This past week we decided to take a long weekend-ish and spend time with my family before “school” starts back up. Once again, the bizarre time-warp of 2020 snuck up on me, and what is, on one hand, “The Longest Summer Ever,” is also “Hold Up, It’s September?” We timed our trip to fall over
Two days until David’s ninth birthday. Not that anyone is counting. At the beginning of the quarantine, when the kids’ school was closed, I made a paper countdown to Easter. We were all excited to see the holiday creep closer. For me it was a secret countdown to when this would all be over and
There are a great many traditions I started when I had my first baby. Almost none of them have lasted through the fourth (R.I.P. baby book intentions) Some things I’ve mostly given up on (R.I.P. baby book intentions) and other things I haven’t gotten around to, but I still hold out hope (like making a
One afternoon a few days before my birthday, David and I were riding bikes to the birthday party of one of his friends in the neighborhood. I was telling David that I enjoy riding bikes with him and he asked, “Is that why you asked to go for a bike ride with me for your
Eight years ago Tom and I were going to bed and I started crying and told him some version of, “He’s never going to be born and I’m going to be pregnant for the rest of my life.” About four hours later my water broke, and about 14 hours after that David was born. Little
A few months before Mary’s birthday, she started planning her party. I generally don’t start making actual plans for her birthday until after Thomas’s birthday, but this year I made an exception. Mary is the youngest in her class, and she has been positively hungry to turn six for a long time. (She’s actually the third youngest.
This is Thomas’s birthday week. He turns four on Sunday, and we’ve been building up to his birthday in small, special ways — a happy birthday banner on the mantel, a special “T” balloon on his chair. Almost every day we gently explain to Thomas’s siblings that the reason we have different expectations for him
Anytime an entire week goes by without a new blog post you can assume one of two things: One or all of our kids has a fever, ear infection, an orthopedic injury, is throwing up, or all of the above. I’m fumbling through some sort of craft that requires skills that I’m teaching myself with
To celebrate Anna’s birthday, I got one of those mylar number balloons that I see all over Instagram and blogs. They are completely unoriginal and #basic, but what the heck? They make for an excellent photo, everyone knows it. It was cloudy and rainy on Anna’s birthday, so I set up the balloon near a
I’ve spent the last few weeks feeling a bit sad, a bit in disbelief. Soon my fourth baby will turn one, and then she won’t be a baby anymore. Perhaps it will surprise no one at all to find out that I’m feeling very, very sentimental about this milestone. This time last year I was