Melissa Anne Cohen

It’s crazy busy around here, with the end of the year festivities all over the place, gorgeous warm weather begging us to be outside, and laundry (always) and dishes (oh, I hate dishes) constantly piled up all over the place.

I’m finding that I’m especially enjoying this season.  Not just spring, but also this period in my life.  Three kids, all getting older and changing so much from who they were.

My kids are all between three and four years apart.  Jessie and Sam are three years and five months apart, and Sam and Julie are three years and nine months apart.  Which means that they’re all, pretty consistently, in completely different stages of life.  For a while there, Jessie and Sam were pretty much in the same place, but they aren’t anymore.  And while Julie was, for a while there, several developmental stages behind her brother, she’s caught up a lot.  Still decidedly younger, but definitely a kid and not a baby anymore.

Jessie is most assuredly a tween.  Eleven is a big year, developmentally, and she’s in the middle of fifteen different crisis’s at any one time.  Or she’s not – she’s decidedly laid back and relaxed, in control of everything and mature and poised and confident.  Or she’s sobbing because she’s FAILED science (turns out she got a C on a paper), and her life is ruined.  She’s funny and smart and sweet and loving, or miserable and mad and ready to kill each one of us.  We’re constantly on a roller coaster these days, and while there are moments of calm and quiet, you always know that terror and exhilaration are waiting just up ahead.

Which is a big contrast to Sam.  Because he’s all calm and peace.  There are minor hiccups, if he gets really overtired or needs some space, but mostly, he’s just chill.  It’s hard sometimes to remember that, when he wants to,  he’s fully capable of throwing the whole family into an uproar, just because it’s so rare now.  He’s just… a happy, relaxed, peaceful sort of kid.  And when I say peaceful, I mean that he doesn’t look for a fight with anyone.  He’s still totally into army guys, sword fighting and ninja battles, but other than that – totally peaceful.  He’s excelling at school, has tons of friends, eats well, sleeps great.  He’s just EASY.  Addicted to the kindle, the Wii and netflix, but also in love with his bike and can ride like the wind.

My Julianna Ruth is four years old.  Which is a hell of a lot older than three.  She’s a different person suddenly, with long gorgeous hair, definitive opinions about everything, and most aggravated when we fail to live up to her expectations.  She’s got high expectations.  She’s graduated to a booster seat, has her own bike that she rides with varying degrees of competency (depending on the day), and an ever growing vocabulary.  She’s not a little kid anymore, not really.  She’s got one more year of preschool and then she’s off to kindergarten.  She’s taken to diligently “doing her homework” every night (when she drapes herself across the couch with a coloring pad and crayons and hollers if we disturb her), and insists on “helping” Marc every night by making the coffee and assisting in taking out his contact lenses.

This is a very different place, in my life, than it was a year ago.  I’m finding that while I still get a little wistful when I see a mom who’s pregnant, or a tiny baby snuggled up in a carrier, I also really love that I don’t have to worry about naptimes, or taking kids to the potty, or lugging a diaper bag.  I don’t have to be as vigilant – Sam goes to parties now and just joins in.  Jessie brings a book and closets herself off somewhere if she needs space, and mixes in with the bunch if she’s in the mood for that.  Julie can carry on a conversation with anyone (and frequently does).  It’s just different.   Things haven’t gotten easier, not entirely, it’s a lot more mental, a lot more time in the car dropping them hither and yon, and there’s still a ton of housework and laundry, but it’s different.  I’m not sure that I like it better than when they were all little and demanding, because I loved that time in my life.  But I love this one as much.

I don’t like Mother’s Day. I’m also not all that fond of Father’s Day, for the record, but that’s another post. Yesterday was Mother’s Day, and I wished it was just a regular Sunday. Too much pressure to make day perfect, to have every moment be filled blessings and gratitude and happiness – when the reality is that the day was filled with moments of wonder and joy and contentment, but also filled with impatience and frustration and inadequacy.  The toddler screaming because she didn’t get to stir the coffee, the pre-teen sobbing because netflix wasn’t working, and the Boy vegging out with video games and refusing to move from the front of the television.  Which, when you think about it, is kind of what motherhood is anyway – so maybe I shouldn’t be frustrated that Mother’s Day never quite lives up to my expectations.

