Last week a friend invited Dexter over for a play date and that gave me the opportunity for some much needed alone time with my eldest. Well, he did have to share for a little while as we attended Rory's school egg hunt and then transferred Dexter from Papa's office to his play date, but when you live in a family like ours....having any time one-on-one with mama or papa counts for something. This boy of mine is changing so fast. And he is caught in a funny place between childhood and the teen years where the tears still come easily and hugs are still frequent...but so is eye-rolling and biting comments thrown over his shoulder when he doesn't appreciate our existence. All of that tension seems to dissipate whenever he gets some time alone with one of us, however. Then he is simply charming and silly, grateful and enthusiastic. You can see his little spirit being fed by the attention. He is a good sport of being the oldest of three most of the time, but those first four years of "lonely only" certainly made a lasting impression. For our day, we went out for breakfast and I did not say a word when he ordered hot chocolate with whipped cream and pancakes with whipped cream... I did not even say a word when he ate three bites of his pancakes and declared himself full. After Rory's egg hunt, I told him I would take him to do anything he wanted... and he chose an old standard: Video games at the library. Since turning 8 and being old enough to hang out in the "tween" side of the children's floor, the library is a frequent request. I suppose I could have fussed about it not being "quality time" as he zombie-d out in front of the screen and I browsed the shelves and picked out books, but we had spent the morning chatting at breakfast and it was not about spending time with him really... it was about valuing him, and the quickest way to Liam's heart is directly through video games.
After a couple of hours, we headed back home for leftover pizza and more video games. And after it was all said and done, he threw his arms around my middle and said, "Thank you for this day, Mama. I loved spending it with you." And that is enough to keep me tagging along for video game days until the day I die.
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"Mama! Take a picture of it!"
Dexter is always so patient and determined in the butterfly area of the aquarium. When he finally coaxes one onto his finger, he is elated. This is basically how I feel when I can convince him to sit in my lap for a minute and give me a cuddle. Oh, how I love this freckle-faced, gapped tooth trouble-maker. "Let's be spontaneous!" I am sure statements such as these make my long-suffering husband cringe and wonder what sort of mess I am going to get him into this time. But, after a dozen years, he has apparently learned that whatever the mess, it can't be as bad as the pout-session awaiting him if he rains on my parade. He is usually willing to go along with my crazy. This time, all my crazy entailed was a last-minute trip up to Knoxville, to visit the zoo I had been trying to get up and see since we had to skip it on our road trip last summer. Ryan probably breathed an internal sigh of relief and promptly agreed. From decision to departure, we took all of thirty minutes to dress, pack and get on the road. Zoos are one of those anxiety-causing conundrums for me. Are they good? Are they bad? Should we be boycotting them? Should we be supporting them? It was years before I broke down and got a membership to our local zoo, but articles such as this one (and others like it) finally convinced me that good zoos do important work and can be important tools in instilling a love of the earth and all its inhabitants in my children. So, I try to do a little bit of preliminary research about the zoo before we visit, and the Knoxville zoo has some really neat conservation efforts and projects and, while the exotic animals were exciting, of course, I also really loved their emphasis on local wildlife and their efforts to protect it. We arrived just a few hours before they closed so we did not even begin to see everything, but the boys had a great time and the Kid's Cove area, complete with a playground, sand pit, and petting area was a HUGE hit. Rory once again showed us how much he takes things in, by examining and exclaiming over every animal. Animals are this kid's happy place. He should live on a farm, for real. We did not hit every exhibit but we saw some pretty neat animals that are not at our local zoo. My favorite part was spending a long time watching a gorilla mama nurse and love on her baby. Dexter's legs were VERY tired so he spent a lot of time with a bird's eye view from Papa's poor shoulders. Liam was able to read the information and maybe because he was in a new and different place, he spent a lot more time educating himself about the different animals than he usually does at home. He was most excited about the gibbons! Although, perhaps our favorite quote of the day was said as we were on on our way to see the gorillas and chimps. Liam passed a display about the animals and veered off track quickly, exclaiming enthusiastically, "Hey! Look! Buttons!" If that doesn't sum up my tech kid, I am not sure what does. We stayed until the zoo closed and then decided not to rush home and headed to downtown Knoxville for dinner at The Tomato Head and some gelato instead. The weather was perfect, everything was delicious and... I never knew how adorable Knoxville was. Ryan was surprised too! It is definitely going to be a more frequent day trip for our family. We saw a lot of things we would like to check out next time. Thank you for the lovely time, Knoxville! The Haddock family will be back!
