Well, folks, I finally did it.

In 2010-11 I made the perfect amount of jam. Forty-four jars. Those forty-four jars lasted us all the way through until last week, when I scraped the last few spoonfuls out of the last jar.

They lasted us all the way through until the new strawberry season, when on the very day I used up the last of the '10-11 batch, the girls and I picked 24 pounds of berries and made 35 NEW jars of jam. (Don't worry: I plan to add to my stash with raspberry jam next month when raspberries are ready). The timing could not have been better.

My new jam.

So, just in case you were wondering (as I've been wondering, oh, these many years) how many jars of home-made jam can one single family eat in a year? Now you know.

Forty-four: my perfect jam number.

Yesterday afternoon my girls were being awful to each other. Really mean. I think they are just not used to being *around* each other all day, every day. And afternoon quiet time is much harder to do with all three girls around too. So I was attempting to let them all stay up and play, but playtime soon disintegrated into angry shouting time.

After a longish time out for everyone, I sat them all down and had a serious talk, during which I talked about how it is hurtful and mean to scream at people, and we don't treat people that way, and in which I pledged that I, too, needed to watch my words and my tone of voice. Because I do often fall into the trap of yelling at my kids to get their attention or force their obedience. So we all had this big discussion about NO YELLING AT EACH OTHER, about how we will treat each other with kindness and respect in our family.

Two hours later, I looked out the window and saw the girls in the sandbox, scooping up sand with shovels and flinging it everywhere--at each other, at the house, all over the yard (and this was right after we had a talk about what was and was not appropriate sandbox behavior)--and I was so mad to see them misbehaving *again* that I began screaming "No! No! NO!" before I even got out the door, rushed out, chewed them out thoroughly in a loud and angry tone, and sent them inside.

Yelling fail.

Ideally, I'd like it if they followed my instructions the first time I say them, in a pleasant and moderate voice. But they don't. And so I raise my voice. A bunch of times. And then they get around to it. And now we're in a cycle, I think, where they recognize that they don't need to really worry about obedience until mom starts using her mean voice. Which means that I find myself raising my voice a lot, throughout the day, about everything. Brushing teeth, picking up toys, turning off the TV. I feel like a drill sergeant. And that's really not the mom I want to be. When my kids think back on their childhood, I seriously do not want them to remember me yelling at them constantly.

So today, it starts again. No yelling pact. This means, of course, that I'm probably going to have to employ other forms of discipline when they don't obey me the first time around. Which may actually be harder for all of us for awhile. But I'm hoping, that in the end, it will produce good fruit: a calmer, more pleasant, more respectful household.

Does anyone else have this problem? Have any of you succeeded in a yelling ban in your home? And if you did, how did you make it work? I really want to make it work, because I'm tired of it. Also, I really don't want my neighbor to call child services because she's tired of living next door to a crazy lady screaming at her kids all day long.

Eric and I are looking at doing a few renovations to the house this summer. Namely: new gutters. Oh, so exciting. It's one of the things that no one tells you when you become a homeowner. Home improvement magazines tend to devote their pages to glorious bathrooms and spacious kitchens. And while I would love to have a glorious bathroom or a spacious kitchen...instead we kind of need to make sure the gutters don't fall off the house. We live in Oregon. It rains a lot. Working gutters are a necessity.

But, as we have begun looking into what will go into tearing off old gutters and putting on new gutters, and selecting new gutters, we started thinking that this might also be a good reason to re-paint the outside of the house, which is badly chipping and peeling in some places. And THAT, I am excited about. New paint! New color! Woo-hoo!

I uploaded a picture of our house into the nifty Color Visualizer tool at Sherwin Williams, and then spent way, way too much time pondering the infinite color variations that are possible. (This tool is seriously addicting).

The girls want purple. Eric and I do not.

We all like green. But the lady next door is planning to paint her house green this summer too, and the house two houses down from us on the other side is green as well. Maybe we don't want to have a whole street of matching houses?

Most of the other houses on the street are either blue, grey, or beige. So maybe we want something different.

I like brown. Is brown too boring?

Do we want to paint the front door some different color for an accent, or is that too much?

Oh, and my house is currently yellow. Which I like fine. But if we're painting, why not change it up instead of keeping it the same?

I will not make you look at all the different color combinations I currently have saved on my desktop, because there is a multitude of them (although if you're local and you want to come look at them and give me input, I'd love it). But I will post a few favorites and ask for your feedback:

Here we have: Secret Garden (wall); Rookwood Dark Red (door); and Chamomile (trim).




