When I was a kid, about once a year my mom would make me try on everything in my dresser and closet to determine what still fit and what I needed for the year to come. The process was torture and I hated it. I'm pretty sure, especially now that I am a mom, that she hated it as well. It took forever and was boring and I moaned and groaned through the entire process.
A couple weeks ago Andy informed me that he had outgrown his pants and needed some new ones. Except he didn't do it nicely, because that's not always how he operates these days. Instead he just barked at me, "Buy me pants". I fought to ignore his statement, went upstairs and counted to ten, and then came back and told him that I would be happy to purchase new pants for him after we went through his closet and dresser to determine what he had that actually fit. What's the saying? Paybacks are hell.
One day after school this week we holed ourselves in his room and went through all his clothes. I'm pretty sure that we've only done this one other time in the past three years we've lived here because it is so unenjoyable. We found multiple things that still had the tags on them that probably haven't fit in two years and other things that fit up until a month ago. The kid is growing like crazy and will be taller than Charlie and me by Christmas.
By the time we finished, we had two good sized bags of clothes to give to two of the neighbor kids that are a couple years younger than Andy, and another bag that will be donated. He can close he dresser drawers once again because now he only has four pairs of jeans that I bought him in the spring, two long sleeve shirts and a short stack of t-shirts and shorts (that will not fit past this fall). As soon as Old Navy has a good sale, or we have no choice because it starts to get really cold, we are going on a serious shopping spree.
He can't fit into kids' sizes anymore and now is wearing men's small. Which means the price of his clothes just doubled but he's still growing out of them as fast as a kid. I really don't see him slowing down anytime soon.
Despite his size, he still likes to be tucked in at night and read with us and even snuggle and hold our hands once in a while. But I don't see that lasting much longer. The other day he said he couldn't believe he was going to be in high school in two years and then said, "Where did the years go?". Funny, I thought that was my line.
Where indeed my little man.
Friday, September 18, 2015
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Concert Bound
About a year ago Charlie and I bought tickets to the Taylor Swift 1989 concert. Yes, they went on sale almost 12 months in advance. Luckily we were on top of it. We bought enough for our family and a few extras which allowed us to invite a few friends.
My friend, Larisa, and her daughter, Natalie, flew in for Labor Day weekend to hang out and go to the concert with us. On Sunday we took them to Garden of the Gods, our favorite place to take out of town guests since we've been there more places than anywhere else, and then came home and headed out to the concert. We had dinner first and were forced to sit at the bar because we didn't know we needed reservations. While there Sarah said, "Mommy, it's so much fun to sit at the bar." Man are we going to be in so much trouble with her some day.
Sarah and Andy got to go to the Taylor Swift Concert in Miami in November of 2011, but this was Amanda and Natalie's first concert. Amanda was so excited when it started and kept screaming, "I love you Taylor, I'm your biggest fan, I want to marry you" but about an hour in she was ready to go home. Sarah and I had a blast and because we listen to the album a ridiculous amount in the car knew (almost) all the words and sang along to it all. Charlie and Andy didn't sit with us because we couldn't get that many seats together, but I heard that Andy knew all the words too.
Overall we had a great time and were so glad our friends could come visit and share in the fun!
The girls in their concert shirts before the show. Natalie is only a year older than Sarah, but she is on the tall side and Sarah and Amanda are on the short side.
Sarah waiting for the concert to start.
Amanda waiting for the concert to start.
My friend, Larisa, and her daughter, Natalie, flew in for Labor Day weekend to hang out and go to the concert with us. On Sunday we took them to Garden of the Gods, our favorite place to take out of town guests since we've been there more places than anywhere else, and then came home and headed out to the concert. We had dinner first and were forced to sit at the bar because we didn't know we needed reservations. While there Sarah said, "Mommy, it's so much fun to sit at the bar." Man are we going to be in so much trouble with her some day.
Sarah and Andy got to go to the Taylor Swift Concert in Miami in November of 2011, but this was Amanda and Natalie's first concert. Amanda was so excited when it started and kept screaming, "I love you Taylor, I'm your biggest fan, I want to marry you" but about an hour in she was ready to go home. Sarah and I had a blast and because we listen to the album a ridiculous amount in the car knew (almost) all the words and sang along to it all. Charlie and Andy didn't sit with us because we couldn't get that many seats together, but I heard that Andy knew all the words too.
Overall we had a great time and were so glad our friends could come visit and share in the fun!
The girls in their concert shirts before the show. Natalie is only a year older than Sarah, but she is on the tall side and Sarah and Amanda are on the short side.
Sarah waiting for the concert to start.
Amanda waiting for the concert to start.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Babysitter In Training
Last week Charlie was out of town and I needed to be somewhere. Usually if Andy is gone I will ask the girl across the street to come over for a few hours and watch the Sarah and Amanda, but Andy was home and she is the same age as Andy so that was a no go. When he is home I usually get one of our teenage babysitters to watch all of them - play with the girls and leave Andy alone only telling him when it's time for him to go to bed.
