just when you think no one is listening to you...

it was bedtime tonight and i was tucking eve in and said goodnight when she dropped the bomb. 'mommy can you read me a story about jesus?'. for real? who can say 'no' to that??

i got in bed with her and i was reading eve the sermon on the mount when she interrupted me with randomness at least 3 times. i finally told her if she wasn't going to listen i would just say goodnight. she quieted down and i kept on reading. i was pretty sure she was falling asleep or zoned out when i said "consider the lilies of the field" and she yelled out "LILY!!! read that part again!!"

goodness i love that girl.

excuse the terrible quality, my sister sent this to my phone and i saved it from there. my favorite part is 'mahna mahna' of course, but followed closely by how they both tilt their heads at the end.

a week ago we had our annual college girls reunion- now affectionately dubbed 'moms gone mild'. it was all kinds of awesome. eleven of us in total, we laughed, we cried, we laughed some more.

two days with no kids, no husbands, no distractions. just us talking about old stories and sharing new ones. it really is a gift to have time for us to reconnect and remember that no matter what life throws our way we have each other. these are the kind of friends that you might not be able to talk to for months at a time and when you do, it is as though no time has passed.

most of the weekend one or more of us looked like this at any given time:



i left the weekend feeling refreshed, like myself, and actually looking forward to seeing my littles and kevin. when i walked in the door and eve saw me, she reached her arms out and clasped her fists over and over as though to say 'let me get a hold of you!' it was a great feeling!

to my sweet friends- thank you. i love you.

i am feeling intensely and directly blessed. kevin and i were talking the other day and i cautiously said to him that i feel really happy. i'm not talking about joy. i'm talking about happiness. meaning it has everything to do with circumstances and it is really amazing.

we have found a real church home. we have been lucky enough to find not only friends, but community within that church home. people that care about each other, choose to connect every single week to support each other, and have a fabulous time laughing about life together.

there is something amazing about that. it means that when the storms do come and the happiness isn't hanging around our house, there are people who have chosen to invest themselves in our family and will be there for us and with us. people who love my kids. people who pray for my husband.

i have noticed lately that annie is at a bit of a loss when her crazy sisters aren't around. she is a social being. her days are filled with their laughter and tears and in the absence of those sounds, she isn't really sure what to do with herself. that was me- i had two crazy siblings very close in age running circles around me while i learned to crawl. i had a sister dragging me from room to room before i could walk to change my clothes.

my mom tells stories of me reaching my arms up to her, my eyes begging for some peace and quiet. she used to put me in my crib with the radio on and i was content to lay and listen. it was my break from the chaos. i still need those quiet alone moments, but like annie i need the companionship of community to really thrive.

i feel so blessed to have found just that in our little area of south austin. i am thankful.

today's post brought to you by the letter M.

m for mollie. or as my nieces say 'mahna'. we have no idea how mollie translates to 'mahna' for them, but when they are being particularly demanding they like to repeat my name and say 'mahna mahna!' which of course naturally led itself to the muppets...

so ruby and tess, i couldn't love you more. mahna mahna loves you!

september 13th is my big brother AND my college roommate's birthday. in honor of those two wonderful people, i wanted to send them each a cute video of the girls singing the birthday song. i sat them down before bed to make a quick clip and this is what i got.

happy freakin birthday.



i love how angelic she looks right up until eve calls custard the kitty 'my kitty'. thankfully we did a little better on the second take for my brother. seeing as this is pretty much classic eve, i decided it was the winner and just went with her crazy self.

i did it! i finished the triathlon on monday in under two hours and with a smile on my face.

i was having fun just being in the race atmosphere. chatting with others in my age group beforehand, getting everyone cheering in the water before the gun, encouraging others when you pass on the bike- it really felt awesome.

once my legs hit the ground i started really looking for my family. i couldn't wait to see lily and kevin. as i turned the first corner on the run i saw not only lily and kevin, but my sweet eve as well. it was such a surprise to see her and hearing lily's voice cheering so loud just choked me up. i was glad to have sunglasses on to hide the tears, but i kept on running!

finishing felt great and sharing it with kevin and my girls felt beyond amazing. they have already decided mommy should do another race next year :)

happy (almost) labor day! i will be celebrating by torturing myself with a triathlon and recovering solo while kevin heads on an afternoon business trip. perhaps you are now saying to yourself 'what was she thinking?'. i assure you that you are not alone in those thoughts.

