Not Yet

A couple of nights ago I was rocking Mia to sleep.  She was extra sleepy and snoring on my shoulder, but as soon as I started to get up, she put her hand back up in my hair and snuggled her nose deeper into my shoulder and said, "Not yet." before she fell right back to sleep.

Not yet.  That just seems so fitting right now.  Everything seems to be going so fast.  The twins are signed up for Kindergarten.  Not yet.  They will be done with preschool next week.  Not yet.  Mia turns three in June.  Not yet.  Mia will be in preschool in September, and for the first time in 5 1/2 years, I will have structured stretches of day when I am either alone, or I only have one child.  Not yet.  Tonight, Mia had (hopefully) her last Mommy and Me dance class.  Starting in June, she is on her own.  Not yet, not yet, not yet.
 
There are so many things that I have wanted to rush.  Potty training.  Buckling their own seatbelts.  Talking, walking, all those signs of growing up that we celebrated and enjoyed.  But I'm starting to feel a little bit frantic about the changes coming.

These are my babies, but they are getting so grown up.  We won't get to do this again.  I remind myself, or Pinterest does, that they are only going to be this young right now.  That every day they get a little older, a little more independent, and we should enjoy the moments of them being young because soon it will be gone.

Why do I still rock my almost three year old?  Because she wants me too.  Because she curls her hand in my hair and rubs it like when she was a baby.  Because she tells me a million times a day that she wuvs me, and it makes my heart melt just how much she still loves me.  I know my other kids do.  I do.  But something about that youngest of mine just makes me think that maybe, she will be the one that always loves her Mommy, and stays my baby.  We can survive the threenager stage she has started.

I am amazed to say that Maggie has already surpassed my drawing skills.  She is awesome.  There is so much detail, and creativity, and I'm just so proud of my little artist.  She got a lot of drawing stuff for her birthday, and she doesn't realize, but one of the reasons I gave her some of the bound books was so that I could keep her drawings.  She tends to draw some of the coolest stuff on some of the scrappiest pieces of scrap paper, and I want to have this to show her some day when she is famous, lol.

Ben can draw people that look like people.  I am happy with how his school skills are growing.  But, what I am even more proud of, is that he is just so darn thoughtful.  He really is just such a cool little boy.  He loves to run around and play with the boys, but he isn't rough and tough and loud.  He is gentle, and kind, and really worries about other people.  I love it.  He has carried that same empathy that he had when he was the baby giving Maggie his lovies because she was sad, to the boy who will run upstairs for the bandaids when his sister skins her knee, and who holds on tight to Mia in the parking lot because it is his job to help protect her.


I want to throw some of these things out, because I know in a year, in a month, next week, things will change.  Against my wishes, Ben and Maggie are graduating from Preschool.  Moving from a safe place of love, and hugs from teachers, and one little hallway that they know and love, they will be in full day kindergarten in the fall.  All day, five days a week.  I had been waiting and hoping for our school board to approve that motion, but as soon as it hit me that they would be gone five days a week and eating lunch there, uncertainty creeped in.  Are they really ready for that?  Will they eat, will they make friends, will they learn everything they are supposed to?

Leaving the place they have spent two years, and made good friends, and have felt safe and loved and smart and wanted.  Leaving there and moving on?  Not yet.

And Mia.  My baby girl.  Working on potty training (we are about to go full on, take away the pull ups in about a week - it's on little girl), and doing it because she wants to stay with her friends who are all moving up to Kindercise in the summer.  No more class for us together, back to the waiting room with the big kid moms.  Not yet.  Getting ready to be dropping her off at the preschool next year, letting her go out into the world without me?  Not yet.  I'm nervous about her allergies.  I'm nervous she will be even sicker all winter with the different germs.  I'm nervous that she will love it, and not miss me, and suddenly act like a different kid.  Not yet.

These babies of mine, kids of mine, little people of mine are off to big things.  I am lucky I get to spend as much time with them as I do, even if they drive me a little bit crazy.  I am lucky they are smart and independent, and can help me, and help each other, and do big things.

But I am just not ready for some of these changes.  I imagine that all summer, just like Mia mumbling into my shoulder in the rocking chair, my head and heart will keep saying not yet.

Below, please find my round up of Ben and Maggie's birthday party, Easter, and everything else Spring going on with my little family.

This is Mia with her newest cousin Catie.  She is completely in love, and it is the sweetest thing to watch.

This was the first year friends from school were invited to the birthday party.  There was a lot of boys chasing girls, girls chasing boys, a balloon twisting and face painting clown, and a whole bunch of kids.  Oh boy.

Spring means flowers blooming,

Lawn mowing (playing around with aperture, but what a lovely picture of our lawnmower, no?)

And girls in pretty dresses.
                                              
Speaking of Not Yet, Lily is starting to show some signs of being a senior dog.  Slowing down, having some senior moments, and going a bit gray.  She is a big dog, she is 10 now, but we hope we have a lot more time with her.

Easter this year was about Easter bonnets, egg hunts, family, and candy.

After what seemed like the longest winter ever, we have been so excited to play outside.

So much so that they even were out on the deck in their bathing suits one day - notice Andy is still in a vest and jeans?  

Goofing around with the cousins. 

Looking older every day.

But not much taller.  (Maggie in her dance costume - oh my goodness, the adorableness)

 Dressing up like princesses and Supwer Hewoes

Being silly,

The Mother's Day Tea at preschool was so sweet.  Maggie with her best friend Gianna.

Me and the kids that made me a Mom.

And the boys - Ben's friends who are young enough and sweet enough to still hold hands and dance in a circle.

Mia's last Mommy and Me class.  Quite a change from when she started a year ago, and I will miss this time with my tiny dancer.

And don't even get me started on this.  Riding in cars with boys, the neighbor across the street already has a bit of a crush on my Mia.  He is Ben's buddy, he has a trampoline and vehicles that go, and I see us spending a lot of time with them as the years go by.  Awesome having so many kids in the neighborhood!  

Hopefully there will be another post or two before it happens, but big changes are coming soon.  It is so hard to believe, and I really, just really am not ready to let them grow up.

Just not yet.