Changes…

My boy. My oldest. My non-aggressive, perfectionist child. I just signed him up for soccer for the first time in his life (he’s 9). I think I’m more terrified than he is. He has been playing goalie at recess and is so good and really loves it. I think this could be really good for him, especially in that position, where it’s a little less kid-to-kid competition and more against oneself competition. He can be aggressive against the ball and not other kids. I will be rather anxious once the fall comes, but I hope this can become something really good for him.

My oldest girl. She starts karate next week. It was a toss-up between ballet and karate (since they’re both already in scouts, any more than one more activity would put me in the overscheduled category – for me, at least – and I’m anti-overscheduling kids. And their moms). My oh-so-girly girl chose karate. Naturally. I would love to see her develop some assertiveness. She’s been having some trouble with kids on the bus that is minor enough that she should be able to solve it without adult intervention, if she can stand up for herself. I hate to think that she might grow into someone who can’t (um, not like me, no, of course not. I thrive on confrontation. Crap. Yeah, that’s a lie).

Number three. She’s graduating from nursery school tomorrow night. I send her away to all-day kindergarten (no other options here) in the fall. I don’t think I can handle. It’s harder than sending the older two, who were quickly followed up by another child who was entering school. There’s only two years between each of the older three. There’s three years between #3 and #4 (we knew we wanted four kids, but it took a little longer to dive in). Somehow that has made a huge difference. Miss S has been my main companion for the past two years, since Miss V is really still a baby (okay, okay, an almost-two-year-old isn’t really a baby, but the interaction is different). I have a glimpse of how hard it’s going to be to send Miss V off in three years.

The Baby. This kid is hell on wheels. You know how people say “If this one had been born first, we wouldn’t have had any other kids”? Yeah, that. Actually, as I told Tom, we would have had one more, but not as close together and probably only one more. I’ve often said that our oldest (the most easygoing, happy baby there was) was a trick to get us to have more kids. I didn’t know how true that was. She seems like she can be in five places at once, destroying things. And then grin so big I can hardly keep a straight face while sending her to time-out. She’s actually very good for me as a mother. I’ve been sort of smug about my parenting skills, with my three easy kids. Ha, says Fate. Try this.