This time I thought I would try something different. Andy knows how much I pay our babysitters and knows I pay them well. You always pay your babysitters well because a) then they are almost always available for you and b) because they are taking care of your kids. So I decided to ask Andy if he wanted to babysit the girls, but first I had to lay down some ground rules. He was required to pay attention to them (that sounds easy but with him you never know) and play with them (what they wanted to play, as any babysitter would do). He also had to put them to bed.
He wasn't completely excited about it but he's in a money making mode so agreed. I also was going to be less than a mile from the house so if anything really happened I could be home in less than five minutes. The girls weren't thrilled because they love all of their female babysitters, but they didn't get a lot of say. Honestly, I love our babysitters too but I also like the idea of keeping the money in the family.
So I left for two hours and when I came home the house was still standing. There were no broken bones, everything was in order and the girls were in bed. They were still awake and when I checked on them they said they were scared, but they couldn't really tell me what they were scared of. Nobody was traumatized and we just might be able to do it again.
With the amount of traveling that Charlie has been doing lately, I see this as a win-win. I won't do it often, but I know that it's always an option.
This time I thought I would try something different. Andy knows how much I pay our babysitters and knows I pay them well. You always pay your babysitters well because a) then they are almost always available for you and b) because they are taking care of your kids. So I decided to ask Andy if he wanted to babysit the girls, but first I had to lay down some ground rules. He was required to pay attention to them (that sounds easy but with him you never know) and play with them (what they wanted to play, as any babysitter would do). He also had to put them to bed.
He wasn't completely excited about it but he's in a money making mode so agreed. I also was going to be less than a mile from the house so if anything really happened I could be home in less than five minutes. The girls weren't thrilled because they love all of their female babysitters, but they didn't get a lot of say. Honestly, I love our babysitters too but I also like the idea of keeping the money in the family.
So I left for two hours and when I came home the house was still standing. There were no broken bones, everything was in order and the girls were in bed. They were still awake and when I checked on them they said they were scared, but they couldn't really tell me what they were scared of. Nobody was traumatized and we just might be able to do it again.
With the amount of traveling that Charlie has been doing lately, I see this as a win-win. I won't do it often, but I know that it's always an option.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
I'm Becoming My Mother
We've gotten to a really nice place in the morning. I get up at 6a with Andy and make lunch for all the kids, send him off and then have about 15 minutes to myself before Amanda wanders downstairs, often buck naked, to ask me what she should wear to school and if I will please help her get dressed. She doesn't really want me to physically help her get dressed, but pick out the clothes or sometimes just be there for moral support. The girls have been awesome about showering in the morning, brushing their hair and getting their breakfast. Sometimes they need help, like today Sarah had a hard time cutting her mini bagel and getting it out of the toaster, but otherwise things have been moving smoothly.
Occasionally I take those uneventful mornings for granted and don't check the girls over as carefully as I should. Maybe their hair is still wet or a little knotty or they are a bit disheveled. I'm sure their teachers have seen it all, so I don't worry about it too much, plus I really don't want to argue with them about their appearance in the morning, so I usually let it go. This morning, however, after we had dropped Sarah off in her line up and were walking up the sidewalk to Amanda's drop off point, I noticed she had cream cheese all over her mouth. So I did the thing my mother always did to me that I swore I would not do to my kids. I licked my thumb and rubbed it off her face.
She let me do it, but looked at me and said, "You're gross." Yes, kiddo, I am.
Occasionally I take those uneventful mornings for granted and don't check the girls over as carefully as I should. Maybe their hair is still wet or a little knotty or they are a bit disheveled. I'm sure their teachers have seen it all, so I don't worry about it too much, plus I really don't want to argue with them about their appearance in the morning, so I usually let it go. This morning, however, after we had dropped Sarah off in her line up and were walking up the sidewalk to Amanda's drop off point, I noticed she had cream cheese all over her mouth. So I did the thing my mother always did to me that I swore I would not do to my kids. I licked my thumb and rubbed it off her face.
She let me do it, but looked at me and said, "You're gross." Yes, kiddo, I am.
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Breakfast In Bed
Last week Sarah and Amanda kept telling Charlie that they wanted to make him breakfast in bed. He was a little worried about that prospect so asked them what they wanted to make him and then instructed them, just to be sure they were clear, on how to use the toaster. He also told them that they should wait until Saturday morning so it didn't disrupt our school morning routine and they could not bring it in before 8:45 a.m. Very spontaneous.
So yesterday morning, a little before 9 a.m., the girls came in with two plastic plates with toast on them. I wasn't really supposed to be included in the whole thing, but I guess since I sleep in the same bed as their dad they felt they had to bring it for me too. It could have been worse, they could have left me out of it completely.
Amanda handed me a plate with a piece of bread that they said had been toasted but wasn't at all that was covered with cherry jelly, my favorite. It had been cut in four pieces, but there were only three on the plate. I asked what happened to the other piece, thinking she would say that it fell on the floor or counter and she had to throw it away or that they had split the pieces between Charlie and me and so it was on his plate. Not so much. Her response? "I ate it." When I asked why she said, "Because I was hungry." Duh, mom. I guess you can only expect so much from a six-yr-old who always claims to be hungry.
