The Emotional One

My kids have vastly different personalities.  As a recent post of Facebook clearly shows:

“How many kids does it take to kill a spider? 3. One to scream “it’s moving to get me” (Taylor), one to stare and say “wow it’s so big” (Elijah), and one to run and get a shoe, try to calm Taylor, and explain to Elijah how to properly squish it (Jordan).”

Sadly, I feel Taylor usually gets the short end of the stick.  As the oldest she gets some perks, but not many.  And due to her VERY emotional personality most people tend to lean towards my other 2 kids.  Honestly, I even tend to lean towards my other 2 kids. 

Horrible mother confession time:

It’s easy to see Jordan and Elijah and know that I like them.  It takes work to remind myself of the “why” when it comes to Taylor.  I LOVE all my kids dearly, but I don’t always like them. 

They all have their moments.  Taylor just happens to have more of them.  But in my time trying to be very intentional about reminding myself what makes Taylor special and enjoyable I find I learn so much more about her.

She’s very sensitive to things people say about her and the slightest judgment weighs heavy on that little heart of hers.  She yearns for approval and is easily jealous when others get it when she doesn’t.  I constantly have to remind her not to be selfish.  We focus a lot on what the “right” choice should be for situations.  She strives to be “grown up”.  Over the last few months I’ve been seeing glimpses of our parenting finally begin to work. 

As she screams in frustration she yells “I’m SO frustrated and I can’t control myself!”…so yes she’s still freaking out, but she’s acknowledging it. 

As Jordan cries because she really wants something Taylor has (that Taylor rightfully has access too), Taylor will hand it to Jordan…then run to her room crying – being un-selfish is rough after all.

But if you can look passed the emotional chaos happening in that little 7 year old girl you see something amazing.

She’s rather brilliant.  She learns things SO quickly and remembers things from forever ago and is curious about everything.

She’s pretty stinking hilarious. She says the funniest things and tries so hard to make people laugh (yes, I know most of the time it gets annoying, but she is really just trying to make you happy)

When it comes down to it, she has an amazing heart.  She loves so deeply and fully (which is why she is so easily hurt).  Everyone is her best friend (again…which is why she is so easily hurt).

Anyway, I know this is random.  I’ve just felt extra guilty lately about how annoyed I can be by this little girl.  And I want to end this with a small story called “Remember when I saved Jordan’s life?” – Taylor Davis

A couple of years ago the girls were playing in their room.  I heard Taylor scream.  As a mom you know the difference in what the screams mean.  This was a scream of pure terror…I’m talking real fear, not “I just saw a spider” fear.

I ran to the room to find the dresser had fallen over and Taylor was holding it up, keeping it from falling on her 3 year old little sister.  Taylor was screaming from the pure weight of the dresser, tears pouring from her eyes.  I ran and lifted the dresser and Taylor fell to the ground sobbing.  Those 15 seconds must have felt like a year to her.

She was shaking and scared.  Jordan was rather oblivious to what was going on.  I sat Taylor in my lap and just hugged her to calm her down.  I whispered to her that everything was ok now.  I told her she did a good job and kept her little sister safe.

Can you imagine what was going through that little head? At 5 years old she put herself in harms way to “save” her sister.  In that moment I didn’t even realize the emotional weight of that until Taylor told me just yesterday “Mom, remember that time I saved Jordan’s life?  I held the dresser so it didn’t squish her and make her dead”.   So at that time (to me) she was keeping her sister from getting some pretty bad bruises and maybe cuts.  To her, she sacrificed her life to save the life of her sister.

And THAT is who Taylor really is.

School, Big Teeth, and other Ramblings

I just realized I forgot to tell you all about the kids’ first day of school.  I have no excuses really.  I’d like to blame it on them starting the same month that Ann Ann was born, but that was 3 weeks before so…I guess I’m just a slacker.

This year was special because all 3 of the kids started the school year at Shoreline Christian School (no go forth and enroll your children there to…or don’t).  Taylor started 2^nd grade and Jordan started Kindergarten.  Did you catch that? 2 of the 3 Davis children are now in elementary school.  And with Elijah starting next year (granted he can manage to learn his colors – what kid knows his letters before his colors?!) I’ll soon have all 3 in grade school.

The time of toddlerhood, preschoolhood, and diaperhood will be behind us (maybe that makes me want to cry a little, but only a little).

And now we brace ourselves for attitudehood, and hormonehood.  I know you like my made up words.

So here are pictures from the kids’ first day.  I do find my kids awful cute(ish).  Despite the fact that Taylor has entered the awkward age where her teeth are bigger than her face as her head rapidly grows to catch up to her new chompers.  Poor girl…she’s already a walking stick with no rear end.  Now she has to deal with huge teeth and a growing head.  Good thing she has those gorgeous blue eyes.

