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To my sweet Caitlyn-

5 years ago today, you came in to the world in a fury with a shock of thick black hair amidst a ton of drama. Drama is what sums you up in a single word. You feel everything so much more than the average person. When you are sad, it is earth shattering. When you are angry, mountains move. And when you are happy, sunshine and rainbows stream from the sky.

I remember when you were still in my belly, wondering what you would be like. Who would you be? From the time you were a few weeks old, I knew that you were special. I remember telling Aunt Marisa about it when we visited her for the first time after you were born. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but yes, certainly special.

Your face, the twinkle in your eye, and your smile light up any room. And you are a girl who knows what she wants, and always makes sure to get her way. You just have that look; nobody can say no to you. When you woke up this morning and squeezed me tight, immediately you said “Mama, I’m 5! I’m 5 Mama!!”. I know. God, I know, and I can barely believe it.

This year you learned to write all of your letters, read small words, tie your shoes, and the words to EVERY Justin Bieber song. You love iCarly and Big Time Rush. You had your ears pierced a few weeks ago, an early birthday gift because you “just wanted to get it over with”. It seems like you’ve gone from little girl to big girl over night. Slow down a bit, ok? I’m not ready for you to be so big yet. You’ll be going to Kindergarten in a few weeks. I know you’re nervous, but it is going to be great, I know it.

So Happy Happy Birthday, Baby. I love you more than you know,

Mama

A Few Days Old

One

Two

Three

Four

Five!

Oh, I have been having so much fun reading Jess’ posts and tweets about everything baby. She reminds me so much of myself during my first pregnancy that it is kind of scary. And yesterday, when she was talking about baby buntings and winter gear, I was reminded of what a fiasco it was to actually get out of the hospital with Bud.

Bud was born on January 7, 2004 in what was the coldest January Buffalo had experienced in a very long time. Now, upon entry to the hospital, I didn’t notice the cold because I was SO! HOT! , but trust me when I say it was really freaking cold. And I had prepared for it too. Bud’s going home outfit was a 5 piece Winnie the Pooh number, consisting of pants, a t-shirt and a light cotton cardigan, along with a hat and booties. I also brought the blue furry bunting received as a gift from my great Aunt Delores, and the knitted oversized afghan my mother gave me as a gift. And you know, a whole duffle bag of other things I would never possibly need, but wanted to have just in case (like my own diapers….seriously) So, you know, I was ready!

When we were released, the afternoon of January 9th, I was so excited to get him dressed and place him in our car for the first time. I was not as excited that getting dressed for me involved putting on the same maternity clothes that I had come in wearing. I took him from the bassinette and laid him on the bed and went about getting his clothes on. It turned out, that Bud was not at all happy about being naked and being maneuvered in to clothing. It seemed that he was perfectly content in the hospital blanket and snapped on undershirt. Clearly we weren’t taking him home like that though, and we persevered in getting him dressed. And after what seemed like an eternity, he was dressed, and I was ready to get him in to his car seat.

PISSED! at the injustice of having to wear clothes

The car seat scared me, I’m not going to lie. The straps and harnesses, and his small body…yeah, it was scary. And let’s just say, that it took me a few weeks before I strapped Bud in to the car seat on my own. And even longer before I popped the seat in to the base in my car by myself. I know. But anyway..

There we were, ready to take him home, so out came the blue fuzzy bunting and the blanket. I got Bud in to it, and he resembled a stuffed cookie monster doll, but with a lot of extra fur. The bunting was not only too big on him, but also WAY too big to even consider placing him in to the car seat in. Of course, I panicked. What were we going to do? It was like -7 degrees outside!! We were going to kill our baby before we even had a chance to get him home, or worse, the hospital staff was going to take him away from us for being IDIOTS! (me especially)

My super-calm husband took the baby and strapped him in the car seat as is. He then layered the extra large afghan up over and around the baby. Then he went downstairs and drove the already warmed up car right up to the hospital door, where the nurses wheeled me, and where he popped Bud in with nary a peep. I sat next to him in the back on our first car ride home, watching him breathe, making sure he was warm, and working hard to not feel like a failure on my first day out in the world as a mom.