But I am thinking about mothers today, as it relates to me, to my kids, to my own mother. I am the oldest child of a single mother, and that relationship will always be one of the most meaningful to me. My mother was the first way I identified myself, and if, as it seems to me sometimes, that my children all started off as a part of me and the rest of the journey is about them becoming who they are, independent of me, if that is true, then I have to acknowledge all of the ways in which I started out as a part of my own mother. Her empathy, her control tendencies, her enthusiasm and her sense of humor are all a part of me. So much of who I am today is because of her. And even in the ways in which we differ, it seems as though sometimes I am exactly opposite in reaction to her.

Which is interesting, for me, when I turn the lens the other way. When I look at Jessica and Sam and Julianna – and I see how they’ve grown and changed. How much of who they are are is because of who I am? And what is it about that relationship, that of mother and child, that continues to still influence my life, and how will it influence theirs? I wonder if it’s true, as my husband is fond of telling me, that it’s so much less about what I say or do, and so much more about their genetic inheritance from us.

I don’t know the answers to any of this, and I don’t know that I ever will. What I do know is that I can’t always draw the line between my mother and myself. And I certainly can’t always do it between my kids and myself. Emotions and problems and happiness and state of mind are so linked, and while that brings all sorts of complications and challenges, it also brings enormous comfort and a sense of belonging and contentment.

I think that’s why Mother’s Day can be so hard sometimes for so many people. Because the relationship between mother and child is so intimate and so fragile. Because it is so fundamental to who we are as people, especially as a woman who tends to define herself in relation to others. Not exclusively, but a big part of my life, before marriage and motherhood, was being my mother’s daughter. And an even bigger part of my life, since having children, is being their mother. I wouldn’t change it, even if I could. Those relationships are vital to who I am.

So in the end, I think Mother’s Day is an important holiday. Because taking some time to think about that, to think about how being a mother to these children, how being a daughter of my mother, has impacted my life, what it means to be in this place, at this time. To be a forty something mom of three, with a mother who’s much more of a friend than a parent at this point, and how to get to that place with my own children. How to survive adolescence and junior high, and the rapidly approaching advent of all three of my kids in full time school with grace and humor and a knowledge that nothing lasts forever. Someday, all of my kids will hopefully pack their kids up on a weekend in May, and spend the day at my house. With bikes and barbeque, bubbles and planting and yelling and chaos.  With any luck, I’ll be able to remember to be grateful for these relationships, and for all the blessings that I have in my life because of them.

This post could also be titled – “How I Learned That Sometimes, It Really Does Take a Village.”

I was scared to send my second child off to school.  I was nervous about sending off my oldest, but it was nervous tinged with excitement.  School was fun, school was where she’d make friends and play games.  Where she’d learn fascinating new things and develop new skills.  School was field trips and lunch boxes and spelling words and running around at recess.   And for her, that’s exactly what school is, and has been from the very beginning.

For my son, my second child, school was terrifying.  He had extreme separation anxiety, and I was absolutely baffled by it.  My older child was a little shy, a little cautious, but it was nothing compared to my son.  He took shy to whole new heights.  When we were at home, or in a familiar place, he played with kids his own age, was happy and relaxed.  But if we’d go to a party, or to a new environment, he would shut down, beg to be taken home or hide his face in my arms.  If we were there long enough, he’d relax and start to have fun.  But sometimes it could take hours for him to feel comfortable enough to smile.

We had tried preschool, and it was awful.  He cried all the time, more at drop off, all the way thru the day, and was miserable at home.  He started pretending to be sick, every day, to get out of going.  I talked to the pediatrician, and decided to pull him out.  His baby sister had been born earlier that year, and my husband had just gotten laid off.  I rationalized that the time at home, with his new sister and his dad, would be better for him.  He’d have a chance to grow up a little, it would make kindergarten easier because he’d be older, better prepared.  I was hoping that the old attachment parenting adage would work – meet the need and then the child would outgrow it naturally.

I was wrong.

