A few notes about reading with small kids

Thomas was about 3 when I asked one of my co-workers how he was going to learn how to read. How would I get him there?  She had met Thomas and knew what I meant. Curious boy. Lots of questions. She said, "Read and read and read to him. Then read more and then some more. And he will learn how to read."

When no one is looking, I will type hopelessly personal questions into Google as if he is a magic 8 ball of succinct answers. I'm always disappointed when Paul's father's day present doesn't pop up and instead I've got 10,871 articles that are "helpful".  When my co-worker (brilliant co-worker, btw), suggested I should just read to Thomas a ton, I was a little disappointed.  Where's my easy, no-fail 17 step system to teach him to read?

But she was absolutely, absolutely right. Bathe in reading. Delight in reading. Max out the library card. Bring a laundry basket to the library to fill. Tell the kids to stop playing in the laundry basket because "no, kids. not for playing. we are putting books in this thing because I was told reading so much that I never get to the laundry does magical things to children's brains."

But as far as going beyond the laundry basket [and bins and shelves and waves of books], here are the things we have learned and tried to practice along the way.

1. There are bad books. Kick them out. A "bad book" is one you keep hiding because if your sweetie pie asks you to read it again you may just melt into the couch from boredom. A "bad book" is one that your husband comes to you about and says, "hey, I read that book about Valentine's Day to Thomas. Have you read that thing? It is the dumbest thing I have ever read. No, really. It is really, really terrible."  A "bad book" is one that requires you to not only read but also manipulate things in the book like some sort of freakin mechanic, still thinks Pluto is the real deal, or that makes too many potty jokes because it knows its audience is boys and boys like potty jokes (which they do so very, very, very, very, very, very much but c'mon!).  

2. When you are annoyed that your child wants to learn how to read, teach him to read. This way he has the independence to read and you can listen to him read every sign, billboard, and building name on the street from the back seat of the car, and he can say "woah. slow down, mom. I needed to read that!" and be very confused by acronyms. This is not dissimilar from being excited that you have [insert smug look] taught little Junior to go to the potty and switched over immediately to living in fear for years that he will have accidents in public and destroy your life. 

3. Never bribe your kids. But also bribe them with books. I read an excellent book about how incentives and rewards deeply damage children. No joke!  But to get through the reading instruction book, I gave Thomas a "surprise" every ten lessons and when I say a surprise I mean a book. Hey. Don't judge. Okay, judge. It's not because he wasn't motivated. It's because I needed him to be a little more motivated. Momma's got some laundry to not fold. 

4. Stop pretending you are too cool for children's books.  Thomas might be a little concerned about who his mom really is, or if she ever really was smart enough to hold a real job like his dad and mom keep insisting. And this is because last year I learned so many things from picture books.  "Wow. I didn't know that." comes off my tongue pretty easily. Last year I learned about planets, cultures, countries, castles, pirates, all sorts of famous people and that eels can climb up waterfalls. I'm still thinking about those eels. 

5. Read your own even better stuff near the kid. Then engage in a fun game of intellectual roulette where you subtly entice your blossoming reader (quiet laughs or "hmm"s help) to ask you what you are reading. Respond back, "oh this thing? You wouldn't be interested. It's an adult book." to which they will insist they are interested. I've read all sorts of things aloud to Thomas that were near to totally inappropriate, but it was worth the game of seeing if he could understand any of it.  Which maybe is not a page right out of Parenting Like You Mean It, but I like to spice things up.  Thomas still talks about Rhett coming to rescue the ladies and the Yankees burning down Atlanta. That's a win in my book, Parenting for Fun!

The goodness of going beyond 1 kid

I, vacillating between both great pride and great disappointment, thought pretty much everything that my firstborn was and acted and did was about me. Oh sure, I wouldn't have said it aloud. It was more of a feeling I had. It was because of MY dedication, MY sleep training, MY influence, MY effort, MY personality. And some things are about me. But the longer I'm a mom, the more I've discovered that these little people arrive all their own and we are witness to a great many things that have nothing to with us. Do we help shape them? Oh yeah. Do we help with perimeters and discipline? Sure. But there are these amazing moments that just kind've blow the lid off the pot. Here's one that just is about as true and honest as they come.