But soon we were home, and we settled in to a routine, and the days turned in to weeks, months and now, years. Bud will be 7 this January (“7 on the 7th “he remarked to me last week, “Isn’t that cool??!!”) and he remembers nothing of that first car ride home. And maybe someday he’ll wonder why there are no photos of him in his car seat like his sisters, preparing for his first trip out in to the world, but I don’t think he’ll ever wonder whether or not he was loved, or cared for, or whether or not we kept him safe and warm.

The first baby is kind of an anomaly. Although you’re the adult, you really are learning together. I didn’t make the same mistakes with Bud’s sisters. I packed lighter and smarter for the hospital. I knew more. I knew how to dress and handle babies (though nothing could prepare me for girl drama). I think that’s part of what makes Bud, my firstborn, so special. Each of my kids is special for their own reasons, but my Bud….he taught me how to be a mom.

And that is pretty awesome.

In the Spring of 1994, I sat down next to my future husband on the school bus. We made small talk. I complained about my loser boyfriend. We continued to chit chat on the rides home through May and June, and on the last day of school, we traded yearbooks. In my usual fashion, I scrawled “KIT!” along with my phone number.

I really didn’t give him any thought in those first couple weeks of summer vacation. I wasn’t really aware that he still kept in touch with my BFF Melissa who had moved to another town our freshman year. By fate though, I called her while she was on the other line with him. They had an extra ticket to Darien Lake, our local theme park, and he suggested that I join them. I couldn’t even tell you today how I got my mother to say yes to driving an hour in a car with an 18-year-old boy she’d never met, but I did.

And from there, we were inseparable; the best of friends. I knew that I had feelings for him, but was not sure that he felt the same. My mother, who had said at first “You are 15 years old, Sara. You are not dating an 18-year-old.”, had changed her tune and wondered when we would get together. Still though, I was worried that he didn’t like me like that.

But then, as we spent the weekend at Melissa’s father’s place watching Woodstock ’94 on pay per view, it all became clear. And after he’d left and I stayed behind, the phone rang and Melissa put it to my ear. That day, Ed asked me to be his girlfriend, and 16 years later to the day, we have never looked back.

Happy 16 years to my Hub and me, and here’s to 116 more.

Ed and me in our high school cafeteria, 1994

Do you know that the most common search that leads people to my blog is “night time potty training”? I guess I’ve talked about it a lot. It’s been a big deal in our house for a very long time.

Bud was day trained by the time he was 2.5/3. We kept pull-ups on him at night, as I think most parents do in the beginning, but instead of tapering off, the need for them remained consistent. I think we just assumed that at some point, he would stop needing the pull up. We tried once, just letting him go without, a little while before he turned 4. It was a bust. We tried again, more diligently, with middle of the night wake-ups in the months after he turned 4, when I was pregnant with Liv. (those are the posts referenced above) At this time, Lucy had potty trained herself and was staying dry through the night with no effort. It was upsetting to Bud, so we were trying hard, but after endless frustration, again we gave up.

We used Pull-Ups, and then as he grew, Good Nights and Under Jams because he produced more urine, leaking through more often than not. We had conversations with our pediatrician, consulted the internet, and ultimately decided to just wait it out and let him grow out of it.

And then in September, he went to kindergarten and made friends. There was talk of sleepovers (though if I’m being honest, I probably wouldn’t let him sleep at another kids house for a few more years). There was talk of his friends not knowing that he was a bed wetter. And there was embarrassment. And so, again after talking with our pediatrician, we put a plan in place to move forward this past March just after he turned 6. We started with him still in the Good Night, and began waking him twice nightly to pee. It worked, however, we realized we weren’t getting an accurate picture of when and how often he was peeing. So we moved to a rubber sheet and no pull-up, at which point we determined 1. He was peeing 3-4 times a night, and 2. He never ever woke up no matter how wet he or the bed was.

