Celebrating Seven

By the time Fiona's birthday rolls around, we are all pretty much done with the Summer of Birthdays. The parties are done, we're over cake - but we still want to be sure to celebrate the Bug. We've taken to doing a special family thing during a weekend by their birthdays. For Quinn's this year, we went to the beach per her choice. After much thought, some waffling, and then a bit more thought, Fiona decided that she wanted to go swimming at the new community center pool. So that's what we did. And as an added bonus, I coordinated with Makai's mom to ensure one of her favorite people was also there.

DQ face

Declan made it very clear that morning that he needed a nap that day. So he and Mike stayed home and the girls and I headed over to meet Makai. Luckily a nice power nap did the trick and the boys joined us a bit later. The kids had such a fun time playing on the waterslide, swimming with the water balls, and watching Kai go down the big slide (they aren't even close to being tall enough to do it). Quinn spent a lot of time working on her swimming skills in the lap pool with Mike and Declan spent a lot of time forcing me to go on the water slide with him. Luckily, I didn't mind one bit.

After a few hours at the pool, we dried off, got dressed, and went to Dairy Queen. Where I ... wait for it ... let each kid get their very own ice cream cone. I know. They were as surprised as you are! Once we got home, we watched Yogi Bear and ate popcorn. And then had dinner. All the usual Mom and healthy snack rules went out the window for the birthday celebration.

Birthday proper saw more waffling on her special dinner choice (pizza or mac and cheese? pizza or mac and cheese?). We ended up with mac and cheese for dinner and "napoleon" (neapolitan) ice cream for dessert. It was a great way to end our four month long birthday extravaganza.

Rock the House

Drum major-ing

Some amount of years ago (I did the math – but I don’t have to share it), in the fall of my senior year of high school, the GR marching band (that I was a proud member of) finally beat our arch-rival Irondale at the final evening competition of the year at Eden Prairie High School. It’s one of my fondest memories of high school – and definitely my favorite marching band memory.

Mike has heard the story many times of how it was a hot night and we had all stripped our uniforms down as much as we were allowed. We had killed our show – but had before and not won – so we were thrilled, surprised, ecstatic … all of those things, when they announced Irondale as second place. We jumped up, screaming, hugging … and all of our uniform pants fell down around our ankles because of the aforementioned uniform stripping. My parents said it was one of the funniest things they had ever seen.

We cheer for that handsome
saxophone player!

Anyway, that was a loooong way of saying that when the gang and I went to watch my nephew in his first GR marching band competition a couple weeks ago – and it happened to be at Eden Prairie – I had all the feels!

Since the competition was early afternoon, we decided to make it a family affair. Auntie Tracey and Nate saved us seats as they were in it for the long haul. And we were not. Because we knew that attention spans would probably wane at some point. We were right for one of them (Quinn) and completely wrong for the other two.

Fiona was amazed by every band she watched. She loved the music. She really loved the color guard. She would have stayed for hours more! (She also loves her Ben and seeing him was her favorite part!) Declan was also completely enthralled by the show. He’s such a music lover that it didn’t completely surprise us. What did was that he was obsessed with the drum majors and was trying to copy their moves. The band would start playing and there he was – a tiny human trying to direct them from the stands.

I think Quinn would have liked it more – but it was at the end of the first week of school and she was just all wiggly and tired and done. But thanks to some freshly baked monster cookies, we navigated through it.

The only disappointment of the day is that they didn’t get to see Ben. And while I do love the opportunity to embarrass the teenager, I wasn’t going to let his three cousins loose on him in front of all his buddies. Since it’s highly unlikely that my kids will ever march for GR – and S-town doesn’t have a marching band, I’m pretty thrilled to watch the GR band “Rock the House”* again!

*For those who don’t know, when the GR band takes the field for competition, their fans always yell “Rock the House.” They have forever. We don’t know why. But we do it because it’s tradition. And it’s awesome. Except for Declan. He says “Rock the Nose.” Because he’s three. 

Seven.

