Silence of My Lambs

Don’t you love that time of night when your family is all settled in?

Maybe you’re single and your favorite time of the day is when work is over, dinner is over, the dishes are done (or not!) and you snuggle up with a good book, a movie, a TV show, a friend.

Maybe it’s just you and your spouse and you like sitting in your matching recliners while one of you watches TV and one of you sews a quilt.

For me, it’s around 9 p.m. when Sam is asleep on my shoulder and I’ve either put Eva to sleep in bed or she’s crashed out on the couch. The 3 older kids are watching a movie that just came from NetFlix (something like Astro Boy or something Dora-ish). Aron is either watching the movie with them or he’s working on something in his woodshop.

And I can relax in the silence. I write, read, watch TV with them, bug Aron. All winter I basically went to bed at 9, though, because we had a hard winter and I’d just had a baby. Soon it will still be light at 9 p.m., I’ll be more active during the day and I’ll be wired til 11 and will pray myself to sleep.

Houses for Rent in Kansas City

So the neighbors who were renting next door have moved out and the house is now ready for the next set of people. It’s a very nice house and is across from an elementary school, so lots of people have been stopping by to look at it.

If someone looks too hoity toity to live next door to me (meaning someone who is not exactly like me as far as being the coolest person on the planet), I send the kids out to the deck to yell things in a backwoods accent like, “Welcome to Hillbilly Homeschool High.”

Or

“Are you renting because of a bankruptcy or a fear of commitment?”

Because I never know who is reading this blog, I have to say to the landlords of this house that I am partially kidding, but that someone who lives next to a house full of kids needs to be able to handle it. And I have to say to people who are over 40 years old and renting houses that I have nothing against you and don’t feel superior to you. In fact, someone once said something to me about how there are many benefits to renting instead of owning. If you are that person, please expand upon that sentiment in the Comments section, please, because I’m nothing if not open-minded!

Hoppy Easter, by the way!

How to Make a Baby Book

Holy crap, I found a few minutes to myself where I wasn’t taking care of someone else, nursing or writing. Well, not exactly to myself. Sam was in the bouncy seat next to me and Eva was looking at her baby album next to me and the other kids were playing in the March 20 (first day of spring, my arse) SNOW with a friend.

So I did this:


I started Sam’s baby album! I ordered it from Creative Memories forever ago. I have the same 8 ½ x 11 albums for each of the kids, and am fairly caught up. Sam’s will be hard, and I suppose I’ve been putting it off. I mean, I’ll have holes where he wasn’t at the hospital with me, and I’ll have extra pages of NICU photos, but it will still be his baby book.

And it doesn’t have to be perfect. If you’re still wanting to put together a baby book for your kid(s) and are afraid it won’t look amazing so you haven’t even started, just go for it. Whip it together … get the pictures on pages and write some stuff down next to them that you remember.

Baby Powder: Evil or Funny???

If you’re a recent parent, you know baby powder is evil. It can get in the kid’s lungs and kill him or her on the spot.

Just kidding.

I actually still use baby powder sometimes. I hope it doesn’t cause lung cancer or infertility or anything like that.

So I’m putting some on Eva the other day and Michael says, “Why are you putting powdered sugar on her? Are you going to eat her?”

I said, “That’s now powdered SUGAR; it’s powdered CHEESE. I’m putting it on her TACO.”

We are so weird at my house. Couldn’t get through this parenting journey without a sense of humor.

Self Potty Training

I love when Eva takes off her diaper and brings it to me for review, like a cat brings a dead mouse or bunny or bird to its owner.

I’m like, “Just throw it in the trash! I don’t need to check it out first. What, do you want credit for it or something?”