john's mom works

this is 38. grocery store sushi and cake, 8pm, alone. and for a minute, i let it feel every bit that sad and blue. because honestly, sometimes things feel sad and blue. and one thing i am learning is that i can't deny that sad and blue. i gotta sit with it, feel it, cry a tear or three in my mediocre cake, and just be. this is 38. i am not 100% sure what i expected, but i had high hopes of a lovely birthday evening with my fellas, and instead i picked up the three crankiest angriest bullyingest boys in the universe when i went to the daycare. they were mean to each other and didn't want anything to do with anything i had to say. and instead of enjoying hanging out, we argued and fought and they went to bed unhappy and i sat down for my un-exciting birthday dinner, alone. but another thing i am learning is that routine is my friend. so i started my evening routine, finding my rhythm. a few minutes of sweeping and cleaning. a few minutes of prep for tomorrow, lunch...

annapolis rock  1988 thirty years ago, my family moved from denton, tx, to a tiny rural town in the mountains of maryland. i remember being sad as we sold our things (we were packing everything into two old cars to drive north) and actually crying over the sale of our washing machine. transition does strange things to kids' emotions. yet i remember arriving, excited, into this strange green mountainous place, and i remember even more anticipation as we found a home ("the old taylor place") and got ready for school to start at smithsburg elementary. third grade -- the same grade john starts this school year. i remember meeting my first friend on a dusty dirt road - the "alley" that ran behind the high school tennis courts and athletic fields from our home just at the town's outskirts to her home just outside downtown. (if you've never known a small town downtown, that's probably hard to envision). it was an amazing place to be a child. 199...

a little backyard chaos and shenanigans i will forever remember this summer as a time of shifting sibling dynamics. john and charlie have always alternated between playing beautifully together and beating the snot out of each other -- pretty standard fare for brothers, from what i understand. they are each others' best friend and arch nemesis, rolled up into one jack-and-jill-bathroom-sharing package. it's made for amazing times when they create and build and explore and entertain each other. it's made for challenging times when they get under each others' skin, antagonize and bully one another, and scream. man, can those kids scream. when bean first arrived, of course, not much changed. if anything, the bigs got closer. they got good at occupying each other when the baby needed "too much" attention. the flare ups didn't stop, of course, but i wouldn't have expected them to. but now at two, bean is a real person with real ideas and real ima...

this blog is not about my kids (gasp!). or, not exactly, though they are such a force that it seems everything in my universe is colored by my experiences with them. it's about how we're all so tired. more precisely, it's about how we keep talking about how we're all so tired. in the past several days i've seen a number of articles cross my feed on the topic of "why millennials are so tired," (almost ignored that one as i don't identify as a millennial) or "the fetishization of tiredness" or "the cult of exhaustion" ... i'm not linking any of them, as i haven't found the articles themselves to be particularly interesting or insightful.  but it did make me stop and think about how true this is about my life, and probably yours. someone asks how you are, and you say, "i'm good, but i'm exhausted." you hear someone with "less" on their plate than you say they're tired, and you think (and ma...

kitchen bandit 3.0 my dear sweet little bean, you are two! you are two. how have we had you for two years -- the unexpected perfect capper for our little family? i still think you are in my belly, or maybe a teensy little baby bean in my carrier on my chest. but no! you are a dude now. a HAPPY dude: i've never known a baby (ehem, toddler) who smiled so much, and laughed so much. your sparkly little eyes light up so bright and you brighten everyone's days, from your family to your friends to your teachers to strangers at stores who are taken with your little impish grin. you are fearless and very big for your little body. i think you think you are the same as your brothers, that anything they can do you can do and nothing is stopping you. you have discovered the pool this summer, and you love to swim and "play water" and splash in our kiddie pool in the backyard, too. you love koalas. you call them kolalas. it makes me smile every time you see one in a book...

crazy and kind and loving and wild dear john, eight years ago almost as i am writing this, you made me a mommy. eight years, kiddo. how is that possible? from the moment you arrived you were infectious and vibrant and larger than life. at eight, you are still all of those things, only maybe more! your energy is limitless, but so is your heart and your compassion and my goodness, love, that smile lights a room. you have grown so much this year. oh, you are taller and none of your pants fit and suddenly i can't really carry you as well anymore (tho i won't stop trying), but that's not what i mean. you know yourself so well, you know how to work so hard, and you have made such strides in your ability to choose well and wisely and be the kind and amazing dude i have always known you to be. you are a great big brother (tho please stop telling your brothers they're wrong, they won't like that much) and i love to see you leading the other fellas in creative playi...

dear bean, when your daddy and i found out we were going to have another baby, we were pretty scared. we didn't know how to be parents to three chaos monkeys and didn't know what our family would look like with a new babe. it turns out we didn't have a thing to worry about, little one. from the moment you arrived you've been the happiest baby i've ever met. just like your brothers, you charm the people around you and endear yourself to everyone. when we came home from the birth center that night, john and charlie fell in love and immediately wanted to hold you and love you. you fit perfectly into a bean-shaped gap we didn't even know our family had. you've brought smiles and laughs to every member of your family every one of these past 365 days. even when you feel icky, like today on your birthday, your dear spirit shines through and you bring such light into the world. your daddy and i  are really grateful that god knew we needed you. your oldest...