in a surprising turn of events the forecasted high for the day is an entire 20 degrees cooler than just last week. can i get an 'amen'??

after telling lily about the race that i'm doing i have been barraged by questions such as 'who is going to say 'ready, set, go'? and 'are you going to win?' and of course 'why aren't you going to win?'

i'm excited that kevin and lily will be there to see me huff and puff my way across the finish line. almost so much so that it eclipses my annoyance about being photographed in spandex.

i'll report back after the race. wish me luck!

sometimes listening to her talk is like watching her mind work. and eve is a girl after my own heart at the end...

lily just absolutely adored everything about dance class. the outfits, the shoes, the 'ballet buns' in her hair. she went over the moon when we walked in and one of her first friends was in her class!!

(click on the picture to see it bigger!)

lily's first day of dance class is today! she is very excited!!

i'm a beach person, kevin is a mountain person. i am not kidding when i say this is a serious point of contention in our relationship. he wants to ski, i want sand between my toes. i inherited this love of all things ocean from my mother. hopefully its a dominant gene and the whole 'freeze your A off in the snow' is recessive.

this year, the scales tipped in my favor and we headed to south padre island with his family. you can see a bajillion pictures from our week HERE.

i saw a quote on pinterest yesterday that immediately rang true...

"The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea."

isak dineson

mimi is the 6th member of our family. she pretty much goes everywhere eve goes. no matter how i try to limit mimi to the bedroom, she makes her way into our day- everyday. when eve falls down the first thing she cries after 'mommy' is 'miiii miiiii!' second only to having her fingers in her mouth, this darn bunny has brought my sweet eve so much comfort in the past two years and for that i am eternally grateful.

i have gone so far as to stalk ebay for mimi backups and paid a ridiculous sum for the security of a spare bunny. hey, a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do to keep the peace!

eve handed me her treasured bunny today and asked me 'you take mimi's picshure?' yes eve, i take mimi's picshure.

laundry. its a hate-hate relationship.

so far i have two girls that insist on wearing dresses. its all dresses all the time around here. i don't know if eve is just picking this up from lily or if i drew the short straw twice. (please oh PLEASE not three times!!)

so apart from refusing to wear their perfectly good shorts, skirts, shirts, and tanks- those unworn clothes somehow make their way into the laundry during early morning drawer rummaging or closet raiding. so i still somehow wash these clothes. and apart from washing i have to then fold, transport, and put them away. can you tell its pissing me off?

in addition to the manual labor, its the attitude portion of the clothing experience that is equally maddening. the sense of entitlement and preference, man oh man. remember when your mom said stuff like 'there are starving children in africa that would love to eat your broccoli'? that's pretty much me, except swap 'naked' for starving and 'eat your broccoli' with wear that outfit.

basically i'm going minimalist on their wardrobes. its about to be rationing- the likes not seen outside the soviet union. five dresses. laundry done twice a week. shorts/shirts on loan when the activity requires, to be returned and laundered promptly.

if this doesn't work i'm going to resort to uniforms. and i'm only halfway kidding.

we're back.

back from the beach. back to life. back for a meeting at church about big changes. i can feel it. something is happening in our family.

i prayed a prayer that scared me the other day. letting go of control (or the illusion of such) is not in my repertoire. because i trust, because i want to learn to trust i will continue to pray it. the prayer that scared me.

god, move my family. move in us. change us. amen.

Annie crawls

don't you love my classy baby learning how to crawl on a pool table? she has mad skills already

act like you're asleep!!

i have no idea when this phenomenon started in my family, but we thought it was hiLARious when we were growing up. no matter what was going on if someone else entered the house or the room one of us would whisper 'act like you're asleep!' and we'd all stop what we were doing and pretend to snooze.

it was the moments before the person realized you were all feigning sleep, trying to hold in your chuckles, that were the best. it started when we were younger but we still do it sometimes as adults.

yesterday lily was looking for me calling out my name and i was laying down with eve and kevin. i said 'act like you're asleep!' we all dropped our heads and our eyes and when lily found us and said 'heyyyy! you're not asleep!' we all giggled out of control.

really, its the little things in life that make me happy.

today i spent more time with lily than i have in a long time- just with lily. if you had asked me in the past week if a full day with lil sounded relaxing i would have died laughing. but you know what? i had the best day. best day in a long time.

