O Christmas Tree

This holiday season has not been the most festive around our house.
My in-laws, who live downstairs, are both in a local rehab center. Their care has absorbed lots of time and energy. Money is tight, and the kids are busy, and just when am I supposed to make 12 batches of Christmas cookies? My days seem to consist of work, baby care and driving the big kids around.
So far, most of the Christmas decorations are still in their boxes in the basement.
But not the Christmas tree ornaments.
I was feeling very proud that we got our tree up a week earlier than usual this year. It, too, was a break from tradition; with my in-laws not home -- and our apartment more crowded with Baby Three on the scene -- we decided to just decorate one tree and set it up in my in-laws living room, where we will celebrate Christmas Eve and where the kids like to watch TV and play video games (they have a much bigger TV).
It was lovely, and with 12- and 10-year-old helpers, it only took a couple of hours to get all the ornaments on.
We have lots of ornaments.
Then, it only took a couple of days to topple over.

It did so all by itself, when no one was downstairs. Big T set it back up, more securely, I rehung the ornaments and we thought that was that.
Until it toppled over again, this time when Kid Two was playing a game downstairs. He came to get me and I wrestled it back up -- dropping it a couple of times in the process -- and started to rehang the ornaments. Then Baby Three woke up and I headed upstairs to nurse her. When I went back downstairs to check on Kid One, it was on the floor again.
I began to think it had the wrong holiday; Jesus fell three times on the way to Calvary.
Anyway, enough was enough. I stripped the ornaments and lights off and Big T went out to buy another tree -- one that isn't really bushy on one side and really bare on the other. (You'd think we would have seen the problem, which is compounded by hanging the ornaments on the bushy side, because that's where the branches are).
I guess that in at least one way this Christmas will be like last year's; we have to buy two trees. But at least Home Depot is giving us half off the second one.

Why do boys do that?

Howard Cosell hasn’t been on the air for a very long time, but I still remember my brother imitating the iconic sportscaster’s voice as he called the play-by-play for any game in which he was involved – be it a pick-up football game in the backyard or an imaginary game that existed only in his mind.

As I grew up, I noticed the same tendency in most of my male friends and relations. The need to do sports commentary seems to come with the package a Y-chromosome brings.

And in Kid Two, this tendency is developed to a huge degree.

“Fourth and eight. This one doesn’t look like an easy conversion at all,” Kid Two just said, playing an NCAA football game. “First down! First down Northwestern!”

He seems to alternate between play-by-play and color commentary, and he has not compunction about being evenhanded; he’s a homer for whichever team he’s controlling.

But he doesn’t just call the games he’s playing on Wii or Playstation. He calls the game as he’s putting laundry in the hamper, the game in his head at hockey practice, the game as he fields grounders off the garage wall. He even calls the games he watches on TV, even though somebody else is already getting paid to do that job.

Last year, while waiting for hockey practice after dressing, he was watching a Blackhawks game on the lobby TV. And doing the play-by-play.

“Who is he talking to?” his coach asked.

Who knows?

But if ESPN is ever looking to expand its broadcasting stable, he’ll be ready to audition.

