I'm telling you, my camera is overrun with pictures of blue-eyed, strawberry blonde, toothless babies. It looks like I have one kid I'm totally obsessed with, so I'm kind of glad that there are two of them.
I have many, many things to blog about. But where to start? I'm going to go make a list and I'll get back to this.
Dog days of summer, indeed. I need to go to Wal-Mart this afternoon and I still have two hours before Lucy gets home. And then I'll still have three hours before Andrew gets home. This is going to be a long five hours. We're hosting a cookout tomorrow, but it's going to be blistering hot. I'm not sure how that's going to go. I need to go grocery shopping for that, but I thought I'd wait until Lucy got home so I'd have help buckling Claire into her seat. Yeah, I'll wait alllllllllllll day to avoid that task.
The boys just woke from their morning nap and are playing in the nursery. Mo is watching Peter Rabbit and Claire is napping. I'm just so restless and "blah." I am turning over the whole "new floors" issue in my head and can't decide if I'd like to take a stab at staining the concrete or just do something that will have predictable results. Mostly because I'm not sure if I can convince Loverboy to install two floors, should floor number one go badly. I feel like maybe we should just go for option two and avoid this whole DIY staining adventure...from what I'm reading, the curing process can be iffy and we could be down a room or two for some unknown period of time. At least with option two we know it's two days and we're done. Thanks, guys. You really helped me, there.
I haven't cleaned much beyond dishes today because I know I'll do the whole place top to bottom tomorrow anyway. Why waste the energy? I'm also not making dinner. These clowns can go wild on nuggets and fries. I've made dinner every night this week with spectacular results, so I think taking Friday night off is pretty doggone reasonable.
I'm sure this wasn't very thrilling to read, but my chances for adult interaction are slim today. My sanity is hanging by a thread, here. I think I'm starting to sound less than peppy. Time for a little artificial pep. Monster, here I come. It disturbs me when I wrote a blog post and nothing funny comes out of me. I start thinking about commercials for depression meds and wondering if maybe I need to reach out for help. Then I realize I've just written something that resembles what a normal person would write and I'm all, "check me out, world! I'm reasonable and calm!"
Let me just go fix that.
I deactivated my Facebook account today. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. I have a very hard time with the amount of distraction it offers, and for what? I don't want to live my live in snippets and status updates.
I want to keep records for the kids, like my grandma Susie did through photos and like her mother did through journaling. The blog is a combination of both of those things, but I'm not even kidding when I say have No time to blog.Facebook is easier in that regard because it allows me to share things in very small doses. Blogger is not like that, and blog posts take time. I'm going to try to be better about it, but it means carving out time that is almost impossible to find. If I can't find the time to go to the bathroom, where will I find the time to create a post?
I'm going to try. Facebook is a source of chaos for me. It gets my mind spinning and makes me doubt myself, my decisions, my place in life, my faith, my parenting, everything that is important. They say that living by example is the best way, and the best thing I knew to do is stop seeking attention through media and to start living an authentic life without a screen in the way. I know that screens are who we are as a people now, but love isn't on a screen, and I can't hold a baby and a laptop at the same time.
I'll be back, when there is room in my life, and in my lap, once again. Until then, the blog is where I'll be documenting our simple life, unfettered by glimpses of the lives of others.
Silly girls...I just witnessed a triple wedding. It was very moving. They did a special high five and a driveway dance, and then they all made leaf rings. Amazing.
The boys are riding in the wagon now!! It's incredibly adorable.
Well friends, family, I'm back from another slightly-too-long business trip. This time the job took me to hot, sunny Kuwait. Working from a hotel just south of the city I managed a contract for base life support services. Here its mostly movement control, cargo, containers and people. I had the pleasure of working at several bases and seeing the work my company is contracted for in person. A much needed break from HQ here in Fort Worth. As with previous trips, I found my overseas colleagues highly professional and our customers loving our services.
Kuwait was hot, a meeting at Ali Al Salem registered 120 degrees. The local population seemed generally well-informed and at ease. Of course with younger population looking more and more "westernized". I even saw a Ravens jersey on an Arabic guy at the mall! Woohoo! They were mostly nocturnal this time of year. Its only those crazy EXPATS who WORK in that heat! :-)
I went to two malls, ("Grand Avenue" and "Marina Mall") only to discover this place is EXPENSIVE! I also snuck away to the beach twice on the Persian Gulf. Those were quick walks as it was "just a little unsafe hot" as a TCN colleague described it.
And, skyped and emailed with the family every day. I commited to Lucy to be home to get her to school on the first day and I'm very excited and proud to have made it home on schedule and time in order to do just that. I missed the boys first few weeks of really crawling and even Max's pulling up. Thankfully that will be a work in progress for several more months, especially with Miles!
