Words

I fell in love with words in the fourth grade. I love words. I love books. I love that words can make a picture in your mind, or tell a story, or make you cry. I love reading stories of people from all over the world, to travel the world, if only in my mind. People ask how I have time to read, having five children, and I tell them that I just do. I don't scrapbook, I don't sew, I don't bake. I clean my house, play with my children and read.

Tonight, Andrew was reading his first Hardy Boys book during cartoon time because Tom and Jerry is too childish for him, and he is stuck on all of his Nintendo DS games. So he read. He kept asking me what words meant. Words like duds and reluctantly and hootenanny. And I began to wonder, how do I know what all those words mean? I don't remember asking my mother while reading a book, but maybe I did. Maybe I just eventually figured it out, or guessed. I still do some of that if I come across a word I don't fully know the meaning of. There are so many words. I felt as though I needed a thesaurus so I could explain to my eight year old what a sleuth is. It's easy to know what they mean, it's another thing to explain it to someone else.

I have hope that my children will love words like I do. My oldest two are both avid readers and read well above grade level. Michael hasn't started kindergarten yet, but is already starting to read. Words are amazing. We live in a world full of stimulations; video games, television shows, movies, computer games. It's so lovely to be able to sit, quietly, and get lost in a story. I think Andrew is starting to see that. I just hope it never becomes a chore and that he can enjoy reading!

Ready, Set, Go

You have a maximum of twenty minutes to clean, do laundry and organize your house. Go! This is my life with a non-nap-taking baby. Every once in a while she will sleep for a couple of hours, but more often than not, I have to race around as soon as I put her down and see how many things I can get done in twenty minutes. It's kind of like a game, only not fun. It makes me appreciate my other children who were all good reliable nap-takers. Well, I've learned my lesson now! So for those of you with children that take nice long naps every day, enjoy it!! Apparently all babies are not made equal. And now I'm off to see how much I can get done. I think I have about ten minutes left! Ready, set, go!!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

St. Patrick's Day isn't a major holiday, but at our house it's just as fun as easter. My children's preschool has a tradition of setting a trap to catch a leprechaun. They never catch one, but the leprechaun always leaves treats for the children. So last year, Michael determined that he should try again at home. He and his siblings set elaborate traps in the basement in hopes of catching a leprechaun at home. And so started a tradition. I just couldn't dissappoint the kids. So I went to the store and bought gold candy and little St. Patrick's Day cups. I left the candy in place of the pennies and cups under their traps. Oh the joy!! They were so excited that they had almost caught a leprechaun. So of course, this year they had to try again. I was able to find these giant chocolate gold coins, along with Rolo's and other gold candy. I also found these cute green cups, which I filled with candy. The children were so excited they could hardly contain themselves. I made it look as though the leprechaun and barely escaped and they have spent the morning discussing the leprechaun's trickiness! Oh, and they discovered green milk for breakfast and decided that was the work of the leprechaun as well. Who am I to disuade them?

And so, with green tattoos and St. Patrick's Day pins, I send my happy, chocolate filled children off to enjoy a holiday that many people forget. My husband warned me last year that I had started something that I couldn't soon quit. But I've decided I'm ok with that! It gives me great joy to see them so happy and excited this morning! Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Independence

It's amazing how quickly children grow up. If we continued learning at the rate that children do, we'd all be brilliant. Unfortunately, the older we get, the less we learn. Since Katherine was officially potty trained a couple of weeks ago, she has started acting so old and independent. She loves being big sister and she loves to do everything all by herself. One of her biggest struggles is asking for help.

Yesterday, I sat nursing the baby while the kids were upstairs doing their Saturday chores. Katherine came down with the toilet cleaner and asked me to open it. I assumed that she was asking on behalf of Lillie since she usually 'helps' Lillie with her part of cleaning the bathroom. About ten minutes later Michael comes down, looking sheepish. I asked him what was up, and after some coercing (we'd recently discussed tattling) he informs me that Katherine had poured toilet cleaner all over the tub. I said to him, "Isn't she helping Lillie?" He informs me that no, she's cleaning it all by herself. When I was finally able to get up there, Lillie was rinsing out the toilet cleaner from the tub and Katherine looked quite proud of herself. The downside was that the cleaner had a lot of bleach in it and Katherine got it all over the front of one of her spring dresses that was my favorite. We had a little discussion about waiting for help, but who can scold a child who is just trying to clean! She thinks she is quite grown up!!

