Talia

Natalia hasn't slept much over the past week. As in, even less than usual. She has been finally passing out between 9 and 10pm, she wakes up between 5 and 6am, and she doesn't always sleep all night. And, of course, she rarely naps. It's been fun. We assumed that she was just having a tough time with her siblings returning to school after three weeks off for spring break, but she provides a different explanation. "My body is still 'regular' but my brain is nocturnal." Well, not much we can do about a nocturnal brain.

In other fun Natalia news, she has been obsessed with how babies are made. Our other kids have always been okay with a generic explanation along the lines of when moms and dads are grown up, they can have babies when they are ready. With Ree we had to get into the details of how babies make their entrance into the world, and after marveling at the wonder of it, she was done asking questions. Not Natalia. This line of questioning will stop for awhile, but just this morning while I was working out to a fitness DVD, she choose to spend more than half the workout painstakingly asking me as though I was a complete idiot, "But, MOM! How does a baby get INSIDE your belly???"

There was also this evening's existential crisis. During dinner Natalia asked if everyone dies. We simply said, yes, all living things die. Suddenly faced with her own mortality, she then spent two hours lamenting, "But I don't want to die!" We have no idea where this is coming from. She doesn't know anyone who has died, she's never been to a funeral, and she has recently seen her two great-grandmothers who are 90 and 94. As this went on and on and on, and it became clear that there was no way to reason with her, I alternated between sympathy, frustration, and amusement. Thankfully, she was finally distracted by multiple flavors of Goldfish crackers for snack. (Thank you, Harris Teeter BOGO sale.)

At bedtime tonight, I was prepared for another round of questioning either about babies or death. Nope. Just the usual stalling. Thankfully, about 30 minutes after I tucked her (and after checking in with me 7 or 8 times) she simply announced, "My brain is no longer nocturnal." I congratulated her, she headed back to bed, and she went to sleep.

Phew.

Palindromes

In case I had forgotten what wonderfully nerdy offspring we produced, I got a nice reminder this morning. Easter morning is a sugar free-for-all in our house. In fact, Halloween and it's relatively controlled sugar consumption (at least for us) pales in comparison. The candy filled eggs start early, and today we followed them with doughnuts. Wheeeeee!

As they were finishing breakfast, I could clearly see the kids' blood sugar spiking based on the speed with which they were talking and the fact that Leon was all but levitating over the table from the sugar surge. (He can eat an entire breakfast with neither his bottom touching his chair nor his feet touching the floor. It is a very unique balancing skill.) In this crazed state, my children decided to...frantically compile a list of palindromes. What are "palindromes" you ask? They are words that are spelled the same forwards and backwards, and my children took immense pleasure in giddily naming them off (and compiling a written list) as quickly as possible.  It helps that "poop" is on the list, but it still seemed like an awfully odd use of all that chocolate and sugar. It wasn't too much later when we headed to the park and the kids begged to run laps around a pond. We did not stop them!

It was actually a pretty eventful weekend. Some of our highlights include a visit from Jeff's parents, an egg hunt at Natalia's school (that the big kids were able to join), the first real beach trip of the year (although it was a bit chilly), park trips, Easter and my mother-in-law's birthday. 

I am happy to say everyone is now passed out after all of that. Another holiday without a serious injury. Phew!

Chapel Hill, Day 2

Hi Guys!

Today was definitely a school day for me. I spent all day in one building taking classes. For dinner tonight, we went to an outdoor mall like Mayfair, and we ate at the Cheesecake Factory there. (We did not have cheesecake, in case you were wondering. I had white chicken chili and my friend Kelly had fajitas.)

Because it was a pretty regular day, I don't have any pictures to show you. But, I thought you might like to see some pictures I found. See if you can guess where these pictures were taken (answers at the bottom).

1.

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3.

4.

5.

I love you guys and will see you Tuesday night!

Mom

Quiz answers: 1. Baba's house, 2. Children's Museum, 3. Yellow Slide Park, 4. Old HT, 5. Grandpa Jim and Obaachan's basement

Chapel Hill, Day 1

Hi Guys!

I am in Chapel Hill, NC. This is where UNC (not UNCW) is located. By the time I got food, it was too dark to walk around on UNC's campus, but I am hoping to visit there tomorrow night.

Bruno Bear and (White) Chocolate Bunny are doing well. The only problem is they keep fighting over the TV remote.

I had fun at the park with you today. Thought you would like to see some pictures from that.

That's a very happy Spiderman!

I hope you're having fun while I'm gone. Don't eat too much junk food! :)

Love,

Mom

Snow Day!

Last Tuesday, we were gifted with a snow day. I was especially excited. The kids found out on Monday evening that they would be staying home, but I was already dressed and doing my hair for work on Tuesday morning before UNCW closed for the day. I could not get back into my jammies quick enough!

