Are these the good old days?

Lately when I'm around friends pregnant with their first I think back to my first pregnancy and think-- those were the days. If I was exhausted, I'd go take a nap. If I was still tired, I'd sleep in the next day. No schedules to coordinate, no children inevitably waking up at 6:30, no matter how late their parents got to bed.  Then my thoughts wander to when I had "just one," who napped all the time, slept twelve hours like a champ, and who would happily be handed off to dad after the early morning feeding for a slothful mom to turnover and go back to sleep.  Fast forward to three children not yet school age and long days at home together.  I've gone from no caffeine back to (minimum) two cups of joe in the morning and back on diet coke in the afternoon (yuck).  Our baby mostly sleeps through the night, but on nights she doesn't I'm grumpy, mean and dramatic to anyone who crosses my path the next day. Mealtimes are like an exercise in seeing how long the children can keep me out of my seat-- getting milk, water, cinnamon for the apple slices, another spoon, cleaning up a spill, finding another napkin, finally getting food other than Cheerios in the baby's mouth, just in time to get seconds for everyone, then if I'm lucky I'll remember to eat a few slices of cheese for my lunch (and the diet coke). Some days I exclusively eat cereal until dinner time. 

Then we went out to dinner with two couples the other night who have 5 and 6 kids, respectively.  They were lamenting the middle-school drama of their eldest.  Then I read a blogpost from a woman who has six kids about how it was so easy when she had four.  It made made think-- will I look back on these days, when I had "only three" as the good old days-- back when I was well-rested? (Frightening!).  But the reality is-- my three are awesome.  They are good sleepers for the most part. They all "rest" for the same hour in the afternoon, with another hour of me quietly reading and cuddling Sean by himself.  On my more dramatic days I can go lay down during naptime.  My kids love each other and their biggest fights are over who gets to hold the baby next.  Sis is an "angel baby" according to the Baby Whisperer. Sean has started getting dressed by himself in the morning (today it's Hawaiian shorts, a long sleeve Furman shirt and Thomas socks). Jamesie is mostly making it to the potty. And, this time in our lives is almost over. Sean starts school in a few short months and that's this beginning of letting my babies go. These are the good times. I get to cuddle and pet and kiss them whenever I want. There are days it's physically exhausting, but there are just as many days sitting on the family room floor with books and Legos and k'nex for hours at a time.  

And one more anecdote to prove these are the good times-- last night as I was approaching 5 straight days without folding any laundry and our arm chairs were starting to become a clean-clothes avalanche threat I mused that I just needed someone to come into our house and "jump start" our laundry situation-- then my housekeeping skills would also be jump started. Just now as I brought the baby up for her morning nap I noticed (for the first time, as I think my eyes were still closed as I fumbled downstairs for breakfast (which was already made for me)) a huge laundry basket of clean, folded clothes at the top of the stairs. I looked at the laundry-chairs, I mean arm chairs-- they were empty. My amazing, well-rested husband spent his early morning folding laundry while I slept after being up with the baby.  These are the good old days, with "just three" great kids, built in nap times, a helpful and doting husband and a softer than soft baby to pet in the middle of the night.  Lord, let me live in these good days, and not just remember to remember them later!

Super Seannie Super Reader

 Sean has become an absolute super-reader over the last few months.  We have dived head first into the Little House books, which he Ioves and we love reading to him.  When my sister gave him an early birthday present of the whole series last week (so, as Sean says, we don't have to keep going back to the Library for every single one....), he was overcome with joy and couldn't speak!  The other day I read a few chapters to him while the little ones were napping then I had to go lay down myself, still recovering from our trip to St. Louis last weekend.  Unfortunately, we were just at an exciting part of Silver Lake (wolves!). I told Sean he could wait for me to come back down or he could read the chapter himself to see what happens. I came back a little while later, and not only had he read the whole chapter himself (and told me what happened-- Laura and Carrie saw wolves up close, but they didn't chase the girls), but he had proceeded to open the Oxford English Dictionary of Word Histories and was just reading the entries to himself.  We bought him that book after incessant questioning about why certain words are called certain things (for instance, yestday it was "but WHY is a 1 and a 2 called twelve?" Or, "but WHY are they called pants?"... And more importantly, why do I have to wear them?). 

Yesterday we went to the public library pick up our summer reading charts. The program this year is as follows: read 10 books over the course of the summer, win a slew of prizes and treats and river dogs tickets.  Sean read 9 books (out loud) yesterday.  And when I went into their room this morning he was reading a Curious George to jamesie, with three other books already completed at the bottom of his bed.  So, 24 hours after obtaining the reading chart, we can bring it back for our prizes.  This begs the question- are our societal expectations for education (in this case, summer reading) so low that we have to offer bribes and treats and prizes for a modicum of reading a 4 year old can do in one day? 

(This is how Sean ate lunch yesterday- reading a story to us and occasionally remembering to eat. He has the academia lifestyle down already!)

Which leads me to our family summer reading chart. Sean's rules: one star for each book or chapter read out loud, and one star for 5 pages of a workbook.  Cody and I have no idea what he will earn with his stars yet because we don't know how to gauge his pace.  At first I thought for every 10 stars he could earn an ice cream.... But then his chart starting looking like this....

Yes, there are 9 stars on yesterday's square. And I short changed him on stars, too. The first day he had his workbook he did 19 pages.  (That's when the 5:1 ratio was started). 

It's hard not to brag when you have a super reader super seannie on your hands.  But I feel like I can brag because thisis not my doing-- this is innate in him.  I buy him workbooks and tell him to read, but his hunger for words comes from within-- it is not because of our parenting!

Second-ever chapter book! The first was Charlotte's Web.

Reading by headlight with dad.

And not to lose sight of the big picture- he still is only 4 years old, and still likes to do this when he gets his hot little hands on the iPad without out permission!