Steph’s Blog

Just to clairify for the ignorant people we run into…and yes, some of these are people we know and have known for YEARS!

Yes, Scott and I have THREE daughters. Can you not count?

No, we do not have any boys. Do you need glasses?

Yes, we are head over heals in love with all three of our daughters. How can you think someone would love their children less because they do not have a penis? If you do, you do not deserve any children at all.

Yes, they make life crazy but not because they are girls. Don’t all kids make life crazy?

Yes, we have tons of pink. I love pink. Scott, not so much, but he certainly loves how his daughters look in pink.

We do not care care if you think boys are easier to raise than girls. If we wanted easy we would not have had children and probably would have bought a plant. That has to be the epitome of lazy if that is your reasoning for not wanting girls and you should probably not reproduce.

No, Scott does not feel like he is missing out on “all the fun stuff”. Ask him yourself and you might just get a knuckle sandwich. Considering Scott is pretty even tempered this is a big deal. I do not recommend asking him…or me for that matter!

Just for the record, Scott will be the first to tell you that girls can do anything boys can do. We just so happen to have ourselves a little t-ball player, a soccer lover, a GIRL who loves to watch Tiger Woods, a FEMALE child that can pick out the New York Yankees emblem and say ” that’s our team!” and she also happens to be starting karate. We also have a couple of girls who love bug hunting, fishing, and playing in the mud.

Why the defensiveness you ask? My six year old daughter has heard one too many negative comments about girls since we added a third daughter to our clan. I had no idea it was so unheard of to have more than one daughter. We happen to think we are pretty damn lucky. When we have a daughter that thinks it’s society’s general opinion that girls are not as valued as boys we get a tad irritated. If I have to spell it out for you then you are probably one of the morons who asks the above questions or makes one of the above mentioned comments. Seriously, it makes me want to throw up.

Do I have something against boys or sons? Not a chance…children are children. I have two gorgeous nephews and a handsome godson and I love them every bit as much as I love my daughters and my niece. Children are born to us as a gift. We are blessed and lucky to have them no matter what sex they happen to be.

If you feel the need to ask any of the above questions about our three (count with me folks…one…two…three!)girls, save your breath and just walk away. I hear knuckle sandwiches don’t taste all that great.

“A daughter is the happy memories of the past, the joyful moments of the present, and the hope and promise of the future.”

The last two weeks have been nuts around here.

Lysol has made a fortune off us and I am pretty sure that our pediatrician has too. As you may have guessed the kids have been sick. Abigail had a stomach bug for 3 or 4 days and Megan had a horrible ear infection and chest cold that graced us with a fever of 103.5-103.8 at any given moment. Did I mention that they were both sick and miserable at the same time? I didn’t? Well let me just tell you that it was not a fun couple of weeks around this place getting everyone back to normal.

Now that those couple of weeks are over the last 2 or 3 days have been much better. Megan has stopped screaming at any and every one and Abigail is eating and back to her normal happy school loving self. Now Scott and I feel like it’s alright to take a breath again. That we don’t have to feel that chest thumping panic every time we hear a cough in the night that doesn’t sound quite right, or I don’t have to blink back tears as Abigail is crying on the bathroom floor because she doesn’t want to throw up anymore but there is nothing I can do to stop it. Thank Heaven above that they are better.

I hate it when the kids are sick. I hate that most of the time I just have to ride it out and there isn’t much of anything to do but let it run its course. I hate when they feel miserable and I can’t control how soon they get better or take all the hurt away. It makes me nuts plain and simple.

Last night I got my repayment for all the hours that I spent pacing around the house like an anxious animal trapped in a cage. I was rocking Megan after her bedtime story last night and she just put her head on my shoulder and said “shh”. She didn’t want me to sing any lullabies last night and she didn’t want anymore stories, she just wanted a quiet rock in our creaky rocking chair. So that is what I did…I rocked and listened. I listened to the sound of breathing that wasn’t raspy and I smelled a baby fresh from the tub–a baby that wasn’t slathered in Baby Vick’s, just the smell of baby soap.

Just when I think I have won the bedtime lottery it gets better. I climbed into bed with Abigail after her Daddy finished their story. It was time for our nightly “sniggle” so I turned on her lullaby CD and cozied up. We chatted about our day for a few minutes and few odd things in between that she has pondered about and then she sniggled in and quieted down. All I can hear is her breathing. Tonight it is slow and soft and sleepy, she has no more anxiousness or fear that she is going to throw up in the night and be all alone. She was just a tired happy girl who was sniggling and falling asleep with Mommy.

