My big kids.

My kids are growing up so fast. Sometimes I have to stop and take a breather and realize that I no longer have "babies" in the house. In fact, we're quickly coming upon the last breath of preschoolerdom in this household and, well, holy crap where did the time go?

I think back to when I was holding my itty-bitty Brooke in my arms. My premature baby girl who made her early entrance into this world - which caused us stress and worry the first week of her life (which we quickly learned this kid was NOT going to give her doctors any problems and promptly grew and grew with only a one month hospital stay). Now, she's over half way through Grade 1, is 7 years old and is a generally happy, VERY chatty girl. She has a great sense of humour that one - well, I think she does - mainly because her humour is much like mine (Mom's bad influences and all). Fart jokes are a hit around here, and we all laugh. She knows how far she can get with rude behaviour before being punished and can push her sisters buttons like you wouldn't believe. She's actually quite bossy with her little sister (tries to play the Mommy role a lot), but I call her on it when I catch her at it and she stops. Otherwise, she plays very well with her little sister and from what I see and hear, she gets along very well with her peers at school.

It's just at some times, you wish you could stop the clock and keep them little for a time longer.

Danielle is my baby, and I have been guilty of treating her as such from time to time. This kid gets away with more than she should at times - and at these times, I should be the one getting punished. I stop myself when I catch myself at it. I wonder if all parents do this?

Danielle will be entering Kindergarten this coming Fall and is ready to start .... well, yesterday. The curse of being born on December 31st I suppose. We could have sent her last fall, but decided against better judgement to hold her back. I believe we made the best decision as she will be ahead of the game this way (better to be ahead than behind in my mind). She's smart as a whip, this one is and doesn't let a whole lot get her down. Having Type 1 Diabetes bugs her - some days she wishes it would go away (and I wish like hell I could do that for her) but out of the two kids, she's the stronger one of the two to deal with this I think. I just hope we do a good job raising her to take good care of herself. It's so hard.

We're coming up to the JDRF walk in June and we're involved up to our eyeballs this year again. I moan and groan about it, but I do it for my kid - and I always will. It's just a lot of work - especially when you have less than 10 people running the show, and a few of them are not available a good portion of the time to come to meetings and such.

This year, myself and one other member of the committe have taken it upon ourselves to approach Canadian CFL and NHL teams for items to auction off at our walk. We also included a celebrity here and there to see what would happen. Well, so far we've been rejected by the Montreal Canadiens, Calgary Stampeders, Edmonton Oilers, Saskatchewan Roughriders ..... it's not looking good right now. BUT, country singer George Canyon (who married a girl from my home town that I went to school with) sent us a couple of autographed things (he's also Type 1) and I hummed and hawed about sending off a letter to former NHL player Bobby Clarke (also from my home town - grew up with my Mom and my Uncle). I figured "what the hell" - I'll send him a letter and name drop like there's no tomorow .... shit, we grew up in the same home town, what do I have to lose?

Apparently he's quite private about his Type 1 (yes, he has it too) and doesn't give much to the JDRF (or hasn't in the past), so when a package for us arrived at the Winnipeg office from him, they were so excited they had to phone me to tell me the big news. He sent us an autographed photo (framed ... which broke during shipping .... ugh, so will have to replace that) and an autographed Flyers puck. Woo!

Hoping some more good stuff comes our way - we REALLY REALLY need it this year.

I could go on and on about that, but will save that for another boring post.

Just wish the kids would slow down in their growing ..... no more babies anymore!!