Today was a good day for many reasons.
1. Jeff let me sleep in this morning. It was my morning to sleep in (I let him sleep in yesterday), but still; it was nice and I appreciated it. It was especially nice because Carter woke us up twice in the night. The first time was at 2:30 a.m. (I want to say?) and he couldn't find his favourite teddy bear. So, off I went to his room, in search of Mr. Bear.
Then, at 6:30 a.m., he came back in our room asking if he could sleep in our bed with us. This has become a morning ritual for him on weekends or on my days off. If we are still in bed (Gray hasn't woken us up yet) Carter comes into our room and asks to lay with us until we get up. He lays for a few minutes and then asks to play or watch a cartoon on the tablet, which we do allow him to do. Usually, though, this happens after 7:30 a.m. So, 6:30 this morning was a tad earlier than appropriate. We said he could sleep with us, but no to the tablet since it was still time to sleep. "Okay," he said. *two minutes later* "Mom, now is it time to play?" *and repeat over and over every few minutes for an hour. Around 7:30, Jeff got up with him and they left me to sleep.
And that, my friends, is why it was extra nice to sleep in this morning.
2. My parents came over for brunch this morning as planned. Jeff had to come in and wake me up when they got here because I was dead asleep. When I got up and dressed and opened the door, I could hear my dad reading to Grayson in his room. I snuck in this picture and my heart just about melted from the sweetness. How lucky are my kids to have this man as a grandpa?!
3. We had a nice time visiting with my parents. After visiting/playing and then brunch, Mom and Dad played Crazy 8's with Carter. He told us all, "So, okay. Whoever wins gets to take me out for lunch." We all nearly fell over laughing (which offended him greatly; we had to tell him that it was funny, but a very smart thing to say). Then he added that whoever lost had to play video games with him. He's got the world figured out, this guy. #BetSoYouNeverLose
4. I am continuing to go through and organize the house and it feels so good to organize things so that space is better utilized, everything has a home, and there are fewer things "out" in the living areas of our house. I'm seriously becoming addicted to organizing. If it wasn't impossible, I'd think I was pregnant and nesting.
5. Finally figuring out the kids' extra-curricular activities for winter 2017 today. I got Gray registered for gymnastics and emailed the centre to get Carter in Muay Thai, which is like a kickboxing type form of martial arts.
6. I printed the form today to register Carter in Kindergarten for this fall. I know it's cliché and everyone says this, blah, blah, blah, but I just can't believe I am filling out these forms already. This five years has gone so fast. I won't say "it feels like only yesterday that he was born..." because it doesn't. It feels like he's been here for my whole life... and also only a couple of years all at the same time. But, somehow, it feels impossible that it's been five years; it feels like some sort of joke. I'm waiting for someone to pop out and say, "nah! we're kidding. He's still four and will stay four for a while." Time moves so slowly sometimes, but so fast overall. It's frightening to me.
I'm emotional about Kindergarten. He's such a little person and I'm terrified at the idea of sending him out into the world - or, I should say, more out into the world. This feels like a bigger shift; it feels like a bigger relinquishment of control over his environment and who is allowed into it. So that's hard.
7. I have a great appreciation for my ability to listen to the other side, Jeff's ability to do the same, and our ability -- as a married couple -- to thoroughly discuss the other side. This is in relation to our decision about where to enroll Carter in school: the English program or the French Immersion program. He was very certain that he wanted English and I would say I was mostly certain. But, I still posted on my FB page to ask people to share their thoughts, opinions, advice, and suggestions. Though I felt fairly sure of my decision, I wanted it to be challenged. I wanted to make sure there wasn't an angle we hadn't thought of or explored. I wondered if someone would say something that might make us change our minds. Sometimes all it takes is for someone to say one sentence or ask one question that changes how you see something. And I wanted to make sure we weren't missing anything.
There were a lot of comments that really made me think about our decision. After the boys were in bed, Jeff and I spent a good hour going back and forth, challenging each other on both sides of the equation and just talking it through. After the conversation he said to me, "you know what I love about us and our marriage? I love that we both came into this conversation with the same opinion about what to do, and yet we still spent an hour "arguing" over what we should do." And he's right. Even though we both felt pretty sure that we were going to go with English, we did a lot of exploring and that's important. I'm still not 100% sure, but what I do know is that whatever decision we do make, it will have come with a great deal of thought. And, if nothing else, I can feel pretty damned good about that.
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