Life is good.

It's been a long while.

It's time to start thinking about Christmas.

We'd been planning on a nice, quiet Christmas with our little quartet (much like our Thanksgiving just was) but now we've made plans to go North (insane, right!?) to spend time with the fam-jam. So we are excited - the kids can hardly contain themselves. Tell them they get to spend a week with their cousin this far in advanced and it's no wonder they're going bonkers.

J's been gone a lot, and is basically gone until Christmas at this point. As is life. We have a million things to do to stay busy per usual. And really, I cannot complain, because he was here Wednesday night, precisely 10 hours after B had ingested copious amount of milk and we had the delightful reminder of just how dairy sensitive he is as he vomited it all over our bed. Yay for easy-remove bed protectors though. H didn't even wake up from the whole ordeal and I didn't have to do anything but pull off a puke-covered t-shirt and B and I snuggled back to sleep while J dealt with the mess. So brownie points for being here when it counts, ha.

The kids are enjoying their ice-skating lessons. Okay, truthfully, H is annoyed she cannot yet perfectly "dance" on the ice, and B just wants to do hockey (where the heck did he learn about that!?). I told B he has to be able to stand on the ice and not crawl on it like a polar bear (yep, I've got that amazing kid) and then we can discuss it. H says she wants to play hockey if B plays hockey. Good times around here are in our future, I foresee.

I scroogingly (yes, I just made up that word) declared we were not buying a Christmas tree this year since we weren't going to be home for Christmas. Joke was on me. Not only did we buy a lovely Christmas tree - we bought TWO! H insisted for an H and B-sized tree that they could decorate without a stool. Why it is imperative they need not a stool, I'm unsure, but it was. So alas, there is a tiny little tree in our breakfast room that made my kids happier than icing - so that's freaking ecstatic.

Now they are eagerly helping to wrap all of the Christmas presents. Who knew such a things was so exciting?

I've recently taken over as head of a volunteering organization, and that has been really fun and kept me on my toes. And busy. B has loved coming and helping me get things sorted.

I've loved having them all to myself this week. It sounds silly, I'm sure, since H is only in school until noon, and B only twice a week, but I've loved having them all day every day. I've loved being busy with them and getting back into our old routines of mini day trips to Indy and long mornings reading. I've missed them, in some weird way.

Things are just so good and beautiful, and my heart is so full every moment that I look at those two little progenies of mine, or that ridiculously handsome husband of mine. Life is good.

Happy Monday!

Sometimes it just takes someone else's view from the outside

It's crazy how quickly and subtly the "norm" can change. And how easy it is to forget and lose sight that things were ever a different way.

When H was a baby and toddler she was a hardcore "Momma's girl." Sometimes it made me feel so badly for J because H literally wanted nothing to do with him. She'd scream bloody murder when I left the two of them to play and went for a quick 5 minute shower.

But after B was born she slowly transitioned to being more stuck to J. Or at least it seemed.

I think in reality it just kind of balanced out. But because she wasn't literally stuck on me 24/7 I didn't fully realize that she was still needing me just as much as him.

I've loved watching this girl grow and thrive. I love seeing her personality develop. I love our amazing relationship that we've built on mutual respect and compassion; I hope that it is able to carry over into those teen and adult years because I know too well how fragile those mother/daughter relationships are. It is the deepest fear of many of my mom friends.

Parenting H has certainly had it's challenges - she's precocious and vivacious and takes just a little more time and patience and empathy than your average tyke. Truth be told, I wouldn't have it any other way. But overall, I find her to be easy. I find this whole parenting thing to be pretty easy most days.

And that's why God always throws me little curve balls to keep me humble.

The last two months or so when J has actually been home (most of this year he's been out of town for 3-4 weeks each month, only home on the weekends) H has been pushing. My typically sweet, compassionate, respectful child has been whiney, unkind, and disrespectful.

J and I have both known something was up, but we were so far off left base on what it actually was. We first assumed it was her transition into school Then we assumed she just didn't feel like she was getting enough time with J. We carved out huge chunks of time for them to spend lots of 1:1 together. I melted more into the background when J was home so that they could thoroughly enjoy their time with one another. J and I worked deliberately on keeping the kids' routine the same, and at handling discipline (teaching here, always teaching, not punishing) the same as one another.

But the undesirable behavior only escalated. We were a bit at a loss as to how we could help her.

Yesterday seemed to hit its peak. And I know, I know that H at her worst is probably still not even quite so terrible. But she was weepy all through ice skating lessons. She screamed at me in the car that she would never listen to me (and I totally kept my cool). She locked herself in her room and declared she didn't like anyone. She purposefully antagonized her brother until he couldn't take it anymore, and then became inconsolable when he tried to hit her (and missed). J and I were both just at a loss of how to make things peaceful for her, when she was not amenable to any solution or conversation we tried to have with her, and she herself had no solution for how we could help her or why she was behaving as she was.

So yesterday I reached out to a few close people to try and get a different perspective on the situation.

I had just tucked sweet H into bed where she told me she had loved going grocery shopping with just me earlier that evening, and we should do it all the time, which left me feeling slightly perplexed - what kid enjoys grocery shopping? - when I read a message from a fellow momma suggesting maybe it wasn't time with J she was lacking, but time with me.

Obviously my initial reaction was nothing less than, "Preposterous!" But 5 seconds later, when I stopped feeling defensive I was able to nod and say, "Yep, makes total sense."

So J and I sat down and discussed it and immediately the light went off in his head too.

All week long it's just the kids and I. I do everything with them and for them and it is just them and me all the time. When J is home that changes. And obviously we all prefer J to be home, but I was thinking he and H needed more time together so I was fading into the background and H wasn't getting that time with me that she needed on the weekends.

When J would hug me, she'd immediately needed hugged. When I would sit down at my computer because J was playing a board game with her and B, she'd leave the game and just want to sit on my lap. When I'd wonder off to take a shower, there she was, demanding one as well. If I was putting laundry away, she was ever eager to help, even when the alternative was playing with Papa. And you know, when I went to the grocery store, she wanted to go with. And delighted at the end of the day - a day filled with horseback riding lessons and ice skating lessons and lots of books and crafts - that the best part of her day was grocery shopping.

It was for sure an eye opening moment.

So this morning H and I snuggled in bed together for a long while and read books and told stories. She was eager to go make breakfast with Papa while I took a nice long shower - alone. Then we ate breakfast and drank coffee and truly enjoyed one another and she was amicable to playing on her own while I did puzzles with B and J ran errands. And the kids and I made pumpkin muffins together before J took them outside to help build their playhouse. And there was no whining or crying, or disrespectful words. Just more typical sweet, loving little girl.

It seems that every time I feel we must have taken a wrong turn on this parenting path because perhaps we may be raising a sociopath, we find the resolution to our issues and it is always, always so much simpler than we ever think it is.

And it's always improved with a whole lot of love and empathy.