Laundry day

It's laundry day.
Then again, it's laundry day every day, especially days I don't go to the office.
I suppose I shouldn't complain; for the last 18 years, Big T has been primarily responsible for the laundry, so I haven't had to deal with it much. And for much of that, his parents, who live downstairs, have lent a hand, throwing in a few loads if we left dirty clothes in the basement and folding what they took out of the dryer (to make room for their own laundry, or yet more of ours).
But laundry now seems harder than it was before. For one thing, there's more of it. A baby is small in sizxe but not in amount of laundry generated. Add the tween girl status of Kid One, and we have two major laundry generators. In the last year, I'd say we've gine from generating one load a day to two loads every three days (not counting bedding, etc.). 
And with Tony's parents not able to look after Baby Three right now, even for a few minutes while a put a load in the washer, she needs to come with. I suppose I could leave her in the playpen (in the kitchen to keep her safely contained while I cook or wash dishes) but I don't like leaving her there when I'm out of the room. I can't leave her loose on the floor (on the second floor) when I'm in the basement -- even if she hasn't quite figured out the crawling thing, she does get around). So to take a load down when she's awake, I throw her in the basket or hamper with the dirty clothes and go bump-bump-bump backwards down the stairs. In the basement, she goes in her baby playstation (like a walker, but doesn't move). The dog usually joins us, and she tries to grab her as the dog walks by.
Once the laundry is in, it's back up the stairs to whatever we were doing. Folding and sorting takes place upstairs, with Baby Three playing on the floor usually.
It's not like Big T doesn't ever do laundry. He often puts in a load at night, and brings it up in the morning (because somehow that's always the load with uniform items).
But he thinks he's done when the laundry is clean and upstairs. Not folded, not sorted, and not put away. If I don't do that, it will sit in a basket in the living room or dining room for days. In fact, it often does. But I'm home more, so I'm trying to take care of that.
Even the days I'm home, though, the laundry really has to get done in the morning. By the afternoon, the day gets too busy. Last Friday, Baby T was in and out of the car nine times. Today looks much the same.

Mom day

Today I am a mom. It's 11 a.m. and I haven't showered yet. I have fed three kids breakfast, nursed and had floor time with Baby T. I've shortened pants for Big T and sewn up the split seam in Kid Two's school sweatpants (using the nifty blanket stitch I learned as part of a fourth-grade art project). I've spent an hour picking up -- dirty socks from the floor to laundry hamper, books from every room back into Kid One's room, empty juice boxes from Kid One's room to the trash, six (I counted) pens and pencils from the floor to receptacles on the desk and kitchen counter. I could spend another hour without coming close to running out of things that need to be put back in place.
And for today, this is nice. But I'm glad I get to go to work some days (where I should spend an hour cleaning my desk, come to think of it), and I'm glad that most days at home I have other things to do. If I were a full-time mom, I like to think my house would be cleaner, but it probably wouldn't. The only way it would be cleaner is if I worked a lot more and hired someone to clean. Or maybe when the kids grow up and someone invents a dog that doesn't shed.
The reason they call magazines like "Real Simple" (which features a $500 pair of boots; that's simple?) aspirational is that they show things -- wardrobes, meals, home decorating -- the way we would like them to be. I know that's how they are for some people -- I've seen some lovely homes, even some inhabited by children. But I've seen more that look like mine.
So I'll go on being thankful that I can be home some days and work some days. It's kind of like living in Chicago where you get to enjoy all four seasons, occasionally all in one day. And I'm thankful for Phyllis, our godsend of a babysitter, who makes it easier to leave Baby T on the days I do work. And I'm thankful Baby T is still sleeping, so I can go take a shower.

Transitions

We had some exciting news the other day ... Baby Three has a tooth! After what seemed like months of drooling and swollen gums, it pushed through on Sunday.
The next day I got up and dropped Kid One off at a South Side high school to spend the day shadowing a student, getting a glimpse of what high school life is like. Not that the vision is very real; I expect any school would choose those students likely to give a good impression to host middle school "shadows" and warn them to be on their best behavior. And the shadow day ended at 2:25 pm, with the end of the last period, well before I usually caused any trouble in my high school years.
Still, Kid One got to see a wider academic world than she has in elementary school, and she could imagine how she'd fit into that world. She will likely check out several other high schools before we choose.
In the meantime, Baby Three is fitting herself into our world, attending plays and hockey games and cross country meets and usually finding all of it a lot of fun. I hope that doesn't end as she becomes a toddler.
Truth be told, I wish she would stay a baby for a while. Watching Kid One and Two grow up, I have an idea of how fast it happens. We're already losing that toothless grin (for one that will be equally cute, but with teeth). Next thing you know, we'll be looking at high schools for her.

Forget me not

Forget me not






Have you ever heard the phrase “she’s forgotten more than you’ll ever know about (insert topic here)” whatever, as a way of saying how much someone knows?

I think I have. I forgot who said it.

I forget a lot of stuff these days.

I forget to blog (for almost a month).

I forget to bring the stuff I need. That might be something to do with how much stuff I have to bring with me. Keys, breast pump, various breast pump parts, wallet, did I mention keys?, insulin, glucose monitor … the list goes on. When I leave for work in the morning I’m schlepping enough stuff for a short expedition to the Himalayas.

