Sharing Your Time

One of the things I remember being most challenging as a mother was trying to balance out your time equally between your children. Sounds easy, but there were times when it was really hard. Tricia went to therapy for one to two hours every day, Monday through Friday for several years. While Tricia was in therapy, the time for Kristy was priority. She was already having to wait at times for "her turn" due to medical situations, but as soon as I could, I would give total focus to Kristy. We would play and meet new people while Tricia was in therapy. Granted, many of those people were still related to the hospitals, but then when we saw people later, I was better able to make sure people acknowledged Kristy too.

Once Kristy started school, I tried to do all the one on one activities for Tricia during Kristy's school time. When both girls were home, we could then do fun stuff for all of us. As Kristy became more independent, I noticed Tricia missing her sister more and more. Sometimes it was really hard to help her understand that "we have lots of friends, but only one sister". They were still very close as kids, all the way through school. It was so nice to watch.

When Kaylie had her first day of school this year, Tricia and I were talking about how she remembered feeling like she was losing her sister to school. We thought we'd have a Makenzie only day, to help her have a special day too. Kristy does a lot with her kids. The best part of being a Zamma or Auntie is getting to do things with the kids as we can in our schedule. Makenzie is so advanced for her age that she really loves to stay busy. She cracks us up with her smiles and great one liners...

After a fun day of swimming and learning how to go in the deep end of the pool with Zamma "and not getting scared at all!" we had a S'mores party to celebrate. Truth be told, Auntie and Zamma love the S'mores as much as Makenzie. We all created the snacks together and then "had to taste test all of them". (Well, someone had to do it, right?) Now we have to start thinking of what we will do when Dannen gets old enough....

Tonight we're going to have Hanna Montana Movie Night with Kristy and the kids. I bet we do some Hoedown Throwdown dancing too! We love spending time together and love coming up with fun ideas of what to do next. Sometimes remembering the things I did with the girls stimulates our next adventure. We'll have to see...