Happy 10th Birthday, Charlotte!

 *** Update 10/13: I came to post a birthday update about Anneliese, and realized I never pushed my birthday post about Charlotte live! We were at the beach when I finished her video, and I never added links. But I want it to have a home here as our online scrapbook/memory book, so I am posting now. ***

Charlotte is TEN! A whole decade with this baby Booler! Happy birthday, Charlotte!

At 10, Charlotte is growing ever-more into her own independent person, branching off from her siblings in ways that feel natural to her (and also feed her natural inclination to differentiate herself). She is in turns very traditionally girly (she is getting her ears pierced next week and is so excited) and then very resistant to what being girly actually means (do not pigeonhole her, or any girls, etc etc). 

This year she has leaned into skateboarding, swimming (she's fast!), video games, her viola, her short hair Lewk, hitting a new stride with actually wanting to read, drawing and art, sassiness (that sometimes needs toning down), and trying to establish herself as More Grown Up and for sure most definitely Not A Baby (she is still my baby) (don't worry, Sheepy is still steadfast in her arms).

And she is ready to lean way out of cleaning her room, chores or tidiness in general, and remote school (she loves math and loves her teachers and loves me, but by the time school was done in June she was SO sick of Meet calls and missing her friends) -- she is beside herself about going back to Real School in a few weeks. I am very anxious about it since we signed her up for this when we thought she'd be getting a vaccine in September but it looks like that won't happen now until sometime this winter. But! Our district is staying fully masked and even with the Delta variant, this is just what we need to do (I am starting a new job, I can't supervise remote school, we have to make peace with the precautions in place, it's been 20 months and school really is essential, etc). 

We love her exactly how she is, we are grateful for every day of snuggles that this year has brought us, alongside the fear and cusses, and we are delighted watching her turn ever more into who she is.

We are spending her birthday this year (as many years) at Bumgarner beach week, which makes her happy beside herself, which makes us happy to watch.

Some memories of this bizarre year with Charlotte:

(If you can't see the video embedded above, click here to watch it on YouTube.)

Previous years' videos!

Ninth year

Eighth year

Seventh year
Sixth year
Fifth year
Fourth year
Third year
Second year
First year

Happy 7th Birthday, Charlotte!

Charlotte Booler is 7 today! Happy birthday, baby girl!

She doesn't know it yet, but when we wake up in the morning, we are taking her to the American Girl Store (we drove to Charlotte, which is the closest storefront to us, to spend the night with my mom and put us closer) and letting her finally FINALLY get an American Girl doll, which she has been coveting for literal years. After wandering the Chicago store last summer, she knows exactly which one she wants, and we have two aunts meeting us there for a tea party/ lunch in the doll cafe (I DO NOT EVEN KNOW WHO I AM ANYMORE), and I am actually legit excited to finally give her this thing she has wanted for so long. (There has been a "responsibility" requirement for such an expensive doll in our family, which she has... um... taken a few extra years to show she can handle.)

Anyway. Doll me strength. Happy doll lunch birthday to this child who has big-girl interests and somehow isn't in a bumbo seat drooling on herself anymore. I know, it's weird how that happened.

Seven!

Charlotte at 7 is a gappy-toothed bubbly chatty funny delight. She has no shortage of personality, and though she still hasn't really ever met a stranger, she's become sliiiiightly more guarded with who gets to see her truly silly side. She loves dancing in her room, lip syncing with a hairbrush, and filming herself talking to the camera about all manner of nothing (as if she's a youtuber, which she longs to be, which I will not allow, despite the hours of footage added up on all our devices showing her life dream about this).

She's a night owl and an early riser, both. She's a lefty who loves drawing and writing her name on everything. She loves puzzles and math. Her favorite mammal is a sheep but her favorite SEA-mammal is a narwhal, and her favorite overall animal is a penguin. (She really likes animals.)

She took a sign language elective at school last year, and now loves signing. She's on a quest to learn more, and notices sign language now everrrrywhere, tons of places I had never noticed myself. She says when she grows up, she wants to be a person who signs sermons in church (or an artist. one of those).

She loves Beanie Boos, and will recite a list of the ones she owns, in order of acquisition, to anyone who will listen. (I don't recommend listening to this, unless you have, like, very specific insomnia needs.)

She reports that the best new places she went this year were a Disney Cruise, and (finally!) Montreat. Of all our kids, she's the one who most craves a new adventure, which is really fun for me, since it feels like a little bit of me, connecting to her in that way.