we started the day sleeping together (eve wasn't feeling so hot so i took lil to bed with me at 4:45). when you wake up with lily you wake up EARLY. i took advantage of that by taking her out for her 4 year photo shoot and we celebrated our success with a trip to the doughnut shop.

then my sister and i took lily to barton springs during 'nap time' for the littler kiddos. she was in hog heaven. i mean she was in her element completely and loving it. we swam, she jumped like a fish into that glorious 65 degree water, and we laid in the shade.

while erin and i were chatting she was dancing around behind us talking to herself, singing a bit, telling a story to no one in particular. so much so that when we got up to leave a big group of twenty somethings behind us broke out into spontaneous applause for their entertainment. i told lily they were clapping for her and that she should bow and she immediately struck a pose only lily could come up with that was half bow, half 'ta-daaaaa!'.

goodness i love that girl. i couldn't be more thankful for days like today. tomorrow we have another fun lily and mom outing planned- a princess train ride. lord be with us, i hope its a repeat of today's fun!

she will show me forgiveness.

lily has a very strong personality (like her mom) which of course means we butt heads from time to time. okay, maybe its more often than i'd like. she challenges me like no other. just like any refining process, it can be pretty painful. the one thing she wants after a disagreement or difficult interaction? love and cuddles. she will show me forgiveness.

she will slow me down.

eve's nickname from time to time is 'lollygag central'. eve scoffs at instant rice and thinks shortcuts are for losers. she prefers to take the scenic view in life, which is good and well when you have the time but can seriously grate on your nerves. trying to get all 3 kids anywhere on time (because god forbid we be late) tends to turn into a lot of 'hurry up girls' and eve reminds me life isn't all about 'hurry up'. she will slow me down.

she will teach me joy.

everywhere we go, everyone we meet has one thing to say about annie (well after they admire her lovely hairdo)...'what a HAPPY baby'. annie is just plain happy. from the moment she wakes up to the last yawn, she is reveling in connections and the wonder of life. spit up on yourself? no worries- just play with the spit up! she has already helped me perk up in the midst of many less than stellar moments. she will teach me joy.

i have a lot to learn. thankfully i have three willing and able teachers with me every day.

well this triathlon training was bound to get me out on my bike before too long. poor thing has been hanging upside down in the garage since we moved here. so that is at least 4 years. i'm sure luna bar would love to know the bike they underwrote hasn't so much as seen the light of day in half a decade.

sweet kevin got my tubes ready, my chain lubed, and gave me back my helmet he's been borrowing so i knew it was time to hit the road.

i walked out this morning in cycling gear and lily said 'whose shoes are those?' i said, 'they're mine.' and she said, 'no really, whose are they?'

thanks for the vote of confidence, lil.

i won't lie, i've never been the biggest fan of clips (for you non-cyclists out there i'm talking about the fancy shoes that fit into your pedals). so i coasted down the street without clipping in while i mostly whimpered to myself about not wanting to do this and right about then my pandora busted out with a little katy perry 'shut up and put your money where your mouth is'. i chuckled to myself, clipped in and hit the highway.

in the process i realized several things. perhaps my crotch was made of an industrial strength steel before children because O.M.Geeee. that seat is not nice. not nice at all. also, what kind of badass did i take myself for having the 'girl' gears on my bike removed? yes, that's right, i had the easy gear taken off my bike supposing i'd never need it. i was wrong. i need it.

another perk of living and riding southwest is the roadside carnage. i passed three deceased deer, which is probably more than my father will see in all of deer season this year since he tends to favor naps in the blinds to killing things. i forgot how generally unpleasant that can be.

all in all, it was an exercise in familiarity and at least i have that first ride under my belt. there are many more to come and frankly i'm looking forward to feeling less like an idiot and more like an athlete again!

lily: mommy, did you wear a crown at your wedding?
me: no. i'm not really a crown person.
lily: i am. i'm a crown person.

lily,

four years ago at this very moment i was checking in to the hospital to have my first baby. i was a nervous nellie about so many things, terrified of the c-section i was heading for, worried about how i'd be as a mom, and really really anxious to just meet you already!

it was a rainy day and i had spent the last month or so swimming as much as possible to pass the hot july at 9 months pregnant. i waited all day long on pins and needles for my 5:30 surgery and just a few minutes past 5:30 i met you. i heard your cry and saw your face and i have never been the same.

you made me a mom. you are FOUR today. that means we have had roughly 1,400 days together. 1,400 good mornings, 1,400 good nights, and millions of kisses.

