Our last FIRST birthday!
It wasn’t as big as our other parties, but it was as normal as you could get for a pandemic first birthday. A nice bridge into the future maybe?
ONE YEAR
Even though this is our third first birthday, it’s still just as much of an accomplishment each time. We did it. We survived the year! And I’m always just as shocked about how quickly it went by. How are you one already?
Your year feels split in half - the first half you were the easiest little squish baby who just came along wherever we went. The second half, aka the mobile half, is when things got a little crazy. You became strongly opinionated and LOUD. You aren’t talking but you still blow us lots of raspberries, give very wet kisses and screetch often. You’re constantly moving and climbing and exploring and trying hard to become a full on toddler. You love eating chicken nuggets and pasta and drinking from a sippy cup just like a big kid.
Kiddo Updates
I feel like I need to do a kid update. Not the annual birthday one either. More a, this is where we are in life right now. Because I think to myself that not much has changed or happened, and then I read an old post and realize my children have gotten SO BIG and I don’t know when that happened.
They also change so much in the moment, that it’s hard to capture them. They can be outgoing and confident one minute, and shy and quiet the next. They may love their sibling one day, be super helpful and gentle, and the next day want nothing to do with them. So here’s the best summary I can come up with, totally off the top of my head and probably influenced by what they’ve done the past two days.
Walking
This baby has been determined to learn how to walk so she can keep up with her older siblings. It’s been pretty fun watching her figure it out, even if progress seemed slow at times. She went days between her first and second set of steps, but finally we’re at a point where she can confidently walk across a room. I’d say she still crawls at least 50% of the time, but when you put her down, she’s more likely to stay standing than not.
Cherry on the Top
I’m not sure if this is good news or not, but on day 2 or 3 of no daycare for the smallest Spearson, she woke up with a fever and was pretty much miserable all day. So even if daycare had been open, she wouldn’t have been able to attend anyway! Our day was filled with lots of crying and less eating than usual, but she did take some great naps which helped us get through the day.
At one point I was attending a meeting (that some may describe as boring) and had F on my lap. I had been worried she was going to be loud and disruptive, but was pleasantly surprised that she was quiet and I was able to get through the meeting without incident. Towards the end, though, someone pointed out that it looked like it might be nap time, as F’s eyes kept closing. And this baby has not passed out in anyone’s arms in MONTHS. So while my coworkers may have claimed it was due to the boring meeting topic, I think her poor body was just sick and tired.
Trip North
We did manage a bit of a trip recently, because I’m still set on giving my children the experiences they deserve, no matter how exhausted I am. So we took our first trip to Vermont since F was born. The older two love running around outside and spending time with their grandparents, and look forward to the trip every summer. Baby F had an amazing time too, and I’m pretty sure was ready to become a country kid.
Underwater
I’m not sure I can fully express the burnout that we’re feeling. And I know it’s not just us - when I get together with other parents now, all we talk about is how hopeless we feel, how exhausted, how angry, how done we are. How we can’t possibly keep going another day, but we have no end in sight. We’re all struggling so much, but also dealing with a ton of guilt, because we feel like we can’t complain, because we chose to have these children. We even hoped and prayed for them.
I’m not sure any of us expected life to be like this though. A never ending pandemic where no one cares about keeping kids safe. Work that expects you to devote all your free time to working as if you don’t have kids, and barely pays you enough to combat inflation or pay for daycare. Daycare where we have to send our children so we can work, but they’re all so understaffed and burnt out themselves dealing with this pandemic, they have to keep shutting down.
Eleven Months
Of course because I mentioned how much I loved your gummy smile last month, you immediately popped out two bottom teeth - officially becoming the youngest child in this family to get a tooth! Maybe that’s what was messing with your sleep last month? It’s definitely gotten better - you still hate being put to bed, but then you fall asleep quickly and are back to sleeping through the night.
This month you have definitely decided what you want, and anytime you don’t get it you start immediately crying, fold in half, and put your forehead on the ground until someone comes to comfort you. Specifically you want to be held, but doing something interesting, or you want to be down on the ground playing, but with me or Tom less than 3 inches away.
Sour Patch Kids
As our children get older, it’s interesting to hear them talk more. It goes from learning words, to sentences, to actual random thoughts in their mind. And that’s where things get interesting. I start to hear about dreams they have about a mama dinosaur that their brother is afraid of but it’s really just “a nice dinosaur because it’s nice.”
I’ve also learned you really can’t take anything personal with kids. I was prepared for them to tell me they hated me, because I think that’s a normal part of growing up. That doesn’t phase me. Even saying that I’m the meanest mama ever and that I never let them do anything doesn’t phase me. (Sometimes they’re right!). It’s the specific ones that I think about days or weeks later. The ones that come out of no where.
4th of July Weekend
I had no desire to celebrate this embarrassment of a country, but we had a three day weekend and needed to do something with three littles. So we shut off the news, and had some quality family time in our little bubble. We went to a playground and had our first run in with an ice cream truck. It worked out since we were leaving to go get ice cream anyway, so we let the kids decide. Did they want to go get ice cream, or eat from the truck? The truck overwhelmingly won, and E picked out an orange creamsicle and G got a strawberry shortcake popsicle. They were incredibly happy, eating in the trunk of the minivan.
