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My son, Aaron, aka AJ will be 6 today. He is a wonderful boy. He is full of energy, he loves sports and has a natural ability to caught on quickly to anything physical. He loves Papa John’s pizza, and would eat it for all 3 meals if he could. He loves his sister and wants to be just like her, but would NEVER admit it. He is the first one to help when he sees a need, but only if he is not asked to help. It has to be his idea. He only likes green. I was afraid that having to wear only khaki or navy pants was going to throw him over the edge, but the fact that I have 5 green shirts he can wear makes up for it. He is the funniest kid EVER. He comes up with the funniest things at the best times. He is also very smart and even though he does not talk very much because he is afraid you don’t understand him, he knows things. He can already add and subtract, he is going to be like his Grandpa with math and science.

As a matter of fact, he reminds me more and more of my dad every day. Most of what I just described are also qualities of my DAD. My dad loved pizza, was always the first one to help, and was obsessed with sports. He always had a ball game of some sort on at all times. The other night I caught AJ in his room watching a football documentary on netfix. AJ is my buddy. He always looks out for me. He is my very special little man that has taught me how strong I am in more ways then I can say. He has been a challenge from birth with testing my strength and faith when he was sick, and then when we couldn’t understand him and I had to learn how to communicate with him and understand him. And later when he was so head strong and defiant that I never thought I would ever be able to take him out in public again, he made me learn, he made me grow.

I can’t believe he is 6. In my mind he is still that little 4lb 8oz baby that needed me every second. Or that toddler that tested my patience when he would just run off with no fear of danger. Or that 5 year old who I did not think was old enough or prepared enough to start kindergarten. But he is, he is my 6 year old with his first loose tooth. Happy Birthday Aaron James!

Today I learned a few things while staying home with all three kids all day by myself. I first learned, they eat A LOT. I feel like all I did today was feed them. Second I learned, if you just sit on the couch and avoid every other room, you will not see the huge messes everywhere and your life will be stress free and easy going. Which leads to the third thing I learned. It is fine to spend a whole day at home in your pajamas without having sick kids and it is perfectly acceptable. In fact, it was just what I needed. I have not had a day off in months it seems.

So today, I had no plans, ok, so I planned to wow my husband with my wonderful cleaning skills and have the whole house spotless and de-cluttered when he came home, have the kids Valentines bought and written out, and have a wonderful figure friendly dinner ready when he got home. But I took the day off. I did not call anyone, email anyone, or text anyone. I sat in my comfy pajamas, watched the kids Just Dance on the Xbox, played some UNO and Skippo, and took a nap.

Oh and the last thing I learned is that Dylan misses his brother and sister during the week. He has had the best time today playing with them. I watched Lauren and Aaron becoming best friends, just like my brother and I were. They have played everything from Xbox to batman, and currently a lovely game they invented called,”shoe ball” and they couldn’t be happier. There has been no fighting, arguing, or screaming, from ANYONE.

Today I learned it’s ok to slow down, it’s ok to take a break. It’s not just ok, it is the only thing that I needed today. So when’s your PJ day scheduled?

I have been working a lot lately. I’m only working about 30 hours a week, but it feels like 100. I am not sure how all you moms that work do it. That includes you home school moms out there because we all know that you spend at least 8 hours a day doing that even if that is not all hands on teaching time.

As I said, I am only working about 30 hours a week, and don’t get me wrong, I am glad I can help out my family when we need the income to make it all work, and I’m grateful that I have a job and the ability to work. However, I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all lately. I feel like I am not able to get it all done.

I have a few confessions to make. My son got a letter the other day that he qualifies for the First start program, which just means he is ready to be challenged. What? How did I not even realize that he may be ready for this, I had no idea. I do not think my daughters agenda has been signed in weeks, and it is supposed to be signed each day. I used to know all the kids in my kids class and be in class weekly or bi-weekly. I have never been in either child’s classroom for more that 5 minutes. And lets not even start on my house. There are always dishes in the sink, and my kids have had microwave mac and cheese, cereal, or popcorn for dinner more times then I can count. My poor toddler already knows how to play the IPAD and can call Mickey Mouse, Dora,and Mike the Knight by name. I think “MAP” may have been his first word. I am not the person that can be ok with it not all getting done, so this post is one where I ask all you working moms out there for help.

