Amazing

 I was telling my sister the other day, I just think Felicity is amazing.  I think they are all amazing, really, but I just can't get over Felicity.  She has been walking the dog in the mornings before school and she is so committed to it.  We are paying her but she just takes her every day, it's freezing cold, out she goes, like the POST OFFICE or something, just working away, showing up for that dog and for us.  

She auditioned this week in her middle school choir for a solo.  She texted me after, the first time she said, I did pretty good but NAME REDACTED auditioned too so I'm not going to get it.  Then she sent the emoji that is like one winking eye with the tongue sticking out.  She texted after the second audition and she said it went okay but I really cracked on the MEEEEE DOWWWWWWN part.  She was nervous but she did it, she was happy with how she did but realistic about the outcome.  I just - I guess it's because they are little for so long, incapable of so much and then it feels, to me and me only, that boom! they just figure it out! I love it and it makes me so proud.  

She is doing a project for National History Day.  What are you doing it on, I asked her and she said The History of the Punk Rock Movement.  Okay then! Who are these people in my house? These smart and involved people? I mean, make no mistake.  She will still stand in front of me wearing short shorts and a tank top and say she is freezing, she will still try to wear crocs out in the snow, but IN GENERAL, everyone is getting so much better, so grown up.  

She is also vegetarian, I don't know what made her decide to do it but she is pretty serious about it.  

She's doing great.  She really is a joy, and it only took 13 years! KIDDING

Felicity in First Grade

Felicity is doing just great, seven years old for a few months now.  She is my grumpiest child, my worst sleeper but also super fun.  She cracks me up, she never just walks anywhere, she always skips or jumps or dances around.  She is doing VERY well in school, reading at a late second grade level, tra la la, she is just fine! She is addicted to the iPad which drives me crazy, I really don't think it's good for her. 

It's a real conundrum, the iPad situation.  I am so tired/busy/dejected/uncaring, that I don't want to spend all night talking about the iPad so I have gotten into a bad habit of letting her on it too much.  I have to think of other stuff for them to do but they are SO unpleasant when I don't let them on it, it just makes MY life miserable so why do I want to do that? I mean, I KNOW why I want to do that.  I want to do that so that she doesn't turn into a robot person but lord, they are all a pain.

You know, I was storming around my kitchen this morning, mad at everyone, and then when I was driving to work, I was regretting it, as usual.  On Mondays, I have to go to work too, so I'm trying to get myself ready for my busiest day at work, I have to bring lunch and a snack and it's just a long day.  Those girls are all just sitting around, playing on the damned electronics.  I SHOULD, I suppose, go and check everyone's jackets and make sure that their gloves are in their pockets and that they have one of the FIFTY scarves made available to them at the ready but I don't because I am racing around trying to get coffee into a thermos and get my lunch together.  So I told Felicity TOO LATE! Put your hands in your pockets because you don't have TIME to find gloves now!

But then I was thinking on the way to work, I'm probably so short tempered because I'm so old.  I work with a thirty year old who has a Felicity aged child and that child is so much luckier than Fifi.  And it's just not something I thought of, clearly enough, when I started at such a late stage of my life.  I foolishly thought that the hard part was having them, being healthy enough to bear them and feed them as teeny babies.  That was dumb, I see now. 

But what to do? I have to keep being her mom, so I have to make myself younger, or at least deal better with my old age.  I'm working on it.  Stay tuned, ha! 

Oh! I forgot! She's getting tubes in her ears on 12/10.  She had seven documented ear infections this year, that was just at the Minute Clinic, I think she probably had three more at the other clinic.  In other words, too many! So this should help, she will miss a day of school and she is nervous but I think it will be fine.  Think of us on the tenth!

Here's some cute pictures. 

Six Years Old

Felicity is six years old, she actually turned six on Tuesday but we had her party today.  A Tuesday birthday is a tough one! We had it at the K of C, Anthony doesn't have respite anymore so we just didn't think we could do it here, he is wont to put his fingers in the cake or whatever and he sometimes screams really, REALLY loudly and we just thought it would be worth it to pay $125 for the room at the K of C to just not be here.  Mike and Anthony couldn't come but otherwise it was good.  We played a lot of musical chairs and had some emoji face painting and had pizza and snacks and cake.  It rained and rained here today so we couldn't go outside or anything.  It think it was fine, it's over, in any case.