If you ran into me in public out for groceries or a bored stroll through Target, I would stop my crew (depending on store, with 1 or 2 carts) and the following would happen. I would get in a brief amount of chit chat with you and then Thomas would ask to speak. 

He may say "excuse me" or "who are you" or "I don't know you" or be rude and jump straightaway at one of a dozen questions he plans to ask you.  He is like one of those toys you wind up and they vibrate forward just because they can... only he is permanently programmed for such, no extra winding necessary. He will ask you all sorts of things if you don't run off right away. About your day. How you know his momma. What you dreamt about last night because he dreamt about a tornado sucking up his ninja turtles. If you like pb&js as much as he does.

The entire time this is taking place the twins will sit eerily still. They will calmly stare at you, sweetly boring into something they know nothing about, you, and would maybe, probably, like to keep it that way. They will sit so still it is as if they are playing a game of hide and go seek and their hiding spot happens to be in a shopping cart under massive fluorescent lighting. They won't talk to you. Not likely. What is likely is that they will listen to everything you say.  And stare. And sit like baby ninjas.

I don't blame them. What's the point? Thomas does 90% of the talking around here. Good for him. I think the only time he stops talking is when he is eating. A couple nights ago at the dinner table I asked the kids if they wanted to talk about what made their day great. Like an old soul, Thomas raised his hand just a bit and with expertly squinty eyes as if after deep contemplation said, "let's just be quiet and not talk and enjoy our dinner."  Alright then. So there. He does stop talking sometimes.

Speaking of the dinner table, there's another budding development of contrasts between the kids.  Alistair and Emerick have taken it upon themselves to tell Thomas and I (and Paul when he's here) to pray before we eat.  As soon as I sit down, Alistair (very adamant about this) gets my attention in his nonsense blibber blabber and pressing his palms together so I will start the blessing. As we say grace, Alsitair and Emerick beam that we've remembered and when they go to make their disjointed and adorable sign of the cross, I look across the table to Thomas and rummage through my guilty mom files for a memory of Thomas EVER trying to make the sign of the cross, but he's busy being quiet so I don't bother to ask.

On this blog, I'll talk big about not judging each other. About supporting each other. About really believing in other women.  But I'll just say it. I only say that because I was hella judgmental as a new mom (which is so deeply ironic because I had absolutely 0 grounds to be such...like below 0).

Why doesn't that mom just let her kid cry it out? That little girl is just upset to be left at day care because she can sense her mom's anxiety.  Oh, and this one makes me cringe... If she would have just tried a little harder, she could have made nursing work. 

These are not pithy examples. These were real. These are real judgments I really felt. And now, oh now. Ha!

I've had both a child who could sleep through a tornado passing over his body and a child who wakes for sips of water as if his delicate system will just die if he doesn't have a touch of water before drifting off to sleep again.

I've had both children who are as happy as can be to be left in the care of someone else and playing with toys that are different than the ones we have at home and one (Emerick at the moment) who wants nothing more to be safely in the arms of his momma. Much tears. MUCH tears.

I've had a nursing experience that was calm and beautiful (except when he would hit me on the chest) and one that was difficult, overstimulating and altogether an experience that still makes me want to put a bumper sticker on my car that says, "I CAN DO HARD THINGS!"

I've. Been. Humbled.

My kids humble me right out the gate with those darn c-sections.  No warrior, hear me cry, see me push, watch me bloom kind of birthing experiences for me. And I've been on the receiving end of that judgment. Hashtag truth.

I know just as true as the sun that there are women who think if I would have just read a little more, asked a few more questions, waited a little longer, gone to a few more classes, tried a little harder, cared a little more, challenged a little more, interviewed a different doctor, had a better plan, and prayed a little harder THEN I would have done it the right way. I know this because I've seen it written across their forehead as plain as day, like that involuntary underwear exercise we're encouraged to use when speaking in public...only in this case we can see that our momma friend is thinking their naked thoughts right on their face and you want to look away but you can't and you can't believe you can see them but you can and you wonder if she realizes she's naked.