Mrs. Gravel, at Flagg Street School, was my hero.  She took my little boy, and made school okay for him.  She called me in the middle of the day sometimes when he’d had a rough morning, to assure me that he was doing great.  She made her classroom a place of security, and taught him that the world was safe.  I couldn’t teach him that he’d be okay without me – I needed a teacher for that.  I needed a teacher to show him that he was safe, and that he was valued and loved, and that he’d be okay. Because of her, Sam excels in school today.  Because of her, he’s tearing around the first grade playground, completely confident and secure.  Because of her – Sam is who he is today.

It’s not enough to say that she went far above and beyond the call of duty with my son.  It’s not enough to say that she put up with screaming temper tantrums, and on more than one occasion, had to chase him down when he’d escape out the back door and try to run home.  She did all of those things, but more than that, she made me feel like I could trust her to take care of my son, to teach him not about how to read or how to add and subtract (although she did those things as well), but she saw that what he needed was not just academic instruction, but also support to get to the point where he could learn.

The decision to hold him back in kindergarten was incredibly hard for me.  I’m a writer, a reader, I like and value academics and intellectual pursuits.  It never occurred to me that my child might not be ready to move to the next grade.  When we had that conversation, the first time and every time after that, Mrs. Gravel somehow managed to allay all of my fears.  She pointed out that an extra year, in her classroom, would give him the tools he’d need going forward.  It would change him from being the youngest little boy to the one of the older kids, and give him the opportunity to be a leader in the classroom.  She made me realize that it wasn’t about not being academically ready, it was more about recognizing that different kids had different needs.  It wasn’t a sign that he couldn’t do the work, it was a sign that he had spent the first six months of kindergarten struggling with overwhelming anxiety and not learning.  And she was right.

Because of that decision, because of the two years that my son had in her classroom, he happily bounces out the door for school every morning.  Because of her, he’s above grade level in math, and exactly where he should be in reading.  Because of her hard work and dedication, the only problem  he’s had in first grade was a tendency to get too rambunctious at recess and to get too silly during classroom discussions.  He’s a happy, content, and secure first grader, looking forward to second grade and excited about a new classroom.  His transition to first grade was seamless, because Mrs. Gravel designed a program to introduce him to a new classroom, and to establish a relationship with his new teacher well in advance of the first day.   The only tears on that day were mine, in the car, on the way home after drop off.  Because he had come so very far, from that little boy who screamed and cried on the first day of kindergarten.  Because he had grown so much, and was so much happier and secure and confident.

Susan Gravel did that for him.   She showed my little boy that the world is a safe place, that there are people who aren’t related to you who will route for you, support you, teach you and help you to be best person you can.  She taught me that even the best parent will need help, that sometimes the best thing you can do for your child is to let someone else be the one to hold him, to let him go.

I’m very fortunate that my children have all had exceptional teachers, who take the time to get to know them, to get to know us as a family and who teach them so much more than how to add and subtract.  And while all of the teachers that all of my kids have had thus far have been wonderful, Susan Gravel will always be my favorite.

Weekends are kind of hectic around here.  Although now that I write that, I’m recognizing that LIFE is kind of hectic.  But this weekend was particularly so, compounded by the fact that my poor Jessie Bug Noodle was desperately sick on Saturday.

Friday night wasn’t too crazy.  I had four kids, my three plus Jordyn, and we went out for frozen yogurt to celebrate Jessie getting at A+ on an essay she’d written.  Then we went to the synagogue, got there too early and played on the playground for a while.  We went into the family service, and it was mostly really good.  Sam’s not great at services in general, and he was really well behaved.  Jessie’s class was leading part of the service, and she was the only kid not singled out for a reading.  I asked her why and she explained that she had asked to only participate in group prayers, because she doesn’ t like public speaking.  This doesn’t bode well for her bat mitzvah coming up in March, but that’s  a worry for another day… We scooted out pretty fast afterwards to go pick my aunt Aimee up at the bus station.  We got home, and made something for dinner.  I can’t remember what, but I do know that I fed them.

