peelosophy

Dear God,
Thank you for giving us what I never knew I always wanted wrapped up in this sweet little girl.  Thank you for tights, dresses, headbands, cute winter coats, all.the.shoes. and the cutest model to wear it all. I love delighting in Your creation!
Love,
Jill

Today JJ’s friend Madeline stopped by to drop off a gift for him that she picked up in LegoLand at Disney World last week.  It was a little tub of Legos – so sweet.

He told her thank you twice when she gave them to him. Then tonight he felt he needed to call her and thank her again.

He looked up her number and dialed it and this is how the conversation went….

Mrs.J: Hello

J: Hi, this JJ Peel is Madeline there?

Mrs.J: Why yes she is just a moment JJ.

M:  Hello

J: Hi Madeline, this is JJ.  Thank you for the Legos you gave me.

M: That is the third time you thanked me JJ.

J:  I know.  I really like them and wanted to tell you that my brother and I made 3 things with them already.

M:  Cool!

long  pause……..

M: You know were are partners tomorrow for school.

J:  I know.

M: That’s exciting!

J: Yeah.  Here comes a burp…..

M: What?

Me in the background:  JJ We do not burp over the phone.

J: Ok see you tomorrow.

M: Bye.

So how did I know both sides of the phone conversation?  I totally put the phone on speaker.  I figure I have a small window of time my sons will let me listen in help them with their phone skills and I took it.  Hopefully my control issues will be resolved by the time they are teenagers.

John – she was wearing her Ferrari Formula 1 T-shirt when she dropped the gift…..

John was changing the oil in our van.

Batman (George) came to sit car side if he needed assistance.

Since JJ has been back at school for 2 weeks now, the band of brothers has had a shift in dynamics.  Before school, I would say that JJ was the ringleader and the younger boys generally followed suit or got excited about whatever he is doing.  Now that JJ is gone all day, Henry moved up to be the older brother for 7 hours during the day.

Now, Henry and George have different relationship because they are closer in age, they are 16 months apart,  whereas JJ is a full 2 and 1/2 years older than Henry.  I feel like Henry and George either are best friends or worst enemies depending on the day, hour or moment.  In recent days, I can see how they are trying to figure out how to be themselves with each other (aren’t we all?) and find a “common play”.  It’s been rough – lots of crying, but some sweet times in between the grief.

I usually take for granted the time they are loving each other and playing “nicely”.  But lately, I feel like God has been showing me sweet moments of them enjoying each other and here is one I’d like to share with you.

Let me preface by saying, I know I say stupid things without thinking of the full ramifications.  I am not without fault especially when it comes to opening my mouth.

So here’s my deal, without fail when I run errands with the kids,  strangers fall head over heels for George.  I can’t really blame them.  Yes – he has two perfectly placed, deep dimples on his chubby cheeks, yes – his clear blue eyes mimic waters off the coast of Bali, yes – he’s at that darling age of 2 1/2, and yes -  he flirts relentlessly from the cart.

Strangers stop us constantly and complement him (or me never know which) on all the above characteristics, that’s all well and sweet.  But it’s how it is said in front of my other children that drives me mad.  The conversation is usually only complementing George, nothing is usually said about my other children.  It’s not my feelings that are being hurt – I think all of my kids are the cutest in the whole world right?  It’s when I glance at Henry when all of this is being said about George.   I can’t imagine what he feels. Ugh, it makes me sick.

One of the things I get all the time is “I will take that one (pointing to George) home with me”.  I mean can we single the kid out anymore?  Obviously, I’m more sensitive because I am their mom.  But it has made me more sensitive when I am complementing other people’s children – I usually check myself if they have siblings.

So the point of my rant is the next time you are doting on that cute kid smiling to you in the frozen food aisle -  take the extra minute to complement his brother or sister too. I guarantee you that that cute younger kid gets noticed a lot more than his older brother or sister counterpart.

Thanks for letting me vent here- it drives me crazy.  It makes me almost as nuts as when someone asks John and I, “Don’t you know how that happens?” referring to our number of children.  People can be so dumb.

p.s. This picture was taken before summer haircuts this year.  It was taken at Sams, I was so excited that their new carts could fit all 4 of the kids – I had to send a picture to John.  It’s the little things like being able to restrain all my children in the cart that I’ve come to appreciate these days – so great.

Many changes are on the Fall horizon for the Peel family….

• JJ will be in school all day- man I miss him.

• Henry will be going to preschool- JJ never went so preschool is all new to us.

• Emma will be joining George at Kids Day Out once a week.

• My sister Katie and her family moved back home- not only to STL but into our neighborhood!!! AND Tootie, my niece, will be going to Hudson with JJ.

• Kara, whom I have babysat 2 days a week since she was 9 weeks, is starting Kindergarten and won’t be a part of our Mondays and Fridays anymore. Totally bittersweet.

• I started watching my niece, Rosie and it is going so great! Her and Emma are BFFs..check out the picture.

Wow, I didn’t think it was a lot, but writing it out it is ALOT!  My current mental status is Monday -Friday I’m fine, it’s the transition to our weekends I have a hard time with lately.   Weekends we try to balance getting things done with relaxing and I’m not good at the latter.

