Dear Cole,

This is nearly a month late. I planned to write it May 1--that would have been one year to the day. But alas, life gets in the way. I've been drafting this little note here in my heart for a while now. See, kiddo, there are some things you should know, so I'm going to write them down here for you to enjoy some day well in the future when you can read. Maybe I'll have you read it after a particularly rough day at school or a fight with you brother or something. So despite the fact that I'll be typing one-handed as you're draped over my right arm and nuzzled up against my breast in a very snuggly place, I'm gonna type. Here goes.

You, my sweet, sweet boy, are so very special. From your very conception, you were defying odds and breaking rules. Please don't let anyone ever make you believe there is something you cannot do. See, God put you on this earth for a reason. I truly believe that, with every fiber of myself. You will do wonderful things. You will be a wonderful person. You already are. I hold you in my arms and smell your sweet, sweet breath while you sleep. When you're awake, I kiss your perfect little lips and as you squeal and squirm and try to kiss me back, I smell that sweet breath some more. When I nurse you, you reach up and grip my finger so tightly, as if you're begging me to never let go. As if you need to beg. When you play on the floor, you make happy little sounds and talk to yourself, and after a while, you get annoyed. You talk a little louder as if to say, "Where is everybody?" And as soon as I appear, you smile. You smile with your whole face, your whole body even. You stop that loud talking, smile, and begin to kick your legs and wave your arms like a dog wags his tail. You say, "Yep, that's all I wanted. Just needed a friendly face over here. Love you." And when you do that, you melt my heart all over again. You, my precious boy, are so easy. So cooperative. So chill.

But these are things anyone knows about you. Anyone that meets you can see these things. Let me tell you something that not so many know. In fact, I only recently admitted this to even your daddy.

May 1 marked one year since the day I found out I was pregnant with you. The day I called your daddy at work, asked him to come home for lunch because we needed to talk. Of course, given our history, Daddy didn't need to come home. He guessed first thing: "Are you pregnant??" And when I called Aunt Brandi, she was shocked. In fact, I believe she asked if I'd taken two tests to make sure. Ha! But the craziest thing is that I wasn't shocked. Not like I should have been. There were a couple of reasons that your existence wasn't very likely. But still, just over a week before I came to know about you for sure, I had this feeling. I can't explain it except to say that I knew something was different, and my heart kept telling me that there was another soul riding with me. My head tried to deny it with all kinds of logic, but my heart just kept saying, "You'll see. Deny it, doubt it, and wait. But you'll see." So my head started looking for signs of any kind that might indicate a little stowaway was in my uterus. But signs? None were to be found. So I waited as long as I could, carrying around this feeling that you were with me and wanting so badly to know for sure. When it was finally a reasonable time to take a test, I found that I was going to be devastated if it revealed that I had been mistaken. As much as another pregnancy did not fit our plan at that time, when I saw the plus sign slowly come into being, I cried the happiest tears. I put my hand on my belly and said hi, and I'm sure you high-fived me. It's just something you would do.

So I can't explain how I knew before there was reason to suspect and without any signs whatsoever, but I did. I knew you were there inside me, beating heart and all. And no, it wasn't our plan, but God knows I am so grateful that He knows better. You are my little buddy. My connection to you is so tangible and real, it's as if Daddy never snipped that cord. I hope it is always that way. I love you, my perfect little surprise. But you know that. You feel it. Now go do what you do. Be you, be sweet, and change the world.

Forever your Mommy

Another fun mama quirk

A new surprise I learned today: after giving birth to three children, no matter what amount of Kegels you might do, jumping on a trampoline will probably lead to surprise peeing. Take from that what you will.

Mommy Moment

I had one of those moments tonight--when I could have either completely lost it, screamed and thrown things, or just laughed. Allow me to paint you a picture. I'm sitting in the kids' bathroom on the toilet, ready to brush teeth. The iPod is next to me, playing my theme music. (I highly recommend theme music. It gets me through a lot of tense moments!) At that exact moment, my theme song happened to be the cast of Glee's version of 4 Minutes, originally by Madonna and Justin. Anyway, I was rocking out, but it's important to note that it was a little loud and therefore added to the chaos in the next few moments. First, the littlest, who was sitting atop one knee, became impatient and began crying. Then, the biggest, too busy dancing along to my theme music, ignored my request to begin brushing his teeth no less than three times. Then, the middlest, who was trying out her crazy straw in Owen's bathroom cup, fell off the stool, poking Mommy with the straw and splashing water all over the bathroom and those occupying it. All three of these things happened at once, as Glee continued to remind me that "we only got four minutes to save the world!" So I took it in. I thought it over. And despite my long day and today's ever-present headache, I had to laugh. Rather hysterically, bordering on psychotically, but I laughed nonetheless.

