Allowance (And a Shopping Day!)

I feel like there is an ongoing discussion about allowance and kids - how old, how much, how to connect it (or not) to chores and/or behavior. We are about a year into our allowance system in our house, so -- here's what we do.

Both big kids (not Charlotte yet, since she can't count) get an allowance. They get $5 a week, of which they are expected to:
-- give 10% (church offering plate or the like)
-- save 10% (in a piggy bank, for bigger purchases which will involve a Together Decision with parents -- although neither of them has crossed this bridge yet)
-- and the rest is theirs to do with as they please

Based on the twitter chatter, this is more than lots of kids their age get, but part of the reason (the hugest part actually) that we wanted to give them an allowance was so that they could stop asking us for things, and learn that a finite amount of money means they make the choices about what they want to buy. And $5 is enough that they can actually get something they want. Which means they don't have to whine at me. So, this amount works for us.

(I will say, for both of them, in the first weeks of getting an allowance, they were both drunk on their riches and would wander around looking for something to buy -- just to buy something, anything -- which drove Mark and me nuts. But they grew out of that within a month or two, and it's better now. I know some grownups would do the same with a sudden influx of cash so I tried not to scowl too much, assuming it's a normal part of some money learning process.)

Okay so they each have a wallet and a piggy bank, and they divvy up their $5 every week into the proper pouches/pockets/places for each designation (we give part of it to them in coins to make this divvying easier) and when we are out and about, they buy their own things.

Exceptions: when we (adults) suggest an outing, we pay. We also pay for presents for friends' birthdays, and give them an extra budget at the holidays to choose gifts. And of course, we buy all of what we consider "needs" (clothes, school supplies, activities/equipment). Anything else they want, they can pay for. This system has all but evaporated the whining in Target.

Also, their allowance isn't tied at all to their chores or their behavior. We didn't want to send the message that, A: they "get paid" for doing chores, or B: that doing chores or behaving properly is somehow optional, with a consequence of less/no allowance. No, they behave because they need to behave. And they do chores because they're part of this family. And (I guess) (I hope) they will always need to be part of a household that will require work/upkeep/contribution, and they will never get paid for that, so no we aren't starting that mindset now. I don't know that there is a right or wrong answer about this, plenty of kids get paid for chores or rewards or grades or whatever, and it seems to work fine. This way just made more sense for Mark and me and our family.

Anyway, that's how we do allowance.

I should also say that with the upside kids making their own purchase decisions also comes the downside of... kids making their own purchase decisions. It means ugly things will come live in your house.

Exhibit A: meet Flower. She is a sequined rainbow cat purse, and she was the longing of Anneliese's little rainbow sequined heart. So she saved her money up and now we own this monstrocity and she loves it and I hate it and I have had to make peace with it.

(No, she does not keep money in there. She keeps a mint tin with the Seattle space needle on it, now empty of mints but housing one pressed penny, also with the space needle on it. She should do a "what's in your purse" blog post, yes?)

Mark spent a lot of time hand-lettering that cat nametag, can you tell?

Another of Anneliese's dreams was to take a trip to a mall with just mommy, where we could go into Claire's (the magical land she had heard about from her friends) and also look in any store she wanted, for as long as she wanted, and hey! that's a dream I can relate to!

So she saved her allowance for many weeks and we went with a full wallet and she spent every dollar and walked away happy. She got a stash of accessories at Claire's, including this ridiculous headband that she proceeded to wear all through one mall, and a lunch date, and then a second mall, without feeling silly or self-conscious in the least (I love her).

She also got a little bundle of wooden carved roses sprayed with piña colada scent, which is a kiosk I would have never in a million years walked up to, but she loves them and letting her wander where her heart calls is sort of fun.

She also got that buttefly necklace which came with a matching ring, and in the process of showing it to me to take a picture, she full on flipped me the bird while grinning, and I will not post that picture here, but will happily email or text it to anyone who would be delighted by that kind of thing.

I mean, she certainly delights me. Rainbows and fake flowers and bird flipping and all.

Snow Aventure

Hey remember that time we got stranded in a sudden snow and had to abandon the car and WALK to try to get home, with ALL THREE KIDS?

Yeah.

The sun is shining now and spring feels dangerously close, which means I finally, a month later, can tell this story without panic rising back up into my throat and tears hovering behind my eyes.

I have no idea where to start. Okay. I will start at noon. (All these times are approximate, obviously, based on texts and my phone log.)

11:45 - All three kids are home since we have a snow day off school, so we decide to pick up Another Nathan at church for lunch before the snow starts (predicted about noonish) (the last snow day, we waited til 7pm for what was predicted at noon. #context).

12:13 - I sit in the van and let the big kids run up to the sanctuary to pull Another Nathan away from practicing (gently! with walking feet! and whisper voices!) (I remind them every time, but HA) and it has juuuust started snowing. I take a picture in my snow! day! excitement! to text to Liz in Utah and show her our second NC snow of the year. This is that picture:

Adorable, right? YOU CANNOT EVEN SEE THE SNOW.

