So now that I have had the opportunity to share the vents heard throughout the last 9 weeks, let me take some time to also share with you what I have learned about the little people in my life. It has been a very interesting experience, having them home with with me all day, every day. It has given me a lot of time and contexts in which to see my children as they truly are, not as they seem to be in the sound-bytes that constitute our normal "school year" lives:
Taidhgin has QUITE a temper. I know I shouldn't be surprised, considering who his momma and daddy are, but I am amazed at its passion nonetheless. He is quick to flare, quick to fizzle, and it almost always involves his lack of control over the situation. He grinds his teeth together, clenches his jaw, and his eyes just fire up when he gets that angry.
On a more positive note, he is innately one of the softest, most gentle children I have ever met. Whether it is a new baby or a baby animal, he, without prompting, speaks softly and quietly, touches like a feather, and is totally focused on comforting and soothing.
Yinyang.
Eibhlin, for as much as I believed her to be the one with the truly bipolar personality, is probably the most consistent of the three. In every aspect of her life-whether it is play, fighting, sorrow, sleeping, walking, talking, it doesn't matter- she is "on" 100%. She puts every molecule of her being into whatever she is doing or feeling...she half-asses nothing. While this makes for a very frustrating scene when she has decided that she wants to be the uncooperative b-i-t-c-h she is known to be at times, it also allows for the incredible emotion that I feel every time she throws herself full-speed into a hug or takes it upon herself to direct the day's activities or when she uses her outstanding capacity for emotion to try to console her baby brother when he is upset.
Connlaodh has spent the last 2 1/2 months becoming a very cool little boy. He, of the three, is by far the most even-tempered and good-natured. Don't get me wrong, it is not that he doesn't ever get angry or upset or hurt or loud---he is Italian and Irish, there is no way he could escape those traits--- but he is genuinely happy. Now that he has sound and has enough words in his vocabulary to get most of his needs across, he is nothing but smiles and hugs and big toothy grins. He so badly wants to be like his big brother and big sister, he cannot stand to sit back and watch them do things that he cannot do....but he takes it in stride, tries when he can and sucks it up when he can't.
It never ceases to amaze me how these little bodies can contain all of the same feelings, strengths, and weaknesses as their adult counterparts. You can see it, though...when Connlaodh gets angry and does not know how to say what he wants, he bites or cries or throws things. Seconds after being given some words to use, he uses them and is miraculously transformed from a wailing demon into a smiling child. Imagine that. As soon as you are given the right tools to use, your job becomes easier. I am certain this applies to the over 2 crowd, too. (Or it should, anyway).
Anyway, contrary to popular belief (and to the comments I have made in the last week or so), I am actually quite glad I had this summer. I have joked about how I won't ever do this again - "this" meaning keeping my kids home full time over the summer- but I am sure I will. For whatever reason, despite my irritation as of late and my frustrations throughout, I am actually a little teary-eyed at the fact that my summer with my children is officially over. They head back to Highpointe tomorrow (and I will spend the week doing those things I couldn't figure out how to do while they were home- ha ha) and that's all she wrote. So I am sure that time will dull the edge of this summer's mishaps (much like it blurs the pain of a drug-free labor and delivery) and I will sign up for this circus again next June. And until then, I will have to try to remember what it felt like those days when the four of us had it better than anyone else in the world. While those days were not as frequent as I would have liked them to be, there were enough of them there this summer for me to know that there are many more to come if only I grab them when I see them.
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