goodnight selfie dear john, i just finished putting you to bed for the last time as a six year old. you thought it was great to give me the last ever "face shake" (our secret goodnight kisses) as a six year old boy. i thought it was pretty great, too. you have grown SO MUCH this year. not just gotten taller - though you have, you're huge - but gotten better and awesomer and amazinger. you are in control of your body and your actions in a way that is so very impressive. you work so hard to do things well, and take such pride in making people happy. you are generous, and compassionate, and you amaze me with your capacity to give to your little brothers to help them be happy. you are silly and fun and have a wicked sense of humor - even if i'm sometimes too old to get some of your jokes. you're a fierce hugger and a brave tooth-loser. one thing that makes me so proud is that you want so badly for things to be fair and right. they aren't always, ...

my pumpkins in the pumpkin patch i started writing this post in october. that's why there are pumpkins. that's why bean is small. that's why charlie looks like ... i don't know, a pound puppy or something with his shaggy hair in his eyes. that i started this post five months ago and it remains largely unwritten - that there is also an unfinished post on a belated birth story for ben ... it is indicative of where our family is these days. we are happy - look at those beautiful boys in a pumpkin patch! we are grateful - we have so many blessings to count and recount and positively bathe in. we are together - there are so many of us! ok, there are only five of us. but that is a lot when two are loud blustery beautiful big boys and one is a sweet busy baby boy. oh, yeah, and technically we're six, with the world's orneriest dog. we are also certifiably insane. and by that i mean, everyone else is fine and i am crazy. * * * before we found out ben...

boys in collared shirts. i've missed this blog. and this blog has missed me, too - it's missed a lot of change in our family, a lot of distance covered and a lot of growth, and oh yeah the addition of a third son. it's missed outings and discoveries and pictures and trials and tribulations. but mostly, it's missed pieces of the development of three really cool kids. and the evolution of their mommy as she tries to adapt to having three really cool kids and a really cool job and oh by the way a really cool husband and a pain in the ass but also cool dog. and i, have missed writing. so i shall try again. john (+charlie + ben)'s mom works. and writes. and loves. and welcomes you back to our adventure.

the cause of - and solution to - most of my life's frustrations. i did not ring in the new year as i had hoped. in fact, i did not ring in the new year at all. the new year arrived somewhere in between rounds of charlie in his bedroom door screaming "me want to go downstairs!" and me, patiently as i could muster, placing him gently back in his bed and telling him i loved him, goodnight. i finally collapsed in my bed around 2:30 a.m. after he finally, FINALLY, fell into a mommy-milk induced sleep and let me place him in his bed to stay. my last thought was a whispered prayer that please may these children sleep. at 7:11 a.m., the tiniest feet in the house padded next to my bedside and asked to sleep with me, which translated to throwing elle belle at daddy and eating my chapstick. so much for sleep. and i was mad. i didn't yell at charlie, but i did grump at both he and john to go upstairs and play. and when my husband got up to tend to them a wh...

or, how to ring out the old year when you're an ornery two year old 3:42 a.m. wailing from upstairs wakes me from a dead sleep. it's the big bad kind of crying, where you just know someone needs you. i head up the stairs in a groggy daze, softly calling "hey, charlie, mama's coming," as he howls for his mommy. his voice sounds oddly close considering the closed door to his room. when i walk into his room, though, he's not there. the door to the bathroom between john and charlie's rooms is open, as is the door to john's room beyond. i walk through, and there i find charlie on his knees in desperation in his brother's room. best i can tell, charlie woke up, and decided to get brother. but when he went to brother's room the bed was empty - because john was sleeping in the teepee across the room. devastated that he couldn't find brother, charlie just howled. john slept as i collected charlie, closed the appropriate doors, and...

these boys in their "boats." i'm not going to lie: there are days when i go to bed defeated and exhausted. there are days when i feel like there is no way i am possibly up to being the mom of these two boys, and also a wife and a professional and a friend and whatever else i am. those days are rough. today, though - today is NOT one of those days. these boys rocked my world today, and i couldn't be more grateful. daddy's at a football game tonight, so i've been "single parenting" (in big ol' fat quotes because i can't pretend to know even a piece of what that's really like). this is not a coherently themed blog post. it's just a collection of stories of ways my children amazed me today. #1: light is beautiful. after charlie and i dropped john off at school this morning, we were cruising the additional mile or two up the road to charlie's school. we were talking about his friends, and the stuffed dog he was hol...