She is a pretty good six year old, I think.  Last night I work I saw a mom friend of mine from the girls' school and she has four kids too.  She was out with some friends and she said they had littler kids and we were all talking about how hard it sucks and I said for me, it really gets better and better the older they get.  Just the fact that you can walk out your damned door without 42 things in a bag is BETTER.  The one woman said she has to buckle three kids into car seats, I said UGH! I wrote a gospel song one time called In Heaven, There Will Be No Car Seats! I mean it is enough to make you crazy, really crazy.  My mom friend from school said, you know, no one really tells you how hard it is and I said I mean, sometimes I do but the thing is I think no one wants to hear it! Who would do it? It's TERRIBLE.  I much prefer being the mother of a 6, 8, 9 and 12 year old than a baby, a 2, 4 and 7 year old.  BLECH.

Today at church, Felicity's teacher came up to me and said I have a story for you.  I thought, yikes, because she had already sent me an email this week with a funny story. They were working on /it family words, kit, lit, fit, etc. Felicity was the quickest and the only one to point out that they better not ever add the SH sound to the /it family of words, which prompted a poor friend of Felicity's to PUT it together and then she said her first swear word, GREAT!  Ha! Anyways, she said that they were listening to Stevie Wonder on Friday afternoon and she was saying how great he was, imagine that he wasn't given the gift of sight but he could make such wonderful music.  Felicity said, I bet he wasn't very good at art.  Ha ha! She kills me.

Anyway, happy sixth birthday to our Felicity Rose.

That's That!

Well, Felicity has started Kindergarten, so that's everyone, off to school! My work here is done, ha! I have been back to work in so many ways since she was tiny, since even before I had her, so it doesn't exactly feel like the end of an era like it would if I had been all the way home this whole time, but still! Everyone is in school all day! Matriculating! It's exciting.

Now I have to figure out what to do for the rest of my life but luckily I'm so old it isn't too long, ha ha kidding.  I am happy to be teaching three days a week, and I am going to volunteer a little in the library at the girls' school and see Felicity a little this year, like I have the others.

So far, Felicity is doing great in Kindergarten. We have two wonderful teachers at our school, so I wasn't worried about options.  I was a little worried about how little she likes to not do exactly what she wants but so far so good.  She seems to be learning, she is adorable in her uniform, all signs point to success.

Old

The other night, I saw someone I follow on Twitter say how one of the reasons her husband uses for them to be "all done" with children is because they will be 49 when their oldest finishes high school.  It is so depressing when I think that I will be on the FAR SIDE of 49 when Felicity enters Kindergarten.  Now, she is my youngest and she will turn six shortly after she starts Kindergarten, but mostly it's the same thing.  I was 43 when I had her, some people are 33, if they are GETTING OLD when they have a child, more people are closer to 23, which is TWENTY YEARS younger than I was.  What was I thinking?

Today I was mowing the lawn and thinking about how bad my eyesight is.  I mean, it's just regular bad reading eyesight, but I remember CLEARLY when my mom's eyes started going bad and I was an adult.  I may have been in college! I don't know what I'm going to do.  The thing to do is to take better care of myself but I always think of this when I'm so sick, I can't do anything.  I have such a bad cold and I am paranoid it's going to turn into pneumonia or bronchitis.  Then I start thinking, what am I going to do when I am ten years older?

Sometimes, people say, they are over it.  They are done, they are MOMMED OUT.  Honestly, I was mommed out before Anthony was six months old! I feel unaware that it's an option, to just be mommed out, to be sick of it and that's a reason to not have more kids?  I'm happy about all the kids I have, Veronica is the nicest and it took until I had THREE to get to that one, ha!

I don't know.   I just hope I can be around and not humiliate these kids, or have their friends ask why their grandmother is picking them up from school when they are in sixth grade or something.  Ugh.

February

Things are clipping right along for old Fifi.  She knows how to spell her name and she doesn't believe it, but that means she can spell the word 'city' too.  She is happy and healthy and doing just great.  She is sleepy in the mornings before school but she takes a nap and then stays up late and then is tired and repeat repeat repeat.  Next year she won't take a nap so maybe it will get better.  Anthony isn't giving her nearly as hard a time lately, so that's good.  She is going to a birthday party at a girl from school's pool this weekend, and I think she'll like it, despite the fact that swim lessons are still a giant fail.  Last week at the very end of her lesson, her teacher dunked her completely underwater and she did great.  So who knows?  Here are some pictures!

October

Felicity is doing fine, she is still waking up in the night and coming in to me but what can you do?  It could be worse.  On her birthday, my friend and her godmother Marta took her after school and she went back to her house, they did a craft and made cookies and since then Felicity has had a taste of no aftercare and she doesn't want to go anymore! She also doesn't want to go with me and get Anthony so it's a trial.  I figure if I let her stay in with me a few hours a few nights a week, maybe it is all even steven, right?