She didn't do dance this year, because she was a bit overwhelmed at starting a full-day school schedule, and it was all just... too much. (To this I say: YEP I GET IT ME TOO.) She does miss having an activity though, so she will start gymnastics with Anneliese this fall. She also loves running (and is fast!) and finally this winter learned to swim. It's amazing how fast and strong her swimming is now, just a few months later. (However, she doesn't want to be called "quite the little fish" but "quite the little narwhal." Please to make a note.)

She and Anneliese have become thick as thieves this year, which is really fun to see. (Well, really fun insofar as the bickering doesn't exhaust me, because they are very much thieves of the bickering ilk.) When Nathan is home, she sort of has to vy for Anneliese's attention and affection, but most often she can fit right into the group dynamic, and the girls find lots of moments for sister time with dolls and dancing and whatever camping show they're into watching together these days.

Sometimes parenting Charlotte feels like a whole new beast to Mark and me. She's somehow cut from a very different cloth than the other two (I know, I know, all children are different), and it once in a while renders us feeling like hopeless newbies at this whole thing, even though we're over a decade in and she's our third kid. Those days and weeks and spells are... hard. She has her own mind, and knowing what the expectations are, and what the right thing to do is, isn't *always* enough to convince her to do it. But MOST of the time, she is wonderful and quirky and funny and sweet, always the first one who wants to snuggle or have special time one on one with us, often the first who wants to help in the kitchen, the least complainy about chores and cleaning, and these days the best eater in the house (whoa). She is becoming more confident in her needs and her gifts, and it's super cool to see her becoming the person she will be.

For now, we'll settle into watching her be seven. We'll spend the day doll shopping and eating chocolate cheesecake (her request). We'll delight in this little Booler, and be so joyful that we get to know her and love her. It seems only a moment ago, the idea of a third baby was so hypothetical, just a lark of a hope, and now she's here and human and funny and HER. She made and makes our family complete, and we love her like the sun.

Happy birthday, dear Charlotte. We love you so much, forever and ever, baby Booler.

Memories from Charlotte's 7th year:



(If you can't see the embedded video, click here to watch on YouTube.)

And from years past:

Sixth year
Fifth year
Fourth year
Third year
Second year
First year

Happy Birthday, Charlotte!

Charlotte is six today!

She has been really sick since last Friday, rull vommy and hasn't kept solid food down in almost four days. (It's her birthday now! Today is the day! Right?) She spiked a fever on Sunday night so we took her to the doctor yesterday and it's a strep infection, weird because no sore throat, but hey apparently it happens.

Sadly we had to cancel the party we had planned for her this morning, but we will do it on Sunday instead. She's never had a real birthday party and she was SO excited for it, but it's just a simple "playdate with cake" variety swimming in our backyard which is super easy to reschedule and I'm going to out on a limb and assume all our party guests would rather have a beach ball party favor that, oh I don't know, strep.

But fortunately we can still proceed to my family's Bumgarner beach week this afternoon as planned, since the 24-hour mark with her meds will be here soon. She will be glad to see cousins and grandparents and play in the sand and maybe like eat a cracker or something. Happy birthday to you! Saltines!

(I did make a cake too, I swear.)

I hope she wakes up perky enough to enjoy her special day. I am full of feelings as always; there's something about my baby hitting each new year that tugs my heart in a different way than the other two. It makes ME feel less like a rookie mom (which I know I'm not, but don't we all still kinda feel that inside?) and every time she ages up, it's like a new life stage for us we are leaving behind. So that's it, the preschool years are over, I officially have a house full of big kids, and it's sad and weird and great.

A few of our favorite moments of our beautiful Booler this year:


If you can't see the video embedded above, click here to watch it on YouTube.)

(Memory lane: here are her first, second, third, fourth and fifth years too.)

Happy birthday, dear Charlotte, our pinky finger, our funny heart, our baby Booler!

Back To School (All Three!!)

Welp. Sweet Charlotte has officially started kindergarten.

I don't know how it's possible that all three kids are now in school, and yet. Here we are.

She's doing a half-day kindergarten (the same one Nathan did), since barely-5 is not old enough in my mommy heart/eyes to send her to public school downtown all day. But even at just a half day, it's kindergarten and oh man my heart. All the feelings.

The big kids had their first day when I was in Peru. Fourth and first!

Happy back to school!

Happy Birthday, Charlotte!