you are curious, LOUD, girly and determined. you have a little bit of attitude, but i secretly like that. your favorite color is pink. (dark pink to be specific) you are so interested in life and ask the best questions. you love love dressing like a princess and picking flowers. you ask me every day when spring is coming so that you can pick them on a daily basis again.

you love having long hair but hate having it brushed. your obsession with shoes (that you likely inherited from your dad or perhaps GaGa if it skips a generation) cracks me up. you often ask me to wear dresses or fancy shoes and i have to explain to you that mom just isn't that fancy :)

you love sharing your room with eve and get the biggest kick out of making your sisters laugh. you are truly becoming a little girl and are no longer my baby or toddler. i am so looking forward to this next year with you as we make our way towards FIVE.

happy birthday sweetness,
mom

so i'm sure you've seen that book making its way around the interwebs... go the F*#% to sleep. right?

well that book pretty much is our day from 7-8:30pm. every. night. 'oh i need socks!' 'i need water!' 'i can't find blankie' and on...and on...

so i instituted a reward chart for lily and she earned a star every night she was quiet and non demanding after bedtime. she didn't have to go right to sleep, but couldn't wake eve up or ask for a million things.

her reward for earning five stars? 'fancy dinner' out with daddy! something she has actually been asking for since she saw him return home from a business trip wearing a suit.

she earned her fifth star this week so tonight was fancy dinner night!! she requested pancakes (her fav) and cake for dessert, so kevin took her to kerbey lane and they had a blast. he said she kept bouncing in her seat saying 'oh my gosh daddy! oh my gosh!! this is the BEST!'

here is a pic of them when heading out the door. she took one look at him and decided he needed a bowtie to be fancier :)

and man do they look alike or WHAT?!

lily had the most fabulous birthday party. we started celebrating probably around wednesday and her actual birthday isn't until this week, but you know four year olds. their birthday party IS their birthday. anything else is pretty confusing!

we had a very small luau in her honor yesterday complete with a poor man's homemade 'water slide' (and yes, i used water slide in quotes... trust me.) she had a blast and it was a perfectly sized get together and not overwhelming chaos. i'm a big fan of smaller parties!

after the party we all napped and went to the pool so lily and eve could show off their swimming skills to gaga & moon. i took lily on a little swim around the deep end of the pool telling her the story of the day she was born. she LOVED every minutes of it.

her cousins came over for a dinner of her favorite meal- pancakes! truly it was just a great celebration of our wonderful four year-old!

pictures (a LOT of them- you've been warned) are HERE

"Let’s go with Jesus. Not the gay-hating, war-making political tool of the Right, but the outcast, subversive, supreme adept who preferred the freaks and lepers and despised and doomed to the rich and powerful."

-john cusack, when asked who his hero was


i always knew i liked that guy. you keep holding that boombox over your head, john.

i just got my first zit in almost 5 years. i guess this means my hormones are back to 'normal' (that is, if there is a normal anymore).

could someone send a message to my ovaries and let them know no matter how hard they try, their job is done? there is no extra credit at this point. really, you can take an early retirement as far as i'm concerned.

so now instead of looking like a soccer mom with a three-kid-pooch, i look like that mixed with a 14 year old in puberty. good times, hormones. good times.

open letter to the swimmer in lane 5:

thanks for having a good attitude about me asking you to share your lane. i hate that moment when i walk up to the pool and every lane is taken by a single swimmer knowing everyone is pretending to not see me. while others avoided eye contact and did flip turns, you let me jump right in your lane.

now i won't pretend i didn't see you eye my lack of swim cap and my old navy halter style suit. i'm not sure why you prefer round-robin sharing instead of just splitting the lane. i took one look at your speedo two piece and practical cap and figured it wouldn't be long before i embarrassed myself. i know all too well the polite 'tap' on the foot of someone wanting to swim circles around you. i swam masters, i get it.

i'm training for my first triathlon in five years. there was a time in my life when i couldn't have imagined five months without a race and five years seemed an impossibility. but here i am five years and three kids later and i'm getting back in the lane.

i guess its a sign that you're a competitive person when you find yourself not stopping to de-fog your goggles or pin back your bangs just to keep up with a complete stranger in your lane. what i didn't expect was that it would be me waiting behind you and not vice versa.

just when i started to pat myself on the back for hanging with you for over 1000 meters, you hopped out, donned your oakleys and i got a glimpse of your ridiculous 6 pack and man-arms. which most likely means this was your cool down after some hard core 5 hour workout. oh well, at least my workout can keep up with your cool down.

