The day before my birthday HAPPENED to be the our first full day back after vacation. I don’t know if my kids are the only kids who do this, but my kids spend at least one entire day after vacation punishing us for going on vacation. Like, if you parents think you’re going to take
Today I’m twenty-one weeks, two days pregnant, meaning (even if the baby is born after my due date) I’m past the pregnancy halfway point. Except that this is my fourth pregnancy and I know that the second twenty weeks packs a very serious wallop. Thirty weeks should be considered the halfway point. At least. Except
Eight years ago today Tom and I got married in the Blue Ridge Mountains. To celebrate, instead of following suggested tradition with a bronze gift, my mom and dad took our kids for a few days. We’ve never done this ever, never ever. Not even close. Everyone keeps asking what we plan to do with our
Thomas turned two last week, and we celebrated with the most low-key kids’ birthday celebration our family has ever seen. When David turned two I had an almost-three-month old and I still managed to mail out paper invitations. When Mary Virginia turned two, Thomas wasn’t even a month old, and I still made a cake
Last week we celebrated the kids’ last day of school and David’s preschool graduation. Look at those excited faces! Those faces say WE CAN’T WAIT FOR SUMMER! We can’t wait to explore and go to the park and swim all day! And I’m like, AHA! JK KIDS! Mom only has one working arm so we
Recently I noticed that my motivation for creative activities with my kids has really plummeted. To my credit, I think it’s in part because my kids are much more likely to entertain themselves than they were two years ago. When I had a 3- and 1-year old, they were aimless unless I gave them direction —
Last year at preschool, David’s class sang a song that he called the Octopus Song, even though it’s actually called the Butterfly Song. He specifically loved the line, “If I were an octopus, I’d thank you Lord for my good looks.” And because he loved the song so much, and because he related so much to
So much has happened since Thomas’s first birthday, it feels like so, so long ago. Because of everything going on, I decided to give myself a month to get all his birthday stuff posted. And I’m giving myself until David’s birthday to write about Mary Virginia‘s birthday. And then until Christmas to write about David’s. Christmas 2020. My
Mary Virginia turned two last weekend, and we had a little party to celebrate. And by “little” I mean little. Because normally when I say “little” I mean that I restrained the guest list to our 20 closest friends and their 400 children. The theme of this party was “mama just had a baby.” I
We were outside the other day and Mary Virginia climbed onto the armrest of my chair. As soon as she did it, she started shrieking with joy, “LOOK AT ME! I’M ON YOUR CHAIR! I’M SO HIGH!!” I’m not sure if she was proud of her accomplishment, or pleased with herself because she figured out