{real}

There have been many pretty, happy, and funny moments since last week; however, the real has dominated our lives lately.  An intestinally-themed virus has been making its slow rounds through the family, and on top of that I've had two debilitating tension headaches within the space of one week.  Everyone seems finally to be on the mend, and I've dug us out of the piles of laundry that were threatening to eat the house (the laundry! oh, the laundry!).  Mr. Pickles has done an admirable job stepping in while I was incapacitated.  I honestly don't know what I would have done without him.  We wouldn't have had an Easter feast, that's for sure -- he had to do the shopping for me last week while I was still recovering.  He got all the essentials: ham, ice cream, piles of meat, sugar cereal, that sort of thing.  Still, there's no substitute for a full-time housekeeper.  (oh! the laundry!)  I'm glad to be back on my feet, albeit a little wobbly -- I feel like I'm leaving my family to the wolves whenever I'm down for a day.  (I actually get the most worried about the baby when I'm sick -- when I can't drink anything more than 2 sips of Sprite for 6 hours I wonder if the milk factory is able to function.  Judging by how much he's been waking up at night, my guess is not very well.)
All this is to say that we were sick, we're better, I have pictures, we've got a busy weekend coming up but I hope to post again soon, and HAPPY EASTER!!!

{phfr}

{pretty}

I love looking at my back garden now.  the tulips are popping up everywhere!

so pwetty

love these baby daffodils -- so dainty!

{happy}

I wish I were this sunshiney first thing in the morning

{funny}

someday I'm going to miss waking up with baby ear prints on my arm...

{real}

the family growth chart

tee hee -- love comparing the birth lengths!

Scenes from Spring

Well, after such a dreadful, gray week, we finally had some delicious spring weather on Sunday!  We made the most of it.  Well, most of us did -- one of us was indisposed.

:(

 

The only thing I have to say in the weather's defense is that my bulbs are thriving, and I haven't lifted a finger to water them! 

planting bulbs in the fall is fun, because I never remember what I planted or where, so every spring is a surprise!

 The wild violets are amazing this year, too.

Cheerily likes tulips.

The girls have been enjoying all the blooms.  They spent a good part of the afternoon braiding their hair and putting flowers in it.

of course, we had to give Miriam antihistamine eye drops after this photo

Today was another lovely day.  Joseph was feeling slightly better (although still whiny) so I took the boys outside to enjoy some fresh air in the afternoon.

ooh, dandelion!

what?  you big people eat these in salads, right?

mmm, so fresh and green!

Of course, immediately after THAT photo I had to fish a million soggy dandelion seeds out of his mouth.  D'oh!  Then he started eating sticks and flowers and climbing our concrete front steps (!) so I decided it was time to go in.

We've got more rainy days ahead -- we have to enjoy the sun while we can, before it's too hot to!

The Context for Contentment

I've got a post in the works about some difficulties.  Okay, maybe it's a little whiny.  I may not post it.  But I am going to post what I'm hoping is the antidote, thanks to inspiration from dear Auntie Leila at Like Mother, Like Daughter.

So here's a happy-real moment from Tuesday:

reading Calvin & Hobbes at breakfast

This is us every morning.  (It isn't always comic books -- last week it was Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Some days it's Magic Tree House.)  I have to remind the kids to eat because they're so engrossed in their reading.  Sometimes I even have to ban books at the table, whereupon I feel like a terrible parent and a traitor to my genes.


And this is just plain sweet:

love from a little girl to her Daddy

Whenever we have a treat, Katie always wants to Save One For Daddy.  Even if it's the last gooey bite of her filled donut.  Today it was the last blueberry scone in the pack from Wegman's.  Last week she made this heart-shaped pretzel.  Katie lives so much in her own imaginative world that it's always so touching when I see how incredibly affectionate she really is, and is actually thinking about other people quite a bit of the time.

If I took more time to focus on the little moments like these, the context for being content with my lot, life would be so good.

Recharging his solar cells

Any small furry creature knows that warm spring days are made for curling up in a sunbeam.

A Good Day

Several days ago we had just a plain Good Day.  We went to Mass for first Friday, even though I reeeeeally wanted to sleep in just another 30 minutes.  (Miriam even offered to take Daniel for me, bless her little motherly heart!)  I must have received an extra shot of grace that day.  It was most welcome.

We played with the mint green playdough I had made for St. Patrick's Day.

this looked a lot more like a merman before Jo-jo squashed his face and arms

mermaids were the order of the day

Then after I cleaned up from that, we made pretzels (fast becoming a Friday Lenten tradition).

even Jo-jo of the Irish Eyes helped

Later we went for a nature walk, and used some cute little tin buckets I found at a craft store to collect treasures.

Afterwards we enjoyed raspberry tea with our pretzels while the girls painted what they found in their Nature Journals.

It was a delightful togetherness sort of day.  Of course, by 4pm I was really getting tired of cleaning up messes and was about dead on my feet from not having had a break all day long.  But it was one of those golden days that you remember for ever, for the sheer beauty in its ordinariness.