It was a sleep issue. He was in such a sound sleep, he missed the “I have to pee” cue and just let it go. We continued to wake him up twice a night, to get him in the habit of getting up to go pee. After a few weeks of success, we tried to let him go it alone, and it was a huge fail. He was frustrated, we were frustrated, and we were all exhausted. TEH Internets told me to buy one of those alarms that sense the wetness and wake the kid up. All I could think of was the episode of Diff’rent Strokes from when I was a kid and that red headed kid wore the pee alarm and Arnold put up an umbrella when it went off to avoid getting peed on. I didn’t want my kid to be traumatized in any way. But what were we to do?

So again, we spoke to the doctor who supported moving forward. I researched several alarms, some where a child would have to wear a panty liner in order for the alarm to detect the wetness, some that involved safety pins and elaborate wiring, others that were so expensive that I nearly fainted, and finally settled on the Wet Stop 3. We talked with Bud about what the alarm was and how it worked. That it clipped on to the front of his underwear and that the alarm piece clipped to his shoulder. That it would vibrate and beep to wake him up as soon as he started to pee. Then we watched a video online, showing a kid using it.

We received the alarm and started using it the first week of June. We tested it and showed Bud what it would feel like if it went off. We put it to use right away. For the first 2 or so weeks, the only person who heard the damn alarm was me. Bud slept right through. Gradually though, through waking him up while the alarm was still beeping and buzzing, he started doing it on his own. He was waking up mid-pee, and then later as soon as a drip hit his underwear he was up and going in the bathroom. It took longer than a lot of the reviews indicated, but finally, he was getting it. And on Monday after about 3 weeks of the alarm barely going off, he finally slept through the night without the aid of a parent, without wearing his alarm, and without wetting his bed. He got up on his own to go pee, and went back to bed.

He is so proud of himself (as evidenced by the burying of his head in the couch when I congratulated him), and we are ridiculously proud too. He stuck with it, and conquered it—my amazing little man.

And this my friends, is the official end (finally) of night time potty training.

I am tired. TIRED. The girls’ joint birthday party was on Saturday and I feel like I’ve been going non-stop since Friday. I left work on Thursday and Hub and I split up the kids to get the shopping done. Hub worked all day on Friday and I took the baby to daycare so I could do all the cooking. The big kids were home with me, and were crazy, of course, but I persevered, and actually got to bed at a reasonable hour. I think this is the most prepared we’ve ever been in advance.

And party day was perfect! The weather was awesome; not too hot and no humidity. The guests were happy, the food was good, there was much playing and talking and laughing. It may have been our best party yet. The girls both got a ton of gifts and Lucy loved her Justin Bieber cake. When she hugged me and told me how much she loved it and that it was the best day ever, I almost cried. Yes, it was a fabulous day.

The good thing about having a party in the park is that you need to be out by dusk. We were home soon after 9, all 3 kids filthy and exhausted went to bed immediately. And they were all up by 7 on Sunday morning, crabby and hungry. Hub and I were pretty tired too, so we made an executive decision and all went back to bed at 10:30 and slept until 1. It was pretty awesome. We spent the rest of the day cleaning up and putting party stuff away. I broke down gift bags and opened gifts and got that all organized, had some leftovers for dinner, showered the kiddos, and had everyone in bed by 8.

I spent some time uploading photos because I promised a lot of people photos of the Justin Bieber cake. Then I spent half the night lying awake in bed because I couldn’t shut my brain off…which is why this post is a rambly chain of events type post with no actual content…

So I’m going to stop typing now and show you some photos.

These are from my camera:

And these were taken by Hub’s cousin K with a fancy type camera and lens:

My Girls and me eating s’mores at The Taste of Buffalo a few weeks back.

The girls’ combined birthday party is this weekend so I must commence running around like a crazy person for the next 5 days to ensure everything is ready to go. We’re starting earlier this year, making it an all day affair at the park, so everything needs to be done before Saturday morning. (uh, not that I’ve ever been up, say, at 4am preparing for this party before..cough cough.)