12:20 - We arrive at Zaxby's, we eat chicken and grilled cheese and, with some mounting concern, we watch the parking lot turn pretty white pretty fast. We order a milkshake to share on the way home, and decide to leave. In a fit of smarts, seeing how slowly traffic is moving outside, I take the big kids to go potty before we get back in the car. Anneliese says she only has to poop but not pee. Who does that??? No one goes poop and not pee! No one! (Stay tuned, this will be relevant later.) (You can already see it coming, right?)

1pm - There is enough snow we have to legit scrape off the van before we can drive away. Uh-oh. That was... fast.

1:05 - The roads are very freaking slippery. I wish to not be driving on them. Why is there no salt? Is this snow or ice? It is very slick. It takes me only several hundred yards to haaaaaate it, and start worrying. We go several blocks and get to the top of a hill, on a main busy road, that no one is going down, because they can't get back up. Suddenly there is snow everywhere and no one can get where they want and we get very wide eyes. This doesn't happen in Raleigh! We turn around, FOR THE FIRST TIME.

1:10 - Another Nathan gets out and pushes the van over an incline, FOR THE FIRST TIME.

1:15 - Back on less-gridlocked residential streets, a car in front of us makes it over a slight slope only to careen directly into a ditch on the decline.

1:16 - We panic, FOR THE FIRST TIME.

1:17 - Mark texts from work (where he is in panic mode himself, ice on power lines is no joke) to say that traffic throughout the city is gridlocking, and checking to make sure we are safe at home. Ummm.

1:20 - We are in the hilliest neighborhood in Raleigh. (I HAVE NEVER NOTICED ALL THESE HILLS BEFORE) and no matter which way we try to go, we are caught either behind someone who is stuck, or at the bottom of a hill we can't get up ourselves. We turn on a movie in the back of the van and Another Nathan and I try to breathe deeply and talk to each other in low soothing voices about how we can not freak out, because then the kids will freak out (we have ALL! THREE! KIDS! omg).

The hour of misery: We are in a blur of icy street after icy street, snow piling up faster than it ever does around here, and no one knows how to drive in it, and basically everyone in the city is just stuck. This happened nine years ago and it took like eight hours to get home, and I hit a school bus in the process, and had to walk a few miles. This cannot be happening again. With kids. No no no no.

We are arguing about which way to try next, weighing which roads would take us back closer to church or to our house, which ones are too hilly to try, which ones are flat but would make us backtrack. We try many turns, most of which fail us and we need to turn around, which almost always involves more pushing. Another Nathan and I are crying at different intervals (never at the same time, thank goodness), giving up on one road after another after another, meanwhile more and more cars are stuck and hard to get around, and the snow is falling faster, and the roads are slicker and slicker, and we are basically driving in circles around several small blocks. The kids have gotten very quiet in the back of the van.

1:55 - I call my Montreat friend Amy who lives somewhat nearby, halfway knowing we might need to walk to her house, and halfway hoping she will have some smart ideas for a route to try. She knows the neighborhood well, and tells us the least hilly streets that will get us closest to church. Another Nathan hates it because it involves some backtracking, but I am panicky-insistent that we have to try something, and now, so we decide to take her advice. Several times, Another Nathan (sometimes alone, sometimes with the help of strangers) has to get out and push, but mostly the route works. (Until later when it doesn't.)

2:10 - The movie we put on in the back of the van is just playing an endless loop of previews, and the kids are officially now more aware of us than the stuck dvd player. They are scared. Nathan is weepy. Anneliese is whiny. Charlotte is wide-eyed. We are still trying, slowly, block by block, to make progress towards home.

2:15 - We are in an intersection of two tiny streets in a residential neighborhood, and every direction goes up. But the van will not go up. With all the other cars waiting to cross when we got to this cross street, we couldn't get enough momentum to get down the hill and back up, so now we are stuck. I shed a few tears. Other cars are making it! Why can't we make it? I am furious at the other people who deigned to be on the road in the same intersection at the same time as me and my own snow problems, who made it impossible for me to careen on through, and now I am stuck and I HATE ALL OF HUMANITY AND EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE.

2:15 - A nice man helps push for a while and then convinces Another Nathan (who convinces me) that we are definitely not getting up the hill, so we should pull to the side of the road and stop trying. We sit for a moment and stare at each other, and he talks to Mark on the phone about what to do, and my head is spinning and I am only vaguely aware of what they were talking about, only vaguely aware of where we even are. I do not want to walk but I do not want to stay in the car with all the kids.

2:20 - I stop panicking and crying for the moment, and Another Nathan starts. He does not want to stay but he does not want to walk with all the kids.

2:21 - But if we are going to try to make it somewhere on foot (WHERE???) we need go. Now.

2:22 - I check google maps and tell a careful white lie about exactly how far we are from church. (I tell him it is just under a mile. It is... about twice that. Fine for just us, miserable with three poorly-attired young children.) But I convince Another Nathan if we can just make it to church, we'd have food and heat and diapers and bathrooms, and we could camp there for the night if we had to. He has keys. We would be warm. We would be safe. We just have to make it to church. We make the decision to walk.

