What year is this?

I just spent the last hour reading over the collected posts from the past few years.   My heart is so warm right now.  So much I had completely forgotten about!  Amazing to look back at a time when a certain set of troubles seemed the only ones in the world...to see how they worked themselves out...to see how we're on to the next thing and the next by now...to remember the little funny things the kids said...the highs, the lows...so that's what's up with the whole "journaling" thing, huh?  Pretty cool.

Concepts are often lost on me. 

I could list the reasons I abandoned this blog, but they just don't seem as justifiable as they used to...so I'm determined to pick back up.  I know I'll thank myself at the end of another four or five years.  To be quite honest, this blog's more for me than anybody else (take THAT, all 2 of my readers!!  Sorry, Mom.), and I need a place to deposit my thoughts.  So I'm giving this a go again.  Why, thank you, Self.  I do enjoy reading your prose.  Oh, that's mighty kind of me.  Think nothing of it.  It's all for Posterity.  Posterity?  Who's she?  I thought I was your one and only.  Joke's wearing thin, Medlin.  Move on.

A year and a half ago was my last post.  A little over 18 months.  I had a budding Kindergartener and a proud little preschooler then, and I thought my life was full enough.  If anybody had told me I'd be one kid richer the next time I sat down to type something here, I'd have plotzed.  Yet here I sit, mother of three.  And it just feels right.  Let me introduce you to the 2012 model Medlin:

You don't have to say it.  I know.  I know he's the most gorgeous stack of tires you will ever lay eyes on.  You can't have him.

Isn't it incredible how someone can come into your life and fill a hole you didn't even know was there (How did I not notice a hole that chunky)?  Sawyer is simply the whipped topping on our family sundae.  He's a happy, laid-back guy who enjoys sitting upright, gnawing objects, and generally making us melt when he smiles.  We're all twitterpated but his big sister's got a crush on him something fierce.  She breezes right past Mom and Dad first thing every morning, to smother him with kisses.  We're chopped liver.  It's ok.

I still have a budding Kindergartener, but it's my girl this time. If I thought transitioning her to a big-girl bed was rough on my tender heart those years ago, it was nothing compared to the Big K.  You'd think I'd be old hat at this milestone by now, having already parented a grade-schooler for more than a year.  Oddly, it seems more difficult this time.  Maybe it was the unconventional manner in which we placed Connor in school that made it less bittersweet with him.  We scarcely had time to wax nostalgic.  This time, I've had plenty of time to browse painfully thru Mia's baby pictures and her crayon artwork.  I've videotaped her preschool graduation and we have read her every "Kindergarten, Here I Come!" children's book the library keeps in stock. School starts in 2 weeks.  She is so ready.  I wish I was.

And my oldest child has become a bookend.  He's half of the collective I refer to as "the boys," a phrase which, nearly 7 months in, still feels a tad foreign on my tongue. He's handled his new role as Big Brother Squared with quiet finesse.  Although he isn't as affectionate with Sawyer as Mia, he is bursting with pride, as is evident in his many illustrated autobiographies, all of which detail how awesome the baby is and most of which get passed around at school and family functions.  Occasionally, I will catch him doing something adorable like having a matter-of-fact conversation with his little brother about how to construct a paper airplane. Sawyer thinks he hung the moon.

At seven, Connor's a mess and a half.  He is an imp.  He's complex, smart, mischievous, and innovative. Still every bit the challenge to parent he was at three, but always a marvel.  These days you'll probably find him pawing thru my recyclables for things to make into "inventions."  Friday, he told me he was working up designs for a "sweat collector," so he could find out how much sweat he lost every day.  I asked him to estimate how much he thought that would be, and he replied, "Well, Mom, that's going to depend on certain factors.  Like whether or not I play outside and how hot it is. If I spend all day in front of the Wii it's going to be a lot less than if I go outside and run."  Insights like these are exactly why I adore this special kid.  Oddly, conversations like these (and other things I've noticed), have also inspired a few revelations for me recently.  I'll talk more about that in my next post.

It's good to be back.  :-)