This is why Brian is the “fun parent”

 

Taken 4.6 seconds before I made all the little boys brush teeth and go to bed because it was a school night and past their bedtime:

 

Just a chat

 

(pictures from our wild backyard.  Joseph had the idea to take some pictures of it in spring, summer, autumn, and winter)

Happy Good Friday to you!

Are you allowed to say that, even?

When I explained today’s religious significance to Joseph, he exclaimed, “Then it should be called BAD Friday!  Really, really BAD FRIDAY!” 

But, I told him that it was “good” because we are looking ahead to what is to come, with the resurrection on Sunday.  Is this why they call it that?  I am making up 99.89% of what I tell Joseph.  Please advise.

Did you all eat egg salad today? (and yesterday?  And tomorrow?  I have 27 hard boiled eggs in my fridge currently…)  Did you make hot cross buns?  Sadly, I skipped those this year since a) I’m on a diet and b) I have made myself sick the past two nights on Easter candy.   Those might seem like a contradiction to you…unless you are a woman.

A few random things I’d like to chat about:

 

1)  We are making a garden in our backyard.  Despite the fact that my gardens have heavily failed for the past six- yes, I counted- SIX years.

Either from lack of watering, lack of weeding, lack of caring, lack of planting?  I’ve lacked it all!  However, I remain optimistic that THIS will be the year of my success!  Hooray!!!

 

 

2)  Joseph was writing a letter this week to a friend of his from church.  He asked me, “Mama, how do you spell BUTT?”  to which I replied, “I am NOT telling you how to spell that!”  (it is a mildly forbidden word in our house.)  He was quiet for a few seconds before saying, “Okay…how do you spell BUTTON?”

 

3)  It was recently pointed out to me by a family member that I have cankles.  CANKLES?!  Can I just tell you that, after 29 years of living in ankle-ignoring-bliss this has been quite the shock?

Before you feel like maybe I should be mad at her for dissing on my cankles (do people still say “dissing”?) let me say that she was actually lamenting HER cankles, and I was like “What?  I don’t think you have cankles!?!  Your ankles look kind of like mine.  Do I have cankles?”  And then I showed her.  And she kind of gave me a this-is-going-to-hurt-smile and was like, “ummm,…well…..” and there you have it!  Cankles!

But maybe it was because I haven’t shaved in weeks and weeks (whatever!  Winter warmth, you guys!  Its basically fleece leggings!) and the leg hair was masking/misshaping my actually slender ankles? 

I have shaved since, and will report back to you when I get a second opinion.

Happy Easter Weekend to you!  Eat some candy for me- but not one of those Peeps or else we can’t be friends! xoxoxo

Egg Dying 2014

 

I almost didn’t dye Easter eggs with them this year. 

Do their faces really scream “do a project with us that involves breakable things and permanently-staining dyes!”?  Not so much.

I’m sure I would have eventually, because I am a guilt magnet, but whew!  Yesterday was a rough day! 

Starting with our mini van being robbed (except they didn’t actually take anything because there was NOTHING OF VALUE in my van.  Haha!  What's mine is YOURS suckas!  Don’t you enjoy Raffi cds??) and then just involving lots of punishing and consistency, and potty words, and just blech.  Blech to it all!

When 5:30 rolled around I found Brian and told him that he needed to come out immediately so that I could have a minute to re-group.  (One of the many pluses to having your husband work from home- I KNOW WHERE HE IS AT ALL TIMES AND I WILL FIND HIM IF HE IS LATE!)

I laid (lay?) on my bed, gave myself a pep talk (You can do it, girl!), and lowered my expectations for how the egg dying would go.  Would there be broken eggs, Caitlin?  Yes.  Would they spill stuff?  Probably.  Would they end up getting bored after 2 seconds? Maybe. 

I imagined all the scenarios, and decided to do it anyway.  Because, once I imagine them, they don’t seem so bad when they come true!  And also because- gosh darnit- its Easter!

And guess what??  It was the best egg-dying experience in at least 6 years!!!  So fun!  Excited boys!  No spilling!  Only enough broken eggs to make a nice batch of egg salad today!

(not telling which of the two boys broke them…)

Sometimes, if you don’t do the hard and the messy, then you miss out on the fun and the special. 

Overall, Egg Dying 2014 was delightful, and completely salvaged my day!

Ramblings from a nap-skipper.

 

 

I’m trying to not nap today.

You see, I woke up this morning and it seems that my baby is, suddenly, 18.5 months old.

Although I have been there for every day of it, I honestly do not know how this happened.  I would be less shocked if he was 18 DAYS old, actually.

Because I’m pretty sure I am still postpartum?  And everyone should just applaude me for making it out of the house?  And shouldn’t someone still be bringing me meals??

