Littles and Bigs and taking care of your marriage.

I always separate our girls. We have littles and bigs. Our Littles are all day crazy,  our bigs are late night crazy.  

Really they are all normal, but when you have both, it makes life crazy. For us there is no separation.  We seem to glide with ease from one set to the next, sleep a few hours, and then start over again. 

What I'd like to focus on in this post is how we find time for us as a couple... you know, that husband/ wife relationship all parents forget about from time to time,or all the time.  

For us, our relationship comes first.  It may not look like that from the outside, but it does.  We don't do date nights or weekends away often. And COVID has made that a very limited option in Michigan.  

So you may wonder how we make this happen. It's really simple. We bought a locking door handle for our bedroom and we use it almost daily! We go in our bedroom, lock the door,  and connect.  And guess what....it's not always about sex. We are a very intimate couple, but sometimes we just need to talk. We also make excuses.  "Mom's getting dressed. Dad just got out of the shower, one of us is pooping." Sometimes we just say,  "Go play,we'll be right out!" Usually it's enough.  It's a very small amount of time, but it is everything to us.

We also have our Late nights.  This is always different. Sometimes our

Bigs with us, sometimes they are gone. But at some point, we make them go to bed. We listen to music, Snapchat, and dance.  Sometimes I do my thing and Ron is in his barn.  Sometimes we have friends over sometimes we don't. Sometimes we have a few drinks and make love. Sometimes we don't.  

At the end of the night, we always go to bed together.  

Five girl weekends

We are blessed with 5 girl weekends from time to time. More often lately.  And we love them, we plan for them. All our kids are in our house. Our girls and Rowdy.  We didnt plan for them. You can't when live on others schedules.  But this weekend it happened.  And there was 4 wheeling and mini bikes involved.  My parents were here too, because we have established a weekend meal with them, every week. 
    This is all for our children.  But this is why I can't sleep on Sunday nights.  Tonight I took Shay to St Clair and left her with her Uncle.  My ex-husband picked up Alyssa and Laney. Our little girls cried when they left.
    Divorce sucks. For everyone involved, it just sucks.

Let Them Be Little

     It's Wednesday night. It's a school night. I mentioned to Elizabeth, my kindergartner, that we have to do homework. She ignored me because she was playing school. She was writing on her dry erase board asking me how to spell Mrs. "I know it starts with an M." A few minutes later, I noticed she had the letter 's' written multiple times in neat rows with Mrs. Elizabeth at the top.
     I continued with other things I needed to get done. I put some notes in for work, talked to my mom, helped Kenna wash her hands, brush her teeth, changed her diaper and put her to bed. In the mean time, Elizabeth changed her clothes. She bounced out of her bedroom and declared, "LOOK! I am a police officer!" I said, "awesome!" She ran outside with dad and the dog.
     Shortly after I went outside to find her and Bella to get ready for bed. I barely made it into the garage when Elizabeth comes running into the garage in high heels, nerf gun slung over her shoulder. Pop bottles went flying, she jumped over them and Bella followed.  I quickly responded, "slow down! It's time for bed Elizabeth." She immediately responded, "I'm not Elizabeth! I am a police officer and my name is Brooklyn." She walked over to the fridge and pointed out were she had posted the laws. "The laws are posted and I have to enforce them!"
     No assigned homework has been done tonight. We will catch up tomorrow, because its important for her to learn about work ethic and following through with tasks given, even at five. As an adult and a teacher, it seems silly to me to have her repeat skills over and over that she has already mastered.  Sometimes, though, we have to do things we don't want to. Sometimes we just have to, and this is something children have to learn at young age.
     But tonight,  I let her be little. Tonight, I let her play.

Grocery shopping for 8

     Recently, we moved to the country.  Twenty five minutes to the grocery store or pizza from the party story. So after spending too much money on fast food and pizza since I went back to work, we decided to "splurge" at the grocery store. We bought enough food to make 12 meals and have lunch stuff for our 4 girls that are with us during the week. Wow! That was a lot of money!
     What trip to the store that was! We took the two little girls on a Saturday morning. Grocery shopping with two kids on a Saturday morning can be a nightmare in itself, but with our two...OMG. Our 5 year old wants everything sweet. She begs and pleads. We say No! NO! no...but maybe, ok I guess.  FOR THE LOVE GOD JUST PUT IT IN THE CART! The littlest gives us about 30 minutes of peace, then starts throwing anything out of the cart she can reach. I've learned to preplan where everything goes. My husband, who doesn't shop with her often, doesn't know the layout of the cart. Also he took his time looking at things. We weren't even half way through the store when she started chucking out groceries and old ladies were handing it back, saying, "she so cute!" They dont even know!  "We have to move faster! I'm telling you she won't stop now!" I said to him. The look on his face was priceless.  Needless to say, we completely skipped the produce section, but not before I grabbed some sushi to eat on the way home.
     We survived, though. All that was left was to cook ALL day Sunday. Ten pounds of hamburger, two chicken leg freezer meals, teriyaki chicken breasts, a beef roast, a pork loin, and everything ready for two servings of lasagna...done. Weekly dinner with my parents...done.  I'm exhausted, but looking forward to easy fast dinners and no more shopping for a week.