I forget to leave home the stuff that needs to stay. Like the car seat, when Big T needs to take Baby Three to the sitter.

I forget to sign school papers, and if I don’t RSVP to a party invitation as soon as I get it, I often forget that too.

I forget who has heard which stories.

I forget the names of people I’ve just met, and those who I’ve known for a long time. They usually come to me sooner or later.

So far, I haven’t forgotten anything really important, like one of my kids. I might run late, but I always know where they are and that I have to get them.

Someone did a study about why middle-aged women (and I think they would include me in that group) are so forgetful. The hypothesis seemed to be that it was hormonal. Turns out that the brains of middle aged women are no more forgetful than anyone else’s. It’s just that they have too much to remember.

Add in the sleep deprivation that comes from three widely spaced children, and it’s a recipe for forgetfulness. So I’ll keep making calendar notes and reminder lists and looking and listening for clues to the identity of the person I’m talking to. And if I’m lucky, I’ll forget everything I’ve forgotten.

What’s in a name blanket?

Kid Two is missing a blanket. Not just any blanket – his name blanket.

My aunt has given name blankets – like knitted afghans, with their names repeating on one side and a design like hearts or teddy bears on the other – to all of her great nieces and nephews, 16 of them I think – shortly after they were born. Kid Two’s had blue binding and teddy bears.

When we got Baby Three’s, I wanted to take a picture of all of them with their blankets, but we couldn’t find Kid Two’s. I didn’t really worry at first; it’s a crowded house, and things have a way of turning up when you least expect them. But it’s been months, and there has been no sign of it. We’ve searched his room, our room, the cedar chest, boxes of baby things in the basement … no luck. I know we’ve had it within the past two years -- that is, after he moved into his room – because I remember spreading it out on his bed.

So where is it? Did he take it on a trip and forget to bring it home? That’s how Kid One lost her beloved teddy bear last year. Was it in the basement during a flood, and someone tossed it because they didn’t realize its sentimental value and try to salvage it? It wouldn’t have been hard; the blanket is machine washable. Did Kid Two give it to me to put away for him, and now the memory of doing so has left the building? I don’t know.

Kid Two is disappointed that he doesn’t have what he regards as a major keepsake from his babyhood. I feel responsible. If only I were more organized, there would only be one place I would have put it, and there it would be. If only I made the big kids keep their rooms neater, with a place for everything and everything in its place, I would have noticed that it was out of place sooner, and would have had a better chance of backtracking and finding it.

My mother, I am sure, would not have lost it if it belonged to her child.

That thought crosses my mind, and I know it’s pointless. I don’t know how it got lost, so I don’t really know if I was the one responsible. Besides, I’m not my mother. I remember sometimes feeling I would never be able to live up to her standards. I wouldn’t be able to do all the things she can do, like sewing and fixing up furniture and cooking dinner from scratch every night and keeping the house just to the tolerable side of spotless.

I was right. I can’t. But there are lots of things that I do that she doesn’t, and I’ve more or less made my peace with setting my own standards. I can live with more mess and clutter, and I make use of prepared foods sometimes more than I would like, and that’s OK. Until something happens like losing Kid Two’s blanket.

Now Kid One sometimes tells me that she doesn’t know how she’ll ever grow up and do what I do. I get it, I really do, but I think she thinks I’m just trying to make her feel better when I say that she shouldn’t do what I do, she should do what she does, make her own way, and she’ll do just fine.

In the meantime, I’ll say a prayer to St. Anthony (“Tony, Tony, look around. Something’s lost that must be found.”) and hope he comes to my rescue.

Sling thing

One of the new things I have with Baby Three that did not have with the first two kids is a sling. It’s a ring sling – simply a length of cotton sewn on to two steel rings.

It was a gift from my sister, who swears by them. She’s used them with all her four kids.

I used it sometimes when Baby Three was smaller, but not as much as I use it now. When she was tiny, my arms didn’t get as tired holding her, and she just didn’t seem as comfortable.