Enough words, how about pictures...
Today was nice. Claire's language explosion is just killing me. She is so dang funny. I was talking to mom on the phone tonight and Claire was playing near the fireplace. She kept opening the doors and I told her to get down. She gave me this big grin and said, "oh, I kidding! I kidding!" But when she says it it sounds like kee-ing, which is ten times cuter.
We started or day out of the house early, seeing as it's so hot by ten or eleven. I try to get the shopping done by 8 am so that I'm not unloading groceries and babies in the heat. We ran to Target and picked up a couple cute things for sweet baby Mia, our cutie-pie niece in the east, and then ran to Kohls to try to score some clothes for the boys at the start of Tax Free Weekend. We did great and with all of the coupons I had I was able to get ten shirts and four pairs of shorts for $28! The best part is that I was able to find matching stuff in all the right sizes! Yessssss!!
We then went to our friend L's today for a play date. She has several little girls close to our girls ages, so we got them together. When we left I asked Lucy, "did you have fun this morning?" She replied, "well, it started off a little shy, but we ended up having a great time!" So cute.
We came home for naps and had a pretty good afternoon. I rearranged the living room and swept under the couches and tables. I can't handle the thought of dust bunnies. Shudder.
One of the babies (don't ask me who) is starting to pull up...not cool! Lucy never crawled. She just went straight to cruising and then to walking. I'd much rather they go straight to walking. They don't come across all the nasty floor crunchies that way.
And then it was bedtime. I got everyone in bed and Claire was just not into it. I put her in bed and then came out to clean up the kitchen. I heard a noise in the dining room and found Claire, who asked sweetly, "Wan feep fo youuu??" Nice try. Not even a cleaning kid is going to change my mind about bedtime.
Today was a doozy. Ha, auto correct wanted to change that to"boozy." You and me both, pal...
We all slept in a little bit, till about 7:30 or so, which meant we had to rush around to get ready for the big event of the week. Fire station tour! Woooooo!! (It really was exactly like Chicago Fire, minus the neighborhood thugs. They don't really have those in Keller.)
The kids were totally jazzed. I was completely mesmerized by the giant half-circle of recliners in their media room. "Okay honey, tell me again why the pull to rejoin the workforce is so strong?" I'm pretty sure all of us stay-at-home moms were thinking the exact same thing. I could nap like no other on that thing...
So yeah, it was a quick little tour, but the kids were fighting over the hats for the rest of the day so it must have been awesome. Claire even woke up from her nap and asked to eat dry cereal from hers. High praise.
Then we went to target where I spent too much money on shoes and bacon while my kids howled for toys and fruit snacks and candy and undies and crayons and hair pretties and Graham crackers.
We got to the check out and the cashier said, "three girls and then two boys? Did you plan it that way?" Yes. We really did. If you do it on Tuesdays during the months of August, June, October or April you're guaranteed to have a girl. We were especially careful because we knew we wanted redheads, so we timed it for 9:27pm during a new moon during the even years and clinched it for the girls. The boys were a little trickier because you have to really plan for a double conception, and you know what that means...wild yams and base-jumping! That was really the easy part, though, because that was just the whole man side. Splitting the egg was even harder, but you do what you have to do to make it all line up right, know what I'm saying?!
Then we went to Chikfila (no time to hyphenate!) for lunch with our dear friends - that was a total madhouse. When you combine summer break with 106 degree great and suburban Texan moms who are really down with a fast food restaurant that closes on Sundays (faith and family, y'all!), well, you get...a madhouse. But it was still fun because we had a little more time with Godmother C and her cuties. And let's face it. Chikfila ranch is worth throwing a few elbows.
Then we went home for naps. The three little ones did about three hours- Claire is at that adorable age where her language and her fascination with manners are right in sync, so she stumbles out of her room at three-thirty every afternoon and says, "I seep so dood! Gankoo Mama!!" She is just nailing this potty business - it's really been clicking the past few days and I'd say we're about 50% done. She now knows what it feels like when she has to go, so she'll jump up meerkat style and gasp, "go potty!" She always runs right past the Claire-sized potty and hauls tail down to the big potty whispering, "potty potty potty potty potty!!" The only role I play is that of the "checker." No tinkle, no candy, folks. About a third of the time she'll swing herself up and realize she doesn't actually need to go, so she'll blow a big raspberry and say, "that was me!" and run away again. I'm mystified. I've never really potty trained anyone, so I'll be darned if I'm going to put any effort into this one. If she wants to take it all the way, I'll supply the candy for the journey. If not, there are plenty of other people around here who will tinkle for candy.
Then we had dinner and went to bed.
That's all there is, there isn't any more.