Always with the Poop

I feel like every other blog I post has something to do with poop. With a 4-year-old boy, a potty-training daughter, and an infant, I suppose this is to be expected. But today tops them all, I think. After tucking Ella in with a book for her nap, I heard her quietly calling "Mooooo-myyyyyy" from her room. As I was nursing the littlest, I was in no hurry to get up. She wasn't crying or sending me any urgent messages. So when I wrapped up the burping of number three and entered her room mere minutes later, I was shocked--SHOCKED--to find her crib yet again covered in poop. This happened a year or so ago when she took off a poopy diaper after a nap and played with it a little. But today was something new. I guess she felt the urge to poop, but rather than call for me and ask to go potty, she disrobed, removed her diaper, and squatted and pooped on. the. book. THE BOOK! We are a family of readers! This is downright blasphemous! Pooping on a book? And then, she evidently used her pants to wipe her bottom. Yum. And when I shared this news with her father, it went something like this:

Me: Ella pooped on a book.
Scott: *sigh* Everyone's a critic.

Nice. And that, dear future teachers of my children, is why they will not know the story of The Jungle Book.

TGIF

Ahhhhh Friday. Here at last. Even a stay-at-home mama such as myself appreciates a good Friday. The jam-packed week full of appointments, errands, and playdates come to a close with the promise of a relaxing evening, maybe a glass of wine, maybe a movie with the hubby, followed by a jam-packed weekend full of parties, barbecues, and visits to the beach. The latter is what my hubby informed me today that he had in mind for tomorrow. Our third-born's first visit (while outside the uterus) to the beach and the season's inaugural visit for the whole clan. I was going to relish this Friday, with its morning of cleaning followed by a playdate with my daughter's favorite friend and capped off with an evening of dinner and wine with some of my girls.

And then last night happened. First, Ella woke up at eleven with a terrible cough and a fever. Yay. We spent most of the night taking turns cuddling her and administering infant tylenol in the always-accurate dose. Then Owen awoke. He "didn't feel good." I remember making this statement as a child and thinking that it said it all. As a parent, it might be the most frustrating sentence to hear. WHAT doesn't feel good?? Anyhow, he went back to sleep in the recliner, so we wrote it off. Fast forward eight hours. My phone rings, and it's Owen's teacher explaining that his belly hurts and even 25 minutes of toilet-sitting have done nothing to help the situation. Super. So I pick him up (and he insisted that I carry all 45 pounds of him. Awesome.) and take him home, putting him up in our darkened bedroom watching Star Wars. Scott lays with him, and pretty soon we are seeing the tell-tale signs of impending puking. You know, the cold clammy skin, the quiet groans, the gurgling stomach. Scott does his best to explain what throwing up might feel like, as at the age of nearly-five, the child is lucky enough to never have experienced it. So with the explanation that it might feel like your food wants to come back out of your mouth really fast (not a bad explanation, I thought), we settled in to wait. And sure enough, inside of an hour. Owen gave his breakfast back. Yum. And can I just say thank God for Daddy! Because, as all-mom as I am, I cannot CANNOT do vomit. I suppose if push comes to shove and I'm the only one home with a sicky, I'll handle it, but let's not test that theory, k? So Daddy handled clean-up of both boy and barf very calmly. Crisis averted.

But that Friday plan? Yea, that's way out the window. No cleaning happened this morning. Too tired from a night up with the fevered one. And no playdate. Didn't want to expose our favorite friends to aforementioned fever. And dinner and wine with friends? Enh. (That's supposed to be a buzzer sound. Hmm.) And beach tomorrow. Double enh. Too bad. But still, TGIF. Because if today is F, then tomorrow is S, and any day that begins with S is good. I hope. At any rate, Daddy is home to suffer with me through whatever S may bring. Cheers to teammates!

