Growing Pains

In between our many visits to doctor last week I had a moment of clarity and asked Mr. Rosen to take this picture before the painters wiped away the last five years of our family's growth. This is a little column wall that separates our kitchen, living and dining rooms. The prefect size to stand and be measured. This process of clearing out the house and getting it and ourselves ready for the next era has been an exciting and worthwhile process. Everything about it feels right. And yet, when I stopped to think about this wall and how much we've grown, the kids mostly taller and me, on and off more rotund, I almost start to weep. When we moved in here I was four months pregnant with our eldest. And seven years later I am six months pregnant with our third. This is the house where we grew a family. Where Mr. Rosen and I grew into parents. Where we grew professionally and spiritually and personally. And the kids grew to be able to reach the counter, the sink, the light switch, the cookie jar. And still growing. All of us.

ps. If anyone knows of any cute measurement posters, send a link. Mr. Rosen copied down all of the measurements for transfer to something we can actually take with us.

Big undies

A few months ago I noticed my son's underwear was starting to get a little snug and dilapidated. I end up having to rip out the tags because they bug him and then the elastic starts to come out and after a number of washes (and believe me these things get washed a lot. If I had a nickel for every time I heard mommy, I made a tiny bit of pee pee in my undies...) they start to fall apart. Anyway, I found some at Carters that were tagless so I bought the 4T-5T with dinosaurs and presented them to my son. He took one look and burst into tears.

Him: These are for Aba!
Me: No sweety pie, these are for you. You're getting bigger so I bought you bigger undies.
Him: I'm just a little boy and these are too big for me. Aba can wear them.
Me: But if you're going into preK honey then you're big enough to wear bigger undies.
Him: But I'm not in preK yet. I'm just a little boy.

I've used the preK card a few times with surprising success. He's very excited about being in preK so sometimes I can say, if you continue to behave like that, Miss Rhonda won't let you into preK. No dice on this occasion. Apparently he doesn't want to wear anything that might suggest he's older than he is and underwear is no exception. I guess. This is all conjecture. I have no idea what the hell he's thinking. But to his credit, it will be a cold day in hell before I start wearing those giant granny panties so maybe he has a point...

Then yesterday he was getting ready for bed and wearing his too tighty whities when he started scratching at his back and complaining that he was getting a rash. So I told him that his underwear is too small and giving him a rash and that he's probably ready to wear his bigger ones.

Him: You mean Aba's with the dinosaurs?
Me: Yes. We could try them?

He relented and agreed to put them on. I sent him to the mirror to look and he was DELIGHTED.

Then tonight we put the baby to bed and the three of us were eating melon for desert. My husband and son had two little bowls and I was lazy and just eating from the big bowl in the middle. And then my husband started to eat from the big bowl too.

Him: Can I eat out of the big bowl too when I finish with my little bowl of melon?
Me: Sure honey
Him: Because I wear big underwear like you and Aba so I can eat out of the big bowl.

Pretty solid argument. Who knew underwear could be so empowering. Wait, duh. Of course I knew that.