Now that she’s a sturdy 7-month-old, I can use the sling to hold her on my hip, hands free. Depending on how I adjust the fabric, her hands can be free to reach out and grab things, or tucked in next to me. Her head bobs along just in front of my shoulder.

And I use it all the time. I use it at the skating rink when Frank has hockey practice. I use it to walk to get Caroline at her performing arts program and to walk the dog. I used it while waiting to renew my driver’s license.

I use the sling in a lot of situations where I might otherwise have used a stroller. It doesn’t completely replace a stroller; some walks get long and she gets heavy, and she’s uncomfortable in it when I sit down.

But for lots of things, it’s a lot simpler to more or less tie her to me and get on with my life.

What’s funny is the reactions I get. Store clerks talk to her, maybe because her head is up higher than most babies’. Two young mothers in line at the Secretary of State’s office asked if it really worked. People driving when I’m walking have done double-takes. I’ve heard them say, “That’s a baby in there!”

Baby Three just goes along for the ride. I tend to get a lot of compliments on how well-behaved she is. That’s a little silly; she’s an even-tempered baby (at least, as babies go) and she likes being close to me. Her contentment does not signal super self-control, just a lack of things to complain about.

So thanks to my sister for the sling – the colors she picked coordinate well with just about everything in my wardrobe – and teaching me how to use it.

Thanks to Baby Three for enjoying it. And yes, that is a baby in there.

HAK

Everyone loves to hug and kiss babies.

They’re soft and cuddly and when they snuggle fuzzy little heads into your neck and shoulder, you can’t resist leaning over and kissing them.

When you blow raspberry kisses on their bellies and they giggle, you do it again. And again.

When they reach for your face, you catch their hands and nibble at their fingers.

Twelve-year-olds? Not so much. We’re long past getting kisses in the schoolyard; now I don’t always get a kiss before school at all. Kid One is more likely to friend me on a social networking site than to hug me when she gets out of school, or text me “HAK.”

Even Kid Two doesn’t want to be too close to mom when his friends are around.

But Kid One and Kid Two both love to hug and kiss Baby Three just as much as I do. Seems that babies offer an acceptable outlet for the urge to be affectionate even for big kids. Of course, one of Kid Two’s favorite ways to interact with Baby Three is to let her pull his hair … guess it takes all kinds.

The thing that I have learned watching the three of them is that the bigger kids still want and need affection … even if they won’t admit it and sometimes don’t even know it. As important as the hugs and kisses for babies are a quick backrub, high five or a quick kiss on the top of the head.

Kid Two has picked up a habit of making it a joke. “Mom,” he’ll say, all seriousness, “there’s something I have to tell you …” sounding like he broke the computer or let the dog out of the yard. Then he breaks into a grin and says, “I really love you.”

HAK indeed.

Hands

Baby Three has been making good use of her hands lately, at least from her perspective.

She used them to twirl her hair – short as it is – when she is sleepy, and to chew on when her gums are bothering her. She uses them to grab anything within reach – cell phones are a favorite, and anyone with a coffee cup had best keep it well away from her. Her favorite thing to grab is hair – she prefers Kid Two’s auburn locks, but since he got his back-to-school haircut, that’s not as easy as it once was. So she’ll settle for mine, Big T’s, Kid One’s, the lady in the chair in front of us at hockey registration (sorry!); if it’s hair, it was put on earth for her to pull it.

While she’s going about developing her fine motor skills, I’m having fun watching her hands. They’re chubby baby hands, with dimples at the knuckles and a crease at the wrist. The fingers are slender and long, and their joints are clearly articulated. If she wants to, I think she has a future as a piano player.

Other than the baby fat, they remind me of the hands of Kid One, who, alas, gave up the piano because it took too much practice. But now Kid One likes to wear polish on the long nails that go with the long fingers, and the other day she was wearing a ring. Costume jewelry, yes, but she’s lightyears beyond the plastic Halloween spider rings.

Kid Two’s hands no longer look like baby hands anymore, either. His have turned into boy hands, already showing signs of the man hands he will have as he gets older. The fingers are broad and not as long, with blunt ends and short nails, the better for hockey and baseball.