Here we have Sable (wall); Terra Brun (door); and Chamomile (trim).



And here, we have Rookwood Dark Red (wall); Indigo Batik (door) and Chamomile (trim). (Chamomile seems to be my favorite trim choice). I wouldn't have thought I'd like red, what with there already being red brick on the front, but I actually kind of do. And it would be different from anything else on our street.




Thoughts? What colors do you like, dear readers? Bear in mind that any of these are interchangeable--you can have brown with a blue door, or green with a browny-orange door, or a color scheme that's completely different from any of the above options, or pretty much anything else you can imagine! The possibilities are endless. Which is kind of my problem. How in the world do I narrow it down?

It's the last day of school--finally!--for my oldest. Lucy has been done for a week, and now Beth is done too.

Just for fun, here's a before and after shot of Beth this school year.

I don't really know why I've been awaiting this day so eagerly. It's not as though *I* am the one out of school for the summer. And summertime means I'm going to have all three of my children home, underfoot, in each other's hair all day every day. But that's okay. In some ways, summer has a busier pace than the rest of the year. When I look at our calender, we've got camping trips, hikes, and little mini-vacations going on almost non-stop. But while the "special" things might be more frequent, the day-to-day slows down.

I think she's the one who has changed the most this year. Doesn't she look so much more grown up in the right-hand picture??

During the school year, we've got two separate school schedules (and next year it will be three!). We've got soccer and ballet and MOPS. We've got places to be, at certain times, all the time.

And Evie wasn't in school this year, but she wanted her picture taken too :)

During the summer, things are different. I don't care if my kids sit around in their pajamas all morning. I don't care if they spend all afternoon  in the backyard in their swimsuits. We can decide to go to the park, or berry-picking, or to visit a friend, without having to figure out whether it will work into schedule and worry about if I'll be back in time to pick up someone from school. There's more room for both laziness and spontaneity.

And I'll get to see Beth a lot more. I really like that kid, doggone it, and I only get a few short hours with her each day during the school year.

I asked the girls to make a list of things they want to do this summer. Here is what they came up with:

1. camping
2. watching TV
3. Zoo
4. Wildlife Safari
5. eating brownies
6. go camping with just our family in the wilderness
7. catching fish
8. picking berries
9. making jam
10. picking blueberries
11. making pies
12. camping in the back yard

(I like the fact that camping comprises three separate line items...and that about 50 percent of the other items involve either picking, eating, or making food)

I think we better get started.

Happy Blogiversary to me! Today is exactly seven years since my first post! 

If my blog were a kid, it would be a first-grader. My blog, in fact, is almost the same age as my oldest daughter. I was very large with child when I started this thing. And as she has grown and the blog has grown, so I have grown too. I don't know if I would have gotten so into blogging if I hadn't had all these *kids* to write about. 

But having the blog at the same time that I've had kids has been a fabulous outlet for me: a way to vent when I was going crazy with frustration. A way to connect with other moms, from far and wide, on days when the only other people I saw were age 3 and under. A psuedo-baby-book filled with stories about my kids' childhoods, to make up for the lack of time I have invested in their actual baby books. And, of course, an at-home writing tutorial for me. Go back and read those old posts (or better yet, don't). I truly think having a blog has improved both my writing skills, as well as my confidence about sharing what I write with the world.


So thanks, blog, for being there.


This is Blog Year Seven: 2010. There were a lot of big things this year. My first marathon. A trip to Montana. A camping trip that I will never, ever forget. My 30th birthday. My first kid starting first grade. But the post I want to share with you is just a little mundane one about one little facet of my life as a mother. One little way that shows how things are changing; how I am moving *out* of babyhood and *on* with the rest of my kids' lives.


I'm reclaiming my privacy.


Originally posted July 8, 2010

Closing the Door

 

Locked Door Knob by Prefundis on Flickr

"Where is she?"

"I don't know, is she in the office?"

They're coming for me. Pitter-patter, pitter-patter. Closer and closer they come.

"I don't see her."

"Let's check in here."

Thump thump. Bump. They're almost here. They're right outside the door. There's a hand on the doorknob.

And this is when I start shrieking out sentences that once upon a time I never would have imagined I'd find myself saying.

Things like: "No, I can't give you a hug while I'm peeing."

Or: "No, you can't come in just to watch."