I am posting this in the wee hours of Charlotte's 5th birthday, from the beach, our annual trip with my dad. This is our second year on the road for her special day. Basically she's going to start expecting a trip every year for her birthday, and I will have very wide eyes (and say no) (but secretly want to say yes).

She was really excited to claim a top bunk when we got here today, something she quickly named as her birthday right (she didn't get a top bunk at GWL for Nathan's birthday, and has been talking about it ever since). But some hours after bedtime she got scared up high, appeared for several "bathroom breaks," one of which ended in tears and fears -- so we did a bed shuffle and now she is sound asleep beside me, my sweet baby girl who wants to be a big girl but clearly still isn't, in so many ways.

Oh, my heart.

So while I am busy having difficulty comprehending the passing of time, and also that my child is five, my youngest baby, and thinking about how much a youngest baby growing up just wreaks havok on the mom feels -- as I'm thinking about all that, I am also just now remembering I intended to make a cake tonight, and whoops! Got distracted by ice cream and the Olympics and totally forgot. It's nothing that I can't do in the morning, of course -- our "party" plans for the day are very vague, because, yknow, vacation -- but it just goes to show that while youngest kids can pull extra at your heartstrings, they also get a teensy bit forgotten. POOR THIRD CHILD, ETC.

But she is indeed five, and she will have cake, and the cake will be wearing sunglasses, I think? I hope? and she does squeeze my heart, this little Booler. She is growing up right before our eyes; most days it feels like the perfect balance of happy/sad.

Some of my favorites from the last year:


If you can't see the embeded video, click here to watch on YouTube.

(If you love memory lane like I do, here are her first, second, third, and fourth years too.)

Oh sweet little girl, I both ache for your diminishing babyness, and love the race into your big-kid-ness. I love you more than you can ever know. Keep dancing, every time you feel a dance in you. This year and always.

Happy birthday, dear Charlotte.

Charlotte At Almost Five

Charlotte is almost five! Happy due date, five years ago today! Age five! Five forever! I love five! I am about to have another five-year-old (yay)! ... My last five-year-old (sob).

But really. Look at this beautiful young lady. She hardly seems like a baby anymore.

(Hahahahahaaaaaa yeah right *wipes tear* no no, she's obviously still The Baby. Of course.)

Charlotte seems to have already entered into Age Five Delightfulness. She is old enough to be independent and have preferences and chase after what she wants and likes. But she's still young enough to have none ounces of too cool, and lots of innocent curiosity still in her.

Plus, she still says some words wrong. Syrup like cereal: syriup. The bonus room is the bennis room. Eating two pieces of toast is toast-es.When she wants you to leave something where it is (a song on the radio, the PJ's she wants to wear all day, etc) she says stay it on. And actually, stay makes more sense than leave, so I get it.

She is chatty and full of stories, half the time made up and half the time completely earnest retellings of mundane events ("and then he poured the cereal but mixed it with the other cereal can you even believe that???" *cue wild hand motions*) and unlike the other two, who we naively maybe once thought were talkative, Charlotte kind of never. stops. talking.

She has two made-up friends, Apple and Sushi (I don't even know) and when no one else will play with her, she plays with them. I have never seen a child outside of a novel so committed to her imaginary friends. Or so chatty with them. She and Apple and Sushi have an army of small toys like her Daniel Tiger "toysies" figurines, and Calico Critters, and a few Paw Patrol pups, and she creates whole worlds and houses and neighborhoods for them, and will do this for hours.

Also, she has several small purses and bags and even a portable Calico house, but her preferred transportation method for her most precious toys is a pizza breadstick box. She takes it all over the house and even on playdates. (Again, I don't even know.)

She dances and skips around the house, because why walk?

She floats around the pool in her puddle jumper, because why learn to swim? (Sigh.)

She follows Nathan and Anneliese and still can't quiiiite keep up, and "hey guys wait for me!" is still a very big part of her life.

She and Anneliese play together ever better, they are both very into dolls and babies and it has been a bonding thing for them this year. It has taken years for them to seem as close to the same age as they are (less than two years! only one school year apart! it has always seemed a much bigger chasm) but I think we are finally getting there.

She still sucks her thumb (no, I do not care anymore), and she calls it her "strong thumb" because it helps her feel better. I will never argue with that. Girl's got an overbite like whoa, braces are coming, there's no more preventing it, so thumb away, little one.