Family Dental News

So!  Tooth news!  I went to my dentist this week to get the permanent filling put in over the root canal. (Since it's a front tooth and not caused by decay I don't need a crown -- just a filling.)  That part was quick and painless -- the routine cleaning he had just finished was more uncomfortable.  I asked him about the need for root canals on all those other teeth, and glory be to God, he's even more conservative than I am.  He recommended against it -- he actually hinted that letting the canals calcify might actually protect the dead nerves from invading bacteria.  He said the endodontist is just planning for his own future convenience, and thinking that it's easier to do a root canal by drilling down than by operating through the gum, so why not take care of it now while we still can?  The main flaw with that, particularly from the patient's point of view, is that there's no guarantee that a root canal would even be necessary in the future.  So it would all be a lot of time, expense, and inconvenience for most likely no reason.  My dentist said if it were his teeth, he wouldn't have it done.  So no more root canals, huzzah!

Hey, anyone looking for a good dentist in the Springfield/Burke area?  We can recommend one!  We'd LOVE to recommend one!  We'd love to send more business his way!

In other family tooth news, Daniel has sprouted two teeth!  They're still itty bitty, but as soon as I can get a good picture I'll post one.  They're very cute.  (And sharp!!)

At the other end of the spectrum is Katie, who now officially has teeth falling out of her head!

I still can't get used to seeing her with a gappy smile.  It was only a couple weeks ago that Miriam lost her first tooth, wasn't it?

Katie seems to be on the fast track to Orthodontic Land as well -- her new tooth is already visible, coming up behind her baby teeth.  Her mouth is so itty bitty, I don't know how any bigger teeth are going to fit in there.

Close Encounters of the Furry Kind

Often in the evenings after the kids have gone to bed (sshh!  don't tell them!) Mr. Pickles and I let the bunny out for a run.  She is so fun to have around -- when we sit in the living room, she likes to come hang out with us.  She's very social.

One evening while Smokey was out, I was cleaning the gerbil cage as well.  I let Peter run around on the sofa, and the little bugger figured out how to hop to the floor without killing himself in the process.  He enjoyed a few moments of freedom, and then Smokey discovered him.

*sniff sniff*  you smell funny!

It was very cute and sweet, until the rabbit began hopping away with the gerbil following close on her heels, sniffing and poking her the whole way, and then they faced each other again and apparently Peter decided he didn't like the way Smokey was looking at him or something and tried to pick a fight by clawing her nose so she responded by giving him a warning nip but of course her teeth are probably larger than his brain so he didn't like the feeling of that and started running in circles while the rabbit freaked and leaped away and I decided it was time to put the animals to bed.

The REAL Mom

I've been married for over 10 years.

I've been a mother for over 9.

And still, I keep waiting for the real mother to come and take care of things.  When the girls were really little I used to wake up in cold sweats, realizing that I was the one supposed to be in charge.  Now I feel like I'm just playing house until she gets here. And for good reason -- the Real Mom is everything I'm not but wish I could be.  She is such a delightful person, a true heart of the home. 

This Real Mom never says things like, "Well, if you hadn't been so careless you wouldn't have gotten hurt."  Instead, she sympathetically kisses the owie and applies a bandaid, even if it's not bleeding.

She also never says things like, "Just a minute,"  or, "We'll see,"  or, "Mmm," whenever the children ask her to do something when she's in the middle of something.  No, she responds right away with a just answer.

The Real Mom never, ever yells at the kids.  She may use a strong voice when needed, but she never yells out of anger.  She would rather die than use profanity in front of her children.  Instead, she sings a lot.

The Real Mom always dresses stylishly and smells nice.

The Real Mom always gets up on time so she can start breakfast before everyone else wakes up.  She also never, ever stays up past her bedtime to watch old movies on Netflix.

The Real Mom keeps the floors relatively clean and the house dusted, and doesn't mind spending her days picking up other people's messes.

The Real Mom smiles a lot.  When she has a bad day (everybody has them -- even the Real Mom) she fixes hot chocolate with marshmallows for everyone, and scraps school plans to sit on the couch and read books to the kids.

The Real Mom always has time for Mr. Pickles in the evening, and never even looks in the direction of her laptop when he is home (unless he's on his iMagic).

Doesn't this Real Mom sound like the kind of person who REALLY ought to be in charge of taking care of other people, instead of impatient, disorganized, lazy, selfish ol' me?  But until she shows up, I guess I'll have to do.  Meanwhile I suppose I should try to be as like her as possible, since family life would be such a beautiful, peaceful thing if she were here.

Speaking of big boys...

Guess what Joseph has been doing lately!

Okay, I confess:  I was dreading potty training a boy.  Just about everyone I know with a boy told me they require a little more time than girls to figure the whole thing out.  So I didn't even bother trying any serious training for a loooong time.  I just steeled myself to the knowledge that I'd be changing about 30 diapers a day with 2 in diapers.  After Joseph turned 2, we did insist that he sit occasionally just to get used to the idea, making sure he was well-supplied with books about machines and vehicles.  Plus we fed him all the usual propaganda about the magic of undies and dryness.  But I didn't expect any enthusiasm on his part for this big step into BigKidhood.   Plus, I'll admit I was dreading the hours of sitting on the bathroom floor, not to mention tracking his every move all day. 

And then he turned 3.  One of the ways I honored Joseph's birthday was by insisting he wear Big Boy Pants all day.  We had tried that intermittently for a month or so, but all it did was generate more laundry for me.  However, on his birthday, he ran to the bathroom all by himself when he needed to go, and made it all the way to the evening without any accidents!  Who knew that my procrastination and neglect would pay off so well!!  And today, he even used a public restroom despite protesting that it wasn't HIS potty, when I promised him that it would work just as well.

It figures -- I just bought a mega-pack of size 6 diapers.