and lastly, thank you. if you hadn't been in that lane i probably would have swam half as much, half as fast.

sincerely,
mollie

when annie is frustrated she squishes up her nose and sniffs loudly. i find it particularly endearing since my other children's response to frustration at nearly 7 months sounded more like screaming.

she usually does it when i've left her too long in her high chair without food, but recently started doing it reciprocally.

my eve found her inner fish this weekend. last year she was a daredevil at the pool. no fear. in fact i wished she had a little more healthy fear of water.

the start of this summer was rocky. she preferred to sit on the side of the pool with just her feet in the water. if you tried to even hold her in the water she'd shake like a leaf. i don't know where the fear came from but it seemed like it might overshadow the whole summer.

then we went to dallas.

she took one look at her cousins' pool and dove in headfirst- literally. i was a bit worried that coming home she would revert back to her scardey cat ways, but she probably went down the slide today 15 times in a row!

for a few fun pictures go HERE to see the cousins in action. it was a great visit!

No one else will ever know the strength of my LOVE for you.
After all, you're the only one that knows what my heart sounds like from the inside.

i stumbled across that quote on pinterest (what an addiction by the way, all beautiful things i will never have the time or money to create in my life, but i can appreciate them nonetheless)

i have to say the last few weeks were tough ones. some of my hardest as a mom and some of the most humbling. i have just begun to really dig and i am determined to do better. you know when you're watching super nanny and the kids are so horrendously behaved and all you can think is 'that is totally the parents' fault!'? i'm feeling lately like some of this hardship is more about me than it is about the kiddos.

i just bought the book 'how we love our kids' and in the first chapter read "Kids have a natural knack for revealing the things we like least about ourselves. Even shortcomings we’re completely unaware of, things we deny, things we’ve successfully hidden for years. All of them suddenly begin to parade around your neat little life when you have children."

welcome to motherhood - aka you still have a lot of work to do on yourself and those gaps you are still trying to fill affect your children more than you want to admit.

even just since buying the book yesterday and deciding to be more present things have been better. goodness knows there are just some days when you don't have the energy or patience to sit down with a child who is crying because you made their lunch 'hot dog art' in the shape of a butterfly when they wanted a flower, but thankfully there are days like today when i DO have the energy for it. let's just hope these are the days they remember :)

So so so much

sweetness.

i feel obligated to follow up the previous doomsday post with a more encouraging 'the day got better' post. thankfully all 3 girls napped and woke up with a much sunnier outlook on the day. amen hallelujah.

i climbed into lily's bed as she was stirring from her nap and she half-smiled and said 'i love you mommy' with her eyes still closed. i knew at that moment the day was looking up.

you know, i started the day laughing about the whining and here i am mid-day and i just want to raise my white flag in surrender.

i don't know if i just ignore it better some days than others or if they really whine that much more on bad days, but i'm one step away from thrusting a kabob skewer in my ear so that i don't have to hear it anymore.

i'm not my usual cheery self today. i feel defeated and at the same time like i have failed my children. they deserve a mom who doesn't lose her patience with them and who finds joy in spending time with them. i am just not finding joy in being a mom today.

it breaks my heart to think that i am the best mom they are going to have. they just deserve better. maybe a better mom wouldn't have to hear such unhappiness all day long because she is making her children happy. i don't know. what i do know is that i'm tired of crying at naptime because i am exhausted and dreading the moment when they wake up.

nails on a chalkboard? nah, lily has that beat.

whining is the worst sound in the world.

a real conversation in my kitchen last night.

m: i mean its just now june
k: well we're halfway through june, its almost july
m: its not ALMOST july! its just now june!
k: mollie, tomorrow is the 20th.
m: no its not (checking calendar).... wow.

seriously i feel like this just about sums up the summer so far. how is it almost july?!

i have dubbed this year 'the summer we stayed home'. we do have plans for a quick trip to dallas and a week(end) at the beach in august but other than that we are at home most days all day long. it is just too hard to get anywhere with a tiny baby along for the ride. especially when that baby is going to demand a nap in her cozy crib within about an hour of waking :)

Upright annie

i can't believe susanna is already 6 months old. i'm fearing the day her baby bird fuzz hair actually lays down. i love her hair halo.

it's been another wild one around here. i'll catch you up with some of the notable happenings this week:

