All the patience

When you spent thousands to fix up your house and hundreds on new tires and more hundreds at the dentist and you're down to your last dollar and you're praying for all the patience and laughing so you don't cry when your nine-year-old wants to know when you'll take her to get a pedicure.

Stressful and awesome

So, the relationship between the work and parenting parts of my life pretty much looks like this.

Don't get me wrong, I love and cherish working in the same building where my kids go to school. In many ways it makes the challenge of balancing work life and home life not just bearable, but enjoyable. It's also really hard. I'm late-or-nearly-late pretty much every day because of 1,000 different reasons no matter how early I wake up. I was awake at 4:45 this morning. Still late. And then--teacher friends, I know you'll get this--the 15 minutes before school starts are packed with little things to do to get ready for the day, and the kids are running around my room and asking me a million questions and worrying about forgotten items. Then at the end of the day, there's no quiet, reflective ride home. There's recorder-playing and crying and fighting over the front seat. It's just...stressful.

But then a lot of the time, the close living quarters of work and family is pretty fun. As the girls get older, I think they're figuring out what it means for me to be a math teacher (plus several other more ambiguous roles). They ask great questions and I have LOTS of fun making their homework take twice as long by making them think about all kinds of related concepts. This morning was the best, though. As usual, the girls were drawing and writing math problems on my board and Nellie made this: a "smiley face made of smiley faces." 

I got to teach her all about fractals. I drew the Sierpinski triangle. I pulled out my fractal book. We talked about satellite images of earth and broccoli and mountain ranges. It was awesome.

These are a few of my favorite (Annie) things

Annie's choice for her poetry recital was The Oyster Family:
"An oyster boy, an oyster girl, an oyster dad, a mother of pearl."

This one was actually from last year. It's been on our fridge that long and I just love it.
But it's time for it to retire and I want to remember it forever!

Excellent use of the Oxford comma

Good Friday

I had good intentions of attending the Good Friday service at church tonight. We didn't make it because, well, you know. Computer charger left at school. Dirty stove (long story). Easter grocery shopping. Boys practically falling asleep at the dinner table. Five kids. So the girls put together a "home church" service, which is one of their favorite things to do anyway.

One of these years, I'm sure we'll all make it to a Good Friday service. Maybe even on time. Until then, I'll enjoy cuddling up on the couch with DJ and Kevin in the candlelight, listening to Nellie give a sermon and to Annie eagerly read the Easter story. Too eager to stop at the crucifixion and burial, like I told her was traditional on Good Friday. Afterward, DJ told me it was the best church service he'd ever been to. I might not go that far (in case one of the pastors is reading this), but it was very nice.

Still laughing

My dad's house was filled with lady bugs. Eddie couldn't remember what they were called, so he referred to them as "stink ladies" and "lady spiders."

The girls and DJ spent the better part of one afternoon of our trip playing "baby birds." DJ pretended to be a woodpecker. I overhead DJ referring to his beak as his "pecker" and made a mental note to clear that up for him later. At some point, an actual woodpecker flew up to the window and Nellie excitedly called DJ over. Kevin asked him, "do you know how to tell the boy woodpeckers from the girls?" [Actual answer - the boys have a red spot on the back of their heads.] DJ responded confidently, "the boys have longer peckers!"

DJ wore his Captain America: Civil War hat to a Civil War reenactment at Woldumar last weekend. I didn't get it. He kept pointing out what a great hat it was, and I kept saying, "oh yes, it is going to be sunny today and that will keep your face out of the sun." It wasn't until he asked Kevin when Captain America and Iron Man were going to show up that I figured it out.

I was sitting on the couch minding my own business when DJ walked up, hugged me, and said, "Mom, do NOT NOT smell." I thought maybe he was just learning about double negatives and was reminding me to breathe or something. So I took a nice, deep, stinky breath. DJ started giggling uncontrollably. The kid farted on me.

Mary Cate is 7 months old

She used to be 5 and 6 months old, but you'll have to take my word for it! Mary Cate had an eventful 7th month. The week of her half birthday she got two teeth, and she's eating solids and sitting up like a champ. She survived some kind of 10-day cold/flu, which left her sleeping at night worse than ever, but also maybe a stronger immune system...?

Her somewhat serious personality plus an adorable smile plus the loudest, most dramatic cry you've ever heard = never a dull moment plus lots of snuggling.

Some obligatory statistics because I like to look back at these kinds of things: At her 6-month appointment, Mary Cate weighed 15 lbs. 7 oz., was 26.5 inches long, and her head circumference was 17.5 inches.

And now for some of my fave Mary Cate pictures! (Sorry about the picture quality; it's what I get for letting her chew on my phone and never using a real camera.)

Mary Cate with her homemade half-birthday hat and the best nanny in the world

Cute outfit that never saw church after all because of sick siblings

THIS GIRL LOVES TO EAT! (Mom genes.)

Annie gave her a hairdo

Trying the swings for the first time