Just Jump Right In

So here we are. Late summer. The leaves are beginning to fall already (how is that possible?). It seems early for that but I swear they started yesterday. But I'm not complaining.

Leo is on the cusp of second grade. I keep talking about how school is starting soon, the bus is going to start coming again, he'll get to see Mrs L. and his buddy Terry. "No!" he says. Mrs. L. made an adorable end of the year DVD and handed it out in June, a montage of all the fun projects and field trips and lessons (there was Leo on the class trip to the farm, there was Leo making pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, there was Leo planting beans in the school's organic garden). Guess which DVD he's asked to watch over and over and over this summer? Yes, I think he'll be just fine when the little bus pulls up to the house in a few weeks, even though he claims to not want to go back to "big school."


The good news is, his vocabulary seems to be exploding. The bad news? He's getting tougher to understand as words and sentences become more complex. I can only suppose the culprit for this is uncooperative oral tone. I feel like I keep waiting for his speech to get better but it's just not. And he's seven. And there's no more room for excuses. It's breaking my heart and it's frustrating us all. As he gets older, he's less patient with us and I don't blame him. First priority: scheduling a meeting with his school speech therapist, stat, to see if he can get more speech added to his IEP and also maybe supplement with some private therapy. I'm the first to be skeptical about throwing a bunch of therapy at something but hey, it's worth a shot. And what other options do we have? It's our responsibility to help him be the best he can be, to help him be able to connect with the world.

In Ellie news, I just signed her up for three classes (ballet/jazz, swimming and gymnastics) and I don't know who I think I am, carting around newborn babies in the middle of the day who should be home napping. But I know myself and I know her. We need to be busy. And if she doesn't stop pulling her Mary Lou Retton routine with the couch cushions I'm going to stab myself. This girl needs a tumbling mat.

Speaking of Ellie, she has been such a trooper lately. Both kids have. I keep waiting for some signs of frustration with the babies but seriously you have never seen two more proud and doting older siblings. As I've said before, sometimes they are almost too crazy about the babies. I find myself telling them to leave the babies alone constantly. Leo, especially, makes it his personal mission to soothe a crying baby. If there is a pacifier around, he will try his darndest to get it in and No One Can Stop Him.

The hardest are the evenings, when the babies are crying and overtired (and the grown-ups would often like to cry). Erin is with Leo and I'm with the babies and Ellie is whining for "just one more" back-rub. Bedtimes are as hectic as you can imagine with four and seem to take hours lately. I know it won't always be this way, we'll find our routine. The babies will someday have an actual bedtime and I'll get my quiet, unhurried moments back with the kids (and Erin and myself).




I'm slowly finding my little way on maternity leave as a stay at home mom, trying to figure out how to find meaning in the minutiae, or not (sometimes laundry is just laundry). Mainly I'm just trying to stay in the "now" and enjoy this time. This baby time. It's not going to last. It's so different with two (though I'm sure it would be different with one as well, when there are two older ones to tend to). It feels like there is less time for "bonding." Heck, bonding would be positively luxurious. We're in maintainance mode here. Keep them fed, clean, diapers changed, hopefully not crying too much. Of course there are little windows of snuggle time and one on one and I cherish those.


They are both beginning to smile and coo and do that delightful little baby chatter and it is killing me with the cuteness. They both, upon awakening give me giant smiles and that little look of recognition as if to say, "Hey! I know you! And I like you!"

And there is that little issue of Harry being hungry all the time.

(Thanks to our friends Ben and Lisa for these amazing pictures.) I thought I'd give you all a break from the iPhone photos and give you a little glimpse of our summer (didn't think you'd want pictures of bedtime).