Seven years ago (and one day), the doctors gave us a sweet big baby girl and basically said "don't screw up." That was a little overwhelming for two parent newbies. So we learned important parenting skills ... like if you let the baby nap from 7:00-9:00pm, when she wakes up at 9:00 to eat, she is not going to be ready to go to bed for the night like you want her to. Or how to finally realize that you are in charge and can take the pacifier away. Or that getting people launched into the public school system is seriously hard work. Grown up Quinn and Dec: thank your sister for clearly being the guinea pig to this child-rearing thing.

Now suddenly Fiona is seven and it feels like she is so big. She has clear opinions on things that she thinks is too "little kid" - and yet, happily played Little People with her siblings tonight. Her clothing style is maturing and she is very curious as to what is happening in the world around her. She has the biggest heart for animals and was completely scandalized when she learned that people were leaving their pets behind when they evacuated from Hurricane Irma.

Fiona will do the kindest things without a second thought - like loaning her purple dress to Quinn for "purple day" because Q didn't have anything to wear. Or she can pull the most dramatic attitude when we ask her to do unreasonable things like empty her backpack or hang up her coat. We continue to work on focus so that I don't have to tell her to brush her teeth 17 times. But she can pretty much shower on her own (I just help with the hair a little bit to make sure the soap gets out).

While Quinn is very Type A, Fiona is the perfectionist. If she can't do it right the first time, she doesn't want to do it. She hates getting answers wrong or misspelling a word. We are working hard on the idea of practice, why we need to practice, and that it is okay to not be perfect at everything. She asked me earlier this week if I would teach her how to tie her shoes. I told her I would - but that tying shoes is tricky and she would have to practice. She was quiet for a while and then said, "Mom, I'm going to get frustrated learning it, aren't I?" I told her she would that but she needed to keep at it. She's still very committed to learning and I know she will get it.

Fiona loves music and as part of her birthday present, we loaded up the mp3 player that Grandma had given her a couple years ago (Grandma: don't read that part!). She has been wandering around the house with her headphones on since she opened it, singing away and looking a bit too much like a teenager! Without her knowing what we were up to, I asked her for five songs that are her favorite to listen to. She picked Let It Go (of course), two songs from the movie Descendants (because she is a 7-year-old girl), Walk This Way by Run-DMC & Aerosmith, and Sweet Child of Mine by Guns n' Roses. Run-DMC and GnR?!?!? Maybe we haven't completely screwed up!

Finally, the answers to the annual birthday questions:

Favorite color: Blue
Favorite friend: Evelyn
Favorite show: Daniel Tiger
Favorite book: Little Red Riding Hood
Favorite food: Mac and cheese
Favorite thing to do: Dance silly
Be when she grows up: a vet and a hair stylist

Parent One Upping

Linus Launcher

Here it is ... the final post of our summer adventures. Summer 2017 was good to us and we were a little sad to see it end. We finally felt, this summer, like we are less tethered by naps, early bedtimes, and tantrum landmines. While there were some tantrums due to missed naps or late bedtimes, they did not define us like they have in the past.

On our final Thursday of summer, day care closed early. I picked up the troops at 3:30 and told them I had to run a quick errand. They were busy talking to me and weren't paying attention to where we were going. All of a sudden, Quinn looked up and said, "Mom, you just pulled in to ValleyFair." Yep, sure did! They were pretty excited by the surprise. As I parked, Dec looked sad and said, "I wish Makai would be here." Surprise again, gang! He was.

It's better with friends

Ms. Angie (Kai's mom) was a total trooper and navigated ValleyFair on crutches. Luckily it was a lovely cool day and not crowded at all (thank you, Minnesota State Fair!). We spent about two and half hours in the kids ride area, letting the gang do their thing. Kai even talked Fiona into going on his favorite ride, the Linus Launcher. She loved it and they went several times. Quinn desperately wanted to try it, but just couldn't talk herself into it that day.

Day care was closed on Friday, so Mike took the day off to spend it with the crew. I teased him that I had taken them to ValleyFair during my special time - what would he do? Apparently Mike takes challenges very seriously. When I texted him on Friday morning to see where they were, I got a note back that they were at the Mall of America. Having been with Mike for almost 15 years, I know three very important things. 1) He hates crowds. 2) He hates malls. 3) He hates crowds and malls most on holiday weekends. I was a smidge worried that someone had kidnapped them and was using Mike's cell phone to text with me.

