David loves holding baby Thomas. He asks to hold him twice as often as Mary Virginia does, and she asks a lot. “Mommy, I wish baby Thomas could be in my belly,” David said to me the other day. He says that, but I don’t think he’s prepared for the stretch marks, heartburn, or nine months without wearing his favorite
For the past ten years, my sister and her family have lived overseas. It’s taken us every bit of those ten years to get used to the distance. I remember, at one point, thinking it was odd that I wasn’t familiar with my sister’s wardrobe. It’s a minor thing, but part of the transition that
Aside from her cameo last November, this is Mary Virginia’s first Semantics post. It surprised me because she makes us laugh all day, every day. There’s something about her tone, her enunciation, her confidence with speech — she talks like an adult but sounds like a two-year old, and it’s all hilarious. This is her first post, but
In some ways, I’m very, very bad at blogging. I really enjoy the photography and writing aspect of blogging, but there’s all this other stuff that people who are really good at blogging do –that I’m either too lazy to do or just don’t understand. Things like promoting their blog through social media, and optimizing SEO. SEO
We planted blackberries four years ago, and every year we watch the plant bloom, grow berries, and then every year birds, squirrels, chipmunks, or some other form of evil gets to them before we can. This year, just like every year before it, we watched the plant bloom, grow glossy red berries, and then, we watched in amazement as
If David and Mary Virginia are both awake, they are bickering. They fight in the car, during meals, in the stroller. Whenever I’m on the verge of making me LOSE MY EVER-LOVING MIND, I try to remember that they’re kids and this is normal kid stuff. Having siblings is just one way we learn to interact,
Reaching month one feels like such an accomplishment. It’s the first mile marker — your chance to pause for a moment, take a breath, look around, and pump your fist in the air because WE’RE DOING IT! WE’RE REALLY DOING IT! From the very start, Tom has encouraged me to take this whole “mom of three kids”
It was my idea to name our third baby after his daddy. And, ugh, that sentence is an example of how confusing it can be to have two people in your family with the same name. Saying “…to name Thomas after Tom” sounds convoluted. So far we’re calling the baby “Thomas” or more often “baby Thomas.”
Before I begin, I’d like to answer the two questions people keep asking me about Mary Virginia. First, Mary Virginia has been sleeping like a champion. A CHAMPION. Well, ok. Maybe not a champion, but she’s been sleeping like a normal toddler. She wakes occasionally at night, but no one is singing nursery rhymes from midnight to
The other day Tom took the big kids on a quick errand, and I decided it was high time I got around to giving Thomas his first bath. I’m not going to tell you how old Thomas is in these photos because my mother raised me with higher hygiene standards than that, and she has a reputation