How do you get it all done? How do you find time to not only work and do a good job, but also have time to make dinner, do homework, and make sure you have quality time with the kids? I know I am probably asking too much here, but I want to know. I am sure it can be done but how? Please give me insight into your secrets?

So we have never really had a babysitter before. We are not the overly paranoid parents that do not feel we can leave them in the hands of others, but frankly we were just too poor to be able to pay for a sitter and have a night out. Whenever we do have a sitter it is usually family that takes pity on us and watches them for free, or a friend that we have exchanged services with.

Last night I took my husband on a real date to a real restaurant. It was really to celebrate him graduating, which he did last month, but we just found the time and money to splurge on this night out. As usual we asked my mom to watch the kids and she had said yes when we made the plans. However between that time and last week something else came up, so instead of canceling our plans we found a sitter. My mom offered to pay for the sitter since she was not available, so I guess we still really haven’t had a paid babysitter.

Anyway, here is where the fun begins. As Ellis and I are chowing down on some yummy Brazilian food, my sitter was having a very eventful time herself. We put the lock on the outside of my son’s door awhile back because that was the only way to successfully give him a time out. He would throw every bad tantrums and holding him or making him stand against the wall never worked. I am glad to say that we have survived this phase and I can’t remember the last time we used this method, however, I neglected to inform my sitter of this information. The kids took advantage of this fact and successful lured her to Aaron’s room and locked her in. I’m sure it was not so funny to her, but when I saw her Facebook post about it on our way home I could not stop laughing. After the laughter stopped I figured I better get straight home after dinner for fear that they would come up with another “fun” activity and she would never come back again. I am also pretty sure that this incident is why I found candy in Dylan’s PJ’s this morning. She thought, I’ll show her I will let Dylan have candy in bed, that will pay her back for her heathen children.

Pretty sure it will be a long time before I will be able to find a babysitter after this, but it was too good not sure share.

I know this is going to be a riveting post for everyone but I just have to talk about it. I hate cleaning floors. It seems like right after you clean them, even if no one is home, they get dirty again immediately. I am fine with vacuuming, dusting, laundry, and yes hand washing dishes. I have found that my OCD personality kicks in and it is my mission to get those babies extra clean and shiny. However, no matter how much work I put into the floors they always seem to get messy too quickly. I am not sure why I so dislike this task, but I have decided that if I ever get to have a new house, it needs to have self cleaning floors. Ok, I know that is probably not really possible, but it is my dream house so I can dream.

So that leads me to my question, I can’t be the only one out there that has a chore they despise. Tell me what your least favorite task is and why? I need some commiseration today as I clean the dirty floor….again.

Ok, so I realize it has been a while since I have wrote a post. December proved to be an extraordinarily busy month for me. My husband was finishing up his Master’s Degree, the kids were out of school, and I was working like a mad women because while other jobs slow down around the holidays, that is typically when the hospital is at it’s busiest.

In December we had a wonderful Christmas, and also had friends and family that had struggles in some way. I am blessed that my biggest struggle right now seems to be the fact that I now have no dishwasher, since it decided to quit working on Christmas Eve and we do not have it in the budget to repair or replace it. I have come to embrace my situation and I will learn to love dry hands because surprisingly my dishes seem much cleaner with the hand washing method, even though it does take more time.

Now it is January. The new year. For most it is just about taking down the Christmas decorations and trying to make it to Spring, but for me it is a wonderful month. It is the month my first child was born. My wonderful GIRL. I am so so glad I had a girl first. She is wonderful in every way, even though she is my exact opposite. She loves crafts and trying new things. She is super unorganized and would probably forget her shoes if she was not reminded to put them on. She is however like me in how picky she is and how helpful she can be. She can see when there is a need and she will help in any way she can. She loves her brothers even though I know she longs for one of them to be a girl, she makes do by getting Aaron to play salon with her, and she returns the favor by playing cars and Batman with him.

I am coming to terms with the fact that she is not my baby anymore. She is almost as tall as me and grows out of her clothes every other week. I am aware that she is closer now to driving then she is to being a toddler again. I am so blessed to have her in my life and I can’t wait to celebrate her being 9, even though I have told her she doesn’t get a birthday this year because she can’t get any older. Happy Birthday Lauren! I love you!

