Lasts and Library and Church and Feelings: Summer Begins!

Occupying my brain space this week:

1.) Nathan has learned to do some farting noise thing with his hand and his knee-pit, and it is making me batty.

2.) Mark and the girls have been doing random dance parties in the living room the last couple evenings, and the most recent version seemed to be Ace of Base. Everyone should be so lucky as to have a co-parent who helps teach children the important things in life. (I'm being absolutely sincere.) (Picture me with heart shapes in my eyes.)

3.) Our public library has had a long-standing policy that your fines will max out at $10. Like, however much you owe, $10 will clear it all out. So for years, I have just... left it at $10. I don't pay it, they never ask, and it never gets higher, even when I keep books out overdue. (Yes, I know, I am terrible, shut up.) So anyway they just re-did their website, and I logged in to request a book, and suddenly I owe like... a lot more than $10. What happened? Did the policy change, or just the website? I'm skeered. (Update: just the website changed. I paid the whole giant debt with $10. And yes I paid it because I decided I feel bad about it.)

4.) I have hard church feelings. There's not a one-sentence way to boil it down, but maybe... feeling unsettled in what place I have right now? Anyway. I am taking a tiny break from choir, partly to avoid some toxic people and feelings (which usually I am great at avoiding and handing out grace as I pass by, but these days feels hard), but mostly so I can go worship with my family, in the pews, without dragging them into the chancel with me (which they do, gladly, but it has started to feel complicated) -- and thus try to reframe church from being a thing that mom and dad need to go to, where they get dragged along, and back into a place that's also for them, where they are wanted and needed and valued and belong in their own right. It has gotten out of balance.

5.) Last week was a horrible sad time with my family, and we will be burying my Grandpa this weekend. He was old but it was also fast, and I feel exhausted of the emails and planning and I need some room for my sadness, and I will have more to say about him and his life later, but now I don't have the bandwidth for real words about it. We miss him. It sucks. He was wonderful. He was my last surviving grandparent. He was a good man, in the least trite way one could possible use those words.

6.) Last week I had my last day with Ali. (Well, not my last day. She is still my niece and she better come over here and swim every weekend so I can see her.) But my last day as her daytime caregiver. It has been a heck of a year juggling four kids but most days I think I did it well, and I will have a bond with her forever because of it, I hope. She is a funny sweet energetic bright-eyed little girl, and it has been an honor to be amongst the first humans on earth to truly know her, and love her. I am also glad for the empty summer stretching before us, with lots of time for the kids before Anneliese starts her school years and I go back to work. It's both/and.

7.) Speaking of last days, Nathan had his last day of school yesterday and he is done with second grade and he is still so tiny and still my baby and what is even happening?? On Friday they did a "wax museum" biography project where they dressed up as a person from history and gave little prepared speech about them. Nathan was Walt Disney and he was ADORABLE.

Walt Disney and George Washington were great friends, didn't you know?

A Day in the Life

Remember a year ago when everyone was posting a day in their lives, and it was fun and interesting to read and see how we all spend our days, but I was too full of Feelings and Exhaustion that I didn't have the bandwidth to take pics all day, much less write about it?

Okay, so, I am doing it now. Because the Ali thing is ending in a few weeks, and I have gotten through a whole year of juggling four kids, and for no other reason than my own memories, I want to remember what it was like. (On an average day.) (Not a terrible day.) (The terrible days I would like to forget.)

This is a Tuesday a couple weeks ago:

6:49am - My alarm goes off. I am still sleeping (about half of the days, I'm not, the kids are up or whatever) so I hit snooze four times before actually putting my feet on the floor. Mark is already at work, which is mind-boggling. (Normally we all sleep right through his wakeup and shower and exit, but some mornings Charlotte hears him leave and pitches a fit if he doesn't wave to her in her window. A FIT. Today is not one of those days. *hallelujah hands*)

7:00am - The kids are eating breakfast; they have yogurt on the bottom shelf of the fridge, and waffles on the bottom shelf of the freezer, and instant oatmeal in their pantry shelf. They mostly fend for themselves, although Nathan helps some with Charlotte. I can hear them and they are fine, so I keep hitting snooze.

7:20am - I finally roll out of bed, let Bowden out, and get dressed and washed and brushed. I always brush my teeth first thing (I have a complex where if I am going to run out of time to fully get ready before Nick or Barbara walks in with Ali, I think it's worse to have morning breath than not have on proper pants or a bra), which I know is ridiculous because I will have coffee in mere minutes and who brushes their teeth right before coffee? Me, stupidly, but whatever.

7:35am - I make my (first) coffee and sort through my list for the day. I made today's list last night, scheduling from my "to do this week" list that I made Sunday night (which is gleaned from my "this month" or "next month" lists that are rolled over and re-sorted every week). My list has everything I will do all day, including drinking this very coffee, and my next. Plus additional things that will crop up and I will do, and then write down and cross off.

Listen, because this is important: I am not sorry for even one bit of this list-begets-list process. I get sh!t done, and this is how.

7:50am  - Ali gets dropped off. My kids are finishing breakfast and I herd them into the bonus room and put the gate up so all four can play.

