A photo of my children, once a week, every week in 2019. The older two / David is reading Amelia Bedelia aloud to Mary and I didn’t even ask him to. The younger two / “BE CAREFUL WITH ANNA!” is all I say, all day, every day. Thomas can’t wait until Anna is bigger. Anna
There’s a reeeeeeal bear problem in Richmond these days. I wriggle this bear outfit onto Anna on our coldest bus stop mornings. She bearly fits. (I cannot and will not stop with the bear puns, I’m sorry.) But this happens to be another one of the few things that all four of my babies have
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
This summer Anna blew through baby clothes sizes so fast I could barely keep up. 6-9 months, 9-12 months, 12-18 months. “Hmmm, this can’t be right,” I thought when shimmying a pair of 2T leggings on my 11-month old baby. I kept a very weather-inappropriate fleece sleeper in Anna’s drawer all summer because I wanted
For so long kindergarten seems like a far-off, abstract thing that other peoples’ kids do. But then it comes so fast, the school bus drives around the corner and the doors open and there’s no time. They start walking away and I panic. What do I tell them? What do I say? What do they
After writing two kind of complain-y posts about our trip to a beautiful lake in a phenomenal house, I would be remiss if I didn’t say: our vacation was awesome. I love finding humor in mishaps and sleep deprivation, but those moments were honestly the exceptions. There was a lot of work, sure. We were
One afternoon I was sitting on the dock while David played in the sandy area on the bank of the lake. Thomas was draping himself over my legs, doing that three-year old thing where he readjusts every two seconds or so, trying to get just a little closer to mama. David and Caleb were both
My kids pulled out our bathroom scale this morning and weighed themselves. That’s how we found out that they weigh 55, 44, 33, and 22 pounds. If you’re thinking, “What a coincidence!” you’re completely wrong. I’ve lowered and completely eliminated standards on my kids’ haircuts, wardrobe, and bath frequency, but doing whatever it takes to
If I could describe myself for the past few months, I’d say that I feel like I’ve been walking around like that kid Pig Pen in Charlie Brown. Except that, instead of a cloud of filth (or maybe, in addition to a cloud of filth), I have a haze of all the things I need
Me at David’s preschool graduation: “Whoa!? People dress up for this?” Me on the way to Mary Virginia’s preschool graduation: “I have an inappropriately fancy dress, and three dress shoe options.” (She decided on her Crocs.) \ We also brought along an eye-rolling kindergartener who kept accusing me of not going to his preschool graduation.