Saturday morning started at around four o’clock with a sick, puking Jessie.  Jessie hasn’t thrown up in a long time, and apparently was totally shocked by the whole thing.  She didn’t make it to the bathroom the first two times, and the third time, she got to the bathroom, but still managed to puke all over the floor.  She was really, really sick.  All day long, she laid in bed.  She threw up pretty much all morning long, and was able to hold down a little ginger ale by the end of the day.

It was also Julianna’s birthday weekend, with parties planned for both days.  The party on Saturday was just friends, Joy and Skip, Harrison and Julie, Sara, Arlen and Jordyn, Mike and Stephanie and David, Aviva, Abi, Tali and Zoe.  I warned everyone about the puking girl, but everyone came anyway.  Marc made all sorts of vegan, dairy-free, egg free stuff, and we had turkey burgers for the carnivores among us.  The kids played outside, yelling and screaming and hurling themselves down the hill on tricycles and bikes, sidewalk chalk was used, and the night, in general, was really, really good.  Less so for poor sick Jessie – who was stuck lying in my bed, trying to hold down a popsicle and feeling wretched.

Yesterday was Day 2 – and it was probably a mistake to plan back to back parties.  Too much to do, not enough time to clean up after the first one, and we were all a little sleep deprived.  Jessie was definitely better, she hadn’t thrown up in over 24 hours, and was up and moving around.  I had a killer migraine – I get them whenever I don’t eat or sleep.  But in the end, the party was lovely.  Not super crowded, my mom came, with my niece Amber, Becky came down with Abby-with-a-bow, and father in law.  Towards the end, Marc’s cousin came with his two kids as well.

By last night, we were all kind of strung out and tired.  I forced everyone to sleep early (over strenuous objections on the part of my newly healthy eleven year old), took two benedryl and woke up this morning headache free.  Everyone was… pleasant this morning.   Which is rare, especially for a Monday.  The sun was shining, and I was up bright and early.  So was Sam, because he yelled out “No Pikachu!” at five thirty, because apparently he woke and put on netflix before anyone else was up.  Even Jessie woke up content and ready to face the day (which is a rarity for my night-owl).  Marc drove the kids to school and everyone smiled and kissed me before they left.

(actually a pic from last year’s birthday party, but I haven’t downloaded the camera yet)

I know it sounds stupid.  But there’s nothing like a night with a puking kid to make Marc and I feel closer to each other.

Jessie was a frequent night puker.  She’s got bad allergies.  Between the dust mites and the pollen, she spends most of the year at least a little bit congested.   When she was a toddler, especially, this would translate to nighttime puking.  She’d be fine all day, and at night she’d cough and cough and then eventually vomit, and then be all better for a while.

Sam is a puker by nature.  He just vomits more than the rest of the kids, for whatever reason.  Allergies certainly play a role, but I also think there’s some sort of connection between colic, reflux and general stomach issues.  Nothing serious or really even all that bothersome, but several times a year, he’ll vomit for a few hours, with no other symptoms and then be perfectly fine.

Julie gets car sick.

When the kids were little (sob, because it just occurred to me that NONE of them are little any more), we got the system down.  I don’t ever remember sitting down and discussing it, but we fell naturally into a pattern that has worked seamlessly for over a decade.  When the child (whichever child it happened to be) would puke (which was mostly at night), I’d sort of aim the kid at me.  Because it’s easier to change my pjs then it is to change the entire bed.  It didn’t always work, but more often than not, it did.  After the kid was done, I’d launch into child soothing, and Marc would take over clean up.

It was (and is) a completely gross job, and one that I’m forever grateful I don’t have to do.  But it seemed like an even distribution of work, at least in the beginning.  I was a nursing mom too – so for a while there, I was the one who had the perfect solution to an inconsolable child who couldn’t hold anything down (because they can almost always hold down breastmilk).

But that was a while ago – and my kids are growing up faster and faster.  Last night, poor Jessica got super sick (she’s still sick as a dog) and threw up more times than I can count.  And my job… was pretty freaking easy.  I got her clean jammies, and a pony for her hair.  I tucked her in on the couch and brought her a bucket for easier puking.  Marc had the yucky job, and it doesn’t get any easier as the kids get older.