2:23 - But before we can set out on foot, Anneliese says she has to pee. (BECAUSE SHE DIDN'T GO WHEN SHE POOPED REMEMBER?) So I do what I have no choice but to do, pick a random house, and ring the doorbell.

And Y'ALL. This could be a blog post all its own. The owners of the house have clearly been enjoying some sexaaay playtime, in the living room (one answered the door in a waist towel, the other was on the couch under a blanket, both seemingly otherwise naked), everything smelled like weed, and they were all chatty about how beeeeeautiful the snow day was.

Okay so I try not to see anything around me (so! dirty! messy! I can't even!) and we beeline for the bathroom where Anneliese pees and I looked all around and I am surrounded by... wait for it, this is the weirdest part of the day... FINGERS. Wax fingers. (Another Nathan has since corrected me, saying they weren't likely wax but maybe... latex? rubber? Something. Anyway, they looked like wax.) Here are the ones in the soap dish:

(That is the only picture I got of the whole adventure. That's it. Those fingers. Enjoy.) (That soap dish cleanliness is indicative of the whole house.) (I am saying this in a kind voice. Thank you, kind sirs who let my kid pee when we were stranded!)

2:27 - We traipse back to the parked van but of course I left my phone in The House, so I have to go back and knock on their door again, (and then again! when I can't find it the first time I go back), until I finally find it on the towel bar in the bathroom (it was the only place to set it down, since everywhere else in there was full of fingers!) (Another Nathan: "dammit why did you even take it out of your pocket??" WELL, TO TAKE A PICTURE OF THE FINGERS, NATHAN.)

2:30 - Back outside at the van, Nathan and Charlotte have been fortified with milkshake sips (yep, Zaxby's milkshake, still in the car) and assured that no, buddy, it isn't that all the people are mean and no one wants to help us, it is the snow, not mean people (haaaaaaa poor boy) and I insist on trying one more time to drive us up out of that crossroads.

2:34 - Attempt is tear-filled and futile. We are officially abandoning the van and walking. It has come to this.

2:35 - We lock up the non-essentials (including my purse, and Hattie) (!!) and take only what we need: the kids, a few diapers stuffed in jackets, our phones (Nathan's is basically dead by now), keys and a credit card, and we start walking. With three kids. In blinding white wind-in-our-face snow OH MY GEEEESH.

2:35 to 3:45 - The second hour of misery: walking in a winter wonderland MY ASS. The kids are in tennis shoes, no gloves, no hats. The wind is blowing snow into our faces. We take turns carrying Charlotte, whom we cannot convince to turn her face against the wind, and as a result her coat hood will not stay on, and it only takes a few minutes for her wispy hair to freeze into icicles around her face (in hindsight I cannot believe I have no picture of this, but it was the hardest part of our day, so).

Another Nathan has the big kids put their hands in their sleeves and look at the ground and walk as fast and carefully as they can. We make jokes about the Von Trapps. ("If they can climb over that mountain to Switzerland, we can make it to Oberlin Road!" "Wait wasn't that in summer though?" "Snowflakes that stay on my noses and eyelashes THAT IS NO ONE'S FAVORITE THING.") (Snowflakes were totally frozen to both Anneliese and Another Nathan's eyelashes.) (No pictures, GAH.) We sing songs. We talk about things people should invent to make snow better. We are freaking the eff out inside, but we are chatty and smiling underneath making Worried Eyes at each other, and it mostly keeps the kids in good spirits. Mostly. It is cold and it is wet and it feels like forever. It takes us about an hour to go the first mile.

3:45 - We make it to a shopping center with a restaurant that for some reason seems to be open. We go inside to pee and thaw out for a minute, and then we continue our trek. There is already enough snow on the ground that we can't tell road, from sidewalks, from green areas. Very weird for us.

3:55 - Since this road is busier and every car is basically heading right for our church, I get hopeful we can flag someone down to drive us the rest of the way. And we do: a nice man who works for the post office and suddenly whoa wait OMG we are hitchiking! with no car seats! Another Nathan in the backseat with both girls in his lap, me in the front with Nathan and the driver. Wuuuuut is our day turning into.

4:00 - The nice man brought us the last (long) few blocks to church, which has saved us. I have never been so glad to see our church parking lot, ever.

4:05 - Another Nathan goes all business on us, all Iowa, all midwestern snow survivor. Okay! Everybody inside, take off your coats! Wet coats inside feel colder than no coats! Here kids, stay right here, don't move, read these board books about communion! Erin please go upstairs and find my phone charger! I am going to get a shovel to dig my car out etc etc etc! and OH MAN I am glad he is taking charge because at this point I am DONE.