When Baby Three is with me, she uses her hands to touch me, all the time. She puts them on my arms and face and shoulders. And it’s not just me; she’ll do that to just about anyone holding her.

The big kids, of course, don’t touch as much any more. That goes with the territory. But this spring, when I took Kid Two to a baseball game, he held my hand when we walked from the parking lot into the stadium. It felt wonderful.

I’ve got some time before Baby Three progresses to handholding, but then I’ve got a few years left. Another thing to give thanks for.

Oh so quiet

This must be what it was like when Kid One was a baby.


It’s quiet in the house.

There’s no TV, no Wii or Playstation, no texts pinging back and forth. I can hear the birds in the tree outside my window.

Today is the first day of school for Kid One and Kid Two. Big T and I (and now Baby Three) both went to drop them off, but there’s no more going in with them and seeing their teach and helping them find their desks.

Kid One – now in seventh grade – hopped out of the car almost as soon as it was in park and said she see us after school. Kid Two and walked to the door fourth grade enters, and I waited until the bell rang to make sure he got all his school supplies inside. Then I said hello to a few parents and went back to meet Big T and Baby Three in the car and we stopped for a cup of coffee on the way home.

When Kid One was this age, the end of summer didn’t mean any more than a change in the weather. No one was going back to school.

When Kid Two was this age, it was a big, big change for him – his big sister was suddenly gone all day.

For Baby Three, it’s more complicated. Her big sibs are often gone, even in the summer, and there were plenty of summer days when both were at camp, although there were also lots of days when one or both was home.

When the are “home,” it often means that we are all on the move. Yesterday Baby Three and I took Kid Two for his back-to-school haircut, then took him to a hockey conditioning session.

That’s another change; when Kid One was a baby, I don’t think I ever would have taken her from the warm summer air to spend an hour in a chilly ice rink. With Baby Three, I just brought some fleece pjs to put on her while Kid Two suited up, then held her close to me in a sling so she wouldn’t get cold.

Everyone talks about how parents are so much more careful with first children, sterilizing pacifiers and whatnot. That’s true, to an extent. I don’t think I would have been so calm removing dog toys from Kid One’s mouth as I am with Baby Three (and gently reminding Kid Two that everything goes in her mouth, so please don’t give her the dog toys).

But for the bonus baby, life is much busier than for first children or even those whose siblings are still young. In some ways, I think it is also richer.

The Haircut

Kid One got her hair cut yesterday.
It's a lovely bob, between her chin and her shoulders, very stylish and very easy.
For us, this was a big deal.
Pre-haircut, her think, wavy hair spilled more than halfway down her back. When it was clean and brushed, it was beautiful.
But it was hard to maintain. Kid One has lots of hair, and with it being so long, washing it was difficult for her to do by herself. If we washed it at night, it would still be wet in the morning. If I tried to blow dry it for her, I felt like my arm would fall off before it was done.
Brushing it had a way of setting our mornings off on the wrong foot. She would make a valiant effort, but she couldn't get the layers underneath combed out. If she did it herself more than one day, it would develop snarls that could be compared to the Gordian knot. So most mornings I would brush it, and I would start to hear the litany of "Ouch! That hurts, Mom! Are you almost done? You're hurting me!"
Keep in mind that I was never trying to hurt -- only to get her hair brushed as gently as possible before school or camp or wherever she had to be. So my litany was, "I'm sorry. I know. I'll be done when I stop brushing."
For the last several months, she's been talking about getting her cut. She's looked at styles and decided to do it and decided not to do it.
Finally, it was time. She wanted it done before school starts on Wednesday, so off we went to the salon.
The stylist looked at the pictures Kid One brought with and made a couple of suggestions to make them work with Kid One's face, then braided her hair into four thick plaits and snipped them all off and handed them to me.
Then she got to work on a style that can be blown straight and curled under, or allowed to dry in its natural waves. Brushing time is minimal.
Kid One looked a little nervous in the chair, but smiled when it was done. She keeps looking in the mirror, like she's seeing something else, and swinging her hair around. "It's so freakin' weird!" she said.
And as soon as we got home, she made me throw away those four braids. She was ready to move on.

