Category: me

My darling husband has many sterling qualities. He is a wonderful father who reads to his children every night before bedtime. He makes excellent rigatoni.

He is a really great kisser.

But the car he drives hadn’t been cleaned since before Gloria was born in January 2008, coincidentally the last time I rode in it. I just cleaned it out though, lots of bits of paper and empty cigarette packages and old Weekly Standard magazines. Why would I undertake such an endeavour, you may ask? Why, because I will be riding in it again this very evening, thanks to two facts.

Fact the First: Under Oklahoma law, only front-seat occupants and children under 13 need wear seatbelts.

Fact the Second: My oldest child is over five feet tall and therefore big enough to sit in the front seat, even with an airbag.

Leading us to the conclusion: I will be sitting on the floor of the van, recklessly but legally unbelted, as we drive to my parents’ house for dinner. I feel like a sixteen year old, only with grey hair and no abdominal tone.

(Don’t worry, we won’t make a habit of it. It’s just one drive a week.)

I was seeing if a pea coat that was too small for me in the sleeves would fit Sophia (sadly, it did not.)

The children wanted to try it on too, of course:

And my geeky fangirl heart swelled when Trixie said, “Look, I’m the Doctor!”

Gilbert the Doctor:

And, for reference, the Doctor:

I’m sitting at the table with Gloria, Abby and Gilbert. Gloria is drawing. She has a good feel for color for a toddler and will ikely be another artist like her dad. Abby and Gilbert are drawing and playing a game with convoluted rules and it’s fun to listen to them. Beatrice just wandered up and handed me a pushed-in cowboy hat and asked me to fix it. I did, she put it on her head, and immediately added another cowboy hat and a tricorn. “I have three hats!” she declared. Bede is watching the Monsters Inc. bonus disc animatics, one of his current favorite areas of study. Faith is playing Webkinz and telling me all the trivia questions she doesn’t know the answers to. “Mommy, did you know that Cleopatra’s favorite color was purple?”

They’ve all been watching Doctor Who with me. I am of course happy to re-watch older episodes and it’s fun to see how the history in them sticks with the kids later. Faith and Abby and I are reading the American Girl Molly books, which are set during World War II. I heard Abby tell Faith “That’s when Rose met Captain Jack, during the Blitz!”

Abby told me what kind of boyfriend she wants. At eight years old this kid has some priorities. She informed me that she wants a “tough” boyfriend, and showed me a picture she had drawn of a skate punk kid with a spiky hairdo and a skull on his shirt, smirking and making a muscle with his arm. I said that tough was fine but funny was better, because funny meant smart and smart always beats tough.

She sighed.

“You sound like Faith,” she said. “She wants a computer geek boyfriend.”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes and went back to the drawing.

Hee hee!

I feel better. I think I have mood issues midcycle anyway, and an especially rotten day makes it so much worse. You’d think I’d know about the whole cyclical nature of woman stuff, but I forget. At any rate, I’m improved now.

I’m reading to Trixie. She sure is cute. She thinks everything is “a great story! Let’s read ‘nudder one!”

So far we’re up to ten, but she seems to be wandering off for longer times between each book. I need to get out a bunch that were put away because they’ll be new to her.

The six year old is regressing and pooping and peeing on the floor again, after 2 months of not doing so.

His brother has become a pathological liar at four and a half.

The baby is infuriated at all times by our refusal to allow reckless climbing practices.

The three year old is a solid wall of either sobbing or defiance.

The nearly-eight has gained a previously unseen attitude of “OKAY! FINE!” eyeroll,  sigh.

The nine year old is either daydreaming and vapid or being a pain to the youngers.

When will the grown-ups get here to take over for me? Cause baby, I am SO OVER THIS.

I know it won’t be summer here in the Northern Hemisphere for a few weeks more but I can sure feel it coming. We got out the easy set pool we all loved so much last year and it’s filling up. I need a smaller blow-up pool for G-Lo cause she’s too short for the easy set. We’ll be spending some time in the pool(s) every day, if last year is any indication.

I got the big girls swimsuits from Lands’ End. They are well made and have good coverage. Highly recommend. I got them on sale and free shipping but they’re worth full price and paid shipping. I swear, swimsuits these days! I was both unsurprised yet faintly disappointed to discover that my suit from last year fits fine. It is a little big, but not enough to replace. Ah well.

So, my unconditional Rule is “If I’m running the air conditioner, I won’t run the clothes dryer.” If it’s hot enough for the air to be on, it’s hot enough to dry clothes. I also hang clothes on days we don’t run the air, but I don’t feel as guilty running the dryer then. And I run the dryer exclusively from November through early March, since I don’t have an easy way to dry eight folks’ worth of clothes and cloth diapers inside.

I had planned this long rambly post about crunchy conservatism and now Trixie is being very uncooperative and loud and I can’t think at all. Pity.

Reckon that’s why I only blog once a month these days.