Still Looking Back (May)

And now, May...2013. As in one year ago. Read on if you wish, though I'm really only doing this because I am obsessive about order and time (though I am always late to everything), and I can't bring myself to gloss over an entire year.

So.
May 2013. One year ago.

I love May. April is so busy in my professional life that, along with the flowers and the sunshine and the hayfever, May brings a big ol' overhaul of a more relaxed, less time-crunched happy into the Burt home. Bike riding, bubbles, picnics. Bare feet and flower planting. Love, love, love it.

Plus, May brings Mother's Day which, this year, included walls plastered in Mommy-Nora stick figures that stayed up for months.



I mostly left the drawings up because they melt my heart, and because I am a little more smitten with life as mother to a daughter every day. In the interest of full disclosure, however, I will also admit that I left them up to remind Nora that she does love me in the midst of our nearly daily morning fights. Though she wakes up at the crack of dawn, her disposition leads me to believe that her body wishes her eager mind would let it sleep just a bit longer (yes, still, one year later!). The fights—which are not as frequent or intense now, though still fairly predictable—varied, from clothes, to hair, to cereal choices, to toothpaste (yep, she's even got an opinion on that), and back around to clothes again. But no matter the topic, I was guaranteed one tantrum a morning, and I began to notice that Andy and Porter would leave a little earlier every week to try to avoid the inevitable morning chaos. One year in to morning-gedon, and I still don't know that either one of them is prepared for life with three girls in the house.

Speaking of the third Lady Burt, last May I was still trying to keep quiet about the growing baby that would soon be named Hattie. In fact, at one point, I had convinced Andy that we wouldn't tell anyone until Hattie was born. I caved, however, at the end of May. Mostly because it was getting warm and loose-fitting sweaters were getting uncomfortable. And with the big reveal (which wasn't big at all because it turns out there's no grandiose way to confirm something everyone has already suspected other than to just say, "yup."), the baby prep commenced in earnest. Though I remained fairly nervous about everything (which is totally normal, by the way, for someone who has lost babies), it was exciting to look at baby stuff with hope once again.

More May meanderings:

Porter grew up overnight, enjoying a bit more freedom to roam the neighborhood on his bike with his pals and counting down the days to his first summer after real, all day school (first grade) with an anticipation that made me recall all the best bits of my own childhood (morning bike rides, hot, lazy afternoons with popsicles and sprinklers, and laying in bed at night while it was still light out, sure you weren't tired, only to crash after a day of running around.

Again, now one year later, he still looks so little here. Though our current big kid bike hunt (he still wants pedal brakes, which has proven itself a difficult requirement) reminds me that he's still at least a little bit little.

See... (Our last day of school ice cream date.)

Best kid ever. Happy, easy, always ready to have fun.

I used the summer to try to squeeze in solo time with both the kids before we rocked their world with a new baby in the house. And when she wasn't mad because I made her wear real shoes instead of the Cinderella "glass" slippers or when her much too tender head (she yells "Ow" before the brush is even touching her scalp) survived a ponytail session unscathed, this little lady was—and still is—so much fun. With lower lows, you most definitely get the highest of highs. And I love this pink little girl who can never get enough story time, toenail polish, sugar or attention.



May also brought the return of our summertime evening walks—my favorite thing we do. Just me and the kids wandering, talking and in hot debate over which discovered trash is treasure and which is just trash. We have an ever growing pile of rocks, sticks and shards of plastic on the side of our house from several summers worth of these trips. And, starting this last year, my four-year-old girlie added weed bouquets to the summer walk bounty.

Seriously love having little girls. Most of the time.
And I suspect this guy likes it a whole lot more than he wants to let on.

I lucked out with this guy. He's stubborn and my polar opposite in almost every way, but he likes to explore, isn't afraid of hard work (a requirement with a wife like me) and adores our kids.


Every once in a while, I can even get him to smile in a photo. And by every once in a while, I mean Christmas, his birthday and Mother's Day weekend which, last year, was spent hiking in Zion.

