the twins and the Boy......hopefully he is not a cheerleader.  I was getting so excited for her and I told Lily how jealous I was of her and how I wish I could be going into kindergarten all over again.  There are so many things that I want to tell her and prepare her for, and make sure she cherishes over the years.  And then I realized as I watched her, the last thing she wants is her old man trying to explain to her all these moments, experiences and feelings (good and bad) in front of her as she takes her next step in life.  What makes it so great is not knowing and living the experiences wide eyed.  So as parents we do our best to teach and prepare them and just like learning to ride a bike we let go and walk beside them and when they fall and stumble, we pick them up, hold on to them, and let them go again. 

Not only is Lily starting back to school on Monday, but I accepted a promotion with my company and am starting my new gig on Monday as well.  Since Lily was born, I have been lucky enough to have a job that is flexible and afforded me time to spend with the kids in the morning, help pick them up from daycare, and just be around them.  This new gig is a great opportunity but the hours are long and not nearly as flexible, and so we adapt.  The good thing is Lily will be busy with school, and the twins and Lawson are young enough that they won't really notice the change.  In the end I'm not going back to kindergarten, but we are entering a new phase together as a family, and that is just as exciting.

With everything going on recently, I have neglected to write down some of the things the kids have been up to.  Lawson still isn't walking but he is so close.  He is certainly growing a personality, and as charming as he is at time, the Boy also has quite the temper.  Wonder where he go that?  The twins continue to amaze us with the things they say, and we enjoy sitting back just listening to them have conversations with each other.  It is rare that agree upon something for no other reason than they are sisters, but it is nice to see them play so well together.  Even though they argue and have sibling rivalry, they  are as loyal as you can get if an outsider tries to pick on them.  The next door neighbor was over and he began playing with Lawson.  Chloe thought he was playing a little too rough with Lawson and she immediately put herself between Lawson and the kid, held her hand out and said, "no touch my Lawson".  We are learning that Abby is quite the scrapper too.  They were at Chick fil A playing in the play area and one little girl kept pushing and bossing not just our kids but all the kids that were there.  This girl was older than the twins and she made the mistake of pushing Chloe and Abby.  After Chloe's verbal assault on the girl that Abby did not feel sufficed, Abby walked up to the girl, kicked her, and yelled, "no push!". 

One more quick story to end the blog.  We dropped Lily off for a sleep over last night and of course the twins did not like to see Lily go without them so to cheer them up I told them I would get them ice cream, and that did the trick.  For the next 5 minutes as we drove to Sonic, Abby sang about ice cream and Chloe just kept talking about ice cream.  As we pulled up to the menu and before I could put the car in park, Chloe instructs me, "Daddy, push the button and order my ice cream!"

Jeff, Kasey, Lily, Abby, Chloe, and Wobbly Legs

Happy Birthday Lawson Boy

Time flies when you are having fun, but it is still hard to believe that the Boy turns one year old today.  As I reflect on the past year and try to remember the stages and milestones that he has hit on the way, I realize it has been a hectic year with 4 kids, but I think we have done our best to enjoy the time and enjoy the stages of our last baby.  Lily being the first kiddo, there was a certain anxiety of being new parents but we took time to thoroughly enjoy our time with her.  When Abby and Chloe came along we were just trying to maintain our sanity and it was tough to enjoy their infancy due to the sheer amount of work involved with twins.  So we made a conscious effort with our little surprise to enjoy him.  Fortunately he was a very well behaved baby and it is actually a close call as to whether he or Lily were easier to raise.  It's still hard to look back and remember everything which is why I started documenting a lot of it in the blog in the first place.  One thing is for sure, if you had told me several years ago we would be raising 4 kids ranging in age from 5 to 1, I would have told you that you were smoking crack.

We held his birthday party for him last weekend, and while Lawson seemed to enjoy the party I know we had a good time in his honor.  I was a little disappointed he didn't dive into his smash cake with the rigor we had hoped for, but he was still able to get plenty messy and plenty of sugar in his system.  My family and Kasey's family were all in town and came over to the house as well as some friends and their kids making for a very chaotic experience.  There were probably close to 20 kids running around the house and though it sounds horrible, it was a lot of fun having everybody over and enjoying themselves.  A comment was made about all the kids running around and if it would cause me anxiety, but then somebody pointed out that 20% of those kids are mine.

