Third child syndrome

There is this thing that happens somewhere between the first child and the third child. You become so...uncaring, indifferent, lazy,realistic. With the first child you sterilize everything from pacifiers to shopping carts. You would never let your first child dig in the dirt (pin worms might get under their skin). Your first child wears a bib to every meal--and never goes anywhere with stains on their clothes. Is that a little dribble of pee-pee in the diaper? CHANGE IT! Never mind that the diapers are state of the art and the child does not even know... You sometimes wake the child after a time because you miss her-or to make sure she is breathing. The first child never goes barefoot and has a schedule that must be kept at all costs, the first child eats a balanced meal-no McDonald's, soda, candy...very limited cookies-all of that good stuff.

So, that was Lindsay. We now have Haley. It's a good thing she is my third child because she would not have made a very good first child. She loves mess. She loves dirt. Germs? Her best friends! Her best times have been spent digging in piles of dirt with her hair sticking up.



She goes barefoot as she climbs to the top of the fort outside. Her clothes are stained and sometimes don't match. Her hair (sparse as it is) has only been brushed a couple of times-mostly by Lindsay. Her teeth get brushed-when we think of it. She eats m&ms for a nutritious snack. She sleeps when and where I can get her to (schedule schmedule). And by this time you have learned: YOU NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING BABY.



In between these two is the middle child. I'll leave it with this: middle child syndrome.

That time of the Year

This is the week of life that is craziest. Somehow, in 5 years of trying to have a baby we had our first: Lindsay April 7, 2000. Awww, such a great time of year to have a beautiful new baby girl to love and grow. Fast forward 16 months later when I find out (after only 1 month of trying) that we are expecting again...the due date? The same as Lindsay's only 2 years later. Jared was born April 9, 2002. How do you do that? Literally the same due date, just two days later. Amazing. And it is a miracle but I cannot believe that we managaed this.

This year, my children, being normal and getting older, asked for seperate parties. Ok, easy, right? We decided to do them in one weekend. One crazy weekend and then it's over, right? Except Jared gets sick 1 day before his party. We spent Thursday night in the ER at the Children's Hospital. He is doing better now but had fever on Saturday morning (the day of his party). So, being that I hate when people bring their sick kids around everyone elses we called everyone and postponed the party. Whew...put that one off (since I wasn't really ready anyways)

Sunday dawns bright and early and I am preparing for Lindsay's party--for which I must bake and decorate a cake (pics will be inserted here later) and get all the decorations up (some people would do this the night before, but where is the challenge in that?). Long story short the party went sooo well. I let each girl paint a terra cotta planter and fill it with soil and plant impatiens. They LOVED doing it. And they actually put a lot of effort into their painting. It was really nice. However, I did realize that Lindsay is now very much a "big girl". It's something I totally do not understand. How can 8 be so much older than 7? In my mind for whatever reason, it is.





The next Saturday, we have Jared's rescheduled party and there is a pirate cake and pirate "booty" and 10 minutes before the party is about to start I finish the treasure hunt clues/game! (Nothing like procrastination) It turned out so good! We had filled a pinata treasure chest w/ the "treasure" (candy that was bright and fun and other pirate stuff) and they had to follow clues to find it. The boys were so cute-and I was so happy that they were having fun. And my baby boy is now 6! **sniff sniff**





I keep saying this is the last party for a while (except for Haley--that wouldn't be fair to stop hers at 1 when the other kids had one every year) but who knows? I thrive on the chaos and last minute stuff of planning their birthday parties. It's a challenge but it's a fun one. It's insanity!!!! But it's our insanity!!