Nursing with the big kids

A week or so after we brought Baby Three home from the hospital, my sister sent me an invitation to a Facebook group called something like “If you don’t want to see a baby nursing throw a blanket over your head.”

I laughed and clicked the “like” button.

I have nursed all three of my children, and it seems to have done all of us good. I know that it doesn’t work for everyone, and it was not always easy or pleasant – especially with Kid One, when neither one of us really knew what we were doing at first – and it is time-consuming and tiring. But the rewards, to me, make all the time and the occasional pain more than worth it.

Because once you get the hang of it, it is pleasant. It feels good for me and the baby. It gives her the nutrition she needs, nutrition made just for her, and it makes me sit down for a time and just hold her close.

I’ve also never seen the point of hiding away to feed my babies; especially at the beginning, when they want to nurse all the time, that would be really isolating.

But I’d also never nursed a baby with a 9-year-old boy in the house. I wasn’t sure how that would go.

Turns out, I needn’t have worried. Somewhere around the time my sister sent me that Facebook invitation, Kid Two—the 9-year-old—said to me, “I thought it would be weird having the baby feeding from you all the time. But it’s really just normal.”

And we went on with our lives. Baby Three has nursed at youth hockey games and minor league baseball games, in restaurants and parks, in the car, you name it. It boggles my mind to hear about mothers being hassled for nursing in public. It’s never happened to me with any of my kids. I’ve gotten a few strange looks, yes, which I’ve simply returned until the other person stopped staring. I have been offered more private places to nurse, if it would make me more comfortable, which I generally decline politely.

Don’t get me wrong—I try to be discreet about it, and I’ve found that if I don’t make a fuss, most people don’t even notice what I’m doing. At home, Kids One and Two often have to ask if I’m nursing Baby Three or just holding her, because it can be hard to tell. But yes, my son has seen my nipples when I’m getting Baby Three latched on or taking her off. No, he doesn’t seem embarrassed by that. I’m actually a little proud that he will grow up with the knowledge that women’s breasts serve a real purpose. Maybe it will make him a tad more respectful as he goes through adolescence.

Now that Baby Three is closing in on seven months, we actually nurse in public less and less, not because of any embarrassment but because she is so tuned in to the world around her, it’s hard for her to focus on nursing with a lot of other people around. I find myself shooing Kids One and Two out of the bedroom when I’m feeding her in the interests of getting some milk in her in a reasonable amount of time. Otherwise, she keeps stopping to look at them. She seems to be trying to make them laugh; when she succeeds, she laughs, too.

Dreams of greatness

I asked Kid Two – the boy – if he wanted to try out for a competitive travel baseball program. Truth be told, I was hoping he would say no.
He loves all things sports-related, and we do our best to encourage him to play. He’s a naturally well coordinated kid, and does well in most sports where size is not a huge advantage. Huge he’s not.
But I think 9 is a little young to make a year-round (or almost year-round) commitment to a sport, and that’s what this would have been. Fall league games and practices. Winter indoor instruction. Spring and summer leagues and practices.
And, from Kid Two’s perspective, there probably wouldn’t be time for hockey.
Hockey at any level also requires a commitment; after all, hockey skills such as passing, shooting, stealing all have to be done while skating. That means lots of time practicing, and practicing at an ice rink.
But at the level at which Kid Two plays, the commitment is limited by the length of the season. It’s a long season – September to March – but it does come to an end, and it is possible to participate in a recreational baseball league when hockey comes to an end.
Anyway, Kid Two said no to the baseball program for this year. But he wanted to leave his options open. Maybe next year, he said, if he has a bad year in hockey and a good summer in baseball. He’s got to make a choice eventually, he said. You can’t grow up and be both a professional hockey player and a professional baseball player.
He’s on the cusp of the age when reality sets in; it won’t be so long before he realizes that very, very few people are professional athletes in any sport.
I’ve watched Kid One start to realize that she will most likely never be a pop star. After all, she’s 12, and Disney hasn’t discovered her yet. She also will never be an Olympic gymnast or figure skater, although I don’t think she seriously ever wanted to be.
As adults, we tell kids they can be whatever they want. Sometimes it comes as a bit of a rude awakening when they realize that they can be whatever they want – within limits. Most important to me is that they are people of integrity, who know that happiness comes not from personal pleasure, but from rich relationships with other people. The rest is icing on the cake.
In the meantime, Frank doesn’t have to decide yet between baseball and hockey. And who knows? If he makes it to professional baseball or hockey, I’ll be there to cheer him on.

