Tuesday Snippets

Rare, blissful moment of calm. Exhale.

Erin has been traveling a lot for work. Which means I have been even more outnumbered than usual. It has made for some intense, exhausting, but of course, hilarious moments.

And if I ever hope to blog again, for now we'll have to make do with some snippets of life, because right now, that's all I got:

Me: OK Ellie, you're going to help me this weekend right? It's just going to be Mommy and I need everyone to work together and be good listeners.
Ellie: Right! So...let me get this straight. There's gonna be one grownup and four kids, and two of them who just  mess around.
Me: Who messes around?
Ellie: The babies!

And speaking of hilarious: I'm slowly unloading (via Craigslist) a bounty of baby items that have been cluttering our basement (swings, exersaucers). On Friday a very pregnant woman came and bought my remaining swing. She took one look at barefooted Leo and Ellie zooming around the front yard and Harry and Lucy, pounding on the glass storm door (Let! Us! Out!) and asked me, stone cold serious, "Is this a daycare?"

I mean. You have to laugh.





We've been the benefactors of some recent delightful spring weather (high 70s today--as Ellie would say, what the what?). Of course that means I throw everyone outside as much as possible. On Saturday, Leo and Ellie concocted a new game called Worm Town, in which they found worms and made a tiny village out of found objects (plastic containers from the recycling bin, old chalk, rocks and sticks) for them in the dirt (see one of the residents above, along with a Harry photo bomb).

Ellie lost her second tooth on Sunday, rather dramatically, as we were walking into Costco. Later that night after a lot of discussion about how the tooth fairy gets the tooth, what she does with it, why you have to give your tooth to her (you don't, I assured her), Ellie announced that she did not, in fact want to give her tooth up. The reason? Ellie has "enough money."


These babies are doing their darnedest to drop their afternoon nap and I am doing my darnedest to prevent this from happening. I still put them in their cribs around 4 p.m. and usually there is a lot of chatter (Lucy: Harry! Haaaarrrry! Ellie! Ellllie!).  In other news, did you see what those babies did to my beloved tree mural? It used to look...different. Sigh.

Here are my teenage girls watching a little TV after school. Honestly, doesn't Lucy look thirteen? Sometimes I see these two girls and how their relationship is growing and I'm not going to lie...I'm absolutely teary. Happy teary.

The babies are seeming more giant and kid-like every day. Dare I say they are listening a little better and are slightly able to be reasoned with (emphasis on slightly--and don't get too excited, they still take great glee in ganging up on me by climbing onto the kitchen table at precisely the moment I'm trying to cook dinner).

Evidence of said giantness: One little girl thinks she is too big for the high chair and prefers dining at the table. Ai Yai Yai. Mommy prefers the security confinement of the high chair, thankyouverymuch.



When in doubt? Wear a big hat.