Madeline is my first born and we share a common obsession with music. I can sit with her and we can scour iTunes for awesome music and then we talk about why we like it. That's the way we bond.
Jocelyn loves animals. If I spend some time with her and her bunny, she knows I love her. She also loves to play games with me. Scrabble, Monopoly, Boggle, Clue. Those are her favorites. Someday she is gonna beat me bad at Scrabble, because that girls got brains.
Ethan just loves his mom, and for that I am so grateful. I love to go in his room and tuck him in at night and just sit and talk with him about his life. What he likes, what he wants to do. The other night as I went in to tuck him in, I leaned down to hug and kiss him and when I tried to come back up, he wouldn't let me go. He held onto my neck. Tight. We laughed, but inside I cried. Because I know it won't be this way forever. So I am enjoying every minute with this boy that I can. Every single minute.
Lily is my little side kick. For years now it's just been me and her while the other kids are off to school. This year, we only have our mornings together before she heads to afternoon kindergarten. I need to take advantage of this bonding time. Sometimes we read, sometimes we play a game. Here's a picture of my crafty version of this memory game.

Lily and I will get lots of play time out of these little paper chips. We will bond over memory and fish crackers.
I love this stage that she is in. She is learning to read (really well I might add), and I love to watch her sound out words and then blend them together, and then see the expression of excitement as she understands what she just did. I love to watch her little fingers practice writing her letters. The other day as we walked down the street to her bus stop, she noticed that city workers had spray painted the word "LOCATE" on the road. She pointed her shoe at the "E" on the end and told me it was a bossy "E". I asked her how she knew this and she said, "Because it's telling the "A" how to say it's name!" I love how much she is learning.
One of the most wonderful things about motherhood is realizing how much I love my children, and how equally and how differently I can love them.