Just in case you were wondering what it is like spending spring break with your best friend and your combined six children, I’ll tell you.
It’s like this…
…but louder.
Much louder.
In the best of ways.
Tag Archives: kids
This Moment: Unwilling Subject
A Friday ritual.
A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.
A simple, special, extraordinary moment.
A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
Finding Things
Strange things happen when you become a mother.
Sometimes you start sounding exactly like your own mother. Sometimes you find yourself doing things you swore you’d never do (I mean other than sound exactly like your mother). And sometimes you find that you are the only person in your house that can find missing items.
This morning I was the only one that could find things in our house, specifically I was the only one who could find Jane’s jacket. It was, and I know this is weird, hanging in the closet where it was supposed to be. Jane couldn’t find it. After many rounds of the game called “Did you check?” ” Are you sure?” she finally looked in the closet again, and found her jacket.
Dramatic recreation for your benefit. As you can see her pink lined, leopard spotted jacket is quite visible. If she couldn’t have found her shoes in that avalanche waiting to happen on the bottom that would have been a different story…
Laughing she came over and explained the whole phenomenon to me.
“You know that thing that happens when you can’t find something and that blur thing gets in your eye so you can’t see the one thing you were looking for even though it’s right there? That’s what happened.”
I can’t help you out with why you may sound like your mother and the choices that you make once you have children, but there you have it straight from Jane the mystery of why only mothers can find things.
It’s a Blur Thing problem.
Showers
“When was the last time you showered?”
“You better go take a shower.”
“No, you can’t just put your hair in a pony tail, go wash it.”
“Because you can’t remember the last time!”
“No, you have to.”
“Because you can’t remember the last time, that means it’s been too long!”
…
“AND WASH YOUR HAIR SO WE CAN BRUSH IT!!!”
…
“Did you wash your hair yet?”
“Okay, but don’t come out until you wash and condition it.”
…
“Did you wash it?”
“Go, get back in and wash and condition it!”
“Because we will never be able to get all the snarls out otherwise!”
…
*Thirty Seven hours of brushing and crying and whining later…*
“There, all nice and smooth and shiny!”
Unrelated photo. And yet it seemed appropriate anyway…
*sigh*
When was the last time I showered?
Damn, I can’t remember.
…
*Go to use shampoo and conditioner and find empty bottles.*
*Try to brush hair.*
*Fail due to large snarls.*
*Throw it all in pony tail anyway.*
*sigh*
Planetary Education
On a beautiful winter evening we were having a campfire in the snow and looking at the stars. I was pointing out constellations to the kids because I have always loved the idea that stories and pictures are painted in the night sky. John, less thrilled with mythology and mere stories, pointed out Venus, because it’s a planet and he’s got this thing about space going on. (Nope Honey, still not going to Mars!)
Talking about Venus drew us all into a technical discussion about how planets worked. John, in what I must say was basically a stroke of brilliance, turned the campfire into the sun, Clara became Mercury, Ivy Venus, John was Earth, Jane his moon and I was Mars. Off we marched around the fire in our own orbits traveling at different speeds just like the planets do. I had a bit of excitement when I traveled through an asteroid belt (brush patch) on my outer orbit and by the time John was done spinning circles while holding Jane as he orbited the sun Ivy was no longer in any doubt what planetary body the moon orbited around. Then we followed John’s directions to line up in the current planetary configuration while he re-pointed out Venus and explained why we couldn’t see Mars (I’m afraid my man knows these things because of his new quest to become an astronaut, it has me worried). It was very educational and the girls were having fun and asking more questions and I was just starting to tell John what a good idea it all was when Jane looked up at the sky and said:
“I think I see Earth!”
It was a brilliant planetary lesson, but maybe next time we need to start out with the basics!
Here There Be Dragons
Here there be dragons, but only the sweet ones!
Happy Birthday Ivy!
This Moment: A Snowy Dog Walk
A Friday ritual.
A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.
A simple, special, extraordinary moment.
A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
Chaos
“Mom, what’s chaos?”
I defined chaos for Jane. I didn’t quite use the dictionary definition of “complete disorder and confusion” but it was pretty close even if it did involve more words about noise and mess. She thought about it,
and proclaimed, “Clara is chaos!”
Hard to argue that Jane, hard to argue that.
This Moment – A Project in Process
A Friday ritual.
A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.
A simple, special, extraordinary moment.
A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
How do you spell…
In case you haven’t noticed (because spell check and John usually see these posts before you do) I am, have always been, and likely always will be, a terrible speller.
In new spelling lows, I have successfully taught my phone how to spell tomorrow incorrectly. That’s right, my phone now auto completes to a misspelled word. I am also learning Portuguese on Duolingo.com (Are you learning a language on Duolingo too? Lets be friends!) and I get lots of answers wrong because they are misspelled – in English. It seems the program will give you a break if you spell a word wrong in the language you are learning but it expects you to know your native tongue.
I mention this not look for sympathy or advice but simply because I’d like you all to believe me when I say I’m a terrible speller. Because, unfortunately for us all, my kids do not.
Kid -“Hey Mom! How do you spell tomorrow?”
Me- “I don’t know, just try it.”
Kid- “No, just tell me how to spell it!”
Me- “I don’t know! With a “T”. ”
Kid- ” ARGGHHH! Why are you being so mean!!!”
Me- “I’m not. I just don’t know how to spell it. You’ll have to figure it out.”
Kid- “Yes you doooo, you are just being meeaaannn.”
Me- *throws arms up in exasperation and leaves the room*
Sadly, since they don’t believe me, they don’t stop asking and “How do you spell…” is fast becoming one of my new dreaded phrases. Even Jane is in on it now. Just the other day she asked, “Mom, how do you spell “how to regret your salmon?”.
And, in the worst news of all, not only was I unsure how to spell that, I couldn’t even figure out why she wanted to know.
Behind the Willows 