Fabulous Friday

There's something about Friday that makes the day doable. It's the end of the work/school week and there's a light at the end of the tunnel. It's the day that my five year old looks forward to all week because the kids have 'early out' which means they get home at 1:30. (I wish I had early out when I was a kid!) He's always excited when I tell him it's Friday and he waits impatiently for the kids to come home. The other night, Dad was home a little earlier than usual and Michael asked him if he had 'early out' from work. It was a good chuckle for everyone! I wish Dad had more 'early out' days.

Friday is also often date night. I get to ditch the kids and enjoy my spouse. And I don't have to cook dinner. That's always a treat! Although date night for us is usually dinner out and then either Barnes and Noble or Costco. The excitement of married life! Every once in a while we do something more interesting, but often it's just wandering Costco and looking at all the fun things we would buy if we had millions of dollars. But of course you can't leave Costco for under $100 bucks. And that's just buying the boring stuff!

Enough of my rambling. Yay for Friday, yay for date night and yay for not cooking dinner! I hope your day is looking as lovely as mine!

The mommy badge

When I was growing up, I would occasionally hear my mother say that she wanted to turn in her mommy badge. I'm not sure I ever completely understood what she meant until I became a mother. And I must say that as wonderful as motherhood is, there are days when I want to turn in my mommy badge, move to Africa and change my name to anything other than mom.

Today has been one of those days when, no matter how good my intentions, I just seem to be in a fowl mood. I have the intention of being calm, patient, loving, caring and kind, but what comes out of my mouth is the exact opposite. So after snapping at my children, I take a deep breathe, count to ten, apologize and pray that bedtime comes quickly. I think I can safely blame some of my insanity on lack of sleep and the rest on hormones. Although it would help if my three year old would quit crying at the drop of a hat, and if the stupid garage would go up the first time instead of me having to make it go up and down twenty times before it finally opens. Stupid garage.

The nice thing about other jobs is that you could, if you really wanted to, quit. You can't quit motherhood. You can lock yourself in the bathroom and pray for patience, but children never go away. You can't really move to Africa and you know deep down that even if you changed your name, every time a small child called for mom, you'd probably look to see if you were the 'mom' being searched for.

So, I'm going to go suck down the rest of my Pepsi, (it's not even diet today) pray for bedtime and hope I wake up on the right side of the bed tomorrow. Oh, and today, I want to turn in my mommy badge!!

Kite flying

Kite flying is one of those childhood activities that has always slightly eluded me. I try oh so hard, and yet have only gotten a kite up in the air a handful of times. It seems the conditions are never quite right. Or, more likely, the kite flyer is never quite right.

I took the children to the park and while we were there I thought it seemed like perfect kite flying conditions. So we drove home, got the kite and went back. Well, after about five minutes, Michael says, "I don't think it's gonna work mom." Now keep in mind that I am doing this by myself with a baby strapped to my front. Not the easiest thing to do. I told Michael to shush and quit being pessimistic. So I continued in my kite flying efforts, running back and forth on the field, trying not to curse every time the string got tangled and the kite came crashing down. Katherine happily ran after me, but Michael, being the realist, ditched me to go play on the equipment. I'm sure I looked quite ridiculous running around with a kite that never got more than fifteen feet up in the air. And in the end, I gave up, packed the kids up, came home and put everybody down for a nap. Katherine was quite dissappointed and I told her maybe we'll try when the big kids get home from school. Kite flying isn't really that hard, is it? There's probably some technic unbeknownst to me. Perhaps my 8 year old will shed some light on the subject this afternoon. Or maybe my neighbors will just get another good laugh at the woman running around like a crazy lady again!