I feel like Charlotte eats almost nothing, and she is somewhat wee, but she's growing, so... meh? She does like french fries and gummy snacks. And gogurt and pizza. And sandwiches but only if they're cut in certain shapes (because obviously puzzles are delicious but dinosaurs are not). She also apparently loves the arsenal of snacks she keeps sneaking into her room and then doing a terrible job of hiding the evidence from. *mad face*

She sort of fails in her own Sneaky Wheelhouse though, replying when I call upstairs to her with things like, "I don't have my scissors, you don't need to come up here!"

Um.

She loves coloring, and is still really good at fine motor type things for her age. "Can you please print me something" has basically been her motto this year, there aren't enough coloring pages in the world to sate this child.

She loves winter, the only one in our house who grins in the outdoor chill, and bundles into her coat and hat with glee. (The rest of us glare at her properly, I promise.)

She loves being read to, but has shown very little interest in trying to read on her own yet.

She thinks she is good at numbers, and shushes everyone at least once a day to tell us "plus one plus one is two" and wait for people to lavish praise on her for such genius. (The amount of eye rolling from Nathan cannot be overstated.)

She likes to pray, and is the one who leads us in prayer 99% of evenings before dinner. She has a whole medley of blessings she likes to say.

She is off to kindergarten in a month. WHAT.

She is wheezy and sunshiney and makes the best mad faces of anyone I know. She has no modesty. She cries having her hair brushed. She cheats at games and tries to charm her way out of it. She is strong and delicate at the same time. She has gobs of friends and would play with them all every day if she could. She loves people, and new people, and she's never met a stranger. She's a good listener, always ready for a story or a joke. When she's happy to see you, she quite literally jumps up and down in excitement, and it's the best feeling in the world.

She made and makes our family complete.

Happy almost five, Charlotte Booler. You won't stay five forever, but we're sure going to enjoy it while it's here, you delightful little human, you.

(Half) A Year in the Life

So. I missed this here little ol' blog, and I came over a few days ago to dust it off and get caught up, and there were gross horrible rapey comments waiting for moderation, and it momentarily upended how I felt about the internet, because amongst all the loveliness and wonderful human connection, there is apparently horrible barf-inducing assholery as well, and even though that's a thing you think you know, you don't know it til it's aimed at your own children.

So, I did what any normal person would do and I locked this sh!t down. Hello from this newly guard-railed space which can't be googled and no longer has links posted in any public profile, where people only find me if I share on a platform that's now private, because all my platforms are now private. Which means people only find me if I share myself where they can.

Hi! You found me! I shared myself to you!

Y'all, it hasn't been our best season/s in these parts. The honest but not-gritty recap:

NOVEMBER

I turned 35, Another Nathan flew in on my birthday and Mark and I had a lovely visit with him, and I felt very loved and very middle-aged.

Mark and I took a grownups-only trip to Mexico, and my dad came and stayed in our house for a week and managed everything (everything!) at home, because he is amazing. Mexico was also amazing. Mark was amazing. It was such a happy trip.

Mark turned 35. We had cake and a date and took this family picture. Yay family!

I started a new job.

!!!!!!!

I mentioned this in my year-end recap post; it's the same job I did before, but with a different company. The whole going-back-to-work thing was really fraught and stressful, half because I'm suddenly 35 and don't know what to do with my life, and half because Mark's work is so batsh!t insane that it's really difficult to piece any kind of work schedule together and balance it with also picking up the slack at home, plus all the normal stuff I do (I was already busy). And, so, things kind of came to a head around this time about the balance in our marriage and house and life, and there were ugly feelings and patterns surrounding some of that and, well, yeah.

Speaking of ugly, this laptop bag I got from my company is kind of the worst, yes?

(I got a new one to tide me over until I find The Bag, don't worry.) (Suggestions welcome, if you love your laptop bag, by the way.)

DECEMBER

It was not our best holiday season. It's kind of a blur now. But here, look at a sweet Christmas picture of the babies.

JANUARY

We got a new car! I forced Mark (forced!) to feel his feelings about his old Mazda, the first car we ever bought together, and we sold it and are now back to being an Accord family. It'll be mine when the van dies, and whatever Big Car we get to replace it will be mostly Mark's to drive around daily. SEDAN ME, YO.

Since we didn't get our traditional New Year's Eve all together, I flew to Minnesota for Another Nathan's birthday. It was -36 with the wind chill (yes that says NEGATIVE THIRTY SIX OH EM GEE) when I went to church that Sunday morning. I secretly felt like a badass and I secretly love the snow, but only because it's in a place with plows and such. Was a delightful visit and left feeling... spirit-filled. Friendship-filled. Etc.