4:25 - I have procured kid-sized backup socks, sweatshirts and hats from the lost and found. I cannot find the phone charger. I also cannot find Another Nathan's boss, whose car is still buried in the parking lot but doesn't seem to have gone home with anyone else. I make lots of phone calls to track him down, leave a marker note for him on the whiteboard in the choir room because we are making a break for our house, we don't want to leave him stranded. Being stuck in a snowstorm makes everyone feel VERY CARING AND TEAM TOGETHERY, YO. True story. (It turns out he had brought good winter gear, and walked like four miles home on his own, tired and cold but perfectly safe.) So I am just finishing all of that when Another Nathan bursts in and says his car is cleared, and up on the road, and he is brisk-clapping us to get bundled and get going again.

4:30 - The kids are buckled in a row across the backseat of Another Nathan's little civic (we have car seats for the girls this time; *praise hands* for never remembering to take them out of his car) and they all three look wide-eyed and shellshocked. Finally I am not driving, finally home seems attainable, I am starting to feel okay, yet still I do not think to take a picture.

4:35 - We make it through the only trecherous intersection between church and my house, and we breathe a sigh of relief. We can walk from here if we need to. Home is within reach! We know we will make it! Nathan and I both have giddy-relief tears right behind our eyes.

4:37 - Some dumb van is stopped in the middle of the road (for no reason, waiting for another car to go?) and is blocking any good path for other cars to get through. I have to get out and navigate Another Nathan through it. I exchange Words with the driver of the van. He is not nice. (Very Caring Team Togethery FAIL, dude.) I do not need to push the car while I am out there, which strikes little Nathan as patently unfair, and when he recounts the story later, he consistently tells the part where I didn't push Another Nathan's car but Another Nathan pushed our van and mommy didn't even help him. So.

4:45 - We can see our house! We make one attempt to get into the driveway, fail miserably, and gladly just park across the street. We fairly jump up and down cheering as we muck through the snowy yard, our exhausted wet cold victory lap. HOME.

HOOOOOOOOOOOOME.


*********
(Those are snowflakes, not asterisks. Just go with it.)

And then we spent the next five hours trying to unwind, which was not easy. We felt anxious basically all night. We hung our socks by the fireplace to dry, I made dinner, no one played outside in the snow like last time, and Another Nathan spent the night in the guest house before making it home safely the next day -- after almost getting run over by a snowplow while scraping his car on our street (he had to jump inside for cover) (it broke his side mirror) (I had never seen one before; I had no idea how fast they go!) (in related news I am officially now terrified of snowplows).

And then the day after THAT things were finally melted enough to go back for the van, which was right where we left it. A tree had fallen right behind it (!!!!) but not on it, thank goodness. And even on the third day, it was hard to wrestle the van up that incline and dislodge it from the ice.

(Scraping ice off the car you recently abandoned, while wearing shorts? On Valentine's day? You might live in North Carolina.)

Oh, and then, AND THEN, I couldn't find my keys. HAHAHA OF COURSE. (A certain oddly observant friend had a flash memory of them on the desk at church two days before, and indeed there they were.)

Oh y'all. I know many people had it  much, much worse in this icy traffic fiasco, but for us with the kids, THIS WAS TERRIBLE. Like, legit stressful, probably will never forget it, terrible. And I don't know what much more to say about it besides thank goodness it is over, thank goodness that despite how scared we felt in the moment, it was not as bad as it could have been, and thank goodness spring is looming.

And that's the story of why we never did finish our Zaxby's milkshake.

Catching Up: Some Broke-Ass and Some Lovely

Whoa I am so behind I almost don't know where to start, so hey how about I just going to jump right in with the single biggest thing that has been going on the past few weeks:

-- Mark had surgery on his broke-ass shoulder. The surgery day was a flurry of logistics and helpful friends and plans and backup plans, and involved Anneliese and me sitting for hours in a waiting room, and the days that followed were a flurry of meds and med schedules and Mark dozing in and out of real life from the recliner in our living room, since he couldn't do much else, including lie down flat. But life is coming back to normal! The surgery went well, and besides needing some pregnant-lady drugs to quell his post-anesthesia nausea, he has had no real problems.

The kids were super sweet to him in recovery though. Anneliese offered up Hattie during her own naptime (!) to help Daddy sleep.

And Nathan stuck a note in his lunch box for his first night back to work.

 The hard part now is he will be in a sling for a MONTH and it is his RIGHT shoulder. But he says he can do all the kids alone (he can't pick up Charlotte easily, but maybe he won't have to? and he says he can do her seat belt buckle once she climbs in?) and I am choosing to believe him because I really really want to go to Charleston this weekend as originally planned. So, three cheers for Mark, flying solo, with one arm and three kids! (Three cheers and a prayer. No really.)

-- The van got broke-ass too. One day after Mark's surgery, like, the very next day, the van started driving all wonky and turrible and the end result was a tow truck hauling it a way to put in a whole new transmission while Mark and I watched, while crying tears full of dollar signs. (I'm still going to Charleston.)

-- We went to a fall festival. A church down the road from our church had a little fair, and in the interest of getting the kids (read: Mark and his broke-ass shoulder) out of the house, we loaded them up and went. It was sweet!