We happened to have leftover doughnuts, and those seemed like a perfect snow day breakfast. (There were no complaints from the kids!) Knowing how fleeting snow in Wilmington can be, as soon as we cleaned up from breakfast, we took the kids outside.

When the kids were really little, my one rule for playing outside in the summer was that we had to spend at least as much time playing outside as we did getting ready. I felt like that same rule applied here, and it definitely took at least as long too locate everyone's snow gear as it used to take to slather sunscreen on a toddler and two babies. It wasn't looking too good at first, but then Mike shouted, "Let's go down the big hill on our boogie boards!"

There is no way that slight slope would qualify as a hill anywhere else, but we take what we can get. It turns out the boogie boards are quite easy to pull by the leash, and the kids spent a long time getting tugged down the hill.

Our timing was good, since the rain/ice started about 15 minutes after we went back inside. The rest of the day was pretty nasty out, and we stayed inside enjoying lots of snow day fun. Key projects included drinking hot chocolate and watching The Price is Right.

As an added bonus, everyone (including me) got a two hour delay the next morning while we waited for the ice to melt. (Melting would be the most widely used snow/ice removal technique in Wilmington.) We enjoyed the relaxing morning and the nice view of all the sparkly trees and bushes.

Girls Room Update

Home improvement projects in our house move slowly. Very, very slowly. Which is actually a vast improvement over the 5 year period when the didn't move at all. But still, we fall incredibly short of the modern American DIY standard. However, I am a big fan of the "better late than never" theory, which also explains why our last Christmas card (sent only to family for the 2014 holiday season in the interest of time) was postmarked February 12th.

Anywho, way back in the summer of 2013, we decided it was time to update Ree's room and make it the Girls' Room. Poor Ree was turning 7, and she was still sleeping in a toddler bed. And Natalia was 2 1/2, and she had never had a space of her own.

We were all excited. (At least I was, and Jeff humored me.) We were going to paint, get new flooring installed, add bunkbeds, replace the bi-fold closet doors with curtains, add some minor decorations, and voila! I was sure we could easily accomplish this in a month of weekends.

Well, Ree picked paint colors. And my parents watched the kids while we painted using the crazy color scheme Ree picked. And then things sat. And sat. And sat. I picked up some flooring samples. And that's about it. Sometime in the spring of 2014, I finally ordered bunk beds and mattresses. And in July 2014, while taking a week off work for a staycation and stuck in the house on a hurricane day, I finally assembled them!

Still, not much changed.  But last weekend, in an utter fit of madness, I decorated the room! The crazy part was, I was able to do it for free. Everything on the walls and on display was given to us, stockpiled away, or pulled from another room. In the pictures, the room still looks pretty cluttered, but I'm telling you, it's a huge improvement.

Now I just need to actually add that curtain on the closet and paint the dark brown and green furniture white. I have complete faith that it will be done before the girls graduate from high school. Well, by the time Natalia graduates from high school.

Circus

This weekend Jeff and I watched The Wolf of Wall Street. I had picked up the book at an airport bookstore last spring and ended up reading it at an embarrassingly fast pace. Knowing that it was at least mostly autobiographical, it was both fascinating and deplorable. How could one person be so vile? And such a great writer? I was sucked in to the horror. What I wasn't quite expecting as I watched the movie was for it to seem, at least at some level, well, familiar.

Don't get me wrong. As much as I would sometimes (often, always) like to scream obscenities, I am generally pretty good, especially in front of the kiddos. In fact, a couple of weeks ago I was driving with the kids when the brakes decided not to work as I got to an intersection with cross traffic. I may have shouted an obscene word or two, and I was so surprised by my cussing, that when I mentioned it to Jeff, I shared my choice of words and didn't think to include the whole issue with our minivan not actually being a safe family vehicle. (For the record, we did finally stop, mid-intersection, and the car coming at us swerved. Phew.)

Back to the movie, then there is the drug use. Nope. It sounds nice, but in addition to the whole illegal thing and the health risks, drugs require extra money and free time. Ha! Enough said.

Gratuitous nudity. I suppose we do know that. At least once a day, the three youngest children in the family tend to streak through the house at bath time. Actually, streaking would be an improvement. It is more of a casual lounging in the nude. Especially if Wheel of Fortune is on. My little nerds are addicted, and they think nothing of heading to the bathroom, taking their clothes off before their showers, and then wandering back out to watch a puzzle or two. It's special. On the bright side, at least they don't have any body issues.

But the part of the movie that actually reminded me of our lives in the whole crazy circus atmosphere. I am pretty sure the only reason we don't have roller skating monkeys and midget tossing contests in our living room is because no one has thought of it yet. But give them time. Natalia is only three, after all.

