Kindergarten 101

Princess #1 brought this hand written note home from school yesterday. It was given to her by her friend M. Bonus points if you can decipher what it says:

"My Fres haos tmrow. You are in vibin to My parbe. Love, M."

It only took me about 10 minutes to figure it out. Haha.

2 down

It's Spring Break this week and I have to admit I was totally terrified of it. I've definitely gotten used to Princess #1 being in school all day and with Princesses #2 and #3 in preschool 3 days a week, the transition to 4 princesses in general hasn't been too bad. But faced with Spring Break, 5 whole days of no school and just me and my lonesome to entertain, well let's just say I was shaking in fear!

So, enter Grammie and Grampie to the rescue! At about 2 hours away, they are just the right distance for a little getaway for Princess #1 and #2. We met them halfway today and the princesses are now enjoying pampering and spoiling that only grandparents can get away with. And while I'm relieved that I have two days with only two princesses to keep track of, I feel weird too. The house is so...CALM. I hardly know what to do.

Our house is so crazy 95% of the time (the other 5% occurring after about 9pm), I'm sure any innocent bystander would be spurred to flee from the premises with their fingers in their ears. And yet to me, the quiet is more unnerving. I'm not sure if it's the deafening stillness (and being able to hear normal noises like birds outside, our dishwasher running, etc.), or just the knowledge that my babies are not under my watchful eye and care for a couple of days. I bet it's probably a combo of both. I know that on Friday when my Princesses and subsequently chaos return, I'll probably be wondering when I can get a break again. And yet, I'll be breathing in the activity and noise as well. It's what makes our home, "home".

Celebration of New Life

On Sunday, I was honored to have several of my friends help celebrate the birth of Princess #4 by hosting a "Sip 'n See". I love the idea of this pseudo-shower, since traditionally it's considered bad etiquette to have a shower for any baby other than the first. Really that "rule" totally annoys me since EVERY child brought into the world should be celebrated. So when I heard about sip 'n sees, I knew for sure that I wanted one for my babe-to-be.

Basically a sip 'n see is a shower that's held AFTER the baby is born. Gifts are not required, it's just an opportunity for people to come and have tea/punch/finger foods and ooh and ahh over the baby. Sort of a "coming out" party for the baby if you will. We scheduled ours for about 3.5 weeks after Princess #4's due date, not knowing for sure when she would arrive. It ended up being perfect timing due to the traumatic nature of her birth and my difficult recovery (more on that later). I needed that much time to feel up to going anywhere and so our sip 'n see truly was her "coming out" (Ok, so she did make it to Target once earlier in the week, but we didn't see anyone we knew!).

Can I just tell you how blown away I was by the whole thing? My lovely Southern Belle of a friend Katherine, hosted it in her home. If you ever want to be inspired to be creative, check out her blog: Once Upon a Twig (and see pics of the sip 'n see there!). I personally think she could give Martha Stewart a run for her money. The attention she gave to the tiniest details was amazing. I'm now totally feeling like I need to do more in my home and thanks to Katherine's little best kept secret ( I swear I won't tell Katherine!), I'm thinking I need to start trying antiquing.

In addition to the beautiful decorations we had an amazing cake and other yummy food provided by several other important people in my life. And as if that weren't enough, there were gifts to open (a nice surprise) and a money tree to help us out with buying a double stroller ( a necessity I'm discovering with 2 under 2).

I really HATE being the center of attention. Which is funny since in my younger days I LOVED theater and spent most of my time on stage. But when it's unscripted, I tend to feel uncomfortable in the spotlight. But I left on Sunday feeling so loved and appreciated. I really struggled during my pregnancy with feeling like people viewed the arrival of our fourth princess as no big deal. She was, afterall, our fourth child and fourth girl to boot! I mean, surely we had everything we needed and shouldn't expect too much following her birth, right? I was pretty hurt by some comments that I probably shouldn't have even bothered to think about twice. But the sip 'n see changed that. Our little Princess #4 was celebrated in a way every child should be. And I'm truly grateful.