We lost power for a night in an ice storm and the kids and I camped out by the (gas) fireplace and read books out loud. It was surprisingly sweet, in a Laura Ingalls (cussy) kind of way.

Also, Charlotte helped me with work, and it sort of delighted me, on the days it didn't exhaust me.

I'M RIGHT ON TOP OF THAT, ROSE!

And that is legit the most exciting thing to report in all of January.

FEBRUARY

Anneliese burned her hand badly on the stove while helping me make sloppy joes.

She also read Amelia Bedelia and sent funny texts about it.

And wore this great outfit.

Hmmm I'm grasping at straws. February mostly sucked.

MARCH

I went to Pawley's Island to see my friend Amy for the weekend, and play with her kids at the beach. It was cold so we didn't put the kids in swimsuits, but they got in anyway, and who couldn't have seen that coming?

Our grocery store stopped selling my favorite bread that I love for toast, so I started making my own. Because I love toast. I eat it every day. With coffee. Toast is a meal for me. Anyway.

I played with recipes until I figured out how to do it exactly how I like it, and it's a barely-changed version of Arwen's "the bread" and hey it turns out I'm not scared of yeast anymore, and it makes me feel all Laura Ingalls (the good way) to do this for myself every week.

Bowden's kidneys started to lose functioning. Our sweet girl is getting old.

March wasn't really my favorite either.

APRIL

Things started to feel a little less sucky in these parts, for a moment.

We got a new nephew! Meet baby Charlie! This is Ali's little brother. Anneliese of course always loves a new baby to hold.

We celebrated Easter, but sadly not with a beach drive, since Bumgarner Beach Week is moved to August this year. The kids looked cute though.

We went camping as a family. It was pretty, the kids loved it, it was fine. No one sleeps well when camping, right? But campfire food is always delicious.

I went to Las Vegas for the Blathering, and it turns out Vegas is nothing like I was picturing, in all the best ways. It was clean and fun and lively and beautiful, and I tell you what, people in Vegas know how to commit to a theme. It's just all very... well done.

This is my favorite picture with Sarah that we have ever taken.
Every time I look at it I feel happy.
I legit keep it in an album on my phone of things to look at on crappy days.
I love her.

And it was wonderful to be with amazing ladies who are good for my heart and make me laugh til I cry, and love me even in hard seasons, and do not hate my life even when I hate it, and to hug Another Nathan on the way home via MSP.

Basically re-entry sucked, after a happy laughy weekend away from real life. Suuuuuucked. On many levels, but not the least of which was Charlotte getting terribly sick with a chest infection (shocker) (asthma baby) and that bled into a vom bug, and it was generally  miserable.

MAY

Anneliese got a grade-level responsibility award at school, and we about burst with pride.

She also sang an adorable solo in her chorus concert at school.

Everything's coming up Anneliese!

We all (well, except Charlotte, but she was there, listening) sang/played together in a music festival at church. A seriously lovely family moment after lots of hard months.

Nathan got big kid teeth! And had several teeth pulled in preparation for braces, sometime... sometime. Who knows exactly when. Braces! They are coming!

He also played delightfully in his orchestra concert and is vying for a spot in the advanced group next fall. (Is maybe a long shot? I can't tell.)

My work got completely insane and busy, and I needed to do it full time, which we had expected for spring, but we didn't know what that would feel like on the home front til I was doing it. Working full time from home with only a few hours of childcare a day is NO JOKE, especially when May is too much anyway. Just... too much. People of the world: May is too much. Please spread the schedule around a bit. COME ON.

I laughed-to-keep-from-crying by singing into my phone headset like Britney, basically every day. (I cried too, because obviously.) (Mark's job continued/continues to be also insane.) (SOMETHING HAS TO GIVE.)

Charlotte finished her last day of preschool, ever. Here she is starting 2's in 2013, and finishing 4's this spring.

Lest you think she is always this beautiful, you should know she smiled like this on the first attempt:

I don't even know.

At some point in May, Mark went to Seattle for a week and kicked off a long several weeks/months of us like ships passing in the night. Trips backing up to each other, and work schedules, and yeah.

We needed the space but then also missed each other, which is a really nice feeling when you think about it.

JUNE

I started the month with a Memorial Day road trip with Another Nathan, from Minnesota down to North Carolina, kinda reversed from what we did when we moved him up there two summers ago. Turns out, we're still great at road trips.

Then I spent two weeks and change at Montreat, where he had asked me to be the office manager for the first several weeks of youth conference, which he DIRECTED this year, and did amazingly well.

