Parallel Parking, Potty Training, and Pads

This month.....wow it's almost gone! This month of March has been a bit strange, hard to describe, emotional, .........surreal!! Hubby has been home for most of the month which has been really nice, with all the intense cold weather we were having he finished up his jobs and nothing else was ready, so the down time to catch up with each others lives and get odds and ends done was wonderful not to mention the joys of staying in my warm house while he volunteered to take over the daily school run most days! so it was at the beginning of this little reprieve from work that mama decided it was a great time to begin the potty training of little Miss Ava!! I mean brilliant right!!?? who doesn't dream of that extra pair of hands and feet to help with the many potty break interruptions through out ones day!! but anyway as it turns out hubby was huge help in the potty training adventure cause hubby had a new trailer to organize and ready for when work started again and well mama still needed to do grocery runs and all so daddy babysat and tinkered with his trailer and miss Ava loved every minute with trailing her daddy around for weeks!! And well with a minimum of accidents lil miss is now wearing panties and even staying dry through the night!!! but..........in the middle of all this mama had to take Mr. Brandon  to practice parallel parking and then later on for his drivers test and then to purchase his first set of wheels and his own insurance!!  it was like all of a sudden I felt like I was having an outta body experience!! I was trying to dance to every drummer in one fell swoop!! needless to say I wasn't dancing well, I was trippin all over my feet and everyone elses that happened in my path!! I mean I shouldn't have been shocked what with having a lil lady 10 years on behind the last and 14 years after the oldest!! but........ I just wasn't prepared for the spin I found myself in......in one sense I was so excited and thrilled to watch my oldest take another step towards being a man and growing his wings a bit more, but then with that came all the emotions of feeling old (and having a cashier ask me if I wanted the senior 50 and over card didn't help) and then like a blast my mind turned towards the past and wondering what Devin would be saying to his big brother about his new jeep and if he'd be the first one in for a ride and tagging along to youth group and being the typical backseat driver most younger siblings are and then I started feeling horribly bad for Brandon not having a chance to be that hero big brother to Devin and not having the chance for the two of them to go muddin together and all those other crazy wonderful memory making moments brothers have. and then........I walked in the door at home and lil miss comes running to tell me that she stayed dry and needs to go potty and wants mommy to help and I felt a tiny bit younger again yet very much in many different worlds cause  then middle child/daughter comes to me and proceeds to let me know that she needs bigger unmentionables and a new supply of feminine products the next time I go for groceries and I thought, wow!! I really am at all intersections of life here with my darling kids and I can choose to be overwhelmed and frustrated and frazzled or I can proceed cautiously and grab onto every wonderful amazing moment and make as many memories as I possibly can and hang onto each of these seasons knowing after awhile there'll come a season when this is past and i'll look back and long for just a tiny bit of it all again!!  cause in the end I'd give anything to be experiencing whatever it is Devin would be into right now and time has no guarentees  and our moments are so quickly lost if we don't consciously lasso everyone and immerse ourselves it and then file them away for later entertainment!! so...........life.......is great in it's many faces, we are blessed beyond measure!!