 
And really, that about sums up May. That, and my very favorite family portrait of all time:



Don't we all look excited about that sunshiney little teddy bear inside my stick-figure's beach ball stomach? I assure you, we all were. And if the nerves hadn't been so bad, I would say this was my most fun pregnancy yet. We were excited, though it took Andy—from a family of all boys—a while to accept that he was getting another daughter (see above), the kids were excited, and once we let the cat out of the bag, everyone else was pretty darn supportive and excited for us as well. I've never really loved the term rainbow baby (a baby after a loss), but I totally get its origin. A surprising, almost magical dose of happy and sunshine just when things seemed they'd be dark forever. Or, in our case, a glowing little line drawing surrounded my smiling, misshapen heads.

Remembering One Year Ago

I get a little wistful when I think about how quickly time passes. The days are long and the years are short, and there are hundreds of little things I think I'll remember (but wont) and even more I know I never want to forget. In my ongoing effort to make time stand still, I present our past year in one long, rambling look back.

APRIL 2013

1. Our first and hopefully only family pet.

 A birthday surprise (for the seven-year-old and his anti-pet mom) from Nora and Daddy.

We started with four and are now down to 1 1/2 (Larry the yellow crab wants a new shell but doesn't like any of the options we've presented). Poor Ferdinand the red will soon be on his own. Fortunately, the kids haven't noticed, which tells you all you need to know about the entertainment value of hermit crabs. In addition to Larry and Ferdinand, they were really good at ignoring Gato ("cat" in Spanish, according to my then seven-year-old) and Troublemaker as well. Don't let the pictures fool you. Naming the crabs and that one time we lost Larry for a few hours has been the most exciting part of pet-parenthood ever since Troublemaker (hence the name) pinched Nora on day three, never to be held willingly again.

2. Our now eight-year-old turned seven and celebrated with an outerspace birthday party and loads of new Legos.

It took a full day to turn that soccer ball-shaped cake into the moon. I tell you this so you will know what you're looking at in the above photo. Sadly, the frosting was gross and nobody ate more than a few bites. Luckily, little boys would rather run wild like aliens than sit still long enough to eat cake anyhow. Same goes for group photos.

This little boy has been blessed with some really great friends.

When I took this picture, I thought he looked so grown up; now one year later, I think he looks so little and sweet (for the record he is still sweet as a newly minted eight-year-old, but he's not little at all and has shot through two sizes in both clothes and shoes in the past year).

3. Nora's first soccer season.

She didn't love it and more often than not ended up in my lap on the sidelines, as did all the other girls except the one with pink shoelaces who singlehandedly secured an undefeated season for the "Black Catwomen."

She rallied for the game mid-season against her good friend, Vivian, though, and even scored her first goal.

Though she did seem to enjoy it after that, we skipped soccer for the then four-year-old and now five-year-old this spring but plan to try again in the fall.

All the while, the big brother and his coaching dad were playing just a couple fields down.

 I love these kids and I love being their soccer mom (and am doubly grateful their dad is coaching instead of me—too competitive for my own good).

A few more April highlights...

4. Porter's first science fair. He got a black eye the day before after tripping on new pants that were too long. In spite of the shiner, his sweet smiled earned our then first-grader a spot in the local paper.


5. Nora learned to write her name, and the house was soon covered in scraps of N-O-R-Aed paper.

6. I discovered a new favorite book and haven't found anything I like quite as much in the year since. Nora and I also read our first mommy-daughter chapter book: Pippi Longstocking, followed by Matilda. Oh how I love having a little girl.

One of my favorite moments of mommyhood to date.

 6. And finally, I officially gave up fighting my strong-willed four-year-old each morning over clothes.

Many great ensembles coming your way as we move through the rest of the past year. 2013 was a rough parenting year when it came to this little lass. We are one and the same, and it is still often a contest of wills. It's taken the better part of the past year to figure out which fights were worth waging and to let go of the rest. I'm still not great at it, but every day gets a little better...until it's not. This one keeps me sharp.

All the while,  April 2013 was made all the sweeter by a fun little secret I was carrying around in the form of a yet-to-be announced, yet-to-be born baby Hattie. We kept a tight lid on the pregnancy news for as long as we could—I was nervous something would go wrong—but I look back on this pre-baby #5 time now and realize Harriett Ann was the plan for our family all along. I am also again amazed at how quickly older kids age when a baby is born—look at how sweet and little Nora used to be!

 May 2013 ... to be continued, followed by June, July, August, September, October, November & December. And then I'll try to process 2014 some time before Nora graduates.