- eve got a fever, but managed to smile and charm her way through it. no shock there.
- lily got a fever, but managed to moan and groan her way through it. no shock there.
- annie slept through the night three days in a row. fingers crossed for her new habit.
- lily started quoting movies including using an affectation to her voice. perhaps she is my child after all.
- i quoted a movie to a friend on facebook essentially saying her daughter had a gigantic head and then hoped she would recognize the movie and not think i was a jerk. (i vacillated between feeling crappy she might not get it and thinking surely any sarcastic friend of mine was familiar with the complete works of mike myers. she got the joke. whew.)
- eve got a twin mattress and her instinctual reaction was to climb on board, snuggle under her duvet and call out 'oooh! cozycozycozycozy!'
- lily was allowed to go to the bathroom at the grocery store alone while i waited outside the main door with the cart and two children. we were greeted less than a minute later by a poor screaming child who had just been scared to death by autoflush.

well that about sums it up. other than trips to the gym and park, not much else is going on around here. kevin is at the lakehouse for a boys weekend and i'm just homebound with my sickos. this lady is going to need a trip to barton springs on sunday when he gets home. ahhhh an afternoon at barton springs. now that's almost worth being alone with 3 kids all weekend :)

reset. refresh. reformat. i do it all the time but i want to do it to my life, not my electronics. i told kevin today it would take me a week. i want to get rid of half our clothes, half our toys, clean every inch of this house, tackle my 'around the house' to-do list. i want to make space- room for us to grow, connect, give.

he offered to take the girls to dallas for a week. of course my knee jerk reaction was 'no way'. you're too busy, too long for the girls to be away, excuses excuses.

what if. what if he did take the girls for a week for me to just RESET our life. what would i do?? what would you do? what would be on your list? i'm probably dreaming here, but visions of a stripped bare house, organized weeks of grocery lists, and freshly scrubbed base boards are dancing in my head...

love is.... trying to avoid eye contact with your spouse in the middle of the night because you're both shaking from holding in your laughter about how bad your child's farts smell.

i swear i can't make this stuff up. the stomach bug has burrowed its way back into our family circle again. darn bug!! it was my turn to pass it around this time and so far just lily has fallen victim after me. let's hope everyone else is spared.

seriously though, lily had some major swamp gas action happening last night and kevin and i were literally shaking trying not to laugh about it knowing if either of us lost it, we'd not only wake up the other children but likely hurt lily's feelings in a tender moment. poor sweet lily just did not feel good and it was all i could do to keep the chuckles inside once i saw kevin avert his eyes and bite his lip when the stench reached him.

i'm so glad i married a guy that i can laugh with about our child's flatulence at 1am (after she is back safely tucked into bed)

love.

i love that kevin loves playing guitar for his girls (no matter how many times lily asks him to stop). i love that it calms annie more than anything other than nursing. i love watching my husband and his daughters.

summer is off to a good start :)

it is too bad she doesn't have any fun around here...

i thought we had until 2012, but apparently the rapture is saturday? at least those mayans gave me an extra 7 months. saturday seems awfully soon. i'm not ready but really would i be any more ready 7 months from now? i'll probably be busy planning a first birthday party and be distracted by christmas.

i think it is safe to say that if i'm afraid of anything, its death. not the dying part, the judgement part. so really a rapture doesn't solve much for me since it isn't the dying so much as the answering for myself that i'd like to skip.

there is a super cheesy song whose lyrics describe that moment as 'Will I dance for you Jesus, Or in awe of you be still? Will I stand in your presence, Or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing Halelluja, Will I be able to speak at all? I can only imagine'. i will just say that i can't imagine that moment, clearly. but when i try to i pretty much see myself as a blubbering crazy person who is apologizing profusely for largely being an asshole.

the other day i was reading a NY Times article about an artist living in west texas and i showed kevin the pictures of the house he has built and the gadgets he has invented to do things like wash laundry by riding on a bicycle- kevin asked 'so you want to go live off the grid now?' i laughed, but thinking about it later i thought definitively 'no way'. the last thing i want or need is to be even MORE focused on myself and secluded from others. being a mom of 3 under 4 is isolating enough.

it is my community that is keeping me afloat, headed in the right direction for that final day. not the ending, but the beginning. my sister keeps me sane. my friends keep me laughing. my church small group keeps me connected. my husband keeps me from running away. (haha, kidding... sort of). my husband keeps me feeling loved.

