Preschool Day One, Jolly Jinglebells and other Mommy Musings

A: I don't want to go to Pre-school.
C: If you don't go, I won't have a buddy.
A: I want to be your buddy.
C: Then you better go to preschool!

Another busy week at the Wolf home...A & C started Pre-school this week!  Now, preparing for Pre-school, in my mind, was going to a lot like their Parent's Day Out program (at the same church) was last year.  Pre-school is, of course, more frequently than their once a week PDO, but I envisioned their daily routine would be very similar.  When we went to their Open House last Saturday, however, I learned that I was sadly mistaken.  Pre-school is going to be hard work...for me!  This week, for example, is Green Week.  Which means I had to hunt down 6 green shirts for this week.  (Okay, I cheated for the first day of school....who wants to wear a boring green shirt when you can wear the adorable dresses they got for their birthday?!?) 

Holding hands :)

In addition to green shirts, their snack is supposed to coordinate with the color/theme of the week...and it so happened that A had snack on Monday and C on Wednesday.  (It should be noted that we were in L'burg with my family this weekend and snack was the last thing I wanted to do when we got home at 8:30 Sunday night.)  And celery wasn't going to cut it this week, as both girls were celebrating their birthday on their respective snack day...so it had to be something fun!  Sunday night I ended up with store-bought chocolate chunk cookies with green icing drizzled on top and Tuesday night's masterpiece was Rice Crispy Treats with green M&M's and...wait for it...green icing (leftover from Monday's snack; resourceful, right??)  Friday is their Sharing Day, so tonight I sent them looking for something green to take for show and tell tomorrow.  Whew!  I'll be glad when I finally feel settled into our weekly routine.

As I mentioned, we were back home visiting my parents, brother and his fiancee.  Josh and Brittany have been planning their June 2011 wedding for over a year now...until Friday afternoon.  The reception hall called, stated they were double-booked and that the other couple had paid their deposit first.  After much discussion, they decided to move the wedding up to this December...yep, 4 months away!  Jolly Jinglebells!!!  It's time to bust out the bull horn and put on the Christmas music - my favorite seasons (fall, football, and Christmas) of all time are upon us and it's going to be topped off with a wedding!!  (You know I'm here for you, B!!)



All this wedding talk made me anxious to watch our wedding video again.  It's been years since we've gotten it out - and it made the past 7 years suddenly feel like a split second.  Reliving that day was both wonderful and hilarious!  My parents trying to hold it together for pictures, our friends all looked sooo young, my adorable then-2-year-old nephew enjoying his wagon ride down the aisle and soaking up all the attention (can't wait to bust out those pictures for his first girlfriend - Sorry Ang, but you know it's coming sometime!)...what a wonderful, beautiful day! 

The only thing I wish I could change about that otherwise perfect day?  Me.  Or rather, my waistline.  At the time, I didn't want to be one of those girls who felt like I had to change my appearance (i.e. lose weight) for my wedding.  I was confident with myself and my husband-to-be loved all of me, so why should I care what dress size I wore?  Turns out, 7 years later, I do care.  I was 10 lbs heavier on my wedding day than I am right now, 3 kids later, and in some ways wish I could get my absolutely perfect dress out of preservation, lace up the back and take new pictures in it!!  (Seriously, my married friends, you HAVE to want to get your dresses back out just to wear them around the house, right?!?) 

I can honestly say, though, that my wedding day is easily in my Top 3 favorite memories of my adult life (right up there with the births of my babies) - and just like my favorite songs,  my favorite jeans and my favorite prolific NFL quarterbacks, you should not mess with a "Top 3" anything!

Quiet Time

As I write this, I am sitting at my local Chick fil A indulging in my favorite sweet tea (other than my own) and doing some people-watching! I warned Nick last night that the “grandparent detox” days were harder than I remembered and I was going to need some down time tonight. (Harder probably because the kids haven't stayed overnight without us for even one night, let alone two, since the supposed “no kids reception on Father's Day” wedding we attended in June. I forget how much our parents love to spoil our kids...and how much energy they expend being soooo good for the grandparents that, when they finally get to release some of that crazy energy, it's no holds barred! Which is also an adequate summary of the past three days...no-holds-barred crazy energy!

So I tell the girls Mommy needs some quiet time and head out after dinner. They tried to convince me I could use their room for quiet time, but I politely declined in favor of a location that would actually be quiet. It was almost 7pm when I left, Nick and the girls were done eating and Drew was about to have his dinner, then bottle. All the kids are usually in bed by 8:30pm, so don't feel too bad for Nick who was really only left to fend for himself for about 90 minutes :)

So what do I do with these precious few moments of quiet? Well, I got started on thank you notes for the girls' birthday presents. Something I know I should have done last week, but let's be honest, last week was/is a blur. When I arrived, I spied the newspaper up at the counter but somehow I'm just not in the mood to read article after article of bad news...who needs to add bad news to their day? Even the Sports section is mildly upsetting if you're a Colts fan who was so excited when the team started camp “their healthiest ever” but now every day it seems we learn of a new veteran starter who will be out 4-8 weeks or more. Blah!