It is music to a parents ears to hear the soft sound of little breaths and get little cuddles in the quiet of that space in time between sleepiness and sleep. I told myself to just breathe. I let myself take in the quiet and finally after 2 long weeks I smiled and thought “Jackpot!”.

Well, I guess now it’s true. Neither one of my girls are babies anymore, of course they will always be babies to me in my mind but in reality, they are growing so quickly. What has brought this on you ask? Megan’s second birthday has just come and gone.
I can recall just about every moment of the day before her birth and the day of like it was yesterday–and Abigail’s too. I often wonder if that is just me being odd or if other parents do this as well. I knew what day Megan was going to arrive since I was 12 days past my due date, my OB had me scheduled for an induction. With that information at hand, I spent 99.9% of the day before said induction baking cookies and painting with Abigail and rocking with her in the living room in front of the Christmas tree. I was so excited about the new arrival but somehow I was also a little heartbroken that it was now a reality that Abigail was not going to be my one and only any longer and in someways felt so guilty and worried how that was going to affect her. After all, how could I love TWO babies as much as I loved one?  No one told me that the minute another baby is born your heart doubles in size and there is enough love to go around for everyone.

Abigail doubled the joy in our lives when she was born and Megan has double it yet again. Megan has made Abigail a big sister and added even more to our lives since her arrival, and even before. It is so amazing to me how much one little person brings to the lives of others.

I guess this has all hit me because I love their birthday’s so much. It is a day to celebrate them and their lives and growing one year older. It is a day for Scott and I to be infinitely thankful that we have been so blessed to have them (and I am thankful that they are still only 5 and 2!). Their birthday’s take me back to the day that it all started…the day the magic arrived in our lives.

I kissed Megan goodnight last night before I headed to bed myself, just like I do every night, but last night was a little different. I kissed my big girl last night, in her big girl bed. She is two now. She is a full blown walking, talking, laughing, mischief making big girl.

In a blink, they have changed and grown so much in such a short time. In a blink, the two years of Megan’s little life have flown by so quickly. Maybe if I stop blinking they will slow down just a little tiny bit!

Happy Birthday Megan!

Yesterday was such a great day…even with the less than fabulous weather we had.

I took Megan to the nursing home with my Mom and sister yesterday. We went to visit my Aunt and Grandmother. Megan has not been to the nursing home up until yesterday. I was a little concerned at first because she can play strange with older people and especially in strange places. Boy did my little smoochie pie prove me wrong!

We got there and Grandma was busy in the lounge on her wing so we took a stroll over to my Aunt’s room. Megan decided she was right at home and proceeded to play with any and every knick knack she could get her hands on. My Aunt couldn’t have cared less. She loves to have little ones around. I remember as a kid she would play cards with me for hours, or teach me to cross stitch and do cross word puzzles with me. Yesterday Megan got to enjoy a little piece of that with her. She wandered around my Aunt’s room and chatted away and then much to my surprise and pleasure she let me put her on my Aunt’s lap and there the two of them sat for fifteen or twenty minutes just watching cartoons and having a cup of juice together. I am so glad that my Aunt got to have a little sniggle time with Megan and that Megan got to have some special time with my Aunt.

Ok, so we decide we are going to head over to my Grandma’s room and we get there and she is having a little nap in her recliner. She wakes up after a minute and sees Megan there…did I mention that Gram just LOVES and I mean L O V E S babies? So her face lights up to see Megan…but this is where Megan plays a little strange because of the older person thing I mentioned about above. Gram is 97…bless her heart! So Meg warms up to her a bit and decides she doesn’t really want to sit on Great Grandma’s lap but instead wants to sit in her wheel chair in front of Great Grandma and play Peek-A-Boo and blow kisses. This made Grandma smile in the way only a Great Grandma can. I don’t know if she remembered or realized that Megan was one of MANY great grandchildren but she gets this look when she sees one of us, great grandchildren or grandchildren, it doesn’t seem to matter which. Maybe it’s just me thinking she gets this warm sweet look but either way she was happy to see us. And I was happy to see her.

I am so lucky to have had all my grandparents until I was an adult. I have so many friends that lost their grandparents when they were children and even before they were born. I only have my two Gram’s left now but I am still so lucky. My girls are even luckier. They have grandparents who love them and great grandparents to love them too. We may not seem all of them very often but I love the fact that the girls have been blessed to have them in their lives. I hope my girls realize when they are grown how lucky they are. It is a toasty warm feeling to be this lucky.

