Yes. . . they are all "A's"

Yes, irritatingly enough for the rest of the family, all of my girls' names begin with the letter "A." It started with Alia, my oldest, 7 going on 17. We had originally begun with the name Kayla, but as we were looking at the big book of baby names one kept jumping out to us-Alia. We both liked the sound and the spelling, we call her Lia for short. Everyone else loved the name as well, it was beautiful and unique. When she was a little over a year old we discovered that she was going to have a sibling. Ok, so maybe we were a little naive thinking that we would have a boy now that we had our girl. So this baby was called Marshall Ryan, at least until month 7 of the pregnancy when I mentioned to Daddy that maybe we should pick out a girl's name. "Ok," he says, "We have Alia, if we have another girl she should have an 'A' name as well-Alexis." That was easy, needless to say on July 31st at 10:30 p.m., after only 30 minutes of labor(yes you read that right, 30 minutes, she was ready), Alexis Rae made her entrance into the Lewis household. Fast forward to 2004, Alia is 3, Alexis was turning 2 that year, and once again, 2 pink lines showed up on that little stick thing:-) So of course we held on to the name Marshall, that is until we had the ultrasound. . . "I'm sorry Mr. and Mrs. Lewis, but I don't see anything indicating a boy in this image." So we figured since we had 2 "A's" already that we may as well make them the "triple A's." Allison Rose was born on October 6th, 2004, 1 week overdue, she still makes us late for everything, go figure. She is also the boss, now 3 years old, she is 2 1/2 feet of pure mayhem. Trust me, she does not back down for anything! So now we have 3 girls, Daddy is starting to worry, what is going to happen to him in 14 years, where will he go when the estrogen is flowing, don't worry hon-they make padded rooms for that! We had never talked about having a big family but next July I had the same familiar symptons, another trip to Wally-world confirmed that we were to again make an addition to the family. We were getting used to the question, "What are you going to do if its another girl?" Well what were we supposed to do? Sell her on ebay? Trade her for the boy in the next room? Were they serious? Of course we would accept her, well that is. . . unless she had Allison's attitude. Suddenly ebay was looking more promising! We were blessed with Alyssa Rylie on March 21, 2006. She was the most mello of them all, and still is, content to play and smile at her sisters, no doubt taking notes as for what to do and what not to do! 3 months later, we again were looking at expanding our family. This time no one asked the girl question, this time it was, "What are you going to do if you have a boy?" To this day I really don't know what I would have done if she had been a boy. I had been surrounded by pink for 7 years now. Dresses, hairties, pretty dress-up shoes, pierced ears, I think I would have gone into complete and utter shock, become a basketcase if I was told I was having a boy. Hubby would have found me in the corner after attempting to change the first diaper, shaking, pointing, shrieking, "What is it, honey, what's wrong with our baby?" Ok, so it wouldn't have been that bad, but potty-training? By this time we were really running out of "A" names, we had resorted to interet searches, instead of the big baby name book. Nothing looked or sounded right. Hubby had always like Aliza, you know, Eliza with an "A?" I wasn't crazy about it, sounded too old-fashioned to me. He had liked it ever since we had been looking for Allison's name, but couldn't convince me to use it. I liked Alaina, he said "absolutely not!" This went on until about 8 months into the pregnancy. I finally told him that we could use Aliza if I could use the middle name I wanted to use for Alyssa. I had always liked the middle name Riann. So we compromised and Aliza Riann arrived on Good Friday, April 6th, 2007. That is the story of the five "A" names that grace our family tree. Don't get me wrong there are times when I do regret it, like when I have to put their initials on things-what was I thinking-A.R.L! Or when I'm in a hurry, and I'm trying to get them in the car, and we're buckling carseats and throwing doors open, "Alia, lock the door and get in the car!" "I'm not Alia, Mom! I'm Alexis!" Ok, "Lexi, don't take that from you sister," "I not Wexi, I Awwison!!" This is my life-thanks to our joint obsessive-compulsive tendency to name all of our children with the "A" names!

Afternoon Calls to the Babysitter's House/ The Chore of Finding a Good Babysitter

It always amuses me to make the daily check-in call to the babysitter's house. First of all, for any of you who know me personally, to find such a gem to care for my children while I'm toiling away at the restaurant has been a blessing indeed. When I first went back to work after a year of being a stay at home mom, I was consumed by the thought "Who will watch the babies?" I went through two sitters almost immediately, within the first three weeks-mind you these are the providers who are regulated and referred by the state. One said my youngest(at that time, 11 months old), was too much of a whiner-are you kidding me? I have yet to meet such child that does not "whine" at the age of 11 months. The second one, neglected to tell this seriously paranoid/overprotective mother that she had a drinking problem. Needless to say, the day she was arrested for a domestic dispute was the end of her career as caretaker of my children. *Note-my children were not present for the dispute, happened in the midst of the night* So here I am, left wondering if I had indeed made the right decision to return to corporate america, after all, how could I work if I could not find reliable daycare? Alas, I had joined our local M.O.P.S group at the church my family attends. I had already attracted the attention of the other moms as the only one there who had not just five children, but five girls-must be rare, I don't know;-) One mother in particular had inquired about working from home with me, but instead we ended up talking about daycare instead. She had previously been certified-who knew?! I HAD FINALLY FOUND WHAT I HAD BEEN SEARCHING FOR! Another seriously overprotective mother who was comfortable with "whiny" 11 month old's and 4 other crazy little girls-woohoo!
Ok, so now the girls absolutely love going to Miss Christy's house, and I love calling to check in on them. Today was expecially amusing. We all love the invention of caller id-many of us have it, admit it-you use it so you don't have to talk to certain people too. I dialed the sitter's number and a tiny voice answers the phone. I hear "Say hi" in the background. "Hi Mommy!" and before I can speak to the little elf on other end of the line I hear "Christy painted my mails!!" Yes, she did say "mail," rambler that is not a typo:-) I tell her that is great and that I'll be there in a few to pick them up. "Ok Mommy," click. My 3 year old had obviously said what needed to be said-end of conversation.