Hub and I planned the menu and I made my preliminary, or what I call my crazy list, which houses everything we need to buy regardless of where or when. It looks like this:

My lunchtime task is to split this in to probably 4 more organized lists of items by store. Can you tell that I angrily wrote “CORN” on the list last night in a fit of rage? Hub and I decided on Saturday that there would be no corn. It doesn’t make sense. We will have snacks, involving a deli tray, around noon. Dinner around 3, and cake around 5. Throwing in a corn course just throws everything off. But at a party yesterday, my SIL mentioned how much she loved it that we had corn last year. LOVED IT! And so Hub told her that ‘of course we were having corn!!’, and well, now we’re having corn, despite the fact that I threw out more than half of what we cooked last year. Hub says to only buy half of what we bought then. I say KAPOW! because my head has just exploded.

Anyway, I took Friday off to get everything ready, and Liv and I are going to the farmer’s market near my mom’s tomorrow for produce and the Italian sausage. I feel like we’re in pretty good shape here. This is the 5th big summer party we’ve thrown, and we are starting to be pros. We’ve tweaked it year after year, and I think we have a really good handle on things. Our families talk about our summer bash all year long. (they still talk about what a great party our wedding was too–I guess we *are* good.)

I do need to come up with a better system for the girls opening their gifts though—last year was complete chaos and I had no idea who got what and from whom. Hub does all the cooking at the party, so by the time cake and gifts come around, he’s off playing with the boys. I’m also a little bit worried that with it being earlier in the summer than we’ve ever had it (in an effort to have it right in between the girls’ actual birthdays), that we’re going to get a lot of clearance summer clothing as gifts, instead of fall clothes. I always tell myself it’s not about the gifts—and it’s not—but I can’t help but to be infuriated when they get something they won’t even be able to use. Last year was good though. So I’m sure it will be fine.

Nevertheless, I will worry and stress about it all week. And undoubtedly think of numerous things that haven’t made it to my list. Like tablecloths. TABLECLOTHS!! Frick.

Are you one of these people who when in the grocery line grabs that divider to separate your goods from mine like the second mine touch the belt? Regardless of how close or far away they are? I really hope not, because if that’s the case, we can’t be friends anymore.

I got myself all worked up in to a tizzy yesterday, in all the hoopla of birthday cake, and for a while there, it seemed like I was going to crack just any fucking second. I managed to keep it under control, but let me give you a picture of the 2 or so hours between the time I left work yesterday, and the time where we actually sat down to dinner.

I left at 3:30 and spoke to Hub (who was having an awful day because his carpet cleaning machine broke down) who told me he was leaving xx town and was on his way home. Since I had to drive to my parent’s house to get the kids and then drive all the way home, I was sure that he’d be home before me. 45 minutes later, I was home and he wasn’t. This was the point where FIL told me that Aunt G was on her way over with her grand kids who are roughly Bud and Lucy’s age, to play in the yard. My house, you guys, was a shit hole. Hub hasn’t been home all week, and I’ve been exhausted and really just the bare minimum has been done. I wasn’t planning on doing a huge clean-up—I was going to wrap the baby’s gifts, run the vacuum, and leave the rest for Saturday when we don’t have to be anywhere until 4PM. Instead though, I was cleaning the bathroom, cleaning clutter from my counters, sweeping the kitchen floor and…well you get the picture. FIL assured me that they were just coming to play outside, but before I knew it, there were random children running through my house, checking out our bedrooms, having to pee, and asking for drinks and WHERE DOES LUCY KEEP HER SILLY BANDS and AAAAAAH!!! And I tried to be Zen about it, and avoid speaking to Hub through gritted teeth. I really did. I managed to wrap the gifts and I was getting plates out for dinner, and washing kids cups and just waiting for Hub to let me know when I was good to order the pizza. And he let me know when it was time, but also asked me to go to the store to pick up pop to save time, and since I was there could I deposit his checks for him and grab some milk, and BY THE WAY we are out of sugar for coffee!!