Full of just what you'd expect: a fire truck and ambulance for the kids to visit, face painting, a barbecue food truck, raffles and a bake sale, bounces houses that your toddler gets stuck on the top of til your sling-armed husband climbs up for rescuing which is probably an approved post-op activity, right? (PICTURE ME MAKING WIDE EYES.) Look at the pictures of my children's face paintings so you don't think about how bad that could have been.

-- We got new hymnals. In some worlds, this would be the most uninteresting thing a person could mention, but lucky for you, I don't live in that world, because I am nerdily excited about this thing. It has been in the works for years, the first new hymnal in decades, and they are a beautiful shade of purple and full of beautiful songs set in a beautiful font, and they smell good too. Yeah I said it.

Also a nice lady from church, who also went to Furman, who was/is a harp teacher there (yeah she travels a lot) paid for a ton of copies of the new hymnal, and look what I found in the front of mine in the choir room the first night we got to use them:

Y'all. That is so lovely. It made me smile for days. So lovely!

Hey remember that time I blogged about hymnals? I stand by that decision.

-- I am not having a super day today. I am in a frenzy getting things ordered/ready for Anneliese's rainbow birthday party next weekend, getting laundered and packed for my trip to Charleston this weekend, and trying to stay on top of everything at the house too (Mark usually does SO MUCH, y'all. So much. Him being in a sling just reminds me of that and makes me feel thankful for him). Anyway I feel chaotic and I should make a bunch of lists to make myself feel more in control but even that feels like too much so I am blogging about church fairs and bouncy houses and hymnals instead, because obviously.

Also all my bras hurt. Like the boning in the side is digging into me at the bottom. Did I wash them wrong? Are my straps just not doing their job? Why did they all change at once? Did the metal (plastic?) piece slip out of some end of the faric? Is this better or worse than blogging about the super smell of my new hymnal?

Also I can't believe I am saying this (warning! heresy ahead!) but I am almost convinced that life is easier when my kids don't nap. I mean, the evenings kinda suck when they are overtired and at their limits. But fighting the girls to stay quiet in their rooms when they just don't want to, and aren't super tired, is making us all miserable. I can stomach it for about an hour and then watching them color together down here in the bonus room while I type or read or whatever is... well, easier. I can't give up on naps altogether, though, because A- Charlotte legitimately still needs it, and B- I still want to be able to reserve the right to send them all to their rooms for alone time when *I* legitimately need it. So I'm in nap limbo. Super decisive about it too, can you tell?

Okay I will just be over here making all those party and packing lists now. Happy October!

And Now, September. Whoa September. Simmer Down.

Well, September came in like a lion yesterday.

It started out mostly normal. Nice, even. I went to church. I had a lovely easy coffee and lunch with a Montreat friend. I snuggled with Marky all afternoon. I caught up on blog stuff at Starbucks (America's Office™).

Wait I need to interject here: why don't I take my computer and type in coffee shops more? It is awesome! Another Nathan talked me into it (it was not a hard sell) and we walked through youth choir plans for the year, and he did some conference and worship planning (mostly it's just easier to work when he has the motivation of a new computer) (like anyone) (the computer's name is My Precious, if you're looking for a way to get him to roll his eyes at you #psa), and I returned emails and wrote a little and I felt so mom urban trendy! Typing in a Starbucks (America's Office™) is way better than typing at home. Not because I need to. Just because I can.

"Are we in New York right now?" -Another Nathan

(I'm doing it again today, writing this. Because I am coffeehouse-typey indulgent like that.)

Okay so anyway that's not the lion part.

So after our business/church meeting at Starbucks (America's Office™) we all decided we wanted to go to dinner and a movie. No work today! That means DO something last night! Mark has had a hankering for Chili's, which is not normally the Grownup Dinner Out we would use babysitting hours for, but whatevs, we all like it, so we went.

And. It was a rainy stormy floody windy disaster all over Raleigh, so we had to drive around our ass to get to our elbow, to avoid roads blocked by cars stuck in standing water, and avoid getting stuck ourselves, and then were drenched by the time we walked the six feet to the restaurant entrance, and then the power went out right after we ordered.

Being IN A BLACKOUT AT CHILI'S is what I'm guessing the beginning end of the world might feel like.

Well after devouring a bowl of (free) chips and salsa and downing two (not free!) (even in a blackout!) (they will hand write you a tab, yo!) beers, we decided to give up on the movie, to turn down our server's offer to "grab some food that's already made in the kitchen, not sure what it is and we can't guarantee it'll be warm, but..." (YUM), to ignore the melodramatic proclamations of a fellow diner insisting we were flooded on all sides and couldn't get out of the parking lot if we tried (shut up, we're on a hill), and headed back out into the mess towards...

Another Chili's.

Oh yes we did.

So we made it there, all in one car (we abandoned Another Nathan's at the first Chili's, as one does when one is foraging for food in an armageddon) and we drank more (not free) beer and finally finally (after the world's slowest service, which our server seemed to be proudly smug about somehow anyway) ate our Chili's dinner and I HOPE YOU LOVED EVERY BITE MARKY and I also hope that you love this story, which, let's face it, will now be re-told anytime we eat there. Be ready. (Not that we'll eat there again soon. Not for a while. I mean.)