7:51am - Every day said playing begins with dumping all the foam blocks from their bag onto Ali's head and yelling "soft block shower!"  Every. Day. The blocks will then remain scattered all over the floor for the whole rest of the day, barely played with, until the painful cleanup hour before bedtime. I scowl at the soft block shower. It is no longer cute to me.

7:55am - I sort all of the laundry in our room into piles. Tuesday is laundry day for our stuff (Monday is for the kids, Wednesday is for the towels and sheets and kitchen cloths/napkins).

7:57am - At some point Nathan wanders into my room and checks his school meal menu and the weather, so he knows what to wear. (It's NC in May. Wear shorts. You don't need to look it up, buddy.) He also tells me what today's weather will be like in Holden Beach, Montreat, and Northfield MN. Like every day, I don't have the heart to tell him I give none craps. I smile and say mmm hmm.

8:00am - I start the first load of laundry and then go pack lunches. Today it's just for Anneliese and Nathan (who has determined that whatever was on his school menu didn't sound great). Nathan makes the sandwiches and fills the water bottles and I do the rest. He sneaks pieces of candy into both lunch boxes and I pretend not to notice. I write notes to both kids and sneak them into both lunch boxes and he pretends not to notice.

8:10am - All three girls have been bickering in the bonus room. Someone has pulled someone else's hair, someone colored on someone else's page, Ali has a crayon in her mouth. Normal stuff. I ignore it til lunches are done, and then break it up and send my girls upstairs to get dressed, which for some reason they aren't yet.

8:20am - I do some really excellent lazy parenting from my desk chair, nagging the bigs to brush their teeth, asking Anneliese to find her brush, telling Charlotte that no, "brushing" her hair with her hand doesn't count, and reminding people that no, I don't know where your shoes are, because you are in charge of your own crap. I text a little bit with Mark to say good morning and stuff, and he asks how I slept, which is always a Question, since I fail at sleep, frequently.

8:35am - I check the baby gate and lock the doors and leave Ali and Charlotte playing in the bonus room while Nathan and Anneliese get their lunch boxes/backpacks/cello and we walk to the bus stop at the end of our block. They make bets on whose ride will come first - Nathan's bus, or our friend who gives Anneliese a ride on Tuesdays and Thursdays since she is driving by anyway.

8:45 - 9:15am - I walk back to the house, switch the laundry, and do the louder things on my list (dishwasher, dishes) before I change Ali and make her a bottle and put her down for a nap. Some days this is my gym time, but today Ali's mood can't make it another hour, and I know I will need a block of time to get groceries later anyway, so the gym isn't happening (it's really hard to to both gym and groceries in one morning, with her nap).

9:30am - Ali is napping, and I go in between supervising Charlotte doing dot art painting on the porch, and working through my list. Today that means replying to a few emails, scheduling a playdate, rescheduling a dentist appointment, making a grocery list, hunting down a high-ish resolution image to download and mirror image and print onto iron transfer paper for a t-shirt for a costume for Anneliese next week, firming lunch plans with a friend with a new baby tomorrow, tying ribbons around chocolate bars for teacher appreciation, lots of glamorous trophy wife things, you know.

10:30am - Another Nathan calls with his daily good morning on the way to work, and we chat for what I always think is five minutes but is actually ten.

10:45am - I have my second coffee of the day, this time with toast. Also with twitter and instagram and whatever fun sales might be in my inbox.

11:00am - Ali is awake and chatting in the crib, so I switch the laundry again and make her a snack-to-go, and then get her up and throw both girls in the car.

11:15am - Grocery shopping. Easy enough, with just Ali and Charlotte. (Which is why I do it on Tuesdays.)

12:15pm - I come home and buckle Ali into the high chair and she eats lunch (today Nick and Barbara sent black beans, sweet potatoes, a sandwich, and some cheese; this is more food than Charlotte will eat in the whole day but Ali gobbles it all), safely contained while I unload the groceries. Charlotte is also sitting at the table but instead of eating, she is crying, because obviously. (?? No idea.)

12:45pm - All the groceries are put away and the inside of my fridge looks like the dairy section at the store (we buy about thirty yogurts a week, and five or six gallons of milk), and I check all the packaging for box tops for Nathan's school (when they bring in enough, they can get extra library books!) and then Charlotte takes the rest to the recycling bin. She does it without complaining or whining  HA HA HA NO sorry y'all I can't. Nope. She is a pill about it.

12:50pm* - Back in the car to go to church and get Anneliese. I fight for parking, send a few cussy texts about it, and then find a spot finally. I parallel park LIKE A BOSS.

(If I were a superhero, my power would be parallel parking. No, making good lists. No, parallel parking. I would save people from villains and crime in tight parking situations like preschool pickup, where no other hero dares attempt.)

*1:00pm - that 12:50 up there is a lie, it's always 1:00. Anneliese's class is always one that runs on the late side, and I just can't ever get out the door any sooner. It's 1, every time.