When I got home, to my relief, I found that they had not been kidnapped. Mike had indeed taken them, of his own free will, to Ikea for bed tents and then to MOA for lunch. They rode a few rides in the mall amusement park and Declan spotted the Paw Patrol puppies hanging out there. They waited in line very patiently for a chance to get their photo with Chase and Marshall.

Saturday, after we hung out with Auntie for a bit, we headed back to ValleyFair. I found my new Scrambler partner in Fiona and we all enjoyed several trips around the Merry Go Round. Quinn found her courage (with help from her sister) and did her own turn on the Linus Launcher. We were a little worried that she didn't like it, but when the ride ended, we got a small smile and a thumbs up.

We finished out the weekend with a friend birthday party for the girls on Sunday and a back to school dinner with our bus stop buddies on Monday. And with that, summer was officially over.

Chats with Dec

Despite drop off being really reeeeeeaaaalllllllyyyy challenging the last couple weeks, Dec is - for the most part - doing really well at preschool. He's definitely still adjusting, but I think we are getting there. (That whole "nobody cried" thing - I knew it was too good to be true.)

It has been a good change for him and we have noticed some big thinking from the boy as he spends his days with more kids in his peer group. These recent conversations have had me giggling!

D: Mama, I know my costumes for the next four Halloweenseses. (nope - I didn't have a stroke. Trying to spell as he said it)

S: Cool, buddy. What are they?

D: This one, I be Superman.

S: Yep. We already have your costume.

D: Then Spiderman. And then Ironman (pronounced I-RUN-MAN)

S: And then what?

D: An elephant.

S: Wow. I did not see that twist coming.

D: Yep.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In a couple weeks, preschool is closed for two days and Gpa V is coming down. Dec is beside himself excited and canNOT wait for Grandpa to arrive.

D: Mama, when Grandpa comes, first he'll have a cup of coffee.

S: That sounds about right.

D: Then I think we will play Hot Wheels.

S: I bet Grandpa would like that. What car will he get?

D: Superman (Yes, we have superhero Hot Wheels. Don't judge)

S: Which car will you have?

D: Spiderman

S: Which car will win the race?
D: Spiderman

S: Are you sure? Superman is awfully fast

D: It is. But Spiderman is fasterer.

S: Who will use Ironman? (pronounced I-ERN-MAN)

D: Nonebody

**You may remember the blue Corvette Stingray convertible Hot Wheel that Dec sadly lost at his birthday party. Against all odds, it was found recently, completely buried in the sandbox!!

***If you are wondering if Dec and I talk about things besides superheroes and Hot Wheels, the answer would be No. We do not.

Auntie Tracey Took Pictures

Pro tip: surround yourself with talented people.

Completely related: I get almost giddy when Auntie Tracey pulls out her "big camera" and points it toward my people. Magic always happens!

She brought the big camera to the girls' birthday party in GR. When I saw her this last weekend, I got a whole USB drive full of happiness. So I thought I'd share some of my favorites (please note that this is me showing great restraint. It was really hard to narrow it down to these eleven. I told you it was a USB of happy!) THANK YOU, Auntie Tracey, for being so awesome and for sharing your talent with us!!

Birthday girls (almost 7. newly 5)

Now THIS is a Quinn look!

Toothless

They crack me up! These boys!

Watch out, boys! Q is IN!

She's too cool for face / ball smashing. But she loves her Milo!

Cousins at the party came in all sizes - even super tall!

And super small ... ish ... (we love you Boom Boom)

My boys

Loving their new hockey jerseys

Snuck big sister's bday present and tricked Gpa into reading it

The Rub

For the most part, we don’t take ourselves too seriously over here in blog land. It’s a spot to share mostly funny stories and pictures of the kids. But I also try to keep it pretty true to life. And the truth about life right now is that it feels hard. It’s not hard like it was when all the things changed last winter, or when everyone was sick for like three months, or when Fiona had her surgery. It’s more like a rut. Or the blister on my toe that has a Hulk bandaid on it – because obviously we have Avenger bandaids in the bathroom. Nothing is really “wrong” right now … there’s just a rub.