For several months now I have been pointing out how there is a light at the end of the tunnel with Abby and Chloe and I am happy to say that light is getting brighter and brighter.  If you do not have kids or they are still infants, many of the frustrations we enjoy with 2 year old is the fact that they know what they want, but they are not able to verbalize it to you so they whine and cry because they get frustrated.  There is only so much of the whining that I can take before I want to jab an ice pick into my ears so I won't have to hear it any more.  Even though their is still the occasional melt down, they are  becoming experts and communicating and they are able to let us know what they want.  The down side is we now have 3 girls who can communicate very well, but they do not know how to let the other finish jibber jabbering before they butt in resulting in all 3 squawking at the same time. 

Yet another skill the twins have mastered is the ability to cast blame on to the other.  Not only are they quick to point out when the other is doing something wrong, but they are testing the waters as far as blaming the other even when they were in the wrong.  Fortunately it is very easy to spot when they try to pull this off.  We are born with a sinful nature and the ability to lie, but we are not born with a good poker face.  Whenever one of them tries to blame the other for something they have done, it is written all over their face. 

We were on our way to San Antonio last night in the car and they were getting restless and starting to complain.  I informed them that if they continued to complain, they would not get a treat when I stopped.  Abby quickly pointed out, "Chloe is complaining, not me".  Come here Chloe so I can wash the off the grease from the bus you just got thrown under.

We still have several hours for Lawson to take his first steps by his first birthday.  He just stood for about 7 seconds on his own, but he won't quite take those steps without holding on to something.  Come on Boy!

Jeff, Kasey, Lily, Abby, Chloe and the Birthday Boy

No Comments from the Cheap Seats

It was Kasey's turn this week to take a pseudo vacation and travel for business.  She has been in Phoenix since Sunday and though it is a nice place to visit, August probably isn't the best time of year for it.  If you have been reading the blog, you know when one of us is traveling we usually do a series titled Daddy or Mommy vs Kids.  I cheated and called in reinforcements to come and help out for the week so it a better title would have been Daddy and Mama vs Kids.  We have had home cooked meals every night, a clean kitchen, and the laundry pile has never been smaller.  Mama is going to need a vacation very soon from all of this.

Lawson had hit last bottle of formula yesterday.  He will still get milk in the bottle for the next week as I was threatened with my life if Mommy got home and he was no longer taking a bottle.  I did some math on the formula, and if you figure 4 kids drink 4 bottles a day for 365 days each, it come out to just over 5800 bottles that we have fed them.  I'm not going to do the math on the amount of money that was spent, suffice to say that is a bunch of formula. 

The kids been up to their normal shenanigans this week and are even picking up the pace a bit.  With the twins new found skill of mastering the English language, we are constantly in stitches over the things that come out of their mouths.  During dinner this evening Abby was getting an earful from me due to her behavior, and Chloe was sitting across the table basically reiterating everything I was saying because they love it when the other one gets in trouble.  I turned my attention to Chloe and told her, "I don't need any comments from the cheap seat."  Chloe responded by looking at Mama and said, "cheap seats, what does that mean?"  Later on at this same meal, Chloe was doing something she shouldn't have been, and I gave her the stare to let her know I disapprove.  Before I could even say anything, she once again looks at Mama and says, "uh oh, I in trouble."  I'm starting to think that they are just trying to put on a comedy show for Mama. 

Continuing with the Chloe Comedy Show, all the kids had gone to lunch with Ms. Lauren and mama at Mooyah.  While waiting in line to place their order, I guess Chloe got bored or felt that it was taking too long and the other patrons were bored so she decided to entertain the entire restaurant by singing Jesus Love Me.  My understanding is that it was not a quiet version under her breath, but rather the belted out Jesus Loves Me at the top of her lungs.

I'm convinced that Abby is going to be a long distance runner or something similar.  The child has more energy than I can fathom, and she could not sit still if her life depended on it.  Even when she is standing in one place, her legs are still moving.  The other morning I got them out of bed as usual, came down stairs to make breakfast, and I look over and she is literally just running in circles around the furniture.  When I figure out how to bottle that energy up...........

Lily has been in some kind of mood this week.  She has decided that she is going to push me my limits by back talking and having an answer for everything.  It really doesn't matter what I say, she has decided this week she is going to argue with me and get the last word in.  I leave it at this, somethings gotta give, and it won't be me.  There may be a drop kick involved, I'm just saying.

It's been a fun week and everybody is excited for Mommy to get home this evening.  Lawson has his first birthday party this weekend, so the good news is only 17 years to go, right?

Jeff, Kasey, Lily, Abby, Chloe, and Lawson Boy