And, most frequently. "You leave Mama alone while she's going potty!"

I blame myself. Pre-kids, I never thought that my bathroom time would become a public event, and yet somehow it just happened once I became a mom. You know, when you're a new mother and you have this beautiful newborn that you're both attached to and a little bit intimidated by, you feel wrong about leaving her alone at any time. And do you really need to shut and lock the door for privacy from a 1-month-old?

And then they grow, and suddenly they're regarding what you do in there with interest, and you're thinking this is actually a good thing, because you want them to start to utilizing the glory that is indoor plumbing themselves. So you continue to leave the door open while you do your business. For the educational value.

Once you have a second child, you continue with your policy of bringing the baby with you to the bathroom, only this time it's because you're nervous about leaving the infant alone with the 2-year-old--even in such seemingly safe locations as the crib or the baby seat--because you're afraid of what your inventive toddler could do to the baby even in the mere 30 seconds that is your daily allocation of time for peeing.

And before you know, mommy's bathroom time is a family affair.

But I'm fighting back. Lately, I've been starting to (you won't believe this) shut the door while I pee. It's an amazing concept, isn't it? Bathroom privacy?

But my girls are mortally offended by this new leave-mama-alone-in-the-bathroom policy. It's just unbelievable to them that there could be a time and place, a time and place within their own house, where they can't have access to me 24/7. They stand outside the door, asking WHEN I'm going to be done, when, when, when?

But I ignore their angst and continue to potty alone. Now I'm even starting to go in there on purpose sometimes. With the door shut, the fan on, a candle burning, I can hardly see or hear them at all. I've got a stack of magazines, scented lotions for my skin, pretty colors with which to paint my nails if I so desire. I can enjoy the stillness and pretend it's going to last.

I can hear them faintly from outside the door, but they're not right there in my face. For the moment, I'm all alone. And I turn the pages of my magazine ever more slowly and promise them that mama will be out in a minute, just a minute.

Bathrooms doors. Ones that lock. Sometimes it's the little things that keep you sane.

Are you tired of these old posts yet? Well, too bad if you are, because we have two more days of them. Today is Blog Year Six: 2009.


That year was a great year. For one thing, I trained for and completed my first half marathon. Along the way, I discovered that what do you know? Contrary to what I had always believed about myself, I actually can run long distances. And I enjoy it! 


Eric and I hopped on a plane and traveled halfway around the world to visit my dear friend Meg on the sunny beaches of Grenada.

Evie became mobile and began showing her true self more clearly.


I wrote some funny posts, about books and gender and hair. And some sappy posts about love.

And my children, as always, continued to amaze me.

Originally published Sept. 12, 2009.

The Mighty Unicorns

Dear Beth,

You amazed me today.

First day of soccer for you--ever--and of course we were running late. And we didn't know which field your team was playing on, and most of the other Unicorns had already shown up by the time we found it. We hadn't gotten your uniform in advance so you had to change your shirt right there on the sidelines. I had your little sisters in tow and it was a million degrees on that shade-less soccer field. I was a flustered, sweaty mess.



But not you. I pulled the way-too-big purple jersey over your head, made you stop for a moment to pose for the obligatory first-day-of-soccer photo, then gave you a nod. "Go on out there," I said. "Listen to your coach and do what he says."



And you were off. Dashing to the field, shouting your name, giving a high five. No hesitating on the sidelines for you, no sir. You exuded enthusiasm and confidence from the get-go. And that's how you were the whole time. You sprinted after the ball. You kicked at it whenever it was within three feet of you. You sat on the sidelines only when forced to, and even then your mind was on the game.



You threw yourself down on the grass beside me. Grabbed your water bottle, wiped your flushed face, kept your eyes on the field the whole time. "Go! Go! Do it! Do it! Score a goal!" you screamed to your fellow Unicorns. You were so intense, so happy, so clearly in love with the game. And I realized that you reminded of those girls.



The sporty girls. The ones from high school. The fit, athletic, assertive, confident ones that I so wished I could be.

Oh, I tried sports. I liked the idea of being an athlete. But when it was time for a real game, I much preferred daydreaming in the outfield or on the bench to actually participating in the event. And when I was forced do something that would contribute one way or another to the team's success...oh, how well I remember the panic that clawed its way up my stomach whenever I got anywhere near the ball. I'm a hesitating on the sidelines kind of girl.