It's one thing to say we aren't judgmental. It's another thing to truly bridge the gap between what we know to what is unfamiliar.

For me, having 3 kids has pretty much built that bridge.  Some of you don't need 3 kids to make that happen. Good for you. You rock. I would hope we all don't have to have multiple kids to grow in understanding of each other. No, yeah, that's not right. There's lots of ways to do that.  But since I'm more or less huddled up with these kids of mine day in and day out (whom are vacuuming as a team, without supervision, the spices that the twins dumped out while I finish this post), I'm glad that I'm growing closer to others in the process even when I'm isolated.

And just to make it clear what that means. It means me watching my kids grow into their own and realizing every day just how dumb it was that I took so much credit and claim for how they've come about.

Because I will tell you right now there is no voodoo parenting trick I'm aware of that can get a set of twins to play invisible or a kid to talk until the skin falls right off your body. And I'm so glad I've finally got that cleared up in my mind.

Encouragement for the “New Mom"

My firstborn, Thomas, turned five this winter and gave me pause to reflect on my first five years of motherhood. My gut reaction was to feel awful about all I’ve messed up. That sounds terrible, but it’s the truth.  Learning the ropes of the mommy vocation has been uncomfortable for me, even gut wrenching at times.  It’s been humiliating (the fit in Wal-mart) and humbling (calling my mom or texting a friend with “help. please tell me what to do”) in between all the joy I’ve felt in seeing these three unique and beautiful little souls sprout up before my very eyes.

If there is one good reason I blog, it’s because I want to encourage moms. But the truth is, it doesn’t matter how many tantrums, teething all-nighters, or vomit-catching blankets I’ve handled, I will always need encouragement just as much as the mom who is holding her brand new baby this day.  

So if I share these encouragement tidbits with you, know that it’s not because I’ve mastered them & want to pass them on along with the excess baby onesies. It’s because these are the good gold nuggets of hope I cling to on those dirty, dig deep days that bring me to my knees in prayer to Jesus as I’m pushing poopy crib sheets into the washer. 

1. Plant the seeds

Moms (and dads!) are seed planters. We plant and plant and plant and plant these little invisible seeds every day. We sit with doe-eyed junior and read the board book and say silly things like “turtle starts with ’t’…can you say ’t’?” Sometimes we think to ourselves, “is any of this getting through to you?” And sometimes we say “do you understand a damn thing I’m saying to you?” No we don’t. We don’t cuss in front of our kids. 

But when you’ve reminded Suzie to say “please” and “thank you” no less than 1,337,878,976,962 times and she has yet to remember on her own, you just start to wonder if any of your efforts are sticking. They are. But some of those seeds sit in the ground for a long time (we’re talking grow a Duck Dynasty beard time-frame) before they poke back up out of the ground again. Keep planting the seeds. Most of them will grow something, eventually.

Sometimes the seeds are things for us, not them. I was so deeply selfish with my first that I was annoyed that I had to sometimes hold him when I ate. How dare this kid come between me and my food?! I’ve planted a lot of seeds since then. Now I’m much less selfish and just get annoyed when the kids realize I’m eating the rest of breakfast in my bedroom with the door closed, locked, bolted, and barred shut by a dresser. 

2.  You are not alone 

Let’s talk Satan’s lies. Here’s what Satan absolutely loves, loves, loves. He loves for you to think that you are alone. He wants you to bury your head in the sand and think that you are the only mom ever who: hasn’t read a single parenting book, can’t seem to get dinner on the table without it coming out of a box or a bag, hates reading to her kids, is depressed, is anxious, is depressed and anxious, has no idea what she’s doing, let her kid cry it out, let herself cry it out, nursed too long, nursed too little, yelled today, yelled while she was nursing today, and who wasn’t ready for baby to come home…like, at all. 

I promise you that whatever you are facing today with your sweet pea (who might be acting more like rotten cabbage meets poltergeist), you are absolutely, positively not alone. The second you remember this is the second you are on your way to moving on to a better place (where you aren’t hiding out in the bathroom with your cell phone). Reach out to your village. Phone a friend isn’t just a Who Wants to Be a Millionaire assist. It’s a freebie available to all of us playing Who Wants to Be a Mom Who Doesn’t Run Away to Florida Sans Family. Actually, that sounds fabulous! Well, you understand what I mean. But really, any takers on a trip to the Keys with me?? All to say, you are not alone. Remember this. It’s 100% true. 