What do you do on the weekends?  Do you find it hard to balance?

Today was JJ’s first day of 1st grade!!! I always get undue stress about things like the first day of school.  I thought I had to have a lot of silly stuff ready or perfect… like this was the first day of the rest of our lives or something!

On the other hand JJ was the normal one, he usually is,  just calm,  cool and collected.  Although he did get upset because I was rushing him out the door and he still wanted to tell John about the dream he had last night…which explains the sad pictures.  Honestly, I didn’t have any compassion for his case,  but John did and decided that he would drive him so he could hear all about his dream- good dad.

New school year resolution #1…This year I will try my hardest not to be a stressed out Drill Sargent trying to get the kids to school in the morning…ahem

Almost all through highschool and most of college I was the regular Saturday night babysitter for my Uncle Tom and Aunt Susan’s 3 girls. Let me reiterate,  Tom and Susan would go out either by themselves or with a couple of friends every Saturday night.  They had a designated time set aside to be together every week.  Back then, it that didn’t seem like a a big deal – just great money for me.  Now, with my own family, I think they were geniuses and I’m jealous.

John and I have always tried to do an intentional date night on the 14th of every month.  We would get a sitter and go do something that usually involved dinner and a movie.  This worked – but there were some drawbacks. First, it got expensive, especially when we had to pay a sitter.  Second, our planning was lacking and we almost always went to dinner and a movie – which I love to do, but it wasn’t a good fit for really connecting.  Third, once a month was not frequent enough.

We switched to doing weekly date nights about 6 months ago inspired by Simply Modern Mom and her Project 52 Date nights series.  You can check out her parameters here. Ours go something like this:

• Friday Nights from 8:30-10:00…although we are usually never really done before 11pm.  But with the intention of an hour and a half blocked time, makes it seem more doable.
• We usually do something at home unless we have a party or something, then we make sure to grab dinner together beforehand.
• Right now, I do most of the planning, John is still apprehensive to the planning part or we would be alternating the planning. He is warming up to the idea of planning, but I have fun with it so I really don’t mind.
• Like SMM, we try and keep it simple .
• Movies are not an option.

So, what do we DO right?!?!  Here some of our past dates…

• We’ve dusted off several games (not the Hi Ho Cherry-O variety) that usually only get played once a year.  One of favorites is Phase 10 – we are addicted!  Another night we played Skip Bo Deluxe, which we have never played, it was still in it’s wrapper – but it was really fun.
• A couple of weeks ago, we got slurpees and played Wii Sports.
• One night I surprised John with a Spa Night all for him and let it be known he LOVED it.  Complete with a pedicure, facial and massage.  BTW, I’m the best wife ever.  FYI, Walgreens has single use face masks for $1, so I didn’t have to spend $8 on something I would never use again.
• Last Friday, we made root beer floats and I got a bunch of travel guides from the library about Nova Scotia.  A little nerdy, but we’d love to plan a trip there for our 10 year and I just thought it would be fun – and it was.

In summary, Friday nights have become such a sweet intentional time for John and I.  It solved the drawbacks about how we used to do date nights and it’s been really fun getting creative about what we are going to do.

For more ideas, check out Project:52 Date Nights at Simply Modern Mom and be sure to check out the post comments too.

We would have had a fun weekend planned with parties to go to and birthdays to celebrate – all missed.   It was the sick ward here this weekend – AGAIN with Henry and I being the patients.  I’ve said it before, I don’t do sick well.  I am just needy and mean.  Thanks to antibiotics, LOTS of hot tea with honey and some moments of rest I am on the mend.

Emma had the most fun though, she got to go to a Ladybug Luncheon with Grandma at her friend Kathryn’s house.  Grandma bought all the granddaughters sweet little ladybug dresses just for the event.  So fun! Here are a couple pics…

Sitting on Grandmas lap….is that not the cutest ladybug you’ve ever seen??!?!

The only thing cuter is Emma with her BFF, her cousin Rosie…don’t you want to know what they are thinking???

My thoughts are all over the place today.  I have more than the usual amount of free time today which always makes my head spin.  Here is a sampling of things going through my head throughout the day…

- Why did we sign JJ up for soccer camp in the middle of July from 5-6:30pm?

- Is it just a coincidence that Aunt Ann sent us a “really good” deal on a house in West County and I have been reading through Jonah?

- My house has been unusually clean for more than 24 hours – what am I doing or not doing?

- I love JJ but I really don’t want to sit in the heat tonight.

- For a second, considered parallels between West County and Nineveh.

- Thinking my clean house is a result of JJ helping out more and us being out of the house more lately.

- Considering for a minute that a NachoMama’s Drive-Thru margarita can be on the way to soccer tonight.

- Realizing and admitting to myself that I am a huge zip code snob.

- Summing up…..I’m praising God for a clean house today, vowing NOT to sign up the kids for any evening camps in the heat of summer next year and letting God in on the fact that it’s going to take a whale for us to consider West County.