Thank goodness I document my favorite memories of the year in our annual Christmas letter. At least I will have those! This is when I wish I was one of those organized people who keeps up to date on the latest and greatest technologies. I am sure there is a way that I could copy and paste those stories right into this blog! Maybe some day I will try to figure that out. For now, I will just do my best to sum up the first years of my children's life in a few paragraphs...
After Madison was born I remember thinking I was the luckiest person in the world. Almost every single day was wonderful and Brad and I were amazed and every little thing she did. For petes sake, we had weekly "birthday" parties for her and invited our closes friends and family members to come over and enjoy cake and watch us weigh our bundle of joy on an actual baby scale. For the first three years of her life I thought other moms in my MOPS group who looked tired and complained about things were absolutely insane. I mean, every single day was wonderful!! Even the fact that she refused to stay in her stroller and was constantly running everywhere was adorable to us. She was probably going to be some amazing athlete. We thought she was brilliant because every single time we went to Target she pointed her chubby little arm in the direction of the food court and said "ICEE". Wasn't that enough to deserve not only in icee but a new toy as well? I mean, in our minds, this kid was not only the most adorable child on the planet, but she was also brilliant. I did not understand while some of my mommy friends looked exhausted and actually complained sometimes. I smugly thought to myself that Brad and I were some kind of super parents. I am certain I had a favorite story for every day of the week, but two pop into mind before I move on to "the day everything changed". First, when she was not quite three, we were at a friends house for dinner and she was doing this "ADORABLE" thing with her feet. When asked what she was doing she said "oh, I just have Happy Feet". The second story that comes to mind is right after her third birthday when my parents had come for a visit. We had taken a trip to explore a nearby lake and stopped for lunch after. Madison was messing around and spilled my moms giant diet soda. When the server came by to clean it up, without blinking an eye, she explained "My Grandma spilled her diet coke, but she is very sorry". At the time we thought it was hilarious!! Looking back, it was only a sign of things to come.
When Madison was 3, her brother Jack was born. This is the day everything changed. While we were once again amazed at this beautiful amazing child we had created, Madison was anything but. She made it no secret that she thought this new little bundle of joy was anything but joy. Whenever anybody asked if that was her baby brother her reply was "Nope. That's just Jack". Whenever he was in his little swing, she would go by and give it a super hard push. Looking back, I remember Jack always had this scowl on his face. I would call my mom crying thinking that after all I had went through to bring him into the world (I will not get into my pregnancy or delivery, but the short version is that I was CERTAIN I was dying the entire time), he still was not my biggest fan. I thought he did care for me one bit. Looking back, he probably picked up on the fact that in his big sisters mind "he was not welcome here". Brad didn't help the situation by telling everyone our family was 3 plus 1... . This is when I began to feel the pain of my sweet mommy friends in my first MOPS group. I mean with baby number one, when they nap, you can nap! When they nap again, you can get some cleaning done, or maybe prepare dinner. Need to run to the store? No problem! Pop that car seat in the car, then into the cart and that baby will just continue to sleep. Again, this works AWESOME when you just have one. If you add a three year old to the equation everything changes. Remember how we thought it was so cute how Madison was such a free spirit and liked to run trough the store instead of riding in a cart or stroller? This is not possible when you have a newborn in tow. For one thing, it is probably not safe to run full speed through the store with a baby seat wedged in the front of a rickety shopping cart. Also, our brilliant child who could say "Icee" at an early age now felt she was entitled to that and a new toy EVERY time we went to the store. Because she was only three the amazing negotiating skills and relentlessness she now possesses was not quite developed yet and the only way she could get her point across to her tired and irritable mother was to lay on the floor and scream bloody murder. This is the time Brad and I realized we had screwed up ROYALLY. In our daily debrief, we decided not only did we have to fix Madison, but we could not make the same mistake with Jack. We agreed then and there not to buy the kid a darn thing unless it was his birthday. Maybe not even then....
Imagine that. More than a few paragraphs and I have not even gotten past Jacks first month. If I continue down this road, it is going to be just like my beautiful unfinished scrapbooks so I am going to jump ahead to today, and add in stories form the early years here and there.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Memory Keeper
embellishments. I mean surely I would have more time now that I was juggling a newborn and a three year old that was certain she was meant to be an only child. It dawned on me the other day that I have failed miserably. Poor Jack does not even have one complete book. Even worse, I have not written down all of their cute and funny stories, thinking there was no need. I guess I figured I had some sort of super mommy memory and those things would be engrained in my mind forever. Why in the world I thought this when I cannot always remember what happened yesterday is beyond me. That being said, after reading a book about a mommy blogger inspired me to try to start now!
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