All the transitions are hitting us and we are just tired. Some of us are exhausted and acting out by being naughty (Quinn), some of us are exhausted and exuding some serious attitude (Fiona), some of us are exhausted and giving Mom a run for her money at drop off (Declan), some of us are exhausted and making poor life choices to stay up late playing Wii bowling with a buddy (Mike), and some of us are exhausted and making monster cookies so she can eat her feelings (waves at the reader). All of us are not entirely our best selves.

But we’re not really our worst selves either. I’m not sure if we are the blister or the toe in my analogy (that tells you how tired I am. I picked a great analogy, but I’m too exhausted to actually work it out fully). I do know that we would like a Hulk bandaid right now.

The reason I have a blister on my toe is that I continue to work on my running resolution. And for some reason last week, I just didn’t have my shoe on quite right and my toes rubbed together. The blister is annoying – but the reason I have it is a good one. I’m doing good things and I’m proud of the progress I’ve made.

This transition period feels like that. We all know that we are where we should be. But when four people are making a significant pivot, there’s just going to be a rub. We’ll do like I did today, when the run felt particularly hard. We’ll wrap ourselves in a Hulk bandaid, put one foot in front of the other, and hang on until the treadmill slows down.

I’m sharing this picture … partly because it looks like we have it all together, which – if you read above – is clearly an illusion. But also because we were ready this morning early enough for me to stop and take a picture. And with attitudes bright enough that they were willing to cooperate for a picture. Since that is unlikely to happen again in the near future, I felt the need to document that we made it out of the house. On a Monday. Without wanting to kill each other. 

We're doing good things. We just need to get past the rub.

Fun at the Fair

Just a few more posts about how we made the last couple weeks of summer count - and then we'll be all caught up to school starting. Last week. Sigh.

When we went up to GR in August, in between the cabin and the birthday party, we sneaked in a trip to the Itasca County Fair. My sister and I were flooded with memories as we walked the fairgrounds. It's been many years since we've been to the local fair - and in so many ways, it felt exactly the same. My nephew Ben was working at the Moose food booth to make money for his band trip - just like I used to years ago (I did the math of how many years ago. I've decided not to share that math.). Since Ben wasn't working when we went, we hit up the Corn Palace instead for lunch. The corn was just as good as I remembered!

After lunch, Mike spent more money than we care to think about to get Midway tickets for the kids. As holders of ValleyFair season passes, we are now quite opposed to paying by the ride or having to deal with tickets in general! They decided to start out on the little roller coaster as it looked like the little one they like at ValleyFair. It was, apparently, NOT like the one at ValleyFair and Declan was not having it! The sweet ride operator stopped the ride, let Dec off, and gave him his tickets back! It was really compassionate and I was so impressed. Unfortunately, it also broke Declan for the rest of the Midway. The girls benefited greatly, as they got to use up little bro's tickets too!

Dec was willing to go on the little Jeep ride and everyone got in on the Giant Slide action. Our people, they do love a giant slide! They were even able to race each other one of the times they went. I think that Quinn won, but I'm also pretty sure she started early. She likes to get that little extra starting advantage!

After we were done on the rides (and we explained to the girls for the twelfth time that we were out of tickets and that meant they couldn't go on more rides ... they really don't get the tickets thing), we wandered over to the barns to see the animals. We saw pony rides on the way and I promised Fiona that she could ride one before we left. In the barns, we looked at the horses, cows, goats, and sheep - and all the kids were so brave. Even Quinn took part in petting some of the animals. Because of the sudden surge in bravery, both Quinn and Declan decided that they also wanted to ride the ponies!

Between midway rides, petting animals, pony rides, and their first experience with funnel cake, it was a fun few hours at the fair.

I Left Mike and the Kids Unsupervised ...

In case you were wondering what happens on Labor Day when Mom is cooking and Daddy and the kids are left to their own creative devices!

Three Kids Went to School Today

We kicked off Fall in a big way today. Fiona started First Grade, Quinn started Kindergarten, Declan started Preschool, Mike started his first day on the early shift at work, and I started my first day as the one solely responsible for getting the short humans out of the house on time. We made it to work, the bus stop, and preschool drop off. And nobody cried. That I saw. I have a report of Quinn crying when they first got to school ... but I didn't see it. So in my experience, nobody cried. 