And that should be enough for this blog post BUT OUR CLOWN-CRAY EVENING KEPT GOING.

So we got home and paid our (new) sitter and brought her home, AND THEN we couldn't find Bowden. Like, anywhere. We searched the whole house and we woke up all the kids and we went out back in the wet mess with a flashlight under the decks and we drove around the neighborhood. Which was sort of pointless because she could have been anywhere -- we didn't know how long she had been gone or when she could have even gotten out, or how spooked she might be from the storm (very) and, just... OH MAH GAH it felt awful. We looked for hours.

Eventually, through my tears, I filled out lost pet forms with the county SPCA, and put a note on craigslist, and some website helped me make a printable flyer, the sight of which almost made me throw up. (I was planning to post it here right now, but suddenly... no.) I was sobbing and felt sick.

We went to bed feeling so worried and upset and not knowing what to do, yet feeling like we needed to do something, but resigned to waiting til the light of day. We kept reminding ourselves of her tag, her microchip, her size, all optimistic factors in someone finding her and approaching her and getting in touch with us. But in the meantime, bedtime not knowing where our pup girl is? Barf.

A little after 2am when I still couldn't sleep, I drove around again, crying and yelling her name out of my window (stay classy, dog moms of Anderson Heights) which was of course fruitless. It ended with me sending panicked texts from our church parking lot, through tears, to people who could do nothing and weren't even awake (xoxo Mom Ashley Brad Dad Another Nathan). And then finally crawled back into bed and slept the kind of sleep that only comes after crying yourself to sleep. We have all been there, right? And yes it was that bad.

But in the wee hours in the morning, I heard Charlotte in her room (up much earlier than normal) saying  Bowden's name. Over and over. Like, with a purpose. So I went up there and listened and looked and finally found that sweet pup trapped in the back of a closet, stuck behind a dresser. (We recently filled Charlotte's closets to the brim with all her drawer-accessible furniture because HOLY TODDLER BED FREEDOM MESS, BATMAN.) I guess it's where she went to hide from the thunder, and somehow got shut in by our (new) sitter who wouldn't have known to watch for anything like that, because who would?

And suddenly Bowden was out and down the stairs and the big kids were wide awake and Mark was stumbling out of our room and Charlotte was clapping her hands gleefully.

I was so freaking relieved and so freaking exhausted.

Someday this will be funny, right? The night I went into a panic spiral about our missing dog, who was missing in our own house?

She is back* and we are glad.
(*always here. whatever. still glad.)

So, happy September?

On a less-lion note, yesterday also already brought an opportunity for a nap-creeping selfie, since it's Mark's everyone's favorite thing. I thought I got him good this time; he didn't know I did it til hours later. But then when I showed him he didn't mind it at all, because all he saw was how great his arms look and it made him feel hotter than he thinks he really is (pssssshhht).

The moral of the story is if you want to make your husband feel hott, take secret pictures while he is sleeping. And this advice comes from a sound well-rested person who has had the most normal weekend ever, so it's definitely probably advice worth taking. (Everyone! Send me your husband nap creeper pictures!)

Chicago Chicago Chicago!

Okay I am about to be really annoying and rave all about a beautiful American city that everyone else probably already knew was awesome, but we didn't, and we loved it, so now you get to hear me say a lot how much we loved it. Okay? Okay.

Chicago!

If you missed it before, this trip was part anniversary celebration, part Thailand consolation prize, part sheer desperation to be away somewhere, together, just us. We like big cities and we hadn't spent much time in Chicago (despite so many family roots there on my mom's side!) and we could get there with miles, so... Chicago. A bit random, but yknow, whatevs.

Our first day involved taking the wrong train to Somewhere Random, Chicagoland, and then trying to catch a bus outside a Home Depot with two dying phone batteries and only a quarter clue where we were but hey! we have had weirder lost adventures!

(Y'all only wish I had been blogging back when we got on an unmarked bus bound for who-knows-where in downtown Beijing, and then got in a fight with a rickshaw cyclist -- it definitely involved cash being thrown in the street in front of God and everyone) (and don't ever ever ask my mom about the time we took her on a train to the wrong country and then tried to play it off like we meant to do it that way the whole time) (y'all are all dying to travel with me right now, aren't you? I am actually an excellent traveler! I am! Really! But I digress.)

So anyway we found Wrigley field, where we were trying to go. And because it wasn't a game day, we got to tour it -- including the press box and locker rooms and go out on the field. Mark was predictably geeked up on baseball and nostalgia. But y'all! The stadium really is beautiful! And the city behind it!

Okay I will cool it with the exclamation points now, it's just a baseball field. It gets way better.

Like, our beautiful hotel with a lovely view of Lake Shore Drive. See?

And the spectacularly fancy Water Tower Place mall next door. Fancy, see?

And the perfect foodie dinner (something top chef Stephanie something? we didn't watch the show, we just follow restaurant suggestions) with an unexpected rooftop bar at the top full of fun music and craft beers (in cans! oh Chicago you hipster, you) and a great view -- see?