Not you, my Beth. You're a play-your-heart-out kind of girl. Running so hard that the rubber bands slipped right out of your braids and your hair streamed loose behind you. Watching you play, I was proud but bewildered. Where had this mature little athlete come from?




I love your passion, your determination, your casual self-assurance. Maybe, if I watch you long enough, I'll learn them from you.

Love,

Your mom

2008, Blog Year Five, was my most prolific blog year ever. Which I find astonishing, considering that when I look back on that year of my life now, it is mostly with the mixture of awe and head-shaking amusement that you feel for crazy experiences you can't believe you survived. Like college all-nighters or really horrible teenage jobs. You look back and say: Yep, I did that. Boy, was it wild. But when you try to really remember the details of it, like what it actually felt like to live it, it's kind of a blur. (Like childbirth!)


Not that 2008 was a bad year. But it was a year in which I had a 4-year-old, a 2-year-old, and  newborn. I was nursing and potty-training at the same time, once again. My husband was working a lot. I was working a little bit. Evie screamed in the car every time we went anywhere. Now that my kids are older, I think back to that year a lot, and marvel out how much simpler things are now. The speed with which I can dash up the preschool steps, now that I'm not lugging one of those infant car seats! How fast I can type when I actually use both hands! How many more hours there are in the day when you're not spending half of them stuck in the rocking chair with an infant latched onto your chest! How much less cranky I am when I'm sleeping regularly!


Seriously, not that 2008 was a bad year.  I loved my life and my babies. It was just a crazy year, a challenging year. A year I am glad I experienced but that I would not choose to live through again. It was real life. Messy, but so delicious.


Oh, and it was the year my blog got its name. So you can read this, if you've ever wondered why my years are short.


There's really only one post that can sum up this year: the one about having my hands full. Because I really, really did.

This picture shows me with only two out of my three kids, but it pretty much sums up how that year went for me: holding one or two children at any given time, trying to enjoy myself while also keeping an eye on the baby (and what the big kid is doing to the baby). And also there might be a nursing cover somewhere in the background.

Originally published Sept. 12, 2008

Full Hands

I imagine every mom hears it from time to time, but lately, with my trio of tiny blondes in tow everywhere I go, I've been hearing it more and more:

"Wow, you sure have your hands full!"

And they're right, of course. Literally. When we go out to run errands, I am often wearing my newborn in the Snugli front pack, holding the hands of my 2-year-old and my 4-year-old, and carrying the diaper bag and my purse slung over my shoulder. My sunglasses are on my head. My car keys are sometimes in my teeth. "Hands full" doesn't begin to describe it.

And yet, I sometimes feel irritated when the fourth or fifth person in a row comments on my plethora of small children. I know they're just making conversation. Still, I feel a bit condescended to when people shake their heads and chuckle at the sight of me juggling kids and car seats. Three isn't even that many kids. We're not a freak show, people. Just a family.

My friend Amy and Stephanie at 5 Minutes for Parenting both also wrote today about the attention families with a lot of young kids get. So I know I am not alone in attracting stares merely by taking my kids to Target.

I think sometimes when people see small children in a group, they seem less like individuals and more like a herd. One little baby is cute. Three kids ages 4 and under? Well, that's a handful.

I'm sure people are merely trying to be nice when they remark upon my family. Some of them have probably even been there, done that themselves and are perhaps remembering those good (or sometimes not-so-good) old days when they smile faintly at the sight of us. So I just smile back and say, "Yep, they sure are," when people tell me that my hands are full.

Privately, I think to myself all the things they are full of:

tiny hands that alternately cling to me desperately and try to tug free of me

golden hair that I brush and braid and pull into pigtails daily

a baby whose bright eyes follow my every movement

stacks of crayon artwork, created just for me

and at this very moment, a half-cranky, half-snuggly toddler who needed some post-tantrum loving. She crept up beside me, laid her head on my leg and said, "I want you." That's code for, "Hold me on your lap now, please."

Now, I'm having to stretch all the way around her to type, her hot, sticky face burrowed into my chest. So if you'll excuse me, I must finish this post.

My hands are full.

More of the past: this is Blog Year Four. This was 2007. The year we moved into our house (which we're still in--yay for no more constant moving!) The year I finally got one kid out of diapers. Which I promptly followed up by starting all over again for the third time. I began the great adventure known as "attempting to work from home." Eric finished school.