1:01pm - I leave the car and a/c running with the girls in it (ALERT THE AUTHORITIES) (no, don't, it's mere feet from the door, not even a parking lot to contend with since we park on the street, and it's legit safer to leave them there than unbuckle into traffic, so shut it), and grab Anneliese. She asks for skittles from the preschool office, which is an option every day, but I am mean and we only do it on Wednesdays. Which means I always have to answer a question about what day it is. Even though she knows full well what day it is. Answering questions that don't need to be answered! Many times on repeat! Parenting!

1:15pm - I bring a bag of books to the public library to return, and pick up a few new holds. It's slightly embarrassing how often we go do this. Like, several times a week. I also drive through for a fountain drink diet coke to have later with my lunch. Sometimes you just need a fountain drink diet coke and nothing else will do.

1:30pm - We are back home, I switch the laundry (it never ends), Anneliese unloads her lunch box pieces into the dishwasher (new parents: IT GETS BETTER), and the girls play outside. Ali is juuuust on the verge of walking, so she toddles a bit holding onto my fingers and watching the big girls swing and sing. (Swinging and singing go together at our house. It's hard to do the former without the latter.)

2:00pm - I give Ali another bottle, change another diaper, and the girls all go down for naps. Only Ali sleeps. Some days they all need naps, and some days I need both big kids to stay awake, and some days it's just too nice to chase them inside, but today they are all going upstairs. Charlotte and Anneliese can play in each other's rooms (they are joined by a jack & jill closet) as long as they stay upstairs and don't wake the baby.

2:05 - Charlotte wanders downstairs to poop, because she went pee before alone time but forgot to poop. This happens every day. I always remind her before she goes upstairs. It never works. I sigh.

2:15pm - I eat my favorite lunch on the back porch, this salad of perfection from trader joes (I am not even a kale person! kale is dumb! but this salad is everything -- sweet and spicy and crunchy and perfect. I love it more every time I have it. It almost tastes like candy to me, and yes you can smack me for saying that about kale, because I hate myself for it too, but it's true. BUY THIS SALAD), and my diet coke that has been waiting in the fridge. I listen to a podcast while I eat, and I say hi to Another Nathan on his way back to work after his own lunch break. He is in the middle of a day of annoying meetings, and he needs to cuss about them, and I am always glad to listen to some lunchtime cussing. I mean who isn't?

3:00pm - I have a quiet break sitting outside, trying not to be "productive" but just doing a few minutes of what I want to do. Which is important! Important enough that "read/rest" gets written on my to-do list every day. First, so I don't have to be feel bad for doing it. And second, as a reminder that time for me to zone out is as important as all the other things I do, for everyone else's well-being.

3:15pm - (I also write the first half of this blog post, and sew sprinkles and buttons onto a few cupcake tops for a felt food swap I am doing.)

3:45pm - Ali is awake so I bring all the girls to the bonus room and supervise some playtime while spending some time doing some Calendar Magic. Every Tuesday night this month we have three overlapping activities -- my choir rehearsal, Nathan's baseball games, and Mark's softball games. The time vary slightly each week, and I am trying to juggle which nights we can work around Mark's shift (he is done about 7) and which days he is off and how we can coordinate pickup/dropoff/bringing various children to our various events, and hopefully no one has to miss more than one event each. (I cuss as I do it, knowing full well that at least some of these arrangements will have to be RE-arranged as life actually unfolds. One game rained out means the next one shouldn't be missed even if that was the plan. A rained out game means choir is easy this week and therefore can be skipped next week. Etc etc. It's always something, and I hate planning it knowing stuff will change, but also, we have to plan something. SO.) Calendar magic = invisible work = parenting!

4:15pm - Nathan gets off the bus and crashes into the house in a way that shows me a glimpse of his teenager years. Door flung open, backpack falling off his shoulder, trudging over to where he can set his cello down and empty his lunch box. Everyone starts clamoring for a snack. YES! Have a snack! The answer is the same every day!

4:20pm - I put the last load of laundry into the dryer and silently congratulate myself with a mental party hat emoji. What gives you a better (albeit fleeting) illusion of control than a stack of finished laundry?

4:25pm - We have a busy evening ahead with very little downtime for the kids, so I concede to some playtime in the pool now while we can. The kids all change into their swimsuits and leave a trail of shorts and underwear and clothes all over the porch (EVERY. DAY.) and they jump in, while Ali sits in my lap and we watch from the side.

4:45pm - Nick arrives to pick up Ali. I give him the report on how she did, which today isn't much. She pooped x1000 (normal) and her bum is red (less normal) and apparently these are the things we talk about now. I want to go back in time and tell 12yo Nick to stop throwing snowballs at me just for kissing his brother, because I'm sticking around, and oh by the way I will care for your child one day and we will happily talk about her poops, so BE NICE, PUNK TWEEN NICK.

5:15pm - I reluctantly chase everyone out of the pool and into the house for dinner. We eat leftover pork tenderloin from a few nights ago, and easy mac, and believe me when I say the only reason it's even that fancy is because I am writing this post. Otherwise, we eat oatmeal and cheese slices on hectic nights. Or cereal. Just keeping it real.

5:50pm - I am ready for cleanup and bedtime but am I still writing this? Is our day still going?

