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When you’re pregnant with your third, people say a lot of things. Some women have the shocking inability to control their jaws and tell you about their horrific birthing and postpartum health issues. Others say–many say–you’re outnumbered now–or the very confusing–you’re playing zone defense. People smile, sigh, and if they already have three or more, they give this sort of look. This look like you have no idea what you’re in for. Of course you don’t. Because you’ve never had three kids before. Don’t forget my sample day with three kids under 5. Or how to juggle them. And if you’re like me and your kids are about two years apart, you soon realize that the newborn isn’t the issue. Newborns you can do in your sleep. And, in fact, you do do them in your sleep. ++Mocs courtesy of Freshly Picked++ And the four year old? He only flaps his arms and tantrums on occasion. By now, his brain has grown leaps and bounds in the self-regulation department. He gets not getting his way. He gets sharing. He’s been sharing for two years now. If he’s like my son, he’s very sweet tempered and affectionate, naturally a snuggler and wants to please. The two year old. Let’s talk about how a two year old sees the world. Mama, I want that. You can’t have it right now. I NEED IT I WANT IT I NEED IT I WANT IT WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Okay, when I am done using it, if you would like it, you…
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We had the stomach plague this past week. It incrementally swept over everyone except BabyLoves. Thank God for antibodies in breastmilk because my heart couldn’t have handled another sad pup puking. Nothing sadder than vomiting kids. Except maybe really bad captions on food photos. You decide. Of course, I wasn’t actually with them while they were vomiting because I was in the midst of extraordinary sickness myself. I’ll spare you the details but suffice it to say, when I was blacked out on the bathroom floor with very cold feet, and came for one about thirty seconds in between sessions, I thought about this family. And what how to die gracefully. And how this didn’t count as dying. It only counted as seriously sick-ing. Nothing like perspective when you are really in your own personal low. My one sister and mom and dad cared for us until they, too, fell victim! Then Bridget & Joe came in. Joe juggled for about 5 hours to keep the big kids happy and Bridget cleaned every dish in sight. Our second mom, Alice, dropped off two coolers of food and sweet Shea brought flowers. We were so loved!! So the week has been a standstill of sorts. The virus gripped me badly enough to merit five full days of almost always in bed time, meaning lots of opportunity to do edits in my role as editor over at Blessed Is She. It gives me such thrills to add “m” dashes and capitalize personal pronouns…
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The other night, we’re doing dishes and watching the baby on the monitor, listening to our favorite band’s new album, and I turn to AA: Is this how you thought you’d live your life? He snorted and kept scrubbing the few plastic dishes we use that I refuse to put in the high heat of the dishwasher for fear it will ignite their secret BPA ingredients and kill my kids. Then he asked me what I thought my life looked like in theory versus practice, which is a way better way of stating my same question. No surprise. He’s definitely the brainier of us. And I’m more rigid. I explained my present life in my mind looks like this: Homemade food eaten by children wearing all clothing that I’ve made or sourced organically, while they gently play with their wooden toys and share kindly as I look on, showered, clothed, and knitting from a very comfortable yoga position I’ve mastered. Maybe I’m reading aloud from A Child’s Garden of Verse and maybe we’re all doing crafts. He laughed so hard starting with the part where the kids are only wearing clothing I’ve made and going all the way through. I joined in and we moved on to the greener pastures of intellectual discussion like how many shirts I needed to iron for his week at work. This got me to thinking, how closely am I living to how I’d like to live? How far off am I and what’s holding me back from actually living…
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It’s that time of the week. Week Eats is your friendly meal plan. Okay, really it is all for the sake of my poor husband who has been married almost six years and eaten by the skin of his teeth every single night. As in, it’s 4pm and no meat is defrosted 😉 See our other volumes here. Your part? Comment with what you’re eating or link your blog post about food. Help each other find new recipes! And without further ado, these friendly recipes are coming mostly from my awesome Whole Parenting No Sugar 30 Facebook group. I am loving the supportive atmosphere for kicking refined sugar to the curb. Way to go, group! My salads this past week? Some good some bad. I am not as big a kale fan as I thought but quinoa is still a big love affair for the kids (thank God) so that went over better than I thought. And as I thought, AA wanted more meat. Men. note: pics belong to website where I found recipes. Monday: Slow Cooker Chicken & Mushroom Farro Risotto Tuesday: Balsamic Glazed Pork Tenderloin. Wednesday: Baked Potato Soup with Bacon. Thurs: Meatballs & Spaghz. AA makes an amazing meat spaghetti. But I wanted to try something different to surprise him. I’ll let you know how he likes it. Friday: homemade pizza as usual but toppings?? Maybe some of these tips? What are you eating??
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“How can you say there are too many children? that is like saying there are too many flowers in the garden of God.” I listened to this song about ten times by watching the youtube video. I was crying, of course. Danielle Rose is a familiar singer//song writer to me through my Godmother, of all people. Danielle is about my age, I’m sure we have friends in common through the small Catholic world. But I hadn’t heard of her until my Godmother gave me her music where she’s singing the rosary when I was in law school. My Godmother, God rest her soul, was an incredibly sassy and saintly woman. I miss her warmth no-BS approach to life and still listen to that sung rosary and think of her. When I found out Danielle had gone to China to spread the word about this incredible group of people caring for abandoned disabled babies & children, my heart flooded with that warm love feeling. I’ve followed the work at Little Flower Projects for a few years now and their newsfeed on Facebook arrests my heart and my day when I see images of these beautiful babies and kids, being different, being loved. Being handicapped in China is a huge social stigma and abandoning your child who is is common, according to what I’ve read and heard from medical worker friends who’ve been there. Sigh. I’d like to think our wonderful culture which is inclusive and offers so many medical treatments and…
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Are you wondering if your parenting is inadequate? Well, I hate to be the one to tell you, but it is. You’re an inadequate mother. And I am too!! Nothing brings this realization closer than spending 12 hours with three children under the age of five. I know these are both the easiest and the hardest years of parenting, so I’m cool without the reminder that they will grow up so fast and just wait til she’s a teen. I also know that I only have three irrational kids so my friends with more–I’m on easy street. Let’s throw in that I’m not currently pregnant and therefore not throwing up everywhere all the day long. In an ideal world: we would all have a nice sleep, awaken refreshed, I would lovingly awaken and dress my children, and enjoy our breakfast in peace and harmony before commencing homeschool preschool. Back to reality: It was an agonizingly long morning pre-breakfast involving SuperBoy jumping into our bed forty-five seconds after his dad had bolted out the back door: so 6:30:45::: and me threatening, bribing, stage-whisper yelling at him to keep away from the sleeping BabyLoves who had casually sprawled his twenty pound 3 foot long 8 month old baby body all over the bed because that stinker had just gone back to sleep, complete with a 7:00am SweetPea shimmying her way in the door frame, past the gate that’s wedged there to keep our waring cats from each other’s furry neck holds, remarking loudly, I MADE A…
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