In a way, this year was kind of the beginning of the rest of our lives. Since then, not much has changed. No more pregnancies, no more moves, no big new ventures. And in other ways, so much has. It's a strange thing, looking back over these old posts. It's like sitting still and watching a video of yourself played in reverse at top speed.


Here's a post from that year that is still entirely true for me, even four years later with older kids. Children in the car are *still* way more dangerous than cell phones, in my opinion; just today I found myself reaching into the back and scrabbling around with one hand trying to find, of all things, a plastic parrot that Evie has named "Scratchy." In the end, I had to give up the hunt. Scratchy was not worth dying for. Let's all give our representatives a call today and encourage them to pass this important legislation immediately.

Originally published Feb. 27, 2007

image from Wikimedia Commons.

D U I C

Ladies and Gentlemen of the House, I would like to propose a bill.

I know Senator Burdick's recent attempt to ban cell phone use and other distracting activities while driving failed. But I have something else in mind. Burdick's bill listed several potential distractions to ban: "reading, writing, performing personal grooming, interacting with pets."

In my opinion, those aren't the real dangers. It's kids.

I mean, interacting with pets? Get real. I know some people take their animals with them in the car, and I know some people have conversations with their pets. But does a dog drop its pacifier and start screaming, causing the driver to reach as far backwards as her arms can go, fishing around blindly for said pacifier among the sippy cups and picture books and other debris that litter the back seat?

Does a cat suddenly yell, "The sun is in my eyes!" wailing as though the world is coming to an end, as though sun has never shone upon any human before, causing the driver to yell, "Then put your sunglasses on!" and mentally start trying to list just how many pairs of tiny pink plastic sunglasses this particular child has either broken, lost, or just refused to wear despite the whining caused by every appearance of the sun's rays?

Personal grooming is not nearly as distracting as keeping your eyes fixed on the grassy fields around the car, rather than the road, in hopes that the driver will be able to spot some sheep, or a school bus, or some other item that ties in with a hit song ike "Baa Baa Black Sheep" or "The Wheels on the Bus," which will allow driver to entertain children with her musical skills.

And speaking of kids' songs, punching numbers on a cell phone can't be as bad as doing the motions to "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" while driving.

And while the number of people who read or write in the car might be higher than it ought to be, I am certain that for every Toyota Camry with a bored commuter glancing at the paper, there are at least five minivans or SUVs stuffed full of noisy children and one frazzled mother.

Now, I realize that the state cannot ban driving with children. Instead, I propose that the state provide a personal chauffeur for each family. While mom chats and sings with the kids and fishes out dropped cups, pacifiers and toys as needed, the driver can be watching the road. Or, if mom prefers to drive, she can listen to the music she prefers and peacefully pilot the vehicle while the chauffeur sits in the back and tends to the children. Either way would be fine.

People who do not comply will be charged with DUIC--Driving Under the Influence of Children. We will pay for this program with all the money the state will save by not having to dispatch troopers to accident scenes caused by distracted parents. People who want to upgrade to the DriverPlus program--a chauffeur who also runs errands and fills the tank up with gas--can do so voluntarily for a small fee. This should fill the state's coffers immensely.

All in favor? Say, "Aye!"


P.S. All child-distraction scenarios in this proposal are purely fictitious and have never actually happened to the author. You believe me, right?

More in my series of nostalgia posts, one from each year of my blog's existence so far.

We're up to Year Three: 2006. This is the year when things started to get good, blog-wise. I was starting to really get into the whole blogging thing. I was actually getting comments on a semi-regular basis. That's always fun. Also, I had a 2-year-old that year. If you look at the number of posts for each year, years in which I had a 2-year-old in the house provided me with much more blog material, apparently, than non-2-year-old years.

I started doing Poetry Thursday, that year. And for the first time ever, publicly posted a poem that I had written (although I kind of hid it in the comments). I also had my second daughter, moved twice in six months, tried out for Jeopardy, and survived the near-destruction (and miraculous resurrection!) of my apartment's carpet. Oh, and I had my gallbladder removed.

2006. It was quite a year.

And out of all 180 posts, I think the one I am re-posting here today is my favorite one. One of my all-time favorite blog posts, actually. It's a 24-hour chronicle of a single day just a few days after I brought Lucy home from the hospital: my introduction to life as the mother of more than one child. I swear everything in it really happened, even what Eric said to me in the middle of the night.





Originally published June 7, 2006

24 Hours in the Life of a Mommy; Or, a Portrait in Sleep-Deprivation

Warning: the following post contains multiple references to breasts, breast milk and breast feeding. If this is too weird for you, don't read it.