In defense of real glasses

There's something about a real drinking glass. It's smooth and heavy. When filled with iced tea or water from the refrigerator, it's pleasantly cool to the touch. When you put ice in it, it makes a satisfying clinking sound. And it never tastes of plastic.
I recently rediscovered the pleasures of real glassware. For at least 11 years, since Kid One started drinking from cups, we have been a plastic house. First the plastic cups that come with restaurant kid meals, and then souvenir cups from the zoo. Now it's mostly souvenir cups from sporting events -- White Sox, Cubs, Bears, even the Gary Railcats. Over the years we've even used and reused plastic party cups.
Plastic makes a certain amount of sense; it won't break and it's light enough for small children to control easily. That's why they use it for sippy cups (at least I assume so).
But even though we still have one in diapers (and are a long way from seeing the end of that), Big T, my husband, made the move to real glass earlier this year. This summer, I joined him.
Drinks, even the non-alcoholic kind, taste better. Sitting down with a tall glass of something cold feels more like a break from routine; it encourages sipping, not swigging.
So here's to drinking from real glasses. Maybe next year we move on to cloth napkins.

Tired? Who's tired?

When people find out we had a baby nine years after our next-youngest child, they can't seem to resist joking about how tired I must be. They seem to want to relive their baby-days, looking back at what they recall as endless sleepless nights with what I can only think is schadenfreude.
The truth is, I am tired. But not necessarily because of Baby Three.
While some babies never want to sleep through the night, she's been enjoying seven to eight hours straight of peaceful slumber since she was about three months old. Sure, there are occasional night disturbances. I chalk them up to teething, or growth spurts, or whatever other nebulous cause comes to mind.
But by the time she's ready to sack out -- usually between 9 and 10 p.m. -- I'm about ready to join her.
Unfortunately, that's about the time my 12-year-old, Kid One, comes awake and wants to talk or walk or the dog or do anything but think about going to bed.
I know lots or research shows that adolescent brains are just wired to keep later hours, staying up late at night and sleeping later in the morning, and she's entering those years. I know she's not trying to make me feel bad for having to stifle yawns as she tells me about the plot of the book she's reading, or the latest friend drama, with nearly every sentence ending in "y'know?" in an attempt to keep me paying attention.
I feel like I should apologize for being tired, for not being grateful that she wants to talk to me at all these days. Then I remember when I was about her age, and my mom had just had a baby and made a nightly habit of falling asleep on the couch before 10 p.m. Now I know where she was coming from.
And I remember saying to my mother after Kid One was born, "Does this mean I'm going to be tired for the next 18 years?" She was one of those never-wants-to-sleep babies.
My mom said, "I think it's going to be longer than that."

Bonus Baby

As I type, Baby Three is on my lap, alternately grousing and sucking her fingers. At almost seven months, she has quite a lot of catching up to her brother, sitting on the couch eating strawberries, and her sister, lying on the couch reading.
Baby Three was quite a surprise when we found out she was coming; my husband and I had always wanted more, but they never came along, and after more than eight years, we thought we were done having kids. People make strategic plans and God laughs, and we ended up with a bouncing baby girl, squeezing a fifth person into our small, barely-three-bedroom apartment.
She has changed our lives in ways we never could have imagined. Now we inhabit multiple worlds: two working adults, one self-employed at least part time; a tween girl, who embraces drama as her natural way of expressing herself and considers the disarray in her bedroom an ongoing work of performance art; a sports-crazed boy, who seems to take to any activity that involves hitting a small projectile with a long stick (hockey, baseball, golf); and Baby Three, who gets hauled from school drop-off to hockey practice to rehearsal and never seems to miss a beat.
Life certainly more disorganized now, but I wouldn't trade a minute.