Special Times

One of the (many) difficult things of having four children, and having them close in age, is making sure I spend time with each one of them alone - without their siblings. Just us together.

Now that Kevin is gone mid-week I've been trying to plan special nights for the girls. Two weeks ago, I put the girls to bed, but told Mairead she could come downstairs with me. The others had no clue. Mairead came down with me and saw what it was like to have mamma time. We watched a movie together and she got to have a special mamma ice cream. She even got to stay up as late as I did, and basically, did everything I did. She loved it. I loved watching her get so excited about it!

Last Friday, I had planned on taking just the two big girls to splashtown, a local waterpark here in Maine, but because not-so-good behavior got in the way, I had to pull the plug on that....one of the few things I had to cancel last week because of behavior issues.

Thankfully this week seems to be a little bit of a different story. Their behavior hasn't been 100%, but I try to be realistic, and see the improvements. Last night, Mairead had her very first sleepover at a friends. She had been looking forward to this for weeks, and it finally came! I dropped her off at 4pm, she had dinner, ice cream sundaes and rode bikes with her friends, and even stayed up way too late! BUT the best part - no late night phone calls, no middle of the night troubles, and a happy, excited kid returned in the morning!

While Mairead had her special night, I let Lilah have hers. Right before bed, I told Lilah she'd be able to have a mommy night with me. If I could have had her reaction on video - it was priceless! She jumped up with the biggest smile and literally jumped on me with a great, big hug. Talk about making me feel good. Once again, we watched a movie and she got to have a special mamma ice cream - but Lilah can't hang as well as Mairead can at night. She requires a lot of sleep! By 915pm she was asking when we were going to bed, and she proceeded to ask that question every 10 minutes after that. By 945 she was walking into the other room to crawl up on the couch. I love it! Once we went up to bed, we brushed our teeth, she crawled into bed, and no joke, she was asleep within a minute??? Maybe two!

Today we had even more fun! I scheduled a sitter to watch Clara and Callum and I took the big girls to meet some friends at Splashtown - this is what we were supposed to do last week! We had so much fun together, and rode all sorts of waterslides together! We had fun with our friends, too!

I can't wait to continue these little "traditions" with our kids! It makes for some really special times and I just love seeing them so happy and excited!