After spending an afternoon sifting through old blog posts and feeling immensely grateful for the record I created of things I might not otherwise remember, I have made a commitment to start recording our day-to-day once more. Who knows if it will stick, but I am really going to try. What better way to start than by remembering our most festive St. Patrick's Day ever! We did not really set out to celebrate St. Patrick's Day so thoroughly, it just sort of happened, but it was a happy surprise. I had grabbed some foil tattoos from Target's dollar spot (the deals, they call to me!) and t-shirts for the littles a couple of weeks ago. I sort of figured that would be the extent of our celebration. Liam started the morning off by putting together his own leprechaun outfit, which I absolutely loved. How many more years do I have before his holiday enthusiasm begins to wane? I savor every moment of his childhood these days. We ended up renting The Luck of the Irish on Amazon Prime and watching it together as a family after breakfast. Can you believe it has been 17 years since that movie debuted on the Disney Channel? The kids loved it anyway. Afterwards, we headed out for some Irish grilled cheese at Bleu Fox Cheese Shop (yum!!) and then to the St. Chatty's Day parade, which moved to our side of the city this year! Rory was so into the parade! He was clapping and squealing and pointing at everything. He did not even shed a single tear when the bands went by. Afterwards, we headed home for a little rest and then headed out again to the St. Patrick's Day Celebration at West Village. It was a little (ahem- a lot) crowded but the kids had a blast, so Papa and I were brave. There were games, food trucks, art shows, bagpipes, leprechauns on stilts, dancing, snow cones, and lots of friends. We ended the night with the laser light show and dance party, which of course was impossible to photograph well.... just squint and imagine my kids having the time of their lives. Our family does a lot of really cool things, but you know what they say... "Pics or it didn't happen," right? There is some real truth to that silly saying.
As I looked through the old photographs and descriptions of things we have done in the past that I recorded on my blog, I realized that I really had no memory of how we spent Liam's third St. Patrick's Day, but because I had chosen to write it down, I could see us riding the bus to the aquarium decked out in green and Liam's adorable baby face lighting up over a green cupcake and even the tantrum he had when I tried to get a picture of him on our front porch in Ryan's lap. I am so grateful for that. And my kids have many years left of memories I will probably forget.... I am going to do my best to hold on to them in the ways that I can. Happy St. Patrick's Day, future me! You will be glad you bothered one day, I promise. It is 10:30 p.m. on Sunday night... and it has been a long week. I was tired on Wednesday and still had another four days to go. It was one of those weeks when every commitment I have ever made, because it definitely felt like I had the room in my life, clashed into each other simultaneously. It does not happen very often, but when it does..... I forget that it doesn't happen very often and I start to wonder why my life feels so unbalanced. So, it was time to work on things for the new homeschooling co-op a friend and I are starting, and I had work to do on a fundraiser I am running and a blog post was due for the community blog I write for and also many friends needed baby-sitting and I was making my mom a birthday dinner and my house needed a deep clean and I had to go grocery shopping...twice... and Dexter came down with a virus and Rory caught it and then I had to pick Rory up from school early and I also had to get some tests done at the doctor's office. Also, Liam has decided to hate us this week. Dexter has decided that saying no and running in the other direction will get him out of doing anything he doesn't want to do forever. And Rory has discovered that screaming at the top of his lungs repeatedly is a sure-fire way to get what he wants immediately. It has been FUN. But, I am pretty lucky, I think... to be stretched so thin. A full life is better than an empty one.... or no life at all. I spent two hours tonight looking through old blog posts and remembering exactly why I used to take so much time out of my busy life to record it. I love reading every single post and it is hard to believe I have stopped prioritizing recording these sorts of details that I know will one day be so precious to me. My babies are growing up. Not in that way you say when they turn a year or hit the "terrible twos" but in the For Real sort of way. In the ... "their childhood is passing by" sort of way...
I realized the other day... Liam doesn't read picture books any longer. He doesn't even curl up next to me when I am reading them to Dexter or Rory. He reads chapter books and comic books and has no interest whatsoever in the story-books he devoured just a couple of years ago. I have no idea when I read the last picture book I would ever read to him. Life has gotten so busy that the days are blurring together and I don't think that is okay. I don't think that is ever okay. Time to slow down. |
WHO AM I?
I am Michelle: a wannabe hippie in love with a bonafide geek. We also spawned. I spend my days with our four wild, beautiful boy children and I overshare about our life online because I am a Millennial and that is what we do.
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