The Bad Thing about Wrapping Birthday Presents Too Early

So today was the day that I had decided to start breaking Kaley of her paci habit. Greg would have done it months ago, but I'm the one who has to deal with no naps afterwards so I win no matter what on that one.

Once we got home from a 3 hour pool party, an impromptu second dinner of take out from Rosa's, and a splinter extraction from Logan's foot while the kids watched the 1967 Spiderman cartoon, Greg reminded me that I had some snipping to do - supposedly the easiest way to rid someone of this habit with out them really knowing what you are doing.

First, let me say that I was not excited. Getting rid of something so special to your girly is just down right horrible. We went through it with the 2 boys thumbs and it just is sad to watch such a big part of them go away (until you look back at the pictures of your now 6 year old sucking his thumb at 3 or you see the 5 year old in the store walking behind his mom sucking his thumb). Now I can be a tad judgemental because I myself sucked my finger until I was at least 7, maybe later. I wonder what side this habit came from on the family tree?

So there has to be a day and today it is. I cut of the tips of the pacis (she has 3) and we put her to bed not saying anything. She took one look at them. Hysterics! Seriously, she kept crying, "Put them back together!" "Fix them!" in her cute little almost 3 year old voice between loud sobbing. Luckily(?), she picked me over Greg to cuddle with her and calm her down.

After 5 minutes of hysterical crying, Mommy decided the slow and "easy" death of cutting the pacis was not working for this family.

"Do you want to leave these out and see if the Paci Fairy comes to take them to new babies who need them? The Paci Fairy cleans the pacis really well and fixes them all up new for the babies."

Surprisingly, the crying stopped and she was considering it.

"Maybe the Paci Fairy will bring your something since you are giving your pacis to her...like when Dylan left his tooth for the Tooth Fairy and she brought him a dollar. What do you think the Paci Fairy will bring you?"

"A dollhouse." Luckily, we already have one of those (Thanks, Mimi & Papa!) so I didn't have to rush out and get one at Walmart at 9pm.

"We have a dollhouse. Maybe she will bring something for your dollhouse."

"A refrigerator. We don't have a refrigerator and we need one." Luckily, she is getting the kitchen furniture for her birthday in 1 week and it was sent down here early from Katy (Sorry, Mimi and Papa). Did I mention I was proud of myself for wrapping all presents about a week and half ago? Guess who has to rip them all open to find the fridge tonight?

After much deliberation of where to put the hastily scribbled note for the Paci Fairy (I mean, really, where does the Paci Fairy operate? Tough questions when you are working on the fly.), Kaley went to bed without crying for her pacis. We'll see how much sleep we get tonight. Of course, we are already used to waking up at least once a night by Kaley and getting up to walk her back to her room, so maybe it is the right time to do this. Plus, the 3 hour swim party. I best be getting to bed.

I love my 3 kids. I love having 3 kids and most that goes along with them. (We'll leave out how many times a day I have to say, "We don't say potty words.") Anyway, I have developed this habit where I check and scan my email at least every 30 minutes each day, but save all non-urgent responses for a sit down session a couple of times a week. This does seem like a good idea, but I have to admit that sometimes it is better to have things in small doses. For example, tonight I realized how crazy it is when there is a big holiday coming up and you have 3 kids. I can't imagine my friends with 5 kids. Crazy for sure on that one! ;-) So I'm updating the calendar with this and that. The most recent email contains Dylan's weekly school news where there is a mention of an egg hunt at school on the 21st. In my brain, an alarm goes off. Have I added it to the calendar? By it, I mean a little reminder of when the eggs need to be at school. April 19th. Nope, have not added it. It sounds so simple, but when you look at my calendar, here is what shows up.

• April 19th - D Easter Eggs to school (Note: I just realized I should be more detailed and add that 6 eggs need to go to school and that they need to be labeled 1-6 in black marker)


• April 20th - L green sprinkles, 6 plastic, filled, taped eggs for L to school and green sprinkles (don't know what was going on there, but at least I shouldn't mess that up)


• April 21 - D, L, K Easter Baskets to school,


• K Eggs and Egg Carton (after reviewing this entry, I realize I need to take K off of the Easter Basket reminder above.)

Note that every entry had a note to it after looking at the calendar to write this blog entry. If I can't even get the entries straight when putting them on the calendar, how am I supposed to get everyone to school with all the green sprinkles, eggs, and homemade Easter Hats (btw, need to add that to Apr. 21st or maybe April 20th, not sure) at the right time and not forget anything? This is when 3 kids just puts you over the edge. I thought it would be the crying, fighting or screaming, all which have happened today, would have gotten me, but I think it's the days when I have to fill the minivan with all of our activity paraphernalia that does it. Wish me luck!

Melting my Heart

I love out of the blue comments like these so much that it makes it on the much ignored blog instead of a Facebook status. Probably, because I really want to remember it.

Logan: "Mommy, when I get as old as you, I'm going to marry you."
Dylan: "Well, we all can marry you."
Kaley: "I marry YOU, TOO!"

Logan at bedtime later: "Mommy, don't forget that I'm going to marry you."
Dylan:"I'm marrying you, too."
Me: "You might want to marry someone else besides me."
Dylan: "But we are all part of the family."
Me: "Maybe you'll want to bring someone else into the family one day."
Both boys: "Nah."