Spring is Here!

The girls with our dogwood tree, in the first of what will forevermore be an annual photo of the three of them.


Fancy Day at Kindergarten! What a great way to have easy fun. All the kindergartners participated, and Eliana and Annea did, too. We don't pass up opportunities to dress up around here. Fancy is serious business for my girls! I'm considering implementing a Fancy Day with the high school students I teach.

First Backyard Picnic of the season. We've already had a few more since this picture was taken.

First lost tooth! Adessa lost her first tooth, age 5 3/4. Very exciting stuff. Since I started writing this post weeks!? ago, now, Adessa has lost the neighboring front bottom tooth, as well.


Well. What to tell you, Posterity? These girls are growing up. Annea is almost one, which besides being shocking for the visual reminder of the passage of time, is shocking because I remember thinking if I could just make it until the baby was one, all would be well. With Eliana, at about 11 months I began to pop my head up out of the foxhole of small children and look around at the world again. I expected it to be similar with Annea. With Annea, however, I've been so busy and... crazed? I forgot to remember to be excited about this potential milestone. She is almost one, though I don't know if I'm anywhere near the top of the foxhole.

I know it is maybe just a symptom of our time, but I have been feeling anxious lately, the most anxious that I've ever felt, anyway, that I'm missing things and dropping the ball and going to forget something important or mess my kids up irreparably. It is comparable to the unease I feel when I forget to wear my watch on a day that I have an appointment. Or when I know that I have an appointment, but I can't remember what day it is. Until I figure out the day/time of the appointment, I can't rest easy, my brain is always trying to keep track of it in some level of consciousness, bugging me always to check my calendar, don't forget, don't over-schedule.

There's such an abundance of mental traffic trying to keep on top of this life we've created, and I never have a pen and paper in hand when I need them-for list making-- which in the past were my solution to worry and brain-chaos. There are so many things to do, micro and macro and the worst part is I can't keep track of them on a list big and encompassing enough and therefore it feels like I'm not getting anything done. Which is actually pretty accurate much of the time. This morning, for example, my day off, I started out with a great deal of industry. I made two batches of freezer pancakes (about 30 cakes/five or six breakfasts!) started the laundry and the dishwasher, and was prepared to be out of the house all morning, stroller, Ergo, lunch, grocery bags, all. Fabulous, really, commendable, yay Keidi. Except... now, at 3:30 in the afternoon after hours back at home, the laundry is still in the dryer (but clean!), the dishes are still sitting (clean!) in the dishwasher, and the lunch tupperwares and crumbs are all over the kitchen (not clean). There is also no dinner cooking in the crock pot, nor ideas for dinner cooking in my mind. And the other things on my list are scattered around the house, dirty and long overdue. So. My spurts of productivity are countered with lots of mindless staring at the computer screen, trying to put the baby to bed while playing Mah-jong on Mom's ipad, which I need to ceremonially burn because of all my hours wasted that it now represents, and not accomplishing anything. There's a whole other discussion on the American obsession with productivity. I can have a good day without getting anything done, but... I wouldn't really say that I'm having good non-productive days, either. Hm.

Also on my list of anxiety causing items, is my parenting. Parenting seems overwhelmingly impossible to do well. For me. You could add, "...Dummy!" to the end of most of the things I tell my girls, from the tone I use with them. They are kids! I should give them a break! But I haven't been. I can't seem to separate Eliana's "No" response to my direct instruction from this figment of the future, a rebellious disrespectful teen. If I don't jump all over her now, she's going to do drugs and drop out of school and get STDs. Adessa is still having freak outs, about things like exclamation points (I wrote a birthday sign for my sister and committed the dastardly deed of adding an exclamation point,) which caused much wailing and door slamming. Sometimes I can react well, calmly helping her through her emotions. Most of the time after a few minutes, though, my good parent hourglass runs out of sand and I freak out, too. I am resolved to do better, because they are such good girls, and I don't want them to think they are bad, or to feel shame about not being perfect, or to not be close to me because I'm hypercritical of them or whatever bad mojo I've been creating around here.
That's me.

The girls are fine. We were healthy for a few weeks, hooray, after pneumonia (1 each for Adessa and Eliana) and ear infections (2 for Annea), but are now on the brink of colds. Adessa has a crush on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and blushes and gets flushed when she recounts every confusing detail of the episode she most recently watched. (A treat is watching Turtles or My Little Pony on the computer. Well, it's a treat or it means Calvin and I want to watch Netlix on our big TV while they watch on the computer). She and Eliana are doing ballet right now, preparing for a big recital in June where they will be music box dancers. They are excited and adorable, and even surprisingly coordinated, when they're paying attention.

Eliana loves to play. She would be happy to stay home all the time, literally never leave, and just play. She keeps herself busy in any spare moment coloring, with her horses, dolls, blocks, books, baby toys, whatever she decides the amusement of the hour will be. She has found her stubborn core and is flippantly found saying "No" to me frequently. Not fabulous. After the run of difficult we've had with Adessa, I have little tolerance for Eliana's attempts at control.

Annea is a butt-scooting proficient, these days. She can even carry things as she sits upright and slides her buns across the floor. She likes to take her sippy cup for a scoot, or whatever contraband item she's found that belongs to her sisters. She is almost one! Crazy. She is happy most of the time. She loves Calvin, as all the girls did at this age. When he gets home from work, she screeches until he picks her up, shrill and serious. When he holds her she tucks her head under his neck and tucks her hands under her body, so happy to be with him. If he puts her down before she's had enough of this special snuggle, she screeches some more. She's learning things so quickly, blowing kisses, trying to put on her socks, opening twist caps!, and trying to pay for things at the cash register. If I let her get close enough, she will push all the buttons she can and if she gets ahold of my credit card, she knows it gets swiped. She's caused quite a stir a few times as bystanders can't believe she looks like she's been shopping for years. Tap tap a few buttons, then swipe the card, then tap tap a few more buttons. She doesn't bag the groceries, yet, maybe next year.

Upward and Onward! Happy Spring!