12:30 a.m.: feed baby.

1 a.m.: put baby sleeping baby back to bed. Crawl into bed beside husband, who is snoring. Feel quite surprised when he rolls over, looks straight into your eyes and says: "Seriously, all secrets aside, I think we've got enough people--that is, the people in the pink trousers--to really kick some ass." (Mommy is not making this up). Ask husband what the heck he is talking about. Husband responds in a very huffy tone: "Nothing," and rolls over. Mommy realizes that husband has been completely asleep for this conversation.

1:30 a.m.: feed baby

2:15 a.m.: attempt to feed baby again. Realize that baby doesn't really want to eat; she's just wide awake and wants to be held. Consider asking husband to wake up and hold baby for awhile. Remember husband's utter lack of coherence earlier and ponder difficulty of waking him up, making him understand what is going on, and then getting any sleep. Decide it's not worth it.

2:30 to 4:30 a.m.: hold happy, wide-eyed baby and finish reading The Eyre Affair.

4:30 a.m.: nurse baby to sleep and crawl into bed again.

6:30 a.m.: feed baby.

8 a.m.: Feed baby, who immediately falls into a deep sleep. Lie in bed and listen to sounds of toddler and husband eating breakfast in the kitchen. Decide to get up, not because tiredness has abated, but because stomach is demanding food. Discover that breasts have swollen to gargantuan size. The milk is in.

9 a.m.: Pull out pre-pregnancy clothes. *Rejoice* to see that by some miracle, mommy can zip one pair of pre-pregnancy jeans. *Despair* to discover that shirts, which fit fine before pregnancy, have undergone a transformation to something resembling Britney Spears' wardrobe: too tight in the chest and two inches too short in the belly.

9:30 a.m.: End up putting on husband's old Mozilla Firefox T-shirt. Tight T-shirt + geeky logo = happy husband.

10:15 a.m.: feed baby

11:30 a.m.: feed baby. Leave for baby's doctor's appointment. On the way, realize that in sleep-addled state, mommy has somehow missed the turnoff to the doctor's office. Find a new way to get there.

12 p.m.: Arrive at medical plaza. Get off elevator on wrong floor. Wander halls for awhile before realizing that office is on third floor, not second.

12:05 p.m.: Get a stack of forms to fill out from receptionist. Sit in waiting room and begin filling them out.

12:07 p.m.: Baby begins crying. Manage to drape a blanket over shoulders, nurse baby, and then finish filling out forms with one hand, without flashing anyone in the waiting room. Mommy feels as though she deserves a standing ovation, or at least mild applause, for accomplishing this feat.

12:40 p.m.: Get called for 12:20 appointment. Sit in exam room until nurse comes in and weighs baby. Baby weighs 8 pounds already, just three ounces shy of birth weight. "Good job," nurse says, eyeing mommy's enormous chest. Mommy feels glad that all that feeding is accomplishing something besides making her crazy and tired.

1 p.m.: Doctor examines baby and tells mommy everything looks great. Mommy nurses baby one more time before leaving. Baby spits up on mommy. As she stands up, mommy catches a glimpse of self in the mirror and realizes that spit-up has left a wet spot on miraculous pre-pregnancy jeans, inconveniently close to crotch. Also, because mommy forgot to put nursing pads in bra before leaving home, milk has leaked through bra and shirt, making a large wet spot on Firefox logo. Mommy ponders whether she still wants to go run errands with said spots on clothing. Decides she just doesn't care.

1:30 p.m.: Arrive at Costco. Realize happily that hot weather has dried up spots on shirt and pants.

2:15 p.m.: Get home. Toddler and baby are still sleeping and husband is playing on computer. Mommy lies on couch and attempts to sleep.

2:30 p.m.: Toddler wakes up, sees mommy, and wants to read a book.

3:30 p.m.: Feed baby.

4 p.m.: Lie on couch and doze while husband listens to "Marketplace" on the radio.

4:30 p.m.: Clean up the big mess mommy made this morning while trying on and then pulling off all the shirts that do not fit.

5 p.m.: Tell husband, "Let's start making dinner." Husband says, "Let's play Yahtzee on the computer." Mommy breaks down into tears when for some reason her fuddled brain cannot comprehend how to make Yahtzee on the computer work.