1 Down, 19 To Go

As usual Jordan stayed up far too late on one night.  Resulting in a VERY tired girl in the morning.  She is typically the most difficult to wake up.  And then she moves VERY slowly and cries at everything. 

So on Friday morning as she sat eating her cereal and crying about how it hurt her teeth to eat, I essentially told her to suck it up.

10 minutes later she was still whining about her teeth, but suddenly stopped abruptly to announce she had found the source of the pain.

Her tooth was loose.

She may have squealed with excitement.  She’s been wiggling her teeth in anticipation for nearly 2 years when she saw Taylor lose her first tooth.

So every night since that morning she has asked me to try and pull her tooth out.  Now Jordan has an adorable smile (I know I’m not biased, this is in fact a true statement), but part of the problem with that smile is that her teeth are so tightly squeezed together.  So trying to get a grip on that loose tooth was very difficult.

Yet every night she’d walk up to me with a piece of tissue and the tube of Orajel with a huge grin and ask me to try and pull that bad boy out.  I’d tell her to tell me to stop if it hurt.  I’d watch her face carefully as I pulled on this tooth that was obviously not ready to let go.  Her eyes would fill with tears and I would stop and she bravely tell me that it didn’t hurt.  I would then just tell her we’d try again tomorrow.

Until last night.  Last night I began to pull (and it was still not ready), but I felt something pop.  The tooth wasn’t out, but something disconnected and the tooth became very loose.  I always have a fear the kids will swallow their teeth in their sleep so I told her that I’d need to pull again.

She began to cry silently…she didn’t want me to pull it, it hurt.  I bribed her with some frozen yogurt (literally… a thing of yogurt that was frozen) and she agreed.

And with one good tug that thing came out.  And so did many tears and mounds of blood (can liquid be “mounds”?).  I looked at her seriously and said, “Oh, it hurts? Should I put it back in?”

She laughed and suddenly the pain was gone.  And my little serial killer (aka surgeon) in the making decided that she rather enjoyed letting the blood spew out of her mouth before wiping it up with a paper towel.

And so was that tooth.  And my proud little girl called people to tell them.  And she insisted I take a picture (which I would have done anyway).

And as we got ready for bed I watch Elijah with his fingers in his mouth…insisting that he is a big boy with a loose tooth…

 

 

It's A Very Special Day

So just recently Justin and I celebrated our 8 yearanniversary.  I say “celebrated” loosely.  We aren’t really the “celebrating” type.  We MAY use these special days (like birthday, father’s day, mother’s day, anniversary) as an excuse to splurge on a nice dinner or something, but that is rare.  We usually just move through these days like they are any other day.

There are 2 days though that are extra special to us (well maybe just me).  Days that mean more than our anniversary.

5/9 (May 9^th) and 9/5 (September 5^th).  These are Justin and Rachael days.  My favorite number is 5, Justin’s favorite number is 9.  So these days are clearly meant for Justin and Rachael.

We are weird.  Obviously.

I also just recently found out that it is not “normal” to have a favorite number. I just assumed everyone had a favorite number like they have a favorite color.  Apparently that is not true ::mind blown::

So Happy Justin & Rachael day to all my friends and family and strangers reading this – you should celebrate by doing something that Justin & I love.

And to my dear husband (who I more frequently just call “Husband” thanks to the TV show The Neighbors), Happy Justin & Rachael Day!  We should also celebrate by eating something extra yummy tonight or buying a new game.  Maybe both.  I like new games and food.

The Davis' - We Are Sleep Talkers

Justin does this thing…he talks in his sleep.  He talks in his sleep most nights.  Usually it’s incoherent mumbling (which is not unlike some phone calls you have with him while he’s awake).  Sometimes it is completely coherent, although irrational.

Like a few weeks ago when he searched our entire bed for a “snake”.  Then proceeded to call me an idiot when I asked him why he was looking for a snake in our bed – yeah, usually is pretty mean to me when he sleep talks.  Idiot, Fat Cow, and Annoying are just a few of the many things I’ve been called.

But this blog is not about Justin, it’s about Jordan.  Jordan has inherited the wonderful skill of sleep talking.  One of these happened a couple weeks ago.

We spent our “movie night” at home watching the Magic School Bus.  The episode was about flowers and all the parts of the flowers.  At one point the students land in the nectar of the flower and get “stuck”.  Apparently that stuck with Jordan.

About an hour or so after she fell asleep she woke up crying.  I told her to come to me and asked why she was crying.  She sat in front of me with her eyes closed and told me “I can’t get out of the flower!”

I was confused.

“I’m stuck in the flower and the giant bees are going to eat me! I can’t get out of the flower”

Then it clicked, the Magic School Bus episode.  So I told her I squished all the bees so she was safe.  She nodded and went right back to bed.

She talks in her sleep pretty frequently, but this was the first time it was coherent enough to tell a story about.  I’m sort of excited to see what else is to come – as long as she doesn’t lick my back like her dear father…