6:00pm - Nathan changes into his baseball uniform and sits down to practice his cello, which becomes the backup music to my nagging frustrated voice trying to get the girls to clean up the bonus room and their rooms. "Are you cleaning?" "That doesn't sound like cleaning!" "I am going to do the dishes and when I come back, this room better be clean!" "Mommy is mad!" "How is this room not clean?"

6:30pm - The dishes are done, everything is clean, and I am trying to herd people to the car. Charlotte takes four tries to find her shoes, ends up in tears and needing help from literally everyone else to find them (they are in the middle of her bedroom floor), and then insists she doesn't need to pee because she went last year. Um. (She pees anyway BECAUSE I SAID SO.) Anneliese deliberates over just the right chapter book to bring along (she can't read) (she is trying to impress some older girls who are little league siblings too) (the whole thing is moot because she is not staying for the game) and Nathan is pissy because his baseball bag isn't where he left it, or it was left open, or some other trivial thing I don't care about AT ALL. Whoever has messed with his stuff is a much smaller transgression in my book than listening to him complain about it.

6:31pm - I hate 6:30pm. I don't even like it when it's the start of bedtime, and I really hate it when we are all walking out the door.

6:45pm - We drop Nathan off for his baseball game, leave him under the eye of a friend of ours, another dad on the team. When Mark gets off work he will go straight to the field and watch the game, and should only miss the first bit. He had considered taking Nathan with him to his own softball game after that, but it doesn't even start til 8:30, so he isn't going. Thank goodness. It's too much for one evening.

7:00pm - The girls and I go to choir. They bring Hattie and Sheepie and a box of crayons, and they sprawl on the floor of the choir room and color. Halfway through rehearsal they opt for a liturgical dance in the back of the room. A few minutes after that they get out a music stand and pretend to conduct. I tell myself everyone is charmed but I'm not really sure.

8:00pm - Choir isn't over, but the girls are done. Anneliese is slumped on me in my row, and Charlotte is curled up in a ball on the chair next to me, where she had to spin in many circles like a puppy before she got comfy. We bail on the end of rehearsal.

8:10pm - Mark and Nathan get home at the same time as we do. Mark does bedtime with the girls while Nathan does homework and then leans on me and reads. He likes us to read by ourselves together. I sit and stare at the wall. Somehow an hour passes. I have no idea. Twitter? iMessage? Instagram? Seriously no idea. We send Nathan up to bed before he falls asleep downstairs and we have to carry him. (This happens at least half the nights, because... couch parenting.)

9:00pm - Mark and I chat and catch up on our days while he makes us some dinner. I have a taste for shrimp and grits which he doesn't really want but makes me anyway, because -- wait for it, this is important -- he is a gem. Eating after 9pm is super normal for us. We watch two episodes of a show on Netflix and then I can't take any more noise or talking. My tv limit is very low these days.

10:00pm - I do the dishes and then escape to the guest house for some silence. I read a few chapters of Goblet of Fire (I am re-reading all the HP books this year, which is fun because although I love them, I've only read each of them once. It's been a decade. It's time.) I start my list for tomorrow, and I write the second half of this post.

10:45pm - Another Nathan calls after his gym time. Tuesdays are one of our nights for longer catchups; I tell him about our choir people he misses, and talk through my angst about employment ideas for the fall, and he's trying to wrap his brain around the final push with his choir for the program year, and tells me about some fun plans with his parents this weekend and stories of what he's up to with his new people up there. It's nice to make time to hear each other.

11:30pm - I take my bedtime shower by candlelight, which sounds way sexier than it is. Mostly it's just that it smells delightful (coffee!) and it adheres to my doctor-organized Sleep Plan of having dim lights after certain times, amongst a million other things that are supposed to ensure me good sleep but only get me there maybe half the time.

I read a few chapters, and then toss ans turn, and then think all the thoughts, and sometime after 1am (or 2 or 3, depending on how unlucky I am), I sleep until sometime before but not after 6:49am again.

A day in the life.

Spring, it Sprang

Where did spring go? It took forever and a day to get here, and now summer is basically upon us. School will be out in a few weeks, and we are in the throes of the end-of-the-year stuff: concerts, recitals, school events, forever and ever amen.

Mark and I went out last weekend to celebrate the 18th (that's ten plus eight, EIGHTEENTH) (!!!!) anniversary of our first date, back when we were sixteen. We were dumb naive teenagers, and we cringe now at thinking we knew what the heck we were getting ourselves into, yet also really really happy that we did. It's so fun to remember the very beginning, and feel happy and grateful about where we are now.

Nathan and Anneliese, waiting for their school rides together. Anneliese is so tall for her age, and Nathan is still so tiny, and I get asked now more than ever if they are twins. Anneliese can't wait til next year when she can finally (finally!) get on the bus with Nathan.

Yes, I know Nathan needs a haircut. No, I do not know why wearing your instrument on your back and your backpack on your front is a Thing, but among the second grade orchestra set, it indeed is.

Anneliese sang in a little concert at preschool, and she was a cow, and she is officially the cutest singing cow that ever sang.