Her birthday party was super fun, even though I got shingles the day before and I was DYING from the pain.  I plan to mention this 1000 times over the course of Felicity's life, ha!  She got a lot of great toys and gifts and had a lot of fun with her friends, including her very serious boyfriend Miles, who she goes to school with and who she loves.  We love him too, he is so cute.

I had her conference at school, she is doing okay.  Concerns include the way she holds a pen and her inability to let things go or not think that she is being personally attacked when things just don't go her way.  In the beginning of the year, she had some problems  with her friend Charlotte.  Over the summer, Charlotte and our other friend Rebecca and Felicity were playing together but sometimes, as is wont to happen with three little girls, Charlotte and Rebecca would be mean to Felicity.  It drove me bananas and there is so little you can do - I ended up spending a LOT of time playing with Felicity, just the two of us, which I didn't love but I imagine I will appreciate someday.  Anyway, Charlotte's mom and I are friends so we have been talking about it and they have been playing together in a nicer way and all is well, except that sometimes now when Charlotte is just normal with Felicity, Felicity thinks she is being mean to her. She has a persecution complex, I guess  is what I am saying, ha!

I know that I have contributed to Felicity being a jerk sometimes.  I say "give it to her!" 100 times a day because I can't take it, I can't take her crying because Maria rips something from her hands and then having Anthony scream and rush at her and knock her down.  So, here we are.  MOSTLY she is very good in school and lord knows she can amuse herself, which is a great quality.  She is also super bright and such a funny and wonderful talker.  Last week I was calling Mike from the car and I was running late, I said "I have to call Daddy, he is going to think I'm insane" because I was out doing stuff at the time I should have been going to work.  Felicity said, "is he right, Mommy?".  Ha!

Here's a picture of her holding that pen (the wrong way, according to her teacher) and decorating a pumpkin that we got at the pumpkin patch last Sunday.

Post Labor Day Post

Felicity has been in Transitional Kindergarten (TK) for four weeks and it's all going great, for the most part.  She doesn't always love her long days but we are mostly successful.  

Felicity didn't learn to swim this summer but she did get much, much better at being in the water. Last summer she would walk around in two feet (swimming in Chinese) but she would never be where her feet didn't touch the bottom, and she wouldn't even be held if her feet couldn't touch the bottom. This summer we went all over the pool but she was not content to be alone, so we spent a lot of time together. She liked to do this thing where we would mush up against each other and she'd yell, Falling in love! Then I'd push her away and she'd cry, falling out of love. She could do it over and over and OVER, seemingly never getting sick of it, or me.
She likes to sleep with us, because she doesn't want to be alone, she says. We point out she is not alone and in fact she shares a room with TWO people. She wants to sleep with a GROWNUP, she corrects herself. I'd say more than half the week she comes into our bed.
She is doing so well in school, this morning she told me, I want you to drive away now, before I could even walk her in to school. There is a little boy at the school where I teach who goes in EVERY DAY, screaming and yelling. Every day he has to be physically removed from his mother and then he screams and cries for hours. He's been in school for a month! I find myself so grateful that Felicity doesn't behave like that that I don't care if she can't swim or that she likes to sleep with a grownup, namely me. I think this might be the secret of happiness, just lowering and lowering expectations until they don't even exist anymore.

Scribbly

We have been to the pool so much this summer!  Too much, in my opinion, but what do I know?  I'm just an easily burned old lady.  Last Wednesday we tried to go to the pool at the JCC but the kids' pool was closed, which leaves practically no point to go, because then everyone goes to the deeper pool and we all stand around floating and it's like after the Titanic sank but not as cold.  So we went to a city park pool and I got the sunburn of my LIFE.  It's eight days later and it's just now getting better.  Anyway, my point is we went Wednesday and I got burned and then we went Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, oy! Thank God I'm back to work so I'm spared this week.  

I wanted to record that Felicity says that her fingers are getting "scribbly" when she means water logged.  It's super cute.  She will stay in the pool forever, but she's not above getting out and wrapping up in a towel to warm up for a while.  She is no kind of swimmer, still, but I think I will take her for lessons this winter and get her ready for next year.  She is so much better in the water this year than she was last year, willing to get her face wet, willing to let me take her where her feet can't touch the bottom.  I think she'll be fine.  Scribbly.  Ha!

Felicity in June

Felicity is having a good summer so far, although she is up in the night a lot and it's super annoying.  I asked her the other morning how old she'd have to be to stop coming in and bugging me in the night and she held up EIGHT fingers, lord help me.  Mostly she's fine though, she is struggling a little bit to run with the big dog sisters of hers, but what can you do?  I try to get them to bed at a decent hour, what else is there?  I try to feed her healthy food, make sure she gets enough to drink but she is still mad 30 percent of the time.  Oh well!  Here's some cute pictures.