Montreat was wonderful and spirit-filling as always. My heart has a whole blog post stirring about just this, but not today.

Oh and also I broke my foot there. *cringe face emoji*

After the conference, we had a few days of all of us at home for a moment, and Another Nathan and Mr David visiting. and we celebrated our 13th anniversary and the success of the youth conference and David's new book (!!) and all was well.

Mark went on ASP and I missed him, again. Re-entry sucked, again.

At some point we went on a date and I ordered this drink with a flower in it and we took this picture together and it makes me smile to look at it, so I am posting it here.

Marriage is hard work but sometimes you look cute, so.

Narcolepsy and Asthma

It's been a big medical week around here!

First, Mark finally had a follow-up with his doctor with the results of his sleep study from this summer, and it turns out he has.... narcolepsy. (I was going to add a drumroll, but I put that in the title, so you already knew, didn't you? You did.) Yes, legit effing narcolepsy. WHAT EVEN, Y'ALL.

We were expecting a diagnosis of sleep apnea (he has many of the symptoms, not the least of which is snoring that might break our marriage, or at least our marriage bed) but... narcolepsy? Although, once we got some info about what it really is (not what Hollywood thinks it is), it totally makes sense. Like, we both were like OH AHA WELL DUH. Things we had just sort of gotten used to as quirks or "whatever" patterns in our life and house, that we hadn't realized were as bizarre as they really are -- suddenly make sense. Honestly we both felt dumb for not wondering about narcolepsy sooner.

ANYWAY so it's super treatable and he can take a daily med and even just one week in, it's amazing and I love it and I know for him it will be an adjustment of course, but for me, this sh!t is awesome and I am so glad to suddenly have a chatty energetic husband in the evenings after work, and we don't have to store our catching up until his days off, and I don't have to keep him awake through the evening so he doesn't ruin his night of sleep, and and and and and. Our lives are about to get better, I think.

(Snoring is unrelated. His doctor has ideas on that too. But not solved yet. I invested in fancy earplugs.) (By fancy I mean normal earplugs that are neon green.)

(And no, the irony of Mark's narcolepsy being married to my horrible sleep-broken failure insomnia is not lost on us.)

--------------

Second, we finally took Charlotte into the pediatric pulmonologist for whom we've had a referral for many many many months, but because of schedule logistics (side eye to Mark's job) haven't been able to make happen. And she has asthma.

This is not a surprise. An urgent care doctor mentioned it when she was a toddler, after she had had several pneumonias and every cold that hit our family seemed to be thrice as bad for her as for anyone else, and go straight to her chest. She's had many courses of breathing treatments and albuterol over the years, and it's one of those things that we worried about, but not acutely, because it was only bad when she was sick.

But then in the last year when she started gasping when she cried hard (more than other babies gasp when they cry) and wheezing was one of the first signs of her getting a cold, we decided to finally take her to a specialist per the earlier suggestions.

Anyway, we took her, they measured her breathing, she has a very average normal asthma. It's all okay. I mean, I don't love that she has to deal with it, but she (probably*) won't need daily preventive treatments (*we are tracking inhaler usage on an as-needed basis, and if after three months, certain patterns emerge, she may after all -- but for now they think likely not) and they said she can be as active as she wants to be. The albuterol is effective for her and she is a champ at the mask and inhaler, so it's all okay.

Maybe cold season will be easier for her this year, armed with these additional tools.

--------------

She also wrote her name for the first time this week. I should say, "write" is a very loose interpretation of what she did -- which was really mostly just drawing. She copied the letters from the name tag on her table in her preschool class. She knows none of those letters except C. So maybe I should just consider this really good art, not actual writing.

But either way I am keeping it forever, because obviously.

Booler Back to Preschool

Oh hey so Charlotte is back in school now too. After crying for many days in a row when the big kids got on the bus and she had to stay home with boring old loser me (SORRY I AM SUCH TERRIBLE COMPANY FOR ONE ON ONE TIME, CHILD), she finally got to put on the outfit she has been planning for weeks, and stand on the front steps at church, and smile for a picture for her last first day of preschool, and then request her traditional first day chocolate milk from Starbucks.

And yes, I did just say last first day of preschool.

So many lasts and firsts and growing and seriously y'all, every season about bowls me over these days, with the feelings and nostalgia, and I can't keep up anymore. Have I always been this sappy??

(A college professor once told me I was fooooolishly sentimental. He said it just like that too.) (I have decided to embrace it about myself, foolish or no.)

