She Laughs at the Days

I am so tired. I sit and dream of taking a nap the baby is sleeping and I just want to curl up nest to her and drift away into oblivion. But I can't. My other two children are playing outside and it may be just be the teensiest bit irresponsible to leave them completely unsupervised while I rest instead of watching them through the window. I toyed with the idea of putting on something for them to watch so I could nap. The problem is that I stated very firmly and dictatorially that they would not be watching any shows this week in response to a temper tantrum when I said no to a show on Monday. I just painted myself into a corner. Why am I so tired? Why that's an excellent question. I'm so glad you asked because I have a fun story to tell. Sort of. Okay, maybe it's not fun,, or even all that interesting but it's the best I can come up with today. My mom doesn't have a computer, she needed to type and send a very important letter and she needed to do it soon. I v

Can you have too much of a good thing? Well, if that good thing is single origin dark chocolate, 75% cocoa mass, and you are my children then yes, it's entirely possible to have too much. This morning in a not entirely unprecedented fit of naughtiness the Boy climbed onto the kitchen counter reached his now long enough arms over the top of the fridge and opened mommy and Daddy's secret cupboard, the place where we keep all of the alcohol, and the chocolate, so they kids can't/couldn't reach it. He took out an almost full box of individually wrapped squares of chocolate, probably at least a pound, maybe 2. He and the Girl proceeded to gorge themselves while I lay blissfully unaware due to a late night with the Baby. They hid all of the wrappers too in his room. They may have gotten away with it because I don't go into that cupboard everyday, but the Girl is still blissfully sweet and honest and woke me up to tell me that they had eaten all of the chocolate, after it

Today the Girl found a baby bird laying in the dirt. It was directly below a swallow nest tucked under the eaves 3 stories up. It was perfectly formed; a miniature beak and tiny little wings and feet and small enough to lay in the palm of the Girl's little hand. When I turned it over the translucent skin of it's belly was distended and purple from internal bleeding. The poor little bird had tottered to close to the edge of her home and and fallen to her death. (The Girl insists that it was a baby girl bird because when she was looking at it it had no penis.) We looked up and saw a bird peering out over the top of the roof. I imagined it was a mama bird looking for her lost baby, her child who had vanished from her home. I know it was just a baby bird, so tiny and fragile, but it made me want to hold my babies tight and never let them wander away from home, ever. We dug a hole in one of our big planters and laid the little bird to rest. I told the kids that it's body would

Water runs down his body in glistening beads as he emerges from the pool. Tanned golden skin continuously sliding across the rippling backdrop of taut muscles, every one defined as if etched in marble. He pulls at the bright orange water wings that wrap around his upper arms and shakes water out of his dark blond hair. Watching him with identical blue eyes is a girl with a halo of white gold hair sitting on a deck chair nearby. She laughs as he dances in front of her and makes silly sounds. Water sparkles scattering brilliant shards of the late afternoon sun and I marvel as I watch them that such perfect bodies were born of mine; were once inside of me and are intimately connected to me. I feel that I could become addicted to this mystery, this miraculous privilege of bearing life. I wonder how it could even occur to me to complain about my role in such a breathtaking creation. I pray to be worthy of such an honor as this.

Do you remember when I was lamenting the demise of the house dress ? Okay, probably not because I'm the only one who obsesses about things I consider problems needing to be solved until I find a solution. Except for the house dress, I found another person who laments it's demise as well. Well, I think I have an easy affordable solution, everyone ready? Ta da! It's a kurta. They're woven cotton, they're breathable, they're flattering and come with 3 inches of adjustable seams. I already have one that I wear on hot days and I love it. But only recently did I realize that it's a practical work garment for my Indian friends, at least the plainer ones are. I can wake up in the morning, pull one of these over my head and get to work, and I'll feel pretty and ready for the day. And the best part is, if you go here you can buy some for less than $15 each in whatever color you want, though I have no idea what shipping costs. Or you can get them at the thrif

It's already been half a year since you were born. Why does the time fly away so quickly these days? You can now sit for at least minute before you lose your balance and topple over onto your side. You like to grab at my face and try to eat it. Actually, you try to eat everything. You're finally rolling from back to front, but mainly when you are angry. I confess, sometimes we let you get a little frustrated just so you can find out what you can do when you try. I hope you don't mind to much. You see, frustration is critical to the human experience, and you will encounter it many times, but that moment when you push past it or around it to get what you want is a great moment that helps you to grow like nothing other can. So we will let you get frustrated you you can figure out things by yourself. But don't worry we'll help when you need it, it will be a long time before we'll leave you alone. You can move yourself around on the floor now, usually by backing you

There's a terrible smell in my fridge. No one else can smell it but every time the fridge closes it wafts around our apartment. It reminds me of rotten garlic. The last time this happened was last summer and I was pregnant. I asked my Milly to clean it out for me because I was vomiting whenever I stuck my head in the fridge. She tried, but I could still smell it after she was done. It didn't go away, we just moved to a new apartment. This could mean one of three things. I'm pregnant again. Which would be hysterical, and I don't mean funny. I have a really sensitive nose. I'm lousy at cleaning out my fridge. I cook with garlic too much. What do you think?

