Fairytale morning

The Royal Wedding was this morning. I woke up at 5:45 just in time to make coffee and get myself comfortable on the couch when Kate Middleton came out of her car at 6:00 and arrived at the Abby. Oh my goodness, she really did look like the Princess she was about to become. It almost took my breath away to see her looking so angelic, graceful, poised, and calm. And I loved seeing Prince Harry look back at her coming down the aisle and then whispering something to Prince William that I'm sure only a brother can get away with. When Kate finally reached her prince, William looked at her with the most adorable smile and said "you look beautiful". I know there has been much criticism about how much coverage the wedding was receiving and how elaborately choreographed the entire morning was, but when I was sitting there on the couch watching a bit of history in the making, I couldn't help but get caught up in all of it. Then Tyler woke up around 6:30 and I quickly got him and brought him right down stairs to show him a "real Prince and Princess getting married" and he just couldn't believe it. He'd say things like "wow, Mommy she is so pretty" and "oh it's so beautiful". He was especially excited when he saw the carriages and "Mommy, I didn't know there were real King's horses and King's Men!" Tyler is not especially into fairy tales right now, but is definitely familiar with them because of all the Disney reading we've been doing. It was precious to see an almost 4-year-old watch this true fairytale come to life. And he looked at me and said "Mommy will you be my princess?" and I said "yes, and we can live happily ever after forever!" and he continued to call me Princess Mommy all morning and I called him Prince Tyler. It was lots of fun to watch the wedding but so, so much more fun to watch it with my little Prince and his excitable little personality. It was a joy.

Easter Morning

Zach, Julia, Tyler, and Matty all went downstairs together to see if the bunny arrived and were greeted by a note that explained where their eggs were hidden. What cracked me up was that as everyone was listening so well to the message, Matty was already finding his eggs. I look over he already had 2 eggs in his hands and was so proud and happy about it. I just laughed!

All the kids dispersed to their designated area and started hunted. It was so fun to hear all the cheering, giggling, disbelief, and pure excitement in all of their voices.

Sometimes Matty would follow Tyler around and sometimes they'd both be finding their own eggs. With each egg, Tyler seemed to get more and more excited. He just couldn't believe the bunny came and had so many eggs and that he was doing such a good job finding them.

The boys needed some help retrieving their baskets on top of the book shelf. Ty thought it was so funny that the bunny put his "prize" all the way up there.

One of Matty's favorite toys was definitely the helicopter lollipops. He carried it around with him all day and even had it at church. Actually, I think it was probably the biggest hit with all the grand kids because each child received one in their basket.

The boys finally took a break to enjoy all their loot. Matty discovered jelly beans in a big way this year! They both had a crazy amount of sugar by the time it was 7:30 in the morning!!! It was probably a solid 15 minutes of Matty sitting in the chair opening his eggs and going "uhh, uhh, uhh," and eating more jelly beans. He was so quiet and so content sitting there next to his brother eating sugar and enjoying every second of it.

The bunny even brought cousin Zach his helicopter that he's been wanting for so long. Peter was steering it while the boys were having a great time watching and retrieving it.


It was such a special morning as a Mom. This was the first year that Matty was able to be involved and clearly enjoying himself. Tyler popped out of his crib and the first thing he said "did he come because I had a dream that the bunny came here last night?" He was also amazed that the bunny knew all about his food allergies and brought all safe candy for him to eat. He kept saying "I can't believe the Easter bunny knows about my food allergies." How dear.

I think Matty was hoping to get some more candy to eat from his big brother, but he had plenty of his own.

Even after the egg hunt was complete, we kept re-hiding all of Matty's eggs because he wanted to keep doing it. Bea slept in a bit later because she'd been up throughout the night and Matty was constantly trying to get Bea's eggs, so we did our best to protect them and distract him!

The boys also received a Mickey Mouse carry-on bag for their big trip to Disney. Tyler kept packing it with all of his Easter candy/things and rolling the bag around and announcing he's leaving for the cruise ship. Sometimes he'd ask if anyone wanted to join him on the boat (the couches) and then open his bag and enjoy the things inside. Grammy and Baca got a big kick out of watching it. Some times he'd yell "all aboard the Disney Dream". It was one of my most fantastic mornings and by 10:00 we were all dressed and ready to go to church to celebrate this joy of Easter.

Easter Eve

CT visit

We finally made it up to CT to give Jozef a big, big hug. It was a short, but very sweet visit for all of us.

We arrived late Thursday night and put the boys right to bed. Friday was a quiet, relaxing day filled with lots of fun at the park and plenty of play time at the house.

The boys always seem to enjoy walking to the school to explore the playground. It's fun for me too because every time we go one of the boys is able to do something new or develop a bit more courage and strength to do something more advanced.