And! The preschool did a big Letterland Day, to have fun with the reading and writing curriculum they use (which is very cool, if you care about linguistics and pedagogy), and each kid got to dress up as a letter character from the Letterland world (haaaaaa I say "got to" like I wasn't cussing up a storm about having to come up with a costume in the last weeks of school... I totally was, make no mistake).

ANYWAY she chose to be Annie Apple, and she was the only one in the whole preschool, and everyone clapped for her. I have no idea if she loved or hated that, but she was hella cute. And this is the part where I pat myself for an illegal download from a google image shirt, reversed onto iron transfer paper and an etsy hat. Costume! May! Super cute! Whatever!

Moving on.

We are also in the throes of All The Baseball.

Okay so baseball is a pain, y'all. It's too many times a week, with lots of rain schedule changes, and not much notice, and it's the busiest time of the year. Whyyyyyyyy. I mean, Nathan likes it and Mark loves it so we go, and we cheer, and I absolutely love to see him having fun. But make no mistake, it's a pain.

Charlotte (who wears this outfit every Tuesday, because I do their laundry on Mondays and she is obsessed with this outfit and mostly only cares that I do her laundry so she can wear it, and does at the soonest moment it is clean every week) has taken to eating toast with me in the mornings.

I used to guard my toast and coffee time as my own alone time, but on days when it's just her at home (well, while Ali is napping), it's sweet to have a snack together. I sort of love it. It has been a good school year of Tuesday and Thursday mornings with her.

So, also. I made a bowl for Charlotte; our church gives us these little stone thumbprint things to mark faith occasions (baptism, Bible reading, confirmation, communion, etc) and there is always this brunch event when the kids are three, where the parents make little bowls for them to collect said "milestones" as the years come. We have one for Anneliese (with a rainbow imprinted in the bottom), and Nathan's is a blue hand-me-down pottery bowl that Another Nathan made at Montreat, since we missed the bowl making when he was three. Anyway! So I made Charlotte's, and then I put it in the oven, per instruction, at like 200 degrees for four hours, except I actually cooked it like twenty hours, and it's totally burned.

It's supposed to be... white.

I really wanted to toss it and start over, but she saw it, and she thinks it's SUPPOSED to be this color, and, well, now what do I do? So we are keeping it. And at every faith milestone we will remember the story of the time I miraculously didn't burn the house down. *sigh*

In other less serious milestones, there is a new Princess Charlotte! And when I told Charlotte there was a new princess Charlotte, a real one, she insisted that she was the real one, and promptly made herself a dot-art crown from her dot-art book, and wore it grocery shopping. Soooo... she sure told me?

And on that note, this is where I make a bloggity plea that anyone who wants to send any Princess Charlotte kitsch my way, I totally definitely want it.

And Then March Happened, Apparently

That thing where you are months behind so you just post a lot of random thoughts, because people like that better than carefully crafted themed posts anyway right? Hi, welcome to the March (waaaaaay later than March) edition of I Don't Even Know What This Post is About.

Okay so the most important thing is that my sister had a baby! After a pregnancy lasting forty weeks plus four months (she is a dolphin, you didn't know?) (ask me how I know about gestation length of dolphins anyway *side eye*Nathan*) she delivered her third son (yes THIRD) (yes, her oldest is Charlotte's age) (yes, she would accept any of your prayers for sanity) and anyway, meet my newest nephew Everett! He is perfect.

Also! Ali turned one! ONE! I can't believe it's been a year. I love her so much.

The weather got warm and the girls had been asking Mark to plant something, so he took them to pick out flowers and some veggie seeds, and he pulled some dying shrubs out of an area near the pool, and they turned that space into a little garden.

The girls are totally taken with it. (Nathan too, although mostly he is too cool to act like it.)

Oh! Speaking of cool ("cool") Nathan also did a weather project where he needed to write a report including a media/visual component about some weather phenomenon. He chose monsoons. He did a good job researching and writing the paper, and then he made a little video to show why monsoons can damage houses even if you put plastic on your roof, like some people in monsoon-prone areas have to do.

I'm not sure this video actually proves anything, other than he likes to build with legos (and make videos), but it still tickles me. You know you want to see it. Right?



Another random Nathan thing, from the grocery store one night: "Hey this is the same kind of bread Jesus ate! You can tell by the shape!"

(Pretty good endorsement for Kroger, yes? JESUS HIMSELF ETC ETC.)

Hmmmm I... have no idea what else happened in March. Let's look at some pictures.

Anneliese, wearing a lot of colors, and not one but two headbands, including one with a donut on it, because obviously:

Me with all the kids, taking a walk on the greenway, proving once again that it is difficult to get very many people to look at the camera at once:

Charlotte, looking half teenager and half baby:

Perfectly reasonable outfits for a Target run:

And! Marky made me a brownie in a skillet one night when I had a random hankering, and he sort of made it up from a boxed mix, and then he throw ice cream on top, and it was delicious. You know how some things are just exactly what you had a taste for, except even a little bit better? He wins everything.

We ate it on the couch in front of Netflix, because we are good at being grownups.