3. Celebrate the good. Deal with the bad. And move on. 

Oh boy, is parenting a messy business or what?! Right when you have figured out how to get your 1 year old to take a nap mid-day and you dang near feel like a magician for that epic accomplishment, your 3 year old discovers her divine ability to say no and stomp away from you. In public. With parenting, you don’t get fully caught up to speed or that sense of relief from being finished with something.  

When I have this awful feeling that I’m in the wrong head space as a mom, I remember this motto: “celebrate the good, deal with the bad, and move on.” It’s something that my sis-in-law, Moira, said one time and it has stuck with me ever since. Specifically, I think about the balance with the three parts of this. Sometimes I’m doing too much celebrating (sending my mom 1000 photos of the kids and fun things Thomas said). Sometimes I’m focusing way too much on the bad. (Dark place, my friends. Much crying and even more chocolate).  And sometimes I’m just stuck and need to move on with things regardless of if the space we’ve been hanging out in as a family has been really great or really awful.  

4.  By feast (not by force)

Thomas didn’t sing his ABC’s correctly until he was already learning how to read, just this past year. He couldn’t count to 10 (consistently) until he was 4, but just a year later he’s doing addition and subtraction problems for fun.  He’s five now and drew a robot a couple weeks ago out of a how-to drawing book for kids much older than him, but he didn’t start drawing (or having any interest whatsoever) anything other than a few scribbles the first 4 years of his life. And let me just say, that the drawing one might have been the most difficult one for me.  I can’t even fully describe just how absolutely uninterested he was in anything artistic.

I found the robot!

These somewhat backward breakthroughs makes it sound like I taught him these things while I’ve been at home with him, but that just isn’t the case. Certain things clicked with him in a much different order than what’s deemed “normal”. What a dumb word “normal” is.  It’s good for your kids to have a little weird in them.  That’s often our cue to what makes them so special. 

Sometimes, we are discouraged because we want our kids to either be ________________ or we want them to do x, y, and z.  The problem, wonderful problem, with that is that they are so extraordinarily unique.  We can’t force them into these molds that we had pictured in those days after seeing the plus sign on the pregnancy test. Your kid done broke that mold. That mold is shattered, flushed, and long gone, girlfriend. 

We should be gentle with ourselves and with our children in what they are learning and what they find interesting.  Dare I say it. Relax! I think it is great to invite them in to read and to see nature and to watch basketball games and to do the million wonderful things that we would want for them. But we also should watch and wait some too.  They often go at their own pace. They often fly when we are least expecting it. And we shouldn’t get discouraged when it’s not as we had thought it would be. We can add to the feast. They’ll eat. And you’ll have the communion of sharing the table together. But please, please don’t despair as I did when your 4 year old stands up with all the other kids at day care and is the only one who can not for the life of him (or those hives breaking out) remember how in the hell to get from 1 to 10.  

Much love from your fellow "new mom"!
Ashley

The traveler's wife

Every once in a while this dumb thought pops up in my head:

"I KNOW about being the supportive wife to a husband who travels a lot. THAT'S what I should write about on the blog. Encouragement for women who do the same!"

And that's when I remember:

"Oh, wait. That would require me to not be a hot mess about him traveling. It would require me to actually, finally be the "together wife."

And that's when you might be thinking:

"Ashley, surely you aren't really a hot mess when he's gone. What's a hot mess anyway?"

Actually, a lot of you AREN'T thinking that because you are friends and family and know my faults. Shhhh....love you!


I haven't counted the weeks in total, but let me tell you I've put in enough time at this point it should be my second nature to roll with the traveling all easy breezy like. Instead, it's somewhere fall down the list of my traits, falling even below my inclination to put on false eyelashes (once ever).