So yesterday morning, a little before 9 a.m., the girls came in with two plastic plates with toast on them. I wasn't really supposed to be included in the whole thing, but I guess since I sleep in the same bed as their dad they felt they had to bring it for me too. It could have been worse, they could have left me out of it completely.
Amanda handed me a plate with a piece of bread that they said had been toasted but wasn't at all that was covered with cherry jelly, my favorite. It had been cut in four pieces, but there were only three on the plate. I asked what happened to the other piece, thinking she would say that it fell on the floor or counter and she had to throw it away or that they had split the pieces between Charlie and me and so it was on his plate. Not so much. Her response? "I ate it." When I asked why she said, "Because I was hungry." Duh, mom. I guess you can only expect so much from a six-yr-old who always claims to be hungry.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Picture of the Day
A horrible picture (taken at a distance on Charlie's iPhone) of Andy on the Alpine Slide:
After our visit to the First Aid center:
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
A Quick Trip to the Mountains
On Friday Charlie mentioned that he wanted to go to the mountains over the weekend. I thought about for a minute and realized that due to commitments over the next several weekend, if we didn't go this weekend we wouldn't be able to go until sometime in September. Realistically if we put it off we probably wouldn't go. So we waited until after Andy's football weigh-in, picked Sarah up from a birthday party and headed out of town.
We spent the night in Keystone at a cute little two bedroom ski condo that had a nice big porch and living room and a full kitchen - of course we didn't use any of it. There was a small lake in the back where we fed the ducks and geese and we realized that the girls have an unnatural fear of geese. But who doesn't, they are extremely aggressive. Oh wait, now I know where they get it from. The kids played on the playground and we avoided the rain and had dinner in the little village.
The next morning we had a yummy breakfast that included a bacon infused Bloody Mary (Charlie and I split it, because we had to try it) and then drove another 30 minutes to Breckenridge. There they have all kinds of fun stuff for the kids to do including a mini roller coaster (where you have a brake and self-regulate your speed), an alpine slide (which is kind of like a luge where you ride a little sled with rollers and again have your own brake), a bungee trampoline, a timed maze, a ropes course, zip lines, panning for gold and a few other things.
The kids had a blast until we took our last (well, not planned last but ultimately last) trip down the alpine slide. I didn't see it happen because I was on a different track (there are three), but Sarah fell off her slide on her way down and then Charlie and Amanda who were behind her but riding together on the same track almost flipped their sled and kind of crashed against the side to right themselves. As a result we all ended up in the First Aid room getting the three of them cleaned up and trying to make sure there weren't any fiberglass remnants from the slides stuck in their skin. There were no major injuries, just a few bumps and scrapes, but it put the girls in a bad mood so they wanted to go home.
I was worried they wouldn't want to go back anytime soon, but Amanda summed it up this morning when she said, "I don't want to ever go down the Alpine Slide again. No, I don't want to ever go down the Alpine Slide with Daddy again." Guess I win the companion award. Regardless, I'm so glad we got out of town and did something fun and took advantage of the amazing place that we live. Hopefully we will find time to do it (safely) again!
We spent the night in Keystone at a cute little two bedroom ski condo that had a nice big porch and living room and a full kitchen - of course we didn't use any of it. There was a small lake in the back where we fed the ducks and geese and we realized that the girls have an unnatural fear of geese. But who doesn't, they are extremely aggressive. Oh wait, now I know where they get it from. The kids played on the playground and we avoided the rain and had dinner in the little village.
The next morning we had a yummy breakfast that included a bacon infused Bloody Mary (Charlie and I split it, because we had to try it) and then drove another 30 minutes to Breckenridge. There they have all kinds of fun stuff for the kids to do including a mini roller coaster (where you have a brake and self-regulate your speed), an alpine slide (which is kind of like a luge where you ride a little sled with rollers and again have your own brake), a bungee trampoline, a timed maze, a ropes course, zip lines, panning for gold and a few other things.
The kids had a blast until we took our last (well, not planned last but ultimately last) trip down the alpine slide. I didn't see it happen because I was on a different track (there are three), but Sarah fell off her slide on her way down and then Charlie and Amanda who were behind her but riding together on the same track almost flipped their sled and kind of crashed against the side to right themselves. As a result we all ended up in the First Aid room getting the three of them cleaned up and trying to make sure there weren't any fiberglass remnants from the slides stuck in their skin. There were no major injuries, just a few bumps and scrapes, but it put the girls in a bad mood so they wanted to go home.
I was worried they wouldn't want to go back anytime soon, but Amanda summed it up this morning when she said, "I don't want to ever go down the Alpine Slide again. No, I don't want to ever go down the Alpine Slide with Daddy again." Guess I win the companion award. Regardless, I'm so glad we got out of town and did something fun and took advantage of the amazing place that we live. Hopefully we will find time to do it (safely) again!
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