She Laughs at the Days

...she may decide to go to the bathroom first. Then she'll notice that a child left wet clothes on the bathroom floor and go outside to call them in to pick them up. That's when she'll see the 2 year old standing in the driveway with his swim suit laying nearby, pooping. She'll haul the 2 year old inside to clean him off and make sure he knows to come in and use the potty next time, and make another child clean up the poo with a shovel. When she goes back outside to make sure the poo is cleaned up she'll see the neighbor kids feeding the little dog chicken bones. She'll stop to tell them not to feed the dog. Which is when she'll remember there is laundry still hanging that she needs to bring in. So she'll fold it and put it in the basket and bring it inside. Once back inside she'll head to the kitchen, only to see that the counters are still a mess from lunch. She'll wipe the counters off and start thinking about what to make for di

Sometimes I wish I had the money to buy a pretty blog, one that's properly designed and loads fast and stuff. Sometimes I wish we had a well designed fast loading website for The Charis Project too. Sometimes I wish I had the perfectly posed and coordinated family photo, the kind other people seem to take every 3 months or so and then blow up real big and stick on the wall over their couch in an artful arrangement that looks just like Pinterest. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed by giant things that I fixate on small things like that and end up starting an argument with my husband over trying to plan a family photo session. Sometimes I wish I had some idea already of where we're going to live, and what kind of house and just, please, somewhere without 20 extra people to bump into unexpectedly when I'm just looking for breakfast. (I exaggerate. There are only 8 kids, 2 babies, and 9 adults when everyone is here at the same time. While we're at

In case anyone reading here is also planning to pack up 4 kids, a pregnant belly, and well, Aaron packed himself, and move your entire household overseas for a year or two at least, here are a few of the things I now know we should have brought along. (Feel free to pay the international shipping fees to send me some of these things.) This is in no way a comprehensive list. We borrowed Settlers of Catan this weekend 1. Good Board Games . I'm not sure what I was thinking my kids would do all the time when we were here, play outside in the dirt all day? Well, they do a lot of that, but there are times when they come inside, to escape the heat, or to rest, or it's night and there are mosquitoes outside, and they get bored and need things to do. Why oh why did I leave all the good board games behind? I even gave some of them away! Now, I don't mind no longer having to endure endless rounds of Candyland, but games like Settlers of Catan, and Uno are fun and good for their b

When you wake up from an unintentional 3 hour nap, having fallen asleep while lying down to get the baby to sleep, and your first thought is to be angry at your husband for having the nerve to sit there while you slept and not bother to wake you, it may be a sign you are swimming deeper in a postpartum hormone sea than you have yet come to realize. Of course, if the nap ended at 12:30 am, and you still have a kitchen to clean, are itchy and sticky and sweaty and still need a shower, and had a few other things you had planned to do before bed tonight the frustration felt might be warranted. Especially since once you wake up enough to do those things you will find yourself wide awake at 2 am and know that your sleep cycles for the night are completely messed up and tomorrow will be an exhausted day now, no matter what. But the irritation at the man who let you sleep, for not reading your mind and automatically knowing how much it would frustrate you to be left sleeping with so much to