For the past 12 years today has not been my favorite day. It was my dad’s birthday. Each year I am reminded it is another year he is not around and another year we have to miss him. I found that the first couple of years on this day I could not function. I found I needed to plan nothing, do nothing, but try to get through it. We started a tradition of getting together as a family that day, remembering him and having one of his favorite meals. For the first year we went to a fancy restaurant, however the years after we found that pizza was a better option, and his favorite food, well that and milk.

Over the years that tradition has comforted me. I know that my dad is not forgotten, and that my kids now know a little bit about my dad. They enjoy his birthday-almost as much as Christmas because I let them open one present-and I know that is what my dad would do too. If he was here he would probably let them open 3 presents! Today my son woke up and the first thing he said is, “is it Grandpa’s birthday? Do we get to open a present?” Instead of the dread, I felt happy. I felt peace that my kids are excited about this day. I know that today I will still feel sad, alone, hurt, angry. But I will also feel a little peace that I know that I will see him again one day, and that I have successfully helped my kids to know their grandpa even though they have never met him.

Today I think of even more than myself. I think of all those that have lost someone and I just hope that they are able to find a bit of peace or tradition of their own that will help them when they feel loss. Happy Birthday Dad,I love you!

December has not been too kind to us here at the Gary house. My son had a rash which turned out to be Fifth’s Disease. A virus that was contagious before the rash, and once you have the rash you are fine. The rash looks bad, but was harmless once it appears. My daughter then had a sinus infection and then got the rash as well. Surprisingly Dylan has been healthy so far other than a couple days of stomach flu. I got the stomach flu and now have the rash. Sigh.

I have to say I am now sympathetic to my daughter who complained for 2 days she had a horrible headache. I think this was a side effect of the rash because I now also have a horrible headache that medicine does not seem to help. Up side, I am not contagious!

I am refusing to let all this illness ruin December. There are treats to make, presents to wrap, and family gatherings to attend. No germs, you are not going to kill my Christmas Spirit, but you may force me to take Benadryl and go to bed early!

And this is how Dylan feels about the whole thing:

So today I got a text from my husband that my daughter was sick and he was going to get her from school. First thing I thought of was how sad I was that I was not the one to be taking care of my baby. The minute I got home, at 4pm I knew what was wrong. STREP THROAT! We have avoided this for awhile since Lauren had her tonsils out, but I know that does not make you immune to the illness. I knew I could not wait until tomorrow to help her, so thanks to a wonderful neighbor who volunteered to stay late so I could take her without her two brothers, I headed to the immediate care.

They did the test and it was negative, but due to her symptoms he gave us an antibiotic because he was sure the in depth test they took that takes longer to get results would be positive. He said she could go back to school when she was feeling up to it and sent us on our way.

Here is what this incident has taught me. First, my little baby is the exact opposite of a baby. She is only 9 inches away from being as tall as me. She can also take grown up pills and no longer needs the liquid form. This is Wonderful for me because I have to fight to get her to take medicine because she hates all medicine. However, with all the good news, I have realized that my baby is so grown up. She was able to take care of herself for the most part today while I was gone. She told me she wanted milk, but knew it would upset her stomach so she opted for Sprite to settle her stomach. I feel like any day she is going to be asking me to go on her first date. I knew I could not keep her a baby forever, but I was hoping she would not pass me up in height by age nine!

I am not ready but as we sit watching The Voice together I know that there will be things I will look forward to doing with her that we can do now that she is old enough to appreciate and understand them.

Now if AJ comes home from school with a drivers license just shoot me!

I have a confession to make to all of you. I like Christmas decorations. I know I know you may be shocked. I am so not crafty, a decorator, or designer. I don’t really do decorations. I don’t put up decorations for Easter, Fourth of July, Halloween, or even Kwanzaa. I know it’s sad, you can feel sorry for my kids anytime you want. I just don’t get into it and I don’t like to spend money on those things.

Christmas is a whole different story. I put up the stockings, I light Christmas candles, I put the Christmas cards on the door as we get them. I put up a tree and even put snowmen and a Nativity up. However this year I am a bit sad. I realized all of my Christmas boxes are in storage. I don’t have the heart to ask my husband to go dig them out when they will only be up for a month. So this year I will leave them stored away somewhere and just imagine that my house is full of my favorite Christmas decor.

Don’t be too sad for me though, I somehow managed to have kept our stockings in with the gift wrapping box-which I did not take to storage, and I never took my precious ornament box to storage for fear that it would get lost or broken. So we have stocking up, and a Christmas tree full of ornaments. Do you all have your trees up?