All The Sicks. ALL OF THEM.

We have officially survived a sicker sick week than the horrible Sicksgiving of 2012.

First, Anneliese got pinkeye.
Two days later, Ali got the pinkeye. And a cold.
One day later, Charlotte got the cold.

Two days after that, Anneliese had a random one-time vom. We disregarded it because we are fools.

(Also because it was a horrible week for our community, burying one of our former youth choir girls, who lost her life to depression. It was tragic and gut-wrenching and we had way bigger things on our mind than assuming we had a g/i bug floating through our house on top of everything else. And yet, we did.)

That same afternoon, on top of her cold, Ali also started throwing up (she was home with her mom, because of the funeral), and the next day the voms hit Mark too, all night. I banished him to the guest house, because obviously. He slept for a whole day afterwards.

Two days after that, Charlotte got pinkeye, and a fever, and it turns out her cold had moved to an ear infection. Our first, after seven years and three kids (well, except swimmers ear).

That night, Nathan felt queasy, and by morning was throwing up. He kept at it all day, every fifteen to twenty minutes, constantly. I have never seen anyone throw up so much. It was like... fifteen hours of vomiting.

Meanwhile Ali and Charlotte still both had fevers, and Anneliese was as crabby as I have seen her in months, even though she seemed to have already made it through all the sicks.

By bedtime when Nathan's thing still hadn't run its course, he could barely stand, and couldn't pee, so we called his doctor and they sent us to the ER for fluids and zofran.

They tried the dissolvable zofran first and he promptly threw it up, everywhere. All over the triage area. It was so sad, y'all.

Eventually they got an IV in him and he got some fluids and some zofran and he slept for a spell, and dang he woke up a whole different kid.

Amusing anecdote from the hospital: when Nathan was awake and comfortable enough to talk to the doctors, one of them asked what the best book had read recently was. He told them a biography of J.K. Rowling.
"Oh, so you're a big Harry Potter fan?"
"No I have never read them, I just really like biographies."
(Picture me making the cry-laughing emoji face right here. Haaaaaa. So Nathan.)

Anyway we got home and slept hard, and the next morning, Mark woke up with pinkeye, AND THAT IS WHEN I LOST IT.

It was a very long ten days. I cried.

But! Brightsiding! In between Charlotte's ear infection appointment, and Nathan's never-ending upsturned stomach, we did have some half-birthday cake for him. Also, Charlotte never threw up. I never threw up. I never got pinkeye. I never had more than a bit of congestion. So if any of you want to know my superpower, it is apparently Immune System of Steel.

(Does not apply to mono.) (Or pleurisy.)

(Okay nvm I have odd sickies too, but NOT THIS WEEK UNIVERSE SO KISS IT.)

2014: Mono, Minnesota, Ali

2014, In Review!

What did you do in 2014 that you'd never done before?
- Got mono, at the age of 33, which is unheard of. 
- Wrangled four kids at once, on the reg.
- Read books on a kindle, on the reg.
- Drove across the country for three days with my best friend, which is a thing I will recommend anyone do. 
- Abandoned the car in the snow and walked with three kids to safety, which is a thing I do not recommend. 

Did you keep last year's resolutions, and will you make more for this year?
     I am fairly certain I never made them last year. This year, I would like to get a real job again, I think.

How did you spend New Year's Eve? 
     I juuuust blogged about NYE so I am changing the question. I just asked Anneliese what she would ask someone about their year and she said What's your favorite thing you ate? 
     (She would like you to know hers was "that spaghetti Daddy makes for me, and also when I had that piece of gum that one time.") I... don't know what mine is. I did have some amaaaahzing, like, close-your-eyes-and-moan-good roasted brussels sprouts with chestnuts and pork belly and apples and a mustard vinaigrette on New Year's Eve, so maybe that? (And, we're back to NYE after all. So.) 

What did you get really really excited about? 
     Our cruise! After a horrible mono-sick spring, and job stresses, and a million details nailed down for childcare and such, we got a grownups-only trip to the Bahamas. Cruises are easy and cheesy and delightful, for real.

What do you wish you'd done more of in 2014? 
     Sleeping. I remain a terrible sleeper. A sleep failure. Full stop.

What do you wish you'd done less of? 
     Losing my glasses. It made me cry more times per week than I should admit. Eeeiiii.

What would you like to have in 2015 that you lacked in 2014? 
     A sun lamp for my desk. Also, more time to sit at my desk. And blog, and read blogs, and send emails, and have general me time. It's everyone's dream right? 

What was great this year when you weren't expecting it? 
     Our Great American BFF Road Trip, to move Nathan to Minnesota and say good-bye. It could have been stressy and bickery and exhausting; on some level I was ready for it to be that, yet glad to go and help anyway. But instead it was wonderful and delightful and fun and bonding. Like one of the best things we have ever done, not just this year but ever.

Who is the best new person you met? 
     Ali! Sweet baby Ali! Of course!

What song will always remind you of 2014? 
     Shake it Off and also Let it Go. Also, Anneliese's horribly (delightfully) misinterpreted lyrics to both of those. (Prayers gonna pray y'all.)

