So, I thought that once I sent Erik off to first grade -- in school all day for the first time -- I would be relieved. There would be one less chatterbox and one less instigator to contend with for most of the day. Turns out, I don't like it so much. I miss the little guy. I feel antsy all day knowing that he's not home. Of course, he's fine. He's in an excellent school with a wonderful teacher. The long day tires him out, but he seems to be doing well and enjoying most of it. (Lunch! Two recesses!) Once he does come home, my anxieties shift from "Where's my boy?" to "What's my boy's mood?" since doing homework and dealing with little siblings is not really what he wants to do (pleasantly) when he returns. So, the days haven't gotten easier for me, just different. (And, to all you more experienced moms, please don't tell me tales of when bigger kids go farther away. My heart can't take it this week.)
As if I wasn't feeling sentimental enough with my oldest heading off to first grade, my youngest chose this week to master walking. Every day he's walking farther, faster. This weekend he definitely started to show a preference for walking over crawling. It seems like I just got used to having him here. Now I have to get used to not just having a little person keeping us company, but to having another little firecracker zooming around and getting into all sorts of mischief. I'm already finding him climbing on all sorts of furniture and exploring things that are really best not touched by toddlers. He's going to be my gray-hair causing monkey. Not like the other two were giving me lots of sitting around time!
So my boys are insisting on growing up and I'm not sure I appreciate that. My pensiveness is only amplified by an excellent book I started this weekend: Boys Should Be Boys by Dr. Meg Meeker. I read a fair number of parenting books, but I can honestly say this one is one of the best. There's no parenting philosophy agenda at play here, just a mom who wants to encourage parents to be actively present with and for their boys. As she sees it the world outside our homes is filled with all sorts of challenging influences ranging from subtle peer pressure on parents to overschedule kids to the immoral vices enticing all of us through media use. It's our job to simply spend time with our kids, trust our guts and be the the parent our own unique children require. The ideas aren't new or revolutionary, but Dr. Meeker states them clearly and compassionately. I can't speak highly enough about this book. It so moved me that I wanted to wake up all my kids last night and hug them. But I didn't. Let sleeping kids lie. (Because the teething baby will wake up crying in a few hours anyway!)
As always, it's not just two of the trio who are growing and changing. Our dear sweet middle child keeps me hopping, too. Anna seems to have brought a bit more drama into age 4 than she had just a few weeks ago at ol' age 3, but she's also becoming such a young lady in delightful ways, too. I will spend the rest of the school year second guessing the decision to enroll her in preschool only two days a week because she loves it so. On the other hand, she keeps so happily busy at home, that I have no doubt that she will do fine in school years to come. That new Lego set is getting a workout already. Like her big brother, she studies the instruction booklet and has begun to build structures of her own. I can see her ideas and imagination really take off. It's always been there, but I love seeing it evidenced in such a traditionally "boy" area as building. She's also our household entomologist, a fearless explorer of all sorts of back yard muck, and an aficionado of old National Geographic kids' science books. And she really likes Disney princesses. Well rounded, indeed.
Tomorrow the younger two have their annual check up. I'm looking forward to seeing if they are really as tall, on the growth charts, as everyone says.
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