The Fundamentals of Four

Having four boys means everything times four. Four breakfast, lunch, and dinners to make, four kids to prepare for the day, four yearly pediatric check ups, four mouths to see the dentist, four sets of eyes to be checked, and four babies to watch grow into boys. Are my days chaotic? Yes. Are my days sometimes so awful, that I begin to question why I thought having four kids was a good idea? Yes. But my days are also filled with moments that despite whether they are good or bad, they are moments that make my life whole. These moments define my life. They define who I am. They define how I am as a mother. There are many days where I scold myself. I tell myself that I could be better. I could be more attentive. I could achieve more. Yet, at the end of the day, I usually find that my day was basically the same as every other day. I'm not perfect and neither are my kids. I believe we all have areas that could use some improvement. For me, I am my biggest critic. I constantly criticize myself for not being better. For not owning up to my fullest potential. Here I am with four boys. Four boys that are basically all insanely alike and yet insanely different at the same time. They all have their likes, their dislikes, their own facial expressions, and their own quirks. These are all traits that I live on. Traits that determine how I need to accomplish even the smallest task. When my husband and I decided to have four boys, we were never told it would be easy and we never expected it to be. Yet, somehow having four boys definitely seems more challenging than I originally expected. However, with that being said, I also know that there isn't a single part of these challenges that I would change. These challenges are my fundamentals of having four boys. The fundamentals that define how I need to live my life in order to give them the life they deserve. One of my most recent challenges relates to whether being a stay at home mom is the best course for our family. Obviously, with four boys there are some pretty hefty expenses required. In addition to that, I've been feeling lately like it is time for me to do something with myself other than cook, clean, and do laundry. However, as I reflect on these tasks, I realize that these are my fundamentals. These are the moments that make my life what it is. So maybe I don't earn a living or have a well established career. What I do have, are our four boys. Four boys that need me here, at home in their defining moments.

Reading stories about other families similar to mine is always entertaining and comforting. I thoroughly enjoyed this book about a family raising all boys. It's definitely worth a read. It helps appreciate what matters most.

Mixed Emotions and The End of the School Year

   At the end of every year, my emotions go for a ride. As like our kids, I get anxious for summer break. Summer break means a break from early rising, a break from packing lunches, a break from waiting for buses and school drop offs. Yet, summer break also means 4 kids at home everyday, 4 kids trashing our house, 4 kids to make lunch for all at once, and 4 kids constantly requesting one thing after another all day long. Summer break is one giant roller coaster with its ups and its downs.

   I think the lowest point for me of summer break is the end of school. With our oldest having Down Syndrome, he is often put into a class with the same teacher for a couple of years. Therefore, twice as long for us to grow an attachment to that teacher. Last year was particularly hard for me. Last year our son left the teacher he had for both 3rd and 4th grade. She was absolutely amazing and I didn't want to let go. Our son on the other hand was just excited to be done with school. We've had other teachers though that have stuck with us for awhile. For instance, our oldest three children have all attended the same preschool program. Therefore, they received those teachers for multiple years. Our 5 year old is leaving preschool this year. This is the first downhill of my emotional roller coaster. The teacher and the aide have really taken to our son as he has them. When this happens, I have a harder time letting go. I wonder sometimes how teachers do it. I don't think I could ever spend 9 months with a group of kids and then say goodbye to them. I have to continuously remind myself that our kids will be attending the same school next year, so we will still see those teachers in passing. It's funny I suppose that I hardly know these women, yet I have an attachment to them that is hard for me to break. For me, the end of the school year is a sign of how quickly time passes and how quickly our children really do grow up. However, I believe that as hard as it may be to let go of good people and watch our kids grow up, I also love watching them grow and watching them embark on new stages in their lives.