I think about this past weekend some more. Saturday was supposed to the the girls' family birthday party – just our immediate families, much smaller than the previous weekend's affair. The girls were so excited to see Mia and Jeeps, Mamaw and Papaw, their aunts and uncles and cousins. I felt horrible explaining to them that there would be no party...rather they would be spending the entire weekend at Mamaw and Papaw's house! They were super-excited by this news, so that certainly helped. But it was hard explaining that Mommy and Daddy wouldn't be there because we were going to “say good-bye to Grandma”...I know they didn't really understand, but we got to talk a lot about Heaven and Jesus and God's love and amazing grace that day.

That conversation came back to me when I opened a sympathy card from our pastor today. Yes, in my church of 3,500+ regular attendees, Pastor Steve had, as usual, been reading up on the prayer list. His hand-written note inside the card read, “Thinking of you as you give your Grandma back to God.” Of course, this made me cry (I'm tearing up as I write this) but he made a very important point. We often hear how every thing in life is simply on loan from God, but the same is true for our loved ones. Our parents, our children, our families, our best friends, even our grandparents...they are all God's children and when He calls them home we know they have served their purpose in God's great plan here on earth and now they are celebrating in Heaven.

I know God doesn't need to read the newspaper to know all the sadness in our world today. But I like to think He knew He needed an extra-special angel in Heaven to help Him watch over each one of us...and He chose my Grandma!

Rollercoaster of Emotions

 Ups and Downs.  Highs and Lows.  My world has been all over the place in the past 96 hours.  I usually have a rough outline in my head when I start a post, but I don't today so just bear with me as I to process the events, both happy and sad, of the past few days. 

First you should know that I briefly considered separating this weekend into two separate posts, but somehow it seems so intertwined that together they will remain, both in my memory and in this post. 

Saturday morning everyone woke up excited...it was the day of the girls' 4th Birthday Party!  We were preparing to have 16 kids ages 4 and under and their parents over to celebrate.  Watching our girls form friendships with some of our closest friends' kids is truly a gift in itself.  The kids and I are fortunate enough to enjoy lunches and play dates with several of the moms and kids regularly...even vacationing with some of the other families!  Nick and I know we are extremely lucky to have so many close friends (mostly from college) all living in the Indianapolis area.  So of course we were thrilled when we started talking about their birthday and the girls asked if their friends were coming! 


Happy 4th Birthday!

So their big day...and all our guests...had arrived!  Kids were everywhere - swimming in the kiddie pool, jumping on the trampoline, swinging on the playset and snacking at the picnic table.  At one point everyone was outside except Drew and I while I fed him his bottle.  I took one look around the house and realized there were at least two diaper bags and 3-4 sets of clothes (all the kids had changed into their swim suits) in every nook and cranny of our first floor...and at that moment I realized how blessed we are and have been by these friendships.  Unorganized chaos was the first thing that came to mind...and It.Was.Awesome!!  So many hilarious memories from that day: Caroline arrived in her suit and was the first one in the pool and Ava decided she wanted to get in too...in her dress!  Minutes later she was escorted in soaking wet by Caroline's mommy...and grinning from ear to ear!  At some point during dinner some of the older kids were upstairs in the play room when we heard a loud banging on the door.  Upon investigating, we discovered two of the kids had locked a third out of the play room and they were all giggles when we found them.  As soon as we got the door unlocked, they all went back to cheerfully "cooking" in the kitchen.  Their buddy Nicholas *had* to change into his very favorite pajamas, with Santa on them (which he calls "ho ho's") before heading home.  And my favorite quote of the day has to be from Evan's dad to his mom, "Hey!  Evan's not wearing any underwear!"  Ha!  We went to bed that night happy and exhausted! (Written 8/10/10)

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Some of our guests enjoying their cake!

That next morning about 8:15 I got a call from my dad.  Generally my parents do not attempt to call our house before 9 when they think everyone's had breakfast by then, and especially not on a Sunday when they know every minute counts in getting ourselves and three kids ready for church.  So when I saw the missed call about 30 minutes later, I knew something was wrong.  My Grandma (Dad's mom) had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just 8 days before and I was worried about what news was to come.  When he answered the phone, my worst fears were confirmed:  Grandma had passed away just after 7 that morning. 

Shocked, I couldn't understand how everything happened so quickly.  Just 8 days ago, we learned she had cancer and the doctors estimated she had about 3-6 months.  I know these are general timelines, but I was really banking on even a little bit of that time.  Just 8 days ago, I had started planning our next trip down to see her for the end of August.  I did not anticipate how much can change in 8 days. 



