"Just One" for the Week...

Natalie and Carter have been gone all week so it's just been Jack and I and let me tell ya - one-on-one-time is WORK (good/fun yet time consuming work)! I've been "playing" cards, reading books, pushing swings, helping with trikes, pushing the stroller, playing rock-paper-scissors, building with blocks, shaping with play-doh, hunting for worms, playing hide and seek, playing "puppy," and sometimes if I'm lucky, playing Mommy-needs-a-nap (and if I'm really lucky - a drink!).

Let me back up a bit (a lot). By the time I even realized that I had my first kid I was already pregnant with my second. Not really, Natalie was 10 months when we found out about Carter, but seriously - we blinked and we were headed to family of four (maybe it wasn't the blinking that got us headed there, but you get what I'm sayin'). They have always had each other - and they are the best of buddies. I don't know what one would even do without the other. They do everything together. Two peas in a pod. It's w.o.n.d.e.r.f.u.l.

When Jack came to be (which took us by complete and total surprise - I guess we were blinking too much) he just slid right into their group. To this day he denies that he's any younger than Carter. He knows he's two - but doesn't accept the fact that he's not as big as his brother. Natalie has been his little "other-mother" and loves to be the one he wants when he's sad. Carter helps Jack do all the "boy" stuff and they are really the best big-siblings that any kid could ask for...

...but right now they're gone. And this has been the longest week for us! I've had to fill Natalie and Carter's roles and I don't know what I'm going to do when school starts and it's just Jack and I all the time. I'm going to have to like - budget my time, and actually - dare I say - parent! Don't get me wrong, I "parent" but Natalie and Carter do all the grunt work. They are the ones that play with Jack.

I suppose we'll figure it all out within the next couple of months (and what I mean by that is that come September, I'll really start freaking out) and in the mean time I'm going to enjoy this week with Jack and spend as much time as I can just feeling lucky to hang with this awesome little guy of mine - and when Natalie and Carter come back I'm going to hug them like crazy and make them promise to never leave me again! Or something like that.