But the thing is – it works for us.  We work together so easily (even though my workload has diminished as time goes by), and don’t even have to discuss who’s going to do what.   He handles clean up, I handle comfort.  We’re a team, and it’s never more evident than when it’s the middle of the night, and we’re both bleary eyed and concerned about our sick kid.

(one of my favorite pics of Jessica – on a much healthier day)

First, I’d like to be clear.  I’m far from unintelligent.   I’m totally capable of figuring out what to tip in a restaurant, for example.  It’s merely that I chose to specialize about thirty years ago on reading and writing, and the math… not so much.  I was a good student, honors classes, AP classes (or class, really, it was a small high school and only one was offered).  Accepted to a good college.  Not stupid – that’s me.

But I was politely requested, okay, begged, really to not assist with math homework anymore.  At least with Jessie.

(Jessie – back when I could still solve all her equations)

I still totally rock first grade math.  I’m good until late April in fifth grade, apparently.  I was  brilliant at multiplication and division, and it has to be stated, I’m one hell of an adder/subtractor.   Fractions?  I’m kind of awesome at reducing fractions.  And with the help of my friends at mathisfun.com – I was even competent at multiplying fractions.  But percentages and decimals and fractions – oh my.  It was a disaster.

Jessie is a smart girl.  She just is.  She’s intellectually curious, creative and enjoys learning.  Thus far, I think she’s managed to channel Marc when it comes to math and science – it comes relatively easily to her.  She occasionally asks for help, especially because she’s not so great at the whole speaking up when she doesn’t understand it and then needs additional support at home to explain a concept or two.

And that’s where it falls apart for me.  Because I don’t get the math concepts so much.  Basic arithmetic, I can do that.   I’m good at that.  And that translates well to math homework right up until… April of fifth grade, apparently.

She had this impossible worksheet the other day, double sided.  I struggled thru the first page, explaining how to do it, and helping her out.  Marc wasn’t home – and more and more, he’s been her math buddy.  When she needs a math buddy, that is.  But he was working, and it was due the next day – so I stepped up.  The flip side of the page, though, I couldn’t, for the life of me figure it out.  It was converting fractions and decimals and percents back and forth and sideways… made no sense to me at all.  I know that Marc knows this stuff like the back of his hand, so I had her put it aside, and he showed her how to do it the next day.

She went into school, completely confident and knowing how to do it.  Because Marc is, after all, awesome at math and once she figured out how to do it, she was great and finished the rest of the sheet herself.

But sadly, was sent home with an extra worksheet to practice the concepts, because every single problem that I had “helped” her with was wrong.

Last night, I sat next to Sam and kept him company while he did his first grade math homework.  And was VERY helpful when he asked what 9+7 was, or what 18-6 was – because dammit, I know that there’s apparently a small window where I can actually answer those homework questions before they surpass me.

I never planned on getting married.

I always wanted to have kids, and I always wanted to have a committed and involved dad for those kids.  But I didn’t know how to get from A-Z.  I didn’t know that a committed and involved dad was a lot easier (not necessary, but a hell of a lot easier) to get when you were married to him.  I didn’t know that a happy marriage was actually attainable, not really.  I had seen a lot of horrible marriages, and a lot of … not good marriages.  I didn’t want that.

When I got pregnant, it was a shock.  Literally.  I’ve never, in my entire life, before or since, been that straight up floored as I was when I took the test.  Marc wanted to get married immediately.  I said no.  I wasn’t ready – I couldn’t conceive of making that kind of commitment to a man at that point in my life.  The pregnancy was more than I could handle.  Marriage wasn’t even on the table for me.

When I lost my twins, I lost myself.  It was like I was completely broken, and had to rebuild from the ground up.  Everything I believed, everything I had known my whole life to be true had failed me.  My faith in God, my faith in myself, my faith in the world as a good and safe place.  All of that was gone.  What was real, what was true… was Marc.  He had lost the babies too.  He was the only other person who had lost what I had.

Out of that came us.  We conceived Jessica, and built a life together.  We got married, had Sam and Julie and twelve years later, he’s still my best friend, my strength, my support and my other half.  He’s what makes it possible for me to be who I am.  I’m what makes it possible for him to be who he is.  We make each other better.