 

Also, frankly, I deserve a nap!  I have done so many things today! So, so many things, I won’t go into them all here, but lets just say that if you were sitting on my couch right now and I told you all the things I have done so far today you would gasp!  And exclaim, “But friend!  You did too much!”

And I would stifle a sob, motion to my surroundings and say, “I know!  But apparently I didn’t DO ENOUGH!  Because the house looks like I haven’t gotten off the couch all day!  And the children are acting as if they haven’t been parented…ever.  I would compare them to feral children, except I’m pretty sure that wild dogs have a discipline system of some kind?”

Then I would lay my head on your shoulder, and ask you hopefully if you brought cookies?  And then you would say, “I thought you were on a diet?” and I would sob again and you would rub my back gently.

After my self-pity-rainshower died down, you would steer me to my bed and I would protest “No nap today!  He’s 18 months old!” and you would say, “Shush!  He’s practically a newborn!”

And you would tuck me into my bed, and pull the covers up to my chin, and as you walked out and closed the door I would whisper, “That’s why she’s my best friend.”

 

My dirty little secret

Are you ready for it?

You guys, I have ants.

What, not as juicy as you would have liked?  I’m sorry!  I would like to have something interesting and shocking to reveal to you but I am way too busy keeping 3 children alive and…well…killing ants.

 

Its all I can think about.

I stand in the kitchen all day staring at the counters and waiting, paper towel in hand. 

I scan walls constantly.

There are ant traps scattered throughout the kitchen, which the ants are resolutely ignoring.  And don’t worry, they are out of reach of children.  Also, they are not toxic…I know this because I called poison control center a few years ago when ISAAC ATE SOME.  Which…maybe…explains…no! I won’t go there!

Also, I am cleaning and sweeping and vacuuming like a madwoman!! (mad woman? madwoman? whatever- ANTS!)

Even when I close my eyes- here let me try it….zzzzzzzzzzzz….whoops! Fell asleep!  But, guess what I saw right before?

 

 

There is really no point to this post.  So, I apologize for that as well.   Its just that, when I sit at the computer, it is all my fingers can type!  Ants! Ants! antsantsantsantsants!  I’m losing my MIIIIND!

 

Send help!

And wine coolers!

And a nanny!

…and my evening

 

 

After the cries at the park of “I’m SO SWEATY!  Can you die of being too HOT?!” (it was 70 degrees), the “DON’T THROW THAT BALL AT YOUR BROTHERS FACE OVER AND OVER!!” and the baby chewing on a feminine hygiene product he found in my purse.

But before the oops-looks-like-its-yogurt-for-dinner- tonight,
“Get your jammies on.  Get your jammies on.  Get your jammies on.  GET YOUR JAMMIES ON RIGHT NOW!!!”, and the “Mama, you forgot to give me a shower tonight, and maybe last night too?  And I’m feeling really sticky in my bed!”

There is a lull.  A calm.  A chance for me to take a deep breath for the last dive of child-rearing before bedtime. 

 

5:23 pm

Exhibit A:  Sink time

Thank you, Brian, for discovering this weekend that he is old enough to do this!  It buys me some time to make dinner without him crying on my leg.  Or, in this case, it buys me time to take pictures and then serve everyone yogurt.

(He’s not supposed to get the soap)

 

Exhibit B:  Justice League fact-gathering.  He studies this book for HOURS a day.  (Please notice the blankies tucked under his arm.  I love six years old)

Exhibit C:

For many many reasons our darling middle child was in need of (and received) an early bedtime.  A good nights sleep and a fresh start tomorrow.  It is really what we all need, isn’t it?

Scenes from my morning

 

 

Isaac and Samuel doing who knows what in the kitchen while I clean out the garage:

These two are becoming friends.  Well…if your friends dangle you upside down over the side of the couch (“But he LIKES it, Mama!!”)

“Does my face look grumpy, Mama?  Take a picture of my grumpy face.”

“…and this cape too.”

 

 

EYELASHES.

 

10:47  On our way to get Joseph.  This half-day Kindergarten thing is no biggie- its like he’s hardly gone!  I feel a lump in my throat even THINKING about 1st grade

 

10:48 – Isaac showing me some litter he found, Samuel sneezing.

 

The sweetest offerings- a cheerful bunch of sunny “flowers”  from Isaac.

 

And these little beauties that sprout up every spring next to the house.  They are cheerful stars in the morning, and then close up in the evening.  Kind of like me.

 

The sun is warm today, the baby is taking a great nap (knock on wood!), and the boys played with the neighbor kids long enough for me to weed the entire front yard!

It’s a Happy Monday!