So I have a shiny new gmail address over there in the sidebar. If you want to e-mail me you now can, and no Charity Grace I still can't see your address so could you please send me an e-mail? Thanks. So comments are still wide open to anyone so you can comment without any extra hassle. That's all for today folks, I'm off to make some mango "ice cream" for dessert. And call my dad.

I asked Milly to take the Boy and the Girl today so that I can get caught up on some much needed work, like laundry, (I need to walk to the laundromat to get it done) and sorting through closets and getting rid of stuff we don't need, or don't have room for in this crowded little space. I think I'm going to get rid of all of the Girl's pants and shirts. It's been two weeks since she's worn anything but a dress, except yesterday when she wore pants under a dress because it was too short to wear on it's own. The week she was born I got over my hatred of the color pink, which is a good thing because she naturally gravitates toward it with no encouragement from me. It's actually fascinating to watch her choose colors that she thinks are pretty and then realize that those are the best colors for her skin tone. How did she become such a girly girl? I have no idea except that she was born that way. Just as the Boy was born loud and fast and aggressive. I say

Before I became a mother I thought I'd be really good at it. I imagined myself as this patient and gentle person who would always listen to her children and wisely dole out justice and mercy to my adoring brood. Then I had children. I held on to this imaginary persona for a while, but as more children were added it gradually slipped away and I am faced with the reality of who I am. I am not a good person, I'm not all that patient, and I'm not very gentle. I get angry, I'm astoundingly selfish, I feel sorry for myself all the time. There are days, weeks even, when I play the perfect mother very well. But when the heat is on and I am at the end of my strength the ugly mommy comes out to play. I feel fury erupting in me because they dared to wet the bed again, through a diaper. I resist the urge to grab their little bodies and shake some sense into them, I feel the edge creep into my voice as I get louder and louder when I talk to them. I just want them to go away and

Today I put socks on the Boy's feet and then wrapped them in several layers of duct tape. He looked like he was wearing silver ballet slippers, but I didn't tell him that, I told him they looked like spaceman shoes. His way too small but all that he has runners had been abducted by his daddy; taken against their will in the foot well of the car were they had been abandoned by the barefoot loving boy. This isn't usually a problem except today we were getting on a bus to ride downtown to buy, of all things, shoes. I'm usually happy to let him run around barefoot where we live, but I'd rather he didn't encounter city streets unshod, call me crazy. I'm pleased to report that duct tape shoes seem to keep feet safe. They are however very goofy looking, and not that easy to remove when trying on new shoes. Once we got them off I realized that we had to buy shoes before we left that store, or he'd be walking home barefoot. I hadn't thought to bring a roll o

There is a trick that musicians use when practicing in order to get better at performing difficult pieces. We speed it up so that we’re playing it way faster than we’ll ever have to play it for an audience and we practice it at that speed for a while until we get used to it. Then we slow it back down to the right speed and suddenly it feels easy, our fingers move with grace across the keys and the music comes out smoothly, seemingly without effort. I wish I could do that with kids. This past weekend the Boy went with the Genius Husband on a boys and dads only camping trip. He had a blast. I spent the weekend with my two girls and it seemed so easy to only have two again to deal with. Bed times went smoothly, so did breakfast and getting ready for church. It wasn’t until last night when I was once again struggling to deal with juggling three short people and maneuvering them all into bed that I realized just how hard these last several months have been in dealing with three rather tha

I wrote a post, but I seem to have misplaced it. This week I started seriously hunting down ideas to make money from home. I had no idea there was so much free information available on the Internet . Of course, I can't actually work until I get my paperwork out of the way, but I started to explore options. Last night I sent a writing sample to an organic food type of company looking to launch a new website. It was my first time applying for a freelance writing job, though I did a short stint as a copy writer the year before I married the Genius Husband. I did not think my first ever application would even be noticed. I got a response, a positive response. They liked my writing and wanted to know how much I charge. I'm so excited, and depressed all at once. Excited because it seems as though I may be able to pull this off, writing for money I mean, and depressed because I can't technically do it yet. I'm hoping I can talk them into paying me in food, lots of high end