-
The END.
At 5:30am, I was ripped out of a deep sleep by a loud, shrill beeping alarm. The first time it went off my eyes opened immediately and I hoped it was a one-off, but when it began to repeat I woke M to ask what it was. First, we thought it was the downstairs hallway fire alarm. Nope. Then we checked the upstairs fire alarm. Nope. It continued to scream, and each beep seemed to get louder and more insistent. My home has high ceilings, so as the alarm sounded it was extremely loud on EVERY floor. Terrified it would wake the baby or the children at such a godforsaken…
-
Cutting Out Sugar*
Two weeks ago today, I woke up at 7am craving a chocolate bar. I lay in bed, thinking about what I “needed” at the grocery store that would give me a reasonable excuse to go get one. As I got into the shower, still thinking about the chocolate bar, I realized that I had a problem. I knew that I hadn’t been eating very well, but seriously craving a chocolate bar before breakfast was new for me. I stood in front of my mirror, took a hard look at myself and knew I needed to make a change. A reset. I have a addictive personality, particularly with sweets, and all…
-
How many children do you have?
I’m often asked this question. It’s usually by old friends or acquaintances I haven’t seen in a while, or by new friends and people I meet in our new town. The thing is, I always struggle to answer it. I know what the “comfortable” answer is. The easy answer is what they can see. Four. I smile and say that I have four children. Usually that’s enough to have someone raise their eyebrows and say, “Oh wow! What a big family!”. And we are. We are a big family. …but for me, we’re a little bigger. And as we head into September each year, I feel it a little more…
-
I can’t believe it’s the end of August.
I was reflecting on our summer the other day as I scrolled social media and saw photos of families on trips or at Wonderland or at Water Parks or other really good adventures. It all looked amazing. …and then I started to feel bad. We didn’t do any big trips this summer. In fact, it’s been pretty low key. I began to feel guilty that I hadn’t tried to do “more” with the kids. Yes, we have a new baby, but other people take their babies to these places… should I have tried harder? Then I saw this photo that M snapped the other night. It’s just a bunch of…
-
Tonight was a perfect summer evening.
As we were sitting down to dinner, there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see three boys our kids have become friends with, asking if S, H & P could come out and play. My kids began to shovel food into their mouths, and it wasn’t long before they were sprinting out the door to meet their friends. Now in a mostly kid-free house, I moved into the living room to feed W. A moment later I heard the front door open, and H called out, “Mom, can we have a water fight?” In a whirlwind they changed into their swim suits, grabbed their super soakers…