5:30 p.m.: Apologize for break down. Help husband make tacos. Laugh when he spills salt all over the floor. Eat tacos.

6 p.m.: feed baby.

7 p.m.: watch Jeopardy.

7:40 p.m.: put toddler to bed.

8 p.m.: feed baby, who is wide-eyed and alert again now that it's night time.

8:15 p.m.: pay bills that have been piling up during end-of-pregnancy lethargy and hospital stay.

8:45 p.m.: feed baby. Hand her to husband and try to go to sleep.

9:30 p.m.: baby cries. Feed baby. Finish watching "Last Comic Standing" with husband.

10 p.m.: attempt to go to bed.

10:30 p.m.: feed baby. Attempt to go to bed.

11 p.m.: Feed baby. Put her to bed, and by the grace of God baby does not immediately wake and start fussing.

11:02 p.m.: Sleep.

Day two in my blast-from-the-past blog birthday celebration. We're up to Year Two now: 2005. I still wasn't posting a lot. For the first time, people I knew in real life (other than my husband) began discovering my blog. Still juggling work and motherhood. Got pregnant again and complained about my pants.

Here's my favorite post of the year: a story about the evil photographer who took Beth's Christmas pictures at Sears. It's still one of my favorite baby photos of her.

Originally published Dec. 30, 2005.

Milk and cookies, anyone?



I finally got around to putting a new picture of Beth on my desk at work, and when I was showing it to my co-worker Jennifer, I told her the story behind it and she laughed and said I ought to put it on my blog. So I am heeding her advice.

This picture was taken about 30 seconds before Beth had a screaming fit. Here's why:

Beth normally loves getting her picture taken. She loves smiling for the camera and most of the time we come away from photo sessions with more cute pictures of her than we can afford to buy prints of. But for some reason, this year's Christmas pictures were not that way.

It was the first time we'd had her picture taken since she could walk, and all of a sudden sitting or standing still, even if she is the center of attention, just wasn't her thing anymore. And the Sears Photo studio in Albany has no door between the waiting room and the studio. She could still hear other kids out playing with toys in the waiting room, and she made it clear right from the beginning that that's where she wanted to be -- not standing still and smiling for the camera in some boring back room with Mom and some stranger with a camera.

So for this picture, she was already fairly grumpy. Then the photographer had her sit down and gave her a plate of milk and cookies. Beth loves drinking out of big people glasses without lids, and she loves cookies, so when the photographer plunked that down in front of her she picked the milk right up and got ready to take a big drink. You can see the little smile on her face: "I can't believe they're letting me have this whole glass of milk."

The photographer snapped the shot, Beth put the glass up to her lips...and nothing came out. She turned it upside down, then stuck her finger in the glass and poked it. It was fake! Completely fake! Just some white rubber in a glass that made it look like milk. And those three chocolate chip cookies? Fake too!

That was just about the end for us. Beth was furious at the nasty trick we'd played on her and did not want to smile pretty for the camera at all. After another minute or two of unsuccessfully trying to pose her, the photographer turned to me and said, "I think we've got enough." I took the hint and took my screaming child out of the photo studio.

With all the birthdays that have been going on at our house, it's easy to focus just on the human ones and forget one other very important one: a birthday that I always, always, forget.

But not this year!

Next week marks SEVEN YEARS that I've been blogging.



That's kind of ancient in the blog world.

I actually got started with it because I was writing a newspaper article at the time about the "new, emerging trend" of blogging. In fact, I was fortunate enough to land an interview with one of the guys who founded the Blogger.com company. And to demonstrate just how easy it was for anyone to start a blog, I went through the steps of setting up my own, and described them for the article.

And then didn't know what to do with the site. And then decided I liked it and would keep it up on my own.

To celebrate my blog's birthday, this week I'm going to revisit some old posts--one or two from each year I've been blogging. Today, I'm taking it all the way back to 2004. The blog was kind of sketchy back in those days. The first two months focused mainly on journalism, writing, and blogging. Then I had a baby and my posting dropped considerably (imagine that). For a few months I barely wrote at all. For whatever reason, I didn't want to be considered a mommy-blogger. I wanted to find *important* things to write about. But I couldn't. Once I embraced that starting in 2005, I really began to find my blogging voice, if you can call it that.

