I'm currently on vacation, my vacation actually started last Sunday and goes until December 1st, but I haven't had a chance to blog that yet because I've been too busy...being on vacation!
No "To-Do" list that looks like this...
No Calendar that looks like this...
Kelly Manno style vacation means lots of cookie dough straight out of the tube and Disney princes movies in the living room every-single-night with the kids. I morph into a 4th child for my husband to take care of "I know it's a school night but can Rocky just stay up one hour longer....pleeeeease?"
Wearing the same yoga pants 3 days in a row and praying my neighbors do not see the ensemble I chose to wear while running out to grab the mail.
But, in all honesty I'm a person who has to stay busy. Day 1 of my vacation I truly thought I would lay around in pajamas all day, but by 10am I was already bored and proclaimed from the couch "Let's take the kids to the arch!" - and so we did.
It struck me that morning that my kids probably didn't even know you could go up there. Heck, Luci still calls it the "The Silver Rainbow" I don't even think she actually knows what it is.
I mean, we've seen the arch from the road countless times, but when I told Rocky we would go all the way to the top of it he looked at me like I was crazy.
I have not been in the arch since 4th grade when my cousins from Oklahoma came to visit. I forgot nearly everything about it.
Those 3 little butts lined up melt my heart.
Even though things seem to move at warp speed around here, it's important to carve out individual times for each one of my babies on a daily basis.
There's sort of a natural flow of it. Libby Lu has her own time with me in the mornings. She and I move slow in the morning. We both value our sleep and it takes us a while to get the wheels turning. I lift her out of her crib and we go straight to the couch where we cuddle, play and talk for about 20 more minutes before she is ready to get down and start her day.
She is the first one of my children to truly become attached to anything. For her, it's her binky and her blanky. Seriously, we would have some kind of high-alert emergency situation if we ever misplaced either one of them. She drags that blanket around like the stinky kid on Charlie Brown.
Oh, but there is one part of my mornings with her that surpasses everything else I will do that day. In an ultimate showcase of love, she will pluck her binky out of her mouth and hold it up to my lips offering me a few sucks on it. She does this with a complete straight face, she's not trying to be funny, her little baby heart wants to share her binky with me. She does it out of utter and complete love. I pretend to nibble on the little stinky thing and smile and tell her thank you. Then she does this little wiggle with her arms like she is so proud that she made her mama happy. Be still my momma-bear heart, I freaking love this moment.
My afternoons are always for Luci. Her sister is taking a nap, her brother is at school and it's just the 2 of us. She thinks I hung the moon. She literally thinks every single thing I do is awesome. "Mom you folded that laundry sooooo pretty" "Mom this is my favorite sandwhich ever" She wants to help me with everything, always on my heals, my little shadow. She is my mini-me. Who cares if we crunch on a few eggshells while we eat our brownies. She cracked them herself :)
My evenings are always for him. They are rarely free, with homework and hockey practice and 15 other things we need to wiggle in. But the point is we do them together. I let him eat his favorite snack, graham crackers and milk, while we work on homework. When we are driving to hockey you will never see a video game in his hand or a TV blaring in the car, we are always talking. Talking about the best part of his day, the worst part of his day, who he played kickball with at recess, what he learned in Spanish. I'm not going to be the only influence on his life - so I better be the best, it's important that I know what his little brain is thinking and heart is feeling at all times.
...and, in his ongoing effort to give me gray hair before my mid-thirties he has decided he wants to be the goalie on his Hockey team. We are taking it one step at a time but he will be in the net for his next game.
Those brown eyes behind that Hockey mask have always turned me into a pile of mush...really, really, proud mush.
That's really all I have for now....I'm going to continue enjoying my vacation with the kids. It's raining outside and there is a "Saved By the Bell" marathon on. I'll be back the first week of December to share with you an awesome video from the Shot Party AND a sneak peek at my final wedding of the year.
(I knew it was only a matter of time before she asked for that gross little doll that pees)
I also wanted to share with other moms of girls these awesome fantastic HUGE bows. I have been searching for years for really, really big bows and finally found some I love. I ordered them in 3 colors. They are completely silly and take up the entire width of Libby Lu's head. I LOVE THEM! I got them on Etsy, just search for "8 inch bows" :)
Have a wonderful and beautiful Thanksgiving with your family.