There are two things that make us work – one is absolute commitment and the other is really, really high standards. But there are a couple of other things that make our marriage what it is.   I’m not saying that these will work for all marriages, but this is what makes our work.

1 – Always be honest.   This is the one person that you have to be honest with, you have to tell the truth.  Because if you aren’t going to be real here, when it’s just you and him, then why are you bothering?

2 – Understand that he’s telling the truth too.  Even when it’s ugly and not helpful and really would have been best not said – you take the good with the bad.

3 – It’s not just about fighting fair – it’s about recognizing your strengths and weaknesses and vice versa.  In our marriage – I’m the communicator and Marc is not.  Words come easily to me, I’m fluent in emotional conversation, and while I’d be clearly, dramatically overmatched in a physical fight with my husband, the same is true in an emotional fight.  He can’t play on the same field that I can.  What comes easily and naturally to me is for as difficult for him as it would be for me to wander onto a playing field and do something with a ball.  When we disagree, I have to be careful because I can clobber him without realizing what I’m doing.   He has to be careful because I’m going to be a lot more impacted by the words he chooses.

4 – Always give the benefit of the doubt.  At the end of the day, what Marc wants most is for me to be happy, and what I want most is for him to be the same.  We want what’s best for the other.  Even when it doesn’t seem that way – reminding myself that he truly does want me to be happy, he doesn’t want to hurt me or fight with me.  He might not be able to communicate that in a way that I can understand, but reminding myself of that has made a huge difference.

5 – Take time out for yourself.  This is one that I forget a lot.  He’s not a mind reader, and it’s easy for me to forget that.  To assume that he should KNOW that I need to take the afternoon and disappear with a good book and so should offer to take the kids and encourage me to go.  But he doesn’t.  He’s happy to take the kids solo and handle all the stuff without me there, I just need to speak up to make it happen.  My happiness is my responsibility, not his.

6 – Say I love you.  A lot.  Kind of all the time.  Take every opportunity to sit next to him or snuggle up next to him.  It’s SO easy to lose that connection when there are three (or five or a thousand) kids running around and the dishes need to be done and you haven’t seen your dining room table in a week because it’s so cluttered.  But remembering to stop and look him in the eye and acknowledge out loud that there’s nobody you’d rather do this with… that’s what it’s all about.

My baby – my littlest, probably my last.   There are so many memories of my pregnancy with Julie, I remember staring at the first test, trying to decide if there was a second line or not.  I remember the first wave of nausea, and the times when I’d run to throw up.  Marc and both of the kids would come and rub my back.  I remember I was hugely emotional, all the time, and every time I’d cry, I’d have to throw up.   I ate a ton of sesame chicken, and itched and cried and itched and threw up the entire nine months.  It was absolutely the worst pregnancy, and made the other two look like a walk in the park.

But her’s was the easiest, most peaceful and loving and relaxed and blissful birth imaginable.  I had my mother and Becky (who was newly pregnant with Abby-with-a-bow) and Marc there with me the whole time.   I was in hard labor for all of ten minutes before I asked for the epidural, and three hours later, I was ready to push.  After two pushes, there she was.  I was laughing when she was born.

Jessie was my first, and everything with her is new.  Sammy is my boy, and new on a whole different level.  With Julie, I assumed that I’d pretty much done it all, and it would be super easy.  But she made sure, right from the very beginning, that she stood out.   Both Jessie and Sam were easy nursers, latched on and it was never an issue.  Ever.  But with Julie, the first few months were hellish, starting with a nursing strike, and then thrush, a staph infection, bleeding, nursing shields, various antibiotics and it was a good six months or so before nursing was second nature for her.  She never really ate traditional baby food, we were baby-led solids all the way.  She walked late, she was close to a year and a half before she was consistently up and moving.  She talked early, and potty trained, on her own, just after she turned two.

She’s my angel baby girl, and brilliant and sweet and loving and funny.  She’s tougher than Jessie was at this age, because her immediate example of childhood is her big brother, and she’s an accomplished sword-wielder, karate maven, and loves all things lego related like her big brother.  She’s also convinced that all of Jessie’s nail polish is really hers, doesn’t understand why Jessie won’t just give her all the lip gloss, and steals Jessie’s clothes all the time.  She sleeps with a zillion different stuffed animals, but only ever one at a time.  She’s incredibly stubborn, demanding and imperious, but when the everything goes her way – you’d never know a happier girl.

