Lately

1) I’ve struggled writing on this blog because I still don’t know what it is.  Will it be to simply practice writing? To air out my mid-life crisis? To wax poetic? Or just to talk about more light-hearted things like food, running, and silly kids?  I’m torn all the time, so I find myself just not writing at all.  To help counteract that, I’m keeping a notebook in a central place of my little house, where I can write down the random ideas I get.  Also, I’m starting to keep a weekly posting schedule so that I’ll actually write instead of avoiding it because I’m anxious about what I’ve already posted and paralyzed by what I want to write.

2) We’ve had lots of unfinished house projects going on at once.  I laughed at my friend Janssen’s recent post where she recounts her parents saying that nobody ever says, “The house is done!”  I suppose it will always be this way, even when we move on from our little fixer upper.  Right now, I’m mid-project for repainting the ceiling in our family room (we have overhead lights for the first-time ever, and it’s so nice!), re-tiling the fireplace (with plans to also re-face it, because the guy I wanted to hire never got back to me), and trying to figure out what on earth do to about our white-trash backyard.  We had a big tree cut down last week, only to have it finally confirmed that it was indeed a completely rotten tree.  Even the branches were hollow!  We were so relieved we hadn’t put a swing on one of them.  Now, we are trying to plot out what to do and get the courage (read, self-discipline) to get going on it…  Heaven knows, even our trashy backyard has been a total life-saver for me and my kids, especially my middle child! 

3) Speaking of our middle child, RG is, how do I say this . . . really kicking my behind.  I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that that sweet boy needs as much time outside as possible where he can hit sticks against the ground for as hard and for as long as his heart desires.  (Two hours outside a day keeps the demons away.) We have been on our third-round of half-hearted potty training, so it’s going as well as can be imagined with that level of dedication.

  

4) Here’s what a really good Saturday looks like for a family with three small children: sleep in until 7:15 AM; mom takes one kid on a run after he eats breakfast while dad hangs back with the other two; quick shower and then mom heads to a church activity and eats waffles while dad reads books at home with the kids; whole family goes to a make-up swim lesson for the two oldest; directly following, attend a final soccer class for the two-year old, who after two minutes decides he’d rather play at the park; have lunch at home; two kids nap while mom and dad sit on the couch and the four year old gets read to, intermittently; everyone up and clean the garage together, rake the yard, and change a door knob; achieve our glorious reward of eating at Sweet Tomatoes; dad bathes kids while mom washes the day’s dishes; family movie night; kids go down and parents watch movie trailers until bedtime.  I was SO happy and satisfied with our day, especially cleaning the garage.  Take that, 20 year olds!!

And finally, from the looks of this post, it appears we only have one child. I promise, we don’t have favorites!  All right, all right . . . the baby is everyone’s favorite right now.  But I’d save them all in a fire.

Have a great week, folks!