Busy Busy Busy

I remember when the boys were very young, and I was up to my eyeballs in diapers and messy bibs and swaddles and sleepness nights, someone told me "this gets much easier, but just you wait, it also gets much busier".  At the time, I didn't believe her - how could life get much busier than it is with two boys under two?  Or two boys under three?  Or two boys under four for that matter!  The common refrain I heard when I told people I had, say, a one year old and an almost three year old, both boys, was "Oh, you must be busy!"  I just couldn't imagine how life could get any busier.  But now that we're here, now that we're getting very close to not having any kids under five, now that we're almost fully entrenched in school age-dom, now that it really has gotten so much easier, I understand what she meant.  Now I will be the first to admit that I love busy.  I get a certain satisfaction out of glancing at the calendar page and seeing lots and lots of scribbles all over it.  On the flip side, I get a little uneasy when I am staring down a weekend devoid of plans.  So I like this rhythm we're in at the moment.  Still new to this whole "soccer mom" gig, I don't yet resent my emerging role as taxi driver.  I don't yet mind shuttling the boys here and there and everywhere, and instead enjoy the challenge of balancing everyone's schedules and keeping track of who needs to be where and when.  So it's all good.  But my one complaint about this whole busyness thing is that it seems to make time fly by even faster.  I know, I know, I say this all the time, but weren't we just standing out at the bus stop with Ethan on his very first day of kindergarten?  Now he's six weeks away from first grade!  And Adam...don't even get me started on Adam.  He was adorably excited about his half birthday a couple of weeks ago, and somewhere around the time he hit that half year mark he just got BIG.

Someone in this house gets very excited about birthdays.

And I don't mean that he hit a growth spurt or anything, he just seemed to go to sleep a little guy one night and wake up a very big boy the next morning.  And here we are already at the last year of his time at home with us; a year from now we'll be planning for his very first day of kindergarten.  So amongst all this busyness, all this activity and excitement and FUN, I do need to make every effort to pause, to enjoy these moments that appear to be flying by at warp speed, to really savor this time.  Because I am quite sure we are in the golden age of childhood right here, and I don't want to miss a minute of it. 

More on what's been keeping us busy...

Wrapping up gymnastics (and swimming) just in time for...

T-BALL!

The boys are on the same team, which makes schlepping them to practices and games a whole lot simpler.  I can only imagine how much busier life will get when we are juggling multiple sporting events every weekend!  The added benefit is that they have so much fun playing on the same team.

OK, he still looks pretty little here.   

Ethan is one of the oldest (perhaps the oldest?) on the team, a role he is relishing.

We've also had recent opportunity to see friends that we don't get to see nearly enough.  First, a quick trip to the circus with the Doyles on their whirlwind East Coast visit.  

Jack was too scared of the clown to get in this picture.  Smart man. 

Oh how I love watching these kiddos bond so easily, despite seeing each other only once or twice a year

And later in April, we made a long overdue day trip down to Needham to visit the Owens clan and meet the adorable Murphy girls!  I wish I had gotten a picture of all the kids together, but at least I caught this cute moment on the see saw.

1 Ethan = 1 Adam + 1 Hannah

And our remarkably dry spring and resulting dearth of mud hasn't kept us from getting our hands (or whole bodies, actually) dirty.  The weekend before last, Ben and I competed in the Into the Mud Challenge, while Ethan partook of Oakey's Muddy Dash (the 1-mile kids' version).

I was super proud of this little trooper who trudged through mud ponds and scaled walls like an old pro.  

He was all smiles at the finish and told me "I wish I could do a mud run every day!".

This was my first mud run, and oh my, what a blast.

What made it extra special was running/climbing/diving through mud right beside my husband, who has never been, and proclaims to never be, a runner, but who approached the race with a great sense of humor, kept up like a champ, smiled big at the finish, and whined only a little bit the next day.  I think he *may* have even had a little fun.  Ben's willingness to join me in one of my favorite pastimes (okay, his agreement to go through with it after I surreptitiously signed him up), despite his wariness, dread, and downright disdain for running is just one of the many reasons I love him.  (Other reasons, like having a special weekend with the boys while I got away with my mom this past weekend, while building us a bigger garden to boot, are fodder for another post.)   

The guy throwing red chalk dust seemed to miss the memo about avoiding people's faces...

We missed Daddy when he was away for a work trip a few weeks back.

But it meant we got to have our favorite "while Daddy's away" meal...

And what's been keeping us busiest of all?  Why gardening, of course.  But that's a whole 'nother post...