This is a couple weeks past due (As everyone can see I am not really very good at being consistant with blogging!) but Congratulations are in order for our neighbors.

Our friends who live next door tied the knot a couple weeks ago. I have to say this is one of the nicest weddings that I have ever been to, and with the size of my family I have been to a LOT of weddings! Do you know how some weddings are all about the dress, seeing how many people you can pack into a church just to say you had 300 people at your wedding, and they have to have the best of this and the best of that and the reason for the marriage seems to be lost? This wedding was in no way as pretentious as that kind of wedding. That is not to say that the dress wasn’t totally perfect for the bride (it was simply fabulous to be totally honest!!). This wedding was just what it was meant to be. It was two people (and the brides daughter) coming together as one and creating a beautiful family of three. We have not known J&S for very long but the ceremony brought tears to my eyes…and I am not a person who cries at weddings believe it or not!
Now, Scott and I did not know more than maybe 3 people there but we left that wedding knowing about 30 more. Some how I am not surprised. J&S are the easiest people to be around so it goes without saying that their family and friends are the same way. We had wonderful chats with their family and friends, we drank with them, ate with them and had some good laughs together. It was a really wonderful day. They are so blessed to be surrounded by so many people who love them.

J&S and Little S, we couldn’t be happier for you all. You are a wonderful family and we are very touched that you asked us to share your special day with you all. We send you many wishes for so much happiness for you all. Congratulations!

IRISH WEDDING BLESSING
May God be with you and bless you
May you see your children’s children
May you be poor in misfortunes,
Rich in blessings
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward

Here are some photos that Abigail, my little shutter bug, took while we were all pumpkin carving this past Sunday!
We LOVE to do stuff like this together and we had such a great time.

Take a look!

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Happy Halloween!

To all those of you who have left comments or who have emailed me, thank you very much for your comments and thoughts. It means a lot to me that you all read a blog of someone you don’t even know.

Now I need to say I am sorry for being so behind on blogging. The last three weeks have been a bit helter skelter with the girls being sick and then I was sick myself for two weeks. We have had a million birthday and Halloween parties to attend along with everything that goes with daily life.

Now on to my point of the blog today.

How do you help your little girl get over being frightened and nervous over something that you know she can do and has done?

Abigail is afraid to ride the bus now. She is so afraid in fact that it comes down to her crying at bedtime when she asks if she has to ride the bus tomorrow, crying a good chunk of the morning while she gets ready for school and then her little hands get nervous and shake. This has been an all consuming issue in our home for the last 3 school mornings. It turns out that now that the buses have a regular routine (only took them 2 months!) they get to school before 8:10 and they are not allowed in the building before then so they have to sit and wait on the bus for 15-20 minutes each morning. This causes big concerns for Abigail because she is afraid of not being able to make it to the bathroom in time if she needs to go. She had an accident at school a couple weeks ago and it seems to have really bothered her so now she is overly conscious that she needs to use the bathroom. Add on to all this that her best friend moved away and now Abigail no longer has the distraction of playing and chatting with her little friend to keep her mind off the worry.

I sent a note on the bus with her this morning to give to her bus monitor (who seems to be a very kind woman and seems to comfort Abigail a great deal) explaining what was going on with Abigail. A little while ago she called me to talk about all this and let me know that she noticed that she has been a little more anxious and upset since they have had to sit and wait the 15-20 minutes on the bus. She told me that she reassured Abigail and let her know that if she EVER needed to use the bathroom that she would ALWAYS take her in and let her go. She also stressed to my little worrier that if anything ever happened on the bus or if she was ever scared or upset that she can always tell her and she will help. She doesn’t want Abigail to be afraid and she wants her to know that she is there to help take care of her and keep her safe and well.

So I am hoping that after hearing that and after we let her know that she will be ok and that there is someone there to help her out she will feel better about her bus ride.

It is beyond painful to send her off to the bus while I can see her fighting back the tears. It breaks my heart to know that she is frightened and worried. But, I also want her to learn that she needs to overcome these fears. I was so tempted to take her to school myself but in the long run that is not teaching her what she needs to learn and it is not helping the matter–only covering it up. I think the hardest part is, that up until now, Abigail has pretty much been a fearless worry-free child and now I see her worry…something she really hasn’t had much experience with. I guess that goes with the growing up territory.
I think that this is one of the bigger challenges of parenting that we have had to deal with (I know, we really are lucky but it still sucks). Up until this point my girls were just babies and we could give them everything they needed but now that Abigail is growing and is in school we need to teach her that she needs to overcome fears and worries and how to do that. It is so hard to see her so upset and to know that I can’t just snap my fingers and make it go away.