But for today, let's go back and read about how I felt like I didn't have time to do everything I wanted to do, and how what I really wanted to be was a novelist.  (Hmmm, not much has changed in seven years).

originally published Monday, Dec. 27, 2004:

 funny, female, new mom author

 first off, let me just say that i dont know how other bloggers do it. i never update this thing. it's like the diariesi kept during adolescence. i'd get all into the diary thing and write every day, then nothing for months. i always felt that i had nothing to say. all i ever wrote abo9ut then was boys. now i just have the one guy n my life, eric, and there really aren't any dramatic soap opera like twist and turns in our relationship. We're married and we have a baby and life is pretty great actually, but not that interesting, really. So I never know what to say when I write.

That's assuming I find time to write. Now here I am thinking of a specific person, an author named jennifer weiner. She wrote some great books, including one I got for Christmas and just finished reading, "LIttle Earthquakes." It's about being a new mom, and I just really related to it. I felt like I related to the character in her other novel, "Good in Bed," also, because she was a newspaper reporter.

According to her web site, Jennifer is a former newspaper reporter who became a novelist, who writes funny books about women in real- life situations. Jennifer also happens to be a new mom and finds time to update her blog all the time about the cute and funny things that happen to her and Lucy. How does she do it? I want to be her. 

 NOTE: I swear that by the time my second daughter was born, I had completely forgotten that Jennifer Weiner had a daughter named Lucy. I did not name my sweet Lu in homage of her.


This was followed shortly thereafter by this one, also published Monday, Dec. 27, 2004:

baby asleep now


So that last post maybe didn't make much sense and the typing was horrible. But that's because Beth was sitting and squawking in my lap at the time. She is now asleep and I can actually attempt to be grammatically correct.

I wrote that I want to be Jennifer Weiner, but I don't really want to be HER, per se. Here are the things I want to be/do: Funny. A novelist. At least someone who writes in her blog more often than once every couple of months, because I figure if I'm going to have a blog, it's just stupid to not actually write in it.

I'm not sure I can do much about the funny. I think funny is something either you have, or you don't have, and I don't have it. I appreciate humor. I appreciate funny people. My husband is very funny. But I do not have the gift of being funny.

And writing in the blog is something that is easy to change. Or at least it's something I can SAY is easy to change. I just need to do it. Same with writing a novel. The problem with writing a novel, is you have to have an idea, and I don't. Maybe if I just started writing something I would come up with one. We'll see.

My little Lucy has the biggest heart in the world.

Physically, she's small. Surprisingly so, when you gather up her bony little body and realize just how light she is. Her sisters are hard to cuddle with--too wiggly, too wild. Not Lucy. She can take that little body of hers and curl it up like a cat, into a little ball that nestles right into your arms. Then she breathes a long, comfortable sigh, and melts herself over the top of you and is still. Lucy is nice to take a nap with.

Lucy does not willingly reveal herself to strangers. A sideways glance and a whispered "Hello," are all an unknown person is likely to get (and then, only because Mom or Dad reminds her to be polite.) But once you've made it onto her internal list of trusted friends and associates, you're in. For life.

Lucy has a radiant smile.

Lucy feels everything. Feels it ten times harder than anybody else. You know how some people talk about wearing their heart on their sleeves? Lucy goes around with hers fastened to her fingertips, stretched out where it gets battered and bruised from the tiniest of bumps. So many times I want to tell her to hold back a little. To just chill out. I cringe at the thought of all the pain she's going to go through if she doesn't learn to be  little less intense. Middle school is hard enough for an easy-going kid, right? What will the world do to my sweet, tender, Lucy-girl?

So many times she collapses in tears, and instead of responding with compassion, I snap at her to knock it off. Because I am not nearly as nice as she is.

She might feel sadness more intensely than I do, but I think she also has a better handle on love.

Last week, the girls each had a helium balloon. They took their balloons out into the yard, despite my warnings that this could be a recipe for disaster. And, sure enough, Beth accidentally let hers go. And it floated away and was gone forever and she started to cry.

And Lucy, without a moment's hesitation, let her balloon go too. So Beth would feel better. Her pretty balloon soared off into space, and she didn't care a bit.  She only cared about her sister. Lucy bears all things, believes all thing, hopes all things, and endures all things, if it's for someone she loves.

Lucy is all heart.

You can't see them, because they're not very tall, but Lucy has fixed a plate of Cheerios-and-raisins and a cup of "tea" for an assortment of stuffed animal friends who are seated around the table at her tea party. She will not allow herself to sit down and have any food herself until each of her guests has been served.

Happy birthday, to the sweetest 5-year-old in the world.