Friday afternoon and evening was my most special time. We had some delicious fish, potatoes, salad, fruit, and bread for dinner with Terry, Jozef, Phil, Romek, and Dzaidzus. Tyler was in an especially social, adorable mood talking about all sorts of things. And every time he took a bite of food he'd say "umm, umm, umm, this tastes delicious Babcia" with a big smile on his face.
Then part of the family went to mass and Adam, Phil, and I got the boys ready for bed. It was a wonderful day filled with some sweet, tender moments. We got up early on Saturday and left by 8:00 to get to the beach to continue our Easter celebrating.

hard moments=teachable moments (hopefully!)

Whew! This is not quite the Friday I was anticipating. Everything started out "normal". The boys woke up, we watched Sesame Street, had some breakfast, and then I asked Tyler to put his milk in the fridge and all hell broke loose. It's a strange thing and the second time it's happened like this. Everything is going well and I (or Adam) make one simple request and Ty decides this is the moment he's going to test his boundaries and test how far he can push Mom/Dad. One thing led to another and the entire situation snowballed into 4 timeouts and almost an hour's worth of screaming and crying. Seriously?!? It doesn't get much more frustrating at this point in my parenting. I'm not sure what exactly is happening in his little mind and I think (?) he's being developmentally appropriate and even though I may have an idea of what's happening while it's all happening, it's still horrible. It's really horrible. Horrible enough that I want to run out of the house, run a few miles as fast as I can, scream, yell, maybe even punch something, and just to prove my point yell some more. Okay, so it's not feasible and definitely not a good example to anyone, but nonetheless it's what I wanted to do today. Instead for a moment I went into the bathroom and cried and then for each timeout took Matty outside to enjoy the beautiful weather and take lots of deep breaths. In the midst of Tyler's breakdown he kept making requests for me to do other things such as blow his nose or whatever and I kept saying "no, I won't do anything else for you this morning until you put the milk in the fridge." Every time I said it he kept getting more and more pissed and today I was really, really determined to make my point. Before the last time out, Tyler was literally standing in front of the fridge holding his milk and was asking me to open the door and I kept repeating "no, I won't do anything else for you this morning until you put the milk in the fridge." It was ridiculous and I'm just thankful there was no one else there to witness something so out of control. I think that was finally the moment when Ty realized I'm not backing down and he needs to do it so we all could move on which he finally did after the 4th time out. Lovely. Then came the "debriefing" talk. He was crying and all upset and I said something about being a Szajda and helping the Szajda team and being a good team member. His 3-year-old reply was "I don't want to be a Szajda". Lovely. Just what I want to hear. Then he said that I never help him, etc. Lovely. And then I said "so when you leave the Szajda family who's going to feed you, bathe you, give you all your medicines, play with you, take you places, keep you warm, and keep you safe?" I'm going to live with Grammy and Baca was his reply. Okay. That was what put me over the edge. Then I started crying and even though I knew he didn't mean it, it still stung. Long, long story short he finally came up to me on the swings, asked to snuggle with me, and then said sorry and we had a long, long talk and some tight hugs. I love him to pieces, but some moments are much harder than others! It's in these hard moments that I have to pray and have confidence that it brings us even closer together and will be moments from which we learn the most.

I'm just glad it's nap time and even typing this out is helping me take a step back and really get perspective. Every day is a learning experience and on-the-job training. Whew! But maybe I will take a little nap too!

Barn Windows

FAAN conference

It was time again for the annual FAAN conference in Baltimore. Mom and I went and had a great time. It always seems to be a day filled with so many emotions: hope, excitement, sadness, frustration, love, inspiration, and unity. In many ways it's a day off from my normal "duties" but it's really exhausting in a whole different way. I was able to meet some other incredible parents and feel the instant camaraderie. There's just this immediate understanding of each other's situations and it gives me a great sense comfort knowing I'm actually not the only one out there going through some of this stuff. It was worth all the time and effort, but the most rewarding part of the day was my homecoming. I arrived around 7:30 and was greeted by Ty and Daddy at the door in PJ's. Tyler was so excited to see me and was in a great mood telling me everything he got to do today (play in the new dirt and mud with his dump truck). The two of us read our three books on the couch and then I asked him what his favorite part of the day was and he replied "when you came home, Mommy." So we snuggled for much longer than normal tonight! Then we went upstairs and were praying and eventually I said something about loving each other and he said "Love saves the day". I just was floored and really loved this quote and told him this will officially be the new Szajda family motto. It's really true the power of love and what it can do is immeasurable and I really do think it can save the day. How incredible to have a three-year-old remind me of such a valuable, important way to look at life. And as I was shutting the door and saying what we always together "I love you to the moon and beyond, forever and forever" and then he said "Mommy, you're the best mommy in the whole world". It put me over the edge and I started to cry (especially after such an emotional day) and he said "yeah, you have happy tears" and I said that I'm the happiest Mommy in the whole world and how proud I was of him and how much I love him. What a way to end my day...seriously? Thank you. God IS Good.