The kids with Grandma at her Surprise 75th Birthday Party in June



The grieving process is a tricky one.  It's different for everyone...I tried to focus on all the good memories first before trying to process the reality of that morning's events.  For example, two years ago we took our annual family vacation to South Carolina with my dad's 3 sisters and his brother, their spouses, almost all of my cousins and Grandma.  It was a wonderful week full of awesome family memories - easily one of my favorites.  Because most of my dad's family lives down near Evansville, IN (about a 3 hour drive from Indy) we don't get to see them as often as we'd like, but we make it down for most holiday gatherings.  My aunt had a surprise 50th Birthday Party in February that brought the family together for an unexpected event this winter and then in June we traveled south again for Grandma's 75th Birthday Celebration.  Looking back this past week, I am extremely grateful for these two milestone birthday's, Grandma's just 6 weeks before her passing, because it gave Nick, the kids and I an opportunity to visit with her that we otherwise wouldn't  have had.



My mom, the girls and I with Nana, Thanksgiving 2007





Now it was time to let it all sink in.  Unfortunately, I became well-acquainted with the grieving process just 2.5 years ago when my Nana (Mom's mom) died after her own 4 month battle with pancreatic cancer.  As I began to grieve for my Grandma, I also grieved for my dad, his brother and sisters and, in particular, my cousins knowing the rollercoaster of emotions they were about to experience over the next few days and weeks and maybe months.  Even now there are days that remind me just how much I miss my Nana, so I know the grieving process for my Grandma will not be a short one. The next family gathering will certainly be a tough one without her, but we know she'll be watching down on us from Heaven to make sure none of the grandkids try to go through the dinner line out of order...youngest first.  Though I'm closer to the other end of the line now, and would side with my dad, aunts and uncle who would argue it's time to "respect your elders" and let them go first...it will always be youngest first because that's the way Grandma would have wanted it.



Sorry Bob's!

So my husband made two things clear to me tonight: 1. that he doesn't keep up with my blog regularly (maybe he should sign up for the emails!) and 2. that my previous post is based on a lie.  Well, not intentionally of course!  For you music-lovers out there who were horrified by my mistake, I am sorry! 

Nick came downstairs a few minutes ago to inform me of my gigantic oversight...the song we heard in church that Mother's Day weekend was in fact Bob Marley (I would not forget the feeling of hearing Marley in church!)  However, as you may well know, he does not sing "Don't Worry, Be Happy"...Bobby McFerran does.  The Marley song I heard is called "Three Little Birds" and includes the lyrics "Don't worry, 'bout a thing, every little thing's gonna be alright."  And my over-tired brain apparently thought these were the same song.

The idea behind the post remains - that God is always in control and that we should always give our worries over to Him.  However, the perfectionist in me could not go to bed tonight without correcting my mistake!  And while I'm on, I have an update to share as well.  My mom's second chemotherapy treatment was today and now she has completed half of her treatments!  We continue to pray that her "tough" days this weekend (Sunday - Tuesday) aren't as tough as last time and that God will continue to give her strength both mentally and physically.  Thank you so much for the prayers!!

Marley Knows Best

"Don't Worry, Be Happy"...gotta love Bob Marley, my friends.  Everytime I hear this song, I think back to the Mother's Day weekend message at our church.  Now, I don't remember any of the sermon (sorry Pastor Steve!) but following the sermon our worship band broke out into their best Bob Marley cover (which, I will say, was pretty good.) 

I believe being at the beach is some of the best therapy ever!

Once I got past the fact that I was listening to Bob Marley in church (which was just truly weird to me!), I tried to focus on the message of the song.  I didn't know it yet, but my perspective on life was about to change dramatically.  Later that week, we received the results of my mom's biopsy...a small malignant tumor in her breast.  We were able to take a wonderful family vacation together along with my parents, brother and his fiance to our favorite beach in southern South Carolina a couple of weeks later, just before her surgery to remove the tumor. 

Beach Boys

Since then my mom has started chemotherapy; she actually has her second treatment this Friday.  Now when I come across this song (or any good Marley song for that matter), I think of my mom.  While accepting the diagnosis has certainly been tough, the physical pain that comes with her treatments can be equally trying sometimes.  But through it all she remains a strong, spiritual, faithful Christian woman who never ceases to remind all of us of God's grace and mercy.  Our family has encountered more "faith-building" moments just in the past 2 1/2 years than I have time to share in one (or even several) post(s), but through it all my Mom's faith remains steadfast. 

To anyone reading this, I ask for prayers for our family.  In addition to my mom's battle with cancer, we found out this weekend that my grandma (dad's mom) has pancreatic cancer.  God never promised us that putting our faith in Him would be easy, only that He would always be there to help see us through whatever struggles we might encounter along the way.  He is constantly testing me (us) and I am doing my best to not let him down.  Obviously, some days are easier than others...the past couple months have certainly been among the harder ones.  Thankfully, it's in God's hands - always has been - and His perfect plan will prevail.  God Bless...and Don't Worry, Be Happy!