Thoughts on a regular Wednesday ...

In preparation of the BIG event next week I took the Ls shopping today.
Nothing big, just our usual thrift store around the corner.

Lulu has given us strict instructions as to what we are to wear on her big day next week (my baby is turning 5 ... I CAN NOT believe it!!!).

So we went shopping and my lovely ladies had just a splendid time!!!

Lulu found her gown immediately and there was NO talking her out of it.
She saw it, she wanted, she (almost) had a fit and then she got it :)

L ... NOT so easy!

She hates dresses but for the love of her life (who will be present at the dinner) and for her sister she agreed to look at them and try some on and

... that's when the fun started :)
I sat for a full 45 minutes outside the dressing room listening to their giggles and chit chat.

L: "NO ... this is ugly!"
Lulu: "No, no try it on! For real!"
L: "Never"
Lulu: "LILLIE ... its so beautiful. PUT IT ON!"
L: "Fine ... hmmm.... I like it!"
     "Mama look, this is pretty!"
Mama: "It looks like a potato sack!!!"
L: "See, I told you so!"
Lulu: "Yuk, take it off!"

Haven't seen my L in a dress in a LONG time!

I sneaked this pic from over the dressing room door  : P

My choice ... but I got vetoed down.

Lulu posing in her gown!

Now she only needs matching earrings, golden high heels???, a shiny purse (none of the 20 she has will do!) and make-up (in your dreams my love!).

As her 5th dance around the sun is coming closer and closer to an end I just want to hold on to her itty, bitty, tiny body for just a little while longer.

God knows these innocent years (besides her sometimes kleptomaniac, sweets hoarding, somewhat bossy and rather manipulative habits) will be over all too soon and I will look back on those days when "What to wear on my birthday dinner at the Spaghetti Factory" was the most important thing on her mind, besides that the whole world should really be lila (purple).

This little girl of mine is growing up so fast and I can't stop her, nor her BIG sister.
L reaches almost up to my shoulder and in two years I should be able to wear her shoes.
She now corrects my english (which is rather embarrassing) and can eat twice as much as I can.

I remember walking through the store a few years back, Lulu in the baby sling and L in the shopping cart.
L was screaming for candy and Lulu was screaming for boobie  ... never did I think I'd miss these days and wish to have these crazy moments back.

Oh what I'd give to hold them one more time in my arms when they were just born.
To look at their little hands and fingers, to smell their sweet baby smell and to feel their little body close to my heart, dreaming sweet baby dreams.

Tonight I am yelling at L for the 100th time "GO BACK TO BED!!! It's LATE!!!" as she comes walking out of her room again and again, with this bratty, little grin of hers, teeth missing and her checks still red from her last viral contact with 5th disease aka Slap Cheek Disease.
I know 10 years from now I wish I could have her walking out of her bedroom in Star Wars PJs and this little bratty grin of hers just one more time, instead she'll be studying, or on the phone with her BFF, or fighting with her sister (at least this will never change) ...

And then I remember how far away my mom is and how little we see of each other and how seldom we have the chance to just chat.

I wonder how she felt when I was turning 5.
I am sure she never dreamed of me being so far-far away.
I know I never thought of it ... and yet it happened and now she can't hold her grand babies the way she would like to, she can't talk to them the way she would like to, she can't spoil them the way she surely would (MOSTLY with attention not things), she would shower them with love and rub their backs at night to go to sleep and their tummies if they were hurting and she'd always tell them "you are my sweetheart".
Yes, she would be that kind of Omi to them!
I know that and I miss that!

So with that I will leave for tonight and surrender to my memories of my Lulu being just born, the smallest thing I had ever seen and my L was only 2 years old, so little and so pretty, with her LONG, golden curls and her blue-blue eyes.

Life was really, really good then.  It still is, just in a different way.
And we both, Pat and I, are VERY lucky to have these two healthy, happy, smart and beautiful, little crazy Ls in our lives for they have made it the best of lives there is.

Thank you God for granting me the honor of being the mama of these two amazing, little people and please bless them and take good care of them always!

For they are
My Love
My Light and
My Life

... always!