SO I grabbed my purse, met Hub in the driveway to grab the checks AND my niece, saw Aunt G and the kids off, told Hub he needed to take the tantruming baby with him to get the pizza, and we both left (leaving the big kids and my niece with FIL). I was starting to calm down. At least it was over, I would grab the few thing and deposit the checks and we’d all be home happily eating pizza in about 20 minutes. There’s no need to be worked up anymore.

And then of course, my math was wrong on the deposit slip so they had to correct and redeposit it. And as I tried to get the Pepsi, this whore of a woman blocked the aisle with her cart and stood on the bottom shelf to get the last 3 bottles from the top. I finally got past her and got my pop from the display up front, grabbed the rest of my crap, and carried my very heavy basket to the express lane. And of course, aisle blocking pop stealing whore was right in front of me. Standing at the very back of the belt taking up all the room although all she had was the pop, some laundry soap and a frozen pot pie. And when she finally moved enough to where I could get my basket up there and get my milk, pop and sugar on the belt, she turned around with a sneer, and faster than I could blink, grabbed the divider to separate our groceries. Which were the only ones on the belt. At least 6 inches apart. And this is when my head exploded in to 2.7 million tiny pieces. SERIOUSLY?? I don’t think our groceries are going to get mixed up. I don’t think the world will end if my milk jug accidentally touches your pot pie. I think we’re both smart enough to say something to the cashier if she doesn’t realize the gap between our items and maniacally tries to charge you for and force you to leave with my groceries. YOU LOON!

I wish I could have or would have said something…ANYTHING! But, it’s not worth it. Right? It’s easier for me to vent about it here. And thankfully the rest of the night, even having my niece sleep over unexpectedly and having to drive her home on my way to work this morning. It was fine. All I cared about was singing “Happy Birthday” to my girl and watching her open gifts. I got to do that; she got the great birthday she deserved, and that’s what matters.

(but damn if that chick in the grocery store didn’t set off my desire to just stab someone!)

Hi Banana Berry-

I wonder how long it will be before you stop letting me call you all these crazy names. I know right now, that you like it very much, and when you aren’t thrilled with a particular name on any given day, you stop me and say “No, I Hannah Banana”, or, “No, I Dora.” And I comply, because I love you and I am happy to do anything that makes you happy.

Making you happy isn’t such a big job though. You are difficult at times, because you always know what you want. And I am ok with that, unless what you want is to stay up until 11PM when you have to be up early in the morning. You need your sleep. I’m your mom, I have to say that. But generally, it doesn’t take a lot to keep you happy. Some Dora, some cantaloupe, a graham cracker here and there along with unlimited opportunities to play outside, and you are good.

You amaze me every single day, Han. I kind of thought that after already having 2 babies before you that I was done being amazed. And boy do you prove me wrong. The words, the songs, the comprehension and the desire to be just like your big brother and sister blow me away. I wish that I could behave with reckless abandon like you do, running full speed and diving belly first on to a swing, squealing with joy as you soar in the air. I hope you never lose this zest. It will serve you well in life.

So what have you accomplished this year? SO much. You had tubes put in your ears, and were finally healthy. You survived your first bout of the barfing flu. You finally, at the 20-months old, started sleeping through the night. Thanks for that, by the way. A lot. You mastered running, jumping, singing and dancing. You love to laugh and probably just as much, love to make people laugh. You grew enough hair where we finally got you a haircut last month. You moved in to a big girl bed, and you are potty trained. You have turned in to a big girl right before my eyes.

Happy birthday, my baby girl, and many many more.

I love you to the moon,

Mama

Last Belly Shot 7/29/08

Just Born 7/29/08

1st Birthday 7/29/09

1st Birthday 7/29/09
2 Years Old 7/29/10

This is quite possibly my favorite photo of my kids, EVER. It is so them.