My Big Boy

Owen is 4 years and 9 months old on Monday. So big. So old. He'll be 5 in July. And, come August, he'll go to kindergarten. Kindergarten! Perhaps you didn't hear me--my BABY is going to be in KINDERGARTEN! This is pretty seriously freaking me out. Time flies! It's so cliche, but that must be because it's so true and it's such a powerfully overwhelming realization that you can't help but say it. Time is literally flying by me. I can so very clearly remember the moment that the midwife broke my water, the contractions began to come hard and fast, and then I was pushing, pushing, pushing, and then he was here. And I was--we were--completely and utterly transformed. In a moment we went from being a newly-married couple to a family. "It's a boy!" shouted by our teary-eyed midwife. Those words forever changed our lives. I remember seeing tears in Scott's eyes. Something I was pretty sure I would never see. (Like many foolish men, he prides himself on his stoicism. I say why hold it in? But whatever...) Tears in his eyes as he took in the little face and began to make calls to our family to announce the arrival of the first grandchild.

We became a family. And like I said, that was yesterday. Seriously. Where has this time gone? Since then, we've sold four cars and purchased 3 others. We've put our house on the market, moved to Illinois, and moved back. I've worked at two different schools. I've taken many months off work to care for my babies. We've traveled to Alaska, Yellowstone, Costa Rica, and Jamaica (That's not so bad in list form like that! How lucky are we?). We've repainted our house, sodded the backyard TWICE, put in new carpet and floors, spent roughly a billion dollars on Thomas the Train paraphernalia, and spent countless hours rocking babies, walking babies, swaying with babies, soothing babies. We've hosted barbecues, birthday parties, and baptism celebrations. And still, even with all these markers of time marching on, I can't believe Owen is as old he is. It seems like yesterday that he couldn't support his own head. Now he can name all of the letters of the alphabet, count to 100, list the planets of the solar system in order, and identify the parts of an insect. I can't believe that in a few short months I'll carefully select his first-day-of-school clothes, lovingly pack his first-day-of-school lunch (a good balance of healthy and yummy), and walk him the 0.8 miles to school, dropping him off at his kindergarten classroom. Crazy. And before I know it, it'll be the fifth grade dance, eight grade graduation, learning to drive, first dates, prom, graduation and off to college! Oh dear. I need to stop all this before I'm a blubbering mess. He's my baby. And he always will be. Now I understand that my mom really meant that when I was fourteen, and she still means it now. I love my little man. My big boy. My baby, grown up and (almost) off to kindergarten.

Enjoy the moments, whatever stage you're in. Even if the moment isn't the most fun, even if you're exhausted or up to your elbows in poop, enjoy it. Look at the face of that newborn/baby/toddler/teen/whatever, and drink it in. Love em up. And enjoy them while they're still yours!

GodzElla

My sweet daughter.



So beautiful, so fun, so full of life.

Such a pain in the a** sometimes. I love her. So very much. But there are certainly times when she makes me want to pull my hair out. We call her GodzElla because of her amazing ability to destroy. Whatever it is, she can destroy it. No matter how carefully you are watching her, she can destroy it. The more messy or expensive it is, the more likely it is that she will destroy it. Examples? Gladly.

1. Our fridge was in need of repair, so we were storing some food in coolers in the kitchen. Owen comes into the room where I'm changing Cole's diaper and says, "Ella's playing with eggs." And that was a very accurate description. Ella had opened the cooler, removed the EIGHTEEN pack of eggs, and was dropping them on the ground while shouting "bang!" Lovely.

2. We three were playing happily with the bubbles in the back yard today. When I put them down to answer the phone, Ella picked them up and poured them out. On her pants.

3. Ella wore an adorable bunny-ear headband home from school today. They made them in class. Cute little two-toned pink ears stapled onto a white headband. She wore them the whole was home in the car. She walked into the house and promptly tore both ears off the headband. Then she ripped the headband.

4. Ella brought home a cute craft made during her class's transportation week. They'd modeled little airplanes out of craft sticks and glued a picture of themselves into the cockpit. Ella proudly showed me the plane and then promptly ripped the head off of it.

5. This week alone, Ella has torn pages in two Eric Carle books and ripped the pop-ups out of Owen's giraffe pop-up book. And, ever proud, she brought them to me, saying, "See, Mommy, see."

6. Drumroll please. The final awesome thing that GodzElla accomplished this week... While sitting RIGHT next to me at the kitchen table, she picked up my camera that I was about to connect to my laptop for download, and dunked it into Owen's cup of water. Completely submerged. So no, you will not be seeing those pictures for awhile. It still won't turn on. I am not pleased.

This list is by no means exhaustive. And, on my honor, every one of these things has happened in the last seven days.