So anyway, what should I do with myself now?*

Happy back to school! Happy quiet house! Happy uninterrupted poops** and showers! My house will be totally clean now!*** And also, in related news: I miss my babies. Am sort of watching the clock. When do they come home? The new rhythm has not set in. I wish it were still summer, there I said it.

* -whispers- I have a little job. More on that later.
** My dad, right now: Erin Lee, you don't have to tell everything.
*** Haha no it won't.

How KonMari Got Charlotte a New Room

Okay so I'm basically outing myself as being in a weird internet cult by admitting this, but I read that Japanese tidying book and... I kind of buy into it.

Disclaimers up front:
-- I know the writing is not good (there is something lost in translation, sure, but also she just isn't a great writer).
-- I know that there is some feng shui hippie crap in there that is full-on nonsense. (I do like drawers that aren't stuffed to the brim. I do not, however, think my socks need to rest at night.)
-- I know that the mentality of "throw it away, you can always buy one later if you need it" only goes so far, and that my urban residential many-bedroom home/lifestyle has space for (and requires) storing more things than this lady in a studio apartment in urban Tokyo would ever dream of.

But.

Those things aside, I sort of really love this KonMari method. Basically it boils down to: keep only items that spark joy. That's it. That's the whole criteria.

Instead of approaching house cleaning and sorting with an eye for what you can get rid of, or what you can live without, she wants you to approach it by being intentional about what you live with, what you keep.

It's better, I promise.

You know how when you first set up a dorm room or a new office or enter a beautiful hotel room, and it all feels so calm and orderly and only your favorite things are there, arranged exactly how you intentionally set them up? That awesome ready feeling? That can be your whole life!

(Well, so she argues. I'm not there yet. But the tiny corners of my life that have achieved this are spectacular so far.)

So anyway she has certain guidelines about how to ask the "sparks joy" question in different categories: clothes, household items, gifts, memorabilia, etc. Some of the guidelines work for me, some of them don't; like with any food recipe, I have sort of adapted her method to make sense in my life and house.

I like that she doesn't make me feel like I have to get rid of things that are perfectly useless yet make me happy (my mom's "I survived the Texas heat wave of 1980" shirt that she wore when she was pregnant with me), or that I'm obligated to keep stuff that could be useful, or once made me happy but doesn't anymore.

So anyway, with her methods and my adaptations, and week upon week of purging, we have gotten rid of so much stuff that we didn't want or need. She argues that the energy it takes to be surrounded by stuff you don't love or like is bigger than the energy it takes to part with it. Even things that are hard to part with.

Case in point: I had been having trouble getting rid of the glider in Charlotte's room, even though it's completely broken and too unstable to sit in, and I haven't needed to rock or nurse a baby there in years. But I got over it, dreamed of a better space, thanked it for its service (OH YES I DID), and we removed it.

And it felt so fantastic we did the same thing with the toddler bed (has served five children well, is now broken to the point of unsafe, also the mattress was cracked in half -- the mattress *I* slept on as a baby) and whoa suddenly Charlotte had space for a whole new room.

So we moved her bookshelf under the window, moved her dresser across the room, kon-mari'd the crap out of miscellaneous stuff from my Grandpa Schnack's house (he died in 2009, his small chest of drawers has been sitting in her room, full of his stuff that we never sorted through, we even moved with it from the old house, whyyyyyyyy), rearranged the art on her walls, hung up a ribbon frame I made months ago, in the hopes of containing her ever-growing bow collection, and...

...got her a BIG GIRL BED.

I have been wanting to get a double bed for one of the kids' rooms for ages nowso we could have an extra space for a guest if we needed to (or a guest that might not want to be in the guest house, or a guest who might come when Mark is on night shift and sleeps out there). I just thought it would be nice to have one more "bigger" bed in the house, somewhere.

I assumed it would be in Anneliese's room, since hers is biggest, but she currently has a rolling trundle that we didn't want to move to Charlotte's room for fear of scratching the floors (Charlotte is the only one with hardwood). So we decided the full would work better for Charlotte than in Nathan (who has slanty ceilings on two sides, not just one, which makes his room feel smaller) and ANYWAY, Charlotte now has the big bed and she picked out owl sheets and I bought a clearance Target quilt and she loves her new room. I love it too.

