Happy 6th Birthday to my sweet little “Monkey”
Josie! I am so thankful to God for
giving you to us and every day you make me more and more proud to be your
mommy!
Conveniently, Josie and all of her cousins had the day off
of school today which meant last night was the perfect opportunity for the
cousins’ sleepover which I have been promising to Josie for months. I was able to buy some time once Bart arrived
and we were adjusting to being a family of 7(gotta count the dog!) and to having
an infant in the house again. But it was
now time to suck it up and deliver on my promise. On my side of the family there are 14
grandchildren ranging in age from Bart(almost 3 months) to my oldest nephew who
is almost 13. Since we all live within a
half hour of each other, the kids have grown up seeing their cousins at least
once if not several times a week. Due to this cousin closeness, they are almost
like siblings in terms of their comfort level with each other. I envy them that they have this unique little
cohort to grow up in since my cousins on my dad’s side lived eight hours from
us and we would only see them once a year and my cousins on my mom’s side were
older than me.
So back to the cousins’ sleepover- the troops descended upon
the house with my mom, sister Nikki, and sister-in-law Lindsey in the early
evening to have pizza and cake. Unfortunately,
my oldest niece was sick so she couldn’t make it and my sister Yvette stayed
home with her and two of her younger kids.
I had specifically asked A.J. to bring the cake home in very simple
terms in my text: “Can you pls pick up
cake on yr way home?”. Within the first
hour of the kids’ arrival, the chaos sets in which isn’t difficult with this
many children in a small amount of space, but at least they are contained this
way. The kids are running back and forth
from our basement to Josie’s and Jimmy’s bedroom which is now even more
enticing to them as we just got bunk beds.
All of them are armed with Jimmy’s artillery which he received for his
birthday and Christmas. Birthday girl
starts to have a meltdown as about five of the little militants are camping out
on the top bunk(her bed) and she does not want them there. I manage to get the crisis calmed and within
a couple minutes the kids are yelling because Josie is barricading her door now
and won’t let them in. I pry her from
the doorway, explaining that she wanted her cousins to come over, but she
starts melting down even more and locks herself in our bathroom. Nothing I try to say at the moment in my
nicest most patient mommy voice persuades her to open the door so I go for the
big guns, a steak knife and a butter knife.
No, I wasn’t planning on killing the birthday girl, just getting her out
of the bathroom and our old house has the old school locks and we long ago lost
the little tool that you can use to unlock them. Thus my knife system is employed on a fairly
regular basis. Don’t be surprised if
when you come to my house, the butter knife looks a bit bent and crooked. Nana(my mom) helps perk up the birthday girl
and things begin running a bit smoother.
A.J. arrives home and
the birthday girl convinces him to let her open her presents a day early. And we all know that opening them means
literally opening every single present, not just from the wrapping paper, but
then from its packaging. And the older
your children get, the tinier the pieces
get to any gift they receive. Cake time-
after doing flybys of the children who are upstairs and those in the basement,
I go to the kitchen to get the cake set up only to discover that my helpful
husband has not actually bought a cake, he bought cake mix and icing. Deep breaths, go to where he has escaped to
and ask him what happened and he thought I wanted the cake mix for when I made
the cake for her big birthday party with her cousins and the girls from her
class. Because I am feeling antagonistic
by this point, I actually show him the text, ask what was confusing about
it. He mumbles something about a
conversation we had on Monday about me making the cake for her party…”No cake
tonight, kids!” They seem to care less
even my little drama queen Josie. My
mom, sister, and sister-in-law leave with the littler cousins and A.J. and I
are left with 8. Then the entertainment
begins. My two older kids decide it will
be fun to show their cousins our apple t.v.- so they can show them videos they
have taken on the ipods on our big t.v.
First up comes a pleasant video Josie took of my butt when I was packing
up our things in the hotel room last week and I had no idea about it…In the
hotel she kept telling me to come see something. I kept putting her off since I was scrambling
to get everyone’s stuff together before checkout time. Then A.J. said “I think you’ll want to see this”. Yep,
there on her iPod was a 30 second stretch of my butt in red corduroys. Just what every woman wants to see when they
are a couple months out from having a baby.
But I will be a good sport and am
happy to be “the butt” of their jokes if it keeps them occupied…
The night winds down and “Dolphin Tale” soothes them all to
sleep. Thanks to Baby Bart for waking me
at 5:30 for a little bonding time over breastfeeding and nebs. And just as I am getting back to sleep, I
hear the girl contingent giggling and waking the boys up. Awesome!
The morning is filled with lots of chocolate donuts- sadly none for
non-dairy me, lots of coffee, and the antics of my kids and nieces and
nephews. Santa’s brilliant gift of three
pairs of boxing gloves(thank you, A.J.) provides the perfect tools for boxing
matches in our living room between Jimmy and his older boy cousins. One of my nieces joins in too. I chug coffee after coffee listening to the
random games these kids make up “We’re being werewolf zombie dogs”. I
finally feel that things are quiet enough to lock myself in the bathroom to
shower and bring the sleeping baby in his bouncy seat with me. As I shut the door, I hear the tune of “Safety
Dance” with a whole new set of lyrics thanks to my creative nephew “We can fart
if we want to…”
As I mentally wind down in the shower, I remind myself that
I need to enjoy the moments of the day.
It is not every day that my daughter turns six and if I can’t beat them,
I might as well join them. An all time
favorite quote of mine from “Ferris Bueller” pops in my head: “Life moves
pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look
around once in a while, you could miss it”.
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