Saying Goodbye to a Family Dog and Accepting The Rainbow Bridge

     A few months ago, we lost our 10 year old Chocolate Lab to liver disease. She was an awesome dog, but I'm not sure we were ever awesome dog parents. We certainly took well enough care of her. When any problems arose, we made sure she received medical care. However, she wasn't always up to date on shots. This is mostly because like most veterinary clinics, ours felt the need to make a simple vaccine visit cost so much more than it probably needed to be. Also, our lab was overweight, but in all honesty, we didn't overfeed her and the only time she received table food is when our boys would drop something on the floor. We tried walking her, but as she got older her arthritis and the fatty lumps under her arms prevented her from tolerating walks. So yeah, we were never the kind of people to take our dog on car rides or to the dog park, but we loved our lab just as much and losing her was extremely difficult.
    We knew our lab was sick, she had been for awhile. During her last nine months, she was treated with special food (which she hated), and medication (which was not cheap). Her last week however, her medication increased from three medications a day to seven. The increase in meds though was better than the alternative. We were certain when we took her to the vet that last time that we would be going home without her. Surprisingly though, the vet did not seem to think she was in any major pain and that she could possibly last a few more weeks or months. Unfortunately, for me, I was a mess. I spent those last days with her, crying over the inevitable. I would lay down on the floor and hug her while crying all over her. I swear, she would look at me sometimes like, "What is your problem, are your seriously crying again?". A few days later, she seemed better. She was eating better, she wasn't throwing up, and she seemed incredibly happy to greet anyone at the door. That night though, everything changed. As I sat with my husband watching TV, I watched her lying there on the floor. Every so often, she'd look at me and I knew. I knew she was trying to tell me something and I knew it was time. We stayed with her all night even as she moved from room to room in our house. I swear sometimes she'd try to get away from us, but I didn't want her to die alone. Finally around 3:00 a.m., she took her last breath.  
    Needless to say, I cried, I bawled, I sobbed. What really seemed to grab a hold of me though was the question of where she went. I felt like I needed to know that I would see her again. I needed to know that the "rainbow bridge' was real. I read a few stories on the internet. Some of those stories were heartbreaking and some of those stories gave me hope that I will see her again. Despite all the stories, I think what helped me the most is time. I needed time to deal with her death and time to accept my own faith. Sure, there are questions that can't be answered, but none of that should matter. What should matter is what you as a person believe in. You need to have faith that everything happens for a reason and that there are far bigger things out there than what we are aware of.
      There are a couple of books I read to help comfort me about where dogs go when they die. One book is a children's book. My oldest son seemed to find comfort in this book, as did I. This is a short story with creative pictures discussing a dogs day in heaven with grassy fields and children to play with. I highly recommend this book for children and adults.

The Things Kids Do and Down Syndrome

So yesterday our oldest son did something pretty humiliating at school. Of course, when he did it, he didn't think it was humiliating, he thought it was funny. See, our oldest son isn't quite like our other boys. He has Down Syndrome. Now, in the 11 years that we have been his parents, we have learned a tremendous deal. In fact, he has been our teacher. He has opened our eyes to ignorance and disrespect. However, in the back of my head, there remains this fear for him. This fear that as he gets older, kids will pick on him or be cruel to him. Yet, I have been pleasantly surprised at how great kids have actually been with him. In fact, I think I've come across more disrespectful adults than I have children. So, that fear in my mind has been somewhat at ease. Our son has a following, for whatever reason .....kids seem to genuinely like him.

However, yesterday all my fears came rushing back. I received an email from his teacher informing me of the incident at school. I was mortified. There were so many thoughts that went running through my head. For instance, what does that say about me? Does this make me out to be the mother who doesn't teach her children to know better? But my biggest concern was our son and his following. What would kids think about him now? Would they see him the same? Or would they now start to tease him? Unfortunately, a day later those fears are still there. But at the same time, I realize whats done is done. There is no going back and erasing yesterday. Our son seems to be ok with what happened and even the consequences he faced at school. So perhaps this is another lesson he is trying to teach me. Let go of the past, brush it off, do whatever you need to do to accept it and move on, Life is too short I guess to focus on the things we cannot change.

Star Wars Saturday - The Force Awakens

Our family has a routine. Every Saturday we sit down together in our living room to eat dinner while watching a movie. For awhile, we referred to these Saturdays as Star Wars Saturdays. Before the latest Star Wars movie hit theaters, I had never actually seen a Star Wars movie. So, we would watch each movie about half way through every Saturday. Since we divided each movie in half, this took us about 12 weeks. Twelve weeks of Star Wars was basically a dream come true for my husband. Of course our kids were excited too. They'd sit down at their little table eating their dinner, quietly chewing away on the meal as we began each movie. Of course, the very beginning always caused a bit of craziness. As one of our boys would read away at "in a galaxy far, far away..." pronouncing some words like "imperial"wrong, our other kids were out of their seats dancing some of the craziest dances we've ever seen. To their credit though, once the opening sequence was done, our kids would brush off the crazy and continue eating, Star Wars Saturday was actually pretty nice, the kids were happy, my husband was happy, everything was good. Then came The Force Awakens, which according to my husband had to be watched in its entirety. Now, I'm pretty sure that the force actually awakened something inside our kids. Their ability to stay seated with their mouths closed was extremely challenging. Our oldest seemed to enjoy standing straight up in the middle of the room while blocking everyone's view. Our second oldest, for some reason found it necessary to sit on the couch facing us so he could discuss Pokemon. Then there's our 5 year old who must have swallowed a jumping bean. Our little one though actually sat quite nicely on the couch. His only outburst was when either a Storm Trooper or Kylo Ren appeared on the screed. On a side note, I'm not entirely sure that its a good thing that our 3 year old only likes the bad guys. However, as aggravating as our kids were yesterday, I am quickly reminded that without chaos in our life...our life would be calm, quiet, collected....and who wants that?