So. I have KM'd a lot of categories now (the system recommends doing it by category, not location, so that you can actually see everything you have of that category and then decide what to keep): linens, bathroom/toiletry/personal care stuff, our clothes, books, papers/desks stuff, and kid stuff including their clothes and the toys (we have hardly any toys now! it's great! big kids don't need them! We kept trains and cars and blocks and legos and doll/figurine sets, put outside stuff outside, and tossed or donated almost everything else. They actually play with what we have now. I could do a whole separate post about this but I won't).

I have donated and thrown away so much stuff, y'all. I got read of well over half of what we owned in each of those categories. I had been feeling so crowded for so long, and I feel so much better now. My whole life feels less chaotic. I know, I know, I am drunk on the kool-aid.

I am not done, though. I still need to do kitchen stuff and outerwear and memorabilia, including a whole mess of Clemson stuff in the guest house, but for now I am done until school starts and I can have the time and space to work on it again.

One of the dreams (since last fall, a bit before I read this book but right in the throes of feeling crowded out of my own space and life and that nothing in my house or time was actually for me) is to make the guest house a sort of grownup/alone retreat when Mark or I need to be away from the chaos of the house, without having to actually flee our home. I'm picturing a big chair and a half, and a pretty lamp, and some pretty shelves of books, and a bed to nap on. Marky is picturing that same comfy chair with a nice tv that can actually hook up to the roku for watching stuff, and a bed for napping. All of this will involve moving the pool table out (no small endeavor, will happen this weekend) and it'll get done bit by bit, but it will happen this year because the Japanese tidying method firmly convinced me that to experience the change in energy and motivation that comes with setting up your home in exactly the order you want, it has to happen all at once.

Anyway, so that's the story of how I fell off the deep end, and how good it feels, and basically go read A'Dell's post on her tidying, she talks about it in better and more hilarious ways than I can. Also read this because it's funny. Mostly I just wanted to post pics of Charlotte's new bed, and it turned into a blog post tangent. You're shocked, I can tell.

Back to Preschool!

Everyone is officially back to school!

Charlotte went back today:

Her first day of 3's! She will go three mornings a week, Monday and Wednesday and Friday.

And Anneliese went back yesterday, her last first day of preschool:

Most of the "old 4's" like her are going five days a week (which is a new option at our church), and she is totally ready for that if we had wanted her to (she's actually ready for kindergarten, in my opinion -- and desperately wants to go to kindergarten -- but just after she was born they changed the NC schools birth date deadline from October 15th to August 31st, so she misses the deadline now), but now that I have seen what it is like to have a kid gone all day every weekday, I'm in no hurry to rush it for preschool -- so she's only doing four mornings, Monday through Thursday. On Fridays she will be at home with Ali and me, and I am glad for it.

Can I point out here how much it delights me that my children happily bound up those steps outside church and grab that rail and smile for pictures now? What started as a random photo of Nathan as a toddler has turned into a legit first-day tradition, complete with Starbucks. (All the best traditions come with Starbucks. True story.)

Anyway they each had their first days, and next week starts our new routine. Nathan is in school most of the day every day, of course. And all the girls will be home every afternoon. But the mornings will be more scattered:
- Mondays I will have just Ali,
- Tuesdays and Thursdays I will have Charlotte and Ali,
- Fridays it'll be Anneliese and Ali,
and Wednesday mornings (while Ali is at mmo) will once again be MINE ALL MINE. Those four hours are precious, y'all. Not because I have anything important or pressing to do (although it's nice to have a go-to window to schedule things I don't want to drag any kids along to), but simply because, like most people, even chatty extroverts, sometimes I like to be ALONE FTLOG.

I have big plans for giant coffees, and long showers, and reading under my covers, and I might even poop with no one talking to me. It's going to be awesome.

Last First Haircut

Charlotte got a haircut today! Her first haircut. Yes, she is three. Yes, I waited longer with her than the others. Yes, I am babying her. No, I am not sorry.

It's not that her hair looked too scraggly or bad, it was just very uneven and I want it to be able to grow out better, so it was totally time to get it cleaned up. And also she has been asking for months and months, so there is that too.

She was sweet and adorable and hopped right up, and then these little long wisps were no more.

Yes, I cried. Right there in Great Clips. Parenting, man.

It was fast and easy and suddenly done and now she has a cute little bob that looks much healthier than before, and will grow out more evenly. I thought she would look older but she almost looks... younger? But still my booler.

(Once they gave her a lollipop she basically refused to look at me for pics again til we got home.)

Here's the before and after! (And she thought this new Daniel shirt would be the biggest part of her day!) (Well, for her, it probably was.)

Happy first haircut, baby girl!