More May

Two posts in one month! We spend the most unfettered time together, I think, so we have more pictures of Felicity.  She is doing fine, she finished preschool on Thursday and was home with me on Friday, we went to her preschool picnic.  Today Mike is working from home and he has her.  He said she is leaving him alone and letting him work, so that's good!  Tomorrow and Wednesday I'm off and Wednesday is my last day of school so it will be me with Felicity all summer now!  Next year she'll start TK, or Transitional Kindergarten, since she won't be five until October.  She had a great year at preschool.  She is still impossible, She drives me bananas on a daily basis, but she also makes me crazy with happiness and pride.  Her life is not like any of my other kids, Anthony pushes her down whenever he has a chance, no one ever does what she wants, etc., etc., boo hoo, it can be hard to be her, but she really does stay pretty cheery.

She is going crazy with these Baby Alive dolls that she wants, she asks several times a day every day.  A few weeks ago I got her a Baby Alive Bath doll, just on a whim.  I had some money from a survey I took or something and I got it for her.  She immediately started bugging me and everyone for a Baby Boo Boo doll.  Mike said to her one night, Mommy just got you a doll this week! Don't you think two dolls in one week is a lot.  She said, furious, two is not a big number.  One hundred is a big number.  Ha, she kills me.

May

Here's Felicity, on Monday, when she had to stay home with an ear infection.  She woke up in the night, burning, BURNING, with fever and then Mike took the day off to take her to the clinic.  She's doing much better.  She really is better in general, she hasn't been sick recently.  It's certainly nothing like it was when she was tiny, and so sick all the time, vomiting on my shoulder every time I turned around.

Last night was her preschool program, she sang a million songs and she did just fine.  She seems so happy and content at preschool, which is good because LORD knows she isn't always content at home.  She just - I have to tell her no about every other thing just so that she knows that no is sometimes going to be the answer.  I bought her a new pair of shoes yesterday, sandals at Target, and she loved them, thank you soooo much!, she was yelling.  Then we get on line and she started demanding a Reese's cup, because she "loves peanut butter!".  I LOVE PEANUT BUTTER! WHY CAN'T I HAVE THAT?  Lord, child!

Anyway, she is doing fine, here are some cute pictures.

February

Oy, no posting in January!  It seemed like a long month but it also seemed to go fast, thank God.  We have been having warm weather, in the 50's, here lately but it's going to get cold again later in the week.  I took the dog for walks both days this weekend to try and get out while we can.  Anyway, Felicity is fine.  This morning her teacher was out from school, she was out Thursday and Friday too, and I guess by today Felicity had sort of had it because she was VERY difficult to leave today.  Not in the way that I couldn't tear myself away from her wonderfulness, but in the way that she didn't want me to leave and was crying.  Ugh, it's the worst.  I always want my kids to get older faster but especially Felicity.  This morning on the way to school she told me she wanted to use her Minnie Mouse potty again because it's 'so cute'.  She's also sarcastic - she told me today "I'm going to get an ear infection because Daddy got water in my ears last night when he was washing my ear, so yay!, another ear infection for me!  What four year old is sarcastic like that?  I do not even know.  Here are some pictures of her, one from when we went roller skating on MLK day, she did really well!

Friday

Oh these weeks are long! I work on Monday Thursday and Friday and every day of the week I have to drive like a bat out of hell almost everywhere I go and it's wearing, to say the least.  Tomorrow we are going to Anthony's party at his school but that's our only Christmasy thing we are doing.  Last week I took the three girls to see A Christmas Carol at IRT, we had a good time and by that I mean we didn't get kicked out.  Maria and Veronica were much, much better this year than last year and Felicity was - not great, but she did better than anyone else would have at her age.  She was kind of loud and she asked a lot of questions, but mostly she was okay.  She is driving me crazy lately, wants to be carried everywhere, mostly into school when I am already carrying her bags and Veronica's bag, ugh.  She still loves preschool and her teacher.  She has been waking up a LOT in the night, I wish so much that she wasn't taking a nap anymore because it makes the nights that she does awful.

Anyway, here are some pictures:

December

Last Saturday, I guess maybe it was two Saturdays ago now, I had to take Felicity to the ER.  She was up all night Friday coughing and burning with fever so around 7:00 I took her.  She had an ear infection and maybe pneumonia.  The doctor (who remembered me from my broken wrist in March, not to brag) said he didn't want to do a chest xray but maybe she had pneumonia but the antibiotics should cover everything.  I am hoping she will stop napping at preschool here soon because right now she naps every day there and tortures the girls at night, last night she told Mike that she was 'scared' and she wanted him to lie down with her, ugh.  The night before last she was up at 12;30 and came in because there were "ants" in her room, UGH!  But she's overall doing great, she is so funny and talks a blue streak.  I thought Maria talked a lot but she is nothing compared to Felicity.