All things I've done while Paul is gone:

+ avoid the bed like the plague because I don't want to sleep alone, so I set up camp on the couch and do the only thing you can do to make your brain go so numb you completely forget about possible intruders: watch truly ridiculous amounts of reality t.v.

+ circle town evaluating which fast food place has options that are healthy enough that I won't feel mom guilt but cheap enough that I won't feel wife guilt and realizing every time that no such place exists so I go home and make pb&js and settle for just mom guilt with a plot twist of kids grateful for pb&js....again, fanciest of fancy feasts

+ desperately eager for adult talk, I invite a woman into my home for this thing called a "play date" where none of our kids play but insist on needing 90% of my attention, leaving just enough of my energy to start 30 conversations and not finishing one of them. At the end of the "play date", I say goodbye to my friend, close the door, and Thomas asks me why I am crying

+ woken up the next day (which is hardly a thing because when you just camp out at your house for 4 days the time just bleeds together) and looked at my YouTube history and felt that I truly did not know myself anymore

+ gotten into the car on a Thursday and smiled at the kids in the backseat and said "alright kids, to the grocery store!" [pulling out of the garage...into the driveway...looking at the house and the neighborhood...] "Guys, we haven't been out of the house since...Sunday. Oh my gosh, WE HAVEN'T BEEN OUT OF THE HOUSE SINCE SUNDAY!" <blank stares>

+ gone 4 strong days without a whiny text, a desperate call, or so much as yelling at the kids. Ha, 4 days of being some mom goddess of ferocity-- reading calmly, loving generously and laughing the days away only to fall apart on Friday with frantic texts that "I need to get out of this house. I'm about to LOSE MY MIND. Would you be opposed to me leaving the house the second you come home so I can walk around the mall and pretend I'm still normal?"


Just keeping it real for you. Easy breezy like. :)

Owning IT--our choices with how we work

Did you read this piece yet today? It's another defense of stay-at-home-motherhood that plays nice about both sides, for the most part, and urges us to reconsider this rising notion of a one-income family as a luxury.  It fired me up. The comments really fired me up.  And I'm excited to dig in.

For the 10% of my audience who isn't actually family or friends, I want to start by saying that I've been both a working woman and a SAHM.  For the purpose of making this short and to the point, I'll skip the whole argument that we all work and that the terms themselves are far too simplistic.  They are what they are though.  I dropped my kid off at day care for three years. And now I've been home for almost two years marking off the days as my own boss and changing a lot of outfits that were soiled by snot and pb&js.

This is all to say, I now have strong opinions when I read these blog pieces with impassioned women and men who want us all to know, to understand what it really is like, "working" or not.  The ones that make me cringe are the ones that are defensive. One retorting back an eloquent response to the offensive comment made in the grocery store.  One spouting back the real life schedule that displays how draining it is to be at home.  That angle in today's piece (really, if you haven't read it, go read that first) wherein the writer wants us to truly see that she sees essentials and values where someone else might quickly label those things as luxuries.

Man, we all sound a bit whiny don't we? In an effort to make ourselves be known, to be seen, I think a lot of us come off sounding a lot like a little kid: "You guys. It's so hard. It's so hard!!!"

I've done both for enough time to know. They are both difficult in very different ways. They also both have perks in very different ways.  And I am not the woman to read if you are looking for someone 100% convinced that one way is better than the other. In fact, I think that's a bunch of malarky.  I really do. Here's what I hope I am here for: Encouragement. And I'm going to try my best to give you some today. You up for that?

YOU, my friend or sister or previous co-worker or far away Internet friend, YOU do whatever you do.  You stay at home. You work part time. You work full-time. You stayed at home but now you work.  You worked but now you stay at home.  Whatever it is, you are here. HERE is where we start.

And here, you have difficulties and perks.  We already agreed on that above. (Okay, I said that & you probably agreed).  You have days that are long because you balance so many needs in your life. Your need to love on your family. Your need to provide financially (and not just in a paycheck sense). Your need to thrive as YOU. Your need to feel security, to find peace, to be free!