And drinking coffee on top of the John Hancock tower the next morning wasn't shabby either. Y U NO TELL US U SO PRETTY, CHICAGO??

We also did some things that we love that other people might find nerdy (take lots of pictures on L trains, poke our head into several beautiful churches, admire all the adult-built with Legos on display (it is apparently A Thing in Chicago to have a lego model of whatever building you're in, in the lobby. yes really) and take far too many couple-selfies standing in islands in the middle of busy streets. (There is a picture link at the bottom of this post if you're dying to see all that. Obviously you are.)

I am ashamed to say we didn't eat any steak (I know!) but we did at least find some delicious pizza at this famous place Giordano's (again with the following of restaurant suggestions).

And we went to what midwesterners adorably call "the beach" which, yes, okay, it has sand and water (big water!) but... but. Y'all. It's not the beach. I mean if I lived smack dab in the middle of the country I would be all over it, but only because there was no real beach. It must be how people in the Caribbean feel about Myrtle. (Myrtle y'all!)

But it was fine and fun and we were glad to spend an afternoon in the sand relaxing. And we had never been on a beach underneath skyscrapers before. Very weird and kind of awesome.

And since we were there for the fourth, we took a sailing trip out into the harbor (on a tall ship! I had never been on one of those before! very cool) to watch fireworks over the skyline.

It was... well, perfect. We drank cocktails and snuggled and it was dark and romantic and OH MAH GAH I am so cheesy right now but basically I loved every second and I'm not really ashamed to admit that. 

It was lovely.

And then when it was over we weren't ready to leave the pier and go back to real life ("real life" being our swanky hotel room downtown) so we stuck around the pier and shopped for cheesy souvenirs and shared a cookie in a skillet. Which of course delayed us on the pier til super late, later than was easy to get back into town, which OF COURSE resulted in our hopping on some whatever bus that happened to be sitting there. We figured it would take us someplace where we could figure out where we were, and it did, and we did, because these things always work out. Usually.

Oh! And one other really cool (nerdy? no, cool, let's go with cool) thing we did was take a river tour of Chicago architecture. Yes, it's really a thing people do there. And it really is cool. Seeing the city is beautiful from the river. And I totally mostly kind of part-way listened when Mark was telling me all about some fascinating thing he saw on A&E Top Engineering Disasters That Are Boring to Wives of Engineers (that might not be the exact title, check your listings) about someone drilling something too deep and flooding the city? Yeah I can't believe I even just subjected y'all to that sentence about it, actually.

Anyway the tour was great and our guide/docent was this warm Chicago native with an adorable midwestern accent who actually got choked up looking at the skyline. Like, literally choked on her sentence! Tears in her eyes! We loved her, is what I'm saying.

And the moral of the story is that everyone should big-puffy-heart *love* Chicago just like that lady. And us, now.

And then we took some pictures under the Bean and had froyo at the top of a skyscraper and flew home. The end.

(More pictures click here.)

Dress-Ups in the Car. Naturally.

Here is something I know.

If you're out running errands, but then you suddenly realize you can't run any more errands until the huge mess in your car is cleaned up before it makes you completely batsh!t crazy, so you stop in the parking lot of one of those errands and clean all the trash out of every corner of the van, including every compartment in the back row of seats where your son hoards straw wrappers and milk box cartons and dried up markers and bottle lids like some garbagey combination of a chipmunk and Oscar the Grouch and you just can't take the mess anymore... if you do that, and then you carry a bag of trash to a nearby dumpster, your children (because of course the children are with you, why would you have the urge for such a task when you are alone -- or at home -- where it would be easy? ) will get into the bag of Daddy's work shirts for the dry cleaners, and oh they will play dress up in the car.

And it will be adorable.

And you won't even mind that it made a mess of the car again. Because it was going to be trashed again twenty four-hours later anyway, and you knew the control (well, the illusion of control) you get from a clean car is only ever fleeting.

So you will just smile and take a picture of dress-ups in a parking lot. Yep. You will. This I know.

Your Tree Falls in the Street. If you Don't Blog it, Did it Really Happen?

Hey remember that night a huge ass tree fell in our front yard and blocked our driveway and part of our street, and took down a bunch of lines with it so Mark called 911 while I was kinda giggly from being tipsy on box wine? 

Yeah.

What possessed me to take these pics in complete darkness, I don't know (see: tipsy on box wine) but I'm glad I did, because after many attempts at brightening them, you can KIND OF see what happened.

from across the street, looking up our driveway

from the top of our driveway, looking at the street

the tree (and downed lines), from over the hood of Mark's car

Things to know:

1.) Everyone is fine THANK GOD. (Including house and cars.)

2.) A tree crashing in the yard is a lot louder than your daughter falling out of bed (which was our first thought about the sound, um no).

3.) Even louder than the tree falling is the sound of a truck and crew with chainsaws and wood-chippers AT TWO A.M. under the blue flashing lights of a cop car. (Still classin up the neighborhood.) 

See? I Can Totally Be Spontaneous and Fun-Loving!

