Remembering One Year Ago

I get a little wistful when I think about how quickly time passes. The days are long and the years are short, and there are hundreds of little things I think I'll remember (but wont) and even more I know I never want to forget. In my ongoing effort to make time stand still, I present our past year in one long, rambling look back.

APRIL 2013

1. Our first and hopefully only family pet.

 A birthday surprise (for the seven-year-old and his anti-pet mom) from Nora and Daddy.

We started with four and are now down to 1 1/2 (Larry the yellow crab wants a new shell but doesn't like any of the options we've presented). Poor Ferdinand the red will soon be on his own. Fortunately, the kids haven't noticed, which tells you all you need to know about the entertainment value of hermit crabs. In addition to Larry and Ferdinand, they were really good at ignoring Gato ("cat" in Spanish, according to my then seven-year-old) and Troublemaker as well. Don't let the pictures fool you. Naming the crabs and that one time we lost Larry for a few hours has been the most exciting part of pet-parenthood ever since Troublemaker (hence the name) pinched Nora on day three, never to be held willingly again.

2. Our now eight-year-old turned seven and celebrated with an outerspace birthday party and loads of new Legos.

It took a full day to turn that soccer ball-shaped cake into the moon. I tell you this so you will know what you're looking at in the above photo. Sadly, the frosting was gross and nobody ate more than a few bites. Luckily, little boys would rather run wild like aliens than sit still long enough to eat cake anyhow. Same goes for group photos.

This little boy has been blessed with some really great friends.

When I took this picture, I thought he looked so grown up; now one year later, I think he looks so little and sweet (for the record he is still sweet as a newly minted eight-year-old, but he's not little at all and has shot through two sizes in both clothes and shoes in the past year).

3. Nora's first soccer season.

She didn't love it and more often than not ended up in my lap on the sidelines, as did all the other girls except the one with pink shoelaces who singlehandedly secured an undefeated season for the "Black Catwomen."

She rallied for the game mid-season against her good friend, Vivian, though, and even scored her first goal.

Though she did seem to enjoy it after that, we skipped soccer for the then four-year-old and now five-year-old this spring but plan to try again in the fall.

All the while, the big brother and his coaching dad were playing just a couple fields down.

 I love these kids and I love being their soccer mom (and am doubly grateful their dad is coaching instead of me—too competitive for my own good).

A few more April highlights...

4. Porter's first science fair. He got a black eye the day before after tripping on new pants that were too long. In spite of the shiner, his sweet smiled earned our then first-grader a spot in the local paper.


5. Nora learned to write her name, and the house was soon covered in scraps of N-O-R-Aed paper.

6. I discovered a new favorite book and haven't found anything I like quite as much in the year since. Nora and I also read our first mommy-daughter chapter book: Pippi Longstocking, followed by Matilda. Oh how I love having a little girl.

One of my favorite moments of mommyhood to date.

 6. And finally, I officially gave up fighting my strong-willed four-year-old each morning over clothes.

Many great ensembles coming your way as we move through the rest of the past year. 2013 was a rough parenting year when it came to this little lass. We are one and the same, and it is still often a contest of wills. It's taken the better part of the past year to figure out which fights were worth waging and to let go of the rest. I'm still not great at it, but every day gets a little better...until it's not. This one keeps me sharp.

All the while,  April 2013 was made all the sweeter by a fun little secret I was carrying around in the form of a yet-to-be announced, yet-to-be born baby Hattie. We kept a tight lid on the pregnancy news for as long as we could—I was nervous something would go wrong—but I look back on this pre-baby #5 time now and realize Harriett Ann was the plan for our family all along. I am also again amazed at how quickly older kids age when a baby is born—look at how sweet and little Nora used to be!

 May 2013 ... to be continued, followed by June, July, August, September, October, November & December. And then I'll try to process 2014 some time before Nora graduates.