Where did most of your money go? 
     Like always - mortgage, taxes, school tuition, and this year more travel than in recent years.

What was the best thing you bought? 
     A new wedding ring. Slash engagement ring. Slash anniversary band. I left mine on our cruise ship and after a small fortune in ship-to-shore calls, and a police report, a report with the cruise line, phone calls to pawn shops in Port Canaveral and Nassau, and six months of crying, it never turned up. I felt (feel) awful even thinking about it. I know it's just a Thing but it's a special thing, from a hugely special moment in my life, and no other thing will ever be that ring, that re-set stone that was my great grandmother's, bonded to that band that Mark put on my hand on our wedding day. But. I sadly took the insurance money, and Mark and I found one that he loved and I loved. It feels a bit like a solitaire and a bit like an anniversary band and it's set in rose gold, and... I do love it. After months with no ring, I am glad to have this one. Especially with the kind words and wonderful promises from Mark that came attached to it, even now, eleven years after our wedding. It is special too. 

Whose behavior merited celebration? 
     My dad, who retired from teaching this year. He has worked in the corporate world, and the military, and has been an entrepreneur with his own small business, but I think of his many careers, teaching is what he loved best. His students loved him, and he was damn good at it. We are proud of him. And! He remains a stand-up Grandpa. 

     (Also, Anneliese deserves celebrating. She was my answer last year too, but she is just really in a delightful stage. Five forever!) (Ages three and seven are getting the side-eye from me today.)

Whose behavior appalled you? 
     Baby Ali on dairy. My word, child. So much screaming. (Ali without dairy = best niece evaaaar. But on dairy? Appalling. I can say that now because it's over, but. Yeah. Picture my wide eyes.)
     Also, people who use leaf blowers, for any reason, ever. Just no.

Who did you miss? 
     Another Nathan, so freaking much. Especially Tuesday nights.

What was your favorite show? 
     I finally got on board and watched both seasons of Orange is the New Black this year. Also, Mark and I loved Parenthood and watched it religiously until the end (*moment of silence for perfect Braverman series finale*). But besides that and The Mindy Project, I... don't watch very much tv anymore? I still love tv, in theory, I just, I think I like the quiet more. (Mark watches all kinds of things, increasingly with headphones plugged into the roku remote, because see again: quiet.) 

What was your favorite book? 
     I apparently only gave 5-star ratings to six books last year. Of those, I think my favorites were The One & Only Ivan (read that one with your kids! it's a good first chapter book!) and The Fault in Our Stars, because I am very mainstream and predictable, and also it was really dang good. 

What was your favorite new movie? 
     Frozen. (It wasn't new in 2014 but we didn't see it til the new year so it was new to us. And yes I unabashedly love it.)

How old were you on your birthday, and what did you do? 
     I was (am) 34, I went for a really fun and delicious Asian seafood dinner with Mark in Chapel Hill, and we shopped for that new wedding band. It was a lovely wonderful night after a hard season of heavy feelings, and I felt really special and close to him. It was a good birthday.

What was your biggest achievement in 2014? 
     Being the best moving boss ever? (WHAT. I WAS.) Also successfully turning Anneliese into Rainbow Brite, twenty years late. 

Your biggest failure? 
     I majorly let down the kids last summer, and myself, and our dreams for the school break. I just had no bandwidth for the fun bucket list items we had planned. I was sad as it happened, sad when it was over, and still sad now. This year will be better. Anneliese is starting kindergarten and I will start back to work at some point, and this summer is a summer for us. I feel fired-up protective of having some family fun.
     Also, that snow adventure thing. We should probably put that in the Fail for The Ages column too.

What countries/states did you visit? 
     The Bahamas, on our cruise. (Also Georgia and Florida, driving to the port.) Also we went to Virginia/Maryland/DC with the kids in October, and I hit several new-to-me states on our great American road trip: Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota (and West Virginia, Ohio and Illinois which were not new).

How would you describe your personal fashion concept this year? Have you showered today? Good for you! 
     Yes! And learned how to make my hair wavy! (It was apparently already wavy, I just didn't know.) Does that count as a fashion concept? If so, I could undo that strikethrough. 

What dates from 2013 will remain etched in your memory? 
- February 12, the snow adventure.
- March 7, when Mark accepted his new job.
- March 13, when Ali was born. 
- April 6, when we sang a beautiful Bach cantata that we worked super hard on, and then Charlotte fell down the stairs and I had to take her to get her face stitched up (when I was horribly fever sick with mono, and Mark was on the last shift of his old job, and Another Nathan was at an interview for a new job himself, and whoa that evening was a perfect storm, a microcosm of all of the angst of that season, April 6 you can GDIAF, except for the Bach thing). 
- April 28, when our cruise departed. 
- July 27, Another Nathan's last Sunday at our church. 
- August 4, the date of my one-way plane ticket back to Raleigh after a horribly sad goodbye.

What kept you sane? 
     Hmmm... iMessage? I don't know. Am I sane? I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer this question.