Until we get over this I will just keep dishing out the kisses and hugs and reassurance and send her on her way to school. It is hard to take in that I cannot be the one to take care of all her worries and hurts throughout the day anymore. But at least I know that the people who surround her at school are caring for her, nurturing and of course, educating her and helping her grow to be a strong independent girl.

Abigail has had a pretty bad week. She has taken it all in stride I would say…but today may be the straw that broke the camels back…or her heart.

Yesterday Abigail found out that her best friend was moving away. I know to you and I that isn’t that big of a deal after only 7 weeks of school and that she is going to gain and lose more friends over the span of her life. However, when you are five years old, are table mates, lunch buddies and sit together on the school bus everyday this is a pretty big blow…even more so when the day you find out that your friend is leaving it turns out to be her last day with you so there is no real warning or time to say good-bye.

Last night Abigail came home and explained to me that her friend was moving to a new house and a new school on Saturday. I know that Abigail was so sad but we at least thought she would have one last day on the bus, one last day to share lunches and one last day to be table mates. We bought a little going away gift for her and sent our phone number and address with it so that the girls could keep in touch and Abigail made a little charm necklace for her. After some crying at bedtime last night and explaining that we will try to keep in touch with her friend and that she still has her other friends she finally fell asleep.

This morning she woke up happier but the first thing she mentioned was that today was going to be her little friends last day at school. So Scott and I did our reassuring that it might be her last day but that we could still call and get together with her friend since they weren’t moving all that far away. So Abigail got herself dressed and ate a good breakfast and we did the rest of our normal school morning routine and started watching for the bus.

This is where her heart breaks into a million little bits. Abigail, her friend and her friends older brother all sit together on the bus every morning n the same seat. Abigail looked in “their seat” as the bus pulled up for her friend…and she’s already gone. It turns out yesterday, the same day they announced they were leaving, was their last day.

Abigail turns and looks back to me waving good-bye to her from the front porch and I see her eyes filling up with tears and her chin quivering, but she turns to get on the bus none the less. When I saw her sit in “their seat” all alone, with not one other soul in the seat with her, her little face looking down into her lap my heart just broke into a thousand pieces and then my own tears fell for her heartbreak.

Abigail is the kind of child that holds her heart out there for every person to have. I love that about her. I tend to be the same way too but I can also understand at this point in my life that my heart will get hurt or mistreated along the way but that it doesn’t stay hurt forever. Abigail only understands that now there is an empty seat right next to her in her class room, an empty seat on the bus and now her best friend won’t be there to share her Chex Mix with everyday.

What is more difficult, seeing her heartbroken right now but knowing that it won’t be broken forever and that friends come and go or the fact that this is the first of many broken hearts my baby is going to have to endure throughout her life?

The realization of that is almost more than I wish to bare. Of course I knew that my children were going to grow and learn and love and be loved by people other than our families and also have their feelings hurt and deal with disappointment and heart break…I guess I just hoped it wouldn’t have been this soon, that I would have been more prepared for it or that maybe…just maybe she wouldn’t have to go through it at all.

Have you ever had something just out of your reach and you try and try to catch it but it just slips through you fingers, however, the chase was so fun you just can’t manage be sad?

We did this weekend. I was driving over to my sister Stacie’s house with the girls and we all spotted a huge rainbow and then another and then another. THREE rainbows all at once. One arched just a little higher over the first. We then realized we could see both ends of two of the rainbows. How lucky is that?!

Being Irish, chasing rainbows is practically in the job description. So that is what Stacie, Abigail, Megan and I did. We chased the rainbow trying to pass directly under it or to at least catch up with one end of one of them.

As hard as we tried we just couldn’t catch that glowing beam of luck. My girls had a wonderful time though (to be honest I think Stacie and I were more into it than they were!). Abigail was speechless for all of thirty seconds and then said with, a little bit of a stutter while she was finding the right words, “It’s just like…like a miracle isn’t it?!” Megan wasn’t sure what to make of the bright arch of colors that was so vivid and bright. Being not quite two years old, those things don’t make much sense just yet, but she loved the clapping and giggling none the less!

Just a quick post to wish my Mom and Dad a Happy 30th Anniversary.

It’s pretty amazing these days to see people my parents age that are still married. What’s even more wonderful is that they have been married for 30 years. WOW!!

Congratulations Mom and Dad! I hope you have a wonderful anniversary!