Some days really are hard.  I've been there, girl, more times than I can count. I have literally hung my head and cried. I have asked myself what in the world I was doing and where I was going and if I was ever going to make it there.  Not only have a hung my head and cried. I've woken up just to cry too. More than once. Mothers hardly get sleep anyway. Sometimes I don't cry. I call on Jesus. And it looks like this:

Two nights ago my 5 year old was angrily reading at the table, furious my attention was not 100% directed on him. I offered affirmations that I could hear him as one of my twins flung dinner, beans and rice, and the other was sobbing about something I couldn't begin to figure out.  My husband is traveling this week, so in the absence of our one-glance camaradarie I just stood up from my chair, leaned onto the table where kid chaos was bubbling up to a crescendo and I said, Jesus, I know you see this.

I did the same kind of thing when I was working though too. When I forgot to bring shoes to day care for Thomas.  When I got yet another call that I needed to leave work for my sick kid.  When I was so tired that I embarked on a game of testing my body's limits to digest coffee.

But things being difficult is actually not at all what I want you to know today. We already know there are difficult things about life.  Let's put on our big girl pants and deal. And then also laugh about it with a friend from time to time. (Tears are fine too.)

So what am I getting at? It's this.

There's one thing you should know about your choice, decision, or commitment to either work or be at home and it's just two words. I was just trying to be helpful. We already have enough to remember.  Here it is.

Own it.

Own it, girl.

I know the writer of the article I linked to wanted to argue that we are calling the wrong things luxuries, and to that point I want to laugh. Heck yes, SAHMs have luxuries. Are you kidding me? Imagine this hypothetical scenario. No one is allowed the option to stay home with their kids. We are on literal lock-down. All the peoples work. No choice. It's automatic. Then, bam. You can.  You can nap if you need to. You can walk over to your coffee pot and make more coffee. You can be your own boss. You can snuggle your kids ALL DAY if you want. You can read for hours to your kids. You can, and I've done this, shaved parmesan cheese onto your lunch. (Okay, yes, you can do that at work too, but it's just so darn convenient at home.)

Before you start throwing things at me, don't. I'm NOT picking sides.  I'm just saying this. We have little luxuries, all of us. You want to call them perks, call them perks. Let's not argue semantics. Let's just all agree that there are VERY GOOD and AMAZING things when you work and also when you stay at home.

Working women, I think of you gravely, jealousy when I go to the bathroom and all three of my kids are right outside my door. Usually banging.

This is where I want to lovingly grab you by the shoulders and say OWN IT, to shout it happily with you.

You owe NO ONE an explanation, a defense, a list of reasons, of examples, of excuses. You do what you do because you and your husband decided that it is best for your family. You need to own the good things too.  You can afford a bigger house? That is awesome! You get time with your littles? Yay! You have extreme peace because by you and your husband both contributing financially you have thisstinkingclose to having your house paid off. That is incredible!

You need to OWN the perks, the luxuries, because they really, really are there. Be grateful. Acknowledge blessings. And be proud. Hold your head up high. Choose joy in seeing all the good that is sprinkled throughout your day because of how you are specifically providing.

In all seriousness, you need to own the good for another reason. You need to own it because you will have to own the consequences as well. Sitting down at an interview with no experience for five or fifteen years.  Calculating what you need for retirement and realizing starkly how short you've come up. Saying goodbye to a loved one and wondering if your time really was spent as it should have been.

When we expend our energy in convincing others that they should see that what we do is good, we all too often usurp energy that would be better spent in fully owning the choices we've made. 

We don't get to be all things and dang if that doesn't frustrate me sometimes.  I'm sure as sugar missing out by staying at home right now. I'm not oblivious to that in any way whatsoever. I own it.  I see it. I acknowledge it. But I also am united with Paul in what we need to do for our family right now and I am happy to be doing that, perks and poopy diapers and all.

Can I urge you not to feel shame, ladies? Don't let all this defensive noise about stay-at-home-motherhood or working roles make you question what you do.  You know what you value, you know what you want, and you know how to love on your family. Go after it. Be happy about it!

When someone hints patronizingly that you have the luxury to have a really nice car or to stay at home tickling your kids, you should smile and think to yourself Heck yes, I do! 

Small Thoughts

It's already mid-March. I'm not sure how that happened.