Today started with something not that weird: we brought Another Nathan to the airport.  Something we've done a hundred times so he doesn't have to pay for parking, although today was earlier than we'd normally go. But because of his little acci-doo (and when better to leave your car at an auto shop than when you're going to be out of town anyway?) he was carless, so driving himself and parking wasn't an option. So we got up early and took him. (Gladly, for the record. He's our most helpful friend, remember?)

And since it was so early, I basically threw the kids in the car straight out of bed.  Mostly without breakfast, loveys in hand, and wearing their PJs. Car rides wearing PJs are fun!

Related to said earliness, I hadn't banked on any airport playtime. It was early. We already had a playdate scheduled for later this morning, so I didn't think the kids would even care.

Um, I was wrong.

Cut to us sitting on the observation deck at the ass-crack of dawn, eating chick fil a biscuits, watching planes take off. In the rain. In our PJs.

bye-bye, friend!

Oh, the things it never occurred to me I would I do as a mommy.

Tuesday Tea

This morning Nathan's class had a Mother's Day tea party. The moms were instructed to bring our favorite teacup or mug for the party, and, um... yeah I don't somuch have one of those. (It was an even tossup between a paper cup from Starbucks or the beer stein I stole from Oktoberfest a decade ago, and I didn't think either of those would fly.) Also, in classic Erin fashion, I was the only one to show up in jeans, and one of the only ones who forgot to wear my fantastic sequin brooch Nathan made me.

Off to a great start, yes?

It actually ended up being kind of fun, despite my mom failings. I had a personalized placemat, and the distinct honor of sharing a plate of snacks with my dear son. Who was sitting in my lap. In a tiny preschool chair. Ahhh class parties.

The total theft of my own identity is now complete.

You can see my "favorite" mug there in the picture. Assuming favorite means only.

Nathan had answered a little survey about me. His answers weren't quite as off-the-wall as last year, except he was the only kid in his class to say I look prettiest at church (hellz yes we're holy) and the only one who, instead of saying he loved me or how great of a mom I am on mother's day, thought it was mostly important to tell me ... he wants to go to the zoo? Okay.

At least he didn't say I look prettiest in the shower like his friend Alex did about his mom. Yeah.

But the best part is his drawing of me.

With yellow hair (he totally thinks I'm still a blond!) and a ponytail.  Wearing a dress.  I mean, nothing could be more like me. Right?

Red White and Blue Day

Never one to be outdone, Nathan, like Anneliese, also has developed a love for a good hat. 

(Or a bad hat. You be the judge.)

The church preschool had all the kids dress in red white and blue for a presidents day singalong (naturally?) and this is how my children insisted on showing up.

Yep, we're That Family.

Why We Need Daddy

Day two juggling three kids by myself... not quite as smooth as day one.  After yesterday, I was feeling very mommy confident so I attempted some errands this morning. Um, bad idea.

I'll spare you the gruesome details, but the end result was Anneliese crying on a store floor next to a broken ottoman, while Nathan was in distress because I was spraying (yes, spraying) Charlotte with breastmilk in my panicked inability to keep her latched on correctly while also tending to Anneliese. Ever seen four people crying simultaneously in a very public place?  Today, we were That Family.

We ate some lunch, got it (mostly) together, and it only took a few tearful attempts to get everyone to sleep.  But Charlotte will be up soon, and I'm exhausted, and I'm so missing this:

Mark has been a rock star over the last month. Soothing Charlotte when my attempts failed.  Calming big-sister tantrums. Lots of midnight diaper changes (and midday ones too). Providing extra hands and diversions and attention anywhere needed. I got used to having him around all day and all night, every day and every night.  And with mornings like the one I just had, I really want him back.

Someone please remind me that I'll get used to this, and that most days won't feel this eventful.  A "new normal" is coming... soon... right?

Purple Eye

Nathan got a purple eye at school this week.  Not pinkeye, that's something else.  And not a black eye, because it's purple Mommy.

purple eye, day 1

Okay, okay, sweetie.  It's purple.

purple eye, day 2

(He has spent lots of time gazing at his injury in the mirror this week.  I figure he's got as good a handle as any of us on what the exact coloring is.)

purple eye, day 3

No one actually witnessed how it happened.  We've gotten several versions of the same story, all involving his favorite little girl in the class, Molly, who might or might not have hit him.  (Note: he's saying Molly.  Not Mommy.  Let's be clear on who might or might not have punched him in the eye socket, mmkay?)

purple eye, day 4

From the sounds of it, they ran into each other and hit heads (hers is not purple).  And then maybe she got mad and hit him?  But she didn't mean to?  And maybe he tried to hug her?  But she didn't want him to?  We're all a bit fuzzy on the details. 

purple eye, day 5

But basically it boils down to this: everyone is still friends, and now Nathan has a shiner.

See exactly how much distress Nathan's purple eye isn't causing him!

(Molly's head is not purple and she did not need a band-aid. In case you were wondering.  Or missed it the first time.  Molly is not purple. Nathan wants you to know. Ok?)