That simply means that some other morning in the near future, when I least expect it, everyone will lose their crap. I was mentally prepared for it today, so we were good. It'll come around. I'm sure of it. I have zero faith we are in the clear on this rather significant family shift. 

But back to the news at hand, NOBODY cried! I peeled exactly zero children from my legs. Today. 

Mike was out of the house by 6:30 this morning. He just told me he felt a bit cheated because he didn't get to see two of the three kids before he left. But since Dec's preschool closes at 5:00, the early shift puts us in better position to make that pick up happen. Bonus is that he gets some extra time with them in the afternoon and these kids will actually get home earlier than 6pm. We have big hopes that this will be a good change for us all. 

By some miracle, the kids and I were all ready and out on the front step taking our first day of school photos by about 7:20. I actually had to kill a bit of time so we didn't get to the bus stop too early. We met our neighbors (who will normally take the girls and walk them to the bus stop) and all walked over to the bus together. We were about 5 minutes early and this is where I expected it to go downhill for Quinn. It is often the wait that gets in her head and allows the anxiety to build. She kept coming over to hug me, but always told me it was because she was cold (it was only 56 degrees - and quite brisk!). When the bus turned the corner, she grabbed Fiona and said "it's here. it's here." She happily followed Fiona onto the bus and waved to Dec and me with a pretty big smile.

Fiona played it pretty cool at the bus stop and assured me that she would watch out for her sister. Based on a very ridiculous conversation last night where I got her to stop sobbing and go to sleep by assuring her that she could do the math required on the first day of first grade (drama.queen.), I know she was nervous. But she was also so so excited and happy to see all her bus stop buddies! She told me that she was a little late getting in her own line to go into school at the beginning of the day because Quinn started crying when she brought Q to her line - and she didn't want to leave Q crying. But it sounds like they got it all worked out okay.

After the bus stop, I drove Dec to preschool. We had a lovely visit on the drive and I think he enjoyed being the only one in the car. When we got out of the car at Ms. A's, he refused to hold my hand and said "I got it, mama." So he walked himself around to the door, took off all his gear and put it in his cubby, and headed off to meet the new friends. I waved and left. Because that's what you want them to do!

Everyone was super pumped about their days when I got home. Lots of smiles, talking over each other, funny stories, and excitement. Sounds like they are willing to do it again tomorrow!

Troll Birthday Party

I was in Texas for Q's birthday and Fiona has to go to school on hers ... so I was on thin ice for the whole birthday thing! When I asked the girls what kind of cake they wanted for their party in GR, they agreed on a Princess Poppy cake from the movie Trolls. I told them that I could do that - and I could. Because I called my cousin Trish, who is incredibly talented at cakes, and she made a delicious strawberry/chocolate marble Princess Poppy head cake. And just like that, I was back to winning the birthday game!

We changed it up this year and had their family party up in GR at Gma and Gpa's house. We were up at the cabin when the cake was delivered to Gma's and between the huge cake and the groceries for the party, we had to do quite a bit of rearranging in the fridges. But we got everything in and we didn't ruin the cake! The girls were beyond excited about their cake and could not believe how beautiful it was. Otto was pretty excited about their cake too and couldn't wait to eat part of Poppy's ear!

Apparently, no matter where we are, we throw a wild birthday party. Declan, Otto, and Quinn decided to have a wrestling contest. The little boys thought it was a super good plan to gang up on Quinn and both sit on her. They quickly learned that you don't mess with the Q! Within about five minutes of that ill-advised move, both boys found themselves on their backs, leveled by a blonde, and rethinking their wrestling strategy. 

It was also so interesting to watch Fiona at the party. She had clearly decided she was too mature for the "toddler wrestling" and wanted to spend her time with the adults or Nate and Ben. A year ago, she would have been in the thick of that. It was crazy to see her on the other side; she's getting to be so big. She did get to see that big kids are still silly when Ben and Mike starting throwing balls at each other ... which lead to them chucking them at Emmy and me too (but mostly Em). It was a very laid-back, but fun party and the perfect way to celebrate our blondes.

They wanted to dress alike.
And their skirts reminded them of Troll hair!