I'm popping in today because I feel like blogging once a month is pretty lame. Then again, who cares.    I'm in another blogging rut and that should come as a surprise to no one.  Every few months I'm so bogged down by the demands of motherhood and simply taking care of myself that I don't have the energy to assert myself in any way whatsoever, even as a blog post generously sprinkled with humor.

I set 7 resolutions for myself this year.  One of them was to write, on average, 500 words per day. Paul made me a document to add up my wordy efforts. I write in the mornings, in the dark when I can hear the birds trying their best to wake up the rest of my family. Three months I've been at this, and yet the result has been downright dismal.

And here's why. Three months of going above and beyond my word count goal and I have written nothing of substance.  I've got weeks' worth of small thoughts on money and fitness and homeschooling.  For years as a teacher I would ask my students to "free write." Really, I would say, write about anything. Anything at all. Just write. Even if you're writing that you don't have anything to write about.

As a result of such thinking (that all writing counts for something) my laptop now houses over 60 documents of bulleted notes on shallow subjects such as: how relieved I am to join the Y, what percentage of our mortgage payment goes toward our principle, and how I don't have anything to write about.

Well, whatever. I generally enjoy the blogs that have little for me to chew on. I'm mostly just glad to know how they're doing. I don't need big thoughts. Maybe you don't either.  So, here are some of the things that have been on my mind lately, superficial and skinny as they may be.

+  We are finally debt free (not counting mortgage). It's been a long and complicated journey to get here. The relief is immense.  I want to share more thoughts about some things we've learned and maybe I will. Regardless, we are extremely happy, happier than I think we envisioned for reaching this place. Tomorrow, we are buying a brand new Lexus 330. Psyche. Never happening.

+ I was doing the Whole 30. Last week (I'll blame daylight savings death) it was all crash & burn. Or at least, it felt like it.  They say get back on the horse. Well, I got back on the horse so many times the horse started rolling his eyes. And I didn't even know horses could do that.

+ Mommy friends are the best. I feel immensely grateful for my friends, grateful that I can be REAL and HONEST and all that good, messy stuff with them. I frantically reach out to my friend, Allison, to an unwelcome degree for speech path support. I picked my friend, Krista's, brain last weekend for teaching tips.  I text my sister, Andrea, all the time to keep things real. We text things like: "hey, Luke just puked again." and reply back with "that's cool. Thomas just pooped his pants." I don't know how many times I've asked my friend, Susanne, for twin mom help. Then there's Elaine who has a son almost the exact age as Thomas (God send, seriously) and we have the play dates that ACTUALLY WORK and then there's my friend, Natahle, who is quite possibly the most peaceful, comforting soul I've ever met. I've started this. Now I can't stop. My sister-in-law, Jessica, is truly the 1-mile-in-front-of-me cheerleading warrior. I'm leaving out a thousand people and you know who you are but also know I can barely remember to get shoes on my kids' feet, much less remember more than a handful of my friends in one sitting. (Moira, Margery, my two moms who tell me it IS going to be okay).  All I'm saying is this. Dang. I'm so grateful. I NEED these women. I NEED their help. I NEED their honesty. And I need to tell them how much I love them because I do. Also, not sure what they are getting on their end. Amusement maybe. Sense of relief to know a messy mommy in the flashy flesh.

+ I'm typing out on our back porch. Thomas just brought out my coffee, gestured like a butler with a hand of presentation, and said "Coffee for my lady?" When boys aren't getting into trouble or angry about something, they are so stinking sweet I can't take it.

+ We had a breakthrough today. I read two books on the couch. In a row. All three boys stayed seated. No one hit or bit each other. Life is good.

+ Paul is the best gift giver ever. It kind've makes me sick. But also happy to be on the receiving end. But mostly sick that I keep buying dumb things for him: socks, ties, gloves. (Those are real gifts that I've actually given him).  For Valentine's Day he bought me 3 month subscriptions for that Amazon unlimited books service (that's surely not the name...moving on) and Audible.  I'm almost done with my first Audible book, Unbroken. I really love being able to listen to a book when I take my morning walks.  Do you have any Audible suggestions?