Catching up with Felicity

Felicity is doing great.  She is doing GREAT, if you ask her preschool teacher.  Her teacher loves her so much and she must save all her goodness for her because she is terrible at home lately.  I suppose it's better for her to be good there and not here but wouldn't it be nice if she could be good both places?  Anyway here are some pictures-

Moira Rose and Felicity Rose.

One day this week she wanted to go to preschool as a Frozen fairy, so she did.  Generally she says it and we do it, ha!

School picture.  I wish she'd let me put her hair up but she won't hear one word about it.  "I'll just push it out of my face!", she always tells me.

Nerd Felicity.

She was teaching me how to make a smile face.  How's it look?

A few weekends ago, she was sick and I was worried it was an ear infection but it was just a normal cold, to our relief!

That's it!  Tune in next month!

Number Four

She is something else, this Felicity.  The other day we were at school, when I pick them up as 'walkers', they can play in the playground for a while and they were playing until Felicity came over to me and said OK, Mommy, I am ready to wrap it up!  Ha!  What four year old talks like that?  She is so funny, so cute and sweet.  I went in to her preschool Friday because I had off from work for Fall Break and I went to volunteer.  When I went in she was standing at the table, playing with play dough and her teacher said, Joanne! She is always like this, just playing and perfect!  Don't come to her conference!  She is perfect and you know it! Mike and I took her and the girls to the little Halloween party at her preschool and the teachers were going crazy over Felicity and her costume.  So even if she drives me bananas sometimes, mostly, she is a real joy.  Mostly, we all love her like crazy and so does everybody else.  So that's good, right?  I can't believe she's four!

Pre School

Felicity is doing really, really great in preschool.  One day a few weeks ago, her teacher yelled at me down the hall, Joanne! Joanne! I thought oh what could it be?  Is she getting kicked out?  Did she bite someone?  She said Joanne, she is just wonderful! Wonderful and we all love her so much already! I mean, maybe the teacher is given to hyperbole but still, it was a great relief.  And I can see her point, she said how Felicity will play with anything, she likes the other kids, she is funny, and all those things are true! She is so glad to be with people her own age, and she is funny, she is a grown up three year old, for sure.  I just hope she keeps using her power for good and not evil.

She's so funny, the words she says are hilarious.  She tells me all the time "I'm a NOW girl, Mama, I'm not a WAIT girl".  She and Anthony are getting along better, she loves our dog Maggie, and she has been going to my friend Marta's house on Thursday and Friday after school and she really, REALLY loves that.

She takes a nap at preschool which makes our nights kind of late but I'm okay with it.  She goes every day from 8-3 so I figure she will settle into a schedule some day soon.  Last night Mike went in to check on her and he couldn't find her anywhere, finally he realized she was curled up in a ball under the dresser, the weirdo.  I took this picture later right before I moved her.

Swimmer

Felicity is no swimmer, that is for sure.  We just finished three weeks of swim lessons and she never even got her face wet.  She would demand that she was "swimming in Chinese" and she would do some sort of prancercising, skipping along in the water and never ever having both feet up at the same time.  I told her one day if you put one tenth of the effort into learning to swim that you did avoiding learning to swim, you could be an Olympian.  She said "I no want to be an Olympian!  I scared to be an Olympian!".  Poor baby, she would get really upset.  But yesterday she let me take her all over the pool, her feet never touched, so maybe the lessons were good after all.

She had been waking up in the night a lot, around 3:00 or 4:00, sometimes wide awake, sometimes right back to sleep, but it is a pain.  It makes me sick tired to have any of them come in and sleep with us but if she is going to be awake, I have to take her in with me so she doesn't wake the girls.

She loves to make faces, she makes a sad face, a happy face, a gross face, a mad face and a silly face.  She loves to look at her picture or the mirror, just like her mother, ha!

At the Pool

Yesterday we went to a church picnic which was held at the local K of C, and I do mean local, it's not even one mile away, super close!  The girls had such a good time and saw so many friends that today I went and joined the K of C pool and we went back.  We might go every damned day this summer, they had such a great time.  I was worried about Felicity back at a pool after her mishap over spring break (and I do mean break, ha ha ha) but she's fine.  She's not the best SHARER in the world and she is a little inept, socially, but it was really fun overall and I am bullish for the future.  And I never am!