What valuable lesson did you learn this year? 
     And I am definitely not qualified to answer this one. I don't think I have have any good takeaways. Last year was mostly (not all! but a fair amount) sucky for me. Spring and summer were a haze of sickness and angst and newborn crying and a long goodbye. Fall was colored by a rough marriage season, and struggling to communicate with Charlotte and her sudden stuttering. There were so many hard things, and so many of them were things that I couldn't heal or fix, exactly, besides just riding them out. 
     Maybe if I learned a lesson, it's that *feeling better isn't linear, and sometimes you just have to let hard things be hard, until they pass. Which they usually do. And then it can be okay again.

Anyway. Onward and upward! Etc etc.

*Thanks Sarah. #kissyface

December Chaos

Heeeeeeey want to know what December has looked like? Me too! Good thing I took gobs of pictures of the chaos!

Nathan and Anneliese both got random fevers on the one (ONE!) day we were all home and had time to go pick out a tree together. So Charlotte and I went alone, and it should have been fine but it felt oddly sad. Tree day melancholy or something. (She didn't care in the least, she loves doing stuff with a parent all to herself.)

I cleaned out Nathan's desk (he is a baby hoarder, it was quite a project) and I had this whole funny list planned of all the funny and quirky and Nathan-y things I found, but then I found this, and it trumps them all, so here you go. Baby's first boob picture.

Yes, he assures me that is a belly button.

Another Nathan flew into town the first weekend of December and we all drove to Greensboro for our friend Meghan's wedding, which was really fun. So lovely to be back together with all these friends for a night.

Mark got suuuuper fever sick at the reception, but he hung in there long enough to be hella excited when the Clemson tiger (THE Clemson tiger) made an appearance. So, yeah.

Also, I got to shop with Another Nathan at Crabtree mall, which is our favorite thing, and we should have bought lots more (this was before the month got away from us and Christmas Panic set in) but it was still fun and lovely to just wander and brainstorm on our gift lists, like old times.

Monday is the new Black Friday! Or something.

Before he flew home, we also went back to our favorite post-choir beer place, for the first time since this summer. And half of it was boarded up and closed down. We couldn't even tell if it was open, and when we got inside it turns out that half of it (our half!) has been permanently shut down and rented out to a bakery, and it was all very sad and weird and It's A Wonderful Life, like Nathan moved and that whole special place for us is gone now. Weird. So weird. We did not take any pictures because... weird. (At least it protects those memories? It was a moment in time, those Draft House years.)

I took Anneliese to see Frozen on Ice with Andrea and her daughter, and y'all, it was delightful. Not even sarcastic. I don't know what I was expecting (more annoying? more cheesy?) but it was professional and fun and the sets were cool and the skating was amazing and it was full of Disney magic. I don't know why I was surprised. Disney... does things well. It was really fun. I would go again, in a hot minute.

Also, Anneliese wants to take ice skating lessons now. Raise your hand if you never could have seen that coming.

We did our annual Santa's Cookie Worshop™ and made a million cookies in one day, which is always fun and chaotic.

Charlotte colored all over herself with markers, and then didn't seem to understand she was in trouble, and DEAR SELF WHEN WILL YOU EVER LEARN WITH THE MARKERS FTLOG.

Ali wore pink overalls and looked supremely cute in them.

Anneliese wore alllll the colors. All of them. Some days she legitimately cries in the morning if she isn't wearing enough colors. This was not one of those days.

This worksheet about the Polar Express came home in one of Nathan's folders last week. SO LITERAL, THAT CHILD. *sigh*

Happy December! Or Something?

Hey it's December! And I'm still behind from November so let's take a journey through my phone and see what we have been up to, yes?

{HAAomg sometimes I forget I have a blog. Love, Erin in January.}

Anneliese and I had a lunch date after church. Everyone else was sick and/or crabby, and we wanted ZaxBEE's (that's how we pronounce it, we are just cool like that) and can I just say she is a delightful companion?

I have no idea exactly how this happened, but I walked away for three minutes and walked back... and clearly some toddler achievement has just been unlocked.

I'm not sure what's happening here either, but I'm pretty sure she is posing for her senior year pictures. The awkward, oh how she nails it.

I took Nathan to his school literacy night (and book fair) and he picked out several new things to read: a book of beautiful things people have built from Legos, and a biography about the Wright brothers. Why so opposed to good ol' fiction, bro?

Mark sits down with the girls, any evenings he is home, to watch Daniel. "Watch." I like to joke that Daniel is his unisom. Because... yeah, every time.

I took Ali and Charlotte to the (nicer) grocery store (with the fun carts) and they had a blast driving together. I can't believe Ali is old enough to play like this. Wasn't Charlotte just the baby?

Anneliese got her friend Beatrice a duplicate of her favorite shirt, for a birthday present. Yes, that's a half donut, half rainbow. No, I do not understand it. Yes, it is awesome. Yes, they planned ahead to wear them on the same day. Yes, they delight me.

This is Nathan's DNA bracelet, because of course it is.

Also, NOW that it is December, let's all enjoy some good holiday clothing. With a t-rex on it. Obviously.

We have now reached the "what am I even blogging about?" portion of today's post. The end.