+ I changed my laundry system. I used to allocate Mondays for laundry. Now I limit myself to washing & drying one load and sorting, folding, and putting away for no more than 30 minutes a day. Life. Changing. And just in case you had any doubts about the excitement factor of my fabulous life, you now know I get a buzz off of slight changes in how I do chores. Doubt no more, my friends.

+ I'll leave you with a Thomas quote.

I was looking at clothes in Kohl's when an older woman steps into the store and is going for a cart.

Thomas: [with great concern] "Oh, um, ma'am....ugh.... I believe you've lost a tooth... I think you've lost a tooth...from the teeth sector of your mouth."

Bam. Motherhood. 

So long February

February is just the worst, isn't it?

Let me recap because doing so will just tie up this mess into something clean and done. I hope.


This February gut punched us with one big snow that lingered as ice on the roads for over a week. I tried to walk on the 5th & 6th days after the storm.  Navigating the neighborhood meant dodging cars for space on black ice and hoping I wouldn't have to call Paul to pick me up because I had foolishly fallen on a sprained ankle out of my need for fresh air.

And then there was another bout of snow just as the remains of the first storm were gone. The snow was all but gloriously melted. My view of the backyard was that of just a small number of bitty snow piles from storm #1 remaining as big flakes from storm #2 started falling.  It was so beautiful, truly.  Our charcoal gray sunroom frames the falling white and it is just stunning. But I also wanted to cry this-is-starting-to-feel-like-the-shining-tears.

Paul traveled two weeks in February. The second week being when the kids were sick and then I was sick.  And yeah, yeah, I'm not supposed to complain about kids because I chose to have them and all, but seriously. Taking care of three kids when you are sick and there isn't anyone else there. It's NO JOKE.  OH, AND DOING THE WHOLE 30 on TOP of all that I just mentioned. Everything from scratch. Everything planned. Everything careful and on time. All right alongside me trying to convince my kids that sleeping on Thomas's bed while they pile toys on me is a legit and totally normal game. All the moms do it.

Major props to Paul though for coming in from traveling and rescuing me from impending winter depression as a consequence of being stuck inside where I courageously used up every bit of medicine, diapers, and Kleenex within arm's reach and experimented with our kids' exposure to dangerously high levels of screen time.  I was so exhausted by the time Paul came home we skipped that often ventured and all too cliche do-you-have-any-idea-what-I-did-while-you-were-gone argument. I crawled into bed and slipped into sleep and thanked God one million times that I have Paul and I promised to never challenge Paul to think about what I do when he is away on business ever again.

I mean. December was great. Parties. Christmas. Excuses to buy festive clothing. January was pretty great too. I walked a ton. Cold but not trapping. New year!! And February seemed to be delivering more of the best winter has to offer (which is little but I'm okay with that), but no. It stopped being okay and went right for just terrible like a dagger to the heart. And why am I surprised? I always know February is the worst. I've lived in Missouri for 30 years and every year I am abhorred by winter, like this is my first time experiencing the cold. I act downright shocked that Mother Earth would ever dare disturb me with slopes of snow in my front yard. What is this stuff? I can hardly walk in it. This is ridiculous! Just asinine!

I let Thomas practice counting his numbers on our fridge calendar at the beginning of the month, and so I extended February's dates well past 28 and forgot to wipe them off. So this weekend as I was crossing the finish line of my sickness and realizing that those things called numbers on our calendar weren't in fact the real dates of February and that we were actually done... other than being sad two seconds that I hardly read anything and I got in even less walking... I was over the moon at the number 28. Best number ever. You're done, February. You're done! Go home. You got drunk and really embarrassed yourself, puking snow and ice all over the place and frankly, we don't want to see you again for quite some time.

Well. Here I am in March. Feet planted. And not only that but I'm waving my white flag.  Winter is that season that puts stay at home mommas to the test, and I'm just barely going to pass. But not before I take back what I said about the YMCA and run there real quick tonight to sign myself and all my sweet family members up for this-is-not-our-home-so-we'll-take-it fun!

See you at the gym, friends. Don't run away when I make eye contact with you, mouth "mommy break", and smile big enough to fall off the treadmill.