Julie is my blessing – she’s happiness and peace and joy and chaos and fun.

It’s like there was a memo that went out, and suddenly all the trees in my neighborhood are green.  We started playing the forsythia game last week sometime, where one of the kids hollers “FORSYTHIA!” and then we all high five.  There are days when my hand literally aches a little, from high fiving three kids every few feet as we drive.  The yards are green, the flowers are budding, the streets are swept and I’m loving springtime.

I’m also loving that school is almost over for the year.  My kids don’t adore school.  Sam actually likes it a lot, once he’s in the groove.  He was a breeze to get ready this morning, and bounced off to school like it was no big deal.   Jessie is a lot more emotive in the mornings on a consistent basis, and was pretty wretched about heading in today.  She got into Goddard Scholars Academy for sixth grade, and will be starting there in the fall.  It’s an Innovation School, for advanced and highly motivated kids – and the best part is that it’s part of the public school system, so it’s like a private school, with small classes (there’s only 48 kids in each year), incredibly involved and dedicated teachers and tons of extra learning opportunities and it’s free.  She was invited to apply (along with eighty seven thousand of her closest friends – anyone with at least a proficient score on both verbal and math for MCAS could apply) and we waited with baited breath for her to get in.

They accepted everyone with advanced/advanced scores, and a few of the advanced/high proficient got in.  Everyone else was on a wait list.  She was advanced for verbal, and two points away from advanced for math, so she got a low wait list number (#8), and we got the notice last week that she was in.   I think, now that she knows she’s definitely not going to be at the school next year, she’s just done with it altogether.  Or maybe it’s just that it was Monday, after a vacation week, and she didn’t want to go back.  Or it could be that she was just overtired and not used to getting up at the crack of dawn anymore.  Tough to tell, but this morning was rough.

But spring is here, and the summer isn’t too far off.  I’m a happy, happy girl today.

There aren’t that many April vacations, in the overall scheme of things.  And this is the last one where I’ll have an eleven year old, a seven year old, and the last full week that I’ll have a three year old.  As luck would have it, it was also the last week that I’d have a fifteen year old, two twelve year olds and a couple of bonus eight year olds as well.  It was that kind of week – one where my house bubbled over with kids and chaos and I gave up somewhere around Wednesday night trying to keep the house clean.

My life is relatively hectic.  There’s not a lot of hang out and read, or relaxing with a cup of coffee or taking a nap.  There’s a lot of running, running, running everywhere, and a to-do list that keeps getting longer.  But there was a time in my life when it was a lot calmer, when my days were a blur of midnight feedings, and diapers and napping children, and I kept telling myself that it was all just a stage, and tried to enjoy it as much as I could.  I’m doing that now – even though I’m in the car more often than not, and I’ve got three busy kids and a husband who works retail (with hours all over the place) and one car – it’s just the stage I’m at now.  And the day will come when I miss it.  Just like I miss that two a.m. nightly get up and rock the baby stage…

In the end, we didn’t do a whole lot of actual stuff this week.  Went out to dinner once, on Tuesday night.  We went to Pinecroft Dairy (home of the $2 kids meal on Tuesdays) and then stopped by the carnival at the Greendale Mall.  Wednesday, we picked up Glennys from up in NH, and Thursday night, all four girls (stepdaughters, Jessie and Glennys) slept at my sister’s house for the night.

Sam learned to ride his bike, which was notable.  Hugely so – because Sam’s a kid who really gets anxious about trying new things and failing at them.  But he was determined to ride, and no matter how many times he fell (and he fell a lot), he kept getting back on the bike.  I was so proud – not just that he learned, but the whole process of learning to ride went really, really well.   We spent time with friends, and were able to play outside most of the time.

April vacation is a good preview of summer.  It’s almost like a little tease – this is what your life will be like in a few short weeks.  And while it makes me tremble a little bit (because seriously, my house is a disaster right now), mostly I’m just really looking forward to it.