Shame, Shame, Shame...

I know your name, and right now, your name sounds a lot like Leigh Turner.  I've been thinking for a while now that Avery just isn't ready for bed at 7:45pm-8pm when Olivia is heading to sleep for the night, but I haven't known what to do about it.  I wanted to keep it fair, have them both go to bed at the same time and selfishly I wanted to have kid-free time start at 8pm, instead of a phased approach, like 1 kid time, and then no kid time.  But Avery is still napping at Pre-School, so the child just isn't ready for bed that early, most nights she is hanging out in her room for sometimes 75-100 minutes after I put her in there, and after hemming and hawing about it for several weeks, I thought maybe I would try a new approach.

Avery

I hate thinking about missing out on all that time with her.  I get such a small amount of time with her during the week as it is, and I was forcing her to spend all that time alone in her room, when I could have been making memories with her.  So last night, I decided when she asked if I would lay with her, I would say yes, and we snuggled and talked in her bed for quite a while. 

Olivia - 17 months old

We talked about her day, she told me stories, her eyes lit up with excitement over the smallest things and my heart jumped.  I don't get Avery alone very often, one of the challenges of having two kids, trying to prioritize one on one time with each one, and I haven't mastered it yet, one of the things I need to work on in 2013. She named every single stuffed animal in her bed, which last night was probably a cool 12. And her names just cracked me up, one was named "Lipper", another was name "Slappy". The girl is just plain funny. And I could tell that spending that time with her mattered just as much to her as it did to me, she was so happy to have Mommy Time (and of course to avoid bed). 

Olivia 10 Months Old

I need to get better about cherishing those moments, not rushing them off to bed because I need a break, but really making decisions about what their needs are.  Olivia needs to be rushed off to bed, because the child is exhausted, whereas Avery can go for another hour or so, and why shouldn't I enjoy that time with her?

Avery

When I finally left her room, she threw a small fit, which bothered me a bit, because in my mind she should have been thankful that I had given her an extra 30 minutes of Mommy Snuggle-Chat time, but that isn't how her 3 year old brain works just yet.  And when I found Brad almost asleep on our bed he just looked at me and laughed, and asked what in the world she was talking about.  He said he could hear her voice and she was just going on and on and on, and her voice was so full of excitement. He wondered if I got a word in, or if I was just talking quietly...probably mostly the former.

The Beauties

I loved my Avery time last night and I am going to make a concerted effort to seize those moments, say yes more (when I can and won't ruin them for the rest of their lives), and focus on them first, stop worrying about the laundry that needs to be folded, or the Christmas Card addresses that I just collected and need to execute on...it should be about them, those are the things they are going to remember about me one day.  Not that I was always cleaning up (but probably that I was always fussing at them to clean up), but that I was there for them, that I spent time for them, that I enjoyed being with them.  I need to work on that, or my beauties will be remembering me fussing at them all the time.

And of course it didn't help at the St. Jude Partner-in-Hope telethon was on XM 57 this morning. I called Brad in tears after listening to parents chime into "My Wish" by Rascal Flats, and talk about what they wish for their children who are fighting a scary disease.  Some of them wished to just see their kids laugh and play, while others wished to see their kids learn to drive, graduate from high school, get married, all the things I likely take for granted every single day.  I need to stop fussing at the beauties and be thanking my lucky stars they are healthy.  Stop pointing out when Olivia's J's go in the wrong direction and high-five her for getting the other 25 letters right. I've sure got a lot to work on. But thankfully, they love me, and are the most forgiving creatures I know, so I might as well start now!

Christmas Card Photos - 2010