spelling his sight words with cereal so much of the "public" attention i've paid john lately has been about our challenges - how to cope with sensory processing disorder, how to behave in kindergarten, etc. but every single day, john reminds me what a blessing he is to me. he has a perspective on life, and the world around him, that brings me into focus. he has a way of saying things that changes me and makes me better, every single day. last night about ten minutes after he'd gone to bed, i heard a slightly angst-ridden "mommy?" from upstairs. expecting a normal "i need some more water" or "my sheets aren't straight," i went to check on him. instead, he explained that he kept hearing "the mountain king" song from his music class in his brain. the sounds his diffuser made were "changing into the music" and it was a scary song and it wouldn't go away. i immediately understood, because his brai...

in the video above, charlie is dramatically re-enacting a fall that never actually happened. see how deliberately he steps on the cup he didn't actually trip over? and tumbles to the ground he didn't actually land on? we've been talking about drama a lot in our family the past couple days. here are a couple of things we're in agreement ARE drama: yelling really loud when you barely bump your toe screaming at your brother when he takes a toy you were playing with pretending to cry when you don't get what you want for dinner grunting at a parent who won't cave in to your every desire squealing "mommmmyyyyy" at the top of your lungs from the playroom because you want some water if you thought little girls had a corner on drama, i can assure you they do not. on the plus side, when we talk about drama, there is usually some laughter to come. as in the video below ... where charlie dramatically re-re-enacts a fall that never actually ...

pajamaed monkeys ham it up. it's friday. are you dancing yet? i'm dancing. not only is our whole family maybe finally getting over the various cruddy illnesses we have had for the past two weeks, but ... drumroll please ... john had another great day at kindergarten today. for those of you not keeping track as diligently as i am (which is, you know, like the whole world), that's SIX straight days of awesome. which is a NEW RECORD. and i'm dancing. i'm also dancing because of that little pup on the left in the pic up there. his conversations on the way to school in the morning make my day so much brighter. yesterday, he told me all the things he misses when he's at school: "i miss my couch. i miss my chair. i miss my elle belle." but then he paused. "i ... see my friends? see amy? see halle? see 'livia? i have GREAT day!" what a skill, to talk yourself out of an i-don't-wanna-leave-the-house funk. and today was...

this kid ... on sunday, we paid a much overdue visit to see our friends at the eight house fire station in mckinney. the b shift guys were the ones who delivered charlie two years ago in the back of their now-retired ambulance. (see charlie's birth story here  and the story of our first visit to the eight house here ). it never ceases to amaze me how happy these guys are to see charlie - and their hospitality extends to john, too. the boys got to play ping pong in the bay of the fire house, get on and off the ambulance and fire truck, turn on lights and ring bells. every time, charlie's firefighter "uncles" give them hats and temporary tattoos and just seem to be so happy to see my boys. and two years later, i am still so grateful that i had the support of the b shift that crazy day. i think often about how charlie's birth story could be one fraught with isolation and fear. i was, after all, in the antiseptic back of an ambulance with strangers - all me...

he's a handsome little sucker. a disclaimer right up front: i am SO PROUD of all of my friends whose little kindergartners and other young ones who are sharing their kids' academic and citizenship successes after the first quarter of school. please don't read any bitterness into this blog, because i feel none. i am excited for your straight a's and certificates, and i leap for joy at how well your babies are adjusting. in fact i always figured i would be that mom - oh, like my friends, i would tone it down and not be TOO ridiculous. but i'd be trumpeting the great grades and awards. my kid's hands full of stickers and signs, grinning ear to ear at how well he's performed. he's smart enough, after all, and a hard worker and a sweet fellow. of COURSE he'd be in the top of everything. this summer, when we were discovering john's sensory processing disorder and just beginning to understand how it would impact him, a good friend said this ...

this guy right here ... i tell a lot of stories on this blog, sharing ups and downs of these two beautiful blond boys we’re lucky enough to share our lives with. and there are lots of stories to share, because they are active and awesome kids who make us laugh and cry, make us rue our weaknesses and be so proud of our strengths. no stories today, though. today i want to talk about transparency. there’s a strangeness to the era of social media. we share the most intimate details of some parts of our lives, yet edit heavily to portray the “best” of our selves. but the best of our selves is truly that we are human, and multifaceted, and dimensional – that we do not fit into happy smiley boxes of vacation pictures and beautifully decorated walls and immaculate homes and elaborately cooked meals. (tho there is nothing wrong with any of those things – but we are more.) shew, that’s an elaborate preface for a little blog entry. (another little preface here: i'm ...

exploring the doctor's stool while we wait for blood tests to come back. i try to maintain a pretty positive and, some might say, even pollyannaish perspective on our lives. nothing is gained by dwelling and festering, right? but i can say without equivocation that last week sucked. charlie came home monday afternoon with a high fever. he's my fever baby - if he's going to bother getting one, it's going to hit 103+ - so i wasn't too alarmed. rest and fever reducer and he'd be fine. but then tuesday he broke out in crazy hives. so my husband and his mom (who happened to be visiting) brought him to the doctor just in case. viral fever with rash was the diagnosis. ok, treat the symptoms, care for the cranky babe, he'll be fine. wednesday morning the hives were much worse - covering probably 60% of his body. i called the nurse. we discussed, and agreed that as long as there was no swelling around the mouth and no breathing issues we'd just kee...