I promise, I really try to keep things simple and calm, but then things get insane without me even trying. Take last Tuesday, for instance. I know it was going to be a little weird. This year I promised myself I would volunteer in the big kids' classrooms once a month, and it was my day to volunteer in Ree's classroom. I usually volunteer on Fridays when I work from home to minimize driving time and work interruptions. But they were desperate for a second volunteer to help with their Thanksgiving pie party. I could handle that. It meant going to work in the morning, taking a long lunch to volunteer at school, and then driving back to work. So the schedule was not perfect. But, hey, there was PIE involved! Oh, and, uh, community service with my daughter.

But things got more complicated. On Monday afternoon I found out the boys were having some Thanksgiving thing at 8:30 in the morning and they wanted me to be there. And after skipping a play in Ree's class this year because I had no idea it was a play until I got the video afterward (oops! parenting fail!), I am hesitant to skip events where my children tell me I need to attend. So here is how my day actually played out.

• It started as a regular morning. I got the big kids off to the bus, then came home and worked on my laptop on the couch while Natalia watched TV. That worked for 15-20 minutes, then she got weirded out and started climbing all over me. Among other things, she actually climbed on my head.
• We were getting ready to leave for the boys' class, and I told Natalia to go to the bathroom. When we got there, I told her to take off her pants. She did. Unfortunately, because none of my children are currently functioning well, she did not take off her panties. At least she was on the toilet when I looked over and saw her peeing all over them. I quick cleaned that up.
• We got to school. (Jeff and Natalia also joined in the fun and stopped on their way to preschool.) The boys were having a Thanksgiving feast. That's it. Just eating. We felt silly when we arrived for being there, but lots of parents were there, and the boys were happy to see us.
• Mike freaked out when we said we had to go. He started crying hysterically. Great, big tears. I calmed him down then headed to work.
• I got to work, put away my lunch and computer, and chit chatted with my coworkers. After about 15 minutes, I noticed my phone was ringing.
• I looked at my phone. I had three missed phone calls, two voice mails, and three texts. Uh oh. It turned out to just be the school nurse. Mike had an angry belly. I called her and then called Jeff to pick up Mike.
• Amazingly, I got some work stuff done. Then I got a long series of texts from Jeff. My parents' house in Wilmington was infested with ants. Not just a few ants. The entire pantry was swarming. Awesome. Jeff had Mike in tow and Jeff was recovering from the flu himself, so I told him I would take care of it after work.
• I left work again at 11:45. I took a coworker to the airport to pick up a rental car for her Thanksgiving trip and then returned to the kids' school.
• Ree's class was insane. The "play" was a poem that each kid had one line in and took less than two minutes to read. The kids had apparently all hyped it up in the same way to their parents, because the classroom was packed. (Jeff, Mike, and Natalia were also there, stopping on the way home from preschool.) There was no way I could do my official pie serving duty. It was every man, woman, and child for themselves. Thankfully, I managed to secure some good pie for my children. No sad pecan pie for them!
• As we were getting ready to leave (me to return to work, and the rest to go home), Natalia peed on the floor. Not a little. A huge, great lake. She was completely embarrassed. I was able to find a roll of Bounty paper towels and some Clorox wipes. We were good. In the meantime, Ree was running around telling everyone that her sister peed on the floor. I'm sure that was her own embarrassment, but it was not helping things. 
• At that point I noticed that Jeff not looking so great. I told him I would go home for awhile to help get Ree and Leon off the bus and get lunch for Natalia and Mike since it was already after 1:00 pm and no one had eaten anything but pie.
• I came home and did the mom thing. I gave Natalia a bath to clean her and Mike a bath to calm his belly. I made them lunch and folded laundry. I picked up the kids from the bus, let them unwind, read to them, and tucked in the three little ones for quiet time.
• Then I headed back to work. I was planning on taking care of a couple things, grabbing my laptop, and then heading to my parents' house to do some ant battles before coming home and making dinner. I got sucked into an hour long meeting that was definitely needed, but I did not get all the work stuff done I had planned. I left work at 4:45, quite a bit later than planned.
• I hit insane traffic on the way to my parents' house. Thankfully, I was able to bail at the last minute before getting stuck on a highway that was at a dead stop.

Mercifully, the rest of the day was uneventful. But, like in the movie, the circus was not just one day. The next day's circus took on a new flavor when Natalia showed up in our room, when it was dark and early, demanding to get dressed because she was ready to get up. I yelled at her. And yelled at her, and yelled at her (at least as much as one can yell when whispering). After about 10 minutes, she relented and went to bed. That's when I looked at the clock. It was 3:30 a.m.

Perhaps I should reconsider the recreational drug thing...