Ten Months
I’m not sure if it’s too much to say, but this might be your hardest month yet. You hit a sleep regression HARD, at the same time separation anxiety peaked. Suddenly you’re fighting sleep, you’re screaming, and one night you were up from 9pm until midnight. It wasn’t fun. We’ve mostly moved passed that, but you’re still not as “easy” as you were a month ago. You want to be walking, but you can’t yet. You want to explore but you also don’t want to be out of our arms. And you cry at daycare drop off now. So it’s been a rough month. We’ll get through it, of course.
A Rainbow Sparkle Birthday
I’ve already shared a birthday post for our recent five year old, but his party (parties?) need some documentation as well. This year he was insistent on a rainbow sparkle theme, surprising no one - so we went all in! I did better with the rainbows than I did with the sparkles, but I made sure to get a few of those in there too. His other requests included wanting to go to Jordan’s for his party, and having real candles on his cake that he would get to blow out. Who knew that I was depriving him by not giving a small child fire!
Lake Winnipesaukee
I was feeling nostalgic recently for the family vacations of my childhood, and wishing I could recreate some of that magic somehow. Nothing I was finding was giving me the feeling I was looking for - if I even knew exactly what I wanted. And then I realized, why not? Instead of finding a place similar to where we used to go, couldn’t I find the exact place we used to visit?
And so I did! I wasn’t exactly sure until we got there, but slowly the pieces started to piece together. Memories started lining up with what was in front of me, and sure enough I was finding myself spending the day in the same spots I was when I was nine or ten years old. It was so surreal and amazing. And then my parents joined us, and we found the same house we used to stay in. And talked about the weeks we used to spend there with my grandparents, and my uncle, and great aunt - all people who aren’t with us anymore, but who had been with us in this place. It was a small thing and it was everything.
Nine Months
Well after saying I wasn’t sure what makes you upset, this month definitely gave me a few examples. For whatever reason, your stranger danger seems to come and go. You’ve always loved daycare and never reacted poorly there, but suddenly you’ll burst into tears if a neighbor that you’ve known since you were born tries to hold you. While you often seem to be more like G in that you don’t want me to hug or cuddle you too much (you’ll go so far as to punch me in the throat to try to get out of a hug), you’ve also been a bit attached to me lately. You want me to sit approximately 2 inches from you on the ground next you to. Close enough that you can have a hand on me or crawl into my lap if needed, and if I try to leave the room or move away, you’ll start crying. That’s definitely new.
FIVE
HOW did we get here. I had babies and babies and suddenly I have a child old enough to go to school (which you will this fall).
You are sweet and caring and love to do things to make other’s happy. You send love notes to people in the mail, bring your siblings their favorite toys, share treats/snacks and you love to cuddle, especially after you’re supposed to be in bed.
You feel things deeply and take things personally. I often have to make sure I take extra time to talk about feelings with you. For example yet another pair of pants you were wearing ended up getting a hole in the knee, and I could see how sad you were. You were feeling ashamed, like you’d done something wrong. I had to sit you down and let you know that it wasn’t your fault, it was the pants. They weren’t strong enough, and we’d buy new ones. I didn’t want you to play any differently or worry about them. I can definitely see the rule following personality traits of an oldest child forming in you, and while it’s something that can be helpful to a parent or teacher, I want you to learn when to break the rules too.
Never Ending
None of this is new, and I’m certainly not alone in struggling, but I feel like it needs to be repeated. So much of the country (world?) has moved on. They’ve declared the pandemic over. Masks are gone, people are going to concerts and eating at restaurants and working in the office. Everything is supposed to magically go back to “normal.”
Except.
It’s not true if you’ve got small children.
Eight Months
This might finally be the month that breaks me, because having three mobile children is definitely harder than two and a baby. I think we can finally say you’ve figured out this crawling thing, although not well enough for us to realize that when we put you somewhere, you’re not going to stay there. You’re moving just enough that we’re still surprised to find you in a new spot. You bounce and spin and take a break to sit and then get up and move another step or two, but you’re definitely moving, and obviously thrilled about it.
Videos
I’ve been talking about videos quite a bit lately. As much as I love photos and am definitely a photo person, I’ve shifted my focus to videos the past few months. A photo can never let you hear someone’s voice or laugh, really see how little your kids were, and just doesn’t capture the magic in quite the same way. So while I’ll still continue to fill my house with printed photos and books, I’m trying to focus a bit on videos too.
I recently got a professional video made of our most recent vacation, but while I was at it I also bought 3 extra videos to do first year compilations for each child. Obviously one of those is still unfinished, but I have the other two and had been showing them off to friends and family. And that’s when I realized that most people aren’t aware that I make a short video every month and put it on this website.
Easter Parts I & II
One of the coolest parts about becoming an adult is realizing you really can make up your own rules a lot of the time. Things are still way less fun than I thought they would be, and I’m still mad that you don’t really get to pick the color of your car or your house like I thought you would, but every once in a while being an adult is totally worth it.
April Happenings
Phew April is a busy month, and we still have a week left!
I think the small humans are feeling it too. Emotions have been high, boundaries are being tested, and we’re all exhausted. Luckily we’ve had plenty of fun too.
In our first piece of big news, we converted G’s bed from a crib to a toddler bed! Besides the fact that he asked (and that’s reason enough at this age I think), he was starting to learn that he could climb into it and I wanted to stop that before he realized he could climb out too. We made it 3 wonderful years with him contained, and now we’re working hard to make sure we don’t find him wandering the house in the middle of the night.