my kids.... my kids. my kids keep me close to God by creating situations where i need to apologize and ask for forgiveness. often. God bless 'em.

here's hoping these crazy people are wrong about tomorrow (and i am quite sure they are) but if they are right, i hope to see you there- hold my hand if you can. if they are wrong, maybe i can be in a place in 7 months of less fear. and while we are planning a better december, here's to a small first birthday party and a christmas full of spirit, not of credit card bills.

busy. busy busy busy. life as a gerbil on a wheel is about to get a bit more furiously fast since thursday is our last with the two big 'uns in school until next september *tears*

i'm not sure what we are going to do all summer but swim lessons are next week and hopefully we will be able to get in some quality pool time, cool off in the museums, and take a few fun trips. any suggestions or ideas to make the summer fly by are welcomed :)

Annie is happy

i'm gonna miss this face and i'll only be gone for 24 hours.

i'm afraid i just don't get it. when people jokingly warn you about the day your child realizes you are completely un-cool and asks you to drop them off around the corner and thinks your opinion is bunk. i just don't get it because i never went through that phase.

i held my mom's hand in public... in high school. i waited on the steps of school scanning every car with anticipation excited to see her when she picked me up. to this day not much time passes between me putting my head in her lap.

so i will choose to live in denial that my children could ever feel differently of me and be thankful for my mom who showed me that its possible to be both a mother and later a close friend without compromise.

i love you mom! happy mother's day.

Eve's abc

a) i have no idea when/how she learned this. i take no credit.
b) a glimpse into the ADD of a 2 year old...

dear genevieve,

you are two. the last twenty four months of my life have been spent reveling in you. you are generous with your love, live life to the fullest, and are my wonderful girl.

you are pure sweetness to the core, but laced with a devilish obstinance that is sure to surface more and more in the coming year. when you climb into my lap to cuddle my heart leaps. i can't get enough of your affection. you hold my face in your hands before you kiss me and it makes me melt a little each time.

you are smart as a whip and adore your sisters. the way you live life with gusto is enviable and reminds me to throw caution to the wind a bit more often. you go with the flow- a trait that is more appreciated by this crazed mom than you may ever know. this year you went from being the one that shook things up at our house to my stable rock i could count on amidst the chaos.

you are a messy messy eater and laugh as you put a single raspberry on each finger before yelling out 'razz hands!'. you repeat everything I say- even when I say 'echo!' which tends to make others laugh.

your favorite things are your mimi (bunny blanket), juice & oatmeal, cakes of any sort, and being loved. i am one lucky mama to have you in my life.

happy birthday sweetness.

our first child was a terrible sleeper. had a suck sleep association which eventually led to wakings every 45min-1.5hours ALL NIGHT. ferber rocked our world in about 2 nights and since then she has slept ah-may-zing. she's nearly 4 and still sleeps great, takes naps, loves her bed.

my 2nd child was (and still is) an easy going dream. no sleep training necessary. i attributed this to my improved parenting skills ;)

then came annie. she's not a terrible sleeper. she was doing awesome there for a while- waking just once a night to nurse while sleeping 7:30pm-6am. then it all went to pot. for the past month she has been getting up about 4x a night. this doesn't work for several reasons which include the fact that i cannot be a zombie and work or take care of my children.

after a particularly hard week with very little sleep, we decided to reacquaint ourselves with dr. ferber and give it a shot. ONE night with ONE measly crying session that lasted less than 30 minutes (so really less than she has cried in the car at one time) was all it took. she woke up and cried out a few other times before going back to sleep. the 2nd night, she only nursed once. the third night, she only nursed once.

in fact, tonight i woke up at 3:30 to the sounds of her coo'ing in her bed. so we've gone from screaming bloody murder 4x a night to waking once while rolling around pleasantly. i'll consider that a success thankyouverymuch.

the other improvement is naps. i have had to rock this child into a sleepy oblivion for 4 naps a day and now i am laying her down totally awake but calm and she's napping. i can't tell you how much this changes the game. trying to quietly rock a baby for 30 or more minutes at a time, four or more times a day when you have a toddler and a preschooler roaming your house can be a hard pill to swallow. i fully admit these are the complications of having so many kids, so young in age but its nice to know i won't have to emerge from a dark room to find my children putting on makeup in my bathroom anymore.

all this to say, ferber gets an awfully bad rap sometimes but frankly i'd give the guy a big kiss if i could. and now, i think i'll go get some more sleep :)

happy day