May They Always Climb In Bed With Me

Each morning, I wake before the kids do or around the same time.  The two older ones prepare for early morning seminary as well as cross country and school.  They leave by 6:15am.  Around that time the next child, Issac, wakes up.  He preps for middle school cross country which starts before school at 7am.  He is out the door by 6:45 and that is around the time the last little guy, Kody wakes up.  Prior to this year and all of them being in middle or high school, I woke up with everyone, made hot breakfasts, helped prep them for school, and walked them to their bus stops.  This year everything has changed.

Instead they don't want to eat a big breakfast before running - toast all around, maybe cereal.  They are so tired from their ever growing teenage bodies they don't want to talk, and my son Issac informed me if I was walking to the bus stop, he would walk at a different time than me using a different route.  (Sigh)

So instead now I stay in bed.  I study my scriptures, I write in my journal, I have really sincere, lengthy prayers.  But the best part of this all is that the new routine provides a parade of bedtime partners and cuddles.  Wyatt is typically the first one in.  He does everything quickly and efficiently.  He can get ready in half the time his sister does.  So he comes and snuggles with me.  He tells me the highlights of the day and what he is most excited for.  He clings closest to my side throughout our cuddles and asks me questions about what I will be doing during the day. He then leaves to finish up and Isabella comes in.  She usually shares her stress and/or anxiety with me.  She asks for advice, she rests her head on my stomach or chest and I stroke her hair and reassure her that all will be well in her life.  As they leave Issac takes his cue and wanders in.  He has usually done all the lunch packing, prepping, except clothes.  So still half dressed or in PJ's he climbs into my bed and catches the last twenty minutes of sleep before he has to quickly put on running clothes and leave.  He leaves me in a hurry but always with two kisses.  The first one rushed, and then because this is the only time I get to see his sweet, tender side, I ask him for a second one, so I can appreciate his last moments of boyhood; for now he still obliges me.  Travis takes him to cross country and in bounds, Kody.  He is totally prepped for school - hair done, cologne on, sometimes even sneakers and backpack on.  I always remind him he has at least another thirty minutes.  I coerce him into taking off the shoes and backpack before he climbs into bed.  He snuggles close smelling of spicy, yummy man at age 11, but still in the body of an 8 year old, tells me how excited he is to see his friends, to go to a certain class, to get to school.  Before long he bounds right back out with an "I love you, Mom".  He leaves for the bus stop as early as we will let him out the door.

And my parade is over, my house is empty, but my heart is full.  These kids may not be perfect, my parenting most certainly isn't, but we're creating our own kind of heaven on Earth with these traditions.  Out with the old, in with the new, always adapting and changing and growing - TOGETHER!

Family Update #1

So much to cover, so little time.  But the kids are changing, the school year has wrapped up and I feel like I need a kid review to remember this time period.  So first I'll start with the I-man.

Issac means he will laugh and when he was just a few months old Travis and I worried we had misnamed the two boys based on temperament.  Because Issac was a colicky baby and he just didn't fit the ideals, standards and expectations that my other two kids had set as precedent before him.  Wyatt means little warrior and he was the easiest baby ever and we were starting to wonder if we had totally given each child the wrong legacy.  Because for all of Travis and my name picking that was what we made our decisions on most, what kind of legacy the meaning of the name could potentially have for the child.

After several months of constant crying, multiple diagnosis from the doctors and several procedures later they chalked it up to his temperament or colic.  Eeks I was scared.  My mom and dad gloated in his difficulty because I had been an especially prone to crying infant as well.  But after six months or so he flipped the switch.  And the child I had known to that point left and was to never be spotted again.  Instead lay a little boy with smiles for miles, almost dimples, the bluest blue eyes and blond hair making women everywhere coo over him and exclaim his absolute adorableness.  On the first day of nursery he walked away from me never looking back or worrying about where I was.  Likewise started the pattern of his life of never needing me.

Although he was a much easier child in some ways I worried most over him.  He didn't need me long before he could communicate and I wondered how he was away from me.  Because although he was now a very happy child, he was super spirited and filled with a mischievous streak that could make him seem like his often compared alter ego Dennis the Menace.  Sending him to Primary and Preschool I worried about how he was behaving, if he was being good or if he was using his new found freedom from me to reign in terror.

And for the most part I got good reports from his teachers and other adults.  Still at home he remained our amusement maker.  In Kindergarten at a parent teacher conference his teacher expressed her only concern "When he gets excited he talks louder and louder and louder."  To which I replied, "Have you met me?  I can't teach him something I haven't learned to do yet.  But we'll work on it."  And we did.  He started his first grade year this year.  I was a little nervous because his teacher was a neighbor and I just didn't want something to happen that would cause later awkwardness.  But alas my concerns were for naught.  He had a great year.  So great that at the end of the year he got the Principal's Award, which is for the student who best exemplifies the behaviors and attitudes of our school of being responsible, organized, kind, etc...

So what would I say about this kid now. He's amazing, he's kind, he controls his mischief and instead focuses all his energy, enthusiasm and drive into sports, extreme sports and playing.  He's fearless and brave, a leader, a good example, a great big brother and a good little brother.  A happy kid who loves to be happy and make others happy.  He's taken a huge growth spurt as well as maturity spurt this year and changed from a child to a boy.  I can't wait for him to grow into a man.  Each day of child raising is a surprise, one kind that I particularly love!